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Speaker 1: Hello there.

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Speaker 2: Today's show is a best of episode while I take

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Speaker 2: a couple of weeks off, and it's my chat with

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Speaker 2: Adam Grant from earlier this year. I hope you enjoy it.

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Speaker 2: It's one of my favorite episodes so far from twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty one. We go to the dentist for a checkup

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Speaker 2: once a year, and we have an annual performance review

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Speaker 2: at work each year. But yet how often do we

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Speaker 2: stop to do a life checkup? Have you ever done

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Speaker 2: an audit where you consider if you're in the right

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Speaker 2: role and if the organization you work for is still

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Speaker 2: the right fit. Organizational psychologist, Wharton professor and best selling

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Speaker 2: author Adam Grant says we should all be scheduling life checkups.

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Speaker 2: He spent years hearing from his past students who graduated

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Speaker 2: from business school and walked into great jobs, yet they

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Speaker 2: were miserably unhappy. They'd been promoted and were making lots

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Speaker 2: of money, but they hated their jobs and they felt trapped.

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Speaker 2: Adam's schedules a live checkup twice a year to ask himself,

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Speaker 2: have I reached a learning plateau? What do I want

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Speaker 2: to research? Do I need to rethink my approach to teaching?

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Speaker 2: A life checkup is just like scheduling an appointment with

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Speaker 2: the doctor, even if you don't suspect anything is wrong.

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Speaker 2: My name is doctor Amantha Imma. I'm an organizational psychologist

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Speaker 2: and the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium. And this

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Speaker 2: is how I work a show about how to help

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Speaker 2: you do your best work. So let's hear about how

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Speaker 2: Adam first came up with the idea to do a

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Speaker 2: life checkup and what his own process for doing them

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Speaker 2: looks like.

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Speaker 1: The genesis of it is.

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Speaker 3: I kept having these students who would graduate from Wharton

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Speaker 3: and then they'd contact me a couple of years later

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Speaker 3: and say, you know, I really hate my investment banking job.

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Speaker 3: But I've already a couple of years and I'm about

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Speaker 3: to get promoted and it'll be my third promotion, and

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Speaker 3: I'm making all this money, and I think I could

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Speaker 3: have walked away a year or two ago, but now

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Speaker 3: I can't. And then I started getting calls from students

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Speaker 3: who said, actually, I'm miserable in my job and I

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Speaker 3: should have walked away a couple of years ago, but

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Speaker 3: I didn't, And now I feel trapped and I don't

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Speaker 3: want to. I don't want to undo the few years

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Speaker 3: that I've already invested, and I feel like I would

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Speaker 3: have to start over. And I had enough of these

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Speaker 3: conversations that finally I said, well, why don't you put

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Speaker 3: a reminder on your calendar twice a year to do

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Speaker 3: a checkup?

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Speaker 1: And they're like, what is it? A checkup?

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Speaker 3: The same way that you go to the doctor, even

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Speaker 3: when it seems like nothing is wrong. Why don't you

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Speaker 3: do the same thing with your career? To ask yourself,

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Speaker 3: is this still the job that I want? Have I

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Speaker 3: reached a learning plateau or a lifestyle plateau? Is this

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Speaker 3: culture toxic? And I don't want you to do that

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Speaker 3: every day because then you're just going to be stuck

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Speaker 3: in analysis paralysis and you'll never give the place a chance.

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Speaker 3: But if you do it a couple of times a year,

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Speaker 3: and maybe it'll save you from getting trapped in a.

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Speaker 1: Place that you don't want to be.

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Speaker 3: And they've reported back that it's helpful, and a lot

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Speaker 3: of them still do it a decade later. So the

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Speaker 3: question is do I take my own advice? What do

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Speaker 3: you think?

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Speaker 2: I think you should take your own advice. It sounds

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Speaker 2: very sensible, you think so, I think so? And you

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Speaker 2: know what it reminds me of actually, before you go

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Speaker 2: into how you've taken your own advice, it reminds me

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Speaker 2: of what Chip and Down Heath wrote about indecisive around

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Speaker 2: setting trip wires for decisions.

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Speaker 3: Yes, you know, it's funny that I think the tripwire

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Speaker 3: principle is useful whenever I think about it as a tripway.

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Speaker 1: I don't want to trip on a wire. That sounds

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Speaker 1: really unpleasant.

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Speaker 3: Whereas a checkup, yeah, you know what, I need to

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Speaker 3: do that in order to stay healthy. So I don't know,

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Speaker 3: maybe it's just a question of framing or semantics, but

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Speaker 3: I found the checkup idea appealing in a way that

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Speaker 3: a trip writer sounded a little bit dangerous.

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Speaker 1: So what did I do?

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Speaker 3: I would say, you want to know about my most

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Speaker 3: recent career checkup, right, I'd love to you. Okay, So

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Speaker 3: I think my most recent one actually came. I'm just

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Speaker 3: gonna look at my calendar here.

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Speaker 2: So you're booking meetings with yourself in your calendar, so

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Speaker 2: you remember for the life checkup.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I have a reminder in my calendar to pop

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Speaker 3: up twice a year for a checkup. Cool and one

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Speaker 3: is one is usually in it pops up in July

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Speaker 3: to do a rethinking of my teaching approach and what

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Speaker 3: content I'm going to cover that semester. And then I

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Speaker 3: have another one that pops up in January, which is, Okay,

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Speaker 3: what do I want to be working on in terms

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Speaker 3: of research and writing and podcasting. So I don't know

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Speaker 3: if there's a recent one that that's that good of

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Speaker 3: a story. So can I tell you about a pivotal one?

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Speaker 2: Of course?

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Speaker 1: Okay.

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Speaker 3: So I can actually give you two if you want,

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Speaker 3: and you can choose. This is the checkup that led

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Speaker 3: me into podcasting, and the other is the checkup that

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Speaker 3: led me to write Think Again Amazing.

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Speaker 2: Tell me about both.

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Speaker 1: Okay.

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Speaker 3: So twenty seventeen, I published my third book, and I

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Speaker 3: was doing a lot of speaking and a lot of interviews,

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Speaker 3: and I felt like I'd become a human jukebox. People

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Speaker 3: would they knew what songs I could play, They would

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Speaker 3: tell me which one to play. I would give my performance,

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Speaker 3: and I would learn nothing because I was basically covering

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Speaker 3: the same material as last time, and a lot of

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Speaker 3: the same questions would come up from different audiences, and

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Speaker 3: I felt like I was stagnating. You know, I don't

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Speaker 3: think the audience saw it because each performance felt fresh

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Speaker 3: to them. But like, how many times am I going

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Speaker 3: to do the same talk? And at first I said, Okay,

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Speaker 3: I'm going to do the same thing on stage that

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Speaker 3: I do in the classroom, which is I'm going to

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Speaker 3: throw out twenty percent of the talk each time, and

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Speaker 3: that way it'll stay near But it was still the

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Speaker 3: same topic, and I was still stuck to the topics

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Speaker 3: that the audience was asking for, which was largely typecast

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Speaker 3: based on what work I'd put out there. And then

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Speaker 3: I had a checkup come up. It was I think

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Speaker 3: this summer of twenty seventeen, if I remember correctly, and

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Speaker 3: I said, okay, I need to start learning again. How

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Speaker 3: am I going to make that happen? And I had

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Speaker 3: just launched into some conversations with the TED team about

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Speaker 3: ways that we might be able to collaborate on something

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Speaker 3: that's more dialogue than monologue, and we sort of stumbled

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Speaker 3: into this idea of doing a podcast, and I thought, oh,

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Speaker 3: this would be such a fun thing to do. I

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Speaker 3: can go to the most interesting workplaces on Earth and

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Speaker 3: talk to some of the most fascinating people, and my

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Speaker 3: goal is to learn. And then I could share what

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Speaker 3: I've learned on the back end, and that's why I

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Speaker 3: host work Life, and it's probably a big part of

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Speaker 3: why we're having this conversation.

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Speaker 2: Now, Wow, that's so cool, and tell me about the

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Speaker 2: one that led to Think Again, because I'm always so

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Speaker 2: fascinated in terms of the choice for the next book,

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Speaker 2: because essentially, it's like committing to at least a three

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Speaker 2: year plus relationship in terms of research and writing and

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Speaker 2: editing and pr and keynotes off the back of it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's no checkup that can rescue from it.

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Speaker 3: You're stuck with it, whether you like it or not.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's funny. Actually, one of the reasons I

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Speaker 3: was so excited about doing Work Life and I guess

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Speaker 3: the podcast enterprise more generally, was I felt like, after

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Speaker 3: writing I published three books in four years, I felt

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Speaker 3: a little bit constrained in the sense that I felt

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Speaker 3: like I could only I can only write about or

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Speaker 3: speak about topics that were bookworthy, and sometimes I just

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Speaker 3: wanted to explore something that was a little smaller, interesting

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Speaker 3: and important, but it wasn't necessarily one big idea that

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Speaker 3: deserved the whole book. And so podcasting was a great

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Speaker 3: way to shake things up a little bit and say,

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Speaker 3: all right, you know, I'm really curious about whether we

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Speaker 3: could eliminate hierarchy and create organizations.

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Speaker 1: With no bosses.

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Speaker 3: And I don't have a book's worth of questions in that.

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Speaker 3: I think it's a narrower topic. But I think it's

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Speaker 3: really fun and cool. I'm going to do a podcast

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Speaker 3: episode about it, and I did.

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Speaker 1: I had a.

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Speaker 3: Blast doing that for a few seasons, still having a

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Speaker 3: blast doing it now. But I also started to feel

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Speaker 3: an itch that I was not taking on really grand questions.

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Speaker 3: That forced me to do a lot of rethinking in

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Speaker 3: a big way, which is something that a book requires.

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Speaker 3: And again I had a check up come up. I

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Speaker 3: think it was January twenty eighteen, and I thought, okay,

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Speaker 3: I've been doing a lot of learning. When am I

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Speaker 3: going to do my thinking? And that led me to say, okay,

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Speaker 3: I think it's time to write another book. And then

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Speaker 3: I actually analyzed the patterns in the tweets that I

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Speaker 3: had done that were getting the most interest, and I

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Speaker 3: noticed that a lot of them were about being open

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Speaker 3: minded and questioning our opinions, assumptions, and even letting go

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Speaker 3: of some of our expertise and that led in to

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Speaker 3: Think Again.

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Speaker 2: So here we are, and on the topic of rethinking

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Speaker 2: things and learning. You talk about in Think Again, setting

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Speaker 2: a weekly time for rethinking and unlearning, and I'd love

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Speaker 2: you to take me through an example of what you

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Speaker 2: do during this time. How structured is it are? There're

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Speaker 2: questions that you ask yourself, like, what would I observe

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Speaker 2: if I was a fly on the wall?

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Speaker 1: You'd be really bored amentthha. I doubt that.

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Speaker 3: I'd just be sitting there occasionally typing things. And sometimes

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Speaker 3: I'll do it on the elliptical or when I'm taking

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Speaker 3: out the garbage, but most of the time it's in

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Speaker 3: front of my computer. And they have a couple of

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Speaker 3: different routines that I've tried.

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Speaker 1: So far.

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Speaker 3: This is still a pretty new practice for me. I've

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Speaker 3: been doing it less than a year. So one version

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Speaker 3: of it is I go through old ideas that I produced.

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Speaker 3: It might be an academic paper I wrote. It could

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Speaker 3: be a chapter from a book, might be a social

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Speaker 3: media post, could be a podcast episode, might be a

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Speaker 3: TED talk, And I ask myself, Okay, is there something

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Speaker 3: here worth rethinking? And I cringe a little bit when

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Speaker 3: I do that, because I think a lot of my

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Speaker 3: past work is at least mildly embarrassing. I'm like, well,

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Speaker 3: I guess it was the best I could have done

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Speaker 3: at the time, but it was so it was so

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Speaker 3: pedestrian and oversimplified, and I have a much richer view

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Speaker 3: of the topic now. I'm like, Okay, I can either

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Speaker 3: be embarrassed by that, or I can say maybe I've

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Speaker 3: grown and that. That's one routine that I've come to appreciate,

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Speaker 3: if not enjoy, just to say, all right, let me

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Speaker 3: revisit my old work and see if there's something I've

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Speaker 3: already rethought or something I should rethink when I look

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Speaker 3: at it with the fresh eye of somebody who hasn't

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Speaker 3: seen it in a while and kind.

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Speaker 1: Of forgot that I produced it. So that's one.

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Speaker 2: What else are you doing in that time to provoke

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Speaker 2: rethinking and un learning?

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Speaker 3: So another thing that I've done is I've reached out

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Speaker 3: to people in my challenge network and said, Okay, this

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Speaker 3: shouldn't always be an independent activity.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't.

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Speaker 3: We don't do all of our rethinking in a vacuum.

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Speaker 3: I think we do most of it in dialogue or

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Speaker 3: at least in interaction with other people. And so I've

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Speaker 3: picked the people who are my most thoughtful critics, and

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Speaker 3: sometimes I'll just shoot them a note and say, hey,

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Speaker 3: what do you think I should rethink.

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Speaker 2: I've heard you talk about your challenge network a few times,

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Speaker 2: and I'd love it if you could explain how it

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Speaker 2: came about, like how you set one up and the

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Speaker 2: logistics of how do you utilize it and how can

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Speaker 2: other people set one up?

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Speaker 3: So I think of my challenge network as the It's

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Speaker 3: the perfect compliment to a support network. Everybody has a

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Speaker 3: support network, right, group of cheerleaders who encourage you and

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Speaker 3: build you up, And I think obviously we need them,

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Speaker 3: especially when we're discouraged or down. But I guess I

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Speaker 3: benefited more from a challenge network those thoughtful critics who

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Speaker 3: have very high expectations of me and see a lot

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Speaker 3: of potential in me, but also are fearless about telling

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Speaker 3: me when I've fallen short of it. And we'll highlight

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Speaker 3: the gap between where I am and where I want

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Speaker 3: to be. So I'll give you, I guess a taste

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Speaker 3: of how I've done this. This is very how I work.

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Speaker 1: We're talking about how I work.

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Speaker 2: Look at that correct aligns with the name of the show,

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Speaker 2: So I think that works.

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Speaker 3: I'm so sorry to be so literal, Amantha. But how

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Speaker 3: I work my challenge network is when I was writing

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Speaker 3: Think Again, I had a couple of different practices for it.

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Speaker 3: So one was I have a research lab called the

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Speaker 3: Impact Lab that I've been, i guess, running since two

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Speaker 3: thousand and three. And I told them we were going

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Speaker 3: to meet probably every other week, and i'd have a

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Speaker 3: chapter draft for them to read and eviscerate, just tear

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Speaker 3: it apart, tell me everything that's wrong with it, and

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Speaker 3: we would meet and I would ask them, if you

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Speaker 3: have comments in advance, send them so I can digest

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Speaker 3: them up front. If not, just tell me what you

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Speaker 3: think is wrong with each draft once we sit down.

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Speaker 3: And my favorite practice with the group is to say,

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Speaker 3: let's just start out. We're going to go around the

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Speaker 3: room and give the draft a zero to ten rating.

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Speaker 3: No one ever gives a ten, and that has two effects.

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Speaker 3: Number one, it motivates them to coach me.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 3: They might be pretty shy about criticizing my work coming in,

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Speaker 3: but when they say four and a half, like great,

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Speaker 3: tell me.

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Speaker 1: How it could be better.

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Speaker 3: I'm aiming for a ten year And then they're not

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Speaker 3: worried that they're hurting my feelings. They realize this is

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Speaker 3: going to help me. And the other effect that has

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Speaker 3: is it motivates me to be coachable. If you just

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Speaker 3: told me, here are the three things that I thought

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Speaker 3: were terrible in your draft, I'm sure, and I've done

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Speaker 3: this many times, I would have some defensive impulses like, wow,

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Speaker 3: I made that choice for the following reasons, and I

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Speaker 3: don't think you've really thought this through when you tell

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Speaker 3: me this draft is a six. All of a sudden,

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Speaker 3: I don't care what I dis agree with you on.

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Speaker 3: I want to know how it can make it a

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Speaker 3: ten in your eyes. And so I become much more

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Speaker 3: coachorable and opened a feedback after that. So I did

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Speaker 3: a bunch of that with my students, which was invaluable,

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Speaker 3: and just rewrote multiple chapters from scratch multiple times.

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Speaker 2: I love that idea of scoring things out of ten,

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Speaker 2: and I feel like it all also takes it away

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Speaker 2: from it being a personal critique. It's more like, well,

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Speaker 2: let's focus on the number and how we can get

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Speaker 2: that closer to ten. It's interesting. So I got onto

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Speaker 2: the book humor seriously from your amazing reading recommendations that

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Speaker 2: you do. I think once a quarter you do them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I've started doing them quarterly.

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Speaker 3: And I hope you haven't regretted reading the books that

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Speaker 3: I've put on them.

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Speaker 2: They're all brilliant, and I must say I loved Humor Seriously.

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Speaker 2: It was one of my favorite reads over the summer

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Speaker 2: down here, which I guess is your winter and.

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Speaker 3: I, oh, I'm so glad have you had Jennifer and

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Speaker 3: Naomi on the podcast yet.

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Speaker 2: I actually an interviewed Naomi yesterday and she was amazing,

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Speaker 2: and I was asking her just how does she make

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Speaker 2: her writing so funny? I mean, Humor Seriously is probably

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Speaker 2: the funniest business book that I've ever read. And she

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Speaker 2: described what I kind of like into a human network,

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Speaker 2: kind of like your challenge network. But essentially she will

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Speaker 2: give the draft to a bunch of comedy writers and

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Speaker 2: ask them to find and markup opportunities for humor, which

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Speaker 2: I thought, that's that's so fascinating. For making your work

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Speaker 2: funny out such a novel approach.

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Speaker 1: I think it makes perfect sense.

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Speaker 3: And when you gather a group like that for feedback,

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Speaker 3: right in Hollywood, they call it notes, like I'm going

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Speaker 3: to give you notes and I love how non threatening

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Speaker 3: that is because there's no judgment there. These are just

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Speaker 3: my notes, and they might have been margin notes. There

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Speaker 3: might be little notes from me to you on what

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Speaker 3: I thought you could improve or where you missed an opportunity,

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Speaker 3: but they're just notes.

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Speaker 1: Take them or leave them.

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Speaker 3: And so my student group is one place I think

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Speaker 3: that ends up being just an incredible source of new

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Speaker 3: ideas and constructive criticism. The other thing that I did

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Speaker 3: was I reached out to a bunch of the people

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Speaker 3: who have given me the best challenging feedback over my

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Speaker 3: career and I said, hey, you may not know this,

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Speaker 3: but I consider you a founding member of my challenge network.

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Speaker 3: And then I had to explain what a challenge network was.

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Speaker 3: But I said, listen, if you ever hesitate to give

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Speaker 3: me real feedback because you're afraid you're going to damage the.

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Speaker 1: Relationship, don't.

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Speaker 3: The only way you can damage the relationship is by

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Speaker 3: not telling me the truth.

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Speaker 1: And I've gotten much better feedback after that.

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Speaker 3: And so I just recorded a new TED talk around

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Speaker 3: Think Again, and I went back to the Challenge Network

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Speaker 3: and I said, Okay, here's my draft. Tear it apart,

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Speaker 3: give me the zero to ten rating, tell me what

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Speaker 3: you do you would do differently, and I think the

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Speaker 3: version I recorded was the thirtieth draft, after throwing three

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Speaker 3: complete drafts away and starting over entirely.

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Speaker 2: Wow. I actually wanted to ask you about designing keynote

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Speaker 2: presentations because in Think Again, there are so many different

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Speaker 2: great strategies for helping people think Again, and I was

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Speaker 2: curious as to how you apply those strategies when you

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Speaker 2: are constructing a keynote presentation, and particularly one that's off

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Speaker 2: the back of Think Again. So can you talk about

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Speaker 2: some of the strategies that you use to help Think

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Speaker 2: Again with the design of a presentation?

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Speaker 1: Sure?

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Speaker 3: So, I don't recommend doing a typical talk like a

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Speaker 3: TED talk, because the challenge of doing a TED talk

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Speaker 3: is you have a constrained window of time and so

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Speaker 3: you want to make every second count, and it's much

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Speaker 3: shorter than a keynote you would normally give. Right, So,

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Speaker 3: I guess I think about a typical keynote speech is

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Speaker 3: probably in the thirty to forty five minute range.

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Speaker 1: I would say, is this sweet spot at most events.

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Speaker 3: And my vision for that is to start out by

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Speaker 3: asking what's the core insight that I want to convey

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Speaker 3: there needs to be a big idea that you take away,

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Speaker 3: ideally one that intrigues you or surprises you or makes

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Speaker 3: you think again. And then something that I was resistant

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Speaker 3: to doing for a long time, but I'm regretting having

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Speaker 3: not done it sooner now that I've finally embraced it

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Speaker 3: is not just to ask what I want the audience

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Speaker 3: to rethink, but also what I want them to feel.

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Speaker 3: That was something I learned from my TED coaches, who said, look,

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Speaker 3: I understand that you want to shift people's understanding.

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Speaker 1: But people are moved through emotion.

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Speaker 3: Well, long story short, I realized that's the way that

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Speaker 3: I've done a lot of my rethinking is through emotion.

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Speaker 3: And so I decided that I wanted to surprise people

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Speaker 3: and entertain people and fascinate people, and let me think

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Speaker 3: about the best ways to do that. And then once

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Speaker 3: I'm clear on the big insight and the key emotions

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Speaker 3: that I want to create, from there, it's just a

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Speaker 3: matter of saying, Okay, what are the major studies that

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Speaker 3: I want to highlight or pieces of evidence, and what

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Speaker 3: are the stories that I think would best illuminate those,

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Speaker 3: and now let me sequence those. So there's a nice

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Speaker 3: mix of stories and studies and then some audience interaction

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Speaker 3: to get people thinking and participating and not just sitting

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Speaker 3: there passively listening, but actually processing the material and applying

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Speaker 3: it and experiencing it. And then I basically get on

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Speaker 3: stage and I have a bunch of slides that are

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Speaker 3: just images, and I talk and I have my points,

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Speaker 3: and I hope that the studies and stories end up

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Speaker 3: about the right length of time.

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Speaker 1: That's my process. What is yours?

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Speaker 2: I think I start with the question, with the time

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Speaker 2: that I've given, how can I be most useful to

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Speaker 2: the audience, Like how can I serve them best? And

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Speaker 2: then like, presumably I've got a theme that I'm working

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Speaker 2: with through a particular topic, and then I think, okay,

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Speaker 2: to serve them best, like what are the let's say,

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Speaker 2: for a standard length keynote, what are the five best

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Speaker 2: things I know about this that I think can really

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Speaker 2: have a significant impact in the people's lives that I'm

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Speaker 2: talking to. And then from there i'd get more into

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Speaker 2: the caanics of going Okay, well, each point needs some

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Speaker 2: kind of a story or some sort of interactive activity.

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Speaker 2: And now, obviously for the last year I've just been

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Speaker 2: doing virtual keynotes. I haven't seen a live audience since

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Speaker 2: February twenty twenty, So I think that's my process and

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Speaker 2: trying to go, oh, what's the best story I can

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Speaker 2: tell here to really land this point and connect with

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Speaker 2: people emotionally. And then the other thing I think about,

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Speaker 2: and I was actually talking about this with Naomi yesterday

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Speaker 2: in the interview, is that one of my really early

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Speaker 2: coaches around giving presentations would always say, Okay, make it funnier,

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Speaker 2: make it funnier, insert a joke here. You need more

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Speaker 2: laughs here. And so I also think about laughs per minute,

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Speaker 2: Like I'll go back over a presentation that I've given

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Speaker 2: and I'll look at how many laughs I'm getting per minute,

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Speaker 2: and where there's maybe a flat period of two minutes,

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Speaker 2: I'll be like, oh, I need to inject some humor there.

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Speaker 2: So I think that's my process loosely.

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Speaker 3: Okay, I have a couple of questions for you on this.

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Speaker 3: Let's start with the last point. So I have done

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Speaker 3: the same thing for a long time. Yes, I've I

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Speaker 3: had a target like, Okay, at least need one laugh

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Speaker 3: per minute, otherwise this is not entertaining enough.

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Speaker 2: I'm so reassured to know that you do this and

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Speaker 2: I'm not some weirdo.

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Speaker 3: Oh no, absolutely, And I've started to rethink it though,

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Speaker 3: and I wonder what you think of the rethinking here.

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Speaker 1: So what I realized was, I mean, part of the

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Speaker 1: reason that I.

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Speaker 3: Want to make the audience laugh is I just I

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Speaker 3: love to be entertained. I love to laugh, and so

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Speaker 3: I think we all enjoyed giving the things that we

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Speaker 3: love to receive.

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Speaker 1: And that's fine.

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Speaker 3: But I also realized at some point that I'm drawn

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Speaker 3: to laughter because as a shy introvert who used to

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Speaker 3: be terrified of public speaking, I still looked at the

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Speaker 3: audience for signals that they're with me, and laughter is

441
00:22:01,640 --> 00:22:05,719
Speaker 3: really the only reliable cue that I'm having an impact

442
00:22:05,720 --> 00:22:08,320
Speaker 3: in real time. Right, They're like, well, let's take some

443
00:22:08,400 --> 00:22:12,600
Speaker 3: alternative emotions. So if you inspire people, they don't go ooh.

444
00:22:14,359 --> 00:22:16,000
Speaker 2: I wish they did, though, that would be great.

445
00:22:16,280 --> 00:22:19,719
Speaker 3: I mean, if there was an involuntary human response, like

446
00:22:19,960 --> 00:22:22,879
Speaker 3: a vocal burst for inspiration.

447
00:22:22,440 --> 00:22:24,280
Speaker 1: That would be helpful, right, Yes, definitely.

448
00:22:24,440 --> 00:22:28,160
Speaker 3: I mean occasionally people will, in very rare circumstances though, applaud,

449
00:22:28,920 --> 00:22:32,000
Speaker 3: but that's not a norm in most talks, and it

450
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:32,400
Speaker 3: would be.

451
00:22:32,359 --> 00:22:33,160
Speaker 1: Sort of disruptive.

452
00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:36,880
Speaker 3: I think if it happened regularly, I think when people

453
00:22:36,960 --> 00:22:40,840
Speaker 3: have moments where they're surprised, right, they don't gasp out loud.

454
00:22:41,760 --> 00:22:43,879
Speaker 3: And so I started to think that maybe I was

455
00:22:43,960 --> 00:22:47,360
Speaker 3: over indexing on laughter, that I was using humor as

456
00:22:47,359 --> 00:22:51,280
Speaker 3: a crutch to feel the audience's energy, as opposed to saying, Okay,

457
00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:53,920
Speaker 3: there's a range of emotions that I want to cultivate here,

458
00:22:54,320 --> 00:22:56,720
Speaker 3: and yes, I want to make the audience laugh as

459
00:22:56,920 --> 00:22:59,960
Speaker 3: often as possible, but I don't need to do that

460
00:23:00,119 --> 00:23:03,159
Speaker 3: in every minute. There are moments of gravity that should

461
00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:06,720
Speaker 3: be balanced out by the levity in different parts. But

462
00:23:06,920 --> 00:23:09,280
Speaker 3: can you imagine if Martin Luther King Junior got on

463
00:23:09,320 --> 00:23:11,880
Speaker 3: stage for his I have a Dream speech and say

464
00:23:12,040 --> 00:23:13,920
Speaker 3: I want to have I want to have at least.

465
00:23:13,720 --> 00:23:16,360
Speaker 1: A laugh for a minute, A wrong term.

466
00:23:16,440 --> 00:23:23,040
Speaker 3: For trying to dismantle a racist set of institutions. So

467
00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:24,919
Speaker 3: I wonder what you make of all this.

468
00:23:26,200 --> 00:23:29,040
Speaker 2: I love that it's almost a sense of relief. I

469
00:23:29,080 --> 00:23:32,320
Speaker 2: feel to go, oh, I don't have to be so

470
00:23:32,960 --> 00:23:38,520
Speaker 2: had on myself to really push for humor, because sometimes

471
00:23:38,520 --> 00:23:41,040
Speaker 2: it comes naturally, but other times it's a real struggle.

472
00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:43,600
Speaker 2: And it's also just let's face it, like a bit

473
00:23:43,640 --> 00:23:46,040
Speaker 2: of a hassle to go, well, you know, look, I've

474
00:23:46,080 --> 00:23:48,240
Speaker 2: got all the points and these are solid points, and

475
00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:50,640
Speaker 2: oh god, now I have to be funny. So I

476
00:23:50,800 --> 00:23:53,080
Speaker 2: like that. I feel like it takes the pressure off,

477
00:23:53,119 --> 00:23:57,240
Speaker 2: but also it's going to lead to a better outcome

478
00:23:57,560 --> 00:24:00,040
Speaker 2: in terms of going, Okay, what is the most I

479
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:04,760
Speaker 2: guess useful emotion for the audience to be feeling in

480
00:24:04,960 --> 00:24:08,679
Speaker 2: order to really internalize the idea that I'm trying to

481
00:24:08,680 --> 00:24:11,240
Speaker 2: get across to them. So I'm going to try that.

482
00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:12,960
Speaker 3: I think that's a great way to capture it. And

483
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:15,760
Speaker 3: I think I guess it goes to one other thought

484
00:24:15,760 --> 00:24:19,280
Speaker 3: on this before I ask my other question that you

485
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:23,359
Speaker 3: were listening for me. I think that sometimes in the

486
00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:26,879
Speaker 3: best talks, the audience is so absorbed in the story

487
00:24:26,920 --> 00:24:30,280
Speaker 3: that telling a joke would jolt them out of it.

488
00:24:31,040 --> 00:24:34,320
Speaker 3: You're kind of ruining their flow experience. And there are

489
00:24:34,359 --> 00:24:37,119
Speaker 3: times when you're telling a story that's powerful enough that

490
00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:41,880
Speaker 3: they're transported into it right they're the protagonist. They're waiting

491
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:46,240
Speaker 3: for the complicating action or the resolution. And so I've

492
00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:51,439
Speaker 3: sometimes found that when I'm telling, especially a personal story,

493
00:24:51,560 --> 00:24:53,639
Speaker 3: I'm like Okay, I'm putting myself out here. I'm being

494
00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:54,720
Speaker 3: a little vulnerable right now.

495
00:24:54,840 --> 00:24:56,320
Speaker 1: Let me make a joke to lighten the mood.

496
00:24:57,119 --> 00:25:01,000
Speaker 3: Like, No, I need to suspend that temptation, like, I'm

497
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:02,879
Speaker 3: not going to eliminate it all together. I am going

498
00:25:02,920 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 3: to make fun of myself at some point because I

499
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:08,520
Speaker 3: feel like that will, especially if I'm talking about something

500
00:25:08,520 --> 00:25:10,879
Speaker 3: that went well for me, That'll prevent me from coming

501
00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:14,080
Speaker 3: across as arrogant and it'll be a way to project

502
00:25:14,200 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 3: the humility that I aspire to live with. But I'm

503
00:25:18,320 --> 00:25:20,920
Speaker 3: at least gonna postponeent. I'm not going to let myself

504
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:22,280
Speaker 3: go for the easy joke right away.

505
00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:25,400
Speaker 2: Now, tell me your second question before I take back

506
00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:26,399
Speaker 2: the host role from you.

507
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:29,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, No, I prefer to be the one asking

508
00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:32,560
Speaker 1: the questions here. After all, I want to keep learning.

509
00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:37,520
Speaker 3: So I think it's interesting when you talked about what

510
00:25:37,560 --> 00:25:41,000
Speaker 3: your goal is and your talks, you said that I

511
00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:43,280
Speaker 3: want to be useful to the audience and I want

512
00:25:43,320 --> 00:25:44,000
Speaker 3: to have impact.

513
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:46,880
Speaker 1: And I wonder how.

514
00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:50,439
Speaker 3: Much of that is because you do so much speaking

515
00:25:50,480 --> 00:25:54,680
Speaker 3: on innovation, which is around a set of practical challenges

516
00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:58,280
Speaker 3: that the audience is grappling with because I guess just

517
00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:00,199
Speaker 3: give a little context for why I was wondering. I

518
00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:03,679
Speaker 3: was thinking, what's the alternative to useful and impact? And

519
00:26:03,720 --> 00:26:06,520
Speaker 3: I think it's novel and interesting, or at least that's

520
00:26:06,520 --> 00:26:09,920
Speaker 3: one alternative. And so I wonder what's behind the desire

521
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 3: to help as opposed to just to intrigue and spark curiosity.

522
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really interesting question. It's funny because for me,

523
00:26:19,520 --> 00:26:23,320
Speaker 2: I think of novelty as that's just a hygiene factor

524
00:26:23,359 --> 00:26:25,440
Speaker 2: in terms of like marketing speak, it's just a cost

525
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:29,159
Speaker 2: of entry, like you have to be novel, otherwise people

526
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:33,120
Speaker 2: can probably just find the information online somewhere and likewise

527
00:26:33,160 --> 00:26:36,639
Speaker 2: being entertaining in some way. Again, it's like that's just

528
00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:39,280
Speaker 2: a cost of entry to be a good speaker. And

529
00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:42,080
Speaker 2: then in terms of being useful, I think it probably

530
00:26:42,119 --> 00:26:45,320
Speaker 2: comes back to being quite similar to you in terms

531
00:26:45,320 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 2: of growing up being very introverted and shy, and even

532
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:50,960
Speaker 2: just raising my hand in class to ask a question

533
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:55,360
Speaker 2: made me incredibly nervous. And I feel like if I'm useful,

534
00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:58,400
Speaker 2: then that gives me permission to be there. It gives

535
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:01,919
Speaker 2: me permission to speak and for people to listen to me.

536
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:03,760
Speaker 2: So I think that's where that comes from.

537
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:05,360
Speaker 1: That resonates.

538
00:27:05,400 --> 00:27:08,120
Speaker 3: It's very similar to how I've felt in a lot

539
00:27:08,119 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 3: of situations. Because when I heard you say useful in impact,

540
00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:15,120
Speaker 3: I thought, well, okay, that's language that I often use

541
00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:18,040
Speaker 3: to feel like I matter, right, Like what am I

542
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:18,520
Speaker 3: doing here?

543
00:27:18,520 --> 00:27:21,640
Speaker 1: Well, like I want to be helpful, okay, and I.

544
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:24,639
Speaker 3: Want to justify that my time was well spent and

545
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:27,679
Speaker 3: then it benefits other people. And then I started thinking

546
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:31,119
Speaker 3: one of my biggest frustrations as a speaker is you

547
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:33,879
Speaker 3: don't really know when you've been useful like that, getting

548
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:38,800
Speaker 3: real feedback about your long term impact is challenging. I've

549
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:41,000
Speaker 3: thought about how do you measure it? This is a

550
00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:44,960
Speaker 3: hard problem, and so I think I've shifted a little

551
00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:47,199
Speaker 3: bit away from that, just knowing how ambiguous it is

552
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:51,800
Speaker 3: to say, all right, if I can create a performance

553
00:27:52,280 --> 00:27:57,240
Speaker 3: that people find to be a thought provoking experience, then

554
00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:00,000
Speaker 3: I can know at the end that I sort of

555
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:02,959
Speaker 3: I succeeded, as opposed to wondering like was this useful?

556
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 1: Did I have impact?

557
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:07,040
Speaker 3: And so I guess I'm giving myself a different out

558
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:08,280
Speaker 3: than the one you've chosen.

559
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:11,600
Speaker 2: Well, I like your questions to me, and it's really

560
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:14,080
Speaker 2: interesting here in your process. I know that when I

561
00:28:14,119 --> 00:28:16,439
Speaker 2: do the edit for this interview, I'm I'm going to

562
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:18,919
Speaker 2: rethink again when I can, you know, really focus and

563
00:28:18,960 --> 00:28:20,040
Speaker 2: have the time to consider it.

564
00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:23,360
Speaker 3: Wethink again, that sounds like a sequel that I will

565
00:28:23,359 --> 00:28:24,240
Speaker 3: not be rating.

566
00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:29,200
Speaker 2: Definitely now. When I was preparing for this interview, I

567
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:33,679
Speaker 2: reached out to Reb, who is a collaborator of yours,

568
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:36,600
Speaker 2: Reb Rebel, and some of that introduced me to I

569
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:38,400
Speaker 2: think two and a half years ago, shortly after I

570
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:40,320
Speaker 2: first had you on the show.

571
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:42,240
Speaker 1: Was that two and a half years ago?

572
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:44,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, two and a half years ago, Yes, a long

573
00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:47,480
Speaker 2: time ago. And Reb and I catch up every few months,

574
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 2: and that's been wonderful. It's fantastic. And I said, what

575
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:54,480
Speaker 2: do you reckon? I should ask Adam about basically delegating

576
00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:55,400
Speaker 2: my prep work.

577
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:55,880
Speaker 1: To rep.

578
00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 2: And he said, you should ask him about remote collaboration

579
00:29:00,520 --> 00:29:04,560
Speaker 2: because pre COVID you were doing a lot of remote collaboration,

580
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 2: and obviously now in the last twelve months, I'm imagining

581
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:09,480
Speaker 2: that you've done a hell of a lot more. And

582
00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:14,959
Speaker 2: I'm wondering one or two strategies that you find really

583
00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 2: help to elevate the effectiveness and the outputs from collaborating remotely.

584
00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 3: So Burstinus is a place to start. This is research

585
00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 3: by Chris Reedal and Anito Wooley where they studied remote

586
00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:33,400
Speaker 3: software teams and they found that there are two kinds

587
00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:38,719
Speaker 3: of communication patterns in remote collaboration. One is high frequency

588
00:29:39,520 --> 00:29:43,640
Speaker 3: relatively low intensity, like we talk every day or we

589
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:47,240
Speaker 3: have emails kind of going every hour. The other is

590
00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:51,160
Speaker 3: the opposite. It's low frequency, high intensity. We don't talk

591
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:53,320
Speaker 3: for a week and then we have a two hour

592
00:29:53,440 --> 00:29:57,120
Speaker 3: jam session. And they wanted to know which model is

593
00:29:57,520 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 3: more productive and more creative. And however I present this,

594
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:03,840
Speaker 3: this is something I've been telling a lot with founders

595
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:07,880
Speaker 3: and CEOs about. Whenever I present it, they say overwhelmingly,

596
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 3: over eighty percent of the people I've asked have said,

597
00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:14,120
Speaker 3: you want high frequency, you need to stay in touch,

598
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:15,640
Speaker 3: you need to be on the same page in order

599
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:18,479
Speaker 3: to work effectively with people. And the data showed the

600
00:30:18,640 --> 00:30:22,680
Speaker 3: exact opposite, that the more productive and creative remote collaborations

601
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:27,880
Speaker 3: are low frequency, high intensity. And what seems to be

602
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:30,800
Speaker 3: going on there is a couple of things. One, when

603
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 3: people are communicating only intermittently, they actually have time to

604
00:30:35,040 --> 00:30:39,040
Speaker 3: get their own individual work done and to move ideas forward.

605
00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:44,240
Speaker 3: And two when they do then come together to collaborate,

606
00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:48,240
Speaker 3: they're working with much better material and they're also more motivated.

607
00:30:48,520 --> 00:30:51,200
Speaker 3: I thought that that meant, okay, they're going to be

608
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:54,280
Speaker 3: excited to build on each other's ideas. But the data

609
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:57,080
Speaker 3: tell a slightly different story, which is that it is

610
00:30:57,280 --> 00:30:59,680
Speaker 3: energizing to know that other people are there waiting to

611
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 3: respond to you. And the pattern of birstiness is the

612
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:06,640
Speaker 3: sense that the collaboration is literally bursting with energy and ideas.

613
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:09,400
Speaker 3: And the way you get that you don't need to

614
00:31:09,440 --> 00:31:13,640
Speaker 3: be in the same physical space to get that. What helps, though,

615
00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:16,960
Speaker 3: is being in the same temporal space right having your

616
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 3: calendar synced so that there are at least some hours

617
00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:22,520
Speaker 3: here and there where you're online at the same time

618
00:31:22,960 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 3: and you can actually work together in real time. And

619
00:31:26,600 --> 00:31:28,520
Speaker 3: that The part of the reason this resonated with me

620
00:31:28,800 --> 00:31:32,600
Speaker 3: is it's how I've collaborated since gosh, at least fifteen

621
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:36,840
Speaker 3: years ago, when at a mentor Jane Dutton, who would

622
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 3: work on papers with her former students. So Jane was

623
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:42,040
Speaker 3: at the University of Michigan where I was in grad school,

624
00:31:42,520 --> 00:31:45,720
Speaker 3: her former students would graduate and go across the country

625
00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:49,480
Speaker 3: or to another continent, and they would stay in touch

626
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:52,479
Speaker 3: or they'd have occasional phone calls and occasional emails, and

627
00:31:52,520 --> 00:31:54,600
Speaker 3: then they would fly in and they would do a

628
00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:58,200
Speaker 3: three day blitz where they just deep dive on a

629
00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:01,480
Speaker 3: project and they sit side by side and they basically

630
00:32:01,560 --> 00:32:04,080
Speaker 3: spend every working hour together, and then they go off

631
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:05,680
Speaker 3: and they don't interact that much for a month or

632
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:08,520
Speaker 3: two and you're really getting the best of both worlds

633
00:32:08,520 --> 00:32:12,560
Speaker 3: in that model of independent thinking and then collaborative contribution.

634
00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:15,640
Speaker 3: And so that's a model for how I structure my

635
00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 3: remote collaboration.

636
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:20,720
Speaker 2: Do we really need face to face collaboration to optimize

637
00:32:20,720 --> 00:32:23,040
Speaker 2: problem solving and creative thinking? I mean, there's so many

638
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:27,400
Speaker 2: businesses here in Australia that are insisting that people go

639
00:32:27,520 --> 00:32:30,240
Speaker 2: back to the office. We're not in lockdown here anymore.

640
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:34,000
Speaker 2: But do we need it? Like, is there something special

641
00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:36,400
Speaker 2: that we get from face to face collaboration based on

642
00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:40,400
Speaker 2: the research, that we just can't get from virtual collaboration.

643
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 1: I don't know.

644
00:32:44,040 --> 00:32:46,000
Speaker 2: That's not the answer I was looking for, Adam.

645
00:32:47,680 --> 00:32:50,360
Speaker 3: It's the only empirical answer I have right now. What

646
00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:53,320
Speaker 3: I can tell you is this seems to be true

647
00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:58,360
Speaker 3: in pairs and also in teams that trust builds faster

648
00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:02,960
Speaker 3: and it also fills deeper when people are face to face.

649
00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 3: But what do we take away from that, I don't know.

650
00:33:06,640 --> 00:33:10,280
Speaker 3: Does that mean we are evolutionarily wired to need to

651
00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:12,440
Speaker 3: be in the same physical space as other people in

652
00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:14,720
Speaker 3: order to trust them, that we need to be able

653
00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 3: to potentially touch them. Is that just how we've always

654
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:23,880
Speaker 3: done it, and so we're most comfortable trusting under those circumstances.

655
00:33:24,520 --> 00:33:26,800
Speaker 3: Or is it the case that up until now, and

656
00:33:26,880 --> 00:33:31,520
Speaker 3: maybe not until three years from now, the technology just

657
00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:34,880
Speaker 3: hasn't been there, and so virtual has been just an

658
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 3: awful proxy for face to face. And when we get

659
00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:42,600
Speaker 3: to the point where we're kind of lifelike holograms, maybe

660
00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:45,160
Speaker 3: face to face becomes irrelevant. And maybe for some people

661
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:48,280
Speaker 3: touch is important and for others it's not. I don't know,

662
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:52,680
Speaker 3: but I don't think there's anything about human psychology that

663
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:56,760
Speaker 3: leaves me convinced that we have to be physically in

664
00:33:56,800 --> 00:33:59,960
Speaker 3: the same room to trust each other and collaborate effectively.

665
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 3: I think there are aspects of being physically co located

666
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:05,360
Speaker 3: that maybe grease the wheels of trust a little bit.

667
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:08,080
Speaker 3: And make it easier. But I think that gap is

668
00:34:08,120 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 3: going to shrink as technology gets better and also as

669
00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:13,319
Speaker 3: we get more comfortable but really trusting people that we've

670
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:14,480
Speaker 3: never met face to face.

671
00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:18,040
Speaker 2: Yeah. I know that Jane Dutton was one of your mentors,

672
00:34:18,040 --> 00:34:21,320
Speaker 2: and she's obviously very well known for writing and researching

673
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:24,200
Speaker 2: about high quality connections. I'm curious as to how you

674
00:34:24,360 --> 00:34:27,680
Speaker 2: use her work when you're collaborating with new people in

675
00:34:27,800 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 2: terms of I guess fast tracking human connection.

676
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:36,120
Speaker 3: Well, Jane does a rapid high quality connection exercise where

677
00:34:36,680 --> 00:34:38,840
Speaker 3: I've been using this in class for years, ever since

678
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:40,320
Speaker 3: she had me do it.

679
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:41,080
Speaker 1: As a student.

680
00:34:41,680 --> 00:34:44,240
Speaker 3: She says, just pair up with someone that you haven't

681
00:34:44,239 --> 00:34:46,719
Speaker 3: met in class yet, or if you've met everyone, like

682
00:34:46,840 --> 00:34:49,880
Speaker 3: somebody you don't know well, and then you each have

683
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:52,280
Speaker 3: a minute to try to build a high quality connection

684
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:56,800
Speaker 3: with the other person, and it's stunning to see how

685
00:34:57,000 --> 00:35:00,759
Speaker 3: quick it happens. People are often amaze is by their

686
00:35:01,320 --> 00:35:05,759
Speaker 3: their intuitive social intelligence when it comes to finding strategies

687
00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:09,080
Speaker 3: to do it, and I think the strategies that seem

688
00:35:09,120 --> 00:35:12,200
Speaker 3: to work are backed up by decades of evidence in psychology.

689
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:15,319
Speaker 3: One is self disclosure, where you know where people make

690
00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 3: themselves vulnerable and what that Actually that helps the person

691
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:24,720
Speaker 3: who's sharing as much or more than the person who's listening,

692
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:28,480
Speaker 3: because when I tell you something personal about me, then

693
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:31,880
Speaker 3: I am signaling to myself, well, I must trust you otherwise,

694
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:33,360
Speaker 3: why the hell did I just tell you that?

695
00:35:33,600 --> 00:35:34,360
Speaker 1: What am I thinking?

696
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:37,920
Speaker 3: This is a dangerous decision here, I should probably rethink it.

697
00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:40,200
Speaker 3: So that happens a lot. There's a lot of people

698
00:35:40,239 --> 00:35:43,640
Speaker 3: searching for uncommon commonalities, you know, things they share that

699
00:35:43,680 --> 00:35:47,839
Speaker 3: are rare, and people bond in those ways. I think though,

700
00:35:47,880 --> 00:35:52,440
Speaker 3: for me, the key ingredient there is that the exercise

701
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 3: is set up so that you just erase uncertainty that

702
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:59,560
Speaker 3: the other person wants to connect and knowing that I'm

703
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:01,799
Speaker 3: going to talk to you for a minute and we

704
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:05,360
Speaker 3: share a goal of having a high quality interaction, it

705
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:10,160
Speaker 3: dramatically lowers anxiety. And it also it leads people to

706
00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:14,520
Speaker 3: do Oh, I guess the goatmans would call them like

707
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:18,560
Speaker 3: their bids, right. I make an offer, a gesture to say, hey,

708
00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:21,680
Speaker 3: I'm seeking your friendship or your trust, and I know

709
00:36:21,719 --> 00:36:23,680
Speaker 3: you're going to reciprocate, and you're eager to do that,

710
00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:25,319
Speaker 3: and then it kind of spirals from there. It's like

711
00:36:25,480 --> 00:36:28,200
Speaker 3: when the beginning of a first date goes really well

712
00:36:28,800 --> 00:36:31,160
Speaker 3: and you stop questioning whether the other person likes you.

713
00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:35,239
Speaker 3: So I guess this is all to say. I've tried

714
00:36:35,280 --> 00:36:38,319
Speaker 3: to think about these principles in some of my new

715
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:41,680
Speaker 3: virtual collaborations to like, I've just tried to put it

716
00:36:41,719 --> 00:36:44,400
Speaker 3: out there, like, Hey, we're going to be working together.

717
00:36:44,719 --> 00:36:46,480
Speaker 3: It's important to me that we trust each other. And

718
00:36:46,520 --> 00:36:48,000
Speaker 3: so I'm going to tell you something that I don't

719
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:50,960
Speaker 3: normally share. And then I'll try to come up with

720
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:54,239
Speaker 3: something that I normally would hesitate to share, but I

721
00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:57,120
Speaker 3: think is something that if I am going to trust someone,

722
00:36:57,320 --> 00:36:59,520
Speaker 3: they ought to know about me. So like I'll maybe

723
00:36:59,560 --> 00:37:00,879
Speaker 3: start with a simple one, like.

724
00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:04,120
Speaker 1: I am chronically late. I apologize events for it.

725
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:06,480
Speaker 3: I'm trying to get better at it, but not always

726
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:09,719
Speaker 3: making progress. And then I might go into something a

727
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:12,200
Speaker 3: little bit more personal, depending on what topic comes up,

728
00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:17,000
Speaker 3: and say, I've written this whole book about rethinking, and

729
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:19,520
Speaker 3: I've noticed there are certain situations where I get really

730
00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:22,719
Speaker 3: stubborn and strong willed to the point that I worry

731
00:37:22,719 --> 00:37:26,160
Speaker 3: I'm closed minded, and I'm trying to get better at

732
00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:29,799
Speaker 3: flexing in those situations. And delegating, and I hope you

733
00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:30,600
Speaker 3: can help me do that.

734
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:34,759
Speaker 2: You mentioned that you ask someone that is often late

735
00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:37,080
Speaker 2: because you get into flow and you don't want to

736
00:37:37,080 --> 00:37:40,160
Speaker 2: break it, and I experience that. But what I do

737
00:37:40,719 --> 00:37:43,719
Speaker 2: is I set the stopwatch on my Apple Watch so

738
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:46,640
Speaker 2: I don't lose track of time. And I'm a really

739
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:49,680
Speaker 2: punctual person. I'm often early. But I want to know,

740
00:37:50,239 --> 00:37:52,400
Speaker 2: do you recommend that I be more selfish with my

741
00:37:52,520 --> 00:37:55,840
Speaker 2: time and not do this and be late to things

742
00:37:55,920 --> 00:37:56,520
Speaker 2: like you are.

743
00:37:59,120 --> 00:38:01,560
Speaker 3: I don't know that I would wish my faults on anyone,

744
00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:05,200
Speaker 3: but I do think there's a method to the madness here.

745
00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:10,160
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I want to lose track of time.

746
00:38:10,560 --> 00:38:12,920
Speaker 3: If I'm in flow and I was late to something

747
00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:15,600
Speaker 3: and it wasn't an emergency and I can make up

748
00:38:15,600 --> 00:38:18,120
Speaker 3: for it, it's totally worth it to me. And I

749
00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:21,000
Speaker 3: guess I don't see it as being selfish, because I'm

750
00:38:21,080 --> 00:38:24,520
Speaker 3: usually working on something that's gonna reach somebody else or

751
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 3: that's gonna help someone else, and so I guess I

752
00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 3: see it not as selfishness, but more as refusing to

753
00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:34,720
Speaker 3: be a slave to the social construction of clock time,

754
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:37,800
Speaker 3: and you know, not privileging the person that I thought

755
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:40,640
Speaker 3: was gonna get my time at this one point over

756
00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:44,520
Speaker 3: the other people who are priorities for me too.

757
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:45,640
Speaker 1: So I don't know.

758
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:49,360
Speaker 3: I reject the premise. I don't think it's selfishness, particularly

759
00:38:49,360 --> 00:38:51,840
Speaker 3: if other people know that sometimes you're running late. And

760
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:53,759
Speaker 3: I'll tell you I I meant that I'm thrilled when

761
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:55,719
Speaker 3: people are late, like great, i have more time to work,

762
00:38:56,040 --> 00:38:59,000
Speaker 3: thank you, a minimum, I can catch up on some

763
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:02,560
Speaker 3: emails or write a little post that I'm delinquent in doing.

764
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:08,879
Speaker 3: And so I've just never understood why people reify this fiction.

765
00:39:09,040 --> 00:39:11,640
Speaker 1: Of a cluck into something much bigger than it is.

766
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:15,719
Speaker 2: That's great, I'm going to see if I can reframe

767
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:18,080
Speaker 2: my thinking. I know that I'm going to struggle with it,

768
00:39:18,120 --> 00:39:21,000
Speaker 2: but it maybe does require a rethink.

769
00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:23,319
Speaker 1: I think. I don't know. I don't know.

770
00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:26,440
Speaker 3: I mean, I think this is probably something that different

771
00:39:26,440 --> 00:39:27,880
Speaker 3: people have different preferences on.

772
00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:29,440
Speaker 1: But I am surprised.

773
00:39:29,480 --> 00:39:32,600
Speaker 3: I remember when I wrote I must have tweeted about

774
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:36,759
Speaker 3: how being late is not necessarily disrespecting the person who's

775
00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:39,959
Speaker 3: waiting for you. Sometimes it's respecting that person who's sitting

776
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:40,520
Speaker 3: in front of you.

777
00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:46,960
Speaker 1: And I was surprised. At how many people responded.

778
00:39:47,040 --> 00:39:51,520
Speaker 3: With some version of moral outrage, like being late is

779
00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:57,680
Speaker 3: not a violation of an ethical principle. It's just you

780
00:39:57,840 --> 00:40:01,440
Speaker 3: taking time more seriously than I do. I take my

781
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 3: commitments to people and projects seriously, not to a clerk

782
00:40:05,120 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 3: or a calendar.

783
00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:07,600
Speaker 2: Such a good way of looking at it.

784
00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know.

785
00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:11,839
Speaker 3: It makes some people frustrated, but I'm like, Okay, if

786
00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:15,040
Speaker 3: it really frustrates you, you should not schedule appointments with

787
00:40:15,120 --> 00:40:16,680
Speaker 3: me and you will be happy.

788
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:22,680
Speaker 2: Hey. There, it's nearly time for a little ad break.

789
00:40:22,680 --> 00:40:24,960
Speaker 2: But can I ask a favor of you? If you're

790
00:40:25,040 --> 00:40:27,560
Speaker 2: enjoying how I work, I would be so grateful if

791
00:40:27,600 --> 00:40:30,879
Speaker 2: you could hit pause on this episode and pop into

792
00:40:30,920 --> 00:40:33,440
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this from and

793
00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:38,000
Speaker 2: leave a review. You can do this through scrolling down

794
00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:39,680
Speaker 2: to the bottom of the show notes and clicking on

795
00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:43,320
Speaker 2: the stars, or running a comet. Aside from the warm,

796
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:46,279
Speaker 2: fuzzy feelings, this will give both you and me. It

797
00:40:46,360 --> 00:40:49,160
Speaker 2: helps other people find out about how I work. So

798
00:40:49,280 --> 00:40:52,520
Speaker 2: thank you in advance. Okay, Adam Grant will be back

799
00:40:52,560 --> 00:40:55,040
Speaker 2: after this short break and we're gonna be chatting about

800
00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:58,680
Speaker 2: how being a magician, which Adam is has influenced his

801
00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:03,000
Speaker 2: work in psychology. Now, something I imagine, in terms of

802
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:05,800
Speaker 2: sharing things about you that a lot of listeners probably

803
00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:10,040
Speaker 2: wouldn't know is that you're a magician. And I think

804
00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:11,520
Speaker 2: that's so cool.

805
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:15,160
Speaker 1: The nerdiest thing in my life. For sure, you think

806
00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 1: it's cool.

807
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:18,440
Speaker 2: Got a lot it totally Like my idea of a

808
00:41:18,440 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 2: great night out is going to the Magic Castle in

809
00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:23,960
Speaker 2: La Amazing. So I want to know how does magic

810
00:41:24,120 --> 00:41:27,760
Speaker 2: influence the work that you do as an organizational psychologist.

811
00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:30,800
Speaker 3: The biggest thing that magic did for me was it

812
00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:33,600
Speaker 3: taught me to appreciate the element of surprise. When I

813
00:41:33,640 --> 00:41:36,759
Speaker 3: was performing as a magician regularly, that I could do

814
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:40,400
Speaker 3: the same trick like, let's say, I'm going to have

815
00:41:40,440 --> 00:41:43,240
Speaker 3: you pick a card. So one of my favorite tricks

816
00:41:43,440 --> 00:41:45,920
Speaker 3: that I learned early on was I have the.

817
00:41:45,880 --> 00:41:46,840
Speaker 1: Audience pick a card.

818
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:50,360
Speaker 3: I actually I put the cards on the table and

819
00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:52,280
Speaker 3: I say, look, I don't want to influence your choice.

820
00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:56,560
Speaker 3: You choose your own card, and I have you pick

821
00:41:56,960 --> 00:42:00,719
Speaker 3: and I'm halfway across the room. I'm turning around so

822
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:02,959
Speaker 3: that i can't see anything. I'm staring into the wall.

823
00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:05,840
Speaker 3: And you look at your card. You then shuffle it

824
00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:09,120
Speaker 3: back into the deck. And when I first started performing,

825
00:42:09,400 --> 00:42:11,839
Speaker 3: I would just grab the deck and I would find

826
00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:16,399
Speaker 3: your card, and you were like, oh cool. And then

827
00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:18,360
Speaker 3: I thought, okay, I'm going to add a little flourish

828
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:21,399
Speaker 3: to it. And I learned to throw the cards up

829
00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:24,799
Speaker 3: and then as all the cards are falling from the

830
00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:27,600
Speaker 3: sky or the ceiling, to catch one card and then

831
00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:28,520
Speaker 3: I turn it around.

832
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:29,080
Speaker 1: And it's your card.

833
00:42:29,320 --> 00:42:32,960
Speaker 3: Ah, And there's a little more suspense built. But that

834
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:36,600
Speaker 3: version of the trick was nowhere near as satisfying in

835
00:42:36,680 --> 00:42:39,839
Speaker 3: the reveal as when I went an extra step and

836
00:42:39,840 --> 00:42:41,759
Speaker 3: that this is a trick I do every year in

837
00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 3: class with my undergrads. Thanks to a student innovation, all

838
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:47,560
Speaker 3: my students get a chance to do a one minute

839
00:42:47,560 --> 00:42:50,640
Speaker 3: passion talk about something they love or something that matters

840
00:42:50,680 --> 00:42:53,920
Speaker 3: deeply to them to introduce themselves to their classmates. And

841
00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:56,799
Speaker 3: we do six each class, so that by the end

842
00:42:56,840 --> 00:43:00,360
Speaker 3: of the semester everyone is given one. And throughout the

843
00:43:00,360 --> 00:43:02,719
Speaker 3: semester they asked me, when are you giving your passion talk,

844
00:43:03,360 --> 00:43:04,600
Speaker 3: and I say, I'm going to do it on the

845
00:43:04,640 --> 00:43:06,680
Speaker 3: last day, and the last day my passion talk is

846
00:43:06,680 --> 00:43:08,880
Speaker 3: about learning to do magic and how it helped me

847
00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:10,360
Speaker 3: come out of my shell. And then I do a

848
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:13,600
Speaker 3: trick or two, and so I do this same trick,

849
00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:16,719
Speaker 3: except now the way I do it is I've had

850
00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:19,640
Speaker 3: your shuffle your card back into the deck. Then I

851
00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:22,960
Speaker 3: take the deck and I say, okay, Amantha. You may

852
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:24,719
Speaker 3: not know this, but when you were holding your card

853
00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:27,080
Speaker 3: for a second, you actually transferred some body heat into

854
00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:29,759
Speaker 3: it and you warmed it up. So I'm just going

855
00:43:29,840 --> 00:43:31,719
Speaker 3: to flip through eyes closed, I'm going to find the

856
00:43:31,719 --> 00:43:35,560
Speaker 3: hottest card in the deck. Boom, is that yours? And

857
00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:37,360
Speaker 3: I deliberately show you the wrong card?

858
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:40,839
Speaker 1: Ah, And you're like no.

859
00:43:41,040 --> 00:43:44,719
Speaker 3: And I think my acting is not always up to par,

860
00:43:44,880 --> 00:43:46,919
Speaker 3: but every once in a while I get it right.

861
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:51,759
Speaker 3: And I look kind of like shocked and then forlorn,

862
00:43:51,920 --> 00:44:01,480
Speaker 3: and and I might I might curse, and then and

863
00:44:01,520 --> 00:44:03,799
Speaker 3: then I just I throw the cards up as if

864
00:44:03,800 --> 00:44:06,839
Speaker 3: I'm giving up, and then I catch your card and

865
00:44:07,200 --> 00:44:11,560
Speaker 3: now right now you're Wow, You're You're much more excited

866
00:44:11,640 --> 00:44:15,319
Speaker 3: and surprised. And what that taught me this is a

867
00:44:15,400 --> 00:44:19,799
Speaker 3: very long story, but what it taught me was that

868
00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 3: we can do the same thing with ideas we can

869
00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:26,200
Speaker 3: do the same thing with knowledge, and as an organizational psychologist,

870
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:28,960
Speaker 3: that meant that when I had a data point that

871
00:44:29,040 --> 00:44:32,320
Speaker 3: I thought was interesting, I needed to work really hard

872
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:35,400
Speaker 3: to not only tell the audience what was surprising about it,

873
00:44:35,760 --> 00:44:39,960
Speaker 3: but set them up to feel surprised. I don't I'm

874
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:42,160
Speaker 3: like in magic, I don't want to trick them. What

875
00:44:42,200 --> 00:44:45,720
Speaker 3: I want to do is figure out what expectation they hold,

876
00:44:46,040 --> 00:44:49,799
Speaker 3: what assumption they cling to that the evidence I'm going

877
00:44:49,840 --> 00:44:52,759
Speaker 3: to share might question, And then I want to tell

878
00:44:52,800 --> 00:44:55,960
Speaker 3: the story or reveal the results to the experiment in

879
00:44:56,040 --> 00:44:58,920
Speaker 3: such a way that they feel the same surprise that

880
00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:01,120
Speaker 3: they should, and that I don't think I would have

881
00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 3: appreciated that if I hadn't done magic.

882
00:45:03,520 --> 00:45:06,239
Speaker 2: From a purely selfish point of view, I'm on an

883
00:45:06,280 --> 00:45:08,360
Speaker 2: eight week mission where I'm trying to learn a magic

884
00:45:08,400 --> 00:45:11,400
Speaker 2: trick a week and really, I mean yeah, yeah, and

885
00:45:11,440 --> 00:45:15,120
Speaker 2: I mean wait why, Because someone asked me a few

886
00:45:15,160 --> 00:45:18,000
Speaker 2: weeks ago, what's something that you've always wanted to learn

887
00:45:18,160 --> 00:45:20,480
Speaker 2: but haven't And I'm like, I can't think of anything.

888
00:45:20,480 --> 00:45:21,960
Speaker 2: I just like, I just do it if I want

889
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:24,200
Speaker 2: to learn it. But I'm like, no, magic, Like every

890
00:45:24,280 --> 00:45:27,719
Speaker 2: time I visit the Magic Castle. I'm like, oh, I

891
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 2: want to learn something and I want to become a member,

892
00:45:30,480 --> 00:45:33,279
Speaker 2: and I get really excited and I do nothing. And

893
00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:37,800
Speaker 2: so I learned a trick last week and it didn't

894
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:40,400
Speaker 2: fool many people, but it filled a couple and that

895
00:45:40,520 --> 00:45:43,239
Speaker 2: was okay. And then I learned another trick, but it

896
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:45,520
Speaker 2: involved a rubber band, and I can't find the right

897
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:47,759
Speaker 2: rubber band to do the trick with. So tell me

898
00:45:47,840 --> 00:45:50,200
Speaker 2: what is the trick that I can learn that requires

899
00:45:50,320 --> 00:45:52,920
Speaker 2: little skill but it's going to have a really big impact.

900
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:57,120
Speaker 3: So one trick that I think is low effort high

901
00:45:57,160 --> 00:46:01,200
Speaker 3: impact is one where I guess to wait till COVID

902
00:46:01,280 --> 00:46:01,560
Speaker 3: is over.

903
00:46:01,680 --> 00:46:03,600
Speaker 1: But you're in Australia, you're.

904
00:46:03,480 --> 00:46:05,719
Speaker 3: Going to be in a restaurant much sooner than I am.

905
00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:07,839
Speaker 3: So next time you go to a restaurant, what you're

906
00:46:07,880 --> 00:46:11,000
Speaker 3: going to do is you're gonna cover a salt shaker

907
00:46:11,200 --> 00:46:16,960
Speaker 3: with a napkin or like a tablecloth, and you're going

908
00:46:17,040 --> 00:46:20,880
Speaker 3: to tell your friends at dinner that you're going to

909
00:46:20,920 --> 00:46:23,520
Speaker 3: make a coin disappear that you're going to put under

910
00:46:23,760 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 3: the salt shaker and the napkin, and then you put

911
00:46:26,160 --> 00:46:28,839
Speaker 3: the coin down, you cover it you say, okay, let

912
00:46:28,840 --> 00:46:31,640
Speaker 3: me just make sure the coin is here. You hold

913
00:46:31,719 --> 00:46:34,520
Speaker 3: up the salt shaker and the napkin, then you put

914
00:46:34,560 --> 00:46:36,600
Speaker 3: it back down. You cover the coin, and then you

915
00:46:36,640 --> 00:46:39,359
Speaker 3: say okay. On the counter of three, one, two, three,

916
00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:42,960
Speaker 3: the coin will disappear. Then you slam the table, you

917
00:46:43,040 --> 00:46:45,759
Speaker 3: smash the salt shaker. Only the salt shaker is gone

918
00:46:46,320 --> 00:46:47,080
Speaker 3: and the coin.

919
00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:47,399
Speaker 1: Is still there.

920
00:46:48,120 --> 00:46:49,279
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.

921
00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:51,439
Speaker 3: And then if you want, you could have the salt

922
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:53,600
Speaker 3: shaker appear under the table, or it could.

923
00:46:53,400 --> 00:46:54,040
Speaker 1: Just be gone.

924
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:55,759
Speaker 2: What how do I do this?

925
00:46:56,520 --> 00:46:58,600
Speaker 3: After we stop recording, I'll tell you how to do it.

926
00:46:58,680 --> 00:46:59,759
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I'm I sing it.

927
00:47:00,040 --> 00:47:01,399
Speaker 3: And meth that I wanted to ask you. I wanted

928
00:47:01,440 --> 00:47:05,799
Speaker 3: to rethink your question a little bit. M what if

929
00:47:05,920 --> 00:47:09,640
Speaker 3: instead of learning a trick a week, you decided to

930
00:47:09,719 --> 00:47:12,360
Speaker 3: learn a skill a week, a magic skill that a

931
00:47:12,400 --> 00:47:13,399
Speaker 3: magician would use.

932
00:47:14,080 --> 00:47:16,840
Speaker 2: Oh I like that, And I never would have thought

933
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:21,400
Speaker 2: of that because I don't know enough about magic to go. Ah,

934
00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:26,839
Speaker 2: that's another way to categorize learning. So what would be say,

935
00:47:26,880 --> 00:47:29,480
Speaker 2: two or three skills that if I were to reframe

936
00:47:29,560 --> 00:47:30,799
Speaker 2: the challenge that I should learn.

937
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:33,680
Speaker 3: Well, let's just say a word about why I think

938
00:47:33,719 --> 00:47:36,640
Speaker 3: that might be part of what I heard you saying

939
00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:40,879
Speaker 3: was I love being in the audience for magic, and

940
00:47:41,280 --> 00:47:43,320
Speaker 3: I would like to be able to create it. Yes,

941
00:47:44,080 --> 00:47:46,359
Speaker 3: And I think the if you just do a trick

942
00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:47,920
Speaker 3: a week, at some point you're going to give up

943
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:51,040
Speaker 3: on that goal and that's going to be the sum

944
00:47:51,120 --> 00:47:53,080
Speaker 3: total of your abilities. So you'll be able to do

945
00:47:53,400 --> 00:47:56,480
Speaker 3: six tricks, right or eight tricks, and you won't really

946
00:47:56,520 --> 00:47:58,719
Speaker 3: feel like you know how to do magic. It's like

947
00:47:58,760 --> 00:48:01,319
Speaker 3: you're in the movie The Matrix and you've downloaded six

948
00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:03,840
Speaker 3: programs and you can play those programs. Whereas if you

949
00:48:03,920 --> 00:48:07,799
Speaker 3: learn six skills, you could potentially, over time, without having

950
00:48:07,840 --> 00:48:10,160
Speaker 3: to ever learn a new skill, create one hundred or

951
00:48:10,200 --> 00:48:13,479
Speaker 3: two hundred different tricks. And also then there's a learning

952
00:48:13,520 --> 00:48:15,840
Speaker 3: curve where one skill could lead to another, as opposed

953
00:48:15,880 --> 00:48:17,800
Speaker 3: to I'm just going to learn a bunch of discrete

954
00:48:17,920 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 3: performances and they're all stand alone. So I guess it

955
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:23,880
Speaker 3: depends on your medium. What kinds of tricks do you

956
00:48:23,960 --> 00:48:26,360
Speaker 3: love to watch the most? Are you a stage illusioned person?

957
00:48:26,480 --> 00:48:28,720
Speaker 3: Are you close up coins or cards?

958
00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:32,400
Speaker 2: Close up cards, I would say would be my favorite

959
00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:33,919
Speaker 2: genre mine too.

960
00:48:34,120 --> 00:48:36,759
Speaker 3: I'm better at cards than everything else combined, which is

961
00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:38,520
Speaker 3: not a brag about my card skills.

962
00:48:38,560 --> 00:48:42,600
Speaker 1: It's a I am in every other domain.

963
00:48:42,680 --> 00:48:46,359
Speaker 3: Yeah, So in cards, I would say, get a card

964
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:47,040
Speaker 3: magic book.

965
00:48:47,239 --> 00:48:49,520
Speaker 1: I would say the classic is Dive Vernon.

966
00:48:50,320 --> 00:48:53,400
Speaker 3: There are lots of more recent ones, though, and you

967
00:48:53,440 --> 00:48:55,440
Speaker 3: could say, Okay, one week, I'm going to learn a

968
00:48:55,480 --> 00:49:00,200
Speaker 3: particular shuffle that gives me control over certain cards. The

969
00:49:00,239 --> 00:49:03,920
Speaker 3: next week, I'm going to learn a cut, the next week,

970
00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:07,960
Speaker 3: I'm going to learn a left. And you know, each

971
00:49:08,040 --> 00:49:10,480
Speaker 3: of these techniques then can be used in all these

972
00:49:10,480 --> 00:49:13,400
Speaker 3: different card tricks, and sometimes, like my favorite card tricks,

973
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:17,560
Speaker 3: I use eight or nine different skills and it creates

974
00:49:17,600 --> 00:49:21,040
Speaker 3: a much more exciting revelation at the end. So I

975
00:49:21,040 --> 00:49:24,160
Speaker 3: think you could create just a whole I guess it's

976
00:49:24,239 --> 00:49:25,360
Speaker 3: a different way of saying it is.

977
00:49:25,400 --> 00:49:26,719
Speaker 1: It's an investment in.

978
00:49:27,680 --> 00:49:30,560
Speaker 3: Being able to keep producing dividends on the time you

979
00:49:30,640 --> 00:49:31,280
Speaker 3: spent learning.

980
00:49:31,680 --> 00:49:35,400
Speaker 2: Yes, gosh, I feel like this has just re energized

981
00:49:35,440 --> 00:49:39,320
Speaker 2: me towards this magic goal that I have. I'm totally

982
00:49:39,360 --> 00:49:41,520
Speaker 2: going to adopt that. That's awesome. Thank you.

983
00:49:41,560 --> 00:49:43,239
Speaker 1: Try it at your own risk now, I know.

984
00:49:43,239 --> 00:49:44,920
Speaker 2: I've only got a few minutes left with you I

985
00:49:44,960 --> 00:49:47,600
Speaker 2: did want to ask you a question about parenting because

986
00:49:47,640 --> 00:49:49,760
Speaker 2: I know you you do quite a bit of writing

987
00:49:49,800 --> 00:49:52,359
Speaker 2: in this area, and you've written two children's books with

988
00:49:52,480 --> 00:49:55,760
Speaker 2: your wife, Alison, which myself and my seven year old daughter.

989
00:49:55,600 --> 00:49:57,400
Speaker 1: Have loved, and oh, thank you.

990
00:49:57,760 --> 00:49:59,640
Speaker 2: That's so good. And I want to know what I

991
00:49:59,760 --> 00:50:02,759
Speaker 2: like two or three questions that you think are really

992
00:50:02,760 --> 00:50:05,600
Speaker 2: good questions to ask our children every day?

993
00:50:06,080 --> 00:50:07,680
Speaker 1: What are you trying to teach them?

994
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:10,960
Speaker 2: I guess what I was thinking about is I read

995
00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:12,400
Speaker 2: that article. I want to say it was in The

996
00:50:12,440 --> 00:50:17,360
Speaker 2: Atlantic where you talked about the importance of raising people

997
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:19,000
Speaker 2: that are kind. And this is something that I think

998
00:50:19,080 --> 00:50:22,240
Speaker 2: a lot about with my daughter Frankie, and so, for example,

999
00:50:22,280 --> 00:50:24,000
Speaker 2: every day, and I think it was inspired by that

1000
00:50:24,160 --> 00:50:27,520
Speaker 2: article that you wrote. I asked her what's something kind

1001
00:50:27,560 --> 00:50:30,120
Speaker 2: that you did? And sometimes she'll say I don't know,

1002
00:50:30,520 --> 00:50:33,239
Speaker 2: And other times I'll go, well, what's something kind that

1003
00:50:33,520 --> 00:50:36,000
Speaker 2: someone did for you? And how did that make you feel?

1004
00:50:36,040 --> 00:50:39,080
Speaker 2: And that's literally a daily conversation that we have. So

1005
00:50:39,120 --> 00:50:41,000
Speaker 2: that's what made me want to ask the question, because

1006
00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:42,960
Speaker 2: I was curious, what are some other things that you're

1007
00:50:43,000 --> 00:50:47,319
Speaker 2: doing with your kids to raise them to be really good?

1008
00:50:47,520 --> 00:50:49,120
Speaker 2: Decent kind human beings.

1009
00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:52,040
Speaker 3: Well, one that I actually learned from our ten year

1010
00:50:52,080 --> 00:50:56,319
Speaker 3: old daughter, Elena is she taught our seven year old

1011
00:50:56,360 --> 00:51:01,040
Speaker 3: son Henry to every night ask us a question.

1012
00:51:02,320 --> 00:51:03,080
Speaker 1: And vice versa.

1013
00:51:03,200 --> 00:51:06,520
Speaker 3: So we read a bad time story and then when

1014
00:51:06,560 --> 00:51:09,000
Speaker 3: it's time to turn the lights out, we each ask,

1015
00:51:09,120 --> 00:51:11,239
Speaker 3: what's your question? I think it's a beautiful way to

1016
00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:16,400
Speaker 3: encourage curiosity. But also teaching kids to ask questions is

1017
00:51:16,480 --> 00:51:20,680
Speaker 3: one of the most basic building blocks of nurturing kindness

1018
00:51:20,719 --> 00:51:23,560
Speaker 3: and a sincere interest in others. And so I think

1019
00:51:23,600 --> 00:51:25,719
Speaker 3: asking your kids, what questions do you have? Or what

1020
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:27,880
Speaker 3: question do you have today? What do you wonder about?

1021
00:51:28,719 --> 00:51:32,520
Speaker 3: What puzzled you, what intrigues you, what do you not understand?

1022
00:51:32,520 --> 00:51:33,359
Speaker 1: What do you not know?

1023
00:51:34,160 --> 00:51:36,320
Speaker 3: A great way to get them to take an interest

1024
00:51:36,360 --> 00:51:38,520
Speaker 3: in others and also an interest in learning.

1025
00:51:39,320 --> 00:51:41,480
Speaker 2: That is so cool. I'm picking my daughter up from

1026
00:51:41,520 --> 00:51:44,520
Speaker 2: school in three hours, and I'm so going to be

1027
00:51:44,560 --> 00:51:45,240
Speaker 2: asking her.

1028
00:51:45,120 --> 00:51:46,120
Speaker 1: That it's fun.

1029
00:51:46,239 --> 00:51:48,839
Speaker 3: She might say nothing, and then you can ask her

1030
00:51:48,840 --> 00:51:52,080
Speaker 3: a question and model the behavior, and it becomes fun

1031
00:51:52,120 --> 00:51:54,520
Speaker 3: to say, Okay, who can think of a question we've

1032
00:51:54,560 --> 00:51:57,440
Speaker 3: never asked before, So it's almost it's become like a

1033
00:51:57,520 --> 00:52:00,279
Speaker 3: nightly challenge to say, all right, we've gone through you

1034
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:04,160
Speaker 3: know who's your favorite superhero and you know why.

1035
00:52:04,040 --> 00:52:07,080
Speaker 1: Is Pluto no longer a planet. Let's come up with

1036
00:52:07,160 --> 00:52:08,080
Speaker 1: something really novel.

1037
00:52:08,520 --> 00:52:11,759
Speaker 2: Now, I've got three final questions for you, and let's

1038
00:52:11,800 --> 00:52:14,680
Speaker 2: treat them as rapid fire questions. So first, I want

1039
00:52:14,680 --> 00:52:16,279
Speaker 2: to know what, like the last time I had you

1040
00:52:16,280 --> 00:52:17,759
Speaker 2: on the show. I remember I asked for it was

1041
00:52:18,080 --> 00:52:21,640
Speaker 2: your favorite research study that you've read recently, and you

1042
00:52:21,719 --> 00:52:25,120
Speaker 2: gave me a great one around how meetings and not

1043
00:52:25,239 --> 00:52:27,719
Speaker 2: batching meetings wastes a great deal of time. And I

1044
00:52:27,719 --> 00:52:30,160
Speaker 2: want to know what's your favorite research from say, the

1045
00:52:30,239 --> 00:52:32,799
Speaker 2: last year, that's made you rethink something.

1046
00:52:33,320 --> 00:52:34,000
Speaker 1: For a long time.

1047
00:52:34,040 --> 00:52:36,879
Speaker 3: I believe that the reason we get so many narcissists

1048
00:52:36,880 --> 00:52:41,560
Speaker 3: and leadership positions is organizations are designed to reward people

1049
00:52:41,719 --> 00:52:45,680
Speaker 3: who kiss up and kick down and who who project

1050
00:52:45,719 --> 00:52:49,160
Speaker 3: confidence as a false signal of confidence.

1051
00:52:49,840 --> 00:52:51,279
Speaker 1: And I've had to.

1052
00:52:51,200 --> 00:52:56,400
Speaker 3: Rethink that because there was a fascinating Dutch study that

1053
00:52:56,520 --> 00:53:03,279
Speaker 3: came out this year showing that narcissistic leaders are even

1054
00:53:03,440 --> 00:53:08,719
Speaker 3: popular in elementary school classrooms ages seven to fourteen that

1055
00:53:09,560 --> 00:53:13,480
Speaker 3: I think the original the data were hundreds of kids

1056
00:53:13,520 --> 00:53:16,840
Speaker 3: in twenty three different classrooms, and in twenty two of

1057
00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:20,799
Speaker 3: those classrooms than most, narcissistic kids were more likely to

1058
00:53:20,800 --> 00:53:24,160
Speaker 3: be nominated as leaders, and they also rated themselves as

1059
00:53:24,200 --> 00:53:26,800
Speaker 3: better leaders, even though they weren't any better at leadership.

1060
00:53:27,120 --> 00:53:29,560
Speaker 3: And I guess what I've rethought there is I thought

1061
00:53:29,600 --> 00:53:32,520
Speaker 3: that this was a problem with our workplaces, and now

1062
00:53:32,600 --> 00:53:35,960
Speaker 3: I think it's a much more fundamental problem with the

1063
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:39,120
Speaker 3: way that we teach, the way that we organize both

1064
00:53:39,200 --> 00:53:42,920
Speaker 3: kids and adults into hierarchies, the way that we put

1065
00:53:42,960 --> 00:53:46,840
Speaker 3: a premium on confidence instead of humility. And so I

1066
00:53:46,880 --> 00:53:49,680
Speaker 3: think that we need to counter the preference for narcissistic

1067
00:53:49,719 --> 00:53:51,920
Speaker 3: leaders much earlier than I thought before.

1068
00:53:52,719 --> 00:53:56,400
Speaker 2: That is fascinating. Tell me you read so many books.

1069
00:53:56,640 --> 00:53:59,160
Speaker 2: What is a book that you've read in the last

1070
00:53:59,400 --> 00:54:02,400
Speaker 2: year that made you rethink something and that you'd recommend

1071
00:54:02,400 --> 00:54:03,520
Speaker 2: that other people read as well?

1072
00:54:04,880 --> 00:54:06,880
Speaker 3: Oh, there are a lot of those. I think Untamed

1073
00:54:06,920 --> 00:54:10,759
Speaker 3: by Glennon Doyle is an easy one, though. Glennon is

1074
00:54:10,920 --> 00:54:13,240
Speaker 3: I think one of the most gifted writers on earth.

1075
00:54:13,280 --> 00:54:15,799
Speaker 3: And I shouldn't even say gifted because that suggests that

1076
00:54:15,880 --> 00:54:19,359
Speaker 3: it just came to her naturally, when I know she's

1077
00:54:19,400 --> 00:54:25,400
Speaker 3: worked extraordinarily hard to have such a brilliant and poignant voice.

1078
00:54:26,480 --> 00:54:30,560
Speaker 3: And one thing that I rethought based on reading her

1079
00:54:30,560 --> 00:54:32,920
Speaker 3: book is my view of happiness.

1080
00:54:33,680 --> 00:54:35,560
Speaker 1: There's a line that stopped me in my tracks.

1081
00:54:36,120 --> 00:54:39,160
Speaker 3: I think the exact quote is being human is not

1082
00:54:39,280 --> 00:54:42,080
Speaker 3: about feeling happy, It's about feeling everything.

1083
00:54:43,000 --> 00:54:44,120
Speaker 2: What a great quote.

1084
00:54:44,840 --> 00:54:48,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the book is full of observations like that,

1085
00:54:48,200 --> 00:54:52,480
Speaker 3: and it really made me pause to say, well, what

1086
00:54:52,520 --> 00:54:54,640
Speaker 3: am I doing here? Am I limiting my range of

1087
00:54:54,640 --> 00:54:59,160
Speaker 3: experience by pursuing happiness? And am I encouraging other people

1088
00:54:59,200 --> 00:54:59,960
Speaker 3: to make the same mistake.

1089
00:55:01,040 --> 00:55:03,600
Speaker 2: My final question for you, Adam, is a very easy

1090
00:55:03,640 --> 00:55:06,640
Speaker 2: one for people that want to consume more of what

1091
00:55:06,800 --> 00:55:09,400
Speaker 2: you are doing and also get their hands on a

1092
00:55:09,440 --> 00:55:11,759
Speaker 2: copy of Think Again. How should people do that?

1093
00:55:12,840 --> 00:55:15,960
Speaker 3: It's extremely kind of you to ask, I would say

1094
00:55:16,080 --> 00:55:18,879
Speaker 3: the easy way is to go to Adam Grant dot net.

1095
00:55:19,480 --> 00:55:22,200
Speaker 3: There's a free quiz you can take to figure out

1096
00:55:22,560 --> 00:55:26,880
Speaker 3: your style of rethinking, and a discussion guide for the book,

1097
00:55:27,440 --> 00:55:29,480
Speaker 3: and a bunch of other information that may or may

1098
00:55:29,480 --> 00:55:30,680
Speaker 3: not be of interest.

1099
00:55:31,400 --> 00:55:34,319
Speaker 2: Amazing, and people can subscribe to your newsletter there as well,

1100
00:55:34,320 --> 00:55:37,279
Speaker 2: which is one of the newsletters that I get that

1101
00:55:37,400 --> 00:55:40,440
Speaker 2: I actually look forward to receiving. It's always just awesome.

1102
00:55:41,040 --> 00:55:43,200
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you, pleasure.

1103
00:55:42,960 --> 00:55:46,240
Speaker 2: Adam, thank you so much for coming on the show again.

1104
00:55:46,719 --> 00:55:49,040
Speaker 2: It's just such a highlight and privileged.

1105
00:55:48,600 --> 00:55:51,240
Speaker 1: To chat to you, so thank you so much, my pleasure.

1106
00:55:51,440 --> 00:55:54,440
Speaker 2: I hope you enjoyed my chat with Adam. And if

1107
00:55:54,480 --> 00:55:57,120
Speaker 2: you know someone else that might enjoy it, why not

1108
00:55:57,200 --> 00:56:01,920
Speaker 2: share this episode with them. And if you're enjoying the

1109
00:56:02,160 --> 00:56:06,520
Speaker 2: stuff that I'm producing, you might enjoy receiving short fortnightly

1110
00:56:06,680 --> 00:56:09,560
Speaker 2: newsletter that I write where I talk about three cool

1111
00:56:09,600 --> 00:56:12,040
Speaker 2: things that I've discovered that helped me work better, which

1112
00:56:12,120 --> 00:56:15,720
Speaker 2: range from interesting research finding streeter gadgets that I'm loving.

1113
00:56:15,960 --> 00:56:19,120
Speaker 2: You can sign up for that at Howiwork dot com

1114
00:56:19,239 --> 00:56:22,840
Speaker 2: That's how I Work dot co. How I Work is

1115
00:56:22,960 --> 00:56:26,360
Speaker 2: produced by Inventium with production support from dead Set Studios.

1116
00:56:26,640 --> 00:56:29,640
Speaker 2: The producer for this episode was Jenna Coder, and thank

1117
00:56:29,640 --> 00:56:31,920
Speaker 2: you to Martin Nimba, who does the audio mix for

1118
00:56:32,120 --> 00:56:36,399
Speaker 2: every episode and makes everything sound awesome. See you next time.