Self-Care

Pete Mockaitis
Elizabeth, welcome!

Elizabeth Svoboda
Thank you so much, Pete. It’s great to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Well, I’m excited to be chatting about The Art of Pacing. And congratulations, release day is here, now, the day of our recording. I bet that feels good.

Elizabeth Svoboda
Yes, it’s surreal, but it feels great. I’m kind of riding the wave here and hoping it lasts, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Super. Well, so tell us, could you share, for starters, a super surprising or particularly fascinating discovery you’ve made about pacing as you’re doing your research and putting this all together here?

Elizabeth Svoboda
So the genesis of this book was I started having some interesting conversations with, like, high-level coaches, Olympic athletes. And the thing that surprised me the most at first was, well, number one, just how seriously they took the business of pacing, which meant taking much more rest and much longer periods of recovery than most of us actually allow ourselves on a day-to-day basis.

Like, we all kind of have this stereotype in our heads of, like, the Olympic athlete who’s toiling from the break of dawn until the sun goes down, but it is just not reality at all.

And so having these discussions, I started to think, “What if we could all start to pace ourselves as thoughtfully, as deliberately, as these athletes who, again, are amazing or doing world-level things? And what would that produce for us in our lives?”

And I think that initial element of surprise was really what helped propel the entire book forward.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that is striking to think about in an athletic context. And you could see it elsewhere. I’m thinking there was a podcast, I think it was Father Mike Schmitz. He’s a priest, and he was telling a story about even if you’re saving the world.

Like, let’s take a look at some nuns who are actually, like, saving the world, they’re right up in there in the midst of poverty and, like, doing the good-est of things, right, you could imagine. And their order of life, it’s locked in there. Rest, prayer, dinner.

Elizabeth Svoboda
Totally. And, especially, in the context of service or somebody like a nun, somebody who is really devoted to that, you have to be, like, healthily selfish in a way. Just like they say on the airplane, you got to put on your own oxygen mask before you serve others.

And when you see these nuns with these schedules that they take their rest time, maybe they take their naps, 45 minutes every single afternoon, that is them tending to what they need before they tend to other people.

And I think, from the outside, we kind of see it as the other way around, like they’re doing all these amazing unselfish things, but the fact is, in order to be able to do those unselfish things over a sustained period of time, they’ve got to keep pouring into themselves.

And I think I knew that intellectually before I started writing this book, but the research really does support that. And so I believe it even more strongly now.

Pete Mockaitis
And, well, in a totally different context, I’m thinking about parenting and how that can be so often brutally exhausting, in that, like, if there’s not thoughtful, plan-ful moments, it’s like these precious little ones will take every minute there is.

Elizabeth Svoboda
Exactly. And to be honest with you, like, my kids are a little older now, they’re 10 and 13, but I was very overwhelmed, especially when they were at that toddler stage, like when one was 18 months, the other was, like, four, and I was just going crazy at times.

And so one of my sort of impromptu pacing strategies that I devised at that time, and I worked it this out with my husband, but I was, like, “I need to take, like, a 24-hour retreat. Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to get a hotel. I’m going to check in, like, early afternoon one day. And I am going to do two things.”

“I’m just going to sleep. And then I’m also going to work on, like, the writing passion projects that I haven’t had time for, that I’ve really been wanting to dive into and haven’t.” And so for that entire 24-hour period, that’s exactly what I did. Like, I alternated between the writing and the resting or just conking out.

And at the end of that, I was shocked how much of a difference it made for me, especially after being immersed in, like, kid world, kid universe constantly. I just felt so refreshed and so restored. And, honestly, I’ve been doing a few of these every year ever since.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s fantastic. I recall a good friend and listener of the show, Lisa, they said, “What do you want for your birthday?” And she said, “I want 24 hours completely by myself.” And she did. She got a hotel and it was everything she hoped it would be.

So, well, those are cool perspectives. I think we can resonate naturally with the notion of, “Yeah, sometimes you feel overworked and tired and stressed, and rest is really great.” So I think it might be easy to overlook it, or overlook the importance of it.

Could you share with us a story of someone who figured out this pacing thing and kind of what the before-versus-after picture looked like for them?

Elizabeth Svoboda
Well, I learned so much about pacing when I spent a day with the Olympic middle distance runner Ajee Wilson, and I love her pacing philosophy. It’s something that she calls rigid flexibility. So, obviously, she has these very important, like these kind of non-negotiable things that she wants to accomplish each day. That’s the rigid part of it.

So every day, she does a pretty intense, two-, two-and-a-half-hour practice session, like all different lengths of runs, taking these little micro breaks in between, but really, really intense. But then what she does after that, and this is where the flexibility element comes in. You know, I kind of asked her, “Well, what do you do at the end of your long practice every day? Like, do you have a hobby? Do you go out with friends? Like what do you do?”

And she’s, like, “You know, this might sound kind of boring, but to be honest with you, I crash out. I will often take a really long afternoon nap.” And maybe we don’t all need, like, that two-, three-hour nap, but I think what was really striking to me is she was taking the amount of rest that was sort of commensurate with, or that matched, the intensive effort that she put in.

And so you had this rigidity, like you do have to do this thing, that this is a non-negotiable this practice, but you are putting way more padding and way more flexibility around that, and way more recovery than most of us typically do.

And I think that we can also adopt this approach at work. Like, obviously, not all of us are world-level, Olympic-level athletes, but, you know, let’s say you have a work project that you absolutely have to get done this week. Like, that’s the non-negotiable thing.

So, sure, like, you commit to putting in some time on it each day, but you give yourself a big cushion. Like, you give yourself a lot of recovery time between work blocks. And when you’re not working, you do something that’s as completely unrelated to what you’re doing at your desk as you can.

Because, you know, just scrolling your phone in between times, that’s not going to cut it, that’s not going to restore you, that’s not going to give you any energy. Like, actually get out into the world. Like, meet a friend, do something in “meatspace,” I guess, some video game players call it.

So I think that this rigid flexibility is something that, as I observed Ajee, I was determined to create my own version of that. And I think she learned that, too, through tough experience. Like, world-level athletes, they all, many of them, anyway, have this tendency to go above and beyond. They want to push, push, push. They want to do more.

But for her, she found that when she pushed too hard, and when she didn’t give herself enough time for recovery, she would come up with an overuse injury at the very worst minute, like right before the biggest competition of the year.

So I think, as an athlete, you sort of learn these things in a very visceral way. And that’s a very memorable lesson.

But, you know, those of us who aren’t athletes, maybe sometimes it takes us a little bit longer to learn that, because we can keep going through the motions of our day for a long time, even though we are still crashing out inside.

Pete Mockaitis
I think that’s well said, it takes us a while to learn that. I’m thinking about my sweet mother, and whenever I got really cranky about something disproportionately, and this was well through my teenage years, she would ask me if I was hungry. And, in a way, I kind of didn’t like it.

I was like, “I’m not hungry. I’m mad about this thing.” She’s like, “Yeah, I understand that. But, also, you know, when was the last time you ate?” I was like, “I don’t know, maybe like nine hours ago.” She’s like, “Okay, well, how about we have a little break and eat something?”

And so, I’m like a 17-year-old here, you know, I think I’m almost a man. And, yeah, I was slow to learn that. And, likewise, I think I was slow to learn, even as a young adult in the workplace, it’s like, “Hmm, I find that I’m substantially grouchier and less enthusiastic about all the ‘boring’ ‘BS’ I have to deal with if I’m properly rested.”

If I have enough sleep, I am able to appreciate, “Well, you know what? There’s something kind of interesting about this task. And it makes some sense that I’m being asked to do this, even though it’s not quite how I would do it. I kind of hear where they’re coming from.”

I was just much more understanding and cheerful and interested. And for me, again, it’s also subtle. It’s, like, “What is enough?” Like, the difference between 5.6 hours of sleep and 6.8 hours of sleep doesn’t seem all that substantial. Maybe an episode or two of Netflix at night. And yet, for me, I found that really will show up.

Elizabeth Svoboda
Yeah, like, one thing that really was driven home to me so many times in researching this book is there are certain physical states that are not conducive to clear thinking or reasonable thinking at all.

And so, yeah, getting not enough sleep might be one of those things. But just like if your nervous system is in a super activated state, you’re going to be having all these squirrelly thoughts all the time, “Oh, I screwed this up. I screwed that up.”

And a lot of that, I mean, I think we tend to believe everything our brains are telling us, like, take that as the gospel truth. But what I have learned, I think, through direct experience as somebody who tends to get spun up in this particular way, is that when you get your body into a more settled state, your mind actually will follow.

And sometimes it’s hard to remember that at the precise moments when you’re feeling the most spun up. But that said, it is absolutely true, and if you just sort of persist. And, you know, there are sort of spin-down practices that work better for different people.

Like, I’m pretty much a terrible meditator. Like, I do not have that kind of focus. And so I do deeper breathing, like a specific breathing tactic that a psychiatrist taught me called modulation breathing. But, yeah, for you it might be meditation, it might be like walking meditation, you take a walk outdoors.

But the point is, whatever it is for you that gives you that feeling that, “Okay, I’m starting to spin down now. And let’s see, let’s give a more objective reading on this situation. Like, what is really true here?” And you’re going to be much more likely to come to terms with what’s happening. And it might not be great, but, like, you’re just coming to terms with what’s happening.

And then, “What can I realistically do about it?” And it is really, really hard to do that sort of essential assessment process if you were in that monkey-mind squirrelly state. So I would say, like, the first thing, tend to the physical spin-up before you try to get into the deeper thought and make the next best decision.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it is shocking how much that state, the emotional weather or vibe, and the internal weather going on there, has a profound impact on our decision-making, and we’re often unaware of it.

I mean, I think we know. Okay, if I’m enraged and I want to fire that person, maybe now is not the time. I should probably think about that before I just lash out. That’s probably a smart move. So I think we’re aware of that.

But I think the subtler shades of emotion are also coloring our decision-making, what we think is true versus false, or a wise move, or an unwise move. And I think, for many of us, it can pass right by our awareness and we don’t even know how much that’s influencing us. That’s just a theory, a hypothesis, my own experience. Has your research revealed some of these things?

Elizabeth Svoboda
Yes, I was just thinking, that is exactly right. And so I’ve come to see these spin-down tactics, whether it’s the breathing or whatever gets you into that more centered state. Like, it’s not just a good short-term pacing tactic that allows you to get through the day. It’s a good long-term pacing tactic.

Because once you’re in that more centered state, you are going to make decisions that serve your present and future self long term.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. And, again, I think that we can forget about all kinds of little things in the, like, “Oops. oh, I haven’t had any water or beverage for six hours. Oopsie! And I’m a little thirsty, but that’s probably not causing me to be super irritable. Well, maybe it very well is, you know.”

So the squirrelly state, that’s a good turn of phrase. What are some of, perhaps, the subtle yet reliable signs we should be on the lookout for, like, “Oh, maybe I’m in the squirrelly state, and it would be better to do some of the spin-down stuff”?

Elizabeth Svoboda
For me, what it is, like, I won’t have any trouble getting to sleep at night, but I will just bolt upright in bed at 4:30 a.m. and my heart will be pounding, like, to beat the band.

And after that happens, as you can imagine, it’s really, really difficult for me to get back to sleep at all after that. And I’m just like, I’m just spun up. And I remember talking to a psychologist about how this happens to me.

And he’s, like, “Yeah, this is what happens. Like, if you are in a more chronic or a more elevated stress state, that burst of cortisol that normally would just wake you up more gently, it’s going to pile on top of all this cortisol you’ve already got going, and it is going to give you a jolt like you wouldn’t believe.”

“And you’re going to have, like, this fear signal. It’s, like, you’re not afraid of anything in particular, but it’s, like, you don’t even know where this fear signal is coming from. You just sit up and you feel terrified.” And so, for me, that is a major red flag. That is a warning sign.

But, you know, for you, it might be something a little bit different. It’s when you start skipping meals, or forgetting to drink, or just not feeling hungry or thirsty, that is often a sign that your system, for whatever reason, it’s trying to deal with whatever crisis it perceives is right in front of you, or on the horizon, instead of just tending to the boring daily things that you have to do to get yourself through the day.

So when you notice those signs, and if you’re listening, you probably have some idea what these signs might be for you, that is really a warning, like, “I need to pause here. I need to maybe do a little bit more spinning down. And then I need to ask myself, like, ‘Okay, what’s the next wise choice? Like, what do I need in this moment? And how can I fulfill that need?’”

And it might be something super mundane. It might be just like taking your water cup and just sticking it under the tap and making sure you get a couple swallows of water in your mouth. But I think a lot of us are not alert to those earlier warning signs until it’s kind of too late, and we get into a full-fledged bout of depression, full-fledged burnout, and that is just really, really dangerous territory.

There was one study that really shocked me when I came across it, and it was about, like, 200 people, and they were diagnosed with exhaustion, which is basically like a burnout state, and they received initial treatment for that.

But then they followed those people up for several years after the initial exhaustion, and they found that fully a third of them still qualified as exhausted, as basically burned out. And so the fact is once we sort of crash, we can kind of limp along in this languishing, in this burned out state for years on end.

Like, you kind of think it’s going to go away once it happens. Well, if you don’t tend to it, if you don’t make real steps to, like, refill your tank, it is going to persist. And I think a lot of us don’t like to admit that to ourselves but it’s true.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so when it comes to refilling the tank, I think folks are perhaps quick to dismiss that, like, “Okay, yeah, I know that’s good, and maybe I’ll do that later after this project, after this move, after…” whatever. And so do you have any pro tip, research-backed suggestions for, “Ah, science suggests that this is a super rejuvenating spinning-down move, you know, per minute required of your life”?

Elizabeth Svoboda
Well, I mean, of course, if you can take a longer break from work, that is a great thing to do. But that said, I know a lot of us are in a position where that is just not available to us. Like, maybe we just started working at a particular company, we’re not quite senior yet, and we don’t feel like we can make a request to take a month off, right?

And in those situations, what has been really helpful, I think, for me, is a practice that I call energy management. And I’ve talked with a number of athletes, too, who use this. And as far as the biggest bang for your moment of effort, it’s hard to beat, and it’s very simple to start.

Like, what you do is you identify which times of day that you naturally tend to be most alert or most focused. So for some people, like, for me, it’s around mid morning, anywhere from like 10 until 12:30 or whenever I break for lunch.

But for other people, it might be afternoon, or for some creative types, sometimes it’s like late at night. And then what you do is you plan your most mentally demanding, like, work that matters the most that day to coincide with those natural energy peaks.

And so all it is is about aligning your toughest efforts with the moments when they’re naturally going to feel the least effortful. So it’s like your body is going to kind of give you these waves. Like, if you think about a surfer, the surfer waits for the wave before they try to ride it.

And so you are riding your energy peaks as you know they tend to come up. And then after lunch, like a lot of us have a huge energy slump, and that is totally normal. It’s to do with digestion and a bunch of other things.

And so if you can’t take a full traditional Siesta-style break at that time, you can still sort of downshift by doing something that’s a lot less demanding.

Pete Mockaitis
All right, yes. So identify those moments. And I’m thinking, for me, what’s more obvious is the moment I am the opposite of super alert, and it is almost exactly 1:45 p.m. Central Time, and regardless of how much I slept, what time I woke up, whether I had a delicious latte, even shortly before that, or whether I ate, whether I ate a lot, whether I ate a little, no matter what, right around then is, like, “Oh, I am sleepy.”

And it’s just great to know. And I actually try to get at least 10 minutes of straight up, literally, in a bed during that zone because it just feels so right in terms of, “It’s lined up, having a power nap would be great, generally, and this is the ideal time I might do that.” So I pull that off most days.

Elizabeth Svoboda
And that is amazing, and I would say, yeah, if you can get away with doing that, taking that 10-minute nap under your desk, or whatever you need to do, do it because that is going to give you a boost like you wouldn’t believe, and it can even help ease you into your next energy peak.

Like, for me, I tend to have not the highest energy peak, but, like, a smaller one starting around 4:30 in the afternoon. It’s funny, and sometimes I have, like, a little shot of espresso just to kick this off a little bit more.

But, like, at that time I know I can go writing, I can go deep into the creative stuff for about an hour before the hangry starts to sort of get the best of me. And I’m like, “Okay, I think that this is a good time to break now.” So look for those smaller peaks, too, in addition to those, to the lulls and the bigger peaks.

Pete Mockaitis
Very good. Okay. And we had Dr. Michael Breus on the show, he’s a sleep doctor, talking about your chronotype. You may naturally be an early-morning person or a late-night person. And his suggestion is, to the extent that’s possible, try not to fight it and see if your family, workplace can accommodate you as as much as you can, because it can be pretty tough being a night owl in an early-bird’s world.

Elizabeth Svoboda
Yeah, exactly. And if you’re doing shift work and things like that, it’s just very, very difficult, too. It’s basically asking you to find a peak at a time when you normally would not find that. And the research shows that if you’re trying to do that, maybe like for a month you can get through it, but if it’s like years on end like that, where you’re forcing yourself past your natural chronotype, you are going to have more chronic disease burden, the health issues that are associated with that are just going to build up.

And so, yeah, as much as possible, like, ride those natural energy waves, catch them when they happen, and don’t beat yourself up when they’re not there because everybody is going to have sort of those fallow periods, those lie-flat periods in their day.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, you’ve got a fun term of a phrase, ludic loop. What is that?

Elizabeth Svoboda
Yeah, so this is something that actually happens to us, a lot of us anyway, when we get into this trance of scrolling our feeds or clicking for the next notification online. And the term ludic loop, it actually came from some research that an anthropologist did.

And what she was studying was actually slot machine gamblers. So these people who were sitting in front of their machines, like, over and over in this trance, just pushing the lever over and over again. And then what some other research shows is that when you are doing these repetitive things, you are often getting a little bit of a dopamine burst associated with that.

And it’s not just from doing the thing itself, it’s from the anticipation of what’s coming next. So you might be getting a dopamine burst when you click on your notifications, and that’s because you’re anticipating, “I’m going to get a new message. Somebody is going to like my post,” or whatever it is.

And that’s okay, like, as far as it goes, but it just tends to draw us into these endless loops of consumption. Like, we get the dopamine burst, and that kind of motivates us to keep scrolling until we get the next dopamine burst, and the next, and the next. And so it’s kind of a very shallow engagement.

What happens, just like at the slot machine, people get up from the seats after five hours and are like, “What just happened to the last five hours of my life?” I think a lot of us have had that experience, whether we’re scrolling Instagram, scrolling TikTok, like, “What just happened to that last 45 minutes? Like, what kind of went down the hole there that I’m never going to get back?”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, and I always wonder, “How can I use that for good?” It doesn’t seem to happen to me when I’m folding laundry or processing email, unfortunately.

Elizabeth Svoboda
I mean, if you’re familiar with the flow state, like deep creative engagement, I think of the online scrolling as a sort of shallow flow because it’s like a passive flow where you’re not engaging, you’re not making any progress, you’re really not contributing.

And so what I tell people is if you’re going to try and swap out some of that sort of shallow flow, that shallow scrolling time, find something that you know helps you get into a deeper flow. So if you’re a writer like me, it might be working on your latest story. If you play an instrument, even just getting into practice, a lot of people get into this deep flow.

And the great thing about flow is it’s, again, a state that makes you feel like you’re hanging onto a tow rope and you’re getting pulled along, like you are enjoying the process so much that it’s easier to keep going than it is to be allowed.

So, yeah, like, replacing that shallow flow with deeper flow, that’s going to be the best thing because then you’re not going to feel like you’re at loose ends, like, “Oh, well, now I’m not scrolling. What am I going to do instead?”

Once you’re in that flow, that question is going to be answered for you. You’re going to be so engaged that you’re just going to want to keep going.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. All right. Well, Elizabeth, tell us, what are some of your favorite tactics that are just fantastic for this?

Elizabeth Svoboda
One thing that has been really fun and really freeing for me is practicing selective mediocrity. And I, first, heard Whitney Casares, she’s a doctor, she’s on Instagram, she was talking about this.

And so basically what selective mediocrity is, is you are choosing, you’re deciding, like, “I’m going to do all these different things in my day, and I’m just going to do an adequate job at them. Like, I’m going to be just okay. Like, I’m going to send the one-line email if it answers the questions, and this five-paragraph thing that somebody sent to me.”

“I’m going to blitz through this project evaluation if I’m pretty sure that my manager is just going to skim it for five seconds and then put in the pile on his desk,” right? And so it’s about giving yourself permission to streamline in that way, to do just enough, like, just good enough, but don’t do more than good enough.

This is what one psychiatrist told me, like, he tells his clients, like, “Don’t do more than good enough unless you’re just totally passionate about the thing that you’re doing.” And when you do that streamlining, then you’re going to have more energy to put into the things that matter the most to you that you really absolutely care the most about doing your best at.

Pete Mockaitis
Can you give us some top examples of these are great candidates for being selectively mediocre at?

Elizabeth Svoboda
At work, it’s just kind of there is so much busy work that so many of us have to do, whether it’s, like, a survey, a progress report. And I’m not saying, like, blow it off entirely, but it really is okay to, like, set the timer for five minutes and just make a goal, like, “I’m going to get through this in five minutes. And if I’m done, I’m just going to be done and I’m going to turn this in. I’m not going to obsess over it for 20 minutes or half an hour,” not that I have ever done this kind of thing in my life.

But just like that kind of stuff, that kind of cruft that accumulates in the corners of your work life, your everyday life, that is the kind of stuff that just be selectively mediocre and embrace that. And it’s just so freeing and it gives you a feeling of power, I think, too.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s a very nice piece to highlight there because I would say, busy work, I mean, whenever there is a process in which you suspect your input is not all that mission critical, I think is a great place to be selectively mediocre.

Like, sometimes, this is me, I love human development and learning and growth and improvement, right? And so if I get a survey, it’s like, “Oh, you know what? I would relish the opportunity to serve you by sharing with you as much insightful, actionable feedback as possible. So let me really just…”

Yeah, I’ve done this before. I have gone deep. And then you wonder, it’s like, “Will anyone ever actually read and ponder this? Or is it just sort of like, ‘Yeah, it’s on the checklist. Send out the survey.’”

Elizabeth Svoboda
And to be honest with you, like, a human may not even be reading that. It’s probably going to get scanned through ChatGPT or whatever. So why do we do this to ourselves, yeah?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, tell me, Elizabeth, any final do’s and don’ts here with regard to pacing?

Elizabeth Svoboda
One of the things that I always sort of stress to people is pacing, it’s not just like a one-time thing, like, “Okay, here’s my pacing plan. Here’s what I’m going to do this week. Here’s what I’m going to do this month. Let’s have ChatGPT optimize that for me.”

It’s a lot more fluid than that. It’s sort of a process of ongoing noticing what’s going on and being responsive to that. Like, checking in maybe more often with yourself than most of us typically do, like, “Where am I now? Where am I actually headed? What direction am I heading in? And what adjustments or what pace changes can I make that are going to be most likely to get me there?”

And even that finish line, don’t be surprised if that starts to evolve as well. Like, you might have a certain goal right now, and for you in this moment, that’s a really meaningful finish line in what you’re pacing yourself toward.

But as you get more knowledge, as you get more experience, that may change, that may evolve in ways that are sort of a happy surprise to you. So I think just sort of being open to that and just knowing that fluidity and flexibility are really at the core of what it means to pace yourself in a smart way.

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

Elizabeth Svoboda
So I love, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Father Greg Boyle, who founded the Homeboy Industries. It’s like a gang rehabilitation program in LA. And he says, “Systems change when people change. They’re bite-sized moments to be able to reflect back to people the truth of who they are. Then you watch them become that truth and they extend that truth to other people.”

And so that resonates so much for me because part of what I outline as a good pacing strategy is becoming skilled at finding those bite-sized moments to remind people of what you see in them, the potential that you see in them, and where they’re headed.

And in the book, I call them brief candle moments, and creating those is so fulfilling. If you are the initiator, or if you’re the recipient, and it may not be a long time.

It may be like two or three minutes, but you learn something in those moments that you look back 30 years down the line, and you’re like, “If I hadn’t heard that in this moment, my life might look very different than it does right now.”

So just those trajectory shifting moments that you can create for other people, like, that is going to be enormously fulfilling to you, and that is certainly something that I try to put into play as part of a longer-term pacing strategy.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, boy, I remember that’s resonating. Back in episode 14 with Dr. Marcia Reynolds, she made me cry when she told a story when she turned 20 in jail, and someone there just said to her, “You have no idea who you are,” and talked about how she was so smart and courageous, and she had all these opportunities and advantages and strengths and things she could do. And she just felt really seen. And, bam! It really was transformational, sharing that piece in that moment.

Elizabeth Svoboda
That is incredible. And, yeah, people often do get emotional when they recall these moments. And so I was a volunteer in a mentoring program one time, and I knew this guy named Tom. And Tom was, like, a retired guy in his 60s, but he was the best person that I know at offering these moments to other people.

So the kids in this program, they were sort of in this category that, at the time, was called Youth at Risk. Maybe some of them had been in trouble with the law, they were having trouble at school, they were just struggling in different ways.

And Tom, he just had this way of offering these brief candles of really conveying to somebody in this capsule that packed a punch of, like, what he saw in them, the potential that he saw, all the things that he loved about who they were.

And I just watched it transform them, and I’m kind of getting emotional thinking about it because if we could all be a little bit more like Tom, I think the world would be a much better place.

Pete Mockaitis
This also reminds me of “The Lion King.” And no spoilers, anyone, it’s been out for a while. But when Simba sees his dad in the stars, “Remember who you are,” I mean, that’s powerful stuff. That’s powerful stuff.

Elizabeth Svoboda
Yeah. And, like, people don’t realize. Like, you can really give this to somebody, and it’s like this infinite thing that you’re giving them, and it’s going to take two minutes of your time. And I think if that came home to more of us, we would all be looking for these opportunities on a daily or, like, an hourly basis because that’s the impact that they can have.

Pete Mockaitis 
A favorite habit?

Elizabeth Svoboda
It’s a practice that’s in the research, it’s called resonance frequency breathing, but I’ve come to call it modulation.

And so what it involves is actually breathing at a pace in which there’s the greatest variability between the way your heart rate speeds up as you breathe in, and then slows down as you breathe out. And so if you’re a fitness gadget person, you might’ve heard about heart rate variability.

And so breathing at this pace, which for most people is about five breaths a minute, that is going to get your heart rate variability in the highest possible place. And that is going to facilitate you getting into that calmer state faster.

And I had a really crazy experience when I first tried this type of breathing. It was in the office of a psychiatrist, Joe Arpaio, who teaches modulation to his patients. And so what he did, like, he clipped a little heart rate monitor on my finger, and he had me do my modulation breathing. For me, it was like 5.2 breaths per minute. Do that for about five minutes.

And I was watching, like on his laptop screen, there was like a little tracing, and where my heart tracing started out like real jaggedy and unpredictable, they were just slowly relaxing into these smooth, these more like S-shaped sine waves, showing that my heart rate variability was improving.

And at the end of those five minutes, Dr. Joe, he turned to me and he was, like, “You know what? You just calmed yourself down way faster than if I had taken an IV sedative and I pushed it into your arm right now.”

And it really struck me because I had gone into that day pretty, pretty skeptical. I mean, we all hear about, like, different breathing practices, and we try different things that we read about in magazines, and maybe it doesn’t really work for us. But for me, sustaining that about five, 5.2 breaths per minute for…you got to stick with it for more than 30 seconds. It’s got to be, like, three, four, five minutes.

But you can do it alongside everything else in your life. Like, I do it all the time when I’m waiting at red lights or when I’m chopping up the food for dinner. Like, it kind of weaves around just the daily practices that you’re already doing.

And so I can attest that this really does work, and it really is better than taking sedatives and hoping for the best.

Pete Mockaitis
No, that’s awesome stuff, yes. And there are apps, even the Calm app on the free, before you subscribe, will give you four seconds in, six seconds out, which approximates that, or as well as Elite HRV with a heart rate strap will give you that kind of a visual experience if you’re into it. So that’s real. That’s my experience.

Elizabeth Svoboda
Yeah, I love Elite HRV too. Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Elizabeth Svoboda
I’m kind of obsessed with An Interrupted Life by Etty Hillesum. Now not a lot of people have heard of this, but, basically, what it is, it’s a collection of diaries and letters that were written by a Dutch Jewish woman during World War II.

And over the course of these diaries and these letters, you see very clearly how she evolved over time from somebody who was pretty anxious, very self-focused, like always getting spun up, as we’ve been calling it. And she really evolved into somebody who was so dedicated to service. And it’s sort of, I mean, I feel like I’m nowhere near being there yet, but it still, it gives me hope that all of us might be able to evolve, at least in that direction, no matter what craziness is happening around us.

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

Elizabeth Svoboda
I have been spending a fair amount of time on Instagram these days. My username is svobodster, so that’s S-V-O-B-O-D-S-T-E-R. It was a nickname given to me in fifth grade by my best frenemy. So there you have it. Also, you can find me at my website, ElizabethSvoboda.com, and I do have a beehiiv newsletter as well called “The Art of Pacing.”

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

Elizabeth Svoboda
If you find yourself during the day in mental overload or just in the midst of a crisis that really caught you off guard, first, just take a few minutes to do your spin-down.

And then once you reach that state where you’re feeling a little bit calmer, ask yourself, “What’s the wise choice here?”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Elizabeth, thank you.

Elizabeth Svoboda
Thank you so much, Pete. It’s been a blast.

Pete Mockaitis
Leidy, welcome back!

Leidy Klotz
Thanks, Pete. It’s great to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to talk about your latest work, In A Good Place. Last time, we were talking about subtraction and how that can enrich our lives. Now we’re talking about locations. Could you kick us off with a particularly surprising or fascinating discovery you’ve made about this stuff?

Leidy Klotz
One of the things, when I was going through the research for location, that just struck me was there’s a study of nursing home residents, and they found that in the study that they did, one group of residents was able to, like, customize their space and another group was not.

And then they came back to the people 18 months later, and of the people who couldn’t customize their space, they were 50% more likely to be dead. Like, we all know that space is important, right? But the degree to which it was important in that case was really striking to me.

Pete Mockaits
Yeah. Well, that’s so fascinating and alarming. And what’s interesting is that customizing your space, boy, it’s almost like that’s hitting multiple key human needs all at once, you know? Like, autonomy, agency control, as well as, like, beauty and mobility.

Leidy Klotz
Growth and, like, learning, right? You’re learning how you like it. You’re learning that you can move things around in the world. So, yeah, all of those things. I think that probably with the nursing home study, a lot of it had to do with kind of agency and feeling like you still have a say in the world around you. But, yeah, so it’s not a trivial thing to be able to interact with your surroundings.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, and part of me is wondering, and I’m sure we’ll get here, many of us have the ability to customize our space, but maybe we haven’t thought to bother much. Can you make the case? So if we’re not in nursing homes, we’re living our lives in homes whether owned or rented, as well as workplaces, offices, what’s kind of at stake with us thoughtfully optimizing these spaces versus just going with the flow?

Leidy Klotz
Yeah, I think it really comes down to whether or not our core psychological needs are met. And like you said, these core psychological needs, basically agency, growth or competence, and connection. And these are all things, right, that we hope we get at work and everywhere else.

And we think about them as important, but we often think about them in terms of, you know, tasks that we’re doing. The original way that we met these needs was through our interactions with our surroundings, right?

If you think back to our ancestors trying to survive against predators and the elements, the ones that were compelled to shape their surroundings to provide shelter, the ones that were compelled to figure out how their surroundings work, were more likely to survive and become us.

So these are like long-standing, deep-rooted psychological needs that we have, and we can meet them in other ways, not just in our surroundings, but we still can meet them right there in our surroundings. So that’s the case. It’s like here’s this amazing opportunity that we have all around us that we can take advantage of to thrive.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, let’s talk about these three needs. This reminds me of self-determination theory. I’ve heard of different adjectives used for these three components. Tasha Eurich talked about some of this in her book Shatterproof, which was rather potent. So can you expand on these?

Leidy Klotz
Yeah, and I’m so glad you brought up self-determination theory. Sometimes people don’t want to know the theory. The theory is really important here because this isn’t just Leidy’s research figuring this out. This is decades of people studying this across different contexts in different cultures. And self-determination theory is, like, the best understanding of motivation that we have and agency.

So this is our ability to have a say in our surroundings, so the ability to do something about the world around us, that’s agency. Competence is actually doing it, right? So competence is showing other people that we can affect change in the world around us or that we can interact with the world around us.

And then connection is maybe the easiest one to understand, you know, connecting with other people, but also just connecting with something bigger than ourselves. And that’s, you know, spaces are part of that.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, could you tell us a story of someone in a professional context who had an okay space, but they thoughtfully put some effort into making it extra awesome and what happened for him?

Leidy Klotz
I’ll give you an extreme story. So Nelson Mandela, we know that he was imprisoned on Robben Island. And one of the things that I learned he did there, obviously, you’re incredibly constrained with your agency when you’re imprisoned.

But when he was in prison, he found a space on the roof that was bathed all day in sunlight, he wrote. And he negotiated with the guards to be able to have a garden up there and then go up and tend to the garden.

And obviously, Mandela is one of these people who you think of never getting rid of his agency no matter what, right? Even when he was in prison, he was still campaigning and getting information out, but he also exercised the agency in his surroundings, right?

And I think we’re not, hopefully, imprisoned but when you find your agency being constrained in one way, like, I’m like everybody else. I’m in an office. I can’t just go tell my boss that I want a different office or that I want my space renovated overnight.

But if I’m frustrated by that, I can realize it and then find adjacent freedoms, right? I can go work somewhere else if it’s nice outside, or I can move the arrangement of my desk to face the window. And now, all of a sudden, I’m taking back control in that environment.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, can you share with us, what are some key shifts that can make a boatload of difference in our spaces?

Leidy Klotz
For me, the biggest one is, and this seems to resonate with people when I talk about it, is to make use of the spaces that we have available to ourselves, right? I’ll use myself again because this is a self-depreciating example.

I live in a house, I could work anywhere in that house, and I find myself sitting in the same chair and typing on my computer no matter what the task is, right? But if I think about it, I’m like, “Well, I could move over to this desk that’s facing the window, and write on a notebook when I need more creative ideas.”

I could shift my seating based on, you know, how my body feels. I could move throughout the day based on how the light’s moving. So there’s this example where I have all this space available to me, and just by my tried and true habits, I’m only using a small slice of it. And I think that’s a principle that can help everybody.

And we immediately jump to, “Okay, how do I change this space? How do I renovate this space?” And before we’ve thought about like, “Well, here are all the spaces where I could go. Let me make use of those before I start changing things.”

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I like that a lot. It’s funny, I have a camping chair that has a little bit of a recline and a swing, a rocking to it. But what’s really fun about it is, sure enough, you can put that anywhere in terms of, like, a park, by a window, in different zones of a backyard or front yard.

And I don’t often think that I have that option available to me. Although, there was a season in which it just lived in my trunk, and from time to time I was like, “You know what, I’m going to do my work over here now because I can.” And it’s a good feeling.

Leidy Klotz
Yeah, yeah, it’s good, because you’re comfortable, but also you made it, right? Like, you’re making the world how you want it to be. So I love that story because it’s very small, but you’re making your space in all these different places.

Pete Mockaitis
And sometimes, I’ve also had the experience, I’m thinking about, I’m just tidying up an area that’s long been untidy, and it really does feel like it’s meeting deep psychological needs because it’s, like, I’m finding like a deep sigh of rightness and peace.

And I’m not like a neat freak by any means. My wife and others can attest to this. And yet, when I go there, it’s often I’m surprised, like profoundly edifying. And I think Marie Kondo, she wrote a book with title, right, “The Life-changing Power, Magic of Tidying Up.”

Leidy Klotz
Yep, “The Life-Changing Magic.”

Pete Mockaitis
So, yeah, can you speak to this notion?

Leidy Klotz
There’s a lot going on there, but I think the number one thing is probably back to this, like, agency and competence, right? That psychologists, and I’m not a psychologist, but like one of the things that they’ll prescribe for depressed people is to say, like, “Hey, you just reorganize a room,” or, “Tidy up a room.”

And it’s not necessarily that the tidy room makes you less depressed. It’s that the act of feeling like you have control over some aspect of your life starts to make you feel better. And then, hopefully, that feeds on itself, so you feel you have control in tidying.

And then you realize, “Okay, I have control in these other ways,” and then you start to kind of get yourself back. So that’s probably the main thing that’s happening there. I also think that there’s some small bits and pieces.

You know, a tidy space is going to have less distraction, less cognitive load on you so you’re not coming in every time even if you’re not noticing. In my house, it’s shin guards and boxer briefs strewn about.

And even if you’re not noticing them, they’re, like, taxing you a little bit mentally. But the main thing is just, “Hey, I can do something about my situation.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Okay, so first point, principle, just use all the space available to us. We might just totally be forgetting, “Oh, yeah, I have all these options available, and I just never use them.” Where do we go from there?

Leidy Klotz
Well, and also I’ll just give one more. At work, right? Like, so many of our offices are designed to, you know, there’s your office or wherever you’re supposed to sit, but then there’s all these spaces that are meant for other things. And I think that, you know, we’re not fully taking advantage of those a lot of times.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, those architects and contractors were paid a pretty penny to get those in there and we’re not using them.

Leidy Klotz
And your bosses are thinking about it, right? They’re like, “How do we make this space so that people like it?” And yet, we never get past that barrier of, “No, you can actually use it.” Even something as simple as the conference room, right?

Like, every time you go into the conference room, technically, you could set it up differently for the meeting at hand. And yet, how often does that happen? Usually, you’re just accepting it the way that it should be.

But if you showed up 15 minutes early and set that conference room up, you’re getting a hit of agency, plus you can make sure that you’re sitting next to the people that it’s important to sit next to in the meeting. So there’s just a lot there.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, while I’m visualizing a conference room, what are some little tweaks that can enhance my experience of being in that conference room?

Leidy Klotz
Well, I mean, I think like there’s all the power dynamics stuff, you know? But I think everybody knows the kind of, “Put yourself in the position of power, and sit at the head of the table.” And I think most of what we’re trying to do in a conference room is, typically, kind of put people on equal footing.

And so, say you’re a boss, and you want to get people’s input in the meeting, don’t sit at the head of the table and maybe set up the room so that it kind of makes everybody feel like they’re sitting around a campfire where we’re all kind of equal. And then you will be more likely to get that input from people, right?

The conference room can be an example of this principle where, like, you’re saying one thing, and the space is saying something totally different. You’re saying, “Oh, we want all your input. It really matters.” And then you march in, sit at the head of the table, everybody else is just staring at you, and you control the slides. And do you really want people’s input? So I think that is one example.

Pete Mockaitis
So, Leidy, I should stop making every other seat in the conference room way shorter than my own? Because that’s what I do every time I go into a meeting. I should stop doing that?

Leidy Klotz
That trick is so hilarious. I mean, do it if you want to. It just depends. So it’s, like, move among the spaces we have access to. I think there’s another principle that’s, like, align the space with your goals. And sometimes the goal in the conference room is to be dominant.

Sometimes the goal in the conference room, hopefully, more often, is to have an exchange that helps everybody’s ideas move forward and get better. And so thinking about what those goals are and then lining the space up to suit it.

One of my favorite studies that’s, like, along these lines, there’s a study of negotiations and they wanted to see like Home Field versus Away turf negotiating. And this is, we know that location matters in negotiations. Diplomats will negotiate the location before they negotiate the treaty.

But the study was brilliant in its simplicity. All they did, they had two groups, the control and experimental group. In one group, they had sit in a room for 20 minutes, and then they had the other group come into that room to negotiate.

And the group that had been in the room for 20 minutes achieved better outcomes in the negotiations. That’s something that anybody can do. You can show up 20 minutes early for the meeting and just feel more at home. And, apparently, that is going to help. So, yeah, it’s powerful.

Pete Mockaitis
I have had that experience when I’m doing keynote speeches. It feels very nice to get into the room early, not just for the sound check, you know, AV stuff, all that, but even before those people are there, and to just walk through the whole space, and the seats, and just behold that large, empty space, and to feel like it is mine.

I don’t have any hard scientific evidence on it, but I really do feel more comfortable, confident, and ready to own the stage and the whole auditorium because it’s, like, “Oh, well, you are my guests because I was here first.”

Leidy Klotz
Yeah, no, that’s a great example. And you’ve probably done more of these than I have, but if I can’t do that, if I can’t have enough time to, like, totally take in the space, I’d rather be dropped in right at the end.

The worst situation is when you’re there for, like, 30 minutes and you’re watching the person before you, and you’re sitting in the audience and you don’t have enough time to kind of, like, fully appreciate the space, and then you have to run and jump up on the stage.

So the other option, I call it just kind of getting off the bus and play. Like, you go to the green room and then you just come out on the stage, and you know you’ve done your talk so many times that then you’re not, like, kind of inundated by these external forces in the space.

There’s science here. Probably the best science for yours and getting acclimated is, I mean, it’s not a scientific study, but all these sports teams, right? Their whole profession and livelihood and success depends on winning or losing. And they will all get there at least a day before the game and do a walkthrough on the court and try to make it as familiar as possible.

And then, on the other side, where if you don’t have time to kind of fully take it in, try to avoid the awkwardness of what’s happening when you come into a new space, is you’re trying to figure out the new space, right? Your brain is going to that.

And our brains have limited resources. And if our brain is trying to figure out the space while trying to think about how to deliver a keynote, it’s not going to go well. And so we want to not have the space taxing our mental resources when our job is to connect with other people, whether it’s from the stage or whether it’s in a conference room.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. What else should we be thinking about here?

Leidy Klotz
Growth. I think that growth or competence. So we’ve talked a little about agency and then connection. But growth is, like, we grow from interacting with our spaces. We learn. We were talking about kids earlier.

When you watch kids, as a parent, one of the most freeing things was to realize how much they were learning from the world around them, because I was worried that, “Okay, I’m going to have to describe to them how all this stuff works,” right? They just watch and they watch you, and then they interact with the world.

And so, maybe kids playing with a sand castle on the beach seems like they’re innately drawn to it. But, like, when my daughter is building a drip castle, for example, she’s learning about the fluid mechanics of the drip of the water.

She’s learning about material properties of sand and water mixed together. She’s learning about herself, right? She’s learning that, you know, if there’s some adversity, like her brother knocks down the castle, she can build it back and she’s going to feel good from overcoming that adversity. So this is, like, how we learn by interacting with the world and seeing what happens.

And I think we talked about screens last time. I think one of my favorite stories was yours, talking about subtracting TVs from the bedroom. And you can go back and listen to the subtract episode about why you would want to do that.

But so much of our life is on screens now which is convenient in a lot of ways, but when you’re navigating with your phone, for example, you’re not really taking in the city the same way you would be if you were trying to find it based on street addresses or just trying to walk based on directions that somebody gave you. And so we’ve engineered out a way that we might, otherwise, kind of learn about the world around us.

And I get that that’s probably an example where I’ll keep using my Google Maps because I want to just get there as quickly as possible. That’s convenient. But we’re also, then, engineering out these kind of opportunities to stretch our brains, and to work that learning muscle. And so I think growth through our spaces is something that we need to pay attention to.

Pete Mockaitis
So just the navigation in and of itself. What are some other ways we grow by interacting with our spaces?

Leidy Klotz
There’s the navigation. There’s the renovations that you talked about before, where if you are kind of setting up your space, and you’re realizing that, “Okay, that doesn’t work. I don’t like it, and I can change it back.” So now you’re learning things that you like and don’t like, but you’re also learning about yourself and that you can do these things.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I’m thinking a little bit back to my conversation with BJ Fogg on the show, and we’re talking about making things easier for behavior design. Like, if we make something easier, we’ll do more of it. And I notice, it’s so funny, in my office, which I really love, I found myself having a little bit of resistance to just going down and sitting in the chair and doing the work, even though, “Hey, I’ve got a great monitor. I’ve got a sit-stand desk.” It’s so good.

It’s like, “What’s the deal? This should be like the top place I want to sit and do work, instead of over on the couch on my sort of smaller screen laptop situation.” And I realized that my wheeling office chair, you know, the wheels on it, were getting kind of stuck in the carpet a bit, and so it requires a little bit of, “Ugh!” like, awkward effort to shimmy it out of the ruts to get into where I want.

Well, it’s funny because it’s a visceral thing. It’s a little thing, and yet, it’s something that can pass right through my conscious awareness, but have these associations. And so I said, “Well, by golly, I got to get a mat.”

And so I did, I got the mat. And now there is less resistance. And so I’m more likely to get in my battle station with all the goodies and the big monitors because, “Oh, there was a tiny thing missing, a mat under the rolling chair.”

Leidy Klotz
I’m so glad I couldn’t think of a story and you chimed in with yours that was much better than what I would have said. You’re also illustrating this beautiful concept of, like, how these principles that were originally physical principles.

Like, friction, right? How many people are talking about friction in the workplace when they’re talking about task completion and like removing friction or adding friction. You, literally, identified physical friction on the chair as the thing. So I think, yeah, and that’s a great tip that was one of the other ones is just like kind of removing constraints, right?

Like, thinking about your space and what are the constraints that are holding you back in that space. And that’s something. If you walk into the office on Monday morning, whether you’re an employee or the boss, you will find things that are constraining you that you can then remove immediately. In your case, you removed the friction and make your space better. That’s a beautiful example.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, I like that a lot. And so now I’m thinking about, you know, it could be the temperature, it’s like, “Can I adjust that, or can I hold a cold bottle of water, or, like, have a little hot pad under my butt?” Or it could be the lighting, the temperature, the sound with noise canceling headphones and/or earplugs. What are some other constraints that show up that we might want to do something about?

Leidy Klotz
I think there are unwritten constraints, too, where you kind of assume that this space is for that thing, and then you don’t question it. This is probably less about in your home, but more at the office. Like my editor actually, she had a space in her office that was supposed to be a flex space. It was a super nice flex space.

But the problem was there was, like, an executive in her office who would use it periodically. And it wasn’t like all the time, but it was enough that people were like, “Is that actually flexible space or am I going to…is the exec going to think that I’m trampling on their territory or invading their territory?”

And so I think if you’re in a position where you can articulate to people, like, “These spaces are for these things, and we really want you to use them,” but then also, if you’re willing to experiment yourself and kind of like try things out in your office, then go use spaces for different things and to be a leader, right? If there’s a room, a conference room, or a flex space that’s never being used, try using it and see what happens.

So that one is more about like just having more clear definitions about what can be done in the spaces and not assuming. So the constraint there is in our heads.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, certainly. Or, we just have these assumptions, like, “Well, the conference room is for conferencing, and so it would not be appropriate for me as an individual solo person to get up in there.” It’s like, “Well, that may or may not be true based upon the needs of the organization and the space.”

Leidy Klotz
Exactly, yeah. And, I mean, there’s all this work trying to make offices more flexible and suitable for different tasks. And again, part of that is in the physical world, but part of it is in our heads, right? Have we tried using it for the task and seeing how it works?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, one thing that’s coming up a lot is in terms of like our own needs and desires and what works for us and customizing. I’m curious if you had any discoveries about, like, universal good things for a space in terms of is it light or nature? Or is there anything that just about all humans do better when these components are in the space or are not in the space?

Leidy Klotz
I have another example from my editor’s office. She’s going to have to listen to this podcast. But she said that they wanted to bring more nature in, so they put like AstroTurf on the steel columns to try to make it feel more natural.

But that’s not the kind of nature that’s helpful. So it’s less about, like, bringing nature inside, and more about trying to mimic the patterns that are found in nature. And one thing that’s in nature a lot is this kind of balance between order and complexity.

So there’s this classic interior design advice that’s, like, kind of layering the materials and textures and fabrics, but also having kind of, like, an underlying, “This is the idea.” And I think the kind of the way that that design advice has been backed into, and the way it works, and the reason it works is because we like being surrounded by things where there’s, by the natural world.

And in the natural world, there’s like, you know, a pine tree, the way it grows. It’ll grow in fractal patterns where little small pieces of the pine tree look very similar in terms of like the shape as the larger scale. And so there’s this regularity, but it gives rise to something that looks more complex.

And if you look at, like, a brick facade, for example, I mean, it’s the same thing. It’s this big, massive facade that you don’t pay much attention to and, generally, feels pretty natural and soothing, but there’s also an underlying pattern, whether it’s the bricks are staggered by one half on each level, or maybe one is stretched long ways and one is stretched short ways and then you keep repeating the pattern.

So there’s complexity but it’s resulting from a simple pattern. Is that too abstract or is that okay?

Pete Mockaitis
No, I hear you. And then I’m thinking about, I’m just looking at a bookshelf right now. And I had a buddy, once we were at a party. He was looking at the bookshelf, he said, “What’s up with women organizing their books by color?” which is a huge generalization. I’m sure men do it, too. But I thought it was kind of funny because both he and I have bookshelves and plenty of books and do not organized by color.

But yet, I got to say, when I was beholding this bookshelf, visually, it looked quite lovely. But if you can’t recall what a book spine looked like, you might have a harder time fishing it out of that bookshelf. But I think that speaks a bit to the pattern, is there is a certain order and beauty that is peaceful to having the books organized by color.

Leidy Klotz
Yeah, that’s interesting. That’s totally an example, right? You can see that this looks aesthetically pleasing and it’s because, “Okay, I see that there’s some logic here to the pattern.” And if you do it by a rainbow, then that’s something that’s actually found in nature. So that’s the kind of the deepest one.

I would say the other kind of general rules about what we like is we like where we’ve been. There’s this research on mirror exposure in the most extreme. The most interesting study, I think, is one of the original ones.

They put chicken eggs that hadn’t hatched yet and played music. And then when the eggs hatched, they had the ones that had heard the music and hatched chicks that hadn’t heard the music, and they put them in a pen and played music from one end. And the chicks that had heard the music went to the music.

So what’s happening, it’s like this demonstration of that, like, familiarity breeds liking. So if you’ve been surrounded by certain things throughout your life, you’re probably more likely to like them in the future. Like, I live in a house that has angled bedroom ceilings, a gravel driveway, and a kick wall for a soccer ball.

And that’s like some of the same features as the house I grew up in, right? And so the things that we’re kind of familiar are going to just take less cognitive effort and then we’re drawn to them as a result.

And then the last little piece is, this is, I think, the most freeing one, is that we’re also wired to like what we’ve chosen. So if you’ve picked the thing, like if you organized the books the way that you want to organize the books, Pete, don’t change it, right? Like, you are going to kind of justify it and like it because it’s you who did it.

And I think that’s as many kind of general rules as I think are worth thinking about when we’re thinking about our spaces.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, there can be a certain delight in that. And I think you maybe see this in maybe couples arguing about how to load the dishwasher. It’s, like, each way feels very right to each of them. And you can argue, I don’t know if dishwasher engineers would have a point of view on what’s optimal from a cleansing perspective.

But we can get really, really attached to how we’ve arranged things. And I guess, as you opened us up with everything, it could be life or death, potentially, in terms of the ability to be able to arrange things to our liking.

Leidy Klotz
Yeah, I mean, we’re laughing about, well, not laughing, but, the nursing home study is an extreme example. But in some of these studies of self-determination theory in the office and in large scale in, like, across different examples, they correlate agency, growth, and connection and, like, health outcomes. And there’s a correlation there, so it’s a big deal.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, is there anything we should talk about with regard to connection in our spaces?

Leidy Klotz
I think that we’ve talked a little bit about, like, home and away, right, and thinking about how the space is going to make you perform. Is it an away space? Is it a home space? I think, “How can you make it a good space for connecting?” is maybe something that we should just hammer home because, most of the time, what we want to do in the space is have meaningful interactions with the other people who are in it.

And so if you think about people coming to your office, you don’t want them maybe distracted by a mess in the space. And the mess could be, like, the mess that our parents talk about, but also it could be a mess where the space is just not easy to navigate, right? It’s hard for them to get around and, therefore, they’re worried about that, and, therefore, they’re not being able to focus on you.

So I think, you know, how do we make the space as kind of neutral as possible? And sometimes, I think, that’s, for me, the thing that works is, you know, I’ll go outside my house and then just open the door and say, “Okay, I’m coming into this as a visitor would and now I’ll start to notice some of the things,” and then I can remove them and make it so that my guest is able to connect with me and vice versa.

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

Leidy Klotz
Just one really powerful thing, I guess, is that the space is a really awesome way to advertise your values, and it’s advertising that never turns off. We think about how we present ourselves with our clothes. We think about how we, like, articulate what’s meaningful to us. And yet, our surroundings are also sending messages about those things.

And so I’m not telling you what your values should be, obviously, but I’m saying your surroundings are a way to share those values. If you’re the company that says you care about employee input, and yet there’s cubicles for certain people and, like, nice executive offices around the outside, well, your space is saying something different than your mission statement. And it’s the same on an individual level.

So I would just say that this is an opportunity to, like, put your values into the world, and it’s an opportunity that never, never stops broadcasting once you’ve got it right. So just some motivation for people.

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

Leidy Klotz
One of my favorite quotes are different versions of that it’s less about what happens to you, and more about how you react to it. I guess a Viktor Frankl version of that most recently about life, like, it all being in the space between the stimulus and the reaction. But I really like those.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Leidy Klotz
The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath.

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

Leidy Klotz
I think the biggest key nugget is that people find it empowering to take advantage of the spaces to which they have access. And I think people realize that they do, in fact, have more options than they thought.

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

Leidy Klotz
LeidyKlotz.com, and then the book In a Good Place is available wherever you buy books. All the good stuff is in the book, but if you want to learn more about me, I’m easy to find on the internet.

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

Leidy Klotz
Notice. So take in the spaces around you and just pay attention to how they’re affecting you, and get some joy out of them, too. There’s beauty in the world around us, and something as simple as just the way the light reflects off the wall in different times of the day can be a source of joy. And that’s something that our screens, fundamentally, can’t give us. So notice and enjoy.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Leidy, thank you.

Leidy Klotz
Thanks, Pete.