B (2:48)

Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I think this is the first issue that people face that when they are stuck, it almost feels like this very personal affront that it's an unusual thing that other people are not in the same position. People don't generally share their struggles. And so what you end up seeing, especially in the world of social media, is essentially one success after another. But as you say, stuckness is inevitable. It's inevitable because there are really two reasons. One is that the things that work tend to work less well over time. So we get into a bit of a groove. And this is true whether you're lifting weights at the gym, or you're a runner, or you're in business, or you're trying to learn a language, it doesn't matter what you're doing. Techniques tend to stop working as effectively over time. And it's almost immutable law of psychology and physiology. And so that's one reason. So things seem like they're less successful over time, but also the situations change, the environments change. And as environments change, we get stuck because some facet has shifted. That means that what was working before is no longer as effective in this new environment. And we're always sort of blindsided by those changes. And so this book is essentially designed to be a manual to help people across lots of different domains, professional and otherwise, to get unstuck when they are faced with these, as you say, inevitable stucknesses.

A (4:10)

Right. You know, I always see the. For us, we're a coaching company and we have people we've been coaching in some cases for decades. And I think some folks look from a distance and they go, it's this meteoric rise, it's a rocket ship piece. And it's actually what I've experienced is there's peaks and then there's these plateaus. And the plateau is a lot longer than the peak. And then eventually, if the person perseveres, you can have another peak, but followed in immediately by another plateau. And so I think a lot of times people think they're stuck, but they're actually just on a plateau. And it's actually being stuck is on occasion a symptom of being successful. Like you're actually on the right track. It just doesn't feel like, you know, it's. Look, I'm married 35 years. I married the love of my life. She's still the love of my life. I have six kids and we're deeply in love with one another, but we're not skipping through the daisies the way we were after our first date. You know, you grow and then you go through plateaus, and then you grow and you go through plateaus. And we're in a stage now. We've got the grown kids and the grandkids and we've got the empty nest and we've had this next new lease on life and so on and so forth. But I think people think the success is. Oh, the successful relationship is that it's supposed to be the same as when you're dating 35 years in. I can. News flash, it's not okay. It's different. It's better to be honest with you, but it's different. And so I think this dynamic of stuck, one of the things I saw in the book, and I thought it was a great way you put it, is it's actually a feature of progress. And I think that is not a common concept. That is not lighting up, that's not going viral on social media, but truth rarely is. Talk about how being stuck is a feature of progress.

B (5:53)

Yeah, that is what I say, that it's a feature rather than a glitch. It feels like a glitch. Right. There's a sort of birthright sense that if you work hard and you apply yourself and you get the right skills, that you're on the fast track to some sort of destination, whatever that is. It's a destination that you're striving for. And when things feel sticky and hard and you just aren't making forward progress or you hit a plateau as you described it, it feels like a glitch on that path. But actually there is no success story. And you're included in this. Obviously, as you said earlier, that doesn't involve multiple repeated periods of stuckness. And so we don't talk enough about this. We feel isolated, quite lonely, to be honest, when we're stuck. And part of it is recognizing that it's going to happen. It's inevitable if it's not happening right now, and for most people, there is probably a stuckness that affects them Today, but it's around the corner. There are lots of reasons why it might emerge. And if you're not blindsided by it, if you know that it's going to happen and you prepare yourself for it and you have a strategy for dealing with it, you. You're ultimately in the long run going to be much more successful.

A (6:57)

Yeah, I love that it's not a glitch. And I think that's a good thing because, oh my gosh, the reason why it causes such stress is this is not normal. I'm the only one feeling this, which. It's interesting you brought up the term loneliness. People get, and especially men. Men get embarrassed. Like, I'm supposed to have all the answers, I'm supposed to be on track, and then we withdraw. And I think it's common now. I think post Covid withdrawal is the, is the number one default for everybody. You know, I just toured through this fabulous company in South Carolina the other day, and it has this fabulous organization. And they've got the gyms and the coffee shop, they have a on site dentist. They do all these things for their employees. But since COVID they got giant empty buildings. And I'm like, this is a cool place. It's got this great gym with the workouts, they got food, they got a coffee shop, they got all this stuff. They got this synergy. But it's hard right now to get people to come back to work. I have 200 employees. And you know, be candid. They like working from home a lot more than they like coming to the business. And it's kind of a push and pull. And I believe one of the reasons for it is we've gotten used to this loneliness. We've gotten comfortable with this loneliness. I think people are getting comfortable being stuck. That's what I think's happening. And I think they'll play this game. And I really think this. I mean, Look, I have six kids, they're 32 to 23, right? And so I'm kind of right in that vein where, you know, they grew up living on social media and they've learned that, okay, you know, social media is. It's a fallacy life and it's this and that and the other. Now it's switching to this more authentic stuff. But the one thing you won't find in that culture is people who are like, yeah, tune in tomorrow. I'm still in the same place. And I think that's where most people are. But I saw something in your book that I hadn't seen before, which is this thing called the goal gradient. And I know that's a little wonky, maybe a little technical for a lot of folks here. I told you I was trained as an actuary like you. When I saw that, I was fascinated by it. Our audience is very familiar with goal setting. I'd love you to talk through this goal gradient piece and just a little bit that this whole dynamic of the middles that you talk about.

B (9:03)

Yeah. The goal gradient research is based on a huge number of studies in lots of different domains looking at how humans and even other animals progress towards goals and the pace with which they do that across the course of a long term goal. So whether you're writing a book that's 100,000 words, or trying to make a thousand sales, or trying to find acquire followers online or whatever it is you're trying to do, if it's a long term goal, the goal gradient hypothesis says that at certain points in that goal, things will feel easier. Like you're almost coasting downhill on a bicycle. But there are moments where it's predictably so that you will feel like you're going uphill and the gradient gets steep and it's tough. And what the research shows is that at the beginning, when you start the goal, it feels pretty good. You know, you're invigorated, you're starting something new. There are a lot of low hanging fruit which give you the sense of progress and mastery and so on. As you get to the end of the goal, you can see it, it's in sight. And that also motivates you, draws you in. It's magnetic, makes you feel like you're making a lot of good progress. But there is a middle, it's called stuck in the middle, where if you imagine that you're on a ship between say the east coast of the United States and Ireland, you're on this ship that's heading over, there's going to be this long period in the middle where there are no real good signposts of progress. You don't have the sense that you're making forward progress and that's demotivating and that happens in a lot of these long term goals. So the goal gradient hypothesis says that you make a lot of progress at the beginning and the end, but a lot of people get stuck and then demotivated and then completely disengaged in the middle.

A (10:37)

Oh, that is so true.

B (10:39)

And that's the research.

A (10:41)

Yeah, that is it. Like that's it. So what is your best advice? How do you get people through that? Middle, they don't have a signpost. They feel like giving up. What are the best ways to push through to get to the other side?

B (10:54)

Yeah, one of the best ways is to engage in a process called narrow bracketing. So when you think of a goal, let's say you've got 100,000 words to write. And I've written three books, and so I've been through this process three times now. It's a long process. And there are periods where you wake up and you sit at the computer and nothing comes out. But one thing you can do is instead of saying, my goal is to write 100,000 words, you break it into smaller chunks that are bite sized, that give you the sense of progress. So what you say is, for example, every 500 words or 100 words or a thousand words, I will reward myself in some way. I will see that maybe on a document that I've created, I'll put a check mark in, have some sort of treat that'll make me feel good about it. And what you essentially do is you turn this very big goal into so many small goals that are so brief that there is no middle. Each sub goal is so brief that there's a beginning and an end, but the middle is so short that you don't get stuck in the middle anymore. And that tends to work quite well.

A (11:52)

Genius. I mean, obviously it will work for health and weight loss, right? Someone's like, oh, I got to lose £50. £50 is daunting. And that's why they set out a goal, oh, I'm going to run a marathon. Which is like, okay, if you're 50 pounds overweight, you may not want to start with a marathon, right? But it's in the first couple of weeks you feel great and so on and so forth, and you're eating right. Then you have a little setback, or the scales doesn't appear, or your body composition is changing appropriately, but it doesn't show up on a scale. And that's where people give up. And so whether it be financial people trying to dig themselves out of debt the same way, or write a book or do some big project, it's break it down into those bite sized little chunks. So you create these little rewards. What's an example of reward for yourself that you do, you know, you wrote the thousand words. What's a little reward that Adam uses that motivates him?

B (12:40)

This is going to sound totally perverse because you just described the marathon as the goal. So I'm a runner. I love running. Running is A sort of reward for me in a way that I think for other people it might be a punishment. But one thing I'll do on these days where I'm writing is I'll say, I'm going to get up. I'll get my kids to school, and then I sit down at the computer and I say to myself, today's goal is maybe a thousand words or 500 words or whatever it is. The reward for me is once I achieve that, I stop working and I go for a run. And so that's for someone else. It might be something a bit more obvious than going for a run as a sort of reward, but it works for me.

A (13:14)

No, but that makes sense. I mean, you're getting the juice from it. You get the runner's high. It's people who run love to run, right? And so it's something you love to do it. For some people, it might be sitting down, reading a book. For some people, it might be okay. And I know you've. You've written extensively on the whole trap of social media, but for some people, it's like, okay, I got to do these activities. I'm gonna do these, then I'm gonna scroll, okay? But I'm not gonna start the day there, you know, so whatever it is, I mean, everybody's rewarded by different things. Charles Duhigg, who wrote the Power of Habits, great friend of ours, you know, it creates this whole cycle, right? You get. Right the. The mouse gets the cheese, and, okay, I'll pull the next lever. And so I think what you said there is fabulous. There becomes no middles. I also think, you know, what you said here is. Is very profound, which is the things that work work less over time, you know, so you might have to change up the rewards. You might have to do something a little different. You know, I'm the chairman of a company that's entering its 30th year, and so we got best in class, did what we did very well, and now we're having to find out, okay, some of the things we used to do aren't working as well as they used to. Okay, great. We gotta get into the invigoration. It can be destabilizing for people. And so ultimately, if you're having a breakthrough, one of the things I'm curious about is you're helping people to break through many times to get to a place they haven't been before. Homeostasis is a huge thing, like homing pigeons. We want to go back to what we know, all that kind of Good stuff. If you're creating breakthroughs, how do you help people become comfortable with the breakthrough once they have it?

B (14:45)

Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I think there's something about novelty that is daunting and people struggle with the newness of success as well. I think one of the things to do that I found very effective is when you think about goals, there's something a little bit self defeating in the kind of traditional structure of a goal, which is where you're essentially in a failure state until you succeed. And then when you succeed, there's this anti climax. Like what now?

A (15:11)

Yes.

B (15:11)

So instead of, instead of adopting that sort of frame, a lot of people who seem to be successful have essentially a system that's a bit different from a goal. And the system is something like. Instead of, my goal is to write 100 words. My system is I sit down every day, I spend five minutes writing stuff that's not very good, just to get the kind of muscles ready to go. And then I spend 30 minutes, I'll do three sets of 30 minutes of writing punctuated by little breaks. And then whatever comes out. Some days It'll be maybe 100 words, some days no words, some days a thousand words. It's going to vary a lot. And the nice thing about that is this reaching this kind of new place is not an issue because you have a system that you can return to. So although you're in a new location, you've made success, you've made some breakthroughs, you, you still have. You're grounded by a kind of general approach to the world. And I think a lot of people find that a very grounding and helpful way of dealing with the success of a breakthrough.

A (16:08)

Right? Because then it becomes the routine is the routine and the routine is comfortable. Right? You become comfortable with the routine and the routine happens to be in your highest and best interest. Or it's a high performing routine, it can take it to the next way. And that's been my experience. I mean, look, I came to America with 92 bucks in my wallet and then spent 20 years flying around the country my own jet. The psychological shift was enormous if you focused on that. But it wasn't the psychological shift, it was the routines and the disciplines pulled the psychology, if you will. And so that made me comfortable at this different level when I'd normally be, oh my gosh, I'm totally out of my comfort zone. I'm out of my comfort zone with my family, out of my comfort zone with my country. And next thing you know, you go into self sabotage mode, which is again something we deal with. Another thing we deal with that you speak to in the book and we've tried to address from 50 different ways to Sunday is this whole dynamic of perfectionism. It's obviously a common way people get stuck. I believe it's. And again, I have the greatest empathy for people because we're a coach, we're trying to find ways to move people along and help them. I think it's become the most socially acceptable excuse to do nothing. It's the most socially acceptable description for fear. It's actually a flattering way to describe someone who's doing nothing. But it's couched in this, well, I don't want to do this because it's not excellent. So. And it hides the fear, it hides the performance issue, it hides the people. Please. There's a million things behind it. On one hand up coach. I want to push people, but another thing, I want to nurture them and pull them along. When you talk about perfectionism, you talk about the whole dynamic of how to look at it in a different way. And I'd love you to share just your thoughts on that.

B (17:53)

Yeah, perfectionism is a little bit like goals, the way I described them earlier, that there's an on off state where you're either not perfect or you are and no one's perfect. It's very difficult to be perfect in your own eyes or in anyone else's eyes. And so as a sort of standard, a striving standard, it's a little bit self defeating. It doesn't make a lot of sense. But another way of thinking of perfectionism that's not as binary, that's more continuous is excellence or mastery or improvement or something like that. And so instead of saying my goal is to be perfect at X skill, it's I want to be excellent and I'll define excellence today and maybe it'll shift over time. If you're playing chess and you're just starting out, excellence is very different from what excellence will look like 10 years down the line. And you've been doing this for 30 years. You know that in the context of a business, what was excellent on day one is no longer excellent. And you have to shift 100%. So excellence can be redefined across time. And it's motivating in part because it's something you've decided is important to you, that this is a standard that you see as acceptable for your current level of skill. And people tend to be quite motivated by that.

A (19:00)

You know, we coined a phrase years ago because we saw perfectionism inside our organization and then perfectionism with the clients we served. And it started to become an overwhelming thing because we had high standards. And so I said, okay, let's redefine this. And I said, excellence is doing the best you can with what you have in the timeframe allowed. And like you said 30 years ago, our first seminar was excellent. Now 10 years later, we'd have been embarrassed by that first, you know, like your first day running. You know, it's like, okay, like how you run today if, if running is a lifestyle for you today compared to the jogger that goes out and does a one mile slog where they're, you know, breathing, stopping, you know, they're ready to deliver a child a mile into it is going to be different than the runner who's out of 10 years and it's got PBS and got the heart rate monitor on and is in the running club and so on and so forth. And so I do believe that. I do. Like you said, I like the way you think about it as far as the goals can be zero sum and this whole dynamic of perfectionism can be zero sum. Another thing I'm a big fan of in your book is this whole concept of simplification. And I just find it to be. I work very hard to get to simple. I just find simple is like I am a simple creature. I'm a house painter's son. I like a bit of silence, I like to walk on the beach, I like to spend time with my wife and kids. I like to play a bit of golf to get to simple. Just seems like I have to be at my absolute best and most proficient to break it down. It seems like the whole world conspires to make it complicated and thoughts are complicated. Communication, relationships, everything's so daggone complicated. I'd love to know your thoughts on simplification and how it can help us get unstuck.

B (20:44)

Yeah, I think everything becomes more complicated across time. That's true as you develop skills. It's true as your life becomes busier, as you become more successful, as you get older, everything just gets complicated on every possible front. There are even physical laws, the laws of entropy that say that everything becomes chaotic over time. So I think militating against that, pushing against it, is a very valuable enterprise. And in the book I talk about some examples of this. If you look at doctors who are involved in the process of diagnosis of diagnosing complex illnesses, one of the, one of the tools they use is to say, here is an algorithm that I'm going to apply to this diagnostic problem. And it's very simple. I mean, it's not simple that the human body is not simple. But my approach to diagnosing is going to be simple and it's a series of decisions that are themselves individually quite straightforward. And I'm going to apply this rubric, this set of algorithms or set of ideas to this problem. And so what I'm taking is this impossibly complex organism and I'm going to do this whole thing, this process of diagnosing using as simple, as sharp, as precise, as pared down a version of questions as I can. And that's a really useful thing to do in any domain. And it even goes as far as what you just mentioned, that you're a simple person who has simple needs and you know what, you like, you like a bit of silence. Some people like, you know, a scotch at the end of the day, that kind of thing. If those are your simple pleasures, structure your life around them and try to strip away as much of the chaff as you can. And when people do that, I find that they get unstuck faster, they make progress more efficiently and effectively, and they're also happier and feel that life is more meaningful because it's the stuff beyond that essential, simple kernel of what matters to you that really gets in the way of, I think, fully enjoying a life well lived.

A (22:34)

Yeah, that's beautiful stuff. Well, I'm going to say this, and again, you know, I'm an Irishman, which means I have an opinion. I've been a voracious reader. I was not a good student. I mean, I had a proclivity for accounting because I did my dad books since I was 12 years of age. I knew how to take tests, and most of the tests in Ireland were essay tests and I could write. So I got good grades even though I didn't probably deserve them. And then in Ireland, you know, I had the dynamics of. Hey, college was not the next step in growing up if you had particular skills in certain areas. So I was driven towards the accounting world based on my studies. Didn't matter if I had any interest in it, and it took me down a particular road. But what it did cultivate in me was I was not much of a student until I became an entrepreneur, until I got married and had a couple of kids, and until I really had a need to grow. And over that time, when I came to America, I got exposed to personal growth and development, which was a foreign concept to me and all these great people who've become heroes and mentors and ultimately friends of mine, the Zig Ziglars and Jim Rohns and Nito Cobain and all these characters. And I became a voracious reader. Now, what I will say in the last 10 years as I read, I'm less inspired when I read a book because, you know, there's a great biblical principle, there's nothing new under the sun. So what I find in a lot of literature today is genuinely a hell of a lot of rehashing of existing principles. And if you've read a ton of books in this space, a ton of psychology books, I've had a bunch of very famous psychologists on this program. I haven't encountered anything new in a very long time until I read your book. And so I'm going to say the Anatomy of a Breakthrough is the first book in a long time that really made me think, and it's the first book in a long time that I didn't know what the laws of entropy were. I never heard of narrow bracketing and all that. You've done some great research, but you communicate it in a way that I think is very encouraging and practical. And so I really encourage you, those of you listening, it's a great book. Adam, you've got a great gift to take concepts that are abstract and make them concrete. So congratulations to you. I really find your work very valuable, very well researched. But then you don't keep it in the ivory tower. You know, I've had a lot of academics, and I'm like, congratulations, you should stay an academic for the rest of your life. You know? You know what I mean? Like, it's great, but what do I do with it? Like, how do I apply that to my life? So I really find you actually deliver how to get unstuck when it matters most. I really feel like you've delivered with this book. And in a world where everybody's got a book and publishing is easier than it ever was, I just really congratulate you on you. You got a great gift in this area of writing. I really recommend the book to everybody. It's fantastic. And I know the book is going to continue to do very well. Adam, as we finish up here today, I always have our guests just to get a little take on it. Folks are going to get your book and they're going to read it, but it'd be great to get a little flavor on who you are. You know, an Australian South African who's living in Connecticut and Teaching in New York. But we do these kind of rapid fire questions. It gives us a little different slice of who our guest is. And if you're game for it, Our audience is familiar with the questions. Our guests never are.

B (25:47)

So I'm game.

A (25:49)

Here's number one. Adam, what's the single best piece of advice you've ever been given in everything?

B (25:54)

Strive for variety. Make sure your work life has variety. As you get bored of one thing, you got something else to do. Pepper your life with variety in hobbies and pursuits, in the people you spend time with and so on. I think it's great.

A (26:06)

Where'd you get that? Who gave you that?

B (26:08)

I don't know. I think it was a professor as an undergrad. He said, I know you like my course, but why don't you go do this other thing and try that out? And I just thought it was the most valuable advice I ever had and I've never stopped living that way.

A (26:20)

Great. And you probably strive, as you have your own students to. Maybe today will be the day you give them one piece of advice they'll never forget. What one talent or gift do you wish you possessed that you currently don't?

B (26:31)

That's an interesting question. Can it be something that isn't real, that no one has?

A (26:37)

Yeah, sure, go for it. Whatever.

B (26:39)

Periodically stopping time, I find myself often wishing that a moment would last longer than it does. And I think everyone does to some extent. But I think that would be the most powerful ability that I could have. I don't have it. No one has it, but it'd be great.

A (26:53)

But it's also what it sounds like. It's something that allows you to. Maybe you work at trying to take in the moment. And so that's something you do. You get a small taster of, if not a whole jug full of.

B (27:04)

Exactly.

A (27:04)

That's great. What one book has been most instrumental in your life?

B (27:08)

So the book that got me on this path that I'm on today, that took me away from actuarial science and moved me towards psychology and this kind of sort of public facing psychology was Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point, which I read in 2000 or 2001 and it changed my life. I realized there was a different way of looking at the world. And one of the things about Malcolm's work that's fascinating is probably the best taker of multiple threads and threading them together in a way you would never see if you're not Malcolm. You know, he has this incredible ability to do that and taught me a.

A (27:44)

Way of thinking he does the same on stage. I've shared the stage with him many times, and he does the same as a speaker, which is rare. So, like, as a. As a writer, I'm a great speaker, and a lot of people are great writers who are not great speakers. He seems to be able to do both. He's not a. He's not a Tony Robbins that's gonna have you bouncing off the walls, but he does bring these threads together, and when you leave, you go, hmm, thinking a little different. So that's great. Tipping point. A lot of people love that book. I don't know if you're much of a TV or movie watcher, but if there's one movie that's on and every time it's on, you're scrolling through, it always causes you to stop. What's the one movie you've watched over and over again?

B (28:21)

That's a great question. As a lover of variety, I don't tend to watch movies over and over again much.

A (28:29)

Or one of your favorites.

B (28:33)

Like so many people, I loved Shawshank Redemption. I thought that was great when I saw it, and it's always stuck with me. I think there are a lot of messages there that I find inspiring, so I'll stick with that one.

A (28:43)

That's our most common answer.

B (28:45)

Yes. I'm not surprised.

A (28:46)

Our most common answer and a novella that was sold for one book to the guy that got a chance to produce it. So crazy stuff. Last but not least, Adam Alter. What does the good life mean to you?

B (28:59)

It means finding the balance between being happy and finding meaning in life. So where do you adopt the hardships and where do you cast them aside for immediate, easy happiness? And I think the people who live the best are the best able to say, I'm not always going to strive for what's easy, but I'm also not always going to take on what's difficult and challenging. And figuring out that balance is, I think, the recipe for. For a good life.

A (29:21)

Brilliant, brilliant stuff. You have a great mind, sir. You're a great communicator. The book is Anatomy of a Breakthrough. I couldn't recommend it more highly. It's been very beneficial to me. I've got a couple of trips coming up, and I'm going through it. The first time I skim read it, and then the second time, I've got the highlighter out and the notepads, and I'll be devouring this. So thanks so much for taking time with us today. I really think it's been a blessing I think a lot of folks will listen to this show and go, yeah, I'm currently stuck, or I'm feeling this way, or I've isolated a little bit lonely a little bit. And some of the tips you've given today not only will help them get unstuck, but if they dive into the book, I think they'll do well as well. So thanks for taking the time with us today, Adam.

B (30:03)

Thank you, Brian. Thanks for having me.

A (30:04)

My pleasure. As I leave it today, I leave it to my dear old mom in Dublin. And you can say a little prayer for Therese, 94 years old. Her health has taken a bit of a turn, so we're praying for her every day. But I know millions and millions of you have heard her famous little Irish blessing, and we're gonna finish with that today. Thinking of you, ma'. Am. Praying for you. And she's gonna leave us with a little blessing today as we talk about getting unstuck.

B (30:31)

May the road rise up to meet you, and may the wind always be at your back. May the rain fall soft upon your fields, and the sun shine warm upon your face. Until we meet again. May God hold you in the hollow of his hand. See you next time.