575 - An Alternative to Habits for Creative Brains with ADHD Neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff

0:00Do you hate habits? Trying to have habits, new habits. It's almost like a trigger word for me. I'm like, start a new habit. I feel that way. Or do you hate yourself because you're so bad at having good habits? If that's you, this episode is for you because today on the show, we have someone who has completely revolutionized the way that I think about changing behaviors, doing new things, moving towards a life that I want that's more interesting to me, that goes beyond goal setting or habit creation. and it works so much better for my nonlinear creative brain. So it might just work for you. Her name is Anne-Laure LeCoumpf.

0:49She wrote the book, Tiny Experiments. We are going to have a doozy of a conversation on our hands today. This was a blast. Honestly, these shifts that we talk about have made a big difference in my creative life, but also my everyday life. They have made me more excited about my own life and less frustrated. And so I can't wait to get to this. She is a neuroscientist in the fields of psychology and neuroscience. This is just a good episode. You're going to like it. She's great and such a brilliant thinker. And I think your creative brains are just going to really, really soak this up. I'll be back at the end with our creative call to adventure.

1:35It's called Create a Pact. We're going to create a pact. I promise that it's not culty. It's a totally different thing. We're going to talk about it in this episode, and then I'll be back to talk about how you can make one of these to help experiment with your creativity in life in a way that is life giving instead of soul crushing. I'll be back with that. But for now, enjoy this chat that I had with Anne-Laure LeCoumpf. On the creative journey, it's easy to get lost, but don't worry, you'll lift off. Sometimes you just need a creative pep talk

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3:46I've forgotten how to talk. Do you ever feel like that while you're trying to have a conversation? Because I do. I work alone in my studio a lot. And with the remote work and global stuff in recent years, it just feels like conversation has become harder than it ever has before. And that seems like something that a lot of people are going through. That's what made me check out the class, The Conversation Advantage with Harvard professor, Dr. Allison Wood Brooks on Masterclass. Tons of helpful ideas in there. But the most powerful shift for me was when she said that when you get nervous before a social outing or a presentation, it's natural to try and fight that and force yourself to calm down, which rarely works.

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5:07The first thing I was going to ask you about was you have a PhD in psychology and neuroscience, right? Yes, I do. Now that doesn't always align with people that got kicked out of school. So that feels kind of surprising to me. Could you tell us a little bit about how that ended up happening? How are these both true?

5:31Anne-Laure Le Cunff:Yes, I actually had a very nonlinear career. When I did my PhD in psychology and neuroscience, I was the oldest student in the entire cohort because that's not where I started. So I did get kicked out of school as a kid when I was 13. And then I did studies that were a little bit more in business and creativity. I started my career at Google and I absolutely loved it, but it felt a bit too rigid for my way of thinking and working. I only started the psychology and neuroscience research in my late 20s. And by this time, I went back to university not because I wanted to get a degree, but because I was genuinely excited to explore and learn.

6:26Anne-Laure Le Cunff:That means that I did my entire PhD degree without caring about any of the outcomes that you normally care about as an academic. and I really just focused on having fun. And I was very lucky to, which is important, I think, in any work environment. I was very lucky to have a supervisor who gave me a lot of freedom. So she cared about the research output. She cared about making sure that I was applying critical thinking, that I was using the right neuroscientific techniques. But whether I arrived in the lab at 9 a.m. or 12 p.m. and I left at 1 p.m. or 10 p.m. and whether my notes were nice and tidy or they were completely messy, she didn't care at all.

7:19Anne-Laure Le Cunff:So I would say it's a combination of having the privilege of being able to go back and study a little bit later in life where you know yourself a little bit better and you know what you want. And you also have the ability to ask for what you want. And in this case, also having an amazing manager. I love that. And it makes sense, like the difference between somebody who is your boss or manager or mentor who understands your strengths and weaknesses and what really matters. It can make all the difference. But I love what you said, because this is something I'm always telling students. It took me my three years in college.

7:56I went to college in the UK, actually. And my three years, it took me until maybe the halfway through to realize like, oh, I just need to make this what I want it to be. And the grades aren't really important. I want to pass, but I want to make every project what I need it to be to go where I'm trying to go. Is that kind of what you're saying? Like you were just, you were just doing, you were taking that space and using it the way that you wanted to use it.

8:21Anne-Laure Le Cunff:Absolutely. But I, again, want to acknowledge the privilege of being able to do this because I started my PhD. I had already worked at Google. I had already received many more traditional accolades. I also was making my own money writing online, doing consulting. And so I didn't need to compete with all of the PhD students and build the most impressive academic CV possible. And so that's also why it's much harder for someone who is at the beginning of their career to do what I did because they might still be in that very linear career path where success is still measured based on those traditional metrics.

9:07Yeah, sure. You know, I talk to creative people on the show. A lot of people that listen to the show are neurodivergent or ADHD. And it's a delicate balance. I've got a almost 18 year old who is ADHD and we're trying to navigate this tightrope because when I was 17 or 18, I was watching my mom who I believe is ADHD. I believe that's where I got it. I noticed like she's only able to show up long-term, like in a significant, meaningful way in things that match her interests and curiosity and obsessions and all that kind of stuff. And so as we're coaching my daughter, we're trying to find that tightrope because it is a privilege, obviously, to be able to do the things that you want to do.

9:52But at the same time, if you're ADHD, it's also kind of do or die because you're not really going to show up in a meaningful way long term on something that you absolutely have no interest in. Right. So I how do you do you still think about that balance? Because now that you're out of school and you're doing studies and you're doing all that stuff, how do you strike that balance of those things?

10:15Anne-Laure Le Cunff:Yeah, absolutely. And this is the topic of my current research, which is still very early and I'm still collecting data. But we do see that there is an association between ADHD and curiosity and in particular with hyperactivity, impulsivity and curiosity. And so this is a very real experience that people have where they need to feel curious about their work in order to really commit to it and stick with it over the long term. I would say in terms of finding that balance that we are very lucky to live in an era where you can actually design all sorts of weird, really weird careers now. You can work at the intersection of two really nerdy topics where you might be the only person on earth who has that very particular kind of knowledge.

11:10Anne-Laure Le Cunff:You can work from anywhere. You can have two different jobs. And this is kind of what I do at the moment. I'm technically employed at King's College London, which is a university. And I'm also running my own business. This would have been really difficult to do even 20 years ago. But right now I can. And so I would say that instead of trying to find a perfect balance where we control our curiosity and we try to apply it to things that make sense in a very linear sense of the term, when we design traditional careers, to think outside the box and to ask yourself, what am I actually curious about?

11:50Anne-Laure Le Cunff:Start from there. Don't apply any limitations yet. what am I curious about? What is something where if nobody was watching, if traditional markers of success were out of the equation, what would be something I would be really excited to wake up in the morning and explore, keep on exploring on my own? Let's start with that. Based on that, what kind of career can I start experimenting with that would allow me to explore this curiosity? I absolutely love that. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes. I don't know a lot about Rick Rubin, but I love this quote. And he said, the audience comes last.

12:29And what I love about that is it's a really like non-dual way of thinking about it. It's non-binary. It's not just listen to yourself. It's not just listen to the audience. It's an order. It's a process. It's saying the audience comes last. They're part of the equation. And same goes for like making money and figuring out the career, all of that. It's important, but don't start there. And I try to do the same thing with this podcast. I've been doing it for 10 years because I always start with what I'm curious about. And then I think, does this apply to creative people? Does it apply to creative careers?

13:03And then I try to figure out how, and maybe it doesn't. And I'm like, okay, this isn't part of the podcast, but a lot of times it does. So I like that. Like, don't try to push yourself into wanting the right things, try to tap into what comes natural and then see, is there something I could do with that?

13:19Anne-Laure Le Cunff:Yeah. And when you optimize for learning, when the only outcome is to explore something new and figure out whether you enjoy it or if there's something interesting that you can dig deeper into, what's great is that there really isn't any possible failure. I've noticed this with my newsletter. I write a weekly newsletter. That's my favorite creative outlet. I love sitting down every week and picking a question I want to explore, make myself coffee, write the newsletter and send it. What's really interesting is that some weeks I will send a newsletter and I receive dozens and dozens of emails from people saying, wow, this is amazing.

13:58Anne-Laure Le Cunff:Thank you so much for taking the time to research this topic. Love it. I've shared it with my team other times. And I'm equally interested in the topic. I absolutely love it. I think people will love it. And it's crickets. Nobody replies. Nobody cares. And so it seems like I'm the only person who cares about this question. What's really nice is that it almost doesn't matter because I still got to spend a few hours engaged in this topic and exploring it and reading about it. And if in the end, I'm the only one who cares, well, now I know I will probably not write about it again in another newsletter, but it doesn't, it's great.

14:35Anne-Laure Le Cunff:I still learned. And so I win. I think that that is a perfect mirror to something I try to do in my own work. I'm not a standup comedian, but I've learned a lot from standup comedians. And one of the things they do is they don't go on stage and say, what should I talk about? What's funny? Maybe, you know, improv does that, whatever, but that's not where they start. Usually they start with, here's a list of things that seem funny to me. And I'm going to compare that to what gets laughs and what people think is funny and like try to find that sweet spot. I think that having a newsletter, having a podcast, that's like a great way to constantly test those tastes that you have and see where that middle ground is.

15:16So we've been touching on nonlinear thinking a little bit. I'm going to jump to something I usually save towards the end, but I thought for you that I would just go straight into it. It's the ADHD round. It's nonlinear questions. It's just a bunch of stuff that I'm curious about in terms of your work. So I think you'll navigate it just fine. The first thing I wanted to ask you about is how do we reclaim nonlinear paths? Because everything that we are raised in in our culture is about kind of a linear path. And even when I find myself getting interested in taking a route that maybe doesn't make sense initially, I can even feel kind of like shame or guilt, like, oh, no, I'm wasting time.

16:07How do you allow yourself to take those nonlinear paths?

16:14Anne-Laure Le Cunff:it requires a lot of experimentation there's no other way around it but when you want to design a non-linear path what you need to do is that while you're still working on a is really to allow yourself to have a little peek at b at c at d and kind of start checking what could be a potential other path that you might want or next step in your path that you might want to explore You might even want to explore two different options at the same time. That's completely OK. In a linear path, people will tell you one thing at a time. Just stay focused. When you're on a nonlinear path, it's really OK to say, you know what?

16:50Anne-Laure Le Cunff:I want to spend 60 percent of my time on writing and I want to spend another 20 percent of my time on community work. And then the rest of the time I'm going to keep free for hobbies and side projects that don't really need to be productive or do anything. It's just for me to enjoy myself and be creative. You can completely do that. And allowing yourself to first drop projects when you feel like they're not they're no longer interesting to you. And and also start new ones and allow others to grow bigger, become smaller. So it's a much more emergent, adaptive way to look at your career path than the linear one that assumes that in order to be successful, you need to have a very clear vision, a clear plan and just execute on it.

17:41I love that. And I see this, I feel like you told me if this feels right to you. I feel like I see this when I'm coming up with ideas for an illustration. If I go into it and I'm like, okay, I've got to have five ideas and I've got to do the first one, then the second one, then the third one. And then it's very rigid and I get stuck. But instead, if I'm like, OK, I'm just going to like go and see where it takes me. I'll be working on the first idea. My God, it kind of reminds me of that and that and that. Maybe I even come back to the first idea with other pieces that I have. But if I allow myself to kind of jump around, that's where it gets really interesting and I get really kind of flowy with it.

18:22Anne-Laure Le Cunff:Yes, absolutely. I love that. And this is also why I have some people who've told me, oh, it must be really overwhelming that you write the newsletter and you write research papers and you also write books. And actually, not at all, because they first they feed into each other and they activate different modes of thinking. And sometimes I'll be writing a newsletter and I'll be looking at an idea from a slightly different angle for that format. And it will unlock something creatively for me for a chapter in the book. And so really, again, allowing myself the same way you do with your illustrations to work on something and then stop for a second, go and do something else and then come back to it.

19:06Anne-Laure Le Cunff:And forming all of those nonlinear connections between your creative projects is a really good way to make progress if you're a nonlinear thinker. Mm-hmm. And it also reminds me of something. I've tried to see my creative journey as like a movie where I've been told there's a twist coming. And so when there's a twist coming, I'm looking at everything. I'm like, oh, I'm very open to all these different things. because when you know there's a twist in a movie, it's easier to guess it because you're like looking for things and all types of creativity are a twist. So you always have a twist coming if you're making creative work.

19:47So I try to stay open to that. Does that also kind of mirror what you're talking about?

19:51Anne-Laure Le Cunff:It's such a good way to put it. Yes, I haven't really used this metaphor for myself. I mean, I've used this metaphor actually in my book, but thinking about the career path and life path, but you're right at a more micro level, That's also the case in creative projects. I love that.

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21:39I don't know if it's just me or not, but couches and chairs in my house end up taking on a kind of personality and they feel kind of like part of the family, which is weird, I know, but I bet you kind of know what I mean. I have this yellow satin love seat that we've had for probably like 10 years and we've been through so much together. It refreshed our living room vibe back in the day and now it's been in a few different rooms. It's in my home studio now. It's where my dog comes and sits as my studio pet and I just love that couch. I mean, not more than my dog, but I do love that couch and it's been easy to move.

22:14It's held up for years and it still looks really cool. I have had a handful of items like this from Wayfair. Wayfair helps you create a home that stands up to real life With quality products, great value, and trusted reviews, Wayfair verified products are hand-vetted by product specialists using a 10-point quality inspection. Transform your space with pieces that hold up to real life. Join Wayfair Rewards today and get 5 % back on every purchase. Head to Wayfair.com or shop the Wayfair app for all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. So I wanted to talk to you about habits because my own relationship to habits is so bizarre and weird.

23:00I know having different consistencies have been a big deal to me, but getting myself to be any kind of consistent is just so ridiculous. I can never understand it. I've read tons of habit books and all kinds of stuff like that. And I know the listeners struggle with this sort of thing, too, because a lot of the conventional wisdom just doesn't work for a lot of creative brains. And so instead of habits, you talk more about packs and tiny experiments. Could you tell us a little bit about how a pact works?

23:31Anne-Laure Le Cunff:Yes. So a pact is a commitment to curiosity for a set period of time. The format of a pact is an action that you're going to test for a specific duration. For example, I will meditate for 10 minutes every morning for 10 days. I will doodle one drawing every day for one week. I will action for duration. the difference between a pact and a habit is that a pact has a duration whereas a habit which is absolutely crazy to me it's something you commit to for the rest of your life even though sometimes you've never tried it before so you can actually use those kinds of tiny experiments those packs to test potential habits and see what works for you and what doesn't we know that in most research studies, the effects that you see, they kind of follow more of a bell curve.

24:27Anne-Laure Le Cunff:So when you get a result that says most people need X number hours of sleep, it actually means that the vast majority of people in that sample were doing great with that amount of sleep. But they are outliers and you might be one of those. So I would really use any kind of evidence that you read about or when your friends tell you, oh, I tried this journaling method or I tried this creative framework or whatever that is as inspiration for experimentation. Instead of trying to copy and paste the habits of other people, take that as evidence that maybe this could work for you. Then design a tiny experiment by choosing a pact, this commitment to curiosity where you say, I will try this action for this duration.

25:15Anne-Laure Le Cunff:And very importantly, withholding judgment until you're done collecting your own data. So if you say I will doodle every day for a week, for example, you will not judge your doodles or the experience or anything until you're done, until the end of the week. Only at the end of the week, you can look back and ask yourself, how did that feel? Did I like it? Do I want to keep going? Do I want to change anything? I've been doing this in my creative work my whole career, the past 15, 20 years, in terms of projects, personal projects. They're very much like experiments. And the way that you talk about it has helped me even rethink that a bit in a way that I feel like is more constructive.