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Pete Mockaitis

Mar 05
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269: Why Willpower Doesn’t Work (and What Does) with Benjamin Hardy

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Benjamin Hardy says: "It's not confidence that leads to success, it's successful behavior that creates confidence."

Medium writer Benjamin Hardy makes the case for why and how to shape our environments to support success.

You’ll Learn:

  1. How to use the sunk cost fallacy to your advantage
  2. The definition of a forcing function and how to apply them at work
  3. Why pen and paper beats digital journaling

About Benjamin

Since late 2015, Benjamin has been the #1 writer on Medium.com. Ben’s writing focuses on self-improvement, motivation, and entrepreneurship. His writing is fueled by personal experiences, self-directed education, and formal education. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at Clemson University. His research focuses on the psychological differences of wannabe entrepreneurs and actual entrepreneurs (dreamers vs. doers).

Items Mentioned in this Show:

Benjamin Hardy Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Ben, thanks so much for joining us here on the How To Be Awesome At Your Job podcast.

Benjamin Hardy
Thank you, Pete. Very glad to be here with you, man.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so you’ve got a pretty cool claim to fame, and it’s that you are the number one writer on Medium. I guess we measure that in page views by the tens of millions. So, congrats. That’s really cool.

Benjamin Hardy
Thank you.

Pete Mockaitis
How does that happen?

Benjamin Hardy
I mean, a lot of luck, a lot of good timing, and a lot of things. I mean, I started writing online in 2015 shortly after becoming a foster parent of three kids, was in a PhD program, still in that program actually. I’m almost done. It’s organizational psychology, so I have lots to talk about because it’s psychology of the workforce, how to keep people motivated and whatnot.

But, yeah, I mean, after I became a foster parent it kind of really put a lot of external pressure on me. I’d been wanting to be a writer since 2010, had spent from 2010 to 2015 reading, reading, reading, reading, and I’ve always been an intense journaler. But it was when I became a foster parent actually did that pressure kind of really forced to like think about – think things through.

And then that led me to investing some money into a domain name, an online course that taught me how to write viral articles, and then seeking mentorships. And then just pumping out lots of articles in my spare time and getting lucky and, I mean, I could tell you as much as you want to hear as far as, in my opinion, what makes good writing but, yeah, having lot of…it’s been a fun ride.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I would be intrigued if maybe there is a key principle or rule of thumb or mantra that you keep front and center that contributes, you think, to the success there.

Benjamin Hardy
Yeah, yeah, I mean, as far as the marketing, you have to get really, really good at writing headlines and structuring articles in a way that is very easy flowing for people to read. As far as writing, the three components are being very good. You know, you’ve got to be a very good communicator. Being able to weave concepts, principles, stories, so you have to communicate but not just communicate head knowledge.

You have to have the head knowledge which is expertise or something on a topic because if you don’t have that then you just sound like you’re sharing your opinion and it’s not credible. But if you just have the head knowledge, if you’re just writing facts then it’s not compelling and it’s not persuasive. And so I think kind of the triple threat is knowing your stuff so well but actually knowing when it… and then understanding it kind of at the heart level, the emotional level, and being able to speak from experience in a communicative way and a persuasive way.

So kind of emotions, expertise, and good communication is what I think really makes it powerful because when you can speak really persuasively but then you’re backing your stuff up with like, you know, tons of science or compelling or very credible sources then not only is it emotional for people, but they’re like, “Oh, wow,” they believe it’s true because you’re backing it up over and over and over. And so that’s kind of some keys, I think.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, cool. Thank you. Well, I appreciate that. It wasn’t just like, “Well, the key is to put a number in your headline,” and then it’s like the eight reasons willpower doesn’t work, “You won’t believe number six.” That’s all there is to it, you know.

Benjamin Hardy
That’s all you need, my man. That’s it. Now you can go be famous.

Pete Mockaitis
I had a hunch like each of those things sounds hard in the sense of, “That’ll take some time to develop that capability just like real life.”

Benjamin Hardy
Oh, yeah, it’s not an overnight thing, you know what I mean? So you can apply some strategies overnight that make a big difference but at the end of the day you’ve got to be good at what you do. Like Cal Newport says, you’ve got to be so good you can’t be ignored.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so I’m excited to see you have put some of these skills to work in crafting your book here Willpower Doesn’t Work. Tell us what’s this all about?

Benjamin Hardy
Yeah, Willpower Doesn’t Work is kind of, I mean, I don’t know I’d call it a manifesto but it’s like a countercultural punch in the face to Western culture. So Western culture, especially in the self-improvement world but also like in the pop psychology world, is very individualistic. That’s just our culture. We’re a very individualistic society. We’re very focused on ourselves.

And so when we’re talking about self-improvement and stuff like that, we’re always talking about, you know, we’re always focused on the self, you know, have more willpower, have a better mindset, how to set better goals. I mean, it’s all about you and there’s no focus on the context around you. There’s no focus on the environment or very little because in our culture we kind of downplay how much the environment truly shapes us.

So what the book is all about is it’s all about, first off, how important our environment really is, the fact that you’re a different person in one situation than you are in a different situation, and how environment shapes your identity. And then, really, ultimately how to shape the optimal environment so that you can succeed.

And there’s a curt quote that comes from Marshall Goldsmith. He wrote the book Triggers, and the quote is, “If you do not create and control your environment, your environment will create and control you.”

I go into a lot of science and research since I study organizational psychology, but there’s been a big shift over the last 50 years in the research. So back in like, well, really, it’s been a long time coming, but in the 1920s and 1930s, all of the research on leadership, for example, was focused on men. So the first core leadership theories were the great men leaders, great men theory of leadership. I mean, it was like it all about how leaders can only be men.

And then we went to the trait perspective where it’s like, you know, you could only be a six-foot tall man. And, ultimately, we were all focused on traits and stuff, and even personality types. I mean, it’s so popular. We’re all so focused on these fixed traits. And, in my opinion, the science at this point it’s pretty clear that it’s all about the environment, and about creating that environment, that’s why companies like Zappos are so popular.

But all the research in organizational psychology is focused now on, “How do you structure environmental settings so that employees can be successful so that leadership can happen?” So, really, this book is just all about, “How do you setup the environment so that you can win?”

Pete Mockaitis
Intriguing. Well, so maybe we should back it up a little bit when you talk about winning. I guess that really starts with a decision to commit to a particular goal, result, outcome to begin with. So what’s your take on where it all starts and how you arrive at a point of conviction that this is the thing that I shall pursue?

Benjamin Hardy
I love that. So it actually directly relates to my research. And so throughout my doctoral research, and I know that we’re not going to be talking about entrepreneurship specifically on this video or on this episode, but I actually do study the difference between wanna-be entrepreneurs versus actual entrepreneurs but it relates to everything. Really it’s the difference between dreamers and doers, you know. What is the difference between those people who can never reach that point of conviction versus those people who become fully committed?

And, ultimately, kind of what I’ve included after studying all sorts of people on this topic is that, yes, you have to have some internal desire, but that’s too focused to get on the individual. You have to ultimately do something in the real world. And so there’s a few components but I think the main one is that once a person starts financially investing in themselves, in their skill development, in their relationships, once they actually start investing money in what they want to do, then all of a sudden they become hyper committed.

Like there’s a lot of research in economic stuff called escalation of commitment where like once you commit, or once you start investing money, dollars, into something you become very committed to it, almost so committed that it becomes hard not to commit. It kind of goes along with the idea of sunk cost bias where you become so…have you heard of sunk cost bias before?

Pete Mockaitis
Right. Certainly. It’s like you’re trying to justify what you want, you know.

Benjamin Hardy
Hundred percent, yeah. Almost all the research on sunk cost bias points in the negative direction, it becomes an irrational commitment. But, it’s the same level of commitment that leads to success. The only reason people think it’s irrational is because often it ends in failure. You know, if you think Elon Musk, he was so convicted in his companies that he sunk all of his money into it. And because he succeeded, we all think he’s a hero. If he had failed we would’ve called him irrational.

But the same principle applies. If you start investing money, you become very committed whether that’s to an organization, whether that’s to a goal, whether that’s to a relationship, whether that’s to your skills, once you become invested, you become committed, and as you get committed then you start to wrap your identity around that thing. You start to change your identity and believe that you are that thing, whether that’s entrepreneur or leader or writer, and you start to go from wanting to be that thing to actually being that thing.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s intriguing and powerful. You know, this is bringing me back to Robert Cialdini talking about commitment consistency in his book Influence and those sorts of principles. Now when it comes to money, is it important that it be a sizable sum of money or do you really get the ball rolling if you spend 12 bucks on an Amazon book in the direction that you’re pursuing, like things are happening already?

Benjamin Hardy
I, a hundred percent, think it can definitely start small. I mean, I have been coming to grips with this principle, and, by the way, I love Cialdini. I’ve spent so much time studying his work in commitment and stuff, but, yeah, it always starts small. Like when I was first starting my PhD program, when I was like really starting to say, “I want to start this whole writing thing.”

As a PhD student you’re making 12,000 bucks a year. You’re getting about a thousand bucks a month plus you get your tuition paid for. And so for me it was like, “Okay, I need to buy a website,” and that domain name costs 800 bucks. That’s more than $12 but I bought an online course for $197 that taught me how to write viral articles or viral headlines.

And so I do think it can start small, it can start with books, it can start with really what needs to happen is that you see yourself moving in the direction you want to go. Like if you watch yourself buying and reading books on a topic, you’re like, “Oh, I’m observing myself performing these behaviors.” That’s how people develop their identity, it called self-signaling in psychology.

Basically, what it means is that we, ourselves, we don’t really know ourselves as much as we think we do. We judge ourselves the same way we judge other people. It’s based on our behaviors. And so if you start watching yourself behave in certain ways, you’ll start to believe it, and that’s how confidence develops. You know, confidence is the product of successful behavior, and so once you start behaving in a certain way, and you start to kind of developing some consistency, all of a sudden you start to have confidence, then you can become passionate about it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. That’s cool. I like that. And so, then, when it comes to the environment, you know, I dug your quote from Marshall Goldsmith. It also reminds me of one by Churchill who said, “We shape our dwellings and then our dwellings shape us.”

Benjamin Hardy
By the way, Marshall McLuhan also says we shape our language and then our language shapes us.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. We got a full-blown theme here.

Benjamin Hardy
By the way, the whole book is about how your environment shapes you, and that the only way to proactively become the person you want to be is to shape the environment that you know will shape you.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, that’s compelling. So let’s hear it. How do we go about taking those steps to shaping such an environment?

Benjamin Hardy
I mean, first things first. You have to somewhat – I mean, you kind of have to know what you want. You don’t need to know all of it because a lot of the change happens once you’re in the environment. Or I think there’s so many layers to this question. I think, for the starters, I’ll talk about, in the book I talk about two types of optimal environments.

So I call them enriched environments, and that comes from a lot of theory and organizational psychology about basically how people have been structuring jobs. They call it job enrichment which is basically all the stuff that Dan Pink talk about in his book Drive, I believe, about creating jobs where people have more autonomy and stuff. I mean, that’s all based on research in organizational psychology.

But, basically, the two types of optimal environments that I talk about in the book are environments of high stress and then environments of complete rest. And, basically, it’s the idea that you need to be fully engaged and absorbed in whatever environment you’re in. So in order to be fully absorbed in, let’s just say, like a flow state, where you’re totally engaged in what you’re doing, you’re totally focused, there’s got to be several factors.

You’ve got to have high level of responsibility, there’s got to be consequences for performance. Ideally, you should be doing something that you’ve never done before and that somewhat above your skill level. I mean, it needs to be challenging and difficult, and there needs to be feedback, you know what I mean? It’s basically like the equivalent of being at the gym with a personal trainer. It should be very difficult and you should be having to rise to an occasion, rise above what you’ve done before so much so, and very few people work environments are like that.

Most people are in a semi state of distraction, there’s tabs open on their stuff, there’s notifications popping on their phone, there’s very low consequence for bad performance, it’s mundane, it’s routine. And so step one is, “How do you create an optimal environment that’s high stress?”

Then step two is you can’t do that all day, it’s not about being busy, it’s about being productive. And so you need to, have an environment for rest and recovery where you fully detach from work and where you, then, just focus on whatever it is you want to do at home whether that’s to be with your family or whether that’s like rest and recover in some other way.

There’s a lot of research in organizational psychology that talks about a concept called psychologically detaching from work. And, basically, it means that in order to fully be engaged while you’re at work, you need to fully detach and be engaged in life and rest, and let it go. And there’s like all sorts of negative effects if you don’t ever detach from work, like you have a hard time fully engaging, you burn out quicker.

And so I think, kind of just bringing this together real quick, there’s a quote from Dan Sullivan, he’s the founder of Strategic Coach, but he says, “Wherever you are that’s where you should be. Wherever you are make sure you’re there.” And so the idea is when you’re fully resting, like actually rest and recover. Almost all of your best ideas are going to happen while you’re resting. And then while you’re at work you can fully engage at a much higher level. You can be much more proactive, you can take on more responsibility.

And so I think that, first off, understanding those two types of environments and kind of assessing yourself how often are you in those types of environments. Like when you’re actually home, are you actually resting? Or is your environment setup for failure? Like do you have a TV in your bedroom? You know what I mean? Like, is your environment setup to fail?

And so I think, first off, is assessing how often are you in a flow state and knowing that flow is purely based on your environment is number one. I don’t know if you want to just talk about that first and then we can talk more about how to actually structure those things.

Pete Mockaitis
Sure thing. So I would like to hear about how one constructs both a high stress and a high recovery environment. And so it sounds like the antithesis to high stress was, “Hey, you know, we got a lot of bad distractions, we’ve got not a whole lot of really high stakes,” in terms of if you succeed or fail  in a given day, it’s like, “Well,” you know, you’re probably not going to be fired or promoted or get a fat bonus or whatever kind of, on most days. So how do we go about putting an environment in place in which we do have this stress so that we could be totally in and rocking? And then afterwards let’s talk about the recovery side.

Benjamin Hardy
Totally. Absolutely. So there’s a concept I talk about in the book called forcing functions. And forcing functions are basically a simple way to kind of manipulate your environment so that basically desired behavior is the norm, it’s the automatic. I mean, a simple forcing function literally is just leave your phone away from your person. Like if you’re not required to use it, like while you’re at work, for example, don’t have it around you. Leave it in a bag or something.

Basically, just put constraints in place so that you’re not going to do something stupid. That’s basically what a forcing function is.

Other forcing functions, and this is more relevant to just like self-improvement, but I think it could be related to the job site. Like Ramit Sethi, for example, he’s like an online entrepreneur, but he invests like a good amount of money every year into a personal trainer. And when he does that, and it’s almost the same principle we’re talking about before, it forces him to go to the gym. You know what I mean?

And so let’s just say a person has a goal, whatever it may be, get a promotion or get a better job. A lot of it is thinking what you want and then embedding these forcing functions to make it happen. I mean, a very simple interesting forcing function just for high productivity is, so one of the people I talked to, he purposefully, if he’s going to go work for a few hours, like let’s say at the library or something, he purposely leaves his power cord at home for his laptop because he knows that now his laptop only has three hours of battery. For him, it forces him to be more focused because he knows that his battery is going to die in three hours, then when it’s dead, and he’s got to go home. Those are really simple low-level things.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’d like some more. So we talked about, hey, leaving the phone, leaving the laptop charger, paying some money up front for a personal trainer. I’d love, if you got it, a smorgasbord to spark some inspiration.

Benjamin Hardy
So is this all straight up in the context of being at work?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I think it’s okay if we drift a bit in terms of things that boost your general productivity and effectiveness and energy but, yeah, if you got some office-specific tidbits those are great to prioritize.

Benjamin Hardy
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. For me, in what I’ve seen, a lot of it has to do if you’re in a job, for example, like how can you take on more responsibility? A very simple forcing function is literally just applying Parkinson’s Law which is tell your advisor whoever it is that you need to report that that you’re going have something done very soon.

Like if you tell them vocally that you’re going to have their report back, or whatever it is that you have to give them, if you give them a very short timeline on where you’re going to have it back and you’ve made it verbal so that now they’re expecting it, all of a sudden you’re going to get to work. Parkinson’s Law basically is work fills the space of the amount of time you give it.

And then asking for more responsibility, like seeking greater responsibility, actually trying to –  I mean, a lot of these are very simple and basic.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s fine.

Benjamin Hardy
Yeah, you just want to – and say it like how it is. If your job is not setup so that those things are in place, I’m not saying go quit. I’m saying you might have to have some conversation so that you can be in a position where it does matter. That may require that you seek more mentoring or something. A lot of it is just taking responsibility for your job and for your situation.

If you need to have a conversation with your boss and say you want more work, or you just need to show up more. A lot of that is just being proactive. That step is not necessarily about tweaking the environment but it’s more about tweaking the expectations around the environment. And there’s a lot of research that talks about how you rise or fall based on the expectations of those around you, that’s called the Pygmalion Effect. And so if you have leaders that don’t expect much of you, sadly you’re probably going to drop to those expectations.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. That’s potent stuff. Now let’s talk about the flipside of it then when it comes to building out the high recovery environment or any, why it’s forcing functions to be implemented there.

Benjamin Hardy
Totally. So to the extent you can, and I think Greg McKeown, who I know has been on the show, one of the things he talks about is literally just asking for specific things with your job. I mean, if you can ask for certain days off or certain types of schedules, asking if you can work from home. But if you can’t, asking for certain amounts of time off.

So, basically, the idea is this. The best creative insights are not going to happen while you’re at work. The research that only 16% of creative ideas happen when you’re sitting at your desk. And so, you need to be very focused when you’re at work but you also want to optimize for rest and recovery, you want to optimize for being away.

And so there’s a lot of research and a lot of cool ideas around sabbaticals, around mini retirements. If you think about Bill Gates, he did his think weeks where two weeks a year he would leave. He would totally detach, he was very inaccessible, and he would just spend time reading articles thinking. And he said that’s where his best ideas came from.

And you can apply that at a really small scale. A lot of people talk about having a disconnected day where you leave, where you go away for a day and you just rest. You don’t have you phone with you, you’re unreachable, like you just go and have a you day where you’re just resting, or you’re maybe listening to an audio book or writing in your journal, or going on a hike.

The more of those types of days you can embed into your life, or weekends, or mini retirements where you’re doing maybe like a five-day weekend, like once every month or two, the power of leaving your routine environment is very important because when you’re outside your routine environment, when you allow yourself to actually rest and recover, then you start to get some really good clarity, and there’s strategies around getting that clarity and connecting with your why.

Like I would talk about writing in your journal in specific ways, and I talk about that in the book. So there’s a lot of kind of research around the idea that the power of a decision is based on the emotional state that you make that decision. And so a lot of people, they don’t make powerful decisions because they’re not in a very powerful mental place when they make that decision.

When you get out of your routine environment, when you can kind of see the forest of your life for the trees because you’re kind of outside of it, you’re not like staring it in the face, you can kind of take a breath, you can look at life, you can kind of reconnect with who it is you want to be or with your core values or whatnot.

The more of those days you can take, especially if you’re spending time in self-improvement, like reading audiobooks along the way, or writing in your journal and thinking about your goals, it’s making powerful decisions in those states that allows you then to come back into your environment, into your life, at your job, wherever you are and live in a much higher level. And I think everyone who’s listening to this podcast, regardless of where they are in their career, they’re probably listening to this podcast because they want to upgrade themselves and they want to continue to upgrade their career.

And so I think spending plenty of time resting and recovering, first off, so that you can psychologically detach so that you can come back and be in flow while you’re at work so you can be super productive while you’re there, but also giving yourself plenty of time to totally just detach and reset and reconnect with yourself, and then make powerful decisions outside of your environment about who you want to be, what you want to do, and then jumping back into life, and actually living that out, that’s how you upgrade yourself, that’s how you become successful regardless of your career path or your job. You can become successful in any field if you give yourself plenty of time to self-improve. Stephen Covey calls that sharpening your saw.

Pete Mockaitis
And so when you talk about a powerful state for a powerful decision, so it sounds like you’re sort of contrasting that, as opposed to a state in which you have very narrow shallow distracted attention and feel constrained to not have a lot of time, energy, focus, attention to having that time, that rejuvenated space to rock and roll.

So that sounds like what you mean by powerful state because, well, I got Tony Robbins in my head right now. I was like, “Make your move chest,” you know, powerful state, peak state, jump up and down. So are you talking about a powerful state in the sense of, “I am so freaking excited,” as well as, “Hey, I’ve got sort of time and resources to apply the thought”?

Benjamin Hardy
I would say it’s slightly a blend of both. So there’s a really good book called The Power of Moments that recently came out by Chip and Dan Heath, and they talk about powerful moments whether they’re peaks or like pits. Pits are like hard moments where you’re facing hard truths, or just transition moments. Those are the things that generally are most memorable. Like when you think back on your life, you’re generally thinking about highs, lows, or transitions. Those are the kinds of things that are most potent in our memory.

Like with the Tony Robbins like how you get yourself into an elevated state so that you can make bigger decisions, there’s some good stuff in there but a lot of it is mostly just getting clarity, getting clear on what you want, reconnecting with what you want. And so I would say it’s kind of a blend of both.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So I would like to talk a little bit about this clarity and this journaling stuff here. So we talk about giving it the time, energy and attention and space required to touch base with what’s really important and what matters. But it sounds like you’ve also got some particular prompts or questions that you suggest pursuing in order to really zero in on that.

Benjamin Hardy
Yeah, definitely. Giving yourself the space to do it is important. For me, when I’m journaling, and read plenty of books on this. A really, really good one I would recommend is called Write It Down, Make It Happen written by some English professor of some sort. She was great.

But, basically, journal writing has been found to be helpful for a lot of reasons, one of them being emotional regulation. So a lot of people have a lot of suppressed emotions of some sort, you know, suppressed trauma. One of the best books on the topic that’s staring to get a lot of steam is called The Body Keeps The Score. It’s written by an amazing medical doctor.

But, basically, a lot of the reason people are stuck is because they have suppressed energy or emotions that they just don’t want to let come back up. And one of the main tools for writing in the journal is just to emotionally regulate, writing about what you’re dealing with, getting kind of understanding your emotions. There’s a lot of really cool research talking about it.

Well, so another one of the kind of myths that I try to slam in this book is the idea that you don’t necessarily have what I would call a fixed personality. In Western culture, because we’re so individualistic, we think that the personality you’re born with is the personality you are for the rest of your life, and that’s why we’re so focused on personality tests and stuff like that.

From kind of combining a lot of the stuff in the medical field about trauma, what usually happens when a person goes through a traumatic experience or even just stress, is that they start to – basically it’s what they would call, your personality becomes frozen. You stop living in the present, you stop integrating new experiences, and you kind of get stuck. Or you stop creating these peaks, pits or transitions, these challenging moments that gets you.

And so kind of going back to journaling, one of the reasons, so you want to write in it to break through some of those emotions, but you also want to write in it to purposely create some of these life-altering experiences. They don’t have to be these high-high peaks like the Tony Robbins style, although that’s what they call them is peaks. Tony didn’t make up that word. He just used it in his own ways.

But peak experiences come from Abraham Maslow. But, ultimately, I think you want to create those. And so in my journal, not only am I writing about the emotions and stuff that I’m dealing with, but also you want to think about what are the experiences you want to create that would allow you to continually upgrade as a person and so you want to strategize in your journal.

Not only write about the stuff that’s difficult but you want to write about the things you want to actually do and why you’re writing. Because what’s cool about writing pen and paper is that it allows you to focus on the topic but it also allows your mind to wander at the same time. And when your mind is wandering, it’s able to make connections to distant places in your memory or in your brain or just based on where you’re located in the environment.

And so while you’re writing you actually end up getting a lot of a-has and insights, or at least you come up with ideas that are things that you can then attempt to do, whether that’s you may get the idea to call your advisor or your boss and make a recommendation, or send that email, or an idea to maybe be more productive or proactive at work, it maybe an idea of how you can help a colleague.

It’s basically giving yourself the space to think and then maybe developing the confidence to actually try stuff you haven’t been trying so that you can actually do stuff to get different results.

Pete Mockaitis
And so that’s intriguing when you mentioned the pen and paper situation is helpful because you’re focusing on the thing, and yet also wander. So you’re saying you don’t get the same effect in a digital writing environment.

Benjamin Hardy
Nope. Not at all. No, writing with a pen and paper is so slow and kind of tedious that it allows you to wander in random places, that’s why journal writing is inherently random, you know what I mean? Often, for most people, it goes from topic to topic is because not only are you slightly focused on a topic but your mind is also like roaming around, and so it picks things up that you couldn’t pick up if you were so – I think it’s a better tool for creativity on a brain level for most people than just writing in an app.

Pete Mockaitis
Awesome. Well, thank you, that’s a great distinction to tuck in here. Well, Ben, it sounds like we could cover a whole lot of goodies here. You tell me, is there anything else you really want to make sure to highlight before we shift gears and hear about a few of your favorite things?

Benjamin Hardy
No, we can just shift gears.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Sure. Well, can you share with a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Benjamin Hardy
Sure. I think I’ll just probably repeat the one I did before just to emphasize, “If you do not create and control your environment your environment will create and control you.” I guess another one that goes with that is just, “Willpower is for people who haven’t decided what they want to do.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. And how about a favorite study or experiment or a bit of research?

Benjamin Hardy
I really like Ellen Langer’s work honestly. She’s my favorite psychologist. She’s a Harvard psychologist. She wrote two really good books and has spent several decades studying. Her research is really non-conventional but her two books are called Mindfulness, and she’s kind of the godmother or the queen of mindfulness which her stuff is so different than the pop stuff that you see online these days.

She wrote a book called Mindfulness and she wrote a book called Counterclockwise. And her Counterclockwise study is so interesting. Basically, what she did was she took – do you know the Counterclockwise study?

Pete Mockaitis
I really don’t. Let’s hear it.

Benjamin Hardy
Okay. Okay. Cool. So she took a bunch of men in their 70s.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, okay. Go on.

Benjamin Hardy
Yeah, you know it?

Pete Mockaitis
We’ll see. We’ll see.

Benjamin Hardy
This study actually happened in the ‘70s, in the 1970s. So she took a bunch of like eight men in their 70s and took them to a place that they designed to look like the 1950s. And so it looked like they had old pictures, old magazines, and basically what she did was she had the men get dropped off by their families and then they spent the time reminiscing as if it was the 1950s.

And so they couldn’t talk about anything after the year 1958, and I think that this study actually happened in 1978, so it was like 20 years earlier. And so they had to pretend like they were the 50-year old version of themselves, and they had to pretend like that that’s who they were, so they had to talk about current events of the time as if it was real. They had to talk about their job as if that was who they were, and they spent five days doing this.

And then when the five days was up, and what’s interesting is that a lo of the people who came when they’re getting dropped off by their kids, they were coming in on canes and stuff, they had to, you know, they could barely – so they came in, some of them can’t even really walk. And what Ellen Langer and her team of graduate students did is they treated them as if – it kind of goes this whole idea of actors but it’s very different.

They treated them like human beings and gave them the context to act differently than they would’ve been expected to act because there’s so much interesting research about how, you know, I already talked about the Pygmalion Effect about how people respond psychologically based on the expectations of the environment, but their biological metrics also kind of are altered by the expectations of the environment, that’s a new and emerging field called epigenetics.

But, basically, what happened with the study was after like five or seven days, it was time for the study to be over, and these men scored totally different on their dexterity, their vision was better, their memory was better, some of them who had walked in on canes like walked out on their own two feet. It’s a very compelling study, and it’s called the Counterclockwise study, Ellen Langer.

Basically, that kind of opened the door for a lot of her research in studying how context and environment and expectations, and all of these things relate to identity. And so one of the big a-has that I would hope that anyone that hears this ideas takes is that who you are in one situation is not who you are in a different situation.

That is kind of a Western perspective and it’s a very fixed and rigid mindset and it totally ignores the power of context. So who you are in one situation is different from who you are in a different situation. Your personality is not fixed but it’s fluid, and it’s also based on environment, and your identity is not singular but it’s based on your situation.

And so once you kind of get those things then your level of responsibility becomes shape the environment that shapes you, or as Churchill would say shape the building, or whatever, shape your home that shapes you. That’s kind of, I think, ultimately where the responsibility comes when you start to understand these things.

And my prediction, because now that the fields of epigenetics and stuff, and neuroscience are becoming so popular and they’re realizing the power of environment, my prediction is that you’re going to see a big shift in a lot of the self-improvement writing, and it’s going to start to focus a lot more in environment because the science that’s been around in psychology for three decades is staring to become very compellingly clear in other fields now.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, intriguing. Thank you. And so you’ve list a few but could you also share with us a favorite book?

Benjamin Hardy
I think I’ll just stick with the recommendation I gave about The Body Keeps The Score, that’s a really good one right now for me.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. And how about, is there a particular nugget or piece that you share that seems to really connect and resonate and get folks sort of quoting you back to you?

Benjamin Hardy
Yup, definitely. It brings all these ideas together. So, number one, it’s not your personality that shapes your behavior, it’s your behavior that shapes your personality. And, the behavior that leads you to certain environments, so that’s one key is your behavior shapes your identity. Number two is it’s not confidence that leads to success, it’s successful behavior that creates confidence. I think that those two are nuggets that people can internalize, they can actually make some big change in their lives.

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

Benjamin Hardy
I would point them to my book Willpower Doesn’t Work. they can read all my articles on Medium.com, they can check out BenjaminHardy.com, but, yeah, my big ask or my big challenge would be go check out the book Willpower Doesn’t Work.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action you’d issue to folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Benjamin Hardy
Try as hard as you can to create these two types of optimal environments in your life, or what I would call enriched environments. And I think that it’s really good to really assess how much time you’re spending in these types of environments. Because your environment is either pushing against you or it’s pulling you forward. And if your environment is not pulling you forward, and if it’s pushing against you, then you’re going to have to use willpower.

So I think it’s easier actually initially to start with the rest and recovery environments. Like when you’re home, be home. Leave the distractions alone and actually do something engaging at home and disconnect from work, and then with those insights and rest that you’ll get, like actually make your job high level, make it high demand, take on more responsibility, create consequences through publicly saying when you’ll have stuff done, take on more responsibility.

I would say just create more enriched environments in your life through forcing functions like we’ve talked about or just through making your life more engaging. Those types of environments are very rare in today’s society. Most people are very distracted, very few people are fully on or fully off. And if you can create those environments it’ll allow you to do that. It’ll change your life.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Cool. Well, Ben, this has been so fun. I hope that book is a smashing success, and I wish you lots of luck in your writing and all you’re doing here.

Benjamin Hardy
Thank you, Pete. Seriously, thanks for being so accommodating and for taking the time. It means a lot.

Mar 02
0

268: Tactical People Skills Learned by Undercover Detective / Reality TV Winner Derrick Levasseur

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Derrick Levasseur says: "Don't fear failure. Don't fear it because failure is where the lessons are."

Former undercover detective and Big Brother winner Derrick Levasseur teaches you how to make use of his detective undercover skills in workplace environments to succeed in your job or profession and win life’s game.

You’ll Learn:

  1. How to identify 5 key profiles of people in the workplace
  2. How to motivate different kinds of people, differently
  3. How to use silence to extract additional information

 

About Derrick

Derrick Levasseur is an investigator, author, speaker, and TV personality, with a demonstrated history of working in law enforcement and the entertainment industry. Derrick is a former undercover detective and the winner of his season of the TV series Big Brother.   He’s been called one of the best to have ever played the game. Derrick specializes in using and sharing undercover techniques in real-world applications.

Items Mentioned in this Show:

Derrick Levasseur Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Derrick, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Derrick Levasseur
Thank you for having me, Pete. I appreciate it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I think we’re going to have a lot of fun chatting about some of your background and tips and tricks discovered along the way. But I wanted to start in the early days of you being a police officer. I understand that you started so young, you were too young to buy your own bullets. What’s the story here?

Derrick Levasseur
Yeah, that’s true. I actually was hired at 20 years old. In Rhode Island, you can actually buy a firearm at 18 but you can’t purchase ammunition till 21, which is odd but that’s the way it is. So, fortunately, I was able to get my ammunition through the department, but as far as like recreational shooting I had to wait till I was 21 or go with somebody who was certified.

Pete Mockaitis
So, now, you started at 20, is that kind of – how many cops start at 20?

Derrick Levasseur
You know, back 20, 30 years ago that was more of the norm as far as guys coming straight out of high school and doing it. Today it’s a little bit rarer because in most cases you need to have a bachelor’s degree before you can even apply. When I applied it was only an associate’s degree, and it’s a weird story.

I came home for the summer, I was playing baseball, I was in between my sophomore and junior year, and the police chief at the time had known me as a kid, and said, “Hey, why don’t you apply?” There’s a couple hundred people applying. I was pretty good at tests, pretty good at interviews, and I actually finished first out of the entire class.

So at the end of it, he said, “Listen, although I didn’t expect this, you finished number one out of everyone so I really have no other choice but to offer you the job, and I hope you don’t let me down.” And, fortunately, it was a big change in my life and for the better and it changed my whole perspective on how I look at things.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s cool. And so now you have a fair bit of undercover experience in your background which forms the basis of your book title The Undercover Edge. So maybe you could sort of excite us civilians with a tale of a big undercover operation and what it’s like in real life?

Derrick Levasseur
That’s a good one. I’ve done everything. Because of my age when I got on, I started undercover work when I was 21, and I had the opportunity to work in a lot of different capacities. I was a bartender, a bounder, a drug dealer, a college student. I think at one point I was even a high school student, so I played a lot of different roles.

But I guess if I had to pick one that stands out to me the most, and probably my first one. It was my 21st birthday, I was literally in a hotel room, I had just celebrated the night before so you can use your own imagination what that entailed, and I got a call from the chief of police, and he said, “Derrick, I need you to come to the station.”

And brought me to the station. He said, “Listen, there’s this organization at one of our local universities that’s pushing a lot of drugs. We want you to go in there. We want you to pretend you’re a student and a lacrosse player, and see if you can find out who’s involved and where they’re keeping the drugs.” So I linked up with the university, I was there for a little bit, and we ended up catching all 11 students that were actually selling date rape drugs and cocaine to other students, and it was a big issue on campus.

And the irony of all of it was less than a year prior to that, I was at school doing the same things I was doing undercover. So while I was undercover at these parties, talking to these students in their dorm rooms, I’m sitting there thinking to myself, “Here I am, took this job as a cop to get out of college and start making some money. And look at this, I’m back at school playing Madden in the dorm room.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Just to be clear. You do the same things as in playing Madden not selling date rape drugs.

Derrick Levasseur
Yes, yes, yes, let’s definitely clarify that. No, it’s definitely one of those things where, to familiarize yourself with these people, again, regardless of what they were doing, you have to develop common rapports with them. And in this case, it was playing video games, talking about sports, talking about lacrosse, and that’s what opens them up to you and make them more easily accessible both in communication and to personally understand them.

So, yeah, I would find commonalities with them that were genuine between them and I, and use that to develop a stronger relationship which ultimately led to me finding out what they were really up to which was not only were they playing video games but they were using video game consoles to hide their drugs.

Pete Mockaitis
Whoa!

Derrick Levasseur
Yes, so what happened was, real quick story, and to not go too on a tangent here, but I’m sitting there with the main guy, as I track them down, and we’re both sitting there playing games and we had a couple of drinks, and he looks at me and goes, “You know while I’ll never get caught?” And I said, “Why?” And he said, “Look at this.” And what I noticed was he had a PlayStation and an Xbox and he actually hollowed out the inside of the PlayStation and was storing the drugs inside of there.

When he showed me this, I looked at him and I said, “You’re right, they’ll never catch you.” And the next morning, his dorm room was getting knocked down by the SWAT team to come and get him. So, yeah, that’s kind of how it went.

Again, I will say that not every person – sometimes good people make bad decisions. And I don’t necessarily think these were the worst criminals in the world but they were people that were creating problems for other students and, regardless of the severity, depending on your own personal opinion, you got to get those guys out of there. And, fortunately, we were able to do that.

Pete Mockaitis
Right. Yes. Well, fascinating. So then let’s dig into it a little bit. So in your book The Undercover Edge, now that’s kind of your premise, right, is that there are a number of skills that you picked up and developed in your role as an undercover police officer that have brought applicability to professional environments and others. Well, I’ll let you do the talking. What’s the book all about?

Derrick Levasseur
Well, it’s a couple of things. The main thing is what I found in working undercover and just as a supervisor in law enforcement is that there’s a lot of applications that we use that can be used in business environments both at home and at school. So I was on the show called Big Brother, I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, and it’s kind of a social experiment, and I’m sure we’ll dive into that a little bit deeper.

But what I found was this approach that I was using in the game was something I was using in life, and it’s based on observation, adaptation, and communication. So what I’m saying is that you could take the main skills and components of undercover work and use them in your everyday life whether that’s personally or professionally.

And a lot of what we’ll talk about in the book that they’ll see is there’s a few different points I’ll hit on. You can use the power of observation to create a profile, the effective use of silence to extract and evaluate information, the subtle benefits of interpreting body language and developing your own sixth sense, and the importance of self-awareness and adapting to your environment. There’s a lot of things in there.

And I also want to dive into developing a personal ops plan with a defined mission. Again, I’m using a lot of police lingo but what I found is that, regardless of what setting you’re in, it works. And another thing I want to elaborate on, when I was at the police department, I applied for the FBI and I wanted to diversify myself.

So I went back to school after getting my bachelor’s degree and I got my master’s degree in management. And as I was going through the school which was completely different from law enforcement, I was learning that although the situations they were giving us were different, the premise of what was actually taking place was the same, and although their approach worked, I found that my approach to undercover work was just as if not more effective in some situations.

Because think about it for a second. Big Brother. Are you familiar with the show at all?

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I saw the premiere and so I know you’re a big deal and you’re one of the greatest who have ever played the game, but some of that, unfortunately, is lost on me.

Derrick Levasseur
Well, let me break it down like this. The most simplistic way of saying what Big Brother is, Big Brother is a social experiment that involves being put into an environment with multiple people from different genders, different races, different ethnicities, different beliefs, and you’re all going after a similar goal but in some cases there’s only one position for that, you know, there’s only one spot for that position.

So, if you think about what that really entails, it sounds a lot like work to me. It’s not just Big Brother the TV show. So whether you’ve seen me on that show or not, the way I conducted myself in that house, in that social environment, the way I was able to build relationships with everyone and find out their motives through their verbal and non-verbal behavior, ultimately helped me win.

And what I’m saying is Big Brother is not just a reality show, it’s proof of concept. So if you can take that same approach and apply it in a business environment, whether it’s sales or security, whatever it may be, you can have the same type of success, although it may not be half a million dollar prize, it may be a promotion or acknowledgement from a supervisor, it could be that simple.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, to recap, for Big Brother. You sort of stay in the game by getting the votes, right? You’re not voted off, you’re voted to retain. That’s kind of the basic premise?

Derrick Levasseur
That’s the basic premise, yeah. Every week someone is voted off the show, and it’s usually derived around who people can trust, who they can’t trust, and how you present yourself in a way where people don’t find you threatening, and they’re more open to working with you long term. And, again, think about that. Where else would that be a good thing to have? In a work environment.

If you’re leading or you’re trying to build better relationships with colleagues or supervisors, having them believe in you and trust you is a prerequisite to creating any type of cohesion within that organization.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. Well, so then walk us through a little bit about that sort of those three core tenets. So there’s observation leads to adaptation leads to communication. How do we sort of think about that in broad strokes?

Derrick Levasseur
Well, you think about it this way. A lot of people go into a situation and they want to put their best foot forward, right? So when you go into a situation, the way I approached it, and I’ll give an example because it’s always better to paint a visual because that’s how I am.

How To Be Awesome At Your Job, that’s the name of this podcast, right? Well, before you even get into your job, you have to go through the interview, and a lot of people would go into a work interview and say, “You know what, I’m going to go in there and I’m going to highlight the best things about me and hope that those are in line with what this company is looking for.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Derrick Levasseur
Well, I would say that that’s not the best approach. The best approach would be to research and gather intelligence on the organization that you’re applying for and find out what they’re about so that you can highlight attributes that are in line with their core values. So take the time, read their mission statement, find out their philanthropic efforts, and then maybe highlight the things that aren’t maybe your strongest points but are still in line with who you are and are more enticing to them as a future employee.

And I’ll give an even deeper example. Now I’m doing this podcast, I do a lot of interviews for the TV show on DiscoveryID, and for this book, and even though I’m doing a lot of them, I always take time to look into it. So, with you, Pete, I know that you always went to . . . Public Library with your dad, and you always wanted to find out more information, you were eager to learn.

And, again, it may seem like a minor thing but by taking five minutes to learn a little bit more about you than just coming into this interview and being reactive, I’m taking a proactive approach so I already have a similarity or a familiarity with who you are as a person, and could adapt my approach to be more in line with who I think you are as a person. And that’s just over the phone.

If I’m in person with you, I can actually look at your mannerisms, how you conduct yourself, and adapt my approach even further so that when we do start to communicate, I’m communicating with you in a way that you’ll be more receptive to what I have to say and I can elicit the specific response that I’m looking for.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. So understood then in terms of it’s not so much like, “This is my best stuff. What do you think?” But it’s rather, “All right. This seems to be what you’re into, so this is what I’m going to share because it’s in alignment with that stuff.” So that makes great sense.

So I’d love to dig a little deeper then. Let’s say if we’re in person and there’s sort of mannerisms and things to observe and adapt to, could you give some examples? Like what might be the kinds of things that you pick up on and would seek to adapt to?

Derrick Levasseur
Right. Well, I’ve been fortunate enough to go to a lot of interview and interrogation schools, and some of those schools concentrate on human behavior and the psychology behind it. And what I’ll say to start off is anyone who tells you that there’s certain behaviors that everyone displays that automatically mean a certain thing, they’re lying to you. It’s not the case. It’s not the case.

There’s no universal behavior that automatically means a certain thing. So what I would say is that when I’m in person with you, the first thing you have to do is develop a baseline with that person. And when you develop a baseline, you’re learning what’s normal for them, and you’re observing their behavior to see what ticks they have as a person because some people will look you directly in the eye and talk to you and that’s just how they talk, and some people are more introverted and they’ll just kind of look away because that’s just who they are. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re lying.

So by developing that baseline with you, Pete, I would determine what your natural mannerisms both physically and verbally because you may have a tone or an inflection to your voice that may sound a certain way to certain people but by hearing it on a normal basis, I can develop how you are every day, and that’s my baseline.

So then from there, when you’re trying to figure out someone’s motive or agenda or how they feel about a certain conversation, you start asking controlled questions or specific questions to that area that you’re trying to discuss. And what I would do is compare the behavior that you display at that point, both verbally and non-verbally, with the baseline that I know you normally represent.

So if you show signs of anxiety or a lack of interests, based on your tone or your body language, I can use that to adapt the conversation to keep you where I need to keep you. And as far as specifics, there’s eye movement. Some people will look directly at you when they’re talking to you, some people look away. There’s scientific information that suggests the right side of your brain is the creative, the left is the logical, and when people are lying to you or nervous, they will have a tendency to look to the right because they’re creating…

Pete Mockaitis
To their right?

Derrick Levasseur
Yeah, to their right.

Pete Mockaitis
To their right.

Derrick Levasseur
Correct. Because they’re creating a sound or visual as opposed to looking to their left when they’d be pulling from a memory. Again, that’s not with everyone but that’s one little thing you can look at. Some people are very steadfast and they’re not bleated when they’re looking at you, they’re squared up shoulder to shoulder with you.

Now if they start to bleat away from you or looking off in a certain direction, and that’s not normally what they do, that’s a cue that I would pick up on. Finger taping, toe tapping, rubbing of the legs, the arms, looking off in the distance, their inflection changes. Are they excited? Are they lowering their voice? What is that in comparison to what they normally display?

And that’s the key thing here is what they normally display. You can’t go into a conversation with someone you just met and automatically discern what their motives are. You can get a general idea very quickly but the longer you have with them and the more conversations that you’re involved in the more accurate your assessment will be.

So, yes, you can apply in the social environment when you first meet someone but it’s more beneficial in a controlled situation where you’re working with them on a daily basis. And, let’s say you’re in charge of a team and you have seven guys that work for you, seven men and women, you can develop a profile on each one of those individuals so that you’re not communicating with them with a blanket speech, you’re approaching them individually and finding out what approach is best for them as individuals so that whatever task or assignment you’re delegating to them they’re more receptive to it and will, hopefully, produce more productivity.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. This is intriguing. And, Derrick, it’s funny, I’m going meta here. I’m wondering, are you doing this to me right now? Are you talking quickly because I talk quickly?

Derrick Levasseur
No, I’m telling you, I’m doing this, and I think it’s in a lot of people like us that are like very driven. Like I was reading your description and you have a very impressive background. And I think when you’re excited about something, this is my normal behavior, I’m always like as I’m even talking to you right now, you can’t see me but I’m moving my hands, and that’s just a natural motion for me that I always do.

I actually got made fun of it for a little bit on the show because it’s just something I always did. But the reason I’m talking so fast, and I try to slow myself down as I’m doing right now, is because as I get passionate about it my brain is working faster than my voice can speak, so I want to make sure I hit you with all the things, because if I had it my way we’d have a four- or five-hour conversation where I could break down the entirety of the book, and instead I’m just trying to hit on the highlights and not make sure I miss anything because I really do believe in this approach.

I mean, if you think about it, I put my life on this approach in a lot of situations at work. So if I was willing to do that, and I’m still here talking to you, then clearly I believe in it. And it worked under those conditions, I definitely think it can work under lighter conditions like working in the sales department, you know?

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. I’m with you there. It was funny I was thinking what would happen if I slowed it way down right there? Would he adapt?

Derrick Levasseur
I probably would. I probably would. It is a subconscious thing for me now. I’ve been doing it for so many years. And it’s funny that you say that because people would point out on the show, and even in the interviews with Discovery Channel where my speaking and my behavior changes based on the person I’m in front of as opposed to a suspect or a witness or a victim.

You have to find a commonality there and, yes, it’s in your behavior, both physically, because, again, you don’t want to be over the top if they’re really relaxed, but also if they’re an excited person that’s really kind of ramped up all the time. You want to match that. So I do think there’s some truth in what you’re saying even though we’re joking around where when you’re trying to engage someone in a way that they’re going to be receptive to it, you have to match their enthusiasm whatever the level that may be.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Interesting. So when you talked about building a profile, could you share with us what are the core ingredients of that profile? And maybe an example of, “Hey, teammate A’s profile consists of X, Y, Z whereas teammate B’s profile looks totally different with J, K, L.”

Derrick Levasseur
Right. Well, let’s break it down to even a more micro level instead of being so macro like a team. I talk about in the book, I actually break it down in one of the chapters called Turn Police Tactics Into Corporate Strategies. And there’s a couple different things I discuss in there, and then in another chapter I talk about breaking down individuals within your organization. So let’s talk about that for a second.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, individuals.

Derrick Levasseur
What I do as far as profiling individuals in a work environment is you have to develop – you gather intelligence on them. So in the book I talk about your colleagues, and I break them down into categories. You have enthusiasts and opportunists.

Now enthusiasts will display certain behaviors, and I talk about those behaviors. They’re someone who is team-oriented, they’re looking out for the benefits of the organization not just themselves. They’ll divulge information that they learned about the job so that you can benefit from it as well. They’re more of looking out for what’s going to benefit not only them but the entirety of the company.

Whereas an opportunist, an opportunist is someone that will display the behavior of keeping information to themselves. When you walk into a room, as they’re talking with other colleagues, if they’re talking about something that maybe about you or about something they don’t want you to hear, they’ll immediately change the topic, or they just stare up into space like they weren’t talking before you walked in, which is something I think we can all relate to.

They’re someone who, instead of getting ahead on their abilities, they’ll rely on nepotism and they’ll frequent with managers and supervisors in order to get ahead through favoritism as opposed to on their own merit. These are people that you have to categorized and you have to profile so that you can learn how to work with them because the unfortunate truth is you can’t choose who you work with.

In some situations, you’re going to be forced to be in a team environment with opportunists, and you have to know how to accomplish your personal missions as well as the organizational goals while also keeping them in line knowing what their motives really are. And that’s the colleague side of it, then I talk about supervisors and managers.

In supervisors you have politicians, delegators, mentors. Those are some of the three main people you want to look out for. So with politicians, politicians are exactly what it sounds like. They’re the type of supervisor who is not going to really help you out but when it comes to receiving accolades or standing in front of the class or standing in front of the organization and saying why they accomplished whatever goal it was that they accomplished, they’re going to speak about how they were able to lead you in order to do that even though they didn’t put any effort in.

Delegators are pretty self-explanatory. These are the type of people that are at the top of the food chain but are still mid to high level management. And what they do is they get assignments from their bosses and instead of doing them themselves they’ll come to you and say, “Hey, Pete, you have a second?” And you may say, “Hey, no, I’m working on a couple of things right now.” And they’ll say, “Okay. Well, when you have a second, can you complete this Excel sheet for me?” But then they’ll follow it up with, “By the way, if you could have that to me by Friday it’d be really appreciated.”

So it just went from a favor to an assignment with a deadline. And as you start to read over whatever that assignment they want you to do, what you’ll find is it’s something they should be doing, not you. So, again, these are people you have to watch out for. For mentors, I won’t dive into that too much. You talk about mentors a lot in your podcast.

The mentors are the people you want to find, and they’re rarities. You have to find people who are leading the team but also in the way in which they lead is benefitting you and your personal development in whatever profession you’re in. And so by going back and actually categorizing these individuals, profiling them based on the behavior they display, you can conduct yourself in a way that’s more conducive to whoever you’re dealing with.

And that’s what I’m talking about. I’m not saying to de-humanize them but to understand who they are and what their motives are will allow you to adapt your approach with these individuals and communicate with them more effectively so that, yes, you’re accomplishing the goals of the organization but also your personal and professional goals.

Pete Mockaitis
And you know what’s interesting, as you sort of lay out these profiles, I guess I’m thinking about any number of tools or typologies like a Myers Briggs or a StrengthsFinder. They sort of serve up additional source of profiles in that you are sort of able to match someone to something that’s predefined. You know, it’s like, “Oh, this person seems to be an introvert versus an extrovert. This person seems to be a thinker versus a feeler.”

And so it’s interesting because, in some senses, I imagine that you’d find people that really neatly clearly fit into it like, “Yup, there’s a politician. Yup, there’s a mentor.” And others it’s like, “You know, I don’t know if I could put them neatly into any of these three but I do see maybe some other trait characteristic profile being exhibited.” So it strikes me as it can be quite valuable then to avail yourself to many potential tools, typologies, categorizations so that you can recognize a profile when you see it all the faster.

Derrick Levasseur
Absolutely. And you make a great point right there where not everyone is going to fit perfectly into one of these categories. But this is a generalization and an overview of some of the behaviors you should be looking for. And instead of just saying, “Hey, this is what you should look for.” I wanted to give people real examples, something they could start off with a foundation, and as you progress within that organization or the company or whatever role you’re in, you will develop your own categories as well of people and they may fit into certain areas based on whatever profession you’re in.

So that expansion from five categories could be to eight categories. And, again, it’s going to be more of a subconscious response but as you learn where these people fit, and it may be a hybrid between two, you can adapt your approach to be more effective to working with them. You see it’s more reactive. It’s all about being reactive.

A lot of people will go in there and try to force whatever, however they want things to go on people. You have to be willing to be receptive to what you’re getting and roll with those punches to be more effective because sometimes you’re not going to be able to put a square peg into a round hole. You have to go wherever the current is taking you.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. So let’s think through here. So we talked about doing some observation in terms of mannerisms and in terms of profile, and then some adaption. So I just want to make sure we kind of cover some of the ingredients of adaptation. So there is the style of gesturing, there is the sort of pace and pitch of voice. What are some other dimensions that we might be on the lookout for to try to do some matching and to build rapport?

Derrick Levasseur
Well, what you just talked about right there is the verbal and physical cues that will help you develop a better means of communication, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Derrick Levasseur
But I can go deeper than that. So if you’re in a position where you’re in a position of power, you’re fortunate to have people you’re responsible for. When you’re assigning tasks, if you learn about these colleagues as individuals, you will find that sometimes what motivates one person may not motivate the other.

So, for me, what it’s about when I was a sergeant and I’m motivating my guys to do certain things, I have to motivate them in different ways. So for one person, if I know their main motivation is to be promoted and to take on more responsibilities, I will frame whatever delegation or assignment I have for them in a way that tells them, “This could lead to this for you. You could be promoted or be seen in the eyes of supervisors as someone who would be good for this position.”

Now, I could have the same task for somebody else, but for them what their motivation may be as something as simple as getting out of work a half hour early so they can catch their daughter’s soccer game. So for that person, because I know who they are and I know their family dynamics and I’ve taken the time to get to know them as an individual, I may say to that person, “Hey, you know what, Susan, if you’re able to complete this assignment, I’d love to get you out of here a half hour earlier just so you can get to your daughter’s game.”

And I promise you in most cases, not only is Susan going to complete that assignment on time, but is going to be more accurate than it’s ever been because she doesn’t want you to have any issues while she’s gone because she knows you’re doing her a favor. So what I’m suggesting is going deeper than just the physical cues you see both verbally and behaviorally.

Take the time to get to know the person as an individual, what their dynamic is outside the workplace because it’ll give you a better understanding of what’s going on in their personal life and may explain some of the behaviors that they’re displaying at work, and you can use that to your advantage.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. Thank you. And now you also got a piece about silence and how that could be a valuable tool when it comes to acquiring and assessing information. How should we think about that?

Derrick Levasseur
You know, silence is something that I see as a real asset in group conflict. When you’re in a situation where you’re speaking with someone and you’re trying to get to the bottom of the issue, a lot of times you’ll ask a question, and as soon as they answer you, you’ll respond with an acknowledgement. And what you’re doing is creating an environment where they believe whatever their answer was sufficient by cutting them off.

And what I’m suggesting, and what I’ve done in multiple interrogations, is instead of responding right after they finish their first sentence, take a momentary pause. And that may seem a little awkward at first, but what I found is that by not immediately responding, what you’re doing is creating a psychological awkwardness.

We’re wired as humans to create dialogue, for one person to speak while the other person is listening. So when they say something and you don’t immediately respond, in some cases they’ll feel the need to fill that void. And sometimes you’ll hear information following that awkward silence that’s the most pertinent information of the entire conversation.

So by taking that second, that extra breath to let them get their full thought out, you may find out something about their current situation or about the conflict between two employees that you can use to better solve the issue, just by taking a second.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, it’s interesting with silence, I think a lot of times the awkwardness, it’s like the other party is inferring that you are displeased with what you just heard, like you find it to be inadequate, insufficient, not good enough. And so can you give me some examples of what are some of the things you’ve heard after a silence in a professional context that are really telling?

I guess, as I imagine it in my mind’s eye, I just sort of see people just sort of like really kind of apologizing or sort of sharing something that’s a real concern to them. Like, for example, you asked a question like, “Oh, hey, what’s going on with our top customers?” And they say, “Oh, well, you know, they made three orders last week, doo-doo-doo.” And then there’s just silence.

And then it’s almost like they’re just going to say some more, like, “But I could follow up with these customers as well.” It’s interesting, it could go in any number of directions. So, yeah, lay on some examples for us.

Derrick Levasseur
Well, to what you just said, my response would also be, “What do you have to lose?” because the worst case scenario is that the information they’re going to give out after that may not be as important and may just be something where they feel they need to fill that void and they’re just giving you some more information that really is kind of inferred just by what they initially said.

However, taking that extra second may divulge something. I’ll give an example in my profession, which was law enforcement. A lot of times in the city where I worked, it’s not really something – it’s frowned upon to talk to police, right? So you don’t want to be a snitch, right? So a lot of times when I’d speak with witnesses, if there was a shooting that just happened, I’d pull a witness aside and say, “Hey, listen, you know, my man, did you see anything?” And they’ll look around and see who’s looking, and they’ll say, “Ah, no, I just heard some shots and that was really it.”

Okay, and I’m just writing. I pretend like I’m writing even though I’m not really writing much. And I look at them like, “Go on.” They’ll look around a little bit more because now if I would’ve said to them, “Okay. Thank you,” and walked away, they’re not going to divulge any more information, right? But by looking at them and kind of waiting for their next sentence, they may say, “You know, it might’ve been a red car. It went northbound on Broad Street but, man, that’s all I know. That’s all I know. I don’t know anything else.”

And I’ll write that down and look at them again, “You sure? That’s all you know?” With my eyes, I’m saying, “Are you sure?” and they can tell. They can tell that you’re not satisfied and that you know they saw more. And then they might finish off with, “Ah, the first three digits might’ve been 353, but that’s it,” and then they’ll walk off.

Again, is it a full-proof plan that’s going to work 100% of the time? Absolutely not. But by not taking advantage of that technique, you’ll never know. And you have nothing to lose except looking a little awkward by staring at them for a second, but what you could gain, the reward from taking that second may be critical to solving the case, or, in a business environment, may be critical to finding out what the root of the issue is so that you can really attack it and you’re not just putting a band-aid on it.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’m intrigued, I think sometimes what that is likely to reveal are just sort of the worries or insecurities of the person you’re talking to which might just be helpful in terms of knowing your people well and being able to motivate them and reassure them and address any of their worries in terms of – because it’s almost like the silence seem to suggest a little bit of like, “I am not completely satisfied with what you have shared, so say more.”

And so that more can take any number of directions or flavors which are interesting. So, thank you. I guess we’ll see what we’ll see when you do it.

Derrick Levasseur
Yeah, absolutely. And, again, I say it a lot. It’s not always going to be a homerun but in some cases I think people will be surprised what they hear. And, again, you hit on it right there. Knowing your people, right? How can you know your people if you’re not willing to listen to them? And sometimes that goes beyond the work environment because their productivity at work may not just be solely predicated on what’s going on in the workplace; it may stem outside of those walls.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly, yeah.

Derrick Levasseur
And, as a leader, as a position of authority, yeah, you may think that it starts and ends when they walk in that building, but the reality is sometimes people carry over what’s going on at home into the workplace. And, again, as a leader I think it is our responsibility to dive into those issues and to find out what it is. You may not have to be a therapist and fix those issues but understanding what they’re going through and sometimes being empathetic to it, it will help you better communicate with them so that, even though they have something going on at home, they can still get the job done because you’re relating to them in a way that they feel like you understand what they’re going through.

Pete Mockaitis
Good. Thank you. Well, so now, any quick tips when it comes developing that intuition or sixth sense?

Derrick Levasseur
Yeah, you know, I say it a lot. There isn’t innate ability to it. Growing up in the environment that I grew up in it was one of those things where I had to use my words a lot to get me out of sticky situations and that was something that really got detailed as I got into law enforcement, and I was fortunate enough to attend these advanced schools as far as human behavior and the psychology behind interviews and interrogations.

But what I will say is one of the main things that you can take away and start off today is just being a more attentive listener. Going into a situation, how many times have you seen a person shake hands with someone they just met, they start to hit it off, and they’re talking about the details involving their lives or what they do for a living, and then as they’re finishing up the conversation, the person will say, “And what’s your name again?”

And, for me, that’s unacceptable. That’s unacceptable because if you’re in a situation where you’re truly listening to what they have to say, instead of thinking about what you’re going to say next or how you’re being represented based on your posture and your handshake, then you’ve already known their name, you won’t need to ask it again.

But when you go into the conversation more concerned about what you’re going to say and how you’re going to look, you’re missing out on details. So, as a person, think about the situation. When you go into a room, really take in what’s around you before responding. Look at the environment, look at the people you’re with, and whatever position you’re in whether you’re an entry-level employee, you’re a manager of a company, digest the people that you’re dealing with before responding because you can save yourself a lot of aggravation by taking an extra second to think about who you’re dealing with, and then how to attack the situation as opposed to attacking it and then making audibles as you’re going through it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now, can you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Derrick Levasseur
I will say, “Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today,” by James Dean. And I would say another quote, and I don’t know who actually said it, but it’s, “Fate said to the warrior, ‘You can’t withstand the storm.’ And the warrior whispered back, ‘I am the storm.’” I just like that quote.

Pete Mockaitis
That was good. Thank you. And how about a favorite study or experiment or a piece of research?

Derrick Levasseur
Well, obviously, crime, true crime and any type of history involving our judicial system is something I really like. And I do like psychology and human behavior. It’s something I’ve kind of focused on whether it was intent-ful or not. It just kind of became my thing. So, yeah, I would say definitely all judicial cases involving different unsolved crimes, and also human psychology.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And how about a favorite book?

Derrick Levasseur
I have a few. Okay, I’ll give one good one that you might even already know. It’s called It’s Your Ship by Michael Abrashoff, Captain Michael D. Abrashoff, and it’s about taking the best management techniques in the Navy and use them in business applications.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And how about a favorite habit?

Derrick Levasseur
I’ll tell you one habit that I’ve been getting into and it’s weird but it’s kind of my thing, is I’ve been traveling a lot. The last year I’ve been traveling a lot, speaking to different groups and organizations, and for the show, filming on different locations. One thing I always do is setup my room, my hotel room, as if it was an apartment because I’m usually there for seven to 10 days and a lot of people live out of their luggage.

But I try to make myself as comfortable as possible, and I think it almost makes me more relaxed and allows me to sleep better because I feel like it’s my home. And it’s tough to do in a hotel room but it has worked for me and I’m sure you’re someone who travels a lot as well. I always try to make myself as comfortable as possible because it makes me more relaxed and more effective in whatever I’m trying to do.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And is there a particular nugget that you share with folks that really seems to connect and resonate with them they end up quoting yourself back to you?

Derrick Levasseur
You know, for me, I always talk about – the back half of the book, I divulge a lot of personal stories, and not all of them are good. As a police officer I was involved in a shooting where I fatally shot someone who was trying to kill me, and it really messed me up for a while. And the reason I tell that story to everyone is because not everything has gone perfectly for me as with most people.

There are going to be times where you trip and fall and you fail, and it may be your fault or somebody else’s, or it may just be an adversity that you just have to go through in order to grow. And what I always tell people is, “Don’t fear failure.” Don’t fear it because failure is where the lessons are. It’s where you learn what you’re really capable of now and where you want to be. And it ultimately helps you evolve.

And through that evolution you become more self-aware which creates confidence, and that’s the same confidence you can use to observe the people around you, adapt to the situation, and communicate with them in a way that’s receptive to what they have with what you want to say.

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

Derrick Levasseur
Well, my social media DerrickL for Twitter, my Instagram is DerrickLevassear, L-E-V-A-S-S-E-U-R, and you can go to my website, OfficialDerrick.com. I just finished the book tour last week but you can go there and see some of the places I went, some of the conversations we had. And if you’re interested in the book, you can buy it anywhere, it’s called The Undercover Edge. It’s available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, all the big brick and mortar stores and online.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action you’d issue to folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Derrick Levasseur
You know, I would say, people out there, I think, something that I’ve learned on this book tour is that books are becoming less and less used as tools. People are relying on speakers and stuff like that, people like you and I. Books are where the real advances are. And anytime you buy a book, if you get one thing out of that book that advances your personal growth then the book was worth it.

And I would say read, read, read as much as you can, and surround yourself with good people who are enthusiastic and who have big goals because that’s contagious, and you’ll find yourself doing similar things if you surround yourself with those types of people.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Derrick, thanks so much. This was a whole lot of fun, getting a fresh perspective on great stuff. So I hope that you are having a whole lot of fun, and using your undercover edge, and all kinds of good, wholesome, fulfilling, rewarding, interesting ways.

Derrick Levasseur
Thank you very much. I appreciate you having me.