KF #12. Decision Quality Archives - How to be Awesome at Your Job

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

Cheryl Einhorn
Thank you. So good to be here with you.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I’m excited to talk about your book, Problem Solver, and get some more insights into problem-solving goodies. But one problem I understand you’ve been working to solve for years is the perfect spice cookie. What’s the story here?

Cheryl Einhorn
Oh, I’m always experimenting. They say that cooking is an art and baking is a science, so that means that you can keep experimenting until you find what you think is just right.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, when you say spice cookie, what spices are we talking about here?

Cheryl Einhorn
Oh, I really throw in the kitchen sink. I like a lot of ginger. I think ginger is, like, this secret ingredient. And then a little bit of cayenne and all sorts of nuts thrown in so you get really good texture.

Pete Mockaitis
Do you go with the spice ginger or the powder ginger? Sorry, not spice, the fresh ginger or the…yeah.

Cheryl Einhorn
No, no, I like the fresh ginger. I like the fresh ginger, and I think something that people don’t appreciate enough is that you actually don’t have to peel it. The peel is actually good for you.

Pete Mockaitis
No kidding?

Cheryl Einhorn
So, I do recommend cleaning that first, but make sure that you leave that on.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, you’ve already blown my mind about one minute into the interview, so this bodes well for the future. You don’t have to peel your ginger. Who knew? Okay. Well, talking about your book, Problem Solver, any particularly extra-surprising or fascinating or counterintuitive discoveries you’ve made about problem-solving while putting this together?

Cheryl Einhorn
Well, absolutely, because what the research talks about is that there are five dominant ways that people approach their decisions, and that each of these different decision-making archetypes, I call them problem-solver profiles, and that’s why my book is called Problem Solver, each of them has some beautiful strengths but each of them also is correlated to a couple specific cognitive biases.

Those mental mistakes that can impede clear thinking and, therefore, each of them is actually optimizing for different things in their decisions. And if we can learn about which problem-solver is ours, we can better understand why we engage with our decisions in the way that we do, what kind of information do we think is important for making a decision, and we can also learn how to make better decisions with others based on understanding the other problem-solver profiles that are not our own.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, Cheryl, this is exciting stuff and I’m eager to almost just dive in, table format, what’s the archetype, what are they optimizing for, what’s their strengths, what’s their bias. But maybe before we get to that level of meat, could you first share what’s at stake in terms of if we are great at problem-solving versus just okay at problem-solving, if we really know our archetype and we’re dialed into it versus we are just blissfully unaware of that knowledge?

Cheryl Einhorn
I think it’s a great question. The only thing that we truly have agency over in our lives are our decisions. And so, our decisions are the data of our lives. If we feel confident as decision-makers, if we have conviction that our decisions can move us forward into our good future, we can have a greater sense of wellness and of resilience. We can take on bigger challenges, and we feel like we can move through our day more easily.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. Do you have any cool stories of someone who learned some of your stuff and was able to upgrade their decision-making, problem-solving to see some cool results?

Cheryl Einhorn
Well, absolutely. My company, Decisive, we work with decision-makers around the world. And what we’ve found is that, as we begin to work with almost anybody, whether it is somebody who would like to help their aging parents find the right house or housing accommodation as they age, or whether it is somebody who’s thinking about starting their own business, as people learn their problem-solving skills and feel better about what actually is a quality decision-making process, they feel better about themselves, and they feel like they can reach their goals and their dreams.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. Any particular goals and dreams reached that was super inspirational?

Cheryl Einhorn
Well, we recently worked with a team that had been together, a senior leadership team, at an organization, a big international company, and what they had found is they had been working together for so long that they had sort of fallen into certain habits and patterns where they had some preconceived notions about who they can work well with, and who they kind of wanted to go around.

And by working together to uncover these problem-solver profiles, they now really felt like they could reduce their friction and work better together because they understood why each person was approaching a decision a certain way, why they were asking the questions they were. They weren’t being sluggish, or slow, or confrontational, but they needed to understand certain parts of the process in order for them to feel confident in the decision that they were making, and it really amplified and reignited what this team could do together and for the company.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Cheryl, I’m curious, in terms of our direction here, do you think it would be worthwhile to provide a refresher on the AREA Method for those who missed our first interview or do you think we can jump right into the archetypes?

Cheryl Einhorn
I’d be happy to give a refresher. So, AREA is an acronym for my system of complex decision-making that uniquely controls or counters cognitive bias so that we can expand our knowledge while improving our judgment. And, basically, it’s an order of operations where the A, absolute, gets up close on the target of your decision, the R, relative, then puts that decision into the broader context and collects information from related sources.

E, exploration upgrades your research beyond documents to identify good people and ask them great questions, it’s interviewing. Then AREA exploitation is a series of creative exercises to test your evidence against your assumptions. This is a new piece of decision-making which really helps you to strength-test your decisions.

And then the final A, analysis, helps you think about failure, which is so important because if you can identify how and where your decision could fail, you can shore up and prevent that weakness and also have a signpost to tell you when something is going awry in the execution phase, and when you might need to make a new decision.

So, that is just a brief summary of the AREA Method as an end-to-end system for complex problem-solving that includes all of the different perspectives, and really helps you to end up with a decision that has a good chance of succeeding.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cheryl, that’s lovely. Thank you. So, we’re all situated there. And now, okay, so we talked about cognitive biases a couple times. Now, I am familiar with this term and I find them so fascinating. I, one time, in my prior home in Chicago, had this beautiful poster, the Cognitive Bias Codex. Maybe you’ve seen it. It’s got a brain in the middle, and then it’s just nicely sorted, like all these cognitive biases.

I think they’re, like, over 150 into segments. It was lovely but it didn’t successfully make it through the move but we’ll link to that in the show notes for anybody who wants to buy this beautiful piece of art. But what is a cognitive bias?

Cheryl Einhorn
So, basically, it’s a heuristic. It is a mental pathway, a way of thinking that actually can help us to make the many small decisions that we have during the day but that don’t go away when we’re solving for complex problems. Let me give you a couple examples of things I think we all do. One is the liking bias. We tend to overweight information that comes from somebody that we like. Or the planning fallacy, which is even if we’ve done a task before, we may believe that it can be done faster than actually the number of steps and the time that it takes.

Or, another one is the confirmation bias where we look to confirm a favored hypothesis instead of thinking about disconfirming data which has far more diagnosticity. So, those are just a couple of examples of how we sort of move through the world to help us go a little faster but they don’t necessarily help us to really be present in the moment to think about the decision that we’re actually facing on its own.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s good. That’s good. And I pulled up the image of the Cognitive Bias Codex in terms of it has categories, like, “Why do we have these shortcuts? Well, it’s sort of unclear. What should we remember? We’ve got too much information. We can’t make enough meaning out of something and we crave meaning. Or, we got to act fast and we can’t analyze every tidbit.”

Cheryl Einhorn
Our brain likes to conserve energy and it likes to take these shortcuts, and it definitely allows us to multitask. If you’re in the supermarket and you know exactly where the box is in the cereal aisle that you want to get, you can also be on the phone and maybe thinking about something from earlier in the day. So, you can be doing many things, but by reducing that cognitive load, it’s also not actively thinking through whatever it is you’re facing.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s great. All right. So, lay it on us, these archetypes. We’ve got the adventurer, the detective, the listener, the thinker, the visionary. I guess that’s alphabetical. Is that how you like to, the sequence you like to move in or should we go at it? What’s your order of preference?

Cheryl Einhorn
That’s perfectly fine. One is not better than the other. As I said, they each have beautiful strengths but each of the problem-solver profiles are optimizing for different things in their decisions. So, the adventurer is a confident decision-maker, and he or she really favors making a lot of decisions. And there’s an underlying optimism bias to this because if they make a decision and it doesn’t work out the way they want, guess what? They always can make a new decision. And so, this is really a great person to have in your friend circle, in your colleague circle. They really help to make sure that you continually have momentum.

The detective, that’s what I am, this is a slower and more evidence-based decision-maker. For me to make a decision, if you don’t come to me with data, I really have trouble hearing you. I want you to substantiate it. And that has an underlying confirmation bias to it, which is that I can find the facts that I need to be able to share with you why my hypothesis is the correct one. And so, this is somebody, when you really want to be able to prove it, the adventurer can help you find the data that you need.

The listener is a relational, collaborative, inclusive decision-maker. And for this kind of a problem-solver profile, they have an underlying liking bias. They tend to have a trusted group of advisors, and they tend to overweight information that comes from those people, and they are people-centered. The thinker is your slowest decision-maker. This is somebody who really likes to explore their options. This can have a kind of frame blindness to it because they tend to look at the options against each other, which can circumscribe how they see and understand the problem.

And then the visionary is a creative open-ended decision-maker. This is somebody who has an underlying scarcity bias. They overvalue things that are original and things that maybe have not actually been on the table in the discussion, and that can also make them seem off-topic. And so, what I think you can see is that each of these different problem-solver profiles value different parts of decision-making.

And in order to make better decisions, alone and with others, you can really rapidly build trust and increase the speed of your decision-making by knowing the problem-solver profiles of the people who you’re making decisions with so you can come to them with what it is that they need to be able to discuss their decision.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so let’s do a rapid recap there. So, the adventurer is optimizing for what?

Cheryl Einhorn
Forward momentum.

Pete Mockaitis
Forward momentum. And their cognitive bias is?

Cheryl Einhorn
Optimism bias.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And then the detective, they’re optimizing for?

Cheryl Einhorn
Data.

Pete Mockaitis
And their bias is the confirmation bias.

Cheryl Einhorn
That’s correct.

Pete Mockaitis
And the listener is optimizing for what?

Cheryl Einhorn
Collaboration, cooperation.

Pete Mockaitis
And their bias is what?

Cheryl Einhorn
Liking bias.

Pete Mockaitis
Uh-huh. And the thinker, likewise?

Cheryl Einhorn
The thinker is somebody who wants to understand their options, and a bias that would be associated might be the relativity bias.

Pete Mockaitis
And how do we define the relativity bias?

Cheryl Einhorn
Relativity bias is like the frame blindness. They see the world in a relative, “This versus that,” over a…

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, right. Option A versus option B.

Cheryl Einhorn
Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
And, finally, the visionary?

Cheryl Einhorn
The visionary is creative and really optimizing for originality. And one of the biases associated for them would be the scarcity bias. And in my book, I go through this in much more detail and I give you lots of what I call cheetah sheets. Can I describe why I call them cheetah sheets?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure.

Cheryl Einhorn
So, the cheetah, while she’s the most fearsome hunter and can accelerate up to 60 miles per hour, her hunting prowess is actually from her deceleration, and she decelerates up to 9 miles an hour in a single stride. That gives her agility, flexibility, and maneuverability. And that’s what you need in quality decision-making.

And so, throughout all of my books, Problem Solved, on personal and professional decision-making, which introduces the AREA Method, Investing in Financial Research, about business, financial, and investment decisions, and this newest book, Problem Solver, I have cheetah sheets throughout which are worksheets that help you be a more agile and flexible decision-maker.

And each of these worksheets allows you to take the skill that you’re building and, basically, plug it right into your day. It gives you a series of questions that I ask that, as you answer them, help you to really be able to use the tools and the skills of each of these problem-solver profiles.

Pete Mockaitis
Nifty. All right. And I’m curious, do you have a sense of what proportion of people are adventurers versus detectives versus listeners?

Cheryl Einhorn
So, so far, I’ve collected information from well over 5,000 people. And for the people that take the problem-solver profile, we do have the largest group as thinkers. And I have been thinking about why that might be, and one of the things that occurs to me is the thinker is going to be very open to taking a quiz to help them to self-identify how they make decisions. They want to understand. The option for them is between the ears. They want to know the why.

An adventurer might hear about the problem-solver profiles on a podcast like this, and say, “I don’t need to take the quiz. I know I’m an adventurer.” Again, that forward momentum and the different ways that people are thinking about how they make their decisions, and the time to the decision.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And perhaps, to make it all the more real and concrete, could you walk us through a problem to be solved, or a decision to be made, and how each of the five archetypes would approach it?

Cheryl Einhorn
Yeah, one thing that I think is, in all of our common experience, might be going out to dinner with the five problem-solver profiles. When you get the menu and the adventurer looks at the menu, sees something on the menu that speaks to her, and she can put the menu down. She doesn’t have to read the whole menu because it’s not about all options. It’s about picking the first one that seems good to her.

The detective looks at the menu, notices that one of them has olives, loves olives, and thinks about, “Okay, based on that specific ingredient, that’s a dish that I’m probably going to like.” The thinker looks at the menu, and thinks about, “Well, what else have I had today? How do I want to balance out my diet for the day?” and maybe thinking about all of the eating that he or she has done as she looks at the menu to pick the dish.

The listener may be waiting to hear what all her friends order because she wants to hear what they think sounds good as well. And the visionary looks at the menu, likes the dish that has the olives, but looks at another dish and sees that the sauce might be better on that particular dish, and create something of her own. So, just from that example, I think you can see, again, that these different problem solvers are either skipping to decision-making or staying in problem-solving from very different vantage points.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now, I have my own guess, but I’d love for you to diagnose me. When I’m looking at a menu, I find what I most often after is I want to be full and satisfied in a very efficient way per calorie while also experiencing deliciousness and novelty. So, I am looking at every option, and I’m sort of crossing them. I look at every option, and I eliminate every one until I’m left with perhaps two or three finalists.

And sometimes one just pops off because, hey, someone else is eating the other one so we’ve got the variety. And other times, I will, I’ve asked this question many times to wait staffs, like, “Which one is heartier? Or, which one is the most delicious and unique in your opinion?” And so, yeah, I guess I really am kind with everything. I’m all about optimizing experience relative to the criteria and values that matter most to me.

Cheryl Einhorn
Well, first, just the sheer amounts of things that you’re thinking about, and that you’re weighing against each other – hearty, savory, new, what does the waiter think – oh, my goodness, this sounds like a thinker to me. You’ve really got a lot going on. And while you can certainly have elements of listening, and elements of novelty, you’re not optimizing for forward momentum.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s true.

Cheryl Einhorn
The pace of the decision doesn’t matter to you as much as making the right decision according to the criteria that you’ve identified.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s fun. And when I do want it to go fast, I use the Chipotle app because I’ve already done all the thinking, and this is the exact bull that I want.

Cheryl Einhorn
And that’s very exciting to the thinker. The thinker, having it be like the three bears just so, that’s important. And that is in part why the thinker is such a slow decision-maker because the thinker has huge loss aversion. They are not optimizing for the best possible outcome. They are optimizing to mitigate the downside risks.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s true. I have had moments in a restaurant where I have intense regret, like, “I absolutely should’ve ordered what you had ordered.” And I regret having made the choice that I did.

Cheryl Einhorn
And that is something that really plagues the thinker. And regret is an emotion uniquely about our decisions, and it’s a very difficult decision. It’s a very difficult emotion.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, let’s say we are resonating with a particular archetype, or we take the assessment. Well, first of all, let us know, what is the quick and easiest way we can learn what our archetype is?

Cheryl Einhorn
Well, you can go to App.AreaMethod.com and you sign up for it, and you can take the problem-solver profile. And then you can learn more about it and how to use it by reading Problem Solver, my new book which goes through how to really put it into practice, or, obviously, by getting in touch with me, and working with me to help you and your team, or your family, or your friends, in making decisions using this new knowledge.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, let’s say we’ve got a sense for, “Okay, I’m a thinker and I’m working with an adventurer,” just for example, what do you think are the key implications in terms of, “So, now how do I live my work life differently with this knowledge?”

Cheryl Einhorn
Well, you have a really asymmetric risk-reward between these two because the adventurer wants the forward momentum, and the thinker wants to understand the why and to explore the options. And so, in a way, this can be just a wonderful group together because they’re really thinking about the problem differently.

And if you understand that, the adventurer then doesn’t have to feel frustrated that the thinker really needs to know that he or she has understood the why and the options, and the thinker doesn’t have to look at the adventurer, and say, “Why is this person in such a rush?” And together, you can really use each other’s strengths to make a decision that you both can feel good about.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, tell us, any other top tips or implications that we should bear in mind as we explore this stuff?

Cheryl Einhorn
Yeah, I think this is transformative. First, I don’t think that we really think that much about intellectual diversity, and the fact that the different problem-solver profiles are optimizing for different things means if you can bring in questions from all five of the vantage points, you can have a much more fulsome understanding of the problem that you’re solving.

And you also no longer, as I was mentioning, need to denigrate how other people approach their decisions. Somebody is no longer hasty. They are optimizing for forward momentum. And somebody is no longer sluggish or too slow, for instance, like the thinker. This is somebody who really wants to make sure that they’re mitigating the downside risks.

And so, I think it can give you a really beautiful appreciation for these different ways that people problem-solve and reminds you that your way is not better. It’s just different.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so I’d like to delve into that a little bit in terms of I can understand the style and process can be neither better nor worse, just different. I suppose I’m wondering about if someone has a capacity as an officer, executive, director, agent of an organization, whether it’s government, or nonprofit, or corporation, like, “To maximize shareholder wealth” is the sacred, I guess, oath of executives of publicly-traded corporations, according to my finance curriculum from the University of Illinois.

So, in that world, in some ways it seems like what is to be optimized for is kind of the part of the job description, if you will. And so, from like a results perspective, I guess not so much from a process perspective, so just wrestling with that, how do you think about these matters?

Cheryl Einhorn
All of these problem-solver profiles are excellent leaders and bring very different kinds of energy to their leadership. So, all of them can be very successful no matter where they are in the for-profit or the nonprofit world.

But just like when we all were going to school and we needed to figure out how to succeed for a particular teacher, when you’re working with different problem-solver profiles, you will have an easier time building trust, strengthening the relationship, and making more successful decisions together if you have a window into which of the problem-solver profiles they are.

Pete Mockaitis
Alrighty. Cheryl, any final thoughts before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Cheryl Einhorn
No, I just think that this is absolutely transformative. In my own life, as I have applied this, I never would’ve imagined how this was able to help me with relationships, both new and ones that I’ve had for my entire life. So, I think it’s an incredible piece of research, and I really hope that it can help other people in feeling better about their own decisions, but also very much in making decisions and having good relationships with others.

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

Cheryl Einhorn
Yeah. So, one of my favorite quotes is, “If you think you can, or if you think you can’t, you’re absolutely right,” which I think was said by Henry Ford. And this is really about you putting in some of your own motivation and your own effort, and it’s this idea that the agency that you bring to something is what really can help you to succeed.

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

Cheryl Einhorn
I’ve got a favorite study or piece of research, which is this research study about teachers, that the most success that the students have is, in part, by having a teacher who really believes in them. And I would think that this would be true outside of the world of education, that having somebody who really believes in you helps to give you incredible motivation and resiliency.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Cheryl Einhorn
One of my favorites is The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin. He is a former chess champion and also a champion in the world of martial arts in what’s called push hands.

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

Cheryl Einhorn
I would say that one of the things that I use is this idea of not leaving before you leave. When I finish something, or get up from the day, or finish a meeting, I stay with whatever that topic is for a few minutes after to sum up my thoughts and make sure that I can re-enter well.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

Cheryl Einhorn
Well, I think it’s the same idea of not leaving before you leave.

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

Cheryl Einhorn
I think it’s this idea that there’s two kinds of learning – there’s knowledge and skill. And, for me, decision-making is a skill, which means I can teach you those skills and they can be yours.

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

Cheryl Einhorn
I would point them to my website, which is AreaMethod.com. And there, you can learn about my books, and my research, and my articles, and get in touch to work together.

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

Cheryl Einhorn
Yeah, if you can invest in your decision-making, it can unlock everything that you’re doing, personally and professionally.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Cheryl, thanks for chatting, and good luck with all your decisions.

Cheryl Einhorn
Thank you so much for having me today and for this conversation.

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

Hal Hershfield
Hey, thanks so much for having me, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to dig into some of the wisdom in your book, Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today. But, first, I wanted to hear from you, could you share one of the best and one of the worst decisions that you’ve personally made on behalf of your future self?

Hal Hershfield
That’s a good one, ooh. Okay, the easy answer there is marrying my wife. That’s got to be the obvious one.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, she’s listening. It’s the obvious one, yeah.

Hal Hershfield
Yeah, so I don’t know. Should I come up with another answer?

Pete Mockaitis
I’ll count it.

Hal Hershfield
Worst decision, oh, man, it’s like there’s so many to choose from there. Okay, worst decision is more of a sort of perpetual thing and not one specific decision. But I tend to be really bad at taking care of small tasks. I procrastinate on them and it is regularly bad for my various future selves.

Pete Mockaitis
Is there a category of task that gets procrastinated all the time?

Hal Hershfield
Oh, yeah, anything with regards to administrative, filling out receipts, or like submitting a claim for insurance, or putting in my car registration. There are sorts of things that requires some amount of work, I don’t know why. I know why. I know why. I don’t like doing them. I always find them, sort of I’m worried that I’m not going to fill it in right, and then I just keep pushing it off.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s right. And then sometimes, I don’t know what this says about me, I’m frustrated that the system isn’t easy. In a world of apps, and iteration, and cost and improvement, and our technology and processes, and web forms, and apps and stuff, it’s like, “Wait, seriously, I got to mail you a check? I’m going to print something out or…really?”

Hal Hershfield
Game over. As soon as it says, “Print this out,” it’s like game over because the chances that the printer at my office or the printer at home will work is considerably low.

Pete Mockaitis
Or, do you have the paper? Do you have the ink? And what I love is that Amazon is super customer focused. I now notice when I try to print a return label, it said one of the options was, “We’ll print it for you and mail it to you in four business days for 50 cents.” I don’t remember, the price was pretty good. It’s like they know. They know that printing a label is too much for me.

Hal Hershfield
It’s such a sad comment but it’s so true. And I love it, remove the friction. Make it easier.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, so I’d love to hear, while putting together and researching the book Your Future Self, any really surprising or extra-fascinating and counterintuitive discoveries you’ve made in the research?

Hal Hershfield
Yeah, I actually think one of the more counterintuitive parts that I came across in researching the book was the idea that we can experience what’s known as hyperopia. And what that means is, well, in my research, I focus on what’s called myopia, when we’re too sort of tunnel-focused, we have tunnel vision on the present. Hyperopia is when we reverse that. We focus so much on the future that we miss the present. And the irony there is that, in doing that, we end up making things worse for ourselves in the future as well. And that was a bit of work that really surprised me. I hadn’t really thought about that possibility before.

Pete Mockaitis
Can you give us an example?

Hal Hershfield
Have you ever had a gift certificate for a restaurant and you’re just waiting for the perfect opportunity to use it?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah.

Hal Hershfield
And you’re doing it because you’re thinking, “I really want to maximize this, and I want this to be good for…so that future version of me that gets to go there,” and you wait, and you wait, and you wait, and it closes. That is hyperopic. But there’s obviously more serious versions of that. There are versions of that, in fact, with our professional lives where we tell ourselves that we’re taking care of tasks, we’re doing things because that’s good for the future. And we somehow end up prioritizing the urgent over the important.

It’s like a version of this because we’re telling ourselves that we’re doing something, we’re doing something good for the long run, but, in reality, we maybe sort of shortchanging ourselves and actually making things less good for ourselves in the long term because we’re not focused on the big, important things that will actually move the ball down the field for ourselves. And that’s true both professionally and personally.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, it sounds like maybe we’ve already touched on it, but, zooming out a bit, how would you put forward the main big idea or core thesis of the book Your Future Self?

Hal Hershfield
Yeah, sure. So, I think the core thesis of the book is that there are different versions of ourselves that exist over time, and, in some ways, we think about our future selves as if they are other people. And that’s okay so long as we focus on the relationship that we have with that other person. And so, the book is really aimed at understanding the relationships that we have with our future selves, and then figuring out how to improve them so that we can do things that benefit us both in the future and now.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, we talk about relationships. Are there some categories or archetypes? Does anybody hate their future self, like, “My relationship with my future self is my future self is my nemesis”? Or, what’s the palette or menu of choices for how that relationship can be?

Hal Hershfield
Right. That’s a fantastic question. Empirically, I’ve never asked people, “Do you hate them?” That said…

Pete Mockaitis
That’d be sad.

Hal Hershfield
It would be really sad if somebody said that. In my research and the research that others have done, we sort of treat the relationship with a future self the same way that you would treat our relationships with spouses, partners, close friends, which is to say that there’s varying degrees of distance. I can have a friend who I know, maybe they’re in my group of friends that I see but I’m not really that close to them. They exist but I don’t really connect to them.

All the way down to I can have that best friend, the person who I spend…want to spend all my time with, or my spouse, or my kids, or my aging parents. I would say that the spectrum of relationships goes from a stranger who’s sort of you see them, you know they exist but you don’t really connect to them, and don’t really know them, all the way to a person with whom you feel a great degree of emotional connection.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so, this is all intriguing from a thought experiment kind of a world. But could you lay it on us in terms of what’s at stake, what are the implications of getting this relationship right versus not so right?

Hal Hershfield
Sure. We’ve looked at a variety of different things, so one thing we know the people who are more connected to their future selves, they’ve accumulated more assets over time.

Pete Mockaitis
Financially.

Hal Hershfield
Financially-speaking, exactly. We know that people feel more connected, they report greater subjective health. We found that they’re less likely to endorse unethical business practices. In other words, this is another sort of tradeoff. If I feel a lack of connection to my future selves, doing something that might financially benefit me right now but I could suffer some consequences later, well, maybe that’s okay. I’m not really thinking about later.

Other researchers have found that people that are connected to their future selves, they do better in school, higher grades, and even experience greater amounts of life satisfaction and meaning in life. I should say there’s always other factors and variables that play across these different studies. We’ve tried hard, and others have tried hard, too, to sort of isolate, and say, “Well, even in the face of things like age or education, do these relationships bear out?” And, sure enough, they seem to.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so when you talk about this connection, what does that maybe look, sound, feel like in terms of our internal dialogues when we have a good rich connection to our future selves versus the non-desired alternative?

Hal Hershfield
It’s a really fascinating question that you raised because it’s not, I should say, we don’t ask people, “What does that conversation look like?” Most likely, they’re so much more idiosyncratic behavior and answers that could be given. I don’t really know what the answer would be but here’s my suspicion. I suspect that a conversation with a future self who I care deeply about is going to look more like the way that I think about and treat the people in my life who I really want to care for and take responsibility for.

The same way that you might feel about your spouse if you’re really connected to them, or the same way that you might feel about your kid, or, even I could think about the workplace, a co-worker that you really appreciate, or even an employee that they’re sort of under you but you still take an interest in their wellbeing. That’s the type of connection or relationship that we might see when we see a high degree of overlap between current and future selves.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s good. And now I’m thinking about how, recently, this isn’t an earth shattering story, but I felt the implications. Sometimes, maybe most of the time, my desk is not the tidiest, and so I’ve accumulated LaCroix cans and more, and papers and all over the place. And so, it was a Friday, I took some time, like, “I’m really going to clean this up really well,” and so I did.

And then, Monday, I came in and I was surprised. I had forgotten my office desk had been cleaned by me in the past, and I said, “Oh, how delightful.” It’s like I was surprised. And the word relationship really does ring true here, I was like, “Well, thank you, past me. I really appreciate you cleaning up that desk because it’s just actually a joy to come into the office and behold this clean desk. I’m in a good mood and I appreciate me for having made that happen.”

Hal Hershfield
It’s a little gift from past you.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Hal Hershfield
Yeah. I love that.

Pete Mockaitis
So, it was cool.

Hal Hershfield
I love that.

Pete Mockaitis
And yet, most of the time, though, I don’t have that relationship in terms of, like good or bad, I don’t know. Like, you step on the scale, you look at the mirror, and go, “Ugh, past self, you really should’ve been watching the calories a little more, or hitting the gym a little more, or watch the diet when you get a check-in with the doctor.” It doesn’t even occur to me to think about past self in that relationship kind of a way.

Hal Hershfield
Yeah, you know, it’s funny. I can relate to that. There are so many of those times where we’re sort of not thinking about all the different actions that we have and how they add up. The annual physical is a great example of that, when you say, “Oh, your cholesterol is a little high.” It’s like, I cannot recall the number of times that I ate in a way that probably wasn’t good for my cholesterol, but, in those moments, I’m not thinking about how each one of those kinds of sums up to the sort of worst whole.

But then, on the flipside, the gift from past self, it’s like I had this experience pang. I think I must’ve paid for a rental car going to a friend’s wedding, completely had forgotten, I go up to pay for it, and they’re like, “You already paid for it.” I’m like, “Well, who paid for it? Like, that guy, the past me? Like, what a sucker, but I’m glad he did it.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s good. Or, just sort of like accounts that accrue. I’m thinking about back when I was consulting, there was a benefit where you could use pre-tax dollars to fund your mass transit cards. Invariably, these things just accrued to large sums because I completely forgot, like they’re sort of taken out of a paycheck.

And when people go off to business school, they’d say, “Hey, well, I’m going to Harvard. I’m not going to be in Chicago anymore. I’ve got a card with $300 of mass transit value, and I’m going to sell it at a discount.” So many of those emails, actually, in my time there. And so, yeah, you just autopilot, forget, and sometimes that works in your favor.

Hal Hershfield
Yup, 100%. Absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
I’d love to hear do you have any cool success stories or inspiring case studies associated with folks who were able to upgrade their relationship to their future self and then see cool things emerge as a result?

Hal Hershfield
Yeah, actually, one of my favorite success stories, it was really funny. This was, oh, gosh, pretty deep in COVID, and I got this random email, and it’s from a high school kid, Enmal was his name. And he basically reaches out and says, “I’ve got to tell you, I went pretty dark during COVID.” I think he was like a high school junior, and when it started, he was having all of his classes at home and he’s not seeing his friends. And he says, “My diet basically consisted of ice cream and Chick-fil-A and Fruit Loops.” I forget which cereal it was but nothing super healthy. No offense to any of those companies, of course.

Pete Mockaitis
The Fruit Loops marketing brand manager is listening and enraged at you, Hal.

Hal Hershfield
Let me walk that back. Generic fast-food restaurants. And he ends up gaining 30 pounds, and he said, “I came across some of your research, and I decided to try to put it into practice.” And he said, “I went online and I printed out like an ideal-looking picture of myself, skinnier.” He used some sort of, I don’t know which technology he used to make himself look a little skinnier and healthier. He said, “I printed that, I put it in the bathroom, and I put it on the fridge.”

And he said, “Looking at that, basically, like wherever I was in the house, kept reminding me of the version of me I wanted to get back to and the version of me I wanted to become.” And it wasn’t that he just cut back on those foods. He also started exercising, etc. And he said in the span of several months, he ended up losing that weight. I forget the exact amount of time. He’s a high school kid so I think he’s probably able to gain and lose weight a little bit easier than the rest of us.

But I was really inspired by him because he was trying to consider a version of his future self who he wanted to become, and I think that sort of forced him, or prompted him, or kept him, held his hand along the way to do the things that he needed to do to get there.

Pete Mockaitis
That is excellent. Well, my key takeaway from that is to find a website that lets me visualize buffed Pete and take a look at that image, see what that does for me. And so, that’s cool in that it made it very real, concrete, visualizable, like, “Oh, okay,” as opposed to amorphous, like, “Oh, the future me is something off in space or in my imagination as opposed to something I could potentially behold with eyes visually.” That’s cool.

Hal Hershfield
Yeah, and I think that’s right because, to some degree, if I say, “Think of a future Pete,” there’s probably a lot of different images that could arise there. And you might be able to create sort of an average of them, sort of an amalgamation of them, but this specific image is vivid, and that can be a pretty strong motivator for behavior, “Now, I’ve got like an actual version of me, I’m thinking about looking at.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so could you lay it on us, are there some other actionable approaches we can take to do a better job at making prudent decisions and actions in the present that benefit our future selves?

Hal Hershfield
Yeah, absolutely. So, I’ll mention a couple. The marketing professor in me, of course, is saying, “You have to buy the book to find out all of them,” but I’ll mention a couple. So, there’s a category of strategies that involve trying to bring the future self closer to the present. One of those things, of course, is vividly visualizing the future self.

That doesn’t have to be just through apps. There are these apps that do age progression pretty well. But we can also try to get people to write a letter to their future self, and then write one back from that future self. It’s a really cool activity because it forces you to not only think about the future, but then to sort of go into the future and look back to now, which is, ultimately, putting yourself in the shoes of your future self, seeing the world through their eyes. That’s a vividness-enhancing exercise.

There are other strategies, though, that don’t involve necessarily trying to bring the future self closer but rather involve making the present, or rather making present-day sacrifices easier. So, what I mean by that is that every time I talk about these sorts of optimal behaviors, sometimes it’s hard to do them because it feels like all that you’re doing is sacrificing. It’s like, you right now that’s got to experience the pain for future use gain, which is it’s not a great situation to be.

And if you think about the relationship analogy that we talked about before, it’s like now you’re always the one sacrificing, future you is always the one benefitting. That’s not great. So, we’ve explored different ways that we can make present day sacrifices feel easier. One of my favorites is something that we call temporal reframing. I think there’s probably other terms for this, but the general idea is that I chunk something down into smaller and smaller parts.

I’ll give you an example of this. My collaborators and I, we worked with a fintech bank, a fintech company, this is an app designed to get people to save, and we asked people if they wanted to sign up for an automatic savings account, and some people got the message that they could sign up for $150 a month account, and other people got a message saying they could sign up for a $5 a day account. Now, it’s the same amount of money, of course, five bucks a day is 150 bucks a month. Four times as many people signed up when it was framed as $5 a day. I think it’s just an easier sacrifice to make.

Other researchers have found that that same sort of temporal reframing can get people to volunteer more, to do more volunteer hours. Rather than 200 hours total, how about four hours a week or whatever it is? We can sort of break it down in different parts.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, yeah.

Hal Hershfield
Now, one of the other strategies that falls under this sort of bucket of making the present easier is, I don’t know what the right term is, I like to call it sort of like attack the side, not the core. Janet Schwartz, she’s a friend of mine, she’s a behavioral scientist, and she had this, I think, such a clever idea. She was going to Coney Island one summer with her friends, and it was right after New York started doing the calorie labeling on menus.

She goes there and she goes to get the hotdog and a side of fries. Like, what else are you going to do when you go to Coney Island, of course? And she sees that the fries are about 1100 calories, which is I think quite high.

Pete Mockaitis
And doesn’t even fill you up.

Hal Hershfield
That’s right. And no one goes there for the…I mean, you don’t go there for the fries. You go there for the hotdog. So, she and her friends said, “Wow, that’s a lot. How about we split the fries and we each got a hotdog?” And she starts thinking, “Wait, there’s something to this.” If you have a goal of, I don’t know, in this case, cutting down on your calories, you could do it in a painful way of cutting back on the thing that you love, or you could achieve the exact same thing by cutting back on something that’s much more peripheral.

It would be ridiculous if she got the fries and a third of a hotdog. And so, she actually worked with a restaurant where they put something like this in their plates, where the cashiers offered the restaurant patrons the option to get a half of the scoop of fried rice. They can get their full order of orange chicken or whatever it is that they’re getting but you want to take a half of the side. You pay the same amount, which is crazy.

And about a third of people say, “Yeah, I’ll do that,” which is so interesting because it suggests that that’s a strategy that people, I think, might warm to. So, again, that’s all about making the present day sacrifices easier. And then there’s a third sort of category of practical strategies, Pete, that I call staying on course.

This is where you, essentially, say, “Okay, you know what, there’s this version of me right now, there’s a version in the future who’s going to want to look back, and say, ‘Hey, I did the thing, I ate healthy, I was productive at work, I saved money,’” and then there’s the guy in the middle who is going to screw it up, the guy who, “I say I’m going to get up tomorrow and go for a run,” and that guy tomorrow morning who’s going to say, “I can’t do it. I got to sleep in.”

And so, this third category of strategies basically says recognizing that there’s all those tensions there, let’s figure out what we call commitment devices, strategies where we can put sort of guardrails on our behavior so that we don’t screw things up. So, one website called stickK.com, that’s with two Ks. Do you know this one?

Pete Mockaitis
I’ve been there but I don’t think listeners do, so lay it on us.

Hal Hershfield
Yeah, and it’s basically this website where I can put in my goal. Let’s say I want to work out three days a week, 30 minutes at a time, and then I’ll say, “Who’s going to follow up with me? It’s going to be you, Pete. And, oh, I’ll give you my credit card, and I’ll give it the name of an anti-charity.” Well, we don’t have to get political but an organization I don’t want to donate to. How does that sound?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, just for example, we might say guns. Some people might be pro-gun, some people might be anti-gun. And so, you can imagine your dollars flowing in the direction you don’t want it to go, just to make it clear for folks, yeah.

Hal Hershfield
There you go. That’s really good. Or, you could say Trump versus Biden, right? Some are on either side. Now, you’re going to call me at the end of the week, and you’re going to say, “Hal, did you do it? Did you work out three times?” And I’ll say, “Pete, this week was tough. I only worked out twice.” And you’ll say, “Okay, good to know.” You’re going to click no on my account, and instantly 200 bucks is going to go toward that charity, that organization, that I don’t want to donate to. That’s a pretty strong motivator.

Now, I’m not saying I won’t mess up but it might make it a lot harder for me to stay in bed a little bit longer if I know doing so was going to cost me possibly hundreds of dollars and not towards some charity that I wanted to donate to but toward one I don’t want to donate to. And there’s other versions of this. There are all sorts of levels of commitment devices which I get into the book. But the key here is picking something that is a strong enough punishment to deter the behavior that we don’t want to do but not so strong that I don’t sign up for this to begin with.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. And to that point about it not being too strong, it’s funny, I’ve chatted with folks about stickK.com, and they said, “You know, I think that’s a really effective motivator but the anti-charity is so evil to me. Like, I don’t even feel morally okay with setting that structure up in my life.” And so, my wife and I, we were joking, and we were saying, “Well, huh, as a thought experiment, what is something that would hurt to give money to and yet doesn’t feel morally problematic?”

And I think we found some, like, super ritzy country club. So, it’s like, “They don’t need our money. They don’t need it. Like, who knows what it’s going to go to, like polishing golf balls? I don’t even know what they would do with extra money. They don’t need it. But it wouldn’t be evil for them to get it.”

Hal Hershfield
It’s so good because it’s not morally reprehensible. That’s so good.

Pete Mockaitis
It just feels really bad for them to get it.

Hal Hershfield
There’s another version of this that doesn’t involve a financial punishment. It’s a product called the Pavlok.

Pete Mockaitis
We interviewed that guy, yeah.

Hal Hershfield
Oh, did you? That’s fantastic.

Pete Mockaitis
Maneesh Sethi, back in the day.

Hal Hershfield
Yeah, that’s awesome.

Pete Mockaitis
I tried one. It’s not comfortable.

Hal Hershfield
Oh, did you? Yeah, I had a student who told me he just has the hardest time getting out of bed. And putting this on, basically, the more you snooze, I forget what his setting was, but it’s like if he snoozed more than a couple times, he’d start getting shocked by this thing to get him out of bed.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s like a rubber band around your wrist but more unpleasant. But, again, that same principle holds, it’s like, “If the shock is so unpleasant, and you have to push a button to administer it to yourself, then you may not do it.” So, I like the automaticity and I like the third-party bits, but, in a way, that’s part of the fun. It sounds like you have a lot of examples in the book.

It’s to think about, “Well, what works for you based on is it so repugnant you can’t even countenance doing it? Okay, well. then maybe something else. But is it so minor, you don’t even care? Like, okay, well, you got to crank it up.”

Hal Hershfield
Right, exactly. It’s funny, I have this thing now, in writing the book, I ended up talking with this guy, Dave Krippendorf, who founded this company. It was originally called Kitchen Safe, and basically a little box you put in the kitchen. There’s a little electronically timed lock on top of the box. He designed it for people to put away their snack food. You can time it anywhere from a minute to 10 days.

So, my kids’ Halloween candy, whatever it is, I pop it in there, I’ll set it for 12 hours so I don’t touch it tonight. Well, he found that so many people were using it for so many things other than snacks, that he renamed it the kSafe, from Kitchen Safe to kSafe. He sent me one, and Pete, I use it for my phone, I have to admit, it’s not like we have dinner with our kids every night.

But a couple nights a week or whenever the schedules work out, it’s such a bad distraction when I have it at the table, “Oh, I just need it to change the music,” or, “I just need it to…” whatever. It’s just there. And then before I know it, I am checking Twitter, or my email, or something that is like totally meaningless. I think this is probably relatable, I assume. Tell me this isn’t just me.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure.

Hal Hershfield
So, I throw my phone in there, I’ll set the timer for two hours. Let’s say we have dinner at 5:30, it’s put in there for 7:30 or whatever. I know that sounds like a very early dinner but our kids are little. And it’s amazing because it completely removes the temptation, like it’s not even when I get up, I’m like, “Oh, I see my phone. I should check it.” It’s like it’s just not there so I don’t even worry about it.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, and it’s cool. That’s really cool. And maybe it’s a video game controller or any number of things: snacks, phones.

Hal Hershfield
Video game controllers is a great example. I love that.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. So, the commitment device, so it takes a bit of you out of it, and that’s really handy. I wanted to get your take. I love it when you drop these numbers in terms of with the temporal reframing, with the five bucks a day versus 150 a month. We have a 4X lift in intake. And then a third of the people opted to go for half of the fried rice.

To the fried rice point, I’ve just got to mention, once when I was looking at my calories pretty closely, I was at a Cheddar’s and so I made my order, and then just randomly they brought out this honey biscuit thing, and I said, “Oh, what’s this?” And they said, “Oh, yeah, it’s a honey biscuit. It has this and this and this, and it’s on the house. It’s just a thank you for being here.” I said, “Oh, wow.”

Hal Hershfield
On the house. On the house means the calories don’t count, right?

Pete Mockaitis
So, I said, “Oh, wow, that’s great. Thank you. Could you take it away?” He was like puzzled, I was like, “Yeah, I’m just concerned I might eat it.” And so, he did, and that was cool. And then BJ Fogg, he talks about tiny habits. He was on the show. And he, was it chips or Noah’s bread, he would just fill up on bread if he was at the table, and so he just rehearsed his line with a smile, “Oh, no bread for me. Thanks.” It’s like, “Don’t put this on the table. I will eat it.”

Hal Hershfield
Yeah, it’s so good. The bread one is so good. One of the things I talk about in the book is, about five years ago, I got diagnosed with celiac, and it’s been so interesting because I was also one of those people, especially in social situations where my social anxiety was dialed up just a little bit, I would find myself just eating all of the things that were out that I wasn’t even hungry for, but just eating. And it’s often the sliders, the bread, the whatever.

So, all of that stuff is now off the table for me. And it’s really interesting because it’s almost like there’s this giant kSafe walking around with me when it comes to carbs like that. And so, when I’m at a restaurant, I’m not even tempted by the basket of bread because it’s like I know I just can’t eat it. But it’s like psychologically, “What are the shifts that we can make to make that happen?”

And I love the BJ Fogg example of, like, “None for me, please.” It just makes it automatic. It’s a habit. That’s great.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. That’s good. Well, so we talked about a number of commitment devices. And, ah, yes, I wanted to ask, when you dropped these numbers, 4X on the temporal reframing, a third people opting for half of the fried rice amount, any other sort of eye popping numbers in terms of, “Huh, this little intervention makes a world of difference”?

Hal Hershfield
Yeah. Well, it’s funny, I get cautious with eye popping numbers in social science because they always say, “Was that real?” So, I’ll say, “Look, the temporal reframing, the 4x difference, I thought that was 30% versus 7%. That’s pretty big.” We have another study that’s coming out, or should be out any day now, where we worked with the Bank of Mexico, 50,000 customers, half of them get access to these aged images of themselves, and half don’t, and they’re all getting these messages that they should save.

And the folks who do, they’re 16% more likely to make a contribution to their account. So, when you say, “Was that eye popping?” I don’t know if that’s eye popping per se, but what I find exciting about this is that if I can get 16% more people to do anything when it comes to behavior, then that can really add up and compound over time.

You think about that for voting, or taking care of your teeth or your health, or, in this case, making a contribution to your retirement account. That really can add up and compound in ways that are really beneficial over time.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’m also thinking about sort of general decision-making. When it’s not a matter of discipline, but rather just considering options, is there a way you recommend taking into account our future selves in the decision-making process?

Hal Hershfield
I think that is such a good question. It’s funny, because so much of my research has been focused on “How do we relate to our future selves? How do we connect to them?” and so on. But I don’t think the answer here is you should talk to them and think about them all the time. I think that, well, first off, we’re going to start ignoring them. Secondly, I just don’t think it’s sustainable.

So, I think that there’s probably some sort of balancing act here, and I wish I could say to you, “The research says this is the amount of time you should talk to your future self, and this is the amount of time that you shouldn’t.” We don’t know that. And, in all honesty, if I were to do that study, I’m sure there would be so many sorts of individual differences there. For some people, it makes sense to talk more, and some people less.

Here’s what I will say, though, my suspicion is that when it comes to big decisions and things that, once you decide, there’s some sort of automaticity that will carry out over time. So, like signing up for a savings account, signing up to work with a nutritionist or a career coach or whatnot. For those sorts of decisions, I think it may make a lot of sense to really try to step into the shoes of your future self, and think about how this action will impact that person.

For the everyday ones, things like my credit card, my eating habits, whether I get up and exercise or not, for those types of decisions, that’s where I think the world of habit formation becomes much more relevant, but I want to say that we should start, before we can even start going down the path of habit formation, it makes sense to have that conversation with our future selves and strengthen that bond with them so that, “Now, I can, essentially, get the ball rolling, and get the process started to do those things that will, ultimately, benefit me later, but also now.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And I’m curious, is there an overwhelming category of activities, or domains, or responsibility where people undercount their future self?

Hal Hershfield
Wow, that’s great. So, not that I know of, I can’t say, “Oh, there’s this one thing.” It’s easy to point to the different domains that sort of we know pop up all the time. So, under-saving and overspending, overeating, not exercising enough, those are the ones that sort of come up. And, in fact, if you look at the goals that people put forth on stickK.com, a lot of them have to do with exercising and eating behaviors.

I think there’s another one that maybe doesn’t come up as explicitly but it’s still relevant is time expenditures, “So, how I divvy up my time for the things that feel good right now in the moment versus the things that will last and give me benefits and wellbeing and positivity and joy over time?” And, as an example, to get concrete, I don’t know if you have this, but I have the thing that come up a lot for me is know I should call one my buddies, a friend I haven’t seen in a while just to catch up for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, or even set aside a night to go out and get drinks or dinner or whatever.

But in the moment, it almost feels better to just not do it. I can go do the thing I was doing, or be on Instagram, watch an episode of Succession, or whatever it is that I’m watching. And there’s like a little present moment bump from just kind of being lazy and ignoring that phone call or the plan-making. But the reality is, over and over and over again, those decisions will be bad for my relationships. Those expenditures of time will take away from the time that I get to spend with people that I might genuinely care about.

And here’s the real irony, if I sort of get over that initial little discomfort, and reach out and call my buddy, or set up a plan to have dinner with them, and that’s true, by the way, for our spouses and our other family members, too, those things are good for the long run but they’re also good for now, too. Like, I haven’t once felt one of those phone calls with an old friend, and said, “Oh, I wish I hadn’t done that.” Normally, a good use of time.

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

Hal Hershfield
Oh, no, I think you asked so many good questions. This is great.

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

Hal Hershfield
I’m not sure if it’s actually like a famous quote or not, but it’s something that one of my mentors told me, “You can’t get what you don’t ask for.” And I love that in the sort of negotiation context.

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

Hal Hershfield
Favorite experiment or bit of research is probably work on what’s known as the End-of-History Illusion. I talked about it in the book but it’s the basic idea that I can recognize that I’ve changed from the past to the present, but I somehow think that my rate of change, or my rate of progress, will slow from now unto the future, that I’ve somehow arrived at who I am. This is work by Jordi Quoidbach, and Dan Gilbert, and Tim Wilson. And I think it sheds some really interesting light on how we sometimes do a disservice to our future selves by not recognizing the ways in which we will change moving forward.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Hal Hershfield
I love the book A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. And it is all about different sort of friends but some of whom are connected, and some of whom aren’t, and the sort of these various little interconnections that exist both within a certain group in New York City, but then also over time. This is from, like, 10, 12 years ago. And it’s just sort of a fascinating examination of the web of connections that exist between the people we know now as well as from the past and to the future.

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

Hal Hershfield
Evernote. I don’t know if that’s the type of tool that you’re looking for.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure.

Hal Hershfield
But being able to have sort of my notes everywhere, wherever I am, is super useful for me because there’s always things that are popping up, and then anytime I’ve told myself, “I’ll remember that thing later,” I pretty much never do. And so, being able to jot it down quickly and have it, assume everything else is super important for me.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

Hal Hershfield
My wife and I started to plan out the meals that we’re going to have, whatever it is, on Friday or Saturday, more or less for the rest of the week. And it has drastically decreased the tension involved around what should we have for dinner every night, and drastically increased my efficiency and productivity the rest of the week because I don’t have to spend that time thinking about, “What are we doing for dinner?” I just look at the little sheets, say, “Oh, that’s what we planned out.”

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

Hal Hershfield
Yeah. So, one of the key nuggets that I think people sort of quote back to me often is it’s really more just the big idea that there can be this future self, this salient future self that can exist in the future. I’ve heard a lot of people say to me, “I haven’t thought about things that way, and it gives me sort of a person to consider, and then also an optimistic take on where I’m going through time.”

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

Hal Hershfield
Yeah, you can go to my website HalHershfield.com. Everything about my research and my book and whatnot is there. You can find me on LinkedIn or Twitter 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?

Hal Hershfield
Yeah, I would say one final challenge for folks who are looking to be awesome at their jobs is to consider not the tradeoff between now and later, but to think about the harmony between now and later. So, think about the things that you are doing at work and at your jobs that will benefit you now, and may not benefit you in the future, but then also switch the focus. Think about the things that you can do right now that will provide benefits both now and later. And then consider how you’re spending your time in those different pursuits.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Hal, this has been a treat. I wish you and your future self much luck.

Hal Hershfield
Hey, thanks, Pete. I appreciate it.

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

Paul Magnone
Thank you for having me, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m so excited to dig into your wisdom but, first, I think we need to hear about your time working as a DJ when you were in college.

Paul Magnone
Oh, geez. Well, this was back before CDs were popular. We actually had a record library. So, this was carrier current radio, I didn’t do parties. It was college radio. And it was just being at an engineering school, it was a very liberating evening, whether it was Mondays or Tuesdays, depending on the semester, very liberating evening to go in there and just go into the record library, and do your thing. And it was me and a friend, Jim, who maybe he’ll be listening to this. I’ll tell him to listen in. And he would go and get every Led Zeppelin album, and then he would say, “The rest is up to you.”

So, depending on what was happening on a given week, I would manage the programming, and it was a little David Letterman-ish on the commentary side, but certainly heavy rock and roll, and it certainly scratched an itch in the midst of all the engineering school.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s funny. Well, when you talked about Led Zeppelin, that reminds me, isn’t that like the quintessential DJ thing to say, “Get the Led out”?

Paul Magnone
There you go. Well, you would go and get all the Led Zeppelin and not care about anything else. So, I said, “Do you like anything other than Led Zeppelin?” He said, “Yeah, absolutely, but you handle all that.”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s great. Well, that’s a great system there for decision-making right there, is that he had a system which was Led Zeppelin, and you had to work a little harder with your music decision-making. That’s my forced segue, Paul. How am I doing?

Paul Magnone
They’re pretty good. Pretty good, yeah. So, it was option one was always locked in, and then it was what was the next option, so.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, so you have codified some of your wisdom in the book Decisions Over Decimals: Striking the Balance between Intuition and Information. And, can you tell me, when it comes to this decision-making stuff, do you have a particularly surprising or fascinating discovery that you want to share right off the bat?

Paul Magnone
Yeah, I think why this is intriguing to people, and we’ve spoken to thousands of executives and probably thousands more students as we teach at Columbia University when I say we, first of, it’s myself and Oded Netzer, who’s the Vice Dean of Research at Columbia Business School, and Christopher Frank, who is currently Vice President at AmEx Market Insights, leading the market insights team there. And we’ve come together over the past seven years, and we teach what we have learned.

So, obviously, there’s a heavy dose of theory here, but we’re practitioners, we’re in the trenches. And so, what we reflect back is “What are the practical tools and techniques that lead to better decision-making?” And you start to discover that it’s a hot topic but it makes people anxious. So, we live in a time today when data is exploding and yet it feels invasive and intimidating. So, for a lot of people, data is just not fun. And other people say, “I love data,” and then they kind of fumble the football.

So, in reality, we’re fortunate to have this staggering amount of information at our fingertips and yet we often hear people say, “But I don’t have enough data.” Okay. Well, maybe you’re not putting things in perspective. And, ultimately, with all this information and all these things that are flowing by, we consistently see poor decision-making and wasted investment, wasted resources at companies, wasted just time and effort and so forth, and we took a step back and said, “Well, why is this? Is it caused by fear, or overconfidence, or bias?”

And we realized that, with some focus and some of the techniques that we talk about, we can build a tribe of better decision-makers and maybe make a dent on all these wastes. That’s kind of our motivation behind it all.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, that sounds exciting and I’d love to dig into just that. I’m intrigued then, in your subtitle, you got “Striking the Balance between Intuition and Information.” We’ve got boatloads of information. When it comes to intuition, first, could you define it for us and what’s its role here?

Paul Magnone
Yeah, so that’s a great question. And the fact is where you’re constantly challenged by people saying, “So, you’re going to teach me intuition? Don’t you either have it or don’t have it?” And the answer is, “Well, people often have intuition and they’re not listening to it.” And so, when you look at what’s referred to as the theory of learning, there’s competence and complexity. So, you begin, think as a toddler, you don’t know what you don’t know. And, suddenly, you start to put some things together, you start to hear some things, and you start to see patterns, and you start to learn.

And then, as you start to learn, you realize there are things that you don’t know. So, now you’re at the next level. You’re now conscious about your incompetence. And as you progress up this ladder, and there’s multiple steps along the way, you eventually get to the age of…or to the point of a teenage driver, a driver for the first time. You’re now, hopefully, consciously competent, you know what your limitations are, you know what’s happening around you. And by the time you get to be a seasoned driver, you don’t have to think so much when you’re making a choice.

When you’re driving and you’re a seasoned driver, and there’s a snowstorm, you might turn down the radio a little bit because you want less input signal, but you have a sense, and you’re sensing with your fingers what’s happening, you’re sensing all around you, and you might not even sense what’s about to happen but you see up ahead, “Hey, I remember that when I get to a curve like that, in a situation like this, with the weather this way, I should probably do the following.” So, there’s a sense of acumen that builds up over time.

And the fact is, in a business world, we say, “No, no, I just want the data. Just tell me how much it’s snowing. Just tell me the tire pressure.” Really, is that all you need to know? Or, do you really need to sense and respond in real time, and really get a sense for what’s happening? And really terrific leaders talk about the fact that they have a feel for the business. So, let’s take your question and go ask some business leaders, “What do you mean by feel for the business?” They may have different answers, but, ultimately, it’s some level of intuition about their business, how it’s impacted by the world, how their business impacts the world.

And so, this notion of intuition is the companion to all the data that we dive into or that we think we want to dive into. And so, the notion is we have to balance that. So, rather than make a decision based on just data, or based on just gut or intuition, trust your gut – there’s another wonderful top gut by a colleague of ours – what we’re saying is that balanced view is what’s important, and threading that needle, and building the toolkit for yourself so you can balance the data and the human judgment, that’s the path forward.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s beautiful. And I see additional interplay there associated with intuition. We have hordes of data at our disposal. It can be hard to even know what sorts of analyses to run on that, and intuition can serve up fantastic questions for investigation or hypotheses, like, “You know, I have a sense that maybe this is going on. Now, let’s take a look at data to see, in fact, if it is or is not.”

Paul Magnone
Yeah. And we hear a lot about data scientists, and, “Well, I need a data scientist.” To do what? At the end of the day, there’s a set of people that need to come together to drive a decision. There’s the business leader who should be data-driven, who should be paying attention to the data, but not only paying attention to the data. There is the data scientist, there is the data engineer who brings all the data together, but there’s also a data translator. And that person really ensures that what we’re solving for aligns with the business need.

And we also like to talk about a data artist, because, at the end of the day, we need to tell a story, and you need to compel people to action, and doing that requires you to put all of this in some sort of frame that is understandable and digestible. And so, that’s kind of a team that comes together to say, “Listen, yeah, there’s all these components, but how do I compel people to make a choice and how did we make the right choice?”

Pete Mockaitis
A lot of great stuff there. Maybe to tie some of it together and launch us, Paul, could you perhaps give us a cool story or a case study of a professional who did some great work with both intuition and information to come up with some rocking breakthrough decisions?

Paul Magnone
Well, I don’t know if this was a rocking breakthrough decision, but I will tell a personal story about when I was working for, probably at the time, a Fortune 20, maybe Fortune 50 company. You guys can sort out who that is. And we were investigating whether to work with a heavily backed startup in Silicon Valley, and I was charged with doing the due diligence, the business side of the due diligence, and I had a colleague of mine who was leading the technical due diligence.

And after weeks of investigation, we looked and said, “You know, this is, I think, a fascinating company but we’re not sure even after weeks of investigation,” because when we got to some detailed questions, they hid behind non-disclosure agreements and other issues and so forth. And the technical side we felt, “Well, we could probably recreate what they did but maybe there was something compelling here that we didn’t understand, so maybe we’ll take a flyer on that and give it a shot.”

On the business side, they kept on telling us, “You know what, you’re going to have a wildly profitable business if you base your business on our new technology.” Now, in hindsight, there were some signals that got my attention, specifically, they weren’t answering questions in much detail. And then, finally, after pressing them, their business development lead sent me a spreadsheet, and he said, “Look through this, and you can model out how profitable your business will be based on our technology stat.” And I called them back five minutes later, and I said, “Well, either your spreadsheet is broken or your business is broken.”

And I know I took a provocative approach to my comment there, but that was built on the intuition that we were all starting to build up the perspective that there was something that wasn’t quite right. The spreadsheet, let me describe that for a minute. There was a very large Excel, with one cell that I was allowed to put a number in, and this was a business around computing infrastructure, so servers. So, there 10,000 servers in the cell.

And it showed, when you did all the math, it showed a wildly profitable business running 10,000 servers. And he said, “Put in a 100,000, put in a million. You’re a huge company. You’ll just do more.” So, I put in one server because I want to understand at the atomic level…

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, fixed costs, labor costs, scale.

Paul Magnone
Yeah, what’s granular. One server. Wildly profitable. And I said, “Oh, that’s interesting.” So, I put in zero servers. Wildly profitable. So, either they had some magic or there was something that was wrong. Now, why do I tell this story? At the end of the day, we had data, we had insights, we had spent time with them, but, really, it was that blend as I described before of a lot of information, or seemingly a lot of information, but our intuition telling us, “We’re really not seeing the right information. There’s something they’re not showing us.”

And by pushing on that button right there, it opened up a further discussion. We, ultimately, wound up not doing business with them.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. That’s good. So, tell us, how can we become similar Jedi masters, Paul, to get that sense of, “What’s missing? And how do I push on it?” Any key questions or frameworks or tactics that get us to making more good decisions more often?

Paul Magnone
Sure. Sure. So, there are really three fundamental ideas to lean on, I think, behind the book. So, leaders have just an enormous amount of data but we all see it. They’re not making better decisions. So, why is that? So, they’re denouncing the data, or they’re choosing to trust their gut, or they’re spending so much time trying to get a perfect decision. And they think the same data is the new oil so there’s spending as much as they can to build a bigger and better data refinery for that oil.

When, instead, what leads to a great decision is the balance that we’ve been talking about. So, that’s the first thing. Don’t lean in to one side or the other. Focus on that balance. The second thing is you don’t need to be a math whiz to drive great decisions. The smartest person in the room is the person who asks the better question. And that person, that leader, blends information and the intuition and the experience, as we described before, that leads to the better outcomes.

Think about it, you’re in a meeting, and the person who had the factoid, you don’t go up to that person and say, “That was amazing that you had that fact at your fingertips.” But the person that asks the question that nobody expected, that insightful thing that cuts right through, that’s the person you want to go have coffee with, right?

And the third thing is, as humans, we are terrible decision-makers, and, largely because we don’t have our bearings. And so, one way is to really explore what’s happening in the decision and the moment that you make it, and one way to look at it is you’re balancing time, risk, and trust. And if you think about that, “Do I have no time? It’s a crisis, or, do I have a lot of time?” Are you a fireman or are you in Congress? Do you have a lot of time?

Is it a high-risk or a low-risk situation? Are lives at stake? Are billions at stake? Or is it a throwaway decision, and it’s a reversible decision? Some decisions people agonize over and yet they’re reversible. And then the last part, trust, do you trust the data? Do you trust the person that gave you the data? Do you trust the organization that stands behind that data?

So, as you triangulate all those three, that in itself is a framework that should help you make some better decisions. Ultimately, we pull all this together and we refer to all of this as quantitative intuition, which is intentionally an oxymoron because you’re bringing the quant side with the intuitive side. And we define that as the ability to make decisions with incomplete information, and you’re using three techniques: precision questioning, contextual analyses, and the synthesis to see the situation clearly.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, could you perhaps walk us through an example in which we’re applying these principles to an actual decision?

Paul Magnone
Sure. So, let’s talk about a day in the life of one of your listeners.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Paul Magnone
Because you love your listeners, of course.

Pete Mockaitis
We sure do.

Paul Magnone
There you go. So, your leader comes in on a Monday or a Tuesday, and says, “How do we react to this headline from the competitor?” Or maybe you’re beginning a planning…yeah, right? I mean, it’d never happen.

Pete Mockaitis
My first question is which headline and which competitor?

Paul Magnone
Yeah, yeah, right. But everybody at this moment is thinking this just happened yesterday. Or, maybe you’re beginning a planning cycle for a new product launch. Or, maybe your business is in decline and you’re trying to decide where to place the resources that are scarce. So, in each case, regardless of your role, if you’re in product or sales or marketing or manufacturing, everybody’s taught like a bias to action, so they start to jump in, “What? Let me go dive in.”

And what you should be doing is defining what problem you’re solving first. So, put that problem in context, “Here, our competitor announced this. Here’s the headline from our competitor. Let’s zero in on that one.” Well, put it in absolute terms, put it in context, absolute terms. Look at it over time and relative to what’s going on elsewhere.

So, the competitor said, “I just sold 100 shovels yesterday.” “That’s awesome. I sold 200 shovels yesterday.” Or, “I sold 200 and the competitor sold 500.” While you’re busy high-fiving that you sold 200 shovels, your competitor is walking all over you. By the way, why did that happen? Well, there was a freak snowstorm in July. Okay, so were you going to base your business and change your strategy based on an anomaly? No.

So, what are the assumptions that are going into that decision? Do you believe those assumptions? Is that true? And is it maturely important to your business or is it a blip? These are kinds of the things that you need to think about, those parameters, so we can go through any number of examples. But I think your listeners are probably living this every day.

And through this all, they need to synthesize all these different datapoints. So, we preach a lot about synthesizing. What happens most often is people are in meetings and you’re summarizing what you already know, or you’re summarizing to get to a point that you think the boss has already said because they’ve already anchored you somehow with one of their early comments. So, synthesize the datapoints and then go to the data after that. Then go to the data, right?

So, start with those first principles, “What is it that we really know? What problem are we solving? Do we really want to grow a product line, or are we stable, or are we under attack?” And then make a recommendation after you’ve set the frame for the problem, and then interrogated the data. So, this is what we refer to as being a fierce data interrogator, not a random data interrogator.

So, ultimately, we think of this as jazz. It’s not waterfall because a lot of the behaviors in these different disciplines – products, sales, marketing, manufacturing – tends to be rigid, it tends to be a waterfall, and they don’t read and react – to borrow a term from sports – they don’t read and react in the moment. And, ultimately, it needs to be jazzed.

You know the theme of your business, and you may go often at different directions but you’ll come back, and the drummer is going to go and do something, and, hopefully, it fits in the context, and you’re going to come back. So, it’s jazz. Go to the question, go to the technique that’s valuable in that moment, and don’t just rely on kind of the rigid thinking.

Pete Mockaitis
So, when you talk about jazz, I’m imagining it like, for marketing, “We launched a campaign, and then we see how it did, and then we interrogated, in terms of we get some contexts. Like, how well is that campaign performing based on general benchmarks, or historical other campaigns, or competitors, if we can know that?”

And then you say, “Oh, wow, that’s awesome. Let’s double down the budget in this channel with this messaging to this segment,” or, “Uh-oh, that’s very disappointing. Let’s perhaps reallocate budget in a different vibe.” So, it’s like jazz in that something happens and we respond in flow to it as oppose to, “Nope, it says in this quarter we’re spending $50,000 on Facebook ads, and that’s what we’re doing.”

Paul Magnone
Right, “Let’s go to the spreadsheet and say what I’m permitted to do.” That’s not thinking. That’s reacting. And that same marketing lead, marketing team, what you described is Monday morning. Wednesday morning, they have a different headline, and their competitor just announced something that’s shocking. So, in one scenario, they’re being proactive on a product launch and seeing the results, and then doubling down, as you said. In another scenario, they’re suddenly under attack, and that was all in the same week. So, how do you make decisions in those different situations, right?

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And so, I want to talk a little bit about your phrase quantitative intuition. It sounds like you described a bit of that. But how do we get better at that in terms of this number feels high, wrong, low, crazy? Like, how do we know that or get there?

Paul Magnone
Right. Well, we try to not say crazy but, yeah, it’s really those three dimensions that I talked about at the end there. It’s precision questioning, contextual analyses, and syntheses. So, let’s break all those down. Precision questioning, as I said before, we tend to kind of react to the factoids and not take a step back, and say, “Well, listen, let’s put all this in context. What are the first principles? What are the fundamentals of our company? Am I reacting to an anomaly? Or, am I really making a decision based on a thought-out element?”

And precision questioning is really a technique where you will ask, “You know what, I want to understand what to do with a millennial audience.” “Great. Could you say more?” “Well, I want to understand how to sell this product to a millennial audience.” “Any millennial audience?” “I want to understand how to sell this product to a millennial audience that has this kind of budget.” You’re asking more granular questions until you get to an atomic level that people say, “Oh, what you’re really looking for is this well-defined decision, this well-defined task.”

And most often, we don’t spend the time to get granular. And one of the techniques that we talk about to do that is, we call it an IWIK framework, “I wish I knew,” and just the nature of that question implies permission, “What is it you want to know? What is it you know about a millennial?” So, spending the time, it requires a little patience. But spending the time upfront to do that precision questioning to narrow and get clear about it, to get concise about the thought, is critically important. That’s the first piece for precision questioning.

The second piece is the contextual analyses. So, as I said before, look at everything in context. What is the situation in absolute terms? What is it over time? What is it relative to what else is going on with my competitors, with other divisions in my company? And as you look at that context, you’ll come to the realization, “This is important to my business or not. Is this a blip? Or, this requires us to really consider a change to our strategy.”

And then the last piece is the syntheses, which almost no one does. Everyone summarizes and gives you every piece of information. Some of this is pride, “Look, I spent three weeks putting together 47 incredible spreadsheets and reports.” “That’s awesome. Put that in the appendix and tell me what you’ve learned from that. Tell me what’s surprising you in that. Tell me what is crystallized that you, as a smart person that we hired into this company, believe based on what you’ve just interrogated.”

Most of the time, people bring that to their leader, and say, “Look at all this work that I’ve done.” And the way we like to think of syntheses is everybody is the director of a movie. If you look at a movie, maybe an hour and a half, two hours, there’s what? Hundreds of hours on the cutting room floor because you don’t have to tell every detail. You can put all that in an appendix, but focus on what’s critical and what matters.

In journalism, they talk about not burying the lead, being very critical about what is the most important aspect. And we get away from that in business. So, you pull all that together and that’s what we refer to as quantitative intuition. And so, we talk about a set of techniques to go through that.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thank you. Well, I’d love to hear, do you have some super favorite questions that you’ve relied upon and you find super valuable in many different decision-making contexts?

Paul Magnone
So, yeah, it’s a great question. And we’ve talked before about putting things in context, which I think is one incredible pillar. But one of my favorite questions is a very short question, which is, “What surprised you?” Real simple. And the fact is if anyone has ever gone to a party, what happens when you leave the party? The people that you’re at the party with don’t talk about, well, yes, they had enough drinks, they had enough food, but that’s not the conversation. It’s what surprised them about the interaction between people, what surprised them about a particular situation.

So, in our personal life, we make the space and we give ourselves permission to have a conversation about surprise. But in the business world, no, no, no, the boss wants to talk about this, “I have a sneaking suspicion that we should be interrogating this other dimension but I’m not even going to bring it up.”

So, if you make the space for surprise, if you have the courage, or, as a business leader, you ensure that your team feels empowered to say, “Yup, we’re going to do the analyses that was asked for, but I’m going to make the space for surprise, and say this is an outlier that doesn’t make sense. This is an outlier that I think we should interrogate more. Or, really, we’re investigating the wrong thing, and the surprising thing is here’s a critical issue.” So, be open to that surprise and make the space for that conversation.

Pete Mockaitis
I love that question. Please, Paul, more like that.

Paul Magnone
Yeah, we talk about IWIKs, “I wish I knew,” that’s probably one of the most critical techniques that we talk about. And, really, as I said before, you’re going back and forth between these various techniques, and you may find something in the surprise. This gets back to the jazz. When you have that surprise conversation, people can then say, “Oh, you know what, I want to go back and redefine the problem. I want to go back and maybe do a different set of IWIKs to explore an area, explore an adjacent area, explore a different area because, now, I’m tuned a little differently.”

So, really, it’s a lot of back and forth with these techniques. We also talk very much about guesstimating because, at the end of the day, what we’re taught from grammar school and up is “What’s the answer? What’s the number?” And mathematical precision matters, I’m an engineer by training. Everybody of the three authors were all technical, but guesstimating is really helpful.

So, the classic problem is, “How many piano tuners are there in Chicago?” Well, you don’t need a census to go do that. You can figure that out on the back of a napkin. And the majority of people are asked on a daily basis to provide an estimate on the back of a napkin, “Well, what do you think? What’s in the zone here?” because we can course-correct once we know that we’re in the zone. And they’re at a loss for, “Well, how do I guesstimate?” So, we talk about a series of techniques around guesstimating.

Pete Mockaitis
You’re bringing me back to my case-interview days, Paul.

Paul Magnone
There you go.

Pete Mockaitis
Good times. All right. Well, so lots of good stuff. Could you bring it together in a cool example in terms of a person or a team used a number of these techniques from beginning to end to reach a fantastic decision?

Paul Magnone
Sure. One other company, this is one of the other authors had this direct experience, so we will again mask the company to protect the innocent or goofy, either way. But there was a question around what was the performance in a region of, again, a Fortune 100 company. What was the performance in a region?

And there were about 47 markets in the region, and looking through the region, they did the analyses. They practically looked at IWIKs, and said, “Here’s what’s important in the region. Here’s what we’ve discovered,” and made their quarterly business recommendation on where to put more investment, how to align the team, and how to allocate the resources.

At the end of the meeting, the senior leader said, “This is terrific. We really have our bearings here. Is there anything that surprised you in what you’ve seen so far?” And this was Chris, Chris Frank, said, “Yeah, what really surprised me is there are 12 of the 47 segments had a sharp rise in customer satisfaction, and I can’t explain it.”

So, what he did is he buried it in the appendix because it wasn’t terribly clear. And after a lot of time doing the correlation and the analyses, there was no answer to why, and so they were just outliers. So, the leader said, “So, read off what those 12 markets were.” And as he read through them, they mapped one for one with a pilot program that the company had in those 12 markets, and they intentionally didn’t tell anybody because they didn’t want to bias anyone doing the analyses.

And because of leading into that simple question, “What surprised you?” the whole room had a revelation that, “Oh, this is really a better way to engage our customers,” and that led to a multimillion-dollar investment in a customer engagement program that didn’t exist. So, the data was all there but they weren’t looking for it the right way, and they didn’t have the insight from their leader to ask the right question.

Now, if you used these techniques proactively, you would say, “You know what, I’m going to spend 45 minutes on here’s our quarterly business review, business report. I’m going to spend 10 minutes on here are some anomalies and surprises that I think we should investigate more.” So, as a practitioner, as a business person, and you want to be awesome at your job, make the space for that. Insist that, “You know what, you hired me for a reason. Here’s something that I think we should really look at.”

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

Paul Magnone
Yeah, I think that the last piece is about as simple as it gets. When you’re bringing people together, you need to tell them before they even get in the room, “Am I informing you of situations, so everybody’s up to speed and has a common knowledge base? Or, am I compelling you to action today? Am I asking you to make a choice? And then, have I armed you on your team beforehand with everything to make that choice?”

I don’t know how many meetings I’m in where partway through the meeting, because everybody texts during meetings, people are texting each other, “What is the purpose of this? What are we doing? Didn’t we already have this conversation?” So, being very deliberate is very much appreciated, and having a conversation for awareness is fantastic. But setting people up for a decision, and bringing everybody along, that’s really important because decisions are team sports. Bringing everybody along the right way really matters.

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

Paul Magnone
Yeah, this is a favorite quote, I use it all the time, “For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” And so, that’s from H.L. Mencken, who’s a journalist in the early 1900s, and to me it speaks volumes of what we see today, where people have their fingertips on data and yet are just grasping at what seems to be the very first thing that they can answer with, and they’re not spending the time to dive in to the detail.

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

Paul Magnone
Yeah, I think I’ll share a book, which feels like a study. It’s Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. And so, in some ways, our book Decisions Over Decimals echoes and builds on the system-one and system-two thinking, and we’re providing practical tools and techniques that balance the data and the human judgment.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Paul Magnone
I’d have to go with The Road Less Traveled, the first version. I think he redacted or refuted some of what he said in his second version. But it’s very much about understanding yourself and how to solve problems.

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

Paul Magnone
Well, I’m partial to the Google tools, and then, of course, the techniques and frameworks that are in this book.

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

Paul Magnone
I’m not a practitioner of meditation but I think it’s really important to get centered and take a step back, and say, “What’s really happening?” And I try and make the time to do that, ideally, on a weekend, and really gather and reset. So, however people do that, whether it’s meditation or a night out dancing, whatever works for you.

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

Paul Magnone
I’m not sure it’s retweeted but I often say you can have your own opinions but you can’t have your own facts.

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

Paul Magnone
Well, our website is DOD, which stands for Decisions Over Decimals, it’s DODTheBook.com. You can reach out to myself or Chris or Oded on LinkedIn. And, obviously, in addition to everything else that we do, we teach at Columbia, so multiple ways to get a hold of us.

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

Paul Magnone
Make the space to share what you really think. As I’ve said multiple times, synthesize, don’t just summarize, and create that space to have real dialogue on the issues. So many times, that’s what we want and that’s not what we’re doing. And be brave and bold and make that space.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Paul, thank you. This has been a treat. I wish you many wise decisions.

Paul Magnone
Thank you very much, and to you as well.

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

Eric Johnson
Pete, thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to dig into your wisdom when it comes to decision-making. It’s one of my favorite topics. We’ve had luminaries like Annie Duke and others on the show, so excited to get into your perspective. But I’d love it if you could kick us off by sharing a particularly tricky decision that you’ve had to make in life and kind what was hard about it and how did you, ultimately, come to that decision?

Eric Johnson
So, one of the things that was most devastating in my life was actually a diagnosis of stage 4 Hodgkin’s. Now, granted, that’s a buzzkill to kick this off, but one of the things that got me thinking about is how people make such serious decisions about treatment, and the way that people actually pose those options to people, changes what they choose. And I became madly obsessed with the literature, and that sort of kicked me off, a lot of my interests in choice architecture.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now, that’s fascinating right there. So, life or death, high-stakes decisions, you would think, unlike software where you have like a bold, blue, highlighted choice of the two, which is nudging you that way, that people might be a little bit more robust in working through this. But can you expand upon that? Like, how might presenting the options lead people to choose one treatment or approach more or less often than another?

Eric Johnson
So, my experience is interesting but there’s actually a nice study that makes the point even better, and that is they were looking at, actually, patients who were at the end of their life. For some reason, this is going to be a depressing day today but I’ll try it not to be. And they gave them the choice of two different kinds of end-of-life care, “Just pre-check one box or the other. One is called comfort care. The other is called, essentially, extreme care. We’ll do everything we can to keep you alive and the other case, we’ll just take care of your pain.” And there was a 30% difference between people’s choices.

And the question is “Why is that the case?” It’s because that’s not something we’ve thought a lot about. So, you might think an important decision is something where it doesn’t matter how you ask the question. Well, this is an important decision we don’t get to make very often. Hopefully, almost never. And so, lots of the decisions we make in life are things where we don’t have a clear preference, and that’s one of them, but some of them are pretty common.

Like, “What are you going to eat in a restaurant?” You may have a rough idea, “I don’t like liver,” but there are a lot of options out there. You’re trying to predict what you’re going to like in a half hour when you’ve actually finished the meal.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow, yeah, that’s powerful and, in some ways, and I guess the why behind it being a number of things, it’s like, “Well, I don’t know, I guess this is what’s checked, that’s what most people do. I guess this is the standard or recommended go-to option if it’s the one that’s checked.” Or, maybe it’s like, “This decision is so overwhelming and intimidating that it’s kind of a relief that something has been sort of been checked for me, so I’m just going to roll with it.” We’re speculating here but what do you think is behind that?

Eric Johnson
So, you got two of the three things, I think, happens. One is basically it’s easier to take the default – ease. Second thing is endorsement. It’s as if the person who designed the menu, chose something for you so that must be the best thing. But there’s something that’s a lot more fundamental, which is we actually think about things differently depending upon how they’re framed.

So, there’s a great study I love, which actually gives people the choice between 70% lean hamburger or 30% fat hamburger. Now, you’re smart, your audience is smart, you realize that’s the same thing. But, yet, people, when they have the word fat as a description, think about the hamburger differently. They think about clogging their arteries. They think about it being juicy. When it’s lean, they think about protein and muscle mass. It’s actually as if they’re eating two different things even though the label is the only thing that differs.

When you ask about how much they’ll pay, they pay different amounts. Or, you ask people how good the burgers taste, they rate it differently. So, that study shows that when we’re in these situations, what I call assembled preferences, it’s actually the label that changes what we think.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s fascinating. And so, the 70% lean won on all the dimensions of measurement.

Eric Johnson
Except unless you like a really juicy burger.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. Okay. Well, so that’s one big surprise right there in terms of just the way things are presented to us changes how we think about them, and, thus, what we select even if it’s high stakes. Any other really big surprises or discoveries you’ve made over your lifetime of work in this domain?

Eric Johnson
So, that first thing is called a default. I want to give it a name so we have a handy name. It’s not default like going broke. It’s like default in what happens when we don’t take an action. A second thing that surprised me, actually, as I was writing the book, is the effect of order. What you see first can be more attractive. This is why you go down to a supermarket, people actually pay to be in different positions of the aisle so you’ll see them. So, something at eye level is actually, typically, gets more attention and is seen first. So, it turns out when you look at the many studies that have been done, effective order is surprisingly large.

Pete Mockaitis
And first is where you want to be if you want to be chosen. Is that right?

Eric Johnson
Well, almost most of the time, particularly if it’s a place where the decision-maker is in control. So, they look at first, they look at second, and then they stop. So, on lots of websites, for example, people only will look at one or two options, click on them to look at them more carefully. But let me give you the counter example. Imagine, instead, we’re going back to the same restaurant we had the menu at before, but now the waiter, it’s a fancy place, is reading you the menu. Now, are you going to pick the first or what else is going on there?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s so funny, that happened to me a few times, whatever that says about my dining choices, but I remember I feel like a little bit nervous, like, “Okay. All right. I really got to strap in, listen, pay a lot of attention.” And I’m thinking, I don’t know if this is what most people do, but like, “Okay, I got to think. I’ve got to give something, a judgment of like thumbs up or thumbs down.” Like, “You’re a finalist or you’re out,” like right away, or else I just can’t even process seven options given to me verbally.

So, I’m like, “Okay, don’t even need to think about that one. Okay, don’t even need to think about…oh, maybe. Prime rib. Interesting. Remember that one.” And so, I’m trying to hold finalists in my head, and then I usually have to ask them and repeat something, like, “What was the third one again?”

Eric Johnson
Right. Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
So, that’s me but I might be an anomaly.

Eric Johnson
But you’ve gotten a great intuition for it. Because what happens, of course, is what’s the one that’s not going to be clobbered by the next one? The last one. And it turns out, in those situations, where the decision-maker is losing control, last has a big advantage. One of my favorite studies of this is, you may or may not have seen it, but there’s a famous song contest that’s been held for over 50 years in Europe called the Eurovision Song Contest.

And it turns out, people have done studies, last has a big advantage there because people remember it. Memory is really important in both cases, but, yeah, between the head, “Who knows what Estonia…” I’m sorry, any Estonian listeners, “But who knows what Estonia did in the second song?” You remember who was the last. So, order, to go back to your question, is surprisingly important.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. Well, it sounds like we’ve, maybe, potentially mentioned this, but just to make it explicit, can you give us what is the big idea, core thesis, behind your book The Elements of Choice? It sounds like we’re hitting it. There are things like this that are impacting our choices. Or, how would you articulate the main idea?

Eric Johnson
So, there are two main ideas. The first one is how questions are posed make a difference. But the second one that’s probably most relevant to your listeners is that you are a choice architect. You are a designer. You make the decisions whenever you present somebody with a choice, whether it be your spouse, someone who reports to you, someone you report to. Whenever you’re presenting choices, you’re actually a choice architect. You have control over many of these things, like what the default is, what the right order is.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so then give us some core principles then in terms of if I have something…Well, I guess, first of all, this presupposes that you’re offering people choices as opposed to saying, “This is what we’re doing now.” Now, I guess you may or may not have the authority or power, influence, sway, relationship, to just, by fiat, say, “This is what’s happening now.” But, maybe, before we delve into the how do we present choices, I’d love to get your take on under what circumstances is it optimal to present multiple choices versus just the, “Hey, I’d like to do this,” or, “How about we do that?”

Eric Johnson
Well, it’s interesting. You say it in a way that says, “How about if we do that?” and in your voice there was a question mark, as if I can come back and say something else. An extreme would be, by fiat, “We are going to go and order this,” and that certainly saves lots of work in decision-making but people often feel like they have lost a lot of power or input or it can be demotivating.

So, a slightly gentler version of that is how many options do you give somebody? Do you give them one, which is your extreme case, in which case, it’s not really a choice? Or, do you give them two, or four, or five? It’s actually quite an interesting aspect of choice architecture.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yes. And so, I’m curious, are there certain…what are the criteria or factors which might lead me to think, “Hmm, I’m going to go with one choice or option versus a multiple choice or option”?

Eric Johnson
So, how well do I know the person making the decision? If I know a lot of their taste, I can cut down the number of things I show them. So, a menu, when I tell my wife, “What’s on the menu?” Let’s say I’m calling her and saying, “What’s on the menu?” because she’s running a few minutes late and wants me to order for her, if I know her taste, I can give two or three. If it’s somebody I don’t know, I’m going to expand the number of options. I’m going to try and figure out what options are different. So, the more I know the person who’s making a choice, assuming I’m trying to help them, the fewer options I can give them.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it makes sense certainly as a principle. Okay. And then I’m thinking if it’s just from a general, like influence-mastery perspective, I’m thinking in the course of, let’s just say, I want boss, or collaborator, peer, to come my way with something. And I guess there’s a whole another set – we had Bob Cialdini on the show who was awesome – of principles associated with being influential. But here, it seems like we’re specifically zeroing in on, in a world where we’re sharing multiple options and we would like them to pick the one we want them to pick, how do we do that?

Eric Johnson
So, I think we’ve covered two things already. One is default, say, “If you don’t have anything else in mind, here’s the default.” So, I’ll give you an example of that that turns out to be very handy in my life. I could say to somebody, “Oh, we should get together for a meeting. What’s good for you?” That’s giving them, in essence, an infinite number of options. Instead, I could say, “Look, 9:30 on Tuesday is good for me, but I’m flexible.”

Now, from my perspective, as the designer, as I call that person, I’m going to increase the probability that gets chosen and it’s better for me. From the other person’s perspective, it saves them a little bit of effort. Instead of having to go through their whole calendar, they can look first and start with that as a starting point. And so, that actually probably makes both the designer and the chooser, or the person making the choice, better off.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, I like that. And then, it’s funny as I’m thinking about, I’ve had some conversations with some sales-type folk in which they’re reaching out, and they say, “Hey, would you like to meet at this time or that time?” And I’m thinking, “Well, neither of those times because I don’t want to meet with you at all.” Any thoughts on, I don’t know if you call that presumption, or when there’s a good possibility that they don’t want none of your options? Like, how does that come across in terms of this little…?

Eric Johnson
So, let me step back one second. The premise of the book is actually a little bit different than it would be if I was doing sales. And it’s basically you’re trying to make the chooser make the choice that’s in their best interest. And the world we’re talking about, of course, that may not always overlap but you probably want to get a time that doesn’t get somebody that has to drive into work an hour early for the meeting.

Pete Mockaitis
Sure. And if you’re an ethical salesperson, hopefully, your solution really is, worth their time and effort relative to the alternatives.

Eric Johnson
And, in fact, I’m an optimist, and I think they’re trying to get the right product to you or make you a repeat customer.

Pete Mockaitis
Sure, I’m with you.

Eric Johnson
So, default would be one. We’ve already talked about sorting, what would be first, second, third. And if it’s a salesperson, that’s actually getting closer to a place where it’s a verbal list so you have to be careful that the last is going to be something that’s also remembered. You have to be careful in that decision as well. So, those would be two very concrete steps you could make in setting appointments.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, certainly. And so then, let’s hear some of the others. We’ve talked about the ideal number of options. So, there’s the one or there’s the infinite, and then there’s some discrete numbers in between. How do we think about that?

Eric Johnson
Well, I think there, the issue is basically, again, a lot of us are going to be thinking about the decision-maker and how well you know them, but let me give you a sort of application that’s not exactly how to be great, at least on your job per se. But there’s a really nice example at dating sites. Dating sites differ in the number of options.

So, let me ask you how you do this. If you go to Tinder, the number is infinity. There’s actually something called Tinder thumb for swiping too much. Now, on the other hand, there was a site called Coffee Meets Bagel.
Pete Mockaitis
Yes, I utilized that back in the day. That’s great.

Eric Johnson
It gave you one option, originally, or a small number of options, and they were good. Now, the thing about the chooser who thinks about those two things differently. In Coffee Meets Bagel, you would read the profile and go beyond the picture.

Pete Mockaitis
So, you have more time.

Eric Johnson
Yeah, you have more time and you’re not screening. On the other hand, with Tinder, you’re looking at pictures, I suspect, and then pictures get a big weight, and all the other things like personality get almost no weight. So, it depends on what you want the person to do. If you want them to make a good choice, it’s probably a reason to reduce the number of options.

So, if I gave them too many options, that can result in a poor choice because they may be more shallow in their evaluation, kind of like a Tinder effect, versus if I gave them a limited number of choices, like, “Hey, here’s three really good options,” as opposed to, “Well, there’s 14 things we can do,” then they’re like, “Well, I don’t know. That consulting firm seems to have a cool name, so let’s go with them,” versus, “Oh, three. Okay, I can kind of get into a little bit of detail here and think through the pros and cons of this.”

Eric Johnson
That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. All right. Well, so then, three, I said, was kind of arbitrary. But do you have some thoughts on two versus three versus four versus five?

Eric Johnson
Right. Well, one of the things that’s very tempting to write a book like this is to say five is the magic number. But imagine we’re designing an airplane, would I say, “Two engines is always the right number of engines”? No, it depends on the kind of plane it is. So, rather than say three, I want to give you the principles to think about, which is one thing is that you increase the number of options, people get more variety, but they tend to get overloaded.

So, there are lots of cases where you want to give people variety, particularly if they don’t know you well, but I don’t want to go, like the New York City school system gives kids 769 different high schools they could choose between. That’s a bit too many.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, I’m thinking about my toddler, I kind of give him two shirts, generally, to choose from, and that seems to work pretty well. What do you think?

Eric Johnson
As they get older, they may want a little more, a couple more. But, notice, you’re doing something super important there, which is you’re limiting the choice or the options you want by assuming…you picked those two shirts.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s cold outside so I’d like the long sleeve situation, “This one is cleaner than the other one and a nice shirt.”

Eric Johnson
A friend of mine solved a problem, how to get their three-year old, so this might be useful, to bed by changing it to, “Do you want to go to bed or not go to bed?” to, “Do you want to fly in the bed or do you want to bounce in the bed?”

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah. I did that one.

Eric Johnson
No more fighting but, notice, control of the choice set is a lot of control there. And I think, as a parent, you’d argue it’s in both your and their best interest.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s excellent. Like, “Do you want to fly to the car like an airplane or hop to the car like a kangaroo?”

Eric Johnson
You’ve done this before.

Pete Mockaitis
I can’t get away with that with grownup professionals. “You pay them with a check or with Venmo?”

Eric Johnson
Right. But you could, for example, limit…let’s take a common that many of your listeners have, which is pension plans. How many pension plans are you offered? Which ones? That’s a real-world example that I think is really important. And the funny thing is, for many of these things we’re talking about, people aren’t aware of their effects.

So, the defaults, people have actually done studies where they say, “Okay, now you’ve made a choice,” people see different defaults, they choose different things. And you say, “Did the default affect what you chose?” And they say, “No. It might affect other people but I made my decision based on what I wanted.”

So, the interesting thing for folks here is that the choices you make as an architect, as a designer, actually are things that will influence people and often they won’t realize the influence you have.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s powerful and the results can be massive when you come to retirement age, like, “Oh, shoot. There might’ve been a whole lot more money had I chosen a different option,” or a whole lot less. So, okay, we got a number of elements. Any other key elements you want to cover?

Eric Johnson
I think we’ve gotten a big list. The only other one that I think would be important is when you give people choices, you often describe the choices.

Pete Mockaitis
Got you.

Eric Johnson
So, what might be called attributes, so price, quality. For a car, it’s how many miles per gallon it gets, how fast it gets. Another thing that a designer does is present attributes. Imagine you’re giving someone a choice between two consulting assignments. You might use travel. You might use challenge. You might use opportunity for advancement. You, as a designer, get to choose which attributes are first and what’s presented.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s true.

Eric Johnson
So, I know it’s a long list but these all are things that you, as the designer, have as tools.

Pete Mockaitis
And when you describe choices or attributes, are there any best or worst practices there? Because, again, I’m thinking about the overwhelm, I guess there’s relevance, like, “I might not care about your liter is a turbo horsepower or whatever. Like, those numbers don’t mean things to me.” And maybe I should be better educated about vehicles. That’s come up before. “But I’m just not.” So, any pro tips on best and worst practices for great descriptions within the attributes?

Eric Johnson
So, I think one of the things that is a classic result is imagine calories. Now, if you’re really concerned about your weight, you probably understand calories, but a very nice example is to convert that into the number of miles walked you would have to do to walk off those calories.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah. Got you.

Eric Johnson
The general principle is making sure the attribute is in a concrete way that people understand.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. And I think that’s a great in terms of I think like computer things, in terms of like I understand very much what the impact of a 1-terra byte versus a 2-terra byte drive is, and I just bought a 2-terra byte, versus others, like, “What’s that even mean in terms of movies or songs or pictures or whatnot?” Because I often find myself, if I’m reading something and I’m just sort of out of my depth, I don’t know, I’m thinking about power tools or drills or impact drivers or something, they have numbers, like, “Is that good? I hope. It’s probably not horrible if you’re telling me about it. So, certainly, it has to be kind of relevant and understandable.”

And I guess I’m also thinking about just like, “How much is too much?” And now I’m thinking about sales landing pages on websites. And some of them can just go for dozens of pages, like, “Wow, people are reading that?” And others are pretty darn quick in terms of header, subhead, couple bullets, and then that’s that. How do you think about how we make the decision for more versus less?

Eric Johnson
The really interesting thing about your point is that people seem to be very sensitive to the initial cost of information. So, if you land on a page that has an ugly font and it’s hard to look at, even if the offer is attractive, you’re likely to bail. So, we know a lot just by watching firms do their customer funnel, how they actually acquire customers, that each click is very important, and to minimize the effort for each of those clicks is terribly, terribly important in attracting customers. And, again, if you think about trying to get somebody at work to sign on for a project, very similar stories apply.

Pete Mockaitis
So, reducing the friction, making it as easy as possible to do that.

Eric Johnson
Particularly at the beginning.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, then I’m curious about, so the flipside, any sort of like mistakes, or cognitive biases, or things we really got to be on our guard for when we are trying to make optimal decisions and present choices optimally to others?

Eric Johnson
So, the first big mistake is most of us don’t realize we’re designers so we’re doing this very haphazardly. So, we use what is first in our mind is what we tell people. So, if you’re saying, “Where do we go to lunch?” well, what happens is the thing that you think of first, it may not even be where you want to go. But, in general, I think neglecting choice architecture is the biggest mistake that we make. It’s because we don’t think it affects us, and, in fact, we don’t even realize how it affects other people. So, there are now a lot of studies showing that people don’t do things that would be in both their best interest and that chooses best interest.

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

Eric Johnson
Well, I think the only thing I would say is realize that deciding how to present information to people is almost a secret power that you have, that it’s actually something that is a source of your ability to help other people, that if you don’t know about it, you’re neglecting a really important aspect of your job as a boss, or as a colleague, or as a report, any of the above.

Pete Mockaitis
And when you talk about power, that makes me think, can you share with us some more of the most sort of eye-popping sort of results or case studies and how little changes make huge differences? So, that pre-checked thing, that was pretty wild in terms of, “How do you want to be taken care of in your final years?” I mean, wow, what a huge impact just to pre-check can make. Any other striking examples or cases that leap to mind?

Eric Johnson
Well, let me talk about another of the tools we’ve talked about, which is order, what’s presented first. It turns out, on ballots, somebody is first, someone is second, etc. What research shows is the first choice gets about 2% more vote even in presidential elections. So, if we think about go back to the year 2000, Gore versus Bush, remember it all came down to Florida. In Florida, there was like 500 votes separating them.

It turns out, Bush, George W. was first in the ballot in Florida because the governor, his brother, Jeb, got to pick who was first. And, of course, any governor would pick the member of their own party. It wasn’t because it was his brother. That probably made the difference in who was elected president of the U.S.

Pete Mockaitis
Hotdog. That was a big case study. Thank you, Eric.

Eric Johnson
It’s not my research but it’s actually there was a case, by the way, in Texas where two Supreme Court justices who ran against each other, Pete Greene versus Rick Greene, whichever Greene, there they randomized. That’s how we know it made a difference. They picked one first in half the time, the other first the other half the time. There was a 20% difference between who got the vote depending upon who was first.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow! So, it was 20% when we actually got to randomized it, so it might be much bigger than 2%.

Eric Johnson
Right. In that case, because they had the same last name, and nobody knew who they were, that’s one of the reasons it’s 20%.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, fair enough. Well, that’s really heavy. I’m just sort of sitting and processing that for a moment. And then for our elections in the U.S., is that normally how it goes, the governor gets to pick? Or is alphabetical? Or does it vary state by state?

Eric Johnson
It varies a bunch by state by state but often it’s, in some places, the incumbent, which gives them an advantage. In other states, it’s the party in power that gets to be first. In Delaware, it turns out, just to be equally surprising, the Democrats always are the first slot in the ballot.

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

Eric Johnson
So, something I’ve thought a lot about is a quote that I saw when I was a young person reading science magazines, and it was a Browning quote, “For a man’s reach should exceed their grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” In other words, keep striving. You’re not going to get there, but go for it.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, lovely. And how about a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Eric Johnson
Well, I think I have to admit that I very much like one that I did, which used the default manipulation to change people’s willingness to be organ donors.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, tell us the result. What went down?

Eric Johnson
Well, basically, if you look at people’s willingness, not necessarily to be a donor, but to be willing to be a donor, there is a 40% gap between those people where you are a donor by default, which happens in several European countries, and countries like the U.S. where you have to choose to be an organ donor. So, the default actually can change people’s willingness to be an organ donor.

Pete Mockaitis
Hotdog. And a favorite book?

Eric Johnson
When I was very young, I read two books at the same time practically, and they would change my life. One was Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. The other was Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. And growing up in New Jersey and not seeing much of the world, this really opened up my eyes.

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

Eric Johnson
I actually use, I’ve tried a lot, like many people, many different kinds of planning software. I use something called Marvin, but the important point is not the software. It’s basically sitting down every day and doing a to-do list that includes time, not just, “I’m going to do it in this order,” but, “I’m going to do it at this time.”

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a particular nugget you share, something that really connects and resonates with folks you’re chatting with?

Eric Johnson
One of the things that I find interesting about using social media and, particularly, to promote the book, is to see what other people are saying. And I think one of the things that I hear people are repeating, so I let them choose, is basically, “Being a choice architect is something that’s a power that I didn’t know I had.”

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

Eric Johnson
Well, really good, Twitter is @ProfEricJohnson. And there’s also a nice website on TheElementsofChoice.com.

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

Eric Johnson
I think, basically, realize that you actually have the power whenever you present choices to another person that, if you don’t think about it, you’re going to waste an important part of what you can do on your job.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Eric, thank you. This has been a treat. I wish you much luck with all of the choices you make and present.

Eric Johnson
Thank you very much. It’s been a lot of fun, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Indeed. Well, so tell me, you’ve got another book out. It’s about making decisions, and I thought that was kind of meta in a way because your podcast is called What Should I Read Next? which is a decision that you’re making again and again and again. So, maybe to tee it up, could you tell us, how do you, in fact, decide what to read next?

Anne Bogel
Well, this is true about my podcast but I have to tell you, I did not understand the connection between the podcast and the book until I think, I don’t know, a week or two before my first book tour event for this book. And one of my team members said, “Well, the podcast is tailor-made to help people know everything about their reading life, so just talk about how you put together the show and why it works.” And I was like, “It is? Oh, it is, isn’t it?”

Well, the secrets there are go to a trusted source, get a couple of options but not too many, and know that there is always another book because you don’t get all caught up in perfectionism and second-guessing if you know that there’s always going to be another book after the one you finished. Also, as a podcast host, it’s easy not to be like overcome with regret and second-guessing because I know there’s always going to be another episode.

So, if I remember in the shower the next morning, “Oh, now I know the perfect book for that guest that I talked to yesterday, and that ship has sailed, I can’t change my recommendations now,” because every episode I recommend three books live on the fly that I think will be good for the guest based on our conversation. It’s helpful to know, “Well, I could always put that in the newsletter. I could always put that in the bonus episode, or I can always save that for another guest that it just might be perfect for.”

Pete Mockaitis
So, that’s how you’re helping folks with those decisions. Your book is called Don’t Overthink It. So, maybe you could start by telling us, why not overthink it? What’s the problem with the cost associated with, in fact, overthinking it?

Anne Bogel
Oh, well, okay. At the best, it’s a distraction. But, at the worst, I mean, I used to think that this was more a nuisance than a massive huge deal for many people but I’ve really come to believe that overthinking, it always comes with an opportunity cost that isn’t worth paying. Because when you’re spending your life overthinking things, any moment you spend overthinking something that doesn’t deserve that time, energy, and attention is a minute you can’t spend on something that really deserves it.

And when I talk about overthinking, I’m talking about those thoughts that are repetitive, unhealthy, unhelpful. It’s when your brain is working really hard but it’s not taking you anywhere. Nobody wants that. Those thoughts are exhausting. They make you feel miserable. So, just so we know what we’re talking about, and why you really don’t want that in your life.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s handy. So, you’re defining overthinking perhaps a bit more broadly than some might assume. It’s not just you’re spending too much time on a given decision or a plan of action, but just overthinking in places that don’t need those thoughts at all, eh?

Anne Bogel
I am. Some books about overthinking do restrict it to just rumination, where that word comes from the oh-so-flattering image of a cow chewing its cud, returning to the same food again and again for digestive purposes. But if you’re a person who’s overthinking, thinking about whatever that is over and over again, it doesn’t help you reach a decision. It’s a loop that takes conscious intervention to get out of.

And, yeah, I believe that we’re all happier and healthier, and can spend more of our resources, our time, energy, and attention on the things that really matter when we give decisions and other things in our lives the amount of energy they deserve and not more. I mean, it’s not overthinking if you give something the amount of thought you want it to, even if your choice may look hard to believe for some people.

Like, if you know someone who really genuinely enjoys researching. Oh, wow, Pete, I was about to use a travel analogy. Okay, let’s go for it.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m in.

Anne Bogel
Let’s go for it and hope those days will come again. If you have a friend who really enjoys researching, like, 40 different places they may visit to camp on spring break because that is fun for them, that is part of the adventure, that is part of the experience, that’s not overthinking for them. It might be overthinking for you because that’s not fun for you. That’s perfectionism-driven research looking for just, you know, “I’ll just check one more site, one more site, one more site.” But if you’re giving something the amount of attention you want to, that’s just fine.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I love that because it really just opens it up a whole lot in that it may indeed be shocking or overwhelming and surprising to some people, when you’re just like, I guess, sort of nerding out and doing what you’re doing. I was thinking recently about, I might do this, I’ve been playing a little bit of Fortnite, the smash hit sensation game which I guess is for 12-year old boys but I play it too.

And I’ve been thinking about, like the trigonometry associated with when you jump out of the Battle Bus and how you might optimize the timing of it so you hit exactly the spot you want to hit as fast as possible. In a way, I mean, it’s just a silly game. I’m never going to go pro and it’s just sort of amusing to be. But I love that definition because it’s like, “Well, no, if I’m having a hoot just figuring that out for the sheer fun of figuring it out, I’m not overthinking it,” versus, if someone who has more fun just playing the game and blasting people away, then they would be overthinking it. It’s very subjective and individual-dependent.

Anne Bogel
Yeah. If you’re enjoying your trig exercising with Fortnite, have at it.

Pete Mockaitis
I dig it. Okay. Cool.

Anne Bogel
Actually, you know what? If you do find yourself caught in an overthinking loop, when your brain is like the hamster on the wheel and you can’t stop talking, it sounds like what you’re describing is a really excellent potential distraction for your mind. It gives it a puzzle to work on that requires a kind of creative mental energy that forces out the things you don’t want to be thinking about. Because all your attention is required to focus on this problem you’ve created for yourself because you enjoy it and because it’s fun.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that just kind of makes me think it’d be great just to have a list of those at the ready for when you’re caught in a loop, it’s like, “Oh, I need to escape. Oh, here’s my handy list of fun puzzles I can go and solve.” And I find that a little bit even with, I guess there’s research on this, like knitting or crafts. Like, I’ve experienced that when I’m doing that sort of thing, it’s like, “Oh, this is very soothing because my brain is focused on that thing instead of many, many, many thoughts, issues, questions I’m trying to nail down.”

Anne Bogel
Yes. I don’t know if you or someone who turns to stress baking when you’re feeling overwhelmed, but this is a real thing, and it serves the same purpose. If you’re following a recipe for the first time, or one you’re not familiar with, your hands are occupied, your brain is occupied, it’s tactile, and it requires all your concentration, or you’re going to screw it up, so there’s not room for that mental loop to play. Also, it goes, “Did I say the wrong thing? Did I say the wrong thing? Why won’t they call? What’s happening? Why are they running late?” because your brain is completely occupied. You don’t have the bandwidth to entertain those thoughts.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. I’m digging this. So, overthinking is giving more thought than something deserves. It’s problematic because there is an opportunity cost that you could be spending your time, energy, attention, thinking on something that’s more fun and joyful. Maybe could you help us identify when we’re overthinking faster, in terms of what are sort of the canaries-in-the-coal-mine, the telltale signs, or maybe even just frequent categories of stuff subject to overthought?

Anne Bogel
That’s a great question, and it’s almost hard to give a list because overthinking, more than I realized when I launched into this personal project, is insidious. Like, it’s the river that’s a mile wide and of varying depths for some people. But it’s a good question because the first step to overcome any kind of overthinking is to realize you’re doing it. Because if you don’t realize your behavior is problematic or impacting your life in negative ways, then you wouldn’t even think about changing it. You wouldn’t feel like you had a reason to.

I would say that noticing when you feel tired, noticing when you feel crabby, noticing when you feel stressed about making certain decisions or uncertain moments. Some people, if you ask them, “Are you an overthinker?” they can immediately say, “Oh, my gosh, yes. Like, I was up at 3:00 o’clock in the morning worrying what might happen if…” fill in the blank. I won’t give you any scenarios. The people who do that can certainly come up with them on their own. I know there have been times when I certainly could.

But, also, it may help to review a list of things that are known triggers for a lot of people, even those who don’t typically characterize themselves as constant overthinkers. Relationship is a big one. Work is a big one for a lot of people. Also, money trips up a lot of people who don’t consider themselves to be chronic overthinkers. And we could be talking about tiny purchases, like, “Why would I buy G2s when the big sticks are so much cheaper?” I mean, some people will find themselves paralyzed by these small questions. Ghirardelli instead of Hershey’s.

Pete Mockaitis
Trying to ride on experiences, luxurious and joyful is my answer, Anne.

Anne Bogel
Exactly. Or it could be justifying a splurge, like a nice dinner out, or a vacation that’s outside the bounds of what you would typically spend for a vacation in the summer. These are things that are big triggers for a lot of people.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah. And now I’m really feeling what you’re saying with regard to how it can be a thief of joy there in terms of if you’re agonizing, or it’s like, “Oh, that seems like such a cool vacation. Oh, but it cost so much money.” So, I think you can just really go back and forth and put yourself in a tough spot which is unpleasant. As opposed to, I guess, if you just knew, “Well, hey, the vacation budget is this, greater than, less than. Okay, I guess we can move on,” or, “This seems like an exceptional opportunity. Hey, spouse, or travel companions, what do we think about shifting some budget from one place to another?” That’s excellent in terms of just the angst, “I’m feeling it,” that can come when you’re doing that.

Anne Bogel
You know what you just did though was you cut out the inclination to maximize that so many people who struggle with overthinking do on a regular basis. Because, sure, if it’s in budget, that’s great. And if it’s not, that’s a problem. But what if you could get a little more for your money? What if you might be like more meaningfully fulfilled if you went to one place or another? Maybe you just really need to stay home I mean, there are so many options to consider that, without having a clear idea of what you want and where you’re going, it’s easy to succumb to.

Also, another big trigger of overthinking in a lot of people is shopping. It doesn’t matter if you’re going to the grocery, or oh, my gosh, if you’re buying jeans, or school supplies for your kids. Any situation where you have to make a lot of decisions really quickly can really take a toll on your mental stamina.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, let’s talk about the stamina piece for a bit. So, decision fatigue is a real thing. Can you tell us, what is it and how do we deal with it?

Anne Bogel
Decision fatigue has become quite a buzzword. I find that most people know what this is now but not everybody. We’re talking about that state when your brain is tired from making many decisions, and you simply reached the point where you can’t make any more effectively. And this is because, when it comes to making decisions, we don’t have an endless capacity to do so. We can only handle so many decisions in a day but we make hundreds, if not thousands, of decisions every day depending on what we do.

And so, how we allocate our energy to make those decisions, and how we can structure our lives to make fewer of them, really matters. And if you want to nerd out about this, there’s all kinds of interesting research on everything from kids in the classroom to judges sitting on a court bench.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, right.

Anne Bogel
Officers making parole decisions that show, oh, you want to be in front of whoever is deciding something on your behalf when they are fresh.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely.

Anne Bogel
Because, yeah, if you come at the end of the day, or the last cases before lunch, you are screwed. When people don’t know what to do, they default to the status quo, or they decide nothing at all because it takes less brain power.

Pete Mockaitis
You gotta ring on the stickers when you’re on trial, “Your Honor, would you please…?”

Anne Bogel
If you can’t be on the docket before 8:00, that probably is your next best bet. But, truly, this matters. Like, we don’t want to think we live in a world where the fates of people are determined by where you fall on the docket. But being aware of how these human limitations affect your life, whether you want them to or not, helps you do something about it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, decision fatigue, it happens. We have a finite capacity to make decisions over the course of the day. It becomes depleted and we’re sleepy. So, what should we do about it? Schedule big decisions for when we’re fresh. Or what are sort of the top practices to address this?

Anne Bogel
That’s a good question. Okay, I’m going to zoom out a little bit. So, I found that when it comes to overthinking, so many of us start by thinking, like, “Okay, I’m standing at the kitchen counter, I’m looking for my friend to pull into the driveway because they’re supposed to be here any minute but they’re running late. Are they in a ditch? Is there something wrong? Do they actually hate me and they’re not coming? What is happening now?”

We think like, “Okay, I need to do something in this moment to fix the problem so it doesn’t happen again.” But, really, so much overthinking doesn’t start in the moment. We lay the foundation by how we treat our bodies. Studies show that we don’t overthink when we’re well-rested. We don’t overthink when we’re peaceful. We overthink when we eat Doritos for dinner, when we’re tired, when we stayed up too late. We overthink when we’re not taking care of our bodies. We overthink when our shoulder hurts because we’ve been sitting hunched over our desk all day.

So, the first thing we can do is really set ourselves up for success by taking care of those really simple boring adult human maintenance things that we know we should do but we don’t always make time for because they don’t seem so productive in the moment. And, Pete, I got to tell you, I was really disappointed to read this research because it’s not fun. Like, it’s not sexy like a good productivity hack is.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it doesn’t get you the clicks on social media.

Anne Bogel
No. No, but…

Pete Mockaitis
Not a weird trick.

Anne Bogel
I don’t know who needs to hear this but, truly, like going to bed when you know you should will make it so much easier to make decisions at 2:00 o’clock tomorrow afternoon.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I think when it comes to a lot of this, this boring but helpful and true information, I think what helps get me fired up about it, and I talked to this mindfulness thought leader Rasmus Hougaard, and I loved that he brought a lot of sort of numbers and facts and research to bear in terms of like, “Okay, sure enough, there’s a great ROI associated with sort of sitting and breathing and mindfulness practice.”

So, maybe can you share, did you find anything striking with regard to, “Wow, if you spend just a couple of minutes doing this thing, it yields a whole lot of minutes of not overthinking”? In terms of like, when I see huge ROI or bang for the buck, I get excited. And sleep, I just love sleeping, but sometimes I think, “Well…”

Anne Bogel
I don’t.

Pete Mockaitis
I was like, “Well, okay, sure, six hours versus eight hours is going to make a big difference but that’s two whole freaking hours. Is there anything I can do that’ll take me like four minutes that’s going to yield 12 minutes of benefit on the other side?” That’s how I overthink things, Anne. Welcome to my brain.

Anne Bogel
I love that I said I hate that this is true because you can’t hack your way out of it, and now you’re asking for a hack.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s what I want.

Anne Bogel
I see what you’re doing. Something that did help me truly was to hear a productivity expert, a friend of mine, Lauran Vanderkam, say, we could point to these studies, but that, “Sleep and exercise truly, they don’t take time, they make time. When you invest the time in getting the sleep you know you need, and stopping to exercise, you think better all day long.”

And she really recommends getting your exercise before 3:00 p.m. for that reason, not that it won’t help you more globally for the long term but on a daily basis your attention is sharper after you exercise. Oh, but after that, that makes me think of a research that shows that if we, this is going to sound like a funny word in this context, if we invest 15 minutes in overthinking, if we’re prone to overthinking, or in worrying, if we’re prone to worrying, and schedule it on our calendars for a certain time each day, and concentrate on getting it all in then, it’s almost like David Allen.

The brain wants a system it can trust. If your brain knows that its overthinking concerns will be heard from 3:45 to 4:00 p.m. every day, your brain is truly more likely to leave you alone the rest of the time because it knows, “3:45, we’re going to hit my issues, the system is in place, we got it handled.” So, it’s possible that consciously, not possible. Studies show that consciously deciding to overthink for those 15 minutes really can ease the burden the rest of the day.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, it’s true and I’ve done that a couple of times. And when I have, I found that it’s almost fun. Like, the worrying or the overthinking is like, “Argh, I’ve been holding it in, and here we go.” It’s just like a frenzy, and it’s sort of enjoyable. Like, for me, sometimes it’s sort of like there’s all these creative thoughts that I really want to go explore and, in some ways, that might not technically qualify for definition because I’m having fun with it. But, nonetheless, they’re distracting from the matter at hand which is more pressing and urgent and important.

And so, when I schedule like sort of creative frenzy thought time, it’s so fun to go there, and it’s so liberating that I don’t feel as much of the thug just knowing I see it visually in color on the calendar. It’s going to land there and it’s fine.

Anne Bogel
Yeah, it’s handled.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. All right then, let’s hear some more takes on changing negative thought patterns. How do we go about making that happen?

Anne Bogel
Ooh, okay. Well, again, the first step is to notice they’re happening, but it’s so true. I don’t know your experiences. In my experience, I talked to so many women, friends, or even just blog readers who say, like, “Ugh, I’m just an overthinker. Like, It’s who I am, I’ve always done it,” and they assume there’s nothing they can do about it. But what happens is that we get really good at anything we practice, and so many of us have put in a lot of almost deliberate practice over the years into developing these patterns of overthinking.

And I just want to say for anyone who needs to hear that if you feel like you’re a champion overthinker, yeah, it’s because you’ve been practicing for a long time. But when you practice more positive thought patterns, it’s hard at first but that’s not because you’re not a natural. You weren’t a natural overthinker either. Although it is true that some people are more inclined to overthink than others, but over time, slowly learning how to interrupt those overthinking moments when they happen, and learning to lay a better foundation the rest of the time really can help you train your brain to go in a healthier direction on a regular basis.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, we talked a bit about the foundations in terms of like sleep and exercise and nutrition. How do you recommend we execute an interruption in the heat of the moment?

Anne Bogel
So, when you find yourself in an overthinking moment, it may be helpful to think of it as riding out a craving. You don’t have to resist that overthinking moment forever. Like, the typical food craving abates in three to eight minutes. So, if you can give yourself a meaningful distraction for three to eight minutes, then you are likely to be A-Okay for a little while. But the meaningful distraction is important.

Scrolling Instagram on your phone doesn’t count. That’s way too passive. You need to do something that uses different areas of your brain, and demands a lot of your attention. So, for some people they like the combination of working jigsaw puzzles and listening to audiobooks or music at the same time, so your brain is working on two different puzzles. Basically, one is you’re decoding the book and you’re decoding the puzzle.

Tetris is actually a remarkably effective game for those who don’t like Fortnite because it does also fire up your brain in all kinds of different regions. We already talked about stress baking. Exercise is a really effective strategy for a lot of people which combines several different ways to overcome overthinking. But it depends, of course, on what you do.

Somebody who was raving to me recently how trying to do their double-unders with their jump rope was really effective because they had to concentrate to not whack themselves in the knees. But I’m a runner, but if I want to not overthink, I can’t just like run on the loop at the park when nobody is there because it’s easy for my brain to wander. But if I’m running trails, I have to pay attention or I’m going to trip on the tree roots, and that is really distracting. That’s a hardcore distraction because I would have to like change my clothes, and we’re talking about a 45-minute run. But even small things like calling your mom, talking to a friend, can be really helpful, which is three to eight minutes. That’s all you need.

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent. Well, that’s very helpful to know. You can sort of set a timer and then not let it go too long. I’m reminded now of one time I was at a date at a coffee shop, and then this dude showed up, and he sat down with his cup of coffee, his headphones, and his knitting needles, and just went to town. And I just thought it was kind of funny that he chose this time and place in close proximity to us to do that, but it looks like he was onto something. He was taking a strategic break that makes a world of difference with that combo there.

Anne Bogel
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Now, you had a great teaser on the back on the back of your book, and I can’t resist. What are the three things we should do for a healthier thought life?

Anne Bogel
Well, we already talked about how you can set yourself up for success. So much overthinking doesn’t start in the moment. It starts well before that because of the foundation you laid. You know what we didn’t talk about? So, we haven’t talked about perfectionism yet. Like, identifying and consciously thinking of ways to overcome perfectionism is a huge thing for tons of people.

I did not understand the connection between perfectionism and overthinking until just in the past couple of years, and I’ve been living with both for a long time. And, truly, just seeing how they’re linked has really helped me put more overthinking aside because I know perfectionism is unhealthy and that it doesn’t take me to good places. And I know that when I recognize that thought pattern in myself, I need to put it aside, and I, more or less, know how to do that.

But perfectionism, like overthinking, is sneaky. And when I don’t realize that the issue I’m overthinking is driven by perfectionism, I can be looking at the question on the table like it’s completely reasonable. But when I realize, “Anne, you’re being a perfectionist,” like then it’s easy to put it aside. And, Pete, let me give you an example because I find when it’s abstract, you think, “Oh, that sounds great in theory, but what the heck are you talking about?”

I’m thinking about things like figuring out the best way to drive across town during rush hour because you have to do it, because you need to be at that thing. Like, I could make myself crazy trying to figure out, “What if I left earlier? Could we just move the meeting 15 minutes? But is there a better way? What if someone rode with a friend? Could we work this out in a different way?” But realizing, like, “You’re trying to maximize this situation and make it the most efficient it can possibly be,” and it’s not worth the mental gymnastics you’re doing. Like, you’ve not spent more time solving the problem than it would take you to just get in the car and drive. Like, that’s perfectionism, just put it aside. Okay.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I want to follow up on that. I think that’s excellent in terms of the awareness and the catching of it, and what perfectionism sounds like there. And I think I’ve done that with maybe Amazon.com purchases in terms of, like, “What’s the absolute best plumber’s wrench, or whatever, that I can acquire?” And then you come to realize, “Well, Pete, if you spend half an hour on that, then that far exceeds the cost difference of these wrenches. Like, you can just get them all and see for yourself.”

Anne Bogel
Now, maybe you’re a craftsman who really enjoys looking at all the specs.

Pete Mockaitis
Good point. If that’s fun for you, hey, enjoy it. But if it’s not, yeah, move on.

Anne Bogel
But that wouldn’t be how I would choose to spend my leisure time, which we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you. Thinking about something like an hourly rate has really helped me make some of those decisions because, oh, my gosh, I hear you. Barnes & Noble has these three-for-two sales if you walk into their store. They’ll have these tables full of paperbacks that are three for the price of two.

And I tell you what, those first two come to me immediately. Like, I know exactly what I want. But then I could spend 20 minutes, like staring at all the books, thinking, “Well, I don’t really love any of these, and, oh.” I mean, retailers are not on your side when it comes to overthinking. The longer you spend looking, the more you buy. I guess they’re not considering that you may just throw up your hands in frustration and leave, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
I guess not enough of us do that.

Anne Bogel
Clearly not.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Anne, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about a couple of your favorite things?

Anne Bogel
For a long time, I knew that we overthought things. I mean, I could see myself thinking my way out of happiness because it made me miserable in the moment. But I never really realized until these past few years how often I would actually talk myself out of small joys I feel now like I’m losing twice when I do that. So, I’m spending this time debating something that doesn’t deserve my time and energy, and also I lose out in the process.

And we talked about pens earlier. Like, pens are a good example. I can’t tell you how many times I thought, “Well, I don’t really need the uni-ball VISION because I have a pen from the bank. That’s not great. It’s not a great tool. I’m a writer. But, still, like do I really need to spend an extra $1.80 on a uni-ball VISION?”

Anne Bogel
They cost a little more than the baseline to get a nice pen, and so I’d be like, “Well, is it worth it? Well, is it the most efficient? Well, can I justify it?” Well, Pete, I finally realized, like, “What am I debating here? Like, it’s a tool. I’m a writer. But even if I wasn’t, the pleasure you get for like six months of writing with a pen that cost a little bit more that’s actually decent, like it’s a small joy every time you pick it up, if you’re a total pen dork, which I am.” And so, why would I talk myself out of that?

And by talk myself out of it, I don’t just mean in the moment. I mean, lots of concentrated thought about what kind of pen I want to buy. So, I realized that I was just cutting myself off from these small simple joys. Like, there’s flowers on the front of the book, and the reason there’s flowers on the front of the book is, for years, I would drive myself just bananas at Trader Joe’s, thinking, “Well, can I justify getting the flowers? I don’t really need the flowers.” I really love flowers on my kitchen counter but they’re not like an essential to live a good life. And I finally realized, like, “Anne, you have $4. You can just buy the flowers, you can put them on your kitchen counter, and you can enjoy them all week.”

So, I would just hope that listeners would think about how, not only is overthinking something that you can stop doing because it’s making you miserable, but when you put it aside, you really can open the door to bringing these simple life pleasures into your life in a more abundant way.

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

Anne Bogel
“I dwell in Possibility,” Emily Dickinson.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. And how about a favorite tool, maybe it’s a pen, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Anne Bogel
I like this thing, it’s called a Lettermate, I think. It calls itself a handy tool to write in a straight line for those who have terrible handwriting, which I do. So, I keep it on my desk and I use it to write in a straight line in my blank journal, and it makes me happy.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, cool. And how about a favorite habit?

Anne Bogel
Ooh, walking the dog in the morning before it gets hot.

Pete Mockaitis
And a particular nugget you share that you’re known for?

Anne Bogel
Reading is not a competition. Quality over quantity. Also, don’t apologize for not reading Jane Austen. It really is okay. People may not say that to you but my blog is named after Jane Austen’s character so I get that all the time.

Pete Mockaitis
I just think that’s funny that that’s your life.

Anne Bogel
Every day.

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

Anne Bogel
My hub on the web is my blog ModernMrsDarcy.com or the podcast What Should I Read Next? is in your favorite podcast app.

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

Anne Bogel
Ooh, yeah. Put your butt in the chair and do the work. I mean, you probably know what to do. Make yourself some coffee, or grab whatever you love instead, and do the thing instead of talking how much you wish you could.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Anne, this has been a treat. Thank you and I wish you lots of luck in all the ways you might be tempted to overthink it.

Anne Bogel
Well, thank you. I appreciate that. And it was great to be back.