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Joe Mechlinski is a New York Times bestselling author, speaker, and social entrepreneur who believes that an engaged workforce is the key to unlocking human potential. Driven by his deep-rooted passion for building mission-driven cultures, Joe founded SHIFT, a collective of businesses spanning consulting, executive membership, and venture capitalism united by their common mission to revolutionize workforce engagement His latest book, �Shift The Work�, focuses on this very idea. Filled with actionable strategies and inspiring true stories, the book reveals the revolutionary science behind employee engagement and how readers can transform their workplaces and lives, for the better.
03:05 Influences from Joe�s upbringing
The mother of Joe�s dad married five times � twice to the same man Mechlinski
Joe�s family is originally from Kildare, Ireland
Brought up in a blue-collar, tough neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland, USA
08:10 Why Joe turned down a job offer at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) straight after college
Joe took inspiration from the book �The Road Not Taken� by David Orr, which is about Robert Frost�s poem, on the possibilities that lie between all of our choices
He couldn�t �fit� into the traditional narrative of society
Through Joe�s experiences of grief and loss, he felt like he owed the people he knew
14:01 The mission behind his company SHIFT
Joe received a flyer during his freshman year at Hopkins
He wasn�t making enough during the summer, and the flyer advertised that you could make $10,000 over the summer and receive college credits � it was to learn how to run a small contracting company
Joe had equated from his childhood that money equals choice
Emotional Intelligence was just starting to hit the marketplace
�If you can transform your way of work, you can transform your life�
22:02 What stops people from following through their innate pull towards something?
The will to change and the fear of change are pretty constant for all of us
Leaving the status quo is tough
The average child asks 125 questions a day and the average adult asks six
It�s not about teaching people to do things, it�s about modeling what you do
26:32 The effect each of our three �brains� has on us
According to Joe, our three brains are head, heart and gut
Our brain is the biggest neuronetwork influenced by our perception of reality
Our heart has 40 million neurons and generates our emotional responses
The gut has a hundred million neurons � which tells your body to fight or fly
We often sedate and numb ourselves through distractions, ignoring what our three brains are telling us
32:05 The vagus nerve
Dr Douglas Brackmann talks about the vagus nerve, specifically the dorsal vagal nerve, which responds to cues of danger
You can retrain the parasympathetic nervous system through this nerve
35:09 How Joe first reacted to the stats that 70% of American think they aren�t good at their jobs
It was one of his motivations to run SHIFT
You can�t force people to do what they don�t want to do
�You want your team to care about your business�
39:00 How to find meaning in your work if you feel something is lacking
Ask yourself the reset question �was that worth my life?�
The 25 Reasons Why exercise: �why are you doing what you want/ don�t want to do?�
46:20 How improving your work life can improve your entire life
�The way we do anything is the way we do everything�
Like our phones, we are always in need of upgrades and updates, so make time for this
52:16 Why are not all companies following the lead of companies like Google that are willing to give their employees greater autonomy?
The Big Tech companies did this to attract great talent
Trust the consumer
How you treat your clients is how you should treat your employees
Not all organizations have changed because they are used to their old habits, e.g. �we�ve always done it this way�
59:47 The state of work in 2023/ 2024
Stop listening to people�s predictions of the future
We need to acknowledge some macro trends
Ownership will be reevaluated (e.g. ownership of homes, cars, etc.)
There is a greater need for upskilling
01:04:55 Could a decrease in profits impact the level of autonomy a company gives to its employees?
There will be a new overall perspective as the boomer generation are retiring from work
01:07:51 Why Joe is so curiously-minded
Joe has always believed that you can find an answer to anything
He is a voracious reader
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The 1% Podcast brings together the 3Ps of People, Professions and Performance. We chat to top-class performers from eclectic areas (sport, business, politics, art etc.) to extract the tactics, tools and routines you can use to get 1% better and achieve success.