Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Cause I love you so much, man. Seriously.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: I love you too. I'm serious about that, too.
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, I just wanted a chance to sit with you.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: I know. I know. Focus is gonna be hard here today.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: We're just
[00:00:09] Speaker B: gonna be like,
[00:00:10] Speaker A: I don't really care if anyone films it. If at the end you're like, sorry, we didn't hit record,
[00:00:14] Speaker B: it'll be worth it.
[00:00:15] Speaker A: I don't care.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:17] Speaker A: Dude, it's seriously blown up. Like, you walk in the building and are stopped by people who recognize you because of the working genius.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Well, today I walked into the building, and this woman came up to me, and I used to work around this building a lot. And so she said, pat Lyncione. And I thought I must have known her from that. She said, shut up. That's what she said to me.
And she had just been doing a working genius session in the building. She doesn't work here, and she knows our stuff. We talked for. It was amazing. A lot. I'm so thankful to God that people are using working genius because it's changing their families, their marriages, their workplaces, everything, their view of themselves.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: You woke up with the working genius in your head. Like, this is a serious. Like, a literal gift from God. Oh, like, tell me how this popped for you.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Yeah, all good things are.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: But I was actually, interestingly enough, I was actually at work one day six years ago, little over six years ago, and I was on a zoom call working with a bunch of priests, teaching them how to do management, which I love. I was, like, excited talking to them. And then I had another zoom call meeting with a group of people, and I had to give them some kind of difficult feedback and exhort them to do better. And I was really bummed.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: And
[00:01:27] Speaker B: then I had another meeting right after that where I was coming up with a new idea for a podcast, of all things. And the woman with me, Amy, said, why are you like that? I was like, what do you mean? And she goes, you get so happy, and then you're so frustrated. And I was pretty sure I wasn't manic depressive. It's just like. I was like, I don't know, but I've been like this for 20 years.
I was going to work every day doing work I loved with people I loved, excited about it. And sometime during the day, I would get bummed out, and I would be like, what is going on? I'm so spoiled. And that day, when she asked me that question, I said, I don't know what the answer is, but I Want to figure it out? And over the course of four hours, which I don't remember very well, and I remember, I think that was a grace because it came up and I don't recall it. And after it happened, I thought, yeah, that's God's way of going, I'm not gonna let this stick to you, because it was a gift and it was so beyond anything I was gonna come up with.
And so I figured out what it was, and I came up with these six different kinds of work that I was doing, and only two of them I liked, two of them I didn't like, and two of them I hated. And I thought, oh, thank you, God. I finally realized why I'm getting so upset.
And then someone saw it and they said, this works. And somebody saw it the next day and there was a CEO in tears because he realized, this is what's going on with me. And then Laura and I were using it at home with our kids and our friends and our family, and we realized this is universal. So we came up with an assessment, launched it four months later. Matt, my son, who just got married, helped us develop it with my team at the table group. And 2 million people have used this. It's growing. 2
[00:03:09] Speaker A: million people.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we're just now getting serious about marketing it. Cause I'm a bad. Are
[00:03:14] Speaker A: you serious? Before seriously leaning into marketing.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: Yeah, like, I mean, we put some stuff out there. Yeah. And we have in the last few months, but we're gonna actually take it seriously. We're a company of 14 people and this thing is blowing up, but, you know,
[00:03:28] Speaker A: it's just life changing. That's why.
And actually, it's funny, I remember you. I don't know why. It was in my head, logged in my head as you waking up with it. You actually walk up from a daydream with it kinda.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: You almost kind of space out all the stuff of all the years of business you've done and advising people, all of it just kind of.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: If you think things come from you, you're in big trouble.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: Yeah,
[00:03:52] Speaker B: all good things come from God. That's just truth.
And when he gives us a gift, which the working genius itself is about the gifts God gives us, you can't brag about if somebody says, hey, that's the coolest shirt ever.
And by the way, way to go. I'm wearing that black T shirt today because I never get to see one. One of those
[00:04:09] Speaker A: I know, ever.
[00:04:10] Speaker B: But if somebody said, hey, that's really cool, you wouldn't Brag. You'd go, oh, yeah, my mom gave it to me. She's awesome. And all of our gifts, our work and geniuses are gifts from God. So nobody should brag about what they're good at. They should go, God, let me be good at something.
And so that's what humility is. It's like, yeah, I'm good at this. It's not me.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: The way it's changed my life, too, is by relieving me of all the things I think I should be good at.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: Oh,
[00:04:38] Speaker A: right.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: Huge.
[00:04:39] Speaker A: Like, if I'm gonna lead anything, even a small Catholic organization, like, I do, it's like, well, then you have to be an administrator,
[00:04:46] Speaker B: right?
[00:04:46] Speaker A: You have to be a certain kind of guy who might like wearing a shirt and tie. You have to be. And all these. This preconceived garbage. I'm like. I'm, like, putting upon myself, and I'm not fitting, and then judging myself for failing and then realizing, like, wait, wait, there's a way God's made me particularly. And you put language on it and apply it to work, and it's freeing, man.
[00:05:10] Speaker B: We decided when this came out that the most powerful thing about it is it alleviates us of unnecessary guilt and. And judgment.
Because when you realize God didn't give you all the gifts and the things you really are horrible at, it's not something for you to curse or to feel bad about, but you should celebrate those just as much as everything else. Like, you and I have some similar ones. I am horrible at finishing things.
Now, that's not an excuse.
It's just a reality.
So now when I struggle with that, I can go, okay, I have to finish this. But I hate doing this. I'm really bad at it.
I can then offer that up and do my very best without feeling like, what's wrong with me? You know what's wrong with me? God didn't give me any tenacity.
That's one of the six working geniuses. And I can now go praise God. I don't have that one. And praise God, I have this one. And praise God that that person over there has the one that I don't have. And I can celebrate them. And. And we can work together, the body of Christ, and complete one another. Whereas in the past, we all thought we had to work on the things we were bad at. In fact, we were raised that way.
Like, if you have two kids, one who's creative, one's disciplined, you go, you should be more creative like your brother. You should be more disciplined. Like your sister. And it's like, actually, no.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Or thinking I should feel bad for asking for someone to help me to do the part that I can't do, and then wake up and realizing, like, for your team of 14 to come around you. And it's not just talk where you, as a leader, are saying, oh, I really need you. It's a team effort. No, no. They know, like,
[00:06:47] Speaker B: I'm desperate for what you're good at.
[00:06:49] Speaker A: Right. Like, I'll just sit in a room and have cool ideas.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:52] Speaker A: Which really doesn't do anything in the world if it isn't for the dude in the room over there operating the camera right now, John Menides.
You know, and. Yeah. For people to be the finishers. We both have teams as the frustration.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: Right.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Okay, walk us through the working genius. Because, honestly, you take the test, we'll put a link below the video to the test.
But just hearing the walkthrough also, people, I would guess that, like, 75% of the time you hear it, and you're like. You kind of guess what you are.
[00:07:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:07:20] Speaker A: Then you solidify it with the last 25%.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: Yeah. And so it goes like this. There's six verbs, essentially, for tasks that are required in any kind of work. And that's whether you're running a company, operating a podcast, running a family, planning a vacation, rebuilding your home, anything you do with others.
Work, home, anything is work.
And there's six different activities that are required in any project, any program, anything you do.
And of those six, only two of them we love.
[00:07:56] Speaker A: And those are your geniuses.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: Yeah. And when we say we love them, it gives you joy and energy.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: It's the cup with the lid on, right? Yeah.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: It's
[00:08:04] Speaker A: never losing heat.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: It's the. Yeah. It's the yeti mug that you screw the lid on. It holds the heat all day.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:09] Speaker B: And so,
[00:08:10] Speaker A: dude, I'm sorry. Was this.
I don't know if this is before you came up with the genius or after, but I came to your office when you were in Walnut Creek, and I was so exhausted with life, and I was trying to do too many of the things in my little business by myself.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: And you're like, we're gonna start a podcast together. I'm like, pat, I just told you that I have too much to do. And you're like, no, no, you're doing the wrong things. What you need is more of the thing that you like that heats the cup up. Was that before you even came to work at Jesus?
[00:08:35] Speaker B: I Think it was just after.
[00:08:36] Speaker A: Just after.
[00:08:36] Speaker B: And it's.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: You nailed it though.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: People that say they're burnt out, people go, you should work less.
And it's like, no, actually, you should do more of what feeds you and less of what drains you.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:49] Speaker B: Because what happens is people are like, I'm really burnt out at work. And they go, take a vacation, take two weeks off, go sit around and think about how awful it's going to be when you go back to work and have to do the things.
And so in my office, I would get kind of burnt out and people would go, we're going to take things off your schedule. And I go, not that that's the one thing that gets me out of bed in the morning. So what we should do is figure out what our geniuses are. So let's keep going through the six.
[00:09:14] Speaker A: Hey, guys, thanks so much for watching the show. Our mission at Real Life Catholic is to help people come alive in the life that God made them for. I know you're passionate about that life. That's why you're watching. Help other people find that life too. Click below this video. Become a missionary of joy today. Your monthly gift keeps the show going and so much more. The confirmation program we're creating for teens right now to help them find who they are by learning whose they are.
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[00:10:07] Speaker B: So the six. There's six types of working genius. Let's just go through them really quickly. The first one, we're going to go in order from highest elevation down to on the ground, getting things done.
And there's kind of a sequence to it. So the first genius is one you have. It's called wonder. The genius of asking big questions and pondering things constantly, like, why are things like that? There's probably a better way to do this. Hey, let's try something else. Maybe there's a better way. People with the genius of wonder, when their kids are told there's something wrong with you, focus, get things done. They don't go, hey, you're staring out the window in class. You're probably really Deep and thoughtful. They're like, what's wrong with you? You're not focused enough.
Rarely when I talk to people about the genius of wonder do they go, oh, yeah, it was great when I was a kid, because we don't recognize in our kids the genius of wonder. My wife has it.
She used to jump up on a trampoline all day long and just ponder things.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: We shame the kid who's made to be an entrepreneur and tell him, you should be an accountant. You should be good at doing the thing that the other kid in class is good at.
[00:11:12] Speaker B: And God bless the accountants. It's just a different thing. So wonder is the first thing, and it happens at 30,000ft up in the clouds.
And that's where innovation starts. Somebody has to ask the question.
And the working genius came about. Cause Amy turned to me one day and said, why are you like that? She didn't know why.
She just asked. I'm curious.
Why do you think you get like that? Somebody has to ask the question. And then comes the next thing, which is invention. The person who hears the question and goes, I have an idea. I think I can solve that. And as it turns out, that's your other genius. So after this, it's just downhill.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:11:47] Speaker B: Because this is where we go from 30,000ft in the clouds down to 20, where somebody goes, ooh, great question.
I'm gonna come up with an answer.
[00:11:54] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a fun place to live.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: It is. You
[00:11:57] Speaker A: could circle around from 35 to 30,000ft all day.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: That's what you love.
[00:12:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:05] Speaker B: And those two things together are what's called ideation. And your full genius is in ideation. So is my wife.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: As it turns out, I think like my two favorite people in the world. You're not first, you're second.
You and Laura are wis.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: I got second place after your wife. I'm sorry, Pat's kids.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, yeah, Yeah. I mean, outside of my generation.
So WIs are called creative dreamers.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: I'll take that, man. I'll sit there all day and
[00:12:37] Speaker B: imagine if you knew your child was a creative dreamer.
[00:12:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:41] Speaker B: If your parents had recognized that. Laura's parents had. And they're like, oh, that's how God made them.
I'm not gonna crush them by saying. I can say like, hey, Chris, you're probably gonna have to learn to tidy up a little bit more and follow through on some things, but don't do it at the expense of your question asking and your invention.
Those are the first two. Those are the first two. Okay. The next genius after we get down to 20,000ft, the invention. Then we go to something called discernment, which in the Catholic world, we think of, like, discerning your vocation. Discernment is really instinct and intuition, gut feel, pattern recognition. It's the kind of person you go to and say, what do you think's going on here? And they look at it and they go, I think it's that. And you go, how do you know? And they go, I don't know. My gut is just telling me that I think that, right. Your wife has this.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: Matt. Your Matt has
[00:13:32] Speaker B: this. Matt will sit back and watch things and go, that's the answer.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: And you know what's cool? You've identified this with Matt. His W and I are low, so
[00:13:40] Speaker B: his W is high. His I is gone.
[00:13:42] Speaker A: His I is gone, his W's high.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: So I'll come up with something with my eye, and he'll go. He literally will be brainstorming at work, and he'll go, that's a terrible idea. And I used to say to him, well, unless you have something better. He goes, no, I don't have anything better. Not an I. But my D tells me that one
[00:13:57] Speaker A: isn't going to work. Your idea sucks. Or that idea is great and he'll nail it.
[00:14:00] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:14:01] Speaker A: But if you don't understand the working genius, you'll hear that and think criticism. He's just a stinker. He just likes to criticize. It's like, no. He's just operating in his giftedness, and he's glowing. If you could see it, he.
[00:14:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:13] Speaker A: And receive it.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: And now we can go, I love you. He's a wd. That's the contemplative counselor. Like, you ask him a question, he's, like, really thoughtful and insightful. I never knew this about him growing up.
So anyway, we're going through the W and I. Dang. And then comes discernment, which is that gut, feel, instinct, pattern recognition.
They're really good at evaluating. So you're a wi. When there's a D with you, you're like, hey, I have three ideas for a podcast. That one's great. That one needs work. That one don't want to do it. Don't do that
[00:14:41] Speaker A: one.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: And you can go, oh, good,
[00:14:45] Speaker A: I'm a wi. Then D next.
[00:14:48] Speaker B: But
[00:14:48] Speaker A: the WI are so powerful.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: Exactly. That
[00:14:51] Speaker A: if a D isn't with me, I could just stay up here.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: Exactly. Because the difference between it being one of your two geniuses versus it being one of the Next two, which we call your working competencies.
When somebody has it as a genius, like if somebody came to you and says, hey, I think I'm okay at invention, you go, yeah, yeah. But you don't understand.
I get up in the morning every day and God made me for this. I
[00:15:14] Speaker A: can't turn it off.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: Exactly. Okay, so there's D is the third one. And then after D, after somebody uses their gut feel and evaluates and curates and says, this is a good idea, then comes the next one, which is called galvanizing.
Galvanizers are people who wake up in the morning and hope somebody lets them rally the troops, inspire, sell, motivate. Yeah. They're like, it's like, I wish somebody would get these people together. Like, I'll do it.
[00:15:42] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: There are people in the world who love to be up in front of people and motivating them or even pushing them beyond their limits.
And it's a gift.
It's not one of my geniuses. And I was doing it every day for more than 20 years at work. That's what was bumming me out.
I was totally burnt out. I'd come to work wanting to I and D. Those
[00:16:04] Speaker A: are mine. Is it a frustration for you or competency?
[00:16:06] Speaker B: It's a competency. Even if you have to. If you're over leaning into a competency,
[00:16:11] Speaker A: it's tiring.
[00:16:12] Speaker B: You get burnt out.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: Well, it's the cup with no lid.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: Yes. The
[00:16:15] Speaker A: heat leaves it. It's not pouring out the bottom. Like the frustration.
[00:16:17] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:16:18] Speaker A: Right. So lid, no lid, holes in the
[00:16:20] Speaker B: bottom. It's a Starbucks cup.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: Yep. There you go.
[00:16:22] Speaker B: I can do it for a while, but I was doing it every day and I was like, oh, I can't do
[00:16:26] Speaker A: this anymore. It gets fried.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: Yeah. So I found somebody in my organization who loved to g said, you're the new chief galvanizing officer.
[00:16:33] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:16:33] Speaker B: Isn't that great? Plenty
[00:16:34] Speaker A: of invention, discernment, galvanizing. And any of these might be your genius versus your competency versus your frustration.
[00:16:41] Speaker B: Yes. So
[00:16:42] Speaker A: it's not in this order.
[00:16:43] Speaker B: No, no, no, no, no. You're a wi.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: I'm a wi.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: I know people who are the last two.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: The last. I happen to be a widget. In that order?
[00:16:51] Speaker B: In total, the order of the model. Very few people are that. The last two are what's called implementation. The two in the middle are called activation. So you do ideation.
The middle two are like, I'm going to activate that. I'm going to evaluate it, decide when it's ready. And then get people excited.
The last two are called implementation.
So we go from galvanizing to enablement.
Enablement is people who have the gift, the God given gift. They get joy and energy out of coming alongside others and helping them do things. And they wake up every morning and say, I hope people ask me for my help today.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: A counselor, a piano teacher, someone who will say,
[00:17:26] Speaker B: a nurse.
[00:17:27] Speaker A: A nurse. Okay.
[00:17:28] Speaker B: And by the way, they can be in any field.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: There can be an E teacher who's like, when the kids come and go, can you help me with something? They're like, oh, yeah, there's WI teachers. You're like, I'm too busy. I'm coming up with this awesome new class so you can be a priest and be an E. We had this one guy write and say, well, I'll come to that later.
[00:17:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah,
[00:17:49] Speaker B: you and I focus.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: So
[00:17:51] Speaker B: enablement. There are people in the world who love when people ask them for help and they naturally quickly say yes because it feeds me.
You and I are followers of Jesus.
We don't have this in our genius or in our competency.
It's not that we don't love to help people, but we don't necessarily love to help them on their terms because that requires a certain genius that we just don't have. Now, did we do that for our kids? Yes. Should we do that for our wives? Yes. For our employees? Yes. It's just not as easy and natural.
[00:18:21] Speaker A: No. I like to inspire and move on.
[00:18:23] Speaker B: Yes. I
[00:18:24] Speaker A: love itinerant preaching. I show up in your church and I'm gone.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: Right.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: I'm not the pastor.
[00:18:30] Speaker B: Exactly. And it's like, come back the next day and remind me. And again and again. No, that's galvanizing.
[00:18:35] Speaker A: You're like, no, I already told you.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: Exactly. I'm moving on to the next day.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: Or you can read the Daily Anchor, you know, but yeah, I'm not sitting down with you with that. I'm sending it out. I'm giving a boost of inspiration. Yeah.
[00:18:47] Speaker B: And so enablement.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: So enablement.
[00:18:48] Speaker B: They're helpers and they're glue on teams.
And the last one is tenacity, which is T. And that's. They get joy and energy out of finishing things, which I'm like, there are not people in the world like this, are there? And they're like, yeah, if you get them started on something and don't let them take it through to the end, they're like, uncomfortable.
They're like, no, no, no, we can't leave this Hanging there. And I'm, on the other hand. I mean, I've written 14 books. I would have written zero if people with tenacity weren't around me, because I move on to the next thing.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: And so tenacity is when the plane lands. So it goes like this. I wonder. Here's an idea. Good idea. Not such a good idea. Needs more work. Let's get everybody excited. I'm volunteering. I'm gonna make sure it gets done.
[00:19:32] Speaker A: Boom. That was a phenomenal summary.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: So that's the six types of work in genius. And what a beautiful thing that God only gave us two.
We need others. Nobody but Christ himself could do all of them perfectly, every. All of us. And I love what you said about the working frustrations, because it's identifying your working frustrations at the liberation of not feeling guilty anymore.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't have to be a certain person that I'm not. And it also. I mean, it helps me appreciate people in their lanes.
[00:20:04] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:20:05] Speaker A: You know, like, especially if you're in a creative kind of field. Like, you are. Like, I am. Like, we're creating things. Then you have the people who are supposed to keep the boat, like, anchored in the right ways and not let everything go crazy and keep the budget. But typically, those people would start to hate each other.
[00:20:22] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:20:23] Speaker A: Right. But now I can say, whoa, you're so. You're beautiful at what you do.
[00:20:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: And I'm great at what I do. And let's run down the field side by side and just appreciate, like, that's just. I don't have that. And it's awesome to see it.
[00:20:35] Speaker B: And, you know, one of the reasons why that's such a challenge is because one man's trash is another man's treasure. But we all. If you don't know, like, working genius, you think, like, I don't want to ask them to do something I don't like doing.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: Yeah. I felt bad asking people to finish this.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: Exactly. And they would go, are you kidding?
[00:20:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: And I would think, well, they don't get to be involved in the creative process. They're like, I don't want to be involved in the creative process, dude. I hate that.
[00:20:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: I hired a guy who's an E.T. he's at the other end of you. Right. He's an implementer. You're an ideator. And when I hired him, I thought, hey, I'm gonna. This is before working genius came out. I'm going to. Here's the deal. You're gonna have a job where you come up with your own job title. You should just work on whatever you think is best. And success. Well, you tell me when you think you're done.
And that's like my kind of jump.
[00:21:22] Speaker A: Oh, yeah? Yeah.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: And he's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. What's wrong? I said, that's the best job ever. He goes, no, that's the worst job ever.
[00:21:28] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:21:29] Speaker B: I want to know what you expect of me, what success looks like, what the parameters are, the things that would crush us are the things that they enable him to feel great.
[00:21:43] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:21:44] Speaker B: So I want to tell a story about you and me.
[00:21:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, let's do it.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: This is going to be not controversial.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: And by the way, I use this language all the time in my staff.
And this helps me as a boss not to scare people, because I'll send big ideas out in an email that I can't contain. But I'll always say, now WI warning. Because if I don't do that, I cause chaos.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: Because everybody thinks I'm directing, and I have to say, no, no, I'm not g. Right now. This is just an idea, and I want you just to log it and we'll talk about it some other day.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: I did it today. Cody, my business partner helping run the company, I threw out an idea, and I said, there is no galvanizing in this at all. Frankly, I don't even know if there's any discernment yet. This is just pure I.
And then they can respond to it. Cause otherwise, you're in charge, and they're, like, going off to do it.
[00:22:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Then you're burning everybody out.
Or to tell people who are high T.
Like, you don't have to come to this WI meeting. And you know what? No one's gonna blame you for not being engaged.
You're super engaged. You just want us to decide what you're gonna be engaged with, and that's okay.
[00:22:40] Speaker B: And sometimes you say, I want you to be there to watch the sausage being made, but you're gonna have to sit there and not bring up the budget yet. Cause we're just brainstorming.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: But similarly, you. So,
[00:22:49] Speaker A: yeah, let's do it. Yeah. Yeah,
[00:22:50] Speaker B: well. And one of the best stories ever. I tell this all the time. Is you.
[00:22:53] Speaker A: Someone told me. I heard Pat at a conference talking about you recently. Really? Yeah. It's a great story.
[00:22:57] Speaker B: It must have been a Catholic. I
[00:22:58] Speaker A: don't know what the story was, but, yeah, you go.
[00:23:01] Speaker B: We were at a conference, you and I. We're standing on stage. We're long past the WI phase of work.
Literally, there's a countdown clock on stage, and it goes 45, 44, 43. But your invention is always there. And 30, 29. And you turned to me and said, you know what we should do with the lights below the stage? And I said, yeah, nothing.
We have 27, 26.
But that's the thing you love to invent, even right there. We laughed about that.
So you and I worked together. So such a dear friend. And we started working together. But you're a wi, the creative dreamer, like Laura,
[00:23:38] Speaker A: and you're an id.
[00:23:39] Speaker B: Id. So we're pretty close.
But I would get frustrated with you because you were like, what about this? What about this?
And here's the thing, and here's why this is so beautiful.
If you don't realize God wired you that way.
We commit this thing called the Fundamental Attribution Error, where we assume you're doing something that annoys me on purpose.
[00:24:01] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:24:02] Speaker B: And if I didn't know you were wi, I would be like, he doesn't respect me. He's still inventing. We've discerned this already. How come he's not doing that? Or you could go, he doesn't trust me.
And you can have a relationship fall apart. I've seen it in marriages and families and friendships when that person is only acting the way God made them to act.
And so Laura and I, in our marriage, we look back at the years before Working Genius came out and realized we got in arguments and got really frustrated at each other purely because we were working in our geniuses and we didn't know it. So here's a story. I love this. Right after Working genius came out, we had this guy write to us. And here's what the email said on the thing. I thought my wife hated me until we took Working Genius.
[00:24:51] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:24:52] Speaker B: And it wasn't a joke.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: That's heavy.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: He said,
[00:24:56] Speaker A: literally thought she hated him.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: He's an ig, which means invention and galvanizing. This is what we call the evangelistic innovator. By the way, every pairing genius has a title.
You're the creative dreamer, I'm the discriminating ideator. He was the evangelistic innovator, coming up with new ideas and telling the world.
[00:25:17] Speaker A: And let's go. Here's the idea. Let's go.
[00:25:19] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. His wife, he worked with her, and she had discernment, which was what he needed. But they didn't know this. Every time he came up with an idea and was so Excited, she would go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, honey, wait. We gotta think about this. And this is why it might not work. Might not work. And he was like, she doesn't want me to be successful. He really believed she was against him. He was bothered by it. He thought, she's against me. She doesn't trust me.
And he stopped telling her his ideas. In their own business, they took the working genius on their anniversary, of all things, and they realized, oh, honey, when I give you that feedback, it's because I love you and I don't want you to drive a car off a cliff. My job as your spouse, given that God gave me discernment, is to give you advice so that when we do galvanize it, it's ready.
They said they went from appreciating each other and loving each other from. They went to that. From having suspicion and feeling like they were against each other purely because they understood each other's geniuses.
[00:26:25] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:26:26] Speaker B: You know?
[00:26:27] Speaker A: Wow. It's so healing.
[00:26:28] Speaker B: And you can use language with each other. Like, I can say to you without, hey, you're being flaky. And you can go, yeah,
[00:26:36] Speaker A: isn't it awesome?
[00:26:37] Speaker B: Exactly.
Yes.
Or a person who's got a lot of tenacity. We can go. Don't be so anal about this. They go, I know, I know. But it's really hard for me to. That's
[00:26:47] Speaker A: my sweet spot.
[00:26:48] Speaker B: Right.
And people in work and in families, because they know these letters and how God made them, can tease each other and it's a form of love and recognizing who they are rather than telling you there's something wrong with you.
[00:27:02] Speaker A: I love that. This has actually helped me, too, Pat. I don't know if you've. How much you lean into. So there's the beautiful thing, like the creative dreamer. Right?
[00:27:09] Speaker B: Right.
[00:27:10] Speaker A: There's the dark side to each. There's the other side of the coin for each genius. Right. And mine would be Chaos Maker.
[00:27:17] Speaker B: Yeah, You're. And I tell people this, and my wife, too, and I'm like, no, Laura, I love you, but you make chaos. She's accepted that now because we'll have a plan.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:26] Speaker B: And we're heading out the door.
[00:27:27] Speaker A: And let's change it 20 seconds later.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:27:30] Speaker A: Before we leave. No. Each genius has that.
[00:27:32] Speaker B: And I can love the chaos maker as long as she realizes it's real.
[00:27:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And if someone's really high DT for me, they'd be like a big wet blanket. I don't know what they'd be. It would seem like they're Eeyore.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: They can be a little harsh because they're like, that will never work. We won't get it done on time. No.
[00:27:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
So for me to realize and to own the flip side has actually helped me not do harm with who I am. And that's. That's part of the self acceptance.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: Yes. Like,
[00:28:05] Speaker A: I feel like a very different person in part because of that. Cause I've seen how it literally can hurt people. It can burn staff out. It can drive people nuts.
[00:28:13] Speaker B: Oh, praise God.
[00:28:14] Speaker A: Right. And over years of, like, you know what? I see that within me. I don't condemn it anymore, but I'm not gonna say anything right now.
[00:28:20] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like Edward Scissorhands. Look it. He could do the bush. Yes.
[00:28:23] Speaker A: But then
[00:28:23] Speaker B: it's like, come here. You know, it's like, oh, yeah, I have scissor fingers.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: I don't have to use the superpower all the time.
[00:28:29] Speaker B: I'm an id, so I'm always coming up with an idea, and I'm pretty good at evaluating it. And so I leave people in the dust and I treat them like, why don't you understand this yet? I can be really impatient and totally under appreciating the work that has to go into something for it to work.
And that's really insulting to people.
And
[00:28:51] Speaker A: now I can go
[00:28:52] Speaker B: and what a great thing to be able to say to somebody, hey, here's what I'm great at. But just so you know, I'm probably gonna do this. And if I do, not only do you have permission to call me on it, but I exhort you to call me on it, and I'll be the first to admit it.
[00:29:03] Speaker A: I love that.
[00:29:04] Speaker B: Versus them having to go, oh, here I go. I gotta tell Pat he's doing that.
[00:29:08] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:29:08] Speaker B: Oh. As a
[00:29:09] Speaker A: parent,
[00:29:10] Speaker B: I wish I could have told my kids that when I was young. Like. And mom. Mom's a wi. Just. Mom loves you. She's a creative dreamer. She's really good at all this stuff. She is going to forget things.
She used to forget to tell them about every appointment they had. And the morning they'd be go to school, and she'd be like, dropping them off, going, remember, you have a doctor appointment at 4 today. And they'd be like, why didn't you tell me? And it'd be so much better for her to go, oh, I know. I forget things,
[00:29:36] Speaker A: dude. The impact this has for kids discerning what to do with their life, for how to raise each kid, and for how you should encourage them and not, you know, you gotta. I mean, everybody has to do things outside their genius.
Right. But to not put the fire out, to not kill the goose that's laying the golden eggs. If they're a particular genius, the impact it has on, like, marriage is work. You're working together on things all the time.
[00:29:59] Speaker B: Yeah. How much of our marriage do we spend just gazing into each other's eyes?
[00:30:03] Speaker A: Right.
[00:30:04] Speaker B: Most of it is trying to get stuff done.
[00:30:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:06] Speaker B: Let me talk about Laura too. Cause she's your type
[00:30:08] Speaker A: as well.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: Is
[00:30:10] Speaker A: she a widget all the way down?
[00:30:11] Speaker B: No, she's a W, I, D, D, E, G, T.
[00:30:19] Speaker A: Okay. Really close.
[00:30:20] Speaker B: And you know when, by the way, when G is in your lowest.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: Trying to motivate your kids becomes nagging.
[00:30:27] Speaker A: Oh my gosh. It's so exhausting. Right? Yeah.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: And she would be like, why don't they listen? Because she hated having to try to motivate them to do things. She like, can't they just say yes? And it was really hard. But see, here's the thing. So I married a.
A you.
A creative dreamer. And that's what I loved about her too. She had these big ideas and thoughts and principle. And I loved it. I still do. By the way. We had our anniversary 34 years. And tomorrow we are going to mass at the church we got married in three, four years
[00:30:58] Speaker A: ago.
[00:30:59] Speaker B: Holy Ghost downtown here.
[00:31:00] Speaker A: Oh, it's so pretty.
[00:31:01] Speaker B: I know, it's gorgeous.
[00:31:02] Speaker A: Archbishop Chapia said that. And St. Peter's Basilica in Rome is his two favorite churches in the world.
[00:31:07] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[00:31:07] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a stunning place.
[00:31:09] Speaker B: So Laura though, so we become parents and we have four kids and she decides I want to stay home with the kids because we need to do this. And I'm running the company. I'm very involved at home, but she is the full time mom. She did do a Bible study, which was fantastic. But, well, that was paying bills and driving them places and doing the schedule and taking care of all the maintenance stuff.
Totally not her thing.
[00:31:35] Speaker A: Yeah,
[00:31:36] Speaker B: we didn't know that.
We'd get in arguments about it. Cause things would fall through the cracks. I wasn't as graceful as I should be or gracious. I did say to her at one point, let's hire somebody to do some of this for you.
And she would go, no. I go, why not? She goes, cause then I'd be a bad mom. Cause look, that friend of mine over there, she loves this. She gets it done. She does it. And they had. We now know we can go through those friends and go, GT ET dt. They loved finishing things.
And she said, so I've been working outside of my genius for 25 years.
[00:32:09] Speaker A: Oh, dang.
[00:32:11] Speaker B: And so we're just now getting her
[00:32:14] Speaker A: to
[00:32:14] Speaker B: exercise those muscles again
[00:32:16] Speaker A: and spend time in what fills
[00:32:18] Speaker B: her.
[00:32:18] Speaker A: How does this impact your prayer life?
[00:32:20] Speaker B: We just did a podcast about this.
[00:32:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:23] Speaker B: Did you know that?
[00:32:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:24] Speaker B: Oh, you did.
[00:32:25] Speaker A: I actually listened to your stuff and spy on you through Whitney and through all your employees.
[00:32:31] Speaker B: You know, it's interesting because, like, I like to pray spontaneously and, like, in the moment. Like, I'm very comfortable when I talk to somebody and say, hey, how can I pray for you?
Because I'm invention and discernment.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: I love that.
[00:32:44] Speaker B: And there's other people. Joe in my office is an ET So he's got his rosary, and he'll do that.
[00:32:49] Speaker A: Yeah, you gotta bank. That is the ET Prayer. Yes.
[00:32:52] Speaker B: It
[00:32:52] Speaker A: can be a little hard for me sometimes, actually, if I lose myself in the mysteries rather than thinking about what I'm counting.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:32:58] Speaker A: That's a good place for WI to go. Yeah.
[00:33:00] Speaker B: Now, here's the other thing. It's just like, as a parent, you don't just parent in your genius. There's something beautiful about offering up the things you do for your children that aren't your. That are hard.
Like, I'm gonna do this for my child. That's hard.
And I'm gonna love them by embracing something that I don't love but they need right now.
And I think the best prayer I do is when I do the rosary and I go, God, it's hard for me to count and to be on and other people like, yeah, ripping through it.
[00:33:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:29] Speaker B: And it's He. I think he meets us there and goes, this is an extra sacrifice for you.
You're praying. Now. If I adopted that as the only way I prayed, then I'm flowing against my grain. Just like if I became a parent and said, I'm going to do a job that I don't like to do every day and offer that, oh, God doesn't want us to be miserable.
But it's those moments where we swim an up current a little bit against the grain and we offer that up to God that I think he says, this is even more special to me. Makes sense.
[00:34:00] Speaker A: Yeah, it does. Yeah.
[00:34:02] Speaker B: So we're not meant to live outside of our genius all the time, but we are meant to embrace the times when we have to.
[00:34:09] Speaker A: Yeah. And recognize that certain types of pair are a little tougher for you.
[00:34:12] Speaker B: Yeah,
[00:34:14] Speaker A: that's cool. And also I'm just thinking too as you're talking because I'm iwi. So
[00:34:17] Speaker B: I'm
[00:34:17] Speaker A: listening to you with half my brain. The other half of my brain is conversing with the cosmos.
[00:34:21] Speaker B: And you know something?
That is what you do. And that's how you and I co invent together.
[00:34:27] Speaker A: I know you do this too. It's weird. We're talking about this phenomena. I will be giving a talk and thinking about something else at the same time, which is nuts. When I dissect, like, how does my brain even do that?
I'm like writing another talk while giving this
[00:34:42] Speaker B: talk. Exactly.
[00:34:43] Speaker A: It's
[00:34:43] Speaker B: a
[00:34:43] Speaker A: gift. Yeah. Every once in a while I pop back in and think, oh crap, am I repeating something I said five minutes ago? And they're all gonna look at me like I'm nuts. It's not happened yet, but I'm only 50, so do it till I'm 60. It might start happening all the time.
Chris has done this intro five times.
[00:34:58] Speaker B: Well, you know what I do now is I tell my audiences like, hey, sometimes I forget what I've said. So if I repeat myself, throw something at me or you know.
[00:35:05] Speaker A: Right. But no, I just think like I like more free flowing praise and worship because that just fits my working genius, frankly. And there's types of people who love like way more trady types of prayers. And some people like to attribute like this is the right and only way. That's frankly not appreciating the rest of humanity. I can appreciate people who love to pray that way. Some saints were highly liturgical. Like all they wanted to do was specifically liturgical prayers. There was nothing else going on. It's like God bless them. They're probably et
[00:35:38] Speaker B: well and you know, so if you go back through all the saints, I mean, you can. St. Therese loved St. Therese.
[00:35:43] Speaker A: Francis was wi. No question.
[00:35:45] Speaker B: St. Francis,
[00:35:46] Speaker A: he's got to have been.
[00:35:47] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that probably St. Therese too.
[00:35:49] Speaker A: Probably, yeah.
[00:35:50] Speaker B: And St. Jerome who translated the Bible. They say he was a little grumpy, but he was like, we gotta finish this. He
[00:35:55] Speaker A: was a dt
[00:35:55] Speaker B: probably.
[00:35:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:57] Speaker B: And what a beautiful thing. See, every saint is one of those types.
And what are we now? You know something that's interesting about the Latin Mass, I've only been to one Latin Mass, but I'm really drawn to it because it's so counter to me.
And I'm also drawn to it though for another reason is because somebody explained to me when you go to Latin Mass, you kind of lose yourself in just prayer in the midst of it. So there's. I didn't know that because I would be like, where am I? I've lost my place
[00:36:26] Speaker A: trying to ET this thing.
[00:36:27] Speaker B: Exactly. And they said, no, you just go there in the presence of God and you know what's going on and you just lose yourself in prayer.
And I thought, oh, that sounds pretty
[00:36:38] Speaker A: cool. I could take that approach. Yeah,
[00:36:40] Speaker B: yeah,
[00:36:41] Speaker A: yeah.
[00:36:43] Speaker B: And just understanding all these things. My priest, my pastor at our parish is an ig.
[00:36:47] Speaker A: Oh, cool.
[00:36:48] Speaker B: By the way, he's certified in working genius. He wears the socks.
He's got the signs everywhere. It's so.
[00:36:56] Speaker A: I didn't even know there were socks.
[00:36:57] Speaker B: I know. Oh, yeah, there's. There's work genius.
[00:36:58] Speaker A: Where's my working genius socks?
[00:37:00] Speaker B: Have you been certified?
[00:37:01] Speaker A: Sending you certified? Yes. I
[00:37:03] Speaker B: think you can buy them.
[00:37:05] Speaker A: Yes.
This does come down to, like, be who you are and you'll set the world on fire.
Saint Catherine of Siena. And how can you be who you are if you don't know who you are?
[00:37:14] Speaker B: Oh, do you want to hear
[00:37:15] Speaker A: how can you know who you are unless you have the working genius for 1995 link below this video. In
[00:37:19] Speaker B: fact, let's do a.
It costs $25.
[00:37:23] Speaker A: I
[00:37:23] Speaker B: think we're supposed to raise the prices, but for your people, let's put in a code. Put Stefanik in and it's 20% off. So it's just $20.
[00:37:32] Speaker A: Sweet.
[00:37:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Code
[00:37:33] Speaker A: Stefanik.
[00:37:35] Speaker B: But here's a great story. So we've had priests, pastors, everything. This Protestant pastor, evangelical pastor, wrote to us right after the working genius came out and said, I took my working genius and I finally realized after 20 years of being a pastor that I'm not a fraud. I said, what do you mean? He goes,
[00:37:52] Speaker A: wow,
[00:37:53] Speaker B: I could never write a homily, a sermon.
[00:37:55] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:37:56] Speaker B: He'd go, my friends could go for a walk in the woods and come up with a sermon, a four part series. And he goes, I would grind on it and grind on it. And I thought, who am I? What an imposter I am. I can't even write a sermon. And he goes, then I did my working genius and I think he was a de.
And I was like, so you like counseling? He goes, oh, yeah,
[00:38:15] Speaker A: that's awesome.
[00:38:15] Speaker B: You like grief counseling? Like when people come to you and they're needy, you're like, oh, yeah, I know what to say and I love to be with them. I said, you know, I know pastors and priests who don't like to hear confession or do counseling and they feel guilty. Like, what kind of a priest. Am I? And it's like they love, like, coming up with the new homily, the new sermon series, the new plan for the parish and priests. The devil wants them to think you're supposed to be all of them.
[00:38:39] Speaker A: Dang.
[00:38:41] Speaker B: And I knew a Catholic priest who said, I don't like confession. I was like, but you still have to do it. He goes, yes. So when I do confession, though.
[00:38:47] Speaker A: So he's a low e.
[00:38:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And he goes, I love to bring in other priests who love it more. I still have to do it.
[00:38:53] Speaker A: I
[00:38:53] Speaker B: can't go. I don't want to do that. But I do love. There's other priests who go, oh, man. Like, St. John Vianney could sit in the confessional all day long.
[00:39:04] Speaker A: He was a high enablement.
[00:39:05] Speaker B: Yeah, probably.
[00:39:07] Speaker A: Dude, I want to land this on the Magnificat. Do you know it by heart? I. Oh, I used
[00:39:13] Speaker B: to.
[00:39:14] Speaker A: Just follow me in your heart. It's in
[00:39:16] Speaker B: the back of the magnificent
[00:39:17] Speaker A: magazine. Yeah. There you go.
It's Mary's song of praise.
[00:39:21] Speaker B: Oh,
[00:39:21] Speaker A: yeah. Not of God out there, but of God in her.
She's literally pregnant with and thinking of how he shines through her in particular. Yeah. It's such a glorious.
[00:39:30] Speaker B: I know it, but I couldn't repeat it.
[00:39:31] Speaker A: Let's do it. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, thank you, Lord, for Pat. For the ways that you show yourself through each of us. My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day, all generations shall call me blessed. The Almighty has done great things for me and holy is his name. He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation. He has shown the strength of his arm. He has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly. He has remembered his promise to his servant Israel, the promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children forever.
Thank you, Jesus. Mary, pray for us. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. I think I got it right. I don't know. Yes, you did. I did. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love you, man. Thanks so much for this. This is
[00:40:19] Speaker B: great.
[00:40:19] Speaker A: It's always such a joy to just be with you and talk about this.
[00:40:22] Speaker B: Right.
[00:40:22] Speaker A: Love you guys. Thanks for watching.
