Do you ever hear people say “Sunday nights are the worst because Monday is coming up”? Are you showing up to work but not giving 100%? These may be signs that you’re not on the right path. In his new book, 5 Days to Your Best Work Yet: A Human Like Approach to Better Work, author Josh Schneider, the founder of Millennial & Employee Engagement Institute, shares a 5-day guide to unleashing your best work. Becoming who you want to be is an iterative process – in order to achieve your desired result and get more of that “tingly feeling,” you have to go through a cycle of trial and error. But as long as you take the initiative to do your best in the path that you choose then you’re all good!
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Brandon Laws: Hey Josh, welcome to the podcast. Good to have you on, man.
Josh Schneider: Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.
Brandon Laws: Yes. You wrote a book, 5 Days to Your Best Work Yet: A Human Like Approach to Better Work. You just had baby number three. My question for you is are you doing your best work right now?
Josh Schneider: You know, I’m trying. I take these pills in the morning. They are called neuro something. And so, as long as I can make it down to those, I take four of them, within a half an hour I’m in good shape.
Brandon Laws: But in all seriousness, so you’ve had a long career. I believe you started as a CPA. I don’t want to throw that whole industry under the bus but it’s a little boring, a little stiff. What did you learn in that part of your career that led you to write a book that’s about doing your best work?
Josh Schneider: I walked in day one with this expectation that I was going to be a partner in 10 years. And like 80-hour weeks or 90-hour weeks, whatever it took. That was how I walked in. And it seemed – I mean I joked by 9:32 AM on day one, I was like, “What am I doing here?” And I just started to notice people saying things like “I’m living the dream” or people were escalating their financial lifestyle and it has almost seemed like their energy was getting lower as a result of that.
Normally you would think, “Hey, I get this new car, I get this new house, I should have more energy.” And I mean at the time, I was too young to totally know but I turned to read about a hundred leadership and self-development books and through that, I feel like I just saw this pattern starting to emerge in a better way to live.
Brandon Laws: Yeah, it’s funny that you mentioned that people are happy from material things like cars or promotions or raises and things like that. And I bet you that stuff wears off and what you are describing reading a bunch of self-help books and leadership books, it seems like you searching for something deeper than just the superficial type stuff. Is that kind of what you uncovered in your time in the CPA world?
Josh Schneider: Yeah. I remember I put together this $500 Amazon order for books and I was so pumped about it. And it’s not that those other things did not appeal to me. But I think what I started to see was when I needed the money of my job more and more because it escalated my lifestyle, it gave me less and less choices to make a decision that maybe this wasn’t the career for me.
Brandon Laws: So going back to the book itself, did you write this for really any type of person, any professional really looking to do their best work or were you really thinking of yourself and the person who is in this similar spot to you where they’re just not sure if this is the path they want to go on?
Josh Schneider: I think that over the years, I mean fast forward from leaving the CPA firm going into project management, falling in love with my work, realizing that how I treated my people impacted how they performed, learning and really discovering about performance and different techniques and tools and so then stepping into the industry about speaking and writing my heart – not to get this personal so fast – but my heart breaks when I’m sitting at Starbucks and having a coffee and I see a man or a woman walking in and it’s 8:32 in the morning and you can just feel the life being totally drained out of them. And it’s somebody who is working hard, who has a kid or two and just walking in to get a coffee to kind of keep going through the day.
Now, it’s not that they are broken. I think that this individual is maybe just looking for a solution and don’t have time maybe to read a 200, 300-page book or where do you even go? And so if I go back to that picture, they are walking and they are ordering a cup of coffee while they are waiting, the feeling that they are giving off, it’s not like I’m loving life. Then it snaps me back to my time at the CPA firm.
It’s an incredible career for some people and I’ll share – I guess why not share the story now. There was a night at the CPA firm that co-worker, Jen and I, it was her, it was me, and all of a sudden she looks up at me and she goes, “Josh, I got a tingly feeling.” And I’m like, “This is good.” I’m single at the time. And all of a sudden she finishes her sentence and she goes, “I’ve got a tingly feeling because the numbers matched.” And I immediately remember being ticked off when she said that because I thought to myself, “When I do all this work and the numbers matched, nothing changed.” And here’s my co-worker across the table, same wall, we are doing the same duties, she gets pumped and I’m getting upset.
And what I’ve started to discover is that inside of Jen’s brain when she experienced something as simple as the numbers matching, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin started to flood her system. And what we see is even something like serotonin and oxytocin, it creates this chemical reaction that works its way to this thing called endothelial-derived relaxing factor, literally causes the blood vessels in arteries in your heart to expand therefore more blood flow is going to your heart. So Jen truly loved her job as a result of having something happen that was exciting.
Brandon Laws: That’s so fascinating. She got the tingly feeling, numbers matching. You didn’t. And I think that was probably a sign for you to say, “I’m not in the right role.” And I think there are a lot of people out there that are probably feeling the same thing. Do you ever hear people say Sunday nights are just the worst because Monday is coming up and the weekend is over and now they’re going to go back to work? And to me, that’s a sign that you’re not doing the best work possible.
And it’s crazy to me – this podcast is all about transforming workplaces. It’s about creating great workplaces with great people. And to me, if you are showing up to work and you are not doing your best work and you are not in it, we are so unproductive as a culture in a workplace if we have a bunch of people miscast or not doing their best work or not putting their whole selves into the work. I mean is that how you would probably describe it as well?
Josh Schneider: Yeah. And I think sometimes too, I mean there’s a group of people that don’t want to show up and they would physically show up but they don’t. They would find a way to hide in the organization especially in one of my consulting firms or clients that we are talking about, $25 billion organization, and a massive amount of employees. There are places for people to hide in that organization versus a lean startup with nine people. You can’t hide there. So there are people that can hide but there’s also the vast majority of people that show up and human nature is that “I want to win, I want to belong, and I want to feel rewarded for my time.”
And how many people are showing up, in essence pushing down the gas pedal on the car? The car that drove them there or the vehicle that transported them there, the gas was pressed down and the car responded. And so many people show up. They want this human nature of belonging, of winning, of feeling fulfilled, yet the return on that time and investment oftentimes does not even equal the energy output. That puts us in a very challenging situation.
Brandon Laws: So when we talk about personal growth, you stated early on in the book that what we did last year, if we do the same thing this year, is that a recipe for success? And there is that overused quote, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” And I always wonder why people don’t take action on new ideas? Let’s take it back to the example where you bought $500 worth of books. OK. You got to read all of them, which you probably did. And if you didn’t take action on any of those ideas in the books, what’s the point?
Because I guarantee you, you glean some ideas from those books that allowed you to take action that was so different than what you’ve ever done in the past but if you didn’t take action how do you expect to grow? OK, you have the knowledge but if you are not taking action how is your life going to change? What would you say to people that are just not taking action, they are doing the same thing they have always done and they are not getting different results?
Josh Schneider: I mean foremost, does somebody want a different result? I’m sure you’ve seen Gary V at some point and one of the things I love most about what he says is he goes, “If you are on a softball team and you get to play 3 hours of video games a night, you feel like you have won the lottery, like congratulations. You are living the life that you truly want.”
And I think that sometimes there’s this expectation that some people want to just show up and punch the clock. I still struggle to believe that because human nature is this feeling that’s innate inside of us to be fulfilled. And so, why don’t we take action? I think there’s that group of people that maybe just don’t want to take action. And even as I say it at the end of this book, 5 Days, this is not the only path forward. There are hundreds of other paths forward and thousands of other resources that could help you. And I think that right there is also a huge part of the problem. I mean how many different people or voices can you listen to? I mean just to be real, the amount of money that it takes coming into your household to keep the lights on, it’s stressful.
Brandon Laws: It sure is.
Josh Schneider: And I think for the average, I mean when I see statistics of what an average family makes, I mean that’s where I snap back to that vision of somebody walking into Starbucks wanting a coffee. And it’s like if they could just find a way to get turned on and you’re talking about action, that’s why I said, who has time to read a full book? I do. I try to.
Brandon Laws: You’ve got to make time.
Josh Schneider: Exactly. Can somebody take out 10 to 12 minutes for 5 days in a row and hopefully start to gain some traction and some excitement?
Brandon Laws: Yeah. It’s funny – just making time in general, the first thing’s family, we make time for watching Netflix and Hulu and all these sorts of things. Is it really that hard to carve out 30 minutes a day for reading a book? I mean you can do an audiobook too and stock the same knowledge. It’s all about action, man. It’s incremental subsets of habits. Yeah, it’s true.
Josh Schneider: Because I’d try and stay focused on my eating and I will joke with closest friends and be like, “I could be at a Las Vegas all-star buffet and I could have this Zen-like discipline where I am not going to touch anything that I should not.” Yet, there are these other times when I’m strolling by and I see a gas station and I find myself in there getting a 6-hour old taquito thinking …
Brandon Laws: Gross.
Josh Schneider: Yes, exactly. I mean they taste delicious but you know it’s not good for you. And I was like, how do I go from one end of the spectrum to the other? And I think – this is a hunch that I have. But we look at work-life balance, if three good things happen in a week, am I supposed to have three bad things that happen? What is balance?
And I love this idea that I should draw energy from my work and I should draw energy from my life. And when one of those two sources is not allowing me to get a return on my time, then I feel like I’m stuck in the middle which then too many resources, too many choices, or lack of something that seems compelling and then I’m stuck there not taking action.
Brandon Laws: That’s a perfect lead into the 5 Days. So Day 1, you suggest understanding where you are at. And I think that’s a really good step just to understand what you are feeling, where you are from a mental standpoint, physical knowledge. Why did you write this as the first step and what do you really recommend people do to understand where they’re at? Because sometimes it’s hard to look objectively and have self-awareness around like, OK, here’s actually where I am and then here is how to kind of move on from that.
Josh Schneider: It’s a good question that I don’t know the answer to. How somebody finds himself in I don’t know why I’m like feeling the weight of that, I should have taken myself to that Starbucks person. But the reality of everybody’s situation I think when we look at drivers and I spoke at a total rewards conference and I said, “Money is still the number one motivator. We need money to keep our lives going. But how do we look at these other pieces?”
And I think when you are looking at where am I? I look at somebody who is maybe making a buck 20 a year, hating their jobs, feels locked in. And they need to understand where they are at and start to be able to get some contacts. Or I’d go to me, two years into the CPA firm. If I leave, I’m going to be OK. I didn’t have a family. I didn’t have kids and a spouse that was relying on me financially.
And so, you kind of have to see where in the spectrum you’re at. One time, I was with a group of medical students and one of them comes after me. He was like, “I’m one year away from being done and I want out.” And it’s like you may actually have to walk through this for the next 5 to 10 because you are hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt or into this? And is this the best strategy for you to get out and moving into something else?
It’s a tough question because everybody’s life situation is a little bit different. But I think when it’s – OK, where am I? And what we found with the tingly feeling was this, it’s often 4% of our work. And I don’t talk about this in the book but it’s something that I’ve started to talk about a lot more is if you ask me, even if you go take me back to the CPA firm or you take somebody in their job or you run into your cousin at a picnic this summer and you say, “Do you love your job or do you hate your job?” How does somebody usually answer that question?
Brandon Laws: They love their job? I don’t know. I hear all sorts of stuff but usually, people say, “Oh, I love my job.” But they probably don’t mean it.
Josh Schneider: Right. And it’s – usually, people are like one end of the spectrum and then what I have seen is OK so why? And if it’s either money or my manager, either the money is great or the money is horrible or my manager is great, my manager is horrible. And it leaves us with no discernible information on how to make the situation better.
And so with the tingly feeling, we found that oftentimes it’s about 4-5% of somebody’s workweek is this apex moment, the thing where the body comes into complete resonance, where the heart is just fully on fire for the work and the tasks that you’re doing. And so many people will be like, “Well, Josh, I work with spreadsheets.”
A couple of months ago, I was with a gentleman and he wants to show me something. He was like, “Josh, the spreadsheet tells a story.”
Brandon Laws: I love it. I like this guy. I’m a numbers’ guy too so I get it.
Josh Schneider: Yeah. And you have to – like if everybody could just let themselves realize that there is a part of their work that is meaningful that if it’s about the spreadsheet tells a story and I’m kind of leaving the question behind but you’ve got to just, “OK, where am I? Where am I?” And then Day 2 is kind of like, “OK, where do I want to go? What do I want?”
I was having coffee with a guy yesterday and he just had his first kid and his second one is on the way and he was saying, “I’ve been so fired up for my career but I see right now, I think if I could just kind stop applying energy but like, “Where I’m at right now, I’m enjoying this. I’ve got some decent flexibility. And if I could stay here for like 10 years, that would be amazing.”
And so even freeing yourself to say something like so that I don’t need to just make the next 5, 10, or the next promotion.
Brandon Laws: Go back to day 1 real quick. You had talked about taking inventory. And I really like this point because we all have frustrations, we all have really good moments and stuff that brings us joy. You talked about the tingly feeling. And you had encouraged people to take inventory of both of those things to figure out what really drives them. And I think that’s what leads into Day 2 – where do we want to go? How do we bottle up more of the joy? Is there any particular way that you recommend people go through that exercise and taking inventory?
Josh Schneider: I think one of the simplest ways is going to be something, a tool like StrengthsFinder or taking an assessment that gives you some insights about yourself that help you find your motivators.
The other thing – is there somebody that you work with that you could get some insight from? What am I doing? What am I doing that makes a difference to the organization? Or we work side by side – when do you notice that I’m so full of energy and excited?
And the strengths and weakness thing, it’s hard for me to pinpoint on just that because as Marcus Buckingham will oftentimes say, it’s not about what you’re good at and it’s not about what you’re just bad at. A strength is something that strengthens you, that gives you energy. And weakness is something that pulls it.
And I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of cases where somebody rose up through an organization on their weaknesses because they were a highly engaged employee. The organization came to them. Their boss came and said, “I need you to help solve this problem.” And because their engagement level was so high, they figured it out and they took ownership of the problem. Fast forward 5 years, they’re now Vice President of solving this problem and they hate it and it drains them and it’s killing them.
And so taking this inventory of, “OK, what do I do well and how do I begin to incorporate this more into my life?” starts to look at the energy of how we show up and not energy in a weird way, but am I energized? Am I excited? When time begins to go away, one of the words I talk about is “meraki” which is a Greek term that means the soul, the love, a part of you in your work.
And I think the way that we can begin to see “meraki” – for example, you go to a restaurant and the server approaches you and reads the specials and says, “OK, anything you need, I’ll be here for you.” And a totally standard average transaction. Yet, the server with some “meraki” shows up and they almost sneak up on you like the butler from Mr. Deets and you’re like, “Whoa!” And he just bedazzles you with these words and he is like, “Well, the tomahawk bone-in-ribeye. It’s aged in this walker down in the Eastern Market and it’s lined with Himalayan salt. And if you and I were to stand in there for just 2 minutes and lick our lips, it would remind us of the warm Mediterranean Sea.” And you are just like, “I’m vegan but I think I want that.”
Brandon Laws: I’m hungry all of a sudden.
Josh Schneider: Exactly. And taking the inventory – my first company was called Prime Three Coaching, which was a horrible name because it didn’t stand out on its own. But to me it meant personal resource inventory manager affect prime. And I just believe that as humans, we all have beautiful talents and skills that when we can inventory them, in such a way it begins to give us insight. Even as you can hear – I’m struggling to give the pinpoint on this. What we get into later in the days where we are starting to look at the employee brand is what I think starts to unlock an unfair advantage.
Brandon Laws: I think you talked about Day 2 a little bit ago, when I was reading the book and just think to myself personally, this is the hardest one, is where do you want to go? And to me this screams goal setting. It’s, what do I want to achieve? What purpose do I want in life? And how do you set goals to achieve that? And for a lot of people, they just don’t know how to set goals. I like to think I’m very goal-oriented. I know how to set goals. But my God! I do not achieve every single one that I set out to, and sometimes I forget some of the goals I set or don’t make progress towards.
So I’m going to kick this back to you. How do you recommend people set goals? And do you struggle the way I struggle with setting goals and getting where I want to go?
Josh Schneider: Earlier this week, one of the boards I’m on, we brought in a strategic consultant to walk us through our 3-year plan and I said, “I love what we are doing but I hate goals. I set them and I feel like they are just reminders that I’m falling short.” And there is this frustration of goals.
And one of the things that have resonated so heavily with me is I heard Dr. Joe Dispenza talk about this example of where they had people come in and learn how to play the piano. They had different test groups. I just want to focus on two since we are short on time. One test group came in and practiced physically on the piano with guidance for two hours a day. Another test group came in, did not physically practice but was given guidance and told to imagine their hands and fingers moving. Essentially, they were practicing with a plan but not physically. They were practicing mentally. And they found the same amount of growth patterns happening. They would scan their brain before and after.
And the other two groups I guess, one didn’t practice and one practiced without a plan. They would just come in and they were left to their own devices. And both of those groups, there was no structured growth in their brain because we know that brain cells that fire together, wire together. And when we can create these patterns, we can begin to override and overwrite some of the things of the past.
And so, two goals around this idea that people might talk about, “Create a vision board.” And to me, I love a vision board but I am stuck in my job working 70 hours a week trying to get to my son’s baseball this weekend like I am trying to stay alive. Don’t talk to me about a vision board. However, I go to that idea of if I don’t have to physically practice the keys and in my mind, I can begin to put myself into what would that wall look like? What are the skills that I would love to apply more? And I can go there when I’m falling asleep. If I can go there while I’m driving into work, I can begin to clarify the picture. And that’s for me personally because goals sometimes are so frustrating.
Brandon Laws: Yeah, beyond frustrating. Sometimes they are so frustrating that you’re better off just not setting them at all.
Josh Schneider: Yes!
Brandon Laws: So Day 3, you talked about determining what you love to do and what you’re best at. And I pull the quote that I like and I want to get your reaction on it. So the quote says, “We lost because instead of putting the effort into what we are best at in developing our talent, we focused on what we sucked at and became average in the process.”
And I think it’s interesting because it reminds me of the saying, “You get more of what you focus on.” And a lot of people focus on the negative and their weaknesses and all that. Like how are you thinking about that particular section about really trying to determine and focus on strengths and what you love to do? Do you think if you focus on that you’re going to get more of it and you’re going to keep moving forward to what you want to achieve?
Josh Schneider: I mean yes. Like I said, brain cells that fire together, wire together. And we’ve seen what the tingly feeling that happens oftentimes about 4-5% of our work. And so why we need to get some attention and focus to it is you bring home that report card, there are three A’s, there are two B’s, and there’s a C. What’s the grade that’s going to get the attention? It’s the C.
Brandon Laws: Sure.
Josh Schneider: Meanwhile, little Johnny is two years ahead in Algebra. I mean taking like advanced Physics. He is smarter than the teacher in 8th grade and we are like, “You got to work on Art.” And so from this young age, we’ve been kind of groomed by the system. Nothing against teachers. Nothing against the system. Just saying that’s the way of conventional thinking that many of us have grown up in is focus on the thing that you’re not doing well.
Well, human dynamics, if I convert energy from something that is returning energy back to me, meaning I love math, I love physics, and I apply myself and I can grow it at such a more rapid rate like being on the highway going 80 miles an hour and I take that and I try and focus on this back road adventure on a bicycle and it’s frustrating and I make progress but it’s frustrating.
And the other thing is there was a study done that by the time we’ve turned 18, we’ve heard, “No, you can’t” 150,000 times, 150,000 times and I thought that was rubbish. Having three children, I realized how easy it is to probably reach that number.
Brandon Laws: For sure, yeah.
Josh Schneider: I mean, just crazy. I know this research and I’m trying to not, at least not intentionally, screw my kids up. And they found that by the time we’ve turned 18, we’ve heard, “Yes, you can” 5,000 times. So a 30:1 negative ratio. So focus on the C’s, stop taking all of your energy on the thing that’s amazing and then a 30:1 negative ration, National Science Foundation says, “You do 50,000 thoughts a day.” It did take me five years to get a 4-year college degree. So I’m a simple man.
Brandon Laws: Same here. I’m with you.
Josh Schneider: Like that’s a bad ratio. And so, we’ve got to fight so hard to create something new. We’ve got to fight so hard to go against that.
Brandon Laws: Day 4 you talked about that tingly feeling again. And you talked about that colleague who had that tingly feeling when she was getting the numbers to balance and you didn’t have that feeling. For people who maybe have experienced that tingly feeling or haven’t, how do you recommend people examine that and really figure out how to get more of that? So I think that’s really what you are describing in Day 4.
Josh Schneider: Yeah. In Day 4, we start to walk through what I call the 8 True North Elements. And so with the tingly feeling like how does this become actually applicable? I think if in a one-on-one conversation, I love sitting down and having coffee or a cigar with somebody and just having a conversation. And oftentimes, pretty quick with a couple of layers of questions, you can get to something that like my guy a couple of months ago that said – the spreadsheet tells a story. That’s a tingly feeling moment. And you can usually get there.
But these 8 True North Elements, we are trying to look at what is happening on the back end? What is happening at maybe an unconscious level? And we will just take one of them for example – problems is one of these true north elements – and you take a situation like solving problems at work. So I’ll ask you right now, do you love big problems?
Brandon Laws: Well, it depends on how much risk there is involved in it. But I like solving problems. So I think it just depends on how big the problem is but I do enjoy finding solutions to challenging problems. So yeah, I mean the answer would be yeah.
Josh Schneider: Sure. So for you, the answer is yes, I do. Yeah, I agree. I need to figure out how they allow GM …
Brandon Laws: Exactly, yeah. So it’s all relative. It makes me feel valuable in solving problems, I guess is how I would describe it.
Josh Schneider: Perfect. Solving problems makes you feel valuable. Let’s say that all of a sudden, you are in a role that you are super happy. You love solving problems. You wake up one day and you think, “I think I hate my job.” And you are like, “What the heck is going on? I used to love this job.” And then this tool helps walk you through and you realize, “Gosh! I’ve been on simple maintenance mode for three months and I haven’t had a single problem to solve.”
So this part of you that you just love to tackle is not getting fulfilled. And then flip that around, somebody who hates problems like an accountant perhaps who, like for me with the accounting, the schedule is set for six months. You know what client you are going to be at, where you are going to be. From my mindset, that was death. For somebody else, that’s brilliant. It sets them up.
And so, can we start to get some insight into how is it that you truly operate? So the problem one – that’s relatively simple. Do you love problems? Do you love solving them? Do you get energy from them? Do you feel a reward?
For me, when I can come in and help somebody solve a problem, I know that I’m helping create meaning and value. And those things come back and feed me. And so when I go too long without problems to solve, I’m like, “What am I doing here?” Go to Barbados and open a cigar shop – I need to retire.
Brandon Laws: Day 5 put a bow on this for us. So what’s that final day look like? And then take it even farther than that, how do we make a lasting change? Because I imagine it’s hard to transform in 5 days. You’ve really got to make it a habit and even continue to take inventory and maybe even repeat these steps over and over again so it sticks. So what’s Day 5? And how do we keep going on this path to really transform the way we are thinking and to be passionate about the work we are doing?
Josh Schneider: Years ago, I had a mentor say to me, “Josh, sometimes you have to detach yourself from the outcomes and focus on your efforts.” And the reason why we are frustrated in work is because of our outcomes. Maybe I want to lose 10 pounds and I think I should join the gym. Three days into trying to join the gym, I’m frustrated because I’m not getting the outcome that I want. And that’s the precise time where I have to get so focused on my effort.
And Day 5 to me is a lot about like who am I becoming? We are in a world of what are you doing? You run into your cousin at a picnic this summer, “How is it going? What are you up to? What projects are you working on? What do you do?” With no regard for who this human being is developing into. What is happening in the basement of their thoughts that are creating strength and momentum?
And that, to me, is what this is about because I worked in the service space for quite a few years during college and even while I was at the CPA firm as a server. And so, every once in awhile, I have a client come through with an American Express black card. Are you familiar with this?
Brandon Laws: Isn’t that the one where you’re super-wealthy and you have huge amounts of money that you put on American Express so that you can get that black card? Very rare, not many people have that card.
Josh Schneider: Very rare, exactly. Unlimited spending ability.
Brandon Laws: Unlimited, huh?
Josh Schneider: No limit, yeah. Like Tiger Woods purchased a home with it and it wasn’t even questioned – a $250,000 condo, right? Imagine that you won the lottery or whatever, and you got this and all of a sudden you think to yourself, “It’s time to upgrade my vehicle.” And so you would go to the dealership and you are like, “I want this upgrade.” And they try to sell you the warranty and you are like, “Perfect. I’ll take it.” And the salesman is just pumped and you pull out this black card and your ego just swells. And he takes it back and he is like there’s going to be 3% service fee. You are like, “I don’t care. Swipe it.”
And they swipe it and they swipe it again and then they look at you and they are like, “It’s declined.”
Brandon Laws: Yikes!
Josh Schneider: And you are like, “What?!” So you get on the phone with American Express and you are about to tear into him and you’re like, “I’m here at the dealership and I am – what? …” And they are like, “So sorry. Would you like us to activate your card?”
Brandon Laws: [Laughter]
Josh Schneider: And I think that’s so human potential and human greatness. And the subtitle, A Human Like Approach to Better Work is everything is focused on what are you doing? And I think if we can realize that human beings have this incredible capacity but until it’s activated, until somebody comes along and believes in them or they can focus on who they are becoming, we are not going to step into that incredible possibility on the other end.
Brandon Laws: I think what’s really fascinating to me about what you just described and even after reading your book, it’s like Days 1 through 4 to me seemed like you are taking the landscape of who you are, where you want to go, what drives you. And Day 5 is you come to this realization that it’s an iterative process to grow and to be purpose-driven and define the work that you love doing and that gives you that tingly feeling.
And that’s why in the book with a 30-day breakthrough which allows people to basically jot down notes about everything from what you are best at, why are you here, who might be coming, things like that. So you basically make the point that becoming who you want to be is a very iterative process. It takes steps and it is never done. And that’s why I love who am I becoming. It’s not – you’re not already there on Day 5. You come to the realization that it is an ever-evolving thing.
Josh Schneider: A hundred percent. As a keynote speaker, I view the world in 45-60 increments. And keynote to me is to come in and to open up an incredibly huge idea and deposit of few practical tools. That to me is kind of what the book. It’s just trying to crack open the door a little bit and say, “Hey, I think there’s a way forward here.”
Unfortunately, it’s going to take some effort and it’s going to take some word. But I think we are also going to live longer than we ever have the way that science and health are developing, I mean our ability to live into our 70s and 80s which means I think we are going to work longer, which means if you’re 37 and you think your life is over, or you are 54 and you’re frustrated, congratulations you’ve got – you have like what used to be an entire career left, but actually still in front of you. And why give up now?
And I was about to get into just a little side passion but it’s – like it is your life. And I fundamentally believe that the world needs every human being’s best work. And I don’t know what that looks like for everybody but it’s in there. I believe the DNA of an individual, like I said, back to human nature, back to human desire, that’s why I can talk about these things. But with the research project that’s currently going on, we are focused around that employee brain and trying to understand that neuroscience of what is truly going on in bumping that up against human nature and trying to identify how do we trigger? Because human nature desires like it is not unnatural or it is unnatural to want to hate your work. It is natural to enjoy. It is natural to laugh. It is natural to have fun.
So how do we allow those things to happen at work? Because culture, products, I mean imagine how beautiful things could look as more and more people get turned on?
Brandon Laws: Josh Schneider, your book is 5 Days to Your Best Work Yet: A Human Like Approach to Better Work, this is fun, man. I enjoyed the conversation. Where can people learn more about you, get your book, anything like that that you want to point people to?
Josh Schneider: The book is on Amazon. And yes, I know it’s got some typos but it is going to help. The website is JoshSchneider.com and you are regularly posting updates on LinkedIn with fresh ideas. I got to say thank you for having me on.
Brandon Laws: You are very welcome.
Josh Schneider: And just getting to spend some time together and hopefully open up an idea or two that helps one other human being find a little bit more of a path, a little bit more of a way to unleash their best work yet.