Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Forming Intentional Relationships | Dr. Marissa King

Episode Date: June 2, 2021

This week’s conversation is with Dr. Marissa King, a Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Yale School of Management, where she developed and teaches a popular course entitled Managing Strategic Networks. Over the past fifteen years, Marissa has studied how people’s social networks evolve, what they look like, and why that’s significant. Her research has been featured in outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Atlantic, and on National Public Radio.Marissa is also the author of a new book, titled Social Chemistry. I wanted to speak with Marissa to learn more about her framework for strategic networks…How do the nature of our relationships differ in our personal lives from the work setting, what can we do to improve them, and how has the pandemic impacted the nature of how these relationships will evolve in the future?_________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And I think that we're hired hardwired to still have that type of reaction of a lack of acceptance or exclusion oftentimes feels like it can kill you. All right, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm Michael Gervais and by trade and training, I am a sport and performance psychologist. Now, the whole idea behind these conversations is to learn from people who are committed, flat out committed to both their craft and their inner life, those who are on the path of mastery, so that we can better understand what they're searching for. We can unlock and better understand the psychological framework that they use to make sense of the world around them, to make sense of themselves in the world.

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And that can't be understated, not just for strength, but for energy and focus, recovery for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. Now this week's conversation is with Dr. Marissa King. She's a professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management, where she developed and teaches a popular course entitled Managing Strategic Networks.

Now, over the past 15 years, Marissa has studied how people's social networks evolve, what they look like, and why that's important. Her research has been featured in outlets such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, USA Today, U.S. News and World Report. I mean, she's been in a lot of places that have a high bar to get to. She really understands what she framework for strategic networks. How did the nature of our relationships differ in our personal lives from the work setting? What can we do to improve them? And how has the pandemic impacted the nature of how these relationships will evolve in the future? With that, let's jump right into this week's conversation with Dr. Marissa King. Marissa, how are you? I'm good. It's good to be with you. Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you for spending time to share not only your path and your insights, but what you've come to understand to help people be better in life. And so let's do a quick flyover from early years for you. So if you could just take a moment and help me understand what it was like growing up for you.

Where'd you live? What was the main challenge? What was the main theme in the family? What was money like? What was the dreams that the family held? All that good stuff about setting the early day frames. I grew up in rural East Tennessee and a town called Sevierville or Suburbia, as we said, growing up,

which is most well known for being Dolly Parton's hometown. You know, and it was very much a small, small town. And from as early as I can remember, I remember just being that feeling of like, I just don't belong here. And I don't know what, right. I don't know what it was at that time, but there was something that's like, this just isn't a place that I fit in. My family had been there for eight generations. Like we were deeply embedded in the community, but it was clear to me that I wasn't going to stay there, which was extraordinarily unusual. And for me, the path out really was through academics.

Is that how it felt? Like I need to get out? Or was it softer, which is like, there's something else over that hill. And I just know what it is, but I'm not sure what it is. Like, was it like an intense thing to get out or was it, you know, a little bit more, oh, I don't know, Colombo style where you're just curious about what was, what was over the next hill. I like that framing. I like that framing much better than the one I think I've carried with me most of my life. That was part of it. You know, it's like as a kid, I remember having like an astronaut cabbage patch. Like there was something that I think I knew deep inside me that there was something bigger out there than what my worldview was. And I think that's a much more inspirational and charitable way of thinking

about it. What were your relationships like with your parents? Because I know relationships are at the center of your work. And if you just like, what was the dinner table like? What was the breakfast table like? What was the, was there, was there mysteries you were trying to solve that, you know, the little nine-year-old or 12-year-old mind was trying to sort out? Both my parents were really cosmopolitan for that area and my dad um has always been like both driven by business but also pretty much an adrenaline junkie so you know he set cave diving world records he was a champion water skier he was racing motorcycles when he was 70 which gave me a heart attack um and that there was that mix of sort of understanding how big the world could be and the idea of success and mastery being possible,

but all within this context of being in a town where most people never left. And I think that that was really what gave me the sense of there is something else beyond this and that I could achieve it. Like that was the underlying sort of message within my house is like, you can do anything that you want to do. And that came from dad predominantly. Predominantly from my dad. My mom was a quiet supporting figure.

And I've come to understand the power of that role more recently, but only later in life. Okay. How would you capture, sorry to get psychodynamic for a minute, but I think that people that study relationships, there's a reason. And I want to understand that because it's going to help set the frame for why you have gone such a distance to understand the importance of the impact and strategies to help people with, you know, deeper relationships, more purposeful relationships. So like, what was the relationship between your parents? And then what was your

relationship like with your parents? I think the relationship with my parents was very much, I would say my mom was in a supporting role and my dad, my dad is still does like, I love him dearly, but he takes up a lot of space. He does. Yeah. Are they still alive? My father's still alive and my mother passed away. When, how old were you when she passed away? I, she passed away two years ago.

So when I was 40, which was a very, very transformative, um, moment in my own life and my own career. Do you mind if I ask about that? No. What I was curious about is like, was your relationship intact with your mother? Yes. Um, I, it With both my parents. I had a period of a strange moment with my father, but I've always been quite close to my mother, but we were very close at the time of her passing. How did she pass? I still don't know. It was very sudden and very unexpected. Wow. And in your best estimate, how do you explain what happened? To her? Yeah. I think maybe she, she was starting to struggle. Like there was a period of decline.

And like, if I had to guess, I think that she had had like a mini stroke and I think she finally had a, like a significant stroke. Um, but I, it's, it's a mystery to some degree. Oh, geez. Okay. Okay. Um, and then your relationship between your parents before we get to you and your dad, just for a moment. Their relationship was always strained. And I think that that contributed to that sense of like, I just don't belong here. I want to get out that there wasn't a sense of a cohesive family unit. So as long as I can remember, like I've had that sense of like, I don't know how relationships work. And I like, I just don't understand it. And I think that that's been driven a lot of my work.

I think that I relate to that for a different reason, which is, you know, part of my family dynamic. I didn't, I didn't actually know what was really happening. Like there was their life and my life and their life wasn't necessarily completely congruent with what I was understanding to be the case. So they had their stuff that they were doing, almost like that's the adult world. And then what was given to me was some version of that. And it ended up for me saying, no, I need to understand the truth of things. And so that's part of my quest, right? And evidenced by I get to have conversation with people like you to understand like, okay, what have you come to understand is the truth of relationships.

I mean, that has been the center of your work. So I think that there's some commonality that I can appreciate about that. There's more, there's something else, there's more. And then if I just spend a moment on dad, you and dad, you hinted like you took up a lot of space without labels being part of it, but is it, does it feel like a narcissistic type thing or does it feel like an anxiety type thing or just a magnanimous beautiful big bold confident um experience i would say the latter like in my mind like he was just a towering inspirational figure um and like that idea, like, you know, I remember like being a part of his journey at certain moments and being like, oh my God, how amazing is it? Like, it felt like we were sort of explorers to some degree and how amazing is it to have this experience with him? And that I would,

I would say remains true to this day and very much. I very much look at up to him, but I would also say that our relationship has gotten honest enough in adulthood that I can see what he sacrificed. And I think what he sacrificed would be his family, right? Like he put those pursuits and endeavors before time with his family. And that is something I would say that losing my mother actually really catalyzed that reflection in me. And that is something I would say that losing my mother actually really catalyzed that reflection in me. And it's had made a major reorientation around my own values. So it's like, I feel like he's still aspirational, but now I can see like, all right, there's balance to be found. And what is your family structure like now?

I am married and I have three kids and I would love to have more, but I think I'm getting too old. Okay. All right. So you love being a mom. I do. I do. Okay.

And then how do you, I think that there's different, like I struggle with my professional pursuits and time away from the family and my deep love and want to be a great parent and a husband. I think the first half of – we've done like 360 interviews now. I feel like the first 300 were like, how do you balance it all? Then it was very clear like no one's balancing anything. And there's different frameworks that people are using to spend time with family and time with professional pursuits. But it feels like most people on the Finding Mastery podcast have made a sacrifice at some level or a choice to put pursuit in front of family.

And I think most of them would say, no, I didn't do that. I wonder who he's talking about. But when I zoom way out, it's like, if you're spending three minutes a day with your child, three days a week, that's probably not, that's not probably the way that you think that you're doing it, but you are doing it that way. So it's a long narrative of me saying, how do you – and it's different between men and women. There's a different social expectation. There's a different social – I feel like there's more space for men to put work and career in front of family. I'm not saying it's healthy and right, but it just feels like there's a different dynamic that both genders are sorting out.

So can you just talk about that bit for a minute? Yeah. I mean, that experience is, you know, it pretty much encapsulates my own experience. Like I remember particularly I was in the middle of submitting my tenure packet at Yale and I was in the labor, I was in labor and delivery and trying to like, with my, and trying to figure out like, how do I manage like simultaneously giving birth and navigating this process? Um, and the consequence of that is, you know, my relationship with my middle child who I really tried my best, like I carried her around everywhere. You know, I really tried to have a close attachment with her. Um, it's just not the same as my youngest son, because it's what happened is I hit a point of just complete and utter burnout. Um, so subsequent to my, my son, my youngest, um, being born, I basically like I flipped the switch cause it was like very black

and white thinking I now realize, and I'm like, all right, we're leaving. We're going to travel the world for three or four months. Like I, like the only way that I knew to start to solve this problem was to get completely out. And the challenge for me in the past three years is trying to figure out like, how do I not get go completely out and try to achieve some balance? And like, I don't believe that there is actually such thing as balance, but it's trying to figure out, all right, what do I care the most about? And that piece of losing my mom, I think also really, really catalyzed that of like, life is super short and everything I spent all my time talking about is like, it all boils down, I think at the very, very end to like relationships and love. And it's like, if you're going to, if that's your message,

you've got to figure out a way to live that in a way that I can be comfortable with. But for me, that's taken, I had to take everything off the table and then start to figure out how to put it back on. Okay. So you went through this, you need to drink your own champagne, right? There's a little bit of a, I don't want to call it imposter because that's not the right thing, but it's like a hypocrisy that I think many of us can, when we really look in the mirror, you know, I want to share this with you. I've been doing this thing. I just, I'm curious what you think about this because here's one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you I have a couple fundamental axioms that

hold true for me one is that nobody does the extraordinary alone we need each other it's too big, it's too ambitious when we really think about the extraordinary way of living whether that's an outcome that is just barely the imagination can grok, and or it's the way of living that has deep purpose and meaning. And for some people, they can blend both of those, which is phenomenal.

Super inspired by that. And then the other is that through relationships we become. And it begins with our relationship with ourself, then like a pebble in the pond that moves outward. And that involves our relationship with mother nature, with other people, with success, with failure. Like there's a lot of ways that we can play with the word relationship. Like I feel like I can. And so those are two of the big ones. And then I wanted to snap on your idea about networks. And when I read your work about relationships, I know it's in there, but I hear you talk more about networks.

So that almost feels like, in some respect, and I know you're going to, of course, correct me, but that the relationships are a bit like the tool to really get to the network. And the network, in your language, is critical to your life, as a quote, because it's the map that tells what your life has been like up to this point and where you are going. And so can you put a tone on relationships? Because I hear you talking about relationships and love, and then I hear networks as the intended goal. So of course, correct me, help me out here, and I want to learn. yeah i mean i think that right as you said right like i agree right we can never do anything extraordinary alone um but would we ever want to right like and for me the answer is like clearly no right like our relationships are necessary but it's also where joy comes from right there's in many ways i would argue even the purpose of living. And I think- Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're not going to sneak that one by Marissa.

Come on, Dr. King. What does that mean? You know, like the purpose of life is what? I would, is being a part of right community, right? The, like I would call it, and that's what I would call it now is like a, is it being part of the human system and that humanness is I feel like what it's all about. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentus. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not

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You're saying, okay, I'm going to wrestle with one of the big questions in life, purpose. And it is hard to wrestle with the question of life purpose. So I want to do two things. I want to know how you did that or how you do do that. But I want to stay with the insight that you just shared is that it's to be part of the human system. That is the purpose. And so do you pull down from that a spiritual and or religious and or philosophical and or scientific? Where do you pull down from your approach to get to that idea? For me, it's really trying to figure out where science meets spirituality, right? And I think that that intersection is what I find most interesting. And I-

Me too, Marissa. Yeah, me too. Right. And it's true. Like some of my greatest teachers are spiritual teachers, but some of my greatest teachers are also science. And that, as you talked about before, it's like, why I find that so interesting is it's the pursuit of the quest for truth. And I think truth comes to us in lots of different ways. Okay. Dr. King. Okay. Okay. So truth, I mean, these, these are big bombs. I knew, I knew this was going to happen with you. Okay. So truth comes in a lot of different ways. Okay. How for you, How does it come for you?

Yeah. So if you, like, when you first said back to me something, I was like, oh my God, how did I like say something so big, right. And about what's the purpose of life. If you ask me how I know that's true, I would say it's because I feel it. And how, right. And that for me, it's like, sounds like a good scientist that, that is actually, and I'm laughing because it, I think most great scientists would say, I can't explain this one. Right. And then that's what, and then I'm like, Oh my God. I'm like, Oh my God, I've got a backtrack. Like I'm talking to you, like in my role as like, like a scientist, like, did I just say that? And then i started to think about like how am i going to back this up but the truth is like i would say that and this is and now i'm

like oh my god i hope my colleagues aren't listening because right this is no no no no no no we we want them to listen because marissa we're talking about the truth like in a supplied scientist myself that um the things that we can measure aren't always worth measuring, as the great quote goes. And some of the things that we know to be true, I don't think we know how to measure them. And so I'm fascinated by where you're going. And I want to qualify big T or little t when you're talking about truth. Are you more interested in the big T, like the big truths of life, or the more aha moments, like, oh, that's true. Like that all made sense to me.

I think the former. I used to find a lot of interest in the latter. Like I used to love puzzles and like knowing like kind of like, oh, isn't that a cool, curious fact or isn't that neat? But at the end of the day, I become more and more interested in the bigger questions because there's just a pull in that direction. So why do you have the thought, like, I hope my colleagues aren't listening? Is it because we're kind of in the messy part of fact, evidence versus feeling, intuition, conversations and words and ideas that are difficult to describe as opposed to the ones that are more concrete and observable? Is it something around that? I would say, as a scientist, we're often trained to ask a question to find out what the answer is. And I would say increasingly,

I feel like I know what the answer is and I'm trying to use science to show it's true. And that I think rubs some people the wrong way. I think so. I think that that is, I think that that for the, let's call it the social sciences, like this idea that it's a soft science. I don't understand that, Marissa. Call me dense, call me something. But I feel like the invisible sciences are incredibly difficult. And, you know, there's a blend between philosophy and psychology that is, you know, there's a blend in there. But I find the invisible science is so difficult. By the way, gravity is invisible.

We don't get too hung up that it's a soft science, though. But we can see the downstream effect of it. Just like psychology is invisible. We can see the downstream effect when our psychology is healthy versus unhealthy, just as a basic framework. But let's stay on relationships for just a minute, because there's another important quote that I read that jumped out at me, which is, you said, when you think about relationships, they're the most sacred things in our lives. And the idea about those relationships being purposeful is off-putting. What does that mean to you? I think that for many people, the idea of being intentional,

and particularly being intentional about the relationships is morally off-putting. And we know this from research, right? Like even just saying that makes people literally want to wash, like wash away their sentence. And, and in many ways, it makes perfect sense, right? That we hold something so sacred. So the idea, and particularly in the professional realm, I would say that this is true, that the idea of being intentional and calculating is really morally off-putting.

And so. Got it. Because it was picking up on my first note about the utility of a relationship. Right. Yeah. And you're saying, no, no, no, they're sacred. And they're some of the most important things that we can engage in. And there also is a utility in relationships. You're saying you can have both. You can't have both. And I think where it gets really complicated for people is in that middle, right?

It's very clear, I think, how we navigate and approach relationships that are purely effective. So purely based on an emotional level. And it's also fairly clear when there's purely instrumental or calculating relationships, right? But there's no emotional component or less of emotional component. I think where it gets really, really tricky is in that middle ground. So I want to set up a, what I call the invisiblehake, and it's true in pro sport. And for the last, well, let of the world. And so I've been fortunate to spend some time with some of those Fortune 50 folks, their leadership teams and their struggles and challenges. And in one company we've spent, we've trained, I think you'll appreciate this,

Marissa, over 50,000 people at about eight hours a person on how to condition their mind to live in the present moment more often. Isn't that cool? And so the way we, yeah, but the, and here's what I think you're going to really appreciate because if your mind is so cluttered and undisciplined and it's really falling the dictum of the brain, which is survival and threat identification, that we can't be in a meaningful, purposeful relationship because literally we're either blaming others or trying to use others for our own safety. And so if we can work with our own mind and brain and environment to be in the present moment and then condition our mind to find good, to find what could be good, to use our

mind and our imagination in that way, then we end up kind of dropping our shoulders. You know, that fight-flight-freeze-submit mechanism in our brain goes, hey, hey, we're okay. Oh, look at, hey, Marissa, how are you? As opposed to, Marissa, you kind of looked at me a little weird. Did you see how she looked at me? Hey, Joey, did you see how Marissa looked at me? You know, like that whole kind of narrative piece. So I share all that with you because I think we can have both, but here's the invisible handshake. I will love you as long as you produce. I will love you as long as you can make our team better and make me better. This is kind of what the head coach or the

coaches or other athletes on teams, it's invisible. No one really says that, but it's invisible. And I think it's also true in business. So can you respond to that and then maybe offer some ways to deal with it if that is in fact something you would agree to? Yeah, that's really tough because like I'll start where you started, right? Like thinking about the importance of focusing on this present moment and everything that we know, right, is that that is where you get the highest quality interaction. Like we think about what determines when you're in an interaction with one individual, right? If you're in an interaction, what determines the quality of that interaction, I would argue is actually just simply how present you are. And we know this from looking at

biomarkers, but also just perceptions of how well that interaction is going. And it's because we connect through our senses. And so to be able to connect in that way, whether through touch or listening or eye contact, you have to be fully present. And I would argue the biggest gift you can give many people is actually to allow them to feel fully seen and heard. And that can only happen when you're truly present with them. And the second part, right, that you alluded to, which is we also know is true, that one of the biggest inhibitors of being able to do that is

fear. And human interaction is actually one of the, to me, the most interesting domains of life because most people think that they're better at average at most things, right? They think they're smarter than average. They think they're a better driver, but people routinely say that they're worse at interacting with other people than the average person. And that sense of fear, right? Or that self-regulation about in a conversation, how am I coming across? All of that is what cuts off the ability to truly be present and open with someone else because you're focused on self-presentation. Oh God. Okay. So as a first pass, people tend to overestimate their skills and abilities. Yes. In general. Okay. And we know that actually to hold true with athletes, they overestimate

even more than non-athletes. So yeah. So it's even more heightened with the athletic population is that they think they're better at just about everything than they actually are, which is cool because they're asked to go do things that are really hard. So they come into the situation like, yeah, I think I can do that. Yeah. Even though they might not have all the capabilities, which is fine. That's kind of the coach's job. Okay. But your insight here is that people tend to do that and then underestimate, I don't know if that's the right word, but question their ability to fill in the blank. What is that next part? Engage in social interaction.

So they have more anxiety around social engagement. They have pre-party anxiety, right? Like going to a Christmas party and like having anxiety about going to a fun event. Yeah. So they have a pre-party anxiety, but it's because they're not quite sure how to do relationships.

In part, there's one piece of this is people feel like they don't know how to do it, that they didn't get the playbook. I fall into this i fell into this category right um the other piece of it though starts to speak to this invisible handshake piece and the what is happening there gets back to like why is this moral what is at the heart of this moral aversion to thinking intentionally about our relationships and what a lot of it boils down to is it's focused on intentionality and thinking about like, what can I get out of this?

And so that we know that the most effective way actually to overcome this is to reframe it and instead think about what can I give? And I think that that- Is there evidence there? Yes. So in this experiment, right? So this is based on an experiment where they try to figure out

what happens when people have this moral aversion and who overcomes it. And it turns out that people who are really powerful don't have this moral aversion to the idea of being intentional about their relationships as much. And you would think, right, well, why is that true? One easy example, right, would be, or one easy explanation would be that people in power precisely became more powerful because they know how to network and work relationships. But this is true, even if you experimentally, experimentally manipulate power. So you make people feel more powerful. And what's at the heart of that, when you dive down into it is that when people are more powerful, that they feel like they have more to give. And that approach, if you approach a relationship instead of what can I give instead of what can I get, it makes this moral resistance disappear.

Okay, so grandma was right. Most of our grandmas probably said something like that. And I'm being pejorative because everyone's grandma is a little different. But I got that from grandma. Like, to other people instead of going into the relationship like, what am I going to get out of it? know when we are fully seen, embraced, and have dignity and regard because we're present with another person, to use our earlier insight, as opposed to a friendliness that's coming and could end as soon as the results are not favorable. I have a big aversion. Now, people across the sport world are going to have a reaction to what I'm about to say

because there's this, I'm going to call it BS. We're family. Hey, if I'm going to be part of a sport team with you, if I'm talking to a coach right now, we're not family. I can still love you and I can still have incredible regard for you, but I don't fire family. Family doesn't get fired. Family's not conditional. I have strained relationships in my family. I still love them. And I just don't, I'm calling BS in the sport, in the business world. So can you respond to that? Yeah, I think I agree with that. And I think that that's where the problem arises is this idea, this misconstrual of what a relationship really is about. So this idea, right, if you translate

this to the business world, what I would argue is that saying like we're a family is actually oftentimes a disservice and contributes to, it can contribute to an extraction of work. So on the employer side, right, this is great, but it actually increases the likelihood of burnout because if we're family, I'm going to give you far more than I actually probably should based on the contractual. That's why it's manipulated because let's go back to that psychological safety insight that Google found. I don't think Google found it. I think many of us knew it, but Google popularized it.

Psychological safety is like we're family. It's safe here so that people produce more. And I was talking to just a brilliant double PhD in elite business, a Fortune 10 company. And she says, she's got a really beautiful thick russian influence and accent and she says for what aim psychological safety for what aim like oh yeah that's sharp for what aim and she just she just looks like you figure it out you know and so she didn't have the answer that she was going to share, but it's like, so how would you answer that?

So let's just be really clear. Psychological safety, there's some finding that when people feel safe, that there's an increase in productivity because they feel like they can say the thing that needs to be said. And so that their voice matters, double-click that they matter,

double-click that they have efficacy. And back to your point, when people have efficacy, a sense of power, Albert Bendor's work, right? That there's a sense of self-power and there's an autonomy that can come with that and that people are going to be able to do better work. So, okay, that's good. But how do you answer the question for what aim? How do you answer that? If I think about psychological safety, right? The idea of psychological safety, the point is that the environment needs to be safe enough that someone is willing to speak up. So that allows for learning. And so I would argue, like I'm a firm believer in psychological safety, right? And I would also think of that as a different way of saying,

you can think about as generalized trust. So trust that's held in a group, just not between two individuals. And I think that you can have psychological safety. I can trust you in the context of work, but it does not necessarily mean that I need to have an emotional relationship with the group. I need, you need trust and you need the ability to speak up, but it doesn't necessarily mean that we're family. And the difference is that when you start to talk about family, you're mixing in emotion and affect and love, right?

To work is an instrumental relationship at the end of the day. And I think where things get really messed up and complicated is when people mix the two, or it's not clear, like where are the boundaries and what's really happening here? Okay. That's really cool. So you would say psychological safety, it's important so that you can speak up so we can learn better so that we can grow faster. But let's not be confused that psychological safety is a placeholder for unconditional love. Yes, because you have to have accountability. And I think that Amy Edmondson, who came up with psychological safety initially, says now she wished she would have called it radical candor.

Because the idea of too often people think that it means that there's no accountability, but there has to be, right? Like if there has to be performance accountability and organizations, like that's what this invisible handshake is all about. But at the same time, right? It's the same with dating. Like if I think we're friends and you think we're dating, things get really, really messy. Like we just need to be clear, like what's really happening. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day.

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Building the right relationships to serve others and then ultimately have a, oh, there is a return there, whether it's a transactional nature of business or the transformational relationships that can happen in transactional environments, as well as the relationships at home and with loved ones. So do you have an approach that you would help guide people to build the right type of relationship? Do you have a way that you guide people? And I think that that's a really broad, almost loaded question. And I'm as interested to where you take the question to the actual way that you answer it. So just kind of grab that grenade if you don't mind.

Yeah. I mean, I think that the heart of of it is you have, you have to have a clear understanding of what your values are and what you're being motivated by. I love that you went there. Okay. Yes. Okay. Keep going. So I, I've got some thoughts here. I want to, I want to explore with you. So go on, go on the value set. And I think to some degree, it actually has to be in a fairly clear, at least for me at this point,

it has to be in a pretty clear framework because otherwise I have a hard time evaluating like, what am I actually making this decision based on? So like you mentioned service, right? And you also mentioned instrumental, right? And to be, so let's just like call it what it is. For me, it's like, if I'm doing something out of service, right. There's one price attached to it. If I'm doing something to make money, there's a different price attached to it. And I think that it's got to be absolutely clear. Like, what is my motivation before I ever start to enter any engagement and to price it accordingly,

right? Like if I'm doing something out of love and service, I'll do it for free because it fulfills me. But if I'm doing something just for money, like I need to be clear, like I'm just doing this for money. Like what is the value set really driving that decision? So people often ask me about how I make decisions in my professional life. And so I've got a vector, I've got three vectors. So economic, you know, that's one of them. Is it going to move the needle for humanity? And then the third is, is it going to be fun? Yeah.

So those, wait, you've got the same three. Fun or interesting, right? Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I would find, I would check the box to both of those. Yeah. And so, and I only need two out of three.

Yeah. Right. It's so I only need two out of three. Yeah. Right? It's so much better when it's all three. But I'll do things that are fun slash interesting and will help move humanity in a positive direction. And there's not a lot of money, but I can't do many of those. And I will make a choice that let's call it fun and money, but it's not good for humanity. I don't want to do many of those either. I'm more interested in, I'll sacrifice a little bit of fun, move humanity. And then, you know, it's an economic win. I'm like, yeah, that feels pretty good. Now,

if I can get all three, I mean, I'm all in, you know? And so it's interesting. You have the same framework or similar. Yeah. But I will, I will do things when they only check one box. Oh, you will? As long as I'm completely clear that that's what I'm doing. In your professional life, you're like, I'm only doing this because it's going to be fun. Yes. No, not because it's fun, but mainly out of service. It's interesting.

It's service or will help humanity. Yeah. Okay. So that's the one that will, yeah. You make me feel like I'm being too conditional now. I don't, are you judging me? I'm joking. Yeah.

Okay, good. All right. I love it. Okay. So go back to the values. I think one of the foundational approaches that I've found to be meaningful is to help people just clarify what is their personal philosophy? What are their first principles in life that they're going to

be the core influence for their thoughts, their words, and their actions? And then when we can get those two things lined up, it becomes pretty powerful. And so when you think about, let's go back to network and relationships, and you said values matter, where do you go next after that? Because I think that that's an easy statement to say, but I'm curious how you help people either with values or think about values. Where do you go with that bit of it? I think there are two pieces to it, right? I would say like a guiding force. I truly believe like in the end, like it really all boils down to love, right? But most people, like I can never start a conversation there.

Like if I walked into an executive education classroom and I was like, all right, really? Here's the secret, you know? Like I would probably get fired or like sent to the loony bin. And so for me, the way and has always been through networks, because if I can approach this from the science side, and say, all right, here's the ROI, here's how this impacts performance, here's how this impacts your career trajectory, and get you to understand how the patterns in the science play out, then eventually we can distill it to its most basic value that's driving that system.

But my experience has been that I have to start with first getting people to be willing to look at the system, then to show them how it works. And then maybe if I'm lucky, we can eventually get to values. I love it. Okay, so look at the system. Here's how it works. And then along the way, you're pointing to science a la evidence

about when you have these things in place, it's more favorable from a business transactional standpoint. Is that fair to say? That's true. Or it also could be from a business transactional standpoint. Is that fair to say? That's true. Or it also could be from a human standpoint. So I spent a lot of time talking about mental health and addiction, but either way, the principles, the guiding and the properties of the system work the same. So the approach can be similar. So when you're talking about the system, you're talking about networks. Yes. Okay. So let's learn, right?

When you zoom way out, how are you thinking in the most simplest form about networks? If we go back to this idea that our networks are just traces of interaction, we know from close to three decades of research that we can create a typology to understand three basic types. So there are essentially three core elements of social structure. We can think, and I call these brokers, brokering networks, convening networks, and expansionist networks. And this typology you can use to characterize your own set of relationships. You can also use it to understand how companies work and how to design teams. But also you can think about if I want to create global change, how do I need these three pieces to fit together? But the core of this is that it really can actually be distilled to these really basic elements. Can you double click on each type of network?

Sure. If we talk about, I mean, if we think about one, the convening-like network. The convening- that type of structure is it's really good for execution. There's a lot of trust. There's a lot of reliability. The downside is that it can lead to group thinker, essentially existing in an echo chamber. That network would be a default for most people. And maybe there's some of the biases that we see in place in business. Let's just stay there for a minute. Hiring people that look like you, sound like you, whatever, is it, are you saying it's partially because of the,

it's not a bias towards the network, but it's the comfort of this type of network, the comfort that this network provides? Yes. So there's a big part of its comfort. So one of the personality characteristics that often lead someone to build this type of network is something that's called a need for closure. So people, for instance, who don't like changing plans at the last minute are much more predisposed to build this type of network. Can you say it again? I missed the word. Yeah. Yep. So people who don't like changing plans at the very last minute tend to build this type of network. It's called a need for closure. That was what Frank Flynn

from Stanford called it. So part of it is psychological predisposition, but part of it is just how the world works. So if our networks were left, if you were totally unstrategic and just let your network be an accident, it would most likely start to evolve to look like this. If you, for instance, live in the same place for a long period of time, you're more predisposed to a convenient network. Or if you have been at the same job and why this naturally evolves like in this way is part of it is just psychological balance. So a friend of a friend naturally tends to become a friend over time because we need the psychological balance, but it's also just the probability of exposure.

If I see you, right, if I see you, Michael, really often, and you have a good friend named Jenny and you spend a lot of time with Jenny, the chances are this is just how it's going to evolve. And so this is what happens if we're not intentional, is that we end up in these echo chambers of like-minded people who look like us and think like us. Brilliant. Okay. And the next group? The next group are brokers. And brokers tend to be quite different and they tend to straddle different social circles. So they may have spent a lot of time working in sports, but they may also have worked in operations. And to the extent that those two don't normally come together, brokers are really well positioned to be innovative, to be creative. They also tend to

have more work-life balance because they keep their social lives and their professional lives separate. The biggest predisposition to building this type of network is something called high self-monitoring. It's the personality characteristic that actually explains the most of what our network looks like. People oftentimes think it's going to be extroversion or introversion, but this high self-monitoring tendency is actually the biggest predictor of what type of network someone looks like. So high self-monitors tend to be chameleons. They are good on making impromptu speeches on things they know nothing about, which allows them to bridge these different worlds and be really effective agents of creativity. If you could choose or design, how would you portion out the types of folks?

If let's say a hundred people are in, I know it's too big, it's more like 10, but let's say you had a hundred people, what percentages would you allocate to be most effective? It really depends, right, on what your goal is. If your goal is... I knew you were going to say that. I know. It's the normal academic, right? Yeah, I know. I know. It depends, but it does depend. The reason I asked that is because I saw somewhere that you said that 15% of people meet the criteria of a real friend. And then, so I was thinking like, you would want maybe more conveners.

I don't know if that's the right way to say it, but you would want more of that than not. But there's a real value in brokers. There's a real value in creativity. So I was just wondering if you would say, like if we're trying to innovate a new product or we're trying to meet the demands of the new world of business. How about that?

An established business, they're kicking ass, they're best in the world, and they are trying to pivot and adjust. And they're creating a new leadership team. Maybe they're merging a leadership team. Maybe they're creating something that is to try to get ahead of the curve. And again, they're in, let's say, first place, so to speak. How would you create that from a leadership team's perspective? If your goal was to create large-scale social change, you actually need all three types. And so I would allocate them probably, I would probably say I would want 40% conveners, 40% brokers and 20% expansionists. And what's so cool about that is that kind of arrangement, although I may not have gotten the balance exactly right. It's what makes the world small. So when I say that there are these three fundamental elements of social structure, if you've heard, right, of

the, you know, there's six degrees of separation in our world. If you want to understand what makes the world small, it's because of the way that just systems have a distribution across these three sites. So if you look at neural networks, if you look at ecosystems, if you look at ant colonies, all these different systems have this balance across these three types. Human systems are the same. But it's what makes large-scale systems work so effectively. So if you're trying to design a system, you're basically trying to mirror these really elemental social structures. Okay. And then on the relationship bit, I would imagine that research points us to when we have relationship, let's call it satisfaction, at work, that there is an increase in efficiency, satisfaction. Some of the old metrics of people show up more often,

they're less absentee, more engagement. Does that hold true? It does hold true. So we know that this is pretty much undisputed at this point, that people who have very close friends at work tend to have seven times higher engagement. They're less likely to turn over. They're more productive. They're less likely to make mistakes and have accidents. So the benefits are certainly true. There's a set of drawbacks that people oftentimes don't take into consideration, but there's certainly huge benefits to having close relationships at work. And when you say close relationships and close friendships there, what's the difference between real friendship, meaning that there's 15% meet the criteria for real friends, and the idea that those would all be at work doesn't seem to line up mathematically for me.

If we think about it, 15% of people have a very close friend at work. They have one. And that's what's key. So far too often, I think this is where things get really confusing, is people hear about the benefits of having friends at work. But the vast majority of benefits actually accrue to having just one friend. So, and that I think helps resolve a lot of the problems. Like you don't need to be friends with everyone at work. You also don't need to take your work friend home with you and like invite them to your birthday party or let them get to

know your kids, but you need someone that you can turn to if you're having a crisis, if you need help and also to just feel like there's someone there who truly knows who you are. Okay. And then let me map that back up to trust. This is related to psychological safety. And so I think actually the lenses that we view safety through, I feel like depend on other people, which I don't think is a potent way of doing things. So in other words, it's my job to create psychological safety for somebody else. And it's their job to create psychological safety for me.

And I could have it very wrong, but that's how I interpret the term. And so I want to come at it a different way and say psychological safety is established based on your ability to trust yourself. So I go to self-trust as being a higher, more precious skill set than trusting of others. And the reason I do that is because you'd recognize from a developmental psychology standpoint that trust is kind of baked between the ages of zero and two, if we go back to Erickson's work. So that's pre-verbal. Now we got to do a lot of work to undo pre-verbal patterning. And so I'm much more interested in helping people trust themselves so that they can feel safe,

so that when they go for it and it doesn't work out, they know that they'll figure it out and they'll be okay. Can you wave me off if I'm down a path that doesn't line up with your research? Yeah, I think it's tricky because I would argue there's two ways of thinking about it, right? What you said, I agree with. If you can have self-trust, then that solves this problem. But the issue is I think that that's far easier to achieve for people in power or with lots of

resources because the consequences of speaking up are going to be significantly less, right? Like if I'm like a tenure professor, I can kind of say what I want and not have to worry about job security. And I certainly would have felt, wouldn't have felt as comfortable speaking up without that security. So there's a piece of that. And some people may be just brave enough like not to care but i think as human beings are is just as basic as this pre-verbal how much do you trust it is i think as human beings there's also just a fundamental concern over how we're perceived and what other people think of us. And that piece, I think, is also hard to overwrite. So I would say another way of thinking about psychological safety or generalized trust

in a group is to think about how do you create or nurture a culture and environment so that that trust is generalized and transcends the relationship? And this is what's key for psychological safety is that trust transcends any two individuals. That's the difference. So it's a property of a group, not the property of any two individuals within a group. And that I do think is possible and not that difficult to do. The hardest piece of it though, is it's so easy to destroy. It's enormously, it's hard to create, but it's super easy to destroy. Trust. We're talking about. Generalized trust. Generalized trust. Okay.

When you talk, you're mapping this to this idea that one of the reasons people might not speak truth to power or feel that they can trust themselves is because there's a filter that's getting in the way, which is what might they think of me? There's a fear of other people's opinions, right? Where does that come from? Do you have an informed opinion about that? Yeah. I mean, if we think about it in the most basic way, that is really a sphere of a lack of belonging or a lack of social acceptance, right? It's in some ways where I started my own story. I felt like I never belonged. And that is a deep-seated human need because we need to be a part of something bigger than ourselves to survive. If you think going back to pre-modern times,

when we needed to evolve into social systems or groups beyond a certain size to survive in a way that was easier, right? To shift or being able to have agrarian societies, be it moving beyond hunter-gathering, we had to create groups. And so to be excluded from the group or not to be a part of it actually would kill me. And I think that we're hardwired to still have that type of reaction of a lack of acceptance or exclusion oftentimes feels like it can kill you. Yeah. And the circuitry in our brain would be similar to a real threat, the fight, flight, freeze mechanism.

And so I think that this idea here is one of the great constrictors of human potential. And so I think people play it safe and small because of the great modern fear of what they might think of us. So with that in mind, and your deep understanding of relationships and networks, how do you help people? Is it to care less about what other people think? Is it about to care what they think and work with that truth? How do you help people move through this fear of what others might be thinking of us? I think the starting point is to realize that people like you more than you think they do. And that misperception about how we're coming across is a starting point. Because once you start to be like, all right, people actually like me more than I think they do, then that starts to

reduce the fear. And what we know happens when fear is reduced, then we can actually engage more authentically with other people. And I think the more that we can get to being real with each other and engaging as humans, just having a conversation without expectations, without contingencies, and just truly connecting, then you start to feel that feeling. Your cortisol levels lower, all the fight and flight responses actually physically start to diminish. And then you're in this sweet space of like, oh, we're really connecting.

And the key though is for so many people, the psychological barriers are so high that they can't start to feel that. I was just going to poke it that you're thinking there because that sounds, it sounds doe-eyed a little bit to me, you know, which is like, you know, like, hey, let's just go have, let's help people have great relationships. And let's just tell them that no one really, you know, it's really being critical of them. And let's just go into the relationship. And I think if I could create that for people, I think we'd be way better off. And there are practices maybe that we can get there, but I think we come into the relationship. This is where it gets tricky. We come into the relationship with this, oh, this sense, like it's a filter it's like no no they're judging me so i'm going to test the waters you know right and so it's already like it's already i don't

know if you're 30 years old it's like 28 years old or something i don't know so i i think yeah and you've i've heard you twice talk about like this idea of judgment. And I think that that's one piece that is like an easy one to start to try to attack, right? Like not like attack is maybe not the right word, but just a place to start from, which is, can I enter into a conversation with the mindset or can I create an organization with a mindset that our goal is just simply to enter into a conversation with curiosity and not, and hold off judgment. And the same is kind of true, right? If you ask me, wait, if you can shift perspective into not everyone needs to like you, right? And like,

I don't like all my values and that's fine, but we are going to exist in a world where there has to be respect. And I think shifting, like if we can start with trying to like reframe values, then that can help with at a community level, at the individual level, it's just simply a game of confidence. So if I can get you to do one little thing, you're like, it works, right? And then you become more confident. And for individuals, it's a confidence game.

For organizations and for society, it's a value reorientation. Okay. All right. I like where you take that, right? Which is there's the micro and the macro. And on the micro, there's a confidence and there's a curiosity and there's an assumption that people are not, they like me more than I think they might, I think is how you said it, rephrased. Do you have any research I can go get my arms around for that first or for the last one I just said, which is that people tend to be favorable of others more so than the other would agree or know. Yeah, there's a great study that was done by Erica Boothby. And this is exactly what she studied.

And she identifies this and calls it the liking gap. And so this is like the most basic thing, right? She just had people in conversations, both in the laboratory, but also in everyday conversations, evaluate how much they enjoy their conversation with their partner. And then ask also ask them what they thought the partner thought of the conversation and then ask both parties. And based on this, she could identify the extent to which this gap exists. Other people have shown it in different manifestations. There was a great new study that just came out that was done by Julia Sandstrom, which is asking people how much they think that they're going to enjoy a conversation with a stranger or how long they think it'll go on for.

And again, we consistently underestimate with how much we're going to like it and how long it'll go on for. Like we were just designed as human beings for the reasons we talked about to really want to connect. Everyone wants any interaction to go well. And so the more you can start to realize that that's the basis, like we're built to connect and then let the other stuff go and lean into that instead of being focused on fear. It really does change every aspect of your interaction. What about that idea that we are the sum of our five friends? Is that made up? I like it.

It's so easy to hang my hat on. And I want to teach it to my son because friendships matter. But is there any evidence? I can't find it. And so. I would argue no like i would argue that it's not really true because with like people just don't work like that teams don't aggregate like that when people try to build for instance let's talk about teams instead of friends because but when people try to build teams like this right like if i can just get, you know, the right engineer and the right, right. Or like whatever it might be that you need on your

team. If I can just get the parts, then things are going to work. But what's amazing about relationships, and it's why I love studying networks, are there system level properties that transcend the individuals. So you can have collective intelligence. You can have the sum of the parts be far greater than the individuals that compose it. And that's why I love studying networks. And so I would say it's not just the sum of our five friends. We're so much more than that if you can get the system to really work right. Okay.

So at a systems level, you're saying that holds true, that we are more than the sum of our parts. We can be. We can be. Okay. But you're not going to agree. I can't find the evidence. And it sounds like you don't have your arms around either. Like we're the sum of our five friends.

Like if our five friends are incredibly switched on spiritually and make top 1% of all money in the planet. And, you know, I don't know, have a real drive for humanity. We're going to be the same. I would argue almost like, certainly also you could argue it's the reverse, right? That you self-select into groups who are already like you. So basically your friends are just a reflection of who you are. Yeah. Go back to your first kind of cohort that you're talking about inside of groups, right? Yeah. Okay. All right. Strike that one. Okay, good. And let's stay up on networks for a minute. I love that you're a systems thinker and you can also dive right into the kind of EQ of individual relationships. And I think being able to toggle between those two

is special and I see you doing that. So thank you for that gymnastics. How has the workplace interactions changed in the post-pandemic world? And I know it's not really post yet, but what are you seeing as being some of the changes from the pandemic experience? One of the things I've seen in my own research is one of the biggest changes is our networks have actually contracted pretty significantly during the pandemic. So during the pandemic, overall people's networks have shrunk by close to 16%, but that reduction in the size of our networks is almost entirely due to a reduction in the size of men's networks. So men's networks have shrunk by more than 35%, which is roughly 400 or so people.

So we're talking about acquaintances. And women's networks have hardly shrunk at all. So that's one big change. The second biggest change is that we're essentially like turtles. Our networks have constricted and we've focused a lot more of our attention and energy on the people that are closest colleagues at the expense of our broader social world. Well, how do you think that that's going to impact business the consequences are likely to be quite enduring unless people are really attention intentional about reinvigorating their networks and relationships so if you look at other major life transitions so having a child is one example our networks tend to be largest when they're around 25. And after that,

they fall off a cliff because they just, right, they get smaller and smaller as time goes on, because there's not attention devoted to rebuilding and regenerating them. You also see similar transitions after other crises like Hurricane Katrina did a similar thing to networks within the community that was impacted by it. So the consequences of this are likely to be quite enduring, particularly if we're working virtually. And so it's worrisome. I think it's worrisome on two dimensions for me. One is it's worrisome, particularly with respect to creativity and innovation. We have a really difficult time creating spontaneity. And that's what's the one consequence of this. We can't do it well virtually. And the second piece, I think,

is there's just a lot of signs that many, many people are struggling with burnout, depression, anxiety, and all the negative mental health consequences of this. And that if business doesn't start to address it, it's going to have major implications for business in terms of turnover costs, reduce productivity, but just simply like existing in a world that we want to exist in. And if you're guiding big business, you know, how would you, how would you address this? I think the first and biggest piece is to realize that this is a real issue that's not

just going to solve itself. So as we return to the workplace, there needs to be a conscientious demarcator, like an acknowledgement of what we've been through. And think of this as an opportunity also to relaunch a company culture in which relationships are privileged. The past year, I think, has shown company culture in which relationships are privileged. So the past year, I think has shown everybody just how important relationships are. And so being really intentional about devoting time and space and energy to reigniting those relationships. We know that even though relationships deteriorate super quickly, that trust actually endures. So you can

reignite or reinvigorate a relationship really, really easily, but far too often it's out of sight, out of mind. So I think that's one big piece of it. And the second is to use the opportunity to continue having conversations that have started to happen in the pandemic that I don't think were happening before. So if it wouldn't be as weird now, for instance, if I was reaching out to someone I supervised and asked them how they were doing, they told me that they were really struggling

with loneliness or they had been distracted. There's a level of honesty, I would say, that has happened over the past year that if we can keep that going, we're gonna have a much better shot at helping people get to the other side of this. So you would say like when companies come back online, would you suggest that there's an emphasis on how, just how important the relationships are?

You'd honor that it's been challenging and you would do something to reinvigorate or like create space for people to get their relationships or just to invest in the relationships with their coworkers. Yes. Yeah. And it's more conversational probably, you know, right. Like, you know, let's go to Robin Dunbar really quickly, you know, right? Like, you know, let's go to Robin Dunbar really quickly. You know, Dunbar's number. I'd like to get your reaction there. But one of the things he said is that men and women build their networks differently, that women tend to maintain their relationships and their networks through conversation, and then men do things together. Is that accurate in your understanding? Yes. And I think that that explains what's this difference, the differential impact the pandemic

has had on networks in part. So women have been able to continue having conversations and maintaining relationships in that way. So I would argue that's a key piece of why their networks haven't shrunk. There it is, because you can have a conversation anywhere, especially with modern technology, but those that favor, and we can take the broad stroke between men and women off, but those that favor doing things to build the relationship, that's been compromised. It's been taken away, actually. interesting to reflect on how much value there is, right? So there, if you think about research on synchrony, we know that actually physically doing things together creates brain synchronization, it creates a stronger sense of closeness. There's also opportunity through shared activities to create a higher identity. So you can create social cohesion in that way.

But so it's interesting to think about now post pandemic, what the value is in that versus what is the value in honest, open conversation that allows for building relationships in an entirely different way, but which is historically been, I would argue fairly rare in the workplace. Yeah. It's almost like you could, okay, everybody raise your hand. If you find more value in doing things and if you value conversations more and just kind of set the activities up accordingly i know i mean it's not that simple but if you could if you could use a technology platform because we're going to go

back to the hybrid model many companies are i think some are being um misguided. This is just a total, oh, I don't know. I'm just making kind of a judgment here, but some companies are going to go back five-day work weeks. And I just think like, whoa, I would not lead that way. There's going to be a hybrid for many companies, a 3-2 or a 2-3. And in this hybrid model, we're going to have some distance communication and sometimes we'll be in person. If you could use technology to help people in talking on now, like a virtual video-based technology. But if you could be really sophisticated about it, knowing what you know about networks and relationships, how would you make this stuff better? I can start with an easier answer, which is I would argue the best technology we have right now is actually the telephone. Because research by my colleague Michael Krause and others has shown that our ability actually to truly listen and our empathic accuracy is far better when we switch to audio only than having video. And this shift towards, as you mentioned, I think this has become our default platform just because I don't know why, right? We do all sorts of management fads because that's what happens.

But it's actually really, really hard to connect over video. Like if we go back to this idea that we're connect, our ability to connect is really determined by how present we can be. It's hard to be present on video because I'm worried about self-presentation. I can't look you in the eye and look at the camera at the same time. Our ability to read nonverbal behavior and verbal cues online is actually quite poor. So by actually toning things down and using less bandwidth, we can actually connect better because I'm just being able, I'm truly able to listen to you and focus on your voice. Wow. Okay. Good insight. And then if we can make some sort of agreements that if we're doing audio that we're not flipping through Instagram or checking emails, right? That the terrible cost of relationship is multitasking, isn't it?

Okay. Yeah, good. Marissa, Dr. King, I mean, you're a wealth of knowledge and I feel better because of this conversation. So thank you. Um, I didn't get to ask you the things that you're fascinated by, like what's coming next for you or what you're really excited about that you're studying and kind of barely getting your arms around. But what are some of those things that are incredibly exciting for you?

I'm really interested in, you alluded to this idea of like the things we can't measure, right? And so there are these ideas about human connection that I would love to understand how we know and measure and create connection in a way that I don't think we have the ability to do now. And I don't even know what that looks like, but I've spent, I've spent the first 15 years of my career pointing out like, here are the problems, right? From a lack of social connection, whether it's mental health, drug addiction, whatever it may be. But what I'm curious about now is how do we create effective connection? And what does that look like? How do we know when we're in one and i think that's the thing that gets me most excited do you are you looking at any neurobiological markers for people that report to have high you know connections and

people that have low connections sense of relationships you know um yeah and that's like yeah that's exactly what i'm interested in is, how do you map on these biomarkers to system level changes? So if we can watch networks change, what happens to someone as the larger system that they're, imagine that you're watching a team on the floor of a basketball game, right? Is that team, the team dynamics change? How does that impact the biological markers that people are experiencing? And are you interested in real-time biomarkers? Because they're so transient. I feel like that's going to be, I'm not sure how you would do that. But, or are you more interested in like, let's say, post-event, end-of-day,

HRV slash resting heart rate slash, you know, available cortisol levels? Like what, cortisol is transient as well. So like, what neuromarkers are you most interested in? I'm interested in, in the moment, because I think that's where it's fascinating, right? Because imagine that we're in conversation, like my biological response at different moments in this conversation has changed. So like, what's happening, like a really, really small temporal level like what does that mean because it's i think it has huge implications for people's everyday experience and is it are you looking at

like kind of the classic uh galvanic skin response or are you more interested in brainwave patterning where are you where do you think that you'll begin? And maybe you already are measuring. I'm more interested in, I mean, like the intersection of systems, right? So if we think about strength, like cortisol levels and things like that, they're somewhat interesting to me, but I'm much more interested in how that leads to changes in neurobiology at the same time, and then how that's relating to the social systems that people are existing in. That's really cool. And I wonder if there's a way to, if you can pick it up by facial recognition or tonal inflection or some sort of visual or auditory marker, right? Yeah, this is the line I started down

where those not like behavioral and verbal cues and mapping those on the network. So we can do that in real time using sociometric sensors. We don't have the ability to that cleanly link it to biomarkers because just of the constraints on how they have to be measured in the moment. But I think when we can start to unlock all of that, right, then something exciting

perhaps will happen. Dr. King, thank you. And, you know, I'm going to absolutely suggest at the top, but I'll give you a, give us a moment to celebrate your book, Social Chemistry, Decoding the Patterns of Human Connection. And what an important piece of work. And so thank you for introducing it. And thank you for this conversation. And where can people find you? You know, where's the best way for people to be part of your adventure? You can find out more about my work at marisaking.com or I would love to connect with you on LinkedIn. LinkedIn. Is it Marisa King? It is. Yeah, there you go. Okay. So again, thank you and have fun. I really appreciate this

conversation. It was such a joy. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. All the best. All right. Thank you so much for diving into appreciate it. All the best. way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify. We are incredibly grateful for the support and feedback. If you're looking for even more insights, we have a newsletter we send out every Wednesday. Punch over to findingmastery.com slash newsletter to sign up. The show wouldn't be possible without our sponsors and we take our recommendations seriously. And the team is very thoughtful about making sure we love and endorse every product you hear on the show. If you want to check out any of our sponsor offers you heard about in this episode, you can find those deals at findingmastery.com slash sponsors. And remember, no one does it alone. The door here at Finding Mastery is always open to those looking to explore the edges and the reaches of their potential so that they can help others do the same.

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