Scott Shute - The Full Body Yes: Change Your Work and Your World from the Inside Out

In The Full Body Yes, Scott Shute shares a fascinating tale, well-told, making a heartfelt case for self-awareness, full presence, and compassion. I couldnt stop reading.

Daniel Goleman, PhD, author of the New York Times bestseller Emotional Intelligence

Writing with vulnerability, humor, and compassion, Scott Shute shares his insights and life lessons in The Full Body Yes. You will see yourself in these pages and truly enjoy the journey to more connection with yourself and with the people you lead.

Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and Real Change

Scott Shute is an admired leader within LinkedIn, where he has helped individuals and organizations transform. In The Full Body Yes, Scott gives you the secret sauce that will help you transform your work and lifefrom the inside out.

Ryan Roslansky, CEO of LinkedIn

Scott Shute is a shining beacon for us all. His writing is vulnerable and powerful. His journey is our journey. The Full Body Yes is a delicious, life-changing tale of learning how to fully love.

Oshoke Abalu, co-founder of Love & Magic Company

This book is such a gift. I couldnt put it down. Scott Shute offers us no more and no less than the stories of his own life, and his courage, vulnerability, and learnings along the way have so much to teach us.

Scott Kriens, co-creator of 1440 Multiversity and chairman of Juniper Networks

Scott Shute sits at the intersection of the modern workplace and ancient wisdom traditions. His simple wisdom on how to change the world by changing ourselves is true for all ages and could not come at a better time. This inspiring book helped me see that I am a lovely work in progress and so is the world.

Chip Conley, founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality and author of Wisdom at Work

Through captivating personal stories, The Full Body Yes clearly demonstrates how important it is to reclaim your power by deeply knowing yourself. This shift in awareness can positively impact your life and work. Scott Shute has created a greatly needed road map to reinvigorate the inner space of the mind and heart. This medicine is especially valuable during challenging times. The Full Body Yes is for anyone who is looking to bring a deeper meaning into their life and work.

Yung Pueblo, author of Inward

In The Full Body Yes, Scott Shute shows us that optimism, self-awareness, and compassion arent just feel-good conceptstheyre how we build a great career and a great life.

Mike Robbins, author of Were All in This Together

Scott Shute is a masterful storyteller. His stories bring us right into the heart of the human experience and our deepest desires to find meaning and connection. Writing with vulnerability, he shows us that the fulfillment we seek lies right in the midst of our business challenges and personal challenges. The transformation happens from the inside out, and The Full Body Yes inspires and uplifts us so we can engage wholeheartedly and humbly in that process.

Tami Simon, founder of Sounds True

H i friend,

Im so glad youre here.

We, and by that I mean all of us here in the working world, need your help in changing work from the inside out. We have an opportunity to shape the consciousness of our workplaces by introducing more compassion.

Theres really nothing that unique about the workplace. Its just another group of humans, doing their thing, bumping up against each other. A place to learn the lessons of life. We could learn the same lessons on a farm, in a family, being a teacher, or living in a monastery. Somehow over the years weve gotten into this strange pattern of thinking about work as bad and the rest of our lives as good.

The simple truth is that it starts with us. Organizations are just a collection of individuals. When we develop ourselves as individuals, the organization evolves too.

If we want work to be a more humane place, it starts with us.

If we want to be more fulfilled, happier, more joyful, it starts with us. If we want to change the world, it starts with us.

The challenge is that were usually just focused on ourselves. Me. Me. Me. And when were this focused on our own lives, our own agenda, our own story, its hard to be aware of others. Its hard to serve others. We all end up with more of the same, which is less than we wanted.

You and I are probably similar in many ways.

Our careers (and lives) are sometimes a crapshootforward, backward, sideways, forward again. Following our nose like a bloodhound wandering in a forest on the scent of a rabbit: the rabbit of meaningful work.

We measure success compared to those around us. Were constantly seeking external validation for our own happiness. What do others think of me? How will this be perceived? Am I enough?

Were often chasing something we think will make us happy. More money. More prestige. More respect. More.

Maybe youre reading this book because you want to know how to climb the mountain, be successful, beat the system. Or maybe you have that gnawing, longing feeling inside that wont go away. The one saying that the hole of achievement can never be filled. The one that is hungry for more, but a different type of more. Something deeper. A more that leaves you full.

Whole.

Free.

Maybe both things are true.

This is not one of those boring books about work that you feel like you should read and then struggle your way through. This is a book about life, and how the lessons we learn apply to every aspect of our existence, includingand sometimes especiallyour work.

This is a book about what Ive learned, and sometimes about what Im still struggling to learn. Im going to tell you a lot of stories from my own life. Ill share with you my inner dialogue. For each of us, this is really where our development happens. Its usually not the actual events in life that were learning from; its in the shaping and changing and thrashing of the mind where our growth occurs. Were so focused on ourselves, the me, me, me, and Im no different. So, sorry if it feels like its about me. I mean for it to be about all of us, but the truth is, I really only truly know about me, and whats going on in my own head.

Ill share my failures. Ive had some spectacular ones. Im not ashamed; Ive learned a lot from them. Besides, I know you have failed in similar ways. This does not make us failures. Ive had some successes as welljust like you haveand Im not ashamed of those either, because Ive learned a lot from them too. But they dont make us successful any more than our failures make us failures.

So what does make us successful? Ah. Thats what were going to explore.

Okay, friend, I know you have many choices in how to spend your time, and I appreciate that weve gotten this far together. Heres my commitment to you. If you promise to stick with me, to see yourself in these stories, to see your own failures in my failures and your own successes in my successes, your own longing for something more in mine, then I promise you

This will not suck.

Scott Shute

November 2020

P.S. If youre impatient and just want the summary, go ahead and skip all of my amazing life-changing stories and go right to .

Know the true definition of yourself. That is essential.

Then, when you know your own definition, flee from it.

Rumi

I can see the red semi coming from a mile away. Its probably hauling wheat thats been stored over the winter. Now the price is better, and its headed to the elevator to sell. I do the math in my head. A thousand bushels, sixty pounds per bushel. Im not sure how much the truck weighs. Maybe another twenty thousand pounds. Eighty thousand pounds total. Forty tons. Speed limit is fifty-five. No one drives fifty-five around here.