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- [00:00]
A
When you're having fun or working in your genius, time speeds up. Have you ever gone to work and said, I can't believe how fast this day has gone by? It's usually because you're working in your genius, and that means you're having fun. If your employees aren't having fun, it's like, well, let's give them more perks or have more social time. Those are the generic surface level fun. But when you give people the opportunity to have fun in what they're doing, everything changes. It's like, how do I, by understanding somebody's working genius, make their job fun for 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. I got Cody here. We're your hosts. And what are we going to talk about today, Cody?
- [00:45]
B
Man, I graduated from co host to host, Pat, just like that. That was there.
- [00:50]
A
It was that. What do they call that? Battlefield promotion.
- [00:53]
B
Okay, well, let's get into it. I'm going to step up my game. We're just talking about. Working genius is fun. Fun.
- [00:59]
A
I just never thought about the fact that you're the co host. Don't get a big head here, Cody. You're just the co host.
- [01:07]
B
I just printed new business cards, actually, so.
- [01:10]
A
Well, if you're the co host, it means we're both co hosts, right?
- [01:13]
B
That's right. That's right.
- [01:15]
A
All right, I'm your co host. Joined by my co host. Okay. Working genius is fun. What a lame title, right? It sounds so obvious, and yet it's not. This is really interesting because the point here is that when you really think about it, when we say fun and people think about amusement parks and, like, you know, generic things, one person's fun is another person's misery. And a great way to look at life is that we are meant to have fun as much as we can. And. And it's usually your working genius that helps us figure out what that is. Right, Cody?
- [01:54]
B
Yeah, I actually like kind of leaning into this angle a little bit more, Pat, because we often talk about the joy and energy. I think even in the world of work, people are using. They use different language for this. Some people, I think, call it like, oh, there's a flow state, or there's a. We're all trying to find the right language for saying, what is it like when you are working, what's supposed to not be necessarily fun, but you're enjoying it? And I think it Has a lot to do with working genius and the type of work that you're doing.
- [02:23]
A
Yes, yes, totally. Which is really crazy because you say the word fun, and there's these, you know, thought bubbles that pop up of what people are talking about. It is crazy how some people think some things are fun that I just are. Like, that does not sound fun to me at all. And I wrote up some stuff around this, and then Tracy looked at it and added a bunch of notes that were so much better than ours. And I said to Matt, we should force Tracy to be on this podcast. And Matt said, no, if you care about her, don't make her do it, because she. And it's interesting. And Matt actually said, well, Matt, why don't you tell us what you said because you can describe it better about how we can apply this concept to the actual recording of this podcast.
- [03:03]
C
Well, I mean, in terms of the fun idea, it's not quite as connected, but working genius is what kind of allows us to make the process fun in terms of getting the podcast done. Like, this is our job. This is work. But just the way that you talk about the way you ideate around whatever the topics are. Then we have a quick conversation with Tracy, Karen, Cody, and we kind of workshop them a little bit. And then Tracy molds everything. She takes whatever you've written down and adds things, twists concepts so that they make more sense with the string, with the overarching topic, and then gives them back to you. And the whole process is awesome. Like, even for me, just as a discerner, being in those meetings and then taking what Tracy gives us and then figuring out how to kind of communicate it to you and prep you guys for the episode. Everything that we do around the podcast really is dictated by what our working geniuses are and the process. I mean, I speak for myself. I can tell with you and Tracy and Cody. I can't tell with Cody, but I think the process is fine.
- [04:07]
A
Yeah, this is fun, but we've taken the kind of roles of this. If you changed all of our roles around and you said, do you like doing podcasts? We would go, no, because I'm not doing. But you say to me, come up with a new idea around podcasts. And I'm like, oh, that's so fun. I can go home at night, the night before and think I get to come up with a new idea. And then. And the way you just described it all fits. Our working geniuses, and that's why we like to do it. And then Cody likes to. He Always jokes, are you prepared, Cody? And he's like, I'm more than prepared. Means he's glanced at the topic and he's ready to go because he loves that real time discernment and galvanizing like. And he's always the one that says, okay, what advice would we give people then? And how could they use this? So again, we get to organize our work to be. And we don't like to use that word because it sounds so. So juvenile almost. But work is meant to be fun. It's meant to be enjoyable. And what Tracy wrote here, which I love it, she says, when you're in your frustration, it really kills your fun. And it doesn't just drain your energy, it blocks your joy. Fun disappears when our working frustrations dominate our work. And, man, I do think that if you're a manager, you should look at your people that work for you and say, how can I make the work they're doing as fun as possible? And your cheat code for that is working genius. Hey, can you guys hear the leaf blower outside my window?
- [05:35]
B
Not too bad. Can you put the mic closer? Because I'd love to hear it. Those are my favorite. I think this topic's super interesting, and I even think we're obviously doing it in the context of working genius. But I think that when people hear this, the aversion might be not with working genius and fun, but that the words work and fun don't go together. I think people generally, it's sort of like a let's go higher up when we say, hey, work can be fun. I think people have a visceral reaction to that. I think they're like, no, we've been told our whole lives that's not true. So we have to believe that that's not true. And working genius gives you a whole new way of kind of recasting what that could look like. And I do think, like, in a world where you're a manager and that you're not, you're not seeing your team members or the people on your team experiencing a lot of joy. Working genius is a great way to say, like, hey, is there a way for us to do this differently, where you will experience joy and actually have fun doing it?
- [06:34]
A
You know, Cody, one of the things that. That Tracy said about this is that when you're. When you're having fun or working in your genius, time speeds up, engagement feels natural. Have you ever gone to work and said, I can't believe how fast this day has gone by? It's usually because you're working in your genius, and that means you're having fun. Tracy said most people think about, like, if you're. If your employees aren't having fun, it's like, well, let's give them more perks or have more social time or more. And it's like, those are the generic surface level fun. But when you give people the opportunity to have fun in what they're doing, everything changes. And so I think we should make that word actually part of our lexicon in management. It's like, how do I, by understanding somebody's working genius, make their job fun for them? There's nothing light or soft about that.
- [07:24]
B
Yeah, I kind of love the idea that, like, the way we have tried to solve this is in the margins of work. Like, oh, hey, it's somebody's birthday, so let's have cheesecake for lunch, or, hey, let's do a happy hour after work. So they're basically saying, like, the middle part, the big chunk of the nine hours that you're working can't be fun. So let's, like, pepper in these moments of fun, and hopefully that will sustain you and actually overcome the rest of the misery. And what we're saying is. No, there's an anecdote to the middle part. Like, the main thing that you're doing at work can be energizing for you if you understand this and kind of lean into it more.
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A
Absolutely. Hey, let's go back and look at activities, because I think what's really interesting about this is when people say they like to do something, and. And I just can't. Like, there's people that say I love cooking, and what they're saying is, cooking is really fun for them. And I have almost no insight into that. Like, I can't empathize with that because cooking has never seemed fun to me. And then I thought, well, if I had to cook, is there something. If you looked at my work in Genius of Invention and Discernment, what would be the most fun thing I could do around cooking? And it's if somebody said, hey, let's make a game of this. You have to come up with a dish that nobody's ever had before.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Then I'd be like, oh, okay. That would be kind of fun because I'd look at what are all the ingredients and what would we do? And what would be something that would. And then maybe if it was like. And then you have to actually make a list of the top eight dishes in the world for your family. But the idea of actually doing the cooking is paralyzing to me because there's so many things in it that. That I just don't have geniuses in.
- [09:14]
B
What's funny is, as you were telling that story, I was thinking about, we just had a company dinner at a restaurant in Franklin, and they organized the menu based on the five dysfunctions of a team. And I remember how, like, excited you were about the. You would love coming up with the menu. You know, like, you would love. Oh, what's a creative way we could present these things based on, you know, I saw how much you appreciated what they did, you know, to connect it to our work and to your books. Or maybe you might even like some of those, like, chef shows where you have to, like, run in and grab the ingredients and come up with something on the fly.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And I think about cooking, like, you know, my wife, who has tenacity, and maybe even people who have enablement tenacity, I think they might like baking more than cooking because it's, like, precise measurement. Right. Like, it's one cup of flour. It is, you know, half a cup of this. And so there's like, this. This conclusiveness to it. Like, if you do all these elements the right way, it's going to turn out great. But I like, kind of evaluating how could you go about the same activity in different ways based on your working genius? Because you're totally right. It's not going to be fun for everybody if you do it the same way.
- [10:26]
A
You know, it's funny. Fishing is something a lot of people think is fun, and I am really looking forward to going fishing this year. I haven't fished since I was a child, but the. But the reason why is because I want to go fishing with somebody else that I really like to just sit and talk to. And it's a really good way of having that time with a little bit of distraction. And probably if I have a good conversation, we don't catch any fish, it'll be just fine. And if we caught a bunch of fish. But I were with somebody I didn't like having, like, a deep conversation with or coming up with a new idea that would not be fun. And yet there are other people that love the mechanics of fishing, and they love the, like, when I fly fish and I cast it in the right way and it really works. And there's probably some amount of tenacity and even wonder and galvanizing. It's just so funny how to act. Two people can be engaged in the same activity and find it fun or not. Fun based on what you're doing. I even golf, Cody. Like, golf is pretty fun, right? But for me, it's fun when I. When. When I get to, like, design it. Like, let's play scrambles, and then let's play your best ball, and then let's do it the backward way and coming up with a new game. And. And my friends who are teased really are like, no, I want to get a better score. I want to go into the clubhouse at the end and go, I took three strokes off my. Off my game. And so it's just so funny how we can take activities and realize one, why some people think it's fun. I even thought of another one. Cody. I thought about bird watching. I mean, there's so many people in the world who like bird watching. They really do.
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B
Can't wait till you get into your bird watching phase, Pat. I'm excited for this.
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A
I hope you'll come and visit me and change my diaper when you. When I do, because for me, that would be just beyond my. But I live in a place where there's a lot different birds now. It's really pretty cool. But I could never go bird watching unless I thought, like, okay, Pat, how could somebody make bird watching fun for you if they said you get to rename all the birds? Like, every time a bird comes up, you come up with a different name that you think suits the way that bird looks, because it would tie into my invention and discernment.
- [12:28]
B
You know, it's funny. I don't think I've ever been golfing with you where you haven't tried to change the rules or reinvent golf as a whole. Like, you'll. You'll. We'll be out on the course, and you'll be like, you know, golf should really be 13 holes and not 18. I mean, you're really trying to redo the whole thing. And I've quit golf with you many times after the 13th hole because you're ready to move on, you know? Yeah, it's funny because we talked about how to make work more fun. But even there are so many people, managers that will plan a golf trip or plan a outing and not consider working genius even as a part of that, because it really does play into it. So it's sort of like a barbecue is not a barbecue is not a barbecue or a golf outing or a dinner, all of those things. With the context of working genius, you can actually leverage that to make it more impactful and more enjoyable for people based on knowing who they are. And what they. What gives them life?
- [13:22]
A
Yeah. Isn't that interesting? We should even look at, like, we're going on vacation. Okay, who do we have going there? How do we organize it so we're actually allowing people to participate in that according to their geniuses, because that will be the definition of fun. You know, it's funny, Cody, because my wife and I wrote a book. We got to get it published. We wrote this book 30. Oh, goodness gracious, 35 years ago.
- [13:43]
B
A publisher who has published dozens of your other books.
- [13:46]
A
I don't know how I know it. I know it tells you something about us not having any tea in our family, but. But what we talked about is when you go on vacation, you should have a mission. And people were like, what are you talking about? It's like. And for Laura and I, she's a wi and I'm an id. We went to Italy and we said, all we're going to do is it's a cultural experience vacation. We're going to sit on a park bench, talk to people, see what life is like, eat a lot of gelato, walk around. We're not going to go to museums. We're not going to go do historical stuff. There may be a little that creeps in, but we are just there to kind of experience, ask questions about why people live the way they do and kind of evaluate what day to day life is like for people. I know other people like GTs, and we, we have friends are like, we should go to Italy together. And we're like, oh, no, because you're going to get up at 8 in the morning and by noon you're going to have done this and you're going to research a restaurant that you're going to do, and then you're going to get this other tour. And. And she was like, yeah, I would totally do that. And it's like working genius even determines what a fun vacation is. It's just so crazy how this really permeates. Like, we thought about calling it the six types of doing genius. Just doing anything. Just it's the verb. What kind of verbs do you like? Such an interesting, interesting way to think about things.
- [15:09]
B
Well, and I think like, two phrases Tracy put in the notes are like, this is energizing or this is painful. And both of those things, you know, when we're talking about the context of work, I am blown away how often we present the idea of working genius to a team and one person is doing an activity for that team that they find painful. And just by introducing the Concept a person sitting across the table is like, that sounds like energizing to me. Can I do that? And somehow we have, like, it's part like that we don't have the right context for teamwork. It's part that we think if something is miserable for us, it's going to be miserable for somebody else. So I am doing the honorable thing by continuing to fall on this sword on behalf of the team over and over again, when really, if we were just to hold all of work up and say, hey, our goal as a team is to get this done, to succeed in this arena. Let's divide it up not based on what we got hired for necessarily, or what our job description said. In with the target on the wall being success, somebody can say, hey, that energizes me. I don't even feel. I don't feel drained when I do that work. Can you give that to me? I mean, you had this happen in the Franklin office. Like, people who got hired for different roles just opted into grabbing more work based on their working genius.
- [16:33]
A
Yeah. And they're like, oh, gosh, please let me have more fun. You know what I was thinking, Cody? There's no way to measure this, but I think the most successful companies are probably the ones that figure out how to allow people to. To have the most fun in alignment with what the goals of the organization are. In other words, I'm sure there's some, like, if you could have a fun meter, and it doesn't. And people think this means you get to bring your dog to work and you have a ping pong table. No, that's not it. It's that everybody is doing the things in alignment with the mission that are fun for them.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Like, you go to a restaurant and restaurants are fascinating to me because it's so tangible. And you look around and there's a host or a hostess who's like, trying to get people greeting people and figure out where they should sit and checking in with them. And then you have your servers, and then you have the guys and gals in the kitchen that are the sous chefs and then the one that's back there cooking, and then you have your. And it's like, if you put them in the kind of roles where they're all having fun, the place is a blast to work at. But if they're not in those roles, you can that same restaurant with the same food, you go in there and the host is just worried about where people are going to sit. They don't enjoy the puzzle of it. You know what I mean? They're annoyed by it. And the sous chef is like, because cooks in a kitchen have to be precise. That's one of the most important things. And they're like, I just want to make stuff up. And it's like, yeah, that's why a person can come here nights in a row, and one night it's great, and the next night it's not good. That's no good. And the server is annoyed because they don't have E. And so when somebody says, oh, I think you got my order wrong, they're ashamed and frustrated. And it's just so interesting how you take any business and say, to what extent do you have people in the seat on the bus that's allowing them to have fun? That may be a better predictor of overall success than anything else.
- [18:30]
B
I mean, we probably could have done a whole podcast on this concept alone, which is you actually can't measure some of the things that matter the most. Like fun. There's no measurement. For now, that restaurant is probably measuring table turnover, time, order accuracy, you know, even maybe measuring like tip, tip, you know, collective tip amount in a given night or something like that. But so what we do is then we. We measure the things that don't matter quite as much, and then we try to maximize the things we can measure instead of maximizing the things you can't measure, which are, can you measure trust on a team? Can you measure vulnerability? Can you measure fun? Can you measure the love that people have for each other? And every one of those things you can't measure is going to affect the measurable things in a pretty significant way, but we just do it the exact opposite. We back our way into those things.
- [19:22]
A
Remember in the Ideal Team Player, I wrote that one character who's working at the drive through window of the restaurant and his manager goes up to him and basically he wants him to have fun. Wrong. What's that?
- [19:32]
B
Ideal Team Player is a construction.
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A
Oh, I'm sorry. No, no. The three signs of a miserable job. Thank you, Cody. Hey, don't correct me. I'm the author just because I got it wrong. But so in the three signs are miserable job, which became the truth about employee engagement. The guy goes into the restaurant and the kid working the drive through window is not enjoyable and not good at what he does. And he goes, I'm gonna try to help this guy have. Have fun to be less miserable. So he says, hey, what do you want to measure? And he was coming up with things that had nothing to do with his job. And he finally said, why don't you just try to, I want you to try to make everyone that goes through the line smile and laugh. That's your job. And the kid's like, what are you talking about? He goes, yeah, I mean that's what you control the interaction with them, the kitchen does, the speed and everything else. I want you to make them laugh and just keep a pad of paper down and go, yep, one for one. Oh, one for two. I didn't go. And that was fun for him. And the funny thing is, you know, that leads to customers coming back, it leads to everybody else having a good time. At the end of the day, he goes home and he goes, I made like two thirds of the people in my line laugh. But you're totally right. We measure the things that are much more metric oriented and what we have to do is learn to evaluate the things that actually matter to human beings.
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B
I want to like just go even a layer further into that, Pat. So like, let's say we were trying to pick one of our staff members to be the person that is making people laugh in their cars coming through the drive thru, right? So like I want to bring it back to working genius and say if we could design the person that would, would love that role. I already, I've already thought about this. So like I, you know, we're mixing Myers Briggs and working genius. But an extrovert would be better than an introvert in that role, Right? Somebody who gets energy and joy from being around people. You'd want them sort of people facing in that role. Now I'm going to test you and see if we get the same answer. What working genius combination do you think would be best if the goal of that role was to make someone laugh or like, you know, be gregarious and make them smile as they go?
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A
I think it would be ge.
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B
Yeah, Galvanizing enablement. That's exactly who I would pick.
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A
Yeah.
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B
So an extroverted galvanizing enabler. Now if you had somebody that was introverted and maybe tenacity, they would be swimming upstream maybe to they would care more about the how many people are we getting through the drive thru and what is the order Accuracy. And I think that's sort of the point we're trying to make is that same job we could have put two different people in and one man's trash is another man's treasure. It could make someone miserable or it could bring someone life and energy and joy. And if you don't think of it that way, and we don't put people with the wiring in a position to succeed that way. The same job could have two very different effects.
- [22:18]
A
Yeah, isn't that crazy that somebody go, I'm a Tara who works with. She's my assistant. She's fantastic. She's a dt, okay? And she's an introvert and an infj, which means she's structured and introverted. She said, I was the worst waitress. She was a waitress in New York. And she goes, I didn't get great tips, and people just annoyed me. She has no E. And they'd go like, you know, this bread, this isn't what I wanted. And she'd be like, really? You're going to complain about the bread? Just, you know, life is more important. She said, I hated it. And other people are like, when somebody has a complaint, they're like, oh, I can't wait to win them over. And, you know, the waitresses and the waiters that make the most tips are the ones that enjoy and have fun in what they do. Okay, Cody, I'm going to actually try to do your job and be galvanizer here. But, you know, the. The. The thing I want. I want to encourage people listening to this to do is, first of all, if, you know, people that don't know their working genius, just know that their access to fun is significantly hampered because they're going to wonder, like, well, those people think that's fun. I got to learn how to like that. It's like, no. Know who you are. The other thing is go through your organization. You know what would be a really fun exercise is to go, if we were a restaurant, what job would you have? Imagine that we're a restaurant and we have, like, six different jobs. What job would be yours? What would you enjoy the most? It'd be really fun for people to look at that and say, so how does that translate to your work? Now in the context of the process of getting things done here, I think that could be a really interesting conversation. I'm going to do it at lunch today.
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B
Do it right now. What job would you have?
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A
Well, I worked in a restaurant. I was a busboy, which sucked for me because I couldn't even talk to people. You know, basically, they go clean up that table and do it fast. I would be, I think, the host, like, welcoming people here. So what's going on in your life? You know where we should sit you is over there. And by the way, what do you guys like to eat? Okay, the waitress. The waiter is going to tell you about the specials. But if any of you like steak, I'm thinking about that Koulamar restaurant we go to, Cody, where we get the. Like, that massive steak. If any of you like steak, two of you should sit together, because you should order this shared steak thing, and it's incredible, I promise you. Like, I would want to come up with ideas and ask them what they're doing and try to engineer a really good macro experience for them there. That's what I would do. What about you?
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B
I was thinking about telling my embarrassing soup chef story, but I won't do that.
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A
Oh, you got to now?
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B
No, it was one of my. Before I knew what the word sous chef was. I asked a guy what he did at a restaurant, and he told me he was the sous chef, and I said, what type of soups do you make? So that didn't go. That kind of exposed the class of people that I come from. But.
- [25:13]
A
Okay, I'm going to share another thing about you and I, Cody, you're the only other person in the world that I know who had this, who did this. And this came up at Easter the other day when we were having food. I think it was at Easter. You and I both thought growing up that when people say they can't make ends meet, we thought it was a certain kind of m e a t. So both of us grew up thinking ends meat was like something that poor people ate that just dropped the corners
- [25:41]
B
of the meat, you know? And the way we discovered that is I was editing. I was helping Tracy edit the ideal team player, and I was like, oh, you spelled meat wrong in ends meat. And then I had to very embarrassingly describe how I misinterpreted that.
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A
And I said, I. Yeah, you thought
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B
so at a restaurant, I would not be a soup chef. I don't think I would maybe, like, just the manager probably like it. I like, kind of the higher stress. Like, hey, can we. Can we figure this out? Like, intuitive activator. I'm a discerner galvanizer. Kind of like, people call in sick last minute. I.
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A
How do I station?
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B
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So maybe something like that.
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A
Going into the kitchen and going, hey, we got. We're kind of backed up here. What's going on? Who needs help? And. Yeah, yeah, I can see that. And my wife Laura is a wi. She loves cooking feasts for people. She's super creative. So she would be like that chef behind the scenes, wondering and inventing things, but she would not be like that. Hands on chef. Get the. Get the thing out the door. Because that's about timing and about. You know, it's really interesting to think about what people do. Lindsay would be. Would be the one that made it all work. Your wife, if. If our families went in there, she's a dt. She'd be like, okay, great. I'm glad you invented this. I'm glad you're having fun with these people, but somebody has to food up that plate right now.
- [27:02]
B
Yeah, yeah, exactly. No, your wife would be one of my favorite chefs, because I would just say I like, sort of giving them the choice. I'm like, hey, I want red meat. But other than that, you can decide. And she would probably come up with, like, a really great dish. Something like that.
- [27:15]
A
Yeah, that's right. Work is fun, people. It's supposed to be fun. It was meant that way. My dad, God rest his soul, used to say, if they. If they. If it were fun, they wouldn't call it work. And I think that's how I got into this field, because I thought, I think I want to make work fun. And that's part of what working genius is. And it is fun to talk to you about this, Cody.
- [27:33]
B
Yeah, same Pat.
- [27:34]
A
You know what's funny? Last thing is that Tracy preps us for these, and she's always like, you guys, you got to know more about what you're going to say. And we're like, but it's fun for us to figure it out as we go. And it's good because she gets a little structure on us. It's good for us because we kind of follow our noses and everybody's having a good time. And I hope our listeners are having a good time, because we appreciate you. All right, that's it for today. Thanks for joining us. Go out and have some fun today and help others do it too. We'll talk to you next time on the Working Genius podcast. God bless.