Afford Anything - Decoding Greatness, with Ron Friedman, Ph.D

Episode Date: July 14, 2021

#327: The stories of success that highlight talent and hard work don’t tell a complete picture. The best artists, athletes, and entrepreneurs don’t always have innate talent. Not all of them have put in 10,000 hours of practice. What sets them apart is their framework for learning. Award-winning social psychologist Dr. Ron Friedman discusses his new book, Decoding Greatness, which answers the question, “why are some people so good at what they do, and what can we learn from this?” You’ll learn how to harness the power of reverse engineering, create a collection of masterworks from the best in your industry, and why practicing in three dimensions improves performance. If you have a specific skill set you want to develop or improve, tune in for Dr. Friedman’s framework for developing greatness. For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/episode327 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You can afford anything but not everything. Every choice that you make is a trade-off against something else, and that doesn't just apply to your money. That applies to your time, your focus, your energy, your attention, anything in your life that's a scarce or limited resource. Saying yes to something implicitly means. Saying no to all other opportunities. And that opens up two questions.

First, what matters most? And second, how do you align your decision-making around that which matters most? Answering those two questions is a lifetime practice. And that's what this podcast is here to explore and facilitate. My name is Paula Pant. I am the host of the Afford Anything podcast. Today's episode is going to focus on developing mastery. This is a fundamental underlying skill set that we can apply in any domain at any point in our lives.

So you can develop mastery in your practice of managing money. You can develop mastery as an investor. you can develop mastery within your primary career, or if you decide to take an early retirement and then shift into a second act, you can develop mastery in that second act. However you choose to apply it, the underlying skill set of learning how to learn, learning how to become better at whatever it is you want to become better at, is a life skill that will serve you no matter what you're doing, no matter what decision you make. And so, to discuss how to do that, in today's episode we've brought on Dr. Ron Friedman, who is an award-winning social psychologist and the founder of Ignite 80, which is a learning and development company that translates research in neuroscience and behavioral economics into practical strategies that improve the lives of working professionals and allow people to develop mastery.

His first book called The Best Place to Work was named the Best Business Book of the Year by Inc. Magazine, and his work has been featured in outlets such as Harvard Business Review, the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Psychology Today. Now, in this interview, we explore the subject of his latest book, which is Decoding Greatness. This explores the question, why are some people, whether they're artists, athletes, business people, investors, why are some people so, good at what they do. And Dr. Friedman's research shows that it isn't talent or work ethic. It's their framework for learning, specifically their ability to reverse engineer. So in this interview, we explore what this learning framework looks like and how we can use it to improve our own lives. First, we discuss reverse engineering, why it's more important than talent or deliberate practice, and how we can collect brilliant works that will help us improve our craft. Dr. Friedman then

explains the four components of pattern recognition by using the algorithms from Spotify and Tinder as examples. Next, we talk about how to create something that's original rather than derivative. This sparks a discussion on how to ensure you're measuring the right thing and how we can measure anything, including insight. We wrap up with a discussion on practicing in three dimensions and why practicing in the present dimension isn't enough. If you want a well-rounded, efficient way to learn from others and to improve your own skills and thinking, this episode is for you. Before we get into today's episode,

all right, so we have a pretty cool idea for an event, but we want to know whether or not you're into it. Here's a deal. Afford Anything has never hosted a live event before, and I think that would be freaking fun, especially because we've all been cooped up for the last 15 months. I'd like to get out. I'm sure you would too,

and what better thing would there be to do than gather a bunch of people together for a three-day event where we all get together and figure out the next 10 years of our lives. A retreat, a workshop where we figure out what's coming up in the next decade. So the theme of the event would be your next 10 years. And on Friday night, we all get together. There's food, there's drink, there's an open bar, we hang out, we meet, we mingle and talk and hang out, and we all become friends. And then on Saturday, we buckle down and we get into the actual workshop of it.

and we go through all of these exercises to figure out what is in store for the next 10 years. Like, what's the life part of money in life? Josal Sihae and I often talk about start with the end in mind. So this would be a day dedicated to figuring out what is that end that we're talking about. So that's the idea. And then we spend all day Saturday doing that. We have a great dinner together on Saturday night. And then Sunday we have what are called hot seats where each person who's there,

takes a turn going into the hot seat and talking about how they're going to apply what they learned over the weekend to their life, and then they get real-time feedback. So that's the idea for the event. I think it would be amazing. What we want to know is, are you into it? Would you go? Is this something that you want us to do? If we hosted it, it would be August 20 through 22nd in New York City. And the way that you can let us know whether or not you're into it is by pre-registering. And if we get enough people to pre-register, we will go ahead with the event. But right now we're seeing whether or not we get enough people to pre-register. So if you want a bunch of details and you want to get a discounted pre-registration ticket,

go to afford-anything.com slash event. Let us know whether or not you want us to put this thing on. Afford-anything.com slash event. I think it would be amazing. New York City, August 20 through 22nd, afford-anything.com slash event. And with that said, we turn our attention back to today's episode. Enjoy this conversation with Dr. Ron Friedman. Hi, Ron.

Hi, Paula. How are you? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much for coming on the show. You write about the importance of reverse engineering, the success of others in a variety of domains, whether it's art, cooking, even engineering itself. the importance of reverse engineering, how other masters have done it in order to discover patterns and come up with our own creative expertise. Can you talk about this underlying premise? How did

you arrive on it? Yeah, so I'm a social psychologist. I study top performance. One of the things I discovered while doing the research and decoding greatness is that many of those who've reached the top of their fields are using a technique that few people have heard of, and yet seems to be prevalent across a wide range of domains. And so most of us, when we think about success, we've been taught two basic stories about how success happens. The first story is that greatness or success come from talent. And from this perspective, we all have certain inner strengths, and the key to finding your greatness is just unlocking your particular strengths and matching it to a field that allows those strengths to shine. The second big story is that greatness or success comes from practice.

And then from this perspective, all it takes is figuring out the right practice regimen and then working hard enough to maintain that practice regimen over time. This is the Malcolm Gladwell idea of 10,000 hours. Both of those stories have some truth. But there's a third approach to success, and that is reverse engineering. And reverse engineering simply means finding the best in the field and then working backward to figure out how they did it and how you can apply their strategies to create your own unique works.

Now, in figuring out how someone did it, whether it's figuring out how a chef created a recipe or how an author put together a book or how a musician put together a piece of music, in figuring that out, how do you understand which components are vital and which ones are not? Sometimes the greats are the ones who break the rules. How do you know how to separate that which can be carried forward? from that which should be discarded. What I would say is I am less interested in how they did it and more interested as an observer of

what I can learn from it and what I can apply. But your question is, how do you know what's essential? And the key there is to start not by reverse engineering, but by simply starting a collection. Many top performers like Julia Child would collect cookbooks. David Bowie would collect records. Andy Warhol will collect artworks. Ernest Hemingway would collect books. The key is to start a collection.

And when we think about collections, we think about physical objects. We think about some of the things I just stated, which is like books and records, or maybe it's artwork or wine. That definition is too narrow. Collections don't just have to be physical objects. They could be examples of knowledge work. I know a lot of copywriters will collect headlines. A lot of presenters will collect presentation decks. I'm a writer, so I can tell you I collect words that I think are really moving or impactful.

I collect stories. I collect academic journal articles. The key is using that collection both for inspiration, but also to work backward and figure out what's different about the items in my collection when compared to items that didn't make my collection. So you're comparing, it's almost like playing Spot the Difference, the game we played as kids where you had two images side by side and you compare them to see what's different about. image A versus image B. That's what you're looking to do with the items in your collection. And it's by comparing the extraordinary against the ordinary that you find those elements that make the items in your collections distinct. How do you yourself know that you have the judgment to be able to separate the extraordinary from the ordinary? You know, I don't think it's so much about

judgment. It's about looking at what's different. Initially, I think you're probably not going to hit on the precise elements, but I think it takes practice. So if, everything that you find in your field seems extraordinary, then you're probably not sufficiently dialed in to the items or the elements that make it distinct. And so over time, you're going to get more and more discerning. And in fact, one of the challenges with folks who are really attuned to what makes something special is that for them, almost nothing is satisfying. So I can tell you, Sadly, this is probably true for me when it comes to nonfiction books where I always feel like something could have been better. It's that perfectionistic streak that I think actually elevates my work.

There are challenges on both sides. There's a challenge of finding too many things that are special. And then after a while, when you get really, really good at it, then I think your window of what you find to be extraordinary is going to shrink. And that's probably the sweet spot. You wanted to get to a point where around 10% of the works that you encounter are really, really good. You want to turn into a tough crowd of one. Yes, that's exactly right. The domain examples that we have given so far,

we've talked largely about creative domains, art, music, cooking. How would something like this apply for the people who are listening who are in neuroscience or who are accountants, how would these principles apply in their fields? So it's about finding examples that are distinct and impressive in your particular field. And that's going to depend on what your field is. So I can tell you for a lot of folks in knowledge work, it's going to be not necessarily a recipe or a book. It might just be simply a well-written email or a persuasive memo or a proposal that really was effective. And one of the recommendations I give organizations when I talk to them about the ideas in this book is to create a directory that people can go to of kind of like examples of the best of for your organization, the best proposals, the best memos, the best emails, so that people can look.

at them and start taking them part and seeing what is different about some of these examples. And again, unless you have that collection to start with, it's going to be really, really hard. When you're writing a memo and you have nothing to work off of, it's intimidating. But when you have three to five to ten examples of well-crafted memos, at the very least, you can see what the structure is, what are the essential components. And that gives you a great jumping off point that's far more advanced than simply starting by looking at a blank screen. Now, one of the things you talk about when it comes to understanding how to look at this

collection is you talk about the four components of pattern recognition. Can you go over these four components? Sure. Just to make this concrete, because it can seem really abstract. We talk about pattern recognition. But what's really interesting is that when you look at algorithms that are really effective, algorithms like Tinder or algorithms like Spotify, one of the things they do really, really well. is they make good predictions about what it is you're going to find attractive or appealing.

How Tinder's algorithm operates is by first starting off by showing you a small set of potential partners and asking you to indicate whether you like them. And you do that by swiping right if you like them, swiping left if you don't. And the more people you rate, the better Tinder's algorithm gets at predicting who you'll find attractive. Now, it does that not just by looking at their physical features. It looks at what they have in common that you consciously may not even be registering. So it may find some commonalities around the people who you swipe right on. They may be particularly tall. They may be blonde.

Maybe they like spicy foods. Maybe it's the fact that they're more extroverted based on their profile. The more people you have rated or swiped on, the better Tinder's algorithm gets. But without those initial examples, Tinder's algorithm is fairly useless. by the way, it's true for Spotify, where it's predicting on if you, for those listeners who have Spotify, if you do a search for Discover Weekly, those are songs that Spotify has identified the structure of to be those of songs that common with songs that you like. And so it's generating predictions around artists, probably you've never heard of, that have song structures that are similar to the

ones you've liked in the past or listened to it to the end of the song. The point is that it starts off by asking you for examples of people or songs that you've liked, but without those examples, it can't generate additional predictions. And so the same is true for all of us. We all need to collect examples first in order to generate those predictions. So the four features, just to summarize this, is collecting those examples, looking at what is varying across those examples. So again, I mentioned some of the individuals might be tall or blonde or extroverted. Then it's looking for commonalities among the successful examples and distinguishing those from those that were considered unsuccessful, people you didn't like or the songs you didn't listen to to the end,

and then finally it generates those predictions. We can all learn from those four steps, and it starts by starting that collection, and then looking at what makes the items in your collections different from those that did not make your collection. Now, how is it? If we try to develop domain mastery by looking at collections of examples of what we find great, how do we create something that is original rather than something that is derivative? The first step, as we talked about, is collecting. Then you're looking at what's different. Beyond that, you can start templatize. Now, templatize is not really a word, but I like to make it one, so I'm on a mission. Templateize simply means if you were to recreate this work, what template would you craft for yourself that enabled you to make that happen? So it's almost like creating a mad lips for yourself, for memos or for emails or for presentation decks, so that it's easier for you to execute. Now, as you correctly point out, if all you're doing is copying somebody else's formula, your work will be

considered derivative. And if your work is considered derivative, there's certain challenges with that, because particularly in creative fields, nobody wants to be considered derivative. I think within the world of work, there's some value actually being fairly derivative because then you're creating efficiencies. And most clients are not going to demand that you be particularly creative unless you're in a marketing agency. And I think for most people, that's good enough to templatize and move from there because that makes their work a lot simpler and easier to do. But if for those who are listening who are interested in also being creative, there's another step to take. And that other step is to look for formulas beyond the example that you've pinpointed

and mesh them or blend them with your winning formula. So for example, if you're looking at a well-written memo, but at the same time you're also looking at what a particular New Yorker piece is doing effectively, you could potentially blend those two elements to create something that is uniquely your own. And so it's all about looking at not just the items in your collection, but also items in your collection for other fields. And then looking at what elements can I blend from other fields to make something that's unique? So interdisciplinary connections. Cross-pollination, exactly. So looking at blending ideas. And if you're In fact, if you look at many of the creative standout performers who we recognize, for example, Lynn Manuel Miranda, if you look at in the Heights, what is going on there? Well, it is a combination of the typical Broadway formula plus rap plus salsa. Now, if you look at Hamilton, he took that formula and evolved it one step further by adding American history. And both of those examples are taking things outside the typical Broadway play to make something that is uniquely his own.

One of the concepts that you discuss in the book is what you call the vision ability gap. So it may be the case that you see the formula, you understand how to templatize, you in your head have constructed something great, but then there's sometimes that gap between what's in your head and what comes out of your fingertips, the head hand gap. How do you bridge that? This is one of the challenges is that you might have great taste. You might know what the formula is, but actually executing against it is hard. And so the first half of my book shows you how to reverse engineer and how it's been done across a wide variety of fields. And the second half is about bridging that visionability gap. And there are a host of techniques that you can use to build your skills that are science-based.

And that's what that second half of the book is about. And just to give you a flavor for some of the ideas, the first one I start off with is something called the scoreboard principle. And the scoreboard principle simply states that measurement begets improvement. We know from the research that simply keeping track of your performance tends to lead to improvement. There's research showing that if you want to drink more water, keep score of your daily water intake. If you want to lose weight, keep score of your daily calorie consumption. If you want to increase your focus at work, keep score of your uninterrupted minutes at the office. It's an incredibly powerful tool, and it's one that is criminally underutilized.

And there's so many reasons for why measurement leads to improvement. it makes us more mindful of our behavior. So, for example, if you are time tracking, how you spend your time at the office, if you're tempted to go on TikTok for half an hour, you can still do that. But knowing that you have to report that on a timesheet makes you more mindful about that decision and you're now less likely to do it. So now you have more thoughtful choices and more thoughtful decision making. It also exposes wasted effort.

So again, if you're tracking how many memos you got out that day, if that's your job, if you keep track of that, then you're going to be more mindful of the fact that being in meetings doesn't contribute to your memo production. And so now it exposes wasted effort. Finally, and this is not a trivial point, anytime your score goes up or goes down, it provides an emotional jolt. And so now you are gamifying your day-to-day work. And so if you want to improve it anything, the first step is to create that scoreboard. And we can apply that to so many domains of our life. Anything you want to get better at, start measuring. A couple of follow-up questions. First, while it is the case that, you know, the famous expression, what gets measured gets improved, some of that famous Jim Rohn quote, while that is the case, the first follow-up question is, how do you make sure that you are measuring the right things?

Well, it's almost like reverse engineering yourself. So here, you want to look at what it is that constitutes a successful day for you and then identify. four to five elements of what a successful day look like. So it might be, you know, I've learned something. Maybe it's, I've exercised or maybe I was creative today. Those are the three elements that I would say constitute a good day for me. Okay. So learning, being creative and exercising. So then you could, for example, rate that on a one to seven scale of how well did I do a? How well did I exercise today? How well did I learn something today? How well did I do something creative today? And give yourself a score. Now you're more mindful of the decisions that go into how you use up your day because you're scoring yourself on a daily basis.

That's on the global scale, right? Like rating your day overall. If you want to be more specific than that, if you want to create a scoreboard for a particular task, then it's about reverse engineering. One of the specific elements that constitute a successful execution of this task. So in the case of writing a well-written email to a client, it might include three things. a opening that has nothing to do with work but is relating to the client about something that is like a personal connection that you have.

Two, being clear and precise about the thing you want the client to do. And then three, sharing some new insight that the client would find valuable so that they appreciate the fact that you are on the same page as them and working towards the same goals. You can then write your email and then rate on a one to seven scale, how well did I, each of those three features. And just giving yourself that scoreboard attunes you to the elements that lead to successful execution and also provide you with immediate feedback. So many of the things we do at work don't offer us any feedback for a long time. In many cases, there are employees who wait around an entire year for their performance review and have no idea whether they're getting

better or worse. But by creating a personal scoreboard to a particular task or to a particular day or how you spend your week, that invariably will improve your performance at work. So in the example that you just gave, you gave the example of essentially the template of an email, the friendly introduction leading to an important insight. What strikes me when I hear that example is that the quality of the insight itself, to me, seems like the 80-20 of that, because that's the distinguishing feature between you and 100 other people who do your same job. true insight is rare and what's rare is valuable. How could something like the quality of your

insight be measured? That's great. Paula, we can keep going down the struggle hole. I love this stuff. I'm a researcher. I think you can measure anything. So in the case of the example of the email, I would say the point of the email is not to share the insight because then, you know, not necessarily relevant to the client. You're interrupting their day with an insight that might be useful. That could play a role in certain instances, but in this case, I would think of the email as the primary purpose of the email is actually the second point, which is getting the thing that you want the client to do. So just to be a little bit more clear about the example, here, I think the point of the email is like, let's say, to get the client to either make a payment or follow through with something they've

promised you. And so you're couching that request with a friendly opening that has nothing to do with work. You're making the request. And then you're giving them an insight to show you're working towards. the same goal. So that is the goal of the email. And I think that you're not necessarily hiding it, but you're making, you can see how if all you did was, hey, where's my money? That would now be quite an effective email. But here, you're being really professional and you're moving the relationship forward while asking for the thing that you need done. That said, your question was

about the third point, which is, how do I know that my insight is actually good? I think you can create measures around what constitute a good insight. So it could be a research based, B, actionable, or C, surprising. Then you can create a score for each of the insights. How surprising is this? How, to what extent is this research based? To what extent is this actionable? And now you're constantly getting a little bit closer to what it is that you're trying to achieve. Now, you're not going to get a 10 every time or 7 every time or whatever the rating score is. You're not going to get a perfect score every time, and that's okay. But the fact that you are even bothering to give yourself a score at all, I'm willing to bet puts you leaps and bounds ahead of your competitors.

We'll come back to this episode in just a minute. But first, the holidays are right around the corner, and if you're hosting, you're going to need to get prepared. Maybe you need bedding, sheets, linens. Maybe you need servware and cookware. And of course, holiday decor, all the stuff to make your home a great place to host during the holidays, you can get up to 70% off during Wayfair's Black Friday sale. Wayfair has Can't Miss Black Friday deals all month long. I use Wayfar to get lots of storage type of items for my home, so I got tons of shelving that's in the entryway, in the bathroom, very space saving. I have a daybed from them that's multi-purpose. You can use it as a couch, but you can sleep on it as a bed. It's got shelving. It's got drawers underneath

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But they also have the fintech hustle that got them named one of America's most innovative companies by Fortune magazine. That's what being a fifth third better is all about. It's about not being just one thing, but many things for our customers. Big Bank Muscle, FinTech Hustle. That's your commercial payments, a fifth, third better. When it comes to tracking the right metrics, one thing that strikes me is that, let's say you ran a business. There are a number of metrics that you can track, like top line revenue versus bottom line revenue. If it's a brick and mortar establishment, it could be sales per square feet or sales per customer who walks in the door.

or size of sale, volume of, you know, it could be the volume of transactions, it could be the size of those transactions. And optimizing, sometimes optimizing for one metric comes at the cost of optimizing for a different one. When that happens, when, for example, optimizing for the size of transactions comes at the cost of the frequency or volume of transactions, how do you make that trade-off decision? I think it's actually useful to have metrics that are both optimizing and warning you when there's a problem. And so one of the things I talk about in the book is that Andy Grove talked about how for every metric, there should be a metric that is the opposite of that metric that warns you when you're getting too good at that initial metric. So, for example, if I'm optimizing for exercises and I am at seven all the time, and it's because I'm leaving work at 12 o'clock to play four hours of racquetball, that's a problem. And so you should have an opposite of that metric as well, which is to what

extent did I do my job well today? Because you want to think about if I get too good at that particular metric, what would warn me of that? And I think in many cases, you see businesses going off the rails because there isn't that counter metric. And so in Decoding Greatness, I talk about the example of Wells Fargo. And we've all heard of there was some kind of scandal going on with Wells Fargo. And just to shed some light on some of the particulars, Wells Fargo was optimizing for a particular metric. And everyone in the organization was told to optimize for the same metric. And that metric was, how many accounts did every client have? Meaning that if you, Paul Pant, have an account with me, Wells Fargo, I want to make sure that you don't just have one savings account.

You have multiple accounts because one of the things that Wells Fargo discovered when they did research is that the clients who had multiple accounts were the most probably. So they started asking people to open multiple accounts. Many clients felt pressured and ended up leaving. It got to the point where they were incentivizing their salespeople to a degree where some were having panic attacks at work. Many were working overtime and not getting paid for it. And some were opening up false accounts for people that either didn't have accounts with Wells Fargo at all or had some accounts but didn't have others. In some cases, they actually were opening up financial accounts for homeless people because they were able to get a hold of their Social Security. numbers and they were trying to meet the numbers. Wells Fargo was really, really successful at optimizing for this number, but what they didn't realize, they didn't have that countermetric. And that countermetric was how profitable are people really when they have multiple accounts? And they lost track of that number. And tragically, they ended up getting fine to a level that was many multiples of the actual profits they brought in by pressuring all these people to bring in multiple accounts. And so having a countermetric is really valuable and actually is ideal.

So you don't just want to measure the thing you want to measure. You also want to measure. What if you're too good at that metric? Right. That makes sense. Bringing this back to the concept of reverse engineering examples of greatness in others, as we look to what we perceive as mastery, mastery in whatever field or domain we are interested in developing Greater Mastery in, is there a way for us to know what metrics, what scoreboard

our role models have used? So here, it's more about how you can recreate them. And so looking at the most successful TED Talk of all time, that is Sir Ken Robinson's talk on creativity. And if you're not familiar, it's a 18-minute talk where this creative, creativity expert talks about how schools beat the desire for creativity out of us. And it's because we in schools, we are rewarded for getting the right answer. And we're taught that unless we get the right answer, we're doing something wrong. And in order to be creative, you need to take lots and lots of risks. And so it's actually unhelpful from the perspective of creating creative thinkers. In Decoding Greatness, I try to break down the features of this talk. And how I do it is by quantifying all kinds of elements

about this talk. So I look at how many facts Sir Ken Robinson presents and how many anecdotes he tells and how many jokes he tells. And I also give you a map of the emotional trajectory for minute to minute so you can see what he's doing in the talk. And that's really the value of reverse engineering. It is to step back and see globally what is happening here and how can I recreate it. And one of the fascinating things I discovered while doing that analysis is that Sir Ken Robinson tells a grand total of one fact over the entire talk. That to me is stunning because if I was about to write a TED talk, I would assume that I need to pummel you with multiple facts, be really persuasive. And in fact, he doesn't do that. What does he do instead? What does he overrepresent on? He tells a ton

of personal anecdotes. So he's getting you to connect with him on a personal basis by sharing these personal stories that talk about his past, but also some of the people he's worked with. And, and conveying the impact of being taught not to be creative on their lives. That's the thing that makes his talk so effective. Beyond that, he's also telling a ton of jokes. You recognize that by looking at his metrics. And unless you're looking at what are the features of this talk, just like that Tinder algorithm or that Spotify algorithm,

what's going on here that's different from other TED talks, you would be blind to that. And you certainly would not have recognized it if you had just watched his talk. And so by converting the transcript of his talk into features, you're able to detect the particular metrics on which he is higher. And that tells you so much more about how you can recreate a similar talk by just reapplying that formula and templatizing it. To what extent should these concepts that you're talking about be overt, like as you just described versus to what extent should we be absorbing this through implicit learning,

through repeated exposure? Yeah, implicit learning is a big part of this where I think many of us are learning and are not aware that we're reverse engineering, but it kind of happens automatically. And this is what happens with a lot of Netflix shows, where at the beginning of a season, you're really immersed and you're fascinated by how well done this is. And by episode six, you feel like this is so formulaic and predictable. And it's because implicit learning has led you to detect what that formula is. In this book, what I'm trying to do is make the implicit a little bit more explicit to give you more direction so that if you're trying to create exceptional work, you now have a roadmap for doing that. And it's not just about reproducing someone else's

formula because chances are you're not going to be as effective as they were. So in the example of Sir Ken Robinson's talk, if we just took his formula and apply that to your next TED talk, chances are won't be quite as effective as his was, and it's for a couple of reasons. One is, he has a particular set of strengths around telling jokes, and he has a library of anecdotes that maybe you don't have. Beyond that, he's got the academic cachet that enables him to not necessarily have to state very many facts and still be persuasive, whereas if you're not a world-renowned creativity expert, maybe you can't get away with that. And so his particular formula won't be as effective for you, but beyond that, it's now 10 or 15 years after he

originally delivered that talk, and many people have watched it. And so now audience expectations have shifted around what constitutes an original TED talk. And so simply reproducing his formula will also fall short from that perspective. And so the key really is to find formulas that work for you and your particular strengths, and then evolving them just slightly enough so that your approach feels novel and fresh. You end the book by discussing a concept known as practicing in three dimensions. Can you elaborate on this? So when many of us think about practicing as a means of getting better at improving our skills,

we think about practicing in one dimension. And that one dimension is practicing in the present. And that turns out to be far too narrow an approach to improving our skills. And if you look at top performers, athletes like Roger Federer, Serena Williams, and many other sports as well, what these athletes are doing is they're practicing in three dimensions. And those three dimensions are the past, the present, and the future. So here's what I mean by practicing in the past. We've all heard of an approach to practice called deliberate practice. That's an approach to practicing in the present where you're focusing on elements of your

performance that are falling short and really focusing closely on those so that you're getting immediate feedback on every execution so you can utilize that feedback to get a little bit better the next time. There's another approach that's similar to that. And the research is referred to as reflective practice, not deliberate practice, but reflective practice. What reflective practice means is taking the time to look back on your performance in the past and trying to distill some new insights about how you can improve in the future. And it's by looking at what your initial expectations were against your actual performance and doing that comparison is what leads you to uncover some new insights and translate your experience into wisdom.

And how to make that practical, just a very simple thing that anyone listening can do is pick up a five-year journal. You can get these on any bookstore. And how these work is that they are journals consisting of 365 pages, one page for every day of the year. On each page, there are five slots, one for five consecutive years. years. All you have to do is spend a few minutes every night writing down three sentences about what you learned that day or what you did that day or some interesting insight. And you do

this for every day of the year and then a year later something magical happens, which is after putting in your entry for that day, you also get to read what you did on that same day a year prior. And that experience of consistently revisiting the past awakens you to new insights that you may have forgotten. It strengthens your memory. It reminds you of overblown fears that you thought a lot about that ended up not transpiring. And it reminds you of wins that you've forgotten about because that's what happens, right? Life goes on and you forget about all these great things that you've done. And sometimes it helps to be reminded. And so reflective practice is really valuable. And in fact, there's research out of the Harvard Business School that shows that

simply taking a few minutes at the end of the day to reflect on what you learned leads to a 23% lift in your performance. So it's an easy, simple task that anyone can do to improve their performance almost automatically. Now, practicing in the future has to do with visualizing and doing imagery exercises. And so if you're someone who works in an office, let's say you have to write a memo tomorrow morning. All this means is taking the time to visualize what that might look like on a practical level. So you might now think about all of the different examples you need to pick up on before you start working. So past memos you've written, any research that you might need to do. If there are distractions you anticipate in the office that day, how you might navigate

those distractions. Doing that for a few minutes ahead of actually starting to write will frontload many of the decisions that you will encounter and have to make over the course of writing your memo that then make it easier for you to actually execute. And again, there's research showing that visualizing is remarkably effective. Speakers who visualize their performance end up looking less anxious and are more persuasive. Surgeons who visualize their surgeries make fewer mistakes and feel less anxiety. And musicians who visualize playing a piece for the first time end up making fewer mistakes. And so there's a remarkable wealth of research showing that practicing both in the past

and in the future can elevate your performance far beyond just practicing in the present. We'll come back to this episode after this word from our sponsors. What are the elements of successful visualization as compared with unsuccessful visualization? That's a great question, because one of the things that we hear a lot about is that if you want to be successful, all you need to do is visualize success. And it's not just self-help gurus on the internet who are telling us this. It's also celebrities. People like Jim Carrey, Jim Carrey tells the story of how he was an out-of-work actor when he wrote himself a $10 million check for acting services rendered.

He set a date. I think it was maybe five or ten years in the future. And just before the check was about to expire is when he got his role in Dumb and Dumber that amazingly was about the same amount that he wrote the check for. Bianca Andrescu did the same for herself before winning the U.S. Open, when she wrote herself a check for the prize money at the U.S. Open ended up winning the U.S. Open. Those stories are fascinating, but what they are not is proof. And it's because for every celebrity actor or U.S. Open winning tennis player, there are hundreds of not thousands who've also written themselves

checks that they never got to cash. And we don't hear about those folks because they don't get to make it onto Oprah. The research shows us not only is visualizing success ineffective. It actually makes you worse. And we know this because of a study out of UCLA that divided over 100 students into three groups. And these were psychology students who were about to take their midterm. They divided them to three groups. One group was asked to visualize themselves doing well on the test. The second group was asked to visualize themselves studying for the test. And the third group was asked to simply track the number of hours they spent studying. And what they found was that visualizing studying did best. It's because when you're visualizing yourself doing the work necessary to be successful,

again, you're front-loading decisions in advance. So you're thinking about where am I going to study, what books am I going to need, where am I going to put my phone, all of the elements that enable you to be more present when the time comes for studying. In comparison to the group, the control group, the group that just identified how many hours they spent studying, the group that visualized success actually did worse. And the reason is, because when we visualize success, the immediate emotional payoff leads us to feel temporarily sated, reducing our motivation to actually do the work necessary to succeed. And so if you're trying to improve your performance and you're trying to visualize

yourself succeeding, what you actually want to do is visualize the specifics of yourself doing the work by getting into utilizing all the different senses so that you're getting really, really immersed in the experience, thereby making the actual experience of doing the work easier for you. So this makes sense because then you're visualizing what is within your locus of control. Precisely right. It's about front-loading decisions. And so the easier it is for you to execute because you don't have to think, the more likely you are to succeed. This is why, in the case of preparing for podcasts, I don't just visualize myself doing well on a podcast. I try to anticipate what the questions you're going to ask are. And I write out my responses and I visualize myself delivering

those responses. And it's because podcasts are not an opportunity to think. They're an opportunity to share things you've already prepared. And that's what we all want to do in everyday life. If you're giving a proposal, if you're doing a pitch, you shouldn't we have to think on the spot. Politicians, when they're going on TV, oftentimes they don't care what the question is. They're just going to give you their answer because they've rehearsed it. And that can feel disingenuous if you're not doing it correctly. And the reason that's disingenuous is because they haven't prepared for that particular question. And so to the extent that you can prepare by thinking about all the potential questions you might get for that meeting or that proposal or that pitch,

the better off you'll be. So I'm curious. So behind the scenes, I have not sent you any questions in advance. How closely did the questions that I asked mirror the ones that you anticipated? You asked me a lot about metrics that I did not anticipate, but it makes sense because I Obviously, you have listeners who are interested in finances and financials are metrics driven. And so I could have done a little bit better on that. But I think you'll agree. We did okay. You also commented that podcasts are not the place to think.

Do you, and I wonder if this is maybe an introvert-extrovert thing, are there ever moments where you are maybe answering the question you're talking and you have an insight that you hear come out of your own mouth that you didn't previously even knew that you had? Oh, 100%. And in fact, I prefer it that the questions not be the ones that I've prepared for because honestly, it can get really predictable. I've now done 50 interviews, maybe more, and I would say 80% of them ask the same questions. And it's not because folks are unoriginal. I think it's more of a time crunch where if you're a podcast host, you're probably getting, I don't know, 10 books a day. How many of those do you get to read? But I really enjoy the conversations that go off in different directions. forced me to think, but honestly, if I hadn't done that prep work, I would feel less comfortable with going off in various different directions because I would be so concerned about whether I'm hitting on all the important points. But now that I feel comfortable enough, because I've predicted the questions and practiced the answers, that I'm happy to go in any direction. So is that analogous to you need to learn the rules in order to break them? You need to do the prep work

in order to go off script. It's a great point. And I would tell you that I've been speaking with a number of readers who have read this book and are now inspired to try and write a novel. This is what I'm so excited by is that this book gives you the tools to deconstruct anything you're interested in doing. But to your point, unless you do that first, it's going to be really, really hard for you to know what are the necessary elements of executing this correctly. So in the case of a novel, you might have the temptation to go off and write about a character that, you know, that, you is interesting to you, but because you haven't done the research, you're not aware of the fact that there needs to be a goal. There needs to be a flaw in your character, that the character

needs to learn something from point A to point B at the end of the book. There needs to be a climax. Unless you know what those elements are, your book is not going to be successful. So what I'm hopeful for is that people who pick up this book, Decoding Greatness, have the opportunity now to understand what those rules are, regardless of whatever field they're in so that they can create more creative works. Great. Well, thank you so much. Is there anything that I haven't asked that you would like to emphasize? What I hope people take away from this book is the old stories, the stories of, well, you know, you have to have talent or you need to put 10,000 hours of practice in, that those stories are just not accurate for how most people have gotten to the top of their

profession. And I think that the stories that we tell ourselves about success really matter. And because so many people have become convinced that they need to have a particular talent, or that they need to have the drive and the discipline for 10,000 hours of practice, that a lot of people have just given up on their dreams. And I really want to push back on that. And I feel like that's a depressing state of affairs. And I hope that at least some of our listeners will be inspired enough to learn more about some of the techniques that have worked for the masters in their field so that they can accelerate their success.

Well, thank you. Where can people find you if they would like to learn more about you and your work? The best place to go to learn more about this book is Decoding greatnessbook.com. And the reason I mention that is because if you go on to that website, you can buy the book at any website and then send us your receipt and we'll send you a free course on how to start reverse engineering in your field and it's completely free. If you'd like to learn more about me, you can check out Ron Friedman, Ph.D.com or my company's website, which is ignite80.com. And the reason it's called Ignite80 is because we're focused on helping leaders build extraordinary workplace in over 80. percent of employees are not fully engaged at work. So the mission of Ignite 80 is to teach leaders science-based principles for elevating their team's performance. Thank you, Dr. Friedman. What are some of the

key takeaways that we got from this conversation? Here are five. Number one, start a collection of excellent work. Dr. Friedman begins the interview by pointing out that success doesn't come from talent or practice alone. It can also come from reverse engineering. How do we reverse engineer something effectively? One of the keys is to start a collection. This collection should incorporate great works, inspiring works from the domain that you are trying to master. So how do you know what to include in this collection? What do you do if you think that everything is amazing? You need to get more attuned to the best work in that given domain or field. And this comes with time and practice. Dr. Friedman suggests,

that 10% of the works that you encounter are actually good. It's about finding the sweet spot between thinking everything is great versus having such a perfectionistic streak that nothing impresses you anymore. You need a balance in there, and that balance should reflect 10% impressive, 10% unimpressive, and about that 80% in the middle of the bell curve. Now, this collection of that 10% of whatever is at the top of the domain, this can represent a wide range of examples. Collections don't just have to be physical objects.

They could be examples of knowledge work. I know a lot of copywriters will collect headlines. A lot of presenters will collect presentation decks. I'm a writer, so I can tell you I collect words that I think are really moving or impactful. I collect stories. I collect academic journal articles. The key is using that collection both for inspiration, but also to work backward and figure out what's different about the items in my collection

when compared to items that didn't make my collection. As you look through this collection, compare what made it into the collection and what didn't. What is the distinguishing factor between those examples that are good enough that they merit being in your collection and those that are not? Be sure to analyze this because this will help fine-tune your taste and allow you to reverse-engineer what separates the greats from the mediocre. So that is key takeaway number one. Build a collection.

Key takeaway number two, measure the right things. We all know the saying, what gets measured gets improved. But how do we know whether or not we're measuring the right metric? Dr. Friedman suggests thinking about what a successful day looks like for you. In his example, this might include exercise, learning, and creativity. Rate each on a scale of one to seven. Now, you could also do this with tasks. You just need to measure against the specific elements that constitute a successful execution

of the tasks. So here's an example. If you want to write a well-written email to a client with a goal of getting them to pay, those elements may include, number one, a personable opening, number two, a clear and concise request, and number three, sharing a new insight that the client may find valuable. So measure how well you do in each of those three areas. Use a template. That template can be helpful because you don't have to start with a blank slate. There's something to build off of or to build within.

Now, measuring the right metric can give you immediate feedback and help you improve sooner rather than later. Rather than waiting for someone else to provide constructive criticism, you can take charge, take initiative of your own self-improvement. However, when you do design metrics, you do want to make sure that you have counter metrics in place, to make sure that you don't over-focus or over-optimized for just one metric. Andy Grove talked about how for every metric, there should be a metric that is the opposite of that metric that warns you when you're getting too good at that initial metric. So, for example, if I'm optimizing for exercises and I am at seven all the time,

and it's because I'm leaving work at 12 o'clock to play four hours of racquetball, that's a problem. And so you should have an opposite of that metric as well, which is to what extent did I do my job well today? So that is key takeaway number two. Measure the right metrics. Key takeaway number three, innovate existing models. Dr. Friedman raises the example of Sir Ken Robinson's TED Talk, which is called Do Schools Kill Creativity? It's the most watched TED Talk. And by that metric, by the metric of views, the most successful.

So, what can we learn from it? And more importantly, how can we learn from it? I try to break down the features of this talk. And how I do it is by quantifying all kinds of elements about this talk. So I look at how many facts Sir Ken Robinson presents and how many anecdotes he tells and how many jokes he tells. And I also give you a map of the emotional trajectory from minute to minute so you can see what he's doing in the talk. And that's really the value of reverse engineering it, is to step back and see globally what is happening here and how can I recreate it. Dr. Friedman said he was surprised to see only one fact shared throughout this 18-minute talk.

Sir Ken Robinson relied on anecdotes and humor, and this worked for him because he's good at making jokes and he's an established creativity expert, which already lends him credibility. So he doesn't necessarily need to rely on facts and research. So what can we learn from this? We need to create a roadmap and find formulas that work for our particular strengths and our particular situation. What worked for Sir Ken Robinson may not work for each of us depending on our credentials, our task at hand, and our objectives. But we can find out what works for him and innovate on these formulas,

which then makes our approach novel and fresh. The goal is to make implicit learning more explicit. And so that is key takeaway number three. Innovate upon existing models. Key takeaway number four. Practice in the past. Many of us only practice in one dimension, which is the present. The concept of deliberate practice, which is practice in such a way that you have rapid

feedback, that is practicing in the present. But this alone is too narrow. We can't exponentially grow our skills by only practicing in the present. We also need to practice in the past and in the future. What reflective practice means is taking the time to look back on your performance in the past and trying to distill some new insights about how you can improve in the future. So how do you practice in the past, otherwise known as reflective practice? You review your past performance and analyze what went well,

and what didn't. Look for areas of improvement and compare your initial expectation against your actual performance. You can uncover new insight and translate that wisdom into action. Dr. Friedman also recommends grabbing a five-year journal that has five entry fields per day. After your first year is written out, you'll go back to the beginning and fill it in again. This gives you a chance to review what happened on that day a year ago, and research has shown that this improves performance by 23%. So, key takeaway number four is to practice not only in the present, which is referred to as deliberate practice, but also to practice in the past, which is referred to as reflective practice.

Finally, key takeaway number five, practice in the future. The third dimension of practice, after, past and present, is the future. The speakers who visualize their performance end up looking less anxious and are more persuasive, surgeons who visualize their surgeries, make fewer mistakes and feel less anxiety. And musicians who visualize playing a piece for the first time end up making fewer mistakes. And so there's a remarkable wealth of research showing that practicing both in the past and in the future can elevate your performance far beyond just practicing in the present. What does practicing in the future look like? Visualizing is important, but visualizing

success isn't enough. In fact, research has indicated that it's actually work. By only visualizing what it might look like to succeed, we give our brains an immediate emotional payoff, which decreases our motivation. We feel like we've already succeeded. Instead, visualize the steps that you took to succeed, visualize the practice, the rehearsal, visualize what is within your locus of control. And be extremely thorough with this. Use all your senses.

What are the things you need to do to get to the next point? So, for example, if you're preparing for a talk, you might visualize yourself brainstorming talking points, writing your outline, overcoming distractions, creating slides, practicing your talk, and then finally delivering your talk. You want to be so in depth that you discover the decisions you'll need to make throughout this entire process. This will help you think ahead. And so that third dimension of practice, practicing in the future, specifically by visualizing the elements of the future that are within your locus of control, that is key takeaway. Number five. Those are five key takeaways from this conversation with Dr. Ron Friedman, an award-winning social

psychologist who discusses how to decode greatness in order to achieve mastery. As a reminder, we have this awesome idea for an event that we could host in New York City, August 20 through 22nd. We want to know whether or not you are into it. Would you come if we did it? Let us know, afford anything.com slash event. That's afford anything.com slash event. pre-register for the event. If we get enough people to pre-register, we're going to go through with it.

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