I am thrilled to welcome today’s guest, Nate Payne, who helps IT leaders shift from working harder to redesigning the systems, incentives, and environments around their work so that they can have better outcomes. Nate Payne is a TEDx speaker, leadership advisor, and creator of Living Systems Leadership. It’s a framework that applies lessons from living systems to leadership, decision-making, and organizational life.

After more than 30 years in technology, he became fascinated by why capable, hardworking people often struggle to achieve the outcomes that they want, despite doing all the things that they’re told should lead to their success. Through his writing, speaking, coaching, and the strategic planning platforms that he founded, this plans, Nate helps people make clear decisions, navigate complexity with greater confidence, and build paths forward that are both ambitious and sustainable. Welcome here, Nate.

Thank you, Lenoke. Thank you for having me. I’m really excited to talk today with you because, as we’ve already realized this, we are both systems thinkers, and so you’re kind of speaking my language.

Great. Yes. So let’s just make sure that we bring the audience along in this ride, and I’d like you to tell us a little bit more about what Living Systems Leadership really is, because it sounds really intriguing, and the biologist in me is, you know, perks up when I hear that.

But what problem exactly do you solve? I alluded to it in the bio, but could you just expand on that a little bit? Yes. So Living Systems Leadership comes from the concept, very basic, that we are not machines. Organizations are not machines.

People are not parts of that machine. That’s sort of a carryover from the industrial age, and it made total sense, right? So 100 years ago, you had most people lived an agrarian life, and there was this huge migration into the cities, people started working in factories, and we sort of took on, if you will, the characteristics, I think, in some ways, of the very machines that we were there to run and support. And it sort of projected itself into the way that we saw ourselves almost akin to a machine, and we began to lead ourselves in that way.

I think what we’re discovering today, and what Living Systems Leadership attempts to do, is not so much go back or turn back the clock, but sort of to reach back and take what really worked, which was the wisdom of living systems. The patterns, the principles, the intelligence of the way nature designs systems, and apply those in our own system design. The great thing about it is we already, I think, intuitively know this because we are living systems as well.

And I think that’s why this concept has resonated so well, because we are living the very thing that Living Systems Leadership talks about. Yeah, that does make so much sense because, as you said, we kind of intuitively are doing this, but I think what you’re doing is really articulating the things that we might be doing sort of unconsciously, but making it a little more deliberate, and even being able to plan ahead by knowing and identifying this pattern for us. Yes, absolutely.

We like to say that living systems, nature, life, if you will, is the master operating system. And so we are sort of like developers, and those are our dreams, our aspirations, the things we build, our desires. And just like any good developer, we must understand the operating system that we’re working within because we have to honor those limitations, and strengths, those rules in the same way that the developer does.

And to the degree that we do is to the same degree that we’ll find success. People will give us thumbs up. Yes, your app works great, or, you know, we’re full of bugs, and we keep crashing.

So that’s our attempt is to first identify what those patterns are across all these different ecosystems. Not necessarily to mimic nature, but to maybe go a little bit deeper, and say it’s more than just, oh, you know, monkey see monkey do this is an understanding of why these things are happening. And then apply those in the way that we design our careers, our lives, our teams, our organizations.

Yeah, that that is really, really amazing. Because it’s kind of like that saying, if it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it, right? And so you basically identified all these things that are working. And what I love is that you said that you also take it a step further.

It’s not just taking it and mindlessly putting it forward, you’re actually understanding why it’s working and then maximizing on that. And so I love the analogy that you gave because you’re very much talking, tech speak as well. So I think that really makes it concrete in people’s minds.

So I think we’re off to a good start. And on the same page, I’m following what you’re saying. I want to ask you now, with all those definitions kind of laid out for us, why do you believe that so many high performing people in highly skilled and trained career folk feel stuck then they’re they’re they’re overwhelmed and they’re undervalued, but they have so much capability under their belt? Yes.

Very good question. Well, you know, there’s there’s things that tend to come with that capability, at least a pattern I noticed with highly capable people. They tend to be self reliant.

And they also tend to take on whatever is thrown at them. So again, I’m going to make a lot of metaphors around nature because it helps me understand. So I think of capable people like an aquifer.

Right. And so in an aquifer, the people in the community, the people in the area, they come to the aquifer, they keep drawing water from it. But the aquifer is underground.

So no one’s really paying attention to whether the aquifer is being replenished or not. And so these capable people, what we think it’s all about us, we’re going to work harder, we’re going to try harder, we’re going to be better. But that doesn’t put water back into the aquifer.

And so what starts out a lot of times as I’m helping, I’m being a team player. Pretty soon, the organization begins to count on that contribution, and they stop seeing it as help. People just see it as normal.

So the very things you’re driven, you work hard, you take the extra step. The very things that got you there are the very things that will overwhelm you if at some point we don’t learn to distribute some of that load. But when everyone and everything is pulling and drawing from that one source, at some point, that source is going to run out.

And nature shows us that, right? So it’s incredibly important that we have time to restore. And that’s one of the patterns that we see. And capable people sometimes feel guilty about doing it.

Sometimes it’s our identity. We’re known as that person. So we have to be careful with that as well.

Yeah. As you’re talking about that, now, there’s like hundreds of examples of nature that just keep coming to mind. And I just keep picturing deforestation.

We just keep taking and taking, cutting down all these trees. And eventually, the land suffers. It’s not as vibrant.

And we’ve lost all these mini ecosystems in there. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense.

As you were talking about that, it also reminded me very much of general resource management. And I often focus on the individual. And I refer to that as personal resources when we talk about your time and your energy and your finances and your relationships and things like that.

And I think that we’re essentially talking about the same thing maybe on slightly different terms. And yours is a much broader scope because I think your concepts really are translatable to an entire team of people or a leader who’s leading a team of people and at the organizational level as well. So I kind of resonate with that.

So I like the Living Systems concept too because it is so visual, as I said. So many examples just all of a sudden popped into my head. So I think it’s quite genius, actually.

Could you actually explain a little bit about what your journey was to coming to formalizing this concept and now having a whole business around it? Yes. Well, I’m very honest. This is not my idea.

None of these ideas are mine. I didn’t invent anything. I didn’t create anything.

I call it Living Systems leadership because you sort of have to market things. Right. So I had to come up with a name.

But I want to be very clear. This belongs to all of us. This was always here.

This was here before any of us. It’s here now. It will be here once we’re all gone.

So this is not something that Nate Payne invented or discovered. I just want to be very clear about that. This belongs to all of us.

But here’s how it starts. Very simple concept. As most things typically start out of necessity.

So again, as you mentioned, on the front end of the show, I was in IT for 30 years, still am. And I started off as a tech. And I loved solving problems.

I love helping people. And it allowed me to do both of those things. I mean, getting paid for it was cool.

But having someone tell me, oh, Nate, thank you so much for helping me out. You saved me. This is going to move the project forward.

This is going to make me look better in front of my boss. I was so worried that we wouldn’t get things done. That’s almost like being paid.

You know, I mean, that’s a sense of currency to me. Here’s what happens though. You keep going, you keep going, you start getting into leadership roles and you realize that that person who would come in and fix and save the day, as satisfying as that is, it doesn’t work as well for a leader.

Those skills don’t necessarily transfer into leadership. And so what I found myself now in these rooms with, you know, board of directors and finance committees who didn’t quite understand technology. And I didn’t know how to translate that to them in a way that mattered to them.

So that’s what I was looking for. So I was trying, I said, okay, what we’ll do is we’ll try to build a translator, which was a spreadsheet. And the spreadsheet, I said, what we’re going to do is use math, which is ironically, the language of nature.

I think it was Galileo or somebody who said, and I said, so I’m going to use math to do the translation. And we’ll look at our goals and our initiatives and we’ll quantify things and we’ll come up with equations. And those equations will give us a sense of the types of decisions we should make.

So as I’m building this thing and struggling with it, because that’s really not what I’m good at, I watched a documentary called The Serengeti Rules. There’s a book, by the way, as well. The book is very deep.

The documentary is much easier to digest. Sean Carroll is the guy’s name. And I thought I was watching a documentary about safari in Africa.

Serengeti Rules makes sense, right? That’s not what it was about. The story was about ecosystems. It was about a guy named Robert Payne, who was an ecologist.

And in the 1960s, he wrote this kind of groundbreaking paper about ecosystems and how they work, the ripple effects from the top down with your apex predators and on on. He goes into this deep thing. And the whole documentary is showing you these different ecosystems.

When I got to the end of that, I realized, I said, oh my gosh, this is exactly what I’m trying to build. This is the message that we are ecosystems. This is exactly what we’re violating the laws of nature.

And this is why people feel overwhelmed. It’s why there’s this disconnect. It’s why we feel like we’re imposters, because we’re trying to do something that we were never meant to do.

That was the beginning of living systems leadership. So I ran into my office there at home, and I just started jotting down all these notes, exactly what you said, all these pictures that came to mind. That’s what started happening.

Different ways to phrase things. And so after a couple of years of researching that, I was sort of ready to present it publicly for the first time, which was very nerve wracking because I really didn’t think people would accept it. I thought they would think of it as rather silly that I’m coming to this business conference.

I’m giving a session about tide pools, you know, and starfish. And it was the opposite response. And I said, oh my gosh, people really do resonate with this.

And then it made sense what I was saying earlier. Well, I guess so, right? Because we are a living system. So I think it’s a message that the time has come.

I hear other people talking about systems thinking yourself and others. And it’s just a natural, I think, adaptation. As the world gets more complex, we need simpler tools.

If the tools keep getting more complex, and the world keep getting more complex, then what are we doing? Yeah, I know we could just spiral out of control. I mean, it’s just, I think it’s always a good reminder to go back to first principles. And I feel that, you know, as you’re telling this story, I thought, and he’s about to tell us that this Robert Payne is like a relative of yours.

Do you guys happen to be related at all? There’s a coincidence that you guys have the same last name. It is a coincidence. And he spells, I always make the joke, I said, but he spells his name wrong.

He spells it P-A-I-N-E. And I spell mine with a Y, but no, no relation as far as I know. Okay.

I think that first of all, it was really cool that just at the time where you were trying to find the right language to put, you know, to these ideas that you had so that you could bridge the people you worked with to the people that were the decision makers, that you happened to see this documentary, and it just provided you the tools that you needed. And that you recognize that sometimes God is sending us all these signs, and we’re just not there with our eyes open to receive them. But also, I think that it’s really courageous of you to then say, okay, this could be really silly, but you found a forum to share your ideas and that you tested it and it was well received.

And I think probably that’s what brought you to larger and larger audiences and eventually TEDx stage, which is no small feat. So I want to just also say that that is thank you. That was really good.

It’s inspirational and kind of a role model for the rest of us that have these interesting ideas that want to then bring them forward. Yeah, I say go for it. You just you never know.

I was so nervous. And I didn’t think anyone would show up, I’ll be honest, because literally the title of the session was from Thai pools to boardrooms. And yeah, I said, Well, no one’s going to come to see this and the room was full.

And I said, Oh, you know, this is going to be really good or it’s going to be really bad. And unfortunately, people did respond positively and they continue to do so. But again, the idea is a set of tools that allow you to go out and be what I call an artist to lead and create and design, not according to a rigid framework or set of rules, per se, but just really a handful of principles.

So another metaphor I use, if you think about, I call it the primary colors. So my grandson, we have this picture on the refrigerator of his quote unquote artwork. But if you if you go to a museum and you see the Mona Lisa, you see something and you go, Oh my gosh, that’s a masterpiece.

Here’s what’s interesting. The same primary colors are used to create both. Right.

We see the same thing in physics. So at the top at the surface level, we just have an overwhelming amount of variety and detail. And then we go down and we go, Oh, at the next level, we kind of see molecules, right? And it shrinks.

And then we go down one more layer and we go, Oh, there’s atoms. And if you keep going, right, you get down to particles, just a handful of particles that are sort of interacting according to like a set of consistent rules. Yeah.

And all of those things, everything that we see in life is being generated by relatively few elements. Right. Music, 12 notes.

You know, one is a lullaby and one is a symphony. So the point the point I’m making, I think what we tend to do in our lives and leadership is we tend to stay on the surface. And when you do, it becomes incredibly complex, distracting.

And then, you know, we focus on categorizing things, right? Because it’s so confusing that I have to put things in what I call buckets. This belongs here. This is my career.

This is my family. This is that. But in reality, if we just go, I say sometimes that the best way forward is to go downward.

Right. What are the basic elements? What are the primary colors, if you will? That are acting here. And what are the forces that are generating what I see here in my life? And it just takes the craziness, the complexity and the overwhelm away when you realize, oh, all of this stuff that I’m dealing with is actually only being created by a handful of things that I actually can do something about.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I have a molecular biology background.

And so I’m just thinking, you know, the the four nucleotides of, you know, in DNA and then just those four and look how complex and the variety of life that we have all the different forms. Right. So, yeah, I can I can understand, you know, sort of how how you’re thinking about this.

So it sounds to me, I think one of the reasons that this resonates with so many people and you know, you were surprised at first, but I can kind of hear the story and look at look backwards and say, oh, well, first of all, the title of your talk, that first one that you had, even if I wasn’t sure what it was about or thought maybe could go in the silly direction, it definitely sparks curiosity. Right. Because like what a type will have to do with boardrooms.

But then as you start explaining this to me, I think the thing that resonates with so many people is that you’re talking about instead of applying these rigid ways of operating that is counter to how we might function or even live and, you know, exist in the world. You’re making it so that you reduce the friction, that everything is working synergistically. So then it just becomes so much easier and natural, right? Yes.

And I think that is really important for us women in STEM because sometimes we find ourselves in an environment that just biologically we we tend to be caregivers. We have these other ecological functions in life, right? Those don’t disappear once we become highly skilled scientists and we’re working in these high demand jobs and we’re often operating in an environment that kind of almost expects us to just drop that part of our life out, you know, and silo us into just the scientist part, right? Or when we’re at home, we’re constantly thinking about how we can, you know, this problem that we can’t get past and work, you know. And so I wonder how much of your framework and what you teach about how that can help us women in STEM.

Like, is there something specific, some universal pattern that you can sort of provide an example for that could be useful for my audience? Yes. Well, I hope so. I look at ecology.

There’s part of what I do is mathematics. Part of it is human psychology. And then part of it is economics.

And you touched on this earlier around resources. And believe it or not, these things all intertwine. They’re all linked, right? We tend to look at them as separate domains of expertise.

And they’re really not. So my theory is that in some ways we, life itself is an exercise in applied economics. We can pretend that it’s not, but that’s fine.

I think part of the problem is economics tends to get associated with financial markets, money, okay? But if you really look at what economics is, right, it’s just really sort of the study of allocation of scarce resources that have a number of possible uses. Money is one of them, but so is time. So is attention.

So is our talent. So is opportunity. So every single day of our lives, sort of in the micro, we are making economic decisions.

I’m going to go to the soccer game instead of work on X. We’re constantly making these trade-offs. I think what happens, some of the friction is when we don’t want to make a trade-off. We don’t want to accept.

And it’s totally okay because those trade-offs, that is how life works. So what do you do? The reason that we have to make trade-offs, the reason that we even have to set priorities or set goals, have any type of constraints at all is literally because of scarcity, because of constraints. Without constraints, I don’t need a plan.

I just keep doing, right? Everything is limited all the time, and very little would get done. So it’s the constraints that really give life meaning. It’s not an or.

Constraints also cause friction, right? They make things tough, and they also give meaning. It’s both. It’s that polarity, and it’s beautiful.

And we should embrace that. And in the moment that we do so, from a natural world perspective, that’s one of the things, it’s okay. But what I do say is, understand what you want your life to be, paint a picture, and prioritize.

So one of the exercises, and this literally comes from the graduate work, the students of Robert Payne. So they carried his work forward, and what they started looking at were not just the species in the ecosystem, but the relationships, the connections. What’s so funny, they were onto the same thing that I wanted to do, which was, I want to measure the strength of the connection.

I want to give it weight, because that matters. Why do I care about giving it weight? Because at some point in time, I’m going to have to make a tough decision. I’m going to have to make a trade off.

So I don’t want my bias, my guilt, my fear of loss to make the decision. I want my priority to make the decision. But if I haven’t set that, if I don’t have my vision, don’t have my priorities in order, then when that tough moment comes, I make a decision that makes sense in that moment.

But in the long term, I’m disappointed. I don’t get the outcome. So I think in some ways, economics plays a great role in just understanding.

But then again, nature and a sense of polarity, right? It’s not a problem to be solved, right? It’s a balance. Yeah. Have you heard of life planning? I have, but not in detail.

Oh, no, because what you described is so consistent with life planning. And so it’s really interesting to hear it in different words, you know? But essentially, it’s setting that vision. So this is kind of the principles of which I teach and work with my moms in STEM.

But essentially, painting that picture you talked about of the ideal life that they want, right? With where they can have sort of both. But looking at the whole life. And you talked about the constraints and the priorities.

So having, defining them, taking the time to articulate what all of those things are. And moving from that big picture to your goals, and then down to those granular daily decisions that you have to make, which I call personal resources, which is very similar to how you talk about it. But I think there’s a lot of parallels to what you’re saying and what life planning is.

I just find it really interesting because then I, once you create that, once my clients create that, then their careers become one bucket in that whole life picture. So you integrate the career into that. And the life plan becomes a filter for making decisions, which is, I think, kind of what you’re getting at, too, at the organizational level, is that how can you make these decisions if you, because you can make these decisions, you can make these trade-offs.

But you might be headed in the wrong direction and then wonder,

These teams can operate in a much more sustainable manner that it’s not just this it’ll work once in a fizzle out you’re actually building helping them build long-term health for the team and That they’re not going to be endlessly optimizing Right, is that okay? Is that okay? Yeah, that’s what you just said is incredibly important it The endless optimization and this is I smile when I hear the optimization in the same breath as resilience And I say what you know, they’re you don’t have resilience if you don’t have restoration Nature shows us this right? So this this idea that there’s no slack. There’s no give there’s no time for reflection for us to rest To restore ourselves that is part of performance not just the going part But the catching your breath part and that has to be factored in the totality of performance So it’s great that you Optimize I guess all the time until the storm comes And there’s no give And human body shields is this as well, right? What happens something snapping something’s breaking right and Then but we and then so well resilience is the ability to keep going even though, you know, something snapped or broke. I’m saying well Yes And resilience is also I believe more about what you do before the event Then what you do after the event And so all of those things are important.

What’s interesting what you described earlier about the life planning It is parallel to what we do with this plans I mean literally so in my mind what you described is what they call a food web Okay, so I can almost go to any ecosystem I like, you know the African savannah and I go. Okay, there’s apex predators and herbivores and There’s producers which we refer to as grass trees bushes and so forth. That’s what you just described You just described the three levels how they integrate together And and how they balance each other So we get rid of the apex predators meaning I really don’t have the vision.

I don’t have the goals Well, guess what then everything is that that middle level is going to multiply because it has nothing to sort of control it which means it’s going to go down and consume all of the Grass and all the bushes and all the trees and destroy the ecosystem throws everything out of whack. Yeah, whack Right. So what you’re doing is really balancing the ecosystem And it just circles right back when you begin to see and I know that’s kind of an overused word now a day ecosystem But I don’t know a better word that describes What we are In ecosystem inside an ecosystem inside an ecosystem, right? And it’s just I don’t know to me It’s a it’s a beautiful design and again the closer we get to that design I call it rowing, you know, it’s the tide right the current.

So yes, do we need to be strong and capable? Of course we do Mm-hmm But strong and capable rolling against the current and strong and capable rolling with the current Will bring you two different outcomes. Mm-hmm. So be capable be strong work hard But roll with the current.

Yeah, you just get further. That’s just common sense. I mean We don’t necessarily Do that and think about that.

But when you say it, I mean, that’s just common sense, right? Yes when I Think like I’m getting really into strength training and I was just thinking about what you were saying about resilience and recovery and What I had learned is that It’s really important to push yourself and to do those, you know Recovery period that you get the most progress like that’s where all the magic is happening. Yes you need to stress yourself out during those, you know in a in a In a responsible way, but there’s there’s a proper way to do it.

But you you create the stress on your muscles in your body and the system But it’s the recovery period where the strength part actually happens. Yes It’s the messaging I think that happens again because we’re looking at The world from a very mechanized point of view the machines just constantly go and you know A part breaks you replace the part performance drops, you know, you go mess with the settings and You keep going Recovery isn’t necessarily a part of it and that would be so great if we were machines

But we’re not so What what happens is with the messaging is we tend to see recovery as? You’re slacking Right, you’re you’re not hustling right now You need to continue to hustle when as you mentioned the strength and the muscle growth happens in the recovery period But if you don’t give it and so you ask a question earlier It’s like what what happens with the professionals and you’re working hard You’re doing all these things and you’re not getting the outcomes that you want You may want to look at your recovery Maybe that reflection time maybe that downtime is the time right? I can share a store I don’t know if we have time but I can share a story about this recovery time so I was I spoke earlier, but I was trying to build a spreadsheet with some formulas to sort of mathematically Give you some sense of the decisions you should make in much the same way you describe with life planning around organizational planning and decision making resource allocation, I guess in some ways I Couldn’t figure out the formula Hmm, and I tried for weeks now.

I’m not bragging here This is actually quite embarrassing, but I’m a certified expert in Excel. Okay, I Couldn’t figure it out so you can imagine it’s a little bit humbling So I put it on the shelf. I couldn’t figure it out.

I said I can’t I don’t know I don’t know what the answer is About two or three months later. I’m out on a walk. I have my earbuds in and Listening to don’t laugh Yani and I think like whispers in the dark or something and I go.

Oh my gosh. I love this song I said so I’ll take another lap around the block before I go back home because I want to hear the song out. I Get about 10 feet 12 feet The whole thing just dropped right in my head.

I Mean the whole formula the whole logic everything that I couldn’t figure out was just given to me But it wasn’t given to me when I was exerting when I was pushing when I was trying Mm-hmm, but when I set it down and just said, okay, okay, just Give myself some time to reflect the whole thing came to me Yeah, so I say that to say sometimes it may appear that nothing is happening And sometimes those are the moments when the most important thing is happening. That’s like you said earlier That’s when the growth is happening. That’s when the strength is really being built Like when your best ideas come in the shower Yes When you’re not looking for something, but if you’re always on Kind of hard to there’s no room, right? There’s no room for God for the universe for whatever you want to call it to you know, it’s waiting for you It’s like well, you stop talking for a minute.

I I can give you the answer, right? And that’s how I felt it was like if you just shut up Nate. I know what the formula is and You know, this is Maybe a total non sequitur, but I think it’s really good. It’s just this personal experience.

Um, and My my first time two boys and my older son He you know when you’re when you’re expecting your OBGYN gives you an expected due date, right? Well He wasn’t just late. He was ten days late, which she was already On like couldn’t you know a larger? You know, he was growing larger and so ten extra days like getting heavier and bigger By the by the day, but I am such a planned, you know do things by the plan And I just every day I’m like, what can I do to to like? You know Stimulate, you know not to induce but you know naturally like what can I do to egg this along? Yes, you know Yes Birth along and no matter how much I planned all this research I did, you know just he had his own plans and finally I was just so exhausted and I decided to take a nap and You know, it’s just this beautiful day in San Diego and I’m just okay. I’m just gonna enjoy it before the chaos of wondrous chaos of having Yeah, and that’s that’s when my water broke, you know, and I don’t know it’s probably completely unrelated But I’m just when you’re talking about that.

I was like, yeah exactly what happened When I was expecting my first son anyway Well, I’m sure it’s gonna relate. Well, and it’s this partnership. I believe that that goes on and you know, I call it humility But not in the sense that we talk about humility.

I don’t mean self-deprecating. I mean humility in a sense that We don’t necessarily know what things mean So sometimes, you know, we have our goals our objectives and not only that we also have our idea sometimes in detail Exactly each step how we will achieve that objective. Mm-hmm And a lot of times that’s really none of our business How it happens our job is to have a vision to set those goals to set our priorities and to pedal, okay Keep the car straight.

That’s all you need to do the rest of it. The car does I don’t need you under the hood messing with the engine the universe has all those things and So we tend to think that we know what something means Whether that’s what we consider a victory or of defeat or all this bad thing happened or this good thing happened But we really don’t know what that means because that would require us to have vision into the future And if we had that, you know, we probably just picked the lottery numbers and we wouldn’t be doing any of this. So The humility comes from saying, you know what? I don’t know what this means But I’m going to assume that in enough time It’s for my benefit Because here’s what happens when we assume we sell something bad happens We respond to that belief of which we couldn’t possibly know and it’s that very behavior that response to that really unknown that Ends up generating the outcome and we go I knew it all the time Well, no, you actually caused it by your response to something.

You really didn’t know in the first place So some of the the humility I found over time is just to do the work Have the vision and just let Let the universe let God partner with you Right and together Boy, it’s just it takes the weight off your shoulders when we stop assuming that we know what things mean Yeah, no, that’s great advice. I want to ask you For the woman who is just in it, right she’s just She wants that Sustained career growth and and she’s you know pushing through every day if She wanted to use This living systems concept and maybe see okay How like am I am I working with? You know the natural order things or am I working against it? How could she do a bit of a living systems audit, you know, what what should she be checking for? Yeah, good question the first one is What I call giving weight to quantifying if you will To the things that are important So if she’s really working on a career, I ask it specifically like this On a scale of one to five, you know five being critical one being yeah, who cares? How important is this to you? and if the career is a five Great, right. This isn’t a judgment.

This is you need to answer this honestly because everything flows From that and then we look at the other things as well and we give those a certain weight Maybe this is a four. This is a three That’s important because we may not get them all and if we don’t we don’t want to feel bad about a three later on down The road you got the fives and the fours. I mean, you know, I’d be happy So once you have that identified and you have your goals quantified then the question becomes Let’s look at your time.

How are you spending it? How are you spending those resources? if I look at your calendar if I looked at a typical day and The way that you’re allocating those scarce resources. We talked about earlier what I’d be able to tell what’s important Yeah, so that that would be what? What are the things that keep reoccurring Now this this could be at home, but this could also be in the office This this could be with your team and depends on what side of the table Sometimes you’re sitting on you’re the leader with your team and then sometimes you’re an individual contributor, you know within the team But what I’m looking for is what? Friction points keep coming up Mm-hmm Whether it’s me or whether it’s someone else right Maybe it’s around this certain project or this certain handoff Those are real good clues that there’s something going on with the system Yeah, and it’s and it’s not personal So that’s another one I Have a theory that most of human behavior most of what drives us is you know, fear of loss And I don’t mean like anxiety I’m scared I’m walking around paranoid fear I just mean Here are the things that matter to me and I have a sense of apprehension that I may lose them Well, that’s actually I mean, there’s all kinds of studies that actually validate this Exact concept Where it’s sort of in the stack of motivations You have your positives and then your negatives where like the things you’re trying to avoid. Well the the avoidance Wanting to avoid the negatives takes priority over Pushing yourself towards a positive.

Yes. That makes sense. Yeah, and why that’s important because that’s one of the primary colors Is that people you have to understand that so now when you have that person at work who just gets under your skin Or you think doesn’t like you or whatever 99% of the time there’s something going on that person here is losing Whether it’s position or status or respect or I don’t care right the list goes on and on but there’s something And it’s not personal Yeah, and I think that’s that’s the key right when we take it personally We think oh, you know, this is what’s going on One thing that I’d like to touch on about your earlier question Around the audit too.

I think it’s important to understand the environments that we thrive in So, you know we relocated from San Francisco Bay Area to Houston, Texas area and We had plants that we had 20 years That thrived We brought them here They are not thriving Now Is there something wrong with the plant? Well, no because when the plant was here it did fine same soil same everything The point I’m making is that you know, sometimes when we’re building our career and we’re making decisions career choices We kind of look at the title and maybe compensation and things like this. I think I would say even more importantly for the long term is to look at the environment that you’re going into and Then do an audit against Your list of I thrive in this environment I thrive in warm environments with low humidity, which is not where I am right now By the way love the heat can’t do with the humidity. So But we you know, we followed the grandkids But if I’m picking a place I’d rather be by the ocean Okay, so I know the environment that I thrive in That’s important to understand and so now when I go into that organization, yes Am I looking at calm am I looking how they make decisions? And of course all the incentives and all those things I am But more importantly what I’m looking at is do these does this environment hit my checklist in terms of things that I need to thrive Now Here’s what’s important about that question that question works on both sides of the table So when you’re the person looking for the next opportunity for your career That’s what you’re looking at when you’re on the other side of the table and you’re interviewing someone.

Yeah, you’re gonna ask them Tell me about the environment that you thrive in you do your best work. What was it like? Yeah, right Cuz what I’m doing is I’m comparing it To our environment. It’s like are we going to be able to sustain this person? Are they gonna come in here and everything I see on their resume? they’re gonna keep flowering and blooming and producing fruit the way they were in this environment or Are we too cold or too warm or too humid here? Right? No judgment.

It’s just a matter of Does the plant fit the environment? So that’s one way I think just kind of living looking at it from a living system perspective also helps us again Like you said make a common sense decision Yeah, I I really believe that We should feel empowered to design our life, but specifically I focus on designing your career and I I Usually look at saying okay. Well, these are the environmental constraints. Let’s work within that or the system strengths I love your approach because you’re you’re really giving us Superhero powers by saying hey, let’s redesign this the environment, too But one of the things that I teach and actually had just recorded an episode about this is that When you have the interview it is two-way You’re interviewing them just as much as they’re interviewing you and I think that that’s kind of what you’re talking about here because It’s not just about oh I really want to have a job.

You want to have a job? That where you’re gonna thrive like you said, right? And so it’s you know, it’s not just having that checkbox on You know your your resume It’s it’s also where are you going to actually be able to? Thrive and grow and move forward and stop it So you have to be assessing that just as much as they’re assessing you to be a good fit. So I love it Okay, those are really really helpful tips I would add to that if we go back to the economics thing too, and this is this is what I tell the people that I work with When you’re in that interview when you’re applying for that position You’re not asking them to do you a favor Okay, yeah, you’re making a trade Mm-hmm. So you’re assessing is this a good trade? I’m bringing skills I’m bringing my time my talent right my attention I’m bringing all of these resources to your organization in an effort to help you better serve Your customers, right? Whatever the problem is that you solve for them and an exchange for that.

What am I getting? Yeah, so if you if you think about like you said, it’s a two-way thing But really it’s yeah, it’s a trade right like when we were kids, right? I’ll you know, I’ll give you three of these cards for you know, five bubblegum or whatever that’s really maybe a little more serious than that but but it effectively is a trade that is going on and You had better make sure that those scarce resources that you’re at that table bargaining with That you make a good trade. Yeah, is that that’s all we’re doing almost in every situation Yeah, yeah, and I think that it’s really easy to Limit that The trade that transaction in Monetary terms like you’re getting paid this much, but I would extend that to I have many examples in my career Where that trade was in other forms when I was a grad student my tuition was paid for because I Provided I did research in the lab and provided, you know The support in that way, but in turn I was educated I received an education and and you know or if you’re an intern or I’ve done a volunteer research work where I was able to You know Acquire a certain level of experience or an opportunity to try XY or Z yes in return for Correct free labor But so like you would think that I’m not getting anything in return because I’m not getting paid there But I was very much aware of what the what? Yes coming my way, you know, yes, that’s really important. That’s my dad used to have this expression He would say everything is a measured in dollars and cents Which I never really understood what he meant when I was a kid, but now it’s what you’re describing So so maybe it’s flexibility for you So maybe your vision for your life Okay, so I want to be at those games.

I want to be able to Pick the kids up at least twice a week. I want to be able to go on field trips So what you’re really saying is I want flexibility Right. So when I’m in there negotiating because that’s really what’s happening.

I’m saying well, is this an environment? That’s gonna allow for that flexibility Because I know that that’s important to me based upon what I said here That has to be your North Star and I’m so glad to hear how your program starts there And it’s okay if it changes over life Right because the way I feel in my 20s and my 30s in my 40s and 50s that may change that’s totally fine And what happens is it’s like once you have built that life plan that you were talking about Everything just ripples through there’s just this cascade as we change the priorities that all this is no longer five in my life This is now a three. Well, that means everything attached to it, right law correspondence, right in some way inherits that decision And I don’t have to think about a million things. Yeah, this was one thing in that documentary by the way that they talk about It’s just it makes it so much easier and I don’t have to wonder if this is going to work or not Because it’s working right now If you’re still breathing and and you’re thinking and we’re talking and we’re doing this then that means that This idea is valid Yeah Absolutely.

Yeah, I think that sometimes we we fall into that decision paralysis like just so overwhelmed with The hundreds of decisions we have to make every day and then if you’re talking about a mom or a woman whose has Who’s making decisions for other people in her life as well as the high-stakes decisions you’re making in your job I mean in many cases The decisions you’re making in your job affect people’s lives and their survival and their health, right? So those are really high stakes as well It can just feel like You know It’s hard to know what what direction to go but when you have this clear map or You know, you understand how systems work you work Following the concepts of these living systems. It’s no longer this Fatiguing process cuz like you said you’re going with the flow Yeah, you don’t have to wonder is this next step that I’m taking Going to be the right one or not all that second guessing is gone You know exactly where it fits into the whole flow of things and and its feedback No, so one of the things that parallels what you’re saying that we teach is in the organization is doing these little experiments You don’t have to go all in So we’re going to try it if it doesn’t work Okay, great if it works then we you know, we expand it And so the same thing you don’t have to see your entire future Before you make a decision. Yeah, which is great.

You can always make another decision as long as again Like you said, I’m still aligning myself That’s called adaptation. That’s to be expected. It’s called living.

This is what we do. But when you have that Plan as you say that framework method, whatever you want to call it when you are aligned with nature You just continue to make different decisions, but each one is still aligned Yeah, right and that I think that that’s important Sometimes I think what we want to see is if I make this decision then what’s gonna happen and then when I do when that Happens then what’s gonna happen and I want to see all the way from my 30s up into my 70s It’s like well, wait, you know, that’s yeah Yeah, you want to see your whole future and know what this means and and no one can ever give you that um, so I think your Your approach to it really works because i’m going to make what I know is the next best decision Based upon where we are today It’s almost like um, you know, okay, we’re going out to the beach but I’m i’ll put a sweater in the trunk Hard jacket and pants and a pair of shoes if the weather changes i’ll change into something else Right because you know the environment you thrive in yeah, exactly, right? I don’t like being cold. So I would definitely do that exactly Yeah, I love it.

I love it. Um And I was gonna ask you actually what is one of the biggest systems mistakes that you think women in stem might be making and I almost feel like what you just said might be that where we’re trying to Predict the future all the way out in and you know instead of looking at sort of like, okay What’s the next best step? But if you have a different take on it, please go ahead No, I I really think that’s it. I think it’s you know, I wouldn’t I wouldn’t limit it to women in stem I I think that just high performing people Tend to do that again The very things that make you great Right too much of them will also harm you