Getting Unstuck – Cultivating Curiosity

Jeff Ikler
  • 5.0 (32)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Updated Weekly

Curiosity sits at the intersection of creativity, effective human interactions, problem-solving and purposeful change. Unfortunately, the pace of life — at home, work, and school — often sidetracks our natural curiosity. So, let's see the familiar from a different angle or something new as a possibility to consider.

  1. 12h ago

    423 - Giving an "A"

    Today on Getting Unstuck Hi, I'm Jeff Ikler, host of the Cultivating Curiosity podcast. This summer, I'm periodically releasing mini-episodes of "Cultivating Curiosity." In about 10 minutes, I'll dive deeper into a key point from a previously broadcast evergreen episode. The content in these mini-episodes is designed to be readily applicable to your life or work. At some point during the summer of 2019, I was walking in our nearby forest preserve, listening to a podcast with Tim Ferriss in conversation with Seth Godin. Tim Ferriss always asks his guests during the wrap-up what they're reading that they find fascinating—books that have truly impacted them. Without hesitation, Seth Godin replied, The Art of Possibility. I thought, if Seth Godin found the book worthwhile, I had to look into it. The authors of the book are Benjamin Zander, who at the time was the Conductor of the Boston Philharmonic and served on the Faculty of the New England Conservatory in Boston. That's an important distinction, as you will hear. And Rosamund Stone Zander was a family therapist and a landscape painter. Sadly, Roz died in September 2023 in a tragic accident. The idea The book's central premise is that life is a story and we are its author. Many of the circumstances that block us from leading a deeply satisfying life are assumptions and interpretations of our own making. We can, therefore, write better ones. Supporting that idea are 12 practices, which, if followed, promise to transform our thinking and the way we walk through life. The book, then, and this is important, is not a self-improvement book that results in merely tweaking our undesirable habits or making only incremental changes. The 12 practices are powerfully disruptive. Not surprisingly, because Roz was a psychotherapist, the practices call for a completely different way of looking at the world and our behavior. I purchased the audio version of the book because the authors narrated it and Ben infused it with rich musical examples. If I had been asked to write a back cover blurb, I might have offered something very erudite like, "I was blown away by it." It sits on my bookshelf with only a few other titles that I can grab in case of disaster. At the time, I thought I had little hope of securing Ben and Roz as guests on our fledgling show, but they could not have been more gracious in their response and participation. Episode 100, which I'll link in the show notes, has become one of my top 5 downloaded episodes out of more than 400, and for good reason. I'm going to feature two of the practices in this mini-episode: One is "It's all invented," which is really the capstone practice, and Two, Giving an A. In both cases, the authors will explain the practice in an excerpt from the original interview, followed by my brief commentary. It's all invented. Here is Roz touching on "It's all invented." Everything we do or say is really embedded in an interpretation, and we don't notice that, and when slide back and forth between the interpretation and what we say is real, and most of the time we are saying that what we, how we are interpreting things is reality, and that's how you get Republicans, Democrats, and all sorts of people in conflict because they don't make that distinction, so we are saying everything that you do and talk about, aside from something that everybody agrees is just happened or is true, is a story, and if you, if everything is a story, you can retell the story, and it'll make a different life for you. Enormous power of realizing that, and then saying, "Okay, let me just take the same circumstances I've just dealt with and make up a new story about it that helps, that is enlivening to me and enlivening to you and enlivening to everybody else. This practice has always taught me that I have the power to reframe and interpret what I've seen or heard about something, whether it's external or internal to me, so that whatever it is becomes more meaningful. I don't see this as putting a glossy coat of paint on something. It's challenging me to look at an aspect of life for what can be gleaned from it. This practice definitely calls for me to pause, step back, and refrain from immediate judgment. And that's not always easy because it runs counter to how our brains seek immediate clarity. As an exercise, take a situation and see if you can look at it differently so that it is, as Roz suggests, more enlivening. Sometimes you might have to do this through gritted teeth, but remember, you are the author of the story. Give yourself an "A." OK, here is the second practice: Giving an A. We'll hear from both Ben and Roz in this excerpt. The giving of the, which was Ross's idea, came out of my class, and the reason is that the students were living under such fear of competition and failure, and so I, we came up with this idea, Ross came up with the idea, and I practiced it, which is giving the A the beginning of the year before they've done anything. This is right in the very first class, they get the grade. The condition is there to write a letter at the beginning of the year describing who they will have become by the end of the year, and that to justify this thing, and so they're describing themselves at their very best at being successful and effective and wonderful musicians and people, and that's the person I teach when I go into the class, so that there became a way of approaching all teaching or conducting, I walk into an orchestra and give everybody an a instantaneously before we've begun, and the orchestra players feel that sense of confidence, of trust, of joy, of shared love of the music, and it creates an atmosphere. Oh, and then very important, if they make a mistake, we go, how fascinating. That has to be seen. How fascinating. I encourage people to go out and try that on the golf course, because what we do is we live under such fear of failure that we become very cautious and anxious, fearful, and looking all the time to see if other people are making the mistakes, and so it's not an atmosphere of risk taking and joy, and if you create an atmosphere of risk taking and joy, then, and everybody who makes a mistake gets to say, "How fascinating, then you've got a chance to people to learn more effectively, giving something here about transformation, because if we don't give an A and hope they'll live up to it, right, you see them as an A, and that means that I, or Ben, as the teacher or therapist, or whoever's given the giving the A has to do the work themselves, that becomes the relationship of an A. It isn't just the student that we hope to help along, because they feel loved and everything, and now they, they're not afraid. It is the relationship that changes, and that is the transformation. So, teachers transformed, students transform in the process, and transformation means that you're living in a different world, you're living in a world that doesn't operate by the same physics as the world we live in. It's very hard for people to get that the A is not a judgment Giving an A is my favorite of the twelve practices because, as Roz pointed out, it carries responsibility for both the giver and the receiver. We can give anyone an A, and that calls for us to see and treat them differently because our intent is that the A becomes, to quote from the book, "a possibility for the receiver to live into." I saw immediate application in my lifelong vocation of education. The key, as the authors point out in the book, is for the receiver to "place themselves in the future, looking back, and to report on all the insights they acquired and milestones they attained during the year as if those accomplishments were already in the past. Everything must be written in the past tense. Phrases such as I hope or I intend or I will must not appear." As an exercise, give a server in a restaurant an A the minute you sit down. How might doing so impact your behavior toward them? The key point here is that you're not trying to get the server to live up to a standard you've set, but to have them look more carefully at their own behavior and how they want to conduct themselves. Connect / Referenced Book: The Art of Possibility Benjamin Zander Center Video: Ben's TED Talk Video: Ben on "Giving an A" Rosamund Stone Zander Book: Pathways to Possibility Original episode: Creating a Life of Possibility: "How Fascinating!"

  2. Jul 7

    Is It Possible to Reinvent Oneself Without Having All the Answers? Pt 2

    Guest JoAnne Duncan has had a varied career, from Alaskan fly-fishing guide to elementary teacher and principal, always focused on valuing the strengths of every student and staff member. Though she's stepped away from her career in public education, she continues to learn, grow, and inspire others. A lifelong learner, she finds joy and insight outdoors, exploring nature and discovering new ideas, always growing, always learning, and always curious.   Summary In Part 1 of this episode, JoAnne reflected on her unconventional path into education, her transition into school leadership, and ultimately her decision to leave the profession because of the toll it was taking on her physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Since leaving, JoAnne has focused on what she calls "radical self-care," prioritizing physical and mental health through activities like yoga, swimming, and surfing in Hawaii. This period of recovery has restored her well-being and opened space for reflection about her future. While she continues to enjoy substitute teaching, she is exploring new directions, particularly those involving helping others, possibly through fitness, motivation, or personal growth. JoAnne and I have known each other for years, so when I learned she was struggling with what to do next, I proposed that we both read Elizabeth Weingarten's book, How to Fall in Love with Questions: A New Way to Thrive in Times of Uncertainty, to see what comes up for us. The central message of the book is that uncertainty is not a problem to be solved as quickly as possible; it is a condition of life that can foster growth, insight, and self-discovery when approached with curiosity and patience. The book was inspired by Elizabeth's own questions and her reading of the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who believed that we can benefit from "falling in love with our questions"—in effect, living patiently with them. Part 2, then, explores our takeaways from reading Elizabeth's book. You can hear my conversation with Elizabeth in episode #421: https://bit.ly/44HQsAk A key takeaway Burnout isn't always a signal to work harder—it may be an invitation to rethink the questions you're asking about your life. By embracing uncertainty with curiosity and self-compassion, you can find opportunities that align more closely with your values and well-being. References / Links Instagram — @newave_nana  LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/joanneduncan990/ How to Fall in Love Questions: A New Way to Thrive in Times of Uncertainty Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art

  3. Jun 30

    How Can You Learn to Love Life's Unanswered Questions?

    Guest Elizabeth Weingarten is a journalist and applied behavioral scientist who works at the intersection of science and storytelling. A graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, she has worked on the editorial staffs of The Atlantic, Slate, and Qatar Today, and was Managing Editor of Behavioral Scientist. Her writing has appeared in publications including The Atlantic, Slate, CNN, The Financial Times, Quartz, Harvard Business Review, and Time. She has led research programs at the think tank New America, the consultancy ideas42, and at tech companies Torch and Udemy. An in-demand speaker, she has shared her work and conducted workshops at venues including SXSW, the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, and the University of Virginia. She lives in Northern California with her husband and son. Summary In this conversation, author Elizabeth Weingarten discusses her book How to Fall in Love with Questions—a New Way to Thrive in Times of Uncertainty, which explores how people can develop a healthier relationship with uncertainty. Drawing on the writings of Rainer Maria Rilke, behavioral science, neuroscience, philosophy, and personal experience, she argues that uncertainty is not something to be eliminated but to be navigated thoughtfully. Weingarten explains that our brains are wired to seek certainty, which leaves discomfort in the wake of unanswered questions. Yet rushing toward easy answers often leaves us more confused and stuck. She introduces practical frameworks, including a "question map" and a fruit-tree model that categorizes questions by the time and attention they require. The discussion also examines leadership, decision-making, perfectionism, community, and self-compassion. Ultimately, Weingarten suggests that growth comes not from finding immediate answers but from learning to live with meaningful questions long enough for deeper clarity and wisdom to emerge. The Essential Point The central idea of Elizabeth Weingarten's message is that uncertainty is not a problem to be solved as quickly as possible; it is a condition of life that can foster growth, insight, and self-discovery when approached with curiosity and patience. Many of life's most important questions cannot be answered immediately, and trying to force certainty often prevents us from finding the deeper understanding we actually need. Social Media Website LinkedIn

  4. Jun 23

    420 Avoiding Groupthink? A Leadership Practice Demonstrated on the Way to Pluto

    Hi, I'm Jeff Ikler, host of the Cultivating Curiosity podcast. This summer, I'm periodically releasing mini-episodes of "Cultivating Curiosity." In about 10 minutes, I'll dive deeper into a key point from a previously broadcast evergreen episode. The content in these mini-episodes is designed to be readily applicable to your life or work. This week's mini-episode comes from a May 2023 interview with Dr. Alan Stern. Today, Dr. Stern is an aerospace executive and remains a planetary scientist. In 2015, he was the Principal Investigator on the historic New Horizons mission to Pluto. In that role, he had ultimate responsibility for the entire research project, overseeing its scientific, technical, and administrative aspects. The situation In 2015, after a nine-year journey, the New Horizons spacecraft was poised to complete its an historic flyby of Pluto. But success was not guaranteed. For the New Horizons' mission to be successful, all of the spacecraft's data-gathering instruments had to work flawlessly starting seven days before reaching its closest point to the planet and for at least two days after. All of the maneuvering of the seven data-gathering instruments – what they would look at, what they would measure – had to be preprogrammed into the craft's computer. There was simply no way someone back at Mission Control could drive the spacecraft in real time, because by 2015 New Horizons was three billion miles from Earth. A signal traveling at the speed of light would take 4.5 hours to reach the speeding spacecraft. In that amount of time, whatever Mission Control had been directing the spacecraft to photograph or measure would likely have passed. But preprogramming didn't guarantee success either. New Horizons, traveling at 35,000 miles an hour, had to reach a specific point in space within a nine-minute window, or "the box," as the team referred to it. If the craft were early or late to that point, the computer would be directing the instruments to look at or measure something during the critical flyby period that wasn't centered in their field of view – or potentially not there at all. And there would be no time to recalibrate them. Orbiting Pluto for a redo was out of the question because the spacecraft didn't have the necessary fuel to execute such a move. Orbiting Pluto wasn't even in the mission plan. If the box were missed, the potential to collect data would be lost. The mission would have failed. A grace period of only nine minutes. 540 seconds. After three billion miles. And nine years. The good news is that Mission Control scientists were carefully monitoring the spacecraft as it approached the ideal central point and calculated that it was less than two minutes off – way inside the nine-minute box. Everyone in Mission Control breathed a sigh of relief. But what if we…? Scientists and engineers are, however, perfectionists, so the question quickly arose, "Do we make a correction? Do we scratch back a few more important seconds to make sure our instruments are pointing where we want them to point?" Days before the critical flyby, there was still time to do so. It was a tempting proposition. Dr. Stern picks up the story. Once we got in the box, the navigation teams recommended that we do one more engine firing to really put it in the middle of the box. And we had an analysis done that showed that if we didn't change anything if we stayed where we were, didn't go to the middle of the box but we're just in the box, we would get every single scientific observation One that we had set out to do. And yet they were recommending, and in fact, the engineering and science teams, were recommending that we just nail it, we go right down the middle of the pike. And I rejected that as the leader of the mission. Because at that point, we were going to get everything we came for. And while we might have done a few things a little bit better, the risk that that engine burn might have gone haywire, or sent the spacecraft into some fetal position where it needed help from Mama back on Earth before or we could carry out the flyby was real. And I didn't want to take any risk. Once we were in the box. You know, there's an old saying Better is the enemy of good knife. Yeah, right. It was good enough. And as you've seen from the results, we really nailed it. So I'm glad that we, we backed away from that, because it looks to me like more risk than reward, To summarize, as the mission leader, Dr. Stern gathered everyone on his team together to review the navigation calculations, and then took three powerful steps: 1. Stern asked each of his team members to voice their opinion on the wisdom of making the correction. One by one, around the table, each leader of a critical aspect of the program voiced "Go," recommending the correction. 2. Stern waited and took notes until everyone had the opportunity to voice his or her opinion. He then made the decision: "No go." 3. He then asked a critical question, "Is there a must-do reason to make the correction when we're already safely within the box?" He went back around the room and asked each section leader to respond. After hearing from everyone, Stern stood with his original "No go." It was simply not worth the risk of introducing a potential programming error this late in the game. New Horizons soon flew past Pluto at 35,000 miles an hour, a mere 7,500 miles above the dwarf planet's surface. As the spacecraft began to "phone home" amazing images and other data, it was clear that New Horizons – the first mission to Pluto – was an unqualified success. "Good enough" was truly good enough. The idea Leaders typically struggle with three questions in scenarios like the one before the New Horizons team, and they do so because they feel "All eyes are on me." • Do they feel they need to make the immediate call without input because they're the leader, or do they ask to hear from all members of their team on the critical question? • Do they speak first because they're the leader, or do they weigh input from the team and speak last? And finally, • Do they push for "better," or do they stand pat when there is evidence that "good enough" is truly good enough? Here's Dr. Stern's further rationale for the process. I always speak last. As the mission leader, I'm a firm believer that, well, I might set the table, I might start a meeting off, here are our objectives, here's what we should consider that the final gonna go on my part should be considered one, having heard from all the experts that know more than me about each individual area, my job is to go broad, and make sure that the mission carries out all of his objectives. And their job is to go deep, and make sure that each little piece is operating properly. So I was last in that poll. And I did reject what was a unanimous decision by everyone else. And it was a little lonely, but you know what, I was confident in it. And it worked out just fine. Dr. Melissa Hughes, a neuroscience geek researcher and author of Happier Hour with Einstein, Another Round, reinforces Dr. Stern's steps as a meaningful way to avoid "groupthink," which she defined as "a psychological phenomenon that happens when people in a group willingly or unconsciously commit to decisions they don't necessarily agree with to avoid creating emotional tension or conflict with their colleagues." In Dr. Stern's case, no one on his team wanted to be the only "No go" and buck the "groupthink." The consequences of groupthink, as Dr. Hughes describes, can be significant: "When people…put harmony and cohesion above the critical evaluation and analysis of the outcome, they stifle their thoughts, refrain from asking the hard questions and avoid exposing potential pitfalls. This often leads to irrational or problematic decisions." In New Horizons' case, the consequences of groupthink could have been disastrous. A program note: If you're a space geek like I am, I've included a couple of illustrations of the mission in the shownotes on my website.

  5. Jun 16

    What is the Priority?

    Hi, I'm Jeff Ikler, host of the Getting Unstuck - Cultivating Curiosity podcast. This summer, I'm periodically releasing mini-episodes that, in under 10 minutes, dive into an evergreen idea from a previously broadcast episode. The content in these mini episodes is designed to be readily applicable to your life or work. This week's episode was inspired by a conversation with educator Dr. Deb Gustafson in December 2019, when she explained how, as a principal, she had applied Jim Collins' flywheel principle from Good to Great in her elementary school. The idea The flywheel is an individual's, team's, or organization's intentional ordering of only five to six key, repeated actions to achieve desired outcomes. Critical to success is the idea that the first action triggers the next, which in turn triggers the next. Each action is thus dependent on the one that came before it. What prompted Deb's effort was her recent inheritance of the district's worst-performing elementary school. Rather than throw a series of unrelated strategies at the problem, Deb used the flywheel as a thinking tool to help her architect a plan for sustainable improvement. Two important principles of the flywheel concept are ONE, a clear explanation of the desired result toward which everyone in the organization can work, and TWO, the selection of the all-important priority step from which the remaining elements cascade. Here's how the two elements played out in Deb's planning. After studying her student population, Deb realized that her students were extremely dispirited, lacked self-esteem, and felt they had no future. Given those findings, she decided that the desired result couldn't just be a lofty academic goal; it had to reflect the needs of the whole student. So she structured the desired results as: "Help kids become the best people they can be." Deb decided that, to achieve the desired results, the all-important priority step in the flywheel had to be hiring teachers who loved kids. As she told me, "I can teach people how to teach, but I can't teach them how to love. What these kids needed was to feel valued and capable of succeeding. If we did that well, academic success would follow." I've included Deb's flywheel model in the show notes on my website. Take a minute to review the steps and how they were designed to achieve the school's desired results. And the results, you ask? Deb's school quickly became the district's highest-performing elementary school, and her approach served as a model for other leaders and schools throughout the district. Extending the idea The beauty of the flywheel is that it constrains thinking to what is essential to bring about desired results. Instead of wild brainstorming that results in "We could do this and this, and this," the flywheel demands discipline: "If we do these few things in this order really well, we'll increase the likelihood of success." But imposing that limitation is really challenging for lots of organizations. Author of the essential read, Essentialism, Greg McKeown argues for a relentless pursuit of "less, but better." One of the biggest mistakes he notes is to dilute what is important by having "priorities." Here he explains the surprising history of the word priority and how its meaning has shifted over time: The word "priority" came into the English language in the 1400s. It was singular. It meant the very first or prior thing. It stayed singular for the next five hundred years. Only in the 1900s did we pluralize the term and start talking about priorities. Illogically, we reasoned that by changing the word we could bend reality. Somehow we would now be able to have multiple "first" things. One of the strategies that I really liked from McKeown's book is the idea of W.I.N. : asking yourself "What's Important Now?" Yes, it's a very mindful question because it helps us from sliding back into the unresolved past or ruminating about the yet-to-be-seen future. As McKeown concludes "It is mind-bending to consider that in practical terms, we only ever have now." And W.I.N.? is a flexible question in that it can be asked relative to the macro level of life where we're constantly trying to bring work, play, family into harmony and flow. (Note, I don't say "balance" because there ain't such a thing, is there?) And it can be asked at the micro level regarding all those discrete work or home projects staring us in the face. So…push yourself a bit, and ask "What's Important Now?" For inspiration, you can always watch the famous clip from the movie City Slickers, which never fails to get the juices flowing. Referenced Interview with Dr. Deb Gustafson Good to Great by Jim Collins

  6. Jun 9

    How Can Leaders Create the Conditions for Staff to Succeed?

    Guest Rich Gassen has worked at UW-Madison for over 15 years as Production Manager and, more recently, as Director at Digital Publishing and Printing Services. He focuses on empowerment, autonomy, and process improvements with his team. His work mantra has always been "Show Up and Participate," which continues to guide him in his lifelong learning. He also leads a community of practice for supervisors at UW-Madison, focusing on training and development. Summary In this episode, Rich discusses his leadership journey and the principles that guide his work. Drawing on more than 35 years in the printing industry, Rich explains how influential mentors shaped his belief that effective leaders provide both autonomy and support. He recalls a manager who trusted employees to make decisions while remaining available during difficult moments—a model that continues to inform his own leadership style. Rich emphasizes that leadership is fundamentally about people. He believes employees perform best when they feel valued, understood, and connected to the larger purpose of their work. Whether by sharing customer praise, encouraging innovation, or involving staff in major decisions, such as relocating the print shop, he seeks to create an environment where people feel a sense of ownership and agency. A strong advocate for continuous learning, Rich helped build a campus-wide community of practice for supervisors, providing opportunities for networking, book discussions, and professional development. He stresses the importance of listening, asking questions, and resisting the urge to have all the answers. As leaders advance, he argues, their role shifts from solving problems to removing barriers that prevent others from succeeding. Throughout the conversation, Rich highlights transparency, curiosity, and habit-building as essential leadership skills. Ultimately, he sees leadership not as a destination but as an ongoing learning process focused on helping people grow, contribute, and thrive. The Essential Point Great leadership is less about having the answers and more about creating the conditions for others to succeed. Leaders serve their teams best when they listen, build trust, remove obstacles, and help people see the significance of their contributions. Social Media & Referenced LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richgassen/ Campus Supervisors Network Homepage: https://campussupervisorsnetwork.wisc.edu/ UW Printing site with article on innovation during a change initiative: https://printing.wisc.edu/2024/05/23/the-dpps-printshop-move-finding-innovation-through-challenge/ Jeff's LinkedIn article   About Jeff Jeff Ikler is the Director of Quetico Leadership and Career Coaching. "Quetico" (KWEH-teh-co). He works with leaders in all aspects of life to identify and overcome obstacles in their desired future. He came to the field of coaching after a 35-year career in educational publishing. Prior to his career in educational publishing, Jeff taught high school U.S. history and government. Jeff has hosted the "Getting Unstuck—Cultivating Curiosity" podcast for 5 years. The guests and topics he explores are designed to help listeners think differently about the familiar and welcome the new as something to consider. He is also the co-host of the Cultivating Resilience – A Whole Community Approach to Alleviating Trauma in Schools, which promotes mental health and overall wellness. Jeff co-authored Shifting: How School Leaders Can Create a Culture of Change. Shifting integrates leadership development and change mechanics in a three-part change framework to help guide school leaders and their teams toward productive change.

  7. Jun 2

    417: What's One Question You Can Ask to Build Capacity?

    Hi, I'm Jeff Ikler, host of the Cultivating Curiosity podcast. It's summer, and our thoughts naturally turn to making the most of longer days and warmer weather. We're desperate to be outside. With that in mind, I'm periodically releasing mini episodes of "Cultivating Curiosity." In about 10 minutes, I'll dive deeper into a key point from a previously broadcast evergreen episode. The content in these mini episodes is designed to be readily applicable to your life or work. The idea This week's mini episode was inspired by a July 2021 interview with Dr. Melissa "Missie" Patschke. Missie has since retired, but at the time of our conversation, she was principal of Upper Providence Elementary School in the Spring-Ford Area School District in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Her message, born of 20+ years of experience and reinforced by the COVID pandemic, was that organizations move forward with strength if they're led by leaders, not a leader. As a school leader, your role is not to be the person pulling everyone up that hill or being number one at all times. Your role is to build that capacity and be number two, so that other people can be number one. And the more number ones you build, the better you're all going to be. Taking the idea deeper The necessity of building others' capacity to lead is not a new idea. It's not universally practiced, though, because leaders typically get stuck trying to build capacity in one of three ways: Conceptually, they get "it." They get the need and wisdom behind growing others. But their inner critic pulls them aside, puts an arm around them, and whispers, "Yeah, but if they lead, what's your role? How's it going to make you look?" They forget that "building" or "growing" ends in "i–n–g," implying that it's an ongoing process, or at least a process of gradual release. It's not a one-and-done effort, meaning one day your staff is being led and the next day they're leading. As a leader, you just don't know how. So let's take a small step toward number 3. In my mind, the best example of building capacity came from what may at first seem like the most unlikely of places: the military. We usually think of life in the military as giving and receiving orders: "I say 'Jump!'" and you jump. But one savvy ship captain saw things differently. When Captain David Marquet inherited what was then the worst-performing submarine in the U.S. Navy, he immediately realized why: the 135-member crew was largely doers, not thinkers. They were used to taking and conditioned to take orders. But Marquet knew that to effectively run something as complex and as deadly as a nuclear submarine, you had to have people who were thinking about what they were doing and how what they were doing impacted the rest of the ship's performance. Putting the idea to work OK, you're not the captain of a nuclear submarine, but if you're leading an organization, a department, or even a team, the implications of your collective work are significant. You need to be surrounded by thinkers and not just doers. If you buy into that wisdom, but you're not used to leading in an intent-based way, the next time someone comes into your office with a question, instead of providing the answer, start by asking the simple question: "What do you think we should do?" And probe with a follow-up question or two to get at their all important rationale. Asking the question "What do you think we should do?" with genuine curiosity may be the hardest shift for some managers who are used to and comfortable with simply giving direction. To build your own capacity to ask that open-ended question, show your inner critic the door and lead with the phrase "Hmmm, I don't know." And then ask, "What do you think we should do?" One note of caution: when you say, "I don't know," mean it. Don't play bingo with your staff by having them guess an answer you might already have in mind. The tone you use to open a discussion and invite their thinking is critical. In fact, try not to have the answer unless it's a desperate, time-sensitive situation. Be curious about the ideas your staff can generate. Probe for clarity and the ability to implement. Trust me on this. I made the mistake of not leading this way early in my career because I wanted everyone to rise to my brilliance. I wanted them to come to the answer that was in my head. That approach simply bred frustration and distrust among my staff.

  8. May 26

    416: How Can We Make Work Feel and Be More Meaningful?

    Guest After 11 years at IBM, Brooke Erol left a "great job on paper" to pursue a more aligned, purpose-driven life. She founded Your Best Life Inc. to help professionals find meaning at work, and later Purposeful Business to support leaders in building people-centered organizations. She is the author of More Than A Paycheck and Create a Life You Love, and speaks globally on leadership and purposeful work. Summary In this conversation, career coach and author Brooke Erol explores the changing nature of work, fulfillment, and identity in an era shaped by burnout, layoffs, and artificial intelligence. Drawing from her own experience at IBM, she reflects on realizing early in her career that many people were "chasing the weekend" rather than finding meaning in their work. That realization eventually led her to write More Than a Paycheck, a guide designed to help individuals develop greater self-awareness and agency in their careers. Brooke argues that self-awareness is foundational to meaningful work, yet modern life leaves little room for reflection. She encourages people to intentionally create time to examine what energizes them, what no longer serves them, and which limiting beliefs may be shaping their choices. Throughout the discussion, she emphasizes that traditional career formulas—go to college, get a corporate job, retire happily—are no longer reliable in today's unstable job market. The conversation also examines the disruptive impact of AI, especially on younger workers and recent graduates, while highlighting the growing value of trade and skilled labor careers. Brooke encourages people to remain adaptable, continuously learn new skills, and consider side projects or entrepreneurial paths alongside traditional employment. The discussion closes with reflections on retirement, purpose, and identity. Brooke and Jeff agree that fulfillment comes not from stopping work entirely, but from continuing to contribute, learn, connect, and pursue activities that make life meaningful. The Essential Point Brooke's central message is that people must take greater ownership of their careers and lives by developing self-awareness, questioning inherited assumptions about work, and intentionally pursuing work that aligns with who they are. She also stresses that fulfillment and purpose are not luxuries reserved for retirement—they are essential parts of a healthy, sustainable life at every stage. Social Media Website: www.yourbestlifeinc.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/careeryoulove/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ozlemerol LinkedIn Newsletter: Career Path YOU Love: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7234651608981065729/ All My Books Page: https://www.yourbestlifeinc.com/books More Than a Paycheck: https://www.yourbestlifeinc.com/books/morethanapaycheck A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle About Jeff Jeff Ikler is the Director of Quetico Leadership and Career Coaching. "Quetico" (KWEH-teh-co). He works with leaders in all aspects of life to identify and overcome obstacles in their desired future. He came to the field of coaching after a 35-year career in educational publishing. Prior to his career in educational publishing, Jeff taught high school U.S. history and government. Jeff has hosted the "Getting Unstuck—Cultivating Curiosity" podcast for 5 years. The guests and topics he explores are designed to help listeners think differently about the familiar and welcome the new as something to consider. He is also the co-host of the Cultivating Resilience – A Whole Community Approach to Alleviating Trauma in Schools, which promotes mental health and overall wellness. Jeff co-authored Shifting: How School Leaders Can Create a Culture of Change. Shifting integrates leadership development and change mechanics in a three-part change framework to help guide school leaders and their teams toward productive change. Show Credits "Getting Unstuck" is commercial-free. It's brought to you by Jeff Ikler, his amazing guests, and Neil Hughes, the best engineer a podcaster could ask for. "Getting Unstuck" theme music: Original composition of "Allegro ben ritmato e deciso" by George Gershwin. Arrangement and recording courtesy of Bruno Lecoeur.

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Curiosity sits at the intersection of creativity, effective human interactions, problem-solving and purposeful change. Unfortunately, the pace of life — at home, work, and school — often sidetracks our natural curiosity. So, let's see the familiar from a different angle or something new as a possibility to consider.

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