Transcript

Lead Without Ego, Lessons from Patrick Lencioni | 6 types of working Genius

From Ryan Hawk · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 55 min · 11,429 words · 125 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Lead Without Ego, Lessons from Patrick Lencioni | 6 types of working Genius", an episode of Ryan Hawk published December 6, 2025 (55 min, about 11,429 words). It mentions 36 people, works and ideas, including Miss Pat, Working Genius, Humble, hungry, and smart, Enablement, Ideal Team Player.

What this episode is about

The discussion emphasizes the importance of understanding one's motivations for leadership, highlighting that it requires selflessness and the ability to empathize with others. It also explores the balance leaders must maintain between humility and the significance of their behaviors, while stressing that true greatness comes from pursuing one's genuine passions rather than from a fear of failure.

Key takeaways

  • Leadership's a lonely road with bad economics; sign up only if you're all in.
  • Greatness thrives on passion and love, not the fear of not being enough.
  • Empathy is the unsung secret to leadership: understand, anticipate, and you’ll get to solutions faster.
  • Success can mask wounds; straight A's sometimes scream 'approval needed!'
  • Wounded childhoods disguise perfectionism; even leaders must unpack, unlearn, and heal.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Anticipating people's objections, Attorney General, Leading Out Loud, Terry Pierce
  2. – 10:00: Childhood wounds, Christian counseling, Ideal Team Player, Teammate trifecta
  3. – 15:00: Working Genius, Humble, hungry, and smart, Six types of Working Genius, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
  4. – 20:00: Adam Taylor
  5. – 25:00: Working Genius, Enablement, Sean Ryan
  6. – 30:00: Team map, Bill Garren, Enablement, Galvanizing
  7. – 35:00: Karen Brooke, Humble, hungry, and smart, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Vulnerability-based trust
  8. – 40:00: Enablement, Galvanizing, Liam Murray, Sher Cole
  9. – 45:00: Bill Garren, Garren Stokes, Ideal Team Player, Karen Brooke
  10. – 50:00: Bill Garren, Humble, hungry, and smart, Ideal Team Player, The Ideal Team Player
  11. – 54:35: The Motive, Working Genius, workinggenius.com

Notable quotes from "Lead Without Ego, Lessons from Patrick Lencioni | 6 types of working Genius"

  • Written many best-selling books. You've created assessment tools like the Working Genius. You've given speeches all over the world. You've advised some of the most powerful people in the world.
    about Working Genius · at
  • Childhood this morning. You were the validictorian, the student body president, you played point guard on the basketball team. You had a brother, you had a sister, your dad's a…
    about Attorney General · at
  • I've had conversations with your team as well about the teammate trifecta. So, we're looking at the ideal team player, the working genius, and the five dysfunctions.
    about Ideal Team Player · at
  • That if you want to hire people that fit on teams you really need the ideal team player, which is to be humble, hungry, and smart. So, I wrote that book and we said, That's…
    about Humble, hungry, and smart · at
  • Do it well? Yeah. Yeah. so my working frustrations are enablement and tenacity. The most implementationoriented geniuses. Do you know how much parenting is involved in that? I have to change diapers.
    about Enablement · at
  • I want to talk about a team map, specifically the our learning leader team of coaches team map, Pat. So, I might as well use this to get some free consulting. Okay. yeah,.
    about Team map · at
  • We have between Eli, Brooke, Garren, and Sherry. I'm just I'm looking at our team map right now. we have discernment, galvanizing, enablement and tenacity. There are working geniuses of.
    about Karen Brooke · at
  • I'll just do it and then they do. And whenever I'm on a team, we've had a team before at the table group. We had 12 employees and only one had tenacity and we said we are going…
    about The Table Group · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Miss Pat — Person · 30 mentions
  • Karen Brooke — Person · 4 mentions · first at
  • Bill Garren — Person · 3 mentions · first at
    We have between Eli, Brooke, Garren, and Sherry. I'm just I'm looking at our team map right now. we have discernment, galvanizing, enablement and tenacity. There are working geniuses of.
  • Sher Kimble — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    Mean, I might as well use this to get some free consulting. Okay. yeah, here it is. the great Sher Kimble did this for us. She's on this call as well.
  • Eli — Person · 2 mentions
  • Terry Pierce — Person · 1 mention · first at
    I think maybe I've mastered the art of anticipating people's objections. And I learned that from a guy named Terry Pierce who wrote a book years ago called Leading Out Loud. So, that's what I do.
  • Adam Taylor — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Down. Like I Yes. I just was I was scared to death. And I remember specific names like Adam Taylor, the middle linebacker, who I was like physically and psychologically scared…
  • Sean Ryan — Person · 1 mention · first at
    And I've and I've met Seawn Ryan who lives near me here now. And I and you see all these people what they're doing is in saying is saying we need some soldiers who are so unhealthy that they.
  • Sher Cole — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Hi Pat. And I'm not near as exciting as Sher Cole, but I do love the working. So yes, that's me. so we do a lot of these trainings with our teams. It's been a great experience. My question for you is for leaders with enablement or.
  • Liam Murray — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Good stuff. Liam Murray had I thought a really insightful question.
  • Garren Stokes — Person · 1 mention · first at
    I got an ideal team player question from Garren Stokes. This is around humility. Something that we've had conversations with when studying excellent performers whether it's in business, sports, life in general.
  • Eric Spoelstra — Person · 1 mention

Books & papers

  • Ideal Team Player — Book · 4 mentions · first at
  • The Five Dysfunctions of a Team — Book · 4 mentions · first at
    Trifecta to help us all collectively be better leaders? So, so when I wrote the five dysfunctions of a team, which was oh that would have been 24 five years ago, I remember finishing writing it right after 9/11.
  • The Ideal Team Player — Book · 3 mentions · first at
    I've had conversations with your team as well about the teammate trifecta. So, we're looking at the ideal team player, the working genius, and the five dysfunctions.
  • Leading Out Loud — Book · 1 mention · first at
    I learned that from a guy named Terry Pierce who wrote a book years ago called Leading Out Loud. So, that's what I do.
  • The Motive — Book · 1 mention · first at
    I love this. It fits right in with the learning leader, too. So, so I wrote a book called The Motive, which came out the day before COVID happened. So, it didn't get the best…

Companies & orgs

  • The Table Group — Company · 2 mentions · first at
  • Tonight Show — Company · 1 mention · first at
    That was not natural. I remember seeing him on the Tonight Show when he was four years old. And like he was being groomed to be a golfer when he was 4 years old.
  • workinggenius.com — Company · 1 mention · first at
  • Army — Company · 1 mention
  • NFL — Company · 1 mention

Products & tech

Concepts & topics

  • Humble, hungry, and smart — Concept · 5 mentions · first at
  • Enablement — Concept · 5 mentions · first at
  • Six types of Working Genius — Concept · 3 mentions · first at
    Bus. And years later, by accident, we came up with the five, the six types of working genius, which is really about are they in the right seat?
  • Team map — Concept · 3 mentions · first at
  • Anticipating people's objections — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
    So that must mean I've mastered it. And that is I think I'm really good at anticipating people's objections. When I talk to people, I actually think about, oh man, what might…
  • Attorney General — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
  • Galvanizing — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
    And Sherry. I'm just I'm looking at our team map right now. we have discernment, galvanizing, enablement and tenacity. There are working geniuses of that. Yes, we do have that.
  • Empath — Concept · 2 mentions
  • Childhood wounds — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Know it either. And it wasn't until I was 55 years old that a friend of mine said, You, my friend, have childhood wounds you've never dealt with.
  • Christian counseling — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    He goes, Yeah. And he asked me some questions. And I went and got some good, for me, Christian counseling and realized, Oh crap. So the way I grew up, I wasn't supposed to grow…
  • Teammate trifecta — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    To transition a bit about your recent I've had conversations with your team as well about the teammate trifecta. So, we're looking at the ideal team player, the working genius, and the five dysfunctions.
  • Vulnerability-based trust — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Something about that trust when you get players on a team and remember it's vulnerability based trust. And you know what I love and I love it in basketball especially because you see them on the court when a player is willing to go my bad,.
  • trouble with humility — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Is a really hard thing. And that to me is the essence. That's I wrote an article 27 years ago called the trouble with humility because and it gets at if you can't balance those two things, it's hard to be a great leader.

Full transcript with timestamps

If you don't know why you want to be a leader, you shouldn't be a leader. Leadership is a lonely and selfless thing. It's wonderful, but the personal economics of leadership are not good. And if you don't sign up for that, don't be a leader.

You've given speeches all over the world. You've advised some of the most powerful people in the world. I'm very curious to learn what do you think in your life that you've mastered the most?

Man, that's a question. I lean into empathy and I try to understand where other people are coming from. The older you get, the more you realize what you don't know.

Isn't in a weird way though, that never enough feeling, that's what produces greatness.

The answer is no. True greatness is best when it's only in the things that you're meant to be great at and that you're doing it out of freedom and passion and love, not out of fear of failure. A leader has to simultaneously believe that they are no more important than the people they lead. On the other hand though, they have to accept the fact that their behaviors are actually more important. If you can't balance those two things, it's hard to be a great leader. Pat, um I I want to talk to you about the fact that you're a polymath. You've written many best-selling books. You've created assessment tools like the Working Genius. You've given speeches all over the world. You've advised some of the most powerful people in the world.

I'm very curious to learn. What do you think in your life that you've mastered the most? What I've mastered? Man, that's a question. Um cuz I'm I'm learning more now than I ever have. And the older you get, the more you realize what you don't know. Um you know what I think? Somebody told me this the other day. He said he said he thinks he's the best in the world at it other than me. So that must mean I've mastered it. And that is I think I'm really good at anticipating people's objections. When I talk to people, um I actually think about, oh man, what might they be thinking and what do I need to put out there to help them know that I'm thinking what they're thinking? And I've, you know, so when I whether I'm talking to people interpersonally or when I'm giving a speech or writing a book or in a podcast, I like to think about what the other person might be object like thinking like I think this

is stupid. This is touchy feelier. I don't know if this is real. I like to go there first and say to people, hey, I know you're probably wondering this. So, I think maybe I've mastered the art of anticipating people's objections. And I I learned that from a guy named Terry Pierce who wrote a book years ago called Leading Out Loud. So, that's what I do.

Interesting. How does that affect you as a leader both at work and a leader uh in your house? Um, I think that I lean into empathy and I try to understand where other people are coming from and it allows me kind of get to the crux of things quicker. Um, and and by the way, I should say that I think I got really good at this naturally because in my life there was some wounds from childhood where I had to constantly be earning people's approval and getting and helping them listen to me. So when I was a kid, I think I learned in my family and in other things to always try to please people and try to anticipate what they were thinking to get permission to be heard. And so I think that that's where this came from. I was reading about your childhood this morning. You were the validictorian, the student body president, you played point guard on the basketball team. You had a brother, you had a sister, your dad's a sales rep for

liquor liquor distributor. So what are the wounds that you're talking about? Like it sounds like you you absolutely destroyed it through high school. Like you you you were the top of everything. You were the guy.

Yeah. You should all when people tell you they got straight A's and they were the validictorian and the student body president and got accepted to all the schools they wanted to get into. There's a wound there.

And and what's funny is based on my my personality type that I shouldn't have done all those things, but it was out of the need to prove myself. I and to please every coach. Sher will know this. every teacher, every my parents, every boss, I always felt like I needed to prove myself in order to be successful and to feel good, to feel safe. And that's not healthy. And so I thank God for all the things that have happened in my life. But I I it was not easy for me. I was way way too concerned about being perfect.

Why? Because to be clear, because when I was young, I I love my parents. God rest his soul. My dad, my mom's still living. Um but um they had a real hard time being affirming and that was because of their own life. You know, there's generational stuff and so basically always felt like, oh, I'm only as good as what I did last and you know, it was just not something in their mind to say, hey, you know, we love who you are. It's not what you do and don't worry about that. You can you're going to be fine. Really early in life, I was like, uh-oh, I better be perfect. And and you know, they didn't know what they were doing, and I didn't know it either. And it wasn't until I was 55 years old that a a friend of mine said, "You, my friend, have childhood wounds you've never dealt with."

What What happened there? A good friend of mine who's a psychologist, I'd say, "Hey, why do I worry about this all the time? Why do I do this?" And he said, "Those are childhood wound issues." I said, "What?" He goes, "Yeah." And he asked me some questions. And I went and got some good, for me, Christian counseling and realized, "Oh crap. So the way I grew up, I wasn't supposed to grow up that way. the perfection, the achievement, the pleasing everyone. And um it five decades and more into my life, I was like, "Oh, so this is not how you're supposed to be." And so good things came of that, but I never really got to rest, to be peaceful in what I was doing. I always felt like, "Oh, I'm only as good as the last thing I did." So you write another book and you write another book.

And I loved it, but I did some of it. You know, athletes, you you talk to your brother about great athletes, and Sherry knows some of athletes are just like, "Oh, I'm never enough." So many CEOs I work with are like, "I'm it's never enough." And you go, "What are you going to need? What are you going to do now?" And it's like, "I got to do the next thing." And it's like, "No, you're you're a noun, not a verb. You are enough. And you're not defined by what you do." It

isn't in a weird way though that never enough feeling, that's what produces greatness. Well, I think the answer is no. It it is what produces yes. I mean, great great achievements come out of that. But true greatness is best when it's only in the things that you're meant to be great at and that you're doing it out of freedom and passion and love, not out of fear of failure. And we know that some people, I mean, you know, you look at Tiger Woods and you think, "Yeah, that was not natural. That was not natural. I remember seeing him on the Tonight Show when he was four years old. And like he was being groomed to be a golfer when he was 4 years old.

It's best in life when we discover who God meant me means us to be and then we do the things that we're supposed to do and we're okay with not being good at the things we're not supposed to. And I got really good at things I wasn't supposed to be good at and it was against the grain. And that creates wounds that you're, you know, we're not all supposed to be great at everything. And people that are pretty darn good at everything, it's usually because they're doing something out of fear.

So, you said your parents weren't affirming enough. I feel like today Oh, swings the other way.

I mean, and I'm talking I'm looking in the mirror here, too, man. And and the people around me that I that I feel like when I see them as moms and dads, have we gone too far the other way? I mean, now it's like every day you're the greatest or or oh, you know, I'm so proud of you for you know, you know what I mean? Like are we too affirming now? Like are we are we going to raise a bunch of soft people because of this?

Yeah. And it's hard to describe it based on a whole society, but I think the answer is yes in this sense. So when I was a kid, it was like, hey, and you know, they they came from parents from World War II and the and the depression, all this, and they were like, hey, you got a roof over your head and we paying for your your bills and you're you're good. And then there's a lot of suffering that goes on and they did they weren't really attuned to that. And now we are like hyper worried of our kids suffering. And it's like no suffering is actually good. They need to know that they're loved and they're safe but that they're not going to be protected from what what is like necessary suffering for their development. So to when I was a kid it was kind of like you're on your own and that's not healthy. I know in raising my kids, the mistake I made was like, "Oh no, I don't want them to feel like I did." And so we kind of go too

far. And thankfully at my age, I'm now interacting with my mostly adult children and explaining to them what I did wrong and what I what my intent and they they're learning from that. And our hope is that we break that cycle and that they're going to be able to raise their kids with enough affirmation to feel safe, but not so much that they're afraid to suffer.

Yeah, we could go on the parenting parenting thing. These are great questions, by the way.

No, I I appreciate that. Um, I'm curious uh to transition a bit about your recent um I've had conversations with your team as well about the teammate trifecta. So, we're looking at the ideal team player, the working genius, and the five dysfunctions. Like, how do you use this teammate trifecta to help us all collectively be be better leaders? So, so when I wrote the five dysfunctions of a team, which was oh that would have been 24 five years ago, I remember I remember finishing writing it right after 9/11. So that's kind of how I can remember I otherwise I wouldn't I don't remember very well and I thought well that's the book on teamwork you know and and we wrote it for small startup companies but we found out that soldiers in Afghanistan were using it uh athletic teams were using it professional college um startups churches lots of churches were using it so it applied generally to teams and I thought well that's my book

on teams well then we realized a few years later oh there was this other idea that if you want to hire people that fit on teams you really need the ideal team player, which is to be humble, hungry, and smart. So, I wrote that book and we said, "That's actually a precursor. Hire those people." So, if you want to get the right people on the bus to be a team, make sure that they're humble, hungry, and smart. But then we realized, wait, but before you have a team, you want to make sure they're sitting in the right seat. Jim Collins talks about getting people in the right seat on the bus. And and years later, by accident, we came up with the five, I mean, the six types of working genius, which is really about are they in the right seat?

They belong on the team, but are we using them the right way? And so we realized there's three steps to building a team. Don't let people on on the team bus if they're not humble, hungry, and smart. That's a problem. Make sure that you have them in the right chair and in the right role based on the gifts God gave them. And then go to the five dysfunctions of a team and teach them how to trust, engage in conflict, commit to decisions, hold each other accountable, and focus on results. So, it's actually a three-step process that we peeled that onion kind of backward.

How did you come up with these things, man? Like, I think I'm just This is an outside question, but from like a business perspective, does this is that just how your brain is wired? I I mean to come up five dysfunctions is now like a universal thing that everybody in leadership talks about. Working genius has pretty much become that as well. Uh hiring or drafting, I I remember you talking about the NFL draft. humble, hungry, and smart. Like,

yeah, it just it's wild how this stuff has has become so commercialized and they're just random ideas from your from your mind.

You know, I'm so glad you asked me that because it gets back to the the last thing we've done, which is growing like crazy, is the working genius. As it turns out, I have there's six types of working genius. And the two that God gave me were what's called invention, which means I love to come up with ideas out of nothing. When people come to me and say, "Pat, we have five minutes and you we need a new idea." I just take a deep breath and smile and go, "Oh, I love this. I love this." And and you know, one man's trash is another man's treasure. Some people like, "Oh, that's my least favorite thing in the world."

And yet it's my favorite. My other one is called discernment, which is I love evaluating things, curating things. I love when people show me things and I get to go, "Oo, will that work? Is this a good one or not a good one?" And so I naturally wake up every morning doing invention and discernment, which means that I I come up with ideas all the time, which is pretty annoying when it's not time to come up with a new idea. My wife will say, "Hey, I need your help on something." I'm like, "Do I get to come up with a new idea or evaluate something?" She, "No, you're you need to do what I ask you to do." And and I I'm not great at that. And so, I just happen to love doing those things. And I asked Jim Collins years ago when I first met him.

I said, "Jim, you do all this research. You go in there and you have data and you go and do you have these research anal analysts and you sit in a room for six months analyzing data. I go into a room with a bunch of leaders and I just sit there and I think what's going on here? Oh, wait a second. Wait a second. What about that? And he said, Pat, that's just as valid as what I do. That's called field research and face validity. and and Ryan, every new idea I've come up with has been in the field working with people and thinking, I think that might work. And then people say, "Oh my gosh, this changes everything." And that's how I came up with the five dysfunctions of a team. That's how we came up with the working genius. So God just made me, he wired me to do that kind of thing. Now, let me tell you something though. There are so many things in business and in life that I'm really terrible at, and I realize now

that I'm just not wired to do that. Well, what are you terrible at? finishing things. Um um and people will go, "So why did you finish 14 books?" And it's like, "Well, because other people around me made me finish them." And getting back to our other conversation, I was afraid of not succeeding. Like I got a 4.0 in in high school when that's the best you could do. You know, that means you got A's and everything. That wasn't my personality. And I went to college and I went to every class. I never blew off classes. Well, I'm my personality is the kind that should blow off classes that don't matter. But I was so afraid of failing and disappointing my parents and disappointing my teachers that I did anything they asked me to do. That was not natural. That was fear-based.

Can't we use fear as useful fuel though? You know, I I would say you can use it in in the short term.

Yeah. But in your if you're doing it in your life no. We should not be afraid that our value goes to zero if we can't do and and and and if we look around and compare ourselves to everyone around us and say I need to be as good as that person and their strength and that person and their strength and that no we should celebrate when other people are better than we are at things and go isn't that we we should literally celebrate what we suck at which doesn't mean we we we don't have to do some of it and we don't have to do our best but if we you know as Michael Jordan when he after his first year in the league, they said, "Hey, he's great at going to the basket and dunking the ball and he's great at defense and and and and moving without the ball. He's not a great shooter." And they said, "Should we then force him to be a good shooter?"

And they said, "No." In an act of wisdom, they said, "No, he'll be better if we don't put pressure on him." But so many people, we go and say, "Here's the thing you're not good at, so I want you to work on that the most."

And you know, if we have two kids and one's creative and the other is disciplined, we go to the creative one. We say, "You need to be more disciplined like your your brother or sister." We go to the discipline when we say, "We you need to be more creative." And it's like, "No, no, no. We have to say, hey, understanding that you're not creative is good for you." And there's times in life when you're going to have to work on that a little bit, but that's not who you're meant to be, and I don't want you to denigrate yourself because you're not the same as your brother or your friends.

Yeah, I think that's that's these are fantastic questions. Um, thank you. I I I I all of this all the questions are a projection. Uh like almost everybody who asks questions, they are chasing our own curiosity with great rigor. And part of mine is I remember vividly as a freshman and having sophomores, juniors, and seniors that I just didn't want to let down. Like I Yes. I just was I I was scared to death. And I remember specific names like Adam Taylor, the middle linebacker, who I was like physically and and psychologically scared of. like not because anything he did, it just I just didn't want to let him down. He was a leader. He wanted to win, right? And so in a way it helped me, man. Like is it might not be fuel that can burn for a long time, but I do think like in the short term that can be helpful. At least it was for me.

I think that's very healthy because the idea there is your hunger for doing well, you didn't want to let down your, you know, people in the military are like this too. It's like if I let him down, bad things happen and we're in this together. But now if you try your best and fail and let him down that way. I mean, you watch every football game at a field goal kicker misses a kick and you just go like, "Oh, thank God my son is not a field goal kicker because did they did they try not to do that?" No. Things happen. And if your self-esteem and your self-worth disappears because you let them down, that's circumstantial rather than I didn't care. So the if fear drives you to care and to prepare and to try your best, that's great. But then if things don't turn out, fe the fear of you're going to reduce to not being a worthwhile person is very dangerous. So it seems like a fine line, but it's

pretty different. Yeah, I think uh preparation can be good good medicine for fear

um as a way to if you're going to run a marathon like all right, I I gota I got to go train, right? Hey, I got to I got to get ready for that because I'm scared. I want to be able to finish the marathon in whatever time I set so that so that can it can be a a tool, right, to to to counteract that fear.

You know, Ryan, you mentioned something about uh you mentioned in my background that I was the point guard of my basketball team. I loved basketball. Wanted to be a NBA point guard. I was 5 foot three my sophomore year in high school still. And I grew to the the massive height in my senior year of 5'7. And I' I've grown I grew in college too. So I wasn't going to be a pro basketball player, but I loved it. But you know what sport I did from the time I was in second grade till college and I didn't enjoy it was I was a distance runner and that was fear-based.

Literally every race I ran for my life and and it was because I knew that if I worked really hard I could be good at it because nobody really loves that. I mean, very few people really love like running long distances and pushing yourself to the verge of death where it feels like death. And so that was not something I liked. It's not something I wanted to do, but something I I felt like I could be good at it. And that's not a healthy thing. And I remember I was talking to my son Matt, who's the producer of the of my our podcasts, and he was just saying the other day when he was in fifth grade, he was pretty good in the 800 meters. And he's and I asked him, "Do you like this?" And he goes, "No, no, it's scary." And I said, "Okay, wait a second. That's not a motive." And he told me just the other day, "Oh, I hated it. I hated it." He goes, "I was good, but I hated it." And that was not something where I should have I'm glad I

didn't encourage him. Well, you're good at it. You should do it even though you're terrified.

What is though that difference between like I love pushing my edges. I want my kids to push their edges. I want them to be right on that boundary of like, ah, I'm scared. I don't know about this because the more they do that the more they grow, right? So like there is like a fine line of pushing your edges like the Navy Seals really train their people to do and like I think great teams do but not like go over that edge.

Yeah. Oh, I do. I being a parent the hardest thing about being a parent I think well the hardest thing is watching your kids suffer and we have to be okay with that. The other thing is constantly throughout life going am I pushing them too hard or not enough? We're talking about doing it for yourself too though, right?

Oh, yeah. Well, well, and here's the thing, and that's why you have to be emotionally healthy

because there's a difference between pushing yourself in a healthy way. And I would say like the Navy Seals, I and I've talked to enough of these people and man, that's the coolest thing ever. And I know people who are in Marines basic training right now, a guy whose kids, it's not healthy. They do it because to be a great soldier and to protect this country, they have to get to the point where they're unnaturally willing to do things. And almost every one of them comes out of that with severe severe emotional and psychological damage.

And and I've and I've met Seawn Ryan who lives near me here now. And I and you see all these people what they're doing is in saying is saying we need some soldiers who are so unhealthy that they will do things. they're going to be in constantly vigilant alert, but then when they try to reorient into society, it's almost impossible. And so that that is not healthy. And God bless those people who do that. And I'm not a a general in the army. Maybe a country needs people like that. It's just beyond me to think about pushing people that hard. So we have to ask ourselves, I think for me it goes like this. Does God love me no matter what?

Do I think I have to earn his love or does he love me for who I am? And if I know he loves me for who I am, then I can push myself and push myself. But if I think the love I receive in life is only predicated on me doing unnatural things over and over, that's not so for me it comes down to the knowing the love of God.

I got you. When you think about the working genius and let's say you're learning it for the first time, um, and you're like, "Oh, okay. Interesting." What have you found when when you follow up with people has been tougher? either to lean into your strengths or to let go of those tasks that drain them.

That's a great question. I think it's harder for people to let go of the things that drain them because they've been told so often in life to focus on those things. And one of the biggest things people say is, "Should I work on my working frustrations?" The two the two of the six that drain me of my energy. Because working genius is all about what gives you joy and energy. Okay? And people say, "Should I try to get better at my working frustrations?" The answer is no. Now, should you learn to tolerate the times when you have to do it well? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, so my my working frustrations are enablement and tenacity. The the the most implementationoriented geniuses. Do you know how much parenting is involved in that? Like, I have to change diapers.

I have to clean the playroom. I have to drive my kids to their things. I have to get We have to get the laundry done. and we have to pay the bills. All of those things followed my area of working frustration. My wife, my poor wife, cuz she's similar to me for 20 years, she lived in her area of working frustration. And and I would always say, "Hey, Laura, let's outsource as much of that as we can." We both have to be we have to do enough, but she was doing so much of that. And I said, "Let's outsource it." And out of guilt and fear, she said, "No, I should be able to do this cuz I have friends who are great at this, and that would mean I'm a failure as a mother if I didn't lean into this." And when The Working Genius came out 5 years ago, she read it and she had tears in her eyes.

And she said, "It's wonderful and I'm so pissed off." I said, "Why?" And she goes, "Cuz I've been living in my working frustrations for a long time and I always thought I had to." So, you know what you should do if your working frustrations are, I'm not good at laundry and paying the bills and all that thing, do as much as you can to to outsource or to let other people help you. And then when you have to do things you're not great at, offer it up. Try your best. And do not feel guilty that you're not awesome at it.

So, when people come over our house and it's messier than other people's house, my wife and I need to go, "Hey, our house is a little bit of a mess. We don't love cleaning up, but we're going to have a great time tonight because we love entertaining, but we're not great at maintenance. And just accept that and and accept it in one another. My wife and I, so I I tell a story. She used to hate me telling the story, but she's okay with it now because my wife is not a maintenance person, and neither am I. That's not why I married her. That's not why I fell in love with her. We had our power turned off once at our house. And I came home from work and I'm like, "Hey, the lights aren't on. I think the power got turned out in the neighborhood. And she goes, "No, the powers." And I looked outside. Oh, yeah.

The everybody else has lights. I said, "Well, maybe the breaker switch is needs to be flipped." She goes, "Nope, breakers are fine." Like, "Well, the lights aren't working." She goes, "Yeah, they turned off our power." And I was like, "What do you mean they turned off our power?" She goes, "Yeah, we didn't pay the bill." She was in charge of paying the bills. And I was like, "But don't they send you a notice before they turn off the power?" And she goes, "Oh, yeah, they send you three notices and they're around here someplace. I misplaced them." We laugh about it now because so many people listening to this who don't have our weaknesses are going to say that would never happen in my life. I would be mortified. I always pay the bills on time. We've never had. And my wife and I now go, "Yeah, God didn't make us great at that. We didn't do it on purpose. We can laugh about it. Other people are not good at things we're

naturally good at and they're going to have issues in their family and they're going to have to laugh about that and we would go, "Oh yeah, that would never happen to us." We need to accept our deficiencies and when we make a mistake, even when we're trying our best, we need to be okay with that. And that's hugely important.

I want to talk about a team map, specifically uh the our learning leader team of coaches team map, Pat. So, I mean, I I might as well use this to get some free consulting. Okay. Uh yeah, here it is. Uh the great Sher Kimble did this for us. She's on this call as well. Uh we went down uh to the Bahamas and hung out and learned that we are all every single one of us right here. You can't really see, but we are all tenacious. Every single one of us on our team, Pat, when you have a team full of people who have tenacity as their number one thing, what are we going to kill each other? Like what's going to happen? Like what what do you what do you think?

Well, okay. So, first of all, I should let people who are listening to this know when a team takes Working Genius, which takes all of 12 minutes to fill out the assessment,

you can hit a button. Yeah. Yeah. And you can hit a button and it'll print out your team map. So, it'll show you based on each of the six types of working genius which ones your team has

or lacks. And it's so amazing. So, your team has everyone with the genius. God gave them the joy and the energy around getting things done, finishing things, right? So neither my wife nor I have it. It's it's a team. It's a working frustration in my family. So your team loves finishing things. Congratulations. That's awesome. Now tell me though, are there any areas on your team where you don't have any genius?

Yeah. Uh wonder, invention. Okay, I love this. So, that's that's good. Wonder and invention is ideiation. Okay, so and I worked with a with a tech firm where the executive team had no one with those those things. They hadn't had a new product like a brand. They hadn't invented a new product in years. Now, they were awesome at using the stuff they had and they made money and they did this, but they but they but they were always worried because they didn't have any future new products because they were so good at finishing things and organizing things and getting things done that they didn't like to step back and brainstorm and and imagine and ask open-ended questions without answers. And in fact, those kind of meetings were anathema to them. They're like, "Oh, we hate those meetings. They're such a waste of time.

let's go figure out our our plan. So they they they realized if we're ever going to come up with a new idea, we need to and they they actually moved somebody from their legal department into technology because he had invention. He was a lawyer

and they said, "We want you to take over the technology stuff." And he goes, "But I'm a lawyer." And they go, "It doesn't matter. You have a genius in that area." So in your case, what you guys need to do, you will never be flaky. Your team will never be flaky. You will never worry about somebody just like forgetting to do something or not following through. And when you go to a meeting and somebody says, "I will do this," they are going to do it. However,

love it. Love it. Exactly. Congratulations. What they might do though is stick to something that needs to be changed a little longer than it should be and they might not notice like, "Oh, maybe we shouldn't keep on doing this plan because the the landscape has changed." Now in my case, in my organization, we are always open to a change of plan, but sometimes following through and and taking things to the end is not what we do. So, we're just going to have a different set of challenges.

Okay. Now, do you have people how many people on your team? You're it's a team of four right?

We have uh between Eli, Brooke, Garren, and Sherry. I'm just I'm looking at our team map right now. Uh we have discernment, galvanizing, enablement and tenacity. There are working geniuses of that. Yes, we do have that.

You see that's great. So you are going to and which is wonderful. And so the thing you need to do is force yourself either by borrowing from others outside the organization.

Yeah. Like this is where when people say should we have a consultant? Well, it's like well are they going to bring a skill set in to a meeting that we don't have? If so, you might do that. You might borrow somebody. One of your spouses might be really good at wonder and invention. And you might

My spouses are on here, too. Yeah. My wife Oh, that's my wife has invention and Eli's wife has wonder and Sherry's husband has wonder.

See, so what you need to do is say, "Hey," and and this is one of those weird things they say, "Well, why would you have them come in?" It's like, because they're they have God-given gifts that we don't have. And and create a space for them to ask questions and say, "Have you guys ever thought about this? I don't Is this really the best way to do it? And and you guys have to sit on your hands because you like to get things done and just go we are going to allow them.

That's not happening. Yeah, I'm kidding. I wonder my wife has wonder and invention and she is constantly saying, "What about this? What about this?" And it really helps me.

No, but I'd like to do that, too. So, anyway, great question. I want to open it up to to the group for for questions. Um, this is really cool. I appreciate you uh kind of going down that path. I I actually want to start with Brooke cuz um I know five dysfunctions has been a big part of uh Brooke as a basketball coach as well in addition to doing the stuff he does with us and I know he's used five dysfunctions for many years in the sporting world. Brooke, do you want to uh talk to Pat about how to implement it even more with your guys?

Pat, longtime listener, first- time caller, man. Big fan. Big fan. I'll be gentle, Brooke. I'll be gentle.

Yeah, thanks. We've been using the five dysfunctions for about I don't know probably 15 years with my high school basketball teams. Um,

and one of the things I have you ever thought about or what would you what suggestions would you have in with high school kids? It's hard to get them to understand the business aspect of things.

Oh, yeah. Like all the different roles. So, I actually started trying to rewrite it in a in a sports like as a team uh model, but is there anything specific you would either alter or really try to emphasize in applying it to to sports teams?

Yeah, you know, I love that you asked this question. I couldn't believe it. Eric Spolster uses this all the time and he said he first purchased the book when they acquired LeBron at the Heat and he said, "Oh, this is going to change things. I need to figure out how to manage a team and stuff and they use it within the organization and I've had some of my consultants work with him and he said every year in the summer they get together and he says, "I don't know what offense we're going to run this year, but I know we're going to use the five dysfunctions of a team." which I love and so many coaches have used it over time and I've worked with a lot of teams. So, it's great that you're doing this. First of all, you should adapt it for what works on your team. But there's something about that trust when you get players on a team and and remember it's vulnerability based trust. And you know what I love and I I love it in

basketball especially because you see them on the court when a player is willing to go my bad, I didn't switch and my guy scored or I wasn't in the right position. You know what I mean? When people can be so vulnerable that they can say it was my fault or I need help or I don't know how to do this or can you help me do this or I'm sorry I was kind of a jerk yesterday at practice. When people on a team can be that vulnerable with each other it it changes everything. But when you have a player on your team who doesn't admit when they made a mistake or who blames everybody else and doesn't take on responsibility, the ceiling of that team being great is is so low. So I think vulnerability is a great thing. But you know what's interesting is humble hungry smart is is one of the things that I I've done with teams with athletes in college, in middle school, in high school and all my kids who were I I have one left who

plays college lacrosse and his coach is going to have me come talk to them in the winter. What I like to do with these kids is I I like to say humble, hungry, and smart. And I define it, you know, it's like no ego. It's about the team. It's not about me. That's humble. Hungry means I go above and beyond. If the coach tells me to do something, I don't just do the minimum. I go I go beyond. And smart means I have emotional intelligence. I'm not a I'm not a jerk to the people on my team. I know how to deal with them. I have the team the team members say, "Which of those three is your lowest? It doesn't mean you're terrible at that. Just give me your lowest of the three." And it is crazy how people will call out like I I remember working with these kids on a lacrosse team. They were young and the goalie said, "I'm a I don't have I'm not smart. I yell at guys on the field and and I demean them and when they make a

mistake I'll be like, you know, they he'll just scream at. He goes, "It's not smart. It's it it doesn't help the team. I got to get better." Another kids I my son on the team at that time said, "I need to be hungrier. I don't do the workouts at home. The coach says I need to do this. I need to go home and and and throw more." And another kid said, "I'm not humble. I really want to score. And when I do score, I like the attention. I'm I'm gonna admit it. and I need to be more into the kid who who threw the assist or the guys on defense.

It's it's amazing what what people will say. And then what I do is I say, "Okay, everybody look around at your teammates and think about the thing they want to get better at." Every one of you, if you want to be a good teammate, when you see your teammate doing the thing he just admitted he wants to get better at, you need to call them out on it. You need to go to them and say, "Hey, you know how you said you were tough on people? I think you did it again." "Hey, you know how you said you didn't you don't do your workouts? I I saw you I saw you mail it in at the end of the practice.

Hey, you know that humility thing, I don't think you're appreciating, you know, the guy's getting the rebounds or the guys assisting you or the defense who's stopping. Once people start to have that co that that language, it's amazing how they're coaching each other in being a better team and everybody is is um much more vulnerable. And if as a coach yourself, I think you should tell people when I was a player, this was mine. I needed to be better. They're going to go, "Hey, if coach admitted that, I'll do it, too."

So, anyway, that's a long answer to a short question. But, uh, I think that's vulner.

Awesome. Thank you. Love it. Oh, yeah. That's so cool. Leaders going first. So, uh, Sher Kimble, uh, I'm going to tee you up and and and I want you to ask next, but I I just want to tell Pat. So, Sherry Kimble, um, Working Genius Certified ran us through this process and it was, uh, super enlightening. We had multiple meetings to talk through it, and I think it's it's been very very helpful. But Sherry, go ahead and fire away with your question to Pat.

Well, and I want to say something before Sher asks, two things. One, you got certified. That's fantastic. It's a two-day process online and and it's really fun to to go in there and work with other people and and and learn how to do this. Now, this is Sherry, the basketball coach. Am I right?

No, there's two Sher's. Oh. Oh, okay. Cuz I wanted to say one thing about basketball.

You can do that. You can go ahead. It's Sherry Cole, too. So, there's two different Sheries. Go ahead. It's spelled differently, but go ahead. Yeah.

Basketball is such the ultimate team sport because when we talk about teamwork, we talk about the difference between a golf team and a basketball team. Cuz on a golf team, everybody plays. They add up their scores at the end.

Did you see the internet invitational, by the way? No. Did you watch the internet invitational?

No. Anyway, it's great. It's this new It's this thing on the internet where all the internet golfers got together and did a million-dollar tournament. It was the most fun golf I've ever seen. Anyway,

fascinating from teamwork, but basketball everybody has to do whether you're a center, a guard, or a or a forward, everybody has to be interchangeable. And so I think basketball when I work with businesses, I explain that you need to be a basketball team. So I love the fact that we have two basketball coaches on here.

Yeah. But Sherry, tell me about you're certified in this. So you know this as well as I do.

Hi Pat. And I'm not near as exciting as Sher Cole, but I do love the working. So yes, that's me. Um, so we we do a lot of these trainings with our teams. It's been a great experience. My question for you is for leaders with enablement or tenacity as top geniuses. How do they avoid burnout? I get this question a lot and I'm just very curious to hear what you have to say.

That's so great. The first thing you have to say is I am prone to burnout if you guys aren't aware of what's going on because the people with enablement tenacity will say I'll just do it and then they do. And whenever I'm on a team, we've had a team before at the table group. We had 12 employees and only one had tenacity and we said we are going to kill her cuz every time we have to get something done we're going to say Jackie will finish and Jackie was the kind of person who go yeah I'll do it and then you're going to you kill her and so when people have enablement and tenacity they and everybody else need to say let's not abuse them let's not abuse them and then there's others like this whole tool came about because I was the only person on my team for for 20 years that had galvanizing And I don't really like galvanizing.

Um I don't mind doing it once or twice, but every day having to remind people and I was getting burned out in a company where I loved what I did and I loved the people with me, but I was getting dragged into something that wasn't a genius of mine. So that's how we actually discovered this whole thing. So we need to make sure people aren't burned out either by doing what they don't like to do or getting abused and doing what they do like to do. um and and overusing that. It's a great question.

Thanks, Pat. Yeah, sure. Good stuff. Uh Liam Liam Murray had I thought a a really insightful question. Go ahead, Liam.

Yeah, thanks Brian. Thanks, Pat. Um so, part of my job is to go into one of our operational sites. We have 30 or so around the country. And when we do the assessments of how that operation is performing, we always start with the financials. I've learned the hard way over the last decade and a half or so that financials can look any way the manager wants them to look. So,

wow. Isn't that true? It is. Yeah. So, so my question is when I'm going into an operation maybe only at 48 hours or so to spend with a team. Are there any non-financial KPIs that you would look at to know is is this uh organization is this team performing well?

Man, that's a great question. The the first thing I like to do, I'm a qualitative guy. I I believe in quantitative stuff, but quantitative is to informed qualitative decisions. And like Sherry, the basketball coach, and uh Brooke, the basketball coach, knows you you can go look at the stats of a game, but that doesn't give you you don't know like the intangibles and the hustle and what's going on and the attitude and how people are acting. So, the first thing I like to do is when I go into a company is find out what their meetings are like. And if people are going to meetings and they're not disagreeing with one another and they're not going to that next level and they're not pushing and they're not exhausted at the end of a meeting, that's to me a pro a problem. Um it's kind of like a basketball coach going, I go to practice and nobody seems to be going that hard.

It's like, are you really going to look at the stats? You know what's going to happen in the game. So, so but so you said KPI. I would probably if I had to and this is longer term. I think if good people are leaving an organization that's a massive red flag. If any good people are leaving an organization that's like something that needs to be addressed. Most of the other pre-revenue pre- data KPIs are probably behavioral. Here's one I would I like walking around in an organization and just seeing how people are interacting in the hallways. Are they are they talking a lot? Are they working on stuff together? Is there an intensity or are they sitting alone in their cubes and not interacting with one another?

So, most of mine are actually qualitative and observable, not not quantitative.

I got an ideal team player question from Garren Stokes. This is around uh humility. Something that we've had conversations with um when studying excellent performers whether it's in business, sports, life in general. Garen, go ahead Garren.

Yeah, we talk about it the definition like not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less. Like the highlevel achievers, performers are super like self-improvement driven and it almost leads them down like a they're super humble because they want to get better, but they're also like super focused on themselves.

Yeah. You know, humility, it's so important to understand the humility thing because on the one hand, we think of humility as just outright arrogance hockey players. And now granted, and we've seen these in sports, and it's fun to talk about them, but it's easy. But the other end is the ones that don't actually lean into the confidence they have. They doubt themselves, and they're they're very they're overly differential or or like unhealthily modest because a great player wants the ball in their hands. They don't demand it because of their ego, but they know that like if I'm good at this and I can help the team, I will step up and do that. Not like, oh, you do that. And I in my career, I was I violated humility by not shooting enough in basketball because I the idea that people would think I was hogging the ball made me want to pass all the time. And it was like, hey, you could help the team by shooting more.

And it was hard for me to do it. That was a violation of humility because I was a good shooter, you see. But the the the real thing here is is that focus on the team versus on me individually. Um and that is cuz cuz some players who seem really confident. I don't think Michael Jordan cared about whether he was the hero. He just wanted to win. Now he had some other issues. I think he so he just wanted the team to win and if somebody else helped the team win, he would let them. There's other players that will say, you know, as long as I look good and I wake the Pro Bowl or I make the All-Star team or and I see this in high school, college, and the pros.

There are people whose results are less important than their own personal reflection, and you see it in business all the time. I first identified humility as a problem when I saw a CEO before I started my own company, this is 30 years ago, who actually didn't care about the results of his company. It was a public company, but if he went on television and they asked him questions about why they didn't make their numbers and he was funny and people thought he did a good job, he was actually in a good mood. So, it wasn't actually results he cared about. It was about his own ego. And I thought, "Oh my gosh, if the if the leader of a public company getting called on not making his numbers is happy as long as people think he was funny and cool, then then there's people will lots of people will choose themselves." And I played basketball.

There were kids that would go over and if we lost, they just checked their stats and they were happy if they got their if they got their numbers. And that's that's that's bad. I hope that answers the question. When you're looking at hiring, Pat, whether it's at your company or maybe you're helping other senior leaders or or super powerful people I know that ask for your help, humble, hungry, and smart, I realize those are kind of like the ideal team player attributes, but when we talking specifically for leadership roles, what are what are additional specific attributes that are musthaves in in those people to get hired?

You know what's interesting? I think the the single most important thing for Are you saying for leaders? Yes,

there's and and so this was long before that book came out. Years ago, I wrote something. I still believe this to be true and it it really falls under a little bit of humble, hungry, smart, but it's it came 20 years or 15 years before that book. And it was a leader has to simultaneously believe that they are no more important than the people they lead. In other words, they have to say, "I am not more that person that I manage, whether that it's one of my vice presidents or whether it's the person who cleans the offices at night or anywhere in between.

I am not more important. They are a child of God and I am I am a human being just like them. So, I am not more important than them." On the other hand though, they have to accept the fact that their behaviors are actually more important. In other words, the things they do have an outsized impact on the rest of the organization and the people in it. And that's a really hard thing to balance because sometimes leaders don't I I worked with a CEO once who didn't think he was more important than the people in the organization. I love that kind of deep humility, but he actually didn't understand that. So, he would be shy to stand up and motivate people and to take a stand. And he would say to me, "What does it matter what I think? I'm just another person here." And I'm like, "No, you're the leader." But he was like, "If I'm not more important than them, then why do people care what I think?" Which was crazy. is a big

company. Then there's other leaders who go, "Wow, look at when I get up and give a a talk, people really listen to me and it really makes a difference. I must be pretty important." So this idea of knowing that I'm not inherently more important, but my words and actions are is a really hard thing. And that to me is the essence. That's I wrote an article 27 years ago called the trouble with humility because and it gets at if you if you can't balance those two things, it's hard to be a great leader.

Yeah. Actually Garren and I uh were just talking about this recently. If you're the CEO and you stand up in front of your group and it feels like it's kind of a group project, at some point you got to be the CEO. At some point you you got to make the call. You gota okay like I'm not no important than anybody else but my words carry weight

and they're looking for somebody me as the CEO. They're looking for me to be the CEO and you got to you got to be the CEO. So I I think all of us as leaders have to realize even if we're full this is a group of very humble people that it's not necessarily a group project like go do go do what you're supposed to do. And one of the biggest things a leader has to do is break the tie.

There's so many times when there's no right answer. And you sit in the meeting and go, "Okay, you guys, what do you think?" And it's like, "I want A. I want B. I want C. I want A. I want A. I want B." And you're sitting there going, there's no obvious answer. You have to go, I think it's B. We're going with B. I'm I'm choosing that. I listened to what you had to say, but as the leader, I'm making the call. And I'm going to require everyone in this room to get behind this. That is not a violation of humility. And if a leader can't do that, that's a problem. Does that How [clears throat] does that work at the table group?

It it's it's it's so interesting. I was in a meeting on Friday. I can't believe that you're asking me this right now. And I was in a meeting and I was trying to deal with a strategic and personnel issue between two great people. And I said I I dropped the a curse word in the middle of it. I said, ' Listen, I'm pulling the CEO card right now. I don't do it all that often, but since I am the CEO, I'm going to say this. What you guys are talking about, this is the the thing we have to work on. And I know that you're not quite in agreement, but I'm sitting here listening. You got to have to trust me. This is where we're going with this. And you have to own this and you have to own this. And because I don't pull it every time, I will defer sometimes and go, "Hey, if you guys all think that, I can understand that. I'll go with that." But sometimes I have to pull that out and go,"I need this." And people are glad to

have a CEO that will do that. Now, if they're if you're doing it every time, it's like, "You all disagree with me, but you're going to do it my way." Then then you lose credibility. But they know that I don't I don't use it that often, but they want me to be able to whenever it's necessary.

What was the curse word? Yeah, it was the bad one. Well, I don't know what I don't know what that is.

Effing. Sometimes you got to do it though, right? Like sometimes I it's it's just like parenting. If you're nagging every single day, day after day, they don't hear you anymore, right? It just But if you every once in a while pull the effing CEO card, then then they'll listen right?

You know, it's interesting because I have a I I would like to never swear because I believe that's good. But one of my favorite like evangelists, this guy who I I he's a friend of mine and I listen to him. He told me one day, "I dropped the fbomb in front of my kids in the minivan. They were they were making me mad and I was like, "Oh, thank God I'm not I'm not a you're human." And I don't do it on purpose like like you know these politicians now go on the radio and like I'm going to drop the fbomb. But every once in a while you slip and you can go, "Hey, I'm sorry I got so mad." But people go, "No, I could see that you were." So I'm I'm not promoting this, but sometimes we have we're human and it it's our emotions that come out and so yeah, I've done it.

I'm trying to do a less. I I appreciate it. Um, one more before we run. Man, I I I like to think about um the future and uh specifically people who are going to be our leaders of the future. And let's say you're meeting with one of those people. So maybe they just graduated college or they're in their mid20s or something, maybe like your kids, and they want to leave a positive dent in the world. What are some general pieces of lifecareer advice you'd give to them?

I love this. It fits right in with the learning leader, too. So, so I wrote a book called The Motive, which came out the day before COVID happened. So, it didn't get the best advertise, but people leaders are coming to me and saying many of them really love that book because what I say to leaders when they're young, especially cuz when I go to graduation and people go, "Go be a leader. Go out there and change the world." I want to say, "No, don't do that." Because if you don't know why you want to be a leader, you shouldn't be a leader. So what I want to say to people is make sure that your motive for being a leader is about sacrificing and suffering for others. Like I want to help this organization or I want to be the kind of person that takes on more than others for their good. Leadership is a lonely and selfless thing. It's wonderful, but the the personal economics of leadership are not good.

And if you don't sign up for that, don't be a leader. Because too many people say I want to be a leader. And if you really scratch below the surface, they'll say, "Well, I think that it would make me I'd feel important. I would get a lot of attention. Maybe I'd make money. I'd have power. I'd be wealthy and all those things. But more often than not, it's like I get to be important and control what I work on. I get to go to the office and choose whatever and do whatever I feel like." And when that's your motive to being a leader, which is called your your personal economics, you're not going to be a great leader. And and you know something, Ryan, so many people have read that book and said, "Oh no, I lost my way." Cuz I lost my way. I got to a point at one time where I'd come to the office and go, "I want to avoid the things that I don't feel like doing and work on the things that I think are

interesting to me." And it's like, "No, no, no. I'm the leader. I have to make sure that everything gets done. doesn't mean it's my genius but I have to take responsibility for that and I lost my way. So so the the the thing I want to say about the future is we need less leaders who are personally motivated and more meet leaders who are other motivated and that means they're willing to suffer.

So good man. Um Matt had uh let me know that uh if you go to workinggenius.com and you put in the code learning. So, workinggenius.com, put in the code learning to get your Working Genius, you get 20% off. You want to make sure that I said that for you guys. Uh, yeah, we've personally gone through this. I've taken this assessment multiple times. You and I have talked about it multiple times. I'm a big believer in it. And, uh, I'm super appreciative of you, man. Um, for for being there um, many times off air, uh, just as much, which uh, you certainly don't have to do, and I'm super grateful uh, for your mentorship and friendship and guidance and and doing it, whether it's public or not.

And I think that shows just true character. So I appreciate you, man. I love you and I'm I'm grateful that you got a chance to hang out with us today. This is a lot of fun.

Thanks. I'm proud of what you've done. You and your team are wonderful. So it's been a it's been a pleasure.

Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Lead Without Ego, Lessons from Patrick Lencioni | 6 types of working Genius"?

Ryan Hawk (Host), Patrick Lencioni (Guest), Brooke Cole (Guest), Sherry Kimble (Guest), Liam Murray (Guest), Garren Stokes (Guest), Matt Lencioni (Guest), Terry Pierce (Guest).

What is "Lead Without Ego, Lessons from Patrick Lencioni | 6 types of working Genius" about?

The discussion emphasizes the importance of understanding one's motivations for leadership, highlighting that it requires selflessness and the ability to empathize with others. It also explores the balance leaders must maintain between humility and the significance of their behaviors, while stressing that true greatness comes from pursuing one's genuine passions rather than from a fear of failure.

What is mentioned in this Ryan Hawk episode?

36 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Miss Pat, Working Genius, Humble, hungry, and smart, Enablement, Ideal Team Player, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Lead Without Ego, Lessons from Patrick Lencioni | 6 types of working Genius"?

The episode runs 55 min; the transcript is about 11,429 words in 125 timestamped sections.

More from Ryan Hawk

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.