Mindset Archives - Page 4 of 20 - How to be Awesome at Your Job

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

Alan Stein, Jr.
Oh, it’s so great to be with you again. I’ve been looking forward to this.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, me, too. Well, I’m curious to hear, any particularly interesting new discoveries or lessons learned within the last couple of years or so since we spoke last?

Alan Stein, Jr.
Yeah, I would say a pretty long list of them, to be honest. And most of which, I think, were things that were heightened exponentially over the pandemic. I know, for me, personally, from a book-writing standpoint, I’m always trying to write the book that mirrors what I’m going through in my own life, and I’m always trying to write the book that I need to be reading myself. I find it part liberating and part therapeutic to kind of research and write about the things that I’m struggling with.

So, my most recent book is about stress, stagnation, and burnout because those are three areas that I’ve struggled with for most of my life and career, and I know that a lot of people found those things heightened during the pandemic.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, let’s talk about the book Sustain Your Game. What’s the big idea here?

Alan Stein, Jr.
Well, the big idea, I think the cornerstone of it is that stress, stagnation, and burnout are things that we have massive control and influence over, fighting against, that they’re not things that happen to us. They are things that we can actually help navigate away from if we handle them correctly. And those were some of the kinds of pivotal moments that I’ve had over the last couple of years because I think I’ve gone through most of my life feeling like stress is something that happens to me and is imposed on me. And I now have a much different perspective.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, what’s the fresh perspective?

Alan Stein, Jr.
Well, so I’m a big fan of Eckhart Tolle, who’s, I guess for lack of a better term, a modern-day philosopher. And his definition of stress is the one that most resonated with me and kind of shifted my whole perspective. And Eckhart’s definition of stress is the desire for things to be different than they are in the present moment. And there was something about that I found very liberating and empowering because, ultimately, what I took away from that was stress is not caused by outside forces, stress is not caused by events, or circumstances, or what people say, or what people do.

Our stress is caused by our resistance to those things, or our perspective of those things, or how we internalize them. So, once that kind of clicked, and his definition, it’s not what’s going on. It’s my desire for what’s going on to be different is what’s actually stressing me out. And once that clicked with me, literally, I just saw the whole world differently now.

And, by all means, I’m not coming from a place of mastery, and I’m not sitting here pretending like I never feel stressed. But, now, when I do, I have the awareness to recognize that on some level, that’s a choice. And that if I would just stop resisting what is, that most of that stress would dissipate.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah, that is thought-provoking and eye-opening. So, nonetheless, some things we don’t want to be the way they are.

Alan Stein, Jr.
Oh, yeah, I’m glad that you highlighted that because, certainly, I don’t want you or your listeners to think I live in la-la land. And the way that I view it now, I still have my preferences, I still have opinions and ways that I’d like to see the world unfold. I just no longer expect that it’s the world’s job to conspire to make me happy, and it’s not the world or the universe’s job to make sure Alan Stein, Jr. gets all of his preferences.

So, now, when something occurs that’s not to my liking, or is not my preference, I just understand that’s part of the human condition. That’s kind of what we all signed up for to be here and I deal with it appropriately. And what I try to do is be more thoughtful in my response to what’s going on than to the event itself.

And, certainly, over the last couple of years, whether we’re talking about the pandemic or the political divide, there had been some incredibly emotionally charged things that have occurred over the last couple years in particular. And I still have my opinions and my preferences of those things but I no longer allow those things to dictate my perspective, and my mindset, and my attitude, and how I show up. And that, to me, is the big difference.

Before, when something happened that I didn’t like, I always felt like it was happening to me, and I was, in essence, an unconscious victim to the world around me. I now no longer allow myself to be the victim. I’ve taken those proverbial handcuffs off and just said, “Yeah, what just happened is not my preference, it’s not to my liking, but I’m going to be very thoughtful in choosing a response to this situation that actually moves me forward and helps me.” So, it shifted me from being a victim to feeling much more empowered.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s really intriguing. And I’m thinking right now about airports when it comes to stress because, you mentioned you’re flying to Nashville shortly, and I’m thinking that you can have stressors big or small in terms of small, like, “Oh, my flight is delayed. That’s inconvenient. I guess I might have to cancel a lunch or dinner. I was planning on meeting someone on the other side, which is a bummer.”

And then I’m thinking of a buddy of mine recently told me a tale about how he was straight-up arrested for mistakenly taking a MacBook Air that looked just like his, and it’s like, “Oh, sorry. Oops,” “No, you’re coming with us,” and he spent a night in jail. So, wild story, and in that instance, he preferred that would be different alright on a whole nother level.

I guess that kind of gets my blood boiling in terms of, like in that instance, like he actually is a victim of an injustice before him. And so, I want your hot take here in terms of if the size of the stress is small versus medium versus big, does that change how you play the game in your mind?

Alan Stein, Jr.
I believe that it does, and one of the interesting parts of that, and just to go on record, it would be my preference that I’m not arrested at the airport, and it’d be my preference that my flights aren’t delayed either. Yeah, so I have nothing but empathy and compassion for him to go through such an ordeal. But the mindset portion of it, what you still need to say is, “Okay, this is…” and that’s an extreme case, “This is less than ideal that I’m being charged with this and I’m going to spend the night in jail.”

Pete Mockaitis
Less than ideal, that’s right.

Alan Stein, Jr.
Yeah, less than ideal. And let me certainly go on record saying there’s nothing easy about any of this. I don’t want to pretend for one second that if either of those scenarios happened to me, that I would just automatically be chipper and smile and act like everything is great. There is a distinction to make and there’s two ways to answer your question.

One is, so once this has already transpired, as awful as that scenario is, once he realizes, “All right, I’m already being charged and I’m going to spend the night in jail,” that now has become reality. That has now become fact. And no matter how angry he gets, ornery he gets, pissed off he gets, it’s not going to change the fact. So, the more upset he gets, all that’s doing is punishing himself. It’s not like, “Hey, if I throw a massive fit, they’re going to let me go home tonight.” It doesn’t change your situation.

So, what you need to try to do is say, “Okay, as awful as this is, what’s a response that can at least make this somewhat palatable or at least make this a little bit better?” Again, spending the night in jail in some random city for an honest mistake is pretty tragic, but you’re only punishing yourself if you choose to let it bend you all out of whack. And that’s just something you keep in the back of your mind.

The other part that I certainly want to make a distinction is I believe in feeling all emotions. I don’t believe there’s any such thing as a good or a bad emotion. I think they’re all part of the human experience. Now, there’s emotions that we would probably prefer to have. I’m sure you and I would prefer to be joyous and elated instead of frustrated or disappointed, but they’re part of our emotional palate for a reason. So there’s nothing wrong with feeling emotions.

And, in fact, if I was arrested and had to spend the night in jail for mistakenly taking someone’s iPad, I would feel a wide range of emotions, from anger to frustration, to disappointment, to… I mean, you fill in the blank. But what we have to learn to do is not let how we feel dictate how we behave. I had a really good friend of mine that’s the mental performance coach for the San Francisco Giants in major league baseball, and he said something that affected me just as profoundly as Eckhart Tolle’s quote, and he said, “Our emotions are designed to inform us. They’re not designed to direct us.”

So, our emotions are kind of a litmus test to how we’re perceiving the world and how we’re feeling, but we have to be very careful in not letting them dictate our behavior or our decisions. So, back to this crazy scenario that your friend experienced, there’s nothing wrong with me being upset, angry, frustrated, disappointed that I’ve been arrested but I don’t want that to be how I behave. I certainly don’t want to be belligerent to the police officer. That could get me in even more trouble, spend multiple nights in jail.

And it’s one of those things that I’ve always believed that if you can kind of control your emotions to the point it doesn’t dictate your behavior and the way you show up, that’s one definition of mental toughness. You’re completely resilient when you say that, “No matter what goes on in the outer world, I’m not going to let it rattle me and dictate my inner world.” And that is not an easy place to get to, and I won’t pretend for one second that if I get arrested on my flight to Nashville tomorrow that I’ll handle it with the stoicism that I’m sharing with you right now, but that would be the goal.

And that’s where I’m trying to work to the point where I would be able to handle just about anything thrown at me with that type of stoic approach. Because, again, acting on your emotions and being belligerent and being upset is only going to make the situation worse. You think temporarily it’s going to make you feel better, but, ultimately, it’s only going to make it worse.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s right in terms of if you say, “You know what, I gave that cop a piece of my mind. That felt so good.” Probably not. Regardless of the response, the doing it is not going to produce a catharsis. Well, just not to leave people hanging, there was a, I don’t know if you’d call a happy ending, but he did follow some of these principles in terms of he’s like, “Okay. Well, you know what, what do I have control over? In my mugshot, I’m going to look as friendly and kind and not guilty as possible. That’s what I’m going to do.”

And if they didn’t like that, they’re like, “No, you can’t smile. You can’t smile in your mugshot. Do it again. Do it again.” It’s like, “Okay, when I have an opportunity to make a call, I want to be really friendly and polite and professional,” and he managed to make like seven calls, like multiple lawyers and his wife and such.

And that was helpful because they gave him some good tips, and he said, “You know, I am in a jail cell with these people. But you know what? They have some knowledge, like, hey, so there’s a big bunch of bail companies I could call. Like, who’s best?” Like, “Oh, you should call these guys. They’re way faster than the other ones.”

And so, it still sucked a lot and it was costly with lawyers and all of that, but it didn’t wreck his life. It’s just a few thousand bucks and some crazy inconvenience, and he’s back on his feet.

Alan Stein, Jr.
And, at the very least, he’s got an incredible story to tell now.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. And if you did let the emotions not just inform but direct and sort of rage and you’re not thinking clearly in terms of, “Oh, what wisdom might my fellow jail mates might have for me right now?” You’re just like, “This is such bull crap. I can’t believe…” if your brain is there, it’s not doing that helpful thinking for you.

Alan Stein, Jr.
Absolutely. And one other thing I’ve noticed, and I’m glad that it was somewhat of a happy story or happy ending, rather. Let’s use the less severe example that you gave, that your flight is delayed or your flight is canceled. Because of how much travel I do, I get to see this happen pretty regularly, and usually what happens, somebody feels so massively inconvenienced as if the entire airline was conspiring to ruin this one person’s day and, “We decided to delay this flight just because we wanted to make you angry.”

What they end up doing, they let their emotions get the best of them, and then they unload those emotions on someone that has nothing to do with it. Usually, the person that you’re unloading your disapproval on has nothing to do with what it is that you’re angry about. The person that’s working kind of behind the desk, they’re not responsible for your delayed flight. They have nothing to do with that.

So, now you’re unloading on somebody else that can’t…I mean, they’re not responsible for it. And then, if you think of just general human nature, how likely is this person going to be to bend over backwards to try to help you find a resolution when you’ve just unloaded all of your anger and frustration and disappointment on them?

I’ve had plenty of delayed and canceled flights, and I have always found that as disappointing and frustrating as that may be internally, whoever I speak with at the airline, I try and kill them with kindness. And the very first thing I say is, “I know you’re going to have a rough couple of hours dealing with all of these headaches. Just know how much empathy and compassion I have for you.”

“I know this isn’t ideal for any of us and I just really appreciate anything you can do to still get me home or to get me to wherever I’m trying to go,” and offer a genuine and authentic and warm smile, and a little compassion, and usually people will go out of their way to try and find a way to help me out, versus the person that’s just going to be belligerent and screaming curse words and act like the whole world is conspiring against them.

So, it goes back to, “Yeah, I’m frustrated that my flight is delayed, but what’s the thoughtful response that I can make in real time that will increase the chance that I’ll get on the next flight, or that they can book me somewhere else, or maybe they’ll offer me a free hotel room, or whatever?” So, yeah, the ultimate part of this is we only punish ourselves when we allow our emotions to overtake our behavior and the way we treat others. It’s not punishing anybody else. You’re just making your own life more miserable.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, there’s a huge master key right there is just your mindset, your perspective, your philosophy there. Anything else we can do to build up the mental toughness and resilience in advance, if it’s like exercise, or hydration, or nutrition, or supplements, or meditation? Like, what are some things that could be helpful for building up a capacity to respond in an enlightened fashion to stress beyond just having the ideal mindset?

Alan Stein, Jr.
Well, two things come to mind. One, and this is kind of an offshoot of mindset, and that is learning how to be in the present moment. A lot of our frustrations and disappointments and anger stems from an attachment to something that happened in the past, and we simply make the assumption that, whatever happened in the past that did not turn out in our favor, is going to happen again right now. So, we just make that assumption, which is usually not very helpful or useful.

And then the other thing we do is we have a preconceived notion or a prediction of the future, which, of course, is always hypothetical, and that’s what increases anxiety. So, we can get kind of depressed and upset about something that happened previously, and then we can start being worrying and anxious about something that may happen in the future. And both of those things are just taking us away from being in the present moment.

Again, using the scenarios that you posed, because they’re pretty real-life scenarios, if you just take a deep breath, and go, “Okay, in this moment, my flight has been delayed two hours. I’m probably going to miss the connection and I’m going to miss my dinner with Pete tonight. That’s not ideal. That’s not my preference. It’s a little bit frustrating but it’s the reality, and I accept it.”

“I’m not going to resist it. I’m not going to draw on something from the past where I had this awful experience. And I’m not going to get anxious about the future and worry, ‘Well, maybe Pete and I won’t be friends ever again. He’s going to be so upset that…’” And I start just kind of creating this false narrative.

When if you just take a deep breath and you stay in the present moment, and you say, “You know what, it’s not that bad. Yes, I would’ve preferred to have caught my flight and had not been delayed, but this is what happened. I’ll make the best of it.” So, being in the present moment is certainly an offshoot of that and a way to help remedy it.

And then kind of more on a tactical and esoteric level, in addition to what you mentioned, making sure you’re feeding your body and moving your body, and getting good quality sleep, because I do believe mind and body are connected, but it’s also paying very close attention to the inputs of our life. We all want to have great outputs. We want to be efficient. We want to be effective. We want to produce. We want to earn. And that stuff is directly related to the inputs in our life.

What you read, watch, and listen to, who you insulate yourself with, and who you invest your time with, what you choose to consume on social media is just as important as what you choose to consume nutritionally. These things have a massive impact on the way we see the world. So, anyone looking to level up their output, they need to directly look on the other side of the curtain at their inputs, and say, “Okay, if I want a more quality output, I need to read, watch, and listen to a higher level of content.” And same thing on social, same thing with the people that you insulate yourself with. So, just have high discernment with where you choose to place your attention.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Okay, so that’s the stress side of things. How about we touch upon the stagnating and the burnout?

Alan Stein, Jr.
Sure. Well, the stagnation part, that’s really where I was kind of leaning towards with this changing of the inputs, because usually the stagnation, which I kind of look at, is just kind of being on that hedonic treadmill. You’re just kind of treading water. You’re expending energy but you’re not really going anywhere in life.

And it’s often just kind of this numb feeling where you’re just towing the line of mediocrity and you’re noticing that your outputs are starting to stagnate. And the best way to jumpstart that and break through that stagnation is changing your inputs. Reaching out to some people that maybe are more accomplished than you are, or have walked the path that you haven’t walked just yet so you can learn from them. And maybe be a mentee to a mentor that’s doing something that you’d like to emulate.

If you find yourself just watching the same old stuff on Netflix and just listening to the same old radio stations or talk radio, see if you can infuse some other things in there, some podcasts or documentaries or books, or just something to kind of jumpstart on the input side, and that’ll help you break through that stagnation.

One of the hardest parts of stagnation is just acknowledging that you’re stagnating. Awareness is always the first step to improvement because you’ll never fix something you’re unaware of, and you’ll never improve something you’re oblivious to. And the reason stagnation can be so tricky is it’s kind of undercover. It’s not proverbial rock bottom. When we hit rock bottom, we usually feel inspired to act and make a change, and that’s the part that’s so slippery and dangerous about stagnation is you’re just kind of towing that line.

So, stress, we really feel in the moment; burnout, we really feel in the long term; stagnation is that tricky mid-term where you can easily fall numb to it and spend months or years in a stagnant place, and not even know it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, just checking in, it’s like, “Hey, am I stagnant? What’s going on?” adjusting the inputs. Any other recommendations there?

Alan Stein, Jr.
Well, I think it’s important to make sure that you get feedback from the people that know you best, your inner circle, if you will, because often, they’ll be able to spot your stagnation before you spot it. Whether this is like an intimate partner or a spouse, or if you have adult children, or close friends, or colleagues, but, hopefully, you’ve created the type of relationship with them, that you let them know, “Look, I’m always open to your feedback and I always welcome you helping me see my own blind spots.”

I think one of the most important perspectives we can have as human beings is to acknowledge that all of us have blind spots. Now, we can’t see them, hence the reason they’re blind spots, but having the humility to acknowledge, “I know there are things that I don’t know. And when someone cares enough to bring some of those blind spots into a level of awareness and shine a light on them for me, that’s one of the best gifts they can give me.”

So, hopefully, you’ve created the type of relationships, both personally and professionally, where people can say that, “Hey, I just feel like you’ve just been kind of treading water.” And many times, this usually comes from a spouse or somebody that you’re intimate with because they see you, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and see you a lot more than everyone else, but hopefully you’ve got the type of relationship where they can say, “Hey, I just feel like you’re stagnant.” And I try to insulate myself with people in my life that will tell me, for sure.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about when it comes to burnout?

Alan Stein, Jr.
So, burnout is an interesting one because I look at stress as a too much issue, stagnation as a too little issue, and those things kind of combine are usually what set you on the path to burnout. While researching the book, I found that burnout is a very specific condition. When the hours that you’re working and the sacrifices that you’re making are no longer in alignment with where you find meaning or purpose or what you find fascinating, or the work you’re putting in is no longer in alignment with your core values or the person that you’re trying to become.

So, it’s that splintering effect of misalignment that causes the issue. It’s not just from working long hours. That can potentially be a problem over time but we probably all know someone that maybe it’s an entrepreneur with a new startup, and they’re working 60-, 70-, 80-hour weeks but they find so much meaning in their work, and they love it so much. They’re most likely not at risk for burnout. So, it’s when you don’t find meaning in your work, or you’re not fascinated by it, or it’s not in alignment.

Another big one, especially for folks at work in organizations, folks get burnout when they don’t feel like their contribution is making a difference. They don’t feel like they’re contributing to something bigger than themselves. They just kind of feel like, “I’m just a number showing up to work. I don’t know that I really matter.” So, when we don’t feel like we matter, or we don’t feel like there’s meaning in our work, that’s when we’re at risk of burnout.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if there we are in the midst of it, what do we do?

Alan Stein, Jr.
Yeah. Well, again, be thankful if you have the awareness to recognize that, and there’s a few things you can do. One, you have to clarify your north star and get crystal clear. Assuming that you found meaning in that work or in that job at some point, and usually that’s the case, is to kind of reverse-engineer and track backwards and deconstruct, and say, “Okay, I’ve been in this job for 10 years. For the first eight years, I really enjoyed working here. I loved my role. I loved the people I was working with but I don’t feel that anymore.” And try to be reflective and introspective to figure out why.

Maybe you’ve been given some different assignments and your role has changed. Maybe a few colleagues have left and you’re now working with new people that you don’t feel as connected with but try to pinpoint what caused the change. And pinpointing at change, again, bringing it to a level of awareness, can allow you to explore some minor pivots, say, within the organization.

Maybe you ask to take on a new role, or report to someone differently, or work in a different department, or maybe you just come to the end of the road with that organization, and you want to look elsewhere. But then you have to ask yourself, “Do I want to do the same type of work for another company? Or, do I want to change industries completely?”

I’m an example of that. I spent 15 years as a basketball performance coach, and I really loved the time that I did that. But, as I was kind of nearing that 15-year mark, I started to feel burnout. I wasn’t enjoying the work I was doing near as much as I had in years prior, so I decided to make the leap completely out of that industry, and jumped into corporate keynote speaking and writing.

So, for me, I made a fairly drastic change but it was absolutely the right choice because it re-lit my fire and got me excited again. So, I think folks just need to be able to look at, “Is this something that requires a couple of minor tweaks that might get me back on course? Or, do I need to try something more drastic?” But at least pulling open the hood and taking a look at everything underneath to figure that out is, I think, a great step.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, you said the word pivot, which got me thinking. You have three steps you lay out in your book – perform, pivot, prevail. How do these work in sequence?

Alan Stein, Jr.
The way that I kind of looked at it was we’re trying to perform in the moment, and the biggest thing that can undermine that is stress, and that’s something that we feel kind of on the daily. In that mid-term, where we feel like we’re stagnating and things are just kind of towing that line, we need to figure out a way to pivot, to try something different, to shake things up.

And then if we are slowly approaching burnout, where there is this misalignment, then the ultimate goal is to prevail, is to be able to overcome that burnout either within your current job and vocation and company that you’re working with, or you might have to prevail by going somewhere else and doing something completely different.

And they’re not 100% sequential. We can toggle in and out of those at different times, into different amounts, but the way I look at it is more from a timeframe standpoint. You have stress kind of in the short term, you have stagnation more in that mid-term, and then burnout is an accumulation of the previous two, and that’s what happens in the long term.

Pete Mockaitis
Alrighty. And when professionals are trying to put your wisdom into action, into practice, are there some hiccups, road bumps, mistakes that come up again and again? And how should we navigate that?

Alan Stein, Jr.
I’m trying to think of some of the most common. I mean, the answer to the question is yes. Actually, that would be my answer to just about anything as far as no matter what it is we’re trying to do when we’re trying to implement and initiate change, there are always going to be roadblocks and hiccups and lessons to learn. But I think the key to that is embracing that and acknowledging everything that I’ve shared with you in this lovely conversation, and everything I’ve put in my books, and everything that I say on stage, all of these things are very basic principles, but none of this stuff is easy. None of it is.

And that’s why, with all of this stuff, I’m not speaking from a place of mastery. This is all stuff that I’m continuing to work on and to refine as I’m trying to evolve. And, to me, the goal has never been perfection. The goal has always been progress, consistent incremental progress. And with any of these things that we’ve talked about, can I be a little bit better today than I was yesterday? Can I be a little bit better in 2022 than I was in 2021, whether it’s my ability to manage stress, or avoid stagnation, or beat burnout, or be in the present moment, or have more thoughtful responses when the world doesn’t align to my preferences?

And I’m very proud of the fact that I can say, yes, I do all of those things consistently better today than I have in the past. If you and I reconnect again on your show in a couple more years, I’m hoping I can say with a huge smile that I’m doing an even better job then than I’m doing right now in the moment.

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

Alan Stein, Jr.
No, this has been great. I always love your line of questions and the direction in which you navigate things. This has been fun. This is great.

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

Alan Stein, Jr.
So, one of my favorite quotes is about as basic and as simple as it gets, and that is, “If nothing changes, nothing changes.” And the reason I love that is there’s two types of change that we all experience. There’s the imposed change. A perfect example of that is a two-year global pandemic or potentially an economic recession. Like, there’s things that can happen in the outer world that are imposed on us, and we have to respond to them. And those are obviously uncontrollable.

But the change I’m always referring to is initiated change. It’s the changes that we choose to make. So, it’s being able to have the awareness to say, “I’m not as physically fit as I’d like to be, so I need to make some changes to the way I eat, to my sleep, to my working out, and so forth because I have to acknowledge that, if I don’t change those things, then nothing on my body is going to change.”

And it could be the same thing for mental or emotional fitness, “I need to change the way that I perceive stress when the outside world imposes itself on me, and be much more thoughtful in my response.” So, I‘m a huge fan of leaning into and initiating change to take us closer to becoming the person that we strive to become.

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

Alan Stein, Jr.
What I found really interesting, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to botch the numbers on this, but you’ll get the general sentiment. And this speaks directly to what I believe is one of the most dangerous games that any of us can play, and that is the comparison game. I do think, and I’m a huge advocate of social media.

I believe social media can be a great connection tool. It can be a great source of information and learning. It’s a great way to share if you have something of value. But social media, I think, is built to encourage us to play the comparison game, and to see how your life stacks up, usually materialistically, to someone else’s life.

And the problem with playing the comparison game is it usually makes us feel less than. You go on Instagram and you see that somebody has got a nicer house, or a nicer car, or a shinier watch, or a prettier girlfriend, or they go on better vacations, and it starts to make you feel less than. And that’s a dangerous, dangerous slope to tackle.

And there was some research that asked people, and again, this is where I don’t think my numbers are going to be completely exact, but you’ll get the point.
Would I rather make $70,000 a year and everybody else around me makes 50? So, I’m making a little bit more than them, and that makes me feel good but I’m making $70,000 a year. Or, would I rather make $100,000 a year but everyone around me makes $120,000 a year? So, net, I’m making $30,000 more dollars a year in the second scenario but it’s less than what everybody around me makes. And most people always want to feel that they’re winning the comparison game. They would actually rather make less money but make more money than the people in their direct area than the exact opposite of that.

And I just found that study fascinating. That’s kind of a peek behind the curtain into the human condition and the way people view things. And it’s very understandable, and I don’t say that with an ounce of judgment. I just found that study really interesting.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite book?

Alan Stein, Jr.
One of my all-time favorites, and I’m sure most of your listeners have already read it because I think he sold over five million copies, is Atomic Habits by my good friend James Clear. Most of what I share when it comes to building habits, I’ve learned from James and his blog and his book and a lot of his work. That’s definitely a go-to.

A secondary one is another book by my friend Phil Jones, who wrote a very short book called Exactly What to Say. It’s more of a guide than a book, and it’s a great reference on kind of how magic words can be, and we have to be very thoughtful and intentional about the words we choose because they change the world around us. And if you’re looking to be more influential and impactful, that you have to be very careful about the words you choose. And I found that book really, really insightful and very, very helpful.

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

Alan Stein, Jr.
I’m a big fan of the Headspace app for a guided meditation. I know a lot of what we’ve talked about is about being present and being grounded and being mindful. And because I come from a sports background, I’m a huge believer in practice, that you’ve got to practice, especially during the unseen hours.

So, that’s an app and a tool that I use very regularly. It’s a very calm and almost a serene feel of 10-minute guided meditation. And I try and do that at least once a day but I’ll throw that in anytime that I’m feeling a little bit stressed. So, you best believe if my flight to Nashville tomorrow gets delayed, I’ll pop in my earbuds and do a 10-minute meditation to, hopefully, bring me back down.

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

Alan Stein, Jr.
I’m very fortunate that I have a quote that’s painted in a big 12-foot mural in the Penn State Football Training Center, and it says, “Are the habits you have today on par with the dreams you have for tomorrow?” And that’s a mantra I try and live by. I’m a big believer in habits and the things that we do consistently. And I always want to make sure that the things that I’m doing on a daily basis are in alignment and are in harmony with the person that I’m trying to become.

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

Alan Stein, Jr.
They can go to AlanSteinJr.com. I also have a supplemental site StrongerTeam.com, and I’m very easily found on social media @AlanSteinJr. I love interacting with folks, so if you’re on Instagram or LinkedIn or Twitter or Facebook, just shoot me a DM. And if you have a question or want to discuss anything that Pete and I talked about, I’m always open for that. And, certainly, if anyone is interested in either book Raise Your Game or Sustain Your Game, they’re easily found on Amazon, Audible, or wherever you like to get your books.

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

Alan Stein, Jr.
I do. I think at the ground level, the foundation, is showing up at your job emotionally charged and as the best version of yourself. And in order to do that, you have to take a look at your morning and your evening routines, how you’re spending the bookends of your day. So, one of the exercises I always encourage folks to do is a very basic self-audit. You take a piece of paper. You draw a vertical line down the middle.

On the left side, come up with an exhaustive list of all of the things that light you up, that give you energy, that make you smile, that make you feel alive, that add to your confidence. This could be taking a Peloton class or pulling out your yoga mat to do some stretches. It could be a quiet morning reading the paper and drinking some coffee. It could be watching a riveting documentary or taking your dog for a walk. But any of the activities that give you energy and fill you up, then come up with a list of those.

And then on the other side of the paper, on the other side of that right line, write down how you’ve been spending the bookends of your day, your morning and your evening routine. Then you’re going to compare the two sides of the paper. You’re going to compare the two sets of notes. And you’re going to ask yourself one of the most important questions you can ever ask yourself, and that is, “Am I doing the things that I know I need to do to be my best self and to show up as my best self, ready to make a maximum contribution to my job?”

And if you do that with some honesty and some vulnerability, you’ll most likely start to uncover what’s called a performance gap, and that is the gap between what we know we should do to be our best self, and what we actually do on a daily basis. And one of the key tenets of my work is helping folks close that gap and start doing the things they know they need to do.

If you can make the time to heighten your self-care and to sprinkle some of the things from the left side of the paper onto the right side, and even if it’s just 10 to 15 minutes in the morning and evening, doing the things that light you up and fill your bucket, it’ll have a massive impact on how you show up, your energy level, how you feel about yourself, and, absolutely, your ability to make a contribution to your work, to your job, to your organization.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Alan, thank you. It’s been a treat. I wish you much luck and fun and sustaining of your game.

Alan Stein, Jr.
Likewise, my friend. This was great. Thank you so much.

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

Jody Michael
Thank you. It’s great to be here, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to chat with you about your book Leading Lightly: Lower Your Stress, Think with Clarity, and Lead with Ease. But, first, I was so curious, is it, in fact, true that you have done, over your lifetime, 40,000 coaching sessions?

Jody Michael
No, that’s not accurate.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, okay.

Jody Michael
It’s over 40,000. I stopped counting a bit back.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, over. Yes, okay.

Jody Michael
Yeah, I’ve been doing this a long time, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow! Well, so I’ve got know, what are some insights about the human condition that just come from that? Are there some patterns you’ve picked up on that you think you have been able to notice, having had this unique experience, that most of us are maybe unaware of?

Jody Michael
Yeah, so I think that when I’m talking to people, because it’s a very select audience, there’s generally three challenges that come up over and over again. And the first category is probably leveling up their leadership to be more effective. People come with that concern all the time – being a better leader, a better operator, a better communicator, embodying a more powerful executive presence.

And then the second area are concerns around emotional intelligence, the need to just be able to read the room, learn how to manage their emotions, effectively deal with people issues, all those internal politics that go on, the different personalities, the bosses. And then, since COVID, what’s coming up more and more is just managing the burnout, the stress, the Sunday night anxiety, both within themselves and really, “How do I help my team?” That’s what comes up.

And what is surprising to me is the person in the room. It doesn’t matter if they’re the CEO, it doesn’t matter if they’re a beginning manager, honestly, they bring a lot of the same based concerns. You would think that that would not be true but it is true. So, you get the stress and anxiety and imposter syndrome from C-suite executives as well as a manager. That surprised me early on.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you. Okay, that is surprising and good to note, and you’ve got the credibility and clout there, having done so many reps here. So, thank you. And I guess that’s, in a way, encouraging in terms of, “Hey, even superstars that have super senior positions are experiencing some of the same things I’m having. And, thusly, it doesn’t mean I’m weird or freakish or broken in any way. This is just part of the human condition.”

Jody Michael
It is the human condition. That’s exactly right.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, thank you for that. Well, now let’s hear about the book, Leading Lightly. What’s the big idea or main thesis or message here?

Jody Michael
Well, it doesn’t have to be this hard. That’s the big message. When you look at how people are coping today, one out of five Americans are on psychotropic drugs, one out of 20 can’t go to sleep at night without a prescription sleeping pill, and a study that I read just a couple months ago from the World Health Organization shows that the prevalence of anxiety and depression has gone up 25% worldwide, 25% worldwide since COVID.

So, I think it’s fair to say we’re not faring well. We’re not mentally fit or not very mentally fit. And I think this is hard for people to imagine but I want to take you there right. I just want you to imagine that you can go through your day and nothing really upsets you, nothing triggers you, nothing stresses you. Imagine this, yes, Pete, it’s possible. And it’s not because you’re having some super rare problem-free day; it’s that you’re having the same challenges that were there the day before.

What’s changed is you. You’re different. You’re not reactive. You’re not defensive. You’re not emotionally triggered. You’re Teflon. Nothing sticks. That’s leading lightly. And so, my book is a wakeup call. Your wakeup call to help you see how you’re unwittingly sabotaging yourself, your energy, your performance, how you’re making your days harder and more painful and more exhausting than they need to be.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that is compelling and exciting as an opportunity and a possibility that this really could be so in our lives. So, then maybe could you share a story so that we can see this in action in terms of a professional who was stressed, exhausted, burned out, overwhelmed and then what they did to turn things around and to lead lightly and be stress-free and untriggered?

Jody Michael
I’d love to. I am going to choose a woman that worked at a Fortune 500 company, we’ll call her Susan, mid to late 30s, ambitious, great at executing, great at delivering projects, perceived as a high potential in the organization. Here’s the problem; she only cared about results. She was intimidating, a driver, just led from stress. She was demanding, dismissive, defensive, and, honestly, no one liked working with her, or for her. Anywhere around this woman was kind of a problem.

So, she was on a six-month performance improvement plan, that’s when we started working together, and so we didn’t have a lot of time to make some pretty big changes in her leadership and how she was experiencing her days, but she worked hard, she took it seriously. She used our MindMastery For Mental Fitness app. And in a few weeks, people started to see her change.

She was lighter, visibly softer. Her meetings became interactive, inspiring instead of how she had been merely directive, which was her style, and people were surprised that she was showing up caring, empathic. She had slowed down. That’s what others saw on the outside. And here’s the message that I want to deliver, here’s what actually happened on the inside – she shifted her perspective.

So, she no longer thought she knew everything. She no longer thought others had a negative intent. She no longer thought she always had to watch her back, so she became more calm, more self-aware, more mindful. And over the next six months, she radically changed how she held her emotions, how she handled her emotions.

So, even if she was upset on the inside, she didn’t show it. She didn’t let that impact how she interacted with others and she became far less stressed. She wasn’t staying up as late at night. She wasn’t moving as fast. She wasn’t talking as fast. She was just more effective. And by the end of our engagement, she wasn’t reactive. She was no longer attacking. She wasn’t defensive. And if she got triggered, she was able to shift out of this triggered state within 60 to 90 seconds without others even being aware of it.

Now, let me finish this story here by telling you, as you can imagine, everyone was worried that she would revert as soon as the coaching engagement was over. I’m right there holding her hand, and that’s what people’s biggest concerns were, her coworkers, but it never happened. Two years later, she broke that glass ceiling at her company, made it to the C-suite, and it was just a far cry from the performance improvement plan that she had on when we first met. So, that’s an example of somebody feeling better internally and all of the people around them getting to experience it as well.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool, Jody. Well, that sounds like almost a business-fable type book. We’ve got the drama, “Oh, it’s the end of the line of performance improvement plan. You might be on the way out,” and then, turn around and happy ending. That’s beautiful. Cool. So, you mentioned she worked hard. Let’s zoom in. What does that work look like? If we want to be resilient, mentally fit, stress-free, leading lightly, what are the actions we take to get there?

Jody Michael
Yeah. Well, let me walk you through it. And I think that it’s easiest if I give you an example that everyone can relate to.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Jody Michael
So, here’s what that would look like, and there’s probably not a listener that would not relate to this. You get an email and you know it’s that email, the one that triggers you, and it makes you so angry that you immediately…you sit down, you’re furiously typing your response, and you hit Send, not just Send, you hit Reply All, and it feels so good.

You feel good. You’re sitting there in the moment feeling good, and then two minutes later, you panic. You probably let out a few expletives. And in that moment, you’re wishing you could take back that email. When you’re triggered, when you’re not thinking clearly, you don’t make good decisions. You become reactive, defensive, whatever.

So, my process helps you learn how to manage those moods and those thoughts and those situations, and I have a step-by-step process I called MindMastery, and it’s going to build your mental fitness by disrupting your habitual patterns, and then, over time, it will actually rewire your brain. And so, for people to remember this process, I created a mnemonic.

The first part is ABC, the second part is SEE. So, A stands for assess. The first thing you want to do if you’re starting to rebuild your brain is to assess the moods and the thoughts that you have when you get triggered, and this is super critical. You have to start hearing what you say to yourself. And before I even more on to letter B, I want to make sure that you get one really important concept. The words of the email did not cause you to become furious. It wasn’t the words. What caused you to become furious were the thoughts you had when you read the email.

So, in that example, maybe someone’s sitting there saying, “He’s lying. I didn’t say that,” and that created the thought, or the mood, I should say, of furious. Another person who receives that exact same email directed at them may have the thought, “What? Was I unclear? Did he misunderstand what I said to him the other day?” and they would’ve created a very different mood, a mood of confusion with the exact same words on that email. That’s a critical distinction that, for many people, it really takes a while to embody. So, that’s the first you’re doing, is just assessing, “What did I just say to myself that created this upset?”

B stands for breathe. Breathing deeply, as soon as you start to assess, “What did I just say to myself?” deep diaphragmic breathing, holding it for six seconds, releasing, and then repeating it as you needed until you calm yourself. You’re doing that. And C is you’re choosing. You’re choosing to be accountable for your moods, for your thoughts, for your behavior, for whatever results happen as a result, and you look in the mirror, you ask yourself, “How did I contribute to this situation?” You’re not blaming. You’re not focusing on the other party.

And once you get stabilized with this ABC, the second part of the mnemonic, SEE, this is going to boost your resilience and your emotional intelligence because it’s really getting to the heart of who you are and who you can be. So, the first letter is S, and it stands for spot. You want to spot your current lens, your current perspective that’s driven by your underlying core beliefs. That’s what’s causing your distrust.

E stands for explore. You want to explore other lenses, other perspectives, by being curious, by being empathic, flexible, open. And the final E stands for elect. You want to elect a lens, choose a perspective that is going to allow you to perform at your best in this given situation. And if you engage in this process, my God, I’ve been doing this for over 20 years, refining it, refining it, we’ve got it under 10 minutes a day. If you’re doing it correctly, if you’re doing it eight or more times a day over a long enough period of time, you’re going to feel the difference, you’re going to start to respond differently, and others are going to notice it as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so then, that eight times a day, that is in response to a stressor.

Jody Michael
That is in response to that app coming at you intermittently, randomly, when you’re not ready and you’re just responding to that app, and responding to ABC, assessing, “Where am I? What is the mood I’m in right now? What are the thoughts I’m having right now?” etc. And it’s going to build your emotional intelligence. It’s going to help you calm down, etc. Now, can you proactively go in when you get triggered? Absolutely. That’s going to help this process go faster, your brain is going to learn it exponentially quicker, and you’re going to get results.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now, refresh us the name of the app is what and how do we get it?

Jody Michael
It is MindMastery for Mental Fitness.

Pete Mockaitis
MindMastery for Mental Fitness.

Jody Michael
And it’s on Google Apps, it’s on Apple, and we were one of the first transformational, if not the first transformational app out there. It’s been out there for 10 years. So, I’ve been doing research on this. I’ve been using this process for over 20 years, and it is a vast majority, a good proportion of those 40,000 one-on-one sessions I’ve done.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so then, with 10 years and research and experience, what sort of…is there some quantified lift on a construct that psychologists would point to, like, “Hey, when you do this, we can expect X percent improvement in Y”?

Jody Michael
I don’t have the X percent improvement on Y. There’s a lot of reasons that will bore your listeners for me to go through, but what we can look at and measure, the second piece of the app is going to measure how quickly you can get yourself out of a triggered state, and if you can sustain it. And that’s what we’re looking for. That’s what I really care about. It’s like, “Look, when you get triggered, can you pause and can we get your amygdala, your fight-or-flight response down so you’re not going to make a leadership mistake, you’re not going to say something you don’t want to say, or take an action or make a decision that’s not good in that moment?”

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s cool. And so, what are some of the kind of like the before-or-after times associated with that?

Jody Michael
Honestly, when you get good at doing…look, when you first start, it’s hard. People will come back and say, “Look, I was in this mood for three days.” And that same person three months later is like they’re in that mood for 10 minutes. You move that out six months later, they’re in that mood for 40 seconds. And at some point, your brain, because here’s what’s really going on in your brain. You’re just following habitual neuropathways. So, when you’re reactive, your brain just wants to take the shortcut. It’s just doing it. You’re not even thinking about it.

But when you stop your brain from reacting, and you say, “No, no, I don’t want to go down that path, that well-worn path. I’m going to create a new path,” over time, that new path that you repeat is going to be a well-grooved path and, at some point, your brain is going to shift over and go down the new pathway. And that’s how change, deep systemic change happens. And that’s what’s exciting because mental fitness, unlike physical fitness, if you do it long enough, it just stays with you. It’s just your new 2.0 version of you.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so let’s maybe walk through an example. Let’s say the app zings me or buzzes me, and I am feeling stressed because my two precious children, three and four years old, are being kind of squabble-y, they’re like just not playing well together, just sort of saying, “Give me this, give me this. Waah, I know this is mine. Waah,” crying and being loud, and I find that stressful. I’m just like, “Aargh, just knock it off.” And so, one of my life goals is to never scream, shut up my children, and, thus far, four and a half years in, I am batting a thousand.

Jody Michael
Are you failing at this?

Pete Mockaitis
No, I’ve managed to, not externally, articulate that. But, internally, I’m just like, “Aargh! Knock it off!” It really does feel visceral in terms of these are loud noises and unpleasant emotions being kind of broadcast toward me, and it’s sort of like I have some responsibility here as they’re my children, and it’s sort of like, “I should probably do something.” What I should do is not completely clear but I’ve got some ideas, but mostly I guess, you could say I’m stressed, I’m triggered, I don’t care for this. And so, here we are. Let’s walk through it.

Jody Michael
Let me help you.

Pete Mockaitis
Let’s do it.

Jody Michael
Let me help you, yes. First of all, you said something very important that I want to, if I was working with you, I would make this correction. You said you were stressed because your kids were acting out, or whatever you were saying. You’re not stressed because your kids are acting out. You’re stressed because of what you’re saying to yourself while your kids are acting out.

Because I’m sure, Pete, there are times when the kids are acting out, and you’re just thinking, “Oh, they’re adorable.” You’re maybe more rested, maybe there’s something happening in your space that the kids aren’t annoying you in that moment in the same way they did the day before. Is that true?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, happens. Yeah.

Jody Michael
Okay. So, that’s the critical point that I would coach you on. It’s like, “What are you saying in that moment when the kids are acting up?” That’s what’s creating the stress. But an even faster way to get out, because you don’t want to deal with this, you just don’t want to feel that way, is a trigger hack. And it’s something really simple, and it is underused, this skill. And it’s breathing.

Remember when I talked about, just a moment ago, that deep diaphragmic breathing, most people don’t do this right. But this is the fastest way to get out of a triggered state, is to…I’ll show you how to do it right now. Let’s just do it together. Put your hands on your lower abdomen, below your bellybutton. Take it in as much breath as you can, breathe in. Make sure your belly goes out. This is where people don’t do it right. Hold it, one, one thousand, two, one thousand, all the way to the count of six, one thousand, and then release.

So, while your kids are acting out, you’re going to do that, and you’re going to do that repeatedly, probably will only take you three or four times to do that. And guess what? At six seconds, you have 20 seconds or 30 seconds, you will feel amazingly different physiologically when you do that. That is the fastest way to calm yourself down.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And I want to dig into that a little bit. So, there’s the hold for six seconds. Does the pace at which I inhale matter, it can be fast or slow?

Jody Michael
It doesn’t matter. As long as your belly is really, really…you can’t put anymore oxygen in, that’s super important.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s funny, that actually feels a little stressful when I’m just like, “Ahh, I might burst. This is so much air all up in me.”

Jody Michael
That’s funny.

Pete Mockaitis
Is that okay or do I want a little bit lesser than that?

Jody Michael
It’s okay. It’s okay. No, it’s actually great. You know what’s actually happening when you do that? Let me explain what’s happening and why that’s so effective. When you get…let’s call it “stressed by your kids,” your whole body tenses up and you go into what is called a catabolic state. You go into some negative state where you’re dumping chemicals, not good chemicals, into your body. And what happens is your amygdala gets triggered. You go into fight or flight even in a small situation like that, and you’re not optimally thinking straight because that’s overtaking your brain.

And while that’s happening, your focus gets narrow and all you can hear is your kids, so you start to focus just on your kids, everything else goes away. When you breathe like that, it disengages the amygdala. Now, it might not do that in the first six seconds, but maybe in the second six seconds. And what happens then is it re-engages the front of your brain called your prefrontal cortex. And why that’s important is that’s your executive functioning part of your brain.

And so, you are immediately stopping the coursing of the negative hormones in your body, your body is basically going, “Oh, there is no stress.” There is no stress because, physiologically, you couldn’t do that. You could not breathe deeply like that if there was a tiger in the room that was about to kill you. So, it confuses your brain, and says, “Oh, there is nothing stressful here. Relax. There isn’t something stressful.” And that’s why, so quickly, your body can come into homeostasis, and much quicker than thinking through it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And then, likewise, with the exhale, is that any pace is fine?

Jody Michael
Any pace is fine.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And the six seconds, would seven be even better?

Jody Michael
Six seconds is based on research. So, this is the quickest you can get out of a triggered state physiologically is when you breathe that way under stress and you hold it. That’s what the research shows. So, I think that’s where that comes from, the six seconds.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Jody Michael
It’s not going to get hurt you to hold it at seven. It’s just hard to hold it for seven.

Pete Mockaitis
And I guess it will elongate it by a whole four seconds if I’m doing this four times.

Jody Michael
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
I can’t spare that time. Okay. So, there’s the breathe. And then the choosing?

Jody Michael
Yes. And then you’re choosing to be accountable. Your kids didn’t do this to you, Pete. You created the stress. The kids are just playing. They’re just acting out. They’re just being kids.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Jody Michael
So, you have to then, at just that juncture, when you choose accountability, you have the opportunity then to be in control of your emotional state rather than looking at the kids are the issue. Now, you can still go over there and say, “Hey, guys, calm down. Let’s stop. Time out,” but it’ll be in a different emotional state than it would be if you didn’t do this, of course.

But really, what it is, is that self-awareness…well, see here, this is a good, probably a quote, is that you don’t get stressed; you create stress. You don’t get overwhelmed; you create overwhelm. And most of us are blind to this that’s why it’s so hard for us to process this. It’s just nonsensical because we don’t understand how we’re doing it.

But once you understand how you’re doing it, you get in control. You get in control of lowering your stress levels to amazing levels, and you think it’s not even possible, especially someone who’s very reactive, they’re thinking, “I can’t do this.” But when you are re-training your brain, you can do this, and it makes you really feel in control.

Pete Mockaitis
And that’s intriguing. When you talked about overwhelmed, I’m thinking that overwhelmed, on the emotional level, I can say it feels a certain way, like physiologically, so there’s that. And then there’s also overwhelmed in terms of just like a sheer resource issue, like, “This thing is important to me and the time available to complete it is short, and my resources are scanty, and, thusly, I feel…” I don’t know if you want to challenge my thusly, “And I feel stressed, worried, overwhelmed about this situation here.”

So, I guess you’re drawing the distinction that being resource-constrained and working on something important that is potentially at risk of not being completed on time or at sufficient quality is distinct from an emotional sense of overwhelm.

Jody Michael
It is distinct from but I want to tell you that you could have the same volume of work, you could have the same limited resources, you could have a boss that is very difficult, and you can come to me, and I’ve had this situation happen, I can think of this vividly. I had a woman come to my office, and say, basically begged me to give her permission to quit her job, like I was mom or something.

And I said to her, “No, you have to take my full day MindMastery workshop first, and then let’s work it, then I will address this question in two months, three months, and we’ll see if you feel that way.” Now, of course, she could leave her job. Of course.

Pete Mockaitis
Right. You don’t own her.

Jody Michael
But she asked me, and I said, “Don’t think you’ll actually want to leave your job.” And I will tell you that within a couple of months, I said, “Okay, you know you’re going to go back to school in six months, you have enough resources. If you want to quit your job, you could certainly quit your job.” And she said, “Why would I quit my job? It doesn’t stress me anymore.” That’s the difference. Because what’s creating the overwhelm isn’t the amount of work you’re getting. It’s what you’re saying to yourself. Look, every single day, you spend somewhere between…you have somewhere between 6,000 and 50,000 thoughts a day.

And the National Science Foundation tells you, does research, and says, “You know, those 6,000, 50,000 thoughts that you have every day, 80% of them are negative, 80% of the thoughts that you’re thinking are negative,” meaning you’re spending most of your day stressed, overwhelmed, frustrated, anxious, burnt out, and I think most people can relate to that, especially over the last couple of years, but what is actually creating the overwhelm is you, sitting there, saying, “Oh, my God, don’t give me one more thing. Are you kidding? You’re giving another piece. I have another deadline. I can’t make this. I don’t have time. God, I don’t have time. I don’t have time.”

That research also showed that 80% of the thoughts you’re going to think today are the exact same thoughts that you thought yesterday, and the day before, and the day before. So, we are running this script that we don’t even hear in our subconscious. And if you walk around all day and say, “I’m tired. I’m tired. I’m tired,” you’re not hearing yourself say that, “I’m overwhelmed. There’s too much to do, etc.” You start to have a mantra, and that creates overwhelm or stress.

Otherwise, if that wasn’t true, Pete, everyone at a certain workload would get to the place where they’re overwhelmed. Everyone. And that’s not true. Some people have a far higher capacity than someone else, and some people just feel like they’re Teflon, they just don’t get overwhelmed. They just power through or they’re really having very different conversations about the work that they’re doing.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. That’s cool and exciting and compelling. Intriguing, six to 50,000 thoughts is quite a range. Some people thinking eight times as many thoughts as others.

Jody Michael
Yeah, there’s so much controversy around that. There’s different research out there, so I don’t know what the true number is but it ranges from all this.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, it’s not so much that some people are thinking eight times as many thoughts as others, although maybe they are.

Jody Michael
Yeah, that’s pretty funny.

Pete Mockaitis
Versus how are counting a thought. Okay. And then I’m thinking about 1,440 minutes in a day, maybe a 1,000 conscious minutes in a day not asleep. I buy it, six to 50 thoughts per minute. That sounds about right. Okay. So, we got the ABCs. And how about the SEE now?

Jody Michael
The SEE is spot your current lens. What’s the perspective that’s driving this core belief? And the belief is your kids. The core belief that you’re having there is annoyance, your kids are making you crazy, your kids are stressing you out. So, you’re looking at that lens and saying, “Okay, is that perspective helpful for me to get in control, to be my best self in that moment?” Let’s just call it, “To be the best parent I can be, is that the best perspective I could have in that moment?” Chances are it’s not.

And then the second E, explore, is, “How else can I look at this?” Well, you might look at this empathically from your kids’ point of view. They’ve been cooped up all day and they’re just trying to expend energy. So, you look at the kids, and, “Oh, they’re just kids. Kids will be kids,” let’s just say. You’re looking for a lens where you could be empathic, where you could be curious, where you could be more flexible to the situation rather than the narrow lens of, “These kids are making me crazy right now. I’m stressed.”

And then the final E stands for elect. Now, choose the right lens for you. Whatever that is in that moment, what perspective is going to allow you to perform at your best as a parent in this given situation? And what that might be for you, Pete, in that moment? How else can you look at that?

Pete Mockaitis
I suppose what I would say to myself would be kind of an exploratory question-problem-solving thing, like, “What needs are not being met for these children such that they are in such a mood? Are they tired? Are they hungry? And how can I help meet that need?”

Jody Michael
Yeah, that’s great. HALT, right, hungry, angry, lonely, tired, right?

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Okay, thank you.

Jody Michael
That’s a great parenting skill, HALT, yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so then thank you for that. That’s cool. Let’s do another rapid-fire example of someone. They’re at work, they’ve got some things in their to-do list, and they’ve been procrastinating. There’s a couple items that, ugh, I’ve got to watch what I say around, you know, Jody. I want to say it makes them stressed, just like, there are a few items on the to-do list.

When they look at them, they go, “Ugh, that does not feel pleasant. I don’t want to do that,” and they feel a sensation of reduced motivation, energy, sudden burning desire to check the news or social media or email instead of facing down that thing. Can you walk us through in rapid fire the ABC, SEE, and how things might go down here?

Jody Michael
Yeah, I could. Let me do you one better though. Let me shock people by saying procrastination is a conversation.

Pete Mockaitis
Shocking. Shock us.

Jody Michael
And so, what I mean by that is we tend to think about the lack of action as the foundation of the problem. But what’s really driving the habit of procrastination is, again, the conversation that you’re having with yourself right before the action of procrastination. You’re saying something like, “Ugh, I’ll do this later,” or, “Ugh, I don’t have time right now,” or, “I’m too tired,” or, “I don’t feel like it.”

And if you listen to yourself, I guarantee you, if you listen, you’re going to hear that you’re having the same conversation with yourself over and over and over again. If you catch that conversation right in that moment, and change the conversation, that’s what’s going to actually conquer the habit of procrastination. So, that’s why I wanted to go just one deeper.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Thank you.

Jody Michael
So, what would you do A for assess? You would say, “Okay, what am I feeling like right now? I’m feeling like I don’t want to do this. I don’t feel like it.” That’s kind of like avoidance. Maybe that would be the mood state. “And what’s my thought? My thought would be I don’t want to do this, or not now.” Something to that effect.

And then, while you’re doing that, you’re breathing because you are triggered in that avoidance, or checked out, and you say, “Okay, I’m going to be accountable not just for my moods but for my thoughts and behaviors.” So, right there, you’re choosing, “I can bigger than this moment of procrastination.” So, now you’re going to look, you’re going to, S, spot your current lens or perspective, and what’s driving this.

What’s driving this belief is probably you don’t want to do the thing that’s in front of you, so there’s some belief about it’s hard, or, “I have anxiety about it,” the thing that’s in front of you. So, there’s some belief about, “It’s hard,” or, “I have anxiety about it.” That’s why people generally avoid.

Pete Mockaitis
“I might screw it up.”

Jody Michael
Yeah, “I might screw it up,” there’s something like that. And then you explore another lens, the E for explore, and then you ask yourself, “Is that really true? Is it really true I’m going to screw this up? No, I have no historical evidence that I’m going to screw this up.” Okay, then final E, elect, how else can you look at this? “Every time I work with numbers, let’s say, I get anxious. That’s what this is about.”

So, let’s shift that lens and create maybe a competition, “Let’s see how fast I can get this done.” That would shift your whole, “Let’s make this a game. Let’s see how fast I can get this done. Let’s tackle this because as soon as I get this done, I can go and do something more enjoyable.”

Pete Mockaitis
That is good. And then what comes to mind is, “Oh, well, if I don’t want to do it, then by conquering this thing, I will feel all the more victorious and unstoppable in my pursuits.”

Jody Michael
Yeah, that is a favorite habit of mine, to be honest with you. At the beginning of my day, I do the thing I want to do least first because if you don’t want to do something, you avoid it, you dread it. It’s going to be an energy drain that’s just going to hover over you subconsciously all day long. It’s like this invisible weight that I’m carrying. On the other hand, if I get it done first, I’m immediately rewarded with a burst of energy, which is a great way to start the day. So, that is a habit that I started many years ago and I love.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. I think Brian Tracy has got a book Eat That Frog about this very notion.

Jody Michael
Yes. Yes.

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

Jody Michael
Yeah, you can’t change what you don’t see, and you think you see more than you do. There’s a research study out by Tasha Eurich presented in her book.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, we had her on the show.

Jody Michael
Presented in her book Insight. And 95% of people think they’re self-aware, only 10-15% are. And in my experience as an executive coach is that it’s absolutely dead-on. Even people that have high emotional intelligence are not as self-aware as they think they are, and it’s fascinating to see that. That surprised me.

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

Jody Michael
Oh, yeah, I love this quote, “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” George Bernard Shaw. And I love it because it’s empowering, it’s hopeful, it’s proactive. It’s the opposite of victim mentality and it’s poignant. It has rich applicability to my life and to the work that I do with others, so I love that quote.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Jody Michael
Self-Deception and Leadership by The Arbinger Institute. You’re familiar with it, yes? That’s great.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s a good one. I listened to the audiobook and so I always hear it, “You’re in the box.”

Jody Michael
Yes. Yes, get out of the box.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool?

Jody Michael
Oh, I love Muse. I think it’s the best meditation tool out there to learn to meditate. It’s a headband.

Pete Mockaitis
Are we talking about the brain-sensing headband?

Jody Michael
Yeah, love it.

Pete Mockaitis
I’ve got two of them.

Jody Michael
Oh, yeah, that’s great.

Pete Mockaitis
It is fun. It’s fun.

Jody Michael
No, I really think it helps people learn to meditate exponentially faster. I really believe that.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, the audio feedback is great. I prefer the campfire sound myself. And I also like the number-y aspect because meditation is kind of like a noncompetitive thing, and, nonetheless, I like to know, “Am I getting better here?” And I could see the birds and how I’ve got more. And there’s a great article, we’ll link to it in the show notes, about someone hosted a March mindfulness meditation competition.

Jody Michael
Oh, my God, that’s hysterical.

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

Jody Michael
My website JodyMichael.com. That’s Jody with a Y, not an I, and Michael just like the first name, no S at the end.

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

Jody Michael
Watch your words. Create awareness around the words you use. Words are powerful. Your words are creating your moods, your feelings. Those moods and feelings are driving your behavior. And your behavior creates the results that you end up getting or you don’t get. That’s the power of words. And, again, I’m not just talking about the words you use when you’re speaking to others. I’m particularly talking about the words that you say to yourself. Your thoughts.

If you can uncover your thoughts, hear your thoughts, understand how your thoughts are self-sabotaging, and then choose to reframe those impending thoughts with more helpful thoughts, it will change the trajectory of your leadership and your life, just as it has done for many of my clients.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Jody, thank you. This has been a delight. I wish you and your book Leading Lightly all the luck.

Jody Michael
Thank you, Pete.

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

Susan Cain
Thank you so much, Pete. It is awesome to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to dig into your wisdom and some insights from your latest book Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole. And congratulations on hitting number one on New York Times’ Best Seller list, that’s pretty fantastic. Good job.

Susan Cain
Thank you so much.

Pete Mockaitis
But maybe, first, I’m dying to know, and I think many of the listeners are as well, so you’re also quite famous for your book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. And you do public speaking all the time, and I understand that wasn’t your favorite thing to do. Could you maybe tell us how you found some growth and development there? And did you learn to enjoy it all the more?

Susan Cain
Oh, God, yeah. I mean, so you have to know where I was starting from because it wasn’t just that I didn’t enjoy speaking. It was that, like, I can sometimes literally vomit before a speech, and I would always lose five pounds in the week before a speech because I couldn’t eat and I couldn’t sleep. Like, it was very intense. And I used to be a lawyer before I became a writer, so during all that time I was a lawyer, I just gritted my teeth through that suffering.

But then when I became a writer, and like I really cared about getting my message out. I didn’t want my phobia to stand in the way, so I kind of tackled this issue that I had. And here’s the secret, and what I’m about to say applies to any fear that your listeners might have, any fear. The way to overcome any fear is you have to expose yourself to the thing you fear, you can’t hide from it, but you have to do it in very, very small, very manageable doses.

So, you can’t start by giving a TED Talk if your fear is public speaking. You have to start by going to the nicest Toastmasters meeting you’ve ever seen. Or, in my case, I went to this seminar for people with public speaking anxiety, where everybody was really nice and all you had to do was, like you’d start by this really small exercises. Like, the first day, you’d get up and say your name and sit back down, “Congratulations. You’re done.” 

And you’d ratch it up little by little by little by little by little from there, and, in this way, you’re basically training your brain that the thing that it reacted to, as if it were a saber-toothed tiger, you’re basically training your brain, “Oh, it’s not a dangerous tiger. It’s a daffodil, and it’s okay.”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool.

Susan Cain
Yeah. And so, it’s just sort of a long process but anyone can do it. That’s the great news.

Pete Mockaitis
As I put my brain in that situation, I think one of the funnest parts for me would be just creatively ideating and trying to determine what might be that next super tiny step. And it’s so funny, it’s just like, I’m thinking about virtual reality, like you can’t do it for real. You can even do it there. So, that’s nifty.

Susan Cain
It’s interesting to me though that you described that as fun. So, let me ask you this. Were you ever a nervous public speaker, or no? And the reason I asked this is because I never would’ve described the process as fun while I was in it. It was more like something I needed to do.

Pete Mockaitis
I don’t think the doing it is as much fun so much as the thinking, “Oh, there is a super tiny step. That’s something I could feel like I can get a victory on that is not terrifyingly overwhelming.”

Susan Cain
Right. Right. Right.

Pete Mockaitis
But, yeah, the doing would be difficult. I’d say I never had the vomits pre-public speaking but I…

Susan Cain
I never heard it called the vomits.

Pete Mockaitis
But I did…I certainly felt nerves. And I guess I somehow managed to convince myself that I was excited and then I believed it, and it’s a rush. I remember a speaking mentor said, “When it comes to public speaking, it’s like, man, sometimes there’s this electricity and sometimes you get electrocuted,” in terms of how it seems to go, and that’s been my experience. I’ve had some talks that didn’t go as well.

And, in a way, those have been super helpful in terms of taking a real good look, like, “What went wrong there?” And all of it was sort of like assumptions I had made about the audience in advance, like, “Oh, they’re not already jazzed about this topic,” and it’s more of a general audience, and so it’s oopsies, lessons learned. But one fun thing about talking about on How to be Awesome at Your Job is all the listeners already care about being awesome at their jobs, so we got that covered.

Susan Cain
Right. Yeah, so you already know what they’re excited about, hearing about. Well, I’ll give one other public speaking hack that I think is really huge for people who are afraid of public speaking, which is that if you are afraid of it, it is because you are attuning excessively to being judged. You’re like your relationship with the audience emotionally is that they’re the judge or perhaps the executioner, and you’re like the penitent before them. That is not a helpful relationship obviously.

What I would try to turn that into is to think in advance, like, “What…” from your heart, like really think at a heart level, “What is it that I want to convey? What can I say that’s going to be truly helpful today? Even if it’s just helpful to one person in the audience, what could I do that could truly elevate someone’s life?” And then you’re going out there in the spirit of like, “What can I give?” as opposed to “How will I be judged?” And it’s a completely different energy. Completely. It’s very transformative.

I don’t find that that works if you’re in a state of extreme, extreme anxiety, but once you get to the point where it’s stamped down and you’re in the realm of manageable butterflies, shifting your energy that way is really transformative.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, beautiful. Well, Susan, you’re already providing fantastic insights, and we’re not even on the main topic yet, so this is going great. Well, all right, tell us, Bittersweet, could you maybe kick us off by sharing a particularly surprising discovery you made while researching and putting this together that has been really striking for folks?

Susan Cain
I think our culture, I know our culture, is so confused, so kind of bedazzled by the idea of being positive at all times that it doesn’t have the ability to distinguish between this incredibly productive and creative state of bittersweet melancholy versus clinical depression. We don’t have a language for distinguishing between the two. We don’t have a way of thinking about it.

Even if you look in the field of psychology, you’ll find psychologists talking about this around the edges but in the center of the field. And yet, like the state of bittersweet melancholy that I’m talking about in my book is one of the greatest power sources that we have of creativity and of human connection, and of a sense of self-transcendence and spirituality, so lots of the goodies that lots of people want, both for their work lives, their creative lives, their emotional lives, and yet we’re living in a culture that’s telling you that the only way to get there is through a kind of relentless upbeat optimism. And that’s just not true.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. That sounds like a thesis statement. I love it. Well, then could you paint a clear picture for us and draw as bright a distinction as we can between depression and bittersweet?

Susan Cain
Yeah. So, with depression, you’re in a state where it’s a kind of emotional black hole. You’re in a state of despair. You’re in a state of hopelessness. You’re not in a state of like being in touch with things. You’re in a state of like, “I’m worthless. Life is hopeless. I’m cut off. There’s nothing to be done.” When you’re in a state of bittersweetness, you’re acutely aware of both the sorrow and the joy in this world, and the fact that they’re forever paired but with that comes an acute awareness of beauty and an ability to transform pain into beauty.

So, it’s actually a very hopeful state. It’s a state of meaning. It’s the reason that after 9/11, for example, we suddenly had a lot of people signing up for jobs as firefighters. And after the pandemic, we’ve suddenly had a lot of people enrolling in medical school and nursing school. And neither of those responses make sense on their face. That’s kind of like here are people reacting to a dispiriting and dangerous situation by signing up for more danger, like signing up to be at the heart of the danger.

But what they’re really doing is they’re turning in the direction of meaning, which is what people have the capacity to do. We have the capacity to respond to life’s difficulties by turning in that direction of meaning in our careers and in our life orientation.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. And I love it if we could continue of painting a picture of what you call bittersweet. I guess as I’m thinking about 9/11, for instance, and where I was and what’s going on, like I felt confusion, sadness, shock, anger. It wasn’t like bittersweet as like, “Oh, my baby is growing up,” and so that’s what I first think about when it’s like, “Oh, she doesn’t want to be held as much,” or kind whatever. And so, that’s kind of what leaps to mind when I have the word bittersweet to me. Can you unpack a bit more of the vibe, the texture, the look, the sound, the feel of bittersweet as you describe it?

Susan Cain
Yeah. And actually, the example of your baby growing up is, I think it’s a fantastic example because bittersweetness really is…it’s about, as I say, the pairing of joy and sorrow, and the fact that that’s what this life is, but it’s also about the recognition that everyone and everything we love most will not stay the same, will not live forever, all of that. And then what comes with that is this beauty.

I have a bittersweet quiz that it’s at the beginning of my book and it’s also on my website for people who just want to take it quickly, which is SusanCain.net but I can give you a few questions from it to give you a sense. So, one question is, “Do you react intensely to music, art, or nature?” Another question is, “Do you draw comfort or inspiration from rainy days?” That’s sort of like cozy, poetic, rainy day vibe. And another one is, “Do you like sad music?”

We actually know that people listen to the happy songs on their playlist about 175 times, but they listen to these sad songs 800 times. And we know that it’s the sad music that gives us the goosebumps and the chills as opposed to the happy music. And I love the happy music and the dance music is great. It’s just that there’s something in that vein of art created with a tinge of melancholy that gets people in the real heart. It’s just something for creatives to know, in general. It’s like sort of the secret to the creative sauce.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. When you talked about happy and sad songs, I think that really does nail it because I’m imagining like your wedding playlist, like, “Too high,” “Hot damn.” So, there’s that, and so that’s fun. But then as I’m thinking, like sad songs, the first thing that came to mind was “Champagne High” by Sister Hazel, which, if you look at the lyrics, it’s really heart-wrenching.

It’s about a person who is at someone else’s – geez, I’m getting choked up – he’s at someone else’s wedding that he was in love with, and he had hoped to reconnect but it just didn’t quite work out, like, “Dude,” like, “Whoa.” Like, if you put yourself there, it is deeper and it’s hitting the heart. And, at the same time, it’s not all just gut-wrenching tragedy. It’s like, “Ah, we had something beautiful, didn’t we?” And so, there it is.

Susan Cain
Yeah, because what you’re really talking about is longing, which is the real key to human DNA. That’s really what drives us at the end of the day. Look at every single religion, they’re all about the longing for the more perfect and beautiful world. It’s like you’re longing for the Garden of Eden, you’re longing for Mecca, you’re longing for Zion.

The Sufis long for the beloved of the soul, that’s what they call the divine. And then we do that creatively, too. We have Dorothy is longing for somewhere over the rainbow. That’s really what glamor is, if there’s anybody listening, where you’re in a kind of glamor field, and that’s what you need to understand what glamor really is.

Glamor is like a pictorial representation of that perfect state, of perfect love, and perfect beauty in an otherworldly sense that we long for. That’s why there’s the kind of iconic image of the shiny convertible driving around the bend to nowhere. And inside the convertible, sits the beautiful couple, and it’s like a representation of this perfect love, and they’re driving around the bend to the perfect unseen. That’s what drives people.

Pete Mockaitis
And what’s interesting, as I think about such a scene, one’s emotional response would be, “Ahh, I want that.”

Susan Cain
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Or, “Oh, I’ll never have that.” And then maybe that’s the distinction right there. The latter, I don’t know if it has a bit of hopelessness going on. And so, it’s interesting, like what we’re talking about is so deep and human, it almost feels inappropriate to, I don’t know, weaponize or utilize this, but that’s what you’re saying. It’s, like, it is a force. And so, if we think about the context of people wanting to be awesome at their job, how do we tap into this in a way that we find brings about more wholeness and awesomeness?

Susan Cain
Well, first of all, if you want to understand your co-workers, you have to understand, which is one of the, obviously, the great ways of being awesome at your job is to work well and really care about the people you’re working with. You have to understand this is at the heart of their nature and it’s at the heart of your nature, too. And it creates spaces for people to show up that way, if you’re a team leader, for example.

But, also, it’s like, let’s say even before you get to your job and you’re thinking about what the right job is for you, and maybe you’re not sure, and maybe you don’t know if you’re in the right job or if you’re even in the right career, I would ask yourself, like, “What do you long for? What are you longing for?” And pay attention to the symbols in your life.

If it’s okay, I’ll tell you a quick story from my life to sort of illustrate what I’m talking about. So, I used to be a corporate lawyer before I became a writer, and I was totally in the wrong field for me but I got really caught up in it, the way one does. You know how it is. You’re like in a field and then everyone you know is in that field, and you’re doing it 24/7, so you’re living in this hermetically sealed bubble. You can’t see outside of it.

So, I was caught up in it, I was trying really hard to make partner, I was working all the time for years. And then this day came when a partner in the firm…I wrote all about this. He came and he told me I wasn’t going to be making partner. And, at the time, like I received this news as a catastrophe but I went home the next day, or a little bit after that, I left the firm. I took a leave of absence and a few weeks after that I ended a relationship, a seven-year relationship that had always felt wrong.

And so, now I’m like floating around, like no career, no love, I’m in my early 30s, and I’ve fallen into this relationship with another guy. He’s a musician, he’s a lyricist, a very lit up type of person, and it becomes a kind of obsession, and I can’t shake it, and I can’t stop thinking about him. There’s nothing I can do to extricate myself from this obsession.

And then a friend of mine says to me, she’s like, “If you’re this obsessed with this person, it’s not only because the person himself. It’s because he represents something you’re longing for. So, what are you longing for?” And it was like the minute she said that, I knew the answer. He was a musician. He was, like, he represented this life of art and writing that I’d wanted to be part of. Since I was four years old, I’d wanted to be a writer, and I had put all that on hold for decades.

And as soon as I understood that, the obsession fell away, I started writing for real, and that was it. That’s a kind of dramatic version of it but I think we can all be asking ourselves those questions all the time. Like, you’re working really hard so that you can get a house. Like, what does the house mean to you? What does it symbolize to you? What are you longing for? And make sure you’re orienting your life around, really, what your heart’s longing is telling you because career years have a way of adding up really quickly, and you want to make sure you’re putting them in the right direction.

Pete Mockaitis
And we can often take such wildly circuitous routes to what we’re longing for. Like, did the musician relationship end up working out?

Susan Cain
No, no, and that was fine.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I thought…I didn’t want to, ”Yes, he’s my husband.”

Susan Cain
No, no, no, it was actually not so long after that that I met my husband. It’s all good, happily ever after.

Pete Mockaitis
If we’re doing something in order to meet another longing, which you may be aware of or not aware of, we could probably be better served just by going directly after that which we’re longing for.

Susan Cain
If you knew what it was.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yes, that’s where I’m going next. What are your pro tips on surfacing that?

Susan Cain
Well, most of all, really, to pay attention to what it is. Like, what is the key question that you keep asking yourself? What’s the thing that you’re staking everything for? What does it mean to you? What does it mean to you underneath it all? What’s the life you truly want? What does home look like to you? I would ask yourself that question. Getting to this fundamental, like, existential longing that we all have. We’re all longing for home in some kind of way. That’s how humans are designed. So, what does home look like to you?

Pete Mockaitis
And could you share with us a few articulations of that from folks that you’ve spoken with, heard about, talked to?

Susan Cain
Gosh, let me think of some good ones for you.

Pete Mockaitis
I guess what I’m saying is I imagine you’d say, “What I’m longing for is a Ferrari.” It’s like, “Hmm, that’s probably quite not the core of it.”

Susan Cain
Well, it’s funny that you say…that you give that example of the Ferrari because I actually wrote in the book about this seminar that I attended about longing for love. It was given by this great writer, Alain de Botton, and he actually gives the example of a Ferrari owner. It’s like very often the person who’s buying the Ferrari, they’re not necessarily after the Ferrari. Like, they’re after love and admiration. That’s often what’s motivating them.

So, it’s like always looking two or three steps underneath. Very often, when you feel like absolutely driven by something, there’s often something going on underneath it, to ask yourself what the true motivation is, what the true source is.

Susan Cain
So, here’s another example of somebody who I interviewed. So, she had been working at an international consumer goods company, doing sort of consumer research for some years. And, in this work, she…part of what you do with consumer research is you’re listening to the stories of your consumers, you’re asking them a lot of questions, which is something she found that she loved doing. She loved listening. She loved drawing them out. She loved hearing their stories. And the more she did this and the more she listened to the women’s stories and the women’s dissatisfactions, the more with their lives that they were talking to her about, the more it tapped some kind of like a primal longing in her to go back home – she was from the Middle East originally. She had come from a family where there’d been a lot of suffering and abuse of the women in the family, and she realized what she wanted to do was like a kind of healing work of the kinds of women who had been in her family, who these women in the consumer research job had reminded her of, that they kind of set this longing, a light in her.

And so, she goes back to the Middle East and she starts…and I’m being vague about where she’s from because she doesn’t want me to use her name, but she starts a not-for-profit where she’s helping refugees and helping former women prisoners, and she’s doing this work for them but what she’s really doing is trying to correct some of the wrongs that had been done to the women of her family. And it was like that was when she started to feel whole is when she did that kind of work.

Whereas, the whole time she’d been at the consumer research firm, she was like fascinated by the stories but felt a kind of a kind of…she called it like a numbness and a deadness inside, and she started to come alive when she did that kind of work. But what ignited in her was the moments of listening to these women’s stories and realizing that was like touching off the longing in her.

Pete Mockaitis
So, is that kind of the pathway that often goes when you zero in on the longing and then you go pursue that well, wholeness and aliveness is on the other side?

Susan Cain
It often is on the other side, yeah, because it’s telling you like where your sense of the love that you’re seeking, the full love that you’re seeking, where it is for you. The moments that you have longing are often a clue to what those are. Just the way, like by analogy, if you pay attention to the people who you envy.

Like, envy is not such a nice emotion but it’s an incredibly instructive emotion because, like with career envy, you’re not going to have career envy over somebody who has a job that you don’t want. You’re just going to feel happy for that person. If you’re feeling envy, you might feel ashamed of yourself for feeling that way but it is a great clue that they’re doing something that you wished that you were doing, so it’s a great sign. And longing is the same way, the same type of sign.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, there are many flavors of longing but is love at the root of them all? Or, is that kind of one of several kind of key flavors or archetypes?

Susan Cain
I would say there’s different manifestations of the same thing. For some people, it looks more like love, and for some people it’s more like beauty, and for some people it’s more like truth. But it’s this sense of like what perfection looks like to you, like a kind of otherworldly perfection.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, this wholeness, how do you know when you got it?

Susan Cain
You just know.

Pete Mockaitis
I thought you’d say that.

Susan Cain
You just know, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
“Like, I feel pretty whole.”

Susan Cain
It doesn’t mean that you’re like, “Okay, now, I‘m going to sit on the couch forever because I’m whole.” It doesn’t mean that. What it means is that you’re on the right journey instead of on the wrong journey, so you’re still journeying but you’re like on the right path.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, then can we talk about some perhaps practical do’s and don’ts when it comes to inside our own heads and emotions if we experience some sadness, some disappointments, there are some distinctions there between that and bittersweet? And so, how do we think about running our brains and our emotions optimally in that, I guess, it could continually be possible to “wallow” or be – torn apart sounds dramatic but…? I’m thinking of my kids and Daniel Tiger and the big feelings right now.

It’s like as you’re exploring yourself, and you’re finding these breadcrumbs, how do you recommend that we explore, engage in a way that’s likely to lead to insight and constructive goodness versus, for lack of a better word, wallowing?

Susan Cain
Oh, I’m actually glad you’re using that word wallowing because I think that that is the fear that many people have if they tune into this aspect of their emotional lives. I think they’re afraid they’ll start wallowing and never come out, so they’d rather not go there at all. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Just the remember the art is to balance it all out.

But one really great technique, just to keep it super practical, is the art of expressive writing, which basically means, especially when you’re feeling something that’s amiss, something that’s wrong, something that’s upsetting you, whatever it is, to just quickly write it down and don’t try to write it well. You might rip it up as soon as you’re done writing. But the very act of articulating what you are feeling, what you’re experiencing, is incredibly transformative.

And we know this from the work of the psychologist, James Pennebaker, at UT Austin, who’s done all these incredible studies, finding that when people do this, it improves their health, it improves their career success, it improves their sense of wellbeing. He did this one study where he looked at a group of 50-something-year-old engineers who had been laid off, so they were quite depressed about it. And he asked half of them to do what I just described, to write down what they were truly thinking every morning, and then the other half would just write what they had eaten for breakfast that day.

And the first group who had written down truly the expressive writing, they were, I think it was three times more likely to have found work several months later. They had lower blood pressure. They had a greater sense of wellbeing, like just these astonishing findings that you can’t even believe are true except he repeated these studies again and again in all different circumstances.

So, this is something that we could be doing privately. This is something we could be bringing to our teams. We could be distributing blank notebooks and having time for people to kind of, in an alone together way, write down what we’re thinking. We can invite people to share if they want to but they don’t have to do it. But it’s just creating spaces for people to show up to themselves if not to each other in a fully whole way.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, with the expressive writing of what we’re feeling, that’s just sort of the extent of the prompt, “Hey, what are you feeling?”

Susan Cain
That is the extent of the prompt, yeah, “What is it?” And if there’s something that’s upsetting to you right now, write it down. Just get it out. Don’t worry about the grammar, the spelling, or anything. Just get it out. Get it out. What ends up happening, you don’t really need the prompt. What ends up happening is that people just instinctively start writing in a way that is trying to make sense of their experiences. At a certain point, they start doing that for themselves. Like, they start using words, like, “Oh, what I’ve learned is,” or, “What I’m thinking actually have been was…” and that may be where some of the magic lies.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s interesting because I’m thinking right now, I’m kind of sick, I don’t like it.

 Susan Cain
Oh, sorry to hear that. 

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you.

Susan Cain
You don’t look or sound sick. What’s up?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. We’re getting better. We’re getting…oh, maybe I have some COVID to sinus infections going through the whole family.

Susan Cain
Oh, my gosh. You’re very matter of fact about it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, we’ve had COVID before and so, and the worst is behind us but, yeah. And so, that’s unpleasant.

Susan Cain
Yeah, I’m sorry.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, I guess, as I think about it, you can arrive at, on the surface level, it might not seem like there’s much to it, “Yup, being sick sucks. That’s true.” But as I think about it more in terms of the, “Well, why? Well, what’s so troubling about that for me? Like, how do I feel diminished? And why does that matter to me?” then we start to get into some interesting themes that can be insightful and actionable.

Susan Cain
Yeah, yeah, that’s right. And I’ll give you a way to do that but also to then kind of do the same thing but sort of turn it outwards. And first let me set this up for you. There is this video that went viral a couple of years ago. It was put together by the Cleveland Clinic hospital to train their caregivers in empathy. And the way this video worked, it basically took you through the corridors of the hospital to show you random passersby, people you’d normally walk past and not really think about it.

But in this case, there were little captions underneath each person telling you what they’re going through at that moment. And sometimes it was something nice, like just found out he’s going to be a father for the first time. But because it’s a hospital, often the captions are more things like, under a little girl, she’s going to say goodbye to her father for the last time. Like, these incredibly heartrending captions, and you can’t watch this video without completely tearing up. It’s impossible.

But the thing I started doing after having seen that video, like the thing that really struck me about it is how anonymous all those people in the corridors normally would be, and all it took was like one little half a sentence caption to completely transform them into full-hearted protagonists of their stories, and that I was part of those stories.

So, I started just reminding myself all the time to wonder what people’s captions are. When I go to the grocery store, like the person is checking me out, checking out the groceries, “What are her captions?” And maybe you know them and maybe you don’t. But it’s a very transformative way to interact with people to be thinking in those terms. And with our colleagues at work, we can do that, take that a step farther because there actually are all kinds of clues, if not outright knowledge about what’s going on for them.

Pete Mockaitis
And what’s powerful about that for me is just sort of the, I almost want to say, sort of like sacredness or sanctity of the human person in front of you. And being aware of that you…of course, these things…we’ve all got things going on, but calling them to mind can just be so transformative in how you interact with everyone always.

It’s like, “Okay, you are not just a person taking my credit card. Like, you are any number of these things could be going on for you. And as a person, you are worthy of respect and acknowledgement and sort of my attention as opposed to my phone, like clicking around my phone while you’re ringing things up.”

Susan Cain
Yeah. I’ll give you another one for people to do. This one could work for people to do either with their own selves or with teams or co-workers or whatever. And that is to begin your day by proactively engaging with beauty in one way or another. And this is actually a great exercise to do with a team because you could do it in a kind of show-and-tell type of way of everybody bringing something in that they find especially beautiful, whether it’s music or a snapshot or whatever it is.

But when you’re interacting with beauty, we actually know this from studies, it’s basically like tapping into the same brain centers that you experience when you’re falling in love. So, it’s like really tapping into your reward centers, and it’s tapping into a state that kind of predisposes you creatively. So, I did this the whole time I was writing my book. I was following all these art accounts on Twitter. And every morning, I would start my writing day by picking a favorite piece of art and sharing it on my social channels.

And not only did that get my brain in the right headspace to be creative, but also it was connecting me every morning, the first thing it was doing, I was like plugging into this community of people who cared about art and beauty the way I did, and that was incredibly sustaining, and it also grew our community together. So, that’s also the kind of technique that people don’t think about. It doesn’t have to do with bittersweetness per se but there is something about engaging with beauty that gets people interacting with each other in a kind of truer way, in a more whole way.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. And I guess beauty can have many forms and flavors in terms of…is this research on visually? I guess it’s visually and then there’s music or auditorily. I suppose maybe there could be other modalities associated with beauty.

Susan Cain
Yeah, that’s an interesting question. I’m trying to think if the studies that I’m talking about were only looking at visual art or other forms. I’m not sure, but I don’t see why it would be any different, really.

Pete Mockaitis
Sometimes I feel beauty with an excellent handwashing session. Like, if you have just fantastic soap and water that’s warm and just right. I don’t know, people talk about singing Happy Birthday, it’s like, “Oh, no, no, just treasure this moment. It’s so glorious.”

Susan Cain
Yeah. Well, it’s wherever you find it. I guess that’s why they make all those beautiful soaps.

Pete Mockaitis
Didn’t think we’d end up here, Susan. All right. Well, before we hear about some of your favorite things, any key things you really want to make sure folks, who are seeking to be awesome at their jobs, know about Bittersweet?

Susan Cain
I think we’ve covered a lot. I guess I would say for those who are on the creative side of the work life to just know that one great thing you can do creatively, like whatever pain you can’t get rid of, take that and make it your creative offering. That’s really what the great creatives have always done. There’s always been this kind of transformation, it’s a kind of like alchemy, so to tune in that way.

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

Susan Cain
I’ll give you the quote that I used as the epigraph for Bittersweet, which is kind of like my whole philosophy in this book. It comes from Leonard Cohen, and the quote is, “There is a crack in everything that’s where the light gets in.”

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you.

Susan Cain
You’re welcome.

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

Susan Cain
I’ll give you one from one that I also talk about in Bittersweet, and it comes from Dacher Keltner, who’s this great psychologist at Berkeley, and he has studied what he calls the compassionate instinct. And he basically studies the way in which the expression of sorrow is a kind of bonding agent for humans, and that this is because we’re evolved to be able to take care of babies who are utterly vulnerable and dependent on us. But from that beginning comes our greater ability to respond to vulnerabilities of all kind.

So, what he figured out is that we all have a vagus nerve, which is this big bundle of nerves in our bodies. It’s extremely large, it’s extremely fundamental, it regulates our breathing, it regulates our digestion, and also, if you see another person or being in distress, your vagus nerve will become activated, so that on a preconscious level, you’re not going to feel good for as long as you see someone else in distress. You’re going to want to do something about it. So, I would say that’s my favorite research, this compassionate instinct that Dacher has found.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s so true. I saw someone fell off their bike today outside my office window, I was like, “Oh, my gosh, are you okay? Do I need to go down there?” Wait eight seconds. “Oh, they’re cool. They’re cool. They’re laughing it off. They’re getting on the bike. Okay. Okay.”

Susan Cain
Well, he used this term that he calls vagal superstars for people whose vagal nerves are really, really reactive, so maybe you’re one of those.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Susan Cain
One that’s coming to mind right now is the book Flow by the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He’s the psychologist who basically discovered the idea that humans are really at their best, I’d say most happiest, but just like at our most switched on when we’re absorbed in an activity that’s completely engaging to us, and we’re kind of surfing this channel in between boredom and anxiety.

So, it’s difficult enough that we’re not bored but it’s not so difficult that it’s making us anxious. We’re just like completely happily switched on and engaged. And I will tell you that has been a life-transforming idea because ever since…as soon as I read it, I was like, “Oh, my God, yeah, I love that state.” But as soon as I thought of that as something to aspire to, I started sort of trying to structure my days so that I’m in a state of flow as much of the time as possible.

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

Susan Cain
Well, this is very boring, I guess, but it’s my laptop. But I will say my laptop is nothing without my cup of coffee next to it. So, my cup of coffee here and my candle here, so I think what I’m really saying is that I have these Pavlovian cues that I have used over the years to make myself love sitting down at work. Like, I love my candle, I love my coffee, I love my chocolate, and so I never work without these props on hand. And so, I associate the whole thing with pleasure.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a particular nugget you share that seems to really connect with your readers, listeners; a Susan Cain original that is quoted often?

Susan Cain
I don’t know. I will say that I think that the work that I do, like with Quiet and with Bittersweet, the thing that keeps them…the thing that holds them in common is they’re both about the idea of finding a kind of hidden superpowers that tend to be undervalued in our culture that celebrates the loud and the shiny and the glib and the cheery. It’s saying there’s something underneath all of that where there are really deep riches to be had.

And if you think that…we all have different superpowers. And if your superpower happens to be in that mode, go forth and use it. Far from feeling ashamed of it, realize the power that you possess and go and use it.

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

Susan Cain
So, my website is SusanCain.net, and there is a newsletter that you can sign up for there, and lots of information, and also courses. I have these audio courses that you can take where I send you kind of little audio and written texts every morning. So, that’s at my website, SusanCain.net. And I’m also on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram so you can find me there, too.

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

Susan Cain
I’m going to say what I said before, like use your superpower, whatever it is. Figure out which one is yours and use it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Susan, this has been such a treat. Thank you for sharing and keep doing the great work you’re doing.

Susan Cain
Thank you so much, Pete. And I really hope you all feel better.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you.