What's on Your Bookshelf?
“What’s On Your Bookshelf” is a personal and professional growth podcast exploring the intersections of passion, potential, and purpose - featuring multi-certified coach and leadership development consultant Denise R. Russo alongside Andy Hughes, Scott Miller, and Samantha Powell.
What's on Your Bookshelf?
68 - Solve for Happy - Chapter 9 - Is It True? Part 2
Have you ever lost something small, like a favorite pen, and felt your day was ruined? We've all been there, and today, Denise Russo and Sam Powell are here to explore how these reactions connect to happiness, or the lack thereof. Through the lens of Mo Gawdat's "Solve for Happy," we tackle the seven blind spots that can turn molehills into mountains and prevent us from seeing the joy in our everyday lives. It's about identifying those negative filters our brains set up for survival, but which now do more harm than good, and learning how to sift the truth from the trivial to maintain our emotional well-being.
We all have stories we tell ourselves, but how often do we stop to question their accuracy? In our honest discourse, we peel back the layers of our perceptions, focusing on the assumptions that fill in the blanks and often lead us astray. From personal encounters with authority figures to the science behind eyewitness reliability, we share anecdotes that shed light on the power our brains have to shape our reality. This episode is a challenge—a call to rewire our default settings and embrace the potential for positive outcomes.
And what about when our predictions become our reality? We dive into the world of predictive thinking and the self-fulfilling prophecies that could be steering our lives down unnecessary paths of negativity. From the fears that sabotage relationships to the memories that color our future interactions, we examine how recognizing these patterns can open doors to new, more joyful ways of living. Next time, we'll push further into understanding how memories and labels influence our happiness. Until then, join us as we continue to apply the transformative principles from "Solve for Happy" and pave our own roads to a happier life.
Additional Resources:
Order: Solve for Happy
The How of Happiness website
The Passion Planner
Passion Planner discount code: RWRD.IO/EFWYE73?C
Denise Russo's Website
www.schoolofthoughts.net
Denise Russo's Forbes Articles
Forbes Article Link
Samantha Powell's Website and Blog
Lead The Game
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Welcome to what's on your Bookshelf, with your hosts Denise Russo and Samantha Powell.
Speaker 2:Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of what's on your Bookshelf. This is a life and leadership podcast where we are exploring and deep diving into the pages of books that are on our bookshelves. My name is Denise Russo and my friend Sam Powell and I are going through a book called Solve for Happy. This book was written by a guy named Mo Gaudet. He's the former chief business officer from Google. We're about halfway through the book and if you're just listening for the first time, you don't need to necessarily go back and listen to other episodes, although we would love for you to. The way our podcast is structured is these are not just quick topics and then they're gone. We're deep diving into these topics, that is, all around the filters and the negative things that we put into our minds that the author calls blind spots, that are obstacles to bring us to happiness. So, with that said, Sam, I'm happy always to be here with you. How are you doing today?
Speaker 1:I'm doing good. I'm doing good. I'm excited to get into the blind spots. Last week we talked about just sort of how our brain works, how we're skewed to be grumpy and a little bit negative, and it's not a bad thing. It's for survival and for our safety, but it really is the foundation of you have to understand that. So now we can talk about the actual seven blind spots and this is part of Mo's happiness model, where you have to fix the seven blind spots and so we're going to talk about those. Talk about they are. I don't know if we're going to fit them all in one episode, because each one we could probably talk about in its own right for a while. So we're gonna see how this goes. We might talk about all seven today, we might only get through a few and then continue on next week. But yeah, I'm excited to get into these with you today.
Speaker 2:Oh, that sounds good. Well, we're at the part of the book it's called the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and so I think I want to do something that's a little bit exaggerated, but for the listeners to get this first gist. So do you have, for example, sam, in your office a favorite pen or a pencil that you just always use? Yep, okay, I do as well, but I imagine that not for everybody that they have something that's favorite. But let's suppose that. Have you ever gone to, like I don't know, a restaurant and when you're signing the receipt there's a pen and you really love it, so much so that you think, oh, I want to buy that kind of pen because the ink comes out great, or whatever.
Speaker 1:Or you steal it or you take it now that I've ever done that before in my life ever we do not advocate taking pens from restaurants.
Speaker 2:So unless the unless the pen does have the name of the restaurant. I have done that at hotels, where the pen in the room just writes really well, and so, in any case, imagine if you will, if you have that pencil or that pen and it falls off your desk and onto the floor. This is a story that the author describes in the book. So now you think, oh, I've lost my pencil and I can't find it anywhere. That's the first filter. Is that something happened? The next thing is he says well, I love that pencil and I can't live without it. Those are emotions and predictions. Do you really love the pencil and can you really not live without it? And then he says it's my lucky pencil. So he put a label onto it.
Speaker 2:So this lucky pencil that he loves and can't live without has fallen off the desk and he can't find it. The next thing he says is well, without this pencil I will fail and my kids won't have anything to eat. Like super exaggeration, you know, obviously your kids will eat. And then he has an assumption Well, what if somebody stole it? Then he has another assumption Well, what if it was Emily that stole it? Oh, she probably stole it because she's mean so now he gave a label to this emily person and if I let this happen once, I'm gonna just be the doormat in the office at my job, which is a prediction. And then he says, today a pencil, tomorrow my job like e or what, what, what exaggeration.
Speaker 2:And so in the end he took this one insignificant little thing, exaggerated it to the point where his emotions are all over the place and he's extraordinarily unhappy. But in the end it's just really a pencil or a pen. How really important is it that? The truth of the matter is okay, I dropped it, I'm going to find it and then it will be fine. But I do that all the time, like if I can't find my keys and I'm going to be late to the doctor's office, I'm like, oh my God, I'm going to be late to the doctor. What if I get charged a fee? And if I get charged a fee, what if I get there and they make can't go to the next appointment because I have work and there's something on my calendar? You put these stories into your head that could be non-issue. And how much constant stream of thought in our head is actually true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and we do this so often. Right, Like this story about the pencil, is kind of ridiculous, but funny at the end. And in the end I love that.
Speaker 1:He's like right, as you sit down to prepare your plan of attack, like against Emily, she passes by and says, hey, you dropped your pencil, like you know, and like to me, like I laughed at that because I'm like, oh my gosh, how many times have I done that, like at home with, like my husband or my son, where it's like I can't find this thing? I know one of them moved it. They always are moving my stuff, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. In reality, like I just put it somewhere, ridiculous, right, like I wasn't thinking about it.
Speaker 1:I, um my husband, I had this long running joke for a while because he used to put his keys in his wallet, like in like an inconsistent place, like he would just like throw them on the table or put it wherever, and then I would come through 20 minutes later and throw something on top of it, right, like I would, you know, like not thinking about it, didn't realize this stuff was there, and so, like there was this period of time where I was always covering his stuff and he could never find his thing Right, and like that's what I thought about with this was I was like I've lived this situation and it became this joke that like I was always hiding his stuff from him, like you know, sort of like, but it's like it's me not paying attention, it's me not. You know like the reality is is like neither of us are paying attention. What we're doing is we're coming in and throwing stuff down. We happen to throw it in the same spot and his stuff got covered up right, oh, that's funny.
Speaker 2:that's funny. Well, so Mo calls this the selective awareness test, the paying attention part. Have you ever seen on the Internet like I want to say? It's like a meme, but where it'll be a bunch of sentences but they take out the vowels and then it'll say something like see if you can read this, or maybe the words are spelled wrong, and see if you can read it. And typically you can, because your brain is wired to grab all it needs to grab. He actually does an exercise in the book where he has a sentence or a paragraph and he puts a couple words double and unless you're really paying attention, you don't notice that the words were doubled, right. And so he talks about this. And he talks about how how many things do we not pay attention to, but how many of the negative things push to the front of our brain? Kind of like what we talked about last week, where instantly a negative thought will go into your brain but it takes 12 seconds for a positive thought to stick into your brain.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and this is where he's talking about the first of the seven blind spots. And this is filters Exactly, and this is where he's talkingaled into something that's completely untrue. And so how much of the world is really true? And, like you're saying, you know this gets into some of these studies and some of these tests that we are filtering information all the time and we're doing it for, again, like kind of back to safety and survival, we're doing it because there's so much input all around us that if we were paying attention to everything, it would be overwhelming, right, if you were constantly intaking everything in your like I'm in an office all by myself with the door closed, but like I can hear my dryer running, I can, you know, see the clock ticking on. All this stuff is happening around me.
Speaker 1:If I was consciously paying attention to all of that, that would be overwhelming. And so our brain filters out all of this and because it filters out, we can do things like read words that are missing all of the you know, missing all the vowels we can read over and miss that words are doubled up, and I think we've all seen those memes you're talking about, right, that, like you're able, your brain's able to process this stuff, because it is able to filter down into what's just important. But what you have to understand in that is that you are missing information, right like what you're seeing and experiencing, and what you're taking in with your senses is always incomplete, because you just you can't handle handling all that in your conscious brain. Yeah, you just can't.
Speaker 2:And so he does this really interesting exercise that maybe you could even try at home, where he says it's about noticing the magnitude of intricate details that you miss and filter out while you're just focusing on the pages of your book. So what he was saying is, if you are focused tunnel vision on something in this case the book, or, let's say, it's your job, or let's say it's a relationship, how much else are you missing in the perimeter? And so I actually did this exercise. I was in the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas not long ago when I was reading this chapter and that's a really awesome hotel, by the way, in Las Vegas, on the main strip, awesome room, great experience. But I said, let me do this exercise. And the way that you do it is that you take a short amount of time and you consciously look around your surroundings to see the things that you would have normally missed. And in the margins of the book I put in here okay, I'm at the Wynn Hotel. Last night I found out they had an Alexa. There's a lock on the thermostat, there were two brown discs on the wall, two large vases above the television and a plastic hook that somebody stuck up on the wall by a lamp. Now, none of that really matters, because if you go to the Wynn Hotel, you're not going to be in the same room I was in, and or why would you even look on the hotel to notice there's these brown discs on the wall that I was like, hmm, I wonder if the brown discs are thermostats or if they're cameras or if they're decoration, like I didn't know. But when I walked into the room, sam, I noticed none of that. I noticed, maybe, like just how nice the bed looked or the windows or the way the bathroom was. But when you take the time to really look at exactly what is in front of you, the first point of what you're saying is it can be overwhelming. And he says that if you calculate how much truth represented once your filters are off, then you can notice things like. I'll give you another quick example your brain always tells you something incomplete.
Speaker 2:So I told a story, I think last week, about my mom being in a rehab center, and so before she went to this rehab center, when she broke her hip, they sent her to a different place first. Soon as I walked in, sam, all I saw was flickering lights in the ceiling, like a fluorescent light. I saw a dirty color paint on the wall. I went into the room. My mom was in and the beds looked like little house on the Prairie, 1930s beds that didn't even have recline and they had no guard rails. There was a woman next to my mom that was moaning and groaning and I looked into the bathroom and you know, in I looked into the bathroom and you know, in your bathroom, where the toilet is, usually there's like a little white cap over the bolt that holds the toilet on the ground. This bathroom didn't have a cap, and so instantly my mind thought oh my God, my mom is in a disgusting filthy, dirty place. And what if they don't take care of her and she falls out of the bed? And what if she dies because she just broke her hip? And what if they don't treat her nice? And what if the nurses are mean because the lights are flickering in here?
Speaker 2:All those truths that weren't true, right, so comes to find out. Well, first of all, we moved my mom because I was frantic and those truths became my truths, or those untruths were my truths. So we moved my mom, but so we got to the next place, sam, and the nurse in the next place said oh, I'm surprised you had such a bad experience there. That's one of the number one rehab centers that the hospitals recommend patients go to. So what's the truth?
Speaker 1:Yeah, is it all the other accounts or is it? You know this, what you saw, what you were doing? But, yeah, you know, know it's super interesting, like how much we filter, right, it reminds me of, like um eyewitness accounts and how they say how bad eyewitness accounts are, because we are constantly filtering and a lot of these other blind spots come into play too. But, like we're you know, we're focused on what we're focused on in our everyday life and and so when something happens, you're probably not noticing the whole truth, you're not seeing everything right. Like people will get, like what would you would think would be glaringly obvious details about a situation Incorrect. They'll pull up a video and they're like I know this is what happens and the video is like completely different they're like this person was a man wearing a brown shirt.
Speaker 2:It's a lady in a blue dress and you're like not even close.
Speaker 1:Right, but you know it's, we're filtering out all the time, and so what we're you know the, you know I like that. He says the story your brain is telling you is always incomplete. You are missing information all of the time, and I think that that's a really important thing to understand. Right, I think about conflict. Right, when you're in conflict and you're like I think this and somebody else is like well, I think this, and it's like the truth is somewhere in the middle because you both filtered out information, right, we're both missing something. It's why it's so important in, you know, science, to get a lot of data.
Speaker 2:Look across, especially when you're dealing with humans, look across a lot of things, because we're just always kind of missing part of the story says that assumptions are nothing more than a brain generated story, and it may not be the truth, and so I think you're right, sam, with even sharing the story that you were just saying. Is that how many times have we had that where we think somebody thinks a certain way or somebody behaves a certain way? Like I told the story about the nurse who wasn't nice to my mom, I assumed, we assumed, she was an unhappy person, and maybe she was, maybe she wasn't, but something else triggered her later to to turn a little bit. And so we actually make assumptions to fill in the gaps in our thinking, because we then want to predict what we think the outcome will be. So when you're talking about, like at work, have you ever been in a situation in a job where you might have one manager who, if they said to you in a short, I am hey, can you come into my office for a sec that you'd think, oh yeah, that's awesome, I love spending time with that manager and they are giving me time.
Speaker 2:I wonder if they're going to give me an assignment. I wonder if they're going to give me a raise. I wonder if they're going to tell me how great I am. Or does our negative mind think oh my God, why did my manager just text me that? And there's no exclamation mark, there's no smiley face after it. It just says can you come into the office? What did I do? Did I get in trouble? Let me think what I did for the last 24 hours. Did I say something? Did I do something? And your hands start sweating and you feel clammy. It's assumptions, because you're filling in the gaps in your mind. But once again, wouldn't it be cool if we could fill our brain with the assumptions of why not assume the best?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this assumptions, is the second blind spot, right, and it's because of the first one, right, we're not, we're getting incomplete information, like you're saying, right, like we've got these gaps, but in order, he says, in order for our brain to make decisions, it needs coherent, comprehensible set of information how we assume the world to work, how we assume things happen. Right, I'm assuming that if my boss needs to talk to me, right, they're taking time out of their day to talk to me there's something bad happening. Right, Because that's just the general assumption people have when their boss is like I need to talk to you in my office. You know that's never a positive phrase in people's minds, right, the assumption is that. And so he says, while the resulting picture looks perfect because we filled in the gaps with these assumptions, it's not entirely true, because we've generated part of it with our brain. And he said this is even true just in our physical sight. Right, we actually can't intake everything that we're seeing. It just physically is impossible. And so our brain is actually generating part of what we think is the true visual picture. And that's like we can't even trust our actual sight to give us the whole visual, true picture. And your brain is working the same way, like in thoughts and things like that visual true picture. And your brain is working the same way, like in thoughts and things like that. But you know, we're filling the gaps. There are gaps, your brain has gaps and we're filling them with what we think should be happening right, with how we think should do this, and I love that.
Speaker 1:Um, he has a visual in here that's like a checkerboard, like a, you know, like the black and white square checkerboards, and it has like the cylinder sitting on it that's casting a shadow and it's got this really cool visual representation where it's like here's A and A is like a black tile and B is a white tile and it's like which one is lighter. And you automatically assume that B is lighter because your brain is telling you it's a white square, right, I can see the pattern, and so the white square and it's brighter. But then when he pulls it out, he pulls the color off of everything else because of the shadow. They're actually the exact same shade but your brain like can't see that right, because because it's, it's filling this gap, it's making this assumption, like, of course, the white square on the checkerboard is, or the chess board is, you know, is lighter, even though it's actually not because it's in shadow, and I like I thought that was fascinating.
Speaker 1:I've looked at that a million times and I'm like, every single time, even when you point out to me that they're the same shade and I can, like zoom in and look at it, I still think that the you know quote unquote white square is not as dark as the other. White square is, yeah, not as dark as the other, and so like, at every level, our brain is just assuming things and then we're moving forward with that assumption, even though it's not the truth.
Speaker 2:It's so funny that you were talking about that. I hope that, friends, that you get a copy of this book, because it's a really cool little fun trick game thing that you could even do with your kids. Because when I saw this picture, sam, I literally had to put my fingers on the page.
Speaker 2:I did, too, to kind of like block out, I had to make blind spots of everything except the A and the B, because I was like there's no way B absolutely is lighter than A Absolutely lighter. But I put my hands on the page and I was like, oh well, what? No, it's the same color. The strangest, like it's a little party trick, friends, truly Page 199, if you need a new game to play and you're networking events. And so he ends up going on from there, though, to talk about how.
Speaker 2:The third one predictions is that we then think of millions of things that could be, of things that could be. So if you go back, for example, to the story of what happens if your boss says come to my office, this is probably a great leadership development lesson. If we know, as people, leaders, that the natural state of a person is to think negatively, to have filters, to make assumptions and to create false predictions, then therefore, when we communicate whether we're communicating to a crowd, to a small team, to an individual, whether we're communicating verbally or we're communicating in written word to be more conscious about the way we communicate effectively, so that the assumptions and the predictions, if they are going to be made, don't tend to falter onto the negative side, right. So if you are going to say to someone hey, can you come into my office? I remember one time, sam, this was years ago, like years ago, and I was so busy and there was this person at work. That was the person that by default, sat on the negative and always made assumptions, and usually the predictions were never right. Okay, this particular person and I were having a back and forth IM chat about something that was work related.
Speaker 2:Now, in the middle of doing that, what she didn't know and couldn't assume was that I was also on another phone call and in the middle of something else and doing something else. So she had to ask me a question and in that instant, sam, I knew I could just quickly give her a quick answer. But if I had to do okay sentence case and making sure I'm using apostrophes and smiley faces and all this other stuff, I was busy. And so, in this particular instance, so that I could spell the words right, I put I think the computer was just on caps lock Okay, I typed a quick sentence. It probably wasn't even like a full sentence, because I had to go to the next thing, didn't think anything of it, because she ended it and said okay, bye or whatever, don't you know, and fast forward.
Speaker 2:She tells a coworker oh, I think Denise is mad at me and I'm all upset and she was crying. She called the person, said Denise is mad at me. So my friend comes to me and she says you're never going to believe this, but so-and-so thinks you're mad at them. And I was like what, what are you even talking about? We had a great conversation. She asked me this and that and I answered her about we had a great conversation. She asked me this and that and I answered her. And then I went to the next meeting and then she said to me it's because you typed your, I am in all capital letters. And I laughed and I was like I'm sorry, I'm laughing, but are you really serious right now?
Speaker 1:uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah, assumptions yep, yep, yeah, and, and that's it. Right, we're trying to the assumptions. This third of the seven blind spots, or prediction, or sorry predictions, is the is really all about the future. Right, it's filling the biggest gap, which is the future. We don't know anything about it, we don't know what's going to happen, and so we predict right to do this. And, yeah, it's like I'm predicting that.
Speaker 1:You know that she's mad at me, like all that sort of stuff, but it's, you know, it's so funny. We fill in what we think is going to happen and when we ruminate on it too much, we sometimes end up like speaking it into existence. Right, we end up saying like, oh, this is going to happen. And then it affects our actions, like, if we think something's going to happen, we end up acting in a way that then makes that thing happen. And they're like, oh see, I told you. Like, right, I predicted that this was going to, this was what was going to occur. And it's like, no, it would have never occurred had you not thought that and then acted accordingly, right, it's like, oh, I think. And the example he uses is like oh, I think my boyfriend's going to cheat on me. And then you start acting and like being really suspicious and you kind of drive this person away from you and, like you know, in another direction.
Speaker 1:It's like then it becomes the reality of what happened, when it wouldn't have happened in the first place had you not, like, sat in this prediction mode, right, and and we do this a lot, right it's like, oh I'm, you know, I'm never going to make it to the gym, I don't have time for it, I don't, you know, I don't do that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1:And so then you view your day as not having enough time, you view your life as not not having a gym schedule fit into it, and so then you never do it. And then you know, then it doesn't happen, and it's, you know. And again it's one of those blind spots, it's just us filling a gap, and the gap here is the future. It's the gap of we don't know what's going to happen, and but we want to know, right, that makes us feel safe, that makes us feel secure. And so we're going to just assume something is, or we're going to predict, like we keep messing up the keyword, um, we're going to predict that this thing is happening based on assumptions, probably from the past, based on the fact that we have incomplete information. Right, I'm filtering that, we're doing so.
Speaker 2:I've you ever heard this quote. That's something like um, oh, shoot, I'm gonna mess it up, sam, but it's something about like you can't focus on the past and you can't predict the future, but you need to focus on the present, right? You know what I mean. Like I totally botched the thing, but you know what you want to talk about. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Okay, so if you dwell in the past, the past is gone. You can't pull the past back. If you try to predict the future and you're missing what's right in front of you, that's where the blind spot comes. So again, if, if we know that this is about an equation of solving for a happier lifestyle, if you could put into your mind to predict that the future outcome is going to be positive and happy rather than thinking it's going to be doomsday and horrible, how much better might life be if your prediction was that. Because he says your predictions are nothing more than brain generated future possibilities. They have not happened. So therefore they are not true or untrue. They haven't happened.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly, yeah.
Speaker 1:And you know, he says, when we extrapolate, forecast and predict, then our forecast changed our current behavior, right, like you're saying.
Speaker 1:Like, if you're sitting in this negative thought process, which is we default to, right, then you end up acting in a way today that leads you to those negative results, whereas if you predict in a more positive space, if you realize that, hey, the truth of what I'm thinking is going to happen isn't the truth, it hasn't even happened. There's no way. Like, right, it's in the future, there's no way it's happened yet, yeah, then you really think about that thought process and think about, okay, if I think about, okay, that's not the truth, that's not what's happening, hey, I'm going to get to the gym, I'm going to be working out, then your actions are like well, if I'm going to go to the gym, then how does that fit into my today, how does that fit into my schedule? Right, it starts to open up more creative processes that get you into the space you want to be in, right, the happy space you want to live in well then, the next part he talks about is about our memories and the biases that we have towards the future.
Speaker 2:So have you ever had an experience where you met somebody at one of your networking events which, by the way, friends, sam is like master networker. She goes to all kinds of networking events. I just live vicariously through her and listen to her stories. But have you ever gone to one of these things, sam, where you see someone that you're meeting for the first time and you try to predict what you think about the person and their personality, because maybe they look like somebody from your past or a memory you have of somebody else? Has that ever happened to you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Right. It's like, oh, you instantly categorize this person and you think about oh, you know, like I'm walking up towards somebody or they're walking up towards me and then you're trying to predict how this interaction is going to go, because then you're trying to figure out what am I going to say, how am I going to introduce myself, what words do I need to say? But because this person looks a certain way or has all this stuff that reminds you of somebody from the past, then you automatically start behaving in a way that's. That's a bit different. And the memory stuff I want to like get into that a little more.
Speaker 1:And I'm looking at the time. I think we're getting close to our time here, so maybe we'll pick up on the memories on the next one, because I don't know, I like that one it was a. It was difficult for me to really think through, like processing memories in a way that is truthful, when you know you're not getting the full picture right, when you're not remembering things exactly the same way. So let's pick up there next time, I think, Since we're running out of time today.
Speaker 2:That sounds really good, good idea. So, friends, again, if you don't have this book, solve for Happy Scott will have in our show notes a link for you to be able to purchase the book so that you can follow along but also live this in your own life. That's what we're doing every week. I hope you're finding that we're teaching you a little bit out of the book, but we're sharing it in a way about what we did to live this out loud in our own life, and there's always time for you to go back and listen to these again if you want to catch up in the book yourself or to reference us into the future.
Speaker 2:Next week we'll talk about memories and we're also going to be talking about the labels that we put on things and people and what that does to impede or open up our states of happiness. So I'm looking forward to that again with you Sam, next week. This has been really wonderful being with you, as it always is every single time. I get happier every episode that we do together, so I'm glad that we've got this momentum and we're on a roll with it. So it's been great to be here with you, friends, my name is Denise Russo and on behalf of my other friend, sam Powell. This has been yet again, another episode of what's on your bookshelf.