← 10% Happier with Dan Harris
10% Happier with Dan Harris
How To Read The Room, See What Others Miss, and Be Right More Often | Kirstin Ferguson
01:12:56
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- [00:00]
A
Hearing a voice can change everything. So AT&T wants everyone to gift their voice to loved ones this holiday season because that conversation is a chance to say something they'll hear forever. AT&T connecting changes everything. This is the 10% Happier podcast.
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B
I'm Dan Harris. Hello, my fellow suffering beings.
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A
How we doing? Today we're going to talk about how to make fewer dumb decisions. The truth is, we live in a world of constant flux. We may not like that, but it's the truth.
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B
Everything's changing all the time.
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A
So the question then becomes, how do you want to engage with this unpredictable, often chaotic world? Do you want to be brittle and breakable or subtle and sophisticated? If, like me, you would rather choose the latter, One of the key moves is to confront and work around your blind spots, your biases, the stories you tell yourself, often subconsciously, about the world, about yourself, about other people. These stories can really limit your growth and block your happiness and your success. The Buddha himself talked a lot about the importance of not being attached to your views and opinions. He talked about the value of being an analyst, not a dogmatist. In fact, one of my favorite Buddha quotes goes something like this. I might be mangling it, but it's something like this. Those who cling to views and opinions wander the world, annoying people.
- [01:39]
B
I love that I've been that guy.
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A
So I really love it. All of this brings me to my guest today, Dr. Kirsten Ferguson. She's a leadership expert and author. She was introduced to me by our mutual friend Adam Grant, who's been on this show many times. Kirsten's got a new book, it's called Blindspotting. In this conversation, we talk about the concept of blindspotting, what it is, how to do it, the power of intellectual humility, and how to practice it in your actual life. The difference between seekers and knowers, and when each of those mindsets is useful, the three major thinking traps that we often fall into. How to disentangle ego from identity, manage defensiveness, which has been a big problem for me, and turn feedback into growth. Feedback is often very annoying, but often also very valuable. We also talk about the role of curiosity. Building psychological safety on your teams, which can be your family, your friend group, but psychological safety. And you'll hear her discuss this is just the secret sauce to well functioning organizations or groups of people. And finally, we talk about how to read the room in workplaces, in relationships, in global contexts, and really why the ability to read the room is such a key to good leadership. Before we dive in, I Want to do a quick plug here for the new 10% Apple? So cool to be able to say those words. The app has just gone live. We will be doing a free New Year's Meditation Challenge in early January seven days with Joseph Goldstein, the great meditation teacher. He has cooked up something incredibly cool for you. It's a kind of masterclass, an extraordinary and accessible on ramp to Buddhist Meditation. This seven day course that he's crafted is good for beginners. It's also good for experienced meditators. I was in the room meditating right alongside him as he recorded these sessions.
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B
And I've been hanging out with him.
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A
For years and I still got a ton out of these meditations. In fact, I'm gonna be doing them again right alongside you from January 5th through the 11th. If you wanna do this free challenge, you can sign up at danharris. Com. Not only is the challenge free, there's also a 30 day free trial for the app if you wanna try before you buy. One last note. I promise this is the last thing.
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B
I'm gonna say before we toss the.
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A
Break and get to the conversation, but one last note. We will not our weekly live meditation on Tuesday, December 30th since I and.
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B
Many of you will be on vacation.
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A
I will, however, be live and with you three times during the New Year's Challenge. The regular live meditation and Q and a session at 4:00 clock on Tuesday, the 6th of January, but we'll do those again at 4 Eastern on the 8th and the 11th. Okay, enough promotion from me. We'll get started with Kirsten Ferguson right after this. Hey, I've got a very exciting announcement. I am thrilled to announce that I've got a new app. It's called 10% with Dan Harris. I really never thought I would do another meditation app, but my team and I have been listening to all of you, my listeners and subscribers, and we've gotten the message. You want a place where you can easily access all of our guided meditations from your favorite teachers. And you want a place to engage with the teachers, with me, and with one another. So we've built this new app with connection in mind. Although if you're an introvert, don't worry, you can just lurk. Also, on the 10% with Dan Harris app, you'll get a library of guided meditations to help you with stress, anxiety, sleep, focus, self compassion, and dealing with annoying people. Access to our weekly live Zoom meditation and Q and A sessions and all of the episodes of this podcast. No ads, including all of our Past episodes stretching over the past 10 years. Right now we're offering a 30 day free trial so you can see if it's right for you. Go to danharris.com for all the details on how to download the app and sign up. I'll see you over there. I chose Function because it is the only health platform that gives me data most people never get and the insights to start doing something about it. Inside function, you get access to test over 160 lab tests annually. From hormones to toxins to markers of heart health, inflammation and stress. As you may have heard me mention before, these lab tests helped me identify a really gnarly health problem that I was having for a long time. It helped me get extra information and then run my questions by my physician so that I could get to a diagnosis and start feeling better. We're in December, of course, so it's holiday gift giving time. And you might think of Function as a great option. You can give the gift of health instead of stuff. It's really not just a gift, it's peace of mind. If you've got somebody who's really hard to buy for, this is a gift they'll actually use. It can help them understand their health and make better decisions. Throughout 2026, own your health for $365 a year. That's a dollar a day. Learn more and join using my link functionhealth.com happier or use the gift code happier25 for a 25 credit toward your membership.
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B
Kirsten Ferguson, welcome to the show.
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C
Thank you for having me.
- [06:50]
B
Pleasure. All right, well, very basic question to start here. What is blind spotting?
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C
Well, you know, we all know we've got blind spots. I mean, that's evident. We're very aware of that. But I really wanted to think of a verb basically, like what could we do about it? And so for me, blind spotting is this idea of having the mindsets around being honest about what we do and don't know, being curious to find out more, and then being flexible enough to change our mind. So it's actually based on some theories, but let's just keep it basic. It's about being honest, being curious and being flexible.
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B
So being honest, being curious and being flexible. So that's the top tier list. But in the book there's a lot of instruction about how to achieve this.
- [07:35]
C
I wanted to start a soft easy Dan. We'll ease into it. As you can tell from my accent, I'm in Australia, we're at 6am So I have to start off easy and then we can build into it. But yeah, the idea. And you and I have spoken before about intellectual humility, and really that's the foundation of what blindspotting is all about. It's this idea of accepting our intellectual limits. So being okay with not knowing everything and everything around. Blindspotting is based on this premise. And for me, it's the power of four words, not three. Being able to say, I don't know yet. And so if you're engaged in blindspotting, you're aware and you're confident that you don't know everything, but you're also, also confident you're going to be able to find out. As you said in the book, there's a lot of detail about the practices we can do. So being honest is actually about accepting our intellectual limits. As I just said, disentangling our ego. Now, that's one of the hardest things to do. But if you're wrapped up in how you define what you do, then it's much harder to accept what you don't know and then hunting for our biases and things like that. And I'm not talking about biases like ethnicity or age or sexuality or gender. This is our thinking biases. So that's what it sort of means to be honest.
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B
How do you sell this to people? Like, I know a lot of people are looking to be less anxious. I know people are looking to be less stressed. I know looking people are looking to be kinder to themselves, but I don't hear a lot of people talking about, God, I really need to work on my intellectual humility. I would like it if other people did.
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C
Yeah.
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B
So what's the reason to do this work?
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C
What's the hook? Well, all I need to ask you, Dan, is when's the last time you made a decision and afterwards you thought, what the fuck was I thinking? That is the hook. And I reckon you would have had something yesterday. I mean, I have something every day where I think, oh, yeah, I know what I'm doing. And then I think, perhaps I should have thought that through a bit more. So it's all about accepting that we have all of these things in our brain that are telling us, yeah, I've done it this way a hundred times before and it's worked perfectly. So of course I'm going to get it right the 101st time and we don't. Or planning that. I'm only going to be in, I don't know, what's your Home Depot for five minutes and it takes five hours because Our planning fallacy is pretty crap. Like, it doesn't matter what the thing is. But what I say to people is, if we want to be able to make decisions, and I mean, I'm using really facetious, simple examples, but clearly in the world, we are so polarized right now that if we were able to say to people, you know, you believe so fervently in position X, what if. Just imagine, what if there's a different position? And what if perhaps what you believe isn't entirely correct because you haven't taken in another perspective? How would that influence the decisions that we're making every day? So it's not about trying to sell anything, and I'm not into that anyway. I don't use the terms intellectual humility because I think that carries its own baggage. And, you know, it's very hard to say, yeah, I'm really humble, I'm really good at my intellectual humility, you know, just ask me. So this is all about, you know, how can we make better decisions?
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B
That makes complete sense.
- [10:56]
A
So in the book, you talk about.
- [10:57]
B
The difference between seekers and knowers. Can you unpack that?
- [11:02]
C
Yeah. Well, you would have experience where you go into a meeting or you're with someone and they're just genuinely really curious about a challenge you try to face. You know, it's like, I have no idea how we're going to solve this. I know we will, but I've got no idea right now. I haven't seen this before. What do you think? You know, Dan, what's your experience been in this before? They're really comfortable with not knowing how it's going to be solved, and they're genuinely just wanting to collaborate. So they're what I call seekers. The opposite is. And we can be both of these at any point in time are the knowers where, you know, they don't come in and ask any questions, because why would you ask a question when you've already got all the answers? You know, they're unaware of their bias that they're coming in believing they've already got it sorted, they don't ask questions, or if they do, they're really skilled at backing us into a corner where in the end you just sort of give up and go, yeah, whatever, we'll just do it your way. And they need definitive answers. So knowers do not like ambiguity. Now, they're the two sort of approaches we can take, and we all take it at different points in time, but I don't want to set it up as one being good one Being bad, because there are times we need knowers, and I've certainly had to lead in crises. Everyone has at different points. And you want a leader that's not standing at the front going, look, I don't know how we're going to solve this, but, yeah, let's all brainstorm and we'll work it out. You need to know what you're going to do. And if I'm getting my appendix out, I'd like to know that my surgeon has done it at least once before. You know, we've got to be able to read a room. What do you need? But that's the real fundamental difference between knowers and seekers.
- [12:37]
B
Another concept in the book is you have a list of three thinking traps pitfalls in our thinking process. The curse of expertise, the pull of hubris, and the illusion of knowledge. Can you walk us through these? And by the way, if you can't remember all three of them and just want to do one at a time, that's also fine.
- [12:56]
C
Good. Well, let's focus on the curse of expertise, because I actually think that's the one that applies to most of us all of the time. And, you know, everyone listening will have heard of the Dunning Kruger effect, and we always have a good giggle because it's the idea where someone who doesn't know very much at all thinks that they know a lot. We've also all fell victim to that. But this is the opposite, where what the research shows is those of us who are experts in any field, and that is all of us, we're all an expert at something. We're really good at knowing when we're right. So we're really good at knowing when we know what we know. But we are crap at knowing when we should doubt. So we are really poor at questioning ourselves as to when perhaps we should be getting some extra information or perhaps our knowledge is out of date, or perhaps whatever it might be, and that's the curse of expertise, where we are so wrapped up in believing what we know and how we invest in our sense of self is on what I know, that it's much harder to question ourselves. And that's pretty dangerous, especially when you look around the world at the moment, people who are so confident, so confident that they are right, and yet there's others who would just like a little bit of doubt would, you know, be pretty helpful and healthy.
- [14:19]
B
Yes. I heard this expression from one of the guests on the show, and I can't remember who, but there are so many people who are confidently wrong yeah, yeah, I know.
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C
I would love them to calibrate their confidence. Wouldn't that be nice just to, you know, work out whether or not perhaps. And you know, you look around the world now and equally we can be just as adamant in observing other people and think, you know, you are so wrong, you know, and perhaps we're not right either, but all of us, if we were able to calibrate our confidence a bit more, we're going to be able to bring those two poles together much more easily.
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B
Let's just touch on the other two so called thinking traps. One of the others is the pull of hubris. Can you say more about that one?
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C
Well, this is where generally, let's say for any of us hypothetically, we've been really successful in what we've done in the past. It's worked a thousand times, of course it's going to work again. You know, of course I know what I'm doing because I've solved this problem however many times. I've sat on company boards for a long time in my career and you see hubris in operation in boardrooms because the people in those rooms generally are successful, they've been successful in whatever they do, they believe that success will continue and they find it much, much harder to think, well, perhaps in this situation the context has changed. I mean, the world has changed far more quickly and is changing more quickly than I think any of us have experienced before. If we're not constantly questioning, you know, am I being honest with myself about how much I know and am I being curious to learn more and then flexible enough to change my mind, then the world has changed around us and that hubris is going to catch us out.
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B
I agree with all of this. I'm nodding either visibly or invisibly. I am nodding along. I, I just bump on one aspect of human nature, which is that we, many of us hate not knowing. We like certainty. It's a bulwark against a world that often seems out of control. So I think a lot of people will like what you're saying, but in practice may find some aversion or me too, me too.
- [16:32]
C
Like I've written the book and I completely agree, especially when we're stressed and when the world is changing so quickly, we cling to certainty. That's absolutely human nature. But is it always working for us? So all I'm suggesting is, yes, we know that that's where our default is. But if you're still making decisions every day, where you're thinking the next day, what the fuck Was I thinking then, perhaps we need to do something a little bit different. And I'm just encouraging that we recognize the reality. So there's nothing wrong with wanting certainty. That's obviously where we're at. Yet the world isn't certain. So we can continue to cling to certainty with the world changing around us and us making perhaps decisions and forming opinions and views that are inflexible, or we can accept the world's going to keep changing. And what are some ways I can get comfortable with that uncertainty? And if you're a seeker, as we talked about before, you know that your knowledge is always changing. So if you accept, you don't know everything. And so I'm going to talk from personal example. I know I don't know. I don't know everything about what we're talking about right now. And because of that, I'm uncertain about what I'm going to learn tomorrow that I don't know today that will change my mind, and I'm okay with that. So there's topics that I'm really comfortable with not knowing a lot about. There's other topics where I'm far less comfortable. It feels like I don't know if I think about my kids. If someone was to say to me, as a parent, you don't know everything that's going on with your children, and so you may not be able to make the best decision. That sort of gets right at my sense of self, but it's recognizing both of those. And all I'm suggesting is that people really pay attention to what they're basing their decisions on, and whether they're basing it on how they've always done things, or that need for certainty, or that feeling that they're an expert and they're not prepared to open their mind to a different way of doing things. If all of that's going on for you, which it is for all of us, then this is purely a suggestion about some practical ways you can think about it differently.
- [18:46]
A
Yes.
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B
And we're going to get very practical soon. But just to build on what you're saying, it's like, yeah, it sucks to be uncertain. Sometimes it can be uncomfortable. But how do you want to navigate a world that's in constant flux? Do you want to be brittle and breakable, or do you want to be supple and, you know, sophisticated?
- [19:02]
C
That is a very neat way of putting it. I'm Australian as well. We're very blunt with the truth. Like, the world's changing. It is ambiguous. So you can either like get on board with that and figure out how to deal with that uncertainty and feel a bit more comfortable, or continue to have fixed views which I think are not serving any of us.
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A
Okay.
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B
The third thinking trap is the illusion of knowledge. Say more.
- [19:26]
C
We're probably of a similar vintage. And you know, I started working 30 odd years ago and I accumulated knowledge. So whether it was going to university or new jobs, new experiences, and he kind of, it's like you're carrying around this big pile of books to every new job, to every new experience, every new crisis. And I'd sort of bring it with me. I look back now and all of that knowledge is pretty much out of date. I certainly don't lead the way I led 30 years ago, so that's not helpful. I certainly don't. The technology I was using 30 years ago isn't relevant. It's that illusion that the bigger your pile of books that you can haul around, the more you actually are able and cap and learning in the world. Now, none of this is black and white, obviously, none of this is binary. And of course all of those experiences and failures I've had over 30 years have got me to this point. But if we think because we've done this job 10 times already, or we've read a thousand books or we've listened to 100 podcasts or whatever, somehow that's going to see us through the challenges of today, then that's where I'm saying that's an illusion. We have to keep learning and I need to keep understanding more and understanding which of those books to throw out.
- [20:43]
B
Just not mine or yours.
- [20:46]
C
Yeah, but I mean, I'm realistic enough to say perhaps in a few years there'll be a better way. And that's okay too.
- [20:54]
B
You're a better person than I am. We've been talking at a pretty high level. Let's get practical. In your book, you say there are these three blind spotting mindsets and the first is to be honest, which I think is deceptively simple in that it's not that simple. But can you say a little bit more about what you mean by be honest and then how to actually do that?
- [21:15]
C
Yeah, and it's absolutely simplified to it's, you know, as we're talking about, it's based on an entire theory of intellectual humility. And it's not easy, but I think there are ways that we can think about ourselves and our thinking that helps it. So three practices. I touched on them very briefly before. The first, being able to accept our Intellectual limits. And I think about our knowledge on a spectrum. So you've got intellectual arrogance on one end and then sort of complete anxious lack of knowledge of the other on topics. And I move between any of those points. Neither of them are helpful, obviously, being someone who thinks they know everything and someone who can't even make a decision because they fear they don't know anything. Blind spotting is the sweet spot in the middle where, as I said earlier, you're very aware that you don't know everything, but you're confident you'll find out the answer. So the first sort of step in blind spotting is really being able to accept that. And not everyone can. We can't all the time either. It is really hard. The second, being around our ego. And I sort of touched on that earlier around. If you define yourself as, I don't know, let's pick on lawyers. If you define yourself as a lawyer or an attorney, and that is everything about how you define yourself and see yourself. And, you know, you just. Your whole sense of self is wrapped up in giving out your business card that you're this great attorney, then if someone gives you feedback or says, actually, you don't know everything about being an attorney, or, you know, you didn't do that case very well, it completely cuts into our sense of who we are. And so my suggestion, and this is, is incredibly difficult, but it's disentangling our ego from whatever it is we do and thinking of ourselves by how we contribute to others or being of service or what we know. But it just means that we're able to accept we don't know everything a bit more easily. And then the third is around hunting our biases. And that's really thinking about those thinking biases we touched on around hubris and confirmation bias. And, you know, when my husband's telling me how to pack the dishwasher, I am absolutely susceptible to googling and finding every proof point that he's wrong and I'm right and that is confirmation bias at work, because I exclude all of the information that might say that he's right. But more seriously, when we look at political challenges and people who are just poles apart, obviously we know we can be in our bubbles and we're not looking to understand where others are coming from. So that can be a real challenge. So they're sort of the three practices that help us.
- [23:53]
B
To be honest, I would love to learn more about how to do each of these. So let's just go in reverse order in terms of hunting your biases. And, you know, not being so owned by something like confirmation bias, which is latching onto the information that confirms our priors. This goes against all of our wiring.
- [24:12]
C
Yeah, yeah, I love the question, you know, what am I missing? So if you're leading a team, let's say if you've created a team environment where you're genuinely interested in others contributions and they feel safe to speak up, then I would be asking them, what are you seeing that I'm not seeing? What is it clear that I don't know about this situation? Because we've got these incredibly attuned bullshit meters. We can tell when someone else is bullshitting, but for whatever reason, we've got a bias that we believe no one knows when we're bullshitting. And so that is just this massive blind spot in and of itself. And so when I'm speaking to leaders like they all acknowledge they don't know everything. So no one's got a problem doing that. I'm like, well, why do you feel no one's going to realize that? So this idea about how we can be honest, the more we can be accepting that that's okay, accepting that. If I ask my team, look, what are you saying? What am I missing? What biases have I got that I'm not even aware of? That is how we can start to open our mind and build trust with the people that we're leading. So, so many people feel that saying I don't know yet is like a career killer. If I say that, I'll lose my job. My view on that is if you're in an environment where you can't say that, then you've got way bigger problems than a lack of intellectual humility in the organization. You know, you're in such a toxic environment that there's bigger issues to play. Because I know having been a leader for so many years, I want people telling me when they don't know. I don't want them bullshitting me.
- [25:53]
B
One of the ways in which I've attempted to deal with my biases is to really start broadening my media diet so that I see when just to be honest about where I am politically. I think I'm close to the center. I spent a lot of time, much of my life being a journalist. I'm not particularly ideological, so I think I'm just sort of wired for curiosity and some degree of openness. But, you know, Trump has been hard for me. And so I really do try to listen across the spectrum. I'm not putting myself through Steve Bannon's podcast or Tucker Carlson. But I do listen to folks on the center right who are either, if not pro Trump, they're at least a little bit more open than most of the mainstream media is. And of course I listen on the people who are way to the left of me. And I have found this is a pretty good way to. If I'm on my game, I can catch both confirmation bias and also what's called attribution error, where if somebody you don't like does something, it's an aberration. If somebody you do like does something, it's proof of their fundamental goodness. And so I don't know if there's data on any of this, if I'm an outlier, but what say you?
- [27:06]
C
I agree completely. And in fact, in the book I talk about how opening our mind and being curious. So we haven't sort of got to being curious yet, but pursuing different perspectives is incredibly important. And you know, I had a real lesson here. I'm probably very similar to you politically center more to the left than current, you know, if we're looking at far right. But we had a referendum in Australia recently and I voted yes to recognise our indigenous first nations people in our constitution. That was the referendum and it was obviously people towards the left voted yes and those who didn't want to see that voted no. And the outcome was an overwhelming no vote and by something like 60 or 70%. So I was a minority with other people on the left who voted. They wanted to see first nations people recognised for me I wouldn't change my vote if I did it again tomorrow. So I'm still very much of that view that we should recognize our first nations people. But to your point, it made me realise I had not gone and sought to understand what turns out to be the majority of my fellow citizens were believing or why they were believing it. And it's a real gap. Not that we're expected to change our mind, but as you do. I read very widely now and I don't go down to the far right or the far left, but different perspectives of conservative media that perhaps don't cause me to change my mind on issues that are fundamentally important to me. So someone who's anti marriage equality on pro marriage equality, they could talk till the cows come home. I'm never going to change my mind on that. But I like to understand why other people feel the way they do because it's helpful to calibrate our confidence in issues. And I can then recognize that, yes, I'm holding firm to a view I have, but I'm doing that on a values based perspective or I'm doing that for whatever reason. It's not that I haven't pursued to understand the facts of what are involved or something like that. So I don't know if that helps explain, but I'm totally with you that if we don't read widely and if we don't listen to others with different perspectives, you get caught out like I did, being literally shocked that most of my fellow citizens had a very different view than I did.
- [29:38]
B
That all makes complete sense.
- [29:43]
A
Coming up, we talk about how to work with defensiveness, turning feedback into growth. Easier said than done, and how curiosity and psychological safety help us stay open and honest. You know, AT&T believes hearing a voice can change everything. And if you love podcasts, you get that the power of hearing somebody speak is unmatched. It's why we save those voicemails from our loved ones. They mean something for me. When I need a one on one holiday boost, I know who to call.
- [30:20]
B
My friend Joseph Goldstein, my meditation teacher. This is a guy who is just.
- [30:25]
A
Every time I got a problem, I.
- [30:27]
B
Can call him up and he talks me off the ledge and gives me practical and profound advice.
- [30:33]
A
AT&T knows the holidays are the perfect time to do just that. Share your voice. If it's been a while since you've called somebody who matters, now is the time. Because it's more than just a conversation. It's a chance to say something they will hear forever. So spread a little love with a call this season. Happy holidays from AT&T. Connecting changes everything. Hey, I want to tell you about some new running shoes I've been wearing recently. Ultra Running shoes. They're super comfortable and we all know that building new habits requires a strong foundation and that starts from the brain and goes all the way down to your toes. That's why I love Ultra Running because they actually have reliable, intentionally designed shoes that make every step feel supported. It's not just for hiking or crazy long distance runs, although they do work great for those things. The Ultrafit is designed to let your toes spread out naturally, which provides comfort, balance and strength wherever you are. When you're not bothered by cramped feet, you can get back to what matters. Building new, healthy routines free your mind and your feet with Ultra Running and the Ultra Fit Experience. Check them out now by visiting ultrarunning.com that's alt r a running.com and remember to stay out there.
- [32:02]
B
You also mentioned earlier you know this idea of disentangling your ego. You use the example of a lawyer.
- [32:09]
A
I'd be curious to hear a little.
- [32:10]
B
Bit more on the how of that. Because identity from a Buddhist perspective, and I come from a Buddhist perspective, identity is a total trap, but it's a seductive one. And you know, we all walk around with I am a mom, I am a dad, I am a Australian, I'm an American, whatever. We've got this whole list of things that we identify as that's even in the common parlance. Now I identify as fill in the blank. And obviously to a certain extent this is natural and healthy. And when I talk about the Buddhist saying, it's a trap, that's on a deep level when these beliefs become really self limiting. But this is a long way of just getting to what do you recommend for disentangling our ego? Which of course can lead to better decisions. If every time somebody questions my expertise, I'm bringing to bear all of my identities. I'm a journalist. Oh, I'm X, Y and Z. I then become really brittle. But that sounds easier said than done.
- [33:06]
C
Yeah, all of this is easier said than done, Dan. Like there's no doubt writing a book about blind spotting is a lot easier than engaging in blind spotting. And if I didn't recognize that, then that would be a massive blind spot on my part. So I think the way that I try and do it and I feel I'm not a Buddhist, so I'm sure you're far better at this than I am. But I know that if I can recognize my triggers or that what's going on in my body when I'm getting defensive, so if I can feel I'm becoming defensive, if I catch it, and I don't always, but if I catch it, then I know, okay, my ego has been triggered. Something I'm either feeling shame, embarrassment, something is being activated in me that is probably going to lead to me getting frustrated and angry and defensive and it's not going to be helpful. So firstly, I try to catch what's going on for me. I also then try and reflect on if I'm going to go into a difficult discussion. If I know that is a topic that is likely to trigger me, then that helps to be able to just plan for that and stay present. So if I know I'm going to have to sit down with some people who I don't know have a really strong view on something that I don't agree with, then at least I know, okay, this is what's going to happen. This is how I'm going to feel. So let's plan how I'm going to actually avoid becoming defensive and then just losing all my ability to have a reasonable conversation. And so I think in some of these tense conversations, if you've got someone else there who's able to observe you afterwards, that's always helpful because they'll tell you what they saw going on. It's more for me, a physical thing, but I'd actually love to know from you, what do you do? We all get defensive. That happens. Do you feel something coming on?
- [35:02]
A
Well, for sure.
- [35:03]
B
I like that suggestion. You said you're not a Buddhist. But from a meditation or mindfulness standpoint, knowing that defensiveness is going to show up as a certain set of sensations, often before you're even registering it consciously, it's a great alarm bell, like, oh, okay, I'm getting triggered here. Let me take a few deep breaths. Let me call a pause to the meeting. Let me just retire to greener pastures in my own mind for a second and get my shit together.
- [35:30]
C
Let me get the hell out of here.
- [35:32]
B
Or even just without, you know, without actually leaving the room, you can just retreat for a second. So all of that makes complete sense to me. There's a concept that I have found really helpful and it comes from a writer. And this person has become a friend of mine after being on the show a couple times. Her name is Dolly Chug, she's at NYU and she's written a few really good books. Actually was texting with her today about.
- [35:55]
A
A dinner that we're going to have.
- [35:56]
B
And she has this concept that's called good Ish. Ness.
- [36:00]
C
Yeah.
- [36:00]
B
So for me, I often get defensive around if somebody's criticizing me in a way in which I read it as they're calling me a bad person because it's triggering my ancient storylines about being a wretched, which are really go far back for me.
- [36:13]
A
If I can just, and I've really.
- [36:15]
B
Worked on this over time, switch my self conception from. From either bad or good, both of which are brittle, to good ish. Well then when somebody gives me feedback, I can take it on board in a much easier way because I'm not reading it as I'm a horrible person. I'm reading it as, oh, I'm good ish, but I've made a mistake, so therefore I can learn from it and grow.
- [36:40]
C
I love that. In a similar vein, I know I have three triggers when someone's giving me feedback. So because I know them, I then as I'm listening to the Feedback sort of distance myself a bit going, oh, that's that trigger. Or this is that one. So the first one is, I'm thinking you're wrong. So it doesn't matter what the feedback is. I can feel myself starting to formulate an argument as to why. I'm going to say, yeah, but you didn't know about X, Y, Z. And so that's going on. And now when that happens, I recognize and I just name it and go, oh, okay, that's me being triggered that they're wrong. Let's park that. The second trigger is that you're an idiot. So I'm so caught up in the nature of the relationship that I have with the person. So whether I think they're a dickhead. And, like, you got the audacity of giving me feedback, man. You can't even look after your own shit. Why are you giving me feedback like this? So I name that. Okay, I've just been triggered by the fact that I think you're a dickhead. There are dinosaurs and dickheads all over the earth at the moment. So there's a few of them, including us. We've got to put the mirror up. So they're the first two triggers. The third trigger, though, is when I can sense it has triggered my ego. So I am feeling shame or embarrassed or that I have done the wrong thing. You know, I genuinely feel that's my big. Yours is about being good or bad. Mine is if I have done the wrong thing. And I can feel just that immediate sensation of adrenaline and oh, my gosh, and just naming those, even if it's like, oh, yeah, I think this guy's an idiot. It takes the power away from me anyway. And lets me just. Then, okay, let's just listen to whatever is being said. Either withdraw from the situation or take a pause or whatever. So I think any combination of these help. It just helps.
- [38:32]
A
Yes.
- [38:33]
B
And again, we're talking about deep wiring in the human animal and it's not going to be undone overnight. So just to reset, we're talking about the three blind spotting mindsets. We've been talking about honesty, the second one, and we've talked about this a little bit already, but it's worth naming and diving into. The second one is curiosity. Can you hold forth on the value of the whys and wherefores of this?
- [38:57]
C
Well, we talked at the beginning about the three mindsets. Being honest, being curious, being flexible. What I should have said is, they're really not helpful unless you do all three together. So you could be Honest, that's great. But just because I'm honest with myself and go, yeah, I don't know everything about a topic, and then go back my merry way and continue on, that's not great. So you have to then be curious to find out. So if I've been honest that I don't know everything, now I've got to be curious and we'll talk about what that is. But of course, once I learn that there's more data involved or something I'm not aware of and I learn what it is, I've then got to be flexible to actually change my mind. So you can see you have to do all three of these, or else you're just continuing on. So the curiosity piece is I've now accepted I don't know everything. Great. I've got to now search for the truth. And it blows my mind that the truth is contested these days, because of course, there is an objective truth. And that's what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about your truth or my truth and truth social or whatever bloody truths are out there. This is the objective truth that is measurable and verifiable. Not everything is. I understand that. You know, I love flat Earthers. I'm sure there's no flat Earthers listening to your podcast, but just in case they are, I'm going to Antarctica in two days. I'm off for a month. And flat Earthers. I went down this rabbit hole of flat Earthers because they're easy to pick, but they believe that the CIA mans a big wall in Antarctica to stop us all falling over the edge. Now I am going down there. If I see that wall, I promise I will loudly and proudly share photos and say, good on you, flat Earthers. You were right. But I'm just gonna hazard a guess that there's no wall down there. So that's an example where there is an objective truth that the world is not flat. We've got plenty of science to tell us that, and that's what we've really got to seize onto after we're searching for the objective truth. I spoke earlier about pursuing different perspectives. Now this is finding people who perhaps definitely don't agree with us. And again, it's not saying we've got to go and sit in Steve Bannon's podcast and have our mind changed, because that's not what I want to do. I don't want to spend my time doing that. And I'm not proposing that we need to. But again, if I take it back to a more everyday situation. As mentioned, I sat on boards, we would do acquisitions, M and A and take over different companies and all of those sorts of decisions that you make in a corporate environment. I don't ever remember, you know, after we've ticked all the boxes and said we've looked at all the risks and rewards and done our due diligence. I don't ever recall actually going and seeking out someone who vehemently disagreed with what we're about to do and saying, what do you see that I don't see doesn't mean I'd have to change my mind. But literally saying, you really think this is a bad idea? Why? What am I seeing? What am I not seeing? And that you are. So that's the idea of pursuing different perspectives doesn't mean you have to change your mind, but you do need to sort of take it on board and then finally being able to question for insight. And this is the idea of using questions to learn and not to win. So I said before, we can all be clever enough to ask. I could ask you enough questions right now, Dan, where I could put you into a corner and you would just throw your arms up because it's exhausting. I don't want to have to keep arguing with you about something, with someone who just keeps asking me questions to prove their point. Questioning for insight is the opposite, where I'm genuinely interested in your answer and I'm genuinely prepared to take what I learned from you on board in what I'm understanding. And so that means we can be curious.
- [42:50]
B
What kind of questions would that include? You've listed some, like, what am I missing? Or what are you seeing that I'm not seeing? But are there other great questions to get in the habit of asking?
- [42:59]
C
Yeah, I think it's, you know, what would you do differently than what we're about to do? If we could, if this idea was off the table, what would we be doing? Or what will it look like if we get this wrong? What's something that you have seen, we've done in the past that we've missed and that we could be missing again today? It's really just asking ourselves, you know, if I was an outsider looking in at our process here, what would they observe? What would they see that we're not seeing? I think any of these questions, the what ifs will lead to other questions. And you're also building trust with your team that you genuinely respect what they've got to contribute. And by being a leader who can say, look, I don't know all the answers. I need you, Dan, to fill here this gap, and, you know, someone else to fill another gap, if you can do that. We're building trust and respect and showing them that their contributions are actually needed. They're not just people to do whatever it is we want them to do. We're actually interested in what they can contribute and collaborate and all of those ideas.
- [44:08]
B
I think that's known as psychological safety.
- [44:11]
C
Yeah, that is the goal. So how we get there is one of the ways, I think, is being able to ask and accept whatever answers.
- [44:20]
B
Come your way just to say a little bit more about what psychological safety is. And a lot of what we're talking about here is within a workplace setting. And that's great. But, you know, see, you can have psychological safety within your marriage and with your children and in your friend groups, in all of your relationships. And it basically is creating an atmosphere where people are comfortable speaking their mind, even if they're way lower on you. And whatever hierarchy is operational in the moment. And there's a lot of data to show that this is the secret sauce. The secret sauce behind successful organizations. I have failed historically, quite miserably at this. I've done a lot of work in recent years to get better at it, but it's definitely a work environment process.
- [45:03]
A
So, yeah.
- [45:03]
B
Is there anything further to say on this subject of psychological safety and how to create it?
- [45:08]
C
Well, I love that you got us away from the work setting. I find in a work setting, I'm more conscious of asking the right questions, doing it in a way that everyone feels that they're being involved and collaborative, because you kind of go in with that mindset. I have found then when I'm in friendship groups where we start to talk about something contentious, I'm far less in that mindset of, oh, you know, I want to make sure I'm hearing your view, Dan. You know, we're sitting over dinner, having a few drinks, and arguing about something. A lot of that technique can go out the window because you are more relaxed and you're sort of taking for granted that you can say things. It's like, we sometimes treat those we love the worst. We're terrific with people we don't know very well, and yet we can. As I said, my husband might suggest a different way to do something, and I'm like, no way. That is just wrong. Now, I would never say that to someone I don't know very well. So I think it's something we should and could be practicing a lot more in all aspects of our life, not just thinking of it as a work idea. And I know that's something I need to get better at as well.
- [46:15]
B
So again, we're talking about the three blind spotting mindsets. We talked about honesty, we talked about curiosity. You made the point that all three work together. They're important to do them simultaneously. The third is flexibility. Can you hold forth on that one?
- [46:29]
C
Yeah. So, okay, now we've been honest. We don't know everything. I've been curious. I've actually gone and found out that whatever it is, the earth is a steroid. It's not flat. So now I have to be flexible with that. So if I've gone and discovered that what I thought was true isn't true, then it follows that we need to be able to adjust our thinking. We have to have an open mind. Now, I want to say at the outset, blindspotting is not about not having a view or not having fixed views. Again, it's this sweet spot. I'm not expecting us to flip flop. And I've already said there's views on things like marriage equality. I'm never going to change my mind on it. It doesn't matter what I hear all the arguments for and against right now. That is a view I hold firm. But there's other positions I've taken on things. Working from home has been a great example. When Covid happened and everyone went working from home. I'm 52, I was like cheering, thinking, yes, I hope I never have to go anywhere ever again and I never put shoes on and I'm going to work from home forever. And I was a real zealot and I write a weekly column here in our national papers. And I was like, yep, everyone who can should be able to work from home. I've had to really adjust my thinking on that because I observed my daughters who are in their 20s, who really were missing out on opportunities by not being around those they learn from, from listening to the perspectives of others who had seen the culture of their teams really disintegrate or just those who had a whole different lived experience to my own. So it doesn't mean I've changed my mind. I'm still, you know, if you can do it, great and make it work. But I have had to calibrate my confidence. That was the term that I was right. You know, I've really had to calibrate. Actually, I got that a little bit wrong. I do tend to get overly excited about things anyway and then sort of ratchet it back. But what being flexible about then is reading the room. So really being able to understand the room we're in and how it's changing and the context and the signals and, you know, all of that sense making that we do, being able to embrace ambiguity. We've said how hard that is. But if I can be flexible, it means I'm happy to not be hard and fast in what I believe. I'm prepared to change my mind. And then keeping our mind open, obviously, and all of that is really important for us to avoid those decisions we make where later on we think, what the fuck was I thinking? You know, it's doing these things that will help us avoid that.
- [49:03]
A
Coming up, we talk about the ship supreme importance of flexibility, how to change your mind, how to lead with humility, and how to build cultures both in the workplace and in your personal life where it's safe to say, I don't know.
- [49:24]
B
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A
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B
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A
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- [49:40]
B
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- [49:46]
A
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- [50:11]
B
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A
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B
I don't know what they're called, like.
- [50:14]
A
Sweater shirts or something like that. Anyway, I just went on quints.com and ordered one of those bad boys for myself. I'm anxiously awaiting its arrival. I'm getting texts about how close it is, so I'm excited to see how that fits. Everything else I've ordered from Quince fits really well. I've got a bunch of these Mongolian cashmere sweaters. I wear those sweaters all the time. You may have heard me say this before, but there are many days when.
- [50:40]
B
I'm out in the world where I'm.
- [50:41]
A
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- [51:41]
B
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- [51:42]
A
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B
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A
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- [52:08]
B
So I thought of another great little phrase that might be helpful with all of these. I'm recording this right now from the kitchen of a cottage on the grounds of the Insight Meditation Society, which is a Buddhist retreat center co founded by my longtime friend and teacher Joseph Goldstein. I'm here because I'm recording some content with him over these days. And he has an expression which really pops into my mind at opportune moments, which is certainty is not an indication of truth.
- [52:38]
C
Yeah, well, I'm sure he's learned that the hard way too, as we all have. You know, we can be as sure as shit that we're right and we'll very quickly find out we're not. So I mean, when you asked me at the beginning, how do you sell this idea? I mean it's stuff like this. It doesn't matter where you sit on the political spectrum. Every single person has had a real confidence in their belief be upended for whatever. It could be something simple or it can be something really major. And it's just being aware that that is human nature as much as holding onto certainty is. So given that's the case, what are some really practical things we can do to just help? It's not a golden bullet, it's a silver bullet. It's not going to make sure we never make bad decisions again, but it's going to help.
- [53:27]
B
I would add another benefit beyond improved decision making, which I certainly agree with. The world is much more interesting when you're not stuck in your certainty. So I think it was Graham Green who said, when we're not sure, we're alive.
- [53:42]
C
Yeah. You and I both obviously read more widely than things I might agree with, but I find it fascinating just literally reading what people believe. You know, when I went down my rabbit hole of flat Earthers, I was able to look at it from just the perspective of that must be fascinating thinking this way. What is it that leads people to think this? And how is it you get in a situation I'm going to. I feel like, I hope we've got no flat earthers that's listening. Please don't email me. But how do you get to that position when there's so much evidence to show that you are wrong? I think we can look at things from an intellectual perspective, but only when you look widely. And you know, that's just a really trite example because it's easy, but there's so many more subtle ways that our thinking can be influenced. And so I find it fascinating to read widely to see what people believe and why.
- [54:39]
A
Anything more to say about how to.
- [54:41]
B
Take these three mindsets, honesty, curiosity and flexibility, and have them all work together in the moments when we need them to?
- [54:51]
C
Yeah, well, I think it is difficult, but it's not impossible. And the more you can create people around you that feel this way as well, so the more you can be saying to your kids, you know, it's okay to not know. I mean, we're pretty good at doing that with young kids. I don't know that we're that good with our adult children. To really reaffirming. When I think of I mentioned I've got daughters, they're 25 and 23. And so I've been watching them go through the start of their careers. And of course, for them to say to their bosses right now, I don't know, is terrifying. I think you and I have more confidence. The more senior you become, the more you sometimes feel able to say, you know, you've built enough credit in the bank to be able to say, look, I don't know how to do this yet, but I know I'll figure it out when We've got younger people. We do the opposite, because when they truly don't know, we have this expectation that they do. So I think the way that we can be making this easier for all of us is making it okay to not know and having that as just a fundamental part of our families. Our schooling, you know, schools and universities go completely against everything we're talking about because you're doing exams, you're getting tested on knowledge, and if you don't know, you don't do as well and you get a lesser score. And so I don't have a solution for that, but I know that that ingrains in us. This sense of saying I don't know becomes so much harder. So I think we do need to find ways that being uncertain and unsure is perfectly okay.
- [56:33]
B
That's particularly hard in the middle of a pandemic of perfectionism. I mean, it's literally on the rise. Perfectionism.
- [56:39]
C
Yeah. Well, and I mean, as a victim of perfectionism, as a recovering perfectionist who's trying to be happy enough with average, I totally understand that. But it is liberating once you get there, because perfectionism, being perfect and getting everything right is unattainable because even if you get something right now, you know, the next thing won't be right. So, I mean, again, it's another reality that we can either keep trying to go for it and encouraging our kids to go for it, or we can accept that it's just not attainable.
- [57:13]
A
So what do you recommend in terms.
- [57:14]
B
Of building a culture where it's okay to admit you don't know of Just tactically, what do you recommend? I mean, what comes to mind for me is, in my limited experience as a leader, is to model it. I often talk about how the fish rots from the head and the head of the fish. And so when there are problems, my instinct is to. To look inward first before lashing out. Sometimes I up and lash out first, but generally when I'm on my game, it's to look inward. And so I guess if I wanted to take seriously your injunction here to create an atmosphere where it's okay to admit you don't know, I would want to start modeling that from the top.
- [57:56]
C
That's absolutely critical. And I think building these cultures of seekers and going back to is what we want and we role model that. So a, it's what we spoke about before, being able to even say to ourselves, let alone other people, that you don't know everything. You know, I don't know yet, but I'm confident team, we're going to figure this out. It's if someone else in your team says they don't know, truly thanking them for that honesty and saying, terrific. I mean, I don't either, Dan. So let's figure this out together. It's being able to accept that it's normal in a team not to have all the answers and that what we want is to stay curious and open to learning these gaps in our knowledge is just completely understandable. But gosh, look at the opportunity it gives us to explore something we haven't even thought of yet. So it's about framing to our teams and this is all about psychological safety as well, that not knowing isn't a weakness. In our team, not knowing is a realistic certainty. If we want to be certain about something is that we're not going to know all the answers. And so how are we going to sort that together? That's that real confidence. But again, to remind people who are listening, saying, well, we've got some drama, we're dealing with a crisis, that's just not going to fly. I agree there are times when this is not an appropriate way to proceed. If there is a crisis, if a decision needs to be made straight away, if your team is struggling and they are looking to you for guidance, you may need to just lead from the front. And with all that expertise and experience, say, this is what I believe we're going to do. This is how I'm going to go forward. Call me out if I'm missing something, but otherwise, let's go. So you have to be able to read the room as well.
- [59:42]
B
Yes, that makes complete sense. Just staying on this theme of building a culture where people are seekers and whatnot.
- [59:50]
A
What about hiring?
- [59:51]
B
How can you. And by the way, just taking this beyond the workplace, I mean, when you hire a new friend, you know, when you curate your social. When you curate your social life and, you know, decide who you're going to surround yourself with. How do we build cultures of psychological safety and seeking in whatever orbit we happen to move through?
- [60:14]
C
Nvidia, which who we all know as a company, they sort of open and end my book and I write about the culture they've created because they're one of the few companies that I could fine in the Fortune 500 that have intellectual honesty as a corporate value and they truly have built a culture of seekers. And Jensen Huang writes, and again, it's in the book about how he recruits and he'll get someone to tell him something they know a lot about. You know, Explain how Buddhism works to me, Dan, and I'll let you explain it. But then he deliberately will say, yeah, how? But you know. And challenge you. I don't think that makes sense or why would that be? And he watches to see how they react. So, on something that's really important to you, how do you respond when I am challenging a view that you have. And if there's someone who is prepared to go, that's really interesting, actually, I hadn't thought of that perspective. I'll go away and think about it. Obviously it's an interview. It doesn't really matter what the topic is. Then that's someone who's more likely to become a seeker in your team. If it's obviously a person who's got a very fixed view, it's going to be much more difficult. So I think we can be recruiting for these skills where we're open to learning and we're open to not having all the answers, even on something that we feel an expert in. And that brings us back to that curse of expertise. You're really trying to see how flexible people are in their thinking and in friendships. It's similar. We all, as we first get to know someone, we're tentatively like, are you a crazy whack job, really extreme views, or can I just, you know, I'm just going to test where you stand on some issues that are important to me. And, you know, I can sense in five seconds whether or not we're going to get on. And if we feel we can, then I'll be really curious to see over time, does that hold on a whole range of different topics? And again, likewise. I'm sure they're weighing me up as well. And so perhaps I'm the crazy whack job. And in some people's minds, but. But I think we're all just trying to find our fellow crazies.
- [62:23]
B
Amen.
- [62:23]
A
Okay.
- [62:24]
B
Another question that's on my list here is I believe you recommend to people thinking like a journalist.
- [62:32]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is true. Because journalists, I think, are good at checking out their source. So this is all part of trying to find the truth in things. So often you've got, you know, your crazy Uncle Fred who says, have you heard? Because I read on Facebook, and you just know whatever is about to follow is complete rot. And you know that he hasn't checked the source. He hasn't thought critically about what he's reading. He has just believed whatever he said. I think where the idea of what journalists do is good, we're talking about really robust journalists that are very committed to their craft. They will go and seek multiple perspectives. They will try and get to the truth of a situation. They will question where that information is coming from. What biases might be driving my view on a topic that I've given you an answer to, what vested interests at play. All of that kind of thing makes us better at critical thinking. And critical thinking is obviously behind everything we're talking about. This idea of questioning what we know and what we believe we know and how we can move forward. So that's what I mean about journalists. But I'm very conscious now there's a lot of citizen journalists and others that perhaps don't tick all of those boxes. So I perhaps should have had an asterisk in the book just to qualify that.
- [63:56]
A
Yes.
- [63:56]
B
Thinking like a real journalist. Yes.
- [63:58]
C
One of those old school journalists that actually, you know, did the hard yards.
- [64:02]
B
I am one of those old school journalists, not only in that I've been doing it for a long time, but also in that I am old. It's really helpful, especially in a time like we're in right now where it's so polarized, just having these habits of mine that allow me to sort of calmly interact with difference. It just reduces my hysteria level.
- [64:27]
C
That's always a good thing. It just means you're questioning. You know, journalists are really good at questioning what they know, what they think they know, the people they're speaking to, the truth. They're good at questioning power, shining a light in dark places. All of those things we know about journalists, I think they're qualities that we can bring to our everyday relationships and the way we think about things. And I mentioned earlier the referendum that I really got wrong. I was not thinking like a journalist. I did not go and seek different perspectives. I did not try to understand what I'm missing. I didn't understand what my vested interests were. You know, I didn't understand my biases, all of those things. And so when the result came out, unsurprisingly, I got it wrong and really had to question myself and look in the mirror about what I'd missed.
- [65:16]
A
There was a phrase you used earlier.
- [65:18]
B
That I felt like it might make sense to come back to calibrating confidence. Can you say more about what that means and how to do it?
- [65:26]
C
It's asking myself, look, what don't I know about this situation or what evidence is really going to make me change my mind? So if I am got a firm view on something and I think I'm just trying to think of what's something you've got a firm view on. It doesn't have to be a serious thing, but anything.
- [65:46]
B
Well, what I'm thinking about as you ask, that is the difference between values and opinions. You've said before that you're not going to change your mind on marriage equality. So that's a value of equality. Whereas you might have opinions on any number of issues in the culture, but those I think it's healthy to be open to overturning. And so for me, I have core values that I'm not willing to, you know, I'm pro kindness, pro fairness, all of those things. So what is something where I have like a really.
- [66:20]
A
Go ahead.
- [66:20]
C
You've just hit on something, though, that's really, really important that we haven't touched on. So let's not use marriage equality, but let's say the environment. Okay? So everyone, if I say to you, do you care about the environment? I would hope it's such a broad question. Yes. But as we narrow down the issues within it, then they'll start to be somewhere you're going to have strong opinions, perhaps against it. So, you know, we might get right down to your local community. Yes, I'm pro the environment, but am I supportive of being fined $1,000 if I put a bit of plastic in my bin? Well, no, actually, hypothetically, that's not a thing. I care about the environment, but I don't care enough to pay a thousand dollars if I get a bit of plastic. Wrong. So the narrower you get, the more challenging it becomes to have these conversations. So it's easy for me to say, yes, I'm pro marriage equality because it's a value, but there'll be issues within that. Am I supportive of. Of some aspect within it? I don't know. I can't even think of something that it might be. And perhaps I'm not. So it's also, you said, how can we calibrate our confidence? Trying to be conscious of. Are we talking big picture? Am I just having a pretty bland conversation with you about the environment, or are we really going to have a conversation about the nitty gritty? If we're in the nitty gritty, it's more likely to be heated because it's more likely that we're going to have a firm view on that. That. Does that make sense?
- [67:53]
B
It does. So I see what you're saying about how the nitty gritty is where you might be less confident. And so what you're saying is the drilling down is where the calibration is.
- [68:06]
C
Happening and it's as you're getting there. So when Uncle Joe says, well, he was Fred, I think Uncle Fred tells you that the world, world's flat. And you go, that's rubbish. But why do you think that way? And you discover that he doesn't trust the government, and then you go, well, why? And then it's because he got sent electricity bills that I don't know. This is all just hypothetical. The more you get into the nitty gritty, the more you can actually start to have a conversation about, okay, what happened when that happened? How did you feel when you got your bill? That was wrong. And, yeah, I can imagine. Not quite sure how you get to the leap that the world's flat. But anyway, good for you, Uncle Fred. But, you know, it's really being aware in your teams and with the people that you're talking to. Where am I sitting in the conversation, in the issue? What is it that we're trying to resolve?
- [68:58]
B
Where, for you, does imposter syndrome fit into all of this?
- [69:02]
C
Obviously, all of us have it. It's that need to pretend that we know. So I think when I felt the biggest imposter, it's when I haven't been able to say, I don't quite know what I'm doing. Like, I feel it, but I don't feel confident to say it. And the more I've grown into my confidence to be able to sit in a boardroom and go, I don't know the best way to proceed here. You know, I need much more information. Teach me. The more that helped me overcome being an imposter, feeling like an imposter at the start of my board career where I felt I had to have the answers. So at the very beginning, when I was very young, I joined my first corporate board at 35 and first public company board at 38. I mean, looking back now, I was just feeling I had to talk on every single agenda item and add no value at all. And I noticed the people around me, the really experienced directors, hardly said anything, but what they did say was gold. And I coined an idea back then which I still use, called the word to wisdom ratio, which is what I was trying to get to. And I was using a huge amount of words for not much wisdom. Likewise, you would know people, hardly any words, but every single bit of it is wise. So this word to wisdom ratio is how I was calibrating whether or not I perhaps needed to sit back and learn a bit more and calibrate my confidence And I think if we are going into situations and we're doing all the talking and we're doing all the answers as well, you know, you love those people that ask a question and answer it for you too, then their word to wisdom ratio is crap. And so I think we all need to be calibrating confidence through that.
- [70:50]
B
You mentioned before that you got two daughters in their early 20s and it's harder for them to admit they don't know in the workplace than it is for you, given that you've got some, as you said, credit in the bank. So what do you advise them to do?
- [71:04]
C
Well, so managing up as a topic is really difficult. As I said, there are dinosaurs and dickheads roaming the earth and if you have a boss that is a dinosaur or a dickhead or both, then trying to create a way to feel safe around that is really hard. So there are times where you will just need to find somewhere else to work, which is awful and sometimes very difficult for people to be able to do. But if you are in an environment where you feel your boss is actually going to be receptive to you saying, I don't know, then I would be absolutely going to them and testing that and saying, hey, look, I know you've asked me to do this, but I just wanted to share with you. I'm not 100% sure that I understand A, what you've asked me to do or B, how to do it or how to best get the outcome you're looking for. Is it okay if you just spend some time to help me understand a bit more now you'll very quickly know how safe or not safe it is to be able to do that. And I think it's a pretty poor boss that responds poorly to that. And if it does, it's your sign to get the hell out of there.
- [72:13]
B
So this in some ways comes back to a phrase you've used several times in this conversation, which is reading the room.
- [72:19]
C
Yeah, so reading the room was all sort of central to my research of my last book called Hidden Heart. And to me it's a skill we do not focus on or think about or teach nearly enough. And I do want to mention though, I got great feedback after I wrote my last book from about reading the room from people who are neurodivergent. So I'm neurotypical. I wrote the book in a neurotypical way. And to me, I find it hard to even tell you how to read a room because it's intuitive. Like, I just. You would probably find the same it's hard to say what you're doing. And obviously we're not talking about a room. Could be a team, organization, industry, whatever. People who are neurodivergent wrote to me and said, I don't even know what you're talking about. Like this skill is just completely foreign to me. What is it? And so I need to be aware as a neurotypical leader that A, not everyone understands what we're talking about right now and B, if I'm neurodivergent myself as a leader, then I need to be doing different things.
- [73:22]
B
I'm just curious about that prior book. Are there any just little nuggets of wisdom you can share with us? And again, they may be only operationalizable for the neurotypical about how to read a room.
- [73:33]
C
Yeah. So head and heart was this whole idea and research done around the idea that obviously we need to be able to understand what is needed and when and that we all have these attributes of leading with the head, which is around reading a room, and curiosity, which we've talked about, and capability and, you know, all of those kind of tangible things. And we've got to balance that with empathy and self awareness and courage to speak up for what we believe in. Reading the room. Firstly, it's going into any situation and asking ourselves who's in the room, but most importantly, who's missing from the room or who's in the room but not speaking. And it's like an orchestra. Am I only hearing the drums? But we've got all the violins over here. I can't hear them at all. Or the bassoons. I've never used this analogy before. I don't know where bassoons came from, but the bassoons aren't even in the room and the tubers are just refusing to come in the room. Okay, I'm going to leave that whole analogy now. But it's really this idea of observing what's going on around us. And it's not just body, it's body language to me is minor. This is what are our competitors doing? What changes are going on in the world around us that are going to influence where we need to go. You know, what steps and decisions do I need to take now that are going to benefit us in the future? And I wrote that book straight after Covid. And I used the example of your MBA commissioner who shut down the NBA season right at the start of COVID at a time when the then President Trump was saying, you know, Covid's fine, it's just drink, bleach or whatever. You know, he certainly had to make a decision to shut down an entire season of football at a time when that was not being recommended more broadly. But it was the right decision. And so how did he do that? How did he read the room? And I think it's really sort of an example some of your listeners might remember.
- [75:37]
B
Yeah, yes, I remember when the. When the NBA shut down, that kind of signaled the beginning of the pandemic.
- [75:43]
A
But so when you say read the.
- [75:45]
B
Room, it's not just. And I think you made this clear, but I'm just further clarifying it. It's not just when you walk into a room, what are the atmospherics? It's also like situational awareness globally in your decision making.
- [75:58]
C
It's like when you start a new job and how you're observing what the culture is. So for those first few weeks, months, you know, you're just kind of picking up, okay, this is how they do things around here. This is what happens in our meetings. This is who comes, this is who doesn't come. Now, that's, again, a pretty minor way of doing it in a contained environment. But reading the room can happen globally. We're reading the room as to what's going on with the far right in different countries at the moment and different elections. We're reading the room about what's happening in different industries, what's happening with AI. That's why I say body language is kind of. You and I have been reading the room through this podcast, reading how you react to things. I'm sort of observing. You're observing how I react. And we're making the conversation more effective by sort of playing off each other. That's how the two of us are doing it in this context. But if we were now to be in a room of a thousand people, I'd be doing something slightly different. You know, observing the audience in a different way. I'd be observing what they laugh at, what they don't laugh at, what feel like a pancake when I swore. And that has happened.
- [77:05]
B
Is there one hack or skill or strategy that you would recommend that could improve our ability? Again, this may be only for the neurotypical, but that would improve our ability to read the room, either in an actual room or as we're looking at.
- [77:21]
C
Whatever the real trends.
- [77:22]
A
Yeah.
- [77:23]
C
Yes. It's being aware. It's a practice that we need to do so again. It's like everything, once you name, becomes more tangible in our mind. And so there will be times where I need to make a big decision on something and I'll think, have I read the room on this and what is the right room and which room am I in? Often I'm in the wrong room. And if I'm in a room which is pretty small and everyone agrees with me, I know I'm going to make room the wrong decision. I need to be in a room where there's people who have really quite different views to me and I've acknowledged them, I've understood them, I've perhaps adjusted my position if I feel I need to and then I go forward.
- [78:04]
B
Two questions I ask habitually at the end of an episode. First is, is there something you were hoping to get to that we didn't?
- [78:11]
C
No, I think we covered. Yeah. Everything that I would imagine then probably a bit more. So thanks.
- [78:16]
B
Great. And finally, can you just remind everybody of the name of your new book, your old book, Anything else you want us to know about?
- [78:22]
C
Yeah. My new book is called Blind Spotting how to See what Others Miss. And I built a scale or a survey that with one of the universities here, anyone can go and do that for free and find out how they go with all of these blindspotting mindsets. And it's blindspotting.com au.
- [78:40]
B
Kirsten, thank you very much. Great job.
- [78:43]
C
Thank you. Thanks for the great conversation.
- [78:50]
A
Thanks again to Kirsten Ferguson. Great to talk to her. Don't forget to go sign up@danharris.com if you want to participate in our free New Year's Meditation Challenge, which will be running from January 5th through the 11th. Joseph Goldstein will be our teacher. He has crafted an amazing series of savage guided meditations that really are a kind of master class and on ramp to Buddhist meditation. Great for beginners, great for people who've been meditating for a long time. If you join us, I'll be doing the challenge right alongside you. I'll be doing a bunch of live sessions to complement the challenge, video sessions where you can come meditate a little bit more with me and then ask me some questions. It's going to be amazing. And it will be run through our new 10% app, which I can't believe I get to say I can't believe I get to have an app again. If you want to sign up for the challenge and for the app, go to danharris.com the challenge is totally free and there's also a free 30 day trial for the app if you want to try it before you buy it. Yeah. Super excited about this. Finally. Thank you to everybody who works so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasily. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer, Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer, DJ Cashmere is our executive producer and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.
- [80:24]
D
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