The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 274: Heidi Grant - How To Get People To Help You (Reinforcements)

Episode Date: September 9, 2018

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk #274: Heidi Grant - How To Get People To Help You (Reinforcements) The Learning Leader Show "It's not about being good.  It's about being better.  Be in a constant state of continuous improvement." Show Notes: Commonalities of sustaining excellence: "All management is change management" "What's made you successful in the past may not be the case in the future." "How can I learn to be a better leader?' "A constant state of continuous improvement" "You've never arrived." "It' not about being good.  It's about being better." "Focus on getting better, rather than being good." Growth mindset helps you find enjoyment in what you do "Focus on what you will do, not what you won't" Willpower -- Need to be specific.  Get to a level of specificiaty Make steady progress "Have realistic optimism. I will succeed, but it will be hard." How to define success? Intrinsic vs extrinsic goals: A connected-ness to other people Autonomy - Do what feels authentic Being effective - Inherently get satisfaction by "I'm making things by making things happen in the world" "Human beings are wired to to want to feel effective" -- It creates lasting happiness Balance - Fundamental things stand in our way.  "We all have issues with not being great at everything." Why don't we ask others for help when we need it?  The Milgrim subway experiement What does a helper need from you? Must ask and help the helper be successful Why we need to eliminate the phrase "Can I pick your brain?" Just say what you want.  Be direct. Send questions in advance.  Create opportunities for helpers to be effective "When you ask someone for help, you're giving them the opportunity to feel amazing" Reinforcements - Extra personnel sent to increase the strength of an army or similar force --> Something that makes a behavior more likely Why joining The Learning Leader Circle is a good idea Use the "Get To Know You Document" "When you ask someone for help, you're giving them the opportunity to feel amazing." Social Media: See why over 91,000 people follow Scott on Twitter: @profgalloway Read: The Four Connect with me on LinkedIn Join our Facebook Group: The Learning Leader Community To Follow Me on Twitter: @RyanHawk12 More Learning: Episode 078: Kat Cole – From Hooters Waitress To President of Cinnabon Episode 216: Jim Collins -- How To Go From Good To Great Episode 200: Keith Hawk & AJ Hawk -- Showing Up, Doing The Work, Earning Trust, Helping Others, Winning The Super Bowl, Celebrating #200 Episode 234: Jocko Willink -- Why Discipline Equals Freedom

That message bothers me because it actually, the research suggests that that kind of thinking actually leads people to fail. Because they don't prepare for reality. They don't expect there to be obstacles. And they don't make a plan for how they're going to achieve that reality. So it's just vastly more powerful to be a realistic optimist and say, I believe in myself, I believe I can make this happen. I see the reality of the fact that this is. is going to probably be challenging because most valuable goals are difficult to reach.

And I'm going to allow myself to have setbacks and I'm going to learn from them. And I'm going to plan for how to make this possible for myself. This episode is brought to by Gusto. Gusto is making payroll benefits in HR easy for small businesses. Modern technology does the heavy lifting so it's easy to get things right. PC MAG and fit small business have called Gusto

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Just go to gusto.com slash leader. That's g-us-t-o.com slash leader. Welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk. Thanks so much for being here. It is Mindful Monday. Text learners to 44222 in order to join thousands of of other fellow learning leaders from all over the world. Text learners to 44222. Now, on to tonight's

featured leader. It's with the great Dr. Heidi Grant. She's a social psychologist who researches, writes, and speaks about the science of motivation. In 2017, she was named one of thinkers 50 most influential management thinkers globally. She's a chief science officer for the Neuroleaders Institute at Columbia. Also, the best-selling author of multiple books. Her latest is titled Reinforcements, How to Get People to Help You. A few of the topics we got into. The two things specifically that successful people do differently. Then Heidi answers the question, how does one, or how should one define success? Then the keys to asking for help and how to make a mentor feel great about helping you. There's so much depth to this one. Ladies and gentlemen,

it's Dr. Heidi Grant. All right, Heidi, thank you so much for joining me here on The Learning Leader Show. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me, Ryan. I'm excited. As I told you before, I've been looking forward to talking to you because I've followed your work for quite some time. And so it's always neat when I get the chance to talk to somebody who's work I admire. And you're certainly one of those people. But I'm curious, Heidi, to get us rolling from the very beginning, you have spent a great portion of your time studying leaders who have sustained excellence, surrounding yourself by those types. You're a thinkers 50, right? It's one of the, very distinguishing award you won, right, as far as being named one of the 50 greatest

leadership thinkers of today, which is incredible. I've had a few, been lucky to talk to a few of the others on that list and you're certainly one of them. So you spent time around a lot of other leaders who have sustained excellence. And I'm curious from your perspective, what are some of the commonalities you found among those people? You know, I think that one of the things that, you know, for leadership and really for any part of life, one of the common characteristics you see is this idea of growth mindset. I've done a ton of research on and then you see it so often in in leaders. You know, in this day and age, really, I don't know who said it, but there's that running joke that, you know, all management is change management now, because it feels like we're

constantly leaders today in just about every industry are constantly in a state of some form of transformation. You know, now everybody's talking about digital transformation, but, you know, in five minutes, it'll be some other form of transformation that everyone is, is grappling with. And so what there is that sort of idea of, you know, what's making you very successful in the past or even today may not be the thing that you need tomorrow. And so in a way that mindset, that the idea that, you know, I think about what I do every day is a leader, not as I'm trying to prove myself and prove that I have what it takes and show everyone and demonstrate to myself. and others that I'm a capable leader. But really, I show up every day thinking, how can I learn to be a better leader? What new thing can I discover about myself?

What can I develop? What can I learn from other people? And you're constantly in that state of sort of continuous improvement and self-development and that you never lose that. I think that is in many ways the hallmark of a very successful person as well as a very successful leader is we don't ever think we've made it because you really never have because the circumstances are always going to change and we have to be agile and we have to be able to and you know it's when you hear so much talk about the importance of being agile and we don't

talk enough about the psychology of being agile what actually is everybody would like to be flexible and and be able to change and thrive through adversity. We'd all love that right. We'd all love to embrace our mistakes and learn from them and fail fast and all that stuff that you hear all the time. But there's a psychological piece to that, which is, you know, how exactly do I get my head in the right space to do all of those things? And the answer really is this idea of growth mindset that you believe not only that improvement is possible, but that you actually think that development is the purpose of what you do every day. And you continually bring yourself back to that. I have this thing that I do to reorient myself when I have,

you know, some sort of failure or setback experience where I say to myself, you know, it's not about being good, it's about getting better. It's literally this mantra that I just repeat to myself. And it's just to reorient my thinking. It's about getting better. It's about every day trying to be better than you were the day before. And I think, I think great leaders who sustain great leadership over time have that quality. Made me think of JJ Redick. He plays in the NBA. And for the 76ers, he gives this talk where he's speaking typically with college

age kids who are the top recruits. And a lot of them, even at times he said, have got this tattooed on their body that says, arrived. And he says, you've never arrived. You're always becoming no matter what. And I love that. And also, I was just this moment. morning, Heidi, listening to a podcast about Nick Saban. He's the head coach at Alabama, and Nick Saban

famously had, he won a nationals. He's won, I believe five or six of them now. But at the time, after one of them that he had won, his team, he basically said, look, let's celebrate tonight, enjoy it. And then they immediately got back to work two days after they won the national championship, meaning he said it's, it's, and I do believe we got to, we got to celebrate. right, and we have to at times be introspective and reflect, but he's always focused then on what was next. And it made me a lot, remind me a lot. So you wrote another book titled, there's a couple books we're going to talk about, but one

of them is nine things successful people do differently. And there's a couple there I want to focus on. One of them, based on your answer, is top of mine now. I think it's number nine. Focus on what you will do, not what you won't. And then also number five, which is focus on getting better rather than on being good, which is what you just said. You know, and that focusing on, it's really interesting because, you know, you think about

when you talk to people about these ideas and you say, well, you know, you enjoy definitely the sense of accomplishment that you have, but the next day get right back to it. And it sounds exhausting. But the truth is, you know, there's 30 plus years of research now on this difference between what they call growth and fixed mindsets, right? So thinking you've arrived versus thinking it's really about getting better all the time. And the research is really clear that not only does it make you a better performer to focus on growth, but you actually are able to find what you do more interesting and engaging and enjoyable when you have that focus.

So people in fact, when they kind of adopt this way of thinking, they find that it isn't exhausting. It's actually really energizing to have that kind of approach. And that last one that you talked about is really important. I spent years and years, you know, my background is an experimental psychologist. I spent years and years as a researcher and really looking at habits, the habits that lead people to be successful in how to replace bad habits with good habits was a major focus of the research I did. And one of the common mistakes we make when we try to change something about ourselves,

and there's lots of them we make. You know, we assume that we can kind of do it overnight. That's not how it works. Habits take time to form, they take time to break. So, you know, we know that you can adopt a new habit with, if you repeat something enough times, it gets easier, it gets more automatic, it becomes more natural. But it does take time. Another common mistake people make is they just say, you know, this thing that I do that I don't want to do anymore, I'm going to just stop doing it. And turns out brains don't really work that way.

It's very, very difficult to just say, you know, I do this thing now. I'm going to not do it. I have a tendency to procrastinate. I'm going to not procrastinate anymore, right? Or I have a tendency to respond with a lot of emotion when someone gives me negative feedback. I'm going to not do that anymore. And it turns out that just doesn't work. We fail when we do that.

So it really does become, you know, the good strategy, the one that works, is what are you going to do instead? Right. So instead of saying, I'm just not going to have an emotional reaction. That's not going to work. Instead, say, well, you know, what am I going to say to myself instead? What am I going to do instead to help me manage my reaction more effectively? Or it's not, you know, I'm not going to procrastinate anymore.

If, you know, when I get a task, I'm going to do something small. I'm going to make some small step in the direction of accomplishing the task, right? So you're saying what am I actually going to do, not what am I going to stop doing? And it turns out brains just naturally are more effective at replacing bad behavior than they are at just stopping a bad behavior. behavior cold. So I think that there's a lot of things in that book that are really these small, these little mistakes we make. We, uh, sometimes we blame willpower and willpower is important, but we blame willpower more than we should. You know, a lot of times we just sort of assume that

if I haven't reached a goal, it's because I didn't want it enough. That turns out to usually not be the case. Uh, I didn't reach a goal because I just didn't have the willpower to do the right thing. That turns out to be a problem sometimes, but not nearly as often as we think. A lot of times actually failure to reach a goal boils down to not getting specific enough about exactly what you're going to do. So we tend to think real big picture. My favorite example of this is weight loss. People are going to lose weight and they say, you know what I'm going to do?

I'm going to eat less and I'm going to exercise more. And what does that mean? Eat less of what? And how much less is less? And, you know, what does exercise more mean? We tend to think big picture. We don't get down to that level of these are the specific actions I'm going to take. And when you do that, you are vastly more successful.

And also when you think about exactly when and where you're going to take those actions. So I love to always say to people, you know, raise your hands, if you've ever said, I meant to work out today, but I didn't have time. And like everyone raises their hand because it's sort of universal. And the truth is you had time. You just chose to do something else with it. And so, you know, a lot of times reaching goals and being, you know, especially those stubborn goals that you've been trying to reach for a while and you haven't tends to be you're making certain mistakes you don't realize you're making. And if we get really specific about exactly what we're going to do and when and where we're going to do it, and we really approach that with this sort of development mindset that is, you know, I'm not going to do this perfectly. I may have to change tactics. I may, this may be harder than I realize right now it's going to be. But I'm going to just keep. focusing on getting better and making progress and improving rather than doing everything perfectly,

that combination is really, really powerful for helping people to be much more successful, especially at those sort of stubborn goals that have been alluding them. Yeah, it reminds me some of the, I talked to Ben Hardy about this, and James Clear, when you mentioned willpower in Ben's books titled Willpower Doesn't Work, Willpower Won't Work, Something Along those lines. And basically, both those guys talk about. about creating the environment to give yourself better odds to be successful. Meaning, I know personally you talk about diet. I'm usually pretty disciplined about this on just

about every day. However, if there are certain types of sweets that are right in my eyesight in my house, the odds of me staying on a perfectly clean diet dramatically go down than if they just aren't in the house. So that's a very simple thing as far as, and that can relate to to any aspect of your life when it comes to creating the environment for your for for you as ben would say willpower. I know it's kind of an over the top title, but I get what he's saying. Meaning create a better environment for yourself to accomplish your goals and make them these these little micro actions, right, Heidi? It's not about like you said, you got to you got to design this with some specificity. And for me, I just like this podcast, I think people are surprised

like, how do you do it consistently every week? And for me, it's just consistently seeking out very bright people like yourself on a regular basis day after day after day and never really stopping and as you said having joy or getting joy out of the process of saying i get to talk to Heidi grant it took me a while to get there but here we are you know what i mean i think those are the types of that that that that's what i think is the fuel to kind of keep you going on a consistent basis and you do have that sense of making steady progress if you keep at something it really is a It's a shift that when people make it, they find it to be a very rewarding shift to make. And I absolutely agree, you know, the idea that we sometimes make it so much harder for ourselves,

that we sort of assume, you know, well, there's this great study that show, you know, that people can sometimes think, okay, I've got, I have this idea. I'm going to be different, right? And so I'm going to just, and that's going to come to me relatively easily. And, and so we put ourselves in harm's way. You know, we make it more difficult. And I think, you know, New Year's resolutions are the greatest example of this because there's a reason we constantly fail. It's because we kind of go into them going to go into it's a new year.

I'm going to somehow become a new person, which is actually totally not going to happen, right? It's going to be hard. There was this really interesting study that looked at people in a weight loss program, and they were significantly overweight and really needed to lose weight for health reasons. And, you know, there's that classic thing about optimism, right, where it is, of course, important to both. believe that you can succeed. And when they looked at the people who thought they were going to be successful and the people who thought they probably wouldn't be, that did was, I mean, significantly predicted a difference in how successful they were, right? So the people who believed they could succeed lost more weight. But then they looked at among the people who believe

they could succeed, whether they thought they would succeed easily or whether they thought they would succeed, but it would be very hard. And they would have to take precautions, right? They would have to go out of their way to do things like manage their environment for temptations and things like that. And the people who thought they would succeed, but it was going to be hard, lost far more weight than the people who thought they would succeed, but it would be easy. And again, that's this thing. I talk about that in that book too, there's idea of realistic optimism that, yes, absolutely, you should believe in yourself, you should believe in your ability to reach the goal, you should have faith in that, but you should also embrace the fact that there

will be obstacles, there will be challenges, it will be hard. And that combination of, I'm going to succeed, but it's not going to be a walk in the park, is actually highly predictive of success. There's this whole thing around. And, you know, if people have vision boards, that's fine. But there is this thing where sometimes people think like a vision board becomes this magical entity, where if I just imagine, and there's certain famous books that I won't mention by name, but, you know, that sort of give people this idea that if they imagine themselves, in this successful future, that that's somehow going to manifest itself, right? And I think that that, as a scientist, that message bothers me because it actually, the research

suggests that that kind of thinking actually leads people to fail, because they don't prepare for reality. They don't expect there to be obstacles, and they don't make a plan for how they're going to achieve that reality. So it's just vastly more powerful to be a realistic optimist and say, I believe in myself, I believe I can make this happen. I see the reality of the fact that this is going to probably be challenging because most valuable goals are difficult to reach. And I'm going to allow myself to have setbacks and I'm going to learn from them. And I'm going to plan for how to make this possible for myself. And part of that, as you said, is sort of thinking about, you know, how can I remove some of the things from my environment that are going to derail me?

How can I anticipate what some of those things are? And that kind of attitude is the one that actually reliably leads to success. You mentioned the word success a number of times already in about 15 minutes or so. I'm not, this may be a little bit of left turn, but when I talk to really smart people, sometimes I like to get there because usually they're really, thoughtful about this. And so, and sometimes I struggle to answer this question myself, so that's maybe why I ask it. For you, Heidi, and maybe this is more personal or professional or both, because I think usually they can flow together. When you're thinking about it for you,

how do you define success? I ask this because we are the type to always be thinking about the next thing. At one point, you probably thought, oh, I want to be a bestselling author. And then you do it. And then you think, there's no way I'll get on that thinker's 50 list and then you do it. Or there's no way, I want to do this and then you do it. Is there ever, because we talk about you're always, we're always becoming like we never arrived. So how do you define success for you in your life? Oh, I think that's such a great question. I think my answer is goes along with the sort of research answer.

So I will have both hats on simultaneously. Okay. You know, there's a, there's a lot of, you know, reaching goals of any kind or there's a satisfaction that comes with having reached a goal. But there's, and, and, but the question is sort of, is that satisfaction fleeting or is it lasting? Like, does it actually sort of contribute to your overall well-being and your, your sense of how, of your satisfaction with your life and your, you know, your psychological and physical wholeness? Or is it sort of like, yay, that was great? and then it kind of goes away and you're on to the next thing. And what the research says and what I find to be true is that there is this difference

between the psychologists call it intrinsic and extrinsic goals. So intrinsic goals are goals that really are about a couple of different things. Connectedness to other people, like a sense of rich connections and relationships, a sense of autonomy, which is really like kind of being, not to be cliche, but sort of true to yourself or doing the things that feel authentic to you, right, that feel like they're a good fit for who you are. And a sense of feeling effective. And that can be effective at anything, right?

But we all get an inherent, it's just how human beings are wired. We inherently get a tremendous sense of satisfaction out of feeling like I'm making things happen in the world. When that can be a small scale, you know, it can be in my home. Literally, I'm effective at running my household and being a mom and being a partner. Or it can be big scale, you know, like I'm changing the world. But whatever it is, because it doesn't really matter what it is, whatever it is for you, feeling effective at that is really, really important. And actually, I talk about that a lot with leaders because one of the things I think we

overlook is we think a lot about how do we incentivize people, how do we reward them. but really what human beings are wired to want is to feel effective. And not to feel happy. That's one of these big things that there's a lot of confusion over. Happiness is great. But it isn't people's fundamental motivation. Effectiveness is really their fundamental motivation. Because if you think about it, we all do all kinds of things every day that don't make us happy.

But they do make us effective. And people are willing to do... Like what? Oh, you know, if you think about, you know, sitting down into your computer and doing most work. Most people would say that their experience they're having as they work on a project or as they sit in a meeting is not happiness. But it might be feeling very effective.

You know, you might be really banging it out. Like really really doing a great. Yes, in a sense of like I'm making a difference. The things I'm doing are having the effect that I want. And I'm making things happen in the world. And people make, you know, tremendous sacrifices. Professional athletes are another great. case. I mean, the work they do every day to be able to perform at their level is excruciating.

And so it's not about happiness, right, but they're incredibly effective. And so we all make choices like that. And I think those fundamental intrinsic motivators, so if your goals are around being a more effective person, being a more connected person, and being more authentically yourself, those are all going to create lasting happiness when you reach those goals. The extrinsic rewards. Like, you know, I mean, it's, it's amazing to be on the thinker's 50 list. I was super excited about it. But you don't just, you just don't keep thinking about it. I mean, it's not a thought. You know, most days I don't think about it at all, right? Because it's, it's an amazing. It's a wonderful accomplishment, but it's not the kind of thing that really sustains you.

And so the sort of when we're, when we're, our goals are really about impressing other people being, you know, rich, famous, and so on. They're all understandable goals to have. The reality is they don't actually predict lasting well-being. And I guess I think at the end of the day, a successful person is one who's figured out how to pursue goals in their lives that give them that sense of lasting well-being. And it's not that sometimes we don't have to also pursue the other goals. We all need to make money and things like that. So I'm not saying we don't do those too, but the successful person ultimately isn't the one who makes the most money or is the most famous. the successful person is the one who's figured out how to live for them.

You know, I watch these shows sometimes. I don't know if you, those shows about people in Alaska that live like in the middle of nowhere and don't talk to anyone for nine months out of the year. And it's amazing to see, you know, and I look at that person, I think, wow, that's a really successful person because they've actually figured out how they need to live to be authentic to themselves. And every day they get up and do things I would never want to do, like chop copious amounts of wood and like for worry about things.

bears. But that's them, right? And that's a successful person because they've actually figured out how to make their life about doing the things that make them feel effective and them feel authentic and them feel connected. And I think that's what we all strive to do is like figure out what those things are and then spend as much time as we can pursuing those sorts of goals. That's a successful life. Wow. Well done. Let's talk about your latest work, which I appreciate your team, send an over copy. It's, um, it's called reinforcements. How to, basically, I think I love the subtitle because it's so just to the point. Reinforcements, how to get people to help you. And there's, there's, um, it seems simple, but

there's so much more to this that that's why I would encourage people to, to, to, to read this. Because I found it to be, uh, quite helpful personally, because I, I just made me think at a a number of different points throughout the book. And I thought about Milgram's experiment, not the one that everybody has already heard of, but a different one that you've written about in the book, about the Subway Experience right now. I don't regularly ride a subway. However, I can still put myself in the shoes when I thought about this experiment. And for those who do who are listening, maybe you're commuting right now, actually, on a subway,

because I know people do that. This show is a big part of people's commutes from the emails I get. And one of those experiments was to simply ask somebody else for their seat. And so I'd love for you to expand on this Milgram experiment as well as some of the high-level overview of reinforcements. Then we'll dig down a little bit. Sure. So I'll tell you about the experiment. It was really interesting.

Back in the day, I mean, this is now probably about 50 years ago, when Stanley Milgram was a professor at Columbia University. And as you said, he's sort of more well known for his experiments on conformity that were very controversial and basically showing that people conform a lot more to authorities and do even things that they think are wrong than most of us, you know, were willing to believe. So Milgram was very interested. The experiment was born out of something his mother said. So his mother was visiting him and said that she had ridden the subway that day and was appalled that no one. stood up to give her their seat. So she's elderly, and she just assumed that some gentleman would stand up and give her their seat, and no one did.

And she was complaining to Milgram about this. And he said, well, Mother, why didn't you just ask someone for their seat? And she looked at him like he had seven heads. You know, that would be, you know, embarrassing. Why would I, I would never do that. I would never ask someone for their seat. And he was sort of interested suddenly in this idea of, you know, why is it that we don't do things like that?

Why don't we ask people for help when we want it? Why is that so embarrassing? So he did what professors would sometimes do back in the day and basically said, well, I'm going to send my grad students out into the world, and I'm going to have them do this insanely horrible thing, which is get on the subway and ask strangers for their seat and have them report back to me about how they feel, right? Because he wanted to sort of see, is this universal? Do we all feel like this?

And what's horrible about this is that they actually had to do it, even when there were empty seats on the train, they had to go up and ask them for their seats specifically. And what's interesting, there was a New York Times article that was written about this decades later that interviewed a lot of the grad students. And they said, most of them said that to this day, it's one of the most horrible experiences of their entire life. It just sort of scarred them permanently. They begged him to like let them stop doing this. And he said, no, no, no, you have to do it. So they all, they said it was absolutely appalling. I mean, most of them felt massively. humiliated, had huge anxiety attacks doing it. Finally, he was so sick of hearing about this. He said,

I don't really understand what the big deal is. I'm going to get on a train and do this myself. And he says, he tells the story that he sort of gets on the train, he sort of figures out the person that's going to ask for their seat. And he said, and he suddenly, the phrase he uses, which is great, he said, I felt as if I were going to perish. He turned, as the blood rushed out of his face, he felt like he was going to pass out. And he that in fact, actually, he so visibly looked shaken that the person jumped out of their seat and gave it to him because he looked like he was about to fall down. So he didn't ever actually ask them for the seat because he was suffering so greatly even just thinking about it. So, so I love that story because again, it sort of illustrates how how nicely this pain that we've all experienced as, you know, the embarrassment of asking for help. And I think most people don't get, and in this. is not just asking for help from strangers, but every day really when you think about it, if you have work with other people, you need to ask for help. You need to ask for support in

various ways in order to get your job done. When you ask people to be on your podcast, you know, that's a form of asking for support, right? You're asking someone to do something for you. And we all every day have to do this. We all have to ask other people to do things for us. and what I find, in general, I'm fascinated by those places where this science of psychology teaches us something that kind of collides with our intuitions. Most of us think that the reason we're not getting as much help as we need is that other people are, you know, mostly just jerks and they don't want to give it to us. And in the book, what I try to do is sort of begin by helping people to understand that

actually, there are a lot of reasons why people don't help you that have to do with the fact that they basically, your needs are not as obvious to other people as you think they are. And so in the book, I talk about what is a helper need from you in order to understand and be able to give you the help you need? Because a lot of it is actually under your control. I mean, you know, to put it bluntly, if you're not getting the help you need, chances are it's kind of your fault because you're not actually asking for it or you're not asking for it in a way that enables the other person to help you. And then the rest of the book I talk about how to, it turns out, by the way, that we tend to radically underestimate how helpful other people are.

Tons and tons of research on this, we tend to underestimate the odds by about half that we're going to get the help that we ask for. And that we, helping is actually very rewarding for other people. It's one of the most rewarding things that human being can do is help another person. But there's also a lot of things we do sometimes when we ask for help that kind of ruin it for the helper. In the book I call this, you know, you made it weird. And you kind of like undermine how satisfying it would have been for me to help you. So I guess the book is really about sort of busting through some of the myths we have about helping and giving people strategies that they can use to not only get more help more reliably from their colleagues. from their family members, from their friends,

from your whole network, but also make sure that you're asking for it in such a way that other people are really rewarded by helping you because then you have this sort of genuine potential for a win-win. And that potential is right there, and we just need to know what strategies to use to tap into it. For some reason, this makes me think of a comment my dad made to me many years ago.

I don't know how we're in this topic. I think we were talking about what color of suit to wear to a meeting. And he goes, I don't know. What color? What should I wear? And he goes, they're not thinking about what you wear. They're thinking about what they're wearing. And he didn't say that in a cynical way because he's the least cynical person I know.

He said it in a way of just a to the point that, and I think it relates to what you're saying, is that people, you write this, are not mind readers. No. You have to declare your, you're, request. So, and I really can appreciate this too when someone can just directly say, and this happens actually with podcast guests. Actually, David Berkowitz is one of them. I know you and Dave are friends. And I'm bringing up something else funny. He said before we, before we kick off. But basically, he's actually really good at this. And I, and it makes me better

at it too when, for example, I was talking about a literary agent with him this morning. And he's been very direct with me about certain questions about podcasting and other things. And I try to respond and help them. And so we have this kind of good back and forth. And it's not a quid pro quo relationship, but just kind of a natural dialogue, I think. And that's just one simple example. But I think just stating your intentions very clearly, like in this example, who is it? You know, do you like him or her?

You know, how do they help you? And then say, could you make an introduction? And he's like, sure, of course, you know. I told you that a while ago. You know, like that type of dialogue that it sounds simple, but it's just. He knows exactly what I'm asking for. And I've known exactly what he's asking for. And I think that alone is half or maybe more than half the battle.

Oh, it's so, and for so many reasons. I mean, it's such a great example. You know, we're all reticent to ask directly for help because we don't want to be rejected. And so it's just, you know, we would all love to live in a world where other people would just anticipate what our needs are and offer it freely. And that's just not reality. As you said, and as your father very cleverly observed, that for the most part, people are thinking about, and all of us do this, all of us. It's not about being selfish. We're just, our brains are wired to be thinking about our own goals, our own problems, our own world. And so we just simply don't notice when other people are in need. Even when we do notice, it doesn't actually mean that that person wants your help. If you've ever offered help to someone who didn't want it, you know what kind of reaction you get, right? People are like, can be a You know, no, of course I don't need your help. I'm doing it myself, right? And so, and so I don't even know that you want me to offer. So, so, so, so just needing help doesn't mean wanting help, first of all. And then I may not know exactly what form of help you need and that you specifically want it from me. Um, so there's all of these challenges that are solved when people just directly ask for what they want. And it's such a great example to, I'll tell you this, and I'm sure that this happens to you. When you're at all a public figure of any kind, you know, with, you have a podcast or you do, you know, write for different outlets, which is one of the things I do.

You know, people connect with you on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, all kinds of places. And they kind of feel like they know you. And they reach out to you for help, which is great, which is like something we all should do, right? We're networking. We're trying to, you know, build alliances. This is a good thing. Except they do this thing, and I know you get this. It drives me crazy.

Some people do. They say, I'd love to, you know, Heidi, I've read something you wrote, is really interesting. I'd love to get together and pick your brain. Oh, no. I'd love to chat or I'd love to connect, right? They use this very vague language. And here's the thing. They want something.

And they know what it is that they want. They're just not telling me what it is. And so what happens is I say no. And I'm not proud of this, by the way, because I like helping people. But what I really don't like is awkward interactions with strangers. And when I don't know what it is that you're going to ask from me, that makes me want to avoid having an interaction with you because I know you're going to ask for something. But I don't know if I'm going to, if I can give it, I don't know if I'm going to want to give it.

You know, so I'm, the people who reach out to me and want my help for something have a much higher success rate when they just come out and tell me what it is that they want. You know, I love an introduction to, I know that you know this person and I was wondering if you would introduce them. Or, you know, I know you work for this company and I'm interested in seeing whether or not there's positions at your company that are open right now. Just tell me what you want, you know, and then you can have a great interaction and I'm going to definitely try to help you because I find that very rewarding. But these vague requests, and then again, this comes down to how brains are wired. When human beings encounter uncertainty, it's aversive. We don't like not knowing what's going to happen.

And so if your appeal for help creates uncertainty in the mind of the helper, either they don't know what it is you want or they don't know whether or not they're going to be able to effectively help you, they're going to want to just get away from you and get away from the request, right? Because nobody wants to be put in that position. So I usually tell people, like, it's counterintuitive as it may seem, be direct. ask for exactly what you want. That's not, doesn't come across as bossy, that comes across, comes across as clear. And people love clarity.

And Heidi, we have to have a very brief intervention and we have to retire a phrase. And that is never, ever, ever, ever ask, can I pick your brain ever? Oh, isn't it? It sounds horrible. It's creepy. It sounds terrible. I don't know how it got created. I've written this, I've published this, I've said it many times.

And so that's why when someone writes an email, like I've listened to every show and I've watched and I read the stuff that you write and then they say that in the same email, they're lying to me. They're obviously lying because I put this out here all the time. There are so many better ways to ask for help. And like you said, I just had one recently of a college athlete and he asked very specific questions about, because I was a college athlete. athlete. I played football in college, and he's a baseball player, and he asked very specific questions about being an athlete in college. And I was excited to meet with him. I met, I even wrote notes beforehand. I was pumped because he has very, especially for a young person who's 19, 20 years old in college, because maybe somebody helped them how to ask. Maybe they read your book. I don't know,

but it was very specific along the lines of questions of that topic. And, he didn't say, hey, can I just pick your brain about a few things? He said, I want to know about these things with coaches and with teammates and about job opportunities and how to interview, like, really specific. And it did. It made me excited. And I think the other thing, too, when it comes to, because when you ask you for help, a lot of people are asking about mentors, Heidi. And I'm sure you mentor a lot of people. And I do this from time to time. directly, I just think being specific when it comes to mentors is a better way to go. For all my mentors, I always would send them and still do specific thoughts or questions

ahead of time, a lot of it, so they can be better prepared and we could have a more productive meeting instead of just being very vague. So I think if we were to make this, if we were to make this as concise as possible, it's just be direct, be specific in your ask of whatever it may be. and you'll be different for most people. And I think your mentor in this case, they'll look forward to talking to you. You know, and I think there's two things that are really important there

that you're hitting on. That one is, you know, again, from the point of view of the helper, the person who's actually going to be the mentor, the person who's actually giving of their time and energy. First of all, when you send them those questions in advance, what you're allowing them to do is be the most effective mentor they can be, the most effective helper they can be. that's what people want to be.

Nobody wants to give bad help. Nobody wants to be useless. And effectiveness is one of the things I talk about a lot in the book, that we need to create opportunities for our helpers to be as effective as possible and for them to also know that their help landed. People don't do enough kind of going back to that mentor. Follow up. And letting them know the effect that they had.

That's where the warm glow of helping really comes in for the helper, right? It's like, wow, I made a difference. That's an amazing feeling. And so setting up that helper for success is really important. But the other thing that it does, and I was a college professor for years, and I had, you know, undergraduates who had come into my office for, you know, as I was an advisor for their major and so on. And you have the people who come in and they are prepared. They have done all the legwork they possibly could do, but they have questions. And that's what I'm there for, right?

That is my job to sort of help them resolve those questions, help them get the information they tried to find but couldn't find or help them to, of resolve issues that they just, they're not sure how to resolve. And that person you love and is amazing to help. Then there's the person that comes in your office and says, yeah, so where do I go to find the stuff that they clearly should know how to find because, my gosh, we practically staple it to their forehead. And like that kind of help is not fun to give. Nobody wants to give help that they feel like you were just kind of too lazy to do for yourself. They want to give you the hope that you feel like you tried, you tried to do as much as you could for yourself, and now you need them to take you over the finish line. That's what's satisfying. So again, that other thing

about letting people know you're prepared, you've thought through your questions, you know exactly what they are, is they're going to feel like you did the legwork. You're not just asking me to do something you don't feel like doing for yourself. And that, again, is really important for the helper to feel like they're not being manipulated and taken advantage of. They're doing something that's really worthwhile. You brought this up, but about the helper or mentor being effective, as a mentor to people, that is a very good, rewarding, significant feeling for me. I'm sure it is for you, too, that when I feel like the advice I offered was useful,

was helpful, as you say, was effective. And so give them, give your helper the opportunity to be effective by being direct, by helping them be prepared. And then I've said this to a number of times. As the mentee, if you want to be different than most, follow up and also be very specific. Hey, Heidi, this is what I took from our time together. I learned this, this, and this. I'm going to implement this, this, and this based on what you said.

If I got anything wrong, you'd let me know. But thank you so much. This was great. Oh, and by the way, you probably help other people who have similar issues. Feel free to send my notes to them as well. So as Liz Weissman would say, you could be a multiplier in that case. Then you can add value to your mentor in a way that maybe they had not even thought about before. And I've done that too where you send a follow-up and you're very specific.

And sometimes I get things wrong, right? I don't take perfect notes. And they say, hey, actually your third bullet point, scratch that and make it this. Oh, okay, great. Then it kind of documented their beliefs if they hadn't done it before. And I know as a mentor, it's pretty cool sometimes to see your beliefs documented, even if you hadn't done it yet. So you're doing them a favor as well, and you could potentially help other people at the same time.

And that's just sort of gravy, right? Like I love the idea of helping people, like taking the experience that I've had and I've had to work hard to learn something and then thinking not only did I benefit from that, but I can actually pass that on in some way. That's, you know, this whole thing about helping. And then I try to kind of come back to again and again in the book, when you ask someone for help, you are creating an opportunity for them to, feel amazing. You know, we shouldn't feel like, you know, and this is one of the things I, you know, I mentioned earlier, we, we underestimate the odds that the odds that people will help us. And part of the reason we do that is it's sort of a failure of perspective taking. When we, when we think about asking for help, all we think about is how kind of arduous and effortful it's going to be for that person to help us. We tend to neglect the flip side, which is, by the way, it feels amazing to help under the right circumstances, right? Right. Again, when you can feel effective, when you feel like it's really worthwhile, when you see your help land, that is, there are very few experiences in life that make people feel better. I mean, honestly, hold a door open for a person who's struggling with like a baby carriage and you feel awesome, right? Yeah, yeah. We all love to help. It's built into, I mean, there are some very rare exceptions, but most people are just wired for this. So when you ask for help, it's important to think like, you know, I'm.

I'm creating an opportunity for this other person to feel amazing, but my responsibility in this is to set them up for success as a helper. And that's what clarity does and that's what the follow-up does. So that's the part you own as the person who's seeking help. You have to make it possible for them to feel amazing. Do those things and they will feel amazing. And chances are really good that they're going to help you. Why did you call this book Reinforcements? Oh, well, it's sort of a psychology joke.

because it has this double meaning. So reinforcements, you know, the sort of, when you think about it, kind of the military sense, right, calling for reinforcements is the sense of calling for helpers, calling for support. And the reality is there is no job, really, these days that anyone does, that doesn't involve some measure of requiring support from other people. You know, Dave Berkus talks a lot about, you know, the importance of networking and kind of really thinking about how to tap into networks a little bit differently. And I love his work. And we, but there's a lot, you know, everybody knows it's really important to have to build these

networks, right, of alliances. And, and yet what we spend maybe less time thinking about is, how do you tap into those networks of people that you have so carefully cultivated and actually get them to help you and support you? That's the additional step. And a lot of us struggle with that step. And so it's about like, how do I get those reinforcements, right? Those more support, more help in my life so I can be more effective, right? That's part of it. But the other sense of it is in psychology that when we talk about, you know, back to like the BF Skinner days when, you know, in rats in cages learning to press a bar

and they press the bar and they get a food pellet, that's a reinforcement, right? The technical definition of a reinforcement in psychology is something that makes a behavior more likely. And so I'm also in the book talking about that aspect of what are the reinforcement that helpers need in order to want to help you and to want to help you again and again, right? Because it's not just a one-time thing. It's not as simple as, there's lots of techniques to get like a stranger to help you, you know, on the subway, tell you, you know, to give you some piece of information or let you borrow their phone, you know, lots of things you could do, but that's not going to create a sustained relationship. Generally, what we want is to be able to

go to someone for support and to come back to them for support when we need it again and have that relationship like you were talking about you have with Dave Berkus where you're kind of both know that you can count on each other to help with different kinds of things. So it's about, you know, how do I as a helper create that kind of reinforcement, I'm sorry, as a help seeker, count, create that kind of reinforcement for the help giver. And that's that part of like owning your part in it, right? That you need to, you, it's your responsibility to make this rewarding for them if you, if you can. And really, it's usually well within our ability to do that.

Love it. Side note, why was I told to ask you about Jeff Goldblum? Oh, my goodness. Dave Birk had told you to ask you. Well, it's because he and I were friends on Facebook, like in our private Facebook accounts. And I have a little bit of a, I have a minor fascination with Jeff Goldblum. I just, you know, that man is such a delight. Why is that?

I just find him so weird. I honestly have this, and I have this strange affection for strange actors. So, you know, I just really love Jeff Goldblum and Danny DeVito and Christopher Walken. I like, like, there's a kind of like you see Jeff Goldblum in a movie, especially in the last like 20 years. You see Jeff Goldblum in a movie and you know what you're going to get. You know, you're going to basically get Jeff Goldblum. And it doesn't really matter what his character is called. It's a good point.

You're getting that guy. Yeah, that's a good point. It's just sort of strange and eccentric. and that's true of Christopher Walken and it's true of Danny DeVito. There's certain people that's just their eccentricities are just sort of delightful. And I think I'm just a kind of a fan of weird, weird things. What does that say about you? I, you know, I like to think that it suggests that I have high in, you know,

those big five, the big five personality factors, I'm high in openness to experience because I do love strange things. you handled it well. Thank you, Heidi. This is so cool. It was great to get this opportunity to talk to you. I really appreciate it. Where would you send my listeners to learn more about you online?

Oh, so my website is Heidi Grant PhD. com. And I'm also on Twitter, same handle, Heidi Grant PhD. And I'm on Facebook too. I think I use the same handle basically everywhere. But if you go to my website, if you're interested in, there's lots of free stuff to, read where I cross-post all the things that I put in HBR and Fast Company and different outlets

that I write for. So lots that you can read more about goals, about growth mindset, about helping and how to come across the way you intend to with other people. So all kinds of sort of tips from psychological science on how to be more effective in basically all parts of your life. Thanks again, Heidi. This was really great. and I would love to continue our dialogue as we both progress.

Oh, yes, please. I'd love to get back. Thanks, right. Thanks, Heidi. Okay. Wow, what an interesting conversation with Heidi. I found, I find this topic fascinating on how to specifically and directly ask for one's help and how to make your mentor slash helper more effective.

The keys of that I thought were really helpful. And also, can we permanently retire the phrase, can I pick your brain? If nothing else, let's get rid of that and think of a better question to ask when you need help. There's so many more that high and I discuss. So I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did. If you did, I would love it. If you would write a review, subscribe and rate the show in iTunes, Apple Podcasts, that's write a review, subscribe and rate it.

Hopefully five stars on iTunes Apple Podcast. has it really helps spread the message and continues to give me the opportunity to do this on a day-to-day basis. And I love it so much. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. I will see you next week. Can't wait. This episode is brought to you by Gusto. Gusto is making payroll benefits and HR easy for small businesses.

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You there? Yes. That was so much fun. Thank you. I could talk to you forever. Oh, cool. Thank you. So easy.

It's so nice. Because sometimes the, you know, and I appreciate being on anybody's show who asked me to be on it. But like the formulaic ones where you kind of know like, okay, I'm going to ask you this question. I'm going to ask you this question. They can kind of get boring because I end up seeing the same stuff over and over again. So this was just totally fun. I didn't know where we were going with anything. I didn't.

I didn't either. That's why it's kind of fun. I didn't know. It was like, oh, we're going to take left or right turn here. And if we do, then we got to be good. I got to be a good listener. And I, and you obviously, you make it very easy because you can tell. You can go anywhere.

And you also know your stuff, which is, it's weird to say, but it's not always the case. So, yeah. That was so much fun. You are really good at that. Thank you. You're such a good radio voice. I sort of, you know, you were born to it, clearly. Well, I appreciate it.