John Jantsch (00:01.21)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Ernie Ross. He’s a globally recognized branding strategy and innovation leader, founder of Ross Rethink and creator of the Intangence Methodology. His award-winning agency has shaped brands, political movements, and ideologies throughout the Caribbean and beyond. We’re going to talk about his new book, Intangence, How Human Connection Creates Value.

between people, brands, and ideologies. So Ernie, welcome to the show.

Ernie Ross (00:34.594)

Thank you so much, Joan. Thank you for the opportunity.

John Jantsch (00:37.4)

Alright, so I’ve been in marketing a long, long time and one of things I know is that creating a new word is really hard. To take something, create it, even though if it makes complete sense to you, you still find you have to explain it a lot and have people understand it. It’s like creating a new category of a product.

So why’d you do it, Ernie? Why did we need a new word? And then, of course, obviously, I’d invite you to explain, what is it? What do you mean by in tangents?

Ernie Ross (01:10.808)

Well, you’re right. It was a challenge. To define a space so exclusively that you own it. And intangible values and the science of human connection. Well, it is defined as the language of human connection. I like to say there are over 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, but the language of human connection is not one that is oftentimes.

John Jantsch (01:42.158)

Well, I suspect trust is a giant part of it as well, right? I mean, that’s one of those things that a lot of a lot of very established brands have a lot of trust with their market, their their customers. And sometimes that’s hard to put. That’s hard to measure. It’s certainly I think people understand it has value, but it’s hard to say, it’s worth X. So are you are you suggesting that not only do we need to focus on these things, but that they might actually be

Ernie Ross (02:05.006)

Sure.

John Jantsch (02:11.842)

more tangible than we think.

Ernie Ross (02:13.76)

Absolutely. Actually, I would go as far as saying trust is the new brand commodity. We live in a world where it’s hard to determine fact from fallacy anymore. Whether it’s AI generated or it’s being generated by a human being that is manipulating us, that’s one of the imageries on social media. So here’s an example.

John Jantsch (02:19.406)

Yes, yes.

Ernie Ross (02:39.372)

that if you take a look at what’s happening either politically or with a product or brand, it is difficult to discern whether that image or even the spokesperson is actually real. It’s very difficult for us to determine that. Or in reality, if something goes wrong with a brand or a company, within a fraction of seconds or a minute, that image and those opinions, whether it be internal or external to your company,

goes viral. So that we live in a world where intangible values matter more than ever. And if there’s anything I wanted your audience to take away today, John, it is the…

cornerstone of the principle of intentions and that is something only has value when it holds meaning to you. Nothing in life, whether it be a physical asset or a human relationship, is what I call derivative meaning. It only has a value because of the meaning you attribute to it. Worth, on the other hand, is a little different. Worth is what the market is willing to pay for it.

Value is determined by meaning. So what determines work? The extent to which you believe in the value, which takes you through what I call the circle of consumer sentiment back to meaning at the end of the day. That’s what determines our lives.

John Jantsch (04:01.902)

Yeah, I want to stay on that point of trust a little bit because I think I read, who’s the group that puts out the trust index every year? It’s an all time low. And I think as you mentioned, one of the things that’s making it even worse is AI, to the point where I think people are actually now assuming what they’re looking at is not real.

in a lot of instances. And so how do you cut through that? mean, to somebody who is being real, that is very authentic, but now is kind of being lumped in with what the sentiment is, how do you break free from that?

Ernie Ross (04:25.815)

of this.

Ernie Ross (04:42.488)

You know, much like any human relationship, we’re measured by more than what we just offer. We’re measured by what we mean to someone. And to show up authentically is really to be true to manifesting those ideals of your brand as you would in any human relationship. Here’s an example of that. You would pay around $11.5 million

for a one minute ad on the Superbowl, transient medium. And there’s an ad I always like to refer to for a particular brand that I would pause after 58 seconds of its television commercial. And I would ask the audience, tell me what story is being told, because you never see the product being referenced or used at all.

And the ad is really about the relationship between a father and his child. The entire ad just shows fathers interacting with their children. And after 58 seconds, if you had spent $11.5 million of your client’s money and said, is what I think you should run, you’d think you were crazy. And finally, in the last two seconds, the logo comes on for Dove Men’s Care. But…

It was more than that. You can’t just tag a logo to the end of an ad like that. They launched this movement called That’s Care dot com, which supported a paternity care for men and championed the cause of men as parents around the world. You can imagine which soap I use, by the way, as a single ad.

So it’s really about not just showing up by having an intangible value and putting it in a commercial, but manifesting that value and being true to it. In fact, Edelman just put out a report in 2024 that showed trust was the number one factor in influencing consumer decisions and that 85 % of the market

Ernie Ross (06:51.01)

was willing to pay more premium price for a product that they believed in and would even be forgiving when there was an error in it. Like any human relationship, you would forgive someone you really care about if you felt they were acting in your interest.

John Jantsch (07:07.322)

I certainly know I’ve done that, paid more and I’m willing to pay more. And I think a lot of people are, mean, that we’re risk averse. And so a lot of cases, I think that if we know we can trust a certain brand or something, we’ll just go back there because the risk, I suppose, of being let down is too high, even if it’s imagined.

Ernie Ross (07:31.0)

Sure.

John Jantsch (07:31.738)

Talk a little bit about, mean, obviously, as AI is replacing humans, or at least that’s way it’s being pitched in a lot of cases, how do we make sure that we are nurturing human connections as people are feeling more and more distance from you?

Ernie Ross (07:49.868)

You’re absolutely right. While I’m not a critic of AI, I think it has a phenomenal impact on how we’re going to develop as a species. But here’s the difference that I’d like to carve out of it. Artificial intelligence is not artificial intelligence. It could mimic human emotions, but it cannot actually encounter and experience it. It cannot encounter love or grief or hate or anger or fear.

So that’s what’s unique about us. If you gave me a work of art, John, and I loved it, and I said, wow, John, this is incredible, I’m gonna hang it on my wall, and you said, well, it was created by artificial intelligence, it would immediately be diminished in its value to me, or a piece of music for that matter. Those are expressions of our humanity, that’s what makes us real. And nothing can mimic that. So that artificial intelligence is limited by the fact that it is not human.

cannot encounter those human emotions. And that’s the space and role we will always have, I think.

John Jantsch (08:54.446)

Well, I agree with you thoroughly, but let me back up on that a little bit. If I think a piece of art is still a piece of art, why should it matter how it was created?

Ernie Ross (08:58.222)

Sure.

Ernie Ross (09:06.818)

Because as much as though, if you had to show the whole intangible space, if there were Picasso that he had created, but he had never signed it, it would not be authentic, right? It would not have the same intangible value. So that it is determined by the ownership of an individual that has created that piece. Here’s an example. You might have heard about the duct tape and the banana.

John Jantsch (09:14.394)

Sure.

Ernie Ross (09:32.206)

that was created at this station. It sold recently for $2 million. Or John Cage, who created four minutes, seconds of this piece that no one plays. Those are examples of what is authenticating and giving it value and validating it is our regard for the person who is originating the piece. But if it’s done by AI,

John Jantsch (09:32.881)

yes, yeah, of course I did.

Ernie Ross (09:58.306)

then it could be duplicated and replicated a hundred times over. It’s AI generated, it’s not created by John. You are unique in the world. So when you create a piece, is unique to its own individual that would ever exist on this planet ever again. And that’s what makes us unique and that’s what makes the pieces created by human unique.

John Jantsch (10:19.61)

You

started off by, or you gave the example of the Dove and Men’s Care products, and really you kind of put the word in the story they were telling. And I want to go back to that a little bit because I think one of the most powerful ways you can make connection is with stories. And I think a lot of marketers have woken up to that idea, certainly the last five, 10 years. So what role do you think storytelling, authentic storytelling plays in

in communicating what a brand stands for.

Ernie Ross (10:54.356)

Absolutely. Telling an emotionally compelling story, any narrative of that kind, makes it memorable. It connects you authentically with your… We’re essentially, as human beings, sentient beings. Most of our decisions are being made by the way we feel, not by logic as much as we’d like to think it is. And we’re engaged by stories. And it is essence of who we are.

It is what we’re created of memories, memories that are made of stories. So providing a brand is embodying an intangible value woven together through an emotionally compelling story. While that is happening, that will certainly be a point of resonance once the shared intangible value has been embodied in that particular offering. Here’s an example. If you and I were going into the beverage industry,

And I said, John, I’ve done everything with this product. I don’t think it’s going do remarkably well. It’s not particularly attractive in its colors. Black.

It has no nutritional value whatsoever. I’m not going to sell it in flavor. But I’m going to guarantee you 1.9 billion units every day around the world. You think that’s crazy. But that’s exactly what Coca-Cola does. And it’s woven together by these really emotionally compelling stories. They don’t sell it in flavor, taste, the feeling, open happiness, real magic, all themes over the last 10 years. So if a product, a beverage,

that has no nutritional value, that contains 38 grams of sugar, can be sold as an embodiment of the satisfaction for the craving of human connection. Woven together tree, more shake-upelling stories, I think is the best evidence of the fact.

John Jantsch (12:38.234)

Okay, well again, I agree with you, but I’m going to push back on another. They’re selling poison under, you know, that, right? And so are they really manipulating people to buy a product that is really not good for them? I would suggest that that’s probably using what you’re talking about, you know, for evil rather than for good.

Ernie Ross (12:59.982)

Very good, absolute point. I remember I had to give a talk at the Global Happiness Summit right here in Costa Rica, the United Nations established University of Peace. And I gave a talk on Coca-Cola and everybody in the room was stirring and said, why are you doing that? I said, well, don’t shoot the messenger. They own the space on happiness. Now, who determines whether it’s manipulative or positive is based upon the lens you’re filtering it through. I agree with you.

John Jantsch (13:17.439)

the

Ernie Ross (13:28.706)

But they’re using techniques and devices that are so compelling that’s effective. Maybe those of us who are pushing climate change or operating an NGO could learn from some of these techniques. Because ultimately, it’s determined by outcome. But if we can employ and deploy some of those techniques and devices that those big brands are using, maybe we would push the needle forward a little bit in terms of the

the more noble ideals and projects that we have. So you’re absolutely right. It’s more about how are they achieving it than whether it’s being done for greater good.

John Jantsch (14:00.42)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (14:06.648)

Yeah. So if I’m a company not of a Coca-Cola size by any means that has been selling features and benefits and I now think, hey, we need to change and we need to connect and we need to discover our purpose so that we can actually tell that authentic story. Where do you help people start?

Ernie Ross (14:30.84)

There are three schools of thought that make up the tangents. The first is called pillars of purpose. It’s an introspective process that asks the most three probing questions you can ask of a brand or of yourself. Question one is who am I? Question two, and is who am I to you? Question two would be what is my purpose? What greater purpose do I serve to you? And the last question is how will I be remembered?

What lingers with you after interaction, whether you see the packaging or an ad that was run, what stays with you? And out of those three are like signposts to take you to what I call the universal truth. Something that is your brand ethos that is universally acceptable. As an example, if you were a brand of water, it could be no one in the world should ever go thirsty. So it would…

That would be building the brand architecture in an emotional space. Notice it’s not what is it, it’s who am I? What is my purpose? How will I be remembered? And then the second school of thought is what is called currency of conversation. How do you make the message viral? How do you get the message out there? And that lands on three principles. Is the message relevant? Do I have a high regard from where I’m hearing or it’s coming from? And does it resonate with me at a deeply fundamental level?

The final school of thought would be the science of human connection, which are the techniques and devices you’re using to be able to create that connection based upon purpose, passion, or do you get a passion following what I call a polyphonic understanding of the marketplace polyphony.

coming from a musical term where an instrument can play more than one note at the same time. In much the same way, you have to track what’s happening with emerging trends, changes in attitudes, consumer behavior, and so on, to be able to travel ahead of your headlights, so to speak, so that you can measure the response that you need to have in your brand storytelling.

John Jantsch (16:32.515)

You work in some different markets outside of the US. In your view, do you think there are cultural differences in not only how people market, but how people build trust, how people get connected to brands?

Ernie Ross (16:45.62)

Absolutely, absolutely. Each market has its own dynamics and so on, but there is, however, that space that I call the universal truth, where it’s all expansive, regardless of what market. But at the end of the day, reality is really a perspective. In our offices, as you come into the building, there is a very unusual object that reinforces this.

It looks like what appears to be a mirror with a crack in it and there’s a broom perched against it. A lot of people come into the office and they say, why do you have this object here? And I said, you tell me. And they look at it and they talk about maybe the frailty of life. so I said, no, it’s just what it looks like. And the.

It is done by, it’s an installation done by an artist from Argentina called Leandro Ehrlich. And it’s actually an illusion. He’s just created an open space, put a frame of metal running across it diagonally, and makes it look like a crack. He’s put a broom in the front and a broom in the back. Now you can see right through this object, John, you don’t see your own reflection. But nine out of 10 people stand in front of it, including me, when I first got it.

and see a mirror. And it’s based upon the whole principle, know, that we don’t see the world the way it is, we see the world the way we are. And it reinforces the idea that we have to question this version of reality. So to your point about what works in what part of the world, it’s about that point. Being able to question the reality as determined by the audience that you’re reaching to. What is their version of this reality before you begin to authentically connect and do it?

John Jantsch (18:21.774)

You spread the word of intangence. What do you kind of hope for maybe the wider world of marketing leadership, human behavior for this idea to catch on?

Ernie Ross (18:33.868)

For that I’ll go to the last chapter and I just want to read a little bit of it for you, if I may. This is really to me key to what I would love everybody to take away from it. It reads, if nothing from nothing is an irrefutable law of physics, then what could possibly have first existed before anything else? In the beginning, everything was entirely intangible.

This is a profound insight into the question of what first existed. And throughout the book I demonstrate how real and powerful the world of intangibility is. As an example, if you took all the companies traded in the S &P 500, the value of it is about $28 trillion. And if you sold every physical asset, you wouldn’t even get to 20 %

of the $28 trillion. So it’s all intangible assets and defined through an intangible meaning. So the world exists. What is one of the world’s largest transportation companies? Uber. How many cars do they own? What’s one of the world’s largest retail companies? It’s Amazon. How much mortar and stone do they actually have? And if you looked at all the major brands in the world, every single one from Apple to

Microsoft or to Coca-Cola. They have charts done by their accounting firms that are measuring their intangible value greater than that of their tangible value. If I sold you the Coca-Cola company today and I give you all the factories and all the buildings and I kept the name, I would be the one to win the game. So it’s an intangible space. And so that’s what I would like to take away from. To recognize, if you took this into a…

a spiritual realm, if you will, and you ask the question, how did we actually begin? How did this all begin? Now you’ll get theories from scientists to religious people, but if we can agree on one principle, that is all intangible. I have a little cartoon in the book of a magician pulling things out of a hat, and it says it can’t be weighed, it can’t be held, it can’t be shipped, but it exists. It’s intangible.

Ernie Ross (20:52.502)

So essentially that’s what I’d like to think we are at the end of the day.

John Jantsch (20:57.602)

Awesome. Well, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there somewhere you would invite people to connect with you, find out about your work, and obviously connect with your book?

Ernie Ross (21:08.408)

Sure, it’s intangines.com. It’s spelled I-N-T-A-N-G-I-E-N-C dot com. That’s the website. The book is available through Amazon, Walmart, Target, Indigo, and several other outlets. There are courses that are taught. There’s a four to five minute master class. And there’s a three day program validated by the United Nations Established University for Peace. And in Europe through the…

business school called Ecole des Ponds. So the work has been, the body of work has been given great assessment and testimonials by Harvard professors and so on, but more importantly, it’s the number of people around the world, over 10,000, that have participated in the program. I’m humbled by the responses we’ve got, and I’m grateful to you, John, for giving me yet another platform to ventilate the views.

John Jantsch (22:06.202)

You bet, and we’ll have a, for those of you listening, we’ll have a link to Intangence in the show notes as well. So, Ernie, again, I appreciate you stopping by and maybe we’ll run into you one of these days in Costa Rica. All right, take care.

Ernie Ross (22:18.946)

I look forward to that, John. I’ll be your guide for sure. Thank you so much. Cheers.

John Jantsch (00:00.976)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Dr. Julia Garcia. She’s a psychologist, speaker, and author who has dedicated her career to teaching the science and practice of hope. Her Five Habits of Hope framework blends research, client stories, and her own journey overcoming adversity. She’s worked with organizations, schools, and leaders to help them move from survival to thriving.

Making hope a practical tool for transformation. We’re going to talk about her new book, The Five Habits of Hope, Stories and Strategies to Help You Find Your Way. So Julia, welcome to the show.

Julia (00:40.184)

Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

John Jantsch (00:43.686)

So and I’m sure you get asked this all the time. I know you have an answer for this, but I’ll tee it up anyway You know a lot of people think of hope is like an emotion or a mindset and you’re reframing it actually as a habit not just something that Happens to you, but something you actually can control so unpack that for me

Julia (01:02.924)

Yeah, definitely. Well, I guess the best way to explain this is, do you know when you have hope? Do know when you feel it? Would you agree? Okay. And do you know when you don’t? Have you ever felt like you didn’t have it?

John Jantsch (01:11.413)

Yes, yes, yes.

John Jantsch (01:17.166)

Yeah, you know, like we’re down by three touchdowns and there’s three minutes left, right?

Julia (01:19.854)

Exactly. So you know when you have it and you know when you don’t. it’s one of those things that’s connected to our feelings. And so the biggest thing is we don’t always have a process or a way to navigate our feelings. So when we do that, then we can always have a process back to hope. So it starts with emotional habits to help us build and navigate back to hope. Because at the end of the day, I could tell you,

Hope is a cognitive science, but it really comes down to how you feel about it. And so if you’ve got feelings that are blocking you from having hope, then what we need to do is actually focus on how we process and navigate our feelings with emotional habits of hope.

John Jantsch (02:03.046)

And I think we’ve all experienced people that probably shouldn’t have that much hope, but they seem to, right? I mean, like they’re in a situation where you think I would never want to find myself in that situation, but that person still seems pretty hopeful. I mean, I think that explains a little of what you’re talking about, isn’t it?

Julia (02:08.366)

If all’s hope is not the same. Yeah. Yeah.

Julia (02:23.342)

Yeah, I like to debunk some of the things that actually hope aren’t. And so sometimes people think hope is being happy. And that’s not like true. That’s not what it is. And some people think you have to have a lot of it or a big amount or be the loudest about it or be super positive. And that’s not true either. You can have a very tiny bit and it might even be unseen to other people. And it could be just enough to get you through.

John Jantsch (02:47.418)

So what’s the, because you allude to it in your bio, what’s kind of the specific story in your life that kind of tested this idea for you?

Julia (02:56.504)

Well, I never thought hope was like something that takes seriously that could help me in my career and my relationships in life in general. had no idea that it was like the single greatest predictor to our health and wellbeing. I really didn’t think that it had much substance to it. But when I look back to what happens when we don’t have it in the moments I have been hopeless, that is a darkness that you don’t wish upon anybody. And in my work, I’ve actually had like a front row seat to

millions of people sharing those dark spaces that they’ve been in. They could be professionals, they could be students, they could be parents and family members. And it really didn’t matter what demographic a person it was or where they were from. That kind of similar dark place of despair was something almost everybody has ventured to and not sure how they were going to get out of it. And that really opened my eyes to it’s not just something I’ve felt and struggled with that I’m seeing the masses of people I work with.

There’s a disconnect in being able to face our feelings so that we can get out of those places of darkness or despair that affect our relationships, our workflow, our teams, our culture, and the way that we build our lives.

John Jantsch (04:10.374)

So I don’t want you to go habit by habit and tell us the whole story. People should buy the book to get the whole story. But give us a little bit of the overview of the habits themselves. First one, own your own story.

Julia (04:22.796)

Yeah, I think that the emotional habits are really the premises for me. I did anything but face feelings. I thought like if I got real about my feelings or got vulnerable in any way, shape or form that I was weak, that I’d be a burden, those things. So it helps us really navigate the emotional things. And one of my favorite ones that I think your listeners will really like is habit number five, which is

the habit of repurposing. And it’s where we take parts of our story and we rewrite it, we rebrand it, we rechannel it into something innovative, creative, a project, anything that you can think of. This was actually something I had. There was, for an example, I wasn’t in the space of social media at the time, but I started really observing how people were using it and the impact it had on culture. And one day I learned that there were some people who were

getting harassed online and even taking their lives to the experiences that they were having from social media abuse and harassment and things like that. So what I did is I took the anger and the frustration I felt of learning about that and how people were experiencing it in a very harmful way. And I created a mobile app to help create a safe space for people online. And this was years ago, but the point is I took a feeling and I repurposed it through an emotional habit of hope.

and I created something from it.

John Jantsch (05:47.238)

So one of the big themes I think in the book is this idea of reframing adversity. Obviously people that are feeling very hopeless, you the first step is to kind of reframe that. So how do you help people kind of deal with that? Or could you even share an example from your own life or somebody you’ve coached that really took that big step, that big first step, I guess?

Julia (06:08.568)

Yeah.

Julia (06:13.666)

Yeah, I think reframing has a lot to do with the language and replacing language because really what happens is we feel a certain way and then we start to do things in response to that feeling. So for example, I didn’t feel like I had worth, I felt worthless. And so then it became, I would do things that maybe weren’t helpful for me to advance my career or relationships. They actually were the opposite. They were self-destructive.

And then I would be like, yep, because I’m worthless. So then it would affirm an identity, a sense of self. So the feeling informed my identity. And then it just kept going on this negative loop. And you know it, if you’ve ever had those thoughts, if I can’t do it, I’m not good enough. I’m less than, I’m worthless. And so instead of just stopping those habits in our minds, because that’s really hard to do to just stop something, what we do is we interject and we replace it with something. So we could say, I’m worth more. Or we can also add something. We could say,

I’m anxious and afraid, but I’m also courageous and brave. And it’s actually breaking thought cycles and rewiring those neural pathways in our minds so that we can rewrite our stories that we tell ourselves in our mind that tell us who and who we aren’t. So our thoughts and feelings are starting to align with the identity that we feel empowered by.

John Jantsch (07:35.216)

There’s a lot in the news lately about kind of an epidemic of loneliness almost that seems to be really pervasive. You talk a lot about the need for community as and relationships as a big part of kind of getting as one of the habits actually even. So how can somebody who is really feeling that, you know, that sense of loneliness take advantage of that idea?

Julia (07:46.904)

Mm-hmm.

Julia (08:00.728)

Yeah, think when I think of lonely, loneliness does not discriminate. You could be super connected, really successful and feel utterly alone. And I want to say that because if you’re listening and you feel that, I just want you to know you are not alone in that. And habit number two, I would say is a really big one for this generation in particular. It’s the habit of emotional risk. So I used to think risk taking was like adrenaline rushes. I’ve jumped out of an airplane three times, love roller coasters, all the things.

But emotional risk is very different and only you know what you hold back in emotionally. Only you know that you didn’t actually fully open up to that person you’re in a relationship with. Only you know you didn’t, you withheld. Even joy. I have people who I work with who are not just withholding and struggling in suppressing emotions like sadness or anger, they’re actually withholding joy too because when you get in that emotional habit of withholding, you’re withholding everything.

So it’s not just sadness, it’s joy too. And only you know what that is, but we have to believe there’s value and worth in taking that emotional risk. And so the flip side is you could get rejected. Your idea could get thrown down. You can look stupid and feel like a fool. So there is a risk. That’s why it’s saying it’s called risk. But if we are brave, no matter the outcome, I believe we will like who we are becoming.

And I think that’s what’s really important to people that they really do value is the person they are. I know sometimes we attach success with things we do, but at the end of the day, we have to look ourselves in the mirror. We’re the ones who have to lay down with ourselves that night. So when we actually value and appreciate ourselves, then regardless of the outcome, if we were brave that day, I think we’re going to like the journey we’re on.

John Jantsch (09:49.51)

So lot of works on habits or to talk about habits, you one of the core.

elements is really this idea of just do a little every day, know, get a little better every day, you know, kind of thing. How do you help people? Because I think, you know, do two more push ups a day is pretty tangible, As I have it. But it’s but you know what I mean? It’s a very tangible thing, right? But like, have a little more hope each day. How do you how do you help people kind of quantify or measure or keep the momentum going?

Julia (10:11.574)

Not for me.

Julia (10:24.118)

That’s one of the trickiest things in my industry is when you are working with feelings, quantifying is really hard. That kind of data is really hard. It’s a lot of feedback in order to get that quantitative and qualitative. But I would say the biggest thing, if you want to measure, I would say is actually don’t do that because this constant perform and get better and

John Jantsch (10:31.237)

Yeah.

Julia (10:48.494)

be better is not really what I’m saying. What I’m saying is instead of going outwards to achieve X, Y, and Z, let’s just get better at having a process to go inward. So it’s actually to me the opposite because the internal place, when that gets aligned with our values and a sense of worth, then the external things matter less. And we enjoy the journey a lot more and we can actually enjoy the relationships and the success that we’ve garnered.

John Jantsch (11:18.886)

So it’s almost a little counterintuitive. It’s like when they talk about meditation, it’s like you’re not going to get benefit of meditation if you’re trying to get benefit from meditation. So it’s kind of that.

Julia (11:27.982)

That’s exactly it, 100%. 100%. And I think we don’t always get to know ourselves, like who we were before we were overly stressed, before we had all this pressure on us, who we were before puberty, you all the things, like who were we? And like, let’s get to know that person, me, for all the pressures and the success and things like that. So I like to think about it as like, if we were, say, a pen on a desk and then pressure is the paper over us, and then expectations is another paper.

paper over us and it’s kind of just like a process of getting those off so that we can begin to write our story the way that feels aligned with who we really are.

John Jantsch (12:09.008)

So I know you do a lot of individual work with individuals, but you also, I know, work with some business leaders and teams. So how do you translate this into business speak, if you will? I know it’s the same concept, but when you go and work with a leader or with a team, how do you make this feel like a business thing instead of like psychology, so to speak?

Julia (12:22.295)

Yeah, no, definitely.

Julia (12:35.168)

Yeah, of course. mean, making it personal for sure. We all know what burnout does to our teams. We all know that turnover, how much that hurts our bottom line. We all know what it’s like to have someone we work with who we don’t want to work with and who we don’t like working with. And when we have these emotional habits of hope, it trains businesses to solve problems instead of just be on survival mode. helps us find a path forward collectively instead of

feeling like we’re going to collapse under stress. It helps improve actual business outcomes, team culture. And some of the ways that we can think about that is through, let’s say the habit number four is receiving. And that’s all about collaboration. It’s learning to actually listen, to learn, to adapt, to include, to participate. And habit number five that we spoke a little bit about earlier, how that translates really into effective business leading is contribution.

A lot of people are part of a culture and they are a part of a culture, but they’re consuming it they’re not contributing and creating it. Especially in your team workplace environment, you assume that so-and-so is the leader. So this is just what it is. But the more we can find ways to contribute, then we can make pass forward. And another thing about that is when we’re collaborating, which is number four, receiving, we’re allowing ourselves to be sparked with new ideas and innovation.

And to build that team place culture, which is really important because it’s really easy to get discouraged in the workplace to just be on autopilot mode. But when we create a culture of hope, what we’re doing is we’re fostering connectivity or foster with emotional risks, right? We’re, we’re fostering, a better workplace environment when other people are listening and also engaging and contributing. And when we’re all part of a collective goal and mission. so ultimately it’s.

It’s a way that we can move forward together instead of being on like that autopilot mode.

John Jantsch (14:37.862)

Do you have, when you work with, maybe with individuals or with teams as well, do you have exercises that you share or teach or give them to really reinforce? Yeah, well, not on me. I’m not gonna be emotionally, I’m not gonna be emotionally vulnerable.

Julia (14:47.986)

definitely. Do you want to do one right now? It’ll take just a couple of minutes. Let’s do it. No, we’ll do it together. We’ll do it with… No, it’s not. Don’t worry. We’re going to do it together. We’ll do it together. Okay. Let me see both of your hands. Grab both of your hands. Okay. I want you to think about all the things that are pressures, stressors, things that make you feel like you’re struggling. Okay. We’re going to think about them. You got some things in your mind? You don’t have to say them. But you do? Okay. That was a yes. Okay.

So now squeeze two fists really tightly. Now, if I were to come next to you and try and open your fist, I shouldn’t be able to, because that’s how hard you’re going to be squeezing. So if you’re listening right now and you would like to participate, what you do is you think of things that are just really stressing you out, things that you’re struggling with that you’re not opening up about, that you are just, you’re independent. You’ve got this. You’re going to figure this out. You are strong-willed. You are high-performing. You’ve got it. So I want you to just keep squeezing the fist. Is it getting exhausting yet? Keep doing it.

I have nails, so it gets to hurt. Just don’t hurt yourself, okay? If you’re bleeding or something, like, you can stop. But keep doing it. Now, if you’re doing this and I was like, okay, go about your day, but keep doing this, you’d probably figure it out, John. You’d probably, like, use your nose on your phone or use your elbows to pick things up. You would probably figure it out because you’re probably really independent, hardworking, resilient, all of those things. So if you’re listening, you’re probably going to figure out even how to drive with these two fists in your hand.

Because the thing is, we actually can do almost all the things that we’re up against. We can be really resilient. But on the count of three, when I say release, you’re going to let go. One, two, three, release. How does that feel? What’s the first word that comes to mind?

Julia (16:30.924)

Better. Because here’s the thing, the number one thing that I heard was the word release. So that really helped me form the emotional habit number three, which is release. Because what we do as human beings, we focus so much on being resilient and we associate resilience with isolation and independence that we hold so many things. That we hold it until it is holding us back. Because the thing is, John, you could do that all day, but you’re going to be restricted.

And when you open your hands, when you let go, when you have a process, a regular process to release, it will impact every single area of your life, personal, relational, professional, spiritual, you name it. It’s going to impact every single area of your life. But the temptation is to hold it all on yourself. So we have to get in the emotional habit of practicing release.

John Jantsch (17:22.214)

So I have practiced meditation for many, years and my favorite metaphor for meditation is that all those thoughts or those things that you hold, think of them as clouds and you can just like push them away. Little floating clouds.

Julia (17:33.934)

Mm.

Julia (17:39.148)

Now, mine is saying, I love that. I’m going to get you to get a surfboard and to ride a cloud, to not push it away, but to ride the cloud. Make it a slide, go down, you know, and to use something with it. Do something with the cloud.

John Jantsch (17:40.56)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:51.718)

Yeah.

Alright, so this is perfect point for this question. How do you distinguish between realistic and unrealistic hope that somebody might have?

Julia (18:05.371)

Yeah, the biggest thing, great question is when you think of the word hope, it doesn’t mean happy. And a lot of people think false positivity. That’s not what hope is. I actually think to replace that with instead of false positivity, it’s feelings processed. Because the first thing to hope is honesty. You cannot have hope if you ain’t honest with yourself. So being falsely positive, that’s not going to get us there.

John Jantsch (18:08.23)

you

Julia (18:30.818)

You don’t have to project happiness and you don’t have to have a ton of hope. You can have like a tiny, tiny, tiny little seed of it. And that’s enough to interject the negative thought cycles and to start rebuilding the neural pathways in our mind to reshape how we think and how we feel.

John Jantsch (18:49.062)

And I’ll end with letting you kind of bring this back full circle because there’s certainly a number of people have said it. think it was a former chief, army chief of staff that it’s mostly attributed to, but that hope is not a strategy. And I think what you’re doing is reinterpreting what that means.

Julia (19:09.762)

Yeah, hope is a feeling because that’s how we know it. That’s how we describe it. But it’s a habit. It’s something we can learn and unlearn. And if you felt hopeless before, there was a way you got to that hopelessness. So that means there’s a way back to it. There is a way to hope. And when you have hope and you pair that with being a leader or an innovator or a creative, what happens is you start to innovate more. You start to strategize better. You start to…

think through problems, you start to have expectations, you start to build culture that people can collaborate in and connect in, and you start to change the trajectory of what’s possible.

John Jantsch (19:54.552)

Awesome. On that note, Julia, I appreciate you dropping by the Duck Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there someplace you’d invite people to find out more about you, connect with you, certainly find out more about your work and the five habits of hope?

Julia (20:06.914)

Yes, I would absolutely love to connect with you on any of you can find me online, Dr. Julia Garcia. You can also get or gift the five habits of hope book. You can listen to it on audio. It’s available wherever books are sold and you can follow my podcast journey with Dr. J.

John Jantsch (20:24.614)

appreciate you stopping by Julia. Hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Julia (20:28.578)

Thank you so much.