A different future starts with you. That's why I go daddy does more to help you find a name. You can create sell and get found online. So any small business can drive change or build an Empire. We need a new generation of thinking your way of thinking start different at godaddy.com.
The best lives in some ways our unadorned lives that lives that are not adorned by the trappings of wealth or posturing or status seeking but are the Simplicity of do you have people who love you? And do you have people you
love?
Hey everyone, welcome back to on purpose. The number one Health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every single one of you that come back every week to listen learn and grow now today. I'm super excited because I have been reading these authors books since my teenage years and I found them fascinating. They totally inspired me when it came to Behavioral Science understanding the mind how we think how we make decisions how we get driven and motivated and I've been a fan ever since so this is a true fan.
Moment for me guest today is none other than Daniel pink. He's the author of six books about business and human behavior. His books include the long route time running New York Times best seller when which will be dissecting today a whole new mind as well as the number one New York Times bestsellers Drive, which was actually the first book that I read from him and to sell is human dance books have won multiple Awards and I've been translated into 40 languages and have sold more than 3 million copies now.
Dan has been a contributing editor at Fast Company and wired as well as a business columnist for the Sunday Telegraph his articles and essays of also appeared in the New York Times Harvard Business review and other Publications and in 2019, london-based thinkers, 50 named him the sixth most influential management thinker in the world and he lives in Washington DC with his family. And today we're here to talk about his latest book when called the scientific secrets of perfect timing, which I know you're going to love so Dad. Thank you for
doing this.
Jade's pleasure to be with you.
Yeah, you literally you would like one of the first people I ever told her didn't you interviewing before I even had a podcast and I remember saying to I believe our mutual friend danceable who I believe you know, well as well rip course remember saying to him I was like, I would love to interview dad and he was like, yeah, I can introduce you to my can introduce you to him and then I didn't have a podcast that so I didn't interview. So we waited
absolutely worth the wait.
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for doing this. I I've genuinely
We enjoyed your books what you've helped us understand about human incentives drive and now timing which I think is the most fascinating. I recommended this book last year as one of my top 10 books and hacks pushing it out as much as I can. So I'm excited to dive into it. But I want to actually start off with something that I saw on your Twitter profile. I think it was yesterday a couple of days ago where you wrap. You actually recommended Trevor Noah's audiobook crime for a book to study with that for high school students, and I was understanding why particularly that
Look, yeah, though it's interesting. I I there's a there's a large presence on Twitter of other social media of Educators. And and those are Educators among the few people who I actually enjoy interacting with on Twitter. And so there was a fellow who I think was a high school principal who is looking for recommendations for books for high school students to read and I thought that that Trevor Noah's book including the audio Edition was just a great
Choice for high school students. I mean I'm a father of high school student. My son has my son is read that book it just a gripping story of this kid. And I think that what he is telling us gives us all kinds of insight into our world today. He Trevor was the son of a black mom and a white dad German dad growing up. He was born in apartheid-era South Africa and so simply for Americans, especially white Americans.
Hearing about that is just I mean, even though you know it just kind of mind-boggling and then and then what happens after post-apartheid how he decides what he wants to do what his relationships are with his mother and father but I actually listened to the audio edition of this of his book and it is Jay. I think the best audio book I've ever listened to and the reason for that is that is that Trevor Noah speaks multiple languages
and and so and so he goes into some of these languages but also his ability to do character than accents is just extraordinary just it's a virtuosic performance and just a gripping read. I can't imagine a seventeen-year-old not being 16 year old not being did mesmerized by that as I was and I'm way older than 17.
I love that now. It's a great recommendation. And I think that's awesome. And it's always nice to hear authors and very successful with is recommending other authors and audio books. So I think
That's good. If not, now you've made it really really clear. That's that's great. Tell us about I want to stop, you know about with your fascination with human behavior and the mind and the way we think and why we do certain things like where did that come from for you? Because you know, like I said, you were the first person or one of the first people to introduce me into that whole school of thought and I just think like when you're young and you're at college or you're at school, you don't really you don't really get exposed.
As to these kind of topics, where was it for you? And you know, how did that start for you?
I guess I'm not totally sure. I think part of it comes from being a pretty quiet kid growing up. I want I won't say shy but just kind of a quiet kid more of an observer a reader. It's a kid who went to the library all the time and so always feeling like I wasn't quite in the center of things but was kind of on the periphery observing and who was I observing observing these crazy people and so that I think was I think that was part of it. I also was fortunate enough
And I was in college too. I studied a lot of Economics a lot of psychology and but I ended up actually majored in linguistics, which is a which is a which is another social science. So I was always keenly keenly interested in it. I think if I had my if I like I can totally see in retrospect in my life that I would have become a professor rather than doing the noble hackery that I'm doing today
now, that's awesome. I ate interesting.
Always how people got to where they got to and I'm fascinated that you haven't fully dissected your journey and like broken it up into little pieces and I quite like that. I think it's I think it's very humble of you actually.
Well, I also think it's you thank you for that. I'm not sure that it's humble as it is accurate. I think a lot of times these these they're different Vantage points in looking at these Journeys and I like the metaphor of a journey the different Vantage points in looking at these Journeys. So if you're in it, and you're in your you're navigating your way at least for
Me there was much much less intention than one would think and much greater kind of half a surrey lock that kind of thing. I think that in some cases just because it makes us more comfortable existentially. We look back on these things and say, oh there was a clear narrative to that Journey. Yeah, and there might be I think that retrospective look is actually about is is valid to yeah,
absolutely.
Lutely, and and I know that you spent a lot of time in Japan right or you spent some time in
judgment sometimes Jaron sure.
Yeah, when what's that? What's the culture like or what kind of influences have you taken from that
culture? Oh, it's a life. Yeah, it's a bit of a really really interesting question. Probably more profound than I realize. I think that one of them is the virtue of Simplicity in Japanese design in certain sorts of forms of just Japanese culture.
There is a premium on that Simplicity and I think in many cases in many Realms of particularly American in particularly kind of elite well-educated American circles. There is this kind of performative complexity. I mean forgive even that phrase performative complexity is exactly what well no, it's total BS because it's an example of performative complexity. Basically what it is is that people want to feel smart and the way that they want to feel smart.
By making these really complicated and and and and and to me one of the things I absorbed from spending time. There is actually the keenest form of intelligence is to make things as simple as you possibly simple and clear and elegant as you possibly can whether you are writing a book whether you're making a film whether you're building a house whether you're raising a family anything like that. There's a virtue in that kind of Simplicity and Clarity. So I think that's probably the thing that sunk in the most for me.
That's so profound. I'm so glad you shared that it I didn't know.
Aren't you going to give and neither did I and I and I love that because I've always thought that for a while like, you know, I was my all my work is inspired by two statements one statement is a statement often contribute attributed to my move the king where he said that if you want a new idea read a note book and so I have this fascination with Timeless wisdom and
kind of great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,
and then the second one is from Einstein and when he said that if you can't explain
plane something simply you don't understand it well enough and and so I've always been fascinated with simplification and your work. Does that very very effectively apart from performative complexity which I believe I don't know if you just made that up right now, but it's a great I did
I did I did you can have it. I don't want ever say it again and sometimes I
feel like I feel this pressure as a thinker or a sharer or whatever you want to call us. You know, I have this pressure of like, oh, well, maybe I'm making this too easy to understand and actually
Hearing you say that is so like refreshing for me because I'm like no, I won't give it away to practice and just get it in one, you know, so that's a beautiful part of culture. And what part of the culture did you feel that? Was it architecture was it language was it? You know, where was that in the
country? I didn't have any Master the language that was hard for me to that that was hard for me. Although I think there is something you know, even in the pictorial aspect of the language where a single character a single image represents something that's actually
They can actually something be fairly complex. So if you take out some a notion that is complex like luck. Okay, they'll be a character for luck. I know it's true obviously in China that's true. Obviously in Chinese as well. I just I just thought that when the if you look at even Japanese Aesthetics, it's an even Japanese Cuisine. Its unadorned it, you know, like really good Japanese Cuisine is unadorned. It isn't French where there's like later on links.
All kinds of stuff on it isn't you know heavily garnished and displayed in this grandiose way it is pure it is simple. It is unadorned the the essence speaks for itself. And there's a there's a there's a there's a lot to be said for that even if you look at like even Japanese Cuisine where you go into a place and all they serve is ramen. Okay, so now try to do everything but they're going to get the best bowl of ramen you've ever had because that's all they serve.
And so I think that that has been that way of thinking has probably had a bigger effect on me than I then I realize in fact in some ways Jay. Your question is making me understand that that had a that had a bigger effect because I do think that there that Simplicity is Clarity and simplicity to me are such those are things that I as a as a as a Creator and as a consumer a prize very very deeply.
Yeah, I mean
You are phenomenal public speaker as well. And if anyone's never seen Dan on stage just go on YouTube and just watch them On Stage whether it's Ted or other events, but how have you ever reset Simplicity or Clarity out of Interest? Like are they teams that you see yourself writing about or do you ever have you ever been down a rabbit hole on one of those and discovered anything fascinating about Simplicity and Clarity because I think you're spot on that really. Those are the two things. We're always seeking out right without decision-making or
or whether it's in how we feel about ourselves or relationship we have in our lives. I'm intrigued because I definitely studied those from a meditation
mindful. Right? Right,
but I'm intrigued to hear about if you found anything scientifically that's that fascinates you
yeah, that's another really interesting question. I don't think I've ever intentionally gone gone after that. But there is there is a decent amount of there's a decent amount of research.
Showing aspects of this so for instance so so for I'll give you I'll give you something profound and something mundane. Yeah, so so on the on the on the mundane is it's a concept. It's a concept in linguistics which is which is known as processing fluency processing fluency and all processing fluency means is that the message the words that the communication you're making goes down easily. All right, so so
It goes down easily. Now that's a virtue in and of itself but one of the things that we know from from Linguistics and some from some social psychology is that
Processing fluency enhances believability not only understanding but believability and there's a dark side of this course. And so what you see is that things that enhance processing fluency are effective in getting your message across an example would be repetition. Okay, we know that like repetition is effective repetition increases people's understanding it increases their believability now, there's a downside there's a downside to that.
Even things like rhyming there's some brilliant research showing that that messages that rhyme are not only considered more understandable but actually more believable alliteration lists and things like that. So so we do know something from science that that Clarity and simplicity are obviously extraordinarily are extraordinarily effective. That's the mundane Rhymes increased processing fluency. Okay, the the I think the more profound thing is that when you look at say
He's like your listeners your some of your listeners are probably familiar with the famous Grant study out of Harvard where they followed a group of men. It was its time as all men. I think with all white men in graduated from Harvard in the 1940s something like that and they file a file. I might be a little bit off in the years they and they followed them through the course of their lives checking, you know, man.
Of longitudinal study. They also did it with they later did a group of working-class men all men from from Boston and one of the things that you see from the grant study is that you don't like what makes somebody satisfied what makes somebody happy with their life and it turned out that it's completely unadorned. It's basically do you have somebody you love? And do you have people who love you.. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's it and that it you know, so so the
Ornament that we were talking about in Japanese Cuisine that the lack of a dormant in Japanese Cuisine is that are are the best lives in some ways Our unadorned Lives of lives that are not adorned by the trappings of wealth or performative complexity or posturing or status seeking but are the Simplicity of you have people who love you and do you have people you love?
Yeah that that is truly one of the hardest things to understand right now as well be
Because you know I've done I've literally speaking to on another podcast is interviewing Peter diamandis recently and you know, he's obsessed with the future and we're talking about how you know, he thinks the world is improving and the future is changing and like we could we could live on another planet and we could you know, do all this kind of stuff and and it's you know at the same time. I remember a couple of years ago. I got to visit one of the blue zones in Sardinia. I don't know if you've come across Blues on the time sure
you all right. I know I know I've actually ordered I've actually there's a there's a
A wine from that from Sardinia oregano and the grape I'm spacing out on what the what the what the what the varietal is. But there's a I've actually gone out and looked in ordered wine from Sardinia because for that very reason
that's incredible hugging what a small words. I don't drink so I have no idea what that wine is all those help you out. But but yeah, so when I went there and I was I was you know, I lived with some of the people in the town in the village and I was looking at their Lifestyles and I also interviewed Dan buettner who talks about the Blue Zone.
And you know, it's you look at that Simplicity and you look at that, you know that stability of like growing up in a village farming the land natural exercise not needing to do any hit workouts or any any weights exercise is it is it is really really special to see that and I like trying to entertain the Paradox of what parts of our lives are better simpler and what parts of our lives are better with some and maybe complexities the wrong word. Yeah any complexity, but even the opposite of Simplicity, maybe there's a
Now the point that's a great
Point. Yeah, maybe there's another element to like not the opposite of Simplicity better complementary paradoxical version of Simplicity that because I find in and of myself and I'd love to you will you think like I what I get fascinated about excited about is the
the correlation between Simplicity and then strategy right like all like Simplicity and then like ambition or drive or focus and and I find like often today people, you know, people make connect Simplicity with laziness or lack of focus or you know that but we ought to be given a much more deeper essential level of clarity.
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. It's interesting. There is a it's an interesting. It's in some
Linguistic question no joke about like what's the right word to describe what you and I are talking about because I feel like you and I are talking about something. Well, at least what I think is important in quite interesting but our vocabulary that at least in English might be impoverished and doesn't have the quite the right the right right term for that. I think you used a really important word there essential, you know, I think it's partly about what's essential it's partly about
About what you know, what is what is what is fundamental and I do think that this idea that that we know that Simplicity and ambition can be easily twin no more question about I mean you you mentioned that one of your guiding quotations was from was from what was from Einstein. He was talking about Simplicity and he ended up I mean among his among his breakthroughs were with something that is so profoundly complex that most of us don't understand it beyond the equation. We memorized in
Right.
I'm pretty sure I've never said or heard the phrase. I'm so excited to find a new insurance plan. But I have said and definitely heard people say I wish finding the right insurance plan was easier. That's when I heard of the zebra.com with the zebra.com Insurance finally feels like it's in black and white as simple as that the zebra.com is the nation's leading Insurance comparison site for car and home insurance. It's super easy way to save
save money on your insurance plans without any complicated steps. All you have to do is answer a few questions and the zebra.com will compare accurate insurance quotes for free the best part. You can easily secure your insurance from the zebra.com over the phone from one of their licensed insurance agents. How much money can you save on car or home insurance? Visit the zebra.com? /j that's th e Zeb are a.com /j for insurance.
in black and white
It's never a bad time for a mental health check in like so many others. I started the New Year searching for a bit more peace and less stress in my life. So far 2021 hasn't made that the easiest but something that always helps me if the world feels overwhelming is talking to someone on purpose listens know just how highly I recommend better help better help is a highly effective and easy to use online Counseling Service better help therapists are trained to listen and help with a variety of
Shoes like depression anxiety and Trauma you can exchange unlimited messages with your therapist or chat weekly through video or phone without ever leaving your home. I know for me writing down how I am feeling while I'm feeling it really helps me and better help actually has a tool that lets you write down those feelings in the app to either reference in a session later on or share directly by message with your therapist. So many of my on purpose guests and my friends and family.
Lee have shared their transformative experiences with therapy I have to and in these challenging times mental health is more important than ever. So don't hesitate to get the support you need better help is a convenient and affordable option and our listeners get 10% off your first month with the discount code purpose get started today at better help heelp.com forward slash purpose. There's no shame in asking for help.
Talking of Essentials. I do want to talk about because I think this book is so essentially driven. So everyone who hasn't read it and I have recommended it before we have have this book when that I want to talk about. I think time is one of those things, you know how we use time spend time create time. What we make time for like time is one of those things that of course is and the way we use an essential essential essential part of all of our lives and I think when we're talking about
City or Clarity? I think one of the biggest things we lack Simplicity in Clarity on is time and and for me, I definitely noticed how over life is precious when your book came out. I've tried to remove people from having to live their life based on a timeline or an expectation and I realized that because my life went in a completely different direction, whereby I became a monk at 22 and didn't have my first job until
26 and today lead one of the most meaningful fulfilling lives in the world. Thanks to our all my experiences. And so it's just it's fascinating there were times in my life where I felt like I was behind people that I should be in line with their time in my life where I felt I was ahead of people there are times when I felt like I was trying to figure it out and I think a lot of people usually feel like they're behind a head or equal to and that's kind of how we make sense of stuff and that's what when this book.
Came out which I know is like maybe one year ago a year and a half ago. Maybe if a couple is gonna it's to me that was I was fascinated that you were able to pinpoint. Yeah and go so deeply into time, which I always thought was so much more fluid. And so I guess the first question I want to ask you and I'm please take this wherever you like like don't feel constricted at all because I like what we're kind of co-creating right now is just you know, why what fascinates you about time the most
That you are so deeply drawn to actually write a whole book about timing.
Yeah, so that is actually I'm gonna put the answer to that in more of the mundane category. The reason for the impetus for it was just frustration more than anything else. It wasn't any kind of deep conceptual Fascination. So so here we are, you know, I'm talking to you from this is this is my office here in Washington DC. It's the refurbished one car garage behind my home.
I live there like right there and so, you know, I would come to my office and do stuff do work. And at a certain point I realized I would have a I have a to-do list and maybe I would have appointment on the calendar but I wasn't intentional at all about when I was doing stuff like like like I would write when I felt like writing I would make phone calls when I felt like making phone calls. I would do interviews when I felt like doing interviews, you know.
And I wasn't intentional about it and and that and I said, that's great. That's crazy. Like I I'm actually a fairly kind of ration. I like to think I am at least fairly rational evidence-based guy and I'm making these decisions about when to do things. I'm not even making decisions. I'm just kind of stumbling my way into it. And so I said, well, there's got to be some guidance out there on like when we should do things and I found to my surprise that there wasn't and that got me really curious to said. Well, I wonder if anybody's ever researched this so I started looking around
Research and it turned out there was a huge amount of research on this question, but it was splattered all over the place. It was in literally two dozen different domain. So it wasn't like you say. Oh, there's a sociologist who studies timing. Well, there might be there is there are but they're also biologists who do that. There are economists who've studied that there are microbiologist who have done study epidemiologist. There's a whole field called chronobiology. And so what you had was you had literally to two dozen different fields asking very similar in some cases identical.
Ian's and what I said is like hmm, maybe out, you know, it was painful. But if I go wide enough and deep enough into this research, I can begin to piece together the evidence-based ways to make better smarter decisions about when to do things when to do things in a given day, but also to your other point J. When we think about our lives our lives are episodic episodes have Beginnings episodes and middles and episodes of ends. That's all idea of the journey metaphor you introduced earlier is like Journeys have Beginnings, they have middles and they have ends and it turns out
Out that there is some fascinating research on how our cognitive abilities change over the course of the day and then more episodically how Beginnings affect us how midpoints affect us how endings affect us. There's research on how groups coordinate and time. There's research on how the way we think about Tom affects our Behavior. There's research again all roads lead back to Linguistics. There's research based on on the content some interesting research showing that the way that languages
Configure their verb tenses, it can predict people's savings Behavior as crazy as that sounds and so so it ends up being something that is going back to another one here another one of your words and ends up being essential it ends up being fundamental because we are temporal creatures. That is we have we talked about the colloquy about biological clocks about a biological clock. But but essentially what we have we know from from biology is that especially cry.
Colleges that we had essentially have clocks in in every cell in our body. I mean we are walking timepieces and again depending on your notion of time sort of philosophically existentially. We are in some ways moving through time at the very least our conversation began in the past that right. It's going to end in the future right the people who are going to listen to the recorded version of this or listening to something that happened in the past, but they had but those people haven't done anything yet because that's in the future.
And so we're sort of swimming in this essential element of our lives. And so what I was just trying to do is just make it understandable.
I do my assumption is that the most common relationship and I believe everyone has a relationship with money. We have a relationship with time. We have a relationship with anything knowledge wisdom Etc. And so our relationship with time for most people is I always feel like I don't have enough right that is a very clear relationship that we all have with cameras. Like I don't have enough time. I can't make enough time. I can't find time like we say all these words which are all about making finding creating having
What does that do? What is that mindset toward time. How does that actually affect our Behavior
our relationship with time we can think of it as an ally we can think of it as an enemy in some ways that's over that's oversimplifying in that case. But I think if what we're trying to and one way to make time your ally rather than your enemy is to recognize the effect often invisible that it has on your life. I'm so if you look so so I guess I'll give you an example.
What we know from let's just take the unit of a day what we know very clearly from a whole array of research is that our brain power does not remain constant over the course of a day our brain powerd changes over the course of the day. So doing something at 9 a.m. Is not the same as doing something at 3 p.m.. Now, there's some complexity underneath that but the main idea is that our brain power doesn't remain constant over the course of the day the best time to do something depends on what it is you're actually doing so once you
And those kinds of hidden and visible rules you can begin to make time your ally rather than your enemy and end up mitigating some of those feelings that you never that one never has enough time in many cases people who don't feel like they have enough time sometimes not always sometimes it's not a it's not a sufficiency of time issue. It's a sufficiency of priority issue what they actually don't have any clarity about their purpose of their priorities and so there the other thing that
I know is that when time becomes extremely Salient in our lives we underperform and I'll give you a in certain circumstances or unhappy in certain circumstances. So I great example of that is in Professional Services, but particularly in the practice of law is the billable hour what we know so if you are a lawyer practicing in a law firm not working for the government or doing that or nonprofit or something you Bill yourself out by the hour and so what you do
Ooh is that you have you know a way to well, I mean going analog here, but you have on your computer or you know, scribbled down and account of what you're doing literally in some cases in six minute increments and what we know from research. There is that that makes people that is incredibly rewarding to people's sense of autonomy. And so so they're all kinds of things in our relationship with time that if we reconfigure it we can feel a little bit better do a little bit more inventor.
He's productivity even the goal of time because I feel like today one of the biggest challenges that I get asked at least and I am maybe your children experience this or maybe what I see outside in the world of social media is a lot of people today spend a lot of time overthinking and procrastinating and that seen as a negative thing and people are often like scared of overthinking scared of procrastinating or they judge themselves and then they start getting into this kind of like, you know vicious circle.
Cycle of feeling like oh like I'm wasting a lot of time here tell me about what you found or even your thoughts on productivity as a goal of Time versus the the effective use if possible of procrastination and other thinking
procrastination and productivity. Okay, let's talk about what productivity is. I'm going to be literal Alicia productivity is the amount of units you produce over a given amount of time. So it is inherently time base because time is in the denominator of productivity.
T Okay. So so again, I'm not sure that productivity is necessarily the best measure I say that as a writer. Okay, so I could be like like I could be a product like suppose. I wrote more words per hour today versus yesterday. I would literally be more productive but am I am I a better writer? I don't know. It's probably doesn't matter like what are the words right? And so and so in some ways productivity is the know
Going to productivity and that very literal sense is an artifact of our being an economy where we were producing identical mass produced goods. And so efficiency was the was the highest value because everything was the same and so what you wanted to do was in a given a denominator make the numerator larger. Okay. That's how you increase that's a way to increase productivity or keep the numerator the same and shrink the amount of time in the denominator. So
So so that's what that's what that's what productivity is. I think a way to you know, a looser way to measure things is quality and impact quality contribution impact those sorts of things and certainly for certain kinds of professions like but like being a writer writing more words is no measure of my contribution to the world.
Yes, if anyone's listening or watching right now, it's like Dan I just feel like I procrastinate a lot I overthink a lot. Yeah and I waste time.
What would be your response
to that? Okay, so let's Okay, so that's the product. So that's productivity thing that looks good. Let's talk about let's not let's talk about procrastination because we know a lot about procrastination. Okay. It's okay procrastination is not always bad. Okay, sometimes you're procrastinating for a reason because you haven't worked it out because you're still incubating an idea. Okay, so it's not inherently bad. It's not like all procrastination is bad. The second big idea here is that procrastination is basically in general the downside the dart the doubt.
Of procrastination is just an emotion regulation problem. Right? It has nothing to do with time. It means that you are unwilling to confront something and therefore are not completely something is so disturbing to you that you would rather actually sabotage yourself then confronted that in some ways. You're making a quasi rational decision that the pain of confronting man. Can I really write this is greater than actually not writing it in the first place. And so
We know this from a lot of research procrastination is an emotion regulation issue. And so what you have to think about is what is the emotion that you're avoiding? And is there a small step? Is there a way in some ways to trick yourself into either confronting it directly or to do something to just get yourself going and that in that the action ends up confronting the the emotion but a lot of times but again, I just in certain circumstances hard to say the fact that you're not ready to start is a signal
That it might be a very very positive signal it could mean that hey, it's I'm still incubating
this.
This Valentine's Day Fine Jewelry as unique as your love with the modern convenience of online shopping at Blue Nile.com at Blue now.com. You can celebrate all of life's special moments from creating the custom engagement ring of their dreams to gifting a once-in-a-lifetime piece all at prices. You won't find at a traditional Jeweler Blue Nile has phenomenal wedding jewelry and Fine Jewelry. They have so many options.
Options they have so many options. You can choose from 100,000 ethically sourced Gia graded diamonds in Endless varieties of shapes and sizes for the perfect engagement ring or choose from a vast selection of preset diamonds and gemstones all ready to ship the same day you order my wife rather and I often do a sort of homemade valentine's day. She usually cooks up a new recipe and I bring her her favorite flowers, but I decided to do something a bit more this year. I
Had this simple and beautiful blue topaz pendant to surprise her. I hope she doesn't listen to this and please no one tell her make your moment Sparkle with jewelry from Blue now.com on purpose with Jay Shady listeners get $50 off $500 this podcast exclusive is only good through Valentine's Day and includes engagement use code J. That's code. J+ every order is insured ships free and arrives in discrete packaging. That won't give away. What?
It's inside shop stress-free and find your forever. Peace. Go to Blue now.com today.
We all deserve to know what we're putting in our bodies. I'm sure you agree and unfortunately not all multivitamins make that easy. I know I've gotten caught in the Trap of buying a new product that seems cool only to see a gibberish of ingredients on the back of the bottle. But ritual isn't your typical multivitamin. I have loved taking it every day knowing it's clean vegan-friendly formula is made with key nutrients informs your body can actually use no one expected additives ritual.
The unique blend of vitamins right to your door for free. You can choose from a variety of supplements based on your specific needs virtual as option specified for women men teens and has a best-selling selection of prenatal vitamins. You can customize your subscription. If you have changes to your needs or schedule. I've been taking the ritual multivitamin specifically for men these last few months and love it's Unique and easy to read blend a vegan Omega-3s and vitamin D the latter has
Been really important for these dark winter months get key nutrients without the junk ritual is offering my listeners 10% off during your first three months visit ritual.com. /j to start your ritual today.
I think as soon as you start labeling and going on my procrastination is bad and this is not a good place to be in your right. You just every all of that is just avoiding the actual emotion, which is a signal or a sign or an alert that's kind of trying to get your attention and you just keep putting it away and I think one that leads to and this is something which I found fascinating book. It's like starting things. Like I feel like, you know knowing when to start a business or knowing when to start a project is like the highwomen
This thing in the world and you know, I'm sure you get asked this a million times but like tell us about the research behind starting something and and what you found was most critical there.
There's very rarely prospectively a perfect time to start something but there are ways to give ourselves a little bit of a difference like a lot of a little bit of a psychological Edge and this is the work of Katie Milkman Jason reefs and Hang Ten died. They did it at Penn University Pennsylvania. And they had this idea of what they call the fresh. It's called the
Fresh Start effect and a way to understand the Fresh Start effect is like this. It's certain dates certain days certain dates are what social psychologist called temporal landmarks temporal landmarks. That is they are they stand out in time the way of physical Landmark stands out in space. So again back to the journey metaphor, you're navigating your way. You're trying to find your way. Oh, there's a landmark. I know where I am. Oh there's that building. I have a sense of where I am. Temporal landmarks are navigational Tools in some ways, but certain
Landmarks have a peculiar psychological effect. What they do is essentially they operate its kind of a restart what they say is that on certain days that are fresh start days. You essentially relegate your previous bad self to the past and open up a fresh Ledger on your new self. All right, and so there are certain days that actually are more likely to start something and you're more likely to succeed while starting it. So what does this mean? Let's be concrete here. You want to start something you probably
A better up doing it on a Monday rather than on a Thursday. You probably better doing it on the day after your birthday rather than three days before your birthday. You're probably better doing it on on the like the first day of summer rather than three days before the first day of summer. Let's say your if it one is a religiously observant, you know, you know the day after or the day of a religious holiday rather than four days before that religious holiday and so you can in some ways use
Have that sense of where you are temporally and picked the right day to start something.
Yeah, I can so relate to that and my problem is I'll try start something on a Monday. I'll fail on Tuesday and then I wait till the next Monday. It's a start.
Well, okay, so that's that's that's a mixed bag. Yeah, it's a mixed bag. It depends on it depends on how deep the failure was on appearance on How Deep The failure was on Tuesday. Now, there's another strategy for all of this. Yeah. Please is which
On all of this. I mean it's reasonably well-known and in some ways it's interesting because I think it's analogous to our conversation about Simplicity and the opposite of Simplicity or complexity and complexity in that. I do think that in many cases. We have been seduced into the idea of moonshots and big hairy audacious goals. I think that they're important but I think that they're oversold in a way and what's under so just think about it. Just think of it as a
Singing issue. Okay. So the so so the big hairy audacious goals moonshots. I think they're overvalued and I think what's undervalued is small wins. And once again, there's a lot of there's a lot of evidence of that starting from Carl of like 30 years ago small wins are enormously important because what small wins do is that they small wins can overcome that procrastination problem small wins can then lead to other small wins and other small wins at Cascade into something into something bigger so a strategy
G for overcoming procrastination a strategy for many things is to go is to go for small wins. Let me give you an example of that. So so one strategy that I that I heard of I mean I just I called it this it's not originally for me just sort of you know out there I call it J5 n J5 M naught J wide and that stands for just five more.
Okay, and so if you don't feel like doing something you say okay, you know what I'm going to do man. Okay, so I'm so I'm doing some research right now. Okay these papers. Some of them are incredibly boring. Okay, you know what? I can't stand it. I want to quit. You know, what I'll just read five more pages. Just five more pages. I'll read that. Okay. Oh my God. I got a boatload of email here. I can't deal with it. I just want to go inside and have a drink. You know what I'm gonna just do five five more five more emails and we'll do that. You know what I'm tired of writing.
Okay, just five more sentences. That's it. And that you know that can get us going give you a small win. And what happens a lot of times is that just5more becomes just 10 more just 20 more something like something like that. I really like that one. That's
that's an awesome strategy. I think
that's that. It's very simple. I use it all the time. I'm not joking around I use it today. I use it today when I looked at my email file and I was like, oh god, I've already answered enough email to I'm like, okay just five more.
And you know what? I did. I just I did that and I got it done and I probably ended up answering 8 or something like that. Another one a very well-known technique. I use it. I have no shame in using it. You're probably familiar with your listeners are probably familiar with it is the is the Pomodoro Technique which is which is bit, you know pompadour is Italian for tomato. And so, you know, you set a timer I have one on my computer that I use in on very dark days instead of timer.
For whatever, I do it for 25 minutes and like I just can't bear this. Okay. I can't research this anymore. I can't read this anymore. I'm sick of writing. Okay, here's what we're going to do is 25 25 minute. I'm not gonna do anything else. I'm just going to do it for that 25 minutes and and that can yeah and and that can and I think let me let me extract from this as always a large theoretical lesson and it's this. All right that a lot of times in our understanding of what makes human beings tick we
Think that belief proceed action that you have to convince yourself. And then that is the impetus to act and in many cases more cases than we realize the error runs in the other direction that getting yourself to act can actually trigger the belief. Yes, and that's a very very important as a very very important lesson.
That's so true. And that's really it's kind of like we're like, I can't make my mind up right like even that saying is exactly in that belief where you just
Spending so much time trying to make your mind up and decide something and and what I love about what you just said is around that whole the small wins element of just I always feel like when you can get into a good Rhythm and pattern of keeping promises to yourself and keeping small commitments to yourself you start to trust yourself and when you start to trust yourself, you can then trust yourself with bigger trough. The problem is like you said is that we go for these moonshot goals and naturally we fail at them and there.
Ask ourselves and I feel like self-trust is like the big issue when it comes with time. Is that you like well do I even trust myself with this much time do I even trust myself to complete that and you're right about the small wins? Whether it's making your bed or just five more or you know, all of these principles that you're laying out like that just builds trust in
yourself. I'll give you something else that build trust with yourself that if that's related to this concept, which is again is research-based. It's built on the target.
I've written about this. I wrote about it in that book I've talked about it before is the work of Teresa amabile at Harvard Business School and she found that the single biggest day-to-day motivator on the job is making progress and meaningful work. Okay. So the days were making progress today's were motivated. We come back the next day feeling motivated but one of the challenges is that is that we never have a good we often don't have a good sense of how much progress we're making and so one of the so one of the things that I've done for this is now for like eight or nine years now is at the end of
Everyday, I have a progress what you know called a progress ritual and all I do is I just basically say what I what did you get done today? And I just list what I got done today and I keep a record of that and I have to say I almost never look at the list but it's the act of doing I mean seriously almost never look at the list, but it's the act of doing it. So I sit like this take a moment. It's a it's a it's a it's a ritual. All right, and you know, I don't have to tell you former monk the importance of rituals in.
In human understanding right? So it's a it's a ritual. It's a punctuation mark at the end of the day. What did you get done today, Dan? Okay. This is what I got done, but about Ava
what what I love that how do you do that for other people? So if you're leading teams if you've got a small team a big team a company, how do you kind of help people realize the progress they're making but yeah, there's something you can do for yourself. Yeah.
I mean you could do it you can do it. You can do a version of what I'm talking about for your for your tea.
I mean, what I would want to do is is I would want to get I would want to build that habit and others rather than have them rely on me for that. I would want to build that habit and others. So what you could do is you could have you could ask your team to send you that at the beginning not as a way to monitor them. But as a way to go the hard way to edges says as just as a way to build that habit and then eventually have them continue to have it without sending it to you. Yeah.
Absolutely. I'm gonna try I'm actually gonna try that out. I'm a
A hundred percent going to try this
what you get done today just write down the things you get done. I mean, I mean it's a very simple concept we always we often have a to-do list in the beginning of the day like haven't done less at the end of the day
and it's almost like game and find your mind right because you know that if you got three things done yesterday, you might want to get for done today. So you push a bit
further, right? I think a lot of times also when we're scrambling around we don't have a sense of what we've what we've accomplished. Sometimes it can be and sometimes it can be it can be affirming. So I
That many days where I feel like I haven't gotten anything done during the course of a day. I stopped and I do my little progress Rich. Well again, we're talking like Jake 30 seconds. Yeah, we shot not anything elaborate. I'm like, oh
Okay, I actually got more done today. And then I'm the days where didn't get much done. You're like, oh, come on, man. You gotta you gotta do a little bit better than this come back again.
You coaching yourself. Your coaching
is yeah. That's a good way to put it your in many ways. You are what you're doing is you're just giving yourself, you know, you're coaching if you think about it like a like a like a sport. It's like like like in track and field or in swimming or something like that your coaches there with a stopwatch thing here what your time today? Okay, or you know, here's how much you lifted today.
You have a sense of you know, are you making progress? You're not making progress?
Yeah one I love that one thing. I want my audience everyone who's listening right now watching I want you to be aware of is that literally down in this book breaks out everything from like productivity. I've done some of the tests with you guys before and I've shared the book when we talked about, you know, all of the different productivity times for different types of people based on what time you sleep and what time you wake up and that's breaks. I'm not gonna ask Dan all those questions because they're in the book and that's why I recommend the book I want.
Ask Dan stuff that isn't in the book or is extending the books and and part. I think one of the biggest questions I do get asked that that I do want to talk about his relationships because I think dating and getting married and knowing when to either pop the question or when you should expect the question like these are like these like some of the biggest challenges in the world for on a personal individual level for people and so tell me about some of the work that you found when it came to not just like when's the best time to get
Married, but it's almost like when did people when did or what did you find when people said they knew or they felt they'd found the right person.
Yeah, that one is that one is more inscrutable. I have to say I wrote about that only very very tentatively because I wasn't sure about the the research and that I mean it you know what it says is that
In general in America marriages are more likely to last if people get married after age 25 and before age, I think 34 somewhere around there. But again, that doesn't mean if you get married at age 35, you're going to get a divorce. You can hear it it 28 your I mean, it's just like there's a slight there's a slight effect there. There's some interesting effects on education so that one big effect is that
Especially in America today are people with more formal education are more likely to get married and stay married people with less formal education are less likely to get married in less likely to stay married if they are and there's also seems to be in effect, whatever your level of education on getting married after you complete your education rather than before but again, I don't think you take those large population insights to make a decision about whether you're going to spend the rest of your life with someone you love I can recommend a book that is an well one of the leading Scholars.
Of marriage really the social psychology of marriage is at Northwestern. His name is Eli Finkel. You wrote a very good book called The All or Nothing marriage about how marriage has about how marriage has changed a lot of what we know about healthy marriages. And also how marriage has changed in America over the last 200 years. It's a really really I it's a very very interesting
book Ola. Nothing married.
Yeah, they all anything marriage by Eli Eli Finkel which you know, there's a lot of really good research.
While good real a lot of good research in there and then there are some relationship advice in there to you know, among the most important things are you know, what do you attribute to someone's inherent personality and what do you attribute to circumstance? So if you're spat, so if your spouse snaps it you say you say, oh my God, my spouse is the biggest jerk there ever was or do you say oh my spouse is having a bad day and people who make the attribution that is circumstantial not surprisingly end up better off than people who say
say, you know a tribute to behavior to someone's inner jerkiness,
right? Yeah. I know it it would be fascinating wanted to look at things. Like I'm out of time couple spent together, but amount of time couple spent arguing on useful arguments maybe to yeah. Yeah,
there's other there's other there's other research out there. There's a guy I'm spacing out in this as a guy named gottman. I think it yeah John gottman. Yeah, he's done some research on marriage and you know, one of the nuts this is not surprising one of the biggest things that you see is I've I'm not
I'm characterizing it right is is not only not arguing per se but how people are you do yes, and it's a somebody has to do with the attribution the other thing one of the biggest signals I think in gottman to research is when people Express contempt for their partner not surprisingly. That's a marker of things gone. Awry.
Yeah. Yeah, you're right. He's he talks about learning how to fight is the number one skill needed in a relationship not knowing how to plan date.
Hi or how to you know, just how to communicate that is specifically fight and yeah really useful tell one thing. I wanna definitely dive into today is around this and you talk about in the book is about you know, when's the right time to end something because I think we're always fascinated about it and we talked about that. Like, when do you know when you should start something when the perfect under star? I think one of the things we're not very aware of when it comes to business work Lisa's whatever it may be is end.
What have you learned and not just in the book, but what have you learned from just your own life and experience on just like when you found is the right time to end something.
That's a harder call to make one of the things that I do know for sure though is it endings are much more important than I realized before I did this this research that endings have a profound effect on our behaviour and he's have a profound effect on how we remember entire experiences. So, you know, famously, you know, this fairly well-known, is that how an experience ends.
AIDS has a disproportionate effect on how people remember the entire experience and also even how we evaluate people's lives to so there's a famous piece of research on on where they give somebody a description of a fellow who for 29 years was a wonderful guy great CEO generous and whatnot. And then in a 30th year, he became a jerk and then unexpectedly died and they said, you know, they had people say how moral of
Life to that person leave and then they had a different set of group people evaluated a different character. This character was a total weasel and jerk for 29 years and its 30th year. He decided to become a good guy being more generous and then he suddenly died. And so what they what they found was that someone who was a good guy for 29 years and a jerk and his last year was rated as slightly less moral than someone who was a complete jerk for 29 years and having to be a good guy in his in his final year. So so so how something ends has a big effect.
Effect on us on something ends has a big effect on how you remember it has to the presence of ending has a big effect on a motivation. So when we see the end of something we end up kicking a little bit harder. So if so a way to a way to get yourself up the diamond certain kinds of procrastination situation is to impose an ending so and so and but and things and things matter and things matter a lot and I think that one of the things that we need to do in organizations and our family lives and whatnot is is Mark endings and
Tablets rituals around endings because that ends up being a deep source of meaning for people Mmm
Yeah, great aunts. I love love that example. That's super powerful and I think everyone needs to think about that because often it's like we put so much what you're saying and what I'm learning from this and you're so right and I'm on it's only hitting me now too is we put so much effort into starting something like so much effort like whether it's this or relationship or whatever it is, like we're excited and all these enthusiasm then when you break up or you end the business or
You reject someone or someone gets fired or whatever. It may be that process is always handled really poorly. Yeah, and and and you're so that's actually what people
remember absolutely right?
Yeah, and that's scary to think about when you think about that for a moment. But yeah, no, you know, it's absolutely brilliant and I hope we can continue to talk offline as well. I'm going to end with what we do which is to Rapid Fire round there super fast. You've attended the blanks for this one. So these are
just okay. Are you ready?
Time
should always
be on your mind but not obsessing your mind.
Okay, get on say Okay second one. Hey King
breaks taking breaks is one of the most powerful bang for the buck things you can do for your mental physical and professional well-being
number three every day. I must
every day. I must
contribute. Okay, I love that you excel in your career when
people excel in their careers when they contribute
Brilliant. Okay. These are your final five. These are our answers in one
sentence. All right, I'm sweating now. Well one way yeah, okay ready how to make it to the end here?
Yeah, absolutely. So the one lesson you feel helped you the most throughout your career
not caring what other people think about me
great aunts. I love that. What do you want to leave your kids with that? You didn't have growing up
a deep and unshakable work ethic. Nice. Okay,
if you could create a law that everyone in the world had to follow what would
it be?
Say please and thank
you ice great. Awesome. Okay, two more questions left fourth question. What is something that you know to be true that many people disagree with you on something that you're so sure about better time to be relying on Daniel tell you wrong
the world is less Fair than it seems
so you believe the world is less Fair than it seems and people disagree with you on that. Yeah. Well, that's a whole nother conversation.
Then when I say people I might be reflected my own.
Of biases here, but I think especially well-educated American
people sure great. It's good on say I mean, it's an intriguing Point. Okay Fifth and final question. What is the biggest lesson you've learned in the last 12 months.
It never works to go against the grain of who you
are. Wow, very profound.
Well, there's a tough questions, man.
But you wanted them pretty quickly and well, so
thank you. Yeah answer them quickly.
I loved it done. This is so brilliant. I really hope we get to meet in person everyone a wonderful and yeah, thank you so much for doing this. Everyone Dan's got a ton of great books to sell is human drive a whole new mind when going down into these books. They're absolutely incredible is an incredible story teller, I mean incredibly accomplished. I can't even stop but I'm just grateful to dance at this time to be with us today.
It's been a lot of fun.
Hey guys, this is Jay again. Just a few more quick things before you leave. I know we try to focus on the good everyday and I want to make that easier for you. Would you like to get a short email from me every week that gives you an extra dose of positivity weekly wisdom is my newsletter where I dropped down whatever is on my mind that I think May uplift your week. Basically little bits of goodness that are going to improve your well-being. The short newsletter is all about growth and sending positivity straight to your inbox, read it with a cup of tea forward it to a
And and let these words brighten your day to sign up. Just go to Jay Shetty dot me and drop your email in the pop-up. If you have trouble finding it just scroll to the very bottom of the page and you'll see the sign up. Thank you so much, and I hope you enjoy my weekly wisdom newsletter.
This podcast was produced by Dust Light Productions. Our executive producer from Dust Light is Misha Yusuf. Our senior producer is Juliana Bradley. Our associate producer is Jacqueline Castillo Valentino Rivera is our engineer. Our music is from Blue Dot sessions and special. Thanks to Rachel Garcia the dust like development and operations coordinator.
