Unlocking Passion: Fueling Purpose, Teams, and Culture 🚀 | #SuperhumanFramework

Good morning, LinkedIn. Happy Thursday. It is time for another edition of let's Build Superhumans with George B. Thomas. How you doing, man?

I'm doing great. I'm. I'm to the point where any day that I wake up and I get a chance to continue to do what I'm doing, help humans. It's a good day, brother.

It is a good day. Can't get enough of that right now. Yeah. And for today's episode, we've been taking it after the 10 pillars we've been tackling the four cornerstones. Started with love, moved to persistence, and now it's all about the passion, baby.

It is about the passion. Again, kind of to get into this a little bit, I'm excited to have this conversation because I think it's a really important piece of the puzzle. I am starting to look at, like, the pillars and the cornerstones of, like, these puzzle pieces to a bigger problem. In a world where quiet quitting and burnout make headlines, and in a place where you hear, like, you know, people dying in offices and entrepreneurs, like, doing things that you don't really want to talk about, I think it's time that we have a deeper conversation about what truly drives us humans, us individuals, what truly drives the teams of humans, and really take a look at organizations and how they can be better. And, Chris, I think an important part of this conversation is just the passion that people are hooking into or not hooking into. I want to talk about, like, when I'm talking about passion, I'm not talking about, like, the, the fleeting kind of passion that fizzles out. Then, you know, the next shiny object or squirrel moment that we have, because we all have those kind of, like, moments. But when I'm talking about passion with the superhuman framework, it's the kind that roots itself in with purpose and transforms the way that we lead, the way that we collaborate, and the way that we grow. And today, in the conversations that we're having, I want us to try to unpack passion not just as, like this feel good buzzword that can easily get thrown around, but as a cornerstone. Pun slightly intended right there. For impactful leadership, for dynamic teams, and for cultures that refuse to settle for mediocrity. And to those of you who are watching or listening this, I have to ask, are you running or working for any an organization and. Or team that is settling for mediocrity now? I hope not, but. But if so, just know that I want this conversation to be about action today and not just theory, because my personal Opinion, and you've probably seen it in your own life, is that change takes action. We can talk about it all day long, but unless we do something about it, it stays the same. And to be very frank, I've seen a lot of organizations, well, they need change. Chris, where do you want to start here? Personal team, where are we at?

You know, where we always got to start, right, with the human.

Humans. Yeah, that's right. I should have hit the. Let me see. Actually, do I have. Let me do this. Because we just have to. We've got to say we start with the humans.

There it is.

There we go. All right, so let's get serious though. Although I do love to play with the soundboard every now and then. Let's start with the most personal level and it is the individual humans, us. So many times passion is mistaken for excitement. Like, I'm really passionate about it. Nah, maybe you're just excited because next week you're going to be excited about something else. Passion goes a lot deeper than excitement. Excitement to me is a quick spark, but passion is a long lasting fire that keeps going long after that little spark fades. And by the way, the spark can be the thing that ends up being the passion, but they have to be understood and defined as, as different. And here's the thing, it's not about having passion handed to you as a human. Like, sometimes I think we get a little bit with the company professional world of like core values and mission and vision and. Oh, well, because of that, I should just, as an employee, like, what am I passionate about, boss? Passion shows up when you own your work, when you own your choices and when you own your outcomes. And I love to talk about this, the thing that I call the owner's mentality. And you don't have to be an owner to have owner's mentality. I want you to think about it like an owner doesn't wait for someone else to tell them what's next. They don't need permission to care. Passion fuels that drive, that sense of accountability. We as individual humans can unlock that for ourself. And so when you approach, you know, your role with an owner's mentality, when you approach your life with an owner's mentality, you're not just doing a job, you're not just doing a thing. You fully understand that you're doing that job or that thing, professional or personal, to leave a mark or like I always say, to create the ripples that will extend way past yourself and viewers and listeners. I want you to ask yourself this question, am I treating my work like a rental car or am I treating it like a prized possession? Am I treating my work like a rental car or am I treating it like a prized possession? What. What do I mean by this? Well, let's be honest. One gets returned without a second thought and. And the other gets your heart and soul. And I can't use this analogy without thinking about the movie Days of Thunder where Cole Trickle and I forget the other guy's name, but they get these rent a cars and they are on race to the restaurant, no care, trashing the crap out of it. And so is that the scene when it comes to your work or the things that you're doing in life? Or is it more of prize possession? Now, let's go back to work for a second. If you're stuck in rental mode, which I guess could be work or life, I think it's time to reconnect with your native nature. The things that energize you, the things that ignite you, the things that you are passionate about. Because sometimes we just do, because we have to do, we can't do, because it's the thing that we want to be in. Like, I would beg you to own that, to own the fact that you need to understand what it is that you're passionate about, how to ignite that passion and how to tie that passion into again, perfection, professionally or personally. Because when you have that ownership, when you understand that passion, not only professionally, but personally, just generally in life, if you can embrace that, it makes such a massive difference. And I'm completely speaking out of, like, I've seen it happen in my own life and seen it happen with others, but it's going to make a massive difference. Chris, what are your thoughts?

I mean, it sounds great, man, but like, what if we're in an organization that, you know, either doesn't allow for it, either consciously or subconsciously, you know, even reprimanded for taking it to that level, because not everybody wants that mentality around. They want to be in charge and they just want you to go do the thing. I mean, how many people have you seen lose the passion because of that and how it's unfortunate to watch when that happens.

Leadership can be a devastating killer to passion for the individual humans in an organization. And by the way, I'm just not talking about C suite leaders because in a minute I want to talk about team dynamics and kind of what that looks like. You are asking a hard question. And if we're talking about the individual humans still, sometimes you have to make hard decisions. Meaning. There have been several times in my life where I've had to be like, this is no longer a fit for me. I've had to jump ship. I can recall several times when I jumped ship and took dramatic pay cuts. But it was because I understood the health of myself and the health of being passionate and feeling like I am focused on a purpose to do something larger than myself, where it just didn't. It wasn't going to work in that organization. So sometimes you just need to know when to hit the rip cord and be like, all right, on to the next. Onto the next journey. However, it's not an immediate rip cord, because the other thing comes to mind is, like, how can you start to lead from the back pew or lead from the inside? Are there things that you and maybe a set of humans can start to implement where you can break down some of those walls and barriers? Because here's the thing, and I think that's a good segue into, like, the team aspect of this or the team dynamics of this, because it will be very easy if you feel like you're a singular human and you're trying to climb this hill by yourself. Because, Chris, no one achieves greatness alone. That there's some sort of team. By the way, the team could be your family. And I'm not talking about, like, psychic strategies and the fact that we've hired family. I'm saying it could be like, you know, your brother cheering, you're on, your mom cheering you on. You're like, your cousins are cheering you on. Or it could actually be, like, in an organization, teams, humans gathered together. But you can't achieve greatness alone. There's going to have to be some elements of a circle that you're building around. And those people around you, they. They literally are the backbone of any success story that will be told. And when you unlock both passion and you align it with purpose in them, like, this is where the magic happens, especially from a team level, when I start to drill into this, passion is the energy. It's the fuel that keeps the engine running. And purpose, because, like, again, they go hand in hand. That's why they're kind of paired together in the four cornerstones. Purpose is the compass that gives you, like, the direction and the meaning that you need. Which, by the way, that's why sometimes there is that rip moment, is because you lose the passion, which then you're not even looking at the compass. You don't even understand the direction or, like, the meaning at that point. And when both of those are failing, you might will just reboot, right? But when those two align, work stops being just a set of tasks. And I had many years in jobs where I just clocked in and I had tasks to do and it was boring and I hated it. And then I got to the point where I could have a job that I loved, and it was because I was passionate about it and I felt like I had a purpose, right? And this is back when I found out about HubSpot and it was the sales line and Marcus Sheridan and like. And what happens is when those two are aligned, it transforms into something bigger. It transforms into almost something more like a mission. And I've even joked, Chris, before that, like, sometimes I feel like HubSpot or Inbound is my mission field. And I'm just doing it because it's like, you know, mission one tutorial at a time, one blog article at a time. Like, I'm just trying to help people understand what they can do, how they can do it. But it's because the purpose and passion were aligned. And now it didn't feel like a set of tasks, but it felt like something deeper. And here's the thing. What I want leaders to really hear is passion and purpose don't just magically appear. You can't be inside of an organization and wake up one day and be like, oh, my team is fully aligned and energized. They must have purpose and passion. Like, it's not going to work that way. As leaders, it takes intentionality, and I mean real work to create the kind of culture where passion can thrive. And purpose in individual humans feels personal. Listen, you might be like, george, this sounds great. Chris, you literally said, george, this sounds great when I was going through the first little rift that we were talking about. But how do I actually do it? And that's where, like, the leaders I want you to, like, look at. I've gone through this journey. I've been an individual human. I've been an employee. You know, I went out to solopreneur. I then started a business. I then built a team. And so there's things that, because of who I am and how life has built me and now inside of what you could even call multiple organizations, like, there's some things that I want to talk about here. You. You've got to get as a leader, when it's trying to get passion and purpose into your teams, you've got to get curious about what drives your teams, what drives the humans. Passion isn't something you can impose. It's something that you discover. Or then as a leader, it's, how do I help them discover this? Right. You can start to ask people questions like, what excites you about what you're doing here? Which I'll like. Have you asked that of the team members? And by the way, be ready for the answers, any answers, because it is about creating a safe space or safety in here. You might even ask them, what do you dream of contributing? Again, they may have been hired for something, but maybe there are other things or different things that they would be better aligned for that seat and we would be able to tap more into that passion. They would feel like it's more of a purpose. We would get more out of them. Because sometimes you have all the seats and people are just in the wrong ones. What's one thing that you could tweak to make their work more meaningful? And I'm not asking you to ask yourself that. I'm asking you to ask the humans that, like, what is one thing that we in the organization could tweak to make your work more meaningful? And again, it's. And I don't mean to be rude when I say this, but shut up and listen. Like, ask these questions. Shut up and listen. And then you have the context, you have the data, you have the information to go back and start to make some hard decisions. But these have to be real conversations. And if you're able to have these real conversations, they're going to be gold for building trust and uncovering what makes the teams tick. Because what makes the teams tick is what makes each individual human that makes that team up. The other thing I want to jump in here is that you have to align the individual strengths with the bigger picture. And I don't know how many of leaders are out there that actually have the time or take the time to do things like, you know, SWOT analysis or the disc profile. And are you just putting a butt in the seat and putting them to work, or do you fundamentally know at an intimate. Careful with that word. At a deep level? Those humans, right, people want to feel like what they do matters. And not just, you know, a name on a spreadsheet, but more like a team on a mission. And if you think about any of the, like, great movies, like let's just take Mission Impossible, each person has a particular role. There's the technologist and there's the like. But the leader, right? The main guy knows the part that every person needs to play. And can you say that you can do that in the organization, this means as the leader, you need to be really good at connecting the dots. Show them how their unique contributions play a bigger role to the goals that are trying to be achieved. Last but not least, celebrate the wins. And celebrate the wins in public. Meaning, hey, Bobby. Hey, Susie. Hey, Jenny. Because you did this, this happened. And it means this not a employee the month plaque, but I just let other people see that you are appreciative and celebrating the wins of your team. Because when you as a human get acknowledgement, it is like pouring gasoline, kerosene, diesel fuel. I don't care which one you pick, but it's like pouring any of the heck. It could be barbecue fluid, whatever, but it's like, it's this fuel that's gonna. The passion is just gonna rise up. So we've got to have a culture of curiosity and trust. Passion can't thrive in a culture where fear and micromanagement are the norm. And I'm almost positive that's where your brain was like, well, what if you live in a world where I'm being judged, I'm being micromanaged? I'm afraid to actually raise my hand. I'm afraid to open my mouth. This might most important thing that we talk about today, and it's because you have to have a culture of trust and curiosity. You've got to create a space where people feel safe to share their ideas, safe to take risks, and by the way, fail sometimes. I fundamentally don't get frustrated when I see air quotes, people failing. Because I've tried to position it into a place, especially with who we work with, is like, well, we're learning. Let's do better next time. Well, we're learning, let's do better next time. And you can look at the pattern. We get better next time. When mistakes happen, and they do, and they will, you can use those as opportunities to help them learn instead of what we've seen in many organizations that we've probably worked in or worked for is they become these moments of, like, punishment. Punishment is not how you keep curiosity alive. And curiosity is actually where passion grows. And I want you to imagine, like, a completely different place than you might be. Imagine a team where no one's watching the clock. Is that even possible? Where Monday mornings don't feel like a drag. Been there, done that. But instead, all the humans are eager to dive in because they know that it's a safe place. They can be curious, they can learn along the way, and they're passionate about the problems that they're Solving and the work that they're doing feels like it matters. It has purpose. That's the kind of team energy. That's. That's what we can do when we align passion with purpose. Chris, I'm sure you're full of thoughts.

I mean, the same one over and over. I'm trying to figure out which analogy I attach onto. It's just like, in all these things, like, the work to be done is letting go of the systems of control, the systems of restriction that you think you're supposed to be doing as a leader that disallow people from doing all the things that we're talking about right now. And that's where all of those tools, like a disc profile, like employee of the month, they're almost always coming from. A place of wanting to control and design and put the dots exactly where we want them. And then we wonder why they don't connect very easily, right? Instead of making the space like, hey, dots, like, get in here. And then seeing how they naturally, like, flow together, and then it's like, oh, these dots are right next to each other. That connection's super easy. Now. That's the work. Because what you don't want to do is if you bring that mindset in and then you're all of a sudden out of nowhere, hey, George, what do you dream about? Like, George is like, what? What? Okay, what's going on here? Of course, boss. I dream about serving our customers every day. That's the kind of. Or the real answer. Like, what are you passionate about at work? I'm like, well, since that's the first time you've asked me that, nothing. Because I don't do anything that matters here. And those are the kinds of responses you might get. And I think that second one is the one that if you come in with the mindset that we're describing here, be prepared for those kinds of answers, right? And like. And that's the shut up and listen part. Like, you got to take that. If you're trying to take a culture from where it's been to what we're talking about here, that's the work, right? Being ready for those conversations, being open to them, and then serving them.

I want to just say here, too. If you are in, like, a. Yeah, we're on the side that we don't want to be on, and we're trying to get to the side that we need to get to. It's going to be way better to do small steps than giant leaps. Giant leaps are going to freak people out. Small Steps you can get them to navigate in directions that you want to go. I also want to go back to you said like the word control. And I think so many times we try to control things because we as leaders feel like we need to have all the answers. And we have all the answers if we know where all the pieces on the chessboard are. But as soon as one of the chess pieces moves or it is missing, now all of a sudden we don't have all the answers, then we're feeling like we might get attacked. Well, here's the deal. The funny thing is leadership isn't about having all the answers. Leadership to me is about sparking something in others. It's not about being like the, you know, the lone person. I, I am getting a master class in this. Going from solopreneur to like owning an organization where there's actual humans in it. And listen, as a GSD get stuff done guy, I can't always be the GSD get stuff done guy. As a leader, like, I've got to, I've got to be able to spark the passion, spark the movement, spark the action in others. And it's hard, but it's one of the most powerful things a leader can ignite. And battle tested and tried and true. Like, I have to be clear this, I've seen this historically, when we talk about passion or we're trying to get people to be passionate for some reason, we have this go to of faking enthusiasm and that's not going to work. Like, it has to be authentic. They have to see that you're passionate about it. They have to see that you're passionate about them. And the other thing, if we don't have a fake enthusiasm narrative running, the other thing is we'll sit back and usually you'll see that the leader is working themselves into the ground to prove a point. I'm raising my hand right now, by the way, because I've literally said, well, that's okay. If it doesn't get done, I'll just do it on the weekends. And that is not a good leader move. That's not a good leader look, right? And so authentic passion, the kind that truly inspires these other humans as a leader that you're trying to do starts with showing up as yourself. And this is going to get uncomfortable for a lot of folks. It was uncomfortable for me. But when I say showing up as yourself, it's like vulnerable. No, leaders are supposed to be strong. I think leaders are supposed to be vulnerable. I think leaders are supposed to be Curious. I think leaders are supposed to be grounded in what they genuinely care about. And when I say genuinely care about, I'm not talking about roi. I'm not talking about money in the bank. I'm talking about why did they start the business in the first place? Why did they hire the human? What was the thing that they saw on day one? What are the things that are important that you do genuinely care about that you can tie into? And so thinking about this from a leadership standpoint of vulnerability and curiosity and trying to spark passion in others. Like, my challenge to every leader listening or watching right now is like, when was the last time your passion was visible? I mean, you probably have an office or you might even now work remote. And so are you finding, not manufacturer times, but real times, that your passion for what you do and who you do it for, your servanthood as a leader, is visible? And again, this is not just in what you said. This is more about in how you showed up. I'll stop there. Chris, what are your thoughts?

I just keep thinking about this employee of the month thing and these ways that you can tell when it's like, oh, I just read in a book that I'm supposed to acknowledge people more often, so I'm gonna. And it's like, stemming from how do we fix this problem? And then not actually doing the work to fix the problem. It's like, okay, we're just gonna make people care about rewards. So we're gonna create $100 gift card, even though we're asking them to do 10 hours of work, that each hour is much more than $100. Right. And we're just going to throw these things at it, and then it's going to be like, yeah, like, if you've ever been in these situations where it's like. And then afterward, they're just constantly asking the questions of, like, how do we get people more engaged? How do we get people to care about this stuff? Or calling people out. Every month, we're giving away the gift card because you haven't shown that it means something to you. When you're just listing a name and, like, asking for rote applause. That's not passion. Because usually so often in other cases, the people are also seeing you when you really are passionate, so they can see the difference. And when it's like, in the moment, it's hard. This is the work. Like, how do you take those moments where you can ignite the passion and then show it to everybody else in a way that's productive and say, like, this is the culture, this is who we are, this is who we want to be. And that's where as a leader, like, if you're not setting that example well, you're setting some kind of example, right? And that's where it's like when you create this space where it's like, okay, this is the town hall meeting every month, right? And I'm manufacturing this passion, that's the most exposure to how the example that you're setting, right? It's good to create those spaces. It's a hard balance between manufacturing the space and being intentional about that space to where the communication happens and also letting things happen organically. And honestly, that's where frameworks like this come in. It's not. Not everybody has to be an expert or is an expert on that, but it's the work you got to do.

Yeah, man, it's amazing how time freaking flies. I'm like, there's so much more that we could hit upon as far as like company cultures and just deep diving in how this just has like a trickle effect of from the individual humans and the owner mentality to the leader showing up and asking the questions that matter and really being visual, visually passionate about the team and the mission that they're on. But Chris, like, here's the thing. What I want to make sure is that we don't dance around this and be like, oh, yes, a nice feel good little piece of content. Like, passion isn't just a feel good idea. I hope that everybody realizes it's literally the lifeblood of a meaningful life and a thriving workplace. And again, for me, this one's always hard. Almost all the cornerstones are so hard to like, separate from life and work because I just, I think they're in both. But here's the deal. Without passion, and again, I'm speaking from life examples like, without passion, you're just going through the motions. And let's be real, nobody wants to. That passion is what moves us, what inspires us, and, and what turns ordinary efforts into extraordinary results. That's what we're all thriving for. We again, when we embrace passion as individuals, we can take ownership of our lives. We stop waiting for someone else to spark the fire and instead become the spark for ourselves. Perpetual passion, if you will. As an individual human, when we align a passion with purpose in our teams, we create something far bigger than what any one of us could achieve alone. Like, again, the success stories are based on great teams. Sure. Will there be maybe a human or two that you will remember or that were like the linchpins of the thing, maybe, but it took a team. And when we embody passion into, like, the very DNA of the organizations that we're trying to help and the organizations that you work at and you're trying to change, you're not just reducing. Reducing burnout or, you know, you're not just stopping people from, like, checking out. When you think about passion in the culture side of this, we're creating cultures where people are alive, where people are creative. And what I'm trying to do at Psychic Strategies create people that are unstoppable. I mean, I can't get to that point right there and not think about Jorge on the team, who has, like, more HubSpot certifications than. I don't know, maybe anybody. But I've watched him over the last two years, and he's been able to be alive, be creative, and be unstoppable in the growth trajectory. And as a leader, that brings me great joy. Right? I'm passionate about that. I'm passionate about seeing the success of those that are inside the organization. And so, to everyone listening or watching right now, I've got a challenge for you. One thing that you can do today, not tomorrow, not next week, but today, to reignite passion in your work, your team, or your organization. Like, what is that one thing? That's all I need you to do. What is the one thing you can do today to reignite passion in your work, your team, or your organization? It doesn't have to be a grand gesture, but what's the one thing? And then what I want you to do is I want you to take action on it. Chris, as always, I appreciate having the opportunity to have these conversations around the superhuman framework. These pieces, I feel, are vitally important to getting people from a place that they might be living to a place where they want to go. So I appreciate you, brother.

I appreciate you for bringing this to the world. It's sorely needed, as we know. And as you guys think about that, that one thing that you could take action on, there's always something, and it might just be, you know, you know, letting go first. And there's definitely something in your control that you can take action on today. So look hard, look harder, maybe than you ever have before. Find those opportunities, and let's grow. Have a great day, everybody.