Presence Archives - Page 17 of 53 - How to be Awesome at Your Job

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

Stephen Guise
Thanks, Pete. It’s good to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to get into your wisdom, and I’m also curious to learn about your Chipotle habit. How bad is it? And what’s the story?

Stephen Guise
Well, I’m currently seeing someone for that. No, I eat there probably five plus times a week. It’s pretty decent food as far as fast food goes. Like, they use good ingredients. They do put oil in the rice. I’m a bit of a health nut but it’s good enough for me and it’s delicious.

Pete Mockaitis
It is. It is. I get the salad, and with the double meat, and I feel pretty darn good about it in terms of the health profile, what it’s delivering and no tortilla, no rice.

Stephen Guise
Yeah, that sounds like a healthy choice. I don’t always get the salad but it depends on if I’m bulking, trying to put on bulk muscle width.

Pete Mockaitis
Right, when you’re encoding.

Stephen Guise
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you, bro.

Stephen Guise
Yeah, bud.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, I’m excited to talk to you about perfectionism, and your book is called How to Be an Imperfectionist: The New Way to Self-Acceptance, Fearless Living, and Freedom from Perfectionism. All those sound like great things. Could you tell us maybe a particularly surprising or counterintuitive discovery you’ve made along the way when it comes to researching perfectionism?

Stephen Guise
Yeah, I found out that everybody has it, because when people talk about perfectionism, it’s generally in a pretty narrow way. I think people talk about it in terms of performance quality but it’s actually a massive topic with different subsets and there are different forms of perfectionism. For example, one that I thought of that I don’t even think is in other literature is the idea of a perfect goal, like, in terms of exercise, you might only accept 30 minutes or else it’s not good enough. That’s perfectionism.

Pete Mockaitis
So, you want to have a perfect goal in that, it’s like, “Well, if I can’t do 30 minutes of exercise, just forget it. I’m not even going to bother doing anything.” Like that?

Stephen Guise
Yeah, exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, yeah. I have been guilty of that. My newfound belief is that one minute is infinitely more than zero minutes per simple division, and that encourages me sometimes to do a little bit which is better than nothing. So, okay. Well, then I’d love to hear some wisdom there in terms of, fundamentally, okay, perfectionism, we’ve all got at least a little bit inside of us. Your book How to Be an Imperfectionist, what’s kind of the big idea or main thesis here?

Stephen Guise
The main idea is not to be perfectly imperfectionist. That’s kind of a tricky area. You can try to be perfectly imperfect, if that makes sense, which it probably doesn’t. So, the idea of being an imperfectionist is not to do it perfectly. It’s to be happier, healthier, and more productive with less stress because perfectionism is misattributed as excellence, quite often, when they’re actually separate concepts. You can strive for excellence. You can be awesome at your job without trying to do it perfectly.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so let’s expand upon this benefit here, being happier, healthier, more productive with less stress. That sounds lovely. Can you give us a perspective on just how much unhappiness, unhealthiness, unproductivity does perfectionism bring to us? Any stories or research or studies or anecdotes along these lines?

Stephen Guise
Quite a few of them, actually. We could start with the really dark stuff if you want.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, you have me intrigued. Let’s do it.

Stephen Guise
Sure, let’s start with death. So, there’s a study on 450 elderly people, and they found that those with perfectionistic tendencies were 51% more likely to die in the course of the six and a half years study, so that’s just like a general thing. And then there are numerous studies linking perfectionism to both depression and suicide, and even more studies finding that that risk has been underestimated.

If anyone is interested, they can look up Kurt Cobain. As many people know, he committed suicide. His quotes are just full of perfectionism. I think one of his quotes is, “I’m sorry that it was never enough,” or something to that extent. I found it really interesting in my research for the book. So, yeah, depression, suicide, death. Anorexia, I would say, is the poster child of perfectionism. One of the most difficult mental disorders to treat and, obviously, people die from that as well.

And then you have lighter things like just performance. There’s a study on 51 undergraduate women found that those who tested high in perfectionism, it was like a writing test where they were asked to re-word a passage as concisely as possible without losing the meaning. Those with perfectionism wrote passages that were “judged significantly poorer in quality” than subjects low in perfectionism. So, that speaks to the whole idea of perfectionism, “Well, at least you get excellence.” Not exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Right. And I’m curious, with that particular task, it might be, I don’t know, the stress of knowing, like, “Oh, but I really got to nail this,” or, “Remember that sense. Remember those words. Remember those words,” and these sort of missed the broader idea. I’m speculating here. So, yeah, at times, perfectionism reduces your performance.

We had Tom Curran, a researcher on perfectionism on the show, talking about how, in a number of studies, they just can’t find a correlation between perfectionism and performance. Like, sometimes it helps you a little bit but it hurts you such that it all kind of shakes out to be like, “No.” It’s a very different thing than striving for excellence, indeed.

Stephen Guise
It’s a very difficult thing to study as well because you’re relying on people’s impression of themselves, saying, like their perfectionistic tendencies. I think there’s a lot of difficulty in studying something like it. But I do have a good quote that I wish I had put in my book, and that is, “The more you worry about performance, the less you can focus on performing.” And I think that gets to the heart of what I’m saying. It doesn’t, generally speaking, help you to worry about how you’re performing.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that is true.

Stephen Guise
Because it only distracts you from the process.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear that. I think, as I reflect on my own experiences, sometimes that worry can be a bit useful in terms of, “Ooh, I better prepare now so it motivates me to stop procrastinating or goofing around and get down to business.” But, yeah, if I’m worrying about how I’m doing while I’m doing the thing, that’s really bad news.

Stephen Guise
Yeah. A good example of that is basketball. If you think about a hot shooter versus a cold shooter, the cold shooter is much more worried about his next shot because he doesn’t want to let the team down. He’s thinking about how he’s missed all of his previous shots. The hot shooter is much more relaxed and confident that he thinks he’s going to make his next shot. So, you have a big difference in them worrying about their performance, and the one who’s less worried is going to perform better.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Okay. Well, so let’s talk about how does one become not perfectionistic, how does one become an imperfectionist. And I don’t know, you’ve got five subsets of perfectionism. Is it helpful to take that as a route to the anecdote? Or, how would you like to proceed?

Stephen Guise
Yeah, we could do that. You want to start with like unrealistic expectations?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, what’s that all about?

Stephen Guise
So, expectations are a really interesting thing in life. I like to say that we should have generally high expectations for our lives, be an optimist, but it can become very problematic when you have specific high expectations, in which case, like perfectionists, they have unrealistic expectations, and that’s why it’s correlated with depression because they’re always underneath where they expect and hope to be. That’s depressing.

So, someone who struggles with this will have the mindset of like, “I will never have bad days and everything will come easy to me,” so that when struggle inevitably comes, as it does for us all, it throws them off balance, and it can affect them emotionally, which can spiral from there.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, I guess the prescription there is, I don’t know, stop having unrealistic expectations. And, maybe, in practice, how does one do that?

Stephen Guise
Yeah. So, we touched on the perfect goals, that’s a big one. I wrote a book called Mini Habits, which is about setting very low goals, which is a low expectation, such as one push-up a day. That’s the one that changed my life. For example, I tried ten years the other way of like getting motivated and doing the minimum 30-minute workout. It was only when I lowered my expectations to “I’m only going to do one push-up or more a day but I am going to show up every day.”

That’s what changed my life. And it’s crazy but that’s what happens when you lower your expectations and allow yourself to shatter them and develop positive associations with whatever you’re trying to change, whether it’s exercise or your relationship with your work.

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent. And you’ve got quite the story with The One Push-up Challenge. We’ll definitely link to that on your website, so inspiring stuff. Okay. So, swap out the unrealistic expectations for a tiny expectation, and you may, surprisingly, end up with fantastic results. So, how about the rumination?

Stephen Guise
Rumination is focusing on past events, namely negative past events, and it’s often defined by self-talk, how you think about your past. A ruminator will say things like, “Oh, I should have done this. Oh, I should have done that,” and that is just loaded with guilt and shame. A solution for that is you can change that “should have” to “could have” which is a lot less heavy and it focuses more on opportunity than the guilt and weight of what you think is a poor decision.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, could have. And it’s funny, that’s literally two letters of shift there, and yet should is like “Aargh, I failed, I screwed up,” I don’t know, even depending on your language or your operating, you’d be like, “I have done wrong. I have sinned. I have made a grievous error and mistake,” versus, “Oh, hey, that’s another way things could’ve gone, and I prefer it that way, so, okay, noted. That feels a lot better.”

Stephen Guise
Yeah, it’s a lot better.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And how about the subset, the need for approval?

Stephen Guise
Yeah, this is a pretty common one people have. A lot of people care about what others think of them, and I think that’s somewhat normal, but it can get to a point where it’s problematic. And the solution I give for this one is a little strange, I call it rebellion practice. And it boils down to just embarrassing yourself a little bit in public, so like singing in public. You could just lie down in a public space for 30 seconds. People are going to judge you, they’re going to say, “What’s wrong with that person?”

Pete Mockaitis
Or, be worried, “Are you okay? Do you need a paramedic?”

Stephen Guise
“Send an ambulance, yeah.” But these things don’t hurt anyone, and you can wear a fanny pack.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s hilarious. It is.

Stephen Guise
I know, it’s a funny-looking thing, walk in slow motion.

Pete Mockaitis
Or, power walk with gusto as though you had hiking sticks but you don’t, or maybe bring the hiking sticks.

Stephen Guise
Or, maybe a more reasonable one, just talk to strangers, which is uncomfortable but anything that exposes you to the judgment of others is good because the things we’re exposed to, we get used to. So, someone who needs approval, they’re constantly worrying and thinking, “Oh, what if this, this, this?” When they just kind of put themselves out there and find that they can be embarrassed and that it’s actually okay, and maybe it doesn’t need to be embarrassing. The more they can practice that, the better they’re going to be.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I like that a lot. And we had a guest talk about just putting…there’s an exercise where you just put a big dot on your face somewhere with like a permanent marker, and so it’s just there, and you know it’s there and other people can see it’s there, and so then you just have that practice. It’s also interesting to see who lets you know versus who doesn’t. Boy, this brings me back to high school. I don’t know why, but I recall we competed in the Future Problem-Solvers World Championship. It’s mostly the US plus Canada and a few folks from Korea, but three countries make it the world championship.

And I think we were surprised, we didn’t realize we had to prepare like a sketch of our solution, so like, “Oh, what are we doing? We have no good ideas.” We sort of spent all of our good creative energy doing the actual problem-solving and now we have to present it. And so, I remember we just did something so dumb. I think one of us was barking out orders like a drill sergeant or something in front of the judges and the other students who were competing, and we got a number of looks, like, “What is your deal? What is going on with you?”

And, afterwards, I couldn’t explain it. Wow, Stephen, you’re really taking me back. It takes 20 years to explain that moment. But part of me thought, “You know, somehow, I think, the fact that we totally humiliated ourselves is healthy and good, and we ought to do this from time to time. I don’t know why but it just seems like this is nourishing something inside of me.” And now I know, it’s helping turn down the volume on the need for approval and, thus, making me all the more free and at peace.

Stephen Guise
Because, prior to that, you were maybe walking in this perfectionistic sort of image.

Pete Mockaitis
Maybe.

Stephen Guise
I don’t know the context but a lot of people kind of walk around in these very light perfectionistic shells that they’re scared to break the shells so they play it safe.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s true. And it’s sort of like the self-fulfilling prophecy associated with which opportunities you take on, and because you don’t take them on, you cannot be enriched and expanded and stretched from it. And maybe you’re right, I think we got eighth in the world was wherever we placed, and I felt pretty great about that even though the perfectionist might demand number one.

Stephen Guise
They might.

Pete Mockaitis
But eighth in the world is like, “That’s pretty sweet. I’ll take it.” Oh, it’s really just three countries but…Okay, so we’ve got a couple subsets left. The concern over mistakes, let’s hear it.

Stephen Guise
That is, basically, “If I messed this up, my life will be ruined.” That’s kind of the thought behind this subset. There’s really, one of my favorite stories is related to this, it’s Heather Dorniden. It’s a very popular YouTube video, you can look it up. But basically, Heather was in a 600-meter race, and she was favored to win. So, the race begins and she’s doing great, she’s in the lead, not by much but she’s in the lead.

And this 600-meter race is three laps, it’s basically a sprint. But Heather trips and falls down into last place. And at this point, you hear the announcer is saying, like, “Oh, well, at least her teammate is doing well.” But Heather gets up pretty quickly, she’s still behind a ton because this is a sprint, this is a race, and she starts catching up. And long story short, Heather actually wins the race, which is ridiculous and obviously inspiring.

But I think I took something different from it than most people would. To me, I’m looking at the fact that, “Wow, the person who made the biggest mistake in this race still won the race.” And, to me, that is a big solution for concern over mistakes. The fact that you can make mistakes and still win because everyone does make mistakes whether or not they’re concerned about it, but you can still win despite making mistakes. Meaning, you don’t have to fear them as much as you might think.

Pete Mockaitis
Ooh, I like that a lot, indeed, because I think most people say, “Oh, yeah, that’s inspiring. So, pick yourself up and be resilient and never give up.” But to truly highlight the notion specifically that when the mistake-maker is the victor, and I think that’s like…isn’t there a famous Michael Jordan commercial with like, “I’ve missed so many shots…” and he’s like, “And I succeed because I failed over and over again”?

And so, okay, that’s kind of inspiring for whatever you’re selling. But I think it’s also true when people say, “Oh, you know, failure is a learning opportunity,” and I go, “Okay.” Sometimes that feels like a cheap consolation prize that’s insincere, sometimes it could feel like that in the moment even though it’s true. It’s intriguing to note that your mistakes truly can provide you with unique wisdom that gives you an edge. So, falling down and recovering, or just learning some painful lessons that have you on guard effectively for next time. Yeah, that’s cool, we can still win with mistakes.

Stephen Guise
Yeah, I think the perfectionistic path is this notion that there’s one path. It’s blowing out the other runners in the race and winning, that’s the only good thing. But real life is full of many different paths, some of which are quite painful, but even those painful ones have value, even those mistakes have value. As you said, you can learn from them and you can win despite them.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. And then the final fifth subset, doubts about actions. Can you tell us about this?

Stephen Guise
Yeah. So, this one has to do with projecting, which we all do all the time. It’s thinking about an action and what the results of it might be, what it might entail. So, doubts about action generally involves negative projections. So, for someone about to make a cold call, they’re likely going to think, “I’m going to call this person, they’re going to cuss me out, and they’re going to hang up.” That’s probably what they deal with quite a bit. It’s a reasonable doubt to have.

However, it’s best to test these because they’re very often not accurate. So, one thing you can do if you struggle with doubts about actions is write down what you’re projecting will happen, force yourself to do it anyway, and then write down what actually happened, and compare your projection with what happened. And I think you’re going to notice a lot of interesting differences between your projection and the reality.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Yeah, and to see that happen over and over and over again is going to make a real impression on that. Well, these are some great tools. I’d love it if you could share with us one of your favorite stories. Maybe readers have written them to you and have told you some cool tales with regard to, “Hey, I was struggling with perfectionism and was harmful in these ways, but I did X, Y, Z, and I have seen great results over here.”

Stephen Guise
Sure. So, one email I received, I couldn’t find the email so I can’t be super specific, but I promise I did receive the email. A guy was struggling with his sales job, and then he started a mini habit of one cold call a day, one sales call a day, and he reported back to me that he went over a million dollars in sales, and was one of the top salesmen at the company now because he committed to that imperfect little daily goal, and that’s pretty cool.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. That’s cool.

Stephen Guise
I’ve actually done the same in my professional career. I’ve written four books now which have done very well. A lot of people might not know that I did them by writing 50 words a day. That’s about one paragraph which, like any serious writer, that’s embarrassing, but, hey, four books. That seemed to work.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool.

Stephen Guise
And then a really cool story, just something that I saw. I was on a cruise and I went to the gym, and I saw this woman working out, and she had a full cast on her leg, and I was like, “Wow, here’s this woman working out harder than I am, and her leg is broken.” That’s just really cool. Obviously, so many people would not even think about working out with a broken leg but she still has her upper body.

Pete Mockaitis
That is good. That’s good. And you’ve got a piece about how we look at our floors versus ceilings in terms of sort of high-performing moments and low-performing moments. Can you expand upon that?

Stephen Guise
Yeah, that relates to perfectionistic goals too. A ceiling is the type of goal a lot of people will set where they’re…

Pete Mockaitis
As good as it could possibly be.

Stephen Guise
Yeah, right. Perfect. So, for someone exercising for an hour, or selling ten units in a day, that might be their ceiling. Whereas, a floor is a starting point, and that’s the key difference. A ceiling, you hit the ceiling and you’re happy. But if you don’t hit the ceiling, you’re not happy if you’re a perfectionist. If, instead, you take an imperfectionist look at it, you’re going to be looking at your floor more closely than the ceiling. You’re going to say, “I’m going to at least do this much, this small amount, and then who knows where my ceiling is. I’m going to take it from here.”

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

Stephen Guise
Yes, the binary mindset. So, I’ll use giving a speech for this example because it’s something a lot of people fear. When you’re about to give a speech, you’re going to generally think of it as a one-to-ten situation. A one being you stumble over your words before passing out on stage. That would not be a very good speech. A ten being you actually…your skin begins to glow a little bit as you’re speaking, and you deliver the best sentences anyone’s ever heard, and then you get a standing ovation and snow falls or something.

So, you have this whole spectrum of disaster to perfect. That’s generally how people think going into a speech, and they’re obviously trying to be more towards the perfect end of that spectrum. So, the binary mindset changes that dynamic. It changes the one to a zero and the ten to a one. So, a zero is failure and a one is success. It’s like digital versus analog. If anyone knows about TV reception, a digital signal on a TV, it’s either going to come through perfectly or it’s not going to come through. Analog, you can get those slight fuzzies.

So, the reason the binary mindset is so effective is it changes your idea of victory. The one-to-ten person, they’re going to think of victory as maybe, if they’re a perfectionist, maybe only ten is good enough, or maybe nine or above is good enough. There’s a lot of opportunities to fail in there which can affect their performance while they’re giving the speech because maybe they do slip up, and then they’re like, “Oh, crap, I’m at a five,” and then they’re not thinking about what they’re trying to say, what they’re trying to deliver to the audience. But a one or a zero is like, “Well, I showed up, I’m giving the speech, this is a win. If it does go poorly, I’m going to learn from it. If it does go well, that’s great.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s cool. Zero to one, with the one being realistic, like, “The speech happened. I said the words. People heard the words. All right, speech accomplished.”

Stephen Guise
And it’s really useful for a perfectionist because it kind of gives them that idea of perfect victory with the one being the “perfect victory.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s cool. Well, now, could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Stephen Guise
Yeah, I came across this quote yesterday. I don’t know that it’s my favorite but it’s my favorite right now. There’s a singer named Jane Marczewski known as Nightbirde, she recently passed away from cancer at 31 years old. Tragic. She was on America’s Got Talent. And she’s really talented. She blew the judges away. And Simon Cowell was getting choked up as he was talking about her performance, and he paused. And as he paused, she delivered this bomb to him. She said, “You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore before you decide to be happy.” That just blew me away, like, with her situation. And obviously it connects very well with the idea of being an imperfectionist.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, powerful. Thank you. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Stephen Guise
Yeah, there’s a journal study, and they studied actions versus thoughts in terms of how it affects our emotions because we all struggle with emotions at times, and sometimes we would like to change our emotions from sad to happy. They found that…oh, by the way, a journal study is just a study where people self-report, like, “I did this today and this is how it made me feel,” that sort of thing.

So, they found that actions were responsible for emotional change 66% of the time versus only 33% for thoughts. So, that’s meaningful to me because I’m very much an action first kind of person instead of trying to think your way too much through problems. It’s often better just to get going in the direction you want to hit.

Pete Mockaitis
I see. And so, when we’re talking about emotions, feeling happy versus sad and making a shift, well, now, I’m thinking about Tony Robbins’ power moves, beat your chest, say, “Yes! Yes! Yes! And I’ve changed my state.” So, I guess that’s one form of action. But it sounds like you’re talking about, specifically, how you feel about a situation or a problem. Is that fair to say?

Stephen Guise
Sure.

Pete Mockaitis
So, taking an action toward resolving it will be better than thinking about, “Oh, what am I going to do?”

Stephen Guise
Yeah, like if you struggle with anxiety, this is a really big one. A lot of people will try to think themselves through it, like try to think through their anxious thoughts and feelings. It’s often better just to go work out, or go for a walk, or go to a sensory deprivation float tank.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah? I thought you’ll probably do a lot of thinking in there.

Stephen Guise
Oh, yeah. It’s the most relaxing experience I’ve ever had. Highly recommended.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. I’ve been intrigued. I haven’t actually signed up for an appointment but I’ve been to the website like three times, like, “Oh, that might be interesting,” or terrifying. Not sure.

Stephen Guise
It’s pretty awesome. It’s very different. You might fall asleep, too.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Stephen Guise
Your Brain at Work by David Rock. He just talks about the brain and how it works.

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

Stephen Guise
Scrivener. It’s a writing tool. I write my books in it. It just helps you to organize all your thoughts. The hardest thing about writing a book is organizing it.

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

Stephen Guise
Exercise. Like, the benefits are crazy.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with readers; they Kindle-highlight it a bunch or quote it back to you frequently?

Stephen Guise
Well, I can give you the top highlight from my Imperfectionist book.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I love it. Let’s bring it on.

Stephen Guise
That is, “Never forget this; it’s easier to change your mind and emotions by taking action than it is to change your actions by trying to think and feel differently.” Kind of relates to that study I talked about.

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

Stephen Guise
StephenGuise.com.

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

Stephen Guise
I do. It is, “Don’t care about results. Care about putting in the work. Don’t care about problems. Care about making progress despite them. Or, if you must fix something, focus on the solution. Don’t care about what other people think. Care about who you want to be and what you want to do. Care less about doing it right. Care more about doing it at all. Don’t care about failure. Care about success. Don’t care about timing. Care about the task.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Stephen, thank you. This has been a treat. I wish you all the best with your books and adventures and imperfectionism.

Stephen Guise
Thank you, Pete. This is fun.

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

Nataly Kogan
Thank you. I love the title of the podcast. I’m excited. I overuse the word awesome more than any other word, so we’re in good company.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s meant to be. In fact, your latest book is called The Awesome Human Project. We’ve got a lot of awesome human listeners. Can you tell us what’s the big idea here?

Nataly Kogan
The big idea is that challenge in life is constant but struggle is optional. So, I’m calling official BS on the meme of “The struggle is real” because struggle is something we can reduce by improving our emotional fitness, and what’s real in life is challenge.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, there’s a distinction right there. Challenge versus struggle, can you expand on that?

Nataly Kogan
Yeah, I think it’s one of the most important insights that I’ve gained on my journey. I spent most of my life struggling. I thought that’s the way it’s supposed to be. I came to the US as a refugee. That was a lot of struggle. And I thought to do anything meaningful in life, you’ve got to struggle, it’s got to be hard. And that’s what I did until I completely burnt out and almost lost everything that was meaningful to me, including this company, Happier, that I was building to help people and companies and teams create a culture of gratitude and joy.

So, that taught me a really powerful lesson that challenge is something we cannot control in life. And, as we all know, the times we’re living in right now, there’s a lot of challenge. Challenge is always there. But we can reduce our experience of struggle by creating a more supportive relationship with ourselves, by strengthening our emotional fitness, by training our brain just like we train our body to be more physically fit, by training our brain to help us get through challenges with less overwhelm, anxiety, and stress.

And not only does that feel better, which I think is a wonderful goal, but that actually gives us more energy, more of our capacity to solve problems, make decisions. And so, everything I share in my new book and everything I teach to teams and companies has come from my own experience, but it’s also backed by mountains of research that show that when you cultivate your wellbeing, when you actually reduce your struggle, when you fuel your energy, you’re more productive, you’re more creative, you’re better at helping people, you’re more awesome at your job.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. Well, so then if struggle is optional, I guess I’m curious, if you were to sort of go back in time with your refugee journey, you said there’s some struggle there. So, that struggle was optional. How would you kind of think about it differently in hindsight?

Nataly Kogan
Yeah. So, challenge wasn’t optional, to leave. I grew up in the former Soviet Union, and we left with my parents when I was a teenager with six suitcases and a couple hundred dollars, and we spent months in refugee settlements in Europe applying for permission to come to the US. That’s really hard. That’s a lot of challenge. But a lot of the struggle that I experienced came from my inability to handle my difficult emotions. I had no skills around that. Of course, I felt anxious and I had tremendous loss of identity and self-doubt.

And that went on for decades. On the outside, I became a very successful leader, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, you name it, but on the inside, I struggled because I never developed emotional awareness. I didn’t know how to handle difficult emotions so I just pretended I didn’t feel them. I engaged in tremendous amounts of harsh self-talk and treated myself, to be honest, like a military sergeant who’s not very nice. And those are all things that, in retrospect, I could’ve improved which would have…the challenges would’ve still been there but I would’ve struggled less through them.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, so then, I’m curious, can you lay it on us, what are some of the training approaches if we want to have less overwhelm, anxiety, and stress? What are some of the most effective things we can do to feel better on those domains?

Nataly Kogan
Yeah, this is what my book is about. So, at its core, the way that I think about emotional fitness, it’s a skill of creating a relationship with your thoughts and your emotions that actually help support you. And the thing we need to understand, before I give you some tips, is our brain is not here to make us happy, or to make us awesome, or to help us thrive. The only thing the human brain cares about is to keep us safe from danger. Our brain is here to help us survive.

And because of that, it’s developed certain characteristics that actually can increase struggle. We all have a negativity bias. We see and notice many more things that are negative or could be negative, and our brain ignores a lot of things that are positive or meaningful or okay especially if they’re familiar. Our brain is also afraid of uncertainty. And so, when we’re facing uncertainty, our brain creates a lot more stress and anxiety because it doesn’t know how to keep us safe, and it creates these ruminations on worst-case scenarios as a way to give it control.

And so, I share this little mini-neuroscience lesson because at the core of creating or strengthening your emotional fitness, so you struggle less, is this practice of, what I call in my book, becoming the editor of your thoughts, and understanding that just because your brain gives you a thought, it doesn’t mean it is fact, it doesn’t mean it’s an objective observation of reality, it doesn’t mean you need to go along with it.

So, two questions to ask yourself. When you become aware that your brain is giving you thoughts that are causing you to stress, to struggle, to doubt yourself, to think about worst-case scenarios, two questions to ask is one of my favorite practices in the book. The first is, “Is this thought true?” And, by that I mean, “What are the facts I have to support this thought?”

So, when your thought tells you, “Oh, my God, this project you’re working on, it’s never going to work out,” or, “Oh, my God, your boss thinks you’re doing a terrible job,” well, is this thought true? What facts do you have to support it? Which we often find out when we ask this question, “Well, I don’t have a lot of facts. It’s just a story my brain has made up.” So, that’s the first question to ask, is, “What are the facts you have to support this thought?”

The second question to ask is, “Is this thought helpful?” And by that, I mean, “Does engaging in this thought, does it help me move forward through this challenge? Does it help me bring my best to the situation?” And asking those two questions is a really powerful way to shift your thoughts away from those that cause you stress, anxiety, overwhelm, self-doubt, and actually help your brain be your ally to help you move forward in the best way.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so that sounds really handy in terms of asking yourself those questions. So, let’s just say you’re in a situation at work, a colleague criticizes or questions something you’ve done such that you’re feeling kind of bummed, like, “Oh, man, I’m such an idiot. That was so stupid. What was I thinking? I’m a moron. Oh, my gosh, am I going to get fired? Or, maybe they are going to fire me.” And so then, you maybe go through these questions, “Is this thought true?” It’s like, “Well, they’ll probably not going to fire me. And I’m probably not a piece of garbage.” And, “Is this thought helpful?” “Well, no, not really. It’s kind of bringing me down.”

And so, we’ve concluded rationally, “Okay, these thoughts are not true and they are not helpful, but, nonetheless, I feel yucky. What do I do?”

Nataly Kogan
All right. So, this brings us to the next skill, which is the skill of what I call acceptance in the book. And the skill of acceptance, I used to hate this word acceptance because I thought it was like being really passive, “Whatever happens, happens. I’m an entrepreneur, I’m a refugee, I’m a fighter.” Well, that’s not what acceptance is.

Acceptance is a skill of looking at the situation clearly, so as you’ve just done, separating the facts from the dramatic story your brain has told you, and then, using that as a foundation to say, “Okay, this is how it is. This is how I feel. What is one thing I could do to move forward in the best way?” And so, in your situation, so you’ve determined that, “Well, my brain is kind of exaggerating. I don’t really have any facts that my boss is going to fire me, and this making me suck at my job if I sit here think about it all day. So, what is one thing I could do to move forward?”

And that answer depends on your situation, but a couple ideas just for the scenario you offered, because it’s a common one. Well, you could focus your attention on working on this project that you’re working on. You could focus your attention on that. You could have a conversation with your boss. Another really important skill that I talk about is emotional openness. So, you could have a conversation with your boss where you can say, like, “Listen, I just want to tell you, in our last conversation that we had, it kind of left me feeling like maybe there’s something I’m not doing. I’d love to talk. I’d love to get some feedback.” Those are all things that you are now in control.

So, you’ve now shifted from being out of control, “My boss hates me. I’m going to get fired.” That feeling out of control is one of the worst things for the human brain. This is how we get into tough spots. And you’ve now shifted into, “Okay, this is how it is. This is how I feel. What is one thing I could do to move forward?” which gives you a sense of control and progress, which brings your best out in the situation. And then, whatever you learn in that next step, you can move forward from there.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. So, we’ve got some strategy sort of in the heat of battle, in the midst of things. Can you talk to us? You mentioned the emotional immune system. Are there some things we can do kind of throughout time, and not just front and center, acutely that will put us in good shape?

Nataly Kogan
Yes. So, if you think about your emotional fitness, again, a great comparison is physical fitness. If you want to be more physically fit, you don’t just like work out once and then you’re done. You have a regular workout, you probably eat healthy, you might take some vitamins. The same thing about our emotional fitness is we have to practice to give ourselves this level of emotional fitness and then we have certain skills for in the moment.

So, a couple things to kind of improve your emotional fitness on a regular basis. One is to practice emotional awareness. We can’t improve something if we don’t know where we are. And most of us have grown up in work environments where emotions are not discussed. I definitely, I worked with some leading companies like Microsoft and McKinsey, and no one ever talked to me about emotions. I didn’t think that mattered. The old idea of “Leave your emotions at the door” is not actually possible. Emotions affect everything we do.

So, we have to get into the practice of checking in with ourselves daily. We check in with friends, colleagues, like, “Hey, how are you? How are you doing? How are you feeling?” We don’t check in with ourselves, and emotional awareness is at the core. So, every day, take a moment to check in with yourself, “How am I feeling? What is my energy level like?”

And research shows that people who practice this kind of emotional awareness actually improve their wellbeing because when you become aware, awareness gives you choices. So, that awareness might tell you, “Wow, I’m really stressed out. Okay, well, how can I support myself? Oh, it’s actually this one thing that’s really stressing me out. Let me go have that conversation.” So, emotional awareness is really, really important.

The other skill that I devote a lot of my new book to is gratitude. So, I think gratitude is one of those things that we all know is good for us, and we think we should do it on Thanksgiving, but I actually mean gratitude as a daily skill. And the reason gratitude is so important – and all the gratitude is, by the way – it’s focusing your attention on things that are positive, that are the moments that in your day of comfort, things you appreciate. They don’t have to be big things.

The reason it’s so important is because of that negativity bias that I talked about that our brains have. Without practicing gratitude, essentially, your brain is lying to you about your reality. You see things much more through a negative lens and that actually drains your energy, increases stress, reduces your ability to be awesome because it makes you use all that energy thinking about all the negative things.

So, having a regular daily practice of gratitude balances out that negativity bias that actually reduces your stress. It helps you have a more centered clear picture of your day so you can be at your best. So, those are a couple practices I recommend on a daily basis to improve your emotional fitness.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, when you talk about gratitude, I’ve heard a number of flavors associated with gratitude practices. What are some of your favorites and the research associated with them?

Nataly Kogan
Yes. So, I think there are two parts of gratitude that I want to mention. There’s a gratitude practice for yourself. So, my favorite practice, which is also in the book, is what I call the morning gratitude lens. Very simple. In the morning, hopefully before social media has taken away your attention or your reading – your 17th news article of the day, which we know we all do – take a moment, think of three specific things you are grateful for and jot them down in some way.

And this is a practice that counters that negativity bias I just talked about. Really, really important to be specific. So, I work with a lot of leaders and teams, and I ask them, “Tell me something you’re grateful for,” and they say, “I’m grateful for my family. I’m grateful for my health.” That’s very general. Your brain doesn’t really care about general things like that, so be specific. Ask yourself, “Why? Why am I grateful for my family? Why am I grateful for my health?” Be really specific. So, that’s a way to practice gratitude for yourself.

And then a really, really important part of gratitude is to express your gratitude to others. To look at other people, your family, your friends, your colleagues, your boss, your customers, through what I call the lens of gratitude, and to actually share your gratitude with them by, again, being specific, by saying, “Hey, Pete, I just want you to know, I really appreciate your thoughtful questions in this interview.”

Again, when we are specific with our gratitude, it has this really powerful impact, and it’s a gift that gives to both people. So, when I shared my gratitude with you, I remind myself, “Wow, there’s this person in my life who supports me, who’s meaningful, that helps me,” and there’s so much benefit on the receiving end of gratitude.

I think we all know it feels really good. But in the work context, being on the receiving side of gratitude improves motivation, improves resilience. It actually helps you get through more challenges because, at our core as human beings, we need to know that what we do matters. And when someone expresses gratitude to us, that’s what it reminds us of. So, those, to me, are the two sides of gratitude that I encourage you to practice for yourself, and then expressing authentic specific gratitude to others.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m also curious, I was listening to a podcast from the Huberman Lab, Andrew Huberman. Love his stuff. And he was talking about gratitude practices with regard to some interesting research associated with hearing other people’s stories in which they were helped, and they expressed their gratitude and/or reflecting upon the times that you received gratitude, when someone was like, “Oh, Nataly, thank you so much. That was awesome. You changed everything for me.” And I thought that was kind of a different take and a different kind of vibe and flavor of gratitude. What do you think about those?

Nataly Kogan
Yeah, I love that you brought that up. There is so much research that shows that just witnessing someone sharing gratitude with another person – so it’s not at you, it’s about someone else – improves our wellbeing, boosts our mood, and that is because, at our core as human beings, we’re all connected, and our emotions are connected, our emotions are contagious. And so, a lot of research shows that witnessing or hearing someone talk about, expressing gratitude, actually both boost your own wellbeing and it’s contagious. It encourages you to share that gratitude with others.

And, actually, something I want to mention on that, because a lot of times I work with a lot of teams and companies, and I tell them about this practice that I want them to do this in meetings. So, in a meeting, express your gratitude to someone in the meeting and tell them why you’re grateful for them. And often I’ll get a question of like, “Well, isn’t that like, won’t the other people feel weird that I’m not like expressing gratitude to them? Won’t they feel bad?”

The opposite is true. It actually makes everyone feel good because what you’re communicating to them is, “I am a kind of person who practices gratitude, and I appreciate other people around me.” So, it doesn’t make people feel jealous or envious or annoyed. It actually helps for them to express their gratitude to others. So, sharing your gratitude publicly is always a good thing.

Pete Mockaitis
Very cool. Very cool. And you mentioned, and we may have already covered some, you’ve got three mindset shifts that help make happiness and emotional health reality for folks. What are those three shifts?

Nataly Kogan
So, these are my like…what do I call them? Kind of like principles, the core principles, and we’ve actually covered a bunch of them. So, the first is to think of…to recognize that your happiness and your emotional fitness is a skill. It’s not a prize you get at the end. So many of us, and I definitely did this in my life, so many of us live with this idea of like, “I’ll be happy when…”

So, for everyone listening, I’m sure you can relate, “I’ll be happy when I get this promotion,” or finish this project, or launch this thing, or lose weight, or gain weight, or move. And we think that something on the outside can actually give us that lasting happiness, and that can never happen. And there’s a biological reason for that, there’s nothing wrong with you.

The other thing to know about our brain is it’s very adaptable. We get used to things. And so, while you’re working towards that big promotion, your brain is really swimming in a lot of dopamine, it makes you feel good. When you get it, your brain is like, “Yes! Awesome! Got it! What’s next?” And so, “I’ll be happy when…” doesn’t work. Happiness is not a reward.

When you think of it as a skill, when you think of happiness and emotional fitness as a skill, something that you practice – we just talked a bunch of different ways to practice – that actually is what builds that. So, that’s a really important mindset shift. We talked about another one, which is life is full of challenges, and challenges will never go away. Challenge, change, uncertainty is always there, but struggle and your emotional experience of those is something you can improve. You can reduce struggle. So, that’s another core mindset shift which we’ve covered.

And one more, which is so essential, and that is that you don’t need to make any dramatic life changes to feel better to improve your wellbeing. Small shifts in how you treat yourself, in your relationship with your thoughts, in your relationship with other people, small shifts have huge impact when you practice them consistently.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. Well, I’d love to hear then, we got a number of principles and tips and tactics. Can you bring it together in terms of a story of someone who had a pretty cool transformation of doing some of these things and turned things around to become all the more awesome at their jobs?

Nataly Kogan
Yeah. Well, so many examples come to mind, but I’ll use one example of a leader who’s a really amazing woman leader. I do Elevating Women Leaders leadership program for women every year. It’s always virtual. It’s a yearlong program. And when this woman leader came into the program, she’s very accomplished. She was running a huge brand but she was really exhausted, she was on the edge of burnout, and she admitted that she was not bringing her best or anywhere near her best to her work. And she didn’t really quite know what to do. She’s done kind of all the things that she could think of.

And by practicing, first and foremost, just becoming aware of her emotions and developing a relationship with herself that were supportive, so when she felt a difficult emotion, instead of stuffing it down, she actually acknowledged it and found ways to support herself by practicing gratitude. She began a daily gratitude practice on her own, and she began a weekly practice of gratitude with her team where everyone on the team would share a gratitude with other people.

It was an amazing transformation. She talked about how not only did she become, as a leader, better and started to thrive, but she said the entire culture of her team changed. They all began to work much more cohesively together. They were better, more effective. And it was a pretty incredible transformation when you think about these practices. They’re not complicated. But here was someone who went from being on the edge of burnout, not bringing her best, to changing herself in such a way that she encouraged her entire team to elevate their performance.

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

Nataly Kogan
I think the only other thing I want to mention is everything I teach and everything that’s in my book, it comes from my personal lens. I teach things I’ve learned, and obviously I’m a total research geek. And I just want to leave listeners with kind of this reminder that really helped me after I was recovering from burnout, and it’s something I share with teams and leaders and people, and it’s that you can’t give what you don’t have.

We have an epidemic of burnout now going on, and there’s a lot of articles about how things are bad and we’re burning out, but you always have a choice. You always have a choice. There are always things within your control that you can change, and, as we’ve talked about, they don’t require any kind of Herculean life changes. But you can always find ways and practice skills to support yourself, to support your emotional fitness and wellbeing. And there are so many people who consider that selfish or they feel guilty taking care of their happiness or emotional fitness.

And so, I want to break through all that and, again, tell you that you can’t give what you don’t have. If you’re on empty, if you have no energy, if you’re exhausted, if you’re constantly beating yourself up, you cannot be awesome at your job, you cannot show up as a patient, thoughtful, clear leader, you cannot show up in the way that I know you want to, to people you care about. So, it’s probably something I say most often throughout the day, both to other people and to myself.

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

Nataly Kogan
I’m going to share this quote which my teacher, who was my teacher as I was kind of healing from burnout and really going through a process of reinvention. She said to me, she said, “You’re a being, not a doing.” And, at the time, I had no idea what that meant, and I didn’t really care. I was very much to doing. I connected my worth entirely to my achievements for the day. But I find it one of the most inspiring things, and I do want our listeners to hear that.

I think there’s so much more that we can all contribute to the world and to our jobs if we value our being, our essence, our energy, ourselves, and not just connect that to our achievements.

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

Nataly Kogan
Ooh, let’s see. Well, one of my favorite bits of research is…you’ve gone into my favorite area. I’m such a research geek. Okay, let me share one around the negativity bias, gratitude being important because I think it really lands it. So, they’ve done experiments where they have people wear headphones, and in one ear they have negative words coming in, and in the other ear they have positive words coming in.

And even if the positive words are louder and clearer, when they asked people what they recall, they recalled the negative words. Our brain is constantly on alert for anything negative. And I just love that study because it’s so literal that it brings it home this reality that our brain is looking at everything through this negativity lens, and we have to correct it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m a research geek as well. That’s so intriguing. And I’m wondering, hopefully, they rotated the headphones, the left and the right.

Nataly Kogan
They have done. And you can look into it. They did all kinds of things.

Pete Mockaitis
Alrighty. And a favorite book?

Nataly Kogan
I would have to say The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer, which is probably the book I give to people more than my own books. And it’s an incredible story of this very promising economics PhD student who, one day, decides that he needs to figure out why there’s constant chatter in his brain, like we all have this voice in our head that’s constantly chattering, “You’re not good enough. You didn’t do it.” No, you’re just commenting on everything.

So, he quit and decided he was going to be a yogi and he was just going to be Zen and calm his mind. And it’s an amazing story of how that actually led him to run a $2-billion company we’ve all heard of, and an incredible journey of what happens when we practice acceptance, when we actually accept ourselves and the world as they are. So, I absolutely recommend that book.

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

Nataly Kogan
So, in terms of my favorite app, I love Todoist. For anyone who doesn’t use it, I love it. It’s a way I keep track of all my to-dos and projects. And I’m also an artist. You’re looking at some of my art behind me, so I love my iPad. It’s where I draw. It’s where I write things down. I think those are, for me, two tools. And I’m going to mention one that probably has nothing to do with work, but fresh air. I could not be awesome at my job if I did not go outside for a walk every day.

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

Nataly Kogan
Yeah, the thing that I hear back most often is this idea that I shared of you can’t give what you don’t have. And this is for senior leaders and junior employees, and men and women. I think we have this inner martyr that comes out and where we think we have to go last, and that’s the way to be a good leader, a good teammate, a good colleague. And so, when people have that breakthrough, this understanding of in order to give, in whatever way you want to give, I have to actually fuel myself. So, you can’t give what you don’t have.

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

Nataly Kogan
Very easy. Go to NatalyKogan.com. And I’m very easy to find there. I’m on all the social media but NatalyKogan.com is the hub.

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

Nataly Kogan
Well, my call to action is twofold. I actually love giving homework, so I love an opportunity to give homework. I always give homework at the end of my talks and keynotes. So, my homework is twofold. Take one thing that you heard me talk about and make it a practice for the next five days. There’s no magic, by the way, about five days, just like there’s no magic about 21 days. It takes much longer to create a habit. But five days is a really good amount of time to do something, and then check in with yourself and then see if it’s made a difference.

So, take one thing you heard and do it for the next five days. Make that commitment to yourself. And the second part of your homework is, share your gratitude with someone today. It can be someone at work, it can be someone outside of work, but tell someone why you appreciate them. By the way, you never have to use the word gratitude if you don’t want to. You can say, “You’re awesome because…” Tell someone why you’re grateful for them today, and the impact of that will be so clear to you, hopefully you’ll keep at it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Nataly, thanks so much for this. And I wish you much awesomeness in the weeks ahead.

Nataly Kogan
Thank you. This was an awesome interview. Thanks for having me.