WEBVTT - The Subtraction Mindset: How To Get More By Doing Less | Dr. Leidy Klotz 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:19.840 Welcome to two percent. I am your host, Michael Easter. 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:22.520 So I recently just turned in a draft of my 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:25.119 new book to my editor. It was a very long process. 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:27.080 Took me about two years to write this book. And 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:29.400 I wrote this book everywhere. I wrote some of it 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:31.520 in my office, some of it in my kitchen table. 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:34.160 I wrote it on airplanes, I wrote it in airports, 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:36.879 all these different places. And I noticed in the writing 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:41.239 process that some places were much better than others. Some 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:43.920 places I would be more focused, some places I would 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:46.600 be more creative. And it really got me thinking about 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:50.199 place and how the places where we live, work and 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:52.840 exist affect us and what we do. 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:53.880 Now. 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:57.160 Lucky for us, I have an old friend who used 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:00.319 to be a pro soccer player Good Little Factoids, now 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:03.520 a professor at UVA, and he has a new book out. 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:05.840 His name is Lighty Klotts. It is called in a 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:09.240 Good Place, How the spaces where we live, work and 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:12.639 play can help us thrive. So this is a really 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:15.200 awesome book. If you happen to be a human who 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:18.240 takes up space anywhere on this planet, that is to 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:20.800 say you. So I called up Lighty. We're going to 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:23.000 talk to him about place We're going to talk to 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:25.840 him about his past work, which I featured in my 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:28.520 book Scarcity Brain, and that is where we're going to start. 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:32.360 He found something really fascinating about the human mind and 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:35.399 how we are wired to add often when it is 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:36.520 not a good idea. 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:41.440 So let's go LIGHTI thanks for coming on the show. 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:43.400 Thanks for having me, Michael, it's great to be here. 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:45.920 So we first met when I was writing my book 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:49.360 Scarcity Brain. A came across your study in Nature about 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:53.640 how humans preferentially overlook subtraction and even wrote a book 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:58.120 called Subtract about that entire topic. What I thought was 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:03.440 amazing and awesome is the whole story behind how that 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:07.360 study started, what kicked off the book, and it starts 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:10.200 with legos. So tell us that story because it's amazing. 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:11.400 Yeah. 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:14.560 I was playing Legos with my son Ezra, he was 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:16.840 three at the time. So it was actually the duplow 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:21.320 blocks and we had we had a bridge basically that 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:26.240 wasn't level. So the support column on one side of 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:28.959 the bridge was shorter than the support column on the 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:31.200 other side of the bridge. And so as a dad, 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:33.360 I'm like, all right, I can fix this problem. Turned 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:35.400 around behind me, to grab a block to add to 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:37.480 the shorter column, but by the time I had turned 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:40.800 back around, Ezra had removed a block from the longer 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:43.040 column to make the level bridge. 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:45.680 And I think the important point here is that you 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:48.280 spent a lot of time in school thinking about engineering 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:50.200 as well, so it's not like you're the you don't 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:52.400 know what you're doing here, Like you have a PhD 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:53.160 in this topic. 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:58.160 Yeah, literally a PhD in engineering. Yeah, so this was 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:02.200 like this should have been moment, right, a doting dad 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:05.680 and a PhD in the topic of making bridges straight. 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:08.960 But he came up with an answer that was. 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:11.480 Better, better than I did, And I wouldn't have thought 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:12.679 of if he wasn't there. 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:17.440 And didn't you actually make the bridge wonky again and 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:22.960 take it around and ask your collaborators, colleagues grad students 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:23.680 to fix it. 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:24.480 But you would give them. 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:26.080 You would put the legos on the table so they 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:29.919 could elevate it, right, And wouldn't most people add, yeah, 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:30.280 so I. 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:31.680 Have the version of it right here. 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:34.239 I mean I still carried around like and so yeah, 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:37.000 I would you know, make I made a replica, so 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:40.680 basically this super simplified and then put the blocks next 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:43.240 to it on the table, and I started bringing it 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:44.960 around because I was like, I don't I mean, maybe 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:48.920 people will just get this, but yeah, the super smart 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:51.400 grad students could smarter than me come in and they're 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:53.440 all adding. And then I gave it to my collaborator, 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:55.440 who I'd thought I had been trying to explain these 0:03:55.480 --> 0:04:00.200 ideas to and she was like she failed, and then 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:02.120 she said, oh I get it, So what you but 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:04.600 what we've what you've been trying to say is that 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:06.600 why don't we subtract to make things better? 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:08.760 And then we were off. 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:12.560 So then speaking of that, you're off. This means you 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:15.720 set up a series of experiments and what were those? 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:18.600 How were they designed? And yeah, how'd that all play out? 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:21.159 My background's engineering. I do a lot of behavioral science 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:23.919 stuff and I respect it, and I respected enough to 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:26.279 know that for a study like that, I needed help. 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:28.640 And so like Gabe Adams and Ben Coomvers and Andy 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:30.760 Hale's or the co authors on the study and they're 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:34.560 all psychology professors, were just at a table that students 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:37.000 were walking by, and we would give them a lego 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:39.679 structure that was pre made, just kind of a random structure, 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:41.280 and said how would you make this thing better. We 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:46.160 got sixty samples from that and every single one added, 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:49.120 and we like send an email saying the biggest bias ever. 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:52.360 But then we went into you know, trying to create 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:55.640 more like experimental setups where we're trying to figure out, 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:58.560 like Okay was trying to make it so that subtracting 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:01.680 is at least as good an option as adding, if 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:05.240 not better, and then trying to show that people would 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:08.360 overlook subtraction to their detriment and you would enjoy the 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:11.279 writing ones. And the classic writing advice right is omit 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:12.160 needless words. 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:13.040 All this writing. 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:15.839 There's a whole profession of editors that exist to take 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:18.160 things away from our writing and make it better. And 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:20.880 we would give people summaries of writing and ask them 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:23.320 to make it better, and everybody would add. And then 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:26.200 so we did writing. We had a day trip itinerary 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:28.720 in Washington, d C. That was just almost it was 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:33.279 impossible to execute. I would argue, totally overloaded schedule. There's 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:37.800 like a million Yeah, of course, seeing major monuments launch 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:40.360 at a five star bistro. I mean traffic between these 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:44.160 things is like three hours of travel time just and 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:46.320 then gave people a drag and drop interface where they 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:48.479 could take stuff off of the schedule or add stuff 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:51.000 to it and buy large people added to this already 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:53.119 impossible schedule to make it better. 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:56.320 Or we missed the Vietnam monument. We got to see 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:56.840 that too. 0:05:57.600 --> 0:05:58.200 That's a good one. 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:01.520 That's subtractive though, that's down into the earth and it's 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:04.000 all inspiring because it's subtracting, you know. Then we were 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:06.039 playing around with like, Okay, how do how do we 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:09.919 create situations we're subtracting? Is objectively the correct answer, because 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:11.880 all of the other studies you could just argue, well, 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.080 people just wanted to have a jam pack schedule, or 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:17.240 people just wanted to have longer words. So the Lego one, 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:20.520 we created this thing where it was basically. 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:20.320 Like a. 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:25.320 Sandwich, a panel on the bottom and a panel on 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:28.360 the top, and then there was a stormtrooper, a Lego 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:33.640 stormtrooper being protected by the top panel, and then there 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:37.359 was like a column of supports going up. And the 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:39.800 task was to try to put a masonry block on 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:45.159 the top panel without it collapsing and crushing the stormtrooper. 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:47.280 So if you didn't do to any modifications, it would 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:48.960 just collapse and crush the stormtrooper. 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:51.360 It was set up so that the most. 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:53.920 Common modification people did was to add a whole row 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:58.279 of blocks to strengthen the top the top row. The 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:00.799 subtractive way to do it was to move one block 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:03.680 and just drop the platform down. And we gave people 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:08.640 financial incentives. We told them to so it costs money 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:11.440 to add blocks, and they kept the money they had 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:15.280 if they If they didn't ad blocks, we told them 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:16.960 that the goal was to do it in as fuel 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:19.240 blocks as possible. So again they were getting the wrong answer, 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:24.000 but it was very narrow, narrow context. So eventually came 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:27.920 of this really elegant grid designs that you could show 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:30.720 people on a computer screen. And basically, I mean there 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:32.600 were a bunch of different designs, but all of them 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:35.960 were symmetrical from left to right and top to bottom, 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:39.800 except there were extraneous marks in one of the quadrants. 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:41.560 And then we tasked people with like, how would you 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:45.680 make this symmetrical? And the subtractive way to do it 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:48.640 was to remove the extraneous marks from one quadrant. The 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:51.120 additive way to do it was to add to three quadrants, 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:55.360 which of course took more work, and people would still 0:07:57.080 --> 0:07:59.480 add not even consider subtraction and then move on. 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:01.000 We overlook it. 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:04.160 And it's not that one is any better than the 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:07.160 other inherently adding or subtracting. But the point you're trying 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:11.560 to make is that if you are consistently overlooking subtraction 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:15.360 as an as an option to solve a problem or 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:18.520 make an improvement, then you're you're missing like half the options. 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:21.080 And those options are oftentimes more efficient. 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:23.400 Right, And they're like the if you think about this 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:26.640 as like a marketplace of ideas, those are the ideas 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:30.040 that nobody's thinking of, right, I mean, because everybody's overlooking them. 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:31.920 And so I would argue, you know, if I have 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:34.800 to pick between adding and subtracting, I would just take heading. 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:35.760 But we don't have to. 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:39.839 Pick their like complementary approaches to making things better. And 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:43.400 because the subtractive ones are so underused, I would argue 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:48.560 that there's probably more potential there to make your life better. 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:53.280 I would imagine A big one with businesses is meetings. Yeah, 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:56.080 you look, you look at the stats on meetings, and 0:08:56.080 --> 0:09:00.600 I have been growing in frequency and duration over time, 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:05.240 and I actually think probably after people started to work 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:08.560 from home, I think that there's probably more meetings because 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:10.880 it's like you got to meet with someone, but they're 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:13.400 often not as productive as we think. It's almost like less, 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:14.640 there's more in the meeting space. 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:15.760 Yeah, one hundred percent. 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:19.520 Bob Sutton, who's he's the author of the No Asshole 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:21.840 Rule and a bunch of other books. But he and 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:24.480 I have this like rule of halves for meetings that 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:26.440 I think he came up with, but he keeps trying 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:28.640 to give me credit for. And it's, you know, basically 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:31.720 like making these Okay, can the meetings be half the 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:35.240 frequency or half the half the number of time, half 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:37.680 the number of attendees, And you're just like putting rules 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:40.040 on it. But and also I mean there are companies 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:43.440 that do meeting doomsdays, which just take meetings entirely off 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:46.280 the calendar and then you can immediately add them back. 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:49.920 But it's like flipping the flipping the framing in your 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:52.280 brain where it's like, Okay, is this something that we 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:54.960 should add to our calendar versus is this something that 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:58.280 we should we should have to subtract. And I think 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:00.840 they end up with far fewer meetings. But that's definitely 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:02.560 a huge time stink. 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:04.640 It could be an email or it could be to 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:07.840 our previous point about information, just someone make a decision, 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:09.600 you don't have to run it by fifty people. 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:11.679 Right, And there's this whole thing of you know, one 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:14.280 of the reasons that we do this, you know, on 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:18.760 the biological perspective, is just we want to show competence, right, 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:20.960 We want to show that we're effectively making change in 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:25.600 the world, and that is that disadvantages subtraction because like 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:28.120 when we subtract something, the change isn't visible. 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:31.560 Yeah, that's really smart. You played professional soccer. Did you 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:34.920 find this in your soccer career at all in terms 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:37.800 of like how you were training, how just anything in 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:38.280 that field. 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:41.680 There was a marathon er who like got sick before 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:46.080 a big marathon and therefore didn't couldn't train as much, 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:48.720 and then did really well in the marathon because like 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:51.840 he effectively forced to taper, And that's how this idea 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:54.760 of like scaling down your training before the games. 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:58.640 Actually came to be. So there's definitely that piece. 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:02.040 One of my favorite soccer ones is you can often 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:04.720 these constraints can help. Like I'm coaching a bunch of 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:07.439 eleven year olds right now, and like if you tell 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:09.760 them they can only touch the ball twice and not 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:13.240 dribble it. Actually the soccer gets much better because they're 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:17.319 forced to pass and then sometimes even you know, taking 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:21.560 people off the field so to shake the system out 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:25.880 of its out of its slumber. So basically, if you're 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:29.520 playing like eleven on eleven and you're just like it's 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:32.520 not dynamic enough, you go down to like nine people 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:34.000 on one of the teams, and then all of a 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:36.080 sudden people are having to cover more ground and it 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:41.360 just breaks people out of the regular patterns. So definitely 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:43.319 those things, but it's also hard. I mean, like one 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:45.920 of the things, I think, the more you care about something, 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:48.000 the harder it is to subtract. And when you're trying 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:51.679 to be a professional soccer player, it's really really hard 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:53.560 to be like, oh, I'm not going to do this 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:56.599 thing that everybody else is doing and that's going to 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:57.960 help me get ahead. 0:11:58.000 --> 0:11:59.200 It's it's really hard. 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:01.200 To think that way. And I would say probably I 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:04.560 probably overtrained. I probably aired on the side of doing 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:06.600 too much and not being fresh enough. 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:08.640 Yeah, And I feel like in the wellness world, do 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:12.080 you see this, especially as people are starting to get 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:15.080 into health and wellness, The question becomes what do I 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:17.920 need to add and do? An example would be weight loss. 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:20.640 People are like, what special diet do I need to add? 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:22.280 And then they go to the grocery store and they 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:25.040 buy this massive range of all these new foods and 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:26.520 it's like, well, you know, you could just kind of 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:29.400 eat less of what you're already eating, or like I'm 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:32.640 going to work out, I need insert ten thousand dollars 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:33.160 in equipment. 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:34.720 It's like, why don't you just take a walk and 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:36.000 do some push ups? That's free. 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:40.560 Yeah, I mean the weight loss one is so like obvious, right, 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:44.120 but it's it's so true that a solution is so 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:47.640 clearly less one. Reframing though, Like that's helped me because 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:51.600 I would always have a hard time doing like rest days, right, 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:54.760 and just like so just naming it something, right, This 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:58.560 isn't a rest day. This is like my active recovery day. 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:00.400 And I could do the exact same thing, but it's 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:03.640 like I feel like the sense of accomplishment from doing it. 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:06.599 You've got to frame it for the type a personality 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:10.280 that gets into professional soccer. Yeah, this isn't You're not 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:15.160 just sitting around, This is actively recovering. Yeah, exactly, Okay, 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:17.240 So one of the stories I love from your new 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:20.800 book is how in college and you went to Lafayette 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:23.200 right in Easton, Pennsylvania. 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:23.720 Got it. 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:30.280 You are playing Lehigh, which is, I don't know, twenty 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:35.120 minutes away. They're your giant rival in soccer. Game is 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:39.079 at Lehigh, so you are on your away turf, and 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:43.040 all the data says that teams that are away teams 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:46.040 have a disadvantage because there's crowd around, you're in a 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:46.760 new territory. 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:47.960 It just kind of throws you off. 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:52.000 So your coach, before you guys are headed to the game, 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:55.360 he's like, I'm going to take a meeting, I'm going 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:57.800 to mess around a little bit. And you're all waiting 0:13:57.800 --> 0:13:59.320 for the bus, like we got to get to the game, 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:01.840 and he's just gagging. When you get in the bus, 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:05.760 he has the bus go like a really obscure route 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:08.640 that takes way longer. So you show up at this 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:13.520 game like ten twenty minutes before kickoff and you're kind 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:15.920 of frazzled. But it got you right into the game 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:19.680 and you're like, we realized that it almost didn't allow 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:21.560 us to sit on that field and get in our 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:24.320 heads about being in this a way setting. 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:28.000 Yeah, and our coach would he said. I confirmed it 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:30.960 with him, like when I was writing the book, because 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:32.640 he would always do weird stuff and I was like, 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:34.840 was that intentional? He's like, yeah, I wanted you guys 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:38.080 to get off the bus and play. And the idea 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:41.080 was that you know, all the hoopla around the game, 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:43.760 any of the nerves, any of the kind of like 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:48.160 feeling disoriented in a new space, he would just transport 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:51.320 us right to the soccer field, which is the same dimensions, 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:54.920 the same grass, very familiar, and maybe have a little 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:57.080 bit more adrenaline going through our veins. Because we were 0:14:57.080 --> 0:14:59.480 like kind of pissed at him for like messing up, 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.520 you know, we wanted to. Yeah, And so what I 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:05.640 learned from that is like, when we're like going into 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:08.320 new territory, it's I mean, it's super important to think 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:10.480 about how you approach it, and it's not always good 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:13.400 to just show up right before. But one strategy is 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:15.240 to show up right before if you think it's going 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:17.640 to be an intimidating space, and then just get into 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:20.320 the familiar space as quickly as possible. 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:22.880 Yeah, I've noticed, I mean, you do public talks a 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:25.240 lot and I've noticed too when people want me there, 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:28.680 you know, two three hours before a talk, they're like, okay, 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:30.880 just hang out in the green room for two hours. 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:32.360 You're just kind of sitting there going, I wonder how 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:34.680 big the crowd is, I wonder how big this stage is, 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:36.760 what is this how much brighter the light's going to be? 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:38.480 Do I have a conference where you're just like running 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:40.680 through your head, whereas in situations where they're like, yeah, 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:43.120 just show up like twenty minutes before, you just get 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:44.680 right into it, and it's like, oh yeah, this is 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:45.640 just like every other talk. 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:47.480 You don't have time to sit and stew. 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:50.120 Yeah, what's the person before me going to say? Right? 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:52.200 And it's like and again, the talk's a great example 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:54.600 because it's not like you're not prepared, right, You've done 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.440 the talk before, You've prepared at nauseum. And what you're 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:01.600 doing is like avoiding the awkward spatial stuff so that 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:05.520 you can like connect with the audience as best as 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:06.480 best as possible. 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:08.280 Yeah, So that's that's another great example. 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:10.280 I will say that like a good green room does 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:14.520 that when you like kind of keeps you isolated. But 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:17.000 if you the worst is when there isn't a green 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:18.560 room and you go and you're like sitting in the 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:20.360 audience and then you have to like come from the 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:23.280 audience and go up on stage awkwardly. 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:25.520 Hey guys, Yeah, I was the one sitting over that. 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:32.240 So what prompted you to write the new book? 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:36.640 I think the new book was in my mind before Subtract. 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:39.480 I've always been interested in this intersection between like our 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:44.040 physical world and our mental world. And then to write 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:47.280 a book, you know, it has to be useful to somebody, 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:49.800 so trying to figure out what people needed to know 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:52.640 about that intersection because I felt like the intersection between 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:55.120 like our physical and mental world, everybody would be like, oh, yeah, 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:57.960 that's important, but like where are we supposed to focus 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:00.600 How can it be helpful to us? And so I 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:03.120 think that was the motivating factor. And then the book 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:07.360 was very like, you know, distilling down to what is 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:11.840 what's important about this relationship and how can it help 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:14.120 people and how can we use it in our day 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:14.960 to day lives. 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:20.760 Yeah, you wrote about how people have three needs, agency, competence, connection, 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:23.800 tell us more about those. I thought that was really interesting. 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:25.679 And then how it applies to place. 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:29.000 I'll use an example, So agency competence and connection. You 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:32.280 can think about like kids playing on a beach, right, 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:35.280 So kids goes to a beach. Agency is like they 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:39.000 get to decide where to build the sand castle. 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:39.360 Right. 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:41.800 They can they decide where to build it, they can 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.480 decide how big to build it, they can decide how 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:47.160 the shapes the forms. They can decide whether to make 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:50.080 packed sand or a drip castle. So this agency is 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:56.000 their ability to choose their relationship with their surroundings. Competence 0:17:56.160 --> 0:18:00.639 is the ability to actually do something right and to 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:01.120 to know. 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:02.040 That you can do this. 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:05.399 So compensates or growth like if and it's amazing if 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:07.600 you think about like what a kid's learning building a 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:08.600 sand castle, right. 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:12.560 Barn awesome examples of your daughter building sand castles. 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:13.560 Were you on the Jersey Shore? 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.359 Yeah, Jersey Shore, Ocean City, New Jersey, and we go 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:19.160 there every summer, and you know, but she's like doing 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:22.920 the drip castles, and I think there's two or three 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:25.880 and she's like making these really immaculate drip castles. You're 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:29.080 learning how like the water swirls, right, you're learning the 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:32.240 material properties of sand, But then you're also learning these 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.520 really important things about yourself. Right, So she'd get frustrated 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:37.640 if it didn't work, but then she realized that if 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:41.320 she did it again, she felt good about herself and 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:42.600 she had some light control. 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:46.400 And so she's growing. And then the connection. 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:51.280 Obviously, connection comes in spaces from you know, connecting with 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:55.919 other people, but you're also connecting through the creating of 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:58.760 the spaces. So what always happens in those projects is 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:00.760 like one kid's working and they realize that, well, if 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:03.000 I can get other people to do stuff with me, 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:04.520 then I can make this thing bigger. 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:06.640 And so she would you know. 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:09.199 I need you to get twenty buckets of sand and 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:09.840 bring them up here. 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:12.680 Now, Oh, the worst is the water, right because you're 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:15.359 just like endlessly going down to the ocean, grabbing a 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:17.520