Dr. Adam Grant: How to Unlock Your Potential, Motivation & Unique Abilities

welcome to the huberman Lab podcast

where we discuss science and

science-based tools for everyday

[Music]

life I'm Andrew huberman and I'm a

professor of neurobiology and

Opthalmology at Stanford School of

Medicine my guest today is Dr Adam Grant

Adam Grant is a professor of

organizational psychology at the Wharton

School at University of Pennsylvania he

has authored five bestselling books and

most recently has authored a new book

entitled hidden potential he received

his bachelor's degree from Harvard

University and his Doctorate from the

University of Michigan today we discuss

peer-reviewed studies and tools based on

the data from those studies that can

enable people to meet their goals and

overcome significant challenges

including how to overcome

procrastination as well as how to see

around or through blind spots as well as

how to overcome sticking points in

motivation and creativity we also

discussed the research on and practical

tools related to the underpinnings of

performance in any endeavor including

how to increase one's confidence and how

to have a persistent growth mindset by

the end of today's episode it will be

clear to you that Dr Adam Grant has an

absolutely spectacular depth and breadth

of knowledge and that knowledge is both

practical it is based on peer-reviewed

research and he conveys those tools with

the utmost Clarity and generosity indeed

by the end of today's episode you will

have more than a dozen new tools never

discussed before on the hubman Lab

podcast that you can apply in your

academic Endeavors in athletic Endeavors

in Creative Endeavors in fact in any

area of life before we begin I'd like to

emphasize that this podcast is separate

from my teaching and research roles at

Stanford it is however part of my desire

and effort to bring zero cost to

Consumer information about science and

science related tools to the general

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access a free 30-day trial and now for

my discussion with Dr Adam Grant Adam

welcome excited to be here very excited

to have you here uh your career both

public facing and academic career have

covered an enormous range of topics so

we have a lot to cover look who's

talking um and anytime uh two professors

sit down or even one Professor um says

we have a lot to cover I think everyone

listening braces themselves like oh no

but these topics uh I assure everyone

are of the utmost interest and you cover

them in such both fabulous detail and

you make it very clear so I'm really

looking forward to this I'd like to

start off by talking about something

that I'm obsessed by and I know a lot of

people are obsessed with and struggle

with and I know you also have a recent

publication on this topic which is

procrastination I am a bit of a

procrastinator but a different way of

stating that is that I love deadlines I

learned in college that I love love love

deadlines because it seems to harm

harness my focus and my attention I like

just enough I guess you call it anxiety

or autonomic arousal for the you know

Neuroscience or physiology oriented

folks for me just brings

about a total elimination of all of the

distractors and it seems to both slow

and accelerate my perception of time and

it seems to bring out my best to have

deadlines but I would prefer to not have

to procrastinate and in order to

self-impose deadlines I prefer that

other people impose those deadlines in

fact so what do we know about

procrastination why do some people

complete things well in advance why do

other people procrastinate is it that

they're seeking deadlines as I believe I

am and

interestingly and sort of alluding to

this recent paper

viewers what is the relationship between

procrastination and creativity I feel

like we should just deal with all that

later

let's put it off no good one uh by the

way there's extra credit for science

funds on here so wa done one of the best

articles on procrastination ever written

was titled at last my article on

procrastination fantastic I love it yeah

it just made me smile um so I think the

the the basic question I think to start

with is why do we procrastinate and I I

thought I was immune actually when I

came into this topic uh I was the the

person who annoyed my college roommates

by finishing my thesis a couple months

early uh I found out there was a term

for me I'm a precrastinator uh so the

you know the focus and the pressure that

you get from a deadline I get that the

moment the project starts um and

sometimes months or years in advance and

so I was really proud of finishing

everything early and then I discovered

there are things that I procrastinate on

too uh which was a little bit

disappointing are you willing to share

what some of those I am uh so I um I

procrastinate on any that's

administrative uh so I'm right there

with you you want to get time on my

calendar it could take me weeks to

respond you asked me a question about

social science I will be back to you in

a minute um I procrastinate on grading

takes me forever uh I basically put off

a whole bunch of tasks that I thought

had nothing in common it turns out that

I procrastinate when I'm bored like

boredom is I guess it's probably my most

hated emotion and so I will do anything

to avoid a boring task and I think this

goes to why people procrastinate which

is a lot of people think it's laziness

or you're not disciplined enough but

actually the the research on this is

really clear that you're not avoiding

work when you procrastinate in fact a

lot of our

procrastination is is focused on doing

things that involve a lot of energy

you've seen people probably clean their

entire houses when they're putting off a

task um so it's it's not that you're

being lazy it's that you're avoiding

negative emotions that a task stirs up

so for me it's boredom uh for a lot of

people it's fear or anxiety uh I don't

know if I can pull this off uh I have an

extreme case of impostor syndrome in

this role um the the challenge in front

of me is too daunting um for some people

it's confusion I haven't figured it out

yet and so like I can't work on this

because I I feel like I'm stuck um so

what's I guess the big question for you

then Andrew is what's what's the emotion

that causes you to

procrastinate you know it's hard for me

to identify the stick here I think of it

more as the carrot that comes with

deadlines and again I I don't consider

myself a procrastinator per se I just

really love deadlines and

procrastination is a terrific way to

simulate the deadline uh so for me so

you wait so you delay starting or

finishing a task in order to have a a

sense of time pressure that's right it

builds a certain amount of internal

arousal in me to know okay I've got 72

hours to complete something and it's now

game time I like the game time before

the game time before a podcast I'll put

in anywhere from you know several days

to weeks or even months in preparation

so it's really elastic depending on the

topic but when it came to exams in

school or if it comes to writing

deadlines um I consider the the shipping

of the product or the presentation of

the live event that I happened to be

doing as the second game or event the

first event is the pressure and the

excitement of getting into the groove of

doing focused work because for me that's

such a drug I mean it feels like all

having all the systems of my brain and

body oriented towards one specific thing

is just sheer Bliss for me so it sounds

like then you're you're actually not a a

chronic procrastinator thank you I've

never that's never been uh the way I

viewed myself but now I'll I'll I'll

take that it's a strategy for you it is

a strategy that's right and ient you

know I was fairly Wayward youth barely

finished high school Etc so by time I

got serious about school which was my

second year of

University when deadlines were presented

like there's an exam there's a midterm

exam on a given date that was exciting

to me that was exciting I was like okay

that's the big thing that's my

opportunity to to prove myself to myself

because I was really coming from behind

and then the opportunity to or I should

say the the feeling of dropping into

that Groove like this is the exciting

part is the preparation you know

likewise with podcasting for our solo

podcast I love the research as much as I

love presenting the material maybe more

maybe more right likewise for University

lectures or for traveling and giving

seminars as a traditional academic I'm

sure you're familiar with that right

it's it's the preparation is where you

realize it's almost like I I think of it

as somebody like like a minor in a mine

and just finding a gem and of course

there then there are all the thoughts of

what you can do with that later and

you're going to show people it has a

certain value to the world Etc but but

it's the the searching and finding those

gems that is like even as I talk about

it I feel like my body's going to float

out of the chair a little bit I I have

the same experience it's the it's the

the sort of the Unleashed curiosity and

then the rush of Discovery and by the

time you're teaching it or explaining it

but I already know this like I'm not

learning anything anymore and yes I'm

excited to share it and I hope it's

helpful to other people so you know I

think as as you talk about what your

process looks like I don't even think

what you do qualifies as procrastination

technically seem to getting better and

better I me seriously if if you think

about how procrastination is is defined

it's it's delaying despite an expected

cost and you don't think there's a cost

you actually see a benefit that's right

and I've tried starting that's not

procrastination that's just delay yeah

I've tried starting things earlier and

um and I should say that my process

often begins much earlier than the

physical process like if I was being

observed in an experiment be okay you

know Andrew is finally sitting down to

write this book chapter or you know

finally sitting down to research some

papers for an episode but I'm thinking

about it all the time yeah I mean much

to the dismay of people in my life you

know I'm I'm I'm constantly thinking

about these things I mean walking to

take out the

recycle I'll have ideas and then I'll

write them down I constantly writing

things down voice memos into my phone I

have a method of capture where I

basically try and just grab everything

and then filter out what's useful do you

have a process like that for for

gleaning ideas a little bit I do now so

um when when gin and I started this

research on procrastination she had she

had come to me she was a very creative

doctoral student and she said I have my

best ideas when I'm

procrastinating and it was it was one of

those moments where I didn't believe her

but I thought it was an interesting

enough idea that it was worth exploring

and I said show me like get let's get

some data let's see if we can we can

test this and she ended up um Gathering

data in a Korean company where she

surveyed people on how often they

procrastinate and then got their

supervisors to rate their creativity and

sure enough found that people who

procrastinate sometimes were rated as

more creative than people who rarely do

like me the

procrastinators and I remember asking

her what about the chronic

procrastinators and she's like I don't

know they never filled out my

survey yeah as I recall from that paper

there's inverted u-shaped function with

procrastination on the vertical axis and

and um uh and creativity on the

horizontal axis flipped sorry okay so um

explain to me then the relationship

between procrastination and creativity

Yeah so basically the the peak of

creativity is in the middle of

procrastination ah okay got it and yeah

there's a there's an upside down U curve

there and so then I thought this was

fascinating so then you know we go into

the lab to say can we replicate this can

we control it in an experiment and the

hardest part of that was how do you

randomly assign people to procrastinate

like to my knowledge never been done

before and we eventually figured out

that we could give people a bunch of

task to do and then temp them with

highly entertaining YouTube videos uh

that were sort placed on their screen

and we put different numbers of YouTube

videos there so that uh you know if

there's only one you're not tempted to

procrastinate much if there are four

you're probably going to get sucked into

a little bit of a YouTube spiral if

there are eight uh you might be putting

off the task that's much less exciting

than than you know watching Jimmy

Kimble's Mean Tweets for example and

this was done in a fairly naturalistic

environment for these folks people are

people are on in a computer they're

they're asked to you know to solve some

creative problems that look pretty

similar to what you might do in your job

and then we're going to score your

creativity later and um it turned out

that the people who were attempted to

procrastinate moderately um ended up

generating the most creative ideas so

why is that um there are a couple things

that happen and you have to look at both

sides of the curve so what's wrong with

the procrastinators and also what

happens to the the extreme

procrastinators um and in both cases

what happens is um you end up with a

little bit of tunnel vision so um when I

dive right into a task I'm stuck with my

first ideas and I don't wait long enough

to incubate and get my best ideas um I'm

less likely to reframe the problem I'm

less likely to access remote knowledge

because I'm just I'm just diving right

in and meanwhile The Chronic

procrastinators um end up in the same

boat because they don't get started

until the last minute and so they have

to rush ahead with the easiest idea to

implement as opposed to really

developing the most novel idea and

meanwhile the the people in the middle

who you know are starting to feel that

pressure of like wow I you know I kind

of Spun my wheels for 10 minutes

watching a bunch of YouTube videos I'm

running out of time for this task they

still have enough time to work on the

ideas that were active in the back of

their minds and and that gives them a

shot at more novel ideas so I've tried

to adopt this to answer your question

I've tried to adopt this as my process

now to say I will still dive into a

project ahead of schedule but I will not

commit to an idea until I've let it

incubate for a few weeks and I'm working

on other things whereas an earlier

version of me like when I'd sit down to

write a book um soon as I had the book

idea I would start writing on day one

now I have the idea I file it away and I

give myself at least a month before I

begin drafting um and I think it feels

less productive but it's far more

creative what are your thoughts about

some of what you described being an

unconscious way of seeding the mind and

the unconscious within idea so for

instance uh let's take a a School

academic scenario where um students get

an assignment and the assignment is

contain within a folder and it just says

assignment okay and it's a doe on a

particular date and it says do on that

particular date and they're given the

folder but they have no sense of what

the assignment is you can imagine one

category of procrastinator that will

take that thing and put it down and

avoid looking at it entirely versus

another category of procrastinator that

will Flip Flip it open and take a look

at okay this is going to be an essay on

you know um I don't know something about

economic theory in the late 1700s close

it and then

procrastinate there is an idea which I

frankly I subscribe to a little bit um

because we recently did this series on

Mental Health not Mental Illness but

mental health with Dr Paul kti where he

talked extensively about the unconscious

and how the unconscious mind is always

working with ideas things that we are

concerned about performance these sorts

of things even if we're not aware of

them um what what are your thoughts

about the creativity that seeded by

slight procrastination being related to

actually knowing what you're

procrastinating on specifically I I

think it turns out to be I don't want to

say essential but

critical so one of the things we found

is in order for moderate procrastination

to fuel creativity you have to be

intrinsically motivated by the thing

you're procrastinating on interesting

and so what what happens is if if you if

you're bored for example by the topic

you're not going to open the folder

you're not going to start thinking about

it at all it's not going to begin you're

not going to do any subconscious

processing you're not going to have any

unexpected connections um between this

topic and something else you've learned

uh learned about or been curious about

if you're interested in the problem then

when you put it off you're much more

likely to still keep it active in the

back of your mind and that's when when

you begin to to see you know I I imagine

you could explain the biology of this um

I I imagine for example there's um

there's probably um there are probably

more neural networks um that are

connecting um You probably get you get

access to ideas that previously would

have been um sort of separate nodes and

so I think that you you want to know

what the topic is right you don't want

to just see the blank assignment but you

also have to find a reason that this is

exciting to you um otherwise you're

going to avoid it as opposed to letting

it

percolate that brings us to the topic of

intrinsic motivation um and I'd like to

link that up with the topic of

performance so when I was in university

uh there were many topics that I was

excited to learn about some more than

others of course um but occasionally I'd

be in a class or I'd get an assignment

that frankly I had minimal interest in

never zero but minimal interest and as a

way of dealing with that I embarked on a

process of literally lying to myself and

just telling myself okay I'm super

interested in reading this and I'm going

to force myself to be interested in

reading it and lo and behold I would

start falling in love with certain

things maybe he was was even the um you

know the arrival of a word that I didn't

recognize and then I would go look it up

and I knew I was studying for the gr at

that time so I file that away I still

have my notebooks of all the vocabulary

words that I learned in the course of my

university courses that frankly made the

verbal portion of the GRE pretty easy

you know which if you ever try and study

for that at the end it's pretty tough to

commit all those new words to uh to

memory and context so I could find

little hooks and and through those hooks

I could kind of Ratchet my way into a

larger interest and then lo and behold

I'm really interested in Greek mythology

you know or that actually like that one

at first but um I didn't have to trick

myself but you know maybe we could spend

a little bit of time talking about what

is true intrinsic

motivation is it always

reflexive uh can we make ourselves

intrinsically motivated about a given

topic or scenario or group of people uh

and then let's talk about how intrinsic

motivation links to Performance because

there's a rich literature on this as I

recall and I remember you know the

Stanford study of rewarding kids for

things they were already in motivated to

do maybe we could touch on that a little

bit and remind people who haven't heard

about it but I'm fascinated by this

topic because I feel like so much of

life is about doing things that

initially we don't feel that excited to

do yeah and yet succeeding in life you

know until you can afford to offload

your uh administrative work to somebody

else which hopefully by by now you have

find a way to get it done right uh this

is fundamental to being a functional

human being frankly not just successful

in air quotes but functional we got to

do stuff that we don't enjoy doing yeah

so I think we we can talk about a couple

different ways to nurture intrinsic

motivation we could think about how the

task itself is designed we can think

about reward systems and then we can

think about also the things we say to

ourselves and others which I hope are

not lies but rather U persuasive

attempts uh let's let's start on that

one actually I I don't know a lot of

people who are that good at deliberate

self-deception well well I like to think

it was only around a particular set of

uh goal motivated Pursuits um but at

that time for me also was survival as I

mentioned I didn't do well in high

school I really wanted to perform well

in University but I knew that working

just for the grade wasn't going to carry

me it was it it felt

catabolic um and I don't know maybe I at

that age I was still in the window of

heightened neuroplasticity we know it

never closes but um but I think I also

fell in love with the process of

learning how to do what I just described

yeah so I think for most people the best

method of self-persuasion is actually to

convince somebody else uh so I'm

thinking of Elliot Aronson's classic

research on cognitive dissonance where

he would he would ask you to go and tell

somebody else a task you hated is really

interesting and if he paid you a lot to

do it you still hated the task because

you had a justification like I got 20 to

you know to kind of FIB a little bit

about this task um you know the task is

bad but I did it for the for the payment

when he paid you $1 to go and tell

somebody that you loved a task that you

didn't you ended up liking it more wow

and maybe I shouldn't be surprised but

maybe you should tell me why I shouldn't

be surprised because I hope people got

what you just said very clearly and if

they didn't if you don't like doing

something going and reporting to

somebody else how great that thing is so

lying about it to somebody else um is

one way to increase the degree to which

you like or enjoy that behavior or topic

and if you're paid $20 to go lie to

somebody in the positive

direction so against your true belief

it's less effective in shifting your

underlying AFF effect about that thing

your emotions than if you're paid less

correct yeah exactly now I think

obviously in the experiment lying was an

easy way to to show the effect but in

real life I think that way that you want

to apply this is to say all right I've

got to find something about this task

that's interesting to me and then in the

process of explaining it to somebody

else I'm going to convince myself

because I'm hearing the argument from

somebody I already like and

trust and I've also chosen I've chosen

the the reasons that I find compelling

as opposed to hearing somebody else's

reasons and so I think this this goes to

the point that you were making which is

if if you're trying to to find a hook to

make a topic intriguing um you've got to

figure out okay what is it that would

make this fascinating to me and you in a

lot of cases what you're looking for is

a curiosity Gap um I think social

scientists like to talk about curiosity

as an itch that you have to scratch um

so there's something you want to know

and you don't know it yet so I would say

I I tell my students often like take

your least favorite class and find a

mystery or a puzzle like something that

you you just do not know the answer to

um like I actually I've talked with our

kids about this like what what really

happened to King TD do you know can you

get to the bottom of that and all of a

sudden you're like I wonder I need to

Google it and then I need to see if

Wikipedia has credible information on

this and the more you learn about that

the more intriguing it becomes and I

think that's that's the beginning of the

process of of finding intrinsic

motivation I see

so inherent in your answer is the idea

that there's something wired into our

neural circuits and therefore

psychology that Curiosity as a verb

the act of being curious and seeking

information where well and I should say

I Define curiosity and I hopefully

you'll disagree with me or agree either

way it doesn't matter as long as we can

get a bit deeper understanding I Define

curiosity as a desire to find something

out where you are not attached to a

particular outcome yes is that right

yeah I I in Psychology is typically

defined as just wanting to know and that

means you're driven by the question not

a particular answer which is exactly

what you're driving at okay great so and

I think it Dorothy Parker that said um

the cure for boredom is curiosity

there's no cure for curiosity as there

there shouldn't be a care for curiosity

right so um and by the way folks we

don't know what neural circuits subserve

curiosity in the brain it's it's a got

to be a distributed Network there's no

brain area for curiosity but it's got to

be linked up with the reward systems of

dopamine Etc in some way because when

one discovers something new that

satisfies some curiosity it's clearly

there's a there's a internal reward

there okay let me back up so if your

child or an adult

is dreading working exploring a topic or

going about an assignment of any kind um

you will give them a question that they

then need to resolve what if the the

assignment is like rake the leaves off

the front lawn do you uh do you say you

know um count the leaves or I mean how

does one get um past the sort of um

procrastination

and generate some intrinsic motivation

for things that one dreads where it's

unlikely that they're going to discover

some knowledge that's exceedingly useful

for the for future you always start with

with okay what's what's the first

experiment I can run find the most

interesting looking leaf for your

favorite leaf and then that that lasts

for about two minutes and like okay now

what we still have a lot of leaves there

right I think not all tasks can be made

intrinsically motivating to everyone and

so when when intrinsic motivation is

difficult to find what you want to

substitute with is um is a sense of

purpose um maybe a better way to say

that is um when the process is not

interesting to you um you need to find a

meaningful outcome so there's uh there's

some research on um on the boring but

important effect where kids who have a

purpose for learning um this goes

through high school and think you know

this is not just interesting to me but

I'm going to be able to use this

knowledge to um to help other people one

day um they they're more persistent in

their studying they end up getting

better grades and so I think you know

intrinsic motivation is often driven by

curiosity about the how um a sense of

purpose comes from really thinking hard

about the why why does this matter and

so I'd say with the you know the raking

leaves let's try to connect that task to

something else that you care about um

are you going to um you know pleasantly

surprise your parents when they get home

um are you going to um you know have a

place to play soccer that you didn't

before um and I think then the you know

the the process of of getting to that I

guess what I'd say is if you're trying

to motivate yourself um it's a little

bit harder than if you're trying to

motivate somebody else on this um if I

was going to motivate somebody else I

would take a a page out of the

motivational interviewing Playbook where

I would say Okay Andrew actually let's

play this out for a second so you're

going to rake a pile of leaves it's a

two-hour task 0 to 10 how excited are

you about that a three three really I'm

surprised I I thought you were gonna say

zero or one why is it not lower uh I

like any sort of physical activity

because it allows me to move and I just

like moving my body there we go okay so

you just identified a potential source

of purpose for that activity um and I'm

I don't have a I don't have a vested

interest in convincing you to do this

task I am genuinely curious about what

would motivate you to want to do it and

as you start to articulate it boom self-

persuasion kicks

in love it um I'm going to start using

these uh these approaches um try at your

own

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huberman to claim that special offer I

have a question about externs

motivation so

if we grow up being incentivized by

extrinsic things you know um you'll get

your allowance if you blank um you can

spend the money that you make and you

know on your paper route doing the

things you really want to

do is there any value in those kinds of

learning based incentives um for kids

and for adults because I mean that's the

real world as well I know I know plenty

of people I family members that only

work for a paycheck and they're pretty

okay because they like spending their

paycheck probably more than I you know

I'm not intrinsically attached to money

I mean I certainly have needs in in life

but but I don't enjoy spending money for

the sake of spending it or for gaining

more possessions but I know people that

do and I certainly don't judge um are

they somehow existing in a um in a

diminished landscape of happiness or or

because they seem pretty happy to me uh

but they seem to have also worked out

this relationship they do certain things

to get the extrinsic rewards and they

really enjoy what they can do with those

extrinsic rewards there's a so there's a

huge body of evidence on what are the

effects of extrinsic rewards on

motivation and performance and I think

the latest conclusions if you look at

the the latest meta analyses so you know

huge study of studies trying to

accumulate like what's the average

effect of adding a financial incentive

to a task that wasn't incentivized

before or to a job where you know you

were paid salary and now we're going to

give you incentive compensation um there

is a boost so in general um people are

are more productive when they're

incentivized for their output but um

these incentives are better for uh for

motivating quantity than quality so you

see people get more done but they're not

necessarily more careful or more

thorough are they less careful and less

thorough no um actually they're there's

still positive effects on average

they're just weaker um and of course you

could then start to say well how do I

incentivize you know being fast and

careful um but I think where where we do

have to be really cautious is um there's

an undermining effect of extrinsic

rewards on intrinsic motivation and you

were you were alluding to this earlier

dating back to the early 70s where we

know that if we take an interesting task

and then we pay you for it you might

conclude that you're only doing it for

the outcome and you lose interest in the

task so the the classic demonstration

Mark leper and colleagues is kids

playing video games and they're um

they're playing them because they're fun

and then you start to add in an

incentive and then when the incentive is

taken away they don't want to play

anymore because the meaning of the task

has changed and now I'm doing it because

I want to get something out of it as

opposed to I love the

process I think that that um that

phenomenon um does not have to exist so

we know for example at work um if

managers uh as long as they give people

autonomy um they don't present the

rewards in a controlling way um so

instead of saying you know Andrew in

order to earn this you need to do the

following work uh if they say hey look

you know I'd really love it if you you

know if you would deliver the following

um and in order to make that worth your

while I'm offering this incentive people

react very differently when they have a

sense of choice and control um so I

think that that's I guess the starting

point in the presence of autonomy I

don't I don't think there's a major

downside of of extrinsic rewards I think

you also have to be careful that um yeah

I guess that you're not over justifying

the task in other words you're not um

you're not swamping people's intrinsic

reason for doing it but you're adding a

reason to try it so actually um if we if

we go to a different domain for a second

so um look at kids who don't want to eat

their vegetables extrs and incentives

are very effective to get kids to try

vegetables for the first time but then

the hope is that they discover a

vegetable or two that they don't mind

and then they find reasons to keep doing

it um and I think that that's how I want

a lot of rewards to work I don't think

that rewards should be carrots that we

dangle to try to control people's

behavior I think they should be symbols

of how much we appreciate and value a

particular behavior and if you frame

them that way it's a lot easier for

people to say yeah you know what I'm

that that reward is something that I

really want but I'm I'm not only doing

the task for that reward yeah that that

you basically answered the question I

was going to ask which is and you know

at risk of sounding new Agy um but we

are sitting in California um

I could imagine that when one is focused

on the extrinsic rewards so a physical

task or a cognitive task for an exic

reward if I'm focusing on the exic

reward I'm also air quotes again not

present right I'm I'm thinking about the

outcome I'm not thinking about process

and I think there's perhaps you can

flesh out some of what this is exactly

but I think there's a fairly extensive

um data to support the idea that when we

are physically and mentally present to

the task that we're going to perform

better and presumably our our um

intrinsic liking of that task or

performing that task increases as well

is that true yeah I think so I think so

if we want to break down the mechanisms

for why intrinsic motivation is useful

for for performance um one you touched

on earlier it's focus of attention um

you're it's much easier to find flow

when you're intrinsically motivated you

get into that state of deep absorption

where uh time melts away so you

mentioned you know sort of either

speeding up or slowing down your your

sense of time you forget where you are

sometimes you even lose track of your

identity and you're just you're just

merged into the task uh and so that that

that concentration is helpful there's

also a greater persistence effect that

when you enjoy what you're doing you're

less likely to give up in the face of

obstacles uh you're more likely to think

about it when you're not doing the task

and come up with great ideas and so um

you know I think there's there's a

working harder there's a working longer

there's a working smarter and there's

also a thinking more clearly

effect this is a uh brief but related

tangent one of the things that I've

found incredibly difficult in recent

years is that um you know most of my

life really since I was a small kid I

was forging for things and then you know

I used to give lectures on Monday in

class if they let me until they

eventually stopped me about the stuff I

was reading about all weekend so got an

early start in the the professorial um

front but now if I'm reading something

and I discover a what I think is a

really really valuable piece of

information or a tool or a protocol I'm

like wow this is really cool these

findings are oh so cool there's a

problem which is that now I have an

opportunity to cast that out to the

world through social media we all do

this could be wait I'm sorry you're on

social media um from time to time I

you're all over my feet uh you and and I

both do our own social media by the way

which I really appreciate I think one

can always detect if if someone else is

handling someone's Social Media so yes

I'm on social media and and I love that

I have the opportunity to both um send

out ideas and information and also

receive feedback I really love the

comment section um and always encourage

comments I learn from it uh frankly love

is a strong word I learn from it you

know and and you and I were weaned in

the academic culture where frankly the

the kind of hazing that that one

receives in academic culture is very

different than the kind of hazing that

one receives on social media but um

let's just say that if you come up

through Academia you develop a pretty

thick skin um I agree I I do have to say

though that there there was a part of me

that was really surprised when I started

posting on social that I love I love

constructive criticism I was unprepared

for the number of people who will

knee-jerk criticize a study without even

looking at whether the methods are

rigorous right I'm like come on if I

posted this surely it's at least worth

considering the possibility that there's

strong evidence behind it right well

that's where a uh a um a brief uh I

wanton to call it a rhetoric but a

response of you know um you

know clearly should read the study

further because I think you'll be

satisfied with the answer or something I

don't know um but I agree it it can be a

little bit harsh in there sometimes but

you know the social media uh channels

are I think have you know they have it's

a double-edged blade um they obviously

have their issues but um can be a

wonderful opportunity to share

information and share it quickly the

problem is that it takes me out of what

I was doing initially which was learning

searching for those gems with with which

to share later and I think there's a

broader landscape to consider this where

people for instance are uh I was at the

beach yesterday it was just absolutely

spectacular day at the beach uh

especially for this time of year and

everyone was taking pictures of that

experience on their phone and probably

sharing that experience either social

media or with friends um this is very

different than taking a photograph and

not seeing that photograph until later

or not sending it out and so there are

now near infinite number of

circumstances where we are taken out of

the rewarding experience I should

rephrase that we are taking ourselves

out of the rewarding experience and

focusing on a different rewarding

experience that I think by definition is

an extrinsic reward so we are taking

ourselves out of our intrinsically

rewarding experiences and activating

these extrinsic rewards and do you think

in any way that's undermining our

experience of things that we really

enjoy um again not to demonize social

media or these channels but um I've

personally found it difficult to refrain

from sharing this knowledge I'm so

excited to share but I deliberately

delay and there's a lot I have a deep

list of folders full of things that I

want to post but I'm just doing it you

know systematically over time because I

really fight the temptation to to do

this mostly because I want to continue

to enjoy this learning process and this

seeking process so much yeah I I feel

the same the same um I feel torn I think

I think it was eie white who said uh I I

rise in the morning Torn Between the

desire to enjoy the world and the desire

to improve the world and this makes it

difficult to plan the day and I I I feel

that every day I think I mean I I even I

felt it this morning I was like okay

it's time to it's time to leave to to

come to the the hman podcast I'm like

wait but I I I didn't hit my minimum

sunlight viewing so what what do I do do

I show up on time for you or do I meet

your criteria the the um the explanation

I wasting getting my morning sunlight

and therefore I'm X number of minutes or

even hours late would have been

completely fine I figured as much that's

that's a built-in acceptable excuse with

you I think I mean I think everybody

experiences a version of this and um

it's definitely gotten worse with uh

with social media and with smartphones

um I think so one of the the most

startling data points for me was um

Gloria Mark first put this on my radar

uh before covid the average person was

checking email 72 times a day

how do you ever concentrate for more

than a couple minutes if you're self-

interrupting that often you can't um

briged Shelty has a great term for this

she she calls it time confetti and she

says we're taking these meaningful

blocks of time and we're slicing them up

into these like tiny little dots of

confetti and uh not only can we not

accomplish anything uh we're also

eroding our own sense of Joy um because

it's really hard to enjoy the you know

the 30- second blip of time that you get

on a test

um and I think we know a lot more about

the existence of these problems than

than how to solve them but one thing we

do know is blocking out un interrupted

time is Meaningful uh there's a great

Leslie Perlo experiment where she takes

engineers and she has them uh she sets a

quiet time policy no interruptions

Tuesday Thursday Friday before noon 65%

above average productivity could you

repeat the um the protocol again yeah so

quiet time there are a couple iterations

of it but I think the most effective one

was Tuesday Thursday Friday no meetings

no interruptions no slack no emails

before noon and during those periods of

no interruptions one could tend to

whatever their primary purpose is at

work yeah so for me it might be

podcasting obviously I don't have my

phone in here and never do um but it

doesn't mean no interaction with anyone

else it just means focusing on the major

task the task exactly and you come in

with a clear sense of priority and

purpose and I don't think there's

anything magical about 2 Thursday Friday

before noon uh it's just the idea of

setting a boundary and collectively

committing to it that that seems to be

important and I think you know I when I

think about this uh I'd be I'd be really

curious about your take on um on

chronotypes here because I think one

thing I've learned in the last couple

years is that if you're a if you're a

morning person um you do your best

analytical and creative thinking in the

morning and so the quiet time block

would work very well for for me as a

morning person if you're a night owl you

probably want that block in the late

afternoon and I was encouraged there

there was some evidence during Co that

uh people have their best meetings right

after lunch uh that there something like

30% less likely to multitask in an after

lunch meeting uh and I guess you know

you could probably unpack the like the

food coma uh you know getting

re-energized by other people but it's

led me to wonder if we should all be

protecting the first few hours in the

last few hours of the day for deep work

and then doing our core meetings and

interactions and kind of off task

activities in the middle what do you

think about that as a sequence yeah well

I have a lot of questions about this for

you but um I love that sequence it

certainly fits with my natural rhythms I

I think there's ample evidence to

support the fact that provided one is

sleeping well at night and is on a more

or less a standard schedule when I say

standard I mean going to bed somewhere

between let's say 9:30 and 11:30 p.m.

waking up sometime between let's say um

6:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. maybe 5:30 or

7:30 um some something like that so not

highly unusual Night Owl or super early

bird um for people that are following

that sort of schedule the first let's

just say from zero to eight hours after

waking there tends to be a a fairly

robust increase in all the catamin so

dopamine norepinephrine epinephrine

which generally okay generally speaking

uh lead to increases alertness attention

and focus that are great for analytic

work uh great for implementation of

strategies that you already understand

and you need to churn through a lot of

stuff um and of course there's a big

increase in the morning especially if

you view morning sunlight a healthy

increase I should say in cortisol

cortisol is not bad folks you you want

cortisol but you want that Peak early in

the day we know that okay so um for most

people it seems at least my

understanding is that um that period of

time 0 to eight or uh eight hours after

waking or so um is best devoted to the

quote unquote most critical tasks but

one of the common problems is that

people take that um ability to implement

a known strategy and they start

battering back all the emails or talking

to all by the way talking to co-workers

is great and it's often required but

it's what the question is whether or not

it's productive conversation or whether

or not it's just conversation and we

tend to have a lot of energy early in

the day and I'm I'm obsessed with the

idea of neural energy as opposed to just

caloric energy um so there we're talking

about neural energy and then post post

lunch so really as we get to sort of you

know 9 to 17 hours after waking there is

a dip in autonomic arousal that during

the middle of the day the postp perial

dip there a post lunch sleepiness um

that can be partially offset by delaying

your morning caffeine a bit if you have

the afternoon crash but it's interesting

that you know that more productive

meetings and less um task switching and

distraction occurred um in meeting set

after lunch because that makes me think

that perhaps being a little bit less

alert is going to lend itself to more

focus and indeed that's the the sort of

optimal State relaxed but focused you

know you're not sleepy um but you also

don't have so much intrinsic energy that

you're you know tending to a bunch of

things because I think a lot of people

do feel that way you know and I'm

drinking you know Double Espresso right

now um late midm morning um late morning

uh and you know I can sit still but I

think certain Zoom meetings how do I say

this I don't want to offend any of my

colleagues I mean they are boring enough

they are not content Rich enough to to

grab all my attention and nowadays of

course there are multiple screens

typically I've got two phones in a

computer and you have to really spend

some work to flip over those phones

while I'm on a zoom and things like that

um so what were you saying so it's maybe

the reduction in autonomic arousal that

that supports what you just described

but I don't know um my my thinking uh or

my understanding rather was that

creative work and kind of um

brainstorming was best accomplished in

the late afternoon um I've noticed when

lecturing I'd be curious what your

experience is with um in University

lectures when I held courses in the

evening I used to like to hold my

courses 5: to 7:00 p.m. or even 7 to

9:30 p.m. when I was teaching

undergraduates that people were much

looser and more relaxed and I always um

uh thought that that might have

something to do with an increase in Gaba

transmission that's known to happen late

in the late evening that people are just

kind of more relaxed more and less

social anxiety they've been around

people for much of the day any I I I

send back more Reflections than answers

I don't have any firm Neuroscience

explanations for what you described but

but there are some emerging theories

about how it might work and it has this

0o to 9 hours Phase One 9 to 17 hours

phase two and then of course from 17 to

24

hours I'll call it phase three you

should be asleep yeah ideally well that

I I think there's there's a there's a

confound in your your teaching

experience which is undergrads often

sleep in until what noon or they might

be up until 4 a.m. or at least 10: a.m.

seems to be a typical rise time for the

undergrad so a morning class might be

too early for them to be fully awake but

there is um there's some brand new

evidence that at least on creativity at

work um I read a series of I think it

was three studies recently showing that

early birds actually did do more

creative work in the morning um and in

part uh I think again the I don't I

don't think any neuroscientist has has

touched the mechanisms on this yet but

in terms of the psych ological processes

um early on there's just there seems to

be a benefit of um of the energy level

um and some of that energy leads to more

Divergent thinking uh and later if

you're a morning person you might lose

the ability to to diverge quite as much

and so you end up in a more conventional

space of thought does that does that

track it all with your understanding of

how it might play out in the brain my

understanding is it would be a little

bit in it would be individual but you

know there is something to these Lial

States between sleep and waking so maybe

we can um r convenient bow around what I

said and what you what you just said

which is um that we know that in the

transition States into an out of sleep

and it doesn't necessarily have to be

within the first half hour in and out of

sleep that um there seems to be more

Divergent think you or at least

activation of neural networks that um

are not as constrained as one observes

when they're in a in a sheer task and

strategy implementation mode right I

mean I think is that similar to the

shower effect the shower effect so

people have ideas in the shower or while

running or um while falling asleep or my

best ideas always come within the first

hour after waking that's why I carry a

notebook around and much to the dismay

of people in my life oftentimes I I

don't want to hear or from or talk to

anyone first thing in the morning uh

this is problematic and I had to make

adjustments we'll talk about adjustments

between um uh productivity and uh uh

control and and um Family interactions

this is something I know you you've

worked on and and written about um

but those Lial states are are

interesting and and I'd love your

thoughts on this um I've had several

guests on this podcast talk about their

creative process um namely Rick Rubin um

he's famous for his work in music

producing also has a great podcast tetri

grammaton um as well as Carl dice Roth a

colleague of mine who's really in the

0.00001% of um super talented

bioengineers neuroscientists who also

happens to be a full-time um clinical

psychiatrist and has five children okay

um and I asked them about their creative

process because both of them are very

creative um Carl's process involves the

following late at night for him but it

could really be any time of day

deliberately making his body as still as

possible and forcing himself to think in

complete sentences Rick's creative

process although it includes a lot of

different things has a lot to do

with also getting very still lying down

okay other folks that I've spoken to

academics and and artists have referred

to getting their body into motion but

quieting their mind so these are two

opposite processes in one case the body

is still but the mind is deliberately

very active in the other scenario the

body is very active but they're making

their mind sort of in free association

not still but they're not deliberately

thinking about any one thing fascinating

and I'm obsessed with this maybe you and

I could work on this you know I'm due

for a sabatical maybe we could figure

this out because I think I've never seen

anyone study this before right because

the the the nervous system no the

nervous system I'm not aware of anyone

has done it formally either the nervous

system of course is a is a brain body

phenomenon and so what happens when we

sort of cut off the deliberate

operations of brain or body and it it

doesn't seem to matter whether or not

it's brain or body as long as one is

deliberately shut off and so anyway I

love your thoughts on this um I don't

consider myself like a Ultra creative or

creative type um to any great degree but

me neither that's why but I'm fascinated

right but right but that's but I'm

fascinated by these deliberate tactics

that highly creative people have have uh

undertaken um in order to bring about

ideas I certainly have some of my best

ideas when I'm running and I'll just be

running along like my goodness I wasn't

even thinking now I need to write this

down okay and then continue uh I tried

the diero approach and the the Ruben

approach actually just spent a week with

Rick um overseas and indeed he spends a

lot of time just still thinking and it's

a very hard practice to to get um to get

consistent with I wonder I wonder if

there are individual differences here on

on which needs to be stable or steady um

I'm think you know I'm thinking about a

huge part of creativity is um is

overriding your default instincts and if

you're somebody whose default is to have

your mind constantly going then quieting

would probably shift your your train of

thought to something more original or

unconventional um the opposite might be

true if you have a naturally quiet mine

I would imagine you need to you need to

sort of jolt yourself out of that with

lots of access to you know to Freer

ranging thoughts and so um it'd be

interesting actually to study whether we

can predict what you should steal based

on your personality yeah I want and

maybe what we could do in that study I

think we have a collaboration Brewing

you know there's a joke you know two two

scientists walk into a room and what

comes out is a collaboration so um I'd

want to put people in a scanner it's

hard to get people treadmilling in a

scanner because the movement artifact

but and just look at net uh resting

Network activation and compare that to

resting Network activation when people

are completely still and forcing

themselves to think in deliberate

deliberate sentences and then look at

the overlap in that vend diagram that's

what's of interest to me they may be

completely different brain States they

might actually have more similarity than

differences I wonder then if you can tie

that to differences in the quality and

quantity of output so I would imagine

that one of the benefits of either kind

of movement is that you um you end up

increasing the volume of ideas which we

know is good for variety and ultimately

increases the probability that you

stumble onto something new but then I

think this the being still part is

probably better for the filtering

process of I think one of the hardest

parts of creativity is actually judging

your own ideas um most most creative

people have many terrible ideas in fact

the most creative people have the most

horrible ideas U because they just have

a lot of ideas and um I think that maybe

there's a there's a way in which

quieting either your body or your mind

allows you to gain some distance from

the idea and see whether it's boneheaded

or

promising I'd like to take a quick break

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insider.com huberman along those lines

when one is trying to gauge the quality

of their ideas um how do you cope with

uh how does one cope with not placing a

judge on that that um causes some you

know false negatives where you're where

you're wiping out great ideas because um

you know Rick ruin talks a lot about you

know don't give the audience what they

want they don't know what they want they

haven't seen it yet if it's a truly

creative idea they haven't seen it and

um but of course we all have to develop

our own sense of taste so well how does

this process work for you I mean you've

written about and worked on a tremendous

range of topics um and always you know I

must say say with with such rigor and

such Clarity of communication about

those topics yeah it's absolutely true I

mean like 100% so we say around here no

weak sauce you know and a great phrase

there's no weak sauce in your game it's

incredible so um when do you get your

ideas and how do you filter those

ideas I feel like the when could be

anytime uh I think the I mean you've

you've clearly experienced this too for

me the best thing about hosting a

podcast is I have an excuse to learn

about anything I want from almost anyone

I want and I get to call that part of my

job and so I feel like you know that

having that built-in mechanism for

learning means ideas could could come at

any moment uh the the filtering process

for me is um it's evolved over the last

few years what I what I do now is if I'm

let's say I'm I'm starting a new book

I'll write a draft of the first chapter

and I send it to five to eight people

whose judgment I trust and by Design

some of those people are in my field

they're you know deep-seated in

organizational psychology others are you

know very far outside but curious about

the topics I'm interested in and I asked

them for a zero to 10

score uh this is something I learned to

do as a as a springboard diver uh where

you I would I would take off um and you

know I'm doing a few flips or twists and

I think my dive is good but I can't see

it because I'm hurling in midair and

it's a everything's a blur and so I have

to rely on my coach to tell me if it was

any good I feel like creative work is

the same way you're too close to it to

know how the audience is going to react

to it and yes you don't want to create

it just for the audience but at the end

of the day you want it to be you know

interesting or useful to them so I asked

for the zero to 10 and no one ever says

10 and then I use that as a calibration

mechanism so if everybody's in the seven

or eight range I know that I'm on to

something promising and now I need to

refine it if I get a bunch of twos

threes three and a halfs I either need

to rethink the idea or dramatically

rewrite how I'm positioning it and I

think one of the mistakes a lot of

people make is they know they need

feedback on their ideas they go to one

or two people and they start to feel a

little bit defensive or threatened and

their ego gets involved and then they

don't ask for any more what they don't

realize is it's actually less painful if

you get more feedback because when eight

different people critique your work you

start to realize that a few of the

comments that sort of bruise you a

little bit were just IDI syncratic and

no one else cared about those issues but

then five people had the same problem

like that is not taste that is a quality

issue and I've got to focus on that and

so it really helps to filter what are

the what are the revisions I need to

make what are the problems and

complaints I need to pay attention to

versus what can I ignore because maybe

this product was not for that person I'm

recalling when I was a postto I had a

manuscript fully prepared and I worked

in a laboratory where I didn't work on

the same thing as my postto advisor he

was very gracious and letting me be the

outlier um and he said well I don't know

anything about this topic so before you

submit it to this fairly prestigious

very frankly very prestigious Journal

I'll be honest um you should probably go

down the hall and hand it to so and so I

don't want to mention who it was because

I'm still in the same Department um and

I gave it to him this individual and he

looked at and he said yeah you know it

looks interesting but I don't think

there's going to be a whole lot of

interest in this it's just like not I

was like no way like this I think this

is really cool but I was pretty dismayed

so I was like oh go so what do I do so I

went back to my adviser and thankfully

he's a bit of an iconic CL and he said

that's the best feedback you could have

gotten definitely submit it to that

particular journal and I must say that

paper got accepted faster than any other

paper I've never had an experience like

that I mean it required some revisions I

remember thinking like wow what an

unusual response to after having

instructed me to go ask a a a more

senior colleague right he was a at that

time assistant professor and then to get

the ne essentially negative response and

then to take that as like you should

definitely send it out really taught me

a lesson that sometimes one needs to

invert their um their action according

uh to the negative feedback they get not

always but um that was an N of one okay

so it's not uh shouldn't be extrapolated

to too many circumstances but um

basically led me to um not seek out uh

feedback prior to submission of things

terribly often I mean uh I check

information obviously prior to podcast I

check the validity of the information in

podcasts and papers but um it made me

realize that people's opinions can be

like highly idiosyncratic and and in

some cases outright wrong and really the

the opinion of the journal is what What

mattered most in in terms of getting it

accepted or not so um how do you you

said give it to the greatest number of

people but if it's anything like

comments on social media there's a

salience to negative comments ments so

how should we filter positive versus

negative feedback well there's a there's

a met analysis here this is kuger and

Denise um looking at 100 Years of

feedback research and they found that

what drives the utility of feedback is

not whether it's positive or negative

it's whether it focuses on the task or

on the self so if I tell you that your

work is terrible you're going to get

defensive if I tell you that your work

is great you're going to get complacent

if I tell you here's the specific thing

that I liked about your work you're

going to try to learn to repeat that and

if I tell you here's the thing I didn't

like you're going to try to see if you

can fix it so I actually think we should

worry less about whether the feedback is

encouraging or discouraging and more

about how do I make sure that I get

input that's going to allow me to learn

from my strengths and also overcome my

weaknesses um and actually I uh one of

the things I've I've learned recently is

there's some I would say a growing body

of evidence at this point that asking

for feedback is not the best way to get

people to help you um because when you

ask for feedback you end up getting two

groups of people you get cheerleaders

and you get critics and cheerleaders are

basically applauding your best self

critics are attacking your worst self

what you want is a coach which is

somebody who helps you become a better

version of yourself and the way you get

people to coach you is not to say give

me feedback because they will then look

at the past and tell you what you

screwed up or what you did right what

you want is to say can you give me

advice for next time and then they look

at the future and they'll give you

either a note on something to repeat or

something to correct and this is such a

subtle shift that it can make a big

difference um Andrew one of the things

I've I guess I found myself applying

this to a lot is um uh after giving

speeches I used to get off stage and say

i' would love some feedback and you get

back a bunch of oh you know I really

enjoyed that thanks what do I do with

that information I'm trying to learn how

to get better and when I shift the

question to say what's the one thing I

could do better next time it's like oh

don't open with a joke the audience

couldn't tell you were joking um uh

frequently it's give me a little bit

more of a through line uh you focused a

lot on you know a bunch of interesting

points but I lost the connective tissue

and you know those those actionable

suggestions are much more likely to come

when you just ask for a tip as opposed

to an evaluation oh that's so good I'm G

to just pause for a second I I've never

taken a pause I've taken occasional

pause to be honest but they're very rare

um as the audience knows oh that that's

just gazillion dollar advice because I

think that um everyone has an ego we all

want to perform Well we'd like to

perform better over time and negative

feedback hurts and it can hurt a little

or a lot depending on how defensive we

are but a tool like you just described

to uh remove some of that

defensive armor that we all have and and

actually let the information in in a way

that's constructive uh is really great

what you described I think is a way to

create constructive criticism but the

constructive part is really coming from

within yeah as opposed to saying I'd

like some constructive criticism and

then hoping that the criticism is

actually constructive so you're taking

control over the process in a healthy

way in a benevolent way that that's the

goal and I think the the big question

that comes up for a lot of people at

this point is okay so I get somebody to

give me advice but it might still sting

how do I get better at taking it

constructively and I think probably my

favorite technique on this I learned

from Sheila Keen she calls it the the

second score and the idea is that when

somebody gives you a piece of criticism

uh that's your first score so let's say

you know they like I in my in my world

they gave me a three and a half and I

want to know how I can do better next

time how do I get myself to focus on

that what I do is say I want to get a 10

for how well I took the three and a half

and that's the second score I want to

evaluate myself on how well I took the

first score I I think about this almost

every day there was um actually can I

tell you a quick story so when I was uh

right out of my doctorate I got asked to

teach a a motivation class for Air Force

generals and Colonels I was

25 I think 25 26 um you know they're

they're all twice my age uh they've got

thousands of flying hours they've got

billion dollar budgets uh they've got

well you know this community well their

nicknames Striker and sandun and I was

extremely intimidated so I I walked in

there and I I thought I had to impress

them and I started talking about my

credentials and you know all my research

experience and the feedback at the end

of the 4our session was brutal I

remember uh reading the feedback forums

and one person had written more

knowledge in the audience than on the

podium I was like true I can't argue

with that and then another wrote I

gained nothing from this session but I

trust the instructor gain useful

insight and that that was devastating I

was like can I like I would really like

to transform into an actual bear and

hibernate for the next four months and

then maybe I'll come out of a hole ready

to hear this I didn't have that option I

had committed to teach a second session

a week later so all I could do was

figure out how am I going to hear this

feedback and really take it seriously

and I guess I applied a version of the

second score and I said all right there

you know there's some general that are

going to come back and see me again and

I've got to prove to them that I was

open to feedback and one of the things I

heard loud and clear was that uh they

valued humility and I had led with too

much confidence which was just

insecurity masted and so I thought okay

how do I how do I change the equation

and walked in looked at the room and I

said I know what you're all thinking

right now what could I possibly learn

from a professor who's 12 years

old dead

silence like oh no this is this is going

to go horribly wrong and then uh one of

the guys in the audience jumps in he's

like oh that's ridiculous you got to be

at least

13 everybody started laughing it broke

the ice and I think what what I was

trying to do was to take myself off the

pedestal and say look I heard your

feedback uh you told me that you didn't

think I had anything to teach you and

I've got to acknowledge that right up

front and be open to the fact that

that's true and so I want to come in

here and learn from you and I want to

see if I can Curry to conversation where

we all end up learning and the feedback

was night and day different afterward I

I one one person wrote although Junior

inexperience the professor dealt with

the evidence in an interesting way I

like all right I'll take it and um

there's something really powerful about

about saying look you know I I can't

change the fact that they hated my

session what I can do is convince them

that I was motivated to learn from their

criticism I love this concept of the

second score and thank you for sharing

that story I think um you know very very

often um we hear about people like you

who if people didn't catch the math in

there uh you were a PhD by age 25 um and

as far as I know the the youngest tener

professor at pen at 28 so these are

outrageous uh outrageously impressive um

metrics of accomplishment but for you to

share a um a story about uh you know um

less than Optimal Performance and how

you adjusted to it and and and the

incorporation of the the second score um

that you're referring to I think is uh

is really appreciated because I think

that um as much as we hear you know oh

you know Jordan you know took many more

you know free throws and everyone just

thinks about all the ones he made you

know people think about all the ones he

made that's the way the game works

that's the way the mind works I should

say so it's um I appreciate that you

flesh it out with a with a personal

example I too would want to turn into a

barar and disappear but I would but I

think that um it's really impressive

what you did and and I and it makes me

think that the second score of getting a

10 at at bringing the three and a half

up

right uh as it were um is really about

turning a

score into a verb process you know over

and over again as I've do this podcast

and as I've taught in the classroom what

I keep coming back to is this idea that

we should be focusing more on verbs and

less on nouns we love to name things and

categorize them but but when we start

living life through a lot of verb

processes so instead of getting Being

Fit uh we think about that you know or

running as a thing we really think about

like just running right it becomes less

daunting and and we accomplish far more

but the idea that um you know and this

has this there mathematical models of

this I'm sure but where you're basically

talking about you know like an integral

right as opposed to just some value

right you're talking about the slope of

the line yeah right so you're a three

and a half how are you going to get to a

10 gosh that's a huge gap and you're

dealing with being back on your heels

psychologically from getting all this

you know battering feedback from these

uh you know these uh highly accomplished

individuals all these inment and you

know literally wearing them presumably

on their body body uh so for you to see

and and it's really about creating it's

about taking control of the slope of

that line from the three onward and it's

really a forward-looking perspective so

I don't think we're being unduly uh

psychological here or analytic I mean I

think it's really about taking a a

moment State and a noun and turning it

into a verb yeah I think that's right I

I'm reminded of the great philosopher

Homer Simpson who said that verbing

weirds language uh so it's harder to

talk about this stuff in verbs I swear I

didn't steal it from The Simpsons but if

it came from Homer Simpson like I'm all

for it you have to I mean that's small

brain small brain but you know given the

size of his brain and people have seen

the image uh uh you know fairly fairly

robust knowledge no I I I think you're

on to something I think um verbs are

active and we're we're drawn to them um

I think yeah a lot of times people

review their past to work and they just

like they end up shaming an earlier

version of themselves and they they

wallow in rumination and what what we

want to try to do in that situation

which is e easier said than done is is

to say all right like the purpose of you

know of of getting feedback or advice is

not to shame my past self it's to

educate My Future Self um which I think

is very connected to a lot of the work

on growth mindset that that you've been

talking about and uh there's been a

firestorm of controversy around uh can

we teach growth mindset in schools

lately and uh I think what what that is

underscored for me is look you can't you

can't expect someone to listen to One

podcast episode or go through one

workshop and magically believe that

they're capable of learning anything at

any moment um this is something we have

to actively work on on a daily basis and

part of doing that exactly as you said

is thinking about the slope and saying

all right um the person that I'm you

know I'm competing with is my past self

and I want to get a little bit better

today than I was

yesterday yeah I think um along the

lines of growth mindset obviously we

both know Carol DW and uh respect her

tremendously and I um and I realized

there is some controversy now around how

you know readily one can teach growth

mindset or incorporate growth mindset my

understanding and um I'd love to know

your thoughts on this is that when the D

work is combined with some of the Ali

Crum work that is growth mindset is

combined with a knowledge just a basic

and true understanding that stress and

the feelings of anxiety and tension that

um can actually be performance-enhancing

when those two things are combined I

think this is the work of David joerger

and colleagues at UT Austin that uh

indeed growth mind becomes um more

visible in our in our uh mindsets and

performance um and are there other

aspects to growth mindset and and other

um other mindsets that are now being

woven into that framework that that can

be helpful because I know um gosh if

ever there was a great name for a aop

psychology growth mindset it tells you

everything you want everything you need

and everything you sort of need to know

and just the name um but uh we all find

it difficult to implement um just just

telling myself I'm not as good as

something as I could be yet it sounds

great but in moments of you know

receiving feedback uh that's harsh um

sometimes it's hard to access yeah it is

I think so the the latest there's a

mamera um at all met analysis and then

you know I think sort of that camp

versus the the Carol and David Camp um

you know have very different views on

how big the effects are but I think one

thing they they seem to agree on is

growth mindset is more important in

circum ances uh where people are more

likely to need it um so if you think

about for example um kids who are

impoverished um or marginalized

communities um you know the message that

you actually you know that you you are

capable of um you know of evolving your

skills to the point that something

you're bad at today you could be good at

next year um is really important when

you've never heard that before um and

when you don't have a single person

believing in you I think where um where

we're often missing the boat is we think

all right I'm just going to I'm going to

instill this idea in a person's head and

my work is done um and we know that the

context around you really matters so um

actually Carol's done some research

showing that uh growth mindset is more

likely to have an impact uh when your

classroom culture um also and your

teacher right has the belief that kids

are capable of learning and growing um

that your you know your starting ability

is not fixed in any subject and I think

we probably for all of us as individuals

what that means is we need to think

about the the micro environment that we

put ourselves in um I think you know the

GU one one of the things I've thinking a

lot about lately is scaffolding and the

idea that you know when you're when

you're trying to improve at something

you don't need a a permanent teacher

necessarily you don't need one Mentor

you know guiding you for nine years what

you need is is somebody who can give you

the temporary support that allows you to

to scale to a New Height just like a

scaffold wood on a building um and in

learning theory basically the idea

behind scaffolding is we're we're going

to initially give you the support you

need to solve a problem and then we're

going to slowly remove the support so

that you learn to to do it on your own

and I think that those those kinds of

scaffolds are often missing so we

instill the growth mindset like I've got

this belief in my head but I don't know

what I need to do um to you know to put

that belief into action and that's where

um that I guess that that to me is we

have to go beyond mindset we have to

think about how do we put people in a

context that allows them to to put their

beliefs into

practice you are asking me what else do

we need like to support growth mindset

and make it effective right yeah I mean

we know people learn what growth mindset

is it's the idea that you're not as good

at something yet okay terrific but it's

very hard to implement in real time

there are I have to presume additional

tools that one can uh bolster the growth

mindset with make it make it more

accessible um and benefit from it yes so

um Justin Berg and Amy res nesin I uh

studied this actually uh we did um we

were looking at growth mindset at work

and uh Justin's uh well he's at Stanford

I don't know if you met him yet I have

not but big place um he'll be on the

list soon if a brilliant creativity

researcher and Amy just joined us at at

Wharton and uh has fundamentally changed

the way that I think about um ideas um

in the way that she studied how we can

shape our context and just done

pathbreaking work there and we we were

interested in growth mindset and we we

designed an intervention where people

could learn growth mindset at work um so

we taught them to think about how their

skills were malleable how they could

stretch their knowledge into new areas

and we found that teaching them that was

not enough to boost their happiness or

their performance what we needed to also

do was um give them a growth mindset not

just about themselves but also about

their

jobs uh in other words to teach them

that your job is a set of flexible

building blocks that you've got a whole

bunch of tasks that make up your job

some of those are you know are things to

do others are might be interactions that

you need to have and if you break down

your your job into all these tests you

might have some tests that you want to

accentuate and make a bigger part of

your job others that you want to try to

subtract um others that you might swap

with a colleague and a lot of people it

turns out think their jobs are are fixed

by their job descriptions but in fact

you have a ton of opportunity to say

wait a minute you know there's something

there's a strength I have but I'm not

using it right now is there a way we can

bring that into my work and so um in

these couple experiments we did when we

randomly assigned people to learn both

that their jobs were malleable and that

their skills were malleable um they got

a sustainable boost to their happiness

that lasted at least 6 months there was

no cost to their performance u meaning

you could to redesign your own job to be

more enjoyable without uh without a drop

in the effectiveness of your

contributions uh to your workplace and I

think what I I came away from that

research realizing is like it's not

enough to just say well well I can get

better I can improve because very often

you feel like your your environment is

limited I'm like great like yeah I can

grow but I'm stuck in a deadend job and

so what we need to do there is um is

open up the opportunity for people to um

to to innovate on their own job

description and then growth mindset can

begin to to have an impact I love it it

sounds a bit like adding a s to growth

growth mindset so it's not growth

mindset it's growth mindsets uh because

earlier you mentioned that in the

classroom environment if the teacher

adopts a growth mindset yes as well as

the students well then you have a

culture of growth mindset so it's the um

interconnectedness of of this and the

and the context in which the

individual's growth mindset exists do I

have that right well put yeah we we

ended up calling it dual mindset um but

I think making it a plural is good

because um you know it's it's not I I

have this image of um you know you you

put a person in a in a cage and then

tell them they're capable of growing

they're still stuck in a cage and so we

need to we need to give them a chance to

to bust through those walls super

important I hate to take us back to an

earlier topic U but there's something

that I meant to ask you that I didn't

and I'm absolutely needing to ask you

which is your recent work or recentish

work it was a few years back now and

you're so prolific that I have to call

it a few years back

um the relationship between intrinsic

motivation and performance on other

tasks um yeah and the reason I asked

this is severalfold

um I did two episodes of the podcast on

ADHD and one of the things that I

learned in talking to experts on ADHD

people with ADHD as well as looking at

some of the novel treatments everything

from behavioral to prescription drug to

even nutrition-based was that kids and

adults with clinically diagnosed ADHD

are actually terrific at paying

attention to things that they really

enjoy or that they're super interested

in so clearly they have the capacity

it's just that they have um

deficits if you will in attending to

things that are less exciting to them

less intriguing to them so if I recall

correctly uh you have a publication that

explored the relationship between

intrinsic motivation and performance in

other stuff yeah and one of the major

conclusions was that having a deep deep

interest in one thing might not be the

best uh condition for performing well at

other less interesting tasks Could you

um could you tell us about that study

what what motivated you to carry out

that study and what some of the major

takeaways were yeah definitely um you

you summarize it really well I think um

the the original impetus so this was

another project with G shin and uh G

came to me want wanting to study

intrinsic motivation and we were talking

about what do we know about intrinsic

motivation and what are the gaps in our

knowledge and one thing that has always

bothered me is when psychologists study

something that sounds positive and they

only study the benefits of it like

there's no no such thing as an

unmitigated good right all all all sort

of enjoyable experiences have costs all

unpleasant experiences can have benefits

we need to we need to fill out this two

by two of good thing bad thing um good

outcome bad outcome um and so my

challenge to her was can you show me the

Dark Side of intrinsic motivation and

she came back and she said what if

there's a cost of loving a task leading

you to hate a task that you don't like

even more than you did before I like oh

that's an interesting idea it tracks

with the basic psychology of contrast

effects uh where um you know if you eat

something delicious then your least

favorite food tastes a little bit worse

afterward and so I said let's let's

study this so um she ended up getting

data from um from people at work and

then we also designed an experiment and

sure enough uh the the more passionate

you are on task one the more your

performance suffers if task two is

really boring and I guess what what this

did for me is it made me think

differently about task sequencing I used

to wake up in the morning and do my most

interesting task first and then the

grading was hell and what I do now is I

start with a moderately interesting task

it's a little bit of a warm-up for me

and then I have an exciting one to look

forward to and if I do have a task

that's boring but important I think the

performance is going to suffer

less interesting um I normally don't ask

about morning routines and how one

structures a day because it's highly

individual completely agree yeah and and

it depends on whether or not people have

kids and they're pets and you know other

uh but I'll just share with you a brief

anecdote I have a friend who's a very

accomplished musician and has been for

for several decades now and he told me

that he has a practice of after he gets

off stage and he's like Stadium Stadium

sellout level um

musician um has been for a long time and

shows no signs of stopping just

incredible but a very down toe person um

and he said one of the first things does

when he gets off stage is to go do some

menial task I thought there's no way

that's true but I've known his wife

since college and she she verified that

statement I was like what what sorts of

medial task you talking about he's like

oh like cleaning up some of the cans and

things that are there maybe even

cleaning a toilet at a venue and I

thought no chance but it turns out to be

true and I said what what's this about

is this about humility he said well

maybe a little bit but he said it

actually makes it a lot easier for him

to return home and deal with the kind of

little things that just are out of scale

with the experiences that he just had

he's tapering way okay I think yeah yeah

I I first of all I was so struck by the

fact that he had um created this process

for himself so long ago and he's also

somebody who's you know he's maintained

he's like been the same marriage for an

extremely long time he's he's extremely

happy in that and his family I mean see

one of these people that seems to thrive

in all domains of life and I'm certain

that he struggles in some domain of life

because everybody does but um it sound

to me like a very unusual practice but

it seems to kind of relate to this that

you know he has this thing that he loves

doing playing music and performing in

particular and he's just you know you

know

.01% at doing that um then just like

bring himself back down to Earth because

so much of life and especially family

life is like dealing with the the

Schmutz and the inconvenience of

everyday life yeah he's it's it actually

sounds like what he's doing is he's

resetting his frame of reference to say

if you know if I go right home then the

contrast between you this high octane

experience I'm having um and sort of

muddling through everyday life um is

going to be extreme if I do something

really small then um family time is

going to seem a lot bigger yeah so I

realize I'm I'm taking a bit of a leap

from your study on intrinsic motivation

and and low performance in in other

domains but you know to me cleaning up

cleaning a toilet is you know I it's

it's uh it's boring for all the wrong

reasons right um as you said you do not

want that to be an exciting no and and

listen I mean if I had to do it for a

living I would you right and I would try

and do as well as possible and uh uh but

um right so well I found that study to

be particularly interesting because I

think that these days we um we glorify

high performance even quotquot Peak

Performance um something we can talk

about and we forget that um yes often

times people who are ultra high

performers can afford to pay other

people to do all the other stuff but I

have to say in knowing some ultra high

performers and in knowing some people in

the um billionaire bracket you know

there's a high incidence of of mental

health issues frankly and um lack of

satisfaction with life that maybe even

comes from not um having to do anything

besides the things that you find most

intrinsically rewarding um we all think

that oh I if I could I spend all day

doing the things that I find most

intrinsically rewarding but maybe

there's something about this Push Pull

we know the brain works in push pull

with almost everything that having some

experiences each day that are kind of

like H this a thing again do you think

that heightens our level of satisfaction

for the things we really enjoy I would

be surprised if it didn't uh I think I

think contrast effects are very powerful

and we know I mean the there's half a

century of research on happiness

suggesting that the comparisons we make

are what matter um you know I think I

think Tim Urban probably put it best

when he said happiness is reality minus

expectations and if you only have

enjoyable experiences your expectations

are

rising into perpetuity uh so it doesn't

matter how good your reality is you

wanted it to be better and better um I

think one of the things that mundane

experiences um managed to do for us uh

or maybe a better way to say it is I

think one of the benefit fit of mhen

experiences is they keep our

expectations on the ground uh and allow

us to be pleasantly surprised by you

know a task that was more interesting

than we expected even though we didn't

love it what are your thoughts on um

what I call Momentum which is when I

have um an experience that I

particularly like like if we record a

podcast and I'm really excited to get it

out into the world or if I have some

experience that I'm left you know very

excited by at the end that often times

the energy again I'm obsessed with this

concept of neural energy

the the energy that I gan from that

experience seems to have carryover into

other things like you know I'm going to

be much more excited to just go across

the street and get a cup of coffee feels

like a bigger thing than it normally

would um and I would think that one

could kind of ride the wake of a of a

prior accomplishment even a small

accomplishment each day and make the you

know tidying up of or doing things that

one would normally find more boring less

boring is that true the way you're

describing contrast effects makes it

seem like it's more of a cliff like that

thing was great and now this thing but I

also can kind of ride high on um

something that happened 2 3 days ago

maybe even two three months ago if so

feeling good equates to feeling good or

feeling good uh accentuates the the bad

stuff this is the tension between

contrast and spillover and you can see

both under different conditions I think

where this is I this is a brand new sort

of I don't think anybody's reconciled

those two two perspectives yet but my

hunch from having work on the contrast

part of it is we found that it was only

extreme intrinsic motivation that had

the performance cost on other tasks so

if you're if you're enjoying something

um if you like it uh that will give you

a lift for other tests um it's it's

where this is the best thing you've ever

done and now other things suck by

comparison um that's where we start to

see run into a problem I also wonder um

if there's a domain switching effect

here um I think you're you're alluding

to this um I I read some research that

just came out this year showing that um

one of the benefits one of the

surprising benefits of morning workouts

is you actually have more confidence in

your job uh because you get that small

win like I accomplished something this

morning and that gives you a sense of

efficacy that you can carry over into

your you know the start of your work day

uh not to suggest that everyone should

work out in the morning because I'm I'm

with you I think everybody should you

know both work and work out at a time

that works for them but I think um I

think there's something to be said for

uh something went really well in one

realm of my life and that boosts my

belief in my capability to tackle

challenges in a different realm what

about in the opposite direction uh you

were a competitive diver um I have to

presume that there were days when you

had lousy Dives it must have been that

that one day Adam felt like every day

and then you you leave you know you you

you shower up dry off head head into the

rest of your day and you know how do we

segment away from the you know negative

thought spirals of like something went

really poorly and now you're off into

the domain of life where you can do you

know how to do the things that you're

required to do but maybe there's some

Challenge and some learning involved how

do we cut Moes between negative

experiences I think uh I mean the Ted

lasso strategy is ideal become a

goldfish 10-second memory and then you

don't even you don't even recall the

practice you had earlier today I think

that I don't know anybody who can do

that

consistently um and I think the more

disappointing the experience is the more

you tend to to dwell on it I

think uh when when you talk about

segmenting negative

experiences I think the probably the

research that I've liked best on this

and I just want to I want to make sure I

capture this

clearly um I basically so research on

emotion regulation says there there are

two strategies that tend to be effective

one is distraction the other is

reframing

uh so distraction is you know find

something else that will consume your

attention um that's unrelated to the

thing that you just bombed at uh and the

hope is that you know that that Fades

into the background reframing is a lot

of what you were talking about a few

minutes ago which is okay let me Focus

you know not on the level of my

performance but the slope um my diving

coach Eric best uh has a really great

set of questions that he he asks and you

know I I I remember I would i' finish

practice like this is a terrible day I

just feel like I'm worthless as a diver

and now diving was a big part of my

identity I'm going to let my team down

now I'm a bad teammate too my coach is

wasting his time and like now you know

he could have been you know training

somebody much better like why am I doing

this and Eric would ask uh did you make

yourself better

today and even if it was a bad practice

there is something that improved yes

okay and sometimes the answer feels like

no and then he would ask did you make

someone else better today like yeah I

gave a little tip to a teammate um you

know

I I made a joke that you know that made

everybody laugh and he was like great

then it wasn't a bad day and I I think

this is this is an example of what good

reframing looks like um to say okay the

goal wasn't to be great it was to be

better the goal wasn't necessarily just

to make myself better it was also to

make other people better um and I think

those are the kinds of questions that

seem to segment pretty well

I love that feedback because I think we

all get stuck in those thought Spirals

and um again not to demonize smartphones

because they are wonderful tools but I

have to remember the time I'm 48 years

old uh as of tomorrow and I have to

remember a time in which um negative

stuff was probably happening in the

background but I didn't hear about it

because no one was texting it to me so

I'd find out at the end of the day when

I still had time to do other things in

the meantime right um that said I would

also get Negative experiences early in

the day and then carry them throughout