So it was refreshing to read the recently published book Waleed Aly on sincerity, compassion and integrity.
It took me less than 30 minutes to read this little book. But there was no buyer’s remorse. Packed full of wisdom and practical life advice, this was $18 well spent.
If you don’t live in Australia, you may be wondering:
Who is Waleed Aly?
Waleed Aly is an Australian academic, broadcaster, lawyer, journalist and musician. He studied law and engineering and then went onto do a PhD on global terrorism. But he’s not your average academic.
Aly co-hosts the popular Australian TV show The Project as well as a radio show on the ABC called The Minefield. He’s also the only Australian academic to ever win a Gold Logie (a television award that usually goes to soap opera stars).
In this book, Aly doesn’t dish out your usual stock standard life advice (“Shoot for the moon”, “Dream big!”, etc). His advice is practical and relevant for the rapidly changing world we live in.
So here are eight great ideas from Waleed Aly followed by a question to help you extract the most value from his wisdom:
“There are these studies coming out about the fact that, say, sixty per cent of jobs that are going to exist in however many years, don’t exist now. Well, you can’t aspire to jobs that don’t exist. What you can do is you can make yourself the kind of person who’s really well-placed, and has the relevant skills and abilities, and even character, so that when those jobs appear or when that role appears, you’re ready for it. That’s all you can really do.”
What kind of person do I want to be in the world?
What do I want to be able to do well?
“What’s made it [my career] possible, I think, is just an openness to new experiences and new ideas, and a preparedness to fail.”
What new experience can I have today?
“I do think you need to be improving yourself, acquiring as many skills, as many tools, as many weapons, if you like, as possible. So that when opportunities arise, firstly, you put yourself in the frame for those opportunities, but when they arrive you’re in a position to take advantage of them.”
What new skill will I learn or further develop today?
“Anyone in a public role, I think, has the possibility that they would be disliked – possibly by large numbers of people – for reasons that have nothing to do with the truth. That’s just something you have to deal with. And the only way to deal with it, I think, is to have a really clear sense of purpose. And a clear sense of who you are. Because if what you’re trying to do is chase everybody’s approval, then in the end you will only end up a tortured soul.”
What do I want to stand for in the world?
What’s most important to me?
“There’s a comfort in realizing that everybody’s just as incompetent as you are. And that you may have more to offer than you think. But don’t fall into the trap of thinking you have everything to offer.”
What can I share with others?
How can I help others?
What are my limitations?
“ … just acquire as many tools, as many perspectives, as much wisdom, as much knowledge, as you possibly can. Because even those things that you think are irrelevant, one day they’ll become really, really relevant. And you’ll realize that all of that was worth it.”
What small thing can I do today to better educate myself?
“…I walk off air probably about fifty per cent of the time feeling like I’ve failed. Just about every column that I write, when I hit send to shoot it off to the editor, it’s an admission of defeat. It’s me saying, ‘I can’t pull this off. I have to end it now, I have to abandon this because I’ve failed, but this is the best failure I can come up with’. Everybody carries that sense with them.”
What can be my next best failure?
“ …you do have to work hard. It’s rare I think that success, or even just opportunities, come to the lazy.”
In this moment, what will I choose – mindless distraction (social media, etc) or to do something small to work towards my goals?
Here’s one final thing about Waleed Aly that may or may not surprise you: He doesn’t use social media. He just not interested in being on there.
Could this be why he’s able to think so clearly and accomplish so much?
That’s something to think about.
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For many people, colouring in is a great way to reduce stress and calm the frenzied mind.
But as much as I love coloured pens, pencils and crayons, I’m not keen on colouring in. Instead of decreasing my stress levels, it has the opposite effect. It makes me feel uptight and on edge.
Why?
Because I associate colouring in with the serious business of winning at all costs.
I observed my older brother enter these competitions and effortlessly win free stuff: remote control cars, a soda stream, giant tins of chocolate powered drink and LEGO® kits.
I wanted to be like my big brother. So I picked up my pens and started colouring in.
From the age of five to eight, I spent countless hours colouring in. I learnt from a young age if I could focus my mind and stay within the lines, I could win a lot of free stuff, just as my brother did.
One Sunday morning when I was five years old, I coloured in a picture of Fat Cat for a Telethon colouring competition.
I channelled 100% of my brainpower into selecting the right coloured textas and carefully trying to stay inside the lines. I was intensely focused and determined to do my best to impress the judges.
I finished colouring in Fat Cat but I did not feel calm. I felt exhausted.
I received a letter in the mail. It stated I had won first place in the competition.
A full kid’s swing set complete with monkey bars and a slide.
It was like I had won the jackpot. I had pulled the lever on the poker machine and landed on three cherries. My brain was flooded with feel good chemicals.
I became hooked on entering kid’s competitions and the prizes started rolling in . . .
From the outside, it seemed like a bit of harmless fun: textas, colour and free stuff.
But I wish my parents had put their foot down and said “Enough!”. I wish they had boycotted my participation in those colouring in contests.
• Those contests were messing with my mind.
• Those contests were training me to become super competitive.
• Those contests made me connect my self worth with winning and having lots of stuff.
With this mindset, I never felt 100% satisfied. I was always chasing the next prize, the next big win . . .
But how can a 5-year-old child top a swing set complete with a slide and monkey bars?
I was on the hedonic treadmill.
I quickly adapted to my prizes and wanted more and more.
If I had known about a simple concept called the Gap and the Gain, I would have been a much happier kid.
I recently finished reading a fantastic book called The Gap and the Gain: The High Achievers’ Guide to Happiness, Confidence and Success by Dan Sullivan and Dr Benjamin Hardy.
The book focuses on two particular mindsets you can adopt:
1) A gap mindset (the GAP)
2) A gain mindset (the GAIN)
The authors define the GAP as “a toxic mindset that stops people from being happy and appreciating their lives.”.
When you’re in the GAP, you’re basically in the comparison trap. You’re comparing yourself to something or someone else or measuring yourself against some ideal.
Dr Benjamin Hardy states:
“Being in the GAP stops you from living within your own experience. It stops you from appreciating where you are. It stops you from being happy.”
In contrast, when you’re in the GAIN you’re focused on your own personal growth. You compare less and compete less and don’t care about what other people think of you. As Dr Hardy says, “you decide what success means to you, and you choose the life you’ll live.”
The concept of the Gap and the Gain was developed by Dan Sullivan who has coached entrepreneurs for many years in his Strategic Coach program.
Sullivan had noticed that despite these entrepreneurs having achieved huge financial and material success, a lot of them did not feel successful. In fact, many felt like failures. They were miserable because they were caught in the GAP.
Dr Hardy states:
“Most high performers or “successful” people never took the class on happiness. And there’s a thick narrative out there that in order to be the best performer you can be, “happiness” and “balance” cannot be part of the equation.”
The authors argue this narrative is flawed and they explore ways you can get out of the GAP and in the GAIN (i.e., shift from gap thinking to gain thinking).
The authors argue if you can make this shift you will feel lighter, more energised and more confident rather than feeling anxious, stressed and unhappy (signs of being stuck in the GAP mindset).
All of us fall into the GAP, multiple times a day.
How can you not?
We live in a super competitive culture. The education system, especially ATAR, is a perfect example of this. You’re being ranked against other students.
Student tell me, “I feel like I’m competing against my friends . . . I don’t like it”.
Of course you don’t like it! Trust that disturbing feeling you have. It’s telling you something is not quite right.
Competing against your friends really sucks. It’s can be downright damaging to your relationships, not to mention the toxic stress it adds to your life.
Rather than competing against one another, let’s support each other to do our best.
When we support each other and look out for each other, everyone wins. Everyone gets a bit closer to where they want to go.
Now, if you’re reading this and find yourself currently in the GAP, that’s okay. It’s totally normal.
But I’m going to share with you some simple ways to get out of the GAP and into the GAIN. Because when you’re in the GAIN, you feel happier and more motivated to pursue what really matters to you.
There are several ways you can get out of the GAP and into the GAIN. Here are three strategies I have been practising from the book The Gap and the Gain:
This involves looking at where you are now and comparing it to where you were before.
Why bother doing this?
Because we can easily forget what our lives used to be like. We adapt to our new normal. Dr Hardy states:
“You can forget what you previously struggled with and overcame. You can take for granted how far you’ve come, ignore your progress, and miss out on the confidence of remembering where you were.”
He adds:
“This is why it’s incredibly powerful and important to keep journals, records, or “annual reviews.” . . . you can look back and be reminded of the easily forgotten past.”
One simple practice the authors recommend is taking note of three gains at the end of the day. These gains can be external accomplishments (e.g. prizes and good grades) but also new experiences, personal growth, life lessons, new skills and relationships built.
I’ve been writing down my gains before I go to bed each night. This practice is incredibly simple but powerful!
Dr Hardy states social media is designed to put you in the GAP. It can distract you from your goals and strip you of the freedom to navigate life on your own terms.
If you can get off social media or reduce the time spent on it, this will help you get a clearer sense of who you are, who you want to be and where you want to go.
In the book Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Resistance in the Attention Economy, philosopher Dr James Williams says:
“There’s a big misalignment between the goals we have for ourselves and the goals social media companies have.”
As an ex-Google product strategist, Williams used to sit in product design meetings. So he knows the goals of big tech companies. He says they include things like:
• Number of clicks
• Time on site/app
• Number of pages viewed
• Number of advertisements viewed
• Number of conversions
I would be really surprised if you told me your goal was to spend a huge chunk of time scrolling through social media each day. But this is what a lot of people do.
This is why over a year ago, I made the decision to delete all my social media accounts.
Clicking delete was one of the the best things I ever did. I have a lot more clarity about who I am, what I stand for and what’s important to me. It also helped me to get out of gap style thinking.
In the book, Dr Hardy discusses Professor BJ Fogg’s work on Tiny Habits. He shares several Tiny Habit recipes to help us get out of the GAP. Here are a few examples from the book:
After I compare myself with another person, I will say to myself, “Are you in the GAP or the GAIN?”
After I feel discouraged, I will list 3 specific GAINS from the last 30 days.
After someone tells me about a setback, I will say, “What did you GAIN from this experience?”
We are all on different paths in life. We all have a different set of circumstances and access to certain resources. It’s time to focus our minds on doing the best we can.
Start to notice when you fall into the GAP, when you’re distracted by the goals of social media and what other people are doing. Take it from me, getting out of the GAP and thinking in terms of your gains is a much more rewarding and satisfying way to live.
With this usually comes shiny new pens, fresh notebooks and renewed hope and optimism. But this year feels a little different . . .
Last week I heard someone say:
“It’s only January but it feels like it’s the end of the year. I’m so over it.”
Can you relate?
In this blog post, I want to share with you a strategy I use to make difficult things easier to do. In other words, it’s a strategy that can make studying challenging subjects a little easier.
The other day I did my first job at a school. I’d been asked to run some study skills sessions with the senior school students.
Before I started running the workshops, I had a brief conversation with a year 11 student. It went something like this . . .
Me: How are you feeling given the situation (i.e. COVID-19)?
Year 11 Student: Some of us are stressed but it’s not because of COVID. It’s because of what our teachers have just said to us.
Me: What have your teachers been saying to you?
Year 11 Student: They keep saying this year is going to be really hard. The subjects are going to be much harder.
On my way home from the talk, I thought about what this student had said. I thought about the stressed look in her eyes.
Here’s what happened . . .
I had been asked to present a talk to 150 year 10 students. My talk was scheduled for the last period of the school day.
In case you’re not aware, the last period of the school day is not an ideal time slot for a guest speaker. It’s usually a tough gig because students are tired and they just want to go home.
When I arrived at the venue to set up, I saw two teachers. I introduced myself to them. One of them said in an alarmed tone:
“Oh! You’re the guest speaker? I just need to warn you that these students are a horrible group. They do not warm to guest speakers!”
She continued on . . .
“Does your talk have a structure to it? Do you know what you’re talking about? These year 10s are a really hard group to work with!”
I felt my stress levels begin to rise and by accident, I knocked my glass of water off the stage and it broke. Glass went everywhere. Instead of helping me pick up the glass, the teacher said:
“Look! It’s a sign of things to come!”
At this point, the young IT guy arrived to help connect my laptop to the AV system. He overheard this teacher banging on about what a bunch of ratbags these students were. He looked kind of shocked. He said to her:
“Why are you saying this to our guest presenter? I don’t think it’s helpful.”
The teacher reacted defensively. She blurted out “She needs to know! It’s important we tell her!” and then she left.
I took some deep breaths and continued setting up my stuff.
The students arrived.
I delivered the talk.
The talk went really well.
It turns out these students weren’t horrible at all. They were normal students who happened to be a bit tired and over it.
I learnt an important lesson that day: Worrying about how hard something is going to be doesn’t help. It just uses up your precious brainpower and energy that you could have spent doing something else (i.e. something more productive).
Whenever I focus on how hard something is going to be, I’m filled with fear. Imposter syndrome and self doubt kicks in (“Will I be able to do this? What if I fail and it turns out to be a total flop?”). This usually leads to a bad case of avoidance and procrastination.
In the book Make It Stick, Peter Brown explains:
“A fear of failure can poison learning by creating aversions to the kinds of experimentation and risk taking that characterize striving, or by diminishing performance under pressure, as in a test setting.”
If you feel worried that you’re not going to be able to perform well in a subject, this is going to use up a big part of your working memory capacity. Instead of thinking about the content, you’ll be thinking, “Am I going to be able to do this? What if I can’t? Should I drop the subject?”.
In short, you’ll have less brainpower to learn in class.
There’s a simple question I ask myself when something feels really hard. And it’s this . . .
Professor BJ Fogg calls this the Breakthrough Question. According to Fogg there are three ways you can make any behaviour easier to do:
1. You can increase your skills
2. Get tools and resources
3. Make the behaviour tiny
In his book Tiny Habits he explains:
“Regardless of what your aspiration is, increasing your skills, getting tools and resources, and making the behaviour tiny are what makes things easier to do. . .
Sometimes all you’ll need is the right tool to make a new habit easier to do, like using skinny floss [for flossing teeth], and other times all you have to do is scale the behaviour back to its tiniest version, such as flossing just one tooth. Think of making something easy to do as a pond with three different ways to enter the water. Whether you jump off the dock, wade in at the beach, or drop in from a rope swing, you’ll soon be swimming in the same water.”
In other words, you have plenty of options!
There are lots of things you can do to make studying those so called ‘hard’ subjects a little easier.
So with that in mind, here is a short list of ideas to get you kick-started:
If you can focus better, you can learn and retain more information. If you find yourself constantly checking your phone, put it on silent and away from your body before you sit down to study.
Strategies such as active recall (e.g. flash cards) and dual coding (e.g. mind mapping) are way more effective than rereading and highlighting your notes. Like any new skill, they take a little bit of time to get used to, but they’ll save you a lot of time in the long run.
Some textbooks explain ideas better than others. The textbook on your school booklist is not the only one (or necessarily the best one) out there, so don’t feel wedded to it. Check out other study guides and resources.
A good night’s sleep allows you to focus better in class, retain more information and feel better. Make sleep your top priority.
If you’re confused, don’t suffer in silence. Ask your teacher for help. That’s their job.
Make life easier for your future self by jotting down key ideas in class. If something is confusing, make a note (you can focus on that in a study session at home).
Create some kind of system to organise your notes, past exam papers and handout sheets. Over time, you may need to tweak and refine your system but that’s okay (I’ve been tweaking and refining my system for years).
If you feel overwhelmed by the idea of doing several hours of study each day, start with just five minutes. Five minutes of study is infinitely better than doing nothing!
Once you’ve developed the habit of sitting down and studying for 5 minutes, you can ramp it up. But start small.
When you do manage to sit down and do a little study, congratulate yourself. Say to yourself, “Good job!” This positive reinforcement makes us feel good and when we feel good, it helps wire in new habits.
When your teachers says, “This subject is going to be really hard”, what I think they’re trying to communicate to you is “You need to actually sit down and study. You can no longer wing it.” Instead of worrying, simply be in action.
You’ll feel better and do better if you focus on doing the things that make studying that subject a little easier.
When I was 15, dad made it clear that these subject were non-negotiable: I had to study them in year 11 and 12.
So I rote-learned my way through physics and chemistry. And I hated these subjects with a passion! It killed my love of learning. But I studied just to get by, pass the test and please my dad.
I can’t recall a single thing from physics and chemistry.
Looking back, I wish I had pursued subjects that I was genuinely interested in, such as human biology, cooking, drama and ancient history. But it was hard standing up to my dad as a teenager.
After I graduated from law school, I told my parents I didn’t want to be a lawyer. They were super disappointed. They sat me down and said, “What will you do if you don’t become a lawyer Jane?”
But by that stage, I felt strong enough to pursue my own path and live my own life.
At the time my parents had a particular definition of success: it was a set of A’s on a report card, awards, getting a high status job and having a big house.
But over the years, my parents and I have come to question what it means to be successful in a world that has finite resources and huge environmental challenges.
We live in an achievement oriented world. For many of us, success looks something like this:
• Acquiring lots of money and material possessions
• A high status job
• A large number of Instagram followers
• A perfectly curated social media feed
• A perfectly toned body
• A perfectly decorated house
Ideas about what it means to be successful are promoted to us through the media, 24/7.
None of us are immune to these messages. They bleed over into all areas of our lives and influence our perspective on life and learning, including what it means to be a successful student.
Success at school isn’t measured by depth of learning or fun derived from the learning process.
It’s all about getting good grades, awards and certificates.
We assume:
Good Grades = Good Degree = Good Career (with Good Pay) = Money, Happiness and Freedom
But it’s time to start questioning this ‘success’ trajectory.
Why?
Because it’s somewhat flawed.
Research shows being too fixated on external things (e.g. grades, accolades, money and material possessions) is making us miserable. But not only that, it results in us trashing the planet.
Researcher Tim Kasser, author of The High Price of Materialism, conducted several studies that found people who are overly fixated on extrinsic pursuits (e.g. striving to acquire more money, having an attractive appearance and higher status) are more likely to be depressed, have lower levels of vitality and life satisfaction.
People who are oriented towards more extrinsic pursuits are also more likely to act in less environmentally friendly ways than people who value more intrinsic pursuits (e.g. cultivating strong relationships and connecting with nature).
Let me make it clear . . .
I’m not saying don’t do well at school. I’m not saying don’t bother going to university and/or getting a good job. Not at all.
You want to apply yourself, expand your mind and do your best at school and in life.
All I’m saying is don’t fall into the grade/prize obsession trap.
I’ve found whenever I’m obsessed with achieving a particular result, it gets in the way of me just doing the work. It can also suck the joy out of the learning/creative process.
When I was in school I became obsessed with winning awards. How did this happen?
As a small child, I saw my brother win a lot of awards. I saw him receiving applause and praise from big crowds and teachers. So I came to associate awards and academic achievement with being loved. Naturally, I wanted that too.
So I worked really hard to get awards at school. My brother and I also entered a lot of art and colouring in competitions. And our hard work paid off (if you consider colouring in to be hard work) – my brother and I won a lot of stuff.
But there was a big difference between the two of us: my brother actually enjoyed the process of learning and he loved creating art. It was intrinsically rewarding for him. I was more focused on extrinsic rewards – praise, prizes and awards.
When I didn’t get any subject awards in year 8, I was devastated. I came home in tears.
My brother was concerned. He said, “What’s wrong Jane? What happened?”
I told him that I didn’t win any awards.
And you know what his reaction was?
He laughed in my face.
He thought, “How stupid. How shallow.”
He kept saying to me:
“The awards don’t matter. It’s not a big deal.”
I couldn’t see it at the time, but my self worth had become so strongly connected to receiving awards and prizes.
So in year 9, I set myself a goal – to become Dux of my year (i.e. the top student).
I sacrificed fun times with family and friends to rote-learn my way to top grades. By the end of the year, I won the Dux award but I didn’t feel happy like I thought I would. Instead, I felt tired, miserable and empty inside.
I had put my happiness on hold for a stupid certificate.
But this is what we do.
We think as soon as we achieve our goals then we’ll feel happy . . . but it doesn’t always work like that.
We can see this at play when it comes to choosing a career path and making money.
I recently had a conversation with a year 10 boy. It went something like this:
Boy: “I’m interested in studying psychology and becoming a psychologist.”
Me: “Great! What interests you in psychology?”
Boy pauses to think for a few seconds
Boy: “Because it seems like a profession you could make lots of money from.”
I’m guessing this boy saw money as his ticket to freedom and greater happiness. But money can’t and should never be the sole driving factor for choosing a career path (can you imagine a world full of money hungry psychologists? I shudder at the thought).
Similarly, the pursuit of fame should also be questioned.
I often meet students who want to be famous. But hardly anyone becomes famous (1 person in every 10,000 becomes famous).
If you do become famous, it’s never quite how you imagined it would be. In the book Happy, Healthy Minds the authors from The School of Life highlight some of the downsides of fames. These include:
• Other people being jealous of you
• If you make a mistake everyone knows about it
• You can’t enjoy doing ordinary things
• People constantly ask to have photos with you
• You can’t enjoy just having a quiet meal at a restaurant
We also forget that the vast majority of famous people have worked really hard to get to where they are. We overlook the hard slog, the knock backs, the criticism and risks they had to take to get to where they are now.
So be careful what you wish for.
Studies have found if you’re living in poverty, money makes a massive difference to your well-being and happiness levels. But once your basic to moderate needs are met, more money doesn’t significantly increase happiness.
One research study involving data from 1.7 million people in 165 countries found after we make $65,000USD per year, happiness levels plateau. After you make $105,000USD, you start actually thinking you are doing worse in life (the compare and despair cycle kicks in).
Whatever degree or career path you choose to pursue, do it because it interests you. Do it to build new skills and contribute to the world. Have the money be a bonus extra.
Because here’s what I’ve come to realise . . .
It’s more about developing your passions and interests. It’s about cultivating your personality, depth of character, having a sense of purpose and standing for something in the world.
The most successful people I know are passionate about something and have strong values and a purpose that guide them through life. They also persevere in the face of challenges and refuse to give up.
In The Art of Frugal Hedonism, the authors state:
“. . . having more personality is a seriously excellent substitute for constructing a persona via consumption patterns (like what you own, wear, eat and drive; where you live and holiday). You don’t have to become one of those old men who get about in bare feet and a pinstripe suit with a six-foot python wrapped about their necks, but you do have to hone-in on things you’re interested in and pursue them, develop your own opinions, or let some of those quirks and eccentricities that you may have been suppressing blossom into visible traits.”
With that in mind, it’s time to abolish our obsession with grades, money and stuff. But how?
It’s time to create new metrics for success.
Instead of measuring your self worth based on your grades, number of followers and what you have, focus on developing your personality and character (who you are). For example, here’s are some of metrics for personal success you may want to consider living by:
• Books and news articles read each month
• Interesting podcasts listened to
• Kind acts performed and kind words offered
• Community events attended and/or organised
• Time spent moving/exercising each day
• Conversation with people with different points of view
• Time away from screens each day
• Random conversations with complete strangers on public transport
• Home cooked meals made each week
• Serves of vegetables and fruit consumed each day
• Hours spent outdoors and out in nature each week
As Psychologist Dr Helen Street, author of Life Overload, states:
“In modern society the pressure to be seen to be living well rather than to experience living well has given extrinsic gains undue importance. There is enormous pressure to appear to be successful – to have the material signs of success. To have beauty and youth, fame or celebrity. This false inflation of the importance of all things extrinsic has made it incredibly hard to understand proactive motivation in terms of intrinsic gains.”
It takes something to go against the grain of our culture and embrace intrinsically rewarding pursuits over extrinsic ones. When everyone is focused on grades, money and appearance, it’s easy to fall into that trap, too.
But if you want to be happy, you’ll need to shift your focus. Stop obsessing about your grades. Study things that interest you. If you focus on enjoying the learning process, you will do well at school and in life. But I want you to consider, the grades and cash will be a bonus extra.
Don’t be afraid to follow your own path and set your own direction. A good place to start is by creating your own definition of success to live by.
Dr Jane Genovese delivers interactive sessions on learning to learn, combating procrastination, exam preparation, how to focus in the age of distraction, habit formation and much, much more!
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