Something You Should Know - Best of SYSK Volume 3

Episode Date: March 22, 2018

A few times every year I like to shine a spotlight on some of the best moments from past episodes you may have missed. This time, it’s moments from the last few months of 2017. It’s a busy time of year, so in case you missed some moments, here are a few really great ones.. The links below will take you back to the original episodes from which these segments are taken so you can listen to the complete interviews if you wish. Topics and Links in this Episode Why Those Special Moments in Your Life Are So Special. Episode 79. http://www.somethingyoushouldknow.net/124-why-those-special-moments-in-your-life-are-so-special-the-5-numbers-you-must-know-to-stay-healthy/ Alan Alda’s Advice on Communicating and Relating to Others. Episode 109 http://www.somethingyoushouldknow.net/109-alan-aldas-advice-on-communicating-and-relating-to-others-how-to-fight-off-feelings-of-loneliness/ How to Learn Anything Better and Faster. Episode 118 http://www.somethingyoushouldknow.net/118-how-to-learn-anything-better-and-faster-are-people-inherently-good-or-evil/ The Serious Consequences of Not Asking For What You Want. Episode 132 http://www.somethingyoushouldknow.net/132-amazing-ways-genes-affect-your-behavior-the-serious-consequences-of-not-asking-for-what-you-want/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on Something You Should Know, some of the most interesting moments from past episodes, including what makes special moments in your life so special. What psychologists have found is that looking back on our experiences, we tend to disproportionately recall two moments in particular, the peak, which is the most positive moment in a positive experience, and the endings. Then, communications expert and legendary actor Alan Alda talks about the importance of really connecting when you speak with someone. I know I've had plenty of conversations where I haven't paid much attention to the other person,

and that's not connecting, that's not relating. Also, understanding how you learn so you can learn better. What every single study has found is that the rate of learning or the rate of improvement is fastest during those first critical early hours. All this and more on this best of episode of Something You Should Know. As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know is all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily.

Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu. She goes beyond the headlines

so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts.

Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. About four or five times a year, I like to go back and revisit some of the best moments from earlier episodes of this podcast because as much as I'd like to believe that everyone who listens to this podcast listens to every episode and listens all the way through and hangs on every word, that's just my little

fantasy and I know it's not reality. And so I think it's worth going back and shining a light on some of those great moments from earlier episodes. So today, I want to look back at some of the great moments from the last few months of last year. And we begin with looking at some of the special moments in your life. When you think about it, your life is really just a series of moments strung together. So why is it that we remember some of those moments better than others?

Why are certain moments more important than other moments? And can you create more good moments? That's what I spoke with Dan Heath about in episode 124. Dan and his brother Chip Heath are authors of the book The Power of Moments, Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact, and the two of them have taken a really fascinating look at the moments that make up your life. And so we were interested to study across these different kinds of moments. What are they made of? Can we reverse engineer them with an eye toward creating more? And since this is what you and your brother do, what did you come up with? Well, we came up with a theory, that's for sure.

Positive experiences are linked by four elements. Those elements are elevation, insight, pride, and connection. So I'll just say a couple sentences about each of those. Elevation means it lifts us above the everyday. You know, there is positive emotion like joy or delight or surprise. So think in terms of, you know, a drink with a friend at sunset or, you know, a performance in your high school musical. There's something about it that's joyful and extraordinary. When it comes to insight, those are very different kinds of moments. That's in an instant. We rewire our understanding of ourselves or our world. So

you might figure out, this is the last day I'm going to spend in this job. You might look across the dinner table one night and realize, hey, this is the person I'm going to spend in this job, you might look across the dinner table one night and realize, hey, this is the person I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. They come suddenly and with force. The third element is pride. So probably everybody listening to this somewhere in their house, you have a little box or a file drawer where you keep things that are special to you, you know, thank you letters from people that you've helped or certificates or awards or plaques. They're moments that capture us at our best moments when we accomplish things we weren't sure we'd be able to.

And then the final element that occurs again and again and again is connection. So often these moments that are so memorable to us are social moments or they're moments that deepen our ties to other people. So, you know, think about a conversation that goes on for hours with a dear friend or think about a particularly grueling project you may have had at work that once you succeeded and got to the end of it, you felt bonded to that team forever. And so when we talk about experiences, you know, whether we're thinking about the customer experience, the patient experience, the student experience, the employee experience, what we're really talking about is how can we

create moments out of these four elements that enrich those experiences? Because they do seem to be somewhat random, don't they? They just, they come whenever they come, and they're magic when they're magic, and then they're gone, and then you wait for the next one. That's exactly right. I mean, I think we have a certain fatalism about these moments. You know, we appreciate them when they happen. They're serendipitous.

You know, you bump into someone that turns into a friend or someone that you have a relationship with, and it's just kind of unpredictable magic. But this is actually a power that we have that we may not be using. And that is we can understand what these special moments are made of. And in the business world and in our personal lives, we can create more of them. How so? How do you, because part of what seems to be so special about those moments is that they're not artificially created. They're spontaneous and they're just aha kind of moments. Well, let me give you an example of an artificially created moment that's actually pretty special. So there's a hotel in Los Angeles called the Magic Castle Hotel.

And let me first say that whatever image is popping to your mind right now when I say the Magic Castle Hotel, it doesn't look anything like that. It looks like what it is, which is a 1950s-era apartment complex, two stories, that's been converted into a motel. I think hotel is actually stretching it a little bit. It's been painted bright yellow, totally unremarkable place to look at. But would you believe that on TripAdvisor, this place is ranked the number two hotel in LA ahead of the Ritz, ahead of the Four Seasons. And so the natural question is how in the world could that be true? Well, the Magic Castle has figured out moments.

So I'll give you one example. By the pool, which is a totally ordinary-looking pool, it might be the same size as your neighbors in the backyard, but by the pool there's mounted on the wall a cherry red phone, and just above the phone there's a sign that says, Popsicle Hotline. And you can pick up this phone, somebody will pick up, say, Popsicle Hotline. And you can pick up this phone. Somebody will pick up, say Popsicle Hotline will

be right out. They'll bring out grape, cherry, orange, popsicles, all delivered poolside on a silver tray by somebody wearing white gloves like an English butler, all for free. They have a snack menu where kids can go up to the front desk and ask for a variety of snacks for free. And they've got board games you can check out and movies you can check out. And they'll do your laundry. If you drop it off in the morning, they'll have it back by the end of the day. They've got magicians that come and do tricks in the lobby. And so when you start thinking about the hotel through that lens,

you realize, hey, people will forgive average-looking rooms, an average-looking hotel, an average-looking lobby if you deliver some moments that stand above the rest. And to me, that's a good kind of metaphor for what we're going for with this book is, you know, this is not a book moments rise above the rest, that's often enough to create a great experience, even if not every single detail is perfect. So Dan, I remember hearing that Walt Disney knew something about optimizing experiences, that when it comes to experiences, we remember the beginning and the end more than we remember the middle. And that if the beginning and the end of an experience is not as good as it should be, then it tends to taint our recollection of the entire experience. And that's why he made a big

effort to make sure that getting into the theme parks, Disneyland and Disney World, and getting out of the theme parks is a relatively stress-free, relatively easy, enjoyable experience because he wanted to make sure that people got in and got out and were happy. Exactly right. And you're making actually a really important point, which is when we look back on experiences like going to Disney World, for instance, psychologists know a couple of things about what our memories are going to look like. Number one, there's no sense in which we can just load up a film of our experience end to end. You know, you can't look back on your last family vacation and kind of play the videotape. You're left with snippets or scenes or moments from the vacation. And furthermore, there's a logic to which moments you recall. And what psychologists have found is that looking back on our experiences, we tend to disproportionately recall two moments in particular, the peak of the experience, which is the most positive moment in a positive experience, and the endings.

And in fact, in the book, we explain why the beginnings and the ending are both important. You can think of them as transitions. So what we recall are the peaks and the transitions, exactly like you said. But what we don't remember, and this is fascinating to me, and I think anybody that's been to a theme park can relate to this, is my guess is the majority of moments when we're in a theme park, we would actually be happier sitting on our couch at home. Because it's crowded and it's hot and it's humid and we're standing in line and someone cuts us off and we're irritated. And there's a lot of these kind of micro irritations and micro frustrations that we endure in a theme park. And in memory, those things just fade out. You know, so a year

later, what may have been a mostly uncomfortable day at Disney World now seems like one of the highlights of the year. And the reason for that is, I don't think we're crazy to think that, by the way. I think the reason we think that is because the park delivered peak moments that our couches at home will never deliver. That's a portion of my conversation with Dan Heath. He and his brother Chip are authors of the book The Power of Moments, Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact. It is from episode 124, if you would like to hear the entire interview. You know, eating family dinner together on a regular basis is really important. We've talked about it on this program.

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go to Plated.com slash something to get 25% off your first four weeks for a limited time only. Terms apply. See plated.com slash something for details. That's plated.com slash something. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared.

It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for.

Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. As you know from listening, this is a topic-driven podcast. We talk about interesting topics, but we don't have a lot of celebrities on. But one showbiz celebrity we did have on was back in October of last year.

It was Alan Alda. Alan Alda has been very active in training people to communicate better, and he wrote a book called If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? And back in episode 109, I asked him about a moment when he was a young actor, and he learned a lesson about relating to people, that communicating isn't just about what you want to say to them it's about relating to the other person yeah it's it was such a simple moment between me and mike nichols the director he was directing a musical i was in a long time ago i was about 29 years old and he kept telling, you're not relating to the other.

He was telling us both, but he was really kind of looking at me when he said it. You know, you kids aren't relating to each other. Then he said, you think relating is the icing on the cake. It isn't. It's the cake. And it is. If you go through the motions and you do all the things you're supposed to do, you follow all the rules of listening that we've all heard many times, active listening.

So you repeat what the other person has told you. Let them know you heard it. You don't say how they ought to behave. You tell them how it makes you feel. Let's just take both of those things. You can do both of those things and be really annoying if it's not coming out in an authentic way. It's very clear when you're going through steps by rote. But if you really, from inside you to inside them, really want to make sure you heard what they said, or you really want them to know

that it's not that you're criticizing them but that something's happening that's hard for you to take that's different from going through the paces and the only difference the only way that difference can come about that i'm aware of is through real relating with the other person letting them come into your consciousness, the look on their face, the expression in their eyes, their body language, the tone of their voice, where are their eyes when you talk to them? Where are your eyes? What do they really look like? What color is this person's eyes? You know, I've talked to people for 10 minutes and I look away for a minute and I think, what does their face look like?

And sometimes it's just a big blur where the face is. That makes me think I'm not really talking to the person I think I'm talking to. So, Alan, everybody has people or has had people who gets them. They know that this person, when I talk to them, they really hear me when I talk. Yet, they don't necessarily know how to do it themselves, but they know it when it's being done to them. Yeah, I think that's true. What is it? What is it that that person has that makes me feel like he gets me?

Well, it could be that he gets you. That could be it. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Yeah, right. I mean, it's not, the whole thing is, we don't train people to look like they're connecting. We train them to connect. And some people are good at it from the time they're children.

I have a granddaughter who, since she was able to talk, you could tell she was a people person. She would always think about your end of it. She said, I was in her house one time, and she was only about five or something like that. And I said, I'm going to the bathroom. I'll be right back. She said, OK, the light switch is on your left when you go through the door. That's thinking about the other person. She didn't think, oh, you're going to be gone for a couple of minutes. What will I do? She thought he maybe needs to know where the light switch is.

So she had it from the beginning and she still has it. But that brings up a point though, that she, you know, she's a young girl. And sometimes I wonder if people who I view as really good communicators, is this a gift or are they being deliberate about it? It's hard to imagine your granddaughter's being deliberate about it. No, I think it came naturally to her. But maybe I don't understand your question. And this is not me saying, let me repeat what you said, because I'm not sure I get it. Are you saying that some people just can appear that way and that's good enough?

No. What I'm saying is I wonder if the great communicators have that gift or if they work really hard and deliberate at it? Oh, this is where I sell my discovery. I think you can work hard at it in a variety of ways and get better. And some people are gifted and even many of them can get better. It's like the very basis of what we're talking about is really empathy. And we don't talk a whole lot about empathy. I talk about it a lot in the book. All I mean by empathy and the way we use it is that it helps you, gives you an estimate of what the other person is feeling,

what they're going through, what their point of view is. So you can improve on empathy. I know people who teach it. There are standardized empathy tests, and you can tell if the person's getting better at empathy. And that's another example of how you can get better at making this connection, because that's part of the connection. If someone were to say to you, what's the one thing I can do to communicate better, to connect better with people? Is there a thing? Is there one technique or tactic? I shrink from asking it all the time because it sounds like I can give people a tip and that tip alone Will somehow change their emotional life their ability to read other people? but I I do want to meet you halfway so I will I Think I would say that it's very hard to read the other person

To connect with them if you don't observe them, if you don't see them, hear them. And it's hard for us to believe sometimes, but I know I've had plenty of conversations where I haven't paid much attention to the other person. I'm interested in what I have to say. I want to explore an idea and I'm just using them as a sounding board. And that's not connecting. That's not relating. No matter how inspired I am with this idea I want to explore, if I don't really get into their head with it, then I'm not dancing with them. That's more important than,

especially if the relationship is important to both of us. It's not worth it to just use them as something that makes the tree in the forest make noise. You tell the story in the book about when you were doing MASH, how this group of people had to relate in a way that reflected the characters you were playing. And I thought it was really interesting because I would have never thought of that. Do you mind telling that? Yeah, it was interesting.

It started the first week of shooting. And in rehearsal, we rehearsed about 10 days, I think, before we shot the pilot. And people got to know each other in a way that you do when you just meet. We were all just meeting for the first time. So we knew each other's names and that's about all we knew about one another. On the first day of shooting, we were out in the mountains in Malibu, and it was getting close to Christmas. It was very cold in the mountains. When we were playing it as though it was hot in Korea, and we were all wearing Hawaiian shirts and freezing. So between shots, we had on parkas, and we all stood around a flaming oil drum that had a fire in it.

And we were all hugging one another. So for a week, we hugged one another. We knew each other much better than we did during rehearsal. And after that, instead of going to our dressing rooms while they were lighting the set between shots, That would take like a half an hour or an hour. We sat in a circle in our chairs and talked. Once in a while, we'd run lines, but mostly we would just make fun of each other and laugh. We just spent that time laughing. And that relationship that we developed in those few minutes, each time we'd take into the scene, the set was a few feet away,

when they called us to the set, sometimes we'd still be laughing and kidding, get into the scene and keep that relationship going, only now with the lines of dialogue written in the script. But the connection was established, sitting around in the chairs. And whenever I do a play on the stage, I do my best without scaring the other actors about it

to see if we can sit around like that for an hour before every show and get that connection going. I've found it's the best preparation for getting into a play, much better than sitting by yourself, at least from my taste. It was good fun and a great opportunity to speak with Alan Alda. And if you would like to hear the complete interview, you can go back to episode 109 from October of 2017. And I've also put a direct link into the

show notes for this episode of the podcast that will link you right back to that episode. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking

birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed, critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. In a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney-themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Probably one of the reasons you like and listen to this podcast is because you like to learn new things.

And back in November, it was episode 118, I spoke with Josh Kaufman, and he is all about learning new things and learning them fast. He wrote a fascinating book called The First 20 Hours, and he talked about how the desire and the willingness to learn and the belief that you can learn something has a lot to do with if and how well you learn it. There's actually quite a bit of research on this topic. It's usually what a person believes about learning itself. So there's a great set of research by Dr. Carol Dwecker of Stanford University, and it talks about what she calls two mindsets, a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. So if you believe you have to be naturally talented at something in order to do it, you're

not going to improve very quickly, if at all, because you might just skip that skill because you believe you're not good at it. If you believe that your mind is a muscle, and the more you use it, the more it grows, and the more you practice, the better you become at something, you tend to improve very, very quickly. And the research says that the latter interpretation is the true one. If you sit down and practice anything, no matter who you are or what you're currently capable of doing, you will be much better at it, regardless of what it is or who you are. So in a sense, it's somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yes, yes. And what's interesting is some of this research involves taking school children and priming them with either interpretation, right?

So they'll split a class in half and tell half of them one thing and tell half of them the other. And the children who are taught that if you practice something, you will always improve at it, outperform the group who are primed with natural talent every single time. It really is a matter of a belief, and it's a matter of sitting down and doing work in a way that's designed to help you improve. Which brings up the issue of, and one of the reasons perhaps that people don't do things,

is even if what you say is so, that you could do better at anything, if you're not interested particularly in it, you're not going to do it. Absolutely. So being fascinated about something in particular will always help you learn it much faster. Now, there are certain circumstances, like, for example, learning something in a business context. So my first book, The Personal MBA, is all about what you need to know about business in order to do well. And topics like, for example, finance and accounting and bookkeeping are not always the most intrinsically fascinating things to study, right? But they're very important. It's important to be able to use numbers to make better decisions.

And so in those cases, it's much better to focus on the instrumental result. What are you going to get from it? What is that going to be able to help you do? So if you're able to learn finance in a way that helps you improve your business to make more money to build a fantastic new house, for example, it's much easier to get interested in the process of learning how to generate that particular result. So, Josh, since it's the title of your book, what is it that is so special about those first 20 hours? You know, it's funny.

There's been about seven decades of research in cognitive psychology about the process of skill acquisition. And either doing things physically with your body or picking up cognitive skills, certain ways of thinking or looking at the world. And what every single study has found is that the rate of learning or the rate of improvement is fastest during those first critical early hours. So if you can get yourself to sit down and practice, every bit of research that we have about this topic says if we can get ourselves to practice, we improve really quickly. The trick is getting ourselves to sit down and practice in the first place. And if we can get ourselves to sit down and practice,

getting through those first few hours, which are always intimidating and frustrating, if we can get ourselves to practice long enough, we improve dramatically in a very short period of time. That's what our brains are optimized to do in a very real sense. And by not doing it or being intimidated by doing it, is that what turns a lot of people off or keeps them from trying? Is it that it just, it seems so monumental, it seems so different than what I know, maybe I'll just go do the dishes? Yeah, exactly. Or watch TV or surf the Internet, right? That's easy.

Yeah, so what holds people back are a couple of things. The first is feeling like the skill is too big. I'm not sure where to start. I don't know where to begin. This looks complicated. This looks scary. I'm not sure if it's worth it. That's a big, big barrier. The second is, let's say you get to the point where you start to dabble around in it. You may put an hour or two in. Usually, in the early parts, those first few hours, you're terrible, and you know you're terrible. And that's, you know, none of us like the feeling of feeling stupid. And so that's what I call the frustration barrier.

It's being so frustrated about your inability to do something that it's more comfortable to stop doing it and go watch TV or surf the internet. And so this process is really designed to overcome those barriers as much as possible. So to make it not intimidating, to make those early hours that are typically frustrating as non-frustrating as possible. Because if you can persist long enough, and the threshold that I recommend is about 20 hours of practice, you can go from knowing absolutely nothing to be very, very good at something in a very short period of time. And so it really is easier than it feels at the beginning. How important do you think is aptitude? I mean, you know, I've, I learned new things, and I recently got into video editing, and it turns out I'm pretty good at it. I picked

it up pretty quickly and I get it and I'm good at it and I enjoy doing it. But if we were to sit down and study, you know, accounting or, you know, that kind of thing, I wouldn't be very good at it. I don't feel I have an aptitude for it. I don't feel I have an interest in it, which, you know, goes back to what we were talking about earlier. It's kind of that self-fulfilling prophecy. I don't think I would do good at it, so I probably wouldn't do good at it, and I'm not interested in it. Yeah, that is definitely the self-fulfilling prophecy. So what basically all of the research literature says is that aptitude is entirely unconsequential, doesn't have any impact in the first hours of practice. So certain things you may pick up more quickly than others out of personal interest

or because you have past experience that helps you. So video editing sounds like that was that for you. For things like finance or accounting, our brains are weird in a certain respect in how they estimate time. So if something is complex or intimidating or frustrating, we tend to think we're actually spending more time on that thing than we actually are if you were to look at a clock as you're practicing. And so it's important when you're going into the process of learning something new, it's important to pre-commit to spending a certain amount of time on it.

And the reason you do that is it becomes much easier to actually sit down and do enough work that the process becomes non-frustrating. And if you would like to hear the complete interview with Josh Kaufman, author of the book The First 20 Hours, just navigate back to episode 118 that aired in November of 2017. Should be pretty easy to find wherever you listen to podcasts, including our website, somethingyoushouldknow.net. It can't hurt to ask. That's a common phrase, but one I suspect we don't take to heart often enough. That job you wanted but didn't ask for. The date you wanted but didn't ask for.

If it can't hurt to ask, then why don't we ask more often? In episode 132, I spoke with Linda Babcock, Walton Professor of Economics at Carnegie Mellon, and author of the book, Women Don't Ask, who from her research has become a firm believer that the more you ask, the more you get. And she thinks she knows why asking is so tough for so many of us. Yeah, I think we just don't have an idea about what the other side is going to say. It's a risky thing to do, to negotiate for what you want. And I think it's just people don't like

doing things that are socially risky. And so they avoid negotiation because it makes them uncomfortable because of that risk. Well, and that's a legitimate fear, I guess, is that fear of being told no or that fear of people feeling ill of you or whatever. But what are the consequences of not asking? What do we know? Well, there are huge consequences to not asking. And you can think of the most dramatic examples as not asking about, say, your salary. Not negotiating your salary, for example, when you first start out in the workplace can cost you several million dollars over the course of your career because you're starting at a lower base salary. And so the gains to negotiating are really great. You can think about the other things that you may negotiate about, for example, in your workplace, you might negotiate about training opportunities or your work schedule or what kind of work you're doing.

The benefits of asking about those things can be enormous also. Do you think that the rule, if you don't ask, you don't get, is a pretty good rule to live by? That that is, in fact, how the world works. If you don't ask, you don't get, is a pretty good rule to live by, that that is, in fact, how the world works. If you don't ask, you don't get. I think that's definitely true, and you can think about that in the workplace or in your personal life. Most things are just not offered to you, and so you do have to negotiate for them. So what do you say to the person who says, well, okay, I get that. I understand what you're saying, but I don't like that feeling of feeling uncomfortable. I don't like that fear of being told no. So what do you

say to those people? Yeah, so it's a real fear, and I don't want to, you know, just say that it's nothing, but there are things that we can do as negotiators to mitigate that risk, to reduce those feelings of anxiety. And so being really prepared for a negotiation. If we're really prepared, we can have done our homework about how the other side is going to think about it. We've prepared our case. We have prepared contingencies. And doing all that preparation can really make the negotiation go better. So it actually does mitigate that risk. And it makes us feel more comfortable. And so that anxiety is also lessened the more we prepare. Prepare by doing what? Bringing what to the table?

Well, just think about, suppose that you were going to go buy a new car. Everybody knows that when you buy a new car, you're going to go and you're going to negotiate the price of the car. And everybody also knows that you go and do your homework. You read consumer reports. You go on the website. You do searches about how much this car should cost. And you go in really armed with information that's going to help you be a more effective negotiator. And I think that's the context in which everyone thinks about, oh, of course, you know, I would never go into a car dealership without having done that. And yet, some people may enter in a different type of negotiation without having done that

additional background kind of homework. And doing so will really help you to do better. I've worked at jobs in my life where there is no negotiation only because the employer will say, well, the job pays X. That's what the job pays. So that pretty much closes the discussion. What's a good comeback to that? Well, if you, again, have done your homework in terms of investigating, you know, what other kinds of companies are paying, you can come back as a response to that and say, you know, I understand that that's your opening offer. Do you suppose you could increase it by X amount? You know, you have a number in mind.

And it's possible that they will say no, but if they say no, it's fine. People on the employer side are expecting you to negotiate. And so they typically do not offer you the most they'd be willing to pay. You know, as an employer, you think about that and you think, would I actually make my first offer the absolute most I'm willing to pay? And, of course, the answer is no. I would leave myself some negotiating room. And so, actually, most employers are doing that and expecting you to negotiate. So most places, you know, there is really no harm to trying.

I bet a lot of people think, though, that in that position, when you're offered a job and here's what the job pays, that to ask for more seems ungrateful and that maybe the employer will say, hey, look, if that's not good enough for you, we'll hire somebody else. And now you've blown the whole thing. It depends the way that you ask. For example, if an employer offered me a salary, you know, a wage, say $20 an hour, and I said, nope, I'm not coming unless you increase it. Well, of course, if they can't increase it, they're going to say, okay, well, we'll pick somebody else. But that's because of the way I kind of made it as a demand rather than, is it possible

for you to raise the wage to $21 per hour? And then it's voluntary. The person could say, no, I can't do that, and you could still accept the job. So it's all in the way that you go about doing that negotiation. Well, it certainly seems that, I mean, how many times have we heard, it can't hurt to ask, and yet people still are so afraid of asking? Yeah, and that's just the fear of the unknown. But again, the more you kind of think about it, okay, what will I do if the person says no?

And be prepared for that and have something to say. Like, oh, well, you know, I understand you can't do that. I appreciate you having considered it, though. It means a lot to me. You know, just having a couple things that can just roll off your tongue and that you're going to feel comfortable with then in the moment then makes the prospect of that no a lot less scary if I know, hey, it's going to be fine if the person says no. Isn't it fascinating, though, because I don't think people would necessarily think that every time you sit down and talk to your boss or talk about getting a job and they quote you a number, that there is room to negotiate,

that they're expecting you to negotiate, and how much money gets left on the table because people don't. Yeah, it's a tremendous amount for sure. And that's why investing in some skills to become a better negotiator can be well worth it. It's not rocket science. It is not hard. You just have to put some time and effort into it, and anyone can become a good negotiator. Well, I think we think it's rocket science, because you hear about negotiations and, you know, big political negotiations or labor negotiations, and these are professional negotiators.

And so it does sound hard. And maybe that's part of the problem, that it's not as hard as people think it is. No, I think, is that you use basically the same skills to negotiate with your partner that you would use to negotiate with a colleague or an employer that you would use to negotiate with the North Koreans. You know, that it really is a set of basic principles and skills that, you know, you tweak a little bit from situation to situation, but the same concepts are applicable in all these different kinds of negotiations. And so it isn't that you have to learn a certain set of skills to

be effective in one kind of negotiation. It doesn't translate. The skills are easily transferable across all kinds of domains in which you might negotiate. That's part of my conversation with Linda Babcock from episode 132, which was right around Christmas time. And she's author of the book, Women Don't Ask. If you'd like to hear the entire interview or any of the entire interviews that are excerpted in today's episode, all the links are in the show notes. It'll take you right to that episode and you can hear the entire thing. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper.

In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership

to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Contained herein are the heresies of Rudolf Buntwine, erstwhile monk turned traveling medical investigator. Join me as I study the secrets of the divine plagues and uncover the blasphemous truth that ours is not a loving God and we are not its favored children.

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