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Andy Stanley - The Role of Joy in High-Performance Leadership x Kate Bowler · Andy Stanley Sermons

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  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast, a
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: conversation designed to help leaders go further, faster. I'm Andy Stanley.
• 0:09
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  Speaker 1: word ANDY to 55123. That's A-N-D-Y to 55123. And now
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: let's jump into today's episode. So today we're talking about
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: something we have never talked about before on the Leadership Podcast,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: because honestly, it doesn't sound like it has anything to
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  Speaker 1: do with leadership. I'll let you be the judge. And
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: we're talking to someone we've never had on the podcast before.
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  Speaker 1: My dear friend, in fact, I've never said this about
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  Speaker 1: anyone on the podcast before. So I just want to
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  Speaker 1: say that Sandra and I absolutely adore our guest today.
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  Speaker 1: She's our first adored guest. Kate Bowler is joining us today. Kate,
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  Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm so glad to be with you.
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  Speaker 1: Aren't you glad you're adored?
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  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
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  Speaker 2: I could take all the compliments in the world. I'm
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  Speaker 2: a middle child.
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  Speaker 1: I thought about telling John Maxwell he was adored. That
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  Speaker 1: just didn't feel right.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So anyway, so Kate, for those of you who don't know,
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  Speaker 1: is a four-time New York Times bestselling author. an award-winning
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  Speaker 1: podcast host, an associate professor at Duke University. So she's
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  Speaker 1: definitely the smartest person in the room. And she studies
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  Speaker 1: the cultural stories that we tell ourselves about success, suffering,
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  Speaker 1: and whether or not we're capable of change. And after
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  Speaker 1: being unexpectedly diagnosed with stage four cancer at the age
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  Speaker 1: of 35, she penned, this was my introduction to Kate,
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  Speaker 1: her New York Times bestselling memoir entitled, Everything Happens for
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  Speaker 1: a Reason, and Other Lies I've Loved. And the title alone,
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  Speaker 1: I thought, this is a book I have to read.
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  Speaker 1: Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've Loved. Again,
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  Speaker 1: Sandra and I, this is one of the two books
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  Speaker 1: that Sandra and I read at the same time and
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  Speaker 1: talked about throughout. So anyway, her latest book and the
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  Speaker 1: topic of today's discussion is Joyful Anyway. So this is
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  Speaker 1: a book about joy. And why are we talking about
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  Speaker 1: joy on a leadership podcast? Here's my answer. Then I'm
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  Speaker 1: There's always a headwind for leaders, right? There's always problems
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  Speaker 1: to solve, staff issues to resolve, setbacks, surprises. And as
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  Speaker 1: we talk about all the time, even when things are good,
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  Speaker 1: things are generally hard. I love my job. I love
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  Speaker 1: the people I work with. But there are days I
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  Speaker 1: get home and Sandra looks at me, pauses, and she says,
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  Speaker 1: do you want to talk about it? And I'm like, no,
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  Speaker 1: not yet. It's just... There's just those things. There's always stuff,
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  Speaker 1: unresolvable stuff that has the potential to steal or erase
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  Speaker 1: our joy. So let's talk about joy. Kate, you make
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  Speaker 1: the point that experiencing joy does not depend on resolving
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  Speaker 1: everything that makes life difficult. And you should know because
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  Speaker 1: of your cancer diagnosis and just your life in general.
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  Speaker 1: And those of us who know you and have watched
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  Speaker 1: you navigate an incurable illness through the years, are so
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  Speaker 1: inspired by your tenacity, your honesty, and your joy, or
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  Speaker 1: as you titled the book, your joy anyway. So let's
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  Speaker 1: start with the most obvious question. You make a really
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  Speaker 1: helpful distinction. Happiness has its place, but it's not the
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  Speaker 1: same thing as joy. What's the difference and why does
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  Speaker 1: that matter?
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  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Well, I can't wait for everyone to
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  Speaker 2: hate happiness alongside with me, Andy.
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  Speaker 1: We won't.
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  Speaker 3: We won't. Happiness is great, but happiness is a sense
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  Speaker 3: of ease, like psychologically, neurologically.
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  Speaker 2: It feels relaxing.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, even the word happiness comes from that Norse
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  Speaker 3: word hap, like happenstance, just meaning like stuff that happens
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  Speaker 3: to you. So happiness will feel like the accumulated sense
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  Speaker 3: that things are kind of going your way and it'll
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  Speaker 3: feel pleasant and It'll kind of make sense that in
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  Speaker 3: a good vibes world that everyone just wants us to
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  Speaker 3: be happy. And it really is that feeling like you
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  Speaker 3: might be just lucky on a lovely good day. Now,
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  Speaker 3: those are beautiful moments in our lives, and we treasure
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  Speaker 3: them when they happen.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we try to create them.
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  Speaker 3: It would, well, we're all obsessed with like five steps
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  Speaker 3: to get there at all times. And we get very
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  Speaker 3: anxious when we feel like happiness is not always available
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  Speaker 3: to us. But I think that's why it will be
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  Speaker 3: very comforting then to know what joy is. Joy is
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  Speaker 3: not like a sense of ease. It's this bright, enlivening feeling.
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  Speaker 3: It makes you feel suddenly awake. And just neurologically, it's
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  Speaker 3: interesting that it's connected to our reward system, our dopamine,
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  Speaker 3: but also our stress systems, which really helps explain why
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  Speaker 3: you can be in the middle of a really weird
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  Speaker 3: and difficult and complicated situation and think, well, I should
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  Speaker 3: only feel sadness or struggle. And yet somehow joy pops in.
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  Speaker 3: And that's because joy is Our souls, yes, or just
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  Speaker 3: for a moment, we feel like it is so good.
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  Speaker 2: To be alive.
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  Speaker 1: As I was thinking about our conversation, that's what I
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  Speaker 1: thought of. When I think about moments of joy, they
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  Speaker 1: surprise us. They just pop in. And for me, you
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  Speaker 1: can comment on this. Those are moments that when I
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  Speaker 1: can think back on those moments, I do wish I
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  Speaker 1: could recapture them. And sometimes the memory elicits joy. almost
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  Speaker 1: the exact same hit, right? Is that? Oh, totally.
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  Speaker 3: And I think in this way, we have a very
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  Speaker 3: be present culture. I think this is a culture that's
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  Speaker 3: largely been infused by like Buddhism's priority only on the present.
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  Speaker 3: And I think in this way, Christian theology offers us
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  Speaker 3: something quite lovely. It says, actually, God is in the
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  Speaker 3: past and in the present and in the future. And
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  Speaker 3: wherever you go, There can be little breadcrumbs there. And
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  Speaker 3: I find that very comforting when I'm going through a
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  Speaker 3: difficult moment. I can reach back for a memory of
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  Speaker 3: a temporary. And if we think of joy as like
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  Speaker 3: temporary wholeness, even just the memory of that temporary wholeness
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  Speaker 3: gives me hope that there's still beautiful moments like that
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  Speaker 3: now and in the future.
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  Speaker 1: How about pictures?
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  Speaker 3: I think memory is so good for us. Nostalgia is
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  Speaker 3: so good for us like that. And that's because the
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  Speaker 3: cousins of joy, like one of them is gratitude. If
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  Speaker 3: you look back on something and it makes you think, oh,
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  Speaker 3: it is my life isn't just for surviving.
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  Speaker 2: It's for loving.
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  Speaker 3: Those things can really plug us into kind of like
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  Speaker 3: the preconditions of joy, something that might make joy pop
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  Speaker 3: up again. So.
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  Speaker 1: For those of us in organizational leadership, it's like, oh,
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  Speaker 1: that's great, Kate. Thank you. You're welcome. See ya. I
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  Speaker 1: got to get back to work.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're like, I'm busy.
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  Speaker 1: So, right. But the thing is, because I know you
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  Speaker 1: and the context you work in, you are a very
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  Speaker 1: busy person with lots of pressure, not to mention you're
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  Speaker 1: an author and you travel. So it's not like you're
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  Speaker 1: just sitting around, you know, picking flowers, thinking lovely thoughts,
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  Speaker 1: even though you're a lovely person. So when leaders think about,
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  Speaker 1: let's go back to our context, when leaders think about performance,
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  Speaker 1: We think about I think about anyway, results, accountability, execution, etc.
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  Speaker 1: And you're suggesting in the book that joy belongs in
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  Speaker 1: even in that conversation.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So how and again, we tend to separate the two.
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  Speaker 1: Joy is in its own category when I'm out in the.
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  Speaker 1: you know, in the baseball field with one of my
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  Speaker 1: kids or something. But when I get to work, you know,
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  Speaker 1: how do those two come together?
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  Speaker 2: You know, it was.
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  Speaker 3: Actually that one of the reasons why I was so
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  Speaker 3: interested in doing this research in the first place was
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  Speaker 3: actually because of a busy leader. I know Gary Haugen,
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  Speaker 3: who runs this unbelievably powerful and very emotionally heavy organization
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  Speaker 3: combating sexual slavery and really slavery of all kinds. And
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  Speaker 3: really dark, heavy topics. And he told me one time, Kate,
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  Speaker 3: joy is the oxygen of doing hard things. And I
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  Speaker 3: thought about that for such a long time. Why is
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  Speaker 3: it that joy offers this kind of like expansive lung
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  Speaker 3: feeling like maybe it's actually building your capacity to confront
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  Speaker 3: the world's great evils. How can he say that joy
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  Speaker 3: is the oxygen? And it was interesting to kind of
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  Speaker 3: research what it is that joy is doing to us.
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  Speaker 3: And I think what I landed on was interesting. Another
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  Speaker 3: reason why it makes it so different from happiness. If
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  Speaker 3: happiness is just sort of accumulated nice things, joy isn't
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  Speaker 3: just a good feeling. Joy is a story. Joy says, yes,
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  Speaker 3: it is good to be alive. Joy is a refutation
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  Speaker 3: of despair. So like when it's not just like when
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  Speaker 3: we're busy, we don't have time for joy. When we
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  Speaker 3: start to burn out, burnout isn't just being tired. Burning
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  Speaker 3: out is losing the story that it is so good
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  Speaker 3: for you to be doing what you're doing.
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  Speaker 2: As the person that you are.
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  Speaker 3: So we need to keep joy in circulation, not just
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  Speaker 3: as a nice frivolous thing, but because it's going to
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  Speaker 3: remind us of the big story of why we do.
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  Speaker 2: Things in the first place.
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  Speaker 1: So I want you to say that again, slower for me.
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  Speaker 1: I want you to say that again. Talk a little
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  Speaker 1: bit more about it being part of the story. I
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  Speaker 1: think that's such a big idea because part of busyness
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  Speaker 1: causes us to lose our way. I'm forced to focus
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  Speaker 1: on what's right in front of me more immediate than ultimate.
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  Speaker 1: But the story is ultimate. It's in the past. It's
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  Speaker 1: more of the future. So say that again about joy
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  Speaker 1: and the story.
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  Speaker 3: Well, let's separate out two kinds of ways that joy
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  Speaker 3: then can help a really a person in a high
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  Speaker 3: stress job. Let's just first talk about busyness. Busyness is
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  Speaker 3: about efficiency.
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  Speaker 2: It's about routines. It's about systems. It's about people.
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  Speaker 3: It's got a pace of life that can keep us
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  Speaker 3: head down and frequently very task forward. The problem with
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  Speaker 3: being like that all the time is that it is
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  Speaker 3: very difficult for joy to break in. If joy is
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  Speaker 3: a surprise and you're in your routines... It's really hard
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  Speaker 3: to surprise somebody who's got the next 10 steps planned.
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  Speaker 3: So just a busy person and we're all going to
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  Speaker 3: be really thinking through what pace of life is going
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  Speaker 3: to mean as AI is one of the great both
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  Speaker 3: like confrontations and challenges for leaders going forward. AI is
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  Speaker 3: going to convince us that actually our robot selves are
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  Speaker 3: our best selves and we should just become more and
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  Speaker 3: more like all the machines that we have to make
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  Speaker 3: ourselves available to every day. And I think what's really
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  Speaker 3: important if you're very, very busy and that pace starts
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  Speaker 3: to feel like progress, it's really important. Joy tells us, whoa, whoa, whoa,
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  Speaker 3: we just need one. We need a breath in there.
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  Speaker 3: Because in that breath, joy is going to tell us
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  Speaker 3: a story about what actually is fundamentally deep down God's
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  Speaker 3: great gift to us. God's great gift is, thank you
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  Speaker 3: so much for serving. Our doing selves are great.
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  Speaker 2: But it's our.
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  Speaker 3: Deepest kind of goodness that joy will remind us of. Like,
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  Speaker 3: because for example, what makes you joyful, Andy, and what
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  Speaker 3: makes me joyful is probably going to be slightly different.
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  Speaker 2: Joy is like, joy loves our weirdness.
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  Speaker 3: Joy is for you, which means like, it's going to
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  Speaker 3: need to be a reminder in your specific life, but
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  Speaker 3: why it's so good for you to serve. And I
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  Speaker 3: think just getting a sense that like joy is your personality.
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  Speaker 2: Like, Andy, what are your... Mine is absurdity. I'm very
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  Speaker 2: curious what makes you joyful.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so this is my podcast, so I don't have
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  Speaker 1: to answer questions. That's why I like to be the host. No, no, no.
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  Speaker 1: This is an important question because... Because you also say
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  Speaker 1: and I'm not I'm not avoiding the question. Yes, I am.
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  Speaker 1: You say that this I'm just going to read this.
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  Speaker 1: You said that joy is not something we have to
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  Speaker 1: wait for. But in my experience, there's moments that I'm
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  Speaker 1: surprised by joy. That's real. I think everybody has that.
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  Speaker 1: But you say it's something that we practice. And it's
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  Speaker 1: what you just said for leaders who are busy and
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  Speaker 1: under pressure. We have to practice this. But what exactly
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  Speaker 1: does that mean? Is that pausing? So if somebody's listening today,
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  Speaker 1: they're like, OK, I get it. I love those those
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  Speaker 1: surprise moments of joy. But how do I practice that?
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  Speaker 1: Not necessarily at work, but just the busyness of life.
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  Speaker 2: Well, and it can be at work.
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  Speaker 3: Like, for instance, I know people who set aside one
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  Speaker 3: half hour in the middle of an absolutely insane schedule
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  Speaker 3: or a 15 minute or a 10 minute schedule. and they,
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  Speaker 3: they pause there. They often, they, they can do it.
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  Speaker 3: Some people do it in a contemplative way. Some people
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  Speaker 3: set up something like if they're very moved by like
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  Speaker 3: art or like laughing with a friend or, but they
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: set up a time where they could have a breath
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  Speaker 3: that maybe they might be interrupted in some way by
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  Speaker 3: something lovely. I know for me that if I'm, you know,
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  Speaker 3: and I have, I think.
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  Speaker 2: Six jobs.
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  Speaker 3: At this point, it, Joy because it's wonderfully not expensive.
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  Speaker 3: It's actually not even that time consuming. I just know
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  Speaker 3: that I have to because I love absurdity. I love
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: like silly things. If I'm going through an unbelievably stressful time,
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  Speaker 3: I might set aside like a hilarious small window and
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: taste test ketchups.
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  Speaker 2: It's so dumb. I love ketchup.
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  Speaker 1: Did you just say what I think you said? This
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: is a serious podcast.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And I'm serious. I'm a serious person with you.
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  Speaker 1: I know you are. I know. Wait, you taste test ketchup?
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  Speaker 1: Is that real? Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Like eight different generic kinds. It's totally fine. It's really simple.
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  Speaker 3: But like I will say the crazier my life gets,
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  Speaker 3: the more uninterruptably busy it gets, the more I lose
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  Speaker 3: the reason. I lose the sense that I was good.
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  Speaker 3: even before I became that busy in the first place.
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  Speaker 3: And then if you add on top of that, that
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  Speaker 3: we're not just busy. And I think this is why
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  Speaker 3: I just want the two little parts set side by side.
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  Speaker 3: We've got one cultural story that tells us that we
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  Speaker 3: should be inexhaustible efficiency robots. And that if you don't
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  Speaker 3: speed up, AI will take away everything that you thought
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  Speaker 3: you were good at. And then on the other side,
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  Speaker 3: we have fundamentally a a global story about despair.
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  Speaker 2: If you poll people.
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  Speaker 3: Most of them will not imagine that the things that
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  Speaker 3: are radically changing our lives in pace and our kind
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  Speaker 3: are for humanity's good. Most people have the sense that
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  Speaker 3: things are not progressing. That's a story about despair. So
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  Speaker 3: if you have a story about busyness and you have
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  Speaker 3: a story about despair, you end up with leaders that
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  Speaker 3: feel compressed on both sides to recover the reason why
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  Speaker 3: we do things in the first place. That's why joy
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  Speaker 3: is not just nice. Why joy gets into like the
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  Speaker 3: foundation again. That's why for me, if I'm both busy
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  Speaker 3: and say having too many hospital days, I'm going to
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  Speaker 3: lose the story. I'm going to lose my song pretty fast.
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  Speaker 3: So even if I needed an hour to do something
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  Speaker 3: open and silly or calling a friend or, but That
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  Speaker 3: hour will be more precious to me because it reinvigorates
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  Speaker 3: the whole system to focus on the great why of
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  Speaker 3: our lives.
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  Speaker 1: This is so important. And tell me if I'm off
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  Speaker 1: because this is now my version of what you just said.
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  Speaker 1: It's creating space to realign with the larger story. And
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  Speaker 1: the larger story is never what's right in front of me.
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  Speaker 1: The larger story is not the to-do list. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I can't even remember the to-do list from yesterday or
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  Speaker 1: day before. So clearly that's not the story if I
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  Speaker 1: can't even remember it, right? And there's no joy in
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  Speaker 1: those things. And those aren't moments I think back and go,
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  Speaker 1: I got four things done yesterday.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: So that's not it. So there's a sense in which
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: we have to find the thing, whatever the thing is,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: that allows us to create space to realign with the story.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: For me, it's music.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: Hmm.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: For me, it's in my car listening to, I'm not
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: going to tell the artist, specific music loud. And I've
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: learned this. And there's two times a week that I
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: have found myself in this routine. I never set up
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: the routine. I just go there. And even Sandra has
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: told me, she has noticed, and I don't want to
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: go into specifics. She'll say, I think you need to,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: and she fills in the blank. Because coming out of
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: those moments, that routine really, I'm lighter. And I didn't
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: have the language till the book. I realigned with the
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: bigger story because the bigger the picture, the bigger the story.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: That's where the joy is. The joy is not in
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: the day-to-day. The joy is not in the details. But
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: everything in my life pressures me into the day-to-day and
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: the details. And it literally, again, I just never thought
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: about this till the book, squeezes out the joy. And
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: everybody has to find their routine, right? The routine that
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: allows for the space. Yes.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: And like the funny part is, is why and the
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: reason why it makes a terrible like self-help book is
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: there can be no recipe for exactly what would elicit
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: joy in any single person because joy is a surprise. Okay.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: But do we kind of set the table for it?
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: Well, joy.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Is that part of the practice?
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: Is an experience of transcendence, right? It's like if you
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: were going to flick a cup and the difference between
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: plastic and crystal. It's incredible that you know what's divine
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: because it rings. And... we're all just hoping that this
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: lovely thing will visit us more and more and more often.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: But there is, as you say, there is preconditions, things
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: we can do to set up becoming people who are
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: joyful more and more often. And some of the best
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: advice that I got about this was in watching people
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: who found ways to find that magic more and more often.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: And I thought that the best advice was summarized by
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: this advice that's often attributed.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: To Immanuel Kant. And it's, it's just, it's quite simple.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: He says, Find something to do because there's a strange
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: relationship between joy and service. The more you give, the
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: more you get. Yep. Find someone to love, which is
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: like get out of your own mind and fall in
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: love with other people's problems. Yep. And joy is more
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: likely to show up. And then find something to hope for,
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: which is tell this story against the story of despair.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: And your own self-making, like be somebody who imagines the
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: beautiful things in front of you. And those three things
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: will make you into somebody who is more and more
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: likely to be surprised by joy.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Wow. And again, you hit on a big one that
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: others firstness, not just in our minds, not just appreciation,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: but doing something for me physically. That's not for me.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: It's almost magical. It is transcendent. I mean, even for
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: our listeners who don't necessarily believe in transcendent things. you've
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: experienced that thing that doesn't make any sense, that it
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: surprises you. And it rarely ever has anything to do
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: with an accomplished task. Even, you know, finishing something huge.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, every week, not every week, but, you know,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: 30 times a year, I finish a sermon and there's
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: a sense of relief, but not joy. That's different, right?
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: It's those other things that we learned. So the other
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: thing I want to get to, and this is a
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: little off the topic, but you write, I have worshiped
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: at the altar. of productivity for too long. I have
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: worshiped at the, I mean, this sounds like, okay, I'm
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: not going to do that anymore. I'm not going to be,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to quit being productive, but worshiping at
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: the altar of productivity for too long. Can you talk
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: about that a little bit and the relationship between that
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: and joy?
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, I've, I'm Canadian and I've often thought
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: I felt so at home in America because of its
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: overwhelming love of efficiency. This is a country that's largely
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: been shaped by the metaphor of industrialization, that we should
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: always become, break every task down into simpler and simpler
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: robot-like motions and streamline everything we do into this unbelievably
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: gloriously efficient self. And I I love the high of efficiency.
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: I love feeling like I'm moving through the world quickly.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: And yet it becomes very, very easy to then confuse
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: all of this doing with all of this with purpose
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: and value. I will almost immediately lose the story that
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: I was good before any of this started, that I
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: am frankly not just useful, but a creature that is
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: simply meant to love and be loved. And this Christian
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: story of that when we are weak, then we are strong.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: And then in times of undoing and God showing up
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: for us, that we recover really just the tenderness with
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: which we're made. And really, and we can feel it
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: then when we can gather up all our gifts and
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: give them to anybody else. But we have to know
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: that our lives are beyond just like what we're good for.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: But if we don't create space for that, it's just
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: one thing after another.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: I just found that in the worst moments of my life,
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: when you run out of things to do, like.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: I can't cure cancer.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: I can't solve what takes my life apart or most
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: of the people I love. When we come to the
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: end of our doer self, what else is there for us?
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: And I think that what we always have is to
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: know that our life is a song and we still
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: have to sing it. And that's what joy is. It
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: gets to be the song in us. And for me,
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: I notice it when I notice silly things. Other people
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: notice when they go outside. My son notices it when
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: he has a trash collector effectively in a metal detector
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: and gathers horrifying things from our neighborhood and puts them
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: in my house.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: But all of us need to find our language of joy.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: So different topics. You cover so many of these things.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: In the book, you talk about toxic positivity. You say
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: fake positivity just doesn't fail. It actually makes us worse.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: So talk about toxic positivity, pretending that things are better
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: than they actually are. And as a cancer survivor, not
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: just a survivor, but somebody who navigates that diagnosis constantly,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: that has to play in the back of your mind constantly.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Because if you have figured out a way to overcome that,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: then the rest of us have no excuse but to
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: sit and listen.
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: Well, most of our views on positivity actually are religious
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: views that came from religious traditions about 100 years ago.
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: And they convinced a certain form of American Christianity that
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: if they harness the power of their mind and the
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: power of positive thought, that everything that comes out of
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: their mouth will.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Come into being.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: Right. You have to say only positive things because words
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: are like boomerangs and whatever you put out then comes
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: back to you. So most Americans really starting in the
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: 70s and then particularly hilariously in the last 10 years
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: have started to use words magically to assume that everything
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: you say has to be bright sided and everything's always
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: going to get better or else you've violated some cultural pact.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: People will interrupt us sometimes and say, oh, don't say that.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Don't say that. Like we're calling something negative into the world, right?
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: Exactly. Any kind of negative speech becomes a sign of
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: spiritual failure. And what toxic positivity has done to us
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: is it has so dramatically crowded all of the acceptable
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: cultural emotions over to one side of the spectrum that
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: it doesn't allow us to be honest anymore. The problem
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: is then if we're not allowed to be honest... We
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: can't name the realities we're in. We're most likely to
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: be unsure about how to respond. We keep ourselves on
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: very shaky ground, and then we're unable to then reach
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: out and solicit other people into helping us because every
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: life is a group project. So toxic positivity has a
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: way of keeping us fragile, lonelier than usual, and then
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: secretly certain that everything that happened to us was because
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: of us. Wow.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: And that's surprising to hear you say that. You feel
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: like the last 10 years, it has come roaring back.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: Andy, I didn't want my career to be this way.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: I made my early career being the historian of positive
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: thinking and toxic positivity. And then I thought, well, surely
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: we will all have at some point, especially given our
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: culture now, understand the importance of lament and honesty and
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: even just like therapeutic, being real with each other. But
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: positive thinking in the last 10 years got rebranded as manifesting.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: And now Gen Zers who say manifesting all the time
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: or have no idea that this is actually a competing
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: religious worldview, and that will very likely make them increasingly
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: lonely and confused. Wow. So.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: Back to leadership for just a minute. So what would
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: you say? This is a question that I wrote. What
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: would you say to the leader who hears all this
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: and thinks that's great? Joy sounds nice, but I have
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: to make my numbers. I got to build my hours.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: You know, I have I have a three part series
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: to create, you know, so people have joy in their life.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: I don't have joy creating it, but, you know, there's
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: just so much to do. Is your advice OK? You
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: got to find your thing for yours.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: It's absurdity.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Which I bet a very small part of the population
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: can identify with that. How dare you? Yeah, sorry. So
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: what do we do? Is it just space? Is it
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: more introspection as we think back? Okay, what were the things?
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: What were the environments? What were those moments that joy
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: surprised me? I need to look for more of those,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: create more of those. This really is important because joyless work,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: not only is it unhealthy and not only is it
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: a grind, But if there isn't room for joy, then
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: we're going to opt for creating happiness. And that often
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: leads to bad habits, indulging, all kinds of stuff, because
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: I want to feel something positive. And happiness are those
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: moments that we create are no substitution for the transcendence
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: associated with joy. We need it. It's fuel.
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I do think that somebody who just commits
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: themselves to just the hustle and the grind, is probably
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: going to try to create a lot of happiness in
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: the margins and find that very difficult because happiness has
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: to add up.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: And if your life is mostly work, it's pretty hard.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: What do you mean happiness has to add up?
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: Well, happiness is accumulated luck. It's just a bunch of
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: nice things happening all at once. You don't, you have
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: to have, which makes it frankly very financially expensive and
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: very time expensive and a lot of people then and
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: I think don't have time to be happy and so
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: if you don't have time to be happy or you
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: can't organize it in your life because say a lot
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: of people go home from a busy job and then
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: 130 million Americans are caregivers. If people are not largely
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: taking care of other people's needs, it's very unlikely. So
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: if we don't have time to be happy in that way,
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: we need to somehow realize that our deepest selves want, need,
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: have to say yes. Our souls need a second to
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: say yes. And people who are overworked, and or then
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: chasing happiness, we'll typically try to find then aliveness in
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: some unhealthy way. Joy is our soul's natural response to
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: looking at the world and wanting to find our place
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: in it. And so if we don't make a little breath,
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: or at least know that it's there to find us,
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: we'll get very confused about whether life is fundamentally good
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: and for us. So I think we need to make
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: a little space. It doesn't have to be an afternoon.
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: It can be an hour that you do need to
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: think of yourself as having like a deep hunger, like
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: a deep need for it. And just ask yourself, are you,
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: are you trying to fill it by scrolling? Are you
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: trying to fill it by like looking up what other
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: people are doing in high school? Like, are you using
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: envy or comparison or fear to keep you from genuinely
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: believing that joy is for you?
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Wow. That's a lot. Anything else? I mean, again, there's
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: so much. I've kind of bumped along the surface and
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: tried to grab topics here and there that relate specifically
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: to leaders. But what's your parting shot just to a
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: general audience about this?
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: I think we've all had moments in our lives where
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: we felt like they were magic.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: And we wish they would happen more often.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Or we wish we could recapture them, right?
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And I think we're always scared that they'll never
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: happen again. But there is this inexhaustible thing in us
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: to want to be alive.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: I had this funny moment. I was with my dad.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: We were traveling around Portugal and we were in this
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: monastery and my dad decided he hated the architecture. It
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: was this weird period called the Manuelian Art Period, in
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: which for about 100 years, Portuguese architecture was obsessed with
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: being like, we should add more pineapples to this. Let's
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: add hundreds of more pineapples to these walls. And my
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: dad thought it was the stupidest thing he'd ever seen.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: And he spent his whole time complaining. I saw one
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: person absolutely marveling at where he was. He looked like
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: he was entranced. So I was like, hey, what are
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: you seeing that I'm not seeing? And he said, just
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: look around. And when I looked up, I realized there
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: was no ceiling to that stupid cathedral. Because apparently everyone
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: was so busy embellishing and keeping themselves busy and working
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: on the walls that nobody actually thought about finishing the building.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, my goodness.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: And he said.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: There had never been a ceiling in the cathedral?
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: They'd never built a ceiling. It's not like it was
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: made and broke.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: But kingdoms rose and fell, and they never actually... All
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: we saw was endless ornamenting. And I think as he
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: fussed and showed me every new detail, this person who
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: was so enamored, My dad and I paused and we
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: laughed and we said, isn't it so like us to
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: be so busy embellishing that we're so busy adding a
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: million pineapples to our lives that we don't stop.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: And just look up and say, isn't this so good?
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: Aren't we so lucky? Isn't this so beautiful?
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: Isn't it exactly what it means in our own little
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: hearts to know that it is good to be alive?
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: That was emotional, Kate. Goodness gracious. Well, that is all
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: we have time for today. I appreciate you joining us.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: And it's great to see you again. It's been too long.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Last time I saw Kate, she was in town. She
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: sat on the front row with me at church, which
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: was so great. A little intimidating having you sitting there.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: But you've been a friend to both of us. And again,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: for those of us who know you and have read
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: your books and have tracked along with you, you're inspiring
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: and you take away our excuses. because you really do.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Anybody who knows you, and I, of course, I'm looking
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: at your face. Everybody else just listens to your voice.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: You just exude joy. I mean, you really do. And
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: I just thank you for that and even this conversation.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: So anyway, for the rest of you out there listening
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: to us chat, you can find Kate's latest book, Joyful Anyway,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: wherever books are sold, and we will also link it
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: to the show notes. And thanks to all of you
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: for listening. Before we leave, we do have one request,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: and that's to subscribe to the podcast. When you subscribe,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: you help us grow the audience, which allows us to
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: keep improving, bringing you great guests like Kate Bowler and
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: great content to help you as a leader go further faster. Also,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: make sure you visit the andystanley.com website where you can
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: download the Leadership Podcast Application Guide that includes a summary
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: of this discussion, plus a few questions for reflection, either
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: for you or maybe for your group. And make sure
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: you join us next week when Susie and I get
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: to talk about Kate after talking to Kate on this very,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: very important topic on the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast.