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- [00:00]
A
People often ask if we should get good at our frustration. Should we work on getting better at them or even good at them? Don't do that. That's not to say that we shouldn't learn to tolerate the times we have to do that or to make the most of them. But we should never set out to spend extra time mastering the geniuses that we find frustrating. That's unnatural. We are not meant to do unnatural things, and there's costs to that. When we spend time on our working frustrations, we are robbing ourselves of time we could spend and getting even better at the things we're meant to be better at. 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. This is Cody Thompson. We are co hosting this podcast. And what are we co hosting about today, Cody?
- [00:49]
B
Work Allergies. But should we. Should we talk about the marriage webinar real quick?
- [00:53]
A
Yeah, we should.
- [00:54]
B
June 18th, we're doing a Working Genius and marriage webinar. Pat and his wife Laura. My wife Lindsay and I will be there. Another couple just kind of applying. What are the insights that we can take from working Genius and apply it to marriages and family, and it's gonna be pretty fun. There's also a chance, Pat, that both of our wives, between this recording and the actual webinar, decide not to show up. So it could just be me and you talking about how we frustrate our wives. So either way, it'll be entertaining.
- [01:22]
A
Yeah. They were less than excited about having to do this. They're very passionate about the material. But being on a live web webinar was not their favorite idea in the world. But the reason why we're doing it is because we've had so many people say, do you guys realize how this has impacted my marriage? And we were like, no. And we've since then come to understand how powerful this is as a tool. So it's an accidental thing that the working genius tool is actually a marriage genius tool. And so we hope you'll join us. It'll be really interesting. It'll be short, it'll be practical, it'll be fun, and lots of takeaways.
- [01:54]
B
You can go to workinggenius.commarriage to register.
- [01:58]
A
That's right, workinggenius.commarriage. all right, what's our title today, Cody?
- [02:04]
B
Work Allergies.
- [02:05]
A
That's right. We are going to talk about how we get allergic to certain kinds of work Especially when we lean into our frustrations. What I mean by that is this. And I'm going to read some of this because I wrote this down. I said, people often ask if we should get good, good at our frustration, should we work on getting better at them or even good at them? And the answer is an unequivocal no. Don't do that. Don't do that. Now, that's not to say that we shouldn't learn to tolerate the times we have to do that or to make the most of them. But we should never set out to spend extra time mastering the disciplines or the geniuses that we find frustrating. That's unnatural. And we are not meant to do unnatural things. And there's costs to that. Here's the laundry list of reasons why we shouldn't do that. But then we're going to get to the allergy, because I think it's really important. So first, when we spend time on our working frustrations, we are, by definition robbing ourselves of time we could spend getting even better at the things we're meant to be better at, which is our geniuses. And even your. It even makes more sense to work on your competencies because hopefully you're doing a little bit more of those. So that's one thing. Don't rob yourself of time you could spend on what you love. We also send a message to people around us when we get good at our. At our working frustrations, that we're good at them and we like doing them. So they're going to ask us to do it more, and that's not good. They're going to be like, well, you're good at that. You're like, yeah, I hate it. Yeah, don't get good at something you hate so that people ask you to do more of it. Third, the process of doing it is just frustrating. And in life, there are plenty of opportunities to be frustrated. Nobody gets through life without being frustrated. Why would you bring on more of that? You know, it's like, I hate the piano. You know something, I should take piano lessons. Like, that's just crazy. And yet we find ourselves doing that in life. The next one is, this is a weird one. When we try to get good at something we're not meant to be good at, It's a weird temptation to pride. Like, I'm going to prove that I'm as good as other people at stuff that they like and that I don't like. And it kind of makes us miserable because all it does is make us feel less than ourselves. The other thing, it's not good for our relationships with those people, because I've had friends that wanted to be better than I was at things that I was good at and they weren't. And I thought, why are you competing against me? You're great at that. Just celebrate that, and I'll celebrate it with you. I like doing this, and I'm good at it. You could celebrate that. But when you feel like people are trying to prove that they can do things that you're naturally good at, it really isn't good for the relationship. You feel kind of like what's going on here, it's usually based in insecurity. So first, before we move on, those things make sense, right, Cody?
- [04:53]
B
Yeah. I hadn't thought about the temptation to pride. One that's really interesting. I also, what I thought you were going to say, in addition to the competitive sort of nature of trying to get better at something then that you're not supposed to be particularly gifted at. I think, like, it makes it feel more isolating, you know, like, rather than inviting that person in and saying, like, why don't you do the thing that you're great at and I'll do the thing I'm great at? It can feel like, you know, more of a isolation versus connection posture. It's definitely like a temptation to pride, but it also will make you feel less connected to other people or less, like, inviting of people into whatever you're trying to accomplish, you know?
- [05:32]
A
Yeah.
- [05:33]
B
So all those make sense. The. The interesting thing, we've talked about this a version of this before, because we are constantly warning people about burnout and what it looks like to work in your working frustrations. The interesting take that I, as you are sort of laying this out for me, was this allergy type take to it. Like, how do you. The idea that it's maybe. Well, I don't want to steal any of your thunder, so just talk to me about how you position this as an allergy.
- [05:59]
A
Well, the final thing as we get into the allergy thing here, Cody, and I'm glad you want to talk about it, is that I actually did. I've lived through getting really good at something I didn't like that had to do with I'm an ET As a frustration, and so are you. So being the loyal finisher is just the antithesis of me and taking things through to the end and doing exactly what's asked of me. I'm the kind of person, you asked me to do something. I'll figure out a workaround or maybe do part of it, the part that you really want, and I'll try to please you, but I'm not gonna finish it if it doesn't need to be finished. But I did not live my life that way. For literally the first 25 years of my life, I was just pressing through to be good at what was not natural for me. The problem with that is that was not good muscle memory for me. I was working against the grain. And now that I've kind of started to recover from that, I actually have no ability. And I'm having to reestablish an ability to. To do things that I hated doing before, even when it's good for me. In other words, I'm allergic to discipline. Like, there's things in my life right now that I'm like, I know I should do that every day. If I just did this every day and that every day. And I know I'm not the kind of guy who likes to do anything every day, but those two things would change my life. And I realized my ability to do that now is so reduced because I rebelled against it as soon as I could. Now I hate having to do anything on a regular basis because I burnt myself out on it so badly. I feel like I'm a kid whose parents made him eat vegetables every day for every meal. And now that I'm an adult, I'm like, screw it. I'm never eating a vegetable again. And it's like, it's good to eat vegetables sometimes, even if you don't love them. And it's good to be disciplined sometimes, even if you don't like it. But I burnt myself out on it by going against the grain. And now I have this allergy that I'm. I really don't like having. That's the whole allergic reaction.
- [07:57]
B
I think it's really fascinating because so often in like a. In a. In like a pretty equilibrium state, we're telling people, like, hey, try to organize your work in a certain way and try to spend most of your time in your working genius. But there are. I bet there's a bunch of people that just resonated with what you said, which is, hey, I spent years in a job or years in school doing the thing that I hate the most, up regularly. And now on the other side, discovering my working frustration and knowing that's where these things fall for you, it's tenacity and enablement. I just have no appetite for it at all. Like, I. I literally. It's such a Herculean effort to get myself up to even do any of it. That the idea is, you know, if I can just avoid any little bit of tenacity work, I will go out of my way to do that. So there's. I bet there's a bunch of people that feel that way. I was thinking about, we just got my son tested for allergies. It was sort of. It came back like, he's allergic to everything, like trees and grass and, you know, horses and dogs and everything. I can't remember the name of this, like, treatment, but basically what they do is they just give you a little bit of the allergy and drops every day for, like, I think it's going to be a couple years. And it's this tiny exposure to it, like, to just the smallest amount of it, that eventually you might overcome the allergy. The opposite is what you're talking about is like, this. This exposure therapy. The most amount of, like, rigor and tenacity.
- [09:25]
A
We're signing him up for the rodeo and 4H and he's going to be miserable for the next 20 years.
- [09:31]
B
That's right. Like, make him be around horses and get dogs in the house. Like, and so he would. When he grew up, he would just have such an aversion to all that. I think that the. This analogy that you're drawing is a really good one for people to hear, because in a world where they have spent that much time, you might be thinking, like, why do I feel broken? Why do I feel like I can't even get up the. Like, muster up the effort to do this task? And I think it's a really good lens for people to see that through. Like, maybe you've been completely burned out on it, and it's going to take a little therapy to get back to being able to pallet some of it.
- [10:07]
A
I was thinking about another analogy because you and I love analogies. And that is, imagine that you played basketball and you really wanted to be an outside shooter, but maybe you were a little bit tall when you were young. And so the coach said you're just going to. You're just going to do rebounding all the time. You're going to stay under the basket, you're going to rebound, and you did it for years, and you. And. And you got to be the best rebounder in the league, but you never wanted to. And then you get old enough and you're not the biggest guy, and then you're playing basketball and you finally get to play point guard, and you love to shoot and pass, and there's a ball coming off the rim. And the coach is like, I want you, I need you to rebound that. And he's like, I'm never going to rebound again for the rest of my life. It's like, well, everybody has to rebound a little. And he's like, yeah, no, no, I hate it. Yeah, I will let somebody else get that ball, even the other team, before I have to go do something. We can teach ourselves not to do things that are frustrating out of. Like you said, you're this aversion because we overdid it. And I think that sometimes as parents, we make our kids do things a lot that they don't like because we think we're teaching them to be persistent. And what it's really doing is creating a muscle memory that's going to come back and bite them in the ass later.
- [11:14]
B
Well, this is making a lot more sense to me, Pat. Now I'm thinking about it this way. I had two customer service jobs early on in my career where I sent hundreds of emails a day. And now I hate answering email.
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A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [11:28]
B
No, I mean, and I'm kind of tongue in cheek joking about that. There's some tenacity involved in that. But I do, I think that's totally fair to think of it that way of like, oh, yeah, this, I am, I am. I've built an aversion to this and now the idea of it is just so distasteful. I can't do it.
- [11:45]
A
Yeah. And we don't think about that when we're young and we're thinking like, well, isn't this great that I'm learning to do? Boy, people actually think I'm good at something I hate. It's like, no, that's actually not good for a whole bunch of reasons. One of which is that you're going to have a hard time undoing that aversion later.
- [12:01]
B
Yeah. And you're going to find yourself in a job where people are going to say, hey, you know, even though you don't like vegetables, you have to eat vegetables at this job. You know, like, this is part of the role here. And so just the idea of, like figuring out a way where again, we can spend as much time as we can in our working genius. We can limit our time and our competency. But every job is a six letter job. You're going to have to do some of the things that fall into your frustration. And it's better to not have had a, like, allergic level reaction to it if you can avoid it.
- [12:35]
A
Yeah. And you Know what's interesting about that? I think some people can feel guilty for having a desire to do what they love. I certainly had some of that growing up. It's like, well, that's not work, because I like it.
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B
Yeah.
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A
One of my sons was really natural at writing, and I'm like, this is really good. He goes, dad, I. It took me 10 minutes. Clearly, I'm not a good writer. I'm like, no, no, no. See, you're naturally good at that. And he thought because it was too easy for him, it wasn't a talent, and. Which is crazy. So we think, well, I shouldn't study writing. I should study something that's hard. And there is, like, an element in life. There's. There's one school of thought that says, yeah, do hard things. And I. And I. I'm a. I'm a believer in that to a certain extent, but not in a way that teaches you that hard things are more valuable than the things you're gifted at.
- [13:27]
B
Yeah. And it's not do things that you're not wired to do. You know, and it's not just take the easy way either, but it's like, the hard things are getting up early and working out and praying and eating healthy and, like, choosing. Choosing a little bit of, like, peace in the midst of circumstances that are not easy. Not necessarily, like, go do the hard thing that you're wired not to do.
- [13:50]
A
Yeah. It's so interesting because, like, my aversion and my allergy is to discipline, but if I discipline myself on the fringes, it frees me up to be able to actually live into my geniuses. And I'm learning to overcome my allergy to the discipline on the fringes, because that's not serving me now.
- [14:08]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
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A
Gosh, I wonder how many other people out there have got that thing where they're like, yep, I vowed I'll never do that again, because I don't have to. And doing a little bit of that is actually good for you.
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B
Eat your vegetables, you know.
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A
Yeah, that's right. That's right. But not too many. Not too many, not too many.
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B
You don't have to order a salad. You know, I'm not an advocate for ordering a salad.
- [14:28]
A
I know somebody whose parents never let them have candy. And then they got older and they go, I eat candy all the time. That's the opposite of it. It's like, you know, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, the answer is in the middle. Moderation is a good thing.
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B
Thing.
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A
So that's all we have to say today. Don't be good at your frustrations. There's plenty of frustration in life already.
- [14:46]
B
So.
- [14:46]
A
Alrighty. Thanks, Cody. Appreciate it. It's fun to talk to you.
- [14:49]
B
Yeah, same.
- [14:50]
A
God bless everybody.