How to be a 10X More Productive Leader using the SHARP framework with Angus Ridgway

Ashish Kothari:

So lovely to see you, dear Angus. Thank you for joining us on Happiness Squad and sharing your wisdom from your years of doing this unbelievable work around flourishing.

Angus Ridgway:

Delighted to be here. If I can help in any way, I'm always up for that. So I'm really looking forward to today's session.

Ashish Kothari:

I want to start, Angus, first with a little bit of an origin story. You spent over two decades—like me, I was at McKinsey for 20 years—you were close to 20 years at McKinsey. You led leadership development for thousands of partners. What inspired you to leave and co-found Potentialife? What was the driving force behind that?

Angus Ridgway:

Yeah, it's an interesting question. I've spent some time thinking about what the triggers were. And I actually think it started on day one at McKinsey. So it wasn't so much a leaving after 20 years, but the inspiration started right on day one.

I had this experience in my very early years in the firm. Like everybody, I was in my mid-twenties. I was looking around at my fellow colleagues and I immediately saw a rather strange phenomenon, in which some people seemed to be on fire.

Now, I'm not a psychologist, so I get to use words like “on fire.” And by "on fire," they looked like they knew where they were going. They seemed to be dripping with energy and had good relationships with everybody. And yet, others were struggling to keep their head above water. That was very visible.

Ashish Kothari:

 Yep.

Angus Ridgway:

You could say, “Well, doesn't that exist everywhere?” And the answer is yes, but there’s something very specific about our environments at McKinsey. There are other environments like this too.

What’s specific is it’s very normative, in the sense that you have a large organization of 25-, 26-year-olds that came from the very same small selection of top schools, and the best grades from those top schools. They're doing the same job, the same role wherever you are in the world, with the same pace of progression.

Ashish Kothari:

 Yes.

Angus Ridgway:

So it’s like an incredible laboratory of sameness. Despite maybe some claims to the contrary, I think for sure. And so, in a world of utter sameness, you had this separation—very, very visible. I found this to be incredible.

Initially, I was interested in this for purely selfish reasons. I thought, well, maybe if I know what some of these folks are doing, maybe I will be more successful. But it started out as a curiosity, then became a hobby and a passion. That was the real genesis of all of this.

Then I met with my co-founder, who unlike me, is a scientist—a psychologist—Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar. He was able to put the proper words and proper structure around all of these observations. When we got together, we thought, there are things happening in the world—maybe we can do something. So that was the genesis story.

Ashish Kothari:

I love that, and it so resonates with my own experience at the firm. Absolutely. In fact, I would even say, I think I found three camps—not two. There were clearly people who were flourishing. As you said, they were on fire. They always had energy, they had multiple things they were active in, and they just seemed to kind of surf the waves.

Angus Ridgway:

 Yeah.

Ashish Kothari:

Then there were groups—I'd say about 20 to 30 percent—who were drowning in a swimming pool. Forget about big waves, they were just struggling with it.

And then there was this middle. I think this is true for so many consulting firms, investment banks, private equity, and venture capital. This middle 60% that I also found, they were just busy. “How are you?” “I’m busy.”

Angus Ridgway:

Yeah. What a killer response. So many times I heard people say, “I’m busy.” “How are you doing?” “I’m busy.”

Ashish Kothari:

Right. I’m always running. Busy. Constantly moving. But if you ask them, “Are you alive?” people would be like, “What does that mean?” That, I think, is such a massive loss in organizations like ours that we've been at.

Angus Ridgway:

Yeah, and I think this phenomenon of generalized busyness is very dangerous. When you actually look at the kind of things you need to do to be successful in professional services, you have to do things today that will lead to success in the future. Of course. But those things are never urgent, despite being important. So if you're busy, you'll never do them.

Think of that networking lunch—or those many networking lunches—you have with clients, former clients. Of course, you don’t have to do it. There’s no immediate payoff. But those people who find the time to do those types of things—in five years’ time, they have a whole bunch of people calling back because they've been building out their network.

When you’re suffering from generalized busyness of the margin, you’ll never find the time to do this. So I really like this idea of the time-rich as opposed to time-poor professionals. It’s got nothing to do with how overloaded you are.

Time richness is some kind of internal compass. We can generate our own time richness. It’s a way of going about your days. When you are time-rich, then you will find the time to do those things that are important but not urgent because you’ve got the space for that.

Ashish Kothari:

Yeah, I love that notion of time-richness. All of this work translated at the core of a lot. I read your book, The Joy of Leadership, that you and Tal co-authored. I loved Tal’s work. You created a framework called SHARP. Talk to us a little bit about SHARP and all of the five elements that comprise it.

Angus Ridgway:

like SHARP. This goes back to: 2011

Ashish Kothari:

Which year was this, Angus?

Angus Ridgway:

2011.

Ashish Kothari:

This was definitely ahead of itself, my dear friend.

Angus Ridgway:

Yeah. I mean, today we don't debate it anymore, but back then it was a little bit weird.

We had this framework about the tightly coupled or the loosely coupled organization. You may remember, Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin—when they got divorced—they talked about this “conscious uncoupling.” There’s a way of talking about this, because for many decades, organizations were tightly coupled structures.

By tightly coupled, that meant we took the time to codify what the structure is supposed to do, so we could provide clarity to people and stability over time—so people could just get on with their job. That was considered to be a worthwhile venture, so we could offer this stability to our employees. That was the essence of the organization.

Then we sensed that with technology, globalization, and the accelerated pace of change, we were not going to have enough time to define a tightly coupled organization. So we would have to learn to live consciously with an uncoupled—or more loosely coupled—organization.

This has many implications. One implication is that once the genie is out of the bottle and we are in the loosely coupled world, there’s no going back.

Ashish Kothari:

 Yes.

Angus Ridgway:

Many organizations today are heading down the wrong path because they're trying to tightly couple an organization. But we’re now living in a loosely coupled world. There's no going back.

So instead of trying to force tightness on an organization, what needs to be done is to celebrate looseness. And for the human being, it has a fundamental implication.

What it means is that we, as people in the organization, need to decide for ourselves what we do with the space that’s been given to us. In a loosely coupled world, we have space. We can hide if we want to. We can just do the minimum, just do the job, and because it’s loosely coupled, nobody’s really going to notice that much.

Or we can make a discretionary choice to put much more in: to find our sense of worth, our sense of purpose, to use our strengths, to give lots more time and energy. Tal and I believed that this transition to the loosely coupled world would become a differentiator for organizations. If you have an organization full of “on fire” people—because those people are choosing to occupy that space with their own discretionary time and energy—then you win.

So we said, we better start to define what it means to be “on fire” as we transition toward this loosely coupled world. That was the why of the SHARP framework, which I obviously can now talk about. But I think it’s important to re-anchor that.

Even today, sometimes when I’m meeting with clients, I just flash up this very simple chart with tightly coupled and loosely coupled. And sometimes I think it’s almost embarrassing to talk about it—like, surely everybody knows this, right? And then I realize, we spend an hour talking about it with the client, because actually, it’s not that obvious to everybody.

Ashish Kothari:

It resonates a lot with me, and it’s so aligned with where we are going with this. I just use slightly different language, but I love "loosely coupled" and "tightly coupled." When you started talking about it, Angus and Tal, it was a little bit like, well, we’re moving towards loosely coupled versus tightly.

And leaders might say, “Well, maybe I don’t want to move into loosely coupled.” You’re seeing it with COVID now—with back to the office. “No, I don’t want to be loosely coupled. I want you in the office because I don’t trust that, if you're at home, you're working.”

But what do you do when people are in the office but not present? They’re just physically present—but they’re not working. How do you solve for that?

That’s the core of what you’re talking about. Loose and tight coupling has nothing to do with where you are.

Angus Ridgway:

That’s right.

Ashish Kothari:

And what I think, as I reflect on that, is—this is a talk track I use all the time—I actually feel we don’t have a choice as leaders but to accelerate the transition to loosely coupled. Because the volatility, the uncertainty, the complexity in the world is exponentially rising.

And unless we fundamentally figure out a way to shift leadership, to make every person in the organization care as much, be in tune with what’s happening, be willing to make changes—we are going to be too slow. And you know, the only thing that happens to slow organizations is they die either a fast or a slow death. But death is what comes.

Angus Ridgway:

Yes, I agree. And I think, maybe surprisingly for the two of us, I believe this is a very real conversation to be had. Because the CEO response, when confronted with this situation, is often, “I’m going to enact the control response.” That’s still very real.

Ashish Kothari:

 Yes.

Angus Ridgway:

And yet, the control response is a false response. It’s not a real response. There’s no path there. So we have to help people work through and go beyond the control response—and move toward something new and better, which is: let’s celebrate looseness.

And then it takes you down the path: how do we then help our people? Then you’re in business. But in order to do that properly, you have to overcome and abandon the control response. And I think not everyone is doing that yet.

Ashish Kothari:

And it is incredibly hard, right, Angus? I’m reflecting a little bit on all of my learnings around adult development theory from Harvard and Keegan’s work. This notion that only 20% of people are at a stage of development to be self-authored—to be more creative versus reactive. And the reactive structures are: control, comply, protect.

So fundamentally, it’s also a call that you’ve been making now for almost 14 years—for leaders to actually vertically develop, to learn what is keeping you stuck in control, and consciously choose to shift away from that.

To shift internally in a way that now allows you to get comfortable with loose coupling. Because I don’t think it’s a choice. I don’t think it’s a real choice.

I think we can live in this tightly coupled, controlled feeling—carrying the stress of the world on our shoulders—or we can flourish, move in the world with ease, and help our people become the best version of themselves.

Angus Ridgway:

Absolutely. Maybe we’ll do this podcast again in five or ten years' time and we’ll celebrate the fact that the world has moved to a new place and we don’t need to talk about relinquishing the control response. But as of today, we’re still very—

Ashish Kothari:

We still are very much in it. We are very much in it.

Angus Ridgway:

 Yeah.

Ashish Kothari:

So let’s talk about SHARP, because I think that’s a very practical way—and I love it—a very practical way for us to shift people. Make them come alive, on fire, through really practical things that they can start to integrate into how they work.

Agus Ridgway:

Yeah, that’s right.

So SHARP is—Tal and I spent a year at the very beginning of our collaboration as humble integrators of a body of research that goes back at least 25 years into what it means to flourish. There are many different sources of research in this field, and we wanted to create something that obviously represents the evidence and the science, but most importantly, is actionable and easy to touch and use—so that anybody can look at this thing and say, “That makes sense to me. I get it.”

SHARP. S-H-A-R-P. Five letters, five domains that represent most of the variance of what you see when you see flourishing people.

We can just talk about them, and maybe together, we can talk about them in a way that shows how we should be thinking about this—because it’s not that some of these ideas people haven’t seen before. It’s rather that a lot of us are still falling into traps relating to these things.

Ashish Kothari:

I love that. Maybe we can take each element, go into it one step at a time, so at the end of our conversation, people say, “Oh yeah, I get it—and I love it.” Let’s make it actionable for them. Here’s this thing you can do right after to make it real for you.

Angus Ridgway:

Yeah. So let’s start with Strengths.

Most people have heard that it’s a good idea to play to our strengths. We may have been given a book or even done a training session on this—well-intentioned people trying to help us. That’s very good.

But there’s a problem. Very few people are really using their strengths. And there’s a reason for this—and that reason is conditioning.

We’ve been conditioned, starting at a very young age—usually in school when it comes to grades, or at work when we get those feedback conversations. We’ve been conditioned to implicitly believe that the way to progress in life is to fix our weaknesses.

Now, it is a good idea to fix your weaknesses. We shouldn’t stop doing that. But what’s happened is, while we’re looking at all this weakness stuff, it’s as though our strengths never really grew.

If I ask an audience of maybe a hundred people to shout out their top three development needs or weaknesses, people know what they are. They’ll shout out stuff. They might even be able to tell you they’ve got a development plan.

Then, take the same audience and say, “Tell me what your top three character strengths are, and how you are living your life with those strengths front and center.” What you get is deathly silence. People haven’t even started this journey.

That’s the challenge. It’s not about cognitive awareness—it’s actually about starting the journey and overcoming this realization that it’s not about fixing your weaknesses.

The prize is huge. Because when we’re playing to our strengths, we feel closer to that sense of, “This is what I’m supposed to be doing. This is the best version of me.” We become more self-confident, and when we’re more self-confident, we become more creative—looking around corners, seeing things.

There’s a real special place to go for us as individuals when we’re playing to our strengths—not even to mention what it means in terms of teamwork.

I often say to people, when it comes to a team: if you have a cast of characters that call themselves a team, and they’re not consciously asking themselves, “How are we complementing each other because we’re aware of our different strengths?”—then you’re not a team. You’re just a herd chasing in the same direction.

I use the metaphor of children playing football—or soccer. If you take six-year-old kids playing soccer anywhere in the world—whether in the U.S., Nigeria, Canada, or England—six-year-old soccer looks the same.

Ashish Kothari:

Yes.

Angus Ridgway:

You have this sort of herd of kids chasing after the ball around the park, each kid hoping to have a few seconds of glory with the ball at their feet until another kid grabs the ball—and they then have their few seconds of glory. That’s six-year-old football.

Then think about nine-year-old football. All of a sudden, it looks different. They’ve worked something out. The kid who’s got the big hands—it works better when that one’s in the goal. The one with the long legs is running down the wing. And the one who’s just got that knack for putting the ball in the back of the net—that’s a striker.

These kids have noticed, through trial and error, playing and playing, that when we allow ourselves to acknowledge how we’re different and then complement each other, that becomes a team.

I actually think it’s the definition of team.

So when I’m talking to executive teams, I ask, “Which one are you then? Are you the six-year-olds or the nine-year-olds?” They say, “Oh no, we’re a team. We’re the nine.”

Then I ask, “What conversations have you had about how you complement each other?” They say, “Oh, we haven’t really talked about that.”

Sorry—you’re a herd. You’re six-year-olds. You haven’t even begun.

It’s at that level we need to be having the conversation on strengths. And most people are still at first base.

Ashish Kothari:

 Yeah.

Angus Ridgway:

Very important.

Ashish Kothari:

You’ll like this, Angus. In three weeks, I’m going to be with 200 people from US Ski & Snowboard—the national governing body here in the US. They oversee the sport all the way from young kindergartners getting up on the slopes in Colorado for the first time—some as young as three.

I literally saw a child on skis who couldn’t even walk, but he was going down the slope! So, all the way from that level to Team USA in the Olympics. We’re literally doing an exercise on strengths, and they’ve never done it—to your point.

Angus Ridgway:

 Yeah.

Ashish Kothari:

We’re going to have their team leaders share and discuss strengths—how they use them and how they can use them even more.

Angus Ridgway:

 Yeah.

Ashish Kothari:

I think it’s such an important element that people don’t think about. I remember, I benefited—frankly—I think I was a young associate, or maybe an EM or AP, I don’t remember. But you were probably one of the forces at the firm that drove the shift.

I remember when I started, we had our assessment framework, but somewhere around four to six years into the firm, we shifted to strength-based feedback.

Angus Ridgway:

 Yeah.

Ashish Kothari:

Something tells me—you’ll confirm or disconfirm—you were probably one of the hands that helped make that a reality.

Angus Ridgway:

Very much so. But also aware that there’s an institutional challenge to actually enact this. I think we were in a position of, with good intentions, trying to thrust this across the organization. That may be a necessary starting point, but it’s not quite the same thing as bringing about large-scale cultural change.

Ashish Kothari:

Yeah, absolutely. I personally know how much I benefited from it.

All of a sudden, our conversations in performance evaluations changed. Every person in the firm has someone who has a discussion with them—along with 8 to 10 senior leaders—about how to help them develop into the best version of themselves.

We always talk about what their spikes are.

Angus Ridgway:

 Mm-hmm.

Ashish Kothari:

We have six different areas—from problem solving to client relationships, knowledge, entrepreneurship. We always ask: What is their source of sparkle? What are their spikes?

And you can’t have more than two. I mean, you can, but then you probably haven’t done the work to really find what you’re great at. Some are truly great at everything—I’ve met a few—but those are far and few in between.

Angus Ridgway:

 Yeah.

Ashish Kothari:

When we use those spikes to decide what opportunities help people progress, they come alive. For me, entrepreneurship and client relationships were my strengths. So I focused on that—and it worked.

Angus Ridgway:

Let me tell you the story of a guy called Angus.

I was—and still am—someone who lacks attention to detail and tends not to follow through. That’s not a great cocktail. Do you seriously think someone with those characteristics can be successful?

I could have spent my life trying to fix those weaknesses, hoping that would create a path to success. But in reality, I would just be a partially redeemed person—not very good at detail, not really following through. I don’t think that path leads anywhere noteworthy.

It turns out, however, I am creative and a communicator. If you build a life around creativity and communication, you can forge a path. That’s what’s happened for me.

Now of course, you still have to deal with the other stuff, and that’s solvable. But trying to build an identity around being someone who struggles with detail and follow-through—you’re never going to win doing that.

So we really have to find what that magic is.

One exercise I think is powerful is getting people who know you well to talk about you. There’s something called Best Self Stories. You ask five people to write a short paragraph describing a time when they saw you at your best.

You get five paragraphs back—it’s an enjoyable thing to receive, maybe even flattering. But there's a method to the madness: those five people don’t know each other, but they know you, and they’re likely to describe the same kinds of things.

You start to see common threads. That’s powerful—not just analytically, but also for validation. If everybody else is saying this about me, then it must be true.

Techniques like these can be incredibly powerful to help people break through and make the mindset shift to embracing their strengths.

Ashish Kothari:

Reflected Best Self. I love that one.

Let’s talk about Health, which is the second dimension of SHARP.

Angus Ridgway:

Health has to do with the fact that we’re all so exhausted. Stressed out. And I think the angle we need to take here is to stop viewing stress as a bad thing.

The number of books on airport shelves talking about reducing stress and burnout is huge—but flawed. Stress, in and of itself, isn’t bad for us. We actually need stress. We need the right kind, of course.

I wouldn’t even get out of bed in the morning if I didn’t have some stress.

Ashish Kothari:

 Absolutely.

Angus Ridgway:

Demonizing stress as something entirely negative takes us down the wrong path. What we need to focus on is recovery—and being intentional about how we recover from stress.

When I say intentional, I actually mean structured.

The idea I like here is your return on freshness. It’s a non-linear concept. A small investment in your freshness can lead to a major uplift in what you bring to the table.

Back in my McKinsey days, I had a client that was a two-hour flight away. On Friday mornings, I’d take the 7 a.m. flight—waking up at 4:30 a.m., going through the whole airport routine. I'd walk into the CEO’s office at 8:55 a.m. for our meeting. I did this for years. It was fine. I didn’t know better.

Then something changed in my life circumstances, and I started arriving the evening before. I'd meet the team, go to bed, and wake up fresh.

I was a completely different person. I was daring, challenging the client, seeing patterns, joining dots. It became a different conversation. I wasn’t just going through bullet points on an agenda.

That was a non-linear change from a tiny investment. If only I’d known earlier.

Of course, there are tradeoffs—being away from home one more night—but being aware of the power of this shift matters.

At Potentialife, we talk about Horizons of Recovery: micro, mezzo, and macro.

Micro is all the little things that drain you during the day—like the snarky comment from your boss. You don’t remember it, but by the time you get home, you feel completely depleted.

We can be intentional about navigating that.

Mezzo recovery is the week-in, week-out stuff—healthy light habits that contribute massively: nutrition, sleep, exercise.

Macro recovery isn’t just vacation. It’s hitting the reset button once in a while—really taking a fresh look at where you're going and what you're doing.

When we think about recovery with this three-horizon model—and understand that we have agency—it changes everything. It’s our job to stay fresh. It’s not the world’s job to stop making us stressed.

Ashish Kothari:

In fact, can I flip it on its head, Angus? As leaders, I think it absolutely is our responsibility to make sure our people are fresh. We need to help them build habits.

I'll share a couple of anecdotes around this—examples where I’ve seen some organizations do this really well, and also some practices we’ve been able to integrate. When we run Rewire, we often ask people to do three micro-recoveries a day. I suggest: between 8 to 12, find five minutes to unplug—just go out, or sit and get a cup of coffee. Don’t be on your phone. Then do another five-minute break between 12 to 5. And finally, give yourself a longer break at lunch—maybe 10 to 15 minutes, or eat your food outside and go for a walk.

Amazing for glucose. I’ve become very attuned to my glucose patterns and how movement affects my body. I wear a CGM and notice how it drops. But like you said, Angus, if people just take 20 minutes across a 10-hour day...

They report 30 to 40% more energy at the end of the day than before. And they’re like, “How is that possible?” If you look at Microsoft’s research, after 90 minutes, we just accumulate stress. But if we build in micro-recovery, we really improve. That really resonates. There’s so much research on this.

Angus Ridgway:

Oh yes. It’s been researched and published. One of the challenges with the health–stress–recovery topic is that we’re using words everyone has already heard. It’s not like no one knows it’s good to get a good night’s sleep.

Where people need to shift is understanding responsibility.

Ashish Kothari:

Yes.

Angus Ridgway:

It’s up to you to be fresh because of the opportunity created by your return on freshness. It’s not the world’s fault that you’re stressed out. It’s on you—100%. That’s where we need to take this conversation. There’s nobody else to blame. Nobody’s coming. It’s on you.

Ashish Kothari:

And I think about this a lot. It’s an individual responsibility, but I also believe it’s a leader’s responsibility—and here’s why.

Would you be okay if you ran a fleet of trucks and they operated at only 40% efficiency every day? Or started the day at 80% and dropped to 40% halfway through? You’d never accept that. But humans don’t walk around with a meter showing how full or how fresh they are.

Angus Ridgway:

I really agree. In my earlier life, I did a lot of work in grocery stores or supermarkets. My job was to interview the store manager. At the end of the interview, the manager would escort me through the store. It was often a long walk—some of these stores had over 100 employees.

I noticed two types of store managers. Some were absolute givers of energy. As they escorted me through the store, they tapped people on the back, noticed someone returning from illness or someone going on vacation. You’d see a hundred pairs of eyes light up as we passed.

I didn’t realize this was anything special until I met the other kind—the ones who just wanted to get rid of me because their next meeting started 90 seconds ago. We’d rush through the store, and all the employees had their eyes glued to the shelves. The vibe in the store was tangibly different.

As leaders, we have a massive influence on the energy we radiate. It’s maybe the most integral part of leadership.

Ashish Kothari:

 Yeah. And I love the three horizons you mentioned—micro (what you do throughout the day), meso (structural habits like sleep, nutrition, and exercise), and macro (stepping back and looking at your life).

In the US, I think 40% of people don’t even take their two weeks of vacation. Then we wonder why we’re a stressed-out, anxious, burnt-out nation.

Angus Ridgway:

We have the data on this at Potentialife. In Sweden, France, Spain, and Italy, they take the whole month of July or August off. The US is a totally different story. The need for micro versus macro recovery is starkly different when you look at the barometers from the data we collect.

A personal story—when I first moved to France, I was annoyed that I was obliged to take the whole month of August off. I wanted to take my holiday when I wanted, not be forced into August. But I had no choice.

For the first time in my life, I fully switched off for a month. And I noticed something: the first two weeks were vacation. In week three, I started having weird new ideas. In week four, I was implementing those ideas—while still on vacation.

I had never been anywhere near that space of creativity before. Two weeks wasn’t long enough. I was still just recovering. I was in micro-recovery mode. Only in week three did I begin true macro recovery.

Again, being intentional is so important.

Ashish Kothari:

I love that. So: Strengths, Health. Let’s shift to Absorption.

Angus Ridgway:

Yes, Absorption. This has to do with the fact that we’re all incredibly distracted all the time.

Think of the many millions of people listening to your podcast right now, Ashish. Of course, we’re trying to make it as engaging as possible for them, but they’ll be getting notifications from their phones. They’ll have random thoughts pop into their heads. Somebody might walk past, and suddenly they’re following that movement with their eyes.

Ashish Kothari:

Shiny objects.

Angus Ridgway:

The thing we get wrong here is that we tend to view multitasking as something that leads to greater productivity. We’re inviting distraction into our lives. In reality, there’s no such thing as multitasking.

Multitasking is zero-tasking. You’re just flipping between tasks. The more plates you’re spinning in the air, the higher the percentage of time spent flipping between tasks rather than actually doing them. From a productivity standpoint, we need to get back to proper monotasking.

To do that, we have to figure out ways of handling distractions and becoming absorbed in what we’re doing. This ties directly to mindfulness, meditation, and getting into flow. That’s really what we’re talking about here.

In the business world, this isn’t just an incredible driver of personal productivity—which is great—it’s also a driver of quality of life. It’s a win-win. You get to be happier and more productive. Sounds good. Let’s do more of that.

Ashish Kothari:

And isn’t it crazy that over the last 20 years, we’ve given away our ability to focus? We’ve all become dopamine addicts thanks to constant pings and notifications.

Let me give you an example of exactly what you’re describing, something I witnessed firsthand. I was working for a bank while at McKinsey. We had a team where we wanted to increase productivity. Fortunately, this was a team where productivity could actually be measured.

This team worked on fixing bugs, and bugs could be categorized: small (2–4 hours), medium (maybe a day), and large (longer overhauls). They had a group of 120 people who only worked on fixing problems. You might wonder why 120 people were fixing problems instead of working on new things, but that was the team’s reality.

We did just two things. First, we said: “Out of a 40-hour work week, find 12 hours—however you want—where you will only work on one thing. No emails, no phone calls, notifications off.” They said, “We can’t do that. The business is always calling.” So we created a control room to take incoming requests while they focused.

Second, we had them meet every day to share what they got done. If someone was faster or better at something, the others would ask what they did and learn from it. So we built in focus and continuous learning.

In eight weeks, the team became 30% more productive. How do we know? Because we moved 36 of them out of the group. That left just 84 people. Not only did they maintain performance—they actually eliminated an eight-week backlog. By the end of those eight weeks, there was no backlog.

Angus Ridgway:

That’s fantastic. There are really two types of challenges when it comes to monotasking or being absorbed.

The first is external distraction—things like phone notifications, emails. You can take steps to eliminate those.

But the second, and more difficult challenge, is internal distraction. Imagine yourself on a beautiful, remote island with no distractions. Can you still be distracted?

Ashish Kothari:

 Absolutely.

Angus Ridgway:

Have you read 4,000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman? Brilliant book about time management. Beautifully written, quirky, and provocative. I highly recommend it.

He talks about what’s happening during these moments of internal distraction. He says the trigger is usually a moment of psychological discomfort that we try to relieve. For example, you're deep into working on a presentation. It’s going well, but then you suddenly worry: “Am I going to finish in time?” or “Will they like me when I present this?”

That discomfort leads you to seek relief. What do you do next? You open Instagram—or something equivalent.

The key, as with mindfulness and meditation, is to recognize the moment. The exact moment you start to feel distracted. That’s when you can pull yourself back. Because once you’re distracted, you're gone. You don’t know you're distracted because you’re already distracted.

But if you can recognize that initial flicker of discomfort—"Oh, I know what's happening here”—you can yank yourself back. That’s a muscle. It's a reflex you can develop over time.

And that’s the path we need to go down, especially when it comes to internal distractions.

Ashish Kothari:

How do you help people do that, Angus, as part of Potentialife?

Angus Ridgway:

That’s a great question about how Potentialife works. We’re talking about SHARP, which is very much grounded in positive psychology. But the other side of what we do at Potentialife is grounded in neuroscience—the science of how we as human beings change.

There are many components to this, but one of the most important is simply to try things. When it comes to personal development, we can’t think our way out of trouble. As much as we love reading books and studying, it’s not enough. Enough books have been written on mindfulness. We don’t need to read more—we need to try.

So what we do at Potentialife is take people to the edge of the water, where the only thing left to do is try—put your foot in, experiment. We call them behavioral experiments. They might work, they might not. But if you don’t try, you’ll never know. You’ll spend your life just thinking about the experiment.

Experimentation is critical. We might say, “Next time you feel yourself getting distracted, just notice it and bring it back.” Okay, you did that. Interesting. Now do it again. And again. And again.

From a neuroscience perspective, you’re developing new neural pathways that eventually become your default channels. That’s how we build habits.

Ashish Kothari:

Practice—bridging the gap from knowing to doing.

Angus Ridgway:

 Yeah.

Ashish Kothari:

Making it small.

Angus Ridgway:

Exactly. I like the idea of “dumbing things down.” It’s not a nice expression, but it’s provocative. It’s not about being clever or knowing more. It’s about just doing something—and doing it again.

Ashish Kothari:

We don’t have to dumb it down—we can just make it tiny. In the words of BJ Fogg: Tiny Habits. That’s what we built Rewire around.

Angus Ridgway:

 Yeah.

Ashish Kothari:

It’s about how we take small actions. And it’s true for all of us. We want to be great out of the gate. “I want to run a marathon.” How about running for five minutes and calling it a victory? And if you like it, run five more.

Angus Ridgway:

Yes, we talk about the difference between willpower and waypower. Willpower is the deliberate, conscious “I must brush my teeth.” Waypower is when something has become a habit, and you don’t need to think about it anymore.

Ashish Kothari:

I like that. I really like “waypower.”

Angus Ridgway:

Toothbrushing is a good example. As adults, most of us just get up and brush our teeth. We don’t need reminders. That’s waypower. But our 12-year-old kids haven’t developed that yet. So we use willpower to push them into the habit. Then, maybe when they’re adolescents and become more aware of things like how their breath smells, they start to build waypower.

Ashish Kothari:

That’s a very real reality for my 15- and 16-year-old right now, Angus. By 16, I hope he’s got waypower. I’m going to share that with him.

Talk to me about relationships—R.

Angus Ridgway:

 Relationships is another word we’ve all heard. So what really moves things forward when it comes to flourishing and being on fire?

The key is understanding that we now live in a loosely bound, uncoupled world where how we interact with each other is paramount. So how do we shape what “good” looks like here?

We’ve seen that the two most important drivers are positivity and authenticity. And many people struggle to embody both at the same time.

Think about someone who is highly authentic—very direct. That’s often associated with low positivity. It’s that strong, driving personality. We call this the Driver segment.

Then there’s the opposite: someone who is kind, caring, and empathetic—but tends to hold back and not say everything that needs to be said. That’s high positivity, low authenticity. We call this the Pleaser segment.

Many of us are stuck in one but not both of these modes. What we’re saying is: we can—and must—become positively authentic, or authentically positive. In other words, we must practice both simultaneously.

The key word is simultaneity. We all know there are times when we’re authentic and times when we’re positive—but doing both in the same interaction is where the magic happens.

People need authenticity. They want to hear what they need to hear—but in a way that’s delivered with care, kindness, and empathy.

Ashish Kothari:

I love that. What’s a move someone can make—whether they tend to be more positive or more authentic—to enter that quadrant of being positively authentic?

Angus Ridgway:

The first step is awareness. At Potentialife, we collect a lot of data to help people see which segment they fall into. Then the practice is simple: most people only need to work on one of the two—either more authenticity or more positivity. Each has its pain points.

If you’re a driver—highly authentic—it can be hard to believe that others will hear your message if you also present it positively. Many drivers fear the message will be diluted if it’s wrapped in kindness. So we ask them to pick a real interaction in the week ahead. Create an experiment. Try it. Was it a disaster? Usually not. Often, it actually works.

For natural pleasers, the work is the opposite. They need to push one step further than they normally would. “This is where I usually stop—this time I’ll say a bit more.” Try it. See what happens.

There are also cultural dimensions to this. Some national cultures, like in Asia or Sweden, are more naturally pleasing cultures. So in those environments, it can be even more of a challenge to layer authenticity on top of positivity.

Ashish Kothari:

I’m reflecting on a conversation I had with Rasmus about three or four years ago—Rasmus Hougaard, who just wrote the book More Human, about how we can be more human in the age of AI.

What you just said triggered something positive for me. I actually think AI can help us here. Here's how I would use AI, dear friends. Let's say you're highly authentic but not very positive. You could use AI to help give the full context of what you're trying to communicate.

You can even train it with prompts like, “What are some strengths this person brings?” Then ask it to help you reframe your message so it remains authentic while also being positive. You can also build it around science—like the 5:1 magic ratio of positive to negative interactions—and craft feedback accordingly.

The same applies in reverse. If you're very positive but struggle to offer authentic feedback, AI can help prompt and structure the message to express what really needs to be said.

Angus Ridgway:

Absolutely. I think this is an incredible opportunity. We could even go beyond AI's ability to help with phrasing. Imagine simulated practice environments—like virtual reality or CBT-based systems—where you rehearse difficult conversations dozens of times.

Just like exposure therapy helps people overcome fear of spiders, you could build comfort with authenticity by practicing 20 times. Then you know, “I can do this.” Getting comfortable with the act itself is key.

Ashish Kothari:

Absolutely. Talk to us about the last lever: Purpose.

Angus Ridgway:

I think this is one of the most important levers. In the first post-COVID years, it became especially critical. This is the why question: When I wake up in the morning and ask, “Why am I doing what I’m doing?”—what do I say to myself?

And more importantly, what scope do I believe I have to influence that answer?

Most people don’t think they have any. They assume, “It is what it is. I’m in a crummy job. It’s repetitive. Why are you asking me to change how I think about it? I do this because I need a paycheck.”

But there’s a large body of research on meaning-making at work—especially from Jane Dutton and Amy Wrzesniewski in hospitals. They studied two extreme ends of the hierarchy: surgeons and cleaners. They asked them, unprompted, to characterize their work as a job, a career, or a calling.

The findings were fascinating. Even among hospital cleaners—doing what is often viewed as a menial, physically demanding job—a substantial segment described their work as a calling. They said things like, “I’m helping create a clean environment where lives can be saved.” That’s not a job. That's the purpose. That’s someone connecting to something bigger than themselves.

Now compare that to some surgeons—who have studied for 10 to 15 years and are doing incredibly important work. You’d expect them to find deep meaning in it. But some of them said things like, “Do you know why I took that extra shift on Saturday? I’m worried about the payments on my boat.” That’s not a calling. That’s a job.

So regardless of where we sit in the hierarchy—even in the most repetitive or challenging roles—we do have the ability to influence our relationship with the work. Realizing that is the first step.

We all move through our day with fluctuating moments: moments of meaning, moments of boredom, moments where it feels like “just a job,” or a “career,” or a “calling.” But we have the agency to choose how we fill our days.

Ashish Kothari:

I’ve had the good fortune of working with Jane over the last couple of years. She’s incredible. I think she turns 72 this year. I’ve loved the job crafting exercise she helped develop—it’s so simple, and so practical to use.

Most leaders underestimate how easy and effective it is. Just last week, I was speaking at a conscious entrepreneur event, and someone said, “It’s not my job to help my people find meaning. I’m not their parent.”

And I said, “Okay, but answer this: If the work you did had meaning, would you put in more or less effort?”

It’s the same as machines. If you knew you could help a machine operate at higher efficiency and effectiveness, wouldn’t you do it? Why is it that, just because it's a human, you think it’s not your responsibility?

As leaders, we have to understand: helping people find meaning isn’t a favor—it’s smart leadership.

This was reinforced by McKinsey’s research during COVID. They found that 85% of leaders said they found meaning in their work. Only 15% of frontline workers said the same.

Now think about the numbers. There may be 12 to 15 senior leaders—but there are thousands of frontline employees.

Angus Ridgway:

 Yeah, that's right.

Ashish Kothari:

And in all of your work over the past 10 to 12 years, you’ve shown—over and over—that it is possible for anyone to access purpose, regardless of role.

And when they do, they become more productive. They become more resilient.

Angus Ridgway:

There's no doubt about this. The case is very clear. The question we should be asking ourselves is: where do we need to shine a light to move things forward? Where is the crux of the problem today?

Just like with the other SHARP elements, there’s a specific framing that reflects where the world is now. I believe it’s beyond job crafting. I’d like to introduce the idea of becoming an instinctive benefit finder.

Once you’ve crafted something, you’ve practiced the art—or science—of reframing. Reframing is the concept of not looking for activities with meaning, but looking for meaning in your activities. It’s choosing to reframe how you perceive the work you’re already doing. Job crafting is an example of this.

But here’s the point: reframing isn’t something you do once. It’s something you do a thousand times a day. By doing it so often, it becomes instinctual. You go through your day as an instinctive benefit finder. Every moment becomes an opportunity.

I have a story. I was once in New York, going up in an elevator to a meeting in the Empire State Building—nothing glamorous, just a regular meeting. It was 8:55 AM, and the elevator was full. Very unusually, the elevator stopped in between floors, and we were stuck. You don’t know if it's going to be an hour or just a few minutes.

There were two young men in suits—looked like they were heading to job interviews. I observed two completely different reactions.

One guy started banging on the alarm button, shouting, making threats. The other struck up conversations with people in the elevator. After about 90 seconds, the elevator resumed, and life went on.

That second guy was an instinctive benefit finder. He was probably thinking, “It’s not every day we’re stuck in an elevator with strangers. Maybe I can share some business cards, meet a few new people, and expand my network.”

That’s what it looks like. And that’s where we want to get—to a point where that’s our natural instinct. We reframe constantly, finding the good in what we’re doing. As leaders, we need to create environments that help people do that.

There are interesting questions around what this means for leadership, but in terms of individual behavior, that’s what we should be aspiring toward.

Ashish Kothari:

That’s what I love—it’s such a beautiful complement. If you have a leader who helps you craft your job, great. But ultimately, it’s up to you to become an instinctive benefit finder.

You don’t need anyone’s permission to do that. You’re not talking about changing what you’re doing. You’re not talking about finding different work. You’re talking about loving the work you already have. Find something in it that matters—how it helps someone or contributes in a meaningful way.

Just keeping an eye on time, Angus—I’m not going to give it away. What I love about this framework is that when people engage with it, they multiply their leadership potential. They multiply their effectiveness. And I want you to share what that multiple is, because it blew my mind.

Angus Ridgway:

You’ve heard me talk about non-linearity—or exponential change. We love the idea of the 10X Leader. Not 10 percent more effective—10 times more productive.

We’re not talking about scratching a few percentage points here. That’s not the game. That’s not the prize. We’re taking ourselves into a completely different place. The appropriate metaphor is five letters—SHARP—and the result is being ten times more effective.

This is possible. Just imagine:

You’re someone who has found their magic, and you’re not anxious about your weaknesses.

You’re someone who’s dripping with vibrant energy because you’re intentional about your recovery.

You’re someone who isn’t throwing hours out the window through distraction because you’re mindful and focused.

You’re someone who engages authentically and positively, building strong collaboration.

You’re someone whose energy comes from being an instinctive benefit finder, not someone just going through the motions.

The prize is huge.

Think of this in terms of your personal operating model. It’s what we call disposition. It’s not just a set of skills. It’s not even just a set of behaviors—though behaviors are part of it. It’s a disposition. It’s a way of viewing yourself when you wake up in the morning and get out of bed.

That’s the opportunity—helping people transform their disposition. Dispositional leadership, if you like.

Ashish Kothari:

Jane Dutton, in her research on positive organizations, talks about this “zone of possibility”—this “zone of potential.” It’s a massive triangle of what’s possible.

Friends, if you’re listening to this—both as individuals and as leaders—tune into this: what becomes possible if every one of your people operated at 10X their potential?

Not 10% better. Not 20%. But 10X. What would you be able to do? How would you serve your clients? How would you solve your biggest challenges?

Angus, I’m so grateful for you—my dear friend—for nearly 15 years of pioneering work that you began when these ideas weren’t even being discussed.

Partnering with Tal to build a system that organizations could implement at scale. At Happiness Squad, we’re only two and a half years into our journey. I’m so grateful to know you, to learn from your insights, and for your generosity in sharing them.

Thank you for being on the podcast and for sharing this powerful framework.

Angus Ridgway:

It’s a wonderful joy. And I hope we get to do a lot more together. That’s the joy of our existence—we get to collaborate. And more collaboration is a good thing. So let’s do that. Thank you.