Perry Maughmer
All right. Well, welcome to the Potential Leader Lab podcast. I'm your host, Perry Mortimer, and I'm joined today by Eric Pennington. Eric is the founder of two things. He's the founder of Epic Living and he's also the managing partner at the Spirit of EQ, focused on emotional intelligence. And so at this point, I'm going to let Eric tell you kind of what both of those mean and why he does what he does. So, Eric, fill us in.
Eric Pennington
Sure. So the shortest part is probably the epic living piece, which I founded back, I think it was 2006, and it really was the birthing of an entity to help me kind of find a way to help others as it relates to this thing called life and a lot of focus on leadership development. But quite frankly. Perry And for your audience, it really was kind of a tool to line me up as well as an entrepreneur, as a practitioner. So there were a lot of trips and falls and ups and downs and all that other good stuff. So along the way, the learning journey, I really got connected into wellbeing and the idea that just my focusing on helping people from a leadership perspective had some gaps and that was personal, right? I mean, it wasn't that I didn't think that there was enough value in leadership development. It was excuse me, it was that I felt like I needed to be doing more with it as well. So fast forward as I can't clear my throat. Fast forward, I met Jim and Lynette Vaive, who are the founders of VQ, and we hit it off. And long story short, they asked me to come on as a managing partner. This was probably about five years ago or so, and their focus or our focus at Spirit of VQ is on the emotional intelligence component of human development. And we've been kind of rocking and rolling since between doing podcasts and workshops and cohorts and things like that, our mission is to move the needle and helping people understand the foundational how would I say it, learnable skill of emotional intelligence. So how's that?
Perry Maughmer
That's awesome. Yeah. And I love the last thing. It's the fact that it's a learnable skill. You know, when somebody says, you know, somebody is not emotionally intelligent, it's not like, well, there's nothing. It's not like there's nothing they can't do about that. Right?
Eric Pennington
Exactly. Exactly.
Perry Maughmer
All right. So I have something I'm going to spring on you, right? So I take this to all of my meetings, and I thought, what better place to talk about this? So this is a bowl that has been repaired. It's called Kintsugi. And it's a Japanese art of repairing broken pottery and then layering on they use lacquer and then gold dust. And the whole theory is that once it's repaired, it's actually more valuable because it's not perfect. And so when I take this to my meetings with folks, I say we have our best meetings when everybody shows up broken.
Eric Pennington
Wow.
Perry Maughmer
And I think that when we're talking about emotional intelligence and you can speak to this more than I can, just getting people to recognize the power in being broken. And that instead of the facade of I have all my shit together, I know everything, I'm in complete control, you know? So can you can you talk about how you see that show up for people?
Eric Pennington
Well, that's a brilliant tool and it's actually quite beautiful, Perry. I mean, from my view of my eyes and that's really in concert with this idea that, you know, the first really first steps are that recognition that, no, you don't have it all together. And quite frankly, I would tell any person, if you meet someone that is appearing or posing as if they have it all together, they're lying and.
Perry Maughmer
Or they're a psychopath.
Eric Pennington
Yes, that's a good qualifier. You may be in the presence of a psychopath to which the nearest is probably a good idea.
Perry Maughmer
Neither one's good, but I'm just saying there is two alternatives.
Eric Pennington
Well, yeah, and there's a lot more hope in the former than the latter. And I'm saying that with empathy. Well, here's the deal, Perry. I mean, if I come to you or I come to a group situation and I feel like I've checked all the boxes, it would beg the question, then what the hell are you doing here? Right. And I'm saying that with a little tongue in cheek. But the reality is, I don't think until you can see that you've got areas of deficiency, areas that need improvement. You know, it's kind of a futile exercise. Right? And here's the interesting thing about emotions. Emotions aren't moralist or they're not impressed by us, right? It's not that they say, well, you know, because you're so together, we're just going to hold back on how many we throw at you based on every event that you encounter in a day. They're coming and they come every single day in multitudes of fashion. Sometimes they call one to come at one at a time. Sometimes they're in repetition or I mean, you can fill in the blank. And again, it's no respecter of persons. You can have the biggest title, you can have the nicest home, you could be in the gutter. Emotions are not connected. And I over time I've learned this more and more, actually. That's really good. Because it almost demands us to be humble. You know, and to your point with coming into a meeting, coming in and saying, you know what, I've got some broken pieces. I've got some scars, I've got some issues. Is that healthy form of humility said, I'm here to come to work. Versus to your point, you know someone who thinks that, again, they've checked all the boxes or they've kind of arrived at some point, which again, is not the case.
Perry Maughmer
Yeah. And think to your point, there's something you said there. They come at you multiple, you know, there's multiple ones coming at the same time. Right. And I think that that ability to be that emotional granularity like developing that your own sense of what am I feeling and then digging into, okay, let's get into because what I'm feeling is irrelevant to the context of why am I feeling it? Because what I'm feeling I don't want to act on. Right? Because that's part of this process is if I get angry, I just don't want to act on the anger. I do, though. And I think emotions are for me, emotions are powerful. They're powerful indicators, right? So if I'm angry, then I have to be able to, in the moment, figure out, well, why am I angry? Like, what is making me angry? And let me think about that as opposed to the emotion itself. And that's a little bit of that psychological flexibility, right? It's the ability to be present with my emotions, my sensations and my thoughts and accept them, be they good or bad in my judgment, but still move forward towards my goals in accordance with my values. Yeah, right.
Eric Pennington
There's a very I use analogies around exercise a lot and it's because they're so rich, full of things that can teach us Some out there may be listening to you and I even early on into your podcast and going, I can't do that. I can't do that. I'm not comfortable with that. Well, to that person, I say, awesome. You're probably right. Exactly where you need to be. Now in our work at spirit of the work that you do and the multiple facets of that, we want to help you. I'll go to the gym with you. If you say I can't lift a £20 dumbbell, that's okay because they got £5 dumbbells. Let's start there. So this is not a this is not Perry and I know you know this because we've known each other for so long. This is not a case of I've done my work in EQ and now I'm at this level and all is moving like I desire. No, it's an ongoing thing. And I think that exercise analogy, the weightlifting is an analogy that really resonates with me because it's like you got to keep going. You have to keep going because you're building something, Right? And I think and it just came to my head as you were talking, it's like. Everybody's got their different cadence, they got different circumstances and all the rest. The only people that should feel bad, if I could say it that way, is if you're just saying refusing to to do the work, refusing to show up because. We all have this in common. We're all dealing with those emotions every single day.
Perry Maughmer
And with that. Okay, So let's take that to the next step, which is, you know, you and I are both well of a certain age, right? And so we can remember at least I can remember when it was, um, in not overt, maybe not overtly, but, you know, you don't bring your feelings to work like we had a saying early on in my career. I'm sorry. Hurt your feelings. You shouldn't have brought them to work. Right. And we, you know, and, um, in a positive manner, we're kind of moving beyond that. But I still see, I think intellectually everybody agrees that we bring a whole person to work, and there's going to be emotions as part of that. But I still, I still, I still find a lot of uncomfortableness and push back when we get into the real application of that theory at work when because my belief is part of leadership, part of leading, right, is managing other people's emotional states because it's my theory. And you can it's backed up by lots of research that didn't do, which is people do their best work when they feel good. Mhm. Right. I tell people all the time nobody gets their ass chewed and then turns around and goes, I feel really good and I'm going to knock it out of the park. Like those two things just don't go together. And so I tell people all the time, I'm like, So the reality is, if you're trying to move people forward, your best bet is that they feel good. And so how do you what do you see when you're because you work with a ton more people than I do in this space. When people say they want to pursue emotional intelligence and they say, hey, we're open to it and we want it, we want it to happen and we're going to And then when it actually starts happening, are they still in that mindset of, Oh, this is awesome and we're going to keep doing it?
Eric Pennington
No. You know what? Period. What I've noticed in many areas and it's certainly a blend because there's some of the really, you know, awesome stories that, you know, you'd want to write a book about. But I think one of the dangers in emotional intelligence is that it's gained popularity, and that's a two sided coin. The positive side of the coin is that, wow, we're aware of it. Wow. That's we're hearing that it's important. The flip the other side of the coin is. It's almost this. I'd say it connects into our current fascination with artificial intelligence. I can just put this in and I get a I get an answer. Well. Anything that's truly meaningful and is going to stick doesn't happen like that. I mean, and again, sorry to disappoint any of you, your audience that might be AI obsessed or believer's followers, what have you. And what happens is, is I think there's a certain level of disappointment when there's no manual. There's no textbook. I wish there were, right? I mean, in some senses because yeah, then we can have maybe a. But the reality is human beings, we're so diverse and, and your experiences at age ten and my experiences at age ten are more than likely vast.
Eric Pennington
I mean, apart, right? So I think a number of organizations and individuals, they like the idea of it because they've heard about it, they've read about it. And. They've got that. How would I say it? They've been given this information that says if you are highly emotional, intelligent or whatever, you're going to get these results. And we always want the results. It's again, it's no different in the exercise realm. If you do this, this and this, you'll have abs of six, right? And we see the abs of six. I want that. We don't spend as much time on. Well, it's a process in the beginning. You're going to hate it. I mean, you are really going to hate it and you're going to hate it. Maybe twofold. One, it's going to hurt. It's going to be painful. And number two, your brain is going to resist. You know, you and I are both fans of Andrew Huberman. I like his term for limbic friction. And that just describes so perfectly this idea about when your brain says, oh, no, no, no, this isn't efficient, this isn't easy, and this is potential harm to you. So it's going to resist. I think if we understood that a little bit more and understand that the ABS come from your commitment to the pain and commitment to the showing up, you might be more prone now.
Eric Pennington
Having said that, even for those organizations, it's the onus is on us to explain in a way that's persuasive and inspiring that it's worth going on the journey. But I'm not going to sit here and say, well, Perry, you know, everybody jumps in and just says, yes, I'm ready to go on the journey because it's not I mean, I'm I have clients just in my head where there's a struggle. Tell me what to do. Tell me how. And I'm. I'm sorry it doesn't work that way. And even if I attempted to tell you, do this, do that, do this, do that. I'm operating on so little data again. Perry, I don't know what ten years old was like for you. I don't know what happened when your coach said, You're never going to be good at that. I don't know. I don't know. There's so much I don't know. It can't be an instruction manual. So anyway, that's that's kind of how I'm seeing it. And I certainly happy to talk about the positive and the uplifting stories, too.
Perry Maughmer
Well, so I'm going to I'm going to take something you were talking about because it just occurred to me and I'm going to take a little bit of a left turn. Okay. So you were talking about the gym metaphor, right? Which I think is powerful and thinks appropriate. Yeah. And I started thinking so so, you know, people want the ozempic, right? They don't want to. And this dawns on me. So I want to know what you think about this as you think about because I was I've been doing some reading around goal and goal orientation and achieving goals and goal research. And one of the things that came out and it came out with some other folks I was talking to at a meeting that it isn't as much about the goal, but it's who we become along the way in pursuit of the goal. And so if that's the case and we're looking for shortcuts all the time, we lose that, right? We lose the we lose the development opportunity of of becoming someone different in pursuit of the thing that we want. Because so much happens in that time frame. It isn't about going to the gym. It's the people you meet. It's the skill set you acquire. It's the relationships you develop. And I'm still just sticking with the gym metaphor. But even in other things like the journey is the end. I mean, Cervantes was right. And so when we skip to the, you know, we're in the we're in this everybody, we just want a pill for everything. Yeah, we want a solution and we don't. And at what point does not earning the solution. Cause problems.
Eric Pennington
Yeah. And you know, I want to say in salute again in my head, I'm thinking of the client who, you know, again, the marching. Just tell me what to do. Right. I will say to their credit, they're still with us. So they haven't left. They haven't said exit because you're not telling me what to do. But you're. Talking about this idea of give it to me now, give me the pill, give me the answer and the robbing of the experience of that journey from beginning to, again, whatever milestone it may be, I think. And I'm a recovering person in that regard. Perry. I mean, much of my career was spent like, I just got to get that I have to achieve this one. I got to get there. And paying very little attention to what was happening in between. And I found I was much more obsessive about what time is it, how long is it going to take, How long have I been doing it? Win, win, win. But as time has passed, I've started to understand that the idea of the journey is absolutely spot on and it runs counter, if you think about it, to our culture. I mean, you know, I used the example of I mean, and even if you didn't want to go there, you could talk about Google. I mean, you could do a search engine and find any just about anything you want. And what, about five seconds? And that's not my call against technology and all of that. It's just I find that we are we in our advancement, we've gained a lot of wonderful tools and a wonderful processes that have moved us along.
Eric Pennington
But at the same time, and this is the part that concerns me. We've lost this. Curiosity. Reflection. And those two are very, very important. And I'm getting to a place where I'm starting to wonder, you know, is that have we hit a tipping point on that one? Because. You know, you've heard the constant refrain. Well, I just don't have time. I've got to you know you know, I you know, you want me to do this, but I've got to do that and I just need to and I'm going, you know, there's going to come a day, whether it's you personally or us collectively as a society, we're going to need that reflection and curiosity to be able to look at things at different angles, to just slow it down to, you know. And quite frankly, Perry, you know, when people throw out this stuff, I'm so busy, I've got so many things I'm working on and I have to be here and I have to be there. I think we have an overinflated sense of how important we are. I mean, really? I mean, I get it. Are you working on solving the Ukraine Russia war? Okay, I might say your time crunched compromise. But Perry, most of us. Yes, you do have time. You have time to reflect. You have time to consider. You do. It's just what's behind it, right? What's behind you saying? What's behind you? Not giving that time.
Perry Maughmer
Yeah, I challenge folks all the time on that with the statement about time and I think it comes down to comfort, right? So I think that a lot of times we don't want to stop. Being busy because then we have to sit with our thoughts. And, you know, our mind is a dangerous neighborhood we should never go into alone. And and think that a lot of folks subconsciously know that. But, you know, Carl Jung said until we make the unconscious conscious, it will direct our lives and we will call it fate. Right? And so that is the driver, because we you said all the stuff you said is true, right? Is that is that the tyranny of the urgent? Right. Well, we are fighting our brain because our brain is hardwired for judgment. Because. Evolutionarily that was our survival depended on it. Right. So there is a certain amount of attention that we have with our own brain as and that's why we have to understand it, because we do have to be we have to if we're not the conductor, we're the passenger. And oftentimes we go through our lives much more the passenger on the train than the conductor when it comes to what we think we're doing. Yeah. And and so if we want to intentionally do this, we do have to challenge our brain like we have to. We can't believe everything we think. Yep. And that's a struggle because ambiguity, uncertainty, all the things that go along with curiosity that you mentioned are foreign to us, to our survival.
Perry Maughmer
And in my process, you know, what I do with people is explore, experiment, evolve. And those first two you spoke to mean exploration. When's the last time you did something for the first time? Right. And how much time do you spend exploring? Not searching. Searching indicates I'm looking for something specific. Exploration means I want to go out and look at everything. Yeah. And then I'm going to do some experiments. Well, experimentation requires failure. And everybody, while they think they are okay with that, I don't know many people who fail their way to the top. Right. They don't they're not emotionally comfortable with anxiety. The anxiety and the emotions surrounding failure and what that how that makes us look. So we fight to be right. Right. We defend the hell out of everything we come up with. Because if we're not right, we're, you know, we the alternative to that is not good for our ego. Yeah. And so all the very things we need to evolve are against our nature. And that's what that's to me, that's why the emotional part of what you guys do is so dramatically important, because unless we understand that part of our of who we are and figure it out and understand how to work within that realm, you know, use those, you know, paint a picture for ourselves, use emotions as something to indicate, you know, understand how to paint that picture and use them to our. Use them to support us instead of fighting against them. We have no hope.
Eric Pennington
Yeah. And you know what's interesting, too, Perry? You know, this idea of, you know, it's that intentional? Action within your brain. Right. And I'm saying it in a somewhat of a choppy way, but it's kind of ironic that you say this because it connected me back. So I practice yoga. And as you know, with yoga, that entails poses and balance and all the rest. Well, I'd love to tell you that I could be this video that's shown to every person doing yoga about how to be balanced at all times. But you know, it's not true. And just the other morning, I'm trying to hold this pose and I'm I'm rocking and I'm trying to stay up. And I did. I felt that pressure of, oh, I'm screwing up and I think I'm just going to. You. We have to leap into action at that point and say, all right, you're right, you are off balance. That's okay. Because guess what? This is not a show. This is not being videotaped. Whatever. This is a practice. So keep moving. Today is probably not your day with that particular post. And I do believe, Perry, we should be talking to ourselves more often. We should be having that dialogue. Because if you think about it, our brain, my brain in that situation is saying fail, you're not good. You're not it's not going the way we want. So let's let's let's stop. Let's not do this. But our brain, again, is not it's not the you use the conductor versus the passenger. We have the power given to us to override that. Right. And it's hard. Yes, it's hard. But I mean, my gosh, Perry, where is it? I don't I never got the memo or that meeting notification saying this is the class on how to make life easy. You know, and I think if other people, if they were honest, if we all could just again, let's put down the mask. There's no camera rolling. We all would agree life is not easy. It's messy. It's hard.
Perry Maughmer
Yeah. And it's. But it's. But that's what makes it so wonderful.
Eric Pennington
Yes.
Perry Maughmer
Yes. At the end of it, that's that's those are the best parts. I mean it's it's back to the bowl, right? I mean, I, I tell my kids, I said, look, I would not wish my life on you, but I also would not change anything about it because it got me here. And here is pretty cool.
Eric Pennington
Yeah, absolutely.
Perry Maughmer
And so, you know, I have I don't when I work with clients, I'm like, look, I don't have answers. I can just tell you all the things I did that didn't work. And I can share with you my experiences, but you have to go figure out what's going to work for you. And that's the hard part of all this, right, is that, as you said earlier, there's so much you don't know about people. So you can give them frameworks and tools. But at some point, what my hat says. That's what we got to do. Yeah. Like, at some point, you can. You can give everybody the complete. The complete set of tools and the insights and the back and the support and all of those things. It amazes me because, you know, we both do the same type of work, different areas, but the same type of coaching work. Yeah. And oftentimes people are like, Oh, is there a book? Is there you recommend a book do this? I'm like, Look, hey, you've read enough books. There is nothing other than making a different decision at a certain time. That's going to help you. So unless you're going to hire somebody to walk around with you 24 over seven and smack your hand every time you reach for the chips, I don't know what to do. Like, I don't I don't know what else. There's no more help for you. It's all these micro decisions. And I've and I tell people, you have to decide when and a thousand times a day. Is this what I want most or what I want now? Yeah.
Perry Maughmer
Yeah. And the one is really hard. It's the marshmallow test, right? They put the little kids in the room with the marshmallow and say, I'm coming back in 15 minutes. If you don't eat it, I'll give you another one. Come back. Right. Yeah. It's delayed gratification and it is hard. I mean, every day I'm faced with it. I mean, my wife just sent me an article about aspartame, you know, like drink diet Coke. And, you know, now they're going to label it a carcinogen, a carcinogenic. You know, they're going to label the car. And so she's like, Hey, read this. I'm like, Don't have to read it. I saw the title like, I get it now. Am I going to quit drinking Diet Coke? Well, that's on me, right? I got to figure that out. I just bought one earlier today and I'm like, Yeah, you know, something's going to kill me. But that's the decision. Those are the decisions we're faced with. Do I want if if I want to be healthy, am I going to make the right choices? Yeah, right. Am I going to if I want to bring out the best in the people around me? Am I willing to do that work so that I can show up in a way that helps them show up? Or am I just going to act the way I feel? Because it feels better right now and I'm angry and I want everybody else to feel bad because I'm angry.
Eric Pennington
Yeah, yeah. And I will tell you this, Perry, to your point about, um, what makes life interesting and, and I would say add to that meaningful and dynamic all of the things that I think most everyone is, is wanting, right? Um, if you think about it, it's kind of like a movie or a book. If you read a book or watched a movie where the characters, the main characters always got what they wanted. They got it instantaneously and they never had to worry about. You'd say that'd be the most boring movie, the most boring book ever. But isn't it interesting when it comes to our lives, it seems like a ton of us are, like, just obsessed and striving to make that reality true. And don't get me wrong, Perry, and for your audience as well, I get it. There could be some events in your life that you experienced that were traumatic. I get it. There could be some things. I do not know your story, but I can tell you in my experience, that bull that you just held up with the cracks that have been repaired. That is a more meaningful life in illustration than a perfectly rounded, perfectly, you know, shell, that kind of thing.
Perry Maughmer
Yeah, that's. Well, you just described the hero's journey, right? It's Joseph Campbell. Yeah. That's why it's the foundation of every great movie. You know, something happens. Fall from grace. Go and find yourself. Come back. I mean, every single book or movie that you. That you enjoy is built around that same model, right? Yeah, right. And there's a reason why because as you said, it's the universality of it. Yeah. Because it's so. It's so funny. I work with a lot of people that do. They manage, right? They work in, in a capacity where they have managerial responsibility. And, and I tell them I'm like, okay, just so we understand each other. And this is exactly what you just said. You do understand your job exists because things go wrong. Like, so if everything were to go right as you would like, you would not have a job. Like we would not need people like you if everything went right all the time. And so just I always clear the deck. I'm like, so let's just understand what we can expect. Like we should embrace. These are all this is all job security. Like, the more it goes, the more things go wrong, the more they need you. Um, but we do. We we. It can be argued that all of our frustration in life comes from one thing, and that's that we have an expectation the world doesn't meet. Right. We expect that we get up in the morning and we put our feet on the floor and we envision a perfect day.
Perry Maughmer
And then the minute things start going wrong, we get aggravated. And it's all just about our perception. It's about the way we it's all about our expectations that are false to start with because that perfect day rarely ever happens. Now, I will tell you, I did have a perfect Thursday one time I tell my wife this all the time. We went to Florida and we had a we had we refer to it as the perfect Thursday because everything went swimmingly. So it lives in infamy as a perfect Thursday. But those days don't happen. Right? But it is all about we build this expectation up and I tell I'm like, look, the world never has, never will and doesn't now give a shit what you want. Like it does not care. And nor should it and nor should you expect it to. Because that's what this is. Camus refers to it as the absurdity of life. I mean, we're thrust into we don't have a choice. We're not. We're thrust into life without choice because we didn't choose to be here and be born at this time. But then choice follows us throughout our lives, because from that point forward, we have choice every time we need it, even when it's not the choice that we'd like.
Eric Pennington
Yeah.
Eric Pennington
Yeah. Well said. Well said.
Perry Maughmer
So I got a question for you. Yeah, I'm going to move it up in the list. So tell me how your love of jazz works into how you work with people.
Eric Pennington
Oh, my.
Perry Maughmer
Well, now I'll just. I'll just check out and I'll come back in 20 minutes.
Speaker3
Oh, yeah. I was going to say, see.
Perry Maughmer
Where we're done.
Eric Pennington
Because I could. I could wax on and you know, this. I could wax on for a while, but I'm going to try to be brief.
Eric Pennington
Why had you.
Perry Maughmer
I had you help me with some stuff the other day. And you worked in a miles Davis quote, like just out of the blue.
Eric Pennington
Yeah, I always do that.
Eric Pennington
And some of that is it's selfishly motivated because it reminds me of like, okay, this is for you. Because, you know, here's the thing. I mean, jazz as a genre of music is pretty widespread. I mean, it's not any unlike rock. I mean, there's classic rock, there's heavy metal, you know, on and on and on. So the particular type of jazz that I like, Perry, is something called modal jazz, and that does fit typically into the Miles Davis realm and to the John Coltrane. And there are modern artists now that Matthew Halsall, a British guy, his music is this way. But really what's most powerful about it is if you if you ever listen to that music, not all songs, but there's a general use of of holding notes. And the space in between. And it's that liminal space that has always attracted me. It's the playing of that note and the anticipation of what will be the next and the magic happening in between it. There's a and I'll probably butcher the quote, but Bill Evans, you know, one of the greatest pianists ever, right. They asked him about what he liked most about composing and the type of genre that he was in. And he said it wasn't so much that it was the notes that he played. It was always what was going to come after. And when you think about it in our work anyway, we do oftentimes tell people about the importance of developing a pause.
Eric Pennington
And that's all based on a blend of science and art. The science of it is, is that when you feel an emotion, your brain is going to release all kinds of chemicals, hormones and peptides. And it can vary. I mean, a strong emotion like rage is going to produce different and more intense levels of chemical hormones and peptides than maybe something like apprehension. So it has that variance, but. If we can develop a pause to allow our brains for those chemicals, hormones and peptides to subside. When that happens, it positions our prefrontal part of our brain, the executive function to take over the logic side. Right. Here's a great example, and I've used this before in other settings, is that you and I are driving on a freeway and let's say we're a mile apart, but you get cut off and I get cut off at the same time. You feel fear. I feel anger. That's what my emotion. Your emotion is fear. If Perry, you react immediately while those chemicals, hormones and peptides are flowing, you are more likely to make a bad decision because you are reacting in the moment. Allah, I'm afraid, slam on the brakes right now. Not realizing that maybe there are three cars that are not going to be able to stop in time because of that.
Eric Pennington
Use mine. I'm angry. I was cut off in traffic. I decide I'm going to use my pause. I'm going to wait. Maybe it's five seconds, maybe it's six seconds. Everything starts to calm down. I'm just going to take a deep breath. I'm going to choose to think that maybe that person didn't see me. I'm going to choose to think that there could be something wrong, but I got to get to that meeting. Just. I'm going to chill. I don't think it takes very long for your audience to go. Well, the better decision was obviously. Eric, you pausing, right? Well, guess what? I'm not that special. All of us have been given this to be able to use get it. Some people are not familiar with the tools and they haven't been taught and all that. They haven't learned yet. But this is a learnable thing. So jazz in my mind for my connect is that art of I can wait a little bit. I can allow this thing to calm and then move. And it's always been that sort of descriptor for me that has helped me understand the importance of it. Even in a world that thinks that we should be running until we can't run any longer. Right? That we have to we have to keep going. We have to push, push, push, push.
Perry Maughmer
So it's all about the space in between.
Eric Pennington
Space in between.
Perry Maughmer
Yeah. Yeah. No, the. That. That is. It's Victor Frankel. Right? We have. That's where we exercise choice. That's, you know, that event plus response equals outcome. So we can't choose the event, but we can influence the outcome by our response. And it's being intentional about, again, what what do we want most? And I think it is back to I'm fascinated with psychological flexibility because of the power. And it's I love the three components. You know it's it's sitting with your and you mentioned and I think the I think what we the granularity part of this is you know it says you sit with your emotions and your thoughts and it also the third part is sensations like I don't think we think enough about the physical manifestation of emotion.
Speaker3
Agreed.
Perry Maughmer
Right. The sensations that we feel, the flush, the sweaty palms, the whatever that is, and being aware of why that happens and being able to sit in that moment and think, okay, this is all happening. I'm completely present with all of these things, but I'm going to act in accordance with my values that furthers me towards my goals. I'm still going to I'm still despite all the stuff that's that's churning, I'm still going to act in accordance with my values. And that's the thing. When you give that example about the two people, you know, if we if we really are clear on our values and I'm clear, I have three right. Humility, integrity and courage, those are mine. And so if I'm always going to act, if I always keep those in the front of my mind, no matter what situation I'm in, I'm always asking myself, am I acting with humility and integrity and courage?
Speaker3
Yeah.
Perry Maughmer
And I think that if we all could figure out what that is for us and exercise that intention, that choice. Right. I won't even say discipline because it's really just a matter of choosing and choose to act in alignment with those things. We would we would be at peace with our lives. Much more than we probably are.
Eric Pennington
Yeah, I would agree with that. Perry And again, I was stressed, you know, and I always my heart goes out to those that maybe have never heard it before or who, you know, it's well, you know, I'm not sure I get this the practical side of this equation. You mentioned it in the choosing, right? Um, I far too often I see people who are in this place where there's a belief that it's. It's not all victimhood, but it's like I'm. I'm. I'm rendered to either X or Y, and I believe duality makes sense. And its appropriate place in time. But far more of life is non-dualistic in nature. And. I think our lack of willingness to go to that place, because that implies that there's mystery. I mean, my example of the notes, right, the space in between, there's mystery there. There's anxiety about what could be next. I might think what could be next will be awesome. You might think, I just don't know. I just I you know what? This makes me nervous, right? But going back around to what you said earlier, this intention of you've got to do the work, you can develop this and and for your audience as well. Perry At the beginning, when I began to intentionally work on some of the things that now it's been ten years ago, right? It was clunky, it was embarrassing. It was like, oh my gosh, I got to try again. Oh, my gosh, I got to try again. But just like that brilliant jazz musician, it gets to a place where it's a part of them and they don't even think about it.
Eric Pennington
It's a part of them. Right? Think of your think of the greatest baseball hitters, right? They don't get up to the plate if they're a professional and go, okay, I need to hold the bat at the end where there's a knob, I must put my knees at 45 degrees angle and look straight at No, it's like, okay, I know Perry's pitching today. He's typically going to be throwing sliders. All right, I know what I need to do. If he's going to throw the slider, if he starts throwing curveballs, I need to just position my hips a little different. It's happening. So if a person is committed to the work and continuing that, they'll get to a point where it'll be like that. Things can happen in an instant. You know, someone calls out insults you, you're going to be able to rapidly go, okay, I'm feeling anger right now. Is this the right time for me to say something to Perry or do I need to pause? You know what? Pausing is better because we're an audience of others. Hey, Perry. Hey. Could we talk about this offline? Just. Just you and I? Maybe after the meeting. Great. But five seconds. 10s. Right. I think some people have an illusion that there's this. Okay, now I have to. And, oh, my gosh, I'm not going to be able to. And what happens if this let the clunkiness and the missteps and the embarrassment happen? Because eventually it will be replaced by that mastery that we want?
Perry Maughmer
Yeah. And I think we could we won't. But we could slide into some transcendentalism here because I'm reading right now about Emerson and he they call him the first American stoic. And it's really interesting reading. But I think that I thought about this for a long for quite a while about being in a role where you're leading is one of the ways to look at this is trying to bring forth what the world wants to happen. Right. When you're put into a role in an organization or with a group or with a division or with your home or wherever, it's really it's about sensing what's trying to happen and then allowing that to happen. And to me, that's the ultimate in humility being willing to be taught by the universe and think that the jazz piece falls in because there's very rarely correct me if I'm wrong, a leader in a jazz band.
Eric Pennington
Oftentimes. No. And I'm going to let you continue that thought. And I'm going to give you a Miles Davis story.
Perry Maughmer
Well, go ahead. That's just my theory is that often I think that it's very interesting because I think that leader leadership is evolving into something that you do, not something that you are. I'm very much in my thinking right now is along the lines of this should you should always use the terms lead and manage as verbs and not nouns.
Speaker3
Right. Yeah. Right.
Perry Maughmer
And there's actions you take, but you don't become that thing. So yeah, you could, you could slide in and provide some, provide some leadership at a certain time, but it doesn't become a label or a job or it doesn't become who I am. Like I'm not identified as that. Like it's not my identity. So I can also slip out of it and somebody else can jump in because maybe the timing is better for them and they have a different skill set. So it's much more fluid for and for the for the group, the organization division, whatever. It probably is a lot more powerful that way because we don't identify ourselves as quote unquote, a leader. But go ahead.
Eric Pennington
So this is a story, Miles Davis Quartet. This is in the 1960s one. I mean, he had he was surrounded by brilliant musicians, but there was a young pianist by the name of Herbie Hancock. Right. And he was brilliant then. And they're playing in Germany, somewhere in Germany. And they're on stage. They're going through their numbers. And Herbie Hancock hits the wrong note. And it was very clear that does not belong there. Miles Davis, who was never considered to be one of the sweetest individuals on the planet, looks across the stage at him. And there's interviews out there where Herbie Hancock basically said, I thought I probably ought to get ready to be flying back to the United States. But what Miles Davis did, he followed Herbie Hancock's mistake. He went there and then continued on. They all continued on from that place. And you think about it, it's very conversational in its terms. And many people will say that that form of music is designed to be that way, to be able to take a mistake and to be able to pivot as a group. To that in order to move forward. It wasn't like he pivoted. And then we're going to start all over. It was, he pivoted to navigate something that wasn't expected. To keep what was expected to happen, you know.
Perry Maughmer
Yeah, there was. So I'll tell you this, and I just heard this this morning and I can't remember the gentleman's name. Bo. Bo Lott, I think might be his name. He's a neuroscientist. Okay. And but here's what's interesting, and it aligns with just what you said. He said the goal is not to go from point A to point B when you're on A, the next step is just not A.
Speaker3
Oh, wow.
Eric Pennington
That's. That's, uh. Wow. That's money.
Speaker3
Yeah.
Perry Maughmer
So it follows that. It's like. So it wasn't. It's. The whole point was Miles Davis didn't see. Didn't see a mistake. It was just not. It was not a. Yeah, right. So you're free to move. You're free to innovate. You're free to create when you're not expecting and have a heavy expectation of what comes next and have that already formulated in your mind.
Eric Pennington
And Perry, you've seen it. I was on a podcast a couple of days ago and the conversation about the challenges that young managerial leaders have in environments where there's the pressure that you need to know everything. You need to have an answer for everything. And what this person said that I think was really on Mark was that what that does it It then shifts things to a more egocentric type of leadership, which is I can't be wrong. I need to always be right. And then we kind of went even further. Is that could you imagine someone in a place for ten years? Think about the neural pathways that get created from that. I mean, it's it's really quite sad when you think about it. But I think leaders, managers, whatever you want to call them inside of these organizations, they would do themselves a favor if they could, if they would create environments where. The next step is not a write like you described. If you're playing a, the next thing is not it doesn't have to be. And we have all kinds of tools, Perry, to determine whether or not we're moving forward. I mean, it's not like it's a free for all and nobody can really know is it working or not working?
Perry Maughmer
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I have. I have taken up enough of your time, so. Oh, are you kidding? I took you off track a couple of times. So is there anything a couple final questions. Is there anything that I haven't asked you that I should have asked you?
Eric Pennington
You know what? This is great. And you know, the one danger of me coming on your podcast, Perry, is that we could just keep talking and we can we can go down various paths because we've done it before in other environments. But no, I think I think you've hit them well, you know, one thing I just want your audience to realize is that, you know, regardless of where you're at in this thing called life, whether it's in a professional setting or personal, what matters is what you decide to do now. Like what's what are you going to do next? Because, you know, we can exchange all kinds of great information. You can have all kinds of certification that backs us up and we can quote from books and all the rest. But what did you hear today that made you go? Yeah. Now, what are you going to do with that? That's my hope, because I do believe this is part of the process of helping us move forward culturally. I don't know who's going to be tuning in. I don't know how many listeners and all that other stuff, but who's to say, right? I mean, yeah, and that's, that's important. Um, so I think we've covered some great things.
Perry Maughmer
All right, well, where if people want to get in touch with you, where do they find out more about you? What do they find out more about your work?
Eric Pennington
Sure. Easy part is spirit of X-com If you want to know about the company and what we're involved in. If you have something that you directly want to ask me about, it's just eric@spirit.com and it's Eric with a C.
Perry Maughmer
All right. Awesome. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time out to come on. It's been a great conversation. I appreciate your time.
Eric Pennington
Thanks, Perry. Really appreciate it as well.
Perry Maughmer
All right, everybody. We're wrapping it up. And as always, my only goal is for you to take care of yourself and take care of each other. And we'll see you back here in the lab soon. Thanks.
