
3. PATRICK LENCIONI: What’s Your Working Genius?
Audio
Overview
In this episode of The Double Win, Michael Hyatt and Megan Hyatt Miller sit down with Patrick Lencioni, author, and pioneer of the organizational health movement. They explore the profound impact of understanding one’s working genius and how it influences both professional success and personal fulfillment. Patrick shares his personal journey, insights into work-life balance, and the importance of vulnerability and self-awareness in achieving the double win.
The Big Idea
Patrick Lencioni’s insights on understanding one’s working genius and integrating work with personal life offer valuable strategies for achieving the double win. By focusing on areas where you can contribute the most and delegating tasks that drain you, it’s possible to find greater fulfillment and peace in both work and life.
Memorable Quotes:
- “Life is a mess. And thinking that it’s not is a big problem because then when we make mistakes, we’re like, what’s wrong?”
- “Burnout isn’t just about workload; it’s about doing work that doesn’t align with your natural strengths.”
- “Work-life balance is not so much about push and pull; it’s more about integration and being present.”
- “I call it burnout camp. I got to a point in my life where I hit the wall.”
- “Sharing your struggles with others is a gift because it helps people feel they are not alone.”
- “Burnout is really misunderstood; it’s not just about doing too much work but doing the wrong kind of work.”
- “The working genius allows you to focus where you make the biggest contribution.”
- “Every team needs people who fill in the gaps and are better at certain things than you are.”
- “The key to achieving the double win is peace and being present in the moment.”
- “We have to understand that none of us are good at all of it, and that’s why we need each other.”
- “The future has its own problems; all you have right now is the present.”
Key Takeaways:
- Work-Life Integration: Balance isn’t about dividing time equally but integrating and being fully present in each domain of life.
- Vulnerability in Leadership: Sharing personal struggles and being vulnerable can build stronger, more relatable connections with others.
- Understanding Burnout: Burnout isn’t just about workload; it’s about doing work that doesn’t align with your natural strengths.
- The Six Types of Working Genius: Identifying your working genius helps you focus on work that energizes and fulfills you.
- Wonder: Asking the right questions.
- Invention: Coming up with new ideas.
- Discernment: Evaluating ideas with intuition.
- Galvanizing: Rallying people to action.
- Enablement: Providing support to get things done.
- Tenacity: Ensuring the completion of tasks.
- Avoiding Misalignment: Misalignment in job roles can lead to frustration and decreased productivity.
- Impact on Personal Life: Working within your genius impacts your personal life positively, leading to better relationships and personal satisfaction.
- Self-Awareness in Leadership: Effective leaders understand their strengths and surround themselves with complementary skills.
- Continuous Improvement: Pursuing the double win is a constant journey, and it’s never too late to start making positive changes.
- Peace as an Indicator: The ultimate goal is peace, which comes from being present and aligned with your purpose.
- Leveraging Strengths: Knowing and leveraging your strengths and weaknesses can significantly improve job satisfaction and team dynamics.
Referenced Links:
- Working Genius Assessment
- Books by Patrick Lencioni:
- The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
- The Advantage
- The Six Types of Working Genius
Watch this episode on YouTube: youtu.be/rwRhZNvnIpg
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Episode Transcript
Note: Transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors. Please refer to the episode audio or video for exact quotes.
Patrick Lencioni:
I call it burnout camp.
I got to a point in my life where I, I hit the wall.
Michael Hyatt: I’m Michael Hyatt.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: And I’m Megan Hyatt Miller.
Michael Hyatt: And this is the Double Win. A show about winning at work and succeeding at life.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: And you know, here at our company Full Focus, we have identified nine life domains, body, mind, spirit, love, family, community, money, work, and hobbies that we’re gonna help you cultivate so that you can ultimately be the person that you were made to be, that you want to be and live the life. You wanna live.
So today’s guests cover a lot of ground, but I think perhaps the most relevant is the work domain. And what’s interesting about this conversation is how much the work domain affects every other domain. And that’s a little bit of a teaser. ’cause there’s a whole conversation
Michael Hyatt: about, well, it is a little bit of a teaser because we learned some things about the double win.
We didn’t know before. That’s
Megan Hyatt-Miller: right. We had to break and we’re supposed to be the experts. That’s right.
Michael Hyatt: Yeah. Apparently we’re not. Well, anyway, Patrick Lencioni is a guy that I’m super excited to introduce to you. Pat’s a friend of mine. He’s had a huge impact on me through his books. YouTube videos, other stuff, but he’s the president and founder of the Table Group, the pioneer of the organizational health movement and a popular speaker.
He is the author of 13 books that have sold over 5 million copies. Actually, it says 8 million copies here. That’s a lot.
Off camera: That’s a lot of books. So
Michael Hyatt: including the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, which I think is his best selling book. The Advantage, the three big questions for a Frantic Family and the book that we talk a lot about in this episode.
The Six Types of Working Genius. So Pets had a lot of big league experience, mostly in the tech industry. He went to work out of college at Bain and Company Oracle Cybase. He now lives in the San Francisco Bay area. He has a wife and four sons. So here’s our conversation with Pat.
Patrick Lencioni: Pat, welcome to the show.
Michael Hyatt: It’s great to be here. I can’t wait to talk to you all. This is fun.
I was trying to think this morning, when was the first time that you and I
Patrick Lencioni: be,
it’s
hard for me to remember because
it, there were
different contexts
for it, I think.
I think
I first heard of
you in the world of publishing years ago. Oh, it may have been.
And,
then, and we have so many mutual friends
that kind of weaved
in
and out of all this. So I, I often say like, I can’t remember how I know Michael Hyatt because there’s about five different
people in five different contexts in which we’ve been friends.
Michael Hyatt: I think we’ve spoken maybe at the same event a couple times, I’m sure. Or different events at the same time. I don’t, I don’t
remember.
Patrick Lencioni: We’ve met in green rooms.
we’ve met in blue
rooms.
we’ve met in in many
different
places. Yeah.
Michael Hyatt: Well, I knew you were a kindred spirit from, you know, two minutes into the conversation.
You know, you’re a man of faith. You are very intent, intentional with your family. You’ve got a killer business. You’re the perfect guest for the double win, which is winning at work and succeeding at life. And we believe in. You’ve gotta have both. Otherwise, you ultimately lose both. So again, welcome. We’d love for you to just, um, vamp on this a little bit.
What is work life balance or work life integration or however you think about that. What does that mean to you and how do you think about it?
Patrick Lencioni: Well, I think first of all, just so people know that I’ve made a lot of mistakes, life is a mess. And I think that
thinking that it’s not is a big
problem because then when we make mistakes, we are like,
what’s wrong?
And it’s like, well, that’s, that’s how we learn. So with, when
people
talk to me, they’re like,
so do you have it all
figured out? I’m like, oh,
oh, no, no, no. But I’m trying really hard.
Um, and so for
me, work life balance is, is not so much about push and pull,
It’s more
about integration. And and knowing who you are and being present.
Um, but
what does that, that sounds very theoretical, but
um, it, it’s kind of just leaning all into everything
you’re doing.
Now,
some of us, based on different circumstances, can
do that better than
others, but I have four sons and a wife and, um,
and they are far more important to me than my work. But
my work is a, an important thing for my family and I, it’s my vocation. My professional vocation. So all of these things are important
and, uh, mm-Hmm. If I,
if it was, you know, trying to beg Peter to pay Paul,
I would
never get it right.
It’s
kind of just integrating all
of it together and, uh, and,
and doing
my best. And I’m still learning.
I’m still learning. I’m
literally, I’m, I’m four
days away from my youngest son graduating high school.
Wow. I’ll be an
empty nester in months and, and my, and my parenting life. My, my home life is still very challenging.
so. Mm-Hmm. So,
I’ll I’d like
to explore this with you and learn from you
and share any insights I might have with your audience.
Michael Hyatt: Well, I would, I would love to hear was there ever a time when maybe you didn’t have this, um.
Insight and you were given all your time to work. I know you worked for some big corporations and, and you had an awakening where maybe there was a crisis or maybe something that made you think like, I’ve gotta give more time to my family or to the other areas of my life.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: And you’ve been in
industries where that would be the expectation, I’m assuming.
Yeah.
Patrick Lencioni: Yes.
So my first job was at Bain and Company, a management consultant.
And that
was just like,
just work 90
hours a week and whatever you have left over for your family, that’s fine if, if you really want one, but I don’t know if you need one.
So
that was really a,
wake
up call right outta college. I was just like, whoa, these people are like this.
And then I worked for this company called
Oracle in its
early days, which
was one of
the hardest charging companies in the world.
But coming
from Bain, I thought it was. A party,
you know,
Because
it was nothing like that. It
was only
like 80 hours
a week. I saw the sunlight sometimes when
I left the office,
and I thought that was cool.
And so I got introduced before marriage,
before family
to the, the craziness, and I
knew that
there was something wrong.
And then in my third job
at a, at a tech tech company, the head of marketing, and I was a relatively young person there, I was in my mid twenties, early 20, you know, twenties. And
the the head of marketing, a well known guy.
Was sitting down with me one day
and we were going over some slides for
a presentation. He goes,
Hey Pat, do you have kids?
And I said, no,
no, no, I don’t. He goes, well, when you have kids, spend time with them.
’cause I
have a 16-year-old son and I don’t know
him. Wow. And then he goes, okay, back to
our slides. And that,
that was a, a
beautiful gift that he gave me.
Both: Mm.
Patrick Lencioni: So
from
the time I started my
own company,
I was like, determined not to lose the right priority. The problem
was.
I tried to
be the world’s greatest dad, the world’s greatest husband, the world’s greatest boss, the world’s greatest author. And so I just tried to be all of them. Never, never giving short shrift to
my family. What I didn’t
do is
take care
of myself.
Ooh,
Megan Hyatt-Miller: wow.
Patrick Lencioni: So what was your class, what was the realization
Megan Hyatt-Miller:of that moment? Like? How did, how did that come to you?
Patrick Lencioni: I
call it burnout camp.
I got to a point in my life where I, I hit the wall. And,
And I will tell you it was, I was totally immersed in my family life and in my work life,
and
I hadn’t understood or explored wounds and childhood stuff
and just done any
work on myself
And,
and at some point you just hit the wall.
I. And I did, and I
got two weeks of attention from some doctors and, and other things, and realized that yeah, I’d been burning it on every end and, and I
had been doing that
most of my life and I needed to start to heal.
And that’s been a process
of the last 10 or 15 years
of trying to
explore things like that.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: So what changes did you make at that point?
Patrick Lencioni: Main
thing. I actually went to see counselors, you know,
Wow. I love that. And, and my,
my faith life was always very important, but what I realized was, is that I didn’t really know how to receive love,
Mm. And so
I was giving from a deficit.
Um, and some of our mutual friends, Henry Cloud and Daniel Harkavy, two
people we both know
have spoken into me about this.
and I just never really looked
at myself. I was always like, what do I, what can I give to others? And in our faith life, we have to receive God’s love before we can give it
to others. And I wasn’t a good receiver. And
so that’s kind of what I’ve been working on.
Both: Ah, that’s amazing. Have
Michael Hyatt: in your journey, have there been, over the last 15 years or so, are there some non-negotiables, things that.
For you, you’ve kind of had to put into place to maintain that work life integration and make sure that you have time for you so that you can work on yourself.
Patrick Lencioni: Well,
the prayer is
number one. I mean,
prayer is number one, and
that is,
um, I’ve gotta spend time alone with God.
Yeah. And you know,
I’m Catholic.
I try to go to Mass, I’m
gonna go to Daily Mass today if I can. I, I, I try to
wake up every
morning and,
and
do some Bible reading. Um, and then just spend time alone
with God. It’s so easy for
that to go away. Like I’m too busy. And that’s, that’s a non-negotiable. Um,
too much travel is
a non-negotiable
for me.
Now, I will say that’s the one
thing I’ve been pretty good at. Like
I got,
I used to get in,
invited to a lot
of overseas
trips that I
would say no to ’cause I had family stuff going on or,
or like high profile
events that I was like, I don’t really think I need to know those people.
Or things that would’ve been a little
bit more vanity oriented.
And I always chose not to do them, but I then I burnt myself out on other things. So, um, so for me, work life balance is really
about just life balance. I was oversubscribed to every part of my life,
And even in my family, I was actually. Oversubscribed to my family. I, I volunteered to coach every team and
do every activity
’cause I needed
to prove that I could
be everything
to everyone.
And that’s not, that’s not good.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Thank you so much for your vulnerability. I think that’s gonna mean a ton to the folks that are listening because I think it’s easy to think that the people that are your heroes or that write the books that you read, you know, they’ve got it all figured out.
It just comes easily to them. They don’t make any mistakes. What’s wrong with me? You know, and it’s just not true.
Patrick Lencioni: No. Gosh, no. Oh, and, and you know, I was talking to on a podcast yesterday about this, about how sharing your struggles with others is a gift Mm-Hmm. because this, in this social media culture, when people are like
Posting how happy they are and how everything’s great. And we have all this advice. One of the
best things, the people that have
made the biggest impact on my
life
are people that
have shared
their struggles with me. So I didn’t feel alone
and I didn’t feel like what’s wrong with me? And some of the
people
I admire most are the ones
that are
most vulnerable about Yeah, the mistakes
they’ve made.
So
that’s a gift to put it out there to
people and say, oh
yeah, I’ve,
I’ve screwed up. You know,
Michael Hyatt: I, I shared last night on a Instagram story, and by the time people are listening to us, it’ll be gone. But, uh, I shared about my lifelong struggle with anxiety, but I didn’t really have words to express it until a couple years ago.
And, you know, I, I just thought it was racing thoughts, insomnia. You know, I’d worry about the future. I’d sometimes in the middle of the night catastrophize about the future. Hmm. Then I finally found out that it was, um, anxiety, but I admitted that on social media and I’ve been in therapy for that now, and I’ve got some really good tools that have helped dramatically, but it didn’t happen overnight.
But what I was amazed by is that got more views, more comments, more people saying. In fact, somebody that’s pretty well known said to me in a direct message, they said, buddy, I have struggled with this for years. It’s overwhelmed me at times and I don’t know where to turn. Could we have a conversation?
Patrick Lencioni: Yeah,
so this, and
I think
a lot of high achievers struggle with this. Absolutely. You know, one of
the things I’m exploring
wounds right now, like, like understanding childhood wounds. There’s this amazing book by this guy, um, named Dr. Bob Shoots,
and it’s called Be Healed and it’s a, it’s a faith.
look at the childhood wounds
and how they play
out in our life, how we make vows to ourself based on our wounds.
We tell ourselves lies, then we make a vow and
it leads to really destructive behavior. But the problem is it’s
destructive behavior that gets.
that gets valued
and encouraged in society.
It, it leads us true to be high
achievers and we make money and we influence
others
and we get attention,
but
it’s often because we’re acting out of our wounds and essentially it’s fear-based
success. Yep.
Both: Yeah.
Patrick Lencioni: any fear-based success
is just eventually
gonna hit a wall.
And so this is something that
so many of the people I work with are like, I need to hear about
this.
Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm. this, this anxiety, whether it’s
OCD, whether
it’s, and it’s all a big spectrum,
it’s fear-based success. And unfortunately, the
world doesn’t warn you about it until you crash and burn.
Yeah.
Michael Hyatt: Let’s talk a little bit about the six types of working genius. Now, let me just kind of set this up a little bit. I, I think for most of us, and this doesn’t sound like it was true of you, but I think for a lot of people at our audience, they struggle to make room for the other parts of their life, like family, like their personal health.
Their intellectual development to all the rest. And the thing that I love about working genius, and Megan and I have both taken the test, uh, or the assessment, is that it allows you to focus where you make the biggest contribution. And for me at least, the message, well, I don’t have to do everything. I just need to lean into what I do.
Great. And if I do that, that’s gonna move the business forward and it’s gonna also allow time for my life.
Patrick Lencioni: Yeah, it, it really speaks to the
whole concept
of burnout. And
this is a topic that,
that gets back to our anxiety
and all
this stuff, but burnout is really
misunderstood because most people think burnout is. Doing just too much work. And yeah, there is a part
of burnout that’s
related to that,
but
you can do a lot of work in an area that
you are, that gives you passion
and energy
and, and
joy
Not
get burned out and go home
and be a better
version of yourself for your family.
You
could do half the number of hours and go home, more frustrated and more defeated if you’re not
doing the right kind of work.
Yeah. And really it’s, it’s
such and it affects your joy.
Michael Hyatt: Really interesting distinction that I’ve never thought about till you just said that. Yep. That is great.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Well, it’s like we often think of burnout as being a quantitative issue.
Michael Hyatt: Yeah.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: You know, we’re, there’s too much quantity. Right. We need less quantity.
We’ll be less burnout. But there’s also the qualitative piece, which is about what we’re doing during that time, and it’s not all equal and it’s not neutral, you know?
Patrick Lencioni: Not at all.
In fact,
you can work six hours a day and go home and be really miserable.
You could work 12
hours
a day and go home and have lots of energy for your loved
ones and
for your, in your own life, depending on what you’re doing.
Mm-Hmm. And
God gives us these gifts. We’re very clear in the book, in the assessment.
These are God-given. These are not things that you
develop. We are
born with different geniuses
Both: Mm-Hmm. and,
Patrick Lencioni: and
we are meant
to unwrap that gift.
Not brag about
ourselves, but brag about the giver
Then
use them because that’s why we’re on earth to use
the gifts we have in service of
others.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: That’s fantastic. when we,
Patrick Lencioni: yeah, when we don’t do that, we, there’s, we get, it’s, it’s really
messes
us
up inside and I’ve had jobs,
my first job outta college, I failed at, I worked 80 hours a week probably.
Um, maybe on average only
70. And, and I thought I was a failure,
and it
was, when I look back
now,
I
realize it was exactly
the wrong job for me. And it was, it was something I carried with
me for
decades thinking I was not smart.
I was lazy. And I realized later on,
oh my gosh, I was just in completely the wrong job for my geniuses. And so
many people out there are feeling unnecessary guilt and judgment.
Because they didn’t realize
not everybody
can do
every job and we’re not meant
to.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Yeah. Especially if you’re a high achiever. ’cause you think, you know, with brute force, I can do anything.
Patrick Lencioni: Yes.
In fact, high achievers. So this gets back to my, this is where it
all comes together. So because of my
wounds and my high achieving and fear, I actually got really good at things I hated,
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Ugh.
Patrick Lencioni: Wow.
You know, that’s the worst, worst. Then you’re,
Megan Hyatt-Miller: and then you’re trapped.
Patrick Lencioni: Yeah.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: By your own success. And then
people
Patrick Lencioni: are like.
You should do more
of that
Yeah. And you’re like, please don’t make
me do more of that,
Michael Hyatt: Can you, can you give us an example of something you got really good at but didn’t enjoy?
Patrick Lencioni: Sure,
sure. Like, so, so as a kid,
I
did everything my parents, coaches, teachers, and everybody
told me to
do.
But
if you look at my Myers-Briggs, and especially my working genius, you’ll realize that was completely against the grain.
I mean, I
got straight
A’s and in
college I would go to the library and grind and grind and grind.
But if you look at my personality, I’m the kind
of person that should only take classes
that
I’m interested in.
I should blow off the
things I know I don’t need
to do. Like, oh,
the teacher gave me that assignment, but I don’t really need to do that. I
can figure this out on my, no,
I would do it by the letter of
the law.
You know, and my wife met me in college
and she, like, my room
was perfectly clean
and I went to every class. I
had two notebooks for every class. I’d recopy my notes. None of this was natural. It was
all because I was so afraid
to fail
that I
would do these things Wow. and there was anxiety and there was
OCD and all these other things
built into that.
And then I get outta
college and I get, I interview for the best job in America
that year. And I get it.
’cause I know how to
interview and I know how to present
myself.
But then I actually have
to do the work, and when you have to do something 70 hours
a week under pressure
and it’s something you don’t like, I finally got to the point where
like, I can’t be the best.
At this anymore,
and it’s
crushing me. So I got really good at doing things by the book, taking the long word out, never taking a shortcut, always doing exactly what was expected of me.
There are certain people who, that’s how
they work and they love that. They’re like,
tell
me exactly what
to do. I love hitting
all my numbers.
I love doing things by the book.
I’m a creative guy and I was doing thing everything
in any way but creative, and it crushed me eventually.
Michael Hyatt: Share with us how you came to write this book, because you were a mega successful author. Is this your most recent book? Yes. Yeah, so, so there’s gotta be a story behind this.
Then I’d like to, for you to just share the basic framework of the book.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: And then selfishly, I want you to interpret our results because we have, I, I was gonna say the same thing because we have you here and you’re a captive audience.
Patrick Lencioni: I can’t wait to do that. So, so just so you know,
I’ve been a,
a junkie for every
kind of personality test
and model.
Me too. Yeah. I use ’em all
And we use Myers-Briggs in our practice. We still use it in certain ways and
in disc, and I’ve done StrengthsFinder, all those
things. I think it’s fascinating and
interesting.
So this came
about
by accident.
Four years ago, almost, not even four
years ago, I was
in my office. I was doing all this work on Zoom and I would go from one Zoom call where I’d be
really excited to
another one and I’d
be kind of bummed out and
frustrated.
The next
thing I’d
be
really excited and, and this woman
that worked for
me, she turned to me
and she said,
pat, why
are you like that? Why do you go up and down
so much? And it was purely a curiosity and
concern for me,
and it’s something
that I’d been experiencing in my own company for 20 years
that I
loved the people I worked with
and I
loved what I did.
But
I’d come to work excited and I would get bummed out most days at some point. And
she said,
why do you do that, do you think? And I said, I
don’t know, but
I
wanna figure it out.
And over
the course of the next
four hours. Truly by the grace of
God. ’cause I felt
like I blacked out and I was talking to my team.
We, We, we,
said
there’s certain kinds of work that frustrates me and certain kinds of work that I love. And we, we, we came up
with these six circles on the
board, which my wife later turned into gears
because they’re interdependent.
And we said
there’s certain pieces of, of, of the
work experience
that I’m meant to do
that I love.
And
when I come to work, I’m totally excited to do those. And
then I get dragged
into some. I
feel like I have to do, but I
don’t love, they don’t feed me. And, and after a while I
get really grumpy
and after 20 years of oversubscribing to the wrong kind of work,
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Mm-Hmm. I
Patrick Lencioni: started to resent it.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Yeah.
Patrick Lencioni: Hmm. And it was like, and by the way, we
weren’t trying
to come up
with a model to write a book.
We were
just trying to figure out what was making me
grumpy
That’s great. And. Somebody saw the whiteboard that we were working on,
and the next day he
shared that
the model with
a CEO client of his,
and the guy had tears in his eyes. He said, wait, this explains my,
my problem too. And we
realized, oh, there’s something universal here.
So a small team
of us spent three months putting with
my son, who
you
met earlier, putting together
an assessment.
to try to help
people understand what it was and the,
the
demand was
so high, and
here’s what it is, it actually explains the kind of work you do. Like tactically, like I love Myers-Briggs, but it’s more about your personality.
It’s the noun of who you are and
all this stuff. But I never understood, so what
kind of
job should I have? What kind of work should I be doing? This one is the closest to the work and the assessment. It’s amazing. It takes 12 minutes to fill it out and five minutes after getting the results back, people look at it
and go.
yeah, yeah.
This explains why I failed at that job,
why I love this job,
why these
projects go well, why this, these ones don’t, and why my wife and I argue,
it’s the craziest thing. And so the, the
immediacy of the application blew us away,
and that’s why I’m having more
fun working on this than
anything
I’ve ever done.
And it’s why
I can’t wait to find out what you guys are, because it, it really gives me handles around understanding you and, and what you love
to do.
Michael Hyatt: Well, before we tell you that, why don’t you give us the six,
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Working geniuses, yeah,
Patrick Lencioni: yeah, types. So give us those six.
So there’s six different,
and what they are is
six different kinds of work, and two
of these six. Are your geniuses. Everybody has
two, but two of them
are what we call your working competencies,
which is you can do ’em, you’re
okay, you’re competent at them, but they don’t feed you.
And there’s two more that are your working frustrations.
Mm. The way
I say it is like that your working genius is like you pour coffee
into a, into a Yeti mug or
like that
sippy cup you have there, we call ’em. And um, and if
you pour a, put
a
lid on it, it’ll, it’ll keep its heat for hours,
Right. Then if you pour coffee, that’s
your working genius.
You get joy
and energy from it.
If you pour coffee into a Starbucks cup and put a lid on it, it’ll stay warm for a while, but it’ll eventually
get cold. That’s your
working competency.
But your working frustration is taking a coffee
cup
and pouring coffee
into it, and there’s a there hole in the bottom of it. It just leaks out.
Both: Hmm.
Patrick Lencioni: And if
you don’t know what your genius,
your competency, and your, and your frustrations are, you can find yourself in doing work.
That
destroys
your energy, your joy, and your, the way you do everything else in your life. So, mm-Hmm. so that’s
how this works.
so if we
go, if we
were to go through the, the
six types of working genius really
fast, the
first one, the, the one that happens first in all of life, every company,
every new idea, every.
Endeavor starts with
wonder. Mm-Hmm. And somebody who has the genius of pondering things and asking the
first question.
This, this whole
tool came about. ’cause
somebody on my team, Amy wondered, she said, why are you
like that? She didn’t know,
but she asked the questions. I’m curious as to why you get frustrated.
Or
somebody says. I
wonder if there’s a better way to serve
our
customers, or maybe there’s something missing
in the things we’re doing, or I wonder if there this couldn’t be better.
Now, most people with a genius of
wonder are not, are not rewarded for it in life, especially in early education. They’re like, quit asking questions. Just do what you’re told.
And even in work, this is probably the loneliest genius
in the sense that nobody really says,
I’m glad you’re always pondering, but everything starts with that
question.
And we need to let people know that it’s valued and it’s necessary. And it happens
up at 50,000 feet with your head in the clouds, and then
working Genius works its way down to five feet where
you land the plane,
but it always starts with the in the clouds. The second genius in order is the one
we all have,
and
that’s
invention. So
somebody asks the question like, I wonder if there’s a better way to do it, and then we go, give me a chance to come up with
an idea.
Right. We love that. And we’re like, no more, no
more structure. Don’t, don’t, don’t give me any boundaries. Let me just come up with something.
Mm-Hmm. Here’s
what’s amazing about working genius.
The three
of us love to do that. There are people, if
you gave them a job and said, listen, I’m not
gonna give you any parameters.
Just come
up with whatever you want to do, and you let me know what you think. They’ll say, what? What do you mean? That sounds like
the worst job in the world? And I think, what do you mean that’s my, that’s the best job in the
world. And that’s why one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. You know, there are people in the world who don’t want a job
that
relies on invention.
There’s, there’s the
rest. There’s the three of us who’s like, oh, please let me invent. And
for years we’ve been going around managing people the
way we think we would like to be managed.
Hiring people and saying, okay, you’re not gonna have any parameters. You get
to come up with your own job description.
And they’re like, I,
I, I hate, I hate this.
And we, and we tend
to go like, what’s wrong with you?
Aren’t
you
smart? Aren’t you creative? And they’re like, no,
I’m wired differently than
you. Mm-hmm.
And so, so wonder and invention are the first two geniuses, and those two are called ideation.
That’s where new ideas come
from.
All righty.
The next
genius is discernment.
We have the gift of.
Evaluating things,
using our intuition,
our instincts, pattern recognition. Mm-Hmm. It’s, it’s not a linear way of thinking.
Mm-Hmm. It’s just
you, we kinda look at things it just kind of emerges for us.
And it’s
not magic, it’s, it’s,
just the way God wired us.
that
we can kinda look
at a bunch of things and go, I think this is the right answer.
And if somebody
says, why?
We’re like, I’m not sure, but every
fiber of my being
is saying this is the right thing. Mm-Hmm. And, and I’m pretty sure it’s
true the.
Person on my team that has
this that I love to talk about
is a woman named Tracy.
Tracy.
Um, Tracy’s looking for an office space
for me right now ’cause we’re moving and. She called me today and said, we’ve, I found
it, pat,
It’s great. You’re gonna love
it. I sent you some pictures, we’re gonna need to
move fast.
And
I literally said to her,
just, just take it. If you think it’s good, it must be, because I
know that Tracy’s gut is almost always right,
Both: Mm-Hmm. Wow.
Patrick Lencioni: And my wife and I’ll be at home and we’ll say, should we refinance the house? Where should we go on vacation? How, what should we do
about this? And she’ll say, ask Tracy.
And you know
what’s amazing?
Tracy said when
she was a little girl, her friends would always go to her and go ask
Tracy.
Both: Mm-Hmm.
Patrick Lencioni: She just
knows what to do,
And I, I can
say this about you, Megan. You know this
is true, that somebody can
go to you and you can go, yeah, I feel my
gut tells me this, and people can
rely on that
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Yep.
Patrick Lencioni: True. When I
Megan Hyatt-Miller: get in trouble is when I ignore it, which of course I have. Yes. And it always comes back to bite me and I’m like, when will I learn? You know, I do think I’m getting better at that, but it’s, it’s challenging in a very concrete world to not be able to express the concrete rationale for something.
At least not right away. Sometimes it’ll come later, you know?
Patrick Lencioni: You know what’s funny? Remember that first
job I had, the fir. Well, let’s
go
through these and I’ll we’ll go back
to that. ’cause it’s so interesting ’cause discernment. I
love
to use
my discernment and when somebody says,
prove it to me,
show me the data, I’m like, oh no,
So
the next genius
after discernment comes galvanizing. That’s
like after something’s been discerned, like, yeah, this is a great idea. We feel really good about it. The
inventor invented
the discerner discerned. They went back and forth
and
they’re
like, okay, we’re ready to go. Then the
galvanizer comes in and says, let me get people excited.
Let’s get the troops in the room. Let’s talk about it.
Let me pitch it to them. Let me plea, make
a plea for their, for their commitment to this. And they love to sell. They love to inspire. They love to remind,
Well, here’s the thing, I don’t love to do that. I can do it. It’s one of my competencies. But as the CEO of my company, I thought I was supposed to be the chief galvanizing officer.
So I’d come into work and every day
I was getting dragged into over galvanizing,
It was crushing me, and I finally
looked at a
guy on my team who
had galvanized. I
said, you should be the chief galvanizing officer. And he
goes, well, I’m not old enough
to do
that, and I don’t have enough experience. I said, no, no, no.
It’s a
gift.
And he
goes, I would love to do that.
I said, okay.
Every morning you’re gonna get people excited about
all the things
we’re doing. You’re gonna remind them, you’re gonna pitch them. And it’s not that I don’t have to
do any of it, but please
don’t
lean on me to do that all
the time. His job satisfaction went up.
My job satisfaction went up. We got twice as much done in less time. And it was
because we
understood that
let’s let people
lean into their geniuses.
Yeah, I love this.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: I love it.
Patrick Lencioni: So
d and g are
the middle steps, the last two steps. are Called implementation, and that’s enablement.
So this is, this is, we’re gonna land the plane.
we’re getting down to like 10,000 feet.
We’re gonna have to put this plane on the
ground.
And we’re like, okay,
next plane. And they’re like, no, we
have to land this one first.
And
so it starts with
enablement. So the
galvanizer goes out and says,
Hey everybody, we need your help.
The person
with enablement says, yes, yes. What do you need from me? I’ll do it. Hmm. They’re critical on a team. They’re like.
They’re that utility player
that says, whatever you need, I’ll do it.
You just
let me know I’m there. So enablement is
great, and they’re not, it’s not
just because they’re nice, it’s
a genius.
They actually wake up in
the morning and say, if people ask me for their help, for my help,
I will be so excited to
say yes. And, and we’re like, what makes them go? It’s like,
thank God they’re
like that ’cause we’re not. And then the last one is tenacity,
which is the
person
who doesn’t
just say, yes, I’ll help. It says, what need? What do we need to do
to actually get it done? Right? And
to finish.
They love finishing.
They love the last steps.
They
love landing the plane and saying, there it got done.
Well, imagine you guys,
people take this, A team will take it and look at the team map and they’ll go, we don’t have anybody on our team with Tenacity or
we
don’t have
anybody on our team
with Wonder.
I was working with a group of, uh, of executives at a big tech company,
multi-billion dollar tech company that hadn’t come up with a new idea in 10 years.
All of their revenue came from old stuff.
They were so frustrated and so
were
their employees.
So I did this with their executive team and none of the executives had wonder as a
genius. In
fact, most of them had it as a
frustration. So nobody ever said,
gee, maybe this isn’t right. I wonder if the market’s saying something different.
As they were always like managing their to,
to-do list.
And only one executive at this high tech company had
invention
as a genius. And he was the, he was the lawyer.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Uh oh.
Patrick Lencioni: Do you know what they did?
They put him in charge of new technology
development and acquisition. Wow. Not because of his background, but because he had a passion for new ideas
and they, and that’s the thing about this
working genius, when you know what a person’s genius is, suddenly their job description doesn’t matter quite so much.
Wow. You’re just, you have a
gift at that.
We should let you use that gift for yourself and
for the benefit of everybody around you. And, and, and this is what’s going on in,
in these organizations
and and people that we’re talking to. They’re like,
I finally
understand what I’m meant to do. Not necessarily the
field I’m supposed to be, and not necessarily my
job description, but the work that gives me energy and where I can contribute
the most.
So those are the
six types of working genius, starting with wonder, invention, discernment, galvanizing enablement, and tenacity.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: , we’re gonna be a little bit selfish here for a second, pat. And we’re gonna tell you what our two types of genius are, and we wanna know like, what does that mean? What should we do with our lives?
Now, you know,
Michael Hyatt: are we normal?
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Are we normal? Okay, so mine are invention and discernment.
Patrick Lencioni: Those are mine.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: We’re twins. Wow. And remember,
Patrick Lencioni: there’s, there’s 15 different combos, permutations, and combinations. Oh,
Megan Hyatt-Miller: wow. Okay. So
Patrick Lencioni: you
and I just happen to be
Wow. The same combination. And I’m invention and galvanizing.
Okay.
I was gonna guess
that Michael. Yeah, I was gonna guess that. So, so this is, this is fun. So invention and discernment. Is we are called the
discriminating ideators, which what means, most of the ideas
we come up with, we vet them
in our heads.
Yeah. So by the time
we put it out there, they’re
actually pretty well thought of.
Both: Mm-Hmm.
Patrick Lencioni: So, so
we, we
we are doing both in,
we’re coming up with a new idea and evaluating it simultaneously.
Both: Mm-Hmm. Yeah.
Patrick Lencioni: Now. Michael, you’re an inventor and a
galvanizer. That’s called the
evangelizing innovator, and that is you’re always coming up with new ideas and you love to pitch them
and to inspire
people to act on them.
In fact, the the connection between a new idea and, and the
the. Pitch of it or happen
simultaneously,
And I know so many. That’s
Megan Hyatt-Miller: so true.
Patrick Lencioni: Yeah. And, and I
know so many
people like you, Michael, and here’s true. This
is something true about all the igs. I know
When
you first meet them,
you can’t really
believe
that they’re
sincere.
They’re so over the top
in their
excitement around things
that it’s easy to go, this
guy can’t really be like this.
Hilarious. Our friend, our friend Daniel Harkavy, iss
like that too. And um,
and when you first meet them,
you’re like, can he really be that enthusiastic? And then you know them
for a short period and you’re like, he really is.
He really is. And then when you come up
with an idea
though.
somebody comes up and says, well, I think
you need to
tweak it. You’re very open. Like,
oh yeah, great. Right? We
could tweak it. So
there’s not that pride of ownership, but you just love to come up with new ideas and present
them to
the world, which is why you have a podcast and you’ve done all these other things, so, so
I love, I love that. This is really fun. You’re both innovative, you’re both inventors. You both love coming up with new ideas.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Yes, that’s definitely true.
Michael Hyatt: We’re very similar. On a lot of tests and you know, Megan has half my DNA as my daughter, so I, I guess that’s to be expected. The bottom ones for me.
Patrick Lencioni: Yeah. Tell me about your, your working
frustrations.
Michael Hyatt: Yeah. My working frustrations are tenacity and enablement.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Me
Patrick Lencioni: too. Okay.
Those
happen to be mine
and, and just, and
This is crazy, but it isn’t because
the kind of people
that do what we
do. And my son
will tell you this. He, he’s, he’s our, one of our producers on our podcasts. And and when I’m on
other people’s podcasts, a
lot of people who do what we do that like curate ideas and come up with new ideas
and share
them with others, have similar working
geniuses. So
this
is not common.
It just happens to be common with a lot of people who do what
we do. So the thing about you is this, this is, this is almost painful to hear, but it’s, it’s not a
moral issue.
And that
is
the
two things that you don’t love to do what we call, and I’ll explain this in a bit. Enablement and tenacity.
Enablement is coming alongside and just saying to somebody, yes, I’ll help you. Just
whatever you need, I’ll do it for you. Now. We love to help people. But not necessarily on their terms.
Right, exactly. And,
and as a follower of Jesus, I feel like, but I’m supposed to say yes, but I can’t say yes if I don’t have a chance to evaluate whether I really think they need that.
And there are people in the world and
it’s a gift. It’s a God-given gift,
who you can say,
I just need this.
And they say, I will give you what you want
right now the way you want it. No questions
asked. And
I don’t have
that. Right. My
wife says to me, Hey, I need your help this
weekend. And right
away I get
this pin
in my stomach.
like, what
do you need, honey?
And she says,
I need you to help
me clean the garage. And I’m like, oh, okay. Okay. Okay. And the first
thing I say is,
Can I
design what the garage is gonna look like? And she’s like, no, I don’t want your invention.
And I’m like, can I, can I, can I ask why you
think we need to, to, to.
Reevaluate the garage and she’s, no, I don’t want your discernment. I just want you
to stand
in the corner. And when I hand you something, I want you to put it where
I tell
you.
And that
is crushing. And she has friends that are like,
oh yeah, I’ll
do that.
I’ll just come over. We’ll chat. Yeah, I’ll do
whatever you ask me to do.
Michael Hyatt: My wife is that way.
Patrick Lencioni: Yeah. And every
team needs them. Every family needs them, but it’s not my thing. Now, the tenacity that
both of you
guys is, is the finishing. Is the finishing.
Mm-Hmm. And it’s like, I
don’t love, I love the beginning of things. I love getting things
started. Me too. And then I like to move on to
the next thing.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Yep.
Patrick Lencioni: And there are
people in the world
To them, that’s anathema. They, they
hate that.
They’re like, if I can’t finish,
if I can’t see
the end of it, if I can’t cross it off the list, plow through the obstacles
and and hit my target, then I
don’t even want to do it. And I’m the opposite. I’m like, well, if I have to keep pushing through to the end, I don’t really want
to do it.
Mm-Hmm.
Both: And so we
Patrick Lencioni: need
one another. We need one another. To get things done, but
we are not, so the
ET is called
the loyal finisher. That’s
not who we are. That
Megan Hyatt-Miller: is not who we are. Wow. Just the polar opposite of that
Patrick Lencioni: Where can people take this assessment? If you go
to working genius.com,
working genius.com,
there’s two G’s in the middle there. Um,
you
can, you can take it, you can get it there and take
it there.
Teams can do
it. They
can do it. It’s
$25 and it’s,
it’s takes 12 minutes and people, and then you get
Megan Hyatt-Miller: this amazing report. You know, I’m looking at mine right now with all this incredible information. If, if you don’t. Happen to find yourself fortunate enough to have Pat on your podcast to explain your results to you.
That’s okay. ’cause he is already explained it in the report. So would,
Michael Hyatt: would you recommend Pat, that people take the test first and then read the book, take the test or reverse? Take
Patrick Lencioni: the test?
the book. The book allows you to go deeper. But what we’ve found is if you take
the test. You, you,
so much
of it makes sense.
There’s just enough description and there’s plenty of places
to go deeper the book and
other things on the website. But just understand
who you are. ’cause
most
people do it and within five minutes they look at
it and they go,
well
crap.
this, this explains
a lot. We had a guy
who
was doing a performance review. He was getting
reviewed and he knew
he’d done very poorly
for,
for, for the year. And so he knew his, his boss was gonna give him a bad
review and his
boss’s boss came to the review
too. He was gonna be there. And so the night before he did the working genius. He looked
at it and he goes,
well, no wonder. So he, he
comes to the.
performance area and says,
before we get into this stuff for last year, can you guys read this?
And they looked at the report, takes
minutes to read, and they were like,
well, crap, you’re in the wrong job. No wonder you, you’d had such a terrible year. And he goes, I
know. And they go,
well, we
have this other job you should do.
Huh? You’d be really good. in, they didn’t even talk about his failure. They said,
wow, let’s
get you in the right job.
So this
guy got a promotion
rather
than. Rather than getting dinged, because his manager just wanted
to know
who
he was. He didn’t even know it, but as soon as he showed this
to him, he said, okay, this explains everything.
Both: Wow.
Patrick Lencioni: So, so good. We, we just
think that everybody should know what their geniuses are, unwrap the gifts God gave you,
Yeah.
and,
uh,
Michael Hyatt: and help others
do it too.
I, I would think that it’s really important if you’re at work and in any role of leadership, whether you’re the CEO or divisional manager or department manager, whatever, is to be thoughtful. About the collection of employees or the team that you’re building so that you’ve got all of these working geniuses, or at least the ones that are necessary represented.
Both: Mm-Hmm.
Patrick Lencioni: Absolutely. In fact, what we
say is the best combination of geniuses
for A CEO is just the
self-awareness ones.
Yeah. In other words, just know who you are. And
we’ve had CEOs of all types, but then they sit down, they go,
okay, I need
to surround myself with people who fill in my
gaps.
Both: Mm-Hmm.
Patrick Lencioni: And I
need to celebrate the fact that they’re better than me at things.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Yeah.
Patrick Lencioni: And, and, and, you
know, this is about your working genius, but I actually think it’s just as much about your frustrations
so that you can go
to people around
you and go, just so you guys know, I suck at a few things, and you probably
already know that,
but now you can tell me that because I’m agreeing with you and let’s make sure that I
don’t do
things that I suck at that
are gonna hurt
the organization.
And people
are like, it, it, it increases the vulnerability and the
openness about
Megan Hyatt-Miller:Mm-hmm.
Patrick Lencioni: Strengths and weaknesses.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: That’s fantastic. You, you
Michael Hyatt: know, the thing that occurs to me too as you’re talking, pat, is that when I know what my working genius is, and when I’m working inside of my working genius, I’m gonna come home a different person.
Oh. That if I’m working in something, that’s my frustrating, is that what you call it? The frustrating, genius frustration. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If I’m in frustration and I come home, I’m not gonna be the best version of myself. Mm-Hmm. No. So that’s, that’s why all these different domains of life are so interconnected.
Why do we have to pay attention to all of them?
Patrick Lencioni: Yeah. You know, you know how this
affected my wife ’cause she was involved in this
tool. ’cause she loves this kind of stuff like I do. But she’s been raising our,
I mean I have been
too, I’m very involved in raising our sons,
but she’s been full-time doing that even and running a Bible study and
doing other things, but
really doing a lot of the stuff every day.
And after she, when I
wrote the book
and she
read it, I said,
what’d you think? She goes, it was great. And I’m so mad.
And it, and she goes, and now
I realize I was doing
things outside of
my area
of genius for 20 years. Wow. And, and what’s
what’s funny is during all that time
I was like, Laura, just hire somebody
to do that stuff.
Just outsource it. I know it’s not your thing. And she goes, no,
I felt too guilty. Yeah. Like, but I would be a bad mom.
Both: Mm-Hmm.
Patrick Lencioni: Because moms are supposed to love, like, getting things
done on time and
to paying the bills and, and getting the laundry done, and getting the kids to school.
And my wife, you know what her working geniuses are, wonder and invention.
Both: Mm
Patrick Lencioni: Wow. So she’s at the higher end where she loves coming up with
new ideas and questioning things,
and yet
she was spending all of her time doing the other stuff and.
one, she could have outsourced it if she’d realized it. Or two, she
could have at least given herself a break and some grace
and said,
Hey, I’m gonna make mistakes in this area, but I’m doing my best.
It’s not my genius. I shouldn’t feel guilty.
Both: Mm-hmm.
Patrick Lencioni: So I
want people to avoid
unnecessary guilt and self-judgment or even judgment
of others. We judge other people, we say, how
come you can’t come up with
a new idea? A pastor wrote to us and said, listen, he, he
took
the gene
working gene. He goes, for
20 years I thought I was a, a fraud.
I said,
why? And he goes.
I couldn’t write a
sermon to save my life.
He goes, my friends can
go for a walk in the woods and come out with a, with a four weeks sermon series, and I couldn’t do it.
And I looked at his working genius type
and I said. Do you like counseling people? Do you like, like
grief counseling and helping people?
And he goes, oh yeah, I’m great at that. Of course you are.
Do
you know there’s other pastors who could write a
homily, but they can’t even talk to a person
who’s in grief because everybody has different, one
pastor is not a pastor, is not
a pastor. A ceo E is not a
ceo. A mom is not
a mom is not a mom. We have to understand that none of us are good
at all of it, but there’s so many people walking around out there feeling guilty for not
being everything.
And
what a relief to know, oh, God just didn’t give me those gifts.
And that’s why we
Megan Hyatt-Miller: need each other.
Patrick Lencioni: He
made us to need each other. We’re it’s life as a team sport.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Yeah.
Patrick Lencioni: Life. I love that.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Okay, so we are running out time sadly. ’cause I feel like we could just talk to you all day. I wish we absolutely, we had hours, but we have some questions that we ask all of our guests and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
So in kind of a lightning round. Yeah. Kind of a lightning round, like, and I don’t know what these
Patrick Lencioni: questions are, so this is, I know this is gonna be fun.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: This is great. Okay. So in just a couple of sentences, tell us what your biggest obstacle is currently. For getting the double win, winning at work, and succeeding at life.
Patrick Lencioni: Um, my biggest obstacle
is
worrying about things
that are not really the source of my frustration
Hmm. And going back and
understanding. The real historical roots of my frustration and focusing on those, I distract myself with like, I have to fix this. I have to fix this. I have
to fix this. If I could only fix this,
I’d
be happy.
And it’s like, Nope, it’s.
it’s not about that stuff.
It’s about
go back and deal with some of the core issues
you have
and quit trying to distract yourself by
Megan Hyatt-Miller:Yeah.
Patrick Lencioni: Stuff. That’s good answer. That’s
Megan Hyatt-Miller: such a great answer. Okay. How do you personally know now in this season of life that you’ve achieved the double win?
Patrick Lencioni: Oh,
I mean, you, you, pause there because first of all, I don’t know if you’ve ever completely get there,
but it’s
the, Mm-Hmm. the thing we’re looking for is peace. right? It’s peace. And that’s what everybody wants. People go, I wanna be happy. And
it’s like, you know, I think you really want
peace because life is sad sometimes, but even in the midst of sadness, we can have peace.
Both: Yes. And
Patrick Lencioni: so when
you have those moments of peace,
and whenever I tell that to people like, yeah, that’s
really what I want.
’cause happiness, euphoria, you can never sustain
that. But there is the possibility of sustainable peace. And when I have those glimpses of
it, I’m,
I’m there. I’m looking to have that all the time, regardless of
external circumstances.
Mm-Hmm.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: How do you know that you’re at peace? Like, what are the clues that your body gives you or your thoughts or whatever?
Patrick Lencioni: Yeah, that’s a great question. I think
it’s like true rest
Hmm. And
true rest is like
taking that
breath
and realizing everything
is fine
And,
and being in the, and I know this sounds like a cliche, but being in the moment, like one of the things I do way too much is think about
the future.
I’m always thinking about
the future. You know, the Bible says, you know, Jesus said,
Hey, the world is the,
the future’s got plenty of problems of its
own. Just all you have right now is now.
Mm-Hmm. And I think when we live in the moment.
We’re at peace in
the moment, that’s when it is. ’cause
I’m, yeah. I’ve spent my
whole life worrying about the future and that’s, that’s a great
recipe for stress.
Mm-Hmm. We are kindred spirits.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Yeah. Yeah. We can relate to that. Alright. What is one ritual or routine that helps you do what you do? Especially the get the double win?
Patrick Lencioni: Okay, so I’ve, I’ve the, so
I have an app called Amen,
which is, yes, I’m familiar with this. Literally
what’s
that? I’ve, I’ve, I’ve heard of this.
I. Yeah.
And, and it’s free.
And literally every morning I
wake up
and I hit play
and it reads, the, the reading
that the daily reading, the psalm and the gospel reading,
And it takes like seven minutes.
and, and it’s easy, like, ’cause it’s just like the habit.
because every day I start with that
and
because I need some, some
structure way to
do
it. If I
have to do it on my own,
it’s just not gonna happen.
So every morning I wake up, I hit, hit play,
and I listen to seven minutes of Bible
and
I, and that
starts my day in the right direction.
Michael Hyatt: Fantastic.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: I love that.
Michael Hyatt: Well, pat, it’s a privilege to know you. I’m honored that you agreed to come on the podcast and you did not disappoint.
This was powerful. Mm-Hmm. Rich, and I think our listeners are gonna take away. A ton of value from this. So thank you for being so openhearted. Yeah. And giving us your best.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Absolutely.
Patrick Lencioni: Well, it’s a, it’s,
I could talk to you guys for hours. This is not work. It’s, it’s fun and it’s raw and it’s good
’cause that’s how God made
us
to live, so.
That’s
right. thanks for having me on here, you guys. I really appreciate
it. I hope that, I hope your listeners take something helpful away from it.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: I know they will. Thank you.
Patrick Lencioni: Thanks again. .
Nick: That was
Michael Hyatt: a really fun interview.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Yeah, it was. It was. Surpris did. Surprising what you enjoy about ITing to me. Did you? About, okay, so I, I don’t know, pat, you, you know, pat. So this was my first mm-Hmm.
Experience of talking to him, um, directly. And the thing that stood out to me was his incredible humility and vulnerability.
Michael Hyatt: Yeah, me too.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: I, I was just like, wow, he doesn’t need to share any of this, you know, and he was talking about kind of his own journey of healing and looking at his childhood wounds and kind of how.
Previously those things came out sideways. I mean, who can’t relate to that? Like everybody raises their hand and
Michael Hyatt: I didn’t know any of that. I
Megan Hyatt-Miller: didn’t know any of that either. I didn’t know much. But, and and
Michael Hyatt: the funny thing is, it’s kind of been our journey too. Yeah. Kind of our whole family’s
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Yeah.
Michael Hyatt: Going through this similar kind of thing.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Yeah.
Michael Hyatt: And it’s really helpful or validating to hear that somebody else Yeah. Of his stature struggles with a lot of the same things.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Yep.
Michael Hyatt: And the fact that he’s so open and vulnerable about it. Mm-Hmm. And this is a good lesson for all of us to take away. That draws me to him.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Right. And I don’t, I think the other thing to take away is it’s never too late.
Yeah. You know, it’s you. It’s easy to think, well, my career’s already established, my kids are almost grown. You know, and you have kind of a list and it’s like, well, I wish I would’ve done this in my twenties or my thirties. But it’s okay if you didn’t. Like it’s unless you’re dead, it’s not too late.
Michael Hyatt: Well, it’s kinda that old thing about, um, you know, the best time to plant a oak tree is 40 years ago.
Second best time is today. Right. You know, so if you can’t Right. If you didn’t do it before, no problem. Right. If you don’t have the double win right now, or you, if you haven’t had it for the last few decades, it’s never too late to start. Yeah. I think another insight I got from him too, and this is something I know, but he just.
Said it, and that is that he’s still pursuing the double win. And is there ever a point where you really get it
Megan Hyatt-Miller: right?
Michael Hyatt: You know, it’s, it’s a constant pursuit. You know, it’s not like you’re gonna get there. It’s like health and stay there.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Yeah, exactly. You know, you’re, you can’t just one day say, oh, I’m healthy.
Check. You know? I mean, if you’re really looking at it or your marriage, you’re always tweaking things. You’re always adjusting seasons of life change. And you have to, to keep changing your strategies to make it work Now. You know, I, I often say, I don’t know if there’s one day that I’ve ever like nailed it.
Off camera: Yeah.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Like just a hundred percent nailed it. But I loved, uh, what he said about peace was the indicator and being able to be in the present moment was how he knew when he got the double winner, when he was close to it. And it’s funny ’cause I, I’m seeing a theme start to develop among our guests.
Michael Hyatt: Me too.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: And that’s fascinating to me.
Michael Hyatt: I think it’s fascinating that that’s the language people are using.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Right. Unprompted,
Michael Hyatt: that’s the thing that they want.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Yeah.
Michael Hyatt: Is peace. Mm-Hmm. You know, happiness is probably another thing. Love is probably another thing. Joy, you know? Yeah. To the extent that that’s different from happiness, but peace is, is that thing that I think all of us are, are pursuing.
Certainly that’s Mm-Hmm. What I want when I’m feeling anxious and laying awake in the middle of the night. You know, it’s just like I would give away half my kingdom for just peace.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Yeah. Well, I also really appreciated the conversation about working genius. Me too, too. You know, there are a number of different assessments that are kind of trying to get at the same thing, but I, I think, um, what all of them have in common, and certainly explicitly his does, is the freedom to be who you’re made to be.
Mm-Hmm. And that really, that’s where your highest and best contribution is gonna be. And I think that distinction between, um, it’s not just how much you’re working, it’s. How you’re working, what you’re actually doing, because you know, when we talk about the freedom compass and spending the majority of time in your desire zone and then ultimately getting the devil in, it’s not just about working less, it’s also about working in your desire zone.
In the things that you’re made to do and how you’re made to do them.
Michael Hyatt: Well, you took the words right outta my mouth. And this is a new insight for me today, is it’s not just the quantity of work, but it’s the kind of work. Mm-Hmm. And as you know, we were queued up, we were planning to talk to him about his book, the Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family.
’cause
Megan Hyatt-Miller: we’ll have to have him back on. Talk about that. I don’t wanna talk about that,
Michael Hyatt: but, but the truth is how you work at work. Is probably gonna impact your family more than any single thing you could do. Yeah. Because yes, you wanna spend time with your family, you want to give an appropriate amount of attention to work, but if you’re doing the wrong kind of work and you’re coming home burned out or frustrated or angry, yeah, irritated.
You know, that’s not, that doesn’t bode well for the family. Right. So I think we did kind of talk about the family, or at least this is the precursor to having that rich family life that you wanna have.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Well. We say this all the time, it’s like life is not a bento box. These nine life domains don’t live in little hermetically sealed containers.
They all kind of blend together. It really do. And what happens in one affects the others. And since most of us spend the vast majority of our waking hours at work, you know, then obviously how we feel about what we’re doing, whether it fills us up or drains us, is going to leave us. And able to be in alignment in the rest of our life with our values and what matters most, or it’s gonna undermine
Michael Hyatt: that.
Mm-Hmm. Well, again, the book that you wanna buy of Pat’s, uh, that’s appropriate for this conversation is the Six Types of Working Genius. But take the assessment first and you can find that@workinggenius.com. Megan and I have both taken that I wanna get Gail to take this.
Megan Hyatt-Miller: Yeah. That’d be awesome. I was, I thought you were gonna say you want our team to take it, which I also think would be awesome.
Michael Hyatt: I think it’d be great too. Yeah. Yeah. That’s
Megan Hyatt-Miller: great.
Michael Hyatt: Well guys, hope you’ve enjoyed this conversation with Patrick Lencioni as much, as much as we have.
Um, lemme just encourage you, if you haven’t already, subscribe to this podcast. And leave us a five star review, but only if you feel like the content is valuable. But that will help us to get noticed by other people to spread the word. And we think this is a message that everybody needs. This whole pursuit of the double win where you can win at work and succeed at life.
We’ll see you next week.