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Speaker 1: We go to the dentist for a checkup once a year,

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Speaker 1: and we have an annual performance review at work each year.

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Speaker 1: But yet how often do we stop to do a

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Speaker 1: life checkup? Have you ever done an audit where you

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Speaker 1: consider if you're in the right role and if the

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Speaker 1: organization you work for is still the right fit. Organizational

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Speaker 1: psychologist Warton professor and best selling author Adam Grant says

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Speaker 1: we should all be scheduling life checkups. He spent years

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Speaker 1: hearing from his past students who'd graduated from business school

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Speaker 1: and walked into great jobs, yet they were miserably unhappy.

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Speaker 1: They'd been promoted and were making lots of money, but

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Speaker 1: they hated their jobs and they felt trapped. Adam's schedules

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Speaker 1: a life checkup twice a year to ask himself, have

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Speaker 1: I reached a learning plateau? What do I want to research?

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Speaker 1: Do I need to rethink my approach to teaching. A

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Speaker 1: life checkup is just like scheduling an appointment with the doctor,

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Speaker 1: even if you don't suspect anything is wrong. My name

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Speaker 1: is doctor Amantha Im. I'm an organizational psychologist and the

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Speaker 1: founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this is how

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Speaker 1: I work a show about how to help you do

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Speaker 1: your best work. So let's hear about how Adam first

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Speaker 1: came up with the idea to do a life checkup

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Speaker 1: and what his own process for doing them looks like.

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Speaker 2: 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 spent a couple of years, and I'm

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

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

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Speaker 2: Could have walked away a year or two ago, but

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Speaker 2: now I can't.

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Speaker 3: And then I started getting calls from students who said, actually,

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Speaker 3: I'm miserable in my job, and I should have walked

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Speaker 3: away a couple of years ago, but I didn't, and

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Speaker 3: now I feel trapped and I don't want to I

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Speaker 3: don't want to undo the few years that I've already invested,

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Speaker 3: and I feel like I would have to start over.

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Speaker 3: And I had enough of these conversations that finally I said, well,

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Speaker 3: why don't you put a reminder in your calendar twice

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Speaker 3: a year to do a checkup, and they're like, what

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Speaker 3: is it a checkup? The same way that you go

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Speaker 3: to the doctor even when it seems like nothing is wrong.

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Speaker 3: Why don't you do the same thing with your career

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Speaker 3: to ask yourself? Is this still the job that I want?

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Speaker 3: Have I reached a learning.

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Speaker 2: Plateau or a lifestyle plateau? Is this culture toxic?

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Speaker 3: And I don't want you to do that every day

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Speaker 3: because then you're just gonna be stuck in analysis paralysis

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Speaker 3: and you'll never give the place a chance. But if

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

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

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Speaker 2: A 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 1: I think you should take your own advice. It sounds

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Speaker 1: very sensible, do you think so? I think?

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Speaker 2: Sorry?

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Speaker 1: And you know what it reminds me of actually, before

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Speaker 1: you go into how you've taken your own advice, it

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Speaker 1: reminds me of what Chip and down Heath wrote about

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Speaker 1: indecisive around setting tripwires for decisions.

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

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Speaker 3: principle is useful whenever I think about it as a tripwayer,

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Speaker 3: I don't want to trip on a wire that sounds

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Speaker 3: really unpleasant. Whereas a checkup, yeah, you know what, I

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Speaker 3: need to do that in order to stay healthy. So

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Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe it's just a question of framing

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Speaker 3: or semantics, but I found the checkup idea appealing in

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Speaker 3: a way that a trip waiter sounded a little bit dangerous.

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Speaker 2: 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 Okay, so I

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

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Speaker 3: going to look at my calendar here, So.

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Speaker 1: You're booking meetings with yourself in your calendar, so you

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Speaker 1: remember for the life checkup.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I have a reminder of my calendar to pop up

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

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Speaker 3: one is usually in It pops up in July to

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

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

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Speaker 3: 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's that good of a story.

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

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Speaker 1: One, of course?

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Speaker 2: 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. One 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 right think.

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Speaker 1: Again amazing, Tell me about both.

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Speaker 2: 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.

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Speaker 2: People.

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Speaker 3: They knew what songs I could play. They would tell

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Speaker 3: 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 new. 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 1: Now, Wow, that's so cool, And tell me about the

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Speaker 1: one that led to think again. Because I'm always so

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Speaker 1: fascinated in terms of the choice for the next book,

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Speaker 1: because essentially it's like committing to at least a three

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Speaker 1: year plus relationship in terms of research and writing and

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Speaker 1: editing and pr and hey, you know it's off the

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Speaker 1: 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 2: 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 you know a narrower topic, but I

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Speaker 3: think it's really funny, cool. I'm going to do a

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Speaker 3: podcast episode about it, and I did. 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 2: And again I had a check up come up.

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

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

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Speaker 2: When am I going to do my thinking? And that

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Speaker 2: led me to say.

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: open minded and questioning our opinions and assumptions and even

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Speaker 3: letting go of some of our expertise. And that led

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Speaker 3: into Think Again.

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Speaker 1: So here we are, and on the topic of rethinking

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Speaker 1: things and learning. You talk about in Think Again, setting

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Speaker 1: a weekly time for rethinking and unlearning, and I'd love

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Speaker 1: you to take me through an example of what you

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Speaker 1: do during this time. How structured is it? Are there

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Speaker 1: questions that you ask yourself, like, what would I observe

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Speaker 1: if I was a fly on the wall?

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Speaker 2: You'd be really bored? Ammthha.

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Speaker 1: I doubt that.

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Speaker 3: I'd just be sitting there, you know, occasionally typing things.

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Speaker 3: And sometimes I'll do it on the elliptical or when

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Speaker 3: I'm taking out the garbage, but most of the time

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Speaker 3: it's in front of my computer. And they have a

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Speaker 3: couple of different routines that I've tried so far, though

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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've 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. It might be a

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

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Speaker 3: be a TED talk, And I ask myself, Okay, is

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Speaker 3: there something here worth rethinking? And I cringe a little

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Speaker 3: bit when I do that, because I think a lot

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Speaker 3: of my 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: let me revisit my old work and see if there's

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Speaker 3: something I've already rethought or something I should rethink when

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Speaker 3: I look at it with the fresh eye of somebody

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Speaker 3: who hasn't seen it in a while and kind of

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Speaker 3: forgot that I produced it.

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Speaker 1: So that's one What else are you doing in that

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Speaker 1: time to provoke rethinking and unlearning?

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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 2: It doesn't. We don't do all of our rethinking in

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Speaker 2: 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 critic, 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 1: I've heard you talk about your challenge network a few

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Speaker 1: times and I'd love it if you could explain how

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Speaker 1: it came about, like how you set one up and

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Speaker 1: the logistics of how do you utilize it and how

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Speaker 1: can 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

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Speaker 3: work talking about how I work.

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Speaker 1: Look at that correct aligns with the name of the show,

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Speaker 1: 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'd ask them, if you have

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

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Speaker 3: up front.

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Speaker 2: If not, just tell me.

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Speaker 3: What you think is wrong with each draft once we

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Speaker 3: sit down, and my favorite practice with the group is

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Speaker 3: to say, let's just start out. We're going to go

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Speaker 3: around the room and give the draft a zero to

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Speaker 3: ten rating. No one ever gives a ten, and that

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Speaker 3: has two effects. 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, great, tell

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Speaker 3: me how it could be better. I'm aiming for a

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Speaker 3: ten here, And then they're not worried that they're hurting

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Speaker 3: my feelings. They realize this is going to help me.

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Speaker 3: And the other effect that has is it motivates me

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Speaker 3: to be coachable. If you just told me, here are

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Speaker 3: the three things that I thought were terrible in your draft,

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Speaker 3: I'm sure, and I've done this many times. I would

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Speaker 3: have some defensive impulses like, wow, I made that choice

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Speaker 3: for the following reasons, and I don't think you've really

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Speaker 3: thought this through when you tell me this draft is

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Speaker 3: a six. All of a sudden, I don't care what

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Speaker 3: I disagree with you on. I want to know how

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Speaker 3: I can make it a ten in your eyes. And

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Speaker 3: so I become much more coachable and open to feedback

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Speaker 3: after that. So I did a bunch of that with

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Speaker 3: my students, which was invaluable, and just rewrote multiple chapters

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Speaker 3: from scrap multiple times.

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Speaker 1: I love that idea of scoring things out of ten,

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Speaker 1: and I feel like it all also takes it away

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Speaker 1: from it being a personal critique. It's more like, well,

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Speaker 1: let's focus on the number and how we can get

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Speaker 1: that closer to ten. It's interesting. So I got onto

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Speaker 1: the book humor seriously from your amazing reading recommendations that

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Speaker 1: you do. I think once a quarter you do them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I've started doing them quarterly, and I hope you

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Speaker 3: haven't regretted read the books that I've put on them.

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Speaker 1: They're all brilliant, and I must say I loved Humor Seriously.

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Speaker 1: It was one of my favorite reads over the summer

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Speaker 1: 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 1: I actually interviewed Naomi yesterday and she was amazing, and

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Speaker 1: I was asking her just how does she make her

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Speaker 1: writing so funny? I mean, Humor Seriously is probably the

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Speaker 1: funniest business book that I've ever read. And she described

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Speaker 1: what I kind of likened a human network, kind of

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Speaker 1: like your challenge network, but essentially she will give the

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Speaker 1: draft to a bunch of comedy writers and ask them

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Speaker 1: to find and markup opportunities for humor, which I thought,

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Speaker 1: that's that's so fascinating. For making your work funny out

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Speaker 1: such a novel approach.

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Speaker 2: 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. They

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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, take them or leave them. And

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: and I said, Hey, you may not know this, but

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

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Speaker 3: And then I had to blain 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

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Speaker 3: the relationship, don't. The only way you can damage the

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Speaker 3: relationship is by not telling me the truth.

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Speaker 2: 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 1: Wow, I actually wanted to ask you about designing keynote

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Speaker 1: presentations because in Think Again, there are so many different

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Speaker 1: great strategies for helping people think again, and I was

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Speaker 1: curious as to how you apply those strategies when you

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Speaker 1: are constructing a keynote presentation, and particularly one that's off

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Speaker 1: the back of Think Again. So can you talk about

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Speaker 1: some of the strategies that you use to help think

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Speaker 1: Again with the design of a presentation?

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Speaker 2: 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 2: 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 asking,

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

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Speaker 3: 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, but.

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Speaker 2: 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 stage,

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: right length of time.

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Speaker 2: That's my process, what is yours?

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Speaker 1: I think I start with the question, with the time

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Speaker 1: that I've given, how can I be most useful to

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Speaker 1: the audience, Like how can I serve them best? And

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Speaker 1: then like, presumably I've got a theme that I'm working

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Speaker 1: with or a particular topic, and then I think, okay,

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Speaker 1: to serve them best, like what are the let's say,

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Speaker 1: for a standard length keynote, what are the five best

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Speaker 1: things I know about this that I think can really

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Speaker 1: have a significant impact in the people's lives that I'm

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Speaker 1: talking to. And then from there I'd get more into

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Speaker 1: the mechanics of going, okay, well, each point needs some

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Speaker 1: kind of a story or some sort of interactive activity.

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Speaker 1: And now, obviously for the last year I've just been

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Speaker 1: doing virtual keynotes. I haven't seen a live audience since

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Speaker 1: February twenty twenty, So I think that's my process and

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Speaker 1: trying to go, oh, what's the best story I can

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Speaker 1: tell here to really land this point and connect with

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Speaker 1: people emotionally and then the other thing I think about,

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Speaker 1: and I was actually talking about this with Naomi yesterday

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Speaker 1: in the interview, is that one of my really early

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Speaker 1: coaches around giving presentations would always say, Okay, make it funnier,

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Speaker 1: make it funnier, insert a joke here. You need more

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Speaker 1: laughs here. And so I also think about laughs per minute,

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Speaker 1: Like I'll go back over a presentation that I've given

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Speaker 1: and I'll look at how many laughs I'm getting per minuted,

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Speaker 1: and where there's maybe a flat period of two minutes,

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Speaker 1: I'll be like, oh, I need to inject some humor there.

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Speaker 1: So I think that's my process loosely.

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Speaker 3: That's fascinating. Okay, I have a couple of questions for

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Speaker 3: you on this. Yes, let's start with the last point.

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Speaker 3: So I have done the same thing for a long.

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Speaker 2: Time, have you.

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Speaker 3: Yes, I've I had a target like, okay, at least

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

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Speaker 1: I'm so reassured to know that you do this and

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Speaker 1: I'm not some weird.

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Speaker 2: Aerre Oh no, absolutely.

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Speaker 3: And I've started to rethink it though, And I wonder

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

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Speaker 3: realized was I mean part of the 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, right, I love to laugh, and

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Speaker 3: so I think we all enjoy giving the things that

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Speaker 3: we love to receive. And that's fine. But I also

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Speaker 3: realized at some point that I'm drawn to laughter because

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Speaker 3: as a shy introvert who used to be terrified of

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Speaker 3: public speaking, I still look at the audience for signals

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Speaker 3: that they're with me, and laughter is really the only

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Speaker 3: reliable cue that I'm having an impact in real time. Right,

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Speaker 3: They're like, well, let's let's take some alternative emotions. So

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Speaker 3: if you inspire people, they don't go ooh.

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Speaker 1: I wish they I did, though, that would be great.

440
00:22:02,160 --> 00:22:05,560
Speaker 3: I mean, if there was an involuntary human response, like

441
00:22:05,840 --> 00:22:08,359
Speaker 3: a vocal burst for inspiration, that.

442
00:22:08,359 --> 00:22:10,120
Speaker 2: Would be helpful, right, Yes, definitely.

443
00:22:10,280 --> 00:22:14,000
Speaker 3: I mean occasionally people will, in very rare circumstances though applaud,

444
00:22:14,800 --> 00:22:17,840
Speaker 3: but that's not a norm in most talks, and it

445
00:22:17,880 --> 00:22:20,720
Speaker 3: would be sort of disruptive, I think if it happened regularly.

446
00:22:21,280 --> 00:22:25,400
Speaker 3: I think when people have moments where they're surprised, right,

447
00:22:25,440 --> 00:22:28,720
Speaker 3: they don't gasp out loud. And so I started to

448
00:22:28,720 --> 00:22:31,480
Speaker 3: think that maybe I was over indexing on laughter, that

449
00:22:31,560 --> 00:22:34,800
Speaker 3: I was using humor as a crutch to feel the

450
00:22:34,840 --> 00:22:37,960
Speaker 3: audience's energy, as opposed to saying, okay, there's a range

451
00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:40,680
Speaker 3: of emotions that I want to cultivate here, and yes,

452
00:22:40,840 --> 00:22:43,879
Speaker 3: I want to make the audience laugh as often as possible,

453
00:22:44,280 --> 00:22:46,760
Speaker 3: but I don't need to do that in every minute.

454
00:22:46,960 --> 00:22:50,080
Speaker 3: There are moments of gravity that should be balanced out

455
00:22:50,160 --> 00:22:53,439
Speaker 3: by the levity in different parts. But can you imagine

456
00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:56,359
Speaker 3: if Martin Luther King Junior got on stage for his

457
00:22:56,480 --> 00:22:58,240
Speaker 3: I have a Dream speech and say I want to

458
00:22:58,240 --> 00:23:00,040
Speaker 3: have I want to have at least a laugh for

459
00:23:00,080 --> 00:23:01,199
Speaker 3: a minute, A.

460
00:23:01,359 --> 00:23:02,359
Speaker 2: Wrong term for.

461
00:23:03,880 --> 00:23:09,679
Speaker 3: Trying to dismantle a racist set of institutions. So I

462
00:23:09,720 --> 00:23:10,760
Speaker 3: wonder what you make of O this.

463
00:23:12,040 --> 00:23:14,879
Speaker 1: I love that it's almost a sense of relief. I

464
00:23:14,920 --> 00:23:18,159
Speaker 1: feel to go, oh, I don't have to be so

465
00:23:18,840 --> 00:23:24,320
Speaker 1: had on myself to really push for humor, because sometimes

466
00:23:24,359 --> 00:23:26,880
Speaker 1: it comes naturally, but other times it's a real struggle.

467
00:23:27,160 --> 00:23:29,439
Speaker 1: And it's also, just, let's face it, like a bit

468
00:23:29,480 --> 00:23:31,880
Speaker 1: of a hassle to go, well, you know, look, I've

469
00:23:31,920 --> 00:23:34,080
Speaker 1: got all the points and these are solid points, and

470
00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:36,480
Speaker 1: oh god, now I have to be funny. So I

471
00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:38,920
Speaker 1: like that I feel like it takes the pressure off,

472
00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:43,080
Speaker 1: but also it's going to lead to a better outcome

473
00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:45,879
Speaker 1: in terms of going, Okay, what is the most I

474
00:23:45,880 --> 00:23:50,600
Speaker 1: guess useful emotion for the audience to be feeling in

475
00:23:50,800 --> 00:23:54,520
Speaker 1: order to really internalize the idea that I'm trying to

476
00:23:54,520 --> 00:23:57,080
Speaker 1: get across to them. So I'm going to try that.

477
00:23:57,400 --> 00:23:58,840
Speaker 3: I think that's a great way to capture it. And

478
00:23:58,880 --> 00:24:01,600
Speaker 3: I think I guess it goes to one other thought

479
00:24:01,640 --> 00:24:05,119
Speaker 3: on this before I ask my other question that you

480
00:24:05,160 --> 00:24:09,199
Speaker 3: were listening for me. I think that sometimes in the

481
00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:12,720
Speaker 3: best talks, the audience is so absorbed in the story

482
00:24:12,760 --> 00:24:16,120
Speaker 3: that telling a joke would jolt them out of it.

483
00:24:16,880 --> 00:24:20,159
Speaker 3: You're kind of ruining their flow experience. And there are

484
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:22,960
Speaker 3: times when you're telling a story that's powerful enough that

485
00:24:23,119 --> 00:24:27,720
Speaker 3: they're transported into it right They're the protagonist. They're waiting

486
00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:32,080
Speaker 3: for the complicating action or the resolution. And so I've

487
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:37,280
Speaker 3: sometimes found that when I'm telling, especially a personal story,

488
00:24:37,400 --> 00:24:39,479
Speaker 3: I'm like, Okay, I'm putting myself out here. I'm being

489
00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:41,400
Speaker 3: a little vulnerable right now, let me make a joke

490
00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:44,560
Speaker 3: to lighten the mood. Like no, I need to suspend

491
00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:47,560
Speaker 3: that temptation, like I don't. I'm not going to eliminate

492
00:24:47,640 --> 00:24:49,280
Speaker 3: it all together. I am going to make fun of

493
00:24:49,280 --> 00:24:52,280
Speaker 3: myself at some point because I feel like that will,

494
00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:55,240
Speaker 3: especially if I'm talking about something that went well for me,

495
00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 3: That'll prevent me from coming across as arrogant, and it'll

496
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:01,480
Speaker 3: be a way to project the humility that I aspire

497
00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:05,320
Speaker 3: to live with. But I'm at least gonna postpone it.

498
00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:07,400
Speaker 3: I'm not going to let myself go for the easy

499
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:08,120
Speaker 3: joke right away.

500
00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:11,240
Speaker 1: Now tell me your second question before I take back

501
00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:12,280
Speaker 1: the host role from you.

502
00:25:12,680 --> 00:25:15,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, I prefer to be the one asking

503
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:18,399
Speaker 2: the questions here. After all, I want to keep learning.

504
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:23,400
Speaker 3: So I think it's interesting when you talked about what

505
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 3: your goal is and your talks, you said that I

506
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:29,120
Speaker 3: want to be useful to the audience and I want

507
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:33,120
Speaker 3: to have impact. And I wonder how much of that

508
00:25:33,359 --> 00:25:37,200
Speaker 3: is because you do so much speaking on innovation, which

509
00:25:37,240 --> 00:25:41,119
Speaker 3: is around a set of practical challenges that the audience

510
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:44,560
Speaker 3: is grappling with. Because I guess just give a little

511
00:25:44,600 --> 00:25:46,560
Speaker 3: context for why I was wondering. I was thinking, what's

512
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:50,000
Speaker 3: the alternative to useful and impact? And I think it's

513
00:25:50,080 --> 00:25:53,520
Speaker 3: novel and interesting or at least that's one alternative. And

514
00:25:53,560 --> 00:25:56,600
Speaker 3: so I wonder what's behind the desire to help as

515
00:25:56,600 --> 00:25:59,840
Speaker 3: opposed to just to intrigue and spark curiosity.

516
00:26:00,359 --> 00:26:04,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really interesting question. It's funny because for me,

517
00:26:05,359 --> 00:26:09,160
Speaker 1: I think of novelty as that's just a hygiene factor.

518
00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:11,280
Speaker 1: In terms of like marketing speak, it's just a cost

519
00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:14,960
Speaker 1: of entry, like you have to be novel otherwise people

520
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:18,960
Speaker 1: can probably just find the information online somewhere and likewise

521
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:22,480
Speaker 1: being entertaining in some way. Again, it's like that's just

522
00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:25,119
Speaker 1: a cost of entry to be a good speaker. And

523
00:26:25,160 --> 00:26:27,920
Speaker 1: then in terms of being useful, I think it probably

524
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:31,160
Speaker 1: comes back to being quite similar to you in terms

525
00:26:31,160 --> 00:26:34,160
Speaker 1: of growing up being very introverted and shy, and even

526
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 1: just raising my hand in class to ask a question

527
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:41,080
Speaker 1: made me incredibly nervous. And I feel like if I'm useful,

528
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:44,280
Speaker 1: then that gives me permission to be there. It gives

529
00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:47,760
Speaker 1: me permission to speak and for people to listen to me.

530
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:49,679
Speaker 1: So I think that's where that comes from.

531
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:51,200
Speaker 2: That resonates.

532
00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:53,919
Speaker 3: It's very similar to how I felt in a lot

533
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:56,600
Speaker 3: of situations because when I heard you say useful and impact,

534
00:26:56,680 --> 00:27:01,840
Speaker 3: I thought, well, okay, that's language that I often use to.

535
00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:04,640
Speaker 2: Feel like I matter, right, Like what am I doing here? Well?

536
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:07,560
Speaker 3: Like I want to be helpful, okay, and I want

537
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:10,679
Speaker 3: to justify that my time was well spent and then

538
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:14,200
Speaker 3: it benefits other people. And then I started thinking one

539
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:17,200
Speaker 3: of my biggest frustrations as a speaker is you don't

540
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:20,080
Speaker 3: really know when you've been useful like that. Getting real

541
00:27:20,119 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 3: feedback about your long term impact is challenging. I've thought

542
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:27,879
Speaker 3: about how do you measure it? This is a hard problem,

543
00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:31,120
Speaker 3: and so I think I've shifted a little bit away

544
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:34,040
Speaker 3: from that just knowing how ambiguous it is to say,

545
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:39,280
Speaker 3: all right, if I can create a performance that people

546
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:43,640
Speaker 3: find to be a thought provoking experience, then I can

547
00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:47,520
Speaker 3: know at the end that I sort of succeeded, as opposed.

548
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:49,920
Speaker 2: To wondering like was this useful? Did I have impact?

549
00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:52,880
Speaker 3: And so I guess I'm giving myself a different out

550
00:27:53,119 --> 00:27:54,159
Speaker 3: than the one you've chosen.

551
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:57,440
Speaker 1: Well, I like your questions to me, and it's really

552
00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:00,040
Speaker 1: interesting hearing your process. I know that when I do

553
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:02,720
Speaker 1: the edit for this interview, I'm I'm going to rethink

554
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:04,879
Speaker 1: again when I can, you know, really focus and have

555
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:06,080
Speaker 1: the time to consider it.

556
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:08,959
Speaker 3: We think again, that sounds like a sequel that I

557
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:10,080
Speaker 3: will not be rating.

558
00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:11,920
Speaker 1: Definitely.

559
00:28:12,240 --> 00:28:12,400
Speaker 2: Now.

560
00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 1: When I was preparing for this interview, I reached out

561
00:28:16,119 --> 00:28:20,199
Speaker 1: to Rev, who is a collaborator of yours, Reb Rebel,

562
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:22,800
Speaker 1: and someone that introduced me to I think two and

563
00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:24,919
Speaker 1: a half years ago, shortly after I first had you

564
00:28:25,119 --> 00:28:26,160
Speaker 1: on the show.

565
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:28,960
Speaker 2: Was two and a half years ago, Yeah, two.

566
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:31,200
Speaker 1: And a half years ago, Yes, a long time ago.

567
00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:33,399
Speaker 1: And Reb and I catch up every few months, and

568
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 1: that's been wonderful. It's fantastic. And I said, what do

569
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 1: you reckon? I should ask Adam about basically delegating my

570
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 1: prep work to Rev, and he said, you should ask

571
00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 1: him about remote collaboration because pre COVID you were doing

572
00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:52,520
Speaker 1: a lot of remote collaboration, and obviously now in the

573
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:54,600
Speaker 1: last twelve months, I'm imagining that you've done a hell

574
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:56,800
Speaker 1: of a lot more. And I'm wondering what one or

575
00:28:56,880 --> 00:29:03,400
Speaker 1: two strategies that you find really help to elevate the

576
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:06,720
Speaker 1: effectiveness and the outputs from collaborating remotely.

577
00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:11,440
Speaker 3: So Burstina is a place to start. This is researched

578
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:15,680
Speaker 3: by Chris Reedal and Anito Wooley, where they studied remote

579
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:19,200
Speaker 3: software teams and they found that there are two kinds

580
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:24,600
Speaker 3: of communication patterns in remote collaboration. One is high frequency,

581
00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:29,520
Speaker 3: relatively low intensity, like we talk every day or we

582
00:29:29,560 --> 00:29:33,080
Speaker 3: have emails kind of going every hour. The other is

583
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:37,000
Speaker 3: the opposite. It's low frequency, high intensity. We don't talk

584
00:29:37,040 --> 00:29:39,160
Speaker 3: for a week, and then we have a two hour

585
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:42,960
Speaker 3: jam session. And they wanted to know which model is

586
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:47,280
Speaker 3: more productive and more creative. And whenever I present this,

587
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:49,680
Speaker 3: this is something I've been talking a lot with founders

588
00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:53,720
Speaker 3: and CEOs about, whenever I present it, they say overwhelmingly,

589
00:29:53,800 --> 00:29:56,240
Speaker 3: over eighty percent of the people I've asked have said,

590
00:29:56,760 --> 00:29:59,960
Speaker 3: you want high frequency, you need to stay in touch,

591
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 3: you need to be on the same page in order

592
00:30:01,520 --> 00:30:04,320
Speaker 3: to work effectively with people. And the data showed the

593
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:08,520
Speaker 3: exact opposite, that the more productive and creative remote collaborations

594
00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:13,720
Speaker 3: are low frequency, high intensity. And what seems to be

595
00:30:13,760 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 3: going on there is a couple of things. One, when

596
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:20,880
Speaker 3: people are communicating only intermittently, they actually have time to

597
00:30:20,880 --> 00:30:24,880
Speaker 3: get their own individual work done and to move ideas forward.

598
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:30,080
Speaker 3: And two, when they do then come together to collaborate,

599
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:34,080
Speaker 3: they're working with much better material and they're also more motivated.

600
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:37,040
Speaker 3: I thought that that meant, okay, they're going to be

601
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:40,080
Speaker 3: excited to build on each other's ideas. But the data

602
00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:42,959
Speaker 3: tell a slightly different story, which is that it is

603
00:30:43,120 --> 00:30:45,600
Speaker 3: energizing to know that other people are there waiting to

604
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:49,520
Speaker 3: respond to you. And the pattern of burstiness is the

605
00:30:49,560 --> 00:30:52,520
Speaker 3: sense that the collaboration is literally bursting with energy and ideas.

606
00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:55,280
Speaker 3: And the way you get that you don't need to

607
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:59,480
Speaker 3: be in the same physical space to get that. What helps, though,

608
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:02,800
Speaker 3: is being in the same temporal space right having your

609
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 3: calendar synced so that there are at least some hours

610
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:08,360
Speaker 3: here and there where you're online at the same time

611
00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 3: and you can actually work together in real time. And

612
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:14,400
Speaker 3: that The part of the reason this resonated with me

613
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:18,440
Speaker 3: is it's how I've collaborated since gosh, at least fifteen

614
00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:22,720
Speaker 3: years ago, when at a mentor Jane Dutton, who would

615
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:25,600
Speaker 3: work on papers with her former students. So Jane was

616
00:31:25,640 --> 00:31:27,920
Speaker 3: at the University of Michigan where I was in grad school.

617
00:31:28,360 --> 00:31:31,560
Speaker 3: Her former students would graduate and go across the country

618
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:35,320
Speaker 3: or to another continent, and they would stay in touch,

619
00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 3: or they'd have occasional phone calls and occasional emails, and

620
00:31:38,360 --> 00:31:40,480
Speaker 3: then they would fly in and they would do a

621
00:31:40,520 --> 00:31:44,080
Speaker 3: three day blitz where they just deep dive on a

622
00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:46,880
Speaker 3: project and they sit side by side writing and they

623
00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:49,719
Speaker 3: basically spend every waking hour together and then they go

624
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:51,440
Speaker 3: off and they don't interact that much for a month

625
00:31:51,520 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 3: or two. And you're really getting the best of both

626
00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:58,400
Speaker 3: worlds in that model of independent thinking and then collaborative contribution.

627
00:31:58,600 --> 00:32:01,520
Speaker 3: And so that's a mon for how I structure my

628
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:02,440
Speaker 3: remote collaboration.

629
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 1: Do we really need face to face collaboration to optimize

630
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:08,880
Speaker 1: problem solving and creative thinking? I mean, there's so many

631
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:13,240
Speaker 1: businesses here in Australia that are insisting that people go

632
00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:16,120
Speaker 1: back to the office. We're not in lockdown here anymore.

633
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:19,880
Speaker 1: But do we need it? Like, is there something special

634
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:22,240
Speaker 1: that we get from face to face collaboration based on

635
00:32:23,040 --> 00:32:26,280
Speaker 1: the research, that we just can't get from virtual collaboration.

636
00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:27,960
Speaker 2: I don't know.

637
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:31,840
Speaker 1: That's not the answer I was looking for, Adam.

638
00:32:33,520 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 3: It's the only empirical answer I have right now. What

639
00:32:36,240 --> 00:32:39,160
Speaker 3: I can tell you is this seems to be true

640
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 3: in pairs and also in teams that trust builds faster

641
00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:48,800
Speaker 3: and it also builds deeper when people are face to face.

642
00:32:49,320 --> 00:32:51,880
Speaker 3: But what do we take away from that, I don't know.

643
00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:56,160
Speaker 3: Does that mean we are evolutionarily wired to need to

644
00:32:56,200 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 3: be in the same physical space as other people in

645
00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 3: order to trust them, that we need to be able

646
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:04,680
Speaker 3: to potentially touch them. Is that just how we've always

647
00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 3: done it and so we're most comfortable trusting under those circumstances.

648
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:12,640
Speaker 3: Or is it the case that up until now, and

649
00:33:12,720 --> 00:33:17,360
Speaker 3: maybe not until three years from now, the technology just

650
00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:20,720
Speaker 3: hasn't been there, and so virtual has been just an

651
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 3: awful proxy for face to face. And when we get

652
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 3: to the point where we're kind of lifelike holograms, maybe

653
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 3: face to face becomes irrelevant. And maybe for some people

654
00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:34,120
Speaker 3: touch is important and for others it's not. I don't know,

655
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:38,520
Speaker 3: but I don't think there's anything about human psychology that

656
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:42,600
Speaker 3: leaves me convinced that we have to be physically in

657
00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 3: the same room to trust each other and collaborate effectively.

658
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:48,680
Speaker 3: I think there are aspects of being physically colocated that

659
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:51,440
Speaker 3: maybe grease the wheels of trust a little bit and

660
00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:54,040
Speaker 3: make it easier. But I think that gap is going

661
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:56,440
Speaker 3: to shrink as technology gets better, and also as we

662
00:33:56,480 --> 00:33:59,360
Speaker 3: get more comfortable but really trusting people that we've never

663
00:33:59,440 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 3: met face to face.

664
00:34:01,040 --> 00:34:03,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know that Jane Dutton was one of your mentors,

665
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:07,200
Speaker 1: and she's obviously very well known for writing and researching

666
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 1: about high quality connections. I'm curious as to how you

667
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:13,560
Speaker 1: use her work when you're collaborating with new people in

668
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:17,040
Speaker 1: terms of I guess fast tracking human connection.

669
00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:21,960
Speaker 3: Well, Jane does a rapid high quality connection exercise where

670
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:24,680
Speaker 3: I've been using this in class for years, ever since

671
00:34:24,719 --> 00:34:25,879
Speaker 3: she had me do.

672
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:26,920
Speaker 2: It as a student.

673
00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:30,080
Speaker 3: She says, just pair up with someone that you haven't

674
00:34:30,120 --> 00:34:32,560
Speaker 3: met in class yet, or if you've met everyone, like

675
00:34:32,719 --> 00:34:35,719
Speaker 3: somebody you don't know well, and then you each have

676
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:38,160
Speaker 3: a minute to try to build a high quality connection

677
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:42,640
Speaker 3: with the other person, and it's stunning to see how

678
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:47,359
Speaker 3: quick it happens. People are often amazed by their their

679
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:51,719
Speaker 3: intuitive social intelligence when it comes to finding strategies to

680
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:55,040
Speaker 3: do it, and I think the strategies that seem to

681
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:58,040
Speaker 3: work are backed up by decades of evidence in psychology.

682
00:34:58,120 --> 00:35:01,160
Speaker 3: One is self disclosure, where you know where people make

683
00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:06,440
Speaker 3: themselves vulnerable and what that actually That helps the person

684
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:10,560
Speaker 3: who's sharing as much or more than the person who's listening,

685
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:14,360
Speaker 3: because when I tell you something personal about me, then

686
00:35:14,520 --> 00:35:17,720
Speaker 3: I am signaling to myself, well, I must trust you otherwise,

687
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 3: Why the hell did I just tell you that? What

688
00:35:19,600 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 3: am I thinking? This is a dangerous decision here? I

689
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:25,200
Speaker 3: should probably rethink it. So that happens a lot. There's

690
00:35:25,239 --> 00:35:28,520
Speaker 3: a lot of people searching for uncommon commonalities, you know,

691
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:32,000
Speaker 3: things they share that are rare, and people bond in

692
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:35,800
Speaker 3: those ways. I think though, for me, the key ingredient

693
00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:39,560
Speaker 3: there is that the exercise is set up so that

694
00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:43,080
Speaker 3: you just erase uncertainty that the other person wants to

695
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:46,080
Speaker 3: connect and knowing that I'm going to talk to you

696
00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:49,239
Speaker 3: for a minute and we share a goal of having

697
00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:53,960
Speaker 3: a high quality interaction, it dramatically lowers anxiety. And it

698
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 3: also it leads people to do Oh, I guess the

699
00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:01,480
Speaker 3: goatmans would call them like they're bids.

700
00:36:01,680 --> 00:36:01,879
Speaker 2: Right.

701
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:05,200
Speaker 3: I make an offer, a gesture to say, hey, I'm

702
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:07,759
Speaker 3: seeking your friendship or your trust, and I know you're

703
00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:09,640
Speaker 3: going to reciprocate, and you're eager to do that, and

704
00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:11,560
Speaker 3: then it kind of spirals from there. It's like when

705
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:14,759
Speaker 3: the beginning of a first date goes really well and

706
00:36:14,800 --> 00:36:17,920
Speaker 3: you stop questioning whether the other person likes you. So,

707
00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:21,239
Speaker 3: I guess this is all to say, I've tried to

708
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:24,600
Speaker 3: think about these principles in some of my new virtual

709
00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:28,439
Speaker 3: collaborations to like I've just tried to put it out there, like, Hey,

710
00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:31,360
Speaker 3: we're going to be working together. It's important to me

711
00:36:31,400 --> 00:36:32,880
Speaker 3: that we trust each other. And so I'm going to

712
00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:35,520
Speaker 3: tell you something that I don't normally share. And then

713
00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:38,440
Speaker 3: I'll try to come up with something that I normally

714
00:36:38,520 --> 00:36:41,239
Speaker 3: would hesitate to share, but I think is something that

715
00:36:41,760 --> 00:36:43,560
Speaker 3: if I am going to trust someone, they ought to

716
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:45,840
Speaker 3: know about me. So like I'll maybe start with a

717
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:48,359
Speaker 3: simple one, like I am chronically late.

718
00:36:48,640 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 2: I apologize events for it.

719
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:52,320
Speaker 3: I'm trying to get better at it, but not always

720
00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:55,640
Speaker 3: making progress. And then I might go into something a

721
00:36:55,640 --> 00:36:58,040
Speaker 3: little bit more personal, depending on what topic comes up,

722
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:02,839
Speaker 3: and say, like I've written whole book about rethinking, and

723
00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:05,399
Speaker 3: I've noticed there are certain situations where I get really

724
00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:08,560
Speaker 3: stubborn and strong willed to the point that I worry

725
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:12,040
Speaker 3: I'm close minded, and I'm trying to get better at

726
00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 3: flexing in those situations and delegating, and I hope you

727
00:37:15,680 --> 00:37:16,480
Speaker 3: can help me do that.

728
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:20,600
Speaker 1: You mentioned that you ask someone that is often late

729
00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:22,920
Speaker 1: because you get into flow and you don't want to

730
00:37:22,960 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 1: break it. And I experience that. But what I do

731
00:37:26,560 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 1: is I set the stopwatch on my Apple Watch so

732
00:37:29,640 --> 00:37:32,480
Speaker 1: I don't lose track of time. And I'm a really

733
00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:35,520
Speaker 1: punctual person. I'm often early. But I want to know,

734
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:38,279
Speaker 1: do you recommend that I be more selfish with my

735
00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:41,680
Speaker 1: time and not do this and be late to things

736
00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:42,399
Speaker 1: like you are.

737
00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:47,400
Speaker 3: I don't know that I would wish my faults on anyone,

738
00:37:47,640 --> 00:37:51,040
Speaker 3: but I do think there's a method to the madness here.

739
00:37:51,960 --> 00:37:56,000
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, I want to lose track of time.

740
00:37:56,400 --> 00:37:58,760
Speaker 3: If I'm in flow and I was late to something

741
00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:01,440
Speaker 3: and it wasn't an emergency and I can make up

742
00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:03,960
Speaker 3: for it, it's totally worth it to me. And I

743
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:06,879
Speaker 3: guess I don't see it as being selfish, because I'm

744
00:38:06,960 --> 00:38:10,360
Speaker 3: usually working on something that's gonna reach somebody else or

745
00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:12,719
Speaker 3: that's going to help someone else, and so I guess

746
00:38:12,760 --> 00:38:16,240
Speaker 3: I see it not as selfishness, but more is refusing

747
00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:20,240
Speaker 3: to be a slave to the social construction of clock

748
00:38:20,320 --> 00:38:24,279
Speaker 3: time and not privileging the person that I thought was

749
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:26,480
Speaker 3: going to get my time at this one point over

750
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:30,880
Speaker 3: the other people who are priorities for me too. So

751
00:38:31,040 --> 00:38:33,200
Speaker 3: I don't know, I reject the premise. I don't think

752
00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:37,000
Speaker 3: it's selfishness, particularly if other people know that sometimes you're

753
00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:38,759
Speaker 3: running late. And I'll tell you, I don't meant that

754
00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:40,799
Speaker 3: I'm thrilled when people are late, like great, I have

755
00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:44,239
Speaker 3: more time to work, thank you. At minimum, I can

756
00:38:44,280 --> 00:38:47,319
Speaker 3: catch up on some emails or write a little post

757
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:49,799
Speaker 3: that I'm delinquent in doing. And so I've just never

758
00:38:49,880 --> 00:38:54,799
Speaker 3: understood why people reify this fiction.

759
00:38:54,880 --> 00:38:57,440
Speaker 2: Of a clock into something much bigger than it is.

760
00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:01,600
Speaker 1: That's great, I'm going to see if I can reframe

761
00:39:01,640 --> 00:39:03,920
Speaker 1: my thinking. I know that I'm going to struggle with it,

762
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:06,840
Speaker 1: but it maybe does require a rethink.

763
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:09,160
Speaker 2: I think. I don't know. I don't know.

764
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:12,280
Speaker 3: I mean, I think this is probably something that different

765
00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:13,680
Speaker 3: people have different preferences on.

766
00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:15,280
Speaker 2: But I am surprised.

767
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:18,440
Speaker 3: I remember when I wrote I must have tweeted about

768
00:39:19,520 --> 00:39:22,600
Speaker 3: how being late is not necessarily disrespecting the person who's

769
00:39:22,640 --> 00:39:25,840
Speaker 3: waiting for you. Sometimes it's respecting that person who's sitting

770
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:30,440
Speaker 3: in front of you. And I was surprised at how

771
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:35,960
Speaker 3: many people responded with some version of moral outrage, like

772
00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:39,880
Speaker 3: being late is not a violation of an ethical principle,

773
00:39:40,680 --> 00:39:45,759
Speaker 3: it's just you taking time more seriously than I do,

774
00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:49,480
Speaker 3: Like I take my commitments to people and projects seriously,

775
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:51,560
Speaker 3: not to a clock or a calendar.

776
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:53,480
Speaker 1: Such a good way of looking at it.

777
00:39:53,920 --> 00:39:54,880
Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know.

778
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:57,759
Speaker 3: It makes some people frustrated, but like, okay, if it

779
00:39:57,800 --> 00:40:01,080
Speaker 3: really frustrates you, you should not schedule appointments with me,

780
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:02,560
Speaker 3: and you will be happy.

781
00:40:03,040 --> 00:40:05,399
Speaker 1: Hey, there, it's nearly time for a little ad break.

782
00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:07,680
Speaker 1: But can I ask a favor of you? If you're

783
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:10,319
Speaker 1: enjoying how I work, I would be so grateful if

784
00:40:10,320 --> 00:40:13,600
Speaker 1: you could hit pause on this episode and pop into

785
00:40:13,640 --> 00:40:16,160
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this from and

786
00:40:16,360 --> 00:40:20,759
Speaker 1: leave a review. You can do this through scrolling down

787
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:22,400
Speaker 1: to the bottom of the show notes and clicking on

788
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:26,040
Speaker 1: the stars, or running a comment. Aside from the warm,

789
00:40:26,120 --> 00:40:29,000
Speaker 1: fuzzy feelings, this will give both you and me. It

790
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:31,920
Speaker 1: helps other people find out about how I work. So

791
00:40:32,040 --> 00:40:35,239
Speaker 1: thank you in advance. Okay, Adam Grant will be back

792
00:40:35,280 --> 00:40:37,439
Speaker 1: after this short break and we're going to be chatting

793
00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:41,239
Speaker 1: about how being a magician, which Adam is, has influenced

794
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:45,560
Speaker 1: his work in psychology. Now, something I imagine, in terms

795
00:40:45,560 --> 00:40:48,080
Speaker 1: of sharing things about you that a lot of listeners

796
00:40:48,120 --> 00:40:52,440
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't know, is that you're a magician, and I

797
00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:54,200
Speaker 1: think that's so cool.

798
00:40:54,160 --> 00:40:57,839
Speaker 2: The nerdiest thing in my life. For sure. You think

799
00:40:57,840 --> 00:40:59,800
Speaker 2: it's cool, gotta love it totally.

800
00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:02,040
Speaker 1: Like my idea of a great night out is going

801
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:04,840
Speaker 1: to the Magic Castle in La Amazing.

802
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:06,400
Speaker 2: So I want to know how does.

803
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:10,440
Speaker 1: Magic influence the work that you do as an organizational psychologist.

804
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:13,480
Speaker 3: The biggest thing that magic did for me was it

805
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:16,279
Speaker 3: taught me to appreciate the element of surprise. When I

806
00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:19,400
Speaker 3: was performing as a magician regularly, that I could do

807
00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:23,080
Speaker 3: the same trick like, let's say, I'm going to have

808
00:41:23,120 --> 00:41:25,920
Speaker 3: you pick a card. So one of my favorite tricks

809
00:41:26,120 --> 00:41:29,320
Speaker 3: that I learned early on was I have the audience.

810
00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:29,520
Speaker 2: Pick a card.

811
00:41:29,880 --> 00:41:33,040
Speaker 3: I actually I put the cards on the table and

812
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:34,960
Speaker 3: I say, look, I don't want to influence your choice.

813
00:41:35,160 --> 00:41:39,200
Speaker 3: You choose your own card, and I have you pick

814
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:43,319
Speaker 3: and I'm halfway across the room. I'm turning around so

815
00:41:43,440 --> 00:41:45,640
Speaker 3: that I can't see anything. I'm staring into the wall,

816
00:41:46,239 --> 00:41:48,520
Speaker 3: and you look at your card. You then shuffle it

817
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:51,800
Speaker 3: back into the deck. And when I first started performing,

818
00:41:52,080 --> 00:41:54,520
Speaker 3: I would just grab the deck and I would find

819
00:41:54,520 --> 00:41:59,080
Speaker 3: your card, and you were like, oh cool. And then

820
00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:01,040
Speaker 3: I thought Okay, I'm going to add a little flourish

821
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:04,040
Speaker 3: to it. And I learned to throw the cards up

822
00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:07,480
Speaker 3: and then as all the cards are falling from the

823
00:42:07,520 --> 00:42:10,239
Speaker 3: sky or the ceiling, to catch one card and then

824
00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:12,680
Speaker 3: I turn it around and it's your card. Ah, And

825
00:42:12,719 --> 00:42:16,080
Speaker 3: there's a little more suspense built. But that version of

826
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:19,840
Speaker 3: the trick was nowhere near as satisfying in the reveal

827
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:22,719
Speaker 3: as when I went an extra step. And that This

828
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:24,880
Speaker 3: is a trick I do every year in class with

829
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:28,520
Speaker 3: my undergrads. Thanks to a student innovation, all my students

830
00:42:28,880 --> 00:42:30,799
Speaker 3: get a chance to do a one minute passion talk

831
00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:33,719
Speaker 3: about something they love or something that matters deeply to

832
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:36,920
Speaker 3: them to introduce themselves to their classmates, and we do

833
00:42:37,640 --> 00:42:39,640
Speaker 3: six each class, so that by the end of the

834
00:42:39,680 --> 00:42:43,640
Speaker 3: semester everyone is given one. And throughout the semester they

835
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:46,200
Speaker 3: asked me, when are you giving your passion talk, and

836
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:47,759
Speaker 3: I say, I'm going to do it on the last day.

837
00:42:47,800 --> 00:42:50,000
Speaker 3: And the last day, my passion talk is about learning

838
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:51,920
Speaker 3: to do magic and how it helped me come out

839
00:42:51,920 --> 00:42:52,359
Speaker 3: of my shell.

840
00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:54,200
Speaker 2: And then I do a trick or two.

841
00:42:54,719 --> 00:42:57,239
Speaker 3: And so I do this same trick, except now the

842
00:42:57,280 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 3: way I do it is I've had you shuffle your

843
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:00,680
Speaker 3: card back.

844
00:43:00,480 --> 00:43:01,000
Speaker 2: Into the deck.

845
00:43:01,920 --> 00:43:04,840
Speaker 3: Then I take the deck and I say, okay, Amantha.

846
00:43:05,360 --> 00:43:07,000
Speaker 3: You may not know this, but when you were holding

847
00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:09,280
Speaker 3: your card for a second, you actually transferred some body

848
00:43:09,280 --> 00:43:12,200
Speaker 3: heat into it and you warmed it up. So I'm

849
00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:14,400
Speaker 3: just gonna flip through eyes closed, I'm gonna find the

850
00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:18,200
Speaker 3: hottest card in the deck. Boom, is that yours? And

851
00:43:18,280 --> 00:43:23,080
Speaker 3: I deliberately show you the wrong card? Ah, And you're

852
00:43:23,120 --> 00:43:26,880
Speaker 3: like no. And I think my acting is not always

853
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:28,840
Speaker 3: up to par, but every once in a while I

854
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:33,320
Speaker 3: get it right. And I look kind of like shocked,

855
00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:36,800
Speaker 3: and then forlorn, and and I might I might curse,

856
00:43:40,680 --> 00:43:45,560
Speaker 3: and then and then I just I throw the cards

857
00:43:45,600 --> 00:43:47,480
Speaker 3: up as if I'm giving up, and then I.

858
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:48,040
Speaker 2: Catch your card.

859
00:43:49,360 --> 00:43:53,600
Speaker 3: And now right now you're Wow, You're You're much more

860
00:43:53,680 --> 00:43:57,920
Speaker 3: excited and surprised. And what that taught me this is

861
00:43:57,920 --> 00:44:01,480
Speaker 3: a very long story, but what it taught me was

862
00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:04,920
Speaker 3: that we can do the same thing with ideas, we

863
00:44:04,960 --> 00:44:07,600
Speaker 3: can do the same thing with knowledge. And as an

864
00:44:07,680 --> 00:44:10,839
Speaker 3: organizational psychologist, that meant that when I had a data

865
00:44:10,880 --> 00:44:14,359
Speaker 3: point that I thought was interesting, I needed to work

866
00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:17,200
Speaker 3: really hard to not only tell the audience what was

867
00:44:17,239 --> 00:44:20,800
Speaker 3: surprising about it, but set them up to feel surprised.

868
00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:22,040
Speaker 2: I don't.

869
00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:24,440
Speaker 3: I'm like in magic, I don't want to trick them.

870
00:44:24,719 --> 00:44:27,799
Speaker 3: What I want to do is figure out what expectation

871
00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:32,200
Speaker 3: they hold, what assumption they cling to that the evidence

872
00:44:32,239 --> 00:44:35,160
Speaker 3: I'm going to share might question, And then I want

873
00:44:35,160 --> 00:44:37,480
Speaker 3: to tell the story or reveal the results of the

874
00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:40,919
Speaker 3: experiment in such a way that they feel the same

875
00:44:40,960 --> 00:44:43,480
Speaker 3: surprise that they should, and that I don't think I

876
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:45,680
Speaker 3: would have appreciated that if I hadn't done magic.

877
00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:48,880
Speaker 1: From a purely selfish point of view. I'm on an

878
00:44:48,920 --> 00:44:51,000
Speaker 1: eight week mission where I'm trying to learn a magic

879
00:44:51,080 --> 00:44:54,200
Speaker 1: trick awake and really, I mean yeah, yeah, and i

880
00:44:54,239 --> 00:44:58,319
Speaker 1: mean wait why, Because someone asked me a few weeks ago,

881
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:00,920
Speaker 1: what's something that you've always want wanted to learn but

882
00:45:01,239 --> 00:45:03,239
Speaker 1: haven't And I'm like, I can't think of anything. I

883
00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 1: just like, I just do it if I want to

884
00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:07,240
Speaker 1: learn it. But I'm like, no magic. Like every time

885
00:45:07,760 --> 00:45:10,640
Speaker 1: I visit the Magic Castle, I'm like, oh, I want

886
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:12,880
Speaker 1: to learn something and I want to become a member,

887
00:45:13,160 --> 00:45:15,960
Speaker 1: and I get really excited and I do nothing. And

888
00:45:16,040 --> 00:45:20,480
Speaker 1: so I learned a trick last week and it didn't

889
00:45:20,480 --> 00:45:23,080
Speaker 1: fool many people, but it filled a couple and that

890
00:45:23,200 --> 00:45:25,920
Speaker 1: was okay. And then I learned another trick, but it

891
00:45:25,960 --> 00:45:28,160
Speaker 1: involved a rubber band, and I can't find the right

892
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:30,440
Speaker 1: rubber band to do the trick with. So tell me

893
00:45:30,520 --> 00:45:32,880
Speaker 1: what is the trick that I can learn that requires

894
00:45:32,960 --> 00:45:35,600
Speaker 1: little skill but it's going to have a really big impact.

895
00:45:36,040 --> 00:45:39,759
Speaker 3: So one trick that I think is low effort high

896
00:45:39,840 --> 00:45:43,080
Speaker 3: impact is one where I guess we'll have to wait

897
00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:46,239
Speaker 3: till COVID is over. But you're in Australia, You're going

898
00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:48,399
Speaker 3: to be in a restaurant much sooner than I am.

899
00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:50,520
Speaker 3: So next time you go to a restaurant, what you're

900
00:45:50,560 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 3: going to do is you're going to cover assault shaker

901
00:45:53,880 --> 00:45:59,640
Speaker 3: with a napkin or like a tablecloth, and you're going

902
00:45:59,680 --> 00:46:03,440
Speaker 3: to to tell your friends at dinner that you're going

903
00:46:03,480 --> 00:46:05,799
Speaker 3: to make a coin disappear that you're going to put

904
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:08,640
Speaker 3: under the salt shaker and the napkin, and then you

905
00:46:08,640 --> 00:46:10,880
Speaker 3: put the coin down, you cover it, You say, okay,

906
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:13,920
Speaker 3: let me just make sure the coin is here. You

907
00:46:14,040 --> 00:46:17,000
Speaker 3: hold up the salt shaker and the napkin, then you

908
00:46:17,040 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 3: put it back down, You cover the coin, and then

909
00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 3: you say okay on the counter three one two three,

910
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:25,640
Speaker 3: the coin will disappear. Then you slam the table, you

911
00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:28,480
Speaker 3: smash the salt shaker, only the salt shaker is gone

912
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:29,799
Speaker 3: and the coin.

913
00:46:29,560 --> 00:46:30,080
Speaker 2: Is still there.

914
00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:31,960
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.

915
00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:34,120
Speaker 3: And then if you want, you could have the salt

916
00:46:34,120 --> 00:46:36,560
Speaker 3: shaker appear under the table, or it could just be gone.

917
00:46:37,040 --> 00:46:38,560
Speaker 1: What how do I do this?

918
00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:41,279
Speaker 2: After we stop recording, I'll tell you how to do it.

919
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:42,400
Speaker 1: Oh my god, am I seeing it?

920
00:46:42,680 --> 00:46:44,080
Speaker 2: I met that. I wanted to ask you. I wanted

921
00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:45,759
Speaker 2: to rethink your question a little bit. Hmm.

922
00:46:48,080 --> 00:46:51,680
Speaker 3: What if instead of learning a trick a week, you

923
00:46:51,760 --> 00:46:54,640
Speaker 3: decided to learn a skill a week, a magic skill

924
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:56,080
Speaker 3: that a magician would use.

925
00:46:56,760 --> 00:46:59,520
Speaker 1: Oh I like that, and I never would have thought

926
00:46:59,520 --> 00:47:03,319
Speaker 1: of them because I don't know enough about magic to go. Ah,

927
00:47:03,560 --> 00:47:08,839
Speaker 1: that's another way to categorize learning. So what would be

928
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:11,719
Speaker 1: say two or three skills that if I were to

929
00:47:11,760 --> 00:47:13,479
Speaker 1: reframe the challenge that I should learn.

930
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:16,000
Speaker 2: Well, let's just say a word about why.

931
00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:18,879
Speaker 3: I think that might be part of what I heard

932
00:47:18,920 --> 00:47:22,719
Speaker 3: you saying was I love being in the audience for

933
00:47:22,920 --> 00:47:25,239
Speaker 3: magic and I would like to be able to create it.

934
00:47:25,680 --> 00:47:28,800
Speaker 2: Yes, And I think the if you just do a

935
00:47:28,840 --> 00:47:29,319
Speaker 2: trick a week.

936
00:47:29,400 --> 00:47:31,040
Speaker 3: At some point you're going to give up on that goal,

937
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:34,880
Speaker 3: and that's going to be the sum total of your abilities.

938
00:47:35,000 --> 00:47:37,120
Speaker 3: So you'll be able to do six tricks right or

939
00:47:37,160 --> 00:47:39,920
Speaker 3: eight tricks, and you won't really feel like you know

940
00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:42,040
Speaker 3: how to do magic. It's like you're in the movie

941
00:47:42,120 --> 00:47:44,880
Speaker 3: The Matrix and you've downloaded six programs and you can

942
00:47:44,960 --> 00:47:47,880
Speaker 3: play those programs. Whereas if you learn six skills, you

943
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:51,040
Speaker 3: could potentially, over time, without having to ever learn a

944
00:47:51,080 --> 00:47:54,040
Speaker 3: new skill, create one hundred or two hundred different tricks.

945
00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:57,040
Speaker 3: And also then there's a learning curve where one skill

946
00:47:57,040 --> 00:47:59,160
Speaker 3: could lead to another, as opposed to I'm just going

947
00:47:59,239 --> 00:48:02,360
Speaker 3: to learn a bunch of screet performances and they're all standalone.

948
00:48:03,440 --> 00:48:05,879
Speaker 3: So I guess it depends on your medium. What kinds

949
00:48:05,920 --> 00:48:07,680
Speaker 3: of tricks do you love to watch the most? Are

950
00:48:07,680 --> 00:48:10,800
Speaker 3: you a stage illusioned person? Are you close up coins

951
00:48:10,880 --> 00:48:11,400
Speaker 3: or cards?

952
00:48:11,719 --> 00:48:15,480
Speaker 1: Close up cards, I would say would be my favorite genre.

953
00:48:16,160 --> 00:48:16,560
Speaker 2: Mine too.

954
00:48:16,800 --> 00:48:19,440
Speaker 3: I'm better at cards than everything else combined, which is

955
00:48:19,480 --> 00:48:24,640
Speaker 3: not a brag about my card skills, it's a.

956
00:48:23,880 --> 00:48:25,280
Speaker 2: I am in every other domain.

957
00:48:25,360 --> 00:48:29,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, So in cards, I would say, get a card

958
00:48:29,080 --> 00:48:32,160
Speaker 3: magic book. I would say the classic is dive Vernon.

959
00:48:32,960 --> 00:48:36,080
Speaker 3: There are lots of more recent ones, though, and you

960
00:48:36,120 --> 00:48:38,120
Speaker 3: could say, Okay, one week, I'm going to learn a

961
00:48:38,120 --> 00:48:42,799
Speaker 3: particular shuffle that gives me control over certain cards. The

962
00:48:42,840 --> 00:48:46,600
Speaker 3: next week, I'm going to learn a cut, the next week,

963
00:48:46,760 --> 00:48:50,680
Speaker 3: I'm going to learn a lift. And you know, each

964
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:53,160
Speaker 3: of these techniques then can be used in all these

965
00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:56,080
Speaker 3: different card tricks, and sometimes, like my favorite card tricks,

966
00:48:56,160 --> 00:49:00,400
Speaker 3: I use eight or nine different skills and it's a

967
00:49:00,480 --> 00:49:03,879
Speaker 3: much more exciting revelation at the end. So I think

968
00:49:04,000 --> 00:49:06,920
Speaker 3: you could create just a whole I guess it's a

969
00:49:06,960 --> 00:49:08,000
Speaker 3: different way of saying it is.

970
00:49:08,080 --> 00:49:09,399
Speaker 2: It's an investment in.

971
00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:13,239
Speaker 3: Being able to keep producing dividends on the time you

972
00:49:13,320 --> 00:49:13,960
Speaker 3: spent learning.

973
00:49:14,320 --> 00:49:18,080
Speaker 1: Yes, gosh, I feel like this has just re energized

974
00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:22,000
Speaker 1: me towards this magic goal that I have. I'm totally

975
00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:23,480
Speaker 1: going to adopt that. That's awesome.

976
00:49:23,560 --> 00:49:25,239
Speaker 2: Thank you trying it at your own risk.

977
00:49:25,560 --> 00:49:27,160
Speaker 1: Now, I know I've only got a few minutes left

978
00:49:27,160 --> 00:49:29,200
Speaker 1: with you. I did want to ask you a question

979
00:49:29,239 --> 00:49:31,960
Speaker 1: about parenting, because I know you do quite a bit

980
00:49:32,000 --> 00:49:34,520
Speaker 1: of writing in this area, and you've written two children's

981
00:49:34,520 --> 00:49:37,600
Speaker 1: books with your wife Alison, which myself and my seven

982
00:49:37,640 --> 00:49:38,440
Speaker 1: year old daughter have.

983
00:49:38,520 --> 00:49:40,040
Speaker 2: Loved and oh, thank you.

984
00:49:40,440 --> 00:49:42,360
Speaker 1: That's so good. And I want to know what are

985
00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:45,439
Speaker 1: like two or three questions that you think are really

986
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:48,279
Speaker 1: good questions to ask our children every day?

987
00:49:48,760 --> 00:49:50,480
Speaker 2: What are you trying to teach them?

988
00:49:51,040 --> 00:49:53,640
Speaker 1: I guess what I was thinking about is I read

989
00:49:53,640 --> 00:49:55,040
Speaker 1: that article. I want to say it was in The

990
00:49:55,080 --> 00:50:00,000
Speaker 1: Atlantic where you talked about the importance of raising people

991
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:01,719
Speaker 1: that are kind. And this is something that I think

992
00:50:01,760 --> 00:50:04,880
Speaker 1: a lot about with my daughter Frankie, and so, for example,

993
00:50:04,920 --> 00:50:06,680
Speaker 1: every day, and I think it was inspired by that

994
00:50:06,840 --> 00:50:10,200
Speaker 1: article that you wrote. I asked her what's something kind

995
00:50:10,239 --> 00:50:12,799
Speaker 1: that you did? And sometimes She'll say, I don't know,

996
00:50:13,160 --> 00:50:15,879
Speaker 1: And other times I'll go, well, what's something kind that

997
00:50:16,200 --> 00:50:18,680
Speaker 1: someone did for you? And how did that make you feel?

998
00:50:18,680 --> 00:50:21,759
Speaker 1: And that's literally a daily conversation that we have. So

999
00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:23,680
Speaker 1: that's what made me want to ask the question because

1000
00:50:23,680 --> 00:50:25,640
Speaker 1: I was curious, what are some other things that you're

1001
00:50:25,680 --> 00:50:30,560
Speaker 1: doing with your kids to praise them to be really good, decent,

1002
00:50:30,719 --> 00:50:31,800
Speaker 1: kind human beings.

1003
00:50:32,200 --> 00:50:34,719
Speaker 3: Well, one that I actually learned from our ten year

1004
00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:38,960
Speaker 3: old daughter, Elena is she taught our seven year old

1005
00:50:39,040 --> 00:50:43,360
Speaker 3: son Henry to every night ask us a question.

1006
00:50:44,160 --> 00:50:45,719
Speaker 2: M and vice versa.

1007
00:50:45,880 --> 00:50:49,160
Speaker 3: So we read a bad time story and then when

1008
00:50:49,200 --> 00:50:51,680
Speaker 3: it's time to turn the lights out, we each ask,

1009
00:50:51,760 --> 00:50:53,920
Speaker 3: what's your question? I think it's a beautiful way to

1010
00:50:54,000 --> 00:50:59,080
Speaker 3: encourage curiosity. But also teaching kids to ask questions is

1011
00:50:59,160 --> 00:51:03,319
Speaker 3: one of the most basic building blocks of nurturing kindness

1012
00:51:03,360 --> 00:51:06,239
Speaker 3: and a sincere interest in others. And so I think

1013
00:51:06,280 --> 00:51:08,399
Speaker 3: asking your kids what questions do you have? Or what

1014
00:51:08,480 --> 00:51:10,560
Speaker 3: question do you have today? What do you wonder about?

1015
00:51:11,400 --> 00:51:15,160
Speaker 3: What puzzled you, what intrigues you, what do you not understand?

1016
00:51:15,200 --> 00:51:16,000
Speaker 2: What do you not know?

1017
00:51:16,840 --> 00:51:19,000
Speaker 3: A great way to get them to take an interest

1018
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:21,160
Speaker 3: in others and also an interest in learning.

1019
00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:24,120
Speaker 1: That is so cool. I'm picking my daughter up from

1020
00:51:24,200 --> 00:51:27,200
Speaker 1: school in three hours and I'm so going to be

1021
00:51:27,239 --> 00:51:27,920
Speaker 1: asking her.

1022
00:51:27,800 --> 00:51:28,800
Speaker 2: That it's fun.

1023
00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:31,480
Speaker 3: She might say nothing, and then you can ask her

1024
00:51:31,520 --> 00:51:34,719
Speaker 3: a question and model the behavior, and it becomes fun

1025
00:51:34,800 --> 00:51:36,080
Speaker 3: to say, Okay, who can.

1026
00:51:36,000 --> 00:51:38,160
Speaker 2: Think of a question we've never asked before.

1027
00:51:38,880 --> 00:51:41,640
Speaker 3: So it's almost it's become like a nightly challenge to say,

1028
00:51:41,680 --> 00:51:44,480
Speaker 3: all right, we've gone through you know who's your favorite superhero?

1029
00:51:45,000 --> 00:51:49,040
Speaker 3: And you know why is Pluto no longer a Planet's

1030
00:51:49,120 --> 00:51:50,720
Speaker 3: Let's come up with something really novel.

1031
00:51:51,200 --> 00:51:54,439
Speaker 1: Now, I've got three final questions for you, and let's

1032
00:51:54,440 --> 00:51:57,359
Speaker 1: treat them as rapid fire questions. So first, I want

1033
00:51:57,360 --> 00:51:58,920
Speaker 1: to know what, like the last time I had you

1034
00:51:58,960 --> 00:52:00,440
Speaker 1: on the show. I remember I asked for it was

1035
00:52:00,719 --> 00:52:04,320
Speaker 1: your favorite research study that you've read recently, and you

1036
00:52:04,360 --> 00:52:07,799
Speaker 1: gave me a great one around how meetings and not

1037
00:52:07,880 --> 00:52:10,320
Speaker 1: batching meetings wastes a great deal of time. And I

1038
00:52:10,400 --> 00:52:12,800
Speaker 1: want to know what's your favorite research from say, the

1039
00:52:12,880 --> 00:52:15,120
Speaker 1: last year, that's made you rethink something.

1040
00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:18,319
Speaker 3: For a long time, I've believed that the reason we

1041
00:52:18,360 --> 00:52:22,799
Speaker 3: get so many narcissists and leadership positions is organizations are

1042
00:52:22,800 --> 00:52:26,000
Speaker 3: designed to reward people who kiss up and kick down

1043
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:31,840
Speaker 3: and who who project confidence as a false signal of confidence.

1044
00:52:32,520 --> 00:52:33,920
Speaker 2: And I've had to.

1045
00:52:33,880 --> 00:52:39,080
Speaker 3: Rethink that because there was a fascinating Dutch study that

1046
00:52:39,200 --> 00:52:45,960
Speaker 3: came out this year showing that narcissistic leaders are even

1047
00:52:46,120 --> 00:52:51,359
Speaker 3: popular in elementary school classrooms ages seven to fourteen that

1048
00:52:52,239 --> 00:52:56,160
Speaker 3: I think the original The data were hundreds of kids

1049
00:52:56,160 --> 00:52:59,480
Speaker 3: in twenty three different classrooms, and in twenty two of

1050
00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:03,359
Speaker 3: those classes rooms, then most narcissistic kids were more likely

1051
00:53:03,400 --> 00:53:06,720
Speaker 3: to be nominated as leaders, and they also rated themselves

1052
00:53:06,719 --> 00:53:09,480
Speaker 3: as better leaders even though they weren't any better at leadership.

1053
00:53:09,800 --> 00:53:12,239
Speaker 3: And I guess what I've rethought there is I thought

1054
00:53:12,360 --> 00:53:15,319
Speaker 3: this was a problem with our workplaces, and now I

1055
00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:18,839
Speaker 3: think it's a much more fundamental problem with the way

1056
00:53:18,880 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 3: that we teach, the way that we organize both kids

1057
00:53:22,120 --> 00:53:25,680
Speaker 3: and adults into hierarchies, the way that we put a

1058
00:53:25,719 --> 00:53:29,719
Speaker 3: premium on confidence instead of humility. And so I think

1059
00:53:29,760 --> 00:53:32,720
Speaker 3: that we need to counter the preference for narcissistic leaders

1060
00:53:32,800 --> 00:53:34,600
Speaker 3: much earlier than I thought before.

1061
00:53:35,400 --> 00:53:39,040
Speaker 1: That is fascinating. Tell me you read so many books.

1062
00:53:39,320 --> 00:53:41,800
Speaker 1: What is a book that you've read in the last

1063
00:53:42,080 --> 00:53:45,080
Speaker 1: year that made you rethink something and that you'd recommend

1064
00:53:45,080 --> 00:53:46,200
Speaker 1: that other people read as well.

1065
00:53:47,560 --> 00:53:48,520
Speaker 2: Oh, there are a lot of those.

1066
00:53:48,600 --> 00:53:51,520
Speaker 3: I think Untamed by Glennon Doyle is an easy one, though.

1067
00:53:52,280 --> 00:53:55,480
Speaker 3: Glennon is I think one of the most gifted writers

1068
00:53:55,480 --> 00:53:57,719
Speaker 3: on earth. And I shouldn't even say gifted because that

1069
00:53:57,920 --> 00:54:01,600
Speaker 3: suggests that it just came to her natural, when I

1070
00:54:01,640 --> 00:54:05,960
Speaker 3: know she's worked extraordinarily hard to have such a brilliant

1071
00:54:06,120 --> 00:54:12,680
Speaker 3: and poignant voice. And one thing that I rethought based

1072
00:54:12,719 --> 00:54:15,600
Speaker 3: on reading her book is my view of happiness.

1073
00:54:16,320 --> 00:54:18,200
Speaker 2: There's a line that stopped me in my tracks.

1074
00:54:18,800 --> 00:54:21,840
Speaker 3: I think the exact quote is being human is not

1075
00:54:21,960 --> 00:54:24,719
Speaker 3: about feeling happy, it's about feeling everything.

1076
00:54:25,680 --> 00:54:26,840
Speaker 1: What a great quote.

1077
00:54:27,520 --> 00:54:30,759
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the book is full of observations like that,

1078
00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:35,160
Speaker 3: and it really made me pause to say, well, what

1079
00:54:35,200 --> 00:54:37,319
Speaker 3: am I doing here? Am I limiting my range of

1080
00:54:37,320 --> 00:54:41,840
Speaker 3: experience by pursuing happiness? And am I encouraging other people

1081
00:54:41,880 --> 00:54:42,880
Speaker 3: to make the same mistake.

1082
00:54:43,719 --> 00:54:46,280
Speaker 1: My final question for you, Adam, is a very easy

1083
00:54:46,280 --> 00:54:49,319
Speaker 1: one for people that want to consume more of what

1084
00:54:49,480 --> 00:54:52,080
Speaker 1: you are doing and also get their hands on a

1085
00:54:52,120 --> 00:54:54,480
Speaker 1: copy of Think Again. How should people do that?

1086
00:54:55,200 --> 00:54:57,680
Speaker 2: Oh, it's extremely kind of you to ask.

1087
00:54:57,920 --> 00:55:00,200
Speaker 3: I would say the easy way is to go to

1088
00:55:00,200 --> 00:55:03,359
Speaker 3: Adam grant dot net. There's a free quizy you can

1089
00:55:03,400 --> 00:55:08,160
Speaker 3: take to figure out your style of rethinking, and a

1090
00:55:08,200 --> 00:55:11,080
Speaker 3: discussion guide for the book, and a bunch of other

1091
00:55:11,080 --> 00:55:13,360
Speaker 3: information that may or may not be of interest.

1092
00:55:14,040 --> 00:55:16,960
Speaker 1: Amazing, And people can subscribe to your newsletter there as well,

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Speaker 1: which is one of the newsletters that I get that

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Speaker 1: I actually look forward to receiving. It's always just awesome. Oh,

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Speaker 1: thank you, pleasure, Adam, Thank you so much for coming

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Speaker 1: on the show again. It's just such a highlight and

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Speaker 1: privileged to chat to you, so thank you so much,

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Speaker 1: my pleasure. That is it for today's show. If you

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Speaker 1: enjoyed it, why not share it with someone that you

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Speaker 1: think would also enjoy it. And next week on How

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Speaker 1: I Work, I am very excited to have Naomi Bagdonus

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Speaker 1: on the show. Naomi teaches humor, yes, of course, on

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Speaker 1: humor for Stanford Business School, and we get into the

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Speaker 1: mechanics of how to telligence and how to just be funnier.

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00:56:02,680 --> 00:56:06,360
Speaker 1: So if you're keen to hear about that, hit subscribe

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00:56:06,560 --> 00:56:09,319
Speaker 1: or follow wherever you're listening to this podcast from and

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Speaker 1: you'll be alerted when that episode drops. How I Work

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Speaker 1: is produced by Inventium with production support from Dead Set Studios.

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Speaker 1: The producer for this episode was the marvelous Jenna Coda,

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Speaker 1: and thank you to Martin Nimba who did the audio

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00:56:24,000 --> 00:56:27,960
Speaker 1: mix and makes everything sound better than it would have otherwise.

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Speaker 1: That's all for today and I'll see you next time.