ABOUT THIS EPISODE
In Episode #119 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause is joined by educator and human flourishing advocate Steve Rice to explore what it means to live, work, and lead from the inside out.
Steve shares how his own path moved from achievement, external validation, and a career that did not feel like an authentic fit toward a life centred on calling, purpose, and work as an expression of who he is. He describes the difference between living from the outside in and the inside out, and why fear often remains present when people move toward meaningful growth.
The conversation explores Steve's faith-informed view of human flourishing, including the shift from achieving to receiving, the role of spirituality and historical wisdom traditions, and his distinction between positional and possessional leadership. Jayson and Steve also examine how those ideas translate into organizations through human empowerment, spaces for ideas, and cultures that help people become more fully themselves.
They discuss the Office of Possibilities, Humanitas, disruptive innovation, and why new ideas may need to be built separately but in service to the larger organization. Steve also explains why human flourishing is not simply self-improvement, using the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly as a metaphor for becoming something fundamentally different rather than polishing the current version of yourself.
The episode closes by connecting human flourishing to AI and the future of work. Steve argues that technological progress should be paired with an equally intentional effort to rediscover what it means to be human, framing this moment as the beginning of a possible human revolution.
Episode timestamps:
00:02 Human flourishing, innovation, and humanpreneurship
00:31 Steve Rice's path to human flourishing
03:16 Learning to listen to your life
04:41 When work becomes joy
05:35 Is your work an expression of who you are?
07:59 Saying yes to a calling
09:58 Making fear your ally
12:39 Preparing people for an unknown future
14:00 Drawing out what is already inside people
16:14 Vertical versus horizontal living
17:49 Spirituality beyond religious language
20:13 The Office of Possibilities
22:47 Rediscovering desires beneath obligation
23:10 A practical 10-minute reflection practice
24:59 Achieving versus receiving
30:15 Agency, participation, and relationship
35:53 Positional versus possessional leadership
37:42 The personal and societal cost of outside-in living
39:25 When the vertical informs the horizontal
43:53 Human empowerment versus exploitation
45:40 Building an expression-driven culture
48:10 An Office of Possibilities inside an organization
49:16 Building a human flourishing academy
51:49 Why the work of flourishing is messy
54:53 Building innovation on the edge
57:35 Separate, but in service to the organization
59:16 What human flourishing actually means
1:03:46 Why a better version of yourself is not enough
1:07:03 Human flourishing and organizational flourishing
1:09:52 Will AI help or hinder human flourishing?
1:11:45 The business case for human flourishing
1:16:38 Exploitation versus expression
1:17:06 The human revolution
1:20:29 Where to learn more about Steve Rice
1:21:29 Leadership through the lens of human flourishing
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Follow Jayson Krause
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayson-krause/
