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1045: How to Stop Overthinking and Build Mental Resilience with Joseph Nguyen

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Joseph Nguyen discusses the hidden relationship between thinking and suffering—and offers a powerful framework for achieving peace of mind.

You’ll Learn

  1. How to spot and stop negative judgments
  2. How to PAUSE overthinking
  3. How to beat procrastination with SPA

About Joseph

Joseph Nguyen is the author of the #1 international bestselling book, Don’t Believe Everything You Think, which has been translated into 40+ languages. He is a writer who helps others realize who they truly are beyond their own thinking and conditioning to live an abundant life free from psychological and emotional suffering. When he’s not busy petting his three cats that he’s allergic to, he spends the rest of his time writing, teaching, speaking, and sharing timeless wisdom to help people discover their own divinity from within and how they are the answer they’ve been looking for their entire lives.

Resources Mentioned

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Joseph Nguyen Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Joseph, welcome!

Joseph Nguyen
Thank you so much for having me, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to talk about your area of expertise. Your book, Don’t Believe Everything You Think, has just taken off tremendously. Congratulations.

Joseph Nguyen
Thank you.

Pete Mockaitis
And the title is so good. It’s so funny, Amazon auto-completes if you type, “Don’t believe everything you think.” It’s like, “Nice.”

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, that’s a great advertisement, I guess, and a great slogan just to have all over Amazon. It’s what it should be, instead of all the stuff that we don’t need to be buying.

Pete Mockaitis
Don’t buy many other things here.

Joseph Nguyen
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so can you take us through the journey a little bit of how you and your relationship to thought and the insights that you discovered came to be in your own personal lived existence?

Joseph Nguyen
A lot of what I’ve come to realize comes from, this is not new information. This has been here for eons, thousands of years, from everyone and so many different countries, cultures. I mean, I draw influence from Western philosophy, Eastern philosophies, Zen Buddhism, Christianity. So much cognitive behavioral therapy. Like, you name it, there’s probably some sort of influence there.

But I think the only time that I was able to actually integrate it into my life was when I sort of hit a rock-bottom moment where, after I really tried as much as I possibly could all the options that were available to me, like, I mean, there’s therapy, there’s acupuncture, acupressure, there’s going vegan. I did all these things and it didn’t really quite work until it forced me to look internally.

I was trying to do everything to change everything outside of me, so changing people’s behaviors, how they viewed me, how they judged me, wanting and trying to earn other people’s approval, love, all these sorts of things, all these attempts at finding what could only be found within. So, I think the moment where I kind of hit rock bottom, which was a point in my life where, I mean, I had a business that was growing. It was going great. I accomplished a lot of the goals that I had, but at the cost of my own mental health.

So, every single day, I was just so chronically anxious, borderline depressed. I was probably depressed. I just wouldn’t admit it to myself that that was it. And I just didn’t know when the next client was coming from. I didn’t know if we’re going to have enough money, food. My partner, now wife, she had a lot of physiological illnesses.

So, she had gastroparesis, and so she couldn’t eat, got a feeding tube, hospitalized multiple times. All of that was happening concurrently with, basically, my business falling apart. Then my business partner and I split. I went 50,000 into debt at around 21, 22 years old. And so, all of that happened within a span of about a year.

And so, that was probably the rock-bottom moment that I hit, where I thought, after accomplishing everything that I wanted, that it would give me this internal peace and joy, but it did the exact opposite. And that was because I didn’t realize where peace comes from, and it doesn’t come from manipulating the environment or other people or the world to whatever I think it needs to be. It comes from releasing that desire, that need to change everything outside of me except myself.

So, rock bottom, I think pain is a great motivator and catalyst for change. Most people, like myself, probably wouldn’t change if it wasn’t absurdly painful. So, I’m actually very grateful for those experiences, but it’s quite difficult to go through it. But that was the genesis of the turning point for me.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, thank you for sharing that. That’s heavy, and it’s a lot. And I think what you’re articulating dead on, we just chatted with Anne-Laure Le Cunff, who discussed the arrival fallacy, this notion, “Ah, yes, when this happens, then it’ll be smooth sailing. I’ll be happy. I’ll be free. I’ll be at peace. All my problems will be solved.”

And it just doesn’t work out that way. And sometimes we don’t believe it until, as you’ve said, we experience that pain. We have arrived and go, “Uh-oh, shoot, these feelings are still there, that lack of peace is still there.

Joseph Nguyen
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
So, what then? What happened next?

Joseph Nguyen
So, it basically forced me to look inside, because I was trying all these modalities to help, and they did help to a certain extent, but it didn’t really change that much. And it puzzled me, because I thought to myself, “I surely can’t be the only one going through this. So that’s when I started looking for a lot of different solutions.

And then I started questioning my own experiences, and other people’s experiences too, which is I think most people, if not every single human, goes through extremely difficult and challenging events and times or even traumas.

And so, I started to ask myself and run thought experiments, where it was like, “If two people, have similar traumas, how is it possible that one person can spiral downwards and fall into a deep depression and isn’t really able to get out of it, while another person who has gone through something similar is able to make amends and make peace with the past and become okay with what happened?”

And not only that, but become empowered by what happened and go on to want to help other people not experience the same thing. How is that possible if we can’t go back and change the past? So, neither one of them went back to alter the events in any single way, which means it’s not the events that was changed, but their own thinking about what happened to them.

And so, that sparked an epiphany, which was, our emotions don’t come from external events, they come from our own thinking about the events, which is our own judgments, our own opinions, our own criticisms about the event, or even ourselves and our own thoughts about whatever happened. And so, that was what kind of made a giant light bulb moment for me, which is like, “Oh, my gosh, there’s no way to change the past, but I can always change the way that I’m viewing it. Is this helpful or hurtful? This sort of incessant nonstop negative judgment of life, of myself, of other people?”

And so, that spawned a whole slew of new questions for myself, which was like, “Why do I do that? Why do I constantly wish things were different? Why do I constantly tell myself that I’m not enough, not good enough, not smart enough, not whatever it is, and repeating these stories to myself?” And I never stopped to ask myself, “Is that actually helpful? When has overthinking helped me?”

And so, I realized then that overthinking doesn’t solve problems, it creates them and exacerbates them. And I just didn’t understand that I could just not judge, negatively judge, the things that are happening in my life or myself. That was an extremely liberating moment for me. And, I mean, most of the thoughts that we have, we have over 60,000 thoughts in a single day. How is it possible that every single one of those thoughts is true? There’s no way, right?

And if it were true that we are our thoughts, what happens to the thought that just passed our minds, that just left? We’re still here.

Pete Mockaitis
I’d disappear.

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’re still here, right? So, that means we are something beyond our thoughts. Same thing with emotions. If we are our emotions, if I am depressed, or if I am anxious, if I am those things, or I am happy, what happens when those things pass, anxiety or happiness? I’m still here. How is that possible?

So, we are not our thoughts and we are not our emotions then. We are something greater than that. And that is the feeling and the space that I sink back into to finally find some peace because I realize that everything in life is transient, including our thoughts. And if we are the common denominator that is still here, then those fleeting things can’t be possibly us. That was the eye-opener for me.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Wow, there’s so much good stuff here, and I’m just drawing all kinds of connections. I recall I was in a therapy session once, and I posed the same question, and it’s like, “So, is it true that, like Nietzsche or Kelly Clarkson says, that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?” Or, is it the opposite experience in which, “No, I had a bad thing happen to me and I’m somehow less strong, weaker, not as capable as a result of the experience”?

So, it’s like, “So which is it? And under what circumstances, and why, and what’s the distinction?” And he didn’t give me the easy answer, “That’s one of the greatest questions of therapy.”

Joseph Nguyen

He was amping you up, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
So, yeah, I mean, and that is one of the assertions, I believe, of cognitive behavioral therapy or of Shakespeare. There’s nothing good or bad, but rather thinking makes it so, and our cognitive distortions or our thoughts about things and judgments shape the emotional reactions and experiences we have. And we had a Navy Seal Alden Mills sharing some similar notions, like, “Hey, is this thought helpful or hurtful? All right. Well, then let’s bring some energy to the helpful thoughts.”

And we got some real wisdom there. It’s, like, we cannot be our thoughts, we cannot be our emotions, because our thoughts and our emotions are ever shifting and changing. And that sounds wise and familiar. Is this coming from a wisdom tradition? Or is this a Joseph original?

Joseph Nguyen
Oh, no, nothing is original from me. Creativity is just a blend of a lot of different parts and combining it into something seemingly new. But it’s all from Eastern philosophy, some Western, right, some Stoicism, Zen, Buddhism, in that there’s tons of psychology in there, right? Like cognitive behavioral therapy uses so much of this in terms of questioning our own thoughts, our own emotions, trying to figure out the root cause of all this. So, all of that, I definitely stand on the shoulders of many, many giants from centuries or millennia.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, you put a stake in the ground, and it seems like you’ve got some real conviction here, that it is, indeed, our thoughts and judgments and overthinking, over-thoughts, about a situation that is the source of our depression, anxiety. And I’m thinking, is it the only source, the primary source? Are we sure about this? It sounds true-ish, but what’s our best evidence for it?

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, that’s a great question. So, in terms of emotions, there’s no way to really prevent “negative emotions.” Those will always come and go. What I propose in the book is less about preventing them, but to reduce the time spent experiencing those emotions. Because a lot of times, we are replaying and ruminating on memories of the past, and bringing them into the present moment and reliving that experience from a certain vantage point of it, which may or may not be true, I don’t know.

But if it makes us feel a lot of anxiety or depression or resentment, is that possible for us to change? And if so, then how? And so, in the book, I started to realize, like, let’s say there’s a lot of people in veteran hospitals or recovering in Alcoholics Anonymous or tons of people who have been through so many different things. How is it possible that there’s people that have gone through something similar, but then have different results?

So, it’s like, “What are they changing? They’re not going back in the past to do that, so they’re changing something now in the present moment to alter their experience.” And so, that’s where the book is coming from, which is like, “What can we do now that things have happened, and becoming more resilient, right?”

This is building and training emotional regulation and resilience rather than a prevention of emotions in totality, because a lot of times, sometimes emotions are very helpful. They help to protect us. They help give us signs. All emotions are messengers to help us and to show us what we need to pay attention to. That’s all emotions are.

But if we believe them to be the only source of truth and an ultimate conclusion about ourselves, then that’s where we run into trouble. And, let’s say, if we’re really depressed, then we might think about ourselves, and say, “We’re not enough. We’re not lovable. We’ll never find love.” These sorts of beliefs about ourselves, which is what I call “thinking” or “negative judgments,” those things are not necessarily that helpful and they harm us more than help us.

And so, is it possible to let those things go? And if so, how? So, for me, why I use the word “thinking” in particular is because it’s the best word I could find to explain the phenomena of just ruminating negatively on something. So I make a distinction in the book, thoughts versus thinking. A thought is a neutral observation or intuitive prompting about an event that happened.

Pete Mockaitis

“I would like to eat some food.”

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, that is a thought.

Pete Mockaitis
I mean, that’s a desire.

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, that could be a desire.

Pete Mockaitis
A thought and a desire.

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, and then thinking, on the other hand, is a negative judgment about an event or your own thoughts. So, let’s take a scenario.

Pete Mockaitis
“I’m overweight. I shouldn’t eat all this food.”

Joseph Nguyen
Right. See, “should” is a great indicator that we’re thinking, right? That’s usually a preliminary word that we use before we judge ourselves. And so, an example of this is, let’s say it’s raining outside. A thought is, “It’s raining.” That’s a neutral observation. Thinking, on the other hand, would be something like, “Why is this happening? Why does this always happen to me? This rain completely ruined my day. I’m always unlucky like this.”

All of this thinking about the thought of it raining is not as helpful to us and is the source of all this suffering. So, let’s say we did have something planned and it rained and it ruined our day, that’s unfortunate, right? Like, we had plans, we planned for it, but is it possible to not let it ruin our entire day? Is it possible to let go of this emotional suffering within a few minutes?

And so, that’s why I say that’s the thinking part of whatever is going on. And although we can’t change the event or even our initial thought of it, we can always let go of the thinking or judgment about whatever is going on, and that’s where the power lies. For example, thoughts have no power over us unless we believe them to be true, right? So, the belief in the judgment is what causes this suffering and is the difference.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Well, now, as you use the word “thinking,” I am wondering if we could have other, do some other thinking, or judging about the rain in a positive fashion, in terms of, “At last, the crops will be nourished by this rain,” or, “You know what, let’s just frolic like a child.”

And so, in your definition, would you still call that thinking even though it has maybe a positive vibe or feeling associated with it?

Joseph Nguyen
I think there’s two different categories of what we can call positive thinking. On one hand, it could just be an intuitive prompting. An example of that would just be, “It’s raining. Let’s go outside and play in the rain.” It doesn’t necessarily have to skew towards, “This is the best thing that’s ever happened in the entire world.”

See, like where we can over-exaggerate positive thinking is equally where we can fall short of it because who’s to say it is the best thing in the entire world? Because if it’s raining here, it might flood somewhere else. So, it’s very difficult to just, ultimately and conclusively, say if this is good or bad. And so, if we are overly positive about something, then it opens us up for, “Well, what if that might not be the case?”

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, so it might feel good, but we’re not necessarily getting closer to truth or accurate representation of reality.

Joseph Nguyen
Correct, yeah. And we can skew both ways, and that’s when positive thinking can then open us up all sorts of cans of worms. But that’s not to say that positive thinking doesn’t work, and I don’t want to say that at all. It certainly does work, but the question is, “Is it sustainable? And is it based in reality?” So, if we observe the rain, and we’re like, “Oh, look, it’s like nourishing the crops,” like that’s a neutral and true observation, like it is feeding the plants and all that stuff, and we can feel good about that.

But what I also observed as well was, once we let go of the negative judgment about things, we are naturally at peace. We are naturally more joyful. We skew towards that way. And if you look at children that are a couple years old, they skew towards happiness. They’re smiling, they’re happy, unless they’re like hungry or like something is physiologically wrong. They’re generally just very positive, very happy, laughing all the time.

And that’s our natural state as well if we don’t negatively judge whatever situation is going on. If we let go of worrying about the future or ruminating and resenting the past, that is our default state. So, you don’t necessarily have to try to be positive. And other examples I love giving is, think about or recall a time where it’s like you were very anxious, or stressed, or overwhelmed. Like, how much thinking is going on?

Pete Mockaitis
Plenty.

Joseph Nguyen
Too much, right? But then if we flip and invert the question, recall a time when you were your happiest, in a total state of flow, and you lost track of time, how much thinking was going on then?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it’s, I guess per your definition of thinking, like, very little. Although, if you’re in a flow and doing a thing, you naturally have to—

Joseph Nguyen
You’re having thoughts.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, you’re having thoughts, but you’re not thinking in the Joseph-sense of the word.

Joseph Nguyen
Right, you’re not negatively judging the thoughts or experience that you’re having. You’re just in it, you’re fully immersed. That’s when you lose a sense of self, actually, and that’s when we are no longer psychologically suffering. And some people in the spiritual community will call this like the death of the ego. It’s when you just dissolve and you feel at one with everything. That’s what flow is and why a lot of times people will say like that’s this ideal state for humans to be in.

Athletes experience this very often when they’re in and playing a game during a competition. They’re not so much thinking about what’s going on. They are just intuitively responding and being there. And that’s like our ideal state that we’re in. Actually, the times that athletes think too much, they tend to miss the shots, or think too much about something and overanalyze, and that’s when they freeze and choke when they could have definitely done something different.

The same thing is true for our own lives. The more that we constantly just ruminate, judge, and criticize ourselves, other people, events, we tend to freeze, and go into fight-or-flight mode, and act as if our life really is in danger, and operate from a place of fear rather than love and expansion and joy.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Joseph, we’re getting near a zone I’ve been pondering for a while, which is, you talk about when we feel a sense of peace or joy and flow, contentment. And I’ve been reflecting on the distinction between contentment and boredom. Because, in terms of an external view of the situation, they’re almost the same.

It’s like, “Nothing’s really happening right now.” And yet, when we feel bored, we’re restless, agitated, and, I guess, negatively judging, “I don’t like that nothing’s going on right now,” versus when we are content, it’s like, “Ah, nothing’s going on right now.” And that feels restful, rejuvenating, restorative, and we like and appreciate the space that we find ourselves in.

So, I guess that is perhaps one of many examples of the judgment we bring to a situation, shaping it, but I’d love your pro tip. If we find ourselves bored and would rather be content, what should we do?

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, great question. So, boredom is not necessarily a bad thing. Boredom, a lot of times, is the birth of creation, new things, new hobbies, new thoughts, new ideas. If we’re not bored a lot of the time or sometimes, then we’re actually just recycling a lot of the same material from the past and constantly going and we feel like we’re in the hamster wheel. So, boredom is not necessarily bad. And when you see kids get bored, what do they do? They invent.

Pete Mockaitis
They invent some games.

Joseph Nguyen
Exactly. That’s what humans do. When we’re bored, we create, and so it acts as a great motivator. But where things can go a little bit south is when we say, “Oh, instead of being content with what’s happening right now,” let’s say we’re on vacation, “I should be working. If I’m working these hours, I could make so much more money or I have all these emails I need to get to.”

You’re not able to actually enjoy yourself in the present moment, and you’re constantly thinking about the future and all these things you need to get done, that’s when the “boredom” or what we would call that in that case, that’s when it robs our peace and takes it away from us is when we think we need to be doing something else other than what we’re currently doing or experiencing.

So, in that case, what I love recommending to do is just to schedule those things and just, like, if you’re on vacation, like that’s the boundary you need to draw for yourself. But if we don’t draw boundaries, it will creep in. All of these beliefs that we have, all these negative judgments that we have about ourselves or what we should and shouldn’t be doing, they will come in unless we set that boundary for ourselves.

Like, “If I’m on vacation, my phone is off,” or, “I’m not taking emails or whatever it is.” But without those, they will creep in and they will start to fester and become uncontrollable at that point. And this is really a practice of presence more than anything else. Are we able to do and give our full attention to what is happening right now in front of us? Or, are we distracted and thinking about something else in the meantime?

Peace comes from being present. It is a natural byproduct of doing so. The more that we are able to do that, that’s the happier we will be, for sure.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m reminded of the Scientific Journal article, “A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy Mind,” which, I think it was Kahneman and company looked at just that in terms of empirically checking with people and, “Hey, what are you doing? What are you thinking about?” and seeing the results. So, that’s that there. When you say boundaries, my first thought is sort of external things, like, “I will not be picking up my smartphone,” “I will not be answering emails on vacation.” Do you have some thoughts for boundaries we have, like with ourselves and our own thoughts or experiences?

Joseph Nguyen
Those are the most important boundaries because we can change everything external but if we don’t change anything internally then we’re still going to suffer a lot emotionally. So, some of the most important internal boundaries that you so aptly alluded to are the judgments that we’re making that is really at the core of our emotional suffering, of our resentment towards others, to ourselves.

If we don’t draw that boundary, and say, like, “We will no longer judge ourselves in this light,” then we’re going to keep doing it. And we do this mostly because we’re not even aware that there’s an option out, that, “Oh, we can just not judge everything that’s going on? Like, there’s a way that, as I go about my life, I don’t have to constantly narrate and say this is good, this is bad, this is right, this is wrong, this should be happening, this shouldn’t be happening?”

We just aren’t taught that. Most people just don’t know, and I wasn’t aware of that until I was basically smacked in the face with it and had to hit rock bottom to find it. But that is probably the most important boundary to set, which is, “Can we let go of the judgments that we’re having about ourselves, the world, whatever’s happening? Are we able to enjoy it as it is?”

When we go about life, most of the time we judge everything, “This person’s good,” “This person’s bad,” “This person’s evil,” “This person’s not,” “This is beautiful or ugly.” Like, there are so many things that happen. But when we walk in nature, like how many of us are saying, “This flower is ugly. This flower is like beautiful,” or, like, “This tree is crooked or what”?

Like, we just observe and enjoy nature as it is rather than constantly pick apart every single thing that we think is wrong with this tree. As soon as we do that, that’s when we suffer. So, nature is a great way to reset because of that and it brings us back to our true nature, ironically, of just being aware and giving our full attention to someone without judging them. That’s what the basis of love is, unconditional love, which is to fully accept someone as they are without wanting to change them, without wanting them just to be something different.

Full acceptance of that is where peace comes from. This not only goes for people, but for situations, anything. That is the root of unconditional love. And use that thought experiment for yourself. Like, when do you feel most loved by someone? When they’re constantly judging you, nagging you, saying you should do this, saying you should be different, you should be better, you should be doing any of these things, or when they fully accept you as you are without judging? That is the goal of everything.

Pete Mockaitis
I love that. My children would say, when we do hugs and kisses in flying blanket mode.

Joseph Nguyen
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
But it falls into a subcategory of what you’re describing. I like that notion about the narration that we’re just doing it all the time, and it might not even seem too intense, like, “I’m such a stupid idiot.” But even just like, “Oh, oh, oh, the sun is kind of in my eyes. Oh, it’s kind of hot. Like, oh, I’m getting tired.”

Like, there you are in nature, you might not be condemning the tree for being crooked, but we are narrating and judging – well, I am often – experiences they’re in, in terms of like the air temperature or the illumination that is not perfectly aligned to the preferences I have in that moment.

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, and that’s where all the suffering comes from, is just what we wish would happen, what we want the world to be. But peace comes from letting go of what we wish everything would be and accept it for how it actually is. And, yes, same goes for anything in life, people, even ourselves. In AA, like one of the first steps is acceptance. The five stages of grief, acceptance is what you’re trying to go for.

And in CBT, acceptance of whatever emotions we’re feeling is also a core component of the whole process. So, at the end of it all, like all these different modalities are pointing to the same thing, which is, “Can I let go of the judgment that I’m having of whatever is happening and going on?” Once we’re able to let go of that thinking mind, the fear-based mind and the judgmental mind, then we’re able to find a little peace.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, you said that we have the option to stop the narration, and I am a frequent Audible listener who likes to pause my audiobooks. And I understand you’ve got a little acronym you can walk us through.

Joseph Nguyen
Yes, exactly. So, this acronym, I tried to make it as actionable as possible in terms of, I mean, what we’re doing is letting go of the judgments. That’s the whole purpose of this. And so, this makes the act of letting go a little bit more tangible. So, the first letter in the acronym is P, which is pause. So, pause and take deep breaths, and you don’t need to get fancy with it. Just take five deep breaths. There’s no specific way you need to do it.

But it’s been scientifically proven that taking deep breaths allows us to lower our heart rate, to regulate our emotions, and to come back to center. So, just do that in the beginning of anything, because it’s really hard to regulate or do anything or make decisions or come back to yourself when we’re in a fight or flight mode. Next is A, which is ask ourselves, “Is this thinking useful?” Just like the other psychologists you mentioned before, like, “Is this thinking making me feel the way that I want?” If not, the next step is U, which is understand that you have the ability to let that thinking or judgment go. We always have that power. We may not be able to control our thoughts, but we can always control our thinking about the thoughts, and therein lies our entire power to change our experience of life.

S is, say and repeat the mantra, “Thinking is the root cause of suffering.” You can use any mantra in this matter. Another one, for example, would be, “I let go and choose peace.” Any mantra rooted in truth will work, and it needs to be short and memorable. What mantras do is that it’s very difficult to think of two things simultaneously.

So, what it does is it focuses your attention on this one thing, which means you can’t be thinking about the future or ruminating about the past. So, it forces focus and attention on something that is true. So, repeating that for maybe 30 seconds to a minute is really all you need, and that will slow the thinking mind. It will calm things down significantly.

That’s the basis of Transcendental Meditation as well, what a lot of the Tibetan monks use to go beyond the mind and to achieve oneness with the universe. But we take it here and you’re able to use it in real time.

Then E, the last step is to experience your emotions fully without resistance. So, we’re not trying to bypass the emotions by just not thinking about it. We’re actually removing the judgment of the emotions because what we resist persists. So, if we are resisting the anxiety, it usually gets worse, which is why a lot of times, when someone has a panic attack, they’re much more prone to more panic attacks simply because that’s how, it’s just like self-fulfilling, so to speak.

It’s like once we experience something and don’t want it to happen, we just put up a wall and just constantly resist it. But in physics, an object in motion will stay in motion, right? But also, for every force, there’s an equal and opposite force happening. So, if you have this force of an emotion and you’re resisting the emotion, that emotion is going to constantly be there and it’s going to stay stuck unless it passes through your system.

Anything that is stuck creates a significant amount of suffering. So, for a slightly more comical and light-hearted example is, like, if you eat a lot of food and it doesn’t pass through your system, what happens? Like, a week, a month passes, it’s going to be very painful and it’s going to cause all sorts of issues.

The same thing is true for our thoughts and emotions. The more that we hold on to our thoughts and don’t let them pass through, the more it’s going to cause us a lot of emotional suffering. Thoughts, emotions, all these things are transient and meant to pass through us, just like water flowing through a river.

As soon as a river is dammed up, that’s when wildlife begins to dwindle, fish begin to die, all these things start to happen. But as soon as the river is able to flow, that’s when life begins to flourish. That is the same thing for our own lives. So, letting thoughts and emotions pass through us without resistance. So, the way to do that is to create space within ourselves, to honor and hold the emotions, and to not judge them.

See them as another entity, like our inner child, or even one of our own children, and to hold them within our hearts, and to give them space to be there, without judging them, without saying, “You shouldn’t be here. Why are you here again?” That’s what we say to these emotions a lot of times, like, “Why are you still here, anger?” And we’re angry at the anger, and so it just compounds.

But as soon as we say, “Oh, you’re welcome here. You’re not an enemy. It’s okay.” As soon as you give children space, time, and attention, things begin to settle and we’re able to regulate. The same thing is true for all of our emotions and it passes so much more quickly when we’re doing this rather than kind of putting up a wall. So that’s the whole entire process.

Pause, take deep breaths. A, ask yourself, “Is this thinking helpful or useful?” U, which is understand you have the ability to let that thinking go. S, which is say and repeat the mantra. And E, which is experience your emotions fully without resistance.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thank you. And if I may put some numbers into this, so you had a mantra, I counted, it was about seven words. Is that around the length that we’re thinking about? Like, if you push it to 20, it’s outside mantra zone?

Joseph Nguyen
Probably. It just creates so much more thinking and you’re probably going to have to try to remember, “Am I saying it right? Did I forget a word?” And you’re trying to make it as simple as possible so that you don’t have to overthink it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And then with experience, I think when I’ve resisted, historically, it’s been almost out of a fear that, “If I begin to experience this sadness, this sorrow, this grieving at this deeply unfortunate thing that has occurred, then will it swallow me? Will it persist for a long time and impact the things I need to do this day, this week, this month?”

And so, I can sometimes push away. But you say with the water flowing situation, and that which we resist persists, we are better off experiencing it fully. I mean, Joseph, for those fellow aversive pushers, away-ers…

Joseph Nguyen
Master push-up-ers, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
…how long are we in for a rough emotional experience if we allow it to hang out?

Joseph Nguyen
I will say shorter than if you’re resisting it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Joseph Nguyen
So, the irony in it is that, when we’re pushing it away, we think that we’re not dealing with it but we’re still suffering. We’re constantly thinking about it, we’re wishing it were different, we’re ruminating on it constantly, but what we don’t understand is that when we just allow it to be there, that it passes so much more quickly.

I think neuroscience is saying now that it takes about 90 seconds for an emotion to be regulated in our bodies. The only reason why it’s prolonged most of the time is that we begin ruminating on the event or judging the situation that happened, and it resets that time period. So, we’ll go 90 seconds, and right before that, we think about it again, we’ll judge it again, and it keeps prolonging the cycle.

And so, it only takes a few minutes to do this and to let go, and it’s not like the entire emotion will go away, but the intensity of the emotion will be drastically reduced than what it was when we were resisting. And, over time, as you build the muscle of emotional resiliency and emotional regulation, it becomes a little bit easier to do every single time. And the threshold in which we become overwhelmed is significantly expanded, so we can take on a lot more in life.

We’re able to do a lot more. We’re able to endure a lot of these events with a lot more grace and a lot more love. But, yeah, it’s definitely scary to kind of allow these emotions to come in because we think that we might not be able to handle it. We might crumble under the emotion. But you have to ask yourself, like we were saying before, like, “Am I my thoughts? Am I this emotion?”

And think about all the difficult times and trauma that you’ve been through, and all the trauma, like, you’re still here. So, I mean, you’re greater than every single emotion that you’ve ever experienced. And the same is true now and it will ever, and it will be true forever because those things are not us.

Pete Mockaitis
Joseph, beautiful stuff. Could you share any final thoughts before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, I would run micro-experiments with yourself. Like, you actually don’t have to believe anything that I’m saying, ironically, like the book title. Test it out for yourself. See if it’s true, if thinking is the root cause of your emotional suffering. And the way that you can test this out is to try to suspend judgment, negative judgment about yourself, your own thoughts, your own emotions, external things, people, circumstances.

See if you can suspend judgment for about seven days. That’s it. You don’t have to do a month. You don’t have to do a year. Just see if you can let go of the judgments that your mind is creating, for seven days and see how you feel afterwards. If it significantly improves your emotional well-being, awesome! Continue doing it.

And if it doesn’t, that’s completely okay, and you can find another modality that might work for you. But at the very least, try it and see what happens. And it is only through our own lived experience that you know what truth is, rather than just taking someone’s word for it. So, that’s what I would encourage everyone to do, and just see for yourself.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Joseph Nguyen
One of my favorite quotes is actually in the book, which is from Jonathan Safran Foer, which is, “I think, I think, I think. I’ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, very good. Very good. Thank you. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Joseph Nguyen
The neuroscience study that I was alluding to before, I don’t know exactly what experiment it was.

But they were studying about how long it takes for our emotions to actually pass through our systems, and it was about 90 seconds, which was mind-boggling to me because I thought it would take, you know, like multiple minutes or at least like, I don’t know, 10 minutes, for like, if you’re angry of something, like it feels like it takes way longer than 90 seconds.

So, that was a profound shift in me to realize that, “Oh, my gosh, like it is possible to let go of a lot of these emotions quite quickly.” And it’s actually important to follow this. You don’t have to follow this process, specifically, but you can follow any process, but it’s really important to do it in real time as you’re going about your day.

So, this process is, if you’re experiencing something in traffic, or your boss says something, or your parents say something, or your friends says something that creates a negative emotional reaction within you, it’s important to use the process then rather than only use it in the morning or in the evening like meditating, right?

That way you are actually strengthening your emotional resiliency throughout the entire day. It’s a little bit easier to find peace when you’re alone in your room and it’s dark, your blindfolds are on, there’s like Zen music, right? It’s like a little bit easier to find peace there, but the true test is, “Are you able to find peace while also, like let’s say your boss is screaming at your face, or making fun of you, or your friends are doing something that you don’t really approve of, or your parents are criticizing you in front of other family members?

That’s the time that you’re truly tested for, if you’re able to find peace. And this is something that you can use during those times rather than you need to bust out like a 30-minute meditation just to find a little bit of alleviation. So, that’s one other thing I would do, too.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you. And a favorite book?

Joseph Nguyen
This one’s very interesting, maybe slightly controversial, but it currently is Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, okay. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Joseph Nguyen
I like to use this particular framework on just when I’m doing work because I have issues, a lot of times. Just like procrastinating like most people or just putting off things that I know I need to be doing. And one of the most effective things that I’ve done is to follow the SPA methodology, which is just, if I’m overwhelmed by something, just take the next smallest possible action, so SPA, and doing that.

So, if it’s, “I need to write another book,” that’s a pretty big task, pretty scary, daunting, and it’s like, “Am I able to bust out a whole book in this one session?” Now, that’s typically what the mind thinks of. But if I break it down to the smallest possible action, like, “Am I able to just open the Word document? Can I just do that?” And I’m like, “Yeah, I can definitely click on Notion and open it up. I can definitely do that.” And if I still can’t do that, “Can I just sit at the computer desk?”

Pete Mockaitis
Yes.

Joseph Nguyen
So just keep breaking it down.

Pete Mockaitis
“Sit up from the couch.”

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, sometimes it’s hard, right? Sometimes it’s really hard. And so, it’s okay if we need to break it down into those baby steps, but that works wonders for me. So, it’s like, “Can I write one sentence?” And when I write one sentence, I’m going to want to write another sentence, like I’m just going to go.

And, lo and behold, there’s like a couple dozen sentences, a couple hundred words pass, and that was way more progress than if I force myself sit down and write my book. That’s a big task. So, smallest possible action is what I like to default to when I am frozen in procrastination or analysis paralysis.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks, you hear it quoted back to you often?

Joseph Nguyen
Our emotions don’t come from external events, but from our own thinking about those events. That is something that people just didn’t really realize, and so it’s like a massive epiphany moment for them. Other ones are just like, “I didn’t realize that I could just stop judging. I had no idea I could just not listen to that incessant negative critic in the back of our minds, and that I could just be and just be present. I don’t have to be thinking about something else or doing something else. I can let go of whatever that incessant chatter is, and to finally find a little bit of peace.”

Yeah, that big epiphany was like, oh, yeah, during the times that we are happiest, like we’re not really thinking about anything else, or ruminating on anything. We’re just there, fully engrossed by the moment. And so, those are probably like some of the biggest nuggets that people have gotten.

Pete Mockaitis
And if folks want to get in touch or learn more, where would you point them?

Joseph Nguyen
Probably, I would say my website and newsletter, so JosephNguyen.org, J-O-S-E-P-H N-G-U-Y-E-N.org. You’ll be able to find like my newsletter there, sign up for it. I do have a YouTube channel. I don’t post that often but a lot of the content there is evergreen. All my socials are just itsjosephnguyen, I-T-S and then Joseph Nguyen. Those are probably the best places to find me, but email is where you’ll be able to be up-to-date on any new projects I’m working on.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Joseph Nguyen
Let go of the fear of being judged. The more that we’re afraid of being ourselves, to be awesome at our jobs, the less effective we’ll be. And sometimes being ourselves will ruffle a few feathers. People will judge us one way or the other, even if we’re playing conservatively and not really showing that much at work.

People are still judging us anyway. So, we might as well be judged and criticized for being who we truly are rather than masquerading ourselves behind something else. And the more that you’re able to be yourself, the more awesome you’re going to be at your job, the more that you’re able to lean into your own gifts, your own talents, your abilities. All of that is usually held back if we’re afraid of what other people are thinking.

So, stand up for yourself, do what you believe is best for the work that you’re doing, and definitely defend it, and to not just let it be pushed over. Because at the end of the day, if you’re coming from a place of love, generosity, true selflessness, and wanting to do the best that you possibly can, there’s no shame in that at all. So, if you’re going to be criticized, definitely be criticized for doing what you believe is right, rather than hiding behind and playing it small.

Pete Mockaitis
Joseph, beautiful. Thank you.

Joseph Nguyen
Thank you so much, Pete. It’s been such a pleasure and so much fun with you. I love your energy.

1044: Becoming the Boss that Everyone Wants to Work For with Sabina Nawaz

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Sabina Nawaz shows you how to cope with the pressures that come with leadership.

You’ll Learn

  1. The perils of getting promoted
  2. Why asking for feedback isn’t enough
  3. The power of shutting up

About Sabina

Sabina Nawaz is an elite executive coach who advises C-level executives and teams at Fortune 500 corporations, government agencies, nonprofits, and academic institutions around the world. During her fourteen-year tenure at Microsoft, she went from managing software development teams to leading the company’s executive development and succession planning efforts for over 11,000 managers and nearly a thousand executives.  She is the author of YOU’RE THE BOSS: Become the Manager You Want to Be (and Others Need).

 

Resources Mentioned

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Sabina Nawaz Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Sabina, welcome!

Sabina Nawaz
Thanks so much, Pete. Looking forward to this.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited. You have studied managers up close and personal and in the trenches with them. Could you start us off by sharing one of the most particularly surprising and fascinating and counterintuitive discoveries you’ve made about us humans and managing from all your years at work here?

Sabina Nawaz
So, this book is not about how to become successful. It’s how to remain successful, and it’s about not all the things that people know, but what do they not know, as you said, counterintuitive stuff. Three of those.

One, being promoted is the riskiest time in your career. It is not power that corrupts, but pressure that corrupts. Pressure changes, not only stresses you out, but changes your actions. And power then blinds you to the impact of those actions. So, the higher you go, the less you know about the impact your actions are having on other people.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, those are big, and those are heavy. Well, I’m excited to dig into all of these promptly. But maybe, first, before we do, can you maybe just orient us to what’s the big idea or main message behind the book, You Are the Boss?

Sabina Nawaz
The main message is that pressure and power can be used for good or for harm. It’s your choice. And the choice comes from not needing to get a personality transplant, or to go on retreats for weeks on end, or to study emotional intelligence for the rest of your life, which I would still recommend you do, but by making a choice to use some simple tools and strategies to tackle the combined effect of the diabolical twins of power and pressure. The higher you go, the more important this becomes.

Pete Mockaitis
Diabolical twins. Okay. We’re sounding the alarm. We’re raising the flag. Okay. Well, so maybe could you share with us a story of the destructive potential that might be lurking for us that we’re not even aware of? So how about you give us a twin tale? Let’s hear a tale of surprised destruction, and a tale of disaster averted through prudent preparation.

Sabina Nawaz
Well, I’ll start with my own tale, because I tell a lot of tales in the book about a number of my clients, and I am not immune from this. I was a lousy manager at Microsoft, but that wasn’t always true. At first, I managed software teams and most of my people said I was the best boss they ever had, I cared for them, I coached them. Those were great years. And then everything changed.

I was running Microsoft’s management development when I was about eight months pregnant. My boss left the company so I took on her job responsibilities, and on my first day, as I’m getting ready to get back to work from parental leave, my assistant Lori calls me, frantic, “Where are you? Steve’s expecting you in 30 minutes.”

She reads the memo I’m supposed to discuss with Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, as I’m hitting warp speed on my way to the freeway. And that set the tone, Pete, for overflowing inbox, packed calendar, infant at home, no peace, no sleep, no patience. I’m sure this sounds familiar to you and to your listeners. And, in a moment, I went from being caring and compassionate to snippy and short. Still 5’3″, but now short-tempered.

In my rush to meet those deadlines, I had no time for detailed instructions or to repeat myself, and I thought I was being efficient. I also micromanaged because I was worried that my team or I would look incompetent to these high-level executives. So, I’m thinking, “I’m killing it. I’m being efficient. Look at how much we’re getting done for the senior-most people in the organization,” until my colleague, Joe, comes to me.

And I take one look at Joe and I know he’s about to give me bad news. My shoulders are tightening, and then Joe says, “Zach is crying in his office because of what you said.” And my gut falls to the floor. Joe has my full attention, not multitasking as usual, and I feel my whole body turned hot from shame, I cannot make eye contact with Joe, I feel so guilty, and I think, “How did I get here? How did I go from being caring and compassionate to this, somebody people apparently fear and really don’t like?”

So, I take a drink of water, I walked across the hallway, knocked on Zach’s door, “Will you go for a walk with me?” And a minute into the walk, I say, “Zach, I’m so sorry. There’s no excuse for how I reacted in that meeting.” And Zach’s eyes brim with tears. And it was in that moment of connection, Pete, I realized, “This is what I want, to treat people with humanity.”

But why had I started behaving badly all of a sudden? Why did I have no idea about it, the impact it was having? And why did more people not tell me? Because pressure corrupts. I wasn’t a bad person. I was a boss behaving badly. But the worst part is I had no idea because power then insulates us. So, that would be a story where things did not go well.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you. And, Sabina, I hate to bring you into, it sounds like, a genuinely traumatic experience for you. But for the question mark lingering of curiosity for our listeners, they got to know, what did you say to Zach?

Sabina Nawaz
It wasn’t just one thing. The problem was it was a whole stream of things, which sounded like a stream of being discounted and insulted to Zach. So, he was about to bring up a new idea, and I said, “Nope.” And not only did I say it, I had my hand out there, right almost at his face, going, “We don’t have time for that,” expletive. “We need to get going. Did you not hear me the first time? We are under a really tight timeline.”

So, my voice is elevated. I’m cursing. My hand is out there in front of his face. And then another, a little later in the meeting, Zach says, “It’s okay if you say no to this idea, but can I bring it up?” And I said, “Yes.” And he brought up another new idea, and I said, “No,” right away. No, “Thank you for thinking through ideas. What made you suggest this right now?” None of that.

So, it was this very abrupt, shutting-down action that I reacted to. I stopped thinking. I certainly wasn’t leading. I wasn’t even thinking, and I’m just reacting, reacting to my circumstances and the pressure in an inexcusable fashion. And, you know, of course, as I’m sure you’re aware, when managers treat employees badly, employees then go back to their office, not just crying, but they play video games or research shows that they even deliberately sabotage results.

Pete Mockaitis
Update their LinkedIn, take a look at the opportunities out there.

Sabina Nawaz
Yes, start a secret group chat about you.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure. Yeah, and thank you for sharing that. What’s really intriguing here is that, I think we hear stories associated with bosses behaving badly in these ways. And I’m thinking about Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk, where he talks about demon mode, or, you know, tales of Steve Jobs, or any number of famous hard-charging executives. And I think what people often tend to assume is like, “Oh, that’s just their personality. That’s just their management style.”

And so, you’re posing something quite fresh, and it’s like, “Oh, no, perhaps we have a whole lot of humanity buried under there, and it’s these diabolical twins that is going to work on some of these people, and that’s why we see these behaviors manifesting.”

Sabina Nawaz
Absolutely. Absolutely. With very rare exceptions, just like there are no purely good people or purely bad people, we all have good behaviors and bad behaviors in us, there are no purely good bosses or bad bosses. It’s our reaction to the circumstances. That doesn’t mean it should take us off the hook, but it’s not inherent in our personalities.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Okay. Well, so then, by contrast, could you share with us a tale of someone who got the heads up and didn’t end up succumbing?

Sabina Nawaz
Well, I’ll share the tale of somebody who did succumb, then got the heads up, because that’s what usually happens. I come in; the feedback I’d gotten about this person was he was terrible to work with. He was a bully, people called him a thug, and much worse, words that I won’t use on your show. And we worked together.

Now, this guy, Adam, suffered from what many of my clients suffer from, where they think they’re successful because of some of these traits, not despite these. So, they become innocent saboteurs in their own fate and the fate of their organizations, and that was certainly the case for Adam. He made jokes because he thought that was encouraging people. He used sarcasm to motivate them. Of course, this was all coming across as bullying behavior.

Once he recognized that, so this is why I was saying the heads up comes after the fact often, because nobody wants to tell the person in a position of power what they think they don’t want to hear.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, especially when they’re behaving in a way that says, “I might get my head ripped off for this.”

Sabina Nawaz
Exactly. “Who in their right mind is going to do that? Not only get my head ripped off, I might lose my job.” So, you continue on thinking you’re doing just fine, because, of course, people would give you feedback. You’ve asked for the feedback, haven’t you? Asking for feedback is a waste of time when you have high authority. You’ve got to deploy some other techniques.

And so, in Adam’s case, when I interviewed a bunch of his co-workers and got this devastating feedback, he did work to turn that around. By the way, I never experienced Adam as a bully or a jerk. I experienced him as a wonderful human being, because, of course, we didn’t have that power gap in our relationship through which everything gets filtered as more dire, more directed personally at us either.

And a year later, I interviewed people again, and then people said, “Oh, I was dreading having to work for him again. He’s so much more respectful. I trust him so much more. He is a thousand percent better.” So, that was a beautiful ending to that story.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, indeed. Okay. So, well then, let’s dig into these particular truths that you shared. When we’re promoted, it’s the riskiest time in our career. Can you expand on that?

Sabina Nawaz
Well, of course, it’s also a time for celebration when you’re promoted, but once the bubbly settles, what you might realize is that the very strengths, the superpowers that have gotten you there, are now going to be seen in a very different light. So, for example, as a manager, you can say exactly the same things you said before, but now they’re going to take on a harsher light, a louder tone, a more personal note for the next that are craning up. Their views are less charitable.

Let me give you a couple of examples. Let’s say you are somebody who’s assiduous about details, how might you be seen as a manager?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, a micromanager.

Sabina Nawaz
Yes, a micromanager. Let’s say you’re really calm under pressure, how might that come across?

Pete Mockaitis
You don’t care. You’re not invested.

Sabina Nawaz
Exactly. Ooh, we could keep going back and forth like this, but you get the idea. Strategic becomes manipulative. All of these things can be seen in a whole different light. You need to start to look at your strengths not from how you see them, but how they’re going to be seen from people below. The higher you go, the more that view gets distorted, like a funhouse mirror.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And what do you recommend we do when we find ourselves in such a spot?

Sabina Nawaz
One of the first things you can do is, actually, inventory your strengths and start writing down ways in which others might describe it, and put yourself in those shoes. So, one of my direct reports, what would they say? One of my skip levels, what would they say? Somebody who’s a junior employee who reports to one of my peers? Somebody from the outside who now sees my bigger title? So, imagine those soundbites coming at you, and once you see that, you can start to temper things.

Somebody I worked with was very, very strategic, and she would take her time speaking up in meetings because she wanted to see where the thread of the conversation was going, who was speaking, who wasn’t speaking, what was the tone, what was the vibe of the meeting, and, people started thinking that she was very political instead of strategic. They said, “Oh, she’s going to go where the wind is blowing. She wants to see what people above her are saying,” and so on.

Once she recognized that piece of feedback, she went back to her team to explain to them what she was doing, “This is why I’m doing what I’m doing. I have a rule. I don’t speak up right away. And then let me show you, let me demonstrate to you how that has benefited. For example, I was going to go to this meeting and I went in with this particular point of view, but it wasn’t until I heard the third person speaking that I realized this point of view is actually incorrect and it’s going to antagonize, unintentionally, three people in that meeting. Wasn’t it better not to speak up first in that particular case?”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s handy. Okay. Well, so it sounds like the master keys there are just let’s get a sense of what is the perception and then let’s provide some context, some explanation. It’s funny, that takes humility on both sides of that there.

First, to put yourself in a position where you’re willing to hear it, and then, secondly, to explain it. Because you might say, if you were less humble, “I’m the boss. I don’t have to explain myself to these folks.” And yet, it seems that, in order to be a great manager, maybe you very well do, in fact, need to.

Sabina Nawaz
Absolutely. Absolutely. And if you’re a manager who has a “yeah, but” raging at the moment, saying, “Yeah, but I don’t have time to do it,” think about how much time you spend undoing things and that it would take a fraction of the time to do it instead.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And you said simply asking for feedback doesn’t work. What’s the means by which we get to the truth?

Sabina Nawaz
Yes, this is really tough because here you have a boss who has no idea how they’re coming across, and an employee who’s not willing to tell you because of the fear that they have across this power gap. So, simply saying, “Hey, would you give me feedback when you notice something?” employees are going to say, “Yes, boss,” and all they’re going to give you is very mild stuff, cushioned in praise.

So, when they tell you everything is fine, what they’re actually meaning is, “Oh, what an ass.” So, you have no idea. So, first of all, any feedback you get, you might want to add a couple of numbers to it to upgrade the severity of what they’re saying. But here’s the other thing, you can actually ask more specific questions, because the quality of feedback you receive is directly proportional to the quality of the question you ask.

If you simply say, “How did I do in that presentation or that meeting?” people are going to say, “You were fantastic. In fact, you should get on the TED stage next week,” because that is not asking for feedback. That is simply asking for reassurance. Instead, if you said, “On a scale of 1 to 10, where was I?” Let’s say they say 8, which you know is going to actually mean a 6 or a 5.

Then you can say, “What would it take, what’s one thing I could do to get to a 9, to get to a plus 1? What’s one thing I did that worked well? What’s one thing I can do to get to a plus 1?” Don’t ask for too much feedback. If you cut it down to one thing, people are more likely to be able to give you something, and you’re more likely to be able to act on it.

One other way to ask for feedback is to externalize the ask. So, instead of saying, “Pete, what’s one thing I could do better at on this podcast?” I might say, “Pete, if you were to channel your most skeptical, your crustiest listener, what would they say about the one thing I could do better?” Now, Pete is freed up, it doesn’t impact our relationship. In fact, it looks like Pete is working for me by channeling some of his listeners.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I like that a lot, especially when you’re the one asking for the feedback and you suggest the third-party voice. That seems like a real powerful combo. And I’m reminded of, well, some interviewers, I think John Stossel, in particular. He’s just always devil’s advocating, John Stossel. It’s like, “Well, some might say that this is just a means of bringing costs down, and that’s necessary.” He even has the voice, you know, which just cracks me up.

And so, it almost feels a little bit less than courageous when he says, “Hey, I’m not saying it, but it’s some third party,” which, at the same time, as an interviewer, can make your interviewee feel more comfortable, and so, you know, it works. But it’s even better to invite them to think about that third party.

Sabina Nawaz
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Very good. Well, so then, in terms of, like, the asking, is this sort of in person, via survey, email, all of the above? What’s the mechanism of collection that you favor?

Sabina Nawaz
All of the above is great. I favor direct conversation, in-person or virtual, of course, these days, especially, but somewhere where we are making eye contact, looking at each other and having a live conversation because you can start to read the cues of the person who’s providing you with that feedback as well, and you can tone it down a little bit more.

You can make sure you’re conveying nonverbal feedback at all times, because they’re, of course, hyper-aware of any twitch that’s going on on your face, because they’re going to go, “Oh, my gosh, I’m fired.” So, it allows for more information to be exchanged as you’re doing this process. It also shows that you truly care. You’re willing to invest live time for it as opposed to a survey.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, okay. Well, thank you. Well, now let’s dig into a little bit the second thing you dropped there with regard to it’s not the power but the pressure that corrupts. Can you expand on that?

Sabina Nawaz
It’s just like when I had all that pressure in that job and I started acting out. So, by corrupting, I mean your behaviors change. Your behaviors change in a way that impact other people adversely. You raise your voice. You have a tone to your voice. You provide harsher criticism than necessary. You cut people off. You interrupt them. All of those things show up when you’re under pressure.

Now, of course, there’s not a single person on the planet who’s not under pressure both at work and outside of work. And I’m sure, Pete, that you have moments where you’ve been under pressure and you’ve done something you’re not proud of, and, gosh, it would be mortifying if that was caught on video and put up on YouTube or TikTok.

And so, it’s no different for bosses. The problem is that the higher we go, the more pressure we have on us, and the more likely we are that one of those is going to subvert our actions and take over.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, then when we are in that spot where we are feeling the pressure, what are the best practices to not being a jerk?

Sabina Nawaz
The first thing is to just shut up, and I have this term called your shut-up muscle. And as a manager, it becomes important to buff up your shut-up muscle. So, there’s a shut-up exercise which has many steps, but a couple of those. First of all, be, at least, the third person to speak. There’s no reason for you to jump in the minute somebody asks a question.

All you’re doing there is training everyone to become over-reliant on you and take the back seat, be lazy, or not grow, or feel disempowered on the other side. So, be the third or later to speak. That would be one way to exercise your shut-up muscle.

Another, when you’re on video calls, put yourself on mute by default. So, when you have that fast twitch desire to speak, you can speak, and people are going to go, “Oh, you’re on mute.” And by the time you unmute, you can go, “Oh, actually, that train has passed. I’m good.” It gives your brain a moment to get out of that reactive mode and get back to your senses to be more strategic, and say, “Do I really need to say this thing? Not really.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s great. The shut-up muscle, that’s really good, because sometimes, in my experience, I am quick to speak because I’m excited, it’s like, “Oh, oh, that thing that you said. Also, this!” And so, I can see what you’re saying when you compare it to a muscle, is it takes some discipline, some restraint, some strength to say, “Yes, I’m very excited. And I can share that in 90 seconds, if it still seems valuable then, and that’s okay.”

Sabina Nawaz
And that’s another key piece, if it still feels valuable then. Another tool for the shut-up muscle is to take margin notes. That is, you’ve got your notepad, and, then in the margin, write down all of your ideas that you’re so excited about, that are getting in the way of you being fully present and likely to cause you to interrupt other people.

If you wait for a while, let’s say you have five notes in your margin, three of those might be suggested by somebody else. That’s great. That means that they’re taking initiative. They’re going to start working harder than you for a change and reduce some of the pressure on you. And the two things that haven’t been said, maybe only one of them needs to be said.

Now you’re going to have a lot more impact because you’ve gotten rid of what I call a communication fault line, which is verbal overkill. If you have just one thing to share and that one thing is shared just by you, it’s not an idea other people thought about, that’s a way you can truly add value in a meeting.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. And can we hear about the power blinding us?

Sabina Nawaz
Well, it’s the part about “Who wants to get their head bitten off?” And also, with power comes the, well, power to take away or give things to other people that matter to them: a raise, a promotion, their very jobs. As a result, people are not going to say things to you that they think will displease you and that don’t feel safe. So, as a result, you’re cushioned by people who are saying yes all the time, cushioned by a lot of praise.

A CEO I worked with, it was the day before their CEO ship was going to get announced, and they said, “You know what, tomorrow I’m going to become the funniest person in this company,” because your jokes suddenly are funny, your ideas suddenly are brilliant. So, you get blind to what else might be going on.

Pete Mockaitis
And what shall we do in that scenario?

Sabina Nawaz
The end of the book has an assessment of 40-plus questions called “360 Yourself,” and it looks at every power gap, every kind of power gap and every kind of pressure pitfall you can fall into, and ask you a few questions to say, “Which of these do you fall into the most?” If you don’t have time, 15 minutes or so, to look at those 40 questions, think about these few.

One, you never receive pushback or different ideas once you’ve shared your idea. That might mean you’re in one of those blind power traps. People think you’re funnier, smarter, faster than you know you are. You justify all of your actions with a “yeah, but.” All of these so you can self-diagnose, “Hmm, yep, that’s happened, that’s never happened, this always happens, therefore, it must mean I’m surrounded in my own echo chamber.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, good to know. Well, Sabina, tell me, any other top do’s and don’ts you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Sabina Nawaz
Because pressure corrupts, and it’s so important to allow pressure to help you shine, like we sometimes do, you know, when we have that deadline and we’re at our most creative, we want pressure to fuel us, not eviscerate us. Our tendency when we get into pressure-full situations is to work harder, to hunker down.

So, my favorite strategy here is to employ what I call blank space, which is actually do nothing. It’s two hours a week, back-to-back, that you schedule to unplug. No reading, no online presence, no conversations. You simply sit and think. And if that’s too much for you, do it in baby steps. Start with 15 minutes or even 5 minutes or 30 seconds. We are human beings, not human doings, but we’re very uncomfortable just being.

Those clients who have taken that time to do blank space have had transformational results. They’ve transformed their companies, they’ve averted disaster from the competition, they’ve even changed their careers completely. It’s a game changer. It takes the calendar management discipline to actually take that time. And then you can do a variety of different things to make use of that time.

You could simply do nothing. You could go for a walk. You could lie in a hammock. These are all things people have done that have worked with me. You could doodle, mind map, draw pictures, whatever, because research shows that our best insights come when we switch off this very busy working part of our brain, right? We’re in the shower. We’re running. We’re commuting. Those are the times where those answers come.

So, when you’re under pressure, thinking, “I’m such a loser. When am I going to get fired? I’ve got to double down,” stop and do nothing and trust that you already know the answer. All you have to do is let the noise die down so that the signal becomes amplified.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So then, it sounds like there’s a variety of things that are acceptable during doing-nothing time, but what’s not okay is talking to other people or engaging with our digital devices.

Sabina Nawaz
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
So, you can walk, you can lie, you can sit, you can have a notebook, and then just roll with it.

Sabina Nawaz
Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. And then, in so doing, that’s when these brilliant, transformational, creative ideas just emerge. It’s during the do-nothing time, or is it after the do-nothing time? Or is it both?

Sabina Nawaz
Both. Sometimes you come back, I had somebody who had a near panic attack before his first blank-space time, like, “What do you mean? Tell me again. I’m supposed to do nothing? Nothing at all? How is that going to work?” I said, “Just trust me. Just go do it.” He came back, he’s like, “Nothing happened.” I said, “Well, you know, at least your brain was better rested.” Guess what? After three blank space states, magic started happening. So, it might take a while, or it might be instantaneous.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, now can we hear about a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Sabina Nawaz
My favorite quote is from the author who wrote The Little Prince, and I cannot pronounce his name. And it says something to the effect that perfection is not when there’s nothing more to add, but when there’s nothing more to take away.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Sabina Nawaz
It would be the one I referenced earlier, which is when employees are treated badly, they deliberately sabotage results. Now think about that, Pete. That means they’re screwing themselves over just to diss the boss. And I read about this in a book by Bob Sutton called The No Asshole Rule.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, we had Bob on the show. And a favorite book?

Sabina Nawaz
I am not monogamous in favorite books, and so it shifts quite a bit. Currently, my favorite book is Martyr by Akbar Kaveh.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Sabina Nawaz
I use the Pomodoro technique often, which is setting a timer for 25 minutes and using that as focus time so I’m not monkeying around with every little distraction that comes along.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with your clients and audiences, they quote it back to you often?

Sabina Nawaz
The one they quote back is actually the shut up, shut up more, and sense more as a result. Say less, sense more. Sense more what is going on because no one else is going to tell you.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their job?

Sabina Nawaz
Take one thing that you’re going to do to improve, and you already know what that is. Everybody does. In fact, you have probably a list of a dozen things. Break it down into the smallest, most ridiculously small unit and do it every day as a micro habit.

So, if you are going to be awesome at your job by being a better listener, once a day, your job would be to paraphrase somebody, or, for five minutes a day, to detach yourself from your phone, leave your phone in another room.

If you’re going to be awesome at your job through better health and well-being, instead of thinking you’re going to go to the gym for 30 minutes a day, do one push-up a day. That’s what a micro-habit is

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Sabina, thank you.

Sabina Nawaz
Thank you, Pete.

1043: How to Uncover Your Hidden Aptitudes and Choose the Work You’re Meant to Do with Betsy Wills

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Betsy Wills shares the science behind aptitudes and how to use them for a thriving career.

You’ll Learn

  1. Where most career assessments fall short
  2. Why a low aptitude score shouldn’t discourage you
  3. The root of boredom, frustration, and burnout

About Betsy

Betsy Wills is the co-author of Your Hidden Genius and a pioneer in democratizing aptitude assessments. A co-founder of YouScience, she helped bring formerly expensive assessments online, now serving over 25% of U.S. high schools and 600+ colleges. With a master’s in Leadership and Organization from Vanderbilt, Betsy specializes in career guidance, helping individuals align work with innate abilities. Her book empowers adults to uncover their strengths, make informed career choices, and lead fulfilling lives.

Resources Mentioned

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Betsy Wills Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Betsy, welcome!

Betsy Wills
Thank you, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to be chatting about your work, digging into innate talents, aptitude, Your Hidden Genius. Marshall Goldsmith was raving about the book deal you had, so it must be good, Betsy, right?

Betsy Wills
It’s very good and very necessary for people. Very unique.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. Well, tell us what is unique? I think people think, “Well, I’ve done a Myers-Briggs. I’ve done a DiSC. I’ve done a StrengthsFinder.” You got another one of these assessments, Betsy. What’s sort of fresh here?

Betsy Wills
Okay, I just love that question more than anything. Actually, the assessment is not new, but what it was, was extremely expensive. The assessment is from Johnson O’Connor, which is a career center that you go to in 12 different cities around the country. It costs about $750 to do it. When you do it, you’re doing these exercises that you cannot game on your aptitudes.

And most people do not understand what aptitudes are, and, basically, they’re hidden from people. You may have an inkling that you have certain abilities that are innate, but this is the scientific way to prove that. So, the book includes the aptitude assessment with a code to take online, and that is what’s unique.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, super. So, now when you say aptitude, this is bringing back memories, SAT. Does that stand for the Standard Aptitude or Scholastic Aptitude Test?

Betsy Wills
Originally, it was called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, and the people that make that test realize it is not an aptitude test. It’s not about your innate abilities. It was actually the Scholastic Achievement Test. And so, the term has kind of stuck and been conflated, if you will. But even the Scholastic Achievement Test rebranded itself to be called just the SAT, if you look into that history.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, inside scoop.

Betsy Wills
Inside scoop. So, we have sort of shifted in and moved in our terminology for these things, but aptitudes you cannot study for. They are innate. So, there’s actually 52 that can be measured and they range from, you know, glare factor. Some certain people are really bothered by glare and other people not so much on a continuum. It’s an actual innate ability. We don’t test that because it only really matters if you’re a truck driver or you’re flying an airplane.

Pete Mockaitis
Or a jet fighter, yeah.

Betsy Wills
Yup, it does matter, and they do test it in the military but it’s not one of the pieces of this particular battery. But what we do assess are things that really matter in the world of work. And these are things that typically school does not recognize, things like your spatial ability. Some people are able to see things in 3D very easily, and other people are more abstract. I know we’re going to talk about that in a minute.

And then there are certain cognitive things, like people’s reasoning skills or memories. But all of these things combined can give us great insight into where we’re going to find satisfaction in our work, as well as our best advocations, which I think are quite important.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, 52 aptitudes that we know about so far from science. Now that’s just incredible.

Betsy Wills
Yeah, and there’s others that are coming, believe me.

Pete Mockaitis
So, where might we go to just find the rundown, the list of these little tidbits from glare factor and more?

Betsy Wills
Another good question. So, the other thing that’s been hidden from people or they didn’t realize is the US government and the Department of Labor and Statistics has been tracking every single job and built, basically, a Rosetta Stone of information with each of the 52 and the amount of each 52 that are ideal for each job. So, think of it as this huge dataset.

But until I know your data on your aptitudes, I can’t really give you great career suggestions, and so that’s the purpose, in many ways, of having your aptitudes assessed because it maps to this enormous database, almost like a Match.com for your jobs. So, just like medicine, which has become extremely personalized using data, now we have the wherewithal, if we can have our aptitudes assessed, to find out where we would best fit in different types of jobs.

Now, let me be clear, there’s not one job for one person. There’s many, many options, but it helps you sort of narrow down what is basically a tyranny of choice and the misguidance of saying to people, “Follow your passion,” or, “Do what you are.” You’ve got to know what you are, and this gives you an enormous amount of data to make better decisions.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, Betsy, we don’t do an NPR-style journalistic narrative situation, but now you got me curious about this secret government conspiracy that has constructed the career Rosetta Stone, and we don’t know about it.

Betsy Wills
Right. Right.

Pete Mockaitis
Is it published somewhere deep in a backwoods site?

Betsy Wills
No, no, anybody can access this, and it’s not nefarious at all. It’s called O*NET, and I talk about it in the book, you can see that, but here’s the rub. When you were in high school, and I was in high school, and since the 1960s, they have been using a survey called the interest survey. You took it, I took it, pretty much every high gave it because it was…

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, I kind of remember that.

Betsy Wills
Yes, and it asked you, Pete, “Like, on a scale of 1 to 5, do you like building cabinets?” Or, “On a scale of 1 to 5, how do you feel about medical terms or something?” Well, at 17, who the heck knows? You know, we’ve been exposed to almost nothing. But they called it career guidance, and that assessment mapped to O*NET.

And when it mapped to O*NET, with very little information that you self-reported, it would give you career suggestions, like be a funeral mortician hairdresser, or a forest ranger, or a doctor, or a lawyer, things like that. But it was using very scant data to do that that you were self-reporting. So, the database has been very refined and it’s very powerful, but the stuff we were putting into it with those high school surveys, that acted like a boomerang because it was just you telling the survey and it you something back, that’s pretty bad.

And now we know that that information was essentially career malpractice. You really need to have much better data. It’s like if you went to the doctor and you told the doctor you have cancer, and the doctor said, “You know what? I agree. Let’s start the chemotherapy.” You’d be like, “What?” You’d say, “Aren’t you going to run some tests or get some information?” I mean, you don’t self-report yourself like that, and this is the same with careers at this point.

So, that’s really what has happened is this is Career Guidance 3.0. Finally, we’re in an era where we can scientifically understand what we’re hardwired to do, where our best opportunities are, and where we’re going to find the most satisfaction by understanding what our aptitudes are. And that’s why this book is so, so important.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, that’s good, and I love that line about the doctor. You tell the doctor what you have, and they say, “Yep, you got it.”

Betsy Wills
“You’re sure right.” Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
So well, so much good stuff. You said they didn’t have a sense of the ideal amounts of aptitudes of different types for different jobs. So, now when you say ideal amount, that triggers me to think, “Hmm, so it’s not just more of everything is better? We’d be worse off having more aptitude in being in certain jobs?”

Betsy Wills
These are the most miserable people. There’s not very many who basically have powerful aptitudes in all of the things you can measure, and nobody does have that. But what you’re looking for and what’s wonderful about understanding what your aptitudes are is you’re looking for a combination of things as unique as your fingerprint.

So, let me give you an example. Idearate, you took it, Pete, and it told you, you were a brainstormer. We gave you a question and you remembered the assessment. I don’t want to ruin it for your listeners, but your result was you were a brainstormer.

Pete Mockaitis
I didn’t know. I was typing things. Was that a lot of things? I have no context.

Betsy Wills
Yes, that was a lot of things.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that was a lot of things. Okay. Go, me.

Betsy Wills
People who score like this, they tend to, you know, it’s like ideas come out like a flood. They almost have trouble turning it off, okay?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s right.

Betsy Wills
At night, I need a glass of wine sometimes to turn this off, okay? So, it’s lots and lots of ideas that are coming to you at one time. The other side of the continuum, people who don’t score as if they come up with a lot of ideas, are called concentrated focusers. So, people who score like you do, make great podcast hosts, salespeople, marketers, journalists, writers, teachers. Pete, you don’t want your surgeon or your pilot to have this, okay?

Pete Mockaitis
“Here’s a fun idea. What if, instead, we cut this other part for funsies?”

Betsy Wills
“Yeah, yeah, like, let’s saw him up this way, you know?” So, the point is that is, oftentimes, the things that are not as strong for us are what unlock our best opportunities. So, think of your aptitude scores as looking almost like a soundboard. You’re going to have certain things that are way up here and certain things way down here. It’s that combination that makes the music sound so great, and that’s really how aptitudes work. So, we’re not looking for A+’s, you know.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it’s so funny, I was just thinking something about myself I’ve noticed kind of recently is, boy, I love designing processes, but I hate following them. It’s, like, does that make me some kind of a hypocrite? Like, “Listen, employees, you do these things that I’ve spelled out, but I don’t want to do these things,” because it gets boring for me. I want to mix it up.”

And to the notion of having optimal levels, not necessarily just more and more and more, we were talking with a Navy SEAL, Rich Diviney, about what he calls attributes. I’m seeing a little bit of overlap here. And he used, for example, the attribute of empathy, we think, “Oh, that’s a good thing. I want to be empathetic.” But he said, “If your role is being a stand-up comic, you don’t want to have high empathy.”

Betsy Wills
That’ll be highly distracting when you’re trying to make that sarcastic remark.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, you’re going to be offending a segment by necessity in order to be funny. I get maybe it’s possible to be kind to everybody in your jokes, but often those are like fifth-grade pun books, which are not that funny, in my experience with my kiddos. So, I think there’s a lot to be said there. Yes, those aptitudes, it’s intriguing how, if you have a whole lot of a thing, it might not feel like a great fit.

Now, well, you’re making me get all these flashbacks here. I remember I was at a Bain party because I used to do strategy consulting. And so, well, I think there was an event where beverages were flowing liberally, and folks were just sort of speaking their mind. I remember our corporate librarian person said to me, “I don’t know what you’re doing here, Pete.” I was like, “What? That’s not what I want to hear.”

Betsy Wills
“This isn’t a job review, I hope.”

Pete Mockaitis
“I’m trying to advance my career.” And she’s like, “You just have so many creative ideas. The consulting thing, this doesn’t really seem like you.” And I thought, “Hmm, you know, it’s interesting,” because, in a way, I totally vibed with my fellow consultants in, like, the problem-solving, find the insights, communicate it.
But then, boy, once we had to polish that PowerPoint deck for a sixth iteration, I was like, “Aren’t we done? Can’t we just move on?”

Betsy Wills
“No, I’m out.” Well, people, again, that are brainstormers like you, they tend to like to have multiple projects going at one time, and that’s probably what did attract you in Bain Consulting. But I will say, for you and your scores, because I appreciate you taking the assessment and investing in yourself, you scored as a diagnostic problem solver in the inductive reasoning assessment.

Which, if you recall, if anybody out there plays the New York Times Connections game, it’s quite similar the way this is assessed. People who like to draw connections with a lot of ambiguity and not all the information present. And that is how a lot of consultants score because they love problems where not all the information is necessarily in front of them, and they can draw inference well.

So, you scored like that, for example, Pete, and it’s not necessarily that usual to score like you did. In fact, not a high percentage of people score with that diagnostic problem-solving score, and so, congratulations. You should be leaning into that as much as possible.

And some people might tell you, because all of these aptitudes, wherever you score, there’s going to be an Achilles’ heel. And in the book, we talk about the positives and also the challenges for everybody’s course. And in your case, people who score as diagnostic problem solvers, they can tend to procrastinate actually because they work best when there’s urgency. They love when there is kind of a mini crisis or something to solve where they can, you know, the time pressure is on them.

And so, when there’s not enough time pressure, sometimes they create situations where there is time pressure because they like the thrill. I don’t know if that happens to you. I’m not saying you do that because not everybody exhibits the characteristics of some of these Achilles’ heels. I call it aptitudes gone wild, but it is good insight.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, what I really like this notion is you can have a high aptitude on a thing, and that just sounds good, like, “Yeah, I want a bunch of high aptitude. I want to be like limitless, you know, or Jason Bourne. Oh, these guys are so awesome. They can do anything. So capable, speaking all these languages, sniper-ing people far away.”

So, that sounds great, but you’re really highlighting here that you may have a high level of an aptitude, and that does have a shadow side to it. And then, likewise, a low level of an aptitude, things I just sort of felt, ashamed might be a strong word, but in the ballpark of ashamed. So, on the test, there was a “holes being punched into folded paper” situation for spatial reasoning, and I just utterly bombed it.

I could tell, for the first one, which I think was supposed to be easy, I still didn’t understand what I was doing. And I remember I’ve had these experiences.

And I do get lost without GPS, and people say, “Oh, just come back the way you came.” I was like, “That’s not going to be good enough. I’m going to need some more information on how to return from the bathroom to the doctor’s office.” Like, “Oops, which way did I turn on these hallways corridors?”

Betsy Wills
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
I feel, like, embarrassed. Like, I have something wrong with me.

Betsy Wills
Not a bit.

Pete Mockaitis
And you’re saying, “Well, hey, there’s a low aptitude on spatial reasoning.”

Betsy Wills
Spatial reasoning. It’s fine. I mean, that’s actually the one, Pete, that people feel like throwing the computer out the window. And a lot of people, even if they do well at that particular assessment, they don’t realize it in the midst of it. They all kind of come back and go, “That one was so hard.” And I’m like, “Well, you scored as a 3D visualizer.” Or, in your case as an abstract thinker, it wasn’t that easy.

But that fork in the road for people tells us a lot about, for instance, the types of careers we’re going to enjoy. People who score like you do, as an abstract thinker, they tend to be very good at reading emotions of people. They’re very good at so many different things that are more in the idea world, the theory world, the concept world. They like to think in the world of ideas and thoughts and emotions.

Whereas, people who score as 3D thinkers, it’s almost like a scratch that needs to be itched. And when we see that score, we ask them, “You know, what are you doing in your life to use this?” And if you’re a parent, so you know, you can start to see this aptitude emerge very young in children, actually. The kid who’s making the Taj Mahal out of LEGOs at four, and then, you know, me, if I’m trying to do something out of LEGOs, you wouldn’t know what it was even today, you know? It’d be such a mess.

But it’s just fascinating that we can parse these aptitudes and how much they tell us about our satisfaction in our jobs and in our lives.

Pete Mockaitis
And, Betsy, it’s interesting, you’re also illuminating for me, I think, one of the great mysteries of home ownership, which is, “How is it that a contractor or a plumber or an electrician or a carpenter, is just amazing doing things I could not imagine to doing myself?”

Betsy Wills
There you go.

Pete Mockaitis
And yet, I often have a heck of a time getting them to pick up the phone, show up? I was like, “Maybe there’s just too much demand for a limited number of tradespeople, and so we’re all just kind of in this boat.” But I think, Betsy, what you seem to be illuminating, this is my theory, there’s some abstract thinking for you.

Betsy Wills
Yes, that’s right.

Pete Mockaitis
My theory is, “Well, hey, they’re great on an aptitude I’m not good at, and I’ve got an aptitude that they’re not so great at. It’s relatively easy for me to pick up the phone and make an appointment, show up, do the things.

Betsy Wills
Come up with the idea, you know, all those types of things, yes.

Pete Mockaitis
But, actually, showing up and making great cabinets wouldn’t work so well for me.

Betsy Wills
And what a waste of time. And that’s also part of the point here is, you know, whether you’re managing a team or managing yourself, why stay on the struggle bus? There’s no point. We call the book Your Hidden Genius because everyone really does have these hidden abilities that they sometimes have recognized or maybe discounted in their lives because school didn’t reward them for it or they just thought, “Oh, everybody can do that,” and that’s really not the case at all.

Pete Mockaitis
No, that’s a huge takeaway right there. And we talked with some folks who are experts in the StrengthsFinder, and that’s sort of a funny thing about strengths is because they’re easy for us, we just assume, “Oh, this is easy for everybody,” but no, no. It’s because we have these strengths, we have these aptitudes.

And it’s also intriguing, “Why stay on the struggle bus?” I guess this might be hopeful or desolate, Betsy. Is it fixed? Like, there’s just spatial reasoning is not going to be improved by me no matter how what kind of exercises I try to do?

Betsy Wills
Well, that is a great question. No, we can do anything with practice, and that is the other good news about knowing what your aptitudes are. It’s often an indicator of where you may need to spend more time, or, for some people, learning a job is harder than actually doing a job, like acquiring the skill may take them longer and be more of a struggle, but all of us can do anything with practice.

But the point, too, is why would you? We all have things we’ve got to get competent at, but why spend a lot of time trying to perfect it or apologizing for why we’re not the best at it? So, I’ll give you an exercise I gave Marshall as well, and that was, you know, do you have a pen handy?

Pete Mockaitis
I sure do.

Betsy Wills
And if your listeners do, take out a pen and just write your name. Right, Pete?

Pete Mockaitis
I have a feeling I know where this is going.

Betsy Wills
You probably do, but why not? So, now, switch hands.

Pete Mockaitis
Alrighty.

Betsy Wills
Okay. I know you’re going to enjoy this.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Betsy Wills
Okay. So, how does your non-dominant hand signature look?

Pete Mockaitis
You almost said left, which is correct. Well, it’s sloppy, it’s silly, it took longer, it was harder to do.

Betsy Wills
Right. Slow. Okay. Pete, if you lost use of your dominant hand for some terrible accident, I hope that never happens, and you had to use your non-dominant hand for the rest of your life, even by the end of today, you could get better. You would get more relaxed doing it. You could practice and get better. But you’re never going to be a calligrapher, okay, no matter what you do. So, that’s the way aptitudes work. You can become competent, but spend more time on the things that come naturally and easily to you versus constantly being frustrated.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that seems accurate that if something is hard for you to improve on for a long time, the odds are slim you will ever become exceptionally world-class at that thing.

Betsy Wills
Right. Well, think of it as also like you don’t become a musician at 35 years old, all of a sudden, because you work really hard at it. People have natural abilities that allow them to enjoy doing it and to get better and better at it the more they practice. But if your running start is at a different spot, it’s going to take you longer and become more frustrating as you go.

And that, again, doesn’t mean if you’re not a great musician from birth you can’t enjoy music or do well. But we all know, there are certain people who just it comes easily to, and that’s great. And there are things that are easy for you that aren’t easy for me, and that’s okay, too.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, with the book Your Hidden Genius, you’ve got the link to the code that lets you do the test and learn these things. And then there’s the O*NET from the government.

Betsy Wills
Matching, yup.

Pete Mockaitis
So, I mean, hey, I think it’s a great move to buy the book, do the assessment. If folks just aren’t going to, how do we take advantage of some of these insights without it?

Betsy Wills
Well, if you read the book, we did design it such that if you didn’t take the assessment, which I don’t know why you wouldn’t, but if you didn’t, we tell stories. And so, we explain these concepts and we talk about, you know, we talked to over 80 different people from ages 75 down to 18, because by the time you go through puberty, your aptitudes are fixed. So, you wouldn’t take an aptitude assessment any earlier than when you’re sort of in high school. But if you take the assessment, you’re going to score the same at 17, 37, 80.

Pete Mockaitis
No kidding?

Betsy Wills
Yes, because, again, we’re not testing what you know. We’re just looking at the baseline. So, it’s kind of fun to take them, but if you get into the book, we’ll go through all the different aptitudes and tell stories and talk about how they come out with different people’s careers and their advocations as well. But you talked about other aptitudes people were discovering. We have a chapter on that which I think is kind of cool. I’ll tell a story if you are interested about smell, which they’re really researching these days.

Certain people can smell things better than other people. This is why certain people enjoy wine or cooking in a different way. And there’s a woman, many people may have read this story, maybe you did, who had a husband with Parkinson’s disease, and he died. And she went to the doctor after and she said, “You know, I could smell it on him,” and he was like, “What do you mean you could smell it on him?” She goes, “I could smell it on him for years.”

And so, they got interested in this, and they gave her 24 T-shirts, and they said, “Tell me which of these people have Alzheimer’s.” I mean, have Parkinson’s, excuse me. And she picked out 12, and they said, “Well, that is remarkable because we have 11 candidates with it, and all 11 were in your pile. That other person not, but that’s remarkable.”

And two months later, the 12th T-shirt wearer was diagnosed. And it’s just phenomenal what they’re able to now study around people being able to smell diseases. And it is actually, I believe, an aptitude. It hasn’t been proven, but it’s things like that that are fascinating to me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it is fascinating, and I just can’t let it go. If one smells Parkinson’s on somebody, I am assuming the person with Parkinson’s, biochemically, has a smellable thing going on.

Betsy Wills
A disease.

Pete Mockaitis
And non-Parkinson’s sufferers don’t.

Betsy Wills
That’s the implication.

Pete Mockaitis
But we don’t know what that is yet, like a film on the skin or like a…?

Betsy Wills
I guess. I’m just now yacking away here because I think it’s interesting, but look up the story. But they do a tremendous amount of research on smell. But this is back to what I’m saying. These are science-based, research-based aptitudes that makes this quite different. You can’t self-report that “I’m good at this or good at that,” or have this aptitude. You do have to take these game-like exercises. And as you know, it took 87 minutes to complete, so it’s not a quickie fill-in-the-blank kind of assessment. Did you have fun doing it?

Pete Mockaitis
Most of it.

Betsy Wills
Okay. Well, it wasn’t all fun because it shouldn’t frustrate you, but, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, interesting. All right. So, let’s just summarize some of these implications. We got these aptitudes. They are not skills or knowledge or abilities. They are things that, dare I say, innate within us. We’ll know, and they’ll be unchanged post-puberty for the rest of our lives, and it behooves us to seek out opportunities that line up nicely with our amounts of aptitudes in different styles, like a Rosetta Stone, it maps just right, and we will struggle more if we are pursuing opportunities that are a mismatch to our aptitudes.

Betsy Wills
Yes. And further, you will be bored and frustrated if you are not using your aptitudes, and that’s really the challenge, is letting things sit dormant. Because a lot of people’s sort of boredom and depression and things like that is, oftentimes, because of an undeveloped aptitude. So, remember, when you discover what your aptitudes are, the onus is on you to apply learning and practice to develop them.

Motivation is sold separately, so you’re understanding what your opportunity set is, where your learning rate is going to be that much faster if you apply the aptitude. So, it’s clues for things you’re going to enjoy. It’s positive news. It’s not a dream killer. It’s all about, “Here are so many opportunities I might have left on the table. Here’s how I can pivot if I need to. Here are the skills I can develop that are going to feel great.”

It’s positive news, and that’s really the purpose of the book is to give people great motivation and excitement around what their possibilities are, rather than, what I would say, is continue to be the walking dead because a lot of us are sort of give up weirdly early about our development, and this will energize you.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, to do a bit of a recap, you mentioned that there’s a core four aptitudes: spatial visualization, idea generation, inductive reasoning, and sequential reasoning. Can you share what makes these the core four, first of all?

Betsy Wills
Well, those are just hugely, again, like forks in the road for people, like big ones that if you’re not using them, it’s going to bother you, or if you’re over taxing them, you’re going to feel burnout and exhaustion. So, knowing where you fall on those continuums is really, really helpful. The others are important, and some people have outliers.

Like, one that can be assessed is certain people can identify color really well, hue discrimination. So those are specialized aptitudes, and those can be super important if you have them. But those core four are going to impact most of us in our decision tree, and then the others are sort of like ornaments on that tree. Very helpful to know.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that, that metaphor there. And, it’s funny, well, hue distinction, I’m thinking about physical therapists. I guess this is my poor spatial visualization going on because I’m talking about Katie will say, “Does it look like this shoulder is higher or lower than this?” I was like, “I couldn’t tell you. I am clueless. They look normal to me.”

And, whereas, physical therapists, I’m often very impressed, like, “Oh, do you see how you’re doing this?” I was like, “No, not at all do I see how I’m doing this,” but they do.

Betsy Wills
See, they do, and there’s a perfect use of their spatial visualization, they just see it, you know?

Pete Mockaitis
So, maybe if you could lay it on us in terms of, if you could archetypically share what might be a great role or a terrible role for someone high and low in each of the core four. So, spatial visualization, we said, hey, great physical therapists, maybe great.

Betsy Wills
Oh, yeah, architect. Okay, let’s get into it. Architect, landscape designer, graphic designer, anybody working with a lot of charts, for sure, crafts people, anybody you know in the building trades, potters, you know, people. Let’s talk about avocations. Like, if you have a spatial visualization, you might enjoy things like sailing or even golf where you’re estimating space or there’s a whole list of things in the book that talk about each aptitude and where you fall but that would be one.

People who score in the abstract world, like I said, they tend to like things that are more theoretical in nature, even the law, a lot of typical types of law, like constitutional law would be an example, maybe not patent law, which would need more spatial visualization, if that helps you understand it. And then, by the way, there are people who score in the middle of each on this continuum. So, we break it down into three groups. And you will learn something in the book about that, too, wherever you score on that continuum. So, that’s spatial.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And idea generation.

Betsy Wills
Okay, idea generation: teachers, journalists, public speakers, comedians, actors, improv, salespeople, certain types of consulting, for sure, appeals to that, that’s brainstormer, strong idea rate. One of the Achilles’ heels of being a brainstormer might be that you may have a habit of interrupting people because you just can’t get all those ideas out at once.

Concentrated focusers, which is the other end of this continuum, tend to be excellent at implementing ideas. They tend to be the “Let’s pick an idea and run with it and go with it.” They tend to enjoy things that take a high amount of concentration, if you will. Anesthesiologists, for example, airline pilots, those would be examples. But there’s many, many things that utilize that concentrated focuser score.

Inductive reasoning is the next one we might pick. So, this is the one I talked about where you’re very comfortable drawing a conclusion under time pressure. Basically, if you’re an inductive reasoner, you need to be on a game show because you love the, you know, got to make a decision under time pressure.

But think of an ER doctor where someone comes in with three symptoms and they’ve got to really make that decision quickly, or a Wall Street trader. Sometimes an investigator might be a diagnostic problem solver. Consultants, for sure, like you were. The other opposite end of that continuum is fact-checking, a fact checker. That’s the people who really are not comfortable making decisions under time pressure.

Oftentimes they need to be pushed into the pool. They’re going to look at a hundred colleges before they’re going to make a decision because they’re looking for that one piece of data they may not have. They make great risk managers. They make wonderful HR managers because, when you’re hiring someone, you can’t infer from three different pieces of information and make a decision, or you shouldn’t. You’re going to need to do the background check, and they’re going to be the people who are going to complete all those steps. So, again, value with every score.

And then the last one is sequential reasoning. I don’t know if you remember that one where you were putting boxes in order. Sequential reasoning is interesting. A lot of people who score as sequential reasoners tend to have messy desks because all of their file cabinets are in their head. They don’t need organizational structures as much. They tend to be able to put things in order. They’re like, if they’re going to write a paper, they don’t need an outline. It’s all kind of organized in their head.

The people on the opposite end of this, we call process supporters, and they’re excellent at maintaining systems. Think about librarians. Think about people who, you know, don’t move their cheese. If you’re going to change a system, you’ve got to really explain it to them. But they’re going to make sure that system is followed to a T, and they’re excellent at it. And we need all types on our teams. If I may, I’ll tell a quick story also about that.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, please.

Betsy Wills
There was a guy named Charlie Plumb, who was a war hero and he took off from his aircraft carrier and was ejected from his airplane on a parachute and shot down into enemy territory and spent about two years, I think, in solitary or something, and got out and went and made all these speeches.

And one time, he was giving a talk at a restaurant, and a man came up and tapped him on the shoulders, and he was a sequential reasoner, Charlie Plumb was. And he said, “I was on the aircraft carrier with you.” And he said, “Oh, well, soldier, I’m glad to meet you,” Charlie Plumb did. And he said, “You know, I’m the guy who packed your parachute.” He was a process supporter.

He didn’t come up with a new way to pack the parachute. He did it the same way every time, and this is just like teams. We need all different types of people with all different aptitude scores to make us successful. So, in the end, this is all about empathy, and it’s about love. It’s about not seeing other people as a flawed version of us. It’s really valuable information.

Pete Mockaitis
Well said. Yeah, that feels like that’s a transformational key right there for many of our relationships, not to see others as flawed versions of ourselves.

Betsy Wills
Especially your spouse.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, but rather a person who has their own unique profile of different levels of aptitudes. Beautiful. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Betsy Wills
“A wink is as good as a nod to a blind mule.” Barney Fife said it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Betsy Wills
I’m reading Hampton Sides’ The Wide Wide Sea right now. So, my favorite book is always my last book that I’m reading. I would recommend it to anyone. It’s about Captain Cook’s travels. Captain Cook ended up being cannibalized on Hawaii in the 1790s, and it’s a fascinating read.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite tool?

Betsy Wills
Right now, it’s ChatGPT.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Betsy Wills
It creates images for me, which I think is a lot of fun.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks, they quote it back to you often?

Betsy Wills
Network.

Pete Mockaitis
One word, okay. Do it! And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Betsy Wills
I would say go to YourHiddenGenius.com and purchase the book, and you can reach out to me that way as well.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Betsy Wills
Bring your best opportunities to your jobs and advocate for doing activities that meet your aptitudes and shed the things that don’t.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Betsy, thank you.

Betsy Wills
Thank you.