1:59

we're gonna dive a little bit deeper by talking

2:02

to the man himself. So my guest today

2:04

is Eduardo Briseno. He's the author of the

2:06

book The Performance Paradox, turning

2:08

the power of mindset into action. And

2:11

he has led enormous organizations

2:14

and groups of people who are trying

2:16

to get more done each day, who are trying

2:18

to be more effective each day. He's led

2:20

them through his process to help

2:22

them improve, help them actually be

2:25

more effective. One of the key things he's learned

2:27

is that being stuck in the performance

2:29

zone is a major, major

2:32

problem when it comes to actually

2:34

improving and getting the things you want

2:36

out of life, whether that is in your personal life or

2:39

your career. But I'll let him tell you

2:41

himself. Here's my conversation with

2:43

Eduardo Briseno. Alright

2:45

Eduardo, thank you so much for being here. Great

2:48

to be here. Thanks Greg for having me. So

2:51

your new book is called The

2:53

Performance Paradox, turning the power

2:55

of mindset into action. This

2:58

is something I think

3:01

probably one of the best places we could start

3:03

here is that conversation

3:06

around mindset and action. Like mindset

3:08

is something that is often cited

3:11

as like this is where you need to start

3:14

when it comes to personal development, when it comes to growth

3:16

either in your career or otherwise. It's

3:19

all about changing your mindset. That's like the number

3:21

one piece of advice that people give. I've always

3:24

found it really challenging with

3:26

that next step of, okay great,

3:29

I've changed my mindset, now what? And

3:31

no one seems to really give that piece

3:33

of advice and I suspect because

3:35

it's a little bit harder to give. So I'd love

3:38

to just get your like thousand-foot

3:41

view. What's the process look like to

3:43

go from I've improved

3:45

my mindset, I've developed a growth mindset,

3:47

whatever way we want to look at it to

3:50

now this is actually having tangible benefits

3:52

on my day-to-day actions. Great

3:55

yeah and so mindset is

3:58

often painted or perceived

3:59

as

4:01

a silver bullet. Like if you just have a growth

4:03

mindset, then all your problems are solved or

4:05

you can be a great kind of learner and performer. And

4:08

a growth mindset, which is the mindset

4:10

is a belief. It's a belief that changes our behavior.

4:13

So a growth mindset is the belief that people

4:15

can change, that we can develop our abilities

4:18

and our qualities as opposed to a fixed mindset,

4:20

which is the belief that we're set the way we are.

4:23

And the problem with a fixed mindset, I mean, there's

4:25

a lot of psychological problems that result from

4:27

when we think this person is a natural

4:29

leader or this person is a natural athlete or

4:32

this person is naturally creative.

4:34

What happens is that we don't, it's

4:36

not even an option for us to think that

4:38

we can get better at those things. I can become a better

4:40

leader, I can become a better athlete, I

4:43

can nurture my creativity. So that's

4:45

one problem. And then when we encounter challenges, we

4:48

take that as evidence that we don't have the ability,

4:50

so we tend to disengage, give up,

4:52

try to find out what

4:54

we are good at as opposed to developing our skills

4:56

further, whether we're great or not. So

4:59

mindset is really, really important, but it is

5:01

not sufficient to your point. And

5:04

in order to really believe

5:06

that we can improve and to make that

5:08

true, we also need to know how

5:11

to change and how to improve. And

5:13

it's not obvious because a lot of us tend

5:16

to kind of assume that the

5:18

way we need to succeed and what we need to do every day

5:20

is just to work hard as best as we

5:22

can, just trying to get things done. And that's

5:25

how we're gonna get better, and that's how we're gonna achieve success.

5:27

And that is what I call chronic

5:29

performance, when we are just focused on performing,

5:32

on getting things done. And what

5:35

we also need to understand is how

5:37

to make tidy leaps. The

5:40

word leap is really important. Leap, it

5:42

means like leaping into the unknown,

5:44

leaping into things that you haven't done

5:46

before that might expand your skills, things that you

5:48

haven't mastered yet. And that

5:51

is how we improve, right? And so,

5:53

but there's different ways that we can

5:56

make leaps, whether it can be experimentation

5:58

or soliciting feedback or...

5:59

taking on a challenge or reflecting on mistakes.

6:03

And so how we not only

6:06

do chronic performance and just perform

6:08

all the time, but also how do we embed what I

6:10

call the learning zone into our habits

6:12

as individuals and as teams is

6:15

the how, right? And so we need to understand

6:17

the how and to habituate

6:20

it in order to really believe and

6:23

make it true that we can change. And these two things

6:25

go hand in hand together. It's not just

6:27

mindset. So you

6:30

just touched on something that I think you do incredibly

6:32

well when compared

6:34

to the vast majority of people

6:37

that are speaking and writing in this

6:39

space. I remember

6:41

when I first graduated college,

6:44

finding out that the majority

6:46

of people stop learning

6:48

right then and there, or if they didn't go to college and

6:51

they stopped learning after high school, like that process

6:53

of learning kind of dies

6:55

as part of what we call growing

6:58

up. And for me, that

7:00

was unacceptable. My dad raised

7:03

me with a culture of learning and he

7:05

was the type of dad that when I

7:08

had a question, go look it up. When

7:10

I don't know the definition of a word, go look it

7:12

up. There was never a give me the answer

7:14

kind of moment. So

7:16

learning has always been part of how I operate, but

7:21

I started asking myself this question. Now I

7:23

wanna pass it to you. If that isn't

7:26

just sort of built into how you work

7:28

on a day-to-day basis, that desire to

7:31

seek out new information and put yourself in uncomfortable

7:33

situations, how do you actually develop that?

7:36

Well, first, I do think it is built

7:38

into our humanity in

7:40

that when you look at very young

7:42

kids, that's what they're doing all the time,

7:45

right? They're taking

7:47

risks, they're experimenting, they're playing, they're failing

7:49

all the time and laughing about it and learning from it and

7:51

trying again. We're asking a tons of

7:53

questions. There's research that shows that kids

7:57

ask tons of questions until they start

7:59

getting... to school, right? And when they start getting

8:01

to school, they start kind of sitting at a desk

8:04

and listening to a teacher about maybe

8:06

talk about things that they might not be interested in. And

8:09

so for me, when I had that experience,

8:12

looking back at my schooling experience, the

8:15

thing that I learned that influenced me

8:17

the most in school is that learning

8:19

sucks, is that learning is irrelevant, learning

8:21

is useless, because that's, that's

8:24

what I learned in school is like this historical

8:26

feature or historical figures that

8:28

even relate to or places

8:30

that I couldn't imagine, or information

8:33

that I thought I never would use. And

8:35

so I think we do a lot get,

8:38

then we start seeing school as,

8:40

okay, this is the drag that we have to like

8:42

learn. And then once the day I graduate,

8:44

just like you said, I don't need to learn anymore,

8:46

then so lucky, you know, I'm done with learning because I'm

8:49

done with school, and that's really stuff.

8:51

And so we can reconnect with,

8:54

I think that curiosity and the

8:56

joy and awe of discovery that

9:00

we all had before we got to

9:02

school. One thing you had a recent

9:04

kind of episode that was about the

9:06

power of just starting, right, just like taking

9:09

tiny leaps, like getting started. And

9:11

that might be, you know, asking more

9:13

questions asking, like reminding ourselves

9:15

that we can never be 100% sure of something.

9:18

And so listening better to other people,

9:21

like, especially for example, just an example

9:23

of one, how we could get started is

9:25

just like, often, there are

9:27

people who have different perspectives than us. And

9:29

we just label them we say like, they're evil,

9:32

or they're X or Y. And we tend to think like,

9:34

we know what their intentions are, we know

9:36

what they believe. And rather,

9:39

if we like ask questions, or

9:41

if we don't feel safe, we can just listen to podcasts

9:44

of like people from different ideologies

9:46

of ours, and just like listen to what they

9:48

think and what their experiences have been. That's

9:51

an example of like, leaping into

9:53

the unknown and discovering more.

9:55

And that way, we can become more aware of

9:58

other people and be able to better empathize. But

10:00

so I think a lot of us to your point, like

10:03

we might have these immediate

10:06

negative emotional reactions when,

10:08

for example, we receive feedback or when we fail,

10:11

and that's kind of how our brain is currently

10:13

wired. And what we can do about

10:15

it is first kind of reflect on

10:18

how do I want to behave? Do I want to solicit

10:20

more feedback? Do I want to make mistakes

10:22

and learn from them? And then we

10:24

might still have that, we will immediately

10:27

have that negative reaction, emotional reaction,

10:29

but we can kind of pause and then

10:32

involve our cognition to think about it. Right. And

10:34

once I've decided when I make a mistake,

10:36

I want to like think about it or ask

10:39

other people for their ideas, then we

10:41

might still have that negative emotional reaction,

10:43

but if we pause and we stay there and

10:45

we give enough space to really do

10:48

the behavior that we want to do, then

10:50

the more that we choose that, the more that

10:52

we choose the learning behavior, the more that

10:54

our brain

10:55

fires, the neurons fire

10:57

in the way we want and the more that will become

11:00

easier and easier and automatic to do over time.

11:02

And eventually we won't have that negative emotional

11:05

reaction to begin with. Yeah. So learning

11:08

or learning to love learning, I guess, comes

11:10

down to learning things

11:13

that you are just inherently interested

11:16

in and practicing it, building that

11:18

muscle of learning. Eventually

11:20

it becomes more and more of

11:23

both a habit and something that you actually

11:25

crave. I want to jump back and I know this

11:27

isn't your area of expertise, so forgive

11:30

me, but something

11:32

you touched on with school

11:35

and its relationship to learning. And you're right, there

11:37

are a ton of studies on how

11:41

children essentially love to learn until

11:43

they hit school and then things

11:46

sort of shift.

11:48

But what I find interesting about this conversation,

11:51

there's a much larger debate

11:54

around the value of

11:56

the things you learn in school. And

11:58

the most common example is. is, at least

12:00

in the US, we don't learn how to file our taxes

12:03

or how to save money for retirement or any

12:05

of these like very practical things. And

12:07

instead we learn different

12:10

areas of math that unless you're studying

12:12

that you're probably never going to use.

12:15

So that's the common example that's given. As

12:17

I've grown, I've actually come

12:19

to sit on the side of like, actually

12:22

think school has an enormous amount of

12:24

value in terms of like, learning things

12:26

that don't matter, or quote unquote, don't

12:28

matter. I think part of the problem

12:30

that you touched on is when

12:33

I'm there and I'm the child

12:36

going through it, I'm not interested

12:38

and I don't care about these things

12:40

specifically. So I guess what I'm curious

12:42

about is what are your thoughts on

12:45

how we help kids

12:47

to maintain that that

12:49

culture of learning and that love of asking

12:51

questions and learning

12:54

while going through a system that

12:57

has to sort of be structured in this particular

12:59

way for any number of reasons. And

13:02

what changes would you want to see

13:04

in the school system to help

13:06

encourage that love of learning

13:09

long term?

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14:10

Well, I think that there are some

14:13

great schools and great teachers and classrooms

14:15

where they are showing very different

14:18

ways of achieving that in wonderful ways,

14:20

but they're not being kind of asked by the system.

14:23

So the first thing I would say is I think the

14:25

most important thing that schools could nurture in

14:27

kids is

14:29

kind of

14:30

lifelong learning, right? It's like being motivated

14:33

and effective lifelong learners, because when

14:36

a person is able to

14:38

learn whatever they want to learn, like if

14:41

they're filing their taxes for the first time,

14:43

they know how to learn how to do that.

14:46

I don't think that they should have all needed to

14:48

learn how to do it in school because that would be like, you

14:50

need to learn this and then

14:53

we're again imposing kind of what they should

14:55

be learning about. So I think the best

14:57

environments that I've seen is environments

15:00

where the child is directing

15:03

their learning. They're saying, I'm interested

15:05

in X, so let's go

15:07

do X or learn about

15:09

X or do a project in X. It might

15:12

have some structure, it might be some collaboration,

15:14

there might be some kind of limited choice

15:16

that kids choose from. But as long as

15:18

they're choosing something and they're directing their learning,

15:20

then we are, and in

15:23

the process, we're teaching them how

15:25

to learn, effective learning strategies, which again, like

15:28

there's nothing in the standards that are selling schools.

15:31

Your job is to teach kids

15:33

how to learn and to develop them as lifelong

15:35

learners. So that's not even a goal, right? But

15:38

if any teacher or any principal can

15:41

make that part of the goal as kids

15:44

are learning other things and as a system, we

15:46

could guide schools that way. So

15:48

I think giving kids choice, having them

15:51

drive their learning and then the teacher becomes

15:53

a facilitator and a guide and

15:56

what we're trying to get kids to learn is

15:58

what are the effective learning strategies. that you said they can apply

16:01

to whatever they're interested in, and they're going to

16:03

enable them anytime that they're in their life,

16:05

they're changing jobs, they're changing industries, they're becoming

16:07

a leader, they're becoming an executive, they're becoming a board

16:10

member or mentor, you know, they can continue to

16:12

learn how to do these things, rather

16:14

than think that they learned all those

16:16

necessary skills back in school. Yeah, I really

16:18

love that distinction, that

16:21

it's really about

16:23

the process of learning, learning

16:25

to learn, because that is like

16:28

the ability to learn is a skill, and

16:30

it's one that we

16:32

don't all get the opportunity to practice.

16:35

Like, yes, we go to public school

16:37

and that teaches us certain

16:39

things, but the emphasis

16:43

isn't placed on here's how

16:45

you actually learn and now you can apply

16:47

that to anything, it's placed

16:49

on here's how you learn this specific

16:51

thing. So I really love that distinction.

16:54

And I think going back to our

16:57

earlier point of when you

16:59

leave school, often that's the last time

17:01

you are purposely like choosing

17:03

to learn in your life. I think a

17:05

big part of that problem comes down

17:07

to we don't know how to learn,

17:10

we don't know how to keep that process

17:13

going after we leave. So

17:16

I really love that. Thank you for indulging me

17:18

on that convo. Let's talk a little

17:20

bit about it. Can I point out something? Please, go

17:22

ahead. I think

17:25

how to learn is really important. We both talked about that.

17:27

And something else that you

17:28

point you noted too that is really important also

17:30

is why learn. It's like when you

17:32

talked about reconnecting with the

17:35

joy of learning, we

17:37

learn not just, I mean, learning

17:39

for its own sake, because we're curious

17:42

is great.

17:43

But when we have something we care

17:46

about, and then that

17:48

gives us the energy and the effort

17:50

that we can apply to both learning and performing. Because

17:54

trying to get better and learn everything that's

17:56

not effective, it's not something that

17:59

is... It's joyful for most people. And

18:01

so rather like reconnecting with what do I care most

18:03

about and how do

18:05

I continue to grow on those things that are most

18:08

important.

18:09

So let's talk about the

18:11

chronic performance trap. You mentioned this

18:14

earlier. So it's this

18:16

idea that if you just keep

18:18

focusing on performing, you

18:21

are actually going to end up getting less

18:23

done overall. Talk

18:26

me through that at a high

18:28

level and how you've seen that play

18:30

out in either the organizations you've worked

18:33

with or the individuals you worked with. Sure.

18:35

So first for people to understand

18:37

the idea really clearly, it's helpful

18:40

to step out of our context and look at world-class

18:43

performers, very, very skilled people in domains

18:45

where performance can be objectively measured

18:48

and think about how do they become

18:50

so good. So if you think about a world-class

18:52

athlete or a world-class violinist,

18:54

let's think about an athlete. If they're

18:57

playing a tournament,

19:00

a very important game, they're

19:02

going to be in what I call the performance

19:04

zone. They're trying, all they care about is winning that

19:06

game. So they're going to try to minimize mistakes.

19:08

If they're having trouble with a particular move, they're

19:11

going to avoid that move during that match. But

19:14

then after the match, they're going to go to

19:16

their coach and say, Coach, I'm having trouble with this particular

19:19

move. Let's work on that. And

19:21

that's a very different activity. It's what I call

19:23

the learning zones when we're focused on improvement. It's

19:25

a very different activity than what we do during the match.

19:27

And what most of us are thinking that,

19:29

OK, to become a great tennis player, you

19:32

just need to play tennis for 10,000

19:34

hours and then you'll be great. But that's not true.

19:37

Like if you just play tennis, you actually

19:39

will get better when you're just starting

19:41

out and you're novice because you're so

19:43

bad that you can just learn from

19:45

not great learning strategies. But then once

19:47

you become proficient, you'll stagnate. And

19:51

so we need to be deliberate about

19:53

learning in order to continue to improve. But

19:55

what often happens in this case, the chronic

19:58

performance trap is that most operate

20:01

as if we were playing the match to

20:03

win all the time and that leads to

20:05

stagnation. So if you think about for example

20:07

somebody who is a salesperson right

20:10

and you have you're in the last week of the quarter

20:12

you're trying to meet Quora it's really

20:14

important for you to sell a lot this week it

20:17

would be reasonable to say okay

20:19

this week I'm just gonna be in my performance zone I'm gonna

20:22

make as many calls as possible and try to close

20:24

as many deals because I'm trying to maximize

20:26

my immediate performance and that's what the performance

20:28

zone does. It maximizes performance

20:31

in the short term. What happens

20:33

is that we start doing that every week as

20:35

if it were the last week of the quarter and then

20:37

we stay at our same level of effectiveness. So

20:40

the challenge is how do we

20:43

embed learning habits into the way

20:45

we operate so that it's just

20:47

how we work. We're working in

20:50

a way that's going to lead to more insights

20:52

and more strategies and more effectiveness working

20:54

smarter not just not harder and

20:56

we can achieve higher results over time and that involves

20:59

not only worried getting worried about getting

21:01

things done but also leaping and making

21:03

tiny leaps just like the name of your podcast.

21:06

Whether they're tiny or large you know leaps

21:08

the important thing is like we need

21:10

to be leaping we can't just be doing things as

21:12

best as we know how. Yeah so

21:15

to make this very personal

21:18

for for my current situation so I'm

21:21

I'm committed to making better

21:23

content going forward both for

21:25

the podcast and on other platforms

21:28

and looking at this

21:30

this concept applied to my situation

21:33

it would almost be better if I'm understanding

21:35

this right it would be better for me to make

21:38

less content but focus on

21:40

the time in between on improving

21:43

in some area of my content

21:45

whether that's in the editing or the scripting or the

21:47

idea generation or whatever it is whatever

21:50

areas I feel sort of weakest in in

21:52

between making content you take that

21:54

learning zone and you focus on improving there

21:57

so then you can apply it to the next

21:59

time you produce

21:59

rather than, at least

22:02

in my case, I can't produce daily

22:04

content and also have

22:06

that space. Is that kind of what you're saying? Yeah,

22:08

I think that's an implication and I

22:11

think that it doesn't have to take a ton of time in

22:13

between the content, but it's about kind

22:15

of what you do. So, for example, I'm

22:18

trying to become better as a podcast guest.

22:21

And so before we started recording, you

22:23

know, I asked for your feedback even

22:25

before I had started. So how did I do that? I asked

22:27

you, you know, are there sometimes things

22:29

that guests do or don't do that

22:32

you don't like? And so that way I can

22:34

learn, like, what are things that get in the way

22:36

of a great conversation so that I can learn from that

22:39

and make sure that I do or don't do those

22:41

things that work well. Or

22:44

in the case of producing content, like,

22:47

you know, when I do Kinos, I'm a

22:49

public speaker. And so I always

22:52

solicit feedback afterwards so I can learn from it. And

22:54

when there's live polling, I often use live polling.

22:58

At the end, I often ask

23:00

people on the poll, hey, how

23:02

did Wellness go for you in terms of rating

23:04

it? And then what can I do better next time?

23:07

And we, like, look at it together real time. And

23:09

then I just generate so

23:11

much data that I can learn from very quickly. And

23:14

it's very useful because what I'm trying is

23:16

to do to create content

23:18

that has an impact on

23:21

the listener or the watcher, right? And

23:23

so if I just I can watch my video

23:25

and reflect and that's helpful, but that takes

23:27

a lot of time. And I might not think

23:29

about things that the people that I'm trying

23:32

to impact do think about. So

23:34

like getting soliciting feedback so helpful

23:37

because then I can get their input

23:39

on what works well. And often I'm surprised

23:42

by things that I didn't know worked really well

23:44

or important to them and what I could do better. So

23:46

I would say soliciting feedback doesn't take a lot of time. It's

23:49

something that

23:49

we need to do if we need to continue to improve.

23:52

Yeah. So something I've been I did

23:54

an episode somewhat recently on

23:57

why chasing productivity. is

24:01

not necessarily the best move and instead

24:03

you should be chasing effectiveness. And it sounds

24:05

like there's a lot of crossover here between

24:07

this idea of the chronic performance trap and

24:10

falling into productivity for

24:13

productivity's sake as opposed to what

24:15

are you actually producing and is that actually

24:17

anything worth the

24:20

time and effort that you are spending. I'm

24:24

really curious from your perspective why is it

24:27

so easy to fall into this? Why

24:30

do we obsess over the

24:32

productivity side without thinking about

24:34

the effectiveness side? Well why is that

24:38

it's helpful to automatize

24:42

the habits and systems

24:44

that work well? Like we want to have

24:46

performance systems that

24:49

lead us to do the things that we meant to do. So

24:51

for example our to-do list, we

24:54

have an intention of doing things, we put them in

24:56

the to-do list, it's helpful to get it out of our

24:58

brain and then we can get in the mode of just

25:00

getting tasks done, one after the other after

25:03

the other and that's helpful to

25:05

be in that mode. But we need to

25:07

every once in a while kind of look

25:10

at, hey is this even

25:12

the right thing to do? So what

25:14

are my high priority goals,

25:16

my high level goals, my strategic goals

25:19

and how can I get better at those strategic

25:21

goals? So we want to apply a growth mindset

25:23

and the learning zone the most to

25:26

our top level goals. If we ask why,

25:28

why, why, why, why I want to get better

25:30

at this, how do I do that? It

25:32

might be by doing something very different than

25:34

what I'm doing right now or what's in my to-do list. So

25:37

I think we tend to get into myopia

25:40

a little bit, into like a tunnel

25:42

vision around our performance

25:45

systems and it prevents

25:47

us from looking at

25:49

the big picture, from thinking

25:52

about not just what are my performance goals

25:54

but also what are my learning goals and what am I

25:56

learning along the way, how am I going to change the way

25:58

I do things and also

25:59

it prevents me from

26:02

looking at opportunities that might arise in the

26:04

periphery that might be related

26:06

to my goals or to other goals that might

26:08

even become more like better

26:11

opportunities. And so I

26:13

think performance systems are really

26:16

important and productivity is important, but

26:18

we also need to make sure that we are... And I

26:21

love your word of effectiveness, I like that word better. But

26:24

yeah, to lead to more effectiveness,

26:27

we need kind of a harmony of

26:29

tools and habits and systems, not

26:32

just kind of one low level, you know,

26:34

getting things done system.

26:36

So let's talk a little bit about now, I think

26:39

everyone listening to this can kind of understand

26:42

the value of building learning

26:44

zones, as you call them into your

26:47

kind of like performance process. Let's

26:50

talk about once you're in them. So

26:52

I've just, again, just using

26:54

myself as an example, I've just published a piece

26:56

of content. Before

26:59

I work on the next one, I want to take a little

27:01

bit of time to really

27:04

re examine what I did well, what

27:06

I could have done better, what areas

27:08

I felt I couldn't execute on or

27:10

whatever it might be. We've talked about

27:13

one tool of getting feedback, asking

27:15

people whether through polls or whatever

27:17

it might be, what are some other tools and

27:19

strategies we can use to get

27:22

the data we need in this kind of like learning

27:24

zone? And then once we have that, how do

27:26

we actually look at applying

27:28

them?

27:30

So another kind of tool that I really

27:32

value is what

27:34

I call kind of building our air

27:37

sense, which is our kind of integrated

27:39

knowledge in our mind, like in this era

27:41

of the internet and artificial intelligence,

27:44

we might think that knowing things

27:46

is less important, because we can always like

27:48

ask Google, you know, or ask

27:51

chat GPT. But when we're having a conversation

27:54

when we're having a conversation here,

27:57

if there are things that are conversations

28:00

you've had with other guests that

28:03

are useful for you to bring up in this conversation.

28:05

Like the question is,

28:07

how do I,

28:08

if we're having this conversation and you

28:10

say something that's like a gem that is an insight

28:13

that is a new insight for me and it's something

28:15

that I would love to know long-term and to consolidate

28:18

into my long-term memory, it's just

28:20

gonna increase my performance right when I have a

28:22

conversation in the future. Then what do

28:24

I do? Because we tend to overestimate how

28:27

much we'll remember things. We think we're gonna

28:29

remember gems but then we forget

28:31

them. And so what is the

28:33

system that I have to embed

28:35

that into my brain? And for

28:38

me the most effective system that I've found is

28:40

to use digital flashcards. So

28:42

if there's something that you say that

28:45

I want to say, wow man, like if that comes up in

28:47

a conversation I want to bring up what

28:49

Greg said. I put it into my digital flashcard

28:51

system which I only use like for one or two

28:53

minutes each day but it

28:55

helps me then get that

28:57

cold so that whenever it becomes relevant

29:00

I can bring it into my brain. It brings me, it

29:02

increases my capability so when it

29:04

comes to creating content such a podcast

29:07

that is something that comes to my mind. What about you?

29:09

I mean you know a lot about learning so

29:11

what do you think are other strategies that you're saying

29:13

you're working to improve your content? What things

29:15

are you doing? Well just really quickly what's the

29:18

tool that you use for your digital flashcards?

29:20

Yeah so it's a tool that I actually developed

29:23

and I'm going to publish in like in

29:25

about two months I'm going to put it in the app store it's

29:27

called Unforgettable but there's a lot of

29:29

digital flashcard tools. What's

29:31

different about this tool is that it allows

29:34

you to enter an importance

29:36

and urgency to each item which I think

29:39

is really important. It makes sense,

29:41

it is game-changing for me but there's lots

29:43

of you if you search for digital flashcards in the

29:46

app store there's

29:46

lots of Okay well I will

29:48

I will link one for those of you listening but

29:51

also please let me know when this goes

29:53

live so I can let listeners know that it's

29:55

available as well but to your

29:57

question I think that's one of the areas

29:59

that But I, so to your point,

30:02

if like my ability to recall in

30:04

the moment, that's something that I

30:06

find to be incredibly important as well. When

30:10

I do and I haven't done too much

30:12

public speaking in the last like year, year and a half

30:15

ish, but prior to that, when I was speaking

30:17

more, I tend to work best

30:20

with as little

30:23

scripting as possible. And

30:25

so my presentation of course

30:27

outline, I know the story, I know where I'm going.

30:29

So on and so forth. But when I'm on

30:32

stage, I'm delivering on stage

30:34

and doing it as it comes

30:36

up. And so being able to pull

30:39

those things from my mind as

30:42

I need them is incredibly important.

30:44

And the same is true here in

30:46

the podcast. When I'm

30:48

recording episodes, if I'm

30:51

referencing a study, and I

30:54

want to pull the study name and author and

30:56

that kind of thing, usually that's on the

30:58

fly. And so I need to just know those

31:00

things going into it. So really practicing

31:03

recall outside of this, I think

31:05

is something that's important. But then in

31:07

the actual learning zone, taking

31:09

the time to commit

31:12

those things to memory. And my personal process

31:15

for that is spend

31:17

a little bit of time kind of memorizing it, and

31:19

then go and do something else and give yourself a chance

31:21

to kind of forget and then purposely

31:24

reach for it again. And I've found that that

31:26

exercise of purposely reaching for it

31:28

when it started to float away helps

31:31

cement it a little bit better. Beyond

31:33

that, I think when I look

31:35

at like hard skills, so for examples,

31:38

excuse me for example, when I'm doing

31:41

a video edit, and the last

31:43

time I did an edit, I couldn't do this particular

31:45

animation on a title,

31:48

and I didn't think it was worth it to learn it during

31:50

the edit. So I'm going to put that into my learning

31:52

space afterwards. I'll

31:55

spend that time to learn it and then it's kind

31:57

of the first thing I do. the

32:00

next time. So I'll pull on

32:02

that new skill or new information

32:04

first, largely because it's the most exciting

32:06

and I want to actually test it out. But also

32:09

I think it gives me the chance to whatever

32:11

issues I run into, which they are going to

32:13

be issues, because it's a new skill.

32:16

Whatever issues I run into, I still have time

32:19

in the edit to work through them

32:21

as opposed to leaving it to the end and running

32:23

into issues and not being able to get it done because

32:26

I'm up against deadline. Those are probably

32:28

the two biggest things that I can think of.

32:30

That's awesome. I love it. I

32:33

love those. And the last thing that

32:35

came to mind was also like working

32:38

with people that I can learn from and also

32:40

people that I can collaborate with so that

32:43

when we're working as a team, you know, we're

32:45

thinking about how

32:46

can we improve as a team.

32:49

And that might be kind of dividing and conquering or something.

32:52

Yeah, yeah, I love that. Let's

32:55

talk a little bit about

32:57

your process with this book.

33:00

So again, it's called the performance

33:03

paradox turning the power of mindset into

33:05

action. Why this

33:08

topic? And what

33:10

why now? Why does it need to come out

33:13

right now as opposed to next year or the year

33:15

after that? Yeah. So this

33:17

topic because

33:19

when when I started working

33:21

with Carol Dweck, Stanford

33:24

Professor Carol Dweck in 2007, I really buried the

33:26

lead

33:27

here. I

33:29

buried the lead.

33:32

Yeah, I buried the lead. You worked with Carol

33:34

Dweck and haven't mentioned it until 35 minutes

33:36

into this. I did. I buried the lead.

33:39

I'm learning. I don't have a lot of experience

33:41

on PR. So that's one term that I've recently

33:43

buried the lead. I did. I

33:46

actually when I was working in venture

33:48

capital, and I

33:51

became physically sick. And I realized, you

33:53

know, I had to change a lot of

33:55

things in my life, including my health. I

33:58

decided to go to grad school too. to develop

34:00

a different career that I really wanted to, that

34:03

I felt was meaningful and made a difference in all

34:05

people's lives. I applied and I didn't get into

34:08

grad school. And then two

34:10

years later reapplied and I got in and looking

34:12

back, that was such a blessing because Carol Dweck

34:14

wasn't there two years before. And so I wouldn't

34:16

have met her, but I was introduced to her. She wanted to

34:20

collaborate with people who wanted to get her message

34:23

out. She had recently published mindset,

34:25

her book, and you know, nobody

34:28

had heard of the term growth mindset at the time,

34:30

but we started an organization called

34:32

Mindset Works that helps schools foster growth

34:34

mindset cultures. And she's been my mentor

34:36

for the last 16 years. So when

34:38

I learned about her work, I realized

34:41

how my fixed mindset had gotten in

34:43

the way of my goals and what

34:45

I cared about. But I also learned

34:47

something that like very few people

34:49

have realized from her work and the

34:52

related work, which is that what you said before, a growth

34:54

mindset is necessary, but it

34:56

is not sufficient. We also need to understand

34:58

how to learn. We need to understand how

35:01

chronic performance and just try focusing

35:03

on getting things done as best that we know how is

35:05

problematic. And so I realized

35:08

that for myself. And then I started embedding

35:10

it into the workshops

35:12

that I was doing with professionals and leaders. And

35:16

I was iterating, like I was trying

35:18

different approaches, like thinking about different types

35:20

of mistakes, which is another chapter in my book. And

35:23

I was working with different frameworks

35:26

because people gravitated to our growth

35:28

mindset. This is really cool, but what do I do? Like

35:30

they were struggling with that, right? And so

35:32

I was trying to figure out how do

35:35

I make this actionable? And I tried

35:37

kind of deliberate practice, but deliberate practice

35:39

was interesting too, but it was really hard for

35:41

most people in the workplace to like spend 30 minutes

35:44

or an hour doing deliberate practice. And

35:46

so once I shared this

35:48

realization framework with them, their

35:51

eyes lit up and they had strong insights

35:53

and they started having strong conversations

35:55

about like how they wanted to lead

35:57

and how they So

36:00

I realized, oh, this is an insight

36:03

that I would like to make available to a lot more

36:05

people. And so I did a TEDx

36:07

talk on it and that became pretty

36:09

popular. It has over 4 million views.

36:12

And then the

36:14

book is, but it's only 11 minutes. So

36:16

it's like the core idea. The book is

36:18

a way to continue to make these insights

36:20

and strategies available to a lot

36:23

more people and to go a lot

36:25

deeper. So whether it's an individual

36:28

or a team or a leader organization,

36:30

how do we engage in the learning zone in

36:33

the 21st century workplace and

36:36

in the performance zone too, because they're both really

36:38

important. And so why

36:41

now? It's because I've been

36:43

growing and developing and now it's now

36:45

that I have kind of, I was probably,

36:47

you know, like it was a

36:49

big stretch goal, like a big

36:52

stretch project. That was a huge leap. It

36:54

wasn't a tiny leap. It was a huge leap to

36:56

take in this book. I've worked there

36:58

for three years. I interviewed

37:00

over 100 people to learn from people

37:03

and to uncover stories and strategies

37:05

of the great performers. What do they

37:07

do? Great leaders, great professionals.

37:10

And the book is filled with them. And it's

37:12

right now because this is when, you

37:14

know, I've learned enough to be able to create

37:17

a book that is useful to people. You know,

37:19

if I had grown faster, then

37:21

I would have done it sooner.

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37:52

Yeah. And I think to

37:55

the that there seems to be

37:57

a trend with your career here of of X. timing

38:01

because as you said had you

38:03

gotten into grad school two years sooner you

38:06

wouldn't have had the chance to work with Carol Dweck

38:08

but this book I think is

38:12

perfectly fit for the moment that we

38:14

exist in especially as it relates to

38:16

the workplace. A lot

38:18

of people listening to this show are

38:21

working remotely for the first time over the

38:23

last two three years and a huge

38:26

problem with working remotely is that we

38:28

sink into the productivity

38:30

mindset like the idea of I

38:33

just need to be on and I just need to produce

38:35

is not only something

38:37

that we gravitate towards because

38:40

we have all of this additional freedom

38:42

quote-unquote around our time and energy

38:45

but it's also kind of being pushed

38:47

as part of the expectation in many

38:50

organizations where you don't have to

38:52

commute so those two extra hours and that extra

38:54

energy should be going towards the

38:57

task. I think a book like this is

38:59

perfectly positioned to remind people that hey

39:02

that might actually be producing significantly

39:05

less value than if you

39:08

actually took the time to build these learning zones

39:10

into your day-to-day

39:11

and your process.

39:13

So excellent timing on that front. Well

39:15

that's it wasn't deliberate but I appreciate

39:17

the insight and I agree with

39:20

you and something I would add to it is that

39:22

a lot of us have learned a lot from

39:25

needing to go into Zoom and start

39:27

working virtually and just needing to do it

39:30

and because again we are novices

39:32

so we have a lot to learn just by

39:34

trying something different but then

39:36

we stagnate right because to your point

39:39

we just focus on just doing doing doing

39:42

and so what I would invite people to think

39:45

about is like you maybe you

39:47

did some learning that was reactive

39:49

to the challenges and do the pandemic and to needing

39:52

to start working virtually and how can

39:54

you make your learning

39:56

proactive and get better at getting

39:58

better so you continue to to grow and drive

40:00

your own program.

40:01

So the book is available everywhere right

40:03

now. Links to of course anywhere

40:06

that you could want to pick it up is in the description of this episode.

40:09

Eduardo, thank you so much for taking the time

40:11

to be here. Any last thoughts

40:13

before we jump off? Anything you want to leave the

40:15

listeners with? Thank you, Greg, for the work

40:17

that you do. I just love your podcast

40:20

and your message and it's great to have

40:22

a co-creator with you today. So

40:24

thanks so much for everything you do. Thank you,

40:26

it was excellent having you. Yeah,

40:29

it was wonderful to have you on the show. And

40:32

for those of you listening, thank you for taking the time

40:34

to be here with us and to prioritize

40:37

yourself going forward. I

40:39

can honestly say that given

40:41

the moment that we live in today,

40:43

this is a book that is going to give you

40:46

a number of excellent strategies

40:48

to build into your own day-to-day life. So,

40:51

and I mean, you've heard that here already.

40:53

So go pick it up, links are in the description

40:56

of this episode. And with that said,

40:58

remember that all big changes come from

41:01

the tiny leaps you take

41:04

every day.