Speaker 1: The story we tell ourselves is critical in terms of
Speaker 1: whether we persist how we feel and the person that
Speaker 1: we are and the person we've become welcome to, the
Speaker 1: one you feed Throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized the
Speaker 1: importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think ring true,
Speaker 1: and yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Eric Barker, whose humorous
Speaker 1: practical blog Barking Up the Wrong Tree presents science based
Speaker 1: answers and expert insight on how to be awesome at life.
Speaker 1: Over three hundred thousand people subscribe to his weekly newsletter,
Speaker 1: and his content is syndicated by Time magazine. The Week
Speaker 1: and Business Insider. In his book Barking Up the Wrong Tree,
Speaker 1: Eric reveals the extraordinary science behind what actually determines success
Speaker 1: and most importantly, how anyone can achieve it. If you're
Speaker 1: getting value out of the show, please go to one
Speaker 1: you feed dot Net slash Support and make a donation.
Speaker 1: This will ensure that all five episodes that are in
Speaker 1: the archive will remain free and that the show is
Speaker 1: here for other people who need it. Some other ways
Speaker 1: that you can support is is if you're interested in
Speaker 1: the book that we're discussing on today's episode, go to
Speaker 1: one you feed dot net and find the episode that
Speaker 1: we're talking about. There will be links to all of
Speaker 1: the author's books, and if you buy them through there,
Speaker 1: it's the same price to you, but we get a
Speaker 1: small amount. Also, you can go to one you feed
Speaker 1: dot Net slash book and I have a reading list
Speaker 1: there when you feed dot net slash shop and you
Speaker 1: can buy t shirts, mugs and other things. And finally,
Speaker 1: one you feed dot Net Slash Facebook, which is where
Speaker 1: our Facebook group is and you can interact with other
Speaker 1: listeners of the show and get support in feeding your
Speaker 1: Good Wolf. Thanks again for listening, and here's the interview
Speaker 1: with Eric Barker. Hi, Eric, welcome to the show. It's
Speaker 1: great to be here. I have read your blog for
Speaker 1: a while called Barking Up the Wrong Tree, and recently
Speaker 1: you wrote a book called Barking Up the Wrong Tree,
Speaker 1: The Surprising science behind why everything you know about success
Speaker 1: is mostly wrong. So we'll get into the book in
Speaker 1: a minute. And as I was joking with you before
Speaker 1: we started, I actually broke the Amazon highlight limit for
Speaker 1: your book. So lots and lots of great stuff, we'll
Speaker 1: only get to a fraction of it um and so
Speaker 1: I'll encourage listeners to get the book. It's wonderful. But
Speaker 1: let's start like we always do with the parable. There's
Speaker 1: a grandfather who's talking with his grandson and he says,
Speaker 1: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 1: are always at battle. What is a good wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 1: other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
Speaker 1: and hatred and fear. The grandson stops and thinks about
Speaker 1: it for a second and looks up at his grandfather
Speaker 1: and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the
Speaker 1: grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to
Speaker 1: start off by asking you what that paril means to
Speaker 1: you in your life and in the work that you do.
Speaker 1: I've actually had that parable in UM blog post I
Speaker 1: did so UM, so I take it very seriously. And
Speaker 1: for me, you know, I believe that you know, we
Speaker 1: have patterns of behavior, and we we have had and
Speaker 1: you can take that all the way down to the
Speaker 1: neuroscience level. And you know, if you spend more time angry,
Speaker 1: if you spend more time you know, upset, if you
Speaker 1: spend more time and envy than you do enjoy and gratitude,
Speaker 1: it's going to become a habitual pattern of behavior. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's it's something we have to
Speaker 1: be cognizant of, that that that's always in us, that
Speaker 1: ability to change, to choose which side of ourselves we're
Speaker 1: going to be. So it's something I'm very cognizant of
Speaker 1: and something I try and I definitely try and think about.
Speaker 1: Which wolf I'm feeding excellent. Let's start with the words success,
Speaker 1: because your book is about success, but I'd like to
Speaker 1: go kind of to the end of the book where
Speaker 1: you talk about what success is and how to measure it.
Speaker 1: So let's start there and then we can work our
Speaker 1: way back from there. So what is success in the
Speaker 1: sense that you're using it well? In the end, I
Speaker 1: do recommend that, you know, people need a personal definition
Speaker 1: of success that given the modern era, you know, you
Speaker 1: go on the internet, you watch TV, and you are
Speaker 1: c in the point zero zero one most uh, the richest,
Speaker 1: most beautiful, most intelligent, most accomplished, accomplished people. So we're
Speaker 1: constantly seeing unrealistic standards of a lot of definitions of success.
Speaker 1: And with the work life balance issue, you know, now
Speaker 1: with technology, we're able to work seven and that sets
Speaker 1: up a very dangerous paradigm where we're shown these unattainable
Speaker 1: levels of success, uh, and we're given the ability if
Speaker 1: we so choose to to work seven. So we're it's
Speaker 1: incumbent upon all of us to have a personal definition
Speaker 1: of success to to say when is enough for me?
Speaker 1: And I talk about the issue. There's some research by
Speaker 1: Nash and Stevenson at Harvard showing that it takes a
Speaker 1: balance of four metrics. You know, to have a well
Speaker 1: rounded life, you need to not only be concerned with,
Speaker 1: you know, success in terms of money or achievement, you know,
Speaker 1: or success in terms of just relationships are happiness, you know,
Speaker 1: because we need to be able to pay the rent,
Speaker 1: and we also need to have people who love us
Speaker 1: and who we love UH, And you know one or
Speaker 1: the other UH is not is not going to cut it.
Speaker 1: Nash and Stevenson found that people need for they need
Speaker 1: to be they need to be accomplished in four metrics.
Speaker 1: Number one is happiness in other words, do you enjoy
Speaker 1: what you're doing? Achievement are you achieving your goals? Uh?
Speaker 1: Number three is significance. Is what you're doing benefiting the
Speaker 1: ones you love and forth as legacy in some small way,
Speaker 1: or you're making the world a better place. So you know,
Speaker 1: I think success is something that should be personal. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, and has to be personal because if we
Speaker 1: take the off the rack definition of success, then we're
Speaker 1: gonna be chasing those people on TV UH two completely
Speaker 1: unattainable standards and we're not going to live a happy life. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love the way you put it. I'm just going
Speaker 1: to read a quote from the book. You have to
Speaker 1: make a decision. The world will not draw a line.
Speaker 1: You must. You need to ask what do I want?
Speaker 1: Otherwise you're only going to get what they want. Sorry
Speaker 1: to have to break this to you, but in today's world,
Speaker 1: having it all isn't possible when others determine the limits
Speaker 1: in each category. And I think that's just a great
Speaker 1: way of of stating that you're right, we we have
Speaker 1: to take this on ourselves to decide when is enough.
Speaker 1: And I also like the idea of you know, evaluating
Speaker 1: life by one metric turning out to be you say,
Speaker 1: it turns out to be a key problem. We can't
Speaker 1: use just one yardstick. And that just when I read that,
Speaker 1: it just seemed so obvious on one hand and yet
Speaker 1: very profound on the others that I don't think that's
Speaker 1: what a lot of us do. Yeah, it's it's a problem.
Speaker 1: A problem they called the you know, having a collapsing
Speaker 1: metric where basically try and collapse all of success and
Speaker 1: happiness into one metric. And of course that metric is
Speaker 1: usually dollars, simply because our society promotes that, but also
Speaker 1: because dollars are easy to count. You know, it's it's
Speaker 1: very difficult to say how good a father was I today?
Speaker 1: How good a husband you know was I today? You
Speaker 1: only get an employee review a job, typically annually but
Speaker 1: it's very easy to look at your your bank balance
Speaker 1: or look in your wallet, you know, and count dollars
Speaker 1: and have a video game style score of how you're doing.
Speaker 1: And so it often, you know, we we collapse it
Speaker 1: into one metric and as we know, or I hope
Speaker 1: we know, uh, you know, money is nice, but it
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's not everything, and and having
Speaker 1: trying to collapse all of success into one metric is
Speaker 1: is not a good way to go about things. Yep.
Speaker 1: And I'm always a fan of the middle way with
Speaker 1: things like finding the middle path, and I think that
Speaker 1: idea of On one hand, people say, well, money doesn't
Speaker 1: make you happy, right, so some people go all the
Speaker 1: way you know, on the well what's the point? And
Speaker 1: then other people everything is about money. And what I
Speaker 1: like about what you're saying is money is in there,
Speaker 1: but there are other factors that we have to consider
Speaker 1: also if we want to truly have a life that
Speaker 1: makes sense for us and and meets our own definition
Speaker 1: of success. Absolutely. I mean, there's plenty of research that
Speaker 1: shows money can buy happiness, but it's not in the
Speaker 1: way we typically think, um, you know, in terms of
Speaker 1: you know, buying a big house or a ferrari or
Speaker 1: something like that. When people use their money to buy
Speaker 1: themselves more free time, so to hire someone to to say,
Speaker 1: clean their house versus doing it themselves, you know, that
Speaker 1: does promote happiness. When people spend money on others, um,
Speaker 1: that promotes happiness. You know, there there are ways whereby
Speaker 1: money brings happiness, but it's not the the end all
Speaker 1: be all. It's usually as a lever towards towards something else, towards.
Speaker 1: When you're buying gifts for other people, you're using money
Speaker 1: to enhance your relationships. And the research shows that relationships
Speaker 1: so the number one source of happiness. So the green
Speaker 1: rectangle you know, does not deliver happiness directly. If you
Speaker 1: use it in the right way, it can facilitate happiness.
Speaker 1: Often we don't use it in the right way, but
Speaker 1: we can facilitate happiness. And I I would argue, um
Speaker 1: that you know money, money is good defensively. You know,
Speaker 1: it prevents it certainly prevents problems UH that can uh
Speaker 1: that can reduce happiness. And you know some of some
Speaker 1: of the research you know basically shows that once you
Speaker 1: can pay your bills, once you can can uh, you know,
Speaker 1: are are protected from being in debt, from not being
Speaker 1: able to to pay the rent. That money has diminishing
Speaker 1: marginal value. It still has a benefit. But but again,
Speaker 1: the you'd have to trade off, you know, that extra
Speaker 1: hour at the office, how much do you make per hour?
Speaker 1: How much would how much happiness would spending that time
Speaker 1: with friends or family bring? You? So if you do
Speaker 1: that math, you know roughly in your head, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: if you are an investment banker, perhaps perhaps that extra
Speaker 1: hour would bring you enough money to to overcome the
Speaker 1: happiness of relationship. But for most people, relationships bring so
Speaker 1: much more money than happiness that chasing money is is
Speaker 1: is not the good way to go, right, And you say,
Speaker 1: the problem that in the quest for what makes me
Speaker 1: feel good, there's no finish line. And I think that's
Speaker 1: what things like money or other success metrics for me
Speaker 1: have shown is that if I'm not evaluating the way
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the whole thing, I reach one one
Speaker 1: goal post and then I just reset the next, and
Speaker 1: I reset the next. You know, I got you know,
Speaker 1: for me, one of them is downloads of show Right,
Speaker 1: so I get X number and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: that's normal and I need the next number and the
Speaker 1: next number and so. And I think money can very
Speaker 1: much and has been for me very much the same thing.
Speaker 1: In certain cases. It never really ends, you know, We're
Speaker 1: always gonna want things. There's no kind of end to it,
Speaker 1: there you That's why we need to decide what's enough,
Speaker 1: you know, and to to sit there and really think
Speaker 1: about it, as opposed to wait until the next shiny
Speaker 1: thing pops up and then oh we want something new again. Um,
Speaker 1: you know where the promotion gets dangled in front of
Speaker 1: you and then all of a sudden you're working more
Speaker 1: than you wanted to know. It's it's something we really
Speaker 1: need to think about in advances because in the spare
Speaker 1: of the moment, as with many things, in the spare
Speaker 1: of the moment, you're probably not going to make the
Speaker 1: best decision if you haven't if you haven't thought it
Speaker 1: through beforehand. Ye. And it would be easier if those
Speaker 1: things didn't give a temporary boost, right. I think that's
Speaker 1: what's so challenging is they tend to work, at least
Speaker 1: for me briefly, So there's a brief bump and then
Speaker 1: you know, I think they call it adaptation. Right then,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of back to where I was before. And
Speaker 1: I think that's what makes it a little bit. If
Speaker 1: it just didn't work at all, would be really easy
Speaker 1: to dismiss it. But it works briefly, and I think
Speaker 1: that becomes confusing. Absolutely. You know, it's it's because it's new.
Speaker 1: It's a novel, and you know, our brains like things
Speaker 1: that are better new and novel. You know, it's it's
Speaker 1: very simple. I mean, if you if you continue to
Speaker 1: live the lifestyle that you know you did, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, after high school or in college, and you know,
Speaker 1: you lived an average career and got pay raises and
Speaker 1: got promotions, you'd be sitting pretty you probably have a
Speaker 1: ton of money in the bank. But but that's not
Speaker 1: what happens. What happens is, yes, that that hedonic adaptation
Speaker 1: where you know, Okay, this apartment is not big enough,
Speaker 1: I want a bigger apartment. Okay, well I don't want
Speaker 1: to partment anymore. I want a house. Okay, you know,
Speaker 1: I want a bigger house because no, I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: a family and that, you know, and my car is
Speaker 1: not a shame where don't want a new car? And
Speaker 1: so you keep wanting those things and you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's very often, you know, people find all too often,
Speaker 1: you know, that their needs seem to always line up
Speaker 1: with the level of income there at and and we
Speaker 1: could prevent that, but we don't want to. And um,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm not recommending that everybody everybody lived
Speaker 1: their entire lives like a college student, but it is
Speaker 1: an option, but we choose not to do it. And again,
Speaker 1: it's because we have this this uh, you know, we
Speaker 1: want novel things, we want nice things, but it's usually
Speaker 1: because we haven't taken the time to really sit through
Speaker 1: what is really going to make us happy, you know,
Speaker 1: in the long run, versus that immediate next kind of
Speaker 1: uh oh wow, cool boost uh. And you know it's
Speaker 1: the it's the same thing. You know, food is tasty
Speaker 1: and and so people, you know, we we like the
Speaker 1: way food tastes and you know, and now we have
Speaker 1: an obesity epidemic. Right, let's shift gears. You're talking about
Speaker 1: how we like novelty, and so let's talk about one
Speaker 1: of the things that you cover in the book is
Speaker 1: how turning the things that we do in our life
Speaker 1: where we can into games can be very helpful. And
Speaker 1: what it is about those strategies that actually make it work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting because we all have lots of you know,
Speaker 1: lots of things we do that are very frustrating and difficult,
Speaker 1: and we we fail at them a bunch of times,
Speaker 1: and it drives us crazy. If you look at you know,
Speaker 1: like video games, they can be frustrating, you fail a
Speaker 1: lot of times, and then people love them and you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's great and it's very interesting to look at.
Speaker 1: And sometimes we get that feeling. Sometimes we say, gee,
Speaker 1: what am I doing wrong? And all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you're trying to fix the sink and it becomes like
Speaker 1: a detective story and you know, what he is wrong here?
Speaker 1: Let me try this, So let me try to and
Speaker 1: it becomes this compelling and I can't go to bed
Speaker 1: until I get this thing done. And we've all had
Speaker 1: that feeling. And it's interesting when you look at the
Speaker 1: research on games. It's basically a game work that is superimposed,
Speaker 1: you know, upon different situations because games can be very difficult,
Speaker 1: very frustrating. You know, your taxes are the same way,
Speaker 1: but you know doing taxes is awful and video games
Speaker 1: are fun. Why is this, Well, it's because there are
Speaker 1: a number of elements that games always possessed. They're winnable
Speaker 1: first and foremost by design. We do lots of things
Speaker 1: and we don't know if we actually can achieve this.
Speaker 1: You know, games, you know, if you've purchased a video game,
Speaker 1: there is a way to win, so somebody can do that,
Speaker 1: and that gives us an optimistic, you know, feeling towards
Speaker 1: spending the time and completing it. Past that, games always
Speaker 1: have novelty. You know, there's a first level and the
Speaker 1: second level, and there's new enemies and there might be
Speaker 1: you know, new weapons or whatever you're using in the game.
Speaker 1: That keeps it fresh. It's not the same thing over
Speaker 1: and over and over and over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: And past that, games have goals, you know, where you
Speaker 1: have to achieve this, you have to do that, and
Speaker 1: having goals focuses your attention allows you to get into
Speaker 1: more of a flow state. And that's what video games
Speaker 1: are pretty much designed to do, is put you into
Speaker 1: a flow state and pass that. Games provide instantaneous, you know,
Speaker 1: easily understandable feedback. You did well, you didn't do well,
Speaker 1: you got a point, you lost a point. It's very quick,
Speaker 1: you know, very quick versus It's like you think about
Speaker 1: your job. Um, you know, most people get an annual
Speaker 1: review that is not very fast, very good feedback as
Speaker 1: to what they're doing wrong. And if people think back
Speaker 1: to their first few months on the job, you probably
Speaker 1: weren't you know board because you know you you want
Speaker 1: to you see other people who are doing well at
Speaker 1: this job. Okay, it's winnable there, it's novel you you've
Speaker 1: never been at this place, this company doing this thing before.
Speaker 1: You have goals. People are they're telling you what what
Speaker 1: they want you to do, and you're getting feedback because
Speaker 1: at first you're probably screwing a bunch of stuff up
Speaker 1: or not doing it as well as everyone else and
Speaker 1: you and you need to learn. But the problem is
Speaker 1: with most jobs is that we see that very quickly.
Speaker 1: You know, those things fade out. You know, you're doing
Speaker 1: the same things over and over again. The novelty has gone,
Speaker 1: the goals might be unclear. Your own of getting feedback annually,
Speaker 1: and you start to look around. You're not getting promoted
Speaker 1: and you're wondering if this game really is winnable. So
Speaker 1: you know, there are certain things that if we try
Speaker 1: and take you know, those elements and apply them to
Speaker 1: deliberately to a lot of the activities which we find frustrating,
Speaker 1: are difficult, you know, winnable, novelty, goals, feedback. If we
Speaker 1: try and apply those specifically to a lot of tasks
Speaker 1: that are difficult, we can actually make them more enjoyable
Speaker 1: and increase our level of persistence and grit. Yeah. I've
Speaker 1: found there's a music program out there called Musician and
Speaker 1: it's that doesn't sound right, but anyway, it's a game
Speaker 1: that you can play on your iPhone, but you're using
Speaker 1: a real guitar. It is really teaching you to play
Speaker 1: the guitar, but it has exactly the things you're describing.
Speaker 1: The feedback is literally instant It tells you whether you
Speaker 1: played that note right or not. And I find that
Speaker 1: I can practice so much longer with that. I just
Speaker 1: get lost in it in the same way that I
Speaker 1: don't get lost in playing the guitar. I think it's
Speaker 1: because it, like you said, it's I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's winnable, but you're always making progress, you're always changing,
Speaker 1: and the feedback is instantaneous, and I have found it
Speaker 1: to be an amazing way to continue to practice playing
Speaker 1: the guitar. All it is is making a game out
Speaker 1: of it. Well, I mean, Teresa Mobili's research at Harvard
Speaker 1: show that the single most motivating thing is a feeling
Speaker 1: of progress and meaningful work is when people feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, I moved the needle forward. You know today
Speaker 1: I got closer to my goal. I'm making progress in
Speaker 1: something that matters. That's what produces, you know, the greatest
Speaker 1: amount of motivation. And you know, unfortunately many situations, you know,
Speaker 1: that's what's lacking, is you know, the goal might be unclear,
Speaker 1: or we just might not be getting you know, of
Speaker 1: getting any feedback at all. And so it's it's interesting
Speaker 1: to me that you know, as you're describing, you know,
Speaker 1: playing the guitar, you have the general amount of feedback.
Speaker 1: You can listen to what you're playing and get that,
Speaker 1: but to have that really crystallized and immediate, you know,
Speaker 1: that provides that much more motivation for you to want
Speaker 1: to keep playing that game as opposed as opposed to
Speaker 1: just normally playing the guitar. I think the other thing
Speaker 1: that is so helpful is it advances me at a
Speaker 1: very slow skill level. I've heard about flow is you know,
Speaker 1: getting to flow one of the things is just the
Speaker 1: right amount of challenge level. And I find like when
Speaker 1: I'm practicing guitar, otherwise I I either undershoot or overshoot
Speaker 1: that mark a lot. Either I'm not pushing myself at all,
Speaker 1: or I've just gone to a place where I'm like
Speaker 1: I can't do that, and this game just sort of
Speaker 1: slowly brings me along in a way that is really useful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you look at it was ma Hailey chick Semi
Speaker 1: I who did most of the research on Flow, and
Speaker 1: that's exactly what he found, which is it's operating in
Speaker 1: this bound where you know, if there's two little challenge,
Speaker 1: you get bored. If there's too much challenge, you're not
Speaker 1: doing well and you get frustrated and you want to quit.
Speaker 1: And so you know you need to stay optimally to
Speaker 1: be in flow. You want to be at that just
Speaker 1: that right level of challenge where your skills are being taxed,
Speaker 1: but not to the point where it feels futile. But
Speaker 1: the important thing, and this is what video games do
Speaker 1: so well that that life doesn't always do, is that
Speaker 1: as you as your skills progress, the challenge needs to
Speaker 1: needs to progress. And that's something that that very often
Speaker 1: many jobs are lacking. Is that with time your ability
Speaker 1: to do the job improves the challenges, don't we become bored, listless,
Speaker 1: and and all of a sudden, you know, the vibrancy,
Speaker 1: the interest, the motivation in doing jobs starts to wane. Hey, everyone,
Speaker 1: before you hit that thirty second forward button, a quick discussion.
Speaker 1: A long time ago, I went through a very difficult
Speaker 1: period and the book When Things Fall Apart by Pemma
Speaker 1: Children was so important to me during that period that
Speaker 1: to this day I still give that book to people
Speaker 1: when they're going through a difficult time. I've heard from
Speaker 1: a lot of you that this show has been a
Speaker 1: big help as you've gone through difficult times. And a
Speaker 1: way for you to give this show to other people
Speaker 1: who are going through difficult times is to be a supporter.
Speaker 1: You can go to one you feed dot net slash
Speaker 1: support and make a monthly contribution two dollars, five dollars,
Speaker 1: any amount helps. You'll get some great gifts if you do.
Speaker 1: But in addition, and more importantly, you get the satisfaction
Speaker 1: of knowing that you are passing on something that has
Speaker 1: been important and useful to you to other people. You're
Speaker 1: making sure that the show goes on, that all episodes
Speaker 1: are available for free, and that we continue to put
Speaker 1: out the content that we do that has helped you
Speaker 1: and many other people. So go to one new feed
Speaker 1: dot net slash support now and make a contribution and
Speaker 1: you are able to keep the show for yourself and
Speaker 1: as a gift to other people. Thanks so much, as
Speaker 1: always for your support. And here's the rest of the
Speaker 1: interview with Eric Barker. You talk about the idea that
Speaker 1: a lot of us, when we're bored at work, what
Speaker 1: we need is to re engage at work. Our our
Speaker 1: default strategy is to pull back, try and do less,
Speaker 1: not be as involved, but that the way through that
Speaker 1: is to is to get more involved and more into it.
Speaker 1: And I found that to be so true for me.
Speaker 1: The difference between me resisting doing something and kind of
Speaker 1: figuring out how I can get around it versus diving
Speaker 1: in is night and day for me on the exact
Speaker 1: same job. Very often. You know, it's because because the
Speaker 1: instructions were often given, or the channel or the difficulties
Speaker 1: were presented with you know, don't always have that proper level.
Speaker 1: So we can work to reframe, you know, the goals
Speaker 1: to provide that proper level of challenge or to change
Speaker 1: the goals altogether. Where if you have to do a
Speaker 1: power point presentation, you know, it might be something you've
Speaker 1: done a thousand times, but if you challenge yourself that, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, I want to make this presentation much
Speaker 1: more visual. How few words can I use? Can I
Speaker 1: use more images that really get my point across? Or
Speaker 1: or get the emotional valence you know across? Um? You know,
Speaker 1: I I want to do this in a way that's
Speaker 1: going to be like X instead of why where all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you start framing it and making it
Speaker 1: more challenging, challenging in a way that's interesting to you.
Speaker 1: And now all of a sudden you can achieve the
Speaker 1: goals that your job has put ahead of you, and
Speaker 1: you can make it more interesting and challenging to yourself
Speaker 1: by again adding your own set of goals you know,
Speaker 1: to it. And this is something that's that's not that
Speaker 1: hard to do, and most people have some level of latitude.
Speaker 1: Like I said, to focus on improving your performance versus
Speaker 1: just achieving the completion of the of the presentation adds
Speaker 1: a level of challenge that can make it interesting and motivating.
Speaker 1: Instead of the four hundred presentation that you've done like this, yep.
Speaker 1: And I always find there's room even if the job
Speaker 1: itself doesn't provide that that I can find it in
Speaker 1: the people I'm around and seeing if I can like
Speaker 1: making a challenge out of can I make people smile more?
Speaker 1: Or can I can I make somebody's day better? Or
Speaker 1: I mean, there's lots of different ways to give ourselves
Speaker 1: a place to engage deeper versus withdrawal. Yeah, and withdrawal
Speaker 1: is the path to burn out because what the research
Speaker 1: shows is that is that burnout isn't merely an issue
Speaker 1: of too much. Because you know, when you work too
Speaker 1: hard too long, Hey, you take a break, Okay, you're fine.
Speaker 1: When you easily recover from working too hard, that's not
Speaker 1: true burnout. True burnout, it turns out, is actually the
Speaker 1: flip side of grit. It's when you start to feel,
Speaker 1: you know, pessimistic about your job. You start to feel
Speaker 1: like I'm not getting anywhere, this isn't doing anything, and
Speaker 1: basically you start to withdraw. You do a worse job,
Speaker 1: you know, so of course what do you get worse feedback,
Speaker 1: worse performance, which only increases the feeling of futility, and
Speaker 1: then that produces a persistently negative attitude towards the job,
Speaker 1: towards being there, and and that's what creates true burnout,
Speaker 1: where people just don't even want to be there and
Speaker 1: think there's no point to it, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously vacations are good. Short term taking breaks is good.
Speaker 1: But when we just completely disengage and don't care anymore,
Speaker 1: that's really difficult because that doesn't actually make us feel
Speaker 1: better in the long term. That leads to burnout as
Speaker 1: opposed to re engaging, finding a new way to to
Speaker 1: perceive it, to reframe the work and make it interesting,
Speaker 1: you know, that's the path towards reinvigorating yourself. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: interesting because I do this show and I also do
Speaker 1: some coaching associated with it in different things, and that's
Speaker 1: what I would like to be doing full time at
Speaker 1: some juncture, but I'm not there yet, So I have
Speaker 1: other things that I do work wise, and I have
Speaker 1: found that when I am resenting those things and I
Speaker 1: am trying to get by with the minimum, I am
Speaker 1: just miserable. But if I just go ahead and engage
Speaker 1: in it and really give it my all, when I'm there,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I have more energy in general
Speaker 1: even to pursue the things that are outside of that.
Speaker 1: And it's sort of counterintuitive to me, but it's proven
Speaker 1: to be true. Yeah, I think it comes back to
Speaker 1: to that, to that research. Like I said, treesa mobilie,
Speaker 1: it's progress in meaningful work. And so you know, there's
Speaker 1: two questions there to ask yourself. Are you doing work
Speaker 1: that's that's meaningful or you're just doing busy work? And
Speaker 1: then are you moving the needle forward? Which which means
Speaker 1: you have to know what's what's forward, what's the goal?
Speaker 1: And am I getting closer to it? And in Dan
Speaker 1: Pink's great book Drive, he talks about you know three
Speaker 1: qualities that that leads to motivation, which is autonomy, mastery,
Speaker 1: and purpose. And that is number one. Do we have autonomy?
Speaker 1: Do we have the freedom to make some decisions where
Speaker 1: we feel like we're in control and we we actually
Speaker 1: what we do matters? Once again that avoiding the feeling
Speaker 1: of futility. I have autonomy, I make a difference. Second
Speaker 1: is mastery and that's that do I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: getting better? Do I feel like I'm improving? And third
Speaker 1: is purpose Again that meaningful issue. Do I feel like
Speaker 1: this is actually providing some value, this is actually having
Speaker 1: an impact on the world. When you combine those two,
Speaker 1: you just see that none of these elements are withdraw
Speaker 1: do less procrastinate. You know, they're all forward looking, um
Speaker 1: and and very often, you know, our brains get lazy,
Speaker 1: our brains get tired. But you know there's as the
Speaker 1: old saying goes, it changes as good as a rest.
Speaker 1: You know, when we find a novel problem, something that
Speaker 1: makes us curious, makes us want to engage. You know,
Speaker 1: that becomes the secret to really diving down. And then
Speaker 1: things that from a distance look difficult close up, they
Speaker 1: often pull us into a flow state. Uh, if we
Speaker 1: give them the chance and we engage them in the
Speaker 1: right way. So all of this really leads us to
Speaker 1: another part of the book that you talk about, and
Speaker 1: is also another subject that is probably one of the
Speaker 1: most talked about things on this show, which is that
Speaker 1: all of this stuff is a story. To a certain extent, right,
Speaker 1: we are telling ourselves stories about what has meaning and
Speaker 1: what doesn't. Talk to me about telling stories. Stories are
Speaker 1: basically the operating system of the human brain. We see
Speaker 1: our lives as you know, a story and across the board.
Speaker 1: This is seen again and again when you look at
Speaker 1: the research on parenting. If a child knows the family
Speaker 1: history where they came from and there was this you
Speaker 1: know story, a lineage, UM, kids do much better in school,
Speaker 1: they avoid drugs, they do they do better overall. They
Speaker 1: feel like they're part of something, They're part of a story. Yeah.
Speaker 1: John Gottman, who's you know, led the research in terms
Speaker 1: of successful relationships and marriages. The best predictor of whether
Speaker 1: a couple will get divorced is simply asking them to
Speaker 1: tell their story. And if it's a positive, uplifting story.
Speaker 1: It might involve challenges and difficulties, but they were resolve alved,
Speaker 1: they were overcome. Um, if they tell a positive story
Speaker 1: versus a negative story, you know, that's a great predictor
Speaker 1: that the marriage is gonna last. You know, how we
Speaker 1: talk about ourselves. If when you look at the research
Speaker 1: by Tim Wilson at uv A on you know what
Speaker 1: therapists are actually doing a big part of therapy is
Speaker 1: actually story editing, where we are reinterpreting the story of
Speaker 1: our lives. When you get depressed, you feel like I'm
Speaker 1: a failure. I'm never going to do anything. Look at
Speaker 1: my past, I've done this wrong, and this wrong and
Speaker 1: this wrong. Well, you've been alive for decades. There's plenty
Speaker 1: of examples of you doing bad, but there's also plenty
Speaker 1: examples of you doing good. But when you tell your
Speaker 1: personal story, which ones do you choose to highlight? And
Speaker 1: and those the negatives are? Did you learn something from them?
Speaker 1: Was that a period of growth? Could that be seen
Speaker 1: as a positive? How we interpret those stories is really critical.
Speaker 1: And you know, work by James Penna Baker, University of
Speaker 1: Texas at Austin, he showed that you know if when
Speaker 1: by just simply sitting down for twenty minutes a day
Speaker 1: for four days, you know, and eating about difficult you know,
Speaker 1: a tragic event or heartbreak or or some kind of
Speaker 1: difficult issue we're struggling with. When people have to write,
Speaker 1: because when we ruminate, that's bad, that leads to depression.
Speaker 1: But we write, we have to structure our thoughts and
Speaker 1: typically what happens we structure them into a story. And
Speaker 1: merely by taking that time to structure it out to
Speaker 1: make sense of it, you know, which is what writing requires,
Speaker 1: people often feel much much better and they're able to
Speaker 1: get past difficult things again and again. You see that
Speaker 1: the story we tell ourselves, you know, is critical in
Speaker 1: terms of whether we persist, how we feel and the
Speaker 1: person that we are and the person we become. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I love what you said there that in our
Speaker 1: lives there are good and there are bad things, because
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a matter of like making up
Speaker 1: things that aren't true, right, we don't believe things that
Speaker 1: aren't true. It's really where are we're gonna put the focus?
Speaker 1: Because since we are constructing it, why not construct a
Speaker 1: story that is used full You talk about the term
Speaker 1: cognitive reappraisal, it sounds like that that's just another way
Speaker 1: of saying changing our story and changing our reference to it. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I think this very much ties
Speaker 1: into the to the parable behind the name of this podcast.
Speaker 1: I think again, you know, it's are you thinking about
Speaker 1: the good wolf for the bad wolf? You know, because
Speaker 1: we have all engaged the bad wolf in terms of
Speaker 1: you know, being angry or envious or negative, and we've
Speaker 1: also all had plenty of times where we were good people,
Speaker 1: we were altruistic, we were kind, And when we tell
Speaker 1: the story, are we telling the story of the good wolf.
Speaker 1: Are we're telling the story of the bad wolf? Which
Speaker 1: one do we really see ourselves as which one do
Speaker 1: we perceive to be the more accurate depiction of who
Speaker 1: we are? So in that way, I think the story
Speaker 1: you tell yourself is really critical. So those are the
Speaker 1: stories that we tell ourselves. Broadly, there's also what's going
Speaker 1: on in our head at any given minute. You say
Speaker 1: between three d a thousand words is what we're saying
Speaker 1: to ourselves every minute, and those words can be positive
Speaker 1: or negative. One of the things I thought was really
Speaker 1: interesting in the book was talking about Navy seals and
Speaker 1: the training and how high the dropout rate is, but
Speaker 1: that people who learned to speak themselves um positively. That
Speaker 1: changed dramatically. Basically, after nine eleven, the military needed more
Speaker 1: lead operators and obviously the training is very difficult, the
Speaker 1: vetting process is very difficult. So they couldn't lower standards
Speaker 1: because then you they wouldn't be a lead anymore. Uh
Speaker 1: So they were trying to figure out, how can we
Speaker 1: help more people qualify in a way that's that's not
Speaker 1: lowering their standards. So the Navy did something that they
Speaker 1: had never really done before and asked, what are the
Speaker 1: things that helps help us be gritty and help us persist.
Speaker 1: And they came up with four than the number one
Speaker 1: was was positive self talk, you know, where we have
Speaker 1: that voice in our head is telling us, you know,
Speaker 1: positive things again not not necessarily delusional. And uh, and
Speaker 1: we're not talking about the secret here where just because
Speaker 1: you wish it, the reality is going to warp and change. No,
Speaker 1: but having a positive voice in your head because what
Speaker 1: you see across the board, even including research in physiology,
Speaker 1: your brain quits much quicker than your muscles do. When
Speaker 1: we look at the levels of glycogen, that's the sugar
Speaker 1: that your your muscles actually used to power themselves. Uh.
Speaker 1: When people say I can't run any further or I
Speaker 1: can't lift any more weights, when they actually check the muscle,
Speaker 1: they often find that the glycogen is far from depleted.
Speaker 1: You know, the muscles are not at their breaking point.
Speaker 1: The brain acts as a governor, you know, in many ways,
Speaker 1: because the brain doesn't want you to get hurt, so
Speaker 1: it quits long before your body does. But when we
Speaker 1: have this positive self talk, that you can move forward.
Speaker 1: And that also ties into I talked about in the
Speaker 1: book the idea of self compassion when we are compassionate
Speaker 1: with ourselves, when the voice in our head is warm
Speaker 1: and soothing and accepting, rather than you know, getting get
Speaker 1: we get angry with ourselves, We punish ourselves, we beat
Speaker 1: ourselves up. Um, you know, we get much better results
Speaker 1: from when it's positive, soothing and supportive than when we
Speaker 1: we get angry with ourselves. Yeah, the actual line you
Speaker 1: have in the book is between saying things to ourselves
Speaker 1: like I can do it or oh god, I can't
Speaker 1: take this anymore. And that hits home so much. That
Speaker 1: distinction in my mind when I'm pushing myself, like what
Speaker 1: is it I'm saying, and as soon as it starts
Speaker 1: to get into I can't take this anymore is when
Speaker 1: I start to become very unhappy. And it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to happen just an exercise. I will notice that kind
Speaker 1: of come up just as a as an underlying sort
Speaker 1: of repetitive voice that's going on, whether it's I can't
Speaker 1: take this anymore or this is terrible or and when
Speaker 1: I can catch it, it's so easy for me to
Speaker 1: sort of reframe that and go, oh wait a second, No,
Speaker 1: that's not that's not the case at all, Like, yes,
Speaker 1: I you know, I can do this. It's not as
Speaker 1: nearly as bad as what this almost unconscious voice is saying. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I mean that ties into a lot of the uh,
Speaker 1: the what comes the working mindfulness which originally comes to
Speaker 1: us from Buddhism, but you know has now uh you know,
Speaker 1: if it's been scientifically validated in terms of mindfulness, where
Speaker 1: that voice, you know doesn't have to be us. You know,
Speaker 1: in the same way that you know, our body does things.
Speaker 1: Our brain produces thoughts. You know, if you if you
Speaker 1: broke your arm, you would not say I am broken.
Speaker 1: You would say your arm is broken. Well, your brain
Speaker 1: produces thoughts. Sometimes those thoughts are crazy. Sometimes we don't
Speaker 1: listen to them. Sometimes they're silly. Yet all too often,
Speaker 1: you know, our brain produces these thoughts and we immediately
Speaker 1: identify with them, you know. And when I when I
Speaker 1: interviewed Joseph Goldstein, one of the one of the leading
Speaker 1: leading voices in terms of mindfulness, you know, he said,
Speaker 1: the first step very often is listening to that voice
Speaker 1: in a distance sort of objective way, and then asking
Speaker 1: is this useful? Because our brain produces all these crazy thoughts,
Speaker 1: and we dismiss many of them. But sometimes, you know,
Speaker 1: we listen to it and we we don't need to
Speaker 1: that that voice isn't us, that is our brain. Your
Speaker 1: arm is broken, you're not broken. Your brain produces thoughts,
Speaker 1: they are not necessarily you. So we we don't need
Speaker 1: to take all of those thoughts as seriously, We don't
Speaker 1: need to identify with them as us. We can say, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: that's my brain being crazy again, you know, and to
Speaker 1: take a step back and listen to that voice, you
Speaker 1: know as not us and ask is this useful? Is
Speaker 1: this something I want to move forward with? And putting
Speaker 1: a little gap in there where we take a second
Speaker 1: and rather than being reactive to whatever thought occurs to us,
Speaker 1: we choose to respond to respond thoughtfully as opposed to
Speaker 1: blindly reacting. Very often we make better choices, you know,
Speaker 1: that that do represent who we want to be again,
Speaker 1: much like the podcast, you know, taking that pause, do
Speaker 1: I want to feed the bad wolf or the good wolf?
Speaker 1: For me, I don't think there's been anything that has
Speaker 1: more contributed to the quality of my life. And I
Speaker 1: used to be an addict, and so I've come a
Speaker 1: long way, and I think probably the biggest if I
Speaker 1: hadn't boil it down to one thing, was that recognition like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't have to believe those thoughts. I can step
Speaker 1: away from them, I can notice them. And and for
Speaker 1: me that was such a big unlock, because I can
Speaker 1: only imagine now thinking back, what a mess my head
Speaker 1: must have been. That's something we really need to think about,
Speaker 1: because we already have that perspective in our vocabulary when
Speaker 1: we're drunk. You know, we don't take everything we do
Speaker 1: or say seriously. When we're angry, will say when you're hungry,
Speaker 1: you know, you act differently. You might have a very
Speaker 1: short temper, you haven't got enough sleep. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you. I
Speaker 1: really was tossing and turning last night. We understand that
Speaker 1: there are different states were in that cause us to
Speaker 1: to act quote unquote, and I wasn't myself, you know.
Speaker 1: So we we have this perspective, and we we pull
Speaker 1: it out again with drunkenness, with tiredness, with anger. You know,
Speaker 1: we do have the ability to say I did that,
Speaker 1: but that wasn't me. And we need to actually broaden that,
Speaker 1: you know, somewhat and say that there are many thoughts
Speaker 1: going through our head. We don't need to identify with
Speaker 1: all of them. We can pick and choose, and when
Speaker 1: we take the time to do that, we often make
Speaker 1: much better choices. I totally agree. I want to change
Speaker 1: directions back to we were talking about withdrawal, and one
Speaker 1: of the things you talk about is says research shows
Speaker 1: we don't off and choose to do what really makes
Speaker 1: us happy. We choose what's easy. And I'm not going
Speaker 1: to choose to take on the challenge of trying to
Speaker 1: say his name, which you did earlier, the guy who
Speaker 1: wrote flow. I'll let you do that again because that's
Speaker 1: braver than I am. But it's his research that we're
Speaker 1: talking about here. Yeah, Haley Chick, send me hi. Uh.
Speaker 1: He did research, uh, you know, showing that I believe
Speaker 1: specifically it was teenagers and it was watching TV, socializing,
Speaker 1: or playing sports. And what he found was that TV
Speaker 1: made them least happy, socializing made them more happy, and
Speaker 1: playing sports made them the happiest. Uh. And when given
Speaker 1: the option, uh, teenagers chose in the exact wrong order.
Speaker 1: They were much more likely to pick watching TV, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, slightly less likely to specializing again, and far
Speaker 1: less likely to pick sports. And I think we see
Speaker 1: that across the board where you know, very often we
Speaker 1: get tired, we think, oh I can't do this, I
Speaker 1: don't and we we make the easy choice. We don't make,
Speaker 1: you know, the good choice, the low long term choice.
Speaker 1: And this is something again where kind of like pausing
Speaker 1: and reflecting. Daniel Gilbert did a lot of research at
Speaker 1: Harvard showing this in terms of, you know, we are
Speaker 1: often very poor at remembering what made us happy. Now,
Speaker 1: some people would would be quick to reject that out
Speaker 1: of hand, but when you look at the research that
Speaker 1: they've done in terms of how bad are Monday's really,
Speaker 1: how great are Friday's really? How good do you really
Speaker 1: feel on your book? And it turns out that Mondays
Speaker 1: aren't that bad, and you know, and that that the
Speaker 1: people don't actually feel like that, and we're quick to
Speaker 1: forget this and we do it all the time. I mean,
Speaker 1: where you know, when you feel really depressed, you know,
Speaker 1: after you know, lose a job, the end of a relationship,
Speaker 1: what's the natural feel Oh my god, the sadness is
Speaker 1: never going to end. These kind of things happen all
Speaker 1: the time, and yet every time it's it's never gonna end.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna feel this way forever. And we're very bad
Speaker 1: often at remembering what made us really unhappy and what
Speaker 1: made us, you know, very happy. And if we actually
Speaker 1: take the time to write down, to record what makes
Speaker 1: us extremely happy, what makes us less happy and then
Speaker 1: and then follow the script as opposed to trusting are
Speaker 1: very fallible memories, um, we can actually end up living
Speaker 1: much happier lives making better choices. Yeah, you say, without
Speaker 1: a plan, we do what's passive and easy, not what
Speaker 1: it's really fulfilling. And then you go on to talk
Speaker 1: about another study that shows that managing your free time
Speaker 1: is associated with the higher quality of life. It's not
Speaker 1: so much about increasing it, but scheduling that time in advance.
Speaker 1: And for me that I find that so true. If
Speaker 1: I wake up on a weekend and I know kind
Speaker 1: of what I'm doing through the day, I really enjoy
Speaker 1: the whole day. But if I wake up and I
Speaker 1: have no idea what I'm doing, I tend to fret.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't really know what to do with myself,
Speaker 1: and I feel very aimless. And so having to plan
Speaker 1: and laying it out makes such a difference in it.
Speaker 1: Now it looks like there's you know some studies that
Speaker 1: show that I think we have all had days where
Speaker 1: we're happy to have the day off and and what's
Speaker 1: the first ourselves, I'm going to do nothing, and and
Speaker 1: you know you waste you waste the day, and then
Speaker 1: we often feel like that, where did the day go?
Speaker 1: You know, I haven't really gotten started. I just kind
Speaker 1: of sat around and watched TV, you know, versus that
Speaker 1: that Christmas morning feeling where you know, I'm anticipating this,
Speaker 1: this is great, and you know in the research shows
Speaker 1: that very often, UH, anticipation UH provides us with more
Speaker 1: happiness than the actual event, does you know, anticipating the vacation,
Speaker 1: you know, you get you're gonna get a month or
Speaker 1: two months to say, oh my god, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: so great, and and that that's happiness. You know, there
Speaker 1: is no such thing as fake happiness. If you feel good,
Speaker 1: you feel good. And so to have two months of
Speaker 1: anticipating that vacation, that is real joy. That's real happiness.
Speaker 1: And so again, if we take the time, I know
Speaker 1: most people you know have a need or negative response
Speaker 1: to planning their free time. I don't want to have to,
Speaker 1: you know, yes, but when we make plans with friends.
Speaker 1: We can look forward to them and we enjoy the
Speaker 1: company of our friends, as opposed to very often you
Speaker 1: sit on the couch, you watch Netflix, there's nothing good on,
Speaker 1: you surf around on the internet. I mean, when you
Speaker 1: look at the research in terms of television, you know, actually,
Speaker 1: for the most part, it shows that it's it's actually
Speaker 1: similar to load grade load grade depression. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's very often we're not watching extremely entertaining stuff. It's
Speaker 1: the desire to get away from work, from being told
Speaker 1: what to do, but it doesn't actually bring us much
Speaker 1: joy versus when we make plans with friends. You know,
Speaker 1: not only are those you know often much more enjoyable
Speaker 1: than just sitting around aimlessly doing nothing, but also we
Speaker 1: get the opportunity to anticipate them and again, very often
Speaker 1: the anticipation is the best part. And without a plan
Speaker 1: it is easy just to default to nothing. Well, Eric,
Speaker 1: thanks so much. That was a great conversation. I love
Speaker 1: the book, um so much of it is very much
Speaker 1: in line with the things that we talked about on
Speaker 1: the show. I will have links in the show notes
Speaker 1: to the book where people can find you great read.
Speaker 1: And I had a great conversation. Oh thank you. I
Speaker 1: really I really really appreciate you hoping me get the
Speaker 1: word out about barking up Throng Tree. And it's it's
Speaker 1: been great talking to you, all right. Thanks bye. If
Speaker 1: what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider
Speaker 1: making a donation to the one you Feed podcast. Head
Speaker 1: over to one you Feed dot net slash support