Make A Better Work Day

Adam: [00:00:00] Seat of the pants. Just like a cowboy on a Bronco. All right. Welcome, Revolutionary Freedom Family. Today, we have a guest I'm extremely excited about mainly because his chops in the street are much sharper and more refined than mine.

And I'm excited for you guys to hear Dr. Joey today. Dr. Joey is an executive coach, a culture architect, host podcast. His best selling book, Work Positive in a Negative World, Team Edition, is the manifesto for developing your positive work culture. He's spoken to thousands of people within companies and associations annually for decades.

Dr. Joey is a prolific writer of over a thousand articles that have appeared on the websites of Fox News, CNBC, Wall Street Journal, Market Watch, MSNBC, Entrepreneur. com, and countless others. His content reaches people in more than 50 countries. He and his wife have two adult daughters and sons in laws, the most brilliant and beautiful [00:01:00] granddaughter ever born, four grand dogs, and enjoy living in Pleasant Gap Farm with their two cats, Horse and Maggie Mae the Yellow Lab.

Absolutely. I have a Yellow Lab, actually a Fox Red Lab. But she's close enough to yellow, so we're going to get along phenomenally. 

Dr. Joey: That's awesome. Our yellow lab is Fox Red also. Yeah. Maggie Mae sends her... Yeah, that's right. There's not too many Fox Reds out there. Yeah, our Maggie Mae sends her regards to your yellow lab.

What's her name? Or his 

Adam: name? T R 

Dr. Joey: I S, Tris. I love it, man. All right, we'll have to introduce them. Yeah, 

Adam: absolutely. Ours is named after Tris Pryor of the Divergent series. Movies. I 

Dr. Joey: have no idea other than Maggie Mae's a southern dog, and so she needed two names, and that's what my wife chose. My wife's dog, Bo, was mine.

It's easy. 

Adam: Yeah, that's [00:02:00] definitely Southern too. 

Dr. Joey: That's it, man. That's right. That's what my dad called me. I grew up thinking my name was Bo instead of Joey. I'm so excited to be here, man. Any podcast that is about revolutionary and freedom, I'm on board, man. So thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.

Adam: It is my pleasure. I'm super excited to get rolling. Yeah, man. Excuse me. Alright before I have a conniption, one of the things I'm a little bit excited about, and people that listen know that I don't do a whole bunch of scripting and, a whole bunch of pre formatting and different things, and I like to roll with it real casual.

And so that's how sometimes we end up on six hour streams, but I will not torture you today. Or else I'll have to get you like a protein bar or something to bring your blood sugar up. I had 

Dr. Joey: a protein shake for lunch, so I'm good. So one of the things 

Adam: I'm excited about is that in the workplace, professionally, before that we were building this Adam Kasix and Revolutionary Freedom brand.

Was I [00:03:00] did small and medium business coaching very similar to what you did when I saw your culture architect. I thought to myself. Oh, I hope this relationship doesn't work out because I want to steal that. 

Dr. Joey: That is so funny you say that. I was on a podcast yesterday, I did an interview on it. There is a podcast called Culture Architects and the host, my friend David Friedman asked me, Hey, how long have you been a culture architect?

And I was like, David, you didn't like trademark culture architects and I infringed on your trademark. Did you? You're not going to send me an invoice after this. But it is pretty cool to think of yourself as a culture architect. Yep, 

Adam: that's strong wording. I have done some of these things, worked in some places doing that, really enjoyed getting into the interpersonal communication, interpersonal relationships, conflict resolution, helping people communicate better with their staff, mostly the execs in disseminating information, so they're more approachable and people feel empowered and all those good things, right?

When I saw that, I have not done it for 30 years plus. [00:04:00] And look I'm selfishly like, yeah, I hope that people can become, they're more, live in more of their authenticity according to their core value, get more set free and more fulfillment internally through the things that you're going to teach today, especially when it comes to their job place or wherever you want to go.

But a big part of this is Adam's excited to get talked to, to learn something. So 

Dr. Joey: I'm excited to talk to Adam. I've never talked to Adam Kasix before, so this is a great adventure for me. 

Adam: Yeah, first time. That's a mixed bag of opinions. If you do a survey, 

Dr. Joey: I didn't do a survey.

I'm just opening up my heart and being authentic with you, buddy. 

Adam: Right on brother. So yeah, what, how do you, what do you do? What do you, whatever you want to do to start, roll off that intro and just freestyle. I don't have anything in mind personally, other than what I've already spoken.

Dr. Joey: Okay. What do you think of when you hear the. My descriptor culture architect. What pops in your mind, Adam? So I use 

Adam: the word for myself as a culture mover and, or a culture shaper. And the thing that comes into my mind is that, [00:05:00] so I believe strongly and understand that culture is developed from yes, it's led top down, but if the base, if the team isn't in alignment, working toward the same thing.

then the culture is not going to change, or it's difficult to move that. There's too much friction in the way. And in order for the team to be able to do that, each individual person has to make certain internal decisions themselves. It's an individual job that goes up the ladder. You change a nation by its citizens.

You don't change it by its presidents or its leaders. And in terms of leadership philosophy. And so when I hear culture architect, I think of someone who's equipped to come in and work with the variety of personalities and positions up and down the ladder and your skills, your relationship ninja, most likely.

And so that being said is one of the key factors is [00:06:00] what I think about. And yeah, to answer that question for you. 

Dr. Joey: That's awesome. That's awesome. And I want to pick up on a point you made every company or every family or, every community, but we specifically work with companies or in organizations, every company and organization has a culture.

It falls out one of two ways. It's either an intentional culture

culture. It's not written down. It's not, there's no conversation around, here's the way we roll around here, you just roll. And so when you're trying to attract top talent, they learn pretty quickly, Hey, we just got to jump in here and roll. It's like jumping in a stream, wherever the stream takes you.

However, on the flip side of that cultures that are intentional. Even as a part of the attraction process of top talent, here's who we are, here's how we roll, here's the things we do, here's the way we do it. Those off the resume kind of [00:07:00] characteristics, here's what's important to us. I discovered early on five key characteristics that are off the resume of what I like to call Adam work positive dream teams.

We listen actively to each other. We are humble with each other and it's not that I think less of myself. It's, I think less about myself, right? And therein lies the key to humility. Thirdly, we work for mutual benefit. So I believe that when Adam and I both win, there's a greater good served in the company benefit, right?

So it's listening actively. That is, you're not listening to wait until somebody takes a breath and then jump in and say what's most important to you, you're listening actively. And then we work through humility and mutual benefit and then accountability is the fourth key characteristic.

Accountability is not me standing over you, making sure that you do it my way. Accountability is our...[00:08:00] 

Adam: Dr. Joey, I lost you.

I lost you. Wow. What

a mess.[00:09:00] 

Take one.

What is that? Is that 301?

Oof.

Oh,

man.[00:10:00] 

We are still going. I do not have his number.

Is he back? I'm sorry dude. I'm over here looking for phone numbers and emails. 

Dr. Joey: Let me give you one right quick. How about that? Let me give you a phone number right quick in case it happens again. Area code 434 548 5433 That'll get you right here to the bat phone, buddy, man. I don't know. I was just talking along and went through the five key characteristics of author, resume, work positive, dream team qualities.

I've never been so prolific and wonderful bringing out the best of me and me. And so I was, and I was looking right at the camera, and you're over right there, but I wasn't looking at you, I was looking at the camera, everything. I waited for you to say something. You didn't say anything.

And you were like, Like that and I was like, oh dude, his face is frozen. Oh, man. I couldn't even [00:11:00] get out But my recording was still going so I don't know I never 

Adam: stopped on my end because one file is if you go to multiple files for one show, it creates a tremendous amount, right? I don't know if you know this or not, you've got people doing your things But I'm doing all mine right now and I've learned the hard way keep it one file no matter what I'll just chop out this Few minutes.

So you were saying I lost you at the moment you were getting ready to expand on 

Dr. Joey: accountability. Okay. Accountability. All right. Let me pick that up then. I see. And that's the four key quality. 

Adam: Okay. Yeah. And I, I got in front of me, I do have the five on five for interviews and there was a couple of things that I wanted to touch in there about ego crippling, best chance of work success and also the two words that Can, what, where was it?

The turnaround? I don't know. What are the two 

Dr. Joey: words? You can just toss it to me and, What 

Adam: are two words that reverse the polarity of any negative [00:12:00] conversation? I like these ideas because a lot of times what you're talking about is people getting their egos in the way and causing those issues. And I truly believe if somebody's getting to be there, they're acting out of their core self.

They're not acting out of themselves. They're acting out of humility and a lot of times you let the eagle get in there, whatever. 

Dr. Joey: Yeah, we can talk more about that. Do you want me to go back and pick up with accountability? Would that be cool? 

Adam: That'd be great because my second pillar is called power and my seven pillars of revolutionary freedom, it's called power.

And all that is about, we give up our power by letting go of responsibility. It's all about ownership. It's all about personal ownership. So this will complement very well. 

Dr. Joey: Okay. All right. I'll go right back. I'll start over with accountability in that way. Gives you a push point now. So you've heard about listen, you heard about humility, you heard about mutual benefit.

So now I'm going to pick up with accountability, right? Okay. All right. And so Adam, the fourth key quality that, [00:13:00] these are off the resume, buddy, but these are intentional culture pieces that in order to have work positive dream teams, you must have. So the fourth one is accountability. Now, look, man, I know so often we think the manager's got to stand over us or, be constantly asking us in micromanaging and that's how we're held accountable.

But that's not the way work positive dream teams work. Work positive dream teams, Adam, use accountability to think about it this way. Adam is putting just enough pressure on me to bring out the best in me. Because growth always lies beyond the edge of my comfort zone. And we all know that we like to stay in that familiar space, right?

Cause it's nice and cozy. And our ego doesn't want us to march off the mental map, right? Try something new because we might get eaten by a tiger or a lion, right? Cause it's our caveman brain or what I like to call the caveman brain, cavewoman brain, caveman brain. So accountability is when we put enough pressure on each other, just enough pressure to bring out the best in each other.

Think about it as a rubber band. I can put a rubber band [00:14:00] around deck of cards or something holds it in place, stack of papers, whatever. But if I stretch that rubber band too hard, it's going to break. I don't want to break you. You don't want to break me. We want to succeed. So we're putting just enough pressure on each other to say, Hey, come on, Joey.

What about this? You keep asking those powerful questions to bring out new awareness in me. So that's we listen actively. We're humble. We work for mutual benefit and we're accountable. So the fifth key quality I found is one that's very easy to dismiss because of its familiarity and yet it's the essential glue that holds the previous four together and that's the golden rule.

I really want to put your needs up front and I want to make sure that my needs are getting met also because it's mutuality. We're back to mutual wins, right? That mutual benefit. However, Man, I've got to be good to you. And that means I've got to move beyond my reactions to formulate best responses, right?

And there's a gap between those, between the [00:15:00] reaction and the response. And that's where I want the golden rule to really reign in our relationships. So that's the way work positive dream teams roll. And intentionality of culture. It's not necessarily our natural reaction to anything, but these are responses that we can give to the work.

that creates places fun and I wake up in the morning wanting to go to work because Adam I'm spending 70 percent of my waking hours working right at least 70 percent I want to have fun and I want to be fulfilled and find meaning and satisfaction

Adam: There's a handful of things to unpack there. So one thing that I want to touch on in this relates to the ego piece in terms of the how the accountability comes in mainly trying to achieve the golden rule The space between the stimulus and the response is that gap where we get choice and [00:16:00] most of us are living.

at a subconscious level of automated 

Dr. Joey: responses. Yes. Automated reactions, right? Automated like for 

Adam: yep. Because of our conditioning, right? And that's what's conditioned due to the ego, even driving. I believe a lot of people are unhappy, experience dissatisfaction and friction in their relationships that would otherwise be maybe brighter or more peaceful and more, I don't even know just.

cohesive. So what, how do we help the person who doesn't even necessarily like that they always react negatively or often react negatively per that stimulation in like response to the other person who maybe is just one of those cantankerous types, but they keep going in that way, but that's not really who they are.

And that even to have to stay in their ground or to keep their workplace. Street cred, whatever the thing is, but then they're not like that with people that love and that they care about and at home. [00:17:00] How do we get in there for that person to not get walked all over? To be able to hold their ground, their voice can still get heard, their contribution still made, but they're not responding in that or reacting in that like kind.

What, how do we get in there and start 

Dr. Joey: Oh man, what a great question. Coaching our company has an ICF, International Coaching Federation Certified Training Program. There are eight core competencies that ICF drives you towards. One of those is evoking new awareness. So I've never met anyone, maybe I will tomorrow, but Adam, I've never met anyone, or you may be the first, who let's say I observed, I like your word cantankerous so let's say I observe you being cantankerous, I've never met anyone who was less cantankerous by me saying.

Come on, Adam, don't be so cantankerous, [00:18:00] 

Adam: right? But yet 

Dr. Joey: that's our reaction to cantankerous people, right? Or mean girls or however you want to talk about it. That's because when I tell you, Adam, you got to go do this or what's wrong with you, do this, your prefrontal cortex, and I'm not going to geek out on neuroscience, so just, but just let me tag a base here, your prefrontal cortex and as you can see, I have a highly developed.

Prefrontal cortex here, right? Pushed all my hair out, man. It's growing. My prefrontal cortex is getting larger every day. I'm going to look like Herman Munster before long, right? With that shell for. 

Adam: Careful on these references, Dr. Joey, we've got a younger audience. Oh, 

Dr. Joey: that's right, man. Okay. Go to TV land or go to YouTube.

It was hilarious, but anyway, it was black and white TV. It's pretty cool. My prefrontal cortex turns into Kevlar or Teflon every time you tell me what I ought to do or what I need to do. And I'm using a finger point here if you're not listening. If you're [00:19:00] not watching. Because that's what it is, man.

You got a finger in my face and you're, Adam, don't be so cantankerous. Okay. Instead, taking a coach approach helps evoke new awareness. Now, how do you do that? Asking powerful questions. Adam, I can't help but observe or I notice that you're, you're a little different today. What's going on with you?

And so you hear that nudge towards awareness Gary Ridge is a new friend of mine. Gary retired as the CEO and chairman of WD 40. Everybody's got a can of WD 40 around the house, right? Whether it's a little can or a big bucket. So Gary tells a story about going into a meeting one morning, and this was when we all used to go into the office, right?

And so they're sitting around the table and this one dude is just acting out. He is like all over the place. Nothing's right for him. He's raining on everybody's parade. It's just not [00:20:00] a not fun to be with him. And of course, you know what that does to the whole meeting. So pretty soon they get out of the room.

And Gary says, let's say the guy's name is Joey. Gary says, Hey, Joey you got a minute? And he says, yeah, come on, let's go down the street and get a cup of coffee. So Gary goes over to his car and he starts looking around the car and the guy says, what are you doing, Gary? He says, I'm looking for somebody.

And Gary gets down, looks under the car, opens the trunk, is looking in the trunk. And the guy says, Gary, What are you doing, man? Who are you looking for? And he says, hey, I'm looking for my friend Joey. Cause I didn't recognize that guy masquerading as Joey in that room in there. But I know the real Joey is here somewhere.

You see what that does, man? That just sets it off in a different direction. So then the guy could talk about, man, and I don't remember the particulars, the dog peed on my favorite pair of shoes this morning on my way out the door, or, my kid [00:21:00] threw up on me, or, something happened on the way out the door.

He was just not at the top of his game. So that conversation led to some transformation and Gary could, work with him with some more powerful questions. So Joey. Goes back and apologizes to everybody in the room. Hey I'm sorry. I wasn't at my best today. I was just having an off day.

So that's how we don't, our reaction, Adam, is to point a finger. and make Kevlar out of somebody's prefrontal cortex to where they defend their turf. And that's an egotistical response, right? That's the reaction. Yeah. Because I'm going to protect myself and that's the job of the ego. But to ask a question, hey, what's going on?

You seem a little off today. What's, what's happening? Just to help evoke that new awareness and let me claim. Adam really cares about me and that's why he's asking me that question. So then authentic, transparent conversations [00:22:00] could take place. Adam, we're keeping it real, man. Yeah. 

Adam: You know what, in terms of these are powerful things, because one of the things in my training is to help people.

Raise their awareness. It's like the first step of life awareness. What are the benefits? What are there immediate, are the long term benefits? What do the benefits look like to the person who's taking your advice to reach that person who's difficult? What do they receive? Instead of just reacting and holding their ego ground, they take a softer approach often in the moment feels weaker.

It feels like you're going to get stepped on or abused or mistreated. If they're able to do this, what kind of effects come out of that for them personally first? And then obviously it'll ripple through the workplace. 

Dr. Joey: Let me recast a word you just used and that is advice. Advice tends to get dismissed very quickly.

It's what distance. Yeah. Advice [00:23:00] gets dismissed pretty quickly. Okay. Yeah. Dismissed. And because that comes from a superior inferior position, even if you are, let's say more. Emotionally developed or have more emotional intelligence than the person you're talking with to say for instance, Hey, Adam, can I give you some feedback?

That, that creates an allergic reaction for most of us because that word feedback, that means. I screwed something up and you're about to tell me how to do it, right? Give me advice. But what if instead of advice, I regard you as the expert in you and I believe in you so strongly and who you are and the uniqueness of you and we belong together.

And I believe that because we're working together, right? What if I just want to call out the best in you? And so I can make some observations. How are you doing today, man?[00:24:00] And ask that question. You just seem like something was bothering you. And then that opens up the door to you discovering, because I believe with the answers are within you, or you have the ability to discover your own sources of answers and to go get those outside of yourself.

So I, rather than advise, I just want to ask those questions that open you up. I'm convinced that learning is better behavior. Learning is better behavior because it's got to result in some different actions if I truly learned it. If I didn't, it was just an intellectual assent to a statement. Even if it's a statement of conduct, here's the way we're going to roll up in here.

Okay. I agree with that, but my behavior is totally different. Boom. It's just something besides that. One of my mantras, my personal mantras is I don't have to say everything I'm thinking. And frankly, that was one of the best days of my life, Adam. When I [00:25:00] discovered I didn't have to say everything I was thinking, I've been married to the same dear woman, her name should be Grace, for 40 years.

And early on, I discovered I didn't have to say everything I was thinking because that kept me from reacting and helped me respond. So from communicating, I want to think about how she's going to hear it best. Whatever it is, I have to share what's going to help her. awareness rise, what's going to help her choose a new set of actions, right?

And then align that awareness with those chosen actions and then set up her own accountability system, right? For making sure that she does it. If I get invited into the accountability equation, that's fine. If I don't, that's fine too.

Adam: It sounds as though

I'm absorbing this so much, coming off the golden rule. And then the line of questioning that you have, [00:26:00] you're talking about considering others, right?

And with the spouse, taking that time to consider and be thoughtful and understand that you don't have to voice everything. Do you think that a lot of the, a big factor that goes into why people carry frustration with them on a day to day basis, especially being short with others, and the closer we are, the shorter we tend to get with those.

I'll speak for me. 

Dr. Joey: Yeah, me too, 

Adam: brother. It's a human nature piece. There's a comfort bill. I think we can crap on each other a little bit more than we should. With that being said, I'm almost losing my train of thought because... It's impacting me. It's marinating. It's permeating.[00:27:00] 

Do you think that reacting toward people, out of ego works against our own self and our intentions? 

Dr. Joey: Oh yeah, 10 out of 10. Exactly. 

Adam: The thing that we're doing naturally is shooting ourselves in the foot for the results that we actually do want. And then that perpetuates the frustration and the being short.

Yeah. 

Dr. Joey: The poet Robert Frost once said that Home is the place where they have to take you in, I refer to what you're describing here as delivering the mail to the wrong address. Okay. That mail should be delivered to, and I'm just going to use the home experience here. I should deliver that mail to my boss.

The Society for Human Resource Management, SHRM tells us 57 percent of all people who leave a job [00:28:00] do so because of a bad boss. And two thirds of those who are remaining are considering leaving because of that same bad boss, right? So let's say I've got a bad boss and she won't be pleased, he won't be pleased, right?

And I can't say to that boss for fear of my job because it's a negative. Work culture, toxic work culture. I call it a Kevin culture and I'm glad to examine that with you too. Yeah, it's Kevin culture. You got Karen and then you got Kevin and we can talk about Kevin if you want to. So I come home.

And this dear spouse of mine, who, we've raised two daughters. We've got the, as you indicated in your intro, you obviously had read the news piece about our most beautiful, brilliant granddaughter ever born. We share her. So I know honey is going to love me regardless because home is what?

The place where they have to take you in. Yeah. I'm [00:29:00] gonna, I'm gonna deliver my mail to her address instead of the boss's address, or if you want to think about it even more graphically. The garbage that's festered and accumulated within me since my boss dumped it on me, I bring it home and I put it on that doorstep.

It just... That's the Kevin culture. Okay. So let me contrast that with what we do as culture architects and the kind of culture that we help people create. There's several things here. I'll just, I want to mention two. First of all, we create a culture of authenticity and transparency.

Adam: I was so hoping you were was rolling like a ticker across my brain, like how long is this coming? 

Dr. Joey: I saw it across your prefrontal cortex, though. Yours isn't quite as big as mine, but you've got a pretty good one coming up there, man. You're a great thinker, right?[00:30:00] 

Authenticity and transparent in a culture means that I want you to challenge me. I want you to challenge me. I want you to disagree with me. I want you to push on me. I want you to ask me why it's like a three year old granddaughter, her favorite question is why. Why pops? Why?

And then we go through about six iterations of that, or you don't quite have to go through six iterations of why with your leader. However, I want you to push back on me. I want you to feel free to disagree with me without fear of reprisal. Like it's an expected value around here that we can collaborate and share opposing viewpoints and come up with something that creates a competitive advantage for our company.

That's greater than any one of us, because if it was about me, I don't need you. If we are in, if we're in agreement, some of [00:31:00] us are unnecessary about everything. So rather than expecting everybody just to live in this echo chamber of a team with me. I don't need that. I want authentic, transparent, let's struggle, let's wrestle with it.

And that's where creativity and innovation comes from in a company. Is this can I say iron sharpens iron kind of mentality or friends sharpening friends, right? We're working on each other and really moving forward together. So that authenticity and transparency is Just really key. Now, authenticity and transparency creates the other dynamic, and that is belonging.

I gotta belong, man. I simply have to belong. And what does belonging mean? It means several things. First of all, back to authenticity and transparency, right? There's that. But in belonging, I want to feel like I matter. And more specifically, I want [00:32:00] to feel like my work matters. Bob J. Hanson has written this really cool book.

I'm talking to everybody about it on every podcast. A lot of things like it's called Office Shock. Office Shock. Bob is a futurist and was working with the DOD in inventing the internet several years before you were born. He's just one of those guys. He's looked into current work reality and he and I both think.

We're living in a miraculous time of redefining work. We're stoked. We're excited. And that's probably the jazz for me and being a culture architect, right? But belonging is when I am, there's an equity of exchange because I'm giving 70 percent of my waking hours to you, right? As my leader and as the company.

So if I'm giving you seven out of 10 waking hours, right? That's huge. That's seven hours I could be with my granddaughter, that's 70 percent of my waking time. If I'm giving you that much, there's gotta be some equity of [00:33:00] exchange for me. So what am I getting in return? What I want in return is I want to know my work matters.

How does my work matter? I want those daily tasks that I'm doing to connect with something bigger than myself. And that bigger than myself, that alignment of purpose, man when you're, when you see people in the flow and at peak performance, there's an alignment with the company purpose, right? And so I get excited about it because, hey, what I'm doing matters.

And it matters in this way. This company produces these products and these services, which solve people's problems in this way. Then I get stoked and I get jazzed. 

Adam: Do you think that someone can live their authentic self without that? Without, what was the word you used? The meaning and purpose without the belief [00:34:00] that what they're doing matters, that it's meaningful.

Do you think they can be authentic doing something they believe maybe it's superficial or pointless?

Dr. Joey: You ask me can they live, can they, I think they can exist, and I think we've given a euphemism to the antithesis of what I just described, and that euphemism is quiet quitting, which frankly I don't think there's anything quiet about it at all. I think that, oh man, it look during the pandemic, anti depressant and anti anxiety prescriptions were up 30%.

And that's just during the first few years of the pandemic. And oh, by the way, that's continued now. So we're to answer your question. Yeah, you can survive, but you're going to have to do it. In a chemically induced state or a medicated state or something. Now, look, I'm not against medicine if your body doesn't produce enough serotonin and the [00:35:00] dopamine, please get yourself today to someone who can help you find that antidepressant that works for you if you, if your body produces anxiety.

Like mine used to Hare and then please get yourself some help for that. Not what I'm saying. I'm just saying, because of the disengagement between my work and my daily task and what the company's doing. And because I wasn't belonging, that gap got wider than I could span. I think it was already wider than I could span.

I just think the pandemic exacerbated it. And just heightened the intensity of it. And so that's why the response with so many new prescriptions, but you've got to, I think if you want to be in business 10 years from now, your company, it's absolutely positively got to create that kind of work positive culture in which authenticity and transparency reign and therefore people [00:36:00] belong.

Adam: That's going to be a clip message to company leaders man. Oh man. 

Dr. Joey: Oh yeah. And if I can just carry that out a little bit more and give kudos to your audience, I'm a boomer, right? And I have millennial daughters and and friends with a ton of Zs. So we're looking at three generations at work at the same time, right?

Kudos to the millennials and to the Zs for not putting up with the crap that my generation did at work. Okay. And I'm just keeping it real here, brother. Yeah. I had to put, I've been called everything, but my mother's son, my leaders, they didn't even know my mama, but I still had to, came from that generation where I was told, put your head down, shut up, go to work, millennials and [00:37:00] Z's you've seen the collateral damage.

You are the collateral damage. To what's happened to that in me, right? My generation's got the highest divorce rate. My generation's got the highest alcoholism and drug addiction rate of any previous generation. And we see what that's done. So kudos to you for not putting up with the crap that we did and for saying, my work's got to matter.

I got to belong or I'm out of here. So keep self selecting. Just be very candid and very sure about who you are. Yeah, 

Adam: that's a big one too. We don't want to open that can of worms today, but if you want to talk about helping people understand who they are, we're going to do a part two if you'll accept the request.

Oh, yeah. That, that, that's huge. 

Dr. Joey: Self identity is key. Yeah. Yep. There's a reason there are eight, almost eight billion different people on the There's a reason for that. And I want to celebrate that reason. [00:38:00] 

Adam: Yeah, that's awesome. There's a, the authenticity piece. I'm like, because I like to, we're more angled toward helping that individual find those places rather than, we could give messages to key C level executives all day about how to leave the company better.

You gotta let them have room for authenticity, but then you're coming up against, you're going to meet, there's resistance there, right? Cause now you're talking about a philosophical approach that if it's opposed to theirs, that you're going to create resistance. And 

Dr. Joey: there's Kevlar.

That's right. The catalog, right? Yep. Yeah, exactly. And what we're seeing is that particularly, and I'm talking about my generation now the Karen and Kevin generation, right? They're just selling their business. They're for pennies on the dollar. I can't do it anymore. And so then what does the next season of their life look like?

What are the assets that our society is losing? [00:39:00] Because they're abdicating their role to pass on wisdom and to encourage the next generation. It's travesty. Yep. Yeah, it's... With just a few key tweaks, we can create a work positive culture. But you gotta set aside that ego and really seek to, huh, yeah, stop...

You 

Adam: have like this foresight. I don't know if you got a camera over my shoulder. I just, I literally made sure I had the questions. I got to write in front of my face. 

Dr. Joey: We cloned your phone, man. Here it is right here. So I've 

Adam: got a copy of my phone on yours already. So one thing I was interested in that caught my attention when I was reviewing some of the specialties that you work, help teams work through.

Sure. And because I lost it. It said, it was one of the, one of the two words. What was it? I mentioned it to you earlier. What were the two words? What are two words that reverse [00:40:00] the polarity of any negative conversation? So it's something I find interesting. It's definitely ego related. because you have to be willing, whatever this is going to create a more positive energy.

And so because of that, it's going to require the person to not be negative in reaction based in the ego. So this sounds like a very practical tip. I love giving practical tips to my audience. And this is something they could take right now, even if they're listening on lunch break, they can go in and use these words.

The next conflict issue, whatever. So take that and run with 

Dr. Joey: it. Oh man. Thank you so much for asking. Let me give you a little bit of background on this because we teach tactics specific tactics that you can start doing today. In fact, on my work positive podcast, I ask every single guest. And when you come on, I'll be asking you, Hey, Adam Kasix, what's one thing work positive nation can do today to start creating a work positive culture.

Just one thing. Be hags are nice, right? The big hairy audacious goals that Jim Collins wrote about. Love Jim [00:41:00] Collins. He sold a bazillion more books than I have so far. Bless him. Yeah. Give me some. Bless him, 

Adam: give me some. Yeah, that's 

Dr. Joey: right. But how many be haggers are there in the world? How many be haggers are really out there?

But we need what I call daughters. D O T. Do one thing. We just need more daughters. We need people doing one thing. So let me give you a little bit of background. Then I'll give you those two words. And that one thing that you can do today to reverse polarity of conversations from negative to positive.

Everybody's been in a negative conversation at work. I don't know why our brains are this way, Adam, but man, once somebody starts complaining, It's like a pile on, it's a dog pile, right? You're just, everybody's going there, you start talking about the boss, right? Yeah. I know. And let me tell you what he said to me.

It's it's terrible, right? And I want you to be honest with yourself. Now, if you're listening, have you ever walked away from one of those conversations and gone, man, that was a great conversation. I'm so glad I [00:42:00] had that conversation about what a terrible boss we have. I just, man, I'm ready to get back to work now.

Adam: No, you walk away going like this saying I need a shower.

Dr. Joey: Or you want to take a knife and scrape your tongue, right? To get the words off that you just said. It's terrible, man. It sucks. It's, I call it the working dead movement, right? It's just the working dead and you've been. Caressed by zombies, right? How does that work out for you?

It's, yeah, cold flesh, right? Okay, instead of that, when you find yourself in negative conversations, now, it used to be around a coffee pot or the water cooler. Now, it's on Zoom or Teams, okay? And before the boss shows up, everybody's Hey man, you too, right? Or you're chatting with each other, right? You can send a message just to one person like, Hey, did you see the way Joey parted his hair today?

Oh, wait, he doesn't have hair. It's just that kind of negativity. So the first thing you want to do when you encounter one [00:43:00] of these conversations is redirect it. Redirect it. Let's say that the conversation is going in that direction and to redirect, you say, man, so we had the best weekend. We went sailing out on the lake and it was just gorgeous.

The wind was blowing in the right direction. I didn't quite get sunburned, but I got enough sun. And we were out in Tampa Bay. It was just great. I loved every second of it. So I redirect it. Now, Kevin, Is used to having his way with you. So Kevin's going to just ignore what you just said about the weekend.

Give you the eye, right? Dude, that's not negative about the boss. So he's going to go right back after. So then when Kevin gets back with it, you, second thing you want to do is reframe. The conversation reframe the conversation. Kevin, yeah. Joey he could use some growth as a boss, but the last time I checked when I went to the bank.

Man, I had money in my [00:44:00] account because Joey's giving me some money for my work. Don't be too hard on him. That's reframing. It's yes. And so the third thing you want to do, cause Kevin, man, he will not die. I think of Kevin as an Eeyore vampire, by the way, and we can talk more about what Eeyore vampires mean, but.

You can drive a stake in his heart. That's the only way to kill him. But if you drive one in his head, he's not going to go away. So the third thing if redirecting and reframing don't work, Hey, Adam, remove yourself from that conversation mute yourself. So you don't want Kevin to shut up.

Cause that's not going to help. That's just like porn. Gas on a fire jet fuel on a fire. Kevin loves that, but just remove yourself. You know how we all wore mask every time we went out for a while, put your mask on, man, mute yourself cut your camera off, turn your speakers off, just watch until somebody comes on.

That's really going to offer something productive and start the meeting. Kevin is contagious. [00:45:00] So there's the background. There's three tactics you can do when you encounter these negative conversations. Now, the two words to reverse the polarity back to your question. A work positive culture operates like standup comedy would say yes.

And that's just the only rule for standup comedy. You say yes. And then you take it on to another direction, right? It's yes. And yes, and saying, and so we're constantly innovating. We're creating I don't have to agree with everything you say. I can be authentic. Yes and I'll bring another layer to it.

To reverse the polarity of those conversations, you want to say yes, but. But gives you a mental it's like a coming, a hard right turn mentally. Every time you hear but, your brain goes, right? It stops you short right there. Yes, but turns those gives you an opportunity to change polarity on those [00:46:00] conversations from negative to positive, but you see what it did there.

I gave you the positive. Yes. And first, right? And then you can use yes, but change the polarity. Yeah, it creates a reference 

Adam: point. That's 

Dr. Joey: great. There's a opportunity for transformation right there. 

Adam: Opportunity for transformation. When I'm looking at this and I did the notes on the first, second, and third to reverse the negative conversation, I'm looking at that and I'm like, this reminds me about how many people experience friction and sticking point in their relationships because maybe they're not considering how much gossip is actually a negative conversation.

And as I'm looking at redirect, reframe, or remove yourself, when you said remove yourself. I had a mentor that taught me how to, if I couldn't reverse the conversation or help them even understand that this isn't healthy, then it's time to remove yourself because I'm not going to be a part of talking [00:47:00] anything negatively shaded about somebody who's not present.

And am I perfect at it? Nope. Cause I'm still human. But I really try to use this as a pillar in my life to not be involved in gossip of any kind. Good for you. You know me and you know of me and you, I've been tested and I've shown true over time. I want the people that know me the long haul to be like, if he spoke about me, it was positive.

And if it was negative and you're telling me that he didn't say it. Good for you. I want that level of trust. To my character, these are, that's obviously an ideal. And I believe I do pretty good at it when I gossip is when I'm probably with my wife in the kitchen. It's just geez, anyway, but not about the neighbors.

I'm human, man. So no, I did. And that's a huge thing because gossip, do you know of many other things that can, they can rip apart a culture quicker than gossip? 

Dr. Joey: Yeah. Yeah. And for me, gossip and negative conversation are [00:48:00] synonymous. That's it. Yep. Yep. Agreed. Yeah. And by the way, if you, until you remove yourself, you're complicit in the conspiracy to perpetuate that negative conversation.

Amen. 

Adam: I agree. We have going back toward the beginning and some of these frameworks that you work with. Under perception, uhhuh or perceiving. 

Dr. Joey: That's the first core practice. . Yep. I, 

Adam: I spend a good amount of time with clients about the construction of their perception. That, teaching people to think about what they think about, to think about their thoughts. That's right. And very few people do this, and I was shown this light to raise my awareness. some time ago. And with that, you talk about how do we focus on the positive? That seems so simplistic to say, how do we focus on the positive?

It's really important, but I think a lot of our conditioning, depending on where we come from, our perception is shaped [00:49:00] by that conditioning, our upbringing and the things that we've repeated over and over and over and over to where these things are automatic. Bob Proctor talked about 95 percent of everything we do, say, think or feel by the time we're 35 is automatic.

Yep. Yep. And that's mind blowing. And so with that automation in place, we have to start getting critical toward our own perception and think about what we're thinking about and not automatically trust it. Are there ways and tactics that you have that create that positive culture so somebody can truly be who they are and influence when it comes to how they can take ownership and responsibility for their own perceptions?

At work, ways to shift these things to think about tactics to do, whatever they are, a sticky on the computer screen. Remember to think about your thoughts. I don't know, but what do you have for us on that? Perception is powerful. 

Dr. Joey: Oh, it really is. In fact, as I like to say, the work [00:50:00] positive culture starts and stops in your head.

That's the place. It's the playground is your sandbox. The cool thing is. You have a choice. If you don't hear anything else I say today, hear this. You have a choice. You choose your thoughts. Now we're back to being a coach and asking powerful questions and helping. A coach can help you do this, or you as a coach can help someone else do this.

Just to raise that level of awareness. Okay. What are some of the presuppositions behind what you just said? Where'd you first hear that? Who told you that? That's one of my favorites. Who told you that? That's a great one. And there's so many people who talk about invisible scripts.

That we inherit from families of [00:51:00] origin or from the first job we had. And so we think all the rest of the bosses are Kevin dream. You can choose what you think and replace those thoughts. Now, whatever device it is that you want to do, whether it's a pink sticky note on your computer screen whatever it is, focus on the positive at work.

Sounds simple, but it ain't easy because you're pulled into conversations with cabins that are negative because the environment around you supports negativity. If there was one thing I would encourage your listeners to do, Adam, and you want to light the match of the revolution freedom, right? If that's where you want to move, just do this one thing.

Leave the TV remote control on the cabinet in the morning. Please avoid. watching [00:52:00] TV morning shows or TV news. They are in business to do one thing, and that is to monetize negativity, and they don't care. And look, I was a news editor for a radio station for a number of years. They don't care what kind of day you have.

They just want to hook you, and they know that your brain marinating in negativity will hook you. And since you see what you look for, Adam, you're just going to continue to come back day after day. And their mantra is, if it bleeds, it leads. The bloodiest letter. The bloodier, the better, man. You look at the first news piece in every single cycle, whether it's 20 or 30 minutes, it's the bloodiest, it's the worst.

And Oh, by the way, if something you're in Tampa, if something terrible and bloody overnight didn't happen overnight in Tampa, let's just pretend that happens when they only import it from [00:53:00] Philly. or Chicago, or New York, or the Ukraine somewhere, right? And they'll bring it right into your bedroom, in your living room, and you are marinating your brain in that before you start work.

So I don't care whether you're driving to an office or whether you're sitting down to get on Zoom in your office at home. By the time you get there, dude, you are crawling with the world's burdens and weights on you, and There's not a thing you can do about any of them. You can't bring those four people who were shot to death back to life, and you can't do anything about it, but what you can do is you can choose not to abdicate, right?

Editorial license, the filter on your brain to somebody in New York or LA who doesn't give. Two hoots about you. You can take it back. Dr. Joey, how do I stay informed? We talk about the great media switch moving from push to pull media. [00:54:00] Push media is the TV, the radio, and things like that. They're just pushing it on you, and you're willing, you're complicit in the conspiracy, you're letting your brain marinate in it, right?

Pull media is, man, we've got so much great technology today. Your smartphone, your iPhone, you get to choose what articles you read, you get to choose how much of it you read, you get to choose what videos you watch, what clips you watch, right? You're listening to this podcast right now. You made a conscious choice to listen to Revolutionary Freedom.

That was your choice. And there's some reason that you keep coming back to listen to this podcast, right? That's a choice that you made. That's pull media. You are in control. You can control. You are in control of the content you're consuming right at that point. Now, a word of caution. Be careful about an echo chamber and in echo chambers, you're listening to things that reinforce your opinion over and over.

Growth lies just beyond the edge of your comfort zone. So make sure you get a variety of perspectives [00:55:00] and viewpoints. Don't fall into that unless it's revolutionary freedom. Don't fall into that trap of listening to the same thing over and over. Find some different voices to stimulate you and grow your awareness.

However, just exercise that choice. That's your one thing that you can do. Avoid marinating your brain like a lemming in TV morning news and instead use the pull media to keep yourself abreast of what's going on. You will be amazed at how much better you feel when you start your workday and your mental outlook is so much brighter.

Adam: That it's so good because you're covering, you're going to shape your own perception on purpose, then you're going to get into taking ownership. Accountability, that's going to give you more power. That's going to make you feel more positive and like you can actually influence some impact oh my gosh, push and pull.

And that's a phenomenal tip. I appreciate your time, your wisdom, sir, your sense of humor, your heart, grace, your willingness. This has been an excellent experience. I'm looking forward to meeting with you, but I [00:56:00] am looking forward to absolutely. If I have you on for much more than a part two, it's you're going to start charging us to get consulting fees going on because you're just trying to give away all 

Dr. Joey: this stuff a minute now.

No, I'm not. No, I'm not. Hang on, Adam, because I come from the, I come from an abundance mentality, right? Yep. And so my goal as a work positive architect is to give as much as good stuff away as possible and just to be a conduit. Because the more I give away, the more I receive. So man, I'm so humbled by the opportunity you share in your audience with me.

I'm just really humbled. Thank you so much for this gift of this opportunity. Amen. 

Adam: My pleasure. Dr. Joey, where can people find you? How do you want them to engage with you? And if they're wanting, maybe even another thing, we'll put all this in the show notes later. I do have your bio information from agent, but looking at that, it's looking at that.

So where can people find you on that individual basis? And if there's some listeners out there that are wanting to bring you into for some potential coaching, because maybe their executives need some help and different things and 

Dr. Joey: how can all that happen? [00:57:00] Yeah. Hey man, thanks for asking. Go to workpositive.

today. workpositive. today, right? Cause that's what we want you to do. We want you to work positive today. So when you go there, you'll see a couple of things. Here's one I want to give you something. We're talking about those negative conversations at work. And words matter. They reveal how we regard each other, how we regard our work, what's our culture like here.

Obviously, I'm on a mission. I want to give people something to talk about that's positive. There's a free course called Something to Talk About. And if you'll just, when you go to workpositive. today, just scroll down to the bottom of that page. Give me just put your name. You can put Adam Kasix in there if you want to, but give an email address that we can use, right?

So we can, don't give Adam's email address but put your email. You could, 

Adam: but only one of you is going to work for it. It's only going to work for one of you at one time. That's it, that's 

Dr. Joey: it. There's one Adam Kasix, right? Put your email address in there. I promise we won't spam you. We will [00:58:00] only help you because again, we come from abundance.

This is a free course. There's six modules there. It will help you transform your conversations. Again, that polarity from negative conversations to positive conversations. The other way is however you listen to this podcast, you can pick up our work positive podcast wherever fine podcasts are heard and then, man, I have just become so.

overwrought with how many dissatisfied, disengaged people there are in the world right now. In America alone, Gallup found recently in a poll that 85 percent of American workers are disengaged. That's a travesty, man. All that humanity being wasted, all those people being trashed. So what I did was my work positive and negative world team edition book that we were talking about earlier, you 99 cents.

Amazon, Barnes Noble, wherever you get digital copies of your book, it's only 99 cents. I dropped my pants all the way to 99 cents, right? [00:59:00] Simply because I want you to read the stories that are in there. It's story based, it's not your typical business book, okay? So you're going to love it because it's filled with stories.

And it will help you perceive, conceive, believe, achieve, and receive the work positive work and culture and life that you deserve. So just wherever fine books are sold, go get yourself a copy of that. This 

Adam: has been an incredibly valuable time that if people would study this episode a handful of times, listen to it on their commute.

Multiple times, I've heard you listen to one thing once you hear something, once you retain, I don't know if these numbers are totally accurate, but 8 percent of whatever you're hearing, you're retaining. It takes an average of like over it's seven to 12 times before even something starts sinking in.

Those are good sales numbers to, to close deals seven to 10 times before you. Listen, [01:00:00] my fellow revolutionaries, it's you got to listen to this one over and over again, because if you're dissatisfied at work and you don't hate your life at work, this can make work better. It can help you work positive today.

As I glanced at your mic flag, cause it's an amazing concept and business and offering and value. So guys, listen to this stuff. There, there's really stuff in here to help the individual who has power to begin moving culture. Yep. So thank you very much for your time, Dr. Joey. And we will talk again very 

Dr. Joey: soon.

I look forward to it, man. Thanks for having me on Adam. My pleasure, 

Adam: brother. Thank you. We'll see ya.

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That's sweet.