Heroic Chat with Gabriele Oettingen: Practicing Mental Contrasting

Foreign. It is 1:01pm plus 1. Today we have a very special guest, Gabrielle Utenjin, one of my absolute favorite teachers who, as you know, if you've been following along, has deeply influenced my work and by extension our work. She created the whoop process that we come back to all the time. I whooped. I whooped this call, Gabrielle. I whoop the keynote I'm doing next week. I'm like a whoop machine. You can't go. I can't go through a day without whooping at least once or three times. But Rethinking Positive Thinking is one of my all time favorite books, period. And right there, tied for first all time favorite positive psychology books. In which, as you know, again, if you've been following along, Gabrielle redefines the science of making your dreams a reality. It's not enough to look at your vision board. You need to rub it up against reality, mindfully, deliberately look at the obstacles and then create a plan to deal with them, et cetera. But Gabrielle, so happy to have you here and I'm excited to, to connect you with our community today.

Thank you, Brian, for having me. This is exciting for me.

It is day one. All right, well, we like to, to check in. I didn't say hi to everybody, so Coach Lanny, I like to pretend like I'm actually hanging out with everybody. Gabrielle. Because it's also virtual. So Coach Lanny, great to see you. Duncan, Dave, LT Adams getting the workout in. Let's go. Lily. Jason, Anthony, Paul, Jared, Teresa, Aki, Christopher, Adam, Lyman, David, Derek, Al, Robin, Victor. We're going deep today. Great to see you all. Many of whom are adorned in your beautiful heroic T shirts. Ryan, Simon, Georgina, continuing on. I know for a fact that so many of the people I just said hi to have benefited from your work, Gabrielle. So it's especially fun to, to be with you. But let's just do a, we like to do a quick, you know, 15, 30 second connection to our best selves. So team, let's do that. Now I gotta stand up whenever I, I kind of try to activate my best self, Gabrielle. I always kind of have this stand, standing up posture. So I'm going to do that. Take out any, take out any tension that might be present. Find yourself grounded, calm, confident, energized and tranquil. As you invite the best, most heroic version of yourself to join us. And as we recommit to living with wisdom, discipline, love, courage, gratitude, hope, curiosity and zest. Integrating ancient wisdom and modern science to move from theory to practice to mastery. Together today with one of the world's, in my very strong opinion, most brilliant scientists, helping us understand how to do all that stuff. All right, Gabrielle, tell us about you. Broad, broad question. Obviously, this is, you know, a heroic chat with Masters. I would love to learn more about you, who you are, and what brought you to this point in time. However you want to frame that, knowing that is a deliberately broad question. And as I said in our little prelude, ideally with a dragon or two, you might have faced in the process of giving your gifts to the world, because I know it wasn't easy, but however you'd like to answer that question, then we'll kind of go from there.

Well, you know, you tell me, who am I? Because at the end, we are all the people that the other people make us, and we are kind of helpful, giving, generous people, if other people will participate and will help us to be generous and helpful. So I really must say I owe all my background and the people around me any good feature I have. So it's not coming from me. It's coming from outside. At the end, they help me to be kind of surviving all these difficulties that everybody of us has in their lives. I could have never done it alone. So if you ask, who am I? Then I could only say, well, the people who brought me there.

Beautiful. Who most influenced you on your journey?

That's an interesting question. Now, my very immediate answer is my aunt, because she kind of influenced me a lot in terms of what you can do in order to survive by going out of your comfort zone. So she taught me how to go out of the comfort zone and to still. Yeah, how you can say, to still flourish and survive and try to be a good person. So I would say probably my aunt.

I love it. And. Okay, so now. Now. Now I got something to go with here. How old were you when your aunt started teaching this? And then what specifically did she teach you that helped you learn how to go out of your comfort zone and thrive in the face of challenges?

Well, it probably started in middle childhood when I got a little bit more aware of what the differences in people are, and then especially in adolescence and as a young adult and, you know, just until I had my. My own family, she was really pivotal in supporting me and showing the different ways where you can go and. And. And to picking me up in difficult situations and, you know, to console me when. When I was sad. And so she was. She was a big influence, and she was very generous, very. How do you say, prudent and very smart lady. And so I'm deeply thankful to her that she, she. She kind of started my life and kept me up really, through the decades.

Wow. As someone said in the chat I just saw pop up. Can just feel your humility, and there's just a sacredness to your presence and your humility. And I can feel your love for your aunt and just can kind of feel through the. Just the power of having someone like her in our lives, you know, the hero gets a guide, you know, and to be blessed to have a beautiful guide that no one's gonna know her, you know, than what she did for you, but you do. And this is what we, you know, are constantly encouraging our community to become the hero of their lives so they can be the guides for others in their lives, even if the world never knows. But that person you affected knows. That's, you know, tears my eyes. That's how we're going to change the world, you know. Beautiful. Raised in Germany. We haven't talked much about your. Okay.

Yes, yes.

Yeah.

Raised in Germany. Never had the idea of coming to the United States that was so far away. I was raised in the countryside and, you know, just kind of away from the big world and other continents. And so I kind of gradually discovered that there is something else than what I had experienced in my childhood. And I think that's probably true for everyone. You start out with a very kind of limited. But Kurt Levine, the founder of social psychology, would say lifespace, meaning what you have in your mind as possibilities of future, present, past, how differentiated your environment is for you. So you start very small, and then you discover more and more. And the more you go out of your comfort zone, the more you discover.

Again, many things there. But what's. How did you get from countryside Germany to America? What was the transition there?

Took a lot of detours, you know, I just didn't. It. School was kind of local. Everything was very local. And it's not that you looked for the best school. You just went to the school nearby, and the best wasn't the concept. So it just went to the school and then I finished school and then I went to become a handicraft person. I did photography because I wanted to do something with my eyes. I loved aesthetics and wanted to create in terms of giving pictures to others and creating new insights into life by doing photography, a visual means to show other people one's life. And I did that for a while. It was fantastic. I loved it. I did pictures of humans, which I loved most, but also, you know, different specialities, such as pictures of gardens and, or pictures of furniture or stills of nature. And that was very interesting because you could see suddenly when you do something like that for quite a while you get a very clear picture about details. So details of the garden or details of human interaction or details of furniture. Furniture can be so beautiful, how it's shaped, what the kind of patterns are in the woods and so on. Also glass, jewels, you can really sort of get into details and get the feeling for how beautiful they can be. But then if you really want to know it, I worked for a book, a book by a biologist who at that time wanted to save the world because that was, were interested in making meaning. And he wanted to save the world by convincing people that we are too many on the globe, which was at that time the very big topic in society. And he did a very nice book and I did the photos for the book and then I asked him a couple of questions and he couldn't really answer these questions. These were questions about biology and he kind of fuzzily answered these questions. And so I thought, I think I need to study biology now because I really want to know. I want to know what are the origins of life? Where does it come from? Why is life so different from any other entities in the world? Why are living objects different from non living objects? And so on. So then I went into the university and I studied biology. So in Germany it's slightly different. You need to decide for a subject. You can't have a undergrad education where you get a little bit of everything. You get a lot of one thing in Germany. And so, so I did biology and yeah, then I needed to decide between doing my Master and my Ph.D. in, in biochemistry or in behavioral biology, which is basically animal behavior. And so cooking was not the, the best thing I'm, you know, I wanted to do because, you know, standing in the lab doing bench work all day long, I was more interested in theory. And so the cooking part of biochemistry kind of scared me off. And I went into behavioral biology and I then went to Max Tank Institute for Behavioral Physiology outside of Munich and did my diploma and my, my PhD there, but not on animals, but on humans. And that also led me then to England where I was in Cambridge at the Medical Research Council in Maddingley in Cambridge. And I worked with a great guy, Robert Hind, who started off with finches, observing finches, but then ended up with human beings as well, with children. And I collected my data in his lab, which was fantastic. And there in Cambridge I met psychologists and I Thought, this is really neat. The psychologists, they are wild people. They come up with their own ideas and then test them in the lab. This is really neat. Whereas behavioral biology was very much tied into evolutionary theory. And evolutionary theory is great, all good, but it's just one theory. And so you needed to collect data always in the service of the theory. And I thought, what do these psychologists do there? They come up with their own theories, with their own ideas. They can create their own kind of research projects. This is so fascinating. And then I was sold. So. So I did do my PhD. I finished my PhD in Behavioral Biology and then I switched to psychology and that brought me then to America. So I went to Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania to work with Marty Seligman. And because I was so interested in hope. So he was a person who was obviously interested in positive thinking, positive thinking about the future, optimism. So he was a very good lab to be working in. And I spent about almost four years in Philadelphia and develop my ideas on hope and on positive fantasies about the future, which was very different from what Marty Seligman did, but still concerned with positive thinking about the future. And yeah, so I was four years in Philadelphia, but then I got an offer from the Max Planck Institute in Berlin, went back to Berlin, married, had two children, were 10 years in Berlin at the Max Planck Institute, further developing my ideas. And there also mental contrasting and whoop. Had its first data collections and I was 10 years in Berlin and then I couldn't help going back to the States. And my husband, Peter Goldwitzer, was in Texas before He did his PhD in Austin. So he wanted to go back to the States, I wanted to go back to the States. So we took our two kids under our arms and went to New York. And then we wanted to stay for two years to try it out a little bit and to go there as visiting people. And now we're there for more than two decades. So New York really kind of glued us to this part of the world. We're still a lot going to Europe and to Germany because we never can really decide to either live there or there. So we needed to kind of put our tents in both places. So that's where we are now. So I hope I didn't bore you with all that.

Not at all, not at all, no. Again, I just see some chats come up as you're, as you're talking. I think what we feel is your warmth and your humanity, your humility, your wisdom, your poise and your beautiful essence. So beautiful. Thank you for sharing thank you for listening. Oh, geez. The beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. So many different threads that we can explore with that. Let's go straight into your thinking on hope. So walk us through your. However you want to frame it up, from your early thinking to how it evolved. Mental contrasting, whoop, of course. But just really eager to hear your thoughts on that in this context. And then I also felt your. The fact that this is art for you. You know, even reading your book and then practicing what you've crafted, when you were describing your photography and seeing the details, but like really seeing the details with an elegant joy to it, I could feel that you've brought that same appreciation of excellence and rightness to your craft as a researcher and as a scientist and as a teacher and an author. So I'm really eager to hear your thinking on hope and then talk about all the things that have come from your pursuit of this, and we'll start talking about how we can start applying it to our lives.

Now, the story of hope sort of was there very early. And somebody, I don't know, some colleague a couple of years ago asked me, why are you so interested in hope? And I was thinking, I didn't really know. But one story which might explain that is that being raised in Europe after the Second World War and after the Nazi time, you could see people really sort of going through very, very difficult times and being very resilient, through enormous difficulties. And I always ask myself, how can you kind of get through, persist through these awful things, and then necessarily you're guided into a direction which leads you to hope? And when I then switched into psychology, my interest really was exploring the phenomenon of hope. What makes people go through these difficult times despite these dismal prospects. And when I then came to Philadelphia and first met the definition of hope in psychology, I thought my imagination of hope or my idea of hope was so different. Because hope in psychology, most of the time still, and at that time, also was defined as having high expectations that things will work out, optimism, having good prospects that things will be good. But I always thought hope is when things are really bad and the prospects are bad too. Then to keep up your positive thoughts and daydreams and fantasies about the future, isn't that hope? And looking in the philosophical literature and looking when people come, you know, you ask people, what is hope? Many people thought, okay, hope is then when things are bad and when the prospects are bad. But then you still keep up your spirits, your imagination, that at some day it will work out still. And think about the Nobel Prize Winner today, Nages Mohammadi. She's talking about hope. She's saying, you know, one day it will be fine. And that keeps her to do these incredible things. Despite that, the likelihood that this will all happen is really low. So I thought, okay, if that's the case, then we should have different ways of thinking about the future. One is based on past experience, the likelihood of the judgment and things will work out also in the future. So if I had good grades in the past, then I can trust or I can rely on that I will have good grades in the future. But there's something else, and there must be something else in our mind to think about the future. And then I came up with the fantasies and the daydreams. And I said, okay, there are two ways of thinking about the future. One is these expectancy judgments that things will work out fine. And the other is positive fantasies and daydreams, which are completely independent of these expectancy judgments. These positive fantasies and daydreams, they are just coming out of our needs, out of our what we actually wish, what we, what we kind of do not have. So then I started to try to measure it and people sort of said, ah, you can't measure the fantasies. Fantasies are so lucid. And yes, we did measure it. And we saw to our surprise that these positive fantasies and daydreams have very different consequences for behavior than the positive expectancy judgments. So these positive fantasies and daydreams, the more positive they were, the less people put in effort and the less success they achieved in fulfilling their positive fantasies and daydreams. Whereas if I have positive expectations, they are based on past behavior, on past experience, the more positive the expectancy judgments were, the more people actually put in effort and the more successful they were. So these two concepts of thinking about the future are clearly different because they show different motivational consequences. So we need to be very careful what kind or type of thinking about the future we entertain when we want to predict behavior as a researcher. And we need to be very careful also as a person. Do we fantasize about the future in positive terms or are we justified to expect that things will work out? So when we got these data, it was a little bit difficult because until that time, positive thinking was positive. Now any positive thinking was positive, but you need to be careful to see which positive thinking. And then we also understood what people did in order to be very resilient. They had these positive fantasies and daydreams. Despite that, they had low expectations. And that was fine for keeping up the mood. It was fine to Imagine what else they could imagine for the future. But when it came to actually implementing these positive fantasies and daydreams, then these positive fantasies, daydreams were really hurtful. And so I was very disappointed by my findings on hope because it seems that these positive fantasies, these hopeful fantasies and daydreams, they led people to do less in order to implement them. There was a disappointment. And it also went against the positive thinking literature. So we had a hard time, as you can imagine. But then the next question certainly is, why are these positive fantasies in daydreams actually so difficult for effort and success? And we did experiments then. So we had done a lot of studies in the different areas, health and achievement and interpersonal relations. So that the more positive people fantasized about the future, the less weight they lost, the less money they, they earned. University students, sort of graduating, the more positive they fantasized about transition into work life. The less money they got two years later. The more positively students fantasized about the future, the less well they did on the exams, the more positive they fantasized about getting together with the crochet, the less likely they were to get into a romantic relationship. And hip replacement surgery patients, the more positively they have fantasized about a good recovery, the less well could they move their hip. So these were the data on the problematic consequences of positive fantasies and daydreams. Now, as I said, we moved on to ask why? And we induced experimentally positive fantasies and daydreams versus negative fantasies and daydreams versus factual thoughts versus no thoughts versus irrelevant thoughts. These were our control groups. And then what we found is that the people who were induced to have these positive fantasies, that these positive fantasies actually robbed their energy. So the people thought, they're already there. They are already. The imagination is so strong that you think you're already arrived. And what that does is it relaxes you, so you are relaxed. Energy goes down. You can measure that by blood pressure, and then you don't put in the effort anymore. So a week later, you haven't done a lot to implement your fantasies. So that's what the problem is with these positive fantasies. They rob your energy. But then you could say, okay, let's get rid of the positive fantasies. They're useless. No, we cannot do that because these positive fantasies and daydreams are very important. They are an expression of our needs, meaning what we don't have. The lack of something we have is expressed in our positive fantasies and daydreams. So we did very simple experiments. We invited people into the lab, we had them not take any liquids for hours before. Then we fed them a lot of salty pretzels. So they were really thirsty. Half of them got the wonderful clear water, half of them didn't. And then we simply let them fantasize about the future. And you can imagine that the people who were thirsty, they're positively fantasized about getting to the water fountain and eating water and drinking water and. And being. Being kind of satisfied. And the other ones, they had positive fantasies about the future that went in all directions. So you can do that not only with physiological needs, but you can do it also with psychological needs. If you deprive people of. They fantasize positively about getting a more meaningful job. If you deprive people of social relationships, think about the pandemic. They positively fantasize about getting together with their friends and their family. So these positive fantasies and daydreams are very, very important because they are an expression of our needs. They give our action the direction, meaning we cannot get rid of them. The only problem with them is that they SAP our energy. And now we thought, okay, what now we have these positive fantasies and daydreams. They SAP our energy, but we need them. So what can we do to complement people with positive fantasies, with energy? And then we came up with mental contrasting. We said, okay, what you need to do is you need to give people a sound portion of reality. And how to do that? You put in your mind the obstacle of reality in the way. Then people realize, oops, I'm not there yet. I need to overcome the obstacle. This is the resistance which give you energy. And then also by looking at the obstacle, by really facing the obstacle, you understand how you can overcome the obstacle. So this mental contrasting of the positive future, the fantasies about the positive future, and the obstacle in yourself that stands in the way of getting towards the positive future. That is what at the end will make you really get the energy and go for the wishes that are also reachable. And then by looking at the obstacle, you also see if the obstacle is simply insurmountable, or if it doesn't fit in your life right now, then you can postpone it to a good time. If it's too costly, you might adjust it. Or if it's really not surmountable, then you can say, okay, this wish I put to the back burner, but then I get my energy free to actually follow up more promising wishes. So the idea really is this mental contrasting of the positive future and the obstacle of reality, which is the first three letters of woop, Wish, outcome, future, and Then the obstacle mental contrasting will help you to set priorities. This wish I will implement. This wish I will put to the burner. And then I can actually put all my energy in wish fulfillment of one wish and with good conscience put the other wish aside. And then I can put my energy also in more promising other enterprises. So it is a little bit more complex than we thought, and it's a little bit more complex than most people in psychology thought. But it is now that we know that you need really both. You need the positive fantasies, and that gives the action the direction. And you need the obstacle in you, because the obstacle in you tells you you're not there, gives you energy on the one hand, and it gives you by imagining the obstacle, it gives you also the understanding how you can overcome the obstacle and then go all the way. That is what our research has been showing that we looked at a lot of experiments where we induced this mental contrasting versus control groups, where either only positive fantasies or only looking at the obstacles, or looking at nothing, or looking at some other active control groups. And we found in all life domains independent of content, we found that people read, set priorities and go for the feasible and let go from the unfeasible. And when we had that, then we knew why these positive fantasies and daydreams are a problem and what we can do in order to make people get happier by setting priorities and going after their feasible wishes. So that was our, that was basically the first journey. We then asked more questions on how does mental contrasting work? And then can we teach mental contrasting to people so they apply it to themselves? And then what can we do in order to still strengthen the exercise so that people can overcome the obstacles in difficult situations. And that research then also led to whoop. So first we had mental contrasting is a conscious exercise. So you define the wish, you define the best outcome, you imagine the best outcome, you switch to the obstacle, you define the obstacle and you imagine the obstacle. So that is conscious, meaning you think about it. But then what is the neat thing in mental contrasting? It has non conscious consequences. So consequences which are out of awareness, you don't even realize them. And these non conscious consequences then lead you into behavior. And these non conscious consequences are first cognitive. So mental contrasting links the positive future to the obstacle and the obstacle to the instrumental means to overcome obstacle. It changes the meaning of reality so that you recognize the obstacle. So the invitation to a party is not a fun invitation anymore. It's now the obstacle to doing well on the next day for an interview. It gives you the Energy you can measure that blood blood pressure goes up, it bolsters you against negative feedback by causing you processing the negative feedback. So you take the negative feedback in, but you don't take it personally, so it doesn't diminish your sense of competence. So it has all these neat non conscious consequences. And we know that these non conscious consequences then help us actually act in the respective situation so that you can overcome your obstacle. So meaning the quick action in the moment is mediated or is guided by these non conscious consequences which happen outside of people's awareness. And these are then instilled by the conscious exercise of mental contrasting. So that was our journey here. And then once we knew the mechanisms, we told people how to do it. You know, just easy teacher mental contrasting and then see whether they can apply it in their own context. And managers were more successful in setting priorities in their decisions, in dealing with the bosses and doing some project successfully and others letting go. People were more successful in negotiating contracts. People were more successful in school children were more successful in language learning, they were more successful in eating healthier, losing more weight, in doing more exercise. And all these things which we talk about day by day. And also it has a lot of helpful consequences in emotion control. If you want to control your anger or your feelings of regret, or if you want to control your anxiety, mental contrasting is helpful too. But you can learn it and you apply it and then it helps you for your daily life. And then if you really ask for whoop, the final step, the P, we know for mental contrasting that it already has this non conscious link between the obstacle and the instrumental behavior to overcome obstacle. Now we wanted to strengthen that link even more because sometimes the obstacles are really tricky. The obstacles are such that they are very strong impulses or very strong emotions. So if you want to bolster that link, then you can make a plan. And that's the P. And the plan in the context of mental contrasting looks like if obstacle do you imagine the obstacle, then I will. And now you define the behavior to overcome obstacle. Behavior to overcome obstacle. So the idea really is that is then planned will strengthen the link between the obstacle and the action or the thought. You can tell you once the obstacle occurs. And that is neat because this if then planning has been shown to work a lot if it had been filled by the researchers with the content. But now in the context of mental contrasting, you can fill it yourself with the content that you think works best. So because mental contrasting and plan or whoop wish outcome, imagine obstacle, imagine and plan, it's Just a structure. It's like a tool, it gives you the structure. But everybody needs to fill in their own content. And why does everybody need to fill in their own content? Because you have your needs and another person has other needs and another person has other needs again. So you bring your needs which define then the wishes to the situation. And similarly with the outcome and the obstacle, everybody has their own feelings. That's the reason why also the outcome is just your outcome. You might feel happy when wish fulfilling, or you might feel relieved, or you might feel free, or you might feel kind of that you can now go the next step. Whatever it is, it's your feeling and you need to put it in. And then similarly for the outcome to the obstacle. So when people guide others through whoop, they're very tempted to tell the person who goes through whoop, oh, I know what your obstacle is. The only person who knows what the obstacle is is you. Because it's your experience, it's your life, it's what you have as a problem might be a completely different obstacle in someone else. So great if somebody goes with you through a whoop, but don't accept the advice. The advice cannot work because it is your life, your wish, outcome, obstacle and plan. So whoop is just the structure. And you need to be a little bit meticulous in looking at the structure and keeping the structure, because as soon as you change the structure, things might not work anymore. So for example, if you switch the O's, not a good idea. We find in experimental research that if you switch the O's no effect. So you really need to go through the whoop exercise as prescribed. But you can fill in any of your contents. And whoop is like a skill, so the more you practice it, the better. Practice whoop. Like you used to practice riding a bicycle or learning to swim. So once you practice riding the bicycle, you can ride wherever you want. Once you practice how to go through a whoop, you can take a whoop with any wish in any direction. But you need to practice a little bit. You need to customize it to you. And you can apply it to long term wishes, life wishes. What do I really want in life? You can apply it to year long wishes for the next year, for the next four weeks, for the next 24 hours, for the next meeting, for tonight. Tonight is Friday.

Huh?

What is my wish for tonight? What would I really want for tonight? Something that I can fulfill, but which is challenging. And then you go through and you will see that embellishes your life even when you're feeling good and everything's fine, you can always make it a little better. And in stressful times it's really good. But in stressful times it's really good also once you practice it a little bit beforehand because then it comes so easy. And at the beginning you might have some questions and you can always turn to us with questions.

Bless you, Gabrielle. Master class on Rethinking positive thinking Right there. There is no more powerful tool you can use than this. There may be others that are tied for this, but there's nothing more powerful in my personal experience in having worked with as many people as we've worked with now. So Gabrielle, such a gift to hear you describe it with such brilliant clarity and precise thinking. And just to go back. So let me just restate. Nat, please make sure we've shared the Rethinking positive thinking philosopher's note in which you can get the book. This. This is a must tool for our protocol. It's what I talk about in my book right after I define hope. This is how you operationalize it. And again, the beautiful nuance of your description, you know, of the positive fantasy and just seeing that better future, reducing the energy because you relax and you've convinced your you have it. And then what. What rose for me in that moment was by not then fulfilling the fantasy, you reduce your sense of self efficacy. So your expectations to be able to get something like it in the future are diminished. And the vicious cycle that occurs when one just stops with the fantasy and they don't rub it up against reality the way that you encourage us to do and then create the plan that will help us meet that or brilliant point that I saw a bunch of people in the chat get. But I want to highlight again, when you whoop, you may find that the obstacles are insurmountable or you don't want to pay the price in order to surmount those obstacles. But that's really powerful. Rather than wasting days or weeks or months or years of your life fantasizing about something you don't really want and or think you can get, which will then erode the efficacy that you needed in order to do something meaningful. Goosebumps and tears. I mean that's such a transformative idea. Like these are really, really important ideas, especially in a culture in which staring at vision boards has become so ubiquitous. Bring it into the lab. Go through this process mentally. Contrast. Throw it away if it deserves to be thrown away or put it to the side if it deserves to be put aside. But Gabrielle, that was so beautiful and so powerful, period. Is there anything else you want to share on that?

Because yeah, I do want to share something. At the risk that some people might now misunderstand, but once they get into the material, they will understand. Now, we started with hope. I want to go full circle back to hope. We found that positive fantasies are detrimental when it comes to implementing our dreams and wishes. So you could say, well, you found that hope is not very helpful. It's more poisonous. Because if you only have positive fantasies, you do less than mental contrasting. Yes, that is true for wishes that are feasible where you can overcome your obstacle. That is true. Don't daydream only for those wishes where you can actually overcome the obstacle. And don't daydream for wishes where you can't overcome the obstacle, but you have better alternatives. But there are some situations in life where you can not reach your wishes, nor can you leave your wishes. And for those, you can actually use your daydreams. So look at the pandemic. In the pandemic, nobody of us at the beginning could actually change was a fact we had the pandemic. Or look at the wars in the world. We cannot change them. What we can do is protect us against the virus. And what we can do is think about possibilities and do help people who are struck by wars. So for those things where you really cannot do anything, keep up your hope, keep up your fantasies only. But for those situations where you identify, either I can overcome the obstacle or I can get out of the wish fulfillment and put myself in support of wishes that are feasible, then do the mental contrasting. So in other words, when you think about the pandemic, don't mourn about that you cannot change the pandemic. Get out of the wish that you can change the pandemic, Then you get the energy to accept that there is the pandemic. And then you can have other wishes, such as I protect myself and I protect the others from the virus, because otherwise all that energy will be gulped up by this, okay, I want to change something which I cannot change. So these positive fantasies and the hope are reserved for the situations where there is neither a solution through action nor a better alternative. There you can keep up your hopes that one day it will be better. But whenever you feel you can do something to overcome the obstacle, or you can get out of the wish fulfillment into more practical, promising, feasible other wishes than do mental contrasting. So in that respect, the old hope is fine, but only for inescapable situations, mental contrasting is there for bringing you Back to life, taking you out for five minutes during the exercise and then pushing you right into life, interacting with others. And you will see, you will discover a lot of new things, new wishes, new obstacles which you might have had for years, never looked at. And then your life will change, your interactions will change. So have fun on the Discovery tour.

As we like to say. Good luck with that. Two things arise for me. One, with the pandemic, the way that I encourage art, the way I frame up hope, is more Rick Schneider's idea that it's a, you know, desired, better future. So I can see an inspiring goal and target in a future that's better, a sense of agency that I can actually do something to help create that better future. And then a plan, a set of pathways and a plan B, C, D in order to move toward that and try to map that over with your whoop. And even with the pandemic, it all starts with radical acceptance. Whether it's the pandemic or my financial challenges or my relationship challenges or my health challenges, radically accepting that. But even the way I would and did break down the pandemic thing was, all right, what do I want? What's missing now is a lot of things, but a sense of safety and for almost all of us, of course, social connection. So then I actually whooped it in this context, and it worked for me because I can look at it and go, all right, well, I'm not going to ignore reality because life has changed. It's fundamentally different today than it was pre pandemic in so many ways. But what's my wish? My wish is that I'm able to maintain connection during this challenging time. The outcome is, well, I'm going to feel that real, powerful, important intimacy with those with whom I don't share X square feet in a house. All right, cool. What's the obstacle? Well, I. There's those within me and those outside of me, and the ones outside of me are very real right now. And then what's my plan? To work within the constraints of my reality to create the next best version of that wish and outcome within those constraints and obstacles. But I found that helpful. Even in that situation where there appears not to be anything I can do about it, there's often some smaller thing that I can do that allows me to maintain that agency.

That's exactly it. As soon as you have the obstacle, you will understand what you can do. But the radical acceptance needs to come also through whoop, because you need to understand this obstacle. I mean, my obstacle in putting the pandemic away is just sort of insurmountable. And that leads you into radical acceptance. So in order to understand what needs radical acceptance and what doesn't, you need to be not radical. You need to really look at it. And I think for that, whoop is helpful as well.

No, I find whoop helpful for everything, Gabrielle. I mean, earnestly. It's just a remarkable tool. I mean, I'm doing it, everybody. I've done it so many times. You ask my kids, they're 11 and 6, how do you get. How do you get good at anything? And of course, whoop is a skill. They'll tell you. Practice. Then if you want to get better, what do you need to do? Practice some more, they tell you. So I've gotten to a point where I can do it in. In 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 seconds. There's, oh, yeah, this is what I want. All right. That's why. And then this is what I'm going to face. And then boom. And it's such a beautiful frame that I always have to use our metaphor. Guys, ready at hand right there. To put to work. I know we're at our time. I would. Do you have another moment or two or minute?

Sure, no problem.

To bring it back to you and your practices, I playfully joke that I don't agree with Sigmund Freud about a lot of things, but I think he got it right when he talked about, again, nuanced conversation, that a good life comes down to our work and our love, to finding fulfillment in our work and our love. And then I playfully say, yes, yes, yes, but if your energy, your sense of vitality isn't optimal because of poor lifestyle choices, good luck showing up in your work or your love. So we call that our big three. Energy, work, and love. So I'm curious to hear your. The key distinctions you've made in your life personally that have helped you create the most energy in your life. And then the key practices in your work that have helped you show up with such consistent productivity over the decades. And then at a key distinction that you've embodied in your love, to the extent you're opening to sharing any kind of theoretical distinctions you've made in practical applications that you think we may both enjoy hearing and benefit from hearing and kind of consider installing in our lives, I'd love to hear.

Can you rephrase the questions?

What's the number one thing that you've done to get your energy to optimal levels in your life?

You know what? I don't know what optimal Level is that's a problem because sometimes I put in too much energy and sometimes I don't, I have too little energy now. I don't know when there is optimal. That's one thing. And the other thing is I see that how much energy you put into something, it's always a risk because you put a lot of energy into a project and it doesn't work out or you put in little energy and it does work out. So you never know how much energy you need in order to make the project flourish the most. So I would say put in so much energy as you feel is okay for you. And if you put in a little bit more energy and you suffer a little bit, who cares? Doesn't really matter. But don't put in energy. Kind of with the head through the wall, do a whoop beforehand. Then you know how much energy you need to put in. And I think for that, if I had had whoop when I was a child or when I was a young person or, you know, years before, I think my life would have gone really different. I think I would have made a lot of more clever choices, especially also in terms of energy. I would have understood better that things look really, that probably won't work out. And I would have pulled away from putting so much energy and the other way around. So I think whoop helps you to calibrate the energy. Whether this is optimal or not, we never will know because we always have the idea. If I put in more energy, it would have worked out. So we don't know. I think. I don't know when there is optimal energy, but I think with whoop, you are more successful in balancing your energy into the promising projects and less so into the non promising.

Brilliant. I love it. We're back to whoop right where we belong. That is so good, Gabrielle. I so appreciate you deeply, profoundly.

Well, thank you for having me. That was really fun. It was really great. And for all the people who listen or who might listen also on the recording, please don't hesitate to contact us via the Book My Life website. You can always contact us. We're super happy to hear from you. And you know, if you knew how happy we are from here to hear from you, you would all write to me.

Gabrielle, that's so great. And let's just make it, let's make sure it's on the recording. Where's the best place for people to find you so they can experience more of you and your work and send you notes of appreciation, et cetera?

The best is the whoopmylife.org website.

Okay.

It has a contact on there and the respective email. So you can always send me emails there. You can also look at my NYU email address. Both are working, but the whoopmylive.org website. I would be really grateful if you put your questions and your experiences in there. Then we, we might ask you whether we can put it on the website so we can put your experience on the website. We would be super happy to hear from you. That's great. And then one final thing. Maybe we need to redo the Whoop app because we want to link it to the new AI development. So if anybody has a good idea on how to sponsor or how to get this really expensive project on the way, also in terms of finance, please let me know. We would love to do that now.

Oh, that's so exciting. So whoop. My life.org is the website. Gabrielle, we need to talk on the other side of this as well. I saw Vlad, one of our community members who's in Europe now, who I'm sure will have good ideas on the final point you made there too, suggests that we need to get you onto our social platform. So we haven't talked in a while, but Heroic now has its kind of private beta social platform. That's our alternative to the Facebooks and Instagrams and TikToks of the world, in which I'm. I'm so excited to profile you and to be able to connect our community to you there and your community to you and to the rest of our community there. And then I'm also excited to chat more about how we may be able to support you with your app initiative. And I'm sure others here will have some great ideas. But bless you. I can't wait to see you when I'm in New York.

Finally.

I know, right?

All right, thank you. Thank you everyone for your open ears and for listening to the long story.

You are a wonderful human being, Gabrielle. Have a great rest of the day.

Thank you. You too. Happy Friday.

Yes. Have a great weekend. Bye.

Bye.

Hard to get any better than that. Talk about soul force. What a beautiful human being, huh? In every sense of that word. Oh, my goodness. What a. What a gift. What a privilege. I'm going to say it again. Rethinking positive thinking. Check out the notes. Check out her website. Practice Whoop. I. I literally don't go a day without practicing whoop. Even if it's just a 10 second quick thing. I just, I, I now see everything in my life through that It's a combination of that and targeted thinking. What do I want? Radical acceptance of what is. What do I want? What do I need to do to get it? Boom. Take action. Like, between the two of those, we're in a good position, but there you go. That was fun. I'm gonna move out of my hotel in Houston. Here. Got a passport. We're good to go. Excited for my trip next week. And Nat, if you can connect everyone, that would be great. Let's flip the switch one more time. Take a deep breath. Feel Gabrielle's presence, her humility, her wisdom, her joy, her precision in thinking and communicating. Let's remember not to take incredible human beings like her and our other guides in life for granted. As granted, beam her some some virtual love. If you feel so inspired, go to our website, send her some love, let her know you enjoyed this chat, and go practice your whoop heroes. Nat, if you can connect us all, that'd be great. Good to see you all. Until I see you next time, which will be day one tomorrow.