Embracing Authenticity and Innovation in Leadership: A Conversation with Joshua Berry

"Joshua Berry: What I appreciate especially over the last several years is more and more people understanding that we just need to have more open conversations around change and that it's there. And efforts to manage change." 

Alex Cullimore: Hello, Cristina.

Cristina Amigoni: Hello. It's been a little bit since the last podcast. A couple of weeks. Not that much.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. Yeah. But given that, for a while there, we were doing two or three recordings a week to make sure we had enough buffer for all of Italy. It definitely feels suddenly more spaced out.

Cristina Amigoni: It does. Yes. Indeed. But we had a great conversation. Love talking to Joshua.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. Joshua Berry was on the podcast today. Friend of Lyn's, who introduced us. Lyn, our constant touch point for – that we reference several times even in the podcast. But he's got a fascinating company, Econic. And what they do. And how they get to work with people and help them digest and increase their ability to change. It was a really great I think exploratory conversation for all of us. I think we all got to just bounce off and learn a lot from each other. It was really fun.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. A lot of fun. A couple of startup ideas in there and just lots of insights. Lots of learning. And I love the fact that even though our companies do very similar things, there's no feeling or assumption of competitions or of keeping things secret. Because they take things away from us. It's very much of a true collaboratory effort.

Alex Cullimore: It's a fun space to be in when you want to go help people because everybody also wants to – people who really get into that and really want to go help tends to, want to find the best ways to do that and share the best ways to do that and make this better on a wider scales. It's always fun to meet somebody like Josh who we get to do that with.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting that you say it that way. Because once you want to help people as a core value, then you don't end like, "Well, only if you pay me." If you're doing the same thing, I definitely don't want to help you. You want to help people. You just want to help people. That's the goal.

Alex Cullimore: Mm-hmm. And when you have the opportunities to do so, you do it. It's always just a genuine pleasure to get to talk and being circles with people like that. Because it's very filling and it's very supportive. And you get a chance to feel like you're helping in return.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Indeed. Yeah. Enjoy. And thank you, Lyn.

Alex Cullimore: Enjoy. 

Welcome to Uncover the Human, where every conversation revolves around enhancing all the connections in our lives. 

Cristina Amigoni: Whether that's with our families, co-workers, or even ourselves. 

Alex Cullimore: When we can be our authentic selves, magic happens.

Cristina Amigoni: This is Cristina Amigoni. 

Alex Cullimore: And this is Alex Cullimore. Let’s dive in.

Cristina Amigoni: Let’s dive in. 

“Authenticity means freedom.”

“Authenticity means going with your gut.”

“Authenticity is bringing 100% of yourself not just the parts you think people want to see, but all of you.”

“Being authentic means that you have integrity to yourself.”

“It's the way our intuition is whispering something deep-rooted and true.”

“Authenticity is when you truly know yourself. You remember and connect to who you were before others told you who you should be.”

“It's transparency, relatability. No frills. No makeup. Just being.”

[EPISODE]

Alex Cullimore: Welcome back to this episode of Uncover the Human. Cristina and I are joined today with our guest, Joshua Berry. Welcome to the podcast, Josh.

Joshua Berry: Buongiorno, Cristina and Alex. 

Cristina Amigoni: Buonasera. 

Joshua Berry: Buonasera. Buonasera.

Alex Cullimore: Buonasera for Cristina, who's still across the pond currently. But thankfully still has a giant mug for anybody on YouTube. You can now see the 32-ounce mug. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. It arrived today actually. A new giant mug that arrived today. 

Joshua Berry: People, please watch this on YouTube. You have to see this mug that is larger than – 

Cristina Amigoni: It's going to need its own suitcase when I have to bring it back.

Joshua Berry: And an Instagram following or something. 

Cristina Amigoni: An Instagram following. Ooh, I like that idea. All right. Start a whole new – 

Joshua Berry: Where is Cristina’s mug this week?

Cristina Amigoni: I'm going to have to start a whole new Instagram account. It's the mug following. 

Joshua Berry: The mug.

Alex Cullimore: The adventures of the mug.

Cristina Amigoni: Adventures of the mugs.

Alex Cullimore: The mug next to a plate of food. The mug next to a mountain.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Whole new idea. 

Alex Cullimore: Now that I've totally sidetracked us with mug stories, Joshua, would you give us some background on who you are? What brought you here? 

Joshua Berry: Speaking of mugs – yes, my name is Joshua. I'm talking to you all here from Nebraska where I've lived for the last 20, 30-plus years or so. My background, currently I'm Co-Founder and CEO of Econic, which is a culture innovation and leadership company. We help companies figure out how to change the how and why of what they do. I think what brought me here is, recently, I published a book called Dare to Be Naive: How to Find Your True Self in a Noisy World. And that's really about the exploration of creating spaces for people to start to understand their limiting beliefs and maybe those things that get in the way of truly being their genuine, authentic selves. A theme that resonates I think with you all and your audience. And prior to that, I had – 

Cristina Amigoni: Slightly. 

Joshua Berry: Just a little bit, right? Prior to that, had roles that took me around the world doing HR and talent-related trainings and workshops. Father of four. Dabbled in startups and venture-backed companies for a while. And whole bunch of things in between.

Cristina Amigoni: Nice. Few things in common besides Nebraska. Actually, we have Nebraska in common, too. Because Lyn, who's been on the podcast and it's a very good friend is the person who introduced us. And she lives in Nebraska. And we love Nebraska now Lyn and Joshua are from there. And we know them. We love Nebraska.

Joshua Berry: Yes. Big shout out to Lyn at KidGlov. She is a fellow B corp. Also, a certified B corp. Less than 10 of us here in the state. So, we got to be a tight group. 

Alex Cullimore: Oh, that's awesome. We've had 20% of the B Corps of Nebraska on our podcast. It's crazy. 

Joshua Berry: We can work on that number if you like. 

Cristina Amigoni: We should make it a goal to hit all 100%.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. This is going to be our new goal for the podcast. Well, that's awesome. Tell us a little about the journey that got into starting Econic. You got some interesting stories there. And you had a lot of experiences before that. What led to it? And what do you like doing? 

Joshua Berry: Yeah. What led to starting Econic was I was in leadership at another HR and talent consulting company. And I got to a spot where I was ready to go out and try something on my own. Got really excited about a project that a few other guys were working on related to people's motivation and why they do the things they're doing with some former Gallup executives and other people. 

And so, my wonderful wife heard my plea to say, "You know what? I think I want to jump and go and do this thing." And just to understand how wonderful she is, we ended up putting our house up for sale while we were pregnant with our fourth kid just so that I could have some runway to work on this startup. 

And within a few months, it turned out to not be the best idea. There were team issues which we can talk about. There were intellectual property issues. There was a number of things that happened. And it really then turned into a few months of saying, "Well, what am I going to do next?" 

And it was over coffees and probably more beers with other startup founders just lamenting what we had tried. And what I found is a lot of other people were in the similar boat that I was, which was we were trying to chase solutions without truly understanding the problems that the customers were that we were solving, right? We were a hammer in search of nails. 

And so, other startup founders were saying, "Oh, why don't you come help us try to figure out that problem?" And kind of said, "I can't do that. Maybe if you could pay me, that would be okay." Because right now, equity sandwiches don't quite feed the growing family." 

And we ended up – then I started to contract with a number of those startups. And that then turned into working with startup accelerator programs and a number of things over a couple of years. That eventually turned into Econic. Originally, when Econic was born in 2015, it was with the idea of corporate innovation and startups coming together and us really being almost like a broker or a matchmaker of helping corporations understand that some of their best growth for more transformational ideas would come through collaborations with startups. 

That was the original genesis of Econic. It has evolved into five or six. I mean, you two know as small business owners as well. It's evolved into a number of different things over the years. And I'd say, over the last few years, we've had kind of more of a coming home. And that's back to I think where my heart has always been, which is helping people truly create spaces to practice the things that help grow themselves and then grow their companies.

Cristina Amigoni: I have a question. But, first, I had another startup idea in case.

Joshua Berry: Yes. In case Instamug fails. 

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly. Yes. If in case the stories of the mugs doesn't take off. Given that Alex and I actually started Siamo, before it was started, there was a lot of happy hours, and beers and drinks involved in a bar to talk about how what we wanted to see happening and sketch things out on napkins literally until Alex decided to invest in a notebook and bring the book and actually write in actual paper. But that's the startup idea. Somebody needs to open a bar that's for startup founders that just get to brainstorm and somehow get, I don't know, pen boards or some sort of whiteboards to sketch things on. And then they automatically take pictures and send them to you by – I mean, coming up with the whole thing right now.

Joshua Berry: I like it. I like it. A lot of collaboration spaces for people who don't have a lot of money sounds like a – they'll stay there for long periods of time wanting to drink but not being able to afford the tap. This sounds like a brilliant idea. Someday, right? You're giving options to the bartender. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. We get 1% of all companies started. And hopefully, that'll flip occasionally.

Joshua Berry: Exactly. Exactly. In seven years. 

Cristina Amigoni: Well, they're going to pay drinks somewhere. They might as well pay drinks where they come. We just provide the space.

Joshua Berry: There you go. There you go.

Alex Cullimore: Kind of like starting a winery. You just got to wait for a lot of things to mature and then eventually there may be some profit out of it. [inaudible 00:10:17].

Joshua Berry: I will absolutely come and patronize your startup.

Cristina Amigoni: I'm not hearing a lot of enthusiasm on this.

Alex Cullimore: I think we should start it in Nebraska and then we're going to immediately get the other eight B corps.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes.

Joshua Berry: We do have a growing startup scene. We do have a growing startup scene.

Cristina Amigoni: Maybe it could be like a food van, but it's a truck van. So, we just go where the founders need us to be, which is usually outside of the office they're in, in their miserable jobs. 

Alex Cullimore: People pull up into parking lots while they're sitting in their cars.

Joshua Berry: With whiteboards and alcohol. 

Alex Cullimore: Hey, you look like a potential founder. Or homeless. One of the two.

Cristina Amigoni: Well, they're not necessarily exclusive sometimes. Founder, homeless. 

Joshua Berry: Sometimes. Sometimes. Yes.

Alex Cullimore: You said you had a question before.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Back to my question. I would love to hear about the name Econic.

Joshua Berry: There's no brilliant story behind it. The name Econic was what my previous co-founder was using for some of his consulting work. And the company name that I was using prior to that was called Smart Matter, which stood for smart work on things that matter. And at the end of the day, Econic kind of a little bit better branding than Smart Matter. We ended up going with Econic. 

We have used different ways to back into the rationale of what Econic means. And so, sometimes it's been, "Well, it's iconic. Entrepreneurship." But as we've gone away from doing more and more entrepreneurial work with entrepreneurs, that hasn't made as much sense. Right now it's really just because we like the name and it's stuck for about eight years.

Cristina Amigoni: That's good.

Alex Cullimore: Not a bad reason.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Very good reason.

Joshua Berry: What about Siamo? 

Alex Cullimore: That was a labor of love. We toiled over names for quite some months. And then at some point, Cristina woke up and was like, "Hey, I just realized what it should be called." Cristina's from Italy. And Siamo in Italian means we are. And we talked a lot about, "Hey, how do we bring people together? How do we make teams better?" And so, it felt like a good connection with some of the collective as well as tie into Cristina's Italian heritage. And it's just really just nice-sounding, succinct one-word. 

Joshua Berry: Oh, yeah. It's a way more beautiful story. I like it. 

Alex Cullimore: The actual living of it was less beautiful. It was a lot of like, "Well, what about this? What about that?" "I don't like – yeah." 

Joshua Berry: The naming of things. It is a fun part when I've been involved with other startups. It is an enjoyable part of it all. What it should be called? And what the color should be? And what the look should be? All of that good stuff. 

But for the majority of us, what we found is we're probably only working with 10 to 15 companies a year or so. And so, we don't need Coca-Cola-level branding. At the end of the day, it's truly people interacting with our team members. And that ends up being the strongest brand that we have. 

Cristina Amigoni: Very true. Yeah. We should invite Lyn to this conversation since we're talking about branding now. 

Joshua Berry: Next one.

Cristina Amigoni: Next one. 

Alex Cullimore: You said you worked with entrepreneurs but you kind of moved out of that. What is the transformation of that looked like? What are you focusing on now?

Joshua Berry: Yep. What we're focusing on now is helping organizations shift the how and why they work. And a lot of times, those organizations are more midsize companies. And so, organizations with several 100 to typically several thousand people. And those projects look like everything from helping an organization establish an innovation lab. Maybe so that they can be doing some things off the side of the core business to be able to explore new products or new business ideas. Helping them figure out what the systems are in that organization that might support that. We'll help an organization set up a different governance structure. They call a growth board or an innovation board to be able to help provide almost more corporate venture capital-like guidance and decision-making to hopefully continue to protect those innovation efforts. That's kind of on one extreme of what we'll do. 

There's a middle area of what we do, which is helping innovation teams and other teams kind of around that hopefully be more agile and adaptable. And so, that may look like teaching workshops on how to be more curious or how to do experimentation. 

And then that kind of then bridges into – we've actually been able to apply some of that innovation practice to HR and talent-related initiatives. There are a couple projects we're doing right now where they're trying to redo onboarding or trying to redo performance management. And oftentimes, the idea is, "Oh, let's go best practice. Then let's figure something out and then roll it out." Or maybe you'll do a pilot. 

We take some of the same thoughts that we have on the innovation side of things and apply it over on how they're evolving human systems. How might you go and do empathy interviews with the people who are affected by onboarding? How might you come up with the hypotheses and the risky assumptions that need to be tested of why you want to make this shift in that particular system? And so, we use things like that. 

And then I'd say all the way on the other extreme is just pure leadership and culture work. And so, we just got done doing six-month program on psychological safety and helping leaders be more vulnerable and how they're approaching leading meetings and teams so that they can foster more that psychological safety.

Alex Cullimore: That's awesome. That's a full suite. 

Cristina Amigoni: It is a full suite. 

Joshua Berry: It is a full suite. It makes it kind of difficult for people to buy what we do. In fact, I don't know if you've run into this. Maybe you can give me some coaching. Or maybe Lyn can. Somebody keep track of how many times we mention Lyn's name in this podcast.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Should have made it a drinking game with the giant – 

Joshua Berry: You're the only one who will outlast us though with that mega mug. Mine is like 12 ounces. What we've seen though is we're really good at finding people that we love working within those organizations and then figuring out ways to keep helping and serve them. It means that most of our clients we've worked with actually for almost the entirety of our eight years at Econic. But it also means we work with fewer organizations because we don't have the thing. We take and go rinse and repeat to everybody. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. When we first got to talk to you, we had mentioned that we feel like we're on a very similar track. Just five years behind or so. And that's exactly kind of how we've grown. We've found some places we're like, "Hey, we can help with this." And then we found other opportunities. Like, hey, we could also do that. And that ends up spinning out what looks like a suite of things that we do all of them. And it was just kind of built piecemeal like that. Like, "Well, this seems like the thing that we need to do. And this is something that we can help with." Great. Just kind of a continual organic growth of what you can do just by being curious and being like, "Yeah, it seems like we could work on this." 

Joshua Berry: And what we found is, by being able to be responsive and obviously trying to work with people that you really love working with, you do end up finding other ways to help them. But you can also then adjust things in your system or your business to make it so that you're not reliant on trying to sell people things they don't need. And so, we've been very intentional in our systems design to say, "How do we keep way more cash on hand than we need?" Or how do we think about how we do our teaming? Because we use concentric circles of full-time employees, and part-time, and consistent contractors and gig contractors. Those are two key levers in our system that we used. So that if this person that we love doing business with doesn't have another project, I don't need to hold that relationship so tightly that I got to be like, "No. No. No. No. No. We got to find the next thing that we're going to do together." You can kind of just let things naturally regenerate as they need to. It's been a fun journey figuring all that out.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah.

Alex Cullimore: Yes. We were joking with each other the other week about the idea that if somebody asked us what our business development strategy was, it would be exactly just, "Well, help when we can. And we're not going to pressure and create a project if there's no need for a project." And you just hope it regenerates. And so far, that's been a winning strategy. It's hard to tell people that because I think everybody's expecting like, "Oh, you should go out there and pound the pavement and knock on every door or whatever." 

Joshua Berry: That is an approach. Back to authenticity here. But if it doesn't feel natural. And I think I've struggled with that tension quite a bit. Because there's so – even book launching. There are so many voices out there saying this is the way you need to do it. And I have absolutely fallen into those like, "Oh, I need to be doing more of those things." And only when I can like pinch myself, or pause enough, or I'm awake enough that I can say like, "Is this really what I want? Am I being intentional with this?" Then I take a step back and – yeah, our business development efforts look more like yours. In fact, we just call it internally making friends.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. We can definitely relate to that. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. 

Joshua Berry: That's what we do. 

Alex Cullimore: Which makes everything more enjoyable. I mean, you have the trust. You get to like work with people you really want to work with. You want to help them. They want to help you. It ends up being winning because, I mean, who doesn't want to work with friends in that capacity?

Joshua Berry: I agree. What's interesting is, during the pandemic, you saw some of that then come through. Or at least some of those fruits come to bear. We had a couple of clients, obviously much larger than we were, who came to us and said, "Are you guys okay?" 

And there were a couple who found projects for us to be able to help out during the pandemic as we were able to keep going. One who extended a contract for like nine months longer than they probably needed to. Because they could and because they wanted to help. And we were obviously still adding value and still helping out in those ways. 

But when you have that, I guess Erich Fromm called it the active concern for the care and growth of another. His definition of love. When you have that level of relationship that you have with someone else even in a client and vendor relationship, that's – I don't know. It's pretty cool. It's pretty cool to see.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. It's definitely powerful it. It is a great definition.

Joshua Berry: Erich Fromm 60, 70 years ago I think wrote that. 

Cristina Amigoni: It's good to bring it back. We were talking about – – since you work with the – and also, I love the name, human systems in organizations. Since you do a lot of work in that and there's a lot of passion around getting people to become their best selves, which then in turn helps the organizations reach their potentials. We talked before we started recording about change. Since everybody goes through it all the time in life and especially in organizations. Let's talk about change and how we see change actually stick, and happen and be possible.

Joshua Berry: Yeah. Change is fascinating to the point – everybody likes to talk about it. There are efforts to manage change. There's change fatigue. There's everything around it. And I think what I appreciate especially over the last several years is more and more people understanding that we just need to have more open conversations around change and that it's there. And efforts to manage change or even some of the old approaches I think to doing change management to people. 

I think at least what I appreciate from the HR leaders who were talking to, they're seeing that there's different approaches to that. We can understand that we are working with people here. And if we use some of the old, more industrial speak of managing people's resources or trying to optimize some of those things, we can fall into this trap of thinking, "Well, great. These are now just resources that I need to manage." And the disgruntlement or other things are just measures or dials that have gone too far in one direction or another.

And so, that's I think one of the first shifts is to figure out how is it happening with people from a change standpoint. And how do you get them involved? And I think that's some of our concrete projects when we talk about this with some of our best clients. We talk about how do we use work projects. Like that onboarding project I mentioned or the performance management project. How do we use those projects to help people practice the underlying behaviors that they need to have more of in life? 

And that in and of itself is change management, right? Change management. Because we're helping people in the project that matters to the organization. Figure out, "Oh, I'm uncomfortable." Or, "How do I work with other people?" Or, "How do I call out hypothesis that we have that needs more data?" Or, "How do we –" figuring out ways to help people practice all those things that they need more of not only in the org but probably in their families or in society is I think at the heart of what we do. And some of our best clients really kind of get it.

Alex Cullimore: I think you just much more succinctly than we have done described our approach to change management. 

Cristina Amigoni: Indeed. Much clearly, too. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. I'm glad we have this on recording. Because I have to go back and be like, "Yeah, yeah. That sounds better." 

Joshua Berry: That thing. That thing. That thing. That last definition, brought to you by Lyn Wineman. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, exactly. Through Joshua Berry. 

Joshua Berry: It's been a struggle. Though I think even for us to be able to get to some of that. Because people look at the big places that are teaching change management, and the certifications and other things you can get. And it's been entrenched for a long time. And so, a lot of the work that the three of us and then our team members are doing is really about shifting some of those underlying beliefs. Because we have practices that we just take as the thing that works now. Versus creating space to actually take a step back and wonder what are the beliefs that powered some of those practices. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. I like that. It is a big shift in beliefs. And it's also a shift for ourselves having been on the receiving end or on the giving end of the more traditional ways to keep kind of pushing against it and be like, "I know that that's what I used to do or was told to do. But I also know it doesn't work. So, we're going to try this way and see how it goes." 

Joshua Berry: Yeah. Hence, the space within projects or what we all learned – what we learned in our innovation labs or other work. You need a safe space to test the smallest possible new way of something to happen. 

In fact, I think if I look back at Econic's history, one of the biggest shifts that we had back into the line of work that we're predominantly doing now more. Because there was a while that we were purely doing innovation work. We were creating accelerator programs for US Bank, or John Deere, or others. And we were asked in the fall of 2017 to work with a Fortune 100 CPG company to come up with ways to help their people systems adapt to all of their innovation systems. 

And so, in that moment sitting in San Francisco at a dinner with him, I said, "What if we had this human systems lab?" And that's what was born out of that. And we took all of the things we were doing in innovation, the things they were doing in innovation and we said, "Let's now name what the most critical human systems are that need to shift." And it was everything like we've been talking – I mean, one of the most critical ones was career progression and how nobody was going into these innovation programs because they were seeing that that was the place to – that their career was going to die. Because it was very much an up-and-out sort of organization. 

And by being able to say like, "Here's the system. Now what are the biggest elements in that system that need to be adjusted?" They were able to now start to break it down and think of new things. I'll give you an example of one of them that I found fascinating. They believed that if they could create a whole entrepreneurial career track that might actually get people excited to come into it because they could still see there was a career track for them. But rather than doing the traditional, "Let's go create it. Let's draft it. Let's roll this thing out." We said, "What's a quicker, easier way to test the idea of people would be interested in this etrack?" is what they called it. And we came up with fake job postings on the internet. And so, they put up fake job postings. One with the traditional career track. One with the etrack. And when people applied to these, they were then able to ask questions. 

If you're familiar with anything in the startup space, there's a lot of work around putting up landing pages and smoke tests to be able to just gauge interest before it. We basically just applied that same methodology on internal landing pages that were job boards to be able to test to see if people were interested in these ideas. And what was fascinating is it then allowed people to get into some of those conversations and now really test some of the behaviors around it. Yeah, I think being able to give people opportunities to practice some of those behaviors to test and experiment were some of our first shift back into some of this work.

Alex Cullimore: That's cool. I like the idea of having those small experiments. And that feels like it could be bite-sized enough, people are willing to try. People are willing to jump in and do that. It's a great way to like start the process of like, "Hey, can this kind of shift and mindset be sticky for this culture? This company? This organization?" 

Joshua Berry: Yeah. I mean, it's the same thing that hopefully we and our personal lives need to do, right? There's a what if. A lot of times it's what is the next smallest, safest step that I can take to be able to try that thing out that gets me in another loop of curiosity and action. If we can just create that – because, oftentimes, then when you try it, if it works, you're like, "Oh, cool." And if it doesn't work, you're like, "Oh, that wasn't as scary or as painful as I thought it was going to be." And so, figuring out how to right-size I think some of those curious actions is important in change.

Cristina Amigoni: Well, which was when there's complete radical change received, created and then handed over, the disruption is so multi-layered. It's like, "And there's another layer. And there's another layer." The attempt is really not to disrupt whatever the surface is. But the attempt to disrupt really ingrained behaviors at all levels or at many, many levels. Whether it's like, "Oh, now I interact with people differently." "Oh, no. No. I also interact with different people, which are going to react differently." And I also now have a new system. And now I have you know a new place to go. And it's just too much. There's not that loop of like, "Let's try the one thing, the first thing." And then get the energy and curiosity to keep going.

Joshua Berry: Yeah. I wonder maybe you two would have an opinion on this. When do you need those massive step changes, right? And when can you more proactively continue to be adapting and shifting as an organization? There are likely times where you do need those big shift changes. And, unfortunately, that does create a lot of pain and a lot of issues that are there.

I just wonder though if some leaders could take a step back and say, "Okay, why did we get to this point?" And is there anything we can do differently than next time before we get to this point? And two, are there any underlying assumptions that we should be challenging? 

One of the biggest ones is always transparency and confidentiality about whatever the big shift or change is that's going to happen. Okay. Let's be more concrete. We can't shift the org structure in this way to move from these silos of practices to being more aligned with this particular type of client. Because if people knew that we were going to shift this, they would all – hair on fire. You have to realize, "Okay. What assumptions are you making underneath of that? Is it that people are scared of change? Or that they can't handle the change?" And then, again, what do you gain and what do you lose by holding that belief underneath that? And are you just buying into that and continuing to perpetuate that? Or is that something you want to maybe try differently? 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. That's a good question. I would say that – I mean, I've always been a big visionary into change agility. Meaning, if you can help as an organization, as a leadership team and as employees, you're used to change because of those micro changes and addressing what's needed. When it's needed? Not letting it become this big thing that now we have to disrupt the entire organization to fix. Then you don't get to the point of needing the big thing. Because you've constantly evolved. It's innovation. You've constantly innovated how you do things. It's like, "Hey, maybe performance reviews don't need to be done this way. Let's experiment in a different way." But not change everything. Let's not change performance reviews, and learning and development, and onboarding, and teams and everything. No. Let's just stick to performance reviews for a quarter. 

And so, the incremental. And also, when there is transparency because it's smaller. When there is clarity and when there's some of those principles of getting buy-in, then you get to the point of people know how change is handled.

Alex Cullimore: I think those big corrections are only necessary if you're not doing some of those small ones. And, unfortunately, it becomes a very quick self-perpetuating cycle. If you don't kind of manage change or help people adjust to change in a good way, then they seem to resist more. At which point, you're going to be more reticent to go create change. And you're going to end up pushing yourself into doing these big steps, I think. Or it's easy enough to push yourself into doing the big steps. Because you're like, "I don't want to change. I don't want to change." And, eventually, it has to happen. And so, then it becomes another traumatic change, which reinforces your idea that change is too hard to do. And then you back into another long – like, we're going to have to make a big step change.

Joshua Berry: Yeah. Yeah. Again, it goes down to this fundamental belief of do you believe that people can change and that they can be a part of crafting what that change could look like? And in terms of where the future of work is going, this idea of I need to do change to people. We're changing things. If we continue to look at it that way, we're always going to then have this kind of org versus employee sort of feeling that's there. 

And we try to make that not feel like this by doing employee engagement initiatives and branding, employee branding and all of these things to try to make it feel we're all in this together. But there's still competing forces that are here. And, yet, I think some of the healthiest organizations that I've seen or studied are ones where they allowed the aliveness of people to come through in what they're doing, which then creates ownership, which creates some friction. And that's the thing that people are trying to get rid of. They're like, "Oh." But if other people start leaning into what they actually want, and changing, and growing and shifting what they want to do, what if that doesn't align with what we want the organization to do? And it sounds like it's more work. And so, better just to quiet that, and appease and try to do change to it. 

And, yet, I think we're going through this interesting shift as – at least in this current wave right now where there is a lot of power that employees have and there are a lot more options that employees can go do in terms of how they work or where they're working. And so, figuring out how to shift what the relationship is between employee and organization is important. And I think a lot of that does come down to the heart of, "How am I doing my job? Why am I doing my job? What is my job?" and all those aspects of change.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Definitely. Doing the change, too, seems to be the go-to way to do it. I always find it interesting because there's such a hesitation to just asking what questions people have during a change. Because it was like, "Well, I don't have all the answers." I'm like, "That's not the goal." You don't even know what the questions are. How could you possibly know what the answers are? Maybe you know some of them. Maybe you can guess some of the other ones. But what if you just started with opening it up to actually gather the questions? 

Joshua Berry: I love that. And the difficult thing is that requires a shift in some of the paradigms that senior leaders hold in terms of at least a more and more outdated idea that I have to be right and I have to know all the answers. And that the visionary leaders, the one who has the vision of not only where we're going but how we're going to do it? And where we're going to go with it? 

And I think being able to be vulnerable and say, "I actually don't know. And here's how we're going to find out." Or, "I don't know. And here's why I don't think we're going to spend time finding that out right now." Or, "I do know. And here's why I can't share that." Any of those things are probably appropriate answers. And it treats the other person again across to the question-asking table as human, and as intelligent and all of those sorts of things so that they get more buy-in. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Which I find, for the most part, most people are human in intelligence. Intelligent in jobs. And so, even this fear of – that you mention, of, "Well, what if they create something that that's not what the organization is if we give them too much freedom?" But it's like there's also a common sense that most people will bring in. They're not going to work at a bank and ask that you start farming unicorns. 

What if the expectation and the assumption is not that they're going to ask for something or bring up something that's completely outlandish? But maybe from an innovation point of view, from a curiosity point of view, they will also know where they are and how their job relates to where they are. And they will come up with ideas, or ways, or questions, or challenges that relate to the system they're in, and the environment they're in, and the goals that they understand.

Joshua Berry: Yeah. It ends up being a shift though in what you believe. And one of the case studies that I enjoy is about the manufacturing organization, FAVI, and their leader Jean François Zobrist. When he took over this manufacturing facility, it was like any typical manufacturing facility in which everybody had to time clock. And if you were late, then you got penalized. And if you didn't hit a quota, you were penalized. And, of course, managers and workers ate in a different cafeteria and all of that. And when he took over, he kind of started seeing these things like, "What is going on here? And why are these things happening?" 

And in his memoir, he talked about it seemed like the organization was built on the premise that mankind is bad or going to try to cheat. And he said, "What would it look like if I built an organization that built on the premise that mankind was good? And what sort of virtuous cycle might that create?"

And so, he did away with time clock cards. He did away with you know being penalized for not getting there on time. He did way – in fact, he ceremoniously built a brick wall in front of the window where the managers would look down from their ivory tower onto the factory lines. And what ended up happening was people, again, started to act the way they were treated or how they were believed to be. 

Some of them started to show up early. They weren't just waiting by the time clock to punch it. Some of them stayed late to finish the task that they were working on. And they ended up on the business side of things. Being able to greatly reduce some of their costs. Extremely improve their throughput. The business results more than spoke for themselves in terms of having a great business. But it was all built on this kind of unwinding of this premise, right? 

If I can start to believe that people are good and they're going to do good things here, well, then what might that start to perpetuate in and of itself? It takes a change though among people to be able to get to that.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Well, and as you mentioned, it takes a change. In this example, it's a great one, from the top. Which connects to the podcast I was sharing before we started recording. Esther Perel was saying, if you want to see change in somebody else, you have to change first. You have to actually change how you show up. That may or may not inspire somebody else to do the same. But most likely, it will. If you're just imposing, if you're just imposing the change on somebody else and expecting them to change their behavior but you're not taking any, you're like, "No. I'm good. This is all just you. Figure it out." Then it's just not going to stick. There's no motivation.

Joshua Berry: Yeah. It's not as genuine. It reminds me of this anecdote, at least I've heard it attributed to the Dalai Lama, that this mother and her son came up to the Dalai Lama and she said, "Please, your Holiness, tell my son to stop eating sweets." And the Dalai Lama sat there for a moment, looked at the mother and said, "Please come back in a week." And kind of confused, she said, "Okay." And she left.

Came back a week later, "Please, your Holiness, tell my son to stop eating sweets. They are so bad for him." And he looked at her and said, "Please come back in a week." And frustrated, she leaves. Comes back a week later and it's like, "Your holiness, please help my son stop eating sweets. They're going to ruin his life." And the Dalai Lama looked at the son and said, "Please stop eating sweets." And that's all he said. And the mother looked at him and said, "What? Is that all you're saying?" And he said, "Two weeks ago when you came to me, I myself was still eating sweets. I needed to do the same work that I expected of your son before I could ask him to do the same." 

And to the power of what you're saying, there are so many of us, myself included, who I'm sure I've already said things on this podcast that I spout as aspirational that I need to keep working on and practicing each and every day. But for leaders to have that awareness to be able to see that the change really does start with them I think is so important because of the example that it sets for the people.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. I love that idea. Both the Dalai Lama story and the idea of the virtuous cycle to get into, to get to the point of like, "Hey, what if we started with a base assumption that people are good? And we treat them like they're good. And then they end up responding in kind. And for some reason, it ends up taking a leap of faith for some people that's like, "Well, are we really going to believe that people are good?" Well, why not? Do you surround yourself with terrible people? Or most people are like – I mean, I don't super trust people. But I really love my close circle. They're all great people. Yes. A lot of those people probably feel the same. And a lot of those people have other circles. And maybe there's some trust that could be extended. And it's always interesting to see what happens when you create that change. You assume things are good and things can be returned as good. Things can come back as good just in natural human reciprocity. 

Joshua Berry: And that's the Catch-22 in it, right? It does take almost a leap of faith sometimes to make that jump and to start that cycle. The book that I mentioned at the beginning is called Dare to be Naive. And it's actually built upon that premise. It's the fact that a lot of people who I interviewed who were doing great things, who were trusting in people. When I was interviewing them, used this shield of saying, "This might sound naive but –" and then they shared something. 

And it got me to thinking after I saw that pattern, why do people fear being seen as naive? Why do they fear being seen as gullible, or unsophisticated, or whatever it might be? And what would the world look like if more people did lean into that? 

Because as we've seen time and time again, it can actually create virtuous cycles that perpetuate themselves. And then the big aha that then came out of that research was that the word naive, especially when we look at how our ancestors used to use the word, it actually just meant genuine or innate. Or that which was in you from the start. 

And so, oftentimes, what I saw and at least now what I understand for myself is that feeling or that voice that sometimes rises up in you that says, "You know what? Maybe. Or what if?" That might actually be coming from a deeper source of wisdom than we have grown in at least the Modern Age to respect and accept. 

And so, the dare to be naive is not to throw rational thinking out the window but to bring it in a better balance with some of that intuition that we have. And to think, "Well, what might it look like if we could start to create greater ripples of impact by trusting?" 

Alex Cullimore: That's a great way of looking at that. I love that definition of naive. That's a fascinating way of thinking about it. And really balancing some of that intuition. Because the problem with exclusively rational thinking is you can end up with like rationalizing what society has determined. That's how you can end up in like old-fashioned change management models. But you've been told that a thousand times this is what works. It's then hard to rationalize trying something new if you've been told that enough and you think like I just haven't done it right or something. Where your intuition might be leaning towards, "Hey, what if we change this up?" 

And again, to your point, it's not about throwing rational and thinking out the window. It's just if you only do rational, it's going to be rational based on the facts that you have. And they may or may not be actually accurate anymore or serving you. At which point, you've got built-in limiting beliefs that's going to hit you in the foot later.

Joshua Berry: Yeah. You're exactly right. And when I teach on this topic, it's important to help people understand that that's okay. We have that reflexive loop of using our beliefs to help us navigate this world because there is so much that's happening in this world. And so, we need those things to help us maneuver. 

We do need biases. We need stories. We need all of that. Those beliefs, those stories are just best guesses at reality. And they're not always true. And so, being able to create space to question some of those things maybe just reaffirm them. But also, to be able to say, "Huh, I wonder if there might be another way or a deeper way to be able to think through that," I think is at the heart of at least what I hear a lot of leaders saying we need more of in our organizations in our society, right? Being able to hold the belief that maybe the other person disagreeing with me also has a different point of view that might be benefiting them. Maybe I can create space for them be more open, and curious and committed to learning than just being defensive and guarding myself. 

Cristina Amigoni: I would say maybe out. They definitely have a different point of view. 

Alex Cullimore: It's so hard to remember that. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. It definitely is. Yeah, I think that lately – I can't remember. It was definitely part of change conversations. But somebody said like, "Well, we answer these questions. But people want a lot more." Or we have more questions and everybody has different interpretations of the answers. Yeah, if you have a thousand people on a call, you're going to have a thousand different interpretations of the answers.

Joshua Berry: Absolutely.

Cristina Amigoni: That's not bad. It's not right or wrong. It's just is.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. I think these are some of the paradigms people get stuck in, especially going into change. If I say it, it might be interpreted a bunch of different ways. Or if I don't say it, then they'll figure out the right way themselves. And there's some in between of like, "Hey, what if you could just communicate? Try to figure out what's working and not working? Do the listening. Do the actual reciprocal like, "Hey, this seems to be – I didn't realize that was how this department worked. So, let's really incorporate that differently." And that's fine. Adjusting is – we all talk about adjusting. And being flexible and being ready to pivot. And then when it comes time for it, people – it can be hard to do, especially if you came up with a plan that you thought was just brilliant and going to go A to Z and everything would be different on the other side of it. And it doesn't take into account the realities of when people are going to be like, "Yeah. No. This is just a different interpretation. Something I didn't know." Or somebody's interpretation is different. But that actually is a totally different idea. And maybe we should have thought of it that way the first time. What if you need that different interpretation and bias?

Joshua Berry: Yeah. There's some deep work. Back to Cristina, what you mentioned before about the change starting with you. There is some work that has to be done for senior leaders to – any individuals. But I'll especially say senior leaders since they set the tone for a lot of the organization's principles, and policies and whatnot. But to understand where your security, and value and worth come from. Because when it feels like it's an affront on those things, I think that's sometimes when it's the hardest to be able to roll exactly the way that you sharing there, Alex. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, definitely is. One of my favorite coaching lessons for myself, which was very hard to learn, but that it helps me every day is when going through coach training was when we were told, "Just remember that if somebody pushed the button is because there's a button to begin with." And that is such a hard lesson to learn. And it's so helpful because it's like people push my buttons all the times. It still happens. But my first reaction, hopefully, typically, on good days is not to lash back. but it's to actually ask myself. I'm like, "Wait. Why is that a button? There's a button there. Let's do the exploration and understand why there's a button there." 

Joshua Berry: Yeah. There's a 2 x 2 matrix that I use because we're consultants. Everything's in a 2 x 2 matrix. And talks about the charged nature of a situation, right? Think of the top half is really high energy and the bottom half really low-energy. Both positive and negative situations. And if you don't practice on the low-energy situations, what you just said there, good luck when you get to the really charged situations. 

And so, part of what I think some of our work is both in coaching, because it's typically a set-aside space, or an innovation work, or projects, or whatever it might be I think is to create spaces for people in low-energy, less-charged situations to practice those things they're going to need once they're in the real world and having those high-charged situations. But it takes practice, and practice and practice. 

Alex Cullimore: It's a pretty way of looking at it and it is I think easy to miss. Because then it feels like, "Well, we're trying this on this." But who knows if it will work?" And how do you help remind them that like, "Hey, this was what we practiced. Now we got to try and put it in motion in something harder." 

We actually just kind of had this happen. We've been doing this whole leadership development. Of course, we try to you give them all kinds of tools and lots of different ways to practice. Being in situations. To get comfortable with change. To get comfortable with listening better. Things like that to really help them get there. And then there ended end up being a large change announced that suddenly everybody was whirling from. We felt like that was then the road testing and the speed test of all the skills we were trying to help impart of like, "Hopefully, these are tools that are useful when the time comes or just slowly throughout your career." And then within a couple of months, they're like, "Oh, no. Please try them all right now with live ammo." 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. The know thing. 

Joshua Berry: I love it. I love it. We had a similar thing. We were working with these teams that were coming together across Mexico and Brazil and trying to foster better trust and collaboration. And weeks after we ended the six-month program, they had a big change ended up happening. 

And so, when we did our retrospective with them a few weeks ago, they said, "Oh, it was great up until this happened in December. But it gave us a chance to put some of the things in action. And we believe that we're better off now than we would have been if this change would have happened eight or 10 months ago." 

And so, I think – I don't know. If you look as each situation as an opportunity to practice, you're going to be better off when it's game time for something else. I mean, we think about this with our four kids all the time. A small example of that is, since they could read, they always needed to order for themselves at restaurants. That's been one of our rules is you order for yourself.

Cristina Amigoni: It's a good one. 

Alex Cullimore: And it's because we wanted to continuously practice this you can speak up for yourself. You can answer it. Servers, we always point them back to the kid. They know what they're going to order, et cetera. And only now when we now have teenagers does it actually pay off. And they routinely tell us, how among their friends, they're the ones who have to go order. They're the ones who have to speak up if something is wrong. They're the ones who have to do it. But it's only because we've treated everything as potentially practice leading up to it.

Cristina Amigoni: That's a great one. That's great for the kids. I'm going to have to adopt that even though I'm a little late on that one. Accelerated course on the practice even though it starts today. 

The interesting thing though that, while in Italy, it's a different language, too. It's the added piece. And they're actually picking it up on their own. We never formally had them do it in English. And then, now in Italy, we kind of just like turn and be like, "What is it that you want?" And it's a chance for them to practice the language.

Joshua Berry: Absolutely. Back in July of '19, we did a month in Southern Spain and just chose a small village and lived in it with the family. And we tried as best as we could to have them continue do it. The best they were able to do most of the time was drinks. And so, they drank a lot of Franta Naranja. Restaurant. Breakfast, lunch or dinner? Fanta Naranja was what they were getting. But over the month they were able to pick up some of their favorite meals and figure – 

Alex Cullimore: That's pretty much the language piece and it kind of gets back to the idea of daring to be naive. Of what does it mean to be naive? I was listening to Adam Grant's new book, Hidden Potential. And he talks about polyglots in there. And he was like, "For the longest time, I assume these are people that just have way overactive abilities to understand, create and generate language." But he went through these case studies of some people who couldn't even speak a second language until after they were like 23 or something. We hear all kinds of things. If you don't learn it before seven, it's going to be really hard, et cetera. 

But these people started to pick up – and there were people who had tried even learning Spanish and lived in communities somewhat near Spanish a lot of their lives and had not been able to pick it up and become fluent in it in their 20s suddenly could finally get to this. And it turned out it was because they got better at practicing that just literally having to speak it rather than just going through a vocabulary or understanding conjugation. It's not that those aren't helpful. But until you've practiced it. Because language is specifically about generating and communicating. When you actually practice that generation piece, that's when your brain starts to make the connections and that's when you get the real kind of rubber hits the road and you learn a lot faster. But you have to be willing to do that in situations where you're going to look a little silly. You're going to say the wrong word. You're going to order Fanta Naranjas for the first month. It's just what feels comfortable until you're willing to step past that. 

It is that willingness to kind of be naive for lack of a better term. Just to be willing to try and be willing to be in a space of like this is where I'm at and I'm just going to try from here. That ended up creating much faster growth. And, suddenly, people could speak six languages where they had struggled to even learn a second one for decades.

Joshua Berry: Yeah. I hadn't thought about it until you mentioned it here. But it's almost like it's a different type of compounding interest, if you will. Great chapter in Hidden Potential. And when I was reading that, what it seemed like is some of them then started to accelerate their learning. 

When, again, we think about this idea of try something, "Oh, it wasn't as bad." It's almost like the more you put yourself out there to try something, the easier it might be for that next loop to go around. And so, maybe even more valuable than actual legit compounding interest is compounding discomfort. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah, it's a great way of putting it. Yeah. Yes.

Joshua Berry: Or something that's in there. Because you end up being able to use that then in so many other ways in life that require you to try to learn and adapt.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Which, actually, I love that visual for change, too. If I think of change agility, that's also it. It's like you try one thing and then you're like, "Oh, this is not too bad. Let's try something bigger. And now I can accelerate to something bigger and accelerate to something bigger." It's just kind of get used to it. It's like, "Well, I know I can do it." 

Joshua Berry: Yeah. I tell people I have kind of an unfair advantage. We lived in over 15 different homes before I was 15. And so, I constantly was having to change, change, change, change, change. And so, I got a lot of those loops early on in life. 

And, yet, to the point in Adam Grant's book, it doesn't mean that you have to have that sort of childhood to be able to get started now. Anybody, if you have that urge, if you're listening to this and you have that urge of that thing you want to try, figure out what the next smallest version of that thing is and just go try it. And then evaluate and see what happens. And see if that doesn't start – 

Alex Cullimore: I like to mention it as like compounding discomfort. It's almost like that's like the principal amount you get to spend. The more you are willing to be in discomfort for a bit, that's the more you get to like start out with and then make the – that will have potentially bigger – and it's easier to make those experiments and it's easier to have that next smallest step. It might feel a little bit much larger in a few years than the next small step that you feel like you're willing to take right now. And that's fine. That's part of the growth. But that compounding discomfort is a great image of like, "How do we really put that in the bank so we're ready to take a step and just try something?" 

Joshua Berry: Yeah. Yeah. And I think going back to how we started this, when we put our house up for sale and we right-sized into – I mean, we're living in a very nice home now. It's half the size of what I was living in 10, 11 years ago now. But what I was able to see after all of that, and not having success in that startup and all of those things is I was able to still see like, "I'm still here. I'm still okay. I'm still fine. What matters to me?" 

And with each of those things, you're not only getting this compounding discomfort of, "Oh, I tried. And maybe it worked or it didn't work." But I think you keep learning something about yourself, and what you value and what matters to carry through all of those things. 

And so, I really feel those were some of my greatest lessons through some of those early failures was, "Okay. What actually matters? And what do I count as important to me?" 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. It's a great point. Yeah, you get compounding self-awareness and compounding confidence, too. Because the more you do it, you're like, "Oh, okay. There's another version." One of my favorite quotes out there is, "You've survived 100% of the things you've gone through." 

Joshua Berry: Yeah. I've heard of it. What percent of your worst days have you survived?

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. 100%. They're still not fun. 

Joshua Berry: Exactly. Exactly. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. They're still not fun. They're still uncomfortable. They're still painful. 

Joshua Berry: I don't think any of us are saying you need to live in that all of the time. There's absolutely some truth to I think we seek to avoid discomfort. And so, it is a very self-aware wakeful thing that you need to do to be able to understand how you can do that. And thinking about how do you surround yourself with people that you care about? How are you doing work that you enjoy or love that can sustain you? What are all the other things you can surround yourself with that makes those circles a little bit more bearable as you continue to build up that compounding discomfort? 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. That's awesome. Well, I'm sure we could find a few more brilliant ideas. 

Alex Cullimore: Any more startup ideas, Cristina, since we started this conversation? 

Cristina Amigoni: I've got this image of the circles. There's something there. I don't know what it is yet. But – 

Joshua Berry: Yeah. Compounding discomfort. Send money each week to Cristina and she will look for you. Even if you're uncomfortable sending it to her, she will – it's for your growth and benefit. This is your new business idea. 

Cristina Amigoni: I will commit. 

Joshua Berry: For your good. Yeah. 

Cristina Amigoni: I still like the bar idea. The bar for founders' idea. Last couple of questions for you. One is what is your definition of authenticity? Which is probably in your book. Multiple ways over. 

Joshua Berry: It is multiple ways into that. I have competing definitions of authenticity. Given that I like – I feel this report here maybe both of them. There's the one that makes the sound bites and that is that part of you which best represents your true self, right? That part of you which best represents your true self. That's probably the best working definition that I have for it. 

My second view of authenticity though is that authenticity is a useful construct. But useful to a point. And here's what I mean on that. In another part of me, I see authenticity is that which you are authoring, right? It's this that's happening right now. And in that vein, I can probably argue that there isn't anything that isn't authentic. Because even if I'm thinking like, "Oh, I want to say this thing." But then I choose not to say that thing and I say something else that I think is going to make you happy. In my first definition, that could be seen as inauthentic. 

And I think it's a useful construct to have this idea of inauthenticity so that people are striving and looking at it. But at the end of the day, it was still all me who came up through all of those things then offered that thing that was put out there. And so, is that any less authentic? If I have to claim that there's anything that is not authentic, I'm having to claim that there's something outside of all of this or that's not part of me. And so, the definition that's in conflict, some of that is, truly, authenticity is truly that which is being written, said, thought right now.

Alex Cullimore: Good challenge. Yeah. I like that.

Cristina Amigoni: That's very fascinating. It is a good challenge. 

Alex Cullimore: I also love just the representation idea in your first definition, that it's a representation of your best self. It's a close approximation. It's what you can kind of come close to. And maybe things feel unauthentic when we feel like maybe we didn't represent that true self as much as we could have. And at the same time, it's where we were at the time. And how do we have both acceptance and grace for that? As well as know, "Hey, maybe this isn't what I would want to do in the future." It's interesting kind of back and forth of still being authentic enough to both recognize both of those pieces.

Joshua Berry: Yeah. Because the only time that we're having that judgment on that last thing I said is right now. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. It has passed.

Joshua Berry: Right. It's already passed. And so, it's this next thing that is being authored. And my true, deepest level, that's the experience of life is this contrasting between true self and the experience that's being authored here right now. 

And so, that rub, that tension, that construct of, "Oh, that wasn't exactly how this thing should have come out." Well, that's the only thing that could have been in that moment. Therefore, what?

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. It's true. I would agree with that. Interesting.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. It's very contemplative.

Joshua Berry: Sorry. Conversation stopper. There we go.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. It just makes you think. Yes. Very contemplative. Where can people find you? Let's go to something very shallow. 

Alex Cullimore: Right out of the deep.

Joshua Berry: Something very shallow. Yes. You can find me – 

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly. And we're done being authentic.

Joshua Berry: The website for Econic is www.econic. That's econic.co. Not .com. That extra M back to names would have cost $39,964. We are .co. But you can also find information about me at joshuaberry.com or the book. It's called daretobenaive.com. And I'm most active on LinkedIn in terms of content that's put out there. And so, that's one of the best places that you can find information on that. 

Cristina Amigoni: Awesome. And we'll have all that in the notes. 

Joshua Berry: And the book you can get in a lot of places. Yeah, it's in the airports. It's in the Amazon. It's in Barnes & Noble. Indiegogo. You can request it at your local, favorite, independent bookseller. 

Cristina Amigoni: Oh, nice. Excellent.

Joshua Berry: Thank you so much for having me on the show. This has been a lot of fun and jovial. And I hope people are able to understand stuff through all of our great laughter. 

Cristina Amigoni: They'll figure it out. 

Alex Cullimore: And thank you so much for coming on. And thank you for sharing all this. It's been really super fascinating. And just really appreciate your time and perspective. 

Joshua Berry: Thanks, Alex. Thanks, Cristina. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, thank you.

[OUTRO]

Cristina Amigoni: Thank you for listening to Uncover the Human, a Siamo podcast. 

Alex Cullimore: Special thanks to our podcast operations wizard, Jake Lara; and our score creator, Rachel Sherwood. 

Cristina Amigoni: If you have enjoyed this episode, please share, review, and subscribe. You can find our episodes wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Alex Cullimore: We would love to hear from you with feedback, topic ideas, or questions. You can reach us at podcast wearesiamo.com, or at our website, wearesiamo.com, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook. We Are Siamo is spelled W-E A-R-E S-I-A-M-O.

Cristina Amigoni: Until next time, listen to yourself, listen to others, and always uncover the human.

[END]