[00:00:00] Marissa: You have tried the system. You've probably tried the reset. You've tried getting up earlier, batching your tasks, protecting your mornings, and turning off notifications, and somehow you keep landing in the same place. Well, there is a reason for that, and it probably isn't the one you've been told. Today we are introducing something new
[00:00:32] Welcome to Focus on This, the most productive podcast on the internet. I'm Marisa Hyatt.
[00:00:38] Joel: And I'm Joel Miller.
[00:00:39] Marissa: This is where we remind you of something you already know. It's not about getting more things done, it's about getting the right things done.
[00:00:47] Joel: Both in work and in life. And today we are kicking off a multi-week series on something brand new.
[00:00:55] We're calling it your work style assessment.
[00:00:59] Marissa: And we're going to get into what makes you, you, and what changes how you show up at work.
[00:01:08] Joel: But before we do- But before we do...
[00:01:10] Marissa: Joel, it's been a minute.
[00:01:12] Joel: It's been a minute. First, I wanna hear, like, what's been going on, 'cause, like, we haven't been here in a long time.
[00:01:17] Marissa: There has been a lot of life lived since the last time we were here on air on Focus on This. First and foremost, we've missed you guys. Yeah, we have. We're so excited to be back in your ears every single Monday. And let me just say this, what we're gonna be talking about over the next few weeks is really amazing, and I am so excited we are back with a bang.
[00:01:42] Hopefully not too much of a bang, because that is what landed pretty much us going on a hiatus in the first place.
[00:01:49] Joel: There was a compounding number of, of events.
[00:01:52] Marissa: There was a lot. There was a
[00:01:53] Joel: lot. A series of unfortunate events, if you're familiar with that little children's story series.
[00:01:58] Marissa: Some of you guys know this.
[00:01:59] I think most of you guys know this. I had a freak accident back in April that landed me in the ER with a dislocated shoulder, multiple tears in my labrum, and horrible pain and all kinds of things. I had pretty extensive nerve damage. And so for me, over the last several months, it has looked like a lot of doctor's appointments, a lot of physical therapy, a lot of regular therapy, and just overall a lot of recovery.
[00:02:32] Joel: Hannah was a trooper. She came in and recorded- Yes ... some episodes. But then my life went off the rails. My mom got really, really sick. She lives about 2,500 miles away, and so I found myself out in California for what I thought was gonna be three days. It turned into three weeks with ongoing stuff afterwards, and we just realized we just have to take a break.
[00:02:54] Marissa: Well, I think that this is a good example of we're trying to practice what we preach, which a lot of what we talk about here on Focus On This is about priorities, right? Figuring out where you can do your highest leverage work, and to do that in the most efficient, productive way possible. And for us, unfortunately, that meant sidelining the podcast for a hot minute so we could both recover, your mom could recover, you could get her to a good place, and we could kind of get our feet under us again.
[00:03:24] Yeah. And I'm very happy to report we are back.
[00:03:29] Joel: I, I'm literally standing on both of my feet right now.
[00:03:32] Marissa: Yeah.
[00:03:32] Joel: My feet are back under me.
[00:03:34] Marissa: Both of our feet and both of our shoulders are working. Yeah. So we're happy about that, and we're so excited to be back. Honestly, this summer had its ups and downs. It was a lot on a lot of different fronts, both good and bad, and I'm grateful that we're now shifting back into, I feel like, this collective experience of back to school, but really just getting back to routine.
[00:03:58] Joel: Life.
[00:03:58] Marissa: Right? Yeah. Getting back to life. And summer's always fun, vacations, you know, swimming, all those things are fantastic, but sometimes we just need to get back in the groove, and I feel like we're finally there. And what we're gonna share with you guys today I think is actually gonna help you even more as you approach this new season, this next season of the year, to be able to show up in your fullness and be able to have a little bit of a growth edge here too.
[00:04:24] Joel: All right. So every one of us shows up for work a little different, which as you'll hear, is kind of the whole point of this work style assessment. However We all have some things in common. One of those things is we're all pretty much overloaded with too much stuff to do. Overload is just the practical reality of having too much stuff on our lists.
[00:04:48] The demands exceed our time, our energy, our attention.
[00:04:51] Marissa: Mm.
[00:04:51] Joel: And it's like no system, no app, or no discipline is gonna make an oversized load fit. Yeah. And a lot of us are just living in that place all the time.
[00:04:59] Marissa: Overstuffed.
[00:05:01] Joel: Overstuffed.
[00:05:02] Marissa: And on top of that, we all get overwhelmed, right? Right. So we all get overloaded, and we get overwhelmed.
[00:05:09] Joel: And they're, they're distinct. It's worth mentioning.
[00:05:11] Marissa: Right? So overload, you talked about, is, like, you just have too much to do. There's too much on your plate. You're overstuffed. Overwhelm is you have too much to deal with.
[00:05:22] Joel: Right. It's more emotional.
[00:05:23] Marissa: It's way more emotional. It's way more internal. It's the strain of trying to handle everything all at once.
[00:05:30] What was the name of that movie? Everything All at Once...
[00:05:33] Joel: Everything Everywhere.
[00:05:35] Marissa: Everything Everywhere All at Once.
[00:05:36] Joel: All at Once, yeah. But that's exactly how work can feel.
[00:05:39] Marissa: But it can, and the load that we carry plus the realities of our world, you know, whether it's the news, technology, the uncertainty going around, it's just, like, all too much, right?
[00:05:51] Yeah. That's the overwhelm feeling of, "Oh, my gosh," like, "where do I even begin?"
[00:05:56] Joel: Right.
[00:05:56] Marissa: How do I even process all of this? It's just, like, not natural.
[00:06:01] Joel: Right. Right, and it's also worth recognizing that we all have constraints, right? Every week comes with 168 hours, no more and no less. We all have limits to our time, our energy, our attention.
[00:06:16] We're only human, we can only do so much, and we find ourselves trying to meet these inhuman demands with merely human strength.
[00:06:25] Marissa: The truth is we all need rest. I know some of you guys are listening and going, "No, I don't need it, you know, I can power through, I can do anything." Sorry to break it to you, you are human and you do need rest.
[00:06:38] Uh, we need time to reset, to relax, to pursue joy.
[00:06:43] Joel: I mean, we have to think about it a little bit like a credit card. Mm-hmm. Like, yes, you can overextend yourself.
[00:06:48] Marissa: Yeah.
[00:06:48] Joel: You absolutely can work longer than the allotted hours. You absolutely can deliver one more thing. You absolutely can put in extra hours over this weekend or on a string of nights this week.
[00:07:01] However, eventually the bill for that card comes due. Yeah. And that comes up in the form of, like, your immune system is suppressed 'cause you haven't been sleeping enough, so you get sick, or certain things compound in the work and you start dropping balls- Mm-hmm ... or whatever. It's like there's no free lunch.
[00:07:19] Marissa: Well, the other thing that is true for all of us, maybe most importantly, we all need clarity.
[00:07:26] Joel: Right.
[00:07:26] Marissa: And I know this may sound a little like, "Huh? What? We do?" Yes, we do. We all need clarity. We need a way to filter all these demands that are coming at us from every single angle all day, every day.
[00:07:41] Joel: This is what we call the priority filter.
[00:07:43] We need a way to separate what's ours from what's really not. We need a way to understand what is actually high leverage. Of all the different activities you might do on any given day, some matter more than others.
[00:07:56] Marissa: Yeah.
[00:07:56] Joel: Some will produce better results than others. And we need a way to identify what matters right now.
[00:08:02] Because just because something is important doesn't mean it's important today. Just because something is important doesn't mean that it will be important tomorrow. We need to be able to decide what matters right now, what's relevant.
[00:08:13] Marissa: Well, and no matter who you are, all of these things that we've shared are true, right?
[00:08:18] These are just kind of like truths that-
[00:08:21] Joel: They're universals ... they're universal. So
[00:08:22] Marissa: how you got here
[00:08:26] And where to go next will change based on who you are.
[00:08:31] Joel: So those things are universal, but you're particular. Yes. And you're gonna, you're gonna navigate all that stuff differently depending on your work style.
[00:08:39] Marissa: Yeah.
[00:08:40] Joel: So let's get into, like, what that might look like. I think it comes down to, well, a handful of things.
[00:08:46] Like, things like what motivates us, that can separate some of us out from others.
[00:08:51] Marissa: Mm.
[00:08:51] Joel: Where we get stuck, that can separate us out from some others. And there's how we feel about rest, how we, how we respond to help, how we relate to uncertainty, all these different areas.
[00:09:00] Marissa: Yeah, so let's talk about what motivates us, 'cause I think this is interesting because not everybody is motivated by the same thing, right?
[00:09:08] Some of us are gonna be motivated by helping other people. Like, that's hugely helpful to certain types of people. For others, it's feeling momentum, feeling that sense of accomplishment, that sense of momentum. Maybe it's preventing things from breaking, of like, okay, where can I make sure that, you know, nothing is, uh, is breaking down, is falling through?
[00:09:31] For others, it's meeting their own standards. Like, they have high standards, and that's incredibly motivating to hit those standards. And for others, it might be satisfying their curiosity of they have this insatiable drive for curiosity of interest, and it's like, okay, how can I satisfy that? That is what keeps- Right
[00:09:51] them motivated, keeps them engaged.
[00:09:53] Joel: And then there's where we get stuck, right? There's, like, saying no. Some of us find that challenging. Other people, it's setting the finish line- Mm-hmm ... and sticking to the finish line instead of moving the goalposts. For others, it's reacting to urgency. For others, it's, like, endless refinement.
[00:10:11] For others, it's, like, just chasing novelty. These are areas where we, like, find ourselves kind of entrapped by our own unique ways in which we relate and act in the work environment.
[00:10:22] Marissa: And hopefully as you are hearing some of these examples, you're starting to go, "Oh, yeah, that's me. That's where I get stuck for sure."
[00:10:29] Or, "Oh, it's actually this thing." Right? So start to listen to what we're talking about and see if you can start to see your own style in this, because it'll start to reveal itself as we start to go through. So there's some other things that distinguish us from others, which are, you mentioned a few of these, Joel, but, like, how do we feel about rest?
[00:10:49] Joel: Right? Mm-hmm.
[00:10:50] Marissa: You know, are we super excited about rest? Is it challenging? Does it feel impossible? Does it feel unnecessary? What does that feel like about rest? Maybe it's how we respond to help. For some of us, we are so excited to take other people's help. For some of us, we're super reluctant. It feels like a nuisance.
[00:11:06] For some of us, it feels like that means we're a complete failure if we have to accept help. Right. Right? So there's a lot of different emotions, different feelings, different approaches to help, and maybe there's similar type ways that we approach uncertainty or relate to uncertainty.
[00:11:21] Joel: Different things keep people up at night for different reasons, right?
[00:11:25] How you recharge, that can be different depending on the kind of person you are, what you need to feel rejuvenated after a weekend or after a night or whatever. It's, it's gonna be different.
[00:11:36] Marissa: Yep.
[00:11:36] Joel: And then there's just all the different ways in which we think about capacity or deadlines and just getting stuff done.
[00:11:42] All of that can vary.
[00:11:44] Marissa: Yeah, and, and ultimately what all of this means is that there are limits to this kind of idea that one size fits all.
[00:11:51] Joel: Right, that there is a productivity method that is gonna work for you.
[00:11:55] Marissa: For every single human. Right. Like, it's gonna work... If it works for you, it works for everybody, and in the way that it works for you, it should also be able to work for everybody else.
[00:12:04] But the truth is, is that our individuality calls for individual coaching.
[00:12:08] Joel: Right.
[00:12:09] Marissa: And ultimately, this is the exact reason that we decided to build the Work Style Assessment. This is our five-minute, free, 20-question assessment. You can go take this right now at fullfocus.co/ws. Like I mentioned, it is free, um, only takes you a few minutes to complete, and what you're gonna get on the other side of this is a primary style and a secondary style because the second one really changes how your first one shows up.
[00:12:39] And I think that this is- Right ... a really key point, that even if, for instance, I'm a juggler and my sister Megan is also a juggler We may both be jugglers, but depending on what that secondary type is, it may present itself differently.
[00:12:57] Joel: Right, and it, and that means you're gonna work differently than- Exactly
[00:13:00] than she does on all kinds of things.
[00:13:02] Marissa: We are still unique.
[00:13:04] Joel: Yeah, exactly. So you just mentioned one of the styles. Let's go ahead and talk through these. There are five, and each one of these five has, you know, a million permutations depending on who you are and, you know, what side of the bed you got up on.
[00:13:19] But, but these are five general patterns into which we tend to fall as people who show up at work every day. And let's, like, just dig into them. Yeah. I should give a couple of warnings on the front end. This isn't, like, your identity.
[00:13:34] Marissa: Yeah.
[00:13:35] Joel: Right? But this is a pattern to which you return, especially when you're under pressure.
[00:13:40] So, like, in a work environment where, like, the pressure's on, the, the stakes are high, and there's just the, the regular stresses of work, this is, like, how you tend to show up.
[00:13:51] Marissa: I like to think of it as your default mode.
[00:13:54] Joel: Yeah.
[00:13:54] Marissa: So it's just like if you're not even conscious or thinking about it, this is just your default.
[00:14:00] This is what you're gonna always revert back to, and it's important for us to know this because there's things that we can play to, there are strengths in this- Yep ... and there's also some traps that we need to be aware of. But this certainly is not your identity. I don't want anybody listening to think, gosh, there's only five and I have to be just one of those five.
[00:14:19] You know, I'm a unique person. How is that possible? We've done our best to try to capture in buckets the amount of people that we interact with in our business. You know, a lot of what we do here at Full Focus is coaching professionals. We get to talk to hundreds of professionals every single week, whether on our coaching calls, our training calls, any of those environments, and in those, we see these certain patterns start to emerge.
[00:14:48] Yeah. And so as we're going through these, and you may be asking yourself, "Well, which one am I?" Which hopefully you are. Hopefully you'll take that assessment. Just know that you are still you, right? Like, there's a unique flavor to this. Again, that's why we've given you that secondary type so that you can kind of see your unique flavor.
[00:15:06] And before we jump in, I wanna encourage you guys to pay attention for the next five weeks after this. We actually are gonna go through every single one of these work styles in depth, and you may be tempted to skip the ones that you don't identify with and just go through the one or the two that you feel kind of drawn to or, or that you identify with.
[00:15:29] But I wanna challenge you to listen to all, because you're likely in a work environment with the other work styles, whether- Oh ... that's because you lead them-
[00:15:38] Joel: Right ...
[00:15:38] Marissa: or because you're collaborating with them-
[00:15:41] Joel: Right. Totally ...
[00:15:41] Marissa: or because they're annoying the heck out of you, okay? So-
[00:15:44] Joel: By highly likely, you mean 100% guaranteed.
[00:15:48] Marissa: 100%. And even if you're a solopreneur or, you know, you d- technically don't have teammates, you are still encountering these people in your life.
[00:15:57] Joel: Right.
[00:15:57] Marissa: And so just like any type of assessment, this is a tool to really help improve your self-awareness and also improve your empathy and your ability to work well with others.
[00:16:08] Joel: Yeah.
[00:16:09] Marissa: So.
[00:16:10] Joel: Let's dig in. Okay, so there are our five, as we said, and the first is the person we call the giver. This is the one whom everyone depends on, and if there were, like, a double-edged sword to this one The thing that makes them unique is their generosity, but that's what not only makes them exceptional, it also is what leads to their exhaustion.
[00:16:35] And every one of these ones that we're gonna talk about has something that makes them exceptional that also leads to their exhaustion. And in the case of the giver, it's generosity.
[00:16:44] Marissa: Yeah, and we all have worked with this person. You may be this person, and you know this type of person is who is constantly pouring into other people.
[00:16:55] That's like they're the one everybody depends on, everybody goes to when they need something, and they're a huge asset to our work environment because they're constantly looking out for others.
[00:17:05] Joel: Yeah.
[00:17:06] Marissa: Constantly trying to help others, to simplify things for others, to meet a need in others, and they're incredibly generous, and that generosity can leave them incredibly exhausted.
[00:17:18] Joel: Yeah. It's like they're selfless on the one hand, but on the, on the other hand, that means that they haven't paid enough attention to themselves.
[00:17:26] Marissa: Right.
[00:17:26] Joel: And there's just a cost to that.
[00:17:28] Marissa: Next up, we have the achiever. So I jokingly refer to this one as if Full Focus had a work style as a company.
[00:17:38] Joel: Yeah.
[00:17:38] Marissa: We would be the achiever.
[00:17:40] I think that's pretty self-evident. Um, but this is the one who never stops moving And if you've been around Full Focus for a while, you probably are guessing Michael Hyatt is the achiever. He's kind of the quintessential achiever. And what makes achievers both exceptional and also exhausted is their drive.
[00:18:05] Joel: I mean, it's just relentless, right? And it's either the work won't stop or you won't stop, some combination of the two. What that ends up meaning is it's really easy to find yourself on the burnout side of the energy ledger because you're not aware of how demanding the work is. And the truth is, you're like so driven that you regularly blow past all the warning signs other people see and, and attend to when you're talking about feeling depleted or any of those other kinds of warning signs.
[00:18:40] And so a- as a result, if you're not really self-aware, you can find yourself fried, and all you're doing is getting stuff done right up until the wheels fall off.
[00:18:50] Marissa: And we love achievers on our teams. These are the doers. These are the people who make stuff happen, and we really appreciate that. However, these people have a really hard time delegating.
[00:19:03] Joel: Hmm.
[00:19:03] Marissa: And so we're gonna go deep into this work style. We're gonna talk about some specific strategies to help you guys, but if you're an achiever or if you have an achiever, you know the eva- the value that they bring to the table for your team. It's immense.
[00:19:18] Joel: All right. The next is the juggler, and Marissa, you in fact are a juggler.
[00:19:26] Marissa: I am the juggler, yes. This, as soon as we cooked this up, it was like, "Yep, 1000% this is me." And we're the ones who are carrying it all alone. If you've ever kind of had the thought, "It's all up to me," then you're probably a juggler. And what makes us both exceptional and also completely exhausted is our capability.
[00:19:48] Joel: Right.
[00:19:48] Marissa: We are highly, highly capable, and we're the one that can get arguably more done than most people, right? It's the age-old phrase of like, "If you need something done, hand it to a busy person." Right. Exactly. And we are that busy person. We're the one who we feel like our brain never stops. We just wish it would shut down for five minutes so we could have a little bit of rest, but we don't have time for that, right?
[00:20:13] We've gotta keep going to the next thing.
[00:20:28] Joel: All right. Next up is the optimizer. This is the one who needs it done just right. They've got really high standards, and maybe no one else even knows what those standards are, but they do. They're self-imposed, and they, they're not gonna ship it until it's right.
[00:20:47] Marissa: And they're also the one who is constantly trying a different system, trying a different app, trying a new morning routine or whatever is gonna help improve the performance and the results on the other side.
[00:21:00] Joel: Yeah.
[00:21:01] Marissa: And, um, it's great. We love this. These people are continually deliver exceptional quality in the work that they do. And if they're not careful, they can never deliver anything because things are never quite to the standard that they want.
[00:21:17] Joel: Those high standards, those are exactly what makes them exceptional, but this double-edged sword idea, that's also what leaves them exhausted.
[00:21:24] Marissa: Well, next up we have the improviser. And Joel, this is yours.
[00:21:29] Joel: This
[00:21:29] Marissa: is me. This is your work style.
[00:21:31] Joel: Uh, we jokingly call this the one with 120 tabs open, and I'm here to report that that's an undercount. But curiosity is the, the superpower of the improviser. It's what makes us exceptional. It's also what makes us exhausted.
[00:21:48] And it, it's really all about chasing novelty, and so many good things come out of this.
[00:21:55] Marissa: Mm.
[00:21:56] Joel: In our own company, products have come out of this that we rely on, that we use to serve our, our customers. At the same time, it has its trade-offs. It has its negative side, its dark side.
[00:22:08] Marissa: So as you can see, these are the five work styles, and you will, when you take the assessment, you're gonna get your primary and also your secondary.
[00:22:17] So just like we talked about that that secondary will really add another level or another shade to who you are, it will influence. So you could be, you know, you can have two improvisers on the same team, and they can kind of be different because maybe one has a secondary type of an achiever, and the other one has a secondary type of the giver.
[00:22:38] Yeah. And how that manifests in their actual workday is gonna look really different. So like we've said, I encourage you to take the actual assessment so you can get the full breakdown, the full report of exactly what makes you unique and how you're wired and how you can use that to your advantage in your professional life.
[00:22:57] Joel: You know, one thing I was thinking about with all five of these is- It's really easy, I think, for us as people to kind of miss where we add the most value. But one thing that I bet is true, there's just a little bit of narcissism in all of us, where if we hear what kind of work style we have, we... It would be easy to say, "And this place wouldn't work without me because of this thing."
[00:23:27] Marissa: Hmm.
[00:23:28] Joel: And here's what's really true. That is true. Like-
[00:23:32] Marissa: Right ...
[00:23:32] Joel: what you bring is, is super valuable to the organization that you work in. They couldn't do it without you. Whatever it is that the or- that your team is busy cooking up, you are a irreplaceable part of that chemistry. And some of the things that are causing the team to not work at the level that it could is also related to the weakness side of what you- Right
[00:23:59] bring to the party. So the narcissism thing, like go all in, be you. Like, you are really doing something that nobody else on your team can do in the way that you do it.
[00:24:10] Marissa: Yeah.
[00:24:10] Joel: And you are causing friction in ways that are, that are undermining the performance of the team. And so one of the things that's so important, I think, about this assessment, or so valuable about this assessment, is you can start to see ways in which you are undermining your own contribution to your team.
[00:24:29] Marissa: Well, and I think, Joel, one of the things that has really, I don't wanna say shifted, but it's, it's like it's, we've zoomed in on this point, is we're doing this across the board at Full Focus, and pretty much everything that we're producing and putting out is we wanna help all of you Become better at being you and doing more of the things that only you can do so you can have the highest contribution possible-
[00:24:59] Joel: Yep
[00:24:59] Marissa: and therefore the highest value possible. So, you know, we talk a lot about, um, being more efficient or whatever else, and it's really about doing the right things, and part of that is including your unique wiring. Right. And so this assessment is gonna help bring clarity to that, what makes you uniquely you and how you work, and how can you do more of that to have a better contribution and a higher value in the workplace.
[00:25:30] Joel: Yeah, because ultimately, not only does that increase your own satisfaction with your work, I mean, just to be blunt about it, it increases your own market value, too. I mean-
[00:25:41] Marissa: Exactly ...
[00:25:41] Joel: if, if you are being recognized for a higher level of output, for a better level of work than people around you because you have tapped in to your real strengths, you are going to stand out in the marketplace.
[00:25:54] Yeah.
[00:25:55] Marissa: And if you can get out of your own way. Right. Those things that are tripping you up, if you can stop doing those things or do less of those things, the value continues to increase. So over the next five weeks, Joel and I are gonna dive deep in every single one of these work styles. So your homework between now and next Monday is to take the work style assessment so that you can actually show up next week and know, "Is this mine or is this not mine?"
[00:26:24] And if it's not yours, like I said earlier, I want you to listen to that episode anyway because 99.9% chances are that you're working or engaging with somebody who is that work style. You're gonna be a better leader, a better teammate, a better spouse, a better parent, a better friend if you can know work styles in and out.
[00:26:46] Joel: Yeah, totally. Also, I mean, I, I think this should almost go without saying, but here's just, like, a plug for it anyway. Do this with your team.
[00:26:54] Marissa: Yeah.
[00:26:54] Joel: This is free for everyone. If you could just go to fullfocus.co/ws, fullfocus.co/ws. Send that link to your team. Just see what happens because if you got three people on your team, you have 15 people on your team, whatever, whatever size team you have, do this together and, like, start sharing these reports with each other and just see, like, what is the chemistry?
[00:27:19] What is the unique dynamic of your team based on all of this? Because-
[00:27:23] Marissa: Yeah ...
[00:27:24] Joel: what's fascinating is You're doing the work that you're doing because this stuff is working the way that it's working. What if you could optimize that? What if you could improve that?
[00:27:33] Marissa: Well, and I think it creates such a good level of trust and collaboration among team members.
[00:27:39] People naturally want to help each other, want to encourage each other, want to work in a way that works with other people, right? Right. And so if we, especially those of us in a leadership position, can invite this discussion on our team, like have everybody print their reports out in your next team meeting and sit down and go round table and have a conversation about this is what makes me unique, and you're likely gonna have multiple people of the same work style on the same team, and they're gonna start to go, "Oh my gosh, we're so similar," or, "Oh, you do that?
[00:28:14] But I do it this way, which is probably because of my secondary type." Right. So it creates such good connection, such good collaboration among your team members, and so this is a great kind of exercise to go through across the board.
[00:28:28] Joel: And like you said at the beginning, this takes like five minutes to do.
[00:28:32] It's a very quick assessment, and it re- produces this elaborate report. I wanted to actually jump into that for a minute if we could. So like Let's share our own results for a minute. What did we find uniquely accurate about it? What did we find that we should modify? Tell me a little bit about that.
[00:28:52] Marissa: Well, first of all, like, we should've charged for this.
[00:28:56] Joel: That, that's actually true. I mean,
[00:28:57] Marissa: we didn't because... And that was intentional on our part. We wanted this to be high, high, high value for you guys because it's... I don't like using this word. It's a joke within our organization because we all use it so much, but it is kind of a game changer.
[00:29:12] Joel: Yeah.
[00:29:12] Marissa: And I think, first of all, number one, this report is robust.
[00:29:19] So you're not gonna get, like, a little dinky, you know, couple paragraph response about your work style. You're gonna get a full report.
[00:29:29] Joel: Multi-page. Multi, multi, multi page.
[00:29:30] Marissa: Multi-page report. And so when I'm talking about utilizing this with your teams or with your spouse or with your friends or whomever, this really is, like, a rich piece that you can use for your next discussion.
[00:29:45] This isn't just something that's, like, surface level. This is not like which Harry Potter character- ... are you. Like, that's not the level of this quiz.
[00:29:54] Joel: Which Disney princess you are.
[00:29:56] Marissa: Exactly. Oh, Joel, I would like to know the answer of which one you think you are.
[00:30:02] Joel: Oh, my gosh. I don't know.
[00:30:03] Marissa: Well, maybe that will be our next series.
[00:30:05] Joel: Yeah.
[00:30:06] Marissa: Okay. So my favorite part of our results are your growth path.
[00:30:12] Joel: Yeah.
[00:30:13] Marissa: I think that it's really easy, like I talked about, to revert back to this default mode. That's kind of like the unconscious version of our work style is just default, right? It's all those things that we're gonna dive into in the coming weeks of what makes you exceptional, what makes you exhausted, all of that.
[00:30:35] And in this specific report, you get your growth path. You're gonna go in to very specific ways that you can use your work style to your advantage and actually grow in your work style to become a better improviser or a better juggler, where you can have higher, uh, value, higher contribution, rather than just reverting back to that default, which likely is probably gonna drive the people around you crazy- Right
[00:31:05] if you continue to operate in that default mode. So I loved the growth path, and it goes through several things that will be incredibly helpful for you. So this isn't just like, "Here's your one little takeaway." I mean, this is, like I said, very robust, very thorough.
[00:31:21] Joel: And it's particular to your style. So-
[00:31:24] Marissa: Yes
[00:31:24] Joel: if you're a juggler, your growth path looks different than if you're an improviser.
[00:31:28] Marissa: Yeah. And it's practical, too, which I like. It's things that you can actually implement immediately. This isn't like, you know, some big far and away thing that you're aspiring to. Like, these are really practical things for you to implement now, which I love.
[00:31:44] Joel: I liked most of all the section called Situational Tendencies. Yeah. So all of us have particular things that show up at work, but we all have some general buckets into which they fall, and because we do have this default style, we tend to relate to these certain kinds of pressures in certain ways. This is like a way of just, like, opening a book on yourself and seeing, oh yeah, like, time and capacity, I, I treat them this way generally.
[00:32:14] Deadlines, I treat them this way. Your to-do list, the way you handle follow-through, the way you are under pressure, the way you deal with adaptability. Like-
[00:32:25] Marissa: Yeah ...
[00:32:25] Joel: all of these regular things that we encounter in a given workday, they're all highlighted, and they're all particularized to your style in a way that literally is like opening a book on yourself.
[00:32:36] Marissa: And if you're doing this within a team context, this section would be so good to zoom in on for each person on your team and have a discussion, like, how do you handle deadlines in your specific work style, and how is that different from Susie and how she handles deadlines? Right. And that's gonna be really interesting and probably kind of funny.
[00:32:56] I mean, you guys can poke fun at yourselves as you go through this, but I think it would make for... This section specifically would make for such rich discussion.
[00:33:06] Joel: You know, you mentioned joking with each other. I, I think one thing that I would like to just underscore, highlight, put asterisks around, you know, whatever we need to do to make s- like, tattoo it someplace.
[00:33:19] There's no wrong or right work style. There's no good or bad work style. We just are the way that we are, and it's really helpful to know how you are in a way that is self-informed because you can be the best version of that- Yeah ... which will help your organization, help the team that you're on, or if you're a solopreneur it'll help you do what you do better.
[00:33:43] But it's really valuable for us to just appreciate all the weird that everybody brings. You know, like you are you as a juggler, and you do things as a result that I don't and can't do, and that's true- Yeah ... about every work style.
[00:33:58] Marissa: Yeah.
[00:33:59] Joel: And when we can appreciate these differences, we can benefit from them.
[00:34:04] I very often, way more than a normal human should, think about Adam Smith's concept of the division of labor.
[00:34:12] Marissa: Mm-hmm.
[00:34:12] Joel: Just like if everyone had to do every part of every job, it would be highly inefficient, but that's not how we work, and we have figured out long, long ago that I focus on one area. And as I focus on that one area and you focus on another area, we're bringing a unique skill set to that.
[00:34:30] Mm. And it's not just skills, though. It's this work style, and that adds a whole new layer to it. And what I love about that is you get to see how other people bring their best to their work in a way that's kind of exciting to witness- Yeah ... sometimes.
[00:34:47] Marissa: Well, and I think it, it makes us better collaborators.
[00:34:51] Yeah. It makes us better teammates when we can fully understand how we're wired. And when I think about the value that I bring to the table in my specific role, if I fully understand how I'm wired, what makes me exceptional, what's going to leave me completely exhausted and depleted, then I can play to those strengths and I can make sure I'm bringing to the table, like, my highest value possible.
[00:35:20] And therefore, if I know everybody else's work style that I'm working with, we can all play to those strengths collectively, which is- Right ... really exciting. And so our goal with this assessment is really to not only just improve your own self-awareness, but to improve your workplace across the board And by doing this, by all, all of the people collectively taking this, we can raise- Yeah
[00:35:43] the bar, raise the level that we're all able to actually contribute while reducing that level of frustration and exhaustion, which is amazing.
[00:35:52] Joel: You know, I wanna come back and just mention one other thing that we said earlier, but I, I just, I think it underl- it, it warrants being underlined again, and that is when we talk about productivity being about getting not more done, but the right things done, this assessment will actually help you figure out what that is for you.
[00:36:10] Yes. Because one of the unique characteristics of deciding priorities is what's uniquely yours to do. And if you're not fully aware of what you're bringing to the table, you're not gonna make the right judgment on that.
[00:36:24] Marissa: That's right.
[00:36:25] Joel: If you're not aware of, you know, some of the weaknesses and the relative strengths of your style, you're gonna misjudge the ROI on things.
[00:36:34] You're gonna misjudge how relevant it is right now and all of these things, th- these variables that go into defining what a priority is. And so as you're thinking through how do I get the right things done, knowing your work style is a key ingredient to that, which means you will be more productive if you understand this.
[00:36:53] Marissa: Well, like we've said, you can take this assessment for free in just about five minutes at fullfocus.co, that is .co/ws and I wanna encourage you in this moment, share this episode with your team members, with your colleagues, with your boss, with your spouse, with your friends, and start a discussion around this.
[00:37:15] Over the next five weeks, we're gonna dive deep into each of these work styles so you can have total clarity about how these different styles are wired, what makes them unique, what makes them valuable, and if you are those styles, we're gonna give you some practical strategies for your growth.
[00:37:37] Thanks for joining us on Focus on This
[00:37:39] Joel: This is the most productive podcast on the internet. Feel free to share it with your friends and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen or at focusonthispodcast.com.
[00:37:50] Marissa: And we're going to be kicking off this next five weeks next Monday with our first work style, the giver.
[00:37:57] Joel: Until then,
[00:37:58] Marissa: stay focused.