There is so much disruption going on. A lot of it is not good but in the middle of all of it, there are so many opportunities and exciting things that we can be hopeful for. Today, we’re going to have a blast from the past as Jason Abell replays an interview he had a few years back with Dan Deka. Dan is a Rewire coach, professional surfer, and professional coach at Flying Squirrel. As we now face new uncertainties this year, we go back to the time when the pandemic was at its height and everyone was faced with the challenge to survive and thrive in uncertain times. Dan and Jason discuss how disruption can be an opportunity for positive change and how we, as leaders, can lead our teams to make the best out of the situation. Tune in and appreciate how much of what Dan and Jason discussed back then still holds a lot of significance today.
In this episode, Jason Abell and Dan Deka discuss:
- The value of disruption
- Building in self-care and team care
- The role of a leader in uncertain times
- Learning how to downshift
Key Takeaways:
- Decision fatigue affects us and our decision-making. We need to purposely structure self-care and team care in our day so we can regenerate and relax.
- Leaders need to put trust in their people and inspire confidence in everyone, especially in uncertain times.
- Slowing down and making a downshift can increase our capacity and keep us on track.
“Disruption is the fuel for change and improvement.” – Dan Deka.
Connect with Dan Deka:
Connect with Steve and Jason:
- LinkedIn: Jason or Steve
- Website Rewire, Inc.: Transformed Thinking
- Email: grow@rewireinc.com
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Listen to the podcast here
Dan Deka Revisited: Disruption For Positive Change
In this episode, we've got a blast from the past. A few years ago, I interviewed our amazing Rewire coach, Dan Deka, who is a professional surfer, a professional coach, and a professional all-around great guy. We did an episode that is if not more appropriate in this world, this economy, and this industry that we're living in as it was a couple of years ago. The title of the episode is Disruption for Positive Change.
In this episode, we talk about the value of disruption, which is happening everywhere, decision fatigue, building in self-care and team care, the role of a leader in terms of the uncertain times we're living in, and learning how to downshift. There are great things. We tuned in to his episode and were like, "We need to relaunch that episode." Enjoy this episode with Dan Deka. We will catch you.
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I'm smiling because I'm excited about our guest. The guest is none other than Mr. Dan Deka. Let me tell you about Dan. He grew up in Hawaii and is a surfer. Dan believes that surfing a wave is a great metaphor for his career, his passions, and his life, meaning you have to drop in, commit, learn from your mistakes, paddle back out, and do it again and again for continued striving and continued improvement. Dan is also a coach here at Rewire who loves to support his clients through their valuable transitions and disruptions in life. He has an extensive HR, consulting, and coaching background. Get this. The name of his company is Flying Squirrel. How cool is that? Dan, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Jason. It's wonderful to be here. You make me smile. Our audience makes me smile. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
You got it. Here's the opening question. As we enter this conversation, what are you grateful for?
I'm grateful for a lot of things and for the opportunity to pray and be inspired by the spirit. No matter who you're praying to or what you're praying to, be able to have that because this time, we need to be grounded by things that are eternal and long-term. Every single day, my life is changing. What happened last week is not the same as this week or what happened yesterday. I've seen in a lot of my clients that there are so many things that have changed significantly. I'm super thankful for the ability to hold on to things that I consider to be eternal and timeless.
I so much appreciate that perspective and the transparency of people. I've known you long enough now to know that you're a transparent guy, to begin with, but I've recognized with all the stuff that's happening that people's transparency has come to the forefront. I've been so appreciative of that. A couple of years ago, your answering in that way might have struck me differently than it does now. I'm appreciative of the way that people are being transparent. Thanks for that.
You're welcome.
We're not going to do this with every episode but we are going to timestamp this one. You and I are recording this at the beginning of June 2020. To say that this is a time of upheaval is an incredible understatement. We entered 2020, not knowing that we were going to have a hopefully once-in-a-lifetime worldwide pandemic. We're experiencing an economic slowdown that at least in our lifetime hasn't happened before. It has brought to the forefront the racial social injustice that has existed for so long in our country. My hope is that this is a tipping point for that.
To say it's a time of upheaval is an understatement. You and I agreed. We have talked and agreed we're going to hit that topic head-on. We don't know exactly where we're going to go but we're going to hit that topic right on. I'm the host. I've been talking a lot. I don't want to do that. I want to get your perspective on some of this time of upheaval. Maybe I'll let you open it, and then I'll follow up with a couple of questions. Is that cool?
Our thoughts and this discussion are around leadership. We're coaches. It's around leadership, executive coaching, and mindset coaching but I would say one thing for starters. I'm all about disruption. I believe when I look at my life and my clients' lives, how do we change? How do we grow? I wish I could say it was from reading books and watching the great examples of others but I see that growth and change come from disruption and adversity.
There are a lot of things we do as coaches. We may use a 360 survey. To me, that's a purposely designed disruption. What questions are we going to ask? How is it going to be managed? When we have a coaching relationship with someone, there are a lot of things about it that are purposely designed disruptions. I'm going to be asking questions. We're getting together. It's a safe space. My clients want to be disrupted because they want to change.
In general, that's how I think about disruption. It's very valuable but then when you go, "Let's go global disruption," I'm like, "That's a lot. It's so much." I see that a lot in my clients. I've been spending a lot of time with my clients, whether they're responsible for bleach reproduction in Latin America or whether they're responsible for their small business or a nonprofit across the globe. The thing that I've been talking a lot about is decision fatigue.
Acknowledging how much all of this COVID experience and everything else that's happening is taking a toll. You started at the beginning around transparency. A reason why there's transparency is that people don't have the energy to hold up any of these facades anymore. Thank goodness. That's a way you can use that disruption to be positive.
What I mean by that decision fatigue is, "Have I touched my face during our conversation? Where's my mask? What am I going to do for lunch? Am I going to do takeouts? Am I going to go to the restaurant? When I walk into the store, and no one else has their mask, do I wear it?" All those things are decisions that we need to make that we didn't make before. For every single one of those, if it's brand new, there's a new neurotransmitter that needs to be put in place and a new line.
Calories are being burned when we're trying to make those new decisions. That's probably one of the biggest things I've been encountering with my clients. It's an acknowledgment when they say, "I'm not as patient as I normally am. I can't work ten hours a day. I can only go about five. I need to take more breaks." I'm like, "Let's talk about that decision fatigue and acknowledge the impact that it has on us and our decision-making."
Disruption: We need to talk about decision fatigue and acknowledge the impact that it has on us and our decision-making.
I've been coaching this as you have but even to hear you describe it, I'm thinking to myself, "Yeah." My wife and I were talking. We're going to an event. There are going to be a bunch of people there. Maryland is starting to open back up slowly but surely. We had a very long discussion about how that's going to roll. What if people aren't wearing their masks? It's optional in restaurants and things like that. What if you see people that you haven't seen in a long time?
Think through those different decisions that under normal circumstances, we wouldn't have even given a second thought but now, there are probably 56 micro-decisions that we have to make. Quite frankly, both of us at the end of the conversation had to take a breath. We're like, "Do we even go? Is it even worth it?" You and I have established there is that decision fatigue. What I heard you say was acknowledging it in and of itself is a big deal.
A lot of people when I say this are doing it but you need to make that self-care and that team care. You need to purposely structure them in your day to make sure you're doing those things to regenerate and relax. It's interesting. Many people are affected uniquely and differently by this. I have some clients where they're like, "We're working from home and getting more done. It's working." Some people are like, "I like being at home." Other people are like, "How do I get back? I so miss the interaction."
We need to purposely structure self-care and team care in our day so we can regenerate and relax.
It's a unique experience but overwhelmingly for those that are working from home, what they found is, "I thought it was going to work a little less, and now my day is filled with back-to-back Zoom meetings." To combat that decision fatigue, you have to be very purposeful and structured about your self-care. You're structuring, "When do I start? When do I stop? When do I take a break? When do I eat lunch?"
For some of those people that have been stuck in their palace, maybe it's moving from one room to another room to mix it up a little bit. You have to be purposely structured about that because if you don't, you're going to keep rolling through the day. Those Zoom meetings are going to come. The inability to recharge, rejuvenate, and release stress passes by, and then that fatigue continues.
There's this idea of self-care and team care. Most of our audiences are leaders. They're leading in some capacity. I heard you about the self-care piece. We did an episode with our SVP of coaching, Jenn Farrer. You might have tuned in to it where she talks about self-care as well. When you talk about team care, what are you seeing with either your clients that are working well or what you're doing from a team care standpoint? Break that down a little bit.
For starters, I work with a lot of leaders. There are a lot of stories about a very verbose, loud, aggressive, and get-things-done leader. I spend a lot of time with people talking about what's leadership, "Is it to get things done? Is it to get things done with others? Is it to build the confidence and capability of everyone around you?" I'm moving down that path to that last one.
That's what we're trying to do as leaders. I work with a lot of leaders on how to help them move toward that continuum. One thought is when you have a meeting, are you doing a check-in to see how everybody is or asking them a question? You asked me, "What are you thankful for?" It's a great question, "What one word comes to mind as we kick off this meeting?"
Do a check-in at the beginning of the meeting to create that space for people to acknowledge and speak and then do a check-out at the end of the meeting. Sometimes we use these questions to help leaders slow down, pause, and create a little space so they can reconnect to their values instead of being overthrown and pulled through all the action that's usually going on.
It's just a check-out at the meeting. A leader can do that and go, "This is what I understand in the action items. Is there anything that I missed? Is there anything that I misunderstood? Is there anything else that we should bring up and then plan to talk about next time?" One last thought is sometimes when we have people, we have a virtual sales team that's spread out across the United States or the globe.
Normally, we have this idea, "I'm so respectful of someone's time. I only want to get people together for a meeting if we have something to talk about," but there's a shift there around team care, "Let's create some space and hold some space to talk about whatever people want to talk about." Initially, the hard-charging aggressive leader is like, "Is that the best way to spend their time?" It does come from a place of getting things done and respecting others' time but what I'm finding is when I create that space with people and clients, they're coming in. They are more than happy to spend time, chat, share, listen, and support others. All of those things are some examples of what you can do around team care.
They're such good examples. You talked about the creating space piece. I've been thinking about this for a few days because of things like what you said. You've counseled me on this. With the social injustice, there have been some peaceful demonstrations as we all know. There have been some violent demonstrations, unfortunately, as we also know. I felt that we needed to do something internally with the staff at Rewire but I didn't know what that was.
I was like, "Not knowing and not doing something is not okay. What do we do?" We created the space that you talked about and got all the staff together. There's no agenda other than what you said. I wasn't even sure how it was going to go but I was like, "We're not going to not do something. Let's do something." We got in a Zoom room together and said, "We want to be here for one another and listen to one another." It was one of the most powerful hours that I've had in a very long time.
We were able to open up with one another, which I don't think we have ever done before, and said some powerful and transparent things. It was team care. I felt cared for. I wasn't there necessarily to care for my team, and maybe some of that happened, but I felt cared for by my team because they were listening to me, and we were all listening to one another.
Something cool came out of it that wasn't even part of the agenda, which is, "We're going to not only make a statement but take a position from a Rewire standpoint on this social injustice. What specifically are we going to do about it and make a statement but not just for this statement's purpose? What are we going to actionably do moving forward?" I don't know if we got it all perfect but it was the beginning of taking 1 step or 2 and taking some action.
I appreciate the way that you explain that. We tried it out. I don't know if we got it perfect but we did it. It feels good to have done it. To any leaders out there that heard what you said and the way that you did it, if you're not sure how to do that or if it's going to go right, I would implore you to do it anyway. Maybe you've got some more 1-2-3s or any insights there but that was our experience. If you are a leader, and there's something in your gut that feels like, "Maybe I can or should. I want to do that with my team," I would say go for it. Is there any color there?
There are a lot of thoughts that come to mind. One of them is the basis of being an executive or a leadership coach. The biggest premise that we all share in common is we believe that the answer is in the client. We are trying to facilitate this process, add some language, get some structure, and create a space where they can find that answer. If you take that and apply that to a team, then you're like, "We're in a challenging time. What do we do with our business?"
It was like, "How do we get everyone home?" Now, the challenging question is, "How do we bring people back? What is it going to look like going forward? How is it going to impact us?" If we hold the premise that the answer is in the individual, the belief that the answer is in the team is also a very enlightening and powerful thought. I get this a lot. You put out that invitation to leaders to be like, "Trust your team." It's interesting.
We hire these people that we work with. We selected them, and they weren't just anyone. We went through a hiring process. They have these credentials, this background, and this experience. We get to something challenging like this, "Should we make a statement about what we believe?" We think that we have to do that all by ourselves. I'm like, "Why don't we leverage the fantastic people around us that we hired?" These are people that we give our identity to.
When I'm representing Rewire, you are going, "Here's our identity and our reputation. We give it to you." There's so much trust that goes there. In other situations, maybe you're making decisions for your business that are $10,000, $1 million, or hundreds of millions. We have people that are making those types of decisions about a business but then when it comes to something around, "What do we believe about this? What do we believe about race, protests, and riots?" it's probably one of the most complex social discussions on the planet. There is so much around it.
We have wonderful people and work with wonderful people. Let's do it together. I spent a lot of time working with leaders. You don't need to solve this alone. If you believe that your role as a leader is to build the capability and confidence of everyone around you, you're probably going to bring them in. You're going to want to include them and get their opinion. They've got great ideas that you can move with. I love how you brought it together around, in general, the role of a leader but then, what's the role of a leader during these uncertain times?
Your role as a leader is to build the capability and confidence of everyone around you.
I don't think these uncertain times are going to be changing or going back any day soon. We are on a one-way path into the future. A very powerful thought is we want to understand the past. We want to honor the past where there are things that are honorable. We want to live in the present. We want to plan for the future. We're looking for, "What do we want to be? How do we respond?" Winston Churchill said this, or it's attributed to him, "Never waste a crisis."
There's so much energy out there. I was watching Trevor Noah. He gave this unbelievable connection between all of these events, what's happened, and why now. It was amazing but the COVID experience of everyone being at home and then what's happening and how people are responding to the videos that they have seen George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Amy Cooper, and all of these things are coming together. There's an opportunity here.
I am no expert on race. I'm trying to learn and go, "What do I learn from this? How should I be changed?" When I'm working with my clients, I am saying one thing. Whenever there's a disruption, I'm like, "We can't be the same." Whether it's a disruption on a team where you have someone that quits or you have someone that left and it surprised you, or if your child or your spouse said something to you is a real disruption. You're like, "This is not a match with my expectations."
My hope and my plea are that we're influenced by that. It's there for a reason. There's a disruption. How are we going to respond, learn, and change for the better from that? By that, I don't mean to say, "It's easy." It's not easy. These things that we're talking about and seeing are some of the most challenging and most interpersonal. They're deep in your heart and your mind. They're, "Who am I?" types of questions but that's our opportunity. That's what we have been given. Let's do something with that.
Disruption: That's our opportunity. That's what we have been given. Let's do something with that.
I appreciate those words. Everybody's experience of our generation is different. I don't want to assume that it's all the same but I had a feeling over the last several years of my adult life that we almost have it easy. My dad was a navigator in World War II. That was hard. There are some stories that he tells that I can't even relate to like coming back from the war and what life was like. There was Vietnam for my generation's parents and different things.
Everybody's experience is different. There were things like 9/11 and some other things that were completely atrocious but I had this feeling like we're on the backs of all of these people that have gone through some hard things, and then 2020 hit. There's a tipping point for so many different things. I love what you said. I even wrote it down, "It's a one-way path into the future." We're heading in that direction. I love your words.
There was something that you mentioned in a meeting about this idea of downshifting. We have talked about decision fatigue, self-care, team care, and many different parts moving in many different directions and whether the pandemic alone would cause all of the things that we described. The social injustice tipping point would probably promote everything that we described. The way that the economy looks would promote all of the things that we described but we've got this trifecta of all three things together. You brought up this idea of downshifting. Will you talk about that a little bit?
I have one thought in response to talking about things that have happened in the past and the people, "How is that relative? What's going on now?" I do think probably the most important decision that we have in our entire life is the next one that we make. Even through everything that's going on, there are things we have to work through and talk through as communities, as a country, as neighbors, as husband and wife, or as father and son. We need to talk. There's no other way but to go through some of these things.
The most important decision that we have in our entire life is the next one that we make.
The most important thing, and that's what I hear from the world, is, "What are we going to do next?" I wanted to say that. Around the downshifting thing, I'm spending a lot of time with leaders. They have some pretty high expectations. That's why they're leaders. They have this propensity to take on things and meet big commitments. They have a low-risk tolerance. They're like, "I'll do this." It makes a leader but then when we get to this time where we acknowledge this decision fatigue and all this unknown, I've had to talk with a lot of leaders about what downshifting looks like.
Here's an analogy. I do a lot of mountain biking and even any car. I also spend a lot of time trying to convince people that we're not machines. This is interesting that I would use a machine analogy to illustrate it. You're riding a bike, and it has some gears in the back. You get up to a hill. You get up to disruption, and it's challenging. If it's a short hill and you've ridden this path before, then you're like, "I know that when I go around this corner, the downhill starts. I'm going to stay in this gear, push through it, stand up on the pedals, power through it, and pull myself up my bootstraps," but if you're riding a trail that you've never gone on before, you're riding a path.
It's got a lot of curves, dips, and downs. You can't see what's ahead. It is unknown territory, "I've never ridden this path before." When you get up to something, you're probably going to have to think, "How do I conserve my energy? How do I maintain my momentum?" On a bike, you downshift into gear and increase the speed of your pedaling. It keeps your momentum going. You slow down a little bit but it conserves energy and keeps you going. It may get steeper. You may come around the corner, "That was a false summit. I got something bigger." You can downshift again. It feels like you're going slower but you're going to be able to stay on that bike and keep going.
I've spent a lot of time with leaders talking about what's the philosophical downshift that you have. Maybe we had a fantastic plan for 2020. We spent months planning it out with our customers and teams, "This is the plan for 2020." COVID happened, George Floyd's death happened, and then protests and riots happened. What are you going to do? You've got to look at it. You've got to see the situation and the reality as it is. You may have to downshift some of those expectations, "We had some financial goals and customer goals. We're going to adjust those. I had some personal goals. I'm going to adjust them."
There's hesitancy because it looks like we're not pushing hard. Especially if you do a lot of riding, and you're racing, you want to keep that cadence going. A bike works because those wheels are moving centrifugal force. It keeps it going. When you slow down on that bike, it gets harder to keep it going. By downshifting some of our expectations, "I used to be able to work ten hours a day. I'm going to be working 8, 6, or 5. I used to have this many calls a day. I'm going to slow that down a little bit," and being able to downshift can increase our capacity and keep us on that track.
My DNA is hard-charging, "Let's move forward. Pick yourself up by your bootstraps." I'm that type of leader. When I first heard you say the word downshift, I'll admit to you that in my brain, I was like, "Whatever he says next, I'm not interested in." You did it now but I was like, "I'll listen." When you finished your analogy, I'm like, "We have to downshift to get to where it is that we would ultimately like to go." I so appreciate your analogy of being on a different course, which we are, and being disrupted and the way that you drew it out. I can't wait for our audience to hear that and then see what they do with it. Thank you for that. That's serious knowledge you dropped on this, brother.
Thank you. It shows up in so many different ways. Patience, flexibility, invitation, and dialogue are what we have in our future. By downshifting, a leader might have, "When I walk into these meetings, we're going to do this agenda." Downshifting might be doing what I talked about earlier. We're going to have a check-in at the beginning of the meeting. We're going to have a check-out at the end of the meeting. That can look like a downshift. Downshifting could look like a leader asking more questions and spending some time. Downshifting could be more of that self-care or team care.
I think of how critical it is when you're trying to complete a race. There's casual bike riding but if you're racing, you're in good shape. You have these little gears that make you go fast but you're still using them. The best people on the planet are using those gears, and we need to do that. No one planned for this path. No one could have imagined this. If we went back and said, "Let me tell you what's going to happen," you would be like, "That sounds like a science fiction movie." With everything else that happens, it sounds like a science fiction movie with this emotional and cultural drama.
It's happening in our lives. No one is prepared for this but then we can be thoughtful and increase our understanding, awareness, patience, and self-care so we can be there for others and be there for ourselves. The path is uncharted but the opportunity from that is huge. One thought that you said earlier is, "Rewire is making a decision. We need to make a statement. What do we want to say about this?" CS Lewis said it, and a bunch of people have said, "All evil needs is for good people to do nothing."
Disruption: No one is prepared for this but then we can be thoughtful and increase our understanding, awareness, patience, and self-care so we can be there for others and be there for ourselves.
CS Lewis wrote this fantastic book called The Screwtape Letters. It's a fictional account of a senior devil writing to a junior devil. The junior devil is like, "I got to stop them from reading Scriptures or going to church." The senior devil is like, "Let them go to church but let them focus on that lady's hat in front of them. Let them focus on how that person singing next to them is a little bit off-key."
It's that subtlety. Wherever you're at and whatever you're thinking, all evil and opposition needs is for you to do nothing. Some actions can be talking, "What am I feeling about this?" and asking more questions to others. There are so many things. People are getting out and demonstrating. People are sharing their views. Some people are going and standing in front of a courthouse. Some people are sharing things on Facebook. Some people are talking to their families. Some people may be considering questions that they have never considered before in their minds.
All of those things are moving us forward in the right direction. I'm saying, "Doing nothing," in response to COVID and also to the race discussions and the challenges that are going on. I don't think that's an option if you think that things are going to go back to the way they are. I watched a talk by Martin Luther King called The Other America. That was amazing but I'm like, "He could have given that last week." I went back, and I was like, "The presidential elections are coming up." I went back to Obama's race speech and read that. I could be like, "He could be saying that now."
There are things that could be happening. Are things going to change? Honestly, the only way they're going to change and the only thing that I'm worried about in terms of change is Dan Deka, "What am I going to do to change? What are you going to do to change and respond to this?" If we all do that, then we're going to make some changes. If I worry about everybody else changing, probably not that much is going to happen but it's an opportunity. It's so personal. Encourage people to consider that.
On that note with how you want to be starting with yourself first before we hit record, you talked about a book and a book club that you're going to do. Tell us about that.
It came from my wife. We were watching the news and going, "What are we going to do about this?" It's so interesting. It's a question, "What are you going to do?" With everything else in life, you're like, "How do I change my refrigerator fan? How do I change the oil in my car?" You go to the internet and look but I'm like, "Have people done that? Have I done that?"
When Kipp did that, I'm like, "What do we do with this race discussion?" She came up with this book, Me and White Supremacy. This was an effort that was started by Layla Saad. It started as her personal journey. She had a lot of people asking, "What do I do to help with this and race relations?" She created this 28-day challenge of things to reflect upon. Kipp started reading it and started a book club. I'm going to start a book club because I want some help going through it. You do not need to go through these things alone. I'm not an expert on this. It's reading that book and understanding it, even the title. That title is Me and White Supremacy. People are like, "I'm not a White supremacist."
It's jarring.
That's the first page of the book. Keep going. What other feelings and emotions do you have around that? That's one thing that we're doing to try to explore our thoughts about it. If you ask, "What do you think about race? What do you think about racism?" there's going to be some silence. There are going to be some stuck gears up in that head because it's so interesting. It's a contract that we have in this world and our nation but we never talk about it.
Trevor Noah pointed it out. That's why some of the things happened like with Amy Cooper in Central Park. That contract was illuminated. When that contract is illuminated with all the other violence that has been going on, then the contract isn't being upheld. It leads me to that thought of when Martin Luther King said, "Riots are the language of the unheard."
My main thing is if you don't know what to do, that's a great book. You can join us in a book club and have some conversations because there's so much injustice but what most people are looking for honestly is, "What are we going to do next? Do we have to acknowledge what's happening?" The vast majority of the world is like, "What are you going to do now, Dan?" If we're moving our energy there and putting our energy and intention there, it's a good place. I don't know where that takes us but that's worth thinking about what's next.
To your point, the thing that matters is the next decision. On that note, there are two books. It's the one that you held up, and then there's a book that I read called The Next Right Thing by Emily Freeman. She wrote a whole book on the topic that you brought up and so eloquently spoke about, which is the most important thing in your life or the most important decision is the next one. She talks about how to do that because often, we feel overwhelmed.
Before 2020 came, we were a human race that was feeling overwhelmed. That book was appropriate. The book is even more appropriate now because of that. I know you well enough to know that you're like, "Come one. Come all. It doesn't matter how perfect it goes down," but if somebody did want to read that book with you or join a book club, what's the best way to get in touch with you?
Reach out to me and connect on LinkedIn. I'll put something on LinkedIn that says that we're starting it. I'll put that invitation out there. If you want to participate, chat with me about it, get together, and go through this together with the group, reach out to me there, and we can connect.
I'm blown away by the insights that I've gotten personally from this. You've probably seen me. I've been feverishly writing notes because this is so good, which happens every time I come into contact with you. As we start to round out our time together here, are there any particular projects? Maybe it is this book club and some of the stuff that you talked about but is there anything else that you're particularly excited about these days?
There are so many industries and some businesses that are going to be greatly impacted. Those that were strained before are probably going to go out of business. We're seeing that happen but there are other opportunities that are going to arise. There are new businesses that are going to come out. There is new thinking that's going to come out in response to this that could not have happened had not all of this happened. If we don't use that energy and all of that emotion to create something new and better, we're leaving things on the table. We're also doing injustice to all those that have sacrificed for us and created this opportunity for us.
Disruption: There is new thinking that's going to come out that could not have happened had not all of this happened. If we don't use that energy and all of that emotion to create something new and better, we're leaving things on the table.
What I'm excited about is what's going to come and what's possible. We talked about what's happening and what's likely but what's possible? I don't think that there has ever been a time on the planet when there was more opportunity for change than now. We started with disruptions. I'm saying, "Disruption is the fuel for change and improvement." I don't know if we have ever had more commonly shared disruption and more visually shared disruption than now. On one side, I'm exhausted and floored emotionally by all the things that we have seen but after I get up off the floor and talk with my wife, then it's like, "What are we going to do with this?"
Disruption is the fuel for change and improvement.
There is so much energy out there. Let's do something with it. I'm excited about it. It is overwhelming but, in my life, I've had so many experiences. Challenging times are there for a reason. Adversity is there for a reason. It's to clarify, "Dan Deka, what do you think? You can't just float through this life. What are you going to do about that?" I've never had so many places where it's like, "Dan Deka, what do you think about this? What are you going to do?" My experience up until now has been when those things happen, and I choose, amazing things happen after that. That's what I feel.
You gave me goosebumps. Even though there's all the stuff, and you described it well, there's an opportunity in the middle of all that. You didn't use this word but I'm hearing it as you're talking. It's this idea of hope. Every day, I need to have something to hope for. There's so much out there in the way of opportunities and exciting things that may happen as a result of all this. That's very hopeful for me. Thank you for that. I hope our audience feels the same thing.
I have an inkling that we're going to have to have some follow-up conversations at some point that we will release to the audience but for now, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. I appreciate this. I've learned a lot personally from it. We will go over some of those insights but for now, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for adding so much to our audience.
You're welcome. Thank you for the opportunity. It's a pleasure. I wish the best for everyone. I hope to talk with you soon.
Thanks, Dan.
Thank you.
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There are so many insights that I got from Dan. I don't even know where to start. If you're a leader, the check-in before a meeting or before a conversation, and then after the meeting or after the conversation, the check-out, creating space to make that happen and slowing down. What an insight there. I'll be doing that during my next conversation and next meeting. The answer is in the team. We hired these people as leaders. Why not pull them into a lot of the decision-making on what's going on with us emotionally and psychologically and how we can continue to have hope for the future?
Speaking of hope, I love the way that Dan ended there. He said that there is so much disruption going on. A lot of it is not good but in the middle of all of it, there are so many opportunities and exciting things that we can be hopeful for. Those were my insights. As we always end every episode, my insights are great for me but what matters is what insights you had.
Important Links
- Disruption for Positive Change - Previous Episode
- Flying Squirrel
- Jenn Farrer - Previous Episode
- The Screwtape Letters
- Me and White Supremacy
- The Next Right Thing
- LinkedIn - Dan Deka
- Dan@FlyingSquirrel.coach
