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Speaker 1: The power comes when you get to roll up those

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Speaker 1: numbers and see in black and white, like how much

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Speaker 1: time did I really spend in the last quarter doing email?

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Speaker 2: And you you know, you got.

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Speaker 1: To look yourself in the mirror at that point and say,

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Speaker 1: ten years from now, do I want to be the

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Speaker 1: person who spent one thousand hours doing email?

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Speaker 3: Welcome to How I Work, a show about the tactics

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Speaker 3: used by the world's most successful people to get so

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Speaker 3: much out of their day. I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imba.

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Speaker 3: I'm an organizational psychologist, the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium,

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Speaker 3: and I'm obsessed with finding ways to optimize my work day.

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Speaker 3: Today's show is a best of episode of How I Work,

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Speaker 3: where I go back through the archives and I've picked

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Speaker 3: out one of my favorite episodes from this year. But

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Speaker 3: before we get into that, just a couple of little

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Speaker 3: housekeeping things. Firstly, I'm always keen to get listener questions,

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Speaker 3: and I'm going to be doing a few episodes that

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Speaker 3: are all based around questions that are on your mind

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Speaker 3: about productivity and work and maybe even the future of

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Speaker 3: work in this crazy world that we're in. So if

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Speaker 3: you've got something on your mind that you'd like me

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Speaker 3: to answer or dig into research around, send me a

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Speaker 3: note at Amantha at Inventium dot com dot au and

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Speaker 3: my email is always in the show notes as well.

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Speaker 3: And if you're enjoying How I Work, why not share

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Speaker 3: the love and tell other people about it. It's one

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Speaker 3: of the ways that this podcast has grown so much

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Speaker 3: in the last couple of years. So thank you to

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Speaker 3: everyone that does talk about How I Work. It's hugely appreciated.

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Speaker 3: And also thank you to the hundreds of people that

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Speaker 3: have left reviews for How I Work. It's so lovely

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Speaker 3: getting your feedback. So thank you. All right, let's get

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Speaker 3: on to today's show and on this best of episode,

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Speaker 3: I am so excited to have Dan Heath on the show,

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Speaker 3: so if you haven't come across Dwan Heath. Dan is

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Speaker 3: the co author, along with his brother Chip, of four

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Speaker 3: New York Times bestsellers, which are Decisive, Switch, Made to

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Speaker 3: Stick and the Power of Moments. The Heath Brothers books

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Speaker 3: have sold over three million copies worldwide and have been

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Speaker 3: translated into thirty three languages. Dan is a senior fellow

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Speaker 3: at Duke University's Case Center, which supports social entrepreneurs and

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Speaker 3: The book that he released this year in twenty twenty

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Speaker 3: was an amazing book called Upstream, which is all about

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Speaker 3: solving problems before they actually happen. So we took about

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Speaker 3: a bunch of different strategies in this book. We certainly

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Speaker 3: delve into some strategies around solving problems before they happen,

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Speaker 3: and things like how Dan overcame his procrastination tendencies and

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Speaker 3: how he has become such an awesome writer. I just

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Speaker 3: love this chat with Dan. I hope you will too,

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Speaker 3: So on that note, let's head to Dan to hear

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Speaker 3: about how he works. Dan. Welcome to the show.

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Speaker 2: Hey, thanks so much, thanks for having me on.

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Speaker 3: I must say I feel quite starstruck talking to you

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Speaker 3: because I've read all of your books, and I must

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Speaker 3: say Decisive in the Power of Moments would make it

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Speaker 3: into my top ten business books list of all times.

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Speaker 3: So you've just had an enormously huge impact on me

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Speaker 3: and how I think.

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Speaker 2: So thank you so much. I appreciate that.

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Speaker 3: And I've just finished reading Upstream, which is obviously your

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Speaker 3: latest book, and I think before we delve into that,

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Speaker 3: it'd be great to just hear from you. What's the

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Speaker 3: premise behind Upstream?

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Speaker 1: The premise of upstream is very simple. Actually, it's the

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Speaker 1: realization that so many of us in life get caught

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Speaker 1: in this cycle of reaction. You know, we're constantly reacting

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Speaker 1: to problems and putting out fires and responding to emergencies,

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Speaker 1: and we can actually live a long time that way.

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Speaker 1: It becomes an almost self perpetuating cycle because the energy

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Speaker 1: that we need to put out all these fires is

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Speaker 1: precisely the energy that we would have needed to pause

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Speaker 1: and solve some of these at the systems level. And

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Speaker 1: so upstream is about the idea, can we learn to

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Speaker 1: escape the cycle of reaction and began to stop problems

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Speaker 1: before they happen. And that's what I mean by that

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Speaker 1: word upstream. That's so often we're downstream and reaction mode,

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Speaker 1: when we have the ability, if we seize it, to

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Speaker 1: move upstream and prevent things.

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Speaker 3: I must say it's already started influencing my thinking about

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Speaker 3: just how I think about problems at work. And I

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Speaker 3: know how we got connected was actually through the book.

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Speaker 3: And you use an example of how I tried to

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Speaker 3: solve a problem at my work probably going back about

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Speaker 3: five years ago in relation to what you call the

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Speaker 3: Cobbra effects. So at Inventium, the innovation consultancy that I

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Speaker 3: founded quite a few years ago. Now, we were in

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Speaker 3: the process of moving office and I wanted to create

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Speaker 3: this beautiful open plan environment. We basically got this warehouse shell,

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Speaker 3: so it was ours to do what we want with

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Speaker 3: the design. And you know, it's this beautiful kind of

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Speaker 3: four meter twelve foot ceilings, lots of natural light. We

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Speaker 3: got these two big custom made wooden tables where we

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Speaker 3: all sit around. It's all very communal, and I thought,

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Speaker 3: won't that be great for collaboration and you know, working together,

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Speaker 3: because after all, we're an innovation agency, so that's kind

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Speaker 3: of what we do. And it turned out to be

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Speaker 3: an absolutely terrible decision, like the open plan office is

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Speaker 3: impossible to get any work done. And then, funnily enough,

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Speaker 3: in I think I was in twenty eighteen, some researchers

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Speaker 3: from Harvard published some research which which I came across,

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Speaker 3: which talk about how face to face collaboration actually decreases

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Speaker 3: quite substantially by about seventy something percent in open plan environments,

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Speaker 3: yet digital communication so emails and instant messenger, increases by

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Speaker 3: about the same amount. And I kind of thought, ah, yes,

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Speaker 3: that is exactly what has happened here, and then as

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Speaker 3: a result, the problem that we now have is that

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Speaker 3: most days most people choose to work from anywhere but

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Speaker 3: the office when they're trying to do deep focused work.

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Speaker 3: So I'm curious, like, what your reaction was where when

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Speaker 3: you came across this story of mine, and how we

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Speaker 3: can use that to I guess, improve our ability to

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Speaker 3: go upstream.

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Speaker 1: Well, the reason I was so struck by your story

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Speaker 1: and included in the book is because it kind of

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Speaker 1: relates to one of my own greatest surprises in researching

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Speaker 1: this book. And I'll admit when I first started researching upstream,

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Speaker 1: my mental model was I'm going to go out and

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Speaker 1: find people who are really good at preventing problems, and

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Speaker 1: I'm going to shine a spotlight on their work. And

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Speaker 1: my mental model was, Hey, once people see that this

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Speaker 1: is possible, we're all going to say, you know, we're

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Speaker 1: idiots to be stuck in reaction mode all the time.

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Speaker 1: Of course, so we should be doing this. Look at

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Speaker 1: how easy it is. And when I got into the research,

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Speaker 1: what surprised me was, yes, there were people who were succeeding.

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Speaker 2: I talk about a lot of them in the book.

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Speaker 1: But there are also a lot of people that were

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Speaker 1: trying and failing to prevent problems. And so as I

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Speaker 1: got deeper, I came to respect that. While I still

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Speaker 1: remain a firm advocate that we need to shift our

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Speaker 1: attention upstream, it's incredibly difficult for a variety of reasons

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Speaker 1: that I talk about in the book and that we

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Speaker 1: can talk about here live. It's hard to do systems thinking.

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Speaker 1: It's hard to get ahead of problems and to reverse

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Speaker 1: engineer them. And in your situation, it's a classic example

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Speaker 1: where you know your goal is to do something upstream.

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Speaker 1: You want to increase collaboration among your staffers, and so

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Speaker 1: you're thinking.

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Speaker 2: Well, how do I do that?

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Speaker 1: How do I design an environment where people we'll talk more?

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Speaker 1: And you came to the obvious conclusion, Well, if we

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Speaker 1: have an open office floorplan, people will be closer together,

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Speaker 1: there'll be no barriers with them. It won't be a

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty style cubicle environment. Of course, they'll talk more.

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Speaker 1: And a lot of other fortune five hundred companies had

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Speaker 1: exactly the same instinct that you did, and it all

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Speaker 1: made perfect sense until you get in that environment and

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Speaker 1: you realize, oh gosh, there's all these counter dynamics where

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Speaker 1: it's just like being on an airplane. It's not that

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Speaker 1: going on an airplane means we're more likely to talk

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Speaker 1: to the people next to us. It's probably the opposite

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Speaker 1: that going on an airplane and being trapped against people

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Speaker 1: that close to us in physical proximity makes us want

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Speaker 1: to put on our headphones or give them a really

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Speaker 1: impassive look that deters them from trying to talk to us.

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Speaker 1: And so that to me is a kind of system

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Speaker 1: a symbol rather of what's complicated about systems thinking and

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Speaker 1: why it can be so difficult to accomplish our good intentions.

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Speaker 1: And so I came to appreciate the fact that while

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Speaker 1: while good intentions are necessary and why we need this

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Speaker 1: upstream instinct, we also need to kind of be aware

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Speaker 1: what we're up against. And I think in your situation

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Speaker 1: and a lot of others, maybe one possible moral of

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Speaker 1: the story is that our intuition is never going to

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Speaker 1: be good enough to help us guess what the right

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Speaker 1: answer is, no matter how obvious it seems. And in

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Speaker 1: your shoes, I would have thought exactly the same thing.

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Speaker 1: If I had to put down money on a study,

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Speaker 1: will an open office floor plan increase communication. Of course

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Speaker 1: I'm betting on that. I mean, it's just basic sociology.

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Speaker 1: But in this case, there were dynamics we couldn't foresee,

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Speaker 1: and maybe the only way to have foreseen them was

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Speaker 1: to figure out some way to experiment with it in advance.

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Speaker 1: So I'm curious whether whether you take the same moral

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Speaker 1: away or whether you think about it differently on and.

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Speaker 3: The irony is, we experiment on everything, and we teach

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Speaker 3: experimentation to our clients. It's such a fundamental part of

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Speaker 3: what we do and how we think. And it's interesting.

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Speaker 3: I've recently just launched this year long project called My

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Speaker 3: Year of Better, which is basically, every week, I'm going

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Speaker 3: to try a different experiment on some strategy that is

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Speaker 3: meant to make life better. Experimentation is so fundamental to

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Speaker 3: what we do. But gosh, this was five years ago

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Speaker 3: and experimentation was probably slightly less a focus of what

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Speaker 3: we do. So I mean, now one hundred percent would

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Speaker 3: move straight to experimentation. Something that always strikes me about

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Speaker 3: your books, and I was particularly interested in this decision

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Speaker 3: for Upstream is the language that you use and the

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Speaker 3: labels that you give to things. I find it's always

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Speaker 3: so precise and unique and sticky, which is kind of

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Speaker 3: not surprising given that you wrote the book on stickiness,

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Speaker 3: Made to Stick. And I want to know in the

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Speaker 3: case of Upstream, because for me, and I think for

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Speaker 3: most people reading it, like when you get into it,

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Speaker 3: you kind of go, of course, it has to be

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Speaker 3: called upstream, but I think when you start researching that concept,

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Speaker 3: it's not necessarily the obvious title, and you talk about

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Speaker 3: how you know you deliberately didn't call it something around

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Speaker 3: prevention or proactivity. And I want to know, like, what's

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Speaker 3: your process in thinking of like the firstly, the title

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Speaker 3: of a book. I'm always so curious about that, and

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Speaker 3: I think that the titles of all your books are

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Speaker 3: just brilliant, but also then the labels that you give

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Speaker 3: to things within the book. So I'd love to know

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Speaker 3: a bit more about your process and perhaps for Upstream,

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Speaker 3: how did you come to arriving at that for the title?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, good question. Let me take that in two parts.

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Speaker 1: I'm realizing even as we're talking, I've been throwing around

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Speaker 1: this word upstream left and right, and I should probably

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Speaker 1: give people some context for what is this word and

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Speaker 1: where did it come from? And the origin is from

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Speaker 1: a parable that's become well known in public health. It's

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Speaker 1: originally attributed to a sociologist named Irving Zola, and it

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Speaker 1: goes like this.

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Speaker 2: So you and a friend.

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Speaker 1: Are having a picnic by the side of a river,

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Speaker 1: and just as you've laid out your food and you're

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Speaker 1: getting comfortable, you hear a shout behind you from the

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Speaker 1: river and you look back and there's a child and

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Speaker 1: the river drowning, I mean, thrashing about, and so you

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Speaker 1: and your friend just instinctively dive in, grab the child,

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Speaker 1: bring them to shore, and just as you're adrenaline level

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Speaker 1: so they're starting to subside, you hear another shout and

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Speaker 1: you look back and there's another child in the river.

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Speaker 1: So you dive back in save that child. And no

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Speaker 1: sooner have you gotten them to the shore, that you

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Speaker 1: hear two more shouts. There are two children in the

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Speaker 1: river now, And so begins a kind of revolving door

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Speaker 1: of life saving. And you're gradually getting weary and you're

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Speaker 1: not sure you can keep up with the demand. And

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Speaker 1: then you notice your friend swimming towards shore and stepping

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Speaker 1: out as if to leave you alone, and you say, hey,

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Speaker 1: where are you going, I can't do this alone. All

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Speaker 1: these kids are drowning, and your friend says, well, I'm

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Speaker 1: going to go upstream and tackle the guy that's thrown

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Speaker 1: all these kids in the river. And that's kind of

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Speaker 1: the perfect symbol of what this book is about. That

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Speaker 1: we come to accept our downstream position. We take it

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Speaker 1: for granted that our job is to keep fishing drowning

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Speaker 1: kids out of the river, and we never make the

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Speaker 1: space or reach the conclusion that we could have prevented

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Speaker 1: that from happening. Now to your question about the terminology,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I will admit, as an author, you know,

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Speaker 1: titling a book something like Upstream, which ninety nine out

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Speaker 1: of one hundred people couldn't define other than in the

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Speaker 1: kind of literal sense of it. You know, my publisher

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Speaker 1: was worried some people would think this was a fishing

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Speaker 1: book or something. It's terrifying, you know, to name something upstream,

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Speaker 1: But it was so central to the book that I

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Speaker 1: thought it was worth the gamble, honestly. And the reason

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Speaker 1: why I chose Upstream over something like prevention because in

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Speaker 1: many ways this is a book about prevention, and in

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Speaker 1: a way I'm trying to kind of sex up the

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Speaker 1: very idea of prevention, which which has these kind of worrying,

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Speaker 1: nannyish overtones to it that I think are completely wrong.

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Speaker 1: But one reason I appreciate it upstream as distinct from

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Speaker 1: something like being proactive or being preventive, is because of

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Speaker 1: the stream metaphor. And what I like about it is

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Speaker 1: the way that it suggests to us that upstream is

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Speaker 1: a direction. You know, in the parable there are two locations,

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Speaker 1: there's downstream and there's upstream. But in the book, what

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Speaker 1: I explain is is upstream is actually just a never

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Speaker 1: ending spectrum. And I give an example of a specific problem.

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Speaker 1: My parents had their home broken in two years ago,

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Speaker 1: and I.

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Speaker 2: Talk about how.

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Speaker 1: Could you could have prevented that break in on radically

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Speaker 1: different time scales, you know, from seconds before, if there

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Speaker 1: had been a piercing loud alarm that would have triggered

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Speaker 1: when the burglars kicked down the door, maybe that would

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Speaker 1: have prevented it all the way through hours, through days,

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Speaker 1: through months, through years, even decades before. I talk about

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Speaker 1: the research of this guy named Richard Trimblay who suggests

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Speaker 1: that the best time to prevent crime is by intervening

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Speaker 1: with the pregnant mothers who are carrying the future quote

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Speaker 1: unquote criminals. And what he means is that many of

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Speaker 1: the things that especially high risk mothers have to contend

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Speaker 1: with poor environmental conditions, poor nutrition, damaging relationships, depression, and more,

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Speaker 1: many of those things which are associated with the aggressive

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Speaker 1: instincts of their children can be changed. That you can

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Speaker 1: actually nurture high risk pregnant women in a way that

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Speaker 1: twenty years later might result in their child going to

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Speaker 1: college rather than breaking into someone's house. And so I

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Speaker 1: love that kind of stretching of our minds that comes

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Speaker 1: with that mental model, that it's not a question of

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Speaker 1: you know, one or two downstream or upstream, it's a

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Speaker 1: question of how far upstream can we go and should

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Speaker 1: we go? And preventing problems.

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Speaker 3: I think, like, I mean, it works perfectly as the title.

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Speaker 3: But that's interesting hearing you talk about how the publisher

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Speaker 3: thought it was a risk, which I can understand that

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Speaker 3: as well. Well.

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Speaker 2: Now if it's sold aid copies, we know it.

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Speaker 3: Was was right. Yeah, I want to know because writing

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Speaker 3: a book for you, I've heard you talk about it

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Speaker 3: being about a three year process. I guess from inception

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Speaker 3: of the idea research, writing, and then all that comes

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Speaker 3: with publicity. So that's a long time to be sitting

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Speaker 3: with an idea like upstream. And you know, I imagine

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Speaker 3: you know when when you're writing a book like this,

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Speaker 3: it's always front of mine, probably with your life. And

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Speaker 3: I want to know what are some of the most

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Speaker 3: significant changes or impactful changes, let's say that you've made

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Speaker 3: to your own life to focus more on the stream.

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Speaker 1: There's kind of two levels. Well, at the trivial level,

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Speaker 1: it's made me much more cognizant of recurring irritance. So

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Speaker 1: I'll tell you one that literally just occurred to me

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Speaker 1: this morning. So I woke up at six fifteen in

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Speaker 1: the morning. I have a sixteen month old who usually

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Speaker 1: is the alarm clock in the family, and today it

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Speaker 1: was kind of my turn to get up and get her.

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Speaker 1: And so I'm waking up. It's in the dark, and

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Speaker 1: I'm trying to get my clothes on. And one thing

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Speaker 1: that happens to me all the time I'm getting up,

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Speaker 1: I'm trying to put on my clothes in the dark

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Speaker 1: so I don't wake up my wife.

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Speaker 2: And how do I put my shirt on? You know?

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Speaker 1: Is it inside out? Is it right side out? And

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Speaker 1: you've got to get the front from the back, but

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Speaker 1: I can't see the tag in the dark. I can't see,

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Speaker 1: you know, the letters on the front of the shirt

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Speaker 1: in the dark, and so I'm just kind of taking

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Speaker 1: a stab. And for some reason, my experience is that

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Speaker 1: virtually nine times out of ten I guess wrong. And

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Speaker 1: then I'm kind of irritated because maybe you wake up

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Speaker 1: happier in the morning than I do, but I'm already irritable,

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Speaker 1: and then I get my shirt on back words and

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Speaker 1: I feel like a chump. And so I was thinking,

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Speaker 1: this is exactly the kind of thing that you just

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Speaker 1: sort of live with, that you don't have to live with.

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Speaker 1: And so I've hatched this idea now where every night

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Speaker 1: I'm going to lay my shirt down in the same

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Speaker 1: way so that in the morning, when i have to

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Speaker 1: do this automatically in the dark, I'll know exactly what

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Speaker 1: orientation it's at. And you know, it's not like I'm

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Speaker 1: going to win a Nobel Prize for that for that

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Speaker 1: dramatic insight, but it's it's an example of how downstream

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Speaker 1: reaction can become habitual, even even when it's at a

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Speaker 1: recurring disadvantage to us. Now at the at the broader level,

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Speaker 1: I think what it's made me think about is my

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Speaker 1: priorities in life and how to ensure that the structure

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Speaker 1: of my days and the way I spend my time

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Speaker 1: is aligned with those, which, of course is just a

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Speaker 1: classic difficulty, especially for your you know, small business listeners

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Speaker 1: or entrepreneurial listeners, trying to you know, to go back

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Speaker 1: to that classic two by two, how to make sure

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Speaker 1: you don't collect the important but not urgent things in

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Speaker 1: your life, which I'm sure you've talked about many times

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Speaker 1: on the show. And so I've begun to become relentless

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Speaker 1: about time tracking, which is not natural to me. I'm

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Speaker 1: not kind of a you know, genetically organized person, so

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Speaker 1: it took some growing pains to get into the habit

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Speaker 1: of tracking my time. And then about once every quarter

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Speaker 1: I just look and I just have broad categories. You know,

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Speaker 1: how much time did I spend writing, how much time

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Speaker 1: did I spend speaking or teaching, how much time did

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Speaker 1: I spend doing email? And kind of the big buckets,

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Speaker 1: at least for me, of ways I spend my time.

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Speaker 1: And then I start to try to move those numbers,

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Speaker 1: and for me, I know what makes me happy, and

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Speaker 1: what makes me satisfied is to spend as much time

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Speaker 1: as I can speaking.

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Speaker 2: And writing, actually in reverse order, writing first and.

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Speaker 1: Speaking second, and everything else in a way is to

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Speaker 1: be minimized. I mean, there's a certain amount of email

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Speaker 1: that I have to do just to continue relationships, but

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Speaker 1: I don't want to. I don't want to spend a

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Speaker 1: lot of time doing email. And there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: other commitments, you know, things I said yes to that

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Speaker 1: I often end up regretting saying yes to. And and

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Speaker 1: there's something about looking at the numbers, uh and seeing

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Speaker 1: that you can move the numbers in your own time

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Speaker 1: expenditures that's very motivating to me in a way I

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Speaker 1: wouldn't have guessed as a non organized, non numbers focused person.

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Speaker 1: And so that's an example of where I'm trying to

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Speaker 1: use kind of the the technology of personal productivity to

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Speaker 1: carve out space for the things that are really important.

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Speaker 3: M I love that. Yeah, I had Laura Vandicam on

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Speaker 3: the show. I feel like it's kind of the queen

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Speaker 3: of time tracking quite a while ago, and I'm wondering

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Speaker 3: what's like to get granular about it. What's your process

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Speaker 3: for time tracking and using software, or using an Excel spreadsheet?

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Speaker 3: What is that? What does that look like?

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Speaker 2: I do?

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Speaker 1: I use an app called Toggle. I'm just going to

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Speaker 1: be the endorser for Toggle, although I'm not a very

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Speaker 1: good endorser because I use the Freebee.

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Speaker 2: Version of the system.

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Speaker 1: But I suspect there's you know, half a dozen others

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Speaker 1: that do the same thing. And it's just the kind

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Speaker 1: of thing where you go and you set up your

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Speaker 1: categories and then when you start something like if I

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Speaker 1: start a writing shift in the morning, I just have

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Speaker 1: to go and kind.

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Speaker 2: Of click a button.

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Speaker 1: It's super easy, but the payoff comes if you're relentless.

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Speaker 2: About doing it.

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Speaker 1: The power comes when you get to roll up those

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Speaker 1: numbers and see in black and white, like how much

401
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Speaker 1: time did I really spend in the last quarter doing email?

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Speaker 1: And you you know, you got to look yourself in

403
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Speaker 1: the mirror at that point and say, ten years from now,

404
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Speaker 1: do I want to be the person who spent a

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Speaker 1: thousand hours doing email? And then that opens the door

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Speaker 1: to change.

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Speaker 3: That's awesome and I like that distinction between the two

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Speaker 3: types of upstream thinking that you've applied in your life.

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Speaker 3: I remember reading in the book the story about how

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Speaker 3: you bought a second computer, cha Ja, And I was

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Speaker 3: wondering if you could talk about that, And also I

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Speaker 3: was curious because that then led to you talking about

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Speaker 3: how you do a lot of your best work in

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Speaker 3: coffee shops. So perhaps could you explain what happened with

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Speaker 3: just that very simple upstream solution there.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, this is a This is another from

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Speaker 1: the category of recurring irritants that we just for some

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Speaker 1: reason endore. So I have a proper office with a

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Speaker 1: proper desk, but for whatever reason, I do my best

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Speaker 1: writing in coffee shops. And that's that's always been the case.

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Speaker 1: And I have my regular routines. I try to sit

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Speaker 1: in the same table, and I put my headphones on,

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Speaker 1: and that's just kind of where what.

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Speaker 2: Works for me.

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Speaker 1: But as part of that, you know, I'm lugging my

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Speaker 1: laptop around, and so every time I go to the

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Speaker 1: coffee shop, you know, I got to fish my power

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Speaker 1: cord out of the bag, plug it into the wall,

429
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Speaker 1: finish my shift, and then I come back to my

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Speaker 1: office to do email or calls or whatever, and then

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Speaker 1: I got to fish the power cord out of the bag.

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Speaker 2: Again and plug it into the wall.

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Speaker 1: And I've got one hundred cords going from my desk,

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Speaker 1: so it's always just a little bit of a nuisance.

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Speaker 1: And and this just seemed like that's the way reality

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Speaker 1: has to be. You've got to constantly be doing this

437
00:23:03,600 --> 00:23:06,760
Speaker 1: with your power chord. And then, I'm embarrassed to say

438
00:23:06,880 --> 00:23:09,359
Speaker 1: it took being in the process of writing a book

439
00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:13,480
Speaker 1: called Upstream to make me think, hmm, what if? What

440
00:23:13,600 --> 00:23:15,800
Speaker 1: if I lived in a world where I had two

441
00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:19,760
Speaker 1: power chords? And so I know you're all astonished by

442
00:23:19,880 --> 00:23:22,200
Speaker 1: my genius, but I bought a second power chord and

443
00:23:22,720 --> 00:23:25,080
Speaker 1: I fixed one of them permanently to my desk. So

444
00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:27,480
Speaker 1: now it's just a trivial matter of setting my laptop

445
00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:29,240
Speaker 1: in and I move it a quarter of an inch

446
00:23:29,280 --> 00:23:32,320
Speaker 1: to plug it in, and another one lives always in

447
00:23:32,400 --> 00:23:37,400
Speaker 1: my laptop bag. And so again, you know, no great insight,

448
00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:40,480
Speaker 1: there no great need for creativity. It was just kind

449
00:23:40,520 --> 00:23:44,359
Speaker 1: of a flash of recognition. And in the book I

450
00:23:44,400 --> 00:23:48,600
Speaker 1: talk about the force that explains why this is so uncommon.

451
00:23:49,040 --> 00:23:51,840
Speaker 1: You know, why did it take me writing a book

452
00:23:51,880 --> 00:23:54,160
Speaker 1: about prevention to even think about this?

453
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:55,440
Speaker 2: And it has to do.

454
00:23:55,400 --> 00:23:58,720
Speaker 1: With a force called tunneling, and tunneling is a word

455
00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:02,720
Speaker 1: from a book called Scarcity written by El dar Shafir

456
00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:05,840
Speaker 1: and Sinndel Mull and Nathan And what they mean by

457
00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:09,439
Speaker 1: tunneling is they say, when we're juggling a lot of

458
00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:13,240
Speaker 1: problems in life, at a certain point we give up

459
00:24:13,280 --> 00:24:15,919
Speaker 1: trying to solve them all and we shift our mental

460
00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:19,840
Speaker 1: model into what's effectively tunnel vision. I mean, just call

461
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:22,640
Speaker 1: up that visual image in your mind. You're in a tunnel.

462
00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:26,680
Speaker 1: You're just trying to knock things down one at a time.

463
00:24:26,840 --> 00:24:29,199
Speaker 1: You know, in a tunnel, the only way you can

464
00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:31,639
Speaker 1: go is backward and forward, and for most of us,

465
00:24:31,680 --> 00:24:34,080
Speaker 1: forward is the only direction. And so what that means

466
00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:39,040
Speaker 1: is I've got to constantly be parrying the problems that

467
00:24:39,119 --> 00:24:41,320
Speaker 1: I'm dealing with. I'm going to work around to get

468
00:24:41,320 --> 00:24:45,400
Speaker 1: to the next one. And tunneling becomes, you know, one

469
00:24:45,440 --> 00:24:50,359
Speaker 1: of these self reinforcing habits. Because when you're in a

470
00:24:50,359 --> 00:24:52,600
Speaker 1: tunnel and you're used to tunneling and only question is

471
00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:53,720
Speaker 1: how far forward can you get?

472
00:24:53,720 --> 00:24:54,200
Speaker 2: In a day?

473
00:24:54,480 --> 00:24:57,639
Speaker 1: You stop asking, hey, am I going the right direction

474
00:24:57,760 --> 00:25:00,879
Speaker 1: at all? Or is there a or tunnel that I

475
00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:02,600
Speaker 1: could put myself in, or is there a way I

476
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:04,399
Speaker 1: can step out of this tunnel? For an hour a

477
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:09,240
Speaker 1: day and consider some of my behaviors. And so tunneling

478
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:11,800
Speaker 1: is one of the villains, if you will, in the

479
00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:16,000
Speaker 1: book that helps to explain why it's so uncommon or

480
00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:18,159
Speaker 1: unnatural to shift into upstream thinking.

481
00:25:18,880 --> 00:25:24,320
Speaker 3: It's really interesting. Since reading the book, I've actually developed

482
00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:28,320
Speaker 3: a list on my to do list software of things

483
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:32,720
Speaker 3: that I am doing repetitively in terms of every week,

484
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:37,640
Speaker 3: but that I find either mine normally boring or irritating,

485
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:40,200
Speaker 3: or something that I could either outsource or find a solution.

486
00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:43,040
Speaker 3: And then what I'm planning to do is weekly review

487
00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:45,840
Speaker 3: that list and try to think more upstream.

488
00:25:46,359 --> 00:25:48,920
Speaker 1: You had any easy wins, like any second power chord

489
00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:50,360
Speaker 1: kind of stories.

490
00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:53,639
Speaker 3: Well, well, it's funny because I do have a second

491
00:25:53,720 --> 00:25:57,240
Speaker 3: power chord story, but that happened before the book. So

492
00:25:57,480 --> 00:26:00,879
Speaker 3: in my home office setup, it's funny, like you, I

493
00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:03,720
Speaker 3: do my best work in coffee shops, but in my

494
00:26:03,720 --> 00:26:06,720
Speaker 3: home office setup, I've got the rooms kind of split

495
00:26:06,760 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 3: in half, and half of it is the podcast studio

496
00:26:10,280 --> 00:26:13,440
Speaker 3: with the soundproofing barriers and so forth, and the other

497
00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 3: half is where I would do normal work like writing

498
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 3: or something like that. And I used to only have

499
00:26:20,080 --> 00:26:24,600
Speaker 3: one power cord and I would move it between both

500
00:26:24,640 --> 00:26:27,280
Speaker 3: sides of the office, and it struck me that that

501
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:30,600
Speaker 3: was quite annoying, having to go under the desk and

502
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:33,240
Speaker 3: find the right cord and so forth. And so I

503
00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:35,440
Speaker 3: too bought a second power cord.

504
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:39,640
Speaker 2: A non expli association of people.

505
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:44,760
Speaker 3: I know, I know exactly. I feel like Apple and

506
00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:47,320
Speaker 3: missing a trick by, you know, not bundling in two

507
00:26:47,400 --> 00:26:51,160
Speaker 3: power cords into the one package. But I think that's great,

508
00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:54,879
Speaker 3: just the idea of thinking about recurring irritance in your life.

509
00:26:55,520 --> 00:26:57,240
Speaker 3: I don't want to delve into the coffee shop thing.

510
00:26:57,520 --> 00:26:59,920
Speaker 3: How did you discover that you get your best work

511
00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:03,719
Speaker 3: done in coffee shops? Was there a moment? Was you know,

512
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:06,200
Speaker 3: why did you even start doing that? If you've got

513
00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:07,359
Speaker 3: this lovely hoime office.

514
00:27:07,760 --> 00:27:11,080
Speaker 1: Well, my love of coffee predates my love of writing.

515
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 1: So I was already spending a lot of time in

516
00:27:13,119 --> 00:27:17,920
Speaker 1: coffee shops. And I need to be heavily caffeinated before

517
00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:20,360
Speaker 1: I get really productive. And so I'm not sure there's

518
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:25,400
Speaker 1: any great epiphany story behind this one. But I did

519
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:28,200
Speaker 1: notice that when I was writing Made to Stick, which

520
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:30,119
Speaker 1: was the first book that my brother Chip and I

521
00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:34,320
Speaker 1: wrote together in those days, I was a horrible, horrible procrastinator.

522
00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:38,800
Speaker 1: I mean I loved to have written. As some famous

523
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:40,960
Speaker 1: author said, whose name I'm spacing on now, I love

524
00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:43,760
Speaker 1: to have written. But writing was something that I would

525
00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:48,240
Speaker 1: put off, just relentlessly, and it got to the point

526
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:51,360
Speaker 1: where I would procrastinate so badly that the only way

527
00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:53,359
Speaker 1: I could get myself to write to get over that

528
00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 1: hump was I would actually go down the street. And

529
00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:02,240
Speaker 1: there was this copy center called Kinko's that rented computers

530
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:05,600
Speaker 1: by the hour, and I started going there and paying.

531
00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:07,679
Speaker 1: I mean I had a computer, mind you. I started

532
00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:10,600
Speaker 1: going there and paying to use their computers because I

533
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:14,399
Speaker 1: would feel so guilty about procrastinating when I was paying

534
00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:17,120
Speaker 1: someone for computer usage. And that's what got me over

535
00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:20,240
Speaker 1: the hump. And I sort of eventually weaned myself over

536
00:28:20,280 --> 00:28:24,879
Speaker 1: that idiotic payment system and kind of downshifted to coffee shops.

537
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:27,159
Speaker 1: I don't know, Maybe it's something about just feeling like

538
00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:30,159
Speaker 1: you're being held accountable to the productive people around you

539
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:33,280
Speaker 1: in a coffee shop, But I don't have any sensible

540
00:28:33,320 --> 00:28:36,439
Speaker 1: explanation for why that works. But it's the kind of

541
00:28:36,440 --> 00:28:40,440
Speaker 1: thing where you don't really need one if you're careful

542
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:44,840
Speaker 1: in studying yourself at your best moments, you can learn

543
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:47,120
Speaker 1: a lot. And we can spend a lot of time

544
00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 1: wallowing in what doesn't work and in our problems and

545
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:53,400
Speaker 1: in our frustrations. But if we just kind of flip

546
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 1: the lens a little bit and say, hey, when things

547
00:28:56,600 --> 00:28:59,440
Speaker 1: do work, when do they work, and why do they work?

548
00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:01,920
Speaker 1: And for me, the answer to that question was, Hey,

549
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 1: I seem to really be able to click when I

550
00:29:04,520 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 1: sit in the same table in the same coffee shop

551
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:08,320
Speaker 1: and order the same thing and put on my headphones.

552
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:09,600
Speaker 1: And so that's what I'm going to do.

553
00:29:10,240 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 3: That's awesome. I think for me, I feel like, you know,

554
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:16,040
Speaker 3: writing is such a lonely activity, and I think when

555
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:19,520
Speaker 3: I'm in amongst other people, whether they're working or chatting,

556
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 3: I just feel like I'm not missing out on stuff.

557
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 3: I'm just kind of in amongst it. But then I'm

558
00:29:24,360 --> 00:29:28,320
Speaker 3: doing my work. Now. I'm so encouraged to hear that

559
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 3: you are a procrastinator. I think I read your books

560
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:35,560
Speaker 3: and they're brilliant, And I've heard you say that with

561
00:29:35,640 --> 00:29:38,160
Speaker 3: the books that you've written with Chip, your brother, you

562
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:40,640
Speaker 3: kind of take on predominantly the writing role and he

563
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:42,840
Speaker 3: takes on the research role. Have I got that right?

564
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:44,280
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah.

565
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:47,600
Speaker 3: So it's encouraging to hear that you procrastinate over writing.

566
00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 3: Does that still happen when you're writing now or has

567
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:53,520
Speaker 3: it become so routine and habitual that you've got your

568
00:29:53,520 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 3: setup and when you're in the coffee shop with your

569
00:29:56,280 --> 00:29:59,280
Speaker 3: stuff that you need, you're kind of straight into It's

570
00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 3: kind of almost have loth And what's that like for you?

571
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:03,520
Speaker 2: Now?

572
00:30:03,800 --> 00:30:06,520
Speaker 1: I am am pleased to say that I am a

573
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:09,960
Speaker 1: largely cured of procrastination. So if you are a procrastinator,

574
00:30:10,160 --> 00:30:12,760
Speaker 1: please no hope, because I was right there with you

575
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 1: in the trenches. Now, I don't know that my solution

576
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:18,960
Speaker 1: is scalable, because my solution was to have a brother

577
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 1: slash collaborator who was whatever the opposite of a procrastinator is.

578
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:24,760
Speaker 1: You know, he was the kind of student who would

579
00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:27,600
Speaker 1: turn in their urn paper a week early just to

580
00:30:27,600 --> 00:30:29,360
Speaker 1: make sure it was out of the way. And I

581
00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 1: was the kind of student who had started at three

582
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:33,880
Speaker 1: am in the morning with you know, six caffeine pills

583
00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:34,360
Speaker 1: or something.

584
00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:38,080
Speaker 2: And then I think, you know, my wife.

585
00:30:37,760 --> 00:30:40,600
Speaker 1: Is also the opposite of a procrastinator, and so I

586
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:42,320
Speaker 1: think between the two of them, they kind of beat

587
00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 1: that instinct out of me. But it also has a

588
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:48,960
Speaker 1: lot to do, as you said, with habits. And you know,

589
00:30:49,040 --> 00:30:51,680
Speaker 1: one thing that has been true for me that that

590
00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:53,920
Speaker 1: I've you know, back to that idea of studying your

591
00:30:53,920 --> 00:30:57,520
Speaker 1: own right spots. One thing that is absolutely crystal clear

592
00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:00,720
Speaker 1: from me is that I do much better with momentum

593
00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:04,160
Speaker 1: in writing. So if I can write, you know, twenty

594
00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 1: five days out of thirty that is far far better

595
00:31:08,160 --> 00:31:11,160
Speaker 1: from me than writing fifty days out of five months,

596
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:14,400
Speaker 1: I will literally have more words on the page, and

597
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:17,160
Speaker 1: there'll be better words with the twenty five days quickly

598
00:31:17,200 --> 00:31:20,600
Speaker 1: than with the fifty sporadically. And so that's the kind

599
00:31:20,600 --> 00:31:23,080
Speaker 1: of thing that over time you start to learn about

600
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:26,280
Speaker 1: yourself is you know, what is it that elicits your

601
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:28,200
Speaker 1: best work and work that you're proud of, and how

602
00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:29,240
Speaker 1: do you replicate that.

603
00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:34,120
Speaker 3: It's interesting what you say about I guess having non

604
00:31:34,160 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 3: procrastinators around you. And obviously with Upstream, this was your

605
00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:41,920
Speaker 3: first solo book, and I'm curious as to how that

606
00:31:42,080 --> 00:31:44,280
Speaker 3: was as a process and did you have to develop

607
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:48,040
Speaker 3: different strategies for getting the book written given that it

608
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:49,520
Speaker 3: wasn't a partnership with Chip.

609
00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:52,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was, I mean it was it was like

610
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:55,160
Speaker 1: starting over. You know, it's like half of the half

611
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:58,320
Speaker 1: of the team has gone. That's an enormous hole to fill.

612
00:31:59,080 --> 00:32:03,719
Speaker 1: And and I think probably it's shaped up about like

613
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 1: you would expect. You know, some things, some things were

614
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:09,240
Speaker 1: really good about it. I didn't have to negotiate everything

615
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 1: in the book, and I could kind of do things

616
00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:11,479
Speaker 1: the way I wanted it.

617
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:12,160
Speaker 3: Uh.

618
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:14,480
Speaker 1: You know, that's that's always the advantage of working solo,

619
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:17,840
Speaker 1: as you get to have your way. And the downside was,

620
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:20,400
Speaker 1: you know, it was a much lonelier process. I didn't

621
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:22,800
Speaker 1: I didn't have a partner to talk things through, and

622
00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:26,840
Speaker 1: I didn't have someone in the boat with me rowing

623
00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:30,000
Speaker 1: that we could we could agonize about things together.

624
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:30,800
Speaker 3: And uh.

625
00:32:30,920 --> 00:32:35,920
Speaker 1: And of course the obvious is I lost his incredible

626
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:39,320
Speaker 1: research ability. I had to basically hire a small team

627
00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 1: of people. I had to basically hire a research team

628
00:32:42,280 --> 00:32:45,040
Speaker 1: to uh, to try to fill some of the things

629
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:48,160
Speaker 1: that he did as as an individual. So it was

630
00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:53,360
Speaker 1: a lot of new habit creation, a lot of new routines.

631
00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:56,600
Speaker 1: But I think I grew from that. You know, it's

632
00:32:57,560 --> 00:32:59,840
Speaker 1: any time you try something new that that scares you

633
00:32:59,840 --> 00:33:02,680
Speaker 1: a little bit. It may work or it may not,

634
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:04,960
Speaker 1: but either way, you're probably going to grow. And I

635
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 1: felt like I did.

636
00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:10,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting the idea of not having that person

637
00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:13,760
Speaker 3: to bounce ideas around with, almost that sparring partner. And

638
00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:17,280
Speaker 3: it reminds me of this idea that Adam Grant talks

639
00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:20,480
Speaker 3: about in terms of developing a challenge network, so deliberately

640
00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:22,960
Speaker 3: seeking out a network of people who you can go

641
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 3: to to critique your work. So how did that work

642
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 3: for you? I mean, obviously you've got an editor, as

643
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:32,880
Speaker 3: all authors do, but were there other strategies that you

644
00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:36,040
Speaker 3: put in place to I guess get that feedback.

645
00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:41,400
Speaker 1: I suspect this is just me. This is not like

646
00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:44,080
Speaker 1: some kind of universal rule. But I'm the kind of

647
00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:48,440
Speaker 1: writer where if I, if I get a lot of feedback,

648
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:50,320
Speaker 1: it's demotivating to me.

649
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:54,280
Speaker 2: Like I sort of like this idea of.

650
00:33:54,320 --> 00:33:56,360
Speaker 1: Unveiling, Like I like to go in my little hole

651
00:33:56,400 --> 00:33:59,000
Speaker 1: and do some writing and then voila, show it to

652
00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:01,400
Speaker 1: people and get their action at that point. And if

653
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:04,360
Speaker 1: if people are kind of quibbling with me or pushing

654
00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 1: back on a day to day basis, it makes me

655
00:34:06,320 --> 00:34:10,560
Speaker 1: question myself in an unhelpful way. So I do, for

656
00:34:10,640 --> 00:34:14,279
Speaker 1: sure get feedback, and it's it's critical, it's indispensable, but

657
00:34:14,320 --> 00:34:16,479
Speaker 1: I do it in a in a more formal way

658
00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:20,600
Speaker 1: than perhaps the Adam Grant strategy suggests. Like I basically

659
00:34:20,800 --> 00:34:25,319
Speaker 1: with this book, had had a moment roughly halfway or

660
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:28,320
Speaker 1: sixty percent of the way through the process where I

661
00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:32,360
Speaker 1: had created a kind of draft one point zero book

662
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:35,560
Speaker 1: that I shipped out to a bunch of people for feedback.

663
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:38,120
Speaker 1: There are a couple of things that I want to

664
00:34:38,120 --> 00:34:40,680
Speaker 1: point out about it. One was it was at a

665
00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:43,120
Speaker 1: time in the process where I could afford for them

666
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:45,440
Speaker 1: to push back. I think a lot of writers make

667
00:34:45,480 --> 00:34:47,640
Speaker 1: the mistake of you know, you get ninety percent of

668
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:49,560
Speaker 1: the way there and then you start asking for feedback,

669
00:34:49,560 --> 00:34:52,800
Speaker 1: and at that point you just if you get negative feedback,

670
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:55,040
Speaker 1: you can't afford to take it on. You know, your

671
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:57,200
Speaker 1: your instincts are going to be to push back and think, oh,

672
00:34:57,280 --> 00:34:59,880
Speaker 1: well that's just nitpicking, or you know that you know

673
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:03,480
Speaker 1: I can't afford to revisit that. Doing it earlier in

674
00:35:03,520 --> 00:35:07,480
Speaker 1: the process allows you to kind of, I don't know,

675
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:13,000
Speaker 1: a mental space to really rethink things if they were

676
00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:14,959
Speaker 1: necessary and in some cases with the book they were

677
00:35:15,600 --> 00:35:17,760
Speaker 1: The other thing that I believe in with respective feedback

678
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:21,279
Speaker 1: is I believe in I believe feedback is better when

679
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:24,680
Speaker 1: it's specific. So I don't tend to ask people, you know,

680
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:27,080
Speaker 1: what do you think of the book. I don't want

681
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:29,279
Speaker 1: them to be tied up in trying to spare my

682
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:33,359
Speaker 1: feelings or you know, trying to play back what they

683
00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:37,480
Speaker 1: think I want to hear. And I also don't necessarily

684
00:35:37,520 --> 00:35:41,440
Speaker 1: trust if they had something that was core to the

685
00:35:41,440 --> 00:35:43,640
Speaker 1: theme of the book. I don't know that you want

686
00:35:43,680 --> 00:35:46,839
Speaker 1: to trust someone who's spent five hours thinking about your

687
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:49,880
Speaker 1: book over yourself that spent two years working on the book.

688
00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:53,360
Speaker 1: But what I think you absolutely can trust is just

689
00:35:53,400 --> 00:35:56,920
Speaker 1: people's instinct about Hey, did you like this part or

690
00:35:57,040 --> 00:35:57,480
Speaker 1: did you not?

691
00:35:58,400 --> 00:35:59,759
Speaker 2: Was this interesting? Was it not?

692
00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:02,480
Speaker 1: You know, which of these two things did you like better.

693
00:36:02,960 --> 00:36:05,000
Speaker 1: It reminds me years ago I had the conversation with

694
00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 1: the founder of Icebreaker. We were talking about market research,

695
00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:10,960
Speaker 1: and he said, my mental model of market research is,

696
00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:14,720
Speaker 1: you know, imagine if you called people into a focus

697
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:17,799
Speaker 1: group room as a brewer and you said, hey, what

698
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:21,200
Speaker 1: kind of beer would you really like to drink? You know,

699
00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:23,680
Speaker 1: people people are going to come up with an answer

700
00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:27,000
Speaker 1: to that, but you really can't trust that answer because

701
00:36:27,040 --> 00:36:30,920
Speaker 1: people just don't have a language to articulate their perfect beer.

702
00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:32,640
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know what I would say. I

703
00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:35,280
Speaker 1: would probably try to come up with something that sounded smart,

704
00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:38,040
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure it would be useful guidance. But

705
00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:40,479
Speaker 1: he said, what you absolutely can take to the bank

706
00:36:40,640 --> 00:36:42,719
Speaker 1: is if you hand people two glasses and you say, hey,

707
00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:45,399
Speaker 1: which of these beers tastes better to you? I mean,

708
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:49,880
Speaker 1: that's gold. That's useful feedback. And so that's the spirit

709
00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:52,640
Speaker 1: of what I try to honor with the book is

710
00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:54,360
Speaker 1: is I want to get feedback at a point in

711
00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:56,760
Speaker 1: the cycle when I can use it. And the second

712
00:36:56,840 --> 00:36:59,600
Speaker 1: thing is I want to get feedback that's particular enough

713
00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:01,040
Speaker 1: that I can really trust it.

714
00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:05,040
Speaker 3: I like that idea of, you know, getting feedback when

715
00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:08,400
Speaker 3: it's sixty percent done. I couldn't agree more. It's so

716
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:13,480
Speaker 3: hard really taking on feedback when you feel like you're

717
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 3: really close to shipping the product, because you've just got

718
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:21,880
Speaker 3: way too many biases in play. So that's such good advice.

719
00:37:22,440 --> 00:37:25,359
Speaker 3: I want to know, how how do you know when

720
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:28,319
Speaker 3: you're onto a winning idea for a book, because I

721
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:31,360
Speaker 3: just think with all of your books, I just go, oh,

722
00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:34,960
Speaker 3: they're so brilliant, and they're so universally appealing as well,

723
00:37:35,080 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 3: so that in those really early stages, I'm kind of

724
00:37:39,560 --> 00:37:42,120
Speaker 3: really keen to know with all of your books, where

725
00:37:42,120 --> 00:37:45,200
Speaker 3: did the ideas come from? And how did you know that, yes,

726
00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:47,719
Speaker 3: this is something that is worth spending the next three

727
00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:48,640
Speaker 3: years of my life.

728
00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:48,879
Speaker 2: One.

729
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:52,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's one where I'm not going to

730
00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:57,320
Speaker 1: have a very satisfying answer, because I just think that fundamentally, nobody,

731
00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:02,000
Speaker 1: as William Goldman once said about Hollywood and why certain

732
00:38:02,040 --> 00:38:04,880
Speaker 1: films do well and others don't, you know, nobody knows anything.

733
00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:08,359
Speaker 1: And I think that's true. I think that I have

734
00:38:08,440 --> 00:38:13,480
Speaker 1: no idea if upstream will sell well or not. About

735
00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:15,280
Speaker 1: All that you can assure yourself of.

736
00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:18,080
Speaker 2: Is two things.

737
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:20,959
Speaker 1: One is is this a topic that's going to keep

738
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:24,320
Speaker 1: me fascinated for the period of years that it takes

739
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:29,279
Speaker 1: to properly research and write about a book? And Chip

740
00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:32,200
Speaker 1: and I have had several experiences where we started books

741
00:38:32,239 --> 00:38:35,239
Speaker 1: that we were quite excited about in month one and

742
00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:38,360
Speaker 1: then we literally burn three or four or five months

743
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:42,000
Speaker 1: and decide, I just don't think this is it. I

744
00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:44,160
Speaker 1: don't think I can keep my attention up for two

745
00:38:44,160 --> 00:38:46,440
Speaker 1: more years of this stuff, and so you just flush it,

746
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:49,719
Speaker 1: I mean literally just wasted work, but not in the

747
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:53,359
Speaker 1: long run since so you can assure yourself of your

748
00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:56,200
Speaker 1: own attention. And that was one that for me. I mean,

749
00:38:56,239 --> 00:38:58,840
Speaker 1: even if nobody else in the world thinks Upstream is interesting,

750
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:01,400
Speaker 1: I do. And I've been thinking about these ideas for

751
00:39:02,440 --> 00:39:05,520
Speaker 1: about eleven years now. I mean I literally started my

752
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:08,279
Speaker 1: first word file keeping notes on Upstream in like two

753
00:39:08,360 --> 00:39:11,400
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, so I knew for sure this was

754
00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:13,440
Speaker 1: a book that was going to be fascinating for me,

755
00:39:13,520 --> 00:39:16,600
Speaker 1: which is a big deal. And then the second thing is,

756
00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:20,040
Speaker 1: I think you can assure yourself that at least for

757
00:39:20,080 --> 00:39:22,440
Speaker 1: the kind of book that we're talking about. This is

758
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:25,480
Speaker 1: certainly not true for novels or historical fiction or whatever,

759
00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:28,320
Speaker 1: but for these kinds of books, you can assure yourself

760
00:39:28,320 --> 00:39:31,960
Speaker 1: that a lot of people are facing the problem that

761
00:39:31,960 --> 00:39:35,279
Speaker 1: you're tackling. So with Made to Stick, you know, we

762
00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:37,080
Speaker 1: knew for sure that there were a lot of people

763
00:39:37,120 --> 00:39:38,880
Speaker 1: in the world who had really good ideas that they

764
00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:41,640
Speaker 1: were trying to get across to other people. They needed

765
00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:45,080
Speaker 1: to build alliances, they needed to make great presentations, They

766
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:48,080
Speaker 1: wanted to give powerful vision speeches to their teams, and

767
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:51,319
Speaker 1: so we knew the need was there if we could find.

768
00:39:51,080 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 2: A set of tools that were useful.

769
00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:56,080
Speaker 1: And so there's some comfort that comes from knowing, at

770
00:39:56,200 --> 00:39:59,840
Speaker 1: least you're tackling a problem that's really important and really pervasive.

771
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:03,799
Speaker 1: But in terms of, you know, does do the two

772
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:05,640
Speaker 1: of those things translate into book sales?

773
00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:06,360
Speaker 2: Who knows?

774
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:09,000
Speaker 1: I think there's ten confounding variables in the middle.

775
00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:13,000
Speaker 3: I've heard you say in terms of what makes a

776
00:40:13,040 --> 00:40:16,240
Speaker 3: great business book, in terms of the how to business books,

777
00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:19,280
Speaker 3: like the genre that you write with in you said,

778
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:21,719
Speaker 3: do people crave the information in the book? And does

779
00:40:21,760 --> 00:40:25,560
Speaker 3: the book deliver useful tools? And I really loved that

780
00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:30,239
Speaker 3: as kind of thinking about Okay, you know, they're two

781
00:40:30,320 --> 00:40:32,120
Speaker 3: things I guess to guide your decision making.

782
00:40:33,440 --> 00:40:33,640
Speaker 2: Yeah.

783
00:40:33,680 --> 00:40:36,920
Speaker 1: I heard a speech years ago from this publisher named

784
00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:39,160
Speaker 1: Ray Bard, and I remembered it to this day, and

785
00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:43,000
Speaker 1: he talked about the notion of a felt need, which,

786
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:45,640
Speaker 1: you know, we're talking a lot about writers and writing today.

787
00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:48,759
Speaker 1: But I think many of these ideas apply to lots

788
00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:52,080
Speaker 1: of different markets, and this one certainly does, and felt

789
00:40:52,120 --> 00:40:54,919
Speaker 1: need is the idea that it's not enough to give

790
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:57,400
Speaker 1: people a product, you know, in this case, a book

791
00:40:57,800 --> 00:41:01,800
Speaker 1: that is good for them, they have to have, they

792
00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:04,640
Speaker 1: have to feel a need for it. And the example

793
00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:11,400
Speaker 1: he gave was was memorable. He said, the perennial bestseller

794
00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:15,400
Speaker 1: What to Expect when You're Expecting for pregnant Women is

795
00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:19,200
Speaker 1: the perfect example of felt need. You know, you find

796
00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:22,080
Speaker 1: yourself pregnant, you've done the pregnancy test, and you get

797
00:41:22,080 --> 00:41:25,000
Speaker 1: the pink strip, and you're like, oh my god, what

798
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:27,720
Speaker 1: am I in for? What's gonna what's going to happen

799
00:41:27,760 --> 00:41:29,960
Speaker 1: to my body? And what's normal and what's not normal?

800
00:41:30,440 --> 00:41:36,360
Speaker 1: You crave information. And ray Bard contrasted that with a

801
00:41:36,400 --> 00:41:41,400
Speaker 1: book for men that was how to have more empathy

802
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:44,719
Speaker 1: for the bodily changes your wife is going through during pregnancy,

803
00:41:45,320 --> 00:41:49,399
Speaker 1: and he said every man should be required to read

804
00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:53,160
Speaker 1: that book. I mean it should be, it should be,

805
00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:56,799
Speaker 1: you know, a legal it should be a legal requirement

806
00:41:56,840 --> 00:41:59,239
Speaker 1: for men to read that. But there's probably not the

807
00:41:59,239 --> 00:42:01,880
Speaker 1: felt need, which is of course telling about men. But

808
00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:05,120
Speaker 1: I think his point is right that having a book

809
00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:07,160
Speaker 1: that's good for you is not the same thing as

810
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:10,960
Speaker 1: a book that you demand, and so I think when

811
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:12,800
Speaker 1: we're in the business of trying to get people to

812
00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:17,120
Speaker 1: buy what we're selling them, we have to pay attention

813
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:19,680
Speaker 1: to what their felt need is, not what do we

814
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:20,960
Speaker 1: think would be good for them.

815
00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:25,319
Speaker 3: That's such great advice really, for anyone putting anything out

816
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:27,880
Speaker 3: into the world that they're hoping someone will find a value.

817
00:42:28,120 --> 00:42:32,520
Speaker 3: I love that. I would also ask with your books.

818
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:36,640
Speaker 3: I feel like they've all got these very elegant frameworks

819
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:38,840
Speaker 3: that sit behind them, and I want to know what's

820
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:42,879
Speaker 3: what's your process for developing those because I'm imagining once

821
00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:46,600
Speaker 3: you've got your initial idea, it's the framework that would

822
00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:50,840
Speaker 3: come next before you even start putting pen to paper

823
00:42:50,880 --> 00:42:53,120
Speaker 3: in terms of writing the prose of the book. Is

824
00:42:53,800 --> 00:42:56,080
Speaker 3: that sort of fair to say in terms of your process.

825
00:42:56,880 --> 00:42:57,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so.

826
00:42:58,360 --> 00:43:01,160
Speaker 1: Just to give listeners a concrete example, we've talked a

827
00:43:01,200 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 1: couple of times about this book Made to Stick. That's

828
00:43:03,160 --> 00:43:05,440
Speaker 1: about how do you make your ideas stick with people?

829
00:43:05,880 --> 00:43:08,440
Speaker 1: And the core of the book is a six part

830
00:43:09,640 --> 00:43:17,799
Speaker 1: framework that sticky ideas are simple, they're unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional,

831
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:20,560
Speaker 1: and they're often told us stories. And so we're using

832
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:24,000
Speaker 1: a little kind of cheesy mnemonic there success minus the

833
00:43:24,040 --> 00:43:26,200
Speaker 1: final s. We didn't find a seventh trait, so we

834
00:43:26,239 --> 00:43:28,520
Speaker 1: have this kind of truncated version of the word success

835
00:43:28,600 --> 00:43:32,719
Speaker 1: to help people remember. And before, as you said, before

836
00:43:32,800 --> 00:43:35,520
Speaker 1: we started the book, we knew what that framework was

837
00:43:36,520 --> 00:43:39,239
Speaker 1: and it guided the production of the book. But of

838
00:43:39,239 --> 00:43:41,080
Speaker 1: course we spend a lot of time in the wilderness

839
00:43:41,120 --> 00:43:43,480
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what those traits are and which

840
00:43:43,480 --> 00:43:48,160
Speaker 1: ones do we believe. And with our first four books

841
00:43:48,480 --> 00:43:51,440
Speaker 1: we had a framework for each one in the same spirit,

842
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:56,120
Speaker 1: and that's really the heart of our collaboration that yes

843
00:43:56,280 --> 00:43:58,160
Speaker 1: I do most of the writing and yes Chip does

844
00:43:58,200 --> 00:44:00,200
Speaker 1: most of the research, but the hard part is really

845
00:44:00,239 --> 00:44:02,040
Speaker 1: what's in the middle of those two things, which is

846
00:44:02,080 --> 00:44:05,080
Speaker 1: figuring out what are the patterns in the research that

847
00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:09,719
Speaker 1: you're doing, and windows academic research seem to meet up

848
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:12,600
Speaker 1: with real world experience, and when are you hearing the

849
00:44:12,640 --> 00:44:15,040
Speaker 1: same things from very different disciplines in a way that

850
00:44:15,080 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 1: makes you trust the idea more. And on top of

851
00:44:18,080 --> 00:44:20,360
Speaker 1: all that, it's not enough for something to be true,

852
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:22,160
Speaker 1: it also has to be useful, at least for the

853
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:24,879
Speaker 1: kind of books we're writing. You know, we don't want

854
00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:29,200
Speaker 1: to just have academic debates. In our books, we want

855
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:32,200
Speaker 1: people to have tools that will make them better business

856
00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:35,759
Speaker 1: people or government leaders or teachers the next week. And

857
00:44:35,840 --> 00:44:38,920
Speaker 1: so part of what we kind of aspire to in

858
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:42,000
Speaker 1: our books is are the ideas we write about are

859
00:44:42,080 --> 00:44:44,200
Speaker 1: they true? Are they backed by some kind of evidence?

860
00:44:44,320 --> 00:44:47,640
Speaker 1: And are they practical? And are they interesting enough to

861
00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:49,799
Speaker 1: keep a reader flipping through a book. So if we

862
00:44:49,840 --> 00:44:52,160
Speaker 1: can overlap all of those circles in a neat, little

863
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:55,080
Speaker 1: ven diagram, that's where our framework emerge is from.

864
00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:58,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's great. Like how much toing and throwing is

865
00:44:58,680 --> 00:45:01,480
Speaker 3: there to land on the final framework? I guess this

866
00:45:01,560 --> 00:45:04,560
Speaker 3: is several weeks, a several month process. You know, once

867
00:45:04,600 --> 00:45:07,400
Speaker 3: you've I guess done a lot of the research that

868
00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:08,640
Speaker 3: sits behind the framework.

869
00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:10,759
Speaker 1: Oh, it's months and months and months. I mean it's

870
00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:11,840
Speaker 1: the heart of the book.

871
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:12,280
Speaker 2: Really.

872
00:45:13,320 --> 00:45:17,600
Speaker 1: The framework is fundamentally what we're offering people. I mean,

873
00:45:17,640 --> 00:45:20,319
Speaker 1: the book is a package for the framework, but you

874
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:23,400
Speaker 1: could communicate the framework in a workshop or a speech

875
00:45:23,480 --> 00:45:26,799
Speaker 1: or an article. The framework is the thing. And so

876
00:45:28,200 --> 00:45:31,800
Speaker 1: you know, from the very beginning we are we're iterating,

877
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:34,840
Speaker 1: and you know, we probably take a couple of months

878
00:45:34,840 --> 00:45:37,880
Speaker 1: just Blue Sky to research and start to see if

879
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:41,920
Speaker 1: themes are bubbling up, and you know, by three to

880
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:44,400
Speaker 1: six months in we're starting to try to come up

881
00:45:44,440 --> 00:45:48,760
Speaker 1: with draft frameworks and then they get iterated one hundred

882
00:45:48,760 --> 00:45:51,200
Speaker 1: times before we finally land on something that we think

883
00:45:51,280 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 1: is the right blend of simplicity and practicality and.

884
00:45:56,640 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 2: Completeness.

885
00:45:57,880 --> 00:46:01,680
Speaker 3: I am fascinated by this, and I've also very encouraged

886
00:46:01,719 --> 00:46:05,800
Speaker 3: to hear what a long, intensive process it is, because

887
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:08,800
Speaker 3: I look at these in your books and I'm like, oh, wow,

888
00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:11,959
Speaker 3: that's so brilliant. So I'm very encouraged to hear about

889
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:14,839
Speaker 3: how challenging it is. Just from a selfish point of view,

890
00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:17,960
Speaker 3: I know we're almost out of time. And look, my

891
00:46:18,280 --> 00:46:21,200
Speaker 3: last question for you, I guess relates to everything that

892
00:46:21,280 --> 00:46:24,360
Speaker 3: you have written and learned in the process of writing

893
00:46:24,719 --> 00:46:29,920
Speaker 3: your books, because they do cover such fundamentally important topics

894
00:46:29,960 --> 00:46:32,200
Speaker 3: like how to change people, how to make decisions, how

895
00:46:32,239 --> 00:46:35,200
Speaker 3: to create these defining moments in your life. And I

896
00:46:35,239 --> 00:46:37,560
Speaker 3: know for me, you know, as I mentioned, decisive and

897
00:46:37,640 --> 00:46:41,680
Speaker 3: power of moments have been ones that I think I apply.

898
00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:45,640
Speaker 3: I still apply, you know, some of the strategies from

899
00:46:45,680 --> 00:46:49,360
Speaker 3: those books almost every week of my life, like for example,

900
00:46:49,400 --> 00:46:52,680
Speaker 3: with Decisive, I still whenever I'm faced with a whether

901
00:46:52,800 --> 00:46:55,680
Speaker 3: or not decision where there's essentially should I do this

902
00:46:55,800 --> 00:46:58,800
Speaker 3: or shouldn't I, I remember that those decisions fail fifty

903
00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:00,880
Speaker 3: percent of the time, and I de liberately look for

904
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:04,000
Speaker 3: some true alternatives and with the power of moments that

905
00:47:04,000 --> 00:47:07,799
Speaker 3: that influenced my thinking not only about work and customers,

906
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:11,440
Speaker 3: but also just about time with my daughter and deliberately

907
00:47:11,520 --> 00:47:14,960
Speaker 3: crafting these defining moments that still impacts me to this day.

908
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:17,400
Speaker 3: And I want to know for you, out of everything

909
00:47:17,400 --> 00:47:20,839
Speaker 3: that you've written, what I guess maybe one or two

910
00:47:20,920 --> 00:47:23,480
Speaker 3: or three of the kind of they might be just

911
00:47:23,520 --> 00:47:26,480
Speaker 3: really simple changes, but I guess changes that have had

912
00:47:26,680 --> 00:47:29,959
Speaker 3: you been really impactful in your life. MM.

913
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:33,759
Speaker 2: You know what are the greatest hits? I think you know.

914
00:47:34,320 --> 00:47:36,680
Speaker 1: One of them, honestly, is the same one that you flagged.

915
00:47:36,680 --> 00:47:41,440
Speaker 1: I think Decisive, which is our book about decision making,

916
00:47:41,840 --> 00:47:46,040
Speaker 1: has fundamentally changed the way I approach decisions. And one

917
00:47:46,040 --> 00:47:47,879
Speaker 1: of the tips that's easiest to explain is the one

918
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:50,719
Speaker 1: that you mentioned, which is, any time in life you

919
00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:54,400
Speaker 1: find yourself framing a decision about whether or not to

920
00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:57,040
Speaker 1: do such and such, you know, should I buy this

921
00:47:57,120 --> 00:47:58,880
Speaker 1: thing or not? Should I take this trip or not?

922
00:47:59,000 --> 00:48:01,799
Speaker 1: Should I say yes to the project or not. That's

923
00:48:01,840 --> 00:48:07,920
Speaker 1: a dangerous framing. And the reason is because not is

924
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:10,160
Speaker 1: not a particularly compelling decision option.

925
00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:10,600
Speaker 2: Right.

926
00:48:10,840 --> 00:48:13,440
Speaker 1: It's like think of a corporation thinking should we acquire

927
00:48:13,520 --> 00:48:16,640
Speaker 1: this firm or not? And the longer you think about it,

928
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:18,399
Speaker 1: and the longer you ponder it, and the more due

929
00:48:18,400 --> 00:48:22,920
Speaker 1: diligence you do, the more you feel invested in the

930
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:25,239
Speaker 1: one option that's on the table, and the harder it

931
00:48:25,280 --> 00:48:27,440
Speaker 1: is for you to just say no, because then you've

932
00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:28,920
Speaker 1: flushed all that analysis.

933
00:48:28,920 --> 00:48:29,480
Speaker 2: It's gone.

934
00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:33,080
Speaker 1: And so when you have a decision, you've got one

935
00:48:33,080 --> 00:48:35,600
Speaker 1: option on the table. Rather than frame it is should

936
00:48:35,600 --> 00:48:37,440
Speaker 1: I do this thing? Should I buy this thing or not?

937
00:48:39,320 --> 00:48:42,840
Speaker 1: Challenge yourself, you know, do the opportunity cost question. So

938
00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:45,279
Speaker 1: it's I was talking to someone the other day who

939
00:48:45,320 --> 00:48:48,279
Speaker 1: wanted to write a book that was on their bucket list.

940
00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:50,640
Speaker 1: And so rather than think about it as should I

941
00:48:50,640 --> 00:48:54,600
Speaker 1: write a book or not, you should think, whatever itch

942
00:48:55,080 --> 00:48:57,279
Speaker 1: that I'm trying to scratch by writing a book? What

943
00:48:57,360 --> 00:48:59,160
Speaker 1: if I couldn't write a book, how would I scratch

944
00:48:59,200 --> 00:48:59,759
Speaker 1: that same itch?

945
00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:00,600
Speaker 3: You know?

946
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:01,040
Speaker 2: Is it?

947
00:49:01,120 --> 00:49:03,879
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a creative thing, and you might have spent

948
00:49:04,000 --> 00:49:06,719
Speaker 1: that time doing improv comedy, or you might have spent

949
00:49:06,800 --> 00:49:09,640
Speaker 1: it painting or something like that, or maybe it's a

950
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:12,160
Speaker 1: business development thing like the book for you would have

951
00:49:12,239 --> 00:49:14,640
Speaker 1: represented a way to get more clients or more speeches

952
00:49:14,760 --> 00:49:17,080
Speaker 1: or what have you. And if that's true, what would

953
00:49:17,120 --> 00:49:19,120
Speaker 1: you do to advance those goals in the absence of

954
00:49:19,160 --> 00:49:22,520
Speaker 1: a book? And then that's your comparison. You know, it's

955
00:49:22,560 --> 00:49:24,280
Speaker 1: not should I write a book or not? Is should

956
00:49:24,280 --> 00:49:26,760
Speaker 1: I invest hundreds of hours writing a book or hundreds

957
00:49:26,760 --> 00:49:30,160
Speaker 1: of hours getting better at improv comedy. So that's one

958
00:49:30,160 --> 00:49:33,040
Speaker 1: thing I think about all the time, and that that

959
00:49:33,080 --> 00:49:37,160
Speaker 1: has become a permanent part of my decision process. Another

960
00:49:37,200 --> 00:49:42,480
Speaker 1: thing that has stuck with me is the idea that

961
00:49:42,960 --> 00:49:45,279
Speaker 1: you mentioned of peak moments, which comes from the Power

962
00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:48,279
Speaker 1: of Moments book. And the heart of this I think

963
00:49:48,280 --> 00:49:51,960
Speaker 1: I can summarize as follows is what we know from

964
00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:55,320
Speaker 1: people's memories of their experiences is that some moments matter

965
00:49:55,840 --> 00:49:59,640
Speaker 1: dramatically more than others. I mean one hundred or a

966
00:49:59,680 --> 00:50:03,160
Speaker 1: thousand and times as important certain moments are than others.

967
00:50:03,680 --> 00:50:06,120
Speaker 1: And if you even think about your own memories, like

968
00:50:06,160 --> 00:50:08,279
Speaker 1: think back to a vacation you took five or ten

969
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:11,760
Speaker 1: years ago, or think back to a semester.

970
00:50:11,520 --> 00:50:13,600
Speaker 2: In school or in university.

971
00:50:13,719 --> 00:50:17,080
Speaker 1: You'll quickly realize that the vast majority of that experience

972
00:50:17,120 --> 00:50:21,160
Speaker 1: is gone and what you're left with are certain moments.

973
00:50:22,200 --> 00:50:24,919
Speaker 1: And question is why those moments? And in the book

974
00:50:24,960 --> 00:50:27,359
Speaker 1: we try to answer the question what is it about

975
00:50:27,400 --> 00:50:30,640
Speaker 1: those experiences that's stuck with you? And how can you

976
00:50:30,680 --> 00:50:33,640
Speaker 1: go about creating more? And so what it's taught me

977
00:50:33,960 --> 00:50:37,680
Speaker 1: is I think the most practical lesson that comes out

978
00:50:37,680 --> 00:50:41,480
Speaker 1: of that is to be willing to endure inconvenience for

979
00:50:41,520 --> 00:50:44,160
Speaker 1: the sake of a peak moment. Like I think of

980
00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:46,200
Speaker 1: a time it was a couple of years ago now,

981
00:50:46,239 --> 00:50:52,359
Speaker 1: but there was a full eclipse of the sun that

982
00:50:52,520 --> 00:50:55,080
Speaker 1: was I forget what you call the path of the

983
00:50:55,120 --> 00:50:58,400
Speaker 1: sun that gets the full eclipse. But we were pretty

984
00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:00,880
Speaker 1: close to that path where I am in North Carolina

985
00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:05,000
Speaker 1: in the US. But it required about a let's see,

986
00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:07,160
Speaker 1: three to three and a half hour each way drive,

987
00:51:07,239 --> 00:51:11,480
Speaker 1: so maybe seven hour round trip drive. And I think

988
00:51:11,520 --> 00:51:14,000
Speaker 1: before I wrote the book Power of Moments, I would

989
00:51:14,000 --> 00:51:17,080
Speaker 1: have said forget that. I mean seven hours on the

990
00:51:17,160 --> 00:51:19,080
Speaker 1: road and there's going to be traffic because every other

991
00:51:19,160 --> 00:51:21,279
Speaker 1: Yahoo's going to be trying to see the eclipse. And

992
00:51:21,920 --> 00:51:23,680
Speaker 1: you know, I'll just watch the thing on YouTube and

993
00:51:23,719 --> 00:51:24,200
Speaker 1: be done with it.

994
00:51:24,280 --> 00:51:25,000
Speaker 2: How good can it be?

995
00:51:26,000 --> 00:51:30,359
Speaker 1: But what you realize is five years from now, all

996
00:51:30,400 --> 00:51:32,440
Speaker 1: the details of that drive are going to be gone.

997
00:51:32,480 --> 00:51:35,000
Speaker 1: That's a classic thing that your memory is gonna flush.

998
00:51:35,440 --> 00:51:37,480
Speaker 1: But what you will remember, and what I do remember,

999
00:51:37,520 --> 00:51:40,719
Speaker 1: because I did make the trip, is it's seeing the

1000
00:51:40,760 --> 00:51:42,800
Speaker 1: world go dark around you in the middle of the

1001
00:51:42,880 --> 00:51:48,239
Speaker 1: day and hearing insects start to make noise because they're

1002
00:51:48,239 --> 00:51:50,920
Speaker 1: tricked and they think it's the nighttime, and so you're

1003
00:51:50,960 --> 00:51:52,640
Speaker 1: hearing crickets chirp in the middle.

1004
00:51:52,440 --> 00:51:52,919
Speaker 2: Of the day.

1005
00:51:53,640 --> 00:51:56,399
Speaker 1: And then when the sun finally starts to come out

1006
00:51:56,400 --> 00:51:58,319
Speaker 1: the other side, you hear birds chirp as though it's

1007
00:51:58,320 --> 00:52:02,080
Speaker 1: the morning. And it's just this, this fundamentally alien and

1008
00:52:02,200 --> 00:52:06,360
Speaker 1: wonderful experience that would not have been replicated on YouTube.

1009
00:52:06,880 --> 00:52:09,600
Speaker 1: And so yes, I drove seven hours to have an

1010
00:52:09,640 --> 00:52:13,640
Speaker 1: experience that lasted about ten minutes. But you know, five

1011
00:52:13,719 --> 00:52:15,759
Speaker 1: years down the road, ten years down the road, all

1012
00:52:15,840 --> 00:52:18,279
Speaker 1: I'm going to have left is that wonderful moment that

1013
00:52:18,320 --> 00:52:20,600
Speaker 1: would have been absent had I done kind of a

1014
00:52:20,640 --> 00:52:24,640
Speaker 1: strict minute by minute trade off of time. So that

1015
00:52:24,760 --> 00:52:27,200
Speaker 1: was a very long answer to your question. But those

1016
00:52:27,200 --> 00:52:29,200
Speaker 1: are two things that have really made a difference in

1017
00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:29,720
Speaker 1: my life.

1018
00:52:29,920 --> 00:52:32,640
Speaker 3: That is a beautiful story. And look, we are so

1019
00:52:33,040 --> 00:52:36,560
Speaker 3: out of time. Time has flown for me certainly. But finally,

1020
00:52:36,640 --> 00:52:39,520
Speaker 3: where can people find you, Dan? And where can they

1021
00:52:39,560 --> 00:52:41,440
Speaker 3: get their copy of Upstream?

1022
00:52:42,239 --> 00:52:45,040
Speaker 1: Well, wherever you buy books, hopefully they have a copy

1023
00:52:45,040 --> 00:52:47,759
Speaker 1: of Upstream on hand. And if you want to learn

1024
00:52:47,840 --> 00:52:52,320
Speaker 1: more about me, come check out the website Heath Brothers

1025
00:52:52,360 --> 00:52:53,040
Speaker 1: dot com.

1026
00:52:53,520 --> 00:52:56,120
Speaker 2: That's Heath H. E. A T. H.

1027
00:52:56,400 --> 00:52:58,080
Speaker 1: And you can find out about all the books we've

1028
00:52:58,120 --> 00:52:59,479
Speaker 1: discussed right there.

1029
00:53:00,000 --> 00:53:01,839
Speaker 3: Fantastic and I will link to all that in the

1030
00:53:01,880 --> 00:53:05,280
Speaker 3: show notes. Dan, it has been an absolute joy. Thank

1031
00:53:05,280 --> 00:53:06,840
Speaker 3: you so much for your time.

1032
00:53:07,400 --> 00:53:08,479
Speaker 2: Thank you, it's been fun.

1033
00:53:09,719 --> 00:53:12,640
Speaker 3: That is it for today's show. If you have enjoyed

1034
00:53:12,640 --> 00:53:15,160
Speaker 3: this chat with Dan, maybe you know someone else that

1035
00:53:15,200 --> 00:53:17,040
Speaker 3: would like it as well, So why not share this

1036
00:53:17,120 --> 00:53:21,160
Speaker 3: episode with them through hitting the little share icon wherever

1037
00:53:21,160 --> 00:53:23,760
Speaker 3: you listen to this podcast from And if you're enjoying

1038
00:53:23,800 --> 00:53:25,759
Speaker 3: how I work, I would love it if you could

1039
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:28,960
Speaker 3: leave a review in Apple Podcasts. And thank you to

1040
00:53:29,000 --> 00:53:31,640
Speaker 3: everyone that has done so. So that is it for

1041
00:53:31,760 --> 00:53:34,840
Speaker 3: today's show and I will see you next time.