Mindfulness Archives - How to be Awesome at Your Job

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

Kyra Bobinet
Absolutely. So much fun.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to dig into your wisdom because you’ve spent a lot of time studying something that I’ve wondered a lot for quite a while, and, apparently, it’s called the brain behavior gap. Can you first tell us what is that?

Kyra Bobinet
Yes, sir. So, everybody will recognize it as, “I know what I should do but I don’t always do it.” And that’s the difference between what you know what you should do, your brain, and what you actually do, which is your behavior. And it’s kind of this fun, humorous aspect of being a human that we all face this issue in trying to get ourselves to do things that we don’t end up doing.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, I have wrestled with this question ever since I remember in high school marching band, and toward the end of the summer, we had what we called band camp, which the movie American Pie has ruined the idea of band camp for people. But, anyway, we’d spend just about eight plus hours a day, Monday through Friday, for a couple of weeks just working on the marching and the playing, and I thought, “Man, we made a huge amount of progress in terms of putting that show together,” and I think, “Boy, what can I accomplish if I could just hunker down and work that much solo on something?” And I still don’t I’ve cracked the code on how to actually do that.

Kyra Bobinet
Oh, dear, yeah. It’s such an interesting thing to listen to people’s stories of trying to sequester themselves there. It’s almost like a runaway dog running away, your puppy, it’s like, “Come back, come back,” so it’s really crazy.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. Well, so tell us, what makes it difficult and what should be done?

Kyra Bobinet
Yeah. So, the reason why this happens is we have, basically, two gears you can think of it in our brain. One is our fast brain I like to call it. It equates to Daniel Kahneman’s work on System 1 thinking. All the autopilot, all of the mindlessness, all of the stuff that happens by habit and without thought, that’s kind of fast brain. Think of tying your shoes, brushing your teeth, yadda, yadda. And then there’s this slow brain which is the sort of ideals, the problem-solving, the hard kind of mechanics, and decision-making, and willpower, and all that juicy stuff, but that’s in short supply. So, if you were to take a ratio, the fast brain is like 95% of what we do, and the slow brain is about 5% of what we do.

And so, oftentimes, the slow brain gets its ass kicked by the fast brain, and we’re just doing the normal distraction things or the things that feel good right now, the immediate gratification, and the slow brain just doesn’t have a chance. So, everything that we deal with as behavior designers, and that I’ve learned to do with behavior change, is to work with those two gears and get them to align.

Pete Mockaitis
Intriguing. And so, I guess I’d love to hear maybe a story associated with someone who had something they knew they should do but weren’t doing it, and then they enacted some approaches to see some cool results there.

Kyra Bobinet
Yeah, absolutely. The general principle that people can take away is make the good stuff faster and make the bad stuff slower. So, one of the amazing stories came out of Google where they had an M&M problem, and they offer a lot of free food, and there’s even jokes here in Silicon Valley about the Facebook 15, or the Google 15, almost like in college when you gain 15 pounds because you have so much free food and just endless trough of food.

So, they were having this problem with M&Ms, and they decided that they had to create some barriers, some friction, if you will. And so, they took them from eye-level bowls that were open with a big scooper, and they put them in jars, closed them up, and put them down by your knee caps. You had to kind of squat down, which a lot of people weren’t willing to do, and then monkey open the jar, and get in there, and then they had like a little tiny scooper.

And so, that’s one example of kind of putting friction in between you and the autopilot that will probably not serve you. So, whether that is the snooze alarm, some people have a real problem with hitting snooze. And so, how do you create that friction for yourself to not hit snooze? Do you move the phone away, your alarm with your phone on it, away from you further? Those kinds of things. And people, once they understand how this works, they get really creative. It’s just amazing to me.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I love that on so many levels. When you said M&M problem, I was thinking of the rapper, I thought, “Are they playing Eminem too loudly? Oh, no, no, the chocolatey treats that are high-calorie. I can see it.”

Kyra Bobinet
He’s brilliant. He’s absolutely brilliant.

Pete Mockaitis
No, I think that’s quite brilliant in terms of making them hard to access. And I’ve done that before in terms of if I’ve got a six pack of delicious beer and I want to drink it more slowly, I just try to really put it deep in the back of the fridge so I have to be pretty motivated and committed to kneel down and reach through and make it happen. And, sure enough, it makes the six pack last more days.

Kyra Bobinet
Exactly. Out of sight, out of mind.

Pete Mockaitis
So, that’s great and very well-articulated to make the good stuff faster and the bad stuff slower. So, that’s reshaping the environment. And I’d love it if you could give us a few more examples of some smart moves that have helped people out.

Kyra Bobinet
Yeah, absolutely. There’s this concept called The Ulysses Contract, and this is from a colleague of mine, David Eagleman, who’s a neuroscientist at Stanford. And he actually talks about this with respect to getting yourself to do the thing. The Ulysses story is very famous in The Odyssey, where he, basically, is on a ship and he really wants to hear the siren sound so he has his sailors lash him to the mast of the ship so that he doesn’t jump overboard which is what the sirens make you do, and then he stuffs all of the men, the sailors, with wax in their ears, or cotton, I can’t remember, and so they can’t hear the siren sounds. They’re navigating the ship and he’s able to enjoy the music without that.

So, what Dr. Eagleman talks about is, “How can you put yourself in a situation where you absolutely have to do the thing?” So, oftentimes, when people purchase something, a cruise or a trip maybe that makes them take vacation because they’re really bad at taking vacations or taking time off. Daddy-daughter dates, even date nights with your spouse, those kinds of things are kind of these Ulysses contracts. They’re things that, once you commit to them, you put so much into it that you have a disincentive to bail out, in that way you kind of prevent your future self from making the wrong choice.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m thinking if we zoom into workplaces and professionals, how have you seen some additional approaches play out in that particular context? So, we’re at work, we want to do more of the good stuff, less the bad stuff. What have you seen work out well for folks?

Kyra Bobinet
Yeah, absolutely. So, all of us have had this what we’ll call phantom invites that we put on our calendar, right? I call that behavior fantasy, where you have a standing promise to yourself in the future and you just shoot right through it. It’s just so many times you break up with that promise with yourself so that it doesn’t actually even get your attention anymore. All of us have that, whether we put workouts there, or go to sleep early, or only work on the report until here, or even start, like procrastinators like myself, starting something is the hardest thing to get yourself to do.

So, you’re kind of wrangling yourself into that. There’s a number of different strategies, so you can actually create social accountability, which is kind of a consequence. If I tell somebody to hold me accountable, I set a deadline for that person then there’s a social element, and our brains are extremely social so we will, most times than not, get that done or get close to that deadline that we set for another person because we’re obligating ourselves, again, in the future in that kind of Ulysses contract way.

Another thing that people do is create a reward system for themselves. So, that could be an emotional reward, that could be giving themselves a treat of some kind. Hopefully, it’s not going to work against your health in any way. But if there’s something you’ve been really wanting to do, a freedom, a delight, just a little celebration that you want to send that signal of dopamine and even oxytocin, which is another reward chemical, to your brain by really making it a point to celebrate and create a reward system at the end, much like you would train an animal.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, please, share some examples of great rewards and celebrations. And we had BJ Fogg on the show earlier who had some great perspectives on this, and I think it warrants some elaboration. So, we want to be careful that it doesn’t sort of work against other goals, like, “Oh, it’s going to be a delicious Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup,” or something, I don’t know, with high calories. But what are some great rewards and celebrations you’ve seen really work for some folks?

Kyra Bobinet
Yes. So, the best ones are in context, meaning that they’re related to the actual effort itself. So, if you are trying to get something out on a deadline, then to basically build in a lazy day for yourself the next day. And in most cases, and in most workspaces, you can kind of take it back a notch for a little while and go for a long walk, or take a little extra time, or even do something different on your break if you have a really rigid break system timing-wise.

So, those kinds of things where you feel like you’re free, and you’re in control, and you’re the boss of yourself, and you’re not really tying yourself to the dutifulness which so much of us do at work, as being dutiful to others or to your team, and, really, just doing something nice for yourself. And I think it’s the hardest thing in the world for people to do to really have a moment of selfishness that really helps to signal to themselves, “Hey, I’m here for you and I’m taking care of you.”

And that, really, I find in all the people that I interview in research, they really stop rebelling against themselves when they have those little treats that they give themselves.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that. Well, so we talked a bit about behavior change and shaping the environment. Let’s talk about, specifically, habit formation. You talked a bit about the celebration-rewards piece. Could you maybe orient us to the overall science behind habit formation?

Kyra Bobinet
Yes. So, this is super fascinating. I started out in workplace stress reduction in one of the programs that I created. I created a mindfulness program that was kind of the first in class when I was at Aetna and has since kind of been taken up by Headspace and Calm and some of these apps. So, those are all really great and I’m still a proponent of mindfulness. But I find that unless I can make something as mindless as tying your shoe, it’s not going to survive your modern life.

So, we have a new model we need to really follow of behavior change, which is habit formation, vis-à-vis unstoppability, being unstoppable, being the ability to just keep going and going and going. And one of the things I found in my research on habit science is that there’s a new area of our brain that’s been characterized called the habenula, and that’s a mouthful. But it’s, basically, in charge of two things. One, it is a detector of you thinking you failed. So, if you think you failed, I could throw you in an FMRI machine and this part of your brain will light up, right?

So, the second thing that it does, if it lights up, if it gets turned on like that, is it kills your motivation to try again. And this, to me, was shocking and kind of the reason why you see people do really, really well in terms of changing their behaviors, they set goals, they track them, they do all these things, and then, one day, including this happened to myself, including one day you just stop doing it. And I had patients like this, and I would say, “So, what happened?” And they would literally blink and look at me blankly and say, “I have no idea.” They don’t know how they go there because it happened subconsciously so the person doesn’t even consciously know that they lost their motivation. They just don’t do it.

And so, one of the things with habit formation is that if you practice, and if you practice and practice, you’ll find something that you can get to go. You can close that brain behavior gap, get yourself to practice, and practice, and practice. And as the brain responds to that repetition, what it does is it creates almost like a highway. It lays down the asphalt so that you can drive even faster. So, that behavior goes faster and faster and faster, and it becomes part of your fast brain, that autopilot mindlessness area that we talked about at the beginning. So, that, to me, was just amazing and shocking, and so it completely changed the paradigm of how to change a behavior.

Pete Mockaitis
Right. And I think there are all sorts of implications there, the habenula, you’re thinking you failed so it kills your motivation to try again. I guess I’m imagining then, one implication may be that you want to maybe reduce the size of the thing you’re trying to habituate so that you don’t fail, you keep on winning again and again and again, and building that highway. Is that accurate?

Kyra Bobinet
You know, that’s the safest thing, and I know BJ, who’s one of my mentors, is really into making it small. I do think that you can really get a higher percentage of shots on goal if you start with small. But I’ve seen people start out with something big if it works for them. To me, the thing I’m drawing from the science these days is what matters most is if you find the thing that turns you on, and that works for you, that fits into your life, no matter how big or small it is, usually it is small especially with somebody who’s a little shaky in their confidence in that particular area, which is what BJ is really good at. It’s just like getting that wheel to turn in people, and simplifying it, and making it tiny. He calls his program Tiny Habits even.

So, I do believe that that’s a really good kindergarten place for everybody to start safely, but I also noticed in my own research that the more important thing that we found is something called the iterative mindset, that we’re calling the iterative mindset, because we found people who changed their habits, big habits, big lifestyle habits against all odds, but they did it by finding their experiment, by looking at it as an experiment, and then iterating or tweaking and tinkering with it until it worked for them. So, maybe you can kind of see that as a small change too.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Well, and while we’re talking about laying the highway, I guess maybe I’ve seen all kinds of different ranges quoted in different places. But how long does it take to form a habit? Is it 28 days? Is it 66 days? Does it depend, and what does it depend on? Can you lay it down for us?

Kyra Bobinet
Well, Pete, I just so happen to be nerdy enough to know the answer to that.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, please.

Kyra Bobinet
Actually, you know, about four years ago, I asked myself that same question, and I had my neuroscience team really, really scrub the scientific literature and put together a model based on the evidence that was there. So, actually, it takes one full year to fully, what’s called myelinate, which is that pavement in the brain that makes it superfast, electrical signal can go way faster, for a new habit to form, and that’s with fairly, daily, if not multiple times a week, repetition of that habit.

And so, what happens when you have a highway after about a year is that you’ve got now two copies of the same behavior. You have the old copy of, in my case, I used to go through the drive-thru all the time as just an easy way to get a meal, and as I broke that habit, my competing habit, my adult one-year old habit, was to cook at home for my kids. And once you have that cook-at-home thing, you can still go through the drive-thru, you still have that old highway. And most people don’t understand it. It’s not that they’re not patient about building the new highway, it’s that they make the mistake thinking the old highway is in disrepair.

Pete Mockaitis
So, a full year. Interesting. And so then, I imagine that’s like a full-blown highway and myelination is there. Kind of intermediate step before that or how do you think about that?

Kyra Bobinet
Right, there’s hope. There’s hope, Pete. Yeah, so what we know from the science is that around eight to ten weeks there is this kind of automation that starts to kick in, so it starts to feel easier and easier, more automatic. And then over the time that you do it, you’re basically sending so many signals to your brain of, “Hey, this is my new normal,” that your brain makes it feel more comfortable.

So, over the course of that year, you’re going to get more and more comfortable, it’s going to become more and more you as opposed to not you, and it’s going to get more and more automated, you can  use less and less brain energy to make it happen. So, that’s where the mindlessness really kicks in. To me, we should all be looking at mindlessness as the goal.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s fun. It’s a fun when you think about that mindlessness, which almost sounds like a bad thing to be avoided. And, today, mindfulness is everything. Obviously, mindlessness is the thing to pursue but it makes sense in this context, and I appreciate that. So, very cool. Well, so then, I guess there’s many, many habits one might choose to build. I’ve heard some cool research or thoughts on keystone habits, you know, habits that can sort of unlock a whole lot of great results. Tell us, when it comes to a well-designed life, what are some of the habits that tend to really do have some powerful ripple effects?

Kyra Bobinet
You know, the more I do this, and we’ve been building a software around this, and what we’re finding is that it is literally a matchmaking exercise between that person at that time in their life based on everything they’ve tried before, or they’re burnt out on, and what they’re open to, and what can kind of reengage them, and then what excites them, what fits their life, what fits their schedule. It is almost like that old adage where you’ve got a floating circle in the ocean, and an ocean turtle, a sea turtle, just happens to pop up their head right in the middle of that circle. That’s kind of how bullseye it has to be.

And so, I think that right now what we’re facing is, “How do we sift through all of the millions of options in any particular topic area and really find the thing that works for us, that works for me right now that’s going to, again, turn me on, that it makes sense to me, and it really is interesting to me?” And just having that, I call it, seeking behavior is the most important thing it seems.

And there’s another neuroscientist that I really admire, he passed away a couple of years ago, named Jaak Panksepp, and his conclusion was that there were seven emotional channels in the mammalian brain, we’re mammals. And he noticed that the number one most dominant emotion was seeking, seeking behaviors. So, think Google, think online shopping, think looking for a mate, looking for a job. That power of that looking is itself very therapeutic and positive for us.

Pete Mockaitis
Boy, that feels like another hour of conversation right there. Wow!

Kyra Bobinet
We’ll get a part two.

Pete Mockaitis
So, the seeking is the strongest of the seven, and it just seems there’s a lot of implications to that. What do you think are amongst some of the biggest when it comes to folks who are trying to become awesome at their jobs? If the seeking behavior is among the strongest of those seven emotional channels, how do we make that work for us?

Kyra Bobinet
Yeah, I mean, obviously, the tribe that follows you is of that ilk. They’ve already won that particular contest because they’re seeking, they’re taking in new information, they’re leaning into more and more answers for them, and they are perusing all the wisdom that you’re sharing on this show and the people that you bring on this show. So, basically, they’re locked in there. I think just hearing it might just be another validation of that. Keep doing that, you’re on the right track. That’s exactly what we all need to do.

And, in fact, it should be probably a red flag in that case for this audience that if you stop seeking, maybe look at that. If you get stuck in your career, or in your progress at work, then look at seeking first. Did you lose seeking? Did you lose curiosity? Did you lose spending time wondering about things and opening yourself up? Because that’s where that next round of growth would lead you to.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s powerful. Thank you. Well, so I also love to get your take when it comes to automating, building good habits and breaking bad habits. Are there any particular behaviors? You mentioned there’s a matchmaking situation, but any sort of small behaviors you recommend we might start doing right away to make it easier to develop these highways?

Kyra Bobinet
You know, in the habit science, there’s two variables that stand out as the most important. Number one is time, the time of day or the time after or before. Your brain understands time as sequences, like, “I do this before I do that,” you know, “I shower before I get dressed.” And it also understands things in terms of time of, “I do this on Sundays,” time of week, time of day. And so, if you’re trying to do a habit and you haven’t anchored it in time or how your brain understands time, it’s likely going to get lost in the wash of your life and distractions. So, that’s one thing I would say.

The other thing that the science is saying is that location is huge. We also understand, “I do this in my car. I do this at my desk. I do this when I go to the cafeteria.” Those kinds of triggers, they’re called context cues, are the thing that really helps to anchor the habit in space, if you will. So, you’ve got time and space, and then there’s the social element, too, which is, “I do this with these people.”

So, one of the reasons why it’s so hard not to be good, some people call it, I don’t call it that, but at a birthday party to not eat cake when everybody else is eating cake is that your brain is saying, “Oh, I eat birthday cake with other people. I don’t just go to the grocery store and throw it in my grocery cart usually by myself. Happy birthday to me.” It’s very social.

So, those are some three ways that I think if somebody who’s thinking about a habit could strengthen it and could really help them to select the right one for them.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, with all this talk about environment and habits, I’m curious in terms of what have you seen in workplaces are some of the, and I know it’s going to be a special fit in matchmaking, person to person, but what are some of the most prevalent bad things in habits and environments, and good things in habits and environments that you’re seeing in workplaces today?

Kyra Bobinet
Yeah, I would say the most troublesome one is the stress habit that gets turned into gossip and toxicity. So, most cultures don’t have, I’ll call it, an anus for the stress that gets built up there. Pardon, I’m a doctor so that kind of word is available to me.

Pete Mockaitis
It might be the first time where the word anus has been uttered on this show. Thank you, Kyra.

Kyra Bobinet
Yeah, the listeners are like, “What did she say?” So, yeah, I said anus.

Pete Mockaitis
You mean, you’re screening it out I think is where you’re going with this, yeah.

Kyra Bobinet
I said anus, yeah, exactly. Let’s say it a couple of times. So, yeah, we need some outlet for all the stress and friction. And people are moving a million miles a minute, they’re going from meeting to meeting to meeting, or they’ve got production schedules, or they’re stocking shelves like crazy, whatever your job is, and you are going back to back to back to back. Most people can’t even find time to go to the restroom at their modern work, right?

So, all of that creates all this friction and all of this like angst and rumination that the brain is going through, and then there’s not a real good mechanism that needs to be designed for really, “Whew!” exhale, the anus, you know, pooping, getting it all out. And so, that then turns into backbiting, gossiping, cannibalizing each other, that sort of thing. And so, I would say that what works for everybody is to engineer some downtime in the middle of the day to find ways to give yourself a mental break. And this is where mindfulness comes in really good, and your three deep breaths, and you literally reset your brain. And you just have to remind yourself how to do that or get your attention to remember to do the good thing that you know to do.

So, those kinds of mechanisms, I think, are universal. And then there’s sort of little productivity things that people, I would say there’s different segments of productivity tricks and hacks that people have. There is the procrastinators, like myself, who need to have external deadlines to bump our noses up against. There’s people who are super diligent, who are maybe introverts who need that quiet time away. There’s people who are extroverts who need to go and pull together a bunch of people and talk everything out.

And so, those are some ways that I see are mushy but could be more clarified if somebody were to take the time and kind of almost journal or articulate for themselves, “What kind of person are you? What kind of worker are you? When do you see yourself really shine and really turn on?” And I think that’ll help people understand some of the habits that are maybe positive and maybe toxic for them.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s lovely. Thank you. And what are some of the most encouraging great stuff that you’re seeing there?

Kyra Bobinet
My heroes these days is a company called Workday, and they do HR technologies, kind of SaaS platforms. But the thing I like about it is that their people who are in charge of their employee wellbeing are focusing on rumination because one of the good things that’s come out of the mindfulness research of late in the neuroscience side is that we know now that if your brain is on loop in an area called, forgive me, dorsolateral PFC, which is prefrontal cortex. It’s basically kind of if you look at your forehead and you kind of go an inch to the right or left, there’s two little areas there that are basically causing you to focus on yourself.

And rumination is, “Oh, did I do that right? Oh, what does she think of me? Oh, am I going to get fired? Oh, when is my performance review? Am I ever going to get rise up in this company? Do I need to look for another job? Does so and so like me?” all that rumination. And what they know, what Workday is dealing with is training programs, and discussions, and wellbeing initiatives to help people deal with that rumination, because that has been tied to, again, going back to MRI studies, to feelings of depression, feelings of anxiety. We have an epidemic of anxiety these days because of the number of triggers our brain sustains that throws us into rumination on a daily basis.

So, I think the modern workplace is really how do we design for freeing ourselves from these brains kind of loop tendency to get into rumination sequences, you know?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, Kyra, I’m fascinated by, boy, I’m counting some research associated with how our current levels of anxiety are just like wildly higher than they were a generation or two ago. And so, that’s whole another conversation.

Kyra Bobinet
Well, what are you seeing in that? Because you live this every single day. You live and breathe in this industry and in this area.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I think I heard a talk in which someone said that, in particular, I think they were talking about teenagers had levels of anxiety just sort of like normally like in terms of their day-to-day experience that were comparable to, I think, sort of veterans suffering from PTSD. And I said, “What?” And so, that was eye-opening. So, I’ve got two precious kiddos under two right now, and I’m thinking about their future, I was like, “Whoa! What is going on there? That’s intriguing.” And I’ve yet to do my seeking of many answers there. But you brought up something intriguing there with regard to, hey, we have so many more triggers now for rumination that lead to anxiety. So, could you unpack what are some of those big triggers we’ve got now that we didn’t have before?

Kyra Bobinet
Yeah. So, we have so much exposure, right? So, let’s say, take a typical Western person in the U.S. for example, and even before they start their first meeting or activity at work, they have listened to or watched a million things that could’ve triggered an emotion in them. So, all that residue is kind of spinning around in their subconscious, and that’s going to lead to rumination if they do not do something consciously and mindfully about it. So, if they ground out and say, “I send compassion to that war-torn area I just heard about,” or, “I just heard about the fires in my area or a tornado that happened in the Midwest,” or any of those things. Like, it does land in the brain. And even if you think you’re tough and you move on, it mulls around inside.

And so, that’s the kind of fodder or tinder by which this rumination fire just starts to burn, it starts to go and go and go, and it’s subconscious. So, what happens is that you don’t even notice it until maybe, I’ve talked to executives who suddenly have panic attacks on a work trip, and they’re the most solid person in the world, and they’re super extroverted and things like that, but that’s how it’s affecting us. It’s just that constant touch on things you can do nothing about but you have an emotional response to.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you. Part of the mystery is in place there and I appreciate that. Kyra, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Kyra Bobinet
Pete, what I stand for at this point is just making people unstoppable. For me, the most significant thing in my career so far has been really understanding how iteration and iterators never fail, and they’re in all kinds of industries. So, the one thing I really care about is just really helping people to wake up to that fact, the fact about your brain and how it works, and it helps you get around the habenula and all the little things that blow up in your face. And that, to me, is revolutionary in terms of people’s success at work and in life. And I’m just super stoked about that conversation and that concept and people making that their own as well.

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

Kyra Bobinet
Yeah. So, kind of along those lines. I had a mentor and he used to have this really interesting voicemail because I’ll call him sometimes for some moral support, or, “How do I do this?” And his voicemail said, “Hi, this is David. I didn’t catch you right now. I’ll catch you later.” And he said, “Don’t ever give up no matter what you do,” and then he hangs up. And that’s my favorite quote of all time.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s lovely. Thank you. And how about a favorite study, or experiment, or bit of research?

Kyra Bobinet
So, for me, it is the iterative mindset study that we did. Again, we’ve been building up this research for a couple of years now on the Walmart Project, and we found that this iterative mindset existed in people who succeeded but then we did, we took a huge chance in broad daylight, in front of our biggest customer, it’s the biggest professional risk I’ve ever taken, and we did this study to see if we could get people to adapt this mindset and if it would change their outcomes.

And we actually found that we could get them to lose weight at the regular one pound a week, a healthy pace, and that they have habit formation that was statistically significant, and they had mindset formation that was statistically significant. So, to me, that was just delightful and really following the science and reading all of the homework before that really helped us set this up for something that was going to work out.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, boy, that’s powerful. And maybe if we could hear one sentence on how would you articulate, characterize the iterative mindset as oppose to its alternative?

Kyra Bobinet
Yeah. And the credit goes to the MacGyvers of the world. This is something that even though I’m putting language to it, this is found in nature. So, people are just so clever, and it’s so amazing. So, these are people that work for Walmart, lower socioeconomic status, they have every stressor every time and money constraints in the world, family not being supportive of them, and they changed their health, they changed their lifestyle to be healthy against all these odds.

And what they all had in common was this iterative mindset, which is two parts that we can tell. Number one is they see what they’re trying next as an experiment. It’s not like this do or die. It’s not a goal. It’s just, “Hmm, maybe I’ll play with this a little bit. Maybe I’ll practice this a little bit.” So, they see it as a practice, they see it as a non-consequential experiment, that’s part number one.

Part number two is when they need to change something, either because a life disruptor came in, they had to move away from their favorite gym, or their shift changed and they can no longer do what they were doing before, cooking for their kids, whatever, they would iterate. And much like tech here in Silicon Valley, that iteration, that relentless iteration of, “I’m just going to iterate and tweak and tinker until I find the next thing that works for me,” made them different from everybody else because everybody else goes, “Oh, I failed.” Boom! They hit their habenula. Boom! They stop trying without even knowing it. And, boom, they quit, they quit trying. And that is the biggest problem.

And every time I talk to clinicians or people who’ve changed their lives, they recognize this pattern, they’re like, “That’s how I do it.” So, I know that it’s real, I know that it’s natural, I know that it’s not like high academia, but it’s something that everybody can do to make their life better. And, in fact, I haven’t met a single person who has made their life better who didn’t do it in this way.

Pete Mockaitis
Powerful. Thank you. Now, could you share with us a favorite book?

Kyra Bobinet
Yes. So, my favorite book that I read every night with my husband, just one little passage because it’s teeny tiny, it’s called Tao Te Ching with Steven Mitchell as the interpreter. And I just love it because it kind of messes with my sense of reality. It says, “Do without doing.” And that’s just one of those come-ons, that’s like, “What? I don’t understand.” So, I like making myself feel like I’m confused and I don’t really understand this deep profound philosophy stuff, but I still like to take it in and try to chew on it a little bit.

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

Kyra Bobinet
So, for me, I use a couple of things. For my to-do list, I like the Clear app, and I only look at the top three things every day because your brain only understands, so that’s a three. I also have been using Otter lately to write my new book, and that just transcribes all my words because I’m better at talking than sitting down and making myself write, and that’s one of those Ulysses contract things.

And then I also, every year it’s coming up now, I’m going to do another vision board for 2020. So, I actually do a vision board. I do it with just a big Sharpie and a big nice piece of poster board, and I put it up for the year. And pretty much everything that happens in the year follows that vision board.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. And how about a favorite nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you frequently?

Kyra Bobinet
Yeah, I think that the one that’s been really resonating with people lately is mindlessness is the new mindfulness because we know we’re busy, we know we’re distracted, and we know we have to, if we’re going to change our lives and change our behavior, we have to get it to a mindless state.

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

Kyra Bobinet
Yeah. Well, we have our company website EngagedIn.com. Our product website is FreshTri.com and then my namesake website, you can always say hi to me, DrKyraBobinet.com. I love to hear from people.

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

Kyra Bobinet
Yeah, there’s no reason to stop trying, that’s my message is just be unstoppable and get around your habenula. And what I said about the iterative mindset works for you or you need to even tinker or tweak that to fit you or the way you think, do it, because there’s no reason to stop these days. And if you find yourself getting stuck, just shake it off and realize you can iterate your way out of it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Kyra, this has been so much fun. Thank you and good luck in all of your adventures.

Kyra Bobinet
Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

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

Petr Ludwig
Hi, Pete. Happy to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m happy to chat with you, and I’m so fascinated by your story. You have studied a whole host of scientific social psychological things, and you decided to pour a lot of your energies into the study of procrastination. Why this topic and is it coming from experience here?

Petr Ludwig
Yeah. For me, to think of procrastination is one of the most important these days because we live in a world full of distractions, social media, and it’s quite challenging to find a way how to stay focused on what is important. So, for me, to pick procrastination is getting more and more important these days. And there’s a lot of good data and a lot of scientific studies about how to really decrease our procrastination. So, my life mission is to just transform what science knows into what people do in their normal lives.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s an awesome mission and so helpful because there’s so much great knowledge out there and it’s great to make sure that folks actually see it instead of the researcher and the researcher’s mom in the academic journey.

Petr Ludwig
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’d love to know, Petr, what are some things that you procrastinate on?

Petr Ludwig
Oh, I still have some things that I procrastinate. For example, if I have to sign an important contract, for example, I have a lot of contracts for translations of my books, so I have to sign them. I have a good lawyer but, still, I want to read them before. So, those are things I procrastinate, things that are important but quite challenging and difficult to me.

Pete Mockaitis
So, tell me, as you’ve done your research associated with procrastination and your book in particular, The End of Procrastination, which is now available in English. Thank you, translators and lawyer and contract all coming together. What’s maybe the most surprising or fascinating thing that you discovered in digging into some of the research and studies behind this?

Petr Ludwig
Right. There’s a huge meta-analysis about all the research on procrastination, and the outcome is…

Yeah, that’s a good beginning where to start when you do any kind of research to read meta-analysis because someone did a good job before. So, for example, if you want to know some research about longevity, you can use Google Scholar and just try to find longevity and meta-analysis and you will find very good sources. So, that’s my hack, to start to read a meta-analysis.

And the biggest meta-analysis about procrastination shows us that the main cause of procrastination is a lack of self-regulation. Self-regulation means that you have your emotional part and then you have your rational part. And if you are unable to resist temptation, your emotional part is going to win. And it means that you go to check your Facebook. You want to, I don’t know, overeat. You want to watch Netflix and so on.

But if you have good willpower and your rational brain is stronger, your willpower is stronger, then you can self-regulate, even if you have a temptation to do something, you are able to resist. So, that’s the core of procrastination, to really train your willpower part of the brain.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, so that sounds sensible. How do we go about doing that?

Petr Ludwig
Well, there are a lot of techniques for that. My favorite one is when you do a daily habit. For example, if you do 20 pushups daily, not even your muscles grow, but even your part of the brain that is called prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that is for willpower, it grows too. So, that’s very good news that procrastination is not something that is inborn but you can really train your willpower as a muscle. So, by doing 20 pushups daily, you really can train your willpower.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s really cool. And so, then I’m curious, is it pushups, is it sort of strict training in particular that boost the willpower, or we can maybe do the same thing?

Petr Ludwig
Yeah, all exercises do the same, but what is important is to do something daily. You can have your favorite, like five-minute routine of, I don’t know, that doesn’t need to be pushups. But five minutes daily can really boost your willpower. And we have one willpower for all domains, so you can train your willpower by exercise, and then you have stronger willpower even in your work.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Great. So, exercise is the key way to increase your ability to have willpower. What are some of the other means of increasing it?

Petr Ludwig
Another one is mindfulness. Like, to do a simple 5- to 10-minute meditations. There’s a great app for that. You probably heard about Headspace or there’s another app that is called Simple Habit. Headspace is for 10 minutes. Simple Habit, they have five-minute meditations. And those 5 to 10 minutes of really focusing on doing nothing, that is mindfulness, focusing on your breath or counting something, that can really increase your willpower too.

So, my advice is to do, I don’t know, 5-minute exercise in the morning, and then to do mindfulness meditation in the afternoon, and all those exercises together, they took only a few minutes but can really improve your everyday willpower and productivity.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so I’m curious, since you’re a science popularizer and lover, I might be able to get into some of the depth with you because sometimes I’m fascinated too by research studies and I pull up academic journals. And sometimes the thing that gets me is, like, okay, you’ve shown us sure enough that there’s this statistically significant difference with intervention. So, nice job researchers. That’s something.

But I also want to know, how big is this difference? Like, am I going to be 1% better at willpower if I do my pushups and my mindfulness? Or is it like double, triple? Like, do you have a sense for how much quantitatively of an improvement we’d see with these interventions?

Petr Ludwig
Well, that’s the great question. My experience is that I have only some anecdotal evidences of my clients because it’s very difficult too if you read those meta-analyses to see how big was the difference at the end, so that’s a very good question. But with my clients, I can see the huge difference. Like, if they really started training their willpower, let’s say in three, four weeks, they are much, much better in their productivity. So, it’s quite difficult to measure it but if I ask them what is their improvement, they feel significant improvement. They are telling me that they can do like, I don’t know, two times more tasks daily, or something like that.

Pete Mockaitis
There you go. Two times more tasks daily sounds enticing. All right. So, there’s a measure of doing some physical exercise as well as some mindfulness. So, any other key ways to go about building willpower?

Petr Ludwig
There is a beautiful study that our willpower is also dependent on simple sugars in our blood. So, eat fruits and vegetables daily can really boost your willpower too. So, to drink, for example, a glass of fresh juice, or to eat, I don’t know, two, three apples can really boost your willpower too. Another example is to go for a walk, because if you are sitting the whole day then your brain is stuck and you need to boost your cardiovascular system. So, five minutes or 10 minutes of walk can really improve the willpower too.

So, my advice is to do a simple short exercise in the morning, then to eat fruits and vegetables during the day, then to have walks. Regular work for two hours, then have a walk and then work another two hours and then have another walk. And then do simple meditation in the evening and you can really double your performance.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. That’s really cool. So these are great things to do on an ongoing basis to keep your willpower strong and in great shape. What are some of your pro tips for when you’re in the heat of battle, if you will, and there’s this thing, you know you should do it but you sure don’t want to do it. You’re right there, right now. How do you find the power?

Petr Ludwig
Oh, right. For me, I go somewhere without internet connection. For example, I have my favorite tea room that I was writing my book, and they simply don’t have internet connection there so it helped me to really start something. And what is really good is to set a proper time for starting. For example, if you are postponing to send, I don’t know, an important email, you should set an appropriate time, like, “Okay, I will start at 8:00 a.m.” And you can use apps that can block your internet connection for Apple, the name is Freedom, so you can really block your internet connection. And for Windows, it is called Cold Turkey. And those apps can help you a lot if you block your internet connection.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. That’s handy. So, you set a time, you block the internet connection. You’ve got a tool called the heroism tool in your book.

Petr Ludwig
Oh, right. Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
What’s this about?

Petr Ludwig
This tool is from Professor Philip Zimbardo, who’s famous about his Stanford Prison Experiment, still slightly a controversial one. And when I met Zimbardo for the first time, I asked him what is his personal tip for fighting procrastination. And he did something that was quite strange to me. He took my black marker and he put a big black dot on his forehead, and I was like, “What?” And Zimbardo told me that if you put a black big dot on your forehead and you go, for example, shopping, or you go by bus somewhere, you start to get used to strange feelings that you have that you are different. And you are then able to overcome your social comfort zone. And he really described to me that we have two kinds of comfort zones. First is physical one, it’s much more obvious. It’s, for example, the bath in the morning is a physical comfort zone. Or the situation when you are, for example, sitting in your car.

But then we have a social comfort zone, and that means that you are part of the crowd, you are in a herd. And to overcome that is very important even for fighting procrastination because often we are unable to act in the right moment. So, Zimbardo told me that if you do this, a little training with the black dot on your forehead, then you are capable of overcoming the comfort zone even in different scenarios. For example, if you go next to accident, you are then much more able to stop and help. Or you are able to say your opinion if someone else is quiet and so on.

Zimbardo calls this little heroism, those little heroic acts can really boost your ability to be the one who really do something when the situation is important. So, for me, this tool is one of the cores of my book. And Japanese samurais, they had a rule that if you are in a situation that you really need to act, you probably heard about that, it’s the rule of three heartbeats. You really have to act in three heartbeats, like, three, two, one, and then act.

Because, for example, if you are driving and you see an accident, you really have, in those three seconds, to stop and help there. If you don’t do that, you probably just go and it’s much easier to find excuses to not to do that.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I think I heard about this except it was on a reality TV show about pickup artists, the three-second rule in terms of, in this context, it was guys who are going to approach a lady and like, talking to them.

Petr Ludwig
Okay. I think this concept of stopping next to an accident is maybe a little bit more important.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, absolutely, yes. But it gets to the same notion that the hesitation, fear, sort of overthinking it.

Petr Ludwig
Yeah, overthinking is a real problem. Like, we have a data that the more you overthink the more you procrastinate. So, fighting overthinking, and we have a beautiful data that the more you are intelligent and the more you are creative, then you procrastinate even more.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s my problem, Petr.

Petr Ludwig
Because you are capable of coming up with very good excuses, and excuses in front of yourself, so you use your creativity and your intelligence against yourself. And that’s the problem, like, overthinking is very, very, like the usual problem of intelligent people.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s interesting. So, I’m curious then, if we can talk about maybe some of the fear elements, and it’s sometimes like a very quick short time that you can respond to something, and other times, it’s maybe not so urgent, but you’re maybe… I think about salespeople right now, it’s like, “Oh, you know what, I’ve got make some calls but I’m resistant because I think they’re going to be angry at me and that’s not pleasant.” It’s not like you’re terrified of it, but it’s not fun and so there’s maybe some anxiety or fear or trepidation associated with it. So, I guess, not overthinking it and just jumping in is good strategy.

Petr Ludwig
I know.

Pete Mockaitis
Are there any other things you’d recommend in these contexts?

Petr Ludwig
I do trainings for salespeople, and what works very well for them are daily routines. Like, for example, if you have to do some cold calls, you should set a very low bar, for example, to do three calls but do them daily. And if you set up a routine and you do those three calls daily, then it’s much easier to do more. So, science calls this micro-habit. What is important is not the quantity but what is important is that you really stick to the habit daily. And if you do that and you repeat it like five to 10 times, then it’s much easier to start.

So, my advice to salespeople is to set a proper time, for example, as I said, like 8:00 a.m., “I will start calls. I do three calls.” And then what is very good, we have a tool that is called Habit List. You have a table and you fill them each day, the table, and you see that you really pass the goal. So, set the bar to the lowest and repeat it, and after you have that habit, you can increase the quantity. And at the end you can do, I don’t know, 15 calls daily.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, with this Habit List table, I guess the rows would be habits and then the columns would be sort of days.

Petr Ludwig
Right. Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
And you want to fill it up kind of bit style, to say, “Hey, keep the chain going day after day after day.”

Petr Ludwig
Yup, this tool is one of my favorite ones. I use it every day. And, for example, I have a row that is called cold shower, another row is, I don’t know, to do those morning exercise, another row can be, I don’t know, read or write a few pages and so on. But the core of this tool is that if you visualize the outcomes, like you put a green dot if you passed it, and a red dot if you don’t, you see the visual thing about it.

So, you have a table, and at the end you see how good you are in those habits. And if you see that you are failing, you have many days red in a row, it means that your bar is too high, or you don’t have intrinsic motivation to do those things. So, those are only two situations, like you have lack of motivation, or the bar is too high. So, you can fix both. Like, you can ask why you want to do that habit, and you can increase your motivation, or you can decrease the bar. For example, if you are unable to write five pages daily as an author, then you should start with two paragraphs. There’s always a lower bar.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. You know, it’s funny that app is kind of inspiring even though you’re talking about lowering the bar, there’s always a lower bar is kind of inspiring to me.

Petr Ludwig
Yeah, I did it. When I was writing the book The End of Procrastination it’s funny because I was procrastinating writing the book about procrastination. And the final solution was really to write two paragraphs daily. And everyone can write two paragraphs daily. And if you do that, then you are able to write even more paragraphs. And to really start with a lower bar is the key of fighting procrastination to me.

Pete Mockaitis
I really appreciated that perspective. And we had Dr. BJ Fogg on the show earlier talking about tiny habits and motivation and making it small is huge. Making it small is very helpful in terms of making that happen. So, let’s talk about the motivation piece for a moment. How do we get more of that?

Petr Ludwig
The first part of the book is about motivation because I think that if you have the right motivation then you don’t need willpower at all. So, it’s much more important to find the right motivation than to boost willpower.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, just right there.

Petr Ludwig
For example, yeah, I don’t need to push myself to do talks because I really love to do talks, so it’s much, much more important to me to do things that I don’t need to push myself to. And the core of motivation that I’m trying to cover in my book is that basically we have three kinds of motivation. The first one is extrinsic motivation. And there’s another huge meta-analysis about motivation. It seems that extrinsic motivation doesn’t work at all. It worked for manual activities but it doesn’t work for activities that you need your brain. So, it’s doesn’t work for creative and cognitive tasks.

Then we have intrinsic motivation. But I cover two kinds of intrinsic motivation. One is focusing on goals, like intrinsic motivation by goals. And that’s the thing that people are setting goals in their private life. And this can really backfire because I had a client, and he had that kind of goal board, and he had there his car he wants to buy, the ideal flat he wants to have. And he got depressed because he didn’t have any of that.

So, the problem with goals is that if you are focusing on something in the future, you are less happy in the present because you are still missing the goal. And the second backfire moment is if you reach the goal, the happiness is very short term. Psychology calls this hedonic adaptation. So, even if you reached the highest goal, like you win a Nobel Prize, or you win an Olympic Gold Medal, you are happy just a few days, maybe one week, not more. So, focusing on goals can make you addictive because we call those people goal junkies. Those are people that they are setting higher and higher goals, but they are not happy in the present moment. And if they reached the goal, they experience only short-term happiness, but then they need another goal.

It’s quite similar these days on social media. Like, for example, if you have 10,000 followers, you feel, “Okay, I need 100,000.” Then you have 100,000 followers, well, then you need one million followers and so on. So, the more you have, the more you want. And it leads not to happiness but to addiction.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it’s a bummer. So, what’s the superior alternative?

Petr Ludwig
Okay. We call it journey-based intrinsic motivation, and it’s based on very old but very important saying that “the path is the destination.” So, what is much more important than to focus in on goals is to focus in on activities that are enjoyable for you and you see purpose of them. And how to find those activities, I have a simple tool for that, and it’s based on a Japanese concept of Ikigai. Ikigai is a Japanese word from the island of Okinawa, it’s my favorite island. And Okinawa is famous for the fact that they have the longest lifespan around the globe. So, they really live to their hundred.

And they made a long-term study, what is the reason of longevity in Okinawa? And the outcome was really the concept of Ikigai. And it can be translated as “a strong sense of purpose.” And the Japanese, they describe Ikigai as a connection between four parts.

The first part is to do things that you are good at. So, strengths are very important. Second part of Ikigai is doing things that you really enjoy. So, positive emotions are very important. Psychology calls this state of flow. You do something, and time stops for you, and you are in the present moment. And the third part of Ikigai is the most important to me, and it’s doing something that is greater than you, doing something that helps the society, helps the others. So, selfless acts are important too, not to be just selfish. And the fourth part is to do things that you can get paid for. So, money is important but not that much. What is much more important is to use your strengths daily and to focus on meaning and purpose.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, the premise was that they’re living so long because a large proportion of their activities check one or more of these four boxes?

Petr Ludwig
Right. And if you find something that is interconnected like, for example, for me, if I do a talk, it’s very important to me in terms of, it has purpose because it can help a lot of people, then I really enjoy doing that. I can improve it so I can improve my skills, so the better I am with my presentation skills, the happier I am with the process. And, of course, I can get paid for that.

So, if you find something that is interconnected, you have less stress hormone cortisol that is killing us slowly. So, that’s maybe one of the reasons why people, if they have more purpose, they live much longer. And the data shows us that people with more purpose, they have less risk of cardiovascular diseases, less risk of strokes, and so on. So, it can really prolong your life.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, cool. Thank you.

Petr Ludwig
Yeah, very cool.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, I want to make sure we also cover, when it comes to just sort of the organization of tasks and time in the day in, day out, I understand you’ve got some perspectives on how we can do that better so we can achieve more before we get tired.

Petr Ludwig
Right. The key for the activity is to have regular rests. So, for example, workaholics are procrastinators too but they are procrastinators of having a rest. So, it means that if you are working like 12 hours in a row without rest, the quality of your work is very low. But if you work one hour and then you have a rest, and then you work another hour, your productivity is much, much higher.

So, regular rest is important, and to have a rest even before you are tired is very important. Because if you are tired, you don’t have willpower to go for a walk. So, you should go for a walk before you are tired, and you should drink that fresh juice before you are exhausted and so on. So, it’s like a preventive matter to have a rest, preventive matter is important.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, that’s good thought. You rest before you’re tired so that you can rest more proactively or productively. And so, I guess it varies person by person, but you use the time roughly as an example of an hour and then a rest. Is that the right recipe?

Petr Ludwig
Well, it really depends on what you want. For me, one hour is just enough. It can be 45 minutes, it can be 30 minutes, it can be two hours. It really depends. So, for me, one hour is just enough to focus on something and then to have a rest.

Pete Mockaitis
And when it comes to resting, you mentioned taking a walk or some of these other things. Are there any other key means of recuperating that are highly effective and efficient?

Petr Ludwig
I love those walks, yeah. Walks are very, very good because it really can boost your cardiovascular system. So, walks, then naps, of course. You can have like 15 to 20 naps. And naps are also very good in terms of productivity. It seems crazy that napping can boost your productivity, but it’s true. There’s a lot of scientific data about the fact that if you do one or two naps daily, your productivity is much higher than if you just do work for 12 hours in a row.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m a big believer in napping, Petr. The weirdo. When I worked in an office, I did, in fact, take naps and I was like, “Yeah, I’ve got scientific data on my side. This is enabling me to work better for you. You should be thanking me.” Cool. Well, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Petr Ludwig
For me, the core was to really find purpose of what you do. I want to write another book about purpose at work because like 80% of my clients I do one-on-one consulting, and 80% of my clients, they have struggles of finding purpose of what they do. Sometimes I call this corporate depression because it’s a problem of people that are working in big corporations, but they don’t see purpose of what they do. So, find purpose at work. It’s very important, and it’s a very important part of leadership to help people in your team to see purpose of what do they do. So, purpose, to me, is the key topics. Find purpose for yourself and to ask yourself what is meaningful to you, how you can improve the world a bit, and so on. Those are key questions.

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

Petr Ludwig
Well, I really love the quote, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” So, I love simplicity. I love minimalism. I loved it even before it was cool. And to really explain things simply, it’s my favorite, favorite thing because we live in a very chaotic and very complex world, and simplicity is very good for decreasing our stress and stress hormone cortisol too.

So, that’s why I love Japan. I go to Japan every year for one month. And, for me, when I’m sitting in temples in Kyoto that are very simple, it makes me much more relaxed and without stress. So, simplicity is very good, too, how to fight stress in this complex world.

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

Petr Ludwig
Yeah, it’s maybe the one about self-forgiveness. It’s quite a new study that it shows that if you can forgive yourself, then you procrastinate less. Because, people, if they can’t forgive themselves, they have more regrets, and they have much more negative feelings, and it can backfire again. So, self-forgiveness is very good. For example, if you fail at something, just forgive yourself and start again, and don’t blame yourself that much.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. And how about a favorite book?

Petr Ludwig
Yeah, I love the book from Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow. It’s a great book, and it was a very good source even for my book. But the problem is that the book is very complex and sometimes difficult to read, but the quality of the book is amazing. I saw Daniel Kahneman, I don’t know, one month ago here in New York, and he’s an incredible person. He’s the founder of the modern decision-making science. So, I love his book.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. And how about a favorite tool?

Petr Ludwig
My favorite tool, it’s a great question too. I think that it’s the Habit List, the one that I covered in the discussion with you, because I use this tool for maybe, now, five, six years, and it really changed my life. It really changed my life because, now, I’m able to really change my habits, and I have a tool that I believe in, and it’s really worked for me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now, I’m going to ask about a favorite habit, but maybe since you’ve got a whole list of habits, can you give us the rundown of what all is in your Habit List right now?

Petr Ludwig
I can open my Habit List and I can read it to you.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, you’ve got it digitally.

Petr Ludwig
Yeah, I have a digital one in my Excel table. And the first is cold shower, the second is exercise. Then I have one that is about overcoming my bad habit, and it’s drinking tea, because I don’t drink coffee, I only drink tea, so my limit is only one tea daily. And I used to drink like three, four teas, and there’s a lot of caffeine there. So, I want to get rid of this bad habit so my limit is one green tea daily. And then I have alcohol. My limit is less than a half liter of wine.

Pete Mockaitis
You’re from Czech Republic, right?

Petr Ludwig
Right.

Pete Mockaitis
We don’t have Praha Drinking Team, Petr. When I visited it, I saw tons of merch that said Praha Drinking Team. And I thought that was great.

Petr Ludwig
Yeah, in Prague, people usually drink a lot of beers. I like beer too but, for me, the wine is the issue. So, my limit is two glasses of wine daily. So, then I have gym. It’s a special column because the exercise column was the short morning exercise, and the gym is the longer one, one hour in the gym or to go running. And then I have a low carb diet, it means not to eat pizza. And the last column is to fill in my gratitude journal, to fill in three things that I’m grateful for daily. That’s also very cool habits to have.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, now, all of these are daily habits?

Petr Ludwig
Yup. Oh, no, no, no, the gym is not a daily habit. All my habits are daily habits except gym. I want to go gym three times weekly.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I was going to ask, does the game change at all when both in terms of the Habit List and how you’re tracking it, with the red or the green, and the contiguous walks, and in terms of behaviorally? Like, what do you do to install a habit that’s not every day?

Petr Ludwig
Well, then, you really can mark those days that you don’t have to do that, for example, with a blue dot. So, if you, I don’t know, want to do gym three times weekly, you put a green if you do that. If you don’t have to, you put a blue one. And if you don’t do it in a row for one week, then you put the red one.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood.

Petr Ludwig
Right.

Pete Mockaitis
And when you’re actually doing a habit that’s not every day, it seems like those can be harder to build and to take.

Petr Ludwig
Exactly. Exactly. That’s why I teach my clients to have daily habits. But sometimes, of course, you are unable to do it daily. For example, I play squash, and I have my friend that is playing the squash with me, and we do squash only once a week. So, with this habit it’s very good to find a partner. Like, it’s much easier to you to do that because you don’t want to cancel it in advance. So, if you have your buddy for sports, for exercise, it can really increase the chance that you really do that.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, absolutely. I guess I’m just wondering, so if you know that you don’t intend to go to the gym every day, but you want to make sure that that is a habit, how do you behaviorally lock that in?

Petr Ludwig
Well, yeah, I love those apps that you really book the gym, and if you want to cancel that you pay some money for that, so it’s also good motivation. So, I use an app ClassPass, and if you don’t go for a class, I think you pay, I don’t know, 20 bucks or something. It means that it can really force you to go.

Pete Mockaitis
Gotcha. And is there a particular nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with your readers and listeners?

Petr Ludwig
Okay. What I really like is those random small acts of kindness, and it really resonates with my clients. Because if you do one or two or three small random acts of kindness daily, it makes you much happier than if you buy a new iPhone or things like that. Because we have data that we have a specific part of the brain that is activated when you do something for the others. So, doing something selflessly, in terms of happiness, can be much long term than if you do something just selfish.

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

Petr Ludwig
Okay. Well, part of my book is about this, and another good book is a book from Adam Grant that is called Give and Take. It’s a great book even for leadership. And Adam made a lot of research on the fact that in these days, if you are not a taker but the giver, you can be much more successful.

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

Petr Ludwig
Okay. I think the final advice will be, again, about finding the purpose. Ask yourself what is important to you and how you can really help more your client, how you can really help more your colleagues, or what you can do to really be proud of yourself during the work day.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. Petr, this has been lots of fun. I wish you and the book The End of Procrastination tons of luck, and keep doing the good work.

Petr Ludwig
Thank you, Pete. It was a great discussion and you had great questions. Thank you very much.