286. Beyond 'If Only': Maximizing the Benefits of Counterfactual Thinking (Refreshed Episode)

Welcome to episode 286 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy Today's episode is all about counterfactual thinking. Ready? Let's get started. You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast, where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here's your host, Melina Palmer. Hello. Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. Today's episode is all about counterfactual thinking. So what does that mean? At its simplest, counterfactual thinking is our ability as humans to consider an event that has happened and consider what might have happened if things had gone differently. We mentally counter the facts of the situation in a way that lets us get curious and learn for the future. It's a really important skill when leveraged properly, and we use it constantly even though we don't consciously recognize it. But when it's allowed to get out of control, it can be debilitating. Have you ever found yourself up in the middle of the night replaying a scenario in your head over and over and over and over again? You know it isn't helping, but you can't seem to stop. It's infuriating and stressful when you get caught in that loop. And in today's episode, which Originally aired in October 2019, I give you tips on how to overcome that vicious cycle of counterfactual thinking and use this natural way of thinking to your advantage more often. So why did I choose the episode on Counterfactual Thinking to refresh today? The main reason is because of how well it aligns with Friday's guest, Rob Cross, who's here to talk about his book, the Microstress Effect. We we talk about this concept specifically because it's so closely related with both how micro stress adds up as well as how to think about tackling it. So it felt like the perfect primer today to help you prepare for that episode. And if you aren't already, take a moment now to hit that subscribe button to be sure you're all set to get episode 287 with Rob Cross and all the other episodes from the Brainy Business right as they are released now. Before we jump into the episode, I want to remind you that your free Counterfactual Thinking worksheet and links to past episodes and books and articles are all waiting for you in the show. Notes for this episode, which are found within the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com 286 all right, let's talk about counterfactual thinking. I absolutely adore the concept of counterfactual thinking. In fact, it was one of my favorite things to read about in school. I find it to be fascinating in many ways, but perhaps it's mostly because it relates to something we all do all the time and never really stop to think about why. And more importantly, we don't stop to think about if it's doing us harm or good and how we might control this natural state of the brain to our advantage. As I mentioned in the intro, counterfactual thinking is a fancy way to say what if? Or if only you've done that before, right? Had that thought of if only I'd studied more, I would have done better on the test, or the Seahawks almost won that game, or what if I had sent one more email? Or what will she think if I call now instead of last week when I got her card at the networking event. Maybe you have memories of your childhood or choices you made then and think that with a little more discipline or focus or effort or training, you could have been a doctor or an actor or run that marathon. We all have regrets on actions taken or not taken, and these are represented in our brains via counterfactual thinking. And it's central to being a human being, our emotions and the way we think. Studies have found counterfactual thinking across all cultures. Although not everyone dwells or thinks through the same counterfactuals, the process still exists, and it begins to appear in humans as early as 2 years old. So truly, as early as we can have this level of thinking we do, you may be inclined to think this is a bad thing. You may have said, ugh, I wish I didn't do that. A counterfactual in and of itself. And while this can be taken to the extreme so that it causes problems, which we will talk about, and I'll give some tips and suggestions to get through that space, they're also very useful in setting and accomplishing goals. And you know, I'm talking about that. While we tend to think of what ifs as one category of thinking, there are different types of counterfactuals and they do different things. When you're thinking about a better alternative, it's called an upward counterfactual. And those with worse alternatives are downward counterfactuals. Saying, if only I would have studied more, I would have passed the test. Is an upward counterfactual you're dreaming of a better solution than the reality you're living. If you said what if I had gone out last night like I intended, I would have done even worse. That's a downward counterfactual, looking at how things could have been worse than they ended up. When we talk about upward counterfactuals, they're tied very closely with regret. Anticipated regret, which is also called a pre factual, will be the focus of a future episode, so I won't get into it here, but as you can imagine, regret and counterfactual thinking really go hand in hand. The first theoretical explanation of counterfactual thinking came from Kahneman, a name we've heard many times before here on the podcast, and Miller back in 1986 and was called Norm Theory. There are a few things to consider when looking at counterfactuals, beside whether they're upward or downward. We also want to know if they are omissions or commissions, ruminations or undoings, usual or extreme actions of ourselves or others, and if they cause negative impact like anxiety or distress, or how they can be used for good, like in goal setting and achievements. As I mentioned earlier, I'm going to give a little definition of each of these areas and then explain how they work together through a study called the Undoing of Traumatic Life Events and which is linked in the show notes@thebrainybusiness.com 68 if you haven't already, now is a great time to download your freebie worksheet so you can take notes along as I talk about the different types and influences on counterfactual thinking. And so you're ready when we start talking about how you can use these to your benefit and goals. First, omissions and commissions. An omission is when you wish you had acted. This would be saying, if only I would have asked him to stay, things may have turned out differently. Or if only I had gone to the audition. Who knows how my life might have been different. By contrast, a commission is wishing you had not taken an action, saying if only I hadn't stood up in that meeting. Why did I open my big mouth? Why? Or I can't believe I said that. I hope she isn't too mad at me. I wonder what she's thinking now and how it will come back to bite me at work tomorrow. Next is ruminating or undoing. A rumination is where you think about what happened, but you don't have any thoughts about how things might have been different. Rumination would be saying, I keep playing out the conversation in my head over and over to try and identify where it went off the rails. And while undoing it would be saying I keep thinking about the conversation and how she might not have gotten so upset if I hadn't brought up her being late every day. The undoing is where the counterfactual if only or what if comes into play. What might have been if you had or hadn't done something? Rumination is not a counterfactual and is more like watching a tape in your mind and reviewing what happened. They can go hand in hand. So you might be ruminating and then having an undoing thought and then ruminating again, but the rumination in and of itself is not a counterfactual. So now we talk about the usual or extreme event. There has been research to see whether people's counterfactual thinking is different or more impactful or distressing based on the circumstances leading up to whatever the event was. So if you ran into someone walking into the building and spilled your coffee all over yourself before a big presentation, the way you do your counterfactual thinking will be different. If it was coming in the same door as you always do versus coming in a way you never do in the first scenario, you may be less likely to undo or it may change the direction of your counterfactual. With the extreme circumstance of going in the door you never use, your counterfactual may be something like if only I hadn't tried to take a different route into the building or why did I think it was a good idea to use that door? I know better than that. Let's pause for a minute here and have you think a little about which scenarios you may be more likely to undo in your own mind, which would make you more distressed or cause anger and regret. Some of this may be influenced by your own personality if you're always looking for the silver lining. But there may be some scenarios you would use counterfactual thinking on on no matter what. As we go through some of these examples and the scenarios, think about times where you've gotten hung up in counterfactual thinking, where you've wondered about something you did, wish you did something different? What was that scenario? And think about were you focusing on it being an upward or downward? Was it an omission or a commission? You wish you had done something or you hadn't? How did you go through that process? Just take a minute now and you can make some notes on your note sheet about the types of counterfactuals that you've had. And specifically if there have been some where you've gotten really stuck and you know, you've kind of gotten into a vicious spiral, it would be important to know what that was, what was the instance, why maybe did it matter more than some of the others? And if there's one where you know, you were able to just sort of brush it off, move forward, what was that scenario? How did you think about it? Just useful to make some notes. You don't have to do anything with it at this point, but just consider, reflect, ruminate if you will, on how that works. And again, just as a reminder, if you're not able to look at that note sheet right now. So far we've talked about the difference between upward and downward counterfactuals, which are based on the situation you're adjusting to. Based on your what if thinking moving to a better scenario means you're moving up in the world. Those are upward counterfactuals. We also talked about omissions or commissions, whether you wish you had taken an action or that you hadn't taken an action and how that might have changed the outcome, at least in your mind. And then rumination versus undoing, where undoing is really our counterfactual thinking at work. Rumination is just a replay without those counterfactuals. Alright, now that you've reflected and taken some notes, lets talk about whose actions the counterfactuals are targeted at. If you're thinking about what you may have done differently or not done, the thought process is different than if you're thinking about what someone else may have done differently or not done. So if you and Steve were both in the running for a promotion and he got it, you may think, ugh, if only I had gone to Harvard, I might have had a chance if the focus was on you and your actions. Whereas if you're undoing his actions, you would think, ugh, why did he have to go to Harvard anyway? As I'll show in the upcoming example, we tend to focus our counterfactual thoughts on ourselves. What we coulda, shoulda, woulda done more than we look at the actions of others. Even when we're not to blame and they are absolutely to blame. When we dwell in our minds, we we often focus on ourselves even if it wasn't the cause of what happened. That's where we can start to land into an unhealthy space of distress and anxiety. While there is a healthy side of counterfactual thinking, which I'll get to at the end of the episode. When used in excess, it can be really damaging to the psyche. I want you to picture a woman, let's call her Susie. She's really self conscious and always worried about what other people think and how she's perceived. She walks down the hall at work and sees someone from HR who looks up from her desk and they make eye contact briefly. The HR woman nods a little smile and then gets back to work. Susie starts to think about what had happened. Why didn't she wave at me? Did she really even smile? I wonder if I smiled or should have waved. Should I have stopped in to ask if she wanted a cup of coffee too? She must be so mad at me for not being courteous enough to ask. I'm such a jerk now I'll never get that promotion. Maybe I should go back. But what is she thinking? Why didn't she just wave? She should have been nicer. If she wanted coffee, she should have asked me for it. Well, I'll show her. I'm not going to go out of my way anymore to say hi and I might not even smile next time. She'll know what she did and when she apologizes, I'll be the bigger person. And six months later she's still angry and distressing over this non event that happened all those months ago, constantly dwelling over what the woman in HR did or didn't do and how she could have acted differently. This is an extreme example, but I know people like that, don't you? I once had a colleague who I thought I was on great terms with and she shared with me that she'd been really upset with me for three years over something that she heard happen in a meeting that she wasn't a part of. A presumed slight, which I didn't and don't remember and can't say whether it happened or not. But this impacted our interactions for years and I had no idea she was upset and I'm sure she had lots of counterfactual thoughts about how to talk with me about it or if she should or what I said and if only I had or hadn't done whatever it was. At the end of the day, all the thinking and counterfactualizing. I'm not sure if that's a word, but I'm going to go with it. They don't change what happened. What does change what happened and your future actions is if you dwell and focus on the negatives. This is a lot like I talked about in the episode on Game Theory where people will take actions to punish someone else, even if it hurts themselves in the long run. I have no idea how this may have impacted other opportunities for me within the organization. Is it possible I didn't get to work on a project because of something someone said to someone else based on an event that may or may not have happened? Yes, this is absolutely possible. Beyond this specific example, I wish she and I had the conversation years earlier. It might have saved a lot of spiraling thoughts on her side, which of course I'm presuming were there, as I don't actually know. I'm also using this as a cautionary tale, and because it's a semi hypothetical example, it's merely representative of what could happen. Someone who was incredibly distressed and had anxiety over the circumstance could have poured all their focus into what they coulda, shoulda, woulda done or what I may have done differently. And if only this or that. Constantly thinking that their lack of opportunity or a sideways glance someone gave in a meeting was all back to that first fateful episode and wishing I hadn't done whatever may have happened. Putting too much into what if and counterfactual thinking can often make a mountain out of a molehill. It can be unhealthy and cause you more harm than simply letting it go and moving on would do. Remember, your conscious brain can only focus on so much and the brain gets what it expects. So if you are focusing your conscious attention on a negative experience or how someone is always undermining you, your brain is looking for that and giving you more support for your stance so you can continue to ruminate and undo and stew. And just as a little side note, as the individual who may or may not have said or done a thing that may have impacted someone, I highly recommend I've talked about the book Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott on the show before and there's a link in the show notes. But she talks about as you move your way up in an organization, the interactions you have can have a huge ripple effect. And in this case thinking about those counterfactual thoughts you may be placing into others minds is really important. And I really love the way that she phrases it in the book to where she says you should think about in any interaction you're having, are you leaving an afterglow, an aftertaste, or an aftermath? And in any interaction it's important to know what may or may not be happening and what others may or may not be thinking after the fact. Again, that's a responsibility that we all take on as we move up in organizations to think about those conversations we're having and how we could be impacting the other person. I know that's something that I've taken time to focus on and it can be really important. And if I had been thinking through that and working in that space, maybe this incident, whatever it was, maybe it never would have happened or been an issue or she would have felt like she could have had a conversation with me. Whatever it is, we obviously made our way through it and all is well. So we're going to get back into more business related examples at the end of the episode. But for now I want to move on to the study I've mentioned already. It was published in 1995 in Personality and and Social Psychology Bulletin on counterfactual thinking and undoing traumatic life events. I've chosen this article because it references very specific percentages in the different categories We've already talked about in the undoing of events, how it impacted distress levels, and there are some lessons for all of us to be able to take on about what that can mean for us even in everyday counterfactuals, not just in traumatic setups. In this case, the researchers were interested in how people think about traumatic events after they're over and especially when they had no fault in them whatsoever. Did that impact the way they thought about what happened after the event? The researchers did two studies. In the first, they interviewed people who had lost a spouse and or child in a car accident, and those individuals were interviewed four to seven years after the accident. In the second study, parents who lost a child to SIDS Sudden Infant Death syndrome, were interviewed three weeks after the loss and then again 18 months after to see how their counterfactual thinking changed. Please do note on this section I'm not giving advice or tips or saying what's good or bad or right or wrong I about traumatic events. We're merely using this as an example from research in an extreme situation to help you think about how counterfactual thinking is done in each of our minds all the time to help you learn more about your own thinking and the thinking of others. Just as our brains react to the threat of a tiger the same way we react to a meeting with a scary boss, our brains are approaching counterfactuals in the same basic way. Regardless of the stimulus or circumstances, be it traumatic or more common with the car accidents, those being interviewed were not present when the accident took place and it had been determined that their loved ones were not at fault in any way for the accident. In many but not all of the cases, the other driver had been drinking or done something reckless to cause the accident, and in all cases the accident had taken place four to seven years prior to the interview. One of the questions the researchers asked the participants, which was very specifically worded to make sure it didn't prime them for thoughts of undoing, was have you ever found yourself going over the events leading up to the accident? Now that I've talked with you about rumination versus undoing, you can see how they're not leading into undoing, but asking a question that is specifically about ruminating. The study found that 80% had ruminating thoughts of the event and 59 said they had thought about the events leading up to the accident within the past month. When they asked a follow up question what they thought about when they were thinking about the event, the researchers found that over half of the respondents spontaneously reported wishfully thinking about undoing the event and what had happened. For example, one respondent said, I think about the fact that if I had grounded him that night as I wanted to, it might not have happened. If one was not undoing the event, they may have said something like, I think about how he smiled at me as he left the house that day. Everyone said he had the best smile. To summarize, over half of the respondents were actively undoing the event in their heads, having counterfactual thoughts within the last month for this traumatic event, which had happened four to seven years earlier. Next, let's look at whether the items they were undoing were usual or exceptional. More than 2/3, 69%, focused on a usual activity, like if I hadn't let him go to the store that day, or one who said if I had talked him into staying home that day but there was no reason to, he was very good about not missing work. 28% focused on an exceptional activity. For instance, one spouse said, I sometimes think if we hadn't scheduled my daughter's driving test for that day, my husband might have survived because he would have been driving the big car. It's very possible that there was not exceptional activity for the usual folks to focus on, and it makes sense that there were more who had usual stuff because by definition, exceptions are less common than usual interaction. What the study wanted to find was if there was a difference in the level of distress or the frequency for the undoing based on the item being undone. For example, would you dwell more if there was an extreme circumstance that took place, as I mentioned, about going in a different door than you usually do when you spilled the coffee. In this case, there was not a difference between the two groups. So the level of distress, the frequency of the undoing, did not differ whether it was a usual circumstance or an extreme one. So now let's move on to omission and commission. 41% of those undoing reported wishing that they had done something, which would be undoing an omission, and 31% reported wishing they had not acted as they did, which would be undoing a commission. Seventeen reported both, and the rest were too ambiguous to code. Just like the previous grouping, there were no differences in frequency or distress levels amongst the groups. And if you think back to our dichotomies from earlier, we've now looked at ruminating versus undoing. And for those who were having counterfactual thoughts, looked at omission versus commission and usual versus extreme events to find there was no difference in the level of distress or frequency of undoing by either of those classifications. So let's move on to whose actions they were trying to undo. In their mind, 55% focused on their own behavior, while the other 45% were focused on the behavior of the deceased. What is amazing about this piece is that not one person in the study reported trying to do the other driver's behavior. Which is surprising because if you remember me saying earlier, in almost every case, the other driver had been negligent or under the influence when the accident occurred. Why would the counterfactual thinking not focus on that person? Why not think, if only that man had called a cab, why would the thoughts be I wish I would have grounded him, or I wish we hadn't fought before he left? I want you to keep that in your mind. Let it ruminate or stew for a minute. But before we dig in on that, I want to talk a little about blame. We already know that the people being interviewed were not at fault for the accident, and their lost family member was also not at fault. When asked who, if anyone, they blamed for the situation, 30% said they blamed no one, 6% blamed themselves, 69% blamed the other driver, 11% blamed society or the justice system, and the remainder blamed some other source, God, the universe, or declined to identify a source. The types of undoing didn't come up statistically different for those who said they blamed themselves, but as it was only 6%, it's a very small sample, so can't really drive enough from that. As I mentioned, there, nearly 70% blamed the other driver and no one blamed their lost family member. And yet 55% focus their counterfactual thinking on their own actions and 45% focused on their spouse or child. There's definitely something off with those numbers. The reason this happens is that the person thinking about the process is more likely to undo the actions of the focal actor themselves or the person they knew. And if it seems reasonable that the thing you could change from your own action or inaction might have been enough to impact the outcome, even if it didn't play a causal role, there's no reason to look at anyone else. And this can likely lead to feelings of regret, guilt and responsibility. What I find completely amazing about this is that in one breath someone can say they blame the other driver and in the next they talk about all the things they wish would have been different and not even mention that person. This shows how quickly the brain can focus and compartmentalize. And the one thing I want to point out for you now, if you go through counterfactual if only and what if sort of thinking, remember that just because your brain is only focusing on you, it doesn't mean it's right or the only option. One other very useful finding from the study was while the type of undoing didn't have an impact on the frequency or distress level, there is one thing that did recency. And not recency to the event itself, but the recency of the undoing that's taking place. Those who were still undoing the event were more distressed than those who had reportedly never undone the actions in their mind and those who said they had only done this in the past. Those last two groups were basically equal to each other as far as distress goes, so having undone at one time doesn't mean you'll be worse or better off than someone who didn't use counterfactuals at all. That's another side point. One might say that someone who doesn't go through the counterfactual process after a traumatic event or any other event isn't allowing themselves to properly grieve or feel emotions. But this research shows that isn't necessarily true. What it does show is that undoing may at least partially be a distress driven cognitive process, meaning the more distressed someone is, the more likely they are to go through the undoing process in their mind and can very easily get into a vicious cycle. They had another study within the article I linked, which I mentioned already and was interviewing parents who had lost a child to sids. I won't get into all the findings and walk through another emotionally tackling example with you here as the bulk of the findings matched what they learned from the first study. But one thing they did differently here was interview the parents at two different points. The first just three weeks after the loss, and then again 18 months after. This allowed them to see if there was a difference in the exact same individuals by what they said specifically versus what they remembered or wanted to remember while reflecting in a study many years after an event. What they did find was that only 28% of those who were still using counterfactuals at the 18 month interview were undoing and actively processing the same event that they had been focusing on at the three week point. So only 28% were still using the same event. The percentages of how they broke out on those dichotomies of omissions versus commissions, whether they were undoing their own actions or for someone else, or the usual versus extreme events, were all the same between the two points. But the action that they were actively undoing and focusing their attention on overwhelmingly was different. And just like the other study, the more thoughts of undoing, the more distress they reported. The lesson for you here is that people may be focusing on themselves. They're always going to focus on their own actions in a particular circumstance, or they're always going to be focusing on the usual things that happened, or the extreme or things they wish they had or hadn't done. That's not going to change, but your brain might just be jumping from one thing to the next to the next to the next. The really important thing to note about that is the more that you're undoing, the more you're focusing on continuing to undo, you will have increased distress. One last important factor for this study was the emotions people felt. The study looked to see which negative emotions, depression, anxiety, anger and guilt would line up with the act of undoing. Only one of the four was uniquely related to the action of undoing. Can you guess which it is? Guilt. And in this case, their undoings were related to items they theoretically could have had some control over. Like they didn't check on the baby before leaving for work versus having a difficult pregnancy or something that would have been out of their control. Which makes sense as far as feeling guilt. The good news is guilt went down over time, and by the 18 month mark, most came to the conclusion that the events they were undoing, though controllable, were not foreseeable and there wasn't a causation issue there. So their guilt declined, but it did not necessarily impact the amount of undoing and its relationship with distress. The Researchers have some theories on this and say that one plausible explanation is that highly distressed people come to undo more frequently, thus perpetuating their distress. And they went on to reference another study which found that people with self esteem deficits may be more inclined to focus on their own inadequacies in their counterfactuals than people high in self esteem. Taking a step away from the traumatic events outlined here, think about those points and what they mean for the process of undoing and excessive counterfactual thinking. The only items that led to increased levels of distress was the frequency that someone was going through the process of undoing. And regardless of whether you did some at the beginning or or never took part in counterfactual thinking, as long as you allow yourself to move out of the cycle, it can reduce levels of distress. While I use some extreme examples around trauma here, know that there is an important point for you in all areas of life and business. I can never speak for everyone, but I assume most people would give these individuals the benefit of the doubt if they were still actively undoing and thinking about them, these traumatic events, even long after they happened. If moving out of perpetual undoing is really the only thing that impacted reduced distress levels even in this most traumatic of life events, it shows how much of your mood and focus is created by your own brain. And while it's perfectly normal to partake in counterfactual thinking, too much can be harmful. Okay, I want to end this episode on a positive note. Now that you have some background into the way we can undo thoughts, how counterfactuals work in our brains and why that can matter, and how they can get into a vicious cycle when you let them get out of control. Let's talk about how they're actually really good. What's good about them, you may ask, after those stories I just gave there. Well, counterfactual thinking is a critical way we regulate our behavior and how we're able to reach our goals, which is very important. There's an episode on setting and reaching goals coming very soon. And for now, let me explain how this works. When you fail to reach a goal, you're more likely to have a counterfactual thought. Your next action, the thing you choose to do with that counterfactual thought, is what determines whether you end up in a vicious spiral or you jump forward into beneficial territory so you fail to reach the goal. Counterfactual thought. If you continue to have more and more undoings and counterfactuals, it becomes a problem if Instead, you say, next time I'll it's now a beneficial way to regulate and improve behavior. Ta da. I know it's a pretty easy concept, but isn't that awesome to walk through this? Let's go back to the example of running into someone spilling coffee on yourself before your big presentation. This tip is for anyone, but especially for those of you who tend to use counterfactuals. Have a what if or if only mindset that can impact you for the rest of the day or the week or longer. Try to ask yourself some simple questions to help move out of that headspace. So the thing happens, you fail to reach a goal. You have the counterfactual thought and then you could ask yourself a question like will this line of thinking help? Can I change it? Will I care about this 10 years from now? Do I remember anyone's stains from last week's meeting? What advice would I give to my best friend if she was experiencing this? What if I simply chose not to care about this? How can I be better prepared for next time? As a side note, on that last one, I used to take the bus and walk to work, which means I wore tennis shoes and packed my dress shoes in the bag I brought with me. After spending multiple days wearing tennis shoes with my dress or suit pants for all of my presentations and meetings that day, I started keeping a separate spare pair of shoes in my desk drawer in case I forgot to bring mine with me that day and also now when I'm speaking at events. I've had far too many things go wrong or known people that have had things go wrong. So I always bring a change of clothes, a spare shirt or shoes, extra USB drive of the presentation, what have you. Things still go wrong and I've had every technical glitch under the sun. I actually had one last week where the videos wouldn't work, but I was able to keep moving and the audience was fine with the process. We went a little bit out of order, but everyone was very understanding. If I did start to get worried and worked up, I could ask myself, what am I going to do about it? What did this teach me? What can I do better next time? How can I use this to get closer to my goal? And then comes the most important part. I allow myself to move on. It's okay to undo, we all do it. But you need to move on and not let it take over everything else in your life and work. Another tactic would be to remember that everything is relative and I've linked episode 12 on relativity in the show notes for you, which are@the brainybusiness.com 68. You can pop over there to get your free download if you haven't already to take a few notes. So let me ask you this. If you think about Olympic athletes standing on the podium, who's the happiest? Gold? Sure. But who's the second happiest on the podium? Is it silver, the one with the next best score? No way. They're frustrated and doing their counterfactuals about all the things they coulda, shoulda, woulda done differently to get gold, or what the judges or coach or competition did or didn't do. It is a distressing and depressing place for many. While bronze, they are often ecstatic to have made the podium. They almost didn't get there. After all, if they had done one thing differently, they may have been without a medal at all. What luck. So next time you get into a counterfactual spin, think about how someone else might think you're the luckiest guy or gal in the world. How would you have thought about this differently if you were just lucky to be nominated and not the favorite? Who lost out on the opportunity? If you were your own PR rep, how would you reframe the message to make a great headline? We all hear that Edison failed a gazillion times trying to make a light bulb, and we don't counterfactualize his process. We value his perseverance. If this is just a blip in the story of your life and you're the hero of your own story, how can you make this moment, this item, into an inspirational one for yourself and the future readers of your biography by turning that counterfactual thought into a positive next step action. If only I would have researched more, I'm sure I would have nailed that job interview. Next time I'll set aside three hours to prepare. If only I scheduled an appointment while we were talking, I'm sure she would have wanted to buy Next time I'll ask about a circle back call before we get off the phone. Always think about next time and you'll be doing the counterfactual two step all the way to your biggest goals and dreams. Whether you're naturally a silver lining person or not, acting as if you were is often enough to trick your brain into starting to think that way. Our brains are pretty easy to shift when we want to put in the work. If you believe it, your brain will too. So what got your brain buzzing as you learned about counterfactual thinking? Today for me, I'm always intrigued by a concept that seems simple on the surface, but has lots of layers. I love to consider how teams of people over the years have spent so much time thinking about a concept like counterfactual thinking and breaking it down into its sub components to talk about whether or not they're moving up or down, whether you're adding or subtracting, and why that matters in the way you consider and apply these concepts. Yes, a basic knowledge of counterfactual thinking is important just on its own. You can be more successful in your life and business with just that little bit. And I remember when I first heard about this concept and how it totally blew my mind. I had never considered how this type of thinking was different from other thinking and why that mattered. You know, it's something we do naturally, constantly, so we don't have to consciously think about it. But when you do, it makes such a difference both in stopping those negative spirals that we all inevitably get with your next time aisle language, as well as in the way you consider alternatives and opportunities. Just imagine how different things might be if you took the time to say, now, am I creating an upward or downward counterfactual here? What if I flipped it around? Those mental reframes and curious questions can change everything and help to set you and your business apart from the competition. So go practice them right now. It's a really easy thing to try. And so you do know there is an episode on Pre Factual Thinking which is a very similar type of mental processing, but it, instead of looking backward, is about things that haven't yet happened. I'm sure you can tell these are very closely related and they work hand in hand. So episode 232 on pre factual Thinking is my top recommended next episode after this one, and it's linked for you in the show notes along with your Counterfactual Thinking freebie worksheet. So make sure to check that out in those show notes@thebrainybusiness.com 286 and while I say it is my top recommended next episode, there's a little caveat here, a little asterisk that it's the top recommended from those that have already been released. This coming Friday's episode with Rob Cross on the Microstress effect is of course my top top top recommended next episode for you because it's what inspired me to do this refresh today. As I said at the top of the show, they're very related and you're definitely going to want to listen to that one to understand and reduce the micro stressors in your life. It's so important. If you aren't already subscribed to the Brainy Business podcast, take a moment to do so now so you don't miss that one or any of the episodes of the show. And if a little extra motivation would help with that. This episode comes out on my birthday, so consider it a gift to me to subscribe to the podcast or to the YouTube channel, or to connect on LinkedIn or Twitter, or to share an episode with a friend to leave a rating or review of the show or one of my books. Anything you want to contribute as a birthday present to me will be so so thankfully received. I'm grateful for you and appreciate you and even just listening is a gift. So thanks for listening and supporting the Brainy Business. You're amazing and I appreciate you. And as we close out the show, just a reminder that free Counterfactual Thinking worksheet and related past episodes and books and articles are all waiting for you in the show notes@the brainybusiness.com 286 and just like that, episode 286 on counterfactual thinking is done. Join me Friday for a brand new episode with Rob Cross to discuss his new book, the Microstress Effect. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me and remember to be thoughtful. Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness. Com.