Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
#119: Human Flourishing
In Episode #119 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause is joined by educator and human flourishing advocate Steve Rice to explore what it means to live, work, and lead from the inside out. Steve shares how his own path moved from achievement, external validation, and a career that did not feel like an authentic fit toward a life centred on calling, purpose, and work as an expression of who he is. He describes the difference between living from the outside in and the inside out, and why fear often remains present when people move toward meaningful growth. The conversation explores Steve's faith-informed view of human flourishing, including the shift from achieving to receiving, the role of spirituality and historical wisdom traditions, and his distinction between positional and possessional leadership. Jayson and Steve also examine how those ideas translate into organizations through human empowerment, spaces for ideas, and cultures that help people become more fully themselves. They discuss the Office of Possibilities, Humanitas, disruptive innovation, and why new ideas may need to be built separately but in service to the larger organization. Steve also explains why human flourishing is not simply self-improvement, using the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly as a metaphor for becoming something fundamentally different rather than polishing the current version of yourself. The episode closes by connecting human flourishing to AI and the future of work. Steve argues that technological progress should be paired with an equally intentional effort to rediscover what it means to be human, framing this moment as the beginning of a possible human revolution. Episode timestamps: 00:02 Human flourishing, innovation, and humanpreneurship 00:31 Steve Rice's path to human flourishing 03:16 Learning to listen to your life 04:41 When work becomes joy 05:35 Is your work an expression of who you are? 07:59 Saying yes to a calling 09:58 Making fear your ally 12:39 Preparing people for an unknown future 14:00 Drawing out what is already inside people 16:14 Vertical versus horizontal living 17:49 Spirituality beyond religious language 20:13 The Office of Possibilities 22:47 Rediscovering desires beneath obligation 23:10 A practical 10-minute reflection practice 24:59 Achieving versus receiving 30:15 Agency, participation, and relationship 35:53 Positional versus possessional leadership 37:42 The personal and societal cost of outside-in living 39:25 When the vertical informs the horizontal 43:53 Human empowerment versus exploitation 45:40 Building an expression-driven culture 48:10 An Office of Possibilities inside an organization 49:16 Building a human flourishing academy 51:49 Why the work of flourishing is messy 54:53 Building innovation on the edge 57:35 Separate, but in service to the organization 59:16 What human flourishing actually means 1:03:46 Why a better version of yourself is not enough 1:07:03 Human flourishing and organizational flourishing 1:09:52 Will AI help or hinder human flourishing? 1:11:45 The business case for human flourishing 1:16:38 Exploitation versus expression 1:17:06 The human revolution 1:20:29 Where to learn more about Steve Rice 1:21:29 Leadership through the lens of human flourishing Prefer to watch? Find the full video episode of The Executive Commute on the Level 52 Inc. YouTube channel. Subscribe to Level 52 Inc. on YouTube for full conversations, clips, and more leadership content. Follow Jayson Krause LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayson-krause/
