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The Moonshots Podcast goes behind the scenes of the world's greatest superstars, thinkers and entrepreneurs to discover the secrets to their success. We deconstruct their success from mindset to daily habits so that we can apply it to our lives. Join us as we 'learn out loud' from Elon Musk, Brene Brown to emerging talents like David Goggins.
[Music]
hello and welcome to the moonshots
podcast it's episode 170 i'm your
co-host mike parsons and as always i'm
joined by the man of reflection mr mark
pierce and freeland good morning mark
hey good morning mike you're right we
are a pair of reflectors
as we dig into each of our shows on the
moonshot series likewise with our
listeners we're all learning about
reflecting on some of the challenging
parts of our lives but mike i think
today's topic is still something that i
in the past have tried to avoid i think
reflecting on too much how about you
yes i feel like i'm almost avoiding
introducing
the book that we are going to study
today
let's let's
jump over the chasm let's cross
the rubicon mark tell us where are we
going today today we are digging into
listeners daniel h pink's book the power
of regret
now this is a pretty big
topic mike this is a big old piece of
research as well that daniel pink
actually conducted a couple of years ago
he went out he put this big website
online and he encouraged tens of
thousands of people to go and complete
what he called the world's largest uh
regret study that was available online
and the idea was really to help
him daniel pink gather
inputs and
experiences around how humans react to
regret and what he did was he took all
of those data points from tens of
thousands of people and condensed it
into
the book
the
power of regret and he drew a number of
conclusions from those raw pieces of
data so even before we get into the
lessons and the areas that he uncovered
within the power of regret isn't that an
amazing case study yeah utilizing kind
of citizen science and getting the
public around the world to upload their
own regrets in order to help us all
understand a little bit more about that
raw emotion obviously right and and it
and it's sort of disruptive to think
about the fact
that he goes out there and creates his
massive uh
study on regret the world regret survey
and even as we talk about it it feels a
bit odd it feels almost a little bit
uncomfortable which i think is a proxy
for the fact that regrets are things we
uh
i mean you got to push someone to get
them to talk about what they regret
um and regret
as soon as you entertain the concept of
regrets
it's just uncomfortable isn't it mark
yeah there's been many many times
throughout my life where instead of
choosing to
uh vocalize or even consider something
that i've regretted
i think i've always tried to look at the
things that i've done or the things that
i've said
as unchangeable and what i mean by that
is i am a product of the things that
i've sort of done so to inherently
regret anything that i've done almost
goes against my ego and my
sense of being so intentionally i've
tried not to not regret too much in my
life and i think as we're gonna uncover
from daniel pink's book
that's a pretty classic behavior that a
lot of humans do and the truth is that's
quite limiting by not having
an appreciation of regret i think i am
kind of limited in how i learn from from
from things in my life yeah so what
we're going to do today is really
similar to what we've done over the last
three shows in the mindset series is to
go to
new
ways of thinking asking really powerful
questions that affect our mindset and
today is no different the power of
regret by daniel h pink and we are going
to discuss
what it is the different types what you
need to get the job done
how you can put it to good use and how
it is a key like a bridge
towards you becoming the very best
version of yourself so get ready to get
a little bit uncomfortable
get ready to think in different and new
ways about regrets pain suffering and
all of that and today i promise you we
will show you ways to turn this into
turbo
fuel injection for you
on your
mission so i'm pretty pumped up mark
where do you want to kick off the dive
into this murky world of regret oh my
goodness i'm so ready to reflect and
regret so let's hear first of all
opening up our show on the power of
regret is the author the researcher
himself daniel h pink breaking down this
concept of regret and helping you and i
and our listeners
understand that regret truly is a
universal thing
we think that
when we experience regret it's somehow
an aberration when in fact
everybody experiences regret regret
makes us human regret is part of the
human condition what's more we think
that regret makes us weaker when in fact
the research shows that
done right regret can make us stronger
that we can enlist our regrets as a an
engine for forward progress in a weird
way regret also taught me about
what makes a good life because i had you
know collected 16 000 regrets from
people in 105 countries and when they
told me their regrets in a sense they
were also telling me about what made
life worth living
like i understand that no regrets
philosophy the problem is is that
it's not possible because we all have
regrets now we should try to minimize
our future regrets but the idea that you
should never look backward on your life
and say oh i wish i had done things
differently is actually a terrible
blueprint for living
and and i think one of the problems is
you know especially in north america is
that we're a little over indexed on
positivity you know positive emotions
are incredibly important and they should
outnumber our negative emotions but
we need some negative emotions because
they instruct us and our most prominent
negative emotion
is regret because regret
teaches us it instructs us it clarifies
us uh it clarifies what's what we should
be doing and how we should be doing it
and so we need to
understand how to deal with our negative
emotions we can't ignore them like no
regrets we can't wallow in them what we
need to do is we need to think about our
regrets and when we think about our
regrets the evidence is pretty clear
that they can help us make better
decisions solve problems faster be
better strategists find greater meaning
in our life
regret
hurts
there's no question about that but
here's the thing
regret also instructs and you can't have
one without the other so if you avoid
the pain you don't get any of the
learning so what you have to do is be
able to process that pain and i think
there's a way for us to do that to take
our regrets use them as signals
we haven't been taught to do that that's
the problem we have this
weird approach we have this weird view
of negative emotions like some of us
think oh positive all the time
that leads to delusion some of us get so
absorbed in our negative emotions that
they
in some ways exonerate us from making
progress that's a bad idea too what we
need to do is we need to
process our negative emotions in a in a
systematic way and i think there's a
good way to do that there's some
interesting research on this one of the
things that we we think about disclosure
of our vulnerabilities and our setbacks
and so forth is that people will like us
less
and in fact they actually like us more
when we do that and so i actually had a
lot of respect for people willing to
disclose and willing to explain and i
felt like i was actually helping them
make sense of this regret so it wasn't
that much of a downer the other thing
about it which is this is that over and
over and over again people kept talking
about the same four core regrets these
four regrets are revealing by revealing
our regrets
we are revealing what we value the most
don't be deluded i think
that really speaks to where many of us
are i've certainly been
mark as you said a victim of avoiding
these regrets because they dig up all
these
uncomfortable memories i've probably
been a victim of wishful thinking overly
positive thinking
but
what i think
daniel pink is doing for us is saying if
you go into
you know the hurt or the pain
the regret
the fear the rejection whatever it was
that was inside of that if you go into
it
actually it's one of the sharpest
clearest
definers if you look at if that is
absolutely what i do not want and i do
not like that starts to shape well
here's what i do want for my life he's
the kind of people i do want to be with
the kind of things i do want to do
the kind of ways of living that make me
feel great
it's so funny isn't it that you know
they talk about failure being the the
greatest teacher
it's like regret is is the greatest
former and clarifier of who we want to
be
if we have the courage to go there what
do you think mark
i mean digging into daniel pink's book
as we were preparing for today's show
and listening again to that clip
it it for me at least it is sort of a
penny drop moment actually much like as
we've been digging into mark manson
robert greene
as well as chris voss this whole mindset
series has has illuminated me on a
number of different factors
but really digging into daniel pink's
work on regret for me it was quite
surprising actually because as he
referenced in that clip just then this
no regrets philosophy is certainly one
that i have
maybe not intentionally
been brought up thinking but i think
it's it's been
ingrained throughout the culture right
as well as my upbringing well it's
convenient if you don't have any regrets
then you don't have to address those key
feelings of pain fear rejection all
those things that are the basis of
hieroglyphs which is like i gotta pass
how fantastic exactly it is it's almost
like a past so it's almost an excuse
isn't it it's an excuse for
allowing yourself to turn away from that
discomfort
and i think what we learn on the
moonshot show is the fact that you have
to embrace that discomfort or that pain
as you were just saying in order to grow
and i think where daniel pink goes with
regret
is he calls out that positivity he's
kind of over indexed now and we all look
towards the positivity rather than
reflecting on uh the the discomfort and
without that pain that hurt there is no
instruction and i love the idea as we're
digging into the show today on regret we
start to understand that actually
there's so much value
in regret that we're almost causing
ourselves a disservice by not giving
ourselves the permission or allowing our
ego to enable us to go out and re-look
at regret or moments in our lives that
we should regret and therefore learn
from you know i'm almost cheating myself
by having no regret
i know and and and this is really the
the tension in this
book and what was quite interesting is
say robert greene was saying look there
are these animal spirits that drive us
and how we behave at work and
and in life and you need to understand
those as well it really truly has been
this series
has all been about going to
new unusual maybe uncomfortable places
in order to find new ways of thinking
and i i mean how exciting is that mark
yeah it's so exciting and listeners if
you want to hear our shows that we've
done on mark manson the subtle art not
giving out
for robert greene's the 48 laws of power
as well as chris voss fbi negotiator
i'll never split the difference you can
pop along to your favorite podcasting
app of choice or moonshots.io
to learn more to see show docs as well
as to listen to those shows
i tell you what while you're there mark
you can also embrace the moonshot
community you can become a patron
of the moonshots podcast go on become a
member
and as always mark we have new members
to celebrate so why don't we hit that
roll call and welcome and thank our
patreon members yes
the moment you've all been waiting for
please give a short and sharp welcome to
bob niles john terry brady nyla marjolin
ken dietmar tom and mark marjan connor
rodrigo jasmine spaceman daniela lisa
sid maria paul berg and kalman thank you
all so much for joining us as part of
the moonshots family on patreon
yeah and we really appreciate your
support we're super grateful for it um
even though it's it's it's look it's the
cost of one
starbucks coffee per month and you can
support us it helps us pay for all our
subscription services we have these
great mics that cost us hundreds and
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here to serve you our listeners and
especially our members we're truly
grateful for your support and if you are
a member you also get access to the
moonshots master series and boy i i love
doing the master series mark how about
you
i mean there's so much that i learned
from our weekly show digging into the
daniel pinks and chris vosses
but what i think you and i are able to
as well as the moonshots team are able
to do going into 170 plus shows by now
mike
is take out the consistency that exists
throughout a lot of our moon shutters
our entrepreneurs and authors that we
dig into
and pull out real big comprehensive deep
dives into topics like motivation first
principles collaboration and teamwork
habits circle of influence the other
communication entrepreneurship finding
your purpose and coming soon mike second
order thinking these are huge topics
aren't they they are they're big chunky
topics and those are all exclusive are
for our members so if you would love to
become a member head over to
moonshots.io hit the big member button
join up be part of it it's just the cost
of one cup of coffee
a month and you get access to all of
that thinking but today here on this
show mark we have a lot of thinking to
come we really really do and in that
first clip from daniel pink he
referenced the four types the four cause
of regret and i think as it's such a
pinnacle part and foundation of daniel
pick's book it only seems to do justice
for us to now hear from the author
himself again breaking down what he
means by those so let's now hear from
daniel pink the author of the power of
regret breaking down the four core
regrets that he found during uh his
research into regret one of them are
what i call foundation regrets which are
regrets about essentially not doing the
work about making choices in your life
that gave you an unstable platform
smoking is a big one
not taking care of your health not
exercising not eating right
not working hard enough in school those
kind of not saving enough money that
those kinds of things
now those are sometimes complicated
because they're not those things are not
always in somebody's individual domain
but individual choice but foundation
second one boldness regrets if only i
taken the chance if only i taken the
chance to me
what it suggests is that human beings
wanna it goes to our motivation
conversation human beings wanna do
something we wanna learn we wanna grow
we wanna have a psychologically rich
life
three moral regrets
very interesting topic smaller in number
but fascinating in their own way you're
at a juncture you can do the right thing
you can do the wrong thing
you decide to do the wrong thing and you
regret it for years i've got a woman in
the book
who
would regularly steal candy from a store
when she was 10 years old
she's always she revealed that regret it
it bothers the hell out of her she's in
her 70s
it happened 60 years ago i have regrets
about people bullying people kids in
school all kinds of regrets about
marital infidelity
people it
i think there's something heartening
about that is that these moral regrets
suggest that we actually want to be good
and when we're not we feel terrible
about it the final one are connection
regrets connection regrets are the
biggest category and it's basically
you have a relationship i don't mean a
romantic relationship any relationship
you have a relationship with
a parent a child a sibling a friend
whoever and it sort of comes apart
and you want to reach out but you think
that's going to be awkward to reach out
and they're not going to care so you
don't reach out and you do further apart
and
people deeply regret that one to me and
i think it's relevant for for some of
the stuff that you guys have talked
about before is
it's amazing how important friendship is
in people's lives i mean there was a
revelation to me like friendship really
really really matters
to in people's lives more than i
expected and i think that more than
many men are willing to
see before their eyes
especially men but women too but
especially men and so
the lesson there is
i mean to me that's been a big lesson
for me that the connection regrets
because
here's what here's what happens like
i'll give you an example let's let's
take two characters all right they're
they're friends but the friendship has
come apart and most of the time these
friendships come apart not because of
any cataclysm because of any fight or
anything like that you just kind of
drift so we have two friends johnny and
aj all right they have a close
relationship but over time it starts
drifting apart
and i you know and i say to i say to aj
okay so oh man it's like i sort of like
i had this friend and i was like really
close and like somehow we just drifted
apart
and yeah i should probably reach out but
it's really awkward he's not going to
care
you're so wrong about that
you're so wrong about that number one
there's a lot of evidence showing that
it's much those kinds of things are much
less awkward than we think and also it's
almost always well received and so what
i've done to people in writing this book
and reporting this out the story kept
changing on me because people would
change their behavior in response to the
conversation but i said to one woman who
had this kind of story i said well what
if jennifer like she grown apart from
this one friend
what if jennifer reached out to you
[Music]
oh my god that would be the greatest
thing i would love it i would be so
touched it would make my year it would
make my decade and i'm like well you
kind of answered your question there oh
my gosh like as he's going through this
did you find yourself doing the same
thing did you just start going well what
are my regrets in those four areas yeah
yeah exactly
all right so let me let's let's have
some fun like let's let's just
get the edge off this whole regret thing
let's get into some of ours i'll start
so definitely
one of my regret stability regrets or
foundation regrets
was
uh just not uh applying myself at school
oh my gosh mark it was
oh gosh
did i did i i think i maybe i i was in
fifth gear for this for the six years of
high school i i was in fifth year for
one year which was the first
not the last unfortunately
and that which followed by by seven
weeks of uh college before i quit
college so so that's a good one
regrets about uh boldness regrets if
only i'd taken the chance i'm not so
high here because i'm probably a victim
of uh
taking too many big big jumps
um changing careers living in four
different countries so i'm all right
there the moral regrets
i was definitely an idiot um at
school sometimes
uh being too egotistical
being very
being an idiot or being unkind to others
as a teenager oh boy mac have i got a
litany of stupid things or just not
respecting friends enough
um
so i'm definitely on foundation tomorrow
i've got like a litany of good stuff
there to to regret and learn from i
would say on the connections um i've
tried actually pretty hard on the
connection thing so listen to this just
last week i had dinner with five friends
who i went to school with and have known
for more than 25 years
so keeping that connection
um
i'm pretty good on but yeah foundation
and moral the ones that that i'm i'm i'm
kind of
i got some good regrets there that i can
go and and reflect on what about you
mark yeah i mean look it's an
uncomfortable topic for all of us so
thank you for sharing i'm going to try
my best as well mike it might interest
you to know actually
in in another article and we'll include
a link in the in the show notes
listeners as well uh to a time article
that daniel pink appeared in the
connection regrets is actually the
largest category that he had people
getting in touch with him about
so examples of i wish i'd reached out to
so and so or forgiven such and such so
actually it's quite interesting as you
were reliving or retelling your regrets
as you were going through them i was
thinking actually over the last couple
of years i've personally really tried
hard in the connection regret as well
i'm living abroad away from family and
friends that i've known for 10 12 years
and
i've really really tried hard to put
myself out there and make time to have
weekly video calls or make sure to send
people texts obviously with time zone it
can be a little bit topsy-turvy but
trying to take the time to not regret
and i hear here i think is where it
becomes a little bit metal
when i try to avoid regretting it in the
long run i'll therefore make an excuse
to go out and reach out to those people
in the short term
so i i agree with you actually i've
tried really really hard particularly
recently on the connection side of
things particularly
um likewise with moral i i believe i've
always tried to carve out time to be
loyal and be quite kind to people i've
probably there's probably been times in
my career that i've regretted maybe not
being bolder in meetings or to stand up
for for other colleagues perhaps so i
think that's that certainly sits within
the moral regrets not having
raised a hand and argued against maybe a
boss who wasn't being kind to a
colleague perhaps
i think in my foundation regrets i think
until recently over the last maybe five
or so years when i've tried to actively
take ownership of my finances
before then i i wouldn't have really
thought about it thinking about you know
saving enough or reflecting where i was
budgeting or spending my money
that's something that i think
particularly as i was
getting uh first into career and so on
that was always something that i didn't
give enough attention to and i think
finances is pretty common
and the boldness again i'm gonna be on
on your side a little bit i've tried to
always push myself
to try new things to get out there maybe
i am guilty of
settling into things for too long
you know rather than
pushing myself to learn new skills maybe
there's been times in my career where
i've just allowed myself to coast
yes and
live off the fatter land as they would
say yeah rather than expose myself to to
difficulties i think that's where my
boldness regrets might come in
asking for new bits of advice or new
skills
rather than
just living in the same pattern of
things day by day from a career
perspective i think that's probably
where my boldness regrets would come in
well look at that see that wasn't so
hard was it mike we just shared our life
regrets with 50 000 other people well
there you go listeners you're welcome
[Laughter]
but i think the point here is um
get them out right
air the dirty laundry
because surely
if you go
at those for example
let's take the fact
that um you know one of my big regrets
was
just not applying myself at school and
college okay
well i believe that i can show you that
the
hard work
that i put into learning
right now more than 20 years later
the motivation comes from the regret
of such a long time ago
that powers me today
you know
i will go and i will
learn like crazy i read like crazy i
write like crazy and all of that stems
from the fact that i used the regret of
not doing it when i was younger
i used that you know those regrets of
yesterday i use them in the here and now
i use them today which is pretty pretty
good stuff but i think it's important
not just to touch on this once like you
and i have mark i think
it is really
critical that we build a well of courage
that we build this enormous reserve to
go after the moments where we actually
haven't been our best and to get into
them to explore them to know them to
understand them and therefore master
them but let's focus now on what it
really takes let's listen to a
conversation between daniel pink and
other author and moonshotter who we
quite like adam grant discussing
the pain
and the courage of regret
so as as people process those those four
domains of regret i think when when they
say no regrets what they're trying to do
is keep the learning but get rid of the
pain
right like when i when i think about
regrets i think i want to treat that the
same way as a stupid decision someone
else made
where i read about it i learned the
lesson from it but it doesn't hurt
is is that feasible from the research
you've done is it something we should
aspire to or do we need the pain in
order to get the lesson i think it's a
great question and
i'm not certain about the answer is but
my hypothesis my my sort of like the
preponderance of evidence to me at least
suggests that
if you want the instruction you got to
have the pain
um and this is one reason and so so so
we want the instruction but we don't
have that we don't want the pain and i
don't think you can get that i think you
need that i think you need that pain
there is some evidence i mean a couple
interesting papers showing that
under
experiencing vicarious regret can can
lead you in that way but um but i think
in general you need the pain and this is
the thing that i that i want to cut that
i keep coming back to which is that
especially in america
no one teaches us how to deal with
negative emotions and when we have
negative emotions we think that somehow
there's something wrong with us because
everybody else is so positive and you're
supposed to be positive so i'm am i am i
weak am i broken am i is there something
wrong with me and instead and we need to
instruct people how to deal with
negative emotions that is pain
that stability is a signal and so you
can't ignore it and you can't wallow in
it you have to confront it and one of
the things that bugs me really deeply is
this philosophy of no regrets i never
look back
because i'm a man or woman or
man or woman of courage
that's i mean forgive me but no
regrets isn't
a sign of courage what's what's
courageous is
looking your is is
dealing with the pain
to responding to the pain
and confronting your regrets
dead on and doing something about them
that's what courage is
i mean mike straight away he's
daniel pink's hitting on exactly what it
was that i was referring to earlier in
the show
this almost
ignorant or a desire to not reflect on
regrets
because you feel as though oh no i'm
confident so therefore i don't need to
regret that's not a sign of courage the
sign of courage as daniel pink saying is
to confront and accept those regrets to
look at them in detail
and learn from them i think i think he's
really summed up exactly there what i
have spent my last 34 years
basically doing which is ignoring those
moments of discomfort those regrets
because i believe it's more courageous
to put on a brave face and turn the
other cheek yeah and this really brings
me to
what we've learned from author ryan
holliday in his book courageous calling
this is also very much in the wheelhouse
of brene brown
if you think about daring greatly
uh if you actually go into our whole
back catalog
go to yucca willink and david goggins
they've got a different
entry point but what what we are seeing
is this massive pattern is that
you cannot be
naive
and ignorant and just
soldier on with a well of adrenaline and
go forward there has to be the
vulnerable
capacity
to look at yourself and look at the bad
things in yourself the mistakes
that you have made and to find the
courage to go and truly grab them and
say okay
that sucked
and that's okay
because i'm going to use it rather than
like ah no regrets i just move on i
don't even think about that well that's
what the mistake is daniel is
saying you gotta go into your back
catalogue of
bloopers mistakes
um and
really go and dust it out and clean it
out do not leave
those cobwebs unattended go in there and
if you tackle them if you do some house
cleaning
uh you will indeed give yourself a very
good chance of finding the very best
version of yourself what do you think i
mean i i it again it's the big penny
drop moment isn't it much like all those
innovators and entrepreneurs and
moonshot as you've just mentioned a lot
of the lessons we learned from them is
to embrace
uh let's call it failure let's call it
those difficulties right i've created a
product but it was a mistake okay that's
fine i'll learn from it
and i think regret is basically our own
personal failures isn't whether you want
to call them failures or not it doesn't
really matter i think it's there's still
the same emotion the same feeling of oh
that could have gone better
and learning from those moments as we're
learning from daniel pink
helps guide us with regards to how we
behave next time we're learning from
them much like a muscle we're tearing it
making it a little bit stronger like
yucca or david gokins would say we're
learning from it we're getting stronger
and i think daniel pink's saying the
exact same thing even though it's more
related to our brains and how we respond
to things yeah it's the same concept
isn't it so this is fascinating because
it really plays into also what we
learned from eckhart tolle where you
have to understand the role of your ego
i think it is our ego that says ooh
don't go near pain fear or rejection
right
but these things happen in life
uh they happen pretty regularly in life
and
i i think if you it's mind over matter
here
if you can build this muscle like yucca
willing and goggins
you know
problem
good pain
good go into it daniel pink is saying
embrace it discover what is it telling
you about who you want to be in the
future
how do you avoid making those same
mistakes again
and this is what i i truly love about
this exercise what we're doing together
learning out loud
decoding
this book the power of regret by daniel
h pink and really finding what does it
take to get a little bit uncomfortable
what does it take to find the courage to
ask yourself where did i really stuff up
in life and how can i use that to make
myself better and i think that's what's
so exciting and we've still got so much
more to come but before we continue on
this adventure with author daniel h pink
mike i'm really glad that we've started
reminding
our listeners to get into
the apple podcast app or to spotify and
to give us a reading or review because
we're seeing them really
come back with some real strength i mean
it's so good to hear
your feedback
i i mean mark how good is it when
listeners send us an email or share
their thoughts via rating or review i
mean it's pretty good in it well i mean
as much as i love discussing things with
you and the moonshots team mike you're
right it is
really
rewarding for us for you and i and the
team to receive those communications
last week we caught out sarah goes vegan
and this week mike we've got a brand new
review through the apple podcast app
which you're right it reminds us that
we've got 55 000 people listening to us
each week and they're learning something
from us it's not just you and me talking
out loud we've got people at the other
end
learning lessons which is really really
touching and and we really appreciate
hearing from you listeners and this week
mike we want to call out caleb podcasts
who's left us a wonderful review
calling out the passion
that you and i and the team share each
week the passion to share the secrets of
entrepreneurship can be felt in every
episode i mean caleb thank you so much
for calling that out i think it's
very true uh that mike and i we we are
very passionate about each of the shows
that we pull together and the lessons
that we learn and hearing from you our
listeners that you're also getting a
sense of it it's not just mark and mike
having a chat having a good time we are
passionate about it we get a lot out of
digging into these shows and these
innovators each week and we're glad to
hear that that our listeners get the
same so thank you so much for getting in
touch it really really helps yeah i
totally agree mark the
the think about what we're the topic of
today's show power of regret
imagine if you and let's let's kind of
build off what caleb was talking about
and
you know these secrets to
entrepreneurship
imagine if you had done two
startups that didn't work out
it would be so important to use the
thinking of daniel h pink the power of
regret to go back and evaluate
what did i totally stuff up because if
you can't was it the team did you
allocate capital in a bad way were you
building a product that nobody wanted
whatever it was
if you go back to that and you can get a
little bit
ready for the pain maybe the fear maybe
the rejection
whatever it is
that is in that past and if you can
reflect on it
surely that is like a springboard like a
catapult to launch you into a new
version of yourself a better version of
yourself whatever comes next can be
better but imagine this mike if you
didn't have the courage to go back and
ask what did i suffer what did i do
badly
if you didn't do that well the chances
are
you're going to make the same
mistake
again right
oh absolutely and without taking a
moment to
look at what you've done how you've
reacted how things have played out i
mean there's no hope for any of us to
learn from the things that do happen
right it's like history without writing
it down without reading it without
learning from it
you're gonna repeat the same things
again and again and i think the same is
true for for all of us unless we do take
a moment to reflect on regret failures
mistakes or just life occurrences
we're bound to make the same things
again and again
yeah and and so now what we're doing is
we're we're kind of on a bit of a turn
in the the journey in this show
i think to set the context here
we've come to terms with the fact that
regret totally universal it has these
four types it was really interesting to
explore where we had our regrets mark
and also we reminded ourselves of the
courage and resilience it takes to go
back and face our demons
now what we're going to do with adam
grout and daniel pink is to look at how
we use them
to be a better version of ourselves to
learn out loud and there's a very
important distinction coming up so let's
have a listen to adam grant and daniel
pink talking about improvement and
perfectionism
if regret is a learning opportunity that
can be meaningful and then positive for
well-being should we be concerned about
the pursuit of perfectionism that occurs
and continually wanting to do things
better do you think that there is a line
fine or otherwise that could cast
rectifying and actioning regrets as
negative
yeah well i mean certainly
there's a there's a big difference
between improvement and perfectionism
perfectionism is completely is
completely debilitating um and so you
know one of the things that we have to
get
i mean this is sort of part of healthy
functioning is like we have to get
figure out like what do we have control
over what do we not have control over
some perfectionism is basically seeking
control over things you have no control
over some of perfectionism is simply is
is aspiring to a standard that is
unachievable um so so um when improved
when the desire for improvement turns
into the obsession with perfectionism
that's obviously really that's really
dangerous i don't really have adam do
you have a good sort of
technique for stopping that
i mean
the the only one that that i've found
even remotely helpful is just
to distinguish reflection and rumination
uh rumination is when i cycle through
the same thought over and over again uh
reflection is when i gain a new insight
and if there hasn't been one in the last
10 minutes it's time to move on yeah one
one other thing on this i'll give you
i'll give you one one not super super
quick
one go ahead one super quick technique
that i use myself uh which is ironic
given
the timing here is that is that lauren i
say this to myself literally out loud
sometimes uh lauren michaels the the guy
who created saturday night live uh said
very famously once he says we don't go
on because we're ready we go on because
it's 11 30. and there are times that i
say to myself
dan it's 11 30. and and that that
technique has been useful for me to sort
of to say okay you got to stop improving
because you're never going to hit
perfection and just it's 11 30. the red
light is on the camera
let's put on a show
like i quite like that uh last little
story the little anecdote
because
there's been many many times for me and
it's quite a well-known saying isn't it
don't let perfectionism stop progress
just go out and do it there's been many
times in my life where i've felt
debilitated
because i've strived for the perfect uh
maybe it's presentation maybe it's
argument maybe it's just way of thinking
and what happens is you you do
get into a moment of
a lack of activity or action or maybe
you just put off going out and doing
something maybe it's starting a business
maybe it's jumping out of a plane maybe
it's having a difficult conversation
with somebody whatever it might be
because you want to wait for either a
the perfect timing
be the perfect argument or pronunciation
of what you're trying to put across
or see just the perfect situation in the
world
and i think what we're hearing from
daniel pink and adam grant in that clip
is don't get paralyzed by a desire to be
perfect because the truth is you might
not get there
the
action of
regret and i think where the connection
comes in with the power of regret which
is where we're going today
is you use regret in order to help you
learn
about
your values in
reflecting on what you've done so rather
than focus on
uh not making any mistakes not making
any regrets and therefore being inverted
commas perfect
instead accept that you are going to
make some mistakes along the way you're
not perfect and therefore you're going
be more at peace
what do you take from it uh what an
interesting uh
conversation because what we're
effectively doing
is trying to embed a practice that comes
that is born of
this thinking of this framework
that uh daniel pink has been talking
about
so
i think
the question becomes like if you don't
think about perfectionism
i think you have to think about process
right so it's process over perfectionism
and this process of continuous
self-improvement i think is best
expressed through the concept of habits
so i think whatever you take out
as
something that you want to improve based
on looking at your regrets regardless of
which type foundation boldness
moral or connection
start
the process don't obsess about the
perfectionism because i think that's
perhaps
you know where you get end up getting
yourself really stuck because much like
in any goal-setting
activity if you set a really really big
goal for yourself
and focus a lot on that end objective
let's take running for example let's say
you want to do a marathon
and you're like wow that's a lot of
miles that's a lot of kilometers
the best thing you could do
in that situation is say okay
well how will i run today and how will
that be one step
towards that goal and how will i run
tomorrow what sort of habit will i have
around diet sleep stretching well i get
the right gear and slowly
over time i'm going to build this
incredible habit of every day and every
week i'm going to run a few extra miles
and before i know it i'll be running
five miles longer six months and before
i know it i will be running the 26 miles
it takes to do a marathon i think
continuous improvement it's it's really
a question of process over perfectionism
and if there was any starting point i
think the idea here
is to take your regret and ask yourself
what small habit can i start today
that comes
from this regret
so for example
um
you know
it's really interesting you know pink
has talked a lot about the different
types of regrets
another really interesting way to do
that is
is you often hear some really profound
thoughts from
from older
retirees
people who
talk about their regrets
and there was a nurse bonnie ware and
we'll put a link to her blog
she has written not only the blog but
also a book
and
she was dealing with a lot of elderly
people and over many many years she made
an index
of what they regret at the end of their
life
and uh here's the list i wish i had the
courage to live a life true to myself
not what others wanted for me i wish i
hadn't worked so hard i wish i hadn't
had the courage i wish i'd had the
courage to express my true feelings i
wish i'd stayed in touch with my friends
hello direct connection to daniel pink
here and i wish i'd let myself be
happier okay let's just take the really
practical one i wish i hadn't worked so
hard
well
how could you build a habit of managing
your time
better
so that you can book in the start and
end of work tomorrow or even today
and what you do is you say okay i'm
gonna have a hard stop at six
and after that i'm going to go for a
walk to create a nice break and then we
come back and cook myself a healthy meal
and i'm going to do this routine
for the next three days and then i'm
going to tweak that and then i'm going
to tweak that
we i'd stayed in touch with friends okay
let's make a list of all the people
that you want to reconnect with
and say to yourself once a week
i'm going to hello pick up the telephone
god forbid and give them a call
they said just just call one person
or if that's too much send them a text
um my point here is i think take your
regret and ask yourself what habit can i
start not just a one-off
i think it's important to say
every week i'll run one mile further
every week i'll reach out to one friend
that i really want to reconnect with
right
every week i'm gonna fix a specific time
i'm gonna stop work and i'm going to
cook a proper dinner i'm not getting
uber eats
yeah i i think it's the transition into
habits that's where you get more into
continuous process improvement rather
than perfectionism what do you think
matt yeah i i think the idea of compound
interest uh james clears
the one percent better every day i think
you're totally on to something here
in order to
uh get over those regrets i mean to be
honest we could even go so far as to say
mike uh based on daniel ping's book
today
maybe the activity that we can all start
this week
is to write down one of the regrets and
be honest with ourselves
by the weekend yes what have i regretted
this week and gradually
week by week month by month we'll start
becoming more conf comfortable and
confident with those regrets and rather
than them being
things that we aren't really comfortable
with that we want to regret or not think
about suddenly after a couple of weeks
or maybe a couple of months
we're all much more confident or
comfortable discussing those regrets
and it's no longer a pain in our side or
a thorn in our feet instead it's
something that we look back and almost
celebrate okay right it's the end it's
the weekend what did i regret this week
well you know what i could have been
nicer to my colleague that's great
because next week i'll be nice yeah i
said to them and and listen you can
build these habits um
for sure
uh
and
like let's say that you feel like uh
you're unhealthy maybe you've put on too
much weight
then i think a great habit to start is
eliminate one of the classic uh food
types in your diet
that leads to to being unhealthy and
overweight let's just say take the
classic landmark
alcohol yeah
yeah
let's let's not be too crazy about habit
formation here okay so we're really
getting into how to use the regret let's
say you regret being 10 kilograms
overweight
what you could say is
i will not let's say you're a beer
drinker i will not drink beer monday
through thursday
yep just eliminate it for four days of
the week yeah
that would be a good one what's what's
another food you could you could kind of
eliminate from a diet just one food mark
if you think classic person is got a
little too heavy and needs to tackle
this well look i mean you could just cut
out something that is is so simple like
bread for example
maybe if it's not entirely bread it's a
different type of bread
try dipping grain yeah
let's go even further you don't even
have to eliminate it completely just say
i'm gonna start the day better i'm not
gonna have that big muffin
for breakfast every morning
eliminate one thing one little thing
that's the start of a habit right it's
and that's all it takes isn't it we did
a whole series on habits
and it is just those small little things
and once you reset that behavior that
reward versus um behavior you know
suddenly it becomes that little bit
easier doesn't it yeah and the
the the
that's like the little micro compound
interest atomic habit that you can build
i think another good thing you can do
here
is if you
if you're
facing your regrets and you look at the
things you
that are in that list and you know you
need to go on this kind of continuous
self-improvement
and
i think it's easy to imagine you might
get a little bit stuck right mark like
it might be
a bit overwhelming
absolutely right
geez that list is a bit
it's a bit too long
yeah um or it might be just a bit
uncomfortable right
i think that's definitely where it comes
from you know
there's a great um article that you and
i found wasn't there that breaks down
regret into that maddening
complexing and undeniably real emotion
yes
so let's imagine you're right there
and
you know you gotta remove the alcohol
from the diet you know you got to get
the carbs down a bit
maybe you've got to get the sugars out
maybe you just got to eat like proper
like
fruit vegetable rather than all this
processed stuff
but you're like ugh
can i really be bothered
what i
what i love to do is
um you know
it was quite interesting to use that
process of looking at what uh bonnie
ware said the top five regrets were
what i what i go back to
is the feeling
that i had
when i didn't live up
to the best version of myself
i i try to go back
to the pain
i try to go back to the rejection the
failure whatever it is
i try to go to
not only the moment but the feeling
right
i love going back
in my life
particularly you've heard me on the show
talk a number of times about how i was
lazy and undisciplined and didn't make
much of my high school years my teenage
years they were a bit of a joke to be
quite honest right
i go back
to that feeling of disappointment
in myself
and i go there
and i feel it
and you know what i promised to myself
mark
i go right to that moment and i say
never
again
i go back to that feeling of being
fluent in french i lived in paris i
didn't even take french
in my final high school exams
i remember playing rugby
against five
of the australian rugby
team
and i quit rugby i remember being a
professional dj and quitting and so on
and so on and so on and how disappointed
i am in myself
and i make a promise
never again
and that's the well of
discipline and resilience and the
courage to to try and be better and i go
back to that and i encourage you mark i
encourage our listeners
to go to those feelings that you have
go to that moment and say to yourself
never again
there is time abundant ahead for each
and every one of us
to improve upon that don't avoid those
moments of pain regret rejection
[Music]
don't don't avoid them go to them and
just make that promise and if you can
truly
truly say i don't want to be there again
then the idea of not having beer monday
through thursday no problem
that idea of eliminating those carbs no
problem those sugars
that idea of putting in the work to
prepare a proper meal with real fruit
and vegetable
no problem
go back to the moment and just
find a way to confront it
and so do you really want to experience
that feeling again of course you don't
so what does it take to to get through
that and to say never again to me that
is the power of regret
i i think you're totally right mike i
think you're totally right and we've got
one more
clip that i think really builds on
exactly what you've just shared with us
and this is a great story from daniel h
pink's book the power of regret and i
think it's speaking really true to this
idea that you're discussing around the
emotion the raw feeling of regret and
therefore doing something about it
thinking back at a moment in your life
that perhaps you could have done
differently and learning from it and
promising to yourself never again
and i thought it was it would be a great
closer for today's show it's a nice
breakdown from productivity game on one
of the lessons within daniel h pink's
book the power of regret so let's hear
from the book itself one more time and
this time how to anticipate potential
regrets one morning in 1888 alfred nobel
flipped through his local newspaper and
stumbled upon a story about his death
alfred's brother ludwig had recently
died but a journalist mistakenly thought
alfred died
the mistake might have been amusing
alfred if the obituary wasn't so grim
alfred nobel was an ingenious chemist
who invented dynamite in advanced mining
methods several decades
but his premature obituary focused
solely on his invention of military
explosives the journalist dubbed nobel
the merchant of death
and explained that dr alfred nobel
became rich by finding ways to kill more
people faster than ever before
horrified alfred set out to change his
story
eight years later at the time of his
actual death he donated 94 of his wealth
which is worth about half a billion
dollars today to award scientists for
making major achievements in their
fields
now his revised obituary praise nobel
for being a great philanthropist and a
champion of science
nobel was lucky enough to get a glimpse
of his future and change what he'd later
regret
we could experience the same log by
anticipating what we might
regret what will be your legacy what
will be your obituary
these are
very powerful questions aren't they mark
huge i mean we've discussed this idea of
um maybe not obituary
but the legacy strand we've certainly
discussed on the show before haven't we
and again it feeds into um habits it
feeds into motivations
and i find it really interesting
again i think what it does penny is
dropping for me here you know
it's so connected again to regret and
how
to not take the time to really look at
regret it is doing a desert disservice
around this this idea of legacy isn't it
you're you're you're spot on there and
um
could you imagine
being
albert noble
and reading
by mistake your obituary
that leads with the merchant of death is
dead
if that doesn't wake you up and make you
change course
and and now
based on uh
noble it's the nobel peace peace prize
exactly can you believe it what a change
what a turnaround what an interesting
turn yes so now that you have the
courage to go and look at all these
regrets and so forth the question is
what will be your legacy mark what will
be the legacy for our listeners
how do they want to be remembered and
here's the big moment when you define
how you want to be remembered
ask yourself what is the gap between how
you behave
today
and that's where you build the habits
that's where you build that continuous
improvement process right
i mean there's been so much coming out
of daniel h pink's book and in in fact
the entire mindset series mike it has
hasn't it has been rather revealing and
challenging it's been a little prickly
if i must say yeah it has i mean we
learned about meaning and values we
learnt about you know this idea of
ownership and control with the 48 laws
of power
last week with communication and
negotiation and this week a seriously
heavy hitting if i may say so myself
break that into the idea of regret as
well as the build that you've made habit
formation i think this has been a really
interesting lesson for me in digging
into the foundations and the columns of
having a good mindset that we can go out
and build on and be the best version of
ourselves yeah
so of all of these which which thought
around regret
has piqued your interest mode which one
which one has really kind of landed for
you well to be honest they they've all
revealed because they're all in a funny
sort of way compounded for me anyway
each one sort of reveals a new insight i
think the uh
obviously i understood that regret and
reflecting on regret takes courage so
for me
what actually is uh the big reveal from
today's work and daniel pink's book
is the fact that it's universal
and that we should revel in reflecting
on them right
all right because i think there is
there's so much we can learn from it um
and now that i know and appreciate that
around the world all these people
have these frustrations these regrets it
makes it a little bit easier for me
myself to reflect on them myself as well
and if everybody else can do it so can i
so that little bit of courage
to really accept it to take a moment out
of my day or my week
think back to it what can i learn what
can i do better i mean it's it's so easy
to do admittedly
maybe a little bit unpleasant
so i think down the line it's going to
be worth worth its wedding gold what
what stood out to you mike
well you know
when i think about this probably like
the most fundamental thing of don't be a
victim of wishful thinking
don't try and be i got no regrets right
and
i just love
the idea of the permission it gave me
you know i thought that was very very
powerful
the permission today to go out and
reflect on it rather than feel guilty
about it yeah i totally agree
what a revealing
what a revealing set of research he's
conducted oh it's a it's a great body of
work well mark listen thank you to you
for joining me on what was definitely a
hairy touchy encounter with uh regret in
all its full color and glory
and thank you to you our listeners
because today it was show 170
where we went into the work of daniel h
pink the book
called the power of regret
and the lesson started by learning that
it is truly universal
built around four
key ideas foundation regrets boldness
moral and connection regrets and to go
to those places it takes courage
and there with your reflection seek
improvement
not perfectionism go for process
don't try and be perfect and if you do
so you can build the habits
to truly be the best version of yourself
and that's what we're all about here on
the moonshots podcast and if it's really
up your alley
go and ask yourself what is your legacy
what do you want to be remembered for
and there
you will find
the well
of drive of motivation of the capacity
to be resilient to go on that journey to
shoot for the moon and be the very best
you can be all right that's it for the
moonshots podcast that's a wrap