Men’s Journal’s Everyday Warrior Podcast With Mike Sarraille is a podcast that inspires individuals to live more fulfilling lives by having conversations with disrupters and high performers from all walks of life. In episode 52, we spoke to Stefan Falk, a highly accomplished entrepreneur, author, and leader. Falk's passion for business and deep understanding of what it takes to succeed lends itself to engaging and informative conversation that'll inspire and educate listeners of all levels. His latest book is called Intrinsic Motivation: Learn to Love Your Work and Succeed as Never Before.
Listen to the full episode above (scroll down for the transcript) and see more from this series below.
This interview has not been edited for length or clarity.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Sarraille 00:11
And welcome back to the Men's Journal everyday warrior podcast. I'm your host Mike's really we've got a great guest today, Stephen Falk, who just wrote the book intrinsic motivation. Stephen wanted to come up February 7,
Stefan Falk 00:22
February 7. Yeah. Just a few days ago.
Michael Sarraille 00:25
Okay, so the best place upfront to find it, I'm assuming is Amazon.
Stefan Falk 00:30
Yeah, Amazon, whatever, you know, online bookstores. I'm not super knowledgeable about that. But it should be on most most of them, I guess.
Michael Sarraille 00:39
Yeah, I agree. It seems like everyone goes to Amazon. Now. The reason I love this book is The title is intrinsic motivation, which I'm sure most people have heard that phrase, but don't fully understand it. But the subtitle is learn to love your work, and succeed as you never have before, which probably about 99% of Americans are questioning how to love their work. So we'll jump right into this. First off, what is intrinsic motivation? And why is it so important to people? Who don't know what it is?
Stefan Falk 00:39
Yeah. So intrinsic motivation, when you're in the moment of intrinsic motivation, that's when you perform at your very best. That's when you in a positive sense, you lose yourself into what you're doing, you become one with the task and the situation it's, it's it's the highest, you know, versions of this is like, the Neo moment in the matrix, you know, the time slows down, you see what's happening, you could always figure out what's going to happen next, you can look in your portfolio scales and tricks, and whatever it is, apply a test to see whatever, whatever happens, okay? Now, that experience that we have, and this is proven that when you in this state, my man, two shakes, I mean, hi, he called this flow and flow is the highest level of it, I think there are lower levels like deep concentration, for instance, the extraordinary experience we get is our brains way of rewarding us for living up to one of the key survival strategies that we have as human beings, which is to push ourselves to learn and develop.
Stefan Falk 02:21
So consequently, intrinsic motivation only happens when we are involved in solving a complex problem or challenging problem that interests us. Okay? And that's the key here, it has to interest us. So why is that intrinsic motivation, so, so important in the workplace?
Stefan Falk 02:42
Well, sooner or later in your work, you will entail or late stuff that doesn't interest you, you think is boring, figures too difficult, think is scary, or uncomfortable, or whatever. And also, even if you love doing stuff today, eventually, if you don't keep challenging yourself doing it, you will also be bored by that. So intrinsic motivation is important in those situations, it's not like you're going to run around being intrinsically motivated, whatever comes around, because then we will basically, we will not be able to do anything, we will not even be able to come up and go out of bed. Because we will just view all the potential options, we have to have great experiences and just stay in bed the whole day in thinking about that, that is in this very moment. And if you learn how to switch on your intrinsic motion, motivation, when you face boring, uncomfortable, difficult or whatever, you know, tasks that we rather avoid, or we do them a little bit like I'm thinking about other things, which is poor performance, good by my language.
Stefan Falk 03:44
If we learn how to switch it on, we, I can promise you, you can learn skills and achieve mastery much faster than other people do. You will be able to work effectively toward any type of goal or dream you have. Because you will not you will not refuse to do anything that is required to actually work toward the goal. And you will also more importantly, even if you don't have any goals or dreams or whatever, you will be able to enjoy a higher level of work satisfaction in whatever you do or need to do. That's a promise. That's the promise. was a long.
Michael Sarraille 04:25
No, no, but it's a good answer. Let me back it up.
Michael Sarraille 04:30
You know, I'm guarantee there's a lot of people that are going to be listening that say, Well, I just enjoy nothing about my work. What do you see as the biggest barriers or obstacles? There's probably human traits that deny somebody or prevent somebody from reaching intrinsic motivation or that mindset.
Stefan Falk 04:52
I would like to answer it on two levels.
Stefan Falk 04:57
And the first I would say that
Stefan Falk 05:00
The first reason of maybe three levels, the first reason is that first level is that people lack a rudimentary understanding of the human mind, actually how our brain works, okay? And and it's readily available sort of in different types of neuroscience, behavior, science, whatever. So learning little bit about that, I think will also help them for themselves get up with an explanation, you know, why do I think this is so boring, whatever. The second, which is linked to that level of answer is that even though our brain rewards us, when we push ourselves to learn and develop, addressing a challenging problem that interests us, the brain rewards us even more when we conserve energy.
Stefan Falk 05:47
That's another, that's the strongest survival strategy we have. Because if we would not have that survival strategy, we would not be here today. Because we have lived in for 200,000 years in a completely different environment where the scarcity of foods and access it is whatever was, you know, it was a fact, life was, you know, if we think that life was full of constraints today, forget about it, live back, then you know that that was never something else. So if we, if we wouldn't have been very sort of hesitant on what and when to spend our energy to have a surplus of energy, we will not be here. But that that that strong force in us, is the main reason why we have such a hard time to take a natural interest in the things that we are supposed to do, or that we get bored with things that we used to love, whatever, because we feel for instance, if you love to do something, and then you log out and you start to perform it on habit.
Stefan Falk 06:47
Sooner or later, it will be boring, because there is no challenge in doing it. And there is a lot of other things that we can talk about what happens later, because then it leads to what I believe is what I call work Kosis when you actually get sick from your work, okay. But But and then the third level, and this is
Stefan Falk 07:06
something that has come clear to me for the past 10 years, is that if you really want to give intrinsic motivation or chance, which is basically saying I want to give myself a chance to either just feel good about myself, or to achieve stuff that I didn't think I was capable,
Stefan Falk 07:27
you need to get rid of any type of negativity.
Stefan Falk 07:31
Okay, negativity is nothing else than poison for your brain.
Stefan Falk 07:38
And everyone should understand this, I mean, with the findings about the brain that is actually it functions like a muscle, it is not a muscle, but it actually becomes good at what you force it to work on. So if you allow yourself to start to repeatedly think negative thoughts about your work, it becomes an expert on that, for the simple reason that the brain strives for perfection, because perfection means that it will work on those things with minimal energy, you know, spending, that's perfection. So the brain will not only think negative thoughts about the stuff that you usually think negative thoughts about it will inflate it and think negative thoughts about other things. Now, negative thoughts
Stefan Falk 08:28
slows your brain down. So you become a poor problem solver. Why is that? Well, evolutionary negativity is a pre stage of fight or flight.
Stefan Falk 08:40
Okay, and what happens at that stage is the body gradually turn turn off, you know, all the organs that he views is as either too energy consuming and consuming to keep in a fight or flight situation, because it needs extra energy to fight or flight, or organs, that it views as, Oh, that's too slow. It's not useful in a fight or flight situation, which is then how you're thinking, okay, too slow. You need to react on instinct. So that's what's at stake. So when whenever we have a negative, you know, filled with negativity, our brain works slower. It also, it also erodes our immune system. So we are much more prone to sickness. And then thirdly, and this this, this is amazing how this this is so common, it hijacks our mind. So if we have something that we really think is negative, that's just gonna happen. For instance, you say next week, I have a we're in the beginning, where are the podcasts because I so have no routine to doing this whatsoever. So of course, it's a high stakes situation, makes me very anxious and so forth. And my first podcast is seven, seven days out. I have a sense of the whole week. Next week is a bad week. And then when I went when I do disorder, the disorder
Stefan Falk 10:00
the calculus of it Oh, the podcast is, you know, one hour. And I have 40 hours of client sessions one hour after 41. Maybe not a bad week is it? But most people don't do that they get hijacked. So the first thing that people just need to make sure is to get rid of, you know, negativity. Otherwise, it's not, it's not gonna work. But but then we have a gazillion other habits you should apply.
Michael Sarraille 10:25
In, in your book, you talk about your coaching approach, which I would assimilate very much to tough love pushing people to actively use their brains so that you don't tolerate one self pity or shifting blame.
Michael Sarraille 10:40
Most people don't have access to a coach, like you, especially if you're a claim, how do you teach somebody to become their own coach and really break free from from such things like negativity, as you just just described?
Stefan Falk 10:53
Yeah, I think
Stefan Falk 10:58
the best favor, you can, you know, a gift you can give to yourself is to
Stefan Falk 11:08
create, you know, red alerts in your head for when you should not be lazy, when you actually should, you know, use the enormous gift you have been given with your brain, okay.
Stefan Falk 11:22
And I can share a situation where I and I realized that this is a lifelong battle, you know, for me, even though I think I'm pretty well developed thinking skills after everything I've done in my life. And that's not IQ that's developed thinking skills.
Stefan Falk 11:42
Anytime, I feel completely certain. Now I know exactly what Mike should do. I'm so yeah, yeah, yeah, bah, bah, bah, I get the red alert. Because when I start to get this feeling, my mind will start to basically only look for evidence of that I'm right, and discard everything that tells me that I'm wrong. So this is the mother of all failure, you know, that's certainty. Okay. That's one red alert. And how can you do that? In that in a way that also intrigued, you triggers your intrinsic motivation? When when ever you face a problem?
Stefan Falk 12:22
There is one question you should ask yourself. And this question, Mike, is the least asked questions in today's organization? How big is the problem?
Stefan Falk 12:35
And then analyze the problem.
Stefan Falk 12:39
And so I estimate all the all many organizations I've seen, I would say that in of course, this is like a Jack Nicholson moments from from the movie, you know, a few good men, you know, you can't handle the truth, but I have an estimated as much as 80% of the problems people work on are either non existent or less relevant than the problems they should address, or addressed in the wrong way. Okay, because if you don't measure, you know, and really, um, how big this problem is it really a problem. And if it's big, okay, you cannot understand, you know, how much a solution of solving the problem, you know, could actually cost. And there's a lot of things in is there it also spurs innovation and, you know, think rethinking, whatever. That's, that's an extremely good question. And it also leads you to understand the problem. And it happens that the more we understand of a situation or problem or topic, whatever it is, the more interesting it gets. And the more interesting it gets, the more likely we are to become intrinsically motivated by working on it.
Stefan Falk 13:44
Makes sense?
Michael Sarraille 13:45
So it makes sense interesting, how you say, as somebody gains confidence in life and they believe there's certain uncertain problems or they're yeah, there's certain about the viable solutions to certain problems you're advocating just take one step back for a few moments analyze the problem one define what the problem is to the scope of the problem or how large it is and then start analyzing
Stefan Falk 14:11
now but I listened to it which I enjoyed very much you know, you had the non Doctor member's name the former football Pro on you know, that you that you interviewed and you asked you know what, what kept him going when he was when he was a pro? And and the way I interpret that that answer is what all high performers or superstars in the world, what they share, and that is they take nothing for granted. Okay.
Stefan Falk 14:41
They take nothing for granted. Just because take it Rafa Nadal, you know, you know, he's 125 over the last, you know, 26 matches against the circumplex. Okay, he's gonna play him tomorrow. If he thinks about the statistics, he's gonna lose the match. Instead, He cultivates a
Stefan Falk 15:00
A healthy sense of doubt, you know?
Stefan Falk 15:04
That's it. And that leads to a level of anxiety and anxiety is, is required for perform performing, okay? Because it sharpens your senses, not too much, because then you will become more or less useless. But, you know, certain cannot really do it a healthy sort of, you know, you become much more focused.
Michael Sarraille 15:24
You know, it's interesting you say that, and seven, I know you've worked with Navy SEALs, and you've worked with a lot of high performers. I,
Michael Sarraille 15:31
you know, I'm not giving myself a pat on the back. But, you know, my, my past commanding officers, you say, I was the go to guy to develop a plan, in his confident is I gotten planning. Before we stepped out the door, there was always doubt that I missed something. You don't know what you don't know. And I didn't know what I missed. And it will always be, I wouldn't say a sense of anxiety. Maybe it was.
Michael Sarraille 15:58
But that doubt, always kept me looking at the plan. Even as we were executing it, what did I miss? What did I miss? What did I not account for? And it kept me on my toes,
Michael Sarraille 16:08
and often able to react a lot quicker. So that's interesting. You say that? You talk about intrinsic motivation? And especially somebody who's
Michael Sarraille 16:17
traditionally allowed those that negativity to come in?
Michael Sarraille 16:20
What What is it a process of re rewiring your brain? And if so, how long does that take?
Stefan Falk 16:28
Now it is obvious that I'm going to I'm going to say something that is pretty obvious that the more you practice, the the quicker it gets. It's like learning anything, okay? But for instance, let's, let's take an example. Okay, let's go back to negative we can go with you, through a few sort of, you know, dimensions, you can start to do this.
Stefan Falk 16:52
But let's say negativity, for instance, how can you do that in a practical, pragmatic way without just being a philosophy and there's going to be a negative one? Well, one thing you can do if if you feel that
Stefan Falk 17:07
I have an inclination to feel a bit sorry for myself, you know, when things don't go right of work, you know, I think that, you know, other people should actually do much better, maybe I don't look so much at myself.
Stefan Falk 17:19
Maybe I'm,
Stefan Falk 17:22
yeah, yeah, whatever it is, you know, yeah, I think I can do something about it. Okay, create repeat calendar entry in your calendar, let's say at five o'clock in the afternoon, whatever it is good for you. And then you call that blame time, or you call it negativity time. And you basically say, that is the time I'm not going to do with before that whatever that is time, I'm just going to summarize all my negative thoughts and then assign blame or whatever it is. Most of my clients that have done that they realized after only like one or two days, whatever, that
Stefan Falk 17:56
perfectly honest, they're fine.
Stefan Falk 17:59
I don't have any valid reasons for those negative thoughts. Okay. Now, and that sort of spurs the question, okay, why it's so easy for us to have those negative thoughts. It again goes back to that the brain reward shows more for being lazy or energy conserving than spending, and it is. So obviously, when we fail, it's more energy consuming to blame someone else for the failure because then they need to do something different. I don't have to do that. We I'm sorry to say, but we are actually not more advanced than that, when it comes to things, okay.
Stefan Falk 18:34
So that's one way to do it.
Stefan Falk 18:39
Another way to do it, which also rewires your brain, and also shows you very early on the magnificence of intrinsic motivation is that whenever you have faced a boring task,
Stefan Falk 18:52
and in the book, I call this like exciting outcomes to always try to come up with something you want to achieve that is beyond what you can achieve today. And that really makes you feel a little bit. That's interesting. So any task boring, could be from you know, personal stuff, like cleaning the apartment or whatever it is you think is boring. Think about how much time you usually spend every time you do that task or if it's a work task. And say you do it in like two hours, just
Stefan Falk 19:23
say to yourself, Okay, I want to be able to do that in 45 minutes, but with the same or better result.
Stefan Falk 19:32
All of if you take that seriously.
Stefan Falk 19:35
All of a sudden,
Stefan Falk 19:37
it becomes a very interesting, challenging problem that actually will interest you. Because now you activate, you know your brain, which is painful, but also good feeling. And it's not the activity itself cleaning or whatever it is or a mundane, repetitive task. It is actually thinking about the plan how to achieve it. That becomes the excitement
Stefan Falk 20:00
And when you then perform, you don't think so much about what you actually are doing the activity, it's more sticking to your plan. And then being able to, you know, experiment a little bit with it. That's, that's a bulletproof way to sort of unlock your intrinsic motivation. I use this two or three times a day. So if you and I work together, you were my client. And let's say we had had like, 20, good coaching sessions. And I just like when I scan my mind, and I think, Okay, I'm gonna meet Mike today, these are the topics and all these things. And I really want to up my game, I want to, I want to, you know,
Stefan Falk 20:36
today, if you're new, I want Mike to say, Yeah, I'm gonna own the world.
Stefan Falk 20:41
Given the topics and everything, let's say, instead of having an hour and a half with Mike, what if I only had 20 minutes with him? on those topics? What would I focus on?
Stefan Falk 20:52
You know, this, this is such a aphrodisiac for unlocking intrinsic motivation, specifically in boring tasks or stuff that doesn't give you anything.
Michael Sarraille 21:05
You're automatically thinking about my marriage as well. And that you can create these challenges in the marriage because you become a let's be honest, man and wife or you know, you know, your partner, you become comfortable. And I think that's when the romance dies. But finding a challenging way to restart, stoke that, that romance. So I've got to ask you, I love I love the idea about the Calendar block daily for five minutes of just getting the negativity out. Have you ever seen people do that on a organizational or departmental level? Not an individual level?
Stefan Falk 21:43
No, no, no, I haven't I have not what I have seen, what I have seen
Stefan Falk 21:51
when I was an executive myself. And make no mistake, Mike. On the mind regime, any type of negativity was not not allowed, okay? And not focus on developing yourself in some aspect every day.
Stefan Falk 22:10
You know, don't even try it. Okay, and we are born incomplete. And we will pass incomplete and the purpose in life is to try to pass a little bit less incomplete and of story. If you don't subscribe to this, this is not a place for you. That's
Stefan Falk 22:23
your set, set the standard for the whole thing. So that that I've seen in a couple of instances, you know, how
Stefan Falk 22:32
if you do this on a broad scale, and obviously you need to do everything, any change that you want people to embrace needs to draw me in the millinery. That's the trick here. That's the trick. That's if you I mean, people can understand I should do this. But if it draws too much energy, they will not do it. So it has to be, you know, pretty simple. But I'm not seeing anyone doing this. Yeah, the calendar, no.
Michael Sarraille 22:56
He, this this, you know, when I come in into companies, and we talk about leadership and culture, and identify and sort of an action plan to help one to find their culture and start taking the small steps to change it.
Michael Sarraille 23:10
You know, it's amazing when executives want some detailed, deep theory that just if you don't keep it simple, it won't be executed, especially with organizations that are much larger.
Michael Sarraille 23:21
I've got to ask, because I know, again, some people are like, Okay, this is great intrinsic motivation. Got it. But how does it help me navigate maybe a demanding boss? A, what they would view as a overly strenuous workload, or maybe other personalities in the office?
Stefan Falk 23:42
Well,
Stefan Falk 23:44
I think this situations are a little bit different that you mentioned, if you take for instance, a demanding boss, I think I think in general, in general, in general, it's extremely important to disassociate yourself, you know, emotionally from these problems. And then do you know what I usually call, you know, you need to activate your detective mindset, which is basically you take an analytical view of the situation and you do some analysis, okay.
Stefan Falk 24:18
And in terms of the boss, you need to understand, Okay, why is it that I perceive him as too demanding? Is it across the board? Or is it at certain moments in time? Is it linked to certain topics, something that are more sensitive to him more important to him or her but most often, unfortunately, it's a he and whatever the man says, you become a little bit more granular and cut the, you know, basically understand more what the real problem is, because then you're much better, you know, focused your ability to actually solve the problem. If you sort of become granular about it is obviously much, much, much bigger. Okay?
Stefan Falk 25:00
Now, there's a few tricks with demanding bosses, if they are demanding
Stefan Falk 25:07
us because they want to be demanding because they have this dissolution that, you know, that's the way to be a boss, you know, whatever.
Stefan Falk 25:14
And
Stefan Falk 25:16
one recommendation I give to all my clients that you know, what's going to be your, what's going to be your main, your main proxy, and especially from when I work with leaders, your main proxy is going to be to always safeguard the best interest of the organization. And that is not a particular person, that's not the board. That's not the shareholders. That's not the the executives or whoever, it is the best interest of the organization, how do we make this the most wonderful place to be and the most resilient place that withstands whatever, you know, changes, okay, that's going to be your proxy. And then basically use that, you know, as a sense, a source of inspiration when you engage with the boss, you know, for instance, okay, so, it's interesting, you want me to do all these things, and blah, blah, blah, just take me through, you know, the logic for how you think that this serves, you know, the best interest organization, of course, you need to ask it in, in a way that's not threatening, but, you know, that's just practice.
Stefan Falk 26:20
I worked with, I worked with the boss
Stefan Falk 26:24
that
Stefan Falk 26:26
I was for atmospheric, you know, used almost like, used went in and went out again, but I always felt that the transformation challenge with the company was like, I used to do it, and he was dependent on me, but but he came with, with
Stefan Falk 26:40
many,
Stefan Falk 26:42
I would say, less intelligent, you know, suggestions all the time. And you can call me a Sunday and claim that, you know, something was not working bla bla bla, which I wish was where you knew was working, and bla bla bla, and then he had talked to a neighbor that had had some kind of, you know, idea for how we should do things. And I always said, Okay, this very interesting, that's extremely interesting idea. Okay, just take me through how you think that will actually contribute to this? And, and also, what was the basis for the claim that this is not working? So I used to understand where to start. And there were no basis for the claim, and then nothing, and then it falls flat. So so you're just qualifying the demand working to qualify, qualify, the demand from a demanding boss is interesting. isn't that important? You know, and also, make it granted? What is what why do I say it's demanding? Is it across the board specific topics, specific moments, because if it's specific topics or specific moments, I can preempt them, okay, in a different way. It's a little bit like, you know, looking at the enemy, you know, understanding the enemy or whatever it is, if you look at collaboration at the workplace, and we come back to this, always ask how big the problem is, there is
Stefan Falk 27:58
brain energy conserving bias called the peak and rule that is so so so so so, you know, it's infested in organizations around collaboration. And the peak end rule is that we the brain, if you don't do the analysis, it always evaluate any experience you have based on the emotional high and how it ended. So if you have relationship with a colleague and that you have interacted 200 times, but you have had two meltdowns in it, and the last one you had was like neutral to slightly positive. And then you asked Okay, so how's your collaboration with Mike? I might say well,
Stefan Falk 28:44
it's not that great but it's a matter of fact we have collaborated one or night eight times it worked you know fairly well and but two times it was a meltdown. So it's always good again to ask how big the problem is. So if you have an issue with with a colleague, do like a detective you write the timeline that you have collaborated, you plot the interactions and the you mark the ones that are red and then if you get you know the red one if the other end you can sort of go down Why are those read what happened in though so so forth?
Michael Sarraille 29:19
You know, I know again, you work with hundreds of of executives, emotion at best leads to bad decisions at worst destroys relationships. When you're in I know sometimes that is a byproduct of either personality or just stress level. How do you coach somebody through removing emotion because Stephen, clearly, you you've got a clear mind. You take a logical, analytical approach. You've clearly learned to remove emotion from from every conversation. How do you coach somebody through that
Stefan Falk 30:00
Well, first of all,
Stefan Falk 30:05
what I always do with clients is that I give them I give them a rudimentary understanding of the mind, okay? Because that, that that actually,
Stefan Falk 30:15
you know, gives them some kind of, I start to understand why I react like this or whatever, okay. And they should also know that most of the faults they have, they have not actively generated themselves. It's the primitive parts of the mind, like the amygdala and the reward system. And all these things. I mean, anyone that has, you know, meditated and tried to use focus on the breathing, they realize, why do I get all these thoughts in my head, now, I start to think about what I should eat today, I didn't, I didn't want to think about that, whatever, you know, or stuff, whatever. So the first, the first thing is for them to understand a little bit about and then that can lead to rapid, you know, building their ability to understand themselves much better, and then deal with that.
Stefan Falk 31:04
What I always say to clients is
Stefan Falk 31:09
basically use, you know, five questions when they face a situation.
Stefan Falk 31:17
And the first question is, what is the problem? I mean, what is the problem I'm facing? And try to describe that as a difference between where I am today and where I want to be?
Stefan Falk 31:29
And the second question is given is how big the problem is? Okay. Is it even worse no dealing with? The third question is, what causes the problem? Okay. Why does it happen?
Stefan Falk 31:40
The fourth question is, what alternative solutions? Do I have to solve it, including doing nothing if it's a non non important problem? And the fifth one is, what is the best? What is the best problem? And I would say in 100% of the cases, when they start to practice these questions, they don't even have to do it elegantly exhaustively, or whatever, just the process of trying to pushing themselves to think and have the answers to these questions is so cleansing for them, and they are much better equipped to deal with it.
Michael Sarraille 32:16
I love that you said basically, through process you get them to, to remove the emotion and to look clearly at the problem.
Stefan Falk 32:26
Those goods, no, no, those five questions, you can use them to understand any type of problem, it could be a big business problem, it could be a relationship problem, it could be whatever, it could be problem and use that you have with yourself, and use use use those questions. So they are universally applicable. You can tell that
Michael Sarraille 32:46
there is a great process organizationally, to teach your people that, hey, once we run into an emotional high stress situation, just ask these these these simple questions. I love that.
Michael Sarraille 32:56
Again, having worked with Navy SEALs, athletes, executives, what are the habits and attitudes of professionals?
Michael Sarraille 33:04
Who you would say love what they do? What are the things that stand out either about either those, again, those those habits or that the mindsets or attitudes that they have?
Stefan Falk 33:15
Well, I think that the most I've detected
Stefan Falk 33:21
I think 17 or 18 over the years. So I think I mentioned 10 something out there. And and
Stefan Falk 33:30
they obviously
Stefan Falk 33:33
have
Stefan Falk 33:37
different levels of impact in terms of,
Stefan Falk 33:42
you know, well being and success.
Stefan Falk 33:45
The first one is and I think this probably is one of the most important one is that they don't accept boredom. It doesn't exist for them, okay? Obviously, they can have feelings of boredom, but they don't allow that to continue. Then they know that okay, now I'm being lazy. I'm not thinking enough. I'm not stretching myself in our thinking about this situation, I need to find a way to spin it. So it becomes maybe not something I would love and continue to do for the rest of my life. But I still need to perform because when we are bored, that's a negativity feeling. So our brain is you know, working slower. And with that, when we perform something we think and feel is boring, we will perform badly, which makes it more boring to do Okay, so that's, that's the first one. The second one
Stefan Falk 34:39
is, you know this interesting because
Stefan Falk 34:44
I think many people expect something that is completely mind blowing that they have not heard about before. And again, that's the secret.
Stefan Falk 34:53
The second one is
Stefan Falk 34:55
keeping all times and promises without any
Stefan Falk 35:00
Excuse,
Stefan Falk 35:02
almost being on time for meetings for phone calls for deliveries and all these things, and always deliver either exactly what was promised or better than that. Okay? So this means that because if you think about it is like a Trojan horse for a lot of skills you need to develop, if you if you say to yourself, I'm always going to be on time.
Stefan Falk 35:24
And I'm always going to deliver what's, what is promised,
Stefan Falk 35:29
my planning skills for how I structure my work to be able to do that, you know, especially on the time, so pressure, they accelerate, I become a really good planner. And in terms of what I promise to deliver, I also become a really good communicator, because I need to make sure that you understand what I have promised and so forth. Yeah. Okay. So that sort of, I will say, I don't know is an expression keys don't have it or something. I mean, that's a very, very important, important habit.
Stefan Falk 35:59
And then there are others one, we have already mentioned that that's also extremely. Now we have not mentioned that, but you know, celebrating mistakes, because mistakes is a pretty, pretty interesting source for potential improvement. Yeah. So, one thing I always recommend most clients is to at the end of the day, write down all the mistakes you've made.
Stefan Falk 36:27
And if you say you have not done any mistakes, okay, okay. Yeah, you're not you're not in the game. Come on, come on. Okay. This is an easy way to live up what you know, all the superstars do because superstars, they're not. They're not like, oh, today, when I practice, I'm going to do something radically different, whatever, no, they tweak how they do things, okay? They experiment. So they create variety in how they can do fix, okay? That's how they improve, okay? And so that that just makes personal professional development very easy. If your everyday write down the mistakes you made. First of all, you reduce them by up to 50%. By knowing that you're gonna write them down, and by writing down, you'll remember them. But also you, oh, that's an interesting thing. How can I avoid that mistake? Well, I can tweak this little one, okay, whatever that is intrinsically motivating, motivating itself. So that that's, I would say that this three, and maybe the last one,
Stefan Falk 37:25
that I don't talk so much about that, that that needs some more work, but that is, you know, you know, crazy dreams and fantasies, okay.
Stefan Falk 37:39
Few people understand the power of fantasy. And what it is, instead, it's viewed Oh, that's just a fantasy. Oh, no, no, forget about it. When we fantasize, the beauty of fantasizing is that we can make it happen. Whatever we want happen to happen can happen in our head when we think about when we fantasize about it. And the brain cannot discern between what is real and what is a fantasy or use default. So it actually releases similar feelings as if it would happen in the real life. Okay. If you continue fantasizing?
Stefan Falk 38:15
Soon, the fantasy will not be enough. You want to act it out. Okay? That's a superpower. And then when you fantasize, it's actually a form of problem solving and planning because you go through different scenarios for how to reach that thing that you want to it's you you're actually more prepared when you start to carry it out. But that's another dandy thing. And what I say to clients is that they are to dream crazy, because even if it is a crazy dream, you want to become the next Steve Jobs or whatever, the only thing I can guarantee you is that you will end up in a crazy good place. Okay, so that's it.
Michael Sarraille 38:54
You brought up the you said celebrate celebrating failure or mistakes, we call it rewarding failure, especially within the the Special Operations community. In when I say that reward failure where somebody took calculated risk, they utilize problem but a viable solution. It just didn't work out in their favor. But
Michael Sarraille 39:16
for the audience, one of the things we talked about it against Stephen, you know, this haven't worked with special operations is the after action review, some people call it a hot wash a debrief, and we do it after everything we do. And it is the single greatest not only individual development, but organizational development tool that any organization can have. I do it on a personal basis. I do it's almost intuitive. When I put my head on the pillow pillow 30 seconds to one minute and say Hey, what did I do well today, more importantly, what did I do wrong in how I'm gonna fix it tomorrow? Or what do I need to do tomorrow to prevent that mistake from ever happening again, war or or take corrective action? And basically we do that in order
Michael Sarraille 40:00
organizational level after training after, after combat missions, and even within the private sector, you see great companies, great organizations, great individuals do that the most high performing individuals I've ever seen. And of course, I'm talking about the special operations community, specific to the counterterrorism community, which are the very elite. All of them journaled. After everything they did, they had these green notebooks, and they just filled it with with with information, and they were amongst the very best in the world, both what they did well do more of that. But more importantly, what did I do wrong? And how do I fix that going forward?
Michael Sarraille 40:36
You know,
Michael Sarraille 40:38
here's, there's parents, there's fathers listening to this, there's mothers listening to this, there's leaders of organizations listening to this and
Michael Sarraille 40:46
and there's a high likelihood that if they're in the British position they're in is that they're already high performing individuals that are intrinsically motivated. And the question is, how do I teach that to my children? How do I teach that to people within my organization? direct reports that work for me, what's the best way of going about that,
Michael Sarraille 41:05
for a lot of leaders listening in are a lot of warriors listening into this, this podcast.
Stefan Falk 41:11
So I'm so glad you asked me that question. Because
Stefan Falk 41:16
maybe I shouldn't be because I think that of all the things in my life I have done, that has been the most difficult thing. I didn't find it particularly difficult to be a leader, because I have this like, very strong philosophy on how to be a leader.
Stefan Falk 41:33
And I'm not saying that's perfect, but I have an idea for what to do. And it seemed to work fairly well, at least. But parenting is like, it's on a different universe in terms of challenging if at least, if you have an ambition to be a good parent.
Stefan Falk 41:49
I think the recommendation I have
Stefan Falk 41:54
if you're a person, that for instance,
Stefan Falk 41:58
you really aspire to have, you know, good judgment, you know, basic evaluate situation, you know, you know, learn from experience and all these things, you know, that that, first of all, you know, gives you a higher probability of super great mental health, okay, as well as also, you know, good success.
Stefan Falk 42:20
What I would do, instead of talking about it, with kids, depending on the age, I would do things with them, where you display that type of behavior with them. Okay. That's what I would do. That's what I would do. I did a very interesting thing with my son. Now, he was a little bit older. This was maybe five or six years ago now. And
Stefan Falk 42:44
we had a good relationship.
Stefan Falk 42:47
But it was a little bit too much of Father and Son. And I felt that when we had conversations, you know, I believe in the US for that past eight years and is back in Sweden. I just felt is so easy to fall into that like controlling stuff. What are you doing? Well, how Baba Baba, baba, baba, baba. Okay, so, I just
Stefan Falk 43:10
pure luck, I came up with this thing that I needed some research done
Stefan Falk 43:15
on the human reward system, because I haven't had time.
Stefan Falk 43:20
So I asked him to work with me on that. And he did. And, you know, he got some, some some payment for that, you know, obviously, you know, for to spending his time, but it was more like Richard. And I think that that really, really, really
Stefan Falk 43:37
was very, very important for him. And it was also very important to do things together and then also learn from each other and he could understand me, why did I take that specific spin on a specific conversation? Why do i Why did I you know, disliked whatever, you know, you I think you you teach them by doing with them rather than just talking then. Because if you do with them, then you you have created a platform for talking also about these things. Okay, but they need to have some kind of frame of reference for what you're talking about. And that comes from doing Yes, my recommendation. Yeah. It behavioral modeling. It sounds like Yeah. So you walk yourself into another question. I want to get your three top things you said you had a pretty good framework for being a leader. What what were sort of your your top three tenants for being a leader?
Stefan Falk 44:31
The first one I mentioned that is the like the best interest of the company. Always always I use that for everything it makes so much. It makes life so simple. So if I have if I had staff that could not collaborate, for whatever reason, which I didn't care about, I used to collaborate. I used to come into my office and I said okay, I see that you cannot collaborate. Can you explain to me why that is in the best interest of the of the company, and then they start to explain why they could
Stefan Falk 45:00
In a collaborative, I don't care about that I cared about why is it in the best interest of the company, and they couldn't explain good, it ends now. So from tomorrow, you know, I want to see the Best Collaboration ever seen in this company from the tutorial. And if not, we're going to have a completely different discussion, it just makes it makes dealing with your boss is your peers and everything, that's the first one, that's just your mate. That's why you pay the premium as a leader. The second thing is that leadership is nothing else than good parenting. So your purpose is to work and help your people to develop into independent individuals with good judgment, okay, that should not need you. That one. And then the third one is that as a leader, you need to you know, rise above the typical, you know, human behaviors, such as negativity, you know, complaining about stuff and whatever and blah, but you always have to work to, to, you know, find the silver lining in things, okay. So even if there is a decision taken, that actually will have negative impact on you or your departments, you need to find a way to view that in a constructive way and talk about in a constructive way, you cannot sort of regress, you know, into something like that. That is basically what the three dimensions of leadership for me, you don't have to be an expert in the field. You don't have to know in detail what the departments do. That that's not necessary. Because at the end of the day, departments stage, they're supposed to deliver on certain goals. So you need to use to understand and agree upon the goals, and then follow up on the progress on that. That doesn't require you.
Michael Sarraille 46:44
I know you're, you're you're well aware of project oxygen through Google, what made their best manager so great. And technical ability came in now to eight out of the top 10. You're absolutely right, this, Stephen, I could go with you for hours.
Michael Sarraille 47:01
But let me end with this.
Michael Sarraille 47:05
Somebody who picks up this book, and we're gonna put the links out there where people can find it, of course, we're gonna direct to Amazon as well as your personal site, learn to love your work.com Learn, learn to love to learn to love your work.com What are some of the outcomes that somebody can hope to, to achieve from reading this book?
Stefan Falk 47:23
I think one outcome that is important is better self understanding. That's one thing. And by that number two,
Stefan Falk 47:36
you know, you can't take it personal
Stefan Falk 47:40
that you are built the Way You Are you okay, you will not ask to be Oh, can you please
Stefan Falk 47:47
can I please be more energy conserving then energy spending and by that also be inclined to complain about staff instead of pushing myself into bite the bullet or whatever we call it. Now, you're never asked to that. But so don't take that personal, but make it personal to actually rewire your brain a little bit. So you can get much more out of life. And that's what I want what I want people to get out to the book, I want people to get out to the book, the usage of methods that are no works. And it's not one method is like 30 methods or whatever, for a variety of situations that makes it easy for you to be intrinsically motivated by those situations.
Stefan Falk 48:30
You've been working with clients with this approach for quite a while their overall happiness beyond work, I'm assuming even in their personal lives. Just got Yes. Yes. I mean, I mean, everything is linked together. Everything. I mean, you think about it, Mike, I mean, the amount of time people spend at work
Stefan Falk 48:51
more than they do with their their first families. Yes. And if you don't, if you're not satisfied with all that lifetime you spend on work, obviously, number one, it's going to affect your mental health. And two is going to affect your energy level, and what you can put in and also get what you can get out from all other parts of your life. So I don't see. And this is the thing when I wrote the book,
Stefan Falk 49:20
and often now, when I sort of reflected on the on the journey, one of the things that I discovered early on maybe 20 years ago, has been, you know, even more confirmed, you actually only have two outcomes when it comes to work. Either you become healthy and successful, or you actually become dissatisfied and eventually also sick from it. That's what you have.
Michael Sarraille 49:43
Interesting, interesting, especially in a day and age where we're so concerned about disengagement and dissatisfaction amongst our employees. This almost seems like a a must read for for the majority of the US workforce, which would equate to a lot of sales.
Michael Sarraille 50:00
I'm Stephen. If a company wants to bring you in, go to, again, the website is learn to love your work. Love your work.com Is that the best place to find you to bring you in? That's the best place to find me.
Michael Sarraille 50:14
Well, Stephen, I can't thank you enough. I learned a whole lot from this discussion. You actually reframed some of the way I'm, I'm going to teach some my leadership.
Michael Sarraille 50:23
Again, I can't thank you enough for all the listeners. I hope you take away. We'll drop these links pick up this book. And again, thank you for joining the Men's Journal Everyday Warrior. I'm your host Mike sARRAILLE until next time.
Stefan Falk 50:36
Thank you for having me, Mike.
from Men's Journal https://ift.tt/zPQTF17
0 comments