Speaker 1: I really can't trust my brain to give me the
Speaker 1: right answer to how much progress have I made?
Speaker 2: And is it worth the effort that I've invested.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 3: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 3: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 3: think ring true, and yet for many of us, our
Speaker 3: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 3: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 3: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 3: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 3: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 3: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 3: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 3: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.
Speaker 4: Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is
Speaker 4: Emily balcettis and associate professor of psychology at New York University.
Speaker 4: She's the author of more than seventy scientific publications, and
Speaker 4: her work has been covered in Forbes, newsweek Time, National
Speaker 4: Public Radio, Cosmopolitan, GQ, and many others. She's also received
Speaker 4: numerous awards for her work. Today, Emily and Eric discuss
Speaker 4: her new book, Clearer, Closer Better, How Successful People See
Speaker 4: the World.
Speaker 5: Hi, Emily, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Hi, great to be here.
Speaker 5: We are going to talk about your book that's called Clearer,
Speaker 5: Closer Better, How Successful People See the World. But before
Speaker 5: we do that, let's start like we always do, with
Speaker 5: the Parable. And in the Parable, there is a grandmother
Speaker 5: who's talking with her grandson and she says, in love,
Speaker 5: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 5: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 5: like kindness, bravery, and love, and there's a bad wolf,
Speaker 5: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 5: the grandson stops and thinks about it for a second.
Speaker 5: He looks up at his grandmother and he says, well, grandmother,
Speaker 5: which one wins? And the grandmother says, the one you feed.
Speaker 5: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 5: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 5: the work that you do.
Speaker 1: I think you know that parable conveys the real power
Speaker 1: that we as people have to shape what our experience
Speaker 1: on it every day, every year, every life scale or
Speaker 1: timeframe that where we invest our energy is a lot
Speaker 1: driven by us, and then we can see.
Speaker 2: The fruits of those labors.
Speaker 1: But as a psychologist, I also recognize that, you know,
Speaker 1: besides having choice about what we feed, about where we
Speaker 1: spend our time, what we focus on, that our brain
Speaker 1: also has a default, and that is to prioritiz ties
Speaker 1: or give more weight to the negative experiences that.
Speaker 2: Those loom larger in our mind.
Speaker 1: Even if we don't feel like we're a ruminator or
Speaker 1: have depressive ideologies, our brain sort of does. Our brain
Speaker 1: goes there and we hold on to those feelings. So
Speaker 1: as we're thinking about what we feed, we need to
Speaker 1: also be cognizant of the fact that it might take
Speaker 1: more effort or investment to feed the good and to
Speaker 1: cultivate into nurture that wolf in our personality, and it
Speaker 1: might take more work, and it doesn't mean that it's
Speaker 1: unsuccessful or that there's something wrong with us.
Speaker 2: That's just the way our brains work.
Speaker 5: I love that framing of it, and it's sort of
Speaker 5: the idea of knowing the inclination of our brain and
Speaker 5: not everybody's is the same. But as you say, most
Speaker 5: people are going to have a negative inclination. But this
Speaker 5: applies to anything. Knowing the inclination, the direction we tend
Speaker 5: to go does give us some sense of what way
Speaker 5: we need to correct for sort of more bit exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you are interested in talking about evolutionary pressures,
Speaker 1: you know it's important for us to find food, find opportunity,
Speaker 1: find love, find safety, and those are pressing concerns. But
Speaker 1: some might argue that it's even more pressing that we
Speaker 1: keep ourselves safe.
Speaker 2: If we miss seeing.
Speaker 1: The tiger that's coming at us back in Caveman cave
Speaker 1: Lady days, you know, death was probably imminent. We might argue,
Speaker 1: like evolutionarily speaking, that our attention to, our focus on
Speaker 1: and our concern for things that might cause us harm
Speaker 1: or mistakes that we've made in the past, so that
Speaker 1: we can avoid making them in the future to keep
Speaker 1: ourselves safe. That might be the basis for what we're
Speaker 1: calling this negativity dominance. That doesn't mean that we are
Speaker 1: depressed or that we have clinical symptoms. It might just
Speaker 1: sort of be a hold over from what requires more attention.
Speaker 1: But also that doesn't mean that that's a limitation or
Speaker 1: that that's just how it needs to be.
Speaker 2: It's just something we need to be aware of so
Speaker 2: that we can.
Speaker 1: Focus our efforts on cultivating and feeding the positive and
Speaker 1: light of what might have been these pressures that we've
Speaker 1: experienced in the past.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love the way you say that.
Speaker 5: It is one of the things I like about the parable,
Speaker 5: beyond its obvious implications of choice, is it says everybody
Speaker 5: has this in them, which I think normalizes sort of
Speaker 5: what you're saying the fact, like, yeah, of course you've
Speaker 5: got some of these quote unquote negative tendencies, right, Yeah,
Speaker 5: they're there, welcome to the human race, right exactly. So
Speaker 5: let's move in and talk about your book, which really
Speaker 5: talks about the way we see the world has a
Speaker 5: lot to do with how successfully we navigate it. And
Speaker 5: in the book you frame this entire discussion up in
Speaker 5: a way that I, as a musician, love, which is
Speaker 5: about you learning to play the drums. So maybe first
Speaker 5: to share a little bit about why you wanted to
Speaker 5: learn to play the drums. Share a little bit about that,
Speaker 5: and then I think it'll help us as we put
Speaker 5: each of your four strategies into context. We can put
Speaker 5: them in context around that at least as starting point.
Speaker 1: Sure, you know, I think a lot of people can
Speaker 1: resonate with this. At maybe some point in their life
Speaker 1: they thought, you know what, I want to be a
Speaker 1: rock star, Like that looks like a really great life.
Speaker 1: And I went through that phase as well. I went
Speaker 1: through that phase when I was in my late teen years.
Speaker 1: I was playing in a band. It was a cover band.
Speaker 1: It was loads of fun. We had the opportunity to
Speaker 1: play with a group that was coming through that actually
Speaker 1: was quite successful, and we played this show for fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand people at this outdoor, you.
Speaker 2: Know, rock venue. It was amazing, It was really exciting.
Speaker 1: But that at eighteen years old, was the peak of
Speaker 1: my rock star career and it was all downhill.
Speaker 2: After that, which is probably good. You know.
Speaker 1: I don't think my stomach could have tolerated the drugs,
Speaker 1: and like certainly my body wouldn't have put up with
Speaker 1: all of the late nights, So it's probably healthier that
Speaker 1: I peaked at eighteen.
Speaker 2: But I loved it. I have always been involved in music.
Speaker 1: That's all part of our family, that's part you know,
Speaker 1: my growing up, and in fact, that's what I went
Speaker 1: to study in college, was to study music performance.
Speaker 2: So that has always been a love of mine.
Speaker 1: My career is as a basic experimental motivation scientist. I
Speaker 1: do behavioral research trying to understand the reasons that people
Speaker 1: do what they do and think what they think, and
Speaker 1: how can we help take advantage of opportunities to help
Speaker 1: them have and shape the kind of life that they want.
Speaker 1: So when I found myself at a point in life
Speaker 1: where life was really changing for me, I had the
Speaker 1: opportunity to write this book the very.
Speaker 2: Same month that my first son was born.
Speaker 1: I just felt like, here's all these incredible opportunities to
Speaker 1: try on something new, but I'm losing myself in this.
Speaker 1: Becoming a new mother, you know, really took away what
Speaker 1: I thought had been cool.
Speaker 2: About me in the past.
Speaker 1: That people were coming to visit and saying, Oh, let
Speaker 1: to meet this new baby.
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 1: And all I had to talk about was like, you know,
Speaker 1: diapers and formula and what happened to me.
Speaker 2: I used to be interesting. I wanted to be a
Speaker 2: rock star. Where did that go?
Speaker 1: So I was conscientiously at that point in my life
Speaker 1: trying to choose carve out more time for myself and
Speaker 1: to bring back what I felt like was a really
Speaker 1: important part of who I was. I needed that artistics.
Speaker 1: I had to come through, I needed some more time
Speaker 1: for myself, so I decided to become a drummer. I
Speaker 1: had played saxophone and flute piano, so drums was still
Speaker 1: an instrument, but definitely a different skill set than I
Speaker 1: had tackled before. And so it was a challenge that
Speaker 1: I was excited to take on. Plus, being able to
Speaker 1: play drums is cool, well at least I think so.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And the world needs more drummers. It does not
Speaker 5: need more guitar players like me. There's plenty of us.
Speaker 5: There are not enough drummers.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, even if I had gotten there, they
Speaker 1: wouldn't the world wouldn't have benefited from my drumming skills. Again,
Speaker 1: this is like a personal conquest that I wanted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, so that's what I took on. You know,
Speaker 2: my son is a month old.
Speaker 1: We lived in a one bedroom apartment in New York
Speaker 1: City that's smaller than most people's garages. And that's when
Speaker 1: I thought, like, you know what, we need to bring
Speaker 1: drums into this situation. That's what's going to help our
Speaker 1: life right now. So, you know, maybe an ill placed goal,
Speaker 1: but one that I took on. And the book as
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about is all about strategies that
Speaker 1: people can use to manage the obstacles that they face
Speaker 1: when they're trying to meet their goals. So I became
Speaker 1: well aware of what those challenges are when you're taking
Speaker 1: on a new goal, something that's personally important, but on
Speaker 1: top of an already busy, full life with multiple responsibilities
Speaker 1: to manage. So the story really is about me trying
Speaker 1: to apply these tactics that behavioral science that I am
Speaker 1: conducting and that others are doing.
Speaker 2: Would say, would work, should work? Try this?
Speaker 1: And I tested it out myself as I was trying
Speaker 1: to take on this personal goal of becoming a one
Speaker 1: hit wonder, learning one song on drums well enough that
Speaker 1: it could play it publicly and not embarrass myself.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you and I were talking before we started about
Speaker 5: how sort of different our pursuit of an instrument is.
Speaker 5: Like you were like, I'm going to play this one
Speaker 5: song and you got it exactly right, and I'm more
Speaker 5: of a eh, you know, good enough kind of guy.
Speaker 5: You know. The reason that is is when I started,
Speaker 5: all I wanted to do was write songs. And in
Speaker 5: order to write a song, all I needed to do
Speaker 5: was learn enough of what was happening in this other
Speaker 5: song that I could then take it and incorporate. So
Speaker 5: it built this habit. And more recently I've been trying
Speaker 5: to sort of do a little bit more of what
Speaker 5: you do, which is sort of pushed through to try
Speaker 5: and you know, can I get it really right? Anyways,
Speaker 5: let's now turn towards your four strategies that you really
Speaker 5: outline in the book. Maybe we'll start by just listing
Speaker 5: what the four of them are and then we'll walk
Speaker 5: through them each in more depth.
Speaker 4: Does that work?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Sure?
Speaker 1: Number one materializing taking something that's abstract, maybe just in
Speaker 1: your mind, and making it visual, concrete and right in
Speaker 1: front of you. A second one is narrow frame, so
Speaker 1: narrowing our focus of attention, trying to keep out the
Speaker 1: distractions void, what's in our peripheral vision. And in contrast
Speaker 1: to that, then there's the wide bracket, when do we
Speaker 1: need to assume a more expansive focus of attention. They
Speaker 1: seem like they might be in opposition to one another,
Speaker 1: but again they're just.
Speaker 2: Like two tools in a toolbox.
Speaker 1: Yes they might work in different ways, but you need
Speaker 1: a different tool for each aspect of the job.
Speaker 5: And framing.
Speaker 2: And number four. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm still stuck on my drumming. I'm pulling
Speaker 1: up my drumming story. Framing taking advantage of the fact
Speaker 1: that we can direct our eyes in one way or another,
Speaker 1: and what we point our eyes at frames up a
Speaker 1: different element of our environment, and that is a really
Speaker 1: powerful tool as well, because what we see predicts what
Speaker 1: we do.
Speaker 5: One of the things I loved about the book I
Speaker 5: love these four tools. I also love how you sort
Speaker 5: of emphasize, you know, we've got studies that show these
Speaker 5: tools work, and these tools are situation. They're going to
Speaker 5: depend on your situation. They're going to depend on who
Speaker 5: you are. Sometimes you might need one of them, sometimes
Speaker 5: you might need another. But you're sort of doing away
Speaker 5: with that over simplicity of like, here's three simple hacks
Speaker 5: to crush your life, right, Like, that's not what you've
Speaker 5: got here exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean, the metaphor of that toolbox is one that
Speaker 1: I do keep coming back to. You know, if you
Speaker 1: only had a toolbox full of hammers, I mean, that
Speaker 1: might be great if all you needed to do is
Speaker 1: pound in nails.
Speaker 2: But that's not what life is really like, right.
Speaker 1: The different challenges that are up against and the opportunities
Speaker 1: that we have are different, and so we need different tools.
Speaker 1: Coupled with that, we are people. We are evolving as
Speaker 1: a species, but as a person ourselves, right, we're growing,
Speaker 1: We're changing and what worked a year ago might not
Speaker 1: work today, it might not work during a different phase
Speaker 1: of life, and so we need that flexibility that a
Speaker 1: full toolkit can offer us, the opportunity to change out,
Speaker 1: you know, one instrument for another when the job and
Speaker 1: the needs change.
Speaker 4: Totally agree.
Speaker 5: So let's talk now about the material a goal. You say,
Speaker 5: understand how to materialize a goal our steps or our
Speaker 5: efforts improves the way we track our progress. Which is
Speaker 5: a nice sentence that sort of summarizes everything you cover
Speaker 5: in that chapter. It's kind of in one sentence. That's
Speaker 5: pretty good. But let's talk about what are some of
Speaker 5: the things we want to do as we think about
Speaker 5: materializing a goal. This is particularly great this time of
Speaker 5: year because a lot of people are going to start
Speaker 5: thinking about, okay, twenty twenty two is coming, how might
Speaker 5: I want to be different? And they're going to start
Speaker 5: to materialize a goal. So what are some things we
Speaker 5: need to know in that and how did you do
Speaker 5: that with your drumming.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, this sort of comes back to the
Speaker 1: conversation that we opened with about the parable and how
Speaker 1: our brain is an amazing.
Speaker 2: Organ that we have at our disposal, but it also
Speaker 2: causes us problems.
Speaker 1: Our brain is faulty, it is powerful, it's more powerful
Speaker 1: than computers certainly are now but maybe ever will be.
Speaker 2: But yet there's these inherent biases.
Speaker 1: In the way that our brain and our memories work
Speaker 1: that can do us a real disservice when we're trying
Speaker 1: to monitor ours. For example, So if we were just
Speaker 1: to leave it to our own memory and look back
Speaker 1: on let's say it's March and we set a new
Speaker 1: Year's resolution in January and we're trying to think, how
Speaker 1: far have I come?
Speaker 2: Am I making progress?
Speaker 1: Is the amount of effort that I've put in commensurate
Speaker 1: with output that I'm getting the change that I'm seeing.
Speaker 1: And so many people give up a month in, a
Speaker 1: month and a half in and throw away their efforts
Speaker 1: that they have invested into a new year's resolution or
Speaker 1: I mean January first, or any time that you set.
Speaker 2: A goal that's important, And.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes that's because it just feels like I've tried so
Speaker 1: hard and I'm getting nowhere, to which I ask, really,
Speaker 1: have you really gotten nowhere? I know from my own
Speaker 1: personal experience, when I try to reflect on my drumming
Speaker 1: or many other goals that I've taken on, I really
Speaker 1: can't trust my brain to give me the right answer
Speaker 1: to how much progress have I made and is it
Speaker 1: worth the effort that I've invested.
Speaker 5: Yeah, our mood shapes that so much. Right, the mood
Speaker 5: that we're in and can shape our cognitive view of
Speaker 5: how we're doing.
Speaker 1: Exactly what we're thinking and feeling right now shapes the
Speaker 1: information that's available in our brain. So when we're in
Speaker 1: a good mood, we tend to have happy memories popped
Speaker 1: to mind, and when we're in a bad mood, that's
Speaker 1: where that sort of feeling like we're in a rut
Speaker 1: or we're in this cycle that we can't get out of.
Speaker 2: That's part of where it comes from.
Speaker 1: Is because you know, one negative experience begets or calls
Speaker 1: upon another negative memory that we.
Speaker 2: Have, and again we give more weight to those.
Speaker 1: Negative experiences that we've had in the past. So for me,
Speaker 1: when I was trying to learn to play drums, knowing
Speaker 1: that I gave myself a date that I was going
Speaker 1: to perform this concert publicly, and that I was going
Speaker 1: to write about my experience in this book, and I
Speaker 1: promised myself I would do it accurately and not misrepresent
Speaker 1: what really happened.
Speaker 2: I felt a lot of pressure, and I'm not very coordinated.
Speaker 1: I got kicked out of my basketball team because I
Speaker 1: lost my footing and ran into somebody who was on
Speaker 1: my own team, pushed out of bounced when she had
Speaker 1: the ball, and we lost the game. I never got
Speaker 1: invited back to play another game after that. So when
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about can I actually play this song publicly,
Speaker 1: it just felt like every time I practiced, I wasn't
Speaker 1: making enough progress to be able to meet that goal.
Speaker 1: I was so nervous, I was so anxious about this
Speaker 1: personal conquest that I had set for myself, that all
Speaker 1: I was really focusing on was what I wasn't getting.
Speaker 1: I wasn't coming together the coordination problems that I was experiencing.
Speaker 1: And so then I realized, you know what I've been
Speaker 1: talking about, I've been writing about materializing.
Speaker 2: I need to do that here.
Speaker 1: I got a stop relying on my memory to determine
Speaker 1: whether I'm making sufficient progress to hit my mark a
Speaker 1: couple months in the future. So I set up an
Speaker 1: app on my phone to ping me a couple times
Speaker 1: a day and ask did you practice drums since last
Speaker 1: time I asked you?
Speaker 2: Mostly I told it no.
Speaker 1: But if I said yes, and it would say how
Speaker 1: did you do? Talk about that experience, and I'd jumped
Speaker 1: down a few little notes. I did that for a month,
Speaker 1: and then I downloaded all the data from my phone
Speaker 1: and thought about, well, what am I going to think
Speaker 1: in a month.
Speaker 2: I haven't done very much at all.
Speaker 1: It's been a really busy time of the semester as
Speaker 1: an academic professor. My kids had a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: going on that I've had to manage. I I don't
Speaker 1: feel like I've done anything this month. But when I
Speaker 1: actually looked at the data, I had a really different
Speaker 1: and more accurate understanding of the progress that I made.
Speaker 1: I actually practiced a lot more than I remembered practicing.
Speaker 1: Those sessions, you know, tended to be like, you know,
Speaker 1: fairly mundane. They weren't monumental moments, and that's why they
Speaker 1: didn't stick in my mind.
Speaker 2: But when I was looking at the words that I
Speaker 2: used to describe those experiences.
Speaker 1: At the beginning of the month, it was things like
Speaker 1: I cried, I hated it, it was awful.
Speaker 2: By the end of the month, it was like a compliment.
Speaker 1: My husband, who actually is a drummer, said, gave me
Speaker 1: my first genuine, legitimate compliment, and my own feelings had
Speaker 1: resonated with that, you know. Leading up to that, I like,
Speaker 1: I feel I'm getting like a little bit better. My
Speaker 1: head doesn't feel like it's going to explode today. But
Speaker 1: these are like, you know, small moments. They're not life changing.
Speaker 1: I'm not like concert ready yet, and that's why they
Speaker 1: didn't stick.
Speaker 2: In my memory, which is why it's also important.
Speaker 1: To write them down so that you can, you know,
Speaker 1: become a better personal accountant of your own effort, investment,
Speaker 1: and progress.
Speaker 2: Our minds aren't going to be able to do that
Speaker 2: for us.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I love that idea. I do behavioral coaching work
Speaker 5: with people, and that is such a big one as
Speaker 5: people will just be like, I'm not getting anywhere, and
Speaker 5: I'll be like, well, okay, let's actually look at the data.
Speaker 5: Let's you know, let's look at your check ins over
Speaker 5: the last few weeks. Let's see the progress you've made.
Speaker 5: Let's look at the tone the way you're rating things
Speaker 5: out of curiosity. What app did you use to do that?
Speaker 2: It's called the reporter app. Okay, yeah, I got.
Speaker 1: That idea from this really cool collaboration that I came upon.
Speaker 2: These two women who.
Speaker 1: Didn't know each other at all before, found one another
Speaker 1: at a conference for their field. They were like data
Speaker 1: scientists and I don't know their whole background architects.
Speaker 2: I mean they are a.
Speaker 1: Polymap at each of them that they are like experts
Speaker 1: in so many areas. They found each other as total strangers,
Speaker 1: met and decided in that moment that they meant that
Speaker 1: they were going to commit to each other for fifty
Speaker 1: two weeks. They were going to each week pick a
Speaker 1: goal that or pick something that they wanted to track,
Speaker 1: like what sort of animals do I experience in New
Speaker 1: York City on a day to day basis? Or how
Speaker 1: many times do I give or receive compliments?
Speaker 2: And they would just pick these sort of.
Speaker 1: Random themes and note every element every time they came
Speaker 1: upon a compliment, gave or received one, every animal that
Speaker 1: they saw, and their walks around the city.
Speaker 2: And then at the end of the week they would
Speaker 2: create this amazing.
Speaker 1: Visual depiction, I mean, really like contemporary art. They would
Speaker 1: put it on the back of a postcard. One lived
Speaker 1: in New York, one lived in London, and they'd send
Speaker 1: the postcards to each other at the end of the
Speaker 1: week with this very beautiful, like vivid depiction of quantifying
Speaker 1: whatever data they had been collecting. Again, this sort of
Speaker 1: low level, daily, everyday stuff that might not stick in
Speaker 1: your mind unless then they used the Reporter app, unless
Speaker 1: they were noting it within their phone and then downloading
Speaker 1: the data to.
Speaker 2: Look at all of their experiences over the week.
Speaker 1: And their postcards are just beautiful, And in fact, the
Speaker 1: Museum of Modern Art in New York City ACQUI them.
Speaker 2: All purchased their entire collection.
Speaker 1: And it's a part of their permanent exhibits now at
Speaker 1: the museum. So they were the ones who told me
Speaker 1: about the Reporter app for how to keep track of
Speaker 1: daily experiences.
Speaker 5: That's awesome. Yeah, I loved that story in the book.
Speaker 5: It is such such a great story. So we're talking
Speaker 5: about tracking our progress in this way largely exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's one of the most effective ways for
Speaker 1: getting an accurate insight into how far you've come and
Speaker 1: how far you have to go.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The next question then is like, well, what do we
Speaker 1: do with that information? So all right, I learned a
Speaker 1: little bit more on drums than I thought I had
Speaker 1: done before. And as a behavioral scientist then I know that, well,
Speaker 1: we have choices.
Speaker 2: As people, we have choices.
Speaker 1: What do we do with this data that we have now?
Speaker 1: And some really cool insights from behavioral scientists work. It's saying,
Speaker 1: you know, should you reflect back on that progress you've
Speaker 1: made or should you look at sort of the void.
Speaker 1: Here's where I am now and here's where I want
Speaker 1: to go. I am an accurate understanding of where I am,
Speaker 1: and I know.
Speaker 2: What the goal is.
Speaker 1: So should we look to what's to come? Or should
Speaker 1: we look at what we've accomplished? Where are we going
Speaker 1: to find more motivation? And it's really interesting because again
Speaker 1: there's no one right answer, right. It depends on the person,
Speaker 1: depends on that person's goal there that they're thinking about.
Speaker 1: And what the research says is that when somebody is
Speaker 1: really committed to a goal and they've you know, maybe
Speaker 1: they have invested a lot in it already, this is
Speaker 1: something that is like, you know, personally central to who
Speaker 1: they are looking forward is actually more motivating.
Speaker 2: They didn't doubt that they were going to be committed.
Speaker 1: You know, they don't need to convince themselves that this
Speaker 1: is something that is worth investing in. They want to
Speaker 1: close that gap separating where I am now and where
Speaker 1: it is that I want to be. But people who
Speaker 1: are new to a goal, or maybe for whom you know,
Speaker 1: the goal is more extrinsically motivated. It's something you have
Speaker 1: to do because a boss has set it, or you know,
Speaker 1: it's not like core to who you are as a person.
Speaker 1: Then reflecting back on past accomplishments progress to date can
Speaker 1: be more motivate because in a sense, it's signaling, you know,
Speaker 1: how much have you put into this thing? Are you
Speaker 1: really going to give up now? Look at what you've
Speaker 1: already accomplished. It can give you a sense of self efficacy,
Speaker 1: of feeling or data to prove you can do this.
Speaker 1: And then also it's signaling that you must want to
Speaker 1: do this because look at what you've already done before.
Speaker 1: And it's hard for people to give up on anything
Speaker 1: that they have invested in.
Speaker 2: So, you know, that's a.
Speaker 1: Point where we can sort of self reflect think about
Speaker 1: is this the goal? I'm highly committed to or is
Speaker 1: it less central to who I am?
Speaker 2: And use that as.
Speaker 1: Sort of a diagnostic tool to inform whether we should
Speaker 1: use that accounting experience, that materializing experience to look forward
Speaker 1: to the future or look back on our past.
Speaker 5: I want to pause for a quick good Wolf reminder.
Speaker 5: This one's about a habit change and a mistake I
Speaker 5: see people making. And that's really that we don't think
Speaker 5: about these new habits that we want to add in
Speaker 5: the context of our entire life. Right, habits don't happen
Speaker 5: in a vacuum. They have to fit in the life
Speaker 5: that we have. So when we just keep adding I
Speaker 5: should do this, I should do that, I should do this,
Speaker 5: we get discouraged because we haven't really thought about what
Speaker 5: we're not going to do in order to make that happen.
Speaker 5: So it's really helpful for you to think about where
Speaker 5: is this going to fit and what in my life
Speaker 5: might I need to remove. If you want to step
Speaker 5: by step guide for how you can easily build new
Speaker 5: habits that feed your good Wolf, go to good Wolf
Speaker 5: dot me, slash change and join the free masterclass. Is
Speaker 5: there any correlation in if I'm looking back to the
Speaker 5: past for sort of affirmation that I'm doing better, which
Speaker 5: we might refer to as a positive reinforcement, and I
Speaker 5: may be stretching this, which is why I'm asking, versus
Speaker 5: looking towards the gap between where I am and the future,
Speaker 5: which is a little bit of a potentially negative reinforcer,
Speaker 5: Or am I stretching making that connection between those things?
Speaker 1: Again, as people, we have opportunities to think about it
Speaker 1: in multiple ways, So some people probably do think about
Speaker 1: looking to the future as a negative. This unknown this
Speaker 1: like you know, mounting to do list that separates where
Speaker 1: I am and where I want to be. But for
Speaker 1: other people, especially those that are most committed to this
Speaker 1: thing that they're pursuing, it's like having something hanging over
Speaker 1: your head. You want to see it come to a close.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: This is sort of an interesting personality test. I like
Speaker 1: movies that are really open ended, like indie films, where
Speaker 1: it's just sort of like the end of the day
Speaker 1: and you have no idea what happens to the people tomorrow, right,
Speaker 1: and there's so many possibilities. I love that, and my
Speaker 1: husband hates it. He needs the closure. He wants the
Speaker 1: story to get wrapped up. He wants that to be
Speaker 1: the end of the narrative and doesn't like those open.
Speaker 2: Ended yeah feelings. And of course, you know, we.
Speaker 1: Can all resonate with with both of those perspectives in
Speaker 1: different situations. But for a lot of people, looking forward
Speaker 1: to the future does give you that like pull, that
Speaker 1: impulse of like, oh, I want to close this gap.
Speaker 1: I don't like having this just hanging open, having it
Speaker 1: is an open thread. So, you know, I think again,
Speaker 1: there's opportunities to think about that either as a positive
Speaker 1: of like, Okay, it's clear where am I going towards now,
Speaker 1: where's the gap that I need to close?
Speaker 2: And for other people it may not be seen that way.
Speaker 5: Yep. And in this section you talk about that it's
Speaker 5: important to know how to materialize a goal and also
Speaker 5: how to create a plan.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you know, I think especially when it comes to
Speaker 1: New Year's resolutions or major milestones in people's life, when
Speaker 1: they're thinking about, Okay, what do I really want for myself?
Speaker 1: These moments where we reflect and then set a new, grand,
Speaker 1: big intention, those are exciting moments in our life, and
Speaker 1: oftentimes what we do is set an aspirational goal, a
Speaker 1: stretch goal.
Speaker 2: You know, you know, this is.
Speaker 1: Where I want to be with my life like we're
Speaker 1: talking in like major, big, abstract kind of ways, and
Speaker 1: that's great to do, but sometimes that's where the goal
Speaker 1: setting stops. Is that people say, all, right, world, this
Speaker 1: is what I'm going to make happen. This is what
Speaker 1: I want for myself. A lot of people at that
Speaker 1: moment will do things like create dream boards or vision
Speaker 1: boards for their personal life or their professional life. It's
Speaker 1: you know, this is like a technique of curating images
Speaker 1: or motifs and compiling them all into one visual frame.
Speaker 2: Some for some people like you know, literally a corkboard
Speaker 2: that they're putting.
Speaker 1: These images that represent what they want for themselves in
Speaker 1: one same space. And then the advice is hang this
Speaker 1: in a place where you'll see it every day to
Speaker 1: remind you of what it is that you're working for. Again,
Speaker 1: a very popular technique that people use when they're setting goals,
Speaker 1: and that is wonderful because figuring out what you want
Speaker 1: in life can be a big step for a.
Speaker 2: Lot of people, right right, So that is important.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, in those same sessions, when
Speaker 1: we're brainstorming about what it is that I want for
Speaker 1: myself in the future, we need to add on some
Speaker 1: other elements to materialize that not just what we want
Speaker 1: to accomplish, but how we're going to accomplish it. So
Speaker 1: we need to add on some other steps. We need
Speaker 1: a dream big like with those vision boards or those
Speaker 1: dream boards, but we also need to concretely plan for action.
Speaker 1: We need to think about what can we do today
Speaker 1: or this week? What behaviors can I engage in? What
Speaker 1: choices can I make that's going to advance my progress
Speaker 1: in this area. We need to translate that abstract idea
Speaker 1: into something concrete, manageable, actionable, visionable, right so that we
Speaker 1: know which way to step first.
Speaker 2: Do I step left or do I step right? We
Speaker 2: need to do that.
Speaker 1: Another thing that we need to do is that we
Speaker 1: need to foreshadow the obstacles that we might experience along
Speaker 1: the way, and in fact, we will find more motivation
Speaker 1: and persistence.
Speaker 2: If we do that.
Speaker 1: We need to think about what are the challenges I'm
Speaker 1: going to face as I try to take on this
Speaker 1: goal and I take a step in this direction. And
Speaker 1: you might brainstorm a list of three or four possibilities
Speaker 1: of these things that might sty me or throw you
Speaker 1: off course, or be the reason that you throw in
Speaker 1: the towel, and we need to figure out what can
Speaker 1: we do if we experience those obstacles. Now again, I
Speaker 1: might seem like, all right, if I'm trying to like
Speaker 1: psych myself up, I'm really excited about this new thing
Speaker 1: I'm going to take on in my life, this new
Speaker 1: passion that I just discovered that I'm committing to.
Speaker 2: I'm really going to do better. I'm going to be
Speaker 2: more motivated, and I'm going.
Speaker 1: To increase the odds of making it if I think
Speaker 1: about all the ways that I'm going to fail. Really,
Speaker 1: that's a reaction that I get a lot, And the
Speaker 1: answer is yes. And it's the same reason that when
Speaker 1: you get on an airplane, before the plane takes off,
Speaker 1: you know, the flight attendants are telling you what's going
Speaker 1: to happen with the oxygen masks and where can you
Speaker 1: find life jackets? And they do the same thing if you,
Speaker 1: you know, get to go out on a boat for
Speaker 1: a boat ride, right, they tell you where you.
Speaker 2: Can find the life jackets.
Speaker 1: Now, if you're like, you know, you're just about to
Speaker 1: go off on this new adventure or on a plane
Speaker 1: or on a boat.
Speaker 2: Or whatever, why do they kill your buzz by.
Speaker 1: Doing that right, because if that plane is going down
Speaker 1: or if that boat is sinking, that's not the time.
Speaker 2: To try to figure out where the life jackets are.
Speaker 1: You need to already know so that you can instantly
Speaker 1: pick up on plan B or Plan C or Plan.
Speaker 2: D whatever you foreshadowed.
Speaker 1: Because when we're in those moments of crisis or when
Speaker 1: we're facing challenges, we're thin on resources.
Speaker 2: We don't have as much time to.
Speaker 1: Try to like think as creatively as possible and to
Speaker 1: figure out a solution when we're in the midst of
Speaker 1: a problem. And so that is why you know, taking
Speaker 1: that abstract, high level vision for ourselves, planning concretely and
Speaker 1: foreshadowing those obstacles when people do those steps together to
Speaker 1: increase the odds that they're actually going to make it
Speaker 1: to their goal.
Speaker 5: Yeah. An analogy that in a slightly different domain is
Speaker 5: in recovery, right, thinking about what might trigger me and
Speaker 5: what will I do when I get triggered? You know
Speaker 5: what is the actual exact thing I will do? It's
Speaker 5: something I do with clients A lot is like because
Speaker 5: in that moment, like you said, we're low on resources
Speaker 5: maybe time, but we may very well be low on
Speaker 5: cognitive bandwidth exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean that's a perfect analogy and a domain that
Speaker 1: really matters to a lot of people.
Speaker 2: When you're feeling, you know, in urge.
Speaker 1: When you're feeling that temptation, right, we can get people
Speaker 1: in recovery can be fixated on that, right. And so
Speaker 1: that's not like you are so narrowly focused on just
Speaker 1: working through or avoiding some coming to this temptation that
Speaker 1: you know, starting a new friendship with a person and
Speaker 1: feeling confident enough to get reach out and make a
Speaker 1: phone call and ask for help, Like that's not.
Speaker 2: Going to happen. Then we don't have that band right,
Speaker 2: like you're saying, yep, you know.
Speaker 1: Another great example of this, like you know, the power
Speaker 1: of foreshadowing obstacles. I love this example of Michael Phelps,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure you remember from the book, But in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, right he was taking the international
Speaker 1: stage for the first time by storm in the Beijing Olympics.
Speaker 1: He you know, is an incredible swimmer, that's what we
Speaker 1: know him for, and he was on the brink of
Speaker 1: doing something that nobody has ever done in the history
Speaker 1: of the entire Olympic Games ever, which is when eight
Speaker 1: gold medals in a single Olympiad. At the time of
Speaker 1: this story, he had already won seven. When he was
Speaker 1: diving into the pool for the two hundred fly, that
Speaker 1: was like his jam, right, this is what he's known for.
Speaker 2: It's almost like he's a shoe in. To win this
Speaker 2: race in his eighth gold medal.
Speaker 1: All he needs to do is do four lengths of
Speaker 1: the pool, back and forth, back and forth.
Speaker 2: And the race is over.
Speaker 1: By the time he had done three and just had
Speaker 1: one length of the pool to return, his goggles had
Speaker 1: filled with water and he was swimming blind. If that
Speaker 1: happened to me, I would totally pay I mean, it
Speaker 1: would never happen. I would never find myself in the
Speaker 1: Olympics or swimming without dye in a pool. But if
Speaker 1: it was me, I would have panicked. But he didn't
Speaker 1: because he had foreshadowed this obstacle routinely.
Speaker 2: In practice.
Speaker 1: He would rehearse having his goggles not be properly sealed
Speaker 1: and having them filled with water. Sometimes his coach would
Speaker 1: even rip them off his face and smash them on
Speaker 1: the ground just as he dove in, I guess for
Speaker 1: a dramatic effect. And he would have to practice swimming
Speaker 1: without goggles. So when it happened in the two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight Olympics, he knew exactly what he was going
Speaker 1: to do, which is start counting as strokes because he
Speaker 1: knew exactly how many strokes it would take from him
Speaker 1: for him to get from one end of the pool
Speaker 1: to the other. He did that calmly turned his attention
Speaker 1: to counting as strokes. He won that two hundred meters fly,
Speaker 1: won his eighth gold medal, and then would go on
Speaker 1: to win fifteen more in his career. Yeah. So I
Speaker 1: think that's a great example of what foreshadowing obstacles can
Speaker 1: do and what particular circumstances it's most essential.
Speaker 5: That's a great story. Let's move on to narrowing our
Speaker 5: focus of attention. Why is this valuable and when might
Speaker 5: we want to do it?
Speaker 1: You know, narrowing our focus of attention the idea, Yeah
Speaker 1: that like, you know, we can imagine that there's a
Speaker 1: spotlight shining on just one thing at the expense of
Speaker 1: what's in our periphery.
Speaker 2: That's a powerful tool.
Speaker 1: Especially when what we're focusing on might seem far off.
Speaker 1: So I've been doing research in this area for about
Speaker 1: fifteen years now and we are really focused on exercise.
Speaker 1: People's exercise goals that they have walking more, running faster,
Speaker 1: and trying to increase the number of steps that they've taken.
Speaker 1: And when you tell people like oh, just you know,
Speaker 1: set a farther goal, just just try going a little
Speaker 1: bit farther today, see what happens, and then you can
Speaker 1: up at the next day and up at the next day.
Speaker 1: That can be really overwhelming for people because literally, when
Speaker 1: they're looking at the track that they're going around, or
Speaker 1: the street that they're going to walk down that now
Speaker 1: they're supposed to walk farther, that destination can look really
Speaker 1: far off.
Speaker 2: It looks farther to them. What we have found is
Speaker 2: that when they.
Speaker 1: Have that perceptual experience, when to them they are seeing
Speaker 1: the world in more extreme ways than other people do.
Speaker 1: That stop signed, I can't make it there, I can't
Speaker 1: walk to that building.
Speaker 2: That's too far away.
Speaker 1: It affects their psychological experience, right, they stop believing that
Speaker 1: they can do it, They think the task is too challenging,
Speaker 1: and they throw in the towel sooner. So there is
Speaker 1: a direct connection between that visual experience and their motivational
Speaker 1: and psychological readiness to excel.
Speaker 2: At that particular task.
Speaker 1: So we were trying to figure out, Okay, if that
Speaker 1: visual experience is sort of the initiator of the problem.
Speaker 2: Can we trick people?
Speaker 1: Can we trick their visual experiences into seeing the world
Speaker 1: in a way that is going to energize them, that
Speaker 1: is going to give them the belief that they can
Speaker 1: do this, and will that have consequences for how much
Speaker 1: they actually exercise. So we came up with these instructions
Speaker 1: that are very simple. They literally cost nothing. It's just
Speaker 1: about changing what you do with your eyes. And like
Speaker 1: I said, we would tell people just imagine that there's
Speaker 1: a spotlight shining on that stop sign up ahead, or
Speaker 1: that building that you're hoping that you can walk to,
Speaker 1: or the other end of the park that you've never
Speaker 1: quite made it to yet. Imagine a spotlight shining just
Speaker 1: on that location and focus your gaze there. Don't pay
Speaker 1: attention to the people on the sides or the buildings
Speaker 1: over on the right or the left. Just focus your attention,
Speaker 1: narrow your focus. What we found is that when they
Speaker 1: do that, it induces a visual illusion of proximity. When
Speaker 1: we have them estimate the distance, tell us how far away,
Speaker 1: does that goal feel They're saying it feels closer, and
Speaker 1: they don't realize it. They don't realize that that narrowed
Speaker 1: focus has created this sort of perceptual trick for them.
Speaker 1: But when we look to see them, well, what happens
Speaker 1: if we've induced this visual illusion by changing the way
Speaker 1: that people are looking by not paying attention to the
Speaker 1: distractions on the side. What we found is that people
Speaker 1: across many, many studies, thousands of people that we have
Speaker 1: tested and lots of different contexts, they walk and run faster,
Speaker 1: they go out for walks more frequently, they take more
Speaker 1: steps in their day, and they say that it hurts less.
Speaker 1: The tasks are the same. Right, we're not actually changing
Speaker 1: anything about what they're doing. We're changing their sideological experience.
Speaker 1: Now when it seems like it's not so far away,
Speaker 1: they feel empowered, they feel like they're ready to take
Speaker 1: on this challenge, and then the experience defies their expectations.
Speaker 2: It isn't as bad.
Speaker 1: I thought I could do it, and look, I did it,
Speaker 1: And it's sort of creating this positive reinforcement cycle. Right
Speaker 1: with change the visual experience, we change, which changes their
Speaker 1: motivational state, which helps them perform better. When they do
Speaker 1: better than they thought that they could, they repeat that
Speaker 1: experience over time.
Speaker 2: So that's an example.
Speaker 1: I think of the power of our eyes simple tweak
Speaker 1: early on, and all of that happens within the process
Speaker 1: of setting and reaching a goal, and you can see
Speaker 1: these big downstream consequences.
Speaker 5: And does that translate into something that you know, the
Speaker 5: goal isn't like literally visible with my eyes?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 5: What I loved about this section of the book is
Speaker 5: the phrase which is our mental states have a much
Speaker 5: bigger impact than our physical ones on our ability to
Speaker 5: get through things. And that really hit me and I
Speaker 5: was like, Yeah, the type of work that most of us,
Speaker 5: you know, as professionals do is not as physically demanding, right,
Speaker 5: so it is very much a mental game.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: You say in that chapter, people who think that what
Speaker 5: they've done will take a lot out of them feel
Speaker 5: more tired afterwards, even if you know that's not the case.
Speaker 5: So how does this translate into things that are not
Speaker 5: directly visual? How's that for a long question?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's a great question because you're I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a lot that this technique is relevant to, but
Speaker 1: one of them that you know, comes to mind as
Speaker 1: a parallel is time. You can't see time, but time
Speaker 1: is always a big determinant of what goals we set
Speaker 1: and whether we reach those goals.
Speaker 2: How we manage our time is really important.
Speaker 1: A lot of times when people set goals, some of
Speaker 1: those goals that matter most to us or that are
Speaker 1: most important are ones that are pretty far off in
Speaker 1: the future.
Speaker 2: You can take saving for retirement right when.
Speaker 1: Is retirement for some people never but you know, but
Speaker 1: for almost everybody, it's going to be pretty far off
Speaker 1: in the future. And all kinds of experts tell us like, well,
Speaker 1: we should start saving for retirement in our twenties, and
Speaker 1: if we do that right, think of how much better
Speaker 1: off will be in our retirement years because of how
Speaker 1: compound interest works. But nobody in their twenties is thinking
Speaker 1: about retirement. And when I work with my college students
Speaker 1: who are in their twenties with their first jobs and
Speaker 1: asking them, you know, have you thought about your four
Speaker 1: oh one B plan, They're like, I don't even know
Speaker 1: what that is. I mean, I really don't even know
Speaker 1: what that is either, But they certainly don't and they're
Speaker 1: not saving for it, they're not investing in it, and
Speaker 1: When you ask why the number one was, common answer
Speaker 1: is because it seems like that's so far off. I
Speaker 1: don't even know, like who's that person who's going to
Speaker 1: get that money? Like what do is retired?
Speaker 2: Me? Look like I have no idea who that is.
Speaker 1: And so that's what we're talking about, is that oftentimes,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll reap the biggest benefits if we invest
Speaker 1: small today for a distant, far off future. And because
Speaker 1: of that big separation of time, people have a people
Speaker 1: find it challenging to connect what I'm doing today with
Speaker 1: that distant goal, that distant place that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: work towards.
Speaker 2: So a really amazing.
Speaker 1: Researcher at UCLA, Hel Hirschfeld, He's done work trying to say, like, okay, can.
Speaker 2: We connect that space?
Speaker 1: Can we shrink that temporal space, that psychological distance that
Speaker 1: separates me in my twenties, if we're thinking about retirement
Speaker 1: and me in my sixties, who's actually going to get
Speaker 1: this money? In my lab, we did an analog of
Speaker 1: his research, which is we took pictures of people's faces
Speaker 1: of twenty year old spaces.
Speaker 2: We morphed them with you know, Maya Angelou Tom broke out.
Speaker 1: And created like actual visual depictions of what retired you
Speaker 1: might look like.
Speaker 2: And we contracted that space.
Speaker 1: We made what seems so abstract and far off from
Speaker 1: the future relevant in the here and now. And what
Speaker 1: we saw is that people's interest in understanding how retirement
Speaker 1: works and their commitment to investing some of their income
Speaker 1: now for retirement years increased substantially contract that space. So
Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting everyone needs to go out and buy
Speaker 1: computer morphing software and like, look, you know, imagine every
Speaker 1: day what they're going to look like when they have
Speaker 1: more wrinkles and white hair than they do now.
Speaker 2: But finding ways to connect my current.
Speaker 1: Self with that future self can help make it easier
Speaker 1: to make the tougher choices today that will be essential
Speaker 1: for better outcomes later on.
Speaker 5: Let's move on to number three, which will be the
Speaker 5: sort of opposite of the one we just talked about,
Speaker 5: which is, instead of narrowing our focus, attention is having
Speaker 5: a wider bracket. Let's talk about why that's helpful, and
Speaker 5: then maybe tell us when one versus the other we
Speaker 5: might want to think.
Speaker 1: About the wide bracket is in opposition to that narrowed focus. Right,
Speaker 1: when is it important to take a step back see
Speaker 1: the bigger picture, to be aware of the paths that
Speaker 1: are on the right versus on the left.
Speaker 2: That's what using that wide bracket is about. If we
Speaker 2: go back to that.
Speaker 1: Example of those data scientists who are tracking compliments and
Speaker 1: animals in the urban environments, and they used a wide
Speaker 1: bracket to help.
Speaker 2: Maintain their commitment to something that I think a lot.
Speaker 1: Of people would have thrown in the towel on so
Speaker 1: literally when they talked about sending these postcards back and forth,
Speaker 1: I asked them.
Speaker 2: How did you do that? That's a lot.
Speaker 1: You're paying attention every single moment of every single day,
Speaker 1: and you're doing that for fifty two weeks, seven days
Speaker 1: a week.
Speaker 2: That's incredible commitment that you had.
Speaker 1: And one of them said that the reason I was
Speaker 1: able to do that was because of this wider bracket
Speaker 1: that I was taking. I was seeing today's choices within
Speaker 1: this bigger context of what it is that I had
Speaker 1: committed to. To be a little bit more concrete, as
Speaker 1: it might apply to the rest of us who aren't
Speaker 1: just trying to track animals and compliments, sometimes we can
Speaker 1: get so narrowly focused on one course of action that
Speaker 1: can be hard to let go when we might need
Speaker 1: to the most. Sometimes we need to change course. This
Speaker 1: may not be the right career for us, this might
Speaker 1: not be the right person to commit to, This might
Speaker 1: not be the right goal that we're working to achieve.
Speaker 2: But it can be really hard to let go, especially.
Speaker 1: If we've invested time and resources into this path that
Speaker 1: we have taken, and so we need to take a
Speaker 1: step back and realize that there might be more ways
Speaker 1: to accomplish what we really want if we try a
Speaker 1: different path. And it doesn't mean that we have failed.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that we made a mistake. It means
Speaker 1: it's time to change course. I think a great example
Speaker 1: is Via Wang. We know her for her fashion empire
Speaker 1: that she's created an incredible company. You know, we know
Speaker 1: her most probably for her wedding dresses that she's made,
Speaker 1: But that's not where her career started. She was a
Speaker 1: figure skater, and she was on the national and international
Speaker 1: stage for figure skating. She hit a peak, though that
Speaker 1: wasn't quite the top of where that profession could take you.
Speaker 1: But she's sort of plateaued there, doggedly pursuing the next
Speaker 1: and final level of success, but she never quite made it.
Speaker 1: And at one point she just said, that's it. I've
Speaker 1: tried and I'm done.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Some might say, well, she failed a figure skating I
Speaker 1: didn't know she was a figure skater. I didn't know
Speaker 1: that was part of her history and she stopped trying
Speaker 1: to make it to literally the top of that industry.
Speaker 2: But for her, she doesn't see it that way.
Speaker 1: When she talks about that experience of moving from figure
Speaker 1: skating to fashion design, she said, all I did was take.
Speaker 2: A step back, reflect.
Speaker 1: On what is it that I really want? And am
Speaker 1: I going to get that? Am I going to meet
Speaker 1: that passion through figure skating? The answer is no, But
Speaker 1: what is it that I want? For her, it was
Speaker 1: the art and the beauty of line l and you
Speaker 1: literally cut lines into the ice as a figure skater,
Speaker 1: and you cut lines into fabric. So she saw this
Speaker 1: as just a natural connection, you know, just another instantiation
Speaker 1: of what it was that she was truly interested in
Speaker 1: art and lines and the fluidity of the lines and
Speaker 1: how the lions can move together. And of course when
Speaker 1: she moved to fashion, she's incredibly successful.
Speaker 2: It's not a failure.
Speaker 1: It was just taking a step back, thinking more abstractly
Speaker 1: about what is it that I really want and being
Speaker 1: able to see multiple possibilities that you can't before if
Speaker 1: you just are focused on taking one step forward, one
Speaker 1: step forward, one step forward on.
Speaker 2: This very same path.
Speaker 5: Let's take your drumming project. Right, when in your drumming
Speaker 5: project did you know it's time to narrow my focus?
Speaker 5: And when did you know it's time to widen the bracket?
Speaker 5: Let's use that as an example to sort of talk
Speaker 5: about how do I know when to do each? I mean,
Speaker 5: I know it won't apply universally, but yeah, I mean for.
Speaker 1: Me, in setting the goal, I knew that I needed
Speaker 1: to be narrow and not so wide. And maybe for
Speaker 1: you you had the opposite of experience and guitaring that
Speaker 1: you know guitaring and learning guitar, right, but your goal
Speaker 1: is to have an expansive repertoire. For me, it was
Speaker 1: to have a very singular one. And so you know,
Speaker 1: I was learning the skills that are necessary in order
Speaker 1: to play this one song.
Speaker 2: But you know, I.
Speaker 1: Can't say that after all of this time of having
Speaker 1: learned that song, in the years of practicing that now it's.
Speaker 2: Been I only have one song.
Speaker 1: I didn't learn translatable skills because I was so narrowly focused,
Speaker 1: but it meant that I got what I wanted out
Speaker 1: of that experience. And so, you know, sometimes when we
Speaker 1: need that extra push in the case.
Speaker 2: Of the exercise work that we.
Speaker 1: Were doing, to cross over that finish line to get
Speaker 1: the extra boost of energy, that's when we need to
Speaker 1: take the distractions away. And when a narrowed focus can
Speaker 1: really be helpful contrack that space. It can make us
Speaker 1: feel closer to the endgame than.
Speaker 2: Perhaps we really are.
Speaker 1: But that can be motivating and then we aren't going
Speaker 1: to be pulled in so many different directions. Multitasking is
Speaker 1: a thing that plagues all of us, and for almost
Speaker 1: all of us, it does a.
Speaker 2: Disservice for our ability to get the best out of
Speaker 2: what we're putting in.
Speaker 1: So that's when we might want to use that narrowed focus,
Speaker 1: is when we need an extra push of energy to
Speaker 1: cross over that finish line, and when we're feeling really
Speaker 1: scattered or like, you know, having that experience of I'm
Speaker 1: just not getting anything done and I can't cross over
Speaker 1: that finish line. The wide bracket, though, in contrast, is
Speaker 1: when we need options when this is not working, I'm feeling,
Speaker 1: you know, like I'm on a treadmill and I'm working
Speaker 1: so hard and I'm not getting anywhere. And if you
Speaker 1: have accurately assessed your progress and that is the right
Speaker 1: conclusion to draw, that's when we need to sort of
Speaker 1: free ourselves from that fixation that we have on this
Speaker 1: one course of action, and we need to take a
Speaker 1: step back, and we need to think more abstractly at
Speaker 1: a higher level, going back to that vision board. If
Speaker 1: we've created some version of that to reflect on, Okay,
Speaker 1: what is it that I really want and give ourselves
Speaker 1: the time and the space to think about all the
Speaker 1: different ways that we could get there.
Speaker 5: That's a great example, and I often see this with
Speaker 5: coaching clients. Is there are times we need to actually,
Speaker 5: like you're saying, sort of zoom back out and go
Speaker 5: why did I start on this? What was important about this?
Speaker 5: And then connect the narrow view Okay, I'm doing this thing,
Speaker 5: and sometimes reconnect that back to the broader thing. Because
Speaker 5: I think there is a tendency. You use the phrase
Speaker 5: somewhere in the book about we get caught in the middle.
Speaker 5: You know, we get caught in the middle. We're not
Speaker 5: seeing a ton of progress, We're not beginning but we're
Speaker 5: not ending. We're kind of in the middle, and sometimes
Speaker 5: I find, you know, it's like, well, why does this
Speaker 5: thing matter to me? Which is the broader perspective exactly?
Speaker 1: And you know what we were talking about, what are
Speaker 1: the stages for effective goal setting? Thinking abstractly, planning concretely,
Speaker 1: and foreshadowing obstacles?
Speaker 2: Those first two steps are that are.
Speaker 1: The connection that you're talking about thinking abstractly, but in
Speaker 1: that same goal setting session thinking concretely. Yep.
Speaker 2: It can help wed those two together of like.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is what I'm doing every day, this is
Speaker 1: what my day looks like, Why am I doing that?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: That's right, because I have made that mental connection the
Speaker 1: bigger purpose that this.
Speaker 2: Action is trying to serve.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it's similar. Every time when I sit
Speaker 5: down to meditate, the first thing I do is I
Speaker 5: just sort of remind myself, like why am I doing this?
Speaker 5: Because it helps me sort of reconnect. I just am
Speaker 5: not going through the motions as much at that point
Speaker 5: because I've I've got a reason that it matters to
Speaker 5: me in that moment.
Speaker 1: There's this great example, this case study done of a
Speaker 1: Dutch telecom company that had set this new high level
Speaker 1: goals for its organization and for all the employees, which
Speaker 1: was sustainability. They wanted an increase the amount of recycling
Speaker 1: that was happening and reduced the number of things showing
Speaker 1: up in the trash can that should have been recycled.
Speaker 1: So they brought in a special communications team. They did
Speaker 1: all kinds of messaging to tell the rather large organization,
Speaker 1: all the members of it, this is what we're doing, people,
Speaker 1: the sustainability of matters, start recycling. They gave everybody individual
Speaker 1: recycling cans, and they swapped out the janitorial staff for
Speaker 1: members of the research team who every night collected every
Speaker 1: single garbage can and recycling bin and counted the number
Speaker 1: of things that showed up up in garbage that should
Speaker 1: have been recycled. And what did they find. Simply stating
Speaker 1: that high level goal did not reduce the number of
Speaker 1: things showing up in the trash that should have been recycled.
Speaker 2: They suspected that they thought, with the.
Speaker 1: Behavioral scientists that they were working with, that just setting
Speaker 1: this intention wasn't going to get the job done. So
Speaker 1: in a second way, for another coport, they did the
Speaker 1: same thing, sent out this messaging had.
Speaker 2: The recycling bins right there.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, in that same sort of
Speaker 1: first week of messaging, had each individual think about a
Speaker 1: concrete action that they could take that would align with
Speaker 1: that intention, that high level abstract goal. What people came
Speaker 1: up with wasn't magic or rocket science. It was use
Speaker 1: a paper couple thrown in recycling. If I have some
Speaker 1: extra papers, I'll put them in the recycling rather than
Speaker 1: the trash. It's exactly what they wanted people to do.
Speaker 1: But importantly they took that time. They had each individual
Speaker 1: employee think about, all right, this is the sustainability initiative,
Speaker 1: and couple that mentally, pair it with the concrete action.
Speaker 2: And what did they see.
Speaker 1: Well, at baseline, about twelve hundred things were showing up
Speaker 1: in the trash can that should have been recycled. But
Speaker 1: that dropped to less than two hundred within a week,
Speaker 1: and that stayed for two weeks, for a month, for
Speaker 1: two months time that they were tracking what's showing up
Speaker 1: in the garbage, and that stayed at that really low
Speaker 1: level even when they made the actual action the act
Speaker 1: of recycling more challenging by taking away individual recycling cans
Speaker 1: and putting them into a communal space, so that people
Speaker 1: had to get up from their desks and walk to
Speaker 1: the center of the office to recycle. So even despite
Speaker 1: that obstacle, having gone through that experience of pairing the
Speaker 1: high level vision with the concrete action produced long lasting
Speaker 1: behavioral change that occurred even despite facing these added pressures
Speaker 1: and obstacles.
Speaker 5: The last one we'll talk about is the power of framing.
Speaker 1: So framing the idea here is just based on the
Speaker 1: principle that what we see predicts what we do. Right, So,
Speaker 1: our eyes are incredibly powerful, and our eyes, you know,
Speaker 1: of course we can see them on our face, but
Speaker 1: they are directly connected to our brain, and they're connected
Speaker 1: to parts of our brain that are responsible for producing
Speaker 1: the actions that we take, for moving our hands, for
Speaker 1: coordinating our.
Speaker 2: Feet, so you know, you can literally see.
Speaker 1: Neuroscientists can the connection between our eyes and our movements,
Speaker 1: our choices, the behaviors that we make. So we can
Speaker 1: take advantage of that as people. We don't have to
Speaker 1: be neuroscientists to appreciate and take advantage of that fact,
Speaker 1: but we can use it to We can use that
Speaker 1: our eyes as a superpower to create a visual world
Speaker 1: that's going to instantly or automatically spark the kinds of
Speaker 1: choices that we want ourselves to make. So you can
Speaker 1: think about you know, we've all lived through COVID times
Speaker 1: and people talk about the COVID nineteen the nineteen pounds
Speaker 1: that they gained by working at home and you know,
Speaker 1: prison results are reasons that that has happened. There's added
Speaker 1: stress for not going outside to exercise as much. But
Speaker 1: people are working at their dining room table a lot.
Speaker 1: Right where they're working is the same space that they
Speaker 1: associate with food and comfort, right, or they take a
Speaker 1: quick break and then before it was in the office
Speaker 1: to refill their water bottle or go chat with a colleague,
Speaker 1: but now it's to go visit the fridge. So we
Speaker 1: have set up our environments. The world has created these
Speaker 1: environments for us that are putting visual cues in our
Speaker 1: visual frame, in our frame that is automatically associated with
Speaker 1: a choice that that maybe isn't ideal. If we have
Speaker 1: found ourselves to be, you know, overeating relative to what
Speaker 1: we have done in the past, so we can acknowledge that,
Speaker 1: you know, that part of it is like you know,
Speaker 1: out of sight, out of mind, and we can you know,
Speaker 1: change up the way that we craft our home environment,
Speaker 1: or the way that we stalk our pantry or our fridge,
Speaker 1: those things that we have to keep in the house
Speaker 1: because our kids need those snacks and they're really tempting
Speaker 1: for us. Well, we can hide them from our kids,
Speaker 1: and we can hide them from ourselves so that it's
Speaker 1: a little bit more challenging to see them or to
Speaker 1: reach them. And it's not that we don't know that
Speaker 1: they're there, but we don't automatically see them and then
Speaker 1: reach for them as our first go to snack. The
Speaker 1: company Google did this, They did this experiment with their
Speaker 1: own employees.
Speaker 2: Right. They were noticing that.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the perks of Google's all this
Speaker 1: amazing food and the free snacks.
Speaker 2: And at Facebook, you know beer taps that are in
Speaker 2: the wall.
Speaker 1: You can bring your own growler and get more than
Speaker 1: a pint as you walk by to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 2: Right, and all of these perks.
Speaker 1: Were literally increasing, you know, while decreasing the health of
Speaker 1: their employees.
Speaker 2: So they made some changes.
Speaker 1: They made the unhealthy snacks, they put those into opaque containers,
Speaker 1: ones that they couldn't see. They put the unhealthy drinks,
Speaker 1: like the full sugar sodas on lower shelves in the refrigerator,
Speaker 1: or clouded the glass so that as people are walking by,
Speaker 1: they're not getting that visual cue. What's appearing in their
Speaker 1: frame is not something that is the unhealthy choice.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: They sort of tried to separate that link between what
Speaker 1: you see and what you do by making it a
Speaker 1: little bit harder to see these things. And what they noticed,
Speaker 1: according to those that stock to Google's pantries, was that
Speaker 1: consumption of these unhealthy snacks decreased dramatically. So Google showed
Speaker 1: it with their own employees. And we can take advantage
Speaker 1: of that too and think about how it affects what
Speaker 1: we're eating at home or what we're doing.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe rather than leaving.
Speaker 1: Our slippers at the foot of our bed, we leave
Speaker 1: our running shoes or keep the yoga mat out so
Speaker 1: that what our feet and our touch first and what
Speaker 1: our io see first in the morning is the meditation
Speaker 1: mat or the yoga mat to cue that action rather
Speaker 1: than something else.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm always astounded by those sort of studies. And
Speaker 5: you know, one way of looking at it is like
Speaker 5: how much harder is it to open the opaque can?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 5: But as you say, it's a sight thing. And the
Speaker 5: clearest example of this in my life is the difference
Speaker 5: between me playing the guitar when it's sitting there on
Speaker 5: a stand versus in a case. The difference is seconds
Speaker 5: of effort, literally least seconds of effort to open a
Speaker 5: guitar case pull it out. But I play it way
Speaker 5: more when it's just sitting there because I, like you said,
Speaker 5: I see it. I bought this. Uh it's kind of
Speaker 5: behind me. It's one of those like balance boards that
Speaker 5: you kind of surf on. I love that thing when
Speaker 5: it's laid out on the ground. I'll do it pretty
Speaker 5: much every day because I'll walk by it four or
Speaker 5: five times when it's sitting up in the corner again
Speaker 5: a foot away from where it is now. I could
Speaker 5: go days without doing it. I am just astounded by
Speaker 5: that every time. It's just amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I had the same experience learning drums that once I
Speaker 1: put it within my line of sight, we put it
Speaker 1: in a space that we walk by to get out
Speaker 1: the door, the number of times that I practiced increased
Speaker 1: because it's like ah, waiting for my husband, waiting for
Speaker 1: my kid to get their shoes on. I can go
Speaker 1: down and play for the five or ten minutes that's
Speaker 1: going to take before they come out the door.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's that visual, automatic queue. And you know,
Speaker 2: my son was born.
Speaker 1: We had this big bookshelf, sort of like a curio
Speaker 1: cabinet full of books, and every time he went to bed,
Speaker 1: we would make sure that the doors were open so
Speaker 1: that the first thing that he saw he woke up
Speaker 1: was his shelf of books. And we noticed that, you know,
Speaker 1: as soon as he was able to walk, what he
Speaker 1: would do in the morning, get up and go get
Speaker 1: a book. You can't read, of course, but it was
Speaker 1: queuing that choice and maybe bought us another extra minute
Speaker 1: or two of sleep before he came into our room.
Speaker 5: Yeah, awesome. Well, Emily, thank you so much. I'm happy
Speaker 5: to have gotten through the four strategies. I loved the book. Again,
Speaker 5: it's called Clear, Closer Better, How Successful People see the World.
Speaker 5: We'll love links to your book in our show notes. Well,
Speaker 5: have links to how people can find you online so
Speaker 5: that they can check out everything you're doing. Thank you
Speaker 5: so much.
Speaker 2: Thanks for this opportunity. It was a great conversation.
Speaker 3: If what you just heard was helpful to you, please
Speaker 3: consider making a monthly donation. To support the One You
Speaker 3: Feed podcast. When you join our membership comunity with this
Speaker 3: monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members only benefits.
Speaker 3: It's our way of saying thank you for your support now.
Speaker 3: We are so grateful for the members of our community.
Speaker 3: We wouldn't be able to do what we do without
Speaker 3: their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted.
Speaker 3: To learn more, make a donation at any level and
Speaker 3: become a member of the One You Feed community, go
Speaker 3: to oneufeed dot net slash Join The One You Feed
Speaker 3: Podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting
Speaker 3: the show.