Latest / The Everyday Awesome Project / 18: Culture Index: Match People to Roles and Build a Stronger Team with Beka Shea

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18: Culture Index: Match People to Roles and Build a Stronger Team with Beka Shea · The Everyday Awesome Project

• 0:22
  Coach Polly Mertens: Hey, superstars, welcome back Polly here with the Everyday Awesome Project, and I am super excited to share with you my guest today, becca Shea.
• 0:29
  Coach Polly Mertens: Welcome, becca, hi, thanks for having me.
• 0:32
  Coach Polly Mertens: Yes, thank you for joining us, and I thought what I would do to help people start to know about who you are is share them a little bit about how we know each other, because we actually know each other in the real world, not just this virtual world or social media world.
• 0:46
  Coach Polly Mertens: So, yeah, actually, becca and I met gosh it was probably five or six years ago somewhere in there.
• 0:52
  Coach Polly Mertens: Becca has a huge background and well, I'll let you share more about you.
• 0:57
  Coach Polly Mertens: But one of the things that we have alignment is a lot of knowledge in real estate, and so at the time, you were flipping houses, wholesaling houses you know, doing a lot in that world, and so were I, and we were in a mastermind together, and I can remember what stood out to me and why I wanted to have you on the show is one of the things that you have totally become synonymous with in my mind is culture and team harmony and team success, like driving companies and businesses to success through harmonious teams, and I think if there's anything I mean, yeah, you can have good technology or processes and things like that, but if the team isn't clicking and so that's something that Samantha and I my co-hosts are definitely passionate about is culture.
• 1:41
  Coach Polly Mertens: So, knowing that you are this culture expert, I was like, oh yummy, we get to have you on the show and share about that.
• 1:48
  Coach Polly Mertens: So what reminded me of this was my former business partner and I.
• 1:53
  Coach Polly Mertens: We were doing real estate.
• 1:54
  Coach Polly Mertens: We had gone to this mastermind and you were like leading.
• 1:57
  Coach Polly Mertens: I mean, you were just like infectious a your energy in real life, if you ever have an opportunity to meet Becca or see her on stage.
• 2:03
  Coach Polly Mertens: It's like your energy in real life.
• 2:04
  Coach Polly Mertens: If you ever have an opportunity to meet Becca or see her on stage, it's like it's always a 10.
• 2:06
  Coach Polly Mertens: It's always just positive energy.
• 2:08
  Coach Polly Mertens: You're just such a good people person and we were asking some questions in this like sort of breakout session and you were helping us like find some problems inside of our company and things weren't going well and you remembered.
• 2:22
  Coach Polly Mertens: So you have this and I'll let you share about it.
• 2:25
  Coach Polly Mertens: But Culture Index is one of the tools that you use in helping teams.
• 2:28
  Coach Polly Mertens: You know find and hire and you know build the right people behind the leader and you know sometimes put the leader in place.
• 2:36
  Coach Polly Mertens: And you had, we had taken this test, both Will and myself had taken the test and we were just struggling with some communication and you came in and you're like, well, polly, you're this, this to the test.
• 2:45
  Coach Polly Mertens: And we were just struggling with some communication and you came in and you're like, well, polly, you're this, this particular.
• 2:51
  Coach Polly Mertens: You know communication style and well, you're this communication style and like it was like magic how you were able to.
• 2:55
  Coach Polly Mertens: I was like, oh my God, ace, you remembered that about us, and I mean there's hundreds of people in the room and you remember that, but it so helped us in that moment breakthrough where we couldn't get through something or we weren't seeing eye to eye and I was like damn, whatever that is that she knows and understands, so would you tell us a little bit about you know there's more to you than you know, Culture Index is a beautiful part of it, and the work that you do with business owners.
• 3:19
  Coach Polly Mertens: The real estate is also a part of your background, but share with us so people can get to know you a little bit more.
• 3:24
  Coach Polly Mertens: Who is?
• 3:27
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Becca Shea, tell me a little bit.
• 3:28
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 3:29
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So my background is I like to think of it as kind of three phases.
• 3:35
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: The first one is I went to college on an ROTC scholarship for mechanical engineering.
• 3:46
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I really wanted to be a pilot in the Navy and I knew that mechanical engineering would increase my chances and I also.
• 3:49
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I've just always been really good at math and science and I love data.
• 3:52
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So I went to school, got my mechanical engineering degree, went into the military.
• 3:57
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Unfortunately, my eyesight disqualified me from the pilot slot, but instead I got to go work on an aircraft carrier, got to be an officer on an aircraft carrier, and the one takeaway when I look back at that time in my life was it was so amazing.
• 4:12
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: But the military is so big on leadership because, if you think about it, the majority of their workforce is 18-year-old boys.
• 4:24
  Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, a little bit lost souls, right.
• 4:27
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Like they.
• 4:28
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: They have got to really hone in on their leaders and and put the right people in place and then empower their leaders.
• 4:34
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And so I just loved all of the training I went through.
• 4:38
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: We would do case studies.
• 4:39
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: It was very real time.
• 4:41
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I got to be, you know, learn from some of the absolute best leaders in the world, and I was just so inspired.
• 4:48
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And so I feel like, for me, the military taught me about leadership is a learned skill and it can be learned, and that good leaders can do amazing things.
• 5:01
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Can do amazing things, and so that was my one takeaway there.
• 5:07
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And then, after I got out of the military, I went and I did engineering for about six years and in the energy efficiency space, and so I spent a lot of time trying to make these huge.
• 5:15
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I worked on a lot of military bases and VA hospital complexes, so these huge federal facilities where we would go in and we would collect data.
• 5:27
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: We would collect all this data and then we would use that data to drive efficiency at the sites such that, even though they were going to invest in some certain infrastructure upgrades, the savings would pay for it more than anything.
• 5:41
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And they call them energy savings companies, escos, so that was just really fascinating to me.
• 5:48
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I loved doing that work and then I got.
• 5:53
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I left that when my third daughter was born about 10 years ago, because I wanted to be more home and present for my kids.
• 5:59
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: You know about me, but for your audience, my family is the most important thing being able to be with my family.
• 6:10
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I don't I.
• 6:10
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I have been in many roles where I've traveled a ton and in fact that was why I stepped back.
• 6:13
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So then I went a little stir crazy so I decided to flip a house because why not?
• 6:16
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: It seemed really cool, right, everybody's doing it.
• 6:19
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Yeah, I was doing these huge project management things you know on federal facilities and I thought, well, you know residential project management.
• 6:26
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Okay, and that went really well and I grew that business doing the mastermind where you and I met, eventually started helping lead that mastermind and again started traveling all the time as the mastermind grew and my position in it, and I decided to step back from that.
• 6:44
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I still have my real estate investments, but I took some time off, spent it with my kids.
• 6:50
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: They're now entering the preteen and teenage years.
• 6:52
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I know I only have a couple of years left of them at home and so it's important for me to be present.
• 6:56
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So I was like what can I do that really marries these things that I'm incredibly passionate about?
• 7:03
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Leadership and data and driving efficiency through data and, um, I had been a culture index client myself while growing my, my rehabbing business, and my advisor came to me and he said I think you should do this.
• 7:19
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: You will love it.
• 7:20
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: It is you will, you will.
• 7:21
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: He literally said to me it will be the most fun thing you ever do.
• 7:25
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And I said well, can I work with you?
• 7:28
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Like will you teach me?
• 7:29
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And he brought me on board and and he wasn't lying it's been amazing.
• 7:32
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I love.
• 7:33
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I love what I do using data to like be a better leader and build better teams and better culture.
• 7:38
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And I had a conversation with someone yesterday.
• 7:42
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Actually, I met with this guy who's pretty ridiculous high up in the marketing world.
• 7:47
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: He actually worked for Nike, he did all of Kobe Bryant's collaboration stuff and rewrote Kobe's brand, and I had the pleasure of spending time with him yesterday and he said what's your passion when you do your marketing and your branding and stuff?
• 8:04
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: What do you when, when you do your marketing and your branding and stuff, what is the thing that, like, just speaks to you, what drives you.
• 8:09
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And I said to him I want to live in a world where people have permission to find their calling and like that's what drives me when I go in, like we can use this data in the culture index data to figure out really how people are hardwired and then, like, use that to improve life.
• 8:28
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So that's a long, long story to tell you how I got to be where I am, but that's what I do.
• 8:35
  Coach Polly Mertens: That's awesome.
• 8:36
  Coach Polly Mertens: That's awesome kind of dig around in a little bit and get to know more.
• 8:42
  Coach Polly Mertens: Is you know, I still feel sometimes like I have a pretty good intuitive meter on people and trying to understand people, but I run up against things that I don't know or I haven't seen or whatnot, and so all this data from Culture Index starts to tell you about people, right.
• 8:58
  Coach Polly Mertens: And so I think how many profiles does Culture Index have?
• 9:01
  Coach Polly Mertens: Like 19 profiles or something like that.
• 9:09
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Oh yeah, yeah, they make up roughly 5% of the population each one.
• 9:11
  Coach Polly Mertens: That's how they've created their patterns.
• 9:12
  Coach Polly Mertens: So, yeah, right, right and so, but you've, I think, divided it down.
• 9:14
  Coach Polly Mertens: So, like, a big part of why you want this data and you tell me is like communication is such a vital part of working in a team, right?
• 9:24
  Coach Polly Mertens: So a team, you know it's, it's not the glue, that is a team, it's something, but it's, you know it's like it's what binds it, it's what keeps energy flowing in it through the company and stuff.
• 9:34
  Coach Polly Mertens: So what have you found with, you know, communication?
• 9:37
  Coach Polly Mertens: Is it different between all 19?
• 9:40
  Coach Polly Mertens: And it's hard to, or are there?
• 9:42
  Coach Polly Mertens: Can you break it down into fewer?
• 9:44
  Coach Polly Mertens: Like maybe tell us a little bit about what, what, what do you use this data for and how does it help us be better communicators, so we can succeed in our businesses, be better leaders?
• 9:54
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Yeah, well, I love the story you told about, like you and Will.
• 9:56
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: It's such a poignant story about.
• 10:02
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: You know, two people come into a conversation and they're aligned in that they want to achieve the same goals of the business, but what they don't realize is that they're motivated differently.
• 10:11
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So Harvard is actually the one who published the study about the three main motivational traits that people have, and closure index is just.
• 10:20
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: A lot of people talk about personality profiling and surveys, and they're all based on the same science.
• 10:24
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: It's called psychometrics, so it's a psychometric tool and it measures certain things about your personality, your inherent traits, and the different tools show the data differently, but if you've ever taken one, you'll hear some similarities.
• 10:40
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And Harvard has basically taken the psychometric data and said, yeah, and there's three things that really motivate people, and almost all conflict when I work with my clients and in their teams, almost all conflict comes from not understanding that the person you're talking to is motivated by something else, and so you just assume, because you're working towards the same goal, that the reason and how you work and how you communicate are all driven from the same thing, and so I was telling you about this.
• 11:10
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I often give this talk, this speaking engagement called Communicate to Win Sunshine Sharks and Shepherds, and I just try to make it super accessible my goal I usually speak to CEO groups to help them reduce the friction of communication and the idea here is, like sharks, I just give you a really high level overview of the different motivations and these are my words for it.
• 11:38
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I put it behind it because I wanted something that people could connect with and easily recognize in a conversation so that they could then use the data right Instead of being like what was that thing?
• 11:49
  Coach Polly Mertens: she said, or trying to remember all 19 of them.
• 11:52
  Coach Polly Mertens: It's like no yeah.
• 11:53
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I was like we're just going to go with the Harvard.
• 11:55
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: The main motivational traits sharks, sunshines and shepherds.
• 11:58
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So in an organization you'll and you need all three of these in an organization.
• 12:04
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So what I like to say is a lot of times, people, we have a bias where we think that we're right.
• 12:12
  Coach Polly Mertens: You know yeah.
• 12:14
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Right and I do it right.
• 12:26
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And and if you can understand that your main motivational trait aligns with only a third of the population, and so you need to understand where the other side's coming from so that you can effectively achieve your goals together, life gets much easier.
• 12:34
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And so sharks for them they are.
• 12:39
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: These are the people who are going to be the high growth, high speed are.
• 12:45
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: These are the people who are going to be the high growth, high speed, drive top line revenue people.
• 12:48
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: They're.
• 12:48
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: They're very future focused, self-confident, aggressive, bold, entrepreneurial, just that it's more of a ego driven right.
• 12:56
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Their confidence comes from their ego.
• 12:58
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: For better or worse, it comes from inside of them.
• 13:01
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: It's not, it's not anything external or anything they've picked up along the way, and these start to show up from a very young age, like 10 to 12 years old.
• 13:10
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And so these, these are truly like the self-confident people and in a business they're going to drive those like high growth, high, high speed businesses.
• 13:21
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And then you've got your sunshines and their motivation is, let's say, the sharks.
• 13:26
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Their motivation is winning.
• 13:27
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: That is really like, however they define winning.
• 13:30
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Sometimes it's money, and money's a good scoreboard.
• 13:32
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: But, but I have met other sharks who you know, maybe time freedom is their, is their version of winning, and so that is what drives them.
• 13:40
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Sunshines are driven by strong relationships.
• 13:44
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So these people, everything they do, will be in service of relationships and they are optimistic and they're friendly and they're outgoing and they are persuasive and they have this innate ability to influence people.
• 13:59
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Because they truly care about people, so they build this rapport.
• 14:04
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: People, because they truly care about people, so they build this rapport.
• 14:08
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And so these businesses and sunshines can lead and grow great businesses too.
• 14:10
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: They tend to grow more experiential, people-oriented businesses.
• 14:17
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So in my speaking engagement I talk about if you were going to look at a famous business owner who's a shark, I would put Elon Musk in that category.
• 14:26
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: If you listen to him talk, he is always talking about the future.
• 14:29
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: It's like today is an inconvenience to get me to the future, right, but Bob Iger, who has been the CEO of Disney for a long time, a couple of times around, keeps trying to retire.
• 14:43
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: But I would say Bob Iger, who has built this empire with Disney and this amazing experience that people come from all over the world, for he's a sunshine and for him I mean he leads with optimism and experience and people people first and caring about what's happening.
• 15:02
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So, again, sunshines can build great businesses and they can be great leaders.
• 15:07
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: It's just they're going to do it differently.
• 15:09
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And then the third motivational trait is I call them the shepherds, and these people are motivated by knowledge and perfection and so they want to get it right and they're going to be.
• 15:22
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: They're going to mitigate risk as much as possible in their business.
• 15:25
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: They're going to be very deliberate and intentional in how they grow, unlike the sharks who are going to go for that explosive, 100% year-over-year growth.
• 15:35
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: These are the people who have built businesses that year-over-year 10%, 15%, just solid, slow, steady, intentional growth.
• 15:48
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I think of Warren Buffett, probably a great example of a shepherd who really successfully grew a business, and if you listen to some of his quotes, he is all about taking calculated risks and trying to engineer the risks out of every situation.
• 15:58
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So when you realize that number one, these are the three motivations that people have and how they view the world.
• 16:08
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And then, number two, that I gave the examples of Elon Musk and Bob Iger and Warren Buffett, because I think we can all assign value to all of those people.
• 16:20
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Unfortunately, you hate to have to assign value, but I think we can all say like each one of us could find something to admire and respect in each of those people.
• 16:25
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Unfortunately, you know you hate to have to assign value, but I think we can all say like each one of us could find something to admire and respect in each of those people.
• 16:29
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Oh, maybe Elon Elon might be contentious for some people, but Is there another shark we could talk about, no Other sharks love him, and so you recognize that.
• 16:43
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Number one, the person I'm talking to.
• 16:45
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: There's a more than 50% chance that they're not motivated like me.
• 16:48
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And number two, that doesn't make them less than they actually bring value to the conversation.
• 16:55
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Because they're able to bring diversity of thought.
• 16:59
  Coach Polly Mertens: Your communications will get so much better communications will get so much better, and so would so picking.
• 17:06
  Coach Polly Mertens: Let's just say those three.
• 17:07
  Coach Polly Mertens: You said each company needs all three.
• 17:09
  Coach Polly Mertens: No-transcript in a team, let's say in an executive team.
• 17:16
  Coach Polly Mertens: How would that go?
• 17:17
  Coach Polly Mertens: Or how might their communications break down or break through?
• 17:21
  Coach Polly Mertens: Or what would you suggest that each one should look at?
• 17:25
  Coach Polly Mertens: Or you know, or like how does the shark look at the shepherd, or how does the sunshine look at the shark, or whatever you know.
• 17:31
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Yeah, that's great.
• 17:32
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Oh, and I do want to say, because some people will be like man, I think I'm a sunshine, but I also resonated with some of that shark.
• 17:37
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I always say you can have more than one motivational trait In Culture Index.
• 17:42
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: You take the survey, it takes like 10 minutes, and it'll tell me, It'll show me in the data what you are.
• 17:48
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: But sometimes we'll say, yeah, you're a friendly shark or you're an aggressive shepherd.
• 17:55
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Those are the people who are like get off my land, chase you with my shotgun.
• 18:04
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: No, no.
• 18:07
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: But you know, when you look at that, when you have them, number one you're.
• 18:12
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: You need all of them in a leadership team.
• 18:13
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Your shepherds are the people.
• 18:15
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: They protect your bottom line.
• 18:17
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: They're the ones who, when you go out there and you sell the product, they're the ones who make sure that the product gets delivered and that the processes get built and the processes get followed.
• 18:26
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So you need your shepherds to de-risk your company and to ensure that it's compliant and quality is getting delivered.
• 18:33
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: You're going to find your sharks tend to lead growth initiatives or anything that's future facing.
• 18:41
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So that strategy R and D um strategic looks and I I don't want to put all shepherds in finance, because really good CFOs actually have shark tendencies, because they're able to look into the future and make strategic moves instead of just making sure the bottom line gets hit yeah, accountability, yeah, counting for it, yeah, yeah so.
• 19:07
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So you know a shark's going to come in and they're going to be like well, our five-year goal is this and we need to do it and um, and they'll be able to tell you the milestones you need to hit to get there.
• 19:16
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: But the conflict is going to come from them and the shepherd is you know, shepherd says but what needs to be done today?
• 19:22
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Because most shepherds live in the moment and so that creates a lot of conflict.
• 19:27
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: It's like one person lives way down the road and one person is like stop daydreaming, we have stuff to do.
• 19:34
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: But if you want those growth, if you want that you know that solid growth you have to have the sharks.
• 19:43
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And if you want to have profitability, you have to have the shepherds.
• 19:46
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And then, if you, then the sunshines come into the room and they just chat, chat, chat and everybody thinks like why do you talk so much?
• 19:52
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: But then the sunshines make it actually an enjoyable place to work.
• 19:55
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: They make your clients like working with you, they drive relational sales.
• 20:00
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: They, you know, they create this great atmosphere.
• 20:03
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So I always say that the sunshines are the relational sales and the glue and they're the experience part of your brand.
• 20:10
  Coach Polly Mertens: Probably.
• 20:10
  Coach Polly Mertens: I would think that that would be a great person to have like an HR role.
• 20:13
  Coach Polly Mertens: You know, like like somebody that is or no.
• 20:16
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Yeah, hr tends to be more compliance than friendly.
• 20:22
  Coach Polly Mertens: like, by the time you're hiring an hr person in, it's because you need to make sure all the payrolls right yeah they tend to be more shepherds, yeah so if the company was big enough, let's say, to have the, uh, let's say a, you know, I've heard of, know larger companies have the charge of happiness.
• 20:39
  Coach Polly Mertens: You know, corporate happiness or something like that.
• 20:41
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Chief people officer.
• 20:42
  Coach Polly Mertens: Chief people officer, chief happiness officer, something like that.
• 20:45
  Coach Polly Mertens: That would be your sunshine.
• 20:46
  Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, you wouldn't want a shark necessarily in that role, but a sunshine I gotcha.
• 20:49
  Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, cool.
• 20:51
  Coach Polly Mertens: So they all three can be leaders and they can all three work together as well.
• 20:54
  Coach Polly Mertens: There's it's knowing what motivates and, I think, also motivation and communication style, right?
• 21:01
  Coach Polly Mertens: So one of the things that I've picked up, as you know, many years ago, like you said, these personality profiling psychometrics are kind of they float inside of different tests and I did one and it was like we did it inside of our company and so just be so like people knowing when they come into my life.
• 21:20
  Coach Polly Mertens: So, for example, I have an account manager role and I was the liaison with the clients.
• 21:25
  Coach Polly Mertens: So I had a portfolio of 30 clients that I was taking care of.
• 21:28
  Coach Polly Mertens: We were building websites for them and managing their marketing and things like that, and the team copywriters, developers, graphic designers, whatever it was would bring something into me, and once everybody knew what each other was, you know and I forget if we like posted it on our door or something you know like okay, you're going into this person's office.
• 21:48
  Coach Polly Mertens: They're a sunshine, you know.
• 21:49
  Coach Polly Mertens: Let's say, for example, they're a shark or something.
• 21:51
  Coach Polly Mertens: Um, I think it's super helpful to know you know when you're a going.
• 21:57
  Coach Polly Mertens: So one thing I things I got from myself is you know, as a high D or shark is probably the place that I would fall into is get to the point.
• 22:07
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Be blunt, be brief, be gone.
• 22:11
  Coach Polly Mertens: Let's, let's not.
• 22:12
  Coach Polly Mertens: I mean I love you, you know, I appreciate you, I'm sure you're doing great work, but tell me what we need to do so that we can drive to the result, or I got to get to the next thing, or something like that.
• 22:21
  Coach Polly Mertens: So they call it like a high D or high you know, direct yeah.
• 22:27
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Yeah, all those things.
• 22:28
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Yeah, shark, for sure, that's the sharks right, be blunt, be brief, be gone.
• 22:32
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And what happens, like what I see in my clients, is what we try to de-weaponize this and make it part of the culture, what you said.
• 22:41
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: We have clients who will put their culture index profile, their dots, right below their name plate on their door so that you know when you walk in who you're talking to, and so then it becomes a joke.
• 22:53
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: because you know, true sharks don't?
• 22:57
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: They tend to under communicate details because, number one, they would think that someone was talking down to them if they explained, you know, like I'm not an idiot.
• 23:06
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: That's how a shark feels.
• 23:08
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Like, stop explaining every tiny little thing, I'm not an idiot, whereas the shepherds want to know every single thing.
• 23:14
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: It's they.
• 23:15
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: They want to get it perfect, but they can't get it perfect unless they know what that means.
• 23:18
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And so I will see my clients say like I mean, they'll use culture and language around it, but they'll be like I'm a shark, I need more detail.
• 23:27
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Or like I need more detail, can you?
• 23:30
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Hey, mr Shark, like, can you, can you pull back and just come down, come down here for a minute and give me some clarity on what you want.
• 23:39
  Coach Polly Mertens: And it becomes this kind of joking interaction where like, oh, I see your, I see your shark tendencies showing through Chill, and I think that helps to just not break barriers, but to lighten the atmosphere or to yeah, it's just like gives everybody a context, like, hey, we're all playing in this game or this bubble business, whatever, and the better we can communicate like, oh, I know you're a Sher, I know you're a Shepherd, right, okay, and here's what I need.
• 24:07
  Coach Polly Mertens: Or let's talk about, tell me, has there been any transformation?
• 24:11
  Coach Polly Mertens: You know, so people are having some dysfunction in their team and I'm not even sure when the when you went in and you started doing culture index because you said you were at first were a client with it inside of seven figure Are there any transformation stories that you can say of, like, what was a breakdown?
• 24:29
  Coach Polly Mertens: Or how are things breaking down, either for your clients, or you were sitting inside.
• 24:32
  Coach Polly Mertens: You know of a team and it's like, yeah, wow, once we started using our understanding of each other, where we got to, either like, results were different or happiness level was higher, or, you know, stop losing people.
• 24:47
  Coach Polly Mertens: I don't know, like, is this a thing against?
• 24:50
  Coach Polly Mertens: You know, keeping people from leaving the company?
• 24:51
  Coach Polly Mertens: You know, whatever.
• 24:52
  Coach Polly Mertens: So how does having harmony and awesomeness and communication help that culture and the teams themselves, the results, whatever.
• 25:01
  Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 25:03
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Well, you just asked a lot.
• 25:04
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Take any part of that Specific example, actually, that I love to reference.
• 25:10
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So I'm a friendly shark and I had built a team of customer service representatives that were friendly shepherds but but mainly they were shepherds right?
• 25:22
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Their job was to make sure that everything got followed up on and done.
• 25:25
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And being a shark lives in the future.
• 25:29
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I came into one meeting and, um, it was like our weekly, you know, our weekly team meeting.
• 25:34
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I came into the meeting and I said, guys, I have this great idea, our weekly team meeting.
• 25:38
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I came into the meeting and I said, guys, I have this great idea Because I was living so far in the future.
• 25:44
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I was thinking what would be amazing is if I knew everything that was happening in every one of my members' lives, because then, when they're having a baby, I can send them a baby gift and if they're really struggling, I can connect them with someone else who's been going through the same thing and I'll know they're struggling and I'll know someone else has already been through it because I have this intel.
• 25:59
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So I went into this leadership meeting and I was like I had this grand vision that if I could get intel on what was happening with my members, I could build a deeper community and I could help them achieve success faster, because I'd be able to connect them immediately to what they needed.
• 26:13
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And so in my brain I thought you know, what the best thing is is, I have this staff and we would run these accountability groups, and I was like let's have a staff member sit in on every one of these like 20 accountability groups that are happening.
• 26:23
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I don't know, maybe there were.
• 26:24
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I think there were actually like 36.
• 26:25
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Yeah, there were 36, because I had a team of four at the time.
• 26:30
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I was like I'll just divvy it up and we'll have someone sit in on each meeting, right, it's like 10 hours a week per person.
• 26:35
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So I come into my leadership meeting, I'm like guys, I have this great idea.
• 26:38
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Here's what we're going to do.
• 26:39
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: You're going to sit in on the meetings and we're going to get the intel and we're going to use it and we're going to just build this amazing place where people are seen and valued and they hit their goals faster.
• 26:49
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And and I remember one of them saying um, how do you expect us to do that?
• 26:55
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Or like, and get all of our work done, or like, you know, and I was like I said, and this is a classic shark, it's just 10 hours of your week, you'll still have 30 hours to get everything.
• 27:11
  Coach Polly Mertens: Whatever you were doing last week, I'm sure you had 10 extra hours.
• 27:14
  Coach Polly Mertens: You know you, you were.
• 27:15
  Coach Polly Mertens: You were just waiting for me to come and deliver this.
• 27:22
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I was like you'll figure it out, right, and just just as the trademark of a shark, like it's just we minimize the amount of work that goes into everything, and um, uh, so anyway, I leave, we finished the meeting, I leave it.
• 27:31
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: They get really quiet, we finished meeting, whatever.
• 27:33
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And um, then they went back and they spent the whole day just in a tizzy, like, oh my gosh, how are we going to do this?
• 27:45
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: What does that even mean?
• 27:46
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Sitting on the meetings?
• 27:47
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: How is this going to impact our schedule?
• 27:50
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: What kind of information does she want us to get while we're in these meetings?
• 27:53
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: What are we supposed to do with that information?
• 27:55
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: What does success look like?
• 27:57
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: How am I going to do everything else?
• 28:00
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: What's the priority here?
• 28:02
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: When is this going to start?
• 28:03
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Cause I sure didn't give them that.
• 28:04
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I was like let's just do it.
• 28:06
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: When is this going to roll out?
• 28:08
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Like 1% of everything, yeah.
• 28:09
  Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 28:10
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Yeah, I just gave them the idea, but I told them nothing about how we were going to execute on it and and I didn't even do a good job, Like now sunshine, would have come in and read the room and felt their energy and their vibe and gotten like nip that in the bud probably, but I did not.
• 28:28
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And so that that one, that one communication fail probably stole for other people right, Stole a day's worth of productivity from them.
• 28:38
  Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, at least yeah.
• 28:40
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And if you do that once a week in your leadership meetings, where you just don't communicate effectively and then people are left wondering or trying to get what they needed, get their motivation met after the meeting, how much lost payroll is that?
• 28:54
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: How much lost productivity?
• 28:57
  Coach Polly Mertens: is that?
• 28:57
  Coach Polly Mertens: And imagine if they had tried to execute on this.
• 29:00
  Coach Polly Mertens: So they'd spent days or weeks and maybe they did, I don't know but like, let's say, they were like, oh my God, we can't talk to her, we need to just do this.
• 29:06
  Coach Polly Mertens: And, without any further direction, like, oh, let's just try and implement, if you will.
• 29:11
  Coach Polly Mertens: If they were just pure shepherd, you know, not had their heads out of it, enough even you know.
• 29:21
  Coach Polly Mertens: And then then you're trying to rein back a project that you probably never wanted to start.
• 29:23
  Coach Polly Mertens: You're like, oh okay, wait, you know.
• 29:23
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So yeah, well, here's the other thing about it.
• 29:26
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Is you say, what if they had executed without me?
• 29:29
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: But what often happens with shepherds is, if they don't have enough knowledge to know what perfect is, they just won't start.
• 29:35
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And so then, if you're communicating with them and you're like now me, I only really need a little bit and I'll fill in the blanks and I don't always do it right, which is why sometimes there's broken toys behind me.
• 29:51
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Shepherds just won't execute.
• 29:52
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And then what I've seen happen with leaders is they're like I told this person what to do and they're not doing it.
• 29:57
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: What is happening?
• 29:58
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: They're a bad employee, but the reality is they're like I told this person what to do and they're not doing it.
• 29:59
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: What is happening?
• 30:00
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: They're a bad employee, but the reality is they're actually a phenomenal employee.
• 30:04
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: You're just not doing a good job communicating and giving them enough information for them to do their job well, so they're instead of being wrong, they would rather just not do anything.
• 30:14
  Coach Polly Mertens: Wow, I'm feeling that I've seen that myself in various scenarios.
• 30:17
  Coach Polly Mertens: So what would be?
• 30:19
  Coach Polly Mertens: So, let's say you role play, those two different people are in that room.
• 30:23
  Coach Polly Mertens: What could the friendly shark do, maybe at the end of the meeting or during the meeting?
• 30:29
  Coach Polly Mertens: And what could the shepherd do, like how could they each take responsibility for some communication, to not just leave the meeting?
• 30:35
  Coach Polly Mertens: Everybody, you know, one thinking one thing and the other 10 thinking something else, or four thinking something else.
• 30:42
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: What might they do?
• 30:42
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 30:44
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So one of the things we do with our clients, right, we like okay, now I've given you this data, what do you do with it?
• 30:48
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Right, like, how do you actually effectively use this to increase productivity?
• 30:51
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: The first thing is I empower people to know what you are.
• 30:56
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Once you know what you are, then you know what your weaknesses are.
• 30:58
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So, like if I, if you know you're a shark and your your communication motto is be blunt, be brief, be gone, and a sunshine comes into your office, then you know all right, how is your family, how's your dog, what are your plans?
• 31:15
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Right, like, you can leverage that knowledge to adapt your communication style.
• 31:20
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: What I often tell my like shark leaders who have shepherds on their team is to just give your team permission.
• 31:27
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Like, set expectations, go into that meeting and say I know I under communicate detail.
• 31:33
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I would like you to ask five follow-up questions give them permission yeah, you feel comfortable leaving this room and and doing what you need to do, and that's probably because shepherds don't like to look dumb, because knowledge drives them.
• 31:50
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Um, I have noticed that they will not ask questions sometimes if they don't feel safe.
• 31:55
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Yeah, so so your job is, you know, when you're communicating with them is to give them a safe space and give them permission to get what they need from you, because you have it right.
• 32:07
  Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 32:08
  Coach Polly Mertens: So what I was thinking as you told that story is like so how do you you know it could be, do you guys have any questions about this?
• 32:14
  Coach Polly Mertens: Or how could you what would be some of the first steps you would take on this?
• 32:17
  Coach Polly Mertens: And just see if they had a first step you know, just off the cuff, if you will and if like nothing or there that could like point to their I'm not really sure where we would start with that and then you could either collaborate or say, oh okay, I see that we, you know we need more clarity or we need to discover something or whatnot.
• 32:35
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Yeah, and I found you have to be specific.
• 32:37
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: If you just say what questions do you have, they're like, um, yeah nothing, but if I, if if I specifically say ask me five follow-up questions.
• 32:45
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Like you must ask for more information.
• 32:46
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: They're like oh well, when you said put it up on the website, did you want it in red or blue?
• 32:51
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Like, did you want the website to go up today or in the future?
• 32:56
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Are Are we, you said, send down a message to our customers about it?
• 33:00
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Did you want it to be an email or a text message?
• 33:03
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Right, like, it's just you to give them permission to lean into their superpower, which is figuring out all the specifics before they execute.
• 33:12
  Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, so leadership and data I had.
• 33:15
  Coach Polly Mertens: You know this is such an entirely different world that I didn't even realize existed and what you're doing with it, like I had no idea.
• 33:22
  Coach Polly Mertens: You know, I get how I could kind of picture, as you were telling me the story when you were in the engineering world and green energy.
• 33:30
  Coach Polly Mertens: It's like, okay, you're probably collecting a lot of energy about the buildings and their watts, or you know, like how much energy you're consuming and how much do you need and what is it costing you and stuff, and you could spit out some numbers and make some decisions.
• 33:46
  Coach Polly Mertens: But, like, seeing the data, like you said and I'm guessing, is there more data in collecting this or is it like that really is the?
• 33:51
  Coach Polly Mertens: These are some key points and, like you said, they're sort of like baked into that person, right?
• 33:55
  Coach Polly Mertens: So that's how they're pretty much always going to function.
• 33:57
  Coach Polly Mertens: Is that what?
• 33:58
  Coach Polly Mertens: Right?
• 33:58
  Coach Polly Mertens: So that's how they're pretty much always going to function.
• 34:00
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Is that what you say?
• 34:01
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Yes, yes, that's how they'll function when they're under stress or overwhelmed, like, basically, in times of stress and intensity.
• 34:08
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: That's how they're going to default to that.
• 34:11
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: That's what you'll see, and if you can put them in a job where their inherent traits are aligned with the work they're doing, you're going to get so much more out of them.
• 34:20
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I mean I often ask people and I can tell as soon as so you asked is there more?
• 34:25
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Yes, there's so much you can do at this, and so that's why it's like it's a journey.
• 34:30
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: It's not just the way the culture index approaches.
• 34:33
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Psychometric data is like you can communicate better with it.
• 34:37
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: You can hire better with it.
• 34:38
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: You is like you can communicate better with it, you can hire better with it.
• 34:40
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: You can have better management conversations with it.
• 34:42
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: You can design your team better with it.
• 34:44
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: But, like each one of those is a bit of a science that we study in chunks, so I don't want people to get overwhelmed.
• 34:51
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: It's like having a really robust CRM like HubSpot.
• 34:54
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Like, let's say, if you use HubSpot, you can have the free version of HubSpot and just use it for the basics and it would be great, but it can also do a whole bunch more.
• 35:03
  Coach Polly Mertens: That much more.
• 35:03
  Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, so this is like the tip of the iceberg and I'm really a fan of you know, seeing something like this, a tool that helps you understand the person, the personality behind you know, like they can say something on their resume or whatever, and you can try and get some information out of them in a one-on-one interview or a phone call or something like that.
• 35:21
  Coach Polly Mertens: But, like you said, when pressure shows up, right, which is, you know, it's a little hard to like force that, let's say, in an interview, but to know how they're going to default, this information is wildly valuable.
• 35:32
  Coach Polly Mertens: And I've seen, like I think you design, let's say, team dynamics, right.
• 35:36
  Coach Polly Mertens: Design, let's say, team dynamics, right.
• 35:41
  Coach Polly Mertens: So you, you know, like, okay, if we have a bookkeeper or if we have a CEO or if we have a HR manager, you know, like you said, I was thinking HR maybe needed to be more sunshine, but you're saying, well, maybe you know a little bit of sunshine, but more shepherd, right.
• 35:51
  Coach Polly Mertens: Or you know different profiles, like that.
• 35:52
  Coach Polly Mertens: So it's super helpful in that.
• 35:55
  Coach Polly Mertens: So let's talk a little bit.
• 35:58
  Coach Polly Mertens: I would love to, you know, share with some people.
• 36:00
  Coach Polly Mertens: This is a huge part of what you're doing and I love that you're so lit up and passionate about it.
• 36:07
  Coach Polly Mertens: It's just, it's so nice to see people that, like find their groove, find their flow and whatnot, but you are an awesome person all around, Like I mean.
• 36:13
  Coach Polly Mertens: I mean like, I said family is a big part for you.
• 36:17
  Coach Polly Mertens: I mean, that's just.
• 36:18
  Coach Polly Mertens: You know who.
• 36:18
  Coach Polly Mertens: You are, baked in and out.
• 36:19
  Coach Polly Mertens: You've got this adventurous spirit.
• 36:21
  Coach Polly Mertens: You know traveling.
• 36:22
  Coach Polly Mertens: You know we have a similar love of adventure and going places.
• 36:26
  Coach Polly Mertens: Tell me what?
• 36:28
  Coach Polly Mertens: So our name is Everyday Awesome, right.
• 36:30
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Everyday Awesome Project.
• 36:32
  Coach Polly Mertens: And so we find and why we started this and having these conversations and people sharing their stories is, you know, there are people sure that shoot to the top of the Olympic gold medal or the bestseller on New York times, or you know, ceo Elon Musk, right, you know super or celebrity, that type of thing.
• 36:49
  Coach Polly Mertens: But there's awesome everywhere.
• 36:51
  Coach Polly Mertens: And having spent some time with you at these masterminds, I just and seeing you on social and just how you are, I mean it's so funny to me that you're still an engineer, because I'm like damn, but you're so friendly and not, you know, like I think of engineers as so how, how do you maintain awesome in your life?
• 37:08
  Coach Polly Mertens: How?
• 37:08
  Coach Polly Mertens: Where does this come from?
• 37:09
  Coach Polly Mertens: Is this like something that you had a dark childhood and you overcame a lot, and now, like you know, I've, I've learned so much about myself and I'm sharing it?
• 37:16
  Coach Polly Mertens: And now, like, well, you know, I've, I've learned so much about myself and I'm I'm sharing it.
• 37:18
  Coach Polly Mertens: Or did you have a great upbringing?
• 37:20
  Coach Polly Mertens: What?
• 37:20
  Coach Polly Mertens: Where do you get your, your awesomeness, your, your personality, the side of you that seems optimistic and friendly.
• 37:29
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I think we talk about this a lot more in our workshops.
• 37:33
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: We're like, oh, is this nature or nurture habits?
• 37:36
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And I think it's a combination of the three, with nature and nurture really playing out.
• 37:42
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: There are a lot of things that started.
• 37:45
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I mean, I have children I have a 10 and 13 and 15 year old and I can tell you they were all completely different people, like despite my parenting and I'm sure my parenting definitely did shape part of who they are.
• 37:57
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: But there were also things that were just obvious from 18 months, two years, three years old.
• 38:02
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Um, so I think it's a little bit of both for me.
• 38:08
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I've spent a lot of time thinking about this in the past, like decade the things that shaped me.
• 38:13
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I think one of the things that shapes me a lot is there was a lot of um death around my family in terms of like.
• 38:23
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Like my mom, she was married before my dad.
• 38:26
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: She had a daughter and her husband.
• 38:28
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Her daughter died as a baby.
• 38:29
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Her husband was then killed in a car accident.
• 38:31
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: My sister's first husband I have three sisters One of my sister's first husbands had a heart attack at 32 in the middle of their living room.
• 38:39
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I was like 21 or 22.
• 38:42
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: At the time In the military, when I was in college, there were two training accidents.
• 38:48
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Well, actually there was one training accident where someone was killed down at the point of exercise we were on.
• 38:53
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Then at college, one of the kids in my ROTC unit.
• 38:58
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: He was in my battalion and he got beaten to death at a party, just like stupid boys.
• 39:03
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And so those things I now realize really impacted me in terms of I honestly don't know how many tomorrows were promised, you know, and I think we spend a lot of time worrying about things that never come to pass and being so preoccupied with our own busyness, like I actually just I do a short, like five minute a day podcast called Challenge to Lead, and I just recorded one and I was like we need to stop being martyrs.
• 39:36
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Like wake up in the day and think about what would this look like if it were my one of my phrases?
• 39:42
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: What would it look like if it were easy?
• 39:43
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Right, like, stop over complicating things.
• 39:45
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: But I had this thought yesterday I'm like what would it look like if it were fun?
• 39:49
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Right, like what if it looked?
• 39:53
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: What would it look like if it were fun when you went to work?
• 39:55
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: What would have to happen for that to be true.
• 39:59
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And I'm not saying that you, maybe you have the luxury of leaving whatever role you're in and going to do something new.
• 40:06
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: But, like, wherever you're at right now, whatever's happening, you're like what would have to happen for you to enjoy it more, because you don't know how many tomorrows you're going to get.
• 40:15
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And so enjoy the ride, enjoy the journey.
• 40:20
  Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, I just had a conversation with somebody the other day that was very similar.
• 40:24
  Coach Polly Mertens: You know, I I had the opportunity many years ago.
• 40:27
  Coach Polly Mertens: My aunt and uncle were they're about to turn 90.
• 40:31
  Coach Polly Mertens: So quite a few years ahead of me and they shared with me, like you know, when they were turning 65, like you know, we're not able to travel as much as we want, and this and that, and they're like, don't waste it.
• 40:42
  Coach Polly Mertens: You know.
• 40:42
  Coach Polly Mertens: So in my thirties, I got the message, like you know, you might want to get about those things that you want to be doing Right, because the body, you know, if you put it off, if you put it off, you know, we think these lifetimes, you know, this finish line, is like perpetual out there, Like you know 80, 90, whatever, right, yeah, you don't know what you have left.
• 41:00
  Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 41:01
  Coach Polly Mertens: And then when you see people around you in college and 30 or you're 21 and they're 30 and just like you know, really reminding you like wait a minute, this is it, this is the, this is the, this is the show that you know.
• 41:15
  Coach Polly Mertens: There's no second show, there's no do-overs, there's no matinee tomorrow.
• 41:18
  Coach Polly Mertens: It's like you're you're in it and appreciating it.
• 41:21
  Coach Polly Mertens: So I love those questions.
• 41:23
  Coach Polly Mertens: So what would it look like if it were easy?
• 41:25
  Coach Polly Mertens: And it's a choice too.
• 41:26
  Coach Polly Mertens: So what you're inviting people to is like right, that's a question.
• 41:30
  Coach Polly Mertens: How you answer that determines which way your day will go.
• 41:33
  Coach Polly Mertens: Right, yeah.
• 41:35
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And.
• 41:35
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I'm not saying you have to wake up every day and my rule is I remember telling this to someone like I need to enjoy my job 70% of the time, like, more often than not, everybody's going to have bad days, everybody's going to have bad bosses, you know, bad meetings, whatever.
• 41:54
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: But if you can say that you really you enjoy what you do 70% of the time, I think you're on the right path.
• 41:59
  Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 42:04
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And if it's 50% of the time like is there something you?
• 42:06
  Coach Polly Mertens: can do, that's in your control, to get it up to 70?
• 42:07
  Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, and sometimes it's action and sometimes it's just perspective.
• 42:11
  Coach Polly Mertens: You know the story, like you said, waking up feeling like a martyr versus waking up feeling inspired, optimistic.
• 42:16
  Coach Polly Mertens: You know, I'm going to, I'm going to, spread joy in my office today, or I'm going to, you know, give three gratitude.
• 42:22
  Coach Polly Mertens: You know, text to people or something telling them I appreciate them, whatever that can look like, awesome, awesome.
• 42:28
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: So I have this.
• 42:28
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I used to do oh sorry, no, I was gonna say I used to do um, when I went through a pretty like rough spot a couple of years ago and I started being like I need to stop focusing on the negative stuff, right?
• 42:40
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: What we just talk track in our head.
• 42:41
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: You got to get rid of it and so I started taking pictures of just like things that I saw that amused me, like somebody wearing a shirt with a funny slogan on it, or a flower in the grass, or like just walking in the grass barefoot, or something.
• 42:55
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I started taking pictures and once a week I would post I called it my joy collage and I would just make a little collage on my phone and I would post it just as a reminder.
• 43:02
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Like there's like everyday awesome, there are so many little things all around us.
• 43:08
  Coach Polly Mertens: Take notice of them.
• 43:09
  Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, you know, and what?
• 43:11
  Coach Polly Mertens: What that reminds me of is, um, you know, it's the lens through which we're seeing things, right.
• 43:16
  Coach Polly Mertens: So are you waking up and putting on the glasses or the perspective that says martyr?
• 43:24
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: What's you know?
• 43:24
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Everybody's screwing up at work today, yeah, or something.
• 43:26
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Everyone's out to get me.
• 43:27
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I have to do all the work and what a simple yet.
• 43:30
  Coach Polly Mertens: So one of the things that I have kind of running in the background as a theme for me is joy, beauty and magic.
• 43:36
  Coach Polly Mertens: Right, so how can I see joy, beauty and magic in each day?
• 43:39
  Coach Polly Mertens: And when you, when I remember that, I'm reminding myself, just talking to you, like, oh yeah, hey, remember that again, you know, remember that.
• 43:46
  Coach Polly Mertens: But it's nice that I love that you have this sort of like deliverable or something that you could turn it into, because we can, let's say, fall off track or we can forget.
• 43:56
  Coach Polly Mertens: But if your goal is like, hey, once a week, I want to make this little collage each, you sort of start collecting those things, collecting those moments, and if for nobody else, for you, right, yeah, yeah, beautiful, beautiful, um, so I want to ask you uh, you know, our subconscious mind holds a lot of our internal philosophies, mindset, things like that, and I'm always curious how people's perspective and how they look at the world, because the awesome things that you're up to, the family that you're creating, the impact that you're making in your community, it's largely driven by, just like, who you are and how you see the world.
• 44:30
  Coach Polly Mertens: So I'm going to say a couple of statements and then I just ask you to finish it.
• 44:36
  Coach Polly Mertens: So I'll say like a couple words.
• 44:39
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I love games.
• 44:39
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Let's do it All right, it's a game.
• 44:41
  Coach Polly Mertens: It's a game.
• 44:42
  Coach Polly Mertens: So there's four of them.
• 44:43
  Coach Polly Mertens: So the first one is, and just as rapidly as you can like, hopefully no filtering, but whatever you can.
• 44:48
  Coach Polly Mertens: So, becca, life is life is what.
• 44:53
  Coach Polly Mertens: What was it?
• 44:57
  Coach Polly Mertens: Oh, I stopped hearing you Hold on Say it again.
• 45:01
  Coach Polly Mertens: Full of joy, full of joy, full of joy, all right, life is anything else.
• 45:10
  Coach Polly Mertens: What is life?
• 45:13
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Bleeding.
• 45:17
  Coach Polly Mertens: This is weird.
• 45:18
  Coach Polly Mertens: Talking about All right.
• 45:19
  Coach Polly Mertens: How about I am?
• 45:20
  Coach Polly Mertens: I am what?
• 45:24
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Excited I just.
• 45:27
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I've been in this space lately where I've just been just excited about the future and all the opportunities.
• 45:36
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Can you say more?
• 45:38
  Coach Polly Mertens: on that.
• 45:38
  Coach Polly Mertens: Where does that come from?
• 45:39
  Coach Polly Mertens: So, like, what's the genesis of that?
• 45:41
  Coach Polly Mertens: Like?
• 45:41
  Coach Polly Mertens: Did it just like you woke up one morning and I started feeling excited?
• 45:44
  Coach Polly Mertens: Or do you have something to look forward to that you've put out there, or is it exciting?
• 45:49
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I got very intentional about building my.
• 45:51
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: My problem is I get FOMO, like I see all the things people are doing, my shark tendencies kick in and I'm like I could do that or that and that would help me win or that would help me hit my goals.
• 46:00
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And I got very focused when I started my culture index advising last year I mean, it was my first year as an advisor and I set some goals to bring on clients and I just I didn't even know if I could do it, I didn't know if this would even work.
• 46:16
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And I, I set some goals and I exceeded them and my clients became raving fans.
• 46:21
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And so at the end of the last year I was like, oh, I can do this.
• 46:27
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And so then I was like I'm going to shut all the other doors, like this is where I am, I'm going to be here, it's going to be hard, it's going to be work, it's going to be glorious and fun.
• 46:39
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: But like I'm not going to let FOMO pull me, pull my mental energy elsewhere, I'm going to be here.
• 46:47
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And so I got very clear about what I was going to do and I just went to work and I started doing it and it's yielding results.
• 46:53
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And I and I feel like I'm in the place I'm supposed to be, like, even when people I always offer everyone a 20 minute survey review where, like, they can take the survey and spend 20 minutes with me and just learn about themselves and maybe half the time those people might potentially be clients and half the time they're just people who want to figure something else out.
• 47:13
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And I had a call last week with a girl and she came into the call and she was crying and she was like I just had a fight with my boyfriend and I'm really sorry and I know this is like not professional me coming in here and I was like, no, I'm like we're going to let's talk through it and through the data we could figure out why her and her boyfriend were fighting and why she was having the reaction she was having and some tactics to, you know, go back and communicate better with him.
• 47:41
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: And she left the call just lit up and like she's never gonna, she's not gonna be a client, she's.
• 47:49
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: You know, it was just just me helping use this and so I feel like there's I feel excitement for the potential and I also feel excitement that I'm doing something I'm uniquely suited for and I'm leaving a lot of good behind me in the world.
• 48:01
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: That's awesome.
• 48:02
  Coach Polly Mertens: That is something to be excited about.
• 48:03
  Coach Polly Mertens: That's awesome, and I can so appreciate what you said, like kind of putting these narrowing down, like stop looking around, for the grass is greener, or what are other people doing, or whatever, because I think I think as you look at your own future and you get a deep relationship with it and then you know you can get more excited about it's like all of your energy funneled into one thing instead of dispersed throughout.
• 48:26
  Coach Polly Mertens: All right, two more, so all right, becca.
• 48:30
  Coach Polly Mertens: So life is.
• 48:31
  Coach Polly Mertens: I am.
• 48:32
  Coach Polly Mertens: How about people are?
• 48:33
  Coach Polly Mertens: People are what.
• 48:44
  Coach Polly Mertens: I want to say awesome.
• 48:45
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: But like people are valuable, like I think that everyone has an inherent gift and some people's gifts get overlooked because it doesn't look like what society dictates it should look like.
• 48:59
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: But if you really take the time to get to know people, I've never, I've never had a.
• 49:04
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: No, occasionally one in a hundred conversations I meet someone who I'm like ick, gross, right.
• 49:13
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: But like 99% of the time when I get to take the time to talk to people, I'm just always like wow's awesome, you know.
• 49:25
  Coach Polly Mertens: I mean, and they're just to the left and to the right of us, they're all around, right, there's.
• 49:29
  Coach Polly Mertens: It's so beautiful, that's beautiful.
• 49:31
  Coach Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 49:33
  Coach Polly Mertens: Last one for you, my dear how about the world is?
• 49:36
  Coach Polly Mertens: The world is what the world is.
• 49:40
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I'm okay, I did mention I'm in a really great space mentally right, so the world is I'm okay.
• 49:42
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I did mention I'm in a really great space mentally right, so the world is beautiful and full of possibilities and potential.
• 49:48
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I'm going to france for the first time in the summer, so I've been planning that trip with my going, with my parents and all my sisters and all their husbands.
• 49:55
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I'm just so excited to travel and explore and see it like just full of opportunity you know, yeah, yeah, the world is possibilities and opportunity.
• 50:04
  Coach Polly Mertens: That's sweet, that's beautiful.
• 50:05
  Coach Polly Mertens: So we always love to end the show with asking our guests, like is there one thing?
• 50:13
  Coach Polly Mertens: Like if you can summarize?
• 50:14
  Coach Polly Mertens: Or it can be something that you've said already, or it could be something that you haven't said, or something that just you know is on your heart right now, or something you always remind people of.
• 50:23
  Coach Polly Mertens: Whatever it is, what's one thing you'd want?
• 50:25
  Coach Polly Mertens: If they fast forward and they only got one thing.
• 50:27
  Coach Polly Mertens: Oh, we got it.
• 50:29
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: You got the answer.
• 50:30
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I have this pillow for people that are just listening.
• 50:32
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: This is my um.
• 50:33
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Once I had kids.
• 50:34
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: It says gentle and kind and um, it's funny.
• 50:37
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: It's funny coming for me because I am an aggressive person.
• 50:40
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I like grew up wrestling with people.
• 50:42
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I'll be the first person to punch you if you like, beat me at a board game, like I'm.
• 50:47
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I'm not.
• 50:48
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Gentle and kind is more aspirational for me, but I say it all the time.
• 50:54
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I say it with my kids, you know, when they're fighting with my sisters and my nieces.
• 50:57
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I'm like gentle and kind, gentle and kind.
• 51:03
  Coach Polly Mertens: And what?
• 51:03
  Coach Polly Mertens: a beautiful gift to bring to the world, right like as your, as your source and your energy, gentle and kind.
• 51:09
  Coach Polly Mertens: I love it.
• 51:09
  Coach Polly Mertens: I love it.
• 51:10
  Coach Polly Mertens: All right, my dear.
• 51:11
  Coach Polly Mertens: Well, thank you for being our guest today.
• 51:13
  Coach Polly Mertens: This was absolutely delightful for me.
• 51:15
  Coach Polly Mertens: I hope you enjoyed sharing and, um, we'll share in the show notes.
• 51:19
  Coach Polly Mertens: If you want to share your, your website or any way that people can mostly get in touch with you, what, what would be the best way that that you'd want people to reach out to you?
• 51:26
  Coach Polly Mertens: Is it social?
• 51:27
  Coach Polly Mertens: Is it website?
• 51:29
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: That's a great question.
• 51:30
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: Social.
• 51:31
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: I'm so sporadic on social so I would say email me, like I have a system for getting through my emails.
• 51:36
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: It's bshea S-H-E-A at cultureindexcom.
• 51:41
  Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting: That would be the best way, awesome.
• 51:44
  Coach Polly Mertens: Awesome.
• 51:44
  Coach Polly Mertens: All right, and I'll get your website and we'll share that on our show notes.
• 51:47
  Coach Polly Mertens: So thank you, my dear, and just want to remind everyone listening as we always do here at the Everyday Awesome Project remember how your life feels is more important than how it looks, and every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.