Speaker 1: We all know how important learning is for our career,
Speaker 1: for our identity, for our sense of personal satisfaction, and
Speaker 1: we spend a lot of time thinking about what we
Speaker 1: should learn. Should I focus on softer heart skills, Should
Speaker 1: I know my master's degree? Should I find a mentor?
Speaker 1: But what most of us don't spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time thinking about is how we learn. And if you're
Speaker 1: listening to how I work in a way, you're also
Speaker 1: listening to how I learn, because it's such an important
Speaker 1: part of your working life. Someone who does spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time thinking about how we learn is doctor
Speaker 1: Ruth Gotian. Ruth is the author of The Success Factor,
Speaker 1: which is the culmination of her obsession with high achievers
Speaker 1: and how they became so good at what they do.
Speaker 1: She's also the Chief Learning Officer in Anisiology at while
Speaker 1: Cornell Medicine and the former Assistant Dean of Mentoring and
Speaker 1: executive director at the Mentoring Academy. If anyone can teach
Speaker 1: you a thing or two about learning, it's Ruth. So
Speaker 1: why does Ruth believe that assigned mentor relationships rarely work out?
Speaker 2: And how has she.
Speaker 1: Found the most impactful mentors in her life? And why
Speaker 1: does Ruth recommend that you should never ever ask someone
Speaker 1: to be your mentor. My name is doctor Amantha imb
Speaker 1: I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science
Speaker 1: consultancy Inventium, and this is how I work a show
Speaker 1: about how to help you do your best work. Ruth
Speaker 1: told me that one of the most important mentoring relationships
Speaker 1: she has had in her career was with doctor Bert Shapiro,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to know how such a pivotal relationship
Speaker 1: came about. Ruth, I want to start with mentoring because
Speaker 1: that's played a really big part in your work and
Speaker 1: mentioned doctor Bert Shapiro quite a few times in your book,
Speaker 1: and I'd love to know how did that mentoring relationship start.
Speaker 2: So it's really interesting. I used to run what's called
Speaker 2: an MDPHD program. My students would get the dual degrees,
Speaker 2: the dual MD degree and the PhD degree. And in
Speaker 2: the United States it's the government, the National Institutes of
Speaker 2: Health that pays for it because there's a real dearth
Speaker 2: of physician scientists, and physician scientists are physicians who also
Speaker 2: do research and they approach problems differently. Doctor Bert Shapiro
Speaker 2: was the person at the national Institutes of Health that
Speaker 2: essentially controlled our purse strings. He decided the how well
Speaker 2: each program was doing at its mission. He was the
Speaker 2: one who helped decide who was getting how much money.
Speaker 1: He was really.
Speaker 2: A powerful, powerful person. But he is also one of
Speaker 2: the most brilliant people I have ever met. And at
Speaker 2: all of our national conferences when he was there, I
Speaker 2: would find myself always talking to him less about work
Speaker 2: and more about life, And very quickly he started just
Speaker 2: giving me this sage advice which was timeless, and over
Speaker 2: the years, over the decades, he just really was my
Speaker 2: sounding board for so many things, and he was my
Speaker 2: biggest supporter. And when I was doing something right, he
Speaker 2: would congratulate me, and when I was going down a
Speaker 2: slippery slope he would tell me. So I found that
Speaker 2: just so enlightening and rewarding, And over the years he's
Speaker 2: just really been one of the dear people that I
Speaker 2: go to for guidance.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like there was never this formal start
Speaker 1: to the mentoring real lifeationship per se. It just kind
Speaker 1: of evolved into that. Is that right?
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you said that, because the assigned mentors
Speaker 2: rarely work out. Why is that well, because they're so random.
Speaker 2: I mean, what are they based on our hometown, our
Speaker 2: favorite color, or where we went to school. I mean,
Speaker 2: is everyone from Australia the same? I don't think so.
Speaker 2: So why would we just match to Australians together. It
Speaker 2: just doesn't make any sense. You really need to develop
Speaker 2: a relationship with the person. And it's you know, I say,
Speaker 2: it's just like dating. When you first meet someone, you
Speaker 2: don't ask them to marry you. You develop a relationship.
Speaker 2: See if this is someone who you know, like and trust.
Speaker 2: And that's what I did with doctor Burt Shapiro. That's
Speaker 2: what I have done with every single one of my mentors,
Speaker 2: because I have many, And it's really this relationship that's
Speaker 2: developed over time. You don't ask for anything. You just
Speaker 2: see if you know like and trust each other, it
Speaker 2: it happens organically. Those are the best mentoring relationships.
Speaker 1: Oh, I can so relate. Like there have been a
Speaker 1: couple of occasions in my career where I have been
Speaker 1: matched with a mentor and you're absolutely right, the relationship
Speaker 1: did not work. And I think about the people that
Speaker 1: I go to now for super wise counsel and they
Speaker 1: are absolutely what you described their relationships that have evolved.
Speaker 1: So then when you're going into a chat or a
Speaker 1: coffee or a meeting with one of your mentors, how
Speaker 1: are you preparing for that?
Speaker 2: I really have a goal, and this is really what
Speaker 2: I try to tell people. You can have plenty of
Speaker 2: coffee chats, but they have to there has to be
Speaker 2: a goal of the conversation. Is there something that you
Speaker 2: want to learn? If it's someone who you're meeting with
Speaker 2: them not as a catcher, but you're meeting with them
Speaker 2: for a mentoring discussion. And I always tell people you
Speaker 2: never call the person a mentor. You never ask somebody
Speaker 2: to be your mentor, because that is asking them to
Speaker 2: take on another job or another obligation. Instead, you want
Speaker 2: to ask them for their perspective on something. Can I
Speaker 2: get your thoughts on something? Can I hear what you
Speaker 2: have to say about something? I really want to tap
Speaker 2: into your experience, because I'm kind of stuck and I
Speaker 2: was wondering what you think I should consider as my
Speaker 2: next step. That's a whole lot better than help me
Speaker 2: with the next stage in my career. Who do I
Speaker 2: even begin with that? So you have to come ready
Speaker 2: to that conversation.
Speaker 1: How do you approach a cold reach out, And I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if I'm assuming that you do cold reach outs,
Speaker 1: and you must have for the process of writing your book,
Speaker 1: So what's your strategy there, perhaps when you're looking to
Speaker 1: get some advice from someone that you don't know, and
Speaker 1: particularly like when let's say, when you're you know, punching
Speaker 1: above your weight, if that makes sense, which is.
Speaker 2: Every day for me. I mean, I study extreme high achievers,
Speaker 2: so every day I'm reaching out to people who are
Speaker 2: way above my intellect and my achievement. Most of the
Speaker 2: people in the book the success Factor, and they are
Speaker 2: very much household names from every industry from science to
Speaker 2: sports to business. And usually I have a connection with
Speaker 2: somebody who knows them, and I would ask them for
Speaker 2: those introductions because those are people who know, like and
Speaker 2: trust me and they can vouch for me. But for
Speaker 2: those cold, those cold outreaches that I have, I never
Speaker 2: ask them for anything. Ever. I try to offer something
Speaker 2: before I ever ask for anything, because why should they
Speaker 2: give me anything, even their time, which is their most
Speaker 2: precious resource. They don't even know me. I have to
Speaker 2: really prove my worth. That is the most important. And
Speaker 2: when you prove your worth to somebody. They want to
Speaker 2: help you. That's why half of the Nobel Prize winners
Speaker 2: were actually mentored by other Nobel Prize winners. Somebody saw
Speaker 2: their worth.
Speaker 1: Can you give some examples of what you have given
Speaker 1: to initially build that trust.
Speaker 2: One Nobel Prize winner who launched his own book, Brilliant Scientist,
Speaker 2: I mean brilliant, he won the Nobel. He doesn't know
Speaker 2: the first thing about marketing a book, not the first thing.
Speaker 2: He was only reaching out within his network. He didn't
Speaker 2: even consider doing anything on social media, didn't even know
Speaker 2: about doing podcasts. And we started talking about that quite
Speaker 2: a bit, and I said, you know, if you really
Speaker 2: want to expand your reach, you should consider social media,
Speaker 2: on podcasts and so on. And say He's like, well,
Speaker 2: how do I even get to those people? And that's
Speaker 2: when I was able to offer those introductions little old
Speaker 2: me to a Nobel Prize winner. Now we're in regular
Speaker 2: communication about it, because now I can make that introduction. Afterwards,
Speaker 2: I could say how did it go, what did you think,
Speaker 2: what was the toughest question, what were you prepared for?
Speaker 2: What were you not? Now we have a whole discussion going.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So there's so many ways that you can offer something.
Speaker 1: I love that example. I'd love to know a couple
Speaker 1: of other examples. I even, just for my eye selfish
Speaker 1: raisins to steal.
Speaker 2: So I have reached out to different people who wrote
Speaker 2: articles on topics that I was fascinated about and I
Speaker 2: really wanted to learn more and get inside their head.
Speaker 2: And I would really reach out to them and I
Speaker 2: would say, I love the article that you wrote about
Speaker 2: such and such. It reminded me about the article I
Speaker 2: read by so and so. Here's the link. I do
Speaker 2: quite a bit of work on this. Hope you enjoy
Speaker 2: the article. And now we start to engage a few
Speaker 2: more times, not enough that I'm stalking them, but enough
Speaker 2: that I am now on their radar. And now all
Speaker 2: of a sudden we can have these regular communications. I mean,
Speaker 2: look at the two of us. Yeah, what was our conversation.
Speaker 2: We looked for a common thread, and you always want
Speaker 2: to find that common thread with people, whatever it is.
Speaker 2: I once spoke to someone, I had a zoom meeting
Speaker 2: with someone, and I saw in the back of the
Speaker 2: room there that he was zooming in from all of
Speaker 2: these trophies. Now I recognize what these trophies were because
Speaker 2: I sat for endless hours on cold metal chairs in
Speaker 2: a karate dojo as my kids were earning their black belts,
Speaker 2: and I knew that these three foot troph fees could
Speaker 2: only be for martial arts. So I said to him,
Speaker 2: I said, what kind of martial arts do you do?
Speaker 2: Because I knew I knew that's what they were. And
Speaker 2: he said, how did you know? So I said, I
Speaker 2: sat on those cold, hard metal chairs for hours and hours,
Speaker 2: and then we started getting into what style of karate
Speaker 2: do you do? And we got into this whole discussion.
Speaker 2: You want to find that common thread. The two of
Speaker 2: us actually met in the green room of the Thinkers
Speaker 2: fifty Awards gala. Right, we have yet to meet in person.
Speaker 2: It would have been so much fun if we could
Speaker 2: actually meet in London, but we met on a zoom
Speaker 2: green room and that's when we were able to connect.
Speaker 2: That was our common thread. So I think everyone needs
Speaker 2: to be able to find that common thread, and it
Speaker 2: could be anything I talked to somebody. To an olympian,
Speaker 2: our common thread was her blue glasses, which happened to
Speaker 2: be my favorite color. And she was actually this as
Speaker 2: an Olympian. She was actually facing a challenge with a
Speaker 2: difficult conversation that she needed to have with her boss,
Speaker 2: and we actually talked through how to be able to
Speaker 2: have that conversation. This was something that as an outsider,
Speaker 2: it seemed very obvious to me, but she was so
Speaker 2: deep in it she couldn't see it. She could get
Speaker 2: to the Olympics, but she couldn't have this difficult conversation.
Speaker 2: But yet we bonded over the color blue. So you
Speaker 2: always look for that common thread. It's not so difficult.
Speaker 2: You just have to try.
Speaker 1: Now, I know that goal setting is very important to you,
Speaker 1: and you look quite far out, I believe five years out.
Speaker 1: I'd love to know what is your process for even
Speaker 1: just imagining what you want to be doing and aiming
Speaker 1: for in five years.
Speaker 2: Well, I definitely, you know, I do have my daily goals,
Speaker 2: my weekly goals, but I definitely have things that I
Speaker 2: want to accomplish within five years. My goals fit on
Speaker 2: a post it note, literally on a post it note,
Speaker 2: and it's bullets, it's not paragraphs. And that post it note,
Speaker 2: that three x three post it note is right over
Speaker 2: my desk and I look at it every single day,
Speaker 2: and every time I'm asked to take on another task.
Speaker 2: I want to know is it going to help me
Speaker 2: achieve those goals? Now, what I do is I look
Speaker 2: at those goals and I reverse engineer the process that
Speaker 2: it's going to take to get there. And if I
Speaker 2: have a goal to do this particular thing this year
Speaker 2: or within five years, I need to ask myself what
Speaker 2: are the milestones that I need to hit in order
Speaker 2: to achieve that goal? And then I take actionable steps
Speaker 2: to actually achieve those milestones. Block that time off on
Speaker 2: my calendar, and every time I hit a milestone, I
Speaker 2: reward myself. That's actually how I wrote a book during
Speaker 2: a pandemic while morning the loss of my dad.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. Wow. Can I ask for and I'm
Speaker 1: sorry to hear about your dad?
Speaker 2: Thank you?
Speaker 1: Can I ask for an example of one of those
Speaker 1: things that is written on your post it note?
Speaker 2: Yes, within five years, I want to write two books,
Speaker 2: and I already finished the first one and I already
Speaker 2: have proposals for two more. Wow, so well on my way.
Speaker 2: When you look at it, you can't ignore it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's very concrete. How do you decide on your goals?
Speaker 1: How do you decide on what goes on this little
Speaker 1: post it note?
Speaker 2: Well, things get written and things get taken off. It's
Speaker 2: not just because it's written on the post note that
Speaker 2: I must do it. It's just this is what I think
Speaker 2: I really want as a goal, and after a while
Speaker 2: you might decide that it doesn't work for you. I
Speaker 2: have to see where my passions lie because I think
Speaker 2: finding your passionate purpose is very important and being able
Speaker 2: to do that and figure out what to do with
Speaker 2: your passion is very important. So I know that I
Speaker 2: love to bring theory and practice and teach people how
Speaker 2: to actually do it. And what are the ways that
Speaker 2: I can do it. I can do it through writing,
Speaker 2: I can do it through speaking. So being able to
Speaker 2: do that goes on my goal list. There are other
Speaker 2: ways that I can do it that used to be
Speaker 2: on my goal list that aren't there anymore because I
Speaker 2: realized that's not right for me, that's not the right
Speaker 2: platform for me. So it's figuring out what it is
Speaker 2: as it relates to your passion and what do I
Speaker 2: need to do there and if it doesn't feel right anymore,
Speaker 2: take it off, replace it with something else.
Speaker 1: How do you break down one of your five year
Speaker 1: goals into like what you're working on today?
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I really my calendar is so critical because
Speaker 2: I have things that I need to do, and then
Speaker 2: when do I need to do it. So I have
Speaker 2: a book coming out and I'm writing. I do a
Speaker 2: lot of writing of articles, and I literally had five
Speaker 2: articles that I needed to finish in a seven day period.
Speaker 2: That's insane, that's absolutely insane. But I started. I know
Speaker 2: that I'm a morning person, so I woke up on
Speaker 2: the weekend super early before anybody else in the house
Speaker 2: woke up. By the time they woke up, I finished
Speaker 2: two of them. The first draft, I finished two of
Speaker 2: them because I learned to leverage my pea cognitive hours.
Speaker 2: The next day, I was a little slower and a
Speaker 2: little sloppy. It took me all day to finish one
Speaker 2: all day. And then the next day I knew that
Speaker 2: I was sort of losing steam because you need these breaks.
Speaker 2: So I started just putting in breaks. Do this section,
Speaker 2: then do this section, then do this section. I've already
Speaker 2: finished four out of five and I still have three
Speaker 2: days to go.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's amazing. Oh my gosh. Now your goals, the
Speaker 1: ones that you've talked about are centered around I guess
Speaker 1: thought leadership and I'd love to know. I feel like
Speaker 1: in the last decade there's been this explosion of maybe
Speaker 1: self titled thought leaders, and i'd love to know what
Speaker 1: does being a thought leader mean to you? Like, how
Speaker 1: do you define it?
Speaker 2: It's so interesting that you say that, because the first
Speaker 2: time I heard that freeze. Let me back up. I
Speaker 2: was forty three when I went back to school to
Speaker 2: get my doctorate, and I was at Columbia University Teachers
Speaker 2: College in New York, and I was walking the halls
Speaker 2: and I bumped into a friend of mine who I
Speaker 2: hadn't seen in a while, and we started talking, and
Speaker 2: we started talking about what we want to do after
Speaker 2: we get our degrees. And he said to me, well,
Speaker 2: what do you want to be a thought leader in?
Speaker 2: And I said, I don't even think I know what
Speaker 2: a thought leader is. And he said to me, well,
Speaker 2: it's what you're uniquely qualified to do, what someone would
Speaker 2: approach you as being an expert in. And I said, well,
Speaker 2: I think I've done many things. I don't know that
Speaker 2: I'm a thought leader in any of those things. And
Speaker 2: that's when I realized that just doing something doesn't make
Speaker 2: you a thought leader. It's pushing what we know to
Speaker 2: be true and creating a paradigm shift in the way
Speaker 2: we look at things, think about things, process things. That's
Speaker 2: what makes you a thought leader. Never really sure I
Speaker 2: became one, but I decided to shift what I was doing.
Speaker 2: Not just regurgitate what other people were doing, but how
Speaker 2: can I look at it in a new way. One
Speaker 2: of my mentors, doctor Marivolp, she said to me, there
Speaker 2: is nothing new under the sun. What's new is how
Speaker 2: you look at it. So I had to look at
Speaker 2: things in the new way. And going back to that.
Speaker 2: My other mentor, who you said at the top of
Speaker 2: the program, doctor Burt Shapiro. He said to me, do
Speaker 2: something important, not just interesting, because if it's interesting, it's
Speaker 2: interesting to you. If it's important, it'll have a ripple
Speaker 2: effect and it'll have impact. You're going at something in
Speaker 2: a way and you're attacking it in a way that
Speaker 2: no one else has. This has the potential to be
Speaker 2: big because it's a brand new terrain. So make it important,
Speaker 2: not just interesting. And I think doing that, going on
Speaker 2: that new terrain, looking at things in a different way,
Speaker 2: but also teaching people how to apply it. That is
Speaker 2: how you can be a thought leader. I don't know
Speaker 2: that I ever got there, but I'm still trying.
Speaker 1: I love that distinction between important and interesting. I'm definitely
Speaker 1: I'm definitely going to remember that one. How do you
Speaker 1: work on your goal around thought leadership every day? Like
Speaker 1: there routines that you have, for example, that kind of
Speaker 1: keep you, keep you going and keep you honest to
Speaker 1: that goal.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, I am very very strict with routines. It
Speaker 2: just if I don't have my routines every day, I
Speaker 2: sort of get flustered. So it really helps me not
Speaker 2: waste time. And I really have my days where I
Speaker 2: need to binge Netflix. We all do, But on my
Speaker 2: days that are my productive days, I actually make sure
Speaker 2: I have systems in place to keep them productive. So,
Speaker 2: for example, I am a morning person, so I told
Speaker 2: you I leverage that time to do deep cognitive work,
Speaker 2: which for me is writing, editing, budget work. I don't
Speaker 2: do my passive tasks during my peak cognitive hours. I'm
Speaker 2: not paying bills in the morning, I'm not doing zoom
Speaker 2: or emails or phone calls in the morning. Those are
Speaker 2: saved for the afternoon when I'm a little slower, a
Speaker 2: little more sluggish, a little bit more tired. I don't
Speaker 2: want to waste a single minute of my p cognitive hours.
Speaker 2: The other thing that I did about a year and
Speaker 2: a half ago, which for me changed everything, I shut
Speaker 2: off all notifications on my phone. My phone is always
Speaker 2: on silent. I really don't need to know if somebody
Speaker 2: likes or engages with my social media post. It's really
Speaker 2: not life altering. Nothing is critical or that time sensitive.
Speaker 2: I look at my social media during those passive hours
Speaker 2: the afternoon, in the evening, when I'm more tired. My phone,
Speaker 2: I told you, is always on silent. It only rings,
Speaker 2: and this is a feature on Apple. It only rings
Speaker 2: for people who are designated with the emergency override button,
Speaker 2: which in my case is my husband and my children.
Speaker 2: That's it. Nobody else gets that override because it can't
Speaker 2: be life and death. Unless it's life and death, my
Speaker 2: phone shouldn't be ringing. And then you have to just
Speaker 2: be consistent. So if you want to be known as
Speaker 2: a thought leader, you really have to produce content because
Speaker 2: people need to hear and understand and process with what
Speaker 2: you're saying. So I made it part of my routine
Speaker 2: where every Monday night, I have a guest on my
Speaker 2: show called Optimizing your success. People know it's going to
Speaker 2: be a high achiever that's coming on every Tuesday at
Speaker 2: eight fifteen in the morning, New York time. I have
Speaker 2: an article published in Forbes once a month. I have
Speaker 2: an article published in Psychology Today, and that's an addition
Speaker 2: to all of the other sporadic articles that I have
Speaker 2: in both academic journals and lay journals, because when those
Speaker 2: get published, that's less in my control. So being able
Speaker 2: to have control over certain things certainly helps. And then
Speaker 2: I always surround myself with people who are better than
Speaker 2: I am, who I can learn from, and in my
Speaker 2: case that's not so hard because I work with the
Speaker 2: most tremendous, incredible people ever. I also regularly get to
Speaker 2: interview extreme high achievers, the astronauts and Nobel Prize winners,
Speaker 2: the Olympic champions, and trust me, every day I learned
Speaker 2: something from them. I'm also surrounded by these management thingers,
Speaker 2: these authors, these coaches, these mentors, and I listen to
Speaker 2: them every day, every single day that I get a
Speaker 2: chance to. And I have a well, I don't have
Speaker 2: a to do list. I have time on my calendar
Speaker 2: blocked for things that I need to do, so it's
Speaker 2: not just listed on a to do list. I actually
Speaker 2: block the time on my calendar to do it. And
Speaker 2: that's anything from responding to an email to reviewing a
Speaker 2: manuscript or the TASSA in the calendar. It's very, very methodical.
Speaker 1: We will be back with Ruth shortly and we'll get
Speaker 1: to hear about how, despite sounding quite superhuman, she does
Speaker 1: actually procrastinate, and I ask her about what she does
Speaker 1: to overcome it. Now I feel looking for more tips
Speaker 1: to improve the way that you work. I write a
Speaker 1: short fortnightly newsletter that contains three cool things that I've
Speaker 1: discovered that helped me work better. You can sign up
Speaker 1: for that at Howiwork dot co. That's how I work
Speaker 1: dot co. Now, procrastination, what do you do when you
Speaker 1: find yourself procrastinating?
Speaker 2: So I do procrastinate, and we procrastinate on things that
Speaker 2: we don't enjoy doing. So I actually carry about time
Speaker 2: to do those things. And I said, this is the
Speaker 2: alloted time I carved it out on my calendar. You
Speaker 2: know that I live by my calendar, and it's only
Speaker 2: for a finite period of time and then I'm done
Speaker 2: and I don't go back to it. It doesn't have
Speaker 2: to be better it doesn't have to be perfect, it
Speaker 2: just needs to be done. The things I enjoy doing, well,
Speaker 2: probably I will work until it's as close to perfect
Speaker 2: as I can get it. The things I don't enjoy doing,
Speaker 2: it's got to be good and it's got to be done,
Speaker 2: and learning that sometimes doing B plus A minus work
Speaker 2: for things you don't enjoy doing is just fine.
Speaker 1: Now, if I want to look at the board on
Speaker 1: the wall that is beside you, I would see a
Speaker 1: huge patchwork of post it notes. Can you tell me
Speaker 1: about your system for organizing what you're doing.
Speaker 2: Yes, So I'm an academic. I'm a faculty member, so
Speaker 2: I am often working on multiple articles at the same time.
Speaker 2: I think now I have about twelve or seventeen articles.
Speaker 2: Each one is in a different level of completion, So
Speaker 2: there's actually nine different columns of all the steps that
Speaker 2: I have to go through, everything from the idea to
Speaker 2: getting internal review board approval, data collection, data analysis, the writing,
Speaker 2: the submission, awaiting review revision, and then finally publishing. Every
Speaker 2: article gets its own post it note. It has the
Speaker 2: name of the person and who the authors are, what
Speaker 2: journal I'm submitting it to, and some of them have
Speaker 2: a red star on it. The red star actually means
Speaker 2: that I'm the first author, which in academia is a
Speaker 2: very big deal. And as we move through the different stages,
Speaker 2: I take the post it note and I move it
Speaker 2: a column to the right, and there is a real
Speaker 2: visceral response when you physically move that post it note
Speaker 2: a column to the right. I've tried the electronic versions
Speaker 2: of it. I didn't get that visceral response, which is
Speaker 2: what I needed so so badly. So I use that.
Speaker 2: And when you get to the final end where something's
Speaker 2: accepted and it's going to be published, that is you
Speaker 2: put that post it note, put on that last column
Speaker 2: to the right, and it's sort of you pump your
Speaker 2: hands up in the air because you did it. You
Speaker 2: got through all of the stages, you got to that
Speaker 2: last point.
Speaker 1: What do you do to celebrate or reward yourself.
Speaker 2: It's so interesting because this is really funny. So my
Speaker 2: doctoral dissertations, a qualitative dissertation, which is hundreds of pages long.
Speaker 2: You can't do that in one sitting. You write it
Speaker 2: over several months. But when you're working full time and
Speaker 2: raising a family and also writing a dissertation, you write
Speaker 2: things by section and every time I finish a section,
Speaker 2: I rewarded myself. Now, I would be broke if I
Speaker 2: rewarded myself with something expensive or a new outfit or
Speaker 2: a new pair of shoes, and I would be three
Speaker 2: hundred pounds if I always reward myself with ice cream.
Speaker 2: So every time I finished a section, I would reward
Speaker 2: myself with a manicure. Didn't cost a lot of money,
Speaker 2: made me feel like a queen, made me feel pampered.
Speaker 2: I had the best looking hands of any graduate student.
Speaker 2: And that's something that I still do now, is I
Speaker 2: look for these little ways to just pamper myself a
Speaker 2: little bit so that I can keep going, because sometimes
Speaker 2: you can get stuck. Sometimes you get the steam just
Speaker 2: you know, blown right out of you. And this really helps.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to stop now because if I write
Speaker 2: just three more paragraphs, I get to cavin manicure. So
Speaker 2: that's how you keep pushing through it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I can relate to that. I know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, not with manicures actually, but with massages. Like
Speaker 1: whenever I go get a massage, like a remedial massage,
Speaker 1: you know, like a spar kind of place, I'm always
Speaker 1: like I should do this more often, and so when
Speaker 1: I was writing the book that I have now finished,
Speaker 1: it will come out in a few months. I set
Speaker 1: myself these kind of chunky goals and I'm like, I
Speaker 1: get to have a massage when I, you know, write
Speaker 1: the next ten thousand words or whatever it would be.
Speaker 1: And and I'm not someone that rewards myself very often
Speaker 1: for doing things or hitting goals in work. But yeah,
Speaker 1: changing my process I found incredibly motivating us.
Speaker 2: Yes, and ten thousand words, Yes, that's definitely that. You
Speaker 2: definitely had an assigned.
Speaker 1: With massage worthy. Now, learning is a big part of
Speaker 1: what you do, and I would love to know how
Speaker 1: do you decide what books to read?
Speaker 2: Hm, I am actually always reading three at the same time. Yeah, so,
Speaker 2: and I read them in different platforms. So leadership books
Speaker 2: my background's and adult learning and leadership. So I always
Speaker 2: want to read what the next big thing is, the
Speaker 2: next big idea. The leadership books I want in print
Speaker 2: because I highlight, I write in the margins, I actually
Speaker 2: take notes on each chapter. So those are the leadership
Speaker 2: books and I read those. I have a long commute
Speaker 2: to work, so I'm also reading on audible. I listen
Speaker 2: to books and that's a lot of autobiographies and things
Speaker 2: that I don't really need to take notes on. It's
Speaker 2: big ideas but don't always have application. And then on
Speaker 2: my kindle is stuff for pure pleasure. What I use
Speaker 2: just to quiet my mind. There's no note taking, there's
Speaker 2: no thinking. It's just to transport myself to this alternate
Speaker 2: reality so that I can quiet my mind. And that's
Speaker 2: on my kindle. So I'm always reading three at the
Speaker 2: same time, print, Audible, and Kindle.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like the print book is the book
Speaker 1: where I guess the learning or the application of what
Speaker 1: you're reading is greatest for your work?
Speaker 2: What for sure?
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's your process for capturing what you learn from
Speaker 1: a book?
Speaker 2: So I actually, as I say, I take a lot
Speaker 2: of notes, I highlight. I literally have papers for each
Speaker 2: chapter and I'm writing notes. And then what I do,
Speaker 2: because I write for Forbes and other such periodicals, I
Speaker 2: will actually use some of what I have learned from
Speaker 2: that if I like it, and use it in some
Speaker 2: of the articles that I write. I write a lot
Speaker 2: about success and leadership development and start to live what
Speaker 2: is written. Now very often I will reach out to
Speaker 2: the authors because I want to know what is this
Speaker 2: based on is this based on your idea in the
Speaker 2: shower or was this some research that was done. So
Speaker 2: I will actually reach out to the authors and really
Speaker 2: talk to them about it, about how did this come about,
Speaker 2: how did you get this idea, how did you figure
Speaker 2: this out? How did you test it? So I do
Speaker 2: have those conversations because I actually learn as much as
Speaker 2: I read, and I read seventy to one hundred books
Speaker 2: a year. As much as I read, I still learn
Speaker 2: best by talking. I need to talk and listen, talk
Speaker 2: and listen, talk and listen. So having that conversation with
Speaker 2: the author is fascinating. Sally, I don't have the time
Speaker 2: or the bandwidth for book clubs, but I find that
Speaker 2: talking with the authors and listening to the authors for
Speaker 2: me is the best learning opportunity.
Speaker 1: Now, you obviously talked to you a range of amazing,
Speaker 1: highly successful, accomplished people through what you do, and you
Speaker 1: know we've covered a lot of your different strategies. I'd
Speaker 1: love to know what are some of the more unique,
Speaker 1: quirky novel strategies that you've picked up over your time
Speaker 1: speaking to some of these amazing people.
Speaker 2: So something that really resonated with me was taught to
Speaker 2: me by doctor Peggy Whitson, who was the She's an astronaut,
Speaker 2: former chief astronaut for NASA and spent more decent space
Speaker 2: than any American astronaut of any gender. And she was
Speaker 2: also the commander of the International Space Station. And we
Speaker 2: were talking about mundane tasks, and she said to me,
Speaker 2: with mundane tasks, just make it a competition. Whatever time
Speaker 2: you have allotted for it, see if you can beat
Speaker 2: that time, whatever it is, see if you can beat it.
Speaker 2: Because now all of a sudden, it's challenge. It's not
Speaker 2: something you have to do. It becomes a challenge. And
Speaker 2: I've been trying that and I have to tell you
Speaker 2: it makes a difference. It really really makes a difference.
Speaker 2: And then from Apollo anton Ono, who is the most
Speaker 2: decorated Winter Olympian, he taught me that you need to
Speaker 2: learn things not just from your sport, but from other
Speaker 2: industries as well, which I've known, but hearing how a
Speaker 2: top olympian does it, I thought was fascinating. He read
Speaker 2: every book he could get in his hands on improving
Speaker 2: his performance, improving his sleep, improving his flow state, improving
Speaker 2: his nutrition. He would surround himself and talk to people
Speaker 2: who would actually help him with all of that. So
Speaker 2: I think there's something that we can learn from all
Speaker 2: of these people. The other thing that I really learned
Speaker 2: from them is that they fear not trying more than
Speaker 2: they fear failing. And that, to me was the biggest
Speaker 2: shift in my thinking because very often you hear people
Speaker 2: who are free to fail, and you hear people who
Speaker 2: are a free to succeed, But how often do we
Speaker 2: hear of people who fear not trying? And that is
Speaker 2: what I wanted to start doing. I wanted to fear
Speaker 2: not trying more than I feared failing.
Speaker 1: Ruth, what is the best way for people who've listened
Speaker 1: to this conversation and want to consume more of what
Speaker 1: you are putting out into the world.
Speaker 2: Well, my book, The Success Factor is out now. It
Speaker 2: is out everywhere wherever you love buying books. If you
Speaker 2: want to know where you can find it anywhere in
Speaker 2: the world, just go to Ruthgotian dot com, slash book
Speaker 2: and social media is just my name, Ruth Gotian.
Speaker 1: I just love the advice that doctor Shapiro gave to
Speaker 1: Ruth to do something important, not just interesting, and as
Speaker 1: someone who tries to be the thought leader myself is
Speaker 1: really resonated with me almost just criteria about whether an
Speaker 1: idea or a project is worth pursuing, or even at
Speaker 1: a micro level, whether an article of blog post is
Speaker 1: worth writing. Now, if you are not a subscriber or
Speaker 1: follower of How I Work, now might be the time
Speaker 1: to hit the followers subscribe button, because next week I'm
Speaker 1: very excited to have Zoe Chance on the show, who
Speaker 1: we'll be talking about how to use influence as a superpower,
Speaker 1: and she gave me some very very practical and novel
Speaker 1: ways to be more influential and persuasive in how I communicate.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you will love my chat with Zoe.
Speaker 1: How I Work is produced by Inventium with production support
Speaker 1: from Dead Set Studios. The producer for this episode was
Speaker 1: Liam Riordan, and thank you to Martin Nimba, who does
Speaker 1: the audio mix for every episode and makes everything sound
Speaker 1: much better than it would have otherwise. See you next time.