如何拥抱你的情绪将加速你的职业发展 | Joe Hudson(Art of Accomplishment)
How embracing your emotions will accelerate your career | Joe Hudson (Art of Accomplishment)
Joe Hudson: A lot of the people in my circles may have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to try to arrange a life that they enjoy, and it doesn’t fucking work.
Introducing the Guest
Lenny Rachitsky: What is holding people back?
Two Major Themes Blocking People
Joe Hudson: It’s the fact that they have emotions that they are not sitting, feeling, or expressing. Whatever emotion that you’re trying to avoid, you are inviting into your life in exactly the way that you’re trying to avoid it.
How Emotions Hold You Back
Lenny Rachitsky: What the hell? Why would… Why does this… You have this really amazing insight. The voice in your head is often telling you bullshit.
Joe Hudson: What most people try to do is they try to stop it, and that doesn’t work very well. I think the best way to work with the voice in the head is to pick an experiment every day and respond to the voice in the head in a new way every day. One of my favorite responses is, “Oh, I see that you’re really scared. Don’t worry. I’m right here with you. I got you.”
How Emotional Blocks Form
Lenny Rachitsky: You’re really big on helping people feel joy.
Joe Hudson: It’s such an important tool for productivity. If you say, I’m going to figure out how to enjoy what I do 10% more and you succeed, you are 10% more efficient. Not only that, usually, the quality is going to get a lot better too.
Acceptance Over Just Awareness
Lenny Rachitsky: Is there just one thing you recommend that basically everyone try to experiment with?
Joe Hudson: Yeah, it’ll change your life dramatically really quickly.
Practices for Sensing Emotions
Lenny Rachitsky: Today, my guest is Joe Hudson. Joe is one of the most sought-after executive coaches amongst tech leaders and has worked with folks from OpenAI, SpaceX, Apple, and other world-class companies. Joe’s unique approach to coaching draws from his spiritual, psychological, and neurological practices. In his intimate courses that he runs a few times a year, and in his podcast, he helps people create the life that they want with enjoyment and ease. In our conversation, Joe shares the two things that he finds most often keep people stuck in their life and in their job, and how to work on getting these things unstuck. Why the critical voice in your head is always wrong, contradictory, and telling you bullshit, and how to build a different relationship with that voice.
Why falling in love with your emotions is so important and so powerful. Why you’d be better off focusing on what you want versus what you think you should do or think that you need to do, plus a bunch of amazing advice on how to make better decisions, help your team run more effectively, and why a seven-minute daily gratitude practice will change your life. This episode is basically for every single person. It will make your life and your work better. If you enjoy this podcast, don’t forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. It’s the best way to avoid missing feature episodes and helps the podcast tremendously. With that, I bring you Joe Hudson. Joe, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast.
Joe Hudson: Oh, thanks. Good to be here.
Inside Out and Full Acceptance
Lenny Rachitsky: It’s good to have you. I’m curious if there’s any common themes that emerge often in terms of what is holding people back from success or just living the life that they want, especially ambitious tech people, which I know is a lot of the folks that you work with. Are there archetypes of like, here’s the thing, often come up most often and hold people back?
Joe Hudson: A nonspecific answer to that would be a critical voice in their head and a relationship with that critical voice that is not productive. Oftentimes, the critical voice in the head says, “You need me to be productive,” but it’s usually a huge detriment to being able to really be successful. Even if you are successful with a really critical voice in your head, you never get to enjoy it. You might have the money, but then you’re like, “Oh, shit, I’m still miserable.” Or, “I got the car, I got the house, I got the money, I got the successful career, and why am I unhappy all the time?” That would be, I would say one of the biggest ones. Another really big one that in a large category I would say is their relationship with emotions is all fakata. They are either trying to pretend they don’t have them or compartmentalizing them or trying to manage them rather than harnessing them and falling in love with them. That would be a big place.
Misunderstanding Who You Are
Lenny Rachitsky:
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Questioning Your Assumptions
Joe Hudson: I would say every single time the voice in your head is wrong. That critical voice in your head. To be specific, I’m talking about the voice in your head that is critical and repeats. There’s the voice that says the same thing over and over again. You got to work out more, you got to work out more, you got to work out more. Whatever that is, it’s always wrong, and that doesn’t mean there isn’t truth to what it says, but it’s incorrect. As an example of this, you should work out more, you should work out more, you should work out more, or you need me or you just sit around on the couch as a great example of one. If I was your boss and I was sitting right next to you and I was criticizing you every couple of minutes, there’s no way that you would say, “Wow, I really need you. I couldn’t be productive without you.” It’s a bunch of crap. Or you should work out, you should work out.
I see the truth that I’d be healthier if I work out. I get that. Should I? Is it really a should? There’s another question. What makes it not say, “Oh, hey, why don’t you enjoy working out? How do we get you to enjoy working out? What would motivate you to work?” It’s not doing any of that. It’s, “You should work out, you should work out.” It’s never an accurate thing that’s happening inside of your head. Until you can see through that, it’s hard to work with the voice in your head. You can do it, but until you see through it. The second part that I would say is that if you want to work with the voice in your head a new way, what most people try to do is they try to stop it. They try to control the voice in the head, and that doesn’t work very well. Instead, I say, change the way that you relate to the negative voice in your head.
Instead of being, “Okay, stop doing that, stop doing that.” Say, “Oh, I see that you’re really scared and I’m right here with you.” Or sing a musical to it or just go, “Eh, I don’t believe you.” As a matter of fact, I think the best way to work with the voice in the head is to pick an experiment every day and respond to the voice in the head in a new way every day to have an experimental approach and say, “Oh, what’s the relationship I want with this negative voice in my head?” Because right now, what it’s typically doing for most people is that it says something and the person’s like, “Yeah.” Or, “Yeah, but I’m not going to do that, so fuck off.” Or, “Yeah, that’ll never work.” Something like that is the response. What happens if you change the response to the voice in your head? That gives you a crap ton of freedom, and it’s the beginning of what can be a state where the negative voice in the head disappears, which is really, really quite lovely.
Lenny Rachitsky: Oh, wow. I love this so much because there’s so much that comes from this thing in your head just shooting you down or scaring you about stuff. It’s so hard. I hear this, but it’s so hard. Next time I’m, I don’t know, giving a big presentation, I’m going to hear like, “Oh, something could go wrong. You could look really stupid or you could totally forget what you’re saying.” It’s hard to really intellectualize, okay, I don’t have to listen to this. Is there anything more there just how to turn that around and be like, just shut up?
How Shame Fuels Bad Habits
Joe Hudson: The shut up usually doesn’t work. Experiment with all of it. To me, one of my favorite responses is, “Oh, I see that you’re really scared. Don’t worry. I’m right here with you. I got you.” Because part of the deal is that the voice in the head has assumed the position that it’s like the boss, but it’s really a little kid having a temper tantrum. If you listen to it, if you just dictated everything it said, it sounds like usually like a five-year-old having a temper tantrum, or it sounds like the way your mom used to chastise you or the way your dad used to chastise you or whatever, a teacher. It isn’t, it’s not logical, it’s not thoughtful, it’s typically not thoughtful, it’s usually abusive. It’s a lot of fear. It’s one of my favorites, one of my favorite ways to respond.
I’ve tried, I mean, gosh, dozens of ways, and there’s a lot of neat effective ways. I particularly think it’s really good to set up a series of experiments rather than just take the one that I have because the experimental mindset means that you can never really fail. Typically, somebody, like worse with the voice in the head, they fail and they go, “Ah, fuck it.” Because we have this part of our brain called the habenula, and the habenula basically is the part of our brain that is trying to teach us not to fail over and over again. It’s the thing that when you go on a diet or you go to work out and then you don’t do it one day and you say, “Ah, fuck it, I messed up,” and then you don’t try anymore or you don’t try for a couple of weeks or whatever, that’s basically what’s happening in that part of the brain.
If you do it as an experimental thing, then you can’t lose, you’re just learning about yourself. You’re learning about the voice in your head. The way I like thinking about that is people are like, “I understand the problem, but I don’t have a solution.” I’m always like, “If you understood the problem, there would be no question about the solution.” If you fully understand the problem, you know the solution. All you have to do is really fully understand the voice in your head through a series of experiments and the whole thing goes away.
Avoided Emotions Always Linger
Lenny Rachitsky: The advice here is next time you’re hearing something in your head that you don’t think is going to be helpful to you is try to respond to it in a different way from what you’ve been doing.
Joe Hudson: I would be even more subtle than that, which is I really wouldn’t care if you think it’s helpful to you or not. I would just experiment with different ways of interacting with it. I wouldn’t even do it as a goal of, okay, I want the voice in the head to be nicer to me. I would do it with the goal of just, hey, how do I learn? How do I understand this thing? It’s a far more productive self-development. Generally, it’s far more productive to learn, say about the river valley by walking through it, putting your feet in the river, going down the river with a canoe, smelling the soil, looking at the plants, than it is to say, “Okay, I am going to dam this river valley and try to…” You’re not going to understand it the same way. You’re going to make some mistakes.
Acceptance Over Resistance
Lenny Rachitsky: Amazing. The second bucket that you shared of what you find most often is the root of what’s holding people back is the way you described is your relationship with your emotions, which I don’t think a lot of people would think of as the thing that’s holding them back. Can you talk a bit more about what that looks like?
Your Inner State Over Words
Joe Hudson: Yeah, a great way to explain it. For the logical folks, so in 2012 or so, there was a person who wrote a book called Descartes’ Error, and in Descartes’ Error, the whole idea is that I think therefore I am, and this person’s like, “Yeah, that’s the error.” It’s a neuroscientist who looked at people who had damage in the emotional center of their brain, and they just basically ceased to be able to make decisions. Their IQ would stay the same, but it would take them half an hour to decide where to have lunch or decide what color pen to use. It would take hours and hours to make simple decisions, so their IQ would stay high, but their entire life would completely fall apart. What it tells us, and this is not exact, I’m paraphrasing for a podcast, but we make decisions in the emotional center of our brain. We use logic to try to figure out how we’re going to feel.
You can see this just by asking yourself the question, how many decisions have you made to feel like a success or to not feel like a failure or to feel happier, to not feel trapped? There’s these huge buckets of emotions that we are trying to feel and not feel, and we’re making decisions based on those. There’s no such thing as a logical decision. That idea is like, I’m just going to be logical and just make a logical decision, it doesn’t. Neurologically, it’s just untrue. If you learn to fall in love with all of your emotions, then solution sets become available that you didn’t have before. If you are like, “Oh, I can’t feel like a failure.” Well, then you’re probably not going to take certain risks. If you are, “Oh, I want to feel loved and I can’t feel unliked by people.” Well, then you’re not going to say your truth, and then the world is going to not give you the things that are truthful to you.
I go into my boss, I say my truth, I get fired. Okay, I get fired, but then probably my next boss, I say my truth, I’m going to find a location where my truth is and how I want to be in the world is going to be acceptable. If I don’t do that, if I’m constantly managing myself, then I’m not going to have that reality. It’s really important, just for the decision-making part, how important emotions are to be able to fall in love with each of the emotional experiences so you’re not making decisions based on your inability to feel stuff. That’s like one, there’s literally a thousand others. Most people, they feel stuck. They can have a big emotional release and they don’t feel stuck anymore. When people feel overwhelmed, it’s usually not the amount of crap that they have going on in their life. It’s the fact that they have emotions that they are not sitting, feeling or expressing. That’s another huge chunk of stuff.
Depression is usually unmoved anger, is another example. There’s so many levels in which people not able to feel really limits their life. Just one that’s like almost everybody can relate to is feeling excitement is something that most people can only do for about 10 to 20 seconds. Most people aren’t like, “Oh, I’m excited.” If you walked into a Denny’s and there was this person, a 60-year-old man and just excited and was excited for 10 minutes, you’d be like, “What’s wrong with this person?” When we’re excited, it’s contagious. I walk into a meeting and I’m excited, probably other people are going to walk out excited. We’re limiting just our ability to create collaboration by the fact that we’re limited by our excitement. I could go on forever. There’s so many experiences like this.
Enjoyment as a Productivity Tool
Lenny Rachitsky: What I’m hearing is the core issues, we’re not able to feel our emotion, but there’s something there, like we are angry or scared. Because we can’t feel it, we just can’t break through that.
Enjoy the Present, Not External Happiness
Joe Hudson: Not quite. If you have somebody who’s experienced a lot of emotional abuse in their life, then they might not be able to feel the emotions that they’re having, and particularly where you experienced the emotional abuse. That might be the case for them. For instance, if you had physical abuse and I put a quarter in one of your hands and a key in another one of your hands without telling you which was which, you wouldn’t be able to tell me if you’d suffered enough physical abuse because you’ve literally cut that sensation off. Similarly, people who’ve experienced emotional abuse can often not tell what the emotions are. Now, emotional abuse is, it’s a big word. Generally, people don’t even like equating the two. Just to agree on terms here, when I say emotional abuse, I mean you were told that you weren’t allowed to have a certain emotion. That’s what I mean by emotional abuse.
Maybe you got fed every time you got angry or you got your love removed, or you got punished, or maybe every time you cried, you were made fun of. My particular background was that. It’s when you weren’t allowed to feel certain emotions, you were told to cut it off because it wasn’t going to be safe because you’re either going to get bribed out of it or punished out of it, or loved removed because of it or made fun of or whatever it is. That might be a step that one has to take, but the place you want to get to is where the emotions are fluid, where it just moves right through you. It doesn’t mean that you lose control. As a matter of fact, losing control means that there’s still resistance in it.
The way I think about this is that emotions are like a tube, let’s say, and there’s water moving through the tube. You kink a tube one way, the water comes out a little funny. Kink the tube the other way, it comes a little funny. Let’s say you have anger and that’s the tube of, and you kink it one way and it’s like, “You son of a bitch. You blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” You kink get another way and it’s like, “Nice dress. You crank it another way and it’s guilt. It’s like, “Why would you ever do that to me?” Then if it’s unkinked, then it’s like Gandhi or Martin Luther king. It’s this very loving boundary that’s set. It’s this clarity of purpose. That’s how I think about it. The idea is to get to fluidity, to unkink the hose so that all of the emotional experiences come out with love.
How You Ask Changes Everything
Lenny Rachitsky: I did a meditation retreat, a 10-day silent meditation retreat, which I know is a big part of your practice and something that led to the work you do now. A term that’s coming up for me is non-judgmental awareness. Basically, experiencing the thing you’re feeling and just letting it go, not attaching to it, not judging it. Is that along the lines of stuff you’d recommend?
The Ten Percent More Enjoyment Experiment
Joe Hudson: Yeah, it’s definitely a huge part of it. There’s a couple of things that I noticed get in the way, or the translation gets in the way there. One is it’s like, think about emotions as like kids in your house. If a kid came into your house and you’re like, “I will be non-judgmentally aware of you.” You’re probably going to get a very different response from the kid than if you’re like, “Oh, I’m so excited to see you. I welcome you in my house.” The emotions feel different if you’re like, “I am non-judgmentally aware of this emotion,” or, “Oh, cool. Oh cool, I’m sad. This is fantastic.” If you have that welcoming invitation. One of the quotes that I’m most famous for is joy is the matriarch of a family of emotions and she won’t come into a house where her children aren’t welcome. A very joyful life is a life where all the other emotions are deeply welcomed, not accepted, not non-judgmentally aware of. I think those are really great steps, don’t get me wrong. If you can be in non-judgmental awareness of an emotion, fantastic.
The other thing that’s a little bit different about what you said is that emotions do need to be felt. If you stop feeling an emotion, you have to constrict your muscles. I can watch somebody come in, come up for one of my coaching rapid coaching sessions. By the crease in their eyebrow, I can know that there’s repressed anger. By the hunch in their shoulders, I can tell you about the critical parent that they had. The body takes on a shape that’s based on the emotions that you’ve been taught to hold. You don’t just by sitting there, well, it’s not entirely true, if you just sit there and feel them in that way without the full expression, they will move eventually, but it might take a couple of decades. You can actually just move them. You can actually make the sound, move your body. All mammals do it. Like mammals releasing fear, they all shake. It’s part of how we exist. That’s also a really big part of emotional fluidity. It’s not just being still and feeling them, it’s letting the muscles move, making the sounds.
True Self Versus Self-Improvement
Lenny Rachitsky: For someone that wants to get better at the skill of feeling emotions, being more in touch with emotions, helping their emotions be more fluid. I know this is a lifelong practice and not something you would just hear on a podcast, okay, I’ve installed this. Is there anything tactically you can recommend to a listener of just like, here’s something you could do this week that’ll help you, along these lines?
Understanding Problems Makes Them Disappear
Joe Hudson: We have a free audio on our website called Emotional Inquiry, and that would be the easiest way that I would, that’s a really good entry level first step into emotional fluidity. The bigger problem is that every step has a different thing. If you’re in the not aware of emotions, then that step may not be the right step for you. Though, if you are aware two or three emotions and you can do emotional inquiry, usually, it’ll open up a lot of the other ones. There might be a point where you really need expression, and so emotional inquiry is not going to work. Just generally, the emotional inquiry practice is a really good one. What it is, is imagine you’re a little kid and you pick up a toad.
You’re going to pick it up, you’re going to look at it, you’re going to feel it, you’re going to smell it. Some little kids are even going to lick it a little bit. They’re going to really want to explore this toad, and that’s what emotional inquiry is, is a somatic mental experiencing of an emotional experience in your body and what is it like and what happens when you welcome it. What happens when you love it. What happens when you resist it. It’s a series of experiments that you’re playing with the emotion and observations and felt sense of the emotion, and that I find to be incredibly, incredibly useful for people.
Lenny Rachitsky: Just getting very curious.
Deep Questioning for Understanding
Joe Hudson: Yeah, a lot of wonder.
Emotions and Team Building
Lenny Rachitsky: By the way, the quote you shared about joy being the matriarchy of all the other emotions, imagine people have said this, but inside out too, I think is exactly a representation of what you’re talking about, where joy is actually, she’s like the protagonist almost. I don’t know if you’ve seen it yet.
Establishing Life Principles
Joe Hudson: I think I’ve heard about this. I haven’t watched it, but I think where you think it’s all about being happy and you find out that you have to accept everything for happiness to really work, kind of.
Team Principles and Five-Star Meetings
Lenny Rachitsky: Exactly.
Pulse Surveys and Company Culture
Joe Hudson: Yeah, I have heard about it.
A Seven-Minute Daily Practice
Lenny Rachitsky: Anxiety takes over, and then things don’t go well. Something else that I’ve noticed listening to a bunch of your conversations, you do these lightning round coaching sessions with people, and so I listen to a bunch of them. Something that was really interesting to me is that a lot of people come to you and they’re like, “Hey, I have this problem. I can’t do this hard thing I know I need to do.” Or, “I have imposter syndrome just keeping me from doing this thing I need to do.” you’re often like, “No, that’s not actually what’s going on here. I can see that’s not a problem for you. It’s really this other thing.” Is that super common where people think they need to work on this one thing, and it turns out that’s not at all, they’re actually okay at that and something totally else?
From Scarcity to Abundance
Joe Hudson: I’d maybe put it a little bit differently. They’re living in a story that describes an old version of themselves or they don’t see themselves clearly enough to be able to see the whole issue, and so they’re just kind of living with a story that’s in the past. That’s a really common thing. Oftentimes, if I do that in a coaching session, typically it’s because they’re showing me right there that it’s not true. Somebody’s like, “I’m so scared, I can’t do anything.” I’m like, “You just got in front of a hundred people to ask me a question. Clearly, you’re not so scared that you can’t do anything, so I’m not buying it.” I don’t do it quite like that, I do it with a lot more love than that.
Oftentimes, I see that people’s stories are a culprit, like how they describe themselves. A great way that you can really see this in folks is that nine out of 10 times that you compliment somebody, I really appreciate this thing about you, they’re going to go, “Nah.” Or, “Well, my sister is even more.” Or, “If you knew me.” They’re going to do some sort of version like that. It basically is one of the indicators that they can’t actually feel who they are. They would rather, in effect, call you a liar. You’re lying to me or you’re wrong than they would to actually accept the experience of being seen in that way. It does a couple of things. One of the things it does is it stops people from seeing themselves clearly. The other thing it does is it makes people forever want to be seen and complimented and acknowledged and validated because they’re getting the food, but they can’t digest it.
Course Resources and Closing
Lenny Rachitsky: Do you have any advice other than working with you and you telling them, “Hey, here’s actually going on,” for someone to like, okay, maybe revisit, maybe this isn’t actually a problem to see what’s actually going on?
Joe Hudson: We have a set of five kind of what we think are foundational tools for transformation, and we do these free workshops on them, and one of them is question the assumption. That’s a really great way to have people start to see through their stories. At the beginning, I said, “Nothing in the critical voice in your head says is true.” This is how it applies, so typically, there’s an assumption that you have to make for the problem to be real. If somebody says to you, for instance, if somebody comes to me and says, “I am an asshole to my girlfriend.” That’s their problem. One, you have to assume that the girlfriend doesn’t want you to be an asshole, as an example. Two, you have to assume that you know what being an asshole actually is. It’s not just what your mom told you an asshole was.
Three, there’s some validation, there’s another assumption, there’s some clear thing that says this in the world. Everyone’s like, that’s an asshole and that’s not, rather than what actually happens in the world, which is 50% of the people think that this person is an asshole and 50% think they’re a hero. It’s something like that. Also, another assumption there is that the problem is that you’re an asshole, instead of that you’re resisting the fact that you are an asshole, and therefore, it comes out sideways instead of really clear. There’s so many assumptions in there. If you see through those assumptions, usually the problem starts fading away.
It’s like, “Oh, okay, what do I mean by asshole, exactly? How do I define that?” It seems like a silly thing when I am using this example of asshole. I remember this moment in my own development, I was in Bodega Bay, out of all places, and this very good friend of mine at the time was like, “Joe, you’re an asshole.” I was like, “No, I’m not.” He’s like, “Why resist it? Just fall in love with the fact that you’re an asshole. Just allow yourself to be an asshole for just a minute, just one minute.” I stopped, and I thought of like, I was doing venture capital at the time, and I could think of all the things that I had done that somebody would call an asshole, and all the ways in which I was unattuned to people, and I could, “Oh, yeah, okay, I can totally see that I’m an asshole.”
In that scene, not only in the scene of it, but as the shame fell away, oh, this is nothing I have to defend. This isn’t something that I’m a bad person because of, I don’t need to be ashamed of it. This is just some actions that I took. As that faded away, then and then over the next couple weeks, lo and behold, I became less of an asshole. It’s a strange thing when you really grok that, that it’s often shame that holds bad habits in place. Is it a problem that I’m an asshole, or is the problem that I’m ashamed of being an asshole? Is the problem that you’re a smoker, is the problem that you’re ashamed of being a smoker? Typically, there’s so many assumptions built into everything that we call a problem, and if we look through those assumptions, the problems disappear. As in this case, it disappeared for me.
Lenny Rachitsky: Wow, okay. There’s a lot there. It connects to something I know you recently talked about, which is the emotion we want to avoid is the thing we end up experiencing a lot by trying to avoid it. What’s going on there?
Joe Hudson: Since I’m coach executives, let’s do an executive example, so conflict avoidant executive. I don’t want to feel the out of control in this that I do when people argue. I don’t want to feel that level of out of control, so I am going to be conflict avoidant. I’m going to avoid conflict. Every way that we go to avoid a feeling, becomes the way that, that feeling gets invited towards us. We all know what it’s like to work for a conflict-avoidant CEO or a boss, people get really fucking upset. Eventually, people get really upset. Decisions aren’t being made. There’s all this tension. It’s never relieved.
Then wow, sure enough, the conflict-avoidant CEO is dealing with a whole organization that’s tense and they feel completely out of control and the fact that they can’t do anything about, so that’s an example. Or when I was younger, it was emotional abandonment. My dad was an alcoholic, and I didn’t want to feel that emotional abandonment again, and so I would get really hard when I felt like people were leaving me, I’d be like, “What the dah, dah, dah, dah, dah?” Which of course, made them abandon me quicker, or I would try to caretaker people, which would build resentment, which would make people abandon me. Whatever emotion that you’re trying to avoid, you are inviting into your life in exactly the way that you’re trying to avoid it.
Lenny Rachitsky: What the hell? Why does this happen?
Joe Hudson: That doesn’t sound right.
Lenny Rachitsky: This is counterproductive.
Joe Hudson: It is counterproductive. I think that the really cool thing about it is you can look at any issue that you’re having in your life, so you can say, oh, one of the problems that I have in my life is that I am constantly in an argument with my girlfriend or boyfriend, let’s say. What is the thing that you don’t want to feel in that argument? I don’t want to feel ashamed. You’re getting in arguments because you don’t want to feel ashamed, and that’s making you feel more ashamed. What am I doing at that first time to not feel ashamed? I’m defending myself. Oh, and me defending myself is actually the thing that’s starting the fight. You can backward engineer it to, oh, I don’t want to feel ashamed, therefore I’m going to defend myself, which creates the fight, which makes me feel more ashamed.
Any problem that you’re having, you can actually backwards engineer it and see, oh, I can solve that problem by just being okay with that feeling. God damn it, you didn’t take out the trash. Oh, that’s a shame I don’t want to feel. I’m not going to defend myself. I’m going to feel that shame. Oh, yeah, then maybe I’m going to say I’m sorry I didn’t take out the trash, or I’m going to say, I don’t feel ashamed, I don’t want to take out the trash. I have to defend myself to get in the fight, and then I’m going to feel ashamed. You can reverse engineer all your problems this way. It’s like it’s such a cool hack, but it’s very hard. For somehow or another, it’s very simple, but very hard for people to utilize.
Lenny Rachitsky: This is amazing. The advice is basically feel the thing and just come to terms with this is the emotion I’m feeling, and maybe, like an example, the asshole. Well, maybe I’m an asshole.
Joe Hudson: It’s what’s required for you to love and accept yourself would be, and love and accept the emotion that you’re having in the moment instead of resist it. There’s that saying, what we resist persists. How do you fall in love with and stop resisting the reality on the ground? In doing so, it changes the reality on the ground.
Lenny Rachitsky: In this argument with your supposed girlfriend, say you disagree about her perspective on what’s going on. I guess that’s not the root issue here. It’s your feeling, it’s not her perception.
Joe Hudson: Hey, sweetheart, I really hear you want me to take out the trash, and that’s not my truth. That’s going to be very different than defending that shame. The defending the shame is going to be like, no, it’s not my job to take out the chat. You’re trying not to feel the experience, which is what’s going to do it. The response isn’t the important thing. It’s really where the response comes from. It’s so interesting because people are taught constantly, this is something we teach in the connection courses that it’s really not about the conversation, it’s about where you’re at in the conversation. For instance, when my friend said to me, “Hey, you’re a dick.” Here’s what he didn’t do, he’s like, he didn’t go, “You’re a dick. You asshole. You’re being an asshole. You’re being a dick. Fucking stop it.” He was like, “Eh, you’re a dick, so what? What’s the problem?” He was coming from a place of love for me, and so I could not be defended in my response to him. It’s really where you come from.
It’s the emotionally where you come from, that’s the important part. Not as much what you say. You can see this, a perfect example of this is, this happens all the time in my work. Let’s say there’s a person who has a CEO and the person is scared of their CEO. Let’s say this is the CMO, and they’re, “I’m scared of the CEO. I can’t say my truth. They’re always getting upset. They’re going to yell, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” I’ll say, yeah, there’s one person who says it though. The answer is always yes. That CEO has one person who they don’t yell at, who they listen to, who they’ll take the objection from, that they don’t get angry with. It’s because there’s somebody who doesn’t approach them in fear. It’s because somebody approaches them a different way. Not with judgment, but like, “Hey, look, this is what we have to pay attention to.” It’s really about how you’re coming at it and not what you’re saying typically.
Lenny Rachitsky:
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Joe Hudson: You keep using the word advice, and I just want to, so for anybody who’s listening, do not take my advice. Do not, do not, do not. Test it. Experiment. Set up an experiment, try it out. See if it’s true for you. It’s one, I just made this shit up. Somebody else could make up something different. It’s like Jeff Bezos made up Amazon. We make stuff up, but we’re humans. Two, is if you instead of just listen to it as a soundbite, if you actually do it and make an experiment out of it, you get to learn. It’s in your bones. You get to see what’s actually real for you. What’s real for you in this moment might not be real for you what’s in the next moment. For instance, I could give the advice that says, hey, you can’t even control your thoughts.
You can’t even decide what thought you are going to have next is, it’s just going to fucking happen. you’re completely out of control, and so it’s all a gift. Can you look at life as all a gift? Wow, that could be really useful for one person, but the other person, they feel so disempowered that they’re like, “I can’t even control my own thoughts. Man, I am totally trapped.” They might really need at that moment to learn that, “Oh, I have empowerment, I have choice.” That’s the advice that they need to hear. Do the experiment, find out what’s true for you in this moment. If there’s a piece of advice, that’s the one I want to give.
Lenny Rachitsky: let’s share more experiments people can run. Another is this thread that I feel comes up a lot in your work is you’re just really big on helping people feel joy. Feels like that’s the core of what you’re trying to help people is feel more joy. Why is that so important? Why is joy so important, so powerful?
Joe Hudson: I definitely would not want anyone to feel joy. I wouldn’t want to push somebody into or like, “Hey, you should feel joy.” What I would say that’s a close cousin to that is that enjoyment is such an important tool for productivity. Enjoyment is such an important tool for living a meaningful life. Enjoyment is an amazing tool. As an example, let’s say you drive a Ferrari, you’re not going to say, hey, that’s an efficient car. That’s a super-efficient car. You’re going to say, no, that’s a fast car. Somehow in our own lives, if we get something done quickly, we’re efficient, but that’s not efficient. You can go and get something done quickly and then you’re so exhausted. What’s efficient is if at the end of whatever you did, you feel like you have more energy, like you’re stoked, like, oh, I can’t wait to do this again tomorrow. That’s efficiency, is that you’ve actually used the least amount of energy to get something done. If you say, oh, I’m going to figure out how to enjoy what I do 10% more and you succeed, you are 10% more efficient.
Not only that, usually, the quality is going to get a lot better too. If you enjoy running, you’re probably going to run more than if you don’t enjoy running. If you enjoy doing a podcast, you’re probably going to make a better podcast and you’re going to do it for longer if you enjoy doing it. There’s something really, really important about enjoyment because it’s not only a measure of efficiency, it also has a strong correlation with hire in most things has a strong correlation with how long you’re going to do it, your staying power, the quality of what you’re going to do, all of that. That’s one of the reasons that I think enjoyment is really great. The other thing is that if you enjoy things, they feel different. I think one of the things that people do is they say this, they say, “I want to enjoy my life more, so I’m going to do less things, take out the trash, and I’m going to do more things like go on vacation.”
That’s not how enjoyment works. You can enjoy taking out the trash or you can hate taking out the trash. That’s a choice. Right now, somebody listening to this as an experiment that they can run is like, okay, you’re going to stay listening to this for the next minute. How do you enjoy it 10% more? Typically, what will happen is somebody will take a deeper breath, they’ll settle into their body a little bit more, they’ll relax a little bit more. They might physically get more comfortable. There’s a thousand things that they might do to just enjoy the experience 10% more. That, and in that, they’re becoming more efficient in that the quality is getting better in that they’re hearing what I’m saying differently. It’s just a really powerful tool. What I know the problem to be is that some people will go, “Okay, now I have to enjoy life. I’m going to disregard all these negative emotions so that I’m in enjoyment.” That doesn’t work. It’s horrendous. It’s just a recipe for shit stew.
Lenny Rachitsky: Along these lines, how much of the work is learning to enjoy the thing you’re doing more versus finding something that you innately enjoy? Which one is more powerful? I guess, which do you point people to? Which experiments do you find people should run more?
Joe Hudson: In our society, typically, it’s how to enjoy what you’re doing more. What happens typically is that if you find a way to enjoy the thing that you’re doing more, you’re more likely to do the things that you enjoy. It’s just an order of operations thing. As compared to there’s people, a lot of the people in my circles because of who I coach and everything, they’re billionaires and they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to try to arrange life that they enjoy and it doesn’t fucking work. They actually have more power to make everything that they’re doing exactly what they want to do, but that doesn’t work. Flying the jet or buying the island or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, doesn’t do it.
Whereas if you really learn to enjoy what’s in front of you, all of a sudden, one thing that happens is that you’re not as scared of enjoyment. You start saying, “Oh, wow, enjoyment makes me really effective, and so I’m want to do the things that I enjoy.” You’re more likely to do the things that you enjoy. Instead of having this story, I have to do X, Y, and Z so that at one point in the future, I can do what I enjoy. It’s just an order of operations things. If you learn to enjoy the things that you’re doing, you’re going to naturally start doing the things you enjoy. If you only do the things you enjoy, you will not learn how to enjoy what you’re doing very well.
Lenny Rachitsky: You show this tip of how can I enjoy this 10% more? Just ask yourself, how can I enjoy this 10% more?
Joe Hudson: Yes, right now.
Lenny Rachitsky: Is there anything else that you find helpful for helping? Yeah, right now, how can I enjoy this 10% right now?
Joe Hudson: That’s right. It’s not about changing anything in the external world.
Lenny Rachitsky: Got it. Internally, what can I do? What can I change about the way I’m experiencing this?
Joe Hudson: Yeah. I like to ask it as how do you enjoy it 10% more, because if it’s what can I change, then there’s trying, trying is usually not more enjoyment. It’s actually usually letting go of trying that creates more enjoyment. The phrasing can really make or break the question.
Lenny Rachitsky: Enjoy it 10% more. Say someone’s sitting in a boring meeting that’s really sucking their soul, look, they should ask themselves this question, how can I enjoy this 10% more?
Joe Hudson: Well, should, they can. They get to, it’s a great experiment.
Lenny Rachitsky: It’s an experiment. Okay, perfect.
Joe Hudson: The reason I do the should thing is that as soon as you say you should and then you don’t then you can fail. If you fail, then you’re less likely to try it again. That’s why the should, it ends up usually in stagnation. If you think about the way it feels in your body when you say, I should do something, and there’s a stagnation, there’s a, hmm. whereas if you say something like, oh, I want to do it, or here’s an experiment I can do, or here’s what I enjoy, there’s less stagnation, there’s more movement.
Lenny Rachitsky: This touches on something else that you talk a lot about, and we’ve been circling around this idea of authenticity versus improvement, where you help people realize that you are good as you are, you don’t need to necessarily improve. We’ve talked a lot about these sorts of things already, but just what else can you share there just how to help people learn this?
Joe Hudson: My favorite metaphor on this one is at what time in the journey of an oak tree is it perfect? Is it when it’s an acorn, when it’s sprout, when it’s 20 years old, 40 years old, 150 years old, 200 years old, depending on the oak tree? Now, I’m perfect. The idea is ridiculous. It’s a similar thing for us. The idea that I need to improve myself, it really disturbs the natural process that’s at hand, which is we evolve. We as human beings evolve. If it’s like, oh, I’m evolving and I can enjoy it, and I’m acting from my authenticity, then that has a lot of alacrity. That moves quick. If it’s I need to improve, there’s something wrong with me, I need to improve, I should do it, that all goes really fucking slow. Because there’s a lot of emotional stagnation in that.
There’s a lot of should shame. There’s a lot of stagnation in that, and so you don’t actually get that natural flow of life. The Taoist talk about this as kind of like a river always finds its way, it just always goes in that direction. We are naturally evolving. That is our nature. Then to put a whole bunch of shoulds and shits in the way just slows the process down. The other thing about authenticity that I think is really important too, is that if you are one of the few people, I’d say 10, 15%, who can say, I should be this way, this way, and this way, and then you do it, which is very few people can actually do that. What most people do is they say, I should do this, should do that, should do that, and then a decade later, they’re still saying they should do the same things. Let’s say you’re one of those really successful people, then you have a life for not you. Then you have a life of who you think you should be, not for who you actually are.
If you move from authenticity, naturally, certain things aren’t going to work, certain things are going to work. Certain people are going to work, certain people aren’t going to work. Certain jobs are going to work. The ones that you end up with over time are going to be the ones that are right for you, not right, for who you think you should be. The most obvious of this is you meet a woman and you’re like, oh, this is how I should be for them to love me, and you just do it. You just do everything that you think you should do, and then you get married, and then they love not you, they love who you think you should be. They don’t love who you are. What kind of marriage is that? As opposed to, this is who I am and I’m going to be as genuine. I’m going to show you all my parts. I’m going to be as genuine as I can with you. Then if you do get married, you’re married to the right person, you’re married to the person who actually sees all that and loves that and wants that.
Lenny Rachitsky: How do you hold that idea with I also want to get better, I want to develop myself, I want to feel my emotions more, those sorts of things?
Joe Hudson: I love that I want to, the better part is kind of just, gets a little bit in the way. We all want to, like a little kid wants to run faster. They might want to be a better runner, but the part that they missed, the reason that they develop so fucking quickly is because they don’t think they’re going to be a better person if they run faster. The idea is like, yeah, you have this natural want, that want is the thing that moves evolution. A plant is like, “Oh, there’s sun. I want to move in that direction.” As compared to I should. Both of them are human concepts, but the want, it’s the thing that what allows us to know that’s our evolutionary path. Oh, I have this want to be closer to people. Oh, I have this want for great sex. Oh, I have this want for being able to have a business that supports me.
These are great wants, and they show where the growth is occurring or wants to occur. It’s like that’s our natural evolution. It’s great. What makes it need to be better? I want to be better. It just slows it down instead of, it’s like saying that what I am is broken and therefore, the whole thing slows down. We try to word everything as more in the experimental framework, but also, we try to word everything as self-awareness, self-experimentation, self-discovery, instead of self-improvement. Because if you understand the problem, then the problem goes away. Just explore it. Just understand it as compared to making a list of things that you should do to get better, that you will eventually fail and then you’ll just be stuck in this should loop where you beat yourself up and where most people hang out a lot.
Lenny Rachitsky: The experiment here that I’m taking away is think more about your want versus the should, and then things you think you need is okay.
Joe Hudson: Because typically, when you say, I want to improve, it means the subtext in that is once I do X, Y, and Z, then I’m lovable. Once I do X, Y and Z, then I’m okay. Once I do X, Y and Z, I’ll be worthy. Once I do X, Y and Z, I’ll be enlightened, whatever the fuck, the thing is. That’s just not how it works. What works is the person who loves themselves has loving relationships. It’s not the person who’s done X, Y, and Z so that they can be lovable, has loving relationships. The people who do X, Y and Z, so they can be lovable have relationships where people are critical and constantly telling them that they have to be better.
Lenny Rachitsky: Coming back, you just said this interesting quote that you also shared at the beginning. This idea, once we understand the problem, it goes away.
Joe Hudson: Yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky: Let’s make sure people understand what that means. Is it related to this idea once you feel like I’m an asshole, okay, and then like, oh, okay, and then it starts to kind of away, is that the core?
Joe Hudson: I just mean practically. It’s like, can you really fully understand a problem if you don’t understand the solution to it? There’s a principle, and I can’t remember the name of it, like it’s Strickland principle or something. It’s something that this CFO that I used to work with said, and he would say, “Problems get solved if you spend time on them. If you just give enough attention to a problem, the problem will solve.” That’s the way it works in business. An unsolvable problem, obviously, it’s not going to work that way. The reason that, that works is because the more you spend time on a problem, the more you understand it.
Another one, love him or hate him, one of the things that Elon Musk has said that I found it very valuable in my time, is that if you really want to interview somebody and they claim that they’ve done something, you ask them six levels down. You improved sales. How did you do that, exactly? Well, we improved the pipeline. How’d you do that, exactly? Oh, well, we made the pipeline more measurable by having things that could be. How did you know? What were the seven stages of the pipeline and what made you pick them? You go six levels down and you can really understand if somebody was the person who solved the problem or if they’re the person who is claiming that they solved the problem. It’s the same thing.
If we just explore a problem enough, the solution is apparent. If we understand the problem enough, the solution is apparent. Typically, if we come to a problem with a kid’s mind, wonder, if we come to it, what could I learn here? What’s exciting? What are the experiments I can run? Then typically, that’s the most efficient way, enjoyable way to solve a problem as compared to, I have to get to this problem by this time and we’re going to do it this way. Usually, that doesn’t work. I could geek out on why that lets democracies win over autocracies because they’re far more experimental by nature, and it’s not one person saying how things are going, but just generally, just we’re more efficient when we’re exploring. We’re more efficient when we’re exploring ourselves and understanding ourselves and trying to improve ourselves.
Lenny Rachitsky: There’s a couple of more experiments I want to help people try to run. One is you have some really good advice around decision-making and how emotions and getting better at understanding and working with your emotions helps you make better decisions. Can you talk about that?
Joe Hudson: That’s similar to what I said before, which is if you learn to fall in love with the emotional experiences, then you have more solution sets. Let’s say I want to have all human beings, I want to be a part of a great team. Nobody has ever raised their hand and said, “I’d like to be a part of a team.” Yet, grand majority of people at their work right now have shitty teams or not A teams, not great teams, even though nobody wants that. If one of the things you’re unwilling to feel is that conflict, that tension, as we talked about if you’re conflict avoidant, you’re not going to be able to make an A team because there’s nothing that is alive doesn’t require tension. A cell requires tension. Breathing requires tension. Playing pickleball requires tension. A good team requires tension. If you’re going to avoid that experience, you’re not going to be as easily, if at all, be able to create a quality team.
To be able to look forward to any emotional experience, creates more and more solution sets for more and more optionality. In creating a great team, for instance, you need to be good with people hating you. You need to be good with drawing boundaries and having people upset. You need to be able to have high expectations. You have to be okay with somebody being disappointed with themselves. You have to be okay being disappointed with yourself. All these emotional experiences have to be available to you if you’re going to find the solutions to make an A quality team. The more you can fall in love with each emotional experience, the more you have and then the clearer the decision making gets. That’s one thing for making great decisions. The other one that I find really, really useful and very hard to execute on until you really understand it is creating a set of principles to live by.
We all have a set of principles to live by that we’re doing it. For a lot of people, those principles are what do I have to do to get likes on Facebook? I’m going to make a decision based on getting likes on Facebook. I’m going to make decisions based on whatever it is. Pretending that I want to get wealthy or trying to get wealthy or there’s a series of things. If you really take a look at what it is you’re making your decisions on and then really think about, well, what would be the five or six things that if I made decisions with these principles, I’m guaranteed success? Then experiment with them and then refine those principles and then experiment with them. Then there’ll be these moments where you don’t want to do it, but those are your principles, so you’re going to go and do it.
As an example for this, one of the principles that I live by is embrace intensity. It’s not create intensity, it’s embrace intensity. It means that right now, any moment in my body, for instance, there’s going to be a sensation that’s more intense. How do I welcome that sensation? At any moment in running my business, there’s going to be something that we don’t want to talk about. How do we lean in and talk about that? We start all of our meetings with what are you scared to say in our business? What are you scared to say? Not all of our meetings, but some of our meetings are started with what are you scared to say? Because we want to embrace that intensity because we know that if we lean into the thing that we’re trying to avoid, our life is going to get better, our business is going to get better.
If you can see what those principles are for you, and then run experiments to see if they work and then refine them every once in a while. Because of that embrace intensity, if somebody comes to me and says, “You’re fucking up this business. You’re doing it all wrong.” I don’t have to think about what I’m going to do. I’m like, “Oh, cool. Tell me what I’m missing.” It’s going to be immediate because I live this way. Maybe I don’t want to hear it. Maybe I’m having a bad day. Whatever it is. Maybe I’ll say, “Hey, I want hear you give me, I’m not able to, give me a day and I’ll come back to you.” all of a sudden, my decisions get made automatically if I live by a set of principles and very effective, I find very effective living by a set of principles
Lenny Rachitsky: For someone that wants to create their own set of principles. Is there a guide you have? Is there any advice for how to actually go about starting this list, putting it together?
Joe Hudson: We have a decisions course, which is a large part of it is about how to do that. It’s a difficult one to explain because there’s a lot of nuance in it. Just as for instance, one of the nuances is defining the principles, not just by what it is, but what it isn’t is a really significant, very minor thing, but it ends up being incredibly major. If you’re going to do your set of principles and you want to do them on your own, the main thing I would say is keep it to five. I wouldn’t even do six. I don’t do six, but I keep it to five. I would test each one of them for five days.
Make your principle and then see if it works for you for five days and then keep on experimenting until you find five. When you look at those five and you say, “If I do that, if I live by those principles, I am just almost a hundred, if not a hundred percent confident that, that’s going to create the life I want if I live by those principles.” Then you have a really good start and make them simple. Mine are things like embrace intensity or connection first or everything is in iteration. As soon as I live by them, things work, company works.
Lenny Rachitsky: Amazing. We’ll point folks to that course if they want to take it themselves. Cool.
Joe Hudson: It’s only once a year, so it’s a rare one.
Lenny Rachitsky: Oh, wow. When is the next one?
Joe Hudson: January.
Lenny Rachitsky: Okay. Not too far away for folks to want to wait. Again, the two pieces of advice you shared, and that’s our experiments that we can run to help become better decision makers. One is create a list of life principles, and there’s a course that will point people to, to take that. The other is the thing you keep coming back to over and over and over, this idea of falling in love with your emotions, embracing your emotions, welcoming your emotions. There’s also, I know you do a lot of work with teams. I imagine there’s very similar advice for how to help your team be more effective. Principles, I imagine is a part of it, falling in love.
Joe Hudson: We’ve run principles for teams, yeah. That’s one of them. Teams would be more effective. We have a lot of, I mean I think I have, at this point, I have 12 things that I’ll go into a company and do with a company. Typically, the way I like to do it is I will go in and I’ll talk to the leader typically and they’ll say, “This is what I want.” Then I really want to assess. Typically, if the person who is a big part of creating the problem has a hard time seeing the way through the problem, or it wouldn’t have been created generally. This is not demeaning any leader, we all have these issues. Usually, what I like to do is I like to go in and I like to talk to three or four people, see what their perspective, not just the leader’s perspective.
Then I like to sit in a meeting or two and just see actually what the dynamic is. One of the things I like to say about how to change a company is that the atomic structure of a company is the meetings and the decisions. It’s particularly true in Silicon Valley, but it’s really true in all businesses that all we are as a company is a group of people’s relationships and ideas. Especially, like Amazon, you got a couple of buildings and some servers. There’s not a lot of hardware there, and they wouldn’t be useful without the people anyways. Anybody, whether you’re running a farm or a shoe factory or anybody’s successful is going to tell you it’s all about the people. The atomic structure is what are our meetings like and how do we make decisions? I’ll just really pay attention to a meeting. One of the things we do is we talk about what we call five-star meetings, which is how do you make every meeting enjoyable?
Literally, how is it that everybody when they walk out of a meeting, they’re like, oh, fuck, that was great? It turns out, we’ve all been in meetings that are hard as shit, and we’ve walked out and gone, oh, those are great meetings. We’ve all been in meetings where nothing happens and we’re like, “Oh, God. Fuck, another one to just drive a nail through my head. I don’t want to sit there.” What’s required to make one of your meetings five stars? If you do that, that’s one of the things we’ll do inside of a company is work with them to figure that out. If you do that, every single problem with your company will come to the surface. Every single one of them. I had ten five -tar meetings, but these two meetings sucked. That tells me exactly where we need to focus as a company.
That tells me exactly where to look for the problem that’s happening. It’s the same thing with decisions. If you really start unpacking how the decisions are made where people are frustrated in the decision-making process, you’re going to find exactly the problems in the company. An example of this, I was working with a friend and he’s a content person, and we were just talking about how do you make every one of your meetings a five-star meeting? He’s like, “Okay, great.” He’s like, “Yeah, I’m never going to do this.” I was like, “Really? Tell me why.” He’s, “My YouTube meetings fucking suck.” That’s not where he makes most of his money, but these YouTube meetings suck. They’re never going to get better.
Luckily, there’s a couple other people around at the time and everyone’s like, “No, wait, I love my YouTube meetings. What do you mean? How could this not work for you?” He noticed, oh, the team didn’t, the content, none of it was working for him. None of it was him. He was just like, “Ugh.” He changed it. He was like, “Okay, I’m going to commit to that. I’m going to see what it’s like for me to just say every one of my YouTube meetings have to be something that’s super enjoyable to me.” When he did it, his YouTube numbers went off the charts in a very short period of time. It’s just that common. Wherever the meeting is that sucks, it means there’s something else that’s a problem that needs to be worked on. That’s typically how. I can just look at, usually sit in any team meeting and see at least three or four of the major problems that are happening in the company.
Lenny Rachitsky: Such a cool way of thinking about where to focus decision-making meetings. I love that the story comes back to something you shared earlier with the more you enjoy something, the more joy there is, the better it’s going to go anyway. The more you can find those moments and make things enjoyable, the better.
Joe Hudson: The other cool thing is most of the executives or the CEOs that I’ve worked with, when they get to a point, and it usually takes them like, we always have the goal of a month, it usually takes two months to make sure every one of their meetings is five-star meetings. Once they’ve done that, then it’s like, how do you make sure all of your teams have five-star meetings? Usually, it’s like within two months and they usually have half the amount of meetings at the end of it. Half the amount of meetings in their companies are more effective. It’s an incredible tool.
Lenny Rachitsky: I could see why people enjoy that if you were meeting as well. Is there anything more along those lines before we start to close out our conversation, either around teams or decision-making?
Joe Hudson: I’ll say for anybody who’s running a team, Harvard has got a couple of these, but we used to do these tiny pulses. As a VC, one of the strategies that was really effective that I saw very few VCs doing was I would want these pulse, I would like to read the pulse of teams with these short surveys and stuff. It was the most effective way of not very happy, didn’t want to come to work on Monday. They weren’t going to make their numbers. The likelihood of them making their numbers is going down. There was this interesting thing that just about how Drucker, I think said it first and then the Virgin guy.
Lenny Rachitsky: Branson?
Joe Hudson: Branson said it. He’s like, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” or some such. If that’s true, then it’s measurable and it can be a leading indicator, and it absolutely is. If you really pay attention to the culture on a team-by-team basis, it’s an amazing, very effective way to drive results, but also, a very effective way to know when bad results are coming. What’s interesting to me is most people feel like they can’t control the culture, like most people feel like.
Most people, I notice, they feel like, it’s more likely for me to hear from a CEO, “God damn it, everybody agrees when I get out of the table. When I get off the table, everyone’s like, yeah, we’re going to do it. Then they don’t do it. Why aren’t they doing it?” I’m going to hear that more often than I’m going to hear a CEO say, “Oh, wow. I really noticed that the way the email system was working in our company, we were disempowering people by not requiring an action after every…” I’m going to hear more complaints about why shit isn’t working than I’m going to hear about strategies, like very gentle, simple strategies to change the culture. it’s an amazing thing to me that it’s so powerful and yet people feel so out of control with it
Lenny Rachitsky: To give people something they can do, say today or tomorrow to work on a lot of these things we’ve been talking about. Is there just one thing you recommend that basically everyone should try to experiment with in the next day, couple of days or weeks, just to help them be better and more successful and happier?
Joe Hudson: I would do seven minutes, no less than seven minutes. You can do more than seven minutes. Seven minutes of gratitude with another person every day. It can’t be, I’m grateful for this, I’m grateful for this, I’m grateful for this. It has to be feeling the gratitude and then seeing what comes out of your mouth when you’re coming from the felt sense of gratitude and doing it back and forth. You’re savoring the experience of gratitude and you’re going back and forth with another human being. Call mom, dad, sister, brother, business partner, friend, and every day just express gratitude back and forth for seven minutes, coming from the feeling, not from the thought. If you have a full body sensation of gratitude and you experience that for seven minutes a day, it’ll change your life dramatically really quickly. Really, really quickly.
Lenny Rachitsky: Wow. I already feel it. The practice is you are expressing gratitude to the person you’re with.
Joe Hudson: It can be gratitude for anything in your life. As a matter of fact, I would say do it for a couple of weeks and then do it on the places where you feel lack. That’s where the superpower comes in. In my own personal life, I was meditating. I spent seven, eight hours a day meditating for years.
Lenny Rachitsky: That’s a lot of hours.
Joe Hudson: You can imagine, I didn’t have a lot of money. The joke I used to make is I would meditate and worry about money most of my day. It’s funny, but it’s truth. One day, I was thinking about money and thinking I was driving in my car and I was thinking about this billionaire I knew and I was thinking about how I didn’t have enough and then I thought, “Oh, this billionaire doesn’t think they have enough either. I know I’m well enough.” I’m like, “Oh, I have the experience of a billionaire right now.” I was like, “He’s probably driving in a car somewhere thinking he doesn’t have enough, and I’m driving in a car somewhere thinking I don’t have enough. This is great. I’m a billionaire.”
It tickled me, the idea tickled me. Then I was like, well, what happens if I start focusing on everything I do have instead of focusing on what I don’t have? Which is where the gratitude practice came from. My wife and I would sit every day and just be grateful for all the physical stuff that we had. We were living in a hobble, were living 15-year-old year cars. We had no money. I was in debt. I was in, I think 60,000 in the bank. Entire life changed because I no longer defined myself by somebody who didn’t have, I defined myself as somebody who did have. All of a sudden, I could look out the window and it wasn’t, “Oh, shit, I can’t have that. I can’t have that. I can’t have that.”
I look out the window, I’d say somebody made money on that. Somebody made money on that. Every fucking thing I looked at, somebody made money on. 20 people, 20 companies made money on the fucking lamppost. The person who installed it, the energy company, the rubber company, there’s just, holy crap, it’s all over the place. Then in that definition, all of a sudden, it became really clear. It doesn’t matter if the thing that you feel like you lack is time, or the thing that you feel like you lack is love or the thing that you feel like you lack is money. If you can really do a gratitude practice on the thing that you lack, there’s a superpower in that one, changes everything.
Lenny Rachitsky: Do you still do this?
Joe Hudson: I do gratitude, yes. Do I do gratitude on stuff I lack? I don’t really have an experience of lack. That’s not really…
Lenny Rachitsky: You still do this gratitude, seven minutes?
Joe Hudson: Of course, yes. That’s like asking if I still have sex. Why would I give that up? It feels great.
Lenny Rachitsky: Just to be clear, you find someone seven minutes every morning, probably think about things you’re grateful for and share back. Focus not on your intellectual thing you’re grateful for, but just what’s coming out of your emotional body.
Joe Hudson: Feel the gratitude.
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah, then gratitude.
Joe Hudson: Let the feeling of gratitude speak rather than your mind, so that you get the felt sense of it.
Lenny Rachitsky: Joe, I’m incredibly grateful for you. I really appreciate you sharing so many experiments for people to run. I think this is going to make a real impact on a lot of people’s lives. Two final questions. Where can folks find your courses? I know you have a podcast. Where can folks find the stuff they do online, and then how can listeners be useful to you?
Joe Hudson: First of all, Art of Accomplishment, the podcast, it’s Art of Accomplishment with Brett Kistler and Joe Hudson, I think. Then Art of Accomplishment, the website will show you where all the courses are. It’ll give you a whole bunch of experiments you can run. There’s all sorts of really great information there. The other thing that we just mentioned also is just that we really want to make sure that you think that the courses are for you. The way we do courses is that it’s a very felt experience thing. It’s not intellectual at all. It’s really in your body. The way we like doing it is that you bring real problems that you’re having and you use the tools that we teach you. The foundational course for that is called the Connection Course. If you want to get into it, go to the Connection Course.
To find out if it’s right for you, if you’re not already know that it’s right for you, we do these little hour and a half free workshops and it’ll give you a taste of what it is that we do because it’s like anything that’s going on out there. It’s people doing, they’re like, “What the hell was that?” It’s just a completely different thing. It’s not like learning in the normal way. You literally sit down with another person and run experiments face-to-face with how you’re being in the moment. You learn all this stuff through direct experimentation. If you find out it’s right for you, you can do it through these workshops, and I’m sure there’ll be a place where they can find out where to go for that.
Lenny Rachitsky: There’s one coming up in September, I believe.
Joe Hudson: The Connection Course is coming up in September. It’s a great place to start. It’s foundational for everything else we do.
Lenny Rachitsky: Then how can listeners be useful to you?
Joe Hudson: I want my children to grow up in a fantastic world. The best way that, that can happen is that if the people listening to this discover who they are and their nature and the truth of how they operate. Not for them, but for their children and their children’s children. You want to do me a favor and make my daughter’s world a better place.
Lenny Rachitsky: I also just had a son, and so I totally resonate with that.
Joe Hudson: Yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky: Joe, thank you so much for being here. What an amazing podcast episode. This ended up being as I expected.
Joe Hudson: Pleasure. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it, Lenny.
Lenny Rachitsky: Bye, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lennyspodcast.com. See you in the next episode.
Glossary
| English | 中文 |
|---|---|
| Descartes’ Error | Descartes’ Error(《笛卡尔的错误》) |
| Art of Accomplishment | Art of Accomplishment(播客/品牌名称,保留原文) |
| backward/reverse engineer | 回溯推演 |
| Brett Kistler | Brett Kistler(人名,保留原文) |
| CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) | CMO(首席营销官) |
| compartmentalize | 隔离(情绪) |
| Connection Course | Connection Course(联结课程)(已在术语表中为”联结课程”,此处确认课程名称保留原文) |
| connection courses | 联结课程 |
| connection first | 联结优先 |
| critical voice | 批判性声音 |
| Elon Musk | 马斯克 |
| embrace intensity | 拥抱强度 |
| Emotional Inquiry | 情绪探询 |
| everything is in iteration | 一切都是迭代 |
| executive coach | 高管教练 |
| fine-grained authorization | 细粒度授权 |
| five-star meetings | 五星会议 |
| habenula | habenula(缰核) |
| harness | 驾驭 |
| Jeff Bezos | 贝索斯 |
| non-judgmental awareness | 不评判的觉察 |
| PRD (Product Requirements Document) | PRD(产品需求文档) |
| pulse surveys | 脉搏调查 |
| question the assumption | 质疑假设 |
| role-based access control | 基于角色的访问控制 |
| SaaS | SaaS(软件即服务) |
| SAML | SAML(安全断言标记语言) |
| SCIM | SCIM(跨域身份管理系统) |
| single sign-on | 单点登录 |
| standup | 站会 |
| what we resist persists | 我们抗拒的,会持续存在 |
Reformatted by reformat_english.py
如何拥抱你的情绪将加速你的职业发展 | Joe Hudson(Art of Accomplishment)
逐字稿
Joe Hudson: 我圈子里很多人可能花了上亿美元,试图营造一种自己享受的生活,但根本他妈的没用。
Lenny Rachitsky: 是什么在阻碍人们?
Joe Hudson: 是他们有情绪却不曾静下来感受,不曾去表达。你试图回避的任何情绪,都会以你恰恰想要回避的方式被你引入生活。
Lenny Rachitsky: 什么鬼?为什么……为什么这……你有一个特别精彩的洞察:你脑子里的那个声音经常在胡说八道。
Joe Hudson: 大多数人想做的就是让它停下来,但效果并不好。我认为与脑中那个声音相处的最好方式,是每天选一个实验,每天用一种新的方式回应那个声音。我最喜欢的回应之一是:“哦,我看出来你真的很害怕。别担心,我就在这儿陪你,没事的。”
Lenny Rachitsky: 你非常重视帮助人们感受喜悦。
Joe Hudson: 这是一个非常重要的效率工具。如果你说”我要想办法让我所做的事多享受10%“,而你做到了,你的效率就提高了10%。不仅如此,通常质量也会大幅提升。
Lenny Rachitsky: 有没有一件事是你基本上建议每个人都去尝试的?
Joe Hudson: 有的,它会非常快地、戏剧性地改变你的生活。
嘉宾介绍
Lenny Rachitsky: 今天的嘉宾是 Joe Hudson。Joe 是科技领袖中最受欢迎的高管教练之一,曾与来自 OpenAI、SpaceX、Apple 及其他世界级公司的人合作。Joe 独特的教练方法融合了他的灵性、心理学和神经科学实践。在他每年举办几次的精品课程以及他的播客中,他帮助人们以享受和轻松的方式创造自己想要的生活。在我们的对话中,Joe 分享了他发现最常让人们卡在生活和工作中无法前进的两件事,以及如何让它们松动。为什么你脑中那个批判的声音总是错的、自相矛盾的、在胡说八道,以及如何与那个声音建立一种不同的关系。为什么爱上你的情绪如此重要、如此强大。为什么你最好关注你想要的,而不是你认为自己应该做的或需要做的,还有大量关于如何做出更好决策、帮助你的团队更高效运作的建议,以及为什么每天七分钟的感恩练习会改变你的人生。这期节目基本上适合每一个人。它会让你的生活和工作变得更好。如果你喜欢这个播客,别忘了在你最喜欢的播客应用或 YouTube 上订阅和关注。这是避免错过未来节目的最好方式,也对播客帮助极大。话不多说,我请来了 Joe Hudson。Joe,非常感谢你能来,欢迎来到播客。
Joe Hudson: 谢谢,很高兴来到这里。
Lenny Rachitsky: 很高兴邀请到你。我很好奇,在你看来,有没有一些常见的主题反复出现,关于是什么阻碍了人们获得成功,或者仅仅是过上自己想要的生活——尤其是那些有抱负的科技人,我知道这是你大量接触的群体。是否存在某种原型,比如”就是这个东西,最常出现、最常拖人后腿”?
阻碍人们的两大主题
Joe Hudson: 一个不那么具体的回答是:他们脑中的那个批判性声音,以及与那个批判性声音之间不具生产力的关系。很多时候,脑中那个批判的声音会说”你需要我才能保持高效”,但通常它对真正取得成功是巨大的阻碍。即使你带着一个极其批判的声音获得了成功,你也永远无法享受它。你可能有了钱,但你会想,“操,我还是很痛苦。“或者”我有了车,有了房,有了钱,有了成功的事业,为什么我一直不开心?“我想说这是最大的一个。另一个很大的,从一个大的类别来说,是他们与情绪的关系一团糟。他们要么假装自己没有情绪,要么把情绪隔离开来,要么试图管理情绪,而不是驾驭情绪、爱上情绪。这也是一个很重要的方面。
Lenny Rachitsky: 好的,关于你脑中的那个声音,你在你的一期播客节目里有一个特别精彩的洞察——你脑中的那个声音经常是错的,经常自相矛盾,经常在胡说八道。而你的建议是学会以一种非常不同的方式与这个声音相处。很多人只是觉得,哦,那就是它本来的样子,它在告诉我该怎么做,它在试图帮我,但结果并非如此。你能谈谈这个吗?
Joe Hudson: 我想说,你脑中的那个声音每一次都是错的。你脑中那个批判性声音。具体来说,我指的是你脑中那个批判性的、不断重复的声音。就是那个一遍又一遍说着同样内容的声音——“你该多锻炼了,你该多锻炼了,你该多锻炼了”。不管它说的是什么,它永远是错的。这并不意味着它说的内容里没有一点道理,但它本身是不正确的。举个例子,“你该多锻炼了,你该多锻炼了,你该多锻炼了”,或者”你需要我,不然你就只会瘫在沙发上”,这是一个很好的例子。如果我是你的老板,就坐在你旁边,每隔几分钟就批评你一次,你绝不可能说,“哇,我真的需要你。没有你我无法高效工作。“那纯属胡扯。又或者”你该锻炼了,你该锻炼了”。
我看到的事实是,如果我锻炼了会更健康。我理解这一点。但”应该”吗?这真的是一个”应该”吗?这是另一个问题。那它为什么不说,“嘿,你为什么不去享受锻炼呢?我们怎么才能让你享受锻炼?什么能激励你去锻炼?“它完全没有做这些。它只是说,“你该锻炼了,你该锻炼了。“你脑中发生的一切从来都不是准确的。除非你能看穿这一点,否则很难与脑中的声音共处。你可以做到,但在你看穿它之前很难做到。
我想说的第二点是,如果你想用一种新的方式与脑中的声音共处,大多数人试图做的是让它停下来。他们试图控制脑中的声音,但效果并不好。相反,我的建议是,改变你与脑中负面声音的关系。不是说,“好,停下来,停下来。“而是说,“哦,我看到你真的很害怕,我就在这里陪着你。“或者对它唱一首音乐剧的曲子,或者就说,“嗯,我不相信你。“事实上,我认为与脑中声音共处的最好方法是每天选一个实验,每天用一种新的方式回应脑中的声音,采取实验性的态度,问自己,“我想和脑中这个负面声音建立什么样的关系?“因为目前对大多数人来说,它通常的模式是——它说了什么,那个人就回应”是”,或者”是,但我不会那样做,所以滚一边去吧”,又或者”是,那根本行不通”。类似这样的反应。如果你改变对脑中声音的回应方式会怎样?那会给你带来巨大的自由,也是一个起点,通往脑中负面声音消失的状态,那种状态真的非常、非常美好。
Lenny Rachitsky: 哇,我太喜欢这个了。因为脑中这个东西不断地打击你、让你对各种事情感到恐惧,由此会引发太多问题。这太难了。我听到了这些,但这真的很难。下次我在做一场重要演讲的时候,我脑中会出现,“哦,可能会出问题。你可能会看起来很蠢,或者你可能完全忘掉要说什么。“很难真正从理性上说服自己——好吧,我不必听它的。关于如何扭转这种局面,让它闭嘴,还有什么更多的建议吗?
Joe Hudson: 让它闭嘴通常不起作用。什么都试一试。对我来说,我最喜欢的回应之一是,“哦,我看到你真的很害怕。别担心,我就在这里陪着你。有我在。“因为这里面的关键在于,脑中的那个声音把自己摆在了老板的位置上,但它其实就是一个在发脾气的小孩。如果你仔细听它说的话,如果你把说的每句话都记下来,听起来通常就像一个五岁小孩在撒泼,或者像你妈妈以前训斥你的方式,或者你爸爸训斥你的方式,又或者某个老师。它不是合乎逻辑的,不是深思熟虑的,通常不是深思熟虑的,通常是带有攻击性的。充满了恐惧。这是我最喜欢的回应之一,也是我最喜欢的方式之一。
我试过——天哪——几十种方式,有很多巧妙而有效的方式。我特别认为,设定一系列实验比只采用我这一种方式要好得多,因为实验心态意味着你永远不会真正失败。通常一个人——尤其是对脑中声音的问题更严重的人——他们失败了就会说,“啊,去它的。“因为我们大脑中有一个部分叫 habenula(缰核),habenula(缰核)基本上就是我们大脑中试图教我们不要一遍又一遍失败的那个部分。就是当你节食或者开始锻炼,然后有一天没做到,你就说”啊,搞砸了”,然后你就不再尝试了,或者好几个星期不再尝试——这就是那部分大脑正在发生的事情。
如果你把它当作实验来做,那你就不会输,你只是在了解你自己。你在了解你脑中的声音。我喜欢的思考方式是——人们会说,“我理解这个问题,但我没有解决方案。“我总是说,“如果你真的理解了这个问题,解决方案就毫无悬念了。“如果你完全理解了这个问题,你就知道解决方案是什么。你所要做的就是通过一系列实验真正完全理解你脑中的那个声音,然后整个问题就消失了。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这里的建议是,下次你脑中听到一些你认为对自己没帮助的东西时,试着用一种与你以往不同的方式来回应它。
Joe Hudson: 我会说得再微妙一些——我真的不在乎你觉得它对你有没有帮助。我只是建议你尝试用不同的方式与它互动。我甚至不会带着”好吧,我想让脑中的声音对我好一点”这样的目标去做。我会带着这样的目标——嘿,我怎样去学习?我怎样去理解这个东西?这是一种远更有效的自我发展方式。总的来说,远更有效的做法是去学习——比如说了解一个河谷,通过亲自走过它、把脚浸入河水中、划独木舟顺流而下、闻一闻泥土、看一看植物,而不是说,“好,我要在这个河谷上建一座大坝,然后试图……”你不会以同样的方式理解它。你会犯一些错误。
与情绪的关系如何阻碍你
Lenny Rachitsky: 太精彩了。你分享的第二大类别——你最常发现的阻碍人们的根源——你描述为你与情绪的关系,我觉得很多人不会认为这是阻碍他们前进的因素。你能多谈谈具体是什么样的吗?
Joe Hudson: 好,有一个很好的解释方式。给那些逻辑思维比较强的人——大约在 2012 年左右,有一个人写了一本书叫 Descartes’ Error(《笛卡尔的错误》),整本书的核心思想是针对”我思故我在”的,这个人说,“对,这就是那个错误。“他是一位神经科学家,观察了大脑情绪中枢受损的人,他们基本上丧失了做决定的能力。他们的 IQ 保持不变,但可能要花半个小时才能决定去哪里吃午饭,或者决定用什么颜色的笔。做一个简单的决定可能要花好几个小时。所以他们的 IQ 依然很高,但他们整个生活完全崩塌了。这告诉我们——这不算精确,我是为播客做了简化——我们是在大脑的情绪中枢做决定的。我们用逻辑来试图弄清楚我们会怎么感受。
Joe Hudson:
你只需要问自己一个问题就能看清这一点:你做过多少决定是为了让自己感觉成功,或者不让自己感觉失败,或者为了感觉更快乐,或者不让自己感觉被困住?有大量大量的情绪是我们想要感受或者想要回避的,而我们的决定正是基于这些情绪做出的。根本不存在什么纯粹逻辑性的决定。“我就要理性,做一个纯逻辑的决定”——这种想法根本行不通。从神经科学的角度来说,这完全是不成立的。如果你学会爱上自己所有的情绪,那么之前无法触及的解决方案就会变得可用。如果你觉得”我不能承受失败的感觉”,那你很可能不会去冒某些险。如果你觉得”我要被人爱,我不能承受被人讨厌”,那你就不会说出你的真话,于是这个世界也就不会给你那些与你真实自我相符的东西。
我走进老板办公室,说出我的真话,被解雇了。好,被解雇就被解雇了,但下一个老板那里我说出真话,我就能找到一个接受我真实表达的地方,一个我想在这个世界上存在的方式能被接纳的地方。如果我不这样做,如果我一直在管理自己,那我就不会拥有那样的现实。单就决策这一点来说,这就非常重要——学会爱上每一种情绪体验是多么关键,这样你就不会因为无法承受某些感受而做出决定。这只是其中一个例子,类似的例子 literally 有一千个。大多数人觉得卡住了,他们可能经历一次大的情绪释放之后就不觉得卡住了。当人们感到不堪重负时,通常不是因为生活中有多少烂事要处理,而是因为他们有情绪没有去感受、没有去安坐其中、没有去表达。这是另一个很大的方面。
情绪阻滞如何形成
抑郁通常是未曾释放的愤怒,这是另一个例子。无法感受情绪在如此多的层面上限制了人们的生活,例子数不胜数。有一个几乎所有人都能感同身受的例子:感受兴奋——大多数人只能维持大约十到二十秒。大多数人不会说”哦,我好兴奋”然后持续兴奋下去。如果你走进一家 Denny’s 餐厅,看到一个六十岁的人在那里兴奋不已,持续了十分钟,你会想”这个人怎么了?“当我们兴奋的时候,它是会传染的。我走进一个会议,我很兴奋,其他人走出会议室时可能也会变得兴奋。我们仅仅因为限制了自己的兴奋感,就限制了我们创造协作的能力。这样的例子我可以一直说下去。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我听到的是,核心问题在于我们无法感受自己的情绪,但那些情绪是存在的——比如愤怒或恐惧。因为我们无法感受它们,我们就无法突破。
Joe Hudson: 不太准确。如果一个人在生活中经历过很多情绪虐待,那么他们可能确实无法感受到自己正在产生的情绪,尤其是在曾经遭受情绪虐待的领域。对他们来说,情况可能是这样的。举个例子,如果你遭受过身体虐待,我把一枚硬币放在你一只手里、一把钥匙放在另一只手里但不告诉你是哪个,你可能分不出来——因为你已经切断了那种感觉。类似地,经历过情绪虐待的人往往也辨别不出自己的情绪是什么。说到”情绪虐待”,这是一个很大的词,通常人们甚至不愿意把这两件事等同起来。我们先统一一下用语:当我说情绪虐待的时候,我的意思是你被告知不允许拥有某种情绪。这就是我所说的情绪虐待。
也许你每次一发怒就被塞东西吃,或者被撤回爱,或者被惩罚,或者每次你哭泣就被嘲笑。我的个人经历就是这样的。就是你不被允许感受某些情绪,你被告知要切断它,因为那样才安全——因为你要么会被收买、被惩罚、被撤回爱、被嘲笑,或者其他种种。这可能是某些人必须经历的一个阶段,但你最终想要到达的地方是情绪是流动的——它就从你身体里穿过去。这不意味着你会失去控制。事实上,失去控制恰恰意味着你内心仍然有抵抗。
我对这个的比喻是这样的:情绪就像一根管子,管子里有水流过。你往一个方向拧折管子,水出来的样子就不太对。往另一个方向拧折,出来又不太对。假设愤怒是那根管子,你往一个方向拧折,它就变成”你这个混蛋,你怎么怎么怎么”。你往另一个方向拧折,它就变成”裙子不错”。再往另一个方向拧,就变成了内疚:“你怎么能那样对我?“然后如果管子不拧折了,那就变成甘地或者马丁·路德·金——那是一种充满爱的边界设定,一种目的的清晰。这就是我的理解方式。关键在于达到流动性,把管子理顺,让所有的情绪体验都带着爱流露出来。
接纳而非仅仅觉察
Lenny Rachitsky: 我参加过一次冥想静修,十天的止语冥想,我知道这也是你修行中很重要的一部分,也是引导你现在所做工作的原因之一。我现在想到的一个词是”不评判的觉察”(non-judgmental awareness)——就是去体验你正在感受的东西,然后让它过去,不执着,不评判。这是否和你推荐的做法一致?
Joe Hudson: 是的,这确实是其中很重要的一部分。不过我注意到有几处翻译上的偏差会妨碍人们正确理解。一个就是——把情绪想象成你家里的孩子。如果一个孩子走进你家,你说”我对你保持不评判的觉察”,你会得到一个非常不同于你说”哦,我好高兴见到你,欢迎来我家”时的反应。情绪也是一样——“我对这个情绪保持不评判的觉察”,和”哦,太好了,我悲伤了,这太棒了”,感受是不同的。如果你有那种欢迎的态度、邀请的姿态。我最常说的一句话是:喜悦是一个情绪家族的母亲,她不会走进她的孩子不受欢迎的房子。一个充满喜悦的人生,是一个所有其他情绪都被深深欢迎的人生——不是被接受,不是被不评判地觉察。我认为那些都确实是很好的步骤,不要误解我。如果你能对情绪保持不评判的觉察,那已经很棒了。
你刚才说的另一点不太一样的地方在于:情绪是需要被感受的。如果你停止感受一种情绪,你就必须收缩你的肌肉。我能看到一个走进来参加我快速教练环节的人——仅仅从他眉间的褶皱,我就能知道他有压抑的愤怒;从他肩膀的弓曲,我能看出他有一个批判型的父母。身体会根据你被教导要压抑的情绪而呈现特定的形态。如果你只是坐在那里——这么说不太准确——如果你只是坐在那里以那种方式感受它们而不做完整的表达,它们最终确实会流动,但可能需要几十年。你其实可以直接让它们流动。你可以发出声音,让身体动起来。所有哺乳动物都这样做。比如哺乳动物释放恐惧时,它们会发抖。这是我们存在方式的一部分。这也是情绪流动性中非常重要的一部分——不仅仅是静静地坐着去感受,而是让肌肉动起来,发出声音。
情绪感知的练习方法
Lenny Rachitsky: 对于那些想要提升感受情绪的技巧、更好地与情绪联结、帮助情绪更加流动的人来说——我知道这是一项终生的练习,不是听完一期播客就能说”好的,我已经掌握了”的——你有没有什么具体的建议可以给听众?比如这周就能做的一些事情,能在这方面帮助自己?
Joe Hudson: 我们的网站上有一个免费的音频叫”Emotional Inquiry”(情绪探询),这是我认为最简单的方式,是进入情绪流动性非常好的入门第一步。但更大的问题在于,每个人所处的阶段不同,需要的练习也不同。如果你连自己的情绪都觉察不到,那这个方法可能不适合你。不过,如果你已经能觉察到两三种情绪,并且能做情绪探询,通常它会帮你打开很多其他情绪。也可能会到了某个阶段,你真正需要的是表达,那情绪探询就不起作用了。但总体来说,情绪探询这个练习是非常好的。它的做法是这样的——想象你是一个小孩,你捡起了一只蟾蜍。
你会把它拿起来,观察它,摸它,闻它。有些小孩甚至会舔一下。他们真的很想探索这只蟾蜍。情绪探询就是这样——一种对情绪体验的身体心理感受过程,去体验情绪在你身体中的状态,去感受它是什么样子的,当你欢迎它时会发生什么,当你爱它时会发生什么,当你抗拒它时会发生什么。这是一系列的实验,你在与情绪互动、观察它、感受它的质感。我发现这对人们来说极其、极其有用。
Lenny Rachitsky: 就是带着极大的好奇心。
Joe Hudson: 是的,很多惊奇感。
《头脑特工队》与情绪的完整接纳
Lenny Rachitsky: 顺便说一下,你刚才分享的那句关于喜悦是所有其他情绪的”母亲”的话——我想应该有人跟你说过——《头脑特工队2》恰好就是你所说的那种呈现,在那里喜悦几乎就像是主角一样。我不知道你有没有看过。
Joe Hudson: 我好像听说过。我没看过,但我觉得大意是你以为一切都关于快乐,结果发现你必须接纳所有情绪,快乐才能真正起作用,差不多是这样吧?
Lenny Rachitsky: 完全正确。
Joe Hudson: 嗯,我确实听说过这个。
人们对自己的误解
Lenny Rachitsky: 焦虑接管了一切,然后事情就不太妙了。还有一件事,我听了你很多对话后注意到的——你会和人做那种快速教练环节,我听了很多。有一件让我非常感兴趣的事:很多人来找你,说”嘿,我有这个问题,我没法做这件我知道自己应该做的难事”,或者”我有冒名顶替综合征,一直阻碍我去做我需要做的事”。你经常会说:“不,实际情况并非如此。我看得出来那对你来说不是问题。真正的问题是另一回事。“这种情况是不是非常普遍——人们以为自己需要解决的是这件事,结果发现根本不是那回事,他们其实在这方面还不错,真正的问题完全是别的?
Joe Hudson: 我可能会换一种说法。他们活在一个描述自己旧版本的故事里,或者他们对自己看得不够清晰,无法看到问题的全貌,所以他们只是在和一个属于过去的故事共存。这是非常常见的。通常,如果我在教练环节中这样做,那往往是因为他们在那一刻就向我证明了这不是真的。比如有人说”我太害怕了,什么都做不了”,我会说”你刚才在一百个人面前站起来向我提问。显然,你并没有害怕到什么都做不了的程度,所以我不太信。“当然,我不会真的那么直接,我会用更多的关爱来表达。
很多时候,我发现人们的”故事”是罪魁祸首——他们描述自己的方式。一个非常能说明问题的现象是:十次里有九次,当你赞美一个人——“我真的很欣赏你这一点”——他们会说”哪有”,或者”嗯,我妹妹比我更强”,或者”你要是了解我就不会这么说了”。他们总会用某种方式来回应。这本质上是一个信号,说明他们无法真正感受到自己是谁。他们宁愿——实际上是在说你是个骗子——“你在骗我”或”你搞错了”,也不愿真正接受被看见的那种体验。这造成了两方面的后果。一方面,它阻碍人们清晰地认识自己。另一方面,它让人永远渴望被看见、被赞美、被认可、被肯定,因为他们得到了食物,却无法消化它。
Lenny Rachitsky: 除了来找你做教练、让你告诉他们”嘿,实际情况是这样的”之外,你有没有什么建议,让一个人能够——好的,也许我应该重新审视一下,也许这其实不是我的问题——看清真正在发生什么?
质疑假设
Joe Hudson: 我们有一套五个我们认为对转变而言是基础性的工具,我们会做关于这些的免费工作坊,其中一个叫”质疑假设”(question the assumption)。这是一个非常好的方式,可以帮助人们开始看穿自己的故事。在开头我说过:“你头脑中那个批判性声音说的一切都不是真的。“这里就是它具体应用的方式——通常,要让一个问题显得真实,你必须持有某个假设。比如有人来找我,说”我对女朋友很混蛋”,这是他们认为的问题。第一,你必须假设女朋友不希望你做混蛋——这是一个假设。第二,你必须假设你知道什么才算”混蛋”——这不仅仅是像你妈妈告诉你什么叫混蛋那样。
第三,还有另一个假设——世界上存在某种清晰的客观标准,能判定什么是混蛋什么不是。但实际上世界上发生的是——50%的人觉得这个人是混蛋,50%的人觉得他是英雄,差不多是这样。还有一个假设是:问题在于你是个混蛋,而不是你在抗拒自己是个混蛋这件事,因此它以扭曲的方式表达出来,而不是以清晰的方式。这里面包含了太多假设。如果你看穿了这些假设,通常问题就开始消散了。
就像:“哦,好吧,我说的混蛋到底是什么意思?我怎么定义它的?“当我用’混蛋’这个例子时,听起来似乎有点荒唐。我记得在我自己成长过程中有这样一个时刻——在 Bodega Bay,在那么一个地方,我当时一个非常好的朋友对我说:“Joe,你就是个混蛋。“我说:“不,我不是。“他说:“为什么要抗拒它?干脆爱上你是个混蛋这个事实吧。就允许自己做一分钟混蛋,就一分钟就好。“我停下来想了想——那时候我在做风险投资——我能想到所有我做过的事,那些会被人称作混蛋的事,以及我对他人感受所有不敏锐的地方,然后我就能说:“哦,对,好吧,我完全能看出自己是个混蛋。“
羞耻感如何维持坏习惯
Joe Hudson: 在那个场景中——不仅仅是在那个场景里——随着羞耻感消退,“哦,这不是我需要防卫的东西。这不是让我成为坏人的原因,我不需要为此感到羞耻。这只是我做出的一些行为。“随着这些消退,然后在接下来几周里,果然,我变得不那么混蛋了。当你真正领悟到这一点时,会发现一件很奇怪的事——往往是羞耻感在维持着坏习惯。问题到底是我是个混蛋,还是我因为自己是个混蛋而感到羞耻?问题到底是你抽烟,还是你因为自己抽烟而感到羞耻?通常,我们称之为”问题”的一切背后都包含了太多假设,如果我们看穿这些假设,问题就会消失。就像在这个例子中,它对我来说消失了。
回避的情绪反而会如影随形
Lenny Rachitsky: 哇,好吧。这里面内容很多。这让我想到你最近谈到的一个观点——我们试图回避的情绪,恰恰会因为我们的回避而大量经历。这到底是怎么回事?
Joe Hudson: 既然我做高管教练,那就拿高管来举例——回避冲突的高管。“我不想感受人们在争吵时那种失控的感觉。我不想体验那种程度的失控,所以我要回避冲突。“我们用来回避某种感受的每一种方式,最终都会成为那种感受被邀请进我们生活的方式。我们都知道为回避冲突的 CEO 或老板工作是什么感觉——人们会非常抓狂。最终,人们会非常愤怒。决策迟迟无法做出。紧张气氛始终存在,永远得不到缓解。
然后,果然如此,回避冲突的 CEO 面对的是整个组织充满了紧张感,他们感到完全失控,而且对此无能为力——这就是一个例子。或者我年轻的时候,问题是情感上的被抛弃。我父亲是个酗酒者,我不想再次感受到那种被抛弃的感觉,所以当我感觉人们要离开我时,我会变得很强硬,“你什么什么什么……”这当然会让他们更快地抛弃我;或者我会试图去照顾别人,这会积累怨恨,也会让别人抛弃我。无论你试图回避哪种情绪,你都在以你试图回避的那种方式把它邀请进你的生活。
Lenny Rachitsky: 怎么回事?为什么会这样?
Joe Hudson: 听起来不对劲,是吧。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这完全适得其反。
Joe Hudson: 确实是适得其反。我觉得这里面真正酷的地方在于,你可以审视你生活中遇到的任何问题。你可以说,哦,我生活中的一个问题是我不断和女朋友或男朋友吵架。那么在这场争吵中,你不想感受的是什么?我不想感到羞耻。你之所以吵架,是因为你不想感到羞耻,而这恰恰让你感到更多羞耻。那我一开始为了不感到羞耻在做什么?我在防卫自己。哦,而我的防卫恰恰是引发争吵的东西。你可以回溯推演:哦,我不想感到羞耻,因此我要防卫自己,这引发了争吵,这让我感到更多羞耻。
你遇到的任何问题,都可以这样回溯推演,然后发现:哦,我可以通过单纯地接受那种感受来解决这个问题。“该死,你没倒垃圾。“哦,这是一种我不想要感受的羞耻。我不打算防卫自己,我要去感受那份羞耻。哦,好吧,那我可能会说”抱歉我没倒垃圾”;而不是”我不觉得羞耻,我不想倒垃圾,我必须防卫自己然后挑起争吵”,然后我就会感到羞耻。你可以这样回溯推演你所有的问题。这是一个非常酷的技巧,但很难做到。不知为何,它很简单,但对人们来说很难运用。
接纳而非抗拒
Lenny Rachitsky: 这太妙了。建议基本上就是——去感受那个东西,接受”这就是我正在感受的情绪”,也许就像那个混蛋的例子——好吧,也许我就是个混蛋。
Joe Hudson: 这就是爱并接纳自己所需要的——爱并接纳你当下正在经历的情绪,而不是抗拒它。有句话说:我们抗拒的,会持续存在。你如何爱上并停止抗拒当下的现实?这样做,就会改变当下的现实。
Lenny Rachitsky: 在和女朋友的争吵中,假设你不同意她对正在发生的事情的看法。我猜这不是根本问题所在——问题在于你的感受,而不是她的看法。
Joe Hudson: “亲爱的,我真的听到你希望我去倒垃圾,但这不是我的真实想法。“这和出于防卫羞耻是非常不同的。出于防卫羞耻会是:“不,倒垃圾不是我的责任。“你试图不去感受那种体验,而这恰恰是造成问题的原因。回应本身不是最重要的,真正重要的是这个回应从何而来。这很有意思,因为人们不断地被教导——这也是我们在联结课程中教的内容——真正重要的不是对话本身,而是你在对话中处于什么状态。比如,当我的朋友对我说”你是个混蛋”时,他没有这样说:“你是个混蛋!你这个混蛋!你一直在当混蛋!你他妈的给我停下!“他更像是:“嗯,你是个混蛋,那又怎样?有什么问题吗?“他是从对我的爱出发的,所以我在回应他时不需要防卫。真正重要的是你从哪里出发。
重要的是你的内在状态,而非你说的话
情感上你从哪里出发,这才是重要的部分。不是你说了什么。你可以看到这一点——一个完美的例子是,这在我的工作中经常发生。假设有一个人,他的 CEO 让他感到害怕。假设这是一位 CMO,他说”我怕我的 CEO。我没法说出真实想法。他们总是发脾气,会大吼大叫,等等等等。“我会说:但总有一个人敢说。答案永远是肯定的——那个 CEO 一定有一个人,他不对那个人吼叫,他会倾听,他会接受异议,他不会对那个人发火。因为有那么一个人不是带着恐惧去接近他的。因为那个人以不同的方式接近他——不是带着评判,而是:“嘿,你看,这是我们需要注意的事情。“真正重要的是你的出发点,而不是你说了什么。
待翻译内容的译文
[跳过广告段落]
Lenny: 太棒了,Joe。我对我们已经分享的内容非常满意,还有更多我想深入挖掘的。
Joe Hudson: 你一直在用”建议”这个词,我只是想——对所有听众说,不要接受我的建议。不要、不要、不要。去验证它。做实验。设计一个实验,试一试,看看它对你是否成立。第一,这些不过是我编出来的东西。别人也可以编出不同的东西。就像 Jeff Bezos 创造了亚马逊一样,我们在创造东西,但我们都是人。第二,如果你不是仅仅把它当作一个金句来听,而是真正去实践,把它变成一个实验,你就会真正学到。它会融入你的骨子里。你会看到对你来说什么是真实的。此时此刻对你真实的,下一刻可能就不真实了。比如,我可以给一个建议说,嘿,你甚至无法控制自己的念头。你甚至无法决定下一个念头是什么,它就是会他妈的自己冒出来。你完全无法控制,所以一切都是礼物。你能把生活看作全是礼物吗?哇,这对某个人来说可能非常有用,但对另一个人来说,他们感到如此无力,他们会想:“我连自己的想法都控制不了。天哪,我完全被困住了。“在那一刻,他们可能更需要学到的是:“哦,我有力量,我有选择。“那才是他们需要听到的建议。做实验,发现在这一刻对你来说什么是真实的。如果有一条建议是我要给的,那就是这一条。
享受是效率的核心工具
Lenny: 让我们分享更多人们可以做的实验。另外,我觉得在你的工作中反复出现的一个主线是,你非常致力于帮助人们感受喜悦。感觉那就是你帮助人们的核心——让他们感受更多喜悦。为什么这如此重要?喜悦为什么如此重要、如此强大?
Joe Hudson: 我绝对不会希望任何人去感受喜悦。我不想把人推向喜悦,或者像”嘿,你应该感受喜悦”这样。我想说的与之相近的是,享受是提高效率的极为重要的工具。享受是过有意义生活的极为重要的工具。享受是一个了不起的工具。举个例子,假设你开一辆法拉利,你不会说,嘿,那是一辆高效的车。那是一辆超级高效的车。你会说,不,那是一辆快车。但不知为什么,在我们自己的生活中,如果我们很快完成了一件事,我们就说自己很高效,但那不是高效。你可以很快完成一件事,然后你筋疲力尽。真正的高效是,在你做完任何事情之后,你觉得自己有更多能量,你很兴奋,你会想,哦,我等不及明天再做了。那才是高效——你实际上用了最少的能量完成了某件事。如果你说,我要想办法让我做的事情多享受 10%,而且你做到了,你就高效了 10%。
不仅如此,通常质量也会大幅提升。如果你享受跑步,你大概会比不享受跑步时跑得更多。如果你享受做播客,你大概会做出更好的播客,而且你会坚持做更长时间。享受之所以非常重要,是因为它不仅是效率的衡量标准,还与大多数事情的可持续性——你能坚持做多久、你做出来的质量——都有很强的关联。这就是我认为享受非常重要的原因之一。另一件事是,如果你享受事情,它们的感受会不同。我觉得人们常做的一件事是说:“我想更享受我的生活,所以我要少做一些事,比如倒垃圾,多做另一些事,比如去度假。”
享受不是这样运作的。你可以享受倒垃圾,你也可以讨厌倒垃圾。那是一个选择。此刻,正在听这个的人可以做的一个实验是:好,接下来一分钟你继续听。你怎么能让这多享受 10%?通常会发生的是,一个人会深呼吸一下,更多地安住在自己的身体里,更多地放松一些。他们可能会在身体上让自己更舒服。他们可能做一千种不同的事情来让这个体验多享受 10%。在这个过程中,他们变得更高效了,质量也在提升,他们听我说话的方式也不同了。这是一个非常强大的工具。我知道的问题在于,有些人会说:“好吧,现在我必须享受生活了。我要忽略所有负面情绪,这样我就能处于享受之中。“那行不通。那太糟糕了。那简直就是一碗狗屎汤。
学会享受眼前的事,而非追逐外在的快乐
Lenny: 顺着这个思路,这方面的工作有多少是学会更多地享受你正在做的事情,又有多少是找到你天生就喜欢的事情?哪个更强大?或者说,你会引导人们走向哪个?你觉得人们应该多做哪些实验?
Joe Hudson: 在我们的社会中,通常更重要的是学会如何更多地享受你正在做的事情。通常发生的情况是,如果你找到了享受正在做的事情的方式,你就更有可能去做那些你享受的事情。这只是一个操作顺序的问题。相比之下,在我的圈子里,因为我的客户群体等原因,很多人是亿万富翁,他们花了数亿美元去安排一个自己享受的生活,但这他妈的不起作用。他们实际上有更大的能力让每一件事都恰好是他们想做的,但那行不通。开喷气式飞机、买岛屿,等等等等,都不管用。
但如果你真正学会了享受你面前的东西,突然间,有一件事会发生变化——你不再那么害怕享受了。你开始说:“哦,哇,享受让我真的很高效,所以我想去做那些我享受的事情。“你就更有可能去做你享受的事情。而不是抱有这样一个故事:我必须做 X、Y、Z,这样在未来的某个时刻,我才能做我享受的事情。这只是一个操作顺序的问题。如果你学会了享受你正在做的事情,你会自然而然地开始做你享受的事情。如果你只做你享受的事情,你就不会学会如何真正享受你正在做的事情。
提问的措辞决定一切
Lenny: 你分享了这个小窍门——我怎么能把这多享受 10%?就是问自己:我怎么能把这多享受 10%?
Joe Hudson: 对,就在此刻。
Lenny: 还有什么你觉得有帮助的吗?对,就在此刻,我怎么能把这多享受 10%?
Joe Hudson: 没错。这不是关于改变外部世界的任何东西。
Lenny: 明白了。是内在的——我能做什么?我能改变体验这件事的方式中的什么?
Joe Hudson: 是的。我喜欢用”你怎么能让它多享受 10%“来提问,因为如果是”我能改变什么”,那就涉及努力,而努力通常不会带来更多享受。实际上,通常是放下努力才能创造更多享受。措辞可以决定一个问题的成败。
“多享受 10%“的实验
Lenny: 多享受 10%。比如说,有人正坐在一个极其无聊、灵魂都在被抽干的会议里,他们应该问自己这个问题:我怎么能把这个多享受 10%?
Joe Hudson: 嗯,不是”应该”,是”可以”。他们可以这样做,这是一次很好的实验。
Lenny: 是一次实验。好的,明白了。
Joe Hudson: 我之所以对”应该”这个词较真,是因为一旦你说了”应该”,然后你没做到,你就”失败”了。一旦你失败,你就更不可能再试一次。这就是为什么”应该”最终通常会导致停滞。你体会一下身体里的感觉——当你说”我应该做某件事”的时候,有一种停滞感,有一种”嗯……”的沉重。而如果你说的是”哦,我想做这件事”,或者”这里有个我可以做的实验”,或者”这是我享受的东西”,停滞感就少了,流动感就多了。
真实自我与自我改进
Lenny: 这触及到你经常谈论的另一个话题——真实性与自我改进之间的关系。你帮助人们认识到,现在的你就已经足够好,不一定需要去”改进”。我们之前已经聊了很多这类话题,但你还有什么可以分享的,关于如何帮助人们理解这一点?
Joe Hudson: 我最喜欢的比喻是——一棵橡树在旅途的哪个阶段是”完美”的?是橡实的时候?是刚发芽的时候?是 20 年、40 年、150 年、还是 200 年的时候,取决于那棵橡树?没有一个时间点是”现在我完美了”。这个想法本身就很荒谬。我们人类也是一样的。那种”我需要改进自己”的想法,实际上扰乱了正在发生的自然过程——我们是在进化的。作为人类,我们天然就会进化。如果是”哦,我在进化,我可以享受这个过程,我发自真实地行动”,那就会充满活力,进化得很快。如果是”我需要改进,我有问题,我需要改进,我应该这样做”,那就慢得要命。因为其中有大量的情绪停滞。
其中充斥着”应该”和羞耻。其中有大量的停滞,于是你无法获得生命那种自然的流动。道家讲的就是这个道理——河流总会找到自己的路,它就是朝那个方向流。我们天然就在进化,这是我们的本性。然后在路上堆一堆”应该”和”狗屁”障碍,只会拖慢这个过程。关于真实性,还有一点我认为也很重要——如果你是那少数的 10%、15%的人之一,能够说”我应该变成这样、这样、这样”,然后你真的做到了——实际上很少有人能真正做到。大多数人的情况是,他们说”我应该做这个,应该做那个,应该做那个”,然后十年过去了,他们还在说自己应该做同样的事。假设你是那些非常成功的人之一,那你过的是不属于你自己的生活。你过的是”你认为你应该成为的那个人”的生活,而不是你真实自我的生活。
如果你从真实性出发,自然地,有些事情行得通,有些行不通。有些人适合你,有些人不适合。有些工作适合你。最终你留下的那些,是真正适合你的,而不是适合”你认为你应该成为的那个人”的。最明显的例子就是——你遇到一个女人,然后你想,“哦,我应该这样表现她才会爱我”,然后你就这么做了。你做了所有你认为应该做的事,然后你们结婚了,但她爱的不是你,她爱的是”你认为你应该成为的那个人”。她爱的是你的伪装,不是真正的你。那叫什么婚姻?相反,如果是”这就是我,我要尽可能地真实。我向你展示我的所有部分。我要对你尽可能真诚。“那么如果你真的结婚了,你是和对的人结婚——你嫁/娶的是那个真正看到你的一切并且爱你、想要这一切的人。
Lenny: 你怎么平衡这个想法和”我也想变得更好,我想发展自己,我想更多地感受自己的情绪”这类愿望?
Joe Hudson: 我喜欢”我想要”这个部分,但”更好”这个部分有点碍事。我们都想要——就像一个小孩想跑得更快。他可能想成为一个更好的跑者,但他之所以能飞速进步,是因为他不会觉得”如果我跑得更快,我就是一个更好的人”。关键在于——你有一种天然的渴望,这种渴望驱动着进化。一棵植物就像——“哦,那里有阳光,我想朝那个方向生长。“相比之下”我应该”就完全不同。“想要”和”应该”都是人类概念,但”想要”是让我们知道自己的进化方向的东西。“哦,我有这种渴望,想要和人更亲近。哦,我有这种渴望,想要美好的性生活。哦,我有这种渴望,想要拥有一份能支撑我的事业。”
这些都是很好的渴望,它们指示着成长正在发生或想要发生的方向。那就是我们的自然进化,非常好。那为什么非要加上”变得更好”呢?“我想要变得更好”只会拖慢速度,而不是——它本质上是在说”我现在的样子是坏的”,于是整个进程就慢下来了。我们尽量把一切都放在实验的框架里来表达,同时,我们也尽量把一切都表述为自我觉察、自我实验、自我发现,而不是自我改进。因为如果你真正理解了一个问题,问题就会消失。只需要去探索它,去理解它,而不是列一张”为了变好你应该做的事”的清单——你最终会失败,然后陷入”应该”的死循环里自我打击,而这正是大多数人停留的地方。
Lenny: 我从这里得到的实验是:多想想你的”想要”而非”应该”,以及你认为自己需要的东西,也是可以的。
Joe Hudson: 因为通常,当你说”我想要改进”时,潜台词是——“一旦我做到了 X、Y、Z,我就值得被爱了。一旦我做到了 X、Y、Z,我就没问题了。一旦我做到了 X、Y、Z,我就有价值了。一旦我做到了 X、Y、Z,我就开悟了”,管它是什么鬼东西。事情不是这样运作的。真正有效的方式是——爱自己的人,拥有的关系也是充满爱的。而不是那种”做了 X、Y、Z 才能变得值得被爱”的人拥有充满爱的关系。那些为了变得值得被爱而做 X、Y、Z 的人,他们的关系里充满了批判,对方不断告诉他们必须变得更好。
“理解了问题,问题就会消失”
Lenny: 说回来,你刚才说了一句很有意思的话,你在开头也分享过。就是”一旦我们理解了问题,它就会消失”这个观点。
Joe Hudson: 是的。
Lenny: 我们确保大家都理解这是什么意思。它和之前说的那个——“一旦你觉得’我是个混蛋’,好吧,然后,哦,好吧,然后这种感觉就开始慢慢消退了”——是类似的核心意思吗?
Joe Hudson: 我就是从实际操作层面说的。你想想——如果你不理解一个问题的解决方案,你真的能完全理解这个问题本身吗?有一个原则,我记不清叫什么了,好像叫 Strickland 原则之类的。这是一个我曾经共事过的 CFO 说的,他会说:“只要你花时间在问题上,问题就会被解决。只要给一个问题足够的关注,问题自然就解决了。“在商业中就是这么运作的。当然,无法解决的问题显然不适用。但之所以有效,是因为你在一个问题上花的时间越多,你就越理解它。
深入追问与理解问题
Joe Hudson: 还有一点,不管你对 Elon Musk 有什么看法,他说过一句话,我觉得在我的实践中非常有价值:如果你真的想面试一个人,而对方声称自己做成了某件事,你就追问六层。你说你提升了销售额,具体怎么做的?哦,我们优化了销售管线。具体怎么优化的?我们把管线做得更可衡量了,加入了一些可量化的节点。你怎么知道这样做的?管线的七个阶段是什么,你为什么选择这些阶段?就这样追问六层,你就真的能分辨出,这个人到底是真正解决了问题的人,还是只是在声称自己解决了问题。道理是一样的。
如果我们对一个问题探索得足够深入,解决方案就会自然浮现。如果我们对一个问题理解得足够透彻,解决方案就会显而易见。通常来说,如果我们带着孩子般的好奇心去面对问题,去想”我能在这里学到什么?有什么让人兴奋的?我可以做哪些实验?“——这往往才是解决问题最高效、最愉悦的方式。相比之下,“我必须在某个时间点之前解决这个问题,而且要按某种特定方式来做”——通常这种做法反而行不通。我可以展开讲讲为什么这让民主体制能够胜过专制体制,因为民主体制本质上更加注重实验,而不是由一个人决定一切。但总的来说,当我们处于探索状态时,效率更高。当我们探索自我、理解自我、试图提升自我的时候,效率也更高。
情绪与团队建设
Lenny: 我还想帮大家多设计几个可以尝试的实验。一个是你在决策方面有非常好的建议——关于情绪如何影响决策,以及更好地理解和驾驭自己的情绪如何帮助你做出更好的决策。能谈谈这个吗?
Joe Hudson: 这和之前说的类似——如果你学会爱上各种情绪体验,你就会拥有更多的解决方案。比如说,每个人都想成为一支优秀团队的一员。从来没有人举手说”我想加入一支平庸的团队”。然而,绝大多数人在工作中的团队并不理想,不是 A 级团队,不是出色的团队,尽管没有人想要这样的结果。如果你不愿意感受的东西中包括冲突和紧张——就像我们之前说的,如果你回避冲突——你就无法打造一支 A 级团队,因为任何有生命力的事物都需要张力。细胞需要张力。呼吸需要张力。打匹克球需要张力。一支好团队也需要张力。如果你回避这种体验,你就很难——甚至根本不可能——打造出一支高质量的团队。
能够期待任何情绪体验,会为你创造越来越多的解决方案,带来越来越多的选择空间。比如在打造一支优秀团队这件事上,你需要能接受有人讨厌你。你需要能划定边界并承受他人的不满。你需要能够设定高期望。你必须能接受别人对自己失望。你也必须能接受对自己失望。所有这些情绪体验都必须对你来说是可触及的,你才能找到打造一支 A 级团队的解决方案。你越是能爱上每一种情绪体验,你的选择就越多,决策也就越清晰。这是做出好决策的一个方面。
建立生活原则
另一个我发现非常有用、但在真正理解之前很难执行的方法,是建立一套自己的原则。我们每个人都有一套自己在遵循的原则,不管是否意识到。对很多人来说,他们的原则就是——“我怎么做才能在 Facebook 上获得更多点赞?“我做决策的依据是获得更多点赞。我做决策的依据是假装自己想变富,或者努力变富,诸如此类。如果你认真审视一下自己到底在以什么标准做决策,然后认真思考:什么原则,如果我用那五六条原则来做决策,就能保证我成功?然后用它们做实验,不断打磨这些原则,再继续实验。过程中会有一些时刻你不想坚持,但那些就是你的原则,所以你会继续去做。
举一个我自己的例子。我遵循的原则之一是”拥抱强度”。注意,不是”制造强度”,而是”拥抱强度”。这意味着,此时此刻,我身体里一定会有某种更强烈的感受,我如何去迎接它?在经营公司的任何时候,总会存在一些我们不想谈论的事情,我们如何靠上前去把这件事谈开?我们有些会议会以这样的问题开始:“在我们的业务中,你害怕说出什么?你害怕说出什么?“不是所有会议都这样,但有些会议会这样开场。因为我们想要拥抱那种强度,因为我们知道,如果我们直面自己试图回避的东西,生活会变得更好,业务也会变得更好。
如果你能找到属于自己的那些原则,然后通过实验验证它们是否有效,并偶尔加以打磨。正因为”拥抱强度”这条原则,如果有人走过来说:“你把这家公司搞砸了,你全做错了。“我不需要思考该怎么办。我的反应是:“太好了,告诉我我遗漏了什么。“这种反应是即时的,因为我就是这样生活的。也许我不想听,也许我今天状态不好,不管怎样。也许我会说:“嘿,我想听你说,但我现在状态不太好,给我一天时间,我再来找你。“但突然之间,如果我按照一套原则来生活,我的决策就变得自动化了。我觉得按照一套原则来生活非常高效。
Lenny: 对于想要建立自己的一套原则的人,你有什么指南吗?关于如何开始列这个清单、把它整理出来,有什么建议吗?
Joe Hudson: 我们有一个决策课程,其中很大一部分就是关于如何做这件事的。这个很难用几句话说清楚,因为里面有很多细微之处。比如其中一个细微之处是,定义原则的时候,不仅仅要定义它是什么,还要定义它不是什么——这看似是很小的一点,但实际影响非常大。如果你要建立自己的原则,而且想自己独立完成,我最主要的建议是:控制在五条以内。我甚至不会做六条。我自己就不做六条,我控制在五条。我建议对每条原则测试五天。
定下你的原则,然后看看它是否适合你,测试五天,然后继续实验,直到找到五条。当你看着这五条原则时说:“如果我照此生活,如果我按照这些原则来生活,我几乎百分之百——如果不是百分之百的话——确信,这样做能创造我想要的生活。“那你就有了很好的起点。另外,要让原则简单。我的原则就是类似”拥抱强度""联结优先""一切都是迭代”这样的。只要我按照它们生活,事情就顺利,公司也运转良好。
Lenny: 太好了。我们会把那个课程的链接告诉大家,如果有人想参加的话。
Joe Hudson: 那个课程一年只有一次,所以比较难得。
Lenny: 哦,这样啊。下一次是什么时候?
Joe Hudson: 一月。
团队原则与五星会议
Lenny: 好的,离得不算太远,大家可以期待一下。再次回顾一下你分享的两条建议,也是我们可以尝试的实验,帮助我们成为更好的决策者。一是创建一份人生原则清单,有一个课程可以推荐给大家。二是你反复提到的——爱上你的情绪,拥抱你的情绪,接纳你的情绪。另外,我知道你在团队方面也做了很多工作。我猜帮助团队提升效能也有类似的建议,原则应该也是其中的一部分,还有爱上情绪。
Joe Hudson: 我们确实为团队做过原则相关的训练,这是其中一项。团队确实可以更高效。我现在大概有12套方法,会带进公司去实施。通常的做法是,我先和领导者沟通,了解他们想要什么。然后我需要做评估。通常,造成问题的人往往很难看清解决问题的路径,否则问题也就不会产生了。这不是在贬低任何领导者,我们每个人都有这样的盲区。所以我喜欢先跟三四个人聊聊,听听他们的看法,而不仅仅是领导者的视角。
然后我会旁听一两个会议,实际观察互动的动态。关于如何改变一家公司,我常说的一句话是:公司的原子结构就是会议和决策。这在硅谷尤其如此,但其实对所有企业都成立——公司不过是一群人的关系和想法的集合。以亚马逊为例,不过几栋楼和一些服务器,硬件并不多,没有人的话它们也毫无用处。无论是经营农场还是鞋厂,任何成功的人都会告诉你,关键在人。而原子结构就是——我们的会议是什么样的,我们如何做决策?我会非常仔细地观察一场会议。我们有一个概念叫”五星会议”(five-star meetings),探讨的是如何让每一场会议都令人愉悦。
具体来说,怎么才能让每个人走出会议室时都说,“哇,太棒了”?事实上,我们都经历过那种极其艰难的会议,但走出来后觉得那是一场好会议。我们也经历过那种什么都没发生的会议,心里想,“天哪,又是那种恨不得拿钉子钉自己脑袋的会议,我不想坐在那里。“要怎样才能让一场会议达到五星?我们在公司里会做的其中一件事,就是帮他们找到答案。如果你这样做了,公司里每一个问题都会浮出水面。每一个都不会遗漏。如果有十场五星会议,但有两场很糟糕,那恰恰告诉我公司需要在哪些地方集中精力。
这精准地指出了我该去哪里寻找正在发生的问题。决策也是一样。如果你真正去拆解人们在决策过程中的挫败感,你会发现公司里确切的问题所在。举个例子,我在跟一位做内容的朋友合作,我们聊到如何让每一场会议都变成五星会议。他说:“好的。“然后又说:“我永远不会这么做。“我问:“真的吗?说说为什么。“他说:“我的 YouTube 会议糟糕透了。“那虽然不是他赚钱最多的地方,但这些 YouTube 会议确实很烂,而且永远不会变好。
幸好当时旁边还有几个人,大家都说:“不会吧,我很喜欢我的 YouTube 会议。你什么意思?怎么就不适合你呢?“他这才注意到,团队也好,内容也好,全都不适合他。都不是他想要的。他就是觉得”呃”。后来他改变了。他说:“好,我决定试试。我要看看,如果我要求自己的每一场 YouTube 会议都必须是非常享受的,会是什么样。“当他真的这么做之后,他的 YouTube 数据在极短的时间内就飙升了。就是这么普遍。哪个会议很糟糕,就意味着那里有一个需要解决的问题。通常我坐在任何团队会议里,都能看到公司正在发生的至少三四个主要问题。
Lenny: 这种从会议切入来思考聚焦点的方式太棒了。我很喜欢这个故事又回到了你之前分享的观点——越是享受一件事,越是有快乐在其中,事情就会进行得越好。你越能找到那些愉悦的时刻,让事情变得令人享受,结果就越好。
Joe Hudson: 另一个很棒的事是,我合作过的大部分高管或 CEO,当他们做到一定程度——我们通常设定一个月的目标,但实际上往往需要两个月——确保自己的每一场会议都是五星会议。做到之后,下一步就是如何确保所有团队也都拥有五星会议。通常两个月之内,他们公司的会议数量会减少一半。会议少了一半,但效能更高。这是一个极其强大的工具。
脉搏调查与企业文化
Lenny: 我能理解为什么人们喜欢你参与的会议。在我们结束对话之前,关于团队或决策方面,还有什么要补充的吗?
Joe Hudson: 我想对每一个带领团队的人说,哈佛也有类似的做法,但我们以前做的是一种微型脉搏调查(pulse surveys)。做 VC 的时候,有一项非常有效的策略,我发现很少有 VC 在做,就是通过简短的调查来读取团队的脉搏。这是最有效的方式来了解团队状态——不太开心、周一不想来上班、完不成业绩指标,达成指标的可能性在下降。这其中有一个很有意思的现象,德鲁克(Drucker)应该是最早说的,然后是维珍的那位。
Lenny: 布兰森(Branson)?
Joe Hudson: 布兰森说的。他说,“文化把战略当早餐吃掉了”,大意如此。如果这是真的,那文化就是可衡量的,可以作为先行指标,而且它确实如此。如果你真的在团队层面关注文化,这是一种惊人的、非常有效的驱动结果的方式,同时也是预判糟糕结果即将到来的有效手段。让我感到有趣的是,大多数人觉得自己无法控制文化。
我注意到大多数人觉得……我更多听到 CEO 抱怨:“该死的,我在桌上的时候每个人都同意。我离开之后大家说,好的,我们去做。然后他们什么都没做。他们为什么不执行?“这种抱怨我听得更多,而不是听到 CEO 说:“哇,我注意到我们公司的邮件系统在削弱员工的自主权,因为没有要求每封邮件后面跟一个行动项……”我听到更多的是对事情为什么不运转的抱怨,而不是那些改变文化的温和、简单的策略。这让我觉得非常不可思议——文化如此强大,人们却觉得自己对它如此无能为力。
一个每天七分钟的练习
Lenny: 给大家一个今天或明天就能做的事情,来实践我们讨论过的这些东西。有没有一件你推荐基本上所有人都应该在接下来几天或几周内尝试的练习,帮助他们变得更好、更成功、更幸福?
Joe Hudson: 我会做七分钟,不少于七分钟。你可以做超过七分钟。每天和另一个人一起做七分钟的感恩练习。不能是”我感恩这个,我感恩那个,我感恩这个”这样列清单。必须是去感受感恩,然后看看当你从感恩的感受出发时,嘴里会说出什么来,然后来回交替。你在品味感恩的体验,同时和另一个人交替进行。打电话给妈妈、爸爸、姐妹、兄弟、生意伙伴、朋友,每天就这样来回表达感恩七分钟,从感受出发,而不是从想法出发。如果你有全身的感恩感受,每天体验七分钟,它会在非常短的时间内戏剧性地改变你的人生。真的,非常非常快。
Lenny: 哇,我已经感受到了。这个练习是向你在一起的那个人表达感恩。
Joe Hudson: 可以是对生活中任何事物的感恩。事实上,我建议你先做几周,然后在你感到匮乏的地方做感恩。那才是超能力所在。在我自己的生活中,我曾经冥想,每天花七八个小时冥想,持续了好几年。
Lenny: 那可是很多小时。
Joe Hudson: 你可以想象,我没什么钱。我以前常开的玩笑是,我一天中大部分时间都在冥想和为钱发愁。好笑,但也是实话。有一天,我在想钱的事,开车的时候在想一个我认识的亿万富翁,想着自己不够有钱,然后我想,“这个亿万富翁也不觉得自己够有钱啊。我知道自己够不够。“我又想,“哦,我现在拥有的是一个亿万富翁的体验。“我心想,“他大概也在某个地方开着车觉得自己不够有钱,而我也在某个地方开着车觉得自己不够有钱。太棒了,我也是亿万富翁了。“
从匮乏到丰盛
这个念头让我觉得很有趣。然后我想,如果我不再关注我没有的东西,而是开始关注我确实拥有的东西,会怎样?这也是感恩练习的来源。我和妻子每天坐下来,为我们拥有的所有实实在在的东西感到感恩。我们住在一个破房子里,开着十五年的老车。我们没钱。我负债了,我想大概四万美元的信用卡债务之类的乱七八糟的。我们就这么做了。说真的,三个月后,我的信用卡债务就没了。六个月后,我银行里有了六万美元。整个人生都变了,因为我不再把自己定义为一个”没有”的人,我把自己定义为”拥有”的人。突然之间,我望向窗外,不再是”哦,该死,那个我买不起,那个我买不起,那个我买不起。”
我望向窗外,我会说,有人在这上面赚了钱。有人在那上面赚了钱。我看到的每一样该死的东西,都有人赚了钱。二十个人、二十家公司在那个该死的路灯上赚了钱。安装它的人、电力公司、橡胶公司,到处都是,天哪,无处不在。在那个定义下,一切突然变得非常清晰。不管你觉得自己匮乏的是时间,还是爱,还是金钱,都不重要。如果你能真正对你匮乏的东西做感恩练习,那里蕴藏着一种超能力,会改变一切。
Lenny: 你现在还在做这个吗?
Joe Hudson: 我做感恩,是的。至于对匮乏的东西做感恩?我不再有匮乏的体验了。那已经不是……
Lenny: 你还是每天七分钟?
Joe Hudson: 当然,是的。这就像问我还在不在做爱。我为什么要放弃?感觉太好了。
Lenny: 确认一下,你每天早上找一个人花七分钟,想想你感恩的事情然后来回分享。关注的不是你头脑中感恩的东西,而是从你的情绪身体中涌现出来的东西。
Joe Hudson: 去感受感恩。
Lenny: 对,然后感恩。
Joe Hudson: 让感恩的感受来说话,而不是你的头脑,这样你才能获得那种身体上的感知。
课程资源与尾声
Lenny: Joe,我真的非常感谢你。我很感谢你分享了这么多供人们尝试的实验。我认为这会真正影响很多人的生活。最后两个问题。人们在哪里可以找到你的课程?我知道你有一个播客。人们在网上哪里可以找到你们的内容?另外,听众怎样才能帮到你?
Joe Hudson: 首先,Art of Accomplishment,播客,叫 Art of Accomplishment,由 Brett Kistler 和我主持。然后 Art of Accomplishment 网站会告诉你所有课程在哪里,还会给你一大堆可以尝试的实验,上面有各种非常好的信息。另外我们刚提到的另一件事是,我们真的想确保你觉得这些课程是适合你的。我们做课程的方式是非常注重感受体验的,完全不是智识层面的,而是真正在你的身体里。我们喜欢的方式是你带着你正在面对的真实问题,然后用我们教你的工具。这方面的基础课程叫做 Connection Course(联结课程)。如果你想入门,就去 Connection Course。
如果你还不确定它是否适合你,我们会做一些一个半小时的免费工作坊,让你体验一下我们做的事情,因为就像外面的任何东西一样,人们体验后会想,“这到底是什么?“这是一个完全不同的东西。它不是通常意义上的学习。你真的是坐下来和另一个人面对面地做实验,探索你当下的存在方式。你通过直接的实验来学习所有这些东西。如果你想了解它是否适合你,可以通过这些工作坊来体验,我相信会有地方让你们找到去哪里参加。
Lenny: 我记得九月份有一场。
Joe Hudson: Connection Course 九月份即将开课。这是一个很好的起点,是我们所有其他课程的基础。
Lenny: 那听众怎样才能帮到你?
Joe Hudson: 我希望我的孩子们在一个美好的世界中长大。实现这一点最好的方式,就是听到这个播客的人去发现他们是谁、他们的本性,以及他们运作方式的真相。不是为他们自己,而是为了他们的孩子和孩子的孩子。你想帮我一个忙的话,就让我女儿的世界变得更好。
Lenny: 我刚也有了一个儿子,所以我完全能感同身受。
Joe Hudson: 是的。
Lenny: Joe,非常感谢你来。这期播客太棒了。结果和我预期的一样精彩。
Joe Hudson: 荣幸。谢谢你的邀请。我很感激,Lenny。
Lenny Rachitsky: 大家再见。非常感谢收听。如果你觉得这期节目有价值,可以在 Apple Podcasts、Spotify 或你喜欢的播客应用上订阅本节目。也请考虑给我们评分或留下评论,这真的能帮助更多听众发现这档播客。你可以在 lennyspodcast.com 找到所有往期节目或了解更多关于本节目的信息。下期见。
术语表
| 原文 | 中文 |
|---|---|
| Descartes’ Error | Descartes’ Error(《笛卡尔的错误》) |
| Art of Accomplishment | Art of Accomplishment(播客/品牌名称,保留原文) |
| backward/reverse engineer | 回溯推演 |
| Brett Kistler | Brett Kistler(人名,保留原文) |
| CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) | CMO(首席营销官) |
| compartmentalize | 隔离(情绪) |
| Connection Course | Connection Course(联结课程)(已在术语表中为”联结课程”,此处确认课程名称保留原文) |
| connection courses | 联结课程 |
| connection first | 联结优先 |
| critical voice | 批判性声音 |
| Elon Musk | 马斯克 |
| embrace intensity | 拥抱强度 |
| Emotional Inquiry | 情绪探询 |
| everything is in iteration | 一切都是迭代 |
| executive coach | 高管教练 |
| fine-grained authorization | 细粒度授权 |
| five-star meetings | 五星会议 |
| habenula | habenula(缰核) |
| harness | 驾驭 |
| Jeff Bezos | 贝索斯 |
| non-judgmental awareness | 不评判的觉察 |
| PRD (Product Requirements Document) | PRD(产品需求文档) |
| pulse surveys | 脉搏调查 |
| question the assumption | 质疑假设 |
| role-based access control | 基于角色的访问控制 |
| SaaS | SaaS(软件即服务) |
| SAML | SAML(安全断言标记语言) |
| SCIM | SCIM(跨域身份管理系统) |
| single sign-on | 单点登录 |
| standup | 站会 |
| what we resist persists | 我们抗拒的,会持续存在 |
此文档由 AI 分片翻译(translate_long_document)