The Art of Manliness - #322： Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast we all know those

00:00:19.240 collective maxims on success nice guys finish last it's not what you know it's who you know

00:00:24.220 and winners never quit we've heard them so often that we often accept them as articles of faith

00:00:28.860 but are they really true my guest today says yes and no his name is eric barker and he's the author

00:00:34.080 of one of the few blogs i regularly read barking up the wrong tree there he takes a look at what

00:00:38.460 actual research says about these tried and true maxims of success and provides a nuanced often

00:00:43.000 counterintuitive look at them he's recently taken some of his best writing from eight years the blog

00:00:47.080 expanded on it and turned into a book by the same name and today on the show eric and i discuss why

00:00:51.720 most of the ideas we have about success are wrong and what we can do to be better advice sleuths eric

00:00:56.960 shares for example research that shows why high school valedictorians are less likely to become

00:01:01.160 millionaires or influential leaders and what that teaches us about the importance of knowing

00:01:05.240 ourselves he then breaks down the idea that nice guys always finish last and how it's both true and 0.99

00:01:09.360 false at the same time he then discusses why grit can be overrated sometimes why winners always quit

00:01:14.240 and we end our conversation discussing why being a glad handing extrovert can both garner success and

00:01:19.580 sow the seeds of failure and how the idea of work-life balance is making people more miserable than

00:01:24.320 ever and what you can do about it lots of fascinating tidbits in this show that you can

00:01:28.240 implement right away to improve your life and there's plenty of great cocktail party fodder in

00:01:32.580 this show as well after the show's over make sure you check out the show notes at awim.is

00:01:36.580 slash barker where you find links to resources where you delve deeper into this topic

00:01:39.780 all right eric barker welcome to the show oh thanks brett it's great to be here so i've been a big fan

00:01:49.360 of your blog barking up the wrong tree we were talking about this before we get on before we started

00:01:53.700 the show that you're one of the few blogs i still have in my rss feed reader i use feedly

00:01:58.800 we were talking about how we need to make rss feeds great again like they're due a comeback i think

00:02:03.900 that's seriously that's the way i get the majority of of my news i i don't know rss is still king it is

00:02:11.080 you know we were talking about facebook has an algorithm so you don't get to see all the stuff

00:02:14.220 you're following you're saying twitter's too noisy i i think the same i i don't enjoy twitter

00:02:18.620 so if you're listening to this and you have never used an rss feed before you are missing

00:02:23.620 out go to feedly.com sign up for an account and subscribe to barking up the wrong tree

00:02:28.140 and the art of manliness i wholeheartedly agree all right we both have full feed so you can

00:02:34.900 actually read all of our content right there in the feed you don't have to go to our site

00:02:38.100 it's all right there absolutely so anyways that's our plug for rss feeds all right so anyways

00:02:42.860 you turned your book or your blog barking up the wrong tree into a book called barking up the

00:02:46.980 wrong tree kind of condensed some of the best stuff and add some new things as well your blog

00:02:51.240 is unique the reason why i like it is because you offer you know success advice on how to be

00:02:56.160 successful in different domains of your life but the advice you give like is nuanced and it's

00:03:02.140 counterintuitive oftentimes i'm curious why did you start the blog what were you what was your goal

00:03:07.440 what you're trying to capture with your writing on barking up the wrong tree i mean the the thing for

00:03:13.020 me was i was kind of kind of at a crossroads in my life where i was i was between careers and wasn't

00:03:18.460 sure what i was doing and you know we get so much advice we don't know what's real what's not you know

00:03:23.320 before the internet you know good information you know information was hard to come by now post

00:03:28.780 internet good information is is hard to come by we you know it's like you hear tons of answers but

00:03:33.860 you don't know what's legit so i i kind of went down the rabbit hole like looking at research looking

00:03:38.560 what experts had to say and there's this great quote from william gibson that i love where he said

00:03:43.440 that the the future is already here it's just not evenly distributed and i believe that we have

00:03:48.760 answers to a lot of the questions we want to know about happiness success productivity relationships but

00:03:54.860 the information is not evenly distributed it's sometimes it's locked up in you know dusty journals or ivory

00:04:00.180 towers in academia and you know i just wanted to to get these answers that are that are already out

00:04:06.100 there and and it's been a journey for me but but you know basically i was looking for answers myself

00:04:11.340 and i'm i'm glad a lot of people have joined me for the ride so we'll get into some specifics here

00:04:15.800 in a bit but let's talk generally like high level here why do you think a lot of the advice out there

00:04:21.040 on the web particularly the web because there's like just this whole there's whole like genres of

00:04:25.860 blogs dedicated to being successful finding happiness it's at best incomplete or at worst just plain

00:04:32.300 wrong why do you what's going why do you think like some of these these ideas just keep continuing

00:04:36.660 to get repeated over and over and over again even though people know it's wrong i mean you know you

00:04:42.660 have i think there's a number of reasons i mean number number one is you know we have the cognitive

00:04:47.620 biases that we all we all have in our brains or something sometimes we don't want to hear the truth

00:04:51.920 sometimes we want we want our beliefs reinforced we don't we don't actually want to want to hear

00:04:57.100 something different and you know and share counts like counts are all responding to to what to what

00:05:03.220 people often feel you know uh not necessarily what is what is accurate and what is right but beyond that

00:05:08.380 you know i mean a lot of websites have agendas you know they're they're not necessarily trying to

00:05:13.060 deliver factual information they're trying to they're trying to tell people what they want to hear

00:05:16.520 sell things and and then that that those kind of competing interests can cause problems as well

00:05:22.220 so you know it's very the issue is right now it's very easy everybody's got a printing press it's

00:05:27.540 very easy to get stuff out there and so we're just there's just a deluge of of information and it's

00:05:34.640 hard to figure out you know what's legit what's not and frankly most people don't want to read

00:05:38.820 academic studies sometimes i don't want to read academic studies so so you know there's there's a lot

00:05:43.540 of kind of filters that are are blocking people from getting stuff that's you know not necessarily

00:05:48.560 perfect but but more legit than than some of the mainstream information and even if something isn't

00:05:54.120 wrong completely oftentimes i found that it might not work for me right because like a lot of the

00:05:59.640 advice out there that uses sort of like a blanket advice this works for everybody but that's like as

00:06:03.220 we'll talk about here in a little bit like that's not necessarily true oh i i totally agree

00:06:07.580 especially when you're talking about you know stuff that relates to psychology you know you there

00:06:11.980 are issues of personality i mean one of the things i talk about in the book is you know

00:06:16.540 understanding who you are you know to to some degree most personality traits and many fundamental

00:06:22.100 personality traits are ridiculously stable over time you know when when when you look at people

00:06:27.740 you know when they're a child when they're old many qualities stay the same and so often you know

00:06:34.580 it's an issue of accepting who you are and aligning yourself with environments that will allow you to

00:06:40.220 thrive and succeed you know not so much changing and when you look at a lot of the research you know

00:06:45.580 everything from management gurus like peter drucker to a lot of the work on signature strengths by

00:06:49.900 martin seligman at the university of pennsylvania you know what you see is them saying don't spend an

00:06:56.000 enormous amount of time trying to bring up your weaknesses you're you're really going to be you

00:07:00.280 know swimming upstream trying to do that you're much your your time is much better spent improving

00:07:05.280 your strengths you know that's that's where your resources are best spent so honestly it's like

00:07:11.860 accepting who you are and moving towards that it's it's a it's a much better way than than trying to

00:07:18.080 to you know this general advice isn't always going to work when you know who you are you can start to

00:07:22.780 say this will work for me so i'm curious you know with your years of writing for barking up the wrong

00:07:28.160 tree and you know the work you did on the book do you have any like heuristics or mental models you

00:07:33.220 use to judge whether a piece of advice is useful i mean i think that you mentioned just one like

00:07:38.340 know yourself is an important one but any other ones that you use sort of filter things out i mean

00:07:43.560 for me for me you know it's like first and foremost it's like okay you know you have you have the basics

00:07:48.760 where it's like okay is this from a legitimate university or or is this you know was this a

00:07:53.460 corporate sponsored study sometimes those come up or are there are there any you know issues there in

00:07:59.720 terms of agendas those are those are obvious ones but i'd say the biggest one i use is you know

00:08:06.200 luckily i've been i've been reading this stuff and posting stuff on the blog for like for eight

00:08:13.220 years and and i used to post like five study abstracts a day six days a week and luckily i've

00:08:20.200 developed a gut of sorts so i'd have to say my biggest one is just that kind of spidey sense

00:08:25.780 where it's like when i hear when i see a study that says hey gratitude improves happiness well i've seen a

00:08:31.580 dozen other studies that that show the show the same thing that's really not going to raise my

00:08:36.440 hackles but when i start to see something that completely contradicts what i've seen before and

00:08:41.900 there's not an element that makes me go oh there's not something it's hinging on that makes me start to

00:08:48.560 reconsider things you know then i'll start to scratch my head and and those you know eight nine times out of

00:08:55.560 ten you know those aren't great studies but on the other side one in ten sometimes things get

00:09:01.500 overturned sometimes you know studies get retracted sometimes little things that seem little small

00:09:07.660 factors end up you know making a real critical element you know gratitude in this situation might

00:09:14.360 not be so good so if for me you know i'm i'm usually looking at you know the where the where's the

00:09:20.520 research coming from what does it have around it who's the research who did it but a big part of it

00:09:24.940 for me is saying does this line up with what we've seen before or is this some crazy outlier

00:09:29.900 and if so you know why is there a legitimate reason or or not okay i love that all right so

00:09:36.160 let's get into the specifics here because there's a lot of great uh insights and there's a ton in here

00:09:39.840 so if you we can't get into this podcast but um that's why i encourage people to go out to get the

00:09:43.680 book but let's take some of these i don't know i don't want to call them tropes i don't want to call

00:09:48.520 them myths either because like what i found with maxims yeah there you go that you know we take for

00:09:54.820 something that is true but sometimes they're not true so let's take a look i thought this

00:09:58.840 interesting this very counterintuitive research you uncovered about valid victorians like high

00:10:03.140 school valid valid victorians are less likely to become millionaires or even high powered or

00:10:08.700 influential leaders what's going on there because like you know when you're in school it's like you

00:10:13.120 gotta you're just hammered you gotta do really well in school if you want to be a success in life

00:10:16.980 you got to be really well in school if you want to be a leader what's going on why aren't why are

00:10:20.860 there's so few validatorians that end up being become millionaires or leaders um what the what

00:10:26.460 the research found i mean basically what we're conflating there is that success in school necessarily

00:10:32.700 maps perfectly onto success in life and and that's and that's not true i think we all know that to some

00:10:38.440 degree and the research is proving that out where school has very clear rules check the boxes do what

00:10:45.360 you're told give the right answer get an a do well life is much more messy you know than that you know

00:10:51.220 the rules aren't always clear the rules can be can be can be broken sometimes sometimes you can go be

00:10:56.320 an entrepreneur make your own rules so so that's what we're seeing basically karen arnold did the 1.00

00:11:01.600 research at boston college and she tracked valedictorians and what she found is they do well you

00:11:07.000 know it's like they they go on to get advanced degrees they end up uh doing well in their in

00:11:11.360 their chosen fields but what happens is valedictorians settle into the system they do not generally end up

00:11:19.520 leading the system or revolutionizing the system and that is because the fundamental thing that school

00:11:25.200 does is is reward compliance it is not rewarding necessarily um you know grades only loosely correlate

00:11:32.460 with iq scores actually standardized tests like the sat correlate correlate much better with with

00:11:38.640 intelligence scores so you're not necessarily choosing the students who who are you know have

00:11:43.020 the raw horsepower raw brain power you're rewarding students who are really good at complying with rules

00:11:49.980 and school's very good with that but once they get outside of it life's messy you know they tend to work

00:11:55.740 in structured environments play by the rules and we all know that that doesn't always lead to to top

00:12:00.560 leadership positions and it certainly doesn't often lead to revolutionizing the system if what you're

00:12:05.320 focused on is compliance the other issue that's really critical here is the issue of mastery and

00:12:12.240 that is that in school you need to be a generalist you have to get you have to get a's in history you

00:12:18.920 have to get a's in english you have to get a's in math if you're going to get that 4.0 and and do very

00:12:23.540 well whereas the real world generally rewards mastery in one arena if you go to work for you know as a as

00:12:30.640 engineer at google yeah your math skills and computer science skills better be top notch but whether

00:12:35.760 you're you know really kicking ass in terms of english and history they don't really care so 0.94

00:12:41.220 the school is actually teaching you to be a generalist whereas life rewards being being an expert

00:12:46.160 in one field so if you say i absolutely love math and i want to really dive down in math if you want

00:12:52.880 to be valedictorian you need to stop studying math and go study english so kids who and and arnold found

00:12:59.200 this in the research kids who are really focused on something and really passionate about a subject

00:13:03.840 uh are actually punished by the the school system and they're not encouraged to to dive down into

00:13:10.420 uh the areas of expertise that would later reward them so yeah we had william de resawitz on the show

00:13:16.560 a while back ago talking about this in his book excellent sheep where he just kind of makes the same

00:13:20.240 argument without going to the research basically just showing that schools reward compliance and it's

00:13:25.020 really good at producing he calls them sheep um but excellent sheep right people who know how to

00:13:29.920 follow the rules but i mean but as i read this chapter though it seemed like you're making the case

00:13:34.780 that well okay with this idea in mind this doesn't necessarily mean you need to tell your kid to like

00:13:40.380 just do terrible at school and pull them out of school it depends on what their personality is like

00:13:47.120 right in a lot of ways right absolutely absolutely i mean it's you know it's it i i think you know the

00:13:54.020 it's a very polarizing subject because i i think people that did very well at school are naturally

00:13:58.700 going to want to lean towards the valedictorians and and people who didn't do well in school or who

00:14:03.080 dropped out might be far more inclined to to say yeah you know and and i and i think what it's

00:14:09.220 actually more an issue of what you're saying where it's personality type where if you are somebody

00:14:13.960 who is naturally very compliant at rules good at checking the boxes hey the world needs people like

00:14:19.420 that and if you're somebody who naturally breaks the rules likes to try new things you're very

00:14:24.640 creative you know then you know the world needs people like that too it's it's not that one is good

00:14:29.900 and one is bad and we should necessarily shove all of the kids in one direction or the other you know

00:14:34.860 that's that's the problem the problem is that the system is only set up to reward compliance

00:14:39.600 so yes it's much more about kind of like we were talking about earlier it's much more about

00:14:44.180 understanding yourself and then aligning your environment with that because you know if you

00:14:50.020 are somebody who you know checks all the boxes complies with all the rules and you find yourself

00:14:55.240 in a very chaotic creative unstable environment it's going to be very hard for you to thrive and by the

00:15:00.980 same token if you're you know if you're a really creative dynamic person who questions the rules and

00:15:06.560 wants to try new things and you find yourself in a place that you know like a you know government

00:15:11.920 institution or or an accounting firm where everything needs to be done exactly according

00:15:17.320 to these these specifications you're going to struggle you're not going to be happy and you're

00:15:21.880 probably not going to do well so it's less of an issue of this is good always good this is always

00:15:25.900 bad than it is an issue of alignment right i think this is really it's really important to know

00:15:30.220 yourself because there's i feel like there's like two conflicting like narratives out there so on the one

00:15:35.800 hand you have school that rewards compliance but on the other hand you have i think you know you

00:15:41.100 you're on the internet sort of and like there's like this like people venerate like the the rule

00:15:46.260 breakers the entrepreneurs and like those are the people who are famous and are rewarded handsomely

00:15:51.240 and so i think there's like people want that but i think there's a lot of people who like you know

00:15:56.000 they're not that's not them and they feel bad because like oh i'm not cool i'm not i'm not internet

00:16:00.860 cool because i'm not a rule breaker i'm not an entrepreneur so like knowing yourself like no okay yeah

00:16:05.600 i'm a i'm a compliance guy i'm a good manager those are important like that that's that i think

00:16:10.600 becomes really key because i can feel like you can have like a lot of uh cognitive dissonance going

00:16:14.540 on no i i think we you know we we all struggle with that there's a little bit grass is greener

00:16:20.280 on the other side of the fence i mean the rule breakers you know you know being a rule breaker

00:16:25.480 is very cool as long as you're successful um you know it's it's uh it's the the rule breakers who

00:16:32.780 who end up unemployed or in jail you know we're not we're not so quick to reward them and and on the

00:16:38.140 other hand you know the people who play by the rules it's like yeah it's like sometimes they're

00:16:42.120 seen as you know as oh you're just you know you're just doing what you're told you're sheep you know

00:16:47.480 or on the flip side frankly these are the people that keep the world stable these are the key people

00:16:51.940 that keep you know everything running and these people generally live good stable happy lives so i

00:16:57.420 think there's good and bad on both sides and i i but i but i think it's natural to to want to try

00:17:02.440 and emotionally polarize it but like you said it's more of an issue of self-understanding

00:17:07.040 and alignment than it is in terms of you know like like objective right and wrong right all right so

00:17:14.080 uh let's move on to the next maxim of success which is this is a good one because this is the

00:17:19.680 art of manliness it's the idea that nice guys finish last so the idea is if you're not aggressive

00:17:24.800 you're not a beast you don't take life by the the bull by the horns uh you're gonna lose in your

00:17:31.100 career and love uh is that necessarily is that true what's what's really interesting is is that

00:17:38.360 it's it's not an easy answer but it's an answer that makes sense i mean if you if you look at the

00:17:43.040 work of adam grant you know he did he did a lot of research on givers people who altruistically give

00:17:48.960 to others matchers people who try to keep an even balance of give and take and then takers people who

00:17:53.720 try to get as much as possible and and not give back and when he initially did the research what he

00:17:59.400 found was seemed to be nice guys finish last he found that givers were disproportionately represented

00:18:04.880 at the bottom of success metrics across a number of different fields but then when he did a thorough

00:18:09.640 review what he found was the results were actually bimodal that givers were disproportionately represented

00:18:14.940 at the bottom and at the top and that and that kind of jives that that makes sense to us or we all

00:18:20.780 know some martyr who who tries too much to help others gets exploited by takers doesn't get their own

00:18:25.980 work done and we also all know somebody who everybody loves who is really cool really supportive

00:18:32.860 and everyone goes out of their way to help this person because they're they're such a mensch they're 1.00

00:18:37.860 so awesome so we we kind of get that that that nice guys often finish at the very top of the very bottom

00:18:43.400 and another another factor that i think is really critical here is short-term long-term and that is

00:18:50.520 across a number of personality characteristics and elements in the shorter term bad often wins

00:18:57.480 in the longer term good often wins when you look you see when you see a narcissists across the board

00:19:04.640 generally score higher in job interviews they score higher on first dates yet when you look over time

00:19:10.500 after a few weeks in a job narcissists are generally regarded as untrustworthy and after a few months

00:19:16.800 relationship satisfaction with narcissists tanks when robert axelrod did set up he said a bunch of

00:19:23.760 algorithms trying to figure out you know what what system would work best in in the in the prisoner's

00:19:29.280 dilemma and what he found is that the bad guys took the high ground very quickly but over time

00:19:35.700 programs that were good won out and it makes sense because we all know that people who rush out to try

00:19:41.840 and get as much for themselves as possible who self-promote who who who lie very often can do

00:19:47.300 well initially but over time we usually deal with the same people you know over a period of time

00:19:54.200 and we develop a reputation and once you develop a reputation unless you can constantly outpace that

00:20:00.160 reputation people are going to figure it out and people are not going to want to deal with you

00:20:05.020 and so it makes sense but i think it's critical to realize that nice guys need to make sure that

00:20:11.840 they're in the top of the success metrics not the bottom of success metrics by not letting themselves

00:20:15.900 get abused and the second thing to realize is that in the short term hey bad behavior can pay off but

00:20:22.900 over the long term uh very often it rarely does so i mean are you recommending here like in the

00:20:28.020 beginning like say as a career you're trying to do a career move i don't know trying to go up the

00:20:32.900 corporate hierarchy kind of be more assertive or should you just be not like play nice the entire

00:20:38.340 time because you know in the end it'll help you in the long term oh no no i'm not recommending that

00:20:44.100 that people that people do negative in the beginning and then later play good what what i'm saying is

00:20:50.600 that is that people who are intent on you know narcissists people who are much more selfish and

00:20:56.620 self-focused early on will do well and then we'll do poorly later the the thing is that what we can

00:21:02.760 learn from the the takers what we can learn from the negative is that they're generally much more

00:21:08.880 assertive about knowing what they want and they're also very good at self-promoting and those are two

00:21:15.020 things that don't necessarily have to be bad you know being assertive again not not deceptive not

00:21:21.760 lying not cheating not stealing but being assertive about what you want is a good is a good quality and

00:21:27.720 letting your boss and people around you not to the point of being a bragger but letting people

00:21:34.020 know the good work you're doing is important to getting ahead now the lying cheating and stealing

00:21:38.680 not so much but we we need we need to make sure we're doing those things those are things we can

00:21:45.120 take away from the the negative side but overall what you see is people are often i think it was david

00:21:52.520 desteno at northeastern university who who does some research into human character what he found

00:21:57.140 is that very often upon meeting people we're looking at two qualities we're looking at two issues you

00:22:02.880 know number one uh you know can this person uh be trusted and number two how long am i going to be

00:22:08.820 dealing with this person and you know if there are more steps built into the contract you're probably

00:22:14.640 going to behave better because you know the other per side is going to have a chance to retaliate

00:22:18.780 if you're introduced to someone by a friend you're probably more likely you know to treat that person

00:22:24.680 better because you know it can come back to to haunt you as opposed to somebody you meet randomly on

00:22:29.160 the street so that duration that length of time that you're going to be dealing with someone

00:22:34.900 encourages good behavior when you think about you know royal families uh in in the middle ages

00:22:41.160 marrying off their kids to one another to to basically say hey you know we have we have family in

00:22:46.280 common now we're not going to go to war things are going to be more stable you know it's it's that

00:22:50.700 kind of thing they call it lengthening the shadow of the future that tends to promote good behavior

00:22:55.980 because there's not as much of an incentive to to grab the money and run awesome all right so

00:23:00.920 bottom line be a nice guy but don't be a doormat and you're playing the long game and don't be afraid

00:23:07.680 to like be a little assertive not a little be assertive and promote yourself though those are those

00:23:14.360 are some great tips another thing that is really critical robert axelrod's research found this and

00:23:19.860 adam grant found this as well is to very much think about the environments you're putting yourself in

00:23:25.100 um when when adam grant looked at you know environments if you're if you're a if you're

00:23:30.820 a giver surrounded by takers you know you're going to be in really bad shape you're going to be

00:23:34.340 exploited and it's very likely that you might become defensively become a taker yourself

00:23:38.020 when givers are surrounded by givers the the positive effects are exponential

00:23:42.280 and when givers at least have are surrounded by a number of matchers matchers fundamental belief

00:23:48.080 in justice and equality means that matchers often protect givers so for for those nice guys absolutely 0.99

00:23:54.640 everything you said the other thing that's really critical is to just look at the environment you're

00:23:58.820 putting yourself in are these good people when i spoke to bob sutton who's a professor at stanford's

00:24:04.580 graduate school of business he said whenever you walk into a company for a job interview he said look

00:24:09.700 around at the people the people there because you're going to become like them they're not going

00:24:14.280 to become like you and that you know we always think of peer pressure when it comes to teenagers

00:24:19.300 and kids but the truth is peer pressure affects all of us all the time and we're usually not aware of it

00:24:24.100 so putting yourself in environments that you know really aren't you is is not only dangerous in terms

00:24:30.120 of you being exploited but it's dangerous in terms of your character over the long term so if you're

00:24:34.020 giver don't go to maldova and do not do not go to moldova that would not be a good idea you can read

00:24:39.300 the book to find out why but uh yeah maldova not a great place uh okay so let's move on to uh another

00:24:46.480 idea that's it's really hot right now i feel like for the past few years is this idea of grit we've had

00:24:51.100 angela duckworth on on the podcast to discuss her book and her research about grit let's talk about

00:24:56.460 so like is there really a benefit to grit or is it kind of overrated or in some cases or is it one of

00:25:03.480 those things where in some instances you need to be gritty and in some instances grit is not helpful

00:25:08.100 uh i i think definitely the latter i think you know there you you can't be gritty about everything we

00:25:14.460 only have 24 hours in a day if you never gave up on anything you simply put you'd run out of hours in

00:25:20.920 a day you know i if i if i never gave up on anything i i'd still be playing t-ball you know we we need to

00:25:26.700 give up on some things in fact you know one of the things i talk about in the book is the issue of

00:25:30.620 strategic quitting where it's really thinking about how many things are you doing that are you

00:25:36.080 know aren't really providing value aren't really providing good benefit and by quitting those

00:25:40.400 things you're freeing up more time energy and resources for the things you need to be gritty on

00:25:45.500 you you know it's it's it's that issue of realizing what's really important to you what's that number one

00:25:50.880 again aligning with the work of uh drucker and seligman we're doubling down on your strengths

00:25:56.200 doubling down on what's important to you you know there's only 24 hours in a day period the only way

00:26:01.520 you get more hours is by quitting something else you know quitting something else frees up more time

00:26:07.080 to double down on what's important so so grit is critical but this idea of a universal never give up

00:26:14.220 is you know completely unrealistic you know uh actually uh to angela's credit in one of in one of

00:26:20.260 her research studies she said that you know quitting things early on in life is really important because

00:26:25.940 you need to try stuff you need to get out there and make a little bets as peter sims calls them

00:26:30.580 to try things to figure out what to be gritty at to figure out what your passion is what you're

00:26:36.260 interested in what is worth you know devoting those k unders ericsson 10 000 hours to so so grit is

00:26:43.900 absolutely a fantastic thing but we treat it like it's the end-all be-all and should be applied to

00:26:49.900 every situation and and that's fundamentally impossible so winners sometimes quit is what

00:26:55.760 you're saying i mean winners winners have to quit well how do you decide that how do you decide it's

00:27:01.180 time to quit something because maybe you are passionate about being in a rock band or maybe

00:27:05.700 you're passionate about your art and you've been at it for years and years and like nothing's going on

00:27:11.360 like how do you decide like i gotta hang up the the proverbial cleats on this so i can go work on

00:27:17.040 something else uh that's a it's a fantastic question uh because once you raise the issue of

00:27:22.780 you know quit and grit both being legitimate options uh vital options then it's how do i decide

00:27:28.480 and gabrielle ettingen did research at nyu and she came up with this fantastic little acronym called 0.99

00:27:33.200 whoop w-o-o-p and and it's actually a quick little process people can go through to try and figure out

00:27:39.300 you know what is worth sticking to and and and what isn't and basically what it what it stands for is

00:27:44.740 wish outcome obstacle plan because the the interesting thing is a lot of us wish for

00:27:50.820 stuff and it's kind of fun to dream uh but what the research shows is that spending time dreaming

00:27:56.200 doesn't move you towards your goals in fact it saps your energy because our brains aren't very good at

00:28:01.740 telling what is real what is not real that's that's why movies are thrilling so when we wish we people

00:28:06.940 actually subsequently do less what they need to do is first you wish you dream about what you want

00:28:13.080 but then you need to make it concrete you need to say what outcome do i want from this and make it

00:28:17.960 concrete then all of a sudden you you know it's something that is actually achievable the third

00:28:23.520 thing and here's where it gets tricky is the obstacle what's standing in the way why why can't

00:28:28.680 you have what you want what is the problem that's blocking you and then fourth is a plan you know how am

00:28:34.620 i going to overcome this obstacle now what's interesting about that is it it's a useful little tool for

00:28:39.440 helping you start to get to make a plan and to figure out what you want how to get there but

00:28:44.820 there's a secondary effect that's really powerful in terms of the grit or quit uh issue and that is

00:28:50.720 that when you go through the wish outcome obstacle plan the little whoop exercise if you find that with

00:28:58.600 your plan you feel energized you feel ready to take over the world that means that what you're thinking

00:29:04.580 about is probably legitimate it's probably something you should be doing in her research she saw that 0.76

00:29:09.880 when people felt energized that means this plan was realistic when people went through it and they felt

00:29:14.980 kind of you know down or or or they just didn't feel up to it they didn't feel energized often it was

00:29:20.740 because their plan wasn't realistic you know i want to be emperor of australia by thursday you know

00:29:25.860 that's that's not a very realistic goal and you you shouldn't think that that's that's going to work

00:29:30.820 so taking the time to walk through wish outcome obstacle plan often gives people that inkling of

00:29:38.720 is this something i should double down on or is this something i should let go and turn my attention

00:29:43.580 to to other issues all right so don't do vision boards don't do this don't do the secret you can

00:29:50.040 start out there okay you start there don't don't stop there exactly exactly okay all right i'll i'll

00:29:55.300 i'll keep my vision board then no i don't have a vision board i think i did it one time but i don't

00:30:01.120 it's been a long long time i'll admit i had a vision board once all right um so here's another

00:30:06.000 piece of advice that we often hear it's not what you know it's who you know and people often say

00:30:11.680 that cynically it's like yeah well he just he's not really smart he just has connections is that

00:30:16.900 really true um the the issue there is you know what i started out talking about is the issue of

00:30:23.060 extroversion versus introversion and the truth is both are important you know it depends on the

00:30:28.320 environment it depends on the issue so i guess the quick answer is it depends but the the response is

00:30:33.140 is really more nuanced than that you know extroverts you know often often do much better in terms of you

00:30:40.760 know success metrics there are also a lot of downsides in terms of in terms of wasting time and in

00:30:47.360 terms of in terms of you know how they how they spend their time introverts you know often lack

00:30:52.620 in terms of building that great network and across the board in terms of getting a job and get promoting

00:30:56.860 in a job getting a salary increases in a job having a big network is key but introverts across the board

00:31:02.520 are much more likely to become experts in their field you can you can generally on average you can

00:31:07.960 tell whether somebody's grades are good or or are more are better or or worse just by knowing

00:31:13.880 introversion extroversion introverts on average have higher grades they they're far more likely to get

00:31:17.760 phd's they're far more likely to get five beta kappa keys uh introverts you know have all that extra 1.00

00:31:23.220 time and it should they choose to spend it in arena experts are they're far more likely to be experts in

00:31:28.780 their field whereas there's one study that showed what was the wording extroversion is inversely

00:31:34.500 correlated with individual proficiency which is a a fancy way of saying the more of an extrovert you are

00:31:40.860 the worse you are at your job so you know there's the issue of networks which can can really be

00:31:47.040 powerful having a big network i even looked at the research on drug dealers and drug dealers who have

00:31:52.100 bigger networks make more money and are far less likely to be incarcerated across the board big networks

00:31:57.220 are helpful on the other hand hey you know being if you're a computer programmer you know that's a very

00:32:03.480 solitary job if you're a writer that's a very solitary job you know so your proficiency is going to be

00:32:09.660 oftentimes more important than your network so which job you pick can become you know critical

00:32:16.760 which arena you're in but the truth is very often most people are not at the extremes most people are

00:32:22.900 not extreme experts or extreme introverts they're ambiverts they're somewhere in the middle and what

00:32:27.520 we need to decide to do ever most individuals who fall into the middle of the bell curve in terms of

00:32:32.440 introversion extroversion need to think about which side of themselves do they need to turn on is this a

00:32:37.040 situation where i need to be more extroverted you know i need to make an effort to socialize or is

00:32:42.080 this a time where i need to you know turn off notifications shut the door buckle down and and

00:32:48.340 and work hard as an individual contributor so you know it's really networks are extremely powerful

00:32:54.320 and introverts need to spend some time there but depending upon which career you're in you need to

00:33:00.580 strike that balance between developing a good network and and becoming an expert in your field

00:33:06.480 to the degree you can yeah you mentioned the research that most olympic high level olympic

00:33:11.220 athletes are introverts right like they're just they just focus on their practice i mean absolutely

00:33:17.420 it's it's funny it was i was surprised to see that but when you think about it even team athletes

00:33:23.060 you know how much time are they spending doing free throw after free throw how many times are they

00:33:28.340 spending more time sprinting on the track or time in the batting cage you know those individual skills

00:33:34.340 that need to be developed it requires you know a lot of time just head down doing the work uh and so

00:33:40.780 yeah it was very surprising to me to to see the percentage of of top athletes that say that they

00:33:45.740 are introverts and i mean so networking is important important if you're not naturally an extrovert and so

00:33:52.520 like networking seems sort of icky to you what kind of research have you come across on how to network

00:33:57.260 without making it seem gross you know you know what i'm talking about it's like hey just pressing

00:34:02.900 your flesh here you know here's my card absolutely and and it's funny there's there's actually research

00:34:08.240 that that supports that uh francesca gino at harvard did research showing that yes it's like most people

00:34:13.320 see transactional networking as icky and and the people who don't see it as icky are often powerful

00:34:19.540 people they are the people who need it least so the people who need it most find it the most

00:34:23.560 repulsive which is which is a sad irony but but there are a number of things people can do to

00:34:28.080 build their network without feeling gross you know rather than going into it with a model of networking

00:34:33.280 which is kind of a formal clinical word to begin with uh taking the perspective of friendship of

00:34:39.140 making friends and the the best first step that i've seen in the research in terms of networking

00:34:44.280 frankly is reactivating dormant friendships you know is going on linkedin going on facebook looking

00:34:50.040 through the contacts on your smartphone who are people uh who who you know who are already your

00:34:55.420 friends who you haven't been in touch with you haven't talked to in six months or a year

00:34:58.480 that doesn't feel icky you already know them you know that you already have a connection it's not

00:35:04.160 going to be difficult all you have to do is reach out say hi and then you know continue to follow

00:35:09.040 up make that person more part of your life that's a very simple way the second step i would say

00:35:14.360 is there's research by uh brian uzi and sharon dunlap on what's called super connectors and what

00:35:20.100 that is is if you look at uh the contact list on your smartphone you're going to find that a

00:35:24.540 disproportionate number of your friends were introduced to you by a handful of people those

00:35:30.680 are your super connectors those are the people who are big extroverts or they're the hub of networks

00:35:35.380 deliberately you want to spend disproportionate amount of time reaching out and talking to those

00:35:40.040 people because they are really you know they're super connectors they have big networks and when

00:35:45.640 you're looking for that next job you're looking for that next opportunity those are the people who

00:35:49.660 are most going to be able to to assist you you know so there's a number of easy things you can do

00:35:55.460 and then past that be a friend you know talk to people try and find things you have in common

00:36:00.220 don't immediately be asking people for things try and find ways to help others be a giver in adam

00:36:05.900 grants terminology it doesn't have to be an icky an icky affair you know if you if you handle it the

00:36:11.220 right way all right let's uh talk about work-life balance so there's this you know idea that you

00:36:17.100 know women are always talking about having it all right like want a career and a good family life but 1.00

00:36:22.480 you should highlight research that you know and the assumption is that men can have it all like they

00:36:27.520 have a great career and a great family because there's a wife at home taking care of the family 0.98

00:36:30.960 allows them to have their career but you you highlight these stories of men who didn't have it all

00:36:35.780 like they had fantastic careers but their family life was just garbage can you talk about some of

00:36:40.520 those examples of people whose men who sacrificed family for i don't know career excellence yeah i

00:36:46.420 mean you see this across the board uh howard gardner at harvard did did research on a number of you know

00:36:52.000 top performers and what he found was that they almost made like a faustian bargain where they basically

00:36:58.380 gave up everything in order to be at the top of their field and that's the the problem we face

00:37:05.160 is that if you want work-life balance then the issue is balance it's not extreme and that means it's

00:37:10.740 not extreme in terms of results when you look at when you look at so much of the research by dean

00:37:16.420 keith simonton and mihaili ciksemihai and other other people who who focus on on top performers and

00:37:23.240 expertise uh what you see is more hours equals more results uh you know there might be diminishing

00:37:29.260 marginal returns but but overall more effort more hours equals more results so at some point you have

00:37:35.800 to draw a line and when you look at some of the people i detail in the book albert einstein ted

00:37:41.300 williams you know you see that these are people who sacrifice their relationships and that's usually

00:37:47.480 what suffers is relationships because relationships require consistent time and energy over time you don't

00:37:54.580 you don't just have an annual it's like an it's not like an annual doctor's visit you need to spend time

00:37:58.340 with your friends and family regularly for them to be a part of your life you know albert einstein

00:38:02.420 just kind of retreated into his head trying to trying to find you know trying to find that next that

00:38:08.560 next big discovery and he had a contract with his wife about on what terms she could interrupt him

00:38:15.480 and it was it's it's kind of makes your stomach turn he had another son who was institutionalized and

00:38:22.740 i i don't think einstein saw him for the last 10 or 20 years of his of his life his other son

00:38:27.800 said the only project my father gave up on was me um you know he basically just sacrificed we think

00:38:35.760 of einstein as this guy who did some amazing things and he most certainly did but but it was a faustian

00:38:41.200 bargain and ted williams you know just he just played it's like the joke i make in the book is that

00:38:46.840 he didn't play baseball because he wasn't playing he was taking it very seriously and it's all he did

00:38:53.280 and he was great at it but the problem is if you want a well-rounded life you have to draw a line

00:39:00.540 you have to say at some point this is good enough you have to settle at some point and that's up to

00:39:08.060 you and if you're a very driven very achievement uh very achievement focused person it can be very

00:39:13.340 hard to draw that line and and step back from the table so i mean i guess there's a lot of insights

00:39:19.000 or advice we can take from this if you are achievement oriented you might consider foregoing

00:39:23.960 family or if before you get into family like make sure your wife or significant other like

00:39:29.680 knows what they're getting into right before they they jump in with you oh uh ted ted one of ted

00:39:37.540 williams wives he had three threatened to write a biography that was titled my turn at bat was no ball

00:39:45.180 when they when they divorced before the the judge finalized the decision he he turned to the wife

00:39:52.020 and he said is there any way you two can can work this out and uh and his wife delora said are you

00:39:58.200 kidding um you know he was just that extreme a person and and that extremity you know helped him in

00:40:05.340 terms of it helped ted williams in terms of getting ahead uh so yeah i think it's very good if if your

00:40:10.820 partner understands what you're like but more important than that i would say it's still

00:40:15.720 important for for for any achievement oriented person to draw some line because the results aren't

00:40:23.080 this doesn't lead to happiness it was it leads to achievement it certainly leads to achievement but

00:40:27.900 but it may not even lead to being number one there may be somebody bigger stronger faster than you are

00:40:32.700 and and it doesn't lead to a well-rounded life it doesn't lead to to to happiness and uh it's a danger

00:40:40.400 so everyone needs to have a personal definition of success everyone needs to have a line where they

00:40:45.420 say this is good enough for me and that can be an extreme line that can still mean working 16 hour

00:40:50.240 days perhaps but when you get to hour 17 you need to stop because it's it just just does not seem to

00:40:57.860 lead to good things for anyone yeah and i think you talk about research about this idea of work-life

00:41:02.540 balance has actually made today's 20 and 30 somethings more miserable than say our parents or

00:41:09.640 grandparents when they were our age right yeah the the thing there is that it was basically the issue

00:41:17.840 didn't really exist before you know and that's and that's something that that me immediately made me

00:41:21.980 scratch my head was that decades you know decades ago people weren't talking about work-life balance

00:41:25.880 and that's because there has been a fundamental shift you know part of that is driven by technology

00:41:30.360 you know part of it's driven by changes in the world but the the key issue here is that the doors

00:41:35.380 used to close at 5 p.m it's like when you watch an episode of mad men and you know the office stops

00:41:40.200 and now the office doesn't stop you've always got your cell phone with you you can always check

00:41:44.860 email you can always be texting that that oh i oh i'll have to get that document from the office

00:41:49.340 tomorrow no the documents are in the cloud you can get them right now you have the option to work

00:41:54.680 24 7 and when i spoke to swathmore professor barry schwartz uh wrote an excellent book called the

00:42:00.500 paradox of choice uh he talked about that where the issue is you have the option to work 24 7 so

00:42:06.380 it's always an option and that weighs on us before the doors at the office closed at 5 p.m it was decided

00:42:14.000 for you so you could just go throw your hands up hey i'm gonna go home and be with my family play with

00:42:19.940 my kids now you know that phone buzzes you know that that project's incomplete and at 9 p.m you have

00:42:27.440 the option to go work on it so it's always a temptation of sorts and that becomes a really

00:42:34.860 difficult uh push pull because you're always having to choose and it's easier when someone chooses for

00:42:41.100 you so the work-life balance conundrum is that we need to make a choice we need to draw a line and

00:42:47.180 and everybody needs to draw it for themselves because the world's not going to draw it anymore

00:42:50.780 you need to say hey uh i'm stopping here i'm going to spend time with my family and if that means

00:42:57.380 i don't get the promotion well that's okay with me but that's a very difficult line to draw

00:43:03.400 and a very difficult decision to make and most of us don't want to make it but but sadly uh you know

00:43:10.280 now the onus is on us right and so i think a lot of that's managing expectations too because i think

00:43:15.220 that research about 30 somethings being more miserable than 30 somethings a decade ago was that

00:43:19.660 i guess like teenagers now are like happier because they have these high expectations right because

00:43:24.240 they're told like they can be anything and do anything they want like that didn't happen

00:43:27.580 30 years ago it was like he went to the guidance counselor and said all right you're you're gonna

00:43:32.980 go be a mechanic and like okay that's what i'm gonna do or you're gonna work in the factory and

00:43:37.280 then when they became an adult like they like realized okay things are actually better than i thought

00:43:41.100 they would be now young people have these high expectations they get into adulthood and they

00:43:45.300 realize their high expectations aren't being met and they're just miserable yeah so it's like i guess

00:43:49.900 like 30 years ago people like had very low expectations for adulthood and they ended up

00:43:55.100 happier because their expectation their reality it's exceeded their expectations young people today

00:43:59.840 have super high unrealistic expectations and they just are miserable because reality doesn't match

00:44:05.020 those expectations oh i totally i think barry schwartz told me the same thing is that you know is that

00:44:10.560 accepting say certain level as good enough and managing expectations is is really key and now what's really

00:44:18.860 hard is is with is with the internet and television we are getting to see the top 0.0001 percent of

00:44:26.540 successful people whether they're the most beautiful whether they're the richest the most accomplished the

00:44:30.860 best athletes the best singers we are we you know expectations are off are off the charts you know and

00:44:36.840 it's it's impossible so when you combine these completely unrealistic expectations with the ability to go to work

00:44:46.040 24 7 then you know ambitious people are are in a really bad shape you know really bad shape because

00:44:53.880 they're they're going to be inclined to overwork they're they're they have these crazy standards

00:44:59.560 and the ability to run on that hamster wheel until they kill themselves and so that's a really difficult

00:45:06.420 combination and uh and i've and so it makes sense why people are struggling with it yeah will have you seen

00:45:13.160 twilight zone do you ever watch like old episodes oh yeah like the willowby episode remember that one

00:45:18.660 really no which one was that it's the guy where he's on a train he has he has a dream that like

00:45:23.300 he's just like overworked off you know corporate drone he has this dream that he uh gets off on this

00:45:28.740 train and it's like idyllic 19th century town where everyone's just wonderful and it's called willowby

00:45:34.680 and it ends up like willowby like he ends up in willowby he finally gets there but it's b it's like

00:45:40.120 willowby's funeral home like he he dies because he got so overworked um it's a great episode with

00:45:48.240 a lot of existential meaning uh i love twilight zone well eric this has been a great conversation

00:45:54.440 there's so much more we could talk about where can people go to learn more about your work

00:45:57.880 the the url for my blog is a little difficult uh for people to to to pronounce so if if they just

00:46:03.660 google barking up the wrong tree blog or if they google my name eric barker they can check out

00:46:08.580 they can check out my blog and the latest i've been posting the best way to keep up with what

00:46:12.000 i'm doing is to to join my email newsletter and my book is available on amazon.com it's called

00:46:18.040 barking up their own tree so you can search for that or my name eric barker awesome don't forget

00:46:22.560 the rss feed oh dude rss is rss is i mean sometimes the older tools uh you know rolling old school uh

00:46:31.980 works in terms of rss man there's no doubt that's right all right well eric thanks so much for your

00:46:35.820 time it's been a pleasure it's been great thanks for having me on man my guest today was eric barker

00:46:39.680 he's the author of the book barking up the wrong tree it's available at amazon.com and bookstores

00:46:43.400 everywhere also check out his blog like it's certainly one of the few blogs i read regularly

00:46:47.360 barking up the wrong tree and while you're at it sign up for feedly or some other rss feed reader and

00:46:52.240 subscribe to his blog on your rss feed reader just get all your news in one place there's no facebook

00:46:57.280 algorithm telling you that you're not going to be interested in that because your aunt trudy didn't like it or

00:47:01.300 whatever and there's not all that crap that twitter has in the feed as well and while you're at it sign up 0.56

00:47:05.420 the art of manliness rss feed you'll love it also check out our show notes at aom.is

00:47:09.700 slash barker where you find links to resources we can delve deeper into this topic

00:47:12.880 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:47:25.060 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com if you enjoy this

00:47:29.000 show have gotten something out of it over the years i'd appreciate it if you give a review on

00:47:32.140 itunes or stitcher thank you all who have taken the time to give and review there's been some great

00:47:36.320 ones in there also some great constructive feedback we take that into account to help

00:47:39.560 improve the show as always thank you for your community support until next time this is brett mckay

00:47:43.500 telling you to stay manly

00:47:45.460 you

The Art of Manliness - July 19, 2017

#322： Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

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