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Summary

The Fox and Hedgehog Analogy

The episode opens with a deep dive into strategic thinking and the contrasting cognitive styles of teammates, akin to the cunning fox, who sees all possibilities but risks becoming overwhelmed, and the diligent hedgehog, singularly focused yet potentially myopic. Alex Pokorny posits, "The fox is thinking about all the possibilities... but quickly can become as a detriment overwhelmed with that and paralyzed," highlighting the balance needed in team composition.

Historical Context and Modern Teams

A compelling segment of the discussion revolves around the historical example of Xerxes' campaign against Greece, illustrating the pitfalls of a hedgehog-like focus without considering the 'fox-like' strategic contingencies. Ruthi Corcoran draws a parallel to modern team-building strategies, "If you're working in uncharted territory, you want a bunch of foxes in the room because you don't necessarily know the right path to go."

Visual Thinking and Cognitive Diversity

Ruthi expands on the theme of cognitive diversity by introducing the concept of visual thinking from Temple Grandin's work. She underlines the creativity unleashed when different modes of thought converge, saying, "Some of the best work that's been done in the world happens when these different ways of thinking come together."

The Architect and Engineer: A Symbiosis of Mindsets

The conversation takes a turn into the importance of complementary skill sets, likening them to the roles of an architect envisioning grand designs and the engineer who realizes them. "You've got the architect who thinks of the amazing building... but then you always have the engineer... that are going to make it so it can last," says Ruthie, emphasizing the synergy between visionary and executor.

Leadership and Decision-Making

Dave Dougherty reflects on leadership styles and decision-making processes, particularly in high-stakes environments like the military. He shares, "All of the best teams that I've been a part of have been a mix of people who are very good at particular things," advocating for a balanced team that can cover each other's blind spots.

Episode 20 - Foxes and Hedgehogs: Navigating Team Personality Dynamics Video and Podcast Transcript

[Disclaimer: This transcription was written by AI using a tool called Descript, and has not been edited for content.]

Dave Dougherty: We good?

Hello, and welcome to the latest episode of Enterprising Minds. We have everybody on board today, uh, Dave, Alex, and Ruthie. Um, this is a really loosey-goosey kind of episode today, and it's going to be shorter than our normal ones, which, uh, may be appreciated, may, uh, be disappointing to some, depending on how much you listen.

Um, Alex, you came the most prepared, so you start us off with your topic. Sure. So,

Alex Pokorny: um, I think later on we're going to talk about books, but there's a book that I've been reading and I'm just partway into it, so I'm still kind of with those early thoughts on it. Um, book is called On Grand Strategy, that's the title.

But there's a number of different kind of topics that are presented and they're kind of slowly coalescing together. So I haven't finished it yet, but these early thoughts have been pretty fascinating to me. And I want to talk to you guys about kind of diversity of personalities within teams. Um, so specific to the book, they had talked about the idea of the, um, kind of modes of thinking of the Fox versus the hedgehog.

And the idea was basically as the, The fox is thinking about all the possibilities and all the different things, but quickly can become as a detriment overwhelmed with that and paralyzed because they're thinking of all these potential pitfalls of what might happen. The hedgehog on the other hand is like very much more focused on a singular task, similar goal and exists and functions really well when all things line up.

but also has the detriment of not really, you know, thinking about all the different factors that may play in. So the example that was used was Xerxes when he was basically trying to conquer most of Greece. He was going forward and going forth with a massive army, one that had been larger than most armies have never seen before.

They had to build bridges across rivers, they dug a channel so that boats could even be connected because it was just impossible to get this massive amount of. Horses just from one place to the next and Greek islands and all the rest. I mean, the train is not not helpful at all. So you had an advisor who was talking about, well, how we're gonna feed everybody.

You know, you're, you're, people are going to drink the rivers dry. They're going to eat all the food in the area. They can't be there for too long. If it's winter, it won't work too well. I mean, coming up with all these problems like basically you need to stop and you need to go home. Forget it. Forget this campaign.

You need to go home. And Xerxes basically was solely focused on this idea that I can just go forward with strength and it will just work out and just keep on pushing forward. So eventually the advisor and him got to kind of to and had to a point that he sent his advisor home to take care of the homelands and basically be in charge of that while he continues on the war path.

And ultimately he hits defeat because of some of Some massive issues here there and a lot of lack of intelligence, a lot of lack of retail, a lot of lack of understanding of exactly how this whole thing is actually going to play out and logistics and all the rest. But he would have never done it and never even started it, nor become, you know, well known as he is if he hadn't even started.

So there is this still kind of this back and forth moment of do you try to look at all the different factors and try to bring those in and try to. Come up with a solution and plan for as much of those as possible. Or do you try to stay focused on this end result and just try to keep pushing forward to it, knowing that that motivation, that drive.

We'll create accomplishment. So which do you lean on? Maybe it's a bit, maybe a mix of both. Maybe it's contextual, but which would you personally lean on? And then in the teams that you've worked in, do you think that a mix like that works well? Do you think that you should have more foxes that are more kind of all over the place, kind of looking at all the angles, or you should have more hedgehogs, so you have more driven of a team?

What do you think has more success?

Ruthi Corcoran: Oh, I love this question so much. I have at least 5 different answers to this.

Alex Pokorny: That works

Ruthi Corcoran: first, because it's hedgehogs and foxes. And because I have small children, we have read the story. The mitten, if you guys haven't read this, it's like a little story about a little boy who loses his mitten and, you know, a little, um.

It might be a hedgehog that starts out, finds a little, finds it cozy, and then enjoins a badger and enjoins a fox and enjoins a bear. And obviously this mitten can't handle all of it. So when the mouse finally joins everybody and the bear sneeze, they all fall out. But the point is, well actually I don't know that there's a point there so much as, as you're talking about boxes and hedgehogs, it occurs to me, right, it's a mix.

It's always a mix, um, I suspect that it's a sliding scale and you might have a team of hedgehogs that are really fantastic at one type of, of project and you might have a team of foxes that are really fantastic at another, but. For the majority of projects, you're going to have some mix there in the middle.

And I know for me when I'm thinking about team building and how I'm how I'm building both my own team, but then also little teams on different projects where you might need different skill sets. I might pick and choose based on the type of project, right? If there's something that needs a lot of technical documentation, or you're just figuring out a process, maybe you want a few more hedgehogs.

But if you're working in an uncharted territory, you want a bunch of foxes in the room because you don't necessarily know the right path to go. But you might want to hedgehog because a little direction and a little sort of orderliness is good. One of the other directions that my thoughts when, as you were describing the situation, and some of the questions towards the end, Alex was.

I had read earlier this year a book by Temple Grandin called Visual Thinking, where she talks about, um, different ways that people think, right? Some people think just in words, and their stream of consciousness is, is word based. Some people think only in pictures, which If you think only in word base, it's hard to imagine thinking only in pictures and not having sort of that voice in your head and vice versa.

If you think only in pictures, it's hard to even imagine that there's a dialogue going on in somebody else's head. One of the. Sections of that book talks about, hey, it's really important. And some of the best work that's been done in the world happens when these different ways of thinking, of which there's more than just two, of course.

But when these different ways of thinking come together. On a joint project, and one of the key examples she gives, which I love is the architect and the engineer. You've got the architect who thinks of the amazing building and the design, the Guggenheim, this new way of building a building, but then you always have the engineer who's figuring out.

Hey, these are the details that matter that. That are going to make it so it doesn't collapse that are going to make it so it can last that are going to even make it feasible. And sometimes the architect and engineer can come together in 1 mind. And when it does, it's pretty fantastic. But oftentimes it's more than 1 piercing coming together in order to bring the vision to life.

And so when I think about that dichotomy, less about the hedgehog and the fox of which I'm sure I have little bits of each, you know, I think of myself way more in that architect category. That's sort of putting forth the vision, but I always know I need an engineer to be working hand in hand to say, is this going to work?

Or how do we bring this to life? What are some of the ways we can use different materials to make it possible

Alex Pokorny: like that perspective, especially the architect and engineer? Okay. Um, I was thinking of Frank Lloyd Wright. He has, he was actually born in Wisconsin and he's got a number of buildings that have very flat roofs, which if you know anything about like the weather in upper Midwest, that doesn't work because you have snow sitting for long periods of time.

You're going to have ice buildup. You're going to have water damage. Basically, that's a bad idea. You have to, you have to have a slope. So it's always been funny to me when you. See some of his homes, such as like falling water is one in particular that I always think about that has like a very flat pitch and stuff like that.

And it has had a lot of water damage as it turns out, they've had to like do a lot of repairs and stuff to it, but it's also a gorgeous kind of instruments. You break people out of the same plan, the same pattern that's been used in homes over and over again, instead of trying to say, no, we had a very beautiful location and we're going to build a home that basically fits to the location, not.

Basically bulldoze the land until it becomes this flat building block. And then we're going to plop a home on top of it. It was such a different way of thinking and it broke through and it works. I mean, it does. Yeah. There's some repairs made, but my gosh, it does work. So Dave, what about you?

Dave Dougherty: Um, well, it's funny that you bring, bring up the dichotomy.

I, I wasn't going to talk about this book, but I just, I finished it yesterday. It's Malcolm Gladwell's Bomber Mafia, um, and in very typical, you know, Gladwell, it's all of these seemingly unrelated things that come into play. Um, but the two kind of main. Characters, um, that he focuses on were two leaders in, um, the army air corps, which is now, you know, air force, um, during world war two.

And they were basically polar opposites of one another. One of them was a lead from the front. If you're nervous about doing this. You know, this bombing run, then I'll be in the lead plane. You follow me kind of, you know, no excuses, get it done kind of guy. Then this other guy was this, you know, romantic, overly theoretical, um, um, kind of guy who was very much more intellectual about the purpose and the strategies and, uh, you know, how to, how to utilize everything.

Um, and the tactical guy, both of them ended up being transferred to the, um. Um, the Pacific front after they did what they needed to do in Germany and the lead from the front guy, get it done, ended up replacing the other guy because he was, he was the more theoretical guy was, was much more focused on precision bombing and wanted to really prove that out to minimize casualties.

Uh, but he wasn't showing enough results. So then they went to the other guy because he didn't. He wasn't afraid of using napalm. He wasn't afraid of using, you know, um, more daring and crazy ideas like flying at 5, 000 feet. Because, you know, the Japanese, the jet stream over Japan is insane. Um, you know, at, at high altitude.

So all the techniques that didn't, that, that worked for the German campaign wouldn't work for, um, the Japanese one. Um, and it is, it is just fascinating. You need both. I think you do need both. Uh, all of the best teams that I've been a part of have been a mix of people who are very good at particular things that ladder up into.

A larger hole. Um, because then you can cover blind spots. Um, you know, I think it's good to be able to say we want to do this. Like, I'm a big fan of doing the, um, the pre mortems. Have you ever heard of this? You know, um, yeah, where you, um. You know, you basically pretend like you're having a horrible client call where you just say, okay, our idea didn't work.

This is how we're going to have to fix it. And you basically have to figure, you know, poke holes in your idea on why, why, why it failed before you even launch it. Right. So you can cover the basis of, of how it might fail. Um, However, that can be paralyzing for some personalities, right? Um, so you do need to be able to say, okay, that's enough.

Let's just launch the thing. Um, which is I've come to appreciate more recently is, is a fantastic skillset that not everybody has being able to say, okay, just launch it. Yeah. Do

Ruthi Corcoran: it live.

Dave Dougherty: Exactly.

Ruthi Corcoran: Um, one thing that comes to mind, Dave, just quick, Alex. Yeah, is when you've got those multiple perspectives in the room equally important as knowing how to not get paralyzed and just move is knowing how to make sure the voices are heard because it's 1 thing to have the right voices in the room is the other to actually listen to what those voices are saying, especially when they're disagreeing with what's going on in your head.

Dave Dougherty: Yeah. Ego plays an important role there. If you have, if you have egotistical thought leaders, you're in trouble. If it's, you know, people who are really good at what they do and are willing to listen to other people, you're golden. But you know, that's a unicorn in a, um, sea of horses.

Alex Pokorny: Yeah, that was what I was about to run into is exactly that.

It's the respect between those individuals as well. You can definitely see, especially in the military situation, a lot of tension. Life and death decisions being made. You've got one guy who's very theoretical, the other one who's You know, damn it all we're gonna get it done, sort of personality type.

You're gonna have some major tension between those two individuals, but the two of them have to have respect for each other. And have to be able to work with each other. I think that's, that's, that's one of the more difficult things. Getting those different personalities in a room is one thing, but exactly to Ruthie's point, you know, getting those voices to be heard and also respected and have those different points of view be understood.

And actual communication going on, speaking again to like the idea of, you know, people who think in words versus pictures, I mean, you do need to have that facilitation there too. And if you can't get that to happen, I don't think all the heads in one room even matters.

Dave Dougherty: One of my Favorite, um, guitarist, composer guys is, his name's Devin Townsend and he's very esoteric, so not everybody will like him.

Um, but he has that condition where you see like music will literally show like shapes and colors to you. Um, and so that's how he composes is through that. So like G major is green. And you just start kind of painting with, with the tones, um, which explains, you know, some of the interesting choices that he makes because of, you know, that particular condition, I forget what it's called.

Um, but that's, that ends up becoming part of the, the unique skill set. Even some people would say it's a detriment, but really, honestly, it's one of those unique flavors of him that allows him to do what he does really well. Um,

Alex Pokorny: yeah. There was an emotional wellbeing exercise I was doing this week that, um, similar concept basically it had, it's a color wheel, but it's emotions as well.

And so instead of just anger, you might have resentment, revenge, jealousy. I mean, it could be like. you know, much smaller, more precisely named adjectives kind of underneath of that. But part of the exercise is one is naming kind of how you're doing, but also just getting beyond the I'm, I'm okay, I'm good sort of response and getting to a deeper level and saying, okay, what are a couple of different things?

Keep calling it rage. Dave's holding up a mug that says keep calling rage on, you know, maybe that's, that's red or maybe that's black. I mean, what, what color that is. to you. Um, but the other point was it was basically is one basically to name a much more precise emotion, name three of them that basically you're experiencing, but also what colors do they have, do they apply?

And then where do you feel that, um, getting to some of the physical, physical connections of emotion. So if you're feeling tension, maybe that's you feel it in your. Back your neck your stomach because you're nervous. I mean, there's no different pieces like that, but it's to Enrich the idea but also to make it more memorable So each day you're thinking of something a little bit more memorable and just trying to think of a word that may not have A whole lot of meaning to you Hoping that basically that color that feeling has more meaning to you So that's kind of where that runs into interesting.

Yeah, it's an interesting exercise, but so fox and the hedgehog Um, those were kind of the some of the first ideas from the book later into it They started talking about the idea of a true north so I could run into that too, but i'm curious about you guys Did you have a different topic you want to run to first?

Dave Dougherty: Well, so I'll just say for me, and maybe this will spur on further conversation, I have always been the kind of guy that needs that, that North Star to say, like, here's the big, crazy, hairy, audacious goal that we're going to go after. It might take us 5, 10 years, but, you know, by God, we're going to get there.

Um, and then, you know, work backwards from that. So I mean, that's the same when I was doing music. It's the same thing. I want to play this festival in order to play this festival. I need to, um, be seen as a good thing for the promoter that does that festival, which means I have to have a whole bunch of gigs locally that produce enough.

Um, People to know about us, to be able to build a media kit, to be able to send to the producer to that, you know, you got to that, to that, to that. So it ends up giving you this roadmap to being able to get to that, that thing. It's the same kind of thing you do when you, you know, I want to sell 100, 000 worth of, you know.

Product. Okay. How do you do that? Um, without that, I find myself and this happens after every like big project ends. I don't know about you guys, but I always feel like I'm just kind of treading water for a while. Like, I'm trying to Transcribed I'll test out some idea over here. I'll read this book to try to find inspiration somewhere else.

Like I just, I try to find whatever gives me that spark, you know, of like, okay, I want to drive this way now. Um, after it, it's literally after every single big project that I do, I ended up being aimless for a little bit. And then I find something and go after it to the point where I've. Just, you know, come to terms with it and acknowledge that it's just part of the process, even though it's not fun to be kind of aimless for a while.

It's just, you know, that just means you're beginning a new, a new creative stage for me. Um, so, yeah.

Ruthi Corcoran: Yeah, I have a number of thoughts on this. I have a very different experience than what you described about project to project and being aimless and sort of needing that north star. Um,

big picture. Once upon a time, I had a plan of action. This is how my life was going to go. It's going to go in this particular direction. And as many others who have had a similar experience. A bunch of little things happen and all of a sudden the plan goes and goes in a very different direction. It's no longer a plan.

That plan goes out the window and you find yourself in a very different spot and through the process of, I mean, that's like, over the course of over a decade, right? Through the process of, of having a very concrete plan to just not, um, a lot of the learning along the way has been shifted towards. Having notions and directionally.

Here's where I want to go. I want to lean into these types of things. I think these will make my life better, uh, as a specific example. Right? Um, I like gardening more gardening. Good. That's sort of a notional direction, right? I like doing, um, interesting projects with people who are excited about it, right?

That's a notion. That's not a, like, this is my career trajectory over the next 10 years. That's a, these are things I want to do more of. And the more that I can do of them, the more, um, contentment and fulfillment, um, I get out of my day to day. That said, I, in the short term, projects, you know, work projects, like, you know, home projects, et cetera, I always have a direction we're going.

It's very concrete, we'll go there, you know, concrete in the sense that I can visualize it not in the sense of like, we must meet this end more. Just I've got a very clear direction. We're going and we can build a road map back and you can help people guide along to go and I don't often find myself in the position.

You described Dave, where you've got sort of a. A pause between projects and a malaise. Instead, I have the opposite project of like, all right, we're on to the next one. We're on to the next one. And it's sort of a constant slew of projects and things I'm doing. And I get caught up in the, the swirl, I would say, of the different projects.

And so my challenge is to force myself to pause and go, hang on. Is this in line with the directional notions that you know are going to lend fulfillment and contentment in your life and to make sure that the like projects that I can get swept up in aren't taking me completely off course of the notional direction that I want to go in

Dave Dougherty: out of pure curiosity.

When you're in the swirl of a multitude of projects,

how many do you finish?

Ruthi Corcoran: I don't know. You guys would know as well as me what the track record is, right? I mean, I would say Let's from a house project perspective I think I did this the last time like when we moved and I had a whole bunch of things that I knew I wanted To get done. I think my completion rate was somewhere between 60 and 70 And the extra 30 to 40 were things that throughout the process it was like either That just fell off, didn't have the actual capacity to do it, or it turns out it wasn't as important.

So, um, from that's the only specific numbers I can, I can lend you off the top of my head.

Dave Dougherty: Yeah. And it's, it's interesting because there are certain elements and certain aspects in my life, you know, if we do the holistic thing, um, building off of what you said, when it comes to like work projects or creative projects, there's a, there's a definitive, like it's done, it's shipped.

Right. You, you write a blog, you do a podcast, you do a song. It's done. It's shipped. It's out in the world now. Um, whereas diet and health and exercise is much more of that Kaizen, just do a little bit better every day. And eventually you'll turn around and go, Oh, wow, that was a lot. Right. Um. The context for me plays a big, a big thing.

Um, and I think we've, we talked about this in an earlier episode too, uh, for whatever reason, the fall and the winter ends up being a time where I really want to just like sit down and write. And so that impulse to be creative in that medium is way higher than any other time of the year. And so if I'm going to take advantage of the seasonality of my creativity and my kind of my, my impulses, then I'm going to go do that.

Like I'm going to sit down and focus. Um, and I've discovered I'm more productive when I have specific rituals around specific activities, um, because it just focuses the brain and, and does what I needed to do. Um, another idea, this is going to be a left kind of a circle back left turn, but, um, in alchemy, Roy Sutherland's Uh, and in a lot of his other presentations that we've talked about previously, he talks about bees and how actually there are a certain percentage of the bees in any given colony that, um, don't go to the flowers that everybody else is talking about because they need to be able to find the next field.

Right? Because if they only pollinate the same things, you know, close to their hive, The whole colony will die. And so it's what's seems like, Oh, the weirdos are going off. Maybe they won't come back is actually essential to, uh, the whole system. You need those, those bees finding new flowers, new trees, new, you know, whatever else.

Um, and yeah, there's probably a higher fail rate because there's, you know. A smaller percentage of them going and doing that, um, but, you know, again, go to the whole, you need that blend of the doers and the dreamers and, you know, the rainbow connection. Um, yeah, so that's where rebuttals, retorts, comments, there

Alex Pokorny: was a static came across recently about lazy ants and they're not so much the hard workers of like up to like 40 percent of a nest. A lot of ants that really don't, they're pretty aimless. So this

Dave Dougherty: doesn't have anything to do with Thanksgiving coming up?

Alex Pokorny: Just thinking about the bees, uh, there is a purpose to them. Um, basically they're, they're still kind of replacements for others. Um, they're not replaced actually, but they become the replacements basically. Um, so there's still some understanding of basically their value to the overall nest. It's not like they're seen the same way either.

So some differences there. And I was just trying to think of the project kind of in between kind of malaise or indecision or however you want to kind of call it in between projects. I guess I have a difficulty with some of that just because there are long term projects for instance like this podcast.

You can think of it as each individual episode or you can think of it as the entire endeavor. If you think of it as the entire endeavor it's an ongoing no end date sort of project. Determining where you're going to get your sense of pride or what you're kind of going to look back on upon fondly, at least is each, I guess up to each individual, um, you really kind of have to figure out what you're going to focus on and it has to be the things that you did accomplish versus all the things that you didn't, I think that that's a, a difficulty that I run into frequently is that my ambitions are larger than what I've accomplished.

Therefore, in the end result, I feel bad about it because my ambition was larger. And I didn't do it all, all the things. I did most of the things. And to Ruthie's point, probably the things that actually turned out that mattered and were possible are the things that got done. So I should, you know, cut that down a little bit.

Um,

Dave Dougherty: yes and no. I think, you know, this is where anybody who's done any kind of performing We'll tell you, you just have off nights, you have a bad crowd, you're tired, you tweaked your ankle walking out of the grocery store. Cause you're old now. Right? Like, you know, whatever, whatever happens, you just have bad nights, even though you've done all the practicing, all the whatever, and you just have to roll with it.

You just have to have bad gigs every once in a while. I mean, that's true with speaking, that's true with, you know, meetings in an organization. Sometimes you just have to bomb and then you'll find out what happens, you know, later. And most of the time, most of the time, it's not as bad as you think it was, right?

Because you're always going to be harder on yourself than everybody else. But then there are other times where even though you did that, people will come up and say, you know what, this one aspect of it really resonated with me. Let's chat, right? And that's, that's what you can hope for for any presentation is, you know, growing the network, getting new ideas, getting rebuttals onto your ideas.

Um, Yeah, I mean, it's everywhere. Um, you just have to be open to it, right?

Alex Pokorny: I think that's a good piece. I mean, if it's from an external source and kind of reaffirming or internally, you do have to get outside of your own head in those moments, because you can look at any event completely negatively or...

Completely positively. That's up to you. So trying to get outside of whatever mode you're in or mood you're in.

Dave Dougherty: Sure. Yeah. And it is one of those things too, where, I mean, if you're only externally motivated, man, that's a, that's a rough world to live in. Um, see Tik TOK creators. Um, if, if you have that, If it brings you joy, uh, if, if you find yourself willing to do it without being paid, then I say go that way because you have a drive and good things will come eventually just because you're motivated to continue to do it, right?

If you're forcing yourself to do it, why? Life is too short for that. You know, you know,

Ruthi Corcoran: and even if you're not being paid and I call that out, because the immediate thing I thought of when you describe that about, you know, if there's something you're into, just just go for it. Right? Even if you're not being paid.

So 1 of the we'll have to find the official site. Statistic on this, but one of the really sad things about, um, about retirement, at least in the United States, is that something like half of retirees are depressed and the rates of depression are higher for those who retire in the winter than in the summertime.

And part of the reason I'm given to understand is people haven't cultivated hobbies or identities outside of who they are at work. And that is a tragedy, right? If all you are are what you do on your day to day work and what you're getting paid for, and then that stops in best case scenario, because you're retired.

And that's all you built towards. That's a really sad spot to be in, not least because, you know, when you're working and stuff, you got to do other stuff. You gotta be, you have to be cultivating other interests and things. Sometimes you have a bad day and it's good to be able to go out in the garden or go into the woodworking shop and go, okay, we're going to do something different.

We're going to get our mind out of it.

Dave Dougherty: Well, I've, I have experience with that with, you know, the. Some musician friends of mine or artist friends of mine that, you know, gave it a go and then started transitioning around 25, 27, 30 into the next chapter, right? Where art wasn't the thing anymore. You know, and you go from being like 10 or 12 to 30 defining yourself as guitarist, drummer.

Violin player, you know, whatever else now all of a sudden you're not you go through that same identity crisis of okay Well, if this is just something I do What else do I do? You know um And it's it's hard. It is a hard transition. Um, you know, not everybody does it well Unfortunately, because it is so hard.

Um, yeah, but it can it doesn't have to wait till retirement Unfortunately, it can happen anytime You know, any, any career transition, you know, coming off of the HR stuff we've talked about, you know, even just switching from, you know, marketing to sales, that might be enough to, to set somebody off, even though they're closely related.

But if you've defined yourself as marketer or, you know, HR whiz kid, um, Now all of a sudden you're doing something else. That's that can be rough. You know, it can be real rough.

Alex, you seem moderately uncomfortable. Um, or is that just your general vibe

Alex Pokorny: today? Okay.

Dave Dougherty: Well, glad I called it out publicly.

Alex Pokorny: Your point of waking up with random pains is quite apparent for me today. So there's a number of things that I have injured recently. So today is just one of those fun days. It's just, uh, just annoying.

Ruthi Corcoran: And just, I

Alex Pokorny: know it's frustrating. It's frustrating. It's all because whatever plans you had, then suddenly those, those don't happen.

I guess dealing with that frustration of external pressures. There you go. That's another 1 to work through with projects.

All

Dave Dougherty: right, and now due to time constraints, thank you for listening and participating. Uh, email to us is in the description, YouTube and podcast descriptions. Any thoughts, comments, questions, um, you know, do you tend to drive towards things or do you, uh, need to know all the information before you do it? Um, how do you identify hedgehog or Fox?

Um, you know, or are you a unicorn in a sea of horses? Uh, pick your metaphor. And, uh, with that, we will see you in the next episode and take care.