Vision, journey, culture, and results. It sounds pretty cool, but what does it actually mean? Like, what are you supposed to do with that? More specifically, what would you do if you were, uh, a young person early in your career? How would you use this? Today, we've got our first guest on the podcast, Alex, who's actually part of our filming and recording crew, had a couple of questions for us about how to apply this. I hope you enjoy the conversation.

Make Work, Not Suck. Our podcast, it talks about exactly that, our process, vision, journey, culture, and results. We present real-world business solutions that make the difference. Our goal is to make work not suck. Hosted by Ryan Hodges, co-host Daniel Steere. Join us each episode and make work not suck.

Welcome to the Make Work Not Suck podcast.

All right, Ryan. So we've been talking through the vision, the journey, the culture, results, the four pillars or four dimensions of this new paradigm. And during the last break, Alex, who's been helping us with the podcast, asked a really good question. So we just handed her a mic and moved a couple of cameras, and we're gonna have her as a guest on this episode.

So I, well, I think you gotta, I think you gotta put in why this came to fruition.

Okay. So when we were recording a couple of previous episodes, we kept looking at the logo and going, okay, make work not suck. Like, we wanna make sure we're hitting that true. And we're like, just, you know, is it resonating, this, that, and the other? And Alex says, I think it really is resonating as, as a young professional, wanting to be an entrepreneur. You know, this has been very helpful to me. And, um, well, I don't wanna take the words for you from you, but, but, uh, I think it, it just, it's one of those, like, if this podcast really is gonna have the impact that we want it to have, then, uh, it's gotta be for more than just the c-suite. It's gotta be more than just the c-suite, right? It's gotta talk about how, you know, not, not only, you know, why it works sucks and the reason behind it, but how do we make it not suck? And, uh, Alex asked a very profound question, so, yeah.

So go ahead, Alex, ask us the question again.

Right? So, um, just as a person who's had a lot of sucky jobs and, um, a person with entrepreneurial aspirations, I would just really like to unpack how I would apply this information in my own career, like in my own work journey, even as an employee, but also as like a, a future business owner as well.

Man, so, so good. Yeah. So it, it really got us thinking when, when she asked that the first time. And, uh, the reality is, is what, this is what we're talking about, this paradigm shift, this method, et cetera, is not only how, you know, how you apply it to a business, it, it's, it's what we've done from the simplify standpoint is we've, we've applied it to a business perspective, right? But the, the method and the paradigm is still psychological, and it's just like any other, um, you know, thing that, that helps you better overcome, you know, the personality test and, and stuff like that. Self-help type stuff, right? Good. Helps you better understand yourself. And, And again, this really, you know, some of this stems from, you know, habit seven, sharpen the saw. And so really what this comes from is, this is a sharpen the saw question, how can I apply this to make myself better? So if you are really wanting to improve, uh, your yourself and, and, and your work, uh, your work life, et cetera, you know, you can't control the environment that you, uh, you know, you can't make as an employee. You can't make decisions in the business unless you're a leader or something like that. Sure. But as just the average employee in an organization, you can only control your environment. And so, everything that we we're gonna be sharing on all these podcasts going forward, the methods and the tools and all this stuff we'll talk about again in the future is, is one design to help an organization, but to help the individuals.

And here's the thing is, if you take this information and you apply it personally, you can make work not suck for you. And guess what? If you're in an organization that doesn't value that, this will help you get a better job because you have the choice to work. You have the freedom to work wherever you wanna work, wherever job you can get, right? Yeah. You know, there's a lot of jobs out there, and if you apply this, you will in fact get a better job. And not only will you get a better job, you'll also impress your, your next employer and hopefully get a better raise, better work. Again, it just helps you better negotiate in the future. So if this isn't just how to make the business better, this is how everybody can better themselves, that makes a business better. Or again, if your business, if the company you work for just doesn't care, then you can use this elsewhere.

So, so I'll take that and maybe go down a little bit to the, to the practical level. Um, I think one of the ways that you can make yourself more valuable is by becoming a better and better version of yourself.

Mm-Hmm. Yes. Right? And so to do that, you kind of have to start with understanding yourself, right?

Right. So as you think through that vision journey, culture results, every one of us tends to lean in a particular direction. We tend to favor one of those four. So as you've heard us talking about this, which one of those do you find yourself maybe kind of slightly leaning towards or resonating with?

I think that personally I lean towards being more of a vision person.

Okay. Like a vision heavy person. Okay. And I think, 'cause, um, one of the things that I've heard you guys say on here too is, uh, being a healthy version of something and an unhealthy version of something. So I think that candidly, I would consider myself to be maybe on the more unhealthy end of being a vision focused person.

Okay.

So that's really interesting. And I applaud the, uh, the honesty, courage and self-awareness to say, I might not be the healthiest version of myself right now. Uh, not very many people are willing to say that. So that's, that's great. Uh, the strength of visionary people is that they have very strong belief in seeing their vision come true to fruition.

Right?

Mm-Hmm. Uh, visionary people almost feel this compulsion. Like, I have to go create this thing that's in my head. Yeah. And I don't know why, but if I don't make it happen, something bad's gonna happen. Right? Like, I just, I have to go do this, and I can't explain why.

Yeah. The shadow of that, the, the downside or the, uh, maybe the, the blind spot of that is the opposite side of the wheel. So if vision is your strength, the opposite side is culture, right? So this is my challenge as well. I'm stronger on the vision that I am on the culture, and so understanding the people

Mm-Hmm.

Providing clarity and accountability to the people, those are gonna be some of the weaknesses that come with a strong sense of vision.

Yeah. So what I would recommend with that is you're never gonna be great at your weakness, work on your weakness until it's no longer a liability.

Mm.

And then double down on your strength.

Yeah. That's good.

Right? So there's, there's these two schools of thoughts of only work on your strengths. No. You gotta supplement your weaknesses. And I think they're both right to an extent. You're never gonna be great at your weaknesses, but if they're really bad, they're gonna limit you from being effective in anything. Right. If you're catastrophically bad at people, right. Which I don't think you are based on our interactions, but if you were hypothetically, you need to bring that up to just the point where it's no longer a, a limitation.

Mm-Hmm.

And then once you're at the point where you're functional in those areas, the leverage for you is gonna be in that strength. And so building more capabilities on the vision side is really gonna help you become the best version of yourself.

Yeah, that makes Perfect sense. And I'm gonna add something else there, please.

Is, is everybody can do all four paradigms, all four pillars. Okay? The thing is, is you have one that's your strength, and then you've got your two counter, you know, the, the adjacent ones, and then you've got your blind spot, which is your opposite. The thing is, is too often we perceive from our strength, not realizing it's at the expense of our blind spot. And so the thing is, is if you're cognitive about it, then you can in fact do that. So, like in this case, it was, you know, high in vision, low in culture, you can in fact be more hyper aware of the social emotional side of the equation in a group of people. And if you're cognitively aware of that, then that means you can, you can do it now.

It does, you know, it has a penalty in the sense of it usually takes more energy. And there's a lot of people where they're like, you know, they're visionaries who are just like, I don't care about people. Well, it’s like, well, I mean, you gotta understand that there's consequences to that, right? That means that you have to be that much better in those areas. Right? But you can. You just gotta be cognitive of it. And then again, once you become cognitive of it, you can have the strength of the vision, which will help drive that and help move that forward.

But, but again, also recognizing if that's a big challenge, then you need to take that effort and that energy to apply to it. So it's like, I always tell people, you gotta be in the good shape. But if you have a leg that’s broken, you can't run a marathon. But that doesn't mean you can't do, you know, the strength that you have in that area, that leg, you can get strong, but if you got a broken leg, you gotta go fix that thing.

Absolutely.

So yeah, so the vision is always going to be that strength. If you really understand that and it's one of the things I think that Ryan's been mentioning is that you, you do the strength, but it also, that blind spot is actually equally as important. It's just more important for you to be aware of it.

Right.

And it’s kind of going back to the same thing, you know, awareness, self-awareness, right?

So, well, I appreciate you, Alex, coming on and asking some really great questions. And, and this is something that I think we're gonna build on for future episodes.

Definitely.

And Ryan, thanks again for the, the information. This was a really good conversation, and I think it’s gonna help a lot of people.

I hope so.

So, thanks for joining us on Make Work Not Suck. We'll see you next time.

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