Resonance: Season 3-Episode 4: Leaders Never Stop Learning

In this episode, Steve Azar, Randy Harrington and Mike Ferrell explore the importance of lifelong learning, the role of instinct versus learning, and how AI impacts our thinking and decision-making processes. The importance of life long learning and continuous growth and strategies for leaders to foster learning in their teams. They share personal stories, insights on human behavior, and practical advice for continuous growth.

 Takeaways

You can never stop learning, no matter your age or experience.

Instinct is valuable but can be dangerous if relied upon exclusively.

AI is a tool that can enhance but not replace human thinking.

Asking questions and listening deeply are crucial for growth.

Self-awareness allows us to manage our emotions and reactions effectively.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and episode overview

04:05 The importance of lifelong learning and setting personal goals

08:00 The role of curiosity and inquiry in growth

12:13 The significance of deep learning versus superficial information

16:04 The importance of critical thinking and questioning assumptions

20:11 Instinct versus learned behavior in decision-making

22:03 The role of self-awareness and emotional intelligence

24:03 Using questions to challenge and refine our thinking

26:09 The influence of past experience on instinct and perception

28:08 Recognizing when instincts need to be challenged

30:07 The power of possibility thinking and asking 'what if?'

31:49 Managing emotions and reactions through self-awareness

34:01 The importance of listening with the ear of your heart

36:11 Detecting subtle signals and non-verbal cues

37:57 Balancing optimism and realism in leadership

40:11 The value of humor and resilience in tough times

42:06 The significance of self-reflection and personal growth

43:57 The necessity of continuous learning at any age

45:00 The future of AI and human collaboration

45:59 Closing remarks and upcoming opportunities for engagement

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:44

So whether you're leading a business, a team, or just trying to lead your own life with more meaning, this is resonance. Residence, resident.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Andy Harrington, the monk guy Mike Farrell. Another episode, year three, uh, episode four of Residence this year. Wow. Excited to have you here. Go to residenceleader.com. You can follow us everywhere you pod. And of course, you can see us on YouTube right now. I'm coming in from Arkansas today, visiting my wife's family. Uh, and the guys are in South Dakota and Oregon. And uh so we're we're bringing the the United States and the world to you uh with this podcast, and we appreciate you guys tuning in. I had a really bad album that I made my first attempt, and on that album was a song called I Never Stop Loving You. And it was it did okay for me. It kind of put me on a little bit of the map, and but I've been running from that album my whole life, uh, trying to hide from it, trying to get rid of it. Is there a way I can destroy it uh from anybody ever listening? And one of the things that happened in the music video is I allowed someone to take the words that we wrote and the songs that we recorded and write this the uh script for the video, which I wasn't paying as much attention to, which after this video, I started writing all of the treatments and what would happen in my music videos because I was so appalled. They had a girl riding around Nashville uh was sprinkling fairy dust around people on skates, and that was the magic dust that had allowed people to never stop loving the one they're with. And it was the corniest, most awful experience of my life. I had all my friends that thought I was a little tougher than that go, okay. Uh is that what is that who you are now? So, which leads us to the topic, which leads us to the topic. You can never stop loving, but you also should never stop learning. And as as a leader, uh as uh someone that's working in a group of folks, whether you're in the music business, on stage, in a conference room, uh uh in uh anything that we do in our lives, the one thing that we have to always remember is when we wake up in the morning, have that first cup of coffee, work out, pray, whatever it is you do, you set your sights on how good you can get better in life and your job and whatever it is. The only way you do that is you open your entire senses up to learning. The most important thing I feel like we can do in our lives. Now, there's a lot of things that bring you to the learning table that you have to be like, um, and and you know, and a lot of virtues you need to hold dear and that are very good at, to be honest with you. But the bottom line is the life is a constant, um it's just you're constantly learning, and without that, then you what do you call it? Learn or die, right? Get better or die, or get better or go retire and just quit. Uh, the bottom line is even when you retire, you should wake up every morning wanting to learn something that's gonna make you better and the folks better around you. Uh, have I did I do a good job on the intro? How do I do it? I'm running into a wall right now. I got nothing.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

No, you're on fire, actually. And I think that the idea of lifelong learning is something that we really do want to underscore here. Uh, learning is obvious and necessary to the youth. You just you you gotta figure it out, and you've got to figure out your way, and you've never done it before, and so you've got to work it out. And then we're the old dogs, right? We're the guys that have been around now for uh a few decades doing whatever it is we're doing. And this is where not learning becomes toxic. Not learning becomes not just neutral, but really, really negative. And it's it's gonna hurt you and it's gonna hurt the people around you. Uh, we were at a uh a function and uh was talking to somebody about my wife and I have been married an awful long time 40 something years, and uh Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Yeah, get that something part right.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

Yeah, 40. I think we're 44 right now.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Um that even the think part right there. So so far, um yeah, there's a door here. Can we can we get a can we get a strong 44?

SPEAKER_02 5:17

I think we can get a strong 44 now that I do the math. Yeah, but uh somebody said to me, you know, who who was uh the idea of being married to the same person for that long sounded horrible to them. You could see it was like, wow, you know, how do you even think about that? How how does that even happen? Uh and and it it occurred to me at the time that uh I said, well, I it doesn't I have no idea who this woman is. I mean, I've been living with her for an awful long time, but I I really do not understand her. I don't, I can't figure her out, and she's a mystery to me still, and I think that that's a part of what has allowed the relationship to work, is because it is I I have to constantly learn. I I have never felt like I can just stand on one piece of ground and go, oh, I get it. Now, as it relates to those bottom line values that you were talking about, Steve, those core values, I got yeah, that we are very clear on. My, you know, my wife and I have that that's dialed in. Everything else, I don't pretend to understand or know. Uh, and and as a result of that, I'm looking forward to our retired life as just more opportunities to try and figure her out because uh I I certainly have not been successful thus far. But I think that kind of sensibility is is not a bad thing to see the world as something that is so magical and complex that you're just never gonna be able to work it out, uh, you know, and dust your hands and walk away. That's just not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Interesting. I uh you know, as we talk about resonance and music and the business and how this all intertwines, let me just tell you a lyric from one of my songs, still trying to find my way around. The second verse, I bet I know you better than anyone else. Sometimes I swear you're heading right and suddenly you're veering left. You got a handful of looks you give me, and I act like I know them all. Why can't I throw my hands up and admit I'm lost, still trying to find my way around, stumbling through the world like I'm new in town, in the middle of nowhere without a map? I'm too dang proud to stop and ask. Anyway, keep going. But the bottom line is this is exactly what you just got through saying. Hey, it's why you know why you're married 40-something years, actually 44 years exactly. The reason you're married that long is because you're intrigued and you don't always know know it all. And that's and you're constantly learning about the one you love, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Which is why I so brilliantly set this show up with a song I never want anybody to hear. Yeah, yeah, there you go. There you go. The pixie dust. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, awful.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Oh my god, I can't go over this idea of learning is is so important. You know, I I'm sitting here, I'll be 68 years old in a couple of months, and and I got all kinds of friends of mine that are retired and sitting around watching TV, and and it's like, you know, if you don't continue in our in our last show, we talked about my rise framework, and the last peep, the last uh letter of that is the E, which is evolve. If we don't continue to evolve, I think we shrink up and and eventually die. Yeah and I think that that lifelong learning, it's a it's a Benedictine principle. Uh the Benedictins are are constantly talking about this idea of lifelong learning. And it's interesting now, especially, and I'll pivot this a little bit, especially with the onset of AI. And I think the the challenge with AI is is it making us stop learning and rely on this technology tool to do the learning and the thinking for us? And I think that's a that's a really dangerous thing. You know, it's interesting. Um, and and this was just kind of a self-reflection a couple of weeks ago. Uh, and I'm in my office here, I've probably got well over a thousand books. And um normally the Amazon guy is showing up at my door, you know, twice a week with more books. But as I thought about it, over the last few months, I have not ordered a single book from Amazon. And it's like, uh oh, that's that's that's kind of a red flag, that's kind of a warning sign that I'm kind of resting on my laurels here and you know, going with what I already know, or I'm pulling it out of Claude or Chat GPT or whatever the case may be. And um I think that's a dangerous place to be. Uh, and so uh I'm kind of re-committed now. I got to get back on Amazon and find some more great books to read and and uh and engage myself in those things because I think that we have a tent, and I and I think even you look at young people today and and their learning comes in little snippets, you know, it's a it's a 30-second clip on Instagram or it's a you know, it's a two and a half minute video on YouTube or whatever it is, those little snippets, is that really learning, or is that really just informing?

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Yeah, and they're getting just getting you're just soaking in a little bit of information at a time and moving on to the next thing. So they're not totally able to do a deep dive. Sometimes those deep dives are what allows you to really understand uh the the uh complexity of something uh and also makes you appreciate it more uh and learn more, as simple as that. Uh Mike, you know, you could have had some just let me ask y'all this. You you you say that you're gauging your learning by your reading, and and you're that's how you uh require and attain knowledge. I get that. So you've had a lot of other things. Is it okay on on your plate lately? And is it okay to sort of take a break from the traditional and the norm? Uh because you may be learning in other things. Don't forget you're constantly learning, doing other things. I know you had some chores to do that you hadn't didn't want to do, and things in the hot sun and all of these things, but but as long as you're constantly learning uh, you know, off the cuff a little bit and and in different environments and taking on new experiments and new roles, don't you think that's still uh like important as real?

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Oh, absolutely, no question about it. And and again, that was just an interesting self-reflection that I had that gee, I haven't ordered a book for a long time, you know. Yeah, but I need to get back to that. But oh, there's no question that learning is all of the experiences that we go through, uh, whether it's reading or listening or doing or experiencing or whatever the case may be. I think all of that are learning, ex learning opportunities. The question is, are we taking those opportunities and turning them into learning, or are we just, you know, um letting it hit us, bounce off us, and moving on to the next thing in in the fast pace of the world today?

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Right, right. Well, you you guys, and you know, Randy, you'd be uh proud of Cecilia, the chef. She handles all my interviews for me, and she I said, I made the comment once. I said this. I said, Hey, I know you're on the move, you're traveling, and I know you've got all this cooking to do, and da-da-da. I said, You just just go to just ask chat GPT to figure out the 15 questions. She goes, Dad, I'm not asking chat GPT, I can do this on my own, and I'm gonna take the time because I will never do that. So, you know, she's 25 years old, and she's bucking the fact that she wants to be the one to come up with these, you know, to hand me, hand off to me to at least you know keep me on point. Uh, I was impressed by that. So, you know, and trust me, there's a few things she makes me very upset about, her stubbornness and all that. But I'm gonna throw, I'm throwing that one to her because I gave her an out, you know, right? I gave her a line in the water and she said, No, no, I don't want that line.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

I'm not, you know, I haven't heard that my uh information that is that I'm seeing that suggests that uh younger generations, Gen Z, Gen A, are gonna have they're more discerning as it relates to AI, and they are already like they can smell it a mile away and they understand what it is and isn't. And uh so that makes me feel good. I think for we're we're gonna need probably another eight to ten years before we culturally begin to digest what AI is and isn't, uh, and come up with just the the kind of framework, the the rules for what AI should look like.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

You know, you're bringing something up right now that I just noticed with one. We were in Austin, Texas, visiting our son, who's a doctor there and going through residency and all that. And we were at dinner, all of us together, and we had met one of our friends' son's friend there that from Austin, and he they were talking about how he was assigned the role to train AI, right? He's an engineer, train AI, uh, and he trained AI and then they fired him. I think what's happening now, I think what's happening now is I think that generation's probably going, wait a minute. No, no, I'm not gonna give you all of this wisdom that I've learned, continuing learning, and gonna feed a machine and then you're gonna fire me. No, um so I think that you're gonna see a little bit of, you know, you're gonna see they're getting in the ring with it, and it's gonna be interesting to see because they know there's not as much work for them to do, and they're getting they'll let AI do the job of 15 or 20 where it used to be, and companies can just hire one person to handle that. And I you're seeing that all over now, and I think that there's gonna be a little bit over a revolt, and uh, and and who knows, we'll see who wins, or at least a compromise of some type that we're headed towards. So it's interesting you brought that up. Yeah, uh, and I I think kids are experiencing that, and I think it's heavy on them right now.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

Yeah, yeah, especially in in terms of school and learning and what all that looks like. Uh uh, I know Mike, during the break, you were talking about, I guess it was uh your daughter, I think, who's uh teaching math now, and they're changing the way they teach math because it's now if you if you do use AI with any kind of regularity, you begin to understand that you need to think differently. You need to your thinking, your success is going to be about how well you form the problems and the questions and the the prompts and how you stack them. So it's this critical thinking capability that your your daughter is now required to teach, along with fractions, you know.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Right, right, right, right, right. Yeah, daughter-in-law, but yeah, I mean, she was having that, we were having that conversation at dinner just last night about the fact that the curriculum is changing and it's it's to challenge kids to to do more creative thinking versus just formulas, and and she's working with junior high kids, and how how do I do that, you know? And so really learning that. I think the interesting the the word that that I keep hearing is the word thinking. And when I hear that, the first thing that comes to mind, anybody that's ever typed in a prompt into either chat GPT or Claude, the first thing that comes up is it says it's thinking, yeah. Uh well it's really not it's really not thinking, it's disseminating all of this information that's out there and trying to pull that information together for you. Um, so you know, I think when it says it's thinking, I think that's you know, that's a stretch. Uh, you know, thinking is really taking that, and and then the way we do it, the way our brains work, is really taking that information and then figuring out how we need to utilize that information to whatever it is that we're trying to do or trying to uh accomplish. And so I think that this idea of thinking is so vital um that we can't lose this. And I think that, you know, when we think we learn, and when we learn, we're able to apply that to whatever it is that that we're you know, you know.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

I I had a uh a teacher who talked a lot about internalizing a concept, you know, you need to internalize this musical ability or whatever it is, you need to make it your own, you need to bring it inside yourself, and that's the difference that you used earlier between just being informed by something and then versus really deeply uh learning it and understanding it. And the the challenge, of course, then is how do you uh develop the capacity in an ongoing way to change yourself as that new information comes in? So I will recommend a book to you since you're looking for something to buy off Amazon. Uh I'm gonna recommend is a book called Uh And a Universe Appears by Michael Poland, P-O-L-A-N. He's the guy who wrote uh Diet for a Small Planet and a bunch of other uh interesting books. But uh and a universe appears is about consciousness, it's about everything we understand right now in terms of brain scans and consciousness. And like the the very first chapter of the book is our plants conscious, and it turns out there's the jury is out because plants are doing all kinds of things that are indicative of some level of consciousness, problem solving, they're working in a different time scale for sure, but uh a little time-lapse photography, and you're gonna see some plants doing some crazy stuff uh that are like holy smell, there's an intentionality around it, and so they start and the same thing with with single cell organisms. So you've got a single cell organism, and it's gonna go and it bumps up against something, and then it actually seems to make a choice. Oh, that wasn't good, so I'm going to go over here to this other thing that I think is good, and so you're beginning to see even in the most rudimentary uh uh points of life, there is this sense of learning and development and evolution taking place, and so Poland's book is terrific, highly recommended. Uh I I I did that one as an audio book, and he reads it, and and I thought it was terrific.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Uh, so uh you know, we talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Okay, great story with that. Great story with that, Randy. So we're we've got yesterday our our and son and and our daughter-in-law came and brought their new black lab puppy. Oh my and you know, so we've got a golden retriever that's 10, and we've got a rescue that's five, and uh talk about a single cell organism bumping up to things that you know it didn't like this or didn't like that. Well, you know, this puppy would go try and harass the 10-year-old golden golden retriever, and he'd give her this growl, and you know, she'd oh, I better not go there. So then she'd bounce up against the five-year-old, and of course they'd start wrestling, and they wrestled for two and a half hours. So, you know, that was the that was the single cell organism bumping up against something. Yeah, it was that golden retriever.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Yeah, why you know you think about just the things as simple as the food chain, you know, you think about the you know, the lizard on the deck at our at our house eating the bugs and the bugs, you know, eating, I mean, like there is a food chain for everything. How much do you think that that you talk about plants and and how insects are can be harmful or can be sometimes productive for plants? So how much how do you how do you view instinct in this? How do you versus uh the instinct of knowing understanding oh something's not right about bumping up there versus um uh learning? You know what I mean? Is there how can you decipher between the two? Do they ever collide in a in a place? But but where do instincts come into play in all of this talking about?

SPEAKER_02 21:53

Uh I'll I'll take a whack at that. Um and I'm gonna lay a big word on you, so get get ready.

unknown 21:59

Um

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Um the word is gestalt. All right. I think is the way it's spelled. Gestalt. It's a German word. And it means to see something holistically. You have a gestalt, a gestalt is a is a totality picture of it. So if I said, uh, oh, well, there was that Bob Seeger show you did in Detroit and blah blah blah. And when I say that, you're gonna have a gestalt memory, you're gonna have a comprehensive memory of that whole thing, and there's gonna be feelings involved in that. And and we could then zoom in on it. Oh, how was your part of the show in that or whatever? But you're gonna have this when I say it originally, if I say, Oh, did you go to the Louvre? Yes, we went to the Louvre. Okay, you have this gestalt called the Louvre in your head, this monstrous museum in in lovely Paris. So gestalt means that that holistic framework. And what's interesting about that, the reason I bring this up, is we use that holistic picture of life to fire our instinct. In other words, that's when you walk into that Italian restaurant, you have a gestalt called Italian restaurant in your head, and then you're gonna walk in there and you're gonna go, this doesn't look like an Italian restaurant, this doesn't look right, this doesn't fit. I'm not sure what it is, but there's something wrong about this place that is an Italian restaurant or whatever. In other words, your instinct shows up as being when your perception of what is there doesn't match what your sensibility about what it ought to be like is. Wow, yeah. And so what we find when we do research in this area is that it turns out that what we think something ought to be has a profound effect on what we experience. In other words, our anticipation, our expectations are really important in terms of understanding what we're going to actually experience. And so if you're gonna break the gestalt for somebody, if you're gonna change the way something is, uh so there's this baseball team, the bananas, the something bananas, sure, man, bananas selling out everywhere, they're selling out everywhere. So you if you go to that thinking you're going to a baseball game, you're gonna be in for a surprise. I didn't go. My son-in-law and and they went and they had a ball, they thought it was a most ever. But here you have an entity that has taken the concept of baseball and turned it on its head, and they've turned it into this incredibly fun experience. And part of the way they the way they do that is the way they set up the expectations from the time people walk into that stadium, and so they are they are taking, they're using your whole sense of what baseball is, not against you, but to have fun with you. They're they're they're gonna intentionally throw that out the window, and that's where all the humor and joy is gonna be.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

It's right, right. Right.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

The whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Uh well, so globetrotters of baseball in a certain way. Also, my my nephew knows some of the guys that started. He was a baseball, he was captain of Georgetown's baseball team for a couple years and then finished at BYU, was uh make trying to make it, you know, make his way through the minors and all that, and he broke his hand. Anyway, he was asked to be a part of that. And uh he said he'd never do all the dances, and uh, you know, it just it wasn't what he wanted to do, but you know, they're all very these guys are all very they got to do other things besides play baseball. Yeah, and um this is very very entertaining, but he knows some of those guys, which is interesting.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Well, you know, it's interesting because now they're on ESPN all the time, you know. I just happen to I just happened to catch a little bit of it as I was channel surfing here the other day, and you know, here's this guy that's that's batting, and he's got his shirt wide open, and of course, nothing on underneath, you know, and tattoos all over the place and hair down to the middle of his back, and and uh uh all of a sudden he steps up and they throw him a pitch. And I'm gonna tell you right now, he knocks the heck out of it, hits it about you know, almost to the upper deck of the stadium, and it's like you know what, this guy's got some athletic ability because this isn't all they're all former baseball players, obviously.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Yeah, yeah. He said they're all you know, these are all college baseball players or or you know, minor league guys that were trying to do it, you know, and they're obviously very, obviously very, very talented. I mean, Metal Arc Lemon back in the days, guys. Come on, early and all this.

SPEAKER_03 26:38

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

I mean, those guys were insane. They were insane, they were so much talent.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

Steve, this is a business of instinct. Because uh let's let's pretend for a second that you're uh you know, you're the wizened detective. You know, you've been on the beat for 15 years or 20 years, and you go to the crime scene and you walk through the door, you move the police tape, and then you just stand there for a second. And what your instinctive response to what you see is going to be informed by 30 years of walking onto crime scenes, right? So your instincts have been sharpened, your instincts have been harmed, and that can inform you uh 90% of the time, but 10% of the time, you're gonna go into a crime scene that's so completely different that everything that you had before you was actually gonna work against you, it's gonna put you thinking, oh, well, it has to be this way because it's always that way. Uh, I know that I have a guitar teacher back in the day who used to say, practice makes permanent. And so if you're practicing your scales poorly, then you're gonna play poorly forever because that's the way you've learned to play. The same thing is true as it relates to instinct, where uh if if if the situation is completely novel, you have to be able to recognize oh, this is different. My instincts are not gonna work here. It's like if you ski, there are people who ski powder and then they go and it's a little bit icy. Oh, well, guess what? You gotta ski totally differently. Apparently, I don't ski, which is why I still have my knees, by the way. So yeah, but those who do uh will tell you, oh my gosh, you know, if you go at that mountain this way, you're gonna kill yourself.

SPEAKER_03 28:30

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

And I would and I would say too, I would say that that instinct can work against you. Yes, because you know, that detective that's got 30 years of experience walks into that crime scene, if their immediate deduction is that, well, I've seen this a million times, I know exactly what it is, they don't give themselves the opportunity to learn. And when you don't give yourself the opportunity to learn, you might miss something. And and it might be something, especially from a leader's perspective, if you're you're basing your decision on instinct and you're not giving yourself the opportunity to learn, you may be missing a key component in whatever it is that you're making a decision on. And so I think that that aspect of learning, we we have a tendency, I think, to sometimes let instinct lead the way and and continue the way, versus okay, this is what our instinct is, but that's right. What if can that be can that I talk about the word possibility? I uh and and when when I work through innovation workshops and those kinds of things, I talk about this idea of possibility and and just asking the question, what if? Um, what if what if what I'm sensing here from an instinct standpoint isn't really what it is? And if that's the case, what are the possibilities? Um, and that's when I began to trigger this thinking and learning process.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

What what if what if the instinct well tell me this, Mike, while you're while you're here on the subject? Can the reason you use instincts sometimes be uh caused by laziness? I mean, like where does laziness come in or just or burnout? And it's it's it just doesn't want to go through the process of actually thinking, oh uh, you know, and maybe can instincts be just the quickest out and quickest at well I I think I think laziness, uh I think ego, you know, sometimes we you know that's my instinct, and that's all I know, and therefore I'm not going to go any further to to think about possibility.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

Well, and your brain, your brain is not gonna help you here because what your brain is gonna do is if you go with your instinct and the instinct turns out to be paid off in some way, you're gonna get a big old hit of dopamine. Yeah, your brain is gonna reward you. Ooh, you were right, that was the right thing to do. Look at that, your wisdom really worked out, which is the ego piece that Mike is talking about there. So your brain's dopamine uh uh that that joyful feeling that you get. It's like when you're playing poker with somebody and you go, I think Mike's bluffing, and so I'm gonna play my hand thinking Mike's bluffing, and then sure enough, Mike is bluffing, and I'm like, ah ha ha ha ha. Not only do I win the hand, but now I feel smarter as a result of the fact that I followed some instinctive thing that it could have just as easily been absolutely wrong. So this idea of dopamine is one thing. So I think one of one of the pieces, the other thing that you said, Mike, that I really loved was you resolved the problem of instinct and hubris, of believing that your instincts are right by asking a question. And I think that is the way to solve the problem. So we were talking in a in our previous episode about long-term marriages, and and uh one of the things that I try to do in ours is if my wife says something that I'm like, I uh where I go, oh yeah, of course she would say that, or it fits it fits my paradigm of what that is, I still try and say, is it even more strong than usual, or is it in other words, I'm gonna ask her a question that asks her to explain or explore her perspective just that little bit. And she may say something like, Yeah, you know, you idiot, of course, it's the way I've always said it, or it may be like, Yeah, but but I really don't think she actually believed blah blah blah or whatever it was that she was talking about, you know. So when you ask people to discern just even a little bit, yeah, it's kind of cool to see if they do discern or not, but mostly what it's gonna do is it's gonna be a stop gap for making a horrible error because you thought you knew what you said, and you thought you understand, understood what she said or he said, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:17

So it's it it those simple questions, those extra and I think you make a great point there, Randy, because I think when when you ask that question, it forces you to listen. And you guys have heard me say the opening line of the rule of Benedict a million times listen with the ear of your heart, you know. But when you're listening um with the ear of your heart, you're positioning yourself as the learner, yes, and that's so critical. It's so critical because when you allow yourself to ask the question and then you really allow yourself to listen to the answer, now you position yourself as a learner, and that's where growth comes, that's where learning comes.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

I love that interesting. I do love that, and I'm thinking right now about plenty of times recently where I've been in a situation where a lot of questions, a lot of inquisitive moments have have uh have been very important to proceed and to move the ball forward in some of the decisions that we were making, even as a band on stage. Uh simple things, but yet questions always revolving. You know what I mean? It's it's interesting that you say that. Uh, and I get it. I get it.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

And it's where you're gonna get the little signals that things are changing or things are turning or things are are not maybe as balanced as you thought they were. We have to understand that another big word, homeostasis, basically meaning everything's normal. That's what your body wants. Your body wants normal. Your body wants not too hot, not too cold. That's what your family wants. It's what everything wants, is to be stable. And so there's this demand or desire for people to make things look and feel normal, even when they're not. And it's when you walk into the office that day and you go, Hey Joe, how are you? And Joe says, I'm good. And there's something in his voice that's like, uh, really? Okay, hmm. There's something going on here. And so this is one of those things where your instinct says, That doesn't sound like Joe. Something is different now. So this is where I'm suggesting you you then move into a question. How was your evening? What went on? You you create opportunities for Joe, maybe to finally say, I had a terrible evening, uh, my mother has this problem, and da da da da. Okay, now I understand where that vibe came from. So what what's what you have to understand is that people are going to do everything they can to act the same or be normal. They're not, it's it's the rare individual who you walk in and say, How you doing, Joe? And Joe goes, oh my god. And in fact, you kind of don't want that, right? I mean, you don't want somebody who's who's always Mr. or Ms. Drama uh in the office, but but uh at the same time, uh this this propensity for people to do everything they can to make it seem like they're okay is a real challenge, especially when their performance matters. So if you're gonna be sending that person up into space or they're gonna go do some very important thing, you don't want your surgeon, you know, before, you know, how are you, Dr. Farrell? You know, I had a terrible evening last night, and I you know I don't think that only got an hour of sleep. Oh no, well, you don't want that. I didn't get my coffee this morning.

SPEAKER_00 37:11

Well, if that happens uh uh once or twice, then you're gonna quit asking the question, how are you doing? There's yeah, yeah, that's exactly what that's eliminated from your vocabulary when you're walking in. You start sneaking in, right? Yeah, yeah. Now listen, there's a lot of people around you in your life sometimes that are pretty, you know, there seems like everything's going wrong and they they want to express that, you know, and uh yeah, it's a little, you know, I'm getting better at better at responding, you know, but trying to offer a little silver lining and a little hope. Uh but you know, I come from the optimistic side of life personally. So even when things are tough and they're driving, I I don't like to share it with with folks.

SPEAKER_02 37:53

I feel like you know, you know, let's just you are relentlessly positive, my friend, uh, to the point where uh it can be annoying for people who really want to just who want to wallow in their own muck for a while, you know, and you're like, right, right. And you're gonna try to make it better, and you're like, I don't want you to make it better. I'm sure Gwyn has had this conversation with you.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

I'm like Oh, in the morning. So listen, I'm a morning guy. Right. Yeah, I'm a morning guy. I love the morning, I love to wake up, and I it's awesome. And da da da. And and Gwen's not truth, is she needs a second. And I've tried for 36 years to turn her a little bit, uh, and uh to know Pravel. So I know I've gotta, you know.

SPEAKER_01 38:40

Yeah, I'm with Gwen. I need my Starbucks first.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Yeah. Well, you know what's funny is you learn things in life. I'm trying to try to teach her this. But when I was a kid growing up, my best friend, uh, and you met him, Ken Purvis, uh, growing up. You met Ken at the Delp Sol this year. Uh, Randy, you hadn't met Ken. We grew up, we won some state tennis titles together, and we grew up playing every sport, and we grew up from H5, went all the way through college, uh, in each other's weddings. You know, the list goes on. Got him to move to Greenbowl, he's bank president, uh, was working hard to get him. He did from from uh where he used to grow up and all that. But um anyway, we're having the time of our life right now. Uh, and and uh uh uh he uh was a not a morning person, so much that when we were on the road doing tennis tournaments and stuff, he'd wake up in the morning and be on top of me, like red-faced and da-da-da. And I said, Okay, okay, I'm gonna break him one day. And so I was teaching tennis lessons for the park commission in the mornings in the summer, and I'd had a seven o'clock to eight. I had, and then I didn't have an eight to nine, I had nine to ten. What would I do every morning that summer? I would drive over to his house in that hour, and I would start tapping on his window, and then I'd he'd come running out, ready to kill me, and I'd jump in my car and take off. And I did this, I did this all the time until one day he started laughing and smiling. And then we went off to college together in the morning. He was wonderful, but his wife still says, Oh no, you don't want to mess with Ken in the morning, you know. And I'm going like, Oh, I want to mess with Ken in the morning. I broke it. I broke it. You you think you think it's bad now? You should have seen it back then. I mean, I thought we were coming to blows, and I was going, I'm not gonna hit my best friend, he's not gonna hit me, is he? Like, and so I was on a mission just to drive him crazy, and thus my optimism in the morning. Uh, but I you know what, I don't think that in my business personally, with as much as you were told no, and as much as you were critiqued in sometimes in negative ways, that were probably that uh you had to really they talk about the tough skin and develop the leather and uh you know mentally, but I feel like what you know you grew up in the Mississippi Delta, and what's a blues song about? It's about sadness and pain and hurt. But why do you feel good when you listen to it? It could be the melody, it could be, you know, how the you know a great blue Zach sings it. It's just the fact that there's this silver line in either emotionally or lyrically or musically, something happens in the pain that makes you feel so good. And I've always written that way. And I think there is the reasons, two reasons. One, I was around that, and two, um, I it was just sort of in my nature to be that way. So that the two have collided in life, and it's just the way I approach things. Now I get hurt and I get upset and I get disappointed and I get ticked off and angry, but at the same time, I think I'm able to channel it, and in some way or another, just like you write a song to get yourself out of that feeling, I can do things regular in life, other things in life, besides write a song that actually get me out of that place pretty quick. And I I can somehow see the silver lining in it. It's just the way I am.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

That that level of self-awareness is a source of great power uh to the degree that you're able to treat you to look at yourself objectively and go, oh, I feel I'm drifting in this direction. And I bet you this is a feeling you've had. I am pissed right now. I am so pissed at so and so or at this and that. And you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna give myself permission to go ahead and be pissed for the next 10 minutes. And I'm just gonna allow myself to just be angry because that's the way I'm feeling. But but what you're also telling yourself is I can see that I'm gonna need to get out of this too. I'm gonna need to move away from it. So if you have that kind of thought going on in your head where you're like, I'm feeling this way, I think it's a justified feeling. I'm gonna give myself permission to have this feeling, but then I'm also gonna find a way to get out of this feeling. That is power, and it is unusual because lots of times the feelings truly overwhelm the individual, and they they it feels like the whole world is never gonna be the same again. It feels like everything is broken, nothing is right, and there's no way out of the problem that has just been developed. And so you start, then your reaction becomes a part of the problem, right?

SPEAKER_01 43:30

Yeah, part of the solution. I know. I mean, I know I've worked with with clients, and you know, we'll they'll go go through difficult times. And and I've even had this conversation with Ann, you know, okay, all right, things are things aren't going the way you want them to go. I'll I'll allow you the time for a pity party. And uh, you know, all right, now that's enough. Pity party's over, let's move on. You know, I know what Steve does because he on the golf course when he makes double bogey, he turns around, he has he has a pity party before he gets to the next team. And then he makes three burbies in a row and he's fine.

SPEAKER_00 44:04

Hey, all right. But the old Steve definitely used to do that. The new Steve is not capable of doing what the old Steve could do. I think that we got to wrap it up, but I'd like to take a stab at this. Randy said something very early in the when we started. He talked about teaching, we're we're older, teaching an old dog a new trick. We've as much as I don't like cliches, and I try to be the one in my lifetime to never use a cliche in my song, write words that people maybe will come but a cliche. But that says it all. We need to constantly be learning, no matter how young or old you're getting, you know, or you know, young you are or old you're getting, you cannot stop learning.

SPEAKER_03 44:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

And it's important for everybody around you and everything that you do to constantly ask questions uh relative to wherever you are and decisions that are gonna be made uh that day can affect the next week or the next year or the rest of your life. So I think that it's important that we listen, we learn, we ask questions, and we never ever ever stop learning. And now in the whole world of AI, are we gonna start asking AI to think for us when AI is not thinking at all? It's just calculating and running through all these possibilities and feeding you that. But it's not thinking like we as human beings do. We taught AI to do that. So uh it's an interesting place where we are, and um, and also I love the talk the fact that we talked about things that are visual, and I think we ought to take our next episode there. I think that that's important, and I think it helped it'll help folks uh to realize how much they use visual uh a visual of any type in their day and as they make decisions in life as well, or are just as simple as during that day. Anyway, uh Mike, you want to send let people know how the heck you get to this crazy show that we do.

SPEAKER_01 46:12

It'll wrap us up for another episode of Resonance. And uh we're on all the platforms, all of the the favorite spots that you listen to your podcasts. You can watch the video on YouTube. Uh, if you want to need if you need a link, you're not sure where to go, go to resonanceleader.com. And don't forget, too, the three of us are more than happy to come in and uh do this live version uh in a one-day leadership experience for your teams, for your events, whatever the case may be. Uh, we've got a pretty cool, pretty cool experience that we put together. So uh uh you can reach out to us via the the website resonanceleader.com and we'd love to have a conversation with you. So, with that, fellas, we'll wrap it up and uh we will see you next time on Resonance. Thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 47:20

Find us at resonant leader dot com.