How To Build The Career You Want - Professor Of Behavioural Science Dr Grace Lordan

Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal Transcripts Episode 6: Dr Grace Lordan Before you dive in, please read the following which applies to every transcript: Ali Abdaal owns the copyright in all content in and transcripts of Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal podcast with all rights reserved, as well as right of publicity. WHAT YOU CAN DO: You're welcome to share up to 500 words of the transcript in media articles, on your personal website, in a non-commercial article or blog post, and/or on a personal social media account for non-commercial purposes, provided that you credit “Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal” and link back to the podcasts URL. WHAT YOU CAN'T DO: No one is authorised to copy any section of the podcast content or use Ali Abdaal’s name, image or likeness for any commercial purpose including, without limitation, in books, e-books or book summaries or on a commercial website or social media site that offers or promotes your or another’s products or services. Dr Grace Lordan 00:00 If I was to think about leaders of the future, actually, their ability to stand up and say, I don't know, I got it wrong, or I've changed my mind, those three things are really in the forefront of my mind. Because when you're navigating through uncertainty, you're going to get it wrong sometimes and that's okay. But it's the deliberate part. Have you sat down and deliberately now changed your mind? Ali Abdaal 00:18 Hello, and welcome to deep dive the podcast that delves into the minds of entrepreneurs, creators and other inspiring people to uncover their journeys towards finding joy and fulfilment at work and in life. My name is Ali and in each episode, I chat to my guests about the philosophies, strategies and tools that have helped them along the path to living a life of happiness and meaning. In this week's episode of Deep Dive, I sit down with Dr. Grace Lordan. Grace is an associate professor in behavioural science at the London School of Economics, an expert advisor to the UK Government as a member of the skills and productivity board, and her academic writings have been published in international academic journals. Earlier this year, Grace published her book, Think big, take small steps and build the future you want. Dr Grace Lordan 00:56 If I were to be a doctor, if I were to be a trader, what would be the tasks that I will be doing on a day to day basis? And would I ultimately end up enjoying those tasks Ali Abdaal 01:05 1 Transcribed by https://otter.ai In the conversation, we deep dive into Grace's book and tonnes of behavioural science concepts, including how our emotions influence decision making, the relationship between gender and risk aversion, why we procrastinate and our fear of failure. Dr Grace Lordan 01:16 The one thing about human beings is that we're really good actually at rebounding. So when we go through negative experiences, and we let ourselves go through negative experiences, we realise actually, it's not as bad as I thought. There are other options later. And we tend to be very, very resilient. And when we're anticipating failure or anticipating losses, we underestimate that resilience. Ali Abdaal 01:20 So please feel free to grab a cup of tea and enjoy the conversation. Dr. Lordan, thank you very much for coming on the show. You've have written this book, Think big, which is extremely good. I finished it on Audible this morning. And we were talking about your kind of woes with recording the audiobook, which is very good. Like I thought the way you were narrating it, it was very like expressive. A lot of the audiobooks are listened to usually fantasy fiction. It's very, like non expressive narrator so I could really hear the passion that was coming, coming through in your voice as you were as you were writing it. Dr Grace Lordan 02:03 I did some drama classes as a kid. So I think that they came into good use for the first time ever since I've left school. Ali Abdaal 02:09 That's very handy. Yeah, so lots of stuff I want to talk about in the book. Before we get started. You are apparently on the government advisory body for productivity and skills, which is very cool. What does What does? What does that mean? And how did how does one get into the government advisory body for productivity? Dr Grace Lordan 02:25 It's good question, actually. So it sits under the secretary of state reporting into Boris and as part of the levelling up strategy. And the idea is really to think about skills of the future and how they will be delivered in the UK. So Boris has come out and basically said that he doesn't think education should just be about secondary school, and should just be about young people going to university anymore, it should be that you get to go to university, when you're 2535 45. And I guess part of our job is really thinking about how those skills could actually be delivered. And looking to see actually, given what we have already. Whether or not there's some people who are doing better than others in delivering skills. Ali Abdaal 03:02 Okay, like, so how did you how'd you get this job? Did they like, does the government email you to someone knock on your door? How did that work? Dr Grace Lordan 03:09 This was an open competition. So they basically advertise they asked for things like, you know, backgrounds and economics, backgrounds in labour. And I think from their perspective, my background in economics, coupled with the behavioural science stuff, and actually, having written the book on kind of thinking about careers, from an individual perspective, was quite appealing. So we've ended up 2 Transcribed by https://otter.ai being we're six people, six experts in the community, one person's an education specialist for traditional economists. And then there's kind of me who fits bit between the kind of behavioural economics moles. Ali Abdaal 03:40 Yeah, so you're an associate professor of behavioural sciences at LSE is one thing that intrigued me as I was reading about in reading about your background, like, I wouldn't have thought that behavioural sciences in terms of like, you know, time management and productivity and procrastination, some of the stuff he talks about in the book that feels to me as like a lay person that has nothing to not quite fit within economics. So like, how does how does behavioural science fit into the economics of the field? Dr Grace Lordan 04:06 So I mean, if you think about the simple lesson that you might learn, if you if you've taken an economics class, we learned that when people are making decisions, they weigh up the cost of benefits and the risk. And I know you have a medical background, so you can appreciate that if someone is choosing to have a Big Mac today, that you might necessarily believe that they're weighing up the costs in 10 years time and the second big mac the next day, this other topic, Mac. And that's really where I kind of come from is thinking, how do people actually make decisions? But how can we tweak that model to really understand human decision making in a much better way than economists do? And in a way that's actually useful for policymakers, which I think that a lot of psychologists fail. So I kind of put myself in the centre where we want to be able to advise government, I want to be able to advise firms on what they should actually do to make people happier, more productive, whatever is their goal in a particular moment. And to do that we fundamentally need to understand decision making. And the second thing that's really important to understand is the intent action gap. So why is it that I, as Grace would say, I will do things today, but very often don't end up doing them. And you know, whether we talk about education, you know, people who enter education often don't study as much as they should. People often choose courses that are particularly bad for them, even though they say that they might actually go another path. So again, it's really getting down to the nitty gritty of how can we alter decision making, in a way that's not paternalistic, but is giving people information to help them go in the right direction? Ali Abdaal 05:29 Mm hmm. Okay. Yeah, the intent action gap, I think, like, we will felt that in our lives, like multiple times a day, as I was reading this, I started listening to a book about four or five days ago. And the very first chapter talks about this idea of me plus, I wonder if he kind of like, elaborate, like, what does? What does me plus mean? Dr Grace Lordan 05:46 So if you, if you go back to the economics were really good, I think making helping ourselves in the present day. So we know what makes us happy in the moment. But very often the things that we have to invest in to give our future selves, a better future we don't often do. So what I'd like people to do is to think about where would they like to be if it all worked out? So if they threw out, you know, loss aversion, if they issue a fear of failure? Where will they actually end up being? And have that be there me plus, but before they commit to that being there, me plus really think about, what would that mean plus actually do because I've noticed a lot of times when I talk to people about careers, they're attached to a label, so they want to be a trader, or an investment banker, or they want to be a doctor, or they're attached to a lifestyle. So they want to be able to go on a particular vacation or buy a particular car, and kind of think big journey is really thinking about, if I were to be a doctor, if I were to be a trader, what 3 Transcribed by https://otter.ai would be the tasks that I will be doing on a day to day basis? And would I ultimately end up enjoying those tasks, so the activities that I'm going to spend the time in, and there's two reasons for that. So one, it makes you happier to actually do tasks that you like, which feels like a no brainer. But secondly, if you're engaged in tasks that you like, you tend to be more successful. And it's the second that I'm really interested in and kind of getting people into jobs where they feel that they've reached the success that they want. Ali Abdaal 07:02 Okay, interesting. And do you think when it comes to being engaged in tasks that you like, some people say it's a case of find the thing that fits within your values, your personality, and when once you find that thing, then you will find it fun. And then there's another school of thought that says, Well, you know, the whole finding something that you're passionate about, it's actually kind of hard to do. So think about the stuff that you're actually doing and find ways to make it more interesting for yourself. How how do you how do you feel about those two different different camps, Dr Grace Lordan 07:29 I don't really feel that they're different. So you know, so people are claiming now that they choose companies based on the values the companies might have. And I think that's true in the same way that we choose a company based on a salary. But when you're actually in the job, what tends to matter with respect to productivity and happiness, is how you feel in those tasks in that moment. And if I'm working for a company that's saving the environment, but I've been treated really badly in a micro culture, in order to save that environment, there's a couple of companies come to mind when I think about that, then I'm not going to be productive, I'm not going to be happy. And I'm actually likely to leave that job. So it's more about going beyond thinking, what is the company's mission? What is my personality? And what is the micro culture of the team that I'm going to be working in? And will that make me happy? Will I be connected to the mission? Because my team is connected to the mission? Ali Abdaal 08:21 That's very hard to assess in advance when you're applying for a job. Dr Grace Lordan 08:24 It's really hard it's really, really hard. And I think then if you bring it down to the tasks and asking on an interview, what will I be doing on a day to day basis? So when I come to work for you, Ellie, what would I be doing on a day to day basis as part of your team? If you can imagine me on a Monday, how will I spend my time, the fact that you, as a manager, have thought about that? Firstly, will tell me that you're a good manager, because you'll know actually what you want the person to do. And you're not just hiring blindly. But the second is having that information allows me make my mind up. Because if I like the tasks, I'm probably going to like the team. Ali Abdaal 08:57 Okay. Yeah, that's very interesting. So that was a big part of the message that I took away from the Me+ stuff and the way it it manifested in my life. When I read it, I was I was thinking, okay, you know, let's engage with this, like, what's, what's kind of what is Me+ look like? And initially, I was thinking, oh, you know, I'd really like to have six pack abs. And then I came across the bit where you were like, no, no, forget about that focus on what did the tasks look like? And I was like, okay, you know, what I want me plus to do is to be able to exercise every day and to have fun doing it. And so for the last four days, I've actually been to the gym, I went to a yoga class yesterday morning, I did a workout at like, 8am this 4 Transcribed by https://otter.ai morning. And I've never really done this sort of thing. But I was like, excited about that. I was excited that the end goal was not six pack abs, I was excited that the end goal was that in a way that wasn't an end goal. And it was a case of just, I want to be able to enjoy this. Is that the sort of thing that you get a lot when you're doing this sort of research that process rather than outcome kind of thing. Dr Grace Lordan 09:49 So I write a lot for kind of people who might have made it Yes, or people who have plateaued. So if you take the exercising analogy from somebody who's contemplating doing the kind of 5k run rather than somebody who is contemplating doing the London Marathon and is really well placed for that, and I think for the person who hasn't done exercise for a while, or the person who has really invested in their career for a while, the worst thing they can do is do too much. So if you hadn't invested for a while, the worst thing you could do is go to the gym for three hours, you might get through it today. But the chances of repeating that are really, really small. And I think kind of the one of the big powerful messages underlying Think Big is whether you're focused on your health or whether you're focused on your career, it's those small actions that you take today will determine yourself in two years time, three years time and four years time. And actually, by throwing out the idea that you're going to reinvent yourself in 30 days is really, really powerful. Because you're much more likely to stick to it, you know, you can accomplish an extraordinary amount in 12 months, very little in, you know, 12 minutes, or, you know, very short period of time, Ali Abdaal 10:48 you know, I've been making videos semi themed around productivity for the last four years. And a big chunk of the advice boils down to consistency, and just showing up and taking small actions repeatedly. And in a way, not really worrying so much about the ultimate goal. And these days, I teach I teach courses, helping people become like YouTubers and stuff. And the way you become a successful YouTuber is you just make one or two videos every week for the next like five years. But no one stick straight for that long because they have like the Oh, I must hit a certain subscriber count, I must have a certain like view count. And my view on this is that having, like, in a way those outcome metrics, the ones that are outside of our control, I kind of unhelpful, especially at the start of a journey. Do you have any thoughts on on that point? Dr Grace Lordan 11:31 Well, when you were talking it, actually, I watched a video of yours on compounding. So when people are choosing to invest, we accept compounding very, very easily, right? We accept the idea actually, that, you know, if we leave money in for a very long period of time, it's going to compound so we're probably going to be okay in our pensions. And it's exactly the same here when it comes to your career, like those very small things that you're going to do today. And I asked for a commitment of 90 minutes a week, which for most people, regardless of how pressurised you feel is very, very possible. That should compound once you do once you've chosen tasks that align with your meet plus, relatively quickly. Ali Abdaal 12:06 Okay, 90 minutes a week, that's like 13 minutes a day ish. Yes, very doable. Um, one, one bit that I was gonna ask you about, that I thought maybe I disagreed with was you talked like the title of the book is think big. Yeah. And the vibe I got from the chapter around goals is that you're keen on people setting, or perhaps not, but like, one camp of people in the sphere is encouraging people to set these big, hairy, audacious goals, and then figuring out the small steps taken, you can take to get there. But then there's another camp. And this is sort of where it where I think I am whereby I think, in a way, I feel maybe 5 Transcribed by https://otter.ai setting goals is a bit overrated. Because if you're setting a goal, then you're essentially to me that feels like a contract to be unhappy until you hit the goal. And then you hit the goal. And then you have this like fleeting sense of like, Oh, I hit million subscribers. Cool. Yeah. You know, my day to day hasn't really changed at cetera, et cetera. So the way I kind of think about goals is I try I try and throw goes out the window, and instead just focus on those, like, what do I actually want to do? But I don't know, if I'm just like, bIessing, myself, then like... Dr Grace Lordan 13:15 Well you're doing ok...so that seems to be working for you. I mean, I think so. So for people who read the book, the goal is really there to serve two purposes. So one, so that you start investing in your career. So it helps to find the tasks this week, and two, so that you actually bring your future self forward. So you're not always investing in activities that just serve you in the present day. But in the book, I do talk about the idea that every Sunday, so every kind of what I pick, Sunday is the start of my week, that you reflect on how the week previous went, and you look to see whether or not there are new opportunities that you should be pivoting your goal for. So I see the Think big part of the book as really giving people a directions, they can set off on a journey, and they start walking. And more interesting things might actually come along. But they make a conscious decision to follow those interesting things. So then they go off on a slightly different journey. So if you take your own career, for example, it was probably a great idea that you studied medicine and Cambridge, right. And now you have an entirely different career, but you are using some of the skills that you actually learned in the university. So in that particular case, you would have sat back and said, Actually, do I really want to pivot and do a large pivot? And the answer would have been Yes. But had you never gone into medicine, medical school, maybe you would never have started walking in this direction and come to the destination. So it's really about movement. Ali Abdaal 14:36 Oh okay, that's very interesting. Um, I was having these thoughts. I was it was a few weeks ago, and I was on a date. And we went there. We were kind of driving around afterwards, just like chatting. And I was kind of thinking that like driving around without a destination. It's just like if it felt a bit wrong, and so I just put the destination of the like the McDonald's drive thru in the sat nav, and it wasn't really about the destination. It was about okay, I've got a destination now. I know what the what the journey is. And when we got to the middle of where I was like, what my goals were, I feel like the destination is actually not that important. But the point is, I was thinking, Hmm, maybe having the destination, lets you kind of set the direction for your journey. And then you can also change your mind as you as you go further down the line. Dr Grace Lordan 15:17 And as humans, we love certainty. So even if we've created for ourselves, this is the goal that we're moving towards them, we change your mind, for the period of time that we're moving, there is certainty. One of the biggest things that hampers people's growth and you know, stops them kind of getting to the place of where they probably deserve to be, is that they feel that the journey is actually uncertain. So by kind of having that destination allows you to kind of move towards it. Ali Abdaal 15:41 Okay, yeah, this reminds me of advice I got when I was in med school where like, once you once you've done your once you start your clinical years, the question everyone asks is, oh, what specialty Do you want to do? And the honest answer for the vast majority people is, I don't freaking out, I have no idea. 6 Transcribed by https://otter.ai Like, you know, there are those odd like weirdos that I've decided at the age of three, they want to be a neurosurgeon. Yeah. But for most of us, it's like, honestly, I don't know, I just want to kind of get a feel of different specialties. And kind of, and the advice that one of one of the consultants already respected gave me was that, like, honestly, just pick something and start moving towards it. Because then you will start doing things that will build up your CV and you'll start actually finding opportunities your way. And then if you want to change your mind, it's much easier to change direction when you're moving forward, rather than when you're when you're stationary. Dr Grace Lordan 16:23 And you learn about yourself as well. What do I like? And what do I, what do I dislike, which you won't do if you're just if you're stuck kind of standing still? So kind of you know, did I write about what should you do if you have no idea what you want to do with a future where a lot of young people are actually people who you know, and who are later in life? And again, it's really about thinking, what do I kind of like doing now? So let's do some more of that and move towards the goal. And then on the way being really reflective. Am I enjoying this task? Or am I just doing it because I like the idea of becoming a surgeon or becoming a lawyer becoming another job title. And I really want people to move away from the second, you know, I kind of think with the future of work. We have this disruption, where people who are able to kind of pivot know what their skills are job craft, which you might which you've mentioned already, it will really stand to them. Ali Abdaal 17:10 Hmm. Yeah, so it's like you're moving away from being and more towards doing, yes, being a doctor but versus like, what does the day to day of practising medicine actually look like? And does this sound like the sort of thing that is my idea of fun right now? And I guess, I guess, like, it's, it's kind of you know, that thing, and in the research about, it's hard for us to predict what will make us happy in the future. But it's a reasonable first approximation, that the sort of stuff I enjoy doing now, like talking to people like you, or like making videos is likely to also probably make me happy in the future. And if it doesn't, then well, I can just change course, yeah, Dr Grace Lordan 17:41 this is like a grid. So so what what, you know, what the government's should have done in COVID. And some governments incredibly well, was what we call this grid search strategy where they get new data, they update their decision making based on the data, and they're willing to go backwards, or they're willing to go left, and they're willing to go right. And always having that openness to a change of direction. And I think if we kind of bring that into careers that you know, really, we don't know, our preferences very well, we've watched some TV when we're young. So depending on what you watch, that might actually ultimately determine your career. Maybe you move towards that, if you have no idea, but always paying attention to am I enjoying the tasks is do I feel purpose? If I was doing this in five years time, would I be really, really happy. You know, my director in the LSE manage traffic, and she spoke to me kind of about careers and kind of really thinking five years ahead of time, what's your next challenge going to be because by the time five years comes, you're not going to be able to do that challenge, unless you've spent a decent amount of time doing activities that makes you credible to be that person standing in that room. And really taking that approach, I think can help people. Ali Abdaal 18:43 Okay, yeah, interesting. We're gonna take a very quick break to introduce our sponsor for this episode. And that is brilliant. I've been using brilliant for the last two plus years. They're a fantastic platform for 7 Transcribed by https://otter.ai learning maths, science and computer science with engaging and interactive online courses. And the great thing about brilliant is that they really teach stuff from a very first principles based approach. It's almost like the way that we were taught in places like Oxford and Cambridge, where you learn a concept and then you apply the concept to an interesting problem. Rather than just being spoon fed stuff like we initially learned in school, my favourite courses and brilliant other computer science ones. As some of you guys might know, I was torn between applying to medicine and computer science. I went for medicine in the end, but I always had an affinity to computer science and taking the courses and brilliant, like the Introduction to Algorithms and the introduction to Python really helped me get more of a grasp of computer science than I've ever had before. It's also great for learning how to code which is an incredibly useful skill to have, especially if you want to start a business and I attribute like 98% of my business success to the fact that I learned how to code when I was in secondary school. So if you want to check out the courses on math, science and computer science, then head over to brilliant org forward slash deep dive and the first 200 people to sign up with that link will get 20% off of the annual premium subscription. So thank you brilliant for sponsoring this episode. You mentioned that you often you've you've written about and you speak to people that have no idea at all what they want to do. How How should someone In that position, go about figuring this out. And I kind of ask because I feel like I'm kind of in that position right now where it's like, I have all these options in front of me. And I don't really know which one to pick. But like, yeah. Dr Grace Lordan 20:09 So I think for somebody who has no idea what they want to do, and who doesn't necessarily have options, it really is about bringing it back to what are the activities that I would like to do? And how can I get the skills to actually do those activities, and then going about spending time engaged in those activities. So maybe you want to do some more public speaking, you know, trying to get on panels, trying to spend some time with people who might be actually able to get you into the room where you can do some public speaking in the future, going to talks and studying what makes a good speaker and what doesn't make a good speaker, if you really, really have really have no experience. And then maybe there are some skills that you have to pay for. And I do say in Think Big for people who do not know what they want to do, I would avoid committing to a four year degree or an expensive master's programme, and really use the resources that are out there that are either cheap or free, because there's so many things that we can actually learn now, without having stepped foot into a traditional classroom. Even though I work in a university and we have wonderful degrees, I think you need to be certain to spend spend that amount of money. And then I think for someone like you, I think doing time audits can really help. So during the week writing down what you're actually doing what you probably do already, but writing down whether or not you actually enjoy doing them. Did you feel firstly a sense of purpose that it was kind of leading you to a better place in five years time? Or did you feel fun in the moment. And then if there were activities that aren't kind of investing in you in five years time, and they're not giving you fun at the moment, consider job crafting, which I think you're in a good position to do, where you remove those activities and do more of the things that are giving you purpose and more of the things that are giving you fun today. Ali Abdaal 21:38 Okay, interesting. So time audit and thinking about was this thing fun? And if not, was it at least purposeful? Yeah. And if not, why the hell am I doing? Dr Grace Lordan 21:47 8 Transcribed by https://otter.ai And I don't journal at all, I really just put these marks next to my diary. So after the event, I'll edit the calendar. And I'll say, Yeah, I enjoyed that. That was good, that's gonna pay me for it in the future as well. Or actually, that was really a drain of my energy. And let avoid things like that in the future. Ali Abdaal 22:02 One thing that I often kind of clash with my mum about is the idea of changing one's mind, and making making plans and then changing and then changing them a few weeks, two months later. So for example, last year, I had decided that you know what, at the stage, my career is currently out, I'm, I'm considering moving to America to continue to practice medicine, and started gearing myself up to take those exams and, you know, made the mistake mill, maybe not, it had a good clickbait title of making a video called, I'm moving to America, where I announced my plans for like moving to America. And then as I started preparing for this exam, and realised how much work it was going to be, and then as the YouTube channel started to explode, and I thought, hang on, maybe this, you know, moving to America, you know, it will be four years of residency, lay is reasonable at a reasonable amount of hard work, maybe it'll be fun. And at the end of it, you become a doctor who makes 400k a year or something like that. But I saw I could see the trajectory of the YouTube channel being more interesting than that point. And so I kind of pivoted and thought, screw this America thing. But now anytime, almost anytime I speak to someone, they will have seen that video, and they're like, Hey, I thought you were moving to America, especially by Bob Jones, it often says that, hey, you know, you said you were moving to America, then you changed your mind? Yeah. Do you think there's much? or to what extent is there value in picking a goal and then sticking to it rather than just like willy nilly changing one's mind? Dr Grace Lordan 23:23 I don't think you want to change your mind willy nilly. So I come in between kind of in between you and your mom in some way. So So I think the first thing is, you know, maybe you should do a YouTube video on sunk cost fallacy, right? And talk to people about the fact that, you know, you have put yourself out there, you have this commitment device, but actually, that's a cost. So you'd have to think the embarrassment of actually changing your mind. Because when you reviewed your options, and your views, review them deliberately, it looked like sticking to YouTube's right for you. And I think that second part is really important to ask yourself, did you review your options and review them deliberately kind of thinking about what are the costs and benefits? Or was it something else was the kind of the length of the residency? Was it a fear of failure? Was it loss aversion that drove you to that decision? And I think if it's deliberate, you absolutely should change your mind. You know, I think one of the big powerful kind of influences on our decision making is our emotions. And when we think about the future, so if you think about doing a residency in America, it does actually sound quite scary, to be honest, kind of going now, you know, doing four years when you clearly have a really good career at the moment. Were you anticipating kind of a loss that might not necessarily be realised, and not seeing gains of that trip would actually give you and I think if you sit down and say, Actually, I was deliberate, then you should change your mind. And I think one of the problems in society today is that we think that good citizens, good leaders should never change their mind. And I think in COVID, that was to the detriment of many countries, because it took a lot for some leaders to come out and say, Look, actually, this isn't the right strategy. I'm going to now change I'm going to change my mind. So if I was to think about leaders of the future, actually, their ability to stand up and say, I don't know, I got it wrong. I've changed my mind those three things are really in the forefront of my mind. Because when you're navigating through uncertainty, you're going to get it wrong sometimes. And that's okay. But it's the deliberate part. Have you sat down and deliberately now changed your mind? Or is it something used to wear willy nilly? Is it a willy nilly kind of reflex action? And then it might be worth revisiting? 9 Transcribed by https://otter.ai Ali Abdaal 25:19 Oh, interesting. Yeah. Like when when I was following the news with all the COVID stuff, and occasionally, there'll be the phrase, or the government has made another U turn. And I will kind of think that, like, it's saying, like, surely sticking to a plan that's shown not to be worked like a herd immunity or something like you would surely you want the government to make a U turn? Yeah. Why do we have such a weird reaction to leaders changing their mind about stuff? Do you think? Dr Grace Lordan 25:42 I think things were predictable for a long time. So you know, I think as well, kind of maybe the difference in attitudes between yourself and your mom do come from generational gaps, she would have been in the UK when there was a big period of growth. So we had some dips, but we haven't seen the disruption, like we've seen kind of in the last, you know, kind of five, six years to people who were early 20s. Now, they are facing much more uncertainty than people would have done 20 years ago, 40 years ago, coming out of out of university. And I think when we're in periods of certainty, we expect people to get it right, you know, good decision making is possible, right? So if I could give you if I can, if I could talk to you through your options in decision making under uncertainty, I could tell you what your life will look like in four years time, when you step outside of the US. Or if you turn that option down and say during the YouTube, I could show you what your life would be. But now because the economy is changing, the growth cycles are changing, we don't have that certainty. And I think we need new types of leaders, but people, you know, status quo bias prevails. And it's nice to have somebody standing there, you know, looking very serious telling us the things are going to be okay, because they have it in control. And for human beings, you churning and change of minds aren't signals that someone has it in control. Ali Abdaal 26:52 That's interesting. There was, there was an exercise I came across a couple of years ago called The Odyssey plan, which is the idea that, you know, it's sort of a way of helping you figure out what to do with your life, where the ideas that you write down five years from now, what does my life look like down this current path? And then you put that side? And then you say, Okay, five years from now, what does my life look like? If I take a completely different path? You put that aside, and then you say, Okay, five years from now, what does my life look like? If money and societal obligations are no object? And I could just literally do what I want? What more does my life look like then? And I did this, this sort of thing about two years ago, and it really helped me realise, oh, I just never spend spend the time thinking long term, medium to long term at all. And even just spending half an hour thinking, Hmm, if I couldn't on this current path, I'll end up I don't know in anaesthetics training programme in Cambridge, being a supervisor, it'll be kind of fun. That's what my day to day would look like. That doesn't seem particular exciting. Oh, okay. Maybe I should try something else. And just spending the time to think about that, like really made me change direction in a way. Do you have any sort of similar practices or exercises that you they that you recommend for people trying to figure out this question of like, What the hell do I do with my life? Dr Grace Lordan 28:02 I mean, it's a really good question. I think it again, comes back to the task of shank, which sounds really boring. So there's lists in the book of activities that people do in their occupation, and skills that you might want to hold. And I think it comes back to that, and thinking about are you happy to spend your day engaged in activities like those, so a lot of the jobs that look exciting, they look exciting, because on 10 Transcribed by https://otter.ai TV, they're glamorised. I mean, law was one that comes into my mind. And I think I would be a terrible lawyer, because the commitment to a day to day that's like six in the morning to eight in the evening is absolutely something that you still need today, sadly, but people don't know about that before they go in, they think about themselves standing in court in litigated cases. So it's bringing it back to those kind of boring, humdrum tasks. And I think when it comes to your think, big journey, it's about what are the tasks that I will be doing in 10 years time? How would I spend my Monday morning? How would I spend my Tuesday morning? And how can I get myself in a place where that's really realistic. And you know, for most of us, we won't be able to be in a place where we don't have to worry about money. So we'd have to be doing something that adds value to society. But this is an opportunity to kind of put yourself on a path where you get to do tasks that are as fun as possible, and you're actually enjoying them. So you don't feel like working. And I think for most of us, that's our goal, right? 70% of our time at work. It doesn't feel like a painful, painful process. We're really enjoying those activities within the field Ali Abdaal 29:26 of behavioural sciences. I get the like, a lot of the stuff you talked about in the book, you talk like at the end of each chapter, there's sort of different insights from behavioural science, which are translated into things that we can do right now. One thing that was curious about is what does research in this field look like? Like how do we, how do we know that the stuff that we talked about in the book or the stuff that you read in a, I don't know, a self help book? How do we know that that's actually legit? Like what what does the primary material look like? Dr Grace Lordan 29:51 It's a good question. So I mean, behavioural science isn't a discipline. So the research can come from economics, psychology, anthropology, and I think the big banner that I will put on it is that it's describing why people behave the way that they actually do. So why do people procrastinate? What's the reason that people work more productively together as teams? These are questions that behavioural scientists will look at. I think the the big fascination with behavioural science scientists is causality. So if you were to think about the COVID vaccine, a lot of the debates about it are was didn't do we really have enough time to put a true field trials in the same way that other medicines have actually gone through these RCTs. And battle behavioural science tries to mimic in the real world. So psychologists will do lab experiments with students. So if you look at the behavioural science literature, a lot of the kind of early ideas will be from bringing students into the lab, it's not scary, like in the 70s, I promise. So you know, really easy stuff, I'm looking to see whether or not we can change their behaviour with a particular insight. And then somebody like me brings those insights into companies into policy and asks, Is the stuff that's coming out of the students in the lab actually replicating in companies and a lot of times it doesn't, I will be very honest with you. Because obviously, when we have students in the lab, we have them for a very short period of time, when I'm working with workers, I want to know, did the change, I make work in the moment, one week later, one month later, 12 months later. And because of that methods are really important. So if you if someone is listening, and wants to pivot towards a career in behavioural science, you know, data science is absolutely your friend in this regard. And then I think at the top level, we look at macro trends. So at the moment, I'm building an index, with Citibank, that's going to look to see whether or not we can actually predict Profit and Loss based on the culture that organisations actually have. And again, what we're really going to have an eye on is, is that useful for institutional investors so we can change their behaviour? And can we change customer behaviour? So it's kind of two things that I would want the listeners to kind of take away. One is about explaining behaviour, whether it's at the lab level, individual level out in the real world, or the macro level? And 11 Transcribed by https://otter.ai secondly, it's really, can we talk about causal effects? Are we sure that the change that we made, or are we sure that the analysis that we've run is really talking about a direct effect? Ali Abdaal 32:11 Okay, yeah, I thought the way that you handled some of these in the book was was really like, like, often you see a, I don't know, lifehacker.com article about, there's a study that shows that if you wear red that then you'll perform better in this thing. Oh, amazing. So you should start wearing red. And the way you described this in the book, it's like, well, actually, it's it's it's fairly correlation. You're not very causation. But hey, maybe there's something there who knows the evidence isn't quite there. But yeah, maybe consider wearing red. And I thought I kind of chuckled when I was listening to that, because I was like, that's a very nice way of describing the uncertainty that we often have in this sort of research. Dr Grace Lordan 32:46 I am the worst person to actually get to write a magazine article, because I tend to kind of go well, yes, the evidence says this, but maybe it might work for you. But I think that's honest, because the populations that are studied by behavioural scientists, including me, might be different from you. So there's two companies I'm working with at the moment down in Canary Wharf, they're right across the road from each other. And one experiment worked incredibly well on one company. And it did not necessarily it didn't work at all, actually, the other company, we got zero, like a flatline zero effect. And that's because context matters. And both of those companies are very different contexts, very different populations, they have their own subcultures, and they have their own pressures. And it's the same for anything that you're reading in a magazine. So I, I encourage people to be experimental. So they might hear me say something. But they should say, actually, you know, I, maybe Grace knows something about what she's talking about. But she doesn't know me, the only person who knows me is me. So I'm going to experiment with her idea. And if it doesn't work, I'm going to throw it out. And that, for me, is a practice that I think we should do as individuals for our health and careers. As managers when we're leading teams, and also in the government, you know, a leadership tactic that might work for Boris Johnson might not necessarily work for another leader. And unless you're mindful of that, you're going to be taking on practices that somebody has given you. That's actually based on evidence that can't be universal. Ali Abdaal 34:01 We were brainstorming, what we were going to have is like the kind of intro music spiel for this podcast. We haven't quite figured it out yet. But like, one thing that I was, I wanted to say at the end of the intro is, you know, introduce the guest explain what their credentials are and what we talked about in the episode, and something to the effect of, so sit back, grab a cup of tea, and remember to take everything you hear with a sprinkle of salt. Because I think like in these sorts of podcasts with that, you know, you've been on I've been on where people are really giving life advice. Yeah. However you dress it up, giving life advice. We can only really speak to either our own personal experiences or in your case evidence from fairly like not soft skill type stuff that it's very hard to like, you know, directly measure like a blood a blood test increasing. It's like more hard science and this is more soft science, in the context matters so much and I think one thing I want to everyone to try and be mindful of is that like, no one has the guidebook for how to live life. You just got to sort of try stuff. And if it works for you, then great, it works for you. But if it doesn't work for you, then try something else. And it sounds like that's generally how you approach it as Dr Grace Lordan 35:11 12 Transcribed by https://otter.ai well. Absolutely. So be experimented. And I think context matters are kind of, you know, two words, to really emphasise if something is working for me in my environment, it might not necessarily work for other people. And it's also a way of actually to get to know yourself. So if you're trying something and it's not working, you can think about, okay, why did it work for somebody else, and not necessarily for me, and you can have confidence then in kind of trying other tools without getting stuck in the same in the same cycle. Ali Abdaal 35:36 Nice. Coming back to the question of goals. One thing, another thing that I've been mulling over for several years now is this balance between being satisfied with where we're at in life versus the Y says, versus striving for more having like a think big kind of goal. How do you think about that, that balance? Dr Grace Lordan 35:56 I think this I think strivers don't like the process. So I think if you found the activities that you enjoy doing on a day to day basis, and they're filling you up, and they're pointing you in a direction towards a particular goal, then you're happy doing the process. So the type of striving and the type of impatience melts away, perhaps not fully, because maybe you're more impatient, or you want to get there quicker than you're going at the moment. But I think people who really suffer from striving are people who have a vision of me plus, that actually is a bit distorted from the reality. And they're doing lots of activities now. But they don't particularly enjoy that they're not particularly find it finding useful. So again, I think it's kind of take a step back and say, you know, why am I feeling so frustrated with my day to day do I need to rebalance and start doing some activities that I actually enjoy that I can really see the clean, clear line of purpose to in order to make myself feel better now? And again, once you're moving forward? And once you're walking? I think that that's, that's good. That's good enough for most people. Ali Abdaal 36:56 Okay. Yeah, I think like this. There's a lot of evidence, as you know, about how experiencing progress, I think you talked about how to, like, make your progress more salient. Experiencing that sense of progress, really is like, extremely, fundamentally satisfying. And so I guess, sometimes if I think, you know, I guess the standard straw man would be like, Oh, well, you know, if you just play video games all day, then it's fun. But it's not like meaningful, I think it's not meaningful, because it's not really progressing you forward in a way that adds value to the world, is that fair to say? Dr Grace Lordan 37:31 Or to yourself? So you know, some people who I meet their values are really about making making money, which is, which doesn't bother me. But I think that they need to be clear on one of the tasks, they're going to do that add value to the world, I think, I think that I think that's really true. And I think finding the kind of right balance of pleasure and purpose is really important. You should play video games, if that's something that actually really helps you relax. I think for some people, it's been shown that it can be like mindfulness. So again, really thinking about individual differences, if playing Mario Kart is what gets you kind of out of the day, and into the moment, you should spend time on that. But it's balancing that time. So balance the time between serving yourself in the present day, and also serving yourself in the future. Ali Abdaal 38:10 13 Transcribed by https://otter.ai Okay. And I guess most people's dream job would be one where they've got pleasure plus purpose in the same thing. Yeah. And that would be great. But if not, then some things are pleasurable. And some things are purposeful, and just balancing those. Is that fair to say? Dr Grace Lordan 38:21 Absolutely, absolutely. And I think as well, the kind of adaptation that we feel as humans, they call it, it's called hedonic adaptation. Everything that you get, you'll adapt to it really quickly. So whether you get the nicest car, whether you get a pay rise, you know, the happiness moments are really fleeting. So if you really are kind of in a place, and you feel that things aren't going your way, trying to draw attention to things that are going right, kind of the small wins, so that you can kind of elongate the happiness that you will actually get from the car from the pay rise. But also look at those kinds of small moments. You know, if you have an interaction today with somebody, and they insult you, it would probably weigh really heavy on you. Whereas if somebody gives you a huge compliment, how long do you hold on to that, which is a really interesting thing for us as humans, right? That we really are focused on the negative, we're focused on the losses. We're focused on our slice of ego. But we go through our day, and most of us actually have some, like, you know, really wonderful exchanges with people. We have some nice things happening to us. So drawing attention to those if you're feeling that you're striving and you're starting to burn out. Ali Abdaal 39:19 Hmm, yeah, it's like with YouTube comments, like 99.99% of them are really nice. You don't think about them? And then when there's one main one that hits a bit too close, do you think about that for the rest of the day you read them? Or do hear you read all the comments? Probably not all the comments? Yeah, certainly. Certainly. Most of them Dr Grace Lordan 39:35 is good. Yeah. Ali Abdaal 39:36 Do you don't seem to have much of a social media presence, but you've done a lot of like writing in publications and things do you get like haters Is that a thing? Dr Grace Lordan 39:44 So recently, I wrote, I wrote something for the ft. And it polarise people. And they usually turn off the comment box for kind of articles like the one that I wrote. So it was it was about managers, about mediocre managers kind of holding back people's careers. But it was really interesting to read those comments because people either really loved it in a five star way, or they really hated it. And that polarisation, I think comes through a lot on social media. But I think it's imprinted in our society around kind of political values around even what people would like to watch on TV that were much more yes or no or all or nothing than we were in the past. And I think Think Big is really about kind of getting people to kind of come into the centre a little bit and kind of say, actually, you know, you can have kind of more balance. And you can actually think bold in your opinions if you think about polarisation, but also in the choices that you make on a day to day basis. Ali Abdaal 40:37 14 Transcribed by https://otter.ai So in in chapter two, chapter two or chapter three, rather, he talks about internal, the internal things that are like either holding us back or help but can can help us move forward to achieve our Think big goals. One of the concepts, which is interesting is the idea of locus of control. What is that? Dr Grace Lordan 40:54 So locus of control is the idea that there are two types of people in a way of kind of binarize it, there are people who believe that everything is within their own control. So when negative events happen to them, they take control of the situation. And they try to move forward in a way. So try to find, decide or try to find another entrance. And then there's people with an external locus of control, who believes that everything happens to them. So it's at the hands of other people, it's at the hands of the universe, in the extreme, most of us will have both internal external locus control depending on our domain. So maybe in family life, some people will have internal locus of control, they believe that they can control everything, they feel quite safe in their family life, in the work life, they think their career is happening to them. And I think, again, it isn't all or nothing. So getting people to think about what is it that I can actually control in this particular moment, and taking the choice to take that control. So I think even for people who are having a really terrible time, in toxic workplaces who are being bullied, there is something that they can can actually control in that moment, and really encouraging them to take that control to allow them to move forward, rather than just seeing the negative, and just seeing the bad things that are happening to them with the idea that they can get out of that situation. Ali Abdaal 42:09 How do people end up with internal slash external locus loci? Dr Grace Lordan 42:15 We don't know. So this, this will come down in the same way, like genetics, so you would have people who believe in nature, and people who believe in nurture, and I think the reality is that it's probably a combination of both. So our genetics probably give us some proportion of our locus of control, when we're born, depending on the kind of experiences that our ancestors have had. But I think the biggest thing is going to be the environment that you actually grew up in. So I think if you're put in an environment where you're encouraged to make decisions, when you're really young, you're encouraged to kind of choose your own path, choose your own toys, and the play box, for example, that's going to allow you think that you are then more in control of your own destiny as somebody who has these kind of really, really structured lives and thinks that everything is coming for them. And I saw a researcher and I can't think of his name. But he's working on the changes of the generation from generations where kids were just left to play. So they were kind of pushed up in the road towards this kind of structured education, where people go to different sessions at particular times, but their whole day is stacked by their parents, it does seem to have some influence on whether or not you think you can actually control your own destiny, those kind of early moments. Ali Abdaal 43:20 That's interesting, I guess, like so. I feel like I'm quite an internal locus of control II type person. But I wonder if that can also go too far. Like if, for example, I don't know, I get rejected by a girl. And I, you know, there's an extent to which it is useful for me to internalise that as okay, I could have controlled that situation I did badly, therefore, what can I learn from this, etc. But there's also a part of it that's like, well, actually, there are 1000 reasons why I've been rejected by this girl that have nothing to do with me in the slightest. Yeah. And I guess it is about balancing the two that sometimes it is actually external 15 Transcribed by https://otter.ai factors that have led to something that completely outside of your control. But let's think about what are the things we can control and what we do differently next time, potentially. Dr Grace Lordan 44:05 And I think this is a really good attitude and decision making. So if you think about how most people determine whether or not an outcome is successful, they will look to see did they succeed or fail? So do they get a checkbox? Or do they get an x and in that case, for people with the internals of locks control, as you pointed out, being rejected by a girl could be graded, this really negative experience, it's hard to rebound from if you take the behavioural science perspective, or you take a good decision making kind of one on one if you come to one of my classes, you should be focusing on if you have an outcome that other people would label success and fail, sitting down and thinking, What did what did I control in that particular situation? What could I have done differently? What was my input and what was down to luck, and in luck, I will put anything that's determined outside yourself by other by other people. And then it's really about identifying those things that you can control and taking hold of them and not over obsessing on the stuff that is outside your outside your control. So In some ways, it's kind of taking the best of the internal locus of control, recognising that luck does play a role in determining these outcomes of success and failure. And, and people who do these post mortems really do see learning and failure, but they don't dwell on failure. So if they have a failure, if they failed on a particular moment, they're sitting down saying, What could I have done differently? And then for the future, they're taking those lessons on board? Ali Abdaal 45:24 Yeah, speaking, speaking of failure, so you're talking that chapter about anticipating failure, and how often that hold holds people back? I wonder if you can talk like, what what does that mean to anticipate failure? Dr Grace Lordan 45:33 Yes, I mean, so anticipation of an event brings on anxieties, that can be worse than actually experiencing an event itself. So very often, if you talk to people who report having anxieties or who report having worries, they're talking about something that might actually happen in the future will then something that they're going through in a particular moment. And anticipated loss aversion is exactly that, you know, it's been shown that when I think about what it's like to not get a promotion, to fluff up, if I'm doing some public speaking, to do something badly, that the kind of how I imagined myself feeling that sadness is felt in my body in the way this manifests, but it's much worse than actually going through it. And I think the one thing about human beings is that we're really good actually at rebounding. So when we go through negative experiences, and we let ourselves go through negative experiences, we realise actually, it's not as bad as I thought, there are other options later. And we tend to be very, very resilient. And when we're anticipating failure or anticipating losses, we underestimate that resilience. So some of the kind of most successful people in our society are people who have failed a lot. Because firstly, they're learning from their failure. But secondly, you're probably not going to get very far in life without experiencing failure, where you're going to have to get rejected. So you know, if I'm dating market, it's exactly the same, you're not going to meet probably the exact person, fewer all the people out in the world, if you don't go and meet some people who are wrong for you in the beginning, it's the same with jobs. So really kind of taking that on board that actually you're going to do some things, people aren't going to like you, you're going to get negative feedback, it's going to be unfair, you're going to have bad luck. But there is learning in that. And you're still on that journey. 16 Transcribed by https://otter.ai Ali Abdaal 47:04 Nice. One. One bit of the book that I liked was when you referenced the dating market, in terms of I think it was around differences in genders between like risk taking and risk aversion. I wonder if you can kind of talk about that, Dr Grace Lordan 47:16 I would love to test it. So one thing that we know for sure, at the average level is that women do tend to be more risk averse as compared to men. So men are risk averse, which is less so than women. And I have this theory that men were able to be rejected much more in early years, kind of when they were learning about whether failure is acceptable or not. Because they have to ask, you know, women on dates in most cultures. So when you're asking a girl, you know, 1213 years of age, and they say no to you, if you're at a disco, that's going to be terrible. But actually, you're learning that it's not that bad. So the second time you asked the third time, you asked the fourth time that you asked, you know, there will be people who are actually so resilient to this, that by the time they're 15 1617, they're not feeling that failure. And we carry that into other domains in our lives. There are these positive spillovers, so I think by having women not necessarily represented in competitive sports, to the same degree as men, so they're not, you know, feeling that they can lose in the same way from early life, and also not being the ones to ask I'm hoping that's changing, though I'm hearing that it is, but not being the ones to ask as often as men, that does set the parameter for risk aversion that economists care a lot about. Ali Abdaal 48:22 Yeah. And I guess when it comes to even things like asking for a promotion, or asking for a raise, if, if at the average level, there's even a 1% difference in risk aversion between men and women, that at the at the extremes is going to translate to a significant disparity between people who get promoted and people who don't? And obviously, there, it's all multifactorial, but yeah, it's it's interesting how that that you know, yeah, theoretically, could could could be done to that. I have a bunch of female friends who are currently on the dating market. And I, you know, they always like, ah, you know, I don't like this out, you know, I could never ask a guy out, because I'll get rejected. And I'm like, come on, like, Dr Grace Lordan 48:57 Are they on dating, like on technology? Or are they out there? Like asking people out on the street in the in the way in the US? Ali Abdaal 49:04 Oh, no, everyone's everyone's on the apps. Yeah, whatever asks people out on this road, well, other than a subset of guys that are into that sort of thing. Dr Grace Lordan 49:11 It still happens in the US, though, which amazed me, yeah, people go up to each other in real life and in real life, have always done it. So the technology is just as big as it is here. But that part of the culture hasn't gone away, which I find which I find fascinating. Ali Abdaal 49:24 Have you noticed any other like in terms of like risk aversion? Does the data say anything? Like kind of ethnic minorities versus like white people around like risk taking risk aversion, that kind of stuff? Dr Grace Lordan 49:34 17 Transcribed by https://otter.ai Yes. So for countries like the US and the UK, people of colour do tend to be less risk averse than white men. And there we see less risk less and less sorry, more risk, more risk averse as compared to white men. But the male female divides still stands there. So for example, if you were to compare white women to black men, black men will take more risks as compared to white women. So the gender the gender dimension Trumps, but we do see this kind of interaction effect with race and ethnicity. And again, it comes down to I think two things. First, the early childhood experiences. But secondly, rejections. So white men are much less likely to be told no as compared to all other people. So other genders, other races, other ethnicities. And then if you're told no, it becomes rational not to ask again, right? Because you're getting, you're gonna get that feedback loop. But actually, the reverse is probably true. So in some ways, women and people of colour should probably be asking more, because the chances of them then getting a yes is actually going up. But I think that's easier said than done. So, you know, there's a huge literature on societal backlash, particularly for women, that talks about what happens if a woman actually speaks up and asks for what she what she wants, and work and steps outside the stereotype. And there tends to be this negative repercussions. So simply asking for more, doesn't necessarily mean that you'll actually get more. So it is really, really complicated. And that's why in today's society, having having transparency is really helpful on both sides, it's really helpful for companies, because they can pay attention to are they allowing, you know, really talented individuals fall short, for reasons that have to do with kind of these embedded stereotypes that they're not seeing. But at the individual level, when we have transparency, a lot of the problems go away. So both for women and people of colour, they feel much better saying, Actually, my salary isn't in the bottom 20%. But I'm knocking it out of the park, if I compare it to the rest of the distribution, and why is that? So the certainty of having something to actually point to is really, really powerful. So I really support, you know, the gender pay gap reporting, and I now support the kind of the idea that we're going to move to having race and ethnicity pay gaps as well. Ali Abdaal 51:45 Oh, interesting. So I've been looking a lot into this stuff. Now that I have a team of like 11 people expanding to 20. With, you know, I've had a few conversations with the team members around like raises, but not as many as I thought I would have. And I think there is a I think because at least in our team, it's a world we're just making stuff up as we go along. So we don't have like a salary policy or race policy, like what, how to even benchmark when someone is like writing content for a YouTube video or like a YouTube? I don't know. But I want to add in a level of like transparency, where it's more clear that okay, this is this level of role, this is a salary for this level of role. And you can ask for a raise every, I don't know, at the end of every quarter if you want. And here's how, like, how should, how should How should a small business go belts being more transparent about this stuff. Dr Grace Lordan 52:35 I mean, in some ways, I think with a small business, because I'm in the situation with the sad monger, I have a team about the same size as yours. And I if if somebody asks for a raise, and they're successful, I think about who are the people who are very like them in the group who deserve a raise as well, I just give it to them. So instead of because I get to review, so I'm only doing it annually, and I think annually is probably enough to kind of really think about performance. So doing a quarterly is even better, I guess. But I think by doing it annually, you give everybody the same door to come to you. They can ask for what they want. But then just be mindful, who didn't ask because again, you know, there's kind of two things that it's not about necessarily you being kind of fair or being seen to be open, people might have had bad experiences in previous previous jobs where they don't necessarily feel willing, willing to speak up. And just by saying, I'm doing this every year, and then I'm going to review 18 Transcribed by https://otter.ai what I've decided to give. And I might come to people and give them raises, I think builds trust in a team at the smaller level, which will pay dividends which when you scale which I use the word when because I'm sure you well now that you're not going to America. Ali Abdaal 53:42 So chapter four of the book is all about time. And you mentioned something earlier in the conversation that I wanted to ask you about. You said behavioural science looks at things like why do we procrastinate? Yeah. Which is a question that I get, like, from every every direction. Why? Why do we procrastinate? Dr Grace Lordan 53:59 It's a really good question. And I think in some ways, by writing about procrastination, I make my own back because I am a terrible, terrible, terrible procrastinator. I think there's evidence that procrastination is good, up to a certain point. So Adam Grant has written about this. He's an excellent TED Talk for anyone who's interested. And kind of the idea of procrastination. So if we think about our thinking styles, we have two thinking styles, very, very fast impulsive is where your habits are built, where you're trying to get your small steps embedded. And then very, very slow and very, very deliberate. And those classifications are on tour, my ultra mine called Danny Kahneman. And everyone really then came to believe that actually when you're in the slow mode of thinking that you are at your best, so you get to be in flow, you get to concentrate on something. But there's an emerging evidence that when you're in your fast mode of thinking, you have this unconscious that could be worming away at a problem that you're trying to solve. So let's imagine that you're trying to think about what you want to do in five years time. Maybe one of the best things that you can do is to take your focus off of it. I'd kind of put it to the back of your mind and some talks will actually come out. And I think procrastination is good in that respect. If you're saying, Actually, I have a really big challenge at the moment, I'm not feeling creative. I'm going to go for a walk that feels like a procrastination activity. But you take the challenge with you, or some of your best ideas are in the shower. Why is that? Well, we're we're procrastinating in the shower. We're thinking about what we think about the idea. But at the extreme, it starts to get negative when you're putting off tasks, and the deadlines are looming, and deadlines looming, or you have nothing to show for it. And I think then, the book offers some really good tips about how to rein that behaviour in. So how can you make sure that you're not you know, booking drinks for friends, that you're not putting on Netflix, that you're not going for unnecessary walks that aren't helpful to you, when you need to sit down and actually do the task? Ali Abdaal 55:47 Yeah, one thing I found for myself with kind of getting over procrastination is that I think often procrastination is more of a problem with getting started than it is worth continuing. So kind of like, you know, the law of inertia, Newton's first law that if something is at rest, it takes a big push of energy to move it forward. Yeah. But once it's moving forward, it's like, it just continues to go. Yep. And so when I think if I find myself procrastinating, I often just think like, how do I make it as easy as possible for me to just stop doing the thing for just two minutes? Because chances are, once I started, started doing it for two minutes, it will then you know, I will then continue, like, you know, if I have a YouTube video to film for a day, I'm like, I can't be bothered to set up the cameras. I'll just like get up. I'm just gonna do for two minutes. Just set up a single microphone. Yeah. And it's like, okay, well, I'll set the microphone, I'm here, I've got the music on, I might as well just set the whole thing. And that's all set up. I might as well just sit down and record the video. But I find that like targeting it to words, it's making it as easy as possible is, is how I personally, personally do it. Do you have any any hacks or tips on this? 19 Transcribed by https://otter.ai Dr Grace Lordan 56:45 Well, that's a great one. So lowering the cost of actually doing things you could like in it when you're thick. You're somebody who doesn't like running to putting your running shoes and your gear out in the in the nights that you actually slip them on what you described or really reminds me the Pomodoro Technique that has been shown to work really well for procrastinators. So the idea that you don't plan to work for the day, you just show up for 20 minutes. And there's something about our brain not wanting to have something that hasn't closed a loop that will keep us working. So Pomodoro Technique says, you work for 20 minutes. And regardless of if you're in flow, you take a five minute break. And when you take that five minute break, you will start worrying and jiggling and really wanting to actually go back to the task. So the sheer act of showing up for those first 20 minutes will get you on the path that you described. Ali Abdaal 57:29 Nice. Any other tactics that you use to respect me, especially when writing a book, I imagine that's like a real - Dr Grace Lordan 57:36 I use a thing called I use a thing called the compromise effect, which has been really shown in marketing. So you know, you know that your marketers are really lazy when they show you three options for things safe in the knowledge that you'll actually pick the middle option. So as human beings, we don't like to take the extremes when it comes to kind of making choices. So I use this for my workload. So kind of in the morning, if I'm planning on doing something like writing where there's a particular output, or define what a low output looks like, define what a medium output looks like. And define what a high output looks like. And regardless of which one I'll hit, I'll mark it off on my to do list. So I give myself that's kind of satisfaction. And most of the time, and I obviously this, maybe I'm just an average person, most of the time I hit Museum, and I've tried it on some friends now. And they hit this medium output as well. So I think if you're somebody who has this mammoth task, and this really aligns with chunking, right, think about what the output would look like beyond I need to do X, dividing x down and giving yourself a treat at the end of it. So whatever it is for you, whether it's you know, Netflix, having a massage, going for a walk, going out for dinner with friends, bundling it with something that's really attractive is another way to actually get you to get you to the desk again. So really what our decision making is determined by costs and benefits in the present moment, you want to lower the costs in the present moment. And you want to make the benefits as nice as possible. And bundling with good activities helps as well. Ali Abdaal 58:58 Nice. How do you manage your to do list? Dr Grace Lordan 59:02 It's a great question. I mean, again, I wake up off my back by talking about this, but it's my struggle is that has made me write about actually writing to do lists. So every day, I have a period of time in the morning, where I do deep work, where I do writing where I do kind of tasks that really, really need to be done. So this morning, I was actually preparing something for the skills committee that you mentioned in the beginning. And then I go about my day, having engagements with people like you, you know, kind of having kind of enjoyable engagements. So I really do the horrible part first, and then I have the nicer part of my day that actually comes later. So it's hard for me, it's hard to get an appointment with me 20 Transcribed by https://otter.ai before 10. And that's because my mornings is for my is for my deep work. At the end of the evening. I do. I look back on how I spent my day I think about what went right because I'm really bad for seeing kind of small wins during the day. And I reflect on each activity and think about actually do this activity. Did I enjoy it in the moment? And was it something that will pay off in the future? And if it's something that's neither I try to avoid it or call it all together. And I write about meetings in my in my institution that I don't go to a lot of them now for that exact reason. So I just find myself showing up, people would talk in circles about issues, nothing would be resolved, we would waste maybe two hours that could be used on something that's given me purpose, or someone else purpose, or giving me fun in the day. Ali Abdaal 1:00:22 Okay, that's interesting. Do you do any sort of weekly review type stuff? Dr Grace Lordan 1:00:26 Yes, every Sunday evening, I look back at how I actually spent my time during the week, and days where things went well, and days where things did not necessarily go well. And then I think about the week ahead, and how I can make it better for myself. So if I've had a particularly draining week, and the activities are things that I need to show up for, that can include scheduling more free time in the week going forward. So it doesn't actually always mean about getting more work done. The next week, if I felt quite exhausted, and I didn't feel that I was able to show up. It also can mean that I think about what are the activities that I might want to pull out of my calendar, given my experiences in the last week, that might actually be adding value for anybody. And it also allows me to think about what are the big things that I want to check off my list in the in the week going forward? Ali Abdaal 1:01:09 Okay. So I saw I first came across weekly review stuff, like five years ago, when I first read getting things done by David Allen. Yeah, in that time, I've done about four weekly reviews. Oh, any tips for sticking to this practice? You need to make it easy. So I'm not a journaler. Yeah, so I do all of this on my phone. So I basically have my diary setup. And I have kind of two columns that say this was pleasurable. This was purposeful, that I just fill in. So my entire journaling on a Sunday evening is 15 to 20 minutes. Okay. And I think that the reason that we fall off the waggon with journaling is if we're carrying around notebooks or carrying around pens, it's not really how how we kind of are set up as a society anymore. And we're thinking that it's going to take one hour and two hours. So it's really about making it simple. And doing it at a time. So I do a Sunday night. People who have read think big, who've reported back are using it on commutes. And using it on times that otherwise would would not necessarily be used for anything useful. Oh, okay. That's interesting. I spent a lot of time on the toilet scrolling Twitter. So maybe like, Sunday, Sunday, toilet time equals weekly review on my phone, keep it simple, viral. Something like that. What is the effect effect heuristic? Dr Grace Lordan 1:02:23 So the Affect Heuristic is all about emotions. So it basically talks about when we're in a hot state, we're feeling emotional. So it could be happiness, it could be sadness, it might even be feeling hungry. We're likely to make decisions that are based on rules of thumb rather than good decision making. And we're much more likely to be biassed. So you know, there's really great research on this that looks at if you are up in front of a judge, all else equal, how does your sentence look before and after lunch? If you are pitching for venture capital, what's your likelihood of being successful all else equal, looking at whether you turned up at the start of the day, you turned up in the middle of the day, you turned up the end of the day. And it really has to do with the emotions of the people who are actually judging you. So if you 21 Transcribed by https://otter.ai think about yourself, when we take on the fact turistic, the kind of the outcome is you should never make a decision when you're getting emotional. So if somebody expresses anger towards you, if you're feeling angry towards them, if they're asking you for a decision parkus you know, unless you're a surgeon, a firefighter or somebody else who really needs to spring into action, there is always time for you to take a break. It could be a minute, it could be 10 minutes, it could be an hour, but taking that time out. And then on the other side, if you're facing people who are judging you, what can you think about their emotions and in on a particular day that will tip the odds to your advantage. So making them laugh is a really good thing. Using narrative that actually that they're likely to remember. So making them feel sad and empathetic towards what you're trying to sell them is really, really helpful. And again, avoiding being before lunch. So hunger is absolutely the worst thing that you wanted. Somebody was making a decision on your on your future. Ali Abdaal 1:03:59 Oh, okay. Yeah. So I'm, I'm doing an interview with someone who's applied for a job with our team straight after this. And I'm feeling kind of hungry now. So I should probably just take us out to lunch. And then we'll do the interview over over a snack or something. That's a good shout. So in chapter five thing you talk about outside, what in Chapter Four was inside Chapter Five is I think it's outside, like, getting feedback and judgement and stuff from other people. Yeah. One area in particular that I know a lot of people struggle with like is the fear of being judged by others when doing things like putting themselves out there or writing a book or starting a YouTube channel. Does What does behavioural science say about this thing of getting over this fear of what other people think about us? Is it good that we worry about what other people think about us? Dr Grace Lordan 1:04:45 I think, you know, it's good. Until it's not, which isn't, which isn't a very helpful question. But I think it's good in the beginning because I think the kind of anxieties and the nerves that we feel set us up to do a great job, right. So I think it was Mick Jagger What was going on constitutes actually label his nerves. This is the excitement about me seeing the crowd rather than actually feeling that the butterflies in his stomach or anything negative. And reframing it that way can be can be can be really, really helpful. I'm actually forgetting your question, Ali Abdaal 1:05:15 fear of getting getting over what other people think about us? Dr Grace Lordan 1:05:18 Oh, yes. So I, as individuals, we tend to think people are looking at us much more often than they actually are. And there's, Thomas Gilovich was the first to write about this idea of the spotlight effect. And the spotlight effect basically says that if I fluff up, if I fall down in the street, if I do about public speaking, even if I do a negative YouTube, and I have lots and lots of followers, the chances of people remembering are actually really, really low, because we're information overloaded all the time. And we're also much more caught up in ourselves, and we are with other people. But even the people who do remember tend to be much more sympathetic or neutral, that will actually give them credit for so embracing the spotlight effect, and actually taking action kind of safe in the knowledge that, you know, if you do mess up, people probably aren't watching. And if they do, they're likely to be sympathetic, is a really, really good way forward. And I think next to that, for people who are really hampered by, you know, kind of the saving face effects that we recorded from, from an Irish perspective that, you know, the idea that it's much worse for me to mess up, when other people are looking, I think, start doing 22 Transcribed by https://otter.ai things where people who you don't know won't see you in the beginning, and then you'll get some confidence and be able to go a bit more global. So taking those small steps, rather than saying stuck is really really important. Ali Abdaal 1:06:31 Yeah, both of these, like tie in really nicely with, like, you know, when it comes to starting a YouTube channel, which is quite a terrifying thing for a lot of people think like, when I when I did it, I made like, 20 videos before I posted it on Facebook, because that was the audience people that knew me. And before then, like, no one was gonna see it, because I had like three subscribers and like, no one's ever gonna find the videos. But then, you know, the advice I give to people when they're really worried that oh, what what, what will my friends and family think is that a, they probably won't care, they'll look at it for 30 seconds and move on with their day because they've got things to do. But be like, you know, if your friends and family like nice people, they'd be like, Oh, this is kind of cool. We love you anyway. Yeah. Like, the fear is so much more in our heads in our imagination than it is than it is in reality. Your one of your final chapters is all about environments and things that we can do in our environment, not just helps towards kind of making progress on I think the goals. I wonder, what tips have you found personally useful in terms of the way you set up your environment to help do things like write a book? Or like do your research and things like, Well, Dr Grace Lordan 1:07:33 I see you have to green, which is really good. So what are the kinds of you know, if you're, if you're in a place where you don't have a, you know, easy access to kind of green spaces, bringing green indoors is really, really helpful. It's really good for it's really good, it's good for oxygen, so yeah, so there's a bit of a big ticket in, in the environment today. But, you know, for me, I think the biggest thing is, is is digital, and really thinking about what's your relationship, like with technology, and is that the biggest time sinker that you have, and then setting up your environment to make it much easier for you to switch off from technology when you need it. So, you know, my job, it would be much harder to do my job if I didn't have access to technology. So I'm a big proponent of it, I can get information really, really quickly. It's very easy for me to digest lots of academic papers now, as well as a lot of kind of thought leaders. But that said, if that's all I do, that I never put any output into the world. And my worst habit is checking email, for other people will be Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, whatever it is. But thinking about is there a way that you can change your environment to make it harder for you, because it's all about cost benefits, it can make it harder for you to check your email to check Twitter, check Snapchat. And for me, it was actually removing it from my phone and removing it from my laptop and putting it on an old iPad allowing myself check what he was on an old iPad that was in a different part of the house. So every time I wanted to check my emails, I had to physically go to that part of the house. And I also set up pledges that I would only check my emails twice a day, and then move to once a day. And I will tell you, I failed a lot. So you know, there will be lunchtime where I would be itching to say it was anyone emailing me what's exciting in my inbox, and I would go and check, but it was much less. And I've never been more productive in the periods of my life, when I've managed to switch off my email entirely. Ali Abdaal 1:09:16 That's a good shout out for my thinking. Because often like the stuff, like it doesn't really need to respond to the data now. And one thing you often say in the book is, you know, unless you're a heart surgeon or the president of some, you really don't need to go instantly to people. Dr Grace Lordan 1:09:33 23 Transcribed by https://otter.ai And then I think other stuff is easier. So you know, thinking about the colours on the walls that inspire you thinking about lighting, I mean, there's really good evidence on lighting to suggest if you're creative, you want to have kind of more dim light. If you want to really focus on something you want to have this bright light, making sure that you have fresh air in your room, making sure as well that you have a place where you go to work. So even if you're somebody who's in a flat chair that feels overcrowded. Maybe the place for you is going to be a seat in a coffee shop But trying to get that same seat every day, there's something about our mind when we're in particular environments that it switches to. This is the activity that I was supposed to be doing in this environment. You know, people find that when they go to pubs, for example, they find it when they go to theatre, this particular habit that they that they follow without knowing why. And you can actually bring back to your work, where you actually got to sit down on a day to day basis that when you do your digital detox, so you're not on email, you're not, you're not you're not you're not plugged into anywhere, anywhere else, but the work that you're doing. And also that you're not moving around. Ali Abdaal 1:10:33 Yeah, I found during, during the pandemic, once I'd taken a break from medicine, then I was spending loads of time just at home on my desk, and it was a nightmare. And then it was a few months later that I discovered the WeWork co working space in Cambridge. And then I started kind of commuting there like 10 minutes I call or 10 minute drive each day. And there was something so nice about having an office to commute to where in the past, I would have thought, Oh, hey, I'm a digital nomad, I work from anywhere from home. But actually, I really like going to an office and then just staying there all day and like getting, you know, takeaway for lunch. And then when I come home, it's like, I literally want to come home to sleep, and just massive increase my quality of life. So what I'm trying to do is find those similar things, especially when it comes to so I'm trying to trying to write a book as well, I've been procrastinating the hell out of it. But one thing I'm trying to do is like, you know, certain mornings each week will be blocked out, no one's allowed to book anything. And I go to a specific coffee shop, same one every day, where that is the only place I will write book stuff. Yeah. And we've just signed a lease on an office where we're like, okay, now I can focus on YouTube studio one versus YouTube stuff. When I'm at that space, I guess there's evidence of this sort of stuff is helpful. Dr Grace Lordan 1:11:39 Absolutely. And it's like a switch. So when you sit down in the coffee shop, it will be all about the book, when you go into the office, it's just about the YouTube video, I'm really making sure that you stick to that it's very important. So I don't know how many of your listeners are going to be checking their emails in bed, for example, or even playing games in bed on their phone. It's so it's really, really bad for us. So thinking about where's the areas in your house in your space, that you're going to do particular activities, and sticking to that will absolutely make you more productive? And you've mentioned quality of life. I would be surprised if people didn't follow what you described, and didn't see happiness increases? Ali Abdaal 1:12:13 Hmm. Yeah, I think with the bedroom thing as well, I think in why we sleep. Matthew Walker talks about this. That's why when your bedroom is just for sleeping, it is easier to sleep and you get better sleep. Yeah. Whereas if your bedroom is also where you turn on your laptop, and where yeah, it might be nice to take a zoom call from your bedroom, but like you're kind of shuffling yourself. Yeah, in terms of sleep. Dr Grace Lordan 1:12:32 24 Transcribed by https://otter.ai And again, it's really hard, you know, you can imagine this might be people who are listening who are their bedroom is their space. So they're living in, in a city where their bedroom is just so space. But again, in the corner of that there can be a chair where you physically go to CES, you open your laptop, and that's the trigger for your brain, actually, now I check emails, but when you're in your bed, that's just for sleeping. So even that small separation is enough to build really good habits to make you more productive and happier. Ali Abdaal 1:12:55 Amazing. I have a bunch of random quickfire questions. Oh, well, in that in another question. The quick with the answers don't don't have to be. So what if we can just kind of flip through those? I guess Question one is what what advice would you give for your younger self? Dr Grace Lordan 1:13:10 I think it would be to think big to take small steps. I'll leave it at that. That's good. Ali Abdaal 1:13:19 Who's had the biggest influence on your career? Dr Grace Lordan 1:13:22 My mom actually, so when I think but I wasn't particularly good at school. And I wasn't a student that was actually meant to go to university. And she was really adamant that I go to education. And I studied computer science. And I've pivoted a lot from there. But I still use some of the skills. So I still were I still working in in data science. But without her, I wouldn't have gone anywhere. Ali Abdaal 1:13:41 What's your top tip for someone looking for success? Dr Grace Lordan 1:13:45 Really embed good habits today that will serve your version of success in the future? So the small actions that you're taking today? What are you what are the what are you doing today? So you know, how are you spending your time? And does that point you in the direction of success? And if the answer is no, change how you spend your time. Ali Abdaal 1:14:04 Just on that note, your own definition of success. I think often when we think of like, I don't really like the word success because it's it's so tied up in societal expectations where like, you know, if I really enjoyed gardening, and I'm gardening in my backyard, society doesn't consider that successful unless I enter a gardening competition and win it like yeah, for some reason. So like, how, how do you feel about success? By extension? How do we figure out what our own definitions of success are? Because it will vary for different people I imagine. Dr Grace Lordan 1:14:33 It will vary for different people, I think if you're somebody who's in your garden, and you know you can afford to eat and put a roof over your head, you should keep gardening if if that is a successful life to be, you know, it's describing somebody who their needs are fulfilled. And they're also incredibly happy in the activities that they're doing on a day to day basis. And I think that's really what I would love people to kind of kind of sit back and think about is sometimes we're trading off earning you know, as A 25 Transcribed by https://otter.ai small amount of extra money relatively speaking, in order to get very small increases in where we're actually going in our lives. So you want to be in a place where you're enjoying the activities, you really do, you want to be in a place where you can feel yourself moving forward, because purpose has been shown in life, to really make life worth living, quite frankly. So people, you know, once once you actually find a direction to point in, but it doesn't need to be about money. And it doesn't need to be about material things. Ali Abdaal 1:15:28 Hmm, speaking about it, there's all that evidence that a lot of listeners will be familiar with that beyond a certain amount, let's say 75,000, or whatever the different studies show, further increases in money don't lead to further increases and happiness. But then there's another school of thought. And there's a interestingly titled paper that I think was called something like, if money doesn't bring happiness, then you're not spending it well enough. Yeah. Where the theory is that like, well actually be even beyond that point. You can use money to buy back your time by outsourcing things that you don't enjoy doing. Like, I don't know, cleaning the house, for example, which I guess you don't really need 75k to do. But there is an element of the more money you can spend on doing on removing the things that you don't like doing, theoretically, that could increase her quality of life increase. As someone who's presumably done reading into this sort of research, what's what's what does the data say about about the money happiness correlation? Dr Grace Lordan 1:16:25 So the if you if you read the correlations, it suggests that anything over a basic income of about 35,000 pounds sterling in the UK doesn't bring additional happiness. But what it doesn't do, because this is relating, essentially, income to happiness, is think about, firstly, how many hours is sub so controls for hours, but I've never seen a paper interact hours with income. So thinking about how many hours am I actually working to get that extra, you know, that extra pound, which obviously, if I'm working 80 hours a week, it's going to be very happy for me to be happy in the moment. But the second thing that it should it does is it doesn't do, which is a big mistake is it doesn't talk about happiness over the life course. So people who were retired, get very happy. But again, it's depends on how much income that they actually have in the opposite direction. So I think you need to think about what does happiness look for you over the life course, there's going to be times in your life where you'll need to do some difficult things in order to secure particular life course destinations. So if you're somebody who wanted to be a surgeon, I would imagine it's really hard for those trading for the for the years. And actually even the job itself is going to have particular pinch points where there's going to be very, very, very high demand. But for some people where that's their passion is going to be absolutely worth it. And I think that's the trade off that doesn't come through the literature. So the snazzy headlines that say money doesn't buy happiness, don't take into account hours worked. And they don't take into account to kind of smoothing things over the life course. Ali Abdaal 1:17:51 How do you think about money personally, like you've written a book, presumably you get royalties from it, you've got you've got other things going on? You do speaking at corporate events, where I've heard they paid like stupid prices to get someone to give a talk, what what's what does that look like Dr Grace Lordan 1:18:04 for you? So I think I mean, if I was thinking about one of my values, I'm definitely somebody who wants to earn a decent living. But I, I will only do that if I'm engaged in tasks that I actually really like doing. So 26 Transcribed by https://otter.ai I turned down things that are quite lucrative relatively regularly. Because I know when I've got caught up in a project before that, that that that is like this, when I'm doing it, it's I'm just miserable, and I can't wait to hand it over. So again, what I'm trying to do at the moment is think about how can I shift my tasks so that I, I'm really enjoying doing them, I'm giving them giving back to society, but at the same time, it affords me to actually, you know, kind of increase my income as I get older. Ali Abdaal 1:18:41 And I guess, you know, for, for listeners who are beyond the point of having their basic needs met, yeah, then it's easy enough to be like, okay, cool. I'm going to turn down things that I don't like doing. Yes. But for someone who's not at that point, yet, they're like, I guess we often do have to do things that we don't necessarily like to make money to make ends meet to get to that point. Yes. For someone who's in that position, any any advice on kind of keeping that going, in order to get to the point where then you've got the freedom to kind of do what you want? Dr Grace Lordan 1:19:16 Yeah, so I think for every activity, I mean, I did some I did some really crummy jobs when I was in university, and I did some other kind of crummy projects after that. But I think focusing on the skills that they're bringing you in the moment is really important. And focusing hard on how you can actually turn it into another opportunity after the event. I think it's important as well, and again, knowing what you're aiming for. So I think if it's somebody who's, you know, working to pay bills to go to university, it's a really linear path. I think if it's somebody who is doing a particular job today, and it doesn't quite fit with their future self, they will need to kind of take a step back and say, what are the skills that I'm learning from this? What are the activities that I'm getting practice of that I can actually write a CV for the person that I want to be in five years time, and really focusing in on leveraging what you're doing now now for the future. But there will always be, I think, if you want to have particularly a kind of a professional career where there's going to be kind of credentials that are barriers to entry, there will be some pain on the on the journey. Ali Abdaal 1:20:17 And I guess you just have to either learn to enjoy the pain or just kind of get over it. Dr Grace Lordan 1:20:21 You do. But I think as well, it's always the, I mean, trying try and think about what's the combination that you can, that you can, it doesn't need to be all or nothing. So if you're doing a particular course, to get a credential, hopefully 40% of it is all that miserable. And there's 60% of it that you can actually enjoy and focusing on that part as well. So when you do turn up to the parts that are painful, think about actually, I'm going to be doing something that's quite nice later. Ali Abdaal 1:20:44 Yeah, I think even for the bits that are painful, like, you know, a big chunk of medical school people don't particularly enjoy studying for exams. But you know, setting up the environment, right, doing it with friends, having music in the background, even if theoretically, starting with music slight, like, slightly decreases your memory, who cares, it makes it more fun. So I think there are lots of sort of fun levers that we can pull even for things that are miserable. That in some way help make things less painful and a little bit more fun. Dr Grace Lordan 1:21:11 27 Transcribed by https://otter.ai Absolutely. Again, there's lots of skills that people can learn for free on the internet, kind of getting out there. If the job doesn't lend themselves in the direction that they want to go. taking those steps to acquire new skills, I think it's really worth doing. You know, I've hired people who haven't fit the box of what somebody would particularly look like in the role. And it's worked out incredibly well for me. And I think more and more employers are starting to do that. So just because you haven't gone, you know, to university that you haven't taken traditional paths doesn't mean that you can't succeed in the career that you actually want. Ali Abdaal 1:21:41 Nice. Moving on to our quick questions, what is the first and last hour of your day look like? Dr Grace Lordan 1:21:46 So my first hour is having an eye a cup of tea and standing in my garden now that I actually have green space, which I really enjoy as early as I can actually make it up. And my second is unwinding from everything, and potentially reading fiction, but usually nonfiction. Ali Abdaal 1:22:02 Okay, what kind of fiction slash nonfiction Do you enjoy? Dr Grace Lordan 1:22:06 So the non-fiction is exactly what you might expect. So it's kind of organisational psychology behavioural science. I do like a good kind of crime novel like white collar crimes and thinking about who brought down X Banco particular moment in time. But again, kind of rewritten from a kind of rigorous fact Point of View section, it can be anything, so I tend to Republic fiction. I have Richard Osmond's book someone sent to me that I'm going to try reading which is number one at the moment, which is meant to be quite nice, very light fiction. What I do read fiction, anything particularly you'd recommend, so his first book was very good the Thursday morning Club, which people might have might have heard heard of, and the second one is meant to be really good. So I'm looking forward to turning it Ali Abdaal 1:22:46 amazing. I'm big on fantasy, fantasy fiction. Dr Grace Lordan 1:22:50 When I was younger, I love fantasy. I haven't read it in a while. Ali Abdaal 1:22:53 So I would recommend having come across Brandon Sanderson. No, he's my he's he, he's overtaken JK Rowling to become my favourite author of all time. Oh, like a sort of I anytime I've recommended a Brandon Sanderson to a friend, they have gone down the rabbit hole of his books and have like, it's a series with the same character. Yeah, so so he's got a bunch of different series, which have the same characters. But then all of the series are set in this wider like Marvel Cinematic Universe type of thing, where they kind of interact with each other. And he's got this like, 2030 year plan for all the books that are going to come out over the next like 30 years, where they're all aware of stuff is being foreshadowed in a book that was released this year, that's going to become relevant 25 years from now. And so it's like a whole lifetime of like, incredible effects I would recommend. Anyway, what material item of like reasonable cost do you think is that has added a lot of value to your life? 28 Transcribed by https://otter.ai Dr Grace Lordan 1:23:43 Oh, and my Apple products? Okay. Yeah, they have I mean, value in the sense of speeding up my workout to be much more efficient? Absolutely. Does. My garden furniture though, for relaxing? If I was to pick some Ali Abdaal 1:23:55 folder for pleasure, are we talking hammock? Are we talking like chairs, like Dr Grace Lordan 1:23:59 it's a couch with a table and then some stools around so it can fit like maybe 10 people? But in the morning, it's just really nice to be able to kind of just get get up, get up the air actually, yeah, Ali Abdaal 1:24:09 play? What book would you recommend to everyone? I can't other than other than your own, which we're going to be recommending extensively anyway. Dr Grace Lordan 1:24:17 That's a really, that's a question. So I would recommend, I think, again, by Adam Grant. It's all about unlearning. So thinking about what are the habits or the preconceptions that you might actually have, that aren't serving you well, and really spending time to kind of unlearn them. So most of us kind of go through our lives with a particular viewpoint. And it's trying to get you to take a step back and think about what might it be about my viewpoint that isn't serving me well, and how can I actually enhance my life and it really ties the idea actually, of having what I would call a diverse boardroom? So thinking about who you get advice from on a particular on things that actually crop up in your life, and are they very like you so are they the same age? Do they go to the same university? Do they Vote in the same political way. And broadening that boardroom to have more people who are different to you in it. And there's two reasons for that. So firstly, you're less likely to succumb to confirmation bias, to be told that you're right all the time, which is good for us. But diverse boardrooms will see opportunities that you don't see. So yeah, so if you don't have a Trump supporter in your, in your boardroom, you go get a Trump supporter. And if you don't have a Biden supporter, you go get a Biden supporter for all the US at US listeners. Ali Abdaal 1:25:29 This is a question we usually ask, like, entrepreneur type people, which is that if if you lost all your money, if you lost all your business, what, like, what would you be doing? But I guess for you, the equivalent is like, if you got cancelled? Yeah, that's a fine idea. Because yeah, you know, it's unacceptable that you set that thing 10 years ago, or whatever. Yeah, what, but but you still had the same skills? What would you be doing? Dr Grace Lordan 1:25:53 I think it'd be writing and putting more stuff out there. So I think we can we started and, you know, I'm not on social media, because I'm somebody who detest social media. I just don't have the time at the moment. But I think it's a really good outlet to kind of reach audiences that I otherwise would not necessarily get to meet. And I think I will be writing much more content for for online already established online mediums, but maybe doing something more myself. Okay, Ali Abdaal 1:26:14 29 Transcribed by https://otter.ai interesting. What quote or mantra do you live by? Dr Grace Lordan 1:26:18 Oh, that's a really good one. I have so many of them. I so it's really about taking control what you can control and letting the rest go. Ali Abdaal 1:26:27 Very nice, I guess, final question, a journey or destination. journey has to be journey. Amazing. And that's the title of the final chapter of your book, which is like two pages long. Yes. Why? Why did why did he call it journey? Dr Grace Lordan 1:26:40 Because I think you're never done. So I think you know, these days, careers are going to go on probably, I mean, if you're lucky, you'll be 75 and still doing something. So you might have wound down but you you know, you'll still be engaged. You'll still be kind of getting out there and meeting people. And I think the ultimate idea that we find a job and that's the end of it for us is kind of gone. It's gone because the economy is changing. It's being shaped by technological forces. But I think it's better for us to think of it as a journey. Very nice. Cool. Thank you. Ali Abdaal 1:27:08 That's it for this week's episode of Deep Dive. Thank you very much for listening. If you want to connect with grace, all her links are in the description and in the show notes, including a link to her book. This is also our sixth episode, which marks the halfway point of season one. With this in mind, we're doing a two minute survey to get your thoughts on the season so far, and hear what you'd like to see in future episodes. That survey is linked down below. So if you've got a spare two minutes, I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts. That's it for me. If you did enjoy this episode, don't forget to subscribe to be notified when we release a new episode. Have a great day and we'll see you later. 30 Transcribed by https://otter.ai