Thinking About Thinking with Brené Brown and Adam Grant: Part One

0:00Every now and then, Brene Brown and Adam Grant and I like to get on a podcast and just talk. Fight, bicker, we do all those things. And so this is one of those times. And like every time, I learn something about myself and I learn something about the world. And because we went on for such a long time, this is part one of our conversation. This is a bit of optimism. I always love it when the three of us get together because it's always a fun time. But here's where I want to start. Oh, gosh. What do you mean, oh gosh? I'm just, I'm gearing up. I'm gearing up. No, this is not a difficult one. And there's no right answer.

0:47I'm genuinely interested in this because I'm going through this right now. And I want to get your input. I'm exhausted. I got a terrible night's sleep last night. Nothing bad. Just, you know, it happens now and then. My brain is very slow right now. Energy super low. Too late in the day to drink coffee, so I can't jack myself up. And like literally it went through my mind. I would like to reschedule this, but it takes us months to get our calendars to coordinate. So that wasn't an option. So I thought, you know what? I'm going to just step right into it. And I'm very curious how you manage energy in times when you have none.

1:29Well, Simon, there is another option. You could go to bed and then Brene and I will take over your podcast. and talk about you i mean i'm game what do they call it when you take over somebody's like instagram that thing a takeover oh yeah there you go that's how exhausted he is he said he said the word and he didn't even recognize it what do you call a takeover case in point

2:00so what do you do when that's your brain i think at this point in my life i listen to my body and if there's just stuff i have to get done i try to move through the day with a lot of grace for myself and then i try to remember when i'm when i'm ready to go and geared up and someone across from me is in that place i try to remember to have grace there too it's a very big struggle for me. I don't like that in myself sometimes. And so I don't like it in other people sometimes. And so I'm really, I'm practicing a lot of grace around that. And I really try to listen to my body more than I ever have in my life.

2:37So I'll get home from what I have to do and I'll get in bed. So do you have a history of not listening to your body? Oh yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. I realized, wow, I grew up believing that the only good a body does is to move your head around. It just gets your brain, it just gets your brain to where it needs to be to do your work. I think I'm trying to have a lot more grace for exhaustion in myself and other people. Adam? Well, I think my surprisingly recent realization, I should have known this a lot earlier, but I think I always thought, well, I need energy to take action. and I've realized that the causal arrow travels just as strongly in the other direction.

3:31The taking action creates energy. So sometimes for me, it's as simple as I'm kind of dragging. I know I always get a bit of a charge after a workout. What's going to happen if I do 10 push ups? Is that enough to simulate the adrenaline of being on stage? Oh, that's a good one. All right. So let's pause, Simon, drop and give us 10. Yeah, I can't because I had surgery and I can't do push-ups. All right, can you do one-arm jumping jacks? I can do jumping jacks. Yeah, I'll be right back. I'm going to just do 10 jumping jacks. Standby. I'm going to be over here doing jumping jacks. You'll hear that.

4:03Oh, my God. He's really doing them, y 'all. I'm doing jumping jacks. Okay. All right. Watch your form. Oh, God, now I'm exhausted. So, okay, let's see how that goes. I'm realizing one of the things, there's two things I just learned in real time here that I think I'm going to adopt again. One is I raised it at the beginning, not in the middle. Because I think sometimes we drag, we get insecure, we offer shitty answers, brains not working. We say, sorry, I got a bad night's sleep. And I kind of like the idea of starting a meeting and saying, hey, I'm all in. I'm going to give you everything I've got.

4:44Just please, to your point, Brené, just asking for just a little grace today, bad night's sleep. Don't have to worry about me. Let's have the meeting. I think I like that. And I think the idea of asking for help, which is I'm not sure I can carry my full weight today. Can you help carry some of the weight on my back? Which is kind of what we did here. and it was spontaneous. And Adam, I think your thing of doing a little thing, I think all of these and having a little grace, this is very helpful. Thank you. I feeling quite a bit more energized as a result. And I didn't miss the fact that you said you just had surgery, which will keep you from the planks or pushups.

5:29But I think it's very interesting. I would have never thought about this if you would not have started there. So it's an interesting place to start. When I started doing a lot of kind of consulting and advising with leadership groups during COVID, I told them that we were starting every meeting in our organization with a two word check in. And it was a very helpful way to see people as humans first during a really hard time. And I think one of the things I've grown very accustomed to, and I didn't even think about how much I took it for granted until right this second, is that even when we have like really external meetings with lawyers who hate this question, we'll all say, can we start with the two word check in?

6:15And so it's not surprising for me ever if I hear someone on my team say anxious and really tired or, you know, vacation brain are my two words. We had a check in yesterday that was one of my favorites because CEO organization said duct tape and glitter. Like I knew exactly like we're holding it together, but barely. So I think those check ins in the beginning are kind of grace generators. You know, it's such a good strategy because what it allows for is it creates a safe space for, and especially the person who's leading the meeting, because they have to lead by example, right? Yeah. Especially if they go first.

6:58It allows everyone to say how they actually feel. You can't get away with fine, the biggest thing everybody tells. You can't get away with it. Starting with a quick round the room check-in, you get to say, off my game, a little tired. Yeah. Or if you're the lawyer, time and money.

7:19The first time I did it with lawyers, the first check-in was two words, what's happening? Yeah. Is that technically three words? Did they charge of the contraction? Yeah, I'm sure. Only if it was material. But I mean, but I have to believe, and I think, I remember we were really good at this during COVID. And I think the practice has faltered. COVID was a slightly more human time. People welcomed it. You know, lawyers even. For sure. And I think for me, this is what I tell leaders all the time. They're scared to actually know often what people are feeling because they don't know what to do with it.

8:01And so if Adam says anxious and overwhelmed, then I just say, thanks. I appreciate you sharing that. That's a brave thing to share. Simon, what's two words for you? And I just keep going. But then after the meeting, it gives me an opportunity to say, hey, can we jump on Zoom for a second? I just wanted to check in about your check-in. Yeah. How are you? And the leader has no responsibility to fix it in the meeting, just to hold space for it, just to allow it. And yeah, and then my favorite follow-up question, which I think resonates with a lot of folks that we work with, is when I talk to Adam, what I would ask is, what does support for me look like today?

8:42Such a great question. You know, it's, I'm just reflecting on a meeting I was in a while back when the leader looked at somebody who looked a little bit down and said, you know, you just, you look really mad or upset and it's kind of bumming me out. Oh my gosh. Oh no. Did you, you were in the meeting? I was in the meeting. And play it out. Well, okay. So the leader happens to be an emotional intelligence expert.

9:17No joke. No joke. But, but forgot that only one facet of emotional intelligence involves reading other people's facial expressions. Then there's a whole set of questions about what's an appropriate and helpful way to respond to those. And just obviously it was, it was kind of an all about me reaction. But so what happened next was the person got defensive. And he said, no, I'm not I'm not angry, but I am now. Yeah, that was just my resting face. And it completely derailed the meeting. Oh, I love that. I mean, I hate that it was derailed, but that I appreciate the irony so so so much. But it also raises this question of self awareness.

9:58I mean, that's it. You know, and I'm on this. Lately, I've started sort of thinking about self-awareness, that self-awareness is actually, I don't know if I would call it a byproduct or result or it comes second, that it's hard to practice self-awareness without situational awareness. That self-awareness comes as a result of situational awareness, right? Because it's very, for example, it's very hard to be aware that I talk too much in meetings, right? The only way I'm going to learn that level of self-awareness that I keep interrupting everybody is by watching the room that I keep seeing people go, like, and I'm like, ah, shit, I'm doing all the talking.

10:43Right. So it's very hard to look internally because none of us are objective about ourselves, but it is much easier to look at people and read a room. To your point, Adam, this person, the emotional intelligence expert may have awareness of their own emotional intelligence, but terrible at reading a room, which resulted in lack of self-awareness. This reminds me immediately of, have you all ever gone through the reflected best self exercise? We should actually try this for a future podcast. It's one of my favorite exercises. It's one of the rare ones that I love as much with undergrads as I do with CEOs.

11:24It was created by Laura Morgan Roberts and Jane Dutton and their colleagues. And it was sort of a, in some ways, it was an alternative to the Gallup approach of assuming that people know what their strengths are and saying, well, the real way to find out what you're great at is to look at yourself through the eyes of others who know you well. And so they created this exercise where they have you reach out to 15 to 20 people, and they ask you to pick some colleagues professionally, some family members, some friends and collect stories from each one of them about a time when you were at your best.

11:57And then all these wonderful stories about you come in, but you have some work to do. You have to create a portrait of the common themes and patterns across them. And that's your reflected best self-portrait. It's a portrait of your strengths, kind of looking in a mirror. And what's so interesting about it is, in my experience doing it, people can't anticipate what their strengths are in other people's eyes. And so it turns out we have positive blind spots, not just negative ones, which is great. But also so much of then the work that comes after it is not just knowing your strengths and using them more.

12:32It's, Simon, exactly your point. It's situational awareness to say, okay, I have an awareness of now, I have this capacity to do something, but I need to know when it's relevant and when it's not. How many times have you both interacted with leaders who are known for charisma? And then they dominate the conversation or they show up unprepared and it becomes a crutch. And they have self-awareness, but no situation awareness to say, well, maybe actually this is a moment when I need to dial down my charisma and be a great listener. And I just I love the idea of suggesting that self-awareness is is useless and maybe even counterproductive without situation awareness.

13:09Yeah. Maybe even inaccurate. it. Yeah, I, you know what I'm thinking, I'll be so curious to know what y 'all think about this, because I've just, I've been spending a ton of time collecting data for this kind of mental toughness thing I'm trying to understand. Because I've been studying Denning-Kruger a lot, this whole idea that this kind of cognitive bias, that people who have deep mastery rate themselves lower on something and people who are not very good at things think they're much better. Just for the people listening, imagine, you know, imagine that you've been taking guitar lessons for six weeks and you hear an amazing riff from, you know, slash and you're like, oh man, I can totally play that versus someone who's been playing for five years and listens to the riff and says, wow, there's six chord changes here.

13:56This is tough. I don't know that I would do it well in the beginning. So you have to have some set of knowledge, some level of knowledge to really be good at guessing how good you are at something. Is that a fair way to describe it? Do y 'all think? I just did a podcast with David Dunning where he corrected my description of the Dunning-Kruger effect, which you would hope. I think what he was stressing was the famous finding is that the unskilled are unaware of how unskilled they are. But experts can be overconfident or underconfident, And it depends on sort of how you measure their accuracy and what the domain is.

14:37Oh, there's some nuance there. That's kind of interesting. There's much more nuance than I think the meme. And there's a gender component. Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, you know. She says with great confidence. I do. I do. I do say with great confidence. What I think is interesting is guess what the number one – I'm going to come back to this idea. of situ awareness, but guess what the number one predictor variable is for mental toughness when I'm interviewing coaches, scouts, fighter pilot trainers. I mean, people who are in kind of middle, I don't think mental toughness is what we think it is, first of all, but guess what they, guess what they think the predictor is?

15:26What they look for? Yeah, like one of the first things that they look for, because actually the majority of people who need people to have some level of mental toughness don't believe they can grow it in people. Yeah. Because of this one predictor variable. If I had to guess, I would say some form of humility. It's humility. so what i think is interesting is when i was looking at dunning kruger and some of the studies that kind of overlay that theory on top of their findings it's very quick to say the solution to not overestimating your ability is humility but i think a more accurate i'm wondering i'm curious if a more accurate antidote to overestimation or underestimation is a capacity for metacognition.

16:18Define. I can think about my own thinking. Okay. I can actually like, I can be thinking about something and almost pull up and put a critical eye on how I'm thinking about something. And the reason I bring this up is I'm starting to believe that self-awareness, anticipatory awareness and situational awareness belong in a pot of metacognition it's the ability to almost think about the thinking think about the thinking i don't know what do y 'all think i love that the the humility thing makes total sense to me for a mental toughness because Because not only can I not do this alone, is the bedfellow of I'll be there for them.

17:10Yes. Those things go together, right? I don't think you can have one without the other. And the people who I find the most mentally tough, the people I know who by any definition, they are tough. They are more afraid of letting down the comrades than they are of dying. and they are not afraid to ask for help. And I think it is the social animal in us that those who recognize that the human species did not survive as a lone hunter, a lone gatherer, a lone liver, a loner, we're not great white sharks. We're not built for that. I think those that have that kind of awareness, they are good examples of human beings, which is why they have toughness.

17:58who's the loneliness researcher who sadly recently died from chicago john cassiope cassiope he used to say something like the first time i heard i saw your face simon something like as a member of the social species yeah success is not the ability to go alone success is measured by being someone on who others can depend. Oof, so good. Adam, when you did that exercise of asking people, what did you learn about yourself? So the first time I did it, I was in my first year of grad school. So I was 21. and there was a part of me that rejected the exercise because it started with the premise of going to other people and saying, tell me how great I am.

18:56Yeah. Now, of course, behind that was the goal of trying to learn and use my strengths more often and more effectively, but it just wasn't the way that I wanted to approach some of the people who mattered to me. Yeah. And so I actually flipped it. And I went to the people who I would have asked. And instead, I wrote them each a story about a time when they were at their best. And when I learned about that... This was the reflection part. Yes. Yes, exactly. No. But it was actually... I spent a full week. I did this over the holiday break. And I wrote a few people every day and told them each a story about a time when I really appreciated a way that they stood out or showed up.

19:40and I was blown away by how surprised people were to hear that I appreciated them in general, but like how surprised they were at the specificity of the story, that the thing that mattered to me, they didn't even remember or they sort of took it for granted as like almost like, yeah, I hold the door for people. Like it was just sort of trivial. And I guess what reversing it taught me was we're incredibly bad at expressing appreciation for the people who matter to us. Okay. Love that you did that. Now the second time you did it, what did you learn about yourself? Yeah, because what I'm getting over here is my refusal to be vulnerable barometers going off around changing it around.

20:28I recognize this is as uncomfortable as people telling, giving speeches about you at a big birthday or your wedding. And exactly. But I avoided that, you know, which I don't disagree with. It's awful. But so the second time did you follow the rules? Yes, I'll tell you the second time, which is one of the things I learned about my strengths in action was a lot of people commented on my memory. And it was never something I'd given any thought. I just assumed that like the way that, you know, facts and sources stick in my brain, they stick in everyone's. And yeah, no, I now know this because I heard it a lot of times.

21:08But by the way, Adam, whenever I quote a study, I talk about the department of they because they all the study. You know, Cynic 2024 did that very effectively at a recent conference. But I think –

21:27And the numbers are about this, but you'll get the point. Yes, you will. A point was made. And it was actually really clarifying for me though because it led me to say, okay, that means that one way I'm actually contributing to people when I share knowledge is I'm giving them a source they can look up. right and i'm i'm giving them some information they can follow the trail of and so i want to be much more intentional about how i do that and how i use that to try to help other people and the the concrete i think the concrete effect it had on me was i had to go and teach my first my first groups of mba students and i was really worried about building a relationship with them when i was basically their age and it's hard yeah and it was it was a really short class And so I said, okay, well, I'm going to take that memory skill and I'm going to remember, I'm going to memorize all their names and come into the first day of class already knowing something about them.

22:25And it completely changed the dynamic of our interaction. You know, they were kind of surprised and it was a way, it was a gesture for me to say, look, I might be really nervous in front of you all. I might not really be qualified to be here, but I put in a lot of effort to get to know you. and I want to keep building that relationship. And I never would have done that if I hadn't gotten this strength feedback. How did it make you feel when you asked 15 people to tell you something about yourself and they came back with you have a great memory? Well, I mean, after I got over the awkwardness of asking them for the feedback.

23:01I also, by the way, I managed that one by asking them also to tell me about a time when I was at my worst, which very few people were willing to do. You were just not having it, are you? No, no. But, you know, I have to say, like, I have to say that the memory piece does not surprise me. It probably doesn't surprise Simon at all. I would not categorize it like that, nor would I categorize how what you took from it and applied to your first MBA course. What I would say is under memory, because you can you could leverage memory for a lot of different stuff. You could go in and say, hey, I'm going to do this MBA class and I'm going to razzle dazzle them with a lot of memorized facts.

23:45But I don't think it's for me. I don't know that it's memory as much as it is deep thoughtfulness. You are not going to take credit for work that's not yours. Yes, yes, yes. You are always going to attribute where things belong. Yeah. And so I think if it was just memory, I think that's probably an easy handle to grab because that's how it expresses itself. But I experienced you, especially as a scholar, as a deeply thoughtful person around other people's work and the application of other people's work. Thank you. And I'm going to make you more. I'm trying really hard just to say thank you. Yes.

24:26That's great. That's correct. Say thank you. And I'm going to double down on what Brene said. I said, to come back to you with a skill doesn't help us understand who you are. Richard Nixon had a great memory, right? Apparently his recall was astonishing. And I think what Brene said, which is it's not your skill of memory. It's the humility. It's the rigor. And it's also the ethics. That was the thing. Highly ethical. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the thing I wanted to say. Which is you are unbelievably ethical in your approach to your work. because you just think about the number of people that we work with that steal shit, hedge shit, bury shit.

25:08And some of it is blatantly unethical. Some of it's a borderline unethical. And some of it they get away with unless you're in the know. You are none of those things. Thank you. This is getting more and more uncomfortable. I know, but that's - Can it be over now? Which is why you broke the rules in the first place. I did. I think it's – so the skill you have is memory. The character you have is highly ethical, highly rigorous, and highly generous and thoughtful. Yeah. You're just thoughtful. Because I think a lot of people who appropriate people's work, it's thoughtlessness. Or insecure. Yeah.

25:43But when it's not intentional, I think it's like it doesn't really matter. And you know it matters because that's what you spend hours and weeks and years doing. So, yeah. I'm with Simon. I second you, Simon. Well, thank you. But I'm torn between two reactions here. One is let's not make this about me and let's change the channel. This is my podcast. I can make it about whatever I want. Okay. Well, Simon. Today's episode is about Adam Grant. Renee, what do you think about Adam Grant? I'm supporting Simon because he asked for some grace. So whatever he wants to do is where I'm going. All right.

26:25Here you go. I'm willing to accept that. I will say then that, you know, if you insist on turning the spotlight on me, like I do want it to be balanced. Right. I don't. And now it's time for a commercial break. No, no, no. Let me. Hi, everyone. Wondering how to get the best ROI from your company. I hate you both. Let me introduce you to. You're the worst adopted siblings I've ever had. Worst. I look Phineas, Ferb, look, Phineas, Ferb wants to have his time with you. And as Candace, I'm just saying you worry about you worry about the time space continuum. And I'll just. Yeah, I'm looking forward to coming on your podcast, Adam, and you can make it about whatever you want.

27:08Fair. But can I? No, I want to react. No, no, I'm changing the channel. Moving on. Got other things to talk about. Look, I got a whole agenda. I got a whole agenda here. List of questions right here. I was just about to energize you. Really disappointing. Oh, I'm energized.