Speaker 1: Your territory is sort of mental. It's your perception of yourself,
Speaker 1: and then your ego kicks in, and your emotion kicks in,
Speaker 1: and then you respond. And when you respond, in that moment,
Speaker 1: you're responding without reasoning. And the minute you respond without reasoning,
Speaker 1: you're no better than an animal. Sometimes that works and
Speaker 1: sometimes it doesn't.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 2: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 2: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think,
Speaker 2: ring true, and yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 2: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 2: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 2: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 2: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 2: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 2: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 2: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 2: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2: Our guest on this episode is Shane Parrish, an entrepreneur,
Speaker 2: the founder of the blog Farnham Street and host of
Speaker 2: the Knowledge Project podcast. His work has been featured in
Speaker 2: The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Forbes magazine. Today,
Speaker 2: Shane and Eric discuss his book Clear Thinking, Turning Ordinary
Speaker 2: Moments into Extraordinary Results.
Speaker 3: Hi, Shane, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Hey Eric, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: I'm excited to have you on. I've been following your
Speaker 3: log Farnhum Street for a long time and I was
Speaker 3: really excited when I heard you had a new book
Speaker 3: coming out and I wanted to talk with you about it.
Speaker 3: It's called Clear Thinking, Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results.
Speaker 3: But before we go into that, let's start like we
Speaker 3: always do with the parable. In the parable, there's grandparent
Speaker 3: who's talking with their grandchild and they say, in life,
Speaker 3: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 3: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 3: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 3: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 3: and fear. And the grandchild stops and they think about
Speaker 3: it for a second, and they look up at their
Speaker 3: grandparent and they say, well, which one wins? And the
Speaker 3: grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to
Speaker 3: start off by asking you what that parable means to
Speaker 3: you in your life and in the.
Speaker 1: Work that you do. I love that parable. I had
Speaker 1: never actually heard it before until I listened to a
Speaker 1: couple episodes of this. I think there's a tension between
Speaker 1: these two competing factors in us, and we choose which
Speaker 1: one we feed. But really what we're doing is we're
Speaker 1: telling ourselves a story. That story. I believe that the
Speaker 1: most powerful story in the world is the one that
Speaker 1: we tell ourselves. And that story is also a choice.
Speaker 1: We tell ourselves that we are a good person, and
Speaker 1: we do good things, and we're open to love, and
Speaker 1: we're vulnerable and we have very little fear about I
Speaker 1: think that we're choosing to live a very different life
Speaker 1: than if we give up and we get up and
Speaker 1: we tell ourselves another story. And those stories just have
Speaker 1: the power to come true, right, not the positive ones,
Speaker 1: but definitely the negative ones. Like telling yourself a good
Speaker 1: story doesn't mean you're going to get a good results
Speaker 1: or good outcome, but telling yourself a negative story almost
Speaker 1: virtually ensures that you're going to get a bad outcome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so often when I meet people, I find that
Speaker 1: they're just stuck in the story it's like you've got
Speaker 1: this song on loop in your head, and that story
Speaker 1: is powerful in terms of determining your behavior.
Speaker 3: So one of the things that you are really good
Speaker 3: at is taking a rational position on things and really
Speaker 3: working with the best knowledge, having the most clear picture
Speaker 3: frame of reference. And I'm curious how that works for
Speaker 3: you with telling yourself a part positive story when you
Speaker 3: feel like perhaps your fears are drawing on a lot
Speaker 3: of data that seems to make sense.
Speaker 1: Well, like, we have a book launch coming out right
Speaker 1: October third, and as we were talking about it, to me,
Speaker 1: this is fear, this is you know, there's a part
Speaker 1: of me that is I feel like I'm getting naked
Speaker 1: in front of a million people and I'm taking off
Speaker 1: all my clothes and I'm exposed to the judgments and
Speaker 1: the criticisms and the tomatoes and all of these negative things.
Speaker 1: And then there's another story I can tell myself, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, I've done research for fifteen to twenty years
Speaker 1: on decision making, and I think I come at it
Speaker 1: in a unique perspective. And if I can come at
Speaker 1: it in a unique perspective in a way that I
Speaker 1: haven't seen other people come at it, maybe that's helpful
Speaker 1: for somebody else like me, And maybe the act of
Speaker 1: writing that book, which for me was an act of reflection,
Speaker 1: an amalgamation of all of these thoughts over years. Can
Speaker 1: I share that with other people? Am I willing to
Speaker 1: let the work be enough? Am I willing to just
Speaker 1: put the work out there? I know I've done the work.
Speaker 1: I know I've worked hard on this. I know all
Speaker 1: of the things that I control I've done. And am
Speaker 1: I willing to be vulnerable and put it out in
Speaker 1: the world? And I think that that's the life that
Speaker 1: I want my kids to live. In a way, they
Speaker 1: give me strength to do that, right because I know
Speaker 1: they're watching, And that gives me a little bit more
Speaker 1: strength to tell myself a better story, and that story
Speaker 1: can become empowering, and I think in this case, it
Speaker 1: sort of allows me the courage to put that out
Speaker 1: in the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, the thing I often tell myself when
Speaker 3: it's getting into these stories is that we don't know
Speaker 3: the future, right, and since we don't know the future,
Speaker 3: why not use an empowering story? Which is easier to
Speaker 3: say than do some of the time when emotion runs
Speaker 3: really strong, but it certainly you know, makes more sense
Speaker 3: if I'm making it up anyway right now, because I
Speaker 3: don't know, make it up in a way that is
Speaker 3: supportive of things turning out.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 3: You mentioned your kids a second ago and one of
Speaker 3: the things that you wrote in the book. It was
Speaker 3: later in the book, but I loved it, and you said,
Speaker 3: there's two effective questions. I asked my kids to slow
Speaker 3: down and have them think, One do you want to
Speaker 3: put water or gasoline on this situation?
Speaker 1: And two?
Speaker 3: Is this behavior going to get you what you want?
Speaker 3: And I mean those are great questions for us, not
Speaker 3: just for children, but in general, and they seem to
Speaker 3: sum up a lot of what your book is about
Speaker 3: in a way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I try to get them to just pause and think.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're all animals, so biologically, you know, we
Speaker 1: share these tendencies with other animals. Where a hier article
Speaker 1: we're territorial, we're self preserving, you know, we're ritualistic, and
Speaker 1: so often what happens is we have these ordinary moments
Speaker 1: that lead to disastrous sort of outcomes. And I see
Speaker 1: it with my kids, right they start bickering and then
Speaker 1: it becomes this slow escalation. They're about fourteen months apart,
Speaker 1: and one person will slight the other and then before
Speaker 1: you know it, they're nearly wrestling on the floor. And
Speaker 1: I was like, so frustrated with this, and I was like,
Speaker 1: they don't know that they're escalating. If they knew they
Speaker 1: were escalating, my theory was they would choose not to.
Speaker 1: And all the energy that they're spending escalating with each
Speaker 1: other comes at the expense of things they want to do,
Speaker 1: whether it's video games or homework or play with their
Speaker 1: friends or anything else. So all this energy is just
Speaker 1: being wasted. It's this wasted energy and it's kind of unproductive.
Speaker 1: And so I learned to start asking them like is
Speaker 1: this behavior going to get you closer or further away
Speaker 1: from what you want? And that was a really effective question,
Speaker 1: and then we sort of shortened it to like gas
Speaker 1: or water? Are you putting gasoline on this situation? Which
Speaker 1: means I'm escalating it and I'm not judging what they're doing.
Speaker 1: I'm just making them pause and reflect, right, So it's
Speaker 1: not about me interjecting and saying don't do that, because
Speaker 1: I find you know, as they get older, that method
Speaker 1: of parenting you switch to coaching. Yes, So My kids
Speaker 1: are now thirteen and fourteen, So if I start with
Speaker 1: that telling them what to do, that's not very effective.
Speaker 1: But if I pause and say, hey, gas or water,
Speaker 1: then they can think for themselves and they can choose
Speaker 1: whether to move forward with what they're doing. But now
Speaker 1: they're more aware of the consequences. It's like somebody I
Speaker 1: tap them on the shoulder and be like, you're making
Speaker 1: a decision right now. Is this what you want to
Speaker 1: be doing? Yeah? And then they're like, no, this isn't
Speaker 1: what I want to be doing, And they come to
Speaker 1: that in conclusion on their own, which I think is
Speaker 1: very powerful for them.
Speaker 3: You mentioned earlier that you believe you bring something interesting
Speaker 3: and new to decision making, and it's one of the
Speaker 3: things I've always thought that there was a lot of
Speaker 3: content in your world about was decision making. But you
Speaker 3: make a really important point in this book, which is
Speaker 3: we're taught to focus on the big decisions rather than
Speaker 3: the moments where we don't even realize we're making a choice.
Speaker 3: Say more about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So if you know you're making a decision, we
Speaker 1: generally get it correct. So most books on decision making,
Speaker 1: most classes on decision making are all about being more rational,
Speaker 1: you know, and they're not very practical. There's spreadsheets, there's
Speaker 1: sort of like decision tree. I've never really witnessed anybody
Speaker 1: fill all this out or do that. But what they're
Speaker 1: really doing is they're taking you out of the moment
Speaker 1: and they're getting you to pause and think. But if
Speaker 1: you know, you should be pausing and thinking. We're generally
Speaker 1: pretty good, we're directionally correct. But a lot of the
Speaker 1: time the things that get us into trouble we don't
Speaker 1: know that we're making a decision. We don't know the
Speaker 1: future of that decision. There are these small tidbits, whether
Speaker 1: it's celebrities going to court battle with each other over
Speaker 1: statues in their yard. You can imagine being at home
Speaker 1: with your partner or your spouse, and you know, what
Speaker 1: starts as emptying the dishwasher ends up into not speaking
Speaker 1: with each other. And that's that slow escalation again in
Speaker 1: these ordinary moments. And what happens in these ordinary moments
Speaker 1: is we don't know we're making a decision. If somebody
Speaker 1: taps us on the shoulder and says, hey, gas or water,
Speaker 1: you're gonna pause and be like, no, I don't want
Speaker 1: this to happen. I don't want to derail my weekend
Speaker 1: because of a dishwasher incident. And all the energy that
Speaker 1: you're spending on those moments comes at the expense of
Speaker 1: enjoying your weekend with your partner, or being on vacation
Speaker 1: or all of these things. And so my belief is
Speaker 1: that these ordinary moments actually accumulate into these advantages or disadvantages.
Speaker 1: And the advantages are, do people want to work with
Speaker 1: me and am hard to get along with? Do I
Speaker 1: do the little things right? And if I can do
Speaker 1: those little things right and I get these little moments right,
Speaker 1: I can put more of my energy into what matters,
Speaker 1: and I can spend less time sort of fixing these mistakes.
Speaker 1: Because if you think about why we're so busy these days,
Speaker 1: we're stressed, full of anxiety, and often what we're doing
Speaker 1: is we're fixing these little ordinary moments, these little lapses
Speaker 1: that we have in these moments. Right, if you're at
Speaker 1: work and a colleague slights you and says something you
Speaker 1: know slightly derogatory, Well, you're biological. You're instinctively become Territorial
Speaker 1: is not physical like maybe it is with a wolf,
Speaker 1: but your territory is sort of mental. It's your perception
Speaker 1: of yourself, and then your ego kicks in and your
Speaker 1: emotion kicks in, and then you respond. And when you
Speaker 1: respond in that moment, you're responding without reasoning. And the
Speaker 1: minute you respond without reasoning, you're no better than an animal.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. But after that meeting,
Speaker 1: now you got to go make amends. You got to
Speaker 1: work with this person. But not only do I have
Speaker 1: to spend time repairing that relationship, I have to repair
Speaker 1: the relationship with everybody else in the room because I
Speaker 1: just demonstrated that I might be difficult to work with
Speaker 1: that people have to be careful what they say to me.
Speaker 1: They're not going to tell me the truth. And all
Speaker 1: of these byproducts and those tend to consume so much
Speaker 1: of our time.
Speaker 3: It's interesting this idea of these little moments. I've shared
Speaker 3: this on the show before. Part of my backstory is
Speaker 3: I was a homeless heroin addict at twenty four and
Speaker 3: there's a moment where I made a decision to go
Speaker 3: into long term treatment. I was presented with the option
Speaker 3: to go. I originally said no. I had a moment
Speaker 3: of clarity and I said yes. And my life changed, right,
Speaker 3: And I'm always like, if you made the Hollywood version
Speaker 3: of my life, that would be the key scene, right,
Speaker 3: But that scene is only relevant because of the thousands
Speaker 3: and thousands of other decisions I've made since then to
Speaker 3: continue moving in that direction. And so it's nice to
Speaker 3: look at these big moments, and there are moments where
Speaker 3: something significant happens. But as you point out, so much
Speaker 3: of our life is this slow accumulation of positive or negative.
Speaker 1: Can we talk about that for a second, Sure, if
Speaker 1: you're open to it, because I bet you the first
Speaker 1: time you did Heroin, you didn't wake up in the
Speaker 1: morning and go I'm going to do Heroin. You were
Speaker 1: in an ordinary moment and you made a choice, and
Speaker 1: that choice had a huge ramification on you later in life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean addiction was an accumulation for sure, you know,
Speaker 3: like anybody else starts out like I want to hang
Speaker 3: out with my friends and get high, and increment upon
Speaker 3: increment upon increment that built until it was, you know,
Speaker 3: quite an edifice.
Speaker 1: Once those moments accumulate, they're really hard to undo, right
Speaker 1: as you went through.
Speaker 3: Really hard to undo. And there's the other thing that
Speaker 3: speaks to addiction and also what you were talking about
Speaker 3: is that these things amplify each other. So the downward
Speaker 3: addiction spiral is at a certain juncture, you start to
Speaker 3: feel bad about yourself for what you're doing. So you
Speaker 3: feel bad about yourself for what you're doing, so you
Speaker 3: feel terrible, and the only way you know how to
Speaker 3: deal with feeling terrible is to get high, which then
Speaker 3: makes you feel worse about yourself for doing it. And
Speaker 3: it's a downward spiral. And I think that in the
Speaker 3: decisions that you're talking about too. I do believe that
Speaker 3: you're right that if people can pause and think, they've
Speaker 3: got a better chance. But how often do we see
Speaker 3: people double down and double down? You know, they get
Speaker 3: out of that work meeting and instead of being like, oh,
Speaker 3: I made the mistake here, it's like Bob was out
Speaker 3: of line, right, and they double down on Bob being
Speaker 3: out of line. And the more they do that, the
Speaker 3: more they have to do it right. It amplifies it.
Speaker 3: And I think that's often. You know, the dishwasher thing
Speaker 3: is when a dishwasher leads to fighting all night is
Speaker 3: often because there is an amplifiction of things that have
Speaker 3: been building.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'd rather feel right than be right. I use
Speaker 1: these little catchphrases with myself just as a reminder to
Speaker 1: encapsulate these ideas. It's almost the compression of a big idea.
Speaker 1: And in this case, one of the things that I
Speaker 1: use with myself is outcome over ego.
Speaker 2: That's a great one.
Speaker 1: Am I working towards the best outcome? Or am I
Speaker 1: working towards proving myself being right? And when I think
Speaker 1: about proving myself being right, I'm on the wrong side
Speaker 1: of right. Yeah. And I used to do this all
Speaker 1: the time. I started at an intelligence agency and I
Speaker 1: was a programmer, and if I wasn't I was a
Speaker 1: knowledge worker. And if I wasn't right, then what was
Speaker 1: I was worthless? Right? Because I'm hired to be right.
Speaker 1: I'm hired to do this job, I'm hired to know
Speaker 1: the answer. I'm hired to do all of these things.
Speaker 1: And I have all this self worth and all this
Speaker 1: ego built up in that. And if I'm not right,
Speaker 1: what am I? And I noticed, you know, when I
Speaker 1: started working for myself, I was spending so much time
Speaker 1: trying to prove myself right. I'm looking for as a trek,
Speaker 1: facts that back up my ideas. I'm trying to prove
Speaker 1: other people wrong, and all of a sudden, when I'm
Speaker 1: working for myself, I'm like, I just really want the
Speaker 1: best outcome. I don't care whose idea it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because all of a sudden, I'm invested, and my investment
Speaker 1: is in the outcome, and it's not in me as
Speaker 1: a person, it's not in my ego. And I think
Speaker 1: that that little phrase, that little compression of an idea,
Speaker 1: is very powerful to remind ourselves with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that phrase in your book, The Wrong
Speaker 3: Side of Right. There's a great phrase. And I heard it.
Speaker 3: I was like, that is exactly it. Like in Recovery,
Speaker 3: we used a phrase all the time. It's a corollary.
Speaker 3: It's not quite the same thing, but it was would
Speaker 3: you rather be right?
Speaker 1: Would you rather be happy? Yes?
Speaker 3: You know you had to look a lot of the
Speaker 3: time and be like, well, okay, which is it I
Speaker 3: want to be Do I want to be right? Or
Speaker 3: do I want to be happy? And oftentimes the desire
Speaker 3: to insist that I'm right is going to make me unhappy. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because it's going to make someone else be wrong in
Speaker 3: my life. And who wants that, you know? And that's
Speaker 3: where egos dig in and the battle deepens.
Speaker 1: When we have these moments, when we dig in, when
Speaker 1: we entrench, we're not thinking, right, We're just responding, and
Speaker 1: our emotions are in charge. Our ego is in charge,
Speaker 1: our biology is in charge. And I think that's normal
Speaker 1: and natural. Right. We are animals at the end of
Speaker 1: the day. We have these animal tendencies, these animal instincts.
Speaker 1: What separates humans is our ability to push the clutch,
Speaker 1: to interrupt stimulus in response for just a second and
Speaker 1: in that moment reason instead of react.
Speaker 3: How do you think about emotion and reasoning? And this
Speaker 3: question is going to take a little bit longer to
Speaker 3: ask than I might like, but I'll get there because
Speaker 3: one of the things that we know from looking at
Speaker 3: various studies of different people is if you take somebody
Speaker 3: in you more or less they lose the emotion in
Speaker 3: their brain. They become incapable of making decisions right. So
Speaker 3: emotion is playing a role in decision making right, and
Speaker 3: it does tell us something to do about what's important
Speaker 3: to us, what matters to us. So how do you
Speaker 3: avoid getting into sort of a binary where it's like
Speaker 3: I can't be emotional, I have to be rational, right,
Speaker 3: how do you think about that? Because I agree with
Speaker 3: you that the ability to pause and look at the
Speaker 3: emotions and see what they are and then choose a
Speaker 3: response is incredibly important. Some people do that at the
Speaker 3: expense of having any emotion, right, They try and squelch
Speaker 3: their emotion, which has all sorts of other challenges. So
Speaker 3: how do you think about that?
Speaker 1: I think it goes back to almost the opening of
Speaker 1: this episode, right where are your emotions in charge? Or
Speaker 1: are you in charge of your emotions? I'm not advocating
Speaker 1: an approach where you're not emotional and you're robotic, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just advocating an approach where am I making decisions?
Speaker 1: Are my emotions making my decisions? Or am I making
Speaker 1: my decisions?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And if the answer is my emotions, then that's fine,
Speaker 1: but that's probably not going to get me the outcome
Speaker 1: that I want. And if I'm making decisions fully aware
Speaker 1: of those emotions, I can feel those emotions, I can
Speaker 1: have those emotions. But often if you feel emotional and
Speaker 1: you can opt out for a second. In opting out
Speaker 1: of that second, you can make that decision later. You
Speaker 1: don't have to make it when you're emotional. You can
Speaker 1: walk away. If you look at athletes, athletes have to perform,
Speaker 1: they have a timeframe involved in their performance, and they
Speaker 1: get emotional just like the rest of us. So what
Speaker 1: do they do. They have rituals built into their game.
Speaker 1: If you watch any NBA player, they bounce the ball
Speaker 1: the same number of times before they shoot a free throw.
Speaker 1: If you watch a tennis player, they bounce the ball
Speaker 1: the same number of times before they serve. And what
Speaker 1: they're doing in that moment. And I've talked to a
Speaker 1: lot of head coaches about this. What's happening is whether
Speaker 1: the last play was the best play of their life
Speaker 1: the worst play, Whether the ref was totally unfair to
Speaker 1: them or fair to them, doesn't matter. What matters is this,
Speaker 1: I'm going to center myself and I'm going to focus.
Speaker 1: And that's what we need to do to make decisions
Speaker 1: when we're emotional. We need to take a breath, we
Speaker 1: need to pause, we need to center ourself. We need
Speaker 1: to use a powerful method of doing that, which is ritual.
Speaker 3: So give me some examples of other types of rituals
Speaker 3: that might help us manage emotion. I mean, the term
Speaker 3: that I like is emotional regulation, right, it's the ability
Speaker 3: to regulate my emotions and to your point, not let
Speaker 3: them be in charge. Let them do what they need
Speaker 3: to do, and learn what I can learn from them,
Speaker 3: and feel what I feel. But there is a time
Speaker 3: and a place and a degree to all of this.
Speaker 3: So what are some things for you when you're feeling
Speaker 3: really emotional that ritual wise that allow you to take
Speaker 3: the temperature down a little bit.
Speaker 1: Well, So one thing I do is like after meetings,
Speaker 1: I have a ritual where I just sort of compress
Speaker 1: the meeting into what's happened, how am I feeling. And
Speaker 1: it's that compression that dampens that emotion because it allows
Speaker 1: me to feel that emotion. And I usually do that
Speaker 1: when I'm walking to my next meeting or when I'm
Speaker 1: logging on to the next meeting. So it just doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be this big ten thing. Just can be this, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm feeling this, I should have said this, I should
Speaker 1: have done that, and I can just sort of compress
Speaker 1: that meeting into these sort of ideas. Another one that
Speaker 1: I use that is really effective for me personally is
Speaker 1: just in the mornings, taking five to ten minutes, whether
Speaker 1: I'm sitting in a hot tub or whether I'm going
Speaker 1: for a walk or whatever I'm doing, and I'm just breathing,
Speaker 1: and I'm focusing on my breath, and I'm centering myself
Speaker 1: on the day. I'm trying to forget about everything for
Speaker 1: me yesterday. I'm trying to just put myself in the
Speaker 1: here and now. But I think rituals are very individualistic,
Speaker 1: and I think it's important that we come up with
Speaker 1: our own rituals. I've seen powerful rituals around people taking
Speaker 1: a breath before speaking, and in that pause, that moment,
Speaker 1: they just sort of ask themselves, how am I feeling.
Speaker 1: You need a lot of discipline to start the rituals,
Speaker 1: but once the rituals sort of take hold, rituals become
Speaker 1: this powerful force where you turn your desired behavior into
Speaker 1: your default behavior. And I've used this with kids and homework.
Speaker 1: My kids, right, so, every day after school, starting in
Speaker 1: grade seven, they would come home, they would shower, they
Speaker 1: would sit down, and they would do their homework. And
Speaker 1: every day. It was a fight for about two months,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, I didn't have to
Speaker 1: say anything. And they still do it now two years later.
Speaker 1: They come home, they shower, they sit down, they do
Speaker 1: their homework and they start working on the stuff they
Speaker 1: need to do because that becomes their ritual around getting home.
Speaker 1: But it's also very grounding for them because I've noticed
Speaker 1: on days where we don't do that, where we have
Speaker 1: an errand to run or an appointment, they're sort of
Speaker 1: like out of sorts. Right, It's like my ritual has
Speaker 1: been interrupted, and they become a little bit more emotional,
Speaker 1: which is really interesting because that's their method of decompressing
Speaker 1: the school day.
Speaker 4: Now, Hi, everybody, it's Jinny. You've probably heard me with
Speaker 4: Eric on some episodes of The One You Feed. I
Speaker 4: have a question for you. Are you your own worst critic?
Speaker 4: I mean, when you pay attention to how you talk
Speaker 4: to yourself, is it just kind of mean? And do
Speaker 4: you often feel beat down and just heavy inside? If so,
Speaker 4: I truly understand the struggle. I used to believe that
Speaker 4: relating to myself this way was what kept me performing
Speaker 4: at any acceptable level, and without it, I thought I'd
Speaker 4: drift off into the deep end and become a failure
Speaker 4: in pretty much every aspect of my life. But it
Speaker 4: turns out that's actually one of the inner critics worst
Speaker 4: lies that it helps you. I mean, maybe short term,
Speaker 4: you get a push and do well, but long term
Speaker 4: it's corrosive and it actually keeps you from living to
Speaker 4: your potential. I've created a free three part video series
Speaker 4: that teaches you how to get to the other side
Speaker 4: of the inner critic like I have, and you can
Speaker 4: grab it today. Just head to oneyfeed dot net slash
Speaker 4: Inner Critic. I'm sharing this with you as not only
Speaker 4: an inner critic survivor, but also a certified mindfulness teacher,
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Speaker 4: at battle with yourself. And life is so much better
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Speaker 3: You say each moment puts you in a better or
Speaker 3: worse position to handle the future. It's that positioning that
Speaker 3: eventually makes life easier or harder. Talk to me about
Speaker 3: what you mean by positioning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, putting yourself in the right position is so important
Speaker 1: and it's a key element to sort of clear thinking. Right. So,
Speaker 1: one of the most beneficial skills in life is learning
Speaker 1: to put yourself in a good position. And think about
Speaker 1: it this way. When you're in a good position, all
Speaker 1: of your options available are great. And when you're in
Speaker 1: a bad position, you need like a Hail Mary. Right,
Speaker 1: you're like praying for something to work out. You have
Speaker 1: no good options. And if you put Warren Buffett in
Speaker 1: a consistently bad position, he's going to look very average.
Speaker 1: But what he does, and this is sort of where
Speaker 1: this idea came from, is he's constantly in a good position.
Speaker 1: And so a good position means you're never forced by
Speaker 1: circumstances to do something you don't want to do. So
Speaker 1: if we take this and we apply it to decision making, well,
Speaker 1: how does that impact you? Well, all the stuff that
Speaker 1: we learn about decision making is how to be rational,
Speaker 1: how to make the best choice in the moment. But
Speaker 1: if your choices are all bad, it doesn't matter that
Speaker 1: you pick the best of the bad choices. Right, You
Speaker 1: don't want to be in a city. How do I
Speaker 1: avoid this situation? I don't put myself in a position
Speaker 1: where I'm consistently making good decisions. And often the people
Speaker 1: who are writ a lot are just people that they're
Speaker 1: not predicting what the future is. They're positioning themselves for
Speaker 1: multiple possible futures. And it's such a powerful sort of concept. Right,
Speaker 1: So we talked about Buffett, we talked about a more
Speaker 1: practical example, maybe with my kids, is what it means
Speaker 1: to do your best? Right, parents are listening, you have kids.
Speaker 1: Your kids come home, they have a bad score on
Speaker 1: their test, and they said, I did my best. And
Speaker 1: what they mean in that moment was I did my
Speaker 1: best in the hour that I sat down for my test.
Speaker 1: What they don't mean is that they put themselves in
Speaker 1: a position to be successful. And so I've defined this
Speaker 1: with my kids, as you know, you are in a
Speaker 1: position for success before you even take the test. It's
Speaker 1: the moment when you sit down, Have I done all
Speaker 1: the things I control? You think about Tom Brady or
Speaker 1: another athlete. You know, they put themselves in a position
Speaker 1: all week, They do the work, They eat healthy, they sleep,
Speaker 1: they practice well. For my kids, it's the same thing, right,
Speaker 1: did I study, did I work hard? Am I in
Speaker 1: an argument with my brother? Am I eating healthy? Am
Speaker 1: I sleeping well? And we do this in life, right.
Speaker 1: I might not know what my next job is, I
Speaker 1: might not know what the next sort of level of
Speaker 1: my career path is, but I know, hey, there's probably
Speaker 1: some skills that I can go out today and get
Speaker 1: in advance. I can put myself in a position so
Speaker 1: if the opportunity ever comes, I can take advantage of it.
Speaker 1: Or think about it this way. If you like investing,
Speaker 1: and the Acme Brick Co. Is the number one brick
Speaker 1: company in your community, and you're really interested in this,
Speaker 1: and you know it's always just been too expensive, and
Speaker 1: then one day the owner knox on your door and
Speaker 1: he's like, I'll sell it to you for two times earnings.
Speaker 1: And you're like, well, this is the bargain of a lifetime.
Speaker 1: But you go to your bank account and you have
Speaker 1: no money. So you might make the right decision, but
Speaker 1: you're not in a position to take advantage of it,
Speaker 1: so you're going to get the same outcome as if
Speaker 1: you made a bad decision. Almost you want to put
Speaker 1: yourself in a position where you're you're not predicting what's
Speaker 1: going to happen in the future, but no matter what
Speaker 1: happens in the future, you're always going to look right
Speaker 1: because you just pivot and change with the environment, and
Speaker 1: you're never forced by circumstances into doing something that you
Speaker 1: don't want to do. And I think if you look
Speaker 1: at all the sort of like greats or titans of
Speaker 1: decision making, if you want to call them, that the
Speaker 1: people who just generally consistently make good decisions, they're never
Speaker 1: forced by circumstances to do something they don't want to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think, you know, for a lot of
Speaker 3: people hearing that, I think the response might be, well,
Speaker 3: I've already sort of got myself into a less than
Speaker 3: optimal position here right right, and so what do I
Speaker 3: do with that? Because I'm not in a good position?
Speaker 3: Where do we start working from there?
Speaker 1: You have to start where you're at, right, You have
Speaker 1: to start in the position that you're currently in. But
Speaker 1: if you think about every moment as strengthening or weakening
Speaker 1: your position, yep, your rate of improvement matters more than
Speaker 1: where you are in the current moment. How do I
Speaker 1: accelerate my rate of improvement? Stop the decline? How do
Speaker 1: I improve? And for everybody that's going to be different.
Speaker 1: You might be paying off your credit card bills. It
Speaker 1: might be you know, downsizing your house, be saving more money,
Speaker 1: it might all of these different things add to your position.
Speaker 1: And you know which areas of your position you probably
Speaker 1: feel weakest because they're the ones you want to avoid
Speaker 1: talking about. They're the ones you probably feel a little
Speaker 1: bit of shame around. If you're having a hard time
Speaker 1: visualizing where you might be ill positioned, imagine like a
Speaker 1: camera crew following you around all day documenting your success. Well,
Speaker 1: what would you not want them to see? And that
Speaker 1: might be a good angle for Oh, how can I
Speaker 1: improve my position? Right? It might be you're lazy getting
Speaker 1: out of bed in the morning, and a way to
Speaker 1: improve your position is start to learn something new in
Speaker 1: that one hour. Instead of that film crew watching you
Speaker 1: lay and roll around in bed on your phone for
Speaker 1: an hour and a half before you get out of bed,
Speaker 1: it's all of a sudden, you're getting up, you're learning
Speaker 1: something new, you're challenging yourself, or maybe you're just going
Speaker 1: for a walk. I think that there's always something we
Speaker 1: can do to better our position. There's never a moment
Speaker 1: where I don't think and do that. And that's not
Speaker 1: to say it should dictate your entire life either, but yes.
Speaker 3: Yep, yeah, that tends to be a pretty foundational belief
Speaker 3: of mine, which is that there's always a move towards
Speaker 3: the better It may not be as big a move
Speaker 3: as you would want. The distance to travel may seem insurmountable,
Speaker 3: but there's always a move that is towards the better position.
Speaker 3: And back to that question you ask your kids, right,
Speaker 3: is this going to get you what you want? Am
Speaker 3: I doing something today that's improving?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: There's always something, some small step, whether you're in the
Speaker 3: deep depths of depression or addiction, or you're at the
Speaker 3: very top of your industry. Right, I mean, I think
Speaker 3: that's true for all of us.
Speaker 1: When you were saying that, the thing that came to
Speaker 1: mind for me was one of the reasons we have
Speaker 1: trouble improving our position is because we want it improved. Now. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's the same element of human nature that exists everywhere.
Speaker 1: I have another one of those little catchphrases I use
Speaker 1: in these moments, which is a lack of patience changes
Speaker 1: the outcome. A lack of patience changes the outcome by
Speaker 1: wanting something faster than naturally like. We often know how
Speaker 1: to accomplish the things we want to accomplish, but they
Speaker 1: take longer than we would like, or we're starting later
Speaker 1: in life than we would like, and so what we
Speaker 1: seek in these moments is like I'm behind. We feel behind.
Speaker 1: It's an unconscious feeling, and we want to catch up.
Speaker 1: So if you're out of position, you want to catch up.
Speaker 1: What are you going to do. You're going to chase secrets,
Speaker 1: You're going to chase hacks, You're going to chase quick
Speaker 1: fixes because you want to get there rapidly. You want
Speaker 1: the real estate course that's going to make you success.
Speaker 1: You buy all these products and you never seem to
Speaker 1: go anywhere because you're avoiding the work of doing what
Speaker 1: you need to do to improve your position, which is
Speaker 1: going to take time. It's going to take energy, and
Speaker 1: you're going to get your knees scraped, and that's just
Speaker 1: part of the process. And you have to learn to
Speaker 1: invest in that process and know that it's going to
Speaker 1: take time and take pleasure in the fact that every
Speaker 1: day you're proving your position.
Speaker 3: Yep, you say the space between stimulus and response, one
Speaker 3: of two things can happen. You can consciously pause and
Speaker 3: apply reason, where you can seede control and execute a
Speaker 3: default behavior. The problem is our default behavior often makes
Speaker 3: things worse. Let's talk about what is a default behavior,
Speaker 3: and then we can explore the four default behaviors that
Speaker 3: you lay out in the book. I mean, there's certainly
Speaker 3: more of them, but I think you've done a nice
Speaker 3: job of sort of capturing the big hitters.
Speaker 1: So examples of default behaviors. Our emotion is in charge,
Speaker 1: and we've talked about this. It could be fear, it
Speaker 1: could be something else. Another example is ego right. We're
Speaker 1: often making decisions we're on the wrong side of right.
Speaker 1: We just want to be right. It's not anything that
Speaker 1: we're doing, it's just sort of who we are as
Speaker 1: a person. They're social right. There's a social default, which
Speaker 1: is when we blindly sort of conform to the group
Speaker 1: norms or the expectations. And inertia is such a powerful
Speaker 1: one habit for me. We're comfort seeking. The habits that
Speaker 1: served us years ago may no longer serve us, and
Speaker 1: we want to resist those changes. And these defaults are
Speaker 1: really powerful and they cause us to sort of stay
Speaker 1: in place if they're making the decisions for us instead
Speaker 1: of us making the decisions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, let's talk a little bit more about each
Speaker 3: of those, because there's a lot to unpack there. I'm
Speaker 3: going to jump to the ego default for a second.
Speaker 3: And see if you could tell us a story about
Speaker 3: mister Rolex. I think that's where it came in the
Speaker 3: book under ego default.
Speaker 1: If I remember currently because I wrote the book a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago. That was when it was a
Speaker 1: cashier and this guy would come in and he would
Speaker 1: just be rate everybody. He would just be like better
Speaker 1: than everybody else, right, he'd illegally park he'd come in.
Speaker 1: He was very flashy. He's like that stereotypical person that
Speaker 1: irritates us all And one day he said to me,
Speaker 1: this Rolex doesn't pay for itself. Hurry the fuk up.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can swear on here. Hurry up, man,
Speaker 1: it's done now.
Speaker 3: I'm just kidding, go right in.
Speaker 1: And I responded right like, because I'm like, who is
Speaker 1: this guy to tell me to do this? And said
Speaker 1: something you know in the moment that I wasn't thinking
Speaker 1: at all. I was just responding, I'm like, you're not
Speaker 1: better than me. This isn't right. And on the way
Speaker 1: home that night, you know, he's got his ego. I've
Speaker 1: got my ego. If we're talking on the level of ego,
Speaker 1: I mean, we're just not going to go anywhere I'm
Speaker 1: not going to get what I want. I'm not getting
Speaker 1: closer to what I want, which was a paycheck at
Speaker 1: the time to pay for university. He's not getting what
Speaker 1: he wants, which is faster service and you know, to
Speaker 1: be treated like the way that he wanted to be treated.
Speaker 1: Nobody wins, like there's no outcome here that's positive. Right
Speaker 1: walking home that night, I sort of rationalize this because
Speaker 1: we are hierarchical, and I reorganized the world in a
Speaker 1: way where I came out on top of him. I mean,
Speaker 1: I have a job anymore, but at least I'm not
Speaker 1: an asshole, and so I felt better about myself. And
Speaker 1: we often do this, right, We do this in everyday
Speaker 1: moments where we tell ourselves these stories, and these stories
Speaker 1: are sort of like, at least I'm not I'm better
Speaker 1: then at least I didn't do this. I really didn't
Speaker 1: want that. And these stories aren't true. They're just us
Speaker 1: protecting that very vulnerable part of us that is sort
Speaker 1: of yeah, maybe it is. There's an element of truth
Speaker 1: to all of this, which is why we can believe
Speaker 1: the stories we tell ourselves. But at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, again, are we moving towards or further away
Speaker 1: from the outcome that we want to get. Can we
Speaker 1: wrap our ego instead of wrapping our ego into our
Speaker 1: self identity and our territory about ourselves, Can we wrap
Speaker 1: our ego into an outcome? And if we can wrap
Speaker 1: that ego into an outcome, I think we're going to
Speaker 1: get a lot farther in life.
Speaker 3: I love that story because, as you said, I'm walking
Speaker 3: home and I think, at least I'm not like him,
Speaker 3: I'm better than him, you know. And you say, in
Speaker 3: that moment, I rearrange the world in such a way
Speaker 3: that I, the newly unemployed high school student without a
Speaker 3: car or a lavish wristwatch came out on top. And
Speaker 3: what I just love about that is that's what we
Speaker 3: all do, right, we all, if we're not careful, we
Speaker 3: rearrange the world in such a way that we are right.
Speaker 3: And you may do deep search on your values and
Speaker 3: be like, that's not the kind of person I want
Speaker 3: to be, and you know, like that's different totally than
Speaker 3: the ego response of this doesn't feel good. So I'm
Speaker 3: going to make myself better than you, you know. And
Speaker 3: boy do we do that.
Speaker 1: A lot all the time. It's so crazy. It happens
Speaker 1: with promotions, it happens with dating, It happens in every
Speaker 1: element of our life. We tell ourselves the story that
Speaker 1: we're right, that we're a good person, that we did
Speaker 1: the right thing, that we thought about it right, that
Speaker 1: it just worked out that way by chance, or they
Speaker 1: didn't deserve it because they're not a nice person, but
Speaker 1: we're a nice person. And we just unconsciously do this
Speaker 1: all the time. And I think it's sort of like
Speaker 1: it's self defeating because it takes us away from again,
Speaker 1: are we getting closer farther away from what we want
Speaker 1: to achieve?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you sort of talk about how complaining just is
Speaker 3: us arguing with the way the world is, which is
Speaker 3: usually a losing strategy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I remember. I think maybe the story you refering
Speaker 1: to as I went to my mentor I can get
Speaker 1: a promotion, and I said, well, you know, I justified
Speaker 1: it in a very similar way to what we're talking
Speaker 1: about right now, And he's like, you're just arguing with reality,
Speaker 1: like this has happened, right, This isn't a strategy, This
Speaker 1: isn't effective. It's not moving you closer to what you
Speaker 1: want to get. You just have to deal with it.
Speaker 1: And the longer you're arguing with it, the more you're
Speaker 1: putting off dealing with it. And you know, often we
Speaker 1: just don't deal with it at all because by the
Speaker 1: time we've maybe like toned down our emotions a little bit,
Speaker 1: and we've come to realize that we might have had
Speaker 1: a contribution to this whole thing playing out the way
Speaker 1: that it did, including me. I mean, my contribution was
Speaker 1: escalating at the grocery store, right, Like, I totally I
Speaker 1: had a contribution there, but I couldn't see my contribution
Speaker 1: because my ego and my emotions are in charge. And
Speaker 1: by the time that those sort of like dissipate and
Speaker 1: I've felt them and I can see this situation more
Speaker 1: clearly for what it was. Well, now I've moved on
Speaker 1: to the next story I'm telling myself, so I never
Speaker 1: really go back and and sort of adjust to reality.
Speaker 3: As we're talking, I'm thinking often about in my own
Speaker 3: life where my emotions do overwhelm me and I don't
Speaker 3: act the way that I want to act, you know,
Speaker 3: And I'm thinking about how even after the fact, we
Speaker 3: can still pause, we can still reflect, and we can
Speaker 3: go try and fix, you know, Like I'll sometimes just
Speaker 3: say to my partner Jenny, like, that was not the
Speaker 3: me I want to be to you, like, I was upset,
Speaker 3: and so the me that came out is not the
Speaker 3: me that I want to be. Here's who I want
Speaker 3: to be, here's my intention. I fell short this time.
Speaker 3: I'm going to keep trying to do better, you know,
Speaker 3: And that a bit even after we've become overwhelmed, right,
Speaker 3: because we're describing here a high level of emotional maturity
Speaker 3: and regulation where you always pause, you're always able to
Speaker 3: stop doing the difficult thing, and for many many people
Speaker 3: that's not the case. But just even if that happens,
Speaker 3: there's still room for repair, there's still room for reflection,
Speaker 3: and there's still room to change our position.
Speaker 1: To use your terminology, that is a very interesting angle
Speaker 1: to positioning right, because it makes your relationship better, makes
Speaker 1: it stronger, and it means that you're open to sort
Speaker 1: of being right in a different way. Right. It means
Speaker 1: you're open to getting a better outcome. You're open to
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be me that's right all the time.
Speaker 1: And not only does that make you more vulnerable, it
Speaker 1: makes her more vulnerable, and it makes your relationship more
Speaker 1: vulnerable and more powerful, and it makes it stronger. So
Speaker 1: we talk about unexpected events. You can't predict the future,
Speaker 1: but if your relationship is wronger, you can withstand a
Speaker 1: lot more possible futures. And I think that's a brilliant
Speaker 1: sort of example. I do this with my kids too, right, Like,
Speaker 1: it takes a lot of courage to go in and apologize,
Speaker 1: so at least it does for me. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: but I'm like, I'm trying to model this behavior exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and there's no task that I have
Speaker 3: found in my life that more frequently pushed me up
Speaker 3: against my limits of what I was able to handle
Speaker 3: than being a parent. Right, I was like, this task
Speaker 3: just seems like it was designed to make me fail.
Speaker 3: You know, I think good parents are able to go
Speaker 3: in and say I made a mistake. I didn't handle
Speaker 3: that right, because a it repairs the relationship. But to
Speaker 3: your point, even more importantly, it models like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 3: not always right. I make mistakes, and when I do,
Speaker 3: here's how I handle Because you're going to make a
Speaker 3: ton of them too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and back to your earlier point, right, it's not
Speaker 1: about being perfect in every moment. It's really just about
Speaker 1: getting better and learning to recognize what you're doing to
Speaker 1: your position, learning to recognize if you're moving in the
Speaker 1: right direction, learn to recognize if circumstances are deciding for
Speaker 1: you or you're in charge, and the recognition of those things.
Speaker 1: I don't have to tell you what to do in
Speaker 1: those moments. Once you start to recognize them, you know
Speaker 1: what you want to do. You just can't see it
Speaker 1: because your perspective is like blinders right in this moment.
Speaker 1: You can't see the broad perspective. Just like if I
Speaker 1: look back on my sixteen year old self and I
Speaker 1: did things that were pretty stupid, But my seventy year
Speaker 1: old self is going to look back on my forty
Speaker 1: year old self now and be like, you did things
Speaker 1: that were pretty stupid too, And what that is is
Speaker 1: it's just a different perspective. I don't have the perspective
Speaker 1: of a seventy year old and in those moments, what's
Speaker 1: happening is we're just that horse, right. We get the
Speaker 1: blinders on, and our perspective in that moment it's just
Speaker 1: not what it needs to be. We need to widen
Speaker 1: it a little bit, and by widening it we can
Speaker 1: actually see what to do right we're just blind to
Speaker 1: what we need to do.
Speaker 3: Yep, what are some ways of working with the inertia default,
Speaker 3: because that is a really big one. Like you said,
Speaker 3: we are wired to seek comfort. We are wired to
Speaker 3: be like, well, this is doing all right. I mean
Speaker 3: you talk about the zone of average being a dangerous place.
Speaker 3: You know, it's the point where things are working well
Speaker 3: enough that we don't feel the need to make any changes.
Speaker 3: And I have found myself there many times where I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: this is pretty good. It's not great, could be better,
Speaker 3: but I'm just getting through the day. I don't know,
Speaker 3: I've got a lot left to continue to break this inertia.
Speaker 1: Well, one of the ways that I like to think
Speaker 1: about this is to take a step back and instead
Speaker 1: of framing this as inertia, let's frame it as like
Speaker 1: predeciding and automatic rules. Let's create our own inertia where
Speaker 1: our desired behavior becomes our default behavior. And so we're
Speaker 1: taught to follow rules from a very early age. We
Speaker 1: don't question that. We just follow them. However, we've never
Speaker 1: thought about how we can turn them around and use
Speaker 1: rules to our advantage. Use rules on ourselves. Right, we
Speaker 1: can create our own rules and our own rules become
Speaker 1: the sort of inertia that a counterbalances group. Think maybe
Speaker 1: at counterbalance is sort of like the social angle of
Speaker 1: this too, and so like let's say, for example, you
Speaker 1: want to lose weight, and most people sort of tackle
Speaker 1: this with willpower. However, eventually we all lose the battle
Speaker 1: with willpower. If you're out with friends and they're drinking
Speaker 1: and they're having, you know, an unhealthy meal and ordering dessert,
Speaker 1: and you tell them in that moment, I'm watching what
Speaker 1: I eat, well, they're gonna nudge you, Oh, you know what,
Speaker 1: just just have a drink tonight, just have some dessert tonight.
Speaker 1: You can go do that tomorrow, but tonight you deserve
Speaker 1: a break. And that's often how they phrase it. You
Speaker 1: deserve a break, and you'll believe them and you'll do it.
Speaker 1: And that takes you farther away from the place that
Speaker 1: you've identified you wanted to go. But if you have
Speaker 1: a rule, and I got this from Daniel Conmon when
Speaker 1: I was talking to him in New York in his house,
Speaker 1: if you have a rule, you don't argue with it.
Speaker 1: But not only do you not argue with it, other
Speaker 1: people don't argue with it. So our tendency to follow
Speaker 1: rules can work for us and create this positive inertia
Speaker 1: where we just create a rule, we predecide before we're
Speaker 1: in the moment. My rule is I don't need dessert.
Speaker 1: You don't argue with yourself. You're not negotiating with yourself.
Speaker 1: You predecided before you're in the situation what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: And that negotiation with yourself is super important because that
Speaker 1: negotiation is where you start telling yourself stories. I'll just
Speaker 1: opt out this one time the contract is done, man,
Speaker 1: your friends won't argue with it either. If your rule
Speaker 1: is you don't need dessert, you're not going to eat dessert.
Speaker 1: And so another one of my positive inertia or automatic
Speaker 1: rules that I have is that I work out every day.
Speaker 1: I don't have any days off. I don't take any
Speaker 1: days off. And why because I find it easier to
Speaker 1: work out seven days a week, three hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: five days a year than two days a week or
Speaker 1: three days a week. Because when I work out two
Speaker 1: or three days a week, I don't get the consistency,
Speaker 1: I don't get the inertia going for me. And now
Speaker 1: I start negotiating with myself, I'm not going to work it.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like working out, you can.
Speaker 3: Do it tomorrow instead it three times this week.
Speaker 1: Yes, And that's what I used to tell myself, Like
Speaker 1: these stories were crazy because it's like, I'll do extra tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like it today. Well, if you don't
Speaker 1: feel like it today, you're not going to feel like
Speaker 1: it tomorrow. Yeah, the contract is done. You don't negotiate.
Speaker 1: You create positive inertia around the desired behaviors that you want,
Speaker 1: and then you just stick to the plan.
Speaker 3: One of the things we know about habit creation right
Speaker 3: is that habits tend to need a stable context in
Speaker 3: which to really form. Meaning. If your context is always shifting,
Speaker 3: it's much harder to create an automatic behavior. So, you know,
Speaker 3: I've done a lot of coaching work with people over
Speaker 3: the years on positive habit formation, and what I found
Speaker 3: is those hard and fast rules work in situations where
Speaker 3: life is kind of predictable, But when life is really unpredictable,
Speaker 3: there's a degree of flexibility that is needed in order
Speaker 3: to not fall into all or nothing thinking, make a
Speaker 3: mistake and give up you travel, I imagine a fair
Speaker 3: amount for work. You know, how do you handle traveling
Speaker 3: or if a kid is sick, or I work out
Speaker 3: every day, but there are going to be times where
Speaker 3: something perhaps overtakes that gets in the way. You know,
Speaker 3: a lot of people I know tend to be like, well,
Speaker 3: if I do it perfect, I'll keep doing it. But
Speaker 3: if I don't do it perfect, I'm done. And so
Speaker 3: I'm kind of curious how you think about that in
Speaker 3: your own life.
Speaker 1: So, to borrow a phrase from a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: James Clare, never missed twice yep. And so I think
Speaker 1: you know, the second time you miss is the start
Speaker 1: of a pattern. The first time, I mean, life happens
Speaker 1: right again. It's not about being perfect. If you hold
Speaker 1: yourself to this perfect standard, you're always going to be
Speaker 1: perpetually dissatisfied with yourself. You're never going to be happy.
Speaker 1: It's not about that at all. I mean, rules is
Speaker 1: a catchy phrase, and rules is the great way to
Speaker 1: think about but they're more like principles. And there's a
Speaker 1: saying that a friend of mine has, which is the
Speaker 1: young man knows the rules, the old man knows the exceptions.
Speaker 1: And I think that that is never more resonant than
Speaker 1: it is in these moments, right, Like it's not about
Speaker 1: holding yourself to this impossible standard. It's about adjusting to
Speaker 1: life and positioning yourself where you can adjust to life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you've got a line that I really like that
Speaker 3: I highlighted, which you said, as simple as they seem,
Speaker 3: automatic rules for common situations get results, And I think
Speaker 3: that word right there, The common situation is the thing, right,
Speaker 3: Like we can make rules that apply the vast majority
Speaker 3: of the time to situations that we encounter again and
Speaker 3: again and again. When we're in uncommon situations is when
Speaker 3: we need to have the cognitive flexibility to really say,
Speaker 3: all right, what's the right response?
Speaker 1: What do I do here? You know, there's no element
Speaker 1: of common sense here? Right? If your rules I don't
Speaker 1: need dessert, but you're at your wedding and your partner
Speaker 1: or spouse is like feeding you cake and you say, hey,
Speaker 1: I don't need dessert. Well I don't think that's the
Speaker 1: situation where you're going to apply that. Yeah, you've got
Speaker 1: to be smarter than that.
Speaker 3: Yep, Well it is true though, Like being a recovering
Speaker 3: alcoholic and addict, I often say, there's a beautiful clarity
Speaker 3: to zero.
Speaker 1: Yes, you know, like I'm.
Speaker 3: Not having to debate is it. Okay, what's a special occasion,
Speaker 3: what's not a special occasion? Like for me, it's really
Speaker 3: simple now. Most of life it's hard to get to
Speaker 3: be that crystal clear or simple. But the more often
Speaker 3: the principle holds again, the vast majority of the time,
Speaker 3: the far easier life is.
Speaker 1: It doesn't also have to work forever. Right, It can
Speaker 1: work to change your inertia, to change your behavior, and
Speaker 1: then you can go to more flexibility. Yeah. Right, if
Speaker 1: you work out every day for a year. It doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you have to work out every day for ten years.
Speaker 1: But if you work out every day for a year,
Speaker 1: I guarantee you it's going to change your trajectory.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great way to think about it and
Speaker 3: say it. Because I don't really set exactly how much
Speaker 3: I'm going to work out each week. But I have
Speaker 3: been pretty consistent for about a decade now where I
Speaker 3: am close to every day, and so I don't have
Speaker 3: to sweat it if I miss a day or two,
Speaker 3: because it's an inbuilt pattern, you know. I try and
Speaker 3: move my body in a way every day, the same
Speaker 3: thing with meditation for a long time. It's like, once
Speaker 3: I got very consistent, I didn't have to worry about
Speaker 3: it being exactly every day because again, the momentum was
Speaker 3: moving in the right direction. But again that can change,
Speaker 3: whereas all of a sudden it's like, well, the momentum
Speaker 3: was moving in the right direction. Now the momentum is
Speaker 3: petered off. Now I need to go back to being
Speaker 3: a little bit more firm and clear, and you drive
Speaker 3: the ambiguity out of this, and then as the momentum
Speaker 3: picks back up, I can sort of take my hands
Speaker 3: off the reins a little bit more.
Speaker 1: I think one of the most powerful ways to talk
Speaker 1: to yourself in those moments is I chose not to
Speaker 1: because yes, yes, and circumstances did not force me to. Yes,
Speaker 1: I chose not to because I was at my son
Speaker 1: or daughter's X ray, I was in case capable of
Speaker 1: getting out of bed, I was whatever. I would not
Speaker 1: take that power away from you, because that power is
Speaker 1: what enables you to do the things that you want
Speaker 1: to do, and that power is what enables you to
Speaker 1: not be a victim. And that power gives you control
Speaker 1: over your position, over your actions, or your choices or
Speaker 1: your words. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I often would say to clients, like, you can
Speaker 3: choose not to exercise next week while you're on vacation.
Speaker 3: That is a perfectly fine choice to say, I just
Speaker 3: want to be with my family. I don't want to
Speaker 3: mess with it. Like, you can make that choice, but
Speaker 3: choose it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't tell yourself you couldn't do it because you're
Speaker 1: on vacation. No, you chose not to do it because
Speaker 1: you're on vacation.
Speaker 3: Be conscious about what you're going to do when and
Speaker 3: when you're not doing something. Think about why you're making
Speaker 3: that choice. I'm choosing to do something else because it's
Speaker 3: more important to me right now versus letting the default be.
Speaker 3: I just slid back into an.
Speaker 1: Old pattern totally.
Speaker 3: So you have Ligne in the book that says show
Speaker 3: me your role models and I'll show you your future.
Speaker 3: And you talk a lot about you know, having exemplars
Speaker 3: in life, and I thought we could talk a little
Speaker 3: bit about that. Why that's important, How you go about
Speaker 3: choosing people, what sort of person you do and don't choose,
Speaker 3: you know, how you filter your decisions through those lens.
Speaker 1: Talk to me a little bit about that idea. We're
Speaker 1: all born with exemplars, right, but we don't control them.
Speaker 1: Our parents, our environment, our teachers. We're surrounded by these
Speaker 1: people who create rules around society for us, that demonstrate
Speaker 1: effective or ineffective behaviors, that model how to talk to
Speaker 1: each other. We learn unconsciously all of these things, and
Speaker 1: there comes a point where you become an adult and
Speaker 1: you know, it could be fourteen for some people, it
Speaker 1: could be twenty five for some people. But when you
Speaker 1: take control of your destiny, and the best thing you
Speaker 1: can do when you take control of your destiny, if
Speaker 1: you were unlucky and you didn't have exceptional exemplars in
Speaker 1: your life, which most people don't, is work for somebody exceptional.
Speaker 1: And if you can't work for somebody exceptional. We live
Speaker 1: in this era, this great Internet era, where you can
Speaker 1: go online and you can learn directly from exceptional people
Speaker 1: and whatever your domain, whatever your field, whatever your interest is,
Speaker 1: and those people can model how to behave, and they
Speaker 1: can model how to behave in different situations. And when
Speaker 1: you're reading books, you can create this repository in your head,
Speaker 1: how did this person handle this situation. I don't have
Speaker 1: to figure everything out the first time I've done it.
Speaker 1: I can oh, well, this person did this in this situation,
Speaker 1: and it's not exactly the same, but now I have
Speaker 1: a starting point, so exemplars can give you a starting point.
Speaker 1: And also going back to what we talked about having
Speaker 1: blinders on, if you think like I do, that the
Speaker 1: source of all bad decisions is basically blind spots. We're
Speaker 1: blind to our emotion, our ego and how that's affecting us.
Speaker 1: We're blind to the outcomes. If we can change our perspective,
Speaker 1: we're going to remove some of our blind spots. One
Speaker 1: really effective way to change your perspective is to adapt
Speaker 1: the persona of somebody you admire. If you admire Warren Buffett,
Speaker 1: what would Warren Buffett do in a situation like this,
Speaker 1: and you consciously try to think like that person. You
Speaker 1: want to see the world the way that they see it.
Speaker 1: You want to smell it the way that they smell it,
Speaker 1: and you want to tell yourself what they would do
Speaker 1: and the way that they would do it. Now, that
Speaker 1: is not a judgment that you are going to do
Speaker 1: that or you agree with what they're saying, but it
Speaker 1: gets you out of the blinders that you have on,
Speaker 1: and it gets you to see something else. And your examplers.
Speaker 1: If you think about it the way that I think
Speaker 1: about it, They're always sort of watching you. They're like
Speaker 1: on your shoulder. They are these little invisible figures and
Speaker 1: they follow you around all day and they can hold
Speaker 1: you to this higher standard of behavior, but you're really
Speaker 1: holding yourself to it, and they can make you be
Speaker 1: a better person. They can nudge you to be a
Speaker 1: better person than you otherwise would be.
Speaker 3: It's funny. As you were saying that, I was thinking
Speaker 3: about what a spiritual teacher told me once on a
Speaker 3: lot of training in zen Buddhism, and zen Buddhism is
Speaker 3: somewhat arcane, right, It's strange. Right. You read it and
Speaker 3: you're like, that does not make the slightest bit of sense.
Speaker 3: And I did a lot of co on work, and
Speaker 3: they said, what you want to try and do is
Speaker 3: imagine what state of consciousness someone would have to have
Speaker 3: in order to say what they just said or believe
Speaker 3: what they believe, Like, what would your brain have to be.
Speaker 1: Like yes to do that?
Speaker 3: And it was a useful reference point to be like, Okay,
Speaker 3: that seems like nonsense, but what would my view of
Speaker 3: the world be like if that was actually true?
Speaker 1: So this is incredibly powerful, right, because when you see
Speaker 1: somebody doing something that doesn't make sense to you. It
Speaker 1: doesn't make them crazy or wrong. It means that they
Speaker 1: see the world in a completely different way than you do.
Speaker 1: Because if you saw the world the way that they
Speaker 1: see the world, you would do the exact same thing.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's a really powerful way to
Speaker 1: look at a situation.
Speaker 3: We can all, probably in our given fields of career,
Speaker 3: think of some exemplars. Right where do you turn to
Speaker 3: for exemplars in other aspects of your life about being
Speaker 3: a good person? About you know? And how many of
Speaker 3: your exemplars are people you know versus people you've read about,
Speaker 3: versus a live versus dead. I'm just kind of curious,
Speaker 3: like your makeup of your you call them your own
Speaker 3: border directors, Like, yeah, you know, the makeup of your
Speaker 3: boarder directors, how many of them are career people versus
Speaker 3: moral people, living dead, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So I got this idea from Jim Collins, who wrote
Speaker 1: Good to Create and Jim's become you know, very impactful
Speaker 1: in my life in some ways. And this concept he
Speaker 1: has of a personal board of directors where you can
Speaker 1: have these people that you report to in your head.
Speaker 1: It's like an imaginary conversation. I feel crazy even talking
Speaker 1: about it, but it's super effective for changing behavior. So
Speaker 1: you pick a board of directors and you sort of
Speaker 1: like you can get advice from all of these people.
Speaker 1: You don't have to know them, they don't even have
Speaker 1: to be alive. Some of them you can talk to,
Speaker 1: some of them you can't. And those people help you
Speaker 1: with various aspects of your life, and some can be
Speaker 1: parenting role models. We all have a friend group and
Speaker 1: there's probably one parent that you sort of like think, oh, man,
Speaker 1: I wish I was that good of a parent. Maybe
Speaker 1: that person could be on your board of directors. And
Speaker 1: they don't have to be there permanently. There's no like voting,
Speaker 1: there's no like year long requirement. They can come and go.
Speaker 1: You can try them out and be like, Eh, that's
Speaker 1: not really a fit for me. But what you're really
Speaker 1: doing is you're giving yourself a check and balance. You're
Speaker 1: trying to live up to the expectations of these people
Speaker 1: who are going to hold you to a higher standard.
Speaker 1: And if you look through history, where do we tend
Speaker 1: to learn the most right all of our history, whether
Speaker 1: it's us going through life, whether it's an athlete being challenged.
Speaker 1: It's all challenge. It's that teacher in school who held
Speaker 1: you to a higher standard, who came up to you
Speaker 1: and said, Eric, this is not good enough. You can
Speaker 1: do better. Yeah, and that standard right, because you can't
Speaker 1: get away with being half a you can't get away
Speaker 1: with being lazy. Well, now all of a sudden you
Speaker 1: start doing the work, and by raising the bar, you
Speaker 1: do a lot better work. But we can raise the
Speaker 1: bar for ourselves. We don't need anybody to tell us
Speaker 1: we can do better. We can hold ourselves to a
Speaker 1: higher standard. I find the Personal Board of Directors really
Speaker 1: helpful for holding me to a higher standard. Doesn't mean
Speaker 1: I'm always perfect, doesn't mean I don't make mistakes just
Speaker 1: like everybody else, but it does give me this element
Speaker 1: of accountability to it where I have these conversations in
Speaker 1: my head sometimes about like, you know, I'm in a
Speaker 1: store somebody does something that I don't like, or I'm
Speaker 1: on an airplane and you know that person beside you
Speaker 1: just irritates you, and I'm like, what would this person
Speaker 1: do right now? And I have a good friend and
Speaker 1: I just picture him. What would I'm not going to
Speaker 1: say his name, but what would he do right now?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, you just let it go, And then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, it's really empowering because it's not
Speaker 1: me letting it go, Like I'm actually the one letting
Speaker 1: it go. But the story I'm telling myself is that
Speaker 1: he would let it go. I want to be like him,
Speaker 1: so therefore I'm going to let it go. But I'm
Speaker 1: not consciously sort of like, oh, I'm just gonna let
Speaker 1: this go because that would be a really hard decision
Speaker 1: to come to you. But if you do it through
Speaker 1: this other person, I find it's actually easier to do
Speaker 1: these little moments in life where I'm like, oh, he
Speaker 1: would just let it go. You know, same thing you
Speaker 1: would tell somebody else if they told you that story.
Speaker 1: But when you're in the story, you're like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: really hard to do.
Speaker 3: Totally yep, yep. Well, Shane, thank you so much. It's
Speaker 3: an excellent book. I've really really enjoyed this conversation. We'll
Speaker 3: have links in the show notes to where people can
Speaker 3: find your website, where they can get your book and
Speaker 3: all things related to you. So thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Awesome, Thanks Eric, I really appreciate it.
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