2: Daydreaming and Mental Contrasting for Goal-Fulfillment

Olive Tree Cafe. I have some fond memories, and I know that you have been very interested in some of the work I've done on daydreaming, and I've been immensely interested in the work that you've been doing and kind of reconceptualizing all sorts of things. I thought we could start a little bit at tracing some of your history and how you got to your current research interest. Going let's go back to maybe even grad school. What was

your thesis on in grad school? Well, I have a kind of checkered past in the sense that I started off actually with photography, and then I went into biology and studied biology, and in biology, I was very interested in behavioral biology. So I went to grad school at the much Plant Institute for Behavior by Physiology in the Citeason where Connrad Lawrence was and then I also went to work with Robert Hind in Cambridge and the Medical

Research Council. And I was very much interested in behavior and behavior change all my life, and you know, the question of why people do what they do and imaginingly in Cambridge in England, then I met some psychologists and these psychologists were fortunate from my eyes, out of my perspective, in the sense that they could come up with ideas and then test them. And coming up with ideas and then actually imperiodly testing them, I found this something very attractive.

Now in biology, it's harder to come up with your own behavior biology, it's harder to come up with your own ideas in the sense that you create a kind of new phenomenon or you'd observe a new phenomenon, whereas in psychology it was really great because you could come up with the idea and then test it. And so I was sold to psychology then. And then I went to the United States and work with Marty Zeligman in Philadelphia where you are. And after that I went to

the March Plattitude for Human Development in Berlin. And I was always very interested in behavior change, obviously, but then also the question of how thinking about the future and imagine in the future, how that would affect behavior dream That was my kind of original interest that kept with me for all these years. So you probably influenced Martin. So first of all, for listeners, Marin Seligman is one of the founders of the field of positive psychology. And

you did your post doc with Martin Seligman. Is that right? That's right? And at that time I was very much interested in hope, and when I came to work with Marty, he was interested in optimism, so I felt there was just hope is something different than optimism in terms that hope. People can have hope when they are low likelihoods of success. So if you're not optimistic about the future, you can

still have hope. And that's how I came to work on imagery and on fantasies, because you can't have low expectancies of success but still have positive images and positive fantasies, And that's how I got into them. Imagery and fantasy work early early on, in the end of the eighties. Actually, were you with a daydreamer yourself? Did you view positive fantasies in a positive light when you've started out? Well, this is a very interesting question because it's very hard

to measure kind of online daydreaming. I mean, as you know from your own work, you can ask people you know, are you a daydreamer, and then they give you an answer. But then if you look really whether they are daydreaming, and how often they are daydreaming, and how often they dody dream positively or negatively, you might get very different results.

So I don't know whether I'm a daydreamer. I know that daydreaming is a phenomenon which always interested me and where I felt that daydreams can make a big difference in terms of how people feel, act and think. So I imagine that you influenced some of Marty's thinking on perspection, which in recent years he's done a whole research program

on perspection. Well, you need to ask Marty about that, but I guess so because I was always from before I even came I was interested in thinking about the future and how thinking about the future influencers behavior, and I was always kind of a little worried that people who base thinking about the future just on the expectancy or attribution concepts that they might miss out the imagery and the daydreaming part. And obviously your mentor, I'm saying, on the great work of that. And so he was

always a big heroes mane. Yeah. You know, it's interesting

because there seems to be multiple research traditions. So there's this Jerome Singer line of thought starting originating in the I guess in the fifties sixties on painting daydream in a very positive light to what Drum's saying called positive constructive daydreaming, right, And then in the past ten years or so fifteen years ago, there's a whole research literature on mind wandering in the cognitive science literature that conceptualizes

mind wandering or daydreaming as cognitive control failures. And then I sort of see your line of threat of research kind of in another powerl path or an intersecting path, where you certainly don't say daydreaming is evil or horrible, but you do want to counteract it with a little bit of reality. You know, the self help literature is so big on the importance of positive thinking, and you

talk about using the phrase positive thinking. But I think it's also important distinguish here a little bit between optimism

and positive fantasies. There are different things, is that right? Well, this is what putting In admire in two thousand and two, and in my work also in the nineties, I've kind of distinguished between positive thinking about the future in terms of expectations, which are the likelihoods that certain events will happen in the future are not and daydreams about these events. So you can daydream of positively fantasize about events in the future despite the fact that you think they might

not happen. So expectancies are judgments about how likely something will become real, and daydreams are just the sheer stream of thought, like William James's This Year stream of thought, a stream of consciousness where these events kind of pass by in front of your mind's eye. So there are different ways of thinking about the future with very different behavioral and emotional consequences. Yeah, it's interesting thinking abou optimism

as based on prior expectations, prior experiences. That's usually what self efficacy is. Self eficcy is strongly tied as a construct to optimism as you just defined it. Yeah, efficacy are defined as expectations of whether it can perform certain behavior which is needed for a desired outcome. And Bandura's work has been hugely influential and efficacy expectations have been so helpful in understanding how important these expectations are for behavior.

But eficacy expectations, as Bandua lines out, are based on part performance. So if you have a student who's been doing well in the past, you will have expectations or efficacy expectations that you can perform the work to do well in the future. So they are based on the past experiences. They are a good summary of what has been happening in the past on your past performance history. Dat dreams very differently. They come from a different source.

Had the buried cup is and I did an I study where we show that you know, if you induce needs, then positive fantasies about the future results. So they have a very different region than expectations. Deadreams need not be that way. I read your book. Occurred to me, I mean we could have daydreams about things that are grounded in our path successes, you know, daydreams about maybe our past triumphs. But maybe that's not you to just say

that's not a positive fantasy. Well, I can daydream about the past, I can daydream about my present environment, and that I can day dream about the future. Daydreams are free thoughts and images. And that's the reason why I think there's very interesting because they can of different vaialaens that can be more positive on more negative. And you can actually sort of depict all sorts of events and scenarios in your daydreams that are kind of linked to

social norms and natural laws or not. You can do anything really, any kind of idea you had at some point. The idea of daydreams and of fantasies is that they're free selves and images, whereas expectations are judgments or judgments like Marty's saying, sort of resulting from attributions. But their expectancies they have a different function if you want. I mean, they assess the relationship of a certain event or scenario to the reality, whereas the daydreams they are just severe

imagery about events and scenarios. Yeah, and in studying daydreams, you found a bit of a counterintitor finding. You found that people who have dream positively about a desirable future outcome in a lot of situations, they're less likely to actually act on those daydreams and succeed than those who don't. And this does sound very counterte and I imagine this was surprising finding for you. Could you tell me a little bit more about some of the earlier findings on this. Yeah, actually,

we kind of stumbled into that. At first. We found that the more positively overweight women who were enrolled in that weight reduction program fantasized about their success in reducing weight, the less way they lost after three months and a year and even two years. And so at first we thought, oh, maybe this is a flu gourd. This is kind of you needed to go back to the data and say, see, well did I code them right? Maybe I made a

coding mistake or so. But then we replicated in a series of studies that these positive day dreams about the future actually are detrimental for the effort you put into actually achieving these day dreams. So, for example, in another study, we looked at university graduates, and the more positive university graduates fantasized about their successful transition into work life than the fewer job offers they got, and the smaller the

salary was after two years. Or the more positively students fantasized about excelling in their exam, the less well they did on the exam, or the more positively hip replacement surgery patients fantasised about the quick and easier recovery, the less well they were judged by the physical therapists to do in terms of being able to move their joint and the fewer steps they could walk, and the less

well was their general recovery. So it seems that here the more positively they fantasized, then less well they recovered, or else the more powerful fantasized about getting together with the preferred a person of the opposite sex, the less likely they got into a relationship with that person. So, sort of accumulating these findings, we reasoned, there must be something which makes these positive fantasies pleasant at the moment, but on the long run they don't really help to

implement the desired future. And even if you yeah, you say yeah, I wish I knew all these findings when I was in middle school or in high school, and you know, all these girls had crushes on and I just never dawned me'd actually talked to any of them. Right, that's exactly it. I mean afterwards we feel, why did we talk to it? Why didn't we enclch that person? And that's exactly it. I mean, pleasantly on fantasizing does not bring us actually to do the painful act of

approaching her and saying, yeah, I really like you. And even on a societal level, we find that the more positive newspaper reports are in the economic session of you know, newspapers, the less well to the un stock market data developed

over the next weeks. So it seems that positive fantasies, so pleasant at the moment, actually have problematic effects on the mental and on the physical development on the short term if there are complex paths, and then on the long term when it comes to kind of more identiticals or life goal. Let's talk about that physical dimension. You've mentioned that this idea, you know, energizing the daydreams, what they sap our motivation and our energy to take action?

Is that? Right? Yeah? I had the very capus, and I then sort of looked at it experimentally because you know,

the first data we're all correlational. But then we looked at them experimentally, and then we induce positive fantasies as opposed to negative fantasies or questioning fantasies or no fantasies or factual thoughts, you know, in a series of experiments, and what we find is that when we do these positive fantasys and positive daydreams about the sired future, and people actually lose the energy to actually perform the kind of difficult way to reach these positive fantasty So actually

we can measure this energy either just simply asking people how energised do you feel? Or by looking at the systemic blood pressure. So it seems that this kind of deterioration of energy happens on many levels, on the feeling level, but also then on the implicit or non conscious level of being the will measured just systonlic blood pressure. Nobody has really control about the systemic blood pressure yourself. Yeah,

this is all interesting. And before we sound like we're big haters of daydreaming here, which I certainly not and I don't think you are, let's talk a little about some of the positives in and of itself of daydreaming.

Even given all these other findings that you have so looking at to the hope literature and the optimism when I mean, there is research showing that kids who live in very poor environments or seemingly hopeless environments, those who experiences warned helplessness, if we can get them imagining about a future self, you find that there are better academic outcomes. So there is research on that. How can we reconcile

that with your findings? Well, as you say, I'm not at all opposed to day dreaming, and I'm not a positive day dreaming in general, I mean, and that's not what our data show. What our data show is that these positive day dreams, if you want to solve a complex problem or a kind of difficult efforts for problem, or achieve a kind of wish that needs energy and effort,

then they are not enough. Also, in rethinking positive thinking, what is very clear that positive fantasies are the start of realizing these fantasies, because if you don't have positive fantasies about the future, then where should you go? And you don't have any direction. And in these positive daydreams you can do a lot. I mean, you can first

do what you alluded to. If you have a situation where there's there's no freedom of action, where you neither contact nor disengage in these situations, and dreaming about the future gives you at least the mood and the motivation to stay in the field, like Godly Bean would say. So you stay in, you keep in, but you don't fully act, nor do you disengage. But if you can't do that anyway, then they are actually helpful. Yeah, and

they are helpful. For example, you know, if you need to wait in line and you not have nothing to do, you might as well positively daydream about your next lovcasion, or about a nice encounter, or even explore some possibilities of the future in your daydreams. So these daydreams are not only kind of enjoy the desired future in the here and now, and if you have time to enjoy it, just enjoy it. This is fine. But you can also explore the future in these stage rooms. You can explore

the possibilities of the future in these stag dreams. So, for example, you know, you have these wonderful ideas of going to a certain movie, and you imagine to go to the movie and to be in there, and then you imagine how wonderful that movie is, and then you sudden bloss kind of imagine that maybe this kind of movie, I don't know whether I really like that, So maybe

tonight I'd rather do something else. Maybe I'd rather go and really talk to the person I'm going out with, because this is more fun than just sitting there and then consuming and then going home again. So, you know, whatever small things or big things, people dream about what they want to become. So one person might dream about becoming a doctor, how wonderful it would be to be a doctor, so you know, having all the kind of

symbols of being a doctor. But then he adds to daydreams that he's an hospital and there might be some kind of unpleasant, not very kind of esthetic things in the hospital, and suddenly he thinks, oh, well, you know, and that's the reason I really want to get out of the hospital. And then he knows, maybe, you know, one side of becoming a doctor is nice form, but the other side might be so that he'd rather do

something else. And so you can explore the future possibilities in your day dreams, and for that they're very very helpful. So you can explore what is really that I want, What is it that I want to do? What is that fits me? Where I belong. So they're very, very helpful. They just need to be treated in a fair way. They're helpful for some things and they need to be

complemented for others. I hear you. I hear you, And your research has gone beyond that, taking it a couple of steps further, just figuring out some sort of practical way of helping people reach their achieve those dreams while they're dreaming. And this something this to mental contrasting. So maybe you could tell our listeners a little more what mental contrasting is and how how could apply in their own lives. Yeah, mental contrasting is a concept. It's meta

contrasting of the future and the reality. Is really a concept which came out of our research where we found that sheer positive fantasizing is just not enough to actually read the positive fantasies in actuality. And what we reasoned is, and what we found in report of the participants is that in these positive fantasies, they just sort of did not consider any obstacles, They did not consider any hindrances, no temptations. They've just kind of feigned already being there.

So the motivation to actually going the hard way was kind of lowered. And so we thought, okay, if we present to them the obstacles and hindrances and temptations that might stand in the way on the way to wish fulfillment, that by presenting them that, in addition to these positive fantasies about the future, that then they might get actually impelled to overcome these obstacles and actually go the hard

way to reach the desired future. And we reasoned that by considering these obstacles, temptations, and difficulties on the way to wish fulfillment, that they then can prepare themselves and simply kind of plan for them and get prepared and get aware that this kind of way to wish fulfillment might be a little bumpier than they had hoped. And that's when we came up with mental contrasting. Matter contrasting

is a very simple exercise. We ask people to identify a wish and then to actually sort of identify the best outcome to that wish and imagine that best outcome. What we then do is, which are ask them to identify the obstacle that stands in the way to wish

fulfillment and imagine that obstacle. So what it is. It's a mental exercise where people imagine the desired future and then they imagine the obstacles of reality that stands in the way that stand in the way of the desired future, and by doing that they understand how likely it is that they will actually be able to achieve the desired future.

They also then recognize if the obstacles are so formidable that they will not want to go all the hard way to achieve the wishes, then they can either delegate or postpone or let go. So it is a strategy which helps people to kind of in parentheses, clean up their lives because it helps you to actually fully go for something or then also say okay, not now, or maybe or maybe not at all, and then they can free up their resources, the time and their effort and

their money for other enterprises which are more promising. But I think is important to understand is how manic contrasting really works. We've done so many experiments to understand how meticcontrasting of the future and the reality actually instigates these behavior change. Behavior change in the stans that people fully commit or actually sort of understand that they invest their

resources into something better or something more promising. And what mediccontrasting really does is if you do meticcontrasting with respect to a wish that is achievable for you, and that is thout challenging. I mean, achieving I wish it's super easy, then you don't need anything. You just go for it. But if achieving the wish is a little bit more complex, and then what meticicontrasting does is it connects the future the reality and you don't need to do anything about that.

It does that. Without that, people even are aware of it, So then you can't really think about the future anymore. Without that, the reality kind of comes in. And not only does it connect the future and the reality or the obstacle of reality, but it also connects the obstacle of reality with the instrumental means to overcome the reality.

And in addition, it changes the meaning of reality. So you could say, okay, let's say you have a person who has a exam on Tuesday, and he wants to do a good job on that exam, and then he sort of fantasized it's about how wonderful it would be to achieve a good grade in the exam, And then he's saying now what stands in the way. What stands in the way, Well, it stands in a way that I might be actually sort of spending two much kind of time on Saturday night going to this party, so

in order to reach the good exam on Tuesday. Basically the party is an obstacle. So now the party is an obstacle to reach in good grade on Tuesday. Whereas if he doesn't do mental contrasting, you know, he thinks about the party. It's a fun party, and you know that might have good bearing, that might have nice people there and whatever. So the party is a fun event. But once you do mental contrasting and you have fantasised about acceding in your exam, the party is now an obstacle.

It is now something which is evaluated more negatively and which is linked as an obstacle to the desired future. So, in other words, what mental contrasting does, it's a contrast exercise. It's a mental exercise which people consciously go through. It's

an imagery exercise. You imagine the future, you imagine the reality that stands in the way of the future, but it has non conscious consequences, and there's consequences outside of awareness, and we know that from many experiments to these consequences which are non conscious, that they actually mediate the behavior change effects. So they immediate the effects on being fully committed or saying no to the party, or the efforts to actually achieve the desired future and overcome the obstacle.

So it's neat because it's a conscious exercise with non consequences which then are responsible for actually the behavior changes. And so it's a little bit like, you know, you're programming yourself to do what you want to do to overcome these obstacles. So in that way, it is a kind of new way of looking at imagery techniques that imagery techniques can have non conscious consequences which then lead to behavior chain And now if you look at WHOOP,

that is basically wish outcome obstacles. So it's mentally contrasting what we just talked about, and then it also adds on the implementation intentions. It's a complicated word, but it has been a concept he stands for. That's the p exactly, and that's a concept which had been around for a while and which was discovered that Peter Goldwitzer also here from ny U and yeah, husband, but I can't say it's discovered by my husband. I would say, of course, Peter,

I want to clarify it is an husband. Were you there like when he discovered that, like in like the kitchen or something with him? Yeah, no, sure, But what is so wonderful in these implementation intentions or if then plans?

There's so much research now, you know, all over the world, there's lots of reasons showing that if you have a goal, if you're determined to go for something, and you complement the goal with if then plans or implementation intentions, then it really sort of heightens the probability that you reach your goal. So it's a planning technique which helps you to overcome these kind of formidable obstacles. And what we thought would be a good idea is to combine which

outcome ofsticles with the plans for the following reasons. First of all, mental contrasting already sort of connects the future and the reality, and then it also ready connects and this is even more important the reality with the instrumental means to overcome the reality, but implementation intentions do that even more explicitly. So we thought for those mental contrasting or mental contrasted wishes which actually present really kind of

more complex and complicated obstacles. The efvent plan would be particularly helpful made whoop and what the plan really does. It explicitly asks the person who is doing the whoop to form the following if then plan. If obstacle, then I will, and then the behavior to overcome obstacle. And what's interesting is that the implementation intentions or IF tent plans, they have certain prerequisites which need to be fulfilled so

that they are effective. So, for example, in order to have IF ten plans being effective, you need to have a strong goal commitment and you need to have a strong determination to actually achieve you wish or go and medic contrasting provides that. So as we saw it, it kind of determines that people either fully love it or live it. So when expectations are high and the obstacles are overcomable, then they really go for it. So it provides the determination or the commitment to actually the wish.

In addition, what mental contesting does it defines an obstacle which is relevant and that's also a prerequisite for implementation intentions to work. And in addition, by imagining the obstacle, people will discover the means to overcome the obstacle. So it also provides the behavior that you can perform in order to overcome the obstacle. So what it then is as a combination is you define the wish. You say, what is it really that I want? And very often

these wishes are kind of latent. You haven't been thinking about these wishes for a while because usually we go about our daily life and we don't think about these wishes. But think about a wish that is dear to you. You need to have a wish that is dear to you, not any kind of wish. You could just come up, now, what is it that you really want? What is dear to you? You define the wish and then and you keep it in front of your mind's eye, and then you say, what would be the best thing that comes

out if I fulfill that wish? What is the best outcome? Very often, if it is a feeling or it is something you feel strong about that would happen if you fulfill your wish, you define that outcome, and then you imagine that outcome, and here the daydream comes again. You imagine the outcome, and once you imagine the outcome and really immerse yourself in these day dreams. You identify the obstacle of reality that stands in the way of fulfilling

that wish and experiencing that outcome. Now, what is it in you that stands in the way that you fulfill the wish and experience that outcome? What is it in you? Personally? No excuse to say, what is it in you? And you can dig deeper there, don't give yourself an excuse. Just try to dig deeper. What is really that stance in the way. And once you found that obstacle, imagine that out obstacle, and by imagining that that obstacle, you will understand what you can do to overcome that obstacle.

And then you can say, and now the implementation intention has come in. If obstacle occurs, then I will. And now you put in there your behavior to overcome obstacle. And then you say if and then you imagine once more obstacle, and you imagine the obstacle occurring, then I will, And then you imagine the behavior that you will perform and the effective behavior you will perform to overcome that obstacle. And that's basically what whoop is all about. Wow. That

sounds great. Also sounds like a lot of work. Maybe after hearing that, I just want to d during the rest of my life. Well, it is not a lot of work at all. It's a lot of process. And you can do it basically everywhere. You can do it. In the subway, you can do it, you know when you wait because somebody in academia has you wait for I don't know, half an hour or maybe even five minutes. You can do it in the bus. You can do

it wherever you want. The only thing you need is you need to create a mental space before you go into the exercise. You need to create a mental space for you. Did you say, now, you know the subway right from kind of upper east side to the lower east side or something, the subway right of about ten minutes or so, this is just for me now, and I don't get kind of interrupted, and you put your cell phone away and you say, okay, this is just for me. And then you go off and you say,

what is my wish? What is a wish that is dear to me? What would be the best outcome? Then you imagine the best outcome, and then you say, now what is it in me that holds me back of achieving that worsk and experiencing that outcome. You identify what is it in you that holds you back? Very often it's an emotion, some anxiety, some old habits, but it's yours. You identify your obstacle. I don't need to tell anybody, but it's your obstacle. And then you imagine that obstacle.

And once you imagine that obstacle, you want to understand, Ah, that's what I can do to overcome it. And then you do the if then plan. If obstacle occurs, then I will and then you put in the behavior so it's not a lot of work, and once you do it a little bit more often, you get really a kind of proficient. And then it's fun because it's discovery tour.

It's a discovery to it. You will discover a lot of wishes you didn't know you have, and you will discover a lot of obstacles you didn't know you have, and you will discover that some obstacles might not impede you're only for reaching one wish, but a whole serious of wishes. Do you do this yourself at all? Yeah? I do it a lot, and now that we have the apps, actually I even use the apps for that and I do it basically every morning for the next day. I said, what is it today that I want to achieve?

What is my most important wish for today? We're not going to do? Where can people get these apps? Could you give some give some web page addresses? Sure, the apps are on the following web page. It's whoop my life dot org. So it's w O O P my life dot org. Is that for read? Yeah? That's free. Well that is really valuable resource to many. And your book is called Rethinking Positive Thinking inside the New Science of Motivation. Did you come up with the title that book?

I'm just curious. Yeah. Yeah, you know, it was hard because the book covers our work the benefits and the disadvantages of positive day dreams and positive thinking, and that has some parts on optimism in there, but it also covers all these experimented research and mental contrasting and the intervention research on book. So it had kind of not only that we you know, the readers can sort of understand when and where positive thinking is useful versus less useful.

It also gives you a solution to use positive thinking in a constructive way, in a way where you can actually benefit from as a person, or as a group, or as a family, or as an institution. And therefore it had many different aspects, so it was not easy to find a title which kind of covers all these different aspects absolutely, And there seems to be a wave of books and kind of criticizing positive psychology or this positive thing. So are you familiar with Todd Kastions book

The Upside of Your Dark Side? Their few books, there are few books. And what my intention really was is not to leave people with a kind of positive thinking is good or negative thinking is good or positive thinking not a kind of more black and white white picture, but to give them a solution what you can do with positive thinking, that you can make the best out

of it in different situations. And so what the book really sort of gives the reader is a kind of hint where to use what kind of positive thing, And it gives them by the sort of describing whoop and having some exercises on whoop in there, it gives a way to actually use the technique in the daily life in order to improve your daily life. I mean, it is not a kind of pill which you take and then you are happy forever. It is a tool which

you can take along. You can put it in your pocket, or you can sort of put it in your mind, and you have a daily friend with whom you can converse about how to master and how to cope and how to best adjust to what is happening to you during your daily life. And it makes you more involved into daily lives, and it makes you also understand how you can improve your daily life and your long term goals in a way so that you can actually achieve for what is achievable and that you're not held up

with things which drain your energy. Oh, it sounds very, very helpful, and I hope to start implementing some of these things as soon as we get off this interview,

when I start running down some plans. I mean, what is nice too is that people can just sort of learn it in a relatively fast way and it liberates them and so that they are less dependent on trainers and coaches, right, and also makes yeah, yeah, they have more control over their lives as well control over their future, and that we handle things if they arise these obstacles. I'm just thinking, you're not criticizing the whole field of positive psychology at all by any means that you've been

deeply rooted in the field of positive psychology. But would you agree your research adds more nuance to and more of a practical plan for taking that optimism but making that a reality? Is that right? There? Is right? I mean what is important to me is that we base

our idea years emperority data. And I've learned during these twenty years I've been working with this topic now so much from what the data tell me that what I think is important that people get the tools in their hands that are actually based on what is really working,

and that we know how it is working. And I think for that WHOOP is really very special because we know that it is working, we know how it is working, and we know that it is working by non conscious processes, which is a huge help in the sense that people get kind of they don't need to put in so much effort and so much thought in things which also

can work outside of awareness. And just by the fact that we know a lot about how WHOOP works and in what situations it works in what way, we have a big asset in terms of that we can give it to people and say, okay, you can use Whoop and it will help you and by actually instilling these non conscious processes sounds great. Thank you so much for talking to me today. And your book is already selling well, by the way, I don't know if you're aware of this.

Oh really no, not at all. I'm so busy actually doing during research here they and not even have looked how it sells. But I'm so glad to hear that. Yeah, and I wish because I do think, I mean, maybe one thing I should add, I didn't write the book in order to write a book. I wanted that really kind of the mission of metic contesting and Whoop gets out there and that people can actually use it and can that many people can use it. Excellent. Well, thank

you for chatting. Thanks a love. Thanks for listening to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode just as informative and valperability younited. You don't like to read the show notes for this episode, we here past that can go to the Psychology Podcast dot com.