WEBVTT - BEST OF: Embracing Regret: Dan Pink on Learning from Mistakes 0:00:00.480 --> 0:00:01.040 Hello there. 0:00:01.200 --> 0:00:03.520 I am on holidays for a couple of weeks, so 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.280 I have hand picked some episodes that have been my 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:09.840 absolute favorites over the last two years to share with you. 0:00:10.720 --> 0:00:13.720 I will be back with brand new episodes very soon. 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:19.479 Have you ever noticed that bronze medalists often seem happier 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:23.960 than silver medalists. It seems weird, right, but you also 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:28.240 sort of understand it. If you win bronze, you get 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:31.960 to go home as an Olympic medalist, but if you 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:36.839 win silver, you probably just end up thinking if only 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:42.120 I pushed a little bit harder. Maybe you've felt this yourself, 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:45.800 even if you're not an Olympic athlete. Maybe you've got 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:47.880 a B plus in school, which is a great mark, 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:50.680 but couldn't help thinking about how close. 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:52.360 You were to an A. 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:59.000 That's regret and it feels well bad. But Dan Pink 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.880 says it's and he's got a whole lot of research 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:06.360 to back it up. Dan is the best selling author 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:09.640 of Drive A Whole New Mind, When and Now, The 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:14.080 Power of Regret, How Looking Backwards Moves Us forward. Dan 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:17.200 is one of my favorite authors, and his last appearance 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:20.160 on How I Work was one of my favorite episodes, 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:24.120 so I'm super excited to have him back. We discuss 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:28.120 why having no regrets is not the superpower people think 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:31.560 it is, and how Dan changed his behavior based on 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:34.959 regrets in his own life, and how Dan's approach to 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:38.760 work and motivation has changed since he wrote Drive many 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:46.640 years ago. My name is doctor Amantha Imber. I'm an 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:51.120 organizational psychologist and founder of behavioral science consultancy. Invent Him 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:54.240 and this is how I work a show about how 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:54.840 to help. 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:56.000 You do your best work. 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:00.520 For the last couple of years, Dan has immersed himself 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:03.360 in the world of regret and the power of this 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:08.120 underrated emotion. So I wanted to know how does regret 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:10.959 inform his day to day decision making. 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:14.919 It's changed between today and a few years ago. Before 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:17.400 I started doing the research. I mean, I was someone 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:22.360 who sort of thought about regretted something to avoid, but 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:24.400 then when I couldn't avoid it, it really brought me down, 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:26.320 and so then I tried to avoid it even more. 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:34.000 Now I have a better understanding that regret is a powerful, 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:40.480 powerful teacher that regret if we treat it right, not 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:42.640 doing it the way I was doing it, not ignoring it, 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:45.960 not wallowing it, and it can clarify what we value 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:48.320 and instruct us on how to do better. 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:50.320 And so what are some. 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:54.920 Of the routines, whether they be things that you might 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:59.000 do daily or even annually to like As the result 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:00.919 of investigating Regres. 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:04.480 So, one of the things that I learned was something 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:06.520 and this is this is new to me, that doesn't 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:10.040 mean that it's new. Is something called self compassion, which 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:11.600 I don't know whether you've talked about that on your 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:17.480 show before. When we make mistakes, we tend to be 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:20.399 brutal on ourselves. When you think about our self talk, 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:22.120 that is the way we talk to ourselves. 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:23.200 It is cruel. 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:27.799 I mean, if I were to broadcast my self talk, 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:29.360 if I were to let you listen in on it, 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:31.800 you would think I was a lunatic. If if I 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:33.720 were to use this the way that I talked to 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:37.160 myself in a workplace, I would be I would be sacked. 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:40.400 And so what we should do is but that's not useful. 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:43.600 There's a lot of research showing that self esteem is 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:47.600 overrated and self criticism is overrated. What's woefully underrated is 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:51.960 something called self compassion. And with self compassion, we should 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:54.280 look at our mistakes and our screw ups and treat 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:58.320 ourselves with kindness rather than contempt. We should recognize that 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:01.600 these mistakes are part of the human condition, that everybody 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:05.400 has them, and we should also recognize that our mistakes 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:07.400 are a moment in our lives, not the full definition 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:09.760 of our lives. So that's been really helpful for me 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:13.920 to actually treat myself with greater compassion. 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:17.120 And so how do you specifically do that, because there 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:20.159 are a few strategies in your book, The Power of Regret, 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:24.520 for I guess giving yourself more self compassion. 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:26.080 But what do you specifically do? 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:29.839 So I have some regrets, and I've had some regrets 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:35.800 about kindness, and the kindness regrets that I have are 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:39.680 not regrets about having been a bully, having really affirmatively 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:42.400 mistreated people. I don't think I've ever done that. But 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:45.520 I have regrets about, in a weird way, about inaction, 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:50.040 in kindness, in actions. So when I was in school, 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:52.520 when I was in university, when I was a young professional, 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:57.560 there are many situations where people were being excluded, they 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:00.880 weren't being treated fairly, they weren't being treated right. I 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:04.920 wasn't doing the affirmative excluding, but I saw it going 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:06.719 on and I knew it was wrong, and I didn't 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:09.279 do a damn thing, and that bugs me to this day. 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:12.960 Now what do I do with that? So, first of all, 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:15.920 one of the most important things, and this gets a 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:19.520 specific question, is ask yourself a question, do you think 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:23.000 you're the only person who has experienced that regret or 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:26.120 that mistake? And the answer, having collected regrets from all 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:28.160 over the world over the last couple of years, is 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:31.880 absolutely not. And so when I look at my mistakes 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:35.039 and I say say to myself, you know what, You're 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:37.920 not that special. There are a lot of people who 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:42.160 have those kinds of mistakes. That's a way to minimize 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:48.080 their pain and then also to begin a process of 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:49.480 making sense of them. 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:53.599 And so again I think that the specific practice would. 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:56.080 Be are you the only person in the world who's 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:58.680 made that mistake or had that regret? And the answer 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:01.000 in ninety nine times out of one hundred is no 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:01.880 freaking way. 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:04.000 I love that, And. 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:06.760 I do remember when you actually wrote about that in 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:11.480 the book around Regrets, around Kindness, and you write, I 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:15.400 believe that you now go about making kindness a higher priority, 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:19.440 And I was curious as to how you're doing that. 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:21.400 One of the things that the way this has been 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:26.080 useful to me is that if something is bugging you 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:29.400 for ten years or twenty years, that's a message that's 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:32.960 telling you something you know, and so what it's telling 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:36.000 me because I'm sure there are many mistakes that I've made, 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.080 many screw ups I've had that I don't even remember anymore. 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:42.440 Not only do they not bother me, but I barely 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:45.600 have any recollection of them. So the ones that we 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:49.440 recollect and that stick with us are very strong signals, 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:53.279 and there's strong signals about what we value. And the 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:57.520 fact that this was such a strong signal finally alerted me, 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:01.600 convinced me that kindness was something that I value, and 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:02.760 I started. 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:02.960 Thinking about that. 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:05.280 I said, yeah, actually, the people I admire are often 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:09.320 very kind. I admire that virtue in people, and so regret, 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:12.840 in my case clarified what I valued. But it also 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:16.320 instructed me about how to do things better. And I'll 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:18.480 tell you what. Let me give you a specific example 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:20.960 of this. And if my wife were here, she could 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:24.920 she could testify to the truth of this. So again, 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:28.440 my regrets about kindness were regrets about inaction, and they 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:33.160 regrets largely about exclusion. And people being left out. That 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:34.960 was going on in front of my eyes, and I 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:37.480 didn't do anything about. So if you were to see 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:41.280 me a man at a social gathering and many social 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:43.720 gatherings back in the days when we had social gatherings, 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:46.120 they are reappearing here in the United States of America. 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:49.679 And what you often see at social gatherings, they're sometimes 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:52.800 hard for people to navigate. And what you also see 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:55.360 are you often sometimes see are like clumps of people 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:59.120 talking and then maybe one or two or three or 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:03.240 four or five individuals who are kind of marooned at 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:07.640 a loss right, And my wife will testify to this. 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:11.520 I now always like go over to that person and 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:14.800 bring them into the scrum that I'm in. I always 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:18.200 will widen the circle to invite other people in. And 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:20.480 I really think, now, now again, is that going to 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:22.000 qualify me for sainhood? 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:24.680 No? All right? Do I have a lot more work 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:24.960 to do. 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:29.200 On kindness, Yes, But I would not be doing that 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:33.559 had I not really faced up to my regrets about kindness, 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:37.880 thought about them, you know, treated myself with some compassion, 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:40.760 tried to make sense of those regrets and try to 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:42.440 instruct myself about what to do next. 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:42.680 Time. 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:46.679 That sounds that sounds very beautiful. 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:49.280 I want to be at your events, Dan, because I 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:51.440 feel like I'm off in that person standing on the ass. 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:55.480 What what have you done on a more macro scale 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:57.400 with your life? 0:08:57.440 --> 0:08:59.520 Like we've sort of talked about some of those, you know, 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:01.880 concrete day to day things, and you know, I guess 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:05.559 that is a macro thing, identifying the value of kindness 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:06.400 being important. 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:08.199 But are there you know, perhaps like. 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:12.960 Annual rhythms or rituals that you've got into, you know, 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:14.520 now understanding the power of. 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:16.360 Regret, Well, there are a few things. 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:18.240 There are a lot of So one thing that I 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:20.520 that I did this past December at the end of 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:25.160 the year, is that I listed my top three regrets 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:29.400 from the year, so as kind of like a preemptive 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:32.280 New Year's resolution, that is, instead of starting with my 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:36.480 New Year's resolutions, I said, what are my old year's regrets? 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:39.760 And so took a small but I limited to three. 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:42.040 I'm a big believer in the power of three. If 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:44.560 I said list ten regrets, maybe you know, I don't 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:46.680 want to. I don't want to try to manufacture these regrets. 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:48.840 So I said, what are the three? What are the 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:54.319 three regrets that I that I have for this year 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:58.600 from this previous year and what and I and I 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:00.720 just thought those through and I to them. I'm a 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:03.760 big believer in getting stuff out of your head into 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:05.839 a system, whether it's just simply writing it down or 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:11.319 typing into a document or memorializing it somewhere. And so 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:13.120 I think that practice at the end of the year 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:15.480 of saying what are the three big regrets of the year, 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:18.959 can be a catalyst for what to do about them. 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:21.439 And if you go through this process that I'm suggesting 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:25.160 you list a regret, you treat yourself with kindness rather 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:28.760 than contempt. By disclosing it, you're beginning to make sense 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:30.360 of it, and then you try to extract a lesson 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:32.120 from it. Then I think that's super helpful. 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:34.800 I love the idea in your book about starting a 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:38.480 regret circle. Can you talk about that and is that 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:40.479 something you've thought about doing yourself? 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:41.880 I definitely have. 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:45.960 I haven't done that one yet, but it is a 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:50.480 very simple exercise where you get maybe four or five 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:54.079 people and each of everybody shares you. So you start out, 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:58.280 one person shares a regret, that person talks about what 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:01.040 lesson he or she has learned from from it, and 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:04.280 then you go around and the other people try to 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:06.880 give them advice and guidance on what to do next. 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:09.800 Because again, one of the other things that we see 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:13.800 from that regret teaches us is that there are other 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:17.160 ways to convey this. Other sources for this as well, 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:20.600 is that we tend to be much better at solving 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:23.720 other people's problems than our own. So it's another way 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:28.160 to enlist the crowd to help resolve some of your 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:30.079 own problems, which. 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:32.360 I guess in a way taps into the idea you 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:37.480 write about using self distancing strategies like exactly, yeah, like 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:40.439 asking yourself, what would your best friend do in this situation? 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:44.400 A self distancing strategy is something that you use. 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:47.360 Are there examples where you've used those in your own life? 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:47.760 Oh? 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:50.000 My god, yes, on so many different occasions. 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:56.480 So you mentioned the decision making tool of what would 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:57.520 you tell your best friend to do? 0:11:57.559 --> 0:11:59.960 I use that all the time. I use that all 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:00.559 all the time. 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:03.199 And you know, because so I'll give you I'll give 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:05.680 you a very specific for instance, So I have been 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:15.239 contemplating taking a sabbatical because I am slightly burnt out 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:19.840 and you know, sort of contemplating, you know, the next 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:23.839 couple decades in my life. But I'm a little bit 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:27.760 skittish about taking a sabbatical because I feel like it 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:30.240 might I might not accomplish anything. I might be spinning 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:34.840 my wheels. It might be indulgent, it might not be productive. 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:38.520 And as I contemplated it, I asked that very question. 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:40.360 I say, what would you tell your best friend to do? 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:43.880 And and if I would say, take the sabbatical, like, 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:45.720 I don't even have to think about it when I 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:48.440 do that kind of when I do that kind of 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:49.240 self distancing. 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:50.240 So I use that a lot. 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:54.520 Another self distancing technique is is talking to yourself in 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:57.319 the third person. I use that a lot for exercise 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:01.600 and sports. So when I'm running long distances, I will 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:04.480 it's embarrassing, but I will like yell at my not 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:07.880 yell at myself, but sort of exhort myself using my 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:10.719 first name. So yeah, I use that all the I 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:12.800 use that all the time. I'm telling you the thing, 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:13.840 what would I tell my best. 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:15.680 Friend to do? Is the best decision making tool there is. 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:19.680 Yeah, I've absolutely used that one before and it is 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:22.560 so helpful. I want to talk about writing one of 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:27.000 the things that you do so well is you tell stories, 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:30.719 and you're so great at making science and data not 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.120 just understandable but memorable. And I would love to know 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:38.640 what's your process for finding those stories. And really, in 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:40.800 the Power of Regret, they're all real life stories that 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:43.079 ill at the points. 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:44.120 Well on this one. 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:49.120 I mean, for this book, I had, you know, a 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:53.480 pretty distinct approach in that one of the things that 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:57.120 to write that give me let me, let me take 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:00.040 two steps back for listeners who won't know this. So 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:03.360 for this book The Power of Regret, I relied on 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:07.760 three legs of a research stool. The first leg was 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:12.040 looking at some existing science on this emotion of regret, 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:19.760 in particularly social psychology, developmental psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, to 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:22.600 try to say what is science, existing science tell us 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:25.200 about this emotion. The second leg was something that I 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:28.800 called the American Regret Project, which was a piece of 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:34.560 quantitative research, numbers based research, where I did a very 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:39.480 large public opinion survey of the US population, the largest 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:43.720 survey of US attitudes about regret ever conducted, and tried 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:46.400 to find some insights there. And then the third and 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:48.640 this is going to get to your question, is I 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:51.640 also set up something called the World Regret Survey, which 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:55.960 was a giant collection tool where I invited people from 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:59.720 around the world to submit a regret and to my astonishment, 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:04.440 fifteen thousand, you know, very very quickly, and we're now 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:07.680 over nineteen thousand regrets from people in one hundred and 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:10.040 five one hundred and nine countries right now. 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:13.840 And on that what I did. 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:15.800 So first of all, on that one, I read through 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:19.800 at least the first fifteen thousand regrets and started separating 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:22.240 out the ones that I found super compelling. What's more 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:25.560 is that I gave people who filled out the survey 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:27.200 the option of. 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:28.160 Including their email. 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:30.360 It was anonymous, but they could include their email address 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:33.920 if they wanted to have a follow up interview. And 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:38.000 so and so I read through the regrets, I found 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:40.920 certain ones that were compelling. If there were ones that 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:43.680 were compelling and the person was willing to talk to me, 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:45.800 I would reach out to them by email and do interviews. 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:48.000 So I did hundreds of interviews to try to find 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:49.680 the very best, most compelling stories. 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:53.280 And how do you know when a story is going 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:55.760 to be effective enough to get your point across. 0:15:56.520 --> 0:15:58.160 It's a good question. I don't know. If you know, 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:00.680 and I don't have a way to do that. 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:02.960 I mean, some of it is a some of it 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:04.960 is a gut some of it is a gut instinct. 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:07.360 What I tend to do is I tend to tell 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:12.160 the story to somebody else and see whether they lean 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:15.760 in or their eyes glaze over. That's, to me sometimes 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:20.000 a good test. And also the other thing about it 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:21.080 is that the. 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:25.760 Stories you use are not equally weighted. 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:30.400 That is, sometimes a story can be brilliant for three sentences, 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:33.760 you know what I mean, and it doesn't deserve much 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:36.560 more of that. Sometimes the story needs three pages. And 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:40.720 so I think that knowing how much weight the story 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:44.040 deserves is really important as well. And one of the 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:49.120 things that I think that less experienced writers do is 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:55.440 that they don't wait the stories properly. That is, they think, well, 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:59.040 I found out all this information about this person, therefore 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:03.840 I need to it. And that's often that's often a mistake, 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:07.320 and knowing like, oh my gosh, I've done three interviews 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:09.040 with this person and it's taken me three and a 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:12.240 half hours of my life. But you know what, I 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.399 just need a sentence. You got to be good with that, 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:18.560 And that's really important. The same thing is true with research. 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:24.440 You have to be able to explain the research thoroughly enough, 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:27.959 but in a way that serves the readers rather than 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:30.760 validates your decisions to do the research. So let may 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:33.679 be specific there. So there's in the book I wrote about. 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:37.360 I looked at some of the research on when children 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:42.040 developed the capacity for regret, So a lot of developmental psychology, 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:45.840 lots and lots of experiments of giving say, five year 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:48.320 old scenarios and then seven year old scenarios and then 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:50.919 nine year old scenarios and seeing whether they comprehend the 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:51.920 idea of regret. 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:53.879 There I probably read. 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:56.560 I probably spent a month reading these papers and looking 0:17:56.560 --> 0:17:59.359 at some textbooks and and things. 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:01.800 Probably ended up reading. 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:04.960 I don't know, fifty to fifty five studies on this question. 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:08.800 And when I got to writing it, I realized I 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:12.119 could explain it all in like a paragraph. 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:14.679 Wow, that must take a lot of restraint. 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:18.640 It does, believe me, it does. But here's the thing. 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:20.760 Here's the way I look at it. It's like the 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:24.360 only thing worse than saying, oh crap, I just took 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:26.520 a month of work and only got a paragraph out 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:26.800 of it. 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:27.920 I don't like that. 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:29.920 Believe me, that's not a happy day in the Pink 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:33.439 householder in Pinking World headquarters here, that is not a 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:38.439 happy day. However, what is an even worse day is 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:43.120 torturing readers. Is giving readers something that they don't need 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:45.800 that really bugs That bugs me even more so. It's 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:48.480 a question of, as is often the case in life 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:52.600 in general, in my life in particular, which variety and 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:54.639 intensity of discontent do you prefer? 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:57.720 And how do you know that you are going to 0:18:57.720 --> 0:18:58.880 be torturing readers? 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:01.119 I guess that's the case question, like how do you 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:04.000 know that they don't want to hold chapter around kids 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:04.479 and regrets? 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:07.920 I have a I that I think is easier because 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:10.920 if it bores me, you know, it's like, Okay, I 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.080 don't want to read this. I think I think that's 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:16.280 I mean, that's I think that's a lot. I think 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:20.280 that's a lot easier. And again, you know, what you 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:24.000 want to do is you want to my I mean, 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:26.480 this is my own bias, but I think I've always 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:30.040 I think that most nonfiction books, and I've gotten in 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:32.160 trouble for saying this, but I think that most nonfiction 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:35.080 books are too long. I think that most books would 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:37.239 be many of many books would be twice as good 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:39.679 if they were half as long, because I think that 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:43.800 that they the authors aren't concise enough, there's too much 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:47.000 fluff in them, and that many of these books probably 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:50.080 don't deserve to be full fledged books. And so I 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:53.240 try to be pretty relentless about what I what I 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:55.960 put in there, and what and more important, what I 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:58.240 leave out the high I mean, my favorite compliment in 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:01.640 this book was I was in the UK two weeks 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:04.320 ago and I did an interview, a radio interview, and 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:07.400 the producer said, you know, this book is this book 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:11.760 is really good, like there's no fluff, and I'm like, yeah, exactly, 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:12.600 there's no fluff. 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:18.560 I would wholeheartedly agree with that, and just pacing it 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:22.320 moves quickly. I completely agree with what you're saying with 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:28.280 nonfiction books. I loved the story of Cheryl and her 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:32.600 friendship with Jen, or rather her lost friendship with Jen. 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:35.359 How did you decide that that was going to be 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:37.240 one of the key stories in the book that you 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:38.119 took throughout it? 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:43.480 Partly because I found it a very relatable story for myself, 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:46.080 because I could see myself in the story. So as 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:50.040 narcissistic as that might sound. That was part of it, 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:53.200 and the other part of it was is that the 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:57.080 it was basically the color and emotion with which Cheryl 0:20:57.200 --> 0:21:00.919 described things and the fact that she was so racked 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:01.360 by this. 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:04.800 I found that I found that pretty compelling. 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:09.000 What's more is that this was quite representative of a 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:09.920 lot of regrets. 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:14.520 So when when when you know there. 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:17.720