How have I been complicit in creating the conditions I say I don’t want? | Jerry Colonna

0:00

We're socialized to bullshit not  only ourselves, but everybody else, especially in the entrepreneurial community.

0:04

All  our companies are moving up into the right.

0:04

Every product is working.

0:10

We don't really have any  problems because we're crushing it, and that's just a lie.

0:15

The question that I often ask is how  have I been complicit in creating the conditions I say I don't want.

0:20

The purpose of this question  is actually to evoke your own agency.

0:20

A perfect example of that would be, I say I don't want  to feel busy all the time, but the truth of the matter is I feel really unnerved and disconcerted  if my agenda isn't jam-packed.

0:32

So if you want to create a high-functioning team, do your work, and  it starts with the person who has the most power.

0:49

Today, my guest is Jerry Colonna.

0:49

Jerry is one  of the most well-known and respected executive coaches in the world.

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He's co-founder and CEO of  Reboot, an executive and leadership development firm grounded in the belief that better  humans make better leaders.

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Prior to coaching, Jerry co-founded Flatiron Partners with Fred  Wilson, which ended up being one of the most successful early-stage investment funds in the  world.

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He's also a partner at JPMorgan Chase and the author of two books, Reboot and Reunion.

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As  you might expect, this ended up being a very real and very open conversation about being busy and  self-inquiry and the dangers of a growth mindset and the reasons that leaders and teams most  often fail, and it's not what you think.

1:26

Also, we talk about a very simple equation that Jerry  and his team use to cultivate great leaders.

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This is an episode that everybody should  listen to and spend time with.

1:37

It'll make you a better person, a better partner, and  a better leader.

1:41

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Check  it out at lennysnewsletter. com and click bundle.

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With that, I bring you Jerry Colonna.

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4:08

Jerry, thank you so  much for being here and welcome to the podcast.

4:19

Well, thanks for having me, Lenny.

4:19

It's really  a delight to meet you and to be with you today.

4:24

I want to start with a very classic Jerry  Colonna piece of advice that I've heard you share in other places, and I just  want more people to hear this advice, and this is a question that you ask  people when things aren't going their way, and I'll give you a hint.

4:35

The  question contains the word complicit. Right.

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Can you share this question and why it's  so important to ask this of yourself?

4:45

The question that I often ask is how have I  been complicit in creating the conditions I say I don't want?

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And if it's helpful, let  me break down the question a little bit. Please.

4:58

So I purposely chose the word complicit  because complicit does not mean responsible, and that's a really important distinction.

5:06

And  as I often say, to understand the word complicit, think of the word accomplice.

5:14

As I will  share, you are driving the getaway car, you're not sticking up the bank teller.

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The second half of that question is I say I don't want.

5:29

And sometimes people hear  that question and they interpret it as, how have I been responsible for the shit in  my life?

5:35

And that is not the purpose of this question.

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The purpose of this question is actually  to evoke your own agency, is to look at the ways in which you may have been diluting yourself.

5:52

A perfect example of that would be, I say I don't want to feel busy all the time,  but the truth of the matter is I feel really unnerved and disconcerted if my agenda isn't  jam-packed.

6:08

And the reason that this is all really important is part of my approach not only  to coaching, but to the process of growing up, is to use what I call radical self-inquiry, to  really cut through our own delusions and say, how does it serve me to feel completely busy to  the point where I feel exhausted?

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And perhaps there's another more conscious way of getting  that feeling than feeling like crap all the time.

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This is a good segue to something that  I hear you.

6:56

You have this equation that you and your firm use to think about how  to create and cultivate great leaders, and it includes one of the variables  is radical self-inquiry.

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Can you share this equation and just how you work  with folks to build this in them? Sure.

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I'll tell a little story about that.

7:14

I remember one time I was, this is how the equation came to be.

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I was doing a talk, I  think here in Boulder at Naropa University where I used to be on the board of trustees.

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It's  a Buddhist university, and as is often the case, I'm winging it as I go and I'm walking around  probably without shoes on because that's what I do.

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And there was a dry erase board behind me  and I was trying to explain what it was that I do, what it was that I encourage people to do.

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And  I jumped up at the board and I wrote practical skills.

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And in writing that, what I was trying  to convey, what it is that people typically come to a coach for.

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They want to understand  how to do their job.

8:00

They want to understand how to live.

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They want to understand the how.

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And then, I wrote plus, and then I sketched out radical self-inquiry.

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And I said in that  moment, I said, "People will come and ask me how, and I will drive them crazy because I will  say something like, tell me about your father, or tell me why you chose to be in the job  you're in the first place, or tell me about your relationship to money, or tell me about your  relationship to self-worth."

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And then, I expanded it and I put another plus sign and I said, "Shared  experiences."

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And then, I drew an equals equation line underneath the whole thing, and I said,  "Enhanced leadership plus greater resiliency."

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And so, the equation is practical skills plus  radical self-inquiry plus shared experiences, that is the process of actually talking about the  craziness that goes on in your head equals greater leadership. That all makes sense.

9:20

But then, there  was this other piece, enhanced resilience.

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And when I do this on a dry erase board, I will often  circle that phrase, and I say that is the purpose of this whole thing, because the truth is, if  you follow my story at all, you know that in my late 30s, the depression that had really marked  most of my life had gotten so bad that despite my outward success, I was suicidal and lost.

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And I will turn to the audience and I say, "I get you want to be a great CEO, I  get you want to be a great executive, but what I really care about is you not killing  yourself in the process."

10:07

So if we take a step back, the whole point of what we refer to as the  equation really boils down to that point, how do we grow up and become the leaders, the adults  we were born to be without feeling like crap?

10:30

And there's this huge implication  here that a lot of people think that when they reach a certain point, become  successful, make a certain amount of money, get a beautiful house, still be happy.

10:38

And essentially what you're saying here is that's very often not the case.

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Maybe in most cases, not the case.

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It's not only not the case, it's the big lie  that we're socialized with since childhood.

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I remember one time I was on the road doing a  talk for, I was promoting my first book, Reboot, and I was at, I think it's called the Fitler Club  in Philadelphia.

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I was doing a fireside chat.

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And after talking with my conversation partner, a guy  named Chris Fralic who was one of the co-founders at First Round, really, really good guy.

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We  turned to the audience and there was a Q&A as there often is, and this young guy shoots his  hand up and he introduces himself and he says, "I'm 19."

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And he looks over to his right  and his mother's sitting there and he says, "And my mother brought me here," which I laughed.

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And he said, "So what you're telling me is you don't have to be an asshole to be successful."

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And I could not think of a better summation of everything that I'm about than for  a 19-year-old kid to look up and say, "You don't have to be an asshole to be  successful."

11:59

And of course, the corollary to that is you don't have to feel miserable  just because you're trying to create a career.

12:12

As people start to think  about this and think, okay, I feel like I've been heading in this direction  of I just need to keep climbing the ladder, making more money, as they hear you talk,  what's the pivot that folks should make in their mind around where they should  actually be heading?

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What is a direction where they'll end up not wanting to kill  themselves, in spite of being successful?

12:34

To be clear, not everyone ends up in that  level of depression, but the hack, if you will, is consciousness.

12:43

So what do I mean by that?

12:43

Part of what makes radical self-inquiry radical is we're socialized not to ask certain kinds  of questions.

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So for example, someone says, "It's really important for me to be ambitious  and achieve a particular goal."

13:02

What's radical, a radical question to ask is, and what will  that do for you?

13:10

What is it that you believe being "successful" will do for you?

13:20

How do  you define success?

13:20

Where does that come from?

13:31

In Reboot, my first book, I tell the story of  what I refer to as my pursuit of lemon drops.

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And briefly, when I was a boy, there was a lot...

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I grew up with an enormous amount of chaos and insecurity, financial and otherwise.

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And a big  source of stability in my life were my mother's parents, my grandfather and grandmother.

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And  Grandpa Guido, who was an ice man and emigrated from southern Italy in early 20th century, always  seemed to have, well, he had this endless supply of lemon drops, and they were always kept in this  green pantry outside of the kitchen.

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And for me, the stability and what I considered wealth seemed  to match to this notion of this endless supply of lemon drops.

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And when I got to my 30s and I was  outwardly successful and I was a hot shot BC, I had lemon drops, but I didn't  feel safe, which was a mindful.

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And so, I told that story in Reboot as part  of my exploration into the core question of how did my relationship to money shape my  career choices, shape my school choices, shape my own sense of safety and self-worth?

15:22

So  long-winded response to your question, what I encourage people to do is to ask themselves these  kinds of questions so that they can raise their level of consciousness so that they can be in the  driver's seat of their lives and not some learned behavior that they developed as a child to answer  perhaps their parents or grandparents' anxieties.

15:56

I feel like a lot of people hearing  this are afraid to ask these sorts of questions.

15:59

The reason they don't ask  these questions is because they worry that this is going to be like, okay, I  got to quit my job, move to the woods, give up all these luxuries they have.

16:07

I don't even want to think about that.

16:09

I got a whole family to support. I got to succeed.

16:09

Advice for getting over that hump of just like- So let's just pause, Lenny.

16:17

Okay,  so what you're doing in this moment is empathetically imagining what  may be going on for your listener, but the empathy is actually based on your own  question because you invited me on the show, you knew I was going to get to this point.

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So I'm imagining that as you take this in, that thought stream shows up for you.

16:42

"Jerry,"  says Lenny, "If I open up that closet, all the shit's going to fall out, and what am I  going to do with it?"

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Does that resonate at all?

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This is why I was nervous to have  you on this podcast.

16:57

I knew what you- So answer my question.

17:07

I don't think it's that strong for me to  be afraid of that because I've taken a different path already and gotten off the career  ladder climbing treadmill.

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On the other hand, back to your original question, we talked  about being busy. I'm very guilty of that.

17:18

I'm constantly trying to do less, but constantly  doing more, and my life is just very busy.

17:28

Thank you for giving me more of that answer.

17:28

And  trust me, your listeners are going to appreciate you being fully there in just the way  you were.

17:34

So let's take a step back.

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The fear is, if I can reflect back to your  original question, the fear is if I go there, I don't know what's going to happen as a  consequence of that.

17:59

If I pause and ask myself, is this relationship working out for me?

18:07

I  might end up leaving this relationship.

18:07

If I pause and ask myself if this career isn't  working for me, I might leave my career.

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And the good news bad news is that's true. That is absolutely true.

18:25

And if we look at some of the other observations we were making  before like anxiety and depression, we have this belief system that if I pay no attention to  the thing that I'm afraid of, it's somehow going to magically go away.

18:56

If we pay no attention to  the source of discomfort, it's somehow going to go away.

19:05

And that's not actually how life works.

19:05

More often than not, what we do is we respond to the source of challenge, whether it's a discomfort  in our relationship, whether it's a discomfort in the way my life has unfolded.

19:25

We respond to it  by plasting over band-aids and sometimes they're relatively healthy, we become obsessed with  working out, or sometimes they're unhealthy.

19:43

We become obsessed with work or substance  abuse or that kind of thing.

19:43

Or sometimes, and this is super popular right now, we lean  into what I would call as a spiritual bypassing where we go to Peru and we go do ayahuasca or we  spend the weekend doing mushrooms with friends...

20:07

And what we're really not doing, Lenny,  is confronting the parts of ourselves that need some tending to because we're afraid of the  consequences.

20:13

But I'll tell you a quick quote.

20:13

One of my favorite books is Bruce Springsteen's  autobiography, and about in the middle of the book, he has this passage where he talks  about having spent 25 years in psychoanalysis.

20:40

So let me just let that statement land.

20:40

Bruce  fucking Springsteen, 25 years in psychoanalysis.

20:51

And he has this passage where he talks about the  unsorted baggage of our childhood.

20:51

And what he rightly asserts is that we all have unsorted  baggage, and at some point we're going to pay the price of not sorting that baggage.

21:10

And  the price more often than not is in tears.

21:20

Now, this is Bruce Springsteen talking about this.

21:20

This is not some airy-fairy transpersonal Jerry Colonna coach.

21:30

And the reason I draw that out  is we as children are socialized not to develop these consciousness skills.

21:45

We are socialized to  develop what I would call bypassing skills.

21:45

And as he correctly points out, if you continue to  bypass sorting out your baggage, there's going to come a day where you're going to have to pay  that price.

22:00

It could be in your own depression, it could be in, I've seen this a thousand times  Lenny, entrepreneurs sabotaging their successful businesses because the belief system from their  childhood goes something like, I don't deserve success so let me blow it up.

22:22

We put this all  under the rubric of midlife, but I don't know, when does midlife begin, 35? When does it end, 70?

22:33

What I do know is it's the bulk of our adulthood.

22:46

Okay, I think you've done an excellent  job convincing me and others to spend time on this now, and I think there's  an assumption of it gets harder, the tears get more intense as you wait  longer.

22:55

There's this ticking time bomb that better some amount of tears now than  10 times more tears later. Is that right? Well said. Okay.

23:05

So coming back to this equation, I  think I want to give people some things to do now that they may be likely convinced, okay, I  should really rethink what I'm doing.

23:10

So back to the equation, practical skills plus radical  self-inquiry plus shared experiences equals enhanced leadership and greater resilience.

23:19

So the  three things you can work on are practical skills, radical self-inquiry, shared experiences, skills  I think people get.

23:25

So radical self-inquiry, these are essentially questions  to dig into what drives you, what makes you happy.

23:34

What are some  questions again that people should be asking there as they're listening  or maybe after they finish listening?

23:40

In the time since I've been a coach, which  is now going on 27 years, the popularity of journaling has gone up, which is awesome.

23:47

And  part of what happens is people journal, but they don't know what they should be journaling or how  they should.

23:58

So let me give some questions then, and this is a way to approach it.

24:05

Let's imagine  that what we're trying to do, whether we're sitting in meditation, whether we're journaling,  whether we're taking time away, we're just pausing and starting to ask ourselves questions.

24:16

So my  famous questions include things like, what am I not saying that I need to say?

24:22

So let's imagine  ourselves in a relationship that's not working.

24:30

Talk about something that could be terrifying.

24:30

What am I not saying in that relationship that I need to say?

24:37

By the way, this is a good question  to ask if one is responsible for leading people too.

24:45

Corollary questions to that would be, what  am I saying that's not being heard?

24:45

And then, of course, what's being said that I'm not  hearing?

24:56

So if we just pause and look at those four questions, how have I been complicit  in creating the conditions I say I don't want?

25:12

What am I not saying that I need to say?

25:12

What  am I saying that's not being heard?

25:12

And what's being said that I'm not hearing?

25:19

Can you feel  the power of all of that in those questions? Yeah. Scary questions.

25:27

They are scary questions.

25:27

You know you're in the  radical self-inquiry zone when the questions take your breath away, when the questions, and by  the way, you don't have to share the answers to these questions with anybody but yourself.

25:42

Now, there could be some power in sharing them in a group of friends and sharing them with a  group of colleagues, sharing them with a coach, sharing them with a therapist.

25:53

But the most  important person with whom you should share the answers is oneself.

25:59

This is a little  bit of Buddhism here.

25:59

Self-delusion along with attachment are the biggest contributors to  our own suffering. Self-delusion. Everything's great. How you doing? Everything's great. Bullshit.

26:19

Can we just not bullshit each other? So let me just pause.

26:30

Those are just four  questions.

26:30

My first book Reboot has a set of questions after every single chapter.

26:39

We also  have a journal that we put out that has questions and questions, but the more important thing to  take away from this is questions that startle us, questions that may cause us to be a little  afraid of the answer, that's where the gold is.

27:02

And we'll point people to the book for many  more of these questions and the worksheets.

27:07

For the third party equation, shared  experiences, can you explain what that is?

27:11

We were talking about socialization, for  example.

27:11

Prior to launching Reboot, the company, my co-founder, Ali Schultz and I, the roots  of Reboot the company began with me designing, or Ali and I designing these boot camps.

27:27

And the  original iteration of the boot camp, we used to call CEO Boot Camp because it was originally we  would get first-time CEOs together and we would do a bait and switch.

27:40

We would pretend to sell them  practical skills, and then I would start asking really tough questions like who would you be  without the story of who you are? It's like what?

27:57

The notion of shared experience as an important  component grew out of that.

27:57

Because what would happen is imagine sitting in a circle of people  who just have your back, who really care about you as a person.

28:16

And imagine then discussing some of  the answers to those questions.

28:16

Who would you be without the story of who you are?

28:24

What is it that  you wish that people in your life knew about you, but you're too afraid to tell them?

28:30

And imagine  sitting in a group of people who can just hold that space without fixing you, without  telling you what you're doing right or wrong?

28:48

We, too often than not, especially in what I  would say the entrepreneurial community are socialized to bullshit not only ourselves, but  everybody else.

28:56

All our companies are moving up into the right, every product that's working,  we don't really have any problems because we're crushing it, and that's just a lie.

29:09

Imagine  having the capacity to be in relationship with people where you can just tell the truth.

29:18

That's what shared experiences are about.

29:25

My wife does a women's circle where they gather and just share what's really going  on within in their lives. And it's- That's it.

29:34

And it's very confidential.

29:34

There's a ritual to it, and it feels like that's a really  good avenue for things like that.

29:42

What circle do you sit in? No circles. This is my circle.

29:48

But there is something powerful here.

29:48

I think  in the last 15 years, the rise of podcasts, good podcasts.

29:56

What I think what happens is  let's hope this is happening for your audience right now, good quality intimate conversation  between people who are authentic and real, creates space for someone to be authentic and  real, even if it's just with themselves.

30:10

So you're doing a mitzvah, you're doing  a good deed by creating this space. Thanks, Jerry.

30:24

Let's go back to the busyness  point, and I'll talk about myself a bit to get it real again, because I think it's also something  a lot of people struggle with.

30:31

I listen to this, they're just like, I'm so busy, and every  time someone ask me how I'm doing, busy, so busy, like swirly eyes  emoji, swirly eyes emoji.

30:45

With a little head shake. That's right.

30:48

And the melting face  emoji. And that's very much me.

30:48

And it's funny because I started this journey of  the newsletter of just like I call the project avoid getting a real job.

30:57

And it was just  like, cool, just do this newsletter thing, not have the job.

31:02

It'll be chill, write an email  once a week.

31:02

But I just find myself taking on endlessly more and more.

31:07

And for me, I feel  like the drive is it's just fun to see it grow and for it to keep building and doing well.

31:13

This reminds me, there's a quote that Will Smith shared once that I think you'll like.

31:18

Someone asked him what it's like to be famous, and he's like, "Really awesome as you're  going up to fame.

31:22

Pretty okay as a famous person.

31:28

Really bad when you lose that fame."

31:28

And that's how it feels with the growth of this thing.

31:33

It's just like growth is up.

31:33

Oh, life's  good, and then it starts to stall.

31:33

I'm like, oh, no, it's all going to fall apart.

31:36

So I  think that's where a lot of that comes from for me.

31:40

It's just like, oh, what's next?

31:40

I  got to, let's see what else I can do here.

31:44

Well, how do you feel about yourself  when you're on that growth trajectory? I feel great. Say more.

31:54

I feel like I'm achieving and heading  in a... Part of it is just fun. It's like fun to win.

32:01

So it's just like,  yeah, we're doing it. It's working.

32:06

And when you're not growing,  how do you feel about yourself? About myself.

32:13

There's this sense that it's all  over.

32:13

Oh, maybe it's all going to fall apart, and maybe I'm not as good at  this as I thought, and maybe- Okay, so stay in that spot for a moment.

32:25

So  imagine, and I don't know that this is true, but I can imagine that there's a little whispery  voice in your head that's always there that says, "Lenny, you're not as good as you think you  are.

32:39

In fact, Lenny, they might even find out." Yep. Yeah, imposter syndrome. Oh, shit.

32:52

So by being busy and by being on that  growth trajectory, that voice maybe sounds a little less persistent, maybe a little less  loud.

33:05

Now, I want to offer a different potential.

33:16

What if you could enjoy the puzzle of trying to  create something new, trying to create magic, something out of nothing, but it doesn't matter to  your sense of self-esteem if you succeed or fail.

33:35

What if what drove you was not quieting  that voice, but what drove you was, oh, this is just fun?

33:47

Seth Godin, who's a dear,  dear friend of mine, talks about art projects.

33:55

Also a former podcast guest.

33:57

So what if you just approached the  project as if it was an art project?

34:06

I think it's going to show up this way.

34:06

What if it turns out it's wrong? What if it's this? What if it's that?

34:10

And your sense  of self-esteem is not attached to the outcome.

34:16

What's interesting is that's how I  started this whole thing.

34:16

I had no intention of it being a career and way I  make a living.

34:19

It was just, this is cool, people seem to like it, I enjoy it.

34:24

Let's  just see where it goes. No expectations. And then what happened? And then it worked. It became successful. That's right. It worked out. Right.

34:33

It became successful, meaning you developed  an audience, meaning you developed a following. And then, income.

34:41

That was a big part of it.

34:43

And then you developed an income,  and then the stakes went up, and then all of a sudden, my heart, the anxiety. Not quite that strongly.

34:54

At times it  is, but there's a bit of just, oh, wow, I am relying on this now.

34:58

I can't just let it fall apart.

35:03

Because my life would fall  apart if I let it fall apart.

35:07

Yeah, life would change in a big  way if this whole thing ends. Right. Right.

35:11

So what you're talking about, what  we're talking about right now, remember before I said in Buddhism, we talk about self-delusion and  attachment.

35:19

Now, we're talking about attachment.

35:27

When we become attached to the outcome, we  inadvertently fuel our own suffering.

35:27

When we become attached, and in this case, okay, I get  it.

35:37

There's a financial reality.

35:37

This is important because it helps pay the bills, if it doesn't  entirely pay the bills. Great. Got it. Fabulous.

35:51

But really the deeper attachment  is see, I'm not nothing.

35:51

See, I'm not a nobody, I'm a somebody, and  that's the source of the suffering. That is so true.

36:09

That is very much a part  of what has driven me is I was always a very shy kid growing up, and I don't think people  expected a lot of me except my mom and dad, I guess.

36:19

And so, I always had the sense, I'll  show them, I'll show them what I could do, and that's always, it's this chip on the shoulder  thing that I know drives a lot of people. How old are you, Lenny? 43. Okay.

36:32

So maybe now at 43, you  can take in the fact that you are somebody regardless of what  you do. What's your wife's name? Michelle.

36:49

Is she going to love you  even if the podcast fails? Absolutely. What, is she an idiot?

36:55

No, she's a smart person.

36:55

The people who actually know you and care about you may be proud of your efforts, but their  love for you is not dependent upon its success.

37:16

And that's like a rewiring. Do you have children?

37:27

Yeah, we got a 22-month-old now. Oh, mazel tov. That's wonderful.

37:30

My children  are 34, 32, and 28.

37:30

So I'll speak like the old man that I am.

37:39

When we take that test, that  spelling test, and we stick it with magnets on the refrigerator, it's at a pride.

37:46

The  challenging message that we inadvertently can send to our children is that we only love  them because they got an A on the spelling test.

38:07

And so, it's really critically important  that we as parents do our own internal work to convey that unconditional love that is our  birthright as human beings.

38:14

And we hold onto the goal because the goal is cool, because  solving a puzzle is fun, because doing hard work and experiencing the reward from that is  affirming, but your value as a human being is unshakable.

38:41

Now, as a father, isn't that  the feeling you want your child to have? Absolutely.

38:51

And there's a lot of parenting  advice these days that helps you learn to do that.

38:55

There's all these TikToks now,  don't say good job.

38:55

Just say good choice or great, hard work.

39:00

Great job working hard on that. Right, right, right.

39:04

I don't know how I feel about  getting parenting advice from TikTok, but okay.

39:12

I'm excited to have Andrew Luo joining  us today.

39:12

Andrew is CEO of OneSchema, one of our longtime podcast  sponsors. Welcome, Andrew.

39:19

Thanks for having me, Lenny. Great to be here.

39:21

So what is new with OneSchema, I know that you  work with some of my favorite companies like Ramp and Vanta and Watershed.

39:26

I heard you guys launch  a new data intake product that automates the hours of manual work that teams spent importing and  mapping and integrating CSV and Excel files. Yes.

39:37

So we just launched the 2.

39:37

0 of OneSchema  file feeds.

39:37

We've rebuilt it from the ground up with AI.

39:42

We saw so many customers coming  to us with teams of data engineers that struggled with the manual work required  to clean messy spreadsheets. FileFeeds 2.

39:47

0 allows non-technical teams to automate the process  of transforming CSV and Excel files with just a simple prompt.

39:58

We support all of the trickiest  file integrations, SFTP, S3, and even email.

40:03

I can tell you that if my team had to  build integrations like this, how nice would it be to take this off our roadmap  and instead use something like OneSchema? Absolutely, Lenny.

40:11

We've heard so many  horror stories of outages from even just a single bad record in transactions,  employee files, purchase orders, you name it.

40:19

Debugging these issues is often like  finding a needle in a haystack.

40:19

OneSchema stops any bad data from entering your system  and automatically validates your files, generating error reports with the  exact issues in all bad files.

40:32

I know that importing incorrect data can cause  all kinds of pain for your customers and quickly lose their trust.

40:36

Andrew, thank you so much  for joining me.

40:36

If you want to learn more, head on over to oneschema. co. That's oneschema. co.

40:40

Just to close loop on this, I think as people hear this, I feel like, okay, cool, everything  falls apart.

40:48

Sure, my parents will love me, my wife will love me, they won't think less of me.

40:53

However, it's nice to get that really nice couch and that nice hotel and the income, the comfort  that comes with income at a certain level is hard to give up.

41:03

How do you help people get past  that that might go away and feel comfortable?

41:09

Well, the good news is, and again, this is a  Buddhist reference.

41:09

The good news is there's a wisdom tradition that teaches all about this.

41:15

So very briefly, the Buddhist story is in his mid-30s, he wakes up to the truth of birth,  old age, sickness, and death.

41:25

Birth, old age, sickness and death.

41:32

And he wanders into the  forest and he becomes a wandering mendicant and he becomes a holy man, and he's still not  satisfied.

41:39

And as I like to tell the story, one day he decides, fuck it, I'm just going to  sit under the Bodhi tree and I'm not going to move until I figure this shit out.

41:52

And so, he  sits and sits and sits, and the story is he sat for 40 days living on a single grain of rice  every day because always right, crazy stuff.

42:05

And when he woke up, he woke up to the four  noble truths and the four noble truths are life is filled with suffering, that which we  do to push away suffering increases suffering.

42:20

The third noble truth is that there's an end  to suffering.

42:20

That's a really important one.

42:28

And the fourth noble truth is what's known as  the eightfold path to the end of suffering.

42:34

So let's focus on the second noble truth because  that's really what you're talking about.

42:34

When we acquire that nice couch, when we buy that nice  house that stretches our income to its maximum, if we're doing it to enjoy the couch or  the house, then A-OK.

42:52

But if we're doing it because we're trying to push away the  suffering of am I good enough to be loved, to feel safe, and that I belong, that which  we do to push away suffering will increase suffering.

43:13

And in this case, oh my God, what  if they take my house away from me?

43:13

Oh my God, what if I fall backwards down that staircase of  life?

43:22

Oh my God, what if all of those people who have signed up to my Substack suddenly disappear?

43:31

You see how the attachment becomes that source of suffering?

43:44

You see how the thing that we  do to make ourselves feel better in fact fuels the tenuous hold that we have on our  OK-ness? I'm okay just as I am. I'm okay.

44:04

It all comes down to why we're doing what  we're doing.

44:04

Now, to be clear, this is hard for me.

44:12

I think it's hard for everybody.

44:12

When my first book came out, Dan Harris, who's a really good friend and client from  10% Happier said to me, "Don't read the Amazon reviews."

44:27

The truth is, I've read two reviews.

44:27

I  read it in the first hour after it was released, and I've never read a review since because there's  no way I can experience those reviews without becoming attached to how people feel. So thank  you.

44:49

I'll put it over here and I'll just stay focused on the experience that I get from writing.

44:58

And yes, do I want to sell thousands of books?

44:58

Do I want people to feel moved by my writing?

45:08

I do,  but you know who gets the most out of my writing?

45:17

Me, because when I sit down, this is my file  folder for whatever I might do for our next book, what I'm trying to do is answer questions that  I have.

45:29

For example, Captain Chaos is running the country right now.

45:40

What is it that the world  is going to need two or three years from now?

45:40

And what's my contribution to that world?

45:48

Now, just  as I say that, how does that feel to you? It's kind of settling.

45:56

So I know that in order for me  to feel good about my existence on this planet, I have to ask myself these questions and I have  to attempt to answer these questions.

46:06

Whether it turns into a book that people buy or not is  secondary, I have to do this work regardless.

46:22

That super connects with exactly again, the  way I started this whole thing is I started writing just to crystallize my own thinking,  and it ends up being useful to other people. Yes.

46:35

People hear this and they're like, why would I  want to give up this great couch and house and car and all these things? That's really hard.

46:38

And risking that by just doing something that feels good versus it'll make income, but  it actually works. That's what I found.

46:47

If you focus on a thing that is useful to  yourself and interesting and not come at it from how do I make the most amount of money  and turn this into whole thing, but more just, this is really interesting.

46:56

I'm going to  see where this goes. It will work for me.

47:00

Lenny, you implicitly asked a how question  a few minutes ago. How do I do this?

47:00

How do I do this radical self-inquiry?

47:05

And I asked,  I responded by offering a few questions.

47:13

Let's build upon that for a moment, because what  you are articulating right now is in the process of asking those questions, you can go back  to what Simon Sinek would say is your why.

47:27

You could go back to your core principle.

47:27

You  could go back to the centerpiece within you, which is what do I believe to be true about the  world and how do I want to be in that world?

47:40

You know what animates me right now is a question?

47:40

With my children being fully fledged adults, I am really focused on what kind of ancestor to my  descendants would I like to be?

47:47

20 years from now, 30 years from now, 40 years from now, I'll  be gone.

47:58

What would I like those who follow after me to believe to be true about me? And you just paused.

48:05

I can tell from the Adam's apple jumping up and down, that that  question landed for you.

48:14

It's a question of legacy.

48:22

It's a question of meaning and purpose.

48:22

At  the end of my days, this is a question in Reboot, at the end of my days, what would I like the  people who come after me to say about me?

48:40

And what I want people to say about me  is that he gave a shit about the world, he cared, and he tried, and he was kind.

48:46

Those are the things that matter to me.

49:00

I'm always reminded of that frame of reference  when I go to a funeral and people reading the eulogy and the old advice of what do you want your  eulogy to say and making that your mission.

49:05

But on the flip side, there's this viral video of Mike  Tyson.

49:11

Someone was coming up to him I think before his big match recently, and asked him about his  legacy, and he's like, "I don't give a shit about my legacy.

49:21

It's just a made up thing that doesn't  matter."

49:21

So let me just ask you this.

49:21

Why is it important to think about legacy?

49:28

Does legacy  even matter? We're dead. What's the difference?

49:33

Far be it for me to criticize Mike, and don't hit  me Mike, because even as an old guy, I wouldn't want to be hit by Mike Tyson.

49:42

I don't know what's  behind his response, but I can tell you what's true for me.

49:50

I made oblique reference to Captain  Chaos in the world as it is right now.

49:50

The world's a tough place right now.

50:00

We live in a world where  it's almost normalized that a teenager will shoot other teenagers in school.

50:10

It's almost normalized  that people are dragged off to jail.

50:10

Something is happening, something that's really disturbing.

50:24

Now, to be clear, we've always had disturbing times.

50:32

I mean, I was reminded recently, I'm  reading a book called Soldiers and Kings, which I highly recommend, which is about human  smuggling from Central America into the United States, and it's an extraordinary book.

50:45

And in  reading that, I was reminded of policies that the US government has used over the years, whether  it's supporting dictators in Central America or other sorts of things, things that I oppose,  that feel immoral, if not directly immoral.

51:15

Why does this come up for me?

51:15

I can't shake the  feeling that someone down the line in my lineage is going to ask of me, "And what did you do,  grandpa?

51:25

And what did you do, great grandpa?"

51:40

I know what I want that answer  to be, which is I tried.

51:40

Lenny, God gave me the ability to put two sentences  together in a way that people listen.

51:58

I feel a moral responsibility to use that  God-given gift to help create the world, that I would like to see, a world of kindness  and empathy, a world where poverty is diminished, a world where people feel safe however the fuck  they identify. I don't give a damn. So is that my legacy?

52:40

Yeah, and maybe there's some ego implicit  in that, but can I go on for just a bit on this? Absolutely.

52:55

At the end of Reboot, I write about this moment,  and in this moment I am in Marin County.

52:55

My wife Allie and I are together.

53:09

And I'm once again  torturing myself with this question. Have I been a good man?

53:17

I drive myself crazy with that question.

53:17

Have I been a good father?

53:17

Have I been a good partner? Have I been a good man?

53:25

And she says,  in a very frustrated way, "All right, already. Enough. You're a good man. Stop."

53:31

And so, I go  for a walk, and as I'm walking, I encounter this toppled over oak tree and the roots are all torn  up and you've seen trees like this, and clearly the tree died and clearly a wind came and clearly  knocked the whole thing down.

53:47

And I look at the tree and I say to myself, "Here lies a good man."

53:52

And I liken myself to this toppled over oak tree, and I imagine that that tree had lived its life  with its limbs gnarled and twisted by actions that it should have taken and actions that it shouldn't  have taken, but good choices and bad choices.

54:12

But that for the majority of its 75, 80 years, it  lived into its purpose of providing shelter and shade for those that may have come from beneath  it.

54:29

And I make this point that at the end of my days, I want to be like this tree just slowly  dissolving into the earth, having done the best job I could of being purposeful. I feel better.

54:48

My suffering is eased when I can lean into that, which then makes me able to be present for the  other person, whether it's a coaching client, whether it's a podcast conversation, whether it's  just going for a walk with one of my children.

55:12

I just feel better, and I think I am a better  person when I think about things like that.

55:28

So far be it from me to disagree with  Mike Tyson, but I think he's wrong. Good callback.

55:33

It sounds  like The Giving Tree to me. Oh, yes, yes. Shel Silverstein.

55:43

To give people something to do with this area  of legacy.

55:43

How did you approach coming up with figuring out what you wanted your legacy  to be?

55:51

Are there some questions you asked?

55:53

Is there something you recommend folks do  to help think through this for themselves?

55:57

Well, it's delightful that we've ended up here  because I think that I'm still working through those questions.

56:04

As I said before as we both  connected with, I use my writing to find my way to answers to questions.

56:10

So part of what  I'm dealing with right now is, look, I'll turn 62 this year.

56:15

That feels old, but it also feels  settled.

56:15

And part of what I'm trying to figure out is what do I want my elderhood to be like?

56:26

And  I'll be honest, I'm enjoying this time of my life where I'm finding myself being a voice of comfort,  being a voice of maybe even sanity in a time where that feels really insane and challenging.

56:52

So maybe  that's what my legacy will be. I'm not 100% sure.

57:03

Is this maybe hinted the new book you're working on?

57:05

Is this the topic you're  thinking about or is this not? Yeah, and other things. That's right. That's right.

57:15

Speaking of the world being very crazy  right now, you talked about your kids, AI is very top of mind for a lot of people in  particular.

57:19

It's stressing a lot of people out.

57:24

In a lot of ways, it's quite unsettling  in future careers, in skills, people- It is unsettling, isn't it?

57:31

Quite unsettling, but there's a world  where we don't need humans in the future, potentially.

57:34

Just what advice do you  share with clients to help them work through this period of worry with the  future, with AI being the core of it?

57:45

Well, if we go back to the equation for a moment,  I think it's really important that we actually talk about these things.

57:50

I would say a year ago, I  likened it to the experience that I had.

57:50

Remember, I'm old enough to remember when not everything  had an IP address.

58:01

Now, our refrigerators have IP addresses.

58:09

I mean, it's freaking crazy.

58:09

I'm old enough to remember when you had to install an IP stack into your personal computer in  order to connect to the web. That's how old I am.

58:22

Did you have the phone modem  where you had to put the phone? Absolutely. Absolutely.

58:25

It was a big, big deal  to go from 1,200 baud to 2,400 baud to 56K.

58:25

Oh my God, it was like a rocket ship.

58:34

A year ago, I  thought we were going through a similar kind of transition. We're clearly not. This is different.

58:40

And in the coaching therapeutic world, everybody's like, "Oh my God, ChatGPT is going to replace me." And I don't know, maybe. What I am finding is... I wear glasses.

59:06

So for those of you who are only  listening to the audio, you may find that news.

59:14

What I am finding is in my own life, it's like  I have put on a pair of glasses that are really, really sharp and helpful, and it is disturbing and  unsettling because I think it does challenge this question of what is our role as human beings?

59:37

Now, what I come back to, and I could be wrong, but what I come back to is we're talking through  a medium, a mediated experience.

59:51

My signal is bouncing up into the sky and to a satellite.

1:00:05

I won't name the company, it's coming back down.

1:00:11

I don't know what your access is.

1:00:11

We're  using this platform or a site to record this, but somehow we're still finding the capacity to be  present for one another in a heart-to-heart way.

1:00:30

And so, when I look at these phenomena, what I  lift up is that.

1:00:30

What I am hopeful about is that that which does not matter in the experience of  being human gets burned away and is taken care of, call it by AI, but that that which matters,  which is presence and connection, human-to-human contact, strategic thinking, formulation, you  want to talk about it in terms of engineering, the conceptualization, that that gets elevated and our  skills get better at doing that.

1:01:12

And in the most optimistic point of view, what ends up happening  is we spend more time on that which matters, and less time on that which doesn't matter.

1:01:30

And  I could be completely wrong and we could all be out of work and making sure that the robots  are well-oiled, and that becomes our purpose.

1:01:47

Along these lines of glasses and even coaching,  the world of coaching, there's a really interesting use case I saw today that Dan Shipper  shared that I think you'd love, which is now that ChatGPT has memory, remembers everything you've  said, and you can think back, you can ask it, "What are blank spots in the way I see the world  that I'm not seeing?"

1:02:01

You could also upload all your chat transcripts from your meetings and  ask it what could you do better in meetings?

1:02:14

Look, one of my colleagues in the coaching  company, he has uploaded, he kept all of his journal entries, I think over 10 years journal  entries from Evernote, and he uploaded that.

1:02:29

I think he uses Claude, and he's asked Claude  to highlight things.

1:02:29

What am I not saying that I need to say?

1:02:37

What am I saying that's not being  heard?

1:02:37

He's asked it to reflect back, and I think it's been incredibly helpful for him.

1:02:43

I think  the result is that he is a better coach, which is interesting, because the feeling is, well,  does this replace it?

1:02:50

I am finding, I'm using ChatGPT really as a writing and thinking partner  in a way that I did not have before, and I'm still using my live real human writing buddies, which  are really important to me.

1:03:09

Where does this all end up? I had no idea.

1:03:16

It is unsettling, it's  uncanny, and it's also enlivening and exciting. Well put.

1:03:31

I love that you can ask  these hard questions of Claude/ChatGPT, these questions that make you really scared could  ask it what are the answers, and even not have to do the hard work and maybe get a better answer.

1:03:42

I doubt that that will give you the best answers.

1:03:47

Well, what it might do, which  I think would be wonderful, is it might give you more questions to ask  yourself.

1:03:50

I'm a huge fan of powerful questions and the answer I give to a question like what am  I not saying that I need to say?

1:03:59

That question, you can ask yourself that question every single  day.

1:04:06

The question of how have I been complicit in creating the conditions I say I don't want?

1:04:12

You  can ask yourself that question every single day.

1:04:20

To take a step back, the subtitle of my first  book is Leadership in the Art of Growing Up.

1:04:27

The Art of Growing Up is a practice.

1:04:27

It's not  a scientific moment where one day you wake up and you're done.

1:04:36

It's an ongoing practice of not  continuous improvement, but continuous inquiry that can feel exhausting when you contemplate  it, but enlivening when you live it.

1:04:57

All this, some people may think of as this  whole idea of growth mindset.

1:04:57

I know that you're not a big fan of this term, that it's  used in a harmful way a lot of times.

1:05:04

Can you just talk about that why you find that growth  mindset as a concept isn't necessarily useful?

1:05:18

Here's what I have a problem with.

1:05:18

First  of all, having a growth mindset is a very, very helpful thing.

1:05:23

What I have a problem is  in having and how we can turn a notion like a growth mindset into a fixed mindset, which  is, it's this funny little trick the ego does, and the ego says, "Okay, well, this is a growth  mindset.

1:05:47

Oh, this is not a growth mindset. Okay, then this is good. This is not good. This is  bad. This is..."

1:05:52

What Buddhism has taught me is that everything's falling apart all the time even  our growth mindset.

1:06:02

When we get too fixed on the proper way to do things, we're setting ourselves  up for attachment and therefore suffering.

1:06:11

So if you can hold something like a mindset loosely with  that attachment, go for it. Have a blast. Enjoy it.

1:06:31

But the minute you start to nail it down to  the floor and say this is the way it ought to be, I ought to always have a growth mindset, you've  become fixed.

1:06:38

And that's what the ego does.

1:06:48

To be more explicit about it from a business  context for example, the great business writer Peter Senge says, "It is virtually impossible to  challenge the assumptions that made you rich in the first place."

1:07:03

So think about it in our  experience of starting a business.

1:07:03

We have what the Zen Buddhist would say, beginner's  mind, all things are possible.

1:07:10

And then, we experience, you were talking about it a little  before, a little bit of success, and the ego, which is so terrified of not having success, start  to say, "Aha, this is the way to do it."

1:07:21

And then, we start to deviate from that because life happens  and then the anxiety starts.

1:07:30

So the question is, how do you hold a growth mindset loosely knowing  that you ought to stay present to the world as it is, respond to the changing dynamics,  figure out what's next because that's the growth.

1:07:55

So put succinctly, stay attached to  the growth and hold mindset a little loosely. I love that. It reminds me of advice.

1:08:07

I did a meditation retreat once, and there's always a sense with Buddhism,  and it's interesting how often Buddhism and advice from Buddhist teachings  comes up on this podcast by the way.

1:08:18

When the student is ready, the teacher will  appear.

1:08:18

You are inviting it in, but keep going.

1:08:25

That makes sense as you say that. Interesting.

1:08:25

So there's this fear I think people have with  Buddhist teachings that you will not be as ambitious and you will not  achieve as much if you're not attaching.

1:08:41

If you're not anxiously chasing something. Yeah, exactly.

1:08:42

If you're just like, "Why do  I need that?

1:08:42

I don't need to be the CEO of the VP because like, oh, I won't attach  to that."

1:08:47

And then, so people fear that downside.

1:08:52

So I asked this question at this  retreat and the advice they shared there was don't attach to this idea, but just point  your cart in that direction and head there. Yeah, I like that.

1:09:02

Look, the fear you're talking  about is the fear of complacency.

1:09:02

And if we look at the structures of the mind and we look at  our socialization, the way we're socialized to ward off complacency is anxiety.

1:09:17

And so, if we go  back to some of the things we were saying before, if I grow up believing that the way I'm going  to make my parents love me is by achieving, then if I become complacent, then  what's at risk is their love for me.

1:09:41

So just like we made the connection before  where unconditional love exists, unconditional positive regard for self, otherwise known as  self-compassion can be a powerful motivator, especially when you get to the point where  you say, "As painful as it is for me to write, I enjoy writing. I enjoy working out. I enjoy  pushing myself.

1:10:14

I don't necessarily enjoy it in the moment."

1:10:27

But I certainly, when I look at  two books on my desk and I say, "You know what? That feels good. That makes me happy."

1:10:37

To me, the ability to hold the seeming contradiction of those things is a hallmark of my  adulthood.

1:10:47

It's to get satisfaction out of hard work for me is a much greater motivator than fear  of complacency.

1:11:01

As I've sort of slip-slided my way into that place, I have found...

1:11:16

I work seven  days a week.

1:11:16

I don't have to, but I enjoy it.

1:11:29

There's another, maybe a last area I want to  spend some time on, which is around teams and what often causes trouble for teams. What breaks  teams? What breaks companies?

1:11:34

You have this point, you make that it's rarely lack  of talent on the team, lack of strategy, lack of execution, that it's something  else.

1:11:47

What is that something else?

1:11:47

What often do you find as the source of the  problem for teams that aren't working?

1:11:56

Well, it's the unresolved, I'll be dramatic with  the language, demons from their childhood.

1:11:56

It's the unsorted baggage. Here's what happens.

1:12:04

Teams  are groups, and there are group dynamics that always happen.

1:12:12

There is the scapegoat, there is  the truth-teller who has to say, "Let me tell you what's really wrong with everything going on."

1:12:20

Without the individual's radical self-inquiry skills, groups tend to be condemned to repeating  patterns oftentimes of their family of origin.

1:12:40

I'll tell you a quick story.

1:12:40

There's a very famous  software blogger, blogger-owned software that I coached for many years, and we were doing an  executive team meeting, and something happened in the group as we were talking that I observed  once, twice, and three times, and finally, I said, "Okay, guys, I'm seeing something happen  here.

1:13:02

Every time we get close to talking about something that's really painful, somebody makes a  joke and all the energy disappears and everybody laughs and everybody's nice."

1:13:18

And as soon as I  said it, my client who was CEO at the time said, "Jesus Christ, that's just like my family."

1:13:25

It  was like, yes, that's just like your family.

1:13:35

Carl Jung once said, "Until you make the  unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." Let's apply it  here.

1:13:39

Until you make conscious the unconscious patterns operating in the group, the group  will continue to repeat those patterns and you will blame somebody in the group.

1:13:55

Romantic  relationships from a Buddhist perspective, part of what we do in romantic relationships is  we find the perfect foil for us to work out our unconscious phenomena.

1:14:12

When we join a group,  when we form up in teams and organizations, we are unconsciously finding the perfect  foils for us to work out our own shit.

1:14:27

So if you want to create a high-functioning team,  do your work, and it starts with the person who has the most power in the group.

1:14:35

If that person  refuses to do their work, the entire group will become a manifestation of early dysfunction in  the individual's lives.

1:14:45

Does that make any sense? 100%.

1:14:59

And this comes up a number of times  on this podcast, just the impact the leaders issues have on the rest of the team, and  also just this idea that the conditions they're trying to avoid are the conditions  they invite in because they're avoiding. That's it. That's it.

1:15:14

One of my favorite  teachers and dear friends is Parker Palmer, and he builds on, I think  it was Socrates who said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

1:15:25

And he builds on that and makes a joke, and he says, "But if you choose to live an  unexamined life, please don't take a job that involves other people." And that's it.

1:15:34

You  have a responsibility to examine your own shit.

1:15:43

So say you're on this team, so there's two  sides of this.

1:15:43

You're on a team, the leaders clearly got some stuff that they need to work  through, but they're not.

1:15:47

Is there something you can do there other than just, "Hey, please,  this is hurting us?"

1:15:51

And then from the leader's perspective listening to this, what should  they do? Is it get a coach? What can you do?

1:16:01

So for the one who has less power? Yeah.

1:16:06

One of the things to ask oneself is what draws  me to this position in the first place?

1:16:06

How have I been complicit, not responsible in  creating the conditions I say I don't want.

1:16:20

How have I benefited from the dysfunction that  exists in this organization?

1:16:20

And benefit is a funny word.

1:16:26

It doesn't necessarily mean I'm  making more money.

1:16:26

It means, for example, a benefit might be, boy, this feels familiar.

1:16:36

I always find myself working on teams that are dysfunctional in this way.

1:16:44

What is there in that  experience for me to learn? So that's one thing.

1:16:55

You asked about the person who has power.

1:16:55

You were  using the word leader.

1:16:55

I will talk about power, and you threw out, well, should they get a  coach?

1:17:01

Let's put it into larger context.

1:17:01

Should you examine your life with radical self-inquiry? Yes.

1:17:07

I would argue that the more power you have, the more moral responsibility you have to  actually pause and figure out what it is that you're doing to be complicit in creating  the conditions you say you don't want.

1:17:28

To be a very quick example what I'm talking about.

1:17:28

A couple of years ago, I was doing a talk at a venture firm's CEO portfolio summit, the portfolio  company's CEO summit.

1:17:35

And we're sitting in a room, and of course I'm walking around again with  shoes off and whatever, and people are firing questions at me.

1:17:51

And one woman says, "Well, I'm  the CEO of this 15-person company, and I have a question for you.

1:17:58

Why is it that nobody on my  team can make a decision without me?"

1:17:58

And I said, "Who hired them?" And she, "Well..."

1:18:07

I said,  "Okay, how does it make you feel when they make a decision that you disagree with?"

1:18:15

She  said, "I'm furious."

1:18:15

"Well, how can you hire people whom you expect to make decisions without  running them through you if you can't tolerate them making a decision that you disagree with?"

1:18:32

You want to build a scaled leadership team, you have to be willing to have them make  boneheaded decisions.

1:18:40

And that's really, really hard, especially if we're "in founder mode"  driving all the decisions.

1:18:48

So that's your growth edge.

1:18:59

We were talking about before about growth  mindset. That's your growth edge.

1:18:59

How can I be with the people in my life making boneheaded  decisions about something that I care so much about and what is the best way for  me to be in relationship about that?

1:19:18

So much of this comes back to that question  we started this with of just how are you complicit in creating the conditions you  don't want?

1:19:21

A big takeaway for me here, and it just keeps coming up and again and  again, is if you're struggling as a leader, if your company's not working as well as you  wanted to, if you're having a hard time with your team, going back to that equation, it's not  about building more skills like public speaking skills or email skills, or I don't know, financial  skills.

1:19:39

It's self-awareness, radical self-inquiry, understanding what drives you, what makes  you happy.

1:19:45

Is that generally correct?

1:19:51

Lenny, I was just going to say, you just  made me so happy you saying what you just said. Yes.

1:19:55

I've been coaching now, as I  said for a couple of decades.

1:19:55

Before that, I was a VC for 15, 17 years.

1:20:03

What  you just said is the wisdom of my 40 years as an adult. That's it.

1:20:11

This is why  radical self-inquiry is so damned important because it leads to a little bit less  suffering and a lot more resilience.

1:20:28

For folks that want to actually do that,  well, they can rewind back to the middle of the episode where we actually ask the questions  that are associated with the radical self-inquiry, and then obviously if they want to  dig deeper, they can buy your book.

1:20:41

Or 10 copies of the book.

1:20:43

Or 100 copies for everyone at the  company willing to Amazon.

1:20:43

Jerry, is there anything else that  we haven't touched on that you think is really important for people to  hear maybe as the last piece of wisdom?

1:20:57

Now one of the hopes that I have you ask me  at the start like what would be my hope is that we ended up being closer and friends, and I  feel that.

1:21:01

Let me extend that out to everybody.

1:21:10

What I always hope from all of these intimate  conversations that I try to do in podcasts is that people walk away going, "Geez, I'm not  alone."

1:21:15

We've made different references to the fact that it's a hard time.

1:21:24

The truth is it's  always a hard time.

1:21:24

And what makes it hardest is to feel like I'm the only one who's going through  this.

1:21:32

So what I appreciate about what you do, Lenny, is that under the guise of talking about  product, you're really talking about the process of being human. And that is a mitzvah. That's  a good deed.

1:21:47

And so, I hope in the process of listening to this, people walk away going,  "Okay, I feel a little bit better today."

1:22:04

I really appreciate that.

1:22:04

The way I think about  these sorts of conversations and episodes, I call them Trojan Horse episodes where  people come for the other stuff, tactical, practical stuff, and then they get  stuff they really need to hear.

1:22:11

And so, I appreciate you.

1:22:15

Jerry, thank  you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. It was a delight. Same for me. Bye, everyone.

1:22:21

Thank you so much  for listening.

1:22:21

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1:22:28

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1:22:38

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1:22:42

See you in the next episode.