Daniel H. Pink: The Power of Regret
EPISODE 170
Episode 170: Daniel H. Pink: 'Regret is not dangerous or abnormal, it is healthy and universal, an integral part of being human', Daniel H. Pink writes in his provocative and eye-opening new book. The Power Of Regret. 'Done right, it needn't bring us down; it can lift us up.'
Drawing from research in social psychology, neuroscience, biology, and more, as well as from more than 10,000 people in 35 countries around the world who responded to his World Regret Survey - the largest of its kind ever conducted - Pink challenges the idea of regret being a drag on our self-esteem and outlook. In fact, understanding how regret actually works and using those insights to reframe our perspective of it will help us reclaim regret and bring greater meaning to our lives.
INTRO
Daniel Pink breaks down the concept of regret and resets how we see the emotion
Regret is universal (3m20)
4 TYPES OF REGRET & COURAGE
Daniel Pink helps us understand the 4 core regrets
Foundation, Boldness, Moral, Connection (3m44)
Adam Grant and Daniel Pink discuss the pain of regret
Reflecting on regret takes courage (2m08)
PERFECTIONISM
Family Action Network, Adam Grant and Daniel Pink disregard perfectionism
Improvement not perfectionism (1m58)
OUTRO
Productivity Game and Albert Nobel’s obituary
Anticipate potential regrets (1m13)
READING
Daniel H.Pink: The Power Of Regret
Summary of the power of regret by Daniel H Pink
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-03/learning-from-regret-daniel-pink-this-working-life/100848018
CLIP CREDITS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m45eymlraJs&ab_channel=T%26H-Inspiration%26Motivation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_OhXO-6BkQ&ab_channel=ArtofCharm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u5QPvaksNs&ab_channel=FamilyActionNetwork
TRANSCRIPT
Mike Parsons: [00:00:00] And welcome to the moonshots podcast. It's episode 170. I'm your co-host Mike Parsons. And as always, I'm joined by the man of reflection, Mr. Mark Pearson Freeland and feeling good. Good morning, man. Hey, good
Mark Pearson Freeland: morning, Mike. You're right. We are a pair of reflectors that as we dig into each of our shows on the moonshot series, likewise with our listeners, rural learning about reflecting on some of the challenging parts of our lives.
But Mike, I think today's topic is still something that I in the past have tried to avoid. I think, reflecting on too much. How about. Yes.
Mike Parsons: I feel like I'm almost avoiding introducing the book that we are going to study today. Let's jump over the chasm. Let's cross the Rubicon mark. Tell us, where are we going today?
Mark Pearson Freeland: Today we are digging into listeners, Daniel H Pink's book, the power of regret. Now this is a [00:01:00] pretty big topic. Mike, this is a big old piece of research as well that Daniel Pink actually conducted a couple of years ago. He went out, he put this big website online and he encouraged tens of thousands of people to go and complete what he called the world's largest regret study that was available online.
And the idea was really to. Him Daniel Pink gather inputs and experiences around how humans react to regret. And what he did was he took all of those data points from tens of thousands of people and condensed it into the book, the power of her grads. And he drew a number of conclusions from those raw pieces of data.
So even before we get into the lessons and the areas that he uncovered within the power of regret, isn't that an amazing case study utilizing kind of citizen science and getting the public around the world to upload their own regrets in order [00:02:00] to help us all understand a little bit more about that raw emotion
Mike Parsons: of regret, and it's disruptive to.
The fact that he went, goes out there and creates this massive study on regret the world regret survey. And even as we talk about it, it feels a bit odd. It feels almost a little bit uncomfortable, which I think is a proxy for the fact that regrets are things where. You got to push someone to get them to talk about what they regret and regret.
As soon as you entertain the concept of regrets, it's just uncomfortable. Isn't it? Mark?
Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah. There's been many times throughout my life where. Stead of choosing to vocalize or even consider something that I've regretted. I think I've always tried to look at the things that I've done or the things that I've said as unchangeable.
And what I mean by that is. I am a [00:03:00] product of the things that I've done. So to inherently regret anything that I've done almost goes against my ego and my sense of being so intentionally. I've tried not to not regret too much in my life. And I think as we're going to uncover from Daniel Pink's book, that's a pretty classic behavior that a lot of humans do.
And the truth is that's quite limited by not having an appreciation of regret. I think I am limited in how I learn from things
Mike Parsons: in my life. Yeah. So what we're going to do today is really similar to what we've done over the last three shows in the mindset series is to go to new ways of thinking, asking really powerful questions that affect our mindset.
And today is no different, the power of regret by Daniel H Pink and. Discuss what it is, the different types, what you need to get the job done, how you can put it to good [00:04:00] use and how it is a key, like a bridge towards you becoming the very best version of yourself. So get ready to get a little bit uncomfortable, get ready, to think in different and new ways about regrets, pain, suffering, and all of that.
And today I promise you, we will show you ways to turn this into turbo fuel injection for you. On your mission. So I'm pretty pumped up, mark, where do you want to kick off the dive into this murky world of regret?
Mark Pearson Freeland: Goodness, I'm so ready to reflect some regrets. So let's hear, first of all, opening up our show on the power of regret is the author, the research.
Himself, Daniel H pink breaking down this concept of regret and helping you and I, and our listeners understand that regret truly is a universal. We
Daniel Pink: think that when we experience regret, it's [00:05:00] somehow an aberration. When in fact everybody experiences, regret, regret makes us human regret is part of the human condition.
What's more, we think that regret makes us weaker when in fact the research shows. Done right regret can make us stronger that we can enlist our regrets as a, an engine for forward progress in a weird way. Regret also taught me about what makes a good life because as I had collected 16,000 regrets from people in 150.
And when they told me their regrets, in a sense, they were also telling me about what made life worth living. Like I understand that no regrets philosophy, the problem is that it's not possible because we all have regrets. Now we should try to minimize our future regrets, but the idea that you should never look backward on your life and say, oh, I wish I had done things differently is actually a terrible blueprint for living.
And I think one of the problems is, especially in north America, is that [00:06:00] we're a little over indexed on positivity. Positive emotions are incredibly important and they should outnumber our negative emotions, but. We need some negative emotions because they instruct us. And our most prominent negative emotion is regret because regret teaches us.
It instructs us. It clarifies us, it clarifies what's what we should be doing and how we should be doing it. And so we need to understand how to deal with our negative emotions. We can't ignore them like no regrets. We can't wallow in them. What we need to do is we need to think about our regrets. And when we think about our regrets, the evidence is pretty clear that they can help us make better decisions, solve problems, faster, be better strategists, find greater meaning in our life.
Regret hurts. There's no question about that, but here's the thing. Regret also instructs, and you can't have one without the other. So if you avoid the pain, you don't get any of the learning. So what you have to do is be able to [00:07:00] process that pain. And I think there's a way for us to do that, to take our regrets, use them as signals.
We haven't been taught to do that. That's the problem. We have this weird approach. We have this weird view of negative emotions. Some of us think all positive all the time, and that leads to delusion. Some of us get so absorbed in our negative emotions that they, in some ways exonerate us from making progress.
That's a bad idea to what we need to do is we need to process our negative emotions in a systematic way. And I think there's a good way to. There's some interesting research on this. One of the things that we think about disclosure of our vulnerabilities and our setbacks and so forth is that people will like us less.
And in fact, they actually like us more when we do that. And so I actually had a lot of respect for people willing to disclose and willing to explain. And I felt like I was actually helping them make sense of this regret. So it wasn't that much of a downer. The other thing about it in which is this, is it over and over again, people kept talking about the [00:08:00] same four core regrets.
These four regrets are revealing by revealing our regrets. We are revealing what we value the most.
Mike Parsons: Don't be diluted. I think that really speaks to where many of us are. I've certainly been mark, as you said, a victim of avoiding these regrets because they dig up all these uncomfortable memories. I've probably been a victim of wishful thinking, overly positive thinking. But what I think Daniel pink is doing for us is saying, if you go into, the hurt or the pain, the regret, the fear, the rejection, whatever it was that was inside of it.
If you go into it, actually, it's one of the shoppers clearest. Define is, if you look at, if that is absolutely what I do not want and I do not like that starts to shape [00:09:00] well, here's what I do want from my life. Here's the kind of people I do want to be with the kind of things I do want to do the kind of ways of living that make me feel great.
It's so funny, isn't it? That, they talk about failure being the greatest teacher. It's like regret is the greatest former and clarifier of who we want to be. If we have the courage to go there, what do you think, man?
Mark Pearson Freeland: Digging into Daniel Pink's book, as we were preparing for today's show and listening again to that clip, it is for me, at least it is a penny drop moment, actually much as we've been digging into Mark Manson, Robert Green, as well as Chris Voss, this whole mindset series has illuminated me on a number of different factors, but really digging into Daniel Pink's work on regret.
For me, it was quite surprising actually, because as he referenced in that clip just then there's no regrets philosophy is certainly one that [00:10:00] I have. Maybe not intentionally been brought up thinking, but I think it's been ingrained throughout the culture as well.
Mike Parsons: It's convenient. If you don't have any regrets, then you don't have to address those key feelings of pain, fear, rejection, all those things that are the basis over here, which is oh, I've got a pass.
How fantastic
Mark Pearson Freeland: exactly it is. It's almost like a pass. It's almost an excuse. Isn't it's an excuse for allowing yourself to turn away from that discomfort. And I think what we learn on the moonshot show is the fact that you have to embrace that discomfort or that pain, as you were just saying, in order to grow.
And I think where Daniel pink goes with regret is he calls out that positivity is over-indexed now. And we all look towards the positivity rather than reflecting on the discomfort. And without that pain, that hurt, there is no instruction. And I love the idea is [00:11:00] we're digging into the show today on regret.
We start to understand that actually there's so much value. In regret that we're almost causing ourselves a disservice by not giving ourselves the permission or allowing our ego to enable us to go out and relook at regret or moments in our lives that we should regret and therefore learn from, I'm almost cheating myself by having no regret.
Mike Parsons: I know. And this is really the tension in this book. And what was quite interesting is say Robert Green was saying, look, there are these animal spirits that drive us in how we behave at work and in life. And you need to understand those as well. It really truly has been this series. Has all been about going to new, unusual, maybe uncomfortable places in order to find new ways of thinking.
And how
Mark Pearson Freeland: exciting is that? Yeah, so exciting and listeners, if you want to [00:12:00] hear our shows that we've done on mark Manson, the subtle art of not giving out Robert Greene's 48 laws of power, as well as Chris Ross, FBI negotiator, I'll never split the difference. You can pop along to your favorite podcasting app of choice or moonshots dot I O to learn more, to see show docs as well as to listen to
Mike Parsons: those shows.
I'll tell you what, why are you there, mark? You can also embrace the moonshot community. You can become a patron of the moonshots podcasts. Go on, become a member. And as always mark, we have new members to celebrate. So why don't we hit that roll call and welcome and thank our patron.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Yes, then the moment you've all been waiting for, please give a short and sharp.
Welcome to Bob Niles. John Terry Bridey. NILAH marshaling, Ken yet mark, Tom and mark Marjon Connor, Rodrigo Yasmeen, [00:13:00] spaceman, Daniella Liza said Maria, Paul Berg and Kalman. Thank you all so much for joining us as part of the moonshot family on Patreon.
Mike Parsons: Yeah. And we really appreciate your support. We're super grateful for it.
Even though it's it's look, it's the cost of one. Starbucks coffee per month and you can support us and helps us pay for all our subscription services. We have these great mikes that cost us hundreds and hundreds of dollars and all of that equipment. All of that technology is all here to serve you, our listeners and especially our members.
We're truly grateful for your support. And if you are a member, you also get access to the moonshots master series. And boy, I, I love doing the master series. Mark. How about.
Mark Pearson Freeland: There's so much that I learned from our weekly show, digging into the Daniel pinks and Chris Voss is, but what I think you and I are able to, as well as the moonshots team are able to [00:14:00] do going into 170 plus shows by now, Mike is take out the consistency that exists throughout a lot of our moonshots is our entrepreneurs and authors that we dig into and pull out real big, comprehensive, deep dive into topics like motivation, first principles, collaboration and teamwork habits, circle of influence the art of communication, entrepreneurship, finding your purpose and coming soon.
Mike, second order thinking these are huge
Mike Parsons: topics, aren't they? Yeah. The big chunky topics, and those are all exclusive for our members. So if you would love to become a member head over to moonshots.io hit the big member button, join us. Be part of it is just the cost of one cup of coffee. A month and you get access to all of that thinking.
But today here on this show, we have a lot of thinking to
Mark Pearson Freeland: come. We really do. And in that first clip from Daniel pink, he referenced the four types, the full cause of regret. And I [00:15:00] think as it's such a pinnacle part and foundation of Daniel Pink's book, it only seems to do justice for us to now hear from the author himself again, breaking down what he means by those.
So let's now hear from Daniel pink, the author of the power of regret, breaking down the four core regrets that he found during his research into regret. One of them
Daniel Pink: are what I call foundation regrets, which are regrets about essentially not doing the work about making choices in your life that gave you an unstable.
Smoking is a big one. Not taking care of your health, not exercising, not eating not working hard enough in school. Those not saving enough money. That those kinds of things. Now, those are sometimes complicated because they're not those things are not always in somebody's individual domain, but individual choice, but foundation, we've got a second one, boldness regrets.
If only I'd taken the chance. If only I had taken the chance to meet it, what it suggests is that human beings want to, it goes to our motivation conversation. [00:16:00] Human beings want to do something we want to learn. We want to grow. We want to have a psychologically rich life, three moral regrets, very interesting topic, smaller in number, but fascinating in their own way.
You're at a juncture. You can do the right thing. You can do the wrong thing. You decide to do the wrong thing and you regret it for years. I've got a woman in the book who would regularly steal candy from a store when she was 10 years. She's always, she revealed that regret. It bothers the hell out of her.
She's in her seventies. It happened 60 years ago. I have regrets about people, bullying people, kids in school, all kinds of regrets about marital, infidelity people. It, and I think there's something heartening about that is that these moral regrets suggests that we actually want to be good. And when we're not, we feel terrible about it.
The final one are connection, regrets, connection, regrets are the biggest category. And it's basically you have a relationship. I don't mean a romantic relationship. Any relationship, you have a relationship with [00:17:00] parent, a child, a sibling, a friend, whoever, and it comes apart and you want to reach out, but you think, ah, it's going to be awkward to readout and they're not going to care.
So you don't reach out and you drift further apart. And people deeply regret that one to me. And I think it's relevant for some of the stuff that you guys have talked about before is it's amazing how important. Is in people's lives. There was a revelation to me, like friendship really matters to in people's lives more than I expected.
And I think that more than many men are willing to see before their eyes, especially men, but women too, but especially men. And so the lesson there is, to me, that's been a big lesson for me that the connection regrets, because here's what, here's, what happens. I give you, I'll give you an example.
Let's take two characters, right? They're friends, but the friendship has come apart. And most of the time these friendships come apart, not because of any cataclysm because of any fight or anything like that. It just [00:18:00] drift. So we had two friends, Johnny and AIG, all right. They have a close relationship, but over time it starts drifting apart.
And I, and I say to AIG, okay oh man. It's I had this friend and I was like really close. And somehow we just drifted apart and yeah, I should probably reach out, but it's really awkward. He's not going to care. You're so wrong about that. You're so wrong about that.
Number one, there's a lot of evidence showing that it's much, those kinds of things are much less awkward than we think. And also it's almost always well-received. And so what I've done to people in writing this book and reporting this out, the story kept changing on me because people would change their behavior and response to the conversation.
But I'd said to one woman who had this kind of story, I said what if Jennifer, like she grown apart from this one friend? What if Jennifer reached out to you. Oh, my God, that would be the greatest thing. I would love it. I would be so touched. It would make my here, it would make my decade. And I'm like you answered your question.
Mike Parsons: Oh, my gosh as he's going through [00:19:00] this, did you find yourself doing the same thing? Did you just start going well, what are my regrets in those four areas?
Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah, exactly.
Mike Parsons: So let me let's have some fun, let's just get the edge of this whole regret thing. Let's get into some of our I'll start.
So definitely one of my regrets, stability, regrets, or foundation regrets was just not applying myself at school. Oh my gosh. Mark did I did. I think I, maybe I was in fifth gear for this, for the six years of high school. I was in fifth year for one year, which was the first, not the last unfortunately.
And that which followed by seven weeks of college before I quit college. So that's a good one. Regrets about boldness regrets. If only I'd taken the chance, I'm not so high here because I'm probably a victim of taking too many big jumps changing careers, living in four different countries.
So I'm all right there. The moral [00:20:00] regrets. Oh, I was definitely an idiot at school sometimes being too egotistical, being very, being an idiot or being unkind to others as a teenager. Oh boy, mark. Have I got a litany of stupid things or just not respecting friends enough? So I'm definitely on foundation and more.
I've got like a litany of good stuff there too to regret and learn from, I would say on the connections. I've tried actually pretty hard on the connection thing. So listen to this just last week, I had dinner with five friends who I went to school with and have known for more than 25 years. So keeping that connection.
I'm pretty good on, but yeah. Foundation and Maura are the ones that, that I'm kinda, I got some good regrets there that I can go and reflect [00:21:00] on. What about you
Mark Pearson Freeland: mark? Yeah, it's an uncomfortable topic for all of us, so thank you for sharing. I'm going to try my best as well. Mike, it might interest you to know actually in another article and we'll include a link in the show notes listeners as well to a time article that Daniel pink appeared in the connection.
Regrets is actually the largest category that he had people getting in touch with him about. So examples of, I wish I'd reached out to or forgiven such and such. So actually it's quite interesting as you were reliving or retelling your regrets as you were going through them. I was thinking actually over the last couple of years, I've personally really tried hard in the connection regret as well.
I'm living abroad away from family and friends that I've known for 10, 12 years. And. I've really tried hard to put myself out there and make time to have weekly video calls or make sure to send people texts. Obviously with time zone, it can be a little bit topsy turvy, but trying to take the time [00:22:00] to not remember.
And I hear here, I think is where it becomes a little bit mad when I try to avoid regretting it in the long run. I'll therefore make an excuse to go out and reach out to those people in the short term. So I agree with you actually, I've tried really hard particularly recently on the connection side of things, particularly likewise with moral, I believe I've always tried to carve out time to be loyal and be quite kind to people.
I've probably, there's probably been times. In my career that I've regretted, maybe not being bolder in meetings, but stand up for other colleagues, perhaps. So I think that's certainly sits within the moral regrets, not having raised a hand and argued against maybe a boss who wasn't being kind to a colleague, perhaps I think in my foundation regrets, I think until recently over the last maybe five or so years.
Try to actively take ownership of my [00:23:00] finances before then. I wouldn't have really thought about it. Thinking about, saving enough or reflecting where I was budgeting or spending my money. That's something that I think particularly as I was getting first into career and so on, that was always something that I didn't give enough attention to.
And I think finances is pretty common. And the boldness again, I'm going to be on your side a little bit. I've tried to always push myself to try new things, to get out there. Maybe I am guilty of settling into things for too long, rather than. Pushing myself to learn new skills. Maybe there's been times in my career where I've just allowed myself to coast live off the fat of the land, as they would say, rather than expose myself to difficulties.
I think that's where my boldness regrets might come in asking for new bits of advice or new skills, rather [00:24:00] than just living in the same pattern of things day by day from a career perspective, I think that's probably where my boldness regrets would come in.
Mike Parsons: Look at that. See that wasn't so hard. Was it Mike?
We just shared our life regrets with 50,000 other people. There you go, listeners. You're welcome. But I think the point here is get them out right? The dirty laundry, because surely if you go at those, for example, Let's take the fact that one of my big regrets was just not applying myself at school in college.
Okay. I believe that I can show you that the hard work that I put into learning right now, more than 20 years later, the motivation comes from the regress of such a long time [00:25:00] ago. That powers me today. I will go and I will learn like crazy. I read like crazy. I write like crazy and all of that stems from the fact that I use the regret of not doing it.
When I was younger, I use that, those regrets of yesterday, I use them in the here and now I use. Today, which is pretty, pretty good stuff, but I think it's important not just to touch on this once, like you and I have mark, I think it is really critical that we build a well of courage that we build this enormous reserve to go after the moments where we actually haven't been our best and to get into them, to explore them, to know them, to understand them and therefore master them.
But let's focus now on what it really takes us this into a conversation between Daniel pink and other author and moonshot, who we quite like Adam Grant discussing the pain [00:26:00] and the courage of. So as people process those there's four domains of regret. I think when they say no regrets, what they're trying to do is keep the learning, but get rid of the pain.
Like when I think about regrets, I think I want to treat that the same way as a stupid
Daniel Pink: decision. Someone else made where I
Mike Parsons: read about it, I learned the lesson
Daniel Pink: from it, but it doesn't hurt. Is that feasible
Mike Parsons: from the research you've done? Is it something we should aspire to, or do we need the pain in order to get the less?
Daniel Pink: I think it's a great question. And I'm not certain about the answer is, but my hypothesis, my, my sort of like the preponderance of evidence to me at least suggests that if you want the instruction, you gotta have the pain. And this is one reason. And so we want the instruction, but we don't have that.
We don't want the pain. And I don't think you can get that. I think you need that. I think you need that pain. There is some evidence, a couple of interesting papers show. And experiencing vicarious regret can [00:27:00] lead you in that way. But but I think in general you need the pain and this is the thing that that I want to come, that I keep coming back to, which is that, especially in America, no one teaches us how to deal with negative emotions.
And when we have negative emotions, we think that somehow there's something wrong with us because everybody else is so positive and you're supposed to be positive. So am I weak? Am I broken? Am I, is there something wrong with me? And instead, and we need to instruct people how to deal with negative emotions that is pain.
That stabbing negativity is a signal. And so you can't ignore it and you can't wallow in it. You have to confront it. And one of the things that bugs me really deeply is this philosophy of no regrets. I never looked. Because I'm a man or woman or man or woman of courage. That's bullshit. Forgive me, but no regrets.
Isn't a sign of courage. What's courageous is looking you're is dealing with the pain to responding to the pain and [00:28:00] confronting your regrets dead on and doing something about them. That's what courage.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Mike straightaway, he's a head Daniel Pink's heading on exactly what it was that I was referring to earlier in the show, this almost ignorance or a desire to not reflect on regrets because you feel as though, oh no, I'm confident.
So therefore I don't need to regret. That's not a sign of courage. The sign of courage is Daniel pink saying is to confront and accept those regrets, to look at them in detail and learn from them. I think he's really summed up exactly that what I. I have spent my last 34 years basically doing, which is ignoring those moments of discomfort, those regrets, because I believe it's more courageous to put on a brave face and turn the other cheek.
Yeah.
Mike Parsons: And this really brings me to what we've learned from author Ryan holiday and his book. Courage is calling. This is also very much in the wheelhouse of Brenae [00:29:00] brown. If you think about daring greatly, if you actually go into our whole back catalog, go to Jaco Willink, and David Goggins there, they've got a different entry point.
But what we are seeing is this massive pattern is that you cannot be naive and ignorant and just soldier on with a well of adrenaline and go forward. There has to be that vulnerable. Capacity to look at yourself and look at the bad things in yourself, the mistakes that you have made and to find the courage to go and truly grab them and say, okay, that sucked.
And that's okay, because I'm going to use it rather than ah, no regrets. I just move on. I don't even think about that. That's what the mistake is. Daniel pink is saying you got to go into your back catalog [00:30:00] of bloopers mistakes and really. Go and dust it out and clean it out. Do not leave those cobwebs unattended, go in there.
And if you tackle them, if you do some house cleaning you will indeed give yourself a very good chance of finding the very best version of yourself. What do you think?
Mark Pearson Freeland: Again, it's the big penny drop moment. Isn't it much like all those innovators and entrepreneurs and moonshots, as you've just mentioned, a lot of the lessons we learned from them is to embrace a let's call it failure.
Let's call it those difficulties, right? Oh, I've created a product, but it was a mistake. Okay. That's fine. I'll learn from it. And I think regret is basically our own personal failures. Isn't it? What do you want to call them failures or not? It doesn't really matter. I think it's, there's still the same emotion, the same feeling of whoa that could have gone better and learning from those moments as we're learning from Daniel pink.
Helps [00:31:00] guide us with regards to how we behave next time. We're learning from the much like a muscle we're tearing it, making it a little bit stronger, like Jaco or David Hawkins would say, we're learning from it. We're getting stronger. And I think Daniel pink is saying the exact same thing, even though it's more related to our brains and how we respond to things, it's
Mike Parsons: the same concept.
So this is fascinating because it really plays into also what we learned from Eckart toll, where you have to understand the role of your ego. I think it is our ego that says, Ooh, don't go any pain, fear or rejection. But these things happen in life. They happen pretty regularly in life. And I think if you it's mind over matter here, if you can build this muscle like Jocko, Willink, and Goggins.
Problem. Good. You Hayne. Good. Go into it. Daniel pink is saying embrace it. Discover what is it telling you about who you want to be in the future? [00:32:00] How do you avoid making those same mistakes? And this is what I truly love about this exercise, what we're doing together, learning out loud, decoding this book, the power of regret by Daniel pink and really finding what does it take to get a little bit uncomfortable?
What does it take to find the courage to ask yourself where did I really stuff up in life and how can I use that to make myself better? And I think that's, what's so exciting and we've still got so much more to come, but before we continue on this adventure with author Daniel, H pink, Mike, I'm really glad that we've started reminding our listeners to get into the apple podcast app or to Spotify and to give us a rating or review because we're seeing them really.
Come back with some real strengths. It's so good to hear your feedback. My account. Good. Is it when listeners send us an email or share their thoughts via rating or review, [00:33:00] it's pretty good, isn't it?
Mark Pearson Freeland: As much as I love discussing things with you and the moonshots team, Mike you're right.
Very rewarding for us, for you and I and the team to receive those communications. Last week, we caught out Sarah goes vegan. And this week, Mike, we've got a brand new review through the apple podcast app, which you're right. It reminds us that we've got 55,000 people listening to us each week. And they're learning something from us.
It's not just you and me talking out loud. We've got people at the other end learning lessons, which is really touching. And we really appreciate hearing from your listeners and this, we might we want to call out Kayla podcasts. Who's left us a wonderful review calling out the past. That you and I, and the team share each week, the passion to share the secrets of entrepreneurship can be felt in every episode.
Caleb, thank you so much for calling that out. I think it's very true that Mike and I, we, we are very passionate about each of the shows that we pulled together and the [00:34:00] lessons that we learn and hearing from you, our listeners, that you're also getting a sense of it. It's not just mark and Mike having a chat, having a good time.
We are passionate about it. We get a lot out of digging into these shows and these innovators each week. And we're glad to hear that, that our listeners get the same. So thank you so much for getting in touch.
Mike Parsons: It really helps. Yeah, I totally agree. Mark. The, think about what were the topic of today's show power of regret.
Imagine if you, and let's build off what Kayla was talking about and these secrets to entrepreneurship. Imagine if you had done two startups that didn't work out. It would be so important to use the thinking of Daniel H pink, the power of regret to go back and evaluate what did I totally stuff up?
Because if you can't, was it the team, did you allocate capital in a bad way? Were you building a product that nobody wanted? Whatever it was. If you go back to [00:35:00] that and you can get a little bit ready for the pain, maybe the fear, maybe the rejection, whatever it is that is in that past. And if you can reflect on it, surely that is like a springboard, like a catapult to launch you into a new version of yourself, a better version of yourself, whatever comes next can be better.
But imagine this mark, if you didn't have the courage to go back and ask, what did I stuff up? What did I do badly? If you didn't do that? The chances are you're going to make the same mistake again, right? Oh,
Mark Pearson Freeland: absolutely. And without taking a moment to look at what you've done, how you've reacted, how things have played out.
There's no hope for any of us to learn from the things that do happen, it's like history without running it down without reading it, without learning from it. You're going to repeat the same things again and again. And I think the same is true for all of us, unless we [00:36:00] do take a moment to reflect on regret failures, mistakes, or just life occurrences.
We're bound to make the same things again and again.
Mike Parsons: Yeah. And so now what we're doing is we're on a bit of a turn. In the journey in this show, I think to set the context here, we've come to terms with the fact that regret totally universal. It has these four types. It was really interesting to explore where we had our regrets mark.
And also we reminded ourselves of the courage and resilience. It takes to go back and face our demons. Now what we're going to do with Adam Grant and Daniel pink is to look at how we use them to be a better version of ourselves to learn out loud. And there's a very important distinction coming up.
So let's have a listen to Adam Grant and Daniel pink talking about improvement and perfection. If regret is a learning opportunity that can be meaningful and then positive for [00:37:00] well-being. Should we be concerned about the pursuit of perfectionism that occurs and continually wanting to do things better?
Do you think that there's a line fine or otherwise that could cast rectifying and actioning regrets as negative?
Daniel Pink: Yeah. Certainly there's a big difference between improvement and perfectionism. Perfectionism is completely debilitating. And one of the things that we have to get, this is part of healthy functioning is we have to get, figure out what do we have control over?
What do we not have control over? Some perfectionism is basically seeking control over things. You have no control over. Some of the perfectionism is simply is aspiring to a standard that is unachievable. W when improvement the desire for improvement turns into the obsession with perfectionism.
That's obviously really dangerous. I don't really have Adam, do you have a good. Technique for stopping that.
Mike Parsons: The only one that I've found even remotely helpful is just to, to distinguish reflection and rumination is when I cycled through the same thought over and over again [00:38:00] reflection is when I gained a new insight.
And if there hasn't been one in the last
Daniel Pink: 10 minutes, it's time to move on. Yeah. One other thing on this, I'll give you, I'll give you one super quick technique that I use myself, which is ironic. Given the timing here is that, is it Lauren? I say this to myself, literally out loud. Sometimes Lauren Michaels, the guy who created Saturday night live said very famously.
Once he says, we don't go on because we're ready. We go on because it's 1130. And there are times that I say to myself, Dan it's 1130 and that, that technique has been useful for me to inter to say, okay, you got to stop improving because you're never going to hit perfection. And just it's 1130, the red light is on the camera.
Let's put on it.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Like I quite like that last little story there, a little anecdote, because there's been many times for me and it's quite a, well-known saying isn't it don't let perfectionism stop progress. Just go out and do it. There's been many times in my life where I felt debilitated because I've strived [00:39:00] for the perfect maybe it's presentation, maybe it's argument.
Maybe it's just way of thinking. And what happens is you do get into a moment of. Lack of activity or action, or maybe you just put off going out and doing something. Maybe it's starting a business, maybe it's jumping out of a plane. Maybe it's having a difficult conversation with somebody, whatever it might be, because you want to wait for either a, the perfect timing, be the perfect argument or pronunciation of what you're trying to put across, or see just the perfect situation in the world.
And I think what we're hearing from Daniel pink and Adam Grant in that clip is don't get paralyzed by a desire to be perfect because the truth is you might not get there. The actions, the action of regret. And I think where the connection comes in with the power of regret, which is where we're going today is you use regret in order [00:40:00] to help you learn about.
Your values in reflecting on what you've done. So rather than focus on not making any mistakes, not making any regrets and therefore being inverted commas. Perfect. Instead accept that you are going to make some mistakes along the way. You're not perfect. And therefore, you're going to be more at peace.
What do you
Mike Parsons: take from it? What an interesting conversation, because what we're effectively doing is trying to embed a practice that comes, that is born of this thinking of this framework that Daniel pink has been talking about. So I think. The question becomes if you don't think about perfectionism, I think you have to think about process, right?
So it's process over perfectionism and this process of continuous self-improvement, I think is best expressed through the concept of [00:41:00] habits. So I think what ever you take out as something that you want to improve based on looking at your regrets, regardless of which type foundation, boldness moral connection start the process don't obsess about the perfectionism.
Cause I think that's perhaps, where you get end up getting yourself really stuck because much like in any goal setting activity, if you set a really big goal for yourself and focus a lot on that end objective. Let's take running, for example, let's say you want to do a marathon and you're like, wow, that's a lot of miles.
That's a lot of kilometers. The best thing you could do in that situation is say, okay how will I run today? And how will that be one step towards that [00:42:00] goal? And how will I run tomorrow? And what sort of habit will I have around diet, sleep, stretching? They get the right gear and slowly over time, I'm going to build this incredible habit of every day and every week I'm going to run a few extra miles.
And before I know it I'll be running five miles longest six months. And before I know I will be running the 26 miles, it takes to do a marathon. I think. Continuous improvement. It's really a question of process over perfectionism. And if there was any starting point, I think the idea here is to take your regret and ask yourself what small habit can I start today that comes from this regret.
So for example it's really interesting, pink has talked a lot about the different types of regrets. Another really interesting way to do that is is you often hear some really profound thoughts from older retirees, people who[00:43:00] talk about their regrets. And there was a nurse Bonnie where, and we'll put a link to her blog.
She has written not only the blog, but also about. And she was dealing with a lot of elderly people. And over many years, she made an index of what they regret at the end of their life. And here's the list. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not what others wanted for me.
I wish I hadn't worked so hard. I wish I hadn't had the courage. I wish I'd had the courage to express my true feelings. I wish I'd stayed in touch with my friends. Hello, direct connection to Daniel pink here. And I wish I'd let my self be happier. Okay. Let's just take the really practical one. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
How could you build a habit of managing your time better so that you can book in the start and end of work tomorrow or even today? And what you do is you say, okay, I'm going to have a [00:44:00] hard stop at six. And after that, I'm going to go for a walk to create a nice break and then come back and cook myself a healthy meal.
And I'm going to do this routine for the next three days. And then I'm going to tweak that. And then I'm going to tweak that. I wish I'd stayed in touch with friends. Okay. Let's make a list of all the people that you want to reconnect with and say to yourself, once a week, I can get a hello, pick up the telephone.
God forbid can give them a call. They just call one person. Or if that's too much, send them a text. My point here is I think, take your regret and ask yourself what habit can I start? Not just a one off. I think it's important to say. Every week, I'll run one mile further. Every week. I'll reach out to one friend that I really want to reconnect with right?
Every week I'm going to fix a specific time I'm going to [00:45:00] stop work and I'm going to cook a proper dinner. I'm not getting Uber eats. I think it's the transition into habits. That's where you get more into continuous process improvement rather than. Perfectionism. What do you think, man?
Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah, I think the idea of compound interest James Claire's the 1% better every day.
I think you're totally onto something here in order to get over those regrets. To be. We could even go so far as to say Mike based on Daniel Pink's book today, maybe the activity that we can all start this week is to write down one of the regrets and be honest with ourselves by the weekend.
What have I regretted this week? And gradually week by week, month by month, we'll start becoming more calm, comfortable, and confident with those regrets. And rather than them being things that we aren't really comfortable with, that we want to regret or not think about suddenly after a couple of [00:46:00] weeks or maybe a couple of months, we're all much more confident or comfortable discussing those regrets.
And it's no longer a pain in our side or a thorn in our feet. Instead, it's something that we look back and almost celebrate. Okay. It's the end? It's the weekend. What did I regret this week? You know what? I could have been nicer to my colleague. That's great. Because next week I'll be nice
Mike Parsons: to them and listen, you can build these habits.
For sure. And let's say that you feel like you're unhealthy. Maybe you've put on too much weight then I think a great habit to start is eliminate one of the classic food types in your diet. That leads to being unhealthy and overweight. Let's just say, take the classic Lamar alcohol. Let's not be too crazy about habit formation here.
Okay. So we're really getting into how to use the regret. Let's say your regret being 10 kilograms overweight. What you could say is [00:47:00] I will not, let's say you're a beer drinker. I will not drink beer Monday through Thursday. Yep. Just eliminate it for four days of the week. Yeah. That would be a good one.
What's another food you could eliminate from your diet, just one food back. And if you think classic person is got a little too heavy and needs to tackle this,
Mark Pearson Freeland: You could just cut out something that is, is so simple, like bread, for example, maybe if it's not entirely bread, it's a different type of bread.
Tie it.
Mike Parsons: Yeah. Let's go even further. You don't even have to eliminate it completely. Just say I'm going to start the day better. I'm not going to have that big muffin for breakfast. Try to eliminate one thing, one little thing, that's the start of a habit, right?
Mark Pearson Freeland: That's it. And that's all it takes.
Isn't it for a week. We did a whole series on habits and it is just those small little things. And once you reset that behavior, that [00:48:00] reward versus behavior, suddenly it becomes that little bit easier. It doesn't
Mike Parsons: it. Yeah. And the that's like the little micro compound interest atomic habit that you can build.
I think another good thing you can do here is if you, if your facing your regrets and you look at the things that are in that list and you need to go on this kind of continuous self-improvement process. And I think it's easy to imagine. You might get a little bit stuck, right? Like it might be a bit overwhelmed.
Absolutely right. Yeah. Geez, that list is a bit too long. Or it might be just a bit uncomfortable, right?
Mark Pearson Freeland: I think that's definitely where it comes from. There's a great article that you and I found wasn't there breaks down regret into that maddening complexing and undeniably real emotion.
Mike Parsons: So let's [00:49:00] imagine you're right there. And you got to remove the alcohol from the diet. You gotta get the carbs down a bit. Maybe you got to get the sugar. Maybe you just got to eat like proper, like fruit vegetable rather than all this process stuff, but you're like, can I really be bothered?
What I love to do is it was quite interesting to use that process of looking at what Bonnie, where said the top five regrets were what I go back to is the feeling that I had when I didn't live up to the best version of myself. I try to go back to the pain. I try to go back to the rejection, the failure, whatever it is I tried to go to not only the moment, but the feeling right.
I love going back [00:50:00] in my life. Particularly, you've heard me on the show, talk a number of times about how I was lazy and undisciplined, and didn't make much of my high school years, my teenage years, they were a bit of a joke to be quite honest, I go back to that feeling of disappointment in myself and I go there and I feel it.
And do you know what I promised to myself, mark. I go right to that moment. And I say never again. I go back to that feeling of being fluent in French. I lived in Paris. I didn't even take French in my final high school exams. I remember playing rugby against five of the Australian rugby team and I quit rugby.
I remember being a professional DJ. And so on and so on and how [00:51:00] disappointed I am in myself. And I make a promise never again, and that's the well of discipline and resilience and the courage to try and be better. And I go back to that and I encourage you, mark. I encourage our listeners to go to those feelings that you have go to that moment and say to yourself, never again, there is time abundance ahead for each and every one of us to improve upon that.
Don't avoid those moments of pain, regret rejection. Don't avoid them, go to them and just make that promise. And if you can truly. Truly say, I don't want to be there again. Then the idea of not having beer Monday through Thursday, no problem. That idea of eliminating those carbs. No problem. Those [00:52:00] sugars, that idea of putting in the work to prepare a proper meal with real fruit and vegetable.
No problem. Go back to the moment and just find a way to confront it and say, do you really want to experience that feeling again? And of course you don't. So what does it take to, to get through that and to say never again, to me that is the power of regret.
Mark Pearson Freeland: I think you're totally right, Mike. I think you're totally right.
And we've got one more. Clip that I think really builds on exactly what you've just shared with us. And this is a great story from Daniel H Pink's book, the power of regret. And I think it's speaking really true to this idea that you're discussing around the emotion, the raw feeling of regret, and therefore doing something about it.
Thinking back at a moment in your life that perhaps you could have done differently and learning from it and promising to yourself, never again. [00:53:00] And I thought it was, it'd be a great closer for today's show. It's a nice breakdown from productivity game on one of the lessons within Daniel Pink's book, the power of regret.
So let's hear from the book itself one more time, and this time, how to anticipate potential regrets
Mike Parsons: the morning and 1888, Elvin Nobel flipped through his local newspaper and stumbled upon a story about his
Daniel Pink: death. Alfred's brother, Lou Dick
Mike Parsons: had recently died, but a journalist mistakenly thought Alfred died.
The mistake might've been amusing Belford if the
Daniel Pink: obituary wasn't so grim,
Mike Parsons: Alfred Nobel was an ingenious chemist who invented dynamite and advanced mining methods several decades, but his premature obituary focused solely on his invention of military explosives. The journalists dub Nobel, the merchant of death and explained that Dr.
Alfred Nobel became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster
Daniel Pink: than ever before.
Mike Parsons: Horrified Alfred set up to [00:54:00] change his story. Eight years later at the time of his actual death, he donated 94% of his wealth, which is worth about half a billion dollars today to award scientists for making major achievements in their fields.
Now his revised obituary, praise Nobel for being a great philanthropist and a champion of science. Nobel was lucky enough to get a glimpse of his future and change what he lived to
Daniel Pink: regret. We could
Mike Parsons: experience the same luck, but
Daniel Pink: anticipating what we might.
Mike Parsons: What will be your legacy? What will be your bitchery?
These are very powerful questions and they might
Mark Pearson Freeland: huge, we've discussed this idea of maybe not a better theory, but the legacy strand we've certainly discussed on the show before haven't we, and again, it feeds into habits. It feeds into motivations and I find it really interesting.
Mike Parsons: I think
Mark Pearson Freeland: what penny is dropping for me here,[00:55:00] it's so connected again, to regret and how to not take the time to really look at regret.
It is doing a disservice around this idea of legacy. Isn't it?
Mike Parsons: You're you're spot on there. And could you imagine being. Albert Noble and reading by mistake. Your arbitrary that leads with the merchant of death is dead. If that doesn't wake you up and make you change course.
Mark Pearson Freeland: And now based on a noble it's the Nobel peace
Mike Parsons: prize.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Exactly. Can you believe it? What a change,
Mike Parsons: what a Turner is interesting. So now that you have the courage to go and look at all these regrets and off the question is what will be your legacy mark? What will be the legacy for our listeners? How do they want to be remembered? [00:56:00] And here's the big moment when you define how you want to be remembered, ask yourself what is the gap between how you behave today?
And that's where you build the habits. That's where you build that continuous improvement process.
Mark Pearson Freeland: There's been so much coming out of Daniel H Pink's book and in fact, the entire
Mike Parsons: mindset series, Mike, it hasn't, it has been rather revealing and challenging. It's been a little prickly if I must say.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah, it has. We learned about meaning and values. We learned about, this idea of ownership and control with the 48 laws of power last week with communication and negotiation. And this week a seriously heavy hitting, if I may say so right down into the idea of regret, as well as the build that you've made habit formation.
I think this has been a really interesting lesson for me in digging into the foundations and the columns of having a good mindset that we can go out and build on and be the best version of [00:57:00] ourselves. Yeah.
Mike Parsons: So of all of these which thought around regret has piqued your interest mode, which one is really landed.
Yeah.
Mark Pearson Freeland: To be honest, they've all revealed because they're all in a funny sort of way compounded for me anyway, each one sort of reveals a new insight. I think the obviously I understood that regret and reflecting on regret takes courage. So for me, what actually is the big reveal from today's work and Daniel Pink's book is the fact that it's universal and that we should revel in reflecting on them.
All right, because I think there is, there's so much we can learn from it. And now that I know and appreciate that around the world or these people have these frustrations, these regrets, it makes it a little bit easier for me, myself, to reflect on the myself as well. And if everybody else can do it, so can I, so that little bit of courage to really accept it, to take a [00:58:00] moment out of my day or my week, think back to it.
What can I learn? What can I do better? It's so easy to do mentally maybe a little bit unpleasant. So I think down the line, it's going to be worth its weight in gold. What stood
out
Mike Parsons: to you, Mike? When I think about this, probably like the most fundamental thing of don't be a victim of wishful thinking.
Don't try and be, I got no regrets. And. I just love the idea of the permission it gave me, I thought that was very powerful. The
Mark Pearson Freeland: permission today to go out and reflect on it rather than feel guilty about it. Yeah. I totally agree what a revealing. What a revealing set of research he's conducted.
Mike Parsons: It's a great body of work. Mark, listen, thank you to you for joining me on what was definitely a hairy touchy encounter with regret in all its full color and glory. [00:59:00] And thank you to you, our listeners, because today it was show 170 where we went into the work of Daniel H pink. Coal the power of regret.
And the lesson started by learning that it is truly universal, built around four key ideas, foundation, regrets, boldness, moral, and connection, regrets, and to go to those places, it takes courage and. With your reflection, seek improvement, not perfectionism, go for process. Don't try and be perfect. And if you do so you can build the habits to truly be the best version of yourself.
And that's what we're all about here on the moonshots podcast. And if it's really up your alley, go and ask yourself, what is your legacy? What do you want to be remembered for? And there you will find the well of drive of motivation [01:00:00] of the capacity to be resilient, to go on that journey, to shoot for the moon and be the very best you can be.
All right, that's it for the moonshots podcast. That's a wrap.