KF #29. Demonstrates Self-Awareness Archives - Page 9 of 23 - How to be Awesome at Your Job

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

Wendy Wood
Great to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to talk to you about habits, one of my favorite topics here. Could you start us off by telling us about a habit that has been transformational for you personally?

Wendy Wood
So, it’s hard to isolate any one habit that we have that makes a huge difference in our lives because so much of what we do is influenced by our habits, depends on our habits, much more so than we realize. I’ve done some research on how much of our daily lives is habitual in the sense that we’re repeating things without thinking a lot about them, just sort of responding automatically. And almost 43% of what we do every day we’re doing out of habit. So, habits contribute to an awful lot more than most of us imagine.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that is intriguing and I was just about to ask you for any particularly surprising, fascinating, counterintuitive discoveries you’ve made along the way with your research, it sounds you already got one. But anything else leaping to mind?

Wendy Wood
I think that for your audience, the biggest question is, “How do I change bad habits, unwanted habits?” And most of us do it by exerting willpower, making a decision, but habits don’t work that way. Habits are really part of the non-conscious processes in our brain so that habits form as we repeat behaviors, and they change as we repeat behaviors, too. So, changing habits is not at all what we think it is. It’s not what we usually try to do.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, that’s sort of like a definitional point, like if we’re calling it a habit, it’s not even an effortful initiative of our proactive will that we’re going for, but rather kind of like something operating in an autopilot-y part of ourselves, definitionally speaking.

Wendy Wood
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Wendy Wood
So, we think of our brain as processing information, as a single unit that tells us when we like things, that records memories, but, in fact, our brains are made up of multiple separate systems that only sort of work together. And the habit system is something that is part of our non-conscious. So, you have habits, I have habits, our dogs have habits. We all learn through experience. It’s a very basic way of learning and it really guides a huge amount of what we do, particularly at work.

So, one of the things we found early on is that people who have jobs actually have slightly more habits than people who don’t, and that’s because our job structure our day so that we’re repeating the same things. You go to the same place, at least you used to before the pandemic, if you’re an office worker. Many of us are still not quite back in the office. We go to work at the same time each day. We wear similar types of clothes. We stop for lunch around the same time. So, work really structures our life in ways that make it very easy for us to form habits.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so I’m intrigued with research on the number of habits. Tell us, how many habits do we have on average or the rough range for people?

Wendy Wood
I don’t think there’s an exact number. As I said, 43% of the time, you are acting on habit. So, almost half the time you’re doing things automatically without thinking and without necessarily making decisions. And you can see why that would be useful because you don’t have to think carefully about how you’re going to get to work today, or think about where you’re going to go for lunch. Usually, we just do what we’ve done before. That sort of work for us in some way. It might not be the best thing but it’s the easy thing and we just repeat it and do it again.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I could see how, sure, conserving mental thought energy is something that we accomplish there. Could you paint a picture for us in terms of for professionals, and maybe all of mankind, like what’s really at stake or possible here? Do you have maybe any startling statistics or inspiring stories showing us what really is possible if we master or fail to master habit-building as a skill?

Wendy Wood
Well, you’re building habits all the time. The skill to master is building habits that work for you, that are rewarding, that are consistent with your goals, and so that’s the skill that everyone needs to focus on. And you do that by repeating behaviors that are productive, that save you money, that are healthy. So, habit memories build as you do the same thing over and over again.

You don’t build habits by decisions. You build habits through repetition. Repeating a behavior in the same context so that the next time you’re in that context, that’s the behavior that springs to mind, and it takes many repetitions for habit memories to form. And that’s why they’re so challenging, is they stick around. So, it takes a long time to form a new habit, and it takes a long time for habit memories to decay.

Pete Mockaitis
You said many repetitions, and I’ve read some numbers cited that are different in a number of places. So, Wendy, could you weigh in on how many reps or how long does it take to form a habit?

Wendy Wood
Yeah, you’ll read lots of things about habits out there because people are fascinated by them. They should be. There’s something that is part of our unconscious that we don’t have access to. We don’t have awareness of how our habits work so it’s really fascinating to speculate, and there’s lots of speculation out there in the literature. But what science tells us is that it takes probably about three months of repetition, almost every day, for a habit to become really strong so that you do it without thinking, so that it becomes an automated part of your everyday life.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’m curious, you said about three months, and part of me thinks that that’s a tricky question, like, “How long does it take to form a habit?” Sort of like, “Well, how long does it take to master chess? How long does it take to fall in love?”

Wendy Wood
You’ve got it.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s going to vary wildly based on some contexts and individuals and what you’re achieving. And I’m thinking about when we interviewed BJ Fogg who wrote about Tiny Habits, and his take was, “Well, hey, if it’s super easy and doesn’t require a lot of effortful motivation, you might find that you’re installing habits quite quickly.” Is that fair to say that the time it takes can really vary based upon just how big or small or hard or easy or motivated you feel about something?

Wendy Wood
Well, probably not with motivation because habit memories don’t depend on how motivated you are. Instead, they depend simply on repetition. Repetition and whether you do things in the same way each time. So, you’re absolutely right, it takes a long time to master some things. Playing a Chopin piano concerto, it took me a long, long time to learn how to do that. Playing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star on the piano? That I can do. So, how long something takes really depends on how difficult the behavior is, how complex it is. Your intuition is absolutely right.

Pete Mockaitis
So, I guess when it comes to habit difficulties, I guess it’s true. Like, if it’s wipe off the counter after making coffee in the morning is a lot easier than head to the gym and do an elaborate workout routine each morning.

Wendy Wood
You got it, yup. Yeah, and that’s true in our jobs, too. There are some things we do that are relatively easy and straightforward and we can form habits for them pretty quickly, quickly being several months. But other things are just much more complicated and never ever become completely habitual.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I see.

Wendy Wood
So, let me give you an example, and this is all part of the idea, the evident research evidence that people have multiple components in their brain, multiple systems, that work somewhat separately. So, very productive writers, if you’re a productive writer and you’re pushing out those pages every day, you probably have a habit to write at a certain place, certain time of day, maybe you write for a certain number of hours, or get a certain number of words on the page. Most really productive writers have these habits that get them to writing. But the actual writing isn’t done out of habit.

Habit is too   a mechanism. That’s your creativity. So, habits and conscious thought, conscious decision-making creativity, they both, together, allow us to do very complex tasks but both are required because if you’re a great writer but you don’t have good habits, then you’re struggling to get yourself to write.

You’re struggling against yourself, “Do I want to do it today? Will I be successful? How do I do it?” You’re wasting all that energy before you even start writing. So, that’s why it’s so important to get your habits in sync with your goals, get them aligned with your goals, your conscious desires. And if you do that, then your habits will help you achieve them.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I like that. And I’m thinking, well, the quote that comes to mind, I think, has been attributed to many different writers is, “I write when I’m inspired and I make sure to be inspired at 9:00 a.m. each morning.”

Wendy Wood
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Which I kind of summarize as, “Okay, there are some creative things going on as well as a discipline, habituated thing going on seeded, hands on keys at that time and place.”

Wendy Wood
Yup, “And things are quite and nobody’s bothering me so I have a chance to actually be creative,” which is no guarantee. You’re not going to be creative every day. If you’ve written a lot, you know some days are just crap, you just don’t produce things that you want to keep. But if you have a habit to write, the next day you’ll be back there, and that day, things might work better.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you. Well, so let’s maybe apply some of these goodness that you lay out in your book, Good Habits, Bad Habits in terms of thinking about some professionals and habits they’d like to make or break, how do we start with break? Let’s say, folks are like, “I look at my phone too much. I’m always scrolling TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, email when I should be unplugged from work and rejuvenating but I just find myself, ‘Whoa, how did this happen?’ Here I am on my Facebook on the phone.” If folks have that habit they’d like to stop, what do we do?

Wendy Wood
It’s very understandable if people have that habit because our phones, and social media sites in particular, are designed to be very habit-forming. They are set up in ways that make it really easy for us to form habits to use them, in part just because we can take them everywhere. You can take your phone on the bus, you can take your phone to the office, you can take it into important meetings, people take it into the restroom. You can take your phone everywhere. It’s always accessible so it’s always available to be used, and it’s very rewarding. You get on your phone and you learn stuff. So, it has the components of habit formation built into it.

And the challenge is we need to control those forces in our lives, as you said. So, one way to do this is to make it a little bit harder for us to use the phone, and that’s not the way most people think about changing their habits. Most people think, “Okay, if I have a problem with using my phone too much, I need to make a decision, exert some willpower, figure out how to control this thing…”

Pete Mockaitis
“Become a hero.”

Wendy Wood
Exactly, become a hero. But your habit memory will long outlast your desire to control this behavior. Habit memories stick. They don’t go away very easily that some researchers think that once you have a habit, it never goes away. So, the best thing you can do is to put some brakes on it. And we call that adding friction to the behavior.

One great way of adding friction, if you’re in a meeting, is to take your phone and just put it face down because that reduces the cues that you will see to pick it up and look at it again. You’re not going to see the alerts in the same way. Another way is to form a habit of putting it in your briefcase, your backpack, your purse, and zipping it so that you actually have to unzip it in order to use it.

Now, all of this just sounds a little too simple, which is, I think, why people don’t do it but there’s great research evidence showing that it does work. In fact, probably the best evidence comes from anti smoking campaigns.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, do tell.

Wendy Wood
So, the last century, middle of the last century, about 50% of Americans smoked, and then we all learned that smoking causes cancer so we all got concerned about it, but our behavior didn’t change a whole lot. It didn’t change really until the government started putting friction on smoking. So, they banned smoking in public places so you can’t smoke in restaurants and bars anymore, can’t smoke in the office, which makes it just a little bit more difficult to keep being a smoker.

They added taxes onto the cigarette purchases so that’s a little bit more difficult to afford to be a smoker. And then they started removing cues, so that it used to be you could just go into the store and pull a packet of cigarettes off of the shelves, but you can’t do that anymore. You have to ask somebody for the brand…

Pete Mockaitis
To show your face in shame.

Wendy Wood
Exactly, for the brand that you smoke.

Pete Mockaitis
“I need nicotine from you.”

Wendy Wood
And you have to remember exactly what kind, and there are five different variants on every brand that’s out there, so you have to describe it to somebody. They make it work. You have to work for it. And anything you have to work for, people are less likely to do. So, that, now, with after removing cues and adding friction to smoking, only 15% of Americans actually smoke, which is an amazing success story but it was done through friction.

And friction on a behavior that’s even more addictive, more habit-forming than your phone, because there is an addictive component to smoking, obviously, it’s that nicotine jolt that you get when you smoke, but friction helps control it. So, thinking about your experience, in terms of friction, helps give you control over habits that you may not want to continue.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, that’s intriguing and I love a good story with numbers, so thank you for that. And now I’m thinking in contrast to e-cigarettes, like JUUL, really proliferating perhaps by just the opposite, like there’s so little friction in terms of, well, high school students like sneakily are using them in their schools because there’s no smell, there’s no need to light something up. It can be done, hide it in the bathroom or a locker, the exhale or whatever. Friends, family, colleagues can’t smell and judge you in terms of like, “Oh, you’re a smoker, huh?” so you don’t have that stigma there. You have a couple puffs without a whole cigarette.

Wendy Wood
Yeah, for high school students, it has all the benefits and few of the downsides until their parents figure out what they’re doing.

Pete Mockaitis
Until they get some friction, of course.

Wendy Wood
Yeah, parents can be friction in that case. Absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
Some real penalties. Okay. Well, so that’s really handy, so friction. Now, you mentioned in the book, context, repetition, reward. Where do we put friction in the context bucket or we make the context harder to do?

Wendy Wood
Exactly. You set up context that make repetition a little bit harder, require a bit more thought on your part. And it’s amazing how influenced we all are by the friction in our lives. There’s great evidence that people who are closer to gymnasiums actually work out more often, and that’s not how we think about working out.

We think we’re making a decision, we’re being admirable people, we’re showing willpower, we’re concerned about our health, and so that’s why we go work out. But, instead, another important determinant is how easy is it to get there? And if you can get to the gym easily, you’re just more likely to work out and have an exercise habit.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. So, that’s so powerful, it’s like, “How can I make this easier or how can I make it harder?” Can you just lay upon us example after example of cool stories you’ve heard of folks doing some clever things to do that? Well, one, you could move closer to a gym, which that might seem dramatic, but, hey, if that’s a priority for you. I’ve known people who have moved close to a gym, to a beach, to a forest, to a church, kind of whatever is kind of important and useful for them. They factor that into the planning because that context, that ease versus difficulty really does shape their behavior.

Wendy Wood
Yeah, it’s surprising how impactful it is in a variety of different domains. So, people who are sitting, so there’s one study where researchers gave people, in one condition, a bowl of butter popcorn and a bowl of sliced apples. And in one condition, the popcorn was right close to them and the sliced apples were way at the end of the counter. They could see them and they could reach for them but it was a bit of effort.

In another condition, the apples were right in front of them and the popcorn was at the end of the counter. Again, they could see it, they could smell it, and they could get there, and everybody was told, “Eat what you want.” So, when the apples were close to them, they ate a third less calories than when the popcorn was close to them. They weren’t any less hungry and it wasn’t like people changed their food preferences. Instead, it was just people eat what’s closer and are less likely to eat what’s farther away. We’re very simple in some ways. We’re very simple creatures. And this effect of friction on our behavior is very powerful.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. That’s cool. Well, more please. Can we think of some other fun stories of professionals who’ve done things to make things easier or harder and seen cool results from it?

Wendy Wood
Well, one of the ways that you can get exercise very easily in your life is to bike to work. And when communities put in bike lanes, people are just much more likely to bike, protected bike lanes. So, so often, you see these stripes painted down the middle of the road, and as a cyclist, I wouldn’t use them because they’re scary. Cars don’t give you much…they don’t stay away from you in the same way as in protected bike lanes where there’s some fence or some protection between you and the cars.

When cities put in protected bike lanes, people are just much more likely to cycle to work than when they don’t have protected bike lanes. And, again, we think that these things are our personal decisions, that we’re either good people or bad people for doing these different things, but, instead, we’re very influenced by the forces in our environment.

One of my favorite studies was done by a group of researchers in the 1980s, and they were in a four-story office building, and what they wanted to do was they wanted to convince people to take the stairs instead of the elevator while they were at work. So, they started doing just what we all do, which is they thought, “Well, I should convince people that this is the right thing to do.”

So, they put up signs all over the elevator, “Take the stairs, not the elevator. It’s good for the environment. It’s good for your health. Uses more calories. Doesn’t waste energy.” No effect. So, what they did is they decided to add a small amount of friction to using the elevator, and they slowed the closing of the elevator door by 16 seconds.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow, the whole process of closing the door takes 16 seconds?

Wendy Wood
More than it typically did, yup.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow.

Wendy Wood
They added 16 seconds to it.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s enough for me to be like, “Forget this. I’m out of here.”

Wendy Wood
Exactly. And that’s what happened, is that elevator use was cut by a third.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, really. I thought it would be way bigger. It’s like that sounds like an eternity.

Wendy Wood
You’re obviously an impatient person.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I can be.

Wendy Wood
But the really cool thing about the study was a month later, they put the elevator doors back to their original speed, and people kept taking the stairs because they’d formed a habit to do that and they weren’t going to mess with the elevator. They just kept taking the stairs. They’d learn how to do it, they figured out, “Yes, it is good for me. It gives me a little bit of a break in the middle of the day,” so they just continued to do it.

And, again, I’m not advocating people change the speed of the elevator door closing in their office, but simple friction tricks like that can be really powerful, much more so than convincing ourselves that something is right, something is the right thing to do.

Pete Mockaitis
And that’s an example of a really easy habit that sort of fits in naturally that lock in within a month, so cool beans. So, in good habits, bad habits, with the three bases of context, repetition, reward, it feels like we’ve hit context pretty thoroughly. Can we hear some best practices in the zone of repetition and reward that are within our actionable control?

Wendy Wood
Yeah. So, psychologists used to think that intrinsic motivation was most important, that there was something unique about intrinsic motivation, feeling good because of an activity while you’re doing the activity itself, finding things that make you feel good when you do them, that there was something unique, important, special about that.

And we’ve since learned that it doesn’t quite work that way. It’s just doing activities and having some positive experience. The positive experience doesn’t even have to come from the activity itself. So, researchers gone into kids’ classrooms – math classes – the kind kids don’t like, and played music, gave the kids food while they were doing math problems, gave them colored pens to use for the math problems, and the kids worked on the problems longer just because they felt it was more fun, it was more engaging, more rewarding to do it.

Those are not rewards that are part of math necessarily but if you add them in, they increase our enjoyment of the activity and make it more likely that we will repeat it again in the future so that we’ll form it into a habit. Those kids were more likely then to do math in the future and might form a habit to do their math homework.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s lovely. So, if we could make something more enjoyable from the ambiance, the lighting, the music, the design, the tools, then away we go. It’s true, I like working more with my PILOT Precise RT pen than some junk they gave me at the bank.

Wendy Wood
There you go. And people use this all the time with exercise. People do it intuitively with exercise. You might hate to work out at the gym but if you can listen to interesting podcasts, like this one, if you can find good music, a good book to read while you’re working out, it makes it much more interesting and much more fun, and you’re more likely to do it again in the future, forming a habit. So, you can add in rewards that don’t have anything to do with an activity, and it functions just like an intrinsic reward, something that comes from the activity itself.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s cool. So, with context, we can proactively think about how to shape things to make it easier or harder to do in the context. For reward, we can actively shape it so we can make something more pleasant or less pleasant. How do you make something less pleasant maybe? If I wanted to make looking at my phone less enjoyable, is there something I can do there?

Wendy Wood
Yeah, there sure is. You can put it to greyscale, take the colors out, and that does a couple of things. It removes cues because it makes it harder to distinguish the different icons and exactly what they are. Then it also removes the rewards. It makes it less interesting for us to get on social media and see different videos and pictures. So, it removes cues, removes rewards, something you can do to control phone use. Absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, very cool. And how about repetition? I guess, just do more or just do less, I don’t know. Anything clever we can do to work this lever?

Wendy Wood
Well, repetition is really a function of reward and things that are easy. So, repetition, you’re more likely to repeat a behavior if you enjoy what you’re doing and if it’s easy to do, so it’s a consequence of rewards and context friction.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’m curious, if I wanted to get a head start, really turbocharge getting a habit going, would it be worth my while to just try repeating something dozens of times, like, “Okay, I wake up, I put on my running shoes. Roll out of bed, put on my running shoes. Roll out of bed, put on my running shoes”? Like, is that a useful thing to do?

Wendy Wood
Sure, if you go running then.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I guess I was thinking about the actual, like, “For the next hour, I’m going to exit my bed and put on running shoes 50 times.” Is that useful?

Wendy Wood
I wouldn’t do it. I don’t think it’s worth it. I think it is worth it to figure out where to put your running shoes so that you’re most likely to put them on when you have time to go running, and actually walk outside with them and start running. So, finding time in your day, finding a way to structure in to make it easy for you to go running will be more successful.

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

Wendy Wood
I think habits in the workplace are often misunderstood because we tend to think of work as involving both innovation and habitual repetition, and we don’t realize how much our habits enable that innovation so they allow us to get to the point where we can be creative and innovative, and respond to the challenges that we all have at work.

If you have good habits then you’re not struggling with the preparatory stuff. Instead, you’re doing that automatically, and that sets you up to do what is going to be successful today in meeting the new innovative challenges at work.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. And, now, can you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Wendy Wood
I think my favorite quote was an inaccurate one by William James when he claimed that 99.9% of everyday activities are done out of habit. So, William James is a brother of Henry James, if you are an English major, and he is often considered to be the father of modern psychology. So, the fact that he was such a habit enthusiast is great. He didn’t have much data. He didn’t have anything to back up his speculation but he was a real enthusiast.

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

Wendy Wood
I think that probably my favorite study is the one that I already mentioned on elevator use but I can tell you one that we did that I think illustrates how hard it is to change our habits, and it was done at a local movie cinema. We got the people who ran the cinema to allow us to show some shorts at the beginning before people watched the actual movie they came to see, and, supposedly, to thank them for rating all of these movie shorts.

We gave them boxes of popcorn to eat. These were free. Everyone took them. And, unbeknownst to them, half of the popcorn was stale, and it was really stale. It had been in our lab for about a week in a plastic bag, so it was not great popcorn. Half got fresh popcorn. So, you see the setup. At the end of the presentation, we collected the boxes and we weighed them to see how much people actually ate.

And what we found is that people who didn’t have habits to eat popcorn at the movie cinema, and there are such people out there, they ate a lot of the fresh popcorn, they did not eat the stale popcorn because they could tell us, it was awful, and it was. But people with habits to eat popcorn in the movie cinema, they were sitting there, they were holding the popcorn, and they ate the same amount whether it was fresh or stale.

And it just shows that our habits are cued automatically even when we don’t want them to be. These people are telling us, “I hate this popcorn. It’s disgusting.” I actually don’t know that I’ve ever gotten such low ratings of anything in my lab before, so people really did hate it but they kept eating it because they were cued by the context that they were in. It’s easy, it’s what they’ve done before, it was their habit, and they just persisted. They repeated that behavior.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, there’s so much there and I believe I first heard of this experiment from Katy Milkman’s book. I think she cited you because I hear her voice in my mind’s ear in the Audible version, “Fresh popcorn.” And we had her on the show, and she was great. So, one, that’s really cool. Hey, that’s you. And, two, it’s like, “Whoa,” if you zoom out and think about it, that is a life metaphor. It’s like, “How much stale popcorn do we have going on in our lives that we’re just kind of mindlessly dealing with because it’s easy and it’s repeated, and that’s the context we’re in?”

Wendy Wood
You got it.

Pete Mockaitis
There’ll be some soul-searching there.

Wendy Wood
A lot of our habit, they work for us most of the time but not all the time, but we repeat them regardless of whether they working for us. And we repeat them even after they’ve stopped working for us most of the time. It’s just easier to do what you’ve done before than make decisions. And, as I said, we’re simple creatures. At least the habit system is quite simple.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite book?

Wendy Wood
Well, the classics are easy to identify as favorites because, early on in the field, psychologists were not only researchers, they were also philosophers, and so they like to think broadly about social behaviors, so it’s really fun to read some of the early thinking. William James, for example, his Principles of Psychology are really fun to read, in part, because he draws on personal experience as well as the research.

And one example is he talks about a friend of his who would come home for dinner and eat and then change into his pajamas. And if he got distracted and ended up in his bedroom before he ate dinner, he’d just change into his pajamas anyway regardless of who was showing up for dinner, what he was doing. And we all have this experience of continuing to do repeat behaviors that we’ve done in the past that, really, we didn’t mean to do right now, but it’s the nature of habit.

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

Wendy Wood
I think it has to be everybody’s favorite right now, it’s the computer. I’ve been around long enough so that I was writing before we were writing on keyboards. It makes you really appreciate what you got.

Pete Mockaitis
Is there a key nugget or articulation of your wisdom that you share that people go, “Oh, wow, that’s awesome,” they re-tweet it, they write it down, they Kindle book highlight it, they say, “Wendy said this, and it’s brilliant and we love it”?

Wendy Wood
No, there is no such thing.

Pete Mockaitis
You’re so modest.

Wendy Wood
No, although, let me give you an example that I give to people, and this is not brilliant. It’s just practical, demonstrating how much we don’t understand our own habits. And that is all of us can use a keyboard. We can all type on a keyboard, some really proficiently. But if I asked you to list out the keys on the second row of your keyboard, you probably couldn’t do that, can you?

Pete Mockaitis
I’m trying not to look. A, S, D, F, G, H, J, K, L. Yeah, that’s exciting.

Wendy Wood
You’re cheating.

Pete Mockaitis
I was like, “J, K, L all in rows, is that true? Yeah, it is.”

Wendy Wood
You see, you could type those things without any hesitation but actually repeating them back to me is hard because we haven’t stored it in our conscious memory. We stored it in habit memory system, and that shows you the difference, the separation, between the two.

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

Wendy Wood
@ProfWendyWood on Twitter or Instagram. I’m also on LinkedIn and I’d be very happy to converse with people about habits, habit change, challenges they’re experiencing in the workplace with habit.

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

Wendy Wood
Yeah. Be clear about what your goals are, and then make sure that your habits support them so that you don’t have to fight yourself in order to meet your goals. And so often, our biggest challenges are our own habits, what we’ve done in the past. You don’t want to put yourself in that position. You’d be much happier and you’d be much more successful if your habits and goals are aligned.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Wendy, thank you. This has been a treat. I wish you much luck with your habits and research and more.

Wendy Wood
Thank you so much. Great fun to talk to you.

Pete Mockaitis
Laura, thanks for joining us here on How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Laura Garnett
Thank you so much. I’m delighted to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to be talking about The Genius Habit, Find Your Zone of Genius. And I want to hear a little bit about some of your experiences.

Laura Garnett
Sure.

Pete Mockaitis
Judging dairy at Virginia State and doing it well. Apparently, you’re a genius at judging dairy. You’re a champion when 13. What’s the story and does this fit into any of your current endeavors?

Laura Garnett
That’s a great question. Yeah, I grew up on a dairy farm, and my dad was an actual farmer. And one of the things that he did…I was a member of 4H, and I don’t know, for those listening that maybe grew up on a farm, 4H was kind of the thing farm children do. But my dad was the coach for dairy judging so it was something that I definitely was involved in and it’s competitive.

You go to competitions, and, essentially, what you’re doing is that you’re taking a group of four cows, and you’re placing them in order of best to worst, and you do that about 20 different times. There’s like 20 different classes. And then you submit your scores, and then they’re calculated. And whoever scores the cows in the right place the most wins. And I tended to win a lot, which was interesting.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s so meta because you’re judging the cows and you’re being judged at how well you’re judging.

Laura Garnett
Well, there’s a lot of judging going on and, of course, that’s something that I talk a lot about that you want to avoid. But, yeah, I think the part of it that I was good at was that, at the end of the day, they would pick one of those 20 classes, or maybe it was 10, I can’t remember, randomly, and then you would have to stand up and give a speech to a judge by memory, and tell them why you selected one cow over the other. So, you would create this speech and then give it to them. And so, they were called reasons. And I, at the time, I was like wanting to be an actress, loved to be on stage, so the reasons were a lot of fun for me, and that made it interesting.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. That’s good. Well, kudos. And so, let’s talk about judgments a little bit, or this is a forced segue into let’s talk about The Genius Habit, finding your zone of genius. Can you maybe open us up with a story in terms of what’s really at stake here with regard to this body of work and what can it do for people?

Laura Garnett
Well, this was really borne from my own story of my life and my journey towards creating a career and work experience that I loved. And it started, and I talk about this in the book, but it started with just this massive career crisis that I had at all places Google. And it was one of those very complex situations where the world was telling me I was in the best company to work for, and inside, I was miserable and had one of the worst jobs that I’d ever had.

And prior to that, I’d been in the corporate world for seven years and had really only experienced promotions or success, lots of positive feedbacks. So, to be in a job where I didn’t feel good and I was also getting feedback that I wasn’t performing was devastating for me. And that situation just prompted this journey of inquiry, of starting to ask questions of myself and of the world in ways that I’d never asked before.

And I started thinking, “What is my purpose? Is it possible for me to experience fulfillment at work? And how can I…?” I’ve always been really driven, “How can I create the kind of success I want but experience something that’s nothing like this horrible feeling that I have in this moment?” Because in that moment of having this horrible job, I had no idea how to fix it. I was helpless.

And so, I went seeking answers, and when I really couldn’t come up with anything substantial, that’s when the journey started at solving it on my own. And that’s kind of where The Genius Habit was borne.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so then I’d love to get your view. I guess we’re going to zoom out shortly in terms of talking about the process and methodology, and how we can all find our zone of genius. But, I guess, in your particular case and instance, you went out seeking answers. And what was the answer? Why was it that this, allegedly, amazing job at Google wasn’t doing it for you?

Laura Garnett
Yeah. So, I started reading a lot of books. At the time, that was What Color Is Your Parachute? It’s a pretty famous book to read in the moment of career despair, and I also hired coaches. And the answers that I got was a lot of data and information on myself, which, at the time, was really interesting. And at one point, I think it was…

I don’t know if you’re familiar, another book I read, called The Pathfinder by Nicholas Lore. I loved that book. And what they said was, “If this book has resonated with you, you can take a test.” And I was thinking that the answer was just learn everything about myself. And I took their test, it took like…this was back, oh, my goodness, 14, 15 years ago. So, they sent me the test in the mail on paper, and I went to a café in New York City and was filling out the dots with a pencil, and then mailed back my test, and then they called me to say, “All right. Here are the results,” and they coached me to kind of help me understand the data.

It was fascinating because the coach told me, “Oh, well, you’re meant to be a rockstar or a professor.” And I thought, “Okay, that is overwhelming,” and it was kind of this weird feeling of, “Okay, I feel like maybe I’m learning more about myself but I don’t know what to do with this information,” and that’s exactly what the problem was. Too much information and not a plan or a way of changing the way I was operating to get a different result because what I did was in the midst of all of that data on myself, and I was pretty clear at that point I wasn’t going to be a rockstar and a professor.

Pete Mockaitis
Literally, a performer of rock and roll music, a musician. That’s what they mean by a rockstar?

Laura Garnett
It is. And I remember telling them, I said, “I played flute. I played the flute, like, eight years ago. I don’t think this is going to be my path.” It felt a little out of reach, let’s say. It felt a little out of reach. So, I started a job search, and I did something that pretty much all of my clients do in that moment of lacking clarity and understanding. I just took the first job offer that came my way because it looked good. It was a startup. It was at this Frank Gehry building in Chelsea, Manhattan that was actually walking distance from the Google offices that I’d been eyeing, like, “Oh, I want to work in that building.”

And all of the things that don’t matter at all were coming forth, and I said, “Oh, this is great. This is my next job,” and I went to that job and realized within a month that it was another…it was better than the worst job I had at Google, but it was still not a great fit, especially since I had all this information on myself, I was like, “This isn’t the right fit.” So, once again, I just didn’t know what to do.

And then I got laid off. The 2009 financial crisis hit when I was at that new job. And within nine months, the startup went down the drain and I got laid off. And I think, for me, and I’ve seen this with other people, that was like the line in the sand, where I said, “Enough is enough. I’m going to solve this on my own.”

And what I soon realized was that this information was overwhelming. When people read these books and they’re trying to figure out, “What do I do differently?” information overload doesn’t help. It kind of adds to the confusion. And what I saw that was missing was a way of operating, a habit, behavior habits that I didn’t have I needed to create, and what were those. And that was kind of what I started to see and distill in my research on the science, psychology, and neuroscience of success and performance, and I dove into that.

And then the methodology of The Genius Habit kind of came forth, but that was also a result of me committing to only doing work that was energizing and engaging, which was me using my genius. And that’s how it started.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Only doing work that’s energizing and engaging.

Laura Garnett
Absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
So, that’s a clear, you said, line in the sand. That’s a clear direct principal guideline. I think most listeners right now think, “Oh, yeah, that’d be nice.”

Laura Garnett
And that’s, honestly, like that’s step one. And, of course, I left the corporate world and woke up the next day, and said, “Okay, I’m going to create my dream job.” And the first step to doing that was to only do what I wanted to do. And that slowly led me, again, it took time before I got to doing what I’m doing right now, but that journey of starting to when things were boring or not exciting, I pivoted and I turned.

And, also, probably a couple years into that spaghetti-throwing process of, “I’m only going to do what I want do, and I’m going to solve this problem of creating my dream job and helping others do the same,” the methodology started to crystallize. And the first real structure of the methodology was the zone of genius framework, which essentially solves the very problem I had at Google, which was, “How can you get very clear very quickly about who you are?”

And once I saw my zone of genius, then things started to really explode for me. And in terms of getting more clarity and confidence, as well as the methodology and the business and the work experience, shifting completely.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, then it sounds like, in your own story, only doing what’s energizing and engaging kind of got things in motion for the discovery. It’s probably fair to say one ought not to tell their boss, immediately after listening to this episode, “Hey, update. I’m only going to do energizing and engaging, so find somebody else to do this.” Although, there’s job crafting can be done diplomatically and prudently.

Laura Garnett
That’s the genius habit.

Pete Mockaitis
Right.

Laura Garnett
That’s the genius habit. Diplomatically and strategically figuring out how to do only what excites you and motivates you. Absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
Sure thing. Well, before we get there to diplomatically articulate that request, what is this methodology by which we can discover, “Aha, this is my zone of genius”?

Laura Garnett
Yes. Well, lucky you, because when The Genius Habit came out this wasn’t available. But for all of your listeners, it is absolutely something they can go to right now, because I know everyone is multitasking, you can go to ZoneOfGeniusQuiz.com and take the Zone of Genius Quiz so you can figure out your zone of genius in probably 10 or 15 minutes.

And, essentially, what the Zone of Genius framework is meant to do is to be a cheat sheet for understanding very quickly who you are and, specifically, what will keep you engaged intellectually, and what will keep you intrinsically motivated at work. So, if you take all of the science and psychology of performance, and you distill it, these are the two datapoints that have to be present in order for you to experience peak performance. Two datapoints.

That, to me, was extremely liberating because, again, going back to my experience at Google, I was experiencing data overload. So much information on myself, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. And when you boil it down to these two datapoints, again, making decisions and navigating moments that are directing towards excitement and motivational work becomes easier because you can easily say, “Okay, am I able to use my genius?” which is the thinking or problem-solving that I’m best at. That checks the intellectual engagement box.

And, “Does the impact I’m doing provide my purpose?” which is the second datapoint, your purpose. And your purpose is connected to your psychology. It’s connected to a core emotional challenge that you’ve had in your life, which we can dig into because that’s kind of a deep topic as well. But the zone of genius framework is just those two simple datapoints – your genius and your purpose.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Lovely. Let’s dig into each of these. So, how do we discover our genius? So, we got this quiz.

Laura Garnett
Yes, you’ve got the quiz.

Pete Mockaitis
So, go do that. And maybe, could you tell us any other kind of means of gathering clues or what the typology kind of looks like on the other side of that?

Laura Garnett
Yeah. Well, essentially, at its basic form, it’s the thinking or problem-solving that you’re best at. So, it is hard to be objective about yourself because you are not on the receiving end of your thinking and problem-solving. So, that’s what makes it more difficult to see sometimes, which is where the quiz can come in handy. But the easiest way to see it is to think of moments where you were super highly engaged and energized by the thinking or problem-solving that you were doing, and just be present. Be really deeply thoughtful about it and start to notice what exactly was the thinking or problem-solving that created that excitement and engagement. And that begins kind of those are the breadcrumbs of your genius.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, you’ve identified just a few key different types or flavors of genius. Could you share with us the names and just maybe a quick what does it kind of look, sound, feel like in practice?

Laura Garnett
Yeah. So, another way that the work has evolved since the printing of the books is that I’ve identified four main categories of genius types. Now, this is really helpful to know when you’re in a team, “What is the category?” but each genius name is unique. So, the categories are Maximizer, that means that you like to take something that already exists, and make it better; there’s Visionary. A Visionary person, and this speaks to with the end result of your genius. A Visionary can easily see what is possible.

A Driver is someone who, the end result of their genius is a goal is accomplished, a solution is solved. Their whole genius process is focused on the art of accomplishing something, finishing something. And then the last one, the fourth one, is a Builder, meaning that you’d like to take something where nothing exists before, and you like to build it, and you create something that has never existed before. And the quiz will actually slot you into the category that’s right for you, but give you a unique name for your genius.

So, my genius is a Visionary Insight Excavator. And, essentially, what that means is that the end result of my genius is that I can see what is possible, but the way that I see that possibility is by seeing patterns in data and getting insights. And those insights then inform the possible, what is possible.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. So, we’ve got the categories, and within the categories we’ve got some sub-facets. I don’t know what you want to call it.

Laura Garnett
Yeah. And here’s a way to think about it. Because if you’re working in a team of people, it’s really helpful. It’s kind of harder to know all the specific names of the geniuses. It’s kind of like learning everyone’s first name. You can do it. But the categories are you’re able to easily see themes, and it’s also easier to think of this is a tool for efficiency and prioritization because, again, that’s another way of moving towards exciting work and moving away from boring work. It’s just to reprioritize and to collaborate with others, or figure out, “What is the right work for the right person?”

And when you know these categories of your teammates, then it’s easier to diagnose or be able to pinpoint, “Okay, this project involves building something from scratch? Are there any Builders here?” And that can really make that process a lot easier.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Lovely. Well, then let’s hear the second part, the impact that provides your purpose, and that often connects to some personal history. Walk us through this part.

Laura Garnett
Yeah. So, this datapoint is all about intrinsic motivation. So, at the heart, and this, again, I’m pulling from the science of peak performance and success in the sense that the only way for you to have positive energy at work is to be intrinsically motivated. And for those of you who don’t know that means, it means that motivation comes from within. It’s not that you’re doing something for the paycheck. Extrinsic motivation is when you are driven to do something for the reward, and you can Google all of this. There’s so much research on the fact and the downside of extrinsic motivation versus intrinsic motivation.

The problem is that most people just don’t know what is it that’s going to intrinsically motivate because everyone would probably sit here and say, “I want to be purpose-driven. I want intrinsic motivation,” but don’t have any understanding of how to create that because it has to come from within yourself, which is why it’s connected to your psychology which is, again, when I saw this in people, it was astounding. It was fascinating because we never really associate our psychology with work performance and, yet, it’s integral.

And so, that’s the purpose datapoint, which is it is the impact on others or in the world that is most motivating to you, but in order to get to that, you need to understand what your own core emotional challenge has been throughout your life. And when you understand and label and put language to that core emotional challenge, and then you flip it, that becomes your purpose.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, please, give us some examples of some core emotional challenges and how they got flipped into purpose on the other side.

Laura Garnett
Of course. So, my core emotional challenge is not being seen or understood. So, for me, what is endlessly intrinsically motivating is helping other people see and understand themselves. And it’s fascinating because even the most subtle example of me helping someone understand themselves lights me up. It gives me endless energy. And I have seen this be the case with almost everyone once they accurately see that core emotional challenge, that the reverse of it is endlessly motivating because the reason for this is because that core emotional challenge is so painful.

When I think of it, I could cry. There are so many instances, it makes me emotional just to think of it. And so, you are unconsciously helping others to avoid having that same pain. And I’ve seen people are doing this and not even aware that they’re doing it, which is what’s so amazing about putting language to it is that you see it. It was happening before but now you see it, and you get the added bonus of you’re tapping into motivation that’s there for you. You just didn’t know it was there. It’s free.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, cool.

Laura Garnett
It’s super cool.

Pete Mockaitis
Free motivation sounds great.

Laura Garnett
Yeah, you just have to buy the book and then it’s free.

Pete Mockaitis
So, with the core emotional challenge, likewise, are these sorts of a few categories that they fall into, or is it everyone is completely unique, emotional challenge happening?

Laura Garnett
There are definitely similar. I have not bucketed that one into a series of four parcels because I find that when it comes to one psychology, that while we are all similar, in the same way that there are these categories of geniuses, that the nuances of our psychological experiences are infinite. And, therefore, it is actually really important, and this is something that I’ve gotten clear on, it’s really important to find the right language that speaks to that unique psychological pain that you experienced, so there should be infinite. There’s infinite possibility with that.

Like, in the quiz, I’ve taken all of the core emotional challenges that I’ve seen, and I think what you can do is try to find one that is similar to yours. But I always encourage people that getting kind of the genius and purpose language to begin with is a starting point. And we’ll talk about what the genius habit is because that’s the next step. But the second step is for you to feel free to refine the language as you learn more and more about yourself so that it is correct.

I’ve kind of rethought myself for the core emotional challenge. What, for me, feels very powerful is the word understood. That resonates with me to my core. But, again, as I continue to grow and evolve and learn, I’m always asking myself, “Is it that word?” And so, there’s always kind of an opportunity to refine that to make sure that it’s the right language.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, could you give us a couple other core emotional challenges?

Laura Garnett
Sure. There are infinite ones. I could give you some examples of other clients. I think what’s interesting about it though is that most people think they know what motivates them. I’m always surprised that people will say, and we tend to be over-generalized what gives us purpose. So, for example, and this is why this work, and The Genius Habit, and knowing your zone of genius, is a habit of awareness. It’s an invitation to go deeper and understand even more details of yourself, and the power that that then brings.

But some people will say, “Well, I love helping people,” or, “I like managing people. That’s what intrinsically motivates me.” And then I’ll say after I work with them and I understand their core emotional challenge, the precise language might be, “Being a catalyst for someone’s exponential growth.” And that language is then connected to a specific story or a specific series of events in their childhood where they were actually seeking support and could never find it, and always felt a loss of someone just helping them catapult.

And so, for this person, that language catalyzing someone’s potential is meaningful for them to the bone. Another one that I’ve seen recently is not feeling alone. And to that person, before kind of creating the more refined language, they would’ve said, “I really love motivating people.” That is what they would’ve said is their purpose, motivating them. But what this person really did was make them not feel alone.

Now, what’s interesting is that when you ask other people, this was a very senior leader, when you would ask their team for feedback, that purpose would come out. When I would see it in this person and then I would then look for it in feedback, it’s there. They would say, “Oh, he’s always there for me. He’s always present.” And so, then as a leader to know, “Wait a second. This is the precise way that I impact people in a positive way,” it’s really powerful in terms of knowing what kind of leader they are. And this particular leader, for example, is exceptional at helping people not feel alone.

And when you think about that for a while, there are a lot of people in the business world who feel alone in terms of from their manager. A lot of people I meet would say, “I see my manager once a month, once every three months. They don’t know what I’m doing. I feel very disconnected.” So, to be working with someone where they never feel alone is really powerful. And that’s something that this person, he never would’ve articulated his purpose in that way before.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s powerful. Well, Laura, maybe to help readers get a bit more flavor for what this journey of self-discovery might look like for them, can we spend a few minutes on me?

Laura Garnett
Of course.

Pete Mockaitis
Because I think with core emotional challenge, what I think…I’ve heard some call it the idol of performance, or how it feels to me is like, “I really like feeling like a winner, and I really hate feeling like a loser.” And so, it’s funny. I guess I’m kind of competitive but not like…and I’m not super athletic so I guess I’m not that competitive like I’m going to scream at someone on a soccer field, but I guess it’s sort of like I really like seeing my podcast numbers go up and I really don’t like seeing them go down.

I remember one time I had a not-so great review at work, and I remember I said, which was really odd as I look back at it, I said, “That’s not who I am.” And the right response for the review would’ve been, “Of course, it’s not you. It’s one review for one work period.” It wasn’t that horrible. It’s not your identity. So, that’s kind of my first guess as to a core emotional challenge. But how might you lead me?

Laura Garnett
Well, tell me a little bit more about that. What do you mean? So, how would you phrase that core emotional challenge?

Pete Mockaitis
I guess my core emotional challenge is like I like…

Laura Garnett
Don’t like to fail.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, no, that’s true. I don’t like to fail. Although, it’s not disastrous. I’ve had a few businesses that had zero revenue, and it wasn’t like soul-crushing, I was just like, “Oh, bummer.” But I guess it’s when it gets a little bit more personal in terms of it’s like, “Ooh, I am winning,” or, “I am losing.” And when I’m winning, I feel like very rejuvenated, like, “Oh, yes, yes, yes,” and when I’m losing, it’s like, “Ah.”

Laura Garnett
Well, that’s an interesting topic that you’re bringing up because what you’re referring to is what I call, there’s a chapter in The Genius Habit about this called The Achievement Junkie. And so, when you’re looking at the science of performance, and this is pretty typical in the sense that, first off, we are an achievement-based society. So, that’s one of the big themes of my work is to dismantle a lot of the rules that we’ve been taught about success from society, and this is one of them, which is achievements equal success.

We’re also dealing with our brains. So, when you achieve something, you get a hit of dopamine in your brain. It feels good. So, in many ways, it’s very easy to think of achievement as actually happiness at work. But I, and, again, I call that kind of like the sugar version of happiness at work. It’s very short-lived and it’s just not sustainable. You’ll crash very soon afterwards. And everyone can relate to that feeling of you win something, and you’re like, “Woohoo, this is great. This is awesome.” And the next day you’re like, “Wait. It’s all gone. I don’t feel any different,” which is why things like this is extrinsic motivation at work, which is why then you have to go get another achievement. You have to win something else to get a little shot of that good feeling.

So, what I would want to help you understand and unravel is that you have an achievement junkie tendency, which everyone has, and if you kind of peel that layer back, your core emotional challenge is underneath that. It’s deep in your psyche and it’s unconscious. So, one question I would say to you is, or ask is, “When was the last time you felt exceptionally fulfilled or intrinsically motivated by an impact you had?” Like, you felt…and I don’t know your personality type, if you’re a feeler or a thinker, and if you actually feel things in your body or it’s all mental. But it’s an example of just feeling, like in that moment, “This is the impact I want to have in the world. This feels right.” Do you have a moment?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it’s hard to identify like an exceptional peak because, in many ways, it’s sort of doing my daily work. There’s a lot of that in terms of I think it’s really awesome to talk to you and discover some things, and then share it with the world. And it feels very edifying when there’s a very genuine compliment, an email, a comment, on the blogpost or whatnot. Like, that listener picked up some real stuff of value, and they have been positively transformed as a result. I think that’s awesome.

Laura Garnett
So, is it that transformation? If someone says, “Pete, I was just transformed from that podcast,” does that do anything for you?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah. That’s awesome.

Laura Garnett
So, what about that is awesome? Why is it…is it “transformation” in particular?

Pete Mockaitis
I think so. What are the alternatives?

Laura Garnett
Well, if I said to you, “I was energized,” does that…?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I guess that’s nice but it’s not as good.

Laura Garnett
Okay. There you go. See, the language, you’re having a different reaction. So, honestly, the core emotional challenge can take some time to dig into. I don’t know if we have time to do that today, but some people, it’s really on the surface, and for others, it’s very deep because it’s often with our psychology, something we’re not aware of, or we’re not paying attention to it, and it does require kind of going into a painful place, which some people are more comfortable with than others.

And you can think of, and when I work with my clients, we go through their whole life story in about an hour and a half. And there are invariably, and maybe this will kind of spark some thoughts, but invariably, people, everyone has these moments of pain, or moments that they…because we don’t…I don’t know how old you are, but at a certain point you forget a lot of your childhood. But everyone has these very specific memories that are really precise, like, “Oh, when I was in third grade, and this teacher did XYZ, I’ll never forget that.” Do you have any stories like that that come to mind?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it’s funny. You got me all over the place here. I remember one time, I think I was talking about, I don’t know, chess or something with my dad, and were like ratings because I thought that was an interesting concept, “Oh, chess ratings to see who is the best mathematically.” And it’s like, “So, dad, do you think my rating might be this or this?” And he was like, “Why is it always with the winning with you?” I was like, “Oh, okay.” Kind of startled.

And then another time, I think I was really putting some pressure on myself to get straight A’s in high school, and my mom was like, “Hey, just so you know, we don’t need that from you and we don’t expect that from you, and we will love you, and it’s completely okay if you get some B’s and C’s.” But I guess I was like, “Well, my brother was a valedictorian, therefore, I have to be a valedictorian.” So, in a way, it’s kind of funny. I’m thinking about sort of like the cautionary bits as opposed to like a particular wounding. And then as we think about impact, I guess I’m thinking about times I felt really…

Laura Garnett
Well, wait a second. Those are two very juicy stories.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Laura Garnett
Those are really good because what that tells me is that you were on this path of achievement, “I’m going to win at all costs.”It’s interesting you just did a reaction. You said, when your dad was like, “What’s with the winning?” and you’re just like, “Ah,” there was this frustration there. And at the root of frustration is disconnection. And in both of those scenarios, there’s kind of, I feel like from both of your parents, there’s this questioning, as you just said it too. Questioning. Why?

Pete Mockaitis
And I think it was well-intentioned questioning.

Laura Garnett
Right, of course.

Pete Mockaitis
In terms of they really wanted me to like, “Hey, man, don’t give yourself a panic attack. You’re great. You don’t need to overdo it.”

Laura Garnett
Well, here’s another question. When someone questions you, does it trigger you? Meaning, do you get frustrated very easily?

Pete Mockaitis
You know, it’s funny. And sometimes, yes, Most of the time, no. And I don’t know the difference. But, Laura, I love what…I think we’ve got enough of a sample, and not that I’m chickening out. We can do this again later.

Laura Garnett
Well, you know, what I would say, just to tie a bow on that, here’s what I would say to you is that this idea of someone questioning you is something to inquire upon, think about it. Think about it and I would say start looking, and that’s where The Genius Habit comes in because you can get a tracker and start to pay attention of the moments where you are questioned. And that might be a breadcrumb to your core emotional challenge.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, now the conversation we just had there, it sounds like within your books and the quizzes, folks can have a bit of that conversation internally. And, of course, folks can hire you, always an option.

Laura Garnett
Of course.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, how else might you recommend folks engage in these sorts of discovery conversations?

Laura Garnett
I would say this is really at the heart of all of this, is it’s an invitation for individuals, especially highly driven people that want to do a lot with their lives, to do it in a way that feels good. I think one of the biggest areas of opportunity that I’ve seen is that success that looks one way, looks good but it doesn’t feel good. And what I would welcome people to do is buy the book, learn The Genius Habit, but see it as a way of getting more powerful in terms of leveraging one of the greatest powers you have, which is being who you are, and then being able to advocate in your existing role or in a new role for work that, going back to what we said before, is energizing and exciting, and that that opportunity is always available to you.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. Well, that is a nice little bow, indeed. And, Laura, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about a few of your favorite things?

Laura Garnett
The last thing I would say is we didn’t really get to talk about the tracker, and I would say that is just a very fundamental component of The Genius Habit so I would encourage everyone, that’s basically what I said to you, which is go deeper with this thing of questioning. Anyone here listening can go to my website and download a performance tracker, the zone of genius tracker. And with that alone, you can begin to get more connected to yourself and understand your own zone of genius, and be able to create work and advocate for work that feels as good as it looks. So, that’s available to you all.

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

Laura Garnett
Joseph Campbell, “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” And I feel like that quote is just kind of a beautiful articulation of everything that I’m all about.

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

Laura Garnett
There is so much research that I cite in “The Genius Habit” and “Find Your Zone of Genius.” I would say, you know what, at the heart of all this, especially because we talked about where this all began, is that my love for Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and the book Flow, and all of the research that he did on peak performance. And one of the things that he said that came through his research, which has fueled me, is that, “We are happiest when we’re working, but only when that work creates flow, or you are in the zone.” So, that’s a favorite one.

Pete Mockaitis
And any other favorite books?

Laura Garnett
About a million, but I would say Flow is on the top of my list. I love that book. I’m also a big Adam Grant fan, so anything Adam Grant writes I think is fantastic. He’s gotten really popular these days. Anything based on any new research on performance or happiness or success, I’m all over. Oh, and Dan Gilbert. He’s another favorite author of mine. Stumbling on Happiness is a fantastic one because, speaking of research, we think we know what will make us happy, and Dan Gilbert’s book really help you understand that what we think has no real validity when it comes to what really will make us happy. So, that’s a good one.

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

Laura Garnett
Well, I’m going to talk about my tracker. I just love it. I also have, I love tracking. And for those listeners who are trackers, the tracker is like a Fitbit for your work experience. So, I use it every week and I have done so for 10 years, so that’s my favorite tool.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Laura Garnett
Other than the fact I do have an Oura Ring, which is one of my all-time favorite tools that I use. I don’t know if you’re familiar with an Oura Ring.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’ve heard of it, and they’ve almost sponsored the show. I don’t know what the holdup was, guys. Just, if anyone’s listening, because I was excited.

Laura Garnett
Come on. One of your favorite customers is here. This is great. I’m a huge fan of the Oura Ring. I’ve been using it for like four or five. I’ve probably used it longer than most. I’m an early adopter when it comes to tracking things.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, we can dork out about that for a long time, but maybe for just one minute. Okay. If we already have a Fitbit, is the Oura Ring going to do anything above and beyond what the Fitbit is doing for me?

Laura Garnett
I went from a Fitbit to an Oura Ring, and I have to say, again, as someone who…I didn’t like having it on my wrist. I preferred it on my finger.

Pete Mockaitis
So, form factor preference.

Laura Garnett
But from a data perspective, I would say Fitbit has also evolved tremendously. I would say they’re all amazing. I think, for me, what makes the Oura Ring so great is just the fact that it’s just a ring versus anything on my wrist.

Pete Mockaitis
And it looks cool.

Laura Garnett
And because you can wear it with a dress, not that we’ve worn dresses, not in the pandemic, but I hope to in the near future.

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

Laura Garnett
Well, this was a quote I shared in the pandemic, and I think that resonated, which was, “When everything is uncertain, the one thing that’s certain is being who you are.” And it’s actually something I said in an interview, and I ended up putting it on a mug right here, and I think about it a lot myself. I think it’s very grounding to think about that when at a time in our world where there’s a lot of uncertainty.

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

Laura Garnett
To my website, to LauraGarnett.com where you can download the tracker, you can certainly go and purchase Find Your Zone of Genius” and The Genius Habit, and, of course, go take the Zone of Genius Quiz, that’s at the ZoneOfGeniusQuiz.com. Go check it out. And please let me know. And, of course, I also, if you go to the website, I have a newsletter. I send out free advice and thoughts, and I’m always talking about kind of what’s new and present for me in my newsletter that comes out every three weeks, and it’s called The Fast Track.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have any final challenges or call to actions for folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Laura Garnett
I’m going to kind of build off of what you said. I think I just want to help people understand that having work that is energizing, fun, fulfilling, that that actually is not a fantasy, and it is all readily available to you, and it starts with knowing who you are, and building new habits. So, I would just say, if that is a dream you have that you haven’t achieved, there is a way. And I would certainly love to help you with this work.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Laura, thank you. This has been a treat. And I wish you much fun and genius moments.

Laura Garnett
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. This has been so fun.

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

Jennifer Kahnweiler
It is my pleasure, Pete. Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to dig into your wisdom and I’m also excited to hear your story. This morning, in the gym, there was a lot of Beatles playing, and you actually had an encounter with Paul McCartney. What’s the story here?

Jennifer Kahnweiler
Oh, my gosh, this story pops up in family lore time and again. We were vacationing out on Eastern Long Island where I grew up on in the New York area, and the kids were little then, probably your kids’ ages, and we were just having a casual Sunday stroll, and there was nobody on the street in the little town called Amagansett. And my daughter was turning to talk to me and she was knocked down by a bicycle, by a kid on a bike.

And, of course, as a parent, you jump up. She was fine. She was okay. She just was a little bit startled. And we heard, and I’m not going to try to imitate the British accent but Bill and I, my husband, we looked at each other in one second as we were looking at our daughter, and we realized that it was…I was looking right into the eyes of my favorite Beatle, Paul McCartney. And he couldn’t have been nicer and made his son apologize for being careless, so I was impressed by that. And I got to have my Beatles encounter.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that is memorable and extra…

Jennifer Kahnweiler
It was.

Pete Mockaitis
…not just, “Oh, there he is in the airport,” but…

Jennifer Kahnweiler
There you go. And I listened to the Beatles channel, too, on the radio so I always think about him. Interesting thinking about personalities, the Beatles have been so analyzed to death, but people talk about the opposite personalities of him and John, and who is the introvert, who is the extrovert, heard that question come up. I’m not quite sure, but I think Paul is pretty introverted. I’ll ask him the next time I see him.

Pete Mockaitis
Next time, yeah. Well, yeah, so we’re going to talk about introversion here. And, boy, you’ve spent quite a boatload of time studying this topic and writing multiple books, The Introverted Leader, Quiet Influence, Creating Introvert-Friendly Workplaces. So, wow! Tell us, from all of this work, any particularly surprising or fascinating discoveries that you’ve made along the way?

Jennifer Kahnweiler
Well, I tell you what, I came into this work 12 years ago, I started writing, but I think the greatest discovery is, oh, if there’s a great one, is that the definition of introversion and the awareness of introversion, the definition has kind of morphed, and the awareness is basically worldwide now. So, that’s been a surprise.

I didn’t realize, it wasn’t just for my work, believe me, but there was a whole cadre of us in the beginning, including Susan Cain and others, who started dipping into this topic because it had made such a difference in, I’ll speak for myself and my own life as a person married to an introvert for 48 years now, that personally helped me navigate my marriage as one lens. It’s not the only one for sure. But as I started working in organizations, that was a really, really helpful lens to look through.

And I realized a lot of people didn’t realize, A, that they were possibly introverted and that’s why they were having a challenge in our type A organizations, and, B, others didn’t understand introversion. So, that’s probably the biggest kind of nice surprise as the journey has gone on, Pete, really.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so now I’m intrigued. The definition has morphed. I mean, I am a certified Myers-Briggs practitioner. It’s been a while since I’ve done a workshop.

Jennifer Kahnweiler
Nice. Nice.

Pete Mockaitis
I don’t know if I’m still in good standing with the organization.

Jennifer Kahnweiler
I don’t think it matters. No, I think you’ll be fine.

Pete Mockaitis
So, I have a definition in my mind about what introversion is. So, tell us, how has it evolved?

Jennifer Kahnweiler
I think the biggest change that has occurred is that it’s not as discreet as we once might’ve thought. We said, and just to kind of backtrack a little bit, introversion is about energy, and extroversion is about energy, and introverts, the typical understanding of that is introverts get their energy from within. They’re in their heads, they’re thoughtful, they kind of think before they speak, etc. Extroverts tend to get energized by other people. But that’s really pretty simplistic, really, if you think about it.

And so, we’ve come to, now, morphed into, it’s more of a spectrum. Like, a lot of areas that we talk about, including different kinds of autism. All kinds of things are now more of it’s not either/or, it’s not binary.

And so, it’s about what you identify with. There are people, as you know, that most of us are really sort of more towards the middle of the Bell curve anyway, right? I don’t know about yourself, and I have morphed more over to the introvert side even though my friends don’t always believe me about that. My editor even told me that on my last book, before our last meeting, he said, “Jennifer, I think you’ve become more introvert. I think you are an introvert.” I said, “No, I haven’t gone that far.” But he goes, “You’re prepared for meetings. You listen really well.” He was ticking off all the strengths of an introvert.

So, I think people do flex over time, Pete, really. And so, I think that’s where there’s been some more forgiveness and openness to some people say they’re ambiverts. Have you heard that term?

[06:05]

Pete Mockaitis
I have, yeah.

Jennifer Kahnweiler
Ambiverts, people identify that. Not as many, there hasn’t been much research on that, but people who go back and forth. And as you know from Myers-Briggs’ work, Carl Jung said we develop over time. So, we do tap into those other sides of ourselves. So, I’m very happy about the fact that we’re not just kind of defining it in one structured way, that there is more flexibility according to the person.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, given that, you mentioned some strengths of introverts. Can you share maybe a cool story? So, your book is The Introverted Leader, and more, could you share with us a cool story about an introvert who just saw some phenomenal results in their career and some of the strengths that they brought to the table that are pretty typical of introverts?

Jennifer Kahnweiler
One that I would think about is a woman named Jill Chang approached me

This woman, Jill Chang, was in Taiwan and Jill reached out to me, she said, “I just wrote a book. I was inspired by you and some others to really tap into and own my introversion. And it made such a huge difference in my life to see my strengths not as weaknesses but the fact that I spend the time preparing, the fact that I’m such a really great listener…”

And this happens a lot, Pete, with folks. They will get more confident because then you start to realize it’s not a liability, this is actually a differentiator that you have from extroverts. So, she did, she named all these things and she wrote me this long email and said, “Would you endorse a book?” And, of course, I was happy to. she went on then to write the book. It became like the number one bestseller in Taiwan, multiple weeks. We were able to introduce her to our publisher here and the book has come a few months ago in English. It came out in Taiwanese. And she became a superstar in her country, I should say.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool.

Jennifer Kahnweiler
Quiet Is a Superpower. And so, there’d been many people around the world now, I had a chance to speak in a number of countries, and it was really cool to see the awakening there, so that would be an additional thing I would say. The whole awareness, globally now, has legs and people like Jill are making such a difference in their world. And what’s been also cool is all we’ve been able to collaborate on multiple webinars and presentations with people around the world, too, who are introvert authors, introvert coaches.

I got to tell you, when I started out in this, people like you took the Myers-Briggs so you knew about it, but many people were like, “What? How could you be an introvert and be a leader?” It was a lot of selling, a lot of educating and awareness, so that’s been so gratifying.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. Well, so let’s hear about some of these, the “Quiet Is a Superpower,” and some of these strengths. Can you enumerate a few of them for us?

Jennifer Kahnweiler
Sure. Sure. Well, one of them is thinking and not just saying what’s on the top of your mind. So, it’s giving deep reflection, and depth versus breadth is oftentimes what we say, depth with relationships too. Introverts don’t have any patience for small talk often but they have a lot of really great relationships with people – depth versus breadth. Observation.

I mentioned preparation, that’s one of the things that comes up a lot of the time. It’s being able to spend the time ahead of the interview to really think about, “What are the points you want to make? What’s the agenda for the meeting?” All of the aspects of being successful in an organization where you’re not just winging it, where you’re really giving really deep thought, and that really contributes to innovation, to creativity, and all of those great things.

And then, really, I would say the other real strength that I think we saw this come out more in the pandemic is the quiet, being able to take quiet time, being able to embrace silence because that is really when the beautiful inspiration occurs.

I remember one day coming home from work and seeing my 6-year-old in the driveway doing some of her fantasy, just twirling around. We had gotten her a tape of Gene Kelly and Ginger Rogers. She was pretending that she was like dancing and in her world. Then she caught my eye, and that moment was kind of gone. She ran into the house, threw her umbrella down, where she was doing “Singing in the Rain.” That was the end of that moment. And I always remember that scene because that is what happens so much. We have that interruption from outside forces but also from ourselves where we don’t take the time to really sit.

And I will say for myself, one of the real beauties, and I’ve heard this from other extroverts, is that we were forced in lockdown to do that, to go within. Did you notice that as well? I mean, it was really a change this past year.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure. It’s like you just had fewer options available. And so, you had to find something good there, for sure.

Jennifer Kahnweiler
Right. So, exactly. So, I would say those are…there were so many more. Writing is another one, how introverts express themselves is so beautiful. A lot of writers are introverted. And so, those are some of the key ones. There are so many more, of course.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s funny, that story with introversion, extroversion, I tend to prefer extroversion. And I remember when I was little, I was also kind of doing my own thing, and I believe I was Captain America or some superhero fighting bad guys, and I was like punching the air and making noises, all that stuff.

Jennifer Kahnweiler
That sounds great on your mic.

Pete Mockaitis
And then my mom came in, and I, too, was kind of embarrassed, like, “Ahh,” like, “What are you doing?” But it was funny, my reaction was I felt a little sheepish but I just kind of said, “Well, you see, mom, I was being Captain America, and there were some guys who needed…”

Jennifer Kahnweiler
You had to explain yourself, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
But, yeah, that’s what I did. And she said, “Oh, okay, that’s great. Well, carry on.”

Jennifer Kahnweiler
Well, no, that’s great that your mom allowed you to do that because it’s one thing I will say is that, and I’m really starting to explore this with some research with a woman who’s doing more work with children and youth and teachers, because I really think that’s where the opportunity is now. Where we really need to start is working with young people to give them permission to do that, whether they be introverts or extroverts. Having that time in your head, it’s precious, but there’s so much external force, and, “He doesn’t talk up enough in class,” and you get graded down for that, all of this bias in our society.

And it really hit me when I was doing career coaching for a number of years. Before I wrote my book, I had a career coaching practice, and I would see lawyer after lawyer come in or professionals who felt they had really poor self-esteem. And a number of them, when I traced back to what was going on, they were more introverted and they had internalized that perception of themselves as not being sociable and not having the interpersonal skills to be successful in the work world. And so, I had to do a lot of sort of unpacking of that with them.

We need to give everybody a chance to reflect. So, all of these qualities, whether it be at school or in the workplace, are positive for all of us. It’s going to create better results.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Jennifer, let’s take this moment for listeners to maybe have some of those aha moments, some of those liberations. You said that the lawyers were feeling stressed and inadequate or inferior or troubled because they had internalized messaging that was kind of, I guess, anti-introvert, if that’s a fair characterization.

And so, can you lay it on us in terms of like what are some of those epiphanies, those revelations, that folks tend to have, it’s like, “Oh, that’s not a problem or a bad thing, but just the way I prefer to run my brain and totally okay and, in fact, often advantageous”? Can you share that with us?

Jennifer Kahnweiler
Yeah. Well, it’s not always immediate that you turn around that negative thinking because it’s been years that it’s been ingrained in you, whether consciously or not consciously by others. And I don’t think parents or teachers ever meant to give us those messages. It’s also the systems that we’re in to not encourage that. But I will say I do have an image in my head of you do speaking as well, Pete.

When I do this, I’ll do a talk about introvert strengths, or that’s a piece of the talk where we’ll talk about strengths, we talk about challenges. And when I ask the audience to just say for me…I’ll get them started, “Well, what’s an introvert strength that you think?” And people will, one by one, kind of warm up, “They’re great observers,” or, “They’re great deep thinkers,” things we talked about.

You will, literally, when you’re in a live audience, I will literally see people sit up in their chairs even like higher. I mean, I don’t think I’m just visualizing that. And the comments that I get after talks and after training sessions, and what people write in the chats, is that they feel grateful to know this. It’s like, “Aha!” It’s like the first time. I don’t know if you felt this way. The first time I took a Myers-Briggs, I was like I was kind of relieved that I was an extrovert because I didn’t really understand my husband and I were having these issues.

We were early young married just coming home from parties, and he would just go into his cave, and I was like, “What did I do wrong? Well, it was immaturity too but it was also like I needed to process the evening and he needed to get away. And just knowing that, learning that, was huge. It was tremendous. And so, I think once you see teams do this, when I worked with organizations when teams start to talk about these differences, it makes such a difference in how they operate.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, there’s a lot of great stuff here, so let’s hear it. So, if someone is an introvert, prefers extroversion, leans introvert, however you want to articulate it…

Jennifer Kahnweiler
If they identify as an introvert.

Pete Mockaitis
Identify as an introvert. What are some of the top suggestions you have that can help make them all the more awesome at their jobs?

Jennifer Kahnweiler
Right. And I like what you said, help make them more awesome, not change into an extrovert. That is the key, right? when you stop trying to be an extrovert, that’s probably the big idea here. And I found that when I researched leadership, when I researched influence, that that’s when introverts are most successful.

So, what do they do? The four P’s is what I usually go back to when that question is asked, and that came from the questions I asked of introverted leaders, I said, “So, how did you become successful?” And we define success in different ways, in different industries, but they were seen as successful. And I interviewed all kind of people. And they said, first of all, the first P is prepare, so back to their strength. Introverts prepare. They prepare questions. The kind of examples I gave earlier.

And that’s been a great lesson for me because I prepare a lot and I see that you do because you prepare your guests. I’ve never seen, I’ve never gotten a slide deck before. I’ve been on a hundred podcasts; I’ve never gotten a slide deck.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you for reading it.

Jennifer Kahnweiler
So, you’ve learned that, right? You learned how effective preparation can be. Anyway, that’s one thing they do and that’s within all leadership scenario, whether it be networking, and they’re scared to go to a live networking reception, and they’re like, “How am I going to get ready for this?” I remember interviewing this one guy, a Martin, and he said, “I found out at our local, I had to do business development. I was really scared to do it, but I researched who was going to be there.”

And he found out that one of the guys was in this nonprofit that he was interested in so he did the research. That got him the deal. It was so many examples like that where he took the time. He didn’t just like, “Oh, I’m a great schmoozer. I’m going to go come.” Preparation.

Second thing is presence. So, what impressed me so much in my own working life was coming across introverted leaders, and I kind of sensed when they were introverted. They were with me when they with me. They were listening. They had their feet on the ground. They were tuned in. If they were doing a meeting, they weren’t worrying about, “Well, I didn’t prepare enough,” or, “What’s going to happen in the outcome?” They were truly tuned in to what was happening. And if things change, they were able to flex because they weren’t thinking about the past or the future. Presence is a huge strength.

Third area was pushing. So, what I meant by that was stepping out of your comfort zone. That’s what they told me, again the leaders said, “I push myself. I stretch myself.” And we know this with people who are high performers that they’re constantly setting the bar higher, not so much that they’re going to pull a muscle but that they’re going to feel it a little bit the next day, that they pushed themselves.

And then the fourth area is practice, and that’s like all the virtuosos do, and I always use the examples of comedians, people like Jerry Seinfeld who you wouldn’t think has to go out on the road but he does it because he talks about his comedic muscle like a fiber optic cable that will shrivel up if it’s not used. And so, all the virtuosos practice all the time. So, they look for opportunities to practice. And what happens is interesting because, when I do these programs with senior leaders, we do a lot now on virtual fireside chats.

So, I’ll do sort of a presentation and then I’ll ask for somebody at the C level or that area who’s coming out as an introverted leader. And, by the way, we used to have a lot of trouble getting those people to admit it or to understand it. And they come and we do a really vibrant conversation about that and they talk about how they push themselves and how they stretch. And for a number of them, I’ve had some recently who’ve been so nervous to do that, to do the fireside chat on Zoom, that they’ve actually written out everything and practiced. We’ve done a session with it. It’s very interesting.

So, then they practice and are good at doing what they do. But many of them are told by their teams and by others that they’re not introverts, they’ll say, “There’s no way you’re an introvert.” So, they’d have to educate people.

Pete Mockaitis
Right. Well, so these four P’s, that’s an interesting maybe blend that we’ve got here because some of these things, it sounds like, come very naturally to introverts and so it’s sort of like, “Hey, lean into those strengths. You’re going to wow them if you do this thing that introverts tend to often be good at anyway.” And others are more of, “Yeah, and also try to do some things that they might be a little uncomfortable with.”

Jennifer Kahnweiler
Yeah, because we still live in a very extroverted world, don’t we, where people, you are required to be in front of people. It’s just the way it is. People judge you if you don’t speak. You have to, in meetings, let’s say you’re with your peers and you’re not speaking up, you got to learn some tricks to do that. And whether it’s preparation or part of that preparation might be to have somebody tee the ball to you when you want to make a comment.

But I will say, Pete, too, that model has been around since my first book. People really resonate with that and I think it’s not just introverts. I think extroverts need to use it too because what I like to see is have people like us go to the other side. In other words, they can say to me all the time, “What can I do to bring out the introverts in my team? How can I bring out their talent?” It’s like, “Why don’t you try listening and be quiet? Just be quiet for a few minutes.”

And nature abhors a vacuum. You asked about a quote earlier. I think it was Thoreau that said that. Nature abhors a vacuum. Something will fill that space.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, I like that. And you mentioned tricks, so, yeah, let’s hear them.

Jennifer Kahnweiler
Tips and tricks, huh?

Pete Mockaitis
So, preparation, I guess, is a trick in so far as, “Oh, I feel more comfortable being in this environment now that I know some things,” although I think that’s probably universal. I think there’s a Daniel the Tiger jingle about this.

Jennifer Kahnweiler
Yeah, what is it? You’re immersed in that now with your littles, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
think it’s, “When we do something new, let’s talk about what we’ll do” is the jingle. So, that’s for toddlers who feel uncomfortable, like, “Oh, I’m going to a scary new place.” It’s like, “Well, hey, one means of conquering that is by, hey, we’re just going to have. We’re going to go to the doctor, okay? There’s going to be a sliding door, okay? You’re going to take off your shoes and get on the…” whatever. And they say, “Okay, this is what we talked about. All right, this is what’s happening right now.” Well, anyway.

Jennifer Kahnweiler
No, no, that’s a lot of analogies. That’s absolutely true. That’s absolutely true.

Pete Mockaitis
So, tricks. Tips and tricks.

Pete Mockaitis
Let’s hear some of your faves.

Jennifer Kahnweiler
Well, my head is parked more now in, “What can the organization do? What can we do as leaders and as a system?” And I know I can tell you tricks about introverts. But I think we’ve been putting a lot of pressure on introverts, just as you’re sort of alluding to, it’s like, “Well, they need to step out of their comfort zone. They need to do this, blah, blah, blah.” But what about if we were to frame this as, “You know what, why do they have to keep changing? Why can’t we look at the structures of our organizations so that we…?”

And that’s what I looked at in the last book, Creating Introvert-Friendly Workplaces. I tried to find pockets of introvert inclusion, “How can we have meetings that are inclusive, not just for introverts, for everyone?” So, examples. Okay, like on Zoom call. Zoom is on everybody’s mind, or virtual. Do we always have to have our cameras on? It’s exhausting. Being intentional about how we structure our meetings.

One thing I’m looking at now, I’m preparing a program for SHRM on hiring and talent development, and taking a look at, “As we’re in our hiring practices, are we being thoughtful about the kinds of competencies we’re looking for in people?” Or, are we putting our list of what our requirements and then the person comes in to interview, and they’re not necessarily the kind of person? The feedback comes back, “Well, they’re not really the kind I want to have a beer with. I don’t think I can have a beer with this person.” Is that really essential to getting the job done?

And I heard many conversations with my clients and what I call introvert advocates in organizations where they’d be sitting around promotional meetings, and somebody’s name comes up, they say, “Well, they don’t really speak up a lot at meetings.” And the person who’s their advocate said, “They’re brilliant, and they’ll talk to you one on one, and they’re really great with that, so we can’t pass over them. Don’t forget about this person.”

So, yeah, those are some of the things we can do. And, actually, structured advocacy, is a term I just came up with now as we’re talking.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Innovation right now. I’m listening.

Jennifer Kahnweiler
Where we have allies, people that are actually saying, speaking up for people. But part of that advocacy has been the emergence, too, of what we call employee resource groups, which really comes under kind of diversity and inclusion and equity agenda where now it’s not just an add-on to say, “Oh, we need to recognize introverts,” but now I’m getting asked to come in and speak under the auspices of diversity and inclusion because it’s important to consider introversion as another aspect of that, that we need to educate people, make them aware.

So, in some of those examples I gave about hiring and about meetings, it doesn’t take a lot to change those. Those can be steps people can take and they can become aware. In the book, I lay out like five steps, I believe, to help, called Anyone Can Be a Change Agent, that you could be a voice for the quiet, you could speak up when you see that, raising the issues when you’re seeing that we’re maybe going too quickly.

I was in a retreat last year where everything was happening really fast and that people were supposed to answer questions. It was sort of an exercise we were doing, and some lady, one of the participants raised her hand, and she goes, “You know what, I’m an introvert and I’m already lost and overwhelmed, and I see that my colleagues here are the same way.” But it took courage for her to say that. So, being a person that speaks up for the quiet, intentionally addressing the needs as I talked about, encouraging teams to bring up introversion.

And one of the other tips I’ll share is that senior leadership, like in anything else, Edgar Schein talked about senior leadership, really, leading the way. It’s what they say and they do that changes the culture. So, that’s why I’m so gratified about all these fireside chats I’ve been doing because what people write in the chat is like, “Oh, I didn’t know that Jane was introverted. It’s incredible.” And these individual leaders become very vulnerable, so it’s cool.

And when people see that in their organization, that says more than just like, “Oh, we need to embrace everybody,” because they’re actually modeling that it’s okay and it’s celebrated to be introverted. I really love that part of it. That, to me, that’s another evolution that we’ve come to now. We couldn’t have done it years ago. We couldn’t have included. People wouldn’t have been willing to get up there and talk about it.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. Thank you. Well, Jennifer, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Jennifer Kahnweiler
I think we’ve pretty much covered it all. One book that I think you might not have mentioned that I try to just bring attention to, some, because people ask about it, is about how introverts and extroverts can get along, and it’s called The Genius of Opposites. So, it’s the whole idea that we are exponentially better when we’re together. We really create something that’s better. Like, circling back to our earlier, way early conversation, John and Paul, right? Exponential.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so now I can’t just let that alone. Can you give us maybe a top one, two, or three things that extroverts and introverts can do well to harness these synergies between them?

Jennifer Kahnweiler
Yes. Number one, accept the alien, know that you’re not going to change the person. When you remember that, you will be in for a lot less stress. Bring on the battles. In other words, don’t be afraid to have conflict because that’s when you get the breakthroughs. And, let’s see, you could see I’m going in A, B, C order. C is cast the character but the person in the right role and not try to take credit on due credit, that you’re in this together. And I’ll throw one, but can I throw a fourth then?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure.

Jennifer Kahnweiler
Destroy the dislike. So, you don’t have to be best friends but you can try to get along or respect each other. So, yeah, there are some really great examples of pairs in there that people might enjoy reading, The Genius of Opposites. So, thanks.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. All right. Well, now, well, you gave us one. Is that the favorite quote you want to share with us or do you have another favorite quote to put forward?

Jennifer Kahnweiler
This is from Malcolm X of all people, he said, “In all our deeds, the proper value and respect for time determines success or failure.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Jennifer Kahnweiler
I’m trying to manage with my time this week so that was inspirational to me.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Inspired.

Jennifer Kahnweiler
Inspired, right. Inspired, Pete.

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

Jennifer Kahnweiler
I think my last study on remote work is my favorite. We had 200 introverts, 85% of them said they prefer staying home at least part of the time remotely, and how it really speaks to their productivity and their satisfaction. And so, I hope companies will take a look at that study because it really does come out strong. I don’t think there’d been any studies just on introverts, so I’ve got that available on my website, so it’s free download. So, thanks for asking.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Jennifer Kahnweiler
My favorite book, I just finished a book by one of my favorite women summer beach reads, or author, is Jennifer Weiner, not just because her name is Jennifer. And it’s something with summer in the title. It’s very relaxing to read her – Jennifer Weiner.

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

Jennifer Kahnweiler
A favorite tool for me now, is as an app, I would say, would be – and I probably check it 20 times a day – Dashlane. It sounds very mundane but it keeps all my passwords.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Jennifer Kahnweiler
To get up early and sit on my deck and do 30 minutes of, or wherever I am, 30 minutes of free writing, which is just sort of starting with a prompt and writing. And I’ve produced a lot of writing through the pandemic that way so I’m going to keep doing it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a particular nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you frequently?

Jennifer Kahnweiler
You know, Pete, I say a lot so I think you’d have to ask my husband. Oh, I’ll tell you a quote that he says because he’s very funny and we live together. So, oftentimes if I’m going on as an extrovert does, he will hold up the book, and say, “Read the book.” That’s his quote. No, I think that’s fine. I think that’s probably the one I’ll leave with for now.

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

Jennifer Kahnweiler
I would love people to come to my website, and I’m probably most active on LinkedIn and Instagram, so they can just look up my name on there. I’m JenniferKahnweiler.com so you’ll probably have that in the show notes, Pete, I imagine.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s right, yeah.

Jennifer Kahnweiler
Great.

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

Jennifer Kahnweiler
Yeah, I think the challenge I would have is to schedule some time with somebody that is on your team that perhaps you don’t know as well or you feel maybe just a different personality type than you, and schedule a 20-minute, half-hour call, just to get to know them a little bit and learn more about what they do. I think the challenge right now with so many of us being remote is that we are getting disconnected.

And that did come out strongly in the study I just referenced. We had 45% of our attendees say that they felt disconnected, so I think that’s pretty significant. So, I’d like to encourage all of us to get that weekly on our calendar to reach out to somebody we don’t know as well in our worlds, in our teams, or outside our teams.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Jennifer, thank you. This has been a treat and I wish you all the best.

Jennifer Kahnweiler
I love interviews that challenge me and you definitely are at the top of that list, Pete. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.