Something You Should Know - Why People Don’t Read What You Write & How Could You Be a Better Person?
Episode Date: October 26, 2023While some people take pride in being a perfectionist, the fact is no one is perfect, so it is a somewhat pointless quest to try. Being a perfectionist can also be bad for your health and longevity in... a big way. Listen as I begin this episode explaining the dangers of perfectionism. http://www.livescience.com/6724-dark-side-perfectionism-revealed.html In school, we are taught to write well. However, when we communicate in the real world today, effective writing – the kind that people will actually read and respond to - is often not the writing you learned in English class. Research has proven that if you want people to read what you write you need to write using certain principles and discard some of the rules you learned in school. Here to help you understand the science of writing, so people will read it is Todd Rogers. Todd is a behavioral scientist, a professor at Harvard and author of the book Writing for Busy Readers: Communicate More Effectively in the Real World (https://amzn.to/48VFmsF). Have you ever wished you were a better person? Well, if so, here is some good news - it doesn't take much to be better and make a difference. That is the contention of my guest Kate Hanley. Kate is the host of the How to Be a Better Person podcast (https://katehanley.com/podcast/). And author of the book How to Be a Better Person (https://amzn.to/46BGyzD). She is here to explain how just a few little actions could make you feel better about yourself while actually making a difference in the world. And what could be wrong with that. Trick or treating can be serious business for some people. It’s all about getting the most candy in the least amount of time. If you or your kids subscribe to the “more candy the better” school of trick or treating, listen as I offer some proven strategies that can help you fill that bag up fast! https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/holiday/best-trick-treat-times/mKtXzk7AlhBtG9vh8IXDyK/ PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! With HelloFresh, you get farm-fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. Go to https://HelloFresh.com/50something and use code 50something for 50% off plus free shipping! BetterHelp is truly the best way to make your brain your friend. Give it a try. Visit https://BetterHelp.com/Something today to get 10% off your first month! 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 Let’s find “us” again by putting our phones down for five. Five days, five hours, even five minutes. Join U.S. Cellular in the Phones Down For Five challenge! Find out more at https://USCellular.com/findus Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Today on Something You Should Know, how being a perfectionist can kill you.
Then, if you're going to write effective texts or emails or anything, you have to write the way people read.
Everyone is taught how to write well, but that's not the same thing as writing effectively.
And writing well is, it might be beautiful and persuasive and eloquent and complete,
but that's not how anybody reads in the real world.
They read differently than our English teacher did.
Also, how to be a more efficient trick-or-treater so you get more candy in less time? And what could you do
to be a better person? It's probably easier than you think. Being a better person is not about being
a perfect person. It's really, frankly, not even about being a good person. It's just about handling
something a little bit better or approaching something a little bit more adeptly than you
would have done in the past.
All this today on Something You Should Know.
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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 carothers
hello welcome to something you should know you know that old saying anything worth doing
is worth doing well which is probably true but it doesn't necessarily mean that anything worth doing is worth doing perfectly all the time.
Fact is, nobody's perfect, although some of us keep trying to be.
According to sociologist and former perfectionist Dr. Christine Carter,
perfectionists really ought to lighten up.
Paying too much attention to detail and success will take a significant toll on your life.
Data from Trinity Western University in Canada found that perfectionists have an increased risk of death by a staggering 51%. Perfectionists tend to have much higher levels of stress and frustration,
which lowers immunity and can leave you prone to illness and depression.
Those who strive for perfection in their professional lives often have little time left to care for themselves, which can be a fatal mistake. And that is something you should know.
This segment is going to be so helpful and so practical for just about everyone.
Because every day of your life, you likely write something for someone else to read.
Texts, emails, memos, letters, reports.
And I also suspect that you have sometimes been frustrated that you didn't get a response,
or you didn't get the response you'd hoped for, or there was some other disconnect.
It's easy to blame the intended reader.
Why didn't they respond? Or they missed my whole point.
Or they obviously didn't understand what I said.
But what you write is often not what the reader reads,
if he or she reads it at all. You see, it turns out people don't read as much as they skim.
You probably do too. Interestingly, there's been quite a bit of research on what people read,
how they read it, when they stop reading it, and how they decide to respond, if at all.
Here to explain and offer some great ideas and a great tool that will make your writing stronger is Todd Rogers. Todd is a behavioral scientist who studies how to better communicate with families, students, consumers, employees, and voters.
He's a professor at Harvard and author of the book, Writing for Busy Readers, Communicate More Effectively in the Real World.
Hi, Todd. Welcome to Something You Should Know.
Hi, Mike. Thanks for having me.
Don't you think, especially with writing, I think this is true too with spoken word
communication as well, but when you're writing, because there's no facial expressions and there's no inflection
in your voice to interpret that what you write is very often not what people read.
Right. I think that that actually, I mean, we'll get into this, but that is pretty central to the
argument we're making is that we need to take it as writers, that it's always our fault.
If the reader does not read it and the reader does not respond, it's not, it was complete.
It was well-written. You should have read it. The reality is everyone is skimming.
So we need to write to accommodate the way they read. And if they don't get it,
then it's on us, not on them. So explain what you mean by people are skimming.
Because when I write something, I don't think that way.
I don't think the person who's going to read this is probably not going to read all of this,
that they're going to skim it.
So how do people skim it?
The way we talk about it is that everyone is taught how to write well,
but that's not the same thing as writing effectively.
And writing well is if someone is reading it, maybe your history, maybe your English teacher
in high school is reading it sentence by sentence, flowing all the way down linearly,
reading everything. It might be beautiful and persuasive and eloquent and complete,
but that's not how anybody reads in the real world, which is we are busy and
our goal is to move on as quickly as possible. And so it just suggests that we need to write a
little differently when we're writing practically. We're not writing poetry. We're not writing
beautiful, persuasive essays. We're writing practical things to people. And the reality is
they read differently than our English teacher did.
So in your work with people, when you put a piece of paper in front of somebody, that's an email message or a letter, how do they typically scan it? How do they read it?
If they're not reading it, like my English teacher used to read it, then how are they reading it?
The research that is most interesting on that topic is eye tracking research, where you
put something in front of someone and you watch where their eyes go. And that research shows that
there are basically three ways that people read. They closely read, which is sentence, word by
word, sentence by sentence, top to bottom. And we do that when we're really interested in exactly that content.
But the other is we skim, which is we jump around,
but trying to get the gist of a sentence or a paragraph, but we try.
The other, which I think we just need to organize our writing around, is scan,
which is we open it and we look, dart all around, what's in here?
What's this about?
Do I need to pay attention right now, or can I move on? And that is just really looking for headings or orienting or trying to figure out if there's some key piece of information with no intention of really closely reading it.
And it's really cool watching the eye tracking where you can see where people dart around.
People, they jump in and out of different kinds of reading within the same text
because when they're really into it, they read closely, but then they pop back out and then they scan.
Yeah, that sounds right.
That yeah, that sounds exactly how I read.
And how good are we at it?
Are we typically do we usually get the gist by doing that procedure or are we usually missing the boat or what does it depend on?
Yeah, I don't know if that's the way that we would think about it, whether they're good or bad at it.
These are just three ways.
This is just how people read.
And the reason we do it is because it's adaptive.
We have a flood of things calling for our attention and there is no way to deal with all of them.
So we go through our queue queue one item after the next and the goal is very often to just move on even if i don't really get what's being said so i i'll do this when i teach where i'll have people
raise their hands and say um have you ever received a text message where you look at it and you're i can't deal with that right now and everybody has their hands up and then i say have you ever received a text message where you look at it and you're like i can't deal with
that right now and everybody has their hands up and then i say have you ever not gotten back to it
and everybody's hand stays up even text messages jessica and i have run these randomized
experiments where one group gets message a one group gets message b and we'll just remove a
sentence from a three sentence text message and we'll still increase a sentence from a three-sentence text message. We'll still increase response rates in a text message by making it one sentence shorter.
In every modality, people are trying to move as fast as they can.
As writers, we're trying to be complete and comprehensive, but there are tradeoffs.
The more complete we are, the more it looks like a beautifully written essay,
the less likely someone is to read, understand, and respond to it. And so what Jessica and I have done is conducted
dozens of these large randomized experiments, borrowed from dozens of others, and distilled
it into a handful of principles. And it's mostly inspired by working with managers,
leaders of public and private organizations, where they have been asking us, how should I write this
to my busy stakeholders, whether it's parents or voters or employees or customers? How do I make
it more likely they're going to read and respond? And it sounds like what you're saying is shorter
is better. It's one of the principles. Less is more is one of the six principles, but yeah.
But at some point, it's too less. It's too little, it's not enough. Yes.
It's, it's trade-offs all the way down. The optimal message is not one word.
That's right. But what you need to know is that the more you add, the less likely someone is to
read and respond. And so there's just trade-offs. The more you add, the more likely someone is who
reads it to get the additional information, but also the less likely anyone is to read it at all. And so we've done these really fun experiments where we'll take someone's
message. I did one with one of the large federal political committees in the US where they have
700,000 donors and they wrote their fundraising appeal. And I arbitrarily deleted every other paragraph.
So independent people read it and think it's incoherent
and still increase donation by 16%.
Another version will write to journalists
and with an organization we partner with
that has all these journalist members, 50,000 of them.
And half of them, these journalists who run this organization
wrote their
newsletter asking people to do something. The other half, I just said, you have 30 minutes
to cut it in half. You edit it yourself, cut it in half, even though you think you're done,
cut it in half. And they do that and they do the A, B tests and more than double the number of
their users who end up using the content by cutting it in half,
even though they thought they were done. It's so counterintuitive what you're saying,
because I think the inclination is when you want to get somebody to really understand what you're
trying to say, you explain and explain and explain. And the more you explain,
the more you're losing your reader. The problem is everyone's busy. We want to make it as easy
as possible for them to get the key information and allow them to move on because they're going
to move on whether we invite it or not. And so I do, when we talk about this, less is more,
there's a famous quote attributed to everyone from Einstein to Blaise Pascal and Mark Twain
saying, uh, I'm sorry sorry this letter is so long.
I would have written a shorter one if I'd had more time. And it was a published letter. And
what I love about that, it says two things. One, it takes time to say less. It takes more time to
say less. And two, it's kinder to write less. If you can say the same thing in fewer words, you're saving people
time. In addition to being more effective, it's also just kinder. So what do you mean by make
reading easy? One fact that is pretty jarring, but worth sitting with, and I know that we're
not very often communicating to the mass public, but it's worth just underscoring, 50% of US adults read at a
ninth grade reading level or lower. And that means that they struggle to read something written
in a 10th grade or higher. Just to humor that, that means unfamiliar words, long sentences
end up being inaccessible in addition to just deterring people from reading it.
It's also inaccessible to a large fraction.
So make reading easy just means make it easy for people to read one word to the next if they care to quickly and swiftly and not adding unnecessary like language complexity.
We're talking about how to be a more effective writer.
My guest is Todd Rogers.
He is author of the book Writing for Busy Readers.
Communicate
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Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. So Todd, often when you read things written by, say, an academic or someone in a particular
industry, there's a lot of jargon and big words, and it seems like littler words would
do.
And I always wonder, well, why use the big word if it's not necessary?
Why use a $5 word when a 50 cent word will do?
There are a couple of reasons why I think people do this. One, they mistakenly think that it makes
others think that they sound more intelligent. And there has been some research that I don't
think is universally true, but I think is provocative, showing that among college
students, if they read an essay where they're
unnecessarily complex verbiage, and I use verbiage as an unnecessary word,
people think the writer is less intelligent than if they write in direct, clear words that are not
unnecessarily complicated. That's one. So they try to present in a certain way and you need to write for the way your
audience expects. So for academics,
reviewers expect you to sound in some ways.
I don't want to disparage my colleagues here.
I have a colleague who,
who got a review back from a journal once saying it needs to sound more formal.
And what they're really saying is it just needs to be less accessible.
And I think that that is a way of protecting the expertise.
The illusion of expertise is using language that is exclusionary.
That's one.
One reason they might do that is that.
The other more fun, interesting reason is a complete failure
to perspective take and so there's a famous study that i love uh where i ask you actually you can do
it in front of the microphone to tap out happy birthday the song happy birthday don't sing it
but tap it out if you want you can go for it or I'm happy to do it on my mic. Yeah, go ahead. All right.
So once they tap it out, they're then asked, what percent of listeners do you think will know that the song
you just tapped out is happy birthday? And they're like, oh, everybody's going to know. It's totally
obvious that that's happy birthday, that 90 plus percent. And then they have a group of listeners
listen to this song and they have a bunch of songs, but happy birthday is one of them where
they listen to the tapped out version. And they're like, what song was that? And it's like basically nobody, no better than Chance. People can't tell. And that is this really funny
illustration of, it's really hard to imagine not knowing what we know. And so I think one reason
people add complexity and use jargon is because this is how they talk and they're really struggling to take the perspective
of the reader. And that is really central. If you take the perspective of the reader,
you know that they probably don't understand some of the jargon, but also they're busy,
they're skimming, they don't care as much as you do about your writing.
And so they're going to move on whether they understand it or not.
It does seem that what you write and how much you write
depends on the medium in which you're writing.
For example, a text is going to be shorter than an email, most likely,
which is going to be shorter than a big long letter,
which is going to be shorter than a report or a memo or whatever,
that the medium matters.
I mean, you wrote a book, and so it's a big, long book.
People often joke, why would you write a long book about the need to write fewer words?
Yeah, well, that's a good question.
Yeah. And obviously, one, that's one of six principles. But two,
people expect a book to look like a book. And so we can't write a one pager.
In the same way, people expect academic papers to look like academic papers.
They expect a New Yorker article to look like a New Yorker article and a podcast to sound
like a podcast.
And so you've got to conform to what your reader expects.
That said, you can make it easier for your reader.
And if you do, they reward you by being more likely to read and respond.
One of the, I love your principle about design for easy navigation, because I think I've always
been fascinated by how you can look at something with words on a page and it pulls you in without
knowing what the words say. There's something very
inviting about it. And then there are other things you see that are so, I wouldn't even know where to
begin this. I have no interest in reading this. And it's all about the design. I would not, again,
if we go back to your English teacher in high school, you were taught how to write sentences, paragraphs, and essays.
There's no element to that that is necessarily designed because you're taught to write to people
who are reading it as opposed to people who are skimming it. People who are skimming it
jump around. When you think of it as a designed object, you want to make it easy that you guide
them through the writing. You make it easier for them to figure out object. You want to make it easy that you guide them through the writing, and you make it easier
for them to figure out where do they want to dive in and where do they want to pop out.
So we ran an experiment with an organization where they wrote a six-paragraph note.
And in one condition, they had no headings.
The other condition, they had headings every two paragraphs.
Just the heading is just sort of orienting what are the next two paragraphs about.
And we found that it more than doubled the likelihood that people read and acted past
the second paragraph. And the idea is totally intuitive. Busy people are looking at it. I'm
not even sure what this is about. They read the first sentence. I'm not going to read it.
Versus if there's headings, it's like, well, I'm at least going to scan what else is in here.
One way you can structure it is designed for navigation is
moving the inessential but useful content that you're unwilling to cut. And I would push,
maybe you should cut it. But if you're unwilling to cut it, moving it to somewhere that is less
central. So it's not a distraction. In emails, for example, it could be under the sign off.
In my lab, we have a rule that no email can be more than four sentences.
And what that means is I'll say, hey, Michael, it was good talking to you, first sentence.
You asked me about topic X, second sentence. Below, you see details on this.
And the last sentence, if you have any questions, let me know. Or I wonder what
you think of the third point. Todd, you get that or attached. There's no way you can miss what the
point of this thing is, as opposed to if it was all embedded in a four paragraph or six paragraph,
thank you for having me on your podcast. You would just say it's possible you'd never get to it.
You'd just be like, well, another long thank you note, which I'm sure you get lots of. And hey, Michael,
thank you for having me on your podcast. And the idea is you want to make it easy. And so you can
move it off. Secondary content, it can be attached or in a report. It can be in a footnote.
You say that one of your principles is you really have to make people care about what you're writing
about so they'll read it.
And when I saw that, I thought, well, that's like the job of the subject line in an email
or maybe the first sentence in a text or something that you grab people right away and get them to care.
Yes.
Here's a concrete example.
Rock the Vote is a youth civic engagement organization they uh they send
volunteers to concerts to register young people they go to grocery stores to register young people
their goal is to register young people to vote and they were recruiting volunteers and in one group
they sent uh they wrote their whole message and they the to them the goal is volunteer to register voters
super clear to them that's their goal as a writer and that was the subject line in the other
condition they change they have the same content but they change the subject line to go to concerts
for free which is what of the content they wrote they thought the reader might care most about
right it's all the same like Go to concerts and register voters.
In the subject line, they drew attention to what they thought the reader would care about.
It led to a four times increase in volunteer recruitment when they changed the subject from what they care about to what they think the reader might care about.
Writing, it seems to me, is like everything else.
If you want to get better at it, you got to do it. The more you write, the better you write.
One way to write more effectively is to practice, and it's hard to do it without getting feedback.
So one of the things that we have done on our website is we trained GPT-4, the large language
model by OpenAI, on the principles of writing for busy readers.
And then we tuned it for pre-post emails. So we have a tool at www.writingforbusyreaders.com
that I hope we can put in the show notes, where you can paste an email and it will rewrite it
according to the principles and just show you. It's like a 24-7 coach that'll show you what it might've looked like applying rewritten for busy readers.
And so I love it as a tool. Lots of people use it now for their actual emails. We have a
Chrome extension for it, but I like it as a teaching tool just to see quick, instant feedback.
It's not the final word, of course, like everything that these AIs generate, it's just a suggestion.
But it's nice to see the pre-post, how it might look to write using these principles
so that a busy reader is more likely to read and respond.
The reason I think what you have to say is so important is I don't think most people
peel apart the difference between good writing and effective writing.
And we try to write effectively, but we've got all those rules from English class in our head
that's kind of holding us back. And you're basically giving permission for people to know
you write what you want people to read. So they read it. I've been talking with Todd Rogers. He
is a behavioral scientist,
professor at Harvard, and author of the book Writing for Busy Readers, Communicate More
Effectively in the Real World. There is a link to that book in the show notes, as well as a link
to his website where he's got that AI tool that can help you be a better writer. Thanks, Todd.
Thanks for being here. Thanks, Mike. It's been really fun chatting with you.
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 guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests,
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There's so much for you in this podcast.
The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, 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,
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That's pretty cool.
And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson
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Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for.
Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts.
Who doesn't want to be a better person?
You hear that a lot. I'm trying to be a better person? You hear that a lot.
I'm trying to be a better person.
It's one reason people go to church, to be a better person.
What does it mean, though?
What does it mean to be a better person?
Is it to be virtuous?
To sacrifice more?
To do what exactly?
It's an interesting question, and one that Kate Hanley is here to discuss.
Kate is a writer and host of the How to Be a Better Person podcast
and author of a book called How to Be a Better Person.
Hi, Kate. Welcome to Something You Should Know.
Thanks so much for having me, Mike.
So from your perspective, what does it mean to be a better person?
And, you know, it's interesting that it seems like no matter how good you get, you can always be a better person? And, you know, it's interesting that it seems like no matter how good
you get, you can always be a better person. I've never heard anyone say, you know, I've been trying
to be a better person and this is far as I can go. I am as good as I can ever be.
Being a better person is not about being a perfect person or it's really, frankly,
not even about being a good person. It's just about maybe handling something a little bit better or approaching something a little bit more adeptly than you would have done in the past. And I think that's kind of exciting and freeing and just about growing and being along for the ride. So this topic is important to you. I assume, you know, you're trying to be a better
person, but you also kind of want to spread the word. So where does that come from? In 2016,
December 2016, I want to think back to that time we had just had a very contentious presidential
election and our country felt very divided. And I saw a poll from Marist University that said,
for the first time ever, the most popular New Year's resolution
was be a better person.
And I found so much hope in that finding.
Usually New Year's resolutions are about trying to fix yourself in some way,
like quit smoking or lose weight or get out of debt. And I thought this collective
longing to be better was hopeful. And it meant that maybe we recognized that we all had a role
to play and maybe where our country was in that moment. And also just we were ready to focus on
what we could do as individuals. And I was like, I really want to be part of that effort.
And it also helped me realize that after working on, you know,
all the stress reduction content for so long,
the whole point of being, of reducing your stress is not so that you can be calm.
It's so that you can be a better person.
You would get less reactive.
You become less judgmental.
So it seems like a really interesting confluence of what was going on in the country and also what my own studies and research and writing had led me to.
So when people would come to you, if people have ever done this, and said, well, okay, Kate, you know, I want to be a better person, but I don't know where,
you know, how does that start? Where do you begin? What does that look like?
I do work with people as a personal development coach and have done my coaching training. And
usually, you know, there is an area that you are sort of aware of. Maybe it's something that you're
not feeling that great about. Like maybe it's a fight that you just had with someone so it could be that there is again area of discomfort
within yourself about how you're handling things that's one option and it's very valid but another
option that's more fun is to think about like if i could wave my magic wand, this is a common approach in the coaching world. If I could
wave my magic wand and change one thing, one area of my life that I really wanted to feel better,
and that would make a big difference for me, what would it be? And so that's really where we start
because, you know, it's not like we're trying to achieve this cookie cutter ideal of a good person, right? It's better relative to you.
So let's start with what's feeling like it needs the most attention.
I would imagine that when people are thinking about being a better person, that big, grandiose ideas come to mind.
Like, I'm going to do this wonderful thing.
And that perhaps maybe starting smaller is better.
Yes, I love to talk about what I call quick hits.
You know, little things that you do during the day
that give you that zing of like,
but that really went well, and that really felt good,
and I think it made a positive difference in the world,
and it was so easy.
Because you do something little like that,
and you get that little
hit of energy and then you want to do more. And you also feel more confident in your ability to
make different choices. So one of my favorite things to have people just start to play with
is either look someone in the eye, which is a lot more powerful than you may ever expect,
or to let someone else go first. For myself, and I don't know about you, Mike, but I noticed that I
feel the most like a not great person when I am driving. There is something about road rage that
is super real. And all of a sudden you're questioning like, oh my God, am I a bad
person? So next time you come to a four-way stop and there's a moment of confusion, when everybody's
looking at each other like, are you going to go? Oh no, are you going to go? If you can just
wave someone through, maybe that person needs to take a left-hand turn and they're supposed to go
last, but there's a big line of cars behind you and you just say,
hey, why don't you go first and we'll just make things go better for everybody else.
They'll get a big smile. They'll give you a wave. You'll be like, oh, I feel so generous right now.
And then when you get home, you might be able to be in a better headspace to have a more
connected conversation with your partner. Well, isn't that always the truth that when you do something nice for somebody else, when you
extend your, you know, your best wishes to someone, have them do something
like what you just said, you always feel good. And yet somehow we don't do it more often.
I know, it's true. And I think that we think like, oh, I've got to make a meal for my friend
who is sick, or I've got to sign up to volunteer and devote two hours on my Saturday afternoon in
order to be able to do something that's going to have that kind of impact.
And that's why I really like quick hits because how long does it take for you to let someone else go first at the four-way stop or at the intersection? It takes like five seconds and it
gives like such a big boost that is much greater than the amount of time that it took. So once you realize that the good
feelings are not necessarily parallel to the amount of time that you invest, then you start
to see a lot more possibilities and a lot, you want to start experimenting with what else is
possible. If I just, you know, slow down long enough to maybe look the person who's checking me out at the
grocery store in the eye and you have this moment of connection and shared humanity and just like
being present with someone else in the same moment. It can just send you back, both of you
back out into your day, just feeling a little more connected, a little more grounded, a little more
at ease, a little more hopeful about humanity
so what are some of your other favorite quick hits and then i've got some from from your book that
i'd like to ask you about but um but why don't you dive in and share some okay great well another
great quick hit is to listen to somebody else now that probably sounds obvious and like maybe that's
something that you do all day long but I think if you really were to pay attention
to what is going on in your head while someone else is talking you're probably
thinking about what you're going to say in response or maybe you're even
starting to think like oh was that my phone did it just vibrate maybe I need
to go check my text you know you're probably not actually really listening to them. And this is something
that happens multiple times during your day when you're talking to somebody else. It's
either an opportunity to like stay in your own head or get distracted or an opportunity
to be present in the moment and connect to someone else. So a quick hit when it comes to listening, if you're in face to face with that person,
you know, it can really help to actually look at their mouth and their lips moving
and help you stay rooted in that moment.
It's also really helpful to say something back to them that they said like, oh, yes,
that does sound stressful. You mentioned
that was stressful, that does sound stressful and lets them know that you're listening. And then all
of a sudden, it's really going to shift your dynamic. And you can really be surprised at
either the direction that the conversation can take or just how it's almost like a little bit
of a meditative moment and you leave the conversation feeling refreshed.
So listening better is always something that we can all work on.
Another one?
Another, yeah, another quick hit that I love to suggest that people try on is to always assume positive intent.
So let's go back to the driving analogy.
There's somebody in front of you who's driving really slowly. And you are just so annoyed because you are late for your doctor's appointment. And you
are imagining all these terrible scenarios. And you are just thinking like, could you please go
faster? What is the matter with you? You know, you're probably thinking like, oh, I don't know,
you're probably coming up with all these reasons why this person might be driving slow, like you might be questioning their cognitive abilities and maybe saying like,
oh, maybe it's time for their license to get taken away. Well, if you assume positive intent,
maybe you could say, oh, maybe it's a student driver who's just learning how to drive.
And I remember what it felt like to be a student driver and I wouldn't want somebody riding my
tail.
I'm going to ease up a little bit.
Or maybe if somebody's driving really recklessly and really fast
and kind of cruises through a stop sign,
and you could get mad at them and just think they're so reckless,
you could also think to yourself, like,
maybe they're trying to get their loved one to the hospital,
or maybe they just got a phone call that their wife is in labor.
You know, it's kind of a fun imaginative exercise,
but it also just completely changes the emotional response that you have in that situation.
And it extends grace to this other human being, which, you know, makes you feel like a better person.
Recognize when it's you you're mad at.
That I like because oftentimes that happens to be the truth and
we kind of pretend it's not. We're mad at somebody else when we're really mad at ourselves.
Yeah, I think this is, you know, so the example that I always use with this one is that when
you're running late, so I was talking about the person who's driving slow in front of you, maybe you're running late to your driver's, to your
doctor's appointment. And you're just taking it out on the driver in front of you because
they're driving slowly. And you're like, Oh, well, you're the whole reason that I'm running
late in the first place. But the truth is, is that you left probably 15 minutes later
than you should have. And if there's anybody really to be mad at in that situation it's yours it's yourself right because you didn't I
chronic run later and I'm married to an early bird so this is something that
comes up in my life quite a lot but the kind but it's human nature to want to
just dispel blame to not accept responsibility and be like oh well it's
not my fault it It's your fault.
But that is not really serving anybody. First of all, you're projecting all these bad feelings
onto someone who really doesn't deserve them. And second of all, you're not accepting your
own responsibility, which is a crucial part of being able to make changes. I mean, if you're
not ever admitting to yourself that the reason that you're annoyed
by the person who's driving slowly in front of you
is because you didn't allow enough time,
then you're never gonna change your behavior
in the future, you know?
So I think it's just really interesting
when you start to get hip to your own tricks
of how you are kind of pretending like your problems are really someone else's problems.
So you offer the advice of stop worrying about the people we love. And yet, you would think that
if you want to be a better person, you would worry more about the people you love. So reconcile that
for me. I know this is so hard to not worry about the people that you love and
you know you'll even hear people say I worry because I care but really when
you're worried about someone what you are doing is you are focusing on the
possible the possible worst-case outcomes and it's almost like you are
saying a prayer for those things to come true.
You're also making an assumption in your own mind that the person that you are worrying about isn't capable of figuring it out on their own.
You're not trusting them to face hardship and find their way out.
That is not to say that you don't care what your loved ones do and you wish them the best and you just keep moving on with your own life and don't support them in any way.
But the idea is that if you want to support someone you love who's going through something hard, first of all, if you say a prayer, say a prayer.
If you visualize, visualize for them finding their way and learning exactly what
that situation is there to teach them. And then when you talk to them and want to give them more
direct support, you say, listen, I understand this is hard. I know that you have what it takes to get
through this. And if there's some way that I can
support you, please know that I am here for you and all you have to do is ask.
So pick one of these quick strategies that you really like or other people tell you
is real effective that we haven't talked about yet.
Something that I love to do in situations, it could be with total strangers or in with loved
ones, you know, somebody does something or says something and it lands wrong with you. And you
are just like, what could this part person possibly be thinking? Is this because I blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, fill in the blanks. So a question that I think is so helpful to ask yourself whenever you are feeling offended
or put out by something that someone else has done is to say, what if this has nothing to do with me?
Something that we tend to do that kind of can lead us on a downward spiral is to take things
personally, right? It's human nature. We are the center of our own universes. And when
something happens, we think it has something to do with us. But if you can step outside that point
of view, just for a moment, just to question the very possibility that maybe it has nothing to do
with you, then all of a sudden you can start to see other possibilities. Like maybe this person
is just having a bad day. Maybe this person is upset about something that is completely different.
Maybe they just didn't sleep well.
Maybe I didn't sleep well.
Maybe I need to go take a nap, you know, as opposed to getting involved in this whole
emotional storm within yourself and then maybe even starting a fight with somebody else about
it or a difficult conversation.
One of your suggestions that really caught my attention was investigate your own disdain.
So can you explain that?
There's certain kinds of people that tend to drive us crazy.
For example, I used to be really convinced that rich people were jerks.
And I had some really good reasons for thinking that there
were some stuff. I mean, families are little laboratories, right? And there were some people
in my family who had more money than other people in my family. And the people in my family who
didn't have money would always have kinds of similar conversations about the people in my
family who did, right? So in my mind, as a little kid a little kid I was like oh it must be bad to have money it must mean that you become a jerk and
I wasn't it wasn't a very examined belief of mine but I would notice as an
adult that when I would drive to the grocery store and be looking for a
parking space and I would see someone whiz into the parking lot it driving
they're like fancy car and then get out of the car with their fancy bag
and their fancy sunglasses.
I would just be like, oh, that person is a jerk, right?
And the thing is, is that the people,
the kinds of types of people
that we kind of automatically classify
as someone that we don't like,
there's probably something about them
that A, either reminds us of something in ourselves that we don't like, there's probably something about them that A, either reminds us
of something in ourselves that we don't like in the coaching world, that's called you spot it,
you got it, or who represent something that we have labeled as bad. And because we've labeled
this thing as bad, then that person must be bad for having it. So in this instance, those people
had a lot of money, or at least they bought expensive things
and more expensive things to the grocery store.
So in my mind, I was like, oh, they have expensive things.
They must be rich, rich people are jerks.
I hate those people.
I mean, I'm oversimplifying here,
but there are going to be types of people
who just push your buttons time and again, whether
there's something, it's an individual or a group of people.
And it's really worth it to ask yourself very honestly and very frankly, like, what
is it about them?
And to try and like pick apart, like, is that thing about them that I am reacting to?
Is that something that I maybe wish I would let myself do or be, you know?
I mean, maybe some people, I'm coming from a woman's perspective who's married to a man who has two children.
And something that I've talked about a lot with my friends is like a lot of times women can just, it can drive them crazy how their husbands can have no problem like sitting and watching a football game on Sunday afternoons when moms feel like
they need to be doing the laundry and doing the cooking and everything but
maybe the moms are not really allowing themselves to have downtime I know
there's lots to be done but you know everybody needs downtime so but instead
of kind of examining like maybe I need to find a way to give myself some more downtime it's easier to just be like oh my
husband's such a jerk because he just sits and watches football for three
hours on Sundays so that is what I mean by investigate your disdain maybe
there's something in there that is point a hint for something that you could
either develop or make peace with within yourself and would lead to you
being a happier and more gracious you know fulfilled better person well as you say it's
not about being a perfect person it's about doing something better being kind doing something that
you might not otherwise have done and it makes the world a little better.
What could be wrong with that?
I've been talking with Kate Hanley.
She is a writer and she's host of the podcast, How to Be a Better Person and author of the book,
How to Be a Better Person.
There's a link to the podcast and the book in the show notes.
Appreciate it. Thank you for coming on, Kate.
Thanks a lot, Mike. I appreciate it.
Seems like there are two kinds of trick-or-treaters. Those who just go out, get some candy, and have a good time, and those who are on a mission. Whoever gets the most candy wins. If you're in that latter
group, here are some suggestions to help you get the most candy in the least amount of time.
Costumes matter. The better they are, the cuter they are, the more candy you will get. Speed.
Avoid getting behind little kids at the door. That can take a long
time. Look for decorations. The most festive
houses have the best candy. They go all out for Halloween.
And do a little homework on the old people in the neighborhood you're trick-or-treating at.
Because old people are either really generous or really not.
There's not much in between.
So do your homework.
And timing is everything.
People hand out the good stuff first.
The later it gets, the slimmer the pickings.
And that is something you
should know. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of Something You Should Know, and if so, I invite
you to share it with someone you know and ask them to give a listen. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for
listening today to Something You Should Know. Do you love Disney? Do you love Top Ten lists?
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.
The parks, the movies, the music, the food, the lore.
There is nothing we don't cover on our show.
We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney-themed games,
and fun facts you didn't know you needed.
I had Danielle and Megan record some answers
to seemingly meaningless questions.
I asked Danielle,
what insect song is typically higher pitched
in hotter temperatures
and lower pitched in cooler temperatures?
You got this.
No, I didn't.
Don't believe that.
About a witch coming true?
Well, I didn't either. Of course, I'm just a cicada. I didn't. Don't believe that. About a witch coming true? Well, I didn't either.
Of course, I'm just a cicada.
I'm crying.
I'm so sorry.
You win that one.
So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic,
check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts.
Contained herein are the heresies of red off punt wine 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 redolf
punt wine wherever podcasts are available