In this episode, Justin Dux chats with Scott Shute about the journey we are all on to find meaningful work. Scott is the Head Of Mindfulness and Compassion Programs at LinkedIn. Scott is working to make mindfulness mainstream and uses tools to operationalize compassion. Additionally, Scott is the author of The Full Body Yes.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:
- Scott’s background
- How Scott created a leading mindfulness program at LinkedIn
- How being compassionate can lead to success in your personal life and work life
- How Scott pitched LinkedIn for the role he works now
- Scott’s thoughts on our journey to find meaningful work and our journey to find a meaningful life
- Why mindfulness matters in the workplace
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BOOKS AND RESOURCES:
- Headspace app for meditation
- Jeff Weiner’s Wharton commencement speech on compassion
- Scott’s book The Full Body Yes
- How to build a mindful workplace
- How the stories we tell ourselves impact us
- How to build a culture of compassion
- The benefits of mindfulness
- The average attention span of an adult is 8 seconds, how to improve attention span
- Compassion is a strategic advantage
- Scott’s online course offerings
- Connect with Scott on his website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter
TRANSCRIPT
Disclaimer: The transcript that follows has been generated using artificial intelligence. We strive to be as accurate as possible, but minor errors and slightly off timestamps may be present due to platform differences.
Justin Dux (00:00):
Welcome to CareerCloud Radio. I'm your host, Justin Dux. Careercloud.com is your resource for tips, tricks, and tools like mindfulness to shorten your job search become a modern job seeker by listening to these episodes or reading articles on our website. Job hunting sucks. We're here to make it better. And with us today is Scott Schrute.
Scott Shute (00:23):
Hey, how's it going, Justin? Thanks for having me. It's actually “shoot” it's my cousin Schrute from the, from the office.
Justin Dux (00:34):
Okay.
Scott Shute (00:34):
It's all right. There's we have t-shirts in my family about the Schrute farms really? Cause the guy, the guy on the office is Schrute and I actually grew up on a farm on shoot farm. So it's kind of a joke in our family.
Justin Dux (00:47):
I'm so sorry. Well, if it makes you feel any better, my last name is Dux like the bird, but with an X. So I I've got, you know, Frank two posters from bloods for, you know, tons of stuff like that too. I got this sign waddle on in it's. Yeah. Or it opened yesterday, but like, yeah, I go, I lean into the duck analogies lean into the duck. Well, normally I would do a short one or two sentence bio for you, but I think you'll know why I didn't for you. It's because you have such a unique job title and place you’ve found yourself in your career. That honestly, if I described it right now, people wouldn't believe me. They'd be like, Nope, doesn't exist in the world. Yeah. Click out of this episode. This is not going to be relevant to me. Go ahead and tell them Scott. Yeah. Do for a living. And who do you do it for?
Scott Shute (01:47):
I get paid to do, I am the head of mindfulness and compassion programs at LinkedIn.
Justin Dux (01:52):
Yeah. You heard that right guys, LinkedIn, the site we're all on 24 seven to get jobs and find network connections and build a professional brand. The same one. Scott's the one. Is that a mindfulness? And I don't think it would be appropriate for me to start with any other question, but like how the, how did this happen? That happened. I heard you tell somebody else already. I could just recap it for people. No, it's all good. It's all good. I think people need to hear it because it's getting closer and closer to the title of your book about becoming your whole self at work. So it's not the book yet, but I know that's what it's going to be about. So go ahead and tell.
Scott Shute (02:30):
Sure. So I have kind of two, I think myself as a dual agent, on the one hand I had this career in customer success, customer service. My most recent job was, uh, I was the vice president of global customer operations at LinkedIn. So I essentially ran all of the customer facing stuff that wasn't sales and it's a big job, right? It's like a thousand people, whatever. It's big career at the same time, I've had this practice kind of this contemplated meditation practice since I was a teenager. And I've been teaching since I was in college. And about two years into LinkedIn, which is about six years ago, I realized it's such an open place, right? Our CEO was talking about his own meditation practice. He was talking about using Headspace to meditate. And I thought, well, that's cool. Like this is a place I could bring my full self to work. And so I started just by leading one meditation class and there's a longer story to that. It took me three months to kind of get over myself and get over my own fear to do it, you know? And that turned into, well, first of all, there was one dude there. The first time I was sure. I'm sure he was just as terrified as I was because I never saw that guy
Justin Dux (03:43):
And you're doing it in the workplace trying to do a mindfulness session. And there's one guy shows up like one dude. I was hoping you would go there because I heard you say it on a different show. And I wanted to connect with you in this moment because I performed stand-up comedy once at best. Oh, at best buy. Yeah. In front of a lot of people, again, I just like made a meeting invite and fight it. Some of my co-working friends that I had acquaintances with and same thing, man, three people showed up. I told my jokes in front of a white board and we all went to lunch and I was like, what the hell am I doing? I'm never doing this again.
Scott Shute (04:16):
That builds you build resilience, doing stuff like that. So yeah, one guy came first time, then it was three. Then five then kind of turn into regular thing. And then myself and a bunch of volunteers, I was still, I was still in my old role, kind of created this program. I had raised my hand to be the executive sponsor of our mindfulness program. We didn't have one. And so we created one and ended up building this really great. Like what I think is the world's leading mindfulness program at a workplace. And then for me, kind of the, and I did that for three or four years as a volunteer for me, the tipping point was a few years ago. Our CEO at the time Jeff Wiener gave the commencement address at Wharton and he talked about compassion, right? So he had talked about compassion in some, let's say safer environments, but this was Wharton, right?
Scott Shute (05:01):
This is super public and, uh, kind of serious. And his big message was, look, if you're going to be successful in work in life, be compassionate. And then the next two or three times he's on TV. This has all the reporters want to talk about. And I'm thinking, okay, look, it's time for me. At the time, it was time for me to kind of really invest my own career in this because it was, it was taking on a life of its own at work. But also it was time for LinkedIn to invest in it because it's great that our CEO is out talking about compassion. But if we send 16,000 employees back to their desk with the message, that the best thing you can do, the number one thing you can do is be compassionate to be successful. Like what does that mean? So I made a pitch to our CEO or head of HR and essentially created this role with their support and a blank sheet of paper. So my job again, is to change work from the inside out is my mission. And the two parts of that are mainstream mindfulness and operationalize compassion. It's pretty cool. I just love
Justin Dux (05:58):
That operationalize compassion because I have sent a few emails that were devoid of compassion that I regret in my career. And I want those emails back and I want them deleted off the servers for permanently, but we would all like that. Right. Yeah. And we already mentioned comedy. So I'll say sometimes when I think I'm being clever or funny, those are not good work emails, you know, and you got to remember that it could be forwarded to somebody else who doesn't know my sense of humor, for sure. Can't read it in my tone of voice. And like for sure, feel like the safest communication is to be the most flat. You know,
Scott Shute (06:35):
This is one of the benefits of getting older. I'm a little older. So you know, the older I get the less wise I am in email. Yes. So click the name of your book
Justin Dux (06:47):
Before we forget, because it's still is called
Scott Shute (06:49):
The full body. Yes. Change your work and your world from the inside out. And it's,
Justin Dux (06:54):
I got a picture of a red rhinoceros on it, right? Yeah.
Scott Shute (06:58):
There's a story. It's orange technically, but yeah. I'm glad you noticed there's this. I'm happy to tell the story, but one of the stories
Justin Dux (07:04):
Tell us, because I want to share with you an idea I have about this right now.
Scott Shute (07:07):
Cool. All right. Well about, I don't know how long it was a go, but I was in my job as VP of operations and my kind of top Lieutenant had just left. He was taking a role somewhere else. It was a good thing within the company and I needed to replace him. And it was a really high stakes hire because this was going to be the most public, the most integrated, the most strategic role in my world. And because of that, I got all of these other VPs involved, right. Cross-functional partners. And we interviewed so many candidates and we got down to the final two candidates and half of the team said, Oh, it's definitely candidate a, but for sure, not candidate B and the other exact half said, Oh, for sure. It's candidate B and definitely not candidate a I'm like, Oh, come on. Like my whole life strategy is around compromise and around collaboration and getting input from work together. Yeah. And so here I felt myself cornered, like for sure, I was going to have to make the decision. And I was going to, you know, upset half the team. This was the story.
Justin Dux (08:09):
That's the story. I see why the tensions there now it's because of tension. Half of them have now revealed that they didn't want that guy or girl.
Scott Shute (08:18):
Exactly. Exactly. So this is where we were huge, huge stakes. And we had done all the interviewing. We could, there was no more like external information to get. Right. Everything else was just like, okay, are they going to vibe with a team? And how are they going to grow with us, et cetera, et cetera. So what do you do? So a lot of people say I'm going to go with my gut, but I had something a little bit different in mind. I kind of call it on the universe. Right. I'm in meditation or contemplation one day and I kind of threw up my hands and I'm like, dude, I don't know, what am I supposed to do here? I'm like, okay, this time I want a sign. Right. I don't do this for very often, but I am asking for a sign with a no doubter.
Scott Shute (08:56):
I want to know doubter. And so I started to like think of the two candidates and the first one, she had long, really thick, dark hair. And I'm like, okay, if it's the, if it's the first one she's going to have, or the sign I'm going to see. And in my mind I saw like, you know, sometimes Asian women will have a bun with chopsticks through it. She wasn't even Asian, but this is the image that came to my mind was this, this image of a bun with chopsticks through it. And the second one, this person had a, an orange backpack that they carried around all the time. Okay. And for the second one, if it's them, I'm going to see an orange rhinoceros.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
And like you were even picking the sign. You wanted to see this. It's just, it's just what came to me. Right? Like, and then later my mind gets in the way it's like, what, how are you going to see that?
Scott Shute (09:43):
How, how was this possible? You're going to see an orange right. Nasr. Right. And so I let it go. I'm like, okay, next 24 hours, I'm watching 24 hours. Let's go. Totally forgot about it. Turned it over to the universe, let it go. The next day, it's a Friday afternoon, my team. And I, we took off kind of mid-afternoon to go watch a movie. One of the new star Wars movies had come out at the time and I'm sitting there eating popcorn. And this preview for an animated movie came on and across the screen rolls an orange rhinoceros. And first the mind, you know, I notice it. And first the mind is like, Oh wait, was that maroon?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
It's kind of like, was it really kind of like, you wanted to doubt it.
Scott Shute (10:21):
Yeah. But instead I'm like, no, that was it. And I checked, I checked internally and it felt right. Like everything about it felt right. And this like
Justin Dux (10:29):
Your, what your spouse was like, let's go out to get Asian food.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
No, no,
Scott Shute (10:36):
But this is what I call the full body. Yes. When it's just your whole, body's aligned to something you believe in. And so that was the choice. And I went with that person and they crushed it. They didn't
Justin Dux (10:46):
Career advice podcast. So I want to reiterate for the listeners, both candidates were qualified. Yes. Equals ready. It is not that he made this hiring decision on anything other than merit. It's just, you know, when they're equal, what do you do, right, exactly. When you would be happy with both candidates, I'd like to take another one of those breaks. There's a little strange, but I'm committed to my idea here. So if you don't mind, let's do another 15 to 20 seconds just recenter. And this is your second chance listeners to try it again, because it's actually worth it in your life to build this as a practice. So my contribution to you is to give you multiple opportunities to try just that as you listen to today's episode.
Scott Shute (11:31):
Excellent. Well, let's go back to our breath and just taking a long, deep breath in and out and continue. But this time focus on the breath itself, the way it enters your nose. And perhaps see if you can tell the difference in the temperature between your inhale and your exhale slowly noticing. And as you do just feel your body slowing down and calming. And as it calms, your mind can focus this laser sharp focus right here, right now with Justin and me,
Justin Dux (12:27):
I just have to describe the change. Like I started that that was the only 15, 20 seconds, but I started that unaware until the moment we started that I was like heart racing level of excitement, like it's big game day or I'm performing, you know, cause I'm, you know, here I am host, you know, it makes sense that I would feel like this performance anxiety kind of level of excitement in my heartbeat. Yeah. And as I listened to that, while you were leading us through the breathing, I realized how different today's episode is than others and why I felt this anxiety because I committed to my idea before I turned on the recorder. Right. But it's different than my usual format. It was different than how I'd normally prep a guest and get you prepared for the moment. And I felt all these fears that this whole episode is going to fall apart and you weren't going to be receptive to it. And that's kept my adrenaline high for these last five minutes as we started this episode.
Scott Shute (13:30):
Wow. These stories that we tell ourselves just ruin us. Right? And we tell our stories, we tell ourselves stories about the past, right. Something will happen. And in the past it takes like 30 seconds, right? You get bullied when you're a teenager or you get turned down at a job and that thing picks 30 seconds in your life. But we tell ourselves that story of the whole, entire rest of our life. And it becomes part of our now and that's disastrous, or we're telling ourselves a story about the future, about the job that we want or the job that we don't want and all the things that could go wrong and all the arguments the other person's going to have instead of just building what we want right now, right now
Justin Dux (14:12):
Getting a little bit of leg, which is, I feel kind of ironic. So I think everything came together just fine, but I just see a beautiful artistic irony, I think is the right word that you're talking about the future. And then the screen freezes and like legs up. And then like, you're talking about the past and then your voice and mouth, aren't like singing, Zoom's trying to catch it, you know, fix it. Right. Right. Luckily, both came together pretty clearly in the end, but like the panic you should have felt in me. It was incredible. So back to your point though. Yeah. LR stoves, these stories and this exactly what you're bringing into a workplace setting now that's right. It's a skill that's right. So I want you to connect all the dots. Cause we're 10 minutes in now. People are really wondering where the hell I'm going to go with this, hit the nail on the head for HR. That's just about to tune out. Why does shamefulness matter in the workplace and how can it help?
Scott Shute (15:11):
Sure. Well, it starts with the question of, do your employees matter to you? You know, because in the history of work, sometimes employees didn't matter. Right? And we treated them like they didn't matter. But in the information age, a company like LinkedIn or information companies, we don't have hard assets. The only thing we have is our people. Now we want to invest in our people so that they are at their absolute best, right? Because this is our primary asset. So as an example, we'll provide them a gym so they can be physically fit. We'll provide all these benefits so they can be at their best. But I use the analogy or the comparison of meditation as a mental exercise versus the gym has physical exercise. So if you care enough about your employees to want them to be well physically, like, is it okay for them to go use a gym?
Scott Shute (16:04):
Is it okay for them to take a walk at lunch? Is it okay for them? You know, just for us as a company to spend money, educating them on the benefits of sleep or hydration, if the answers to any of those are yes. Then it's a complete no-brainer to add in mental exercise of meditation. It doesn't cost very much and we are in a pandemic, but the pandemic is really one of loneliness of lack of connection of struggles with mental wellness and mindfulness is we're way beyond the scientific proof, right? There are over 6,000 peer reviewed papers, scientific papers about the benefits of mindfulness, decreasing anxiety, decreasing stress, increasing levels of creativity, increasing levels of relationships. So going back to the gym, if it's okay, if we spend time on the gym, let me ask you this. How much of your time for your employees, are they doing physical things? Are they lifting boxes? Are they needing to run
Justin Dux (16:59):
Or I don't need to do anything unless I choose to
Scott Shute (17:02):
Exactly. We don't need to run a six-minute mile, but we do need to stay focused for more than 10 seconds at a time, right? The average attention span for human being, actually, Justin, do you know what it is Justin? Do you know what it is?
Justin Dux (17:16):
And what, luckily I'm not feeling the embarrassment. What I'm feeling is this intense urge to not reveal to my listeners, that I'm guilty of playing a cell phone video game during a meeting or two, right? Like I shouldn't do that. I'm not focused. I'm not focused on what I need to do for me.
Scott Shute (17:33):
You're not alone because everyone. So the average attention span of a human being is eight seconds. Right? So if you are in charge of human resources or benefits, like why wouldn't you provide resources to someone, improve their intention, span and improve their relationships and decrease their anxiety and decrease their stress. It's a no-brainer to me listening,
Justin Dux (17:58):
We're talking to somebody at LinkedIn, he can talk to the right people to help us get this in the algorithm or something. Let's all add a bullet point to our top job. Right now, bullet point number four, double the average attention span of everyone in the world. I can focus on something for 16 seconds.
Scott Shute (18:20):
Yeah, yeah. That's right. That's right.
Justin Dux (18:23):
Which this time I think I'll use it counted out. Let's take a break again for 16 seconds. Just because of the relevance to the comment you just made. And I'm going to count out 16 seconds this time when you leave us one more time. Thank you so much for playing along with this crazy idea of mine. Sure.
Scott Shute (18:39):
Well, this time again, we'll do these deep breaths, but this time, count to yourself like as an inhale one, two, three, four, five, and exhale one, two, three, four, five, and then on your own pace, just count and have each time maybe be just a little bit longer than the previous time you counted. And what you notice is, as you're counting, you're giving your mind something to do so that you are fully 100% present. I really struggled with that one, Scott, because you were trying to count to 16.
Justin Dux (19:18):
Yeah. And then, and then you would put counting right into it, which was perfect. So I was like, Oh great. I don't even have to do this. But then I noticed, I couldn't even like, I was like, Justin, you need to take a breath. Like you haven't bred with him. Now. You're just completely off
Scott Shute (19:32):
When you're also trying to lead a podcast. So give yourself a break.
Justin Dux (19:38):
Well thank you for playing along because the whole point of this third attempt and doing this over and over again, we're going to do it a few more times. I hope you don't mind is because I want to interrupt this thought process for the listeners that this doesn't have a place in work. This doesn't have a place in work. Yeah. And I'm saying it doesn't have a place in a podcast either, but we're doing it like this is how short and how fast it can have an impact on your life. I truly believe that now we had Rett Hill on the show a few episodes ago, shout out to him. And he's very important to convince me that this has a place in this podcast and in this, and in our work and in our careers, this con these concepts you're sharing with us. And he's helped me through some, you know, times I got angry at work or, you know, I needed to deal with a difficult coworker or something like that.
Justin Dux (20:30):
I called them up. I was like, give me something. And what he says is a new possibility, right? And so this leads me to my next question, the pandemic kids 12 months ago, by the time people to this episode, young, because podcasts live for a long time. We could be way out of the pen too. So just set two different times that people could be hearing this message during these last 12 months, has your role suddenly been in a spotlight? Like he brought up the gym and long ago, people can't go to the gym now. Yeah. Like I would hope that the practice of mindfulness at LinkedIn went through a few adjustments as well as a result of having to only work through zooms and web and online mediums.
Scott Shute (21:20):
Totally it's exploded. And so, as an example, me personally, I used to lead one or two sessions a week. In-person live physically and I'm in a certain building on our campus. And if you're close to us, maybe you'll come by. But if you're a half a mile away at the other side of campus, you're probably not going to ride your bike or walk over because it's just, it's too much time to do for 20 or 30 minutes in the middle of the day. But now I'm leading daily, you know, and five times as many people are coming, even after doing it every day for a year. And so what happens is there's several things that are happening. One is it's just more accessible via zoom. Sure. Right now, people, I can get people from all over the world in the same call versus just the people in my building. And two is, everybody knows they need it people anymore. You know, they're like, uh, I really need this. So I'm here and I've been wanting to come for two weeks and I finally made it happen. So, Oh, here I am. Like, they've just like limped in.
Scott Shute (22:22):
So between that,
Justin Dux (22:24):
Because I felt those feelings of the meeting, the emails, the meetings you just left and like, totally. You're like, I need this before. I'm going to finish the second half of today.
Scott Shute (22:33):
Yeah, totally. Or I teach a workshop called building resilience in an uncertain world. And that has been very popular as well as you might imagine.
Justin Dux (22:41):
Yeah. So bringing it back to the book, we've talked a lot about who you are. Yeah. Why a book right now?
Scott Shute (22:51):
Well, I've been thinking, I've been thinking about this book for a long time and every time I sat to underwrite, it just wasn't quite right. I was coming back from an event, my friend and my friend Soren and I were at, we were leading something with another writer on the way home Soren was driving. He got this funny look and he turns over to me and it looks at me and he goes, the universe has told me to tell you that it's time to write your book. And I kind of checked him like inwardly. I'm like, does that feel right? I'm like, yeah, that feels right. And so it just started the process. And then the timing was so, so perfect by the time that it was actually time to start writing the pandemic hit and I wasn't commuting. And so essentially in that very moment traded commuting time for meditating and writing time. And it was just the perfect confluence of all these events. And I ended up just writing it in like 10 weeks. Like it just flew.
Justin Dux (23:43):
Wow. Like I have that relationship with some of my closest friends too. So I, I really know what you're talking about there. Uh, one of my close friends, Kyle Lang Seth, shout out to him, he's planting a church in Florida right now. Cool. Uh, even if my beliefs don't fully align with his right now as his best friend, I totally support what he's doing and know his beliefs in how he's a great leader, but yeah, five, six years ago, that was kind of a similar thing, you know, waiting for those messages. And confirmations is a common thing I hear from him. And he's got an amazing story because of it. So it doesn't sound, my point is it doesn't sound crazy.
Scott Shute (24:27):
Well, here's me and say know, here's how I think the universe works. If you're looking for signs like your friend or what he said to you, like you're in tune with it and it works and there'll be more signs. And if you think it doesn't work like that, then that's how it works also. Yes,
Justin Dux (24:44):
Yes, exactly. Right.
Scott Shute (24:46):
Yeah.
Justin Dux (24:49):
The book is finished. This episode will probably be airing pretty close to when it releases you mentioned may on LinkedIn. Yep. What do you wish people knew about the book?
Scott Shute (25:00):
Wow. Well, what I want is just for people to read it. I think there's about 40 stories in here and it's story heaven heavy. This is not one of those boring business books. You know, it's not a how to book. It's a, it's like an adventure book. And I think there's at least one story in here which will resonate with every reader and it will change their life in some small way or maybe in some big way. And it will be something that they just think about. Like they can't get out of their head and it causes them to like search for the next thing in their life. That's what I want for people.
Justin Dux (25:34):
So it's time for me to share my idea with you. Okay. I found your LinkedIn post, uh, in researching tonight's guest and you were speaking from a place of personal, like you had the connections on that you have on LinkedIn or some of those people in that audience are closer friends than just the millions of people that probably want to connect to any executive at LinkedIn. You know, we know those exist too. Right?
Scott Shute (26:03):
Hm.
Justin Dux (26:04):
And so you kind of put out there personally, this like announcement that in a couple of months, this book will be released. Right. We're recording now a couple of months before it's released. Right. And you had a little link to, you know, people that you want to talk more about it. And so that, or, um, I forget what you called it, but like a group of people to help you promote your book,
Scott Shute (26:25):
Like a launch team, people would be willing to write a review or to share on social. Right.
Justin Dux (26:31):
But I, I read that and I was like, Ooh, I get to be part of the launch team just by finding this link go great. You know, I felt that little bit of exclusivity and one of your questions was like, what ideas do you want to share with you? And of course, anytime I'm a hit with that, I have sit there and think for a few minutes, like, okay, let me think of something. I want to give Scott something. And it comes back to that bright orange rhino. Yeah. I think you turn it into a sticker, a vinyl sticker that you put on the back of your laptop. And so now you've got, you know, who the rhinos are in the meeting, you know, the rhinos are at the coffee shop. When you see this rhino, I know something about them. Cause that's a very recognizable orange Ryan.
Justin Dux (27:09):
Yeah. Yeah. And there's an instant connection with that kind of a star belly. Sneetch, you know, I know something about this person that may, you know, maybe I'm they're approachable. Maybe I can just go up and say, I'm glad you're here, you know? Yeah. Have you read that book too? You know, or something like that. And so you put it together in a Facebook group or have it as a, uh, something they could pick up. But here's the thing, here's the thing that takes this idea to the next level, Scott. Cause you could go and produce a million rhino vinyl.
Scott Shute (27:43):
I thought about this too, but how do I get P okay, tell me your next part.
Justin Dux (27:48):
I think this is the secret sauce because when I put together a narrative of who I think you are, which right now you're in the midst of kind of confirming, it was that phrase, whole self. How to be your whole self at work really resonated with me and where I'm at right now. And I'm thinking it's not good enough. If Scott goes and buys stickers from some V vendor B no, not good enough. You're you're working at LinkedIn. You're talking about whole self until you find that person. I guarantee there is somebody who works at LinkedIn today that has one of those sticker making machines at home. They've got an Etsy store already. They're selling these stickers online. They don't know what the hell they're doing. Just some side hustle. Maybe they don't, but they've got it already. They know how to make the sticker.
Justin Dux (28:38):
Like, you know, they're selling other ones already, you know, like let that person be their whole self at work. By first finding them, asking if they can make a couple of these stickers, you give them to the first 10 people that buy the book. I don't care. That's not the point. I don't care if it gets mass produced or not, but let them have that same blank white page. You did. Yeah. Where you ask them, what do you want to be at work? And does it involve, can we at some way, make it involved? This orange rhino too.
Scott Shute (29:11):
I love it. I love it.
Justin Dux (29:12):
It's just a pitch. You don't have to do anything with it, but uh, I know that's what, that's what came to my weird mind.
Scott Shute (29:17):
I love the idea. First of all, I love that I did the sticker. I've thought about that too. Cause I want one for myself. I want it for my own laptop too. Yeah. But I love the idea of, and this is really what the book is about is not only finding that for ourselves, but then helping everyone else find it too. Yeah. Right. This is the different, this is mindfulness. And then compassion, mindfulness, like another word for how do we become
Justin Dux (29:42):
Aware of our, of who we really are. Right. And then live from the center of that. And then compassion is recognizing that that other person has that too. Right. And treating them as if you're looking at the highest part of them, instead of all the drama and the BS and the noise of the personality, but it seeing them at their deepest level. So yeah, if I can find that other person, who's the sticker person and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I really, everybody light up dance. If you get 40 emails now, after people hear this. No, that's awesome. It's a stickers sticker people, you know where to find me. Yeah. But you know what it inspired hearing you say that was the orange rhino blank might not be enough to this idea. Maybe it's about customizing the orange rhino before they order it from your side.
Justin Dux (30:34):
So you can put one word, character limit, you know, probably be 10 to 15 characters, pretty short character on it. But like they could put a word in their rhino before they print it off. I like it. And that's getting more at the, you, the, the, the, which part of which what's your rhino. And I see that on somebody else's and now we have a talking point, like you said, like, let me see you for who you, who you are. Yeah. And I challenged there when you were talking about that changing topics, just ever so slightly, I think I'm guilty of kind of steamrolling. And when I get into my personality, like you're seeing today, the one that I imagined myself to be as a podcast host, I do have this ability to kind of, it feels like a steam bulldozer or steam roll. Like I feel like we're going to do it this way. Sure. I hope you're ready for the ride. You know, I can turn that part of me on which is what you saw me do at the very beginning. And I've kept it going.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
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Justin Dux (32:55):
I jumped ahead like a horrible student. I didn't go in order cause I, I always, you know, cramming for the test that would be recording tonight. Choose your own adventure. Right? And I, I arrived at the section about arrival and I took out of context here. This quote does, I'm not trying to impersonate you.
Scott Shute (33:15):
Okay, please don't read any tone here.
Justin Dux (33:20):
This isn't Justin Duck's best interpretation of Scott quote, allow yourself to fully arrive in this moment, the present, since the possibility, since the wonder of what you could be and welcome.
Scott Shute (33:40):
That's pretty good. I like it. When you wrote, you said, of course it's been a long time since I've heard it. So, you know, it still holds water. I have my own
Justin Dux (33:51):
Opinions about this quote, but first I
Scott Shute (33:54):
Want to hear your own opinions. That's a scary setup. Okay. Fine. What was the question?
Justin Dux (33:59):
I mean like my favorite part, like part about the glory days, nothing bad, but I am just really curious what, that, that section, that segment I selected an out like a scalp. Yeah. And pulled it out of your course. Yeah. What is that part about? The two sentences basically.
Scott Shute (34:13):
Oh man. Well, this is about just look, it's a pattern interrupt. All of these things we do are a pattern interrupts to our life, right? Usually we're just reacting to life. We're just like bumbling along. We're kind of asleep. And when we stop and when we take a breath and we recognize that we're, we could be something more and that more already exists, right? It's not like we have to go seek for something outside of ourselves. It's already there, but it's just letting go. It's letting go of the noise in our bodies and calming down our bodies. It's letting go of the noise in our minds. It's being fully present. And it's in that moment, in this present moment where the magic happens. Right. And we're capable of anything. And so to me, it's that spark it's like that the spark on the golden, on the orange rhino, on the cover of the book, it's like, here's what you could be if you just slowed down.
Justin Dux (35:11):
Sorry. What's running through my mind is I saw that spark in a student recently. So I'm a mock interview student and I'm trying to wrestle with those feelings of like, is it even my right to share that story? Can I add the audio clip of it at the end of this episode? Should I send permission, go ask for permission from the person who owns the video or audio, like my mind is spinning, just like out of control with the noise Justin, slow down. Right. I appreciate it. So my favorite part about that quote was those last two words and welcome. Why did you add that?
Scott Shute (35:52):
I don't know. It's just, why do I do anything? It was in the flow. Well, it was in the flow of the moment and my job, my job as a teacher, as a, in very specifically my job when leading a practice is to create an environment. Right. And I'm often playing jazz. I'll often start like a 20 minute practice and I have no idea where we're going to go. Right. And I'm just freestyling, I'll have some framework. And so sometimes I say things that like, wait as you're reading, I'm like, Oh, that sounds pretty good.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
That's cause I was just, I just did it
Scott Shute (36:26):
Live. Like I didn't script any of that or I scripted very little of it. And so when I'm in that moment, I've tried to arrive there as well into this, you know, space that we're creating together. And so it just seemed natural to say, Hey, welcome. Just like you're walking into the space with me.
Justin Dux (36:44):
So I'll give you the gift of my interpretation of it then. I mean, obviously it doesn't matter in a, it doesn't, you know, everyone's going to take their own poetry, put it. Yeah. I'm not trying to put a tone on this. Like I've figured you out figured this moment out or something. It's just my interpretation of that dancer, that jazz, right. There's preceding sentences about the present and then talk about the possibility, which has a nature of bringing people back to the future. And when you look forward looking towards what could be, you know, and so the sense of wonder of what could be and welcome, I feel like it was, it was like really subtle sarcasm of like, yeah, I knew you weren't in the present. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
Here you are. Welcome back to the present we're talking about. But nobody like, like earlier, when you said the limps in, you know, I really need this
Justin Dux (37:41):
To a practice session, you know, like I feel like your experience and wisdom has seen so many people so far from the present.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Let me show my expertise here with
Justin Dux (37:56):
Hi and welcome to the present.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
One of the first times today you've stayed here for even a brief second. And
Scott Shute (38:04):
I say to someone else, I'm also saying to myself, by the way, right, these tools are for me first, right? Just like any good startup, you build it for yourself. And then you invite others to it. Like all of these practices, I'm guilty of all the same things as everybody else's. So I get it.
Justin Dux (38:20):
Yeah. And we shouldn't compare our journey in mindfulness to somebody who's been down this journey for 20 years. That sounds like a recipe for needing some more mindfulness
Scott Shute (38:30):
Comparison. Comparison is a recipe for misery.
Justin Dux (38:34):
Yeah. So before we go today, I want to make sure I've given you that space to make sure you got the message out about your book in the way you want it to as well today you've wrote along with me, from my idea of how this episode could sound and go. So I really am grateful for that. But when you think to how coming on this show would have been for you, this is your moment to turn it back around and turn the table around and say, you know, this is what I need people to know about this book. Sure.
Scott Shute (39:08):
Look, I wrote this book for people to read it seriously. And so, and I think it'd be interesting for anybody, but the center of the bullseye is if you're working, if you're in a working environment and sometimes you think to yourself, Oh my goodness. Like, is this all there is to life? Like, is this it? Is this what I'm doing here? Then this book is for you. I think it'll resonate for you. Cause I have had that in spades in my career. And I've also had the opposite. I hope you check it out. It's called the full body. Yes. You can find it where all good books are found.
Justin Dux (39:44):
I'm just going to paint a picture of what that beautiful quote that you just gave, made me picture. Um, you know, where we're marking the anniversary today is rerecord of being told to work from home. So last night as I turn the lights off again for the 365th day and go to bed, I took her to another beat, you know, in the living room where I just kind of looked, took one more look in it's been a year. Yeah. And I definitely had that phrase in my mind, like, is this it? Am I going to do this again tomorrow? Monday? I'm like, yeah, we're going to kick off yet. Another week, you know, my employer has said, we're going to be home until September. So that's about nine months away or no, uh, six months away at this point, you know? And I don't know what it's going to be like when we return guys. I don't know if it's going to truly go back to normal or some of you, people looking for jobs, they're going to return to the same industries you, then that you left.
Scott Shute (40:49):
The thing is we never know. We never really know what tomorrow is going to bring. And we rely on these events. We rely on external validation. We rely on other things for our own happiness. But the truth of it is, is happiness is an inside job. It's only an inside job. And so the faster we can get to that place where we can live from that place, then we'll change our work from the inside out and really would change our whole lives from the inside out.
Justin Dux (41:21):
Welcome to 2021. I know we're already in the middle of it. If you don't mind, I'd like to strum a couple of chords and we'll do one send off. This is just to try to add my own music that I don't have to pay right. To do, but I'm just going to struggle with some chords really softly. And this'll be the longest one that we've done so far tonight. But for your sake, it's only about 30 seconds or so.
Scott Shute (41:52):
Okay. So I'm doing the, uh, if you don't mind. No, no, I'm just, I just want to make sure I'm if I was singing along to your song, if I was doing leading practice, okay, here we go. You ready?
Speaker 5 (42:01):
Practice anything you want. However you want to do it.
Justin Dux (42:05):
Strong a couple notes on the guitar to have underneath it. Very good. And it might, it might barely even pick up, but come to think of it. We'll see if this fails miserably.
Scott Shute (42:13):
Let's try it. It's for sure. It's not going to fail. Here we go. Okay. We always start with our breaths. So deep inhale in and exhale and just allow your face, your mouth to erupt in a smile. Allow the corners of your mouth to rise and have them stretch. Even if you have to fake it, lets your smile grow. And as your smile grows, just check internally, like check with your inner landscape, like what's going on in your body. So this deep breathing big smile. And then finally, if you're comfortable, put your hand on your heart, put your hand on your heart. Feel the soothing of your hand on your heart and say your name followed by. I love you. No, for real. Do it. Your name followed by. I love you.
Outro (43:17):
CareerCloud Radio is a production of Careercloud.com. Please review this episode on iTunes. We really appreciate it a lot. And thank you for listening.
