Transcript
Annalisa Holcombe:
Hello all, welcome back to 92 ,000 hours, the podcast where we acknowledge that we spend the majority of our lives at work and we discuss opportunities to find purpose and meaning in those 92 ,000 working hours. Today, we are speaking with Sean Tygan, who is president of the Utah Foundation. Sean is a public policy leader in Utah with nearly 20 years serving at the Utah Foundation.

Annalisa Holcombe:
And the Utah Foundation itself provides independent, unbiased, accurate research on public policy issues and questions within the state of Utah. Sean is also an adjunct professor at the University of Utah teaching a master of public policy course for the next generation of policy researchers.

Annalisa Holcombe:
In full disclosure, I'm currently the chair of the board for the Utah Foundation. So I have to acknowledge my bias for Sean's good work and the good work of the folks that are at the Utah Foundation. But today, we'll be talking with Sean about engagement.

Annalisa Holcombe:
Okay, so Sean, I'm so excited to have you here with me today. I have actually been waiting to have you on this podcast and thought you'd be a fabulous guest, regardless. So this season, having you as one of our changemakers just is going to make my day. I can't wait to introduce you to everyone.

Shawn Teigen:
I am so excited to be joining you on this podcast. And this also makes my day already. And we've just begun.

Annalisa Holcombe:
Awesome. So I start the podcast for everyone, asking them the big question. And I used to ask this of students who were in the facilitated program I ran, and it always surprised people. So I give people on this podcast a little bit of a heads up, which is, here's the question. If you remove any reference to work, school, sports, religion, volunteerism, all the things that we do. What is it about yourself that you're the most proud of for who you are and as a human?

Shawn Teigen:
So I'm going to start this by saying that I don't know if I should be proud of this because it's like a, you know, it's a personality trait that I don't know who's responsible for For this I don't I'm not sure that it's me, but certainly the thing that I Like about myself the most is Curiosity, full stop. Like that is the thing that I think is it's perhaps not unique a Lot of people have curiosity, but I think that's the thing that that makes me tick.

Annalisa Holcombe:
How is it that you're proud of that? Do you have any examples of how curiosity has impacted your life in a positive way?

Shawn Teigen:
Yeah, I think in so many ways. I think it actually really defines who I am both like personally, like when I'm out and about in amongst people at a grocery store or at a party or at an event somewhere, or even sports, I mean, at a sports event. Like I don't watch baseball or I barely pay attention to football, I don't really watch basketball, I don't go to any games.

Shawn Teigen:
I have, there've been times when I've been into soccer, but I think that like I can, if somebody says, "Hey, let's go watch a basketball game," I can get into that without any real prior knowledge other than having played when I was, you know, 11 years old on this little team at my school. So I think that I, and I can, I'm interested in the people that are playing. I'm interested in mechanics of the game. And, and I think that, that really flows over into everything, as I said, like I'm interested.

Shawn Teigen:
I like my job and I like what I do at the place that I work because of that curiosity. And I don't know if you've ever read this book from Neil deGrasse Tyson called Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. It's like what the heck do I need to know about astrophysics? Like what do I need to know about black holes and about quantum mechanics or whatever, But we're space travel or whatever.

Shawn Teigen:
But at the same time, it's like, I think there's, I mean, he's an amazing author and he's funny and he's witty and interesting and tells a lot of cool stories and makes the applicable to people's lives. And a lot of people probably read that book, even if they don't think that they are curious themselves. But I find that sort of thing kind of amazing. And I could read a book.

Shawn Teigen:
You know, I never wanted to go to India. And I read a book from Salman Rushdie with Midnight's Children. And I was in India one month later because I was like, okay, I got to figure this out. I got to see this in person. This is absolutely amazing. And, I mean, it took me a while to read the book. It's a pretty dense book. So I got excited about it over this period of however long it took me.

Shawn Teigen:
And then when I finally finished, I was like, okay, I'm buying tickets. So I think that that curiosity really blows into everything that I do and I think it's a I recently found out that that word itself it's kind of it's it's considered an emotion so you don't like you feel you feel joy and maybe you don't feel curiosity but you feel curious about something but it's an emotion where you have this feeling but it's also this quest for knowledge and I think that that's kind of a cool mixture between things and really defines who I am in so many ways.

Annalisa Holcombe:
Oh my gosh, you just like completely opened my mind to things and I love, I love, love, love that you started with curiosity and it made me think like I should just have, that should be completely the focus of our conversation today, but, and that's because you, you match curiosity with joy, like those two things that you brought up are emotions that you embody every time I talk to you. So, and I mean, given your career, I love that curiosity is right there in the mix.

Annalisa Holcombe:
So, given that, I'm going to use it as a segue which is I am super curious to understand when you and I were talking about what would be the theme of your discussion today you said I out of the things I proposed to you you said I think engagement and I'm really curious about what is it about the notion of engagement that is interesting to you enough that you'd want to talk about it on a podcast.

Shawn Teigen:
So, I guess a couple of things, I think like, well, I went through this, this exercise last year with this really smart person that she was helping the organization figure out its vision, mission and values and do a revamp of that. And I said, let's just jump in. And she said, well, let's talk about you first. And I was like, wait, what? I mean, And it kind of turned into this therapy session where it was like, let's figure out what makes you tick.

Shawn Teigen:
And I came away with this purpose for myself and I got this purpose statement that like curiosity ties into so much of who I am and what I'm about. And I think it's this cool thing that really, like there are probably 10 things in my life that have kind of changed the way I see the world. And I think that this is one of those things, this process. And this purpose statement is, let's figure this thing out together. And I think that there are a couple pieces of that.

Shawn Teigen:
And like, whatever this thing is, what the heck is this thing? Let's figure out how to raise a kid. Let's figure out how to be a family and function well. And let's figure out how to get this bike working well or how to figure out a public policy problem that we're working on at the Utah Foundation or whatever. So let's figure this thing out together.

Shawn Teigen:
And the key I think to that is the together part. Like I don't want to do it on my own. I don't want to, so I'm a meditator. And I think it's funny when people call themselves meditators, but I don't know, that's a thing. And that's, I guess, what I am. I meditate every day for just a little while. But, so I have this kind of like, let's figure this thing out. That's my alone time. But the rest of the time I'm around people. I'm out and about in amongst the world. And I think that together part is the engagement. It's like, how do I engage my family to figure something out? How do I engage my colleagues to figure out something out?

Shawn Teigen:
How do… And you're, Annalisa, on the board of the Utah Foundation. How do I engage the board now? And frankly, I don't think I've done that part yet. Very well, I'm still working on that. But I think all of this, and part of this is wrapped up with the curiosity, all of this is, you never get done with anything. I think that there's no like, oh, now I've figured it out, I can move on. I don't read that many books, but there's no, I mean, I read books…

Shawn Teigen:
But there's another book I think about in terms of this, this, it's called "Miss Simula's Feeling for Snow." It's a weird title. And I think there's a film that's the slightly different version of that title. But there's a passage in it that talks about how like I'm talking this through with somebody only because I haven't figured it out yet. Once I've figured it out, I don't need to talk about it anymore. I can just put it aside and I'll move on to the next thing. But I feel like I never figure anything out. Like maybe it's like astrophysics.

Shawn Teigen:
Like you just keep going and you learn some things and it's like, ah, that doesn't always work. But maybe it works here. Maybe it works here. And let's figure, is that a black hole or is it something else? Or is it an exploding star or whatever the heck it is? And so Maybe maybe I've taken you off off path a little bit, but I think that that engagement thing is Let's work together. I want to talk to you and I want to talk to my friends and I want to talk to my family and I want to talk to my colleagues and and my board and policymakers and and Utahns and somebody on the bus and and let's figure this thing out.

Annalisa Holcombe:
I love actually… But that is central to who you are. And especially as a board member on the Utah Foundation, I am thrilled to hear that you as the leader of the organization believes in figuring it out together. Because, I mean, isn't that what public policy is all about?

Shawn Teigen:
Yeah, oh, totally. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and like we put that purpose statement together and I was like, Oh, yeah, that is my job. That is what I do at work. That is what this organization does, which is kind of neat, I think. And that engagement is an important part of that is in terms of figuring things out together, let's figure out together, and then maybe we can engage, we haven't talked much about the Utah Foundation yet, but in terms of public policy and talking about people, talking to people, and saying, hey, look at this issue. Here's something that's interesting.

Shawn Teigen:
It'll give you some things to think about and it'll give you the vocabulary you need and the concepts you need to have a smart discussion about something and then perhaps do something about it or maybe vote for the right person or volunteer at a place or do whatever you're gonna do or talk to your family about whatever that issue is and do it knowledgeably and intelligently.

Annalisa Holcombe:
What is the mission of the Utah Foundation that you lead?

Shawn Teigen:
Oh, it's cool. It's a new mission and we figured it out together. Actually, so the vision was mostly mine. I forced that one through a little bit, but the mission came really with a lot of board input and a lot of staff input, and then the staff also put together these values, and the values were mainly theirs about the mission is to inform and engage Utahns with illuminating independent, nonpartisan public policy research.

Shawn Teigen:
So that's, that's basically, I love the words independent in there and I love the word illuminating. But that informing and engaging people that engagement is engagement. The reason why I thought engagement would be right is because that word engage is in our vision, in our vision, in our mission and our values. our values. It's all through all of those in a part because that is so important to what the Utah Foundation is about. I'll mention one more thing.

Shawn Teigen:
Originally, I just wanted to talk about communications and outreach with this person that was like, "Hey, let's figure out communications and outreach." And she said, "Well, your mission is tell me what your vision is." And I told her in like, you know, 87 words because I talk a lot and and and what's your mission and our mission was like 43 words long and and Let's do that first and then when we sat down to do that She was like let's crack the nut of you first and then let's do the vision vision values And then let's do the communication part which is kind of a cool.

Shawn Teigen:
It's a cool approach. I think it makes a lot of sense and Annalisa you asked me a question. I think and I don't even remember what of us.

Annalisa Holcombe:
No, I think that's really good. I would, I'm, you talked a little bit about what the Utah Foundation does, but from my perspective, it's one of the reasons I'm really interested in you focusing on the word engagement, because you're a group of individuals, the staff members are researchers. And I think in our heads, many of us, me included, might think of a researcher doing things alone that are really, you know, it's all cerebral or it's getting into minute details of things like researchers are not the folks you think of who would say I'd like to talk about engagement. So I would love to hear about how you bring together the idea of research and engagement and why that's so important.

Shawn Teigen:
Yeah, yeah, so I love that that's kind of, that's the perspective of that. And like when I was little, I remember like I was probably watching Tom Broca or something and we used to always have the news on when we're eating dinner. And when I would hear the word think tank, I thought of like in my mind, I was like, oh yeah, there's a person that's doing math in a corn silo or something in somewhere. And they're in a room by themselves. Yeah, in a tank. And here's this think tank. And so there are no windows. And I'm at a desk with a pen and a calculator or something. And that's kind of this thought that I had.

Shawn Teigen:
But in terms of researchers doing research by themselves, We are very collaborative to start with like I'll talk about that first like we work on these projects by ourselves last night. We were in the office changing up the order and kind of the fundamental focus of a report with three people all at once on one person's report and talking about these things. We do that all the time and we review each other's work and we of each other ideas and we check each other. We're nonpartisan. It's important to be nonpartisan. So we've all got biases and we've all got our own ideological kind of grounding or whatever.

Shawn Teigen:
And so we've got a nice mix of people in the office that can kind of check each other if they're pulling the punches on something or if they're a little bit too hard on something or too forceful on something, if they've got some cognitive bias that they maybe aren't aware of or whatever. But, but after we do that part and engage on whatever that issue is, then we're gonna get out and and engage the public and I don't want to.

Shawn Teigen:
So I don't want to be a lobbyist. I'm not a good lobbyist. I did that years ago and I, it was stressful and I kind of thought it was gross for me. And I love I there's some lobbyists I know that I do great work and I love them I think they're great. But for me, it was like, I can't do this. I don't feel right about this. Even if it's an issue that I like, I did, I bike all over the place.

Shawn Teigen:
And I rent, I helped on some biking legislation, got a bill, a pretty important bill pass, like 12 or 15 years ago or something. And, and it was, but at the end of the day, it was still like, I don't, I don't like this either. Like, even if it's a thing that, that every bit of it is, it feels good to me, in terms of what that law is. There's other parts that I didn't like how it got there and what not.

Shawn Teigen:
So we want to do research and not just then put that report on a shelf or on a figurative shelf in a file folder or put it on the Utah Foundation website and then not have anybody look at it. So almost all of our research is accessible to the public. And we want people to see it and how do you get people to see it one one way is like this year We're doing a lot of road shows.

Shawn Teigen:
We're getting in front of a lot of people We've done it around some healthy communities reports, but we're gonna do it around one of our signature projects of the Utah parties project later on this year and and really and and Figure things out together get some ideas in front of people that they can then share with their friends or colleagues or family or whatever and discuss them.

Shawn Teigen:
And the Utah parties project is more oriented toward the election. So when you vote, you have, there are some issues that are important to Utahns and there are some issues that are important to yourself. And maybe those are the same. And maybe you should know about them before you say, this is my one issue or these are my two issues. And or why didn't you do enough about this?

Shawn Teigen:
And that's like, well, maybe you're talking to the wrong person, maybe that person doesn't have the policy lovers to make a change here, but we can tell you who does, we can kind of delve into the issue and help you understand a little bit more of what's going on. So we want people to, there's nothing I like more than when somebody says, oh, I read this thing once about this, and it was, and I said, who put it out? And they're, and they're like, I don't know for sure.

Shawn Teigen:
And then I asked a little bit more and it's like, oh yeah, that's our report. We released that and we helped you without even you knowing that it's the Utah Foundation. We helped you maybe get a little bit more knowledgeable about something. I have so many questions that come up as a result of that, but one of the things that I was thinking about is the fact that the mission and what you talked about was nonpartisan research.

Shawn Teigen:
And I am doing this season focusing on individuals that I call change makers. And how do you think about the linkage between being a change maker, but also being nonpartisan and focusing on public policy?

Annalisa Holcombe:
Talk to me about what that means to you.

Shawn Teigen:
Yeah, so actually I was talking about this with a somebody from a state agency today in Utah here and and they're like well you're so you guys are effectively lobbyists like no I mean we're out there educating and and we want people to pay attention to our work but We don't say support this bill and we don't call a legislator or wait outside the Senate chamber or go to city council meetings to express our opinions on things. But we want people, we want to give people the tools to do that if they want on either side of an issue so the change might be in terms of a change maker.

Shawn Teigen:
This is something that's tricky about the Utah Foundation. If we were a lobbyist organization, we could go out and say, "We did this. We passed this bill, give us some money, and we'll support you, and keep doing it. Let's do another thing, and let's pass another bill." At the Utah Foundation, we can point to things and say, "Oh, yeah. They use some language in this bill for this law last year or somebody called us up to testify in front of the legislature on something.

Shawn Teigen:
We just we were called up to do that this week actually. So we people use our information and use hopefully some of the illuminating independent research that we produce And they probably are going to use it in a partisan way quite often. But in terms of change makers, we're trying to educate people. And it's a little bit harder to say, yeah, we did that. But maybe we can say, hopefully people know a little bit more about these issues because of this thing, because of this report, because of this event they came to.

Shawn Teigen:
And they can talk about it a little bit further and they can they can they see something in the news we released a report and they they see something and then they also hear something on the radio about that same story and they're like oh yeah I just saw something on the news about that yesterday and then they see something then they uh you know see a social media post on it or something else and then you and then you you touch them in many different places where they are so that they then are a little bit more knowledgeable about this even if they didn't spend a lot of time reading a report themselves.

Annalisa Holcombe:
It's super interesting because I'm going to give you one compliment for the organization because it in this land of what feels like a hyperpartisan world that we're living in, I feel some safety knowing that there is the Utah Foundation and that there is nonpartisan independent research that I can trust that it doesn't have some secret gotcha hidden thing that I don't know yet because it feels like there's so much of that happening now.

Annalisa Holcombe:
So I am, my compliment is to the being nonpartisan and independent is harder and harder to do nowadays, and I'm thrilled that the Utah Foundation does that. I love that. I love it.

Shawn Teigen:
But I also, like, I can't be proud of that necessarily either. Like, maybe I'm just afraid of, like, being hubristic and I'm like, I'm afraid of that word I brought up being proud about being curious earlier. But the cool thing about the Utah Foundation is that we've got so many supporters from so many different places that are just kind of pitching in. I mean, it's a significant amount, but it's little in terms of the overall budget or organization so that we can't, like if we stepped out on something and said, this is what we should do.

Shawn Teigen:
And I'll tell you why it's because I think that the support is this issue is an important thing and I care about it. And I'm not going to tell you about the the details from the other side of this Suddenly we'd have a whole bunch of people. What the heck? What was that? So it's like we're we've set this organization up to check itself both I think we've intentionally done that very well with the staff that we've got but I think that we've done that like… by the very structure of this organization being what it is I mean, we've said things before that that people were mad at, that we've had board members get mad at and say, "You know what? I don't know. I'm not sure we can support you anymore because we don't like what you're saying."

Shawn Teigen:
And like, "Well, it's true. Like it may be true, but I mean, there's a way to say it that makes it softer and we don't like it. And so if we lose people, but then we gain other people because I think that some people feel like you do analyst where it's like, it's important to have something, some organization out there that's doing this. And I wish we were, you know, I wish we were five times bigger than we are so that we could be looking at a whole host of more, yeah, looking at all the issues and for a lot more issues.

Shawn Teigen:
And then even doing even better at communicating that out to the public so that they, they're like, oh yeah, this is, I've heard this and I know that organization and I trust them and I believe it. And this is more complicated than you think person who is an ideologue on whatever that one issue is.

Annalisa Holcombe:
When you talk about engagement, I'm interested in, you talked a little bit about what you do with your staff. And I know that we'll have people listening to the podcast who are in all sorts of work environments. What do you do? How do you think about engagement when it comes to your colleagues at work, especially as a leader of your organization?

Shawn Teigen:
Yeah, I think that there's a… We have always had a bit of autonomy in terms of like you figured this thing out like go delve into this I may have researched this in the past and I know some stuff, but I'm not going to tell you what to write and So I think that helps get people engaged because they're like oh I'm curious about this this and this and then once that once we see a draft of whatever that work is. And it's like, well, so that is good stuff. And some of that might be a teeny bit off face.

Shawn Teigen:
But what about a couple other things that maybe you, you got to pay attention to. And I think that that that's a, we have a collaborative environment. And I think that's a really a way to engage a lot of people is to, to feel like a they, they have some a voice, like in terms of setting up the values of the organization and really supporting the the putting the vision together the mission together and the vision like they have a voice in those.

Shawn Teigen:
So things that they all have a voice in in other areas as well And and especially in the research because I think the people that that work at the Utah Foundation like that kind of like that autonomy that they experience and like being the lead on these projects and and are there because they there that That's the engagement piece, I think, for my colleagues. And it's interesting, we've had people, I had this volunteer once, this intern come once, and he was just finishing up his master in public policy program at the University of Utah.

Shawn Teigen:
And he was with us for, I don't know, like four months or something, and we took him up to lunch on the last day. So what is the thing? What's the thing you're stepping away from, from this internship? And he was like, “Man, the stuff you do is so boring. And I never want to do it as long as I live." And it's like, "Wait, what? You're graduating in two weeks." He's like, "I know. I'm gonna do what I was doing before. I love working with kids and I love this other thing and I'm not gonna do, I don't want it, it's mind-numbing."

Shawn Teigen:
But I think that if you, and he maybe it wasn't curious about those kinds of issues. And if you can engage a staff in a way that gets them pumped up, then hopefully you keep them around for a while and they become experts in some areas and become change makers themselves.

Annalisa Holcombe:
Sean, I think you're on a couple of things that I love these parts of the conversations. One is, I love that you talked about providing autonomy and some independent ownership that you automatically are giving to your staff as part of their roles there because all of the research shows that we all need that. All of us want to have some kind of our own independent autonomous work and not as much rote in our work in order to find meaning.

Annalisa Holcombe:
So already that's happening for your folks. And then I love the story of the guy that he figured it out. I used to always tell my students when you're looking at a potential career choice, go and follow someone on their most unsexy day. Like go to the thing that is like the and you know because every job has like the cool exciting sexy thing and then it also has the things that are probably even more time that are not as exciting and if you still love the things that are the unsexy days, then that's the job for you. And if you don't, keep looking.

Shawn Teigen:
Yeah, that's perhaps like the most worthwhile internship of any intern that's ever worked with you. I mean, some of them have like turned we've got two people that were interns that that then became employees. So maybe hopefully, fingers crossed, that was successful as well. But, and you know, we help people get jobs and a lot of people that are interns will like ask for letters of recommendation and are working for places around the state, but it is it's important to see to get that kind of information to say get that knowledge before maybe before you're at the very end of it.

Annalisa Holcombe:
One of the things I wanted to talk about with you is the idea of engagement and what does engagement mean to you When it comes to your personal life and your family or your friendships.

Shawn Teigen:
Yeah, yeah, so… We like we play these games like first in terms of my family one thing that we've joked about for years is like writing a book about the games that we play to do things, to like get things done. And like, how do we, like, let's do the cleaning game, and it's going to be, you know, 15 minutes, where we just do this every day.

Shawn Teigen:
And then after we get certain number of checkmarks, then we, you know, get whatever the food of the, of the day is that we like so much. Like, actually, now it just so happens, it's, it's poke bowls now for my daughter that she's in the pocketbolts. But it's, it's, I think it's engagement around those sorts of things, like we do the half hour game, which is not really a game. I mean, it's kind of a, there's something called the Pomodoro method, where you do this thing where you work for 25 minutes, and then you take a five minute break.

Shawn Teigen:
But this is, I give you do something for a half hour, let's do, we're gonna, it's a, I know it's Saturday, but let's do six half hour games, and one half hour will be in the yard and then the next half hour will be cleaning and then the next half hour will be reading and you'll see you mix it in with cool like different things but like it's I think it's that sort of thing that I think is like in terms of my family that really is an engaging thing and somehow even though it doesn't sound like oh it's it's not like it's fun like I don't want to necessarily work in the yard because the yard is my wife's domain.

Shawn Teigen:
I mean, that's what she's into, but I'll go out there and pull weeds, I guess. It's not my thing, but overarching, like the kind of that, the big full game of it is kind of cool and we're just mixing things up. And then at the end of the day, you feel productive. And you're like, oh yeah, that was, you know, some, for some people, a Saturday is not doing nothing, but it feels, for us anyway, it feels good to have accomplished something.

Shawn Teigen:
In terms of engagement, like out in public, you've said to me like how I am kind of like, how I'm always on. You said something about full Sean.

Annalisa Holcombe:
Full Sean, full Sean, it's a thing.

Shawn Teigen:
And I think that it is interesting, like I is that is not a some sort of a fake aversion of me like I am totally on but but if I do something that if I sign up for something like Annalisa is going to invite me to to go to some fundraiser and then like an hour or two before I'm going I'm like am I going to this I don't, I want to relax.

Shawn Teigen:
Like, I don't want to, but then the moment you walk through the door and you see the people, and then it's like, okay, this is my thing. And I'm actually curious about what these people are doing here and what this organization is that's looking for some funds and how they're putting it on the freaking thing.

Shawn Teigen:
Like it's all of the pieces of it. And I'm like, this is all very cool and all very neat. And suddenly I'm like, I've got this and attention to what's going on around me. And I think that that is, like I get super engaged. If I'm at a thing, I am not a wallflower. I am in the thing, whatever it is. If it's a, I brought up sports earlier. If I bring my dad to a national football league game and I don't know any of the players it just like by the end of the first half it just doesn't matter like I am part of the crowd and I am just excited about this is all y'all and in part because I was kind of asking some some questions about some of the things with some people around me and kind of a not really like maybe I'm making some of this stuff like I'm perhaps faking some of my curiosity there.

Shawn Teigen:
But at the same time it's like I'm here let's do this thing but then I'm like yeah yeah I get that I get this I'm excited about this and then I'm just as loud as the as the person that's four beers in a couple seats away. Just because it's yeah I get I get engaged when I'm out and about I get engaged there are points when I'm not Like when I'm like, okay, my motor has run out and I have no more electricity to run that thing.

Shawn Teigen:
But if we're doing something around the house, if we're playing the half hour game or if I'm at work or if I'm going to that fundraiser, I'm definitely engaged. And I don't want other people to be engaged too. I like if I go to something with my daughter, with my daughter. I want you to be just pumped up about this as me. Have you seen, these women are amazing, quite like shooting these three point shots on the University of Utah's women's basketball team.

Shawn Teigen:
I mean, isn't this amazing? Look at the skill that they have. And then, I think it catches on a little bit with her. I'm able to get her kind of pumped up about some of these things.- I don't think you know how unusual that is.

Annalisa Holcombe:
And it actually makes me a little bit weepy, which is surprising to me. But as you were talking, I was like, I used to tell this story that really is very meaningful to me that when my daughter, my youngest was a baby, I was having a hard day and everything was busy and I was stressed and I was getting her out of the car seat in my driveway And she was a baby and I pulled her out of the car seat and the wind blew. That was it. It was like just a big burst of wind. And she went, "Wow, mama."

Annalisa Holcombe:
And I remember taking that moment and going like, "Oh yeah, like the world is there are beautiful things that I can feel something about that might seem banal in any other time, but they're not actually. And there's beautiful things happening. And like your ability, Sean, to bring that engagement and curiosity and joy to your experiences and help other people unabashedly feel curiosity and joy and passion about the three the magical three-pointer that athlete just did or the joy and those dudes sitting next to you drinking beer at the ball game and their friendship that they have like there's there are beautiful things happening around us all the time and you're the one to remind us.

Shawn Teigen:
Well I don't know I mean I think if people pay attention to stuff like I think that's true all about paying attention to, to, to whatever's happening around to it. And it's like, maybe it's like, you've had a crummy day and I'm like, some things happen, but then I took my dogs to the dog park. And then you look up and it's like, “Oh, my goodness, like the sky, how the sky looks and the sun is shining through those clouds.” And it's like, “Oh, and my dogs are cute, and they're having fun.” Oh, and these people are here. And they're like talking to each other and, and meeting each other. And there's a lot of beautiful stuff happening and and so what that it's that I had a bad day and it's like 98 degrees in June or whatever it's like maybe maybe it's fine anyway and there's and if we look around a little bit that that's that's a key to this.

Shawn Teigen:
I mean kids pay attention I mean that's the thing and you can't pay attention to everything. I mean there's there's so much stuff out there and I guess that's what you that's the age and then you you put up some blinders and and hopefully you can still remove those blinders every once in a while so you can look around but you put up blinders to get your job done or to drive your car and not get run into somebody or whatever the case may be.

Shawn Teigen:
And so I think that there's an importance to that and importance to like really focusing that intention on attention on kind of what you're doing at the time but I think it is like and I think that you know this may be a thing of something that I've said this before to some people, when they're like, "Well, that job does sound boring." Just like that intern, like I'll be telling somebody about my job and they're like, "Wow, that's boring." No, it's not. If you look at any issue, I don't care what it is. Like, if you look at lean recovery for construction firms, it's like what? I don't even know what that is.

Shawn Teigen:
But if you look carefully at it, there's a lot of cool, complex things about it. And then suddenly it's like, you know what, the closer you look, you see the, you know, whatever the little cells on the leaves on the tree or whatever and it is and you and you and you see and that and you really experience that big gust of wind and it's like, and you're excited about the wind and your kid doing that. And it’s… and there’s, I think there's stuff like that all the time.

Annalisa Holcombe:
Love it, love it, love it. This gets back to the beginnings of the conversation when I talked about when you talked about your purpose statement. And I just wanna go back to the idea of it because the whole reason that I started a podcast called "92,000 Hours" was when I read an article that we spend 92,000 hours at work in our lives. And it's the thing we do the most, except sleep.

Annalisa Holcombe:
So we work more than we see our spouses, or our children, or our friends, or watch TV or surf the internet. And so that, there's gotta be some purpose and meaning because that's where we spend our lives. So can you talk to me just a little bit about your purpose statement and how that has helped you with the way you spend your life at work.

Shawn Teigen:
Yeah. Yeah, so I'm certainly a person that is actively engaged at work. There's Gallup does this research that they've been doing for years and years and they look at like, are you engaged? Are you disengaged? Are you actively disengaged? Look at these people that are like, I am so mad about the work that I'm doing that I am only going to Facebook today or whatever it is people do a TikTok or whatever today.

Shawn Teigen:
And, and I do feel like I've had jobs over the years where like yeah I can't do this anymore I'm not totally interested in, and whatever this is it looks good from the outside but you can only do it so long that I guess the thing about that that that being engaged for those 92 ,000 hours for me is about having staff, like I said, they get autonomy in much of the work that they're doing. And I think that that's important. And we've written about kind of the alternatives to bachelor's degrees.

Shawn Teigen:
So you don't need a bachelor's degree, but there is something about a bachelor's degree where you maybe put in some effort to get that, and then you trade that for a little bit more autonomy at your work. But you may not get paid more, but you may have a little bit more power to kind of set your own goals and do your own thing, which I think is, for some people, that's important. For other people, it's not important. For me, it's definitely important.

Shawn Teigen:
I think I need that sort of thing. And I think that there was a point-- I'll just tell you a story real quick. I went through-- not only did I have that very cool experience to discover my purpose statement, but a few years earlier, I went through this job analysis to say, how do you match with the And maybe you, and then you can find the job that you need or whatever the case may be. And so you go through this whole big thing and you write down all these cards and you categorize them and organize them and you come up with this thing.

Shawn Teigen:
And at the very end, the person was, it was kind of neat. She made this comment. She was like, you know, this is weird. And I said, what is weird? So I've done this a lot and I've never seen somebody that has the job for them. And like, oh, I guess maybe I shouldn't look for a different job. I guess maybe there is, yeah, there's something about this. And I think it is, and I'm probably lucky in that way. I'm not proud to have the job.

Shawn Teigen:
I mean, that's another thing where it's like, I lucked out. I lucked out maybe with some curiosity and I lucked out with finding a job that allows me to explore my curiosity in some ways. But I don't know if that answers your question, Annalisa, I guess it's a…. I think that there is something to be said for having some engaged people, and then hopefully that kind of rubs off on the other people around you, where it's like, yeah, this is, let's get into this thing. Let's figure this thing out together and be excited about it.

Annalisa Holcombe:
I love it. I have one more question about your work before I move on and the question that I want to ask is you brought up the some of the work you regularly do and one of those things was the Utah priorities project and you do that during election years and I know that in this year that part of the title was fed up. And I am really interested in the linkage that I probably see myself that may or may not be there, or maybe it's my worry, that it feels like people are fed up with the hyperpartisan-ness.

Annalisa Holcombe:
And there's a group called the Dignity Index that's looking at how we talk to each other. And I think that the more and more contempt that we show to other people ends up removing us from people like want to, they're fed up, they don't want to be part of it anymore. So I'm interested in how you see that learning that you got as well as what does that mean and how important is it to have an engaged citizenry in order to be a functioning, appropriate democracy. Like talk to me about that.

Shawn Teigen:
Yeah, that's the key. I mean, that is the key, I think, to this whole thing. It's about, so there's a book written recently that talks about like armchair politics. And it's just like, you know, it's like watching sports, this is a sports game. And I'm talking to these And the guy's all excited, but tricking his beer is he's yelling about the team and he's yelling against the other team and he's in support cheering for his for whomever the, you know, the receiver is or whatever.

Shawn Teigen:
And I think that we do that quite a bit with politics to where it's like, I, you know, I don't like this person actively, or I do like this person actively because of the party they represent or someone stance that they support or whatever, but I think that that there's something about, like, that there's something about having those conversations with each other in a, in a, in a nice dignified way.

Shawn Teigen:
And to have those conversations about these issues that affect all of our lives, whether they're their national things or state challenges or local challenges or whatever, that if you are providing people with some information about some of the nuances around these issues, they A, might be able to have a more open and honest conversation with somebody that's not instantly…

Shawn Teigen:
You're just shutting each other down because, "Oh, you're such an idiot. You believe this, you're dumb. What's wrong with you?" But maybe, "Oh, yeah, I understand kind of why you believe that, and this is the way I am on this topic, and this is why." And maybe it'd be interesting to have a conversation about that. And some people are like, "I don't want to have that conversation. I don't care."

Shawn Teigen:
But if you do look a little bit carefully at the the cells on the leaves of the tree if you look a little bit more carefully about at that whatever that policy is and about the complexities of things and the complexities of life or whatever and you pay a little bit more attention to that stuff then it then maybe okay so I don't like the person that your support but I understand where you are and I I see some of the things that that why people do support these issues, this particular issue, and I understand a little bit more about it, and those complexities, and yeah.

Shawn Teigen:
Let's have that conversation, and that engagement, I think the more engaged you are, the more engaged you're going to get, because you're going to learn a little bit more about an issue, and you're going to look beyond whatever that headline is, or look beyond whatever that tweet is, or that tick-tock thing, or whatever, and cease, that be like, okay, I need to think a little bit more critically about these, because I know that these are just headlines. I mean, I think that that's an important piece of that civic engagement.

Annalisa Holcombe:
I love that so much. I love that you brought it back to seeing all the way to the cells of the trees, because, you know, it reminds us that we're all, we're all, all of us are on this, you know, floating rock together, and we've got to figure it out. And we all have things. And we've got to figure it out together because we're in it together. We can see that either as a detriment or we can see it as a gift that we're all in this together. I'm grateful for you to talk to me about all of this.

Annalisa Holcombe:
I want to make sure that I wrap up with my last question that I always ask, and that is because I started my interest and curiosity in getting to know people in the way that we're talking today through a mentoring program. And I love to make sure I take a moment to honor the mentors that people have had in their lives. And I'd love to have you tell me about a mentor that made a difference in your life and share it with all of our listeners.

Shawn Teigen:
Yeah, so you gave me a heads up on this question, Annalisa, and so I have three, can I have three? It's complex, the world is complex, Annalisa. We gotta figure this out, but I gotta start with these. I was, my list was longer, honestly, And I was like, I don't know how to do this exactly, but I'll tell you one thing. I thought that I knew a lot about critical thinking.

Shawn Teigen:
I thought I was a good critical thinker. And then I took a class from this guy named Dennis Way, who's up at the University of Utah in the Geography Department. And it's a class that I actually ended up teaching for years. And I wanted my class to be as beneficial as his was. For me, he really got me to not to be cynical about everything, but to read something, some policy thing with such a critical eye that you can be like, okay, I see where this is coming from, and this all makes sense. But there's also some flaws with this, and maybe if we thought about this and address those flaws, we'd understand things a little bit further.

Shawn Teigen:
So I think Dennis Way is a big one. There's also, I had another professor called Kathleen Zick, and she really is the one that got me into a public policy program up there originally, and just became a friend and is just, is a fantastic parent and is a fantastic spouse and is a fantastic traveler and has done some really important research. She's mostly retired now from the University of Utah, from the Catholic and Consumer Studies program. But I think she's one.

Shawn Teigen:
But also, and not just to get points with my family, but I think that if I had not married who I married, I would probably be like a, I'd be working at a, like a tiki bar and Bali or something. Like she's, she really is great at helping me see through, she's also very curious and see through some of my own kind of blinders that I have on and like, and lower some of those so I can, So I can figure things out and sometimes analytical, but given that we're married, sometimes it's the opposite of analytical. Sometimes it's just emotion, but she's also very curious.

Shawn Teigen:
And actually, we heard about a program from Kathleen Zick, who was that professor that got me into the master of public policy program. Kathleen was putting together this doctoral program in family and consumer studies around policy, and she told us both about it years ago, and then it never escaped, it never like left my wife's brain. So she's actually in a program now, this policy program in Family Consumer Studies, and it actually gives me a lot of the language.

Shawn Teigen:
She's an artist and gives me a lot of the language for the stuff that I think about through her art. A long time ago, she did this, I mean, I've talked a lot about attention today. She did this program, this cool public art program called intention and attention and kind of where we want to be and where we actually do place our attention and and it's a cool thing it's a big map that she created and and I thought about it for so long and actually intention and intentionality is kind of those are my words of the year for this year for my career and at the Utah Foundation I want to be more intentional about the things we do.

Shawn Teigen:
And I don't want to just pay attention to whatever the fire is that I need to put out today. But I want to like set this big longer term kind of goal. And I think that she like through her art and through the person she is, I think she's transformative. And is a great mentor. I love that you have your spouse as one of your great mentors. And literally talked about her as transformative.

Annalisa Holcombe:
That's lovely. What a joy to have this opportunity to talk to you about all of these things, engagement, intentionality, joy, research, public policy, all of it is so important and timely. And I'm really grateful that you were willing to do this with me because I think that the work you're doing is, in fact, change-making. And I appreciate it.

Shawn Teigen:
This has been a ridiculous amount of fun. I love it. I love it so much. I love talking to you every single time. And this is definitely no different.

Annalisa Holcombe:
My thanks to Sean for his engaging conversation and insights. You can learn more about him and the incredible work that he and his team are doing at utahfoundation.org. And you can also connect with him on LinkedIn. Next week, our changemaker to join us will be Sarah DeMark, who is vice president of workforce development and credential integrity at Western Governors University. And Sarah will be talking with us about optimism. I hope you'll join us.