Greg Voisen
Well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. We're in for a treat today because joining us from Portland, Oregon is Andre Martin, PhD. Wrong Fit, Right Fit: Why How We Work Matters More Than Ever. Great book. Andre, how are you?

Dr. Andre Martin
I'm good. Greg, how are you doing today? It's good to see you.

Greg Voisen
Start off my day a little crazy. But it's settling in now that I'm with you. So that's good. I think sometimes when you get into the zone and the things that you do the most, it's always better. But for all of my listeners, I am going to let them know just a tad bit about you because they usually like to know. Andre Martin, as I said, the PhDs and entrepreneur, operating advisor, board member organizational psychologist and coach to top founders of C suite executives. He's already held C level leadership roles dedicated to talent, employee engagement, leadership, development and culture in some of the biggest consumer brands, including Disney Mars, Incorporated, Nike, Target, and Google. Early in his career, he was a senior faculty member and senior researcher at the Center for Creative Leadership that CCL Actually, there's one right here in La Jolla, California, one of the top executive development firms in the world. When he isn't helping companies create better workplaces, which is what we're going to talk about today. Andres, a guest lecturer at top universities and coveted speaker on culture engagement, design, thinking and innovation. He's a committed husband, father, to great children, owner of an and an owner of sustainable mushroom farm and Ozark Mountains, which that's a little tidbit for everybody. And when he's not doing what he's doing, which is for a living, he otherwise can be found out hiking, and the rain soaked trails around Portland, where he lives with his two English labs, Bodie and fawns, great names from the Fonzie. From the happy days era, yeah, and you can reach him at wrongfitrightfit.com That's where you can actually get more information about his company. His speaking has coaching his newsletter, the media. So again, wrong fit right fit. There's the book, you've got it, and that will have a link to that on Amazon. So we might as well dig right in, because this issue is something that I know my listeners have an interest in. I know that they would love to learn ways to transmute the problems. I don't believe always the problems are 100% fixable. But they got to figure a way to work with them somehow. And you mentioned the introduction of books that the stats from Gallup polls, first caught your eye, and it spurred the research for the book, we're talking about wrong fit, right that you said that a lack of clarity, consistency and transparency about the company's work principles, their practices, and that performed during the onboarding process is costing $7.8 trillion in lost productivity. And I want to repeat that for people because that's a big number. If it's costing 7.8 trillion, and I think right now our national debt is 27 or 30 trillion, right? That's a that's a pretty big percentage in comparison to that net, even though our whole national debt. So what are the three key dimensions or elements to finding more of a right fit versus a wrong fit? I mean, I know onboarding. I even tell my clients because I still do consulting. And I say that first 24 hours that you spend with a person is the most important 24 hours you've got because you're making a huge impression with them during an onboarding process.

Dr. Andre Martin
Yeah, for sure. Like I mean, we can even start there. You know, it's interesting. First impressions are formed within the first seven seconds of meeting somebody trustworthiness, trustworthiness is in the first 1/10 of a second. And once you set a first impression, guess how many times you need to see them again, to up in that seven or eight. And so those first impressions really do matter. And I think this sort of stems back even to the idea of the book, that number was 7.8. When I wrote it, it's $8.8 trillion now, and gallops latest estimate, and employee engagement has been unmoved over a decade for all our sort of investment in this space. And I think on one hand, you could say well, then the problem just isn't fixable. I'd say on the other end, I just don't believe we're looking at the problem the right way. And so, for me, when I think about just from a talent perspective, right, the very people in the middle of the organization doing all the hard work to, to make our companies great, there's three things that I really tell anybody to think harder about. The first one is think harder about who you are and what you're solving for. Right? Often, we jump into job searches and looking for our next role based on a job description. We don't do any really hard work to understand who we are, what we need, what we're solving for, and what actually makes a great company for us. But

Greg Voisen
But down in the heart, pardon me, but don't you think people do that I'm going to call HR out right now. Because of the scarcity of actual talent. And what is the engagement level? I was always told us around 23 27%. Now 30, or 32? Okay, so my question for you would be is, hey, you have an HR department, they've got to put part of me butts in chairs, which is a long way to look wrong way to look at it, I get it. But when they don't have those people, whether they're customer service people, sales people, middle management, people, factory workers, whatever it might be, they've got a big job to try and fill these spots. And I would say they're not always doing that internal work that you're talking about?

Dr. Andre Martin
No? Well, well, the company is certainly not doing it, and either are the individual. So I think this is where I look at this problem from both ends. And the book, which is on one side talent, we have to know ourselves a little bit better and not chase the bright shiny things that we know don't actually align to long term job satisfaction over time, things like better titles, more pay beyond a certain point, sexy brands, right, those things just aren't going to contribute. They're not what matters in our engagement in our day to day life. And then the company side, hey, I think we're all telling without malice, some pretty big untruths. I just saw a stat from resume builder.com. This week, that was 40% of managers admitted to lying during the interview processes 92% of talent they live to took the job. And the lies were in three main areas, they were in the role and responsibility, what you're actually gonna be doing on your job. They were about your chances to develop while you're at the company, and career progression, like so I look at that. And like, there's just things that gotta change on both sides. I

Greg Voisen
would say you're right, but that's pervasive. Pardon me, from my humble opinion, almost throughout society. You know, when somebody has sold something, they have a certain level of expectation. I just went through that this morning. And so I said, How are you is like, Hey, I was having a moment with a company, and a customer service person, more than a moment, that got escalated and escalated again, it's gone to the CEO of the company. My point is, is when whether you're an employee coming in to be hired, and you just said they lied about three areas, managers, managers, right, lied. Okay, just you just said outright lied. I'm gonna repeat the word. Because they didn't tell the truth. They weren't transparent about what was going on. That's got to be fixed.

Dr. Andre Martin
Yeah, Greg, it doesn't. And I think that's, that's the whole point behind the book, right is that is that it's not this, like, the great part about this topic is it is pervasive. And the second thing that's really important is it is fixable. It just requires us to decide to show up in a different way. And here's the things that really motivated me to write the book, right. The first one was, hey, we spent 13.5 of our, of our adult years at work every day, every second every month, 13.5 of those years, it's second only to sleep. And so the idea that we are willing to sacrifice all those years to be in a place where I mean, you look at the stats, 75% of the United States has Sunday scaries that means they actually fear going into work on Monday, you know, the number of people who are quiet quitting, who are going into work every day, sitting at their computer, and probably shopping on Amazon and doing as little as they possibly can. We're just bleeding productivity. And in the end, you know, it both hurts us as individuals, because we're just not getting better. We're not fulfilled, we're not doing meaningful work. It also hurts us as consumers, and I've heard societies as large. So I'm just sort of looking at this from pay. It's not that it's not pervasive, it's not that it's not been in our world for 10 years, it has been here a long time. It's just that there are simple things we can do to just make life a little bit better, which is what I think you're dedicated to and so mine so

Greg Voisen
so like it. You mentioned in the book, that the premise of the book is really simple, and it is as if talent can Find right fit companies. Okay, we just said that the companies were lying. So maybe that bit that might be hard right there, because I would hope they'd be telling me the truth. And the roles more often than less of their creative energy would go to context, and coordination costs and more to the craft. I agree. Because what I just said this morning about my issue, if you don't train people on the job, to actually do an efficient job of just as a customer service here, you're gonna get this gap, right. So what would you tell top management right now of any organization out there that's listening to this podcast today? To create a culture where they're always looking for right fits now? Telling them and having them do it are two different things, then my next thing would be is what would you inform them about how simple it is to actually do?

Dr. Andre Martin
Yeah, so I'll start with the four things I tell them do. The first one is you have to start recruiting with authenticity. Right? We need to start telling people what the random Tuesday morning in December is gonna look and feel like when they walk through the door instead of selling them on some unreal aspiration, because we're afraid they're not going to join because here's the deal, Greg, is, this is what always surprised me. I'm like, you look at all these career websites, all these managers who are without malice lying, because they're trying to get talent to come. I'm like, they're gonna find out anyway. Like, they're gonna find out the minute they walk in the door. So why would you want to sell them something that isn't true only to have them hit the first day, and instead of their engagement, skyrocketing up, they realize that they might have been lied to at worse, or at best, it just doesn't feel like they thought it was going to so there's this mismatch of expectations, I think we got to start avoiding by being a little bit more truthful. Secondly, is we got to onboard them better. Right. So every time we hire a new person into the company, they bring all their wonderful brilliance and technical skill, the other thing they bring is all their ways of working from all the other companies they've been at. And unless we reset that, we tell them, hey, this is our special sauce, this is the way we do work, this is the way we make things happen. They're gonna bring in their own stuff, and then we're just gonna get really chaotic. So the second thing is we got to stop rushing through onboarding, right, we treat it like, hey, let's get them through here, through some slides on a board, tell them what systems are using, get them in a seats that they can do their job, it's like, they're just not going to feel connected, and they're not going to be able to do that job really well. The third thing is, you got to really recruit people every day. You know, the, like, social media has been a great gift in many regards, the internet, everything else. The big drawback is, is that now I can look up, and there's somebody out there on social media who looks like me, has a similar job than me. And their life looks a heck of a lot better than mine does. And so like I'm looking, they're going, hey, the grass might be greener. Maybe I shouldn't be here, maybe I should go look over there. And what we have to do as companies is re recruit them every day, we used to be able to hire them getting a computer, put on their desk and let them go now we're, we run the risk of losing them pretty quickly, just because they're seeing greener grass out there. Whether it's true or not. I think the last one is you got to do that through four key questions. Every employee should know four things about the company and should be reminded of every day. The first one is Why is the world better than the Senate? What is our purpose? What makes us really important? That makes my job important? Secondly, is how do we get work done? Right? How do we socialize solve problems, kickoff team meetings, give feedback, all those things. Third one is, how do we make money? Right, so fewer people understand how their companies make money. And the last one is, what's our promise to you? What are we giving you in return for you being here, and I think if we just reminded people that more often, they'd, they'd stick around a little bit longer, they'd be a little bit more fulfilled, and they'd probably be higher engaged than they are today.

Greg Voisen
I, you bring up an important point, you know, this, this show covers business and personal growth. That's two of the genres. And the personal growth element always reminds me back of our own personal responsibility. Now, I'm not saying the company isn't responsible to a certain degree. But if we're going to go into a job, and they gave us a job description, and maybe it was a reach for us, maybe this wasn't quite the, the job Exactly. But where do you hit this point where you have to find people who are willing to push the limit of their own personal growth, maybe not so far out of their barriers, but at the same time feel a little uncomfortable when they wake up in the morning, go, Hey, I took that job and it's really making me grow. Right? And and I'm asking this question of you because this coin has two sides. Does it us individually, and it's the company that you're being hired by?

Dr. Andre Martin
Yeah, well, you know, one of the things we talked about in the book, Greg is, is often we find ourselves in these hard fit environments, these places that maybe the company doesn't quite work for us, maybe it's not quite right. And we often start to get in a victim mentality, right. And once you're in that victim mentality, all your creative energy, it's going to managing negative emotions, it's going to creating stories that are protective, to allow you to, to cope. It's, you know, trying to just gear up to get to work. And what I always tell people is, hey, you know, from my days at Senator crave leadership, all their work on lessons of experience that leaders learned the greatest is hardships. Right? Only half were only if we're able to do two things. One is to admit that we have a part to play in it. Right that relationships are 5050. And secondly is that we have the tools to be able to reflect and walk in, able to learn and take away things that will inherently change us make us more resilient, allow us to do better work. And, you know, getting back to your point, even if you're the wrong fit experience doesn't mean it can't be meaningful to your career. Right, it just means you have to change your orientation to it not become a victim, because then it will stop you you'll be less competent, less competent, you'll be more stressed, your life will start to unravel a little bit. If you can stay in that learning mindset. Those experiences can be really, really profound. You

Greg Voisen
have to be a continual learner, I think you have to be willing to stretch yourself, if that makes you be uncomfortable that uncomfortableness is actually creating growth, you will grow into it. And I think that's an important point. And that brings us to this, this whole ever increasing movement of talent due to great resignation. You know, are you given up too early? Right? I don't want to be the contrarian. But let's face it, these jobs aren't all cushy. And I may sound a bit old school, but the reality is until you get into them, and you start working in them at the bowels of the job itself, meaning Hey, well, that wasn't written in the job description. That's not my job. I'm like, What the hell it's not your job. Your job is to basically help this company, like you said, one be a great place to work to have it earn the kind of revenue or margins it needs to earn. So this resignation, could you speak with us about the current trends and how these trends are affecting the search for talent? Because it's almost like, I'm not saying they're searching for a needle in a haystack. Yeah. But you know, you see people leaving jobs and then going find another one, and then they go, Well, that one wasn't so good. And we're gonna go to another one. And I get the generation behind me, was used to just like switching jobs pretty frequently, right? It's like, I think they said, People my age, maybe we had four jobs three or four. Now they're saying people of the generations to behind me maybe have 30 jobs? Like a serious

Dr. Andre Martin
I read the latest results I've seen is is, you know, they're saying it could be five companies 17 jobs in a career, which is a ton. Hey, I'd say Greg, is you're bringing up one of the fundamental points, I think we miss in all the great resignation work, right? That piqued back in in COVID, or right after COVID. But it's still really pervasive, the number of people I saw on monster.com stat, and it blew me away. That said, 95% of the people on their network on their job site, I was looking or looking for planning look for job in 2024 95%. Right. I mean, that's just like, everybody's got their head up, you know, again, back to the original ideas. You know, everyone has FOMO fear of missing out someone is doing something cooler than what they're doing. They're infinitely browsing, right? Everybody has their head up, even when they join a new company, they're still looking for work. And I think the other trend that's really interesting to me is this idea of, I think, what we're missing, and I'd say this to every new generation coming in the workplace, and even those that are in mind, I'd say there's an unforeseen untalked about cost of job hopping that you have to account for. Right. And that is this every time you move companies hot jobs, three things happen universally. The first one is you set your social network back to zero. Second one is you set your reputational network, at least within that new company back to zero, right? Nobody knows you. You're an unknown quantity. You got to build all that back up again. Third thing is she got to learn a brand new way of working brand new way to set strategy manage conflict, prioritize, give feedback, develop, work, your calendar, your relationship with time, all those things that make up work on a day to day basis. And when I tell everybody that I'm like hate before you jump, before you jump, just realize once you do, the next 12 months of your year, is gonna is gonna be going to the transition Not to your craft. So you as everyone else, that state is getting better at what they do. You're getting better job hopping. Right? Just be really careful about that. I think we don't talk about that enough. We don't talk why?

Greg Voisen
I think unless Andre, people are becoming free agents, you know, at some point, they're like, Hey, I'm going to be an entrepreneur myself, you know, you see that happen a lot. I don't know how many transition out you probably have the stats. When people were in businesses, it was complete misfit and they went screw it, I got an idea. I'm gonna go run with it. And I'm going to try it, or I'm going to become a free agent and work for several different companies in between how much of that crap is gonna not crap? I think it's actually great to be honest with you, because I'm an entrepreneur. So for me, I'm like, Okay, that's good. You know,

Dr. Andre Martin
I hear if I was running a large company right now, Greg, I'd be doing two things. I think first and foremost, like I said, I'd be really authentic and in a realistic job preview for everybody. I'd be saying, if you're coming to work minutes, I wouldn't talk to you about a job, Greg, I'd say, Hey, here's the way that we get work done. Is this you're kind of crazy. Do you work like this? If so? Then you know what, that's fantastic. Next thing I'd asked you is, I'd say, Hey, Greg, we have these three gaps in these capabilities. We need better marketers, we need more financial acumen and I need someone who can do really great manager development. Do you do any of those three things? If so, I've got these three projects that I need done this work? Does this kind of work light you up? If you? If you said yes to all of those? I would hire you second? Because you can do anything for me. So that's one I think. Secondly, is we got to start recognizing the importance of side hustles. In society, right? I think you're I think a lot of people are leaving corporate America, they're doing free agent work. They're doing side hustles, they're doing that thing. And I'm like, God, I just want your creative energy in the company. Right? So actually, the cost of me letting you work your side hustle, it provides something back to the company inherently because you're finding meaning you're following a passion, you're doing stuff. I remember being at Google, one of the things we did in our team at Google, we had a learning system, where any employee could create a learning program for anybody else at Google. And the reason we did this, because we're like that creative energy is gonna go somewhere, instead of going outside of our company, let's just, you know, let's let you do it here. And we had 10,000 People who created random courses followed their passion, and they were amongst some of the most engaged in the company. And so I just think you know what, you're right. We're becoming free agents. I think from a company standpoint, we've got to figure out how to allow those things to exist, and not treat them like they are in some way running counter to the to the company because you retain more people over time.

Greg Voisen
Very important point. And that brings me to this because what we've talked about so far leads up to this, you know, there's courses at NYU, and I think even at Harvard, and obviously at Stanford, around happiness, there's this courses on happiness. And when these pre grads are taking these courses, literally, they claim their lines out the door, meaning they can't they, they want more happiness. So we everyone is seeking a level of happiness, whether I'm working inside of a company now or I'm seeking a job. And you said the average person, which you said is 113,880 hours during work in a lifetime. Okay. I thought that was a pretty interesting amount of time. You said that worked out to be 13 years, so right? About 13 years. So can you speak with us about the psychological barriers to fit? And in particular speak about the cognitive dissonance, right, that gap issue and how this affects our happiness in the workplace, because we just talked about it up till now. The reason people go to become free agents, as you're not happy doing where they're doing it, and they figured they'd be happier if they went out on their own. I will tell them, not all the time. Is that the case? Right? It's really hard. It isn't easy being an entrepreneur, but it can be incredibly rewarding. So if you're looking for the reward, I think it's there. As far as it being something Oh, I'm just gonna pop out on my own and I'm gonna go do whatever. I'd say give it a second thought.

Dr. Andre Martin
Okay, great. Here's where I'd start with that is is you know, I think the first thing I would say is around cognitive dissonance. What happens to us is an offering this real simply, if there's a decision we want to make, like let's say, I want to decide whether I'm going to be a free agent or take a job. There. There's an entire sphere of truth that will help me make the right decision. Right, there's all kinds of factual information I could gather and find. What happens though is if I'm motivated to make a decision, our focus narrows, and we only pay attention to information that confirms the decision we want to make. It's a total bias. So that confirmation bias, what's really dangerous in the job search is, you know, we'll see a really cool brand, we'll see a really great job title, we'll see a bump in pay, and we already make a lot of money. So it's just 10% more. And those things, those causes go, Oh, my God, that's the job I want. And so we don't pay attention to all the things that erode engagement or make it really difficult. Same things people go out on their own, I see it every day, like someone's like, I'm gonna go be an entrepreneur, and they don't look at all they see is their buddy who's made, you know, X amount of selling his company. And they, they don't realize that, hey, that was 10 years of real hard work that that guy lived almost the poverty line, right, because it's just a grind. And so I think one of the things that we have to really step back and do again, is, is understanding what you're solving for. And that's where, you know, in my excursions, I have all these really practical exercises in the book, one of them is about values, right? The values, I think I hold are very different than the ones that come to life in, in really big decisions. So I'll give you a personal example. Alright, so I like to believe that, um, you know, as an entrepreneur, I'm an innovator, I'm a risk taker, like, these are values that I actually have. And if my wife was in here, she'd laugh, because she's like, Hey, if you look at your last three big decisions, buying our last house, you know, moving to San Clemente, the places my kids went to school, you know, the three things that matter to me universally and big decisions. It's security, and safety, and financial stability, and my family. And that's all everything else does. So one of the things that I really tell people, Mike, do the hard work to get clear about what you value what you're solving for, and don't lose that, as you get attracted by some of these jobs, or start being motivated to make a decision. Because in the end, the more it aligns to your values, how you work, what you're solving for, the better chance, a hard job becomes that much easier. Well,

Greg Voisen
and also, the greater the level of your happiness. You know, you talked about purpose a few minutes ago, I think that most entrepreneurs like you, and I, first off, we start, we're very curious. And if we set a purpose, and we have a purpose in life, for what we want to do, we're very clear about that. And then after we have that purpose, we set goals. And then we set proximal goals, to reach that, because we have a vision for what it is we're trying to do. And I, I really want to say to people that are listening, that doesn't mean you can't be employed by somebody and still have that same thing, right? Versus being an entrepreneur, and happiness is a big deal. So you talked in the book about these eight foundational questions that we should be asking ourselves, if we're attempting to find the right fit. Okay. And this could be the questions for even entrepreneurs saying the right fit, right? Speak with us about what you refer to as the excursions because the whole book has a section excursion one excursion to and by the way, he's got real life stories in there, too. So each one of these before these chapters, there's real, and I didn't focus on those stories, in particular, for this interview, I really want to get to the meat and potatoes, but I think those stories help to ground it. So I just want to let the people know that you've put stories in there.

Dr. Andre Martin
Yeah, Greg, I appreciate the books actually based on 110, some interviews with successful folks around the world in a variety of different stages in their career about this idea of wrong fit, right fit. So those stories are really an important part of all the content. The excursions were important to me, because one thing that came up in all those interviews when I asked anybody to say, hey, what's the one thing you wish you would have done? That might have made a difference in you not ending up in this wrong fit experience? Almost universally, they all said, I wish I would have done a little bit more self reflection, before I open that first job ad advertisement. And so these excursions are meant to build on each other. And they're really meant to allow anybody to get super prepared around what they're solving for and what they want the first excursion I mentioned about what do you actually value in big decisions? Not what do you wish you valued? Right, which is something we get caught in? Second one is how do you like to work? Right? How do you like to do things like socialized ideas, how do you like to get feedback? How do you want to be developed? What kind of life do you want from a time standpoint? Right? So those kinds of things that matter in the day to day area of work. The third one is, may

Greg Voisen
I ask you a question insert here? Sorry for interrupting? No, that's okay. You said something that just pinged with me. And I was like to ask the question, when I haven't mind, there seems to be an avoidance for doing deep self reflection. Yeah. Because they're either going to uncover something they don't want to know about, because they're running from it. It's in the rearview mirror, it's in the trunk of the car, it's not in front of them. What would you say as somebody coming from a psychological background, without getting too deep here, about people who are avoiding to actually even ask those questions? And what what tips would you give them and say, Hey, this might be something that could change your life?

Dr. Andre Martin
Yeah, Craig. I mean, this has been what I've been in, in my career for 25. Some years now. And and everyone asked me the question, like, what are the most important leadership qualities for people to have? And it's funny you mentioned, because I start with two. I'm like, the first one is deep self reflection, you should literally on a daily basis, be looking yourself and it goes back to my early days at the Center for Creative Leadership. They're one of the foundational leadership development firms in the world. And their biggest body research was this idea of, of lessons of experience. And I won't tell you about the research. It's fascinating. But what they found was this is that everybody has the same key events that happen to them. Right? We have turnarounds, we have hardships, we have mentors, we have development problems, we have all these things that happen to us. And we all have the same key events, the difference between leaders that go from hero to zero, that is they Rise, Rise, Rise, and then they just fall off a cliff versus those that put them in any context, they're always going to succeed. The fundamental difference was that that second group of leaders, takes key events and turns them into lessons of experience. The way they do that is through this deep self reflection they do. That's one skill. And I think the second one is, is really all around that idea of curiosity. Your job as a leader and a person is to find the best idea not to have it not to repeat it not to continue to do one thing over time. It's that curiosity. And, and those excursions were important to me because they you know, I look at a world right now, where I'm like, the world isn't built for anybody to reflect on anything. We're running around with our hair on fire. We're, you know all about these dopamine hits in social media, nobody stops, takes three steps back, opens their eyes really wide and says, What the heck just happened to me?

Greg Voisen
Well, that's because, you know, I'm joking. But that's the reason they're walking into polls, because they're literally texting somebody or texting them in their car. Or

Dr. Andre Martin
the the extreme is like falling off cliffs when they take selfies yeah, we're just, we're just not as aware anymore. And, and searches.

Greg Voisen
And I'm not perfect. You and I are not perfect. You know, we've had our own things. But the key here is awareness. You know, there's, I follow Buddhism a lot and part of self realization fellowship. Paramahansa Yogananda, all my listeners know that the reality here is, the biggest thing that can happen is to wake up and be aware of what you're doing to yourself. Right? And then why are you doing it? Why what is that distraction for? What are you missing that you need to get more of in your life? And this brings me to this question around the the estate, there are over 18 cognitive biases that get in the way of making a big decision, and might influence right or wrong, right fit or wrong fit decisions. If you would speak to the listeners about these biases, not all 18 of them, but a few of them, and what we can do to become more aware of them again, there's that word aware, because I think subconsciously unless people are going to a hypnotherapist, which I actually do. You have a hard time getting into the subconscious mind and really figure out what's going on. Right? And those biases, whether you believe it or not, you either coexist with them, or you change them.

Dr. Andre Martin
Yeah, Greg, you're right. So these, you know, these biases, there's 18, there's probably more than that. But these are sort of the 18 most popular, they fall into four categories. First category is social biases, those things that we sort of first impressions are a great example. You might bias you know, there's no information really your the way that you dress and your voice will be two of the biggest predictors of my first impression of you. Then they're short term. Those things that happen in just split seconds. There's financial biases, and then the category that really comes into play in the work space is these failure to estimate biases. This is where confirmation bias is Another one of my favorites in a job search is the gamblers fallacy. Right? This this bias is all about this idea that, that past events actually impact the probability of something happening in the future. And it just isn't true, right? It's the thing that we were like standing a roulette table, and you're like, it's been read, read, read, read, read, it's got to be black. Right? Or you look at it this way, you're like, I've had a forfeit, I've had a wrong foot, wrong foot, wrong foot job, the next one has to be right. And it's like, that's just not, it's not the way the world works. And so you know, these biases are important, because if you can recognize that they exist in the world, you can actually do things like the excursions, that shortcut that biases, right, the more I know about myself, before I started job search, the less likely I'm going to get attracted by bright shiny things, or the gamblers fallacy that leads me to a place that just isn't gonna work for me over the long term.

Greg Voisen
I think those are great. I mean, you bring up great points, you obviously didn't cover all 18. So for my listeners, go get the book, then you can read about all 18 of those biases. And, you know, I recently co authored a book called the precipice of life. And I was honored to actually interview 18 mountain climbers who climbed all the highest seven summits in the world. And one of my questions was, we're talking about this, when it comes down to risk. I want to I want to make this because sometimes you have to take a risk in life. Okay. And like your wife said, Well, if I was sitting in the room, oh, all those decisions is most important decisions you made were based around safety. So here's a group of people. And I make this point that they said, you're not fully alive until you're facing death. Now, they don't mean that literally. But in essence, if you're not pushing yourself, you're not fully living. Now, this is their opinion, although I believe there's a truth to much of their opinion, which is, you know, you've been given a short time on this planet, why not make the best of it, whether you believe in reincarnation or not, and we're getting into the spiritual stuff, why not make the best of it. So maybe take a little bit more risk, take a take that job, which is going to make you stretch, and really go into it with you wanting to grow personally grow and show people the talent you have and the crash you have and the creativity you have. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. And in the interview process, here's where we come down, you said these people were lying. You mentioned that we usually try to be a best fit for the job, because we're like, oh, we're gonna just come into this thing. And we're going to tell them what they want to hear, right? Because that's really what goes on during a job interview, the interviewer is trying to basically find out what your talents and skills are, whether or not you're the right person for the right job. But in this in this area, what are some of the questions we can ask? Because most people are afraid? Okay, I'll tell you to ask the kind of questions that you said in the book they should be asking to be, and in this case, to allow our true selves, I'm going to underline true selves to actually show during the interview process. So one for you, Dre, why we shouldn't be afraid to why we should ask those hard questions. And three, what's that interview going to go like for us? And are we really doing the right thing? Because we're going to walk out of there going, Oh, my God, I think maybe I blew it because I asked them pretty hard questions of the interviewer or,

Dr. Andre Martin
yeah, so so. So why should we do it, the reason we should do it is because at some point, you're going to work at the company. And if your way of working doesn't fit, there's, your job is going to be harder, your days are going to be longer, and your life's going to be less and less fulfilling over time. So the reason that you should be authentic is because that helps the company make a choice about whether or not you're a good fit. Right? The more you show who you are, the more they can go, Oh, you are gonna love it here because every company has a success profile of the kind of person that works. And I'll tell you, Greg, I've worked at all these great companies and Nike works a very different way than target works a very different way than Google works a very different way than bars and the kinds of people that that are successful in those companies. They're just different profiles, because it takes different skills to be able to be your best. They're not technical skills, soft skills. And so I think that first thing is, be who you are. Talk about how you like to get work done because it helps the company make the right choice for them. And for you. that's job number one, I think secondly is is getting interview processes you typically get in an hour long interview about five minutes to ask question. Right. So where's the last five minutes? Hey, I'll wait Some time for you to ask a question. They end up going a long time. And then you get like one question. And we often we often throw a softball, right? We throw this question out that's like, Hey, we love about working there. Or you know, what's been your favorite thing? And for me, I'm like, Hey, take that moment, and ask them, and ask them that's going to help you. And you can do in a way that's respectful. One of my favorite questions is, talk me about a real person who's joined recently, and has been a tremendous success. Tell me about who they are, how they were, how they showed up what they do in their first 90 days, super helpful, hey, or the other one is, tell me about your typical day tell, like read me your calendar tomorrow and tell me what's happening in your life that tells you a lot about how the company thinks about time and meetings, and all those kinds of things. These are questions that are generative, and every hiring manager I've ever talked to, including myself will tell you the people that asked you hard questions. They actually tend to be more attracted, not less. Yeah, yeah, higher, we're hiring somebody that's willing to tell the truth to power often. Now, we might not like it all the time. But in the end, we're trying to get someone that's going to have a point of view. And so I think in the book, there's, there's seven or eight questions in there, that can be really powerful. The other thing I'll say is, if you're not comfortable asking them in the interview, there's other strategies, one of my favorite is go over to LinkedIn. Find someone who's worked at the company you're interviewing at, and was there for about three years, three to five years, so they really know the company. And the last thing is, is they recently left? Right? Because then they're gonna be willing to tell you a little bit more truth about just what it's like to work there and ask them questions about really what it's like in the book, you know that you talked about this assessment? I've 55 questions around how work gets done in a company, just use some of those to ask them about how things get done. And and you'll find in those answers, whether or not that sounds really interesting to you, how

Greg Voisen
do our listeners, how do our listeners get access to that fit? Assessment? Well, it

Dr. Andre Martin
is in the book, and in 2024, we'll be putting a version of it out online as well. So they can they can check it out there. So right now they can they can pick it up in the book.

Greg Voisen
Okay, so yeah, you've got the assessment in the book. And for my listeners, if you get the book assessments in there, you can take it. And it really tells you based on the scoring, if this is a right fit or a wrong fit, right, because you're gonna go through these 55 questions. Now, Drew, you said a few things became abundantly clear about fit. First, not all right, fit experiences start off that way. And I would say that's true. And how can we make the hard fit experiences? feel right? So if it wasn't a perfect fit? What would you tell somebody listening right now who maybe is not in a perfect fit, that they should be reflecting on?

Dr. Andre Martin
I think first Great, I'll tell you, like, there really is no such thing as a perfect fit. You know, organizations and companies are organic, they're changing and shifting and moving all the time. And one of the things I tell people, like, Hey, this is great, if you're looking for a job, it's actually great if you're in a job, right, I do these exercises and work in this book every quarter to just make sure like, I'm still in a place that's feeding me as in as meaningful. And so, you know, when you think about this idea of, hey, you've joined a company or you're in like a hard fit, it's not perfect, you just want it to feel a little bit better. Instead of going and looking for a job, we put in a whole chapter two chapters on buffers, right? These things that you can do to help make your days at work just a little bit better. And I'll give you a couple of them, right? There's inspirational buffers. And then there's relational ones. Inspirational buffers are things like hate and make sure every day you're connecting to a customer, of your company. Right? If you if you can connect to a customer see the value get to know them, you tend to have a lot more energy to do hard things. Right. So a lot of us because our jobs are so narrowed, and they're so behind the house, we never are in contact with the customer. And you don't have to call somebody but there's plenty of stories out there that allow you to connect. So that's one from an inspirational side. I think secondly is in the book, there's this matrix on work, I always tell people, like try to find work that does two things. One is it's high impact. That means it's really important to the company's success. And it's meaningful to you. That is it's something that you care about. And if you can find a couple projects that are in that vein, that can be super helpful. On the relational side. There's two things that really stood out from the interviews. The first one was a best friends at work matter. Oh, yeah. If you have them, it just it makes all the difference. I think the second one that came up that was really interesting to me was this idea of if you're struggling a little bit, find your workplace doppelganger, right so a doppelganger is a person that you know, they say everyone you know out in the world has a twin. Someone who looks like them that you're not related to. The doppelganger work is a little bit different. Um, what I tell people I'm like, find somebody who has the same experiences as you you do. They have maybe a similar job at a similar level, you know, you guys have the same sorts of backgrounds and education, except your difference on one factor, you're struggling. And they're happy as a clam. Because what that tells me is, maybe your issue isn't the company you're working at. It might be that you're under the wrong leader, it might be that you're on a dysfunctional team, it might be that the project that you're on is just not working really well. Because if someone who is your doppelgangers in this company is happy, there's a good chance you can be too. And it's just more about finding out how, as opposed to lead, jumping ship and going somewhere else.

Greg Voisen
Or you might need your own attitude adjustment. That

Dr. Andre Martin
could possibly be Hey, you know, here's the deal. We've been under stress for a long time, I just read this great book on burnout that basically says burnout isn't about having too much on your plate in a given day. Yeah, burnouts actually about us not going all the way through the stress cycle, to reconcile the things that happen the past. And so what's happening is we just keep building up this, this sort of sense of stress that has a lot more to do with things that have already happened versus the things that are happening now.

Greg Voisen
I think that's absolutely right. Although people avoid that. Again, they do. Again, they do because they associate pain. Well, there is pain with it. Let's face it, the question is, is how do you mitigate the pain and the more you do it, the less pain there is associated with it. So yeah, the first first, second, third, fourth, maybe up to the 10th time, there's going to be pain? The question is, is how quickly can you shake it off? And how can I get back into a sense of normalcy and calm and a peaceful state to do what you've got to do if it was an upsetting situation? So I think that comes around your practices? You know, do you meditate? Do you contemplate? Or do you have a grateful gratitude journal? Do you journal at all? Do you do all these kinds of practices that are available for free to everybody? You know, do you go to a yoga class, I don't care what it is something that gives you this opportunity to expand your ability, as you said, to take stress in your life. Okay, all of those are stress expanding practices, not stress reducing access, they are stress reducing, because it's allowing you to reduce it at the time, but it's also the ability to deal with very impactful situations easier. Now, you've got a lot of listeners out there. Some of them were gonna say, okay, Andre, it was a great interview, I want to take some actions on some of this that you've spoken about, especially when trying to find the right fit. What would you say? And what are some of the steps that they could take to find the right fit? I thought your idea a second ago, actually, if all people got out of it was to go to LinkedIn and find somebody who worked for the company, and then ask them questions about why they're happy and why maybe you're not. I think that that is a good one, or why they left? And what were the reasons they left? That was a that's a really good one. So tell me if you would, what were some of those actionable ideas that you could leave our listeners with? Yeah,

Dr. Andre Martin
tomorrow, I'll leave you with one is, and we talked about it, but it's worth repeating, again, is, is do deeper self reflection, whether you're looking for a job now or you're in a job, the more we sort of spend time thinking about what we're solving for, and how much our current situation matches that the better off we are. I mean, again, one of the excursions in there, Greg, I'm like, Hey, think about your life five or 10 years from now, what do you want it to look like at depth, and then ask yourself is the current thing that you're doing, getting you a step closer or step further away from that, and often we don't do that we don't worry, it's short term decisions into the context of longer term aspirations. And that can be super helpful. Like the second thing I'd say to people is, is realize that there is a cost to moves and transitions. And make sure as you're thinking about a job move, to balance the scales, there's all these great things about a new job. It also has a ton of cost. And so is that sort of really worth it to make that move. I think the third thing I would say is, is hey, if you're in a job, whether you're remote or otherwise, build a really strong community, find a best friend, find a doppelganger. Find mentors that are outside of your of your current situation, connect to the customer, the more or you can create a more networked environment that easier hard things are. Right? It's just true. And last but not least, is just realize there isn't a perfect fit. Everybody has to fit in, in some way we have to shift and move and change who we are. The whole point of the book is saying, the fewer factors you have to fit in, you have to change the way that you work. My analogy in the book is riding with your non dominant hand. Right? Every, every time we work in a way, that's not sort of natural to us, it's like riding with a non dominant hand. But our quality's terrible, it's stressful, it's hard, because me frustration, I lose confidence. And so just know that you want to find places that sort of work the way you work in as many ways as possible. And there's places where you got to fit in. Last really practical piece of advice is, whether you're in a right fit today, best right fit you've ever had or wrong fit. Both of those are powerful learning experiences, do self reflection, right, know how to really process key events, because the end of the sentence is life's the greatest classroom on Earth, Greg, you don't need to go to Harvard, or Stanford or anywhere to learn. I mean, I just am blown away by life every single day. And if you can build that sort of nature of being in a learning mindset, every single day, no matter what life's throwing out, you're just going to be stronger, more resilient, more capable, and you'll be more successful over time. But that is a practice and a set of skills you got to build because a lot of people have lost that ability.

Greg Voisen
Well, every one of those points you made, is something that we all need to take into consideration, you know, and one of them you made was your network. And what I would say for me, and hopefully the listeners is, the more people you can call on, who have either been through the same thing that you're going through, or have maybe a degree of excellence or knowledge that you don't have, don't be afraid to ask and say, hey, you know, I'm in this situation, what bit of advice now, that doesn't mean you have to like, take their advice, and just go great, you know, this guy had the best thing, I think you need to ask four or five or six people. And then you're able to reflect on what they said and what you're thinking. And it becomes, you know, you say, decision making, it's like, think about when you buy a car? Well, I personally, I just bought a Tesla, right? I mean, literally, I've had it a week. So by how many people that I talked to, who bought them before I actually bought it, right? How many people that I talked to who bought solar before I put solar on my house, too, right? I based my decision on the experiences that the other people had had, before I bought the product, there's no difference in a job, you're going to take a job, find somebody who has a job that's kind of either in that company or like that company or whatever, and talk to them. And I think it will make you if one thing we'll do emotionally, I'll just say this. It makes you feel better about your decision. Whether it was right or it was wrong, it makes you feel better. And when you feel better, it doesn't feel wrong. Right? Because we're looking for confirmation. We're kind of always looking for confirmation. Yeah. Any last words on that? Or did I just know,

Dr. Andre Martin
I know you didn't slow it. I love it. I mean, I think we're I think we're always looking for confirmation that the decision we made is a good one that can come from people, it can come from us looking back into our own experiences. It can come from us reflecting on what am I solving for right now. Because again, sometimes a job is just a job. Right? Sometimes you're solving for a lot of other things. I've got two kids in college, I have to make a little bit of money to afford the life that I have right now. So my job is just, hey, sometimes the job is just a job. And as long as I know why I'm doing it, right, it makes being in it or doing it just that much easier. So I think that's part of what we can do is just look for confirmation, that it's something that you're looking for in the future, something that you need right now, or something that someone you care about. And trust, believes it's important, and it'll make the day a little bit easier.

Greg Voisen
And I remember this interview with Steven Kotler not that long ago. And he said, you know, if you look at your biases, because we talked about him here. He said, think about it. What kind of magazines do you read? What kind of social media to go to look at your bio? Now, if you flip the coin, he said, have you read an Architectural Digest? And I'm like, No, I don't ever look at Architectural Digest. He said, Well, if you're going to expand your consciousness about something and become more aware, why don't you just read something that's completely diametrically out of the realm of who you are and what you were doing? And I got thinking about that. I was like, wow, that's a pretty interesting idea to just like, Hey, maybe I should read a car on sports, you know, racing cars or anything that I'm not that interested in. But I did try it and it worked.

Dr. Andre Martin
That's awesome. I love that. Yeah, that's yeah. Cool. So,

Greg Voisen
I want to thank you for being on the show. The book is wrong fit right fit. Go get a copy of a link to Amazon. If you want to learn more about Andre Martin and about his speaking, his coaching is consulting his newsletter is media. Go to wrong fit right fit.com And we'll have a link for that in our blog as well. Andre, thank you have a happy holiday season. It's been a pleasure having you on inside personal growth and speaking with my listeners about your book and your wisdom and everything that you've gained over the years of doing your consulting. Thanks,

Dr. Andre Martin
Greg. Same to you. Happy holidays!