Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to 10% Happier early and ad-free right now.Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.It's the 10% Happier podcast.I'm Dan Harris. Hey, hey, everybody, how we doing?
I wince a little as I admit this, but I have a pronounced tendency toward pessimism.That probably doesn't surprise many of you, but I generally move into the future with a significant amount of anxiety.Excitement, yes, but also a lot of fear.
For a long time, I've wanted to get better at this, at approaching the future with optimism instead of just anxiety.And today's guest has been very helpful in this regard.
His name is Dr. Frederick Fert, and he was Google's first chief innovation evangelist, where he founded Google's Innovation Lab.He's also taught classes on innovation and creativity at Stanford University for more than a decade.
And he's got a new book, which is called What's Next is Now, How to Live Future Ready. We talk about why the human animal is so resistant to change and how to overcome that and embrace the unknown.
Why and how to develop compulsive curiosity, the value of experiments and why we shouldn't fear failure so much.What it means to have expansive empathy and why that can help you develop a future ready mindset.
And how to identify what Frederick calls your dimension X, your unique capacities.We'll get started with Frederick right after this.
One quick note before we get started here, if you're starting to think about holiday gifts for the meditator in your life, head over to the shop on danharris.com for a limited 15% off site-wide.Mark your calendar.
The sale runs from November 25th through December 2nd.Meanwhile, over on the Happier app, they've got personalized meditation practices that fit any schedule.
which is especially relevant in the midst of the holidays and all of the stress that comes with it.From quick meditations to mindful cooking videos, Happier can help you stay grounded through the season.
And now through December 6th, you can get 40% off a yearly subscription.Go to happier.com slash four zero to get your discount. Frederick Fert.Did I pronounce that correctly?Absolutely.
Welcome to the show.Thanks for having me, Dan.
And I do pronounce the P, right?You do.Yes.All right.And I appreciate you trying.So thank you.It means horse in German, you told me.So I don't want to get trampled.I want to do right by you. Really happy to have you on the show.
You in your new book talk about the cultivation of a future ready mind state.Can you say a little bit about what you mean by that?
Yeah, I like that we dive right in.Maybe I can step a little back.I felt that the future is something that shouldn't happen to us, right?It should be something you make happen.
And so I started with that belief that, you know, everybody is actually capable of creating their own future. And I really felt that there is something to the future debate and discussion that is missing.
And I wanted to fill that gap and provide people with a little bit of guidance around how to make the future happen that they want to see happening.
As I saw a lot of people really worrying about the future or having anxiety about the future or feeling that the future is out of their control.
And I learned that by asking literally thousands of people the question or kind of like the Mad Lib that they should complete.And that is, if you want to complete that sentence, the future is, right?What's the first word that comes to your mind?
And I want to give that Mad Lib or incomplete sentence to you as well, Dan.So what's the first word that comes to mind?The future is.
I hate to admit it, but the first word that came to mind was chaotic.
Chaotic.Yes.I hear that a lot.Absolutely.And you know, the words change obviously, right?If I ask you tomorrow, maybe, you know, you have a different word or if I ask you in the evening, even then a different word might appear.
But then I asked people a second question or a second sentence to complete it.That is the future I create is.And what's the first word that now comes to mind? Exciting.Exciting.Yes.It's a different word, right?It's not chaotic.It's exciting.
And that's the whole premise of my book.Whereas I feel as soon as we put ourselves in the picture of the future and see ourselves in the future that we create, right?The perception of the future changes.
And even in a small word that, you know, describes the future for us, right?
That is something very powerful to acknowledge because then you're moving away from that question around what will the future bring, right, which is a passive question, towards the question around what is the future I want to create.
And I want to share with people that a future-ready mind state, which, you know, we can go deeper into, is really a way to create the future that they want to see happening.
There are six component parts to the future ready mind state and we'll do a deep dive on each of them.
But since you very gently requested to step back for a second to not, and this is me being a little cute here, put the cart before the horse, what you're really trying to say is there is, and these are your words, that we can be a driver of our future rather than a passenger in the future.
Exactly.And the six dimensions that I outline are basically human qualities that I want to see happening more in the world, if I may put that.And that's optimism, openness, curiosity, experimentation, and empathy.
And I have a sixth one, which is dimension X. And so all of these qualities, these deeply human qualities should sound familiar to you, right?Because those are things that we are either born with or that show up, you know, from time to time.
For example, curiosity is something we are all born with, right?Optimism, not so much.And it doesn't show up that often nowadays, but openness is something we can also practice more.
And so these qualities of a future ready mind state for me are really not a framework and not a theory, but those are things that we live by or can live by more that really allow us to see more possibilities in the future.
And you mentioned that, you know, we can move away from being a passenger of the future towards more being the driver of our future.Right.And for me, that really comes through by.
trying to understand that there is like an outer world and that there's an inner world, right?And over the outer world, that's outside of us, right?
Which is society and technology and the events that are happening in our world and the people around us. And that's constantly changing and we can't control it or we can't control most of it, but we can influence it.
We have the power to actually influence the outer world through our actions and the choices we make and the way we interact with others, for example.
And then there's the inner world, which we also not have full control over, but we can train our inner world.And the inner world is really our thoughts.It's our emotions.It's our beliefs.
And again, just like the outer world, we can't control everything that happens inside us, right?A thought might appear or an emotion arises. But we can train ourselves to respond better.
So we can train our inner world by cultivating practices like mindfulness and reflection and all those practices that are really helpful.
I think this training of the inner world helps us to stay grounded and even trying to make better contact with the outer world.
And now for me, the magic happens really when you connect the two worlds, when you connect the outer world with the inner world. So when we train our inner world, we can approach the outer world with more purpose maybe and more confidence.
And so what I'm saying is it's not about controlling everything, but it's about harmonizing these two worlds to create a future maybe that aligns with truly what matters to us.
It's interesting that what you would expect to hear from a futurist is how you want to future proof yourself.You should get familiar with A.I.or crypto, but you're really not talking about any technological fix here.It's a set of inner technologies.
Absolutely.Yes.And so I wouldn't put the label of a futurist on me.I probably wouldn't put any labels on me, to be honest.I never liked that even job descriptions.I didn't like that much.So I created my own, but you're right.
I think futurists do an excellent job in predicting the future and telling you, you know, what trends might emerge over the next year, five years, 10 years, or even some futurists go like 50 years out, right?Futurists I know quite well.
And it's interesting that, you know, they're painting these pictures of an utopian or dystopian world out there.
But what I've learned working, you know, for more than a decade in one of these tech companies and seeing, you know, literally how the future is built, sometimes being in that driver's seat is that it's not about AI.It's not about the technology.
It's not about the outer world.It's about the inner world. And as soon as you again move away from predicting the future to creating the future or shaping the future, taking control of what you can actually control, that is your inner world.
I think you have a very powerful thing that if that's unleashed, you can really create what I would say the future that you want to see happening.
And I think that's something where we also want to be clear that a lot of people see when they think about the future, they think about the flying cars, the robots, AI, they think about climate change, they think about an outcome of an election, they see a political system put in place, they see all of those things.
Or they see maybe a nicer car for themselves or a more beautiful house or a different partner.But what I see is that when I think about my future, I see that I want to show up with a specific quality that I want to develop and grow in my future.
So the question for me remains, how do I want to be in the future?And that's related to the six dimensions that I mentioned, which is You know, maybe I want to be a little bit more open.I want to be a little bit more curious.
I want to be more empathetic or compassionate, whatever that is.And if you think in those terms about your future, you can actually make that future happening.And I think that's something very powerful.
All right, well, so let's talk about these six dimensions.The first is radical optimism.I had Dua Lipa on the show recently and she's for anybody who hasn't heard of her.She's a pop star.And she heard the record is called Radical Optimism.
What do you mean by radical optimism?
Yes, the timing was actually perfect.I think as soon as I published the book, Dua Lipa had an album come out called Radical Optimism, which made me think even deeper about like, what does it actually mean for different people, right?
Radical optimism. And for me, I like to, you know, use that maybe metaphor that we use all the time, which is the glass half empty and the glass half full metaphor that I think everybody is aware of.
And for me, a pessimist being someone who sees the glass half empty or an optimist who sees the glass half full, is something that doesn't really describe what I mean by a radical optimist.
Because for me, a radical optimist believes in the potential not for good or for perfect, but for better.So my work in the area of innovation has really allowed me to spend a good deal of time in the realm of better.
Because I've seen, you know, extraordinary breakthroughs come out of a person's absolute certainty that there's something better to be attained. Is it a better technology, a better product, a better service, a better process?
You name it, even a better human being. And these people I call radical optimists know that better is a result of constant and persistent iteration.So they tweak and test and even tweak some more to improve on what's in front of them.
And they're not trying to hit that home run that we are looking for.They're looking for the smallest degrees of better that will move their work to the next level and then to the next.
And for me, the pursuit of better is about progress and not perfection.And so go back to that metaphor.For me, then, it's not about seeing the glass half full.It's about seeing the potential to fill the glass even further.
And that's, for me, something that we can all learn to do and to practice and to become those radical optimistic people.
Maybe by listening to Dua Lipa or by training yourself to look into every situation as something that tells you or feeling that something better comes from every experience.That's probably it.
Are there no experiences that just suck in a thoroughgoing way and there's nothing better that can come of them?
There's many, Dan, many, many.You've probably experienced many.I've probably experienced too many, but it's, it's again, how do you respond to those situations, right?If a situation really sucks and let's relate it to innovation, maybe, right?
Innovation is also a very emotional process. It's something where you come up with an idea and you're super excited, right?You see the future as you described as something exciting.
If you put that idea into the world, you know, everything's going to be better.But then, you know, people come around and they destroy your idea and feel like, you know, they poke holes in it and say like, you know, that doesn't work.
It doesn't improve the world and so forth.And then you're disappointed. And that situation might suck if you put one or two or three years of your work, of your money, of, you know, everything in it so that the idea might eventually fail.
And how do you respond in that situation, right?You can respond in a way that you say like, okay, I'm fine.I'm done.You know, I don't want to innovate or make progress anymore.And I'm just going to complain about the outer world.
something around the system that I was in or the manager that I had or whoever destroyed my idea.Or you say, great, this idea didn't turn into something, but I've learned a couple of things, right?
I learned probably like many things that helped me now to create the next idea that might be even better.
And that's the radical optimism that again comes through when you say, I'm gonna take this learnings and I'm gonna apply it to the next project or next idea. I think a radical optimist is not someone who denies that moments and situations suck.
I think it's the opposite.It's moving beyond that first reaction and responding in a way that is truly in control of your inner world. And that's, for me, something that you can train and that inner lens allows you to see the potential for better.
What I was trying to ask is, are there situations that suck in such a deep way that there's no redeeming value to them?But at least what I heard in your answer is a radical optimist does not rule out that things can suck, like uncontrollably suck.
However. It can all contribute to progress toward better.A health scare that derails your whole life and your whole family for two months, getting fired unjustly.It can all be terrible.
I'm just picking those out of a hat, but those can be terrible and nobody's denying that they suck.And if you're a radical optimist, you see the seeds of progress within.
Absolutely.I couldn't have put it better.And if you think about it, all those situations that you described are somehow happening to us, right?
Like if you got laid off or if your partner leaves you, or if you get sick, all of those things might at some stage happen to you.And. The question is, what are we going to do about it?
And what I see a lot of people do, and that might be helpful to them, is start complaining, right?You're looking for the reasons why that is happening to you.
You're looking to blame something or someone and you're trying to change the situation, which we all know you can't, right?You can't make it unhappen.
And by complaining, you're trying to somehow get a relief to say like, okay, you know, I'm complaining about the doctor that didn't prescribe me the right medication or didn't prevent that the sickness actually happened.
Or I'm blaming the political system or I'm blaming my partner or whoever it is.And you can do that, right?You can complain your whole life.But I wonder like, what does it change, right?It makes you probably miserable.It makes you unhappy.
It makes you probably lose a lot of friends.So it makes you lonely as well.And if you choose to have those three things in your life, fine, absolutely go for it. There's no one holding you back.
But if you choose to have a different life, if you choose to say, I'm stop complaining.I accept that this happened.And I look for the better here.What is something that I have learned from this situation?
What is something that I now can do differently? to create a more healthier lifestyle because I only maybe have a couple of years left.
Or, you know, I'm going to deeply engage with the friend that I might lose in a couple of years because of his sickness or her sickness, right?
That gives you a signal towards, hey, I now might use my time with that friend more effectively and more deeply. And I want to be totally honest and transparent with you here, Dan.
I went on a book tour recently throughout Europe and I was underestimate one thing.And that is something probably you underestimated too.I don't know, but it's the book signings afterwards.
I thought of these moments to be tremendously, you know, happy moments, easy moments as well.You're just signing a book, right?Eventually, like how hard can that be?
But I was proven differently because I signed books for many people and everybody shared their short story with me.So people came to me and said, okay, Frederick, I know you from the past, great work, blah, blah, blah.
Or somebody sent me to this book talk.I wasn't here with intention, but somebody sent me and they shared their story.And then the third person came up.
And she shared with me and said, like, you know, Frederik, I have to say, my sister is going to die in approximately a month.She has cancer.And there, we looked at all the research and everything that is out there to cure it, but there is no hope.
So how can I be a radical optimist in that situation? And, you know, in every moment in these three moments, I paused for a second and felt, I'm not just signing a book, but I give, also not hope, because I think hope is something passive, right?
That waits in the corner, fingers crossed, and something better might happen.But I give a little bit of sometimes a question, sometimes guidance, but also sometimes holding up a mirror to tell people that whatever you're going to do,
Think about how do you want to be in the future?
And if you choose to be more kind, more open, more curious, whatever it is, I think you're going to have a better future for yourself and you immediately create a better future for someone else as well.
And I felt tremendously drained after these situations of signing those books and trying to be like for hundreds of people, a guide or just a mirror for a couple of seconds.
At the same time, I felt truly energized because what I tried to give to people is not something they don't have in control, but something they truly can choose in every situation and truly can make happen for themselves because everybody is capable of doing that.
So you said earlier that we can train up our ability to be radically optimistic.What are the practices?
Yes, how much time do we have? You know, there's many practices out there, obviously.A meditation practice is something that is probably like one of the most powerful ones that I discovered a couple of years back with an experiment I tried on myself.
easier practices are just the gratitude practices right everybody can practice and my daughter is doing that every evening and she's holding me accountable to also practice it almost every evening which is just write a couple of things down that you're grateful for that actually worked out today that
makes you feel you made progress or you did something that made you happy, made you smile, whatever it is.
And I think those practices, if we do them over time, the research is pretty clear that they're going to turn you into a different person waking up in the morning, right?
Where you wake up in the morning and you're not going to your phone and trying to escape.
and letting a thousand voices into your mind immediately, but you're getting up and maybe you step outside and you feel grateful for that there is another morning that might provide an opportunity to you.
And I think that's a simple practice that we all can do. There is a trend going on at the moment that I jumped on as well.And because I just like to experiment with, with all things as well, which is cold water exposure, which is fascinating to me.
When you wake up with some worries or you wake up with feeling out of control, or you wake up feeling anxious or things are too chaotic, whatever it is.
Or you wake up to an email and you feel like, oh, I have to respond negatively or like harsh or any way in any of those ways.
Like a cold water exposure of 90 seconds totally puts you into a different mind state because it actually helps you to not focus on that thought or the stories you tell yourself.It helps you to basically just warm your body, right?
And if you focus your mind to just warm your body for a couple of minutes, That's an immediate fix towards the worrying that's going on in your mind or the anxiety that is produced all the time.
And I feel that all of those practices, and we can go into more advanced ones than just like jumping into a cold pool. are really helpful if we try them out first, if we give them a chance, and then just see, like, what do they do to us, right?
How can they be helpful?How can they change our minds?How can they change our emotions and our feelings?And that is something I feel that we should all engage in more, more often, those experiments that allow us to truly change our minds.
Yeah, we're going to get to experimentation soon where I'll also come back to meditation, which you referenced there briefly.Just a very quick question for people interested in cold water exposure.
My understanding is you don't need to have a cold plunge, although great if you do, but you can just take a cold shower for 90 seconds and that's like a hard reboot for the system.
Absolutely.Yeah.And you don't have to start with 90 seconds, like go 10 seconds.
And then just use that as the first experiment to say like, Hey, that changed something in me.Right.I think now differently, or I feel differently.Even if it's just, I feel refreshed or I feel now that I want to jump out of the shower.Right.
which is powerful because now you change something that you have control over.And there's many more things that we can do in our lives that are well-researched.
For example, as we did a quick tech check for the show, your two producers kindly invited me to take a couple of minutes before we start the show, which I find incredibly valuable.We should start every meeting that way.
So huge kudos to you two producers. And I asked them like, what are you going to do in those couple of minutes, right?You get a snack, you get something to drink.That's the usual one.You do a bio break.
But I think one talked about their plants and maybe went watering their plants, which is something powerful.So you're actually helping some plants to grow and to flourish.I just stepped outside and did a very brief three minute walk around.
And that three minute walk gave me a new perspective.It gave me some ideas.It calmed me down.It has all these benefits that we can use that are really powerful.So we shouldn't feel clinged to our devices or whatever it is.We should.
Take those steps sometimes to the outside.Just go for a quick walk because again, the research is very powerful.It gives you a different perspective.It calms you down, gives you new ideas.And who doesn't like to have these three attributes?
Right.And all of that goes to radical optimism.You're saying that the cold shower, the taking a walk, it can help you get your mind into a state where you can see potential rather than being sucked in or seduced by your negativity bias.
I think it touches on all of the dimensions I mentioned, right?Because you have to have a certain kind of curiosity that you are engaging in those little experiments.Speaking of experiments, right?Experimentation, it also touches, right?
But it also is geared towards openness, right?You need to be open to be receptive to these new ideas and perspectives. really giving it a try, right?What I would like to say.
And so often we've, our mind tells us all these arguments, why we should not do the cold shower, why we should not step outside.And we look at the barriers.We look at the obstacles too often, right?Instead of saying, Hey, I'm open to this.
I'll give it a try tomorrow morning and I'll see what, what happens. And that curiosity is something that is very powerful because it's cultivating a relentless drive to learn and to explore.
Asking these questions, what if, or why not, that really allows you to see new possibilities.And when we think. Back to my name, my last name that you pronounced perfectly in the beginning, it's the old writing of horse in German.
And when you look at the 1500s, 1600s, 1700s, and you look at those maps back then, the sailors that somehow created those maps, those maps had all these monsters on the edges, which I find fascinating.
Because those monsters really signal to you, don't follow your curiosity, don't go through the edge, right?And most people followed that advice where they said like, oh, I'm going to stay within the known world, within what's on the map.
I don't go to the edges because I might be eaten by these sea creatures.But whoever followed their curiosity, right?The sailors who went beyond the edges of the map. They discovered something new, right?Discovered a new world.
They discovered something exciting and they were really rewarded with that newness that they could have discovered because then they shared it with the world and all the maps changed into the maps that we have today.
And who might know, like if we follow our curiosity, in the next couple of years and go beyond those signals where it says like, don't do that or don't follow your curiosity, we might discover something really, really exciting.
And that's what I want to encourage people to do, to follow their curiosity.
Coming up, Frederick talks about how to do something very counterintuitive, which is to embrace the unknown, why the road to the future is paved with experiments, something many of us shy away from, and how to develop a compulsive curiosity.
Make this holiday season wow with a brand new way to play from Wondery Kids and the number one kids podcast, Wow in the World.We are making STEM toys fun like never before.
For the first time ever, be wowed with exclusive engaging companion audio that comes with each STEM toy.
Each STEM kit includes a bonus science tool and three months of Wondery Plus free.
Shop the full Wow in the World toy collection today at Amazon.com slash Wondery Kids.
I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondry's show, American Scandal.We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in U.S.history, presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud.
In our latest series, the Houston Astros shock Major League Baseball by going from last place to winning the World Series in just four years.
This remarkable turnaround seems to vindicate Astro's general manager Jeff Luno, whose unconventional use of data and the latest technology stirs controversy around the league.
But when two reporters uncover that some players and coaches have been using that technology to cheat, it casts doubt on the Astro's culture of winning at all costs. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+.You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.Start your free trial today.
Lots cooking over at danharris.com, including live guided meditations and ask me anything sessions.Would love to have you over there.Meanwhile, over on the Happier app, they're offering 40% off the yearly subscription.
Now through December 6th, go to happierapp.com slash 40. OK, so the first dimension of the future ready mind state is radical optimism.The second is unreserved openness.
And in this section of the book, you recommend a practice that you call just say yes.Tell us about that.
That goes beyond just saying yes, which is yes and.So I learned very early in my life that A no doesn't get you anywhere, right?
If you say no to something, it literally either stops the conversation, it stops your idea, it stops you from exploring something new or discovering something new.And our minds just love no.
They just love it because our minds love to save energy, right?And a no literally saves you energy because again, it stops the conversation.It stops where something you want to discover and so forth.
And I know there's a lot of debate out in the world that we should say more no. Because it just, you know, saves us energy again.It saves us time.It saves us going down a path that we are unsure if we should explore that and so forth.
But I wanted to advocate for the yes, because the yes actually gets you a new partner.It gets you a new job.It gets you something new that you want to discover.It gets you to all of those things.
And by saying yes, I think you're opening up to possibility.And beyond that, if you say yes and you're not just accepting something and you're moving towards that possibility, you're building on it.
You're making it better, faster, bigger, whatever it is, and you're adding something to it. And I'm not saying that we should say yes forever, right?
But at least our first response to most situations should be yes, because that allows you to, again, embrace that openness that allows you to see possibilities.
And there's a beautiful story that I might share with you, which is about the Chinese farmer.
The Chinese farmer who lived in a small village had one horse and that horse was tremendously helpful to him because it helped him to do all the work with him throughout the day. Upon a time, the horse ran away.
And so the villagers came over and they said like, oh, who are you?You know, your horse is now gone.What are you going to do?And the farmer responded, maybe.The next day, the horse came back with six more horses.So the farmer had now seven horses.
The villagers came over in the evening and said like, oh, lucky you.You now have seven horses that you can work with. The farmer responded, maybe.The next day, his son wanted to break one of the horses and fell off, broke his leg.
Villagers came over and said, ah, you know, we're so sorry to hear that your son broke his leg.The farmer responded, maybe.The next day, the army passed by through the village and recruited all the young folks to go to war.
They didn't pick the one with a broken leg.And the villagers came over in the evening.Oh, you're so lucky because they didn't pick your son.All of our sons are now going to war.The farmer responded, maybe.
So this is a great story about how we usually judge immediately every situation, putting a good or a bad label towards it, right?
but staying open and maybe sometimes waiting what might emerge out of that situation is something that is for me a great way of also looking at life, that we shouldn't immediately always judge something and say, oh, that's going to be bad or that's going to be good.
And that's one of maybe the purest form of openness, to just respond with a maybe, right, in most situations and say like, yeah, maybe it's going to turn into something great or maybe it's turning into something bad.
You can go beyond that with that yes, that you can always pull out of your pocket and say like, I'm just going to say yes to something I'm not sure about. But it might open up a couple of doors that I want to explore.
And I want to look behind these doors to see what opportunities are waiting for me.
One of the biggest problems I have in my work life is that this is actually simultaneously my biggest strength and my biggest weakness, which is that I have too many ideas.I'm not saying they're all good ideas, but I have a lot of ideas.
And this is a great way to drive my team fucking crazy. I think this is actually my term, but they have embraced this.They've come up with a term to describe this.I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Up.
In the movie Up, there's a bad guy, and he's got a bunch of dogs that chase the good guys around.And every once in a while, the good guys get lucky because the dogs who are chasing them see a squirrel, and then they go off chasing the squirrel.
Well, I am a squirrel machine, and it can be very frustrating for my team.And so I can imagine my teammates listening to you extolling the virtues of yes and ripping their hair out.
But I think what you're saying is and this is what we've decided to do, which is yes.And not right now.
And we have a nice parking lot of ideas that we're going to come to once we've finished the things we've already committed to everything I just said.How does that all go down with you?
First of all, thanks for sharing that.I love that movie Up.And I think I'm the same, right?I just love to share ideas and think like every idea is worth considering and pursuing, right?So I live by this practice of saying yes to my own ideas, right?
That are appearing in my mind out of the nowhere. And I like that you're, you know, using that chasing the squirrel metaphor or signal.
And you probably have a sign right for your producers, hopefully that they hold it up right to, to signal to you like, okay, let's not chase it.What I would say is. I always encourage the teams that I worked with to again, embrace that yes, right.
And yes, and, and at the same time, giving them space and time to explore the idea, which is giving them permission to experiment.Right.And I'm not saying that we should again, chase every idea.
for a very long time, but I think it's worth exploring every idea for a short time, which means that whatever idea you have, what's the best, the cheapest, quickest way to experiment and learn if this idea might actually work?
And that has really served me well in my life because then you start to, you know, exploring an idea for a couple of minutes even and say like, okay, I've learned that there might be something in it, right.That is worth pursuing.
Or after a couple of minutes, you find out, no, screw it.Like that's too expensive or it takes too much resources or it takes too much time to actually do that idea.
And at Google X, they had this very interesting, maybe similar metaphor to your squirrel, which was called chasing the monkey.
So they had this story where they said, whenever a team wanted to explore an idea, what most people do is they try to make progress on the easiest thing of the idea.
And so the story with a monkey is about, imagine you put a monkey on a pedestal to recite Shakespeare and you need to train that monkey to recite Shakespeare, right?What most teams would actually do is what?They would build the pedestal, right?
And tell everyone like, Hey, we built the pedestal, right?Don't you think that's a great color of the pedestal?Don't you think it's a great height?I think it's going to be perfect for the monkey to recite Shakespeare.
What most people would not do is focus on training the monkey to recite actually, right?Which is the hardest thing, obviously.
So whenever they looked at an idea, they, you know, had a little sticker that they put on the presentation where they said like, monkey problem here.Don't show us the pedestal, like the easiest thing you can build.
Show us like if you made progress on the hardest thing. And that's for me, a good metaphor around when you look at ideas and we all have great ideas all the time.
What is the hardest thing about your idea and how can you explore that very quickly to learn if the idea is worth pursuing or not?So what's the monkey in your idea, right?
And as soon as we do that, I think we have a great way to just, what I say, perpetual experiment our way forward because the path to the future is really paved with experiments, right?
All of those things allow us to learn quickly, like what should we pursue and what should we not pursue.But building all these pedestals, I don't think is worth our time.
I think we should focus on the hardest thing in our problems first and try to experiment with those.
We're jumping around in your list of ways to or dimensions of the future ready mind state.But since you've brought us to perpetual experimentation, which is number four, we'll come back to number three in a minute.
Let me just ask a few questions about perpetual experimentation.You seem to acknowledge in the book that some people are wary of this, and one of the reasons is fear of failure.Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Yes.And I like that we are jumping around.That's the whole purpose of the book, that it's not kind of like a linear process that you should follow.It's actually impossible, right?
You should not, you know, get up in the morning and be optimistic and then show up a little bit more open in your meeting that you have first thing in your morning.And then at the end, in the evening, you're showing up with a little bit more empathy.
All of those dimensions should be at play all the time, because that's your future ready mind state.And I think that's something we can all again, train and practice.And experimentation is for me, fascinating again, because most people don't think
of their careers or even their relationships or other important parts of their lives in terms of experimentation.So we tend not to experiment in our daily lives because it feels safer to go with the ideas and solutions that have worked in the past.
And so we make choices every day to stay with what we know rather than seeking new and possibly better experiences. So we also avoid experimenting, as you said, out of fear of failure.
We assume that the objective of experimentation is success, which sets the bar prohibitively high right out of the gate, right?I think the objective of experimentation isn't success, it's just learning.So each time you try something new,
You learn something new and shifting this one perception about experimentation from being focused on success to being focused on learning, will you make open to discovery on every level?
And as I mentioned, the road to the future is paved with experiments, countless perpetual experiments that led us to break from where we are now so we can discover what's possible ahead.
And so that's something that everybody probably can change their relationship with is that notion of experimenting.As an example, a few years ago, I had an idea to write a book about how to be future ready.
And I didn't know how I could create a book though, because testing allows you to go from not knowing something to knowing it for sure.And you just start testing.So every day for months, I tested different ways of expressing this concept.
Dozens of little ideas I tested, never saw the light of the day. Other ideas I tweaked and tested further until I had a clear vision of this book, right?And so for me, really experimentation lays out that path forward on that we can go on.
And even maybe your podcast started with a little experiment in the beginning, right?Where you learned what worked, what didn't work, how can we improve and make that better?
And that's something very powerful if we, again, like not look for success in experimentation, but look for learning.
And to close this out, one of the spaces I created at Google was called the garage, which was that whole notion of an experimentation space where we had lots of projects were conducted in that space.
And everybody asked me like, huh, what's, what's the success coming out of the garage?Like what's the technology or the service or whatever it is that really was born in the garage.
And I said like, none of them, because that's not the space for a successful technology launch.It's a space to learn.
And so many things were learned around many different projects and many technologies, but none of them was a clear success that made its way out of this space.
And I think that's something I'm actually quite proud of that none of the successes was ever launched out of this space, but a lot of learning happened.
But shouldn't learning lead to some success eventually, or are you just extolling the virtues of learning for the sake of learning?
Of course, like if you make a mistake twice, right, it's the saying that you probably haven't learned something from the first one. Obviously, it should fuel progress and should fuel you grow with your learnings.
And I think that's something that eventually leads to something better.Again, like I usually don't like to use the word success because that's an outcome or a destiny, which for various people is looking very different.
And I rather focus on how do you want to be in your future?That's the question that I want to bring people back to, to say like, if your future should be a success, think about how you want to be in that future.
Do you want to be more curious, more compassionate, more open, more courageous, whatever it is, because that's something that also can be a success.
We're marching through the six dimensions of having a future ready mind state.Many of us get very anxious when we think about the future, but you're saying actually there's a way to develop a mind state to advance forward with some optimism.
And one of the dimensions that we haven't yet talked about is, and this is your terminology here, compulsive curiosity.What do you mean by that and how can we develop it?
Yes.So again, for me, a mind state, which is probably a term that is not very familiar to too many people.
It's the perspective you have in any given moment that really encompasses your current thoughts and feelings and determines how you experience the present. And we all familiar with that term mindset, right?
I think that made its way into our terminology so much so that whenever I type that word mind state into Microsoft Word or Google Docs or whatever technology you're using, it autocorrects immediately to mindset.
So that's something very interesting because mindset is something truly set in our world.
And Carol Dweck did an amazing job, my colleague at Stanford, in promoting a growth mindset, which I think is tremendously helpful for our children and for everyone in this world.
And at the same time, I felt that there must be something else that we maybe have a little bit more control over because then if I would ask you to change your mindset, and probably you had that question in the past from many people towards an entrepreneurial mindset or a success mindset or a happiness mindset or whatever it is.
You have to work really hard to do that.And how often have we successfully changed our mindset in our lives?I think probably rarely.
So I felt that mind state is probably a better way to really focus on that perspective you have in any given moment that determines how you experience the present. And a future-ready mindset isn't just about what you do.It's about how you are.
And it's about leaving your unique, what I say, U-print on the world.And every choice you make today reflects how you want to be in your future. And curiosity, compulsive curiosity, is one of the dimensions of a future-ready mind state.
And curiosity, again, is maybe about first something that we don't have to learn or train ourselves in because we're all born with. Right.
We have that relentless curiosity when we are in our first couple of years where we crawl around on the floor, taking everything into our mouth and suck on it for a little bit to try to understand how it tastes.
And if it's dangerous, you know, our parents usually freak out. And then, you know, we listen to everything and we take everything into our hands and we really explore the world with our senses and our curiosity.
And over time, what I feel is that curiosity goes dormant, right?That's something you can observe in human beings, but you also can observe in organizations.
The organizations that are in the market for a very long time just, I think, lost their curiosity.They don't ask that. big question anymore around like, what if for why not?And those powerful questions that really unlock your curiosity.
And I want to bring that back with a couple of practices that really allow you to tap again into your curiosity when you grow up. And there is, again, like many different practices, one that I really like is asking five whys, right, in a row.
That really deepens your understanding and uncover new insights by asking those five whys five times about a specific topic or challenge. And we can briefly go through an example that I think might, again, spark some curiosity with our listeners too.
When you, for example, try to struggle to maintain a healthier lifestyle, right?That we all probably do. Your first why could be, why am I struggling to maintain a healthy lifestyle?
And your answer could be, because I don't have enough time to exercise.The second why could be, why don't you have enough time to exercise?And your answer is, because my work schedule is very demanding. Like most of us.
And your third why could be, why is my work schedule very demanding?And your answer is because I have too many tasks and responsibilities.Then your fourth why comes around, why do I have too many tasks and responsibilities?
And your answer is because I'm not delegating enough work to my team.And then your fifth why is, why am I not delegating enough work to my team? Your answer could be, because I feel that I need to be in control of everything, right?
That is usually a leadership trait that we see a lot of times.So your insight is here, the root cause of struggling to maintain a healthier lifestyle is a lack of delegation at work.
And addressing that lack of delegation and delegating more tasks could free up time to exercise and promote a healthier lifestyle is maybe an interesting way of looking then at the solution that you're trying to discover.
And so that's a good example of compulsive curiosity, which is asking five times why in a row, which is a practice that we all can do.I like that.
Coming up, Frederick talks about why we are so resistant to change, some lessons in impermanence that he learned after going on a silent meditation retreat, and how to figure out what your unique superpowers are.
Maybe this is a good time to come back to meditation, which we teased earlier.You write in the book about going on a meditation retreat, an experience I've had, and I think not a few of our listeners have also had.
And you had a realization that and I'm going to read a quote from you that I liked.Weirdly enough, we are naturally resistant to change, even though we are 100 percent a product of change.We were built by change, but not built for change.
So I'd be curious to hear how meditation brought this about and how you've knit it into your life.
Yes.This whole notion of impermanence, right?That you experience deeply.
at a long meditation retreat is something very profound that I was lucky to discover a couple of years ago when going on a 10-day meditation retreat here in Joshua Tree in Southern California, and I realized that Physically and emotionally.
Physically, you know, you have this back pain starting after a couple of hours sitting on a small cushion and you feel like just horrible, right?You feel like, oh, that pain is not going to go away for the next nine and a half days.
And you truly believe that, right?You feel like it's not going to go away.I have to stretch or I have to do something about it. When then like day three or day four come, that physical pain actually goes away, which is fascinating.
Again, like, you know, that change happens in your body.The emotional change that I experienced was also something fascinating because I had an experience like probably in most people.
have, which is just a tiny moment during those 10 days where you sit down again, like 12 to 14 hours each day on that small cushion.But that small moment really is a profound teachable moment, I would say.
So I had two, probably, or many, many, many more, but the two I want to share, the first one is One morning at 4.30 AM, I came out of my little room and I closed the door like every morning.
And then someone stopped me, which is something you're not allowed to do, right?You're not allowed to touch anyone.You're not allowed to look at anyone.You're not allowed to talk to anyone.
So that person stopped me and said like, Hey, I need to tell you something. And, uh, I was, you know, just standing there, like it was pitch dark, still four 30 in the morning, just came out of my sleep.
And then the person said like, can you please stop shutting the door or making noise in the morning and shutting the door more, more silently.And that one comment stuck with me.
for like seven days, because you immediately react like, you know, how can this person break the rules and like talk to me?Right.It's, it's actually something that he's not allowed to do.
And then after a couple of hours, you think like, huh, maybe I was slamming the door too hard in the morning.Right.And I woke the person up, which, you know, I feel sorry about.
And then you switch between those emotions of like feeling annoyed, then you feel compassion and then you move back and forth. And you, you're not sure how to resolve that, right?Because you're just sitting with that for some time.
So that's the first moment.The second moment is more profound because that happened over literally four days.So imagine you sit down on that cushion and there's a person behind you.I had 49 other people in that room, one person sitting behind me.
And every time we sat down, that person took one of those cough drops that are available in the entrance and was sucking on that cough drop. And so you imagine that person sitting behind you and you are listening to that person sucking on that drop.
your whole hour of meditating.And it was exactly like 60 minutes of him sucking on that cough drop.And you go crazy.You're like, Oh my God, how can I prevent that happening in the next session?
Which it didn't because the guy just kept going to these cough drops and like sucked one every hour, exactly for 60 minutes. And so your mind sort of starts to strategizing, like, how can I possibly make this stop?You're not allowed to talk.
You're not allowed to make eye contact.You're not allowed to write something down and send a note to that person.So you're strategizing.
You're strategizing and sometimes a thought comes up that is very radical, which is, I might just go to that person and take the drop out of his mouth. To make stop, right?Because it's very annoying, right?
And so after the fourth day of that person behind you sucking on that cough drop, my emotions started to shift.It started to actually move from hatred and being annoyed to compassion.
And that moment was magical because I realized, hey, that person is preventing 49 people to be annoyed when he starts coughing, right?Because he's, you know, sucking on that cough drop to not cough, to not make any noises.
And it's on me to either feel annoyed or not feel annoyed, to take that as music to my ears or to take that as something to be annoyed by.I have that choice.And as soon as I realize that.
And that change of how I feel about that person, how I feel about myself was truly like, again, like such a small moment, such a moment that probably happens throughout our lives and throughout our days.
Many, many times someone doing something and we feel annoyed that it's in my control to listen to that as music and feel good about it or not. And now whenever some noise appears, I'm reminded about that moment.
And I choose to feel good about that noise, to not make it stop and try to make it stop, but to try to be aware that Feeling annoyed is something I choose, but I also can change.
And so I was thanking that person at the end of the retreat when we allowed to talk to other people.I was literally going to that person and say, thank you.He probably didn't know what I was thanking him for, but I said, thank you.
Because that route really taught me something about meditation.It taught me about something that we all have control over and that is our responses to the external world.
That kind of leads to the fifth dimension of having a future ready mind state, which is expansive empathy.Maybe say a little bit about that.
Yes, for me, having empathy is about truly understanding other people and other people's needs.But expansive empathy is not just understanding others, it's also understanding yourself.And especially understanding your future self.
So there's some powerful research going on at Stanford university where they have this research that tries to understand how you relate to your future self.So what they've done is they ask students to imagine themselves in a year from today.
And they said, yeah, I can see myself totally clearly, maybe having a better car, a little bit more money and so forth.Then they asked the students to imagine themselves 10 years from today.
And they responded, yeah, I can see myself being in a relationship, maybe, you know, having a house and so forth.And then they asked the students to imagine themselves 30 or even 40 years out.
And here it gets interesting because they couldn't see themselves in the future.The picture got very blurry, even hazy about who they are in the future and what they might have in the future and how the world looks in the future too.
So what they've done is they put VR headsets on them to project their older self to them.To literally show them, this is how you're going to look in a couple of years from today.
And what they find is that as soon as people empathize with their future selves, They changed their behavior in the moment, which means students were actually putting twice the amount towards their retirement.
They also changed their lifestyle choices to more healthier lifestyle choices.And they made other shifts too.
So what it tells me is that if you can create empathy for your future self, really seeing your future self and trying to understand what your future needs might be, then it will actually change your behaviors in the moment, which I find fascinating.
And you can practice that too, right?By doing visualization exercises, trying to imagine yourself in the future and who you're going to be surrounded by, what work you're going to be doing, where you're going to be and so forth.
And at the same time, going beyond that future visualization and say, how do I want to be in the future?
And trying to create a clearer picture every day to really trying to empathize around, Hey, how do I want to show up tomorrow in the next 10 days, in the next 10 years?What are these qualities that I want to grow towards and develop towards?
And we don't need VR headsets to do that, right?We can just literally close our eyes to empathize with our future selves.
And the more we do that and the better our pictures of our future selves, the more it will impact our choices that we make today.Yeah.
Okay, Dimension X, the sixth dimension, the most mysterious sounding one, the one that sounds like it was branded by Elon Musk.Dimension X, what is it?
Yes.You know, if you write a book about the future, Dimension X always creates a little bit of mystical sounding things, but it's actually something very practical.
which is, I'm suggesting these five dimensions, which are these deeply human qualities, again, like around optimism, openness, curiosity, experimentation, empathy.
And I felt that whenever I worked with an individual, or I coached an individual, or I just observed an individual, There's always something unique about them, right?
There's always something that stands out when they deal with challenges or when they are, you know, at their best or at their worst.And I call that dimension X, which is your unique superpower.
And for me, trying to identify and find what is unique about you and what is your unique superpower is a reflection exercise that we all can engage in.
When we map our lives and see like where the highs and lows in our lives and how did we respond in those situations?What helped us to overcome those situations? That is where you really trying to get a clear pulse of your unique superpower.
And I feature about 14 people I was able to train and coach and work with over the years.And what we've done is we.
show their unique superpowers, what is their dimension X to provide some inspiration for people and say like, Hey, that could be me if it's the Adam or Sarah or Tom or whoever is the person I share the story from.
I want that people relate to those people and say like, Hey, that could be me.And I probably have a similar dimension X, a unique superpower, because what I want to do is not just help people to identify it, but use it in their lives.
Because as soon as you use it more often, you have a, a unique way to overcome challenges, setbacks, worries, anxiety, and create really the future that you want to see happening.
And say a little bit more about how we can figure out what our own unique superpower might be.
Yes, there's many ways, obviously, to do that.One of the ways I suggest in the book is that we do a life mapping exercise, that we literally take a piece of paper, draw a line, a horizontal line, which is our timeline of our life.
And then we map out what are some of the highs and lows in our lives?What has been those unique moments that really, where we can put on a label and say like, that was really awful, right?That really put me into a bad place.
Or what was something truly exciting or exhilarating or joyful, right?That really sparked joy.And as soon as you map that out. You going on a reflection exercise to see like, what has been helpful in all of those moments?
What is the unique Dan superpower?What is the unique way of looking at those situations that really helped me to overcome these situations and make progress and move forward? And for some, it's connecting the dots, right?
That's something I hear a lot.For me, it's a bias towards action that really helped me in most situations, just move forward and make progress and look ahead.For others, it's about empathy, right?
That really showed up in many situations for them that helped them to move forward and make progress.So it's something that everybody has. there is some power in identifying it and then make use of it in your life.
For sure.This has been a great romp through the six dimensions of the future ready mind state.Is there something you were hoping to get to that we didn't get to?
For me, again, I started to write this book really because of that belief that the future is something that is not just happening to us, but it's something we can actively create and shape.And I wanted to show people how to do that.
And throughout my life and you know, my career and I've seen how powerful it is when individuals harness their potential to innovate and lead change.
And I wanted to share these insights and provide a roadmap for others to develop their future ready mind state.
And the book is really just a culmination of my experiences and experiments and the incredible stories of those future readies, those people who have inspired me along the way and that I've been able to work with.
And my goal is really to empower others to take control of their futures and create the lives they truly want.And if I can make that small contribution to the world, right, I think we will see a better world happening for all of us.
And I again, like to bring back that question that people maybe want to ponder about moving forward.And that is, how do you want to be in the future? As Anis Nin said famously, we don't see the world as it is.We see it as we are.Right.
And so how are you and how do you want to be in the future?I think thinking about that is something that you have a hundred percent control over.
And I hope that people will choose kindness, openness, curiosity, optimism, empathy as their deeply human qualities that they want to grow and show in the future.
Frederick Fert, author of What's Next is Now, How to Live Future Ready.Thank you very much for coming on the show.Great to talk to you.
Thank you so much, Dan, and see you in the future.
Thank you to Frederick.Great to have him on.Don't forget to go over to danharris.com, where if you sign up, you will get a cheat sheet for this episode and all the other new ones coming up.
Those cheat sheets include a full transcript, time-stamped highlights, and also a list of key takeaways.Subscribers also get live video ask-me-anything sessions with me, live video meditations, and lots of other random stuff.
Do me a solid, go check it out.Before I go, I want to thank everybody who worked so incredibly hard to make this show.Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasilli.
Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People.Lauren Smith is our production manager.Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer.DJ Kashmir is our executive producer.
And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote a theme. If you like 10% Happier, and I hope you do, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Sign in
