Something You Should Know - The Surprising Link Between Money and Happiness & When Questions Are More Important Than Answers

Episode Date: November 26, 2018

When guests come in to your home, what do they notice most of all? If you are having guests into your house this holiday season you will want to hear this surprising list of things people notice when they come through your front door. http://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/home-and-garden/what-guests-really-notice-in-your-home/ss-BBnq4Uw#image=8 Money matters. It determines your lifestyle, how long you must work and forces you to make decisions on how to spend it. So it would seem that having more money would make you happier. But not always. Joining me to discuss the role of money and its relationship with happiness is Laura Rowley who has been a personal finance columnist for Self magazine and The Huffington Post and is author of the book Money & Happiness: A Guide to Living the Good Life (https://amzn.to/2SdFXgT). We spend a good deal of our life looking for answers to questions and problems. Interestingly, there are times where it may be more important to find a better question. That’s according to Hal Gregersen, Executive Director of the MIT Leadership Center, senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of the book Questions Are The Answer: A Breakthrough Approach to Your Most Vexing Problems at Work and in Life (https://amzn.to/2DXAWWT). Hal joins me to explain the process of coming up with better questions which can lead to greater insight into any problem.  We all have to wash our hands in public bathrooms. So what is the best way to dry them afterwards? Some people prefer paper towels, some hot air dryers. But what does the best job of leaving you with clean germ-free hands? We’ll explore that in this episode. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2672.2010.04838.x/abstract This Week's Sponsors -BetterHelp For 10% off your first month of counseling go to www.BetterHelp.com/something, promo code SOMETHING Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on Something You Should Know, what do guests really notice when they walk into your home? The answers may surprise you. Then, can having more money make you a happier person? What scientists have found is people who have five or more friends outside of their immediate family are 50% happier than people who don't. Well, it takes time to cultivate those friendships. And if you're so busy earning so that you can spend more and more and more, you don't have time to invest in that.

Also, what's the best way to dry your hands in a public bathroom? Plus, asking the right questions. It may be more important than searching for the answer to solve a problem. Which is why Einstein purportedly said, if you were to give him 60 minutes to figure out the answer to a problem, he said, I take the first 55 minutes and figure out the right question. And then if I can get the right question, the answer becomes obvious. All this today on Something You Should Know. As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know 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 Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu. She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion,

embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Something You Should Know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts.

And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome to the Something You Should Know podcast. Have you ever asked yourself, when people come over to your house, what do they notice? This time of year especially, when people come for the holidays or they come for a party

or just some sort of holiday get-together, you probably make every effort to tidy up and make your home presentable. But what is it that people really notice when they walk into your home? According to the website Pop popsugar.com, here's what guests really pay attention to. First of all, the smell. It's the first thing to hit your guests when they open the door.

If you're worried about odors, simmer a small pot of citrus peel on the stove for a half an hour before guests arrive. The bar. After they arrive, your guests are likely expecting something to drink, so be prepared. Fresh flowers. People really notice fresh flowers. A lack of clutter. People will feel more relaxed in a tidy and neat environment.

People also really appreciate a tidy bathroom. Clean towels, extra toilet paper, and wipe down the surfaces. Also, a candle makes a nice touch. If you focus on these things, people will think you are a wonderful host or hostess. And that is something you should know. Doesn't matter who you are, money is always a big factor in your life, every single day. The kind of life you live is determined in large part by how much money you have, how much money you think you're going to have, and what you choose to spend it on. Money is also a source of happiness or unhappiness for a lot of people.

Laura Rowley, for many years, was a journalist and columnist who wrote about money for Self Magazine and the Huffington Post, and she is author of a book called Money and Happiness, a guide to living the good life. Hi, Laura. So, as a longtime personal finance columnist, I'm sure you've talked to a lot of people about their money and their money troubles. What do you find, if there's any one thing, what do you find is at the core of the trouble, typically?

I found a lot of times there was a big gap between what people said they valued and what they were doing with their money. So how do you close that gap? How do you identify what you truly value and then align your money with it so you can be happy? So how does that happen? How is there that separation between what I value and what I do with my money? Yeah, I think we kind of go along and then we get out of college or we get out of school

and we start to work and you make money and then you have a lifestyle that's based on how much money you have and And it kind of rolls along. And you never stop to say, well, wait a minute, what do I truly value? And how can I make my money reflect that? So give me a real life example of what that looks like, what it's like to have certain values and then what you do with your money is not in alignment with that. I interviewed somebody who told me she wanted to start her own business and yet had $10,000 in credit card debt and $30,000 in student loans

and hadn't started paying them back and was spending $500 a month on entertainment. None of these things seem to be related to that goal of starting her own business. So I guess that's the simplest example. Well, and I imagine anyone who says that, you know, they're very concerned about and want to make sure they have a comfortable retirement one day, but they don't do anything to save for that retirement. Absolutely.

Well, the other thing is I spoke to people who said, you know, one of the things I value most is my children's education, and they hadn't saved anything for college. So it's that sort of thing. And there's reasons that we do that. Our brains kind of work against us in that respect. So explain that. How does that work?

There's something called a hedonic treadmill. You know, when you have a great family, you usually don't say, gee, you know, I'm going to go out and get another one because this is so great. But we always do that with money and material goods, And it's really hard to get off that treadmill. And one of the reasons, there's a lot of reasons, but one of the big things is something called the hot-cold empathy gap. It's a psychological term for when you're in a cold or neutral state, you have a hard time imagining what you would do or what you would say when you're in a hot state, when you're angry or hungry or in pain. And then when you're in a hot state, it's hard to imagine what you would do or say you would say when you're in a hot state, when you're angry or hungry or in pain. And then when you're in a hot state, it's hard to imagine what you would do or say if you were in a cold state.

And psychologists have found in research that people who are not in a shopping situation underestimate the urge to splurge that happens as soon as they walk into a mall. So, you know, you don't think, oh, I'll just go shopping, and then at the end of the day, it's like, where did the money go? Why though? What motivates the spending for people? Well, research has found that women will overspend to stay with a social group. They'll do what their friends are doing. And then if they don't have that income before they know it, they're in over their heads. Men will overspend to impress other people. So it's kind of a competitive thing.

So what is the price we pay? What is the price for having your values and your money out of alignment like that? Well, that's a great question. What scientists have found is, for example, people who have five or more friends outside of their immediate family are 50% happier than people who don't. Well, it takes time to cultivate those friendships. And if you're so busy earning so that you can spend more and more and more,

which is the hedonic treadmill we get on, you don't have time to invest in that. You don't have time to invest in your health. You don't have time to invest in volunteering, all the other aspects of your life that might make you happy. And the problem is we tend to overestimate how happy more money will make us. And they've done studies that have found this where, you know, they ask people, well, would you take a new job for more money if it required more time traveling, more time in the office, more time away from your family?

And two-thirds of people said yes. You know, there was only one-third who said they probably not. Nobody said no because we think the money will make us happier than it does. When studies have found what makes us happy is all those other things. You know, spending time with family, friendship, taking care of our health. And a lot of times we'll make trade-offs, you know, and sort of steal time away from those things so that we can earn more money. Yeah, well, there's that old, you know, money doesn't buy happiness, unless you don't have any.

You know, it's easy for someone with money to say, well, money's not everything. Well, yeah, it's not everything because you've got plenty of it or enough of it, but if you don't have enough of it, then you're going to be unhappy. Well, you know, I would agree with that. A certain amount of money, and research has backed this up, a certain amount of money does make people happier. And in wealthier countries, people are generally happier than in poorer countries. And that makes sense. There's a lot of stress when you can't pay the bills or you don't know where your next meal

is coming from. On the other hand, studies have found that our happiness does not rise in proportion with our incomes. They've done studies of lottery winners and Forbes 100 people who earn more than $100 million a year, and their happiness levels are just slightly higher than the average person. So I guess it's that issue of keeping things in perspective and knowing that a certain amount of money will make you happy because you have to take care of your basic needs. But beyond that, you really have to start thinking about what you value most in life. And I remember hearing, too, that people who don't have money claim to worry about money a lot, that they spend a lot of time worrying about not having enough money,

and that if they only had money like rich people have money, they wouldn't spend so much time worrying about it. But when they talk to rich people, they worry about money too. It's a different kind of worry, but they're still worried about money. Yeah, I spoke recently with a woman who manages high net worth individuals, and she says she'll get a client who's just sold a business for $250 million. And one of the things she says to them is, you have problems you don't even know about. You know, there's a whole other set of problems that comes with having that much money.

So, you know, and I think that the most important thing is to never say, I can't afford this, but to say, I'm making different decisions. I mean, I drive a minivan that I bought, used, you know, that my kids have drawn all over in crayon. We got crayon melted into the carpet. It's very artistic. That's not my value. You know, one of my big values is sending my kids to college and having them graduate without a mountain of debt so that they can choose any job they want without having to worry about how much they're making. And so instead of having a nice car, we put a little bit of money away every month in a 529 plan for our kids. So it's that kind of thing.

And I actually have to, you know, I have this picture in my head of my three daughters graduating from college and choosing any job that they want, that they love, you know, choosing it because it's their passion, not because it's for money, and that kind of keeps me going when I would rather spend that $5.29 money on a massage, because it reminds me that I'm wealthy in the way that's most important to me, that's most authentic to me. I'm speaking with Laura Rowley. She's author of the book, Money and Happiness, a guide to living the good life. So Laura, I think people often get confused with all the conflicting advice about money. You know, there's one school of thought that you pay yourself first, that you take care of yourself first.

So do you take care of yourself first and buy that nice car? Or do you do what this lady says and buy a crappy car and put the money in your kid's college fund? I mean, who do you believe? Well, it depends on what you value. You know, what does it mean to take care of yourself? For me, what it means to take care of myself is to have enough money so that when I can't work anymore, because at a certain point you can't work anymore, I can take care of myself. That, to me, is a form of security, and security is important to me.

So, you know, identify the value first, security, and then what are the things that are going to create that value? I think one of the hardest things about happiness is we mistake temporary pleasure for long-term happiness. Long-term happiness is setting goals that are based on your values and achieving those goals. Researchers did a study, it's one of my favorite studies, where they put a quarter in the coin return of a phone booth, and they had people go in and make a phone call. People didn't know why they were making a phone call.

Some people found the coin in the coin return, and some people didn't. After that, they asked people to rate the happiness of their entire life overall. Well, the people who found the quarter rated their happiness of their entire life much higher than the people who didn't. So, you know, I think it points up that importance of separating temporary pleasure from long-term happiness. And long-term happiness is something you have to really sit down and think about and decide what it is you value. And in the book, I don't say, you know, you should really value a secure retirement. I never tell people what to value, but I go through exercises of how to figure out what it is you value. 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 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. Contained herein are the heresies of Rudolf Buntwine, erstwhile monk turned traveling medical investigator. Join me as I study the secrets of the divine plagues

and uncover the blasphemous truth that ours is not a loving God and we are not its favored children. The heresies of Randolph Bantwine, wherever podcasts are available. Well, that brings up a, well, by the way, that study, I mean, how would you even come up with the idea for that study? And then to realize the results of that study are that finding a quarter can make your day a quarter. Isn't that incredible? Yeah, I guess it also points up the importance of building in those moments during your day. Well, I remember the days when there were lots and lots of phone booths. And

remember the people that used to go down the line of phone booths, you know, in the coin return thing and look for the quarter. And now we know why they were just, they were just looking for happiness. But still for so many people in talking about money and values and everything that towards the end of the line, there's so many people we hear about that are not going to have or who don't have enough money saved up for retirement. Yeah, scary. The scary thing to me, I think, is how many people, it just, the whole concept of living within your means, which, you know, is a concept that's been around for ages. And it's a concept for me because my parents were born during the Depression.

You know, so it was you don't get into debt, you don't get into debt, you don't get into debt. And the importance of what kind of family you come from in terms of your attitude toward money. But that's what I think scares me most about this economy is so many people are using credit to live beyond their means. And there comes a reckoning day, You know, so it's a problem. And so what's the advice? You know, a lot of older people live in that, if I knew then what I know now, I'd have a lot more money in the bank kind of mentality. But is it ever too late?

No, I don't think so. I don't think it's ever too late. I mean, I think, again, you have to go, you have to start with your values. You know, what kind of life do you want to have? What's most important to you? And then, you know, obviously you could say, well, I want the kind of life where I live on a yacht. That's not realistic given what you've done up until this point. But I don't think it's too late.

And, you know, I do think you're going to see people working much longer than in the past. I took my kids to Disney World, and I was shocked how many people working in the park were obviously in their 70s. And, you know, I sort of think, if anything, that's a good reminder for somebody in their 40s or 50s to get started. You know, even if it's $10 a week, $20 a week, something that goes automatically into a retirement account, you can do that. Anybody can come up with that amount of money. I mean, yes, it's helpful if you start at age 21,

but there's no, it's never too late to start. I guess in many ways, and like you said, it depends on the family you come from, but in many ways it's human nature when you're younger to not think so much about when you're younger to not think so much about when you get older and retirement and saving for that. And then when you get older, you look back and wish you had. Yeah.

I think what's the day of reckoning for a lot of people will be a harsh downsizing of their lifestyle. You know, where, you know, maybe they'll have a roommate or entertainment will be going to the library or, you know, the life they've been living now won't be as accessible in the future. I mean, that's sort of the first thing that happens when you don't save. The thing that most intrigues me is how to get people to feel that urgency, feel that call to action.

I mean, that's why I try to explain some of the psychology of the brain and why our lower brains kind of work against us, because, you know, the higher brain is where the logical cognitive functions occur, and that's where, you know, you think about things like saving for retirement, but the lower brain is in charge a lot of the time when it comes to, gee, I really want to buy that. So what would you say to someone, a younger person who hasn't really thought about the future and hasn't really want to buy that. So what would you say to someone, a younger person who hasn't really thought about the future and hasn't really started to save for the future, how would you motivate them? You know, this is so interesting, because somebody asked me that about my book. They say, you know, you don't have a call to action for people. And I thought,

you know, living beyond your means, or living without saving at all. It's similar to drug addiction and that you're not attached to reality. You know, and I don't know if you can help somebody who's addicted to drugs until they hit bottom. You know, and the fear I have is that for a lot of people, that's what has to happen with their money. They have to hit bottom and not be able to afford their home anymore, not be able to afford the rent on their place and have to move into a smaller place. There is this assumption that you somehow can figure all this out for yourself. But I would imagine that a lot of people who have a pretty secure financial life got some help. You know, talk to somebody who is like a financial planner,

and I know you talk about that, the importance of getting some expert help, because not everybody is an expert in planning out their finances. You may have options you don't know about. One of the people I interviewed said she sat down with a financial planner, and she said, what would it take to send my three kids to college? And he said, you have to save $2,000 a month from now until they go to college. And she said, I just can't do that. You know, but to me that was unhelpful advice because that's just, you know, now she's just

throwing up her hands. You don't know if your children will get scholarships. You don't know if they'll be able to work in high school. You don't know what loans will be available. I think there's a lot of options out there. So I think it's important to be optimistic about your options, but also be realistic. Put that date on the calendar and say, I will see a financial planner by this date. Do you see that a lot with the people that you talk to that like a drug addict,

they have to hit bottom before they have that epiphany? I found that with the people I've spoken to. You know, a lot of people email me who have gone through bankruptcy and say, you know, I can't get a credit card. Well, what happened in between when you got that first credit card and when you declared bankruptcy? You know, for some people that's what it takes is that bankruptcy to kind of shake them out of their fog. You know, so I guess, you know, my feeling is get this message out. You have to take care of yourself. And that should be a primary value. Well, it is interesting that something as important as money and your financial life, for many people, is so hard to get a handle on and really manage it well.

One of the things psychologically is the brain is very good at storing words and semantic meaning and visual images, but we can't store visceral sensations in our brains. So you can't remember. You can think about a painful event or a craving you had once, but you can't actually re-experience pain or create pain or create a craving in your head. You can't create the visceral sensation of it.

And I think that's part of the problem. It's impossible to imagine what it would really feel like to be old and poor. We just can't do that. So you have to kind of look around you, you know, look at those people who don't have a lot and say, I'm not going to have that happen to me. Does it get to the point, do you think, where, okay, now you've got it, you've got it nailed? I mean, you know, listening to someone like you, you would think, okay, well, she's probably got her financial life all in order. She's not lured by temptation. She's got her priorities,

her values right. Is it easy for you? Is it easy for people who nail this? Or is it always going to be a struggle? Here's the thing. I wrote this book about basing your spending and your earning and your outlook on your values. And yet I still find myself longing for the bigger house. I mean, I still find myself talking to my husband about,

you know, could we expand the house? Could we do that? You know, and in the meantime, you're getting these home equity lines of credit, like offers in the mail, because you're a responsible person, you have decent credit, you get them from just about everybody.

It's so, it's tempting to me. Well, it's such an important topic because it applies to every single person listening, that their financial life, their financial future is all their responsibility. And it's good to get some advice from someone who's really thought this through. Laura Rowley has been my guest for many years. She was a journalist and columnist who wrote about money for Self Magazine and the Huffington Post. And her book is Money and

Happiness, A Guide to Living the Good Life. There's a link to her book in the show notes. Thank you, Laura. 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. Hey, everyone. Join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice. Then we have But Am I Wrong?, which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events.

Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our Lister poll results from But Am I Wrong? And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. You spend a good portion of your life trying to find answers, answers to questions and problems. That's how we learn and progress and get smarter,

by figuring out the answers. Perhaps, though, it may be just as important, maybe more important, to ask the right questions, that the right question can lead to a greater insight than just looking for the answer. Now, I know that may sound a little theoretical. I mean, what does that actually mean to ask the right question? Well, here to discuss that is Hal Gregerson. Hal is the Executive Director of the MIT Leadership Center. He's a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He's ranked by

Thinkers 50 as one of the world's 50 most innovative minds. And he is author of a book called Questions Are the Answer, a breakthrough approach to your most vexing problems at work and in life. Hi, Hal. Welcome. Hi, Mike. Great to be to be here and excited to visit with you. So I can think of people I know who are really good at asking questions. My dad was really good at this, asking better questions, questions that make you think differently. And everybody probably knows people like that. Why do you think some people are better question askers than others? Every one of us grow up with the capacity to ask amazing questions.

When kids are young, they ask dozens, hundreds of questions a day. They're constantly probing the world. And when they go off to school, the picture changes completely for most kids. So in the U.S. school system, for example, between the ages of six through an undergraduate in college, the data are pretty consistent. The average student asks six questions per month about the content of the courses. That's it. The average teacher asks 50 to 100 questions per hour. They wait only one second after each of those questions that they're shooting at the children or the young people sitting in their room. And the students learn really fast that answers matter way more than questions. And no wonder that their questioning capacity plummets, even though we all have it from birth.

And so that's the starting point from which we go out into the world of work and life and families, often having had this questioning capacity, but by the time we get to become adults, we've literally lost it. So how do you know if a question could be better? How do you know that questions aren't just fine the way they are? Let me give you a quick example. So a colleague I bumped into 15 years ago, Andreas Heinecke, German, he's sitting in his office as a reporter, and his boss brings in someone who just had recently become blind and asked Andreas to help this man become a reporter. Andreas wasn't blind. He'd never worked with blind people before.

He had no idea what to do. And so he's trying to figure, what can I do with this person, which is a pretty good question. And instead of trying to just slot him in with, what could I do with this person, over the course of time, Andreas asked a very different question. What kind of job setting could a blind man capitalize on his relative strengths? In other words, he was trying to figure out, how could I capitalize and, in fact, take advantage of the fact this person can't see instead of me just trying to figure out some small segment of what I'm doing as a reporter?

From that question, how could I capitalize on a blind person's strengths, starting an organization called Dialogue in the Dark, where effectively blind people take sighted people like you and me into a completely pitch-black space, and either we explore the world as if we're blind by walking across streets, eating food, but the point is that that simple question of how could we capitalize on a blind person's strengths

in a job setting led to this dialogue in the dark. It's had over 8 million visitors worldwide and one of the largest employers of blind people. And so that's the kind of question that I think is catalytic. It challenged some false assumptions that Andrewrus was carrying around in his head about blind people, and it ended up energizing him to do something about it,

which he did. Is there always a better question? I think there's always a better question, and that's the quest in question. If you and I are stuck and we're trying to figure something out at work or in life, I can sort of do some deciphering and you could too to realize that we're stuck because we are asking the wrong question. And in order to get to the right unlocking question that literally surfaces this bad assumption, energizes us to do something about it. It's usually a series of a lot of incrementally better questions that finally gets us to one that when we hit it, the answer is there. It almost feels inevitable, which is why Einstein purportedly said, if you were to give him 60 minutes to figure out the answer to a problem,

he said, I take the first 55 minutes and figure out the right question by asking questions and question and question to figure it out. And then if I can get the right question, the answer becomes obvious. How does this work, though, when you're not Einstein? I mean, how does this work in everyday life? I mean, in many cases, the questions we ask are just fine because it's, you know, where did you put your shoes? We don't need to spend an hour coming up with a better question. We need to find the shoes.

So life is full of questions that are probably just fine. So how do you know when the question really needs a better question? A natural point in every one of our lives for trying to find a better question is, again, that moment when we are stuck. And the stuck could be a positive or negative way. More often than not, it's negative, but we're stuck. It's like, I don't know what to say to my boss tomorrow. Or I don't know how to interact with my wife because of what I said last night, or fill in the blank, I'm stuck. And in those moments of stuckedness, that's a ripe opportunity to create the conditions where I might start asking a different question. and as a result, I might get unstuck.

Because here's the truths that sort of came through loud and clear in the work that I did around trying to figure out the answer to your question. You know, which questions matter? How do you get to the better questions? It's like, if we want to get better answers when we're stuck, we do have to ask better questions. But if we want to ask better questions, it's not by chance. We just create conditions where those questions thrive. So can we get really specific here with an example, a real-life example of how this would work? So the other day I was visiting with a good friend who was the CEO of a fairly large organization in the world.

We were visiting at lunch, and it came up that he was quite concerned about one of his daughters who was becoming a teenager. They'd had a good relationship, and as she was transitioning into becoming a teen, she started pulling away, which is quite normal. But he was worried about losing the close connection he had. And so he was trying to figure out a better question in the moment. And I said to him simply over lunch, let's grab a couple of napkins and here's the deal. Let's just for the next four minutes, ask nothing but questions about your dilemma. No answers to the questions, no explanations about why we're asking the questions. Let's just write as many questions as we can down together about this issue. And so he's asking all kinds of questions,

and I'm asking questions. And then four minutes later, we've got 22 of these questions. And he's asking things like, am I a good father? Do I push too hard? Do I helicopter too much? Do I praise her enough? How is she better than you are? What are her talents? How can you slow down to see what you're missing? What would she be if her last name wasn't yours? What's uniquely independent about her? When do her eyes sparkle? And there were lots of questions like this. And at the end of it, it was a moment of very profound silence. And he looked at me with a little bit of a tear in his eye, frankly. And he said, I'd been so focused on framing the problem about how not to lose my daughter in the relationship. But now I realize the real question is,

how can I help support her growing and flourishing on her own? I need to let her find her. Like it was a perfect moment where asking literally a series of nonstop questions incrementally moved him to a space where he reframed the challenge enough to start thinking and doing something different about it. That's a great example. And you did that in four minutes. And have you done this other times? I mean, you think anybody can get good results in four minutes? I've literally done this, what I call now a question burst exercise or method where quickly set up the rules, maybe a two-minute explanation of what your challenge is,

and then we just generate nothing but questions for four minutes. And I ask people before they do that, how do you feel about your challenge? And the common word across 2,000-person data set is frustrated. At the end of that four minutes, the common words are excited and optimistic. It's totally different. And about 85% of the people feel better about their challenge, which helps them see things differently. And about 85% have at least one new idea.

And it sounds like it couldn't be true, but I see this over and over and over again, because that question burst creates these special conditions. Is it linear in the sense that the last question is the best question, or does it take some analysis and say, you know, that one you asked four questions ago was really the best one? My expectation of people when actually doing it is don't try to judge the questions during that space. Just let them fly. But afterwards, I ask them to read through their questions and figure out which one of these may have been provocative and uncomfortable, which

ones were surprising, which ones were the toughest, which ones seem compelling that you want to do something about them. And when they do that kind of after-the-fact review of the questions, they realize that one or two of them matter. And frankly, sometimes they're at the end, sometimes they're at the beginning, and sometimes they're smack dab in the middle. And so you never quite know when they're going to come, but I think there's huge value in spending that kind of focused energy. Do they sometimes never come?

Absolutely. So the reality on this is, like that data I was mentioning about people actually using the question burst method. Basically, about 5% of the people, after they do it, actually feel either a little worse or a lot worse. They don't feel better. They're more stuck. But here's what usually is going on, Mike. By getting all the questions out, especially the tough ones,

they often realize, oh my, I am more of the problem than I thought I was. In other words, I'm creating part of this problem. Or they realize after generating nothing but questions for four minutes or longer that, wow, this problem is a lot bigger than I ever thought it was. Now, from my perspective, if a four-minute investment helps me realize I'm more the problem and it's bigger than I thought and I feel crappy about it right now, that's not a bad thing. I may not have the question that's going to open it up, but at least I had questions that caused me to rethink. That's really interesting, and that is such a refreshing way of looking at problems, because we're always focused on trying to find the answer,

and what we're trying to do is often find the answer to the wrong question, which gets you nowhere. Well, that's exactly right. And it's that trained habit that we all have, most all of us have, going through schools, going into work systems as early professionals, where it's all about giving the right answer. And I'll never forget, I was in Singapore a few years ago. I'd given a talk about this topic, and afterwards, someone came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around, and he said, let me tell you my story. He said, I'm the CEO of XYZ Company, and it's fairly recent, and guess what? My whole life, my whole career, I've been rewarded for answers and answer giving. And now that I'm sitting in the CEO chair, I'm realizing it's all about questions because it's huge uncertainty and we're defining the future.

It's not about answers and it's excruciating. It's a huge learning curve. Now, contrast that with the 200 plus creative leaders that I interviewed for this project to figure out the questions or the answer. And those folks often learned this reality early on. So, you know, you've got Elon Musk, who is a third or fourth grader, and he is reading from front to back the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, which is super small, fine print, 35,000 pages, this third or fourth grader reading

it. He gets to the end of it. His conclusion was, wow, there's a lot of knowledge out there. And then he said, I didn't know what I didn't know. And from that point forward, he, I think, is constantly trying to frame and reframe the right question, at least that's how he described it to me, in order to figure out the better solution. Well, and after listening to you, I think of all the times I've been banging my head against the wall trying to figure something out without realizing that maybe I ought to be figuring out something else. Maybe there's a better question to ask. I think that's really helpful for me and everybody else. Hal Gregerson has been my guest. He is the executive director of the MIT Leadership Center, and he is author of the book, Questions Are the Answer, A Breakthrough Approach to Your Most most vexing problems at work and in life. There's a link to his book in the show notes, and I appreciate you being here. Thanks, Hal. Thank you.

The next time you're in a public bathroom, skip the low-velocity hand dryer. A study in the Journal of Applied Microbiology found that those high-velocity electric dryers are the most hygienic and effective. Those are the air jet dryers that strip water away while your hands are held still. The conventional warm air hand dryers that require you to rub your hands together can actually bring bacteria in the skin to the surface. Most people are too impatient to let that machine dry their hands thoroughly and then any leftover moisture and bacteria is just transferred onto the next surface you touch. Drying your hands thoroughly can be just as important as washing them. If paper towels are available that's your best. And whether with a paper towel or a hand dryer, don't stop

drying until your hands are really dry. And that is something you should know. For the links and the sources for the information you heard in this episode of the podcast and every other episode of our podcast, you can always refer to the show notes that come with each episode. Those show notes are also on our website, somethingyoushouldknow.net. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager,

but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot,

and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. 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.