The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 456: Daniel Pink - How Looking Backwards Moves Us Forward (The Power Of Regret)

Episode Date: January 24, 2022

Read my new book, The Pursuit of Excellence https://bit.ly/excellencehawk Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12  https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 Text Hawk to 66866 for "Mindful Monday" Daniel H. Pink is the author of seven books, including the forthcoming The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward (Riverhead, 2022).  His other books include the New York Times bestsellers When and A Whole New Mind — as well as the #1 New York Times bestsellers Drive and To Sell is Human. Dan's books have won multiple awards, have been translated into 42 languages, and have sold millions of copies around the world. Notes: The truth: We regret inactions much more than actions.The lesson: Be bold. Take that chance. In a world full of talkers, be a doer. Have a bias for action. The 3 keys to a productive achiever: empathy/compassion, curiosity, doggedness (consistency). We overvalue intensity and undervalue consistency and doggedness. Continue to show up and do the work. The four core regrets: Foundation regrets - People want stability. (save money, plan for the future) Boldness regrets - "If only I'd taken that chance." People regret not taking the chance. Moral regrets Connection regrets The truth: We deeply regret not asserting ourselves. The lesson: Speak up. Optimizing Regret: Our goal should not be to always minimize regret. Our goal should be to optimize it. By combining the science of anticipated regret with the new deep structure of regret, we can refine our mental model.  "Regret makes me human. Regret makes me better. Regret gives me hope." This is a great exercise. Instead of a New Year's resolution, choose a single word to guide your 2022. After 2 years of upheaval, it can help you focus on the goals & changes most important to you. Dan's choice? Restore. The Dan Pink family acronym: HAHU - Hustle. Anticipate. Heads up. Big life decisions: Maximizers and satisficers Know when to maximize and when to satisfy. For low stakes decisions (the color of your car), you don't have to maximize Regret is part of the human condition. We all have regrets. Disclose it. Lift the burden. Someone that says they have "No Regrets" is either lying or they are a sociopath. Disclose lessons from your regrets. Ask yourself, "What did I learn from it?" Does everything happen for a reason? The lesson to be learned from it is understanding what we have control over and what we don't. Regret depends on storytelling. And that raises a question: In these stories, are we the creator or the character, the playwright or the performer? The answer is... YES. We are both. We are both the authors and the actors. We can shape the plot but not fully. We can toss aside the script but not always. We live at the intersection of free will and circumstance. "Our everyday lives consist of hundreds of decisions—some of them crucial to our well-being, many of them inconsequential. Understanding the difference can make all the difference. If we know what we truly regret, we know what we truly value. Regret— that maddening, perplexing, and undeniably real emotion—points the way to a life well-lived." Career/Life advice: Doggedness is important. Be a person of action. Be willing to try stuff. "We learn who we are in practice, not in theory." Doing something helps you figure it out.

It's a big week. My book, The Pursuit of Excellence, is now out. Years and years of writing and rewriting and cutting and editing and redrafting. And now it's out. The pursuit of excellence was written because I continued to receive the question from so many, which was, what have you found? to be the common behaviors of people who are sustaining excellence over an extended period of time. I imagine the reason that I'm asked that is because I ask it so often of others on my podcast, The Learning Leader Show, as well as in regular everyday life. I'm fascinated by that question. And so what I've tried to do in this book is take the best of the best of what I've learned

from asking that question so much. and combine that with some of the actions and the experiences within my own life, as well as some of the interviews I've done off the microphone, put it all together to make this book as useful, entertaining, and informative as possible. And my style that I try to follow throughout to make this a useful book is to use a story, science, practical application method. The story is there to be entertaining, to grab your attention to make it pleasurable. The science is to make it informative to prove those stories true. The research is accurate. And then the practical application answers a very important question, which is, So what?

Why should I care as the reader? And that is how you can apply it to your life. And so I would say, please, buy this book. I am very confident that you will find an idea or two that will change your life. And remember, Remeet Seity's book buying rule that he talked about on this podcast when he was my guest. He said, if you are even considering it for a millisecond, buy the book. Go to Amazon, click buy. If you get just one, one idea that changed your life, isn't that worth 20 or so dollars?

No, it's worth a lot more than that. So just the chance that you will find a life-changing idea makes it worth it. In addition to that, you were supporting an author who put their heart and soul and poured everything they had for a few years into this one artifact. So I would be eternally grateful. If you would go to Amazon or anywhere you buy books and click buy, buy the pursuit of excellence, I'm fairly certain you will find at least one idea that will change your life.

And I'm so grateful for your continued support. I'd love it if you would buy this book, The Pursuit of Excellence. All right, enough selling. Let's get on with the show. Welcome to the Learning Leadership. Show presented by Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here.

Text, Hawk to 666866 to become part of Mindful Monday. You along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world will receive a carefully curated email for me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right. you'll also receive the opportunity to read an excerpt of my book, The Pursuit of Excellence for free if you text Hawk to 666866. Now, on to tonight's feature leader, the legendary Daniel Pink, is back. New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including Drive to Sell as Human,

When, and its latest is called The Power of Regret. how looking backward moves us forward. Dan is one of the most prolific writers of our time. His books have won many awards and have been translated into 42 languages. He's also one of the kindest humans I've ever met. During this conversation we discussed, he received 17,000 responses to his world regret survey. He'll share the most surprising findings in how they're applicable

to your life. And then making big decisions, questions to ask yourself to help you make the most optimal choice each time. And then the one quality we overvalue in a leader and the one quality we undervalue in a leader. He shares how to be better at what matters most. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a great one. It's the legendary Dan Pink. All right, Dan, it's great to have you back. the Learning Leader Show. Welcome once again. Hey, Ryan, always good to be with you. So I was reading an article about you and I learned something kind of cool that I wanted to ask you about. You created a family acronym. I believe this started earlier in your family life, H-A-H-U. What's this family acronym all about? Wow, I didn't realize that you were going to do research in advance of this, right?

What do you mean? You've been here before. No, I know, I know. I'm just kidding you. So, no, that's, so that's an acronym, uh, ha-hoo, uh, that I used, uh, with our kids when they were little and we would travel because we tried to travel as much as we possibly could with our kids, but traveling with three little kids is, is, is difficult. So I tried to give them a mantra to live by when traveling. And, and they, those, those stand for hustle, anticipate heads up, H-A-H-U. hustle, anticipate, heads up.

So when you're going through an airport, you got to move, all right? Anticipate. You know, like, I always, like, my kids would somehow like be in an elevator, and the elevator would stop, and it would open, and it would be like, okay, I don't need, I shouldn't tell you what to do. You should anticipate that when you elevator open door, you get out. And then heads up, which is like there are a lot of people around, so be aware of your surroundings.

And so my family has mercifully, mercilessly made fun of, me for that, but I think that the message stuck. It's memorable. I was reading like acronyms and one liners like you're good. You're pretty good at those things, but it's really memorable. I bet your kids still remember this? They talk about it. Absolutely. And wow. The thing is like like even even now that you know my kids, I got two kids who just recently graduated from college and then another one who's a freshman in college, you know, even then I will say to them, ha, who really if we're going so. Oh, absolutely. What are you what are your kids into now? I mean, they're all doing their own cool, you know, they're all doing their own cool things.

I have three kids. Each of them is off doing very, very interesting things. I got one kid who's, you know, interested in doing some, a lot of pretty interesting research in, like, social science. I got another kid who's working in a hospital. I got another kid who's a freshman in college. So they're off doing their things. I don't tell them what to do with their lives, but I do tell them to hustle, anticipate, and be heads up all the time. Because I think that it is a valid and valuable life lesson. What's it like for them to have Dan Pink as their dad?

You'd have to ask them. What do you think, though? Do they make fun of you all the time? Or do they see the celebrity at times? Like, what's it like for them? Celebrity? What are you talking about? No, no, no, no, no.

No, they couldn't care. I don't know. You would, you would have to ask. You would have to ask them. I mean, my kids are lovely in the sense that, you know, like, I know that I know that they've read some of the stuff that I've written, and we've talked about it a little bit. But, you know, I think that they care a lot more about whether I'm around to talk to them about their stuff than anything that I'm working on.

And also whether, you know, the food that I'm grilling and the grill in the back comes out right. I love it. Well, the reason I'm starting with your family, Dan, is because one of the first things I like to do when I get a new book is go directly to the acknowledgments. I look at who are the last people that you think. I've written two acknowledgement sections and usually the last people. are probably the people you love the most. And I'm guessing in your life it is too because it's your kids

and then followed up by your wife, Jessica Lerner. And you thanked your wife, Jessica, quote, for everything. What does that mean to you? What does she mean to you? What's everything? I just, it's, there's a, there's a principle, I actually write about it in this new book called mental,

that you can find greater meaning in your life when you do what's called mental, subtraction of positive events. And so you imagine your life without something good happening. And for me, you know, I can't even imagine not being married to her. I just don't even know. I shudder sometimes just to think about what my life would have been like without her on every dimension, professionally, personally, our family.

So, you know, and also this is my seventh book. So, you know, I was sort of running out of things to say. So I just said everything. It's called the power of regret. And one of the cool things, I remember when you were doing the research for this because you were, you were not openly broadcasting it, but you wanted, you had, you needed to do some, basically a giant survey. And I believe you collected nearly 17,000 regrets from people in, in 105 countries worldwide. What was this process like to do the research for this book? It was both easier than I thought and more difficult than I thought. What was, here's what was easier. easier than I thought. I promoted this thing called the World Regret Survey,

basically with like one or two tweets and ended up getting like 15,000 within a very short amount of time. And so that ended up being easy. What surprised me was how much people wanted to share these regrets, how much they were willing, even eager to disclose. The hard part was going through all these regrets. I mean, I have a database of, as you say, of like 17,000 regrets.

And going through those was, took a lot of time. I tried to read every single, I tried to read every single one. And then going through and then trying to make sense of them was, was difficult. I guess I wasn't sure. I guess when I did it, I wasn't entirely, didn't entirely understand what I was setting myself up for. I mean, I'm totally glad that I did it. And I learned a lot from those 16,000 regrets. In fact, I think I learned as much from collecting those 16,000 regrets as I did from looking at the 50 years of science on regret, as well as doing a quantitative survey of the U.S. population.

Those 16,000 regrets ended up proving, revealing, and in some ways, uplifting. What were some of the biggest surprises that you found from your research? I think one of the biggest surprises if you look at those 16,000 regrets is that there's not that much variation. That over and over again, people around the world kept talking about the same poor regrets. And it took me a lot to figure that out because in many cases, the way that we've typically looked at regrets, we've examined them by the domain of life in which they exist. So I regret not working hard enough in school. Okay, that is a education regret. I regret starting to smoke.

That is a health regret. I regret not saving money. That's a financial regret. But what I found is that the surface domains didn't tell us nearly as much as this kind of deep structure domain. So if you think about the ones that I just mentioned, all of those are the same regret in my mind. All of those are regrets about being at a juncture and deciding should I do the work and be conscientious and plan for the future? should I not? And overwhelmingly, people regret not doing that. And so those are what I, that's one of the, one of the big, and it doesn't matter whether it's health or finance or education. What matters is that you've made a

choice that has, that's either going to give you a somewhat stable foundation or not. And, and so foundation regrets are one of the big four regrets that people have. And I think what it reveals these foundation regrets is that what, what do we want out of life? What we want out of life, What we want out of life, in part, is some stability. We don't want to have uncertainty and instability in our lives because it's hard for us to do other things if we're operating from a base of instability. Okay, you mentioned one of the four.

What are the other three? And I'm going to drill down on some of them because I've taken some notes. So what are the other three just to lay out the foundation? So foundation regrets are, if only I'd done the work. Yep. Boldness regrets are if only I'd taken the chance. And once again, we can think about these regrets at a juncture.

You can play it safe or take the chance. Play it safe or take the chance. And overwhelmingly, people regret not taking the chance. Sometimes they regret taking the chance, but not nearly as much as we think. And they often regret playing it safe. And this is true. Again, this is really important, Ryan. The domain of life doesn't matter.

It could be asking somebody out on a date. It could be starting a business. It could be going on cool travel. It's just that, you know, we're at this juncture and if we play it safe, we look back and say, if only I've taken that chance. And again, these four core regrets, this surprised me. These four core regrets, I think, reveals something fundamental about the human condition and what human beings need. We need that level of stability, but we also want to lead psychologically rich lives. We want to do something.

We want to learn and we want to grow, and that's pretty fundamental. So that's the second one. And let's drill on that before we get to the other two. Sure. Because actually, I think, I mean, completely different backgrounds, but we've both taken a chance at one point. So you are a speech writer for Al Gore at one point in your life. And you write an article and it was 1997, I believe. Is that right?

Free Age Nation, the article that you wrote? Yeah. I mean, I left the job at once, you know, to write and I wrote that article. Right. Okay. So you, but you leave this job where, whether you kept writing for him or you'd write for somebody else, once you kind of get in, I'm guessing you're good to go in that regard. Especially when you're writing for Al Gore, you're going to either stick with him or go with somebody else. And instead, you go off on your own path, which is, I feel like it's bold, right?

It's a bold choice that you have this probably comfortable, although I'm sure it has its stresses like any other job, but I'm sure you get salary and benefits and you have all of that versus this other path where you didn't. Can you take us back to that moment and what like were you thinking about regret in 1997 and what you would regret least or what? I don't think I was in 1997. I'm not sure whether I was like had enough mileage on me to even really think that clearly about regret at that point. But what I was thinking about was my day to day life. and what I realized is that I think it's like a lot of people. It's like we have to in some ways figure out who we are.

And, you know, for the first 30-something years of my life, I think we're always figuring out who we are. But in the first 30 years of my life, it's always sort of figuring out, you know, what is my purpose here? Who am I? What am I supposed to do here on this planet that I'm going to inhabit for a short amount of time? And you try different stuff. And I started working in politics because I was always interested in politics. And I kind of liked it. I mean, some of it was really interesting.

But what I eventually realized was that I didn't want to work in politics the rest of my life because even though that was a long time ago, I felt like the political system was just very corrosive. And I didn't want to spend my time in that kind of corrosive environment forever. And the other thing that I discovered is that over time, you know, I spent like, I don't know what, 15 years, quote unquote, writing on the side. That is, I was always writing articles and essays and columns and things on the side, almost like as a hobby. And it finally occurred to me that what I was doing on the side was what I should be doing in the center. And so I decided to take that chance. But, you know, like, again, I'm big for, I'm, I'm all about intelligent chances. So you mentioned

salary and benefits. Yeah, I gave up my salary and benefits, but my wife didn't give up her salary and benefits when I made that move because we wanted to be we wanted to be sensible for that. But I do think that that had I not made that choice, had I played it safe at that moment, I would have regretted it. So Dan, what I left my corporate job four and a half years ago. I first recorded with you in 2015, which was pretty cool. So I was, I had a full-time job when we first talked and I was a sales leader and things were going great, you know, the salary and the benefits, all that stuff.

And in 2017, the end of the year, that is one of the questions I asked myself was, and there were some things going on in a kind of corporate job that we won't get into all the tough parts that weren't that fun. But there was a thing I said was, what would I regret more? What would I regret more? If I looked back on it, would I regret going for it or would I regret not? And I feel like I would have regretted not going for it more. It's a question.

I love prompts and questions. Why your work's amazing. This book's awesome. I encourage people to get it because it's like how to use regret for good. But that was a question I asked myself. And it helps me make decisions. Were they still scared? Of course.

Nervous. Yes. The salary, all that. Yes. Very, very. But I also thought,

I know I can go get a job. Like if I have to, I know I can. My wife also worked and still does. And I think that was helpful to make that call. But I think that was, I think that was just a question that I, when people ask me about things, I, that's one of the prompts I use. There's a lot of them, but that's one of them.

What, like, is this an opportunity to grow? A good question. What would you regret more? What do you think about that line when people are at a crossroads to make a big, let's say, career decision? And maybe even though, like, there's so many romantic stories in your book about like the guy who doesn't get off the train. I forget this, Bruce, I think his name is, doesn't get off the train. And like, I have regret for Bruce right now. You know what?

I'm like, oh, no, he should have got off the train. You know, it's like, but when when people ask you for advice and people are thinking about these big decisions when it comes to regret and not regretting it, what do you, what do you say to them, especially now that you've done all this work? Yeah, I think I want to go back to the four core regrets there because I think that gives us, I think that gives us the guidance. You know, there is some interesting, very well-known research in social psychology. take social psychology in college, this will be in, you know, week four, your week four lecture

about the difference between what are called maximizers and satisfacers. So maximizers are maximizers are people who try to maximize every single decision that they make. I'm going to make the best decision in every single circumstance. And it seems, it makes, it makes sense, except that every drop of research tells us maximizers are miserable. And then there are people who are satisfacers who will suggest who just say, okay, I'm just gonna make the good enough decision. And I think that between those two extremes is the answer to your question.

That what we should be doing in thinking about our regrets is maximizing on what we know we are going to regret in the long term, which is building a stable foundation, taking a sensible risk, doing the right thing, and having and connecting with others. And everything else we should satisfy So I don't think people should be wasting their time saying, okay, I'm going to buy a car. Should I buy a blue car or a gray car?

Let me project five years into the future and look backward and see which one I'm going to regret more. It doesn't matter. Just satisfy us on that decision. Let's say you're taking a vacation. Should I go to, you know, you want to take a beach vacation? Should I go to this beach in Florida or that beach in Florida? Oh, let me go forward five years and look back. Who cares?

Just pick one. Just satisfies. But when it comes to the big things, am I building a stable foundation for my life? Am I taking a sensible risk? Am I connecting with others? Am I doing the right thing? Then I think that you maximize and use that device that you're talking about.

And for you and your situation, that was a quintessential example of being at a place where your decision is, should I play it safe or take the risk? And in that case, you did the right, you know, you did the right thing, even if it hadn't worked out for you as well as it has. Yeah, I think because one of the funny parts about this book is all the people who, who get tattooed on their body, no regrets or even spelling it wrong. And one girl did that on purpose, I think, right from what I read. And as like a tongue-in-cheek joke, which is kind of funny thing to do about a tattoo. But it's, I think a lot of people, a lot of people like to say they live like with,

no regrets. They say that. And I've met people who tell me that I feel like I'm just like, well, I have tons of them. I mean, I've messed up so many times that I'm like, no, I wish I wouldn't have treated that person poorly. I wish I wouldn't have, you know, I handled that situation. I just had this at dinner last week. A friend said something to me and I kind of got a little bit over my skis with emotion. We had a few drinks. And I was like, oh, I shouldn't have said that. Like, it wasn't mean, but it was just, I shouldn't have said it. And I regret it. I like, and so there's, I feel like there's regrets all the time. What I think this book helps people do is use the regret to be better,

how to understand regrets. So at a high level, now that you've done all this, what are some ways that we can use regret to be better? Sure. I mean, I think the most important thing is to do exactly what you're suggesting there, which is to recognize that everybody has regrets. I mean, and there's a reason we have regrets. Truly, like, the only people without regrets are little kids whose brains haven't developed,

people with brain damage and neurodegenerative disorders, and sociopaths. The rest of us have regrets. And the reason we have regrets is that it's part of our cognitive machinery, that our brains are programmed to experience regret. And the real question is not, so the idea that saying you have no regrets is, it doesn't mean anything. It's whistling in the dark. What you have to do is learn how to deal with your regrets. And here's the thing. It's tricky.

We can take a negative emotion like regret and just ignore it and say, no regrets. I don't have any regrets. That's one approach. That's a bad idea. But it's also a bad idea to feel those regrets and just wallow in them and ruminate in them and bathe in them. That's also a bad idea.

What we want to do is use our regrets. regrets as signals. Because when we experience that stab of regret, the world is trying to tell us something. And if we deal with it systematically, there's a pile of evidence showing that it can help us become better negotiators, be better problem solvers, be better strategists, bring more meaning to our life. And so the key is like we have to approach them systematically. And I think that the research gives us a way to do that. Let's dig into it. So what are some ways that we could systematically use regret to, I think, be,

these are kind of grandiose words, but be more fulfilled, make better choices moving forward. You know what I mean? Just make, just make, just make, just make, just make, just make, just make, just make, let's take a, let's take a, let's take a, um, a, a, let's take a, um, a, a, let's take a, um, a, a, let's take a regret about, um, I don't know, give me a regret. me a regretable we'll work we'll work through one of them uh let's do a career one so so someone um worried about stability with a job and and either leaving or not leaving a job right or going to do something else okay so someone someone regrets someone regrets playing it safe rather than taking it taking being entrepreneurial and taking a chance okay makes it's okay so first of all number one is you have to reframe the regret now um reframe

The regret means this. You can say to that, oh, I played it safe, but I'm awesome anyway, and boost your self-esteem. You can also say, I'm the biggest idiot ever. I'm a fool. I'm such a lazy wimp. All right. Self-criticism. That's bad too. What you want to do is you want to reframe the regret with something called self-compassion, which is treating yourself with the same kindness that you would treat somebody else, recognizing that this regret is part of the human condition. I mean, you In that particular case, you should ask yourself, oh, wow, I guess you're the only person in the history of human civilization who has this regret. And you're like, well, no, it's like it's pretty common. So what you want to do is reframe that regret. The second thing, which is actually really important, is disclose it. Disclosing our regrets is actually really powerful. And I see this in the number of people who filled out this survey and actually were willing to talk to me about this. Disclosure is important for two reasons.

One, it lifts the burden of it, but more important than anything else that by disclosing it, either in spoken word or in writing, you take this blobby negative emotion of regret, this abstraction, and you convert it into concrete and less fearsome words. That aids in the sense-making process. There's very good research showing that when we take negative emotions and explain them, talk about them, convert them away from this menacing feeling into less menacing concrete linguistic units. We defang them. Now, what's interesting, side note, is that the reverse is true for positive experiences.

The research of Sonia Lubramerski and others have shown that with positive emotions, we just want to kind of enjoy it. We don't want to try to explain why we like having dinner with our family. We don't want to explain why we like hanging out with our spouse. We want to just sort of, you know, maintain the mystery of that. But with negative emotions, disclosure relieves the burden and it aids in the sense-making process. What's more is that one of the things that we fear about disclosure is that people will like us

less and that's just wrong. The research tells us when we disclose vulnerabilities, people often like us more because they empathize with us and admire our courage. So we've reframed it. We've disclosed it. Now, the most important thing is this. Extract a lesson from it. Extract a lesson from it.

Don't stop there. Say, okay, what did I learn from this that I can apply next time? So you got your regret about playing it safe. You look back on that. You reframed it. Hey, I'm not the only one. You have disclosed it and made sense of it.

And then you extract a lesson from it. And the lesson I think in this case is, you know, I'm really gonna regret later in my life. if I don't take a chance. So next time I'm at this juncture, I'm gonna remember this regret and take a chance. I'm gonna apply this lesson that I've extracted to the next time I'm in this kind of circumstance.

And I think the reason that's valuable is that if you just were to ignore that regret, you could get to that juncture again and not learn that lesson. And that's what I'm, that I think is the power of regret. We reframe, we disclose, we extract, and then we apply that lesson to the next time. Is this why you wanted to write a book about this?

What made you want to study regret? I remember when I saw the initial tweet, I'm like, huh, that must be what he's writing about. He wrote about when, you know, timing, he wrote about selling, you wrote about motivation. Now he's right about regret, huh? What was it that made you want to write about regret? I think I just wanted to figure it out for myself more than anything else. I mean, I think that's true for most of the stuff that I write. Do you sense like you have these big regrets or are they have?

Are they a part of your life or no? You just think it's an interesting topic? Both. I mean, I think that I think that I think that I think that I think that I think that I think that I'm at a point in my life where, and I know I'm at a point in my life where I had regrets. Like I had enough mileage on me to look backward and say, oh, if only I had been more bold, if only I had treated people with more kindness, right? If only I had done the right thing in other circumstances. but I also had enough mileage ahead of me that I could do something about it. And so, but what I found more than anything is that when I started talking to people about regrets,

people really leaned in. It's something that they wanted to discuss. That is, we have this, as you were saying, this no regrets philosophy that makes us think that when we talk about regrets, people will just recoil when in fact they went the other way. They leaned in. They wanted to talk about it. Because, again, and as I did the research, I realized, oh my gosh. This is one of the most common emotions that we experience.

It's the most common negative emotion that we experience. We can't extinguish it because it's part of our brains. So let's actually destigmatize it and use it as a force for doing better. You mentioned being bold. How could you have been bolder? You took a pretty bold change in your career. How could you have been bolder? You know, I think there are other projects that I might have wanted to do.

And, you know, I don't know, I wonder sometimes about, you know, this is my seventh book. And so am I just, you know, am I no long, am I not taking enough risks about the kind of work that I do and the kind of form that it takes and the kind of projects that I do? and so maybe it's time for me to be bolder in my professional undertakings. You wrote Stay Tuned with three dots in the book about this part. What does that mean? Wait and see. I mean, I feel like... Is something in the works or...

I always have a few things in the works. I always have a few things in the works. But again, this book sort of changed my view of things, my own life in many ways. So for instance, you know, one of the things that you see in the book is a lot of people reckoning with mortality. And doors closing because of people passing away. And I think this pandemic era has been a time where all of us are reckoning with our mortality. And so what I don't want to do is go forward in time 25 years and look back and say, man, you know, you had a chance. You know, you could have taken a chance.

you could have taken a few more professional risks, and yet you didn't, am I going to regret that? And I think the answer is yes. Now, I don't know what form those professional risks or boldness are going to take. Part of it is that, you know, when we look at, there's a boldness about, I think, about what you contribute to the world, too. And so, you know, I'm in my, like, I mean, I don't want to sound like I'm having some kind of existential crisis. I don't think, I don't think that I am. But I don't know if this is a book I would have written in my 30s. I think it's a book that seemed more natural to me in my 50s when I had both time behind me and time ahead of me. And all of us, let's hope, are going to be at that kind of point.

And I think that the earlier, you mentioned before when I was making the decision to go out on my own, whether I was thinking about my regrets. And the answer was no, but maybe I should have. I read those articles that, you know, the top regrets of the dying, you know, and, and one of them is, you cover this sum, but one of them is like they're afraid to be themselves or they're afraid to speak up. And you write about introverts, extroverts and introverts in this book, too, about being afraid to speak up. And technically, there is some science to back up that if you can push yourself to being extroverted in some cases, it could help you. Yeah. What do you think about this top regrets of the dying? and how that applies to what you're writing about? You know, I've read that stuff. I'm a little skeptical because a sample is so small.

Yeah. You know, so you're, you know, it's a nurse working at a hospice center who interviews, you know, a couple dozen people. And so, but I mean, that doesn't mean that it's wrong. It just means that I think one should take it with a with a grain of salt. The other thing is that as you can see from my survey, where I have people from age 16 to age 90, that it's, you know, if you're in your final days on the planet,

then you really can't use your regrets all that well. And all these people who had, all these people who were dying and had regrets, they had those regrets earlier and they just didn't reckon with them. And so there's a something, there's a kind of a pathos to not fully, you know, waiting to the final days of your life to admit

and then try to learn a little bit from those regrets. But the regret that you said, I have huge numbers of regrets in this database about speaking up. Huge. It's incredible to me. I could go in there and search for phrases like spoke up, spoken up, speak up, and would get hundreds of hits. Because people, that's another form of boldness. It's another form of boldness.

And people really regret not speaking up. The other part about it, and this happens in sports sometimes towards the end of an athlete's career. Kobe was like this towards the end where you can tell. they get to a stage where they literally they they don't care as much about what people think and they say exactly what is on their mind. Aaron Rogers is doing that this year. For better or worse. Yeah. Yeah. What about this regret of people and I think this came up too in your writing of people worrying so much about what others think. And so they kind of tamper of what what they say a little bit. What do you think about that? Yeah. I mean, I think that is one of the regrets

that people have, I think that the reasons for, I think that's at the heart of people's regrets about not speaking up. There are very few people, maybe one or two, who regret it speaking up. You know, oh, I wish I would not have called that guy out on that thing. But most of us regret not speaking up. And, you know, I don't know if this is anything to do with regret, Ryan, but, you know, in my own life, I pretty much stop carrying what other people think. I mean, not in a pathological way. But yeah, yeah, yeah, because here's the thing. thing. Like, I mean, when I was younger, I think I cared what other people think, thought of me. And then I, then I actually discovered what they thought of me, which was that they weren't

thinking about me. They were thinking about themselves. So what's the point? I told, I maybe even said this to you before, you know, I'm getting ready for like a banquet. I don't remember it was. I'm with my dad. And I'm, uh, I'm like, what do you think of these pants? You know, they, they, they, he's like, dude, they don't care about your pants. They care about their pants. I was like, I've always remembered that as I'm like putting on the pants or whatever. I'm like, they don't get around your pants. They get around their pants, man. Don't worry about it.

Like, they're not thinking about you. I think that's, that's a, that is a helpful lens to view the world. One, because it's true and two, because it's just like, let's just go. Let's, yeah, let's not worry about it. There's another question that I think is maybe a little deeper that you asked in the book that I've, I thought about as I was reading up to that point. And that is, do you think everything happens for a reason? I'm curious.

I know I read some of the research that you put in your book about this. What do you think about that prompt, that question, and there were some of the responses you got and how we can maybe use what you learned to better our lives because everyone has different views and I've kind of gone around and around on this one myself. So I'm curious, what do you think about does everything happen for a reason? Well, I asked that question explicitly in my quantitative survey of 4,489 Americans because I wanted to see, do they believe in free will or do they believe that everything happens for a reason? And I asked both questions.

And I found that people believe in free will and they think that everything happens for a reason. Something like 75, 80% of people believe in both those things, which on the surface seems contradictory. But then as I thought of, and it bugged me, but as I thought about it, I realized there was some kind of truth buried in there, which is that, you know, one of the lessons of a good life is to figure out what you have control over and what you don't have control over. And I think that's one of the things that regret teaches us. Regret is different from disappointment. With regret, there's a degree of agency to it.

Disappointment, you don't have the agency. And one of the things that I found in studying regret for these couple of years is how much regret hinges on storytelling. It's all about storytelling. It's all about traveling through time and changing events and coming back in time and rewriting events. And there's a professor at Northwestern who studies personality psychology, who named Dan McAdams, who argues that, you know, we see our lives in narrative terms. And I think that's generally right.

And as we see our lives in narrative terms, the question I think that raises is, okay, our life is a narrative. So are we the characters or are we the authors? And the answer is yes. And so we can write some of the story but not fully. We are the product of circumstances that we can't control but not fully. And I think that that regret teaches us the importance of teasing that out. Control what you can and don't stress about other stuff. And what we can control are these fundamental.

fundamental things that make our lives better, which are, as I said, stability, a little bit of boldness, doing the right thing, and connecting with others. Dan, it's interesting. As I quickly analyze your responses to every question, I find you to be so reasonable. And I'll explain what I mean by that, meaning one of my frustrations, and this is probably, maybe it's always been this way but certainly with the current landscape it's like you're on this side or you're on that side it's either black or it's white but in the in the real world yeah life is so messy absolutely it's really gray and what in your the way i feel like you've because you're so

well researched and you in writers create clarity of thought because you got to sit down and put words on a page and it's hard and it forces you to really think and that process then i think makes you more intelligent that's why all leaders should write by the way but i sense like you being just really reasonable in the way that you think. I'm not like, it's not blowing smoke. It's just like a legitimate, I think, a fact in this regard because you realize the extremes. And most of the time, the answers lie in the middle. There isn't like this, yes, there are definitive things like you shouldn't do these bad

things and you should try to do these good things. But for the most part, the answer is kind of lie in the middle. And that's why I feel like people in general, we would be better off if we really the world just wasn't black and white and it was very messy and really gray as opposed to saying, well, you got to pick this side or that side. You know, I agree. I agree. And I think that that's, you know, because I try to do so much research for these books, I think that's where the research leads you. I think that's where the, I think that's where the truth is. I think the truth, especially when you're writing about something as complex as human beings and their behavior and their

aspirations and their goals, it's not going to be, it's not going to be that, that definitive. And I think that the frustration that I expressed where I was kind of miffed that people said they have free will and things happen for a reason was my actually seeking too great of a black and white world in a world that is actually much gray. And so again, it's like teasing these things out is to me the key for a good life. What do you maximize on? what do you satisfy on? What are the things that are generally important? What doesn't matter?

What do you have control of? What do you not have control of? These are the things that I think that regret teaches us. And these are, to me, the tools and the habits for constructing a life of success and satisfaction and meaning. You said one regret that you have is that you weren't kinder to people when you were younger. And you said, I'm not sure that has. happened for a reason, but I am sure I can find a reason in the recollection. What do you mean by that?

Like, you, you, you, you, you weren't kind, kinder to people earlier on in your life? I feel like there were, there were times in my life where I, there, there were people who maybe on the outskirts of a situation and I didn't reach out to them. There are people who I knew were struggling and I didn't reach out to them. I don't think that I treated, there, I think I might have treated different people differently, not empathize, enough with what they were going through. And I came to that conclusion in part by later in my life looking at the people who I admired and realized that a common denominator across these people is that they were quite kind. They treated other people exceedingly well. And I just felt

like I just hadn't done that well enough earlier in my life. And so I've tried to do that a little bit more in my later life. The reason I bring that up is because if you look at a series of book on Amazon, especially the type of people that come on this show, the number of them that have your name on the cover blurbing, the front cover of their books, including this one right behind me in blue, there are hundreds, maybe, probably thousands of book. Yes, I feel like it happens all the time. So when people ask you to blurb, it feels like you just are, yes, I'm going to, I'm going to try my best to help you. Here's why. Here's why. Because it's some point because at some point, I was writing my first book and I needed blurbs and people

help me. And people stepped up and helped me. And there was nothing in it for them. And I feel like, you know, one needs to pay that forward. Well, I, I sincerely appreciate it. And it's interesting when I get like a PR person will send an email saying, have so and so on your podcast. Here's what Dan Pink said about their book. You know, yes, Dan it happens all the time. It's either here's what Adam Grant or here's what Dan Pink said about their book. That's like a big PR pitches. And it has to be kind of a weird feeling being Dan Pink when you, when that, I don't know if you even realize that that's happening. But it happens all the time, especially to someone who has a podcast who the PR people email all the time.

It's pretty wild. Well, I'm glad, you know, I'm glad that I'm responsible for a lot of your spam. No, you're responsible probably for a lot of the guests that come on the show without you even realizing. Because they're saying like, hey, I know this is a credible name. I'm going to put Dan Pink on there. But truly the reason for that is that, is that, you know, I can empathize with what it's like to have a first book. And it's hard.

And as I said, I had a first book once 20 years ago. And people help me out. And I just think that that's just good karma. It's good for the world. It's good for, it's good for everybody. If I can help them out a tiny little bit, that's fantastic. Speaking of your first work, when you think about that, like, are you, are you embarrassed by the earlier work? Because you're 20 years, you've got 20 years of more intelligence gained since then.

Or what do you think about that initial work? I'm always fascinated by what, like my first book for Age Nation. Yeah, yeah. You know, that was a hard book to write because not only did I have to write the book, I had to learn how to write a book. and and so you're doing two things. Now I know more or less how to write a book, but writing a book is still really, really hard, but I didn't have the dual task.

On that one, I don't know, I have a really hard time going back and looking at stuff that I've read before. I cringe. I actually avoid it. I tend to cringe because I see things like, oh, why did they use that word? Oh, I'm not sure I believe that anymore. Oh, that doesn't make any sense. So I find it a little cringy, I find it a little cringy and painful.

And the way that I reckon with it is to say that, you know, the me of 20 years ago is different from the me of today. That in some sense, a different person wrote that book. And if I have some self-compassion, as we know from the research on regret, I can treat myself with kindness rather than contempt so that I can not say, oh, you idiot, why'd you write that? but saying, hey, you know what? You were a, you know, 30-something first-time writer, and yeah, that's what a lot of 30-something first-time writers do. They fall into that trap door. They write in a way that might make them cringe in 20 years.

Isn't that, though, I think when anybody, if you analyze something you did even five years ago or less than that, if in a way, and I have this because my work is public and you can go back and listen to these episodes from seven years ago and you can hear the great word, the cringiness of like, what in the world was that? But the reason in a way that makes me feel good is because you can actually hear the growth. You can read. Right, exactly.

And I think that's like something to be celebrated. Like if you if you look back and you listen, you sound the exact same or you write the exact same, I would be more concerned with that than if you don't look back and cringe a little bit. I'm your hallelujah chorus for that one, Ryan. And I think that that is, again, one of the things that regret teaches us. I mean, you're using the language of regret. You're saying looking backward and cringe. That's what regret is.

And so we look backward and cringe and say, oh, man, okay, what am I going to learn from that terrible experience of cringing that I'm going to apply going forward? I agree with you completely that if, that if nothing changes, you have a stagnation that is, you know, and and to not notice that. Let's say that to not notice that some of those imperfections are things that you were done better saying, oh, no, I'm just going to ignore that. Whatever. It doesn't matter. No regrets. That's no way to grow.

Exactly. You wrote, tweeted about a single word to guide a year. And for 2022, the single word that you chose was restore. What made you choose the word restore for 2022? You know, part of it was, thank you for asking that. I'm glad that you asked that because that word was fairly carefully chosen. Part of it is that two years into the pandemic, even though I've been fortunate that I haven't lost anybody close to me, I myself am feeling pretty burnt out.

And so personal restoration of excitement and joy and curiosity is important to me. But I also feel like, I just feel like our world has gone off the rails too. And that the kinds of things that we once believed in, basic decency, for instance, seems to have gone awry. And so maybe there's an opportunity for me to restore some of that. Just restore a sense of civility in our lives. Restore a sense of purpose in our lives. Restore a sense of authenticity in our lives. Because I do feel like we're at a point where we are turning a page.

And this is why I feel pretty good about coming out with a book about regret this time. I feel like there might be a receptive audience to this thing. It's a little bit, you know, I'm sort of biking into the wind a little bit because people, oh, I don't want to talk about regret. But I feel like now people might be open to having that conversation because I think that a conversation about, that reckons with our past, that uses it a force for moving forward, that gives us a window into what really matters in life. is a way to restore us individually and collectively.

Why do you think the world has gone off the rails? I mean, all kinds of things. I think that a lot of people are in their own little bubbles of information, so their views of reality are distorted. I think that there is a great deal of a great deal more struggle in people's lives then we sometimes realize and we're not empathetic with that. You see that with increasing rates of mental illness and deaths of despair and suicide rates. You know, I just, I feel like we're not, I mean this in Americans, we're not, we're sort of shouting at each other rather than talking

with each other. There's been a corrosion in trust. And so I just, it feels like we have, we've hit a very dark patch. I don't think it's permanent, but I think that each of us individually has to do our part to find the light. Yeah, I'm with you. And as I was preparing, you know,

you're one of my favorite guys. You know that I've told you this for the last six, seven years. I still remember the you got to keep moving the chains conversation. Moving the chains. I remember that. Yep. That was seven years ago, man. Oh my gosh. It's 2015. I can't believe it. But it's pretty cool. But I think about

drive. I think about to sell as human. To sell us human is a transformational quake book for me. You rocked my world. You know, you talk about when and now about regret. When you think about like all of your research and all of the different people you've studied

and talked to and people that have helped you as you put this together, what are some of the common attributes of those people who are what I would call a productive achiever, meaning they achieve things in a productive way for society. What are some of those common attributes amongst those people.

It's a great question. I haven't thought hard about that. I don't think I've ever thought about it, actually, that explicitly before. I would say one of them would be empathy and compassion for other people. Another would be curiosity. And a third would be going back to your moving the chains, just doggedness. And those three, so if we think about empathy, curiosity, and doggedness, those are pretty powerful traits.

And I'd have to think about this more, but I'm wondering how often we find all three in one person. Can you think of a person that has that? I think there are plenty of people. I mean, I don't want to single out, I don't want to single out any human being. But, but I think that there, I think that, I mean, that's sort of, I guess what,

I mean, I didn't realize it until this conversation, but sort of what I aspired to. I mean, I want to be empathetic. I try to be empathetic. I try to follow my curiosity and I try to be dogged. And I think if we focus on those kinds of habits of the heart, we will do that kind of productive contribution that you're describing. Dan, before we love that, before we, we're recording here,

I went on another podcast earlier today. And they were asking about like how some of the business side of this stuff happening, like speaking and working with leadership teams and some of the cool opportunities. I feel super fortunate to get to do. And I, you know, I guess I didn't put a ton of thought into it initially. I said, well, I just tried to keep shipping useful work. And it seemed if, and that's like the dog in this part, plus some of the curiosity of like asking questions. I tried to keep doing that.

And then after kind of three or four years of that, then people kind of started asking to do more. And so, but three or four years, kind of a long time. to do it weekly because we have not missed in seven years. And I think that part two is like not that sexy to be dogged or to be consistent. Steve Martin writes about this and Boren standing up about the consistency of getting up on stage to stand up. Dan Pink's of consistently going back in your garage office where you are right now and in writing. Consistency, I think Dan is so underrated when it comes to trying to do something. something that's useful for other people.

And I sense that is a big part of your, of what you've been able to produce is that dog in this part, this consistently getting up and doing the work. What do you think about that? I try to and I'm a big believer in that. You know, like one way that I think about the world is sort of in economic terms about like sort of what kind of concepts do we overvalue and what kind of concepts do we undervalue.

So it's almost like a pricing thing. And I think that we overvalue intensity and undervalue consistency. A good one. You know what I mean? You know, and I think that's true in any endeavor. I think it's true in music. I think it's true in sports. And so I'm with you on that.

I'm a big believer in showing up and doing the work, especially on the days that you don't feel like doing it. And, you know, and not going for immediate gratification. I want to pick up on a word that you said because I think you might be bearing the lead in some of your comments, Ryan. Okay. Which is that you use the word twice, which is useful. You want to create something useful. You're not just want to create something. You want to create something useful, which suggests that you're being, you have the perspective of other people, that you have a service ethic and you're thinking about the world from someone else's perspective, which I think is rare.

Really? Yeah. I think that most people don't, I mean, you know, I've interviewed people for jobs and, you know, I've interviewed people for jobs. assignments and things like that where they proceed to tell me how great it would be for them to get this gig you know it's like okay that's nice but you're here to solve a problem and so that's nice I hope it's useful to you I want it to be useful to you but like you really should be thinking about what you're going to contribute this this goes back actually to sell as human so after I got done playing football damn I get a job as a telephonic sales rep pounded the phones and I if I wasn't

useful for the person on the other end of the phone. Hang up. Hang up. Sometimes 60 plus times a day. Hang up. I think you have to kind of have that lens of the world of, and just like with this podcast, if it's not useful, it's not helping other people. What's the point? It's still good for me because I get to follow my curiosity, but I wouldn't be as fulfilled if I didn't feel like it was helping now that it's kind of transitioned. It started as my own form of leadership PhD program back when we first spoke seven years ago. And it's it's still that. Don't get me wrong. I'm still following my curiosity and only having guests that I want to have on. But it's shifted a little bit as, you know,

millions of people take it in. And I know they're listening. You feel a sense of responsibility to say, oh, well, yeah, I got to go for the Dan Pink's of the world to have on this show because people are investing their most valuable resource, their time to listen to this. I want to make sure that or do everything I can at least to make it helpful for them and if so like that's to me is the richest feeling my dad always said that like life is so much richer when the stuff that you do helps other people do well like think about that like it's it's pretty simple and basic but he's like i like that phrase though life is so much richer it's not about money when you when the things that you do help other people do well it's a great feeling man i i'm again once again i'm your

hallelujah chorus on that one more really important And that's one, that's how I, that's how I think about, about book writing. This is why I try to create books that are useful, but also reasonably concise. I see too many books with all kinds of fluff and padding in them. And I say, you know what? These people are doing me a huge privilege. Someone's paying 20 bucks and they're going to spend five hours of their time. My God, like this better be good. It better be right. It better be useful because they're, they're extending me an incredible privilege and I better deliver on that. Dan, when you meet with someone a little bit earlier in their career, maybe, maybe around some of your kids' ages, your older kids' ages, a recent college grad or whatever, and they're saying, God, I want to leave a dent, I want to be useful, I want to help people. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you give to them? Early on, it's going to sound a little bit hackneyed, but I'm going to go back to doggedness and also just the importance of trying stuff and not really, not. and understanding that there is there is not a right answer or I'll even give you a better I'll even give you a better way of doing it which is that I think a lot of times we feel like we have to figure figure out what we want to figure out what we're going to do and then do

it and I think that in many ways that sequence is wrong that doing something helps you figure it out and so so I think there should be a bias for trying stuff for experimentation and being a weight to the universe and what what it's telling you and using the results of those experiences to shape what you do next. Rather than this, again, let's think about over, let's let's let's let's think about overvalue and undervalue planning and undervalue doing. Yeah, they're a talker and doers be a doer. I mean, the Wright brothers, they would watch the birds, but, but where, you know,

where they really learned, you know, they're washing the, the wings to build their airplane wings, but where they really learned is when they, as they said, mount the machine and test the flight, right? Amen. They crashed. Unfortunately, people got hurt, even died. But there was no better way than to actually get on the flying machine and see if they can fly. And I think that's so true, whether you want to be a writer, you want to be a podcast or you want to get up on stage.

Yes, you can read all the books, but go do it. Write, get on the microphone, get on the stage, whatever is. I think that's so big. Dan, I think this book, you know, recording before it comes out. So, you know, I'm excited for this one. I think I have a feeling it's going to blow up. It's called the power of regret, how looking backward moves us forward. And I give a wholehearted recommendation to read this because the cool thing about it is it's very entertaining.

You know, and you think like regret, is this going to be entertaining? I actually had that question. I wonder how he's going to do this. But Dan's pretty good. So obviously, I'm going to give a shot. Very entertaining. There's some really fun, cool stories that it will surprise you, which is so hard to do as a writer. So it'll surprise you at times.

And then on top of that, it is amazingly practical where you're like, oh, I can actually implement this into my life and it's going to make me better. So that's why I highly encourage people. And you can tell you did a good job of no fluff, right? You made this book probably as short as it could possibly be. And it's still, you know, a sizable book. But but you got rid of all that. So I have huge props, man. I'm really appreciative of you guys sending me a copy.

It's really good. Thanks a lot, Ryan. That really means a lot to me. I really appreciate that. I needed that today. Thank you. Did you? I do.

No joke. I encourage people to get the power of regret. And Dan, obviously, man, I'm so grateful for you, your friendship, you being such a mentor, always responding basically immediately. Your kindness is literally off the charts, man. So thank you so much and excited to keep this thing rolling, man. All right, Ryan. Always a pleasure.

Thanks for having me. As you can tell, I admire Dan greatly. So thankful for him that he started coming on my podcast seven years ago. Always remember that move the chains conversation we have. I encourage you to go back and listen to that one. It was in December of 2015. And I feel like that was a seminal moment in this podcast. So I'm super grateful for Dan.

A few takeaways from my notes, the three keys in a productive achiever. Empathy and compassion, curiosity, and dundity. dogness slash consistency. I loved seeing the thought process that Dan quickly went through to the keys to being a productive achiever. And I completely agree with these and how we both admitted, these are the types of qualities that we're trying to embody ourselves. And then the truth, we regret inactions much more than actions. So the lesson to be learned from that truth, Be bold. Take that chance. In a world full of talkers, be a doer. Have a bias for action. You will probably regret it more if you don't do it than if you do. And then we overvalue intensity and undervalue consistency and doggedness. continue to show up and do the work.

The consistency of being able to show up day after day after day, start stacking days. That is what leads to some of the most productive achievement. Once again, I want to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two. Hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Dan Pink. It will help you become a more effective leader. I want to pause for a second and say, this is a very special week if you happen to be listening the week that it comes out. And the fact that my second book, The Pursuit of Excellence, is coming out. It is now out probably by the time you're listening to this. And I put just about everything

I've had over the past few years into this book with the thought and the hope that it would be useful for you, much like Dan and I talked about today, that it's kind of. It's kind of combination of hopefully entertaining with good stories, informative. There's good science and research behind it. And most importantly, I hope you find that there are practical takeaways to make your life better. It would mean the world to me if you would support this work by the book. I firmly believe it will be helpful. So I hope you do as well. And I just want to say thank you once again for continuing to support my work and continuing to give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. Your support is why this gets to continue to happen. So thank you so,

so much. Talking soon. Can't wait.