speaker-0: It's out there in the universe. You have to be open to receiving it and then doing something with it. Work is part of your life, just like your family is part of your life, just like anything else is part of your life. And you need to think about how do you integrate those two things together. We are all creative in some way, shape, or form. Trust your intuition. I mean, we all have that gut feeling. And you have to be open to that.
speaker-1: I'm Dr. Amy Aethe. As a licensed psychologist and performance expert, working with elite athletes, C-suite executives, and high performers operating in some of the most demanding environments. I've seen what it truly takes to perform when it matters most. From supporting members of the Naval Special Warfare community to advising leaders in high stakes, high-pressure situations, OneTruth remains consistent. The tools that drive performance are the same. You prepare in a way that allows you to show Show up ready when the moment arrives. Each week I'll share practical tools and insights to help you strengthen how you think, lead, and perform. Welcome to Still Evolving. If you have been leading anything meaningful for any length of time, you already know that the phrase you use for how work fits into your life shapes almost everything downstream. From the way your days feel to the way you show up for the people who count on you. So today I want to hold up two of those phrases, question one of them out loud, and offer what I think is a more useful frame for both. Let me start with work life balance, because it is one of the most widely used phrases in leadership and is one of the most quietly damaging. The moment you use it, you have already put work and life on opposite ends of the scale, and every hour of your week becomes the small negotiation. Between two sides that are competing for the same limited pool of time. That framing sets leaders up for a losing math problem that no one calendar can solve. The leaders I know who sustain themselves over the long arc do not think this way. They think about integration, which is the deliberate practice of blending the meaningful pieces of a life into a single whole. Work is part of life. Family is part of life. Health can Curiosity, service, rest, and creativity are all part of life. When you start there, the question stops being, how do I steal an hour back from work? And starts being, what does a well-lived life look like for me? And how do I shape the choices in front of me toward it? Moment ready, which is out, is built around exactly this kind of thinking. The book is about the four capacities that let high performers meet the moments that matter most, which are composure, clarity, connection, and courageous action. What often gets less attention and what runs all the way through today's conversation is that life is not a single moment. It is a long series of them, and how you sustain yourself between those moments is what determines whether you can keep meeting them or not. You kind of fall into the grind. It is a long series of them, and how you sustain yourself between those moments is what determines whether you can keep meeting them well. Renewal is one of the three fundamentals I write about in the book for sustaining high performance over the long arc, alongside with anchoring and reflecting and adapting. What John shares in our conversation captures renewal well. He talked about running and music and reading as the practice he returns to. And he was clear that some of these he came to love, and some of them took time for him to grow into them. What I would add from what I have seen across the many performance domains and leaders that I have worked with is that renewal has to include recovery basics, and sleep is at the top of the list. Sleep is not something you can opt out of because the night was fun. Or the deadline is tight. The body still needs it, and no amount of enthusiasm for your work replaces it. The leaders who sustain themselves know that renewal is both the practices that fill them up and the recovery that keeps them upright. The reason integration and renewal belong in the same conversation is that they depend on each other. Integration without renewal turns your whole life into work. And eventually the pace outstrips your ability to keep up. Renewal without integration turns your life into a series of scheduled escapes that never quite refill the well because you are living inside a framing that treats work and life as enemies. Held together, they become the foundation for a life that is genuinely sustainable, one where the boundary between meaningful work and a meaningful life gets softer over time. And one where the practices that bring you back to yourself are woven into the fabric of your days rather than a deferred vacation you keep postponing. That is the through line of today's conversation and is delivered by a guest who has spent a long career refining exactly this kind of thinking. My guest today is John Wells. John is the president of Rep US. A global marketing agency known for driving business forward through creative, innovative thinking, and a deep commitment to people and culture. He is a veteran of the marketing communications world with more than 20 years of client leadership and marketing innovation. His experience has been across dozens of well-known brands. His path has taken him from branding work at DDB to leading CRM. digital and technology initiatives on the client side for Ticketmaster and back to RAP, where his he had worked earlier in his career and returned in 2016 to bring that accumulated experience to the leadership of US business. What makes him the right voice for a conversation about integration and renewal is that he has done the work himself. He has been public about the anxiety he carried early in his career and the deliberate journey he went on to build a more sustainable way of leading. He is a lifelong runner, a serious student of music and books, and a leader who has thought carefully about what it actually takes to keep showing up well over a long career. And he has a rare gift for pulling wisdom from unexpected places, from Buddhist thinkers to hedge fund founders to legendary music producers, and stitching it into something practical for the people around him. John, welcome to Still Evolving. I'm really glad to have you here.
speaker-0: Well thank you ⁓ for welcome ⁓ me in and ⁓ looking forward ⁓ to it. It's a it's an honor to be here. Thank you.
speaker-1: Awesome. ⁓ John, in my book, Moment Ready, I I give four tools to help people show up in their moments that matter. But life is not a singular moment. ⁓ we are peppered with them, planned and unplanned. And so part of also the book convey what it conveys is considerations of how we can sustain that over time. Sustain in our journey, whatever that might be for you. I'm curious if ⁓ if you would be willing to share back in your journey. Some key teachings or kind of where you have looked ⁓ that has given you the opportunity to reflect and likely adapt, both in your leadership roles or perhaps just even more broadly as a person.
speaker-0: Yeah, certainly. ⁓ I think ⁓ I'll give you some context. Early on in in my career, I was very anxious and and stressed out as as as we all get. And so I just just through willpower just worked through that for a while. And it it became it wasn't gonna be sustainable for me. It wasn't gonna be sustainable for me, it wasn't gonna be sustainable for my wife. ⁓ and so I had to figure out how was I gonna crack that or how was I going to solve that? And so I just sought advice from people on how they did it. One of them was was my was my mom, ⁓ one of them was was a friend. And I started exploring things on how I was feeling and why I was feeling that way and what could I address in in doing that. And so I started honestly with the Dalai Lama. I started reading. He's got a number of different books and he he he talks with a number of different people in groups Around compassion, around being in the now, familiar with with Buddhism, and just how can you be present and how can you alleviate ⁓ and bringing a different perspective to the world? And then I I I started there and I found it useful. He ⁓ talks around emotions and how to handle them and and those types of things. And then I started looking at in other places and I looked in a very diverse ⁓ area. I looked towards ⁓ a gentleman by the name of Ray Dalio, who ⁓ at the time was running Bridgewater Consulting. He wrote a book called Principles. And that was really much more business focused. So I wanted to see how people like that that were successful were able to lead large organizations and be successful. And then I also looked at other things from a creative standpoint. ⁓ you know, there's a gentleman by the name of Rick Rubin who's a movie ⁓ excuse me, a music producer. ⁓ and he's got a completely different view on the world and how he approaches things ⁓ and what creativity means. And in in the in the business that I'm in, in terms of marketing and and leading teams. There are lots of different points of views where you can take little bits and pieces of things and string them together. And what you will see, and even in those diverse points of views and those diverse categories, there are themes or patterns that sometimes resonate and and things started resonating with me. And and that's how I started to uncover what was causing these challenges and how I might, you know, overcome them.
speaker-1: It really was that personal journey of l being open and being curious, right? That ⁓ really expanded perhaps your understanding and even then moving forward, be able to tap that you mentioned creativity and it kind of expand that muscle, if you will. Yeah. ⁓ I'm curious if you can talk about ⁓ you mentioned Ruben and talked about creativity as a way of being. ⁓ How does that intersect with leadership in your mind and and how you show up, perhaps, ⁓ in a strategy meeting or or not just perhaps in a a creative endeavor?
speaker-0: Yeah, mean I think it starts with with his premise is that we are all creative in some way, shape, or form. ⁓ and I think one of the key things from his book or his thinking about it is trust your your intuition. I mean, we all have that that gut feeling and it's a it's a cliche. People say trust your gut. But when you're trying to solve a problem or when you're trying to show up or you're trying to lead teams, there are always cues and clues that are unseen and unwritten that present themselves. And you have to be open to that. If you if you read the book, he's like, it's out there in the universe. You have to be open to ⁓ receiving it and then and then doing something with it. And again, we're all creative, but one of the interesting things that I've that I found in his book is the simplest thing can be creative. He will go to the extent of drive home in a different way. And that will change the way you think. You know, you get into a rote pattern of driving home and you're on autopilot. Take a different route home and you will be surprised at what that opens up for you, or rearrange the furniture in your living room and you will be amazed at the the different perspective or the way it makes you feel. So if you're in a room or you're talking with strategists, you know, read how how they're reacting to the to the topic, see how you're reacting to them, and and it sounds hippy-dippy, if you will, but but The energy is there and it's out there and you just have to recognize and be open to it and not shut it off or be so pragmatic or so tactical or so fundamental that that you're not open up to it and and being available to it.
speaker-1: Absolutely. And you you talked about the intersection with our emotional, our emotional state too, right? If we're highly stressed, we know we revert back to that which is most rehearsed. So if you walk into the room and you usually find your seat at the table, because that's where you always sit at the table, remember that we also bring in the overly rehearsed and easily tapped mindset in that room. Perhaps you're tend to your strength is detail, like you're really into the details. Just be aware that you're walking to the room and you're gonna likely like grind into every last question. Versus if we are regulating that emotional energy or certainly aware of that emotional energy. And if we are a little bit more pressed or stressed walking in, we know that that's our default, then it is an opportunity then to be able to flex out of it. You know, perhaps maybe it is sitting in a different chair. In a chair at the table. ⁓ or perhaps even ⁓ a cue and reminder of how we can flex that sh that mindset shift just for a moment. ⁓ and asking that just purely curiosity based question rather than jumping into wanting to know every little last detail of why. ⁓ so super helpful. I, you know, one of the things that came out when we were talking earlier off the recording. ⁓ and I think we very much align around is pushing back about this idea of work life balance. And I am hearing it in conversations that we have with leaders more and more of at least the initial resistance or even dismissal of the idea. You and I both push back a bit about this. Can you share a bit of how you think about this instead?
speaker-0: Yeah, ⁓ absolutely. And I think how you think about things and and the words that that people use ⁓ have meaning. And in my belief is the minute you use the term work work life balance, you have immediately or you're trying to divorce those two, you have immediately put those two at at odds with each other. And so now you're trying to reconcile how do I have more life and less work? And from my point of view, those are the same. Work is part of your life, just like your family is part of your life, just like anything else is part of your life. And you need to think about how do you integrate those two things together. We spend so much time at work with our colleagues. Sometimes our colleagues become friends. So if we have a colleague at work that becomes our friend, do we have to separate that? And they're only my friend outside of work and they're not inside of work. So I think you need to figure out how how you're gonna balance those two. And you I'll give you ⁓ exam my my experience is you also have to figure out what you're what you're willing to to trade off. So I have four children and I was a very active parent in their lives. I'm I'm proud to say I never missed a recital, a football game, a soccer match, you name it, I was there every single time. But I had to figure out how to do that. And I luckily I worked for some really great people. And so on a Tuesday, if I had to leave at two o'clock in the afternoon And go to ⁓ a recital or a or a music ⁓ thing, that meant I had to figure out how I was gonna, you know, make up that work that I had missed. So does that mean I have to then come home and do it in the evening, or does that mean I have to do it on a Saturday? and sometimes yes, but if if you think I can only do work during these periods of time and I can only do life during these periods of time, you're gonna have conflict every single day. And you'd you in my experience, you You just can't do that. it it will it's it's tension from the get go.
speaker-1: A hundred percent. there are two phrases that come to mind, I'll tribute them. ⁓ Coach Carol Lawson, she's the head women's basketball coach at Duke University. ⁓ she is famous for challenging her team and and many others and asking the question, choose your hard, right? And I think whenever we apply a rigid rubric to work is in this box and life is in this box, ⁓ rigidity, in my opinion, that sets us up. actually for hard. ⁓ s and and often hard that has very few choices ⁓ attached for p potential solutions to it. ⁓ it becomes incredibly challenging. ⁓ I appreciate the integration of your approach and and I am reminded the second ⁓ phrase that I'll tribute is Greg Byrne who's the Alabama your Alabama athletics director. ⁓ I had the privilege of of working with him along my journey. And he has always talked about how ⁓ D1 athletics, elite sport, it's a lifestyle rather than a job for so to say. And and I think that it can apply for a lot of corporate leaders and teams as well. ⁓ whereas you think about what do you want your life to be like? And how is these different roles and and certainly critical relationships in your life, how where do what does that look like? And back to my point of rigidity versus some adaptability or flexibility, ⁓ the more we can kind of like blend that and movement. And don't get me wrong, I understand that there are some ⁓ employment positions, you know, like an ER doc is not gonna be able to say, Hey, I'll catch you on Saturday. I get it. I get it. ⁓ with that being said, however, if you are an ER physician and you're loving this work, then perhaps the flexibility comes in, okay. I I pull eight shifts a month, which very much limits my availability and other areas of my life in those eight shifts. However, look at the flexibility that perhaps comes in these other moments. So point is ⁓ that integration and thinking about like what do you want your life, what is fulfilling, what is meaningful, what is in in your value set that wants to drive those prioritizations and decisions along the way. Very much so.
speaker-0: I would totally agree. And there's certain things that work that you just can't miss. I mean I'm not I'm not fooling myself that that it was that it was easy. ⁓ but but you can you can make it work and and yeah I would not want an ER doctor saying I'll back to you Saturday. So I get it.
speaker-1: Absolutely. ⁓ when I think about sustaining high performance, another aspect to that fundamental, ⁓ besides the ability to reflect and adapt, is to be able to renew. ⁓ it's a grind. Like these journeys, like life is not without its punches. I tell my kids all the time. ⁓ and I'm curious in your journey, what besides perspective and mindset and certainly this love of learning? ⁓ has aided you to be able to continue at a high level, perhaps mitigate burnout in your own experience. What what's something that you've been helpful that that has been useful for you?
speaker-0: Yeah, I ⁓ I have migrated to things that I I love and things that I have learned to love. ⁓ I have always been a huge fan of of music. Live music, ⁓ live events, recorded music. You know, growing up I had an ambition of being a concert promoter. Clearly that did that didn't work out. ⁓ but that I I think music is is one of the true magics ⁓ left in the world ⁓ and how it can bring people together, how it can emotionally move people, how you can get lost in it, how it can bring back a memory. So I ⁓ listen to music constantly. When I'm not working, if I'm on a plane, if I'm walking, and I just get rejuvenated and I get ⁓ inspired by by the music, by the lyrics, by the emotion that evokes. And even sometimes when you're feeling down, you know, sometimes when you're feeling down, you listen to sad songs because people feel find comfort sometimes in in in sorrow or that that that they're not alone. So I enjoy music immensely and it recharges my batteries. I was I was a athlete growing up and that that went away because I wasn't skilled enough to play a D1 sport or or professionally. ⁓ so I learned how am I going to get that same juice back. And so I ⁓ twenty years ago I started running. So now I'm a distance runner. Okay. ⁓ and people will say that is misery. And it is. At first it is misery. That the I'm not gonna lie. And even sometimes today, like the first mile, you cannot count how you're gonna run based on the first mile. But I love it so much that ⁓ whenever I get cranky or I'm ⁓ not being nice, my wife or my kid or someone I know say, Can you just please go for a run? And I will go for a run and I'll be gone you know, for an hour and seven miles later, I will feel on top of the world. just because it gives me f it's it's more mental than physical. There are physical benefits, don't get me wrong. Sure. ⁓ but but mentally it is fantastic because ⁓ sometimes I will just let my mind run and I will let it go wherever it wants to go. Doomsday, the apocalypse, great things, whatever. And then other times I focus and And a lot of times I can I can come back from a run and it applies to work where some I've gotten some clarity or ⁓ I've run a different route and that Rick Rubin thing comes to my mind and I'm thinking about something I've never thought before because I haven't been down this path before. ⁓ and then the last kind of bit, I guess, in my exploration of of how to to think about things, I I read. I love reading. ⁓ and I will explore new things. And sometimes I start a book and it's I don't like it and I never finish it. And other times I'll read a book two, three, four times. because it I guess the theme is music, books and running. You can just get lost in it. And it takes you to other places that rejuvenate me.
speaker-1: I love it. I remember I was in a particular dark period. this is probably gosh, eighteen years ago, twenty sixteen years ago. And ⁓ life was hard on the personal side. I was going through a divorce. ⁓ professionally, it was a highly politically charged environment which I was working in. ⁓ which certainly earlier in my career I I needed some skill development in that area. ⁓ And and certainly now I can better navigate, although I do my best to avoid if I can see it coming. ⁓ nonetheless, it was a dark period. And I'm not sure what drew my attention to this experience, but all of a sudden I looked up and music was was nowhere in my life. When I drove in the car, it was nothing, it was silent. Which I do find value in and and sometimes that experience of silence is very centering for my for me. But I wasn't the one who never, you know, I I loved music. I I wasn't always the most well versed, and now I love the fact the lyrics pop up on my Spotify or certainly ⁓ I have the artist name right there. But I really do, ⁓ like you, find ⁓ great connection. ⁓ If we were in a group at a concert, live event, or or even just if I'm listening in on my walk. And ⁓ I don't know when I turned it off. I d I don't I don't have memory in that dark period of why I turned it off, when I turned it off, but I certainly noticed it. And when I noticed it, it was a very deliberate and you know, plan. Like every time I got in the car, I was turning something on. and certainly playing it more at home with my kids. We'd have dance parties and in it was a very intentional move to bring it back. ⁓ and now now I don't have to think about it anymore. I I do find joy, I I find comfort, find that centering that comes with the connection. And and it doesn't matter the genre, most often. Most often I'll preface that. I I have a very like wide selection on my playlist. ⁓ with a couple of exceptions. But ⁓ yeah, I I love that. And I think also just hearing the role of exercise curiosity and learning. I mean, with the reading, ⁓ everyone now, you know, probably finds that in a different way. So I think it's it's helpful reminder for our audience, like ⁓ you know, ca can you, you know, it maybe it's a podcast, maybe you're a pad podcast person and you like the audio version of the book instead of the the ⁓ hard copy. ⁓ whatever it looks like for you, I think all three of those are incredibly powerful in helping us recharge, connect, renew in this journey.
speaker-0: Yeah. I I do listen to podcasts, but when it comes to books, ⁓ because people say you can listen to books while you run, I listen to music while I run. ⁓ for hopefully obvious reasons. But I love hardback books with bookmarks and sitting in a in a chair or on a plane with a light and turning the pages and smelling the book and feeling the book and be able to go back and look at the book again. So I I think part of the reading for me is not just the the knowledge and and the the getting lost in it, but The act just the experience, the tactile kind of ritual of it.
speaker-1: But yeah. Every once in a while I'll grab my my pencil like I was in grad school and interact and just write some notes and nerd out. And I think it is ⁓ that that individual learning experience of yeah. I I I totally can relate to that. John, so appreciate ⁓ of you and ⁓ you reflecting on this journey. if our audience is leading those teams and and thinking about like where else Could I look to learn to become a stronger leader, to sustain in this grind? I mean, there isn't a conversation out there I'm having with leaders right now that isn't talking about some type of challenge or risk that they're they're taking on, ⁓ whether it's geopolitical conversation, whether it's ⁓ technology, AI disruptions, ⁓ perhaps some constricted budgets, you know, there's there's a whole host of of challenges out there. But Where where would you recommend our our audience look? ⁓ or is there anything in the process that perhaps we haven't touched on so far in our conversation that would be a significant consideration as they're looking to continue on in the face of any change or challenge?
speaker-0: Yeah, mean I think ⁓ I'll I'll answer that potentially in in two parts. I think one is I I think they they need to I would encourage people to start inward. And what I mean by that is identify what maybe is your challenge and or what is where you find your your your joy or where you get your energy from and then start to look out to see if it's a problem you you you solve. You know, where is it like or who can I look to that might have a similar problem or who's been successful or what have you? And then look when you find what you're you're interested in, you know, look for I'll give you an example. For example, I love music. Seek out musicians or artists that you like and research them and who they are and how they've gotten to where they're going to be. ⁓ or where they are, how they've handled things, because there are a lot of artists out there that are willing to share that too. Or, you know, where they got their inspiration for songs or how songs came to them or how they wrote them or how they struggled with ⁓ an an adversarial bandmate or whatever. Because it will do two things. One is it will interest you because it's something you're interested in and you're seeking it further. but also these people have have potentially done stuff that you're trying to ⁓ solve and look for people that have that that have done it before. is is one of those things. And I guess the the second piece, if I'm understanding your question correctly, is ⁓ I think to start, at least this is what what what what what worked for me is a lot of times people think about everything that they have to do and they just get crushed under the gravity of of all of the things that you have to do. If you think about a sports analogy to go back to the the the the Lady Blue Devils ⁓ coach, there's no 20 point shot. If you're down by 20 points, you can't you can't score a 20 point shot. So a lot of times I will focus on what do I have to do next. I mean as simple as if I wake up in the morning and I know there's a big stressful day in front of me, I will say to myself, and it sounds trivial, there's nothing I can do about that until I brush my teeth. There's nothing I can do about that until I take a shower. There's nothing I can do about that until I get into the car and drive to work. And then you get to work. And it is micro tasks because all of those things are true and it and it grounds me in the sense that I can't do everything at once. If I try to do everything at once, I'm going to end up doing nothing. So you have to keep an eye on the horizon, but but what do you have to do next? Because you can't do anything until you've done what you what what you do next.
speaker-1: Keep it simple. I love it. Present and simple. Yeah. John, thank you so much for joining me today on Still Evolving. Very grateful. And I have no doubt our audience found found this incredibly helpful. Thank you.
speaker-0: My pleasure. I appreciate you you having me. ⁓ and thank you.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-1: I'm Dr. Amy Aethe. As a licensed psychologist and performance expert, working with elite athletes, C-suite executives, and high performers operating in some of the most demanding environments. I've seen what it truly takes to perform when it matters most. From supporting members of the Naval Special Warfare community to advising leaders in high stakes, high-pressure situations, OneTruth remains consistent. The tools that drive performance are the same. You prepare in a way that allows you to show Show up ready when the moment arrives. Each week I'll share practical tools and insights to help you strengthen how you think, lead, and perform. Welcome to Still Evolving. If you have been leading anything meaningful for any length of time, you already know that the phrase you use for how work fits into your life shapes almost everything downstream. From the way your days feel to the way you show up for the people who count on you. So today I want to hold up two of those phrases, question one of them out loud, and offer what I think is a more useful frame for both. Let me start with work life balance, because it is one of the most widely used phrases in leadership and is one of the most quietly damaging. The moment you use it, you have already put work and life on opposite ends of the scale, and every hour of your week becomes the small negotiation. Between two sides that are competing for the same limited pool of time. That framing sets leaders up for a losing math problem that no one calendar can solve. The leaders I know who sustain themselves over the long arc do not think this way. They think about integration, which is the deliberate practice of blending the meaningful pieces of a life into a single whole. Work is part of life. Family is part of life. Health can Curiosity, service, rest, and creativity are all part of life. When you start there, the question stops being, how do I steal an hour back from work? And starts being, what does a well-lived life look like for me? And how do I shape the choices in front of me toward it? Moment ready, which is out, is built around exactly this kind of thinking. The book is about the four capacities that let high performers meet the moments that matter most, which are composure, clarity, connection, and courageous action. What often gets less attention and what runs all the way through today's conversation is that life is not a single moment. It is a long series of them, and how you sustain yourself between those moments is what determines whether you can keep meeting them or not. You kind of fall into the grind. It is a long series of them, and how you sustain yourself between those moments is what determines whether you can keep meeting them well. Renewal is one of the three fundamentals I write about in the book for sustaining high performance over the long arc, alongside with anchoring and reflecting and adapting. What John shares in our conversation captures renewal well. He talked about running and music and reading as the practice he returns to. And he was clear that some of these he came to love, and some of them took time for him to grow into them. What I would add from what I have seen across the many performance domains and leaders that I have worked with is that renewal has to include recovery basics, and sleep is at the top of the list. Sleep is not something you can opt out of because the night was fun. Or the deadline is tight. The body still needs it, and no amount of enthusiasm for your work replaces it. The leaders who sustain themselves know that renewal is both the practices that fill them up and the recovery that keeps them upright. The reason integration and renewal belong in the same conversation is that they depend on each other. Integration without renewal turns your whole life into work. And eventually the pace outstrips your ability to keep up. Renewal without integration turns your life into a series of scheduled escapes that never quite refill the well because you are living inside a framing that treats work and life as enemies. Held together, they become the foundation for a life that is genuinely sustainable, one where the boundary between meaningful work and a meaningful life gets softer over time. And one where the practices that bring you back to yourself are woven into the fabric of your days rather than a deferred vacation you keep postponing. That is the through line of today's conversation and is delivered by a guest who has spent a long career refining exactly this kind of thinking. My guest today is John Wells. John is the president of Rep US. A global marketing agency known for driving business forward through creative, innovative thinking, and a deep commitment to people and culture. He is a veteran of the marketing communications world with more than 20 years of client leadership and marketing innovation. His experience has been across dozens of well-known brands. His path has taken him from branding work at DDB to leading CRM. digital and technology initiatives on the client side for Ticketmaster and back to RAP, where his he had worked earlier in his career and returned in 2016 to bring that accumulated experience to the leadership of US business. What makes him the right voice for a conversation about integration and renewal is that he has done the work himself. He has been public about the anxiety he carried early in his career and the deliberate journey he went on to build a more sustainable way of leading. He is a lifelong runner, a serious student of music and books, and a leader who has thought carefully about what it actually takes to keep showing up well over a long career. And he has a rare gift for pulling wisdom from unexpected places, from Buddhist thinkers to hedge fund founders to legendary music producers, and stitching it into something practical for the people around him. John, welcome to Still Evolving. I'm really glad to have you here.
speaker-0: Well thank you ⁓ for welcome ⁓ me in and ⁓ looking forward ⁓ to it. It's a it's an honor to be here. Thank you.
speaker-1: Awesome. ⁓ John, in my book, Moment Ready, I I give four tools to help people show up in their moments that matter. But life is not a singular moment. ⁓ we are peppered with them, planned and unplanned. And so part of also the book convey what it conveys is considerations of how we can sustain that over time. Sustain in our journey, whatever that might be for you. I'm curious if ⁓ if you would be willing to share back in your journey. Some key teachings or kind of where you have looked ⁓ that has given you the opportunity to reflect and likely adapt, both in your leadership roles or perhaps just even more broadly as a person.
speaker-0: Yeah, certainly. ⁓ I think ⁓ I'll give you some context. Early on in in my career, I was very anxious and and stressed out as as as we all get. And so I just just through willpower just worked through that for a while. And it it became it wasn't gonna be sustainable for me. It wasn't gonna be sustainable for me, it wasn't gonna be sustainable for my wife. ⁓ and so I had to figure out how was I gonna crack that or how was I going to solve that? And so I just sought advice from people on how they did it. One of them was was my was my mom, ⁓ one of them was was a friend. And I started exploring things on how I was feeling and why I was feeling that way and what could I address in in doing that. And so I started honestly with the Dalai Lama. I started reading. He's got a number of different books and he he he talks with a number of different people in groups Around compassion, around being in the now, familiar with with Buddhism, and just how can you be present and how can you alleviate ⁓ and bringing a different perspective to the world? And then I I I started there and I found it useful. He ⁓ talks around emotions and how to handle them and and those types of things. And then I started looking at in other places and I looked in a very diverse ⁓ area. I looked towards ⁓ a gentleman by the name of Ray Dalio, who ⁓ at the time was running Bridgewater Consulting. He wrote a book called Principles. And that was really much more business focused. So I wanted to see how people like that that were successful were able to lead large organizations and be successful. And then I also looked at other things from a creative standpoint. ⁓ you know, there's a gentleman by the name of Rick Rubin who's a movie ⁓ excuse me, a music producer. ⁓ and he's got a completely different view on the world and how he approaches things ⁓ and what creativity means. And in in the in the business that I'm in, in terms of marketing and and leading teams. There are lots of different points of views where you can take little bits and pieces of things and string them together. And what you will see, and even in those diverse points of views and those diverse categories, there are themes or patterns that sometimes resonate and and things started resonating with me. And and that's how I started to uncover what was causing these challenges and how I might, you know, overcome them.
speaker-1: It really was that personal journey of l being open and being curious, right? That ⁓ really expanded perhaps your understanding and even then moving forward, be able to tap that you mentioned creativity and it kind of expand that muscle, if you will. Yeah. ⁓ I'm curious if you can talk about ⁓ you mentioned Ruben and talked about creativity as a way of being. ⁓ How does that intersect with leadership in your mind and and how you show up, perhaps, ⁓ in a strategy meeting or or not just perhaps in a a creative endeavor?
speaker-0: Yeah, mean I think it starts with with his premise is that we are all creative in some way, shape, or form. ⁓ and I think one of the key things from his book or his thinking about it is trust your your intuition. I mean, we all have that that gut feeling and it's a it's a cliche. People say trust your gut. But when you're trying to solve a problem or when you're trying to show up or you're trying to lead teams, there are always cues and clues that are unseen and unwritten that present themselves. And you have to be open to that. If you if you read the book, he's like, it's out there in the universe. You have to be open to ⁓ receiving it and then and then doing something with it. And again, we're all creative, but one of the interesting things that I've that I found in his book is the simplest thing can be creative. He will go to the extent of drive home in a different way. And that will change the way you think. You know, you get into a rote pattern of driving home and you're on autopilot. Take a different route home and you will be surprised at what that opens up for you, or rearrange the furniture in your living room and you will be amazed at the the different perspective or the way it makes you feel. So if you're in a room or you're talking with strategists, you know, read how how they're reacting to the to the topic, see how you're reacting to them, and and it sounds hippy-dippy, if you will, but but The energy is there and it's out there and you just have to recognize and be open to it and not shut it off or be so pragmatic or so tactical or so fundamental that that you're not open up to it and and being available to it.
speaker-1: Absolutely. And you you talked about the intersection with our emotional, our emotional state too, right? If we're highly stressed, we know we revert back to that which is most rehearsed. So if you walk into the room and you usually find your seat at the table, because that's where you always sit at the table, remember that we also bring in the overly rehearsed and easily tapped mindset in that room. Perhaps you're tend to your strength is detail, like you're really into the details. Just be aware that you're walking to the room and you're gonna likely like grind into every last question. Versus if we are regulating that emotional energy or certainly aware of that emotional energy. And if we are a little bit more pressed or stressed walking in, we know that that's our default, then it is an opportunity then to be able to flex out of it. You know, perhaps maybe it is sitting in a different chair. In a chair at the table. ⁓ or perhaps even ⁓ a cue and reminder of how we can flex that sh that mindset shift just for a moment. ⁓ and asking that just purely curiosity based question rather than jumping into wanting to know every little last detail of why. ⁓ so super helpful. I, you know, one of the things that came out when we were talking earlier off the recording. ⁓ and I think we very much align around is pushing back about this idea of work life balance. And I am hearing it in conversations that we have with leaders more and more of at least the initial resistance or even dismissal of the idea. You and I both push back a bit about this. Can you share a bit of how you think about this instead?
speaker-0: Yeah, ⁓ absolutely. And I think how you think about things and and the words that that people use ⁓ have meaning. And in my belief is the minute you use the term work work life balance, you have immediately or you're trying to divorce those two, you have immediately put those two at at odds with each other. And so now you're trying to reconcile how do I have more life and less work? And from my point of view, those are the same. Work is part of your life, just like your family is part of your life, just like anything else is part of your life. And you need to think about how do you integrate those two things together. We spend so much time at work with our colleagues. Sometimes our colleagues become friends. So if we have a colleague at work that becomes our friend, do we have to separate that? And they're only my friend outside of work and they're not inside of work. So I think you need to figure out how how you're gonna balance those two. And you I'll give you ⁓ exam my my experience is you also have to figure out what you're what you're willing to to trade off. So I have four children and I was a very active parent in their lives. I'm I'm proud to say I never missed a recital, a football game, a soccer match, you name it, I was there every single time. But I had to figure out how to do that. And I luckily I worked for some really great people. And so on a Tuesday, if I had to leave at two o'clock in the afternoon And go to ⁓ a recital or a or a music ⁓ thing, that meant I had to figure out how I was gonna, you know, make up that work that I had missed. So does that mean I have to then come home and do it in the evening, or does that mean I have to do it on a Saturday? and sometimes yes, but if if you think I can only do work during these periods of time and I can only do life during these periods of time, you're gonna have conflict every single day. And you'd you in my experience, you You just can't do that. it it will it's it's tension from the get go.
speaker-1: A hundred percent. there are two phrases that come to mind, I'll tribute them. ⁓ Coach Carol Lawson, she's the head women's basketball coach at Duke University. ⁓ she is famous for challenging her team and and many others and asking the question, choose your hard, right? And I think whenever we apply a rigid rubric to work is in this box and life is in this box, ⁓ rigidity, in my opinion, that sets us up. actually for hard. ⁓ s and and often hard that has very few choices ⁓ attached for p potential solutions to it. ⁓ it becomes incredibly challenging. ⁓ I appreciate the integration of your approach and and I am reminded the second ⁓ phrase that I'll tribute is Greg Byrne who's the Alabama your Alabama athletics director. ⁓ I had the privilege of of working with him along my journey. And he has always talked about how ⁓ D1 athletics, elite sport, it's a lifestyle rather than a job for so to say. And and I think that it can apply for a lot of corporate leaders and teams as well. ⁓ whereas you think about what do you want your life to be like? And how is these different roles and and certainly critical relationships in your life, how where do what does that look like? And back to my point of rigidity versus some adaptability or flexibility, ⁓ the more we can kind of like blend that and movement. And don't get me wrong, I understand that there are some ⁓ employment positions, you know, like an ER doc is not gonna be able to say, Hey, I'll catch you on Saturday. I get it. I get it. ⁓ with that being said, however, if you are an ER physician and you're loving this work, then perhaps the flexibility comes in, okay. I I pull eight shifts a month, which very much limits my availability and other areas of my life in those eight shifts. However, look at the flexibility that perhaps comes in these other moments. So point is ⁓ that integration and thinking about like what do you want your life, what is fulfilling, what is meaningful, what is in in your value set that wants to drive those prioritizations and decisions along the way. Very much so.
speaker-0: I would totally agree. And there's certain things that work that you just can't miss. I mean I'm not I'm not fooling myself that that it was that it was easy. ⁓ but but you can you can make it work and and yeah I would not want an ER doctor saying I'll back to you Saturday. So I get it.
speaker-1: Absolutely. ⁓ when I think about sustaining high performance, another aspect to that fundamental, ⁓ besides the ability to reflect and adapt, is to be able to renew. ⁓ it's a grind. Like these journeys, like life is not without its punches. I tell my kids all the time. ⁓ and I'm curious in your journey, what besides perspective and mindset and certainly this love of learning? ⁓ has aided you to be able to continue at a high level, perhaps mitigate burnout in your own experience. What what's something that you've been helpful that that has been useful for you?
speaker-0: Yeah, I ⁓ I have migrated to things that I I love and things that I have learned to love. ⁓ I have always been a huge fan of of music. Live music, ⁓ live events, recorded music. You know, growing up I had an ambition of being a concert promoter. Clearly that did that didn't work out. ⁓ but that I I think music is is one of the true magics ⁓ left in the world ⁓ and how it can bring people together, how it can emotionally move people, how you can get lost in it, how it can bring back a memory. So I ⁓ listen to music constantly. When I'm not working, if I'm on a plane, if I'm walking, and I just get rejuvenated and I get ⁓ inspired by by the music, by the lyrics, by the emotion that evokes. And even sometimes when you're feeling down, you know, sometimes when you're feeling down, you listen to sad songs because people feel find comfort sometimes in in in sorrow or that that that they're not alone. So I enjoy music immensely and it recharges my batteries. I was I was a athlete growing up and that that went away because I wasn't skilled enough to play a D1 sport or or professionally. ⁓ so I learned how am I going to get that same juice back. And so I ⁓ twenty years ago I started running. So now I'm a distance runner. Okay. ⁓ and people will say that is misery. And it is. At first it is misery. That the I'm not gonna lie. And even sometimes today, like the first mile, you cannot count how you're gonna run based on the first mile. But I love it so much that ⁓ whenever I get cranky or I'm ⁓ not being nice, my wife or my kid or someone I know say, Can you just please go for a run? And I will go for a run and I'll be gone you know, for an hour and seven miles later, I will feel on top of the world. just because it gives me f it's it's more mental than physical. There are physical benefits, don't get me wrong. Sure. ⁓ but but mentally it is fantastic because ⁓ sometimes I will just let my mind run and I will let it go wherever it wants to go. Doomsday, the apocalypse, great things, whatever. And then other times I focus and And a lot of times I can I can come back from a run and it applies to work where some I've gotten some clarity or ⁓ I've run a different route and that Rick Rubin thing comes to my mind and I'm thinking about something I've never thought before because I haven't been down this path before. ⁓ and then the last kind of bit, I guess, in my exploration of of how to to think about things, I I read. I love reading. ⁓ and I will explore new things. And sometimes I start a book and it's I don't like it and I never finish it. And other times I'll read a book two, three, four times. because it I guess the theme is music, books and running. You can just get lost in it. And it takes you to other places that rejuvenate me.
speaker-1: I love it. I remember I was in a particular dark period. this is probably gosh, eighteen years ago, twenty sixteen years ago. And ⁓ life was hard on the personal side. I was going through a divorce. ⁓ professionally, it was a highly politically charged environment which I was working in. ⁓ which certainly earlier in my career I I needed some skill development in that area. ⁓ And and certainly now I can better navigate, although I do my best to avoid if I can see it coming. ⁓ nonetheless, it was a dark period. And I'm not sure what drew my attention to this experience, but all of a sudden I looked up and music was was nowhere in my life. When I drove in the car, it was nothing, it was silent. Which I do find value in and and sometimes that experience of silence is very centering for my for me. But I wasn't the one who never, you know, I I loved music. I I wasn't always the most well versed, and now I love the fact the lyrics pop up on my Spotify or certainly ⁓ I have the artist name right there. But I really do, ⁓ like you, find ⁓ great connection. ⁓ If we were in a group at a concert, live event, or or even just if I'm listening in on my walk. And ⁓ I don't know when I turned it off. I d I don't I don't have memory in that dark period of why I turned it off, when I turned it off, but I certainly noticed it. And when I noticed it, it was a very deliberate and you know, plan. Like every time I got in the car, I was turning something on. and certainly playing it more at home with my kids. We'd have dance parties and in it was a very intentional move to bring it back. ⁓ and now now I don't have to think about it anymore. I I do find joy, I I find comfort, find that centering that comes with the connection. And and it doesn't matter the genre, most often. Most often I'll preface that. I I have a very like wide selection on my playlist. ⁓ with a couple of exceptions. But ⁓ yeah, I I love that. And I think also just hearing the role of exercise curiosity and learning. I mean, with the reading, ⁓ everyone now, you know, probably finds that in a different way. So I think it's it's helpful reminder for our audience, like ⁓ you know, ca can you, you know, it maybe it's a podcast, maybe you're a pad podcast person and you like the audio version of the book instead of the the ⁓ hard copy. ⁓ whatever it looks like for you, I think all three of those are incredibly powerful in helping us recharge, connect, renew in this journey.
speaker-0: Yeah. I I do listen to podcasts, but when it comes to books, ⁓ because people say you can listen to books while you run, I listen to music while I run. ⁓ for hopefully obvious reasons. But I love hardback books with bookmarks and sitting in a in a chair or on a plane with a light and turning the pages and smelling the book and feeling the book and be able to go back and look at the book again. So I I think part of the reading for me is not just the the knowledge and and the the getting lost in it, but The act just the experience, the tactile kind of ritual of it.
speaker-1: But yeah. Every once in a while I'll grab my my pencil like I was in grad school and interact and just write some notes and nerd out. And I think it is ⁓ that that individual learning experience of yeah. I I I totally can relate to that. John, so appreciate ⁓ of you and ⁓ you reflecting on this journey. if our audience is leading those teams and and thinking about like where else Could I look to learn to become a stronger leader, to sustain in this grind? I mean, there isn't a conversation out there I'm having with leaders right now that isn't talking about some type of challenge or risk that they're they're taking on, ⁓ whether it's geopolitical conversation, whether it's ⁓ technology, AI disruptions, ⁓ perhaps some constricted budgets, you know, there's there's a whole host of of challenges out there. But Where where would you recommend our our audience look? ⁓ or is there anything in the process that perhaps we haven't touched on so far in our conversation that would be a significant consideration as they're looking to continue on in the face of any change or challenge?
speaker-0: Yeah, mean I think ⁓ I'll I'll answer that potentially in in two parts. I think one is I I think they they need to I would encourage people to start inward. And what I mean by that is identify what maybe is your challenge and or what is where you find your your your joy or where you get your energy from and then start to look out to see if it's a problem you you you solve. You know, where is it like or who can I look to that might have a similar problem or who's been successful or what have you? And then look when you find what you're you're interested in, you know, look for I'll give you an example. For example, I love music. Seek out musicians or artists that you like and research them and who they are and how they've gotten to where they're going to be. ⁓ or where they are, how they've handled things, because there are a lot of artists out there that are willing to share that too. Or, you know, where they got their inspiration for songs or how songs came to them or how they wrote them or how they struggled with ⁓ an an adversarial bandmate or whatever. Because it will do two things. One is it will interest you because it's something you're interested in and you're seeking it further. but also these people have have potentially done stuff that you're trying to ⁓ solve and look for people that have that that have done it before. is is one of those things. And I guess the the second piece, if I'm understanding your question correctly, is ⁓ I think to start, at least this is what what what what what worked for me is a lot of times people think about everything that they have to do and they just get crushed under the gravity of of all of the things that you have to do. If you think about a sports analogy to go back to the the the the Lady Blue Devils ⁓ coach, there's no 20 point shot. If you're down by 20 points, you can't you can't score a 20 point shot. So a lot of times I will focus on what do I have to do next. I mean as simple as if I wake up in the morning and I know there's a big stressful day in front of me, I will say to myself, and it sounds trivial, there's nothing I can do about that until I brush my teeth. There's nothing I can do about that until I take a shower. There's nothing I can do about that until I get into the car and drive to work. And then you get to work. And it is micro tasks because all of those things are true and it and it grounds me in the sense that I can't do everything at once. If I try to do everything at once, I'm going to end up doing nothing. So you have to keep an eye on the horizon, but but what do you have to do next? Because you can't do anything until you've done what you what what you do next.
speaker-1: Keep it simple. I love it. Present and simple. Yeah. John, thank you so much for joining me today on Still Evolving. Very grateful. And I have no doubt our audience found found this incredibly helpful. Thank you.
speaker-0: My pleasure. I appreciate you you having me. ⁓ and thank you.
speaker-1: Yeah.
