← Strategy Hour | Online Marketing for Business Growth
Strategy Hour | Online Marketing for Business Growth
949: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World with Anne-Laure Le Cunff
00:45:24
A transformative guide to living a more experimental life, turning uncertainty into curiosity and forging a path of self-discovery one step at a time.
Loading summary
Transcript34 lines
- [00:00]
Ann Lohur
I actually do recommend I have an entire chapter in the book called Learning in Public where I actually encourage it's optional. You can experiment on your own. It's optional. But I highly recommend experimenting with other people because you learn faster, you grow together again. More fun. Also, and I think fun is something we should optimize for as well, especially when we're trying to figure out what works and what doesn't and we're all a little bit lost, so may as well make it a bit more fun.
- [00:29]
Abigail Pumphrey
Welcome to the Strategy Hour podcast brought to you by Boss Project. I'm your host, Abigail Pumphrey and I'm dedicated to supporting online businesses. I don't believe in one right way to build a business. I'm here to help you build business your way, one that supports not only the life you have, but the life you want. I'm on a personal mission to help you become financially free. I'm taking all the lessons learned as I turned a layoff into a seven figure online business. I'm here to help you prioritize your life every step of the way, whether you're creating your first digital product, growing an email list, or scaling an already profitable business. Settle in. It's time to talk strategy today. I am delighted to have Ann Lohur laconf on today's show. She is an award winning neuroscientist, entrepreneur and the founder of Nest Labs, where her insights on lifelong learning, curiosity and adaptability reach more than 100,000 curious minds every single single week. And Laura's work has been featured in Rolling Stone, Forbes, the Financial Times, Wired, and more. And her research at King's College London is changing the way we think about how we learn and grow across a lifetime. In today's episode, we're diving into her new, incredible book, Tiny A Transformative Guide to Living a More Experimental Life, turning uncertainty into curiosity and forging a path of self discovery One small step at a time. If you've ever felt overwhelmed by traditional goal setting, stuck chasing someone else's version of success, or paralyzed by the fear of getting it wrong, this conversation will feel like a breath of fresh air. And Lure has beautifully captured what so many of us are feeling today about growth, achievement, and navigating a world that's constantly changing. I am so excited for you to hear this one. Let's dive in. And Laura, thank you for coming to the show.
- [02:33]
Ann Lohur
Thank you so much for having me.
- [02:35]
Abigail Pumphrey
I am. You don't even know. I'm so excited to have you. It's honestly so ironic. I have to tell you this little side story before we get into the main bit of your show because it's just so funny. So I've been reading your book and I was in therapy last week and my therapist is trying to answer a question for me, but then she's like, well, I've been reading this book, Tiny Experiments. And I was like, no, you haven't. She's like, what do you mean, no, you haven't? I was like, I'm interviewing her next week. And she was like, what? She was so, like, because, you know, she's my therapist, so she really tries hard not to, like, follow my business and like, get all up into all of that. So it was just so funny. But you're reaching people far and wide regardless if they knew that this was going to be on the show or not. So I am excited to be chatting about you and your book and your background before we get into the meat of it. You've had such a fascinating career, like full twists and turns and for someone who's unfamiliar with your story, I'd love if you could share a bit about stepping away from what you and everyone else around you probably thought was your dream career.
- [03:51]
Ann Lohur
Yeah. Then thank you so much for sharing that story with your therapist. It gives me so much joy whenever I hear about stories of tiny experiments just popping up in the world. So thank you. And yeah, I did have a very wiggly career. I started my career at Google, which at the time was a very unlikely place for me to start working. I met someone on a plane who I stayed in touch with, who I then kind of like half a rest to then get in touch with people working at Google, got interviews, went through the entire process and finally, finally got my first internship, second internship, got a job there. I worked so hard to get this job that once I got it, all I could think about was, I can't believe I'm here. I'm so lucky. This is my dream job, working with such smart people on interesting projects. And yeah, really feeling very, very fortunate. My family was also feeling the same. My friends were feeling the same. Everybody around me was really proud and excited for me.
- [04:58]
Abigail Pumphrey
As they should be.
- [04:59]
Ann Lohur
Yes, exactly. I again, worked really hard to get there. Google is an amazing company and it was amazing for me, especially, you know, getting this job in an English speaking country when that was not my first language. With that I did barrier. So that was the first phase of being very, very excited. And then the second phase, very slow, a little bit like, you know that image that we use of the Frog getting boiled very slowly, and he doesn't realize that's what's happening. Right. I very slowly entered a second phase because I felt so fortunate to have this job. And I was so scared that someone would realize that I did not belong there. I started saying yes to absolutely everything. I was the yes girl. You could ask me to help you with anything, and I would say yes. And I ended up working really long hours, only thinking about work, and really being obsessed with being successful. And that definition of success was the definition of success that people had for me, that people were expecting me to have. And as a result, I was both burned out, but also bored out in the sense that I had so clearly mapped out what I was supposed to do, like to do in the next week, in the next month, in the next year, that I had also lost all excitement for what was going to happen next. And this is when I decided to step away. It wasn't an easy decision in the sense that we're all familiar with the golden handcuffs. It's very hard, you know, to leave a job where you have this kind of financial stability. But ultimately, I think it was the right decision.
- [06:41]
Abigail Pumphrey
Oh, I absolutely think it's the right decision. Because I don't think you would have discovered this part of yourself without that part in your journey. There's so many beautiful things that have come out of it. And I know it's sad in a way, like, I imagine at some points it's felt like something you had to grieve. But I feel like it was a really important stepping stone from the outside viewer looking in. So I think it's really important to the point of how you set up the beginning of the book, Tiny Experiments, because you start with this deep reframe of how we approach goals. There's this quote that really hit me where we are taught to perform, in both meanings of the word, to achieve specific targets, whether in school or at work, but also to present ourselves in a way that conforms with societal expectations. What do you think is so fundamentally broken about how society has traditionally thought us to think about goals?
- [07:44]
Ann Lohur
Well, the way we treat goals is very linear. The idea is that in order to be successful, you need to have a very clear vision of where you want to go, and then you need to work really hard to get there, and that's how you become successful. But that doesn't work. The world keeps on changing. We keep on changing. And so this illusion that you can set this big goal in the far future with a perfect plan and then just work really, really hard, and you're going to get there and you're going to be successful just doesn't really match what reality is like. And the problem is when inevitably we don't reach that big goal, we fail. We don't think that the problem is with the way we set the goal in the first place. We think that we're the problem, that we did something wrong. We blame ourselves. And so to me, that's the big problem, is that goals, in the way that we've set them, assume that you know where you want to go. And actually, as adults, when we feel a little bit lost, when we don't know where we want to go, we also feel like failures. We feel like, why has everybody around me figured it out? Why don't I know where I want to go? And so instead of making the most of those moments of uncertainty, those liminal spaces, those moments of being lost and seeing them for what they are, which is an amazing opportunity to figure out what you want, we're actually so scared of not knowing that we try to get out of this uncertainty as quickly as possible, even if it means clinging to your, grabbing the first clear goal that we can find, any kind of definition of success that is going to make us feel like we know where we're going.
- [09:32]
Abigail Pumphrey
I couldn't relate more. You specifically said I allowed myself to go to a place I never allowed my adult self to go to before I admitted I was lost. And when I read that, I was like, oh, do I need to admit? Do I need to admit this? I don't know if I'm ready. Because, you know, I've been on this journey before where, like, I've acknowledged that society expected me to check all of these boxes and do all of these things in all the perfect order, right? And I got to my 30s, and I was like, I am out of checkboxes to check. I have nothing else to check. Like, society didn't tell me to do anything past 32, apparently. And so I had this really deep, uncomfortable feeling of just not knowing what was next. And the obvious thing to do is, like, you're saying, is to stuff it full of things you could do whether you really know if you want them or not. And, you know, I woke up a few years down the line and I'm like, what do I want? I don't know if I even know what I want. I have a beautiful life, and I feel like life is just happening so fast all the way around me, and I'm not appreciating where I am today. And I've tried to be more present and tried to be more here. But I think there's something really beautiful about how you talk about experimentation and giving it this feeling that's more light, more accessible than I think that linear traditional goal setting formula is. Tell me a little bit more about that.
- [11:12]
Ann Lohur
Yeah, I just want to first acknowledge something that you touched on that I think is really important, is that developing that experimental mindset, which I'm going to talk about, can actually be very difficult in today's world because we have, as you said, everything is going so fast around us and we have full access to everybody's lives and success. And there's this giant leaderboard we're all looking at, whether it's through social media or whatever achievements people are sharing. We have, you know, the awards, the whatever, under 30 and all of these things. And you feel like if you haven't achieved these things by this age, you're. You're late, right? There's an incredible time anxiety in today's society. And so this is why for a lot of people, it's very hard to even imagine that there might be another way to approach their lives. And that other way that I advocate for in the book is approaching life a bit more like a series of experiments. So instead of having all of those linear goals, those checkboxes that you mentioned where you're basically just copy pasting what success is supposed to look like from other people, instead of having that illusion of certainty, you embrace uncertainty. And you don't start from a clear goal, you start from a question. Would that be something I like? Is that something I would enjoy? Would I find this interesting? Is that something that would help me grow? And based on that, you can design tiny experiments. And again, this is not based on an outcome you're trying to achieve, it's just based on curiosity. You're curious about something, you're going to collect your own data, you're going to try the thing, and then you're going to reflect on the experience. And whatever happens, whatever the outcome, there's no failure. Because just like a scientist, your aim here is not to achieve something specific. It's just to learn something new. So that's really the experimental mindset that I encourage people to explore in the book. Shifting this mindset from this illusion of certainty to embracing uncertainty, and shifting from those clear, linear goals to almost like research questions. Creating a laboratory for your life, becoming the scientist of your own life.
- [13:40]
Abigail Pumphrey
I have similarly talked about goals in that kind of framework. Talking about an Experimental mindset, even taught trainings about experimental mindsets before I even knew you existed or your book existed. And the way I had traditionally talked about it was really helping more primarily on this reframe of success and failure and this binary thinking that everything had to be one way or the other and the stress that that causes, especially as someone who may be struggling with perfectionism. And what I feel like you add to this story that I hadn't even really considered is that it's more than just that. It's more than allowing us to have that pull away from success and failure and more of an opportunity to go about our lives with more curiosity and to pursue these things because we're interested in them, not because we feel like we have to know the answer. And I think a lot of times when someone goes from linear goal setting to what they think is an experimental mindset, they still pick the same kind of things. They still pick the sexy end game. Like, I think I can get here by doing XYZ things, which are really just a task list. So how do you switch out of that framework? Give me an example of something that might be a linear goal, and then how someone might approach it to binary and then how you would look at a similar topic.
- [15:27]
Ann Lohur
So when you have a linear goal, it's linked to the outcome, and as you said, you still want to succeed, you still want to complete it in a way where you feel successful. Whereas when you design an experiment, the only thing you need to do is show up and collect your data and withhold judgment until the end, so you can see whether you liked it or not, whether it worked or not. So an example I could give you that might be relevant for entrepreneurs, for example, is starting a newsletter. Let's say you want to start a newsletter. So the linear goal approach would be to say, I'm going to start a newsletter and I'm going to get to 20,000 subscribers by the end of the year. And so that's the linear goal. You have the vision, you have the goal, you have a binary definition of success, and you're going to work really hard to get there. Now, if you turn this into an experiment, instead of saying, I'm going to get to 20,000 subscribers by the end of the year, you say, I'm going to write one weekly newsletter until the end of the year, and I'm going to see where I'm at at the end of the year. And every week I might tweak iterate, try new things, have fun, see what resonates, but I'm not trying to get to a specific outcome. I'm only trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. And very importantly, looking at both the internal and external signals of success. So at the end of my experiment, by the end of the year, I'll look at the external signs of success. Sure. Subscribers, how many cool but also internal signals of success? How did that feel? If you got to 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 subscribers, but every single week when you had to sit down and write that newsletter, it felt horrible and you were dreading it. Is that really success? No, it's not. So this is also what an experimental mindset is about. It's really having this honest look at the data. And by data, obviously I don't mean it in like a spreadsheet where you collect data. Right. I mean, data points in your life and how you feel is actually a very important data point. And so really, like a scientist, paying attention to all of these data points, withholding judgment until you're done. And once you're done, looking back and reflecting on the experiment and asking yourself in a very honest way, do I want to keep going exactly as is? Because actually, I like this. This is working. This is growing. I'm growing. This is great. Or do I want to maybe tweak it? Do I want to pivot? I like this, but I'm not quite sure this current iteration is perfect. Do I want to try something a little bit different or. And this is also completely valid, this is not a failure to say, you know what, I really don't like this. I don't think this is helping. This is not helping me. Maybe this is helping my business, but I hate it. Or maybe this is not helping my business. And I'm going to pause this. I'm going to stop this experiment at the end of the first cycle. And that's okay, because now I know I tried it, I collected my own data and I know this is not working. Yeah.
- [18:34]
Abigail Pumphrey
Want to learn exactly, step by step, how to get paid to generate leads in your business? I'm ready to give you the exact steps that help me generate tens of thousands of qualified leads and millions in low ticket digital product sales. I won't just show you what I did, but teach you how you can do it too. I'm talking not just how to create low ticket digital products, but how, but also showing you how to use them strategically to generate leads for your other existing or future offers. I'm sharing it all@bossproject.com jumpstart, including exactly how I made $8,033 and generated 277 leads my very first month selling digital products. Find out more at bossproject.com jumpstart May is Small Business Month and FreshBooks is here to support your business with special savings. FreshBooks is the user friendly accounting platform for your business. Switch to FreshBooks for a better accounting experience. No more late nights drowning in paperwork or searching for lost receipts. Snap photos of your expenses on the go, send professional invoices in seconds and track payments seamlessly. FreshBooks automates invoicing and expenses, processes payments, connects bank accounts, and provides real time reporting. Streamline your bookkeeping with FreshBooks today. Switching to FreshBooks has never been easier. Even if you're coming from another accounting tool. FreshBooks makes migrating your data simple and their support team is ready if you need help. Happy Small Business Month. Celebrate with special savings from FreshBooks. Get FreshBooks 50% off for 6 months@freshbooks.com that's 50% off for 6 months@FreshBooks.com I appreciate that shift because it feels so much more attainable. Like you can run an experiment where you're committing to writing once a week, but you can't determine whether you're going to get 20,000 subscribers or not. Like you could do all the same things, one year versus another and get completely different outcomes because of your energy going into it, because of what's going on in the world, because of what's happening politically. Like all of these things that are affecting it. And it's really easy to get caught up in how you feel about it or how you think you're supposed to feel about it instead of really assessing is this working for me or is this not? As someone who's obviously in the past at least like looked at approaching problems pragmatically and in like a rigid structure. I'm curious how you personally decide what experiments to run now. Do you have a method? Is this intuitive? Are you just approaching it like an artist might and just throwing things out there? How do you decide what to work on?
- [21:28]
Ann Lohur
I have two main ways of figuring out interesting experiments to try, so one of them is more proactive. So if I haven't been experimenting for a few weeks because life got busy, it happens, right? And I felt like, okay, I need to re inject a little bit of that experimental mindset in my life. I'm going to use a process that I call self anthropology. The reason why I call it this way is because I'm going to pretend for 24 hours that I'm an anthropologist, and I'm studying my own life. And just like an anthropologist, I will literally take notes for 24 hours, paying attention to where I'm spending my time, my attention, my energy, what's giving me energy, what's draining my energy, what makes me feel curious. You know how sometimes you have a conversation with someone and you kind of like even forget to look at the time and it's just you wish like you could keep on going for hours. And equally sometimes you talk with someone and you just, you want to go and hide in the corner and just for this to stop because you're so bored, right? And so you can pay attention to this instead of going through the motions. You can pretend that you're an anthropologist looking at these things. What's really important too is that when an anthropologist goes and studies a new culture, they don't have any judgment, they're just observing. And so at this stage, this is what you do. So I do that for 24 hours and I take little notes. And I guarantee you and all of the people I've worked with told me that if you do that for 24 hours, you're going to notice so many interesting things that you never paid attention to. You're going to start noticing that you've been doing some things just by default, just because this has become a routine, not because you want to do it like that, not because it's necessarily the best way to do it, but just because little by little, you just, you know, started doing things this way and that's the way you do them. And so when you start repaying attention, you notice that maybe you could run your meetings differently, manage your time differently, approach your creative projects differently, approach your conversations differently. And all of these observations can become the seed of a tiny experiment where you can say, you know what, actually, for the next six weeks, our team meetings are only going to be half an hour. Let's see if that works or not, right? Or for the next three weeks, I'm not going to check my emails until 10am in the morning. Before that, I can do any kind of other work I want to do, but no checking my emails. Or maybe I'm not bringing my phone in my bedroom for the next two weeks, whatever tiny experiment you want to run. So that's one way that's more proactive, and then another way I find interesting tiny experiments is more reactive. And it's really about, again, paying attention and noticing when I have a bit of a fixed mindset around something. So an example was last year when I was chatting with someone and we were talking about meditation and I heard myself say, meditation, not for me. I'm so bad at it. I'm so terrible at it. And it was true. I had tried, you know, the apps where you have the 10 day onboarding series where you're just supposed to 10 minutes every day for 10 days. I had never managed to go past day three on these. So that's how bad I was. But when I heard myself say this, I was like, oh, wait a second. Fixed mindset. I just, I have decided that I'm just not good at this. Oh, that's a good idea for a tiny experiment. And so I said, I'm going to design an experiment where I say I'm going to meditate every morning for 15 days. And I did that. I completed the experiment and I realized that actually, sure, meditation is not my number one mindfulness practice. I prefer dancing, going for a walk, and that's okay, right? But actually I'm not that bad at it. And I can use that. And they can be part of my mindfulness toolkit. So that's another example. Just paying attention whenever you hear yourself say, I'm so bad at this, I can't do this. Huh? Is that really the case? Maybe you want to experiment with that?
- [25:42]
Abigail Pumphrey
Yeah, no, I think that's a solid way of really looking at it. I know there's a bunch of entrepreneurs listening and they're thinking, I love this, this sounds fantastic. I feel like there'd be less pressure. I feel like I'd be more intuitive and more present. But there's something nagging them in the back of their brain going, but I have to make money. Like I, I have to make my life work. And as much as this all sounds amazing, it just feels like there's no guarantee of anything. And so how do you balance the, like, necessities that are still part of your everyday life while pursuing this?
- [26:23]
Ann Lohur
There's no guarantee you're going to make money anyway. And so experimenting is a way to actually embrace that and being more honest with yourself, really. And you are more likely to figure out a way to make money that works for your business if you keep on experimenting. If you have this mindset where you're actually trying new things, paying attention to what works, what doesn't, paying attention to what is sustainable for you as an entrepreneur also, because if this business is going to be sustainable over the long term, you need to put your energy into things where you can keep on putting your energy in them for a while or at Least someone else on your team can. So in this way, having an experimental mindset, it's not a guarantee, there's no guarantee again, but it's a bit more of a sure way to get to a place where you're going to build a sustainable business versus what a lot of entrepreneurs that get started. I see that a lot with much younger entrepreneurs where they'll see a blueprint online, they'll see another entrepreneur on social media saying, do these five things and you'll be successful. They do the five things, they're not successful and they wonder what they did wrong. Right. So yeah, I would just say first, absolutely correct, that there's no guarantee. And second, it's not a bad thing that there's no guarantee. This is again, this is a playground, a sandbox where you can actually try new things and build a business that works in a unique way that is unique to you.
- [27:59]
Abigail Pumphrey
Yeah, I know. Another kind of hang up that people are going to have is this emotional attachment they have to success, being big and fast. And we're so used to this society norm popularized by things like Amazon, where things just show up and like it's just this immediate access. How do you help people embrace slow, messy, uncertain progress?
- [28:30]
Ann Lohur
I would say again that overnight success is a myth. And I think again, unfortunately, a lot of successful entrepreneurs are guilty of that. I think I've done it too. Just because sometimes you don't have a lot of time, you're having this short podcast conversation and so you're giving a short version of your story and that might sound like sometimes that it was less messy than it actually was. And so I think a lot of successful entrepreneurs are sharing these stories that sound a lot more linear than they actually were. And so people, yeah, and so people who are getting started think that this is again the blueprint that they should be following. If you know that this is not true, that any entrepreneur that is successful today actually had usually had to work for years before and they tried many things that didn't work. They actually experimented a lot. Whether they called it an experimental mindset or not doesn't matter, but none of them copy pasted a blueprint in order to be successful. They all had to try new things, they all had to fail, they all had to learn from their failures and try again. And this is how they figured out their own definition of success. So again, you can either resist that reality and say, no, actually I'm going to find my framework, I'm going to find the perfect blueprint, or you can embrace the Fact that entrepreneurship is inherently messy, and by being more experimental, you can actually make that messy process more fun. So it's not going to necessarily make it less messy. Right, but it's going to be more fun.
- [30:15]
Abigail Pumphrey
Yeah, I agree. It's not going to be less messy, but it can be more fun when you just don't know and you're excited to try something, because falling in love with trying again I think is sometimes hard. Like, I think we at some point get worn out and we're. We're tired and maybe a little burnt out, and we're like, I don't. I don't want to learn anything new. Like, you find yourself being frustrated because you're turning into your parent and you're like, you know, my parents won't try this new app or do this new thing, and then all of a sudden you find yourself, you're the person in those shoes, resistant to change. And I agree that having access to this kind of thought process makes it feel less intimidating to learn new things and can feel really exciting and, like, childlike. That brings that wonder back, which I think is really beautiful. Yeah. I am curious, though, how you apply this to organizations or teams or even someone who maybe they're running their business solo, but they want to try running an experiment in their household with a partner. Like, how does this apply in a group setting?
- [31:26]
Ann Lohur
Yeah, absolutely. So the principles are exactly the same, whether you're doing it on your own or you're doing it with other people. I actually do recommend. I have an entire chapter in the book called Learning in Public, where I actually encourage, it's optional. You can experiment on your own, it's optional. But I highly recommend experimenting with other people because you learn faster, you grow together again. More fun. Also, and I think fun is something we should optimize for as well, especially when we're trying to figure out what works and what doesn't, and we're all a little bit lost, so may as well make it a bit more fun. So the format for a tiny experiment is always the same. It's committing to an action for a specific duration and withholding judgment while you do this until you're done doing that. And so I've seen tiny experiments in all sorts of contexts. So again, in an organization, you can just say, okay, this month, let's have everyone run a tiny experiment, and at the end of the month, we all reconvene. Everyone shares what they learned, what didn't work, and what they might want to experiment with next month. And those can be Very, very small. They can be experimenting with a new feature, as I mentioned earlier, a new way of running meetings, a new way to share information in the organization, a new way to make sure that the team is taking care of their mental health. There are really no limits to the kind of experiments that you can run together. For that to work, the most important ingredient is psychological safety. So you need the manager, the leader, or whoever is in charge to really embody this experimental mindset and to say that within the context of running these tiny experiments, there's no failure, there's just learning. And so we're really designing the experiments just to learn something new. And so if at the end of the month, you sure that you know what, this did not work at all, don't do it. This is great. Now we know. Now we know. So that's one way. And then in the household or in relationships, same. I've seen so many interesting ones. So there's someone in the Nest Labs community, for example, that decided to experiment with organizing dates with their spouse. So where they said every Friday for I think it was six weeks or eight weeks will alternate and one of us is going to organize a date for the other one. And again, we'll just see for the duration of the experiment if this works or not. We're withholding judgment. We're just going to do this and see if it helps us reconnect and spend more time together. One of my favorite ones that I've seen also on more of the personal side, was someone who had realized that they got so busy with work that they lost touch with friends that they really cared about. So they designed a tiny experiment where they said, I'm going to reach out to one friend every day for. And I can't remember the duration X days. And what I love about it because it is a commitment to doing it and withholding judgment. There were days where they were feeling really uncomfortable doing it. They were thinking, I haven't talked to this person in so long, it's going to be so weird. But they said, no. I said I was going to do it for this duration, so I'm going to do it. And because of that, they reconnected with lots of friends they hadn't talked to in a while. So really with this format of, again, letting go of the linear goal, letting go of the outcome, and just saying, I'm going to try this thing for this period of time, that's it. It really works across any kind of context, whether it's personal or organizational.
- [34:59]
Abigail Pumphrey
Yeah. And I think it helps when you're looking at these. You really do have to go back to that thought around not being so rigid around how you think it has to work. Because in a very similar vein, I felt this, like, call to want to spend more time with friends and want to deepen my relationships and was just feeling a lot of pressure around it and feeling like I was always trying to compare calendars and all of this stuff. And I finally just talked to one of my best friends, and I was like, you know what? Just come over XYZ day. It was so casual. She came over on a Tuesday. We did a fire pit, and we had hot dogs over the fire pit. And then that night I was like, why don't you come next Tuesday? We'll do the exact same thing. And she did. And then now she shows up every Tuesday, and I don't have to think about it. She's just at my house. And it doesn't have to be this production to have people in your life. And I think so often we put all these constraints around things that don't need to be constrained. We just really need to think about how we want to show up and what makes sense for us and what makes sense for the people around us. Because sometimes it can be simpler than we think it has to be. You don't have to have all these, like, elaborate plans for it to be quality. So I really appreciate that.
- [36:25]
Ann Lohur
Yeah, absolutely. I think this is really the power of having this approach, is really keeping it small and simple. And I think this is why it resonates so much with people who tend to be quite ambitious, because it's really giving them permission to say, you don't have to go big. You don't have to figure it all out in one go. You can just try this one tiny thing and see if that works or not, and then see where that leads you and what emerges from that. Instead of trying to have a perfect plan.
- [37:00]
Abigail Pumphrey
Yeah. Is there a tiny experiment you've run recently that, like, surprised you or gave you joy or took a turn you weren't expecting?
- [37:10]
Ann Lohur
So I'm running an experiment at the moment where I decided to study one new herb every week for 12 weeks. And it's been amazing. And so that one was inspired by the fact that because of the book launch and my research, I had been spending a lot of time in front of a screen. And so I wanted to experiment with something that would make me go outside and spend more time in nature and also reading more books. So, like, physical books that's been Amazing, because it was just an idea, like, you know, something again, like to get me to do something not in front of a screen. But in the end, it started to influence a bunch of the ways I go about my days. So now I'm trying new teas and infusions in the morning, so I tend to open my laptop a little bit later. I also, because it's spring here where I live, I'm more tempted to go for walks to see if I can spot some of the herbs that I'm studying at the moment. So it also gives me more little breaks throughout the day. And it's amazing how you know as exactly as you were describing with your friend. I just started with the idea of just this tiny experiment. And I just say I'll pick one herb every week and I'll read a little bit about it and I'll buy some of those dried herbs and try to see how it tastes. And now it's slowly unfolding in a way and having an impact in different areas of my life that I wouldn't have been able to plan for or expect.
- [38:36]
Abigail Pumphrey
Yeah. It just reminds me that I think sometimes those times that were the most fun or that were the most interesting are the things that you did without even thinking about it being a thing or being something you're, like, committing to. So I remember one fall, not too many years ago, I was like, what if we just make a new soup every week and we just have one new soup a week? And I loved it, and I didn't do it the next year, and I kind of regret not. But at the same time, I can look back on it with fondness and, like, I have favorite recipes now and things you can go back to. And so I think there's so many cool and incredible ways that this can be applied in so many different contexts. I'm curious, though. You spend a lot of time writing a book, you spend a lot of time on the computer, like you mentioned. But obviously there is a reason. I'm curious, if you had someone read your book, what's the, like, one thing you want them to take away from it? What are you really hoping for?
- [39:37]
Ann Lohur
I'm hoping that as soon as they close the book, they will design their first tiny experiment. I don't want them to necessarily change their mind about anything at this stage or change anything about their lives, but if they can just open, reopen that window of experimentation in their lives, I feel like my job is done.
- [39:59]
Abigail Pumphrey
I love that it can be so simple. So that's fantastic. One more Question. Before we wrap it up, if you could go back and whisper some advice to your past self before you had really, like, become attuned to this approach, what would you say to her?
- [40:16]
Ann Lohur
Nobody's watching. Nobody cares that much. You can actually take way more risks and have way more fun than what you think.
- [40:23]
Abigail Pumphrey
Yeah. And then sometimes people get jealous of your fun, which is always hilarious to me when you're like, this is a crazy thing. I don't know if people are going to like it. And then it's the thing they get, like, hold on to and get obsessed with, which I always find so funny. Oh, I love that. Well, if you are interested in reading Ann Lohr's book, you can go to bossproject.com tiny. I have it all linked up for you guys. Tiny Experiments. This was freaking phenomenal, by the way. The book is so, so, so good. So thank you so much for spending time with me today. Any last parting words? And beyond that, where can people connect with you online?
- [41:04]
Ann Lohur
Thank you so much for having me. And no last parting words. Except that if people want to read more about my work after reading the book, I have a weekly newsletter@nestlabs.com and thank you. This was an amazing conversation.
- [41:19]
Abigail Pumphrey
All right, thank you. Make sure you go follow Ann Lohr and read her book and I want to hear your feedback. I want to hear about the tiny experiments you guys run as a result of this episode. So definitely tag me in any of those fun little takeaways. And it can be tiny and it can be fun and it doesn't have to be business all the time. Just a reminder, you are allowed to have a life outside of work. So thank you guys so much for listening and until next time, have a great rest of your week. Hey, a few quick favors before you leave. I'd love if you'd share today's episode, send it to a friend who needs to hear it and post on social. You can show us where you're listening from, your favorite takeaway, or why someone else should listen. Be sure to tag me at Abigail Says and OSS Project so we can share.
- [42:05]
Ann Lohur
Share it.
- [42:06]
Abigail Pumphrey
Okay. Second favor to get podcast updates and all the behind the scenes news from Boss Project. I'd love if you'd join my VIP list. Just head to bossproject.com signup to make sure I have all your contact details. Really love this show. It would mean so much to me if you'd leave a rating and review. It not only helps more listeners find the show, but allows us to bring on quality sponsors so we can keep bringing you this valuable content for free. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time.