257: Spirituality, Faith and Creating Deeper Meaning In Your Life and Work with Joseph Holt

There's a theologian, Richard Guler, who talks about the relationship between your spirituality and your morality. And his suggestion is that your morality is the public face of your spirituality. So the people you work with may or may not know that you know, you're Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Sufi, whatever. But they'll know if you're forgiving, if you're merciful, if you're kind, if you're compassionate.

Hello, everyone. This is Kathy Caprino, and welcome to my podcast, Finding Brave. I've created the show for everyone who longs to create something bold and brave in their life, to rise up, speak up, and stand up for who they are and to reach their highest and biggest visions. Each week, I'll be speaking with inspiring guests from all walks of business, leadership, entertainment, the creative arts, and the entrepreneurial world. And they'll be sharing their intimate stories of Finding Brave and offer their best strategies for building your most rewarding, joyful and meaningful, meaningful life, business and career. Hello, everybody. Kathy Caprino here, and welcome to yet another episode of Finding Brave. Today, I feel so, so, so fortunate and blessed to have our amazing guest who, I mean, honestly, when I read this guest's bio, my head explodes because it's like seven careers in one. But you've amalgamated, or that's not the word, you've fused it all up to be just so powerful and helpful. Joe Holt. Joseph Holt, thank you for taking the time. I so appreciate it.

Thank you, Kathy. I feel fortunate and blessed to be with you and your listeners.

Thank you so much. All right, people, this I want to tell you a little bit about what we're talking about. The title of this is Spirituality, faith and creating deeper meaning in your work and your life. And before we even go, one second more, and I'm going to tell you all about Joe. We were talking earlier, when we talk about in your work, in your career, all of it bleeds into your personal life. So hear this any way that it is helpful to you. I mean, I think it's a foregone conclusion that all of us want meaning and purpose in our life, in our daily work, in our family life, in our church or temple life, wherever we are. I think we want meaning and purpose and feeling alive. So that's where we're coming from. We have a little bit of a lens of fusing that with your work. But take this as it's meaningful to you and let me tell you about Joe. Joe Holt is a former Jesuit priest and professor at the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business, where he Teaches spirituality, ethics, gender equity, and negotiations courses. Isn't that incredible? He studied the challenges and possibilities of living out one's core values and beliefs in the workplace while earning graduate degrees in philosophy, theology, scripture, and law.

Wow.

Then to gain deeper insight into those challenges and possibilities firsthand, he worked as a stockbroker and corporate attorney. Holy crow. He gives talks and workshops on ethics, spirituality, leadership, gender equity, and negotiations. Encourage. Encourages his students and others to stay true to their values and beliefs that define them morally and spiritually. Aren't we blessed to have this conversation? So the, you know, the challenge for me will be making this 30 minutes. I'd like it to be 300 hours and take every one of your courses. But you did something pretty amazing, Joe, right before this, which was. It came to you kind of fully baked. Seven recommended practices for being your spiritual best self at work. Can we just start there? Well, wait, no, I want to. I want to have an overarching theme that you wrote here. I always ask my guests. Give me a brief description of what you want to talk about. And this is what you said, Joe. There's a lot of emphasis these days on finding meaning in our work. For people who are spiritual or religious or both. The richest source of meaning is our faith. We will be more motivated and fulfilled in our work if we can see it as a way to live out our faith, values, and beliefs. So this is where I want to aim. I have told Joe, I'm not a religious person. I'm a spiritual person. I see a differentiation there. But everything that exudes from you is. Is what I consider spiritual. So can you tell us a little about what you've seen over all of these careers and helping so many students and working with so many professionals? Let's start here. What is the biggest thing holding people back from fusing? And I didn't prep you on this course. This is not a question we talked about from. From really fusing their beliefs and their values into what they do. What holds people back from that.

So thank you, and thanks for the very gracious introduction. For what it's worth, you can see in the back left corner over there, there's a diploma on the wall. The only thing I've ever framed is professional bartender school.

So qualified. I bet you learned more doing that than about anything put together.

Wow. Yes. And. And also heard more confess.

The real ones, not the. Not the veneered ones. I love it.

So it's interesting. I was interviewed by a group of MBA students at Notre Dame a number of years ago, and One of them asked me in a Q and A session based on years of teaching. Graduate business students at Notre Dame, what is the most common mistake that you have seen? And what I said was, too much planning, not enough prior dreaming. Very good at planning, setting goals. I'll get these grades that'll get me into this program. I'll do this internship that'll get me this job. I'll do this. Then I'll get the promotion. And, you know, you spend 18 years in corporate life. You know, you set goals, lived and breathed. Knock it off. But I said, not enough prior dreaming. About what life do you want to live in the first place? You know, are you pursuing your own dream or somebody else's dream? It's interesting. There was a book written, the Top five Regrets of the Dying, by a woman named Bronnie Ware.

She's been on the show, so he's wonderful.

But remember, the top regret was not living a life true to myself. Not having the courage to live a life true to myself rather than life others expected of me. So I think there's a lot of going on. You know, we. We. We do a discussion in class about the difference between when do you have a job where you're doing it just for the pay, when you have a career where there's, you know, career development and everything, a little more commitment. When do you have a calling? You know, work your. Like your life work to do, work that you would want to do even if you financially didn't have to do work. And I asked students, how many people that, you know, have a calling rather than job or career? And it's always a small minority. And my question is that because they looked for a calling but didn't find one or never really looked for one in the. And I think there are more than a few people who don't look for one in the first place. They just, you know, you major in this because it's where they're hiring. It's what pays the most, all that. All that kind of thing. So I think that.

Can I talk about that for a minute?

Yeah. Please. Sure.

I might see it differently. And that's the. The name. That's the horse race I've written a piece on. Don't look for your calling. Don't search for your calling. It does not come that way.

Right.

So somebody wrote. They thought I meant don't even think to have one. No. But here's what I've seen. Tell me what you think. A calling comes. It grabs you by the lapel. It grabs you and it doesn't let go, often to the detriment of your checkbook, your health, your marriage, your relationships. It is something that is so compelling that you wrap your entire entity around it and you can't stop. And I feel after 18 years of corporate life where I had no calling and had no connection at all to what I was doing, I didn't find it meaningful to waking up to. If I can help one person or woman a day bypass the pain I had, it's a good day. So what I've shown people is you find a calling or the calling becomes evident when you pursue what matters to you. When you, when you look at what you're reading or what hurts you or what you, you say, I've got to help. I don't even know how, but I'm going to show up and help. That's where the calling becomes clear. So I say stop searching. What do you think about this?

Yeah, to me, I guess, you know, searching is this word to me. Is it one of your life goals to have a calling however you come about having it? And I would say for a fair number of students, I think not. I mean, think about the schools have a career services office. There's no calling services, right.

I'm sorry, but many schools, career services programs are terrible. They never ask what do you want? They know from what I've seen and.

The ranking of schools is based on starting pay. So sometimes career services deliberately do that way. Pressure students to take the higher paying job because it's better for the school. So sometimes it works the opposite way. But I would totally agree with you. To me, it sort of starts in choosing your major. I had some students ask me a couple of years ago, how do you choose the right major? And I said, well, the number one question I would ask is would you ever read a book in that subject area if it weren't required?

Good question.

Because if the answer is yes, then you're genuinely interested in it and the studying won't feel like a chore. If the answer is no, then you're really not interested in what you're majoring in. It's going to feel like a chore. And by the way, having studied something for four years you're not interested in, the likelihood is you'll also get a job you are also not interested in to hate. Right? Which leads to what you're talking about with your experience of corporate life. But I think there's a fair amount of that going, going on.

I love it. Now let's go to I'm thinking of my, my ex husband. Now, we're very amicable. But when we were married, he said, how come you. I was a marketing vp. How come you never read a book about marketing? I was so stunned. I'm like, because I don't like it, because I don't care. Interesting. But although I do a ton of marketing and love it now, but I love it because it's a means to an end. It's a means to share my program you're not doing.

You were marketing like science before, right?

And you know, programs that nobody cared. All right, that's it. I do want to say this too. Before we get into your recommended practices. I, I need to hit this home. I work with mid to high level professional women. I cannot. I would be a millionaire if I had a dollar for every person that has told me. I pursued this line because my parents. Blip. My parents told me they won't pay for college unless I'm an engineer. My parents told me the only secure safe route is accounting. My parents said this. So the challenge with even asking yourself the question, what book would I read? Would I read a book in engineering if I. The problem is, as a young person, we are not yet differentiated from our parents.

Right?

We're not. And we're not taught to be. And our parents don't want us to be. I don't know many. I was a marriage and family therapist. I don't know many parents that say, I want my child to be all he or she wants to be, regardless of what I think they should be. Who says that? No parent.

My dad did. Well, he didn't put it in those words, but he was driving me to the airport once when I was in ball of my senior year of high school, and I said, and he was going to be paying for college and everything. And I said, dad, you know you'd never talk to me about what, what I'm going to major in. He said, well, son, I've raised you to make good decisions and I just feel like I'm placing a bet on a winning horse. You just follow your best instincts. That's exactly what he said.

I literally got a chill. What was his background? Can I just hear for half a second?

First generation Irish, Irish Catholic kid from the Bronx. All four of my grandparents came over penalists from Ireland. His dad was. Drove a bus on fifth Avenue. My mom's mom was a cleaning woman on Wall Street. My mom's dad dug tunnels between Manhattan and Brooklyn and all of that. My dad became a chiropractor but he was just, he and my mom were both just salt of the earth. Just, just deeply, deeply good, spiritual people. One thing that was true of them, by the way, that gets back to your initial question about why do so many people not make the connection? They were not unduly influenced by outside voices, messages like they didn't care what people thought about what they were wearing, driving, how big their home was, anything like that. They were totally free of anything like that. We're saying a lot of us are unduly influenced by outside messages, many of which are not helpful.

So interesting. You and I talked for a minute privately about Lorna Byrne, who is, you know, international best selling author who believes she sees angels. I've done a retreat with her and I believe her. And she's dyslexic and illiterate. She says it and you wonder how you can write five international best selling books because they're given to her. She's, they're, she dictates into a computer. But you and I talked about this. I believe this and I've seen it. She spent a lot of time alone in the woods, in nature, not the woods, nature, because she was considered in that time. So, you know, she didn't have what I'm going to call the tainting of information that sways us. She just experienced nature and God in her way. And didn't you share with me that some of the most spiritual people you've ever met. I forget how you said it, but in some ways, you know, maybe weren't highly educated or didn't have a lot of training that shaped them. Tell, tell me how you like.

For me, as, as a, as, as a Christian, it's interesting to reflect on who Jesus chose for his inner circle. And he chose, you know, because there were scholars, there were wealthy and powerful and connected people didn't choose. Not only, not all, he didn't choose any of them chose, you know, fishermen, tax collectors, why the simple uned and why they were open to it being given to them that they were receptive. You know, you talk about the voices, it reminds me of George Bernard Shaw, the Irish playwright, wrote a play on St. Joan, basically in St. John park, who heard voices from God. And the king at one point calls her before him and says, I'm the king, you're a peasant girl. Why is God talking?

Why would you hear it and I don't?

Yeah, right. And her answer was, God does speak to you, but you don't go out into the fields at night and lay in the back and look, look at the stars and listen. That is basically the message. You're just, you're so kind of so full of yourself already that there's no room in it for anything else.

And that is number seven of your seven practices which we're going to get to. I couldn't agree more. So let's go through each one, Joe, and let's, let's see if this is helpful. So number one is set yourself up for spiritual success. Tell us what this means.

Well, I think based on my experience with teaching and just friends in general, a lot of people when they're choosing what to do for work in the first place, are more concerned to set themselves up for financial success rather than spiritual success. I do an experiment in class where I say, if you heard that so and so graduated from our MBA program last year and got a really good job in US culture, what would you take that to mean? What do you think the typical answer would be?

Money and security, right?

Yeah, money and security. Even lesser so than it used to be. Money and prestigious firm. You know, like you're proud to say who you're working for. And my, my response is those things are fine. Money and prestige and security are all fine. But do you know somebody who's got a high paying job with a prestigious firm for whom it's not a good job?

Did they say yes, absolutely.

So then we get into, well, what else goes into having a truly good job for you and you know, does it fulfill you? Do you like who you're working with and do you trust them? Are they concerned to develop you? Can you have the work and the rest of life balance that you want to have? There, there are lots of things like do you feel you're making a positive difference?

That's it.

There are lots of things like that. So I say, you know, so the money and prestige, that's fine so far as it goes, but you got to think more about, more about those, those other things. So when it comes to choosing work, am I choosing the work that's going to most engage and fulfill me or the work that's going to most impress others? Am I choosing the work that's going to be richest in meaning for me or the work that's going to pay the most?

You know, so simple.

And in terms of, you know, what company I do that work in, is this a place that's going to make it easier for me to follow my best moral and spiritual instincts or it's going to make it harder for me to be my Spiritual best self.

I adore it. Let me ask if so I have a feeling that your seven practices dovetail well with my seven damaging power gaps. They're the opposite. I'm. Isn't that interesting? And you said that seven is a. A biblical tell. Tell us what seven is a little number for completeness.

Yeah. There's seven days of creation, you know, in Catholic world, or seven sacraments. There are seven deadly sins. There was an eighth and they condensed that into. Into seven.

Crazy. I mean, crazy how seven poured out of you. Seven poured out of me. But I want to say this, and I'm really interested if you don't agree. Push back. Young people, I've worked with a lot of them. My kids are 25, 28, talked a lot about careers. A lot of people say, I don't have the answer to your questions about what's going to fulfill me. And so I point to what are your natural. I don't say this, but God given talents. What comes easy to you? And I will ask the question, do you want a job or a career? That is a skill that you have, but it's hard to do and you don't enjoy it. Or do you want to leverage what comes so easily to you? So for me it was singing, speaking, reading, writing, interviewing, psychology. I was those things at 16.

Oh, wow.

So I think when people. I don't know the answer. What's going to make me happy? What do I like? Look at what you love to do now.

Right.

And I talk about, you know, the mo. The 20 facts of you look at the things you've been most proud of in your whole life. And that could be walking an elderly person across the street who was scared to do it. I don't mean you had to win an award and then break down what are the skills and talents that let you do that thing?

Oh, great question.

So what do you do when people say I don't know, I don't really even know what I like?

The first thing I do when I hear that is say Hallelujah. Because the students who concern me aren't the ones who don't know what they want to do. The students who concern me are the.

Ones who I have to be a doctor.

Well, they're certain that they know what they want to do, but they haven't really thought about all the options. And it's just in. And they're really not. They're being driven from without instead of from within. To not know what you want to do as an artist on a starting point And I think, you know, and I think, you know, God can work with that, like, really easily. I. I often share with them a great quote you probably heard from the German poet Reiner Maria Rilke. He wrote a collection of letters, letters to a young poet. A poet. A young poet he was mentoring. Didn't know what he wanted to do and everything. And his advice was, be patient toward everything unresolved in your heart and learn to love the questions themselves, you know, and gradually, you might live your way into the answers. So questions in your heart are like warning lights on a dashboard to telling you there's something here you need to look at, pay attention to. That's a good thing, you know.

Would you repeat that again? Repeat that step, that statement. Repeat it.

Have patience toward everything unresolved in your heart and learn to love the questions themselves. The questions are your friend. Questions are an ally. They're going to lead you to the place where. Where you need to be.

You bring up another amazing point. I see people who are in pain in their career. They want to leap to something instantly. I got to get another job. I got to change my career. I got to start my business. Slow down, slow down. But we're in pain, and we want it fixed, right?

Yeah. I've always said to me, because I, you know, I've made a lot of different decisions in life, and I started out as a gym teacher and then Jesuit and a stockbroker and a corporate attorney and, and, and bartender. But. But to me, life has always seemed like this treasure hunt where at every step you get a clue that tells you how to get to the next step, but not to the end. And a lot of happiness is learning to be at peace with. I. I don't know what's. What's around. Think about, like, following a trail into a deep, dark forest you can only see so far ahead. And there's no way of knowing what's around the bend until you get there. So just. You have to learn to, like, accept that.

It's so peaceful hearing you speak. Don't you feel that people like, I just want to listen to it 10 times. I love it. All right, now let's go to number two. Determine whether you need to see your current work differently or do different work. I totally feel that that is essential. Tell us what you mean.

I mean, sometimes the problem is, you know, the work you're doing is fine. You're just not seeing it as a way to live out. You're defining values and beliefs, and sometimes it's just not the Right place for you to be. And you have to kind of know when the difference is. But. But in terms of how you could see the work differently, think about somebody who's a financial advisor. So you could be a financial advisor whose focus is making the most money for herself, or you could be a financial advisor whose focus is doing the best you can to help your clients take care of themselves and their loved ones. It's the exact same work. The work is the same. But what's motivating you to do the work is very different. So, you know, and to me, the one who's doing it because they genuinely care for their clients, that's a calling that's beautiful. And if you're really good at it and make a great living for yourself, God bless you. That's terrific. I worked as a nurse's aide in a terminal cancer hospital in New York. And the patient's average day, 40, 60 days, nobody ever went home. And the doctors and administrators told the janitors, you are part of the healthcare team because you're often in the patients rooms longer than the doctors are. That's a human encounter. Say hello to them. Ask them how they're. How they're doing. And by the way, they have very low defenses and can't fight anything. So it really makes a difference to their health that their rooms are clean. So those janitors have a calling. They take pride in their work more than they would have otherwise. So they're doing the same work, but they see it differently when they're asked to think about it that way. Does it make any sense?

Oh, it's so beautiful. Makes perfect sense. Another way we can say it is, you know, I'll say it's exactly. It's. It's like you and I are on the same page in every way. You might, let's say you're a marketing manager, right? You're doing the same work, but the outcomes of that work. So if your company, like I always talk about, Bombas, which is this amazing sock and apparel company, and the two founders saw an ad that socks are what's needed most in homeless shelters, right? And they said, let's start a sock company. Best socks ever that are made so that they last. And we'll give away a pair of socks for every. And it's something like 75 million pairs of socks they've given away.

Oh, that's wonderful.

Who do you want to work for? Bombas or, you know, so you want to also look at the outcomes that the company is supporting.

Right.

And the leadership Right, Yeah. Isn't it similar to what you're saying?

Absolutely, it absolutely is. And by the way, young people give me hope when it comes to that because I know millennials and Gen Z get, get, you know, criticized a lot. I say God bless them. I think they're wonderful because they are wanting to find more meaning and fulfillment. They're paying a lot more attention to that kind of thing. When I have talked, hear them talking about who they're going to work for, they care about that. They care about who they're buying from, who they're going to work for, all of that. They, they just like, don't put up with a lot of junk that a lot of us have put up for, for years.

And I so agree.

I think any more hope than I've ever had in my life for, for real change.

And it's great because you work with so many young people. You're really in the fabric of their lives, you know, and seeing that, I love it.

Possibilities.

What's that?

Blown away by their possibilities, by what they're capable of and, and what they believe.

No, they really give me want and deserve. I so agree. Number three is be alert for opportunities to your. To be your spiritual best self. All right, tell us how we do that. What is that?

Yeah, so, I mean, you know, being human beings, we, we all mess up now and then. So they're going to be times at work when somebody, you know, is, is laid on an assignment and they irritate you when somebody says something, you know, offensive or whatever. So, so I can get kind of annoyed if somebody makes a mistake. So I can get annoyed at that. But if somebody is irritating me, instead of letting that push my button and go off in a negative direction, as a spiritual person, I can say, here's an opportunity to be gentle, to be kind. Somebody makes a mistake, here's an opportunity for me to be understanding and forgiving. If somebody's struggling and not just getting it, here's an opportunity for me to encourage them, build them up and all that. Just look for opportunities to live out the moral spiritual values that define you as a person. Make any sense?

It's so clear. I love it. You know, I, I will. I love it. Yeah, you're right about that. You know, I teach in my amazing career project, there's a slide that talks about being your highest self.

Yes.

And people say to me, what is that? I don't like that. Scary. What is that? Is that religious? And I'm like, let me explain. Do you know when a toad comes out of your mouth and you say something, you're like, oh, geez, I can't believe I said that. You know what your lowest self is? You know, when you're being cruel and biatchy and judgy? You know that very well.

Absolutely.

Do you know what your highest self is? My guess is it's kind, gentle, compassionate, patient, forgiving.

And so I'm gonna be that person.

What's that?

Am I being that person?

Am I being that person? And the more I think I'm no saint, don't get me wrong, but the more I live in. In the dedication to trying to be the highest self, the more that when I am not, I feel it. I feel it's like rubbing against sandpaper. That doesn't mean I immediately, you know, change. But I think what we're. What. Tell me if you agree. What we're saying is the pursuit of being the highest or best spiritual self.

Right.

Will get you on a path where you will start to see when you are not.

Yes. Yeah. There's actually. There's a Jesuit named Samson who wrote a book, and he talked about the salutary sadness in the spiritual life. And he was saying that he gets a little alarmed when he sees people are, like, totally content with themselves spiritually, like, I'm perfect, there's nothing to work on, etc. I said the people who were least content with themselves were the saints because they were the ones who were closest to God. And because they're that close, they recognized all the difference. The difference. And that's a good thing because it shows that you're mindful of the gap between where you are and where you would ideally like to be, and. And that's kind of a very good thing in terms of that gap. By the way, I teach a spirituality class. I mentioned to the students that if they want to understand spirituality, they should listen to what I have to say and then watch what my wife, Megan, does, because I know I know more, but she lives it much better than I do. I met her in 2006. I have not heard her ever say a single thing that she would want to take back. She just doesn't.

What does she do for a living if she works outside?

She's an engineer. Been caring for her ailing elderly mother for a few years now, so earning her wings all over, but she's just kind of just the eye at the center of the storm and calm and loving and patient and joyful and. Yeah, so she's a much better person than I am. Spiritually and otherwise.

That's.

But. But that's. That's good. It encourages me to be. To be. To be better. So. But I recognize the gap between.

That's beautiful.

Between the two of us.

What a. What a kind thing to say about your wife. That's beautiful. All right. Number four is choose your. We're saying work friends wisely, but I think we mean everybody in your sphere. Tell us. Yeah, I think it's unwise.

The best friends we have in life encourage us to be our best selves, make it easier to be. To be our best selves. But if we surround ourselves at work or anywhere by people who have different values, different priorities than we do, makes it harder to be yourself. Go back to like a financial advisor. Helene Naftali is my UBS financial advisor. Took incredibly good care of my parents, who were intelligent but financially unsophisticated and just. She cared for them the way that I would have cared for them if I knew finance, which I don't. And now Megan and I use her as our advisor, but she's so. She's a deep Catholic. She's a deeply spiritual person as well and just really cares about her clients and everything. So if she spent all of her time at work around other financial advisors who only cared about how much money they were making, that would make it hard for her to be her best self all the time. That, you know, it would just. Yeah. Just not be the right kind of setting, you know, I did a brief stint as a stockbroker and it was, you know, before that, seminary and priest. Well, as a Jesuit, I was surrounded by people who were devoting themselves to serving God and the people of God and, you know, who all prayed daily and, you know, went to services all the time, all that kind of thing. As a stockbroker surrounded by, you know, there's some very good people or stockbrokers, but most of the ones I surrounded with were not terribly good. So it would have been harder for me to be my best spiritual self in that. In that setting. If those are my friends who I'm spending my workday with, I'll go out for drinks with after work, you know, who I'm seeing on the weekend, all that kind of thing. Harder. So encourage friends who share your values and everything, and going to encourage you to be and remain your best self.

I love it. I just want to say as a quick example of that, in my last corporate VP job, I ran telemarketing for several.

Right.

Several big products. And we were listening to a promotion of One of the products that was offering, you know, big sweepstakes, if, you know, enter buy now and enter Sweepstakes. And I know other VPs were listening to these same promotional things, and I heard a woman say, you know, I live in a trailer park, and that's not judging a trailer park. But I can't pay right now for electricity or water, but I'm going to sign up for this in the sweepstakes. Oh, and I'm listening here, and I just went, oh, no, no, no, I can't do this. And I look around. Not one person had, in my workplace had that reaction. They didn't even register it. They called it a win. They. That we got the order. And I want to say I'm not a saint compared to these other people. It just struck me that this was one of 1 million times I felt alone in that organization, that what I cared about was not a match. So I'm not saying we should denigrate them. And, you know, I'm saying you should leave. And I. I didn't leave until 9 11. I was let go in a way that was not copacetic.

Right.

So, people, what I think we're saying is there are signs every minute, right? Are you. You know, they say if you want to soar with the eagles, you got to be with eagles, not the turkeys on the ground. I love turkeys. But there are signs at every moment. And I think what we do is make ourselves wrong. While I'm making a lot of money, great benefits, I'm five minutes from my children, you know, I'm staying at this job. Not if it makes you feel sick to your stomach, right? Kind of what you're talking about.

Yeah. I mean, one of the ways I think about it, when it comes to choosing what work you do or friendships you're in, whatever, have you planted yourself in a garden in which you can blossom to full growth? You know, and it's a good way to see it. Talk about, like, you know, those of us who are, you know, spiritual, religious, whatever, believe in God, what is the will of God? And some people think God has this, like, detailed blueprint and everything. And will of God is like finding out, you know, what job does, what God want me to have and what woman does God want me to be in a relationship with and all that. But. But it's not how I see the will of God. But. But how do you see it? My theology professor, John Randall Sacks, who said that what's inarguably true is that what God wants for you is to flourish as a unique individual. God has made you to be. So pay careful attention. Who has God made you to be? What are your talents, your passions, your skills, your hopes, your. Your dreams and flourishes? That person. So, you know, and that's again, getting back to setting yourself up for spiritual success. You know, am I in a situation where I'm going to flourish as that unique individual or not?

You know what that makes me think? Asked to ask you, one of my friends says that a lot of people that he sees going to church are like sheep. This is not a nice term, I know, but what he means is think for yourself, plan for yourself.

Right.

Don't look to God to answer all your questions. That's what your job is.

Right.

And I feel like that echoes what you're saying. I think a lot of people abdicate responsibility for their path because they think, well, God's going to tell me what to do. What do you think? Am I. Am I getting it?

No, I mean, I think. I mean, I think it's a collaborative effort. I think there needs to be a receptivity and openness to, you know, deepest stirrings in my heart and soul. And for me, that's. I call it a heart hug from God or a whisper in my heart. You know, there. There's that. That goes on, but then there's my part that I have to do. And, you know, God gave me intelligence and God gave me conscience, and God gave me imagination. And all of those were, you know, not like, you know, a hood ornament. All those, like, have a positive purpose. I need to be using. Using those in life and, and do some hard thinking myself.

And develop your own trust in yourself in connection with your spiritual source, but trust yourself. Right?

Right. One of the things I love, and, you know, I work at the University of Notre Dame and my Jewish friends, by the way, love that I work at a university dedicated to a Jewish mother, which is true. I have a dear friend, Lisa Green, who's a rabbi in the Chicago area, and she was a guest speaker and she's a Jewish mother. So I said, it's perfect that you're here. What I love in the gospel stories about Mary, when big things happen, you know, the shepherds tell her and Joseph what they'd heard about what was happening and everything. What it says repeatedly in the Gospel of Luke is that she kept these things in her heart and she pondered them. What it never says is she completely understood and completely accepted this. So when I was studying scripture over in Rome, the professor pointed Out. The Greek verb being translated pondered is the same. It's from the root that describes a camel chewing on grass. And he was from the Middle east and he said, when camels chew on grass, they chew it from this angle, from that angle to make sure they get all the nourishment it's capable of providing. So pondering something in your heart is.

It's not just instant acceptance, it's no that.

And that to me, that's what makes her wonderful as a role model, as disciple is just. It didn't say she totally got it. Instead, she kept pondering it in her heart in order to better understand it. And sometimes a lot of times our lives are like that. It doesn't make total sense. But, you know, you make the best decision you can based on the evidence that life and the Lord of life are giving you at the moment, and then.

That's beautiful, Joe.

It works out.

I love it. Beautiful. All right, now be it. We're on five. Oh dear. We've got, we've got to go here. Be as committed to your spiritual well being as you are to your physical well being. Tell us what you mean there.

So funny experience about five, six years ago in Chicago. There's a period about two weeks where the high temperature was minus 5 in, in the winter. And on one of those days, on, on a weekday I was living in Old Town in Chicago and I went to an export gym. And just after 5 o' clock and the gym was jam packed, you couldn't get a treadmill, you couldn't get an elliptical machine. They were all taken up. And I just marveled at how committed people were to taking care of themselves physically. And I wondered, you know, what would our lives be like if we were that committed to taking care of ourselves, spiritually speaking? You know, and it's great taking care of yourself physically. But I often ask the students, how many do you work out regularly? And almost all the hands go up. How would you feel if you had to go two or three weeks without working out at all? You know, horrible. They'd feel off. Yeah. Because if something would feel like it's missing in your life. So the point in terms of our spiritual lives is to get to the point where whatever practice works for you, prayer, meditation, going for walks in nature, whatever it is, where that becomes so integral to your daily routine that you feel like off if, if you have to go a few days and not doing it, kind of take care of yourselves, spiritually speaking. I just think our lives would be transformed if we, if we did that.

I so agree. You know, you and I were talking when this comes out, it's June, but right now we're in March, and my mother is passing away as we speak. And it's made me. She's Greek Orthodox. And it's made me review again my journey, which was as a child, being raised in a Greek Orthodox particular church, where even as a young child, what was said and done did not resonate with me. And, you know, it's confusing because at age 10, like other people would say, who do you think you are? That you can judge what works? And I knew at the time that it didn't. And then my whole life has been, you know, I married a Jewish fellow. My father was Catholic, but somewhat converted. For my mom, I sang in St Patrick's Cathedral as a beautiful. And then one woman in the. In the choir for a year said, we don't cross ourselves like that because Greeks cross differently. I'm like, do you think God cares how I cross myself? I don't think he cares. But I've always been on the outside of groups looking in, and that's shaped my whole perspective of life. But why I bring it up is. And maybe this will resonate. I chucked what I was taught in traditional religious training, but I woke up after my big crisis, getting laid off, my whole world turning upside down. And I said, I miss spirituality. I have to find my own. And my own now is an amalgam of Buddhism. There's meditation. I don't feel well. If I'm not out in nature, pretty much every day, I really feel off. And so I think that. Would you agree that if you asked your students, what do you think has led you to not have a spiritual practice? My guess is 80% will say, because what I was taught didn't work for me.

A fair number would. It's interesting in the Catholic Church, as these. There's a big gathering, the Second Vatican Council. And one of the things they said there, which was wise and true, is that the split between the faith that Christians profess and their daily lives accounts for a rise in atheism. So that's it. We're humble enough to say that there's a phenomenon they talked about when I was in Rome called practical atheism, which is theoretical atheism. Somebody thought about whether or not God exists and decided, I don't think God exists. Practical atheism came. Jacques Maritan is a French Catholic philosopher, came up with this term. It refers to people who profess belief in God and they Might even go to services, but the faith they profess makes no difference to how they lead their lives. So the idea is, on a practical level, you might. Might as well be an atheist because you're not living the values.

I see that you're not a. I see people going to church. Where is the evidence that there's any spirituality? And that doesn't mean you have to be on your knees praying. But where was that gentleness in talking to that person who's down and out? Where is any of it?

There's a theologian, Richard Guler, who talks about the relationship between your spirituality and your morality. And his suggestion is that your morality is the public face of your spirituality. So the people you work with may or may not know that, you know, you're Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Hindu, Sufi, whatever. But they'll know if you're forgiving, if you're merciful, if you're kind, if you're compassionate, and your reason for being, that would be your spiritual beliefs. But. But they don't see that. What they see is the. The actions. So when I was in high school, there was a priest who gave a homily, and at the end of it, he said, Mr. Johnson went to church. He never missed a Sunday, but Mr. Johnson went to hell for what he did on Monday. Simple little ditty, but, you know, you kind of get the point.

That's the point. I love it. I love it. So I think the action step is, yeah, I'm going to throw one out. But you're the. You're the expert. If you were. If you had a spiritual life that informed how you operated in the world, what would it be? Spend time, Spend a half an hour, write it down. How would it look? What would you maybe do differently? Or what are you doing now that matches what you think spirituality is? Would that be an exercise, Joe?

That'd be a fantastic exercise. And kind of related to that. One of the things I would sometimes ask is, could the people you work with deduce what your spiritual values are based on your words and actions, based on the way that you conduct yourself or not, which is kind of a different way of phrasing.

Beautiful.

Basic question.

I cry hearing that. I. I gave a talk a few years ago. It was all women, 200 women and one guy. And he came up to me and he said, all I can tell you is you feel like Mother Earth to me. And I just cried right then and there. I don't even know what that means, but I'm like, that sounds good. And here he Was the one guy, you know, that takes strength to. Anyway, I wish I were Mother Earth all the time. But when you. When you are slightly on the right path for a day, a minute, a second, I think you can kind of feel it in your heart. I think, yes, it. You can feel it. Love it. All right, where are we? Number six. Monitor your spiritual. Spiritual progress or regress, you say? Maybe that means regression or when you fall off the path with special attention to impact. Tell us what you mean.

So it's funny. When I was practicing corporate law, one evening a week, I would teach a spirituality work class in Loyola University of Chicago's MBA program. And coming from a day of mergers, acquisitions, whatever, and then talking about that. But business students are very practical, and they want to know, okay, this is all great. How can we track our progress? That was kind of a. Kind of a fair question. So that's. That's where that came from.

I want data, I want metrics.

Oh, right, right, right. So I thought about that, and everybody's got find one that works for them. But one of my favorites is the. So St. John Paul II was famous for saying that through a work, we shape the world that we live in, but we're also shaped in turn by our work. Our work shapes us for better or for worse. So imagine yourself when you began your career, and imagine yourself six months or a year or six years into your career. Do you embody your values and beliefs more or less fully? You know, that ideal spiritual self you were talking about before, Am I closer to being that ideal or further from it? So, you know, figure out what your ideal is. How would you describe your spiritual best self? And am I becoming more that person or less that person the longer I stay in this career? For you, it sounds like in marketing, you're becoming less that person. Same for me as a corporate attorney, it was less than that. Now I'm more fully that. But I like to use the priest prayer of Francis of Assisi is a good one for me. So, you know, there's hatred. Let me sow love where there injury, pardon, where there's doubt, faith, where there's despair, hope, where there's darkness, light, where there's sadness, joy. Grant that I might not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood, as to understand, to be loved as to love. So in the workplace, when I see hatred, am I somebody who tries to sow love there and foster reconciliation where there's been injury, am I somebody who grants pardon for it? Or I see somebody despairing am I source of hope for them? When I see darkness, somebody just doesn't get something. I'm a source of light and understanding for them. Where I see somebody who's just sad, am I paying attention enough to even recognize that they're sad? And am I a source of joy and encouragement to them? So am I becoming more and more the kind of person who sews all those good things or not is kind of the question. The other one I like using is Fruits of the Spirit, which works. You know, it's in the New Testament, so for Christians, obviously it works. But even for folks who aren't Christians or even religious believers, it's just a good list of qualities. Fruits of the Spirit, Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. So as I go on in this pretty simple career, am I more or less embodying love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, all of that. So those are things. But, you know, if I were Buddhist, wisdom and compassion are the two big values. Somebody becoming more wise, more compassionate, or less wise, less compassionate. So figure out what. Whatever your beliefs and values you have, whatever tradition you come from, find. Find a criterion that works for you, and then kind of measure, am I embodying that more or less fully. Does that make any sense?

Oh, it does. And what I'm about to say will hearken to your number seven. Listen most of all to the quiet inner voice that guides you. You know, just going through, again, mom, we were thinking, what. What is the process of her funeral and burial? And how do I want to put this Quickly, because I'm not a practicing Greek Orthodox, it doesn't speak to me as much to have a Greek Orthodox funeral, but this is Mom's funeral. This is what she wants. What am I thinking about? You know, how comfortable I am. And, you know, as. As we mentioned, a wonderful Greek priest, Father Neo from Schenectady, New York, called me. And it was the most spiritual. You know, usually when I'm talking to a Greek priest when I was young, it's very formal. I'm scared to death. This was like talking to a wonderful, caring, jovial, open person who I could be myself. And I, after hanging up and knowing this is what we're giving mom, the sense of relief was the size of the universe. And I. I bring you peace. Peace, yes. And I bring it up because sometimes our human brain can't figure it out, but my whole body figured it out. My soul figured it out. I was like, I am so at peace now. So I think that's Wonderful. Isn't that beautiful?

I'm so sorry your mom's in the process of dying, by the way. But I hope her final days are as peaceful as they can be and surrounded by love and all that.

For that. Thank you. For that. And just by what you said, I am going to write a post what never to say to someone who tells you they're going through a terrible time. So I just need to say there's some education that people need to hear about how you should talk to someone who's just told you their mother's dying, which is just what you said. Beautiful. But what I'm talking about here is listen most your number seven. Listen most of all to the quiet inner voice that guides you best. Yeah, tell us about that. How can people, the people I know don't hear the voice, right? They haven't. They wouldn't know it if it smacked them across the face. And I'm not putting anyone down. That was me. What inner voice? And you sound like you're telling me to be schizophrenic, that I need to hear voices. Can you tell people if they really don't know what that inner voice feels like or sounds like, how do they start to hear it?

I think that the first thing that you can do is become quiet. First physically and then interiorly become quiet and then become receptive, kind of disposed toward. Toward hearing, hearing the voice. It's funny when you ask people whether they pray, I think the majority of people that say yes mean they say prayers. But the question is, you know, if you believe in God, does God get a word in edgewise? I mean, is it a two way street? Not just saying, are you listening? And even if you don't believe in God, are you listening to the deepest stirrings of your. Of your heart? Are you doing that? I mean, that would be the quiet, quiet inside there. Yeah. Really listen and ask.

I mean, I. Do you agree? I tell people, start developing an intimate relationship with yourself. We typically know ourselves less than we know anyone else in our life. Our children, our husband, our wife. I'm saying you have to ask questions and then listen. And maybe it's going to be a color. I happen to see like videos of things that, you know, I kind of have no business knowing about you or someone I'm talking to. But if you really listen, there is information that comes. It might be something in the back of your neck, it might be something you feel in your body, it might be a fluttering of your heart. But I promise you, when you start to ask and then trust that something will come to you. It will. Would you agree with that?

Oh, totally. And to me, that that's my faith is that, you know, God is always good and, you know, message always come there. But often I find we're too busy to be paying paying attention. It's interesting with the deathly sin of sloth. I mean, there are two versions of that, and one is like the lizard on a rock not doing anything. The other one is somebody who's being really super busy, but they're not being busy about the thing they ought to be doing in life. They're busying themselves with things that are less important. So what you're talking about is an incredibly important thing to be doing in life. And often we're spending like our time and energy. Something. Yesterday, the average. Some survey found out the average American watches TV three hours a day. You know, is that the best? You know, and I watch TV sometimes, but, you know, is that the best use of my time? And then, you know, and I don't have 15 minutes or 20 minutes for meditation or listen or going for a walk in nature or anything like that. So to me, it's. There are. There is this quiet little inner voice that guides us at our best, and then there are these loud outside voices messages that are often not helpful to us at all. And I think a fair number of folks that I know pay too much attention to the loud outside voices and not enough attention to the quiet inner voice. I do this experiment at the end of the ethics classes I teach at Notre Dame, where I point out that, you know, we all have times in our lives where we're troubled, where we're not at peace. We don't feel centered, we feel off. And we all have different ways of coping with that. One of the ways a lot of us cope with that, and you as a musician would appreciate this, we listen to beautiful music. So there's soothing music, some, you know, Pachelbels, cannons, whatever your song is, that would kind of help you feel at peace. Everything's going to be okay, feel centered again, all of that. So I asked them to. And while I'm saying this, I'm playing. Flo Rida has this song, Good Feeling, which starts out kind of quiet, and I'm playing it at a low volume. So I asked them to think about what is the quiet song that guides you at your best and to what extent can you play that song in your mind now? And I crank it up, and what they find is that it's this psychological phenomenon that even if you know a particular quiet song, and even if you love that song, if something else is playing loudly and persistently, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to recall the quiet song that gives you the most peace, that guides you at your best. And the problem isn't that you don't know the song. Problem is that you don't, don't love the song. Problem is the other one becomes the only thing you can think about. So. So on the seventh one, I'm saying to. To live well and, and to be your spiritual best self in the workplace and beyond, you need to periodically carve out spots in your schedule where you can listen to the quiet song, get away from the loud song.

Amazing. That is such a fantastic tip. You know, I will say, and people are going to say, oh, she's lost it. I believe I speak to an angel group. They have a name, but I can't access them well until I take three deep breaths down to my toes. And when I do, all I can tell you is there's a love that comes in that is not like anything I've ever experienced humanly. And I will know when I'm asking them a question. I will know when it's me responding and when it is not me. It has a different nature, a different feel, different feel. But, you know, I think one thing you're bringing up is the proliferation of the Internet, Twitter, Reddit, Tick tock, if we're laying in bed. And that is what we're allowing ourselves to. Don't get me wrong, I'm on LinkedIn constantly. And. But if you don't carve any time to hear only yourself, you'll never hear only yourself. That's my view. Would you agree?

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So it's funny that there's a wonderful, wonderful essay and your listeners can find it if they Google it. Solitude and Leadership by again, a guy named William de Reshowitz with the American Scholar. He did it, the talk he gave at West Point on the importance of solitude to leadership. But one of the things he said is that my first thought is never my best thought. It's always somebody else's thoughts thought. It's the latest thing I've read in social media. The latest thing my favorite talking head has said to get to my own best thought, I need to stay with it long enough to really reflect back. The Mary thing, ponder it. My heart. I need to stay with it, chew.

It like a camel. I love it.

Right? I'm gonna need to do that.

I love that. I'm gonna ask you one more thing and then I know we're way over. I have so many people say to me when you talk about meditation, I think it's Buddha on the mountain. It means I'm gonna have to, you know, for 30 minutes an uncomfortable position that I can't even bend my knees at. I do not mean that when I say meditation. But if you have any resources that I interviewed Lodro Rinzler, who is a wonderful meditative expert and he teaches. But if you have any great resources for beginning people that you know, it isn't. I don't really believe, yes, yoga is amazing, but I don't believe we have to do it in a prescribed way in order to get the benefit of feeling meditative. Do you tell us in a minute what you would recommend for people who are have never meditated? They don't even know what you mean when you say it. What do you suggest?

Yeah, there are different practices. It's interesting. I gave a talk in Silicon Valley before the pandemic on solitude at the heart of leadership. And there are a lot of companies there and elsewhere that are giving mindfulness training to their employees, which has been described as Buddhism without the Buddha kind of thing. But I mean there's a lot out there on mindfulness training that's good and some of them have meditation rooms and all that kind of thing. Airports have meditation rooms now out there and elsewhere. I can send you some links that would have there, there are Jesuit guides to meditation, contemplation, all of all of that, which are quite helpful. There's some wonderful books I can recommend on on that and we'll post them.

In the show notes for people who say, look, I'm ready but I don't know where to begin. It scares me. I don't know what the heck you're talking about. I don't know what to do. We're going to give you some resources. Any last words, Joe, any last words for our listeners?

Yeah, you mentioned your Greek Orthodox background. There was Saint Irenaeus was a second century Greek Orthodox Greek bishop. And one of the things he said that I just love, love, love, love, love. He said the glory of God is the human person fully alive. God is the human. So the way you glorify God, if you're believing God is just be fully alive. So the question for our topic today is to what extent am I fully alive or not in the workplace and beyond? It sounds like you toward the end of your corporate marketing career were not not so fully alive. Now you're just glowingly fully alive. Amazing. The energy, the energy is wonderful. So, you know, so am I, am I in a situation where I'm fully alive or not? If not so beautiful, how do I get there?

And you make it so, so simple. I'm so grateful for your time. So where do people find you, connect with you, read about you? Where do we send them?

LinkedIn would be a good, a good place to, to go. That's a. Fabulous to go. I'm going to be writing some books. So down the road that'll, that'll be.

There, but I'll be your first reader. Oh, thank you so much for your time. You make it so simple. Of course it's simple, but not easy sometimes. But you break it down in a way that is so accessible and I think it probably will make a large percentage of people listening want to embrace what we're talking about here. And I hope so. Thank you for joining.

Thanks for the invitation, Kathy. Keep up your wonderful work.

Thank you, my dear. All right, people, you know I say this every time. We're not trying to be just talking heads. We want to hear from you. LinkedIn is my happy place. Joe's there on LinkedIn. Please connect with him. Share this. You'll see it on LinkedIn. Share it. Tag us, tell us what you got from it. Ask a question, challenge us. We're going to chew it up like, like the camel. Oh my gosh, I love that. I'm gonna see that constantly. We love it and we would love to hear from you. What we're trying to do here is be helpful in any way that will move you forward to being more fully alive. I mean, what could be more beautiful than that? So have. I hope this inspires you and have a wonderful two weeks and we will see you next time. Hi everyone. Kathy here. Do you run a coaching business that focuses on supporting women? If so, I've got some news. Right now we're opening the enrollment of my coach training program called the Amazing Career Coach Certification, which is a 17 week hands on training program that certifies female coaches in my proprietary 16 step career growth model, which is perfect for coaches who want a deeper dive into powerful proven coaching frameworks, concepts and skills that will help you become far more effective in working with women. And through the program, you'll get access to a powerful small business acceleration program called the Rapid Growth Academy, delivered by my friend and colleague, award winning business growth expert, Matthew Pollard. Through Matthew's program, you'll be taught essential business and sales growth information that will help you grow your business success in the quickest way possible. In my view, there's nothing on the market like this for coaches because it targets the two critical aspects of success how you support your clients to thrive, and just as importantly, how to grow your own business to the next level. For more information, visit certification amazingcareerproject.com and check out the details. Thanks so much for joining us today. And please don't forget to check out finding brave.com for more programs, resources and tips. And tune in next time for your weekly dose of Finding Brave.