Bounce! Conversations with Larry Weeks

Does motivation - or the lack of motivation - have to stop us from achieving our goals? On this podcast, I talk with Jeff Haden. Jeff runs Blackbird Media, is a top a LinkedIn Influencer--making him a part of an exclusive, invitation-only, global collective of 500+ of the world's foremost thinkers, leaders, and innovators--a contributing editor to Inc., and the author of his latest book, The Motivation Myth: How High Achievers Really Set Themselves Up to Win. When it comes to motivation, we are going to address two broad bucket applications: you have a desirable goal / task you want to achieve OR you have an undesirable goal / task you need (have to) to achieve. It doesn't matter which bucket your goal falls into, the truth is, whether we want to do something or not, many of us have a hard time starting, or, once we start, a harder time completing it. Many of you set new year's resolutions that you haven't even attempted to reach. Why? According to Jeff, the reason has to do with how we prioritize a goal. Most of us keep our eyes firmly fixed on the "prize": the sixty pounds to lose, the 26 miles of a marathon, the 50,000 word novel we'll have finished writing. We become fixated on the dream of what we'll earn at the end of the climb, and compare each day's results to that big payoff. Annie Duke, in her book "Thinking In Bets" has a name for this: Outcome Junkie. Redefining Success Jeff advocates for process orientation and redefining achievement to be more inclusive, so that even if you don't reach the end goal, that process, if you've work it, will have still benefited you by providing takeaways you didn't have when you began. You will meet people you would have never met. You'll make connections that you'd never would have made. You might find some other interests that you never knew you would have. Jeff has not only met with great people who have achieved their dreams, such as tennis star Venus Williams, but has spent untold hours applying his motivational principles to himself. What did he learn? A goal isn't worth a hill of beans if it doesn't inform one's process. "...started me thinking ok, if that's how successful people do it, how do you create a process for basically anyone to follow to achieve anything that they would like to achieve?" - Jeff Haden While many people ascribe to the "dream it, believe it, do it," goal achievement philosophy, Jeff opts instead for creating cycles of motivation fulfillment. Priming the pump In our conversation Jeff goes into detail on how an emphasis on action brings about a result, which in turn breeds motivation for more action and thus more results. He goes into detail to show how strategic, action-based planning can help someone struggling to achieve results in both areas described above: those who have tasks they want to complete and tasks they don't want to be doing, but need to get done nonetheless. Jeff also gives some great tips on how to find a dream or goal if you're drawing up blank when asked the question, "What would you do if you could do anything?" Jeff emphasizes that his motivation techniques can help anyone, no matter what their starting place might be. Having spoken to numerous high achievers like Richard Branson, he realizes that they are all merely humans like us, who used planned motivational strategies to push themselves far. Therefore, Jeff asserts, we can do the same. Oh and by the way, Jeff gives some super good advice on how to reinvent yourself. Want to break into an industry you have no experience in? Listen to Jeff's backstory, he walks me through how he did it. So, tired of starting and then giving up for lack of motivation? Ready to get those new year's resolutions back on track? Click on the podcast above to access Jeff's tips for beating procrastination and other motivation sappers, so that you can finally cross items off your to-do list. Enjoy!

"We've all had that experience of expressing something with certainty…and someone says "wanna bet?" and immediately it brings to the fore the fact that whenever you declare something you believe to be true, or a prediction, that there's risk in that – Annie Duke All decisions have tradeoffs, risk vs. reward. We have to make choices that have costs yet, many factors involved in making those choices are often hidden. So how do you make good decisions in the face of uncertainty? These are challenges inherent in the game of poker, and in poker, as in life, there is a difference between good decisions and good outcomes. On this podcast, my guest is Annie Duke. For two decades she was one of the top poker players in the world. She holds a World Series of Poker (WSOP) gold bracelet and the 2004 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions and the National Heads-Up Poker Championship in 2010. Before becoming a professional poker player, Annie was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship to study cognitive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She now spends her time writing, consulting and speaking on topics such as decision fitness and embracing uncertainty. In her new book, "Thinking In Bets" Annie reveals lessons cultivated by combining her academic studies in cognitive psychology with real-life decision-making experience at the poker table, which is the topic of this podcast. This conversation is indeed about better decision-making, but that encompasses a great deal. It's also about equanimity, how to be objective in the face of bad outcomes - while developing skill to influence better outcomes. This is also how resilience is developed, using outcomes good or bad, as a feedback loop. You also become more resilient when you are able to unhook your happiness solely from a result. I think that the outcome anchors us so heavily that we can't see that there's lots of other stuff by which we can determine whether a decision was good - Annie Duke There's been a lot written about the benefits of shifting to a process orientation but Annie tells you how to actually do that. I had a great time talking with Annie and you will really enjoy this episode. Don't let the length fool you, there is no lull. Here's some of what we talk about on this show. How she went from academia to poker Her introduction to decision strategy Some great betting stories (Ira the Whale) The worst call in history? Cognitive bias / why we make bad decisions Defining failure Time travel thought experiments What being wrong / right really means Probabilities and predictions How to use betting to make better decisions in life Whether it's career, business or relationships our lives are the sum total of our decisions to this point. I would listen to this podcast and reflect on whether you've made good decisions or whether you've just been very lucky so far - and then learn how to make better ones. Enjoy! For show notes and resources visit larryweeks.com/podcasts

This is a podcast about training how you want to exist in the world. Your training how to do this everyday. If you're existing in a consistently negative state - angry, fearful, stressful - that's the habit you're unconsciously training. There is a better way. My guest is Jeff Warren. Jeff is an author and meditation teacher and referred to as the meditation MacGyver. He's the author of "The Head Trip, Adventures On the Wheel of Consciousness", the founder of the Consciousness Explorers Club and recent collaborator on the book "Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics" In 2004 ABC News Anchor Dan Harris had a panic attack on live TV and that experience eventually led Dan to meditation. He then wrote a - now best selling - book about it called "10% Happier" and the fidgety skeptics follow-up, subtitled "A 10% Happier, How-To Guide" which explores why most people don't meditate or can't stick with it once they start. Jeff's research for the book was a cross country tour with Dan - on a bus - with Jeff being the meditation teacher. They visited 18 states in 11 days meeting with a mix of people from line cooks to police officers, members of Congress, neuroscientists, military cadets and celebrities to better understand the obstacles people have to meditation. Jeff offered up best practices and life hacks designed to help people learn meditation. Hence why I have Jeff him on the podcast. Personally, meditation has been absolutely helpful to me, WHEN I do it but it's been a struggle. Occasionally I can string together 10 or so days in a row (woowho!) but then I just drop it and it's hard to get back into. So, Jeff agreed to talk with me about it and about the book. Thank God. If you've ever said "I'd love to meditate but I can't because __" You need to listen to this podcast. Jeff describes himself as the anti-Buddha. He says he was meditations hardest test case. Ah, the perfect person to talk to about what meditation can and cannot do. So I did just that. Enjoy! Episode and show notes - larryweeks.com/podcasts

Rory Sutherland, a prominent figure in advertising and co-founder of Ogilvy Change, dives into the fascinating world of behavioral economics. He discusses how subtle shifts in perception can dramatically alter consumer choices. The conversation reveals the power of branding, the importance of experimenting with marketing strategies, and how our self-presentation influences perception. Rory also reflects on the ethical implications of advertising practices and the challenges posed by clickbait, offering a witty take on navigating the complexities of modern marketing.

"The important thing is never stop questioning" - Albert Einstein What's possible, medically, mentally and physically, is the topic of this podcast. And the power of persistence. What would you do if your child was diagnosed with a debilitating autoimmune disease and every treatment protocol was not working? The medications prescribed are not only ineffective but come with even worse negative physical side effects. What do you do? For many, they accept their fate and live with it. Solution seeking stops and who would blame them? Hope deferred "makes the heart sick" and hope dashed leads to disillusion. For Susannah Meadows, a combination of desperation and circumstance pushed her to persist until she could find a solution. "If you have exhausted the answers that traditional medicine has. That's not the end of the world" - Susannah Meadows Her 3 yr old son Shepherd, was diagnosed with debilitating juvenile idiopathic arthritis which is Sheperd's case caused near crippling joint pain, swelling and stiffness. Her journey for a cure took her into areas some might consider fringe or certainly outside of conventional medicine. But Susanna is a former senior writer for Newsweek. She covered stories ranging from the 2004 presidential campaign to 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina and she's a frequent contributor to The New York Times She is not one to believe anything unsubstantiated. Her new book is called the Other Side of Impossible. It's about ordinary people who faced daunting medical challenges and yet refused to give up. They turned desperation into determination. Suzanne not only chronicled her journey but also the stories of others who've faced severe medical challenges and the steps they took to overcome them. Her journey took her into areas some might consider fringe or certainly outside of conventional medicine. And what she learned is the topic of our discussions. Medicine, food and illness. Learned helplessness and disease. The latest research into the mind potential to heal the body. Alternative therapies for diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, ADHD, multiple sclerosis and others. The impact of anxiety and fear on the body's autoimmune response Maybe more importantly Susan share what she learned about the power of personal agency. Your capacity, your faith in your ability to handle a situation. These are stories of courage. You may be healthy, you may not have challenges of disease. But you have challenges none the less. You may have run into dead ends and failed attempts of a different sort. Keep trying. Take heart.

My guest on this episode is Marisa Peer. Marisa is a best selling author, motivational speaker and a pioneering therapist in the UK. Marissa was named best British therapist by Men's Health magazine and is featured in Tatler guide to Britain's 250 best doctors. Over the last 25 years Marissa has spent time with an extensive client list that includes rock stars, actors, royalty, professional and Olympic athletes, CEO's, and a variety of media personalities. Marisa has developed her own unique approach to therapy called RTP (Rapid Transformational Therapy) which is frequently referred to in various publications as life changing. RTT peaked my interest when some therapist I know not only used her approach with their clients to good success but also went through the process themselves telling me their experience has been phenomenal. That is, they've made change in their lives that they weren't able prior to with other coaching or therapy methods. I also wanted to talk to Marisa about RTT since anything that connotes rapid or quick is appealing to me because, you know, if I can hack something or find a shortcut, obviously I'm lazy. So anything that can speed up the process of dealing with something or improving something in your life has me curious. "Were beginning to be taught now in schools to succeed at business and you've got to have these great communication skills. You want to have a long marriage, you better have these great communication skills, but no one teaches you that, you know what - you better communicate with yourself" - Marisa Peer Our conversation coalesces around self talk or rather unconscious self communication. We talk to ourselves all the time with automatic thoughts were just not aware of them, and I would say depending, on the day, the majority of these thoughts can be negative and cause friction between you and the goals you're trying to achieve. These can be contrary thoughts like "this is going to be too hard" and your mind presents a challenge to you. It may be ready to do the thing but you have to convince it, so to speak, by either doing the thing and pushing through resistance or by dialoguing with it. "We do get into this really depressive language without even meaning to and we think sometimes it's funny, but but the mind doesn't understand anything. It believes it's all real." - Marisa Peer This podcast will not only educate you a bit on RTT but it will make you reflect on what you've been telling yourself and help you change self talk that's not serving you. Enjoy!

"The problem of disrespectful, demeaning, and downright mean-spirited behavior is worse than ever" - Robert SuttonI'm sure everybody listening to this podcast has dealt with or is currently dealing with, a jerk, and this is most likely some work situation as you can't always choose who you work with and often due to the power position - it's a boss. But it could be someone you have to live with or interact with family friend friend of a friend whatever. If you have anyone in your life like that who is driving you crazy I will listen to this podcast and take notes because it's gold. My guest in this podcast is Robert Sutton, Professor of Management Science and Engineering and Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford and a New York Times and Wall St journal best selling author.Robert studies organizational change, leadership, innovation, and workplace dynamics and As it relates to our conversation today, Robert's new book was just released, The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal With People Who Treat You Like Dirt Since the first book "No Asshole Rule", which probably put assholes on the map, became a bestseller, Robert said he was constantly asked about strategies to deal with assholes. Hence, the book. On the podcast Robert offers up some interesting research and psychological theory explaining a asshole behavior and it's detrimental impact on people but more importantly he offers some really good tactics to manage them.Here is some of what you'll learn from the podcast. 1) The difference between sporadic asshole and true asshole Context vs personality.2) Why you don't have to be an asshole to succeed The Steve Jobs fallacy 3) How to make sure you don't contribute to the pool The "Arse" test and feedback. 4) Creating a survival plan based on goalsif you're deal with somebody who's leaving you feeling demeaned and de-energized and disrespected that you've got to figure out what your survival plan is.5) Physical and emotional strategies and techniques When to leave and when to stay. The "clinician" reframe. Temporal distancing. 6) Forgiveness as a strategy First, do no more harm to yourself. 7) Teaching others how to treat you. This is an important topic and it's life changing stuff in my opinion. There are people dreading getting up in the morning to head to work some go home from work crying. Some will get a work email tonight that will rob them of sleep. Life is too short. Learn the skills needed to manage the assholes in your life.

Dr. Tasha Eurich is an organizational psychologist, researcher, and New York Times best-selling author of "Insight: Why We're Not as Self-Aware as We Think, and How Seeing Ourselves Clearly Helps Us Succeed at Work and in Life Tasha has thoroughly studied the science of self-awareness and has helped thousands of people improve their personal and professional effectiveness. Tasha believes that heightening self-awareness is essential for success today and self-understanding positively affects work performance, career satisfaction, leadership potential and relationships I think we all know someone like a co-worker or manager who thinks he's a brilliant presenter or thinks he is well loved in the office but in reality they are far from it. But how often do we stop to consider whether we might have the similar problems? Do you understand how others really see you? According to Tasha's research, 95 percent of the population believes they're self-aware, but the reality is that only 10 to 15 percent actually are. So the majority of you are not self aware. Ok, so what? A recently published working paper from Paul Green and Francesca Gino of Harvard, and Bradley Staats of the UNC, caught people avoiding criticism - a specific type of criticism where they thought they were doing a good job but then were told they were not, this is called "disconfirmatory" feedback. They show'ed that when disconfirmatory feedback was given, workers would then avoid contact with the people who had given them the unwelcome comments. The problem is that "disconfirmatory" is the most useful type of feedback there is. If I'm blind to the mistakes I'm making I really need someone to explain what I'm doing wrong, however uncomfortable or it gets I just get worse. We have blind spots; things we do, issues we have that we just cannot see from our subjective vantage point. And if we were more self aware, more open to feedback, they could be revealed to you for positive change, promotion, new position, better relationships, new relationships and on and on. To the my fellow Googlers out there listening, this will help you with Perf (or anyone working for an organization that has regular performance reviews). Believe me, you can really benefit from what Tasha has to say. But also, even if you don't have regular reviews, she says self insight is a meta skill and can be applied to improve many areas of life. Give it a listen. Some of what we discuss in this episode. Self awareness as a necessary component of happiness Why self awareness is a meta skill Why insight is more important the higher up the corporate ladder On Dunning Kruger and inappropriate confidence How much should we care how others see us? How to use social media (Facebook) What Tasha thinks of personality testing How to handle performance reviews How do you deal with negative feedback How self awareness can help someone bounce back from a setback The Miracle Question and how to properly ask it On the benefits of journaling Mindfulness without meditation

My guest is this episode is Caroline Miller. Author of Getting Grit (2017) For almost three decades has been a pioneer with her ground-breaking work in the areas of goal setting, accomplishment, grit, happiness and success. She is recognized as one of the world's leading positive psychology experts on this research and how it can be applied to one's life for maximum transformation and growth. In 2015 she was named "one of the ten positive psychology coaches to follow." Caroline thinks we need a grit revolution. A change in our recognition and cultural reward system where effort is venerated over talent and people do their best every day regardless of how hard it is and we are all part of other people also being their best. How important is grit? Caroline has written on the use of the twelve-item Grit Scale and found it to be the leading predictor of who drops out at West Point during the first summer, known as "Beast Barracks." It had also worked with preteens, determining who would be in the finals of the National Spelling Bee. Grit is considered a key ingredients of high achievement. We live in an exciting but challenging times. Disruptive economic conditions, geopolitical strife and now every negative event around the globe is piped into our homes via television and the internet. Add to this the natural vicissitudes of life itself. As I'm writing this we are rebuilding our fences, screens and cleaning up after a direct hit by hurricane Irma and Houston just went through much worse with Harvey. Without grit, we can be handicapped by discouragement, fear, inertia and habituated comfort. At various points, big and small, we get knocked down. If we stay down, grit loses. If we get up, grit prevails – Angela Duckworth, Grit If you've been knocked down … you'll need some grit to get up and try again. The value of hard things Caroline has done a great deal of research on what really makes people happy. A lot of that data points toward the imperative of doing difficult things in order to live a satisfying, high-quality life filled with achievement. If you do nothing hard at the end of the day the research shows, you feel mediocre about yourself because you know you went for a low hanging fruit. – Caroline Miller Research she has done in Goal Setting Theory, holds that "challenging and specific" goals are required if someone wants to attain the highest levels of performance. Easy goals, don't just result in mediocrity, she says, but also leave people feeling mediocre. You aren't happy doing nothing. You are driven to master environments in order to feel related, autonomous and competent. Self efficacy theory is the belief you can do hard things and she says there ways to build that belief. One is just by having small mastery experiences, challenge yourself by doing successively hard things; like parking farther away from the store, taking a cold shower or getting up earlier, mowing your own lawn. Exercise your grit muscle. Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life – Jerzy Gregorik, Olympic weightlifter Caroline is like a cross between Tony Robbins and Sheryl Sandberg. She's motivational, incredibly articulate and footnotes her sentences with research and scientific articles incredibly articulate. Her passion for the topic and her zest is contagious. In this interview, we cover a lot, including: Defining grit, the various types and how they differ The research on purpose and goal setting How to develop grit and the science behind it Her story and how she overcame eating disorder The importance of hope – what it really is How the nation is promoting mediocrity in many arenas The research on how we can build strengths How to cultivate grit in ourselves How we can teach our children to be gritty – she has some strong opinions here How mantras and mottos can change your life Listen up, take notes, if you don't already follow Caroline, I think you'll be a fan. Show Notes and Resources Click Here

NOTE: This is part two of a series on the subject of failure. On this episode, we talk with Ashley Good on how companies can fail intelligently. Part one is with Ryan Babineaux. How does a company deal with failure? Can companies "fail well" and use failure as a catalyst for innovation? Ashley Good is the CEO and Founder of Fail Forward – the world's first failure consultancy – that supports people and organizations to acknowledge and adapt to failure in pursuit of innovation. They do this by offering clients a set of tools and best practices to deal with failure intelligently. Ashley offers a way to build the skills necessary to fail well. She says it's a skill that we can practice but it's one we're often not taught. We're just taught to avoid failure at all costs. We want to create space to take risks and mess up and help our organizations make their way into the future and adapt as they go... when the inevitable failures happen along the way we're able to maximize what we can learn from those experiences to go forward more wisely - Ashley Good This was a very fun interview because there was no pressure. We took failure off the table as any kind of "issue" as we were going to use any mistake we made as part of the show. There is lesson #1, reframe your failures as case studies and experiments. I still I still fail all the time but I have the luxury of being able to use myself as a case study as opposed to as opposed to I think what other people suffer through their failures - Ashley Good And we made no mistakes, the conversation flowed. Funny how that works. Perfection pressure is not conducive to good work or clear thinking. Seems obvious on a personal level but not so corporately. Ashley says IF you as a manager can bypass shame and defensiveness teams are more productive and if someone does fail, you can find a productive way of working amid failure. A lot of people write and talk about productivity in the workplace. Never heard how defensiveness or shame may impact productivity. Maybe we should address that. It's part of our conversation for this podcast: We do talk about failure on a personal level but focus on companies. How would a large business allow for failure while trying to mitigate it? Intelligent or incompetent failure Again, want to be clear here, we are not glorifying failure. Especially within a company. There are things that can sink a company, like losing a big client, a lawsuit, etc. Lesson #3, not all failures are created equally. Ashley says intelligent failures is what want to create room for because we know we need to try new things, experiment and adapt. But we need to acknowledge that there are high consequence failures that we should be avoiding at all costs. There are failures that are blameworthy, where we intentionally deviate from a linear process. "Failure isn't fatal, but failure to change might be" - John Wooden F**ck-up nights, better days Here is something fun I learned talking with Ashley that I wasn't aware of. There are networking events called F**ck-up Nights that have entrepreneurs coming together talking about their start-up mistakes and failures. It's all about changing the conversation about failure and making it ok to share. People get up and talk about their screw ups that may have unwittingly resulted in eventual success. Something that we could all learn from and emulate. We expend too much energy in success proving and importance posturing. Opening up about your failure not only helps you get over it, but also helps others (and you) learn from it. Failure, rebirth / reinvention When Ashley tells her personal story about how she started her company, I couldn't help but think of the many people I've talked to who found their calling or passion through some form of failure or pain. Sometimes the phoenix must burn. Ashley was at one of the lowest points of her life, everything was hard and nothing made sense and all of a sudden a light went on. "This intolerance that we have for those dark moments our inability to deal with them really spoke to me in my moment of darkness." And she was grateful for the experience because she says, up until that moment she hadn't I hadn't really failed at anything. We don't really practice failing in ways that really matter to us to get good at it, to recognize that we can come through it. Consider this podcast a form of vicarious practice. Give it a listen and learn from Ashley.