Minter Dialogue with Justin Jones-Fosu

In this latest episode (number 592), I sit down with Justin Jones-Fosu, founder and CEO of Work Meaningful, to explore the intersection of meaningful work and inclusion. Justin shares his journey as a global citizen, husband, and father, and discusses his latest book, “I Respectfully Disagree: How to Have Difficult Conversations in a Divided World.” We dive into the concept of meaningful work, challenging the notion that it must always bring happiness, and instead focusing on purpose and value. Justin introduces the idea of bringing meaning to work through the three rhythm model, inspired by job crafting research. We also touch on resilience, the importance of mindset, and the power of respectful disagreement. Throughout the conversation, Justin offers practical insights and personal stories, encouraging listeners to challenge their perspectives and engage with those they disagree with to foster empathy and understanding.

Please send me your questions — as an audio file if you’d like — to nminterdial@gmail.com. Otherwise, below, you’ll find the show notes and, of course, you are invited to comment. If you liked the podcast, please take a moment to rate it here.

To connect with Justin Jones-Fosu:

• Check out Justin Jones-Fosu’s company site, Work Meaningful, here
• Find/buy Justin’s latest book, “I Respectfully Disagree,” here on Amazon
• All about Justin’s books
• Find/follow Justin Jones-Fosu on LinkedIn

Other mentions/sites:

• Check out Karen Allen (about Growth and Fixed-based mindsets) here and her book, Stop & Shift
• About Daryl Davis, the Blues musician and Race Relations Expert
• William Isaac: Dialogue: The Art Of Thinking Together

Further resources for the Minter Dialogue podcast:

Meanwhile, you can find my other interviews on the Minter Dialogue Show in this podcast tab, on Megaphone or via Apple Podcasts. If you like the show, please go over to rate this podcast via RateThisPodcast! And for the francophones reading this, if you want to get more podcasts, you can also find my radio show en français over at: MinterDial.fr, on Megaphone or in iTunes. Music credit: The jingle at the beginning of the show is courtesy of my friend, Pierre Journel, author of the Guitar Channel. And, the new sign-off music is “A Convinced Man,” a song I co-wrote and recorded with Stephanie Singer back in the late 1980s (please excuse the quality of the sound!).

Transcription courtesy of Flowsend.ai, an AI full-service for podcasters

Minter Dial: Justin Jones-Fosu. You know, in England we have lots of double barrel names, so I was thinking there must be an Englishness to your name. Anyway, obviously that’s not the right reason. Justin, in your own words, who are you?

Justin Jones-Fosu: Wow. I am a husband, I am a dad. I am a global citizen after making interactions with others better. And how do I do that? Is just being me and living up to what my mom challenged me to be. But then also as the founder and CEO of Work Meaningful, where we work with the intersection of meaningful work and inclusion. And yeah, I, I love making people feel better than after they left with me.

Minter Dial: So, yeah, nice. And aside from, you know, I love the way you start with being the dad, you do talk about being a dad and husband a lot in the book and how that is truly you. But you’ve also written at least two books, if I can recall correctly. And the last one, it just came out, which is called “I Respectfully Disagree, how to have Difficult Conversations in a Divided World. What divided world are you talking about?

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah, I mean, we have to deal with the number one issue right now, Minter. This, it’s big. And I don’t think people are prepared to talk about it, but I have to deal with the elephant in the room. The biggest issue of all that we’re really being struggling with or troubled with is could Leonardo DiCaprio survive than a little plank of wood and Titanic? That is the issue that’s dividing the whole world. There’s been research, there’s been data and a lot of things.

Minter Dial: Yeah, well, I think, I think it was actually. It was the type of wood, frankly. Yes. That it was down to the mahogany. Really not good.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yes.

Minter Dial: All right, so Justin, just so for people who can sort of get a little bit more level setting, where are you based? Tell us about your work at Meaningful Work.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah, so based in Charlotte, North Carolina. And we work with organizations on this concept of meaningful work and inclusion. And we speak about 50 to 60 times a year for companies such as Toyota, Adidas, John Deere, all the way to OASA, the Fortune 500 to fortunate fifth graders. So, I love the work that we do and that spend into this book. I never planned on writing this book, Minter. It wasn’t a part of my three-to-five-year plan. It wasn’t like, oh, let me write a book that I think can help society. It was in our sessions, the inclusive mindset that we working with organizations around the world with. And I’d always make this statement that we can vehemently disagree with someone’s ideology, humanity. And I would always get. Once again, I think something shifted. I would always get this grass gasp from somebody like, oh, that’s good. Oh, that’s awesome. But how do we do it? Somebody will always kind of come up like, oh, that’s good, but how do we do it? Or what if they believe this? And so, that became the impetus of the book of how do we do it? And just being asked so many more times about how to do it spend writing this book. So, that’s why I chose to write the book.

Minter Dial: Well, I love it. So, I presume you had already answered the question a number of times, which really helped you structure and plunge into it. Because writing a book isn’t something you do by mistake. It takes a whole lot of effort before we get into the book because I obviously want to delve into that meaningful work, or work meaningful, which is actually your site and how it’s called. One of the things that I. This may be my preface would be. I’m a big believer in the work that John Vervaeke has been doing up in Canada and he talks about the crisis of meaning, how actually one of the biggest problems, if not the biggest problem in our lives, which has created the whole hullabaloo and the Leonardo DiCaprio sinking situation, is a lack of meaning in our lives. So, I was wondering, how do you react to that and to what extent what is meaningful for you? How do you describe and. And activate meaningfulness in your life, in your work?

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah. So, meaning for me is. And we can kind of like just level set with the definition, the arbitrary definition around something being useful, serious or important. And for me, that’s what it is. It’s something that has value. Right. So, for me it’s meaningful. And oftentimes where I think people have conflated meaningful is with happy. And I often give, you know, and I have a lot of friends who are happiness scholars and you know, I love happiness. I like, I even love the song, right? Don’t worry A cuckoo. Right. Don’t worry, Be happy now. But oftentimes I think we’ve been so infatuated with happiness, only doing things that make us smile, only doing things that, you know, bring a great jubilation to our lives that we sometimes discredit the things that are meaningful, that still have purpose, that still have value. And so, I give this analogy of like, I didn’t wake up when my kids were little, when they were crying in the other room at three in the morning and I didn’t walk into their room Like, I get to change your diaper. I get to change your diaper. Like, that wasn’t me. And if anybody who’s listening, that was you. You are superhuman. But for me, it was meaningful because it had a purpose and it had value to me to keep them safe and put them in an environment that is conducive to their growth and development in positive ways. And that’s the same thing with our work. So, when I talk about meaningful work, it’s like there’s not always. We’re not always going to do things that make us smile and make us happy. But is there value? Is there purpose? Is there strong why behind it? Which speaks. Actually, my first book, which is your why Matters Now. And so, that’s that concept of meaningful. Is it important? Does it have significance? And is there a level of value that you can ascribe to it?

Minter Dial: Well, so that reminds me, I know you got another book about inclusion, right. So, this is your third book, is that correct?

Justin Jones-Fosu: Well, to be vulnerable. It’s technically my third book, but actually it’s my fifth. I just don’t. The first two. Oh, they were learning experiences, to say the least.

Minter Dial: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I have. I have one of those in my cupboard. Unpublished novel. So, that’s interesting. I mean, this sort of Calvinistic idea that work, just by doing work, can be meaningful. It’s structuring. You have to be in by nine, leave at five or whatever. And you have to adhere to certain objectives if you have a boss, to the orders that you’ve been given. And at the lowest level, that can provide meaningfulness for people as well as a check to pay for the food. Yeah, but how do people who are listening to this try to lean into something that’s meaningful for them at work, at their work, whatever their work is.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah, yeah, I love that question. And I want to lean into that question in a different way, because oftentimes we talk about meaningful work as something external. And what I mean by that is. Let me give you a great example. Everybody’s talking about, you know, I need to find meaning in my work. Right. It’s one of the top 10 things for millennials, top three things for gen Z, about this aspect of meaningful work. But it’s also about finding meaning in our work. And we’ve been challenging that notion based upon the research, that it’s not about finding meaning in our work, it’s about bringing meaning to our work. Finding implies that it’s outside of you. Bringing implies that it’s already inside of you. It Just needs to be excavated and brought forward. And so, the research behind this, done by Rysandewski and Dutton in 2001, is this body of work called job crafting. And it talks about these three ways that we can craft our work or into our lives in ways that are meaningful for us. And so, what we’ve kind of repurpose or repackage that and what we call the three-rhythm model. I’m from Ghana originally, so I’m a dual citizen of both Ghana, United States, and the Gem Bay Drum I use as an example right now. So, oftentimes in my presentations, I’ll just. I’ll have somebody come up and drum with me, and I’ll just ask them just to drum. And then I’m like, okay, now I want you to drum for someone you passionately love. And I’m like, now I want you to drum like you’re the best party of your life. And I have these different things. And it always changes. And the emphasis of it is the dramas never changed. The only thing that shifted is the meaning we put into the drum. And that’s the same approach to our work. And so, these three rhythms that we talk about that are stemmed from job crafting research are the perspective rhythm, how we choose to see things, the task rhythm, what we choose to do, and the relationship rhythm, who we choose to engage. But it always starts internally and comes out externally, no matter the type of work. There’s some really cool articles and research on this, Even this concept around dirty work, Right. And if I could summarize it, it was really kind of like, how do you find meaning and dirty work? And he talked about, there are some people that simply do things that society doesn’t herald, like cleaning out the gutters or sewage systems or other things, but they find meaning. Or even factory workers, but they find meaning. And the emphasis on vine. They bring meaning by the relationships that they formed, the people around them that they’ve intentionally leaned into. And so, there’s always this choice that we have to lean into meaningfulness that’s inside of us that can come out.

Minter Dial: I absolutely adore that for several reasons. First of all, open in parentheses. My wife’s name is Yendi Y E N D I. And as a Ghanaian, I’m thinking, you know that that’s a town in the north of Ghana. Yes, close parenthesis. Secondly, the word crafting. And what I love about that is the agency piece where you really. It’s about you writing it. Oftentimes people ask about finding my why you have to go and craft it. I mean, there’s intentionality behind find, but it’s almost like, oh, it’s going to pop up in a dream, and there it is. Nuh. It’s going to be a lot more work than that. And the third thing is this notion of the music. The music. I have a chum who’s a big drummer, and he often tries to bring music into work and also talks about the idea of collaboration. I’m a long time Deadhead, and one of the things that I’ve always liked about the Grateful Dead is that they all came from different musical backgrounds. So, when they were working together, they always had to listen to understand what the other one. Where the other one was coming from.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah.

Minter Dial: Even though at some level they all, you know, came from a similar zeitgeist, if you will.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Right.

Minter Dial: And probably took the same tab of, you know what before. But music and work is a great thing. So, the idea of finding it within, you tell. I think. I think a lot of people don’t know how to find that. They look outside, and if they look inside, they often lack, let’s say, 2020 vision.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah.

Minter Dial: How do you help with that? Or help individuals, organizations, get to a truer version of who you are. And then I want to get into resilience.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah. So, let me give it an example. Right. So, I think we all can resonate with stories and our own stories. So, let me be very clear. I hate traveling. As a person who travels 50 to 60 times a year, I hate travel. Now, I love arriving places, but I hate the process of traveling. Right. It doesn’t make me happy. I’m not like. Travel like that is not my emphasis or my focus, but what I started doing, because I remember one day I was in the security line at the airport. In the States, we call that TSA. Right. And one of the things was, you know, I hated my security line experience. It’s just because it was slow. You just dragging. You had to go through the scanner, put your stuff, take off your shoes, all these kind of things. And then one day I’m in line, and I notice this woman doing something online that you should never do. She was smiling and she was talking to the agents, right?

Minter Dial: Yeah.

Justin Jones-Fosu: And I went to go tap on the shoulder, like, excuse me, man, we don’t do that here. This is tsa. But instead, as I observed her, I noticed the ripple effect around her, Minter. And it was this interesting thing. If other people started smiling around her, other people started engaging and talking. The TSA, even the hardest hardened one the security person, um, even cracked a smile, right? And so, I was so fascinated by this that I was like, the very next time I wanted to show up to the security line at the airport, I wanted to be like her. And so, I showed up, and I started. I showed up dancing, right? So, I started going through the line, like, and it got me a couple extra searches. But that’s not the point of the story. The point of the story is that my new mission became, I wonder how many of the agents could I make smile? And I started doing things like asking them how their day was. And I even started using this magic line that I encourage everybody who travels to share. I started saying to them, thank you so much for helping to keep us safe today. And, Minter, you’d have no idea how many of them said, wow, no one ever says that to us. And what that did for me is it changed the experience of the security line for me. It went from a thing that I absolutely dreaded to something that I looking forward to making somebody else smile, to bringing joy to somebody else, to letting them know that I value and appreciate the work that you do. That became my new task, right? That’s how I crafted meaningfulness in my travel, even though I still hate travel. And so, what I would encourage people is, like, to complete that story. The TSA line never changed. Minter. It’s still the same. But how I chose to show up to it did, and it has shifted my experience. And so, what I share with people in organizations is that it is always our choice. Oftentimes, we focus so much on our external locus of control that we forget about our internal loci and that we actually are able to focus on the things in which we can control. I can’t control the security line, but I can control how I show up to it. And so, it’s challenging and gamifying and asking the questions of perspective, of gratitude, of what’s one thing that I find joy in that I can actually do in that moment, right? So, for somebody else, it’s crossword puzzles. And so, you may say, you know what? One of my line, I’m going to do crossword puzzles as I’m walking, right as I’m waiting. And it’s something that you’re able to bring meaning to the work that you do. So, that’s just one practical example. But it comes. All of our examples are within us because we know what brings us joy. We know oftentimes the things that we’re like, were filled by, like, wow. Like, that really fills me doing that aspect. And I’ve had many of those examples where I’ve been at work and I’ve hated my job, but then I attached it to something that I found great joy in, like serving others or like the cancer walk or leading that. That actually enlightened the work that I did.

Minter Dial: Well, what I enjoy about that story is a. The notion of perspective changing to the sense of accountability that you have with yourself about this. It. There’s an integrity to it and often I think there’s also in many cases a lack of self-knowledge and self-responsibility where people will sort of throw the work under the bus, if you will, as opposed to find themselves accountable or responsible for the situation in which they put themselves. And you talked about this happiness idea earlier. I have many friends also in the happy industry. Yet I think the bigger challenge is how to deal with the shit.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah.

Minter Dial: As opposed to let me just be happy about the shit. Well, right, let’s say you, you found a way to be happier in the line through. Which is a shitty experience, let’s say through some perspective checking. But that’s not necessarily the. The game plan as in when you’re doing meaningful work, it’s important. But it also means perhaps wading in six meters of smelly waters in order to do something, whatever the metaphor of six smelly feet, you know, six smelly meters of waters. But, but dealing with the difficulties of life and, and also perhaps leads into the. Maybe the difficult conversations. But yeah, how do you. I mean, how do you look at. And I think it’s an important and relevant topic as we’re talking about before we started recording. Is this idea of building resilience. Is resilience something that is necessary in order to have that perspective taking and. Or in order to have more rugged, difficult conversations?

Justin Jones-Fosu: Oh, absolutely. And in many ways spans different spheres. Right. There’s a mental resilience, just emotional resilience. I liken it to my favorite fable growing up. And it’s actually one of the core principles of our organization that I live by called the tortoise principle. And so, growing up, one of the Aesop’s fables was the Tortoise in the Hair. And for those who have never heard of that, since it’s a rabbit and a turtle and they’re about to race and the rabbit’s like, of course I’m faster. Right. And so, race starts, darts out and it’s like I’m just demolishing this turtle. And so, the rabbit goes off into the briar or to the bushes and takes A nap and wakes up and is like, oh, and realizes the tortoise or the turtles crossing the finish line right now. I’ve been advocating for change and how we’ve seen a turtle all these years because we called the tortoise slow, right? We also said slow and steady, but I want to challenge that notion. The tortoise wasn’t slow. The tortoise was strategic. The tortoise was consistent. The tortoise was resilient. The tortoise continued even in the pressure of seeing the rabbit dart off ahead. And the tortoise could have given up and said, you know what, I’m good. Obviously the rabbit’s going to win, but because the tortoise continue to grow for it. Now why did we call the tortoise slow? Because we compared it to the hare. But that’s not the journey of the tortoise. The tortoise, and that’s why I love Carol Dweck’s work on mindset, is that our only competition is ourselves. And that part of our journey, our mental resilience, is continuing. There’s a lot of people who look really good initially, but then they falter and then they fail in the long term. There’s no long-term sustainability, no foundation building. And that’s one of the things that I think is part of resilience, is it’s not always just go, go, go. Sometimes resilience means strategically, how do I move forward? Strategically, what is the best way to build a foundation so that this is long lasting and not just looking good in the moment. And unfortunately, I think we shortchange some aspects of our resilience for short, shorter-term gains, focused looks rather than a long term development and growth. And that happens in organizations. You think about the change that somebody comes in and says we need to turn this organization around now, are they looking at it from a 5, 10, 15, 20 year perspective where they may turn it around in a certain one or two years and the stock prices go up, but it’s actually going to have a negative experience for the consumer five years or ten years from now and they’ll shortchange that. And we’ve seen many organizations that that’s happened.

Minter Dial: Well, I can actually recall a similar situation for me happening in the organization and recall how I was unable to have a decent conversation where my boss was willing to listen to me so many things in what you said with regard to resilience, I would like to add that this tortoise also needs to overcome obstacles. Maybe the rabbit short term gainer that he is or the hare jumped into the briar because that’s where I love and fell asleep. That may be his obstacle. Let’s say it’s a He. I don’t recall if it’s a year. Oh, opening up another can of worms, you know, so sometimes it can almost feel like everything is wrong. Like can of worms. I’m diss every, I’m dissing worms, you know, or, or by not talking about snakes, am I being non inclusive? Another can of snakes. Y but this idea of resiliency, looking at you, for people who aren’t able to see this on YouTube, they, you might not know, but Justin is fully fit in his look. I don’t see the ripped abs because they’re behind the desk, but I’m guessing they are. I think sports is a tremendous way to help deal with or bring resilience because essentially like Roger Federer, champion that he was, he made, he lost 46% of the points he played. So, you have to know how to deal with loss a lot. In every tournament that you play in tennis, there’s only one person that wins. So, yeah, that may occasionally be you. But for the most of them, like me, I was a, you know, average good tennis player and you know, had to lose a lot. I played a lot of rugby and I was on a lot of winning teams. But even during the winning, you still have to get hit and you get up and I would add, show a little bit of stiff lip, stiff upper lip. Because if it’s just about getting knocked over, complaining about, oh, look at me, I got knocked over, then we’re, we’re not building resilience. And I’m just wondering if not in today’s world, we need to bring back a little bit more hardship to remind, I mean to strengthen the resilience and allow us also to be more, let’s say, determined with that long term approach.

Justin Jones-Fosu: I love that. I think you’re brilliant in your assessment and how you communicated that. And that’s one of the reasons that kind of go back to part of the foundation of the work that we do is Carol Dweck’s work on mindset. And there’s these aspects of growth versus fixed based mindset. And one of the things we began is we started challenging organizations as well as individuals. But first I started challenging myself is I realized it stems from mindset and for those who don’t know her work, fixed based mindset. Essentially people only do things that they look good compared to other people, that they look at failure as Final and that they don’t want to do anything that would compromise their perceived intelligence. And so, I don’t want to don’t look good. And so, if somebody asked a question, unless I’m 130% sure, and even then I’m going to question, I’m not going to provide an answer. Right. Vs growth based mindset where people do things because they want to get better. Their only competition is themselves and they look at failure as just another data point of learning. And unfortunately, in our society, we have conditioned people to be fixed based mindset people. And why is that true? Right. You know, even I give the example of the Rubik’s Cube, right? When’s the last time you saw like the nightly programs, TV programs, bring somebody on and be like, we want to celebrate Minter. Come on. Minter comes onto the stage. Like, mentor. It took five years for Minter to solve the Rubik’s Cube. We don’t, we don’t celebrate that. We want to know, can you do it behind your back? Can you do it in English Channel? Can you do it in your two front teeth? Can you do it with your hands tied behind your back? Like all of these things, we want to know who’s the faster, who’s the fastest, who’s the best, who can do it. And that’s what we prioritize and that’s what we herald. But there’s consequences to that and unintended consequences to that is that that’s what we start leaning into. So, unless we’re the best, unless we’re the fastest, unless we’re the brightest, we don’t lean into this notion of how do I continue to develop and grow. Now what’s interesting is even and I love Marcus Buckingham and the work that has come out of Gallup and all these things about strengths based. But I think we started confusing this concept of weakness for things that I’m not good at yet. And so, we’ve been challenging people to still lean into these areas that they’re not good at yet. And so, one of the I’m a strategy guy. So, one of the strategic ways stems personally. Let’s just do personal. And every year I do a thing called a birthday challenge. And my birthday challenge is one way that I lean into this aspect of the growth-based mindset. So, I do one thing that I’ve never have done but at least thought about doing or considered doing right. So, one was running a marathon, another was climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, another was learning how to cook healthy dishes, another one learning how to Ski. And I talk about this notion of like, when I first went skiing, man, it. I was in my low 30s, I went to this little place called Vail, Colorado. And I remember being there and I’m falling down the magic carpet and these, these little kids who are 4 or 5 years old that are killing it. Like whoosh, whoosh, right. Just running down the mountain on the skis. And I’m so demoralized, I’m embarrassed. I’m like, I should have started earlier. And there was moments of doubt where I wanted to give up Minter. But what I realized is that I was like, I’m not going to get better unless I keep coming back resilience, unless I get back up after I fall. Now I now go every year not to Vail because that became very expensive. But even in North Carolina there are mountains and I go back every year. And now I’m on an intermediate slope and I’m only falling four times on intermediate slopes. And guess who I bring with me now, Minter?

Minter Dial: My kids. Yeah.

Justin Jones-Fosu: And they are becoming those kids that are 5, 6, 7 years old that are whizzing down the mountain. And that’s the aspect of mindset, that’s the aspects of growth, that’s the aspects of resilience that I think when we overcome those aspects of obstacles. But we also have to be intentional to create these spaces where we’re going to fail. But it’s just another data point of.

Minter Dial: Learning the way your story resonated with me. I was fortunate enough to be one of your kids, like that brought up skiing. And one of the things we used to say is if you don’t fall, you’re not trying hard enough.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yes.

Minter Dial: But the problem with this is now at the age of 60, that becomes a fairly life-threatening thought. Or at least you just don’t get up in the same way. So, in the time we have left. Justin, I do want to dig in on a few pieces of your book, “I Respectfully Disagree.” So, you’ve talked a little bit about the tortoise principle. It feels to me in several of the examples you talked about, you implicitly use the three self-model, which is something I’ve never come across. And I think that was really interesting to me. I typically look at this idea of the self as, you know, the idea of know thyself. But, well, the way you break it down is, is really interesting. So, do, if you would just lean, you know, spread out for us. What is these three self models and how does that help in situations where you are tangled up In a conversation, your emotions are maybe running high and you want to have this conversation. What, what is three selfs, and why Is that the right approach to help you deal with this nutty conversation?

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah, let me. I want to describe the three selfs, but let me give the foundation of this. The foundation of it is that every. Every conversation we have, whether it’s a challenging one or not, whether we disagree or not, we can still respect the other person. So, I want to come back to that foundational aspect of choice. And that makes it important to talk about the three selfs. Because if that’s the only thing that we can control, I can’t control if they respect me or not. But I can choose how I show up. The three self model speaks to that. Generally, there’s three cells that we approach conversations with. We approach it from a superior self. I’m better than you. I have more knowledge, I have the facts. I went to a better school, I’m from a better country. All these things operate in this three self, superior self, inferior self, where I’m worse than you, I’m not as good as you, you’re better than me. Right. I don’t have the same experience, all these other kind of things. And then there’s equal self, where, let’s be very honest, we’ll never spend 100 time, 100% of our time in equal self because there’s so many different factors that speak to it. It’s how do we spend more time in equal self? Now I’m going to give to you in a quick story form. So, while writing, “I Respectfully Disagree.” I disrespectfully disagreed with the person in my writing retreat. There’s this guy named Daryl on my retreat, and I grew up and we didn’t have a lot of money. We had a stint of being unhoused on welfare, different things like that. And so, when I saw Daryl throw away food, superior self kicked in because I didn’t grow up with the luxury to throw away food. So, that’s not something I really do. So, I was like, hey, like, why are you throwing away food? And he was like, because I didn’t like it. Another superior self moment. You always throw away food that you don’t like, right? And he was like, well, yes. And then I started. I went for the juggler. I started attacking his parenthood. So, do you let your kids throw away food just because they don’t like it? In all these moments, defensive walls kick in for Daryl. He’s now defending himself. And I realized the conversation has gone Far right. And I started noticing because I just got done researching and really diving into this concept of the three selves. And I was like, oh my gosh, I’m operating from three. From the superior self.

Minter Dial: Can I just jump in, Justin? What’s, what’s funny? And both in your description of the definition of the three selfs. It’s not what I took away from it, what, what I read, which is an inferiority, the inferiority complex. I don’t, I’m not worth it. It’s sort of like within myself, I don’t feel like I’m good enough. I wasn’t necessarily in a comparative state. It’s just like within me. I, I don’t. I’m not good. I don’t. I’ve never done this. I, I don’t know how to do it. That was what I was taking as the inferior self. And then the superior self is just the sort of, the, the know it all type of feeling where I’m, I’m superior to other. I’m. This is my strength zone. And, you know, the, the ego is really what there is. The thing that’s kicking that. And the equal self does seem like a, A parody story where you’re with others. You’re not over or under others, but that was it. And, and your story with this person, I was thinking you were going to come at it from an inferior perspective. Because I never had food at home. No, you see how I was reading it incorrectly.

Justin Jones-Fosu: I love how you saw it. No, that’s a greater. That’s a different interpretation. It’s not incorrect. It’s just different. Because sometimes, and to your point, some of the sessions we’ve done in organizations, we’ve realized that some people operate and it looks like superior self, but it comes from inferiority.

Minter Dial: Right.

Justin Jones-Fosu: They project this notion of I’m better than because they really feel like they’re less than.

Minter Dial: Yeah.

Justin Jones-Fosu: And it’s one of those statements I make in terms of that we often spend so much of our time trying to prove our worth that we lose opportunities to simply be our worth. And one of these, the thing kind of close out that story is what can people do? No matter where you are, whether you find yourself in superior or inferior self, is this concept from psychologists call cognitive dissonance. And specifically ilism and illy. And I didn’t believe in this stuff until I actually practiced it and I found that it worked was you talk to yourself in third person. And what it does when our amygdala is hijacked and we’re Heat and heightened in the moment, all these things. We need just enough emotional regulation to think more logically about the situation. And so, in that moment where my MiG is hijacked, now Daryl and I are going back and forth. I’m. Now he’s defending himself. I’m in attack mode. Because you shouldn’t be throwing away food. You shouldn’t let your kids throw away food. I’m superior. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I stopped for a moment after I. The friction was very high. Took some time to think and process. And I asked this question. I said, Justin, what would equal self Justin have done? Just emotion. Just enough emotional regulation to separate myself. I said, equal self. Justin would have listened more. Equal self Justin would have asked more questions. Equal self just would have asked Daryl’s story as related to its food and equal self Justin would apologize to Daryl. Now, did I still think that thrown away food was wrong? Yes. But my approach to the conversation shifted and I went back to Daryl. I first apologized like, hey, man, how I. How I approached you about this conversation was far off. I am so sorry. I approached it in a very challenging way. And I want to. I want to say sorry. Like, they’re like, how did you grow up with food? And I went back through and started with what equal self justice would have done. So, will we always get it right? Absolutely not right. Do I still disrespectfully disagree with people? 100%. But I’m now quicker to apologize. And I now practice the cognitive dissonance or specifically ill ism, to be able to create these moments where I can spend more time in equal self. And if I’m not there to get back there.

Minter Dial: I like this idea of apologizing. It does feel like one of the biggest forms of vulnerability is to be able to apologize. And I mean, in England, pretty much every other word that is ever spoken is sorry. You know how the Brits are. The idea of being truly sorry. I know it’s not one of my personal strengths to be able to, especially in a heated argument, to come back and layer in a sorry. So, good story. Now for. So, basically what I taking away from that, if you’re in a heated argument and you’re either feeling superior or inferior, the challenge all the same is to know where your superiority is coming from, where your inferiority comes from. And I think I feel like that takes work. It doesn’t sort of just come in some spark of inspiration again.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah, yeah. No, 100%, I agree with you. I think that’s the work of emotional intelligence. And self-awareness. But I’m going to say something that’s very controversial in today’s society, and that’s simply, yes, I’m going to advocate for therapy. I believe in therapy. I don’t go to therapy because there’s something wrong with me, even though my kids may say something different. But I go to therapy because I want to keep things going, right? It’s my mental health maintenance. Some people have coaches, some people have other things. And so, it’s interesting. I was actually doing. I’m doing some work right now with the Toyota manufacturing plants and doing a tour with them. And one of the things that’s really big for them is safety, right? And so, as I was talking about this concept of therapy and mental health, which is not necessarily something that’s valued as much today and are talked about widely, is I was like, how often do you all talk about safety? And they were like, every day. I was like, why? It was like, because it’s important. I was like, why don’t you just talk about it when an incident happens? They’re like, because we want to be proactive. And I said, huh? That is why I approach therapy in the way that I do, not only for myself. I go to therapy once a month. I’ll never stop going to therapy for the rest of my life because it’s part of my mental health maintenance. And even when I met my wife, one of the first things I shared with her, I was like, hey, if you can’t go to marriage therapy for the rest of your life, I’m not your person. Because I realized as a person who’ve been married before, is married for 15 years, realizing that us only going when there was an incident was part of the problem, and that dealing with things before they become bigger is a big aspect of our growth and our development. And so, that’s one of the things that I think can be very helpful, is knowing thyself in terms of. I learn by reading, I learn by engaging with others. But I also learn about myself through the.

Minter Dial: This process of therapy and this idea of being proactive. It strikes me so many of the conversations at work go belly up because they simmer and nobody approaches them. And you kind of need to have some courage to go in and say the thing that’s on your mind, because somewhere or other, maybe it’s a boss or it’s something that rubs you entirely the wrong way. I. I’ve. I’ve had on my podcast a woman called Sarah Rozenthuler, who in a prior life was a street Juggler and then turned into a psychotherapist and. And. Or psychologist anyway and wrote a book about having meaningful conversations. So, her journey. But the. The idea of being able to have that courage to go in. There are two more questions I have for you. This first one is with regard to the notion of having a backbone and having a conciliatory conversation.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah.

Minter Dial: Too often, Justin, I. And I’m wondering if your name, Justin didn’t sometimes resonate with you more. I always used to say I want to be fair and firm, but being just is also a pretty good one. But having a backbone.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah.

Minter Dial: It feels like a lot of people misconstrue the idea of conversation as being able to listen to the other and at some level still being able to learn from the other, maybe even change your own perspectives from the other, on the other hand. And that sort of sounds wonderfully noble.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Right.

Minter Dial: The challenge I see in society is having a strong backbone that is foundational.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah.

Minter Dial: And not something that is trendy or pushed into you by society. Or for some, you know, oh, my friends doing it. Or like, I support Liverpool Football Club because my friends supported Liverpool Football Club. Talk about as stupid a reason as they get. No foundation. But little by little I crafted the reason why the Reds were my team. But this idea of having a backbone and knowing when to stand up for that backbone in the conversation because as soon as you get a little bit hair up your back or whatever the expression is, the hair stands on your back, it becomes difficult to articulate a respectful conversation because you’re so intent on standing up for what you need to stand up for.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I want to give some shades of gray to that because I think that to your point. Yes. Having a backbone in society, especially today’s society, it seems to be very challenging because no one wants to say the wrong thing. They don’t want to be perceived as ignorant or homophobic or racist or all these things. And so, we tend to like, just shy away, like not really lean into it. But there are personality differences because I also know some people who have a big backbone but don’t know how to have the conversation in a way that can be respectful. And so, I do think it comes back to the person. So, let me give it to you in a very quick way because I struggled with this myself personally and is in the story of my dad. So, I didn’t grow up with my dad. My parents divorced at 4 and I would see my dad every other weekend initially, then every weekend, then once weekend a Month and then sometimes two or three years where I didn’t see or hear from my dad. And when I was younger, it didn’t bother me as much. But as I got older, I would sometimes just pull off to the side of the road, mentor and just start weeping and crying because I felt like I missed something. Now what I’m not saying, I’m not saying that people who grew up in a nuclear family lived a perfect life, because I’ve heard those stories as well. But for me, in 2019, I was going to go back to Ghana because my dad had since retired there and I was going to go confront my dad. But because I have a really great therapist and a great leadership Charlotte cohort, they challenged me from instead of going to confront my dad to going and hearing his story. And what a participant in my session once said much more eloquently that I could have. They helped me turn a convert confrontation into a conversation. And so, when I went to go to, when I went to Ghana in 2019, I was like, hey, Dad, I really have never heard your story. I love to hear your story. How you grew up, the journey, how you met my mom, the unique challenges, all these things. And so, he would answer and he would share and I would ask more questions and that all these things and I found the common ground. I better understood how he got there, right, because he essentially didn’t have his dad growing up. And at the age of 14, he went off to school by himself and 16 went off, came to the United States by himself and all of these things. Like I understood he was like he had the paradigm of that this the teacher would appear when the student was ready and I just wasn’t ready in his assessment. Now even I found the common ground. I still disagreed with my dad on the outcome and I and out of love and appreciation and humanizing him, I communicated, understanding how he got there, but still letting him know how I felt and that I wish he would have been there for me, that I wish he would have fought for me, that I wish he would have stood up for me. And in that moment, I chose in listening and engaging, I chose to forgive him. Not because he asked for it, but because I better understood how he got there. Now, Minter, on the other side of that forgiveness, I didn’t realize was my whole aspect of my heritage that I’ve been holding back. And I realized that the power of respectful disagreement in that moment because it’s not just simply listening to the other person, it’s also sharing your truth and love that I think is helpful, but I love you sound like there’s something on the tip of your tongue.

Minter Dial: No, I just wanted to have that. I mean, I have. I. I think any. A lot of men with their father’s stories, and I have. It made me think of that. But I was just wondering during that conversation, were you sitting there listening and hearing him out and did you have doubts or how difficult was you to step back and say, all right, dad, I’ve heard everything. Thanks. This is what I got. I humanize you. No. However.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah.

Minter Dial: I need to tell you something.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah.

Minter Dial: Was that. Was that. How difficult was it to come back into that? Or were you just constantly waiting, say, well, I know I need to bring that in. And. And is it not also sometimes necessary to put that aside in order to listen better, but you still know you had to do it? Did you know that that was an objective that you had flying over to Accra, wherever you went into. How did. How did that come about?

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah, I didn’t know if that was going to be the conversation to have it. So, I was in the moment of. I knew at some point I wanted to share with him my perspective, what happened to me, because I don’t think I ever. I wasn’t honest enough to share first. Honest with myself, but honest to share with him. So, Father’s Day came and went, and I always struggled with Father’s Day because I didn’t want to say, oh, you’re the best father ever, and give him the Hallmark cards and all that kind of stuff. I would do things like, thanks for helping be a part of my birth. Right. Like, that was my Father’s Day message. And it was until I confronted that truth about one, dealing with myself and engaging. And we bring up a really good point, Minter, because there’s actually a body of our research that we didn’t intend to uncover, but that came forth. And it’s this whole concept of we initially want to solve disrespectful disagreement, moving to respectful disagreement. But we didn’t realize there’s another category called disrespectful agreement. And disrespectful agreement happens in two different fronts. One where I may talk to you, mention, oh, you’re great. I love the idea. That was an awesome idea. But then behind your back to your producer, I’m like, what was mentor thinking? I think that was a stupid idea. Why would he ask that question? So, I’m agreeing with you in the moment, but disrespecting you behind your back. But the other side of that you touched on earlier around culture and things, maybe a pre call where there’s some people who are taught that children should be seen and not heard. And there’s sometimes some cultures, including mine in Ghana, that’s this high deference for elders that we almost equate sharing a different perspective as disrespectful. And so, in the moment, we carry that with us in our workplace and other places that I’m silent sometimes and even may agree, but I’m disrespecting myself because I don’t bring it forward. And so, for me, that conversation was important and I felt it was the right time because I communicated understanding. I better understood how we got there and I did feel it was an okay time to lean in. I’m going to share strategy of how do we lean in? How do we develop some aspect of that backbone in helpful ways? The first thing we have to be honest about is that we can only control ourselves. I can’t control how that person responds, reacts, what they do. I can show up the best version of myself to humanize the person and if I mess up, I can apologize. The second piece of that is to ask. And again, this is another countercultural thing. So, in the moment of listening to my dad, hearing his story and perspective, I then shifted and said, hey, thank you for sharing how you got there. I better understand it. And it’s been helpful to understand it. Are you open to me sharing my perspective and what happened for me?

Minter Dial: Now, two things occur if you do that. Yes, no, to what extent? Because I mean, the yes, no. It’s sort of a boolean option. When you go back in, are you open to. Yeah, it, it, it. I think in society. Well, that way you do it. I, I’m. I’m kind of obliged to say yes. Whereas I may not be back to the disrespectful agreement. I mean, or, you know, agreeing now, but then after saying, hey, I had no choice.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah, yeah. I think it’s all how you do it as well. Right. If you. I’ve seen people do it in a way that is very bullying. Right. Or it’s just you got. You have to lean in. But we have to be mindful of that’s part of the backbone. Right. I can’t control how you show up and how you don’t. But I’m not going to acquiesce because I think that you say yes and you don’t mean yes. I can only operate from that perspective myself. And so, I’ve had people say no. Right. But I do it in a way that I feel is very genuine and not trying to bully them. Because two things happen. One is that I’ve had people say no and old Justin would have burned the bridge down like, cool. I didn’t want to have that conversation with you anyway. The newer Justin is spending more time leaving the bridge open. Okay, It’s a better time. If you ever want to come back to that, I’d love to come back to the conversation. The second option is if they say yes, they’ve at least allowed themselves to open up to receive it and know that what’s coming versus we often communicate with this kind of blindside mentality of this. I’m just going to tell them because they need to know. And what ends up happening is most people then defensive walls immediately come in. And so, in asking, it opens them up. Two, I also am intentional with talking about intent versus impact, which is a really big thing. And it’s also disarming because I may come to the conversation and saying, hey, I know this is likely not what you meant or your perspective, but this is how it made me feel. Which can be a very important to lean into the conversation. Again, there’s a lot of gray in this. It’s not a magic bullet of do this one thing, but it is something that can be helpful.

Minter Dial: Well, in your golden rules, we’re not going to have time to go into them, but I think that corresponds to the 10th point. I don’t remember them all, but in any event, your intentionality, the intention you have counts. And if you’re solid on that, even if it comes out wrong, you know that you had the right intention at heart. And I did have two more things I wanted to talk about, but time is what it is. And one of them was around these golden rules you have, which I found really interesting. But the first one, or should say, and the first one I found the hardest, which was that everyone deserves some respect. And, and, and the. The idea of humanization or humanity. If I, if I could open that can of snakes. Yes, I like that we, I feel like on the left and the right, if you will not be political in this, that we’ve lost touch with reality. And in that reality a deeper humanity. And that deeper humanity includes our imperfections. It includes knowing how to tolerate pain, risk. If you don’t know how to do pain or risk, how do you have resilience? And. And it also even the concepts of death. You know, we are finite individuals and time is a rare resource and we are not perfect beings. And I don’t feel like we are fully reconnecting into that reality. In our world, we have $640 billion which are being earmarked next year for anti senescence and immortality. Holy shit. We want to live longer. What sort of lives are we trying to make live longer? I mean, I feel like we haven’t fixed it as it is, even though, let’s say the age of living is decreasing in the United States, amongst other places, I suppose. And so, if that hopefully some incentive for others to go and grab your book. I respect you disagree on the other one and I’m just going to mention it because I’m not going to say anything more. But what you don’t respect Aretha Franklin. That, that, that, that one made me laugh and I enjoyed it. The story, of course, is another musical legend and you of course, do it in a respectful way. Grand stuff, Justin. So, how can anybody go track you down? Hopefully if, you know, maybe even think about getting you to come in to talk about what you do, grab your book, find out more about your work. What links would you like me to put in the show notes?

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah, so LinkedIn is a place that I prefer, Justin Jones, folks on LinkedIn. And the overarching aspect of what we do is workmeaningful.com and that’s where we’ve been adding a lot more of the focus. We have a respectful disagreement quiz coming out so people can kind of assess where they’re, where they are. But yeah, those are the places. And to your point, and I know time is limited, I want to. If people say, well, Justin, where do we start? Right. You know, outside. Even if you never get the book, I want you to lean into one thing my mom taught me to do. Because my mom was really the catalyst for all of these things. My mom taught me to intentionally engage with people in which I disagree with as a way to see their humanity. And we would go to events growing up, Minter that we disagreed with. And I’d remember sitting there like, why are we even here? Like, we don’t even agree with this. But what my mom was doing, she was planting these seeds of humanity in me. And as I interviewed my book, interview my mom for my last two books, and I was asking, like, where did this perspective come from? Like, why would you do that? Like, most parents never would bring them to things that they disagree with. And my mom was one of the first black female air traffic controllers in the Air Force in the US and she shared her sometime. She was stationed in Japan for two years and there are some soldiers in that same two-year time frame injury that never left base. And she was like, Justin, I don’t want you and your brother to be like that, that you never leave your metaphorical home base and not get to experience the beauty of people and cultures around you. And that’s what I feel like in our society, based on things like social isolation theory, that we’re not leaving home base. And so, of our five pillars that we talk about for respectful disagreement, pillar number one is the most important and that is challenge your perspective. And that happens before conflict even occurs. Most of the conflict resolution stuff in conversations, when it goes wrong, deals with being in the moment the conflict has occurred. But if this is a mindset, then we need to deal with this before it even occurs. And so, the strategy behind this is what we call one. One strategy is the Circles of Grace challenge, where every six to 12 months I go to events, experiences, or engage with people in either, which I don’t know a lot about and, or I disagree with. And I go asking two questions. What did I learn about these events, experiences and the people? And what did I learn about myself as I engaged them? Not trying to convince them of my perspective, but what that does is it builds up my empathy muscles because I believe proximity breeds empathy to be able to engage in helpful ways. So, that’s number one. Number two, we’ve challenged leaders to move from what we call an open-door policy to an out the door policy. And open door implies passivity. If you need me, I’m here. I’m available even on Microsoft Teams from Tuesday to Thursday. Right. Rather than out the doors, where we intentionally go out to hear the stories of people, our perspectives, outside of our flats, outside of our homes, apartments, condos, wherever you may be, to hear the stories and how you do that. Well, let me give you two practical ways to help you. Quiet. Number one is the mathematical formula we’ve created called 1MC over W, which simply stands for one meaningful connection per week, where you choose to be more interested in someone than interesting. And you may say that’s too much because that’s 52.14 times a year in a leap year. Well, then flip the W upside down and make it one meaningful connection per month. And maybe it’s a lunch and you intentionally hear, you have to build it into your calendar because if you’re not intentional, you’re going to confine yourself to your circles of comfort and never leave home base. And the more stories and proximity and hearing that you have the more foundationally different you become sometimes I’ve left circles of grace challenge and I’m like, they’re exactly who I thought they were. However, I’ve gotten a firsthand experience and I’ve learned. And I’ll close with this. Why is it important? Because you have no idea the impact that you can have with respectful disagreement. There’s a guy, Daryl Davis, who not the same Daryl from my writing retreat, but Daryl Davis, who was a blues. African American blues musician who befriended Ku Klux Klan members. Minter. Not when they were getting out, when they were still in. He went to Klan rallies and he still chose to humanize people. And because of his friendship, over 200 Klansmen turned in their robes because of their friendship with Daryl Davis. Now, what I’m not saying is that we need to start going to Klan rallies or skinhead rallies or all the, you know, the different perspectives, whatever our ideological other is. I’m not saying that. What I am saying is that we have no idea that maybe we’re just seed planters of humanization, whether people give it to us or not.

Minter Dial: Fine words to end on. I want to thank your mother for her service. I love that. Even the idea of going out from your camp, wherever you are. I’ve been to Japan 15 times, so I’ve been drinking that Kool Aid and I go out the door. Not just open door, at least open door is not a bad thing. I would say that I typically always had an open door. And in terms of intentionality, I always had. When I got to a position where it was feasible, I would. I would make sure that my Assistant marked off 50% of my week to not be in meetings. And the idea there was to allow me to go out as well as to deal with the unintended or the unexpected. Because the unexpected is always anticipatable. Anyway. Justin Jones Fosu, what a wonderful conversation. Great. I’ll send everyone as best I can to go find out about your work, who you are, find you on LinkedIn, go to your site workmeaningful.com and of course, grab your book. I respectfully disagree. By Berrett Koehler Publishers. That’s right, Justin, have a great one. Thank you again.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Thank you, Minter.