Lainie Rowell

Your Brain is Your Superpower: Jim Kwik's Guide to a Limitless Mind

About Our Guest:

Jim Kwik, the founder of Kwik Brain, is a world expert in speed-reading, memory improvement, brain performance, and accelerated learning. After a childhood brain injury left him learning-challenged, Jim created strategies to dramatically enhance his mental performance. He has since dedicated his life to helping others unleash their true genius and brainpower to learn anything faster and live a life of greater power, productivity, and purpose.

Thrive Global Article:

Connect with and learn from Jim Kwik:

Website: JimKwik.com
Instagram: @KwikLearning
LinkedIn: Linkedin.com/in/JimKwik
Facebook: facebook.com/KwikLearning
Twitter/X: @JimKwik
YouTube: youtube.com/c/JimKwik
Book: Limitless EXPANDED: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, and Unlock Your Exceptional Life

About Lainie:

Lainie Rowell is a bestselling author, award-winning educator, and TEDx speaker. She is dedicated to human flourishing, focusing on community building, social-emotional learning, and honoring what makes each of us unique and dynamic through learner-driven design. She earned her degree in psychology and went on to earn both a post-graduate credential and a master's degree in education. An international keynote speaker, Lainie has presented in 41 states as well as in dozens of countries across 4 continents. As a consultant, Lainie’s client list ranges from Fortune 100 companies like Apple and Google to school districts and independent schools. Learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠linktr.ee/lainierowell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Website - ⁠LainieRowell.com⁠

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Transcript:

Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Well, hello, Jim. Thank you so much for being here.

Jim Kwik: Lainie, so good to be here.

Looking forward to this conversation.

Lainie Rowell: Oh, me too. By the way, is it okay if I call you

Jim Kwik: Jim? Yeah, yeah, of course.

Lainie Rowell: You know, I always like to hear people's backstory. There's no one that's more important to ask this question to than you, and I want to frame it in a way that is very specific to you. I'd love for you to share a little bit about your origin story.

Superheroes have, right? Superheroes have stories, and I think you're a superhero, so.

Jim Kwik: Oh, you do your research for sure. Yeah, I mean, my inspiration was my desperation. You know,, by trade, my mission really as a brain coach is to help people have their best brain possible.

I didn't have one for a good part of my life. When I was five years old, I had an unfortunate accident, or fortunate, depending on how you look at it. In kindergarten class, I took a very bad fall headfirst into a radiator, and I had this traumatic brain injury. And from it, I had these what people labeled as learning disabilities, processing issues.

At the age of five, six, seven, I would get these migraines every single day, really poor balance, poor focus. Teachers would repeat themselves over and over again, and I would just pretend to understand, but I didn't really, nothing really registered. It took me three years longer to learn how to read, and when I was nine years old, I remember slowing down in class, and I was being teased by the other kids, because I just didn't understand the lessons like everybody else.

And a teacher came to my defense. She pointed to me for the whole class and said, leave that kid alone. That's, That's the boy with the broken brain. And so that really became my, my moniker, that label became my limit. And it's something I heard on a, on a regular basis. Not only being teased using that, you know, broken brain, but I said it to myself all the time.

So every single time I did badly in school or wasn't picked for sports or you name it, I would always say, Oh, cause I have the broken brain. And eventually when I was 18, I met a mentor that turned me on to some more resources and resourcefulness. And I really got curious about how the brain works so I could work my brain.

Like, how does my memory work so I could work my memory? How do I learn how to learn as opposed to just learning what to learn? Like math and history and science all the classes they teach in school And so really what I'm known for the past 32 years is teaching people two things, Brain optimization in terms of really taking care of the hardware that three pound matter between our ears, which is our number one wealth building asset that we have and Also the software which is how to focus how to concentrate how to how to memorize things how to read faster and understand more how to think more clearly how to solve problems.

I want this world to be just better and brighter one brain at a time.

Lainie Rowell: I've read your book, Limitless Expanded Edition just released in November, which I really encourage people to read my five star Amazon review already out there.

It just is such a compelling story, and even if someone hasn't had something to the extreme of the brain trauma that you experienced, I think there's a good portion of us that can relate on some level to school not working for them. And, there's such importance in your work, and particularly, this, learning how to learn.

And you overcame such tremendous struggles. And I even just talked to you about the migraines, like migraines are so debilitating. It's such a lot to overcome. And then you made it your mission to help everyone. Can we talk a little bit more about meta learning and how important it is to learn how to learn?

Jim Kwik: Yeah, so meta learning is the art and science of learning how to learn. So Limitless really is a book on brain optimization, mindset, and learning how to learn with chapters on memory and focus and studying. And I just always thought it was interesting. And again, in school where they teach you what to learn, but not how to learn, you know, you go to somebody and say, like a teammate or your children, or whatever, say focus, or remember, or study. It's like, kind of like going to somebody saying, play the ukulele, who's never really been taught how to do that. And I think if there's one skill to master today, it's our ability to learn rapidly, and translate that learning into action is an incredible competitive advantage.

In a world where there's so much information, I believe the faster you can learn, the faster you can earn. Because knowledge, today, is not only power, knowledge is profit. And I don't just mean financial, that's kind of obvious. When you can easily remember client information, product information, and give sales scripts or speeches without notes.

When you can read substantially faster and absorb more information, clearly you have a big advantage in your career, in school, in life. But I also mean just like all the treasures and, you know, for your relationship, everything gets better when your brain is better and everything gets better in your career and your personal health and your productivity and your overall performance.

So yeah, and it's one of those things in school where I feel like they take it for granted, where you just assume, you know, how to be able to memorize something. It's really hard nowadays, especially with technology to maintain your focus with our devices, right? With every ring and ping and ding and app notification, social media alert, we're like, driven to distraction.

We're also driven to overwhelm. Nowadays, to keep up with, you know, your industry or your schooling, your subjects that you're studying, it feels like you're taking a sip of water out of a fire hose. And it's just gonna get worse, that distraction, that deluge, you know, that Another thing about forgetfulness, they call it digital dementia, where we're outsourcing our memories to our devices, and it's storing everything you need to remember.

It's keeping your to dos, it's keeping your schedules, it's memorizing, it's holding all your phone numbers, all that stuff. And again, I don't want to memorize hundreds of phone numbers, but it should be very concerning when we've lost the ability to remember one, or remember our PIN number, our passcode, or something we just You know, we're going to say, or something we just read, or something that was said to us, or somebody's name.

I feel like when we, we have these lapses, we lose time, we lose precious opportunity, we can lose trust. And on the other side, you know, it's been my experience. We have the largest academy on accelerated learning and brain optimization in the world. Students in every country in the world, so we get a lot of feedback.

I, I realize that regardless of your age, your background, your education level, your financial situation, gender history, IQ, you know, certainly genetics could play a part of it, but really we have more control than we realize. And it's important to be able to really delve into our brain.

I often wear brains on my shirts or points to my brain in photographs. Cause I want people to just, realize that we need to take care of the thing that we don't see all the time. Like, you see, your skin or your hair, your clothes, your car, so you know when it's kind of getting messy or deteriorating, but we don't see the thing that controls everything in our life which is our brain, and I really think it's our superpower.

And so, yeah, it's a real mission.

Lainie Rowell: When you talk about the digital deluge and the digital dementia, that really resonates with me. I have almost tried to gamify the gamifying that I know is happening to me through my phone. So I'm trying to use some of the things that are in there to not get distracted all the time. So there's parental controls and all these things.

I turn time limits on for myself. I have it on my phone that I actually cannot get to any social media until a certain time of the day. Because I just find, for me personally, if I start my day...

Jim Kwik: How's that been for you?

Lainie Rowell: It's been life changing. So I have for years had my phone on silent. Do not disturb is basically how I live, which can sometimes be annoying. And I do sometimes have to turn it off. Like, our house is quiet because no one has notifications turned on at our house.

My husband has his phone on silent, I have my phone on silent.

Jim Kwik: Wow.

Lainie Rowell: But I will have guests stay at our house sometimes, and their work doesn't permit that. They have to be available. It is anxiety for me. I am so stressed out when I hear it. I know not everyone can live in silent or do not disturb, but it's been life changing for me.

Jim Kwik: Yeah, I think do not disturb. I think airplane mode are two of the most important functions on our phone. I'm pretty pro technology. It allows even this conversation to happen. It's a wonderful way to educate, to empower people, but sometimes our devices do drive us to distraction or forgetfulness, or sometimes our devices do the thinking for us, or sometimes with all the information and doom scrolling, we can be overloaded, overwhelmed, and it could zap our mental energy, and we wonder why we're just spent so early, or we feel like a little bit sad or depressed because there's all this comparison online that we have unconsciously, and, you know, just to remind everyone who's listening.

And they might be listening on their device which is pretty meta. I would say that technology is a tool for us to use, but if the technology is using us, then we become the tool. And I think you're a great example that we can influence and control these devices to really manage the input.

And because I feel like sometimes it's important to disconnect, to reconnect to ourselves. And it's great when you're using technology for something that's purposeful, even entertainment or distraction, if you need that. But if we're doing it out of like habit, because we're conditioned to do it because every like, and share, and comment, and cat video, whatever, we have this dopamine flood, the molecule more, and it just makes us like keep on going to infinity then I, then I feel like if it's taking us away from the things that are important in life, then we should have some kind of intention or mindfulness to the things that we put our focus on.

Lainie Rowell: I love technology. I worked for Apple for six years. I was in the room when Steve announced the iPhone.

I am a huge advocate of technology. I'm also a real advocate of just being super intentional. Everything you're saying, like just being really thoughtful about when is it helping and when is it hindering. And that's such, to me, an important point in your work is you're talking about well, yes, we want to use the device to capture the phone numbers.

But when are we challenging our memory? When are we exercising that muscle, right? So what are some tips you have for helping us to either improve our memory or be less distracted? Something to get out of that digital deluge and digital dementia.

Jim Kwik: Yeah, we could go through quite a few practical, pragmatic things that I feel like could really make a difference in our productivity and our performance and definitely our peace of mind.

So obviously I don't think anyone would say it would be good to be on their phones all day, 24 seven, right? And also I think everyone could agree, you know, zero is not really an option, you know, in today's age. So there's something in between and it's always different for, for each person.

There's a quote in Limitless Expanded that says life is the letter C between the letters B and D or B stands for birth and D is death and life is C is choice. That we always have a choice. to, to engage into something, you know, we always choice what, what to eat that day or who to spend time with or what we're going to feed our minds, you know, and so much more when it comes to our devices my protocol personally, and I invite people to just maybe test it and on themselves, because ultimately I think the listener is the best expert about themselves.

I have a non negotiable where I just won't touch my phone in the first 30 minutes of the day in the last 30 minutes a day. It just works for me. I'm not saying it's practical for every single person, but here's why. Because behind every principle, there's a promise. When you wake up in the morning, you're very relaxed and you're very suggestible.

And if the first thing you do is pick up your device, which I did for years, I just feel like afterwards, I'm very sensitive to how I feel. And I don't feel any more mentally healthy after everything. I feel very distracted. I feel more overwhelmed and very reactive, meaning that I feel like when you pick up your phone, it wires your brain in that very relaxed state when you first wake up to be distracted.

And you wonder why you can't focus later on that day because the first thing you started your day with was flexing your distraction muscles. And whatever you do consistently, you get better at. And I think we're getting better at being distracted. And we wonder why we can't focus with our significant others with, people at work, with our clients and customers, and it's not only just making us distracted, it's making us more reactive, meaning you can get one message, social media message, a voicemail message email, all day.

text message, WhatsApp, whatever, and it could highjack your mooood for hours! And I just don't know anybody who could build a quality life to the way they want if they're just reacting to things, as opposed to being proactive. For me, the alternative is what do I do? I mean, I have my morning routine, which people can see online.

And I'm not saying do everything, but just everything is very intentional and I have a family, and I have a pretty, pretty intensive career, but I still make time because I think if you want to win the day, you just have to win that first hour of the day.

So what I do is I just, , for my mind's sake and my mental health sake and my performance sake, I would just keep my eyes closed. When I wake up instead of grabbing my device off my nightstand, I just don't keep it on my nightstand. I keep it in our bathroom. So it just, habit design 101 is in your environment, setting you up for success, and you wanna make the things that are good for you easier and you wanna make the things that are not so good for you, more difficult. So you don't have to use willpower. But I just lie in bed for two minutes and I imagine myself coming back to bed like.

I finished the day and my wife asked me how my day was and I just imagined myself saying, wow, today was really great. You know, we crushed it today. It was amazing. And then I asked myself what had to happen in order for me to feel that way. And then I work backwards from there because it's clear in let's say sports when you celebrate, because there's a clear scoreboard, but I don't think people have a really scoreboard and most people use our to do list. I don't think that's probably the best way because we can have 100, 200 things on that to do list and never get through those things.

So I go backwards, I say, in order for me to feel that excited about how that day went, what are three things personally and three things professionally that happened? And I focus on those six things throughout the day, because it's not even about time management. For me, it's about priority management.

And the maxim there is the most important thing is to keep the most important thing, the most important thing. And I make those six things the most important thing that day, and it's very achievable. I find that if you're persistent, you could achieve it, but if you're consistent, you get to keep it, right?

And so I focus on those six things. I usually don't touch my phone, honestly, until I get one of those six things done. So that's kind of my. Just simple things that I do. And then the last half hour a day, I just don't want to touch my phone for a number of reasons. One is the light that comes out of it.

You know, could fool your mind into thinking it's still daylight and you know, create that melatonin, which is the, the hormone to help you relax and kind of a trigger to. to go in that parasympathetic, rest and digest, that sleep kind of space. But I also don't pick up my phone, not only for that, is I just don't want to see a thousand different contexts.

I don't want my executive functioning to be stimulated like that, especially a lot of the stuff that's coming in unfiltered. And I think it's so important to stand guard to your mind with all the news and some of the things that might not be the most empowering thing to look at before you want to just rest and be safe and go in that place. And so I just make the choice not to do those things. And instead I have like an evening routine that just really works for me to get good sleep and perform well the next day.

And then throughout the day, there are times where like, like even now I haven't been on my phone for the past couple hours and I just, I feel like I'm more creative that way.

And again, Not everybody can do that. So I'm not suggesting that they can, but when I'm on it, I mean, I'm not so strict about it where it creates anxiety. It's similar to diet. I realized that when I was so strict with my diet, it kind of canceled out. I had so much anxiety around eating that I, it just canceled out any benefit that I would get from that specific diet.

We always make these choices. There's always a trade off for it. And, you know, if I need to just turn off and just kind of binge watch something for half an hour, then I'll do that because it serves a purpose. But I also won't complain about the things like, so I don't mind people could do whatever they want to do.

Who am I to. just, you know, to impose, like, you know, my thoughts on people. But if people are complaining about things and they're not doing something about it, then I feel like that we can't be upset by the results we didn't get from the work we're not doing. And if our devices are keeping us from doing that work that could advance some area of our life, then I feel like then it's, it's something we should.

Be intentional. More intentional about.

Lainie Rowell: Absolutely. And I really appreciate you framing it, how you're starting your day and ending your day. And when you're managing those priorities, you are allowing yourself to be in a better state of learning and flow, which to me, flow is really important.

That's just something I wanna get into is often as I can, ideally at least once a day. So you have to make that space. I appreciate that.

Jim Kwik: No doubt. Yeah. Yeah. I hope everyone who's listening would challenge themselves they don't have to take our words for it, but maybe they could see how they react, you know, and maybe do a little bit of a a digital detox or set borders and boundaries because I think part of self care is not just eating well and going to the spa. I really think part of self care is putting borders and boundaries around the things that are important to you. Like, your peace, your time your relationships, , the place, because sometimes we do just doing so much and people get burnt out.

And I found that sometimes we're Burnt out not because we're doing too much. Sometimes we feel burnt out because we're doing too little of the things that really matter. And sometimes what's taking us off the things that are focusing on things that matter and things that don't matter as much. And those could include our devices.

Lainie Rowell: Okay. I have like 20 questions for you.

Jim Kwik: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's go. We could do rapid fire.

Lainie Rowell: What are some of the things that we can do to increase the health of our brain. I'll let you take it there. If that's cool.

Jim Kwik: Yeah. There's a whole chapter in the new book on brain nutrition. This is something that people often ask about.

And I think it's important again, taking care of the hardware, right? You can learn the processes and we have plenty of free content online and podcasts and teaching people how to read faster and improve their memory, but you also have to take care of that three pound organ between our ears called our brain.

So there's a higher science called neuro nutrition. And these are elements that help you to be able to have the best brain possible. Now, I always prefer people can get it through food. We talk about some of the best brain foods like avocados and everyone's a little bio individual, right?

So take that in mind. Some people have certain allergies to certain foods or food sensitivities, but generally Some of my favorite brain foods, avocados, which are high in monounsaturated fat and your brain is mostly fat. Blueberries, I call them brain berries. They're very neuroprotective. Broccoli has an ingredient called sulforaphane, which is very important for cognitive health and performance.

Olive oil You know, we've heard a lot about olive oil, eggs if your diet allows, the choline in eggs is a nutrient that plays a vital role in, in brain health. It's a critical component of acetylcholine, which is a neurotransmitter that supports memory and cognitive function. Wild salmon and sardines.

Again, you hear about the omega 3 fatty acids. So if you're not getting like the choline from eggs or potentially other different sources like soybeans, you might want to supplement with it. If you're not getting the the omega 3 DHA, those fatty acids that are crucial for brain health from like fish clean, clean sources.

You might want to supplement with them, but supplementing with the B vitamins are so very important to brain health. You know, B6, B9, B12, Magnesium is vital for brain health, promoting better learning, memory also your mood. And then there's an area that we talk about in the book called nootropics or nootropics.

People pronounce it differently. And these are a little different than supplements. These are very specific substances that can enhance cognitive function executive function, memory, creativity, mental energy, motivation. So, so we put A lot of them in the book and reference the human studies in there.

People get a comprehensive list at BrainNutrition.com as our gift. BrainNutrition.com. Some of the ones that I'll highlight in this conversation, Ashwagandha. Ashwagandha is an adaptogenic herb. It improves mental and physical resilience and may help you to reduce stress. And we know chronic stress has been shown to shrink the human brain.

So it helps with stress, anxiety, improves cognitive function. There is a whole coffee fruit extract that I write about in the book it's a by product of the coffee plant, so it's usually discarded, it doesn't have any caffeine, but it has strong antioxidant effects, a positive impact on cognitive function, there's another nootropic, nootropic called phosphatidylserine, which is a phospholipid, and these are kind of, you know, kind of big, big words for people that didn't Study this, but it's an integral part to brain cell membranes, it's been shown to improve memory, learning, cognitive function.

There's another favorite is Altheanine, which is an amino acid found in green tea, which is if you're watching this on video, I'm drinking it now it's a popular nootropic, it promotes relaxation without the drowsiness, and it can enhance brain function Bacopa. is another one probably aligned with that.

It's an herb used in Ayurvedic medicine to improve cognition and memory. And then going back to the foods, turmeric is a brain food, but it's the active ingredient, which could also be useful to supplement with as curcumin which is a potent anti inflammatory and toxin and benefits. It's been shown potentially to cross the blood brain barrier.

Could lead improvements in cognitive function particularly in patients with Alzheimer's. And so I'm very passionate about that. I lost my grandmother to Alzheimer's when I was seven years old. So these are just some of my favorites. And again, people can get a comprehensive list at brainnutrition.com. And we update it regularly with the ones that that I'm, I'm excited about in our team and our family uses.

Lainie Rowell: I really appreciate you pointing out the bio individual, as I believe I phrased it. And I think this transcends every aspect of our life. We're all unique and dynamic.

So there's no like one recipe for this is how to do it for every single person, right? So that's why going back to when we were talking about being intentional with our devices, there's no recipe. It's like, that's what works for you. This is what works for me. Same thing with the neuro nutrition. And I also think it's helpful to kind of know, and you talk about this in the book too, the brain types by animal, you, can you, I can't, I'm not going to explain it well, so I'm just going to throw it to you, you can go from here.

Jim Kwik: That's a great, that's a great transition. Similar to how foods, people are bio individual. And not everything works for everybody, whether it's supplements or food. Same thing with learning. I realized that after coaching, you know, for as long as I have that some people will really thrive with a technique.

Other people, it won't really work for them quite as well. And so, because everybody is different, have. Different kinds of brains and we've kind of identified four different brain types. And just like there's personalized medicine based on your genetics, or personalized nutrition based on like your microbiome.

You know, so you can see what you really would thrive with. There's personalized learning and leading based on your, your dominant brain type. And so There's an assessment we put online at mybrainanimal.com, mybrainanimal.com, and it's a four minute assessment. There's also a full chapter in the book, and in four minutes, very easy, you could see what your dominant brain type is.

And just really as quick summary, think about brain code, CODE, and these are the letters and it's an acronym. The C is your cheetah, and the cheetah , their dominant trait is action, and so they have strong intuition, they're very fast implementers, they thrive in fast paced environments because they can adapt very quickly, and you might identify as a cheetah or know somebody, you know, who would fit those traits.

The O in code are your owls, and your owls, their dominant trait is logic. And so they love data, they love facts, and they love figures. They make decisions very rationally, right? And these two animals, they would invest different, they would buy different, right? They would also read and remember differently.

So we give people a personalized learning track based on their assessment after they take the assessment in the book or online. The D are your dolphins, and their dominant trait is creativity. They have very strong pattern recognition, great problem solvers. They could often have a vision for themselves or maybe their business or their brand that other people can't yet see.

And they're very passionate about what they see in their minds. And then finally, the E are your elephants, and these their dominant trait is empathy. And these are your community builders. These are people that they have high levels of empathy, so they are very compassionate, they are very supportive, they bring people together.

And it was interesting, when my team took this assessment, A hundred percent of the people on our team were on my customer service team. They're elephants because they, and we didn't hire for them, but people will go and choose roles and responsibilities based on their strengths. So they, they have high empathy.

There are community builders in our app and, on social media. They want people to feel seen and heard. Our CFO, they took the test and they are, they are an owl. And I assume you want an owl, someone who loves numbers and loves the data, could do forecasting and projections and expense reports.

My business partner, our CEO, she's a dolphin. She has this vision, you know, like a Walt Disney or a, And JK Rawlings. And she's bringing us closer to that vision and mission. And so everybody's a little bit different. But I realize, you know, again, after three decades, it's not, it's not how smart you are. It's how are you smart?

It's not how smart you are. It's how are you smart? And we all have ways of expressing genius. And so this way, once you understand your brain type, then we give you protocols on how to read better based on which animal you are and how to remember names based on which brain animal you are.

You could also use this for parenting to see what your kids are, what your spouse is. You can use this for hiring. You can use this for managing. You can use this for sales, right? You know, a cheetah wants, if they're selling to you, they're going to get right to the point.

They don't want to waste time beating around the bush because they have a very clear goal in mind. They sprint, right? But an owl could respect a well thought out presentation, social proof and case studies showing that your product or service works. A dolphin, you would sell them by talking about the vision and how their future aligns with that vision.

Or an elephant. If you're selling to an elephant, great, give them facts, you know, and, and great, give them a set goal and a vision, but really what they want is the relationship, right? They want to feel that they trust you, that there's a rapport, that they feel seen, that they feel heard, and those elephant qualities.

And we're not anyone one animal, just like if you're right handed doesn't mean you don't use your left hand. It's just, we have a natural propensity to go to our strengths. And when we understand what our strengths are, we could find roles, responsibilities, career paths, where we could be in our element, where we really thrive, where there's less friction and more passion and purpose.

And so I feel like it's so important nowadays to, to have the curiosity to know yourself. And that's why people. You can go to therapy or you journal or you meditate or you take assessments like this because it gives you greater insight and introspection to who you are. And then once you have the curiosity and know yourself, also having the courage to be that person, right, to be yourself also to be bold.

And then I feel like. Life is difficult for one of two reasons, either you're leaving your comfort zone, right, and sometimes it's hard to be that person that you think that you are, you claim that you are, and then I think life is also difficult if we stay in our comfort zone too long, and life can get very difficult also, and so I feel like there's this balance, and even getting that flow state is that balance of where challenge and competency, you know there's a collision there where the challenge is not so great where in our competencies isn't so high where we feel bored, but also we don't want to be in an environment where our challenge is so great and our capability is too low, then we're stressed, right?

But again, in a flow state where we lose a sense of self, lose our sense of time, where things become effortless, where we'd be able to feel our best and perform our best, part of that is really understanding who we are and leaning into it, because I truly believe to all the listeners and readers that there is a version of yourself that's patiently waiting, right?

And. The goal is we show up every single day until we're introduced, because you are the greatest project you're ever going to get to work on, and so we need to take time, make time, to to create magic.

Lainie Rowell: That was beautiful to me, especially what I hear you saying is know yourself and also know that you're not finished.

I always say unique and dynamic because I think we are all so different, but we're also constantly changing and evolving and that's. That's the goal, right? We're getting better every day. I hope to be better tomorrow than I am today. Okay, I'm looking at the clock. I would talk to you for hours if I could, but I want to respect your time.

So, first of all, I want to just say I really want people to check out the book, check you out on the socials. What would you say is the best way for people to connect with you and your work, Jim?

Jim Kwik: In whatever the learning style they prefer, if they like to read Limitless Expanded is we're very proud.

Limitless, the first edition, which came out a few years ago, did over a million copies. So we donate all the proceeds to charity to build schools for children in need and Alzheimer's research for women. Women are twice as likely to experienced, experienced Alzheimer's than men. If you'd like to listen, certainly the book's on Audible.

And we have a podcast, 400 episodes. Roughly every episode is only 20 minutes social media is a wonderful place I mentioned a couple of assessments and downloads at brainnutrition.com and mybrainanimal.com, but yeah, 95 percent of what we put out there is absolutely free, and so we really want to democratize this and bring this information out to the world, so I really appreciate the opportunity to share this with your community and, I want to thank you so much.

I feel like nowadays so many people like out of fear, they're shrinking what's possible to fit their minds, and I understand that because, you know, fear, you want to be safe, and maybe, and be a little bit I don't know, Less risk averse, but I feel like also that we could do the opposite.

We could expand our minds to fit all that's possible and that would be my invitation to everybody to take one small simple step. I don't know what it is maybe it's taking a screenshot of you know, wherever you're consuming this and tagging us both there so we get to see it and share one choice that you're going to make for a better, brighter brain or share your brain animal or, you know, share one thing you're going to do.

Maybe it's not going on your phone in the morning first thing or at night, or maybe you're going to eat more blueberries or you want to share your brain animal or something like that. But I feel like when you share it, you get to learn it better because when we teach something, we get to learn it twice, and that way your fans, your followers, your family, your friends, whoever is following the person listening or reading this right now can have a positive impact also, you know, on them.

Lainie Rowell: Oh my, okay, so my K 12 educator heart is just bursting because I love, I always talk about teaching others.

Because that is one of the best ways to learn. Also, you've universally designed, we talk about universal design for learning in K 12, you've universally designed your content, you make it so accessible and that is just so powerful. So thank you so much for your time. I know I have to let you go. I'm going to put all of your contact information in the show notes.

Thank you so much, Jim.

Jim Kwik: All right, have a great one. Bye now.

Lainie Rowell

March 19, 2024

Episode 94 - Emotional Contagion: Catching Feelings That Improve Well-Being

Lainie Rowell

March 19, 2024

Shownotes:

In case you haven't heard, I'm thrilled to bring you something new: I'm aligning podcast episodes with ⁠⁠⁠Thrive Global articles⁠⁠⁠!

That’s right, my friends, this means you can choose your adventure with each story - read the article, listen to the episode, or explore both.

This episode is about "Emotional Contagion: Catching Feelings That Improve Well-Being" and you can find the article on Thrive Global!

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Emotional Contagion: Catching Feelings That Improve Well-Being⁠⁠⁠⁠

I hope you enjoy whatever adventure you choose!

About Lainie:

Website - ⁠LainieRowell.com⁠

Evolving with Gratitude, the book is available ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And now, Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You and by You is available too!

Both Evolving with Gratitude & Bold Gratitude have generous bulk pricing for purchasing 10+ copies delivered to the same location.🙌

Just fill out the forms linked above and someone will get back to you ASAP!

Lainie Rowell

March 12, 2024

Episode 93 - Shattering Collective Illusions About Learning and Working with Todd Rose

Lainie Rowell

March 12, 2024

Shownotes:

Join me for an eye-opening chat with Todd Rose, where we dive into the intersection of neuroscience, psychology, and learning. Ever wondered why the one-size-fits-all approach in schools and workplaces feels so limiting? Todd's here to explore how we can move beyond that, appreciating everyone's unique talents and paving the way for systems that truly nurture individual potential. This conversation is all about challenging the status quo and discovering how we can all thrive by being ourselves. If you're ready for a fresh take on unlocking human potential, this episode is for you.

Trailer

The End of One-Size-Fits All: Shattering Collective Illusions About Learning and Working

About Our Guest:

Todd Rose is the co-founder and CEO of Populace, a nonpartisan think tank committed to ensuring that all people have the opportunity to pursue fulfilling lives in a thriving society. Prior to Populace, he was a faculty member at Harvard University where he founded the Laboratory for the Science of Individuality and directed the Mind, Brain, and Education program. Todd is the best selling author of Collective Illusions, Dark Horse, and The End of Average. He lives in Burlington, Massachusetts.

Thrive Global Article:

Connect with and learn from Todd Rose:

Website – ToddRose.com

Books – Collective Illusions, Dark Horse, and The End of Average

About Lainie:

Website - ⁠LainieRowell.com⁠

Evolving with Gratitude, the book is available ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And now, Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You and by You is available too!

Both Evolving with Gratitude & Bold Gratitude have generous bulk pricing for purchasing 10+ copies delivered to the same location.🙌

Just fill out the forms linked above and someone will get back to you ASAP!

Transcript:

Lainie Rowell: Hello friends. Wow. Get ready. Todd rose is someone I have had on my guest wishlist for a very long time. So I'm super excited to share this conversation. Where we're going to talk about the intersection of some of my favorite topics, neuroscience, psychology, and learning. Todd is absolutely brilliant and he makes these concepts.

We talk about very accessible. We're going to get into the importance of appreciating the unique and dynamic in each of us. We talk about challenging. The one size fits all model that we see in education and the workplace. We also talk about designing. Cultivation systems that unlock human potential.

A little bit about Todd before we jump in.

Dr. Todd rose is the co-founder and CEO of populace, a non-partisan think tank committed to ensuring that all people have the opportunity to pursue fulfilling lives in a thriving society. Before. Populace. He was a faculty member at Harvard university where he founded the laboratory for the science of individuality. And directed the mind brain and education program. Todd is the best-selling author of collective illusions, dark horse, and the end of average. I am a long time fan and follower of Todd's work. And you're going to love this episode with that here's Todd.

Welcome, Todd. Thank you for being here with us today.

Todd Rose: It's great to be here.

Lainie Rowell: I'm very excited to chat with you about your work.

You have been someone I have been looking to and following for quite a while, not to creep you out, but I am very familiar with your work and so I'm excited for this conversation. Now, this is me partly being a linear person, but also I just don't feel like there's any way to not start with your story.

So can you tell us a little bit about just the early days that whole journey, if you will.

Todd Rose: Yeah, no, I think, I think you're right. I mean, in this case, there, it, there's a through line. Yeah, so I grew up in, you know, rural America, and for me, which is sort of funny given the things that I do now school did not work.

And, and I will say, I, I definitely contributed to that not working, you know, I probably was not the easiest kid, but, as you know being in education, as you are, the way our system's structured now, if you struggle, that tends to compound, you know what I mean? You don't learn certain things, you get moved on, and then you just, it, it culminated for me I like to say I chose to drop out of school but in reality, they just kicked me out, because it was like, early in my senior year in high school, I had a 0.9 GPA, and there's no way I can graduate, so the principal called my parents and said, He's just messing around so I will say we mutually agreed that I would leave I was oblivious to like what that could actually mean for my life That's fine. It'll be fine. Shortly after that my girlfriend at the time found out she was pregnant.

We got married It ended up by the time I was 20, one we had two kids And I'd had a string of minimum wage jobs probably a dozen of them and we were on welfare and it was just not going well. And so, really out of desperation, it wasn't out of like an epiphany of like, I knew a lot, I just knew this wasn't working.

As you know, look, when you have kids, it's your life. It does change. You feel a responsibility for these innocent human beings. They didn't ask to be born. They didn't ask to be born to me as a parent and so I decided, I was like, I don't know what else to do, but my dad was the first high school graduate in our family and the first college graduate, and I watched him go back to school, and he was a mechanic and became a mechanical engineer, and I watched that change our lives, And so I thought, well, maybe that.

So I got my GED and I went to school at night at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. It was open enrollment. And we had just enough money, my parents and my in laws to pay for one year of school. And they just said, basically, if you want it badly enough, you'll figure out how to get good grades which I've never done.

And so that was the beginning, right? And, I'll say, I'm happy to keep rolling, because Weber State taught me so much that would then shape everything if you don't mind.

Lainie Rowell: Please, please.

Todd Rose: Okay, great, so at Weber, here, here's the thing, you know you're on the clock, if I don't figure out how to make it work, I have to go back to, like, which just didn't work, I, it was so bad, and so all I knew was that the way I had done things in the past didn't work, and so I was paying a lot of attention.

I knew a lot more about myself. Not, not great, but I was making choices that were closer to who I was, the kinds of classes I would take, the kinds of professors I would engage with. I started learning what didn't work. But there's this like really, really pivotal moment for me.

I'd been there for about a year. I was actually doing okay, just out of like brute force, I have to make this work and I'm sitting in a, a big history class in an auditorium, which didn't work very well for me, but I couldn't get out of it and I was complaining to my, my buddy Steve about this just does not work.

I've got to figure out how to pay attention and do okay. And he said, oh, this is nothing compared to, he was in the honors program, he told me, and I didn't even know what that was, but he starts explaining that he is, oh, I wish it was just lectures, he's like, in the honors program, there's no lectures, there's just 10 to 12 students, you sit around in a circle, and you, you talk, and he's like, there are no tests, you just have to write things, and he's like, I don't think there are right answers, He said, all we do is debate.

And I was like, this sounds so amazing. Like, I, I honestly, I honestly thought that can't be how education is. He was like, no, this is, so I, as soon as class was over, I made a beeline to the honors program, which was the top of the hill on the second floor of the library had its own floor. I went right in, went up to the secretary, a woman named Marilyn Diamond.

And I said, I want to be in the honors program. And she said, great, let's have you meet with the director, see if I can get you in. They did. I sit down with him, and he's so nice, and he's like, hey, we're really proud of the honors program, I'm excited that you're excited, here's just formality, let's just go through, let's fill this out together, and we'll get you going.

But pretty soon we get to the, so, so what was your high school GPA? , I said .9, and I'm not kidding, his response, he actually said, what .9? Like I had left off the most important number there, and, and, it's in that moment, it dawns on me, that was impulsive, what am I doing?

This is really embarrassing. And I said, well, 0.9, and I was gonna say a bunch of stuff, but then he just kind of, he was really nice, I will say, very kind about it, he, but he said, I'm sorry, you can't be in the honors program. And so I was humiliated. And so I'm gathering my stuff as fast as possible and I'm going to just get out of there.

Like go crawl into a hole, leave, and I go out the door and Marilyn Diamond, the secretary, her desk is just right outside the door and one of those life changing moments I rush out and she actually just grabs my arm, gently, as I'm walking past. And she said, Hey, I overheard the conversation. If you want this, don't take no for an answer.

And it didn't dawn on me that that was an option, right? So she tells me to sit down on the couch and I did. And it felt like an entire day. It was just a couple of hours probably. She's like, just wait. And the director had to go teach a class. He's like, what are you doing? You know? So funny. He comes back.

And he says, all right, come, come in here. And he said, why do you want to be in the honors program? Because on paper, it doesn't make any sense. So I explained what I'd learned about myself in the year and in college, and that I actually thought this was a really, really good fit. And he said, well, you know what?

I can't let you in, you know, permanently, but what we can do is create a provisional acceptance. And he said, I want you to pick one class and if you do well, I'll let you pick another, and we'll go from there. So I did, and it turned out to be , I mean, just perfect, the best fit, like it was such a good fit to who I was.

And flash forward, I ended up graduating from Weber State with a 3. 97 GPA as the honor student of the year. And it was amazing. And I, I tell you this story for a couple of reasons, one, it does tee up a lot of things that we'll talk about in a minute, but there's two things that I think are really important to that story.

One is, the profound importance of fit, because we often think that people are just talented, or smart, and especially kids, when you're in these standardized environments, and they don't go well, you just assume it's you. Why wouldn't I assume it's me? Some kids are doing just fine. Some kids are doing really well.

So it must be me. But just to live that, to feel the difference between an environment that didn't fit my individuality very well and one that was just perfect for me. And just what it unlocked in terms of not just my ability and my potential, but my confidence in myself was just, I never forgot that and that will play a role as we'll talk about, but there's a second piece that I think is critical because we'll talk a lot about individuality, which I think is really, really important.

But we often, if we're not careful And think of that as like selfishness or isolation or whatever, right? Like individualism. But for me and this Marilyn Diamond thing is like, I worked really, really hard. I put the work in and I'm proud of what I accomplished. But let's be honest, if there's no Marilyn Diamond, this is a different story.

A couple years ago, I got asked back to Weber State, I got an award, for whatever, and I'm there, and it turns out Marilyn's retiring that year. And I thought, what a great opportunity to tell some version of this story, with her in the audience. So I did, and it was great, and the dean who's kind of emceeing, he says, Well, Marilyn, you want to come up and say a few words?

I thought, this is amazing. She comes up, she gives me a hug, she grabs the mic, and she said, You know, it's a really nice story, Todd I don't remember it. And, I thought she was saying, like, you're lying, like it didn't happen. But what it really was, was that everybody had a Marilyn Diamond story.

It was just the way she was as a person. So, what was funny to me, and I think that the takeaway is like, how much we depend on each other, and how much we can do for each other. Because, for me, it was literally life changing, and for her, it was so inconsequential, she didn't even remember it. And I think that's how supporting each other really works.

We tend to think that it's going to be this heavy lift, but once you start to realize, you're part of other people's context, and the things you can do if you're thinking about it right can have life changing effects on other people, and really not be that big of a lift for you.

Lainie Rowell: I really make the connection to, I work deeply in gratitude and thinking of the definition of gratitude is noticing the good, but also acknowledging that often it comes from sources beyond ourselves.

And I appreciate that you're teasing out individuality versus individualism. It's not saying like, we're only out for ourselves, but honoring what makes each of us unique and dynamic and I appreciate that. And I just want to go back to the part of your story where you're talking about at the university, you've got someone, your friend who has been kind of progressed automatically into this program for honors, and he sounds like did not appreciate it, didn't like it, like, you know.

Todd Rose: No, in fact, in fact, he ended up washing out of it.

Lainie Rowell: And I'm not surprised, and I think this is something that we see in education, is that certain individuals who like to perform a certain way will do well in certain contexts.

I tend to think about I have a child, I'm taking them both down by not naming which one, but like very much into, they both like to please, so don't get me wrong, but whose motivation for doing well academically has been to please others, and just, I want to get the A, and I want to do well for others.

But the motivation hasn't necessarily been intrinsic, like, I want to learn. And when you don't have that, and you're getting into this honors, where it's a very innovative approach to honors, by the way, so kudos to Weber State, because I don't know that that's how a lot of honors programs were working, because that's very different from what the K 12 experienced.

Todd Rose: And they have, and they have most honors programs are rigidly like standardized tests, grades, it's about prestige. I will say that one of the things I'm most proud of is because of my achievements at Harvard and beyond Weber State changed their honors program permanently. So they actually have interviews.

It's about explaining the fit and it's not about test scores and grades, which I love.

Lainie Rowell: I love that too. And so, yes, and let's not leave out that part of the story because I think that's interesting that you had the 0.9 GPA and It wasn't a fit at the time. You weren't motivated at the time. Is that fair to say?

Todd Rose: That's definitely fair to say.

Lainie Rowell: And so I relate to this and I was one of my children who, for a good portion of my K 12 experience, I just cared about making good grades for my family and for the teachers and this is what I'm supposed to do, so I'll do it. And then I got put into a different education experience where things were very different and I was like, oh, I don't know if I can do this.

And I did not thrive and then I thought, well, that's who I am. I don't thrive anymore. And it took me a really long time. It wasn't actually until I did scrape by to get into college. But it wasn't actually until college that I actually started to love learning again. And it wasn't until almost the very end of college.

But so fast forward in your really inspiring story, you end up getting your doctorate at Harvard.

Todd Rose: Yeah. Yeah. It was funny, at Weber State, I was getting fascinated about individuality mainly out of like, it was a good explanation for my own experience, but at the time there was this rise of what was called the science of individuality, which was a new approach to science in general, which was getting away from aggregate data groups and, and being able to truly study individuals.

And that was so fascinating to me. It was rooted in complex systems instead of just statistics, and I was like, this is amazing, and I was reading up on it, and I read about this scholar, Kurt Fischer, and I was like, whoa, wow, this is amazing, I wanna work with this guy, and at the time, I was reading papers by him, and it said he was at the University of Denver, and I was like, hey, that's like eight hours.

That would be doable. So I got really excited and it turned out my advisor at Weber State knew him and he was like, Oh, this is gonna be so great. You guys are gonna, you have similar backstories. You're gonna love it. So we start talking and it turns out Kurt has moved on to Harvard, which I didn't even know where Harvard was.

I honestly didn't. It just was not even part of the world for me. But I was like, well, I really want to be a part of this. And so, I thought, well that's too bad. Like, it's too bad that he's at Harvard, cause obviously I'm not gonna get into Harvard, but luckily I did and packed up everything we had in a minivan and drove across country and ended up in Cambridge and had a really interesting and bumpy experience, it's like a whole nother country, basically, but had a wonderful education and then I graduated and then I was fortunate, Kurt Fischer had founded the My Unbranded Education Program at Harvard, the first interdisciplinary program in the world that integrated neuroscience, psychology, and learning.

Applied. And one of the things I was most proud of is when he retired, I became the director of that program and was a faculty member, maybe 10 to 12 years at Harvard, and then I left right before the pandemic.

Lainie Rowell: Well, so that's just like so close to my heart because I was a psychology major, went in to be education and have a new fascination with neuroscience, so those all coming together is really a beautiful place to be, right?

And, and I want to say that one of the ways that I came across your work is I do work in universal design for learning, a good portion of my work is professional learning and a lot of times it's for educators and that's one of the things that I'm trying to to move the needle on because we are all so unique and dynamic and you'll hear me use that phrase which I get from one of my besties, Dr Katie Novak because to me it's not enough just to say unique, it's the dynamic that we're constantly changing and your story is so clear that in a different context with different motivation you're thriving compared to in a system that was not serving you well that you were not excited to be in and gladly left as soon as you could.

Todd Rose: Right?

Lainie Rowell: Until you came back.

Todd Rose: You're really hitting on something important and I love that, and Katie's brilliant, obviously. The unique and dynamic because this is all part of it, we're distinct not only in our composition at any given time, but we change systematically depending on the context we're in, and we change over time.

Which is funny, right? Because we often don't take that into account, and especially in education now, look, the idea of, like, mass educating the public is one of the greatest accomplishments in human history, and back in the day when we did that, when we started that, you know, over 100 years ago, there was only one way to do that.

It was either everyone would get a one size fits all education, or rich kids would get bespoke education and the rest of us would get nothing. That was really the bargain. And so if we were having this conversation 100 years ago, I would have been the biggest champion of mass standardized education there was.

Not because it was the best way to do it, because it was the only way to do it. And what I think people have to appreciate now, and I think if we can get there, we're going to be able to get somewhere really great in education, which is That was never optimal, it was just practical, but things have changed so substantially for the better.

Our technology has changed, our understanding of human dynamics, human uniqueness, has changed, right? Such that we can do something about it. It's actually not impossible to give every single child in this country a phenomenal individualized education. That is doable. And, you know, one of the things that is my biggest pet peeve, if you don't mind, just so I can be frustrated by it, is even as we recognize kids, their distinctiveness, we often, and this will get back to the universal design for learning, we often still keep putting in these kids in these environments that are standardized.

We give them standardized learning materials. And then as a cop out, we tell teachers to differentiate their instruction. Like, that's ridiculous. Come on. Like, how about we expect the stuff that we pay for to be flexible and responsive to the known human differences that you will see in every learning environment?

And that, I think, is the genius of Universal Design for Learning, which is, it doesn't capture all human uniqueness, but there are dimensions of how we process information, how we engage, and how we actually demonstrate knowledge that you know in advance. people will differ on. And if you know it in advance, and it's not so idiosyncratic that like, you can design for it.

So, it's like, why not expect that these environments are designed as flexibly as possible, that then supports the human to human relationship, the teacher, the student, the student, the student, that is the actual core of great learning. And so, it's like, we're sort of stuck right now because we have all this capability, but we've got a mindset that is still, like, a hundred years old.

And so, I think that the good news is, is that we're on the cusp of something pretty profound, and I think education is going to look extremely different in the not too distant future.

Lainie Rowell: I agree. And I do appreciate you bringing up technology. Couple things I wanted to process through with you.

One, technology is giving us opportunities to scale that universal design in ways that just were not there, definitely not a hundred years ago. And it's so interesting when you just take a step back and you think, Oh, wow, like our system's only a hundred years old in the grand scheme of things it's just so recent but it's incredibly hard to adapt the system, but we can, we can. And another thing I wanted to say you are so good at acknowledging how amazing teachers are and they're in a tough situation with the system that they're put in, this very resilient system but universal design for learning is upstream it ultimately is what has to be the way that our system is designed because otherwise we are just playing whack a mole trying to differentiate downstream, when we can already assume variability, we can already assume, I know that I'm going to have some kids who are really gifted in understanding scientific concepts, but reading is going to be the barrier.

I know that I have some kids that are going to understand a piece of literature in a way that I can't even understand, but if I ask them to just write it versus put it into art or articulate it verbally. I'm not going to get what's inside of them, right?

Todd Rose: Well, and I think that, one of the unfortunate consequences of having a standardized system for a hundred years, is there's other ideas that kind of came in through like eugenics and some of the darker things which have such a well dark view of human potential and capability and so they give you the bell curve they give you the like only some kids are capable and so what we've had as a result is a zero sum system of education that is really it's just a selection mechanism right it's like let's give everyone some basic experience And then we can't give everyone everything so let's figure out who deserves more resources. And look, if those assumptions were correct, that's a reasonably fair way to do it, right? If we're living in scarcity, if not everyone has potential, then a selection system makes sense. None of those things are true now, none. The I idea of a bell curve is the most nonsensical thing on the planet when it comes to people.

It's demonstrably false. This will sound like a bumper sticker slogan, but I think one of the most important assumptions in modern education and the workplace has to do with human potential. To put it bluntly, I think it is objectively true that every human being is capable of excellence of some kind, which means they have something meaningful to contribute to society.

They do. And we've learned, despite all my colleagues who love IQ tests and other things, notwithstanding, because of the complexity, because of the distinctiveness, the uniqueness, and the dynamics of human beings, you don't know in advance what any one person is capable of. You just don't. You can pretend you can force them into your little world, but it's not how it works.

And so I believe that the major change to education now is that it is not a selection system anymore. It is a cultivation system. And when you realize that the goal of education is the cultivation of every child's God given potential, if you just think of it that way, then it starts to make a ton of sense why it would be unacceptable to do anything other than universal design for learning.

Because anything short of that flexibility is an arbitrary obstacle to the cultivation of some child's potential. Right? It also then leads naturally to, well, why wouldn't we use bell curve tests? It's because they're just, they're just comparative. We're going to use mastery based assessments, right?

Once you just get over that hump of like, oh, no, everybody's got something to offer, our job is to cultivate their full potential, then a lot of this other stuff you and I are talking about it just makes a lot of sense for people.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah, and I have a book coming to mind.

Katie gets twice the love in this episode, but George Couros and Katie Novak wrote the book, Innovate Inside the Box. And this is where I think our amazing teachers can get creative. And yes, there are going to be some constraints that they can, you know, advocate. I don't want this, but maybe they don't always have the choice.

But there's still a lot of things I feel like we as educators have the ability to make a change.

Todd Rose: I do not envy the place that educators are in right now. So, you know, my background, my interests now are in, this will just sound wonky, but paradigm shifts.

This is where we're at, we're in a paradigm crisis. The fundamental assumptions of society are up for grabs, and it can go bad, it can go better and so we work to actually shift, like, what can democracies deliver on? What can our society do that it doesn't do now? And in education, the transformation of this institution is what's taking place right now.

We can talk about why I think that's the case, but like the trick , is you're not going to just close down shop and open up five years later under new management. You have to literally like transform this institution while you're still participating in it. And that means that there's no more important constituency than teachers.

And I think that teachers have a really important role for parents in that they can signal that this is valuable. That things like mastery based learning, like flexible time, flexible design, that it's actually valuable, that it's good for learning. Because all of our research shows parents look to teachers to know about that, and then they look to local and regional employers to tell them whether the outcomes are okay.

Lainie Rowell: Well, and I want to connect it to that too, because, to me, this is a system that is so incredibly resilient, it's also the system that Virtually everyone goes through, and I think this feeds the workplace in some of the ways that I would love it if the workplace was more universally designed, if the workplace was more focused on cultivation versus selection, and so I think there's some opportunities there, and I've heard you talk about this before, the principles of scientific management.

I mean, that's what influenced a lot of things, right?

Todd Rose: Yeah, it's rare that when you look back and say, man, who did this to us? That it's, like, one dude, right? Frederick Taylor in the late 20s, early 30s. He's obsessed with the idea that one of the problems in society is we had a lot of waste.

That wasn't wrong. He was right. And that we could be better off if we were more efficient. Also correct. But he believes in this very top down, like this idea that everybody has autonomy and capabilities and potential, he just thought was ridiculous. And the scientific management is probably the most important idea that we all live under that no one knows about.

This is the guy literally that invented the concept of a manager. His proposal was I can give us more stuff by making us more efficient. If you become a cog quite literally, let's divide up labor, the workers, just do what you're told and do it well and do it fast and have managers that plan everything and then we'll all have more stuff.

Which, by the way, he was correct. We got a lot more stuff that way, but we sort of lost our soul. Right? And at the end of the day, what's the point of life? It's not just more stuff. It's the joy. It's the psychological abundance. It's whatever you want to call it, right? Flourishing, self actualization.

But that always depended on things like autonomy and self direction and the ability to pursue fulfilling lives, not just do what you're told. And so that idea of scientific management, it transforms work. And then not surprisingly, what happens in, in the business world will eventually trickle down into education, because if we're all having factories and we're having, you know, standardized systems, then what's the point of education except for to feed that?

And so you see that creep in and things like bells, you know, and rotating through classes and all, okay, fine, whatever. But the idea is we're still like, We're still stuck with that, right? Work is sort of this devil's bargain that like, okay, it's not meant to be enjoyed, you just go do it so they can go find fulfillment somewhere else, but at my think tank, Populace, we have more private opinion data on the American public than anybody else.

And I say private opinion because no one's telling the truth about what they think right now. And so you've got to have methods to get around that. And some of the most interesting things to me, of all the work we've done have to do with the transformation of the workplace in terms of what people really want out of work now, and then also what they want out of education.

And people don't want a better mousetrap. They don't want more of the same. They want pretty profoundly different things. So, for example, at work, the trade off priorities for people are about being able to do work that has a positive impact on other people, to, to be able to show up as yourself, right? That craving for authenticity, which to me is just the expression of your individuality. And yeah, they want to get paid a decent wage. They want, you know, all the normal things, but there's this aspect of they don't need work to be everything, but they do now expect work to be a positive force for the life they want to live.

Same with education. If I could tell you like the one line to sum up what's going on in education in America today is that people want different, not better. And so they want a different purpose for this system. Again, they don't want the selection system anymore. They just don't. They believe their kids have something to offer.

They believe other people's kids do. And they are expecting that this thing actually cultivate that. And it's just that gap between what they want and the reality of the system as it is right now that is causing such a lack of confidence and trust in the System.

Lainie Rowell: When you're talking about your work at Populace, I want you to just quickly explain, because I think the methodology is really interesting, how you get to the private opinion. Because your most recent book, Collective Illusion, talking about, how we are beings of conformity, and so we tend to say things that we think, you'll say it better, so I'm going to stop talking, but you know, kind of, how do you see all that?

Todd Rose: Collective illusions are just basically social phenomena where A majority of people in a group end up going along with something they don't privately agree with just because they incorrectly think most everybody else in the group likes it or believes it, right?

So, as a result, entire groups end up doing something that most nobody wanted to do. Now, we've actually known about these things for a long time. You think about, like, the Emperor's New Clothes, is a, Cautionary tale of that, right? Everyone just keeps going along with this naked emperor, right?

Like, whatever. But the scientific study of it is about a hundred years old. And up until ten years ago, you could have counted on one hand the number of societal Influencing Collective Illusions that existed. But since the rise of social media, for reasons I'll explain, like they're just out of control.

Like if you name anything that matters in American society today, it's a 50 50. Like it's a coin toss whether you are even right about what the majority believes. It's shocking. And so the underlying reason for this is, as you mentioned, all human beings have a conformity bias. We all do. We are not a lone wolf species.

We're a pack species, right? And all that means is, all else equal, you'd rather be with your group, not against your group. This is a survival thing, right? It also is how we get culture and social learning. So we don't have to learn everything the hard way. So there's some benefit to conformity within reason.

But for conforming to work, you actually have to know what your group thinks. Because then what are you conforming to? And this is where we get in trouble. So, your brain for how awesome as it is, it's actually not terribly smart. Because, here's how your brain estimates group consensus. This is no kidding.

Your brain assumes the loudest voices, repeated the most, are the majority. So, let's just focus on social media for a second. So on what was called Twitter, or on X, Pew Research has shown 80 percent of all content is created by 10 percent of the users. And it turns out those 10 percent aren't even remotely representative of the general public.

They are extreme on almost every social issue. So you can see the problem. If 10 percent of people hold an idea, but you think it's 80%, unless you're willing to go against your group, you're gonna either say nothing at all, or you might even lie about what you think to go along with the group. But if enough people stop talking, they start self silencing, then the only voices anybody hears from are these fringes and The Results of Collective Illusion. So, this is where we're at today. We have research on this, but so do a lot of people, that consistently, somewhere between 52-60 percent of Americans, admit to self silencing. Admit! Those are the people who will admit it! That they're, oh yeah, I'm not, I don't, I can't tell the truth about my opinions on most things, like, and so, how does a democracy function if we can't be honest with each other?

We knew for the things we want to do in terms of paradigm shifts, we had to have an accurate understanding of, what do people really want? And it was funny, we started into the private opinion stuff right after the 2016 election, because it was like, well, I mean, whatever you think of that, that was not what anyone thought was about to happen.

And, so, it turned out that there's all kinds of methodologies in academia. For how you get around, say social pressure, complex trade-offs. It's just they weren't widely applied because they, they take a level of sort of expertise. They're, because it's not just polling. They're expensive to do and they're time consuming.

But, from our standpoint, it was like, but if no one's telling the truth, what choice do you have, right? You, you need to do this. So we started doing that and to your point, how do you get to private opinion? Every method that works offers some combination of anonymity and plausible deniability.

Like, that's the key. Here's what's interesting. So we have a couple of methods that we use. We have one coming out in about a month called the Social Pressure Index that literally is measuring across the entire landscape of American culture where are we flat out lying to each other?

Not just self sciencing. We are lying. And what's the truth. These kind of methods, the one I'll talk about right now that, that is, we've done a lot in education is, you can't have everything. This is the funny thing. Like, in education, there's not enough time and money to have everything. So it's not enough to say, do you want social emotional learning?

It's not the right question. Lots of people will say yes to that. What will you sacrifice for it? So it's about trade offs. So we have this methodology we've used called conjoined analysis, which is widely used. In fact, here's my, you know, iPhone. Apple uses that methodology to decide what combination of features and price point go into an iPhone, right?

Because if I say, do you want an OLED screen? Of course, you're going to say yes. But do you want that if it costs $300 more? Do you want it more than you want more memory? Like, those are trade offs. So, Conjoint, instead of saying, Do you want X for education? What we do is we build all these attributes that everything in education could be.

So the last one we did was like, 60 some odd trade off priorities. From outcomes, to processes, to assessments, to what they learn, to who decides. And it's kind of cool. If you take this instrument, and You're never just point blank asked one thing. It will be like, hey, we're thinking about the future of education, like if you're making a choice for your child or for whatever, and you're shown two education or school A, school B.

And it just randomly grabs five of the attributes from the pool of say 60, and that's what school A has. School B has randomly grabs five other ones. That's all you know. Okay, if those were your two choices, which one is a better education to you? And then you do it again, and again, and again, and unbeknownst to you, you're literally trading off every attribute against every other attribute.

Why that works so well is, let's say I'm like, oh, I know I'm not supposed to say, college prep should be the goal, but college prep will show up with other things you care about, it'll show up with other things you don't, so you can't really game it, and we were the first to apply that socially the New York Times ran a front page thing on, eventually showing it's the best predictor of elections, that methodology, so now everybody likes it, which is great but it's into that space. We always do it where you, we can develop a model of like, what are your trade off priorities personally, for education?

And then we always do it again with you saying, what do you think most Americans would say? So now we know what you want, and we know what you think everybody wants. And, it's just ridiculous. When you look at the American public's trade off priorities for K 12, in private, it is all the things we've been talking about.

It's individualized, not standardized. In fact, every individualized attribute ranks higher than every single standardized attribute in America now. When you ask about the purpose, it's like people want to be prepared for college, but they don't want it to be the purpose. It's about prep for careers and meaningful work for kids.

And it's really pretty remarkable. Mastery learning, not standardized assessments, bell curve assessments. Okay, great. Everything you'd hope for, you'd want flexible learning environments. When you ask them what they think most people will say, You get a completely different picture. You get something that looks exactly like the system we have.

They think that the number one trade off priority for people for K 12 is college prep. It's just not true. So we're operating under these illusions. And that, that might sound, okay, well it's just an illusion, well the problem is in education, I can't solve that myself, right? Unless I go to private school, it's sort of like, if no one else wants it, why am I going to agitate for it?

It'll never change. So we all want something different, we don't think we all want something different, so we're all ticked off, right? So we do a lot of work shattering those illusions, using pop culture. television, movies, where you just seed the private opinion in the backgrounds of things that people watch, and you can, you can have quite an effect.

But, I'll just say, the good news is, the fact that these illusions exist, history shows us if you can shatter them, you can unlock change at a scale and a pace that would seem unimaginable otherwise.

Lainie Rowell: I think it's so fascinating how, especially because kind of what I'm hearing, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that we're potentially closer together and more in alignment in areas than we think we are, but we don't want to speak out because we feel like we're the minority, but we're actually the silent majority.

Todd Rose: It is shocking, and I'm not just trying to have good things to say. So we have studied private opinion on everything from K 12, higher ed, the workplace, criminal justice, health care, broader culture stuff, our views of success in the American dream, our aspirations for the country, you name it, right?

Yeah, we are divided on a few things, but you will be shocked in private how much common ground we have. The problem is, we just don't think that's true. We genuinely believe that we're in this minority. When we are a silent majority, and so the problem is, is it becomes self fulfilling, right? You're sitting in a society going, I don't want this, but I am pretty sure everyone around me...

Imagine if you thought that most everyone in your neighborhood would steal from you if they could. How would that change how you treat them? You know what I mean? How you engage. This is true in our most fundamental principles, our values, our aspirations for life, for our country. We are walking around, with so much in common, but we believe we are so far apart, and so we behave that way.

Lainie Rowell: And our brains, trying to be efficient, are making these assumptions. We just need to stop assuming we know what people are thinking and feeling and be more curious. Ask the question.

Todd Rose: That's it. That's it.

Social media and our broader technologies have led to a place where you can no longer trust your brain to tell you what your group thinks anymore. And that's never going to change. The good news is, the easy way out of this is a deep commitment to tolerance. Pluralism, right? Knowing that, that every time we try to silence someone we disagree with, we are contributing to these illusions.

And at some point, we have to know better. And we have to know that the only people that don't want you to speak up are people who know they are in the minority. Because it is the only tool they have to win. Because if you really believe that most people agreed with you, all you would want is for people to be able to speak freely.

Right? So, just know, if I had one call to the audience is, we can get somewhere pretty amazing as a society. We're not in decline. We're a young country. We're going through our adolescent phase, right? Little identity crisis. Every one of us has a role to play. And it will sound so simple, but I promise you, you will be amazed where we can go together if you do this basic thing.

We've got to find the moral courage to be honest with each other about what we believe. Doesn't mean we're right. We could be terribly wrong. So we can do this respectfully, but you, you owe it to each other to be honest about your views. And we have to find the civic courage to make it safe for other people to do the same thing.

If we do that, these illusions will shatter, our shared values will be revealed, and those will help guide where we go together as a society, including in education.

Lainie Rowell: Moral courage, civic courage, and intellectual humility.

Todd Rose: Absolutely.

Lainie Rowell: I love that. Okay, I'm so sad to end this conversation, but I gotta let you go.

What's the best way for people to connect with you?

Todd Rose: So you can find me online, ToddRose.com. All of our research is at Populace.Org but just Google. It comes up.

Lainie Rowell: Amazing. This has been super enlightening for me, and I'm really familiar with your work. I hope others will check out Collective Illusions, your most recent book.

There's also Dark Horse, the book before that, and The End of Average, where I became a super fan. So, Todd, thank you for this time, and thank you all for listening.

Todd Rose: Thank you.

Lainie Rowell

March 5, 2024

Episode 92 - The Art of Doing Less and Overcoming Overfunctioning

Lainie Rowell

March 5, 2024

Shownotes:

Are you an overfunctioner? It’s not a feeling, it’s not a way of being, it’s a way of doing (constantly). And this behavior can lead to loneliness and threaten others’ sense of belonging.

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⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Art of Doing Less and Overcoming Overfunctioning⁠⁠⁠ on Thrive!

About Lainie:

Website - ⁠LainieRowell.com⁠

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