The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 187 - Crossroads

Transcript:

Jen: Hello, Peter.

Pete: Hello, Jennifer.

Jen: It's been a while since we have started a podcast this way, but I thought I might bring back an oldie but a goodie...

Pete: Okay...okay.

Jen: Okay.

Pete: Is this me being called out?

Jen: No, no. This is, you know what drives me crazy?

Pete: Oh, what drives Jen crazy, everyone's favorite segment.

Jen: Yeah, but I'm starting with a, "You know what drives me crazy," and then I'm going to end with, "You know what lights me up?" I'm going to flip the question on itself. But I'll tell you that the thing that drives me crazy, so that we can actually get into this episode, is when people live by Einstein's definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.

Pete: It feels ironic that I'm about to say the same thing that I always say...This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Jen: However, the thing is, we like the results. We like those results.

Pete: Oh, true, true, true. Yeah.

Jen: When you say that, we're now into, you know, the next fifteen minutes, a nice succinct commutable-length episode, and then we're done. So, there you have it.

Pete: That's true. Keeping everyone happy.

Jen: P.S., that quote is misattributed to Einstein. It makes you sound smarter to say Einstein said it, so I'm just going to go with that.

Pete: That's wild. I didn't know that.

Jen: I know, total bummer. Okay, so here's the thing. Right now, the industry that I'm working in has met itself at a crossroads. Down one path is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, and down the other path is experimenting and creating different results.

Pete: Mmm. Hmm. It sounds like a Blockbuster path and a Netflix path, if you will.

Jen: ...if you will. So I had this wonderful experience with a client lately, he had booked some time with me because he felt he wasn't getting any traction with his self-tapes. So for those of you who are not actors, a self-tape is an audition that you record on your own and send in somewhere. So you are taping yourself, hence the self-tape. And so we went through a bunch of his self-tapes together, I watched a bunch of them and I was like, "They're kind of all the same. They kind of all look exactly the same. What if you were to experiment and do something that feels completely opposite? What if you were to break the mold, think outside the box, do something totally crazy, do something wildly theatrical? So at this point, if you're not getting any results, what do you have to lose by trying something different?" So he tried the different thing, and after, what is it, two years now of self-tapes and no results, he sent in one wildly experimental self-tape and literally booked that job off the tape.

Pete: No way. No way.

Jen: Yes. So here he was at the crossroads, "I could continue down this path, doing the same thing over and over again and just like hoping it changes, or I can do something wildly different and create a different result for myself."

Pete: Yeah. I just want to like double-click on that question that you said, just for listeners and myself. What do you have to lose by trying something different? What a great question. Yeah, what a great question. Because usually the answer is, "Oh. Nothing."

Jen: Exactly. Exactly. That reminds me of the Tim Ferriss fear-setting exercise where you name the thing that you're afraid of, but you actually name the cost. And it's like, okay, I'm spending hours doing the self-tapes and getting zero results from it. So if I were to spend one hour trying something different, what do I have to lose? Literally, just an hour. That's it.

Pete: Yeah. I think the other extension to that, that Tim Ferriss talks about, which I really love too, is, what would I need to do to get back to where I was?

Jen: Exactly.

Pete: And in that example, it's like basically nothing.

Jen: Nothing.

Pete: It actually becomes quite a safe thing to do, as opposed to, "I'm taking a risk." It's almost like...actually, it's really quite safe.

Jen: Yes. It feels scary, because any time you're doing something you've not done before, you don't know what it's going to look like on the other side. And even though you're getting results you're not happy with, at least you can predict what those results are going to be. That feels pretty safe.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah.

Jen: So yeah, it's the feeling inside.

Pete: Mmm.

Jen: I've also recently experienced with some clients, some challenging circumstances where people who are collaborating together are not seeing eye-to-eye about which path to take. And that's really what I wanted to talk to you about today.

Pete: Is there something you need to tell me? Are we not agreeing, eye-to-eye?

Jen: No, but that's very funny. No, like when you are standing at a crossroads alone, or at least with a team that is all in agreement, like, "Let's go down the path that doesn't yet exist," it can be so thrilling, so exciting. But when you're at the crossroads and we don't agree, what are some of the questions we need to be asking ourselves in order to determine which way we're headed?

Pete: Mmm. Mmm. I love this. The first question that comes to mind to me is, let's get clear on what success looks like for each of us. And if we realize that we have a universal agreed definition of what success looks like, or like a, "Yeah, this is ultimately where we want to get to," and then I think that's a really important realization to have. And then in terms of how you might get there, maybe you don't all have to agree with the path that you choose, but you are in agreement with where you're trying to get to. So I feel like starting...you know, it's like a Jen Waldman-ism. Starting with the end in mind could be really helpful. So, let's get clear on what success looks like for us. If that is wildly different, then I think taking a different path, as individuals, might be something that's worth exploring, because you realize that we're not actually trying to achieve the same thing anymore, which is a pretty big sign that you probably shouldn't be collaborating on that thing, maybe.

Jen: Yeah. Now that you're saying that, I'm asking myself, "Huh, some of my clients who are in this position with their management team or their agent team, have they actually said, "This is our goal. This is our collective goal." And just like entering it into a map application on your phone, you know, it'll come up with three different routes to get from Point A to Point B. Sometimes there's a traffic jam, sometimes there's an accident, one route takes a lot longer but man, is it pretty.

Pete: The scenic route. It's such a beautiful metaphor to what I was trying to say. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Let's figure out...and like, it kind of blows my mind. I am almost loathe to pose that question or to state that question out loud, because I feel like for most of our listeners listening, they've heard me say it enough times. I often tell myself the story for most senior executives that I'm working with, it's like, "Of course they've considered this question. Like, what does success look like? Of course that's the first question everybody asks." And it blows my mind how rarely that question is asked. Well, I guess another way, actually, maybe to cut everyone some slack, it's like we ask ourselves that question internally, but how often do we have it as a group conversation? It's like, "You tell me what success looks like for you, and I'll tell you what success looks like for me." I think we start something because we're like, "Oh, I want to get here," but we don't necessarily say it out loud, we don't give it any critical thought, and we don't share it with the people that we're working on the project with. And I'm just as guilty of this as anyone. But I just think that...again, it sounds like such an obvious, painfully annoying question, because you're like, "Yeah, yeah, but what's the real answer, Pete? Like, tell me really how I meant to decide if I'm meant to collaborate with this person."

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: Start by getting clear on success. Like you mentioned, what is the destination? There's three different ways to get to the destination on Google Maps or on Apple Maps, and I think that the reason it can be really important to get clear on what the end destination or success looks like, is because you can then start to think about that idea of disagree and commit, which comes from Amazon's workplace culture. I really like this as an idea. Incredibly hard to implement within an organization, but Amazon seems to do it pretty well. And it's a great thought exercise, which is, they have a culture where...and I'm sure I'm butchering this, for people that already work there that are listening. They have a culture where there is a expectation or an allowance for someone to disagree and yet commit to a project. So there are countless examples that Jeff Bezos has been on the record for sharing, where like he disagrees with, I don't know, the Kindle, or the direction that the Kindle is going in. He's like, "I disagree with how you're approaching this, but I'm willing to back you in and and commit. And actually, I hope that you're right, because that would mean I'm wrong, and that means the Kindle is successful." And I don't actually know if the Kindle was an example, but like I'm trying to remember. But basically, yeah, if we agree we're trying to get to the end destination which is, you know, create a profitable business or create products that serve the people that are our customers, then we can disagree in how we get there. We can actually disagree on the path that we take, on whether we go the scenic way, or the way that's got tolls, or the way that's got a traffic jam. Like, it kind of doesn't matter, if we're all trying to get to the same destination. And there's a, yeah, I think there's an interesting like mindset or framing in your head, if you can get clear on what that is, and then be willing to disagree with someone but still commit.

Jen: I really, really like that. And it's interesting, I don't think I've ever articulated an idea in the way you've just shared it. But I kind of feel like as coaches, we do that all the time.

Pete: Huh. Yeah.

Jen: Where, you know, a client says that they have a goal, and you try to help them figure out how they're going to move it forward. And then they pick a path, and it's very possible that it's not the path that you would have chosen for them if they had allowed you to be the path chooser. But it's their path, and you go, "Great. I'm 100% behind you. I support you."

Pete: It's such a good example. And I think the, I guess the punchline of that joke...if it was a joke, which it wasn't. But if there's a punchline to what you just shared, it's like, there's no one right way. And so the permission that we all have, once we get clear on what success looks like, once we get clear on what the destination is, I think what we're saying is there's an acknowledgement that there's no one right way to get there. So figure out what might be the options to get there, figure out if you're aligned in what those options are, and then be okay if you're not all aligned in what that option is. Because, there's just no one right way. There is no one right way to do anything.

Jen: Which I think brings us full circle back to the top of the episode, where if you're doing the same thing over and over and over again, that's kind of like making a commitment to, "There is a right way. There is only one way. It is the way we've done it." And the more we can free ourselves from that kind of thinking, and give ourselves permission to have different ideas, to experiment, to think outside the box, to break the rules, to mix things up, we might be able to come up with more than just the three routes that MapQuest might provide. We might be able to come up with exponentially more.

Pete: Yeah. In fact, I would argue there is almost always more than what we first see.

Jen: Mmm.

Pete: You know, that's why one of the things that I like to do to myself and to my clients, and we've talked about this so many times, is pick an arbitrary number and come up with as many different pathways as possible to get into that version of success. It's helpful to say, "What are seven ways we could get there," I think. Because usually, I feel like often we're just measuring or weighing up two options. Like, "It's either this, or either that. Either this, or either that." And I think it's helpful to remind ourselves that there's usually other options. And what can often happen is there might be the seventh option, or the sixth option, which you then realize is, "Oh, actually, that is probably the way forward. And I never would have gotten there if I had have just been thinking about two." Or there might be like a combo platter, which you and I love, which is like, "Oh, actually, five and seven, if I combine those two, that's a great way to get there."

Jen: Yeah. Have I ever told you the story of opposite day?

Pete: No.

Jen: Okay, because I think that this is another way to kind of figure out what else there is. When I was in college, my freshman year of college, in one of my acting classes, our assignment was to come to class as the opposite of ourselves, in full costume, makeup, voice, how we were moving.

Pete: Oh my god.

Jen: "Come to class as the opposite of yourself." So, everyone did this. We came to class as these characters we created who were the opposite of ourselves. But then the real punchline was, at the end of class, the teacher said, "And next week, come as the opposite of the character you came as today." And nobody came as themselves the following week, because we had exaggerated so much that the opposite of the thing wasn't actually the thing. And I wonder, you know, if you're comfortable in something...for example, like with my client and his self-tapes. If you're doing things over and over in the same way and you say, "Well, what is the opposite of that," and then he does this wildly theatrical tape, if you were to say, "What's the opposite of that," I don't think he'd go back to the self-tape that he was doing before.

Pete: Yeah. Which feels like a reflection on humans that we we tend to...I can hear my psychologist saying, "Humans have a tendency to swing from one extreme to the other."

Jen: Yeah. Yeah.

Pete: They're like...yeah, yeah. Yeah, interesting. Interesting. Also, I just have to say, like, that exercise feels like a George Costanza exercise. Where, there's a famous episode of Seinfeld where George realizes he's not getting what he wants to get out of the job opportunities or the life that he's living. And he's like, "I'm just going to do the opposite of what my instincts tell me," and he ends up like getting a new girlfriend, getting a new job, and like thriving. It's just...it's funny.

Jen: Oh, George Costanza, let him be a model for us all.

Pete: Please.

Jen: Wow, I feel like we really went on a journey. We took the scenic route today.

Pete: We did. But we got to the end destination...

Jen: Totally.

Pete: ...which is hopefully an episode that's been helpful to our listeners, at least we hope. Okay. So you started this episode, Jen, with things that drove you crazy. Are you still feeling crazy? Are you feeling like there is a path forward? How are you thinking about this whole idea?

Jen: Well, I just think it is so ironic that as I got myself worked up around what drives me crazy, I failed to ask myself, "Do we know where we're headed?" So I think for me, that's the big aha moment of this episode, is like, when you're standing at the crossroads, before you pick a path, ask yourself, "Where would I like to end up?"

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: "And are we all in agreement that that is where we're going?"

Pete: Yes. And then for me, it's the next part of that, which is letting go of the temptation to find the one right path, the one right answer in order to get to where you want to go.

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.