110. In the Grip

Summary

The Working Genius Podcast with Patrick Lencioni

Episode 110: In the Grip
Date: April 7, 2026
Host: Patrick Lencioni
Co-Hosts: Cody Thompson, Matt Lencioni

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Episode Overview

Main Theme:
In this episode, Patrick Lencioni and his team dive deep into how the six types in the Working Genius model manifest under stress—a state they call being “in the grip.” The conversation explores how each “genius” morphs from its healthy, positive traits into distinct patterns of frustration or dysfunction when under pressure, and offers practical insight into how individuals and teams can recognize, address, and support these responses to foster healthier collaboration.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Understanding “In the Grip” (00:00–03:58)

• The episode is centered around what happens when someone’s Working Genius is under stress.
• The idea of “in the grip” is borrowed from other personality frameworks, describing how healthy qualities can become negative when unregulated.
• Stress exposes patterns where people overuse or misuse their geniuses, resulting in counterproductive behaviors.

“It’s like the Hulk. He was a strong guy, but when he got too angry, he turned green... It’s not about not being that way. It’s about getting regulated again so it becomes positive.” — Pat (03:10)

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Deep Dive: Each Genius in Stress

1. Wonder (W) – “Loss of Direction, Analysis Paralysis”

Key Segment: 04:10–06:46

• Under stress, Wonder morphs into endless questioning, over-analysis, and a loss of direction.
• Can lead to “analysis paralysis” or being frozen and stuck in their own heads.
• Stressed Wonderers may appear anxious and indecisive to others.

“There’s endless questioning of everything, analysis paralysis, sort of an uncertainty, anxiety spiral. And then within all that comes kind of a loss of direction.” — Matt (04:10) “Either I’ll do nothing, I’ll kind of be frozen and not be able to say, okay, this is the right thing to do. I’ll just be bouncing back and forth.” — Matt (04:35)

• Often confused with procrastination and even ADHD traits.

2. Invention (I) – “Chaos, Urgency”

Key Segment: 06:46–09:15

• Stressed Inventors feel a “sense of urgency” and shift into hyper-invention mode, constantly generating new ideas without settling.
• Results in chaos, moving rapidly from solution to solution with no clear direction.

“What happens when I get stressed out as an I, as an inventor? ... It’s chaos, sense of urgency, and very, very interesting.” — Pat (06:52; 08:16) “...If you have a tool and then you get into stress, you’re going to use that tool... I’ll go into hyper invention mode.” — Pat (08:16)

3. Discernment (D) – “Judgmental, Hypercritical”

Key Segment: 09:46–12:59

• Healthily, Discernment is about critical evaluation; under stress, it becomes hypercritical, judgmental, and unwilling to move forward.
• Can get stuck in perfectionism and become (internally or externally) exasperated with others.
• Sometimes turns discernment toward people (not just ideas), attacking or judging them personally.

“When you’re in a place of being in the grip, it can be like hypercritical... We can get stuck in a loop.” — Cody (09:57) “When I get really stressed, I can get that way. Judgmental, exasperated, hypercritical.” — Pat (10:50)

• The group stresses that these are NOT defects but predictable stress responses.

4. Galvanizing (G) – “Pushy, Impatient”

Key Segment: 13:41–14:47

• Stressed Galvanizers swing from inspiration to being pushy, overly urgent, impatient, even emotional about inaction.
• Can lack grace for others who don’t move or act as quickly.

“That desire to want to see movement can go from inspiring people to move to just, like, absolutely being pushy, impatient. There’s like this premature urgency.” — Cody (13:41)

• Frustration is a key word (though applicable to all six types).

5. Enablement (E) – “Martyrdom, People-Pleasing, Exhaustion”

Key Segment: 15:41–17:16

• Under stress, Enablers overhelp, say “yes” too much, take on martyr roles, or suffer inauthentic positivity until they reach exhaustion.
• Leads to resentment toward others—they keep accommodating at their own expense.

“People pleasing. One word that we used was martyrdom. It’s kind of self-inflicted pain or self-neglect, inauthentic positivity...” — Matt (15:41) “Normally they love helping... In stress they can say yes, too much and too much and too much. And then... it leads to that resentment feeling.” — Cody (16:12)

6. Tenacity (T) – “Rigid, Controlling, Isolated, Burnout”

Key Segment: 17:33–18:34

• In stress, Tenacity shows as rigid, controlling, isolated, and easily burnt out.
• May disdain others’ “laziness,” feel compelled to do everything themselves, and quarantine themselves to just get things done.

“They can be rigid, controlling... isolation. Overwork leads to burnout, anger, impatience... a disgust for laziness.” — Matt (17:33) “When she gets that way, she just goes... locks herself in a room and feels like, I have to quarantine myself because I’m the only one that’s going to finish this.” — Pat (18:10)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On recognizing strengths behind stress:

  “You could be tempted to start labeling them and seeing them as having the faults that are actually indications of their strengths.” — Pat (00:00; 20:46)

• The “pony in the manure” anecdote:

  “That old story, like, there’s a big pile of manure. There’s a pony in there somewhere. And when you look at a person and mostly what you’re seeing is the manure, you can go, there’s really good traits in there somewhere. If we can just help them get out of the stress and the environmental factors, we can see that it’s rooted in something really good.” — Pat (20:46)

• Cody on stereotype language in the notes:

  “Well, I can tell Matt wrote these notes because the first word I see is jerk. They become jerks. No, I’m just teasing.” — Cody (09:46) “But you put jerk in just the two that are mine.” — Cody (14:47)

• On the breakdown of combined talents in stress:

  “I feel like our geniuses kind of stop working together when we’re under stress... they do disconnect from each other.” — Matt (23:14)

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Important Insights & Application

Regulating and Naming Stress (18:34–22:00)

• The traits that show up under stress aren’t “bad”—they’re exaggerated expressions of each genius.
• Leaders and teams can support each other by calling out these behaviors with grace and helping teammates recognize when they’re “in the grip.”
• Using this insight prevents labeling or unfairly judging someone’s character.

Recommendations for Teams (19:46–21:35)

• If a team member’s positive genius turns negative, check for burnout or stress.
• Offer feedback that roots criticism in appreciation for their normal strengths.
• Remember environmental factors (workload, life stress) impact how our genius shows up.

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Working Genius Pairs and Integration (22:00–24:34)

• When in stress, the positive integration between someone’s two geniuses often breaks down.
• For example, a WD (Wonder/Discernment) may get stuck in endless questioning and overthinking, the talents no longer balancing each other.
• The key to health is intentionality: “If you’re a WT, try your best to be intentional about, hey, I’m W-ing something right now, I’m T-ing something right now. Doing them at the same time can be stressful in and of itself.” — Pat (24:18)

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Community and Takeaways

Crowdsourcing insight:
Pat encourages listeners to share their experiences of being “in the grip” and suggests the community develops understanding together (24:57).

Looking ahead:
Pat mentions a future Working Genius conference as a way to bring the community together (25:37).

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–03:58 — Introduction to the "in the grip" concept and stress responses
• 04:10–06:46 — Wonder in stress
• 06:46–09:15 — Invention in stress
• 09:46–12:59 — Discernment in stress
• 13:41–14:47 — Galvanizing in stress
• 15:41–17:16 — Enablement in stress
• 17:33–18:34 — Tenacity in stress
• 18:34–22:00 — The importance of graceful feedback and recognizing stress
• 22:00–24:34 — How genius pairings break down under stress
• 24:34–25:44 — Community, crowdsourcing, and future conference tease

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers a candid, practical look at how even our greatest strengths can turn on us under stress. By naming these patterns and approaching ourselves and others with grace, we can restore the positive power of our geniuses and build stronger teams and relationships. The hosts encourage all listeners—individually, in teams, or with families—to look for the “pony in the manure” and recognize the good at the root of the struggle.

Transcript

[A]

Grace is one of those things that we have to offer people, and it's great when we can root it in what we know to be positive qualities of them. You could be tempted to start labeling them and seeing them as having the faults that are actually indications of their strengths. And if you take the negative thing you see and say there's really good traits in there somewhere, if we can just help them get out of the stress and the environmental factors, we can see that it's rooted in something really good. Because otherwise, people feel like you're expelling them for the very thing that you like about them. Welcome to the Working Genius podcast, where we discuss anything and everything having to do with the six types of working genius and how it impacts your work and your life. I'm Pat Lincione, joined by Cody Thompson, my trusty, wonderful co host from Utah. And Matt Lincione is going to join us, too, our producer, who's very involved in working genius. Cody, what's the topic today?

[B]

Lots of superlatives for me and then nothing for Matt. And then Matt, we have a wonderful. Matt, you're great. I can't wait to have you on here. But the topic today is working genius in the grip.

[A]

That's right, in the grip in stress. How do our geniuses manifest themselves when we get stressed out? And we're going to go through this based not just on our pairs, but we're going to do it letter by letter. And, Matt, you were involved in the conversation when this topic came about. Tell me about that.

[C]

It started out with us trying to figure out if we had to pick, like, a word for each one, what would that word be? What happens when a genius is under stress? Well, we were talking about whether or not we could do it based on pairings or based on individual geniuses. And we found that there are qualities that are from individual geniuses in this sense, but also that they kind of go together in terms of the stages of work. So ideation, activation, implementation. There's some similarities between the way that the geniuses within each stage operate under stress.

[A]

All right, so let's go through them from top to bottom, then starting with ideation, and let's talk about wonder.

[B]

One other note that I would make before we dive in, Pat, is just that what we were doing was observing people. You know, we think through the lens of working genius. We're like, this is how a normal person with wonder and invention acts. Like typically. And then we would have these encounters with people. We're like, why is that coming across in A different way, like, oh, that doesn't seem to totally match exactly how we have experience wonders and inventors. And so then it started to morph into, like, well, I think that person's at this stage of their life where maybe they're more stressed out. Oh. And that's why we're experiencing these sort of anomalies around their. The way they show up to meetings or the way they show up to work or how they're processing, you know, the things in their life. And that's what led us to go like, oh, there's clearly something here as it relates to someone being in the grip or in stress. I think the word in the grip, Pat, doesn't that. Didn't that come from a. From another personality instrument you used to use?

[A]

I thought that was the working styles.

[B]

Working styles. Okay.

[A]

I think maybe Myers Briggs talks about being in the grip too, but I think it's working styles. Yeah.

[B]

So there's obviously something here, like, in human behaviors across all the assessments, like, hey, here's what it looks like when you're in a healthy sort of state of peace, and then here's how it can morph when you're not. When you're a little bit stressed out or a little off. Off center.

[A]

Yeah. And I think one of the things that happens when we get stressed is we don't do a very good job of regulating our behavior. And regulating just means, like, doing it from a healthy standpoint. It's like the Hulk. He was a strong guy, but when he got too angry, he turned green. And I don't know what else he did. I think he was strong before he turned green. Right. He was a strong guy.

[B]

No, he's.

[C]

No, he was a scientist.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, so he was not like a strong. So his was not just regulating. He changed completely.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah. Which actually, I think is a cool distinction to make because I like how we say in the grip because it's not, oh, you're this type. So here's what's good about you and here's what's bad about you. It's when you're in that mode, when you're under stress, when you're not operating in your geniuses, when you're frustrated, whatever it is that is, when the negative downstream effects of that happen.

[A]

Got it. So it's not about not being that way. It's about getting regulated again so it becomes positive. Okay, so the wonderer we know a lot of. Matt, you're a wanderer. What happens when a wanderer gets into the grip?

[C]

I think if we had to pick a word it would be. Or a handful of words it would be loss of direction is kind of where we went with it. There's endless questioning of everything, Analysis, paralysis, sort of an uncertainty, anxiety spiral. And then within all that comes kind of a loss of direction.

[A]

Right. Can you relate to this?

[C]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

So tell us. So you get really stressed out. You're a wonder. How do we see that?

[C]

Either I'll do nothing, I'll kind of be frozen and not be able to say, okay, this is the right thing to do. I'll just be bouncing back and forth.

[A]

Anxious often in your own head, right?

[C]

Oh, yeah, often internally. Mostly internally, I'd say. And again, it, you know, I always make this qualification. It's. I am also a wd. So there's certain things that I'll describe about wonder that kind of have to do with my second genius, because that's the only way I've ever experienced wonder is in. Is through the lens of my other genius as well. Like a WG would probably vocalize those things more than I would being a wd. But yeah, I can relate to all of these things for sure.

[A]

You know, there's a guy I know out in California and he is doing some research around W&ADHD and kind of that paralysis that. His thinking is that people that are wonderers often get misdiagnosed or thought of as having a disorder, when in fact, it's just very natural for them to question things and to get kind of caught up in things. So it's an interesting thing. When we get into the grip, a W might very well do that. And would you consider yourself a procrastinator, Matt and Laura, my wife, your mother, is a W and she procrastinates. But I think it's a lot in her mind, she's just kind of going back and when things get kind of stress, she gets caught up in there. And so I think that's a very common thing. What were you going to say, Cody?

[B]

Well, I just think it's fun to juxtapose the healthy version of wonder, which is like, questions are great and they really start, like, searching the world for potential and ask really, like, provocative questions to say, are we solving the right thing? In a in the grip moment, those questions can become like, almost. They're not necessarily in service of invention. They're just sort of spiraling. I like that you use that word, Matt. Like, I just sort of stick in this space of constant questioning without any real solution or movement towards, like, A solution.

[A]

Yeah. And it's interesting because W is a beautiful thing. It's curiosity and, and, and, and, and pondering things and then it can slide into skepticism. Oh, I don't think this is ever going to work, so. Very interesting, very interesting. Okay.

[C]

Actually one other thing is the more stressed I am as a W, the let. The more I switch around and bounce around between things.

[A]

Got it. Back and forth. It's so great for people to know that because then they can go, oh, I'm actually doing this because my type is in stress. But this is not like a horrible defect. It's actually a predictable indicator of who I really am. So then you can take off some of that guilt and some of that anxiety about like, what's wrong with me. Okay. I'm an I, we'll go to the next one within, within ideation. And this is an interesting thing because what happens. And I don't, I haven't really thought a lot about this, but what happens when I get stressed out just as an I, as an inventor? And it says here a sense of urgency. Like, ah, we gotta, we gotta come up with an idea, changing my ideas and have a hard time settling on a plan. When you guys had this conversation. Matt. What, what? Tell me more about that.

[C]

Well, I think the best word to describe it is chaos. And that's definitely what it feels like when you're under stress.

[A]

Got it.

[C]

I think it's more obvious when a disruptive genius is under stress because like I, like I made that distinction between discernment and galvanizing. You're gonna, you're gonna see it more with a disruptive genius. And I think when, when you're under stress, it does feel like chaos. It's urgency that we don't always quite understand new ideas when we might not have finished our last one and just constantly changing goals.

[A]

Got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like I hyper rely on invention. Like, it's kind of like if you have a tool and then you, you get into stress, you're going to use that tool. It's like I'm going to keep digging or I'm going to keep hammering or I'm going to keep unscrewing things and when I'll just keep, I'll go into hyper invention mode and it's like, I don't think that's actually going to get you out of this. I think you're just stressed. But I can see that now. It's like chaos, but chaos in a very. What about this? What about this? Then? Let's do this. Let's try this. It's like, I don't think we need another idea. I think we just need to take a breath.

[B]

I wonder if it's sort of rooted in this idea that, like, hey, I'm throwing out a bunch of solutions that will hopefully ease my stress. Like, typically, people with invention, it's not like they're going to carry that solution through to its final, you know, destination. They're like. It's almost like, you know, when we talk about an inventor loves, like, craves sort of freedom to create. It's this chaotic freedom of, like, let's just throw everything out there and see if anything helps.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. The hose is running. Nobody's drinking out of it. I know. I'll turn it up. Yeah, I'll make it go really hard. That's an interesting. And as an inventor, and I'd love to hear from inventors out there, it's like how we can get into hyperdrive. Invention mode, chaos, sense of urgency, and very interesting. I can relate to that. I can relate to that. Okay, here's a letter all three of us have, and that is discernment. D. And so what happens, Cody, when a discerner gets stressed out?

[B]

Well, I can tell Matt wrote these notes because the first word I see is jerk. They become jerks. No, I'm just teasing. It's. It does say that. I'm not teasing about that.

[A]

Oh, I just say, yes, it does.

[B]

It doesn't feel as much of a personal attack as I. As I made it sound. So discernment. You know, obviously, the healthy form is like, hey, evaluating ideas, and it can come across as being, like, somewhat critical. When you're in a place of being in the grip, it can be, like, hypercritical. You know, I can, like, like, really just tear people's ideas apart instead of elevate them or vet them or try to make them better. I can overthink. Like, I think discerners can get stuck in a loop. It's not a questioning loop, maybe, but it's maybe a search for the perfect. Like, oh, what if it's not perfect? Like, it's. You know, we don't want to move forward, we can overthink. It can be skeptical or cynical, unwilling to move forward, I guess, like, if there's a. If we're not totally convinced, it's the exact right thing. And then judgmental is probably another word.

[A]

I think judgmental is interesting because we talk about people with D have good instincts and good judgment. So when they get stressed, then they become judgmental, which is not a good thing, but it's rooted in the same thing. And I know when, as a discerner, when I get stressed, I will just, like, get exasperated by somebody who doesn't see it the way I do and just be like, roll my eyes like, oh, gosh, you really think that's going to work? Which is horrible. But that's. I think when I get really stressed, I can get that way. Judgmental, exasperated, hypercritical.

[B]

The other thing that I found interesting is we were reading those things is a lot of times we talk about discernment as it evaluates an idea. So you can get judgment, you can have good judgment around the idea in stress. Sometimes I feel like people use discernment to attack other people because you can, like, you can see the flaw, or you can go right to the, like, hey, this is why that person is saying, you know what I mean? Like, it uses the same sort of tenants, but it's not about like, oh, let's make this idea better. They can be hypercritical of people or the flaws in people, or at least maybe if you're listening to this and you have discernment and that doesn't resonate with you, maybe it's just me. So.

[A]

Well, I think that all of these, all of these taken to an extreme, what you can do is judge people who don't have the things you have and think there's something that's how. Why we came up with working genius, or one of the reasons we thought it was important is because it keeps us from judging other people.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it keeps us from, you know, the fundamental attribution here by. By saying you have a character flaw when it's just a different style. So all of these can be used to attack or judge other people. You can use them as a weapon, but some in different ways than others.

[C]

Yeah. And some of these do sound extreme. I think because of what I mentioned earlier about how we're not describing all discerners, that all discerners are like this. We're saying that a discerner under stress, these are the ways that they might show up. So we did have a little bit more freedom to use stronger words because we're not just straight up describing people, we're describing how it comes across in stress. Yes.

[A]

It's interesting. You could take a class of people, people like horrible people in the world, like some dictator, horrible dictator from the past, and they would do it differently based on their working genius. It's kind of frightening. You Know what I mean? And it's like, how would you see them? Yeah, this is the grumpiest, meanest, most cruel person in the world. Well, maybe a wi cruel person and an ET Cruel person would go about it differently. I mean, I laugh because it's so frightening, but we're not saying that a person is cruel if they do this, but how do you act when you get unregulated? So it's pretty interesting. Okay, Cody, you're the only G, not only on this call, but in our entire company, so why don't you tell us what a G does when they get stressed?

[B]

Well, it says jerk here again, Matt. No, I'm just kidding. No, it's pushy, definitely. That. That desire to want to see movement can go from, like, inspiring people to move to just, like, absolutely being pushy, impatient. There's, like, this premature urgency. It can often mean, like, if people aren't moving in that direction, we can lack grace for people. And we can even be a little bit emotional around inaction. Like, hey, I'm not, like, I'm frustrated by this. Actually, the word frustration is not in there. And maybe that's just a personal thing, but that would probably be one too of, like, I get frustrated when people don't move. And, you know, from, like, when I'm galvanizing or I want to see movement, it can frustrate you if there's no action.

[A]

You know what I just thought of, Cody? You just had frustration. I think all of these are about how these different types express frustration.

[C]

That was why we left that word out of the specific, because we had it down for, I think, three of them. And we were like, wait. Actually, frustration is what we're describing from all of these.

[B]

But you put jerk in just the two that are mine.

[A]

No, mine's in there, too. Hey, you know what else I was thinking? I was thinking about sometimes we're appropriately unregulated. Like, in an emergency, like, you're on a boat and it's sinking. Okay. Or there's something going on. And it's interesting how these will play out. Like, Cody, you would be the one that takes the person by the seat of the pants and tosses them into the boat and goes, I don't have any more time for this. You're going to go, that's a galvanizer. Okay? It's an emergency. I'm galvanizing you. You're doing this. And every type has a different way of doing that. So I think sometimes. Sometimes it doesn't have to be even In a, in a mean way. It could be like literally in an emergency. Interesting. Okay, neither of us have E or T, so how. And we've talked to Tracy and Karen about this though, because they have E. What does an E do when they get stressed out? Matt?

[C]

People pleasing. One word that we used was martyrdom. It's kind of self inflicted pain or self neglect, inauthentic positivity. Some at times over emotional or even to the point where they resent other people if they're frustrated for a while.

[A]

This is a hard thing to, to see when you know somebody who's an E and they get really frustrated and they, they'll go, I'll just do it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, and you're like, oh no. Because it's so out of character for them.

[C]

The larger scale word that we used was exhaustion.

[B]

I think that people pleasing thing. If a person with enablement and stress, normally they love helping, they love coming alongside, they love supporting. And in stress they can say yes, too much and too much and too much. And then without anybody sort of understanding or seeing them as like, well, I'm over investing in you. I have nothing left. I'm doing it for you. And then it leads to that sort of that resentment feeling, you know, like, hey, this is, can you, can't you not tell that I'm not doing well? And you guys keep asking me for things and I'm wired to say yes to that. And then it builds up this sort of resentment.

[A]

Yes. And it's really hard to see somebody who's an E get resentful because they don't do it very often. So it's, you know, they don't have to do much to. Sometimes there can be a little bit of like they might, I don't know if passive aggressive is a wrong term, but they, they can go about doing it in a way where they're like you said, resentful. And it's hard to experience because they're like usually so accommodating. And now they're, they're pretty frustrated that they have to accommodate you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

This episode is really interesting because we're getting into like, oh, the hard parts of this. And then what about T? Now between the three of us, we have half of a T. So what does a person with T do when they get frustrated?

[C]

They can be rigid, controlling. One word that we wrote down to was isolation. Overworked leads to burnout, anger, impatience. And then one, one word that we came back to was a disgust for laziness.

[A]

I wonder what that's like, I wonder what that's like. You know, Steph on our team is a T, and she's been working like crazy. And I know that when she gets that way, she just goes, you guys put isolation here, I think. And she can go and be by herself and just go, oh, I gotta get this done. And she's getting it done, but she's burning out and she's frustrated, and yet she just kind of locks herself in a room and feels like, I have to quarantine myself because I'm the only one that's going to finish this. And it's interesting because she doesn't like that. It's when she's overburdened that she gets that way. But. But now I can see that. That there are people like that that might be how they would react to that.

[B]

I think it's interesting, Pat, you know, we just went through all these words, and if you're working, you know, like Steph, when we've all experienced her, that's a great example. When she is in a place of more balance, all of those words change to, like, it's not rigid. It's like, you know, disciplined, really committed. It's disciplined and controlling is like, oh, I'm just committed to finishing this. And, you know, all of those take on a whole different meaning. And so if you're a leader or you're on a team and you're seeing a person next to you, a team member, sort of characterized by some of these negative words, like, it's. It might just be that they're in a place of unbalance. Like, they're. They're stressed out. Maybe they're. They're just like the in the grip language. I like that because it doesn't just mean stress. It could mean a variety of things. But giving people this language to say, like, hey, I've noticed, like, if it were me, and you guys said, hey, your discernment is normally pretty additive to our conversations. It seems like it's kind of tipped the scales to, like, hypercritical and judgmental. Is something going on, you know, and allowing room for people to say, yeah, I'm sorry, I know that's not how I'm trying to show up, but I've got all this stuff happening that I. That I'm. I'm in the grip.

[A]

Yeah. Grace is one of those things. It's that we have to offer people, and it's great when we can root it in what we know to be positive qualities of them. It's so much easier to go to somebody and say what you just said. And that's. I see this thing in you that's usually a positive thing. And I think it's not that far from this, but maybe it's going a little too far. And I think it's a lot easier to hear that. But if you just went to somebody and said, gosh, you're impatient or you're controlling or you're, you know, you're too urgent, but you don't realize, well, I'm a g. So you guys usually like my urgency. Maybe I'm just a little in the grip right now, because otherwise people feel like you're. You're expelling them for the very thing that you like about them.

[B]

And it leads to conversation about, like, you know, burnout, stress. Those. Those environmental factors that, you know, those are. Those are. Exist on every team. And we often talk about our wiring, but we don't often talk about the, like, environmental factors that will affect how you show up.

[A]

Gosh, imagine if you met somebody who was in a place in their life. You just met them, but they were in a generally stressful place in their life. You would start to. You. You could be tempted to start labeling them and seeing them as. As having the faults that are actually indications of their strengths. And you go, man, that person's really. And you could pick any of these things. And if you take the negative thing you see and say, boy, you know, that old story, like, there's a big pile of manure. There's a pony in there somewhere. And when you look at a person and mostly what you're seeing is the manure, and you can go, there's really good traits in there somewhere. If we can just help them get out of the stress and the environmental factors, we can see that it's rooted in something really good.

[B]

It must be a really old story, because I've never heard the horse hiding and manure story, but.

[A]

Oh, oh. It's a story about optimism and the person that. They're like, I really want a pony. I really want a pony. And they go. And somebody goes, here, let me show you what I got you. And they open the door and there's a big pile of manure. And they're like, there must be a pony in there somewhere. Always looking for the good. You know what I mean?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I wish I had a better understanding of how that works. But, you know, there's people that are like that. I know people that see grace, and they're like, man, that person's really impatient. Urgent. You know, I bet they're just have really high standards and want to see the best in people. And I bet if we could just calm them down, we could turn that into a positive attribute. Yeah, let's apply this in the. In the couplings, and let's just do our three here. So, Matt, wd, so we take yours, which is endless questioning of everything. Maybe analysis paralysis, along with overthinking. Skeptical. The combination of those two creates a pretty unique WD stress ball. Right.

[C]

For me, I think it's like confused or judgmental or frozen. I don't know the best word to describe how they interact with each other. But as we've been going through this conversation, I think actually one thing that. And this is, again, a wonder thought. Is I feel like our geniuses kind of stop working together when we're under stress. Like, when I think about you, I feel like your invention doesn't really talk to your discernment the way that it does naturally when you're outside a stressful situation. Same thing with Cody. Discernment and galvanizing. I feel like they usually go together, but I feel like if we're talking about an idea or you're trying to get people to act under a bunch of stress, I feel like they don't work together the way they're. They're meant to.

[A]

That would kind of make sense. They kind of disintegrate, if you will. That's really interesting, even for a wd,

[C]

Even though those are both internal processes that are kind of similar in nature, I feel like they do disconnect from each other. I feel like I'll get stuck in wonder, and I'll either be. I mean, they look sort of similar in the way that it's.

[A]

It.

[C]

They both kind of involve overthinking and kind of a retreat to the internal.

[A]

But, you know, we did a podcast recently about geniuses that have a lot of separation between them. And of course, WT is the biggest one. It. And we are two that are pretty far apart. And what's interesting about that is people that are. When they're very far apart, just the disconnect between the two can cause a little bit of stress. And so the advice I always give people is, like, if you're a wt, try your best to be intentional about, hey, I'm w Ing something right now. I'm teeing something right now. Doing them at the same time can be stressful in and of itself.

[C]

I think the word intentional is important, too, because one thing that we talked about was that we tend to regress to where we're most comfortable. And I don't think that place that we regress to is a place of being intentional about using both of our geniuses together.

[A]

Yeah, that's probably true. When we get into stress, we're not, like. We're not integrating those. This is interesting. This is one of those deep conversations that I know we love our audience because these are people that have been. A lot of them have been certified, and they're people that are using this, and they're using it in their personal lives. And so this is kind of like a. What do you call that when people develop things with the. With the public involved?

[B]

Crowdsource.

[A]

Yeah, crowdsourcing. Boy, my vocabulary has been really limited lately, but crowdsourcing. And so we love the fact that there's people out there thinking about this, like, 30,000 people going, oh, how do I act in stress? And we do want to encourage you, if you have any insights around this stuff, shoot us an email, because we'd love to see that. We learn a lot from that, and it is fun. And I'm going to say something. I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I'm going to do it. We are going to have a conference one day for Working Genius, where we're going to get, like, 10,000 people together in a big old room with breakouts and conversations because there's so many people using this in the world. And so we are going to get together and that. Give us the date of that code. No, we don't have a date yet, but we'll be in Nashville.

[B]

Chaos and urgency and constantly.

[C]

I think that's. I think Pat might be under stress at the moment.

[A]

I'm just going to pick a random date, but anyway, I can't wait for that day. That'll be really fun to get a bunch of people together. All righty. Hey, everybody. Thanks for joining us. We love talking about working genius, and we look forward to seeing you one day in person. Until then, take care and God bless.