Unlocking The Better Quotient With Christy Pretzinger

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Skot Waldron (00:05.00)
Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of Unlocked, where we talk about unlocking the potential of you, the people you work with, and the people you do life with. At the time of this recording, I’m offering all of you, yes, my lovely listeners, a free 15 minute communication coaching call. You come with some kind of communication problem, and I give you a solution. My calendar link is in the show notes so check that out.

Do you want to be better than you were yesterday, the day before? And if you’re sick, then I’m sure you want to be better. But I’m just saying, if you’re not, are you just craving a little bit of betterness in certain areas of your life?

There is something that we’re going to talk about today that’s going to help us do that and just get an idea of what better really means. But on top of that, there’s another layer and that is going into how do we be better leaders for the younger generations, the generations that are coming that are actually taking over our workplace right now, not in a bad way, but by sheer number, they are taking over, and we have to build a culture of communication and connection with these younger generations, or we’re going to have some issues. And you can complain and cry all you want to about the things you’re having to do and change and adjust to accommodate the younger generations. But it’s a fact that it’s happening. And those that don’t adapt, well, they die. And so, I would love for you to have a listen to this conversation.

Christy Pretziger is a transformer, not the cartoon kind. No. She is literally transforming cultures and communities, the ones she works with. Over 20 years ago she began transforming the landscape of healthcare content creation by shaping WG Content (formerly WriterGirl) as the first writing company to specialize in the healthcare industry. She continues to transform what it means to lead with the Better Quotient (BQ) culture that employs soft skills and people-first initiatives. Now she’s beginning to transform how our communities view leadership with The Better Leader Project and her book, Your Cultural Balance Sheet.

So, all y ‘all let’s get ready to have this conversation.

All right, Kristy, no pressure, but we’re all gonna be a lot better after this show, I’m guessing, right? Do you like how I did that?

Christy Pretzinger (02:29.775)
I like that very much. Good job.

Skot Waldron (02:44.775)
Thank you, thank you. I practice that one a lot. You know, so tell us why though. Tell us why I had such a clever intro for you.

Christy Pretzinger (02:45.709)
Because I have begun an initiative called BQ. We’re all familiar with IQ and EQ, probably overly familiar by this point in time. But what is your BQ? And it’s your capacity to become better. But the point is really better, not perfect. You know, we can all become better. Even just 1% better makes a measurable change in anything, in being a better leader, a better parent, a better partner, whatever you want to be. We all have the capacity to become better.

Skot Waldron (03:16.418)
We do. Why, why’d you hone in on that though? Like I get the idea of like, you know, we can’t, you know, being perfect. You know, we have perfectionism things in there, but no, I think we all have a general idea that we won’t be perfect. I mean, if we do think we’re going to be perfect, we probably don’t want to work with those people, but it’s kind of like, I get it. I’m not going to be perfect, but why’d you hone in on the better thing?

Christy Pretzinger (03:44.015)
Because I still think that there’s an awful lot of, especially given social media, you know, all of the different, with the filters and all the different things, nobody even has an aspect or a grip on real life anymore. And there is this false premise of perfection out there, probably largely in looks or the lifestyle that you lead or all the different things. There’s this false world of perfection.

You know, women who are thin and beautiful with whatever the idealized body type is now, and men who are wealthy and, you know, dating these beautiful women and driving fancy cars. And then you have the real world, which is most of us living in the real world struggle with things, you know, whatever it happens to be. I mean, I know as a woman, I’ve struggled with my weight my whole darn life, you know, and all of us holding ourselves up to unrealistic ideals. So really saying like, let’s just like, let’s get real with one another and realize we can all be better, not perfect. Like, you know, I’m probably never gonna weigh 10 pounds less than I do now, but I’m okay where I am right now. I can be better. Maybe I eat more vegetables today than I did yesterday. It’s simple little things like that that just bring us back to our humanity.

Skot Waldron (05:56.044)
And that is, I think the younger generations are craving this. I think everybody’s really craving it, but I think some of the younger generations, I think there’s some of the ones that are probably the most guilty of like putting this out there in the world, but I think for the majority, there is going to be that desire for authentic, not only interactions, but authentic leadership, authentic connection with the people I work with every day. I think they’re craving some of that. Are you seeing that in your work? Do you believe that thing? You like, Skot, you’re so dumb. Nobody wants that.

Christy Pretzinger (06:40.335)
I would never say you are so dumb. No, think that we’re like-minded in that. have a 24 year old son, he’s in his second year at law school. And he has said to me on many occasions that he’s heard, especially as a young man, his friends say, what if I die alone? Because it’s so hard to find connection, not just in the workplace, but in social worlds. It’s really hard for particularly young men and as a white woman.

Skot Waldron (06:41.902)
Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

Christy Pretzinger (07:08.371)
At some point I’m like, here’s my violin for white men. But I also look at the world and I look at the marginalization that is happening, particularly among young white men. And it’s not just the workplace, but it’s in society as a whole. And there’s some people who have really preyed upon that in a very negative, divisive way. And so I think that that’s why I talk about my life’s work helping us get back to that that real human need for connection for which we are neurologically programmed. And that in particular for this younger generation, the Gen Z, that I know my son and I know we have some employees who are Gen Z, they want the workplace. And my company is all virtual, so they tend to find ways to co-work. They build friendships so they can go work out with the friends from work so that they can further those relationships all in the interest of furthering that communication, sorry, that connection, that community.

Skot Waldron (08:05.462)
Okay. So you’ve said, you’ve said a word that, actually I didn’t tell you this before, but, just yesterday I filmed a solo episode and by this time it will be out, just about connection and about how, but I’m talking about it in the sense of underperforming teams. Cause I’ll hear out there often, about, know, my gosh, we’re underperforming or Hey, we’re struggling right here.

We don’t have time for the connection stuff. We really just need to hunker down y’all. We really need to get focused on what we’re focusing on and get that thing. We just, we don’t have time for that other stuff right now. So I, I, but I sat there and I was thinking about it and inspired this show that I film, that I recorded yesterday.

Christy Pretzinger (08:49.231)
Yeah.

Skot Waldron (08:57.866)
about the need for connection that it’s not necessarily a pertinent. might not be, it might be, let’s just, let’s just call it what it is. It might be a performance issue, but it might just be a connection issue, right? That if we, if we can, if we foster connection, if we, which increases trust and increases this idea that I’m going to fight for you, et cetera, maybe performance will be a by-product of that.

Christy Pretzinger (09:24.867)
Do you think? I mean, I’m with you on that because I always think that when I would talk to people, other leaders about, you know, how have I built the culture that I’ve built? And I talk to your point about trust being a long game, right? You can, as a leader, it takes a really long time to build trust and you can blow it like that. And when I talk to people about that, they’ll be like, well, I don’t have time for that. Kind of to your point, I have to do X, Y, Z. I’m like, well, that’s fine. You can absolutely do that, but please don’t pretend you care about your culture or your people.

I mean, and that’s okay, you don’t have to. We could sit here and without even thinking about it, come up with many very successful businesses who don’t give a whip about their employees at all. And they make a lot of money. But if you have a bigger mission in mind than that, if you really do care about your people and you care about profits, but you care about people over profits perhaps, then you will actually put some focus on that.

And the thing about it that I’ve heard from so many people, and I think from what you just expressed, is that it takes time, you know, and it takes patience, and it takes both intention and attention. And I think that’s missing from a lot of the managers, and I use that word intentionally, because I feel, and I’m not the only one, this is coming from all sorts of data that I don’t have my fingertips, but that Gen Z is kind of opting out of management, quote unquote. They’re not opting out of leadership, they’re opting out of management.

And management would be people like that. We just got to do this. We got to hunker down. We got to move fast and break things. And I’m saying, you what? You can move fast and fix things too, actually. And then it’s a lot easier on the back end instead of cleaning up the mess that you made by breaking everything.

Skot Waldron (11:05.848)
So you, explain, harp a little bit more on this opting out of management thing. What, why do you say that? What’s given you that impression?

Christy Pretzinger (11:15.331)
Well, I think that, you know, what I hear when I speak to Gen Z, both my employees and other groups that I speak to, is that they want to be seen. You know, something that I have come to know over my years on this planet is that the one common need of every human being on this planet is they need to know that they matter. And the most important thing about mattering is you can’t do it alone. You have to do it in community. So if you work in a workplace where it’s just like, we just got to hunker down.

You know, these people are disconnected and all of this, but we just got to get this done without actually saying to the people, let’s get their buy-in. Yes, maybe you really do. I mean, we have some things that are urgent in my organization. We got to get done right now, but I’ve built a long record of trust with these people. So when I say, Hey, we got to get this done. They also know because I’ve proven to them over time that they matter, that their hopes, their dreams, their personal lives, their families, their career goals matter to me. So when I say.

Okay, now we got to do this. They’re willing to be like, gotcha. Because they know that I would run through fire for them, just like they’d run through fire for me. But that takes time. And so when I think about, you know, the Gen Z people, that’s what they want. It’s funny because when I first built my first business, gosh, 20 years ago, I started building it really for millennials at the time. And I’m not a millennial.

And, it was one of those, was like, can, you can do this job because we’re always virtual. So you can do this job. You can have a side hustle. I that’s fine with me, as long as you get the work done. And I’m not breathing down your neck. I’m not a whip cracker and all of that kind of thing. And it worked out really well. And then as it kept growing and we kept changing it and I kept kind of reiterating or iterating my culture and realizing my values, my vision, all of that. It ended up being more and more a culture for Gen Z because it is about what’s your opportunity.

You know, how can I help you? You know, I have young employees that maybe don’t have the whole picture of the organization, but they have ideas and they’re eager and they want to do something. And I make sure to tell other people, my other leaders to say, you know, don’t dismiss that because they say something that sounds wildly off base because they don’t have the whole picture. But the thing that is great is they’re leaning forward, they’re eager, they want to learn, they want to make a difference and they want to know that you see that.

And it hearkens back to me and why I started being a freelancer 30 years ago is because I was young, I was eager, I did not have the whole picture. I made a recommendation to a company where I worked that was wildly inappropriate because I didn’t have the whole picture at all. And yet instead of being like, that’s somebody who’s leaning forward and is interested, they literally almost ridiculed me and I ended up leaving and they did fine without me, but I ended up doing my own thing, which worked out better for me. But because when I see that, you know, it’s really easy as someone who’s got more experience behind me than I’m gonna have in front of me to see someone do that stuff and to kind of roll your eyes a little bit. And then I catch myself and I’m like, no, no, no, don’t do that to someone. Just because they’re young and don’t have the full picture doesn’t mean they’re not bright, that they don’t have good ideas and they’re showing their eagerness.

Skot Waldron (14:24.32)
Okay. So I’m interested in kind of what you said a little bit earlier where you’re like, built originally kind of had built this thing for millennials. And then you’re like, no, this is like, I’m building this for Gen Z and, and I’m going, so what makes, what makes you do that? What, what, what’s the difference you think for companies that are thinking today about creating a culture millennials are the biggest, you know, generation in the workforce right now.

But the Gen Z is a wave that is coming, right? In five years, I’m not sure. think it’s 30 something percent. We’ll make up 30 % some person in the workforce. And so we’re sitting there talking about this huge wave of Gen Z that’s coming, plus the millennials that are already there. I mean, it’s going to take over. But what is the thing that we need to be thinking about?

When we’re thinking about millennials versus Gen Z. mean, did millennials take the brunt of the lazy entitled talk and now the Gen Zers are getting, you know, getting a break or like, what’s the difference between those two generations now that we start really incorporating them into the workforce?

Christy Pretzinger (15:38.447)
Well, you know, I wouldn’t be clear, Skot, don’t give me too much credit. I unintentionally built a workplace for millennials almost because again, I’m not a millennial, but that’s what I wanted. It just happened to align with what they wanted. And I don’t know, do the stars align? How does that happen? Is it just? Yeah. And now I’m at the heart of a Gen Z-er. I look at that and I can, I have radical empathy.

Skot Waldron (15:52.696)
You got the heart of a millennial, Christie. That’s what it is. Yes, you do!

Christy Pretzinger (16:02.061)
You know, and I define radical empathy as really being able to step out of your own shoes into somebody else’s and look from that viewpoint and be able to see what that is for them. So for me, you know, it just happened that millennials kind of liked that whole thing of not having to do one thing. They didn’t want to wear one hat and work in one company forever because they’d seen what happened. Right. People that, you know, get the gold watch and nothing else and nobody’s appreciated. They’re like, I don’t want to do that. And I was I was a job hopper when I worked when I had a position before I became on my own. So I moved around a lot, which is not like my generation to do. They were kind of like, get a job, stay there, get your 401k, and retire. And that’s just not what I did. I don’t know why. never really, in fact, when I was doing it, I never understood why I did that and why I couldn’t stay in one place. Now, hindsight is 20-20, right? I can see that this was what I was meant to do. And so when things started, as I said, I was building the culture and I was looking at the environment and seeing how it worked and seeing that younger people were attracted to it. And then when I was writing my book, your cultural balance sheet and talking about the things that matter, they’re all matters of the heart, but they’re all matters of humanity and connection and community. I mean, that’s what a culture at work is really, it’s community. And there’s several small communities within it depending on the size of your organization. So I just kind of keep drilling down. But again, like I said earlier, the one common need among all of us is to know that we matter.

And it doesn’t matter whether you’re Gen Z, millennial, Gen X, boomer, I don’t care what you are. You need to know that you matter and you have to matter in community. And now maybe the expression of that is a little bit different for each generation, but let’s not forget that the boomers are also the same generation that the greatest generation called lazy and all the different things while they were hanging out at Woodstock and putting flowers in the end of guns, right? And now those are the boomers who are all watching Fox News and calling everybody else crazy.

So, I mean, things swing, right? That’s just what happens. So for some reason, those of us who have more runway behind us like to look at the people behind us and say that they don’t work hard or they don’t want the same things we do. And I think that’s categorically false. In my own experience, that’s not the case at all.

Skot Waldron (18:14.606)
So what do you think, a lot of, let’s, let’s just say what it is, right? The boomers, are, are retiring. There’s some of them still holding on for dear life. And there’s some that are literally like, they’re thinking about secession planning. They’re thinking about how to do this, but there’s not a lot of trust in younger generations. Us Xers are kind of like, yeah, remember me? Like I’m still valid, you know? And, there’s, there is the Xers that are taken over these companies for the tail end, but they’re just kind of.

Christy Pretzinger (18:24.751)
Thank

Skot Waldron (18:42.22)
I feel like us Xers are like holding on until the millennials can like grow up just a little bit more into like more experience and get those years of behind their, behind them. but I sit there and look at, okay, so you got some Xers, you got some boomers. What do you think is a blind spot that the older generations have, when trying to really empathize with the gen Z’s or the millennials?

Christy Pretzinger (19:07.727)
You know, I was just at a conference and there was a person talking about self-awareness and I don’t know who was surveyed, but in this survey, 95 % of people believe they’re self-aware and only 10 % are, right? I think we know that in our own lived experience. I would say that is a massive problem of the current older generation, whatever it is, boomers, exers, it doesn’t matter, that it’s very easy to see from where you stand and not to ever step out of that perspective. That is a learned skill. It can be taught, as Brene Brown has pointed out, empathy can be taught. Her research has shown us that. But you have to want to learn it. And I think that if you don’t want to learn that, and if you are so rooted in your position as being the correct position, you can’t ever look at anybody else with empathy and see that they might have a point.

You know, and I think that comes from a willingness to be vulnerable. And actually the thing that I really love about being a leader, I love being proven wrong because then I learned something new. You know, it’s not about, I don’t, I already know what I know. I don’t know what you know. I want to hear more about what you know. And if you prove something that I firmly believe to be wrong, I’m like, well, look at that. Look at that. You know, it just kind of opens up my whole world. And I think that’s a… for me personally, I love that experience, you know, and it broadens my world. And I think it helps me relate to more people, older, younger, doesn’t matter, just to more people.

Skot Waldron (20:44.696)
Okay. Let’s flip the script a little bit. What do you think? how do you think, or what do think there is a blind spot for the Ziers or the millennials coming up? that they should be more aware of when it comes to the older generations.

Christy Pretzinger (21:01.167)
Well, that’s where my whole better leader comes in, is I think that there is a lack of maturity through no fault of their own. They’re young. You’re not going to find most 25-year-olds who have this really high level of self-awareness. They don’t have enough runway behind them to have that, unless they’re very unusual. There are some that are like that. I don’t want to dismiss that. But most of us don’t when you’re that young. That’s the whole point of being young, right? What’s the story that most creative people, like poets, and artists like Mozart, they do their best work before the age of 30 because their brain is firing on all cylinders. They can come up with all sorts of things. They connect disparate ideas. Their brains move faster than mine does. So there’s a great talent in that. That’s also why historians can be 70 because history usually is pretty static and doesn’t change. So you can go back and do the research and figure it out and take your time writing about that. So I think that what those of us who are older need to appreciate about that younger generation is the fact that their brains fire faster, that they have different connective ideas, that they’re eager to do different things. And I think for them, the blind spot is maybe appreciating the wisdom that elders, for lack of better term, have to share. But I don’t think they’ll ever want to hear that unless those elders are open to hearing the… Gen Z or Zideos too. It’s a two-way street.

Skot Waldron (22:32.046)
Are there things that you teach that help bridge those gaps or help in any realm? I don’t know whether you talk about it in your book, the cultural and your cultural balance sheet, or if there’s something else that you bring to the table when you’re really trying to build these teams.

Christy Pretzinger (22:51.875)
Yeah, there actually is. And it’s something that I’ve learned over years of being in an organization called Entrepreneurs’ Organization. You’re probably familiar with it. And through that organization, and we have small groups called forums, I learned a couple of practices that are life-changing that I incorporate into my teaching. And one of them is really learning to lead with your feelings. I think that people like,

You and me, Skot, know that we are feeling people who occasionally have a rational thought, but most of the world operates under the misperception that we are rational beings who occasionally feel. So, and trust me, for the first, you know, many, many years of my life, I lived that way because I didn’t want to access my feelings because frankly, they’re scary and sometimes they hurt and I don’t like that. So once I learned to access those feelings and to really feel it in my body, it slows me down and it gives me perspective on things.

So, that’s one of the things that I teach is how to see a situation, sort of back to what we were talking about, I think before we started, if you’re talking about a feedback situation and you can start with an observable fact with someone, you you tend to interrupt me. You know, we were speaking the other day and I was sharing something and you interrupted me, observable fact. The way it made me feel, it made me feel like my thoughts and my feelings weren’t important to you. Then the story I told myself in my head was, he doesn’t think I’m valuable and doesn’t think that I’m smart enough to actually contribute here. And so the thing I’d like to ask you to do is to please be aware of the fact that it bothers me when you interrupt me when I’m sharing something. Teaching that, and really that’s new to most people to be able to access a feeling. Instead of just getting defensive, like, God, that guy never shuts up and I can never finish a thought, which is where most of us go, to being like.

Why does that bother me so much? That’s because it makes me feel insignificant. It makes me feel dismissed. It makes me feel unimportant. Those are feelings that none of us want to feel or want to access, much less expressed to anybody else. But if you get comfortable doing that and leading with that with other people, now again, you again, let’s put the caveat out there when it comes to vulnerability in the workplace, you have to use your own spidey sense about how vulnerable you can be with your leadership. Now, but you can be vulnerable out and down in an organization, I always say that, like with your team and with others, you can be vulnerable there. You got to decide how vulnerable you can be with your leadership. But in any case, in a practice, that is life-changing for most people because it builds a relationship. If you’re a little bit vulnerable with someone, it makes them like you and it makes them want to be a little bit vulnerable with you. And that’s the foundation of building a relationship.

Skot Waldron (25:37.772)
Vulnerability breeds vulnerability, right? It lets you know that it’s safe to be vulnerable because I’ve shown you that it’s safe to be vulnerable. one thing that I noticed that you were talking about too, is this idea that you, instead of blaming, focusing on the other person so much, this guy won’t shut up and he interrupts me all the time and putting it over there, which puts you into the victim mindset.

You turned it around on yourself. said, why does this bother me so much? And that simple shift is something that can be taught and something that I think a lot of people are getting used to hearing about or learning about. as opposed to more of the old school way of teaching, leadership and corporate hierarchy, the way that it was that we are getting more in, mean, I, I work with a lot of people in the AEC industry, architecture, engineering, and construction. And I will tell you, there are some feelers in those industries, right? You sit there and go, they’re just like, you know, these, these rough and tough kind of very logical, very just give me an order. I’ll do it kind of stuff. And it’s like, yeah, there’s some of that, but I will tell you, there are some amazingly outstanding feeling leaders in those industries that understand what’s going on and understanding what the younger generations are wanting from their leadership. So I wanted to bring that point up because I thought that was really fascinating how you kind of made that switch to self-awareness, understanding who we are. What do you think? Yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead.

Christy Pretzinger (27:21.679)
Well, you know what, I like what you just said too. I want to just mention something I thought a lot that, you know, there used to be, I mean, there still is sometimes a school of thought about leadership as being a general. And I mean, I walk out of the room when I hear a speaker talk about that, because first of all, resonates not at all with me. And it’s a very old school, you know, kind of Lea Iacocca, you know, kind of leadership kind of style that doesn’t work anymore.

And what I say frequently, and I’m very deliberate when I say this, I think that we need more feminine energy, not gender. And that is the thing that we talk about with like what you talk about is accessing your own feelings. It’s easy to be a general as a leader, to say, get it done. I want it by this date. And if you don’t do it, you’re on a pip. Okay, great. If that’s the way you want to live your life, have at it. But you’re not going to get response, you’re not going get loyalty, you’re not going to get commitment, you’re not going to get the people that really would follow you through the fire or even run through the fire for you. Because you get that by, exactly what you said, by accessing your own emotions and showing them that you have them. That we all have emotions. And I interrupt people sometimes. And when I do, I’m like, I’m sorry, you know me, I get talking, talking, talking. And then I interrupt you because of half the time I’m afraid I’m gonna forget what I have to say. So sometimes I’ll be like, forgive me, if I don’t say this now, I’m gonna forget it. But being aware of that makes it, it just builds that relationship more.

Skot Waldron (28:54.446)
Is there a time and I’m putting you on the spot here. didn’t prep you for this one. So, um, actually I don’t prep a lot of my guests for some of my questions because I don’t know what I’m going to say, but this one, I I’m interested if you’ve seen this in action, have you seen, um, you know, a younger generation be vulnerable in a workplace situation? Um, did it change the dynamic of what was happening? Did it help them in some way that you feel?

Was beneficial when they were maybe afraid of being that because they were talking to somebody older who came from the war of a command control leadership mentality. But I don’t know. Like, have you, have you seen that happen in your work at all?

Christy Pretzinger (29:39.375)
Yeah, I have. I would say probably, I mean, I can think of several people on our team who are really hard on themselves. And sometimes people who are hard on themselves, they can be really judgmental outward too. But it’s really like the judgment they put on themselves is 100 times worse than the judgment on the other people. And the judgment on the other people isn’t easy either, by the way. But, being able to access that with them and be kind of like, I wonder if there’s something about you in there that you’re thinking nobody works as hard as you. Well, you know, is that true? I kind of go back to sometimes one of the things that I like to use, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Byron Katie, who’s made a career out of four questions. And so I use that a lot, just comes up. like, so is that actually true? The person’s like, well, yeah. I’m like, do you know it’s true?

And then it makes them go a little bit deeper, sort of like that repeating question. And then like, you know, who would you be if you didn’t think that? And then they kind of are like, well, you know, I might actually be happier. I might be able to like focus on something else. And then it’s like, well, you know, what if you turned it around? What if you actually are the one not working as hard as everybody else? And then they’re like, what? And kind of getting people to open up to that. What I found, I only would do that one-on-one with someone. I would never do that in front of people because that’s like, you know, the John Cleese thing of calling someone out in a lunch line about being late or something, you know, or you would never do that. But doing it like that, if you do it in a safe space, really, I’ve seen that really break down some barriers and really soften someone by creating the space for them to access their own emotions, you know, and that’s been incredibly meaningful. I’ve watched that happen over years.

Skot Waldron (31:33.122)
That’s powerful. And I think if we can start to model the behavior and this means, yes, younger generations, we need you to maybe help model the behavior, of what we should have and what we should be and who should we, what we should be thinking about. because really what we are trying to do is create more collaboration and keep create more connection and create all cultures of good communication.

Because all of this will build more trust, which I feel is being so undermined in the world of work right now. mean, totally. It’s, killing us all. mean, and then, cause what does it do when I can’t trust you and I can only trust myself. Who am I looking out for myself? And it’s, it’s not the way we need to be doing things. And we wonder.

Christy Pretzinger (32:09.593)
Gosh, it’s been, been the light in the world at large.

It’s killing us all.

Skot Waldron (32:29.92)
Why the younger generations are like, I’m not tolerating this piece out. You know, I’ve got options and I’m going to go find something else to do.

Christy Pretzinger (32:41.219)
Yeah, I mean, I think that that’s a very real situation. again, like I said earlier, division is easy. know, actually building connection and community takes time and effort and commitment. You know, like I said, it takes both attention and intention and it’s a long game. And you have to prove yourself to people, you know, and unfortunately we live in a world of simple solutions to complex problems and this is a complex problem and there is no simple solution.

You know, there isn’t. It is a complex problem because human beings are complex. But again, as I am 1000 % committed, the neuroscience shows it, the data shows it, we are hardwired for connection and community. And that is really what we strive for, what we live for. That’s why we have these little divisive groups, the people join these little divisive groups, because they want to be part of a community. That’s why they do it, you know, and then they start choosing to believe all that stuff or whatever, and that’s just natural. That’s what they’re gonna do. So why don’t we build cultures of community and connection that are about higher things, about building more community and connection for larger groups of people and letting everyone know that they matter and that your beliefs can be different than mine, but you’re still a human being and you matter.

Skot Waldron (33:55.406)
preach Christy preach because the, the whole thing is, these younger generations are more connected rightly or wrongly. So then every generation’s ever been. That’s the irony of the fact that they are the most connected generation generations, but also some of the most lonely according to statistics as well. and we’re like, well, that sucks, you know, what is creating that and the mental health crisis that we’re going through and all kinds of things. But if we want to harbor this idea of connection, focusing on that is going to be so critical and how we help remain connected, especially in a virtual world, which many of us are still operating in. Some of us are not in that world at all. And they have the benefit of the water cooler talk and, and being there together in person and remembering what, you know, a pat on the back or a handshake or a hug feels like. And so those things are really, really critical and I appreciate your work. So is there a way that I, I’m going to come back to the full circle beginning here of, to measure BQ. you, do you have like a way that you measure it or think about it in a way of like, cause I can sit there and say IQ.

You know, skills, intelligence, can talk about EQ, my emotional intelligence, and I can kind of rank it, you know, organically. But when I talk about BQ, like how do you talk about that in a way that gives it some meat, some, something that I can touch, tangible.

Christy Pretzinger (35:25.134)
Mm-hmm.

Well, think that I want to build on something you said and then I will answer that question. But I think that back to the connection, this generation is more connected. I think we need to redefine the word connection. And I just want to share a quick story about that because many years ago, before like it was my space time, know, Facebook wasn’t a thing yet, chat rooms were the way people connected. I said to some people that, you know, but is that real relationship? I look at those things as a way to get to the smiling and nodding, the handshake, the actual connection with people. And they all, you would have thought that I’d asked them for their firstborn. Well, I think fast forward in time, and I think I’ve proven to be right, because that’s not real connection. Real connection is, and it can be virtual, because I know I’ve proven this in my own work, real connection can be virtual. It has to be fostered and intentionally done, but it can be done as opposed to these small just keyboard connections. But back to measuring BQ.

There was an article, I think it was in the Atlantic by David Brooks. And he was talking about how the Ivy leagues have ruined America. And what they’ve done is they focused solely on IQ and on test scores, right? Those are very measurable things. And it took him a long time, a long article, very well written. He’s an excellent writer. And finally, towards the end, he said, the things that actually make people better and make them successful in the world of work and in the world at large, are the soft skills that are hard to measure. And I was like, well, aren’t we happy we finally got into that point? Because I say, I don’t know who decided what’s gonna be a hard skill and a soft skill, but I beg to differ because I think that the soft skills are the ones that are much harder. They require constant attention, constant practice, commitment and dedication to becoming better at those. So in terms of measuring BQ, I don’t exactly have that, although I will tell you we’re developing an assessment to see where we have areas for potential learning. We haven’t developed that yet. We’re in the process of doing that because people like measurable things. But my fear is in doing that too, that you can diminish something down to a score. And I don’t want to do that. I think it’s important that we allow there to be soft boundaries around that, that there can be some blurred edges around what is better. Because your better is better, different than mine.

My better in golf, trust me, is like not not whiffing the ball. Okay. Now somebody, my partner’s, you know, better is like shooting the green, you know, I mean, I’m not ever going to shoot the green, but his better is like, I did that in one putt. Mine is better. Look, I did a three putt instead of a four putt. You know what I mean? So, so because each one of us is so different, everybody’s better not perfect is by definition different.

Skot Waldron (38:24.834)
So good. Thank you for saying that. And I think that if we can stop measuring ourselves against everybody else and we can stop as leaders pitting everybody against each other, and for the, know, and we call it competition, which healthy competition, I’m all for it all day. Mr. Competitive over here, give it to me. Okay. but I think it’s.

When it’s controlled versus imposed upon versus not healthy, when it becomes toxic or backstabbing and doesn’t breed the long term game that we want when it’s just for short term wins. I think that’s the problem. And so I appreciate you bringing that up.

Christy Pretzinger (39:11.309)
I think that the competition is good. always joke that I don’t enter competitions I can’t win. I don’t enter sports competitions or beauty competitions, but I could probably beat you in Jeopardy. You know, so I gotta know where I can win. But I think that it also, I think competition is good, friendly competition as you say, but it has to be intentional. You know, have to be careful about it and not just constantly default to your competitive nature because that can make it a dog eat dog world. And who wants to live in a dog eat dog world? Dog eat dog isn’t fun. It’s me.

Skot Waldron (39:37.486)
Gross. No, that’s gross. And who wants to live in the sink or swim world either? Horrible, right? It’s like, you have people who are like, that’s how I, that’s how I, that’s how I did my stuff. And you’re like, yeah.

Christy Pretzinger (39:42.799)
No, zero-sum games are by definition horrible and they go against everything we are hardwired to do. Everything.

Skot Waldron (40:00.13)
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for bringing that up. Okay. You’ve got lots of goods. want to know, if people want to talk to you, like, where do they go, to get all the stuff that you have to offer out there? Cause you have a lot of good stuff.

Christy Pretzinger (40:15.437)
Well, I appreciate thank you for coming from you. That doesn’t mean a lot, because I think you’ve got a lot of good stuff out there. Right now, the easiest place to reach me, you can always contact me on LinkedIn, just Christy Pretzinger on LinkedIn. Also, at my original company, wgcontent.com, I’m very easy to find. You can actually just Google me, and you’re easy to find me. And within about a week or two, ChristyPretzinger.com will be live, as will thebetterleaderproject.com. That will be live as well. So there will be a lot of places to find me. If you just Google me, it’s pretty easy to find me. And by the way, I love talking to people, particularly younger people. If any of them would like to talk with me, would like to share ideas with me, I love to hear them, please.

Skot Waldron (40:54.222)
Well, you’re easy to talk to and you have a lot of good to offer and so by the time this episode launches, your website will be live and everything will be good. So a little pressure there. Make sure no delays. Okay. so it’s, it’s really good, but thanks for, for being on, know we’ve been working on this for awhile and it finally happened. So I’m happy it did too. All right. Well, thanks, Chrissy. Be good out there. Take care.

Christy Pretzinger (41:15.309)
I’m so glad it did, I’m so glad it

Thank you, Skot.

Skot Waldron (41:15.309)
How many of you are working on being perfect? Uh, I don’t know. I think I don’t know that you’re consciously doing it, but you’re probably with those perfectionist tendencies in there being a little hard on yourself. You might be pushing a little too much. You may be delaying that project because it’s not quite there yet. And you may be developing delaying your own development because I don’t know if it’s really the right time or I’m trying to focus on this instead of that. And I want you to think about how can I be better? And part of that is how can we be better for those individuals that we lead. But you know what?

I’m just thought about it. How can we just be better people in general? How can we create better cultures, better societies, a better world? How can we do that? Well, I hope you got something out of this interview. Intention and attention. Are we intentional? ‘Cause if we’re not intentional, we’re accidental. And if we’re accidental, we’re gonna have a lot of problems. Intentional behavior leads to intentional results. So, let’s get on the intention side of things. I like this idea of mattering and mattering, it’s hard to matter alone. Mattering together through community and collaboration is so much more meaningful. Let’s think about how we can make everything matter. How can we help those that we work with and live with matter. Well, we do it through community. So, let’s foster community. Let’s foster connection. And let’s keep building cultures that we get to be part of, things that we get to enjoy together.