The Uncommon Communicator
The Uncommon communicator is the individual that has the enlightenment, to recognize in any situation, whether or not communication has occurred. This uncommon communicator takes ownership of the conversation and possess the skills to navigate and facilitate the conversation to mutual understanding. Taking on the experts as well as the Sophist of old to help bring clarity to the lost art of true communications.
The Uncommon Communicator
E102 - Stoicism and Communication with Felipe Engineer-Manriquez
Ever wonder how ancient philosophy can transform modern-day communication and performance in the construction industry? Well, prepare to be enlightened as we journey into the realm of stoicism and its impacts on communication, with insights from the seasoned construction pro, Felipe Manriquez. We kick off the episode by discussing the wisdom of renowned Stoics like Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, and their profound influence on cognitive behavior theory. Felipe shares how these teachings have helped him take control of his reactions, adapt to situations and maintain a resilient mindset in the demanding field of construction.
Our conversation doesn’t stop there, we explore how emotional control, energy, growth, and change intertwine in the challenging construction industry terrain. We dig deep into the importance of health, well-being, and cultivating a growth mindset, all crucial elements for succeeding in this sector. Felipe and I also shed light on the barriers that can inhibit progress and the power of stoicism in overcoming them. We highlight the Stoic Rule number four, a life-changing principle that makes you the sole custodian of your happiness.
As we wrap up our engaging chat, our focus shifts to the resistance to change commonly witnessed in the construction industry and valuing people as individuals rather than mere cogs in the wheel. We reiterate the teachings of stoicism that encourage us to embrace the present and live each day to the fullest. We discuss the concept of "UC moment" or the uncommon communicator moment and how it intersects with stoicism. Regardless of your career field, this episode offers valuable insights to improve your communication skills and understanding of stoicisms' role in modern thought and practice.
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You want to talk right down to?
The UnCommon Communicator :us, and a language that everybody here can easily understand.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:What we got here is a failure to communicate.
The UnCommon Communicator :Welcome to the Uncommon Communicator Podcast where we bring enlightenment to the topic of communication. I am so happy today to have Felipe engineer Manriquez with me from the EVFC show for the second time. Welcome.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:Thank you so much for having me on the show. James Super appreciate it. Happy to wake up on a cold Sunday to make this happen. This was a show in the work. So many times we we plunked it and it came back. But I think we're even in a better spot now with the topic than we were when we first tried to schedule this and it's a good reminder to everybody listening to the podcast. Like, if you can't adapt, what are you doing? Let's just adapt and be flexible.
The UnCommon Communicator :And better outcomes can come from that adaptation. Because, I agree, I'm in a better spot for this preparation it's snowing outside today for us too, so it is a nice cold Sunday morning to reflect and talk about how stoicism affects our communication. This whole idea really came across when we were in our last interview and you I brought up a stoic quote which I love those quotes and you said, hey, we should talk about that, and that that really has stuck with me for the last time. It's been months where I thought we've got to touch on this because the topic itself is timely, which is, as you dive into stoicism. There's so much that's tied to cognitive behavior theory or training and and that type of cognitive works that are going on that go back, you know, thousands of years to the same philosophy that people are applying, and I think we can apply it to construction. Now you have a particular brand of stoicism that really connects with you. What is that?
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:Yeah, I mean the kind that I like is obviously the journal for Marcus Aurelius that was never supposed to be published is my prime reader source. And then I do watch a lot of YouTube. I do go to a lot of University of YouTube and I tend to lean towards anything that's attributed to Epictetus, who was, like, in my opinion, one of the you know poster child for what stoicism is, and even the writings that we have from him he never wrote down, whereas Marcus Aurelius we have the journal written by his hand that his servant was supposed to destroy upon his death and his servants like this is too juicy, too good, I'm not letting this go. And it became published later. But with Epictetus it was student of his, taking notes trying to learn from the master, and Epictetus was a slave that eventually freed himself. So he lived.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:He had lived as a slave and he even talked about when he was, when in during his time as a slave, even had his leg broken, like he had one of his knees kneecap busted by the slave master, and how he turned that that incident to his benefit and did not let the master have control over him, even though he's having his leg broken. I just thought, wow, I probably complained too much. I listened to that story as recounted by one of his students and just his determination to stay in the pocket, so to speak, to stay in control of his mind and to stay in control of how he was reacting, really resonated with me I had recently thrown another book in there.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:Victor Frankel wrote a book called Man's Search of Meaning and in that book Victor puts in and he was a concentration camp survivor from World War II. He talked about in the space between stimulants and response, which could be like nanoseconds or small seconds, we retain the full control of how we're going to react, even if it's only for seconds. And that just resonated with me and to me that's like the same thing that Epictetus was talking about thousands of years earlier. And so that type of idea just weaving through history coming out in different people, people discovering different ways, I thought how can I better practice this myself? And so it's been given. It's been really liberating. So, like we work in construction, james and I've been superintendent, a manager, a cost engineer, I've acted as a paralegal for a decade on litigation. I mean I've done so many things. I've helped people in accounting back of house, front of house, and now I work in project delivery services for the bull company that skits me onto many projects all over the country, working on things from like high collaboration, integrated project delivery, down to like you know, a hard bid job, school project where you're spending bond money and you've got tight deadlines for the school. So like this, the full gambit, and in all of that, this mindset of being able to control how react to the environment, has been like just game changing for me. And it's and I can't even it's going to be hard to put into words, but I'll do my, I'll do my best to use. I believe in you, but like I remember being younger in construction and like something would happen, like I was on a job. Case in point, let me give an example of like when I did not have the control of what happened. So I'm on a project. It's a guaranteed maximum price job with fat, with allowances and contingency to pay for every sin possible. So it's and it's. It's going to be fine, it's going to finish on time. But we're, we're getting to the end, we're in the final.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:We were talking about punch list before the recording started. This was just reminded me. So we're getting into the punch list phase and one of the executives from the company comes to the trailer to give us a pep talk, right? So again, if you, if you know what's going on in the job, it's going to be on time, it's got, it's going to finish with higher than entry margin, so more profit than expected, so everything's good. So you're thinking this pep talk is probably going to be like hey, good job. No, it's just the opposite. The pep talk was put. I'm putting my knee on your throat, on each one of the people on the project.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:We were a general contractor on this project. The executive acted and spoke in such a way that I would say is parallel to having his knee on our throats and putting pressure on us at extreme level and use phrases like don't have this up, threatening, menacing type of phrases, to quote unquote motivate people to finish strong. Because we had, like, at the time I think we were in the final 90 days to cross the finish line and they didn't want people to relax because either, like I don't know what they knew, like did, did we know the job was going well or not. I don't think I, actually I don't think most staff knew that the job was going well. I was involved in change orders, so I had a lot more intimate knowledge of where we were with that and I remember, like, as I was thinking, like everything's fine, but this guy talking to us like this made me feel shitty and I felt bad and I took that bad feeling home and then over the course all the way to the end, like I never shook off, could not wash it off, couldn't get it off, and I was and I was thinking because I was allowing myself to be perceived by others and not perceiving myself when I knew to be true. I was giving away with my friend calls, abdicating responsibility for actual, real, honest, to goodness feedback. I felt bad and it had consequences across my family because someone was trying to motivate me for their own, you know, whatever their own ego, like they hadn't done anything on this job for what I could see in three years.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:They show up at the end, they and then they did take all the credit for the success of the project because they quote, unquote put this magic team together and then it was. It was later, same team, we're getting an award for the project internally and in just an easy conversation, somebody asked like what was my involvement on that job? And I mentioned how I joined to help with change orders and I used the word I, like I help with this, I help with that, and then we were able to work with the owner and, you know, get to a spot where they had higher, high reliability and what their costs were. And then one of the people from the team turn around. They were sitting in the room in front of me. He's dropping like a good you know non communicating contributor would be, and they're just like stop saying I I'm like I'm answer. I said I'm answering the question. Like they asked me what did I do. They didn't say what did your team do?
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:So I was answering in the my contribution to this and I remember like feeling shittier about that. I felt bad about that interaction and I'm thinking like am I wrong to think? And then I had to like do all this analysis later and thinking about this and I'm also thinking like you know, that person probably hasn't spent three seconds thinking about what they said. They just heard me from their perception taking credit for something. I was answering the question like I don't know what they heard on the. If they heard the person talking to me about the first question that they, that they asked, kicked off the whole thing. So same project, multiple examples where I'm not in control, I'm not taking the situation to my advantage and the result for me was increased suffering, like I felt bad. I had to talk about my poor wife had to listen to me talk about this way too long, because if anyone knows like my wife has to hear everything that happens to me every day, this is our.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:This is our relationship, so you know, she's very special, she's an awesome listener, but it was like it's not fair, it's like nonsense, it's nonsense. So that's the, that's the before. I discovered so is a type of thinking, just to give some contrast. And then afterwards, when I say, now that I can hear, I can literally hear anything from anyone, and then I will decide how I'm going to react, if it's going to bother me or not. And it's not to say that like if I was back in that situation again, james, that I wouldn't feel bad, but I would not feel bad for more than 60 seconds. It's going to be really quick. I'm going to feel what it is, I'm going to understand where it's coming from, where the feeling is, and then I'm going to decide what am I doing with this information?
The UnCommon Communicator :And that's the real key there, too, is you will feel it, you are going to hear it, and that's part of the problem, is it is. It does create that reaction in everybody, but it's what you do with it, and I have a similar experience as well, too. I wish I knew these things when I was in my twenties. It would have changed my whole life, because it took me years and years of pain of going through. What you just talked about is is an old school. We're like we're always behind, like every job. I finally said that at one point. I'm like every job we have cannot be out of money, like then we need to be bidding this differently. But that was their method of management is to hurry up and get it done, to try to make more money, with that feeling bad the whole time. Instead of saying you're doing great, which I had several jobs at the end it's like oh yeah, we did great. Like how did I not know that for four months of doing this job, that we were doing great? And they're like and then, of course, there's no thank you, because they did all the managing that did it, and so it's that mindset, and that really goes to have a couple of stoic rules. I don't know who wrote them. There's so many different types of rules and different orders, so it's not like you can't go to the book of stoic and find here's rule number one, but here's rule number one that I found on the internet and it's accept what you can and can't control. What's fits right into what you're talking about is you have to accept the things that you can't control and understand those. And that's a quote from Epictetus that says this there's only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will. And I think those mindsets are important for us in construction because there are so many things that are outside of our control and trying to be outside of that and let them affect you and this has been recent for me when you realize and take that mindset that I'm not going to let this affect me, then it was all in my control.
The UnCommon Communicator :I had a guy this last week. He really gave me some bad news and he's like, oh, sorry to use, he goes. I'll just be honest with you Kind of told their situation, they're having issues with their PO system and he goes. I am just sorry to ruin your day, blah, blah, blah. I'm not going to get this stuff until next week passes, date that I needed them to get it. And I said you're not ruining my day. He's like what do you mean? I'm like your circumstances don't ruin my day. I'm not driven by your bad news. I can plan on your bad news now, but your bad news is not going to ruin my day. And I wouldn't have said that 20 years ago. What do you mean? So, yeah, it is a complete different mindset.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:James on that note.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:Like so, when people give me quote, unquote bad news or they tell me something that they think should ruin me or make me feel like shit, it's amazing when you don't react the way that that social culture, especially culture of Western United States culture, dictates you should act and it creates such like like just use another metaphor it's like you can see the mental hamster literally fall off the wheel and collapse on the side.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:You know, the brain just goes like a record scratch and it really throws people off. They don't know how to react to you and I think, because so many people are, they used to like doing that stuff and like really stinging people like a scorpion with like negativity when they don't get the effect that they want from the venom of those of the sting, like it hurts them, it causes them pain and I'm just always like I feel bad for you. I feel bad for you trying to hurt me and it's not. It's not hurting you. I, you have my sympathy. I was like sometimes I'll even be a jerk and say in another universe I do think about what you said.
The UnCommon Communicator :That's something for me to. I think I my personality wise has been a lot like that in the past, where I'm not overly emotional about probably more emotional now than I ever was for the last 50 years but in because I think I'm understanding myself a little bit better than I did. But a lot of it was stuff in those feelings away and there's times where I just didn't overreact but and then I really learned that overreacting never gets you the the results that you want. So remaining calm and now I can mentally, I have a backup to say why I can remain calm.
The UnCommon Communicator :But looking back at it, there's a couple of times where I had a superintendent where I had that I had that overact, a little bit of upset because he would get mad at me for not reacting like I didn't care. I'm like there's nobody that cares more about this job than me. So then I had to start portraying that to him because that's that old school mentality. I had to show him that I was upset that he got defensive. It's just, it's a weird psychology of that old school thought of again same guy who were always behind every job we bid doesn't have any money in it and we need to work harder and faster on every single one, but that I had to act with him and I won't do it anymore. It's like, look, you're getting the all that I have, all the time, and you're just not going to get that reaction from me.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:I think it's worth noting to the listeners, like if you've just only learned about stoicism in this podcast, or you've Googled it once or twice, or you've seen the, the Spock stoicism eems on the Internet, where people who practice stoicism are often portrayed as being unemotional. That's a surface level scratch, and you've only you've only looked at page one of the Google results. If you go deeper into page two and actually start to learn this stuff, nowhere do the stoic say you're not going to be emotional and it's quite the opposite, like it's, you get to feel everything, but you, you guide, you're more aware of like James is saying, like he's even more aware of, like what he feels, and and you get to decide what you're going to do with that. I think that's a nice nuance that I don't know why page one search results for stoicism don't ever go deeper. I think people just don't want to learn. So it's hidden somewhere. I don't know if it's two pages back or five pages in, but I've studied this for a long time and somewhere on this bookshelf I've got meditations by Marcus Aurelius, which is his book, and when I was reading through that because you know again YouTube I had something from Brian Holiday showed up in my feed and Brian Holiday puts out a new book, a podcast interviews like he is just broadcasting stoic ideas 365 days a year with products and books and and he had some major tragedy, business tragedy in his life and I mean he's even had a talked about in one of his podcasts, like where he lives now. Someone broke into his house and like stole everything but the one thing they didn't steal or any of his books. He was so relieved that none of his books were stolen because that's where all his. He's got all these great books on stoicism and some of these leaders and there are many different stoics like I'm going to just lazily just mention Marcus and a Pactitas, because there's some of the big heavy hitters. And then there's there's the other person that shipwrecked and I'm forgetting his name.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:Maybe you remember James that started the whole thing at the stowa to begin with, an ancient Greece, it was a. It was a merchant trader that gets shipwrecked and agreed at a Greek port and then he goes into a shop and he becomes aware that there's people talking on this plaza or this like area that they call in Greek the stowa, and it's just like an open, like edge of a building. It's like the porch literally translates into the porch. And so he's. He's like he's just lost everything. He's lost all his money, all his worldly possessions. He's pretty much homeless. He goes out to this porch and just starts talking about his philosophy and like what's happened, and people start listening and then boom, now he becomes a leader of this new philosophy in Greece called stoicism. That at the time I don't know that it had that name right away, but it later gets that name because they're always at the porch, the stowa, which is just like talking from the porch.
The UnCommon Communicator :And it was a different mindset from the rhetoric that was and that's something that Marcus Aurelius talks about as well too is you know that debate him as the leader, you know as the emperor. A lot of the emperors take that rhetoric side, which is more for entertaining, more for getting people excited, whereas the stoicism is principles which I think fit directly into. I mean, 2000 years later, they fit into everything that we do, especially construction. I think it ties into it, but if it's into any job that anybody is performing to be able to come in with that mindset.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:Yeah, one of my favorite. I know you've got, you've got these, these, these principles, written down from the internet. So what's number two?
The UnCommon Communicator :So in a couple of these we're going to skip, because they do cover death. But jumping into number two, it's except fate, which is it might be similar to line to what you were talking about as far as accepting what you have for the good, but it's another. It's one of your life that causes a lot of people, a lot of suffering, is the inability to accept the unraveling of events around them, despite these events being completely outside the individual's control. And then Epetitus again said do not seek for things to happen the way you want them to, rather wish that what happens happen the way it happens. Then you will be happy.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:Yeah, and that's, that's beautiful. I've also watched and listened to audio recording of the Tao De Jing as, as people thought, was written down by Lao Tzu. And then this this is another philosophical text that comes out of ancient China, and there's a great metaphor that Lao Tzu uses to bring that idea to life. He says, like there's this great river, he's like there's really no river, so don't listening to this. This is a metaphor to try to explain this thing. He's like but imagine, there's this great river and we're all floating in it.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:It's like some people will splash a lot and try to control where they go in the river, and then some people just don't do anything and just go wherever the river takes them. And then some people make subtle movements and control and go down the river, but they don't fight going down the river. He's like some people will fight going down the river, which is like akin to what you're saying in your fate Like things are set up, initial conditions are set. It's like this whole concept of predestination, that your destiny is set, your fate. And then there's this whole idea that people have disagreed on forever. As long as there have been people talking about fate, there's been disagreements on. Can it all be faded, because it can lead to nihilism and then people just getting disenchanted and disconnected from society because they feel like there's zero control. And this whole parable of the river and this talking it's about you can co-create with your fate, and it kind of, to me it leans into that. There is a fate because, hey, you're in this river Like other people outside of the river, like I don't know. Like in the metaphor he doesn't say that the people on the bank watching the people in the river, like that wasn't covered. So I'm just imagining like something has to contain this river of flow and I think it's to be more of an energy type of thought.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:And then you know, I study electrical engineering. I can tell you, like we learned in school through my studies, that everything is energy. So, like you could just use Einstein's basic equation, e equals MC. Squared, you can put all matter, all things that we perceive, that there's a band, an energy band. Sound is part of it, lights part of it, physical things heat, everything that we can perceive and cannot perceive. So we have, you know, a lot of those tools, equipment and tools for some of the perceptions, but it's all energy, it's all vibration and I don't get all like woo woo on people, but this idea that things are going to happen, you can't control it, that's fact.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:Like I didn't, as far as I could tell. I didn't pick where I was born, I didn't pick what kind of parents I was going to have and then I didn't pick how my parents would react in certain situations. Pick, like, how was I going to feel this morning? Like last night I had a fever that I asked my wife like before I went to bed and was like, hey, should I go on James's show? And she's like, oh yeah, you could podcast, no matter what. So here I am, right, so I don't have a fever now I'm not hallucinating, but I couldn't tell, like, you know where, where am I going to be in this like sickness curve of this head cold that I have or whatever it is, mm-hmm, but that idea that, fighting your fate, I liked the from the Dow to Jane, there's, there's a little bit and it could.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:Just because I'm a control freak, you know, to some degree, people and that's not my, not my phrasing, other people have said that about me Uh, I could, I I'm just I like and discern what I like, and like you were talking about the philosophers earlier. That time some of the big philosophers on the stage at the time the stoicism is coming up are influences from Plato, aristotle, and I've heard a lot of people criticize Plato. When you start reading philosophy, you'll you'll realize that people just don't automatically like it, like in Western civilization, I would say, especially in the United States like there's a lot of influence from Plato that people don't even see, don't even recognize. So one of the things that Plato did was he discovered these Platonic elements or these like basic shapes. But it's this idea of discerning things and dissecting things and analyzing.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:So in Western culture it's always a let's kill it, take it apart to see how it works, let's break it down. And you hear it in our language, like how we talk, like hey, let's, what's this problem? Let's break it down. Let's always break it down, cut it, kill it. It's words like that, to discern, and that comes from Plato and Eastern philosophy. It's about understanding how things work together systematically. It's like let's observe this thing without interfering with it and let's unify what's happening. It's a different approach. It's not a dissect, it's a look at it in the system's perspective how it fits together, how it works, study how it's moving natural patterns, and we're in the West. It's like kill it, cut it, break it down, bust it apart, and the answer is like you actually need both, like you need both things. It's not one or the other.
The UnCommon Communicator :You know that river story that you were talking about, that one was kind of eye opening here in it described that way, cause it was recently that I've heard that description where you really have to. You're on this river, don't fight it, and if you go with the flow then you're going to have where's it flowing right and then you have a little bit of guidance in there. But if you fight against it then you're defeating yourself. It's like swimming upstream. It was kind of a little bit of enlightenment and I will. You know, I do want to talk more about this vibrations, electrical flow, cause I didn't tie that together when you'd mentioned that earlier about your electrical engineering degree and how everything is energy, how everything is flow. So that's interesting. I didn't think we got too hippie there. But you know where our whole thing is, the you know we bring enlightenment to the topic of communication. I've had a lot of, I would say, not necessarily negative feedback but pushback on the idea of enlightenment, because people think it's kind of hippie. What do you mean enlightenment? They get this different picture of that word. It went in reality it is something completely different, which is what we bring, which that. So I want to bring up a point in your book right here.
The UnCommon Communicator :That is a moment of enlightenment which I thought was really an interesting take. And it's when you had been working a hundred hours a week and you were telling the story where you know I think you were first introduced to you know, it's just read a book on lean. And this guy said this, or you said, I don't have time to read a book, you know I'm working a hundred hours a week. Then he replied no problem, keep doing the same thing and think about it. Think about it if you are being effective at work or being present at home. And then you said this wake up call, and that's a moment of enlightenment. I mean that it took that turn, those words, for you to make that change and realize that you were really trying to swim upstream to try to fix the problem when in reality you know it was right. So tell me about that moment of enlightenment that you had in that wake up call to kind of a might really a big mind shift for you.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:Yeah, the guy that you know shout out to Mike, because Mike is the guy that asked me that question. We were in a, in a hotel ballroom, you know, having this big conference, and, like I said in the book, I'm turning it probably already. By the time that we had that conversation I've already drunk 12 cups of coffee because I could barely stay awake. And so that's because I'm just working too hard. And in preparation this is how crazy we were, james, in preparation for being offsite two days for this mandatory conference Like we all had to work extra hard so that we wouldn't be behind. Because, like we were, we must have the same type of leadership. Because our leadership was like you're all behind, like you're always behind, like everything's behind everything's, you know, like late, and it's just not true. It's not true when you get to look into it. So I'm tired, I'm stressed. And when he says that to me, like the first part, I was dismissing him like he wasn't even done with the sentence and I was already like dismissing, like I ain't nothing, like I don't, I'm not reading. But then when he said, you know, we mentioned my personal life in an instant, I saw my wife's face in an instant and my wife is like a very no BS, shoot, shoot straight, be super honest, incredible human being. And I looked, you know, mentally, and this happened in seconds and I knew like, oh man, I'm bullshitting myself, like it's not as good as it could be. I've done nothing to improve, you know, our relationship. Like it's just like we're just static, right, it's just like. It's kind of like the way it was when we started working and it's still the same. And by the time I get home I don't have energy to like be a good husband, be super present, like I'm dire reading in the mouth every day like the challenges that I faced and she's sharing her challenges. So it's not like a sound not lecturing her every night about you know what's going on, by no means, but I'm also not a good listener at that time.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:And so I thought and if this guy knows how to run work, his people are happy. Like his people were on stage with him when he was presenting this topic and it was four people at different ages that were four happy faces, and this is a two days of presentations from jobs about you know, this is general contractor, and nobody outside of his team had looked happy like not one. And so that's why I was even talking to him, because I was like there's something, there's something here and I've got to like find out, you know what's going on here. And so when I had that moment of clarity, I thought, okay, this is an, this is an opportunity. I'm either you're going to do something with this or I'm going to just probably probably end up going worse because it can't, things can't, and even when you try to this is a misconception a lot of people have when you try to maintain exactly what you have, things actually get worse. So you can't. Uh, maintaining the status quo is a myth. That's another path to suffering and uh and losses. So you have to actually improve and people, you could test this for yourself if you think I'm bsing you, but either either keeping things the same, things are getting worse, or you're improving. It's way more fun to be actively improving and it could just be the way I'm wired or how I've wired myself, but making that change. And it wasn't like the next day I was better, right, cause I'd already had a habit decade plus.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:By this point in my career, james, I was probably, have you know, 15 years in 10 years into construction and I only knew the one way, which is the work harder until you have nothing left, like just burn everything on your gas tank, type away. And I used to get sick multiple times a year, which is ironic, cause I'm sick right now, but I used to get sick like every other month. I'd have you know something and we have a cold, a flu, like if something was going around. I was getting it. And now here we are, you know COVID pandemic. We're coming out of that, knock on wood, never had COVID.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:I traveled all over the world and this year I've been sick three times in an entire year. And that's with world travel and I think that's like for me it's a big difference. Other people might be listening and they never get sick right In 12 months, but for me, who used to get sick every other month from like six times a year to less than three and I almost made it into January, like it's just so close to only was going to be two times that's still such a massive improvement for me. So with perspective like this is way better. The time that I wrote that book I was probably sick before that conference, like the week before. It's still going to work Like we used to go to everybody used to just before COVID. Everybody just can't remember. Like we used to just go to work sick and just cough all over each other.
The UnCommon Communicator :Yes. Well, we couldn't afford to Like I was the sole income for my family and I would go to work sicker than I should. I'm sure I got everybody else sick, but that's just what you did. When you're the sole income, you went to work. And then things change Of course.
The UnCommon Communicator :For me it became a salary as well as being able to physically take time off. That was like. That was a different mind shift for me as well. To say what you're going to pay me to stay home, I mean, that's so. I didn't take any of those time off. Just like you were saying, I experienced a lot of sickness as a kid.
The UnCommon Communicator :It seemed like I had every single cold that you possibly could get and in a lot of ways I felt like it was my work. You know we did a lot of drilling with silica. You know hammer drilling, you know dust and stuff like that. That would give me the sniffles and headcoats and things. But was it just that or was it the stress of everything that tied in there? And then recently I've taken on this growth mindset and a lot of times I think we have, we do a little bit of it and then when we read about it, we we just crank it up, because I think in some ways I was a learner. I wanted to grow. That's what got me in my career. But really taking them, the idea of a growth mindset, which is just what you were talking about, is that's what makes you happy, is being able to continually grow. And I'm going to jump right back in your book again, too, because you made a statement which really ties. This is where I think stoicism helps us better understand how we can change our industry.
The UnCommon Communicator :But when you talked about, you know, all those, those mantras that we used to have to fight under, this is the way that we've always done it. I hate those words. The other ones do it my way, or there's the door. If it ain't, I like to put eight in there too, because that's that's how you say it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. We are not reinventing the wheel here. Just do your job.
The UnCommon Communicator :I've heard that one. Put your head down and work hard. Heard that one. We are paid to. Do not to think. Heard that one. Keep yourself busy. We reward hard work.
The UnCommon Communicator :I've physically have been the guy who has walked around with the tape measure, because if you have a tape measure extended about a foot and a half and you walk around a job site. Nobody questions you that you're working, but I would work all hard, all day long and not be getting anywhere because that's what was rewarded, and we have traditions for good reasons. You know, this is again how we've always have done it, and those are things that you mentioned within you know, within your book, where you're talking about these phrases of leading into the idea of scrum and change. So I think change is the thing that also ties to this mindset of growth, because they tie together, and those are some of the worst words that I've ever heard, which is that's not how we've always done it. And now I feel confident enough to question that.
The UnCommon Communicator :Well, is there not a better way? You know there has to be other ways to approach that, and I think that comes down to this Stoic Rule number four. We're going to skip five. We can talk about it if you want, but it's accept death, and there is a little bit of that which I've had to kind of work through recently. I recently lost my dog, which is putting an animal down is the worst thing a human could ever do and it was the first time that we had done it. So it's kind of reinvigorated me as I process through that and really reading some of these quotes has helped.
The UnCommon Communicator :But and we can talk about that one if you want but Stoic Rule number four from the internet accept that your happiness is your responsibility. And that whole concept goes back to that. Hey, I'm sorry to ruin your day, I'm like, you don't have the ability to ruin my day but accepting that your happiness is your responsibility. Again, this guy's filled with the epitetus quotes but if you want something good, get it from yourself. Within our power, our own opinions, aims, desires, dislikes and some our own thoughts and actions. When we take that responsibility for ourselves, that is instead of that blame game. And I've recently spoke with Jesse Hernandez in our podcast and he talked a lot about his journey through addiction and getting out of addiction and one of the biggest things that they do there is that to stop blaming other people and accepting that. Have you worked through like people especially in this mindset of that's not how we've always done it to also kind of base that as their driver for their happiness?
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:So that list that you write off from my book, like people I said in the book like this came from. You know my experiences and by the time I wrote the book, 20 plus years in construction, but I've heard all of those phrases on one job and then I've heard them on multiple jobs and they still creep up all the time, like it's not over. Right, there's still so many people indoctrinated in that way of thinking and that absolutely what you just talked about on that rule is a major factor in creating change, Because all the people that say that stuff to you you can find examples where it's not true in their own how they manage and lead. So you can easily like, break it apart, but at the same time, it's not, that's not valuable, because they're trying to. They're trying to get you to do something when they use phrase, when you hear phrases like that. So if you're on a construction project now and design it as well and you hear that phrase, that's somebody trying to control you. Just be aware of what you're hearing and then someone is trying to control them. That's the part that you often won't see. They're feeling pressure from somewhere else and you're probably at the bottom of the food chain where you're actually the value producer. You're the important person making the thing or the ideas or transforming something that the owner finds value in. So you're the most important person. But they don't treat you like you are. That's all part of the game. So you could just recognize that the person above you is actually probably doing the best they can with their limited abilities, as most of us are. Like I'm the same way, like I've got limited abilities. I'm not super human, but I recognize that, that it just takes a lot of that energy out of it and it could. You're not deflecting, but you're understanding where it's coming from and when. You can internalize that and it takes practice.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:Like what you said, it sounds so easy and, like anyone that's struggling with addiction, they know that blaming other people is just like super easy and we all know somebody who is a quote unquote negative person and if you think back to your last conversations with them, they probably blame somebody for their lack of happiness, unhappiness, fear, all these other things, any human emotion. They put it outside. And you know, being a father is to help me get better. I'm just thinking. I've even asked my son, like as I studied Stoicism, like as have you. You start to realize every emotion you feel comes from somewhere inside and it's a spectrum so like you can have happiness, can turn to joy, can turn to you know whatever could go higher levels, euphoria and then you could go down the other way. Where it can? I always forget what the opposite of happiness is because it's I don't think it's like well known We've got to go back to the internet for that one but all those things spring forward from inside of you.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:And that's when I was saying earlier, like when people come at you and you have emotional reaction. If you take a second and it literally can be a second feel where, where is it in you? Is it like, is it deep in? Did it hit you from the side? Oh, is it like, did you feel something in the thought of some other situation? And then your, your brain's like trying to play the record of what you're supposed to do and react. You can interrupt that record playing if you just say like, oh, wait a minute, this, you know. This person's like really talking down at me and trying to get me to do something. What do they really want? And then that's when I'll come back to the person and say. I'm just asking them like, hey, this is what I'm doing. Should I be doing something different? Uh, what do you really need? What's the minimum thing I can give you? Now? You can start to negotiate with the person instead of just like working harder, unnecessarily.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:And for all aspiring project managers listening to the show, all deadlines are fake. So, just so you know, let's just say it right now for the record all deadlines are fake. All schedules are full of lives and people you know. Go ahead and come at me in the comments. I can dance with you all day long. I know lots of project schedulers we've had this debate with and we've either come to draw or they've lost. But I have not, uh, not been wrong about this. Like these things are all. We have ideas About what they should happen and with different perspectives. You have a different sense of when's the right time, but there's no one single time. There are better times and worse times and ideal times, but there's not one right answer. And I know, like you got to build something like that doesn't work. But like the truth of the matter is, like when we're building things, it's just being clear on what it is we're building makes more difference than trying to target a date.
The UnCommon Communicator :Yeah, I think the clarity and I think the communication of that clarity is something that I am very much interested in. The scrum idea. What I like is we are doing like you mentioned Plato is kind of weaved through how we make some of our problem solving. I think there's a lot of stuff that's weaved in that we're maybe dabbling in but not being really successful at, because we think we're communicating clearly with our 75 page schedule because it's all there, it's all in there. People, we know exactly when we're trimming out room 232, we know exactly when we're going to do it. 11 months ahead of time, right, we know exactly when we're going to trim that out. But it's the idea of communicating that stuff through an effective plan which is, I think, one thing that scrum brings that you, you know you're a big advocate for big, you know teacher in this industry for that. Now, on that, just kind of want to dabble a little bit more on that whole happiness idea, because that one for me, that one I had to internalize a little bit to realize that, you know, my happiness is my responsibility and to be able to know that that comes from within. Then I feel like I have more control at that point. And then it's about not giving control to other people. You know, I think that's one of the keys of that one.
The UnCommon Communicator :But what I want to end on is Stoic rule number five, which is talking about exactly where we've been heading, which is accept that life is change. And I think, if you accept life does change and then also twist that to be life is growth as well. To continue to grow and this is really one of my favorite quotes from Marcus Aurelius, because it really it's an illustration as well too and this is what he says frightened of change, but what can exist without it? What's closer to nature's heart? Can you take a hot bath and leave the firewood as it was? I'm certainly an old story, right, I turn on the hot water, but that no idea is he's warming his bath.
The UnCommon Communicator :Eat food without transforming it, and I spent a lot of time thinking about how you know you eat food it turns into this, right and how this response depends on the food that I eat. Can any vital process take place without something being changed? Goes to your thought of energy, can't you see? It's just the same with you and just as vital to nature. So change is 100% inevitable, but why are we so? My question to you is why are we so resistant to change, especially tying it to the construction?
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:Yeah, it's programmed and that's the short answer is, it's programmed in. It's a whole paradox of or not a paradox, but it's a systemic way of having these habits and how things come together. Where people think is how things come together and I've had Sean Grace on my podcast and forget what season it was. They talked about some of the history of construction going back to the 1800s and he said basically that the way we build today is identically the same as it was at post-Civil War and nothing has changed. We have the same insurance companies, the same types of contract styles, we have predominant contracting Hard bid is still the predominant contracting method in the world and he's like the origins, from what they can see, that goes back to that time.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:I was in a DBA Design Bill Institute of America training course this week and they were talking about the history of contracts and they're showing that what we're doing now with design build is only returning to a previous type of contracting style that existed before the 1800s before. And it's kind of funny because you know, sean was hitting this and he's not dba, he just knows this, he's a history nerd and the dba had this timeline. They showed like this concept of the master builder idea. That goes back and they've got some people that give credit to that but it goes back to like this earlier time, like 1400s, 1500s and this other, you know, golden age time, and then they fast forward to the industrial revolution. You get people really trying to optimize things and take the human creativity out to optimize and one of the consequences of that is that it became dreadful. We saw, because of the craftsman time before the people that know their history, like people were, people were master crafts people. I mean you had like guilds and you had like organizations and there was a ton of training and it was like this career was part of your identity.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:And then in industrial revolution, through optimization and a lot of this is industrial engineering practices that go back to Frederick Winslow, taylor and others like Henry Gantt who invented the critical path waterfall schedule or made it popular was contemporary of Taylor, but they disagreed on things like but that doesn't get like, it doesn't get playtime in the history book airwaves, right, people just remember what benefited them and then, and through that time, it creates this whole system of treating people as less than amazing was what we are and treating you like you're replaceable and so that that idea that that anybody can do your job or people with a title, it's a title that does the job. That is just false and we know that even in how owners contract when they make decisions on teams. If it's not a hard bid, so all other contract styles, except for the envelope and the lowest price wins outside of that style, which is now only half of all construction procurement, or less and getting less, and all the other styles. People are selected based on people, not companies. People, it's the people. But even though that that's gotten better on the front end, you still get on to those projects and that predominant old stuff is still with us from the 1800s, early 1900s, where we treat people like they can be replaced, like if somebody falls down on your job, nobody even reacts right. Maybe it's a safety incident, maybe it's not. Nobody stops to say like, hey, are you okay? What's going on like this? That's not normal.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:But in the craftsman era is totally different. Like people looked out for each other, it was a different type of environment and production was allegedly less. But people make that argument that it was less, but there's no good data on that. We even have the United States government who, like, has a group in the Bureau Labor Statistics and before them it was another part of the government. They've been tracking productivity since the 19 early 1900s and productivity and construction has been as a way that they track. It has been flat since 1955. And then the last five, six years were actually lower productivity than we were in the 1950s, where all of the industries agriculture, retail, manufacturing and had exponential gains in productivity. Some of that has been the use of technology, but it's ultimately processes and in the way that we build and organize people, because it's still a ton of psychology for how we organize, motivate people to do stuff. It stayed flat, it's it's resisted the change and I think that my this is just my opinion I'm not the next one on this but I think it's how we treat people so like there's times when you can be very productive and be in a flow state. Things just happen easier and it's also having the right people with expertise. An expert can do something in seconds that a novice cannot do in a year.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:And one of the things I learned about this and scrum, like Jeff, was teaching us in the early days they had they were measuring software programmers and they found that like in one company. There's this one company that did a case study like 300 different individuals and they found that, like, people that really knew and understood the programming were automatically like 50 times more effective than people that didn't know it. That well, still programmers, right. So imagine that you're in this company and you've got some people that are 50 times more effective than others. Like, what do you do with that? How do you get the other people to become as effective? Can you get them to become as effective? And in construction we see the same. Like that's why owners put some much emphasis on Team experience, because we have this bias that thinks that past experiences and predictor forward success and it's actually not. And but you can't ascertain what makes someone an expert or not and like so experience, you have to try to Ask questions to figure out what that experience is. So I think in our everyday, like what we consider traditional and normal, it doesn't lend itself to figuring out what are people's actual capabilities. And then, even in the lean space, this is something that's so bad that manufacturing that they deemed it the eighth waste, nonutilized talent, and all that's telling you is, if you're a manager, like how many people on that work for you or adjacent to you? Do you even know what they're capable of doing? And if you do know what they're capable of doing, are you letting them use those talents and skills on your project? There are, I mean there's.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:I'll give it just one example. I knew a job. It was a 10 year job and it was super successful by all accounts. It was an airport project and I knew a guy. He's on that job for like six years and I talked to him like what are you in charge of? He's like all I do Is process RFI's, that's it. I was like wow, I bet this guy can do more things than just like take stuff in wordsmith it to push it out and then update drawings, like. And he had a degree in engineering. It was like you have an engineer who's got like talent and understands design and he's supposed to be quote unquote managing construction and this company has them just processing RFI's and we would deem as an administrative task and that's like A major red flag. Like like fast forward. He didn't continue to work at that company like after, after a while, quit and went to go work somewhere else.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:Because you can't do that to people, can't just force people to do that type of stuff for such a long time, like it just is not healthy for for them.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:It is actually not good for the company. And then scrum we know this from the research. You've got a cross train and let people scratch that I need to learn something. Itch. And there's some parts of your job you're not going to like and there's some parts of your job that are like new and there's some parts that you're really good at and you want to be more holistic and let all of those things coexist at the same time in the system that it welcomes that. And so a lot of teams that use scrum like it's just such a different feeling that I've got stories of people taking pay cuts to work on scrum teams because it's just so much better than the traditional. Money is not everything. If you, if you're, if you're working in a group that actually values you, the person you're going to work, your productivity is going to be way different than if you're just doing a paycheck job.
The UnCommon Communicator :That's really what you just talked about. I think is the key to satisfaction and construction in general, and I hadn't really tied it to the idea of of losing that ability, of the harassment and the guilds and stuff like that. I'm a millwright by trade, so I went through an apprenticeship. It had its, you know, its traditions and stuff like that that really brought and I have a family of millwrights. My grandpa was a millwright via the auto industry, grandpa was a millwright via the auto industry, my dad was a millwright, my three brothers, so it's a family business that I've left for the evil, general construction, but that's a different story to talk about. But the idea is that there was that, that satisfaction at the end of the day of knowing what I accomplished in and that's what got me into construction, doing that.
The UnCommon Communicator :And in some ways we've taken some of that satisfaction away for one and two. Having people not do what you know that ignites them. You know that ignites them. You know what really gives them that satisfaction, because there's so many things that need to get done and that person's the best guy for the job and we don't often sometimes want to give Too much opportunity to people. I'm not saying we, but I think we as an industry, because we want them on our job, that guy is so good at RFI is why would I want to replace him when in reality he's an engineer? So it's really about tapping into what people want to do.
The UnCommon Communicator :But I also got the point that you said as well, which is some things have to be done, and that's, I think, a little bit lost and can be lost in this generation is. I think there's a lot of people pursuing stuff that they a life better than I had. You know I work 2600 hours a year for 11 years straight. That is an additional three months of working time because I took every bit of overtime that I possibly can take. And looking back at it, the kids don't think, hey, thanks dad, thanks for doing that. And that's part of that balance that I'm seeing this generation is really embracing. You know they're taking vacations there's spending their money. Now they're enjoying portions of life. But there's also that point of not everything has to be the funnest thing. You have to find the fun in what you're doing and that goes back to that whole thought of you know you're responsible for your own happiness and you have to find that happiness in the things that you may not necessarily have had to do because you are that you like to do.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:But you have to do, and even one of the another philosophy is Zen. Zen teachers, masters, will often put their students into these like very physical type of things, and there's a phrase that they often use, especially when they go to monasteries to learn this type of stuff, and the phrase they use is chop wood, carry water. And so chop wood, carry water. Like you know, for Marcus who had to heat his bath, it makes sense in that time, and now we just turn a faucet and our water heater kicks on. But so there's other mundane things. The point of that is that in the mundane you could still find fun and enlightenment can happen even in the mundane, and it's all like mindset. So, like I have a practice where I like to clean things up and you know, this room outside of camera views probably.
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:I probably need like a good hour to clean this up, because I've had trips and I just dumb stuff like on the floor. It's the total mess right here on my right leg, but in the camera shot it looks awesome, right, but there are some dirty spots here and when I go to clean it up, I'm going to feel really good about cleaning it up and siding it up and I'm like, oh, this is where that note went. I hadn't seen this in like a year. Where's it? And like another microphone over there against the wall. Like how many microphones are really need? I think now I have four and I got some small ones. I can have these little ones right here. I got these little travel ones that I take with me. I think I have six microphones total now, but it's five too many.
The UnCommon Communicator :It sounds like it. Well, felipe, this has been fantastic. I've looked forward to this discussion on stoicism. I think there's so much more that we could dive into and dig deeper in, but I think we touched on a lot of great subjects. What do you think is our UC moment? That's the uncommon communicator moment. Everybody's been listening now for an hour, but they're going to maybe remember one thing what is the one thing that you want everybody to walk away from today?
Felipe Engineer Manriquez:The one thing I want you to remember is the thing that James tried to skip because it's dark and that is. One day. You will die and you don't realize it, but that is. There's ancient Greek philosophy that talks about what separates humans from the gods and why the gods were so jealous of people. What made the gods jealous was the fact that we did die and that we are aware of our death, and that makes us enjoy and live life in ways that they could not.
The UnCommon Communicator :I love that. Enjoy life now and that's yeah, I did skip over that and thanks for calling me out on that. Appreciate that. But that is a deep theme within stoicism. To gain that happiness is if you know, and I believe the quote is you know, live your life or act like you have died today and then live your life the rest of it like you died, which is, you know, most people live their life if they get like a cancer diagnosis and you've got six months to live, they caught and live it Like why don't you do that every day? And I think that's a great thing to catch from today's conversation. Well, thanks so much, felipe. That's all we've got. See you.