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Treat People Like Dogs: The Leadership & Relationship Hack of Presence, Trust, and Positive Reinforcement

Episode 58 · 21 January 2026 · 45 min

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Treat People Like Dogs: Positive Reinforcement, Presence and Trust at Work and at Home

Positive reinforcement at work sounds soft until you see how rarely most managers use it. Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg and Anthony Marino ask what would happen if we treated people the way we treat dogs: full presence, real joy when they walk in, the benefit of the doubt, and far more praise than correction.

What if the fastest way to improve your relationships, leadership, and daily life… was to treat people the way we treat dogs—with presence, encouragement, benefit-of-the-doubt, and genuine joy when they “walk in the room”?

In this episode of Tales of Abundance, Randy, Dr. John, and Anthony take a deceptively simple question and turn it into a powerful lens for communication, management, family dynamics, and trust. They unpack why dogs create instant emotional lift (and what that tells us about human connection), why most workplaces accidentally train people through fear and criticism, and how positive reinforcement—done the right way—creates safer, stronger, higher-performing teams.

You’ll hear practical, grounded takeaways you can use immediately: how to greet people with real presence, how to build trust as the foundation of abundance, and how to shift from constant “problem-hunting” into leadership that actually brings out the best in others—without coddling or manipulation.

Psychological Safety at Work, the Benefit of the Doubt and Leadership Presence

What you'll discover:

  • Why dogs give us an instant emotional lift, and what full presence looks like with people
  • Giving the benefit of the doubt as a core relationship skill
  • Trust as the source of abundance, and leading with kindness
  • The praise-to-correction ratio, and whether positive reinforcement is enough
  • Psychological safety at work without coddling, and why managers fixate on the 2% that's wrong
  • In the Abundance Briefing: cancer survival at 70%, silver-coated batteries and artificial islands

Timestamps

  • [00:00] Welcome
  • [00:18] Abundance Briefing: survival for all cancers combined reaches 70%
  • [01:04] A thin silver coating makes solid-state batteries more crack-resistant
  • [03:09] Silver prices and talk of a "black swan" for banks
  • [05:55] Building new land: artificial islands as prime real estate
  • [07:51] Break: Premium Cabinets business opportunity
  • [08:23] Treat people like dogs: the idea
  • [10:02] A granddaughter, a bouncy house and the power of encouragement
  • [12:42] A rescue dog and unconditional positive regard
  • [15:23] Full presence: dogs are fully invested in you
  • [16:15] Nature vs. nurture, and constant change in human relationships
  • [19:48] Giving the benefit of the doubt as a core relationship skill
  • [20:42] Touch, cortisol and the long hug
  • [24:18] Trust as the source of abundance
  • [25:12] Leading with kindness
  • [26:58] Dog training and positive reinforcement
  • [28:41] What's the ratio of praise to correction between bosses and employees?
  • [29:49] Pushback: is positive reinforcement enough?
  • [35:46] Psychological safety without coddling
  • [37:51] The 2% problem: why managers fixate on what's going wrong
  • [39:28] No celebrations in autocratic companies, and bringing problems into the sunshine
  • [43:13] Speaking gratitude and Gary Chapman's love languages
  • [44:18] Wrap-up: a thought experiment for tomorrow

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About the hosts

This is a hosts-only episode with no guest: Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg and Anthony Marino. (Host bios are on the host pages linked below.)

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Meet the hosts: Randy Lorensen · Dr. John Oberg · Anthony Marino

Transcript

A full transcript is below. It was generated automatically from the episode audio, so expect some spelling errors in names and terms.

[00:09] of Abundance. Uh, as always, I'm here with Dr. John and Anthony. Good good afternoon, gentlemen. — All right. Well, let's jump in. Uh, abundance briefing. John, you had some things that I know excited you. So, you want to kick us off there? — Yeah. I mean, just cool stuff in the news, right? Like I think the one that was most I was most enthusiastic about was the American Cancer Society just released in the last few days their cancer statistics for 2026 and it confirmed that a 5-year survival rate for all cancers combined has reached 70% for the first time ever. That's pretty cool. I just, you know, my life's been touched by cancer in the sense that my dad passed away of cancer when I was really young. uh you know it's been a a theme of you know I think a lot of people's lives and so super enthusiastic to see we're making progress there. And then when I was looking at that a couple other things jumped out in the news. One was that Stanford uh just uh published a report in Nature Materials on January 16th that if you put a very thin layer of silver coating over a solid state battery, it's five times more resistant to cracking of a certain type that causes a battery to fail. So we kind of a cool breakthrough in battery technology. And then um a couple of countries, Chile and Thailand, both made really big conservation news. Chile for putting aside 150,000 hectares of uh you know national park to protect subarctic pete land and forest land. And then in Thailand, there's a really you know cat they thought was extinct they caught on camera for the first time in 35 years.

[01:45] So, just some feelood news stories in a in a news cycle that doesn't always feel awesome. I just saw those things and they all made me smile with different levels of enthusiasm. — Sean, the cancer thing is obviously really cool because I think everybody knows somebody that you know or has been affected personally. So, — Do we It's 70% now. What was it? Do we know what it was 5 10 20 years ago? Do we have any idea or no? Does it not — You know, it said that it was up from 49% in the mid70s. — Okay. Wow. — Yeah. I I'm surprised it's it was that high in the mid70s actually. But that's fantastic. You know you know my feelings on this. They're uh you know chemotherapy is great at saving lives and it's simultaneously barbaric as hell. It's pumping poison into people's bodies and you know doing all but killing them. Um it's the best we have right now. I just think in 50 or 100 years amunotherapies come a long way Randy. I think — amunotherapist and then there's a student at UT who just put together something about like how cancer cells live and die that I haven't had a chance to read yet but it looked pretty promising too. So I think I think we're making some progress — there. There's a lot being done with everything from hyperaric chambers to vitamin you know huge doses of vitamin C etc. So I I we're moving there but it's um yeah it the fact that we're at 70% is pretty cool. Um — well not my field but I do know a couple I I know a couple of oncologists. Maybe we'll bring one on and have him talk about the latest greatest treatments.

[03:09] — When you when you mentioned when you mentioned the batteries and the silver, I I couldn't help but think, you know, silver prices have been exploding over the last couple months. So, it made me think, are they buying are they buying so much silver that that but I don't think that's the problem. But anyway, Anthony, sorry, you were saying something. No, the what I was going to say is, you know, I can part of part part of the reason why the five-year horizon has increased so much could be related to earlier detection of of cancers and but obviously the earlier you detect something the better the odds are of survival. So I think there's still there's more and more talk about um in the longevity universe of of exactly that you know full body scans earlier in life and trying to catch all kinds of problems with with health much much earlier and then remediating those things so that this will this will — Um yeah the silver thing is interesting isn't it? you know, uh did you know that the the contracts that are out there for silver, you know, the you know, those that are buying options, uh predicting silver will continue to go up far exceed the actual amount of silver that exists in the world.

[04:39] So there's, you know, there there there there are those out there that think that there could be a black swan event. Uh meaning that, you know, when the banks, you know, who are the ones who are pretty much on the hook for it, um when when people want their silver, businesses need their silver and so forth, there'll be a resetting not of the price, but of the rules allowing who's going to get the silver and so forth. But anyway, well, I just — what'll happen again, I think humans are incredibly resourceful and it will create shortages. And this is why I always talk about buying things that are scarce, right? That like fiat dollars or US dollars have no value because they can just change some numbers on a keyboard and and make them, right? And this is why I always come back to Bitcoin, but again, if I wasn't in Bitcoin, it'd be gold and silver. buying something that's real that they can't just make more of without work, right? Like they can mine more silver or gold, — but it takes money, it takes capital, it takes energy, it takes all those things. So, buy scarce assets is my is my strong strong opinion.

[05:55] Um, you know, the other thing with scarcity, uh, you know, the top the thing that kind of jumped out to me, I read an article over the weekend that China in particular, but there's multiple countries doing it now, are creating more land and they're creating prime real estate. They're going out and creating islands off their shores by taking massive amounts of sand and I think they're using concrete and probably some rebar and whatever else, but they're creating these structures. Uh, I witnessed this firsthand a few years ago when we were down in Panama. There's a from like this real high-end area that would almost remind you of Manhattan. Uh, you go down this road and it just goes out onto an island or there, you know, there's a couple of them that they've made down there years ago. Uh, you know, and certainly we know about, you know, Dubai has the island that looks like the palm trees and I think they might even have another one now. So, I I think that's pretty cool, too. And we always talk about real estate. I bring that up in the scarcity thing because we talk about real estate there's they're not making any more of it. Well, actually that's not true. They are making more.

[07:03] — they are making more. And you know I think where you live John like how many people lived in downtown Austin 20 or 25 years ago and now they're, you know, you guys are stacked down there like crazy. I mean, it's it's d, you know, went from just businesses to, you know, dense dense population pretty quickly. — True story. — All right. Well, I think that's it for the abundance briefing. Uh we will be back after the break and we are going to talk about uh kind of a fun episode today, but also I think one for just general life skills. What if we treated people like we treated dogs is the question that we're going to answer. So, we'll dig into that when we get back from the break. — Hey, it's Randy from Tales of Abundance. Is starting a business part of your journey? Do you have ambition but no clear path? Maybe you feel trapped in your current career? Do you want a real business that can produce $250,000 or more income for you and your family? We have an opportunity for a profitable business that can be part of your path to abundance. I want to personally invite you to see the proven system we've built. It's designed to give you that freedom and control you've been searching for. Visit premiumc to learn more. That's premiumc Listeners, we are back from break. And this is just kind of it's fun, but I also think this is something that can increase our interpersonal communications, maybe our management skills. I think this really applies to a lot of things, even though it's going to sound kind of silly. And I will tell you that we got a dog about six months ago.

[08:42] His name's Duke. Um I call him the Duke of Joy because he's so damn happy and his tail's wagging and he's just he's just a happy happy dog and he brings joy to the world. And one day I came home. I think I was I was at the gym for an hour and I came back and he meets me at the door and he's jumping around and he's so freaking happy to see me, right? As if I'd been gone for two years or something. And you know, I was thinking how wonderful it is. But then I started thinking, well, why is this like why are dog, you know, is it just is that what dogs are? But I think think how great we treat dogs, right? We we take care of them. We give them a place to sleep. We bathe them. We buy them toys. We tell they do any little thing and we're like, "Oh, who's a good boy?" Right? Or, "Oh, how smart are you?" We pet them. We do, you know, it's like it's they poop outside instead of in the house. And you know, we give them treats for it and we congratulate them. So, you know, I guess I'm asking the question, is it a chicken or the egg, right? Is what would happen if we treated people the way we treated dogs? What would that do to our relationships? What would that do to the world? So, any opening thoughts here, Yeah, let me um relay a personal experience that you know I um I at first didn't didn't like the topic because it treating someone like a dog just doesn't sound like a good thing. But the u over the weekend um I was fortunate enough to not be able to use my tea time and I had to go to a um birthday party happened to be my granddaughter. And I was thinking about this topic while we were there because it it's very similar what you just talked about is very similar to what how you treat a toddler and a little baby.

[10:37] You know, when the little baby, you know, the we have I have a six-month-old granddaughter. When she smiles, the the room lit up and everyone was excited about, oh my gosh, she's smiling. I made her smile. I mean, she could have been farting for all we knew, but she, you know, she was smiling. We and we petted her and the when the 2-year-old wanted to get in the bouncy house and started jumping around, we were encouraging her and we were laughing and we're making her feel great. You know, she was barely jumping in the bouncy house, but it, you know, you would have thought she was uh an Olympic gymnast on the uh par on the uneven parallel bars, you know. So I was thinking we actually do treat people as well as we treat dogs for a pretty short period of time. — And then uh we uh we we devolve I think and you know I don't want to you know paint with one brush when that happens but um it it does seem to devolve as they get older and our expectations get higher. So I think that's the root of some of what we're going to talk about.

[11:50] — Yeah, I think that's a great insight. Great insight. John, you have any opening thoughts here or anything? — Yeah, I mean I think I think you know we come at this from from the positive side, right? There's but I think there is the good, the bad, and the ugly. And so I think that when I think about this with my professional background, I think about like all the positive things we have because of relationships with dogs, but I also think about what would happen if we treated humans in that same paradigm and and we would it's a pretty slippery slope. So I think um there are some real learnings about how we can treat people better for sure and there's some slippery slopes I think as well. So I I'm I'm super excited to kind of get deep into the conversation for sure. Okay. Well, I'm now now I'm curious to know to know what your takes are on that. So, uh you know, — let me start I'll tell you a quick I'll tell you one quick story, then I'll tell you where we started. So, I have a dog who who was um she was abused before we got her. Um we we took her from a family who was going to have her put to sleep because she was not playing well with other dogs. We learned from her veterinarian that she had been living on the street for 6 months to a year. um had been abandoned on more than one occasion. had a long history with kind of the shelters and we took her in when she was about 3 years old and she lived to about 13 14 for a large dog 3540 lb and um you I'm Catholic and so when I went to to actually put her to sleep I had a conversation with my priest about like was this you know what does the Bible say about this some new convert at the time and had had some real theological questions around it and one of the things he made me aware of was like in the Bible in Genesis it talks about how man has kind have dominion over the animals. And so I was like, "Oh, I guess I can put them to sleep." I definitely don't feel that way about humans. So whether you're Catholic or not, whether you're, you know, it just it was like it was a difference about and there are some people who would, you know, think that putting their animal to sleep wouldn't be great. And there are people that would treat their pet uh, you know, if it had cancer in the same way that you might treat a family member. So I I I recognize there's different ways to approach it. I do think that like the law says that people in that animals are different. The you know psychology and psychologists would say they're they're very different and there's different power dynamics. And so I think that it's a really cute conversation to start and there is lots of positive lessons to learn about how we could treat people better and some people could treat animals better, but there are some dark sides too we can get into.

[14:22] — well, again, I I really think the chicken or egg like I think part of the reason we treat dogs so well is because they treat us so well, right? They just come with nothing but love. Uh, you know, they the other big thing is it's their interpretation. So many times as a human somebody does something and even when it's of the best of intentions and they're like I really want to help this person the human looks at and goes what are they trying to get out of it or what are you know and they just they start questioning the purity and dogs don't do that they just take everything as the best right and so — I think that's just another way and you know this ties into you know years ago I read Dale Carnegie's how to win friends and influence people. I mean, it's been 30 years ago now or 35 years ago plus probably, but a lot of this is is those same concepts, right? — Um, what about listening, right? Like if you think about a dog too, when you come home or you engage with a dog, they are fully invested, right? like they are, you know, where how many times with humans are we talking to somebody or somebody's talking to us and we're on our phone answering an email or a text or whatever else, right? We're kind of half listening. So, I think a lot of it just starts with they're there 100% in the relationship in that moment.

[15:48] — Thoughts? I mean, John, you're you're the you you have the medical degree here. What I mean, what are your what's your takeaway on that? — I have a social work degree. I think um I mean it's so deep. I mean um you're saying that we love dogs because they love us. And I mean so I I don't know the answer to this one. I certainly don't know the psychology of pets at all. I would I would question though like is it is this a chicken or the egg question, you know? Um and and how much of this is nature versus nurture with animals? I mean, you know, I mean, I there was a dog once in my life, I've had a dog run off of a porch and try to attack uh someone that I was walking with, and I didn't love that dog, — and that dog certainly didn't love me, you know. So, I I do think there's a lot of um the the nurturing of an animal that that drives their, you know, behavior towards humans. And part of that may be personality, too. I don't — Yeah. A dog a dog only needs a few things, right? It it needs a a safe place to go. It needs its food and water. Um it's not, you know, it likes to play, you know, chase a ball, run around a little bit. Um there there's there's a lot more going on in our relationship with, you know, the uh the the rest of society. you know, we have they have needs, we have needs, they may be under pressure, we're under pressure.

[17:27] Um, things need to get done. Um, maybe we're, you know, with with a with a puppy, you know, generally we're given a very clear uh command. We're usually pretty calm unless something, you know, there's some biting or some some messes being made. we pretty we're pretty consistent with what we want from our pets. You know, we're not we're not changing it every day on them. Uh whereas in running a business or in your in your personal life, you know, life happens and business situations occur. So there's we're [snorts] we're in a not a well maybe in a constant state of flux requiring change management uh techniques. And so there's it's just a it's a tougher kind of environment. And then there's personality, you know, there's there's the innate personality that we all have. Some of us, like myself, are very calm and cool and collected and never with not not much Others are a little more um a little more active in that way. and and because each of us are so different, we react differently to different stimuli.

[18:42] So, um it it's it's not easy. Uh I would say that was a tough part of this. It's not easy in the real world to always be in the state of mind you'd be in if you were sitting on the couch with a puppy on your lap. — Yeah. I when I think that's really good insight, Anthony. And the other thing that sparked in my head was just expectations, right? Like so much of our happiness and being just generally okay with things is are things hitting expectations. And so, you know, it makes me think we have a lot lower expectations for a dog than we have for a human, — So, I think that's great. John, — you know, Paul, don't don't jump off that too quick. I think what you just said, Randy, there's a lot of there's a lot of utility in that, right? Like if I lower my expectations of you, um it another way of saying that would be if I always assign positive intent or give you the benefit of the doubt like which is a core relationship skill by the way, right? when when we've talked about core relationship skills, core relationship skills lots of times, but giving someone the benefit of the doubt is a core relationship skill. And so, I don't know. I I just want to put a pin in that because I think that's something that if whether we do it for an animal or not is a great skill to have with humans in our life.

[20:07] — Yeah, absolutely. I think that's great. what let's get into the biology of this a little bit, John. And I I don't know that I prepped you for this, but but if if you think about when a dog greets you and they're all in and they're excited and they're happy and they're making eye contact and all of that, what what is happening biologically? Like what what is that doing to us? — Yeah. I mean, let me just start by saying I I don't know. You didn't prep me, but I'll guess. I think what happens is you probably have uh probably some serotonin that hits the brain, right? That's it's like a it's an immediate kind of positive impact. Uh which probably does some things hormonally like maybe it lowers cortisol or you know reduces uh other things that are causing stress in life probably changes breathing patterns to kind of reduce stress further. Um there's a lot of science about you know um you know the stress being relieved by animals which is why you see these emotional support animals on planes regularly. That's a whole another conversation for a different day. But I do think that uh animals can help people emotionally regulate which is a great thing. And so, um, I think there are people that don't get the maximum value out of that probably, but I mean the who doesn't want somebody to have, you know, unlimited positive regard for them.

[21:40] — Right. And so, assuming that that animal is not scared of you and that, you know, you've got a good relationship, I think you're going to see a lot of that. And so, um, that's a pretty cool thing to have. First thing, I like this Dr. John that's willing to guess. That's my first takeaway from this. Um my my second my second thing is when as you said that it made me think like yeah when I walk in the door and that dog comes up and he is so excited it really does melt away anything at least for a moment, right? It's like oh and you know I'm petting him and you know saying hello and it really does change change your state really quickly. — you know, it's interesting in some of the science around um romantic relationships, marriages, there's a talk about a connection in that same way. And I've heard therapists talk about like uh a long hug. And I can't remember if it's a six-second hug or a 20- second hug or whatever it was, and the Gotman's talk about the six-second kiss. I think those are similar types of impact if I had to guess since you like the guessing. um where it really brings you present in the moment, connected, loving. Like I think those are all things that are generally human connection or connection that are good for humans. Anthony, what would change if we treated everybody like this when they came in? We gave them a tail wagging happy, you know, the human equivalent of that when we greeted a person or what if, you know, the way that you you started at the beginning talking about your two-year-old granddaughter, if we treated everybody like that, like what what would that Well, you know, [clears throat] as I think as I think about it, the the what keeps coming in my mind is, you know, [snorts] when when that that that you come through the door talking about coming through the door and and where are your best relationships? You know, I've been with the same person in in my life for over 50 years. And what what bubbles up in my brain is the level of trust I have in my relationship is directly correlates to the amount of happiness I have in that relationship.

[24:00] When that that when you walk through the door that dog trusts that you are going to feed him, bathe him, water him, walk him and so forth. and your my my best and my biggest successes in my career have been centered around the trust I have in the product or in the people or in the building I'm in my commute all of those things the level of trust you have really is at the core of it so I think abundance gets created by trust you know if the the more the more you can trust like John and We would would have conversations in a business that we were in in the past of, you know, you really can't question someone's intent. Don't question the intent. Let's, you know, let's work through that. Let's assume that they're coming from a good place. Let's trust them and so on and so forth. Sometimes we got burned. Most of the times not. So, we it was it was an effort to trust, but it worked out in the end. And the other thing that comes up and again this goes back to a business John and I ran uh in the past and I apply it. It's a value right a core value is kindness.

[25:16] You know when you when you lead with kindness it's it's a it's probably the most influential tool that you can apply you know in a in a relationship. So you're you're not going to kick your dog. You're going to be kind to your dog. You're not going to kick your employees or you shouldn't be kicking your employees. You should be kind to your employees by doing that. You kindness begets kindness. And um that that's that's the perfect world. Now, we're not we're not all perfect. Sometimes you're going to yell at the dog when it pees in the corner and whatever, but in general, that dog can trust you to be kind. — I'll just leave it at that. — Yeah. It's, you know, it's interesting. When I was a kid, we had dogs and my dad's way of teaching them was more like beat their ass if they did something wrong, right? And and it worked. Eventually, the dog stopped doing that behavior and it figured it out. But I'm looking and now I think this dog is particularly smart. But we just gave him treats when he did the right thing. And it was it's unbelievable how quickly he picks things up. He's like, "Oh, I do this, I get a treat." Right? Um, you know, for me it was first, you know, take him outside to go to the bathroom and every time he does it, he got a little treat. Um, you know, Julie is more interested in, you know, having him lay down and shake and and things like that. But doesn't matter what it is, they learn it where you know this I think managing people right you're you're talking about I mean to go deeper down that I think there's a lot of power in that like giving them you know the carrot or you know you accomplish this and they they know they get a certain reward. I mean it doesn't have to be financial. It could just be an attab — Yeah. I'm going to jump out onto a limb here again and speaking to places I don't have a lot of expertise, but I'm going to try to bring some things together. Dog training, as I understand it, is a lot about um intermittent reinforcement that is kind of not regularly timed. Whereas the most healthy human relationships, I'm going to go back to the research on marriage that I'm familiar with. In a healthy marriage, you have 20 pieces of positive feedback for every one piece of negative feedback. And in times of conflict, you have five pieces of uh positive feedback for one piece of negative feedback. And I think those are probably pretty different in terms of how humans treat humans and how humans treat dogs. And I I again I I'm I'm making a pretty big leap here. But I think that there's a big difference that probably uh where we shouldn't kind of uh use it as a onetoone. But I think as an analogy, it's great. the the the reality is that people generally respond much better to positive reinforcement than negative reinforcement. I think that's true for dogs as well. So like if that's the level we're staying at, like thumbs up, I think I'm all on board. If it's like, hey, we should train humans the way we train dogs. I think then you're manipulating a relationship where there might need to be an even power dynamic for friends, for example, or a specific power dynamic between um boss and employee or parent and child that are really different than um animal and and master. So you gave the example 20 to one is a good relationship 5 to one positive to negative is a bad relationship. What do you think is — no? No relationship and conflict. I want to just clarify that.

[28:41] — Relationship and conflict. What do you think the average boss slashmanager slashowner whatever versus an employee what do you think that ratio is? I mean, you two you've advised, I don't know, a zillion businesses and I mean, you you've been around this your whole life, right? What do you think? — It's it's a lot closer to the conflict number than it is to the healthy dynamic number. And as a result of that, I think you have a lot of people who feel like they have conflict with their boss when maybe they don't have conflict with their boss. because bosses are wired in their minds in a lot of cases to fix problems um instead of keeping things on the rails. And you know, a mentor of mine once said like if you've got you know 2% of the things are problematic in your company and 98% are good and you talk 90% of the time about the things that are bad, you're going to get more problems. You're not going to get more good behavior. So you need to really do a better job of reinforcing the stuff you want. — And so I think that's really sage Um, it's not just about solving problems. It's about reinforcing the behavior that you want. Uh, by — I don't know about that. I don't know.

[29:49] Let's let's let me push on that a little bit. Just just using using two people that are probably as successful as anybody on on the planet. Um, Bezos and Musk. You know, we talked in one of our episodes about go to the red light. — Okay. Pause. Pause. Those people may be successful, Anthony, but they are terrible managers of people. Everyone knows it and both I don't know about Elon but certainly the people around Jeff Bezos told him that if he continued to manage the way he managed it he'd manage Amazon right out of business and so that's why you have people like the hold on the people like the Google people brought in Eric Schmidt for a period and they had a whole bunch of professional managers around them Steve Jobs had Tim Cook like you can go success story after success story the guy who's running Amazon now worked for Jeff Bezos and was a buffer between him and the business. So, we're talking about good relationships and good management. If you just had those guys without the professional managers as a buffer, I don't think you ever get those — Okay. So, I wasn't going where you just — Okay. Sorry. I I was a bad listener myself then.

[30:56] — Yeah, I agree with that. Um, [laughter] — it won't be the last time. what I where I was going was certain you know Bezos and Musk and good managers um want to know where the problems are in their businesses right they want they want to find the problems they don't they don't want to just hear about good news so the circumstance of that forces almost forces people to have a much you know a 5:1 or 3:1 ratio between you know, positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement, just the circumstances, the way you run your — Um that doesn't mean you shouldn't seek out and and um you know, find the opportunities to praise and so forth. You know, uh the the old sandwich that you know analogy um you know, two two pieces of good news centered around one not so good. Uh things like that. So, I just think, you know, the circumstances and if if you're as long as you're conscious of that, you know, and not just a, you know, um, a jerk about the way you run your business. I think it can it it's just, you know, the way the way it's going to be. You're going to you're going to be talking more about problems than you are going to be talking about the success.

[32:20] — Yeah. I don't know, Anthony. — I don't I don't think I — Yeah, I don't I don't agree with that. I don't I don't think talking about positive reinforcement is always about what's going well or what's going right. It can just be, hey, how are you? It can be anything that's a positive stroke, you know, psychologically for somebody. It doesn't have to be talking about you did great here, you did great there, you did great here, you did great there. It can just be a positive interaction. And I think that candidly managers who don't think that way are going to lose people in the future because you have a workforce today, the younger workforce in particular that's more tuned into this. And I just I just think that that the the way you're talking about it is a way of management thinking that is going to lead to poorer outcomes and — I I don't think you're hearing me, but let me try let me try come at it another — Sure. I don't I don't disagree with anything you said in in terms of the way manage the best managers um will find reason to um you know praise and to be positive and have a a bounce in their step in you know in their in their environment. The same thing in a family — you know if you know Randy talked about his dad and the way he he um trained his dogs that was the way my father trained — Yeah. Me too. you know, [laughter] and you know, — and my work here my work here is done.

[33:47] — I think you the the the prosecution — So So where where I was where where I'm going. So let's let's just use the example of, you know, 10 10 upbeat messages and one downbeat message. the me the the the the work that has to go into solving the issue around the downbeat message is far greater than the work that's going to go around after after the praise. So you're you're you're you're in an a difficult situation that's that you want to solve. So you're going to spend a much more time on that particular negative issue and that creates a difficult environment. I mean that's that's difficult. You know it in business it could be a really perplexing problem. It could be a competitive issue, a safety issue. It could be all kinds of things. And so you're going to spend a lot of time on that. And I agree with you because of that. You have to be aware of what you of you know the the five to one in reverse in terms of five minutes of work versus one minute of praise creates a tough environment to deal with. So you have to be aware of — Hold on. You just conflated something.

[35:06] It's not one minute to to 5 minutes and 1 minute to 20 minutes. It's interactions, right? So, it's like it's like just and and there's a lot of things you can do to give somebody a psychological stroke, an acknowledgement, whatever. And so, I've met many many managers throughout the years that have said to me, "Well, I pay their paycheck. It's their job to do their job." And that's just a fundamental miss. It's a fundamental miss about how to get somebody engaged and to keep them engaged. It's a fundamental miss about strong leadership. And so, um, I would say there are times that great leaders give um, corrective feedback in a way that comes off as a positive and doesn't create conflict in a psychologically safe environment. And I'm not talking about a coddling environment. I think anybody who's worked with me would tell you that I don't generally coddle people that I work with. U, but I I hope and you should, you know, people that I work with. You should ask them when I'm not in the room if it's a psychologically safe environment. And if they get more gratitude than they get correction, right? Um, so last week I had a correction with someone. We had to fix a situation. Nothing that someone did bad, but we had to fix a situation. And I went over I've been over backwards though. No, I was like, "Hey, look, I'm upset about the situation. I'm not upset with you. I want to correct this. I want to make you know so there was there was a lot of work done to make sure that there was just the right environment for the blamefree solution focused environment so we could both be free to lean into it without emotionally feeling protective — I I don't know that there's a — well I also think — go ahead Anthony — go ahead go ahead no what I was going to say is it you know the if in the right the right you know you're talking about the right environment right the the best way to do things. And it, you know, it really comes down to an envi creating an environment where people are um are free to express and they have the uh authority to take appropriate action when they're when they're that when there's an issue. You know, quoting Munger, Charlie Munger, you know, show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome. If you can get the incentives aligned, you can reduce the amount of times you have to be in conflict, right?

[37:26] Because the person already has the incentive to um to improve and and go find their own problems and solve them before they become, you know, too big and so forth. And so same thing in any kind of family environment. You know, — I also think this is — centers drive behavior. — I also think this is individualized. This isn't necessarily a one-sizefits-all. There are people — there are people that respond to the negative, right? And I know even me in my own things, — if 98% is going right and 2% is going wrong, I want to fix the 2% that's going wrong. So, as a manager or business owner, that tends to be where I lean. Like, that's a battle I have to not focus on the 2%. Um, so I want to come back. I'm going to ask how you guys I'm going to ask how you guys in the past have done how do you foster this environment in a business. Before we get to that though, um I have noticed the other big danger if you go negative all the time is it creates fear. People are scared to give their opinions. They're scared to improve. They're scared to take chances and and innovate, which I think is a real real problem. um versus encouraging that type of behavior, right? Um and I think some of that is been done before they worked in our companies. I think a lot of that's just after they get they're no longer your two-year-old granddaughter, people start shooting down ideas and telling them how why it won't work. So, I think they come to us broken a lot of times. But so how do you whether it's that creating that atmosphere where they can contribute or just how do you add more positive how do you treat them more like a dog that's happy to see them and give them great feedback? Um I mean what lessons have you guys learned over the years?

[39:28] up in a couple of autocratic uh businesses, you know, big companies it was all all about problems. It was almost never did was there any kind of celebration. And um John will attest to this over the years. If if you look at employee surveys of big companies, the um number one dissatisfier wasn't how much money they made. It was one, two, and three. Number one, I'm not recognized for what I do. Number two, you don't give me the tools I need to do my job. And number three was my income. That's that it was universal across I don't care what company you were working for in the 80s and 90s and early 2000s. That was those were the three top the top things. So that taught me a lot about empowerment, recognition, uh building teams, right? Um, you know, there's a wonderful Japanese saying that I can't um not can't do justice to it, but it translates roughly in English is to bring your problems into the sunshine. You know, I think the American version is sunshine is the greatest disinfectant. So recognizing we have problems, talking about them in a honest and productive way of of with the team, if you will, and that worked really well for me in my last company, having a team involved in the problem solving, whether it was one individual's problem or was a problem that, you know, found its thread through multiple departments that had to be solved and so on and so forth.

[41:12] Usually that's the case in business. A problem is not isolated to one one department. and it has an impact on more than one. So bringing the team together to help solve it, be aware of it, acknowledge it, — and then and then make decisions. You know, big companies, the big companies I was in, we had the same problem it seemed, every year, every quarter. We never seem to solve the damn thing, right? Because it was it's like a it was like a government, you know? Yeah. Oh, yeah. We got a problem. We got a healthcare issue. Okay. Go study it, you know? in small business, we're, you know, we're able to, okay, we got a problem. we better fix it or we're gonna be in, you know, we're not gonna make payroll. So, so, you know, and by having a team involved, um, and we used EOS as our model. I think you you guys use it, too. Um, that's how I that's how I approach it. And I I frankly I I apply that now in family life. we're there's a lot more um group think, if you will, or group involvement in decisions we're making, whether it's where we're going to live, how we're going to live, what vacation we're going to take, and so forth.

[42:27] 10, 20 years ago is up to me whether anybody liked it or not. So, you know, it's an evolution as well. — John, what what do you uh — Yeah, I think for me it started a lot more central to me in this one. Um, I was constantly focused on problems and I was firefighting all day long and I believed my job was to take out problems in the same way that a ski shooter took out the clay pigeon. And so that's all I focused on. And so when I realized that wasn't the right approach, I really started identifying what I was grateful for. And then I trained myself that as I thought what I was grateful for, I just let it flow out my mouth. So if I see it and I'm grateful for, I say it. So see it, say it, see it, say it. And I still am not perfect at that today, but I really try to like speak my gratitude far more often than I used to. And um I think this goes back to like the you know uh a guy named Gary Chapman's work. He started off with the love languages for marriages, but then moved into like what the love languages are at work. And one of those love languages is words of affirmation for some people, not me. And we tend to give what we want, right? So, I'm somebody who wants quality time, which is focus and attention and um is one of my top two or three and words of affirmation is one of my bottom two. And so, I've realized that a lot of people appreciate words of affirmation. So, I give them, give them, give them. And I find it works much better for me. So, I think for me it was about a learning about gratitude and b as soon as I registered the gratitude, learning how to get it out of my mouth so people could hear it. And that changed I think a lot for for the people around me I — Although I'm really curious now to know if that's true from people around me.

[44:11] — Well I I think the love languages thing that could be a whole a whole episode to itself and how to apply that. Uh let's wrap this thing up. I I just I'm going to leave listeners with a little thought experiment or take this. You know if you were going to treat people more like dogs, the positive aspect of it tomorrow, what would you do? What would you change? Uh, I challenge you to do that. If you don't know where to start, I would say, what if we just everybody we greeted, we greeted, we gave them 10 seconds of our, we're completely involved, we're completely present, we have eye contact, we've got a smile on our face, we're happy, we're encouraging, we compliment them. If you just did like try that for a week if just the first time you greet everybody. I mean, that that would be an interesting thought experience. See how it see what it changes. But uh listeners, as always, we appreciate. We couldn't do this without you. So download, subscribe, tell your friends, tell your neighbors, check out the website, talesofabundance.com. And uh that will be it until next week when we will dig further into abundance.

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