Join our hosts, Jason and Steve, in a captivating conversation as they ask the question, what are you excited about? They talk about the energizing potential of today's youth, the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence, the strength of community, and the sea of ideas and influences to be found in books. But there’s far more to the question than the answers to it. Simply asking the question helps us to embrace change with optimism and openness, recognizing that every new experience brings valuable lessons and growth opportunities. Get ready for an insightful and inspiring conversation that will leave you motivated to embrace the positive potential in every aspect of your life.
“I think there's a level of resiliency that today's youth have that just gets me excited because there's going to continue to be headwinds in the future... If more of the people of our generation thought that way about the next generation, I think that they would be up to the task of impressing us."
Jason Abell
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This is your host, Jason Abel. And I've got your other host, Steve Scanlon. Steve, buddy, copartner, welcome to the show.
Hi. You know, I've noticed…
I don’t think I've ever called you copartner before. Such a weird…
I've noticed that in all the years we've been doing this, you're just better at that. Remember when we first started, we were all, hi, my name is Steve and I'm doing a podcast, and this is our show. Like, we're all, it flows smoother, man.
I'm still trying to, where did the, yes, you're right. Except for the fact that I just said copartner. What in the hell is a copartner? I don't even know what that means.
I think every time I tell people, you're my partner, I think in this modern day and age, there's some distinction that has to happen there so that people have maybe the most accurate representation of our relationship.
I mean, you and I are pretty tight. That is a thing. But we're business partners. We're business partners.
Really glad you cleared that up, Steve. I think we're recording, like, we're recording a podcast episode right now. Shall we do this?
But this is exactly what I wanted this episode to be about. Just what kind of idiots we were. That way people would know, and they could be clear about that.
I'm pretty sure by this time, people know,
No, I think we put on a façade and we're trying not to be idiots, and then we get off and they're like…. or maybe it's a relief for people that they finally know that we know we're idiots. How about that?
Oh, they get it. They get it. You know what's funny to me in this moment as we're doing this? First of all, I don't know that we've ever riffed this like this before on this type of platform. And for the first, I don't know, two- and three-quarter years that we've done the podcast, this type of thing. And it doesn't worry me today. I don't know that would worry me at all, because we had like ten podcast listeners, right? No big deal. I was looking at the analytics the other day. 5000 people listened to us in the last month. So, there's going to be people that are going to listen to us going, oh, never mind, these guys are actually idiots.
We've already said, oh, yeah, and we're offending people all over the world, right? I mean, there's people in Namibia that are just canceling right and left because we said something that hurts their culture. And we didn't even know.
Do you know we have listeners in how Philippines? Come on. That's cool. I just think that that's cool. You know what? Or the algorithm. The Internet just went wonkers and there's nobody listening to us.
Dude, do you know there's 1.6 billion people in India roughly right? You want to know what that means? That means, like, if you go over there, dude, and you're a one in a million guy, there's 1600 people just like you.
How long have you been crafting that joke?
It's been a while. I can't do the math that quick in my head. I did interview a mathematician, which is going to get posted here in probably December, earlier today. And the left side of my brain was taxed because I'm just right close to autistic with how right mode dominant I am. But she was a mathematician for the US government for 32 years. I was like, I don't even know what to ask you. I told her in the episode, I said, I don't even know. How can openers work? Oh, no. She thought that was quite funny. And then I wondered if she thought, what am I doing on this podcast?
Oh, man. Well, dude, as my job as the de facto host today, I'm going to bring us back to center. We do actually have some content. We have some things that we wanted to talk about today. And this is as you've probably already noticed, this episode is going to be a little bit different. This episode drops the Friday after Thanksgiving. So happy Thanksgiving, everyone. And we typically will take on a particular guest, a particular topic. We'll go into that topic pretty deep, try to talk about our own insights, create some of your insights. This one is a little different, and you can probably tell that just by the bantering that we're doing. One, just feels good to be a little lighthearted. But two, we do actually have some content that we want to talk about. So, Steve, what was that content? I forget.
What we’re going to talk about is focus. OK, wait, what were we going to focus on? Jason, I like when you said you're going to bring us back to center. Here I was thinking, I thought this was the center, but okay. I think the content, I think what you and I had said is especially given that people right on this particular day or maybe this weekend, actually diving in and doing something that's real specific and business oriented or entrepreneurial oriented or growth oriented, we're like, you know, let's relax a little bit and just have you and I maybe spend a little bit of time and just kind of talk about some of the things that it doesn't even matter if it's inside or outside the bounds, right? In the boundaries, out of the boundaries. What are just some of the things these days that you're excited about? And I thought if we asked each other that, number one, we don't really ever get to talk about that on the podcast because what we're excited about is not really necessarily our podcast point, right?
That's right. Yeah.
But it doesn't mean that we don't get excited about some things. And I think if you shared a little bit about some of the things going on in your mind, in your world that you're just excited about, given that you and I co own this company and we're coaches and we hear stuff and we're in the world, I think it's as good a reason as any to have some insights. So, there you go.
Yeah, no, thank you for that. When you and I came up with this idea, since we had that original conversation, and right now, I'm not kidding, I've had, like, 18 different things. I'm like, I'm excited about that. I'm excited about that. But I did boil it down to three.
Good. Well, we only want to hear about one.
One, yeah. It's not all encompassing, but yeah. I'll riff for a minute.
You riff on what you're excited about. Fire away. I'm going to take notes.
Thing number one that I'm excited about right now, I think all three of mine, definitely two of them are probably going to be a little contrary to popular thought process right now. The first thing that I'm excited about right now is today's youth. Today's youth. Believe it or not, man, I listen to the broader media, social media, just even peers just kind of talk about today's youth with, like, an eye roll, and it's not like it used to be or those types of things. I don't know, man. I've been observing some of today's youth, and I'm excited about what I see. And specifically, just so that's not, like, a generalization. Oh, that's positive. Jason just doing his positive thing again. No, I've got some meat behind that sentiment, which is, I think, because of some of the headwinds that our youth has had in the recent years, call it social media, call it the Internet and the phone, call it the pandemic, whatever it is, I think that there's a level of resiliency that today's youth has that just gets me excited because there's going to continue to be headwinds in the future. And I think that, sure, in any generation, there's going to be some people that just aren't up to the task. I think there's more of today's youth up to the task than we think.
"I think that there's a level of resiliency that today's youth have that just gets me excited because there's going to continue to be headwinds in the future."
And I also think, here's this for controversy, if more of the people of our generation thought that way about the next generation, I think that they would be up to the task of impressing us. Anyways, I think there's resilience. I think the other thing is, you know what they have on their side that we don't? Youth. They're young and they have energy, and they have ideas that we may not necessarily have. They have brain elasticity, and I know that you dive deep into that, and I know adults have that, too, but they seem to be malleable. And anyways, I'm excited about today's youth. So, there's number one, I've got two more. Is that cool if I tell you about the next two?
Yeah, but it will be done. But yes.
Is that code for hurry it up?
No, I love it. I'm taking notes. First one, youth. And you said A couple of things about that in particular that are really sticky but keep going. Yeah. Number two, fire away.
Second one is maybe a little bit more pedestrian because everybody's talking about it these days. I'm excited about AI. I'm excited about AI, and here's why. So, it's easy to go, I'm excited about AI just because everybody is, and they're doing this and they're doing that, but, uh oh, what about when the robots take over and isn't that a concern? I don't know. That's out of my control. So, it's not really part of my concern. But the reason that I'm excited about AI is just like anything, any other tool that's available to us, whether it's technology or literally, like a tool, like a wrench, I think it can be used for some really cool things. And just in my own little dibble dabble of AI, and I don't know nothing from nothing when it comes to technology, but I'll just give you some things that I've used AI for personally. And again, I'm just, ask my kids, ask my wife. I'm not a tech guy, but I have done the simplest things as, like, research new places to paddleboard in my area that I didn't find on Google, but I did find on chat GBT. I actually consulted AI on a proposal that we wrote. I don't even know that you know this. It's not like I had AI write the proposal, but I asked it some questions, I got some feedback. I used some of that in our proposal. It gave me data very quickly, and I used even some of the verbiage, and I'm like, okay, this isn't taking over our proposal writing, but it's augmenting it. It's augmenting it. And I thought that that was pretty cool.
And I know that there are two camps of people, and I see this, whether it's AI or even what I talk about, social or anything like that. Social. There's two camps of people where there is the camp of people, and I'm really generalizing here, so forgive me for this. The camp of people that kind of the eye roll, like things aren't the way that they used to be, not like the good old days. And then there's people with AI, because that’s the topic I'm talking about right now, that are just excited about it, going, yeah, I mean, we had a client the other day that was. And this is a client that's older than I am, so older than 52. And she was like, no, there's this really cool thing that it did. And she gave me this example of where AI was actually helping produce very real leads for her and setting appointments for her that was, again, augmenting her own efforts. And she's like, this is very real. It's happening right now, and it's cool. And so anyway, I'm excited about AI.
The last thing, and then I'll kind of move on, I'm reinvigorated on community and groups. I see over and over again what a group of people can do when they band together versus what an individual can. You know, I think of things like the nonprofit that my wife and I did, Sadie's Gift. If we were to do that only on our own, I don't know that much happens. We got a bunch of people around us, everybody doing a little bit, and we raised almost a million bucks for Johns Hopkins Children's Center. I think about health. I think about the way that the people around you, your circle of influence, the people that are around you, how that they can get around you and cheerlead you for whatever efforts it is that you're going for or even to help heal after a surgery or help do a project in business. Just communities of people that have similar interests to things that they can do just can be quite remarkable. And that one I bring up because I don't know if you're listening to this right now, and I know we had a lot of fun banter in the beginning. If you're listening to this right now and going, oh, I wish we could do this, or there's this goal, or there's this project, or I wish I was paying more attention to my health or whatever, maybe the answer is a group of people around you and do it with them as opposed to doing it on your own. So there. I know I riffed for a long time, and I don't know, I'm going to be unapologetic about it. Those are a couple of things that I'm excited about. But, Steve, what about you, bro? What are you excited about?
"If you're listening to this right now and going, oh, I wish we could do this, or there's this goal, or there's this project, or I wish I was paying more attention to my health or whatever, maybe the answer is a group of people around you and do it with them as opposed to doing it on your own."
You kind of broke our rule a little bit. Like when we came up with this podcast episode, you were supposed to come in all kind of you know, washed white as snow and not have anything. Blank slate, dude. Without we thought we were turning the Etches sketch over and like, you had already made a bunch of stuff. I thought you had like a slideshow with yours and stuff. Like, Golly Lee, I know you should have gone second because mine are kind of like, hey, I decided I like chocolate or something like that. This is my big revelation for the post-Thanksgiving thing. Oh, man, yours are all good. I'm like, scrambling over here, looking up books that I might have read at one time.
Dude, chocolate, by the way, is amazing. I can get very excited about that. So, you're good. Chocolate augments everything I just said. So come on.
I want that to be the title of the podcast. Hey, I like chocolate because I think a lot of people, that's what they should be thinking the day after Thanksgiving. Maybe they don't like chocolate. Dude, the youth lay it on me. Right? I'm just making sure. I'm listening. So here's what I heard you say. I heard the youth AI and community. Do I got that right? Yes, sir. Yeah, dude, I hope I'm not that guy that's doing my eye rolling and stuff. I do got to admit, because that's who we are with each other is honest. I think what I really appreciate about what you said is you're not a tech guy, and yet you're open minded enough to not be the eye rolling guy. Oh, my God. The Matrix is coming, and computers are going to take us over for example or thinking that our kids are, which I really think is cool because it sort of transcends a generational thing, dude, that's been going on for as long as life, right? I mean, think about the parents in the 60’s and 70’s going and the 80’s going oh my God, these people. Now here we are. So, I really appreciate you doing that, and especially that last point you made about part of what's really going to usher that in is your call to our attitude about it.
Look, we find what we're looking for. We find what we're looking for. And if we look for the amazing things in anybody, I don't care if it's your spouse, your kids, or in this example that I'm giving today's youth, we're going to find the good stuff. It's there. It's there. We just got to look.
Yeah. Which, by the way, that's a really positive view of it. If you're looking for something really negative, you might find it.
You'll find it. You'll find it. Sure. Sure. Sure. You'll find it.
I think that's great. Look. I like chocolate, man. Yours had, like, slides and stuff. You really thought about this. I got to tell you, I am excited about a couple of thoughts, and I know you know about this. Talking about it in a podcast with you is a little weird because I hope you don't roll your eyes at me and find something like, not so good. But there have been a handful of books that have really shaped me with regard to our vocation here at rewire and coaching. How many books are there written about what coaching is these days? I mean, I'm not kidding. Like, thousands.
A few. Yeah, there's a few.
I continue to be impacted by Dr. Daniel Siegel's book mindsight that has you know, I'm sure we probably need a podcast episode on it one time or another, but just how he speaks about being integrated in that book has just continues to shape me, whether it's narrative integration or temporal integration. Right? That temporal integration of the idea that we can understand differently how things are temporal and think about how relevant that is these days with people. Because what he pointed out in that course work that I did with him was that, for some odd reason, when things aren't going that well, as people perceive, there's this sort of human thing that we do, and we don't think we do it consciously, but we have a tendency to make it permanent.
Yes
And so, it's really an important thing to think about. Nothing is.
That's right.
Nothing is. And that's okay. And maybe for somebody that's disconcerting, but I find peace in it. And that's just one of those integrations. I think the other book that I have been shaped by and something that's just been really exciting me lately is just the idea of what we have called adaptive versus technical change. Now, there's ways you know that comes from the book immunity to change by Robert Keegan and Lisa Leahy, these two Harvard scientists that dedicated literally like a quarter century to research, to ultimately culminate that research into a book about how human beings change and/or don't. And I just took an appreciation to it because we all have a theory about that. Oh, I think you should do this. That's one of my favorite things that happens in humans. Habits are like this, and we all have theories about that. Some people go out of their way to say, I'd like to research that and understand that. And so they did that. And so that work has been just, maybe it's exciting for me because it's been impacting me, like some of the things that I think need to happen technically that I need to work on personally, versus some of the adaptive changes that I still need to make. So that's just sort of a vocational thing when you're coaching people. That's why I really appreciated one of our core values is that we would practice what we preach.
Indeed.
Well, but I guess that means that I read books like immunity to change or mind side or this other book that we're getting out to our coaches called positive provocation, which is all about really cool, good questions to ask in the coaching process. And I don't read that and go, man, I can't wait to help other people. For the most part, I get into this work and think, oh, my God, that's so applicable to me.
Yes.
And I really do credit one of our colleagues, Steve Longin, who's been with Rewire for more than ten years, right? And he's a really seasoned coach in his own right. He went out, got all his certifications, and it's just an amazing coach. But he also does a lot of our research and development. And I give him a lot of credit because we go out and do a lot of workshops with people and we do live events for our work. And I'll come up with this really cool question and process. We're going to ask people this. Here's how we're going to debrief and put people into it. And Steve will stop and go, have you ever asked yourself that? Like, before we go to a workshop and put people through some paces of an exercise, have we ever asked us that?
Yeah. So, good.
And I got to tell you, there are times when I thought this would have been really cool to ask people. And then I went through it, and I canned the whole thing. Just kick it in the creek. It wasn't that it wasn't a great idea. I didn't know how to answer the questions very effectively, and I just kind of thought, there's work I got to do on that before I can be in front of other people asking them to do the work.
Yup, yup.
So those are a couple of things that I get excited about. And I do like chocolate, and I've got two grandkids.
There you go. There's the good stuff.
And so, I get to think about them, and I got grandkids. You were talking about, you're 52. I was like, well, that's courageous. I'm not talking about how old I am, but I love when someone's, whatever. I'll be 57. Like, in whatever it is, a week, ten days, something like that. I'll be 57. I like when you meet someone who's 57 and they say, yeah, middle age. They talk about middle age, and I just think that's a math problem. Middle of what? What does the word middle mean to you? And how much leeway did I plan on being 114?
Yeah, yeah. Dang.
Maybe.
Could happen. Could happen.
I met someone who's 66, middle age. Okay. That's 132 as far as I can tell, but could happen.
So, anyway, good conversation. Good conversation. I mean, I think I listen to those things, and even both of the things that we're excited about, and I guess the main purpose, because I get all jacked up on some of the stuff that you're saying. I'm like, I need to reread mindsight or those types of things or just looking at myself in the mirror. But I guess the bigger question is, listener, as you're listening to this, what types of things are you excited about? Right? That's what we want to get out of this. You may hear some of our things, you may agree or disagree, and none of that really even matters. Right, Steve? I mean, we just want to poke the bear a little bit of your brain to start thinking about, well, geez, what in the world is it that I'm excited about?
I think that's right. And I can hear you trying to end our show because I was having some fun. I thought we were going to go on forever. Dude, this is great.
Prince says forever is a really long time.
Yeah. Did you say Prince? Is that what he?
Yeah, come on.
Hey, can we make Purple Rain available on the show notes for this maybe episode?
I don't know what the publishing rights are, but if we can need to remember, what song is that from that I'm referencing. It's not party like, it's 1999.
No, I got one. Let's go crazy. It's let's go crazy.
Well, that’s right off Purple Rain. Yeah. If we can make our outro that line or the beginning part of let's go crazy, I don't know if that's allowed or not, but if it's allowed.
All right, well, this one's totally at the end, and I know we got to end because you started to have that tone and the inflection of your voice, like, and so here we go. I will tell you, if you want to watch something really cool, you should write this down, man. And you're a Prince fan. It's on YouTube, so I don't think I'm, like, violating anything, but go look up the version of I think Eric Clapton started this, but he did a version of while my guitar gently weeps by the Beatles.
Oh, yeah.
And Prince comes and does a guitar solo at the end of that. It'll change you from the inside out. You won't be the same human being. Even Eric Clapton, who's largely known as one of the greatest guitarists, Eric Clapton almost got on his knees and went, whoa, it was so good. So, I want you to watch that.
Yeah, bro, I think these things are really good. I think the insights that we have. I was just going to make the quick comment, then we can go. But all the coaching that we do and coaching in general is becoming more and more and more inextricably linked to positive psychology. The fact that we come on and laugh, the fact that it might be a really easy day for you, listener, and you're kind of, like, relaxed and whatever. Not a bad time to have some thinking and some insights and listen to us in a casual kind of way and we're laughing and having fun. Got to tell you, that is often the petri dish for insights.
Right on.
Right?
Yeah, right on. So, yeah, we can get serious from time to time, and we've got a bunch of really great guests that do great things. I think the fun that we had today, dude, was great. Love being with you. Hopefully your three insights were wonderful, like you said. And I had couple about some of the work that I'm doing with the work that we're doing. But what are yours, listener? Right? As you're sitting there today. What are you excited about? And I will say this, if you look at how the human brain works, if you're not excited about something, negativity will own you. So, getting excited and being joyful and finding peace and doing some of the things that we talk about is actually a work. Because if not, the brain, I think, will resort to just self-protection, and it'll be kind of negative. And so, I appreciate the intentionality with which so many of you come at that. But hopefully, you'll have some really great insights, probably on Jason's because his were just cool.
Yours were okay. Chocolate's good, bro. You're good.
Yours is all, you had PowerPoint slides, stuff, whatever. I came up with Price, I had that.
All right, folks, listen, go have a great whatever it is, Black Friday if you celebrate that or whatever. And we've got a really fun season coming up. Grateful for you all as listeners and hope you got some great insights. You get the last word, bro.
See you later, everybody.
That's good.
Oh, no, wait. Now the last word.
Okay, goodbye.
I'm ending it. That's it. We're done. Bring on Prince.
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