Something You Should Know - How to Shake Off a Bad Experience & Where New Trends Come From

Episode Date: December 19, 2019

How many times have you heard that it is important to drink a lot of fluids when you have a cold or the flu? But why? Does it help flush the illness from your system? That what a lot of people think. But that’s not it. This episode begins with the real reason why it is a good idea to keep drinking when you are sick – but not too much. http://www.realsimple.com/health/first-aid-health-basics/too-much-water-whilesick-can-be-dangerous When you have a tough day or a difficult encounter, it can sometimes be hard to shake it off. The problem is it can negatively affect your performance the rest of the day. However, there is a technique that can really help. Dr. Adam Fraser author of the book The Third Space (https://amzn.to/35BAPub) explains how elite athletes, salespeople and peak performers everywhere don’t let a bad experience keep them down.  If you are going away for the holidays or any other time really, there are some important things to remember to keep burglars out of your house while you are gone. I’ll reveal what is on that very important checklist. http://www.mentalfloss.com/article/89892/5-tips-keeping-your-home-safe-while-youregone-holidays How do you spot a trend? Where do they come from? Rohit Bhargava has been trying to predict trends for a decade and has published a book about it every year for the last several years. He does this by engaging in what he calls “Non-Obvious Thinking” which he says we should all do to help us spot new opportunities. Listen as he explains how you do it and what the latest trends are. His latest book, which will be the last one in the series is called Non Obvious Megatrends: How to See What Others Miss and Predict the Future (https://amzn.to/36PG61q). This Weeks Sponsors -Finance Pal. Start you free trial today by going to www.FinancePal.com/something  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 was 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. 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. Today on Something You Should Know, exactly why are you supposed to drink a lot of fluids when you have a cold? Then, how to shake off a bad experience or a bad day so it doesn't hurt your performance? What we discovered in tennis players is how they move from one point to another. And what we found is that the elite players could move in a way

where they leave the previous point behind and be totally present and in the moment with the next point. We found the same thing with sales people. Also, what you absolutely must do before you go away for the holidays. And how do you spot a trend? Where do they come from? It turns out lots of places, including our past. So now we're playing board games again. We're listening to music on vinyl. All of these things are examples of us bringing the past back

because when we don't trust what's happening in the future, we retreat. All this today on Something You Should Know. 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. 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. Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. A lot of people get sick around this time of year, which is the worst. There's nothing worse than being sick for the holidays. But this is cold and flu season, and when you do get sick, the advice is to drink a lot of fluids. But why? What does drinking fluids do when you're sick? Well, it's not what people typically think. The idea that it flushes out an illness

is not accurate, according to an ER doctor at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. In fact, there is very little medical evidence that supports this idea. The thing is that you can lose a lot of fluids when you're sick, so the purpose of drinking a lot of fluids is more about replacing the fluids you've lost to keep you hydrated. Being dehydrated can affect the body's ability to fight infection in general, but it doesn't directly help you fight the one you have right now. The fact is, some people go too far and drink so much that they develop hyponatremia or water intoxication. This is when people drink so much fluid that they flush out the sodium in their body and that can create a very serious medical condition. So staying

hydrated when you're sick is good advice, but don't go nuts. And that is something you should know. Perhaps the best way to illustrate what we're about to talk about is with sports. And a good example would be a golfer who misses an easy putt and then gets so upset that the rest of his game goes downhill from there. Or in hockey, a goalie lets in a puck that he should have stopped and he gets so upset that he can't get over it. He can't move on and play well after that. Or a tennis player who misses a crucial shot and gets so rattled that she performs poorly for the rest of the match. And while you see it in sports, it also happens in everyday life.

You have a difficult or upsetting meeting at work, and it's hard to shake that off and perform well at the next meeting, or for the rest of the day. Or you have a bad day at work, and it's hard not to bring that home and take it out on the family. So what's going on here? Why is it that some people can shake off rejection and difficult encounters and reset and move forward, where others of us just can't seem to do that. In sports, it seems to be one of the things that separates elite players from everyone else. And here to discuss how we can all do it better is Dr. Adam Fraser. He's a researcher and author of the book, The Third Space.

Hi, Adam. Welcome. Hi, Mike. It's a pleasure to be here. So what is it, in. Hi Mike, it's a pleasure to be here. So what is it in a nutshell here? What is it that some people seem to have that allows them to have a bad experience, recover quickly and not let it taint the next experience or even the rest of the day? One of the key things we discovered in our research was that a key part of performance is the ability to transition from one moment to another. What we discovered in tennis players is one of the most important parts

of the game is how they move from one point to another. And what we found is that the elite players could move in a way where they leave the previous point behind and be totally present and in the moment with the next point. We found the same thing with salespeople, the ability to get over a rejection and then come to the next opportunity with the right mindset, right emotion, and right focus. And what we called this transitional gap in the middle of these spaces is the third space. So if you were to picture it, the first space is what we're doing now, second space, what we're about to do, and the transitional gap in between is we call the third space. And what we found in all walks of life, whether you're a surgeon, whether you're a parent, whether you're coming

home at the end of the day, the ability to transition between the different parts of your life is such an important skill. Yeah. And we see that every day when somebody has a bad moment and they can't shake it, they dwell in it for a while and it affects what they do next. Oh, Mike, you're so spot on. And we call this negative spill. And what happens is we often take the mood and mindset of one moment into the other, like we have a bad meeting and it just derails our day. I spoke to a leader recently who said, I'd scheduled a meeting with my team to talk to them about the things that we're doing well and how we're evolving and what we're going to strategically focus on.

And he said, my leader before that meeting just said, oh, can I have 10 minutes with you? And in that 10 minutes, he just tore into him and said, you're not doing this right and I'm unhappy with this. And this leader went to the meeting with his team that was supposed to be about what they're doing well. And he just took it out on them and attacked them and blamed them for what he just went through. And he said, oh, if I could give anything, I'd have that moment over again. Because the amount of destruction I created in that moment for my team was devastating. But really, it was just that I

was carrying the after effects of this interaction he'd had with his manager into that meeting. So it's such a common thing. Well, that's certainly understandable. I can relate to that. I'm sure a lot of people can relate to that. Some encounters just rattle you and make it hard to move on. We spent four years studying this in detail of all sorts of occupations. And what we found is in that transition, there are three key things that we need to do, three key steps that help us. But most importantly, we found that this ability to transition and use the third space is a teachable skill, like we can get better at it. And those three steps are?

Well, that is the next logical question, isn't it? So the key thing is the ability to reflect. Reflect on what you've just been through, but in a healthy, constructive way. So most people, and neuroscience shows that the brain is hardwired towards pessimism. We tend to look at what was not good about what we just did, how we could have done it better. But what we showed is people's ability to transition and move forward is that if they focus on, OK, all right, what went well in that or how did I handle myself well or what did I learn or how did I improve in that interaction? When they start

to focus on progress and evolution, their ability to transition forward is greatly increased. And this is not just sort of Pollyanna delusional thinking. It's just, okay, in that moment, and even if the moment didn't go well, well, what did I learn? Or how did I progress progress or what part of that did I handle well? So that really helps them move forward. So that's the first part is the ability to reflect, but in a constructive way. The second step we call rest, and that is simply the ability to be present and come back to the present moment. So whether that is I take a deep breath before I go into the next meeting, whether it is I take some time to relax before the next interaction, all it is is bringing the brain back to the present moment. And what that does is really calms the brain and allows us to

take in more information or be more constructive. And then the third phase is called reset. And that is where we visualize in future pace what we want to achieve from the next interaction. So if we're going into a meeting, well, what do I want to achieve in this meeting? What's my key focus? If I'm going into a sales situation, what are the key questions I want to focus on? And that part is about getting your head right and focused on the next interaction. So what we showed is that those three steps are reflect, rest, reset. And our research shows that it dramatically improves

people's capacity to transition from one interaction to another. Well, but what I would say to that is, but what do you do with the emotion? I mean, if somebody just cleans your clock, I mean, you, they just, you know, beat you up one side and down the other. Okay, so you've got those three steps, but you still feel that emotional pain of, I mean, this really hurts uh what do you do with that yeah so in terms of that one of the key things about dealing with the emotion is that you can either what what we found is that you can either go all right i've just been hung out to dry or i've had a really bad experience but i have to go into this next interaction. And what I have to do is park it and I'm going to address it and I'm going to

deal with it later. But right now I've got to do a presentation and I have to step it up. And there is not time to sort of dwell in the emotional worry about the emotion. So part of it is, well, okay, I'm feeling this way and that ability to reflect gets that awareness of it but then when we go into the next interaction it's like this is what i need to focus on that reset phase is i need to achieve this this is the reason why i need to do it i've got to achieve it for this client or or for this Now, if you want to go deeper on the ability to, now, obviously with this concept, there's big interactions, there's small ones. So it could be, I'm just going from one meeting to another, but it also could be, I'm

trying to get over something that was really devastating or really sort of knocked me off course. What we're discovering right now about dealing with emotion is two key steps. So the first one is the ability to keep space from your emotion. So what this is about is the capacity to view and reflect on our emotion, but in a way where we don't see ourselves as the emotion or the thought. So in that reflection piece, rather than saying, I'm anxious, or I have no confidence, or I'm terrible at that sales situation, rather than having those sort of declarative statements, what we want to do is notice the thoughts and the emotions. So in that reflection, rather than going, I am anxious, or it's, well, I'm noticing I'm experiencing the emotion of anxiety, or I'm noticing I'm having the thought that I lack confidence. So rather than in that reflection, because too often we have a thought and we become the thoughts,

what that reflection piece is, is observing and noticing your thoughts from a distance. Do you understand what I'm, does that make sense, Mike? You know, it's like, it's a big concept, but does that translate? Yeah, right. It's hard to do, but yeah, I get it. Well, yeah, it's incredibly hard to do, but the ability to, but once you start to practice it, and this is a key piece of research that's happening in many areas of psychology right now is that when i reflect on a situation i keep it as i'm having

these thoughts or the story i have in my head about this is and what that does is keep psychological space between us and what's happening inside our head. Because too often, we become the thing that's happening in our head, and that can really derail our ability to move forward. The second piece is total acceptance of our response without judgment. So if we have a sales situation that doesn't go very well, and we start to beat ourselves up. So we're disappointed and we start to beat ourselves up. And when we then go into judgment of our response, why do I get so disappointed? Why do I get so nervous in presentations? Why, when I'm challenged, do I start to fall apart? And what happens is we're not only dealing with

the situation, but we're also dealing with our judgment of it. So say we're about to do a presentation and we start to get nervous. Now we've got a choice. We can go, okay, I'm nervous and I'm starting to panic and I'm predicting disaster. And we can either in that moment, accept that that's our reaction. So, okay, yeah, I'm doing that because it's a big presentation and it's really important. And that's a normal reaction. So if we accept our reaction and we're not kind of fighting it or trying to stop it, we have more cognitive space to focus on the behavior we want to do, the more constructive behavior. on the behavior we want to do the more constructive behavior now if we start to

judge our response say we're getting nervous before a presentation and we go oh why do I get so nervous and I get so nervous because I I lack confidence or you know no one else in the team gets as nervous as I do why do I get so nervous I've got to have more confident and we start to judge and beat ourselves up for having that reaction. What happens is all our mental space is taken up trying to fight and stop the reaction that we're having and we're judging the reaction. So there's very little space to focus on the constructive behaviors we want to do. So in terms of answering your question about if you have an interaction that really knocks you around and you want to be able to transition forward, the steps of keeping space from our thoughts and emotions, not becoming them, and the acceptance of our response is the two critical steps that help us transition forward. We're talking about how to transition from a bad experience so that it doesn't ruin the next experience or the rest of the day.

And we're talking with Dr. Adam Fraser, who is author of the book, The Third Space. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a co-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 Lightning, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. During her journey, Isla meets new friends, including King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and learns valuable life lessons with every quest, sword fight, and dragon ride. Positive and uplifting stories remind us all about the importance of kindness,

friendship, honesty, and positivity. Join me and an all-star cast of actors, including Liam Neeson, Emily Blunt, Kristen Bell, Chris Hemsworth, among many others, in welcoming the Search for the Silver Lining podcast to the Go Kid Go network by listening today. Look for the Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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.

The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Adam, I imagine a very common situation for people is having that bad day at work and then taking that bad day home with you and it affecting how you and your family interact because you've had such a bad day at work. And what we find is people really struggle with that, particularly in this environment where we have technology where we can work all the time. And a lot of our research has looked at, well, how do we use the third space between work and home to transition home in a way where we're more present we leave the day behind and we're more connected to the people we love and you do that by using those three steps those three steps

exactly of the reflect rest reset and and what we do the thing about this model is it's a very flexible model. So we had some people in our study say, you know, how I use it is I get on the bus, I catch the bus home from the city. When I'm on the bus, I put an alert in my calendar that comes up and asks me three positive questions, which is what went well today? What did I achieve? How did I get better? I sit on the bus. I answer those questions. The rest phase, I've got a relaxation app on my phone. I listen to that app.

It goes for about 10 minutes while I'm on the bus. And then as I walk from the bus stop home, it's a five-minute walk. I think about, well, what sort of dad do I want to be? What sort of partner do I want to be when I walk through the door? What we showed in our research is that when people practice those three steps, the mood of the home improves by 43%. And what we also showed is boundary strength, which is the ability to not let work spill into home life increases by 91%. So, you know, for the people listening to this, this is a really effective strategy that works really well.

So I understand your example of you have a bad meeting and then you come out of that meeting and you go into that third space and shake it off so you can go into the next meeting and perform well. But that's because you have that time in between, that downtime in between the two meetings to go through your three steps. But what if you're, say, a hockey player, you're a goalie, and you let that puck in, and it's hard to stop in the middle of a hockey game and go through those three steps when there's pucks flying at you? Yeah, very much. One of the key things a goalie can do is that just focus his attention on the present moment, just focusing on how the stick feels in his hand. Because the thing that makes an athlete choke is they start to worry and predict the future. So the goalie

who's led in a park, made a mistake, is starting to worry about, am I going to do it again? What if they score again? What if my team gets angry at me? All these sorts of things go on. His key focus in that moment is to stay in the present moment. And as literally as, you know, focusing on some sort of sense, how does the crowd sound? How does the stick feel in my hand? Keeps his mind in that present moment to stop that rumination. Yeah. Well, and every athlete from, you know, grade school on up has heard a coach say, shake it off, shake it off, you're okay, no problem, move forward. But it's one thing to say it, it's another thing to do it.

Yeah, and this is where practice comes into it. And what our research shows is that our capacity to practice the third space and be better at transitions, you can get incredibly good at it. And coming back to the whole coach saying shake it off piece, that's that keep space and acceptance. It's, okay, notice the thoughts on what's going on for you, but accept that you made a mistake. All right, let's move on. And it's okay.

You know, the worst thing is the coach starts screaming at them and yelling at them. It's going to make them feel worse. But this, this skill, what our research shows is it's incredibly learnable and trainable. And the more you practice it, the better you get at it. But to show how difficult it is, I mean, when you watch sports teams or anybody, you know, when things go wrong, they usually continue to go wrong. When the team is down 2-1, next thing you know, they're down 3-1, and then they're down 5-1, and their play suffers because they can't do what you're talking about. Yeah, and that's what separates the good ones from the bad ones. And, you know, the champion teams are the ones where they're down, and they have the ability to hold it together and keep that focus and not let it derail their performance. But I bet though, because even

champions fail, is that this is situational that this, and that this does take a lot of resources from within. And some days maybe you just can't do it. Maybe even the best athlete has a bad day. Yeah. I mean, we're not machines that's for sure. And, and we're all fallible and we all have moments, but what this is about is, I mean, the key thing about the third space is raising our self-awareness, raising our skill, and raising clarity about what we want to achieve in the next interaction. So that's the key focus here with this. And nothing is foolproof, and nothing works every time. But what our research shows is that practicing this does dramatically improve your performance in that next space. A lot of times it seems it's not

necessarily that you're going from one meeting to the next meeting or from one point in a game to the next point in a game. You're just going from a bad experience and maybe a bad meeting where you get beat up or rejected or whatever. And it's not that you're trying to shape up for the next meeting. It just spoils your whole day. I've had a bad interaction. So my day is destroyed is something that people fall into a lot. And Duke University did this cool piece of research where they looked at in the average person's day, 45% of their day is they're just kind of in autopilot. They're going from one thing to another. They're not

thinking about how they want to show up. And what this does is raises people's level of consciousness. As you said, you have to be deliberate about it, but if you want to be a high performer, you've got to be deliberate about it. And if you want to be a high performer, you've got to be deliberate about it. And this is something that we've used in many occupations and many different areas to help people. Because this is a podcast, people can go back and listen to those three steps in detail that you said a few minutes ago. But could you just very quickly just synopsize those three steps as we wrap up

here? Yeah, for sure. So in terms of any good transition, there's three steps and that is the reflect piece where we reflect on what we've been through in a constructive way. The rest phase, which is where we come back to the present moment and calm our brain so we're more focused and present. And the reset phase is about, well, how do I want to show up for this next interaction? What do I want to achieve? What do I want to do? And as we talked about in this podcast, the model is very flexible. So if it's an incredibly quick interaction, you're not going to be able to do all three. Or in some cases, like we talked about, where we've had a very difficult situation, we might want to extend that transition to help us move forward.

Well, I don't think there's a person alive who couldn't use your advice because who hasn't been in that situation where you've had a bad day or you've had a bad experience and it's so tough to shake it off and not let that taint your whole day. So I appreciate the insight. Dr. Adam Fraser has been my guest. He is a researcher and author of the book, The Third Space. And you'll find a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. Thanks for being here, Adam.

Excellent. Thanks, Mike. 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. listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice. Then we have But Am I Wrong, which is for the

listeners that didn't take our advice. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our listener poll results from But Am I Wrong. And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. When you look at how things have changed, from technology to how we shop, what we eat, how you now listen to great podcasts like this one, when it wasn't too long ago, podcasts didn't exist. All these things are different.

So ask yourself, did you see any of them coming? These changes, these trends, all started small and grew. And when they started, a lot of people probably said, well, that'll never work. But other people said, that's the way things will be done. And they persevered. Case in point, I recall when the idea of buying clothes or shoes online seemed ridiculous. Who's going to buy clothes or a pair of shoes if they can't try them on first?

Well, it turns out a lot of people. That was the trend that came up on us, and it is now the way things are done. Rohit Bhargava has been looking at trends every year and has some really interesting observations. He's written a book each year for the past decade examining these trends and has just come out with what will be the last in the series. The book is called Non-Obvious Megatrends, How to See What Others Miss and Predict the Future. Hi, Rohit. Welcome.

Glad you could make it onto the podcast. Thank you. I'm really excited to talk to you. When you look at the trends over the past several years, as you have done in depth for the past decade, it's pretty fascinating how things have changed in the way we conduct our lives. The shopping example I gave being one of them. Yeah, they really have. I mean, I think that part of it is this idea of instant gratification, right? Like we expect to get things overnight and we're frustrated if it takes longer than that. But I think it's also the

idea that, you know, we didn't necessarily need to see or feel all of these things that we thought we did. I mean, the fact that you could buy a mattress online, I mean, that's crazy, right? Like, who would buy a mattress with never having slept on it? But people do that now, too. So when there's a trend change like that, when everybody is in virtual unanimous agreement that buying a mattress online is the stupidest thing you've ever heard of, and now people do it, what changed? Well, I think there's, I mean, with that specifically, there's a couple things that maybe didn't change, but someone addressed it, right? I mean, people may not have thought they could buy a mattress online, but no one loved the idea of taking a mattress, strapping it to the roof of their car and trying to drive it home and fit it through their doorway, right? I mean, we all hated that. And so all of these companies came along and said, look, we can create these foam mattresses.

They're going to be super comfortable. Here's a great video showing you how comfortable it is. And it's rolled up in a box. It arrives. It's easy to unpack. You don't have to put it on the top of your car. And by the way, if you hate it, you got 45 days to sleep on it and we'll come and pick it up and it'll cost you, you know, like 50 bucks or whatever the delivery stockage fee is. And people looked at that trade-off and said, you know what, I'll give it a shot. And then it seems like that's the new norm. That's the new, and then now the old mattress guy who sold it in his store now has to compete with something that he never thought he'd ever compete with. In some cases, it makes it harder, right? Because your competition comes from unusual

places, right? I mean, we've got furniture stores opening hotels, we've got all sorts of crazy stuff happening, blurring the lines between things that used to be two different industries, right? Your bank might have a coffee shop now. I mean, those two used to be two separate things. And now they're one thing. So yeah, there's more competition, but I think it's also forced some of these groups to get better. I mean, buying a mattress in general for most people was not a great experience in the first place. And so part of the reason why these online mattresses took off is because they were replacing something that wasn't a great experience to start with. I mean, the same thing with Uber and taxi cabs, right?

No one loved going in, especially in D.C. where I live, no one loved going in these 10-year-old taxi cabs that were run down where guys who didn't really know where they were going. Yeah, and when you describe it that way, doesn't it seem like it's really odd that nobody's thought of something better than this for so long? Well, I think part of the value of the Internet is people may have thought of it, but they didn't have a way of getting it out there fast enough to actually create momentum. And so what I think the Internet's given to them is this chance to reach a lot of people very quickly and to be able to do it in a way that allows them to generate

enough attention and generate enough money in a short period of time that they can survive. Explain what you mean by non-obvious thinking. What is that? What is it? How do you do it? What are you talking about? The biggest thing I talk about when it comes to non-obvious thinking is this idea that we all have our lanes that we choose. So, for example, if we work in the travel industry, we might read things about travel. We have our own political views in terms of how we see the world. And what I advocate for people to do is force yourself to get outside of that.

So, for example, for the last four years, I've been subscribed to get emails from both the Democratic and Republican national committees. So I get emails from both political parties coming into my inbox, often about the same issues, right? And by doing that, I see what the messages are, and I can start to form my own perspective that isn't based on just what I'm hearing from one place or another. And that's not something that enough people do, I think. Because why? Why don't we do that? Is it just because it's comfortable to be where we're comfortable? Well, I think it's comfortable.

I also think that for a lot of people, the media they consume is not an active choice. It's a passive experience. And so what happens is we log into Facebook and Facebook serves up the stories that it thinks we like. And if we see a political story, usually that we dislike, we click the angry button and Facebook's algorithm goes in and says, oh, you clicked to something, which means you engaged, which means you must enjoy being angry. And so here's some more articles to make you angry again. And we end up kind of reinforcing this whole idea that we got to be outraged all the time. And any sort of perspective gets completely

lost. So what are some of the trends that you have seen things have changed? What are some of the ones that, that you called it or you find really interesting or just to understand what it is you mean? So one of the trends that I wrote about was instant learning. And instant learning to me was really about instant knowledge, essentially. And that idea is we can access information about anything faster and teach ourselves about that. So I remember reading this story when I was doing the research for the book around an 8-year-old who taught himself how to drive on YouTube,

which is, like, super scary if you're a parent, right? But, like, imagine what that eight-year-old is going to say in ten years when he has that conversation with his parents about college, right? I mean, this kid taught himself how to drive on YouTube from ten minutes. Is that kid going to go to college for four years, right? And so, like, this idea that we can learn anything faster, I mean, we're seeing it in so many different spaces, whether it's YouTube videos or what Fender's doing to like help people learn how to play the guitar faster. They have an entire online platform to help you to do that. Lots and lots of examples of that. And tell me more. So another one that I'm really tracking is something I call revivalism. And revivalism is this sense that when we're

living in a world where we just don't know what to trust, we start to turn the clock backwards. We start to look at the things that we remember from when we were younger and that we trusted from when we were younger. So now like video games and retro video games are back. We're playing board games again, going back to print. We're listening to music on vinyl. I mean, all of these things are examples of us bringing the past back, because when we don't trust what's happening in the future, we retreat back into our own past. What are the trends you see or you have seen in the employment world and in how we do our work and how we work for other people?

Well, one of the trends that I wrote about that I think is having a big impact in work is the idea of purposeful profit. And you see it really across so many different companies that are now really investing time and effort and resources into demonstrating their purpose in the world. And so you've got leading brands, and you've got like Patagonia and REI and Dick's Sporting Goods and CVS deciding not to sell tobacco, and I mean, there's all these examples of these companies

that are saying, look, we're taking a stand, and we're doing the thing that our PR consultants 10 years ago would have told us never to do, which is alienate some people as a result of that stand, but when you think about employment and where people want to work and what they're loyal to and whom they're loyal to, more and more employees are looking at the mission behind the organization they work for and saying, yeah, I believe in that or, you know, I don't buy that. I can't get behind that. Explain amplified identity is really a catchphrase trend to describe this sense that more of our identities are moving online, and so we become accustomed to demonstrating our personality maybe in the way that we'd like to be seen versus the way we actually are. And it doesn't necessarily mean that we're all liars online, which is what a lot of people assume. Oh, you're posting these selfies of just your best moment when you look your best, but that's not reality. I think that actually what it is is it's a way of us painting this picture of who we want to be and the happiness that we find, more and more surveys are finding that the people who are actually finding happiness with this,

and yeah, it can be the opposite, right? You can be alienating yourself and find yourself more lonely as a result of this. But the people who actually find happiness with it are the ones who paint this picture of themselves in social media that is closer to the reality of who they are. Not necessarily this is me at my worst, right? But it's closer to who they actually are. And so they feel like, hey, I'm connecting with people who are far away from me, who live in different places, or like, you know, this huge network of people that I don't get to see all the time, but I'm still me. One of the things that's happened to all of us, and we kind of haven't noticed, although we sort of know what's going on, is this idea that

companies are collecting a lot of information about us and our habits, and then using that information to try to sell us other stuff. And I know you talk about this as attention wealth, that we should profit from the fact that people are buying and using our data, not against us, but to sell us. And so what that means, and what that's going to mean, I think, in the future is we have all this data. And right now, our data is something that increasingly we see stories of being stolen from us, right? They're collecting your data. They're salvaging your data. Your data has been breached, right? It's not a positive thing in general when we hear about all these things with data. But I think what's going to happen in the future is the more control we start to get over our data, so like your Fitbit

data or like the data that you can now take out of Facebook, right? There's a button where you can say, I want to download everything I've posted to Facebook. So the more control we get over that data and the more ability we have to share it, the more wealth we can actually generate for ourselves, because we can decide who we want to share it with. Since you've been studying trends for so long, explain the difference between a trend and a fad. A lot of times what happens with a fad is it's in one industry, it's one sector, it's one behavior. So for example, you might say the trend is everyone wants to buy everything online, right? And they're buying mattresses online and they're buying music online and they're buying shoes online. But that's rarely the trend.

That's just kind of one indication of it, whereas the trend might be something more human. Like, for example, people are prioritizing convenience, right? That could be a trend. And it's reflected by the fact that they don't want to strap a mattress to their roof and they don't want to go and sit in a shoe store and try on lots of different shoes. They'd rather just do that from home because they like the convenience of it. So there's always a human factor, I believe, behind something that describes why it's a trend as opposed to just an example of one thing that's taking off in one industry. But there are consequences to those trends. and what I mean by that is,

so yes, people are prioritizing convenience, and so they're shopping from home online, and more and more people, it seems, are doing their grocery shopping online, so they don't go to the grocery store. But the consequence of that is we're becoming more and more isolated. We don't interact with people, and that can't be a good thing. That is one consequence for some people, and I think we are seeing that. But I think we tend to be, I think in general, not maybe you or I, but we tend to be a little bit more willing to blame the technology rather than looking at what the shift is that the technology has resulted in, right? So a lot of people say,

oh, we're spending all this time on screens, and our screen time is destroying our ability to be with one another. And for some people, that's true. But at the same time, the quote unquote screen time gives me the chance to connect with my family that's in Los Angeles that I don't get to see all the time. It gives me a chance to, you know, make that a more daily or maybe weekly connection to see what they're doing and where they're up to in their lives that I never had before. So part of the challenge, I think, is that we, this technology is so new that we are struggling to find where our balance is. And some people are doing it better than others. And the ones who aren't able to do it, because, yeah, a lot of this technology, I mean,

it's tailored to be addictive. Every time your phone beeps, you got to look at it. And so what's the solution to that, right? And some people are saying, look, I'm going to, and I'm one of those people, I turn off all the alerts on my phone, so I don't get any alerts. And in order for me to get to Facebook on my phone, which I deleted for some time, but now put back because I'm, you know, in the midst of doing a bunch of things, I have to click four times, and there's no notification. So as a result of that, I'll check Facebook maybe, you know, once every day, maybe once every two days, which for some people might be still like, okay, you're checking it a lot. And for other people who check it 85 times a day, that would be a huge improvement.

Since you are in the business of predicting the future, predict the future. Well, I think that one hopeful sign I have for the future, right? I tend not to be a pessimistic guy. I mean, you can read all sorts of pessimistic stuff about the future and the environment and things like that. But one hope I have for the future is that because we have so much automation, so much technology, people are actually appreciating people a lot more. And I'll give you one example of that. There was a grocery store in the U.K. that launched the slow checkout line. And the slow checkout line was staffed by humans. And it was for anyone who wanted to actually get checked out by a person instead of use the kiosk. But also,

it was done in partnership with a charity that works with people who have dementia, and who actually need that human interaction. And I think that the more technology and the more automation and the more stories we hear of all that stuff, there's going to be a resurgence of people, of the human mode, what I call the human mode. And that gives me a lot of hope. Is that just a pendulum swinging back the other way? It kind of is, but in some ways, that's kind of what a trend is. A trend is describing momentum, right? I mean, my definition of a trend is a curated observation of the accelerating present. And the pendulum swinging the other way could be described as the accelerating present, right? I mean, it's something that is happening now, and it's accelerating. More people are paying attention

to it. I have to ask you, since you've been writing these books every year for the past several years predicting the future, what were you way off on? What did you miss? Most of the time, and frankly, there's a lot of transparency here. So I'm not one of those people that thinks I was never wrong. And because I've been doing this every year, like you said, and there's 15 trends every year, there's more than 100 examples of past predictions. And so to answer your question directly, the ones that I got wrong in general were things that I thought were trends, but actually were small-time examples of something that one group was doing, but not something that actually took off. Like? Like one of them, I think I called it pointillist filmmaking.

And it was like a couple years ago, and it was all about this idea of like these short films like vine vine movies or you know now tiktok and like all of these social media platforms and i was sort of predicting that you know who would watch something long form where you could just get like an entire story in six seconds isn't this awesome like who wouldn't want that uh and what ended up happening over time is yeah people like the six second thing for small flippant things, but when it comes to something that they really love or really find value in, they'll sit there and binge watch 17 hours. So the question isn't how do we get people to spend time with anything? I mean, they are, otherwise binge watching wouldn't exist. The question is how do we create something that's valuable enough for them to pay attention to? So let me flip the coin over a little bit.

What things don't change? What things that maybe you think might change that people just like things the way they are? I think that one of the examples of that, which has been fascinating to watch, is people's desire to actually hold something in their hands. If you think about the number of experiences we have that can be delivered digitally, I mean, just use e-books

as an example, right? The wisdom for some time as e-books were starting to take off is, oh man, print books, sales are dead. Everybody's going to read e-books and only old people will read print books, right? But then I go to my 10-year-old and I say to him, this book that you have to read for school, we can get it on the Kindle or we can get it as a physical book. And he says, I want the real book. And when I ask him why, he says, because I like to hold it. So this is not an old person, young person thing. There's a different value assigned to something that we can tangibly hold in our hands versus something that's delivered in a digital or automated way. And, you know, that seems to be one of those kind of human universal things.

Like there's a value to touch and something that we can touch. But that was the argument against shopping online was that people aren't going to, they're going to want to touch those shoes. They're going to want to try them on. They're going to want to see what those clothes feel like and look like in a mirror on them before they actually buy them. But that doesn't seem to be the case. Well, it is still the case. If you think about it, it's just shifted, right? I mean, what people used to assume is no one will buy it before they can touch it. And now what the behavior has been is I'll buy it, touch it. If I don't like it, I'll send it back. So, I mean, at the end of the day, they are still touching it. It's just the sequence of events that's changed. I guess, but it does seem that the internet has changed the game in retail, that retail is not

anything close to what it used to be. Well, you know, if you think about what's happened in retail, right, and I've read a lot about the evolution of retail, and the biggest thing that's happening in retail right now is this idea of experiential retail, right? Everybody's trying to create a retail experience instead of a retail store. And what they mean by that is we don't necessarily want to focus on just having all the stock there so people buy it. We want to let them experience it. And if they end up buying it online, that's okay. And so every retail store you go into, every clothing store you go into, in addition to seeing and feeling and touching and trying on the stuff, they'll all have that sign saying, hey, if we don't have your size, go online and order it and we'll bring it to the store or we'll ship it to your house or we'll alter it for you, right?

So they're trying to blend these ideas together to give people that chance of touching and feeling things in an experience, but letting them buy it online and combining those two things. Have you ever wondered, as I have, as you look at trends and changes in how people as a group do things, who started it? Is there a guy? Who's the guy? Who's the guy that did it first? You know, there are always early innovators for pretty much anything. And sometimes you can find them. And sometimes they're really difficult to find. I do a lot of research when it comes to finding new ideas. Like, you know, who was the first guy or the first girl to order that mattress, you know, in a box? And what was that experience like? And sometimes you can figure it out. And sometimes it's hard to. So this non-obvious thinking that you talk about and

that you suggest other people do as a way to spark innovation and new ideas, what are the first steps into getting your head into non-obvious thinking? I think the biggest thing is that we have to try and spot our own biases and overcome them. So one of the real techniques that I try and teach people on how to do this is I say, when you're passing by a bookstore or you're in an airport, buy a magazine that's not targeted to you. So I'll buy Teen Vogue magazine, which is for 16-year-old girls. And when I do that, I see what celebrities they're paying attention to. I see what language they're using, words that maybe I haven't heard of.

I see ads for products that I've never seen before. And when I do it with a physical magazine, there's no algorithm that's trying to figure out who I am and therefore showing me what I should care about. The magazine I pick up, and Teen Vogue's a bad example because they went digital now, but other magazines like Modern Farmer magazine or Sailing magazines or parenting magazines, I mean, there's all sorts of different magazines. Find one that has nothing to do with anything you've ever been interested in, because just flipping through that will give you a different perspective of the world than you already had.

Which you then can do what with? Because you have a different perspective and you now know what teen girls or farmers are into, what does that do for you? It helps you be more open-minded, which I think we need help with in general. And I'm not saying that anyone who's listening or any of us intends to be closed-minded, but it's a lot easier to become closed-minded over time because we tend to see the same things. You know, we tend to hang out with the same people. We are in our circles. And in order to be more open-minded, we really have to

intentionally do things that we wouldn't ordinarily do. Well, it's tricky business predicting the future. I'm certainly no good at it, but it's fun to look back and see how things got to where they are. And it's interesting to talk to you about that. Rohit Bhargava has been my guest. The name of his book is Non-Obvious Megatrends, How to See What Others Miss and Predict the Future. There's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks, Rohit. Yep, thank you. Are you going somewhere for the holidays? A lot of people are, and burglars love that. Here are

some ways to keep your home safe while you're gone. Nothing says no one's home like mail, flyers, and newspapers piling up, so have a neighbor bring that stuff in or stop the post office from delivering it while you're gone. And since most burglaries happen between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., it would be great if the neighbors came by during that time. Make it look like someone's home. Leaving a light on all the time is probably not a very good idea. A light that's on all the time just screams empty house to a burglar. It's better to spend a few bucks at a hardware store and get an outlet timer that turns the light on in the evening and off during the day. Make sure you lock up, which seems obvious, but 30% of burglaries occur through an unlocked door or window. And you don't have to tell the world that you're going.

Broadcasting your plans to go away on vacation on social media is just advertising that your home will be available for a break-in. And that is something you should know. And if you are going away for the holidays, make sure to take us with you by subscribing to this podcast. We will continue to publish our regular publishing schedule throughout the holiday season, and you don't want to miss an episode. So hit that subscribe button and subscribe

so that every episode gets delivered right to you. And it's free. I'm Mikeah Ruthers. 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. 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. Hi, this is Rob Benedict.

And I am Richard Spate. We were both on a little show you might know called Supernatural. It had a pretty good run, 15 seasons, 327 episodes. And though we have seen, of course, every episode many times, we figured, hey, now that we're wrapped, let's watch it all again. And we can't do that alone. So we're inviting the cast and crew that made the show along for the ride. We've got writers, producers, composers, directors, and we'll of course have some actors on as well, including some certain guys

that played some certain pretty iconic brothers. It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible. The note from Kripke was, he's great, we love him, but we're looking for like a really intelligent Duchovny type. With 15 seasons to explore, it's going to be the road trip of several lifetimes. So please join us and subscribe to Supernatural then and now.