Episode 531: Leslie John: Oversharing as a Competitive Advantage in Leadership and Negotiation

13:23Leslie John:I'm like, this is, please, I want to leave. There was like awkward laughter. And then someone got me a drink. Unfortunately, it was non-alcoholic, but we got through it. But, and then they hired me. And, you know, the colleague, and he became a super close, dear friend of mine. He just retired. And he would love, whenever there were new candidates, he would love telling the story. He's like, you know, when she insulted me like that, we thought, she'll fit in. She'll fit right in here. She's a jerk too. Like she can insult it.

13:54Jennifer Cohen:That's hilarious. Well, that's also to your point, when you're like, you never really know how people are going to react to how you reveal what you reveal. And I guess to your, like, I guess you would think that that would have had like a negative response and he actually like, like liked it and thought it was funny and it made you guys kind of bond.

14:14Leslie John:I mean, in the moment, I think he was like jarred and maybe a little offended because it's a lot. But then it was like, oh my God, this was hilarious.

14:22Jennifer Cohen:But also you did have social capital with the other guy who brought you in. I did.

14:25Leslie John:So, so that was, that was a good extenuating circumstance too. Exactly. But yeah, so episodes like that, I was reflecting a lot and I thought, and that's part of it too, that if you never experiment, the answer isn't like say jerky things to people, but if you don't experiment saying the thing, then you can't kind of falsify the overblown fears you have of TMI.

14:49Jennifer Cohen:But I think that maybe it's not really oversharing though. It's more about being open and receptive to like a back and forth, to be like having an earnest way of like communicating. Right.

15:02Leslie John:And being like open, open-minded. I think it's about open or being vulnerable, you know, not to overuse that word.

15:07Jennifer Cohen:I know that word's been very overplayed, vulnerability, but at the same time, it is about that. Because I think, again, it's about when you let your guard down, you're allowing other people to let their guard down. Right. But I still push back on the fact that that's not so much like when I literally when I think of oversharing, it's like saying it's not even saying that comment that you said to the professor. It's more about like saying like something like kind of like really like just has zero to do with what the circumstances is. And like talking about something and you're like, you know, like, oh, yeah, when that guy dumped me because I had sex and whatever it was, you know what I mean?

15:41Jennifer Cohen:That's not good sharing.

15:42Leslie John:That's definitely TMI is alive and well. Exactly.

15:46Jennifer Cohen:But there is, and you talk about this, you talk about revealers and concealers. And I would imagine people who are revealers are people who people gravitate to versus concealing. Because again, when you feel like people are like hiding something or they're not forthright, it doesn't bring you close to them.

16:08Leslie John:Yes, yes. But at the same time, to your point, you also avoid the person who like trauma dumps. Like it just is like all about me all the time. Right. And so I think the most healthy way to be and the most desirable in terms of people wanting to be friends with you and most fulfilling is are the people that have a lot of disclosure flexibility, which is to say people that that modulate between the extremes. They go super, super deep with their partners. They tell their partners all their fears, their thoughts and feelings. And then they're very reserved in context, like super competitive professional context when it behooves you to be really reserved.

16:48Leslie John:So it's about kind of, it's not like one size fits all, we should be revealers all the time or concealers. It's most of us would benefit from opening up a little bit more, but we need to practice revealing and not revealing in lots of contexts so that we can kind of get a better feel for what's the right amount in which situation. That's why it's not so simple, right? Okay.

17:09Jennifer Cohen:So give us some examples of when to be a revealer and when to be a concealer. Yeah.

17:15Leslie John:So as I was writing the book, it's interesting because your point about like, what is oversharing? And I have always thought of myself as an oversharer. And then as I was writing the book, I thought, oh, you know, I love sharing. It's fun. I don't know. Maybe this is my messed up psychology, but it's fun sharing self-deprecating jokes about myself and like funny stories. I enjoy that. And I've thought of myself as an overshare because of that. But then as I got really into it, I thought, wow, I'm actually not, I'm not sharing the really important stuff, you know? And so I think when I say like the underrated power of oversharing, that's what I mean.

17:57Leslie John:I mean, most of us stand to really open ourselves up, be vulnerable in the right time with the right person. There's been some, one really sad, but it's changed, writing this, I know it's cheesy to say, it has changed my life. It has improved my marriage. It was great to begin with, but it's one of the things I learned as I was writing the book is that lots, long-term relationships, marriages, most of the time they don't break down because of some dramatic affair or which is horrible. A lot of the time what happens is that people grow further apart. And And then I'm rabbit hole, rabbit hole. Why?

18:36Leslie John:Why? Well, they stop sharing. Why do they stop sharing? It's the easiest person to share with. It's your spouse, super safe person. And I realize what happens is when you, it's a cognitive bias. When you are with someone for a long time, you know them really well. And the longer you're with them, the more you know them. But the problem is that your confidence that you know them outsizes your actual knowledge. So the longer you're with someone, you think you know them better than you do. And that's where the problem begins, right? Because then you're like, I don't need to ask questions. I don't need to learn.

19:07Leslie John:I can read their mind. They can read my mind. Like saying it out loud is ridiculous. Like, no, people can't read my mind, but it's this implicit belief. And then you stop sharing. And then, and as soon as I, there's even a scale, right? I went lots of rabbit holes. There's a scale, you know, psychologists have a scale for everything that measures how strong of a mind reader, how much you believe in mind reading. So the belief that kind of this overly romanticized belief that your partner should just know what you want all the time. And then I took that myself and I'm super high in it. And as soon as I learned that about myself, I'm like, oh, wow, I am not telling Colin that I feel anxious about something.

19:45Leslie John:He can't read my mind. It's not that he's a jerk. He just doesn't know what I'm feeling. And so I realized all these things where I thought he was being insensitive and like empathic failures was just because he can't read my mind. And we're not different than studies. They've had studies of couples who've loved each other for like 12 years, longer than either of my marriages. And even couples who've loved each other for at least 12 years, when they do exercises where they try to like intuit what their partner is thinking and feeling, they get it wrong 80 % of the time. And so like - That high.

20:16Leslie John:Yes. And so it's like that like completely was a paradigm shift for me. It was like what feels like over-communicating is just communicating.

20:24Jennifer Cohen:That is really incredible. I didn't realize that number is so high. And it's so true. It's like you become, not like necessarily taking them for granted, but you're so accustomed and used to them being around that you feel like you know every step of what they're going to do, how they're going to do it. And you actually don't.

20:42Leslie John:Yeah. Especially their feelings.

20:45Jennifer Cohen:The feelings, yes.

20:46Leslie John:You know their values, you know their personality traits, the things that are pretty -

20:50Jennifer Cohen:Or their daily habits.

20:51Leslie John:Yeah. The stable things about the person. But when you think of the day in the life of my feelings, like, well, they don't go up and down that much, but there's a lot of variation, right? Yeah, absolutely. And they're so internal and private.

21:03Jennifer Cohen:So then, okay, so this is still interesting because you're saying like you started off as being like an expert in decision-making. Yeah. And privacy. Yeah.

21:11Leslie John:And like decision-making mistakes and how we suck. Yeah. No, it's like so negative.

21:16Jennifer Cohen:All these things have nothing really to do with oversharing. I still -

21:21Leslie John:Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where is the bridge between - It's interesting. That's so fascinating. So I think of privacy as like what I had done for the first, was like, look at these people online oversharing. They're saying things they shouldn't be saying. They're making mistakes. They're sharing all the - But how did you begin to that? Get into the - Like how does that even become like an area?

21:42Jennifer Cohen:An area, I know. Like you're like, where did you go to school?

21:45Leslie John:In Canada. Of course. But where in Canada? University of Waterloo. Right. And that's where I learned, like I just gravitated towards psychology. It's amazing how like some professors, they're just, I don't even know if it's the topic. I wonder if it's the quality of the instructor, right? That they're just so passionate about it. So I got really into it. And then I went to grad school. And where'd you go to grad school? In Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon. And I remember, I remember, so it was like, I want to say it was like 2006. And I remember sitting in the lab doing my like statistical analyses and my friend beside me, she's like, look, this is Facebook.

22:18Leslie John:And I'm like, what? I just, it was like this totally strange alien thing. I'm like, I don't understand this. What's a wall? Why are you doing that? Like, I just, I did not get it. And so I'm like, this doesn't, so then I was like, I need to understand this. And because I was like, because I was so unfamiliar, like the frame is a negative frame. And isn't it amazing how the frame that you approach something with has such a profound effect on how you interpret it? It's all about framing and reframing. Framing is so powerful.

22:46Jennifer Cohen:But that's why they say like in order, like how you behave is all about the frame or you've got to reframe negativity. It's so powerful. Right. It's true. It's all about reframing. Yeah.

22:57Leslie John:Okay.

22:57Jennifer Cohen:So you see this crazy Facebook, what is this whole thing? And people are like posting their like children and all their private things on this crazy wall for the global world to see. Right. This is weird. Right. I'm going to go into being a privacy expert. Right.

23:09Leslie John:Exactly. Okay. And then there were people, scholars there who studied it from like a purely economics lens. Okay. And I was the kind of weird psychology person. And so we kind of fused our minds together and started doing all kinds of experiments.

23:23Jennifer Cohen:But then how did you end up at Harvard besides this guy that was a social, you know, lubricant for you? Yeah.

23:29Leslie John:Yeah, no, I mean, and we did research together. And so I was kind of a known entity. I started doing research with them early on. But then, yeah, so I mean, I feel like I worked very hard. I also got lucky, you know, there's so many qualified people for these jobs.

23:45Jennifer Cohen:But what were you teaching? What was your class? Oh, yeah.

23:47Leslie John:So I actually taught marketing. I know. I'm like, you're never going to be able to compute my strength. It's like a completely jagged. I know. It's a very jagged, jagged path. Okay. But I, you know, I think in hindsight, it may seem less jagged to me at least because this fundamental thing about making yourself known, knowing others is so core to so many things in life. It's core to marketing. Like knowing your customers is like really core. How do you know them? What do you, how do you communicate with them? What do you tell them that you know about them? And so we did all kinds of studies on that too.

24:25Leslie John:And when companies reveal, when companies overshare by, we did these big experiments with banks where they, and where they were selling their credit cards on, they had credit card webpages and they, in one study, we said, what if you actually made the downsides really salient? Like normally credit card website, when you're buying a credit card, it's like, oh, this is an amazing low rate or great points. But what if, and the fine print is, but what if you were more transparent? What if you made it super salient that, hey, the fees suck? And so we convinced this, my colleague Ryan Buell and I convinced this company, a large Australian company to do an experiment.

24:58Leslie John:And it turned out when they were forthcoming, when they overshared, that would be, I would think that would be like a company oversharing. That's like information on like, you're basically saying like, don't buy this. And when they did that, the customers trust them more and then they actually are more likely to stay on. It's a really powerful customer retention tool. So this is all to say that I know it's a very jagged path, but there is this thread of like, you know, and then you'd like, I teach negotiation. And what's negotiation? The people that are the best negotiators are the people that can understand what they value and what their counterparts value.

25:33Leslie John:And that requires strategic sharing, managing what to share, what not to share. And teaching that, or I've been teaching that for like 10 years now, the single most common mistake in negotiation is that people don't share enough because they're scared of it. Because they're like, I think this person's going to rip me off. And that's true sometimes, but so often it's not true. And if you start by being concealy, very technical term, concealment gets concealment, and then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you start by saying, look, this is what I want in this deal, and these are my values, these are the things I care about, these are the things I care about less, now you're off to the races.

26:10Leslie John:Because then they can say, oh, you don't care about that. I care a lot, and I care less about the thing you want, and we can trade, right? So you're saying being straightforward in a

26:17Jennifer Cohen:negotiation and not be concealy, as you put it, is actually more beneficial to the deal.

26:23Leslie John:Nine times out of 10, yes. For sure, I'm not saying we should reveal everything in a negotiation, far from it. But the default we have of like, wall, that's what I see again and again. Like holding your cards close to the vest.

26:37Jennifer Cohen:Right.

26:38Leslie John:Executives, like they're top of their game and they come to the first session and they're like, guns a-blazing, and they're like, okay, it's a competition, and guard up. And then I tell them, well, what if you ask and answer questions? And then we put the, because I like data and numbers, we put the results on the board. The people that are more forthcoming, they don't get ripped off. They actually get better deals because they figure out what each other wants, and then they realize they can both have what they want in many cases. Not all cases, for sure. Not all cases, but...

27:39Leslie John:like beer for chicks or something. And this idea of like, like there was a pen pilot had a purple pen, like especially for women's hands or something and people rejected it. Right. So it was like too, it's because, because it's because it took this idea of like knowing your customers, knowing what they care about. And it massively oversimplified it. And it made people feel like they were reduced to a single category of membership. Right. And like so many research ideas. This came from my childhood where I had an axe to grind. Research is therapy for me. It's for everybody.

28:15Jennifer Cohen:If you can't do, you teach. Yeah, yeah. No, I know. It's so true.

28:19Leslie John:Well, I had a babysitter when I was like, I don't know, seven or something. And she would always say, your favorite color's pink. You're a girl. Your favorite color's pink. And I'm like, no, it's not pink. And I actually really like pink, but I was so stubbornly hated that, that I always, blue is my favorite color, right? And so this like idea, this reactance of like when you feel reduced to a single category of membership, it's very off-putting. And again, it speaks to this point about like how being known for who you really are is so calming and so trust building and so bonding. And in couples, you see this as well, where there have been studies of people who, so there's one scenario where suppose I have low self-esteem and my spouse, he says, oh, you're a goddess.

29:04Leslie John:You never have low self-esteem, like you're super confident all the time. So that's like an idealized version of me. So that's one version. Or in the other version, he says, oh, Les, I know you have low self-esteem. And it turns out that it's the people who feel like their partners know them, warts and all. I would rather my partner know my sucky qualities and admit to them than some fantasy. Like it's being known for who you are that really, really is such a powerful basis for relationships and trust and influence and all good things.

29:34Jennifer Cohen:I think, well, I think that's a hundred percent true. Like, you know, when you say to someone like, Oh, I'm like really down or I'm like, I'm super, I'm down or I'm like not feeling great. And they're like, what do you mean? You're such a superstar. You can handle anything. It's like, I hate that. I hate that too. It's like, it's such a, like, it's like, you feel so, I hate this word unseen and like, you don't know me. You don't know me. You don't know me at all. Like, what do you mean? What do you like? You're so tough. You're so strong. Like you can get through anything. Right. It's such, it's just like such a, I don't know what you call it.

30:04Jennifer Cohen:It just brushes over everything. It's like a dismissal and a denial. Like God forbid you have real emotions or feelings. Right. Right. Right. Right. So I know what you're saying. Like I, I, that always, it's the worst. I'd rather the person say, yeah, I know that you struggle with this. Right. It's okay, but you're going to get through it. Yeah. Yeah. You are kind of a hot mess, but that's okay. I love you still. Yeah. Or whatever it is.

30:25Leslie John:It's so much more meaningful when someone loves you then, right?

30:27Jennifer Cohen:Well, yeah, because you feel like you said, like you feel like someone actually like is getting under the hood and understands and knows you. Yeah. Yeah. Right?

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32:18Jennifer Cohen:we talked a little bit about obviously why oversharing can be powerful and like where the the lines are i still really we actually haven't really kind of delved as deep as i'd like into this where the lines cross yeah we know that when you compliment people in a genuine way it's very very it brings people it's disarming it brings people into like a nicer space and all the other things. What about leaders?

32:42Leslie John:Ah, good. I'm glad you went there. Yes. So that is an area where this may qualify, but we'll see. So when leaders are vulnerable, I also don't like the word vulnerable because I'm like, what does that mean? My skin's vulnerable. When they share a work-related weakness that they are working on or a difficult feeling related to work. So So something that is, it's vulnerable in the sense that it has risk to it, sharing your feelings, sharing your weaknesses. We have found in study after study that when leaders, high status people, share some of their weaknesses. So for example, if they said to a group of new recruits, gave their introduction, and they also added in their self-description, you know, I'll admit that sometimes I get nervous public speaking.

33:35Leslie John:And so that's something that you would not expect a leader to share. And what we find is when leaders do this, it makes their employees trust them. It makes their employees more motivated to work for them relative to when they don't. It's more of a facade. Like a leader then is not relatable and you can't trust someone who is never vulnerable or never has no flaws, no apparent flaws, right? And then we did more studies where we're like, well, how far, how much vulnerability, right? Like what's the tipping point? Because surely, you know, if you say something extremely vulnerable, that can't be good.

34:10Leslie John:And so what we did, I love my job, is we had different, we had employees watch different versions of a leader introducing himself. And we did it with a woman leader too. And we just varied how deep the disclosure was. So we would start with like, sometimes I get nervous public speaking. And then another would be, sometimes I get nervous public speaking so much so that my mouth gets dry sometimes. Sometimes there's the Canadian accent mouth. And then another one, all of that, I get nervous public speaking so much so that my mouth gets dry. And sometimes I have full-blown panic attacks. And so we wondered, like, at what point?

34:45Leslie John:And we asked people, we asked leaders, we're like, are any of these safe or are they all undermining? And they're like, oh, my God, those are all undermining. I would never do that. Like, no, sharing that you're nervous public speaking, it erodes. Your company won't have faith in you. They'll think you're incompetent, right? And so then we actually got employees to tell us what they thought. And it actually, the first one, it enhanced trust and it did not make you think the leader is incompetent. The second level, same thing. The one, so I'm nervous public speaking and sometimes my mouth gets dry.

35:18Leslie John:That was like not, that was not a career limiting disclosure. In fact, it built trust. The third one was like, okay, now this person is like, I don't know if they can do their job. And so that's the pattern we see again and again is that the line is often a little bit further than you think it is.

35:34Jennifer Cohen:Right. I believe that. The line's further than you think. But again, I'm always going to go back to - There's still a line. There's still a line. A hundred percent. And so if we're not in like some kind of like Petri dish where you're doing an experiment, right? What are we supposed to do? because I think that there's also a piece of this where there are different degrees of people's self-awareness and emotional intelligence. Some people can kind of feel innately like, okay, there's a line here. I know exactly how to push it, how to come back at it. There are other people who have zero social skills and they'll have no idea and it will be TMI.

36:13Jennifer Cohen:So again, where is the middle ground between TLI, too little information, and TMI?

36:20Leslie John:That is the fundamental question. And I can't say it's here because it's always shifting. But what I can say is, one, knowing where the line is is a skill. It's a learnable skill. So people with self-awareness, that gives you a huge advantage. And in fact, getting this right enhances your self-awareness too. So one of the best ways to learn the skill is to practice by being... So we have this general finding of like, it's often a little further than you think. Okay, well, you can implement that in real life. Go a little bit further than you think. Observe what happens. See what happens. Experiment.

36:53Leslie John:Test. Learn. It's not something, if you never try it, you will never know. You'll never learn. The other thing is there's also some pretty tried and true like cues that you can use or like rules of thumb. And one of those rules of thumb is reciprocity. So if you are in, I don't know, we could talk about it in dating. We could talk about it in friendship. So suppose you're looking for a new friend and you're in a social situation with new potential friends. Reciprocity is really your number one tool here. And what that means is that you want to share something. So the goal is find a point of commonality that you can both relate to because friendship is made on mutuality and finding things in common and liking.

37:39Leslie John:Well, how do you do that? You need to reveal and find these things. So start with something casual, like not a big reveal, a question even, and then they'll share something. And then the key thing is when you respond, you want to meet them and maybe raise them a bit. So you want to share something that's just as vulnerable or not vulnerable as them and go a little bit further. And then what they'll do is that it's such a natural instinct to reciprocate. They'll do the same thing and then you're off to the races. So the sequencing really matters. So the way you can implement it, if you're saying like, I'm an alien from outer space, how do I do this?

38:12Leslie John:Is you look, are they reciprocating? Or am I talking the whole time? Am I not letting them reciprocate? Maybe I should ask them a question to get them, right? To get that back and forth.

38:23Jennifer Cohen:So is authenticity a good thing or a bad thing? Oh, that's a good question.

38:30Leslie John:I bet you have a view. I would love your view, but do you want me to go first? Sure.

38:34Jennifer Cohen:You go first and then I'll tell you my view.

38:36Leslie John:The question is, is authenticity ever a bad thing?

38:39Jennifer Cohen:No. Is authenticity a good thing or a bad thing in your opinion?

38:43Leslie John:I think it is generally a good thing. I think that to me, one of the core things is not to be pedantic, but how you define authenticity. So to me, authenticity does not mean saying everything that is on my mind at all times. That is not authenticity. To me, authenticity means being genuine, saying the sincere things that I mean that are appropriate for the context at hand. And there, I mean, what's not to like about that? I think that's amazing. It's hard to do. Yeah.

39:14Jennifer Cohen:I would say, in my opinion, what I think, I think authenticity is good 80 % of the time. Because the other times, I think when you're speaking to someone and you're telling the truth, that can be sometimes not so great. If you feel like being authentic, like I don't feel like getting out of bed today, so I'm not going to do these things that I have to do, but I'm being authentic. That's not good. You can't just not be a grownup.

39:42Leslie John:You can't be a grownup.

39:43Jennifer Cohen:But there's all this chitter chatter about being authentic and authenticity. And I'm one of those people who really believe in being authentic and genuine and real.

39:55Leslie John:Genuine and real. Genuine and real,

39:57Jennifer Cohen:which sometimes gets very crowded with the word authenticity. Because if authenticity is you just being an asshole, then maybe being authentic isn't so great. Completely. Completely. So I think, again, I think everything comes down to emotional intelligence and having the self-awareness or the self-intelligence and social intelligence. And situational awareness, completely. And situational awareness. But with why I say this is what I've learned is common sense isn't so common. I know. Right? Most people don't have it. It sucks. Right? And I sit here.

40:31Leslie John:Use your noodle, people. Use your noodle. But you know what? I sit here all day with some of the most smartest.

40:37Jennifer Cohen:I know.

40:37Leslie John:We academics are the worst for common sense, aren't we? We get it all contorted. Unbelievable. I've had these conversations and they're like, use your noodle.

40:46Jennifer Cohen:Or just like not picking up on basics. Yeah, completely. Right? Where like these people, like I said, who are like the smartest, most successful. And I'm like, you are a moron. Like, are you not picking up on like the social situation, the circumstance? Like you can be very, very smart in one area. IQ. Or in one area of your life. Yeah. But be a complete moron in everything else. Completely. I agree. And I believe like, you know what, in my opinion, I think it's actually better to be smart in like, be street smart than being school smart. I totally agree.

41:18Leslie John:And I did not always think that. So.

41:20Jennifer Cohen:Well, you're an academic. I know.

41:21Leslie John:It's like blasphemous for me to say that. But, you know, I, yeah, IQ is great and all, but I just, I take what you're calling realness, street smarts. I think of it as EQ, Ritlar, you know, like being able to read the word, self-awareness, emotional intelligence, all of those things I think are way more important than IQ. Way more important. Way more important for achievement in life. We often think it's IQ, but I don't think so. is these things are way more important for achievement, but also like for wellbeing and relationships and, and, and joy, you know, you said it there joy.

41:56Jennifer Cohen:I think that's one thing like, yeah, well, if you're trying to be a professor or a surgeon, yeah, you need to have really great grades. I mean, you know, have them off the charts, right. But like, how about for like being happy in life and being successful personally or having like deep relationships or all these other things. Super important to be more emotionally aware and emotionally intelligent.

42:20Leslie John:It's interesting how times have changed because I'm thinking to my parents and they both, especially my mom, like super smart woman, skipped two or three grades. And nowadays, so we have a five-year-old and we just held him back, which to my mom, if you're listening, to my mother's chagrin, she's like, what? Not so subtle. He's so smart. He's so smart. I'm like, I know he's smart, But EQ, like his ability to deal with difficult emotions, understand himself, like that's so much more important. And the data show unequivocally, boys are much less good at that. Why? Because of the way we socialize them and all these things.

42:59Leslie John:And so like, I want him to, and so now we do the opposite, right? And I think about my mom and how, you know, she, in some ways she really struggled in school, not academically, like grades, but like, I think this old school way of like, people would skip grades all the time. And now we do the opposite. I think it makes so much more sense that like, I'm all on board for, if anything, I'm like overcorrecting. You're overcorrecting. How do you feel? Let's talk about that feeling, you know? And they're just like, I just want to play, mom.

43:27Jennifer Cohen:So. Right. And there's too much of that, I think too. But you said something earlier that I thought was, was really interesting because you're a Harvard professor. And when I was asking you about like how you, you know, your evolution of how you got here, you kind of took it to the wrong direction that I was thinking. But when you said that you revealed something that I was super interested in, and that is, you said that it was like this and luck. So you mentioned that luck was a part of it. And I want to talk about that because someone who has the pedigree, I guess, that you have. And here we are talking about street smarts versus academic and emotional intelligence versus IQ.

44:05Jennifer Cohen:Here you are, like people listening, if they want to get into Harvard or teach at Harvard, you said it was luck. So what played on your team besides you? Because you also said you had social equity over there too. Yes, yes.

44:20Leslie John:I mean, it's a combination of things, right? Like, I do think for sure, like there are so many people that could be in my job that there is a certain point where, and I see it now being on this side of it where we interview people and, you know, someone's having a, one really influential prof is having a really grouchy day and is like asking grouchy questions that are making the person stumble. And then all the junior people, nobody wants to hire them because of this, right? Because someone had a bad day, like, Like, right, so fluky things like that. So that's a real thing. But now that I'm a senior person, I'm like, how do I assert myself and stop that from happening, right?

44:59Leslie John:Right. But that's a whole other topic. But I think, so that's what I mean. There is a certain element of luck. But I also think, when I think more deeply about what you're pointing out, I think that you can create your own luck, too. And I've been lucky, like the gene luck, right? Like, I'm lucky. My parents are healthy. My parents, right, that's lucky. I don't know. I couldn't control my genes. So that's luck, for sure. that I don't take for granted. But then there's also reading the room, the street smarts of how you get people to do things, how you get people to help. That sounds Machiavellian.

45:29Leslie John:I don't mean it that way, but like - No, but it's actually, but how do you - But to be honest, it's the truth. How do you, yeah, how do you get people to do stuff? So how did you do it? So I want to know, and be honest. Right. So there's lots of - Overshare. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here we are. I'm asking you to overshare. For sure. So I, my, if we go back to grad school, my PhD advisor was like just a fat, he's alive. So he was, I don't know if he's in the past. He's fat. No, no, he was as if he's dead. He's not dead. Hi, George. But he, he is a brilliant and super creative person. He is extreme, I would say this to his face, he's extremely difficult to work with.

46:07Leslie John:Like so many students that are epically genius, like way higher IQ than me, have failed with him. And so I knew this. And what I did, like small things can make a big difference. For example, I stuck my neck out or insisted or assertively asked to have the office that was right beside his office. Like there was two possible offices I could have been in. And so when I needed to take on him, I'm not going to email him. I go into, hey, George, I have a question for you. Like quick question, right? And so you kind of learn how this person works and it's reading the room. It's like, okay, he doesn't like being interrupted at this time, but this time is a great time.

46:44Leslie John:Like he hated being interrupted if he was walking on the way to something, but like if he was settling in the morning after he biked it, like now I just sound creepy that I know all this about him. But I think it's like - No, but you're like learning these things. Yeah, learning, being observant and helping people to help you in a way at the right times and understanding that you're not their - like he has a family, he's got much more important research, you know, and it's not about you. But if you want something to happen, you kind of have to make it happen.

47:10Jennifer Cohen:I love that. Yeah. So then what happened? So then you got to know George because you were at your desk beside you. Right, right. Got to know him. Office beside you. Yeah. And you kind of learned his quirks and personality. Right, right. Love it. Right. Okay. Then what? Right.

47:22Leslie John:And then, I mean, I worked super hard. I worked my hiney off. I'm taking that. Like, that's obvious. That kind of goes, that's a given. But what are the, like, what is the, like, the cheat sheet, the Kohl's notes? Yeah.

47:34Jennifer Cohen:Like what makes you who works super hard different than the other person who works super hard? Yeah.

47:38Leslie John:Savviness, I think is really, you know, and I never thought of myself as savvy, but some of my, I have these very dear girlfriends, Pittsburgh sisters, grad school friends. We live Les, you're the savvy one. And I'm like, I'm not strategic, so negative and schemey. They're like, no, you're not schemey. You're just like, you have street smarts. I don't know where I got it from. But now I'm trying to now like digest some like other ways of - You know what's interesting? Oh, like another one would be, which is not a comfortable, it's not comfortable at all. You have to do really uncomfortable things and force yourself to do them.

48:12Leslie John:So one of the things was when I was practicing basically my pitch on the job market, my pitch of what my research is about, I went to the meanest, grumpiest, most skeptical faculty members that I was most intimidated by. And I was like, please grill me on this. And I probably even cried during a couple of them, but it was like, that's what you need. You need the practice to be harder than the performance, right?

48:42Jennifer Cohen:And you also trained yourself for this with ballet. That's why I find it's very interesting. Like I believe that how you do one thing is how you do everything. A hundred percent. And you are ready, you are primed in a different way to do this. So like, you know, I did this, I did this talk that it's not out yet. Maybe by the time this podcast is out, it will be out. And it was about like how, when you have some type of physical activity that you take seriously, fitness of some form of sport, it like propels you in success in every other way of your life because it teaches you these fundamental life skills that you can't get anywhere else.

49:19Jennifer Cohen:And so it teaches you this like enormous amount of confidence, discipline, self-efficacy is like in the top two. Completely. Right? Yeah. Yeah. That to kind of like, I can do hard things and I'm going to work my ass off and I don't care about, like, I know I can do it. Right? Like the belief in yourself. And so right away when I saw your bio, I knew when I saw more like trained ballet, you know, ballerina, I'm like, okay, no wonder she's going to be a Harvard professor. Was it because of your, not because like of your, of your pedigree in school, I didn't even know where you went to school, but I knew right off the bat that that would, what you learned in that foundation was going to be propelling you and everything else.

50:04Jennifer Cohen:And like you said, it like, you knew that you had it, like you were going to like figure it out and like make it happen for yourself by doing whatever needed to be done. Yeah.

50:13Leslie John:That's interesting. And I guess now reflecting on it, like failure wasn't an option. Like I wasn't like, it wasn't like some people drop out, like it wasn't on top of, I'm like, this is, I'm just, I'm going to do it. Like it's going to happen.

50:25Jennifer Cohen:And also if you failed, you had enough self-efficacy and confidence that you would pick yourself up again. Yeah.

50:31Leslie John:I mean, there was a million failures along the way, like failure failure fest, for sure. Failure fest. But where else did you apply besides Harvard? Oh yeah. So I applied super broadly. I applied to 80 schools. And you got it. But why? I know. Randomness. The academia is so weird on how people make decisions.

50:50Jennifer Cohen:It's like the Wizard of Oz though, right? I know. It's like nobody sees the wizard. No, because people think, oh, it's going to be the hardest thing in the world to do. And probably whatever happened in your path, you're probably like, actually, Like this Joe Blow or like the guy who made the decision wasn't that, you know what I mean? Wasn't what people expect. Right, right, right, right. I just find this very interesting because you're also a Canadian girl, went to Waterloo. Like it's very, there's a lot of like things that you're saying that I can like resonate with.

51:19Leslie John:Yeah, it's, yeah, yeah, for sure. Do you find, so for you, what's it like, I mean, Canadian girl in LA and because you are super nice, agreeable, like full-fledged Canadian. do you find it makes you vulnerable to being taken advantage of? I'm hardly agreeable, though. You're not agreeable.

51:37Jennifer Cohen:Well, I mean, I would say...

51:38Leslie John:You're comfortable with being contrarian, which is great.

51:41Jennifer Cohen:I'm comfortable with being contrarian, but it's because I have a lot... It's a self-efficacy, and I have a lot of confidence in who I am and what I'm saying because of experience. Not because I'm being pompous or arrogant in any way, but it's like experience and repetition has given me the confidence.

52:01Leslie John:You also have a way of saying straight shooting. It's actually, you respect, you show that you respect the person by straight shooting, right? Because you're like, I know you can take it that I don't buy this or whatever, right? Right.

52:13Jennifer Cohen:I also think like, kind of with your oversharing message, you know, I think it's really important if you really want to like connect with somebody again to like, that's where I think authenticity is really important. When you're having a conversation and you're trying to connect to somebody in a real way, you've got to be honest with like where you stand. And you can do it in a kinder and more polite way. You don't have to be an asshole about doing it.

52:40Leslie John:Being authentic is not, I have such a, I have zero tolerance for jerks, like zero tolerance.

52:46Jennifer Cohen:Like if I was being an, and if I was being an asshole, maybe you would tell me I was, but like, I don't think just because I disagree with somebody that that makes me a bad person or rude. I think it's rude if I just sit here and nod, yes, yes, yes. And then this whole experience would be fake and phony. Right.

53:06Leslie John:Totally. I don't want that.

53:07Jennifer Cohen:Nobody wants that. But there are people who do want it. Right. Because it's hard too. But then you know what? Then they're not my people and I'm okay with that. Yeah.

53:14Leslie John:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

53:15Jennifer Cohen:For sure. I think the thing is I'm okay with not being liked by everybody.

53:20Leslie John:That is like, I think a key life hack is once you're comfortable realizing, I mean, I only realized that probably like three years ago that like, not everyone's going to like me and I don't care. And that's fine. And that's fine. It's a problem if everyone likes me. I think exactly.

53:36Jennifer Cohen:I was going to say, if everyone likes me, I'm doing something wrong.

53:38Leslie John:It's just like in a negotiation where if you always get what you want, then you're not asking for enough. You got to fail sometimes. It's like if you're doing pushups and you never fail, like you're not going to get stronger. Well, right. If you always do the same 20 pushups day in, day out, guess what happens?

53:52Jennifer Cohen:You're not getting any stronger. You're not really like changing it. You're not growing. You're just doing the same thing because it's what you're comfortable doing. But there are a lot of people who like are really afraid of conflict. And, but that's not being like, that's not even conflict. It's just like having a. It's being a grownup. It's being a grownup. But I feel like we're in a place in society where any type of like dynamic where there's disagreement, it ends up being extremely polarizing. And then automatically, I hate you and you hate me. It's personalized. I know.

54:24Leslie John:Why? Just because I disagree with you? I know. It's so many things, maddening, saddening, excruciating, frustrating. It impedes growth, and it makes life uninteresting, too. It does.

54:37Jennifer Cohen:I totally agree. But being Canadian, you're asking me, am I going to be taken advantage of?

54:42Leslie John:How do you... Ask me for a friend.

54:45Jennifer Cohen:I think that over my life, I think that, yeah, to be honest with you, I think that I lead with how I can like help someone and give, and I give a lot of things. Yeah. Like I give a lot of things for free or I give people this or I give them contacts or I give them help. Yeah. And is it, it's probably not reciprocate. Like I would say it gets reciprocated maybe 10 % of the time.

55:07Leslie John:Yeah.

55:07Jennifer Cohen:But like, I'm not going to change my core value system and who I am because of other people. You're not doing it to reciprocate. I'm not even doing it. I'm just doing it because that's who I am.

55:17Leslie John:But what if, so how do you then manage, I don't love the word boundary, but like, how do you manage, like, you know, you have to, you also have to protect your nest and your family and your life and you're like, you can't just give everything. A hundred percent. But I am, I have problems with boundaries in the sense that if I like you, I'll like,

55:35Jennifer Cohen:And like I do take people too often. I guess I could be slightly naive at the beginning if I like somebody. And then be disappointed. Right, right. But I've learned that just to be like kind of like the price of admission. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that way I still am open to when I meet someone who's extraordinary. And like I have a great relationship with them. Like I've met some extraordinary people. I've had extraordinary opportunities because I didn't change the core essence of who I am. by leading with how I play. Even though I got, and I do get disappointed very, very often. Yeah. I also try to keep things in perspective.

56:13Jennifer Cohen:Like, I don't really care. As long as my kids are healthy. Exactly.

56:15Leslie John:I know.

56:16Jennifer Cohen:This is not so grounding. Right. Like, as long as they're fine, like an idiot who's like dissing me or talks shit about me or like doesn't help me or doesn't respond back to like whatever it is or someone makes me an empty promise. Yeah. All right. Like, I'm kind of used to that. Yeah. I also live in LA. Yeah. And I'm playing in a world that's a lot of bullshit and nonsense and pop and circumstance. So I'm used to a lot of this nonsense. I've been doing it for so long in different iterations. Now it's a podcast. Before it was, you know, a lot of different things. And like, I still isn't entrepreneurship.

56:48Jennifer Cohen:I work a lot with like founders and I work a lot with brands and I work a lot with like entertainment things and books. Very cool. But like at the same time, it's like people are people and you're going to like find all sorts. LA or at this level, you're going to find all sorts. But I will say this. I think that water does find its level and you do eventually gravitate to people that you're similar to.

57:12Leslie John:Yeah, I'm with you.

57:13Jennifer Cohen:And so I do have with amongst all that stuff, I have, like I said, I have a lot of great people around me who are really good in quality. And I tend to forget about all the shitty people I've met along the way, right? Because it just like doesn't matter at the end of the day.

57:27Leslie John:Yeah, totally.

57:28Jennifer Cohen:You're asking because for a friend, of course, is your friend having a problem with like navigating a lot of this?

57:35Leslie John:So she is, yeah, like I think it's hard because the boundary of like wanting to give now just sounds like an extended humble brain, which is not my intention, but like - No, no, I understand. But you know, and like the, when I connect with someone, I'm like, yay, like it just feels so good. And you just like, you want to be besties and - Right, right, right. Right. And so, but I love, I have learned though to, this is going to sound weird, but like massively lower my expectations. I think the key to happiness is just having extremely low expectations. And then you're all, I know it sounds like defeatist, but it's like, it's so helpful because it's like, and doing things also not to please people.

58:20Leslie John:Because if you're doing something to please someone, then you're so vulnerable. Because then if the person like doesn't react, then you're, you're, you're crushed. But like, no, I'm, I'm helping you write this article. I'm mentoring you doctoral student, like my version of how I help because I like you and I want to nurture you and I enjoy this. Right. And so I, and I do agree with you that the nice ease find the nice ease in the end. Yeah, you do.

58:43Jennifer Cohen:Like I find like, I have, I think there's a couple of things that you said that are really interesting. The first thing is the niceies, find the niceies because that's a nice way of putting it. But I also think the low expectation is a massive one. A hundred percent. Because I think that's where we get ourselves into trouble. When we expect others to be like you, to act like how I would. There's been a lot of scenarios. One very recent one that's like gutterly killed me because I expected someone to act in the same way I would have acted and they didn't. And it crushed me because I was not expecting that behavior.

59:20Jennifer Cohen:It's so upsetting. It's really, it like hit me in my gut. Were they close to you? Very. And that was a surprise to me. And so, you know, I think that having unrealistic expectations, not knowing someone as well as you think you know them or being like, you got to keep your eyes open and never just expect people to do what you would do because that's when you become so disappointed.

59:45Leslie John:Right, right. And that's where like revealing, asking questions, learning about others, it's really made me appreciate that more that like we walk around the world thinking implicitly that everybody is like us. And then when you ask people and learn more, you're like, oh, no, they're not. And that's okay. They have a different set of goals and motives. And it's interesting. I had two salient experiences have come to mind of what you were saying, where one of them is this idea of how, this is a motto, my family motto. It's nice to be nice. nice. Which my husband makes fun of me for because he's, he's nice, but he's like, um, he's got an edge to him.

1:00:21Leslie John:And so I'm, I'm often having to, it's nice to be nice. Like tip the Uber driver.

1:00:27Jennifer Cohen:What does he do your husband?

1:00:29Leslie John:He's a consultant. Okay. For who? Like McKinsey? PwC. Okay. Close enough. But he was, was a professional athlete, which soccer player, which is like, so that we're like very like simpatico, but he, I don't know. But I also, he's like super reserved. And the thing, like after he read this, I was so nervous for him to read the book because, you know, there's stuff about us. And he's like, when we're at dinner, we'll be talking about something banal. And he's like in hushed voices, like he's like super. And he said, I love this book so much. Don't change anything about it. I need to open up more.

1:01:01Leslie John:And he's been like experimenting more. But yeah, so he's, and also being a little warmer. um i know now that i've hated him as a total jerk but he's not he's he's amazing i do sometimes i wonder if he i know this is i have asked him if he's a spy because and he did not he dodged it he's so observant he's he always knows where everyone is where everyone like he's like super city it's like hyper vigilance but anyways wow that's a weird tangent but um the thing i was going to, and now, now that I said it, he's, I better get home soon to protect him. He's out, his cover's blown. Sorry, Collie. But yeah, yeah.

1:01:42Leslie John:So this idea about like, it's nice to be nice and like you do nice things because you genuinely want to. And so I think something that really gets in the way that people think is competing, like achievement and being nice. Like the idea of like, I think people walk around implicitly often thinking like it's a zero sum world. And like my, my achievement is at your expense, especially like at Harvard when I was starting and teaching is really grueling teaching there. And I didn't know what I was doing, but I did not reveal that to my students. And we'd have these meetings, these teaching group meetings, we were all teaching more or less the same thing to different students.

1:02:21Leslie John:And there was another professor there who, and the idea behind these meetings is to share ideas on how to do this because we all can get high teaching evaluations, right? Like if I get a high one, it doesn't mean you get a low one. It's not zero sum. But yet there was this one colleague who more frequently than chance, he'd be like, he would be tight lipped during these meetings. And then the beginning of the next meeting, when we'd review last week, he'd be like, oh my God, I came up with this amazing framework of how to make sense of this and how to teach this thing. But I literally came up with it on the way to class.

1:02:55Leslie John:So like, that's why I didn't share it. And it just is like, and I think that's, that is actually, that is, even if he was purely interested in his own payout, which some people are, I think it's still misguided because when you share your ideas with five other smart people, you get even better, right? And you've had a rep of explaining it, which makes you a better teacher. And so it was like the completely wrong mental model of like, I need to hoard my ideas. It's a zero sum world. You know, I don't know for sure, but it was like very suspicious. Right. And so it's like the wrong mental model.

1:03:27Leslie John:So for sure we get burned sometimes for sure. Right. So like this whole, I love that the cost of entry though, like it's worth it. It is the cost of entry, but I was going to say

1:03:36Jennifer Cohen:competition is a whole other thing, right? Yeah. Because people - I'm super competitive. So I'm super competitive too, but, or and as he'd like to say, God. Yes. And. Yes. And And I'm not competitive with women because they're women. I'm competitive against myself. I don't compete.

1:03:53Leslie John:Right. Oh, for sure. Oh my gosh. That put a light on. Like when I'm at the gym, I'm like, I'm doing burpees. Like not because I want to do more than you, because I want to get the effing burpees. I don't care what you're doing.

1:04:06Jennifer Cohen:How successful you are or how much of a failure you are doesn't change my life whatsoever. I've always felt that way. So like if I'm with, you know, like if I'm sitting with the most beautiful girl in the world, I'm not like, oh my God, I'm so this and I feel this way. Like I don't. I'm like, great. I'm like, wow, look how beautiful you are. Look how great you, like your body's amazing. Like it's more of a, I think it's much more of an like aspiring or inspiring or I don't care. Look how smart you are. Like I'm not that way. Why I'm bringing this up. Yeah. And the competitive state is, unfortunately, a lot of women are very competitive with other women.

1:04:47Jennifer Cohen:And I think there's this whole lie about women empowerment, women helping women and all these things. Yeah. Women help women when they are basically not as great as them or not as smart as them or not as successful as them, not as threatening to them.

1:05:04Leslie John:So that's, my theory on this is under fundamental insecurity of like, if you are not fully comfortable in your shoes, in your skin, then you will be threatened by someone. There's always someone who is more beautiful, more smart, more, there's always. More successful, more everything.

1:05:21Jennifer Cohen:Like there's enough to go, I think the mentality is like, you know, there's enough, there's enough success or there's enough whatever to go around. For everyone. You don't have to hoard it by just like thinking that like, like that to me is a very, very, myopic, terrible way to lose. Actually, you lose that way. I agree. I agree. But you can't change human nature.

1:05:41Leslie John:Right. So I was curious as you were talking how, because I think a lot of people are not like that, your idea of like, it's competitive about yourself and not again, like, and you've always been that, like, I'm curious why, how you developed in that way, or if you have a theory on that. It's interesting.

1:05:56Jennifer Cohen:Whose podcast is this? I think it's like a, I think that like, I never, I never really thought of myself as anything more than average. Right. And so everything that I've achieved or God or became is because I feel like I worked really hard at it. Right. Like I didn't think of myself as being especially, you know, exceptionally smart, exceptionally beautiful, whatever, whatever it is. So like what I did was I took what I had and optimized it the best I knew how by working really freaking hard and executing and learning all these different strategies and habits and routines and whatever it is just to kind of enhance whatever I have.

1:06:43Jennifer Cohen:And so it came from the same thing I said earlier, which was self-efficacy, like seeing myself transform myself, not because someone else did it for me. It's because I did it for myself and I didn't do any crazy thing. It wasn't like I went and got plastic surgery. It wasn't like, so anything I have is because it's like hard work, you know, like I'm fit because I actually work out like a fiend, right? Not because I'm taking something and I'm doing this or I'm doing that, right? Like whatever my face is, it's going to be what my face is. I'm not getting any crazy surgeries because I don't like, like I've learned to like really love who I am and be happy with what it is, whatever good and bad.

1:07:25Jennifer Cohen:And all I've kind of made a decision much very early on that like, I'm going to do the best I can with what I have, but I'm not going to like, I'm not going to force or fake or be something that I'm not. Yeah. And so when you have a really strong sense of self, everything else coming into your life, like I'm okay with it. And I want everyone else to be the best version of themselves without feeling that they have to like alter something in them. Like, so I'm a big champion for guys and or girls, whoever I think like are good humans, you know, but a lot of women just don't think that way. Right.

1:07:57Jennifer Cohen:And they see everybody as like a threat or a competition or, and so like, I've, and I've seen it all the time. Like women always, like I said, say, Oh, I want a women champion. And then like, yeah, they're not helping. They help you until you, until you kind of surpass them, right? Until you become more successful or more fit or more this or more that. I see this daily, young people and old people. People are people. It doesn't change. Like you think because you mature, you change and people change. They don't change. In fact, actually it gets worse. They just maybe hide it a little bit better.

1:08:31Jennifer Cohen:Yeah. You got to work with what you have for sure.

1:08:33Leslie John:That's just the way it is. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. No, it totally makes sense. Totally makes sense. One of my best friends is an identical twin and she's a colleague at Harvard. And so like we have all the ingredients of rivalry. Like we're a similar age. We're both competitive. We're both like have this amazing job, like all these things. And she said to me once, and then we had this professor who was talking about rivalry, giving a talk, and we were just like making eyes the whole time. We're like, is this us? Is this us? Are we rival? Are we rivals?

1:09:07Jennifer Cohen:Yeah.

1:09:07Leslie John:And then we talked about it afterwards, and she said, so good. She studies conversation. She said, why aren't we rivals? Isn't that such a great way in, right? It's like presuming the good thing, right? Totally, right, right. And? Yes. And then we started talking about it because we have all the elements of it. And I said to her, I think you led this because you have this experience of—it's so interesting talking about the experience of being an identical twin. She's like, I am a communal—like, I was born as a communal person caring about this other human. And so she just doesn't see things like she views giving as like its core to wanting to help.

1:09:49Leslie John:And she's also extremely confident, extremely self-assured, right? Her mother is amazing. Her mother was a school, like a guidance counselor back in the day. Back in the day, you know, women, they didn't get amazing PhDs in psychologists, right? So she had the like most EQ thing. And you talked to her mom. She's amazing. So she had like, she had a great upbringing and stuff. And she's super, super confident. She's so confident in her skin. And she's happy. She realizes that often success begets success. Like helping someone feels good. Now I just sound cheesy, but it's true. Like, and you got to live it.

1:10:23Leslie John:No, no, no.

1:10:23Jennifer Cohen:Success begins success. I totally understand what you're saying. And I agree with everything about that stuff. And like, I think that being, I think wanting other people to win helps you win. Yeah. I really do believe that. I believe it too. Because I, I, I just don't like, even if it doesn't happen, like, I think that like life is long. It may not happen just right off the bat with that one person. Yeah. But like, everything is a ripple. It's a long game and there's a ripple effect, right? So maybe it won't happen with this one. But like, you know, I know you don't really probably know me very well, but I did a whole thing.

1:10:57Jennifer Cohen:I did my first TED Talk. I've done three. But my first one was on being bold and asking for what you want in life. I've watched that. Oh, you have? Yes. Oh, okay. Yeah. And this whole thing is like this whole like make 10 attempts at whatever you want most in life. And the thing is, what it teaches you is not just to, you know, to get comfortable with failing, but you making those attempts, either you're going to get that thing you want or another opportunity will present itself. Yes. Yes. Stuff leads to stuff. Stuff leads to stuff, right? But you're just like kind of like kind of doing it. Yeah.

1:11:27Jennifer Cohen:Right. Yeah. Kind of like throwing a lot of shit at the wall. Eventually something is going to stick. Completely. And there's nothing wrong with thinking that way. Yeah. Right. Like no opportunity is going to happen with you sitting on your couch watching Netflix. Right. Right. Do it. It's like making the shot, making the shot, making the shot.

1:11:40Leslie John:Completely do it. And I get, so the Harvard version of this is I get students who come in needing to do research, wanting to do research. That's like how we succeed. And they're just perseverating. They're like, I don't know what, like I'll start saying crazy ideas. Why don't you study this, this to try to get them to be comfortable brainstorming? And they're like, but that's not in my wheelhouse. That's not like my core. And I'm like - Who cares? What? Well, like, yeah, who cares? Like you don't even have it. Like, I don't even have a core. Like, what are you interested in? Just do it. Let's get some data.

1:12:12Leslie John:Let's get the survey up right now. Let's do it.

1:12:14Jennifer Cohen:Not perfect progress. Right. Don't progress.

1:12:17Leslie John:Stop perseverating and do something.

1:12:19Jennifer Cohen:See, but that's where people, so this is what my whole talk is about is the fact that we are our own worst enemies and overthinking is analysis paralysis. Yeah. Yeah. And I use you. Welcome to academia. Well, I use you, I use you in my whole talk because I say this people who are the smartest, right? Are not the ones who win. The people who win are the boldest.

1:12:39Leslie John:Because they can't, they're like, but this is this is this is this is this is this is this is this

1:12:42Jennifer Cohen:They get every outcome that can go wrong, the negativity, what happens at this? What happens at that? It's paralyzing. Yeah, it's paralyzing. But if you're just bold, which is what my whole thing is, is that like, you're just going to do it. And if you fail, all right, if it doesn't work, okay. Like, that's why I was saying earlier, like me being average growing up worked to my advantage because the more average I was, the more like if I failed, no one cared. Yeah. You're not threatening. I could keep on trying. And as I kept on trying, I was, I was sharpening my tool and I was getting better and faster and stronger and smarter than all these people who were like, were at the time so much more like smarter, faster, whatever it was.

1:13:21Jennifer Cohen:Right. Right. Right. So that's my point. It's like, you can't count yourself out without even like making the attempts. Right. And you're going to, like, don't you, have you heard that thing, like, it's the C students or the A plus students working for the C students?

1:13:35Leslie John:Yeah, yeah. That makes, that, because they don't have the grit, the, like. They had to, like, learn the resourcefulness and the grit to get through. The wily resourcefulness. Yeah, totally. Another thing came to mind as it came to mind now and earlier about, like, being average and, and, and when you're like, what are the, how did you get to where you are? I, on the first day of grad school, we did this exercise and my naivete too of like, we're all going to be friends and happy as a cohort. Let's cuddle. And so the professor, we are this cohort of like six new students and small, and he slaps a$20 bill in front of each of us.

1:14:17Leslie John:And he has us all do, puts us in a prisoner's dilemma, which essentially, basically, you've got, you're with someone else. I'm with, I'm paired up with this person. We've just started, we've just met each other and there's$20 in between us. And we each have to make a decision, split or steal. If we both say, and it's simultaneous reveal, it's one, two, three. What are you going to say? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. And so if we both play split, then we split it down, even Steven, 10 bucks each. Okay. So if we both cooperate, But the problem is there's a temptation to be selfish and defect where, by that I mean, if you play steal and the other person, you somehow manage to convince them to play split.

1:14:58Leslie John:So if I play steal and you play split, you're generous, trusting, and I'm not. I play steal. I get all 20 bucks. And then if both of us play steal, none of us get anything. Okay? So the thing that's tricky is you want to each get$10. That's like a really nice outcome. but you've always got the, if I know that you're going to play split, then I'll be tempted to be like backstab and play steal so that I can get more money, right? And so this is like a very, it's been studied ad nauseum in economics and beyond. There's like a correct answer to this, the correct rational, rational in quotes, the correct answer is to, in this situation, to play steal, which nobody gets anything.

1:15:37Leslie John:That's like the correct answer. And I knew, I did know this coming in, like that, that is the correct answer. But in my mind, I'm like, but this is a bonding exercise. And so, so what do I play? I play, play split. I cooperate. Everyone else plays spit. I look like, play steel. I play like, look like such a loser. My, my classmate and was the only one to walk away with money because everyone else played, played steel and I played split. And I looked like a fool. Like I, I look like a complete idiot on the first day of grad school. But, and I felt, I was ruminating afterwards, even though in the time I'm like, we're doing this, right guys?

1:16:12Leslie John:But like my naivete burned me. But then I was like, but did it burn me? Because, you know, when we were doing, we, I didn't get through grad school without help. Right. And, and, and like, I'm disarmed. I was disarming. Nobody was threatened by the dumb girl. Exactly. So that's a hundred percent true. So it's like, they, they helped me. Yeah. I helped them too, I think. I taught them psychology. Right.

1:16:35Jennifer Cohen:And also though, they weren't threatened by you. Yeah.

1:16:37Leslie John:Yeah. So I think there can be like, not to be like hyper strategic about it, but just like reflecting back. I think there is something to that. I think there's a lot to that.

1:16:47Jennifer Cohen:Yeah. So I was going to include, when you were asking me earlier, I was super disarming, right? Yes. Because I wasn't a threat.

1:16:55Leslie John:Yes.

1:16:55Jennifer Cohen:And that worked to my advantage. Yes. Right? Yes. And I think that like I'm a big believer in making, in using every tool you have in your toolbox to kind of go after what you want. Yeah. I just do. Completely. And I don't think that's taking away from someone else's toolbox. Right. Right. Right. And so if you, if you can be, if you're disarming somebody and you're not threatening, God bless you. Right. I also don't think it's a bad thing to be an opportunist.

1:17:23Leslie John:No, not at all. As long as you're like sincere and not like. But what's wrong with it?

1:17:28Jennifer Cohen:Why can't you seek and why can't you take advantage of an opportunity and seize the day or seize the opportunity? You'd be a fool not to. Right. If it's like, oh, you're such an opportunist. Okay, you should be too.

1:17:44Leslie John:I think because sometimes when one says that, people hear like at someone else's expense. That's not what you're saying at all.

1:17:52Jennifer Cohen:Exactly. And that's exactly, I had this whole back and forth with this person I had like a falling out with, right? Because not because of this, but one of the things that was what we're talking about is like, I believe that people should take advantage of every opportunity that comes their way. And they took it like, well, at whose expense? No expense. Right. You're the one who's adding on to that sentence, you know, at someone else's expense, which makes me think that's your personality trait. Yeah. Yeah. Me, I'm just saying life is like, it's like, it's basically a zero, zero game. Yeah. Right.

1:18:29Jennifer Cohen:Not like a zero sum game. I'm not, I'm not competing against you and vice versa. I don't really care, but whatever opportunity is coming my way, I'm going to try to seize it. Yeah. And you should too. And that's what my point was earlier. Like you've got to be resourceful. You've got to be pretty. You've got to make everything work for your advantage. Right. Not at the expense of anybody else.

1:18:46Leslie John:And a core of that is like understanding you and like what your secret capabilities are, like what unlocking your potential and trying by doing things you learn like, oh, I'm really, really savvy and really good at this. And I'm not so great at that. Right. So do more of the good thing and mitigate the bad thing. And maybe not do so much of that thing. Yeah, yeah.

1:19:04Jennifer Cohen:I mean, I don't even know what we're talking about. We're like, oh, yeah, sorry. We're so off. How long has this been?

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1:20:23Jennifer Cohen:Okay, I wanted to ask you a couple other questions and then we can like wrap this. Okay, although I guess we talked about leaders. We talked about actually confidence flexors. Have we talked about that? Let's talk about confidence flexors. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I, I, I really liked the Shark Tank example because I watched Shark Tank. I love Shark Tank. I love it too. I love Mr. Wonderful. Mr. Wonderful. Oh my God. They're all great.

1:20:47Leslie John:I love, I love, I know they all have their unique and they work so well together. I love them. They work really great together. Are they actually, is that their, I feel like it's so authentic. Like it's their, maybe an exaggerated version, but like it feels, it rings. They feel authentic. They do. By the way, the ones I've, I've had on,

1:21:02Jennifer Cohen:I think they're great. I love Rob's Canadian. Yes, yes. He's more like he's not like his – no, he's from somewhere else. Where is he from? Not Ukraine. No, no. Oh, my gosh. I should stop talking. No, no, no, no.

1:21:13Leslie John:That sounds closer. No.

1:21:15Jennifer Cohen:Bosnia or Turkomania? Not Bosnia. Cut this. Cut this. Not Bosnia. Where is he from?

1:21:22Leslie John:Tip of my tongue.

1:21:24Jennifer Cohen:Croatia, it says. Oh, you got it. You nailed it. I don't think that's right. Is it? Okay, maybe it is. But then he immigrated to Canada. So I feel he's one of us.

1:21:32Leslie John:Yeah, yeah. And he has the Canadian, you can hear the about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he counts.

1:21:36Jennifer Cohen:My point is I really liked it. I liked the example that you used. And I believe, whenever I watch the show, I notice that the ones who are overly confident on the show. And dismissive. Of like these superstar experts. But in general, I feel like they don't like the people who are overly confident. For sure. They want the people who are more like, like kind of like have that like feeling of they admit when they're wrong. Yeah. What would you call that?

1:21:59Leslie John:Yeah. Real. Humility. Or humility, that's humility. Humility is the word, yeah. And that takes confidence. That's like, you have to be, actually be confident to admit that you don't know.

1:22:10Jennifer Cohen:100%. Like that, I think overly confident is really unattractive.

1:22:13Leslie John:Yeah, I agree completely, completely. And yet it is amazing in the classroom when people use, maybe not for, I don't know, for judging character, but what I see, maybe, I don't know why, maybe they're younger MBA students, but people confuse confidence with competence and knowledge. Yeah, there's lots of studies on that. Right? So it's in the classroom all the time. There will be someone who says something like word salad, but eloquent and super confident, but like zero substance. And people are enthralled. And then someone who's much less confident and puts up their hand and nod in a loud voice and they're like crazy smart.

1:22:59Leslie John:And I'm like, yes. So, so then I'm trying to, I try to, in less overt ways, because if you're overt about it, then it's not good. But I try to echo the person who like repeats. So what Suzanne is saying is it sounds like, right. And kind of ignore the, but it is, but the, um, it's, it's frustrating to me that people confuse the two so much.

1:23:19Jennifer Cohen:Well, confidence and confidence are the people who are confident. I feel are usually calm. They usually go together. That's why, yes. They're usually the most confident.

1:23:28Leslie John:They often go together.

1:23:29Jennifer Cohen:But a lot of times, the most confident, a lot of, I've seen in my own history, that you could be a really good orator and fake confidence. Completely. And be a complete ninny in real life. Yes, 100%. And I think that that happens a lot also. And so I think this goes under this whole umbrella of like likability, right? Yeah, yeah. I think that the people who are the most likable may not necessarily be the most competent, but they have these other qualities that draw you in. And I was going to say, there's a whole study that's on how VCs give money to the most likable, not necessarily the best business fund.

1:24:09Jennifer Cohen:And that's not wrong, right? Well, it's not wrong. But listen, if I'm giving someone$20 million, I - They need to be competent. I would like them to be competent.

1:24:17Leslie John:They need to be competent. But yeah, I mean, surely it's wrong sometimes, but it's, I would say you would probably agree it's also wrong. Like likability does matter. And when in terms of the person's ability to lead, being likable does matter.

1:24:30Jennifer Cohen:It matters more than anything else. It's the most underrated superpower I think that there is.

1:24:35Leslie John:Preach girl. Right? I do believe that to be true. Yeah. We're like aggressively Canadian right now. Yeah, exactly. We're super, super Canadian. But the confidence flexing, sorry, I went on a tangent there. So the confidence flexing, it's like our instinct is often to project confidence when we are not actually, when we feel really weak and it doesn't really work. A funny example of it. The thing is, it's sneaky because it kind of creeps up on us. Right. When I was, I'm not a good driver. Don't ever get in a car with me. Oh, God. When I was taking my...

1:25:14Jennifer Cohen:Go back for your kids.

1:25:16Leslie John:Yeah, I know, I know. Well, my husband almost always drives. I know, he's like, oh, the patriarchy. But definitely, he's a good spy driver. But yeah, so when I was taking my driver's test, This is so absurd, but it illustrates the point. I took a left-hand turn and I neglected to look for a pedestrian. And the adjudicator said, who had the right of way there? And I knew that the passenger pedestrian did, but I just confidently was like, I did. Like as if that erases everything, right? Right. It's like as if you, and so that's an absurd example, but it shows how like wrong this is, but how we often default to it.

1:26:01Leslie John:Right. We all do because I think it's out of defensiveness.

1:26:04Jennifer Cohen:Yeah.

1:26:04Leslie John:Defensive. It's totally, it's totally brought them on by defensiveness. Yeah.

1:26:08Jennifer Cohen:And so what is your point though?

1:26:10Leslie John:Was there a point? Oh, I was just explaining what a conflict sex is. Oh, okay. Okay. I'm like, is there another point? Okay. I thought you were good. It's not effective. Conflict sex, no good. It's not effective. Not effective. Not effective. Not a good point. I don't know. It's late in the day. I didn't have caffeine in mine. I know. Exactly.

1:26:27Jennifer Cohen:I have way too much caffeine. Okay, Leslie, we've got to wrap this. So where do people find you?

1:26:33Leslie John:Oh, they can find me online. My website is drlesliejohn.com or on Instagram or LinkedIn, proflesliejohn.com. Okay. Prof Leslie John. Okay.

1:26:44Jennifer Cohen:The book is called Revealing and it is about the underrated power of oversharing. Yes.

1:26:52Leslie John:You're like, or is it the overrated power of oversharing? Is it actually overrated? Exactly.

1:26:56Jennifer Cohen:I read it and find out. Thank you for being on the show. I appreciate it.

1:27:00Leslie John:Thank you so much for having me. It's been so wonderful. So fun. Yay. Bye, guys. Bye.