064: Rewiring Your Brain with MJ Ryan

Pete Mockaitis
MJ, thanks so much for being here on the How To Be Awesome At Your Job podcast.

MJ Ryan
I’m happy to be with you.  I love the concept of being awesome at your job.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, me too, me too.  Well, I think we’re going to have some fun here.  And it seems like you’ve got a wealth of knowledge from the world of positive psychology and neuro-science and such, and a good chunk of that is packed into your upcoming book here, Habit Changers.  Can you tell us a little bit what’s the story here behind these 81 game-changing mantras?

MJ Ryan
I work as an executive coach to leaders and entrepreneurs around the world, and what I love to do is help people grow and change, and I’ve written a lot about change how we can create change.  But I always am looking for something that’s going to make it easier for people, because as you know, change is hard, once we’re adults.  Because our brain is less plastic – we can grow new habits but it’s harder than when we were young.
So I’m always looking for shortcuts, for things that’ll make it easier.  And I was working with this guy who was having trouble learning how to delegate, and I was going on and on and on about how to delegate properly, and teaching him what to do and say.  And he looked at me and he goes, “Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.  You’ve got to make it much simpler than this if I am going to remember.”
And I thought, “Okay, good point.”  So I said, “Say what and why, not how.”  So that was simple enough for him, he wrote it down on a little piece of paper and that became his mantra.  Every time he would go and have a meeting with his people, he would say, “Say what and why, not how” to himself, and then lo and behold, not only did he do it, but he did it so well that he got a promotion while we were working together.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s great. So he’d be having a conversation, a meeting, and someone would be talking about some initiative. Maybe you could give us an example.

MJ Ryan
Well, he was a micro-manager.  He was sent to me by his boss, ’cause people said that he was the worst boss they ever had, ’cause he’d get in and mess around with their stuff.  He would say, “Do this and do it like that and dot dot dot.”  He was just a micro-manager, which drove everyone crazy because of course it’s disempowering.  And so he literally did not know how to delegate, so I helped him understand.  Behind this mantra was, “Alright, so what am I wanting?  What’s the result I’m looking for?  And why does this matter?”
So good leaders know that we need to say what we’re looking for, so, “I need a report from you, Pete, on awesomeness at work.  And here’s why I need it.”  And so the “why” matters, because the brain is looking for context and for a sense of purpose, and when we don’t give those two things, then we create less than optimal conditions for them to deliver what you want.  But instead, what bad leaders do is they go into the “how”.
“And I want it to be on purple paper, and I want you to make sure that you have this kind of a headline, and that you do it on Tuesday between 2:00 and 4:00.”  We get into the details, which then interferes with the person’s autonomy, essentially.  The person we’re delegating to, and creates a lot of resentment.  And it’s ultimately disempowerment of the person that we’re trying to lead, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, that’s great. So I think that’s a really nice example the way you unpacked that a bit.  And so the what and why , not how. And it’s just sort of a shorter way of instantly reminding yourself of that key message. It’s like, “I’m going to tell a person what I want and why I want it.  I am not going to tell them how to do it.” And so they convert that into something they can just say in their brain in an instant.

MJ Ryan
Correct. So that’s what all of these are.  So they’re not affirmations. Affirmations are things that say, “We’re hoping we’re going to be like this in the future.”  What these are are actually instruction of what you’re supposed to do.
So let me give you another example.  So, “It’s not about what you’re trying to be; it’s about how you’re trying to behave.”  And so it’s a quick reminder. So I work with a lot of people who, part on their problem is they’re very suspicious of other people’s intentions.
So people who are good at strategic thinking, sometimes get hung up on people’s strategy, and they think, “Well, why is she doing that?  Why did she say that thing?”
And they interpret other people’s behavior in a negative light, right?  And that then makes relationships at work tend to go bad, because you’re always presuming that they’re doing something, but maybe they’re probably not.
So I give this one to lots of my clients, which is “Presume goodwill.”  So, presume goodwill.  So what that helps you remember is, “I don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing, but if I assume a good and positive intention, then probably our conversation is going to go better than if I presume a negative one.”

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, absolutely.

MJ Ryan
So that’s our example.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s so good.  And so there’s 81 of them.  That’s a whole bundle there.

MJ Ryan
That’s a whole bundle, and you can also create your own. The point is, when we’re trying to create a habit, what we’re trying to do is get the automatic part of our brain to start to build the habit, ’cause otherwise, as we know, remembering is hard.  Like, “Oh yeah, I have to remember, Pete’s not out to get me, even though he maybe didn’t say hello to me in the hall, maybe that was just because he…”  And I don’t remember that.  Because my brain is perfectly wired to do what I’m already doing and think what I’m already thinking.
So these things help us quickly remember, so we practice enough that it becomes automatic.  So that’s the point.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.  So I guess I’m curious to hear a little bit more about some of the backstory there. So we know what they look like in practice and what they remind.  And so, could I hear a little bit about… You said that this slogan practice, was the term… Is it a Buddhist term?  How do I pronounce that, “Lojong”?

MJ Ryan
Yes.  So, I got the idea, aside from this guy, trying to make it simpler for my client, I had been reading about this practice in Buddhism that’s called Lojong; it’s a Tibetan practice that is about slogans, and it’s exactly similar, which is that you get these phrases that you say to yourself, and you choose one a day until you don’t need that one anymore, and then you go to the next one.
So you just want it for as long as you need it, then you go to the next one.  But they’re very obscure; they’re like Zen koans.  They’re equivalent to the sound of one hand clapping.  They in themselves are not helpful for us in our business lives, I don’t think.  But the concept of it was in my mind when I was coming up with these things for people.  I thought, “Oh, they just need a slogan to practice with.”

Pete Mockaitis
Or the sound of one dog barking, as the case might be.

MJ Ryan
Yeah, sorry about that.

Pete Mockaitis
No, it’s fun. It’s fun. What’s the little dog’s name?

MJ Ryan
Mookie.

Pete Mockaitis
Mookie. Oh, that’s fun.

MJ Ryan
Yeah, so what’s interesting is Mookie is a fabulous example of actually what happens to us.  In fact, I often say “the Mookie brain”.  So we all have a part of our brains that is the instinctive part that we inherited from our animal past that’s smart as a lizard.

Pete Mockaitis
Is that the limbic system?

MJ Ryan
Yes, it is.  Yeah, and it’s a lizard brain.  And it’s just looking for threat.  “Is this dangerous or is this safe?”  And it drives a lot of our unconscious behavior.  So we actually have three systems.  One is this avoiding threat system, and so when Mookie’s barking she’s saying, “I’m scared”, right?  And then there’s an approach system, etc.
So, the point is that we’re driven by these things, and we’re acting from them a lot of the time. And so, that’s why we end up saying and doing things that we regret later, because when that part of our brain takes over, the limbic system, specifically the amygdala, and it hijacks our actual higher passive thinking, which takes place in the prefrontal cortex.
So what happens is we start to do and say things because we’ve been hijacked, and our prefrontal cortex later on comes back online and it goes, “Oh no, what did I do?  Or what did I say?” or whatever.
So some of these that are in the book are about helping you catch yourself when you’ve been hijacked to make sure you don’t make it worse.
So anger is a form of hijacking.  Not righteous anger or you’re upset about some social justice, I’m not talking about that. But that anger that is like, “I want to strangle this person”, figuratively speaking, of course.
So, that is the fight part of the fight or flight mechanism, which is what this hijack turns on. When the limbic system hijacks our prefrontal cortex, it turns on our fight or flight response.  So have you ever had that experience where you just think to yourself, “Okay, I’m just going to quit. I’m out of here! They’re mistreating me, I am just going to leave! I’m not going to  put up with this anymore!”

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure.

MJ Ryan
That’s flight of the “fight, flight or freeze”.  And fight is, “I’m going to go in there and give her a piece of my mind.”  Or you will in fact do it.  That’s fight.  And so when we experience… I’ve ever worked with a number of people who have anger issues at work, and what happens is that this mechanism, the spider flight, turns on really fast, right?
So when you interrupt a little bit with one of these slogans… So one of the ones I gave to a person like this was “Stop!”  Stop, rewind.  So in other words go back to where you were before the hijack happened. Right? So that helps interrupt this hijack and brings you back into your prefrontal cortex, which is where you make the wise decisions and have all of your good thoughts.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, that all makes good sense to me, kind of biochemically, in terms of how that’s operating for us. Could you share other kind of any cool studies or experiments or results showing up in the positive psychology literature, or other just sort of science on it?

MJ Ryan
That specifically relates to… Well, one of the most interesting things about this is that we have tendencies; but what they’ve discovered is that we have tendencies in our brain either to go very fast to those places – so it’s called an up-regulated stress response. So you’re around… You’ve probably seen people like this at work; they’re very hair trigger.  They’re going on, it’s fine.  Something sets them off and makes them explode, right?
That means that they have deeply grooved neuropathways and that their stress response is actually faster and stronger than other people’s.  And they probably also have what’s called tilt to the right hemisphere of their brain, which is where emotionality and access to this amygdala is faster.
And conversely, some of us have a left prefrontal tilt, which means we’re generally more positive and more upbeat, more grateful, more kind, etc., which of course creates a much better atmosphere at work, right?
So, by the time we’re adults, we have these tilts, because we groove them in whether we were born that way and then habituate it even more because of all of our experiences up to this point. We have these habits to either tilt to the right and think about the negative, or tilt to the left and think about the positive, or instinctive. But positive psychology has discovered… And that research by the way was discovered looking at the brains of Tibetan monks.  A guy at the University of Michigan.
And so what positive psychology has discovered is that we can actually, through practices of looking at the positive, practicing gratitude and generosity and kindness, etcetera, we can actually influence our tilt.  So we can be more tilted to the left, and therefore be happier and more positive, and also create positive environments around us.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely.

MJ Ryan
So one of the things that really relates to work is that, what they’ve discovered is that five positive expressions to every one negative one, creates an upward spiral of positivity.

Pete Mockaitis
Dr. Gottman talks a lot about that in the relationship / romance context.

MJ Ryan
Yes, he does.  But what’s interesting is that… So he’s looking at it in a love relationship.  The exact same ratio has been shown to be true at work.  So when leaders and bosses and teams have a 5:1 ratio, they too have a more positive upward, and everyone likes working on the team.  ‘Cause it’s not about never talking about problems or not expressing something that’s not working, but if you’re always focusing on the negative, you’re going to create a downward spiral of morale.  And so the ratio 5:1 holds up from an organizational point of view too.

Pete Mockaitis
So we talked about some micro-management, we talked about some anger.  What are some of the other kind of mental habits in the workplace that you think, that you see often, that kind of need to be broken, and some of the great aphorism antidotes to break it?

MJ Ryan
Yeah.  So one of the ones that I think is huge… And part of what we’re all learning to do as we work in the 21^st century is to work faster, right?  We all need to go faster; we need to create less interference, less fragmentation so that we can accelerate, ’cause it’s so competitive, right?
Well, one of the habits that people have that I think really interfere with speed, and I also don’t do anything good in our brains by the way, is blame.  So when something goes wrong, what do we do? We sit around…

Pete Mockaitis
Whose fault is it?

MJ Ryan
Yeah, “Whose fault is this?”  And then we spend a lot of time trying… And then I’m trying to deflect the fault, so I’m blaming, “No, it wasn’t me.  It was Pete.”  Like that.  So that is a real, real big time-waster.  And I first learned this actually… I started and ran a book publishing company before I did the work that I’m doing now with individuals, which I published books on personal growth and leadership, etc.
So I got so interested I decided, “Forget books.  I want to actually do this work with people.”  So I was in a start-up and I don’t know why I knew this, but it just seemed to be right, “If there is a problem, fix it.”  ‘Cause usually it’s a timely problem, like something has gone wrong that is going to interfere with the delivery of something, right in this moment.  And so, what I always used to say was, “Fix the problem, then go back and solve for pattern.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

MJ Ryan
And we don’t care whether Pete did it or MJ did it.  What’s wrong, and how are we going to fix this?  Okay, first step is to do that.  Then you go back later if you need to and  do an analysis so that you can make sure that whatever happened wasn’t happening again.  And often times it’s not because Pete’s a jerk, it’s because there’s some kind of system or process breakdown right?  So, I’ve been teaching this and using this for many, many years, and then I was working with a client of mine who is a Regulatory Affairs person in a drug company, and she goes, “Oh yeah, this is principle number 1, which is you first correct, then you prevent.”  So that’s the mantra for this one in the book.  So it’s like, yeah, we just first correct, and then we prevent.

Pete Mockaitis
Alright.  And then, never blame.  Or maybe later.

MJ Ryan
Exactly.  No blame, exactly.  It just wastes time and emotional energy.

Pete Mockaitis
Place it on their performance review.

MJ Ryan
Yeah, okay.  But not in the moment you’re trying to see that this doesn’t happen.  The other thing that I love and I actually just used this last week with this team that I was sitting in on… So this team had a challenging boss and they’re all the leaders and they were really having to step up to the plate and tell her the truth, which was a little bit challenging for them.
And essentially they kept saying “Yes” to be pleasing, so they were committing to way too many things.  This is very common, right?  This is not an unusual thing.
Even if the boss is a wonderful person, you still want to please the boss, so you say, “Sure, sure, sure”, even though you know in your heart you can’t do it, right?  So I’m standing there and I am saying, “Look you guys, you actually can’t say ‘Yes’ if you can’t say ‘No’.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah?

MJ Ryan
And everybody looked at me with these big eyes, like you could see the penny drop.  They really got it and said, “Oh, that’s true.”  I said, “Yeah, so you’re not actually saying ‘Yes’ to any of these things, and that’s why you have an accountability issue, because it’s not really… You can’t say ‘Yes’ if you can’t say ‘No’.  You have to have permission to say ‘No’ and you have to have the background to say, ‘I’m really sorry, but in order to do that we’re going to have to give up something.  So which would you prefer?’”  But I think this concept of, “You can’t say ‘Yes’ if you can’t say ‘No’”, is a really good reminder for people who need that extra support in saying that.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s fantastic.  Just a few episodes back Greg McKeown of Essentialism was hammering that point too, and it’s spot on.

MJ Ryan
Yeah, yeah, it’s true.  Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
If I could dig into another one of your aphorisms, what’s the story about “Outsourcing your worry”?

MJ Ryan
Yeah, that’s a really important one.  So, a client said this to me one day, “I’m just going to outsource my worry.”  And I thought, “That is a fabulous idea!  What are you going to do?”  And so, what it is is that we all have strengths and talents, the research from the Gallup organization says we each have five to seven of these ways of approaching the world that are our capacity for excellence.  And we also have skills that we can do, but what the difference between skills and talents is, talents energize us to do them.
So for me to help somebody to understand who they are as an individual, I can do that all day.  I don’t wear out.  That’s a talent.  A skill is something like, “Okay, yeah, I can read a spreadsheet.”  But after a while my brain goes, “Uggghhh”.  So that’s the difference.  And what happens is that they fall, these talents, into four broad categories.
Innovative – meaning people who are strong at big picture thinking, the future, innovation, strategy, new, different, “Let’s throw out the mold and come up with something completely new.”  Entrepreneurs are typically strong here.  Analytic – which is data, facts, numbers, logic, rational, present focus, “What’s the data tell us about the level that we are at right now?”  I’m really good at this, so that’s why you hear a lot of facts from me.  Procedural thinking – which is about risk averse, making sure we do the same thing over and over again in an orderly, replicable fashion to reduce risk and to increase reliability.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s my worst.

MJ Ryan
And relational – which is about people and feelings and teams and how we get along, everything that has to do with people.  So it’s “What” new thing, “Why are we doing this” is analytic, “How are we doing it” is procedural, and “Who are we doing it with” is relational.  Okay?  So with that backdrop, each of us, our talents fall into different configurations.
And some of us have some in all four, but most of us do not.  And we tend to worry in the place where we don’t have any talent.
So you just said the procedure was your worst, right?  So when you have to make sure you’re doing everything and crossing the i’s and the t’s and doing the same thing over and over again, how does that feel?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it’s so funny.  You’ve really opened the things up for me.  I mean right now I’m thinking, “You know, I’m going on vacation soon and I’ve got to make sure that things are buttoned down, so the show goes on.”

MJ Ryan
And there’s a little bit of stress and worry there, right?  The places where you’re not worried are the places where you’re really great at, right?  So coming up with video ideas or the people part, the connecting to people.  You don’t worry about that, right?  ‘Cause you’re good at it.  So we worry in the place where we have few or no talents.
So this client of mine learned that from me.  And so what she was realizing was, she kept worrying about the exact same things you are, like, “Am I going to get to the meeting on time?”  Because she travels around the world, or the plane arrangements and stuff.  And so what she realized she had to do was give that to someone else.
That’s why it’s outsourcing.  So, what she was going to do was make sure that she was using her assistant more.  So that her assistant would be making sure that she was driving all of those details, and my client would listen to the assistant as to what to do, like, “You’ve got to leave 15 minutes early, then you’ll get there on time so you won’t be stressed out like that.”  She was going to give the power or the planning over to her assistant and then do whatever the assistant said.  That’s where she got “I’m outsourcing the worry”.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that sounds like a fine idea.  I like that a lot.

MJ Ryan
Yeah.  And all you need is an assistant now, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, there are so many tools, whether it’s virtual assistants or Fancy Hands.  I mean there’s any number of ways folks can get a little bit of help from a human or a technological system, no matter where you are in terms of in your role, and in your income, you can find some help.

MJ Ryan
Yes. However, those of us who are extremely innovative and not very procedural, they tend to love to find the tools to do these things, and tend not to be one to follow the process of using the tools.  So that’s why it’s helpful to have someone else to bug you, basically.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely.  That’s good.  Fun.  Well, so you tell me – are there any other… I guess I’m wondering about kind of key watch-outs or mistakes?  Like if I’m trying to put this into action, it seems like I’ve got to zero in on a truth, something that I keep forgetting or it’s not kind or not baked into me, it’s not kind of part of my hard wiring, but I want it to become part of it.

MJ Ryan
Literally.  Exactly, that’s right.

Pete Mockaitis
So I’ve got to identify that thing, and then I’ve got to kind of crystallize my message in a succinct way of just a couple of words that mean something to me.

MJ Ryan
To you, yes.  So, I’ve helped you out in the book, which I’ve got a bunch of categories on everything from procrastination to dealing with stress and conflict and communications – all the kinds of business issues that we typically deal with.  And I’ve given you a bunch of them there.  But it’s true – you can also do it yourself by thinking, “What is it that I need to remember?”, and making something catchy that will help you remember it, right?  And then putting that… In the beginning, we always need external reminders, so whether you put it on as a sticky or a screensaver or a pop-up on your phone or something that reminds you from the outside what you are going to remember to think, right?  Until it becomes more of a habit; reminders from the outside always helps.  Always.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s lovely.  Well, MJ, tell us – is there anything else you want to make sure you convey before we shift gears and talk about the fast faves?

MJ Ryan
No, just that I think that we all have the capacity to change, I think that it’s one of our greatest gifts as human beings.  And it’s just we’re wired to do what we’re already doing, so break that habit, so to speak.  We’re actually not breaking the habit – your old wiring is always going to be there.  What you’re doing is building new wiring that’s parallel to it – and so this is a technique for really making new wiring quickly.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful.  Well then, I’d love to start us off if you could share a favorite quote, something that you find inspiring again and again?

MJ Ryan
Man, I have so many.  Most of my books start with quotes.  So, I love this one.  This is about following the wrong formula for success instead of always looking to other people.  A guy named Murray Cohen said, “The Ark was built by amateurs, the Titanic by experts.  Do not wait for experts.”

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s awesome.  How about a favorite study or a piece of research that you find yourself citing often?

MJ Ryan
Well, I think one of the ones you talked a little bit about, Gottman, but the person who’s done a lot of research on cognitive psychology and growing all of these is a woman, Barbara Fredrickson, who’s at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  And she’s done research into things like the random acts of kindness.  And since I was the person who wrote the book, Random Acts of Kindness, I’ve been really interested to follow her research, which is that I knew that doing these things make you happier and the thousands of letters that I got – this was pre-Internet – proved that.  But she actually did a study that proved it.  And that when we do these kind things, whether we’re putting money in other people’s meters or whatever, we actually get happier too.  And the ratio, by the way, again, is five a week.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s fantastic.  Dan Harris also talked about that as well, just getting a bunch of ones and giving them to every homeless person you passed on the way, and that was cool.  How about a favorite book?

MJ Ryan
Well, I’m obsessed, in terms of work with Traction by Gino Wickman.  It’s actually completely from the procedural quadrant, but it’s really about how you create acceleration by living in a 90-day business world rather than year-long goals.  And I think it’s absolutely right on, it’s crucial for anyone in a start-up, but it’s actually also incredibly helpful for those who are in any size organization, to create 90-day goals and absolutely make sure you focus and make those happen.  It’s very powerful for creating acceleration.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool.  And how about a favorite tool, whether that’s a piece of hardware or software or a gadget, or something that you rely upon that’s really boosted your effectiveness?

MJ Ryan
Well, the only tool I have is this reminder system on my phone called Just Reminder.  So you can program it for anything and it just goes off at the time you tell it and says what you want to be remembering.  And so, you can use it for everything from not forgetting your vitamins to remembering the habit changes slogan you want to say.

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent.  And how about a favorite habit, a personal practice of yours?

MJ Ryan
Well, one of the things that I love to do, and this comes from Buddhist practice, is the loving-kindness meditation, which is where you offer well wishes in your mind to yourself and to those close to you, and you do it in those concentric circles out, to end with the whole world.  And I just find it very soothing to my mind, when there’s nothing I can do, especially when I see suffering.  Like if I’m driving around and I see a car accident, I always do it for the people there.  It’s just a way of feeling like I’m connected to all of the hard things that are happening in the world that I can’t do anything about, but I can care.

Pete Mockaitis
Got you.  And how about a favorite sort of resonant nugget or a piece from your speaking, your writing, your training, your books, something that tends to be re-tweeted, or Kindle book highlighted or note-taken a lot?

MJ Ryan
Yeah, so I think that something that people really resonate is my concept about trusting yourself.  Trusting yourself is three things – self-awareness – I know who I am; self-acceptance – it’s okay to be me, and self-reliance – I can use what I know about myself in the world.  And it seems really simple but it’s in those three things are most of our problems, of one or the other of those things.  We either are not aware of who we are, and the gifts and talents we really have; we don’t accept them, we want it to be different; and we don’t know how to use what we have.  So we have a treasure chest inside of our heads and we don’t know how to get it out.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely.  And what would you say is the best way to find you, if folks want to learn more or chat, where would you point them?

MJ Ryan
Yeah.  MJ-Ryan.com is my website, and you can find my books there and all kinds of other goodies.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite challenge or a partying call to action or something that you’d challenge those seeking to be more awesome at their jobs to do?

MJ Ryan
Yeah, I think that the question is, really what you were asking: What is it that I need to grow in myself so I can be even more effective in what I’m doing?”, right?  And if it’s not working, stop doing it and try something else.  It’s like, we tend to either give up too soon or hang on to what we’re doing too long, right?  We tend to be stuck on one side of the thing or another.  So it’s about saying, “Okay, I need to get into action.  But if I’m doing stuff and it’s not being effective, then what else can I try?”  Never giving up.  Hold on tightly, let go lightly!  That’s the mantra for that.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s a good one.  Well, MJ, thanks so much for this, and I wish you tons of luck with this book and all you’re up to there!

MJ Ryan
Thank you so much!  You take care, Pete.