Something You Should Know - SYSK Choice: A Little Known Secret for Success & Why Perfection is So Overrated

Episode Date: April 25, 2020

Do you swear? Sometimes – at least for some of us – it is hard NOT to. And it just may be appropriate when you are in pain. Some fascinating research offers some real benefits of profanity – when used sparingly. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4826634/Swearing-raise-tolerance-pain-study-reveals.html There is an interesting phenomenon in sports – and that is, how some teams dominate a sport for several years. They become a dynasty. So what is it that causes that? Is it superstar players or excellent coaching? No. Those things are important but not the differentiating factor according to Sam Walker. Sam has been an editor and sports columnist at the Wall Street Journal for 20 years and author of the book, The Captain’s Class: The Hidden force That Creates the World’s Greatest Teams (http://amzn.to/2wBoB6H). Sam discovered one special element of winning teams that you will never guess. And it turns out it is applicable to teams in business and organizations as well as sports. Does it matter whether you read a book on a Kindle or some other e-reader? Does reading a real book with paper pages improve your understanding and comprehension? The answer may surprise you. http://mic.com/articles/99408/science-has-great-news-for-people-who-read-actual-books  Is it really a good idea to have – or strive to have – the perfect home? While it might be nice to follow Martha Stewart’s example, perhaps it is impossible for most people. Weighing in on this is Lisa Quinn is a former self-described Martha Stewart impersonator who has her own TV show on The Live Well Network called "Home with Lisa Quinn". She is also author of the book called Life is Too Short to Fold Fitted Sheets (http://amzn.to/2w9SaLq). She offers some relief and practical suggestions for those who would like the perfect home but find that is daunting if not impossible to maintain it. 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, it's not polite or even proper to swear, but there are some situations when it is actually just the right thing to do. Then, when you look at great sports teams or business teams, there is one and only one key to success.

You know, I assume like a lot of people, it was superstar talent. You know, it was great coaching. But their winning streaks corresponded precisely of the arrival and departure of one player. Then there's a big difference between reading a book on an e-reader and reading a real book. And nothing against Martha Stewart, but this whole idea of the perfect home is taking a toll.

The media bombards us with this image of the supermom with a baby in one hand. She's dressed impeccably and her parties are the best. And it's just unrealistic. All this today on Something You Should Know. 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. 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, and welcome to Something You Should Know. Something that's been a bit surprising to me

is that it's been reported all over the place that in general, podcast listening has dropped since the whole coronavirus thing started. And obviously, there are a lot of sports podcasts that are really hurting because it's hard to do a sports podcast if there aren't any sports to podcast about. But overall, podcast listening is down. And I suspect it's because people's routines change. We're not going to work the way we used to. We're not doing what we used to do. But interestingly, we haven't really experienced much of a drop. We did see a little dip when the stay-at-home orders really kicked in, but that listenership has come back up again.

So thanks for continuing to listen, and rest assured, more great episodes are on the way. First up today, the benefits of swearing. Now, I try not to swear too much, but sometimes words slip out, and other times it seems appropriate, particularly when I'm in pain. And actually, the next time you smash your finger with a hammer or stub your toe or do something else painful, it may be just fine to let loose with a few expletives.

It seems that swearing can actually help relieve pain. In a study, participants were asked to put their non-dominant hand in ice-cold water. Half of the people were told to repeatedly use a swear word, while the other half were told to use non-swear words. Those who swore were able to keep their hand in the water for 78.8 seconds. Those people who did not swear, but instead said neutral words, were only able to keep their hand in the cold water for 45.7 seconds. So those people who swore were actually able to withstand the pain almost twice as long. One theory is that swearing stimulates the fight-or-flight response and that causes changes in the body like increased heart rate and

tensed muscles. but another part of the fight-or-flight response is to dull pain another theory is that swearing increases levels of emotion which according to animal studies suggests that that in turn can reduce the sensation of pain but whatever the reason swearing seems to help pain. And that is something you should know. Seldom, if ever, is success a solo event. Success is usually the result of people helping other people, often in teams. And some teams clearly perform better than others in fact there's a phenomenon that you see in sports teams where one team will dominate a sport for several consecutive years

we've seen these dynasties these multiple year streaks in baseball basketball football hockey volleyball soccer all across the world so what causes this phenomenon? What what allows a team to dominate year after year? Is it the manager? Superstar players? Or is it just luck? And can you transfer this phenomenon from sports into business and organizations? Well as it turns out, yes, you can, but it's important to understand first how this phenomenon works in sports. And to explain it is Sam Walker. Sam has been with the Wall Street Journal for about 20 years as an editor and a sports columnist, and he has taken

this really deep look into what makes great teams so great. What allows them to dominate their respective sport year after year. He's author of a book called The Captain Class, The Hidden Force That Creates the World's Greatest Teams. Welcome, Sam. Thanks. So I think everybody is familiar with this phenomenon of how certain teams will dominate a sport for several years in a row. But what made you want to write about this?

I mean, I started in the most basic place, which was I just wanted to try to do a quick study of what are the greatest teams in sports history. And then I thought I would just kind of look at them and see what they had in common. You know, and I thought it would be a column in the Wall Street Journal. I just thought I'd write a quick column. I thought a couple weeks, I'll bang this thing out. And then when I started trying to do the first part of it, which is to evaluate which are the greatest teams in sports history, I realized it was just to evaluate which are the greatest teams in sports history.

I realized it was just a big job. And then it turned into a rabbit hole that I just got lost in. And, you know, in the end, you know, I didn't have a book about great teams. I had a book about leadership. And it wasn't a column in the journal. It was a book. You know, that was 12 years ago. Now the book just came out in May. So this has been kind of a labor of obsession for a long time. So with all your background in sports and writing in sports and all, who, in your opinion, what are the

untouchables? What are the best teams in your view? I decided that what I wanted to do was to look at teams that had sustained excellence for the longest period of time and that had done something in terms of wins or titles and rapid succession that no other team had ever done in the history of the sport. So my goal was really to study teams that had built winning cultures that endured. So there are a lot of great teams, amazing teams that won one title or two titles, the 1927 Yankees, 85 Bears, you know, the 96 Chicago Bulls, lots of great teams. You could say that was probably the best team that ever played the game during a season. But the teams that I'm interested in are the ones that just did not lose. And so the Pantheon for me came down to 16 teams that I studied. Some of them that you might remember, the Boston Celtics, an incredible team from the late 1950s and into the 1960s, really through the 60s,

won 11 titles in 13 years. And that's the longest title streak I've seen in the history of sports. And I think they're pretty much at the top of any of these lists. What's amazing about that team is not only did they win that many titles, but they played in 10 game sevens during the playoffs, and their record in those games was 10-0. So they just did not lose when they had to win. And, you know, there were some that I'd never heard of. And one of them is, one of my favorites is the Cuban women's volleyball team from 1990 to 2000. I did not remember them. I didn't know anything about them. And it turns out they are absolutely the best Olympic team of all time. So that was what I was after.

But just in quick shopping list form, run down some of the other teams on that list. Right. Well, the U.S. team is the Pittsburgh Steelers of the 70s who won four Super Bowls in six years, which is a record. It was the Montreal Canadiens who, in the 1950s, won five straight Stanley Cups. There's the New York Yankees team, but not the one you would think. It's the 49-53 team that won the World Series five times in a row. There are a bunch of soccer teams, the Brazilians from 1958 and 1962, who won back-to-back World Cups, are on the list. Okay, so the big question then is what is it about those?

Do they have something in common or some things in common? They do. I mean, they only have one thing in common, and that was surprising. But the real surprise was what it was. I assume like a lot of people, it was superstar talent. It was great coaching. It was incredible strategy, tactics. Or else, you just had a lot of money and a lot of resources. And those were the things I

initially thought it would be. But really, there was only one thing that bound all these teams through time. And it didn't matter where they came from or what sport they played. Their winning streaks corresponded precisely, and in some cases within two weeks, of the arrival and departure of one player. And that player, in every single case, was the captain of the team, the leader of the team. And I realized when I saw that pattern emerge, and also saw it emerge in many teams that just barely missed making that final cut, I realized I was onto something and something I never imagined. That is the captain. It's about internal leadership and how teams are led from the player perspective. And that was the first revelation, but that was not the most surprising thing in the

end. The most surprising thing was that these captains were all very similar. And not only were they similar, but they had their traits and their characteristics were completely the opposite of what I would have expected. How so? Well, they weren't superstars for the first shocking thing. I thought that these people would tend to be the best players in their team. They absolutely weren't. Some of them were. Most of them were role players. They were water carriers. They were people who did the unglamorous grunt work behind the scenes. And in many cases, you may know the team very well and not even know who the captain is.

I saw that over and over again. They also weren't charismatic. I would have thought they would have been these people with a presence and an aura that could motivate their team with big speeches and their personalities, but they were very quiet and humble. They did not like attention. They didn't want individual recognition at all. They hated individual accolades and really resisted them and liked, preferred to stay in the shadows and to sort of lead from the back. And the other thing that was shocking, too, they didn't give speeches, and they weren't sort of out front, but they had a really fascinating way of communicating with their teammates.

It was a very low-key, democratic style where they kind of were comfortable approaching everyone, and they would talk to their teammates in short bursts about the matter at hand. And they didn't really believe that they had to give speeches in order to motivate people. But they were hard to manage. And that was another thing that I didn't expect. They would push back when they felt that the coach, anyone who was doing anything that was getting in the way of the team winning, and it could be very difficult to handle.

You know, and they also pushed the rules absolutely to the limits sometimes. I mean, on the field during the game, they would do anything they thought they could get away with in order to win, and sometimes they would cross the boundaries. Off the field, however, they were quiet, law-abiding, never got in trouble. Did you find out or talk to or have a sense of that any of these guys or women knew what they were doing? That they knew that they were special in some way or not? They would never tell you that. In fact, you know, it's very hard to interview these people.

It's hard to track some of them down because they don't like attention. They don't want to talk about it. But, yeah, they knew on some level. It was very intuitive for most of them. I mean, they weren't scientific about it, but I think they all understood intuitively that their relentlessness and their humility and their approach to the game and their absolute laser focus on the goals of the team above everything else, including their own feelings and their own emotions and their own playing time, everything.

That sort of focus, I think they understood that by kind of lowering themselves in relation to the team in many ways, they were able to raise everyone else's performance. And they were courageous. I mean, they had incredible emotional control and emotional maturity. And I think they were solitary people in a way. And they were not, I think they understood that, you know, to them, really all their satisfaction, all their satisfaction came from the team's success. You're listening to Sam Walker.

He is an editor and columnist with the Wall Street Journal. He's been there for 20 years or so, and he's author of the book The Captain Class, the hidden force that creates the world's greatest teams. 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. 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. So Sam, it's a little surprising to hear in your discussion no mention of coaches because, you know, when you think of football and basketball and baseball, there are legendary coaches who are given a lot of credit for the success of their team that you don't maybe think they deserve. I started looking at great coaches, and I looked at Vince Lombardi and Alex Ferguson and Bill Belichick and Greg Popovich, all these famous coaches. And what I realized was what was going on inside the elite teams that I found,

and also what happened with these legendary coaches, is that they reached their pinnacle of success in every case when they had a captain just like this working with them. And what I found was that, yes, coaches absolutely matter, but not in the way we think. We think of coaches as being these people who are primarily responsible for the performance of the team. But what I found in all those cases, that it was a partnership. It was a true partnership. If you look at Tim Duncan and Greg Popovich, or Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, or Alex Ferguson and Roy Keane, those moments

when those teams were dominant, there was a partnership, almost a peer-level partnership going on between the coach and the captain. And the captain had the autonomy to be an intermediary between the players and the coach and to make independent decisions. And sometimes they did things the coaches didn't like, and they sometimes had very contentious relationships and argued with each other, but that was the model. And I think the most important decision that a coach makes,

and I don't think most people would think this, but I think the most important decision is who their captain is. And it has to be someone that they trust and someone that they can really see almost as a peer. But when you think of great coaches, you think of coaches that have kind of an iron fist that really have command of their team. But in these cases, the reason they were so good was because they were able to back away. And, you know, Alex Ferguson said something really surprising to me about this. He said that, you know, everything he did off the field to make sure the team would be successful and that it had the resources it needed, he said it stopped at the edge of the pitch when the match started. And he said at that point, it was up to the team captain to execute. So is there reason to believe that this same model works off the sports field,

that it works in an organization, in an office, in a school, anywhere? Absolutely. No, definitely. You know, it's a little different, obviously. You know, sports is a kind of pure laboratory for competition because there's an opponent and a clock and there's a lot of pressure. And there's a final score at the end. But all teams, teams are teams in any sense. And if they're doing something together and trying to coordinate their effort toward a difficult goal, this is the thing that we're forgetting. And I see this over and over again.

There's a lot of emphasis on startup culture now, and there's this idea that management structures should be flatter and that the people at the top of the chain and the star employees should have a more open line of communication. And what they're doing is they're squeezing out middle management. The same thing is happening in sports where captaincy is sort of falling out of vogue. It's this idea that the stars and the founders and executives are really the partnership that matters. But it's absolutely not the case.

And you see it over and over again. It's not when a company is on a growth curve. We keep emulating these companies that are on these incredible trajectories just up and up and up. When you see these people and when you see them rise up and save these organizations and save these teams is when things start to go bad. And that's when these people in the middle whose goals are to support the team or the organization, that's when they matter the most because that's when they are in a position to do something and to make adjustments and to hold the line against bad things happening. And that's when these captains always stood up. It's not when they were winning and they were on a winning streak.

It was when things started to deteriorate. I think if you look at a lot of companies that have known nothing but growth and have flat structures, the minute something goes wrong, the stars bail and the executives crumble and confidence wanes and investors start to panic. And they don't have that strong middle layer of people. I call them alpha betas, people in the middle who are just absolutely devoted to the team and not to themselves and not to their own advancement. And it's that middle layer that saves you.

It's the safety net that keeps you from failing as an organization. But in an organization like a business, that middle person is who? Is he a fellow employee? Is he a mid-level manager? Who is he? I think if you're a really big company, I think you're talking about a division head. I think if you're in a smaller company, I think you're talking about a division head. I think if you're in a smaller company, you're probably talking about the project manager who leads the team. It's someone usually who's kind of in the production management side of working with a group. I've talked to some people who run factories, and they say that they have shift leads and people who are responsible for making sure that everything runs smoothly

while their team is out there on the machines. It's that level. It's not the CEO. It's not their immediate C-level executives around them. It's the people in that next layer. So I wonder if you took some of these captains and put them with other teams, made them the captain of a team that isn't a winning team, would that team start winning more? I think there would be a positive effect, definitely. You know, look, I think the thing about great teams is that it takes so many things. I mean, every team needs five or six. It's like pulling a slot machine and getting,

you know, triple sevens or something. I mean, you need a lot of things to go your way. But my research says one thing emphatically, which is if you want to have an enduring culture, if you want to continue to win over a long period of time and continue to maintain your success, you absolutely have to have somebody like this. And if you don't, you're not going to sustain your success. Now, I'm not saying you can just insert someone like this into a team and they'll be successful,

but there's absolutely no way that you can expect to stay in excellence unless you have one of these people so and do these guys do these guys have a tenure like they they stop being effective after five years or three years or or the captains i studied you know most of them were i mean it's really remarkable i mean you know the bill russell is a great example with the celtics i mean you know his rookie season in 57 when they won their first ever title. And they won their last of that great streak, the 11th title in his final season. And then after that, they, you know, didn't make the playoffs for the first time in forever.

And so, yeah, no, most of them, it's absolutely something that goes through their entire career and ends when they leave. And do those team captains go on to great heights? What I'm thinking about, and my memory may be wrong because I was pretty young at the time, but Yogi Berra, he was a team captain, right, at the Yankees? Well, he was the only one. He's on my list, but, you know, the only,

they were the only team that actually never named a captain during his tenure, but he was the leader of that team. But when he became the manager, things didn't go so well. Yeah, you know,

the management record of these guys is not terrific, and that was one of the things that strengthened my belief in this partnership with the manager, because I think that, you know,

you need different personality types to make that marriage work. And I think in a lot of cases, you know, they had some success here and there as managers, but for the most part, these elite captains were not great managers. I remember the theory about Yogi Berra was that, you know, it was one thing for him to nudge his teammates as a peer. But when he became their boss, the relationship changed, and that's why it didn't work. That's exactly it.

I mean, I think that's the secret, is that these captains understood that because they were peers, they were not just peers. They actually lowered themselves. I mean, they did the unglamorous, humble grunt work and were completely committed to the team. And it's different when a peer is doing that because it allows the superstars to shine and to take the credit and to get the attention. And it creates a really positive dynamic inside a locker room. And you're right. I think when these people are authority figures and they can't help that, I think it's all different. And I think the nudging becomes your boss telling you to do something as opposed to, you know, a teammate who you trust and believe in who has your back.

Okay. So what is it you want people to take from this in a nutshell? What is the point of all of this? We have got leadership wrong. and it is a real problem. Sports is a fine example, but I think it applies to many walks of life. We don't understand what leadership is. And when we go looking for leaders, we have this feeling that they should be obvious. They should be talented. They should be charismatic. They should look and feel like leaders. But all of my research shows that the essentials of leadership, the seven traits that I came up with that these captains shared,

they're all about behavior. There's nothing to do with God-given ability or charisma or anything that's special or extraordinary. It is the choices you make every day, day in and day out. It's the approach you take to winning and your motivation for everything you do. And it's about behavior. It's something that can be taught. It's something that can be emulated.

I don't think everyone can be an elite leader, but all of us can get better at it. And here's the thing. There are so many people out there that have the potential to lead. We don't even see them because we're not looking for them, because they're not shiny and obvious. But they're there. And if we start looking for different things and looking for different characteristics and understanding what great leaders really do in a team setting,

then I think we can start to identify these people who are being forgotten and passed over for people who really don't have the team's best interests at heart. And, you know, I think it's something we can all learn from. I think the empowering message here is that it's behavior. It's what we do. It's not who we are or how much talent we have. Well, that's some really great insight into leadership that I've never heard quite discussed that way. My guest has been Sam Walker.

He is an editor and he's been a columnist. He's been at the Wall Street Journal for a long time. And his book is called The Captain Class, The Hidden Force That Creates the World's Greatest Teams. There's a link to his book in the show notes for this episode of the podcast. And thanks. Thanks, Sam. Thanks, Mike. It was a real pleasure.

I appreciate it. I myself have been married for 56 years. Unfortunately to four different women. You can work out a whole lot of shit in the hours of Target. Every week on the Moth Podcast, we share stories that are funny, strange, heartbreaking, and above all, true. I refuse to settle for being the future when I can be right now. Listen along by searching The Moth 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. Martha Stewart really started something. I mean, she has become the poster child for having the nice, neat, perfect home and cooking things just so and decorating in that certain special way. And she has many followers, but not everyone is on board with that perfect home lifestyle. One of those people is Lisa Quinn. Lisa is an Emmy Award winning TV host. She's host of the show Home with Lisa Quinn, which is seen on the Live Well Network. And she's also author of a book called Life's Too Short

to Fold Fitted Sheets. Welcome, Lisa. So you were a self-described Martha Stewart impersonator who probably folded fitted sheets. And now you're not folding fitted sheets. You've rebelled against that to some degree. So did you have an epiphany moment? My epiphany happened when, I have two actually. One briefly was when I was watching Martha Stewart on a holiday show. She was crafting a cranberry wreath. She literally sewed, I think, 3,500 cranberries to this base that she'd made from moss and chicken wire. It was beautiful. And normally, I would have just sprinted to Costco to get my own bag of cranberries to do it, but I just looked at her. It was just this moment when I thought, this is crazy. Who can do that?

And I also had an event when I was having a party that was really out of my control. I'd invited too many people, and it was too much work. And as I was getting ready for the guests to come, I noticed a small smudge on my bathroom mirror. And I tried to ignore it, and then I kept walking by going, you know, Martha would get that smudge off. I want everything to be perfect. So about 10, 15 minutes before the guests were to arrive, I stood on my counter to get this smudge off, and I slipped and fell and broke my toe. And I laid there on the floor in tears.

It was so incredibly painful. And I looked up, and I realized I'd only made the smudge worse, and I smelled something burning, and that was my moment. What have I ended up as? This is not where I wanted to be. So I've taken it down a lot of notches since then. And you know what? I bet Martha Stewart herself didn't sow those 3,500 cranberries.

I am certain she has staff, and I think that a lot of women, and myself included, take her very literally. And she's got great ideas and she has a beautiful eye and great attention to detail. But it's just not realistic for our lives. And it's not just Martha. I take it out on her, and I don't necessarily mean to. But there's this whole, the media bombards us with this image of the super mom with a baby in one hand and a frying pan full of money in the other hand. And she's dressed impeccably and her parties are the best. And it's just unrealistic.

And my hope is to sort of rail against that. But do you think that people pay attention to Martha as just spectators to watch her? Or do you think people really try to become her? I think a lot of women base their self-worth on how neat their home is and how tony their parties are and how chic they are. And their work ethic.

There's just too many, the bar is set too high on every level. And you're here to lower it. Honest to God, that is my whole philosophy is to lower your standards and be happy with it and not think of it so much as a failure as it is accepting the fact that you can only do so much and enjoying your life instead of hot gluing and rearranging pantry items. It's finding your priorities. So if someone is going to start to lower the bar here, where do you start? I think first and foremost is recognizing the problem. I mean, you think about what perfectionism is and even how it relates to the way you're modeling to your children. You know, you're basically telling your kids that you have to blow people away when they come to visit so that they'll like you,

that perfectly folded T-shirts and clean faces equals the perfect family, that you have to kill yourself to prove to others that you've made it. Spotless house is more important than fun, and maybe even like work is more important than family. So if you can just recognize how awful it is and how it's kind of poisoning your life, I think that's the first place to start. And then I think the next step is, especially when you're talking domestically in your home, is ridding yourself of a lot of your quote-unquote baggage. You know, clutter is a huge epidemic in this country. You know, like A&E has that show Hoarders. You know, that's an extreme case. But I find a lot of people, I go into homes a lot because we do makeovers and we do design on the television show that I'm on.

And we find that clutter is the biggest problem. People are constantly moving piles from side to side. And they buy all these little gadgets to make their life easier, but then they're a slave to all these piles of stuff. So it's really about streamlining your home. And then as far as your decor goes, keeping it simple. You know, everybody feels like you've got to have all these bells and whistles, and it's just not really necessary. It's not about impressing people. All right, so let's get specific here,

though. So company's coming in 30 minutes, and you want the house to look presentable, what are the things that really do matter? This is a great one. The toilet is the first thing because, frankly, somebody's going to have to go to the bathroom before and you just can't get away with anything being dirty in there. You can't blame it on your kids. The next item is clutter. And generally, if you're in a hurry, if they're coming quickly, what you do is you just grab a bag or even a hamper and run around and just pick up the things that are on all your horizontal surfaces.

If you have a lot of junk on your countertops, on your mantle, on your side tables, on your coffee tables, that's what looks really cluttered and bad. So scoop those up and at least keep them temporarily in a bag or a box somewhere. Your floors are an area where maybe you can cut some corners. You can run a vacuum cleaner over your hardwood floors and then just pick up some stickies with a spot mop or get your kids to put on some, you know, you spray some cleaner on the floor and get them to put rags on their feet and get them to skate around a little bit, which is fun and it gets them involved too.

It's a good thing of a delegation. Dust is okay if it's just a light dust over everything. Really, you're the only one that's going to see that. But if it's thick and you can see where it's been removed by fingerprints, you need to hit that with a feather duster. I say use a feather duster, especially if you're in a hurry, because it sort of redistributes the dust more than it really gets anything up, and it gives it an even appearance. Obviously, when you have time, you'll go back and hit it with some oil.

The fridge you can ignore unless you're having a dinner party. If you're having a dinner party, there's always that moment when one of your guests says, you know what, let me grab that for you. A little bit of disorganization is fine, but spills and stickiness is not great. But you can just grab one of those wipes, the little handy wipes they have now, and just scoop some of that up and make it look neat. Mirrors, once again, are fine too. If they're a little dusty, that's fine, but if they've got smears or splatters,

just grab some glass cleaner and a microfiber cloth. It'll take care of that. Cobwebs, you'd be surprised how many cobwebs you might have in your home, but they're usually out of sight. But the fixtures, wherever you have a light bulb, that's usually where they tend to gather. So if you're having a dinner party, just check the chandelier before your guests come. And then as far as your bedroom, you know, in a perfect world,

you'd make your bed and everything would be neat and tidy. But if you don't have time for that, just lock the door, shut the door, and no one will see. Usually the bedroom is off to the side anyway. But a piece of advice is this never works if you're having people over for the first time because they always want a tour. So try to get it as neat as possible. And then maybe one of the last things is obviously you want to look nice yourself, and after all that speed cleaning, you're going to want to freshen up a little bit. And then my last tip is if, you know, like two minutes before the guests are supposed to arrive, if you can squirt just a little spray cleaner, a non-toxic spray cleaner up in the air right by the front door,

when they walk in, it'll smell like you cleaned, even if you didn't clean. So it's sort of a perception is reality trick. Let's talk about some of the housekeeping myths that you mention, one of which is the title of your book about folding fitted sheets. And frankly, I've never figured out how to fold fitted sheets, so I've actually never done it. I just think that really the impetus for the book was that, like I said, I was playing Martha Stewart on TV, and one of our co-workers said, oh, you know, you should do a segment about folding fitted sheets, because everybody wants to know that. And I remember just looking at her and saying, really? Really? Is that

what people want to know how to do? My opinion is, you know, the real definition of insanity is folding a fitted sheet the same way over and over again and expecting it to result in anything other than a migraine and a huge turban. You know, to be honest, and I've lied about it before, but to be honest, I just sort of wad it up and put it in my closet. And, you know, when you make a bed and you stretch out that fitted sheet, all the wrinkles come out anyway, so why bother? And a trick, too, is just don't have so many sets of sheets. You know, you only need two when one's on the bed and the

other one's not being used. It's not taking up that much space. So it doesn't have to be so neatly placed. It's not like you've got a linen closet full of 50 sheets. Just get rid of them. Streamline. Another myth you say, and one I think a lot of people believe is that bleach cleans everything. Bleach doesn't really clean anything. It actually disinfects, and it's good for getting rid of mold and mildew in your bathroom, but it doesn't really clean. And also, chlorine bleach is so bad for the environment. It's been known to cause health problems. I just try to stay away from it.

It's a staple. cause health problems. I just try to stay away from it. You know, it's a staple. Everybody has the bleach. But there's a lot of really good chlorine-free bleaches out there. And borax, which is natural and a nice abrasive, works great in the bathroom and in the kitchen. Okay, now this is a myth that I think a lot of people believe that actually has never made sense to me. And that is that newspaper is good for cleaning windows. It's such a myth, you know, and there was this big effort about, you know, recycling and trying to reuse things, and I think that's great, but newspaper can leave ink smears

on your hands and on the mirror, and it's toxic, so you're getting that all over your hands. There are so many better ways to recycle paper these days. Just put that in the recycle bin and grab a microfiber cloth. You can get them anywhere now. You can wash them. They're great. No streaks. I remember somebody saying, you know, if newspapers are so good for cleaning glass, why do you never see

professional window cleaners using newspaper? Exactly, exactly. And I think it was a good intention that went awry. Just it doesn't work. Another one of your myths is that hairspray removes ink from upholstery, which, frankly, I actually never heard that one. That was a big thing for a long time, but it's outdated because back in the day, hairspray had a lot of alcohol in it, and it was really the alcohol that got the stain out. So now, if you do have an ink stain on some upholstery

or even on your clothes, try just dabbing a little over-the-counter alcohol on the spot and you'll have a much better chance of getting it out. Now, this one I have heard before that it's a myth that you should use furniture polish every time you dust. You know, if you use too much furniture polish, it actually will build up a little bit of a waxy coating, which will attract more dust. So although it's great to hit your wood pieces with a good polishing oil, occasionally, you know, once a month, once every three weeks, just little feather dustings or they have those great Swiffer dusters now that'll pick up the dust.

That's all you need. What do you say, though, to people? I mean, there are some people who are just naturally neat and like things perfect. And so who are you to say, you know, lower your standards? They don't want to lower their standards. I think it's more of a step back and looking at your situation. If the being super neat and super tidy and super organized is making you feel good, then maybe this book isn't necessarily for you.

Stop and look and see. If it's something that fills you with value and makes you feel good, that's great. But if you're doing it just to sort of keep up with the Joneses, and if you're doing it because, you know, you want to impress people, or you just feel like you have to, and if you feel burdened by it on any level, that's what I'm, that's who I'm talking to. I'm talking to the people that are doing it because they feel like they're lacking something. And really what the book's saying is you're great the way you are.

People like you. Relax. Pull back a little bit. What are the one or two things that you've noticed or that people have told you that they've noticed that if they just did this one thing or stopped doing this other thing, really just took the weight of the world off their shoulders? My girlfriends and I decided to get it packed together. We would have dinner parties, and we would kill ourselves trying to prepare. And finally, we were having lunch in a restaurant one day, and it came to our attention that it was so much easier just to go out and have lunch.

And so we decided when we had our dinner parties that we would all collectively take it down a notch. And it's amazing. It seems silly in hindsight, but we did. We decided that it doesn't have to be so over the top. We don't have to spend all day cleaning and cooking and prepping because we're friends. It's silly. And when we all decided to take it down a notch, it was all a collective sigh of relief on all of our parts.

But we had to say it out loud. And somebody has to go first. Right. You know, it's so silly, but it is kind of scary to have people over and everything's not perfect, especially when you've been behaving like that for a long time. Yeah, because it can become part of who you are.

It does. It becomes part of it. And that was the thing with me is I really liked this image. I had this sort of never fail, ever ready mom with the, you know, I was volunteering at the school and I always had the cupcakes made. And the thing was, I was doing it for all the wrong reasons and I was starting to come apart at the seams a bit. And that's when I realized it was out of control. Kind of like trying to live up to or be Martha Stewart. Exactly.

And I didn't necessarily want to go down that route, so I decided just to try to relax. Which is a good note to end on. Lisa Quinn has been my guest. Lisa is the host of Home with Lisa Quinn on the Live Well Network, and her book is called Life's Too Short to Fold Fitted Sheets.

There's a link to her TV show website and to her book in the show notes for this episode of the podcast. Thanks to Kindle and other e-readers and tablets, reading real physical books almost seems old fashion today. But it turns out that reading a real book may actually be better. Researchers found that readers of a short mystery story on a Kindle were significantly worse at remembering the order of events than those who read the same story in a real paperback book.

It seems that the brain reads by constructing a mental representation of the text based on the placement of the page in the book and the words on the page, and all of that gets lost when you read an e-book. The tactile experience of reading a book also seems to help, from the thickness of the pages in your hand as you progress through the story, to the placement of a word on a page. And that is something you should know. That's the podcast today. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening to Something You Should Know.

GZM Shows and the creators of Six Minutes are rolling out their newest audio adventure with the podcast Discovering Dad. A cautious single dad with a secret past and his rebellious kids embark on a thrilling quest complete with hidden treasure, villains, and a family curse. New episodes of Discovering Dad roll out weekly starting June 11th on Apple Podcasts. Follow the show so you never miss an episode. Or listen early and ad-free as a GZM Shows subscriber. Go to gzmshows.com to learn more. 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.