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Career Management Archives - Page 4 of 31 - How to be Awesome at Your Job

Sep 28
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902: How to Ensure Great Career Fit with André Martin

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André Martin discusses how to avoid wrong career fit and ensure your career aligns with your needs.

You’ll Learn:

  1. What right fit and wrong fit look like in practice
  2. Four powerful questions to know if a job is the right fit
  3. Why it’s OK to have a boring job

About André

Dr. André Martin is an organizational psychologist and author of the book Wrong Fit, Right Fit – Why How We Work Matters More Than Ever. He has spent 20+ years as the Chief Talent Officer of iconic brands such as Mars, Nike, Google, and Target. Now, acting as an operating advisor, coach, and consultant, André continues to counsel leaders and founders to peak performance. When André isn’t working, he can be found with his wife and two English labs on the rain-soaked trails around Portland, Oregon.

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André Martin Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
André, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

André Martin
Hey, thanks, Pete. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. I’m fired up to get into some wisdom from your book Wrong Fit, Right Fit: Why How We Work Matters More Than Ever. But, first, I think we need to hear a little bit about your mushroom farm. What’s the story here? You do that on top of everything else?

André Martin
I do it on top of everything else, although I’m not in the day-to-day operations of it. So, the farm was a passion project by some buddies of mine that grew up in southern Missouri, and the concept behind the farm is we actually grow mushrooms in empty grain silos to the tune of about 20,000 pounds a week.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow! How many grain silos does it take for that volume of mushrooms?

André Martin
That’s one grain silo.

Pete Mockaitis
One grain silo?

André Martin
Yup.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow! One of my first jobs, actually, was I audited, like, local municipalities and farms. I was a little auditor intern for an accounting company. And I had the privilege of getting to climb up grain silos to drop a measuring tape to assess the inventory value of the grain in the silos on the balance sheets of these farms. So, I’m quite familiar with grain silos. And I’m thinking that sounds somewhat lucrative based on the price point of mushrooms and the cost point of a grain silo. Am I overlooking something, André?

André Martin
I think you’re overlooking the length of time it takes to get it right consistently when it’s the first time it’s been done. So, the team has been at this for about four and a half years, and we’re still trying to make it consistent enough that we can guarantee that we can continue to make that kind of production month over month over month. So, we’re getting close. Hopefully, someday it’s lucrative and, even more importantly, I hope it helps us get rid of food deserts around the world someday. That’s the goal.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, that’s so clever. And so then, do I have multiple, like, layer cake inside that grain silo? Like, how many stories, I guess, of mushrooms am I looking at?

André Martin
Think of it more like a helix.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

André Martin
It’s gravity-based. And so, what we’re really trying to do is remove a lot of barriers to mushroom farming, one of which is the cost to do indoor farming is significant but the cool thing about mushrooms is they thrive in dark and humid environments. So, these grain silos provide a really great sort of architecture to do some cool work off of. And, again, the team has been at it for a while and we’re learning every day.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now I’m curious to hear, what is, in your opinion, the most delicious species of mushroom and recipe for that mushroom to be in?

André Martin
Oh, that’s a great question. So, I grew up in southern Missouri, and I remember one of my best friend’s mom, Ruth Lorman, made beef stroganoff, and that was your basic button mushroom done up with a lot of cream, a lot of goodness, and a lot of heart. So, that’s my best memory of a mushroom dish. What about yourself, Pete?

Pete Mockaitis
That is good. I’m thinking about my buddy, Father Jim Herbert, and we went to get some morel mushrooms, and they were just very simple. We just grilled them up and had them as like a side dish in the middle of the rest of the meal, and there’s life for you.

André Martin
Oh, that’s great. I love them. They’re super good and great for you, so we hope they’re around and an even bigger food in the future.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, I’m glad we covered that, André. We got it now.

André Martin
Yes, sir.

Pete Mockaitis
We set the record straight on mushrooms and grain silos. Now, let’s hear about Wrong Fit, Right Fit. Any particularly surprising or counterintuitive discoveries you guys made when researching and putting this together?

André Martin
Quite a few. I think I’d start with the first one, is that, hey, when we looked at the issues around employee engagement today, we know that Gallup tells us there’s an estimated $7.9 trillion of lost productivity due to disengagement. A lot of the time, we like to think that it’s good or bad culture. It’s a toxic environment or it’s an engaging environment.

And the truth is it’s a lot more nuanced than that. So, when we talked to the hundred or so interviewees that we interviewed for the book, one of the things that came out really quickly is this idea that every company starts off wanting to create a great experience for their employees. They want to be a great place to work. It’d be counterintuitive to create anything other than that.

And so, if you start with that truth, the thing that we found that’s most surprising is that, for about 60% of people in the company, they’re pretty happy. Maybe not totally engaged but they’re content. And then for the other 40% who have the same skill set, the same background, the same affinities, they struggle, it’s like they’re slogging through mud.

And so, really one surprising idea is that there’s probably not a single best practice because every company has a different way of getting work done day to day.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, then when it comes to fit, there’s multiple styles, approaches that can work. How do we think about fit in terms of which one is good for me or not so good for me?

André Martin
Yeah, Pete, it comes down to a couple of things. The obvious things that align us to an organization are things like purpose, values and mission, the team I’m working on, the manager, the job that I have. But one of the things that came up in the book, too, was there’s this whole piece of information below the surface, which is how the company works day to day. How do we solve problems? How do we make decisions? How do we manage conflict? How do we develop people and give feedback? How do we gather and convene? What’s our relationship with time? How does information flow?

And those were the things that when we talked to talent, they were saying when the company works like you like to work in those areas, it’s easy. It’s like writing with your dominant hand every day. When it doesn’t, it can feel hard, it can be stressful, your quality goes down, you lose confidence and competence, and you end up in a place that’s really hard to go to work every day. It’s sort of the origin of the Sunday Scaries in many ways.

Pete Mockaitis
So, could you share with us an inspiring story of someone who went from feeling like their job was the wrong fit to the right fit? And what did they do? And what did they discover?

André Martin
Well, I’ll start with a story that’ll answer that question sort of in the other direction, so someone who was looking from a wrong fit experience back at what actually was right fit for them. And this was a creative marketer, and one of the places that this person started their career had very standard and consistent ways of working, so those things we mentioned: how they collaborate, how they socialize ideas, how they solve problems.

And early in their career, this person felt like that was constraining. And one of the insights from this story that was really interesting is, looking back now, what they said is, “Because I didn’t have to worry about how to present an idea, back then and that right fit experience, it was actually a pure execution or experience of my craft. That is, I was being able to do what I do best every day because all my creative energy was flowing to the thing that I do really well, as opposed to how work gets done.”

And that was sort of the big insight from the story, is this idea that your creative energy is always flowing. But for many people in wrong fit experiences, it’s flowing to how work gets done as opposed to what they’re really gifted at in this world.

Pete Mockaitis
So, can you give us some examples of some of this “how work gets done” stuff?

André Martin
Yes. So, think about it this way. There are some organizations that socialize ideas via beautiful decks. You create PowerPoint slides with wonderful images and pithy poetry. And then there’s other companies that do that via two-page memos. Amazon is one of the most popular examples of that. And then there’s others that expect really deep research papers, which is something we saw a lot at Google when you’re working in technology and machine-learning. And so, if the way that ideas get socialized don’t match the ways that you prefer to do work, it just feels harder than it should.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Okay. Well, so then, I’m curious, how do we go about clearly identifying what an organization does on these dimensions? And what is our preference to really determine: do we have a wrong fit or a right fit and making some adjustments where we can?

André Martin
Yeah, Pete, this is one of the most interesting parts of the book. And, again, through the interviews, one thing that became really clear is that work decisions are one of the most high-value decisions we make in our lifetime. Think about it this way. We spend about 13.5 years of our adult lives at work. That’s every second, every minute, every year. It’s a huge chunk of our lives. It’s actually second only to sleeping if you think about the distribution of our time as adults. And yet we tend to make those decisions about where we work on very little information.

The interview processes, if you think about it, they’re more like first dates than they are really getting under the hood to understand what the reality is going to feel like. And if you’ve ever had a first date, I know I had many before I met my wife, although you feel that excitement on the first date, by the second, third, fourth, or fifth date, things change as you get to know the person.

And what we’re finding in companies today is that’s happening more and more regularly to talent. They get recruited with this idea of what the company is going to feel like, what the job is going to be like, and then when we get into the company on the first day, it feels radically different. And it’s in that sort of discrepancy that we’re seeing a lot of engagements start to suffer.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. So, what is your recommendation for a prudent, practical research approach by which we can learn the stuff before it’s too late, and we go, “Uh-oh, wrong choice”?

André Martin
I think there’s a few things I’d say, and as a psychologist, I’ll start with some of the cognitive things. First, you have to understand that there’s a few things that are at play as you’re making a big decision. And that could be the cereal you’re going to buy in the grocery store, to the house you’re going to buy, to the job you’re going to take.

First and foremost is we tend to be very influenced by successful brands and successful companies. And there’s a phenomenon in social science called BIRGing. It’s called basking in reflected glory. It’s this idea that we are going to buy into things that have had past success. And so, one of the first things I’d say to talent is just watch that. The biggest coolest brands might not be the best place for you to work.

The second thing that happens is, once you open up a job description, and you get in a recruiting process, you have to realize you’re in a marketing effort. Think about it. Every talent that is showing up for an interview, we show up on our best behavior. We’re first-date ready. We have scripted answers. We’re dressed in our best outfits. We’ve thought about what we’re going to say and how we want to present ourselves. And the same is true for the company.

And so, instead of getting a realistic idea of who each other is going to be like on a random Tuesday morning, we actually are seeing us at our best, which we know isn’t necessarily who we are day-to-day. And the third thing, from just a cognitive standpoint, is this idea of confirmation bias. Because talent is so motivated to find a job, to get the job, to work at a great brand, we tend to pay attention to only a small sliver of the available information given to us, and most of that’s subjective and from the internal source of the company, career sites, recruiters, the interviewees.

And so, the first thing I tell talent is, “Make sure you’re using a broad set of information. Pay attention to what happens in the interview. Pay attention to what’s on the website, but go and find videos. Talk to people who have recently left the company. Look at annual reports. Find all the public information on the company to sort of round out what you’re seeing.” And my rule of thumb is if it doesn’t show up in three sources, really ask yourself if it’s likely going to be true day-to-day.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so could you perhaps walk us through a research process by which someone is assessing what’s up with their prospective employer, and they have a few specific questions they want answered, and how they might get after them via these different sources of information?

André Martin
That’s great, Pete. The first thing I would tell any talent at the start of a process is the first thing you should do is not open a job description and apply for a job. The first thing you should do is take some time to really understand who you are, how you work, what you’re solving for right now, the kind of life you’re trying to build, what kind of leader or manager you work really well for.

And in the book, we have this set of excursions that really helps talent to do that. When we were talking in the interviews, one of the things that talent told me when we asked them, “When did you know it wasn’t a right fit?” And they said, “If I’m being totally honest, I knew it in the interview but I chose not to pay attention to those things.” And so, the first step is make sure you know who you are, how you work, and what you’re solving for.

The second step is to really do a lot of external research on the company. So, before the interview happens, don’t just depend on what the company sends you. Look at all those assets we talked about: annual reports, and videos of leaders, and past folks that have worked there, and really get a good sense on, “What does this company look like day-to-day?”

And then when you’re in the interviews, there’s a few key questions that will help you sort of discern a little bit more about what it’s going to be like to work there, and it’s hard because these are first dates. So, a few of the questions I really like, the first one is, “What’s the profile of the person that’s really successful here?” That gives you a sense on… and ask the follow-up question, “How do they show up for work? What does it look like when they’re in a team meeting?” And really get at, “What’s the success profile? Who’s really successful?” And ask yourself if that’s you.

The second thing I like to have people do is have someone walk you through a-day-in-the-life. So, in an interview, have them pull up their calendar and walk you through what’s on their calendar for the day. This gives you a sense on what’s important, what they’ll be working on, how they think about time, what’s their meeting cadence, all those kinds of things.

And then I also love to ask the question, “What’s the reputation of the team? And what’s the reputation of the leader?” because, again, that tells you where the team is going to be and what you can expect of some of the work that you’re going to have to do upon arriving there. And we have, again, about 10 or so questions in the book that help talent get a little bit deeper into how the company works.

Pete Mockaitis
And is the timing for these questions, is it your recommendation that it’s sort of right there in the interview, “Do you have any questions for me, André?” Like, right there?

André Martin
You know what, it’s really funny, Pete, I love the way that you bring that up because we often feel, in an interview process, like we’re being interviewed. And the truth is that you have to be at your best as an investigative journalist inside an interview process. And so, in those last five minutes, which we all get to, “Hey, André, do you have any questions for me?” often we don’t take advantage of those.

We ask a layup question, something that makes us look good or sound good. And this is your moment to really dig in and get to know the company at a deep level. So, I always would say have two or three really strong questions, and use that time. And then if you don’t get them answered, ask for more time because, again, this is one of the highest-value decisions you’re going to make in your life, and you don’t want to just be dependent on the small bit of narrowed information that you get from the company through the process.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. And I’m curious, do you recommend, from a timing perspective, we’ve got the “Do you have any questions for me?” right there, first interview or second interview or third interview, and then there’s a whole another zone of time in which, ideally, you have the offer, and you’ve not yet said yes to the offer.

And it’s funny because, as I’m imagining this, I sort of think about, like, “Ooh, that’s the time when I can really just get after it in terms of my investigations and talking to people and all of that.” And so, how do you think about the timing and the sequencing? Does one line of investigation work better at one time versus another? Or, can we just do all the investigating all the time and it’s all good?

André Martin
Well, here’s what I would say, is those early questions you ask in an interview, you absolutely want to be able to convey that you’re both highly interested in the role, and also that you’re a very curious person. And so, I think it’s okay to ask some very pointed, very high-impact and meaningful questions during the interview. It can actually make you look like a better candidate.

The other thing I would say to you, and you mentioned it, Pete, there’s that moment after you get the offer and before you take it, and then there’s also a moment after you take the offer and before you start, where often we just sit and breathe, we just sort of go, “God, I got the job. I’m so happy and my job is over.” I would tell any candidate that that’s the time when you really start increasing your efforts, both so you can be really ready to onboard and get to high productivity quickly.

But the second reason is because this is your time to really find out more and more about the truth of the company. And a couple places I like to look is I almost always reach out to my LinkedIn network, and look for people that I know that have recently worked at that company but might’ve just left because they’re going to be willing to sort of tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the experience and being there.

And because they’re in your network, or second in your network, they’ll usually pick up the phone, and most people want to talk about their past experiences. So, that’s a really good place to do some digging if you don’t feel comfortable about doing it in the interview process itself.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And these high-impact questions, we talked about a couple, like a-day-in-the-life, let’s see the calendar. Can you just give us bullet after bullet after bullet of some of your favorite high-impact questions you like to ask?

André Martin
Yeah. So, I talk about the person, what’s the profile of success, that’s a big one. A-day-in-the-life I do love. The reputation question is really important. And often, if you’re doing interviews with people outside of your function or your team, they’ll tell you sort of what the reputation is. I like to also get after, “What are going to be the two or three most important pieces of work I’ll do in the first 12 months?”

Because here’s the deal, Pete, as we know that job descriptions, they are a litany of bullet points about all the possible things you could do in a job really for the rest of your life. And that’s very different than what you’re going to be asked to do in the first 90 to 120 days of being there. Often, what we find is if this is the job description, this big long list of all the things you could do, often the job that you get is going to be a very narrow set of those things plus a lot of additional duties that never showed up in the job description.

So, I like to ask that question for two reasons. One, it’s important to really get out, “What is this role in reality day-to-day?” The second reason is that you want to make sure that the near-term deliverables fit areas where you’re best in class because the easiest way to be a success in a company early on is to be given deliverables that are in your wheelhouse or they’re something you’re really good at.

And when I’m looking at a job, if I look at the near-term deliverables, and I say, “Yeah, I can do those things,” but I’m not best in class at it, I might sort of think twice about taking that job because you’re transitioning into a new company, you’re building a brand-new reputation, a brand-new network, and people are going to start looking at you to say, “What kind of talent do we have?”

And if you’re doing work that you’re not great at, it can sort of cause you to create maybe a less impactful reputation than you could’ve otherwise.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Okay. Well, let’s fast-forward in time, and so we’re in a job right now. As we think about fit, are there any telltale signs that it’s just like, “Yes, this fit is fantastic” versus “Oh, no, this fit isn’t quite right” that maybe is escaping our immediate conscious awareness at the moment?

André Martin
There’s a few. And so, one of the parts of the book that resonates, at least for me, personally, is the metaphor of what it feels like to be in a wrong fit experience. One of my favorite quotes from the book is someone mentioned they’re in the wrong fit when it felt like everyone else had a secret decoder ring for success except for them.

They were seeing people in the company that looked like them, acted like them, had the same experiences as them, had the same job, and they were excelling, when this person go, “Something just doesn’t feel right.” And so, one of the ways I think about it is if you’ve ever tried to write with your non-dominant hand, that’s what it feels like to be in a wrong fit situation.

It’s harder than it should be. You’re frustrated. You’re stressed. Your quality of work isn’t where it used to be. You start questioning whether or not you’re good enough. And I think your first instincts in that is if work feels hard, you might want to think about whether or not, long term, this is going to be a fit for you.

Some of the telltale signs are things like, “I tend to work harder. I’m putting in more and more hours because I’m trying to be impressive.” That can be a sign many of the interviews talked about, “When I didn’t have a right fit, when it was a wrong fit, I tried harder. I spent more time.” And that’s because you’re trying to make up for fit in effort, and it just doesn’t work out that well.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. Well, André, tell me, is there anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

André Martin
The only other thing I would say is one of the aspects of fit that I find really important is this idea that sometimes we mistake the excitement for something new with the comfort that comes from a committed relationship. And so, again, the analogy that’s really great is if you compare a first date to being married or being in a long-term relationship, a first date is all dopamine. It’s excitement. It gets your blood flowing. It’s the unknown. All those things produce dopamine which is this really powerful neurotransmitter that causes us to react in a certain way.

There’s a very different neurotransmitter that’s activated in long-term committed relationships, and that’s oxytocin. And what oxytocin feels like is it feels like more like a deep hug, like this really warm pleasant feeling. And what I worry about is, since we’re in this world where everybody’s infinitely browsing, we’re all looking for greener grass, we can sometimes mistake comfort for boredom, for lack of momentum, and we will jump ship from right fit experiences in search of dopamine or excitement when we really had maybe a place we were thriving at and we just mistook the feeling we had for something other than what it was.

Pete Mockaitis
Ooh, André, that’s powerful stuff. It’s funny, as we speak, just yesterday, I started listening to Anna Lembke’s Dopamine Nation, which I’m digging. I recommend it. And you’re right, that idea, especially if we’ve become so acclimated to stimulation nonstop in every format from social media to games or alcohol, you name it, that you think, “My job is boring. I got to go find something more exciting.” And yet if our job is boring, as opposed to horrific, like, that might be a good thing.

André Martin
Pete, it’s a great thing. If you think about where creativity comes from, where inspiration comes from, having a firm grounding, a sense of comfort to explore, that’s the basis of what Amy Edmondson talks about in terms of psychological safety. That is the feeling of comfort that we often are like, “I’m bored. I got to go do something else.”

And I looked at some of the stats data that are out there, 29% of employees leave their company after their first promotion. That’s stats from ADP. And 70% of Gen Z cited that they were potentially thinking about leaving their current job inside of 2023. And so, you just get this feeling that everybody has sort of mistaken this idea of comfort for boredom, and we’re jumping way too fast.

And transitions take effort, right, Pete? Like, the thing that we know psychologically is every time you move companies, every time you hop jobs, you are having to rebuild your understanding of how a company works, you’re having to rebuild the understanding of the products and services that are offered to customers, you’re having to rebuild your social network, you’re having to rebuild your reputation.

And, therefore, if you think about, in every transition you go through, your creative energy in that first year, it goes to rebuilding those things, not to your craft so you’re probably getting better at transitions but you’re not actually getting better at the thing that you’re trying to do as your craft, day to day in the world.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s good. Well, André, this is probably a whole other conversation but how do we get better at being okay with being bored in our careers or, I guess, anything?

André Martin
One of my strategies, Pete, is I do a lot of self-reflection about what I’m solving for. And so, I go back, not to make this about the book, but those excursions in the book are personally made, because the one thing we don’t do enough in this high-information, high-excitement, high-dopamine world is we don’t stop, take a deep breath, take three steps back, and open our eyes really wide, and ask the question, like, “What am I solving for? What am I trying to build in terms of my life? What do I want out of my job? What kind of career am I building?”

There’s three different types of careers, for instance. Like, you can build a career around craft, company, or cause, but you can’t do all three of those things. What kind of person do I want to work for? What do I want my life to be 10 years from now? And what’s really interesting is, if you do that work, you can sort of start to see the signal in the noise, and you will, I guarantee it, look at your current experience very different, and you will look at every experience that comes after very different as well.

But we have to do that work a lot more often than we used to because there’s just an onslaught of greener grass coming at us every day.

Pete Mockaitis
Can you expand upon this notion of craft, company, and cause? You say we can’t have all three.

André Martin
Well, that’s the unicorn. I’m not saying you can’t but it’s really difficult. What I try to tell people is each of those careers has a very different trajectory and a very different choice you make around the types of jobs you take. So, I’ll give you, for instance, let’s say you’re of company. I don’t know what your favorite consumer brand is but let’s say you’re working for this company that you just believe in your heart and soul in what it stands for, and the products it brings to bear.

You want to be at this company for the next 25 years because you love it so much. I would tell you that your career then needs to have as many different jobs and as many different functions as possible because the strength of being part of a company as a career is that you know the system and the people in the system better than anybody else.

Right now, very different than craft. If you think about craft, craft is about this question of saying, “I want a career that ensures that I will be the best in class in a very narrow and specific area.” To be the best in craft in any specific area, let’s say my area. I was a chief talent and learning officer, and started my career in leadership development.

To be one of the best in leadership development, it’s really hard to do that and stay at a single company, because if I stayed at a single company, I see one approach to those things. If I’m at multiple companies over a career, I see five, six, or seven different ways of doing it, and, therefore, I have a lot more tools to use as I develop those assets. So, if you’re doing a career around craft, it’s really important that you think about having as many different systems as you can, within reason, to see how to do this in many different industries, in types of companies, and even sizes of companies.

And then cause, cause is the ultimate. Cause is all about, “I have this really big injustice, opportunity, or thing I’m trying to solve for in the world.” And when you have a career around cause, you really want to be at the middle of whatever is happening in that space. So, again, if you’re wanting to solve for the environment, get to a place where the environment is at risk. You want to save the oceans on the coast of California, you want to save the rainforest, but you need to be in the middle of where the action, where the thought leaders are, where all the discussions are happening. And that’ll take you wherever that movement is sort of in the world.

And so, my younger brother spent a lot of time in the Peace Corps, and he was of cause, and he went to Kazakhstan for a longer part of a year and a half because he wanted to help drive education in developing countries, and so he was definitely of cause. But I would say this, it’s not impossible to have all three, but you create very different experiences and design very different careers based on what you’re really making primary.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s a very helpful framework there. And it’s nice how it seems like, “Oh, those are the opposite in some instances,” in terms of, like, craft and company, and I know folks who have gone both ways. I’m thinking about web design or systems architecture, it’s like, yeah, they probably know that better than, I don’t know, 99.99% of humans on the planet because they’d gone deep into it. And then once they’ve exhausted the learning that organization can give to them, it’s like, “If craft is your thing, then it’s time to move on.”

And, likewise, I’ve got buddies at Nike, that was their dream, and they’re still there from college to now because they think it’s just the coolest thing ever, in terms of, like, the shoes and the sports and the athletes. It’s so cool, and, likewise, he has been in a lot of different roles, and that makes you all the more valuable and hard to fire in terms of, “This guy is the glue who knows about the manufacturing, and about marketing, and about the new product design, and then the athlete partnerships.”

It’s, like, you think twice before, your next cost-cutting endeavor, you slash that guy because you’re going to miss a lot of the good connectivity that makes a behemoth of an organization function smoothly.

André Martin
Pete, I couldn’t say it better myself. And what I love about your description and your story there is, often people who are of company, they’re not maximizing their ability to be invaluable because they’re not thinking about their job progression as, “Wow, I need to broaden my network. I need to broaden my experience. I need to know every corner of this company.” And that’s the way you protect yourself and allow yourself to be invaluable over time if you truly are in love with the place, like Nike, which many are.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, you’re in Oregon. So, you’ve seen that before, I bet.

André Martin
That’s right, I have.

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

André Martin
One of my favorite quotes is “Joy cometh in the morning.”

Pete Mockaitis
That is hopeful on those days.

André Martin
I’m a hopeful person, Pete, 100%.

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

André Martin
It’s a new one. So, there’s a recent study by MIT, it just came out with a company called Culture 500, and they did this really cool study on culture. And what they did is they took the espoused values of all these companies that are high on culture, and they grabbed those from annual reports, and videos, and communication with the company, and then they weighted them.

And then what they did is they took those espoused values, what companies said they were about, and they compared those with the felt experience of employees on the employee review sites. And the net of the study was there’s zero correlation between the two, that what companies are espousing they stand for isn’t necessarily what’s showing up in what the felt experiences for the employees that are part of their company.

Now, that study is fraught with a little bit of a hardship because we know that the employee review sites aren’t necessarily all the employees but it gives you a good indication that, “Hey, often what we’re talking about that’s important isn’t necessarily what’s showing up in the day-to-day lives of our employees as they work for us.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I hope there’s at least a few companies that have a good match up, but, across the board, they weren’t seeing it.

André Martin
They weren’t seeing it. And I find that really fascinating.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, okay. And a favorite book?

André Martin
Dedicated by Pete Davis. He has written a book on how to get through this crisis of commitment that we’re living in the world. And I really like his perspective that it’s not a loss cause. We can still be committed to things. We just have to stop infinitely browsing as much as we currently are.

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

André Martin
Favorite tool, I have been recently using Arist.co. It’s a text-based learning platform that allows the small micro doses of learning to hit you every morning via your phone, and then you can have the option to go deep or wait until the next day’s lesson. And it just allows learning to be spread over a long time, and it’s with me every day in the flow of work.

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

André Martin
Favorite habit, this is more of something I did to be awesome as a husband and a father. We practice no-text Sundays. So, from the moment all of us got out of bed until 3:00 o’clock, we would turn off our phones and our technology, and make sure that we were eye-to-eye, knee-to-knee, elbow-to-elbow out in the world. And that was a pretty fun way to put technology aside just for a little while, and have some fun as a family.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a particular nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?

André Martin
Yeah, this nugget that resonates for me is that “Opportunity is infinite, and human energy is not.” So, really try to spend every day at your highest and best use because we just don’t have enough time.

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

André Martin
I’d point them to www.WrongFitRightFit.com and also to a newsletter that I run called Monday Matters. It’s meant to be practical tips to make your week better, and that’s at MondayMatters.substack.com.

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

André Martin
I do. I think my final challenge is back to what we talked about, because it’s one that is core to why I wrote the book, which is just be careful not to mistake comfort for boredom. The grass is inherently often not greener, and comfort is something that allows us to be at our best, and so cherish it if you have it. If you don’t, I believe it’s out there, and you can find it if you keep looking.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. André, this has been a treat. I wish you much luck and many good fits.

André Martin
Hey, thank you much, Pete. Thanks for having me.

Sep 11
0

897: Jon Acuff: The Three Steps to Achieving Any Goal

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Jon Acuff reveals why we often struggle to meet our goals—and shares practical advice for achieving results.

You’ll Learn:

  1. How to make your loftiest goals more reachable
  2. The “right” amount of goals to pursue
  3. How to stay motivated when things get tough

About Jon

Jon Acuff is the New York Times bestselling author of nine books, including Soundtracks, Your New Playlist, and the Wall Street Journal #1 bestseller Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done. When he’s not writing or recording his popular podcast, All It Takes Is a Goal, Acuff can be found on a stage as one of INC’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers. He’s spoken to hundreds of thousands of people at conferences, colleges, and companies around the world, including FedEx, Range Rover, Microsoft, Nokia, and Comedy Central. He lives outside of Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife and two daughters.

Resources Mentioned

Jon Acuff Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Jon, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Jon Acuff
Yeah, thanks for having me. I’m looking forward to it.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m looking forward to it, too. I’m excited to get your latest hot takes on goal-setting, goal-achieving from your latest All It Takes Is a Goal: The 3-Step Plan to Ditch Regret and Tap Into Your Massive Potential. But first, I think we need to hear a little bit about you and tap dancing. What’s the scoop here?

Jon Acuff
Oh, yeah, I was super popular in high school. I took tap dancing. You knew you were cool and popular if you were also into tap dancing in high school. So, I went to an all-boys Catholic high school, and we would have a musical review where we would partner with other schools that only had girls. So, it was only time to ever, like, dance with a girl. So, I was like, “I’ll do that if it requires tap dancing, let’s go.” And I genuinely enjoyed tap dancing. And I don’t tap anymore, I’ve kind of retired, but, yeah, I love tap dancing. I was a big tap dancer.

Pete Mockaitis
So, you only did the tap dancing in high school or did it carry on over?

Jon Acuff
Only in high school. No, I live in nowhere, you would, in college. Imagine you’re some roommate and I bring tap shoes to college, like in my dorm room, and in the hallway just like working on routines. Yeah, no, it began and ended in high school, 100%.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I think it looks and sounds really cool whenever I’m beholding it.

Jon Acuff
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you don’t want to see a lot of it. It’s like four hours of it is too much.

Pete Mockaitis
That it is. Well, I’m excited, you’ve got so much wisdom when it comes to goals. And you’ve got a fresh book here All It Takes Is a Goal. Can you tell us, anything novel, surprising, counterintuitive that you discovered while putting this one together?

Jon Acuff
Well, I always try to write books that start with a challenge I’m having in my own life, and something I’m trying to figure out, and then I see, “Do other people have the same challenge? Like, is it worth turning into a book?” And we asked 3,000 people, there’s this PhD guy, Mike Peasley, he’s a professor at MTSU here in town, if they feel like they’re living up to their potential. And 96% of people said no.

So, I was surprised at the size of that, like, that there’s a general sense that people feel like they could do more with their lives but don’t know how to. So, that kind of, I would say, that surprised me, the size of that.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, that’s intriguing. Do you think it’s that they don’t know how to or they think, “That just seems like a lot of work, I don’t feel like it”? What’s your vibe there?

Jon Acuff
I think it’s a variety of things. I think it feels complicated. I think we have broken soundtracks. Like, I wrote this book called Soundtracks about mindset, soundtrack being like a repetitive thought. And one of my broken soundtracks is “Mo money, mo problems.” Like, if you build a successful life, more problems, more money. Like, success comes with so many complications. It’s going to be so difficult. And then you end up playing smaller because you’re afraid of these fictional complications.

So, I think some people go, “I could if I wanted to but it sounds like it’d be stressful.” I think a lot of people just don’t know if it’s even possible. They live in a town where nobody wrote a book, so they don’t even have a concept in their head that you could be an author if you wanted to be. Like, you could just do that. And so, I think people pull back from their goals and their opportunities for a variety of reasons.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And so then, what’s the big idea or main thesis behind your book there All It Takes Is a Goal?

Jon Acuff
Well, the main thesis is essentially if you have this big desire and you want to accomplish it, all you have to do is turn it into a goal. And you can turn anything into a goal, and there’s practical steps to do it. So, one of the surprises, this wasn’t a surprise of writing the book, but because you asked that question about, like, what surprised me, I’ve been surprised how many podcast interviews have pushed back against the idea of guaranteed goals.

So, in the book, I talk about there’s three different types of goals. There’s easy goals, there’s middle goals, there’s guaranteed goals. And so, I’ve had a bunch of people say, “Well, what do you mean, how can you guarantee a goal? There’s no such thing as a guaranteed goal.” But, for me, I always respond, “I couldn’t have written about that idea in book one because I hadn’t done it. I didn’t know this idea was possible. But this is book nine, and they haven’t happened because of magic. They’ve happened because I took this desire to write books, and I turned it into a goal.

And, like, when this book came out, I turned in a tenth book in the same week. And so, there’s going to be an eleventh book, there’s going to be a twelfth book, not because it’s magic or I’m extra creative but I turn something I really wanted to do, which is write books, into a goal, and I was able to execute it. So, I think that’s one of the core ideas in the book, is you can accomplish almost anything with the right steps and really enjoy it along the way.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, just to be fully clear, what is it that you mean by a guaranteed goal?

Jon Acuff
So, here’s the metaphor that I’ve been using. Most people, when they think about a goal, imagine a ladder, and it’s only got two rungs. So, they go, “I want to start a podcast,” “I want to run a marathon,” “I want to write a book.” And you have a 12-foot-tall ladder, there’s one rung at the bottom that says, “Day one,” and there’s one rung at the top that says, “Publish the book,” or, “Grow a million-listener podcast.”

And if I said to you, “Okay, Pete, you have to get to the top of that ladder,” you’d go, “This is going to be…goals are really hard. I guess I just have to jump and try to grab it.” And what my approach is: what if you had rungs that were six inches apart all the way up the ladder? Like, would that be an easier ladder to climb? Do you think you can accomplish that?” And people go, “Yeah.” And then I say, “Okay. Well, great. Well, let’s take this massive thing and then find out how to make the steps easy. Let’s do some easy goals.”

So, an easy goal has a one to seven-day timeframe. You do an experiment. You’re not going all in. People tend to go, like, “I got to go all in. I got to do it all.” Like, you’ll see people buy expensive YouTube cameras without figuring out what they want their channel to be. So, they’ll go, “I’m going to buy, I’m going to go all in,” but they don’t do the easy things first, so they lose momentum.

So, my plan is, “What’s an easy goal? How do we succeed? How do we get some proof that it’s worth turning into a middle goal?” A little more time. A little more investment. A little more effort. And then, eventually, you get to where it’s a guaranteed goal where it’s going to happen. So, an example of that would be I have a friend who wants to have a million subscribers on YouTube. He’s got about 800,000 right now.

There’s no planet where he doesn’t end up getting with a million subscribers. Like, he’s in motion. Like, there’s no, “I’m going to sell a million books in my career.” I have sold 860,000-ish books. That’s going to happen because I’m in the middle of the ladder. I didn’t say at the very bottom, “I’m going to sell a million books.” That would’ve been egotistical and silly. But I’m on the middle of this journey. I’ve done a lot of easy goals. I wrote a lot of small blogs. I’ve done a lot of small writing. And then I turn them into middle goals.

I wrote some short books, and then I wrote some longer books, and then I sold some other books. So, now I’m in the middle of the ladder. I know that’s going to happen. That’s what I mean by a guaranteed goal. It’s got factors like the results are in your control. A bad guaranteed goal would be me saying, “Pete, I’m going to hit the New York Times’ bestseller’s list.” That’s a terrible goal. Anytime an offer tells me that’s their goal, I go, “I get it. I get it. I’m so glad I hit it but you don’t control that. You have zero control over that.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, the competitors and what do people buy.

Jon Acuff
No, it’s a formula. Like, it’s a formula you don’t have access to. Like, you could sell more than 10 people on the list but if you don’t hit the formula, it doesn’t matter. So, not even just the competitors. You could sell more than every competitor but if you haven’t hit the formula that they keep private, it doesn’t matter. So, you don’t control that.

So, a guaranteed goal is you control it, it’s measurable so you’ve got some…you can measure what you’re doing. You’ve got proof of middle goals and easy goals that have succeeded. So, that’s what I mean by a guaranteed goal where your effort ensures the results.

Pete Mockaitis
Got you, yeah. Well, that’s clear, the effort ensures the results. Got it. All right. Well, could you maybe share an inspiring story of some folks who weren’t making much progress, they felt like they weren’t hitting their potential, their goals were stalled, and they saw things transformed?

Jon Acuff
Yeah, so one of my favorite stories in the book, this woman named Susan Robertson. She got her Bachelor’s Degree in the Car Rider pickup line. And what I mean by that is she’s a super busy mom like a lot of moms are super busy. And she found 10-minute, 15-minute, 20-minute segments of time where she could figure out, over a period of time, how to spend that time towards a bachelor’s degree. She finished a bachelor degree in the car rider pickup line.

And I love her story because it pushes back against the excuse we all have of, “I’m too busy. I’ve got…I’m too busy. I’m too busy. I’m too busy.” So, she’s probably one of my favorite stories.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. All right. Well, so then, tell us, we have goals, or we don’t yet have goals, or we feel the sense that we’re fallen short of potential, what are the fundamental drivers or reasons behind this?

Jon Acuff
Yeah, one reason would be you’re chasing fake goals. So, you’re chasing things you think you want to do but you don’t really want to do them. So, you’ve told people for years you want to write a book but it’s been 10 years and you haven’t written a book. Maybe you don’t want to write a book, and that’s okay. Like, that’s perfectly fine.

Maybe you inherited a goal. I meet people at times, especially college students, that’ll say, “I’m a senior about to go to law school. My mom told me I’d be a good lawyer. I don’t want to be a lawyer. Like, what do I do?” They inherited that goal from their mom, and they’re not going to really enjoy that goal. Another is impostor syndrome. That’s a really common thing. You start to work on something, and impostor syndrome goes, “You’re not a real entrepreneur,” “You’re not a real writer,” “You’re not a real runner.” “Like, you can’t go lose weight. You’re not an athlete. You have to be an athlete.”

Another one would be perfectionism. You’re trying to do it perfectly, which is impossible. And so, anytime you make a misstep, you feel like, “Okay, this isn’t the right goal for me, or I’m not the right person.” Overthinking is another one, you end up overthinking what you really want to do. I would say there’s any number of villains that get in the way, and a lot of them do boil down to you’ve got fear about the process, you’ve got fear that it’s going to hurt, you’ve got fear about the result, you self-sabotage. There are so many things get in people’s way.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so, having identified these, what are some of the solutions?

Jon Acuff
So, my favorite solution, let’s just take impostor syndrome. The only instant cure to impostor syndrome is to do the work. It’s the only thing that cures impostor syndrome. And an example of that would be when I first started writing, impostor syndrome said, “Ahh, you’re not a real writer. Like, you’re not a writer. Who are you to share ideas? You’re not a writer.” And it said that. And then I wrote and it got a little quieter.

And then the second day, I wrote, and it was still there, and the third day, and the fourth day, but, eventually, I looked up and I had published a book. So, when impostor syndrome came in, it was like, “Hey, you’re not a writer,” I was like, “This is awkward because I’m holding a book. It’s got my picture on it. It’s got my name right on the cover. I think I might be a writer.”

At this point, on book nine, it can’t whisper that to me because I say, “Well, there’s a stack of them. They’re in 20 languages. Like, I think I might actually be a writer.” Like, the work generates results, and results are impostor syndrome’s Kryptonite. I didn’t get over impostor syndrome and then write. I wrote until I got over that form of impostor syndrome. So, that’s a really easy example. And the fun thing is the work is available always. And the second you do even a little of it, impostor syndrome gets a little quieter.

You go to your first gym class; impostor syndrome gets a little quieter. You launch your first podcast episode; it gets a little quieter. So, that one, to me, feels really, really solvable in a really, really simple way.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And what if the hangup is just like, “Ugh, I’m just kind of comfortable. That seems like a lot of work. I don’t know about all that”?

Jon Acuff
I agree, dude. I agree. Here’s what I’d say, Pete. The only thing easier than doing a goal is not doing the goal. Like, it’s really the only thing easier. The only thing easier than writing a book is not writing a book. Or, the only thing easier than going to the gym is not going to the gym. So, I think the trick here is that nobody just decides to have willpower. Nobody wakes up and goes, “Today, I have grit. Today, I’m going to be disciplined.” Nobody just wakes up and changes their life that way.

What usually happens is one of two things. You get out of a comfort zone either from an involuntary crisis, something happens outside of your control, like a parent gets sick, you lose your job, and, “Oh, I got to find another job,” or a voluntary trick, like you figure out, “I want this thing more than staying the same. I’m going to trick myself into changing. Like, I’m going to find a way to actually change.”

So, for me, when I was 34 years old, I had two kids under the age of four, a full-time job at Auto Trader, Atlanta commute, an hour and a half each way, I had freelance clients, a bunch of responsibilities, but I started a blog, and I really liked it, and I was like, “Wait a second. This seems kind of neat. Like, I wish I could do more of this.” Like, I got this small little desire.

And then I started to look at each hour of my day like a log, and I wanted to throw more of them into this burning fire, this blaze. And so, I didn’t stop watching TV as much because I was disciplined. I just wanted that time to go to this thing I absolutely loved, and I couldn’t find enough time to throw at it, so I started to get up early in the morning, I started practicing speeches in the drive to work. Like, I started throwing as much time as I could into it.

So, a lot of times, if somebody goes, “Ahh, it seems like a lot of work,” I agree. It just means you don’t have a thing you really desire yet. Like, if you had something you really desired, it would woo you into changing. It would make you want to change, not, “I have to figure out how I make myself change.”

Pete Mockaitis
And for those whose passion, desire, is at a low ebb, any pro tips for surfacing? Where is that thing?

Jon Acuff
Well, I think part of it is you might…it depends on if you’re practicing being low. And what I mean by that is nothing happens awesome accidentally. Like, nobody accidentally gets in shape. I’ve never met a single person that goes, “Yeah, I was just binge-watch Netflix, I look up and I was doing burpees. I don’t even remember getting off the couch.” Like, everything that’s awesome takes work.

An awesome marriage takes work. The default of marriage is to be pulled apart in separate directions and get a divorce. That’s the default. You have to work to have a good marriage. There’s no such thing as an accidentally awesome marriage. It takes work. Same with positivity. Same with negativity. So, an example of that is if somebody said to me, “Jon, I feel really low, I feel really down,” I’d go, “Well, tell me about what you’re practicing? Like, what are you practicing? Like, are you practicing positivity? Are you practicing negativity? Like, where are you making choices that feed one or the other?”

So, for me, I’m a very naturally negative person. Like, I’m super pessimistic, I’m very low naturally. I always joke like I have a counting crows-like temperament, like just very moppy, very jaded, cynical. But I’ve tested positivity, and I’ve tested negativity, and the ROI of positivity is so much better. Again, it’s so much more productive, like I get books written, I get to accomplish goals. Negativity never dreams. It can’t dream. It only sees the negative side of things.

So, when somebody says to me they’re low, it’s often like they’re saying, “Jon, I feel really hungry,” and I go, “Well, did you eat anything today?” and they go, “No, I haven’t eaten anything in three days.” And I go, “What? I’m going to blow your mind. I know why you’re hungry. You’re hungry because you haven’t eaten anything.”

So, if you say to me, “Jon, I feel low, I feel negative,” and I go, “Tell me about how you spent your day.” “Well, I hate my job. I was on social media arguing with strangers about politics. I listen to murder podcast episodes to work and back from work. And then at night, I watch documentaries about murders.” And then you’re like, “I don’t know why I feel negative.” I’d be like, “I know in my shirt, the clothes I wear say ‘Namaste in bed.’ Or, ‘I can’t adult’ today.”

You wore a reminder limiting yourself for an entire day, and you’re like, “I don’t know why I feel low.” I know why. You practiced that for an entire day, maybe even an entire year. What if we started practicing some other things? What if we just start, not massive things all at once, But if you have something, if this isn’t working for you, let’s practice something else? If it is working for you, like keep getting those results. That’s fine.

Like, sometimes people say to me, “This stuff is common sense. It’s common sense,” which I always push back, and go, “If you’re doing those things, it’s common sense. If you’re in the best shape of your life right now, it’s common sense. If you have more money in your 401k and retirement, if you love your job, all of these things are common sense. If you don’t have that type of life right now, this is extraordinary because you’re not doing any of it.” So, like, engage in it if you want to, or just stick with the results you have, that’s your choice. You get to choose that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, let’s say we do have the desire, we got something going, and we’re like, “All right, Jon, I got a goal. Tell me, what is this three-step plan? How do I get after it and maximize the odds that I will achieve it?”

Jon Acuff
Well, the first thing we do is we would break it down into small actions so that we could actually practice it. So, we would probably do a 10-hour test. I’d say, “Okay, here’s your massive goal. You want to find a different job. We would go what are some easy ways to start with that? Like, not find a different job tomorrow, not become a different person next week?”

What’s funny with goals, we understand some goals take time and other goals we want fast results. So, nobody ever says, “I’m going to learn Italian this week. Or, I’m going to learn Italian this month.” They know that takes time but find a new job, they go, “I got to find a new job this week. Like, an amazing new job. I got to find it this month.”

So, the first thing I do is say, “Okay, what are some actions we can actually do? How do we make it some easy goals that you can accomplish?” That’s step one. We’re going to escape the comfort zone. Step two would be, “Okay, how do we avoid the chaos zone?” Because what happens is people, when they start a goal, they get a little bit of momentum, and they want to do it all at once.

So, they go from not trying anything to, “I’m going to do everything,” they get inspired, and they land right in the chaos zone, which is too much action, too many goals. It’s why we have the phrase yoyo diet in our country because people yoyo back and forth. What happens with people is they don’t do any goals, they get a little inspired, and they try to do everything.

Like, I meet people at times with a podcast, and they’re like, “I’m going to do a daily podcast. I’m going to go all in like John Lee Dumas. I’m going to do a daily podcast.” And I go, “Have you ever done, like, a weekly? Have you ever done like a bi-weekly?” And they go, “No, I’m going for it. I’m inspired.” And I know you’re going to do seven episodes and realize podcasting is challenging, but you’re in the chaos zone, and so how do I help you get out of that chaos zone?

And then the third thing is, “How do we live in the potential zone?” which is the right amount of goals, the right amount of actions. That’s the three-step, is you escape that comfort zone, you avoid the chaos zone, and you live in the potential zone.

Pete Mockaitis
And how do we know the right amount of goals, the right amount of actions?

Jon Acuff
So, people want me to say a number. Like, people go, “How many goals should I chase?” and they want me to say, “Seven point eight. Pete, you need to do 9.3.” That’s not the answer. The answer is as many as you can do successfully. So, it’s an individual answer. So, there are some times where I’ll meet people that’ll go, “I’ve got a full-time job, I’ve got two kids under the age of five, I’ve got all these commitments.” I’ll go, “Cool. How many hours do you have to invest in your goals?”

The problem, Pete, is people go, “I got these 10 goals I want to do,” and I’ll say, “Okay, how many hours do you think it would take a week to, like, do those well?” And they’ll go, “Well, I don’t know,” and they’ll come up with a list, “It’ll take 20 hours.” And I go, “Cool. Cool. Cool. Right now, on your average week, how many hours of free time do you have? Like, right now, like is it are you dealing with too much time, like you don’t have enough things?” And they’ll go, “No, I don’t have any time.”

And I’ll go, “Okay, so you have 20 hours of goals you want to do. You have a two-hour slot every week. Which one is going into it? Like, which one?” Often, the goal is divorced from the calendar and it never happens. So, you have to say, “Here’s how much time I have, and if you’re not happy with that, here’s where I’m going to go find more time.” But that’s one of the most honest metrics. I think time is probably the most honest metric because it tells you the truth, and it’ll tell you pretty quickly what you actually have time for.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And speaking of time, before, you mentioned the ten-hour, what was your term, the ten-hour…?

Jon Acuff
I said a ten-hour experiment.

Pete Mockaitis
So, what is…is it just we go after some actions over the course of ten hours and then we reflect? Or what do you mean by the ten-hour experiment?

Jon Acuff
So, I’m constantly trying to help people limit the number of goals they’re working on so they can be successful, and then build more into their life. So, again, what happens is people go, I got to do the survey, and the people that read my books, nobody who reads my books comes to me with zero goals. That never happens. The people who don’t have goals don’t read a book called All It Takes Is a Goal. They don’t even know that section of the bookstore exists. They don’t listen to podcasts like yours.

It’s like no one who’s not engaged in getting better and learning and growing is listening to podcasts like this. They don’t even know these kinds of…like, they don’t come to this category of podcasts. What happens is they tend to have lots and lots of things they’re excited about. So, part of my job is to go, “Okay, you got 22 things you’re interested in. Let’s figure out how to narrow that down a little bit so we can actually get some wins and accomplish some of these.”

So, there’s two ways you can do this, there’s probably 50 ways you can do this, but the two that I like are one I’d go, “I want you to write down a list of all the things you’ll get if you accomplish that goal.” “So, write a book.” “Okay, tell me the things you’ll get.” “Start a business.” “Tell me the things you’ll get.” Because I’m trying to get a sense of their real desire because, again, nobody changes just because. They change because the desire makes the thing worth it.

I don’t like delayed flights. I don’t like missing flights. I don’t like airports or hotel travel, but I love being on stage. I love being a public speaker. I do my entire year to be on stage 50 times a year. That’s the trade I’d make because I love it that much. I don’t even care about a delayed flight. I’ll sleep wherever in the Baltimore airport because I love doing that.

If I hated my job, the littlest inconvenience would set me off. I’d go, “Aargh, I can’t…aargh, it’s not worth the commute.” So, I initially try to get a sense of somebody’s desire. So, if I say to you, Pete, “Write down 10 things you’ll get if you do this goal,” and you go, “Ah, I can’t do it.” Great, we can cross it off the list. Like, if you can’t even to that part, you’re going to hate the rest of it. This is the easy part.

So, I do a desire check, and go, “Okay, what do you really care about?” And then I’ll do a 10-hour check, “If you want to invest 10 hours into it, you’re not going to invest the thousand it takes.” Like, if it takes me 500 to a thousand hours to write a book, that’s a pretty big investment. But I can test at the beginning, “Am I willing to even try 10 hours?” And if the 10 hours takes you three months to find, you really don’t want to do the goal. Awesome. Let’s clear that one out. I want you to have a short list that you can actually do, and actually win at, and get some momentum, and then add a bunch to your life.

Pete Mockaitis
So, the 10-hour experiment, the thing we’re testing to see if it’s present is desire. And so, we’ll know, “Hey, we did 10 hours,” or you didn’t do 10 hours. That’s telling in and of itself. Or, you did 10 hours, like, “You know what, actually I hated that.” “Oh, okay.”

Jon Acuff
Yeah, and you might know two hours in. You might know automatically, like, “No, this isn’t the thing.” Like, one of the things I say is, “I want you to find a desire you love so much that it makes Netflix boring.” Like, that’s the thing. You asked me why don’t people accomplish goals. Part of it is we haven’t given companies enough credit.

There are 50,000 people at Facebook right now, and their goal is Pete’s time. Like, that is their goal, it’s, “How do I get more of their time?” Like, the distraction industry has scaled much faster and bigger than our ability to focus. So, we don’t give companies enough credit that you go, “Man, why is it hard to do goals?” Because Netflix and Instagram are very easy. It’s not accidental that you go to look at one photo, and an hour later you’re like, “What just happened? Like, why am I on YouTube looking at, watching a video that had nothing to do?” That’s not accidental.

So, some of the reason it’s hard to accomplish goals is that there’s an entire industry working against you. Netflix doesn’t want you to have a good podcast, Pete. No, they want you to watch more Netflix, and they should. That’s their company mission. Like, Instagram doesn’t want you to get in shape. Like, that’s not their goal. Their goal is you spend 10 hours.

Like, the average American right now watches 34 hours of TV a week according to Nielsen. So, the Nielsen rating is 34 hours of TV a week. So, when somebody says, “Man, I just don’t have enough time for my goals,” I can usually help them find some time, but that’s part of why it’s challenging. That’s part of why it’s difficult.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And so then, we are pursuing the dream, we said, “All right, we’re past the 10-hour experiment. Okay, cool, cool, cool. We’re after it.” Give us some perspective on how we go about translating things into micro actions? Like, just how micro are we talking? And can you give us some examples of breaking things down that way?

Jon Acuff
Yes. So, one of my goals was I wanted to be a better friend. I realized during COVID, I was kind of isolated, I worked at home, I want to be a better friend. I want better connection. I always joke that I know I’m isolated when I over-talk the UPS guy. Like, he’s, “I just want to drop off a box,” and I’m like, “How’s your family? How’s Pam and the kids?”

So, I want to be a better friend. That’s a fuzzy goal. I can’t really operate on that one. It’s not measurable. I can’t really do anything with it. So, then I was like, “Okay, what if I can make that into a daily goal, like a small daily goal?” So, I thought about it, I worked on it a little bit, and I said, “Okay, I’m going to text one person an encouragement every day for 30 days in a row, 30 different people, 30 different encouragements.”

So, okay, now I have a measurable goal. So, then what’s a small action related to that one? Well, what if I made a list of my friends I’m going to text because I know if I get on day four, and I have to go, “Okay, okay, who am I…? Who am I…?” I’m going to quit. I’m going to get distracted by something else. So, I said, “Okay, one of the small actions is I’d make a list of 30 people I want to connect with. And that wasn’t hard, I went through my contacts, and said, “Okay, here’s 30 people I haven’t connected with lately.”

So, then I did that. So, then I made a little chart, I’ve got a little checkbox that says, “For 30 days. I would write a short text to people.” And I made it easy on myself. I didn’t say I’d write 30 handwritten notes. That’s not an easy goal. I got to find stamps and mail and addresses. So, I did that for 30 days in a row, and there wasn’t a single person that responded back, and said, “I wish you hadn’t said that today. Like, today is the worst day for you to tell me that encouragement.” Ninety percent said, “You don’t know how much I needed that today. That was really encouraging.”

So, at the end of the 30 days, it had become a guaranteed goal because, Pete, if I encouraged 30 people for 30 days in a row, I’m guaranteed to be a better friend. Like, 30 interactions with 30 different people, like I am a better friend at the end of the 30 days. That’s not a mystery to me. So, then I go, “I want to be a better dad.” Like, I’ve got two teenage daughters. I want to be a better dad. It’s not easy to raise teenagers.

So, I’m like, “What if I took that principle and I made it apply to just my kids?” So, for 30 days in a row, I encouraged my kids, and I made a list of things that I think are really special about them. So, then I make a list, and I go, “You know, McRae was really brave about this. L.E. was really funny about this,” and then I’m like, “What about actions? What if I helped them in some small ways?”

So, then I come up with a list of that. I’m like, “I could clean McRae’s…” she’s got a small fish, she’s got a betta fish, “I’ll clean the fish bowl once a week.” Like, it takes me 10 minutes but it’s one of those things that a teenage daughter doesn’t want to do. She’s busy. She’s like, “Ugh, that stupid fish,” I’m like, “Oh, I could do a list of actions.

At the end of the 30 days, we have a better relationship. Like, that’s not…again, it’s not complicated. It’s just I went out of my way and spent some time as a dad to think about things that are special about them, to remind them of those things, to do kind things for them. I’m a better dad at the end of that experience than when I was before the experience. So, that’s an example of taking something super fuzzy, like be a better dad. What does that even mean? And making it practical and actionable, and it changed our interactions.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Okay. Well, tell me, Jon, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Jon Acuff
No, no, I have a podcast where I talk about a lot about this, called All It Takes Is a Goal. So, if you’re a podcast person, and you are because you’re listening to one, check out All It Takes Is a Goal.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, maybe before I do that, I’d also want to get your take on with regard to keeping the motivation going, celebration, rewards, not celebrating, not doing rewards, pushing through the moments when you’re just not feeling it. How do you think about the motivational arc over the long term? And what can be done there?

Jon Acuff
Well, motivation is the flightiest thing in the world. Motivation tends to disappear on day two of a goal because that’s when the work shows up. So, I always tell people, “You have to bring your own motivation.” What I teach is you need a motivation portfolio. People tend to think they’re going to find their one why or their vision quest, their reason, their true north and that’ll be enough.

What I found is you need lots and lots and lots of sources of motivation, so a portfolio of motivation. So, when I work with people, I say, “Okay, what are 10 things that you’re going to enjoy about this? What are 10 forms of motivation? What are 20 forms of motivation?” Because some days, one through five won’t even move the needle.

Like, there are some days where it all takes, like, “I’m so close to the motivation, like a song gets me. Like, all right, let’s go. I listened to this song, it’s motivation.” There are some days I can listen to 10 songs and be like, “This is dumb anyway,” and I need a different form of motivation. So, I practice motivation. I don’t see motivation as a checkbox. I expect it to dissipate, I expect it to disappear at times, and I work against that, and I’m deliberate about that, and say, “Okay, I have to practice it. I have to have lots of forms of motivation.”

And the other thing is that I remind myself that excellence is boring. Like, real excellence is boring at plenty of times. So, writing thank you notes to people that nobody sees, that you’re doing all the little things, following up with people, the emails, the details, like people get to see the 30 minutes on stage but there’s 50 other things I’ve done to make that moment happen. And those things are often, like, I just have to do them. They’re small and sometimes annoying.

So, for me, I remind myself of that, and I plan a ton of motivation. I don’t expect motivation to stay long. I know it’s going to leave, and so I always say BYOH, you’ve got to bring your own hype. And so, I work at motivation pretty aggressively.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yes, let’s dig into that. The working on motivation. Having a portfolio. One thing might be the songs. So, you actually have documented, listed somewhere, “These are my pump-up jams.”

Jon Acuff
Yeah, totally. But, like, I’ll have a list where it’s okay. Like, I made a list the other day. Let me just…I’ll just turn to it. I’ll just tell you what’s on this list. So, I went through, and you can tell I’m a big list guy, I’m a fan of the list. I just love to kind of get ideas out of my head and onto a piece of paper. So, the other day I was, like, “Okay, if I work on building an excellent business, what will I get? What will keep me motivated? What are my forms of motivation?”

So, one of them is I can pay for my daughter to go to London. My oldest daughter got accepted to study abroad for a semester in London, and that’s awesome. And if I do my business well, I get to pay for stuff like that. Like, that’s super cool. I control my calendar. If I run my business well, I have a lot more control over my calendar. I love that.

I get to spend time with team members like Jean and Caleb. I can afford to have team members. I love that. I get to plan vacation days. I get to spend time with clients I love if I’m deliberate. So, in addition to things that are traditional, like, “Okay, this music encourages me. A walk around the block encourages me. This person encourages me. Like, a friend that I text with encourages me,” I’ll be really deliberate and go, “Man, if I work hard, I get to afford a personal assistant.” Like, that changed my life.

Seven years ago, like hiring a personal assistant, game changing for me, but I had to learn how to pay for that person, and how to help lead that person. And so, the little things like that, I go out of my way to go, “What happens if I do this well? How do I stay motivated to this?” Because, again, some of those items aren’t going to move me some days. Like, there are some times where the goal is really challenging and I have to go, “No, I’ve already committed, and I committed to somebody that I want to honor the commitment to them.”

Because if you have an accountability coach that you don’t care about, you’ll break that all day. So, you have to have some degree of, “I want to be held accountable to this person. This person matters to me.” So, yeah, I have a pretty robust list of motivation because I’ve just seen it time and time again, if you think it’ll be there, it never grows during a goal, it only shrinks. I have to be the one that grows it.

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

Jon Acuff
So, one of mine is from Brad Montague. Brad Montague is the creator of this Kid President campaign, really fun, blew up online. I asked him, “How do you do that creative endeavor with Beyonce, Obama – it was huge – and then do your next one, because there are some times, there’s a creative letdown from the next one?”

And he said, “I have to know whether I’m creating from love or for love.” He said, “When I have an idea, am I sharing it from this amazing amount of love I have for this idea? Or, am I trying to get people to love me via this idea? Am I looking for adoration? Am I looking for attention? Because that’s not going to be a very good idea. I’m not going to feel very good. Or, am I creating something because it’s so big inside me, if I don’t create it, I’m going to burst?”

And so, that’s one of the ways I look at my projects, is like, “Is this from love or for love?” And so, that’s always been a quote that’s been helpful.

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

Jon Acuff
NYU, Daniel Kahneman talked about this in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow where they took two groups of college students and gave them a word bank, and said, “Create some sentences.” The second group, they had hidden words, trigger words related to being old, like retired and slow and bald and Florida.

And so then, they say, after 20 or 30 minutes, “The second part of the test is down the hall. That’s where the real test started.” They secretly timed the students walking, and the students who had read the word about being old physically acted old just reading those words. So, I put that study in my book “Soundtracks” because it’s a great reminder how powerful your thoughts are, that your thoughts can change your physical actions.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Jon Acuff
The War of Art Steven Pressfield. That’s the one. I love that book.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, man, I listened to the audio version. The title is perfect, it’s like, “The war of art. Like, you really, really, really will feel resistance to doing the thing, and you have to declare war upon that.”

Jon Acuff
Yeah, it was one of those books that got me through my first book. Somebody gave it to me. And so, it’s one that I’ve come back to a few times. And Seth Godin The Dip. I really like The Dip. It was a short book that had a big message for me.

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

Jon Acuff
Notebooks. I’m a big notebook guy. I’ve read you a list from an actual notebook. There’s a brand called Leuchtturm. They’re better than Moleskine, in my opinion. And so, I love notebooks.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit, something you do that helps you be awesome at your job?

Jon Acuff
Exercise. I need endorphins. My wife will sometimes say, “You need to go for a run,” and that’s her way of being like, “You’re kind of being a huge jerk.” So, yeah, exercise, for me, if I don’t exercise for a few days, I get super low. So, I would say exercise is a habit I use.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they Kindle book highlight it, they retweet it at your speeches and such?

Jon Acuff
Yeah, two would be “Never compare your beginning to somebody else’s middle.” So, when you start your thing, like, when you start a podcast, don’t go look at like Joe Rogan’s podcast, and be like, “Man, my podcast isn’t big enough.” And then another one would be, “Leaders who can’t be questioned end up doing questionable things.” So, if you surround yourself with yes people, you eventually implode.

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

Jon Acuff
JonAcuff.com and then All It Takes Is a Goal is the book. It’s sold anywhere books are sold. And I read the audiobook and there’s 10 bonus chapters in it. So, if you’re into audio, and if you listen to a podcast, you probably are, check that out.

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

Jon Acuff
Yeah, here’s what I’d say. You can’t half-do your day job and then think you’ll hustle in your dream job. You’re one person. If you practice being lazy all week, you won’t turn it on on a weekend. So, when I was jumping from jobs, back and forth, back and forth, I think that I had eight jobs in 12 years. And when I finally realized, “Oh, wait, if I actually perform well at this day job, I’ll also perform well at my dream job. Awesome.” And when I kind of connected those things, my job changed.

Pete Mockaitis
All right, Jon. Thank you. This has been a treat. I wish you much luck and fun and goal-dream achievement.

Jon Acuff
Thanks. I had a blast doing it, Pete.

Aug 31
0

895: The Keys to Continual Growth and Improvement with Eduardo Briceño

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Eduardo Briceño reveals the fundamental factors that accelerate your growth and improvement.

You’ll Learn:

  1. How focusing on performance actually hurts results
  2. The one feedback method that always tells the truth
  3. The five key elements that drive growth

About Eduardo

Eduardo Briceño is a global keynote speaker and facilitator who guides many of the world’s leading companies in developing cultures of learning and high performance. Earlier in his career, he was the co-founder and CEO of Mindset Works, the first company to offer growth mindset development services. Previously, he was a venture capital investor with the Sprout Group.

His TED Talk, How to Get Better at the Things You Care About, and his prior TEDx Talk, The Power of Belief, have been viewed more than nine million times. He is a Pahara-Aspen Fellow, a member of the Aspen Institute’s Global Leadership Network, and an inductee in the Happiness Hall of Fame.

Resources Mentioned

Eduardo Briceño Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Eduardo, welcome back to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Eduardo Briceño
Great to be here, Pete. Thank you for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to hear some of your insights and wisdom that you’ve captured in your book, The Performance Paradox: Turning the Power of Mindset into Action. But, first, I want to hear, talking about growth mindsets, wow, is it, in fact, true that you did not have any prior public speaking experience before you did your TEDx Talk?

Eduardo Briceño
That is true. And I would have never thought, I mean, becoming a public speaker, which I do now, it just didn’t even cross my mind growing up or in my young adult life, but I had started an organization, MindsetWorks with Carol Dweck and Lisa Blackwell, and a board member encouraged me to go out and have people get to know me and know who I was.

We were evangelizing growth mindset, and she thought that as part of that, I needed to kind of become a leader in the industry, and people needed to know who I was. So, I actually thought, “Hey, I don’t have time. I have so much work to do. I agree with you,” but when Carol Dweck was asked to do a TEDx Talk, she couldn’t do it.

So, then we decided, and I thought, “That would be a good opportunity to put a lot of work into 10 minutes. I can do 10 minutes. I can work really hard to prepare a great script and deliver it.” And so, I worked really hard with Carol and with others, and I was so nervous during those 10 minutes. I, the whole time, looked at the back wall and the lights and not at people’s eyes because I thought that I would just blank out if I tried to figure out what people were thinking.

So, that was my first public speaking experience was that TEDx Talk. And then that became pretty popular. It’s being over 4 million times now.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. Yes, far more than the most TEDx Talks, and it’s featured prominently on the TED proper website. Well, it’s funny, I just rewatched that, and you didn’t look that nervous.

Eduardo Briceño
Yeah, I don’t know, that was surprising to me. I went on the stage, and I thought, “Okay, I’m prepared. I’ve done everything I can. And now, what’s going to help my performance is to relax. I know I’m not going to look at people, so I had a plan.” And that helped me be relaxed, and I was more relaxed than I would have thought.

And then, a few years later, four years later, I did another TEDx Talk that became a TED Talk, and that also has been viewed over 4 million times. And that was the basis for the book that I wrote, The Performance Paradox.

Pete Mockaitis
So, tell us, what’s the big idea in the The Performance Paradox?

Eduardo Briceño
The performance paradox is the counterintuitive fact that if we fixate solely on performing, our performance suffers. So often we’re really encouraging ourselves and others to just focus on executing, doing the best we know how, trying to minimize mistakes, and that hurts our performance. That is the counterintuitive fact, that is chapter one, is the problem, and the rest of the book is about the solution, how to overcome that problem.

Pete Mockaitis
And could you elaborate on the pathway? How is it that doing the same thing and trying not to make mistakes makes our performance worse?

Eduardo Briceño
Yeah. So, the best way to understand this is if we kind of step out of our everyday context and look at people who are fantastic at what they do, in domains where performance can be objectively measured, so sports, chess, performing arts, incredible acrobats. If you think about how an acrobat, for an example, what they do, when we see them perform, they do these incredible acrobatic things, they do it beautifully, and they rarely make mistakes.

And we tend to kind of have this vague idea that the way they became so good is by spending a lot of hours doing that thing that we are seeing. But actually, the way they become so good is by doing something very different from what we’re seeing. When they are behind curtains, at the gym or at the studio, they are making a lot of mistakes, they’re missing the timing a lot because they’re focused on what they haven’t mastered yet, they’re focused on the next level of challenge, and the show is always evolving.

And so, it’s the time they spend in what I call the learning zone, which is when they’re focused on improvement that allows them to build their skills and to be so excellent in the performance zone. Same thing in sports, if you’re playing a championship final, you’re having trouble with a move, you’re going to avoid that move during the match. But after the match, you go to your coach, you say, “Coach, I have to work on this move,” that’s a very different activity and area of attention than what we do during the match.

And what often happens for a lot of us is that we spend most of our time, if not all of our time, in the performance zone, just trying to get things done as best as we can, trying to minimize mistakes, and that works okay when we’re novices because we’re so bad, we don’t need great learning strategies to get better. But once we become proficient, we stagnate, we don’t continue to improve, and we think the reason is we can’t improve, that’s a fixed mindset, but the reason really is that we’re not engaging the learning zone.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s a really great distinction because I think some of the folks would say, “Well, of course, I’ve seen myself get better the more I do a thing. That’s sort of self-evident in my own experience.” And I love what you had to say there, like, “Well, yes, that works just fine when you are really clueless.”

Eduardo Briceño
Yeah, and it is amazing that we do learn that by experience. If I want to start to play tennis, I could go into the court and just play tennis with a friend, then I will get better. And so, we learn by experience that that’s the way to improve but then we stagnate once we become proficient, and then we conclude that we can’t get better. We develop a fixed mindset when we haven’t developed the skills and the habits in order to continue to improve and become excellent.

Like, if you look at an Olympic gold medalist, they’re the best in the world but they will then engage in deliberate practice to go beyond what they can do to continue to get even better. They don’t just play games and matches.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Eduardo, in a way, this is really haunting, as I think from a meta perspective of just podcasting. I think that was accurate for, maybe, I don’t know, several hundred, I don’t know, 300, 600, some number of hundreds of episodes, I think I got better just by doing more episodes and talking to folks. And then I have had a little bit of a sense of stagnation here.

And I thought it was just in my head, and I’ve heard people say, it’s like, “Oh, wow, you were pretty good when we started, and now you’re amazing.” I say, “Well, thank you. I appreciate that.” But I have felt like, “I don’t think I’m actually getting better at this,” and that just makes sense. Like, “Well, before, just doing it more times was sufficient to help me get better. And now, that is no longer sufficient to help me get better.”

And so, to use your terminology, if I were to enter the learning zone as a podcaster host, interviewer, what might be some activities I do other than just simply do one more episode?

Eduardo Briceño
Well, I have some ideas I can share but you know a whole lot about learning. So, tell me, what do you think you might do to get better?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I think it’d be closely listening to some episodes and making some notes in terms of what I might have done differently. I think it could be closely observing some of the finest interviewers around to see what they’re doing. Ask for feedback and perspective from either coaches or masters of the craft, or listeners, it’s like, “Hey, Pete, I’ve heard you hundreds of times, and I have some thoughts.” But pete@awesomeatyourjob.com, lay them on me. Lay them on me, I’m listening. Thank you.

So, those are some things that leap to mind there.

Eduardo Briceño
Absolutely. Those are great ideas, and they are different than just doing episodes, and they don’t take a lot of time. And so, the great performers, whether athletes or others, they do watch their videos. Like, Beyonce watches videos of her performances after she performs, and identifies what to change and shares notes of that with her colleagues.

At ClearChoice Dental Systems, they do dental implants. They have video cameras in their consult rooms so that the people who work there, when they’re interacting with patients, after their consult, for the patients that agree to this, that agree to be recorded for this purpose, they can watch the videos afterwards and go to a particular part of the conversation that they were working on and watch themselves, and kind of think about what they can do differently and how what they tried work or didn’t work.

And one thing that they say that I love is that…sometimes when we receive feedback, feedback is amazing, feedback, I think is the most powerful learning-zone strategy in the workplace but, sometimes, especially for some people, when we receive feedback, we might reactive defensively and think, “This person doesn’t know what they’re talking about, or they didn’t really see what I saw,” but what they say is that video always tells the truth.

So, if you listen to your recording and reflect on it, and it doesn’t have to be the whole thing, it can be just how you started the recording, or how you end it, or a particular part of it, then that’s a fantastic way to think about, “Okay, like what can I do differently next time?” And one key thing, when we’re going about our work, is in order to improve, we have to change. Like, we can’t improve and not change.

So, if we do the same thing today than we did yesterday, we’re not going to get better, so we have to always be thinking about, “What is something that I can try differently?” And for that, like you said, we can observe experts, whether they are other podcasters, or we can read books, or listen to podcasts to get ideas, and identify, “Okay, what can I try differently?” and then feedbacking whatever form, like you said, is a fantastic, fantastic powerful strategy.

Pete Mockaitis
Another fun thing about that, the notion of that distinction there, is that when you’re new doing anything helps you get better, then you have to get precise. It seems like that’s analogous to what happens in physical training as well. It’s like when you’re out of shape, walking anywhere, lifting anything improves your fitness but then, at some point, that’s just not going to cut it.

Bringing the groceries from your trunk to the kitchen isn’t going do, and we need to get sort of more precise with a deliberate practice and learning in terms of, “I’m going to need to lift this level of weight this many times, in this kind of emotion in order to get an adaptation because the easy gains have already been grabbed.”

Eduardo Briceño
Absolutely. And there’s another benefit to that, which is that when we are kind of just doing and exploring an idea, an activity, and tinkering with it, just kind of doing it, we can play with it, we can try it out, we can see if we would enjoy it. And that is really important because it kind of doesn’t make sense to engage in deliberate practice and put a lot of effort into improving into something that we are not going to enjoy and that is not important to us.

So, early in our process, kind of trying an activity, playing with it, tinkering with it, is a way to improve but also it’s a way to explore whether it’s something we want to do and get better at.

Pete Mockaitis
So, I already love this stuff in terms of, “Yeah, ooh, what are some fun ways I could spend some more time in the learning zone? And what might I be doing while I’m there?” I suppose, fundamentally, in order for anyone to have any motivation whatsoever to spend some time in the learning zone, they have to believe that learning and growth is possible, and so you spend much time sharing the wisdom of the growth versus fixed mindset. For folks who are not as familiar with that, could you give us, like, the super quick crash course?

Eduardo Briceño
Yeah, absolutely. So, for those who have heard of the term growth mindset, I ask you to think about what it means to you. What do you think it means? Because when we ask what it means, even for people who have kind of been tinkering with it for a long time, people often say things, like, “It’s working hard or it’s persevering, or even is having a positive attitude, or is being open-minded.” And a growth mindset is none of those things.

A growth mindset is a perspective about the nature of human beings, specifically it’s the belief that people can change, that we can change and that other people can change, that our abilities or our qualities are malleable, that we can develop them. And the reason that’s important is that lots of research has shown that when we believe that we can change and that others can change, then we do the things that are necessary in the learning zone in order to improve, if we know how the learning zone works, which is another key component.

But if we don’t believe that we can change, then we’re never going to do anything to change, we won’t change, and we will confirm our fixed mindset. Similarly, if we believe that somebody else can’t change, we’re not going to share any information with them that they can learn from, so they won’t know to do anything, they won’t change, and that will create a self-fulfilling prophecy and confirm our starting belief.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, the opposite of a growth mindset is a fixed mindset, to believe that rather than things being changeable and growable, that, “Hey, you’re either good at this or you’re bad at this.” Like, “I’m just not a math person,” whatever. I’d love to get your perspective. Sometimes maybe I’m a little sleep-deprived, maybe a little stressed, and I’m interacting with something that’s tricky. I’m thinking like assembling furniture, and I get frustrated, and I feel like I’m stupid, or like I’m a loser, and I don’t like feeling that way.

And I know from all this stuff, like, “Oh, Pete, it sounds like you’re engaging in fixed mindset-type thinking, a type evaluation of this stuff,” and I’d rather not. I guess I’m curious, if we’re generally on board, like, “Yeah, growth mindset, that’s real. I generally believe that,” and yet we find ourselves drifting into thought patterns that sound more fixed mindset-y, any pro tips for how we can, I don’t know, install the growth mindset all the more deep down in our operating system so it’s alive and well and kicking and dominating?

Eduardo Briceño
So, the first thing is to acknowledge that we all experience a fixed mindset some of the time, just like you described, and a fixed mindset is part of being human. We see sometimes some abilities as fixed, or some people as fixed, and that is normal. And the really important thing to do is to notice it, like you are, and saying, “Oh, I am thinking that I can’t get better at this right now.”

And we might react with an emotional response right away, but we can observe it, let it kind of put a little bit of distance, pause a little bit, and think about, “Can I get better at this?” or, “Can I examine my mistake, to learn from my mistake?” or, “What different strategy can I use? What learning-zone strategy can I use to get better at this?”

And so, pausing, noticing our fixed mindset, and thinking about, “What can I do in the learning zone in order to improve if that’s something that I want to do?” It doesn’t mean that we should try to get better at everything. It means that whatever we do want to get better at, we can figure out what strategies are effective for that and engage in those strategies.

Pete Mockaitis
So, if I’m assembling furniture and it’s not going well, I can choose to be, like, “This is not an area, an endeavor of activity or skill that I am going to choose to really invest big in and master. I can just let that go, and that’s fine.” And, at the same time, if it’s like, “If I feel…” Well, maybe this is a broader question for all sorts of learning activities. When you’re in the midst of doing something that is hard and not going well, and you’re screwing up, and you’re frustrated, and you feel dumb, what should we do?

Eduardo Briceño
Well, say that you’re in the situation you described, that you’re trying to assemble furniture, you’re getting frustrated. You said you’re sleep-deprived, you’re tired. You can think about that maybe in the moment, if you can, maybe pause. But, at some point, when we reflect, we can think about, “First of all, what is most important to me? Why am I assembling furniture? Is that important to me? Like, is it that I want to have a beautiful home? Or, is it that I want to kind of update my couch? And why am I trying to do that? Am I trying to foster a feeling of kind of calm in my home? And how can I get better at that?”

So, sometimes what happens is that we get frustrated with mid-level goals or low-level goals, like assembling furniture, that might or might not be important to you. Sometimes we can quit at those things if that’s a better way to achieve a higher-level goal, like achieving calm, or achieving an uncluttered space, if that’s important to you.

Or, sometimes that might be the right way. It might be, “I can get better at assembling furniture, and that’s something that I want to do. It’s going to make me feel good.” But part of the answer might be, “Okay, I am sleep-deprived. Like, should I be changing my sleeping habits? Should I be going to bed earlier? Should I approach my mornings differently?” So, what is leading to my challenge right now rather than only focusing on the immediate challenge, thinking about, “What’s most important to me and what are different ways that I could get better at that most important goal?”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, in so doing, you’re learning about something. You’re making some learnings and improvements on a thing that’s even more important and broader-reaching.

Eduardo Briceño
Yes, sometimes people associate growth mindset with grit or being persistent, which there’s definitely a close association, but it doesn’t mean that we need to be gritty around everything we’re doing. It means we want to be gritty and most growth-minded about the goals that we most care about, and so we need to identify what are those goals.

There’s something in psychology called the hierarchy of goals, which is like a pyramid. And at the top is what we care most about, and at the bottom is our low-level strategies around the things we do. And so, to go up the pyramid, we ask why we care. And to go down the pyramid, we ask how. And we want to be most gritty and most growth-minded about the highest-level goals because, then, our answer and how we get better at those things might be different than what we’re currently attempting.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool to get a broad perspective and not get too fixated on something that maybe doesn’t matter all that much. Okay. Well, when it comes to mistakes, you say these can really propel our growth, and you’ve categorized four kinds of mistakes. Could you lay these out for us?

Eduardo Briceño
Yeah. So, I think most of us have a sense that we can learn from mistakes but, first, most of us don’t realize how important mistakes are. So, when we are in our mid-20s, the way the neuroplasticity in our brain works changes. Before our 20s, our brain changes based on experience. We walk around the street, we observe things, and our brain is reconfiguring.

In our 20s, the brain doesn’t do that as much from then but the main way that we can drive our neuroplasticity and become smarter and more capable is actually by making mistakes, is by when the brain makes a prediction, and that prediction turns out to be wrong, that’s the main way that we can proactively elicit our own neuroplasticity. That’s how important mistakes are.

But, on the other hand, so mistakes are really important, but also, mistakes lower performance. Great performances are performances where we don’t make a lot of mistakes. Like, right now, you and I are having a conversation, it’s a conversation about learning so I’d be comfortable making mistakes but, in general, like we want to not say things that are not true and not make mistakes if we are performing for others, to try to add value to others.

And so, how do we reconcile that, that mistakes are valuable but, also, they lower performance? And so, I unpack four different kinds of mistakes. That’s what chapter five is about. And so, the first, there’s the stretch mistakes, which are the mistakes that we make when we are trying to do things we haven’t mastered yet, when we are in our learning zone. And those are mistakes that are super valuable, we want to be doing a lot of those mistakes. We want to elicit those mistakes, not by trying to do things incorrectly but by trying to do things that are challenging.

But we want to try those things when mistakes are not going to create a lot of damage. So, the second type of mistake is the high-stakes mistakes, which are the mistakes that would create a lot of damage. So, if we are driving a school bus, we don’t want to make a mistake. If we’re in charge of a nuclear plant, or if we’re packing a parachute, we want to do what we know works and minimize mistakes. And that’s when we’re in the high-stakes mistakes, we want to get into our performance zone and sometimes not worry about learning at all because the stakes are too high.

The third type of mistake is the sloppy mistakes, which are when we do things that we already know how to do, and we should’ve known better. And often when we make these mistakes, first of all, often they’re not that important or they might not be important at all, and I think these mistakes can bring kind of joy and humor to our lives. Like, if I spill a smoothie all over my shirt, and I’m home, I can either choose to get upset or I can laugh about it, and I can take a picture of it and send it to my family and friends, which is what I often do.

And so, I think mistakes can bring joy and humor to our lives, but sometimes sloppy mistakes do cause damage. And so, we can reflect on, “How can I avoid the sloppy mistake in the future?” And often, when we reflect on that, the answer is there are ways to foster more focus or to change our systems and tools in order to avoid those mistakes. I could change where in my desk I put the smoothie so that I don’t spill it, for example.

And the final kind of mistakes is the aha-moment mistake, which is when we do something as we intended but we then realize it was the wrong thing to do because we have an aha moment. So, for example, my wife might be upset about something, I might calm and try to console her, and problem-solve with her, and then I might learn that she didn’t want me to problem-solve. She just wanted me to empathize and to be there with her.

And so, I did what I meant to do but I realized it was the wrong thing to do. And aha-moment mistakes are precious. When they happen, we need to just learn from them, reflect on them, and extract their precious gifts, but we can’t proactively elicit aha-moment mistakes so much, although we can, by soliciting more feedback, but the stretch mistakes are really what we can proactively drive by doing things that are challenging and changing the way we do things.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s fun. And it is so true that the sloppy mistakes can bring joy and humor to our lives. In fact, I don’t think this Twitter exists anymore, which is a darn shame. But this theme exists, like, on Reddit and some places, that you had one job. And it’s just all about just ridiculous mistakes. Like, one of my favorites was the SpongeBob SquarePants episode description, like on Netflix or something, but they had this really dark murder mystery description, and then the caption is like, “Oh, I must’ve missed that SpongeBob episode.” And it just tickles me something special.

And, yes, that is fun, and we can celebrate that. And, particularly, I think that learning zone/performing zone distinction is so handy there in terms of, “Oh, yes, we’re learning now. and, boy, that is goofy and hilarious.” Well, you and I, we’re both friends and fans of Mawi Asgedom. Shoutout, episode number one. And I remember we were trying to name a company that we had started together by just combining words. And I think one of them was so just goofy, Dolphin Secrets, so I just made these memes out of that because it’s goofy, and that’s okay.

And I think, well, you lay it on me, is it fair to say that when we can laugh and be relaxed, and take joy and humor and lightheartedness about mistakes, will that actually help us learn faster and better?

Eduardo Briceño
Yeah, because we can observe them better, we can talk about them better, we can also avoid kind of getting triggered and having, like, a fear, an away-reaction from them. So, absolutely, in general, positive emotions help us learn. Like, sometimes, stress can be helpful, too, especially if it’s not chronic or like super high, but positive emotions can help us engage in the learning process.

And, at the end of the day, again, what is the highest goal? I think, for me, a highest goal is, like, happiness, fulfillment, and appreciation. I want to appreciate life. I want to enjoy life. So, not only is laughing about mistakes helping me learn, it’s also helping me enjoy life, which is even more important.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, anything else when it comes to learning that you want to help distinguish, clarify, myth-debunk, things that we should know when we’re in the learning zone to get the most out of it?

Eduardo Briceño
Well, there are a lot of things we could talk about. One is that sometimes we think about growth mindset or learning zone as something that is about the individual quality, is about us fostering the beliefs and the habits in our brain and in our bodies to be motivated and effective learners.

And there’s a lot of truth to that but we are social beings, and so we need to build cultures and teams and relationships where we can engage in the learning zone together because, at the end of the day, these beliefs about whether people can change are highly influenced by each other, by the people who are around me. What messages are they sending? What behaviors? Are they acting like lifelong learners or are they acting like know-it-alls? That affects my beliefs and it affects my habits.

And so, we need to kind of talk about these things with our colleagues, and think about, “Is the learning zone something that we’re doing well or not doing well? Can we get better? What do we want to work on?” and do it in collaboration because, at the end of the day, we learn a lot better in collaboration with others than on our own. More brains think better than one brain. We have different experiences, different skills, different tactics, different tools, different perspectives, we can see things from different angles, we can give and receive feedback.

And so, what I would encourage people to think about is what habits can you work on as you’re on your own, but also can you bring others into your process and build relationships that are going to lead to better learning and better performance.

Pete Mockaitis
Fantastic. And can you walk us through the growth propeller concept?

Eduardo Briceño
Sure. The growth propeller are the five elements that each of us can think about continuing to develop in order to become fantastic learners and performers. So, picture a propeller with three blades, and in the center of the propeller, the axis, there are two components: our identity and our purpose.

And in terms of our identity, sometimes in terms of a fixed mindset, we might see ourselves as fixed in a particular way, like, “I’m just a natural parent,” for example, “And that’s part of my identity,” “I’m a flawless athlete,” or, “I’m a natural athlete.” And that can get in the way of learning. But what we can do, and what’s most important around the identity, is to develop the identity of being a learner, being somebody who evolves over our lives, and it’s always continuing to change. So, once we can incorporate that into our identity, we’re a lot more effective as learners.

In terms of purpose, having a reason why we do things, why we care about improvement and performance, is really important because both learning and performing involve effort. And so, why are we going to spend that effort? Why do we care? So, developing that purpose as an individual and with our colleagues is something that is necessary in order for us to become great learners and performers.

The three blades are, one is our beliefs, the other ones are habits, and the other one is our community. So, in terms of beliefs, a really important belief that we’ve talked about is growth mindset versus fixed mindset. Another belief is transparency. We learn and perform a lot better when we make our thinking transparent to others because, then, they can give us feedback, they can learn from what we’re thinking.

And so, the fact that transparency is something we want more of, and we want to share more of ourselves, is something we can kind of think about. Also, agency, “To what extent do we have influence over our world rather than are we victims of the world?” is something else to think about in terms of beliefs.

In terms of habits, sometimes we think about growth mindset as something that is about learning from mistakes. So, when we make a mistake, “Do we learn from them?” That’s a very reactive or responsive habit. What I would encourage people to think about is, “Can you develop more proactive habits where changing is the default?” So, what are you doing every day in order to drive your own change and your own evolution?

And, for me, an example, a very simple example that is really powerful for me is, every morning, I remind myself of what it is that I’m working to improve, and that just primes the growth mindset. I am looking for opportunities to do that throughout the day, and it’s super powerful. And then, in terms of community, we need to build trust, we need to build a sense of belonging, and we need to work on collaboration rather than competition in order to both kind of learn and perform.

And so, the growth propeller is chapter seven, and it talks about those five components. And so, the part of the community blade is about the relationships we have with others. So, part two of the book, chapters eight through twelve, is about how we do that in our workplaces, how we build teams in organizations, that make learning the easy default.

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

Eduardo Briceño
Well, I would just mention I really appreciate your podcast, Pete, and just your focus on learning, the workplace, makes the world a better place. It’s awesome to be on the podcast a second time. So, thanks for all you do.

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

Eduardo Briceño
Yeah, the quote I have at the bottom of my email is, “The self is not something one finds. It’s something one creates,” by Thomas Szasz.

Pete Mockaitis
And could you share a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Eduardo Briceño
Sure. There are many. One is, there’s a meta-analysis from Harvard that looked at 62 research studies that looked into, “How much medical doctors improve in their patient outcomes the more years of experience they have in the profession?” And what they found is that, on average, medical doctors got worse over time. Their patient outcomes became worse because they were so busy in the performance zone, seeing patients, diagnosing, prescribing, and most of them, on average, don’t engage in the learning zone on a regular basis.

And so, as a result, they forget information that’s relevant to infrequent diagnoses, for example, and that decreases their performance. But, of course, there are some doctors that do get better over time. But this points to the difference between experience and expertise. Experience is something we just get by doing an activity a lot. And expertise is something that we build through the learning zone, and that can happen at any age.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Eduardo Briceño
Favorite book, Mindset by Carol Dweck really changed my life. The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama changed my life as well. I’m reading a wonderful book right now, it’s called The Clan of the Cave Bear, which is about prehistoric humans. It’s super interesting.

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

Eduardo Briceño
I love Roam Research. It’s a second-brain tool, whereas my knowledge management system tool, there’s a lot of other second-brain tools now. And I also love Otter. When I listen to podcasts, I download the MP3 and I upload it to Otter which transcribes it, and I listen to it through there. And what I love about that is that I can highlight kind of gems in the conversation. And after I listen to the episode, I can kind of do something with that. Either put it in my knowledge management system or send it to somebody else who would appreciate it, for example.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, Eduardo, that is walking the talk. That is hardcore and I love it. Thank you. And a favorite habit?

Eduardo Briceño
Well, I mentioned one of reminding myself every morning of what I’m working to improve. Before that, the first thing that I do every day is my most treasured habit, and it is just expressing gratitude for the things that I deem most important, which is life, health, love, and peace. Noticing one of those things that are in my life and in the world just puts me in a great emotional state and makes me grateful to be alive and for what is.

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

Eduardo Briceño
If we fixate on performance, our performance suffers. That’s the performance paradox.

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

Eduardo Briceño
So, my monthly newsletter is on my website, which is at Briceño.com, my last name, dotcom. I’m also active on LinkedIn. And my book is called The Performance Paradox: Turning the Power of Mindset into Action. I worked really hard the last three years to write all the things that we talked about today. So, that’s another way to learn more about my work.

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

Eduardo Briceño
My challenge would be to, “Can you engage in the learning zone a little bit more with others? Could you start a conversation with your colleagues about whether you want to continue to progress in your learning zone habits together and what you want to work on next, that you can bring other people into collaboration with you to learn and perform and accelerate that over time together?”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Eduardo, this has been a treat. I wish you much good learning and performing.

Eduardo Briceño
Thank you so much, Pete. It’s been great to speak with you.

May 15
0

865: The Universal Principles of Successful People with Dave Crenshaw

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Dave Crenshaw says: "Fail early."

Dave Crenshaw shares valuable insights on how people succeed, gleaned from his guests on The Dave Crenshaw Success Project podcast.

You’ll Learn:

  1. One thing every professional should learn
  2. The trick to multiplying your career opportunities
  3. Why to take that risk now—not later

About Dave

Dave Crenshaw develops productive leaders in Fortune 500 companies, universities, and organizations of every size. He has appeared in Time magazine, USA Today, FastCompany, and the BBC News. His courses on LinkedIn Learning have been viewed tens of millions of times. His five books have been published in eight languages, the most popular of which is The Myth of Multitasking—a time management bestseller. As an author, speaker, and online instructor, Dave has transformed the lives and careers of hundreds of thousands around the world.

Resources Mentioned

Dave Crenshaw Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Dave, welcome back to the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Dave Crenshaw
Hey, Pete, I really appreciate it. It’s very generous of you to have me come back again. What is this, the third time?

Pete Mockaitis
I think so. I think third time is the charm, so the first two that we botched, we’ll, hopefully, redeem ourselves.

Dave Crenshaw
Yeah, exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
So, Dave, I’m intrigued, you are up to a whole new project, and, in fact, your name is on it, and I hope it’s successful. It’s called The Dave Crenshaw Success Project, a podcast. And we talked about this back when you were just conceiving it, and it’s fun that it’s up and out in the world. So, I first wanted to hear a little bit of the story. You pursued this project not with the goal of advancing your empire as an expert, speaker, course creator, dude but something else. What’s the scoop here?

Dave Crenshaw
Yeah. Well, so those who aren’t familiar, I’ve written books and I’ve got courses, over 30 courses on LinkedIn Learning. I know you’ve got, gosh, a lot more than that and you’ve been very popular on that platform. And I do speaking as well, but what I wanted was something that inspired me and scratched the itch that wasn’t required by making a lot of money.

And I had a lot of different versions, and I think you and I had some conversations about different things that I could pursue but what really moved me, the thing that got me going was the idea that I want to create something for my kids. So, I have three children. My son is 17, I have a daughter who’s 13, and another daughter who is 10, my youngest, and I thought, “I want to leave a legacy to them. What could something that I can create to help them be successful but, at the same time, other people will benefit from?”

And that’s where this idea of The Success Project came from, and if I were to sum it up in a sentence, it’s that I am getting the stories of others, and you’re one of those people, we did an interview, to learn universal principles of balanced success. So, I know a lot of times in a podcast interview you bring someone on who has a book, they have a course, and you’re going to discuss that, and I think that’s great.

My goal is a little bit different. I bring someone on and I want to hear their story, and in their story, I want to figure out “What are the things that would make any person successful? And how can we apply that to ourselves? How can I apply that to my kids?”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, hey, I’m all about universal principles, so, indeed, this is a great fit here. And so, I’m intrigued then, your kids, they also play a role in the production, I understand.

Dave Crenshaw
Yeah, the first and the most fun one is my daughter Darcy, who’s 10. She reads the outro. It’s the cutest thing you’ve ever heard in your life. It’s completely unfair for me to put that at the end because you are powerless to resist it. And my son, he does the editing, which is wonderful because now I can pay him as an editor, which helps him prepare for college.

But the fun thing that I’ve also started doing, I don’t think I had started this when you and I did the interview, Pete, is we’re doing bonus episodes where we’ll sit down and have a conversation about a principle that we learned. So, for instance, one person I interviewed was Tahani Aburaneh, and she was a refugee in Jordan, and she went from that situation to being a millionaire in real estate. And she talked about how gratitude was so essential for her success, and how her mom taught her to be grateful even when they were in these really, really difficult conditions in a refugee camp.

And so, I sat down with my kids and said, “Let’s talk about gratitude. Let’s talk about how we can be more grateful and some ways we can implement it.” So, I’ve got the regular episodes that we release where we’re hearing these stories, but then I’ve decided to have a little fun with some bonus episodes with my kids. And that’s sort of why I chose the title that I did because The Success Project is open-ended enough that it gives me a lot of latitude to try a lot of different things that will help the listener be successful and help my kids be successful.

Pete Mockaitis
Alrighty. Well, so lay it on us, Dave, what are some principles that have really already popped off the page? Let’s hear, how many interviews have you done, first of all?

Dave Crenshaw
I’m around the 20-interview mark. So, gosh, what do you have, 2,000?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, shucks, 860-ish.

Dave Crenshaw
Yeah, okay. So, I’m an infant learning to crawl at this point, but I’ve started to see some really interesting threads, and I’ll start with one that I did not expect at all but it makes sense when I say it, is the importance of studying business. It is amazing to me how many people I’ve interviewed who maybe do something that is different than business.

For example, Angie Ford is one person. She owns several music schools and daycares. She studied piano, that’s what she wanted to be, was a concert pianist but, for some reason, she was interested in business and got a minor in it. And because she did that, that enabled her to be successful as an entrepreneur. And I have seen that one thing repeated over and over, whether or not that was their primary interest, someone took the time to study the principles of business and accounting and marketing and sales.

And so, I’ve told my kids, and right now, it’s kind of funny. Right now, every single one of them wants to be a writer. I did not expect that either. And so, I tell them, “Hey, study whatever you want in college, but the one requirement that I’m going to make of you is that you have to at least minor in business.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, the business skills are handy in terms of there’s just a business side to everything. No matter what you’re doing, whether you’re a baker or doing music or daycare, there is a business side. And whether you’re the owner or somewhere lower within the hierarchy of things, having that understanding is common and handy.

Dave Crenshaw
Right. Even if you’re a middle manager in a Fortune 500 company, and you’re hired to do one specific thing, let’s say communications, understanding how the company operates, and understanding cashflow and the things that determine a stock price and all of these things, they make you more savvy and more able to understand and read the tea leaves, so to speak, about what is going to be coming in the future.

And I think that you don’t have to go to college to study it. I think that, I mean, certainly listening to this podcast, someone who’s made the commitment to do that, already that says a lot about their character and their desire to learn. I think that you could start reading books. I think that there are certainly courses on LinkedIn Learning that will help you learn these skills. I would carve out part of your schedule each week, each month, to give it some attention.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’m curious about some of your favorite resources, like learning business. Business is quite an umbrella that… is it fair to say that you’re saying a general survey understanding of management, accounting, finance, marketing, strategy? Is that what you mean by learn business?

Dave Crenshaw
Correct, yeah. Whether you took that in college, whether you’re getting it on your own, you’re saying, “Hey, I want to get a good understanding.” I know one thing that’s been really helpful for me in my career is economics. I’m turning and looking at my shelf right now. I’ve got a couple of books about economics, one called Basic Economics.

And sometimes we’re always looking for the next new title that’s going to give us some cool principle, and that’s great. I built my career on books like that but I think there’s something to be said for digging down into the fundamentals. And I recommend taking the time to drill down on some of just the fundamentals because those will influence how you perceive things that are happening in your career.

Pete Mockaitis
I dig that. Is that Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell?

Dave Crenshaw
Yes, it is.

Pete Mockaitis
I have that book. It’s a little thick. I haven’t finished it but I loved one of his points, which was to evaluate policies not based upon their intentions, because they’re all good, all policies have good intentions, but rather upon the economic incentives that they create for the different players and stakeholders.

And that made a whole lot of sense when I read that, like, “Oh, yeah, I can see how sometimes, when things don’t quite work out,” I think rent control was an example he used. It’s really helpful to put yourself in the shoes of each of the players there, like, for example, the landlords and see, “Huh, given this legislation, what might they be more or less inclined to do because they’re going to be affected by these new set of rules?” And that was a big lightbulb for me, actually.

Dave Crenshaw
Yes. And see, that’s beautiful, and that says a lot about you, the fact that you would remember that principle from reading that book. And just understanding that, if you’re in a managerial situation, now you’re going to say, “Oh, if I change something, what’s the effect on the individuals that are following me?”

And that nugget of knowledge is so basic and it’s so fundamental but it’s so useful in the same way that water is useful to our physical survival. It’s a basic, it’s a fundamental, and we want to at least spend a little time consuming those things. My career, The Myth of Multitasking, a big influence that economics had for me was the idea of microeconomics and switching costs. That’s my love of economics, and learning it is what led me to help people with time management.

And someone listening to this might have that same experience with accounting, and they enjoy that concept of first in, first out, or whatever the principles are that they’re reading, and they can make that a part of being a bricklayer. That’s a terrible example, but they can make that, those principles a part of any career that they have.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, and it can help you get an understanding of all sorts of mysteries. You mentioned brick laying, one of my great mysteries, Dave, is why home renovation professionals, whether the electricians or plumbers or masons or whomever, it seems like historically I’ve had a heck of a time finding someone who would actually show up and do things. And then when you do find a winner, you’re like, “Oh, my gosh, you are my plumber for life,” “You’re my electrician for life.”

But I think the principles of economics can help illustrate that. My leading theory right now is, “Hey, Pete, you are a small fry with a small job, and it takes me lots of time to get over to you and to the hardware store, etc. to get a small amount of revenue versus there are people with much bigger jobs, which take me the same amount of time and to get there and get the materials, and yet produce a whole lot more moolah for me and the team to take care of business.” That’s my current theory, at least.

But without an understanding of economics, I might just be…well, I guess I’m still frustrated because I don’t have a plumber or whatever showing up, but at least that demystifies that or inspire some ideas, like, “Huh, maybe I can work with a contractor and bundle a lot of stuff at once so I would be a more appealing customer in a world in which they could be pretty choosy when there’s not as many home renovations pros as there is a demand for their services.”

Dave Crenshaw
Yeah, that’s a great example. And to kind of put a bow on this, I think what we want to do is say, “How does this apply to me?” I think the tendency of most people, and I’ve seen this in my coaching and training, the tendency of most people is to listen to new knowledge and say, “That doesn’t apply to me. Well, I’m going to ignore that part of what I just read because that doesn’t apply to me.”

The question we want to ask ourselves is, “How does this apply to me? How can I make this principle of accounting apply in my job in HR?” And if you just take the time to drill down and think about it and pause for a second, you’ll find applications.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool, and I like that taking the time to actively think. And when you’re drawing a blank, I’ll tell you what, I have been playing around a lot with this, with AI and ChatGPT. I did it a year ago and thought that was kind of some cool tricks, but now with the upgraded powers, it’s pretty cool. Like, that’s the kind of a prompt that can really spark some ideas going. It’s like, “Hey, I am in this business and I just learned this concept, how is this at all applicable to me? And then give me 10 ideas.” And then it does, it’s like, “Oh, okay.”

And then that’s what I found to be most useful for. Its final product, headlines, and teasers, and copy is inadequate in my opinion, but as a little brainstormer thought partner, I’m finding all kinds of fun little uses there.

Dave Crenshaw
Yeah, I love it.

Pete Mockaitis
And then that might be another subject associated with learning stuff that’s a principle, like learn business. We mentioned basic economics and basic principles of business. Are there any other resources that you found just absolutely killer?

Dave Crenshaw
Well, one common thread that I’ve seen so far in the interviews that I’ve done, I’ve seen this also with people that I’ve coached through the years, is taking advantage of bonus opportunities. And what I mean by that is…well, I’ll give you an example. So, I interviewed Kwame Christian. You know Kwame, right? Have you had him on your show?

Pete Mockaitis
Indeed.

Dave Crenshaw
So, one of the things that he mentioned was that he took advantage of debate club as he was going to school. And he participated in that, and that participation opened up his eyes to the idea of negotiation and how to have difficult conversations. And I’ve seen that several times where someone is, they’re going to school, they’re participating in something, and there’s this ancillary opportunity that isn’t really going to show up on a resume for a job application, and they go participate in it, and that participation leads them to something new.

And it goes back to that idea of people think there’s one path to success. The path is you pick a career, you go to school and study that career, you get your grades then you go and work somewhere. But the reality is it’s the little opportunities that you might take for granted, the things that are going to help you figure out what you really want to do, and they’re going to help you grow in your career.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. And I believe you highlighted that as a theme in my interview when you had me in terms of, “Oh, that stuff you were doing in college, in high school, in terms of giving that speech. You’re like, ‘Oh, speaking is awesome. And it’s interesting that other people are terrified of this, and yet I’m super jazzed about it. Hmm, there’s a lesson there.’”

Dave Crenshaw
Yes, and it also highlights the idea that go where your strengths are. And I was just reviewing the interview that I had with Kwame, he said, “Go where your curiosity is.” And it’s not so much about your passion. Your passion can be useful but I was passionate about playing music and being a rock star, not necessarily a very usable career for me.

But I was curious about entrepreneurship, I was curious about time management. I would go to the extra lectures where I went to school, and listen to entrepreneurs talk about their experience. Those things that I was curious about are the things that became most influential in my career. So, someone listening to this, you can ask yourself, “What am I most interested in that maybe isn’t a part of my career at the moment? Am I giving myself opportunities to immerse myself in those things?” and do a little bit of it even if it’s outside of the everyday work that you do.

And when you do that, you’re opening your mind, you’re opening your time, you’re opening your opportunities to probably what is going to lead to the most success in your career.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s really cool. And something that’s come up in my podcast a number of times is folks to actually look back at what you were super interested in when you were younger can have some real clues for you. Like, before you were obligated, mandated, directed, desperate for cash, any number of pressures entered your world, what was just kind of interesting to you that you were curious about, that you dug into.

And you may very well not become a professional baseball player or a rock star or a magician, kind of whatever that might’ve been, but there’s something under the surface there in terms of, “Oh, with the magic tricks, it was delighting an audience,” or with rock roll, it’s kind of learning a thing and just getting immersed, or a sense of mastery, and sort of see just kind of “What’s the thing underneath the thing if you’re not going to be a pro sports guy or a rock and roll person?”

Dave Crenshaw
Yeah, what are the principles, what did I gain from this experience? And whether or not you’re in that career, what you learned in it will help you the most. That’s something I see with my wife who is a high school swim coach. And the reality is most of the kids that she coaches won’t be swimming past high school. Most aren’t even going to get a college scholarship. So, what are the moments within that extracurricular activity that give them an opportunity to grow and learn life skills about hard work, and persistence, and working with team members?

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. That’s good. I’d also love to hear you, Dave, tell me, did you see any conventional wisdom get skewered along the way in terms of maybe there are some tropes or standard-issue truth, wisdom, guidance, that is bellied about that your guests have actually revealed, “No, actually, it turns out that’s wrong, and here’s a better way”?

Dave Crenshaw
Yeah, that’s a really interesting question, Pete, and I’m going to tread delicately here with it.

Pete Mockaitis
Can’t wait.

Dave Crenshaw
But I think it’s important to be said that I think there is a concept out there that having a family holds you back, that your kids are going to slow you down and keep you from being successful if you choose to have kids. Or, even, “I need to wait later in my life to get married because marriage to my spouse is going to hold me back.”

And I have found that in both of those cases, the opposite is true. Let’s talk about children for just a second. Or, even if you choose to be a caretaker of someone else. What that does is it enforces limitations in your day. First, just setting aside all the wonderful benefits of being a parent, which there are, just from a structural standpoint in your career, it forces you to not work crazy hours.

And if you love your children, you’re going to want to say, “How can I spend time with them? And if I have to spend time with them, that means that I won’t be able to wake up at 6:00 o’clock in the morning and work all the way to 9:00 p.m. I’m going to have to find breaks.” And that relationship creates a boundary that forces you to figure out how to be more productive.

It’s really sloppy productivity to allow yourself to work long hours. You’re just masking a bunch of inefficiencies in your day when you allow yourself to work those hours. But if you say, “I’m not going to go past 5:00 p.m.” and I call this principle the finish line. You define what your finish line is in the day, “I’m not going to cross that.” Well, if you have to stop working by 5:00 p.m. because your kids are going to be coming home, you’re going to have to figure out, “How can I get everything done?”

And if you have to figure that out, now I got to say, “How can I do a better job at delegation? How can I do a better job of automation? How can I do a better job of focusing on what’s most valuable?” So, that’s one of the first themes that I’ve heard come up several times. And the other one is the value of a great partner.

And, however you structure that partnership with another human being, whether that’s through marriage or just through a long-term committed relationship, the idea is that person creates a ground and a balance to what you’re doing. And, of course, this is assuming you’ve made a great choice, or at least a good choice, but having that person in your life creates stability, creates confidence, and you can divide the labor between the two of you in a way that’s useful, and that will help you grow in your career.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. And I’ve also heard stories that once folks become aware, “Oh, we’re pregnant. Baby is on the way,” suddenly, the motivation…

Dave Crenshaw
Oh, that’s my story.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, the motivation, the seriousness really gets kicked up a notch, it’s like, “Okay, no, for real, I’m going to make this thing work.”

Dave Crenshaw
Yeah. When I give my speeches about The Myth of Multitasking, that’s one of the first things that I bring up. The two words that changed everything in my life, and changed my career, were, “I’m pregnant.” And when I heard those, I thought, “My gosh, I need to start getting more focused, and there’s this life coming in this world,” and that caused me to make that transition from maybe just pursuing my passion to pursuing a passion that was profitable. And that led me to returning to my work as a business coach and preparing how to be an author. That story still colors everything I do to this day.

Pete Mockaitis
So, we’ve covered some things that are great to do. What are some things you really recommend that we not do?

Dave Crenshaw
Yes, I would say don’t be afraid to fail. A lot of people are so concerned that something isn’t going to work out, that they stop from making any kind of attempt. And I would say do not allow that to prevent you from taking risks. And, especially, don’t allow yourself to say, “In the future, at some point, I’m going to take this risk.”

The earlier you take that risk, the less costly it will be. So, if you’re listening to this right now and you’re just starting your career, and you’re not married, and you’re just coming out of college, whatever, now is the best time to take that sort of risk, so don’t hold back. And even if you say, “Well, I’m married and I’m a little bit further down my career,” now is a better time to take that risk than five years from now, or ten. Fail early.

And that will create more opportunities. And if you fail, great, but you can recover from it. And I wasn’t afraid to fail early in my career, and I did, and it took a while to recover from it, but that was also an opportunity to learn and to grow. And that is often just as, if not more educational than an official college degree.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s a really cool perspective there, to take the risk earlier gives you more opportunities to recover, or to pivot, or to take advantage of the things that you’ve learned, the relationships you’ve built, the discoveries that you’ve made, as opposed to if you wait ten years, or however long, you will just have less time to pivot, sort it out, make good things from the pieces and the ashes that have emerged from that failure. That’s really cool.

Dave Crenshaw
Yeah, I know someone who just began their journey as an entrepreneur and owning their own business, and that’s great that they’re pursuing it, but the sad thing is they’re on the downward side of middle age, and for 30 or more years, he’s always wanted to own his own business. That’s a long time to hold on to that regret. Whereas, if he pursued it earlier, either he would have succeeded or he would not have that anymore, and say, “You know what, I took a try at that, I don’t have to think about it anymore.”

It’s funny, that’s part of the narrative that my wife and I have around my attempting to be a rock star. I had a band, I wrote songs, and sang keys, and I was doing that in my mid to late 20s. Now I can look back and say, “Wow, I’m glad I’m not doing that anymore. That was crazy.” And we’ll go somewhere and I’ll see a band setting up or something, and I’m, “Oh, my gosh, I’m so glad I’m not doing that.”

But if I had never done it, where would I be right now? “Oh, I could’ve done it.” I’m like Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite talking about how I could throw the football over those mountains. Give it a shot. Even if you do it part time in conjunction with the job that you’ve got, give it a try now and then you can confidently move on with your life, or something amazing will happen because of your hard work and because of the risks that you took.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s cool, to get a real sense of what is the reality associated with this dream. And I think folks have found it really does go both ways in terms of, “Hmm, professional music or being a lawyer or whatever, is just the coolest or is, wow, not for me. Good to know early and reorient from there.”

Dave Crenshaw
Indeed, yeah. That’s it, do it now. Give it a try now and you’ve still got time to learn from it and to do something else if it doesn’t work out.

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

Dave Crenshaw
Well, one thing that I really thought about and, as you mentioned at the beginning, you’ve done 800 episodes, another principle and a pattern of success is consistency over years, and I’ve seen this in my work with entrepreneurs. They’ll get started, they’ll start a business, they’ll go for a year, maybe two, and then they start getting bored, and they start doing something else.

And sometimes, well, you’ve seen this, Pete, let’s just talk about podcasting for a second. You go online, and how many podcasts do you see listed that have one to three episodes, right? There are 8 million podcasts but how many of them really go beyond the first five or so episodes? Not most. Most are less than that. And it illustrates the idea that when we start something, we’ve got to stick at it for a while. We got to keep going at it for a while.

And I’ve seen this with my own career, for instance, my courses with LinkedIn Learning. I started out in 2011 when it was Lynda.com, and it was my first course. There’s so much value in being a part of that and having a partnership with someone, like in my case, LinkedIn Learning, and your case as well, for 12 years. When you’re in the pipeline that long, more people have an opportunity to learn about you.

And if you think about something that you’re passionate about, I’m talking to the listener now, if you think about something you’re passionate about and you want to pursue, make a commitment to do it for a good long while. And just the principle of longevity and consistently doing it will lead to paying off. I like to say that impatience is the enemy of success. And the reason why it’s the enemy of success is it causes us to pull up roots too early.

And I use pulling up roots because I’m thinking of, like, a farming metaphor. We plant the seeds, we put water on them, and then we go away for a little bit, and then maybe we come back a little bit later, and we look at it, and go, “Oh, well, it hasn’t grown anything.” A lot of people in that situation go, “Well, this was terrible. I’m not doing this anymore,” and they just rip everything up, when we’ve got to give it time, we’ve got to keep nurturing it, we’ve got to keep feeding it, and then, after a while, you’ll start to see the fruits of your labor.

So, I recognize that what you’ve accomplished, Pete, in your podcast, a lot of it is talent, a lot of it is the hard work, but a lot of it, too, is just the fact that you have just kept at it for 800 episodes.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it’s true. Things do pay off with consistency over time. Not always. Sometimes it’s like, “Hey, entrepreneur, that concept just isn’t hitting the mark for people.” And so, I think it’s a matter of saying…

Dave Crenshaw
But you’ve got to give it enough time to really figure that out.

Pete Mockaitis
Exactly. And so, I think about it from a hypothesis-driven thinking in terms of, “Okay, what do we need to learn? What are testing?” And I think, “Hmm, I’m kind of bored. I want to do something else,” is not a great reason as opposed to… I think about my failed businesses, it’s like, “Hmm, not a single person ever bought this thing. It seems they don’t actually want it after all.” So, then you could just say, “Well, maybe let’s pivot, adjust the offer.” Or if there’s no good adjustments to be made, it’s like, “Okay. Well, it’s time to say goodbye and move on and collect the learnings.

Dave Crenshaw
Yeah, and I’m aware of the paradox of what we just talked about because, just before this, we were talking about failing and failing early. And now I’m saying, “Keep at it for a good long while.” So, the question is, “How can you tell the difference between the two?” If you don’t mind, Pete, I’m going to turn that on you for a second. How do you personally tell the difference between when you’ve failed and when you just need to stay consistent?

Pete Mockaitis
I think it’s really a matter of looking at the evidence and, ideally, thinking about sort of tests, experiments, hypotheses, like, “What would need to be true for this thing to be successful?” and to see if there are some indicators. Like, I think in this business world, if it’s like, “Hey, you know what, we have successfully gotten 20 clients who are just love, love, love what we’re doing here, but we haven’t quite managed to get to a breakeven positive cashflow point.”

Well, I think that says you got something. I would not walk away from that lightly or if you’re bored. I would say, “Well, let’s figure out what are the remaining challenges we have to solve, and then solve them,” versus, “We’ve tried a dozen different marketing channels and not a single person has opted to part with their money for this thing we thought was so cool. Maybe this thing isn’t really resonating.”

And then you might choose to say, “Exit entirely,” or say, “Well, maybe it needs to be tweaked to make it more appealing, or maybe there’s a different segment that would really be into it. Maybe we were trying to go broad but, at the end of the day, this is really going to appeal to roofers, and we’d go all in on roofers,” or kind of whatever the segment is. So, I guess that’s how I would think about distinguishing it, is, “What evidence and signals have we collected to indicate this thing could be a winner versus not?”

Dave Crenshaw
Yeah, I completely agree with what you said. And so, if I were to put my own spin on it, I would say break it into milestones. So, it’s so easy when we engage in an experiment to think only long term, “Five years from now, this is where I’m going to be and I’m going to cash out of my business and own a private island.”

But the real question is, “What is the experiment of this month? What’s the milestone that we’re trying to accomplish this month? Were we successful in accomplishing that? Was I able to get this many customers because I was able to get this many people to listen?” whatever it is. And then you move from that milestone to the next one that’s maybe a little bit bigger.

So, you want to create a pattern of success but also set the milestones of success at more realistic and reasonable things in the beginning, so then you just go from success to success, bigger and bigger, as you go along. Or, you have a string of months where you’re not hitting any of the milestones and you stop, and say, “Okay, maybe there’s something wrong with this experiment that I’m engaging in.”

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

Dave Crenshaw
Yeah, my favorite one, and someone who really inspires me is Bob Ross. And I know Bob Ross has almost become a meme these days but the reality is, as an educator and his ability to reach people, he had a gift that not many people possess. So, as someone who teaches people, I look at the way he does it.

Obviously, my personality is not quite the same but his love, his passion inspires me. And so, one of my favorite quotes, and I got a big custom poster made, it’s framed on my wall, and the quote is, “Every time you devote time to practice, you haven’t lost. You’re always a winner.” And if I’m reinterpreting that phrase, I’m saying, “Everything that you do is practice. Everything that you attempt is useful. Even if you fail, if you can learn from it, then you didn’t fail at all. You’re still winning.”

And, boy, Pete, do I refer back to this mentally when I engage in those experiments that don’t work out.

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

Dave Crenshaw
I’ll answer this in an indirect way, probably not what you’re expecting. But as a coach and as an educator, I’m a big believer in the experiment of one. And what I mean by that is sometimes we’ll read a study, and it will say, “Seventy percent of people found that taking a break at work makes them more productive, it makes them more effective.” And that’s something that I teach. But what I want to, instead, say is don’t rely on the experiment of others because you might be in the 30%.

Don’t take my word for it. Try it yourself. Give yourself time to try something that you’ve heard for the first time, and experiment it. I like two-week experiments. Really give it a try for two weeks, and then, at the end of that, assess, “What did your experiment of one give you? Did it work for you? Are there any adjustments that you’d make?” Then, that way, and you keep referring back to it, now you’re becoming the scientist of your own life rather than depending on other people to tell you what you should do based on some study.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Dave Crenshaw
Actually, I’m going to mention something that is really off the beaten path but something I’m passionate about, and it’s Hustle 2.0 has a series of books. And I would encourage anyone to look it up. Hustle 2.0 is a program that teaches people who are incarcerated, how to turn their lives around.

And so, the books, they’ve got three of them, teach people who have been through trauma, and teach people who have been through some really rough life experiences, how to overcome it, how to be stronger on the other side. And the curriculum is written by people who have been incarcerated. And the reason why this is top of mind is I just recently went to the Utah State Correctional Facility and met a lot of people who have used this book, and I’ve read it, and I’ve even talked about it with my kids.

And it’s so powerful to see how a book written by someone who has been in that situation can completely change their lives. So, yeah, it’s a hard one to get but you can find it at Hustle20.com.

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

Dave Crenshaw
Everyone likes to ask me, “This is a time management guy, what’s your favorite tool?” And my favorite tool is the one that everybody already has, they just don’t use it properly, and that’s your calendar. I just use that for everything. Even if I’m scheduling time to take time off, I’m scheduling everything in the calendar and I’d wager to guess that everyone listening to this could do a little bit better job of using their calendar to help them be productive.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite habit?

Dave Crenshaw
I’ll share one that I didn’t do for a long time. I’ve done a much better job recently of taking care of my physical health. And if we’re talking about the podcast, too, one of the things that I want to do is interview people who have balanced success. And I’ve learned through the wrong way that not being healthy ruins everything.

It doesn’t matter what you’ve accomplished in your career, in your life, if you’re feeling physically miserable. It’s not much of a success at all. So, I’ve done a much better job of the habit of exercising regularly. I try to do it at least five times a week with both cardio and some lifting. And, boy, it’s made everything a lot better for me.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And is there a key quote you’re famous for, Dave?

Dave Crenshaw
Well, one that pops to the top of my mind is “Whenever you say yes to one thing, you’re saying no to something else.”

Pete Mockaitis
That sounds like an opportunity cost.

Dave Crenshaw
There you go, exactly. There’s that economics influencing things. And it works in a microeconomic situation, a nano economic situation. When you’re making choices in your day to say yes to something, something has to give. It’s always a tradeoff. So, say yes to the most valuable things, and say no to things that are less valuable.

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

Dave Crenshaw
The easiest place is DaveCrenshaw.com. Crenshaw is C-R-E-N-S-H-A-W. And you can find my podcast there, you can subscribe to it there, all sorts of stuff. And, of course, if you’re on LinkedIn, please look me up and follow me on LinkedIn as well.

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

Dave Crenshaw
Well, it didn’t come up during our conversation, or I had mentioned it just briefly, be grateful. That’s another principle of people who are successful. Every day, look for something that’s going well, and express gratitude for it. And what that will do is it will make you more open to the things that make you happy, and make everything you do for work more enriching and rewarding.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Dave, this has been a treat. I wish you much fun and success with your Success Project.

Dave Crenshaw
Thank you very much, Pete. Really generous of you to have me on. Thank you.

May 11
0

864: How to Design a Career Portfolio that Beats Burnout, Navigates Disruption, and Future-Proofs Your Career with Christina Wallace

By | Podcasts | No Comments

 

Christina Wallace discusses the benefits of having a diverse work portfolio that will help you weather any storm.

You’ll Learn:

  1. How to diversify your work
  2. How to lessen friction and hit your flow
  3. The three questions that surface your hidden needs 

About Christina 

Christina Wallace is a human Venn diagram with a career at the intersection of business, technology and the arts. A writer, podcaster, serial entrepreneur, and erstwhile theater producer, Christina spent a decade building businesses in New York City. She is currently a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School, an active startup mentor, and angel investor. Christina holds undergraduate degrees in mathematics and theater studies from Emory University and an MBA from Harvard. In her free time she likes to sing in choirs, climb mountains, and run marathons (slowly). She lives in Cambridge with her husband and their two energetic children. 

Resources Mentioned

Christina Wallace Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis

Christina, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Christina Wallace

Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Pete Mockaitis

I’m excited, too. We’re talking about The Portfolio Life: How to Future-Proof Your Career, Avoid Burnout, and Build a Life Bigger than Your Business Card. That sounds pretty cool.

Christina Wallace

It’s a lot of promise, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, but no pressure, Christina, but we’re going to hold you to every one of these. Could you kick us off by sharing any really surprising, fascinating, counterintuitive discoveries you’ve made while doing the research and putting together this book?

Christina Wallace

So, one of my favorite little tidbits from this, I am someone who is not great at taking time off. Like many type A overachievers, I sort of aspire to be the sort of person who rests, who relaxes. I’m not great at it. And a little part of me has always been, like, slightly, you know, felt some superiority over that, like I work so hard.

And part of the research, when I got into some operations management and some research into sabbaticals and all of this, it was a little bit humbling, where it points out just how important rest and planned downtime is for not just productivity but for happiness, for the ability to not burn out. It seems fairly obvious, you got to have some time to recharge.

But I found some really fantastic research, particularly borrowing from the world in operations management of manufacturing, where the top-performing manufacturing lines only ever schedule 85% of their capacity. They always leave downtime for planned maintenance, for do-overs, for surges. They don’t start from the point of 100%, and then say, “Well, we’ll just do 110% if we have to.”

And I thought that was a good reminder with some great science behind it of why this notion of, like, “Hey, let’s have everyone give 110% all the time” is not realistic. And that’s why we are all in a constant state of burnout.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, Christina, that’s intriguing right there, and you’re bringing me back to fond memories of one time I had a consulting project at one of the world’s largest cookie factories. All day long you could smell that chocolate in the air.

Christina Wallace

Oh, man.

Pete Mockaitis

And so, 85% is a top-performing manufacturing line. I’m curious, what do we know about top-performing humans? So, some sabbatical is good, some vacation is good, some rest is good. Do we know – there’s probably a range based on different temperaments, etc. – what’s optimal for us?

Christina Wallace

Certainly, there’s an expectation of having some downtime every day, every week. You have to have it as part of your practice but I found some research from The Sabbatical Project, DJ DiDonna, one of my colleagues here at HBS has done, that really emphasizes the value of taking a meaningful sabbatical every, call it, ten years or so. And by meaningful, they mean really in the realm of, like, three to six months off, taking a significant intentional break where you have a moment to step back, reflect, and really consider, “What do I want to do for the next chapter?”

And sometimes people come back feeling refreshed and renewed energy to keep doing what they were doing. And sometimes people come back, and say, “Okay, I actually needed that space to realize I want to go off in a different direction or I want to make a major life choice.” But I thought there was an interesting reflection of sort of six months every ten years. Like, that doesn’t seem unreasonable to have, call it three or four sabbaticals over the course of your career. That’s not that much time off.

And, yet, without the intentionality behind it, ten years pops up, and you’re like, “Oh, I can’t take six months off. That feels impossible.” So, it was a nice reminder that with a little bit of planning and strategy, these breaks are absolutely doable.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And so then, that’s on the sabbatical side of things. I’m curious in terms of a workweek side of things. I’ve seen some studies that suggest a certain number of hours. After that, you’re actually negatively productive. What have you found there?

Christina Wallace

Yes. So, what’s interesting about a portfolio approach is that there’s some research that shows being able to toggle between different activities, different types of working, different types of thinking and interacting, like, collectively helps actually recharge, renew the way that you are working, the energy that you bring to the table.

And so, it’s not sort of just additive. It’s not saying, obviously, there’s research that says 10, 12, 14 hours, at a certain point, there’s diminishing returns if you’re doing the same thing hour after hour. But if you are complementing, say, a day job with a moonlighting gig, a side hustle, or a serious hobby, or something you really love that works a completely different part of you and that offers you a different way of thinking, and of creating, and of interacting, that doesn’t feel like you just pulled a 12- or a 14-hour day. It can actually help you feel rejuvenated.

So, I don’t want you to work 20 hours a day between your side hustle and your day job. There is a breaking point but I think this notion of your total load across your portfolio is a lot more flexible than you might think, depending on what’s in your portfolio.

Pete Mockaitis

And when you talk about a different type of work, sometimes it’s like how we define different is really kind of fluid. Because, in some ways, it’s like, well, I’ve got two companies. One is in the world of training and people development, and the other is in the world of outsourcing and media production. And so, in some ways, it’s saying, because we’re dealing with words and thinking about words and making words good.

Christina Wallace

Sure. And you’re still writing emails and trying to make the numbers balanced, and maybe making a slide or two. Like, I can see how that could feel like the very same work but managing a different project. When I think about maybe a different ways of working, I think about some of the folks in my book where one person, by day, is a teacher, and then her moonlighting project is writing novels for middle grade readers.

And so, by day, she was dealing with 4th graders, and their sticky hands, and how to teach them math, and how to teach them emotional maturity, and all of these things. And then, by night, she’s inventing these stories and sort of just going deep into this continuous creativity in these worlds that she’s building. That’s a very different way. Like, one allows her to recharge after she’s been giving and giving and giving all day long to her students.

So, you’re absolutely right, that really can come down to, like, “What is that mix? And do they complement each other? Or, are you just doing the same thing but in a different context?”

Pete Mockaitis

And when it comes to recharging-ness, is there a means by which you recommend people reflect, or assess, or gauge that?

Christina Wallace

So, one of the tactics that I recommend for putting together your portfolio is an assessment of two things. One is what do you need to be your best self? And everyone’s needs are going to be a little different. Your needs are going to be a little different depending on the chapter or season of life you’re in but you will likely have some combination of financial needs, growth needs, community needs. There could be other elements of security that you have needs, that need to be met.

And then, in addition to your needs, you’re going to have a set of wants, or, as I like to call them, your wishes. What are the big things that you care about doing, seeing, experiencing, leaving behind by the end of your life? We’re talking this could be minor, “I want to run a marathon.” These could be major, “I want to, I don’t know, walk on the moon,” so whatever. Putting together this kind of list of wishes for your life.

And as you’re assembling your portfolio, you want to be thoughtful of, like, “Are the different things that I do over the course of my day, or my week, or my month, collectively, are my needs being met?” We got to start there, “Are my needs being met?” If you’re doing two or three or four things that all maybe make you money, but they’re all solo projects, you have no colleagues, you’re not being given this community or this opportunity to just have conversations with other humans, you’re over-indexing on one need and your under-indexing on another.

And so, as you think about recharging and rebalancing, it’s, like, “Am I getting my needs met across my day, my week? And am I having a good balance across these things?” The wishes piece is relevant, too, “Am I doing all of this work and all of it only goes toward one or two or a handful of things that I care about? Or, do I have a nice breadth across what I’m doing that maybe this thing gets me closer to this professional goal, and that work gets me closer to this crazy artistic goal that maybe I even felt weird about writing down because it seems so out of this world but I kind of really do want to do before I die?”

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And I imagine it’s a common experience for people to not even be aware that they have a need of a particular flavor or stripe. Any suggestions on how to surface those?

Christina Wallace

I think part of this is the reflection or the delving into stories, into your past experiences, and having that opportunity to say, like, “When have I been my best self? And when have I haven’t? Like, what are those moments where I found myself crying at work or doing less than I thought I could or should be able to?” I’ll give you an example, one of my needs is an office with a door that closes.

I do not do well in open office plans. And I have so many examples of working in startups and other organizations where I loved the work, I was a good fit for my role, I had great relationships, everything felt like it should be clicking, but I was in an open office plan where I couldn’t focus. I have high sensitivity to sounds. I couldn’t focus. I was always being interrupted. I couldn’t get into a flow, ever. And that friction wore at me every day to the point where I couldn’t do what I was there to do.

So, I made that on my checklist, of like, “When I’m at my best is when I’m able to shut the door and be able to focus.” And so, in some ways, if you’re just starting out, you might not have a good sense of your needs yet, and that’s okay. But if you’ve been at this a while, or if you have that opportunity to look back and reflect, whether it’s in school or in your jobs, where are you at your best? And where did you find sort of constant friction that you’re like, “Ugh, it doesn’t have to be this way”? That’s a great place to start to surface your needs.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, Christina, now I’m thinking about the notion of friction and some philosophies saying, “Well, hey, if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger. And if you can endure that, you’re going to grow and get tougher. And we’ve got it so easy in the 21st century with all of our luxuries and conveniences and comforts, and maybe we need a little friction to toughen us up.” What do you think about this perspective, Christina?

Christina Wallace

So, I hear you, a little bit of friction, not necessarily a bad thing but here’s maybe my counterpoint to that. Many of us, I might argue all of us, are what I would call weirdly shaped puzzle pieces. We all have a different set of skills, and communication styles, and interests, and personality quirks, and all of these things that we bring to the table when we show up over the course of our lives. And there are rooms that have a space that is shaped like your puzzle piece, and then there are rooms that don’t.

And if you try to shove your strangely shaped puzzle piece into what is a nice, square, neat opening, maybe it’s the last piece we’re waiting to put in this puzzle, and you don’t fit, if you try to shove yourself in there, you’re going to have to carve off a meaningful amount of yourself in order to even approximate what they’re looking for.

And I think there are lots of folks who feel this on a daily basis, whether it’s code switching, or whether it’s just the adjustments they make to who they are in order to feel acceptable on a team, at a company. And you realize that, on any given day, it’s not that big of a deal, but every day for years on end, you’re literally using some percentage of your energy, your mental capacity just to show up and be able to do your job, which leaves so much less to do the job itself.

And I think one of the biggest learnings I had through my 20s was that I would rather find the rooms that wanted what I had to offer than try to squeeze myself into a box that didn’t fit me, or into a hole in the puzzle that didn’t fit me. And part of that work was really uncovering what the shape of my puzzle piece was, what do I show with, what do I have to offer, and why is that actually awesome. And so, the people who do want me really do want me.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. And I’m thinking right now just about an experience I had recently. So, nowadays, with three young kiddos, I find I’m spending most of my mornings hanging out with them, watching them, taking care of things.

Christina Wallace

How old are they?

Pete Mockaitis

They are five, four, and six months.

Christina Wallace

I’ve got a three and a one-year-old.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah. And then some things happen in terms of travel where I have the opportunity to just wake up and start doing some work at 7:00 a.m., and it felt absolutely amazing. It’s like, “Wow, I didn’t even know.” I thought, “Oh, I guess I used to do this a lot. I don’t think I even remembered that that was a thing I did that worked really well for me, and I have been not doing that, and I miss it.”

And so, in a way that’s kind of tricky, it’s like, “Well, what’s to be done?” There’s probably some clever things to happen there but I guess, Christina, where you’re nudging me here is one response to that internally is, “Oh, hey, man, that’s just the stage of life we’re in, you know. We got to take care of the kids in the morning. That’s where it’s at.”

But I’m thinking, with your puzzle piece analogy, perhaps you might advocate it’s worth putting some serious thought and effort into thinking, “Is there an arrangement by which this creative morning, productive, energized groove can be deployed in that direction because it’s worthwhile to do so?”

Christina Wallace
Yeah, I think your example is perfect on two dimensions. One is you get to see sort of the difference between what is it like to have that friction versus just to hit your flow. And I think, from like a metaphorically standpoint, that’s exactly the difference between being in a room that wants you and being in a room that doesn’t.

Or, a version of you, if you would, like, soften these things and change that thing, and don’t use too many exclamation points in your emails. But in the same way, I think that’s a perfect example of, you are at a stage of life where your mornings, for the most part, look a certain way. And so, the question is, “Is there an opportunity to either create a version of this that gives you that creative morning, maybe some sort of an arrangement with your partner, or figuring out how you set up your morning differently?”

And if you were working at a company or somewhere else where you had a manager or a boss, there might be a situation where you say, like, “Hey, can I adjust my hours? Can I think about maybe working from home in the mornings so I can get the kids out, and then I can have a couple of hours before I have to sit in traffic, or a couple of days from home?” Like, there’s a way to be thoughtful about, “How can I construct the context of how I do my work to maybe lower some of that friction and give me that opportunity to hit flow better?”

So, I am now a professor. For this stage of my life with young children, this is what fit me better than running a startup. And, as part of what I need, I have the same morning experience, getting my kids out the door, off to daycare, all these things. I can’t teach before 9:30, like it just doesn’t work, and I’m in the position to say that, and to proactively design my day to fit the needs that I have for this stage.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Thank you. All right. Well, we just jumped into a lot of specific things because you kept fascinating me, Christina. And now, maybe I’ll zoom out a little bit. So, this book The Portfolio Life seems like we’ve got some taste for what it’s about. But could you articulate the core big idea or thesis here for us?

Christina Wallace

Sure. So, this idea, everyone is likely familiar with a portfolio from a financial standpoint, you build your financial portfolio with a mix allocation across stocks, bonds, real estate, whatever these assets are that fits the stage of life you’re in, that matches the risks and the returns that you need. And then, as your life changes, you rebalance that portfolio to rematch what you need at that stage. And this is taking that exact approach but applying it to not just your career but your life. I think career is a huge part of many of our lives but it is in the context of your life.

And so, what does that look like? It means that you are assembling work, hobbies, relationships, family time, community time, rest, you’re designing an allocation of your time across these different pieces in a way that meets your needs and moves you forward toward your goals. And what that can look like is several sources of income. It can look like a meaningful sort of hobby or growth opportunity, a project, something you want to learn more about, that you’re going to dive into, that then sets you up for your next professional zigzag.

It could mean keeping your hands in a lot of different buckets, a lot of different communities and networks, you say, “Well, I came from this world, I’m now in this world, I care a lot about that world, and I’m going to stay connected to all of them.” And the reason I advocate for this approach, one, it actually matches much better the full sort of three-dimensional version of who you are as a person. Very few people, from the day they’re born to the day they die, say, “You know, I really am, and I only am, a marketing manager in a pharmaceutical company. Like, that’s who I am. That’s it.” Like, we all have these different aspects.

And so, it’s a way to reflect on and mimic this three-dimensional version of you rather than having your identity be formed by your job. But, secondly, it sets you up with diversification and flexibility to better weather this constant state of disruption that we are now in. This world, whether it is bank collapses, or ecological disasters, or technological advancements, like AI that are going to massively change the face of white-collar work in the next five years. Whatever these things are, they’re coming at us, lifechanging disruptions every three, five, seven years. This is a pace of change the previous generations never had to deal with.

And so, thinking about your career and your life through a portfolio that helps you diversify and build some flexibility against that disruption is truly the only way you’re going to navigate this without having the rug pulled out from under you, like many folks have had in the last few months.

Pete Mockaitis

So, can you share with us perhaps a story that brings that to bear? Like, “Ooh, here’s someone who did not have a portfolio, and, uh-oh, look how that went down,” versus someone who did, and, “Oh, what a softer landing and what it provided for them.”

Christina Wallace

Sure. I have a great example of this. Heading into the pandemic, I come from an artistic background. I went to a boarding school for the arts, I trained as a classical musician, and I majored in theater among other things, and so I know a lot of folks in the arts. And I used a lot of case studies in the book of folks that have a creative pursuit as part of their portfolio.

Going into the pandemic, I have a lot of friends who were actors, directors, designers on Broadway who went from being gainfully employed at the top of their industry to having, literally, no income for two years while live performances were shut down. And many of them had sort of a backup job as a waiter or a bartender. That’s how a lot of actors make their work between gigs but a lot of those jobs got shut down, too. So, there were a huge number of artists in New York who just, literally, had no income for up to two years, minus whatever unemployment checks they were able to collect. And it was devastating. Many of them are still digging out from under that.

But I have one friend, Carla Stickler, who, in addition to being an actress, she was the understudy for Elphaba in Wicked for many, many years, a fantastic Broadway actress, in addition to that, she started learning to code. Many years ago, she took a bootcamp through the Flatiron School. She wasn’t really sure what she wanted to do with it but it interested her, and she decided to learn more.

And so, between gigs, backstage, when she wasn’t in a scene, she was working on code, building projects, writing apps. And when the pandemic came, she’s like, “Well, I didn’t think I was ready to leave Broadway, but I think Broadway is ready to leave me, so it’s time to pivot.” And she took her coding resume, and went out and got a job as an engineer at a startup, and was able to seamlessly move into the world of tech startups, and has a thriving career now as an engineer in Chicago, and was able to navigate that unexpected disruption so much better than her peers.

And what I think is fascinating about Carla, I’m sort of giving away the ending here, but it’s not like she walked away from performing altogether. She kept teaching a little bit. She had a private voice studio. She stayed in touch with folks. And when Broadway came back, this is right around the time that, like, the Omicron surged, it became problematic, they reopened, they started performing again, and then there was this big variant that took out, it was devastating.

It took out a lot of performers really quickly, and Broadway started going through their list of understudies, and backup understudies, and swings, and backup, backup swings. And they got to the point where they needed an Elphaba, they had no one else to perform. They, literally, called Carla in Chicago, she got on a plane to New York, had one rehearsal, and went on stage, painted green, flying 40 feet over the stage, singing, literally, the hardest role on Broadway. And then she got off stage and, two days later, went back to her coding job in Chicago.

So, I think that is a great example of how you can have a mix of skills and interests and networks that maybe you’re not monetizing just yet but can position you to have optionality and flexibility when the time comes.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Cool. And so, as we think about this design process, you mentioned doing reflection associated with seeing when have you been at your best and when have you been at your worst. Are there any other ways to help surface that which is going to help keep us feeling alive and flourishing as well as surfacing cool opportunities to get after those things?

Christina Wallace

So, one of my favorite tools, I developed this short list of questions after my first startup failed. I had built this company, we had raised the money, we thought it was going to be amazing, spoiler, it was not. And I had this moment of complete and total sort of paralyzation. I was like, “I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I have to offer. I don’t know why anyone would want to hire me,” and tried to be reflective, tried to journal and figure out what I brought to the table, and I was coming up with a blank piece of paper.

And so, I went out and had coffee, a lot of coffee, with basically everyone in my network. I did, like, 70 coffee chats in 30 days. That was overkill. You don’t have to do that many. But I went out and asked the folks who had known me the longest and some who’ve actually only known me a few months. I asked them three questions.

Number one, “When have you seen me happiest?” Number two, “What do you come to me for? Like, what is that moment where you go, ‘Oh, I should see what Christina thinks about this.’?” And then, number three, “Where do I stand out against my peers?” Because one of the things that I recognize was there might be, like, a superpower that I bring that is easy for me and so I don’t even realize how valuable it is elsewhere.

And having those same three questions kind of across all these conversations helped pull out some themes that really gave me an insight into where I should go next. And then, once I had something more specific of, like, “I’m looking for this type of a role, in this type of an industry, with this type of a job title or an opportunity,” then my network could surface those opportunities because I was being really specific.

I wasn’t saying, like, “Hey, do you know anyone who’s hiring?” I was like, “Do you know anyone who’s hiring a general manager role for a company, not based in New York, that wants to expand to New York, and who’s at a seed or series A stage of financing in the startup world?” Like, super specific. And I landed that job in a couple of days.

So, part of this is, like, you can do some self-reflection, and there are great exercises in the book to do that but you can also go and ask the people who know you what they see when they look at you. And you might be surprised that some parts of you that you don’t even realize are that exciting or valuable really stand out to other people.

Pete Mockaitis

And could you share with us a couple things you heard when you had these 70 conversations that surprised you, like, “Huh, how about that?”

Christina Wallace

So, one of the interesting things when I asked them when they had seen me happiest, the consensus was when I was in charge of my own calendar, meaning I’m not afraid of working hard. I work hard. I work a lot. But I want to do it on my own terms. And for a while, I had been at a consulting firm for one of these big national consulting, international consulting firms. And in client services, you jump when the client says jump, and I didn’t have control over my calendar, and I wasn’t able to slot in the things I cared about or show up for the people that I wanted to show up for. And it really made me miserable.

So, I came out of that realizing, like, “Okay, me and client services, like not a good fit. What do they come to me for?” They come to me to help find the story. So, whether it’s their resume, or it’s a product they want to launch, or it’s just connecting the dots of, like, “I did this thing and that thing and the other thing,” and I’m like, “I don’t see how they connect but I’m sure they do.” I can give them the language. I can help them find the story and frame it in such a way. It’s sort of a communication skill.

And then, “Where do I stand out against my peers?” I thrive in moments of uncertainty. I’m really good at the zero to two stage of company-building, or a project generation, or launching a play, whatever that thing is. Going from an idea to a thing, and getting other people excited by it, onboard with it, and all driving in the same direction, is where I excel.

I’m less great at the 10- to 100-stage, where you’re optimizing something that already exists. And so, I thought that was really helpful to be, like, “You know what, I should stay in early-stage startups or in creative projects, like producing theater, where going from nothing to something is what’s on the table.

Pete Mockaitis

Cool. All right. That’s very clear. And I could see how, in your world, it’s just like, well, yes, it’s kind of, “Isn’t everybody good with that?” how strings can be hidden in that kind of a way. Okay. Well, then can you share, so that’s sort of the insight, personal, wisdom gathering there. And then what are your top tips in terms of surfacing cool opportunities and things to put into your portfolio?

Christina Wallace

A lot of this comes down to your network. There’s some great research I referenced in the book that a lot of the opportunities don’t come from the people you know but the people they know, second-generation networks. And part of helping that one level-removed network surface things that might be interesting requires you to be really specific on what you’re looking for.

And so, that is sort of a two-pronged approach. One part is having the language to talk about who you are, what you’re looking for, and how someone might be able to help you. That was what I needed after I did all these coffee chats, coming up with the specific asks. And then the second thing was keeping in touch with those networks so they know that you’re looking for help, that you want something to surface up.

And this can be a challenge if you sit in multiple worlds, as I do, I have built a career at the intersection of business, technology, and the arts. Those are somewhat overlapping but, in many ways, distinct communities. To stay connected to them takes effort, it takes relationship-building over time not just sort of networking where I show up with a business card and throw it in everyone’s hands. But doing that allows me to stay top of mind, and having a very clear ask allows them to surface things that might be really interesting.

Because a lot of what people love, can get excited about, is really these opportunistic things rather than the, “What’s your five-year plan?” The five-year plan thing hardly worked for our parents. I don’t think it can work for any of us because there are so much that is changing and there are so much that’s unknown. So, having much more of an emergent strategy rather than a deliberate strategy is what’s going to be effective here. And to do that, you have to stay connected.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Well, Christina, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and  hear about some of your favorite things?

Christina Wallace

I think that’s it.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Could you tell us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Christina Wallace

Madeleine Albright, “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.”

Pete Mockaitis

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

Christina Wallace

Clay Christensen and his team, when they were writing The Innovator’s DNA, interviewed and studied hundreds of the most creative innovative people, and they identified these five traits that make up the DNA, that make up kind of how these people worked. And at the core of these five traits, the backbone that the other four sort of rotate around, like the double helix of DNA, is the power of associating.

That’s the ability to connect seemingly unconnected ideas, or networks, or industries. That is what made people the most innovative. So, it doesn’t require you to have a net new idea, a cutting-edge technology. It often can come from just being connected and translating something you’ve seen in one world into another.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And a favorite book?

Christina Wallace

Oh, man, I think it’s probably an upcoming book. I can still call it a favorite because I got to read an advanced copy. It’s called The Anxious Achiever by Morra Aarons-Mele.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, Morra. She’s on the show.

Christina Wallace

Yeah, it is just I feel like it was written for me and, like, all of my friends.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And a favorite tool?

Christina Wallace

Trello. I live and die by Trello. I’ve probably been using this Trello board for, like, 12 years.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And a favorite habit?

Christina Wallace

Putting my phone away an hour before I go to bed.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?

Christina Wallace

Honestly, it comes from one of the pieces of my book, “There’s no such thing as a left-brained or a right-brained person.” This is fake science that was misinterpreted from a real study back in the 1960s. And so, this notion that we are one or the other, logical or creative, it’s not true. You are both.

Pete Mockaitis

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

Christina Wallace

PortfolioLife.com or you can follow me on LinkedIn or Instagram.

Pete Mockaitis

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

Christina Wallace

Honestly, I would go and talk to your boss, talk to your manager about the thing that you want to try, or learn more about, or explore this year that has nothing to do with your current job description, and see if there’s a way to get a stretch assignment, or a rotation, or a zigzag promotion that allows you to sort of expand that portfolio even in the context of your day job.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Christina, this has been a treat. I wish you much luck and fun in your portfolio.

Christina Wallace

Thank you so much.