WEBVTT - Try tiny experiments, with Anne-Laure Le Cunff 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:09.240 Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning. 0:00:10.160 --> 0:00:15.040 This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:17.439 episode is going to be a longer one part of 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:20.360 the series where I interview fascinating people about how they 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:23.360 take their days from great to awesome and any advice 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:26.480 they have for the rest of us. Today, I am 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:30.000 delighted to welcome and Laura Lecomfe to the program. She 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:33.920 is the author of the brand new book Tiny Experiments. 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:36.200 So and Laura, welcome to the show. 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:38.319 Thank you so much for having me. 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:41.199 Yeah, excited to have you here. So please tell our 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:43.080 listeners a little bit about yourself. 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:47.040 I'm a ner scientist at King's College, London, and I 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:50.839 also write a weekly newsletter called nest Labs, which is 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:54.960 all about how to explore your ambitions without sacrificing your 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:56.800 mental health. Yeah. 0:00:56.840 --> 0:01:01.880 And the ness part is that maybe you can explain 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:02.520 that a little bit. 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:06.520 Yeah, absolutely so. Ness is the suffix that you add 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:09.000 at the end of a word to describe the state 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:13.800 of being something. So consciousness, the state of being conscious, mindfulness, 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:17.720 awareness and Labs was because I wanted to create a 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:20.760 little laboratory for myself to explore these ideas. 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:25.200 Yeah, and your new book is all about tiny experiments, 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:27.800 So what are these tiny experiments? 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:34.280 Tiny experiments are all about replacing the linear definition of success, 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:36.880 where you have a fixed goal and then you work 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:39.880 really really hard to get there, sometimes at the expense 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:44.080 of your mental health, with tiny experiments where you don't 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:46.880 start from a clear vision of where you need to go, 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:51.280 but you start instead with curiosity, a hypothesis, a little question, 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:54.280 and then you start exploring and in that process you 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:57.280 learn more about yourself and your work and the world. 0:01:57.560 --> 0:01:59.520 And go from there. Yeah, we talk a lot about 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:02.840 in this post podcast about how to iterate in life 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:05.960 and try different things, so hoping you can give us 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:09.079 some practical tips for how we might do that better. 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:11.400 And one of the things you talk about doing to 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:14.320 start all this as you're figuring out what little tiny 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:16.600 experiments to do in your life is a bit of 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:21.440 self anthropology. So let's talk about self anthropology and what 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:24.400 it might mean to be doing field notes on yourself. 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:29.799 So think about what an anthropologist does as their job. Right, 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:32.799 they go and they study a new culture that sometimes 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:35.440 they know nothing about. So they go there and they 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:38.639 take the little notebook their field notes and they try 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:41.880 to capture all of their observations and they ask questions 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:44.480 like why do people care about this? And why do 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:47.560 they do things in this specific way? And why is 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:50.160 this so important in their culture? So you can do 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:53.400 the same thing. And that's what I call self anthropology. 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:56.680 It's being an anthropologist with your own life as the 0:02:56.720 --> 0:02:59.480 topic of study, and you look at your life as 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:01.600 if you knew nothing about it. It's your first time, 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:04.760 you're completely new to this culture. And for twenty four 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:06.800 hours you can take little notes. You can do that 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:09.919 on your phone or in a notebook, and you ask 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:12.560 the same kind of questions, why do I care so 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:15.560 much about this? And why do I have this routine? 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:18.720 Why is this a priority for me? Why is this 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:21.680 something that I think a lot all the time? And 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.240 you take those little notes. And what's amazing with this 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:27.760 exercise that I've done with hundreds of people is that 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:31.760 all of them say I had not realized how many 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:34.519 decisions I was making on an everyday basis that were 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:37.520 automatic that I never questioned. It just seemed obvious to me. 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:40.640 I'm very curious when you first did this to yourself, 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:43.160 was there anything surprising to you that came out of 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:44.280 this self anthropology. 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:48.400 Oh absolutely. I thought, for example, that I was a 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:51.120 knight ol. I had thought that for a very very 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:53.880 long time. But then when I started paying attention to 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:56.680 my energy levels throughout the day, I realized that actually 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:59.080 I had a lot more energy in the morning. And 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:02.040 so based on that, I started readjusting a little bit 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:04.520 my bedtime so I could make the most of that 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:05.560 energy in the morning. 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:08.760 Awesome, Well, and a podcast called Before Breakfast. We're gonna 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.080 be sure to talk about your morning energy later in 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:15.320 this show. But one of the parts, you know, anyone 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:17.400 who's been in science class, even if it's been a 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:22.320 few decades, you know you're supposed to have a hypothesis 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:27.800 as part of an experiment. So what exactly is a hypothesis? 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:30.159 And maybe you can talk a little bit about what 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:32.520 it means to come up with ideas that are actually testable. 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:36.600 Yes, So a hypothesis when it comes to personal experimentation 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.440 is really about starting with this magic word that I 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:43.360 really really love, which is maybe maybe if I did this, 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:46.440 I would feel this way. So maybe if I went 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:48.520 to bed a little bit early earlier in the in 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:51.279 the evening, I would feel better in the morning. Maybe 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:54.120 if I woked more, that would give me more energy. 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:58.039 Maybe if I went to more meetups, even though I 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:02.040 feel a little bit introverted, I would meet interesting people 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:03.560 and that would be a good thing for me in 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:07.599 my life. So maybe maybe maybe that's a hypothesis. And 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:10.680 it doesn't necessarily be to be need to be testable 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:14.600 in the scientific lab like kind of way when it's 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.479 your personal and professional life we're talking about, But it 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:20.120 just needs to be something you can try for a 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.120 specific duration and then you can look back on and 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:26.320 see if that hypothesis was correct or not very cool. 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:28.520 Well, when we come back from our first ad break, 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:31.200 we'll talk a little bit more about what those, you know, 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:33.880 experiments for a certain length of time might look like. 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:43.479 So I am back with Anne Laura Lacombe, who is 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:46.360 the author of the brand new book Tiny Experiments. We've 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:48.480 been talking about what it would mean to do a 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:51.920 tiny experiment and come up with a hypothesis about. 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:52.480 Your own life. 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:56.600 So one of the things you suggest is making packs 0:05:57.360 --> 0:06:00.560 packs with yourself pacts. I guess how you spell that. 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:02.440 Everyone's like, what wait, what did she just say? 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:05.560 And that takes the form generally I will do X 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:09.280 for why amount of time, So maybe you could give 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:12.120 some examples of that and talk about why this is 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:15.279 a wise way to approach your experiments. 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:19.600 So Tanny experiments are inspired by the scientific method, and 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:23.039 you have two very important components. When you design an experiment, 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.279 it's deciding what the test is going to be, what 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:28.360 the action is going to be, and then how many 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:32.200 trials and scientists decide that in advance, right, they don't 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:34.200 stop in the middle or feel like that's not going 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:36.279 where I wanted to go. They say, I'm going to 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:38.760 conduct this experiment for this period of time, and I'm 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:41.680 going to withhold judgment and I'm only going to analyze 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:44.200 the data at the end. And so a pact is 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:48.720 really just a mini protocol to design your own experiments. 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:51.240 And the way it looks like is, as you said, 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:54.039 you decide on an action and a duration. So that 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:56.839 could be like I'm going to go for a twenty 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:59.640 minute work every day for twenty days. That's a pact. 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:04.120 It's a commitment to conduct this experiment. I'm going to 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:07.520 reach out to a new person on LinkedIn every Monday 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:10.320 and tell them that I want to talk about their work, 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:13.240 and I'm going to do that for three weeks. That's 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:15.720 a pact. You have the action and you have the duration, 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:18.720 and you can use that for literally any area of 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:20.600 your life. That's what's amazing is that you can do 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:24.440 that to explore different ways to be productive, to be creative. 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:26.960 You can use that for your relationships. I've seen people 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:29.960 who said, I'm going to make the pact that for 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:32.800 the next four weeks, I'm going to organize a date 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:35.560 for me and my partner on Friday every evening for 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:37.960 the next four weeks, and when we're done, we're going 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:39.760 to see if we liked it or not. So that's 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:40.640 the idea behind the. 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:43.240 Pact, And how can we come up with the right 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:47.640 amount of time for a pack to be useful, like 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:50.400 you could have some actual useful data, but maybe not 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:53.080 feel quite so overwhelming like I'm doing this for the 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:53.920 rest of my life. 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.680 I love that you're asking this question because I talk 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:00.920 about the maximalist brain in the book, and it's our 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:03.320 tendency to always want to go for the bigger, most 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:07.240 ambitious version of something. So whenever you design a pact, 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:11.120 try to think small, tiny experiments. That's what you want 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:13.480 to go for. But obviously you need to be long 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:15.720 enough that you have enough data to know if it 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:19.720 worked or not. So first think about the pact itself. 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:22.440 What is it. If it's a daily action like going 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:24.400 to bed at the same time, or going for a 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:28.280 daily walk or stretching every morning, maybe two weeks is enough. 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:30.960 You'll have enough data after you've had those fourteen to 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:34.760 fifteen repetitions. If you say, actually, I'm going to start 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:38.200 a newsletter and I want to write a weekly article 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:41.080 that I'm going to post online, well, obviously one week 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:43.080 is not going to be enough for this, so maybe 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:45.600 you do it for one month or for six weeks. 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:49.080 And in doubt, it is very likely that someone else 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:52.280 has run a similar experiment in the past, so you 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:54.360 can even use that as a way to connect with 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:56.600 other people. You can reach out to people and say, hey, 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:59.200 I see that you've been writing online for a while, 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:02.160 or that you've been going for daily runs for a while. 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:05.080 I'm going to start this experiment and I wanted to 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:06.920 ask you how long do you think I should go 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:09.160 for it? Like when did you know that it worked 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:11.040 or it didn't for you? And then you use that 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:13.079 for your experiment. So when you. 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:15.320 Started ness Labs, I think you had a pact going 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:18.120 to do it for maybe one hundred newsletters. 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:18.800 Is that what that was? 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:19.800 How did you come up with that? 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:24.320 It was a hundred articles for every day or one 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:28.439 hundred weekdays. And I came up with that at the 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:31.240 time because I actually felt a little bit lost. I 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:34.600 didn't really know where to focus my creativity and my attention. 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:37.720 It just felt like an interesting experiment, and for me, 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.480 the inspiration came from the fact that I had always 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:43.720 loved writing in the past, but didn't really have a 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:46.680 lot of space for it. And also when I restarted 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:48.880 my studies and went back to university to study in 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:53.440 your science, I discovered this very neat psychological phenomenon called 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:56.920 the generation effect, which shows that by creating your own 0:09:57.040 --> 0:09:59.520 version of something, you're going to both understand it and 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:01.960 remember it better. And I felt like, oh, this is 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:05.120 really great. So I'm going to take something every day 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:07.800 that I study at university and I'm going to write 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:10.880 a newsletter about it, and that's going to be my 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:13.440 pact for the next one hundred weekdays. 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:15.360 Do you have any packs going right now? 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:19.760 It's really funny because my current pact was to work 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:23.320 for twenty minutes every day for twenty days, and I 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:26.000 actually this morning decided to not go for a walk 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:29.160 because my back hurts a lot. And that's the interesting 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:31.560 thing too about a pact is that because it's not 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:34.480 a goal, it's completely okay. If there are days where 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:37.120 you can't do it. You just make a note. That's data, 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:40.199 and that's interesting for you. So in my case, maybe 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:42.320 it means I've been pushing myself a little bit too 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:44.400 hard the past couple of weeks and I need a 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:46.839 little break, and so I'm making a note of this. 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:49.800 But there's no sense of failure of the fact that 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:53.479 I didn't do my walk today because I'm just experimenting. 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:55.199 I'm just collecting data. 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:57.000 Yeah, well with that, I mean, I think you said 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:00.520 earlier we kind of want to both hold judgment the end, right, 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:02.760 we want to see how this pack plays out, how 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:03.600 our experiment goes. 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:05.240 We'll run the experiment, see what comes of it. 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:06.640 But it sounds like we. 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:08.960 Are tweaking in the middle too, right that you know, 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:13.200 we are sort of analyzing what's happening, like, oh, yeah, well, 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:14.880 maybe if I walk every day or do all this 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:17.560 other stuff, my back starts to hurt, I can deal 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:20.320 with that or you know, maybe you aim to go 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:23.319 out with your partner every Friday night and you realize 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:26.360 that you're both just so incredibly tired. By the second Friday, 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:28.600 You're just like, it's you're in a bad mood. I mean, 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:33.559 should we analyze and decide to tweak in the middle. 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.040 So ideally what you want to do is just collect 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:39.520 the data. So in the case that the example that 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:41.920 you gave, you make a note you say, actually, that 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:44.160 Friday night, we didn't do it because we were feeling 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:47.520 too tired. But you don't necessarily make a judgment about 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:50.720 the entire pact at this stage. It's at the end 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:52.960 where you look back and you say, okay, So, out 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:55.920 of six dates we had planned for this pact, we 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:58.760 ended up going on four of them and we missed too. 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:02.480 One of them was of external circumstances, something happened, couldn't 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:04.720 do it. Another one was because we were too tired. 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:07.880 How do we feel about the remaining four ones? Actually 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:11.040 we felt really really good. So maybe for the next 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:14.520 iteration we say every two weeks instead of every week, 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:17.000 because every week was maybe a little bit too ambitious here, 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:20.400 And so it's really about waiting until you have collected 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:22.760 all of the data about the pact, so you can 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:24.640 look back and decide what you want to do. If 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:26.760 you want to keep going, if you want to pivot 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:29.079 and redesign it in a way that makes more sense, 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:32.520 or if you hated it, which is completely fine you 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:35.000 just stop. But now you know because it's based on 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:35.920 your own experience. 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:38.880 Yeah, well, what are some questions we should be asking 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:41.440 at the end of it? I mean to figure out 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:44.559 did anything come of this? Am I happy with it? 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:46.360 Did it result in what I wanted? I mean, what 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:47.720 should we be asking ourselves? 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:51.040 What's really important at the end of an experiment is 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:54.480 to consider both external and internal factors, and a lot 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:57.040 of us are more comfortable with one or the other. 0:12:57.480 --> 0:12:59.800 Some people they will just want to open a spreace 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:02.720 and look at the data, and other people they will 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:06.320 maybe be more comfortable asking about how they feel. It's very, 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:09.720 very important to look at both. If an experiment is 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:12.760 successful on the outside but make you feel miserable while 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:15.040 you were conducting it, you probably don't want to keep going. 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:19.360 So the questions to ask yourself are externally speaking. If 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:22.040 I just look at metrics of success, So if you 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:24.160 were writing a news that or having you subscribers and 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:26.400 likes and comments, do people open it and read it? 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:30.720 And then internally speaking, how do I feel? Did I 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:33.800 actually enjoy writing this? Did I like it? Did it 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:37.840 bring me joy? And only when you consider both internal 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:40.439 and external signals you can decide whether you want to 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:42.000 keep going or maybe tweak it. 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:44.800 Excellent. Well, we're going to take one more quick ad 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:46.520 break and then we will be back with more on 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:51.199 Tiny Experiments. 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:55.520 Well, I am. 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:57.880 Back with an Laura Leconte, who is the author of 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:01.120 Tiny Experiments. We've been learning about all sorts of different packs. 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:05.760 We can have ourselves at pacts. Try doing this for 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:07.960 one hundred days, see what comes of it, See if 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:10.760 we enjoyed it, how it felt. So one of the 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:12.720 things you talk about in your book is, you know, 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:15.760 creating your community, finding your tribe of people as you're 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:19.040 doing these experiments. So maybe you can talk about what 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:21.560 is the upside of doing that. And then also these 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:25.440 sort of three levels of involvement one might have with 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:29.080 an online with a community, you know, being the apprentice, 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:30.720 the artisan, the architect. 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:34.960 Absolutely, I talk a lot about learning in public in 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:37.600 the book. I think it's extremely important. There may be 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:40.280 the temptation to wait until you feel like you're ready 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.000 you're the expert to start sharing your knowledge, But you 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:46.680 will actually learn better and faster if you start sharing 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:49.320 your journey from the very beginning. And if you say 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:52.600 that's what I'm experimenting with, I'm sharing it with the world. 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:56.720 Does anyone want to follow me and also help me? Maybe? 0:14:57.160 --> 0:15:00.320 So learning in public is extremely important, and and there 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:03.320 are different levels of engagement. Some people might feel a 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:05.640 little bit scared of learning in public because they feel 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:07.720 like it means I have to start a community and 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:09.480 I have to do all of this, but you can 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:13.560 start quite small, actually, So what I call the apprentice 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:16.520 is really just paying a little bit more attention to 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:19.080 the way you create your network, the people you connect 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:21.840 with and who you want to learn from. And that's 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:24.560 also something we rarely make time for. So just doing 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:27.240 that already is going to allow you to learn from 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:30.160 other people in a better way. The artisan is when 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:33.440 you start creating your experience at a higher level. So 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:37.520 maybe you start actually contributing to those communities and you 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:40.840 start posting sharing saying I'm actually happy to co host 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:43.400 this event with someone, and just being a little bit 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:47.000 more active in those communities. The architect is when you're 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:51.360 finally ready to launch your own community and to actually 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:53.760 decide who's going to join, what the experience is going 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.240 to look like, and really being more of a leader 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:57.840 when it comes to learning in public. 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:01.920 Yeah, And I think people are often a little bit 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:04.800 wary of this learning in public because I don't know, 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:07.360 I guess they think they might be might do something embarrassing, 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:10.480 which which is entirely possible. Is there a way to 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:12.280 kind of psych ourselves up for that? 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.560 Oh? Absolutely. I have sent newsletters with things and them 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.160 that were actually wrong, and I had people reply and 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:21.600 tell me, you know, actually there's new research that came 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:23.680 out and that shows that what you wrote is not correct. 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:27.280 And once you managed to move past the embarrassment, you 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:31.080 realize that it's actually amazing that you got to share 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:34.600 that information in public. Someone corrected you, and now you know, 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:38.160 instead of walking around your entire life thinking that this 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:41.840 information was correct. So it is really not about getting 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:44.200 rid of the embarrassment that you might feel. This is 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:49.760 a very normal human reaction. It's more about rewiring your response. 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:52.720 How do you deal with the embarrassment And once you 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:55.800 manage to look at it as a sign that you're 0:16:55.840 --> 0:17:01.680 growing and learning. You almost welcome these moments where go like, oops, 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:03.800 I actually did not know that, but now I know. 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:07.720 Yeah, wonderful. Well, I want to pivot more to your 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:11.199 own experience. You mentioned earlier in the show that you 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:13.879 had thought you were a night owl. You analyzed your 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:16.119 energy found you had more energy in the morning than 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:18.720 you were aware of. I'm curious how you spend your 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:19.879 mornings these days. 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:23.760 I always start with journaling. This is my most important 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:27.000 ritual and I always try to do this before I 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:30.600 open my computer or do anything else. Cup of coffee, journaling, 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:34.760 a little bit of stretching, and then I get into 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:37.879 work and I try to do as much as possible 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:41.160 to kind of work where that's creative, where I can 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:44.400 be focused the research, the writing, and then I keep 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:45.920 my meetings for the afternoon. 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:49.679 When you're journaling, is there something specific a format to it, 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:50.920 or it's whatever is in your head. 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:55.440 I have two ways of journaling. My daily morning journaling 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:59.720 is very free flow, writing whatever comes up, and I 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:03.520 often start with today I feel dot dot dot, and 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:06.359 usually starting with this thread, I do end up finding 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:08.440 a lot of interesting things that are on my mind. 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:11.520 And then every week I use plus minus next, which 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:14.800 is a very simple method to review your week that's 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:17.919 a little bit more structured, shorter, and where I have 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:21.040 three columns. The first one plus is for everything that 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:24.719 went well that week, the second column minus for everything 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:27.760 that didn't go so well or when was unexpected, and 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:31.199 the last column with a little arrow next is anything 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:32.840 I want to focus on next or I want to 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:36.280 experiment with during the following week. So those are my 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:38.720 two ways of journaling and reflecting throughout the week. 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:41.520 Yeah, and you mentioned that you try to do your 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:44.280 creative work in the morning and you're more focused work, 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.479 then move your meetings to the afternoon. I wonder if 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:49.679 you have any other sort of productivity tips that have 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:52.040 been helpful for you as you try to get everything 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:53.760 done in your life. 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:57.320 So for me, it's really about taking little breaks in 0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:01.600 between everything, and not just a break in go and 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:05.000 take your phone and scroll on something, or but really 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:08.200 a conscious break where I pay attention to how I'm 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:10.879 feeling in the moment. And then that might mean that 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:14.080 I will take literally five minutes to walk outside the 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:18.120 house and just be in the sun being outside before 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:20.400 I go into my next meeting. Maybe sometimes it means 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:24.000 having a glass of water, a little stretch, But I 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:27.359 try to avoid looking up from my computer at the 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:30.000 end of the day and having no idea as to 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:33.000 how I'm feeling, so really just staying in touch with 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:34.920 those signals awesome. 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:37.320 Well, that probably answers my next question. I always ask 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:39.760 people if there's something they've done recently to take a 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:42.400 day from great to awesome, But it sounds like being 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:45.440 aware of those signals is a good one. 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:48.120 Are there any things you're looking forward to right now? 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:51.680 So after the book comes out, I'm going to take 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:54.040 a little break for a few weeks. I'm going to 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:56.600 spend a lot of time with my parents, and I'm 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:59.000