Finding Your Why

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Maximus Lerois: You can be excellent in something that slowly is draining you. Competence and joy are two totally different things. Performative success is when you're performing for a parent, a professor, an old boss, a LinkedIn audience. So before your next career move, ask yourself, am I a fit? Am I choosing this out of fear? Do I actually like doing this? 

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Jill Finlayson: Welcome to the Future of Work podcast with Berkeley Extension. UC Berkeley Extension is the continuing education arm of the University of California at Berkeley. Behind the promotions and relentless drive often lurks in unseen reality-- burnout, identity crisis, and a nervous system stuck in overdrive. 

When your job becomes your identity, even reaching the top can leave you wondering, who am I without the title? We've all been asked the very American question, what do you do? So what happens when that job title is suddenly taken away or you become incredibly successful at a career you secretly dislike? 

Helping us untangle your self-worth from your achievements is our guest, Maximus Lerois, the identity architect. A retired US Marine, certified psychotherapist, and creator of the revision method, Maximus helps leaders find the invisible scripts running underneath their performance and rewrite them. His tips explore ways to break the emotional patterns holding you back and build a version of success that doesn't require losing yourself to reach it. Let's get into it. Welcome, Maximus. 

Maximus Lerois: Hey, thank you for having me. That's a great intro. 

Jill Finlayson: So tell me. What do you do? 

Maximus Lerois: I'm going to dodge that a little in that it's because "What do you do" is the most American question there is. In a lot of cultures, not just America, they ask where you're from or who your people are. Here we always ask in America-- it's like your job title is your blood type. 

So what I do is I'm an identity architect. I help high achievers find the invisible script running under their performance. If I stop producing, I stop mattering, and then rewrite them, think of it as firing the ghost writer who's been authoring your life without your permission. It's similar to that. And success, for me, is when you can lose the title and still who you are. 

If your whole self-worth sits on one job, you've built a house on a pillar. And then when layoffs hit, or AI changes your role, that pillar shakes. And the whole house just goes down with it. So the next time someone asks you what you do, especially for the listeners right now, I'll just give you a tool coming up. The next time someone asks you what you do, answer with what you like. And then watch how differently the conversation goes. So that's why I dodged it a little bit, but hopefully, I answered it for you. 

Jill Finlayson: How does saying what you like as opposed to what you do change the conversation? 

Maximus Lerois: It changes it because what you do is your title. This is my job. This is-- because you might not actually like what you do. So that's not going to make you excited to continue to talk about it, but even if you do like your job, you always don't want to talk about work. 

What do I like is different because now, I'm excited. Now, you're asking me something that I get excited about. And maybe we have a connection. If I talk about it, it's like, oh, I watch Star Wars. Do you like Star Wars? Or you like Star Trek. And either way, it's like, we're going to battle or else we're going to agree. And it's really fun to interact that way. 

Jill Finlayson: So it's almost a discovery tool. You learn a lot more about the other person as well. 

Maximus Lerois: Absolutely. Get curious. 

Jill Finlayson: So you mentioned you may not even like your job. Can you tell us a little bit about-- what is performative success? What does that phrase mean? And is it actually really possible to become highly successful at a job that you don't like? 

Maximus Lerois: Yes, absolutely. And it happens all the time. You can be excellent in something that slowly is draining you. Competence and joy are two totally different things. And it gauges different on the dashboard. Most of us only check one.

Performative success is when you're acting in a movie where nobody ever yelled "Action!" And nobody's going to yell "Cut," either, for that point. 

You're performing for a parent, a professor, an old boss, a LinkedIn audience. Let's say you hit the goal and don't want to celebrate it. The promotion lands, and you feel nothing. That's often a sign it was never your goal. It's not something you liked and/or enjoy.

And I'll give a tool for that, too. Let's call this the three-check audit. So for the listeners, if you're not driving, are on the treadmill right now, write this down. So before your next career move, ask yourself this. Write this down. Am I a fit? Not "Do I want this?" Am I a fit? 

And the next thing I would ask is am I choosing this out of fear? Out of-- oh, there's no jobs in the pool, there's nothing going on, or I just need this job. OK, and the last one I would say is do I actually like doing this? Not "This is a six-figure salary." If I have to wake up every single day for 5 years, 10 years, do I like doing this? If the honest answer to the second one is yes, pause. If I'm doing this out of fear, just stop. If you can't enjoy the win, check whose trophy it is. 

Jill Finlayson: Say more about whose trophy it is because you mentioned maybe you're performing for a parent, or maybe you're performing to a teacher. You've worked with a lot of people. What do you see? 

Maximus Lerois: Yeah, I work with athletes. I work with CEOs. I work with my people in 9:00-to-5:00s. I work with a variety of people. And it's always somebody's chasing some goal or some trophy. And then I always ask the question, so whose trophy is that? Well, what are-- the same question you just asked. What are you talking about, Max? 

Who's dangling that carrot in front of you? Is it something that you actually signed up for? Is it something that you actually want? At the end of this, you get a trophy that says, I am the best accountant in the world. Do you want to be an accountant? No. Then why are you going after that trophy? 

Because when you win it, it's not going to feel like anything. It feels hollow. A lot of the people that I work with, and a lot of us humans in general-- we win these hollow trophies. And then we show them off to the people we're performing for. So to answer your second part of the question, the people that we're performing for-- you go, OK. 

Hey, Dad, I did the thing. I'm a doctor, just like you. OK, cool. Put it on the shelf. Great job. It's just another task. You didn't feel anything for that. Your emotion isn't anchored in that. If you don't have an anchored emotion in it, then it's hollow. It's flat. You're doing it for someone else and performing. So feel free to yell, "Cut!" 

Jill Finlayson: Let's talk about what people feel because this is an important part of understanding what's going on. If somebody is successful at work, what might they feel that would indicate that they're performing, not doing it for themselves? 

Maximus Lerois: Most stress for high achievers isn't the work itself. It's the story about the work, i.e. my manager's email was short, so I'm getting fired, or you read something. It's like, oh, man. Maybe I didn't do that correctly. And you just die 1,000 deaths in your head. And none of them happen, actually. The research backs it up. 

I believe it's a 2019 Penn State study I was reading a while back had people with anxiety write down their worries and then track them. About, I want to say, 91 of those predictions never came true at all. Nothing ever happened. So when I say you die 1,000 deaths in your head, that's what it is. I can give a tool for that one, too. 

Jill Finlayson: Let's give them some actionable ways of understanding what's going on with their fears and anxiety. 

Maximus Lerois: Yeah, I love that. So how about this? Take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle of it. On the left side, write feeling. And on the right side, write fact. And as you're writing things on the left side, I'll give you an example of feeling. 

My boss is disappointed in me. And on the right side, write only the hard evidence-- dates, quotes, facts, all of that. See, feelings are real, but they aren't facts. When you write it down and look at it, your brain has to switch from spiraling to reviewing. Usually, the right side is nearly empty. And if it's not empty, then it's one or two things there. 

You now have something concrete to act on, which beats a spiral every single time. And a lot of times, to stop the spiral, that's what we have to do. And it works. And you can just ask something as simple as, hey, how do you think this project went? One question can save you a week of 3:00 AM overthinking. 

Jill Finlayson: So if there's no evidence in the evidence tracker, the fact checker, then you want to ask the question and get clarity. We see this a lot, especially with somebody early in their career, where they haven't built the relationships that are trying to read between the lines. They're trying to understand what the norms are in that company. So giving them a way to fact check their impressions, but also then the next step, which is once you realize-- oh, I don't have any evidence of this, how can I remove this anxiety-- 

Maximus Lerois: Absolutely. And replace it with something else because you can't remove something without replacing it with something else. 

Jill Finlayson: Well, let's talk about your revision method. So you've come up with this methodology to help people address their career situation. What were the origin story of how this came about? 

Maximus Lerois: It came out of my life. It came out of 100% of my own life. I grew up in south Los Angeles around danger. I had two tours to Afghanistan as a Marine. I was very successful. And I was a successful survivor. And I was great at surviving. And I kept surviving long after the danger was gone. 

Later, a psychologist and then a psychotherapist, I saw them. And they said the same thing. And they saw that with me and executives and athletes that I've seen, too. And it's the same with myself, and same with a lot of other people. The talent is never the problem. 

And it's just you're loyal to an old script. So I built the revision method to help you rewrite the script on what you're reading, which is the old script. And that way, you can rewrite the new script. And then when you use it is whenever you notice the same problem showing up with different faces. 

Jill Finlayson: As a survivor, what are some of the old scripts that you saw? 

Maximus Lerois: Ooh. One of mine-- and I'll give you a transparent, personal one-- was I had to be useful to be loved. I had to be extremely useful to be loved. If I was not at use for my family, for my friends, for everyone-- it's like the genie on Aladdin. It's like, poof. What do you need? Poof. What do you need? Poof. What do you need? 

It's like, I was in relationships with people. It was like, I don't even who you are. It's like, yes, because I'm just performing for you. I'm performing for love because that's the one thing that I was missing was unconditional love, not performative love. It's like, I did this thing, Mom, how about that? I did this thing, Dad. Do you even notice me yet? So it came from a lot of the performance. And that's a lot of the things that we're still doing as adults. And breaking a cycle isn't about willpower. You can't out-discipline a will pattern, and especially if you can't see it. 

Jill Finlayson: So let's walk through because the revision method has multiple stages to it, if you will. And so what is the first thing that has to happen if you want to break one of these negative cycles that you find yourself in? 

Maximus Lerois: Step 1 is called recognize. So you're recognizing the pattern. So step 1 is giving the pattern a name. And there's real neuroscience behind it. I was studying Matthew Lieberman's lab at UCLA. He found that simply putting a feeling into words, what researchers called effect labeling-- and it claims activity in the amygdala, a part of the brain, and sets the alarm system. 

And Dan Siegel-- his phrase for it is name it to tame it. And it's very similar to that. And it's why do we keep repeating patterns? Because the brain loves the familiar more than the good. And your brain would rather take a familiar pain in the unfamiliar piece because familiar feels safe. 

Jill Finlayson: What you're comfortable with isn't necessarily good for you. 

Maximus Lerois: Not all the time. Get uncomfortable. 

Jill Finlayson: So what are the roadblocks that are stopping people from seeing these patterns? 

Maximus Lerois: So this is my favorite part. Every pattern has two parents. It has an emotion and the person you learned it from. And the emotion, you're trying to avoid, anyway. So part of the two parts is OK. There's an emotion that I'm trying to ignore. And then there's a person that I learned it from. That's the parent that-- that's who owns the pattern. 

I use something called the pattern trace, which has four steps, which is pattern, what if, emotion, and owner. So a good example of that is the pattern is I overprepare for everything, every meeting, every conversation. I rehearse everything right before it goes. And then what happens if you don't? 

So that's "What if" part. What if I don't do that? And then they'll think I'm incomplete if I don't do that. They won't like me. My first impression won't go well. Well, what's the emotion behind that? So that's what's the emotion part. Fear. Maybe shame. And then so you ask yourself, OK, who's the owner of that, meaning whose voice is that? 

Often, it's a parent who only noticed report cards or a first boss who humiliated someone in public. So you make sure that that's not you next. And then here's the point of "This is just who I am" is what a lot of people say. And it's almost never true. It's who you've learned to be. And anything learned-- the beauty of that is-- it can be unlearned. 

So next time you're triggered, ask, whose voice is that instead of oh, my god, what's wrong with me? It's only me. No, no, no no. Whose voice is that? And more importantly, whose script am I reading from? Because this is my life. I'm the author of my life, but somebody wrote this down in my page, and I'm just reading it over and over. I can't even get to page 2, chapter 2, chapter 4. I'm 30, 40, 50 years old, and I'm still on chapter 1 because somebody told me this is what it is. 

Jill Finlayson: Why is recognition of the pattern somehow empowering to you? 

Maximus Lerois: Once you know the name of something, once you know exactly what it is-- I'm going to age myself here. Once you rip the mask off and say, well, this is who's been doing it the whole time, Scooby Doo, wait a minute. This is who's been doing it the whole time? It's the professor. 

Jill Finlayson: You darn kids. 

Maximus Lerois: You darn kids. Come on. Once you rip the mask off and you see, and you go, oh, it was you the whole time, and it's like looking behind the curtain and going, oh, well, the Wizard of Oz is just an old man with all the bells and whistles, it takes that fear away. It has a name. It has a face. I can call the name to it now. It's not just I get anxious, or I am a disappointment. It's like, well, where does it come from? 

Jill Finlayson: So what happens after you have recognized the pattern, you've named it? What happens now? 

Maximus Lerois: And now, since you recognize it, it has a name, you reframe it. So you take it, and you go, OK, this is what it was. The event is fixed, but the meaning isn't. Reframing is changing the caption under the photo. OK, I'll give you a personal example. 

As a kid, I was super nerdy and extremely into comic books and books and anime. And TGI Friday pretty much raised me and showed me what positive male figures were for me. And then back then, that was a huge liability. Nowadays, everyone loves anime, and you have your tribe and your people. Good for you. We didn't have the internet. We got teased. 

And so I had to reframe it. And the kid that was teaching himself storytelling-- it was different for me in how characters grow. I use anime in my coaching as well-- for an example, Naruto. And that was a kid that everyone called a failure. And he was cursed and all these things. 

And then he actually became hokage, which sounds crazy for everyone else, but it is a very important role in the village. It's pretty much saying you're the leader. So going from the worst of the worst to being the leader is phenomenal, but it's the same kid, but a different frame. 

At work, someone called sensitive or-- oh, that person's extremely sensitive-- now, you can reframe that as they read a room well. They read it before anyone else does. Stubborn can become doesn't fold under pressure. And then my favorite one, which-- I'm a recovering overthinker. 

Overthinking can become a strategist who hasn't been given a structure to it yet. So a tool for that is to write down one trait you've been teased or criticized or made fun of-- and then next to it, write the skill hiding inside of it. So the past stops acting like prophecy for you the moment you change what it actually means. 

Jill Finlayson: That's a great way of encapsulating it. And I see this a lot, especially with new graduates and people going out. They'll say, I'm just, or I'm only. And I'm like, stop. A, don't use those words. And B, take that thing that you were just going to talk about as a deficit and talk about it as an asset. 

I'm just a student. I'm a student. So I'm going to ask good questions. I'm new to this company, so I'm going to look at the processes through a clean lens. And I'm going to ask if we need to do those things or how we might do it efficiently. So I love it because it not only shifts the power, but it changes the whole conversation. 

Maximus Lerois: Absolutely. And it makes it to where it's like, the thing that I viewed as a weakness can now be a strength as soon as I reframe it. 

Jill Finlayson: Exactly. So now, we've taken away some of the power of the negative stories that we've been telling ourselves. We've reframed. How do we prevent backsliding? We know it's very easy to say I'm going to do this. And then when you're in it, you start to have those same feelings you had before. 

Maximus Lerois: 100%. And that's why step 3 is release. And here's the key to release is you can't just delete a habit. for my people who are smokers, or if there's a habit that you have, you have to replace it with something. You have to replace it. The way the brain hates it, like a vacuum-- I have to replace it. 

So your brain's going to find something else to replace it with, so why not you be in charge of it? So think about-- like I was talking about, think about quit smoking. Most people who succeed don't just stop cold turkey. The swap is gum, a walk, a fidget spinner. Habit research describes a loop, cue, routine, reward. 

Keep the cue and the reward, and change the routine is what I would tell a lot of my clients, too. In the middle, you change that routine. And then you still get the cue and the reward at the end. Psychologists even have a name for this in habit reversal training, which I went through a little bit as well, too. 

And it's called competing response. So with the competing response, your pattern is to answer your-- OK. Let me give you an example. To answer your Slack at 11:00 PM to prove you're committed. The cue is anxiety. The reward is relief. The new routine is writing tomorrow's first task on a sticky note, a piece of paper, anything like that, then closing that laptop. 

Do not respond. Don't queue it up. Don't do anything. You wrote it down on a piece of paper, and you took control over it now. And you still get the relief, but without the burnout, without-- oh, I've got to respond at 11 o'clock at night, or they're going to think that I'm not serious about it. Just write it down on a piece of paper. 

A lot of times, what a lot of people will do is go, OK, we'll just attack it right there. No, you're in charge. Once you start telling the brain that you're in charge and the body that you're in charge, it's a different feeling. That's how you stop from backsliding. A helpful trick is OK, I wrote it down. Now, my brain can stop. 

There's so many things that we can do to insert into our life. A lot of people will say, cold turkey, or cut it off, or destroy. It's like, no, just do a healthy replacement for it. It's like food. If you want to start eating healthy, it's like, I like this. What's the healthy version of it? So same thing with your life. OK, I have this pattern. What's the healthy version of this? So release by replacing. Don't leave an empty chair for the old habit to sit back in. 

Jill Finlayson: Yeah, because if the old habit sneaks in, it's a slippery slope. You're now-- oh, I responded to that email. I should also respond to this email. So getting it out of your brain and onto paper, but not committing to a pattern that you know is not helpful to you. 

Maximus Lerois: Absolutely. 

Jill Finlayson: So that's coming full circle. So you've replaced an unhealthy habit with, hopefully, a tiny new habit that's going to move you in the right direction. How does that differ from the fourth method of the revision method, which is the rewrite? 

Maximus Lerois: Release is removing the villain. Rewrite is deciding what the hero does next. I'm going to giving you guys my nerd allergies. So release is subtraction and rewrite is your authorship. And here's how I like to explain it. The old version of you deserves honor. That version got you through some hard chapters in your life, but it doesn't get the rest of the book. 

A lot of times, we want to demonize that old chapter, that old person, like, I was so stupid. I was so dumb. I can't believe you needed that version of you that protected you. Do not demonize that old you. Realize that version of you doesn't fit into your new life. And when you're realizing that, you go, man, I remember when I was 20. And now, I'm 30. Or I was 15, and now, I'm 25. 

Thank god I don't do those 15-year-old things anymore. Or maybe you do, and you realize, man, those things don't deserve to be here. So the rewrite means building a new identity on purpose. New decisions, new rules, new boundaries, and in small daily evidence. 

Everyone thinks, oh, big picture, but do the small things. That'll get you to the big picture that you are who you say you are because you walk it out every single day. Your career isn't a fixed trajectory. It's a series of seasons. Enjoy is a choice you make in one of those seasons. And you can keep it going. 

And you make it on purpose. It's not something that happens to you by accident. These are choices that you're making. And then write a sentence. Write one sentence. I'll give you guys this. Write one sentence in the present tense. I am someone who blank. Then do one tiny thing today that proves it. 

Identity is built on receipts, so I am someone who gets things done. I am someone who is motivated. I am someone who is happy. Insert whatever you want there. And that way, you're taking back the pen. And you get to author what comes next. The one thing I hate, one of my-- well, I hate using the word "hate," but the one thing I detest-- I'll give a stronger word-- is fake it till you make it. 

I do not like when people say fake it till you make it because that alerts the brain that what we're doing is phony, what we're doing is fake. So when you get to the point, when you get to the place, when you get to the promotion, when you get to the personality that you were faking, your body rejects it because this isn't us. We've been faking it the whole time. 

And it's like, oh, wow, yeah, this isn't real. So take that out of all of your vocabularies, please. I've taken out of mine a while ago. And true to the teaching, I replaced it with be it until you see it. And when you ask yourself, well, Max, what does that mean? Be the person that you want to be, that you see, that you dreamed of. Be the person that you set these goals out to be. Even when you were a child, what you imagined as a kid, when you imagine as an adult, be that person. Walk as that person. 

Jill Finlayson: The respect for the previous you, I think, is really important. If you're at that point where you want rewrite the script, but you're not sure what it is you want to rewrite it to be, what tips do you have to help people figure that out? 

Maximus Lerois: That's totally normal. You don't have to know the whole book. You don't. And we're taught that a lot of schools. What do you want to be? What is this? What's going on? You just have to write the next page. Just take the next step. Start with-- OK, let's start with three questions, then. 

One, of the most important questions is what brings me joy? What brings me joy is number 1. Number 2 is what charges me up outside of work, outside of work? Because I know-- I love what I do. I enjoy what I do. Awesome. What do you do outside of that? And then the third one, I would say, is when did I last lose track of time? 

And I like to sneak a little deeper question in there for a bonus. A bonus one on top of that is when did I lose track of me? When did I lose track of my goals, my dreams? So energy leaves clues. If you're running on E, look at what fills the tank, not what you're famous for with the social media age and everything like that. I'm not demonizing it. Awesome. Great. What does that look like? When did I lose who I actually was? When I was a kid, I wanted to play. Bring back play. Adults forget how to play. Past 18, you're an adult. You still forget how to play properly. 

Jill Finlayson: How can play reduce performative success? Or how can companies, maybe leaders, encourage more play in a way that helps people to perform better? 

Maximus Lerois: Yeah, great, a great question. Let's say you're a manager in a meeting. Open a meeting with phones down, no work check-in. No the spreadsheets and the files, and we've got to talk about the C-suite. No, no, no, no, no. No work check-in. Do a meeting, purge. Have those meetings. 

Make the meetings where that could be an email, which-- a lot of us are like, this could have just been an email. Make it a practice. Get interested and not try to be interesting. That is the point of a lot of the people in charge, a lot of the managers and everything.

Even if you're the person in charge, be more interested in your employees. Be more interested in their lives. Be more interested in your friends, your family members. 

If you use this practice every single day-- and it can be playful instead of being interesting. Well, this is my weekend, or this is the business, and this is what's going on. The more interested you are in the people, the more you remember about their dog, about their life, about what makes them sad, about what makes them happy. 

The more cohesive, the more together the company is-- I run company seminars all the time. And I never talk about the business. We're not going to talk about the bottom line. We're not going to talk about any of that. We're going to talk about these humans, what makes them happy, what makes them go, what makes them tick. 

Jill Finlayson:Yeah, it's that humanizing, but also connecting. In your own personal script-- obviously, you've probably rewritten your script over your career-- are there a couple of pivotal moments where you're like, this was a change in how I related to my job, or this was a change in how I saw my future? 

Maximus Lerois: Oh boy, so many. We don't have enough time for all those. I've rewritten the script about 30 times. But yeah, my early script-- man, that was pure survival. I grew up in a dangerous environment in Los Angeles. My dad and his side of the family-- even on my mom's side of the family, there's gang violence. There's gang affiliation. There's in and out of prison and all those things. 

If you see me, I'm big. I'm 6'5", 230 pounds. But this voice in LA did not work. I have always sounded like this. I got called Bryant Gumbel so many times, but I was OK with it. And books and anime were my escape. That was my escape hatch. They were first proof I had that life could look different. 

And rewriting your script and reclaiming who you truly feel that you should be doesn't have an age limit on there. I've got clients and people that are 50, 60, 70 years old doing a full pivot. And it's OK because a lot of the time, when we're rewriting our script, when I rewrote my script, I'm living and performing for somebody else until I had to reintroduce myself to me and just being super OK with it. 

Jill Finlayson: So you've written a book with a pretty provocative title. It's called Mental Health is a Lie. That's a pretty bold statement, but-- 

Maximus Lerois: [CHUCKLES] 

Jill Finlayson: --what led you to seeing mental health in a different light? 

Maximus Lerois: Yeah, and I get some slack for it, but about the title-- I want to be clear. It's not don't take medication, and it's not your struggles aren't real. The lie is the idea that a label is who you are, that you're permanently broken, that this is just who you are forever. 

Too often, we reach for the fix without asking the deeper question. What's the emotion behind this? What's the emotional pattern behind this? And why haven't I healed yet? See, the title is provocative on purpose, but the message is hopeful. It's saying, well, mental health is a lie. Yes, because 70% of your thoughts throughout the day aren't cognitive thoughts. 

They're emotional patterns that your body remembers. So if I'm saying it's all mental, if it's mental, and it's only 30% of it, and we're ignoring this 70%, now, I am not the biggest mathematician or a rocket scientist, but I would like to focus on 70 instead of 30. Giving respect to everyone that actually has mental health disease, I also want us to focus on that 70% which is emotional intelligence, which is your body remembering, and you realizing that oh, yeah. I was diagnosed with PTSD. 

A lot of people would not even know, but yeah. I went on a tour to Afghanistan in the Marine Corps. There are certain things and sounds that I don't like. I don't my back to the exit. When there's fireworks going on, I was like, ooh, is that a gunshot, or is that fireworks? It gives my body a second to remember. 

I have to think back. And that's the same thing with a lot of our trauma, a lot of our pain. You get this title, you get this medicine, and you say, this is what you are. Just take this, and call me in the morning. No. How do I, one, adjust my life to this now, to where this title doesn't run me forever, but how do I go about life still being a victor, not a victim, of this is what it is? 

And that's why I do not like when everyone says, oh, it's just a mental health issue. No, it's not. It's something else because if you really think about it, the last time that you were anxious, did you think anxious or did you feel anxious? It's a feeling before it's a thought. 

Jill Finlayson: So the pattern recognition and the rewrite. I'm curious about this evolving. Do people think of themselves in that way? 

Maximus Lerois: No. God, no. Everyone feels like they are a fixed person. This is just who I am. This is what it is. My mother did it like this. My father did it like this. My grandma-- we are all running the trauma Olympics. And we're on this relay race. And we are handed the trauma stick and just go, run. 

And we just take off running. And you're tired, and you're exhausted. It was like, this is what we've always done. This is what we've always done. It takes a strong person to stop in the middle of the race and go, why am I running? What am I running from? Where am I running to? What trophy do I win at the end of this? 

I'll get this trauma Olympic trophy. Awesome. And I get to pass that down to my children, who will then run the race that none of us signed up for. So a lot of us think it's fixed. It's not fixed, who you are. You can be the outlier. You can be different. I'm 100% proof. It's tough. I'm not going to sugarcoat it like it's the best thing in the world. It's hard because you're the first, because there are no footprints or steps in the sand that said this is the way, walk in. It's you. It's you taking a chance and getting curious about it. 

Jill Finlayson: It's hard to stop. It's hard to pause. It's hard to take time, when you're on the hamster wheel, to say, is this actually where I want to be. 

Maximus Lerois: And it's tough. And if you don't have an example of it, that you have to be the example is very scary. So I'm not going to sugarcoat it and say, yes, it's great. It's great at the end. View the finish line, and go, I know when I get there, maybe my family members come. Maybe they don't, but I will be the first to walk off this track, to step out and say, this doesn't work for me. 

That's my father's anger. That's my mother's fear. That's my grandmother's insert anything. So now, you have to go back in and heal that part of you that was never yours to begin with. And that's a lot of the hard work. It's like, what did you inherit? What is a family heirloom that you got that you actually don't want? And a lot of times, we claim these things as our personality, who we are, what it is. No, this was passed down to you. You can unlearn this, if you'd like. Would you like to unlearn it? And that's the question. 

Jill Finlayson: The focus on healing is really important. And I've heard that you have made executives watch the kids' Pixar movie, Inside Out. Why? Why did you have them do this? 

Maximus Lerois: Inside Out is one of the best movies on emotion that there is. It's because grown professionals often have the emotional vocabulary of a sticky note. That's just the way it is. I asked them which emotion is driving their counsel? Which emotion is driving you? 

And I've had leaders say, honestly, I'm all anger, inside-out. No pun intended. It gives them a language for their feelings, and then without feeling like therapy, like I'm sitting next to them like, tell me more. It's like, no, let this cartoon tell you exactly what emotions are. 

And the big lesson of that film is that Joy can't do her job without Sadness. The feeling you've been suppressing and the feelings that you've been ignoring are part of the team. And Inside Out part 2, the movie, added Anxiety, who is basically every high achiever's project manager just running around trying to get things done. 

And then looking at those movies and giving them a full on paper, like, OK, how does that-- who do you identify with? Because if you imagine yourself-- let's say, for you and a lot of the listeners right now, really close your eyes and think about this. You have an imaginary emotional neighborhood inside of you. This is your Pixar movie right here. 

So your base and your home is what? So for me, my base is Joy. Joy is running around. She's super happy. It's great. In your neighborhood, you have Anger, Sadness, Anxiety, Fear, all of those emotions you can go visit. You can go knock on their door and go, hey, hey, Sadness. Something just happened in my life. I need to be sad for a minute. 

Hey, Anger. Somebody just cut me off in traffic. We need to talk really quick. OK, cool. The problem comes in when we invite them to come live in our house. You knock on the door and say, Sadness, I just had a family member pass away. I don't what to do. Come live in my house with me. 

Now, that becomes Sadness House. It's not the House of Joy. These emotions and these feelings that we're scared of-- don't fear your feelings. Feel your feelings. And that's why I tell them to watch this because you need to understand who's driving you at the time because we're all a team. We're all here for each other. 

There are seasons and times where I need to feel anger, I need to feel afraid because it's a scary situation, but what is your home base? What is your number 1? If it's anger, we need to talk about it. If it's sadness, we need to talk about it. If it's joy, awesome, but realizing what is driving you is so important. And that's why they have to watch it. 

Jill Finlayson: And why did the movie, also by Pixar, Soul, break some of your executives? 

Maximus Lerois: Soul will make you cry. One, it's beautifully written and drawn. And Jamie Foxx does a phenomenal job, but Soul hits harder than Inside Out. And it's because the main character, Joe, spends his whole life chasing one dream, one gig. If I just got this, then I feel complete. And this is what it is. 

And that's the trophy we were talking about. He finally gets it, and then he's standing there feeling like, that's it? Psychologists-- what was the name? Tal Ben-Shahar has a name for that. The arrival fallacy, the belief that reaching the goal will make us permanently happy. And it doesn't. It doesn't feel like that. It doesn't execute that way. 

And then what that does is it goes quiet inside now because now, you've lived it. And that's it. And there's no more. And then there's another part in the movie to where you just go through a hall. And not giving the whole movie away, but you go through a hall of your life. And Joe's got shown his entire life. 

And he's like, that's it? OK, I'm not happy with that. And then so many executives are chasing that hollow trophy and saying, well, I got it. Now what? The number 1 thing I have to teach a lot of people to do is to celebrate. They don't how to celebrate, not just themselves, but in life. 

It's like, I got it. I did the thing. What did you do for that? I went on to the next thing. And it's like, what are you doing? I'm grinding, man. I was like, uh, yeah. Look up the definition of grinding. And it comes back as wearing down on one's self. Do you like wearing yourself down? Why are you grinding? Stop grinding. Work smarter. 

You don't have to grind. You don't have to-- this hustle economy. And it's like, yeah, let's do it. It doesn't have to be that way. And that's why it breaks a lot of them. You don't how to celebrate because you, one, have not been celebrated, and two, you don't what to celebrate because you're just going from thing to thing to thing. 

And you're telling your body, we're just a machine that does the thing. But if you stop and go, hey, by the way, body, we just hit that goal. Awesome. Let's get our favorite food. Let's go on a trip. Just let the celebration match the accomplishment. Don't send an email and then go on vacation for two weeks and celebrate. It's like no, no, no, no. Get a snack, get your favorite food, do something that makes you happy, but allow yourself to take a second and stop, and go, man, I did that. And now, you have to just drop these pin marks on your life and go, this was great. 

Jill Finlayson: I love dropping joy pins and being able to go back and revisit those pins. We're wrapping up here. And I want to give you the chance to give people actions or tips because I know you're very pragmatic. So what do you want to leave folks with so they can define success on their own terms? 

Maximus Lerois: The number 1 thing you should do is to make a practical goal that makes you happy. A lot of us are shooting at these goals or going to these targets that we don't even like. We're doing it for someone else. Make a goal that actually makes you happy. What we've been talking about the entire time-- we'll bring our friend Joy back. 

What would Joy say about your goal? And let's take it one step deeper. What would young you say about your goal? Would they be impressed? Would they care? If 10-year-old you, if 15-year-old you, if 16-year-old you, if 7-year-old you walked up to you right now, can you imagine the questions they would ask you? 

Did we do the thing? No, we didn't. Oh, OK, but clearly, we're an astronaut right now? No, we're not. So are we the president? No, we're not. OK, and this is the scariest thought that young me, when I went to go visit him, asked me. Are you happy? Depends on the season. 

Jill Finlayson: [CHUCKLES] 

Maximus Lerois: And then that is one thing to give everyone, but another thing, too, is other than writing it down and figuring out what you're doing everything for, it's what actually makes me happy? Write it down. And if your answer is-- which a lot of my people start off with this-- I don't know, then next time you laugh, the next time you smile, grab a very small-- either put it in your phone, or what I like to do is have a very small journal called the joy diaries. 

This is my joy. This joke made me laugh. It can be that simple. This person made me smile. Really start documenting your life. And really take it serious, to where a lot of times, we're just floating. If you live life on purpose, in purpose, the joy will come. The things will come that you want. And that will not necessarily give you your own purpose, but it will start giving you more ground rules, like a map. You're just building your own map. 

Jill Finlayson:: So it's not about the trophy. 

Maximus Lerois: No. 

Jill Finlayson: It's about the moment. You mentioned maybe your job is the season that you're in, but it's not your identity. 

Maximus Lerois: No, it's never your identity. Your identity is who you actually are. This is who you are. I teach on dominant assumption. Your dominant assumption is what? Who I think I am when nobody else is looking. And that's the thing that a lot of people call subconscious. 

So your dominant assumption is running you, whether it's negative or whether it's positive. So take the trophy out, take the goals out, take the expectations of your family out. Take the expectations that you put on yourself out. Your dominant assumption is this is who I truly think I am. And your life reflects your dominant assumption. 

And the beauty of that is you can change it whenever you'd like. So no, no trophy, none of that. What do I assume my life looks like? If I assume this is my life, then that's what my life will be. And it sounds super simple, and also a little woo-woo, but it is definitely, one, scientifically proven, and two, backed by your current life. Go back and do the tool that I gave you. Fact versus feeling. 

Jill Finlayson: So you leave people with this opportunity, really, to recognize, reframe, release, rewrite. And I think most importantly, the door is open to evolve. You don't have to be that script that was originally written. 

Maximus Lerois: 100%. And also, who wrote it? Is it even your script? Think about that. Or did somebody write a page in your book and then just run off, and you've never seen them again, but you've been reading that page for life? That's who I am. 

Jill Finlayson: Take over your script, and put some joy in it. 

Maximus Lerois: Put a lot of joy in it. 

Jill Finlayson: Well, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate you helping people break through something that they maybe don't even think about or take for granted and giving them the opportunity to say, there's another way. 

Maximus Lerois: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. This has been a fantastic conversation. You have the most amazing questions, so I really appreciate it. 

Jill Finlayson: Fantastic. And with that, I hope you enjoyed this latest in a long series of podcasts that we'll be sending your way every month. Please share with friends and colleagues who may be interested in taking this Future of Work journey with us. And make sure to check out extension.berkeley.edu to find a variety of courses and certificates to help you thrive in this new working landscape. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll be back next month with former guest, Rebecca Hines, to talk about AI and the great deskilling. The Future of Work podcast is hosted by Jill Finlayson, produced by Sarah Benzuly, and edited by Matt Dipietro.

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