Something You Should Know - The Science of Asking for Help & How to Capitalize on Lucky Moments in Life

Episode Date: December 25, 2023

You can never say, “I love you” enough to your partner. They are the 3 magic words of love. Yet, there are three other words you may also want to say more often to help forge a closer and stronger bond. Listen as I reveal what those three words are. https://truetowords.blogspot.com/2010/02/i-me-us-we-little-words-big-impact.html It feels good to help someone in need. However, it can feel really uncomfortable if you are the one asking for the help. However, it doesn’t need to be difficult, according to Heidi Grant, author of the book, Reinforcements: How to Get People to Help You (https://amzn.to/2MRA4Ep). She has some great advice that explains how to ask and who to ask that will make it easier to make the request and make it much more likely that people will say yes. Listen and learn to become a much better asker when you really need help.  Everyone has lucky moments in life. However, it is what you do with your luck when it strikes that determines how lucky you really are. That’s according to Christian Busch, PhD, Director of the Global Economy Program at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs and author of the book, The Serendipity Mindset: The Art and Science of Creating Good Luck (https://amzn.to/30VClYu). Really lucky people know how to capitalize on those lucky moments in life to maximize the benefits. Listen and you too will know how when those lucky moments come along.  Even the best cooks in the world are looking for better and more efficient ways to get things done in the kitchen. I found some great suggestions that I use myself from the website Epicurious.com. - from what kind of chicken to buy, where to keep your lemons to why you most certainly need a new ice tray for the freezer. https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/best-cooking-advice-ever-article PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! MasterClass makes a meaningful gift this season! .Right now you can get two Memberships for the price of one at https://MasterClass.com/SOMETHING PrizePicks is a skill-based, real-money Daily Fantasy Sports game that's super easy to play. Go to https://prizepicks.com/sysk and use code sysk for a first deposit match up to $100 Dell Technologies and Intel are pushing what technology can do, so great ideas can happen! Find out how to bring your ideas to life at https://Dell.com/WelcomeToNow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, three little words you should say to your mate more often, and they're not, I love you, although those are good too. Then, it can be hard to ask someone for help, but if you do it right, you'll be amazed at the results. When someone has said no to us for whatever reason, when we've asked for help before, that's the last person we're going to go to, right? In fact, the opposite is true. The research is

really clear on this. People who have turned you down are actually much more likely to help you. Then simple ways to work better in the kitchen and understanding luck and how to use luck to your advantage. The luck that I'm really excited about is the smart luck that we really do something about. So serendipity to me is really that kind of unexpected good luck that results from these kind of unplanned moments, but then we make some kind of proactive decision that leads us to some kind of positive outcome. All this today on Something You Should Know. We have talked on this podcast about how losing weight on your own, it's just really hard,

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The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hey, you're just in time. It's time for another episode of Something You Should Know. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad I'm here, because I really like doing this. And we start today with some important words in your vocabulary. Saying I love you to your mate is always a good idea. But there are three other little words that can help make your family and relationship stronger, according to research at the University of California at Berkeley.

And those three little words are we, our, and us. Couples who refer to their problems, experiences, and even their children in a plural sense tend to be more loving and happier together than those who use words like I, me, and you. Using these together words conveys more of a team effort and helps both people in the relationship feel as if they're facing challenges together. And that is something you should know. So here's a topic that, for some reason, I've always found fascinating. And the topic is helping people. So when someone asks you for help, and they ask in the right way, you probably try to help if you can.

In fact, you might sometimes feel flattered that someone asked you for help. And after you help, you probably feel good that you were able to do so. And yet when you need help, you're probably reluctant to ask. You think the person will think less of you for asking. It's weird. We like to help, but we're reluctant to ask for help. Heidi Grant is a social psychologist who's uncovered some fascinating information about how people helping people works. I think this will surprise you. Heidi is the author of a book called Reinforcements, How to Get People to Help You. Hi, Heidi. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Oh, hi. Good to be here, Mike. So as I said, it's so interesting to me that we generally like to help others and feel good for

doing so, and yet we're reluctant to ask for help for ourselves. Absolutely. You nailed it right on the nose. And I think, you know, that for me is what was so interesting about the topic in general is that so many of our intuitions when it comes to asking for help are so misguided, even though we all are people who ourselves are helpers. So we know how it feels to be a helper. And yet somehow when we're on the other end of it and we're the ones asking for help, we forget all of that. So there's probably like two, I think two main obstacles to asking for help that people feel. One is, you know, that feeling of people will think less of me, perhaps like me less if I ask for help. The research on this is really clear. It's actually the opposite is the case, that people like you more when they've helped you, not less. So it's actually

something that strengthens relationships. It's something that actually makes people hold you in higher regard, not in lower regard. So that's one. And I think then the other piece that's really important is that we all think that there's a really good chance or a much greater chance that we will be rejected, right, that people will say no, than is actually the case. What the research shows is that we tend to underestimate the odds of getting help when we ask for it by more than half. So we're more than twice as likely to get help and have someone say yes than we think. And a lot of that comes from just, again, like a total failure of perspective taking. When we think about asking for help and we're calculating those odds mentally

that someone will help us, we only think about sort of how difficult or onerous or unpleasant the thing is that we're asking someone to do. And we don't think about what it's like on the helper side. And first and foremost, it's very uncomfortable to say no when someone asks you for help, right? So people feel guilty saying no. They feel like they're putting the relationship at risk if they say no. So they're very motivated to say yes. But also, helping feels great. Helping is actually one of the most reliable predictors of well-being, of self-esteem, of positive mood. When you give someone the chance to help you, you're actually giving them an opportunity to feel great about themselves. It's a genuine win-win. And we just forget all of that somehow when we're in the position to ask for help.

And we focus only on the negative. And that's what really kind of stands in the way. Yeah, I've read a lot about the benefits of helping, you know, the helper's high and the fact that when you help other people, it's like one of the best cures for depression. It has all kinds of benefits, psychological benefits, health benefits, that when you ask someone to help you, you're actually giving them an opportunity to feel good. You are. And, you know, one of the most, one of the other things I think that's so interesting when you look at the research is that, you know, who's the last person you're going to go to for help? Probably the person who

has turned you down in the past, right? And again, you know, and that's intuitively true and the research, you know, bears that out that when someone has said no to us for whatever reason, when we've asked for help before, that's the last person we're going to go to, right? We figure, well, they turned me down last time. They're definitely not going to help me this time. Again, in fact, the opposite is true. The research is really clear on this. People who have turned you down are actually much more likely to help you in the future. And that's because they want to actually repair the damage that was done. So,

you know, if I had to say no to you in the past because I was too busy or I just couldn't do the thing that you were asking me to do, and you give me another chance to help you in the future, I'm really motivated to do that, right? I want to feel better. I might feel guilty about the fact that I said no. I want to, you know, give me a boost of relieving that guilt, and it gives me an opportunity to repair a relationship that may have been damaged. And I have found this personally to be true using this, that, you know, people that may have turned me down for something in the past, when I go back to them, they often sort of jump at the chance to make up for that. So it's really true.

It's incredibly powerful. It's something that we do, helping people is something we sometimes choose to do, not even fully consciously, in order to alleviate bad moods, in order to give ourselves a boost. And there's great data that shows that, you know, there's that adage, you know, does money buy happiness? Well, the answer seems to be, it depends on how you spend it. And there's great research showing that, you know, sort of above kind of putting a roof over your head and food on the table and all the sort of the basic necessities of life, how we spend that discretionary money that we have. If you spend it on yourself, if you spend it on gifts for yourself and things that you want, that doesn't actually seem to predict happiness at all. But if you spend it on other people, if you spend it on gifts and charity, the amount

you spend is directly related to how happy people say they are. So really, you know, being a helper is great, and giving people the opportunity to help you and to mend fences and to repair relationships and to experience that is really one of the nicer things you can do. And that's one of the things that, you know, I really want to kind of unleash onto the world all of these people who can create these opportunities for each other, both to get the support they need and to also have that great experience of helping others.

Yeah, the nuance of all of this are things like who you ask, how you ask, all of that makes a big difference in the outcome. So talk about that. So there's a couple of things that are really important. First is that there's some things that we do that keep us from getting the help we need. So let's start with that. One of the things we do is, again, you know, we all know what it's like to feel uncomfortable asking for help.

And because of that, we have a tendency to actually not want to ask explicitly. We want people to just offer to help us, to spare us the discomfort of having to ask. And we often feel like they should be offering because our needs are obvious, and nothing could be further from the truth. So this is something psychologists call the illusion of transparency. We all feel that our thoughts and feelings and our needs are very obvious to other people. It's not true. In fact, most of us actually fail to notice that other people need help on a daily basis, right? Because we're, you know, we don't pay attention to everything. We all mostly pay attention to our own things, right? Our own goals, our own, the demands on our time.

And so it's very, very easy to miss the signal that somebody else actually could use your help. So we need to be asking explicitly for help because we cannot just assume that people are going to notice our need. And the other part of it that goes with that is that even if someone knows that you need help, they may not know you want help. And that's really an important distinction because we've all been in that position where you offer someone help that they didn't actually want. And you see how testy people get about that because, you know, they often feel like it's a kind of an insult, right? Like, you know, oh, you think I can't do this myself, which is of course not what it meant, but it's how it sometimes comes across. So people are

often reluctant to offer help even when they see you need it, if they're not sure whether or not you want it. And that's why really the only remedy to this is to actually be asking and to be asking explicitly for help and to be making sure you're asking just one person. One of the mistakes I see people make all the time is that they'll send out an email to like 10 people or 15 people hoping that one of them will be able to help with something and say, hey, could anybody help me with this thing? You know, you send an email to 10 friends and you say,

could any of you help me move this weekend? And, like, nobody answers. And that's a phenomenon psychologists call diffusion of responsibility. Basically, the more people who can help you with something, the less likely anyone is to actually do it. They kind of assume one of the other people on the email is going to help you, and so they don't actually take action themselves. So you want your request for help to be explicit

and you want them to be personal. And then the last thing I'll say about that is another very, very common mistake. We send email requests for help to people that we could ask for that help from in person or on the phone. And, you know, sometimes, yes, you have to use email. That's the only way to communicate with someone. But a lot of times we could just walk down the hall, like if it's a colleague,

you know, you could just walk down the hall and ask them. But we choose to do it by email because it's more comfortable for us, right? We don't have to face them when we're asking for the help. But you know who else it's more comfortable for? It's more comfortable for the person on the receiving end to say no via email. So there was a recent study that showed that the requests for help that are done in person are 34 times more successful than requests over email. Basically, you have to send 200 email requests to get the same hit rate and success as six in-person requests. Whoa.

Yeah, it's huge. So it's one of those things where, again, that little bit of discomfort you might feel picking up the phone or walking down the hall and asking someone in person is so worth it because the success rates for getting support go up so dramatically when you have these face-to-face live interactions. My guest today is Heidi Grant. She is a social psychologist and her book is Reinforcements, How to Get People to Help You. This episode is brought to you by Melissa and Doug. Wooden puzzles and building toys for problem solving and arts and crafts for creative thinking. Melissa and Doug makes toys that help kids take on the world because the way they play today shapes who they become tomorrow. Melissa and Doug, the play is pretend.

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So Heidi, one thing I've noticed, and the homeless is a good example of this, where I live in the Los Angeles area, we have a big homeless problem. And I know that as a giver, I feel better giving money to a guy who's just sitting there minding his own business and looks like he could use a meal and I'll give him five or ten dollars and say you know go get yourself something to eat and and typically he'll be extremely grateful because it more or less came out of the blue as opposed to the guy who's got the sign and he's holding it up to my car and saying please give me something and when I give him something, maybe he says thank you, maybe he doesn't, but he's quickly moved on to the next car, hoping they'll give him something.

You know, you're bringing up, I think, a really important point that happens all the time in everyday interactions when people are asking for help, which is that often we sort of ruin it for the helper. One of the common ways you see this is actually people over apologizing when they ask for help. So, you know, they say things like, oh, I can't believe I have to ask for this. I feel so terrible. You must think the worst of me that I need to ask you for this. All you're really doing is creating this palpable discomfort in the situation that's actually spoiling it for the helper.

They no longer get to feel good about this because you so obviously don't want to have to ask for help that it kind of ruins the experience for them. So when we make the situation very uncomfortable, when we're very aggressive, you'll see this also sometimes people will say, oh, if you do this for me, then I'll do this other thing for you, right? If you help me this for me, then I'll do this other thing for you, right? If you help me with this project, then I'll take you to lunch tomorrow. Now you've reduced it to kind of an exchange where it's sort of like, well, you know, apparently I'm not helping you because I'm a good person. I'm helping you because I'm getting lunch out of it, which doesn't,

again, make me feel good about myself. So you're kind of ruining it for me in that way. Anything that makes the person feel manipulated, right, so that, you know, that they feel like they have to help, you pin them in a corner, you made it too awkward for them to say no, that feeling of being controlled, like I feel like I have to help almost in this situation because you're not really giving me an out if I want one, that also ruins, again, that person may help you, but they're not going to feel good about helping you. They're not going to give you their best quality help, and they're probably not going to want to help you again.

Here's my best worst helper story. Years and years ago when I was very young, I still in school high school i think i was in new york city and i was i was walking through time square and the hari krishnas came up to me and put a lapel a flower in my lapel and you know put their hand out and i thought oh sure here here here's a dollar and they said and i felt great because here I'm helping the Hare Krishna. And they said, oh, thanks, but that's not enough to keep the flower. And they took it out of my lapel and walked away. Oh, wow.

That is not a – see, this is how you get a reputation for not being somebody that people want to help. I mean, you know, there's a – so that's, again, just entirely a lack of gratitude, is gratitude is important you know it's not it's and and it's important to understand uh you're again bringing up something really critical which is that gratitude isn't just about sort of you know someone's ego right it's not it's not about that it's actually fundamentally about the fact that we all want to feel effective as helpers. We all want to feel like we made a difference.

And because that's really, really important. When people feel like the help they've given didn't really land or that when you ask them for help, they're not sure really what kind of impact their help will have, it was really demotivating. Part of the function of gratitude is to give people that sense of, you know what, the help you gave really mattered. It had an impact. And here's the impact that it had. And that's really when people feel that warm glow.

And that's, again, what motivates future helping is that feeling of effectiveness. And, of course, when somebody then snaps the flower back, they've completely left you feeling like you were an ineffective helper, and that's going to be really demotivating going forward. What are some of the other mistakes people make or things that people don't really understand about helping? A really common mistake, and for some reason this comes up in my life a lot, is the very vague request for help. And those are incredibly off-putting. The one I get because I

write books and people may read or in articles and things like that, and people might read, and I imagine this might happen to you too. People read or are familiar with your work and they're excited about it or there's something they're interested in, and that's great. And then they find you on LinkedIn, or they find your email, or they find some way to connect with you, and they say just that. They say, I'd love to set up a meeting with you, and I'd love to connect. Or they say, I'd love to chat, or pick your brain, right? And here's the thing. They want something, right? And here's the thing. They want something, right?

They have a specific goal. People actually, generally speaking, don't want to just connect or chat or pick your brain. There's something they want. There's some information that they want. There's maybe perhaps they want to make you to connect them with someone else or, in my case, maybe they're interested in a career in my organization. And all of that's fine. Like, all of those are totally perfectly fine things to want my help from. But when I don't know what it is that you want from me, and I know you want

something, but I don't know what it is, I don't want to have that conversation with you because I don't want to end up in a situation where I'm uncomfortable, where you either, it turns out, want something from me I can't give it turns out, want something from me I can't give you, or you want something from me, frankly, I don't want to give you. And so I find that a lot of times when people make those requests for me, I kind of ignore them. And I don't feel good about that, believe me, but it feels like even worse to be in an awkward conversation with a stranger. So, you know, the requests that I respond to are the ones where people are very upfront and they say, this is why I'd love to meet with you and this is specifically what I'm

looking for and I'm hoping you can help me with. I'm much more likely to respond affirmatively to those. And so I think that's another kind of concrete piece of advice for people to take with them is, you know, be explicit, make very direct appeals to specific individuals, and tell them exactly what it is that you want, because if they don't know they can be effective, they're not going to say yes. Yeah, I love that, because those requests for, let's chat, let's get coffee, let me pick your brain, are hard to say no to because you look like such a jerk. Why wouldn't you want to just let me chat?

I mean, that's not asking much. Come on. What an idiot to say no to that. So like you say, you ignore them rather than respond because how do you respond to that? And you're right. I mean, what's the benefit of chatting if there's no goal, if there's no... Totally. And I think most of the time there is a goal and the person is

reluctant to come out with it, right? They actually think that, you know, they will sort of lull you into like, first step, we'll just get in the door and then I'll ask you. And I think the mistake there, again, is that it's the wrong intuition. On their side of it, they feel like that's very innocuous, right? Like you said, it's no big deal. Why can't we just chat? Well, the big deal is I don't know what's coming. That's the big deal. And people do not like uncertainty, myself very much included. Well, we should get coffee sometime so I can pick your brain. Let's chat. Let's chat. Let's chat up a storm.

My guest has been Heidi Grant. She is a social psychologist and author of the book, Reinforcements, How to Get People to Help You. There is a link to her book in the show notes. Thanks, Heidi. Thanks so much, Mike. This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines.

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and how to find happiness and peace of mind. Thank you, and have a nice life. Unfortunately, life doesn't come with an owner's manual. That's why there's BetterHelp Online Therapy. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit BetterHelp.com to learn more. That's BetterHelp.com. Whether you realize it or not,

luck plays a big role in so much of your life. Think about it. One chance meeting, one little decision, one piece of information, the fact that you turned left instead of turned right, all of these things can change your life forever, no matter how well you've got your life all planned out. And so when you understand that this does happen and understand how it happens, you can actually create more good luck for yourself

and less bad luck. Christian Bush has studied this. Christian is the director of the Global Economy Program at New York University's Center for Global Affairs, and he is author of the book The Serendipity Mindset, The Art and Science of Creating Good Luck. Hey, Christian, thanks for coming on.

Thank you so much for having me. So let's first define what you mean by luck, because there's the kind of luck like, oh, I won the lottery kind of luck, which is really just random chance. Then there's the luck I think you're talking about, and there may be other kinds of luck, which is really just random chance. Then there's the luck I think you're talking about, and there may be other kinds of luck. So let's focus in on what is luck for the purpose of this conversation. That's a great question, because that's actually what I'm most fascinated by in terms of that, if we look at this kind of blind luck that we usually associate luck with, so, you know, being born into a loving family or these kind of things,

it's essentially something that we didn't work for. But the luck that I'm really excited about is that luck, the smart luck that we really do something about. So serendipity to me is really that kind of unexpected good luck that results from these kind of unplanned moments. But then we make some kind of proactive decision

that leads us to some kind of positive outcome. So it's like, it's not enough to just, you know, in the case of interesting inventions or so, it's not enough to just see something unexpected, but we have to connect the dots, we have to do something with it to really then turn out into a kind of lucky coincidence. And so what are some of those things, you know, that show up in life? I think everybody can imagine, you know, the chance encounter with somebody that changes your life kind of thing. But what are some of the other things in life that can lead to the kind of luck you're talking about? Yeah, I mean, we can see it in every area. So, for example, when you think about companies, there's this one Chinese company and they, you know, they produce washing machines and refrigerators and they got calls one day and farmers told them, hey,

we're trying to wash our potatoes in the washing machine and it doesn't seem to work. And so what would we usually do? We would say, well, you know, don't wash your potatoes in the washing machine. It's unexpected that you're doing this, but you know what, like, just don't do it. So we would either ignore it or we would say, okay, don't do it. They did the opposite. They said, okay, well, this is interesting that they do this. And we know that there are a lot of farmers out there. So why don't we build in a dirt filter and essentially make it a potato washing machine? And so that's how the potato washing machine emerged. It was not planned, but it was something where someone saw kind of serendipity trigger, something unexpected, but then they connected the dots to like a much larger market out there. And so we know that around, you know, 50-ish percent of

inventions happen that way. We know that, you know, you mentioned earlier, a lot of times we might have met our life partner that way. We might have met our co-founder that way, where it's not only about running into someone and someone telling us about something, but it's about doing something with it and connecting the dots to something else that we've been working on. And so it's really that kind of smart luck that is really about proactive decisions and proactively acting on it, rather than just kind of having it happen to us. So how do you zero in on the ones that have potential, or do you just have to be open to everything? So the potato washing machine turned out to be a good idea, but there's a lot of ideas that probably come, or problems that get expressed, like

we're having trouble washing our fill-in-the-blank there, that isn't going to turn into anything. And so how do you separate or how do you filter out the good ones from the bad ones? That's a great question because that's also something I've seen that particularly with entrepreneurs, that sometimes they get distracted by all the opportunity that could be out there. And so one of the things that has come out of our research, what some of the most successful people, both social entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, CEOs and others tend to do is they tend to have a certain sense of direction. So they might have an idea of, OK, in the next couple of months, I want to approximately do X, Y, Z. And then these things have to fit into this. But also by having an appreciation for the

unexpected, it allows them to connect the dots. So if you look at someone like Paul Polman, for example, at Unilever, like he would always have this kind of bigger principle or bigger notion that he wanted to somehow help people help themselves and develop something on their own. So now if I come to him and tell him about something, he would be like, okay, this is unexpected, but it relates to my purpose or it doesn't. So so so one way is really kind of that like sense of direction or a basic principle or curiosity. But also then another one that that some companies, for example, have been doing is to set up things like brain trusts or other ways where essentially you come up with an idea or come up with something that might make sense. And then people just informally say, OK, this seems to make sense.

It doesn't seem to make sense. And I think in our own relationships, a lot of times what we see is that someone who seems to be having a lot of these kind of lucky coincidences might have a partner who reflects with them on it and says, OK, hey, this is valuable to follow up on and this isn't. And really kind of this idea of really linking it to a kind of broader journey rather than being distracted by it. Those people who have that ability, it seems, and I think everybody knows somebody that just things just seem to go their way.

Opportunity just seems to fall into their lap. Are these typically the kind of people you're talking about and we just don't see the serendipity going on? Or are these two different kinds of people? That's most probably the kind of person. If that's the kind of person where exactly like people would say, oh, that person is a bit luckier than others, even though they seem to be in a very similar context

or a very similar situation, it's those kind of people where a lot of times, and it's interesting because that is actually one of the things that I've been most excited about trying to understand what are the patterns behind those kind of people? What do we see emerging? So for example, if you take someone like Olly Barrett in London, who is a wonderful person who's in the education sector and he's an entrepreneur. And one thing that he does is just a very small thing that he does differently than other people. But when he goes to an event and, you know, this dreaded question of what do you do, right, where usually we would just say, oh, I'm working on X, Y, Z, he essentially sets hooks.

So he would not only be like, OK, I'm an education entrepreneur, but he would be like, oh, hey, I'm currently working in education, but I've recently started exploring philosophy. And what I'm really excited is connecting people and ideas. And so what he does here is he gives you three potential entry points where you could be like, oh my God, such a coincidence. I also wanted to look a bit more into how we can integrate philosophy into X, Y, Z, or how we can connect people differently, whatever it is it might then seem like a positive coincidence that that he met that person there but what he did was he met the same person you and i might have met but he just he just connected the dots differently with that person yeah it sounds like what he does is he kind of opens the door up gives people an opportunity

to connect and then pretty much leaves it to them to do so or not. But we've been talking a lot about, you know, businessy kind of things. Can we talk a little more about how serendipity and the kind of luck that you're talking about, how it works on a more personal individual level? That's a great question, because that's also something. So if we take the example of how I met my previous partner, in terms of, you know, it's that kind of situation where I am sitting in a coffee shop, and I am on my laptop, she's on her laptop, and we somehow sense, okay, there could be some kind of thing. And, you know, unexpectedly, the coffee kind of falls down, we get into a conversation. And what might have a lot of what might happen a lot of times now, of course, is that we

leave it at this, even though we sense some kind of direction, some kind of connection. In our case, fortunately, we got to talk about that coffee. Then we realized, oh my God, there's a couple of overlaps we have in terms of the interests we've been exploring. And then essentially, we followed up on this and became partners. And so it's really that kind of, in a way, how do we have that unexpected thing like a coffee falling down? And how do we then connect the dots to something in terms of the common overlaps? But it's really the day-to-day where a lot of things come to us very serendipitously, but only if we're seeing them. And I think there's a lot of studies, for example, on luck in general that illustrate that. So for example, there's one study where they took one person who self-identifies as very lucky,

and one person who self-identifies as very unlucky. And essentially, they told them, okay, walk down the street, go into the coffee shop, sit next to the counter, grab your coffee, and that's it. What they didn't tell them is that there would be hidden cameras across the street, that there would be a five pound note in front of the coffee shop, and that at that table, there would be this super successful businessman who can make big ideas happen. And so the lucky person walks down the street, sees the five pound note, picks it up, goes inside the shop, orders the coffee, has a nice conversation with barista, sits next to the businessman, because that's the table that's there, has a nice conversation, that's it.

Now the unlucky person goes down the street, steps over the five pound note, goes inside, orders the coffee, sits next to the businessman, ignores the businessman and that's it. Now at the end of the day they ask both people, so how was your day? And you know the lucky person says, well, it was amazing. You know, I had two wonderful conversations. I found money in the streets. And we don't know if an opportunity came out of it, but it wouldn't be unexpected, right? If the businessman could have helped him with something. Now, the unlucky person only says, well, nothing really happened. And, you know, that is kind of like when it comes to luck itself and with serendipity, where we have this additional element of really kind of working on it. And and like maybe if the businessman would have said something

like oh i've been working on xyz and we would have connected this to something we've been working on um that that kind of thing would happen but it's really this kind of idea that in a way we we need to see the unexpected and then in and then in a way do something with it it would almost seem though that like if you look at this too closely like the magic goes away you know like the serendipity happens because it's just kind of circumstance happenstance if you if you dissect it maybe it doesn't work it's it's fascinating because it's it that is what i find the beauty in it that in a way it's about finding meaning in accidents finding meaning in the unexpected and in a way by definition we can't know what the outcome is so by definition we can't really take the magic away because even though i have a lot of serendipity like every day

i have serendipity happen because you know i I talk with a lot of people, I kind of engage people in different ways and so on. But I never know what the potential outcome could be. So the magic is always there. But actually, by in a way training the mind in a certain way and kind of really developing that muscle for the unexpected, I kind of, as someone, you know, I come from Germany and without wanting to put any stereotypes on it, I'm someone who loves planning in my heart, right? And so to me, ambiguity and uncertainty usually would be something that would be an anxiety enhancing.

It would be something where it would be like, oh my God, this is something that I try to avoid. But since I've been in this kind of more serendipity mindset, in a way, uncertainty and ambiguity become something more joyful that I actually can look forward to because I know that I can turn it into something positive. And so it's really that kind of idea of,

in a way, keeping the magic, but also at the same time, in a way, turning what could be anxiety into a bit more of an enthusiasm for life. And being honest with you, this is really something that in my work, so I've been doing a lot of work, especially in very low income contexts, especially in Kenya and South Africa and other contexts, particular contexts within those countries. And one thing that I've seen is that when people kind of take on like that kind

of mindset, it does something, it just does something in terms of how we take control, we take more control of life rather than feeling, oh, my God, I feel very powerless. And I think, especially at moments like at the moment, it just gives us a bit of power back, because I think a lot of us are in this kind of illusion of control that we assume, yeah, I can plan my life out, and I can do X, Y, Z. But actually then something like COVID happens and, you know, everything is kind of completely different. And so I've just seen in my work that this is something that gives a lot of meaning and purpose to people because it gets rid of the illusion of control and really says, let's try to control what we can, which is the process of it, not the outcome, but the process. So it seems from what you're saying is that a lot of this is really just being open to it, leaving the door open, keeping your eye out for opportunities,

and being aware of the fact that serendipity does happen. It happens all the time. And so if you're open to it, it will happen, rather than take the philosophy of I'm going to plan my life out and just live my plan. It's interesting, because I had a conversation just yesterday with a wonderful person who I would consider a kind of a real serendipity. And we talked about this idea that we're both very focused people, and we're both very focused on getting things done. But we also kind of have this idea that we are we are open to the unexpected. So we're both very focused on getting things done. But we also kind of have this idea that we are open to the unexpected.

So we're not proactively seeking it out, and we're not proactively saying, oh, this has to happen all the time, but we are ready for when it happens. And so it's really something, you know, if you would see it as a kind of 80-20 type thing, I think that probably would be what it is in terms of that, you know, 80% of our lives, we live in terms of, okay, we're planning these things out, we have our kind of goals and what we want to achieve this month and everything else. But then also, we know that within that degree of

keeping our eyes open, that is probably where most things will shift. So if I want to tap into this, how do you start? What do you do? The core that I found helpful, apart from like the concrete kind of things, such as the way we ask questions, how we frame our minds, and how we see opportunity in the crisis and so on, is really also that kind of general mindset of saying that we need to expect the unexpected and start seeing it. And I think that kind of mindset shift in a way is really at the core of a lot of it. But then also this kind of really placing bets and really saying, okay, I have this plan mapped out. But also maybe I spend 5% of my time speaking with people in other areas just to figure out what could be there, because some people might see something that I didn't. Well, I have said before that when I look back on my life, I can point to certain events, certain people that I met, certain encounters that I had that really altered the course of my life and made life better. And I don't know that I was doing it very deliberately. So imagine if you did, imagine if you had an eye out for those kind of encounters,

how great your life could be. Christian Bush has been my guest. He's the director of the Global Economy Program at New York University's Center for Global Affairs. And he's author of the book, The Serendipity Mindset, The Art and Science of Creating Good Luck. There's a link to his book in the show notes. Thank you, Christian. Thank you so much.

I love all things about the kitchen. I love cooking. I love eating. I love everything about the whole kitchen experience. So I always enjoy when I come across things that tell you how to make life in the kitchen better. And here are some things from the experts at Epicurious.com that will make you a better, more efficient chef. First of all, buy the chicken thigh family pack. The chicken thighs are juicier, cheaper, and more flavorful than chicken breasts, which everybody's pretty much sick of anyway. Save the fat. Chicken fat is amazing stuff, whether you're frying onions in it, sautéing greens in it, or spreading it on toast. So after eating your roast chicken dinner, drain the now-cooled liquid fat into a plastic container

and store it in the freezer. Season some of your vegetables with sugar. Carrots, squash, tomatoes, all these vegetables have a natural sweetness that's enhanced by just a tiny bit of sugar. Use a garbage bowl. You get a large bowl exclusively for things like eggshells, onion skins, and other trash, and it will keep your workspace much neater. Put a damp paper towel or kitchen towel under your cutting board. That way your board doesn't slip around as you chop. Always keep lemons in the fridge. They'll keep longer that way, so you'll always be able to add fresh lemon juice to everything,

from dressings to cocktails. Plus, you can use the squeezed rinds to clean and deodorize your wooden cutting boards. Buy a better ice cube tray. The cubes out of your ice dispenser are watering down your cocktails. Cubes made in silicone ice trays are denser and keep your drink of choice cold for hours. And toss your spices, especially the ground cumin. Ground spices die quickly, so give them a whiff, because if they don't smell like much, they're not going to taste like much either.

And that is something you should know. Lately, there have been a lot of very positive, thoughtful, and kind reviews on Apple Podcasts about this podcast, and I appreciate that. If you have a moment, I'd appreciate your comments as well. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Hey, hey, are you ready for some real talk and some fantastic laughs? Join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa DeMonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? We're serving up four hilarious shows every week designed to entertain and engage and, you know, possibly enrage you. In Don't Blame Me, we dive

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Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. 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.