The Power of Possibility with Darrin Tulley

Dane Groeneveld: Welcome to the Future of Teamwork. My name's Dane Groeneveld, CEO of HUDDL3 group, and today I have Darrin Tulley joining me. Darrin's got some really cool titles. He's got CEO, culture coach, author, speaker, podcast host, and my favorite, chief of possibilities at Ignite Happy. So welcome to the show, Darrin.

Darrin Tulley: Dane, I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to have a fun chat with you.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun. I enjoyed just connecting prior to hitting the record button. There's a lot that you are doing right now in your world that resonates with some of the guests that we've had on the show, and some of the ways that we are feeling about our employees, and the businesses that we run, and the communities that we're a part of. But perhaps for the benefit of our listeners, you can give us a little bit of a genesis story as to how you came to be working in this kind of world of possibility for people and teams.

Darrin Tulley: Yeah, that sounds great. I have been in corporate America for nearly 30 years. However, I was doing this side hustle for the last six or seven years. What does that really mean? Well, just under seven years ago, I was actually at a diversity and inclusion event and I felt like I was one of the good guys. I felt like I was a really helpful leader, inclusive, and was kind. Going through this four day immersion event with 25 folks, of which I was one of five white males at this diverse session. I realized after a couple of days that I was part of the problem and I was terrified. I was actually feeling shameful because I started to recognize that I wasn't noticing what was going on in the world because I do care and I do care about all humans. I had a purpose at the time to bring out the best in people all around me. Yet I realized I was swimming around in this bubble that was a bubble of sameness. So I was seemingly helping out people that were similar to me and unconsciously making it harder for people that were not like me. I started to hear other people's stories and started to connect differently. I actually, not that I ever thought you could cry at work, I cried at this event openly because I wanted to let people know... It wasn't intentional, it just happened. I wanted people to know that, that I cared and was committed to change. I actually had a pink pan that day and that's why all my colors are pink to be my accountability reminder to look for differences, and to embrace it, and to change my purpose, to bring out the light and the potential in all people, and identify the possibilities that exist in all of us. It actually led to a light up moment, which was my awakening with my daughter, where I found where joy comes from. It's really within this light that's it's hiding inside of us and it's been dimmed based on our society, based on what we're told to be, who we were supposed to be. I realized that I had this light within me that was dimmed. I was pretty uptight. I started my career in finance. I was focused on results. I was very successful. Then when I had this moment, I realized I needed to change. When I really thought about this, my bubble burst and I really thought I was going to be found out. What I realized, this bubble actually expanded so I could actually expand and invite the world in, which really sparked this journey for Ignite Happy. Like Ignite Happy is to actually embrace all humans, to see the joy that's within them, to turn the light back up with them, and to show that we all have it, we're all worthy of it, and that we're all different, we're all unique. We all have these amazing skills and possibilities that are waiting to come out. So that's what got me to write the book, Leave Your Possible, that's what got me to start the podcast, Leave your Possible, just to carry on these stories and to make the connections of other leaders that have overcome challenges, and have been vulnerable, and are willing to share these things out loud, so we can all get better and grow and actually share how we can actually bring out the best in each other. It's been quite the journey. There's there's much more to share, yet that's kind of the launching off point, if you will.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. That's a great launchpad to be having that experience and now sharing that experience with others as you kind of continue on that journey. There are a couple of phrases that you used in there that really caught my eye. You talked about the bubble expanding rather than the bubble bursting. That's a very sort of optimistic sort of abundance mindset approach. Can you tell me a little bit more about what that felt like as you started to see that bubble expand? What were your experiences of teams that you were a part of or people that you were getting the opportunity to work with?

Darrin Tulley: I like how you shared that it's a level of optimistic abundance and possibilities. It didn't feel that way at first because this bubble was filled with the air where I was living, where I was preserving what I had, and making sure it was going to continue, and I wasn't going to share it. Not that I didn't intentionally not share it. I thought at that point that the air was going to be suffocated out. It was going to be sucked out and I was going to have trouble from then on. Excuse me. What I realized is that I needed to actually own this, and be vulnerable about it, and to share that I'm going to commit to change and it's going to be something I'm going to do forever, the rest of my life. I'm going to keep getting better at it. I'm going to be uncomfortable in different situations and I'm going to be expansive. I'm going to learn from other folks. I'm going to ask for folks, their perspectives and input. I was always taught to be a leader that had all the answers, I couldn't say I didn't know, and I can do, and move forward. No, I have to slow down and invite and invite the world in and put my arm around the world. So as you can see by the logo behind me, it's the brand, my brand logo, this one- eyed smile. The eye is really the eye of possibilities. It's where I was. It's that bubble expanding. The smile is us expanding, welcoming the world, putting our arm around and looking at the world with joy, and hope, and saying, " You know what? I believe in you Dane. There's a light inside of you and I'm going to see it. I'm going to work past anything that stopped me in the past based on where we're from, our differences, what we look like, differences of opinion, whatever. I'm going to see the light because you have a light, Dane, and I'm going to see it." I think as leaders and colleagues, when we kind of interact during the day, or in the community, or at work, imagine if we could actually get rid of the barriers that are sitting there metaphorically or literally today and actually just, hey, welcome you in and just kind of, I'm going to put myself out there. I was going to say, I don't have all the answers. I'm not perfect. I'm going to keep learning. I'm going to be vulnerable with you because I want to share that it's okay. It's safe to do so and my intentions are good to light you up.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, I like that. I like light you up because it's a doing word, it's an action. It's not, " Hey, we appreciate everyone." It's how do you appreciate them, where you light them up. So that's a real call to action.

Darrin Tulley: Yeah, I appreciate it because I feel like I had my light up moment when I found this one eyed smile. I actually found this thing when I was with my daughter. We were in the mode of connecting, yet I wasn't doing a good job at it because I was on my smartphone doing work. My daughter was finishing her homework and we agreed on this watermelon Italian ice. Dane, I don't know if you've ever had Italian ice.

Dane Groeneveld: It's pretty good.

Darrin Tulley: It's really good. So it was a watermelon, so it sounded healthy. So we actually took off the lid and there was some of this Italian ice that was kind of pushed up against the lid. I put it on the table, went back to my phone and pretended to hang out, put my phone down. She was done with the ice and she was really smiley and happy. I'm like, " Oh wow." Then out the corner of my eye, I saw this one eye smile and remember, I'm looking for differences at this point. I said, " Oh my God, this is it." I showed, I turned this upside down. It was upside down looking at us and I said, " Sadie, look at this." She lit up. I lit up, the kid inside of me lit up. What I realized, it's actually this level of wonderment, and awe, and possibilities, and love, and fun, all the stuff all at once came out. It helped that my daughter helped me see it through her eyes, yet I realized it's within all of us. I needed to reconnect back to that. When I go back to that thinking of that mindset when I was about her age at that time, that was probably the time where I was probably my most authentic self, where I didn't have any biases. I was actually living a life that was really clear and I was actually bringing out the best in people. I mean, back then I actually started a newspaper for my street with my buddies. I was just writing down their stories and sharing it with people and it was connecting the street.

Dane Groeneveld: How fun.

Darrin Tulley: It became vibrant, and guess what? It connected me back to that which actually started this journey. It was at that point in time, I needed to say, you know what? Let's stop being so serious. Let's connect to the kid inside of ourselves. Let's connect to what's possible. Let's see the beauty, the whys, the why nots, all the things that we thought about. Then, you know what? Work and life took over. We got responsible and we got real serious and forgot to play. We forgot to wonder. We forgot to connect the world-

Dane Groeneveld: We started protecting. We had that fear. We were preserving what we had.

Darrin Tulley: Yeah. Then we got confined into a bubble.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting that that story started with Italian ice. One of our guests and a very good friend, Dr. Ernesto Sirolli, he was a young Italian development economist that went down to Africa and started working with people in communities that the Europeans, at least, thought needed more help. They realized a very similar story to what you have, which is when you go in and you do work for others, it doesn't really land very well. But when you go in and you ask others, " What are you passionate about? What did you do as a kid? What excited you as a kid before you had these pressures, and conformities that the social structure puts upon us?" They found that they could find these creators, these makers in these economies, these influencers that actually built something that was good for the community and weren't just enforcing European rule on these local communities without a lot of local context.

Darrin Tulley: I can't wait to go listen to that. I couldn't agree with it more because I was actually on another podcast, and the podcaster went through this cycle of questions when I shared that story. Then he said, " When's the last time you felt this way?" I was like, whoa. It was magical. I went back to this point and it reminded me of Pablo Picasso says he was his most creative self as a painter when he was five. He said he was trying to go back to that level for the rest of his life. It's the same. It's the same thing. It's where we allow ourselves to be our most creative self where we can wonder, we could actually think and connect different things without tripping any rules. We're allowed to actually draw outside the lines a little bit without getting in trouble.

Dane Groeneveld: Which is interesting because getting in trouble, there's a theme that we talk about a lot in teams in workplaces, which is psychological safety. When people feel like they're coming to work because they have a job and they have metrics to hit, they don't have a lot of opportunity to explore, to pioneer, to try new things, to be creative, because there's a job to do. It's more than 40 hours often that we're trying to squeeze into 40 hours for lots of different reasons. So that is interesting. I see on your website here, you had something there about only 2% of employees feel like they're given the opportunity to be creative in their jobs. That's a very low number.

Darrin Tulley: Yes. Yeah. It's interesting because the inverse of that, going back to the average five- year- old, it's about 98% show these skills and then it starts to go downhill for the very reasons that we've talked about. It's true that companies that focus on creativity actually find new revenue, new channels, and have higher results with, higher revenues, and better bottom line outcomes. So creativity's for real. It's taking the time, and being intentional, and being safe to actually share ideas, make crazy connections. Because when we allow ourselves to pop around, and I don't know if you've ever done one of those exercises where you say, " Hey, come up with as many ideas as you can in five minutes," and then things are just popping, right? Pop, pop, pop. Then all of a sudden it slows down like a popcorn popper, and you get one, and then it slows down, and then it stops until you add another variable, or you start to share across other tables or other people in the room and then it starts to pop again. That's where innovation and discoveries happen. It's because we're all allowed to do it without judgment. We're allowed to do it without people saying, " Well, where the heck did that idea come from?" Actually, we're not letting silly ideas get in the way of amazing, what could be, what is possible.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, I think that's right. I think if you're stuck at work trying to get this many units shipped today, that it's not a safe place to try a new tool for taking an order off the shelf to the vehicle or whatever it might be.

Darrin Tulley: Yeah. I personally feel we need to do a better job giving time for people to think. That also means for people to actually, if they want to have hybrid environments where they want people to go back to work or even to use technology differently in the future of work, we need to create collaborative spaces to allow for these things. Throw a problem out there, throw an idea out there, throw something where you would like a team that's cross functional, diverse, working together. You will be amazed at what you'll find. If you're an HR leader or business leader. Try it out. Try it out with a small team. Experiment with it. You're going to be amazed what people do. They find the capacity. Because everybody says, " I have too much work. I can't even imagine." Like you said, I got 45 hours in a 40. What happens? There's capacity to be had for this type of work. People are excited, people develop. People develop new skills by actually contributing in these team environments. People develop because they want to actually participate in other parts of a company or other area they get excited about and they take the knowledge they have from somewhere else. This is just like the connection of we typically connect to each other based on sameness, but the beauty is actually connecting our sameness with the differences that we don't know and we actually bring them with us. That's discovery, that's innovation, that's creativity.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. No, I like that. I've seen some of those innovation exercises where people will be bought in and they're told, " Well, you can only draw squares and circles, and you've got to create an image that represents this." You've got people from different departments with different levels of creativity. But they actually find some sameness in all being terrible at the task at hand and having to explain it to each other. It lowers their guards and it creates this opportunity for them then to move into the solution storming, thought- provoking elements of the workshop.

Darrin Tulley: Now it's well said. I think we allow some of the things that slow us down to go to the wayside, like doubt, or fear, or being wrong, or perceived to be wrong. Also, I was at a separate workshop where we had to bring stuff that we didn't want anymore to this workshop and then we throw it all in the mix. Then we randomly picked stuff out and then we were asked to create things out of these old junk items. We had to break them down to the smallest parts. Then we had to piece them together to create whatever it is the instructor told us to make. We only had a half hour to do all of it. Guess what happened? We had a team of four, and we did it, and we laughed. We had so much fun. We created these, I guess, working pieces of art because they were not perfect. They were beautiful because we did it. We didn't think we could.

Dane Groeneveld: That is fun. That's a muscle memory that it's great to create in teams as well, is that you take them away, you let them achieve something they didn't think that they could and realize that what your day job is or your hierarchical position in org chart isn't critical for in the context of that little exercise.

Darrin Tulley: To your point on the position and title, gosh, it's so important to see people involved at all levels. It doesn't matter if you're the CEO or head of HR diversity. Gosh, it's even more important to be actively involved, being vulnerable, sharing that maybe you're not the best drawer. I'm a stick drawer, yet I've realized, yeah, I can be creative. It's just in a different way.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, that's it. I think tying to creativity, there's also a sense of pride that comes with that too. My two business partners, we refitted one of our offices here in Tustin. We had a number of the team coming in for the first time to the office. This was soon after the lockdowns of the pandemic. I walked into the conference room one day and they've acquired this beautiful conference table that has a river in the middle of it, like a glass river with a live edge that's turned inside. It's great design.

Darrin Tulley: That's cool.

Dane Groeneveld: I walk into the conference room and I spot something odd. Sure enough there's a rag underneath the table cleaning it. It's my two business partners are on their back, David and Russell, lifting the glass carefully and cleaning it before the team comes in. I wanted to take a photo of that at the time and share that with the team. I'm like, this is how much sharing this space with you all means to the owners of the business. That's a pretty cool story.

Darrin Tulley: That's a really cool story.

Dane Groeneveld: Not creativity, but it's taking pride for what we share together, which I think is a near parallel.

Darrin Tulley: Yeah, I think it's wonderful. Seeing leaders do some of the work themselves that maybe some leaders might not do, they'd ask someone else to do it and they're not willing to do it. I understand there's a time and a place for things. Yet that shares some level of pride that they wanted this to be just right for everybody. That says a lot.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, definitely. So shifting to the book, Darrin, walk me through the approach, what you're introducing your readers to in the book, because I'd like to learn that and then maybe jump a little bit into how you do the experiential workshops with customers as a follow on to that.

Darrin Tulley: Yeah, that's great. I appreciate that. The book is called Live Your Possible. What I'm trying to get folks to understand is that this is a journey, it's essentially a life guide to help people pursue their authentic, inclusive, and joyful selves. That's essentially what this book is. It's a life guide, meaning there's definitely a storytelling and there's a thread throughout around building a possible mindset. So the first track sets up why we're doing this, why there's a need for change, the idea for partnering with someone else, maybe use this as a book club or a team. It sets the need for change. It's not looking for people to change into somebody else. It's actually helping us to reconnect with our authentic self.

Dane Groeneveld: I like that.

Darrin Tulley: So it shouldn't feel like work because we always say change, " Oh, it's too hard. I don't have time, it's too much effort." But if we can reconnect back to who we really are, maybe it's back to our five- year- old self, nine- year- old self like we were kind around about. But yeah, you know what that is what I'm talking about. Our most innocent, authentic self where we can actually be free to think and welcome the world in differently. Then it goes through an acronym which spells out possible, which is really developing a possible mindset. There are intentional practice actions, over 100 throughout those eight chapters. No, you don't have to do all of them, Dane. There are some questions that are actually simple, yes, no, are you good at this? Do you want to learn more about X, Y, Z? Depending on how you answer those, it'll lead you to identify the questions that actually pertain to you. What I'm hearing and experiencing that if you actually identify openly with those questions and take five or seven of those actions seriously over time, you're going to feel a big change. Some people are feeling a change within three months. I have felt change immediately within 30 days. However, I changed forever after six months of practicing the different things along the possible mindset. Then the last part is how do you sustain joy and happiness? How do you sustain looking at possibilities with abundance? How do you actually practice this in the workplace? How do you practice this in the community? There's a bunch of stories that I share of my own. I'm pretty vulnerable, as you could already probably tell based on what I've already shared. I've interviewed a bunch of other leaders, best practice folks out in different parts of the world that are heads of HR, head of diversity, CEOs, et cetera. I also incorporate a QR code throughout. So there's a QR code that creates supplemental learning tied to my website. Why is that important, Dane? Because I want people to actually grow and learn. This is about taking action. It's about change. I'm not just telling people to be happy, or go be inclusive or authentic. No, I'm showing you how to become these things as your best authentic self. How to be joyful every day, how to be a better leader, how to embrace love in the workplace, how to lead with joy, how to do these things. These QR codes actually take you out to sets of music, maybe a comedian, maybe a children's book, maybe a TED talk, whatever it is that's actually relative to the topic that I'm talking about in the book, that'll actually get you to connect with it differently than what I'm sharing in the book. So there's proof in the fact that spiritual learning is multiple things coming at you at once. If you take the steps of the actions, you will change because you'll see things where, as long as you're looking at this from a standpoint, I'm going to continuously grow, right? I'm going to commit to myself, I'm going to commit to the actions. I'm not going to beat myself up if I don't see the reactions I want right away or if I fail to do something that day, it's about a growth mindset. What am I going to unlearn, relearn, do differently tomorrow, take the actions, follow through and keep doing it. Like any kind of habit change, it takes a little time. Yet what I'm trying to do, as I mentioned before, I'm trying to encourage you to do this as part of your day. It's part of your actions. Say you're somebody that gets frustrated in meetings, ask yourself questions about looking for what's positive, what are they trying to get? What are they trying to get out of what they're talking about? Try to understand where they're coming from. Even ask questions that shows that you're interested to learn more. So to take an active approach rather than judging someone that's speaking or maybe being negative. That's an example. I'm trying to get people to think with a positive mindset, make positive connections, start to believe in other people. Because even that simple action over a course of 30 days will change in how you look at the world.

Dane Groeneveld: I think you're right. We talked a bit about that on the show is that sometimes people get stuck in a pattern of behavior and they don't know why. They're agitated, they're anxious, they're negative. But is that because someone's displayed a behavior to them? Is it because they're struggling with a financial situation or relationship situation at home? They don't know why. Is it because of something that they read on social media? But we all come in with a handicap as team members when people are just reacting out of pattern rather than being present in that moment and exploring. I like the way that you looked about it, believing in others, exploring that possibility together.

Darrin Tulley: It's stepping in to calm our minds because we are in these patterns, to your point. These patterns could be just the patterns of work. I'm at another meeting and here we go. It's like, how do we break the pattern? It's not going to change unless we change it and we have to be intentional about the change. That's how we change habits. I think too often we hear words, we kind of cringe, or we become divisive, or we react. We don't slow our mind down to say, well wait a minute, where is this coming from and why am I reacting to then, okay, wait a minute, let's have a conversation to make something better out of it. I joke about this in my book a little bit, but I'm serious about there's a way to calm our minds. Certainly you've heard of mindfulness, and breathing, and having gratitude, and those things. Kind of being in the moment when we start to feel ourself get angry or furious. I think someone said, when you're furious, get curious. So get curious and slow down. There's this part of our brain, this hippocampus where it's the gateway of our emotions. I joke about it too because I say, " Well, it's a happy hippo, happy hippocampus." Why? It's kind of like drop the hippo in a situation where it's uncomfortable. Well, there's a feeling of dial or there's an elephant in the room. Like no, let's drop that in to say, " Well, wait a minute, I need to check in on this. I need to understand. We need to inquire, not to debate, not to be divisive." This is a technique that I would imagine HR professionals are comfortable with. It's something that I learned while I was studying crucial conversations with VitalSmarts. It's about stepping, and slowing down, and getting conscious because subconscious minds and thinking, it rules the day.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, it does.

Darrin Tulley: I like it when I forget that I just drove a mile. Thank God, my subconscious mind can drive. Yet I don't like it when I'm mistreating people, like I was talking about early in my story, where I wasn't really mindful of how I was pushing people and possibilities away.

Dane Groeneveld: I'd never heard that. When you're furious, get curious. But that makes so much sense too. I mean, when you think about it, regardless of how divisive some of our communities, or organizational settings, teams can be now, often... We had a speaker share this with us recently. Often people get stuck because they think that what they're perceiving of a problem is the truth. The other person has their belief as the truth. So the truth becomes the enemy because neither side's curious. Both sides end up getting frustrated, and dysfunctional, and it blows up. But if curiosity is the go- to, then you've got to think that through the right sort of wisdom questions, you can find where that elephant in the room is or why are we not finding a way past this problem?

Darrin Tulley: We got to drop that hippo back in. With all seriousness, it's about a level... This is actually the second part of the possible acronym, it's open- minded curiosity. So open- mindedness is our willingness to listen and hear other things. We'll take it in, having curiosity is actually taking it in to change our perspectives, to learn why it's different, why it's better together, why it's better to learn the other perspective and not judging, and holding other people against it. Because that's what we're doing today. It's so divisive in so many ways and so many layers. There are trigger words. I mean I was just hanging out with family members and I said a couple words and it just triggered. I didn't get angry. I just had the conversation. Tell me more. Where is this coming from for you? Why does this bother you? Tell me what are we trying to do in the workplace? What are we trying to do in society? Are we trying to help everybody? Are we only trying to help ourselves? When we actually boil it down, Dane, like you were saying, we're both frustrated. Us versus them actually is us versus us. We just don't realize it. When we actually boil it down, we actually want the same thing. That's something that VitalSmarts did a nice job in their training where they talk about try to find that level of common purpose, bring it up a level. That's what we're talking about. How do we find that level of human history and humanity together that says, no, we're fighting about something that that's trivial. It doesn't really matter if we're really trying to solve something bigger than us. That's really the first part of the acronym for purpose driven release is we need to find our higher purpose, something that's outside of ourselves that's something with greater meaning where we can invite the world in. Again, bringing that one eyed smile in, we're inviting the world in.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. Yeah. I like that a lot. You mentioned when you started explaining the eight chapters of the book, you talked about being able to do it as a book club. So have you found with some of your readers or customers, if you're going in and doing experiences, that they'll start reading together and processing some of these questions and actions as a group?

Darrin Tulley: Yes. Yes. It's been really fun to hear some of the responses. Some organizations have called me in to say, " Hey, would you participate in one of our events?" I said, " I would love to." I would step in and give a little bit of an overview and people would ask me some questions. Then we would jump into wherever they were in the book club. I'll give you an example of a hospital in Florida in the United States where they were on a journey to change their culture because it's been so incredibly difficult over the last several years. Burnout, retention has been horrible. They lost 50% of the nursing staff. There's already nursing shortages. Patient safety isn't where it could be or should be. The financials take a hit every time you got to replace somebody and try to regain the momentum.

Dane Groeneveld: It's a lot quality inaudible.

Darrin Tulley: All these things, right?

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Darrin Tulley: So the chief nurses' officer met with the CEO and they started a book club. they started with actually Shawn Achor's book, Happiness Advantage. Shawn Achor actually woke up my mind to thinking happiness is a platform for change. It really is. When you watch his TED Talk and you read his book, there are little things that we need to do every single day that allows us to grow and be successful in our day and to connect with joy and happiness. He even talks about the fact that our success in our job is only 25% of our intelligence. It's 75% of what we do and how we do it. So then this hospital needed a second book and they chose my book, I'm so thankful for. Live Your Possible ended up what they called it to be transformational. They actually got more people involved to help people thrive. They created joy in the workplace. What they learned is they switched the order of focus away from the outcomes and the patient. I know that sounds kind of scary. Yet what they did is says, " No, we need to change our focus to be the caregiver. Because if we trust, and involve, and engage the caregiver, the employees, then guess what happens? The patients, they become safer. There's less risk, less risk of falls, and they actually recover faster." This happened, the retention went from 50% lapse rates to less than 10% in like nine months, something like that.

Dane Groeneveld: Which is huge.

Darrin Tulley: Actually, their patient safety went to a top quartile in almost 90% of the categories, just because they actually changed their approach. Why? Because they needed to change how they viewed each other. The leader stepped in too. They walked the talk, they participated in different exercises. They didn't say they had all the answers. They actually gotten people involved to say, " How could we change?" When they actually did this, it made people feel safe to contribute. Oh my god, people took over and now the CEO's like, " This is a career extender for me because I want to keep doing this work. It's so much fun. Other people that were saying they couldn't stand work anymore are excited to come to work again." So it's less about my book, to be clear, Dane, this is all about what the people believed in. They saw that this stuff worked somewhere else because there's examples in my book. They took the premises of it and they applied it to what would make sense for their hospital. Now, they're like a top performing hospital. They're being recognized throughout the state of Florida. They're not talking across platforms, across healthcare organizations, across the country. It's because they actually chose the path. They followed through on it. They walked the talk and they believed in their people again. Now guess what? They're tapping into the potential of the same people that were there before.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, I love that. That's a great case study. Particularly in a hospital, got a massive Robin Williams crush. I loved him in Patch Adams too. Where he brought a little bit of happiness, a little bit of a different approach to health. That's just where my brain's going. I'm picturing these nurses, and these administrators, and doctors, and everyone just getting together and saying, " How can we help each be better humans? How can we be curious together?" So it sounds like the book has been, maybe not the red nose that Patch Adams used, but maybe it's more that catalyst for curiosity and getting the team into a pattern of asking questions, and to your earlier point, being creative and trying to solve together.

Darrin Tulley: Yeah, I appreciate that. I think you're right. I think it was a catalyst for them to realize that to continue the journey, that happiness is part of the change process and inclusion. Inclusion is an action. Again, don't get caught up on the word. It's an action of how we bring in all people's perspectives, no matter where we come from, what we look like, and the ideas we have. It's inviting people in. When we do that, people feel welcome. They feel they matter. When those things happen, cultures transform. Hospitals transform. Patients transform. Their community there actually couldn't be happier. It's just for real, though, was my point, Dane. It's showing people that they are possible and they actually started to believe it themselves, it's amazing what happens. That's what gives me so much... It gives me chills to think about it.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, no, me too. That's really powerful. It's interesting. I'm definitely going to read your book maybe in a family setting, maybe we do a family book club because I've got a couple of middle schoolers now and a five- year old who's trying to be a middle schooler. Then my wife and I are dealing with all of that. But when you think about some of the conversations that can be had through taking that approach, through having that openness of mindset, it's got to help teams, not just at work, but students and teachers, parents and kids. In sports clubs, it might be parents and coaches, or coaches and kids. I mean, it seems pretty universal.

Darrin Tulley: I'd like to think so too, Dane. I appreciate that. Part of my learning comes from, I actually was a coach for youth sports teams. I actually coached about 30 teams.

Dane Groeneveld: It's a lot of teams.

Darrin Tulley: I got to tell you, I learned more about management from teaching these kids. I mean, talk about kids that they were putting themselves out there. I mean, they were real authentic. They were presenting every challenge you could imagine. As long as I shared a level of care, and genuine interest, and showed that they can, and showed them, because that's what teachers and leaders need to do. We need to show how and we need to continue learning ourselves with new techniques and new ways of doing this. So this applies to, like you said, teachers in schools. This also applies, I would say, in politics because there's some folks that have approached me to say, " Can you bring this to Congress? This us versus them?" I said, " Well, sure. Let me know."

Dane Groeneveld: Fix the debt ceiling.

Darrin Tulley: Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I think it's applicable too. There's another book too called The Simple Seed, which is wonderful for kids and teachers. Katie Wood was on my podcast about a month and a half ago. Dane, I would recommend you go with that one too. Because it's about gratitude. It actually starts the day of kids about how they think about who they are and what they can be versus the questions, or starting with a phone, or not thinking that they own any part of change. Like how we talk about adults, you own, each of us own culture. We own change. We own it based on what we do. Same thing with our children. When you go to school or you go into your community, she asked someone, and I asked the same thing in my book, " Hey, who can you make smile today? Who can you light up today? Be intentional and thoughtful." If you don't do that, meaning the person you wanted to, you didn't see, well, find the moment. So you're looking for it again, you're getting curious, you're being open- minded, you're trying to make a difference. But in a polite way. Guess what happens? It's a ripple effect. That person probably lights up and hopefully they pay it forward. I would definitely recommend her book to the listeners is-

Dane Groeneveld: Katie Woods. Simple Said, I'll definitely pick up on that. It's interesting that we've kind of moved into the school environment because there's a lot of young children that are growing up with some crazy levels of anxiety, and stress, and structure. My wife actually just recently took a part- time job as a campus supervisor at the local middle school. I'm going to have to share this with her too, because she's had a few interesting experiences. She had to pick a kid up and out of class and take him to the principal's office the other day. All the other kids were like, " Oh, you're in trouble." She made a lighthearted comment. She was like, " Maybe not. He's getting cookies." All of a sudden there were some laughs and the kid kind of lit up a bit like, " Hey, this supervisor's not here to take me to the gallows." She saw the same kid after school and she was like, " Did you get cookies?" He laughed and he was like, " No." But he's now built this relationship with him where he's going to be a little bit more responsive. He's going to know who she is and she's going to be a little bit more caring. So it brings that whole care ethic in, which unfortunately you don't see, particularly in schools or in any kind of youth environments where there's this kind of authority over kids. Sometimes it's a little bit harsh. I think some of the approaches that you are using, certainly the experience that Claire had, it just brings a bit more humanity to bear.

Darrin Tulley: Yeah, I mean it's proven to work. I mean, there's so much work that's done. I just talked with Jane Dutton. She talks about positive connections and the importance of how we work together. She's a profound professor from University of Michigan's Ross Business School. She started the Positive Business Consortium with a few other co- founders. She's one of the pioneers in the positivity movement. She talks about how, we, as a community at work or in the classroom, we need to do different things. We need three steps, from what I remember, she had said like, " Hey, we need to take notice." Like in your example that we took notice, we felt something like. So what do we do? Do we react and go negative? Do we come down hard on somebody? I've had several bosses that would just come down on me rather than find out what's happening, give me the stinger from a beat type of thing. Then the third step is really, let's respond with grace, and care, and kindness. It doesn't mean we're letting anybody off the hook. We're inquiring, we're getting curious. Again, we're trying to figure out where this is coming from and we're doing this with grace. We're doing this with genuine care and interest. I recall I had a boss that was saying I needed to be harder on people. I needed to make people feel uncomfortable. I need to use that stinger. It was probably the first time I realized I wasn't being myself if I actually just said yes, because I probably was being difficult. I wasn't my best self as a leader. As I was going through this transformation, I realized, now, I like the honey approach. It doesn't mean everybody gets a participant trophy. This is about, no, I can give direct feedback while being kind and sharing what this means. Because I need to know what matters to that individual. What is their higher purpose? What is their need? Why are they doing these things? Because I want to help them get through it, not punish them for the moment. I want to help them get through it so they can learn. That's a growth mindset. We got to get through it and we got to learn from it. That's something I'm teaching with different universities. Like I was at University of Connecticut, I gave a lecture about self- care. Everything you said about anxiety and isolation is very true. We had to think about mental wellbeing as an action, where we can take the steps to look through. Yeah, it's important. We have to eat, and sleep, and exercise. Sure, we got to do those things. Yes, we have to calm our minds down. We talked about the hippocampus with breathing and mindfulness. Those things help. Yet the things that we have to think about, relate to let's not judge ourselves if we don't get the A. Because you know what? Taking a class is one step along something bigger because we're all trying to do something bigger in life, higher purpose. Yeah, we want to get a job. Happiness is not about making a ton of money. It's an outcome. I mean, they say in certain studies, outcomes tend to give us about 10% of our happiness enjoy of the day. Yet it's 40, 50% of what we do. It's all that. The whole joy and the journey, it's not as cliche as it sounds. It's true. If we connect on our actions maybe a single day, having an open- minded set of curiosity, inviting the world in, learning from our mistakes, learning from our failures, not allowing ourselves to beat ourselves up, allows us to learn and expand our skill sets, allows us to become more resilient in dark days. We can pull ourselves out of it, and so on, and so on. Allows us to be our authentic self where we can actually imagine with joy and wonderment, be that five- year- old kid again where we could discover, and we could innovate, and we can link to the world in a different way. We can connect with joy. Truly endless possibilities exist when we actually slow down and start to revisit all this.

Dane Groeneveld: I like the slowing down. We touched on that at the beginning of this discussion, and it's an essential part, both for the self- care, but also for the teams building that muscle of curiosity, and questioning, and action. As a final question, as you think about the future of work, the future of teams embracing this kind of live your possible methodology mindset, what do you think it looks like? How would you like to be in working with more organizations or having other organizations adopting your approach to really make lasting... You mentioned sustainable, lasting, sustainable changes to the way that we show up as humans.

Darrin Tulley: I would say there are a few phases, and don't get caught up on the words for a second. This first phase, and they all kind of align to mattering because this first phase is really, I feel like you start a job, you're starting within an organization, maybe there's a new leader that comes in. So we need to make sure we actually belong, we're welcomed, and we know the direction we're going in. So we know the vision and we know the purpose, like why we exist. We're trying to get results. We're kind of participating in that way. Then the second phase is actually, I would call it learning phase. Not only are we seen from where we were welcome, but now we're heard. So now we're involved. We're contributing in a different way where we can, we're impacting customers. We're having an impact to our customers. The third phase is actually changing the focus to be on our people, to understand that we can trust our people. That's where we're going to thrive. That's where innovation happens. That's where creativity happens. That's where this abundance mindset can exist. This is where possibilities start popping everywhere, where we actually believe in each other. We help people connect to what they do to something that's more impactful, why we exist. Our values. Our values just aren't on a wall, they're not on a website. They're actually what we live, the decisions we make. It's what we reward people for and it's how people could step in. All this is so important because we need to get people involved. That's the other thing, getting people involved. Then people say, " Well, isn't that engagement?" I'm like, no, it's a little bit more than that. It's actually asking people to, " Hey, I have these problems. I have these ideas. I had the direction. Can you help me solve this?" Because a lot of leaders say, " This is what we're doing, eight week program. Here are the initiatives, here are the project. Who wants in?" It's like, well, hold on. Stop at the values and problems in areas that we need to consider. Maybe even involve your people there, because I've had really good success about involving people at that level too, to identify values. It is groundbreaking. People light up. As we joke about capacity, people find it. People want to contribute in different ways. People get involved. People start to want to learn and participate in ways you've never seen before. Everybody starts to believe in each other and know in a whole different way. That's what I'm talking about, getting people to belong, to matter in a holistic way, an inclusive way that's authentic, where leaders care. They're stepping in, walking the talk, asking, listening, participating, taking action together, reinforcing, recognizing, training, having fun in the workplace, being thankful, being grateful, be doing these type of things. Then I have to say this other thing is that technology is in front of us. You got AI, right? Artificial intelligence. There's tools around us. We need to embrace it. We need to embrace the tools. I think it's a responsibility of community leaders and corporate leaders to help our people be trained and be ready. Then bring the tools in. Don't just throw the tools on top because if I'm using this tool, this IM tool and an email, forget it, that's not going to work. We had to figure out how to make it so it intersects to make my job easier so I could participate in solving in those problems again. So we could actually make greater contributions. Guess what? This is going to help us in the hybrid environment too. It's going to work when we're remote. It's going to work while we're actually together because we could have collaboration teams and squads. It's going to help in any situation. Because I know there's a lot of people struggling with that. But we can't just be the way we were and anticipate people to actually be different. As technology hits us, we're working remotely in hybrid environments, we have to change how we work and invite people in. That's how we're going to change the way we work and how we're going to actually address the problems we have in different entities. We're going to actually achieve results you can never imagine.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, I'm excited by that vision, Darrin. I think that's exciting and I appreciate that you're bringing in this embrace AI, embrace technology mindset too because you're right. We have to create more room and space for people to behave in this way. It's not going to happen tomorrow. You're not going to be able to hire more people to do the work and create room for people. You're going to need to embrace those technologies.

Darrin Tulley: I think we have to change the dynamic of the workplace, meaning, let's just say I'm a contact center rep and I'm on the calls all day long, 90 plus percent of the time. We need to dial that back. We need to dial back to, I don't know, pick your number, experiment with it. 70%.

Dane Groeneveld: I like 75%. My business partner, Russell, always talks about If we could just throttle people back to 75, we've got room, we've got space,

Darrin Tulley: We have the space to actually practice wellbeing elements. We could actually be more collaborative. We could step in to provide, " Hey, here's what I'm hearing from my customer set, or here's what I think could help us be more effective." Allow people to step in. Maybe I want to participate in the sales team, something that's totally different because that's where I want to end up in five years. But we need to change the dynamic. To me, it's going to help people cope with hybrid, the remote and not feel so isolated. Because we're belonging, we're participating, we're mattering in different parts, and we're connecting to a much greater future.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, no, I love that. You told me, disclaimer, don't get caught up on the words belonging, learning. But there was one word that just kept resonating to me, and I think I marked you down as saying it six times. You said in involved. To me, that's one of the biggest things that I'm taking away from this conversation is that your call to action is that companies, leaders need to create a space where their teams and people that touch their teams can be more involved. I think that's huge. I think that is a very direct word.

Darrin Tulley: Yeah, you're spot on. You caught me on that one because when leaders initially ask me about what I think, I'll say two words, get involved and it's about your people.

Dane Groeneveld: Get involved. Yeah. Yeah.

Darrin Tulley: Get getting people involved in being genuine and sincere, inviting people to participate, and being clear that this is an open game. Granted, there's times where leaders have to make the decision. Be clear about it and just say you need a decision or you need input and you got to move fast. There are plenty of times and opportunities to invite people in to participate and get involved. It opens up people's minds, and back to the creativity thinking, the possible mindset. People working better as a team, being more inclusive, being good human beings to each other. That's what we're talking about. It's empathy.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, no, empathy, kindness, caring. Lots of good energy coming from that, Darrin. Well thank you for joining me for this discussion today. I'm sure our listeners are going to have a blast tuning in. If they want to follow up and reach out to you to learn more about the work that you do with Ignite Happy or Experiential Workshop Speaking, how do they best find you?

Darrin Tulley: You know, could go to my website, IgniteHappy. com, there's access through there, or you could simply go on LinkedIn and send me a note there. That could be real easy to connect and we could go offline and have a conversation. I'm happy to consult, and help you out, and think through whatever you're thinking.

Dane Groeneveld: No, that sounds good. I'm sure you'll get a few follow up. Also the podcast, Live Your Possible so they can find that on, what? Apple, Spotify?

Darrin Tulley: All of your typical places that you would listen to podcasts, so it's out there. Live your Possible, it's an extension of this conversation, right? We're trying to get people to share stories about what they've overcome as far as challenges. They're paying it forward. All different folks from around the world and what they're doing to embrace how we could bring out the best in people in different ways. Inclusively through joy, through laughter, through love. As I mentioned scholar of Jane Dutton, she was one of our guests recently and there's many more to come. So there's lots of places that you could learn on my podcast as well. I welcome you there and you could actually just go to my website, IgniteHappy. com, and it's right there too.

Dane Groeneveld: Right there. Neat. All right, I'll definitely be tuning in. Well, thanks again for taking the time to join us today, Darrin.

Darrin Tulley: It's been an honor, Dane, and I really appreciate it. I appreciate everything you're doing.