Pedal My Way

Rob
Hello and welcome to pedal my way. We have a special guest today, Mukund and I, and it’s gonna do a little bit of introduction here. This is Jake Herway. He is an explorer and a guide on a bike in his church, in his family in business, he explores culture leadership. Ideas, disciplines, science and guides people away from the dead ends to what, really. He makes his living now as an executive team coach, working with leaders who find themselves under pressure to deliver results quickly. And this is a topic that Mukund that I have spoken about before in terms of motivation and leadership. We talked a little bit about that on an individual basis. Obviously, we are not experts on that, far from it. So we thought we’d have someone on who knew what they were talking about. For a change. So. I I think the most important, or at least one of most important topics right now.

For people individually, what is rewarding work? How would you define rewarding work as as a, as a leader, or even an individual who is just starting out their career?

Jake
Rewarding work is what I’m after, Rob, so I’m glad you phrased it that way for me. Rewarding work is work that is fulfilling emotionally and financially. It’s not rewarding unless I’m. And those two need to go together. There’s a camp. In my world and employee engagement, sometimes that stick to happiness and there’s another camp that stick to the business outcomes. For me, it’s not an either or, it’s both. I learned that early on in my banking career, I started in investment banking. Within. Four months. I knew that I was in the wrong place. I was leaving so much. What I thought was talent, maybe that’s a bit. Egotistical, but I felt like I could contribute a lot more to the bank than the spreadsheets I was running. And yet when I offered it, I was shut down. And and not just discourage shut down. No. Don’t go there. That’s not your job. That’s not your role. We don’t want it.

Mukund
Can you give a couple of examples, Jake. Like what? What do you approach the bank with?

Jake
Yeah, well, there was. For example, there was a a platform, so I was. I was on the origination side and we had risk managers on the other side. And obviously we. You do this and it’s a healthy conflict in a bank, and the equivalent exists in every organization. Quality assurance, for example, and marketing in any kind of product. Business. And we had a shared platform and my manager was upset that we weren’t using it. And I suggested that perhaps it wasn’t a matter of stick and telling us use it, use it, use it. But perhaps there was a reason why we weren’t using it. Perhaps there was a pull that wasn’t there that we could create, and I had a few suggestions and he just looked at me. He’s like, you’re wasting your time. You got. A whole night’s worth of spreadsheets balance sheets to merge together. Don’t talk to me about this is someone else’s job. 

This whole platform thing. Got shut down. There was a time when I brought strengths Finder. It’s an assessment. I happened to come across. While I was in banking and I did it and I brought my strengths results to my manager. And said, you know, perhaps if I take this online course and that online course based on my strengths, maybe I can help you. When you’re origination strategy. So at the time of course as. An analyst I was. Fulfilling the requests of the EMT’s. And I thought, and I and I offered and asked if I. Could be a part of the strategic.

And again. I was way above my pay grade. Not supposed to be there. And got shut down and put back into the corner and eventually with it took four years. But I committed the rest of my life to making sure that people don’t experience what I experienced, where I just made a lot of money. But instead could be fulfilled and. To be financially successful as well.

Rob
What would you say to somebody who’s in that position right now who’s got a boss that’s not listening to them, who’s not engaging in ideas, who’s just telling them what to do? And, you know, condescending or however you want to phrase that? What would you say to someone in that position right now?

Jake
Yeah. I mean, most of them most. You got to get. Out, I mean, people are afraid of it. They’re scared of something. And people don’t change. One of the things that I’ve learned over over my years of human behavior and culture change and leadership development is people don’t leapfrog into different people all of a sudden. There’s nothing you can say for sure. There’s nothing you can tell somebody that’s going to change them. Maybe there’s something you can show them. That they can experience that might change a belief or two beliefs. And they could be important one. But your ability to change look, all of us, anyone who’s been married knows this, and I don’t know why we fight it in the workplace or with others. It’s like they’re not going to change either. You either you accept it. You fight it. Or you run from it. And if you’re not happy there, don’t accept it. And fighting it to losing battle to negative ROI. So that’s my advice. It might sound it, you know, like brash and like, I don’t know, the details. I guarantee someone to say. This. Might be like, but you don’t understand my situation dot dot dot dot dot get out get out there is so much more to the world than that relationship.

Rob
At least they should come up with a plan to. Start getting out as soon as possible.

Jake
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You wanna do it responsibly? You do. Necessarily show up. You know the next day and just quit. Yeah, it’s happened. I don’t have that kind of courage. I didn’t. So I didn’t do that. It took me 4 years. I made a bit of a plan. I knew enough. I had an idea. That’s How I Met Mccoon at Duke, where we went to Business School I was in. The midst of a career switch. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, but I at least had a quality MBA as part of that path to help. Leapfrog me into something respectable.

Rob
Yeah. Well, I mean, you had a plan there. You had a foundation there anyway. And so you knew the direction you wanted to go in at least.

Jake
Yeah, exactly right. Exactly right.

Rob
So there was a warning work something about. That idea of rewarding work and fulfillment is do you? Do you think that’s something that people individually are missing right now? And then as an individual, if you’re not feeling feeling fulfilled at work, you’re not generally gonna be happy. Is that something that you would would think that leaders can contribute to can? They create fulfilling work for their employees or does that have to come from the individual themselves?

Jake
Don’t let me forget that question because I want to lead up to it and sometimes in my lead up I may forget. So remind me. The. Fulfilling work. First of all, work in my experience was so influential in my overall well. Being it took. Me by surprise when I first got into the workplace just how much my career? well-being influenced everything. Sleep, diet, physical exercise. My relationship with my wife. Eventually my.

Relationship with my kid. Everything. Was being affected by how I spent that 8 to 12 to 14 hours depending on the day, which now makes perfect sense. Just mathematically it’s the the total amount of time of this influence in my life. It’s the greatest percentage. Of course it’s going to have a greater percentage influence on my overall well-being, so that’s why I started to take. Work well-being very serious and why I committed myself to rewarding work. What I’m actually committing myself to is rewarding living. When I’m solving for the work I’m solving for the living now. Fulfillment. I define fulfillment as being able to get in the work terms get paid. To do what you do best. To make a difference in what you care about most. And again this comes from my personal journey and coaching leaders and and students over the last almost decade and a half, two decades the. Ability to do what you do best. There’s a lot there, but the most important thing to recognize is you don’t compare yourself to others. You’re comparing yourself to you. Of all the things I do. What do I do best? Forget about whether someone else can hit the home run. You might be the best at batting. Even if you’re not getting it over the fence like everyone, it doesn’t matter what everyone else. Is doing. What do you do best right? To make a difference. Making a difference is honestly as much about character as it is about competence, but those are the two things, character and competence, and. Character can compensate for lack of competence for a while, but lack of competence can never, or competence, can never compensate for lack of character. Character is the most important thing. What I mean by character, I think, is obvious to most people, but integrity, honesty, hard work. Being dependable.

Mukund
That identifies who you are, right? The character.

Jake
Yeah. Defines who you are. Which is another important piece. So we have career well-being influencing life. In a disproportionate way. But it makes sense because. It’s proportional to the amount of time you spend at. You then have a definition of fulfilling work. Doing it you the best make a difference what you care about most. What you care about most is intentional. There’s a natural distribution and care on one end of care is passion. I think it’s 4 1/2% right on one end and the other four. And. 1/2 percent is just don’t care about. Anything and the middle is the rest of us. 66 some odd percent. The rest of us, just we we care about something. But again, of all the things you care about, forget what other people care about and forget about whether you’re to that passion state or not. You might be, but odds are you’re. Of the things that do matter to you, what do you care about most? Start making a difference in that. Based on what’s unique to you fulfilling work, so that’s a journey I take people on. And the journey I’ve been on and we all will continue to be on those of. Us who desire to have rewarding work.

Rob
Wasted time. That’s a good point. Actually, it’s a. It’s a continual process, right? It’s not just like you. Found this great role and. Every day is gonna be perfect. From this day forward, it’s like you’ve gotta continue that. How? How do people stay motivated towards that? Is there a toolkit that they can use? Is there some? Saying that you. Is it just I’m I’m doing the right role, so I’m going to stay involved and engaged in that process.

Jake
I guess when you, I guess being intentional about. It each day. I mean I’ve I’ve written it down even at times and put it as a calendar tickler to pop up at 8:00 AM. When I sit down at my computer to. Asked the question. Am I finding? Meaning. And what I’m doing? Am I making a difference and what I’m doing? Am I using my God-given talents to make that difference is something that’s meaningful to me. The other so I don’t. I don’t really have a good answer on. Like how to keep? That. Going other than. To remember that that’s why we’re here in the first place. And anything less than fulfilling. Than fulfillment and rewarding work. Is less than a fulfilled and rewarding life.

Rob
It’s to you said stay intentional and stay focused on what you’re actually enjoying and you actually benefit from and to and to remember those things.

Jake
Right. Now the question I didn’t answer is the leaders role versus. The individual’s role. If there was one thing I could do. If I could get a billboard and tell the whole world or make a phone and tell the whole world one thing. It’s that definition of fulfillment. And that it’s on you. I wish I could tell the world I I’m.

That look, Gallup, where I came from, I was a partner there, leading their culture transformation portfolio. We measure and you may have seen the news. It’s the lowest ever. You know, it hovers around. 30. Percent of people who really enjoy their work, the other 70 are indifferent or hate. And that doesn’t hasn’t changed. You know, I showed up at gallop 12 years ago, 13 years ago, wanting to change that number. And it didn’t change.

Mukund
Is it at Gallup or you’re saying across the most of the workplaces?

Jake
Ohh that’s that’s the average across the US.

Mukund
OK.

Jake

Globally, it’s even worse. It’s more like half that 15% enjoy their work. And the US is 30% are highly, are engaged at work. And and so I showed up at Gallup thinking, OK, we’re measuring it. We’re going to change it. Do you do we blame Gallup for the failure? I know people who do. Hey, you guys measure it. What are? You doing about? It do we blame all the consultants, all the leadership development? Do we blame all the billions of dollars and put into learning and leadership? I just think it’s evidence that it’s not. The systems fault. The leaders fault.

We show what is work for you. That’s the fundamental. Lie that we tell ourselves what is work. Most of us show up to make money. Just like I did with investment banking. That’s why I showed up and that was the mistake. We need to show up for rewarding work. To make money and be it’s not and be fulfilled. You’re not fulfilled until you are making money and winning. So product fulfillment is the winning. It’s doing both. And knowing you’re doing both, so I’m not going to take a job. Unless I know it gives me the opportunity to do what I do best. To make a difference in what I care about most. If that was why I worked. If that is why I chose a job to do what I do best, make a difference. What I care about it would change everything, I’m convinced. It would change everything. You would get readers that are in the role. Because they’re doing what they do best. Make a difference. What they care about most. You get managers with kids coming to them, saying, hey, this and this about the platform that and that about our origination strategy and it would be a completely different conversation, not because of how I trained.

Not because even of why I promoted them, not why I hired them, why they took the job in the first place. Because it was a chance to do what they do best. Make a difference to what they care about. If I could just stamp that on every kid that comes into this world and convince them to not take a job unless it answers that mandate. I think you’d have better rewarding work and more higher engagement scores, etc etc.

Rob
Absolutely. It’s it’s really about. Making sure that those opportunities are available to people at some point too, right, and not just people knowing that there is other opportunities there, but also saying, hey, this is accessible to you if you want this job, this is what you can do. So I think it like you said. Before fear drives a lot of our decision making, people are afraid if they don’t have a job I can’t pay my bills, so they’re not gonna go for that job that they want because they they they’re afraid they’re gonna lose their house, their car, whatever it is. Right. So is there something that when you’re speaking to people and you’re speaking to somebody? Who’s? Thinking about making a career change? Is there something you can say to them where it’s? Driving them away from fear and towards what? That potential is. What the what? That other side looks like.

Jake
Let me respond to your first part, which is to say. Leader. Is that? That want to create engaging workplaces, you said to create the opportunities. Hire people that are that can answer yes to this job can create an opportunity for me to do what I do best to make a difference. What I care about most if. Start hiring people and promoting people based on that criteria that this job will be fulfilling to them, rewarding to them.

That is what leaders can do. And so there is an opportunity. For leaders to help. But I do think that the responsibility is on each of us. We can’t rely on someone else. And so when we talk about now transitioning to that fear, why I don’t make the decision. Well, some days I’m much more patient than others, but. In my. More patient response to how do you get through fear? It’s I try and take people through. A decision and have them really feel the fear, really experience it, really in their heart, feel that the worst case scenario happened, right? I lost my house. I couldn’t pay the electricity. Whatever. Whatever. And then make a decision based on that and then I what I call follow the domino follow the Domo. OK. You just made whatever decision you made out of fear. What happens next? What happens next? What happens? Next, what happens next? What happens next? And ultimately, you’re on your deathbed with regrets, you know? With with life on on live. Right. You follow the domino with that and you get to that point. And somewhere along the line there’s probably a midlife crisis where you’ve you’ve left your wife and bought a Corvette and and just made stupid decisions. Whereas OK now. Let’s change that emotion. Let’s bring in the emotion of gratitude. Of abundance of possibility, of faith and belief in yourself and in your future. What decision do you do you take follow the domino and that’s my effort again to show instead of tell I again people don’t change when you tell. Them something.

You can show them and have them experience it. That would be my advice. Maybe do that on your own. Think through a decision a major life decision and go through. Go through the two. Domino’s Domino effects and see which one you prefer.

Rob
Yeah, it’s it’s something for, as you said, it’s not just leaders that need that advice. And bringing people together, it’s the individual themselves that’s looking for something else. In fact, it’s probably people that are working as an employee right now in part of a team rather than leaders themselves that actually. Need that? What am I going to do for the next thing? What do I want to do? How can I be more purpose driven and what I’m doing? I was thinking. In terms of. Leadership. I was thinking, how do you how do you communicate now? Most effectively with people that are. We have disparate teams all over the world. You’ve got a teams in different countries. How do you communicate online via e-mail and? Bring that message of your brand together. That unified vision for a company. If you have it, how do you communicate that to a wide group of people when we’re all sort of, you know, we’re all you, you and I and. Wakanda. You know, talking from different parts of the parts of the world, you guys in the US and Canada, how do you? You. Get the right message across as a leader and speak to people that are perhaps separated by like, maybe not language barriers, but certainly cultural barriers and these kind of things that we have to think about now in today’s world. But we are now working in different parts of the country and sort of on different projects. What is the? Communication tools that you would recommend to leaders.

Jake

So. The problem you’re trying to solve in that question. Is how do you get the hearts? Of people. And how do you get them committed to what they’re being paid to to do? And it’s not often a communication problem is actually a credibility problem. The leadership itself is not walking whatever talking they’re doing. So the first step to earning the hearts of people, no matter where they are, physically or not. If they’re working virtually, is to make sure, as a leadership team, you’re walking your talk.

And there’s a self-awareness that comes with that and people often miss two important parts of self-awareness. They usually just think about. How do I tend to act and how does that affect others? That’s one aspect. Of self-awareness. The second aspect of self-awareness is where do I come from? What do I stand for? What’s important to me? Why? Why am I here? Basically, who am I at my core identity? So there’s an identity self-awareness that we often miss. And then there’s a human self-awareness that we overlook very often as leaders because we think we’re superhuman. But the cognitive biases the limitations are finite abilities, and just the fact that we all need grace and we all need forgiveness. And we all mess up. That human self-awareness though, when you add those three up you you get a leader who? Walks their talk. And that takes work that takes coaching to get self-awareness on all three of those important most coaches even miss. The all three of those parts of self-awareness and import. Once you get that in place and leaders are walking the talk now, how do you win the hearts? I look at countries and how they do it. They have a flag, they have an anthem, they have common language, they have rituals, they have holidays.

Celebrations. Heroes. Stories. You look at what brings the country together. It’s the same thing that brings any group together. It’s the same artifacts, rituals and traditions, and those are the kind of things that you you establish in your organization and then you can live in Toronto, you know, in Toronto or or Vancouver and still be Canadian. And it’s because of those common, common and consistently common. Aspects of the culture that bring you together and that’s that’s. Whole nother conversation about instilling culture.

Mukund
So in your analogy of. Organization being like a mini country. Right. The key difference is organization is kind of. At will employment. Either they can leave, they can fire you, or you can leave. It’s much harder to do in a country. What I’m trying to say is. The power is not with you in an organization. Right, for various reasons. So in in such a scenario, the question Rob is asking in terms of you know, how can you force, how can you cultivate this oneness? That, you know, we are one like the single messaging. Has it been an effective kind of a strategy you. Think. Just because the balance of power is not with you in an organization but in a country, you are one in millions of people, right? Nobody’s going to throw you out of a country in a normal day, but everybody gets. Fired from their jobs. Right. I’m just. I’m just curious, you know, because it’s. I know the analogy you’re trying to make, but this kind of a curveball in terms in terms of the.

Jake
Yeah. You know, sometimes when people throw curveballs, you choose not to swing right. That’d be one option. But I’ll swing at this curveball. There is a difference you mccoon. I know you well enough to know that you have a heritage. People who have left their country. So there is power in the employee too. And as we talked about before, Rob and your question.

There is more power than we realize. If we can get through. To the other side of fear. But at the same time it is at will. They can fire us anytime. So can you really create one? As you know, there’s the whole concept of we’re not a family, we’re a team. Don’t call us a family because you’re not stuck with us. We can we can part ways anytime. But we’re A-Team here to perform and we’re going to perform while we’re all together as best as we can. And if we to make personnel changes, we will.

Mukund
Right.

Jake
And I get it, you know. Let me take an even bigger picture and that is that. We all die. So eventually we all leave this earth and this is all temporary anyway, so whether it’s an hour we have together or a lifetime we have together, it’s still temporary.

Mukund
That’s very true. Yeah, yeah.

Jake
So from my perspective, I say if I’m going to interact with somebody, I’m going to treat it and give it everything I have. And B in. As best as I know how to be in to make the best at that moment, that temporary moment, and it could be 7 minutes, it could be 70 years. You know. Whatever. Like, why would I hold back? Because I’m afraid of what? Rejection happens all the time, afraid of losing. It happens all the time, afraid of it ending, everything ends.

Mukund
So, so stay in the moment and enjoy the current situation as your.

Jake
You give it everything. Give it everything while you’re there and who cares if they fire you? The next day. Whatever. You were gonna die anyway, so gonna finish. You know like. I don’t know. That’s my. That’s my perspective. I think it’s healthy sometimes just to remember that everything is temporary in life. And So what are you going to do, not give everything just because it’s not going to last?

Rob
That’s a good point. It’s, it’s. It’s something that people also are afraid to think about, obviously is death. That temporary part of it. But when you think about it in that term, really the losing your job, not having the right job, it’s really it’s immaterial at that point. All of it is immaterial. It’s going for what you want. Will help you now and this is all we have, we all we only have now. We don’t know what will happens in the future. You absolutely right.

Jake
You only got one life to spend. You know. And and what people hear sometimes is irresponsibility in this. And. What happens when we? Follow our head. And try and be, you know, completely responsible and stifle the heart is that midlife crisis I talked about. That’s that’s just what happens. Inevitably, if you if you hold out through the midlife crisis and continue the same way to just live with your head. You’re gonna, and you’re just gonna die with regret. It’s just what happens. What we’re talking about is not ignoring one or the other, but doing. Both.

But leading with your heart and using your head to get your heart where it wants to go. Does your heart is the least likely to change. Your heart comes from how you were raised, your experiences with your parents and your siblings and your community when you were young. And as you developed and have these material experiences, that’s what your heart. Longs for? That’s what your heart wants again. And so when we get into our adult life, as we try and stifle that heart, it it just like. It just gets to the point where it’s. Gonna explode. It’s gonna be like enough. Enough for this nonsense already. Give me what I want. So instead of getting to that point where it explodes, what we’re saying is use your head. Be smart about it. Get paid. To do what you do best to make a difference in what you. Care about most? Is using your head to. Get your heart where it wants to go. And that’s a lifelong journey because we experiences happen, things change, we get new, you know, someone dies of cancer. I have a a child born with some some ailment, and all of a sudden my priorities change. What matters to me changes and I got it. Now. My heart wants something different and I need to use my head to figure out how. To get my heart what it was.

Mukund
You’re using your head to get what your heart wants. That’s. And of by were to live by I believe.

Jake
Yeah, yeah. And it’s it’s backwards from the way most of us do it, especially by the time we show up. Looking for a job? We think it’s one or the other, but it’s both. You got to do both. Lead with your heart. Use the head.

Mukund
That is true. That makes sense.

Rob
So yeah, we talked a little bit about businesses, about leadership now, but I’m curious like what, what is it you’re passionate about outside of your leadership work?

Jake
Hey, you know not to interrupt you, but the way you introduced. Me was perfect. You know, I I love being a guy and. I’m a guy that work. I I take every chance to be a guide. I coach my kids soccer teams to guide them. I I guide at my I’m a youth minister. I guide those kids as best as I can. At home with my wife and sometimes, like I said, being a guide means you got to explore and. You mentioned the dead ends is so true. Sometimes I hit dead ends and like I did with banking. And want to guide people around that mind around that dead end. I so I love to to be a guy and I grew up in Belgium. My father worked for NATO. And so as a. Self identified bells, although my passport is US. I ride. I bike I cycle. Eddie Merck I grew up in the town where Eddie Mercs grew up. Just there, near Tiverton. Belgium and so I ride and and I do have a a bike Tour Company that I spend a lot of time on the weekends. So we say outside of work I have a bike Tour Company that I run called New Jersey bike tours.

And there’s a lot I could say about it, but that’s how I spend my a lot of my weekends, a lot of my Saturdays, and then Sunday. Like I said, I’m at church with my family guiding.

Rob
When you’re on the bike, do you do you use that to get away from the business side of things or do you, are you still focused on? What goes on on a day-to-day basis when you’re on the bike?

Jake
You know business, no. I let that go for sure. But everything I do is so human. I’m still. Just zeroed in on the human you know, dynamic and I tell everyone we guide with why do I love cycling? Because it’s a full sensory experience. I go through this tour, this experience. Full sensory. And so it is a bit of if you would. You could call it an escape, but there’s nothing I’m escaping from. For me, it’s more I’m going deeper into. What it is that I love about my about being human? Deeper into the. 5 senses and then The Sixth Sense for me is movement. So you’ve got, you know, seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting, that’s all happening on the bike and you’ve got movement, which is, for me, a sixth sense, more like the heart, you know, going. And it’s a full it’s a full. It’s a way to experience life more fully.

Rob
Yeah, it’s almost like we were talking about Flora. It’s it’s a complete idea of being in the moment. It’s it’s all the senses at once. It’s sort of being moving forward as a group. When you’re on a tour and being part of something bigger than yourself, right.

Jake
That’s right, yeah. And all the analogies with cycling and leadership and leadership teams are all very relevant that I use often, even on my tours. If I get people that I know are in leadership positions outside of the tour, you know. I give them a if you would a little. Three. It consulting through the tour, but look. I mean relationships are #1 and I’m meeting new people on these tours. It’s like relationships are where joy happens. And yes, there are more important relationships than others. But. I don’t know. I like people, so we hang out. We’re eating. A big part of my tours are farm table tours or vineyard tours, but either way it’s going
to be food. And food is something we all have in common.

Mukund
Good nights, people.

Jake
Yep, food, nice people. And then I throw in a little bit of, like I said, full sensory experience movement. And just like using the heart and using the body. And so I just feel like, what a, what a wonderful way to spend time. And it’s so simple. That’s all we’re doing. And people will pay for it. I pay for it. I do bike tours when I go out and travel too, because because it’s so humid.

Mukund
Something about being out there in nature with the blood flowing, yeah.

Jake
Yeah, that’s wonderful. You know, there’s that freedom. Accomplishment. Triumph. That comes with it. When you’re when when you get a nice, especially with your Rd. Rd. biking you get a nice smooth road and you’re just. Just like you’re floating and just. You know, cranking it up.

Yeah. It’s it’s rewarding. And you know what I do? A lot of. Things, but what happens? But I choose very intentionally things that. Help me do what I that allow me to do what I do best. Make a difference in in the. Things I care about most.

And. I come to each new part of my life with more energy. That’s the goal. If a bike tour, if bike touring and it happens starts to take my energy. I have a handful of contractors that I call to help me run the tours for me. I got to take a break. If. The church ministering is starting to take my energy. It’s volunteer. It’s time out. It’s like we’re taking a couple of weeks off. It’s not working.

You asked earlier, how do I keep focus on? Staying fulfilled and saying, you know, yeah.

Rob
Yeah.

Jake
And I think. Being honest with and prioritizing. And. Growing your energy through your activities instead of doing activities that take energy. And recognizing that the same activity under different circumstances can be. One or the other.

Rob
Yeah, I was going to ask you, actually, how do you recognize when something is taking your energy? Do you just go get that that day? You know, you. Don’t feel it like what is that experience?

Jake
Yeah, I do. I reflect a lot, so part of my daily practice is a daily reflection and I’m paying attention to. My emotions very, very intentionally. Am I positive or negative in these emotions? And where is it coming from? And it’s not a lot of times. Sometimes it’s as much as. A handful of minutes. Other times I’ll spend half hour hour to it. I schedule it on my calendar. It’s scheduled. And the one thing I found through my whole life, one reason why I’m a guy is because when I was young. Here. In the NATO. State Department community there was such diversity in that community and obviously I love it because that’s what I grew up with, right? But such diversity. And for whatever reason, I was there from 1st to 12th grade. Everyone else is moving every two, three, five years.

And so the new kid would come in, they say, go talk to Jake. Look at you. And so I was the guide. For all these kids that would come in and I realized that when I was at Duke Raccoon, I remember being in one of our immersion events late at night. You know, after project just thinking. That I care about. What is it that would get me going and I went back to my youth and I realized as a kid I kept being put in that position to be a guy. And so there’s something about guiding and ultimately I ended up in consulting. It took me a little while, but ultimately. And and and so that that has always been. I’ve seen that in my. Childhood and I. Said what made me a good guy? Why did people come? Listen me sure. I had the experience. Sure, I was a I thought you know a decent listener. I cared about people. I wanted the best, you know. And I believed in in humanity.

Rob
Yeah.

Jake
And so I believe the Japanese, you know. All my Japanese friend could be friends with Erkan. My Turkish friend would be friends with you know, Jessica from South Africa. And I’m not even making up those or three, you know, three people I hung out with.

But I realized it’s because I took time as a kid to reflect. I’m journals because I couldn’t. I couldn’t figure it out at times like. How come this? Turkish kid is so frustrated right now with. Such and such. A person and I’m you know, I’m like. We’re trying to be a football team here, American football, and I get it that they don’t know how to play, but still we can we can play, we can play nice.

Rob
Yeah.

Jake
We don’t need to argue with each other so. Where is that and I and I. Felt that responsibility as a kid. And as a kid, my solution was. To work it out in writing. What’s going on? To the point where I can go back to my Turkish kid and go back to this other kid and be like, look, guys, I think this is what’s going on. And I think this is how we can get through it. You with me? And so I kept. I have kept intentionally that practice because I believe it’s what made me useful. As a guide in my early years, and I think it continues to serve me well. Now as a guide. In any setting.

Rob
Yeah, Mccune and I actually spoke about that in our last podcast. We talked about inspirational love that what inspired us to get into our careers. And that’s a great point you made about. Seeing what what impact you could have on even child as a child, you knew I could have this impact on other children bringing them together. You knew what they needed before they needed it themselves, and that’s something that McCann talks about being an engineer and figuring things out, and that’s what he loved doing. I talked about my career as a writer and be a communicator, and that’s what I enjoyed doing. But we both figured it out from a young age. We were lucky. We figured it out as kids to be able to go. This is both what we’re good at. And what we. Enjoy doing, and oftentimes I think people. Either they don’t figure it out or that they don’t look. They don’t look around and they don’t look like as you were talking about. Reflect, they don’t reflect on their positive experiences, right? Well, they don’t see what that experience was and they don’t know what the how they benefit. From it, is there something about the idea of writing down that experience that you think like whether it’s in business or personally writing something down that? Helps you ingrain that into your mind and sort of like allows you to sort of reflect more effectively.

Jake
I haven’t found another way. You know I’ve tried to do the electronic even, you know, I do notes. I take notes that I that are easily searchable so I can go back and take them. So when I write something. Down, if there’s a key. Message that I want to get. And you know, I have yet to use those notepads these days, where you can write because I also, I also find it valuable to be able to just flip back. Just flip back and read, not looking for anything. That’s the difference. I’m not looking for anything. I’m just flipping back 3-4 months and reading what I. Wrote oh oh. And then you know and then moving on. I don’t do that. If it’s electronic, I have to know what I’m looking for, search for it, get it.

Mukund
You need something tangible, right? Like to put the pages physically.

Jake
Yeah. Right and.

Rob
Yeah. You’re not gonna hit control F and try to find some subject that you can give.

Jake
Exactly those opportunistic, if you would and and what I’m reminded of just by flipping through the pages of written tests.

Rob
It’s almost like our brains need that our brains need that pattern recognition to figure it, figure everything out. It’s interesting.

Jake
Yeah.

Rob
I don’t have any any good questions to continue anymore because do you have anything to add?

Jake
Right.

Mukund
I just wanted to ask Jake, right. So in terms of leadership and in terms of value that some that somebody brings or tries to understand how to contribute to a team. Has there been a disconnect in the expectation? And what they can bring to the team? Does the question make sense in terms of, say for example, there’s an expectation of you as May as my manager from me? But. That’s not what I bring to the team, right? How was it that you, as my manager identifies that or fails to identify that? And you know what? I know the repercussions are pretty bad, but what would? Have you? Do you have an example of such a situation?

Jake
Yeah. Well, I’m just thinking of another example like when I brought my strengths Finder to my manager. She told me. I want you running. The analytics. You’re my best person with numbers. And. I was like, I’ll do it, but it’s not. Really what gets me excited like I’ll put. Very little extra time into that assignment. But I’ll put. A lot of discretionary time into this. Origination strategy because that gets me interested, you know, and she shut it down and and I. I think. Honestly, I think it was my fault from the beginning because I took the job for the wrong reason. It was my fault. I had to own it. Well, I didn’t have to. If I chose to own it, I got to be where I am today.

If I decided I was a victim, I would still be there, miserable. And like I said, divorce and driving a Corvette or whatever, right? It was my choice. It wasn’t her fault. That the expectations were different. There was a very clear need that was defined and I had failed to really understand. What fulfilled me? And so I took the job for the wrong reasons. And so I just think it’s it’s you’re a life iteration if you would. That I learned from that experience. And so then I iterated. And try to find something that fit better and fit better and fit better.

Mukund
That. Yeah, that makes sense. So instead of you going in with. I think there’s a disconnect in your expectation of the job rather than your managers expectation of you.

Jake
Yeah. I mean, if you can change if you can have a conversation and get to that point where you rely on expectations. But I wouldn’t. Expect just. Again, fight, accept or run. I often say was the acronym is far you know it. You can if you choose to accept, you’ll go far together. If you choose to fight, you’ll go far apart. And if you choose to run well, you know that’s I don’t have a line for that one, but.

Mukund
It’s like the it’s like the fight flight or freeze response, right? When you are in a special situation.

Jake
It is. It’s just another way to rephrase the same idea and.

Mukund
Yeah.

Jake
I I I just think it’s such a waste of time to spend. You can try once, maybe twice. Like I said, try not to tell, show show them a product I should have if I were to do that over again and really want to do it right, I would. I probably should have said, hey, let me just show. You what I can do? From an origination strategy, instead of telling her that I wanted to do it, show it. And then if that still didn’t change things. Just don’t waste your time. People don’t change. Organizations don’t change very much. And unless it’s a relationship that you need or are committed to already for a longer term, then you got to face those fears. You have follow the dominoes and you decide how you want your.

Rob
That’s such a good point about. Taking ownership of your own situation, you decide what happens next. I think a lot of people are sort of stuck in this idea of my boss decides my future. My, whatever it is, I’m I’m afraid of this my you know. If it’s a relationship thing, my wife will go for it like you can decide you can decide what happens next. You just have to take ownership of your. Situation. That’s a great point.

Jake
Yeah, and. And so I talk about this often you have. Influence in life, I can try and influence these people, I think Mukund, at a certain point, your question is one about influence, how we influence expectations. But there’s only one thing you control. In this world, there’s only one thing you control. That’s you. That’s it. You’re not going to be able to control anything else. Not your kids. Not even your income, not. Your career, we are under the illusion of control of all these things, but we don’t control anything except ourselves. So. So do it control you. Don’t let anybody else do it. You’re the only one that controls you, and you are the only thing that you control.

Mukund
100%. I think that’s kind of a. Catch. All right, Jake? You know that’s a not a parting thought, but kind of a catch all. What you say it is in terms of. And there’s a big topic, right? So so we can’t really go into the nitty gritty of it, but I think we gave a very good. Exposure, or rather, your experience in leadership in terms of your value, what you bring to the table expectations, I think we covered. Touch based on a lot of different aspects. Of. Who you are, right and what you want to get out of life. Right as a kind of wrap wrap it up kind of a thing. What would you say is kind of a catch all for this?

Jake
I I agree Mukund, I think that does it. I think that control is a good is a good place to finish because everything starts there. That’s where you start to address the fear. That’s where you start to make choices that are aligned more to what your heart. Wants. And less your head. And Rob, I appreciate you and Mapoon guide in this conversation. The good questions you asked. I hope that it’s of use, if not to anyone else, at least to the. Three of us. To live more fulfilled and more rewarding lives.

Mukund
And what you said, Rob? Actually it did hit. A lot of my own thinking as well, and I think Rob as well, because Rob and I talk almost every day. So it’s kind of we’re on the same page in terms of wavelength, in terms of what the expectations. Are. It was very interesting.

Jake
Excellent. Well, thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure.

Mukund
You. Know.

Rob
Yeah. Thanks, Jake. We really appreciate your time and it’s it’s been so rewarding to hear. Yeah, as I said, this sort of like hit on some of the things we’ve been talking about before, even in a few previous podcasts that we’ve done, just the ideas of reflection and and leadership and engaging in your own mind and what you wanna do. And I think these are such important topics to to be talking about, even as you said, if it’s just the three of us, great. But if if anyone else can. Benefit from it, I think. I think a lot of people will.

Mukund
Definitely.

Jake
Good work, you guys.

Mukund
So once again, thank you, Rob. Thank you Jake for your time.

Rob
Thank you, Jen. Thank you, Megan.

Mukund
Thank you. Thanks bye. Bye.