Jul 22, 2022
In today's conversation, I am
joined by Daniel Pink; author of five New York Times bestsellers,
including his latest, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves
Us Forward (which is
the focus of our conversation today). His other books
include When, A
Whole New Mind,
Drive, and To Sell is Human. Dan’s books have won multiple awards, have
been translated into 42 languages, and have sold millions of copies
around the world.
I reached out to Dan while I was
writing my new book, What Your Employees Need and Can't Tell
You (which is now on
presale and coming out on October 11, 2022) because I reference his
book Drive
a few times and wanted him to have
a chance to weigh in and make sure I attributed everything
correctly (something I do for every mention in my books). I was so
deep in writing mode that I didn't realize he had a new book coming
out at that time, so I asked him to come join me on the podcast to
talk about his newest book, The Power of Regret. You will hear all about it in our
conversation of course, but let me tell you, this book did not
disappoint. It is full of great examples and extensive research --
it will change the way you think about regret and what it
means to be human. You
don’t want to miss this conversation where we talk all about
it.
Show Notes:
- [00:40] In today's
conversation, I am joined by Dan Pink. He is the author of five New
York Times bestsellers.
- [01:51] In this episode we talk
about his newest book, The Power of Regret.
- [03:41] Dan shares about
himself and his background.
- [05:49] He realized in his
early thirties what he was doing on the side (writing) should be
what he was doing full-time.
- [07:12] He shares about the
manga comic book he wrote called The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career
Guide You'll Ever Need.
It is a 180-page graphic novel written in the Japanese comic form
of manga.
- [09:41] The book received a
number of awards, including one from the American Library
Association.
- [12:06] In the first week the
book came out he got an offer for the movie rights, which he
declined, and he never got another one. (Per the theme of today’s
episode…Does he regret it?)
- [14:43] Dan’s tips for writing
books: When it comes to writing and content creation there is a lot
to be said for getting the reps. Start small and work up to writing
a book. Listen to the feedback you get.
- [15:59] When writing a book you
have to have a very high bar for whether something is worth writing
a book about. Many ideas don’t have shoulders broad enough to carry
a full book and they would be better as an article or
essay.
- [17:20] Writing a book is hard
so if you don’t pick a topic that you are deeply interested in it
is going to be a profoundly miserable experience.
- [19:50] Does your book deserve
9 hours and 300 pages of someone else’s time? And, do you want to
live with this for the rest of your life?
- [21:13] His early book
Free Agent Nation
was about the rise of people who
were working for themselves.
- [22:41] At any point in our
lives we want to have some exploration but at a certain point, we
have to execute.
- [25:15] Dan loves sharing what
he is working on along the way and getting feedback from
others.
- [27:14] Not only is regret
normal and exceedingly common. Everybody has
regrets.
- [28:15] We want to use our
regrets as information for understanding what our value is and
learning to do better.
- [29:21] He did two pieces of
original research, one was The American Regret Project. It was a
very large public opinion survey of the US
population.
- [30:59] He also did a piece of
qualitative research called The World Regret Survey where he
invited people around the world to submit their regrets (over
20,000 of them!).
- [31:55] He found that people
around the world had the same four core underlying regrets over and
over again.
- [33:42] One of the core regrets
is foundation regrets. These are regrets people have about small bad
decisions early in life that accumulate and have negative
consequences later in life.
- [34:23] Boldness
regrets are if only I had
taken the chance regrets. Moral regrets
are if only I had done the right
thing. Connection regrets are regrets about
relationships.
- [36:37] We need to process our
regrets and use them as a force going forward. A starting point is
looking at our regrets and deciding if they are regrets of action
or regrets of inaction.
- [38:15] Regret is one of the
most common emotions that we have. Everybody has
regrets.
- [38:30] We have a massive
amount of evidence that when we confront and think about our
regrets we can use them to make better decisions, solve problems
faster and better, avoid cognitive biases, become better
negotiators and strategists, and find more meaning in
life.
- [39:59] Feelings are for
thinking. They are signals, data, and information. When you have
negative feelings even when it is unpleasant we need to figure out
what it is teaching us to use them as a force of
progress.
- [41:35] You want to have way
more positive emotions than negative emotions but a life well lived
is not a life of only positive emotions. Negative emotions serve a
role and are part of life.
- [43:43] Discomfort is a sign of
growth so you want a little discomfort because that is how we learn
and grow.
- [46:00] Melina shares her
closing thoughts.
- [48:15] If you enjoy the
experience I’ve provided here for you, will you share about it?
That could mean leaving a rating/review or sharing the episode with
a friend (or 10!)
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