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Aug 26
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990: How to Advocate for Yourself and Get Noticed at Work with Jessica Chen

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Jessica Chen discusses how to get noticed even if you’re not the loudest voice in the room.

You’ll Learn

  1. The top misconception about career advancement 
  2. How to ensure your message always lands 
  3. The five elements that make your voice resonate 

About Jessica

Jessica Chen is an Emmy-Award winner, top virtual keynote speaker, and CEO of Soulcast Media, a global business communication training agency. Her client list includes Google, LinkedIn, the CDC, Medtronic, Mattel, HP, DraftKings, and many more. Prior to starting Soulcast Media, Jessica was a broadcast television journalist. She is also an internationally recognized top LinkedIn Learning Instructor where her communication courses have been watched by over 2 million learners and featured in Forbes, Fortune, and Entrepreneur. She lives in Los Angeles.

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Jessica Chen Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Jessica, welcome.

Jessica Chen
Hi. Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to get into your wisdom. And I would love to kick us off by hearing something super surprising and counterintuitive you’ve learned over your years of studying how we can get noticed at work for the right reasons.

Jessica Chen
Well, I have to reference back to when I first started working. My thinking was, “As long as you work hard and you’re smart, you’ll get recognized, right? Your opportunities will open up. You’ll get that promotion. People will know about you.” But, funny enough, that’s not how the world works. And it was counterintuitive to many of the things I was taught growing up in a very traditional and conservative household, where it really was just about studying and putting your head down.

And so, when I began my career, which, at the time, was as a broadcast journalist, I really figured out quickly that I had to learn some new skills because it wasn’t just about being smart or being hardworking. It’s being able to communicate, put yourself out there, and advocate for yourself.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now I’m curious, we’ve got to talk about the Emmy in particular. Congratulations. Not very many Emmy Award winners on the show. So, tell us, that’s sort of a very concrete, discrete achievement, accomplishment, which seems to suggest, “Hey, you’ve been noticed for your work. It is outstanding as recognized by the powers that be.” Was that also something that you had to advocate for? Are we to understand that awards are not granted just for being outstanding? What’s behind the scenes here?

Jessica Chen
So, the Emmy Award, as many of you know, is considered the most prestigious award in television and it was something that didn’t happen absolutely overnight. It took me about 10 years to actually win that award, and this was when I was at the ABC station in San Diego, California. And it’s funny because, and I think, you know, if we’re talking about awards and things like that, I never feel like it’s something that you are aspiring or trying to get. You just do good work and hopefully people will begin to notice it. But there is an element to you have to be able to talk about the work so people know about it.

So, I remember for this Emmy award, this was actually a culmination of, it really was a team effort, and I have to say that, where the story that got us that award was, so this was, gosh, this was when San Diego was experiencing a lot of wildfires. I’m here in California, and many people know California is quite dry. And so, in San Diego, during that particular year that we won that award, there were a lot of wildfires happening.

And so, for us, in journalism, and for me particularly as a journalist, as a reporter, when you have, like, for example, a fire breaking out, your job isn’t to run away. Your job is to run towards the fire, which is also counterintuitive to everything. And so, I just remember our entire team did such a great job in covering the fire, safety, what was going on, where do residents have to go, where did they have to evacuate.

And just the seamlessness in the execution of how everybody operated, how everybody communicated, it actually ended up being one of the, well, the reason why I won was because it was actually a really well-produced news story and newscast. And so, again, it wasn’t just about working hard, which, of course, you got to do, but after we finished that, it was about, “How can we make sure that we get the visibility for this amazing coverage that we had?”

And, of course, we submitted it to get nominated, and it got picked as the award winner and whatnot. But I think that Emmy Award is a good symbolization of, “Yes, execution is important, but being able to put yourself out there and talk about it is also very key.”

Pete Mockaitis
I really dig that story because I think it’s possible that you’re doing a ton of stories, you’re cranking them out day after day, and it is sort of special for y’all to step back and realize, “Oh, wait. This one was really particularly excellent. Let’s make sure that we put our best foot forward,” and pick your moment and rock and roll there.

Jessica Chen
Exactly. And I think one of the, you know, a lot of things that I talk about, one of them is being able to celebrate your wins, and at the same time it’s not about always talking about the work that you do but it’s being judicious about, “Okay, I know this one I did particularly well in. How can I make sure to maximize the opportunity and ensure other people know it?” Because, yes, you don’t need to do it for every single project, every single thing that you do, but for the ones that really stand out to you, it’s thinking about how you can take that and leverage it for perhaps more opportunities, more recognition.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, your book is called Smart, Not Loud. Can you hammer home the main idea or distinction we should be thinking about here with that?

Jessica Chen
So, the thesis of this book, and I really wrote this book for those who were raised in what I call a quiet culture. So, people who are raised in a quiet culture were taught principles like valuing humility, modesty, not seeking the spotlight, avoiding conflict, for example. And I teased this earlier where, growing up in a very traditional and conservative family, my parents taught me to embody these quiet culture traits.

But when you go out into the working world, especially in many Western and corporate workplaces, you start to see that it’s the people who are able to speak, be the first one to speak, put themselves out there, talk about their wins. These are the things that people notice, which is what I call loud-culture traits. So, the question is, “For somebody who was raised to embody and value these traits, how can you still get noticed at work without necessarily changing who you are as a person?”

Because my whole thing is, if you naturally tend to be on the quieter side, or if being assertive, dominant, loud, and extroverted, if that’s not your style, I don’t think that’s necessarily what you should do because that feels quite inauthentic. But how can you still show up in a way for you to get noticed and still unlock those bigger opportunities?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that sounds handy. Maybe before we get into the particulars of how that’s done, could you share with us a cool success story of someone who made a transformation doing this kind of stuff?

Jessica Chen
I’ll share my own story, because this is a personal journey for me too, and like I mentioned, that was how I was raised, and I experienced a lot of friction. I call it communications friction in the workplace. And, in many ways, when I started working, it was this culture shock.

So, I was trying to find this balance that I was talking about earlier of like, “Well, if it seems like the people who are loud get recognized, but that’s not necessarily my style, how can I do that?” And at the end of the day, a lot of it actually came down to one thing. It was communications.

It was learning how to be an effective communicator. And we know communications is a very broad topic, and there’s actually a lot to learn.

It’s about, for example, public speaking, getting comfortable standing up and presenting an idea. I think, for many of us, this is not something that we are naturally born with. It certainly wasn’t something that I naturally was comfortable with, or even finding that moment to communicate your idea in a meeting. I used to remember sitting in a meeting and being like, “Oh, gosh, I have an idea. I want to say it.” But instead, I’m in my own head creating this narrative of like, “Is it a good idea? Is it not a good idea?” And then before you know it, the conversation has moved on, right?

And so, it’s funny because I always joke, even though communications was something I struggled with, because I started out as a broadcast television journalist, there was no better industry for me to learn how to become an effective communicator. And so, this is to say, when you asked about the journey, like a person who had that transformation, I think, in many ways, it was for me being introspective, identifying these points of friction, and then really doubling down on leveling up my communication skills, because once I did that, I felt like opportunities, visibility, all that completely changed.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’d love to talk about some of the particulars of communicating well and sort of getting past these friction points. But could you first share with us what is it that we want to communicate? How might we go about identifying key things worth highlighting before we figure out the how, specifically, to execute that communication?

Jessica Chen
The number one most important thing anybody has to think about if they’re thinking, “How do I make sure my message comes across the way I want it to come across?” is to always ask yourself this question, “Who am I speaking with and what do they care about?” I think, for many of us, it’s not instinctive for us to think about that first question because many times we’re thinking about, “I have this idea. I’m excited about this idea. I’ve been working on this project and I know I want to talk about it in this meeting.” And a lot of it is coming from your own perspective.

And I always say you can be presenting or talking about one topic to this group. You’re at a next meeting, same topic, but different group of people. Even though your topic is the same, how you communicate and how you tailor that needs to be different because maybe the people in group A, the things that they care about might be a little bit different than the people in group B.

And here’s an example. Let’s say in group A, you’re talking to your immediate team, and your immediate team are people who just need to know what’s going on, the execution, the nitty-gritty details. But let’s say in Group B, you’re talking to senior-level executives. They probably don’t want all the nitty-gritty details. They just want to know the high-level key points and perhaps your recommendation.

Because if you boggle them down with all the details, they might go, “Okay, so what’s the point you’re trying to say, Jessica?” And I think, as an effective communicator, we’ve got to be really in tuned with our audience, what they care about, and tailoring our message to them. That can be our guiding light and our North Star.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that a lot. And I’m thinking about any number of times I’ve received an intriguing enough cold email that got me to hop on a call for a demo of something. And I’ve been amazed at how fairly often folks will walk me through a slide deck, this is just like a one-on-one kind of sales conversation, but walk me through a slide deck.

And I’m thinking, “I don’t care about any of that. I don’t care about your founder, or the history of the company, or your story, where the idea came from, like the inspiration.” It’s like, “I just want to know, can you really do the thing that you’re saying you can do? Is that going to make big results happen for me? And could you show me a cool case study or how this unfolded in practice with some charts or graphs or numbers?”

But help us out with that. So, we tend to get stuck in a world where we just think, “Okay, this is my presentation, so I’m supposed to give it,” or “I’m fired up about this, so I’m going to go for it.” What’s sort of the habit or practice or ritual we should use to stop and check in and get that audience info we need first?

Jessica Chen
It’s funny because the story that you just mentioned, that experience you have, a lot of it is because this person is presenting you a canned presentation that they’ve created. It’s like, “Okay, getting on a call with Pete. Let me just pull up the presentation that I always give.” And here’s the thing, and let’s be real, nobody has time to recreate a presentation every single time they’re meeting somebody new.

But I do think the first few minutes of, and let’s just use the example of presentations, the first few minutes of you giving a presentation, that is the most critical time because, like you said, Pete, you’re ready to listen, you’re like, “Okay, you got me on this call. I am intrigued enough to talk to you, so I’m paying attention.”

And so, for folks who are thinking about, for example, leveling up their presentation skills, yes, we’re not talking about changing your entire presentation because nobody has time for that. But thinking about how you can tailor just even the first few minutes, “Okay, I’m getting on this call with Pete. What do I know about him? What is it that I feel, like, he cares about? And I can make sure that I start off with that because I want to capture his attention and get him really interested.”

And like you said, for you, you’re like, “I don’t really care to know about, like, the founders or, like, whatever, that kind of stuff,” but maybe to somebody else that is important to them. So, for the person who is engaging with you, for them to think about “How can I be strategic?” it’s being able to identify, “Okay, what are the things you care about? And how can I start it off to capture your attention?”

Pete Mockaitis
And it seems like it would be totally fair in a small environment where you can, like if it’s one or two or three people you’re speaking to, as opposed to hundreds, to just ask, “Hey, so where do you want to start first? What do you find most interesting? What made you intrigued to have this conversation?” And I suppose you can simply ask.

Jessica Chen
Exactly. And I think a good way is to ask open-ended questions at the beginning, and this is kind of where like the art of small talk happens. Before you even dive into the presentation itself, before you even pull it up and start sharing your screen with somebody, it’s just kind of getting a temperature check of, like, this person. Maybe asking a few questions, and then that can give you some pretty key insight of like, “Oh, I know this,” or “Pete said this, so maybe I can kind of, like…”

And this can even be not just content. It can just be even tone and the vibe of how you present it. If you notice somebody is, like, pretty formal and pretty, let’s say, they just want to get straight to it, then you’re like, “Okay, I got to get straight into it.” Or, if you’re like, “Oh, in this small talk, I found that this person likes to chit-chat. They’re a little bit more casual,” then maybe in your presentation style, you now tailor it to that. It’s always basically meeting people where they’re at.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, you could intuit based on your observations of how things seem to be. That’s super. Are there any explicit questions you recommend just straight-up putting out there?

Jessica Chen
Well, I mean, I’m trying to think about very specific, but I mean, even just when we think about small talk, it’s just thinking about, like, “What have you been working on?” or, like, “Kind of what’s exciting?” And I think that can give you insight of who the person is, what they’re interested in, and then using that information, whether it’s in the beginning of your meeting or later on in the meeting, but using that bit of insight to make it feel like, “Oh, I heard what this person said.”

And so, in the middle of the conversation, you can even bring it back up. You can say, “Oh, yeah, and, Pete, when you mentioned that earlier, when we first jumped on that call, this point that I’m about to make actually relates to that.” So, it’s really making sure that you’re asking questions that provide insight into this person, but then also maybe even leveraging it during your conversation to show the other person that, hey, you’re listening.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I am listening, Jessica, and it sounds, like, you’re kind of touching on some of the stuff associated with your 4A Sequence for speaking up at meetings. Can you lay this on us?

Jessica Chen
I have found that for some of us, being the first one to speak up in a meeting is not the most natural thing. Some of us tend to want to get a temperature check of the meeting first, or not the first one to speak, or they tend to just want to think about their ideas before they say something, versus some people are very much about they’re processing their ideas in real time as they’re communicating.

However, there is this 4A Sequence, and this is a communication strategy specifically for people who tend to have a hard time finding that moment to speak because, what we don’t want is for somebody to have a brilliant idea and they’re just keeping it in their mind, and they’re trying to figure out when’s the right time to speak, and before they know it, the conversation has moved on.

So, the 4A Sequence is a way of basically seamlessly inserting yourself into the conversation, and I’ll walk you through the 4A. It’s four As basically. The first A is active listening. The opposite of active listening is passive listening which is think about when you’re sitting on your couch watching Netflix. You’re passively listening and watching what’s but you have no intention to chime in. And I think this is a very important mindset shift, because when you go into a meeting with the intention of saying at least one or two things, it completely changes how you even sit in a meeting, whether you’re leaning in, and how you’re paying attention. So, going in with A, active listening.

Once you found that opportune time to chime in, whether it’s because of a pause or because somebody said something that is relevant to what you want to say, the next is you want to acknowledge. Acknowledging is you simply saying, “Hey, Pete, that was actually a really interesting point you just made,” or “What you just said made me think of…” You’re acknowledging the person by saying, “I hear you.” And you can even say those words, “I hear what you’re saying.”

But what is great about this is you’re allowing the person who just spoke to not feel like you’re cutting them off necessarily. Because when people feel like they’re getting cut off, or this is even more important to do if you have an opposing idea, is you want them to feel acknowledged so that they can go, “Okay, at least I was heard.” You acknowledge. And, by the way, acknowledging is not agreeing, it’s just letting the person know that you heard them.

Then the third A is anchor. Anchoring is repeating one or two words the person said right before you as a way to connect your point to their point, “Hey, Pete, that was a really interesting point you just made. And when you said the word data, it made me think of A, B, and C.” You said data, I repeated your word, data, and that creates a connection.

And then, finally, the fourth is answer. Now you make your answer, your pointed statement, or whatever it is you want to say. And I have found that when you can, like, present this acronym of the 4A Sequence, it’s especially helpful for people who tend to figure out, like chiming in and how to do it. So, it’s active listening, it’s acknowledging, anchoring, and answering.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, I like those little examples there. Could you give us a full demonstration in terms of we’re chatting, and, well, I guess I need to say something first that you can actively listen to. So, we’ll say, we’re chatting, “I’m really excited about the opportunity to put forward this content. I think it’ll be like testimonials on steroids when we interview our clients in this context.”

Jessica Chen
“So, you mentioned the word content and I know, Pete, you’ve been producing a lot of different content on this, and so it made me think of the next few episodes you’re going to be creating.” So, this is just kind of me using and repeating the word that you said. I was anchoring it to the word you said, which was content. I mean, I don’t really have a follow-up question to what you have to say, but if I did, I’d be like, “Okay, Pete, okay, content, oh, I did have a question about content.” So, this is how I would essentially seamlessly insert myself back into the conversation.

Pete Mockaitis
And what I think I’ve found is that when you’re anchoring and repeating a word or phrase someone said, if that word or phrase is somewhat unique, distinctive, original, fresh in some way, the person who said those words that you anchor to feels a little dose of, like, a pat on the back, or a high five, or a good job for saying that clever thing. So, I just get the impression that it increases your likability or maybe that’s just me and I’m super susceptible to this kind of flattery.

Jessica Chen
No, you’re totally right, and I think some of it can be very subtle. It could be also very unconscious. Like, if I had repeated something that you said, it kind of makes you feel, “Oh, wow, Jessica actually heard me.” And it’s not like I’m explicitly saying it, like, “Oh, amazing idea,” but it’s just like, yeah, it’s just kind of like a little like, “Hey, wink, wink, like I heard you.”

And when we think about being an effective communicator, I think we have to think about making sure we are capturing people when they’re most receptive to listen. And when they’re most receptive to listen, it’s generally when they are feeling validated, feeling acknowledged, feeling like they’re being heard. So, I think, yes, these subtle communication tactics, which we’re talking about right now, is the anchoring, repeating one or two words that person said, it can actually achieve that for sure.

Pete Mockaitis
We had Chris Voss on the show, the FBI negotiation dude, and he talked about that very concept of repeating the last few words they said is almost magical, even if you’re doing it sort of as though you’re thinking it in, like, a soft thinking processing kind of a voice. It’s like, “Okay, you’re really considering what I’m putting forward, and I appreciate that. Thank you.”

Jessica Chen
Exactly. So, I think when we think about being an effective communicator, it’s leveraging things that are also, yes, explicit but also very implicit too, but it’s still getting the other person to feel, like, “Oh, yeah, okay. Well, me hear what Jessica has to say next.”

Pete Mockaitis
And you highlight five different elements of voice which I think is so cool. Can you walk us through these five things? But, first, tell us why do we want to pay attention to our voice and what it sounds like? Is it just sort of like our voice is our voice, and that’s fine? Or just how much of an impact does it make tinkering with these variables?

Jessica Chen
It’s funny because I think, whenever I talk about tone of voice specifically, a lot of times people go, “Well, it’s just the sound of my voice, right?” Yes, but there’s actually way more we can do with our voice than we think. And the five elements, which I will go through, are, I mean, this is not something that I produced. It’s actually based off research and study and research.

And I remember, just for me, when I was a broadcast journalist, I remember we would have consultants come in and they would critique us on television, and they would say, “Do this, do that, change this, change that,” just like as consultants, that’s what they do. And I remember one time I had the consultant come in, and we’re watching me talk on camera, doing whatever story, and she kept commenting, at least for me specifically, like, the rate, the pace of my speaking.

Now, when I get excited, when I’m happy, I tend to talk very fast. I think that’s just kind of like who I am, like I’m just excited, so I talk fast, especially if I’m maybe doing a story that’s more upbeat. And I remember her saying, “Jessica, you got to slow down.” And, in my mind, I was like, “I actually thought I was talking much slower than I would normally do,” because I know being and talking fast is my one weakness. And she was like, “No, no, no, Jessica, if you really want to be impactful, you got to speak way slower.”

And that’s when I realized, your tone of voice has many different elements, and, yes, how fast you speak is the first one. So, I’m going to walk through the five right now. So, number one, your tone of voice, the first element is really what we call your rate, how fast you’re speaking. And that’s kind of like the one that we think of the most because when people are nervous or excited, which is in my case, we talk fast. So, the key is you can actually control and change it. In fact, you do want to have a variety.

The second one is what we call your pitch, and that is basically how high or how low your voice is. Now, we know men tend to have lower pitches, women tend to have higher pitches, but here’s the thing, we all have a range. If we’re maybe talking about something serious, something that we want people to understand the urgency, then we might want to modulate our pitch so it’s a little lower. But it’s not doing it in this unnatural way. It’s, again, knowing that we all have a range.

The second one or the third one is thinking about your intensity. So, intensity, essentially, is how loud or how soft your voice is. Now, typically, when we are mad or angry, we will raise our voice but sometimes when people are shy and timid, they might speak in a lower tone of voice. And the idea is you want to have variety.

And I think this is like very strategic if you’re thinking about, let’s say, you’re giving a presentation and you’re speaking, you’re speaking maybe in a louder voice, and then suddenly you want to get people to know that this point is the most important. So maybe you’ll slow down your rate, lower your voice because that gets people to lean into what you have to say.

The next one is what we call inflection, and that is essentially what words you want emphasized. So, as you’re speaking, you have a choice of, “This is the word that I want people to know.” Like, even I’m just kind of doing it right now, “This is the word I want people to know is the most important.” And that is part of your tone of voice. It’s that inflection on that word.

And then, finally, it’s what we call the quality, and that is inherently, “What does your voice sound like?” When somebody calls you, they’re like, “Oh, that’s Pete,” “Oh, that’s Jessica.” And we say, of the five, the first four, you can control. In fact, you should change and have variety, but you can’t really change what’s inherent, which for some people, it might be that squeaky voice, that hoarse voice, that raspy voice. That’s just inherently who you are.

Pete Mockaitis
In a way, I’m thinking about sort of like recipes. If I want someone to receive a message more, like, thoughtfully, “Let’s reflect on this thing here, and really kind of mellow out and be calm,” we’re going to have a slower rate and a softer volume intensity. And that sort of produces that, which is very different than, “Rally the troops! Onward!” It’s like we’ve got more volume and rate in that zone.

Jessica Chen
Exactly. And I don’t know if you’ve ever even, like, thought so intently about tone. Maybe this is the first time you’re really thinking about it because we’re talking about it, but you’re right, and I feel like because you’re, like, “I have a specific intention, then I need to talk and modulate my tone in this way.” And even when you were just doing those two different modulations, my feeling right now, as a person listening, like I felt a certain way. And that’s the thing, you controlled it, you kind of did that with your tone of voice.

Pete Mockaitis
And not to get on a rant, but people are amazed at AI speech-to-text these days, and it’s very impressive technology, I’ll give you that. Like, that’s pretty cool and that wasn’t around nearly as robustly and beautifully six years ago because I’ve tried over the years. But at the same time, boy, when I watch a YouTube video and it has an AI narrator, I can tell, I get irritated.

Because it’s, yes, you are saying the words, bravo. Bravo, robot. But it’s not giving me all the emotional things with words that are part of what make a video lovely. So, I don’t know, that’s my take for what that’s worth. What’s your take on how AI plays into all this, Jessica?

Jessica Chen
Honestly, it’s just going to get better.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, over time.

Jessica Chen
It’s just going to get better. It’s going to get better over time. It’s going to sound so realistic and it’s going to be scary, in my opinion. But where it is right now, I think many of us can tell it’s very artificial. It doesn’t sound very natural. And, as humans, like, I think that’s actually a good thing right now. It does kind of scare me a little bit once you cannot differentiate between, “Is this AI talking or is this a human talking?” But right now, for us, as humans to humans, that is how we connect. It’s the emotion behind the words, the language that we’re using. That’s how it builds connection, for sure.

Pete Mockaitis
And then you got me thinking about news broadcasters, in particular, and connection. What do I call that, the down pitch, in terms of like at the end of things? And some folks, let’s see, for an example, I might say, “And Starbucks revenue has increased by 18%.” It’s like the “Do-do,” at the end. And so, sometimes I get the vibes, it’s like, “Okay, you’re done. That’s what you’re communicating with that, is that we’re done, we’re over with this.” But kind of my thought is, from like a connection building perspective, that makes me feel like the broadcaster is more robotic and artificial and less connectable. So, what’s your take? You’ve been in it.

Jessica Chen
Oh, yeah, I have a lot of thoughts about this. And I have a lot of thoughts because I had to also get out of that broadcast mentality myself. Having worked in broadcast, you start to develop a “broadcasting voice.” And, in some ways, it’s good for maybe more of, like, the nightly news, where, really, it’s just telling you exactly, like, what’s going on.

But if you watch morning shows, for example, on television, it’s way more casual, way more conversational, and that’s the intent. Because in a morning show, the vibe is really to like connect with the audience versus, I think, in my opinion, when you’re watching the nightly news, it’s really about, “This is serious stuff we’re talking about. Like, this is what’s going on. This is breaking news, or whatever politics and crime, whatever’s happening.”

And I think, for most of us listening right now, we’re not trying to talk in that broadcast voice. Actually, a lot of people say, like, “I want to speak like the people who talk on television.” And I’m like, “Actually, you don’t. Yes, maybe in the sense where they’re talking very clearly, they’re enunciating the words, yeah, those are all really good things. But when you’re talking about just everyday speak, you really want to not talk as if you’re talking to a person. You want to talk as if you’re just having a conversation.”

And, honestly, Pete, I think you do a good job with this too. Even though we’re doing this recording together, and in some ways it’s “broadcasting,” but it’s really like we’re having a conversation, and I think that’s really the approach and mentality for everybody.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thank you. Well, Jessica, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Jessica Chen
I would say the number one most important thing that I want people to know is whether you grew up in a quiet culture, or a loud culture, or you find yourself a mix of both, where sometimes it’s easy to speak up, or sometimes it feels a bit harder, I think what we can do for ourselves is know that we actually can control our career brand.

And our career brand is the perception people have of us in the office. So, the real kind of takeaway point is when you go into work every day and you’re thinking about communications, for example, or you’re thinking about tone of voice, or any of those things that we’re just talking about today, ultimately though, what can really accelerate any of our careers in the corporate environment or whatever industry that you’re in is knowing how you can take the work that you have to do, things that people assign you to do, and how can you use it to really leverage it for more opportunities.

Of course, communications plays a huge role in that, but if there’s any kind of, like, one golden nugget, I want people to feel empowered when it comes to their work, and knowing that they have control. Otherwise, if you don’t control the narrative of your own career brand, other people are going to start controlling it for you, and then you start to be boxed into, like, this person who just does this one thing. And I think all of us are way more dynamic than that.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Jessica Chen
It’s the one where it’s about when you think about communicating, it’s not always about focusing on the words that you say. It’s really about how you’re making other people feel with that.

And I think that’s kind of the essence of why I do what I do. And when people ask me, like, “Oh, can you help me become a more strategic communicator?” a lot of times, I’m like, “Yes, the words that you say matter, of course, are really important, but let’s talk about delivery and how you’re saying it because that’s really what matters at the end.”

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Jessica Chen
I recently read a good one by Tessa West, it’s called Job Therapy.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yes.

Jessica Chen
And I actually really enjoyed that book. I mean, granted, I will be biased, we share the same editor, but I really liked her book because it’s similar to kind of, like, how I think about career. It’s a very proactive way of finding a career that makes you happy instead of the other way around, essentially.

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

Jessica Chen
On my desk, I have a cup heater and love it because it just keeps my coffee hot all day. 

But, honestly, in all seriousness, I will say, and this is, they don’t pay me to say this but I do use this one app quite a bit to schedule meetings. It’s called Motion, and that has been huge for me. I’ve been using that a lot.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that people seem to really connect and resonate with and quote back to you often, and say, “Jessica, that was brilliant. Thank you”?

Jessica Chen
I would say you got to be your own best cheerleader. I think, for a lot of us who are smart, hardworking, we do good work, sometimes we can just do the thing and then move on. And I think it’s important to remind ourselves that, from time to time, we got to celebrate ourselves, be our own best cheerleader, and it could be even like small little things.

And one quick tip that I love to share with people is if you get an email from somebody, and they’re saying, “Congratulations. Good job. Awesome work,” create what I call a “Yay” folder. Drag that email into your “Yay” folder, and that will effectively become the one place where you can find all the good work that you’re doing, which is very helpful for performance review season.

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

Jessica Chen
I’m most active on LinkedIn, so do connect with me on LinkedIn, Jessica Chen. But I’m also on Instagram, so same thing, Jessica Chen, Jessica Chen page. Otherwise, our website, SoulCastMedia.com. That’s, like, another way to get in contact me and find out about the communications work that we do.

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

Jessica Chen
Yeah, find something to celebrate this week because you are going to be your own best cheerleader. So, think back to the last week, put something small that you did that you’re pretty proud of, and how can you highlight it so other people know about it.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Well, Jessica, this is fun. Thank you and best of luck.

Jessica Chen
Thank you, Pete.

Aug 22
0

989: Training Your Brain for Maximum Efficiency with Dr. Mithu Storoni

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Dr. Mithu Storoni goes behind the science of how focus works to use your brain to its maximum capacity.

You’ll Learn

  1. How to identify and get into the best mental gear for your work
  2. What to do when work gets either boring or overwhelming 
  3. The trick to resetting your brain 

About Mithu

Dr. Mithu Storoni is a University of Cambridge-trained physician, neuroscience researcher and ophthalmic surgeon. She advises multinational corporations on mental performance and stress management. She is the author of the forthcoming book Hyperefficient: Optimize Your Brain to Transform the Way You Work, out on September 17, 2024.

Resources Mentioned

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Mithu Storoni Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Mithu, welcome.

Mithu Storoni
Hi. Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
I am excited to chat about becoming hyper-efficient. And I’m imagining, well, it’s in London where you are, so it’s been a few hours in the day. Have you hyper-efficiently already taking care of tons of tasks today, Mithu?

Mithu Storoni
I’ve tried to be as hyper-efficient as I can. Every day is a different one. If you have a different kind of day, depending on the kind of day you have, it’s all about tailoring your tasks and fitting them around your own rhythm. So, every day I do different things, and so every day I have a certain different timetable.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, I’m so intrigued to hear about that, and I understand that’s one of your core theses here, is we want to align our work with our natural rhythms of our brain as opposed to trying to contort ourselves to what is externally imposed upon us. Is that a fair synopsis?

Mithu Storoni
That’s absolutely fair. And if you want a little bit of background, so I wrote the book when I realized how the way we work today is very much a hangover from the era of assembly lines. So, when we had the Industrial Revolution quite a long time ago, we had assembly lines, we were producing quantities of things, of refrigerators, of cars, of hair dryers. And during that time, the number of items you produced decided how productive you were, and the longer you stayed on the assembly line, the more productive you were, because the more items you assembled.

When we then had the shift into knowledge work, post-Second World War, around the 1950s, where the majority of the work became office work, became sort of what we used to call white-collar, we actually changed the work but we didn’t change the way we did the work. So, our work hours, the way we measured work, continued in pretty much the same way. We still looked at how many hours we were sitting on the seat, we get paid on overtime, productivity is all about targets.

We then had another shift, which is the kind of shift we still have now, where we started producing intangible goods rather than tangible refrigerators. And so, when intangible goods, such as a software solution, such as other solutions, ideas, it created the bottom line, so they become principle. The principle thing you try to make a difference to your company, to your organization, you need to think about the quality, not the quantity.

So, it no longer matters how many software solutions you manufacture, or how many software solutions you think of, or how many ideas you think of, you could have a thousand mediocre ideas, they will be just as unproductive as having one mediocre idea. We now need to shift to thinking extremely well, so producing one exceptional quality solution, exceptionally creative idea, rather than a hundred bad ones.

In order to do that, the brain can no longer sit and work continuously as if it were producing, or assembling its idea parts on an assembly line. How long you sit on your chair and the way you sit influences how well your mind performs. But we have created a template around that, which is a hangover from the past.

Now we have technology doing all the monotonous, the routine, the sort of quantity-heavy jobs aspects of knowledge work, so now we need to be even better at creating ideas, at forming solutions. And in order to do that, we need to change the way we work in a radically different way.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. That all seems to check out in terms of the way the world used to work and the way things are working currently. I’m curious, when it comes to us working at our finest to come up with these exceptional ideas and solutions, is there anything really striking or surprising you’ve discovered about what holds us back and what unleashes us to this greatness?

Mithu Storoni
Yes. So, I approached this subject from my background, which is in neuro-ophthalmology and neuroscience, and I’m very aware of the very, very exciting research field at the moment, looking at the brain’s dynamics. What we know is that the brain is a complex system, it changes state, and there is a network in the brain called the locus coeruleus norepinephrine network, which influences how alert you are, it influences how you pay attention. That’s one angle of the story.

We have uncovered quite a lot of data about this network and how the faster it fires, the more alert, the more sort of wired you become; the slower it fires, the calmer you become. If you take that, I’m diluting it a little bit, but if you take that you add in the cholinergic network, you add in the dopaminergic network, you know, you create the whole map. You realize that when you are performing mental work, knowledge work of any kind, your brain has to be, or your mind has to be, in a certain configuration in order to perform one particular type of task particularly well.

So, for instance, let’s take two examples of knowledge work. Let’s take creative idea generation and let’s take a different kind where you are focusing on something. So, if you imagine an organization, it has lots of teams but it has two sub-teams, one focusing on innovation, the other focusing on implementation. The team focusing on innovation is going to focus on coming up with ideas, original ideas. What do we know about how the brain works or what is optimal for the brain when this happens?

Well, we know that if you make the brain focus on one single target in front of you, such as a computer screen, your brain state is not going to be optimal to come up with those “aha” ideas because of the temporary structure of the brain at the time. Focusing is not conducive to gentle mind-wandering.

It’s not conducive to letting your attention wander and pick up fragments of data, fragments of thoughts wandering in your head, which you then assemble, or to just waiting for aha moments, for moments of insight to spring up inside your head. That’s one angle to it. So, detaching your attention is important. Not focusing is important.

The second angle to it is there is data that the time of day you work influences how well you work when you’re doing creative work. So creative insights, creative idea generation seems to be better first thing in the day and last thing in the day, not in the middle of the morning, and not in the middle or late in the afternoon. So, in order to really, really optimize idea generation, creative idea generation, perhaps working in a slightly different way for this particular sub-team is going to be more suited for their performance.

Similarly, if you take the second sub-team, which is working on logistics implementation, there they need to zone in, converge on ideas. Now if you are converging on ideas, focusing does help. So, their focused attention is going to be absolutely pivotal. We know focused attention, similar in the opposite way to creativity, focused attention, there seem to be some peak hours for that during the day. The middle morning, middle to late morning is one of them. Immediately after lunch is not one of them and later on in the day is a second slot.

When you’re doing focused attention, when you’re paying focused attention or doing work that involves focused attention, you have to, it helps to sit undisturbed, sit in a very, very attentive state of mind and get that work done. So, if you also think about how your mind is, when you’re creative, your mind is sort of very gently, slowly mind-wandering. When you’re focusing, you want to be sharp, you want to really zone in to what’s in front of you.

These two states of mind are very, very different. So, if you put all of that together, it shows you how you need to be in a certain state of mind that you can tell by looking at how well you focus, how well your mind can, or how easy your attention can wander, a particular time of day is also helpful. And the third thing we haven’t talked about is, as soon as you work continuously, and you measure this as time on task when you measure this aspect in psychological experiments, when your brain works continuously on some kind of intense work, it becomes tired.

When it becomes tired, its information-processing pathways inside your head become inefficient. And when they become inefficient, you can actually measurably or you can visibly see the effect that has on mental output. So rather than coming up with lots of original ideas, you’re much more likely to come up with ideas but they’re not going to be original. So how long you work for is a huge factor here, which is why you also have to put in this 90-minute, 90- or 100-minute ultradian rhythm where you work in slots, and even within those segments of work you pace how you work. That’s a very long answer to your question.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it’s really beautiful and it matches my own experience in terms of the groove, the flow, the rhythms, the vibe of work. And you talked about the creative and innovative side of things versus the implementation side of things, and sometimes I think of this as creating versus destroying. And I don’t know if it’s just my raw kind of attitude, but it’s like, “I’m going to destroy my inbox,” and by that, I mean I’m going to process it with vigorous speed. We’re going to do a three-second sweep per message, a 20-second sweep per message, and we’re going to watch that baby shrink from 200 to 20 in short order, and that’s good, and that’s kind of fun for me.

But sure enough, that does require that I’m not distracted by other things, and my mind isn’t wandering to interesting, fun things to pursue that’s counterproductive to what I’m after, is shrinking this inbox in a hurry and dispatching messages so people would get what they need from me, etc. Which is totally different than the vibe is like, “Oh, this would be kind of cool if we tried this thing. And here’s a fun idea. And, oh, that sort of connects to this thing I’m hearing on a podcast over there.” And so, those are very different vibes. So, tell me, just to make this contrast all the more crisp and clear for us, do you have a name that you apply to each of these modes of brain operation?

Mithu Storoni
I have. So, in my book, I have created a metaphor, which is very helpful, and I describe the mind as being in three states in the specific context of knowledge work. And these are, I call them three gears: one, two and three. And in a very easy way of imagining them is slow, medium and fast. The mind-wandering state, so the seek and destroy that you just described, which is going through your inbox – I love that analogy, I think it’s a great way of describing it, creating and destroying – that state would be right in the middle of gear two, which is the middle zone.

Gear one – is the kind of state of mind you have when you are really daydreamy. So, maybe the first thing in the morning after you’ve woken up after a deep night’s sleep, you haven’t quite reached that sort of sharpness, you haven’t reached for your coffee yet, you are kind of in a slight daydreamy zone, there’s a sunrise in front of you, you’re sort of halfway, halfway, and your mind feels quite slow. Your attention is floating a lot. You don’t have the ability to make it focus. It’s very, very floaty. You think of thoughts, they come, they go.

Gear two is when you can focus. This is the middle zone. As soon as you reach gear two, you’re able to focus. Within gear two, you have a kind of a slow pace and you have a fast pace. The slow pace gear two is when you can both focus and you can let your attention wander alternately however you want. That is optimal for creativity where you can just detach from what you’re doing, let your attention wander a little bit, but soon as you come up with an idea, with an insight, you can quickly zone your attention spotlight on there, focus on it and bring it to fruition. That is gear two, a slow gear two.

And then you have middle gear two, which is what you described as really intense, powerful focus. And then you have, you leave gear two and you go into gear three. And gear three has, correlates with what is sometimes termed sort of a hyperarousal state. So, in gear three, your thoughts are faster, your actions are faster, but you can’t perform analytical difficult thinking and you cannot focus as well.

So, these are the three gears: gear one is where you just wander; gear three where your mind is very fast and you can’t focus; gear two is right in the middle. And in gear two you can navigate by playing with your attention, detaching it, letting it wander around to go into kind of a light, creative gear two or a really deep focused gear two.

Pete Mockaitis
Now when you say hyperarousal gear three, just to make sure I’m understanding this, I’m thinking about, is this like I’m enraged at a situation? Or what are some of the scenarios or illustrations of hyperarousal?

Mithu Storoni
We are diluting these into single terms, but these are all scales. These all have a range. So, if you look inside the brain, people in a state of hyperarousal, this particular network in the brain is firing very fast, and the faster it fires, the more your physiological arousal increases. But just outside this zone where you can focus, the moment, so let’s just say you’re sitting there, you’re focusing on your email, you’re doing really well, and then a colleague keeps making herself or himself a cup of coffee, and every time they do this, they come and give you one because they’re really kind, and so you inadvertently just keep sipping those espressos while you work, just because they happen to be there.

After one espresso, it’s great, your focus is even better. But after another five, which you don’t realize you’ve had, suddenly, the noise that you heard behind you, the noise of the drilling outside, or the traffic outside, or someone speaking on their phone, suddenly seems really sharp. You couldn’t hear it a minute ago, but after five espressos you suddenly can, and so your threshold for being distracted is suddenly lowered, so you can become easily distracted.

Then, by this time, you haven’t realized you’ve had those five espressos, some more espressos appear and you keep drinking those. And as you drink them, eventually, you reach a point where your focus is completely gone, and you’re simply just reacting to the situation. You’re doing very low-level cognitive stuff, and every sort of small distraction around you is grabbing your attention away.

And as you increase that, you can eventually get into the stage that we do term that falls under the canopy of the banner of rage. But that sort of gear-three state is where you become easily distractible, subtle things become amplified. You become more anxious, more vigilant, so it’s a hyper-vigilant state. And the more, the faster this network fires, the more you go into this state, the more amplified it becomes. So, it’s a scale. This whole thing is a scale. Gear one itself is a scale, gear two is a scale, gear three is a scale, and within those, you’re modulating yourself.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you. It’s like we just got one very long continuum. It’s like the entirety of human experience, and we’re segmenting it into three-thirds to make it a little bit more workable to discuss and interact with. So, I guess I’m wondering now, this might be dangerous talking to neuroscience about this, but you mentioned, so we got some choline, some dopamine.

What is the, shall we call them biomarkers, or biochemical things, or heart rate, or brainwave frequency? What’s the stuff going down at our brain-body level within each of these three things in terms of it’s like a little bit in one, a medium amount in two, and a whole lot in three of these fundamental ingredients?

Mithu Storoni
So, very basically, let’s look at norepinephrine. So, norepinephrine, many of you will have heard of it, it’s associated with exercise. We talk about how we’ve got to get that adrenaline pumping or get that norepinephrine. 

And very, very loosely, these three gear states describe or correlate with three ways, patterns of firing of this, of a network in the brain, that is the brain’s headquarter of norepinephrine. So, in a very simple way of saying that, as norepinephrine levels vary in your brain, there’s a part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex that sits right behind your forehead. The prefrontal cortex is your brain’s seat for focus, attention, any kind of higher-level cognitive work. Analysis, thinking, remembering, working memory, you name it, the prefrontal cortex is the seat of higher thinking, okay? This entire region of the brain, prefrontal cortex, it’s absolutely pivotal for knowledge work and it becomes very, very active at middle levels of norepinephrine.

So, when you’re in gear two, it’s the Goldilocks zone of norepinephrine that brings your prefrontal cortex completely online. When you have too much norepinephrine, when you enter gear three, your prefrontal cortex goes partly offline, and this is why being in gear two is ideal and essential for focused work.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, this is cool, and so I’m curious. So, putting it in these terms, I can see that if you’re in gear one, yeah, that’ll bring you to gear two or gear three, the jumping up and down, the smacking your chest, you’re screaming, “Yes, yes, yes.” That’ll do it. Go for it.

Mithu Storoni
I was just going to say, so I think the three gears are a metaphor of three different mental states. But I would not think of it like a racing car. So, when you’re in gear one, it’s simply a description of a different state. So, when you’re in gear one, and you’re in this kind of slow, mind-wandering state, you can’t focus because you are just not sort of awake enough to focus then. Gear two is when there is more norepinephrine, your prefrontal cortex is engaged, you can focus, you can do high-level cognitive work. And gear three is when there is more norepinephrine, you can think faster, but you can’t do high-level cognitive work because your prefrontal cortex is partly offline. Now, when you’re doing any kind of knowledge work, you’re actually shuttling between these three states, in the sense that, for instance, if you are solving a problem, you have to be mainly in a state of focus, all right?

But as soon as you hit a wall, or your mental slate gets crammed with data, you have to briefly move out of that state into gear one to wipe your slate clean and to refresh the angle that you’re taking. So, if you’ve hit a wall, your brain needs to step back and look at the problem from afar, or from a different angle, that’s when you need to briefly foray into gear one to do that, and then you might see something you were missing, you might feel a little bit more refreshed, then you go back into gear two.

So, although your baseline is gear two, you’re going to keep coming back into gear one every now and again to change your mental state in order to overcome a wall or to just refresh your mind. So, it’s not like you are getting into these fast, high-powered, kind of racing track scenarios. It’s very much a way of your brain is mainly in gear two, but gear one is essential. And that’s why gear one is the mental state you have when you take a break.

So, as an example, if you’re focusing on your inbox, in your email inbox and you’re working through it, every time you close your eyes, your brain immediately goes into gear one for a bit. And then when you open your eyes, you’re back into gear two. What I’m describing here is the baseline you’re in for the majority of time.

The whole thing isn’t a flat line, and that’s how the brain is but the overall general state of the brain when you’re in a mode of focus versus when you’re in a mode of gentle daydreaming are very different, and these are the states I describe with gear one, two, and three.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. So, then I imagine one of the things you want to do in order to accomplish a whole lot of stuff is to just schedule the kinds of activities when things are naturally going to be great for that. If I need to have some brilliant epiphany, aha, eureka moments, well, then let’s schedule some thinking, daydreaming, wandering time in the early morning or late at night, etc. So, there’s kind of working with our schedules and our rhythms and, you know, 90- to 100-minute cycles of stuff. That’s cool. And then, I’m curious, if the situation calls for us to be in a bit of a different gear than we find ourselves in, what do you recommend we do?

Mithu Storoni
So, if I give you a typical day, so just say you are a writer, you are looking for an idea. So, if that’s your job, if that’s your task for the day, what you would do is you’d wake up probably in the morning quite early, and once you’re up in the morning, you would tackle the creative aspect of things there and then. You wouldn’t wait for later in the morning. You’d use the kind of very gentle, relaxed, not quite committed state of mind you have, which would be perfect for that kind of work, that kind of idea generation.

And then once you have your idea, later on in the morning, you’d find you feel a little more alert, you can focus a little bit more and your mind is wandering a lot less. You’re kind of much less in that kind of gentle daydreamy more. There, you sit down, you focus and write or type. And then you continue that pattern as I describe. It changes slightly for the rest of the day.

So, if you’re entering one of those sessions, one of those work sessions, and you’re in the wrong gear, so let’s say you are doing focused work, you’re starting at 9:00 o’clock in the morning, and you are still in that kind of distracted, mind-wandering state of mind. If that’s the case, there are a couple of ways you can use your body’s physiology to make your mind think differently. So, for instance, we know that if you make your body active and alert, your mind becomes active and alert too. Intuitively, you know that to be true.

Physiologically, we know that if you do, for instance, a few sprints before you sit down, when you are feeling a little bit kind of slow and lethargic, that immediately wakes you up. It doesn’t have to be sprints. Any kind of exercise will wake you up. We know that intuitively. And when we say wake you up, it also changes your mental state. You go from feeling lethargic to feeling more alert, much more able to focus.

Conversely, we know that you can also use your body to relax your mind. So, if you are feeling very, very wired, if you’re working in an office where things are very, very, sort of deadlines are very frequent, activity is very fast, everything is very hectic, and you really need to calm down and you need to focus and you need to think about something, in that sort of situation you can use your body, you can use three elements actually, you can use your environment to calm you down.

So, we know that if you bring elements of your environment to be slow, low and soft and dark, your mind also climbs down. So, if you have, for instance, a background music or background sounds which have low frequency beats, sounds which are low pitch, not high pitch, like very slow drum beats or like ocean sounds. There’s a reason why we’re attracted to ocean sounds. So, slow beats, slow rhythms, low frequency, low pitch around you.

So, as an obvious example, if you listen to radio shows or breakfast shows first thing in the morning, people will be speaking very fast at a higher pitch. If you listen to radio shows very late at night, people will be speaking slower with slightly lower pitch, and that is to really match the viewer’s state of mind, but in the morning it’s to really draw the viewer into a more alerting state of mind to wake them up essentially. So, your environment can change in this way.

Colors and intensity of light also have a role to play. There is data that shows that warm, so redder, reddish tones, soft, warm hues are better for creative idea generation, whereas blue light or blue dominant white light, the kind of light you get in the middle of the day or in the middle of the morning even in most latitudes, that’s conducive to being focused and alert. So, if you’re doing a night shift and you really, really need to focus, then using light can help you be in the right state of mind.

So light, sound, your physiology, so muscle. When you contract muscle, you feel more alert, but when you release it, you feel more relaxed. Similarly, when you stretch muscle and release it, you feel more relaxed, and we know that people seek this kind of activity, whether PMR, whether yoga, any sort of stretching-relaxation activity also relaxes the mind.

We also have a third thing, which are breathing exercises, and there is now a lot of data to show that if you breathe at a frequency of around five breaths a minute with long exhalations, and Mara Mather, in California, has done amazing work on this with her team, you can also lower this, the gear, of your mind. So, bring your mind back to an optimal state.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, this is beautiful. So, then I’m thinking then, if we’re in a state where it’s just like, “Ugh, I don’t feel like doing anything,” that’s sort of like the sleepy state, and so more arousal would be helpful if what needs to happen is some smart focused work. And if, likewise, it’s like, “I’m freaking out about this thing,” you know, well, then we want to maybe do with some more of the stretching, the slow breathing, the low lights, etc.

Mithu Storoni
Adjust your environment. Modulate your environment.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now you got me wondering, it’s so funny, I’m thinking about mindfulness meditation stuff, and there are times when it feels so amazingly wonderful, like, “Yes, this is just delightful.” And there are times in which my brain is just furious, which is like, “This is so boring! I can’t stand it!” And so, it seems like, is this kind of the fundamental dynamic at work? Or do you think there are some other dimensions to be considered in this context as well?

Mithu Storoni
So, I’m so happy you brought up the word “boring” because this is really, really important. Now when you’re working on something, when you’re doing knowledge work, you’re working on something, you can, in gear two, you’re in peak focus, you’re engaged, all right? But if what you’re doing is boring, then a little while through, a little while along, 10, 15 minutes, whatever, you suddenly feel your mind wandering and your focus slipping off, slipping away. Not because you’re tired, the work isn’t tiring at all, or let’s imagine the work isn’t tiring at all. You’re just noticing your focus just slip away.

In that sort of scenario, you’re sliding into gear one because you are bored, and there you need more stimulation or a bigger load to get you back into gear two. So, one way is, as you say, you need more stimulation, so maybe change the environment, go to a place that wakes you up. But you can also do it through the work, through the work you’re doing. So, for instance, multitasking gets bad press, but if what you’re doing is boring and you’re sliding into gear one, multitasking can actually keep you in gear two.

Because any form, anything that engages your mind, engages your brain, causes you to put in cognitive effort, will raise you back, will raise your gear. And it’s for the same reason that if you’re working very well, but you have an enormous workload, or you’re getting information you don’t want and you’re being forced to process it while you’re doing the work that you’re doing, you’re having to put in, you’re having to really step on the pedal.

You’re putting in more cognitive effort, and that requires norepinephrine, and there you’re shifting up to gear three to be able to cope. So, actually, you can modulate your gear with the work you are doing. So, if your work is very boring, actually multitasking and doing something in parallel can put you back into the right frame of mind.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. And so, I guess I’m wondering if we don’t have the option of changing the thing that we’re doing, maybe we’re in a meeting and we think it’s boring, I suppose, internally, in our own brains we would maybe make up a game. Or what do you recommend there in terms of if it’s like here we are, we’re in a meeting, we’re supposed to be polite, and not whip out our laptops or phones or something? Any pro-tips there?

Mithu Storoni
So, if you’re in a meeting and you just have to attend the meeting, but not contribute or not take anything away from the meeting, then it’s a great opportunity to get into a creative state of mind, be in gear one, let your mind wander, and just use that as a break. So let your mind wander, let your attention wander, try not to dwell on anything, and just use that as a refresher, as a refresher palette for your mind.

If you have to stay awake during a meeting, and simply stay awake and not necessarily contribute, then doing something while you are in that meeting, so solving a problem with pen and paper discreetly while you’re there is another way of dealing with it. So, you add your workload, you increase your cognitive load to stay in the right state of mind.

So, the bottom line of all of this is really that we all function the best. We don’t just work the best when we do knowledge work. We actually function and we feel the best when we’re in this kind of middle speed, is a good way of imagining it, in this kind of middle speed, Goldilocks speed. And in order for the brain to put itself into that middle speed, you need, the brain needs, first of all, some kind of external stimulation, or the external urge to raise its own gear for some other reason.

So, for instance, if it’s receiving a lot of load the brain is going to work harder to cope with it. If cognitive load is very low, it’s going to get very bored and slip out of gear two. So, if that happens, then you can bring in extra cognitive load or bring in extra stimulation to keep the brain in this middle zone. Your mind, your brain is really an information-processing machine, and its optimal pace of processing that information is gear two. So, you need to give it enough information to keep it there. And if you swing over, if you overshoot, you end up in gear three.

So, if you’re going down from gear three to gear two, another way to look at it is you’re going down from gear three to gear two, then reduce the number of tasks you’re doing, reduce the difficulty of the task you’re doing, remove time pressure, remove uncertainty, and then adjust your environment to make it lower, slower, slower-paced, and then, of course, you can add in these physiological buttons through your muscle relaxation, through your autonomic nervous system.

So, ultimately, your brain, your mind is most efficient when it’s moving ahead at this middle speed of processing information. And the key, the art of being able to navigate yourself and stay in that zone while you’re doing knowledge work is a secret to hyper-efficiency because when you’re in that zone, the kind of work you’ll be doing will be the best you can do.

You can still do a lot of work while you’re bored. You can also do a lot of work while you’re in gear three. You can type hundreds of emails. You can even type them faster. But you won’t be able to solve a difficult differential equation in gear three, or plan a killer chess move in gear three. You’ll be able to play chess, but you’ll probably lose in the first 15 moves.

Pete Mockaitis
Thirty-second bullet games.

Mithu Storoni
Exactly. Exactly. In gear one, you’re not engaged enough to think, to analyze either. But in gear two, in this middle zone, when your brain is just awake enough, alert enough, but not too wired, that’s when it processes information the fastest, and hence, it does it in the best possible way.

Pete Mockaitis
You said the word “refresh” earlier, and I’m curious, if we’re doing these 90- to 100-minute bouts, a break is just necessary. Do you have any suggestions on what is a supremely, or hyper-efficient, or excellent means of breaking to restore our brains’ capacity and capabilities quickly?

Mithu Storoni
Yes. So, when you’re thinking of a break, just to give you a little bit of background, we now know through some very elegant forms of brain imaging that when you’re doing intense mental work, something that requires you to pay attention, something like solving math equations, as your brain cells work, they produce byproducts because they have little factories in them, they need energy to work, they break, they use ATP. They produce byproducts.

And as you’re working, these byproducts accumulate and then they get cleaned away. Now there is some evidence, and I mention where this data comes from, in the book, that one reason for fatigue may well be that the rate at which you’re producing these toxic byproducts is faster than your ability to clear them away. And so, when you take a break and you stop the intensity of work, you’re immediately giving your mind, your brain an opportunity to recover. So that’s a bottom line.

Now how should that break be? So, in this context, think of the difference between the brain and muscle. So, if you’re lifting weights in a gym, the moment you stop lifting weights, your muscle relaxes. So, when you stop working your muscle, your muscle rests. But when your mind is working on its office chair, as soon as you move from the office chair and you even go and sit on a beach, your mind has not moved one inch. It carries on working. There is no stop switch on your mind.

And so, the kind of break you take has to be tailored to the state of mind you are in when you were working. So, if your work was just very, very tiring, it wasn’t in any way emotionally draining, emotionally triggering, just very, very tiring, and as soon as you stop, imagine you’re having to read a hundred boring emails that don’t really mean anything, but they’re just, your eyes are glazing over, that sort of state. If that’s the case, then as soon as you take a break, as soon as you stop what you’re doing, your mind will be able to relax.

So, in that sort of scenario, you can break and just do nothing. Just relax, you don’t have to do anything actively. But if your work was, or is, in a situation where you have a lot of emotional tension, you have a deadline you’re working for, you have a problem you really can’t solve you’re still struggling with, the moment your break approaches, you’re very likely to be what I call tired and wired, which means you are tired, you’re physically tired, you’re mentally tired, but your mind is still trying to process that information, so it has stepped on the accelerator, taking you right up to gear three to work through and your gear just won’t slide back.

And, intuitively, your listeners and you will realize what this is because it’s the kind of feeling you have at the end of a day when you’ve just really pushed yourself to keep working beyond when you were tired by having coffee, by carrying on. And so, by the time you get home, you can’t really switch off. You feel tired, but your mind is still buzzing. That’s what I describe as tired and wired.

If that’s the case, and you’re taking a break in the middle of the day, and you’re feeling like that, then for the first few moments of your break, it’s much more helpful to do something really absorbing that distracts you completely from the work you are working on. So, play a game on your phone. Something like Tetris has been shown to be very effective in this sort of context, other games like Tetris. Play a game on your phone or watch a video, watch something immersive, until you momentarily forget the work you were just doing. As soon as you do, stop and then you relax.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, first, we get into the forget zone and then we stop and relax. Is there any way to relax better or should we just chill?

Mithu Storoni
So, if you are in that forget zone, you can relax. I mentioned two kinds of breaks in the book. So, I mentioned a break at the end of 90 minutes when you just need to refuel. I also mentioned a type of break, which I call a kind of a reset break, and this is the kind of break you would take within your work segment. So, if you’re doing a 90-minute block of work and your work is really intense, you would probably need to pause for a little while every 20 minutes or so, if your work is really, really intense.

Or if your work is really, really boring, you will be forced to just kind of take a step back every 20 minutes or so and just be like, “Okay, I need to kind of wire my mind back up to cope with this.” When you’re taking a break in that context, what you’re trying to do during the break is put your mind back into gear one.

So, as an example, imagine you are just watching paint dry, okay, you’re doing some kind of work, which is really, really boring. Your mind, you’re in the right zone when you started that work. But about 10 minutes, 15 minutes into the work, your attention just floats away. You cannot bring it back and everything just gets very slow, lethargic. At that point, take a quick five-minute break and do something to bring you back into that zone. So that can be something physical. Physical is usually the easiest.

So, at that point, doing a quick bout of exercise will put you back in the best kind of mental zone where you can go back to doing that work focusing. So, an applicable real-world scenario of this is anything that requires you to keep monitoring something. So, monitoring a camera, monitoring other machines working, monitoring a system. Every 20 minutes or so, your attention is going to float, melt away, and there you take a very quick break to actually not relax you but to actually excite you back into the right mental zone.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. Well, Mithu, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Mithu Storoni
Certainly. So, another aspect of work today, as well as these three gears, is the idea of how everything we’ve always used to motivate us in the past are changing because the whole map of knowledge work is drastically changing at the moment. We are having to retrain, we’re having to reskill, we’re having to learn on the job, so there’s a huge amount of change taking place, and so this is a really great time to bring in the idea that has long been known as intrinsic motivation, and kind of repackage it and rework it for our era.

Because right now, we are working and living at a time where your job might not be guaranteed, the goal that you’re working towards might change tomorrow, a new LLM might come about tomorrow, a new version of the existing one might come about tomorrow, and everything you’ve been learning suddenly becomes obsolete the next day.

So, in this sort of landscape, you have to work with a different kind of motivation. So, we have to learn and we have to tailor and curate our jobs. Managers should be curating workflows, workloads, to generate as much as much of this intrinsic motivation as possible. And one way that seems to be a pretty powerful way of deriving it in any context, and intrinsic motivation is notoriously difficult to create, is by this phenomenon called learning progress.

It’s called learning progress mechanism. And one of the researchers behind Pierre-Yves Oudeyer from Paris, who is working with artificial agents, and his team has found how, whenever you’re working, you’re doing any kind of work, it’s really, really important to have physically kind of something that you can really physically, tangibly feel, obvious progress.

So, you have to be making rapid progress in something towards a goal and improving through skill or knowledge yourself in some way as fast as you can, as regularly and as solidly as you can, while you work. If you can engineer an element of this into one what you’re doing, you will have sufficient intrinsic motivation in your work, and that is going to be key in the workplace moving forward.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly, that rings true. That gets me fired up, no doubt. Well said. Now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Mithu Storoni
What I would say is my book was really heavily influenced by the work of Marshall McLuhan, who looked at technology and the effect it is having on our brains. One of the quotes that I really love, is that we have had a way of working all this time, where we’ve really been working like a marching soldier. We’ve been moving forward in regular steps in order. We need to change, and we need to now add flair to the way we work because that will help us get into these unique brain states and produce our best.

And he describes that as a transition from a marching soldier to working, spinning like a dancing ballerina. And that is really a metaphor for how our work needs to change in this new AI-assisted age of the knowledge age.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Mithu Storoni
So, The Medium is the Message is a great book that really gives you a wonderful overview of technology.

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

Mithu Storoni
So, I have a website, my name, www.MithuStoroni.com. I’m on LinkedIn, Mithu Storoni. I’m also on Twitter/X as @MithuStoroni.

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

Mithu Storoni
Tomorrow, whatever your routine is, just think about this conversation and tailor your day completely differently, adjust it to your routine, and then give us a feedback the day after as to how it went.

Pete Mockaitis
All right, Mithu, this is fun. I wish you much hyper-efficiency.

Mithu Storoni
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

Aug 19
0

988: How to Elevate Your Status and Command Respect at Work with Alison Fragale

By | Podcasts | No Comments

Alison Fragale reveals the keys to improving others’ perceptions of you.

You’ll Learn

  1. The critical missing piece for your advancement
  2. Why your response to “How are you?” matters more than you think
  3. The quickest way to get others to promote you

About Alison

Alison Fragale is the author of LIKEABLE BADASS: How Women Get the Success They Deserve and the Mary Farley Ames Lee Distinguished Scholar of Organizational Behavior at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Kenan-Flagler Business School. As a research psychologist, award-winning professor, international keynote speaker, and author, she is on a mission to help others — especially women — use behavioral science to work and live better. Her scholarship has been published in the most prestigious academic journals in her field and featured in prominent media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Financial Times, Boston Globe, and Inc. She lives in Chicago with her husband and three children, who are all named after professional athletes.

Resources Mentioned

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Alison Fragale Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Alison, welcome.

Alison Fragale
Thank you. I’m so happy to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m excited to be chatting with you because you’re going to teach us how to become likable badasses. That sounds like something I think that we want. What’s the scoop here?

Alison Fragale
I think we should. You know, I will say when I put Likable Badass on the cover of my book, I get the same reaction from everybody. It’s, “Yes, that’s what I’m going for.” And people want it, and there’s a good reason that they want it, because there’s a lot of science behind how it actually helps us.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, lay it on us. So, what is the benefit associated with, well, first of all, just define a picture of what that means, and then share with us the research on how that’s beneficial for us.

Alison Fragale
I’m going to take one step backward, and I’m going to introduce something that I care a lot about and I think everyone should care a lot about, and that is the idea of status. And status is how much we’re respected and regarded by other people. So, if we have high status, that would mean our audiences have high respect and regard for us.

And I know from my work and others, it’s what we call a fundamental human need. It’s something all human beings seek, and life is so much better with it, without it. Work is better. Life is better. Our physical and mental health, our ability to gain power at our job, to use the power we have, all these things. So, status is really important for us to understand and understand how we can influence ours.

Where does Likable Badass come in? Because when people look at another person and decide, “Do I respect that person?” when you do that to other people, those decisions that you make, that we all make, those aren’t random. They follow a pattern. There’s two things we look for when we’re evaluating another person to decide how much do we value them. And one thing we look for is how capable they are.

I often talk about that as our assertiveness. Not just, “Can we assert ourselves?” but a whole of skills that if I give you a task, can you get it done? Can you do it well? Are you competent? Are you organized? Are you efficient? Are you persistent? And so, if you have those qualities, I know if I put something in your hands, it’s going to get executed well and I value that. So, I’m going to respect you because of that. So, capability, assertiveness, that’s important.

And then the other one, is our warmth, or do we care about people other than ourselves? And that’s really important too, because I’m going to value people who aren’t just out for themselves, who are going to use their talents to benefit me. And so, if we see somebody who’s very caring and other-oriented, we value that too. We respect it.

So, those two dimensions in psychology are really critical. In fact, we call them when we create a little XY axis out of them, we call them the interpersonal circle of person perception. And “Likable Badass” is my catchy term for the space in the circle we all want to be, which is we all want people to see us as very capable and very caring.

Because when we do that, that’s how we gain status, that we respect people who are good at getting stuff done and who care about other people.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. And I suppose that, so is it fair to say these are the two dominant things that make us perceive a person as being respect-worthy, these are the two?

Alison Fragale
Correct.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now, I suppose there might be some third elements that are idiosyncratic to individuals. I was watching this comedy movie, where this guy was shocked and appalled that his best friend was a Republican, for example. So, I’m thinking, like, there might be certain dimensions of division or stereotyping that can cut across this for people. It’s like, “Okay, you’re very capable and you are very warm, but I still don’t like you for…” insert fill-in-the-blank personal bugaboo. Is that fair to say?

Alison Fragale
Yes, although I think you can actually probably shoehorn most of these judgments into capability and warmth somehow. So, I kind of question how good of a human you are. Or maybe I question your intelligence, because, “How could you possibly believe this is true or that is true?”

So, under capability, for example, is also competence and intelligence. So, it’s a circumflex, and there’s characteristics all the way around it. But a lot of times, we can take most of the judgments we have and say, “They do reflect on either how good I think you are at what you do, how smart you are, or how nice and caring you are.”

Again, I’m sure if we played the game long enough, you could find something, but even a political affiliation that people could say, “I don’t really respect that person,” you think, “Well, why don’t I respect that?” And it could come to something about, “Well, you can’t be that smart if you believe that’s true,” or, “You can’t care about other people if you’re willing to let A, B, and C happen.”

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s good. So, our deeply held beliefs about a political affiliation, or any sort of an issue, then colors the extent to which we think that they are likable and capable. And so, I guess the opposite of a likable badass would be a jerk-idiot. We’ll hyphenate it. Yeah, I sure don’t want to be one of those, or either of those.

Okay, so there we have it. Status is a fundamental human need, and if we are in the likable badass zone, then good things come to us. I guess we feel we have status, and that feels good, that human need is being met. We feel respected, which is cool and enjoyable. And so, what does it do for us in terms of our career, our progression, our being awesome at our jobs?

Alison Fragale
One thing it does is it opens up all of the things that we tend to want at work. It makes all those things easier to achieve. So if you want to climb a career ladder, if you wanted to have more responsibility, if you wanted to be paid more, all of those things are forms of power, which is related to status, and I spend a lot of time helping people understand the distinction.

Power is controlling resources that people value. So, if I get to spend my budget without having to ask for permission, if I get to make a decision about a work product without having to ask for permission, if I get to review your performance, if I get to hire and fire, all these kinds of things are resources that we value and we control. If I get to come and go as I wish at work, have autonomy, work from wherever, that’s a resource.

So power is also another fundamental human need. People want to be in control. The lack of control of your environment also damages our life satisfaction and our physical and mental health. But status, being respected, is a gateway to getting all of these other good things. Not only is it good to possess in and of itself and it feels good, it also is how we get the power and the resource control that we want. And not everybody wants power in the same way, but everybody wants control over their environment. Again, even if it’s just power over self, “I want the autonomy to be able to work when and where I want or how I want.”

So, we focus a lot on power when we try to help people navigate their careers. A lot of on “How do you advance?” But the piece of the conversation that I don’t think we’re having as explicitly as we should is, “Well, how do you get those things?”

And the way I started was teaching people negotiation skills, which are important. You think, “If I can negotiate really well, I can negotiate myself into the career that I want.,” and that’s helpful. But also, it helps if your audience really values what you’re bringing to the table, that if you’re trying to get something from somebody and that person who’s looking at you, rightly or wrongly says, “I don’t really value you, and I don’t really respect you very much.”

You’re kind of sunk at that point, there’s very little you could say or do from a strategy standpoint that’s going to get you a good outcome, because we don’t give rewards to people that we don’t respect. So, it opens doors for us to being able to control our environment at work in whatever way we want to do it, and that is also really valuable.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Alison, conceptually, that seems to add up and check out like, “Yep, sure, that follows.” Could you point to any particular studies or data that show perhaps just how eye-popping-ly powerful this status stuff is?

Alison Fragale
One of my favorites, looked at interruptions in a work group. and looking at gender and interruptions in the work group. So, this is a group, they had three men, six women, intact group, worked together for years, and the researchers studied the group, and they looked at who got interrupted and who spoke. And they found that everybody spoke at a proportional rate, and so everyone had about equal airtime.

But not surprisingly, the women were getting interrupted disproportionately, much more so. And an interruption is a marker of low status. So, when someone interrupts you, they literally silence you. And so, when you are cut off from even speaking, you can’t have influence. And so, who gets to talk and who gets cut off is a subtle way that we communicate whose ideas are worth hearing and whose aren’t, whose do we respect. So, an interruption is a status, a marker of status.

So, they find the women are cut off, and that is not necessarily surprising, given what you know that gender affects status. But what might be surprising is when I tell you the group, and the group in question is the United States Supreme Court. So, they found, this was the court at the time when Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were three justices. Those were the three out of the nine. They were interrupted disproportionately more than their male colleagues.

And so, this idea of, “Do they all have power and equal power?” Yes. “Do some of them might have more status than others, in this case, coming from gender as a determinant of status?” Yes. And so, what we see is that even when people have a lot of power, if they do not have the status, that power doesn’t necessarily raise their status, and it doesn’t necessarily protect them from being treated in these lower-status ways.

And so, I always say, if the power of being a Supreme Court justice is not enough to guarantee that everybody would respect you and listen to what you have to say, then we can’t expect that any of us are going to have it. So, we’d like to think that power, being in charge of stuff, is going to make everyone respect us, but what you see in that study is it doesn’t, that direction doesn’t work. The other direction of, “I respect you and, therefore, I give you power,” we see a lot more evidence of that.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. But I guess a follow-up is, is it the fellow justices interrupting the female Supreme Court justices, or is it attorneys?

Alison Fragale
Both. Both.

Pete Mockaitis
I mean, I would be, “Whew!”

Alison Fragale
Yeah, it’s transcripts of these cases that appear before the Supreme Court. So, it’s both the justices and the people who appear before them. Yes, both.

Pete Mockaitis
I would not dream of interrupting a Supreme Court justice, male or female, which is maybe a whole other dynamic about personality in the mix there. So, yeah, I could chew on that one for a while. So then, point made, that there’s quite the distinction between power and status. And it’s interesting how much I really, really don’t like being interrupted.

And so I like that you’re pointing out that, okay, well, yeah, that’s really kind of like a fundamental human dimension is going on, as opposed to I’m just a cranky jerk. So, thank you for that. So then now unpack for us how having status results in great things unfolding for us from a data-driven perspective?

Alison Fragale
We see the status power link, which is, if I have status, so if we look at the groups, there’s been studies done in all kinds of work groups, groups in the military, civilian groups, and they measure at time one who are the really respected people in the group, and that’s a status measure.

And then at time two, they’re measuring who ends up, ultimately, getting the power at some point, like who gets to be the leader, who gets to be in charge. And in all those studies, what you see is that strong status power link, that the people who are the most respected at time one and time two end up being the people who get to be in charge. And I think, I really want to point this out, because not everybody necessarily wants a promotion, not everybody necessarily wants more money or more work. But, one, people do like autonomy over their lives and control, and that power and status are both resources.

Those resources do not just need to be used to benefit you. Those resources can be used to do all kinds of good things for the world. So, if I have power, I could use my power to hire the people who I think deserve to be hired but often get overlooked. I could use my power to elevate somebody in the organization who does great work but may not necessarily get the recognition. And so, power is a resource that we can do a lot of things with. So, that science goes that way.

And then the other piece is that if somehow you had managed to be one of the, you’d think, lucky few who didn’t navigate status very well, but managed to kind of get ahead in your career to the point where you were a person who had a lot of power, you were kind of a Supreme Court justice of your domain, you might think, “Oh, okay, well, I’ve made it, right? I’ve arrived,” but actually, and this is what I’ve spent a lot of my own research doing, we find things get worse for people.

And what we find is that when a person is in that situation, it’s a miserable existence.

Pete Mockaitis
It sounds like it.

Alison Fragale
Yeah. Well, you look at research on incivility, so that’s going to be the mistreatment that kind of goes below the radar. You’re not officially harassing somebody, but you’re doing something that makes them feel terrible. You roll your eyes, you cut them out of the information flow, you make some kind of snide comments about them, that kind of stuff. That stuff is disproportionately directed toward people who have power but don’t have status. And we see at work data that people, when they’re treated that way, they exit if they can.

So, I’m really struck by a lot that’s been reported lately about the exodus of senior women from organizations at greater rates than junior women. Because gender affects status, the idea of being a senior woman raises the idea that some of those people are in these low-status power holder positions. They control a lot of stuff and people don’t respect them.

And then we see they’re treated uncivilly and no one likes that, and so if they have an option, they eject, and we see people, senior women leaving at greater rates than they’re actually being promoted. So, it’s both the good things that can happen to you with it, and the bad things that could befall you without it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Understood. So, lay it on us, Allison, status, how do we get it at work?

Alison Fragale
Some of the things that affect our status are things that are outside of our control and some things that we just might inherit, if you will.

So, it could be gender, race, an accent, an ethnicity, a religion, all these kinds of things, and they don’t have any bearing on our competence or our caring, but people think they do. We give them meaning and, therefore, some people get more automatic respect than others just because of how they look or show they up. So that’s part of it, and that’s why, so some people getting status is actually a little more work, and I want to acknowledge that because status comes from these two places.

But the part that’s very positive is that a huge amount of our status is very controllable. It comes from how we show up when we interact with human beings. And the part that we can control has been shown to have a bigger impact on how respected we are than the parts we can’t control.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s good news.

Alison Fragale
Yes, it’s very good news, but what it means is that if we have some of these things that we can’t control that aren’t working for us, we want to be really sophisticated about controlling the controllables. So, here’s the deal. Status exists only in somebody else’s head. It’s their belief about you. So, what do we need to do to influence our status? We need to influence what they believe about us. Feels daunting, but psychology, this is what we study. We say, “Look, you can have a lot of effect on your audience.” It’s controlling the messaging that your audience gets.

So, everything that everyone in the world knows about you at this point in time has come from one of two communication channels. One is information you have put out in the world. Someone sat next to you on an airplane, they listen to your podcast, they know you from being your neighbor, whatever it is, they read about you online, social media, whatever. Those are things that you have originated, put them in the world and people see them.

So, one is we have to control that channel. And what I mean by that is making sure that we are putting information out there that says to individuals and the world at large, “I’m very capable and I’m very caring.” Sometimes that is being willing to self-promote to talk about positive things in a way that feels authentic and comfortable, and we can explore that piece of it. Sometimes it means not doing dumb stuff. So, there’s some stuff that we do that there’s a logic to it. We think, “This is going to be really good for my brand,” and it’s not.

So, one example would be hiding our successes. This is why self-promotion is effective. Hiding our success. Something good has happened to you. You’ve gotten an award, or you’ve hit a milestone on your podcast, or something like this, and you think, “I’m proud of that. That’s good. But I’m not going to go and tell people about that because I don’t want to be seen as a bragger. I want to be humble. And if I’m humble, you’ll like me more.” That’s how I convey the whole likable piece.

But if we’re chatting, and you have some good news and you don’t share it and then you leave, and I hear later, because the grapevine is efficient, that you didn’t tell me, is my first thought, “Oh, my God, Pete is so humble”? No. People think, “Why didn’t Pete tell me? Are we not that close? Or does Pete think I’m so petty I couldn’t be happy for him?”

And so, what happens is when we hide our successes, we actually do it because we think it’s going to get us at least the likable part, not the badass part, but it’s going to get us the likable part. But the research shows it isn’t actually true. It’s not what people infer when they hear that you had something good and you didn’t tell them. You actually end up being seen as capable when the news is released, but it damages the relationship.

So, a better strategy is, why is sharing our success actually a good thing for all that we’ve been told about telling our stories and self-promoting? It’s because you are seen as warmer when you are forthcoming with people and you’re seen as more capable because you’ve told them about the good things. So, that would be an example of starting to control your channel, to not do something that you think is helping your reputation or your brand, but the science shows that it’s not.

Pete Mockaitis
If being forthcoming is a desirable attribute, we probably also want to share sort of major happenings in general, otherwise we’re not forthcoming, whether maybe something sad has occurred in your life, and then they find out about that through the grapevine and they say, “Oh, I was just talking to him. How come he didn’t bring that up?” I guess that same phenomenon could occur there.

Alison Fragale
That’s right. So, again, self-disclosure, you want to be authentic about it and decide where you want to draw the line. Some forms of self-disclosure help build our status. Other forms might not. You might share something personal to build the rapport and the warmth. But then you might say, “I’m going to tell you some things I’m not really good at,” and that’s self-deprecation.

But that is a behavior that is not status-building. Because when we cut ourselves down, we’re basically saying, “I’m not as capable as you think I am,” and we are the experts on ourselves. So, when people cut themselves down, they are seen as less capable as a result, on whatever dimension they just deprecated. But we often do it because it’s socially cohesive.

Cutting yourself down is a form of humor, and many comedians, that’s they’re bread and butter, right? They make fun of themselves, and we laugh, and it is a form of humor. So, being funny is actually cohesive, it builds warmth, but humor at your own expense doesn’t. And so, I think it raises the idea of when I talk about controlling a channel of communication, the balance between being authentic and being strategic.

Because you might say, “I had a really bad day today and I really messed something up. And I didn’t do a good job and I got really bad feedback at work.” And the question is, like, “Do I share it? Do I cut it? Or do I keep it to myself?” And I think everybody gets to make their own decision about what they want to put out there and what they don’t.

But what I’ve had to coach myself on is a lot of the self-deprecating I was doing was done solely for the purpose of trying to be funny. I mean, I believed it to be true, but I was like, “Oh, this is my way of being funny.” Not fully appreciating that that form of humor wasn’t having the effect that I was hoping it would have, which is people would respect me more because of it. And so, now I’m more thoughtful that, if I’m seeking advice or support from somebody, and I say something has gone really wrong, I will tell them because I want their advice or their support in the moment.

But there might be other moments where my goal in the interaction is to show up in a way that’s going to get people to respect me, and I might say, “I’m going to tell a different truth, maybe something that is also equally true, but showcases my capabilities and my concern for others a little bit more.” So, controlling our channel is going to be a big one. And then thinking about easy ways that we can show up to other people and showcase how capable and caring we are.

And what I always tell people is, “Look for opportunities to solve other people’s problems using your unique skills and talents, things you are naturally good at, you really enjoy, and doesn’t take you very long to solve their problems. If you do that in life, and that’s all you do, you will build your status because as soon as you solve their problem, you’re capable, and you’ve spent your effort to solve something that matters to them, so you’re caring.”

But those things can sometimes be done in seconds. So, introducing two people, for example, is a form of solving somebody’s problem, “Hey, let me connect you with somebody who can do the thing that you’re looking for.” And I’m showing that my network is really valuable and it’s really robust, and I’m using my network for your benefit.

Taking something you like. I was very struck recently by a woman that I saw in an event, and she was the unofficial-official Instagram documentarian of this event, and she was taking videos and everything, but she said, “You know, I love being on Instagram, but I think a lot of my older senior colleagues don’t value this. They think it’s, like, personal and silly and it doesn’t really matter. And so, so how do I balance, like, that I really care about that with the fact that that they don’t?”

And I said, “You know, I would love someone who knew better than I did, to say, ‘Hey Allison, I know you’re on social. I have some ideas about how I could make your social more fun for you or more effective or better and, like, increase the impact of your messaging. Could I help?’” Well, all of a sudden, “Oh, sure.” Now it’s not just this silly thing you do. It’s you using your natural talent to help me.

And a lot of those things are fun for people and they’re easy.I always joke, you can buy someone’s coffee if you meet for coffee, but it’s a pretty forgettable act. It doesn’t showcase your capability. But if you make an intro or you give someone feedback on their Instagram, it’s not that much more effort than buying the coffee, but it’s allowing you to showcase yourself in a way that is more unique while still helping them.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so these fundamental principles make good sense. We can control the channel, make sure the good stuff gets out there and we don’t hold it back, as well as being helpful. We’re helping people, thus being warm, and we’re helping them using our unique skills, thus being capable at the same time. So, I think those are great things to get our radar up and being on the lookout for such opportunities. You mentioned introductions are great. Do you have any other super favorite things that anyone can do that are great?

Alison Fragale
A hundred percent. So, first, always have good answers to what I call throwaway questions. When people say to you, “What’s new? How is it going? How’s work?” A lot of times we just throw those questions away, “It’s fine. I’m busy. It’s good. How are you?” And at that moment, someone’s giving you a chance to tell your story. Now, do they want a 30-minute answer to that question? They do not.

But something that is better than “fine” or “busy” but gets them interested, like, “I had a great win at work today.” Something that sparks a little curiosity and gets them to actually pause and ask you a little bit about your story. That can be a really good one is, don’t throw those questions away.

The second one is to use the updating that you’re naturally doing as a course of your job to build your status. So, we often have to give people status updates. Use those kinds of things as storytelling opportunities. And one effective way to do that is, in psychology it’s called dual promotion, I call it brag and thank. Anytime you have an update, you’re going to talk about a success or a win that you’ve had, and you’re also going to talk about the great work of other people who helped that win be possible. I’m telling you something great about me and I’m also telling you something great about other people.

That turns out to be a really winning strategy because when we promote ourselves, we’re seen as more capable, and when we shine the spotlight on somebody else, we’re seen as more caring. So anytime we can put those two things together in a message, whether it’s an email, or stopping somebody in the hall, that’s going to be a really easy one for us to be able to do.

And then the other, I’m going to kind of go over into this second channel, because if you remember, I told you there were two channels of communication. One is us and the other is things other people have said about us. So, everything that’s known about Pete is things Pete has put out into the world or things that people have heard or known about you and they’ve repeated. And so, a lot of our status is not built by us. It’s built by other people talking about us in positive ways or they could tear our status down if they’re talking about us in negative ways.

But if someone else is talking about your status in a positive way, they’re doing a lot of your work for you, and they can brag about how capable you are all day long, and there’s no risk to you.

So, one simple thing is finding ways to meet more people. I always say people cannot sing your praises if they do not know you exist. And so, this whole idea that we’ve always been told to network and to meet more people, put yourself in situations to meet more people. There’s a million ways to do it and I’ll tell you the stories if you’re curious, but I’ll just start with this.

Some of the people who have been the most helpful in my career, I met them in airports, like strangers that you have a random conversation with, and next thing you know, within five minutes, something gets uncovered and you’re like, “Huh, okay, maybe we should stay in touch,” and you stay in touch and then the relationship forms.

The other one that I want to offer because it’s just the right way to be, and it’s also very valuable, is the easiest way for you to get someone else to go build your status for you is for you to build theirs first because human behavior is reciprocated. So, a simple daily practice that we can have, to be awesome at our job and build these relationships, is every time you observe someone and you think, “Wow, that was great,” whatever it was, tell somebody, put it out into the world, promote them, and say, “This person is amazing.”

It feels great to do it, but also because the grapevine is efficient, they will eventually find out that you were saying nice things about them, and human behavior is reciprocated. So, one of the easiest ways to build other promoters is for us to just cultivate a daily practice of promoting other people first. So, I have a rule and I always say, if I have a nice thought about somebody in my head, I do not let the thought die there. I put it out into the world somewhere. And that alone, as a simple practice, if that was all a person ever did, would garner them a lot of reciprocal other promotion in spades.

Pete Mockaitis
So, let’s say I have a nice thought like, “Oh, my buddy, Dave, is so funny.” I mean, I’m not sure where I would park that. I could just text Dave, say, “Hey, I really appreciate you. You’re funny.” Or, I mean, I could put a glowing message on a post on LinkedIn, he might be like, “Pete, what’s going on here, dude?” I don’t know. Where would I park that?

Alison Fragale
Yeah, so I think it depends on the context. One, sometimes I can just go back to the person to say, like, “I was thinking about this today, and it, you know, what your humor is just always like such a joy and cracked me up I was thinking about that.” So that could be appropriate. It doesn’t necessarily have to be, “I do it the moment I think of it.” Like, if I have a thought right now, I’m not going to hop off the podcast and go do something else, but I keep it there and I think about where it has an opportunity.

One of the things I often do is I’ll think about a mutually beneficial introduction that I could make, and when I make that introduction and I think, like, “Dave is hilarious. And what would advance Dave’s interests? And how would him being a funny guy actually be value-added to somebody else?” Even if it’s just two people who have a shared personal connection, I think they would really, really like to be friends.

So, I could introduce Dave to my other funny friend and that could be it, right? And so now, even if that intro goes nowhere, at least you’ve put to the other person in the world, “Hey, Dave is this funny guy.”

And I think when we do those kinds of things, a lot of them don’t go anywhere at the time. If it’s somebody you work with, then you have a lot of opportunities to think about this in terms of hallway conversation and things like that. The next time you’re in a meeting and let’s say you work with Dave, and Dave’s in the meeting, you could think about amplifying something Dave said, or to think about, “Dave is really good at doing X because Dave’s always the person who can put somebody else at ease. And so, I think we should be thinking about letting Dave lead this because he has great skills.”

So, it doesn’t have to be instantaneous. It could be just back to that person. But to think about, “If I think positively about this, who else would benefit from that person’s skills in a way?”

So, again, most people have a lot of positive thoughts about people and they aren’t using those positive thoughts to build that person’s status, and that’s an oversight that we should correct as much as we can.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s super. And when you talk about introductions, I’m also thinking about just when you happen to be at in-person events. I remember I was at a funeral banquet, and someone was just introducing me and others to each other, and it didn’t take long. It’s like, “Hey, this is Pete. He has a tremendous podcast which helps people do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He’s a thought leader, this and that.” I was like, “Oh, well, thank you.” It was like, “Oh, I like you more!”

Alison Fragale
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
And then vice versa, the person who introduced me, “This person has a tremendous Star Wars memorabilia collection.” It’s just kind of fun and interesting. I mean, I’m not super into Star Wars memorabilia, so I don’t necessarily think that that person with a Star Wars memorabilia is extra amazing. But I’m more interested, like, “Oh, wow, huh, a collector. Okay. How did you get into that?” And so, it just seems like everybody wins when we just give a little bit more positive, good detail about who is this person when we introduce each other.

Alison Fragale
Exactly right. You’ve got it. It doesn’t take much. And even with something like Star Wars memorabilia, you might say, “This is the person who knows more about the Star Wars, like, canon and all the memorabilia than any person I’ve ever met.” And so, you would at least then respect some capability. It’s not a capability you would need to have yourself, but you’re like, “Huh, someone had to probably dedicate some actual effort, right? And so, now I see them as a more capable person, even if their skillset is not what I need.”

And you’re right, that we can do that quickly, we can do it authentically, and we can do it in person, we can do it over email, and just thinking about those positive things that we can say when we have our moment can be a great start to being able to build other people’s status for us. And then to your point, you said, “Oh, I had that moment where I thought more positively of them.”

I just had an email when my one of my oldest kids went to a Sleepaway Camp. He got an injury. I was emailing with the camp director to make sure the injury wasn’t going to keep him from being able to participate in camp, and it wasn’t. But when the camp director wrote back, he basically said, “By the way, I just got to tell you, like, how much I have really loved getting to know your son this year. What a leader he is among his peers. What a huge asset he is to camp.” It’s like two sentences.

But I observed, I was like, “Oh, I really like this guy now.” And so, I thought if the email had come the next day saying, “Our camp needs money,” I guarantee you I would have written a check and probably a bigger check than I would have written without that email. And so, I thought, “Oh, he complimented my kid. Oh, okay.” That makes me think he’s really smart because everyone thinks our kids are brilliant and “Oh, how nice.”

So, when I have these moments, like you had at the funeral luncheon or whatever, I unpack them to think, “Why did I feel so positively?” And the same, if I feel negative towards someone, “I like you as I think you’re an idiot.” What did they do? Because I don’t want to unintentionally be doing that thing. So that’s the armchair psychology that we all have in us, is unpack it when you experience it, because everyone else, we’re all like everyone, everyone else is just like us. So, if we felt that way, other people will too.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’m curious, when we talk about doing self-promotion, what’s the right and the wrong way to do it? So, if someone says something like, “Oh, hey, how have you been?” It’s like, “Oh, I’m just absolutely crushing it. I’m going to have record-breaking income, maybe three or four mil this year.” It’s like, “Okay, good for you, dude, but this is kind of off-putting.”

So, I mean, one, based on your cultural context in the U.S. and some other places, sharing how much money you have, good or bad, is often kind of frowned upon and makes people uncomfortable. But in other cultural contexts, that’s sort of normative. How do we know some of the do’s and don’ts? We want to put the good stuff out there, but we don’t want to do it in an off-putting way.

Alison Fragale
So, look, this is where the art comes in of understanding your audience and thinking about what feels authentic for you. If it feels icky and you’re doing it as a strategy, I guarantee you it’s going to come across poorly. But if it feels natural, or it can start to feel more natural if you practice it a little bit, it’s better. First is, again, always think about, “Is there a way to do both? Say something good about myself and something good about another person.”

So, if I say, now the tone of voice, whatever that was, don’t do that thing again because that wasn’t going to work. But just the content of it, you know, the, “I’m on track to break three million, etc.” or, “I might have my best year ever, and I lead, as far as I can tell, the world’s best team. Like, this team is showing up in so many amazing ways, and I am just so excited about the success that I’m going to have and they’re going to have, and I don’t know how I got so fortunate.” Something like that where you can shine a spotlight on another person. That can be one way to do it.

The other is to say just a little bit and tease it and let someone else draw you out. Because if they’re asking you questions and you’re answering them, then it’s much more normative. Like, “How is this year compared to last year? Are you doing better?” And you say, “Yeah, I am doing better.” Then that doesn’t feel weird because you asked, but they have to make you curious about it. Like, “I just feel like things are really coming together at work in a great way that is making me really excited.” And you might be like, “Oh, well, what way?”

So, something that could pique a little bit of conversation, and then it’s not a dialogue. But another, you know, this is specific, but I’ll say the idea is to think about how to get that information out there under other purposes, like under the guise of other purposes. So, one example that I share with a lot of people is turning on your out-of-office message, which I’ve seen some people do really brilliantly, and it’s not a strategy I ever used, I still don’t use it as much or as brilliantly, but I’ve seen people, where whenever you’re out of the office, you turn on your message, “I’m gone. Please reach out to so-and-so. I’m back on this date.”

But other people have more flair in their out-of-office messages, and they communicate that the response will be delayed, but they say, “Here’s the exciting thing I’m doing.” Like, if you’re traveling to a conference, if you’re speaking at an event, if you’re, whatever it is, if you’re off talking to three clients, you can say, “Here’s what I’m doing,” and then add in some warmth, add in humor, add in some, “Here’s how I’m actually, like, the work that we’re doing is going to enable us to, like, grow in these markets is going to enable us to serve even more people who really rely on our product to be able to live their best lives,” or something like that.

And that’s an example of how you can start to use all your channels of communication. If you’re on social media, you can use your social media to talk about what you’re doing in a way that doesn’t feel as self-promoting as running around the office telling everybody, “Guess what I got to do?” or, “Here’s something,” you can just celebrate it.

Thinking about all those different ways to do it, but 100%, you have to know you and you have to know your audience because there’s not a script that’s going to say, “Oh, talk about it exactly in this way.” But the idea is if you don’t say anything about your capabilities, how will anyone ever actually know what they are?

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Well, before we hear about your favorite things, I want to quickly get your hot take on what about things like clothing, the fit of the clothes, the brands, or the up-dress, dress up, dress down-ness of them, and/or height, or vocal intonation, body language, posture, like these kinds of presentation things? How much of a status impact do they make?

Alison Fragale
They have a lot. They’re all channels. People are drawing conclusions from everything you put out into the world – your eye contact, your gestures, your tone of voice, your clothes, etc. Now, does that mean you can only speak in one way, that you should only gesture one way, you should only wear one outfit? Absolutely not. Authentic and strategic can coexist. But you should be aware, and this is one of the things I help people do, is understand all the different behaviors that are linked to status.

So, a common one is, “Why is it that the person who comes in the meeting and just yammers on about nothing all the time, always is considered so smart? It’s so annoying.” It is annoying. But it’s also from science, it’s true, that we associate quantity of communication, speed of responding, speed of speech as markers that somebody is more capable. And so, you don’t have to do those things, but you should understand the relationship.

And so, what I always say to people is, first is just do an audit of, “What signals am I putting out into the world?” And say, “Some of these signals are helping me show up as capable, some are helping me show up as caring, and some are actually doing neither, they’re taking me backwards.” Then the question is, “What do I do about these things, if any?”

I say you need to signal something in every as many interactions as possible that says, “I know what I’m doing,” and you need to signal something that says, “I care about other people.” But it doesn’t need to be all the signals, and you can have a couple that are counterproductive and still overcome them as long as you’re thinking about what else you would do to compensate.

So, I’m a really big apologizer. I say I’m sorry all the time for all kinds of things and just use the word. And I try to coach myself out of it. It was requiring way too much conscious effort and I was just getting annoyed, and every email was taking 36 minutes to write, because I’m like, “Oh, there’s an apology there. Oh, no, then what should I do with these exclamation points? They seem kind of, you know, not so strong either.” And like, then I got smiley faces. So, I said, “Forget it. And I’m going to do the apologizing. I don’t worry about it anymore.”

It’s a more submissive behavior, the opposite of assertiveness, but that’s okay because I have other things that signal capability. I happen to have some credentials that are good signals of credibility. I’m a professor, I have a PhD, things like this. And so, what I concluded was I have enough signals of assertiveness in the environments that I need to function, that I can have a couple of things that work against me that feel natural and authentic, and I can let them go.

So, that’s my general answer is. Those things do affect status. Yes, you should be aware of what the effects are. And then it’s for each individual to decide, “Do I want to change that or do I not?”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Alison Fragale
One that I will offer you here that relates to this is from Julia Child. “Never apologize for the food you serve. No one knows how it was supposed to turn out but you.”

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite book?

Alison Fragale
Deep Work by Cal Newport. I think his work really speaks to women and anybody else who is marginalized because we know that people who lack status are basically given the worst work. They’re given the non-promotable to do.

And so, I think the idea, the challenge of working deeply, and being able to work on things that matter, things that bring you joy, things that have high impact in the organization is harder for some people than others because they’re saddled with all the office housework. So, I really love Cal’s, all of his stuff, but Deep Work for that reason, because I think it has an important message for status, even though that’s not how he talks about it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that people really seem to resonate with and connect with, an Allison original gem of wisdom?

Alison Fragale
Strategic and authentic are not opposites, that you can and should be both.

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

Alison Fragale
My website is a good place, AlisonFragale.com. When you’re on it, I have a free newsletter that I put out on Substack. It’s called “The Upper Hand” and it is behavioral science directed toward helping women advance. But as we talked about today, none of the things that I talk about are ever really only applicable to women. I talk about behavioral science that is tools people can use. So, if people are curious, it’s free. It’s on Substack. I write as often as I can, and I love sharing those kinds of ideas with people.

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

Alison Fragale
Ten, 10, 10. All right. Meet 10 new people. Make 10 small deposits, which is going to be an easy little thing you can do to show up as capable and caring, so, like, an introduction or solve their problems, something you could do that’s easy. Ten people, 10 small deposits, and promote 10 people to other people. So that was that tell them to say the good things that you think, and/or ask 10 people to promote you. Ask them to go build your status. That’s a scarier one that we haven’t talked about yet, but it’s really, really effective.

If you say to somebody, “Hey, person B really respects you. Will you go talk to person B and introduce me, talk me up, etc.?” So, 10, 10, 10. Meet 10 people, show up as capable and caring 10 times, same people, different, doesn’t matter, and promote 10 people, ask 10 people to promote you.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Alison, thank you for your wisdom. You are a super ultra mega baller. See what I did there?

Alison Fragale
I did. I love it. I’ll take it. Hey, there’s another thing. One of my favorite studies in social psychology, self-serving interpretations of flattery. It’s why flattery always works, is because people think, “Done to another person that might be considered flattery but to me it’s just accurate.” So, self-serving interpretation, so you can flatter people all day long. They never get tired of it. I love it. You’re amazing.

Aug 15
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987: How to Ace Your Next Job Interview with Sam Owens

By | Podcasts | One Comment

Sam Owens breaks down his detailed process for confidently nailing job interviews–in 10 hours flat.

You’ll Learn

  1. The biggest mistake people make in job interviews 
  2. How to craft your “power” answers for every question 
  3. The top do’s and don’ts of salary negotiation 

About Sam

Sam Owens is the author of I HATE JOB INTERVIEWS and founder of Sam’s Career Talk where he provides career coaching services and helps people land their dream jobs and thrive in them. He is also a chief marketing officer who has worked for three multi-billion dollar companies in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry. He is currently Chief Marketing Officer at Freezing Point, the makers of Frazil slushies. He and his wife, Gina, have four children and live in Erie, Colorado.

Resources Mentioned

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Sam Owens Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Sam, welcome.

Sam Owens
Thanks for having me, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, tell us, in your career experience, what is perhaps the most pervasive misconception or mistake you see as people are doing job hunting, interviewing things?

Sam Owens
For job interviews, specifically, the most pervasive thing I see is that people somehow don’t see the need to practice their job interviews. They think, “Well, I either have it or I don’t,” or, “I’m either I’m a good conversationalist, so I’ll be fine,” or, “I’m not good at this stuff or whatever.” For whatever reason, they don’t think they need to practice, even though they’ll practice their golf swing two hours a day, or something like that, and that’s for just a hobby. They won’t practice job interviews, which is their livelihood for the next several years. So, that’s by far, the most pervasive thing I see is a failure to practice.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so let’s talk about that mindset in terms of, like, “I got it or I don’t.” I suppose folks might think, “Well, hey, my experiences are my experiences. I could tell you about a time I failed, or I worked on a team, or I achieved a cool thing, blah, blah, blah. I know that. I know those experiences. I feel ready to tell you about them.” So, what are they failing to practice, and how does that show up when the interviewer is observing it?

Sam Owens
Okay, so I have to tell you about a movie I love, and maybe you’ve seen it, “Hitch,” with Will Smith and Kevin James. Okay, so there’s that scene, right, where Will Smith says, “Hey, all right, now about your dancing.” And Kevin James says, “Don’t worry about that, I got this one. It’s fine.” And Will Smith is like, “No, I’m sorry, I have to be thorough here. I need to see you dance.” And then, of course, he turns on music, and Kevin James, turns out, is just doing the funniest, most horrible dancing ever and Will Smith winds up slapping him saying, “Don’t ever do that again.”

So, I think in job interviews, things sound a lot differently in our minds than when we actually spit them out. It’s one thing to understand, “Yeah, I have relevant experience,” it’s another thing to clearly articulate when someone asks you, “Tell me about a time when you had to manage a difficult co-worker.” To tell a compelling, cohesive, concise story that really hits the mark requires practice.

It’s not that you don’t have the experiences, it’s not that you can’t recall the experiences, it’s just that the ability to convey that in two to four minutes in a really compelling way requires practice. Why wouldn’t it? You know, it’s not an easy thing to do.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. So, we are the Kevin Jameses in that we assume, “I know dancing.” It’s like, “I know my experiences, so we’re fine.” And it’s like, “No, no, not quite.”

Sam Owens
Either we’re the Kevin Jameses who think, “I got this,” or, here’s another problem, is we are the people that think, “Well, I don’t know, I’m not even sure if I want this job. It might not be worth all the preparation. We’ll see,” and so we kind of self-sabotage in some ways too. And what happens there is you wind up actually wanting the job, and then you don’t get the job because you came off as wishy-washy in the interview.

So, I tell my clients, “Be wishy-washy after you have a job offer in writing in your hands. That’s a great time to be wishy-washy and to be flippant and whatever. Until you have that job offer, be all in, be prepared, be ready to go.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, that’s good. Well, maybe let’s zoom out a little bit. In your book, I Hate Job Interviews: Stop Stressing. Start Performing. Get the Job You Want, you lay out a whole process and some steps. Could you maybe zoom out for us and give us an overview of what are those steps?

Sam Owens
Yes, the whole book is based around a checklist that I use when I work with my clients to help them get jobs, and it starts with the preparation phase. And I recommend, and sometimes this gives people heartburn, I recommend 10 hours of preparation per interview. The first three hours is spent researching the company, talking to people familiar with the company, crafting what I call your power stories.

Then the next phase is formulating your answers, formulating, anticipating how you’re going to answer them. And then the final phase, I’d say about four hours, is practicing out loud, partially with yourself and then with someone else to be successful. So, the book really walks through what that preparation looks like, how to prepare more efficiently. And then it goes through a series of question types, not specific questions, but question types, like the introductory question or a behavioral question or a case question.

It talks about how you can take your power stories and craft them so that you can answer all of these question types so that, by the time you get to the interview, you’re really ready for anything someone can throw at you. Nothing will throw you off and you feel fully prepared. So, that’s kind of the basis of the book.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, and so then I’m curious, I mean, the name of the book is “I hate interviews,” I Hate Job Interviews, so we’re going to talk mostly about job interviews. But before we do, I got to ask, any top tips for getting the interview in the first place?

Sam Owens
Sure. One of the pieces of advice in this book, a chapter I focus on is called “Getting Inside Information.” It’s a little bit different from what you’d expect, but as part of a job interview preparation, I actually start out by telling the story of a Wall Street inside trader who was in prison. His name is Ivan Boesky. He’s one of the first big insider trader scandals. I tell the readers to be a little bit more like him, which is a little strange.

Pete Mockaitis
A role model for us all.

Sam Owens
That’s right. He’s a good role model. And I say that because inside information, getting inside information is illegal and bad in the financial world. But, actually, it’s legal, ethical, and oftentimes encouraged, if you do it right, in the job interview world. So, as part of someone’s preparation, the first thing that someone’s going to want to do is a lot of times open their laptop and read about the company or get on their phone and read about it.

That’s okay to do a little bit, but what they really should do is put away the phone, put down the laptop, and start talking to people, anyone who is familiar with the company, someone that works with the company, and just asking for a 15-minute informational interview, “Hey, I’m applying to this company. Just want to pick your brain a little bit and have an informational interview.”

And the beauty of an informational interview is it will give you the opportunity, number one, to get inside information. I’ve gotten amazing information by calling people and saying, “Hey, I’m interviewing with your company, and just wondering if you could tell me a little bit about the company.” And then just sitting back and listening. Oh, wow, I didn’t hear just about the company. I heard about here’s who you’re interviewing with. I didn’t ask, but here are some things I would think about. And it was invaluable to me in preparing for those interviews.

So, the same principle applies when you’re trying to get an interview. If you’re interested in, let’s say, Microsoft, the first thing I would do is get on LinkedIn and try to find anyone who knows anybody that has anything to do with that company, and start calling people, picking their brains, asking them, “Hey, who else should I talk to?”

Assuming those interviews go well, you can say, “Hey, I’ve already applied to this job. What do you think? Would you be willing to pass along my resume? If you would, it would be such a huge benefit to me and I’d really appreciate it.” And so, by talking to people and by running in those circles, you’re going to get a much higher interview hit rate than if you are just trying to hit keyword, buzzwords, whatever on Monster.com or on the company website. You really need to talk to people familiar with the company.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. Okay. Well, so what I like in your book, your first step associated with doing well in these interviews is to start by convincing our harshest critic, which is often ourselves. So, how do we do that?

Sam Owens
That’s right. People say, “How do I become confident in an interview?” And it comes down to convincing ourselves that we really are. We really have to know deep in our bones that we are a great candidate for this job. And this kind of starts with dispelling some of the myths we’ve talked about already, like, “Oh, I don’t know if I…” some bad, I call it mental trash. Take out your mental trash.

Some of these things that we think, “Oh, if I don’t get the job, it’s because I wasn’t qualified.” Well, that’s not true. You got the interview already. You are qualified. You just didn’t interview as well as someone else did. So, that’s one thing to dispel. “Oh, job interviewing is only for extroverts. I’m an introvert, so I’m just not going to do well.” Well, that’s not true. Job interviewing is for those who prepare.

So, there’s all these kinds of negative thoughts that are not helpful that can kind of surface as we’re preparing, got to get rid of those first. And the next piece is, that 10 hours of preparation. If you are prepared, confidence will come through preparation.

Some people are naturally confident without preparation, and that winds up coming off as arrogance in an interview. That’s kind of a disaster, you know, being confident without being prepared. And so, preparation is the key, whether you’re overconfident, whether you’re not confident enough, to make sure you have the right level of confidence when you walk into the interview.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, let’s really get into it then. Okay, I got the call, “Hooray! I have an interview coming up.” I got 10 hours on my schedule to do what Sam’s telling me to do. First step, what am I doing at hour one?

Sam Owens
Hour one is you’re going to be doing informational interviews and/or researching the company. So, this is basic research, understanding, reading the job description. The job description is your instruction manual, and many people don’t go deep into it. So, for example, in the job description you can easily detect, okay, what skills they are looking for. It could be strategic thinking. It could be analytical ability.

So, you’re spending that hour, I should say the first hour, you’re really spending it studying the job description, studying the company and writing down what skills they are looking for because, later in the preparation process, you’re going to be translating those skills into responses. You’re going to be anticipating question types in writing stories that demonstrate how you have mastered those skills. So that’s hour one, a little bit of reading.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And what’s in hour two?

Sam Owens
After you’ve done this, now it’s time to have some informational interviews, which means you get on LinkedIn, or you talk to your brother-in-law, or you do whatever you need to do to speak with people who are familiar with the company. You give them a call, you ask for 15 minutes, you’re very grateful, you’re very gracious, but you ask them questions about the company, and mostly you sit back and you listen.

That is another input for you that you’re writing down to help you craft and hone and frame the stories to make sure the stories you tell are on point with the skills that they’re looking for. So, that’s kind of your first, I’d say, three hours. That reading points, probably about an hour and then these informational interviews, you’re probably going to want to spend about two hours doing that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Sam Owens
Feeling good so far?

Pete Mockaitis
Yup. I might ask, any pro-tips when you make the request, things to say, things not to say when you’re asking for these gracious 15-minute favors of time?

Sam Owens
You want to establish any sort of personal connection. So, it’s one thing to go on LinkedIn and to say, “Hey, Steve, Sarah said it’d be okay that we talked. Wondering if we could set something up.” It’s another thing to say, “Steve, you and I have two things in common. First, we’re huge Texas fans. I lived there from 1999 to 2005, and I see you work there today. How’s Dallas? It’s awesome. Second, we share a common friend, Sarah, she’s amazing. She mentioned you might be willing to talk to me, I’d be so grateful to do it.”

So, anything you can do to establish a personal connection with the person who you’re reaching out to is going to increase your hit rate and response rate dramatically.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, we’ve had these conversations, we’ve got some inside information. I’m wondering, are there any super awesome questions that give us a lot of valuable insights that you recommend are among the top things you want to ask during our 15-minute windows?

Sam Owens
I think the more information you can give them about your situation, the more they’ll know how to help you. So, “Hey, I’m applying for a job in marketing. I’ve already applied. I have an interview coming up. I’m just wondering, as I prepare, what the great marketing candidates look like. What are they like? Do you have any advice for me in the job interview process? Can you tell me a little bit about the culture at your company?”

And what I found is you don’t have to ask too many questions because once they know that you’re a candidate, that you’re interested, they’re going to say, “Okay, I got it. Let me help you just understand what you’re looking at here. Here’s my perspective.” So, I found that many times in a 15-minute conversation, number one, it usually turns into 30 minutes.

And, number two, I’d probably do 20% of the talking, and the person telling me and helping me is doing the rest of the talking, and that’s exactly how you want it to be. It’s a beautiful thing when that happens. So, I think some starter questions like that work really well, but I think just being able to listen attentively, maybe ask a couple follow-up questions, be engaged in the conversation is going to help a lot.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, we’ve had these conversations, we’ve gotten the good inside info, now what?

Sam Owens
Now it’s time to craft your power stories. And the reason I say you craft your stories is that you could be asked thousands of different interview job questions, and there’s no way that you can anticipate all of these questions. There’s just no way. You don’t have the time or the ability to anticipate how many questions that you’ll be asked.

However, there are only a handful of question types that you’ll be asked, and only a handful of skills that they are trying to assess. So, you want to craft power stories. If you see that they want to assess a skill in analytical ability, for example, you’ll think back in your experiences, and you’ll say, “Oh, I remember that time I had to build that inventory model for work. What was that like? What was I asked to do? And why did I do such an amazing job?”

And so, those are the types of things you want to say, “All right, I got five skills that I know they’re going to assess. So, I’m going to have two stories associated with each of those skills, and those are going to be my foundation.” Once I have that foundation, now I can start to look at all the different question types I’ll be asked, scenario questions, introductory, behavioral questions, questions about me, and I’ll be able to kind of use that as a foundation to start crafting those answers.

So that’s the next step. You want to get, you want to start to craft those power stories, and then start to anticipate, “Okay, here’s how I’d answer a behavioral question with this story. Here’s how I’d answer a you,” I call a you question, but a question about you with this story, when someone says, “What’s your leadership style?” or whatever.

And once you have that foundation, you’re going to be a lot more confident as you’re answering questions because then you can think like a politician, and anytime someone asks you a question type, you can kind of say, “All right, I got a story for that and I’m going to tell them kind of what I want to tell them a little bit,” and position my power story just a little bit to fit that question type.

Pete Mockaitis
Sam, I love this that I’ve done this, and it’s so funny, it almost feels like cheating. But I’ll tell you though, in practice, because the range of interview questions is somewhat narrow, it doesn’t look nearly as off-putting as when politicians do it. It’s like, “We weren’t talking about climate change or the border or the economy. Where is this coming from, right? Here it is.”

If we are worried that the interviewer will say, “No, no, no. That’s not what I asked. How dare you try to hijack my interview with your stuff?” Tell me, does that ever happen? And should we fear this? And why or why not?

Sam Owens
No, thinking like a politician is a provocative thought, but, really, you’re right, it’s a narrow scope. What I mean is, if someone asks you, “Can you tell me about a time when you demonstrated leadership?” Or if someone asks you, “Tell me about how you get along with others,” there’s a good chance you can use the same story for both of those questions, right?

And so, what we’re saying is you want your best stuff. You want to prepare your hits, right? If you’re going to go see a concert, you’re going to go see U2 play a concert, you don’t want the new album. You want the hits. So, it’s like your power stories are your best stuff. And then, when they ask you, “Tell me how smart are you?” or “Tell me about times you manage a complicated project?” or “How do you think you are as a leader?” there’s a good chance, actually, you could take your best story and position it appropriately to fit the question that you’re asked.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And just to make sure we’re on the same page, my greatest hits, I assume that means a smashing victory in which I exceeded expectations, created a big result, delighted my boss or clients or colleagues. This is what makes a hit a hit. Is that fair to say?

Sam Owens
That’s what a hit is. It’s like a Disney movie or any sort of movie. There’s a hero who is put into a kind of a difficult situation, spends most of the movie doing amazing things to solve the problem, and then in the end, everything works out amazingly well. That’s kind of the narrative that you weave in pretty much all of these stories.

Pete Mockaitis
I love it. I like you make it really simple. So, there we have identified the intersection then with what is within our real, genuine, legitimate experience, “Hey, I really did do that, and it really was awesome,” aligned with the skills they’re after, aligned with the kinds of question types they’re going to likely put our way. So, that’s when I’ve got things, the stars are aligning. Could you maybe give us some particulars as to what the story sounds like, how long should it be, maybe a demo?

Sam Owens
Sure. Let’s take a behavioral-based question, which is the bulk of many interviews, and this is the type of question where they ask you “Tell me about a time when…” They’re looking for a specific time, not generality. So, if they say, “Tell me about a time when you demonstrated leadership,” a weak answer would be, “Well, I think leadership is really important, and I’ve gotten really good feedback that I’m a good leader, and I have an open-door policy.” That’s not what they’re asking. They’re asking for a specific time.

And the reason they do that is because they believe that if you demonstrate, specifically, that you’ve done a skill in the past, you’re highly likely to demonstrate that same skill in the future. And so, the way you think about this is, you may have heard this model, the SPAR model, STAR model. I call it the SPAR model, Situation, Problem, Action, Result.

You give probably 10% of the answer to just describe the situation. So, let’s see, “Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult co-worker.” Okay. You know, the situation setup might sound something like, “Two years ago, I was working for a food manufacturing firm, and I was assigned as a new person on a critical marketing project. This project was going to be the biggest campaign we had, and there was a team of 10 of us that were really going to try to grow sales for this new cereal that we were launching.”

Okay, great. So that’s your setup. Doesn’t have to be very long. It’s kind of like I say with this answer set up. It’s kind of like think about hot dogs. No one wants the back story of how it’s made. Everyone just wants to get to the meat, so think about it like a hot dog, quick setup. Now you have a problem. So, you introduce a problem, and you don’t want to make this boring. You want to make this kind of like a movie, like I said, a little tense, maybe a little drama, so that they actually want to listen to you.

So, now you say, “And the most senior person on the team didn’t like that I was put on the team because he felt like I was too junior, and so he started excluding me from meetings, and he started making comments, somewhat inappropriate comments in meetings, and this became a real challenge. And I realized if I was going to be successful, I needed to build a successful relationship with this coworker.” So, there’s your problem. So, I just did a quick situation-problem. That’s like 20%, 30% of your answer. Now the bulk of your answer.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, if I may, I’m loving this so much because I’ve heard STAR. I’ve heard SPAR fewer times, but you’re right. To talk about the problem sets up a conflict like a movie that’s engaging a story I need to hear resolved, I’m engaged. As opposed to a task is less juicy, enriching to our human nature and desire to have story.

Sam Owens
That’s right. Exactly. Your goal is to not have the interviewer tune out when you’re telling the story. So, creating a little drama always helps. So now you get to the actions where you spend the bulk, 70% of your answer. I like to do this sequentially because I think it helps keep things organized. So, talking, I say the rule of threes, one, two, three, “Okay, so here’s what I first did to manage and to kind of build this relationship. I took him to lunch, first thing, and got to know him personally so that we could establish a personal connection.”

“And in doing that, I learned a lot about him, about his family, about his background, his experience. I almost kind of looked at it and approached it like he could be my mentor. And he liked that. I think that was helpful to build our relationship because he did. I found he did have a lot of valuable experience that I can learn from.”

“The second thing I did was made a commitment to him, to talk to him and report every week on the progress that I had made on the project, because he was kind of the self-described leader of the project, and so I was more than happy to report on all the work I had done and let him give input, to kind of have this be more like a mentoring relationship. And in doing that, he really wound up engaging with me and gave me pointers. The first couple weeks were a little challenging because he was somewhat critical of my work but, eventually, he really started to come around.”

“And then the third thing I did was, after my final presentation of the work I did, I showed him and asked for his feedback on this, which really created this collaborative environment.” So, that’s the action, and you can insert other things in there, but that’s the idea. You are kind of sequentially walking through specific things that you did to solve the problem.

And then, finally, you get to the result, where I say, “And as a result of that, he actually became my biggest advocate. And when we presented this project to the executive team, he called me out specifically for the work that I had done uniquely on this project. And so, that was an example to me of really striving to build a personal relationship, leveraging someone as a mentor, and being more transparent with my work to foster that kind of collaborative relationship.”

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful.

Sam Owens
Thank you. That’s how I’d think about answering those types of questions with a story like that, a behavioral question.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, we’ve identified some great power stories, we structured them with a SPAR approach, and now we just rehearse saying them out loud?

Sam Owens
That’s right. Now it’s time to practice. Now, there’s other questions that you can practice. So, you have these power stories, but there’s also other ways that these questions can be asked that you need to modify. So, for example, there’s a category of questions I call “you questions” where someone says “What kind of leader are you?” That’s a little bit of a different type of question, and it would be strange if you immediately launched into a SPAR story if someone asked that.

But one of models I use there is SEE, statement, explanation, example. So, when someone says, “What kind of leader are you?” you can say, “I think I could describe my leadership style as results-oriented and high accountability.” So, that’s your brief statement. Then you explain a little bit what you mean, “What I mean by that is I’ve been known to really collaborate and make sure I get input from all my team members, and make sure that I have that relationship to where I can hold them accountable.”

Now you go to the example, you could say, “For example,” and then that example could be a real truncated version of the story I just told, or another story that says, “For example, in my last role, I really had to take a leadership position with this coworker, and here’s what I did,” and it’s a shorter version, but you’re still weaving that in. And so, I think being able to, yes, the answer is yes, you got to practice, but you got to be ready with the different models that I lay out depending on the question type you’re asked.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And then when we practice, any pro tips, do it with friends, do it with a video camera on your phone? Or how do we think about practicing optimally?

Sam Owens
My last job interview that I had, I practiced for a couple hours on my commute back and forth with the job I had at the time. I just practiced out loud.

Pete Mockaitis
Alone in the car is great.

Sam Owens
Which can be very valuable. Yeah, I like doing that. And then practice either with a coach. Coach is ideal, but if you don’t want to pay the money or if you don’t know any coaches, then just practice with a friend or someone who you think would be the best that will at least give you genuine and honest feedback. And when you practice, my pro tip is to simulate the actual experience.

Don’t stop in the middle, ask to start over, don’t say, “Oh, how is that?” Time it, do a 45-minute interview, and then afterwards, ask for all the feedback, because that gives you a sense of, “Okay, here’s how much endurance I’m going to have to have.” It’s going to force you to try to get yourself out of sticky situations that you might put yourself into.

Simulating the real deal is going to give you an opportunity, if I can just be totally blunt, to say, make some really dumb mistakes and say stupid things, and then realize, “Ooh, that was painful.” Like, only then do you realize, “That was painful. I don’t want to experience that pain again, so I’m going to fix that problem.” So, that’s what the practice does for you, is it allows you to say stupid things, or say things in the wrong way and then fix them for the real thing.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And then on the day of, we’ve done our 10 hours, any pro tips for the day of? Breakfast, caffeine, showing up early, dress, anything we should think about on this day?

Sam Owens
Yeah, nothing crazy. Look, well, dress is a funny one because “How should I dress for an interview?” I have a rule of thumb, which is “Dress not to impress.” What I mean by that is don’t make dress the subject. You don’t want any interviewer to make a yes or no decision based on the way you were dressed.

So, what that means is, if you show up in a tux to a really casual place, it’s going to be like, “Hmm, that was weird. Yeah, I mean, he did a good interview. She did a nice interview, but it was just…let me tell you what this person wore.” At the same time, you don’t want to show up with sweat shorts at the place.

So, the best way to dress is to call the HR person, ask what the daily dress code is, and then just dress a little nicer than that, “Hey, we’re business casual” “Okay, good. I’ll wear slacks and a button-up. Or maybe I’ll wear a tie, I don’t know.” But a little bit nicer just so that it’s not even an issue, it’s not a focus. If I’m going to get rejected from a job, it better be because I’m not qualified, not because I dress the wrong way. That’s an easy one to get right.

The day of, yeah, caffeine, whatever you need to do, I would just say do not be late to the interview, and respect the person’s time at the end. When they ask you, “What questions do you have for me?” and you got two minutes, just do a time check for them. Maybe they have more time, but if they don’t, just respect that time. So, those are probably some basic nuts and bolts on the day of.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, there we got it. Now, Sam, let’s say we do get the offer. Woo-hoo! Any top tips for negotiation or how we work that?

Sam Owens
The best time to negotiate your compensation is when you have an offer in writing. So, if they ask you what your salary requirements are in the interview, just know that you are not in the leveraged position when they ask you that. You’re in the leveraged position after you know that they want to give you an offer.

So, that poses an interesting question, “Well, what do I say?” Well, you have different options. You can punt and say, “Hey, I’ve just been really focused on whether or not this is a fit. I’m sure we’ll be able to work out the salary piece later.” Or, you could say, “Well, based on my research, I believe the salary range is between this and this.” But you really don’t have the opportunity to really play hardball until you have an offer in writing. So, that’s rule number one.

Rule number two. Any agreements, promises, or statements not in writing should not be taken seriously. So, I remember I had a job where I wanted, I was asking about, “What does my future promotion look like?” And the recruiting manager made me all sorts of promises, which immediately, after I took the job, were forgotten and didn’t matter. I don’t blame that person. I blame myself. I mean, really, if there’s no commitments in writing, they shouldn’t be taken seriously.

Okay, number three. It’s best to be paid what you are worth, not a lot more or a lot less. If you’re paid a lot more than your worth, eventually that catches up to you. If you’re paid a lot less, you’re not happy with that, and that eventually catches up to the employer. Number four. Compensation is about salary and so much more than salary. So, sometimes they won’t budge on salary but there’s all sorts of other stuff that you could talk about: bonus, benefits, vacation, all that stuff. So, think holistically when you think about the negotiation process.

Number five. Companies are much more willing to negotiate if they believe you will accept the offer. So, you don’t do yourself any favors when you say, “I don’t know. What are you willing to do for me?” It’s much better to go in good faith and say, “Hey, I actually want this. I’m excited about it. Here are some things that will help me make this work.” six. Don’t underestimate the power of likability. Interviewing firm but kindly is to your advantage.

Number seven. You likely won’t burn bridges by negotiating hard. Sometimes they want you to think, or you think, “Oh, man, if I negotiate too hard, then maybe when I start, they’re going to be mad at me or something.” Never the case. Once, it’s all done, it’s water under the bridge and you can start with a clean slate.

Number eight. Knowledge is power. Do your research, talk to people, try to understand what the salary ranges are. Number ten. Your current salary can be helpful in negotiating or it can be a liability. It’s up to you. Now, in my career, I’m happy with my salary. Someone calls me, “What are you looking to make?” I say, “Well, here’s what I’m making today. If you want me to move, I need to make at least 10% more than that.”

If you’re starting out and you’re not thrilled about your salary, and this job has a lot more, then you don’t need to bring it up, and you use the other negotiation tactics. So, that was a lot I just threw at you but that’s my 10 laws of negotiating tactics.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s handy. I like the part about negotiating hard in terms of just to remember to negotiate, period. I think in the United States, we’re not as accustomed to like, “Oh, this is the price. Okay.” It’s like, “Oh, this is the offer. Okay.” I had a guest who said that they are just able to automatically give up to 10% more anytime anybody bothers to ask, just straight up as policy. It’s like, “Wow, that’s easy. Remember to ask.”

Sam Owens
Yeah, I think so. It’s pretty rare that an employer is like, “Nope, don’t even ask. This is it.” Everything is kind of negotiable, right? And even if you don’t get what you want, at least you know that you didn’t leave anything on the table that you could have had. There’s a peace of mind that comes with that as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, I have seen environments where it’s like, “Okay, look, this is standardized across hundreds of people making the same. As an associate consultant position in North America at this firm at this year, this is the package for everybody, and it just is.” It’s like, “Okay, that’s a pretty good answer. I’m glad I asked, and now I know.”

Sam Owens
Yeah, that is a good answer. Yeah, now you know, and it’s helpful when you know, because you think, “Okay, good. Now I feel…” because sometimes it’s about the money and sometimes it’s just about the perception of fairness. And so, at least you know, that when I’m sitting at lunch with the people that were hired with me, we all got the same deal. There were no exceptions, and so I’m okay with that. I can live with that.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Well, Sam, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about your favorite things?

Sam Owens
All right, the only thing I really want to tell people out there, because I’ve been working with people who are job seeking for a long time, is if you’re struggling right now, I just want you to know, you will find a job. It may not be on the timeline you’re looking for, and it may not be the exact job you thought you’d get, but it is going to work out. You are going to be employed again.

And I just think that’s an important thing to tell people out there, because of the people that I’ve seen, observed, who haven’t had jobs, 100% of them land on their feet, and it’s going to be like that for you too, whoever’s listening or needs to hear that. I really do believe that, I know that, and I’d just say keep your head up, keep your chin up, and keep moving forward. It’s going to work out for you.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Sam Owens
Winston Churchill at the brink of World War II, “Never, never, never give in.” 

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

Sam Owens
I like the Marshmallow experiment. I think that’s an interesting one.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Sam Owens
Well, I’ll tell you a book that I really enjoyed reading lately, Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

Sam Owens
So, my favorite habit, my recommended habit for longevity in your career and in life is daily exercise.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And is there a Sam-original nugget of wisdom that people quote back to you often?

Sam Owens
Something that they probably quote most, they quote back to me is me saying back to them, “Why don’t you be indecisive after you have an offer? Until now, be all in.” So, I think that’s probably the nugget of wisdom when it comes to job interviewing is be all in.

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

Sam Owens
Connect on LinkedIn. So, I’m on LinkedIn, been there for a long time. Or you go to my website, SamsCareerTalk.com. There’s actually free materials on there. If you sign up for my email, you get some free job interview guides and stuff like that, and even maybe, I’d have to check with my email guy, but you might even get some free e-Course still, e-Course videos and stuff like that if you go on it. So, my LinkedIn profile or SamsCareerTalk.com.

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

Sam Owens
Practice, people. This is a learned skill. This hour, this next hour, and this will be my foray into being Tony Robbins or a motivational person or something like that.

The next hour that you do a job interview may be the most important hour of your career, not because it’s where you’re going to do your best work, but it’s because that may be the hour that makes all other hours possible in your career. So, don’t take it for granted. Don’t take it lightly. Put in the work. It’s worth it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Sam, thank you. This has been fun. I wish you much luck with interviews on both sides of that desk.

Sam Owens
Thanks, Pete. Appreciate it.

Aug 12
0

986: The New Rules for Achieving in the Modern World with Asheesh Advani

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Asheesh Advani discusses why the old rules of leadership no longer apply—and what to do differently today.

You’ll Learn

  1. Why our idea of achievement needs a rework 
  2. Why to befriend both older and younger people 
  3. An under-utilized tactic for dramatically accelerating your career learning 

About Asheesh

Asheesh Advani is the CEO of JA (Junior Achievement) Worldwide, one of the largest NGOs in the world dedicated to preparing youth for employment and entrepreneurship. During his leadership tenure, JA Worldwide has been selected annually as one of the top 10 social good organizations in the world and been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Advani is also an accomplished entrepreneur, having led two venture-backed businesses from start-up to acquisition. He is an in-demand speaker and regular contributor at major conferences, having served as a panelist or moderator at the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, the Young Presidents Organization, and Fortune 500 corporate gatherings.

Resources Mentioned

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  • Jenni Kayne. Use the code AWESOME15 to get 15% off your order!

Asheesh Advani Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Asheesh, welcome.

Asheesh Advani
It’s great to be on the show.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to hear about your wisdom. Can you kick us off by sharing a particularly surprising or fascinating or counterintuitive bit you discovered while putting together your book, Modern Achievement?

Asheesh Advani
So, I’ve been at this, trying to make this a high-quality, very readable book for several months now, and I really thought I was writing it for a younger audience, aspiring leaders, people in their 20s and early 30s who are at the beginning of their career.

What I’ve learned, now that people have started to read the book, is when you write a book for a certain audience and another audience reads it, they actually find it less threatening or direct. So, like lessons that you read written for somebody else, you’re actually more likely to take them in. That was very counterintuitive. People who are like 50 and 60, and people who are even high school kids are coming up to me and said, “Oh, my God, I love this lesson” even though it was written for somebody who’s from a different age group, and that’s very counterintuitive.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that is fascinating. And you know what, I’ve lived that with my, I’ve got young kids, six, five, and one, and when we’re watching a show like, I don’t know, “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” or “Bluey” or something, it’s like, “This lesson isn’t for me, it’s for the kids, and yet that’s really pretty good.” It happens over and over again.

Asheesh Advani
And I’ll tell you, I’ve got twin boys who just graduated high school and just started university, and one of my motivations for writing this book, which is all about life lessons for aspiring leaders, is they don’t listen to me at all. My kids do not listen to me. So, I figured this is a way for me to convey all the things I want them to know, and they can read it at a time that makes sense for them, not make sense for me. And you are a parent too so I think you know what I’m talking about.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, so tell us, what’s sort of the big idea or core of thesis in your book, Modern Achievement?

Asheesh Advani
Well, most achievement books, historically, have been just written for a different age and different time. A young person graduating from high school or university today is, on average, going to have 20 different jobs at least, and potentially as many as seven different careers over the course of their working lives. That amount of change means the idea of achievement is also different.

So, most achievement books are written where you set a long-term goal, you write it down, you visualize it, and the universe helps it happen because you’ve been clear about it. But if you’re going to have that many jobs and that many different careers, the idea of achievement has to be not just about long-term goal attainment, but also about the process and the journey to achievement.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, could you give us an example of someone who’s perhaps made the switch or picked up this philosophy that’s more modern to their enrichment?

Asheesh Advani
Well, I think most young people are already starting to think this way. You know, one of the lessons in the book, for example, one of my favorites, actually, is make friends who are five to ten years older than you, and most young people tend to hang out with their peers who are their same age. So, you’ve got to be somewhat intentional.

If many of your career transitions are going to involve sort of networking, you have to be much more intentional about building these networks of people who will be one step ahead of you in your career, who can either promote you or help you, advise you, be mentors and role models, and that’s just an example of something which, at least, I’ve seen, there are young people already doing, and we share some of the stories because Junior Achievement, I don’t know if you know too much about JA but…

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I volunteered back in the day at Bain, and I just gave someone like the World of Work, or World at Work chart to help them think through career stuff, so I’m a fan. I’m on board.

Asheesh Advani
Oh, my God. You’re a fan. I love it. I love it. I didn’t know that when we agreed to do this. That’s awesome. So, yeah, so Junior Achievement has been around for over 100 years now, it’s an amazing organization. I’ve been in my role as CEO of JA Worldwide now for about nine years, and I’ve seen us become more global, really spread this way of thinking, being optimistic and being intentional about your career development to parts of the world where young people are hungry for this, really hungry for this knowledge.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, understood. And that point about high-achieving folks hanging out with folks who are older than them is really resonating. I was just chatting yesterday with my buddy, Justin, who’s fantastic, and he is in our men’s group, and he is the youngest and all of us are five to ten, maybe a little more, years older than him. And yet, it is totally working for him because, sure enough, he is finding himself in career situations where he is widely recognized as a high performer. He’s doing great.

And part of that is he is just internalizing the wisdom and pro tips of people working in their jobs who have been working there longer, and they just share all the little tidbits they’ve learned and how they think about things, and he’s just getting those quicker and faster than others who are only hanging out with people their age.

Asheesh Advani
Well, when I wrote that lesson in the book, and I should mention the book is co-authored with Marshall Goldsmith, so we really collaborated on this, and Marshall is a celebrated leadership thinker and knows much more than me. He came back and said, “Asheesh, it’s not just about young people having these role models and friends that they can learn from, but it’s also people older looking sort of back and saying, ‘Other people five to ten years younger than me, who can help me with my next phase,’” because people are just living longer and having longer working lives. So, we adapted the life lesson to actually be both five to ten years older and five to ten years younger. And I’m not sure if you felt that you’ve learned from your friend, Justin, you said his name is?

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely, I sure have.

Asheesh Advani
So, I think it really works. It works both ways. It really does.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s good. Well, so then, I’m curious, you had a little tidbit in your book copy, “Classic books on achievement, like those by Napoleon Hill, Brian Tracy, and Stephen Covey, were written for a much different world. Today’s young leaders need a fresh approach for achieving success in their lives and careers.”

And so, I hear you in terms of we’ve got a different environment associated with, hey, more job switches, etc. I’m curious, if you think anything, let’s just pick on Stephen Covey, shall we? I’m curious if there’s any particular messages from Stephen Covey, like maybe there’s one of them seven habits that needs to be revamped or thought about differently in our environment today?

Asheesh Advani

Well, to be honest, I don’t remember all of the seven habits from Stephen Covey and which one I would adapt or change. I will say that in Napoleon Hill, particularly, at that moment in time, there was clearly the beginning of this idea of a job for life, right? The idea of the college you get into and the first job that you have will determine your path.

And, certainly, when I went to university, now well over 20 years ago, it really did feel that way. Like, everybody wanted that job in investment banking or consulting, which would give them a career path, which would then lead to the next good thing, which led to the next good thing, and getting into that one college got you the job in investment banking or consulting or law or medicine or whatever you were going to do.

And the reality is, today, that is just no longer the case. So, I don’t know, to answer your question, if Stephen Covey had anything that was directly as linear as what I saw in Napoleon Hill’s books. But the job market of today, and I really say this for all the parents, obsessing over what college your kid gets into and obsessing over the first job that they have is just no longer as needed as maybe 20 years ago when that’s where everyone’s head was.

Pete Mockaitis

You know, it’s funny, Asheesh, you mentioned your first job out of college having huge impact. I remember that was the exact thought process I went through when I thought, “Okay, what job do I want out of college? I want to have some skills and some network to do any number of things.” So, strategy consulting is what I want, and it worked out. I was at Bain for some time right out of college, and I thought that it has served me well.

And so, I guess back in the day, that was 2006 that I graduated from college and did that, and it seems like that was swell for me. Are you thinking now it makes less of an impact if we get that start at a top consulting firm or bank or Google or wherever is hot, fresh out of college now? And can you share the underlying evidence for that?

Asheesh Advani

Well, I will say that it’s always important to surround yourself with people who push you. It’s always important to surround yourself with opportunities that are sort of focused on giving you expansive knowledge, not just narrow and deep knowledge, particularly early in your career. So, I think consulting jobs are great. I started my career in strategy consulting as well so I know exactly what the motivation was for that job and exactly what some of the things, at least, I got out of it.

I will say today the linear path of, “Okay, I’m going to go to a top consulting firm, then go get a top MBA, then go into either an industry or a related field,” that path is fundamentally different today. Just to give you one data point, which I think drives this home. If you believe the World Economic Forum Future of Jobs data analysis, over 40% of our skills every five years will need to be re-learned or re-skilled, partly because of AI.

So, 40%, and even if you believe that number is too high, because the way they got that data was through surveys, so it’s possible that when you ask people, particularly during the hype of AI, they may over-exaggerate that number. So, let’s assume it’s half that number. Let’s assume that one-fifth of our skills, 20% of our skills, have to be re-learned or re-skilled in a different way every five years. That is a shockingly high number.

That means that you’re going to have to effectively reinvent yourself many times over the course of your career. So, the job to really have is one which encourages you to always be curious and be willing to learn new things.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Well, so then, here and now, let’s say we’ve got listeners, they’re in the middle of their careers, maybe the early side, maybe right in the middle, what are some of the top strategies and tactics that are implied by this new environment and your perspective on modern achievement?

Asheesh Advani

Well, so we’ve structured the book to have 30 lessons, and the lessons are organized into three sections: fixed, flexible, and freestyle. Some fixed lessons, like, for example, writing down your intentions and goals, have been around ever since the Stephen Covey and Napoleon Hill days, and we put that in the classic fixed section. So, these are things that don’t change based on time and place.

Flexible are things that do change based on time and place. So, for example, when you’re in your 30s or whether you work in a different type of organization versus small versus large, one of those might be how to manage your burn rate. So, one of the points I make in the book is to keep your burn rate low because it gives you lots of optionality. In a world of this much change, there may be times that you actually want to, for example, pursue an entrepreneurial path.

I’ll tell you one story. I’m a tech entrepreneur by background before I joined Junior Achievement, and I remember interviewing a senior executive for a role at one of the tech companies that I ran, and he really wanted to work with us, he really wanted to work with us, but he built up a cost structure that required him to not be able to take a job for less than $350,000 base salary.

Because he had, like, kids in private school, he was paying for his country club memberships, and other things that were really hard for him to let go of, and that dramatically limited his options for what he could do next. So, it made it impossible for him to accept, or actually we didn’t make him the offer because we said it’s just unsustainable over the long run.

So, I tell you that story because I think a lot of mid-career professionals are just surrounding themselves with peers that increase their burn rate through peer pressure, and that limits your options in an age where you’re going to have 20 jobs and seven careers.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And so, just to be clear, we’re talking about burn rate. This is the rate at which we burn through our own personal cash to live our life in terms of the food we eat, and the house we live in, and our recurring expenses.

Asheesh Advani

It’s entrepreneur speak for recurring expenses. I tell the story in the book as well of when I was in college, we did a magazine article asking recent graduates about their expenses and their salary and their bonus. It was, I think, one of the most popular articles we ever wrote…

Pete Mockaitis

Sounds good, people’s money.

Asheesh Advani

…because nobody knew anything about this. Everybody was aspiring for these jobs because of vague reputational goals, and they had no idea what it actually meant with regards to salary, bonus, and expenses. And the top, top graduates we interviewed had these amazing jobs at all the best banks and consulting firms, but they were not saving any money because they basically built up an expense side to keep up with the Joneses and were spending a lot on apartments and entertainment and travel.

So, it’s important to think about that in terms of the choices you make and the environments you surround yourself with.

Pete Mockaitis

You know, Asheesh, it’s funny, you’re bringing me, we’re talking about the back in the day, I’m thinking about my consulting time. I remember one time I was taking a bus to a party and my colleagues at Bain were kind of teasing me, they said, “You know we make a lot of money, right?” And I said, “Yes, thank you. I’m aware that for a 23-year-old, this salary is great. But I also have some plans associated with perhaps starting my own business in a couple of years, so I would like to have that flexibility, those options.”

And it’s so funny how that happens little by little, things get locked in, and then you do, you have fewer options. And it’s funny, when you said he couldn’t take that job, I guess I think about maybe words rather literally, it’s like, “Well, he could,” but he has to say, “Hey, honey, we’re pulling the kids out of private school and going to public school. We’re selling this house and getting a much smaller, not as nice house.”

And so, it might be impractical, but it’s sort of like, “Well, how badly do you want it?” And in practice, we’re rarely able to turn on a dime. Like, “Let’s change all the circumstances of our life quite quickly because of a cool opportunity. And the children and the family as a whole has gotten rather accustomed to how things have been, and they will probably not appreciate it being yanked away from them.”

Asheesh Advani

It feels like you’re going backwards at times, when, in reality, you’re just creating more options for yourself.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s a great tip right there. Very practical, “Watch your burn rate. What are your recurring expenses?” And, hopefully, you’ve got a nice healthy buffer with some savings and some growing savings so you’ve got more options to do cool things, as you’re making career choices. Any other top strategies, tactics that are super handy for modern leaders?

Asheesh Advani

Well, one thing, is this idea of going meta. Going meta means stepping back and looking at yourself as if somebody else were looking at you. And in education theory now, teachers tell students to actually reflect on what they’ve learned, to write down, literally write down at the end of a lecture, what they learned.

We didn’t do that when we were in school. We didn’t take a step back and actually have to reflect on what we’d learned, and applying that to your life, I think, is very powerful. Things like mindfulness, in many ways, allow you to have a step back, and a lot of people don’t do it.

A lot of people do it at milestones like birthdays, anniversaries, and maybe when you write your annual resolutions. But regularly, being reflective, it’s actually very empowering to say, “Hey, I just went through this, this project was just done, or this initiative was just started and finished,” and taking a step back for a second and saying, “Okay, what did I actually learn from this?” and writing it down.

Pete Mockaitis

I love that. And so, now I’m thinking about our episode with B.J. Fogg with habits and sort of triggers or prompts. It sounds like, in this context, the trigger or the prompt is whenever you finish a thing, “Let’s reflect about that thing and be finished.”

Asheesh Advani

Well, I love Marshall’s book, Triggers. I know that’s a little bit of a different concept, but you’re absolutely right, this idea of pausing, reflecting at the end of a project. What Marshall tends to put in his books, particularly the Triggers book, is the way you ask a question is so important. So, he, for example, had me participate in a group which he calls LPR, Life Plan Review Group, where the way we asked ourselves questions had such an impact on our mindset.

So, for example, we asked ourselves questions every week over the course of a summer, “Have I done my best to …?” dot, dot, dot. And it changes the accountability from, “Geez, I’m trying to do this project,” “I want to be better at tennis,” “I want to be a better father,” “I want to be better at work,” from, “Oh, did this go right?” “Did I win the game in tennis?” “Did I do well at work on the project?” to, “Have I done my best to become good at tennis this week?” “Have I done my best to be a good father this week?” So powerful to just change the framing, it makes it all about your own personal efforts, not what the results are.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, that’s good. That’s good. Well, so I’m also curious, are there some things that you recommend we stop doing? Is there stuff that’s outdated that we should just forget about and stop doing because it’s no good anymore?

Asheesh Advani

Well, I’d say you are certainly well aware of the debate right now about technology and social media. One thing I recommend in the book is to connect beyond the screen. We spend so much of our time on Zoom calls. In fact, there’s all this great research now about how white-collar workers end up spending more time in meetings than ever in history, partly because Zoom calls have made that so easy.

And I recommend, in one of the chapters and one of the lessons, to connect with people beyond the screen and really be intentional about that. Another thing which I think is a big change is, I mentioned fixed and flexible. The third section of the book is freestyle. So, the framework is fixed, flexible, freestyle. I mentioned fixed are classic lessons, flexible change based on time and place. Freestyle are lessons and your reaction to rules are created by you based on your own unique strengths.

And at JA, we’ve introduced this framework to the organization, where there are fixed things that are global, flexible things that vary based on time and place, such as in Europe versus Africa, and freestyle things, which are truly determined by the organizations and staff on the ground in every geography that we operate in because we’re in 118 countries. And I do think there’s something very empowering and powerful about creating your own rules and having much more agency in some of the choices that you make.

And when we asked the young people to tell us about some of these rules, some people, like some young people talked about the importance of embracing your inexperience and cluelessness, or the importance of really experiencing a different path relative to what your friends are doing. So, we got some really good insights from young people who shared their own story with us.

Pete Mockaitis

And I think that’s a pretty handy framework in general as you think about your policies, your rules, “Is this fixed? Is it flexible? Is it freestyle? Is this always everywhere for everyone? Is it under these sorts of circumstances? Or is it totally individualized?” That’s useful in and of itself in terms of, as you think about a rule, a guideline, a policy, how ironclad and locked in is it. It’s just a useful way to think about stuff?

To follow up on your point with regard to social media, and meetings, and Zoom, is your suggestion that we do less of it and how?

Asheesh Advani

So, the how gets complicated because it depends on which organization you are part of and what role you have. If you’re a leader and you’ve got some degree of control over these or if you’re not yet a leader and you really have to participate because of where you are in your career. One recommendation I would have is to create protected time for yourself.

And I think that no matter what role you have, whether you have a leadership role or whether you don’t have full control over your calendar, I think you have the ability to protect time, and you can use that time for in-person meetings, you can use that time to actually get writing done if you’ve got the kind of role that it involves writing or producing.

But a lot of, I think, particularly young leaders are scared to block off time on their calendar for things that matter to them, and I do think in the world of 20 jobs and seven careers, where you’ve got to really invest in your own personal development, that’s important.

Pete Mockaitis

Now when you say scared to block off time, what are some of the underlying concerns there?

Asheesh Advani

Well, I think there’s this general feeling when you’re early in your career that you want to be in the meeting, that being in the meeting allows you to get knowledge, allows you to build relationships, keeps you connected. And they’re definitely, I would say, particularly for aspiring leader personalities, a desire to be in the action.

But that comes with some trade-offs, and you have to realize that it’s sometimes okay to not be in every meeting, and it’s okay to really own the project that you own, and make sure it goes well and spend that other time you’d otherwise be in these meetings where you get to hear and learn, really investing in your personal development and investing in other things that are important to you.

Pete Mockaitis

And when we do that investing in personal development, what do you find to be some of the most high-yield possible activities that we can do?

Asheesh Advani

Well, I mean, there’s such a wide range. Right now, I would say there’s both skillset things where you learn new skills, everything from obviously all the AI things that are coming out, through to mindset-oriented activities. And the mindset-oriented activities, I think, are very powerful. I’ll give you one example.

So, I asked somebody on one of our boards if I could job-shadow him for a day, and everyone can do this because almost everybody says yes if asked. It’s such a compliment to be asked to have somebody, basically, follow you around for a day and learn from you.

Pete Mockaitis

I’m imagining saying, “If you want, it’s going to be super boring, dude.”

Asheesh Advani

Well, because we’re all on Zoom calls that’s why it feels super boring. But I will say, certainly, and I did this before the pandemic, so, yes, the world has changed on this dimension. But, in fact, this particular person still goes in the office every day, so I guess it hasn’t changed for him. And I learned so much from spending the day with him.

I learned how he interacts with people, I learned new frameworks, he’s a CEO of a large organization, so I learned how he communicates and I really got to see the nuance of how he manages different types of people. I still talk about it because it’s happened, what, seven years ago now but it’s so powerful that I did that. We actually have a program at JA where we do job shadows where young people are allowed to shadow executives for a day and encouraged to do it as a career development exercise.

And we even have this amazing program called “Leaders for a Day” where some of the top students get to actually follow, like, world leaders for a day. And we get them in front of either politicians or CEOs or people who are very, very prominent who agree to do it, and it’s transformational because it allows, it opens up your mind to things you just didn’t know existed that you could achieve.

For a person who’s looking for a way to invest in their personal development beyond just reading great books and listening to great podcasts, I do think doing something experiential, like a job shadow, is transformational.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah, and it’s so intriguing, this job shadow is one version is a job that you think you might want to do, or someone who’s more senior than you to get a sense for “What does that look like? Or what do those skills look like?” I’m also thinking it might be interesting even to pick a job of something that it would just be good for you to learn even though it might not be super senior.

For example, I’m thinking if you feel uncomfortable with conflict, it might be interesting to shadow a police officer as he’s doing a day of evictions, or a collections agency, like something, like, “What would be one of the most contentious, unpleasant, conflict-driven things, jobs? Let’s go shadow that.” And that may well be a harrowing experience that could also give you some real growth.

Asheesh Advani

I love that idea. I mean, we think of job shadow very much about mindset shift, exposing people to things they didn’t know existed, but you could absolutely apply it to skillsets as well, conflict resolution skillsets. We’ve got amazing lawyers, for example, who, all day, spend their time negotiating, and negotiation skills are sorely lacking for a lot of young people who haven’t had to do it. So, I love your idea of applying job shadows to skillsets. I might steal that wonderful idea.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Well, steal away. Tell me if it’s any good. This is just theoretical off the top of my head. That’s great. And so, when you say, when you ask, most people say yes. I would say, first, I guess I’m a little surprised by that. I think some people might say that that feels kind of intrusive, or “I kind of need my quiet, alone, introvert time, please.” How do you recommend framing this request?

Asheesh Advani

I mean, obviously, if you ask for a full day of somebody’s time, they may immediately go to one or two meetings which are personal in nature or confidential in nature, and they may decline based on knowing those are in their calendar. So, you need to phrase it based on, “And of course, if there’s any part of the day you don’t want me to shadow you, I’m happy to step away and do my own work.” So, really, it’s picking the two or three meetings that they feel very comfortable including you in.

But I think the power of it, honestly, is people feeling like you’re learning from them. And, of course, this is what happens. Actually, this is something I should definitely share. When we do these job shadows, we do it at scale, we do it in over 80 countries around the world, of course, the young people who shadow the executives get so much out of it, but the executives almost universally say they learned two things.

One, they learn from looking at their own job through somebody else’s eyes, so they love that. And the second is they actually learn almost like in a reverse mentoring way from the perspective of somebody who’s just has a different set of life experiences. So, when you’re asking the person who you want to shadow, I would encourage you to use a language which just makes them feel it truly is mutual, not just completely one way.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, I guess I’m thinking some of the most powerful job-shadowing action, as I imagine the day, would be right after the meeting in terms of like, “Hey, I noticed you said this in that moment. What were you thinking about there?”

Asheesh Advani

Oh, I love that.

Pete Mockaitis

And they say, “Oh, yeah, well, I noticed that person felt seemed really concerned so I wanted to proactively make sure that we address their concerns by blah blah blah blah blah,” you know, whatever. So, that’s my intuition about how that would be most amazing.

Asheesh Advani

No, your intuition is spot on. In fact, we actually have this exercise called “I noticed.” We do it occasionally at work. We do it really often in a learning group I’m part of through the Young Presidents Organization, YPO. And in our YPO forum, we do an “I noticed” round after somebody has presented, and we all go around and literally just talk about what we noticed. It’s very powerful.

I’ve used it at work now and then. You can’t use it after every meeting. That takes up too long. But for certain types of meetings, people who are the presenters love getting the kind of input, and it doesn’t have to be, “Geez, I noticed you messed up the slide.” It’s usually, actually, “I noticed a connection to something you said three weeks ago,” or, “I noticed something I’m working on, that ties into something that you’re working on.” And it’s very powerful to make time for the “I noticed” for the right setting.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s great. Well, Asheesh, tell me anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Asheesh Advani

Well, there’s another lesson which I’m very proud of, which is learn to balance simplicity and complexity. I think for aspiring leaders, it’s a nuance, but it’s so important, which is if you become really great at taking complex things and making them simple, it is such a powerful skill. And I know this from at least my job because I ran two technology companies, and to be able to take things that are otherwise actually pretty hard to do and not brag about the fact that they were hard to do, but talk about how simple they are in terms of the benefit they create for whoever the user is, that’s where the power comes. So, we made it a life lesson and put it in this book as well.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah, that’s super. And I think, often people don’t care, it sounds harsh, but they don’t, about sort of the underlying complexity and all that you had to go through, unless it’s really a caring mentor type figure who’s invested in your career and your development and your process. But for the most part, I’m thinking about customers or senior executives just sort of want to know, “So what’s the benefit? And how is this new and different and better now? Okay, understood. Thank you.”

Asheesh Advani

Well, we’re so busy showing the world how smart we are, we sometimes forget that that’s really not what it’s about. It’s about genuinely creating value for other people. And so, how do we become better, particularly, certainly when you’re communicating with boards and customers and stakeholders, where they, as you said, they don’t really care about the how, they just care about the true benefit, how do we put our ego aside a little bit and leave it for somebody else to learn, frankly, about all the hard work that was behind what we created? And that’s really hard for a lot of people.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Well, now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Asheesh Advani

So, one of my favorite quotes, I’ve reframed in the book, is, “Success is moving from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

Pete Mockaitis

I like it. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Asheesh Advani

So, we put in the book, “Life is moving from mess to mess with no loss of confidence.”

Asheesh Advani

So, the Minnesota Twin Study is one of the classic studies. I’ve got identical twins, so I’ve got a particular interest in nature versus nurture. And I think we, particularly in America, feel so strongly that so much of what is possible, comes down to our own efforts. It’s kind of humbling to actually read the Twin Study and see so much of what happens is actually nature and not nurture, which I think you can interpret as disempowering, but I don’t view it that way at all. I view it as something which is the reality of what science tells us, and we’ve got to work with what science tells us.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And a favorite book?

Asheesh Advani

It’s called The Magic of Thinking Big, and David Schwartz. And one of the nice things about this book is it tells you that the amount of effort it takes to add a zero or two on any goal is so little compared to the amount of effort you’re going to do without the zeroes. So, you may as well have the zeroes because you can just make a bigger impact.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate; you hear folks quote back to you often?

Asheesh Advani

Well, the sad truth of it is I’ve now use the word “double-click” so often people tease me about it.

Pete Mockaitis

I think there was just an article about that in, was it the New York Times or Wall Street Journal?

Asheesh Advani

Yes, I know, it’s awful. Let’s be appropriately self-deprecating here and take the blame. I’ve fallen into the abyss of using double-click and I can’t get out of the habit.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, while we’re here, when you say double-click, do you specifically mean to go deeper upon and expand on a topic or matter?

Asheesh Advani

Yes. Yes.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Well, I actually kind of like that in terms of I’m imagining the window is expanding, and so in some ways, my visual brain responds nicely to that, it’s like, “Okay, I’m actually imagining a program expanding with the whole animation.” So, I’m there.

Asheesh Advani

Well, we both started our career in consulting, so I think we’ve fallen into the trap of agreeing with each other about phrases, but for the rest of the world, apparently double-click, for whatever reason, brings up negative metaphors.

Pete Mockaitis

As long as the synergies are highly impactful, Asheesh, I think it’s okay.

Asheesh Advani

As long as you have a good two-by-two matrix to show how to get to the top quadrant, you’re good.

Pete Mockaitis

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

Asheesh Advani

So, JAWorldwide.org is our organizational website, and ModernAchievement.com is the book’s website.

Pete Mockaitis

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

Asheesh Advani

Well, I will say one of the ways that you can make a huge impact in the world and feel really positive is to find a young person and say something positive to them to encourage them to pursue either a career or a dream that they want to. It’s so powerful for young people to hear from people in their mid-career or late career that they can be successful. So, you’ve got that power, and use it.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Asheesh, thank you. I wish you much modern achievement.

Asheesh Advani

Thank you. This was awesome.