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Speaker 2: I think envy is the thief of joy. Where we
Speaker 2: run into problems is when we stop admiring those people
Speaker 2: and we start wanting what they have or feeling like
Speaker 2: I should have gotten what they've got. Organizational psychologists want
Speaker 2: to bring in best selling author and Wharton's number one
Speaker 2: professor Adam Grant. I think that's people saying I'm stuck.
Speaker 2: I feel like my life isn't going anywhere. I feel
Speaker 2: like I'm squandering my potential. That's a travesty. Growth is
Speaker 2: part of how you feel like you're using your time well.
Speaker 2: The person you're competing with is your past self, and
Speaker 2: the bar you're raising is for your future self.
Speaker 1: Before we jump into this episode, I'd like to invite
Speaker 1: you to join this community to hear more interviews that
Speaker 1: will help you become happier, healthier, and more healed. All
Speaker 1: I want you to do is click on the subscribe button.
Speaker 1: I love your support. It's incredible to see all your
Speaker 1: comments and we're just getting started. I can't wait to
Speaker 1: go on this journey with you. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for subscribing. It means the world to me.
Speaker 2: The best sell I'm hot during Post the number one
Speaker 2: health and wellness podcast and Purpose with Jay Shetty.
Speaker 1: Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one
Speaker 1: health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every
Speaker 1: one of you that come back every week to listen, learn,
Speaker 1: and grow. Now you know that this podcast is all
Speaker 1: about how we can do better individually collectively grow with
Speaker 1: new ideas, new insights, how we can develop new habits,
Speaker 1: challenge our mindsets, and extend our capacity for goodness and
Speaker 1: greatness in our lives. And today's guest is truly an
Speaker 1: expert and someone who's deeply obsessed and studied about these
Speaker 1: themes and subjects for a long long time, someone I
Speaker 1: love having on the show. I'm so grateful that he's
Speaker 1: returning on the show today. I'm talking about the one
Speaker 1: and only Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at Wharton, where
Speaker 1: Adam has been the top rated professor for seven straight years.
Speaker 1: Adam's books have sold millions of copies, and Adam's TED
Speaker 1: talks have been viewed more than thirty million times, and
Speaker 1: he hosts the hit podcast Rethinking. Adam's pioneering research on
Speaker 1: motivation and meaning has enabled people to reach their aspirations
Speaker 1: and exceed others expectations, and his new book is called
Speaker 1: Hidden Potential, The Science of Achieving Greater Things. I highly
Speaker 1: recommend you grab a copy of this book. This is
Speaker 1: what we're diving into today. So if you love this conversation,
Speaker 1: you'll love the book because it will go so much deeper.
Speaker 1: Check it out. Adam, thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 2: Wow, thanks for that, Jay. I feel like I should
Speaker 2: just leave now.
Speaker 1: Leave now.
Speaker 2: This is it going to peak right there.
Speaker 1: Honestly, though I was saying it to you, it's so
Speaker 1: nice to meet you in person because I've admired your work.
Speaker 1: I've read your books, We've had an interview before. You've
Speaker 1: been so collaborative on offline about different things that come up,
Speaker 1: ideas projects, and I really appreciate that because you know,
Speaker 1: it's we're all busy, we're all got a million things
Speaker 1: going on, and you find a way to be personal
Speaker 1: and present even in those So thank you so much,
Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: I wish I could say it was on purpose, but
Speaker 2: it's an accident.
Speaker 1: And I want to I mentioned this offline. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say it again, like your books called hidden potential. But
Speaker 1: I remember on our last conversation, I was kind of saying,
Speaker 1: you know, I'd love to one day, like you know,
Speaker 1: study something deeply, potentially do a master's or a PhD,
Speaker 1: or you know, I love the idea of obsessing over
Speaker 1: something for a long period of time. And you kind of,
Speaker 1: as you just said in your words, well, I'll let
Speaker 1: you say it. You encouraged me, and I was like,
Speaker 1: what if Adam believes I could do something like this,
Speaker 1: maybe I can. So you were tapping into my hidden
Speaker 1: potential years before this book came out.
Speaker 2: It was only hidden to you. First of all, there's
Speaker 2: no way that studying behavioral economics or neuroscience or psychology
Speaker 2: or any of the topics that interest you is anywhere
Speaker 2: near as hard as becoming a monk. That was just
Speaker 2: the beginning. But I think you might have you suggested
Speaker 2: that I was planning a seed, like the seed was
Speaker 2: already growing, it just needed a little bit of extra
Speaker 2: water in sunlight. But I'm still waiting.
Speaker 1: You're waiting, you're waiting.
Speaker 2: No, it'll happen.
Speaker 1: It will happen, It will happen. I want to talk
Speaker 1: about so you know. The subtitle of the book is
Speaker 1: the Science of Achieving Greater Things, and it's all about
Speaker 1: getting better at getting better? Why is getting better important?
Speaker 1: Like why is growth important? And I know it sounds
Speaker 1: it may sound like a stupid question, It may sound
Speaker 1: like a silly thing to talk about, especially on a
Speaker 1: show like this, but I find that people I talk
Speaker 1: to sometimes idolize being average. They think it's good enough,
Speaker 1: Good enough is good. I find that we are wired
Speaker 1: often to want things to stay exactly the same. We
Speaker 1: like how they are. Why should we get better? Why
Speaker 1: should anything get better? We should be satisfied with what
Speaker 1: we have, And often in the guise of contentment and peace,
Speaker 1: there's a sense of lethargy and complacency that, well, we
Speaker 1: don't need to grow, because you're just being greedy. So
Speaker 1: I'm presenting a spectrum of ideas there. I'm happy for
Speaker 1: you to dive into any of those. But why does
Speaker 1: getting better and improving matter at all?
Speaker 2: This is fascinating. Nobody's ever asked me that before. And frankly,
Speaker 2: I think I've taken for granted that growth is just
Speaker 2: intrinsically enjoyable and motivating. I mean, I think you made
Speaker 2: a case that maybe some people are not motivated by growth.
Speaker 2: I think that where I might push back on that
Speaker 2: is to say, we live in a world that glorifies performance.
Speaker 2: So you know, people feel like if they want to
Speaker 2: be respected or celebrated, they need to win a metal,
Speaker 2: they need to earn a trophy, they need to get
Speaker 2: an A plus. And I think what we've lost sight
Speaker 2: of is that what people actually enjoy is a sense
Speaker 2: of progress, feeling like they have forward momentum. When I
Speaker 2: think about what does it look like to not grow,
Speaker 2: I don't think for most people that's good enough. I
Speaker 2: think that's stagnation. I think that's people's saying I'm stuck.
Speaker 2: I feel like my life isn't going anywhere. I feel
Speaker 2: like I'm squandering my potential, and I just I think
Speaker 2: that's a travesty. And so I think growth is part
Speaker 2: of how you feel like you're using your time.
Speaker 1: Well, absolutely, I completely agree with you, and I'm glad
Speaker 1: no one's ever asked you that before, because I think
Speaker 1: I'm like that too. I kind of take for granted
Speaker 1: that I love growth and I love the idea of
Speaker 1: being better and improving. And I can't remember. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's been said a million times. It's like an age
Speaker 1: old quote, but it goes you know, if you're not growing,
Speaker 1: you're dying. And I think that's the point that we
Speaker 1: are either moving forward or we're moving backward. We're either
Speaker 1: getting faster and smarter or we're getting slower and not smarter.
Speaker 1: And I think when you recognize that idea that there
Speaker 1: is no staying the same, there is no we're just
Speaker 1: going to stay on this place and platform forever. You
Speaker 1: start recognizing, oh, I have to move forward and the
Speaker 1: pace at which I move. How have you guided people
Speaker 1: with that? I find like often we compare our pace
Speaker 1: of growth and our pace of becoming better. And that's
Speaker 1: the hardest one because you're like, well, they got that
Speaker 1: body in three months, or you know, you've been the
Speaker 1: top grade professor for seven years, like I've only won
Speaker 1: that once, or whatever it may be. Pace of growth?
Speaker 1: How have you thought about pace of growth in your
Speaker 1: work for a long time?
Speaker 2: I believe the saying the mantra that comparison is the
Speaker 2: thief of joy. I don't believe it anymore. I think
Speaker 2: envy is the thief of joy. I think social comparison
Speaker 2: is invaluable. I think we have to look to other
Speaker 2: people for inspiration. I think we look to other people
Speaker 2: for learning, you know, not just what am I capable of,
Speaker 2: but also how do I get there. I think where
Speaker 2: we run into problems is when we stop admiring those
Speaker 2: people and we start wanting what they have or feeling
Speaker 2: like I should have gotten what they got. And I
Speaker 2: think there what's probably helpful is to make a different
Speaker 2: set of comparisons. You know. Part of what you could
Speaker 2: do is not think so much about pace as starting.
Speaker 2: Maybe focus more on starting points. So maybe somebody who's
Speaker 2: growing faster than you actually just art with more advantages
Speaker 2: than you did and you've traveled a greater distance. I
Speaker 2: don't think we pay enough attention to that would be
Speaker 2: one thought. I think, obviously comparing to ourselves is helpful too,
Speaker 2: And I think that you know so often when it
Speaker 2: comes to benchmarking progress, I want to tell people, Okay,
Speaker 2: the person you're competing with is your past self, and
Speaker 2: the bar you're raising is for your future self. And
Speaker 2: if you can focus on that, it's a little bit
Speaker 2: easier to realize. All right, Yeah, everybody has a different
Speaker 2: starting point, everybody has a different pace. But if I
Speaker 2: could tell actually, let me say this. I think so
Speaker 2: many people let their expectations rise with their progress, and
Speaker 2: so you set a goal today, you achieve it in
Speaker 2: six months, and then by the time it happens, it's
Speaker 2: almost a relief. I didn't blow it. Definitely, there's no joy,
Speaker 2: there's no sense of meaning and purpose. You sort of
Speaker 2: expected it and you would have been disappointed if it
Speaker 2: didn't happen. I think the way you have that is
Speaker 2: you get in touch with your past self and you say,
Speaker 2: if you know, if six months ago me or five
Speaker 2: years ago me knew where I would land now, how
Speaker 2: proud would I have been? How excited would I have been?
Speaker 2: And if you keep that past self in mind, it's
Speaker 2: much easier to appreciate the I guess the strides that
Speaker 2: you're making.
Speaker 1: I love that distinction you made as well, between how
Speaker 1: comparison versus envy is the thief of joy. I think
Speaker 1: it's so subtle, but it's so nuanced and so powerful
Speaker 1: because you're so right that I always think of it
Speaker 1: in the same way that you either study someone or
Speaker 1: you envy them, And often the deeper you study someone,
Speaker 1: the less you'll envy them because you actually realize how
Speaker 1: far they've come and what they had to get through
Speaker 1: and challenges they had, and you start getting the energy
Speaker 1: from that study to say, oh, maybe I have that
Speaker 1: within me too, and maybe I can find that within
Speaker 1: me too, because I have challenges I think for me.
Speaker 2: A really concrete example of that was I I was
Speaker 2: terrified of public speaking when I decided to become a professor,
Speaker 2: like maybe it was the wrong profession, like what are
Speaker 2: you doing here? But I remember even being a student
Speaker 2: and thinking about raising my hand in college and I
Speaker 2: would start to physically shake, and by the time I
Speaker 2: got called on sometimes I would like I would forget
Speaker 2: what I was going to say, or I'd second guess it,
Speaker 2: or I'd stumble and stammer my way through it. And
Speaker 2: so the idea that I was now going to stand
Speaker 2: in front of a whole classroom or on a big
Speaker 2: stage was extremely a daunting. So what did I do.
Speaker 2: I went to speakers that I really admired and started
Speaker 2: studying them, thinking this is going to help me. And
Speaker 2: the first one I picked was MLK great, big, really yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, what a great way to get tomorrow les.
Speaker 2: So I watched his dream speech. I tried to take
Speaker 2: notes on, you know, on things I could learn from him,
Speaker 2: you know, I wanted to know, well, how did he
Speaker 2: get there? And so I start reading about it. He's
Speaker 2: thirty four years old. When he gives that speech, I
Speaker 2: might as well quit. I cannot believe the greatest speech
Speaker 2: in American history, you know, done by somebody who's you know,
Speaker 2: not even close to his prime. And I think if
Speaker 2: i'd stop there, I would have quit, and it would
Speaker 2: have been easy to walk away from MLK as just
Speaker 2: an impossible role model. And let's be clear, he is
Speaker 2: an impossible role model. I will never I could work
Speaker 2: on public speaking for an infinite number of years, every
Speaker 2: minute of every day, and never come close to that.
Speaker 2: What was helpful, though, was then sort of rewinding and
Speaker 2: realizing we usually see our role models at their peak,
Speaker 2: and we don't have the starting point, we don't have
Speaker 2: the distance they've traveled. So how did MLK get here?
Speaker 2: And turns out he started entering public speaking competitions when
Speaker 2: he was fifteen years old. That was two decades of practice.
Speaker 2: The year he did his dream speech, he gave over
Speaker 2: three hundred and fifty talks, and so you know, if
Speaker 2: you think about the cumulative progress that was made, that's
Speaker 2: multiple lifetimes, you know, of effort. So I think that's
Speaker 2: that's the kind of sort of analysis that we need
Speaker 2: to do, and I don't think most of us do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely absolutely. I can't believe. I can't remember exactly
Speaker 1: what it was I left to find it, but it
Speaker 1: was I think it was Usain Bolt who said something
Speaker 1: like I've worked for X amount of hours to run
Speaker 1: ten seconds or something like that, right, like the idea
Speaker 1: of he's practiced for all these hours or months or
Speaker 1: years to run something and however long he did it.
Speaker 1: And I forgot the exact number. But it's so interesting
Speaker 1: what you're saying, and that backstory of that journey, that growth,
Speaker 1: the skills development, the hours, the struggle, three hundred that
Speaker 1: year alone is pretty you know, it's Yeah, that's insane,
Speaker 1: and I think it's fascinating you talk about this. I mean,
Speaker 1: I want to. I want to read from the book
Speaker 1: a bit if you don't mind. So there are a
Speaker 1: couple of things that I picked out. So this is
Speaker 1: page twenty six for anyone who's listening or watching right now,
Speaker 1: page twenty six of Hidden Potential. So character cannot be
Speaker 1: developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial
Speaker 1: and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired,
Speaker 1: and success achieved, according Helen Keller, and then you go
Speaker 1: on to say that summoning the nerve to face discomfort
Speaker 1: is a character skill. The way you were writing this
Speaker 1: book was so empowering because it was almost like you
Speaker 1: were pulling from you know, I know, of course everything's
Speaker 1: highly researched, everything's back toward science, but you were kind
Speaker 1: of pulling from a bit of a mind Luther King's
Speaker 1: face there, like the language in there of like summoning
Speaker 1: the nerve to face discomfort is a character's skill. And
Speaker 1: so you're actually saying what we just talked about with them, Okay,
Speaker 1: that doing hard things, doing uncomfortable things, doing difficult things
Speaker 1: is actually where so much of this ability fit impotential
Speaker 1: comes from. But all of us shy away from it.
Speaker 1: You know, all of us don't want to do it.
Speaker 1: We're scared of it. You becoming a professor, that's scary.
Speaker 1: If you don't like public speaking. We avoid discomfort, we
Speaker 1: avoid awkwardness, we avoid challenges. How do we summon the
Speaker 1: nerve to face discomfort?
Speaker 2: Well, clearly what I did was I started by thinking, Okay,
Speaker 2: writing this book is going to be uncomfortable. There are
Speaker 2: going to be a lot of times when I'm going
Speaker 2: to get stuck, when I'm going to feel like this
Speaker 2: chapter is not working, and then my writing is not working,
Speaker 2: and then I'm not capable of being a writer. Why
Speaker 2: did I ever think I could become a writer? And
Speaker 2: then that just spirals out of control. And then the
Speaker 2: antidote to that is to think, you know what, Jay
Speaker 2: Shetty needs to be empowered. And also, I love this
Speaker 2: image of you getting empowerment.
Speaker 1: I do get empowered.
Speaker 2: I would never think of you as somebody who is
Speaker 2: in need of that. You're out empowering lots of other
Speaker 2: people always in need. I guess for me. One of
Speaker 2: the things I learned from the research that I didn't
Speaker 2: know before. I think I always understood intuitively and the
Speaker 2: idea that discomfort is key to growth. What I didn't
Speaker 2: understand was that actively seeking discomfort and even amplifying it
Speaker 2: was one of the ways that you could move toward
Speaker 2: your idea of progress. I kind of saw it as
Speaker 2: a necessary evil, something that happens, you know, when you're
Speaker 2: learning and you're struggling, and you're tinkering with new skills
Speaker 2: and with the I think what the evidence shows is
Speaker 2: that people who are actually given the goal to intentionally
Speaker 2: feel uncomfortable. This is done in some cases asking people
Speaker 2: to go on stage to do improv comedy and literally
Speaker 2: feel awkward on purpose. They end up growing more from
Speaker 2: that experience because they put themselves in situations that challenged them.
Speaker 2: And so I think that's what I had to do
Speaker 2: with public speaking. When I was starting to teach, is
Speaker 2: therapists talk about exposure therapy and they often recommend systematic
Speaker 2: desensitization to say, all right, let's start, you know, little seminar,
Speaker 2: and then you get to know a group of students well,
Speaker 2: and then you can kind of build from there. I
Speaker 2: didn't have time for that, so I went to the
Speaker 2: opposite extreme of flooding and said, all right, I'm just
Speaker 2: going to volunteer to give guest lectures in front of
Speaker 2: huge classrooms of hundreds of students who I've never met before.
Speaker 2: For my friends classes. I don't know why they let
Speaker 2: me in. I don't why I volunteered. Yeah, they were
Speaker 2: overly good friends. Maybe they were sacrificing the whole class
Speaker 2: for my growth, but extremely uncomfortable for me. And I remember,
Speaker 2: you know, just walking in and feeling like I do
Speaker 2: not belong here, I'm not qualified. It was a massive
Speaker 2: case of imposter syndrome. But I think one of the
Speaker 2: things that happened when I put myself in that uncomfortable
Speaker 2: situation is I realized it's not really going to go
Speaker 2: worse than it did today. And reading through the you know,
Speaker 2: the comments, there were lots of suggestions for improvement and
Speaker 2: lots of criticisms, but there were also you know, little
Speaker 2: compliments about things people liked. I was like, okay, I
Speaker 2: can build on that. I can work on this. And
Speaker 2: I think, you know, just coming in with the goal, yeah,
Speaker 2: I should put myself in a deliberately uncomfortable situation. It
Speaker 2: opened me to a much steeper learning curve than if
Speaker 2: i'd done the kind of let me dip my toe
Speaker 2: in the shallow end and then sort of take off
Speaker 2: the floaties and learn to swim one step at a time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I feel it's really interesting, right, do you
Speaker 1: think there are those two approaches? Like do you think
Speaker 1: from the research you've done and even your own personal experience,
Speaker 1: do you feel like it is either raw like sometimes
Speaker 1: you just jump in the deep end and sometimes you
Speaker 1: should kind of dip your toe in and then walk in.
Speaker 1: Or do you think it's it's either raw like or
Speaker 1: is wisdom knowing which one to try?
Speaker 2: When that's where I was, I was going to land.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen a good comparison to the two and
Speaker 2: when you should do each, But that's that's my intuition
Speaker 2: as well as I think there's a time and a
Speaker 2: place for both approaches, and probably most of the time
Speaker 2: we want to be somewhere in the middle. But to
Speaker 2: the point that you made earlier, I think most of
Speaker 2: us aer too far in the side of avoiding discomfort,
Speaker 2: and so we make these very small incremental steps, and
Speaker 2: one it feels like we're not making progress, which is frustrating,
Speaker 2: and then two we often then don't take enough risks
Speaker 2: or try enough experiments to really stretch ourselves and move
Speaker 2: up to the next level.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, one of the things I find that I
Speaker 1: always do if I get curious about something, it could
Speaker 1: be a sport, it could be a subject, it could
Speaker 1: be a topic, whatever it may be. I'll kind of
Speaker 1: cancel everything on the weekend and just obsess about it
Speaker 1: for a weekend. Oh, in because it gives me a
Speaker 1: sense of momentum or growth or a sense of yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not my thing, and I can very quickly decide
Speaker 1: whether to invest more time in it. Whereas if I
Speaker 1: was to have booked a six week course or a
Speaker 1: program on something, I may find by week three that
Speaker 1: this isn't something I want to study for six weeks,
Speaker 1: as opposed to I could have figured that out in
Speaker 1: twenty four hours if I just really obsessed about it,
Speaker 1: or if I'll play a sport and I'm thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: I like this sport, should I play it more? Let
Speaker 1: me play it for a whole weekend. Every hour of
Speaker 1: that I'm awake and see whether it fulfills me or
Speaker 1: whether it's draining and tiring. And I feel like that's
Speaker 1: kind of what you're saying works is a better experiment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that kind of immersion is a really
Speaker 2: efficient way to figure out is this an area that
Speaker 2: I wanted to try to keep growing in. I think
Speaker 2: the one thing i'd want to be careful about there
Speaker 2: is There's there's some evidence to suggest that oftentimes we
Speaker 2: only like things when we become good at them.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 2: If you spend a weekend on a skill that you're
Speaker 2: terrible at, you might quit it prematurely because you just
Speaker 2: haven't built up enough competence to start. I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: say that, like the day I spent I spent swinging
Speaker 2: a golf club, I've never felt so incapable in my life.
Speaker 1: Same.
Speaker 2: Also, golf is not a real sport, so I had
Speaker 2: no problems.
Speaker 1: Watching explain that explain.
Speaker 2: I think I'll offend too many people.
Speaker 1: I think so true.
Speaker 2: No, but I think sometimes you do have to say,
Speaker 2: all right, this could take me a couple of weeks
Speaker 2: or couple months where you know, I build enough competence
Speaker 2: to really experience the joy of it, like I've seen
Speaker 2: this with I actually went through this with tennis. I
Speaker 2: think I took tennis lessons when you know, when I
Speaker 2: was four or five and I really disliked it, and
Speaker 2: you know, ended up convincing my mom that I should quit.
Speaker 2: And then when I picked it up again around eleven
Speaker 2: or twelve, I had better hand eye coordination. I'd played
Speaker 2: a bunch of ping pong, and now it was decent
Speaker 2: enough at a racket sport. The tennis was actually fine,
Speaker 2: And I think that's probably relevant to many skills.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely so. People always ask me, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: you get asked this question a million times, of course
Speaker 1: you do. You have your own book club too, which
Speaker 1: you've been kindly featured me in the past, and people
Speaker 1: who's asked me what should I read? And my number
Speaker 1: one response to that is, well, what are you struggling with?
Speaker 1: Because I read for what I'm struggling with. That's how
Speaker 1: I choose. I always say to people, you don't go
Speaker 1: to the grocery store because your refrigerator is full of milk.
Speaker 1: You go when you're out of milk, or you're out
Speaker 1: of cheese, or you're out of bread, and you go
Speaker 1: and stock up. And so I'll often do an audit
Speaker 1: of my internal unit and go, well, what am I
Speaker 1: feeling like I don't have? And I've talked about how
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago I was building my team
Speaker 1: and I realized that being a leader and a recruiter
Speaker 1: of very different skills and recruitment wasn't a strength that
Speaker 1: I possessed. And I almost assumed that because I was
Speaker 1: good at certain things that I should be good at recruiting,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't. And I studied Daniel Coyle's book The
Speaker 1: Culture Code, which I love. Yeah, it's fantastic. And I
Speaker 1: interviewed him on the show too, and looked at his
Speaker 1: playbook and everything else, and that one book in and
Speaker 1: of itself made me better at recruitment. And so I
Speaker 1: always look at it that way. But how do people
Speaker 1: figure out what they're struggling with or what they're not
Speaker 1: good at what they need to get better at. It's
Speaker 1: probably the right way to put it, because we have
Speaker 1: so many things we're not good at. Yeah, what do
Speaker 1: we know what we need to get better at?
Speaker 2: This should have been a chapter and hit him potential.
Speaker 2: Where were you, Jay Shenny Well? I was read in
Speaker 2: this book that would have been really helpful. Maybe it'll
Speaker 2: go in the paperback. I think my first thought is
Speaker 2: I always want to look to my achilles heel. What's
Speaker 2: the one thing that's holding me back from a goal
Speaker 2: that I care about or a value that I'm trying
Speaker 2: to to And then the other is, what's an area
Speaker 2: of passion or curiosity that I'm excited to spend more
Speaker 2: time investing in And sometimes that's for me because I'm
Speaker 2: excited about it. Other times it's because I want to
Speaker 2: help somebody else. And I think those are reasonable questions
Speaker 2: to ask. I think where a lot of people struggle
Speaker 2: is they know the domain already, right, so they've decided
Speaker 2: I want to be a better entrepreneur, or I want
Speaker 2: to be a better artist, or I'm interested in improving
Speaker 2: my coding skills, right, and they've kind of already figured
Speaker 2: out what part of life they're trying to improve that,
Speaker 2: but then they don't know what to focus on from there.
Speaker 2: I think the mistake that a lot of us make
Speaker 2: is we end up asking the people around us that
Speaker 2: we trust for feedback, which is a perfectly reasonable thing
Speaker 2: to do, except when you ask for feedback, you get
Speaker 2: a lot of cheerleaders and critics. The cheerleaders are basically
Speaker 2: applauding your best self, and the critics are attacking your
Speaker 2: worst self, and the critics leave you often demoralized, and
Speaker 2: the cheerleaders can make you complacent what you want As
Speaker 2: a coach, A good coach is somebody who sees your
Speaker 2: potential and then helps you become a better version of yourself.
Speaker 2: And so one of the things I learned through doing
Speaker 2: research for the book is that instead of asking for feedback,
Speaker 2: it's often better to seek advice. So feedback leads people
Speaker 2: to think about what you did right or wrong yesterday.
Speaker 2: Advice helps people focus on what you can do better tomorrow.
Speaker 2: So the way I would like to I guess that
Speaker 2: I apply this personally is when I'm trying to figure
Speaker 2: out where I need to grow. Every time I get
Speaker 2: off stage, for example, or every time I finish a
Speaker 2: podcast interview, I will ask the audience or the host,
Speaker 2: what's the one thing I can do better? Wow, which
Speaker 2: is enormously helpful because they start to give concrete suggestions,
Speaker 2: But I'm not immediately going to focus on the first
Speaker 2: thing that I hear. What I do is I ask
Speaker 2: a bunch of different people, and then I look for
Speaker 2: the patterns. And I think that what too many people
Speaker 2: do is even if they get to the point of
Speaker 2: asking for advice rather than feedback, they start to hear
Speaker 2: all these things they need to work on. They're like, WHOA,
Speaker 2: this is overload. It's too much. I can't handle anymore.
Speaker 2: I can probably only improve one or two things at
Speaker 2: a time. What I would say to those people is,
Speaker 2: I feel a little bit overwhelmed by the number of
Speaker 2: suggestions are getting. You should actually seek more of them
Speaker 2: because that will help you find the signal in the noise.
Speaker 2: That will help you sort of figure out what one
Speaker 2: person's idiosyncratic taste and what is a bunch of people's
Speaker 2: you know, quality input. So I guess that's my favorite
Speaker 2: way to figure out where you need to grow. Ask
Speaker 2: a bunch of people for advice and then focus on
Speaker 2: the common themes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the patterns. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: I'm going to start doing that. I'm going to try
Speaker 1: that out, Actually try it.
Speaker 2: You're on risk.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not practiced in that way. And I like
Speaker 1: that again, distinction between advice and feedback. And you're so right.
Speaker 1: If someone asks me for feedback, your spot on my
Speaker 1: mind goes into right and wrong and you know, weaknesses
Speaker 1: and strengths as opposed to reflecting on hey this could
Speaker 1: work really well, or I love this style you have
Speaker 1: and it could work, you know. I think that's such
Speaker 1: a great way to think about it. And it's hard too,
Speaker 1: because we do base so much of where we want
Speaker 1: to grow on what other people think we need to grow,
Speaker 1: and I wonder how we can get better at sitting
Speaker 1: with ourselves and reflecting on our days. I always loved
Speaker 1: that statement from Steve Jobs where he said that every
Speaker 1: couple of days I would look in the mirror and
Speaker 1: ask myself or reflect on if this was the life
Speaker 1: I wanted to live? Am I doing with my day
Speaker 1: what I'd want to do? And if it wasn't, then
Speaker 1: I knew I'd needed to make a change. And that
Speaker 1: self evaluation, I think is such an important need because
Speaker 1: at the same time as listening to others, you need both.
Speaker 1: It's not an either or how have you done the
Speaker 1: self evaluation part as well, from going to someone who
Speaker 1: was scared of giving talks to being one of Ted's
Speaker 1: most prolific popular speakers of all time to obviously now
Speaker 1: you know traveling, book tours, events, everything else. How do
Speaker 1: you self evaluate now as you were then?
Speaker 2: That's definitely been an evolution over the years. I think
Speaker 2: probably the most helpful thing that I learned came from
Speaker 2: another area where I struggled a lot earlier, and probably
Speaker 2: based on my initial lack of talent, should have quit,
Speaker 2: which was which was springboard diving.
Speaker 1: So springboard diving. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I basically ended up diving because I didn't make the
Speaker 2: middle school basketball team or the high school soccer team.
Speaker 2: And I saw a lifeguard diving at a pool one
Speaker 2: day and it was just mesmerize. I want to learn
Speaker 2: how to do that. Unfortunately I walked like Frankenstein. I
Speaker 2: couldn't touch my toes without bending my knees. I could
Speaker 2: hardly jump, very little explosive power or grace. Not cut
Speaker 2: out to be a diver. I was really fortunate to
Speaker 2: have a coach who saw more potential in me than
Speaker 2: I saw in myself and said to me on day one,
Speaker 2: I will never cut a diver who wants to be here.
Speaker 2: And you know I'll put in as much as you
Speaker 2: want and as much as you put in. And one
Speaker 2: of the things I really struggled with was knowing when
Speaker 2: a dive was good and when it was improving. I
Speaker 2: felt like I needed to always aim for perfect tens.
Speaker 2: And Eric Best, my coach, one day, sat me down
Speaker 2: and he said, you know, there's no such thing as
Speaker 2: a perfect ten. Wait, have the Olympic announcers been lying
Speaker 2: to me? What do you mean? The whole point is
Speaker 2: a ten is perfection. That's the appeal of this sport.
Speaker 2: And he's like, nope, if you look at the rulebook,
Speaker 2: a tennis for excellence, So even a dive that gets
Speaker 2: a quote unquote perfect score is flawed. So then what
Speaker 2: we started doing was we set targets for each dive
Speaker 2: and he said, Okay, you know basic dive like a
Speaker 2: back dive, We're going to aim for sixes and I
Speaker 2: think that's within your range right now, and then we
Speaker 2: would level that up over time as I started to
Speaker 2: learn harder dives. I remember when I was doing a
Speaker 2: two and a half summersault with a full twist, like,
Speaker 2: let's just make the dive. You don't fail it. If
Speaker 2: you don't do it for zeros, that'll count. And then
Speaker 2: you know we're aiming for fours and so we have
Speaker 2: dive specific goals. What I've done with that sort of
Speaker 2: post diving career is realize I never had somebody like
Speaker 2: this in my life. I need a judge, not just
Speaker 2: a coach. So what I will do is I'll ask
Speaker 2: people give me a zero to ten, how did that go?
Speaker 2: And it's very rare for people to stay ten. Yeah,
Speaker 2: of course, ye, So then you know whatever they say,
Speaker 2: whether they give me a three, half or a six,
Speaker 2: I just want to know how can I get closer
Speaker 2: to ten. That's where I'm really trying to use other
Speaker 2: people's reactions as a mirror. From there, I'll ask for suggestions,
Speaker 2: But to your point, I need to make sure I'm
Speaker 2: also proud of my own progress and I'm focusing on
Speaker 2: my own principles. And so the last analysis that I do,
Speaker 2: after I get the judges' ratings and the advice from
Speaker 2: anybody who's willing to coach me, is to say, Okay,
Speaker 2: let me go back to the version of me that
Speaker 2: set this goal in the first place. Would that version
Speaker 2: of me be proud? And if the answer is no,
Speaker 2: I don't care what score I got, Yeah, how do
Speaker 2: you navigate this?
Speaker 1: I'd say that I've definitely got it wrong before as well,
Speaker 1: like I've definitely made mistakes in that where I think
Speaker 1: when I first started out, I kind of kept things
Speaker 1: very secret and I kept things very quiet. So I
Speaker 1: had started working on creating some content online and for
Speaker 1: everyone who doesn't know, I had been making content offline
Speaker 1: for ten years before that, speaking to small groups of
Speaker 1: five to ten people colleges, after school clubs, universities things
Speaker 1: like that. And my parents forced me to go to
Speaker 1: public speaking in drama school when I was eleven years old.
Speaker 1: So I started learning public speaking because I was a
Speaker 1: shy kid. I have a very similar public speaking story
Speaker 1: to you when I was eleven years old. So I
Speaker 1: wasn't born with a skill. It was something that was
Speaker 1: harnessed and developed, except for the accent. Except for the
Speaker 1: accent which I was born with. Yes, I can't do
Speaker 1: anything about that. And funnily enough, and I always like
Speaker 1: to clarify this. When I see Ted speakers with American accents,
Speaker 1: I prefer it. Oh yes, because to me, no, going
Speaker 1: from an authority in America from like you know, Warton
Speaker 1: or Harvard or you know, No, it has magic. No,
Speaker 1: this is like I'm.
Speaker 2: Wanting the Beatles to sing with American accents. No, that's different,
Speaker 2: it's terrible. No. No, your British people always sound smarter.
Speaker 2: We know this, Scot.
Speaker 1: I feel the opposite way, honestly true. True. My wife
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Speaker 1: I'm so excited for her recipes to be in your
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Speaker 1: the people you love the most. And it would mean
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Speaker 1: I developed a skill that I didn't know what I
Speaker 1: had used for when I met the monks and studied
Speaker 1: the Geeta and Eastern Wisdom, I was like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: I have a skill set that was ready to be
Speaker 1: used for this when I'd never used it. I never
Speaker 1: used public speaking of drama before that for anything meaningful
Speaker 1: for me at least, and then I'd done that for
Speaker 1: ten years and then I made my first piece of
Speaker 1: content online. So but I made it in quiet because
Speaker 1: some of these things that you talk about here, and
Speaker 1: I'm pointing this out because we can go back to
Speaker 1: it after I answer your question. I was scared of
Speaker 1: looking stupid. You talk about making more mistakes theory versus
Speaker 1: reality in the book. This is page forty, and you
Speaker 1: talk about looking stupid, feeling shame, being laughed at, and
Speaker 1: experiencing discomfort. I was scared of all of those things
Speaker 1: because now it was going beyond my community of people,
Speaker 1: like five to ten people who used to come and
Speaker 1: hear me speak. I had no idea what the online
Speaker 1: world would bring. I had never done that before. I
Speaker 1: didn't have any friends who'd ever created any online content,
Speaker 1: so I couldn't check in with someone. I didn't have
Speaker 1: a coach, and so I was kind of doing it
Speaker 1: in quiet. And I think what was beautiful about that
Speaker 1: is I got to really construct my own voice that
Speaker 1: was authentic to who I was, and was just genuine
Speaker 1: to who I was. So my earliest videos are half
Speaker 1: spoken half spoken word because I loved rap music growing up.
Speaker 1: So there's you'll hear lazy rhymes, you'll hear words that
Speaker 1: cascade together, and it's inspired by what I loved as
Speaker 1: a teenager. The visuals were I've always been into art
Speaker 1: and design, and so that was very easy for me.
Speaker 1: I love aesthetics, I love visuals, I love feelings and experiences.
Speaker 1: So I edited all my own videos. Granted, the editing
Speaker 1: was sloppy because of cuts and sound, which I didn't
Speaker 1: know well, but it was still what was natural to me.
Speaker 1: And then when I put out my first piece of video,
Speaker 1: the first people to react with the people I knew,
Speaker 1: and they were all like, Jay, you talked too fast,
Speaker 1: the music's too loud. Well, we don't think this point
Speaker 1: is that great, And it was all negative feedback, and
Speaker 1: I kept going because I was getting some joy from it.
Speaker 1: So in the beginning it was that way, and I
Speaker 1: think I've tried to hold onto that as much as possible,
Speaker 1: because as the scale grew, the plethora of negativity or
Speaker 1: criticism or judgment got louder as well, and I started
Speaker 1: to look at it more seriously because now you're worried
Speaker 1: about perception and image and how you think people view
Speaker 1: you and whether people see your truth or they don't,
Speaker 1: and you can feel defensive. And I think where I've
Speaker 1: got to now is I still get affected by it.
Speaker 1: I'm so not beyond getting affected by negative comments or
Speaker 1: challenging comments or criticisms, because my monk training is left
Speaker 1: me vulnerable at some points, because I have created a
Speaker 1: space in which to always allow advice to come in,
Speaker 1: because though that's seen as a mark of wanting to
Speaker 1: improve and wanting to be better, and I've had to
Speaker 1: learn to balance that with also knowing my intention. So
Speaker 1: what I've accepted is that the only thing I can
Speaker 1: control is my intention being aligned and pure to what
Speaker 1: I believe. Not pure like in a godly way, I
Speaker 1: mean pure in what I believe. But the way my
Speaker 1: action is received will come with advice, feedback, and criticism.
Speaker 1: And all I can keep doing is keep refining my
Speaker 1: intention and hope that that will channel the effect of
Speaker 1: communication externally. And no matter how perfect ten it is,
Speaker 1: it will ever be perfect, and therefore there will always
Speaker 1: be criticism, no matter how phenomenal an idea it is
Speaker 1: or whatever may be. So that's me meandering around your
Speaker 1: question too. That's how I'm dealing with it. I don't
Speaker 1: think that's a solution or a solve. It's how I'm
Speaker 1: mentally kind of constructing bridges and walkways to navigate. How
Speaker 1: stressful it is.
Speaker 2: I think it makes a lot of sense. It also
Speaker 2: leaves me wondering is there a j shatty rap tour coming?
Speaker 2: Ha ha, But I'll kidding aside, although I think there
Speaker 2: would be an audience for that, I think one of
Speaker 2: the things that you're making me think about is there's
Speaker 2: a spectrum of you know, on one hand, we have
Speaker 2: the monk ideal of either I'm open to everything or
Speaker 2: I'm not going to live in fear of social disapproval.
Speaker 2: On the other and I guess we have the monkey. Yeah,
Speaker 2: just like we are social primates and anything that could
Speaker 2: lose status could get us excluded, and this is really problematic.
Speaker 2: I don't think either is really realistic for us as humans.
Speaker 2: I think we're always going to care about what other
Speaker 2: people think. And I think my goal is to say
Speaker 2: I want to care enough about other people's reactions to
Speaker 2: learn from them, but not so much that I feel
Speaker 2: pressure to conform to them.
Speaker 1: It's powerful.
Speaker 2: Well, the way that I've tried to get to that
Speaker 2: is to say, well, I'm always going to be disappointing somebody,
Speaker 2: so let me decide whose opinions actually matter to me,
Speaker 2: and then include myself in that group, and say it's
Speaker 2: better to let down a bunch of strangers or a
Speaker 2: bunch of people whose standards are not the same as
Speaker 2: mine or whose taste doesn't match mine than it is
Speaker 2: to let down the people I care about and myself too.
Speaker 1: What you inspired for me also with that conformity idea
Speaker 1: is how I'm willing to be open enough to improve
Speaker 1: but not see something as a reflection of my identity.
Speaker 1: And I think that's where we all struggle. Where it's
Speaker 1: like when someone says when someone laughs that you feel
Speaker 1: like laughing at you, not at that particular event and
Speaker 1: moment and day or evening or improv or whatever it was,
Speaker 1: you feel you are someone who should feel shameful as
Speaker 1: opposed to that was a moment where I made a mistake.
Speaker 1: And I think that's where I think you struggle when
Speaker 1: you hear feedback or advice that you start attaching to
Speaker 1: your identity.
Speaker 2: I think that's it's a huge problem. And I think
Speaker 2: one of the most reassuring bodies of research that I
Speaker 2: guess speaks to this from the book is is the
Speaker 2: overblown implications effect, the idea that when people see you
Speaker 2: make a mistake, they don't actually attribute that to your
Speaker 2: incompetence or your lack of character like you think they do.
Speaker 2: So you know, you watch somebody you know take a
Speaker 2: really crappy photo and their thumb is in the frame,
Speaker 2: and you don't immediately think that person is incapable of
Speaker 2: being a decent photographer, Like that was a bad photo, right,
Speaker 2: It was literally a bad snapshot, and it's a snapshot
Speaker 2: of a bad snapshot, so it's a meta a bad snapshot.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I think somebody you know is trying to cook and
Speaker 2: they burn whatever is in the oven. You don't immediately
Speaker 2: think they're a bad cook. You think, oh, they got distracted,
Speaker 2: or they you know, didn't have the right recipe, or
Speaker 2: this is the first time they're trying that. And I
Speaker 2: think we're really good at recognizing that. In others we
Speaker 2: don't sort of leap to conclusions that they're inescapably, hopelessly
Speaker 2: flawed and that they're failing makes them a failure. But
Speaker 2: I think in our own self talk and our self assessment,
Speaker 2: we do so much of that, like I screwed this up,
Speaker 2: I am a screw up, and everyone else is going
Speaker 2: to know it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so true, and it's and it gets it gets
Speaker 1: really dark, it gets really really dark. I'm so glad
Speaker 1: we went. Then. Thank you for asking me to reflect
Speaker 1: on that too, because it's I'm always trying to find
Speaker 1: better pathways mentally to deal with these things that you
Speaker 1: have to navigate on a daily basis.
Speaker 2: I think we all are, and I don't think you
Speaker 2: need to thank me for wanting to learn.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about that. I love this diagram that
Speaker 1: you put in the book about how we think learning
Speaker 1: happens versus how it actually happens. And I think that
Speaker 1: idea of so how we think learning happens. I'll explain that,
Speaker 1: and then you can explain how learning happens from your words.
Speaker 1: Adam shows in the book this diagram that says knowledge
Speaker 1: leads to comfort, leads to practice, leads to progress, which
Speaker 1: is how we think learning happens. And I think so
Speaker 1: many of our beliefs around learning do come from school,
Speaker 1: and do come from even For me, learning happens in
Speaker 1: that I learn something, now I know it fully, and
Speaker 1: now that rule stands forever. And I think modern day
Speaker 1: learning isn't that at all. Like I don't know any
Speaker 1: rules that have completely stood forever, and apart from obviously
Speaker 1: certain mathematical or scientific rules, of course, but most rules
Speaker 1: in business, most rules in marketing, most rules in sales,
Speaker 1: most rules in even a relationship. They change, they mold,
Speaker 1: they grow. And so I think that fixed approach is
Speaker 1: hard to shake because you were always at the end
Speaker 1: of it. Well, you got the wrong answer. So it
Speaker 1: was always about the answer, and it was always about well,
Speaker 1: if you knew the rule, you would have got the
Speaker 1: right answer. And today we feel I'm not getting the
Speaker 1: right answer, so I must not know the right rule,
Speaker 1: but that we're not finding that. So however, and reflect
Speaker 1: on that and then guide us through the principle.
Speaker 2: You're right. We have a kind of had this ideal
Speaker 2: in our heads that I'm going to reach a mastery
Speaker 2: and then I'm done. Yes, it's a version of what
Speaker 2: Taal ben Shahar is called the arrival fallacy, that you know,
Speaker 2: I'll hit my destination and then everything will have changed.
Speaker 2: And the reality is, when you reach mastery, you don't
Speaker 2: freeze at that moment. You have to keep evolving your
Speaker 2: knowledge and skills is the world around you evolves. And
Speaker 2: I think what that leads a lot of people to
Speaker 2: do is to spend far too much time trying to
Speaker 2: get to the point of mastery before they ever really
Speaker 2: try something. You know, from the book, I saw this
Speaker 2: really clearly in examples of language learners. I mean, how
Speaker 2: many people do you know that just concluded in high
Speaker 2: school that they're incapable of mastering a foreign language? You Yeah,
Speaker 2: what languages did you take?
Speaker 1: So we did French in German from year seven, so
Speaker 1: eleven years old to like fourteen, and if we did
Speaker 1: well at those I got to do Russian. So I
Speaker 1: actually studied Russian for a year and we could read, write,
Speaker 1: and speak for a whole year. It was really great learning.
Speaker 1: And then I never got to practice any of those languages,
Speaker 1: and so they all fell away, and then when I
Speaker 1: went by the time I went to college, I had
Speaker 1: already lost touch with all of them. So French, German,
Speaker 1: and Russian were the ones I studied the most.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so it sounds like you actually did experience
Speaker 2: some progress, but then it didn't stick and you weren't
Speaker 2: able to keep it up.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think that's pretty common. I think maybe
Speaker 2: even more common is the like I don't have the
Speaker 2: genes for this, I'm missing the language, the foreign language
Speaker 2: gene or I missed my critical window. If only I had,
Speaker 2: you know, if my parents had raised me bilingual, or
Speaker 2: if I had started an immersion when I was four,
Speaker 2: everything would be different. I met two amazing language learners
Speaker 2: when I was When I was doing research for the book.
Speaker 2: Sarah Maria has Boone and Ben Lewis, and they both
Speaker 2: concluded after high school that they were incapable of learning
Speaker 2: a foreign language. Sarah Maria could not make it through
Speaker 2: Spanish and her father speaks fluent Spanish. Benny, I think
Speaker 2: just had a disastrous experience with German, also with Irish.
Speaker 2: And what's amazing about the two of them is that
Speaker 2: combined they can speak a dozen languages fluently today a
Speaker 2: dozen languages fluently conversationally. Even more so, they're polyglots. They're
Speaker 2: people who not only talk but think in multiple languages.
Speaker 2: They're effectively self taught, and they've picked it all up
Speaker 2: in their twenties, thirties, ever beyond. It's amazing. So what
Speaker 2: I wanted to know is what can we learn from them,
Speaker 2: not just about language learning because but about any kind
Speaker 2: of learning, because they are professional learners. And my biggest
Speaker 2: takeaway from you know, talking to them and also juxtaposing
Speaker 2: what they do with the evidence, is that language classes
Speaker 2: are broken in a lot of schools because basically what
Speaker 2: happens is you learn a vocabulary and a bunch of
Speaker 2: rules of grammar, and then you're taught to more or
Speaker 2: less just write it down, and very few schools do
Speaker 2: extensive practice in speaking, which means that you never learn
Speaker 2: to actually talk in the language, which means you're not
Speaker 2: using the language and you don't practice enough to really
Speaker 2: master it. What Sarah, Marie and Benny recommend is start
Speaker 2: speaking from day one. Literally the first day you're picking
Speaker 2: up a language, you start talking in it. And what
Speaker 2: will happen is you do that, is you're going to
Speaker 2: make loss of mistakes, but through using it, you're going
Speaker 2: to start to internalize it. And in fact, one of
Speaker 2: the things we know from the research is when you
Speaker 2: make a mistake, you're more likely to remember the correct
Speaker 2: answer because it really sticks, like, oh wait, I screwed
Speaker 2: that up last time, let me now change it. So
Speaker 2: I think the broader lesson here is that to go
Speaker 2: all the way back to the diagram, I think a
Speaker 2: lot of people want to wait to use their knowledge
Speaker 2: until they've acquired it. Oh wow, it's not how learning happens.
Speaker 2: The way learning happens is you got to use your
Speaker 2: knowledge as you're acquiring it, and that's how you build it.
Speaker 2: And that's a virtuous cycle.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that you know, it's so interesting. I
Speaker 1: don't think I've ever heard that put that way, I
Speaker 1: feel like I've just and it's resonated so strongly with me.
Speaker 1: Because as soon as I met Goronda Das, who's the
Speaker 1: monk that I spent time with. As soon as I
Speaker 1: met him, I had no qualification. But I went back
Speaker 1: to college and started telling everyone about what I'd learned.
Speaker 1: And then I'd go back and spend time with him
Speaker 1: and go learn more and then come back and just
Speaker 1: teach whatever I'd learned. And there was no I didn't
Speaker 1: have any qualification to teach. I didn't I didn't understand
Speaker 1: it fully, but it was like it was so much
Speaker 1: more fun that way, and I allowed myself. I gave
Speaker 1: myself the permission to say, I'm just going to teach
Speaker 1: what I learned. I'm going to teach what I learn
Speaker 1: up until now. I don't have to speak beyond my
Speaker 1: level of realization or reflection. But I'm learning this. I'm
Speaker 1: fascinated by it. Let me share it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's that's a higher level version of
Speaker 2: you know, of learning by doing, it's learning by teaching.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so often people like to say, well, those who
Speaker 2: can't do teach, and I would edit that and say, no,
Speaker 2: those who can't do can learn by teaching because exactly
Speaker 2: as you found, when you explain something to someone else,
Speaker 2: you remember it better and you also understand it better.
Speaker 2: And I actually think anything you want to learn a
Speaker 2: lot of people are trying to figure out what is
Speaker 2: generative AI. You could go and take a class in it,
Speaker 2: you could go tinker with it. I would say, go
Speaker 2: teach a class in it, or get a group of
Speaker 2: people together who are also interested in learning it, and
Speaker 2: each of you take a module to teach the rest
Speaker 2: of the group, and that's when you're really going to
Speaker 2: internalize it and start to master it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I love that. I mean, I'll butcher it now,
Speaker 1: trying to say as well as you did.
Speaker 2: But yeah, because you always hurt for eloquence.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, But that idea but so much.
Speaker 2: Bad talker is a common that's actually a meme. I
Speaker 2: don't know if it's if it's made it on your radar,
Speaker 2: But like this guy's incoherent. We never understand a word
Speaker 2: he says, he's just babbling constantly.
Speaker 1: No, but that particular state, And I honestly I love
Speaker 1: that idea of how we're always waiting till we've something
Speaker 1: until the end of something to feel like we can
Speaker 1: play shared do and so there's a few that.
Speaker 2: Is well put. Yeah, that's exactly right. I'm like, I'm
Speaker 2: trying to get to the end of the line and
Speaker 2: then I will have made it and now I can
Speaker 2: demo it, and now I can teach it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that making something public is so
Speaker 1: horrifying because the reason why we struggle to go teach
Speaker 1: a class on AI is because we're scared we're going
Speaker 1: to be asked questions that we don't know the answer to.
Speaker 1: And actually, your spot on that is exactly the best
Speaker 1: way to learn, because you were able to say to
Speaker 1: all those people, hey, I don't know, but i'll find
Speaker 1: out for next time, or i'll email you the answer
Speaker 1: whatever it may be. And I find that, but we
Speaker 1: haven't created space for it to be okay to not know.
Speaker 2: No. I think that's right. And there's actually some work
Speaker 2: on this in psychology which shows that when an expert
Speaker 2: expresses uncertainty, they actually end up becoming more believable, in
Speaker 2: part because people are surprised and then they listen more
Speaker 2: carefully and realized, wow, this person does know what they're
Speaker 2: talking about. I don't think that permission should only be
Speaker 2: granted to experts. I think, in fact, the less you know,
Speaker 2: the quicker you should be to say I have no idea.
Speaker 2: And it's really ironic that only the people who know
Speaker 2: the most often get to the point of feeling secure
Speaker 2: in that knowledge to be able to say, yeah, I
Speaker 2: have no clue, but let me let me do some
Speaker 2: research on that and come back to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean I felt this as a teacher. I felt like,
Speaker 2: especially in the you know, the major public speaking anxiety
Speaker 2: does it day's early career, I felt like I had
Speaker 2: to be able to regurgitate a study for every single
Speaker 2: question that came up. I can imagine like I thought
Speaker 2: that was my job, and I was really missing out
Speaker 2: on the joy that that students get and also that
Speaker 2: I get of saying I've never seen anyone explore that before.
Speaker 2: I think that would make a great dissertation. Have you
Speaker 2: ever thought about coming to a PhD program? And I
Speaker 2: don't know. I think part of the joy of learning
Speaker 2: is that every answer raises at least nine new questions,
Speaker 2: and I think that we close that off when when
Speaker 2: we expect people to always have an answer.
Speaker 1: You've mentioned a few times and even in your diving example,
Speaker 1: the need for a coach. You know, I feel like
Speaker 1: therapy culture has and is still slowly penetrating. Like we
Speaker 1: I think, if you're in the circle, you think of
Speaker 1: it as like really accessible and easy and it's a
Speaker 1: big deal and the stigmatized correct. And the truth is
Speaker 1: it isn't across the board. It's getting there. It's slowly
Speaker 1: becoming destigmatized. I think the idea of finding a coach
Speaker 1: is so unless you're an athlete, it seems so far
Speaker 1: as an idea or as a thought process of how
Speaker 1: you approach things. I know there are executive coaches that
Speaker 1: have definitely kind of got into the zeitgeish, but still
Speaker 1: finding a coach is quite an alien approach. I find
Speaker 1: that people have. There's stigma there, there's confusion there, there's
Speaker 1: a lack of understanding of what is a coach? How
Speaker 1: have you thought about it? Seeing as you've mentioned it
Speaker 1: a bunch of times and in the book and today.
Speaker 2: Well, I think we're actually comfortable with it in certain domains. Right,
Speaker 2: so no one would ever hesitate to say, all right,
Speaker 2: I want my kid to learn the piano. They need
Speaker 2: a piano teacher. So I think when it comes to
Speaker 2: you know, to hobbies and you know, kind of skills
Speaker 2: early in life. Everybody knows they need a coach to
Speaker 2: learn the basics and then move toward intermediate and then hopefully,
Speaker 2: you know, figure out if this is something they want
Speaker 2: to pursue further. I think where it starts to become
Speaker 2: a little uncomfortable is when you're an adult and you
Speaker 2: think that you should be able to teach yourself everything,
Speaker 2: or you want to be self reliant, not dependent on
Speaker 2: someone else. And I think that's that's a broken mental
Speaker 2: model of a coach. A coach is actually I think
Speaker 2: a good coach is trying to work him or herself
Speaker 2: out of a job and say, obviously, I'm going to
Speaker 2: give you lots of advice and I'm going to try
Speaker 2: to help you improve, but at some point you should
Speaker 2: internalize the way that I look at your performance, the
Speaker 2: way that I think about helping you make progress, to
Speaker 2: the degree that you can figure out what would I
Speaker 2: say like after this, and then apply that advice. And
Speaker 2: at that point you're probably ready for a new coach
Speaker 2: who has different knowledge and skills to share with you.
Speaker 2: And I think that's where I would start, is I
Speaker 2: would say, coaches are all around us, you know, going
Speaker 2: back to the asking for advice idea, right, you ask
Speaker 2: people for advice, you start to turn them into your coaches,
Speaker 2: and there's no reason why you can't formalize this. A
Speaker 2: lot of and you're familiar with this. A lot of
Speaker 2: writers have writing groups where somebody's working out a manuscript
Speaker 2: and then you know four or five other writers are
Speaker 2: basically coaching them and trying to help them improve it.
Speaker 2: I don't think that should be limited to you know,
Speaker 2: it has to be my job, or it has to
Speaker 2: be the hobby I'm trying to improve at. I think
Speaker 2: anything you want to you want to get better at,
Speaker 2: you could just ask for somebody to give you informal
Speaker 2: coaching and then you learn really quickly, is this person's
Speaker 2: perspective helpful to me in this domain?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? Absolutely?
Speaker 2: Are you a coach?
Speaker 1: I'm looking for one right now. Funnily enough, that's why
Speaker 1: I asked you, and I think for me at the.
Speaker 2: Moment, now we know why you were asking, how do
Speaker 2: I figure out what to grow on?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Exactly, And I think there's that feeling for me
Speaker 1: about I'd say, if I really worded it accurately and
Speaker 1: clearly it would be I'm reintegrating and re renewing and
Speaker 1: refining my value because my life has changed so drastically,
Speaker 1: and so there were times when I felt like I
Speaker 1: had kept up with the pace of my external growth,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, I was like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: this is way bigger than I thought it was, and
Speaker 1: this is so different from how I lived just ten
Speaker 1: to fifteen years ago, and I want to realign and
Speaker 1: reconnect with that, if that makes sense us. And so
Speaker 1: I think that is something which I've given myself personal
Speaker 1: time to do regularly, to refine, to realign, to reconnect.
Speaker 1: But to do it with someone else who can see
Speaker 1: beyond and maybe has had experience of two very opposite
Speaker 1: worlds and has traversed those parts may be really helpful.
Speaker 1: And so I think that's what I would be looking for,
Speaker 1: and so coaching would be the right modality for that.
Speaker 2: I think it could be. I think it's interesting. There
Speaker 2: are two levels of that that I think could be fruitful.
Speaker 2: The first one is exactly the you framed it, which is,
Speaker 2: let me take a step back and figure out what
Speaker 2: my values are and how my core principles in life
Speaker 2: have changed should change moving forward.
Speaker 1: That's what it is.
Speaker 2: But I think the other layer of it is saying,
Speaker 2: maybe the values are the same, but your opportunity set
Speaker 2: has evolved. So what does it mean to live your
Speaker 2: values now given those opportunities?
Speaker 1: Correct? Absolutely, absolutely, there we go.
Speaker 2: I've got a few candidates for you. I'll suggest them
Speaker 2: off on.
Speaker 1: Please love I genuinely love that. Yeah, I know. And
Speaker 1: that's definitely been where my head's been at probably the
Speaker 1: most most recently. And it's and again, I usually sit
Speaker 1: with something like this and let it simmer and let
Speaker 1: it clarify. And it's nice in a form like this
Speaker 1: to be able to vocalize it in an articulate way.
Speaker 1: And that's another beautiful thing about talking to someone else
Speaker 1: about it. If you keep going around it in your
Speaker 1: own head, chances are you won't say as articulately as
Speaker 1: you would say to someone else because you wanted to
Speaker 1: make sense to them.
Speaker 2: That's one of my favorite things about conversation. There was
Speaker 2: a biographer once. It was em Forster's biographer. She used
Speaker 2: this beautiful phrase called inverse charisma, which was the idea.
Speaker 2: She said Forrester had this ability to ask you such
Speaker 2: insightful questions with such sincere interest that he brought out
Speaker 2: a more insightful, more charming version of yourself than existed.
Speaker 2: Like that's part of what a good coach is. I
Speaker 2: actually think great coaches are filled with in verse charisma.
Speaker 2: They're not giving the rousing halftime speech all the time
Speaker 2: or the pep talk. They're not always necessarily kicking you
Speaker 2: in the butt, you know, to get you to work
Speaker 2: harder or persist longer. I think what they're doing is
Speaker 2: is posing challenges and ideas for you that bring out
Speaker 2: a better version of you.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I couldn't agree more. And I think that
Speaker 1: is where hidden potential is. I mean, it's someone is
Speaker 1: not planting potential. It's not manufactured potential. It's not inception potential.
Speaker 1: It's hidden potential. It's there and someone's helping ask the
Speaker 1: questions so you can keep revealing and peeling way the layers.
Speaker 1: And I think that is exactly what a good coach does.
Speaker 1: Good coach is not telling you who you are, or
Speaker 1: telling you the answer, or telling you who you could be.
Speaker 1: It's allowing you to discover that for yourself, which is
Speaker 1: needed for someone else to do that, because otherwise you're
Speaker 1: just stuck in your head saying I'm not that. I
Speaker 1: remember a coach years ago when I had left the monastery,
Speaker 1: I was working at Accenture in London, and he'd always
Speaker 1: say to me, you're an entrepreneur. Just from watching you,
Speaker 1: I can observe that you're an entrepreneur. And I'd be like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not an entrepreneur. I don't want to be an entrepreneur.
Speaker 1: And I said I would fight and debate that with him,
Speaker 1: I would give him all the reasons, and he said, Jay,
Speaker 1: one day you'll see. And now I look back and
Speaker 1: I think, wow, I was. That is exactly who I was,
Speaker 1: not in the in the way that it may be
Speaker 1: seen in the world, but the autonomy, the wanting of
Speaker 1: being artistic, being a leader, wanting to create, wanting to
Speaker 1: produce without with freedom and without restraint, like all of
Speaker 1: that quality of an entrepreneur. I think language is so
Speaker 1: limiting too. It is yeah, right, yeah, you're.
Speaker 2: Right, if you would, if you would defy, and entrepreneurship
Speaker 2: back then as being someone who sees opportunities and then
Speaker 2: creates a vision and then builds around that without giving
Speaker 2: up a ton of freedom, Like yeah, of course, that's
Speaker 2: who I am.
Speaker 1: And instead you're like, I got to be I don't
Speaker 1: want to start like that's that's really in my head.
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't want to manage people like
Speaker 1: I don't Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got to be pitching a scrub daddy on
Speaker 2: shark tape.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, that's yeah. I don't want to start
Speaker 1: business like that's not you know, that's not what I
Speaker 1: want to do with my life. And so, yeah, it's fascinating.
Speaker 1: Our language limits us. And I was going to ask
Speaker 1: you that about that, like, how do you feel comfortable?
Speaker 1: And this is chapter three of your book, The Impact Imperfectionists,
Speaker 1: finding the sweet spot between flawed and flawless? How do
Speaker 1: you allow yourself to release anything when you know it's
Speaker 1: going to be flawed and imperfect Because I think that
Speaker 1: that's the challenge right with the book, especially with social
Speaker 1: media less so it's it's short form and short terms,
Speaker 1: so there's it's easier to get to what you want
Speaker 1: to get to. But with a book with a to
Speaker 1: with a obviously, as a professor, I mean, everything you're teaching,
Speaker 1: you know people are going to practice it for years potentially.
Speaker 1: How do you feel comfortable putting something out that's imperfect
Speaker 1: and incomplete.
Speaker 2: This is a little embarrassing, but I have to say so.
Speaker 2: I after writing the book, I said, all right, I
Speaker 2: want to use some of the psychometric tools that we
Speaker 2: were trained in to create a fun quiz for people
Speaker 2: to identify what their greatest character strength is among those
Speaker 2: and then also an area for growth. So I finished
Speaker 2: the quiz, I sent it out to a bunch of
Speaker 2: people to pilot it, and then it was time for
Speaker 2: me to take it. And after writing this whole chapter
Speaker 2: about what I've learned about being an imperfectionist, my lowest
Speaker 2: score was imperfectionism. So I am not fully recovered from perfectionism,
Speaker 2: and it's sometimes hard for me to release things. I
Speaker 2: think what's helped me is a couple of things. One
Speaker 2: the calibration of saying, okay, if it's something as big
Speaker 2: as a book, I mean, I'm aiming for a nine
Speaker 2: like this. I'm going to pour a lot of time
Speaker 2: into it. Hopefully a lot of people are going to
Speaker 2: engage with it, and so I really want it to
Speaker 2: be as good as I'm capable of doing at that
Speaker 2: moment in my life. If it's a social media post,
Speaker 2: like I'm content with a six and some people might
Speaker 2: get angry at me, some people might misunderstand me. I'm
Speaker 2: definitely gonna learn something, and it's better to put out
Speaker 2: a bunch of potential sixes and hit some mates than
Speaker 2: to post once a year. As somebody who cares a
Speaker 2: lot about both sharing knowledge and learning from other people's
Speaker 2: reactions to those you know, those posts, I think that's
Speaker 2: been really helpful. And I guess what I've realized through
Speaker 2: that is if you never put anything out into the world,
Speaker 2: then you're actually limiting your contribution. And I think when
Speaker 2: when psychologists study regret, it's pretty clear that in the
Speaker 2: short run, people are afraid of failing, but in the
Speaker 2: long run, they're more afraid of failing to try. And
Speaker 2: that's that's kind of where I've I've come down, is
Speaker 2: I'd rather fail than fail to try it all.
Speaker 1: It's really fascinating. You said something there which I really
Speaker 1: resonate with, is this idea that part of the is
Speaker 1: in the sharing and seeing reactions. And I think we underestimate,
Speaker 1: like I could honestly sit down and think I know
Speaker 1: everything about a subject and keep quizzing myself and think
Speaker 1: I know everything, but the moment I share it with
Speaker 1: someone else and they ask a question, I'll be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I should have been you know that was missing. I
Speaker 1: didn't think of that. And so sharing it in some form,
Speaker 1: even if it's not the complete form, but sharing a
Speaker 1: talk based on one of the chapters, or sharing I
Speaker 1: often do that with podcasts, Like when I have an idea,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, let me just record a podcast episode
Speaker 1: about that and see what people have to think about it.
Speaker 1: And it's a great way of just experimenting and testing
Speaker 1: and seeing what part of it I didn't consider. Yes,
Speaker 1: because someone will consider it, And we don't see that
Speaker 1: as part of the growth process. We see as separate.
Speaker 1: We see as I'm going to make something complete, people
Speaker 1: are going to have exactly the reaction I want to it,
Speaker 1: and that will be the success of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's right. I think the medium also matters,
Speaker 2: So podcasting is much more forgiving medium. I think that
Speaker 2: book writing one hundred percent because nobody expects you to
Speaker 2: have said everything exactly right in the moment, whereas a book.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you say something wrong in a book, it's like, well,
Speaker 2: shouldn't you have done your research? Yeah, why didn't you
Speaker 2: fact check that one of the things that I see
Speaker 2: a lot of people hold back on when it comes
Speaker 2: to sharing anything they've created. Is so many people limit
Speaker 2: themselves by saying I don't want to self promote.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad we're going here, let's go there.
Speaker 2: This this is not about me. I'm like good because
Speaker 2: there is a huge difference between self promotion and idea promotion.
Speaker 2: Promoting yourself is saying, look at me, look at how
Speaker 2: great I am. I'm special. You're sharing the awardsy one,
Speaker 2: You're posting a lot of selfies here, you're in the spotlight.
Speaker 2: I think idea promotion is really different, which is to
Speaker 2: say I made something I'm proud of. I hope it's
Speaker 2: valuable to you. I hope you get some joy out
Speaker 2: of it. If you don't put that out in the world,
Speaker 2: you're depriving people of benefiting from what you poured your
Speaker 2: heart into. And that that to me, seems like a mistake.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you always feel like that it was something
Speaker 1: you had to wrap your head around, Because that's something
Speaker 1: I definitely had to wrap my head around. So I'm intrigued. No,
Speaker 1: Because as a professor, I just don't imagine putting a
Speaker 1: book on promoting like that doesn't come naturally Like that
Speaker 1: isn't feel.
Speaker 2: Not at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, I remember a few weeks after I got tenure,
Speaker 2: colleague wrote and said, Hey, I'm thinking about writing a
Speaker 2: book about motivation. You've done a lot of research in
Speaker 2: this area. Do you want to co author it? Wow?
Speaker 2: I love I loved working with this collaborator. Huge admirer
Speaker 2: of his work. This is a great honor. And I've
Speaker 2: always wanted to to figure out if there's a way
Speaker 2: I could share my ideas more broadly than just with
Speaker 2: the students I happened to meet in the classroom. I
Speaker 2: immediately I had a lab meeting later that day with
Speaker 2: a group of undergraduates and I told them I was
Speaker 2: going to do this, and they had a mutiny, like no,
Speaker 2: you cannot. You cannot write a book about somebody else's ideas.
Speaker 2: You need to write your own book, Like Nope, can't
Speaker 2: do it. I cannot do that. This is like I
Speaker 2: don't feel comfortable to it. I hardly even teach my
Speaker 2: own research in the classroom. I want to. I want
Speaker 2: to share with you the knowledge that I've found most useful.
Speaker 2: Like I don't think my my research is like the
Speaker 2: most important thing for me to teach you. And they
Speaker 2: push back really hard, and they said, look, you have
Speaker 2: a responsibility if you've invested a lot of your own
Speaker 2: time and energy and you know in the work that
Speaker 2: you do, to share that more broadly and get it
Speaker 2: out there and see what people think of it. And
Speaker 2: they basically held me hostage. They said, you're not leaving
Speaker 2: this lab meeting until you agree you will write your
Speaker 2: own book before you help somebody else do theirs. And
Speaker 2: eventually they logic bullied me into agreeing, and I kind
Speaker 2: of came around and said, Okay, this is what we do.
Speaker 2: We don't create knowledge for it to collect us in
Speaker 2: academic journals or for it to only be available to
Speaker 2: students who are lucky enough to get into an Ivy
Speaker 2: League school. That's not right. I believe in democratizing knowledge,
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm going to do This book came out
Speaker 2: a little bit beforehand. I send an email to my
Speaker 2: network just saying, hey, you know, I wrote this book.
Speaker 2: If you find it interesting or useful, would be really
Speaker 2: grateful if you would help spread the word. The responses
Speaker 2: were so lovely, but I got one email that kind
Speaker 2: of crushed me in the moment, and it was from
Speaker 2: an academic colleague who said, dear Adam, love the book,
Speaker 2: hate this self promotion. This was my fear. And I
Speaker 2: thought about it and I ruminated about it, and then
Speaker 2: it hit me, this is not self promotion. It's idea
Speaker 2: of promotion. This is about the knowledge contained in the book.
Speaker 2: I went out of my way to site a bunch of,
Speaker 2: you know, a long list of researchers. Later I was
Speaker 2: told too many. I was trying to synthesize a body
Speaker 2: of knowledge and get it out there. And we have
Speaker 2: to be to a certain degree in the spotlight in
Speaker 2: order to promote our work. And I think, you know,
Speaker 2: people want to connect to the author, the narrator, and
Speaker 2: so there's a I think an amount of self disclosure
Speaker 2: that's required, but self promotion that does not have to happen.
Speaker 2: And I looked at the book and I said, Okay,
Speaker 2: the main things I've shared about myself are mistakes I made,
Speaker 2: times I failed, and what I learned from those. So
Speaker 2: I feel okay saying this was idea promotion, not self promotion.
Speaker 2: And that's for me the litmus test ever since. So
Speaker 2: that I guess that's how I landed at that distinction.
Speaker 1: It's such an interesting thing for any artist, any creative,
Speaker 1: any academic, any any person who feels that they've come
Speaker 1: across something worth sharing. And that's why I've always been
Speaker 1: a fan of anyone who has anything worth sharing, because
Speaker 1: there are so many I think, isn't Ted's what's Ted's tagline?
Speaker 1: Or at one point idea is worth spreading? Ideas worth spreading?
Speaker 2: I like sharing better. Yeah, I don't want to assume
Speaker 2: that every idea should be spread, but share it with
Speaker 2: someone and let's find out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sharing, And I think we all have ideas worth sharing,
Speaker 1: we have insights worth sharing of some kind, and especially
Speaker 1: if you an artists, creates for academic and I think
Speaker 1: for me it was a very very similar journey to yours.
Speaker 1: And it's so interesting to hear that academic circles and
Speaker 1: spiritual circles can often have the same habits of behavior.
Speaker 1: And for me, when I wrote Think like a Monk,
Speaker 1: which was my first book, the biggest thing I was
Speaker 1: trying to do, and what I learned in my second book,
Speaker 1: which if I would have known in my first book,
Speaker 1: I would have done this is kind of explain this
Speaker 1: thought process where I tried to do it intuitively in
Speaker 1: how I shared it, as opposed to explicitly spelled it out,
Speaker 1: whereas now I'm much better at explicitly spelling out what
Speaker 1: I'm doing. I did that to honor all monk traditions.
Speaker 1: So I studied lots of different monk traditions. I spoke
Speaker 1: to lots of different monks, and so it wasn't just
Speaker 1: the tradition I studied in. So that was very important
Speaker 1: to me because I believed that there were traditions beyond
Speaker 1: mind that would have values to share and important messages
Speaker 1: to share. The other thing that I tried to do
Speaker 1: in the book was I definitely have always wanted to
Speaker 1: make ancient wisdom accessible, practical, and relevant. That has always
Speaker 1: been my mission. Because I'm trying to speak to the
Speaker 1: eighteen year old kid that I was in London before
Speaker 1: I got into spirituality and meditation and mindfulness. I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to to the person I am now or someone
Speaker 1: who's already learned a ton and so to me, to
Speaker 1: make it simple and accessible and relevant was my biggest
Speaker 1: goal and always has been, and that can often come
Speaker 1: with the critique of you're watering it down, you're oversimplifying it.
Speaker 1: This isn't the truth in the way it should be shared.
Speaker 1: And the other thing was similar to you, and I
Speaker 1: love that you said that too. I never shared an
Speaker 1: enlightened experience in the book. All the experiences are mistakes
Speaker 1: there when meditation went wrong. Me being envious, they're me
Speaker 1: judging people, They're me wanting to get what the monks
Speaker 1: have without having done the work, like all the stories
Speaker 1: that the human experience of a kid from London who
Speaker 1: doesn't have the qualification to be where he is in
Speaker 1: this space, trying to make sense of it. And and
Speaker 1: so the book was it wasn't think like me like
Speaker 1: that was in the book. It was called think like
Speaker 1: a monk, Like I'm not a monk anymore, and I
Speaker 1: want to show us how we can think like monks
Speaker 1: but not live like monks. And I think it was
Speaker 1: really interesting to me, just our again it comes from
Speaker 1: our preconceived notion on ideas, language having baggage and thoughts
Speaker 1: where people were just like, oh, but you're not a
Speaker 1: monk anymore, so how do you teach that? And this
Speaker 1: isn't your life? And it was so interesting to me
Speaker 1: that we couldn't learn from things that the things I'd
Speaker 1: learned and gained as opposed to if you're not exactly
Speaker 1: that thing anymore, then you can't teach it.
Speaker 2: I think there are things you could study that you
Speaker 2: don't have to share. If you were just really fascinated
Speaker 2: by painting or rare coins, you could say this is
Speaker 2: a personal interest to mine, and it's just it's my
Speaker 2: own curiosity. I think. You and choosing to be a monk,
Speaker 2: me and choosing to be a psychologist, we chose to
Speaker 2: take a deep dive into the mind and human behavior.
Speaker 2: If we gain knowledge from that. It feels like it's
Speaker 2: selfish not to share it, Like, why would you keep
Speaker 2: that to yourself? Why should the wisdom of monks only
Speaker 2: be accessible to monks. That doesn't seem right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't seem right at all. It feels like
Speaker 1: taking away. It feels selfish. And also to honor those people.
Speaker 1: To me, the book was honoring these amazing people that
Speaker 1: have done it for their whole lives and studies of
Speaker 1: people who meditated for forty years and you know that's
Speaker 1: not me, And I just found it interesting that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's fascinating. And there's a great book by Austin Cleon
Speaker 1: called Show Your Work yes, and I really like it,
Speaker 1: and I recommend that to anyone who's struggling with showing
Speaker 1: their work because it's exactly and I love the way
Speaker 1: you've differentiated been self promotion and idea promotion. And I
Speaker 1: really hope that that stays with people who are listening
Speaker 1: and watching, because if you have an idea that you
Speaker 1: believe is worth sharing and worth helping people and supporting people,
Speaker 1: please don't hold onto it, like please don't hide it
Speaker 1: from the world, because I worry for us to only
Speaker 1: be exposed to the same three ideas that everyone's exposed to,
Speaker 1: because we hide away from all these other new ones.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they hear people hold back for another reason, which
Speaker 2: is they're afraid somebody is going to steal their idea.
Speaker 2: And Austin Cleon wrote about this and Steal Like an Artist, Yeah,
Speaker 2: another book of his that I found very thought provoking.
Speaker 2: My response to that is, you know what, it is
Speaker 2: possible that somebody will steal your idea. Most of the
Speaker 2: time that won't be intentional, but what psychologists have sometimes
Speaker 2: called kleptomnesia, where you misremember an idea as your own
Speaker 2: and forget the source. That can happen inadvertently you hear
Speaker 2: an idea, you know, you don't necessarily track where you
Speaker 2: learned it, and then you know it kind of bubbles
Speaker 2: up a month later and you think you thought of it.
Speaker 2: I think that can happen. Ideas can get stolen on purpose,
Speaker 2: They can get stolen by accident. What I always want
Speaker 2: to say to people who are afraid of their ideas
Speaker 2: getting stolen is if you have one big idea and
Speaker 2: you're afraid of putting it out there because you think
Speaker 2: someone else is going to steal it, you don't have
Speaker 2: a lot of ideas, and people who generally succeed with
Speaker 2: ideas are people who are constantly generating ideas. And so
Speaker 2: what you should do is you should generate a whole
Speaker 2: portfolio of ideas, and then you're not identified with any
Speaker 2: one of them, you don't feel attached to just one
Speaker 2: of them, and then the risk goes way down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this so many blocks that we could talk about.
Speaker 1: Whether it's and I mean, one's the ego, right, So
Speaker 1: the self promotion is almost like an inverse ego. So
Speaker 1: it's almost like we think we're better because we're not
Speaker 1: promoting an idea. It's like we're we're we're doing that
Speaker 1: right this, Yeah, like that is ironic, Yeah, right, Like
Speaker 1: it's like I think I'm better because I'm not monetizing
Speaker 1: or democratizing or public popularizing and publicizing. Yes, yeah, popularizing
Speaker 1: or publicizing an idea makes it better to not do that.
Speaker 1: You talk about the ego differently, but let's talk about
Speaker 1: in that category first of all. Like it's it's interesting
Speaker 1: how that scene as are holier than thou kind of approach,
Speaker 1: and I don't think either is holier. I just think
Speaker 1: that one's compassionate and and to me, that's more what
Speaker 1: it is. Like I think when someone shares an idea
Speaker 1: about an experience that I could never have, to me,
Speaker 1: that's just compassion. It's their compassion to share with me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's no reason why people can have
Speaker 2: multiple motives behind their behavior, and I actually do, I
Speaker 2: mean almost always to us. Yeah, I think it's very
Speaker 2: rare that people are conscious of all their motives or
Speaker 2: willing to admit to all of them. But I actually
Speaker 2: think the most sustainable route to unlocking people's HIDEN potential
Speaker 2: is to try to align their you know, their personal
Speaker 2: aspirations with social good. And I don't think there's anything
Speaker 2: wrong with saying yeah, I want to promote this idea,
Speaker 2: both because I wanted to help other people and because
Speaker 2: I appreciate people respecting my knowledge and considering me a
Speaker 2: credible source. Like I actually think it would be problematic
Speaker 2: if you're like, yep, I care nothing about my own
Speaker 2: reputation whatsoever. Like only character matters to me. And even
Speaker 2: if people think I'm an idiot and I'm dishonest and
Speaker 2: I lack integrity, like, as long as I know I'm
Speaker 2: a good person, that's good. Like that's just not functional
Speaker 2: in the social world. And so I think we should
Speaker 2: give people. This is another we need to give people
Speaker 2: the space to say yes, like I do want to
Speaker 2: be valued and appreciated for things that I think are important,
Speaker 2: and I want to add value to other people too.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm so glad you went there. Yeah, it's so important.
Speaker 1: It's so important to allow ourselves that too, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: do I like it when someone leaves me a nice
Speaker 1: review on the podcast or the book? I do? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love it. It feels great. And do I do things
Speaker 1: because they make me feel good? Yes, I do, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure And at the same time, it comes from
Speaker 1: a place of wanting to do good in the world
Speaker 1: and wanting to spread ideas that will help people and
Speaker 1: serve people and support people and hopefully help them transform
Speaker 1: their own lives. And it comes from both of those places.
Speaker 1: I want to do things that make me feel good
Speaker 1: and do good in the world. Like I think that's
Speaker 1: I don't know any other way. Actually I don't either, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I don't know how to live in a world.
Speaker 1: If I only tried to do good to others, I
Speaker 1: would automatically feel good from that anyway. But if I
Speaker 1: was only to do things that were only good for me,
Speaker 1: I don't think I'd be satisfied either.
Speaker 2: No, I mean you'd lack the purpose that someone of
Speaker 2: your work concentrates on.
Speaker 1: What was the thing you found most surprising when writing
Speaker 1: Hidden Potential About Hidden Potential, specifically that kind of you
Speaker 1: were like, Oh wow, I didn't I'd never to find this.
Speaker 2: I think the first one was was the idea that
Speaker 2: learning character skills can be more powerful than learning cognitive skills,
Speaker 2: assuming that you have a foundation and you know in
Speaker 2: thinking skills that learning to embrace discomfort and become more
Speaker 2: of a sponge and accept the right imperfections like that
Speaker 2: that could fuel more growth than you know, if you're
Speaker 2: an entrepreneur, learning finance and marketing stunning, and that you
Speaker 2: can learn those skills in your forties and fifties as
Speaker 2: opposed to thinking that those character skills are set when
Speaker 2: you're young. That I found liberating and encouraging. So that
Speaker 2: was a surprise. I think that maybe a bigger surprise though,
Speaker 2: just as I think through the insights that I picked
Speaker 2: up as I was investigating, I think I had this
Speaker 2: image of people who, you know, not just to achieve
Speaker 2: greater things, but achieve the greatest things. I had this
Speaker 2: image that they just figured out how to make the
Speaker 2: daily grind just tolerable. I think about Steph Curry just,
Speaker 2: you know, drilling over and over again to shoot as
Speaker 2: well as he does. I assumed that he just figured
Speaker 2: out how to not mind the monotony and the boredom
Speaker 2: and the exhaustion, and he would just power through it,
Speaker 2: and he had a superhuman ability to tolerate extreme amounts
Speaker 2: of discomfort. Light bulb. While reading the research on deliberate practice,
Speaker 2: was like, it's not that motivating for a lot of
Speaker 2: people to just do the same activity repetitively over and
Speaker 2: over again. If you're Steph Curry shooting is fun like
Speaker 2: doing wind sprints and then trying to make baskets when
Speaker 2: you can hardly breathe, and doing that over and over again,
Speaker 2: like not anybody's like not my idea of joy, and
Speaker 2: don't I don't think it's Stepf's either. And through the
Speaker 2: research I read, and through spending time with his trainer
Speaker 2: who designed this set of routines that had really elevated
Speaker 2: his game, I realized that deliberate play is a huge
Speaker 2: part of practice and we don't give it enough credit.
Speaker 2: That you know, if your Steph, you play a game
Speaker 2: to see how many baskets you can make it in a
Speaker 2: minute and a half, and then you've got a target
Speaker 2: to shoot for and you're competing against yourself or you're
Speaker 2: competing against a clock, and all of a sudden, that
Speaker 2: supercharges your motivation, especially in the summer when nobody's you know,
Speaker 2: when you're not actually playing basketball games that really count.
Speaker 2: And I looked at that and thought, why do we
Speaker 2: have to turn the daily grind into such a grind? Like, yes,
Speaker 2: there are times when we all have to push ourselves,
Speaker 2: but pushing yourself day after day is not a sustainable routine.
Speaker 2: And what we want to do is try to figure
Speaker 2: out how to redesign practice and skill development so that
Speaker 2: there are you could break skills down into these enjoyable
Speaker 2: pieces and then make them more playful. You mentioned Dan Coyle.
Speaker 2: I love the Culture Code, and one of my favorite
Speaker 2: ideas that he wrote about was the difference between shallow
Speaker 2: fun and deep fund. I think shallow fun is gamification.
Speaker 2: It's tricking people into enjoying practice even though they don't
Speaker 2: really like it, because there's a carrot that's being dangled
Speaker 2: at the end. I think the deep fund is about
Speaker 2: saying we want to actually take the process of learning
Speaker 2: itself and make it enjoyable. And so, you know, the
Speaker 2: stuff example is a great one, but it's easy to
Speaker 2: think about that in basketball. Evelyn Glenny are percussionist saying like,
Speaker 2: let me figure out if I could harmonize bach on
Speaker 2: a snare drum, Like, what a cool way to make
Speaker 2: learning percussion playful. And I think that that was a
Speaker 2: big aha for me. I think that I had come
Speaker 2: to see play as a reward for finishing my to
Speaker 2: do list and mastering a skill, and now I realize
Speaker 2: it's got to be on the to do list and
Speaker 2: it's got to be part of learning a skill.
Speaker 1: That resonates so strongly as well. Again, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the process has to be fun, meaningful and fulfilling in
Speaker 1: and of itself, not just a reward. Trying to think
Speaker 1: about activity that I've done that with that just felt
Speaker 1: impossible to do it with have you? Have you? What
Speaker 1: was the thought experiment that you did there with?
Speaker 2: Well? I was wondering, Yeah, this had to. I feel
Speaker 2: like monks are often misunderstood like a complete denial of
Speaker 2: any earthly joy. Yes, And I don't see how a
Speaker 2: human could ever function in that environment. So I guess
Speaker 2: the question is you had to do a lot of
Speaker 2: hard stuff as a monk, especially I imagine in training,
Speaker 2: like how did you make that playful?
Speaker 1: You made it playful by laughing at yourself like it
Speaker 1: was right. So the thing that came to mind was
Speaker 1: often we'd walk down a path and we'd be asked
Speaker 1: to find a new stone, and the goal was to
Speaker 1: find something and be really present with it and you know,
Speaker 1: be aware of it. Its colors, it's texture, it's shape.
Speaker 1: Everything you'd want to practice through a mindfulness practice, And
Speaker 1: what the mind would do is I'd find a stone
Speaker 1: for today, and I'd find a stone for tomorrow so
Speaker 1: that I didn't have to do the same activity tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Because we want to make things easier mentally, and we're
Speaker 1: always trying to cheat the system or you know, break
Speaker 1: the game. So my mind would do that very naturally.
Speaker 1: I'd find two stones of all right, I saw that
Speaker 1: one where that is behind that tree to today, I'll
Speaker 1: pick this one tomorrow, found one anyway, and then we'd
Speaker 1: get to the next day and the teacher would say,
Speaker 1: all right, today, we'd to find a petal like and
Speaker 1: they're just switched it up on you, and you'd laugh
Speaker 1: at your own mind, like you'd find it hilarious that
Speaker 1: your mind was trying to gain the system. But the
Speaker 1: monks are too, you know, already one step ahead of you.
Speaker 1: They already know that built it exactly. And so I
Speaker 1: think things like that where learning to laugh at yourself
Speaker 1: brought play. When you saw the monkey mind, as you
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, you laughed at it. You didn't you went
Speaker 1: harsh on yourself. You didn't if you saw a monkey.
Speaker 1: And I've seen monkeys do this in India, steal people's sunglasses,
Speaker 1: cut bags if you're holding it to grab fruit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: dieco stealing. I've seen them steal credit cards, like out
Speaker 1: of people's hands if they're paying for something. You don't
Speaker 1: look at it and go what an idiot? Like what's
Speaker 1: wrong with you? You just think, oh, monkeys and you just laugh.
Speaker 1: And that's partly what the mind is like, Like it's
Speaker 1: it's funny to watch the flawed mind, uh and not
Speaker 1: take it so seriously and recognize that it's just how
Speaker 1: it's built and how it's how it acts.
Speaker 2: I like that a lot. Yeah, Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 2: think the idea of you know, of taking your your
Speaker 2: goals and your growth seriously, but not yourself and your
Speaker 2: ego that seriously is obviously powerful there. It also sounds
Speaker 2: like your teachers really appreciated the importance of novelty and variety,
Speaker 2: absolutely saying all right, like we got to switch up
Speaker 2: stones for pedals just to keep making this interesting and
Speaker 2: make sure you don't lose your curiosity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just recognizing that you were going to you know,
Speaker 1: I remember saying to one of my teachers one so
Speaker 1: I was like, I was like, oh, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: just really struggling with my ego. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: ever going to go away. It's so big, it's so
Speaker 1: hard to deal with. I see it come up in
Speaker 1: so many scenarios and they just be like relaxed, just
Speaker 1: you know, it's okay, like your ego wi always be there.
Speaker 1: Just do your service. Like it wasn't seen with as
Speaker 1: much like kind of pain and stress because they understood
Speaker 1: it's hard. They get that, like they know what the
Speaker 1: mind is going to do, and so why would they
Speaker 1: react to it with this like very serious and kind
Speaker 1: of imprisoned undertone rather than like, yeah, it's going to
Speaker 1: be there, just do it. I like that idea of
Speaker 1: just just do it anyway. It's going to be there,
Speaker 1: do it anyway, like okay. So you might feel you
Speaker 1: have too much of an ego to give a talk,
Speaker 1: do it anyway and be aware of it. Right, be
Speaker 1: aware of something and do it anyway is far better
Speaker 1: than wait till you overcome your ego to do something
Speaker 1: like that, you'll be waiting for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: It will never disappear, and that's just ego could be
Speaker 1: anything obviously, like envy or any of the things you mentioned.
Speaker 2: I don't know that it's realistic to expect it to disappear. Altogether.
Speaker 2: I think what you want is not too me. You
Speaker 2: wanted to be in the rear view mirror so that
Speaker 2: it's not your primary focus, but you're you're checking in
Speaker 2: on it every once in a while.
Speaker 1: Exactly, Adam. There are so many things in Hidden Potential.
Speaker 1: We could talk for hours and hours, and I don't.
Speaker 1: I want people to actually read the book. I want
Speaker 1: to be able to pick it up. I want you
Speaker 1: to go and grab a copy of Hidden Potential. The
Speaker 1: Science of Achieving Greater Things. As we've talked about today,
Speaker 1: there's such a need for progress, there's such a need
Speaker 1: for growth. I think this book breaks it down, makes
Speaker 1: it simple in a way that I love and I admire.
Speaker 1: But on top of all of that, it's packed with
Speaker 1: great stories, case studies, science and research to back it
Speaker 1: all up. And in Adam's signature style of making it fun,
Speaker 1: that the natural humor that always comes through. But thank
Speaker 1: you for doing this, And I wanted to ask you them.
Speaker 1: Is there anything you haven't shared either from the book
Speaker 1: and that's come in your mind and heart that you're like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I really want people to know this or share this,
Speaker 1: and they may not be, but I want to give
Speaker 1: you the flow.
Speaker 2: That's well, you're as always too kind. No, I mean,
Speaker 2: the only thing is I'm second guessing, like, was that
Speaker 2: the most surprising thing? Should there have been a more
Speaker 2: surprising thing? I am right now failing my imperfectionist tests.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter which one I picked, because no one
Speaker 2: knows what the alternatives were, but I am curious. So
Speaker 2: we talked about deliberate play being you know, potentially as
Speaker 2: important or more important than deliberate practice for growth. The
Speaker 2: other two that I was just starting to think about,
Speaker 2: where that when you get stuck, you often have to
Speaker 2: move back to move forward. That before people leap in
Speaker 2: a scale, they have to dip. That was not ha
Speaker 2: that I did not have before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's better you're doing about climbing the mountain, the
Speaker 1: idea of like, yeah, like that it's better if you're stuck,
Speaker 1: not just to stand there, but to walk backwards to
Speaker 1: kind of kind of around.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yeah, a better method.
Speaker 1: Actually, most of us don't move backwards to move forwards.
Speaker 1: We've remained stuck because we're too embarrassed to move backwards,
Speaker 1: or we feel too like we've reached somewhere to move backwards,
Speaker 1: like there's a comfort.
Speaker 2: I don't want to give up the games that I met.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, that's exactly, And so why.
Speaker 2: When I start over when I've already put so much
Speaker 2: time into getting where I got.
Speaker 1: That sun cost bias is that was huge for me.
Speaker 1: I remember learning about that in like a level economics,
Speaker 1: like eighteen years seventeen, eighteen years old, and thinking, what
Speaker 1: a great concept to understand that. And I kind of
Speaker 1: gave that up very naturally. But I saw that as
Speaker 1: I grow older, people who'd studied something, especially something I
Speaker 1: had friends who would become lawyers or doctors, but then
Speaker 1: didn't enjoy it or didn't see that as their path
Speaker 1: directly even and having to pivot from that was so
Speaker 1: hard because it worked so hard to achieve something that
Speaker 1: is rare and hard and difficult.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one of the things I would like to remind
Speaker 2: my students of when they, like they come to office
Speaker 2: hours and they're in tunnel vision, like I have to
Speaker 2: do the prescribed thing, like my parents want me to
Speaker 2: be a doctor, or everyone in my family went to
Speaker 2: law school. I always want to say to them, listen,
Speaker 2: I understand that you're already down this path, like you've
Speaker 2: done the pre med thing, or you're already, Like, you know,
Speaker 2: you're already in the program, But what's worse realizing that
Speaker 2: you wasted the last two years are going on to
Speaker 2: waste the next twenty. It's not a hard calculus. And
Speaker 2: so I think maybe the antidote to sun costs is
Speaker 2: opportunity cost to say, yeah, you know what, you have
Speaker 2: already invested a whole bunch in this, But think about
Speaker 2: all the growth and all the joy that you're giving
Speaker 2: up on if you don't shift gears.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think. I mean I think about that
Speaker 1: all the time in my own life. And it's hard
Speaker 1: because you never know it then. And it's the old
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs quote of you can't connect the dots moving forwards,
Speaker 1: your only backward. Yeah, only backwards. And it's hard to
Speaker 1: remind people almost as their future self. And I I
Speaker 1: think that is the activity. That's what I did. I
Speaker 1: fast forwarded when I was working in the corporate world.
Speaker 1: I fast forwarded twenty years and I asked myself, would
Speaker 1: I be happy doing what I see other people doing
Speaker 1: twenty years ahead of me? And the answer was no.
Speaker 1: And so I was like, well, then anything will be
Speaker 1: better than this, because if the answer is no, and
Speaker 1: It's not that they had bad jobs so they weren't happy.
Speaker 1: It's that I wouldn't be happy doing what they were
Speaker 1: doing twenty years from then, and so if you're not,
Speaker 1: then you can't keep following the same path. Adam, I
Speaker 1: actually have two more questions from you that I just
Speaker 1: saw my notes that I actually don't want to miss
Speaker 1: asking these to you. This comes from part three, systems
Speaker 1: of Opportunity, Opening Doors and Windows, and I are these
Speaker 1: two questions that I think are really interesting. We talked
Speaker 1: about certain challenges of our school system and what we
Speaker 1: find wrong, but this was the interesting part for me.
Speaker 1: Do you believe children should be able to choose what
Speaker 1: they study? I think it's a really fascinating concept. One
Speaker 1: of my friends runs schools where kids do get to choose.
Speaker 1: It's private, and I'm always fascinated by this idea of
Speaker 1: we've gone from living in a world that kids had
Speaker 1: no choice, we naturally swing to the other side of
Speaker 1: the pendulum where we want to give kids all choice.
Speaker 1: What did you discover?
Speaker 2: I think this is really complicated. So the research on
Speaker 2: the paradox of choice suggests that there is such a
Speaker 2: thing as too much choice. First of all, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of debate about how pervasive that is. It's much
Speaker 2: worse to have no choice than too much, much worse.
Speaker 2: So it's easier to manage the problem of too many
Speaker 2: options than it is to create freedom where it's absent.
Speaker 2: I think that's clear. The second thing is we can
Speaker 2: think about bundling and sort of bucketing choices in a
Speaker 2: way that maybe gets the best of both worlds. So
Speaker 2: I think it's potentially helpful for students to have choices
Speaker 2: within constraints. For example, so you ask, if you're an
Speaker 2: elementary school teacher, you ask kids to read thirty minutes
Speaker 2: a night, but they get to pick the book. I
Speaker 2: think that's the kind of choice we're looking for early on.
Speaker 2: I think later, probably in high school, every kid should
Speaker 2: take some math, but I don't think everyone needs to
Speaker 2: take trig Trigonometry has never been useful in my life.
Speaker 2: In a heartbeat, I would throw out the Trigg curriculum
Speaker 2: and replace it with statistics, which I think actually is
Speaker 2: useful for how people think and what they do in
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: But not everyone feels no cognitive benefits of doing Triggy.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, they know, because I often think about
Speaker 1: things not being as literal and think, oh wait, is
Speaker 1: my brain developing by thinking in that ways.
Speaker 2: I have never seen a randomized controlled experiment saying that
Speaker 2: learning trigonometry will teach you a set of thinking skills
Speaker 2: that it's invaluable. Like, I don't think there's anything about
Speaker 2: sign and cosign that you would get that you can't
Speaker 2: get through geometry. Would be my hunch as a psychologists,
Speaker 2: But I have not done that experiment or that series
Speaker 2: of experiments I think. But what I would say is
Speaker 2: like within I mean, colleges are much better at this
Speaker 2: right saying there's a math requirement, but we give you
Speaker 2: a menu of options and you can choose within that.
Speaker 2: Nobody wants to go to a restaurant and have a
Speaker 2: menu with a thousand options, but if they kind of
Speaker 2: know what they like, they can say I can look
Speaker 2: at that category, I can choose within it, And I
Speaker 2: think that's where I would want choice to land. For
Speaker 2: kids at different levels.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so hard to you know, hidden potential as
Speaker 1: a kid and as we grow is so difficult because
Speaker 1: if I was asked what I liked growing up now,
Speaker 1: I can easily say that I think I was naturally
Speaker 1: drawn towards the arts and design and philosophy, and I
Speaker 1: can see it even more clearly now, but it would
Speaker 1: have been really hard for someone I don't know. How
Speaker 1: would you be better at spotting hidden potential in schools
Speaker 1: and in young people earlier on, so that we can
Speaker 1: kind of hopefully better guide and coach people as opposed
Speaker 1: to have them become pre meds or complete a career
Speaker 1: and then having to pivot.
Speaker 2: Well, I think the person who's best suited to see
Speaker 2: your hidden potential is often the one who knows you best.
Speaker 2: And I don't think we give teachers enough opportunity to
Speaker 2: get to know kids. I love the research and looping
Speaker 2: that I wrote about in the chapter on what we
Speaker 2: can learn from countries like Finland and Estonia, But even
Speaker 2: here in the US there's strong ev e it's from
Speaker 2: multiple states with millions of students in elementary and middle
Speaker 2: school that if they just happened to have the same
Speaker 2: teacher for two years in a row, they achieve more
Speaker 2: gains in math and rating, which is remarkable. And I
Speaker 2: know there are tons of parents who are afraid of
Speaker 2: this idea, like what if my kid gets stuck with
Speaker 2: Professor Snape for two years instead of one that's the
Speaker 2: end of the world. It turns out that not only
Speaker 2: is it good for kids to have the same teacher
Speaker 2: for multiple years, but that when kids are struggling and
Speaker 2: teachers are struggling, they actually benefit more from the extended relationship.
Speaker 2: And I don't think it's hard to unpack why this is.
Speaker 2: I think when you know, when a teacher moves up
Speaker 2: with a student, they don't lose all this information in
Speaker 2: the handoff from one to the next. They understand the
Speaker 2: student's strengths and opportunities for growth. They also have seen
Speaker 2: this the distance that the student has traveled. And so
Speaker 2: instead of just saying, well, like a new teacher, well
Speaker 2: that student didn't shine in math, to say, wow, that
Speaker 2: student was really behind in math and now is right
Speaker 2: on track with the class. I think there's some hidden
Speaker 2: potential there. I think every school on earth should let
Speaker 2: kids have the same teacher for multiple years. And I
Speaker 2: think it's not a huge effect in the data, but
Speaker 2: I think it's a meaningful one.
Speaker 1: It is one of the biggest. I mean, even in
Speaker 1: spiritual education and teaching and guidance, it's that's the only
Speaker 1: way it works. Like the practices that my monk teachers
Speaker 1: created for me were very different from what they created
Speaker 1: for other students, because it was all about specific learning
Speaker 1: and specific growth, and so some of the practices I
Speaker 1: did were not normal for others, and some of the
Speaker 1: practices other people did were not normal for me, because
Speaker 1: you trusted that your teacher was getting to know you
Speaker 1: better and therefore would create plans, whether some of that
Speaker 1: included travel. For example, I would be asked to travel
Speaker 1: back more to London to teach while I was a monk,
Speaker 1: because they saw that that would be a useful skill
Speaker 1: set for me, that would be a useful experience for
Speaker 1: me of me going back to the country I was
Speaker 1: from and having to connect there, and that wasn't part
Speaker 1: of it everyone else's training. And so I've always been
Speaker 1: a fan since my training in that way of having
Speaker 1: the same teacher, and even till this day, I still
Speaker 1: go back to the same monk teacher who knows me
Speaker 1: much better and now he has like so much data
Speaker 1: on me because you've known me since I was eighteen
Speaker 1: years old, and so he has eighteen years of insight
Speaker 1: of knowing me, and many of those years living together,
Speaker 1: where his ability to say, oh my gosh, do you
Speaker 1: remember when you used to be like this and this
Speaker 1: challenge would trip you up? And look at you now,
Speaker 1: and just that context is so useful to hear from
Speaker 1: a student, like you're saying, like whether it's hey, you know,
Speaker 1: you were struggling with math last year and last year
Speaker 1: got C and this year got B. But I actually
Speaker 1: noticed that, you know whatever, I think it's huge. I
Speaker 1: actually think it's huge.
Speaker 2: And that's a great coda to the earlier point about
Speaker 2: you want a coach to work themselves out of a job,
Speaker 2: but then you want to be able to go back
Speaker 2: to that coach at inflection points, yes, for a fresh
Speaker 2: perspective or for somebody who has that continuity. And so
Speaker 2: I think over the hope is that you don't rely
Speaker 2: on that person day to day anymore, of course as
Speaker 2: a crutch, but they are the person who I guess
Speaker 2: has the most accurate mirror.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And that's at least from a Eastern philosophy
Speaker 1: point of view. Education was always meant to be the guru,
Speaker 1: as it would have been called at the time, and
Speaker 1: a small enough class for the guru to get to
Speaker 1: know the class well enough in order to spot hidden
Speaker 1: potential and their psychophysical nature and their dharma word for
Speaker 1: purpose in order to ignite that spark deeper, and that
Speaker 1: requires a lot of training for the guru and an
Speaker 1: openness from their students as well. But yeah, you're right,
Speaker 1: it's not just choice as well. It's not just like, hey,
Speaker 1: choose what you want. Yeah, it's beautiful. Thank you so much, Adam.
Speaker 1: This has been amazing, Thanks to you. Always a joy.
Speaker 1: I love how our conversations go from what's wrong with
Speaker 1: the school system to why we're not idea promoting enough
Speaker 1: all the way through to you know, how do we
Speaker 1: choose what we need to work on? What is the weakness?
Speaker 1: What are imperfections? And again it's all inside this book
Speaker 1: called Hidden Potential The Science of Achieving Greater Things. Highly
Speaker 1: recommend it from Adam. Will put the link in the
Speaker 1: comments and the caption for you to get it. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much, Adam for doing this. I appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Thank you Jay. It's been a joy and also a privilege.
Speaker 2: And I think we've never spoken other than when we're recorded. Yes,
Speaker 2: so we need to do a little bit more of this.
Speaker 1: I think I would love that and appreciate it and
Speaker 1: welcome it. Thank you so thank you. Thanks Ana. If
Speaker 1: you love this episode, you'll enjoy my interview with doctor
Speaker 1: Daniel Ahman on how to change your life by changing
Speaker 1: your brain. If we want a healthy mind, it actually
Speaker 1: starts with a healthy brain.
Speaker 2: You know, I've had the blessing or the curse to
Speaker 2: scam
Speaker 1: Over one thousand convicted felons and over one hundred murderers,
Speaker 1: and their brands are very damage