68: On the self-help taboo of staying inside your comfort zone with Andy Molinsky

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Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Pivot Podcast. I am really excited to be here today with Andy Molinski, who is a professor at Brandeis University's International Business School. And I knew it was time to have Andy on the podcast when an advanced copy of his book Reach arrived. It's the subtitle is A new strategy to help you step outside your comfort zone, rise to the challenge, and build confidence. Andy helps people develop the insights and courage necessary to act outside of their personal and cultural comfort zones when doing important but challenging tasks in work and life. His first book, Global Dexterity, received the Axiom Award Silver Medal for best business book in international business and globalization. And his new book, Reach, came out in January of 2017 with the same publisher as Pivot. So, Andy, without further ado, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

I'm curious to know what your biggest comfort zone challenge was that maybe even sparked doing this research in the first place.

Oh my God, I've had so many. I think, you know, I was the kid in college who never spoke in class. I was in the back. You know, my cheeks would get red, my heart would feel like it's beating out of my chest and I might raise my hand but then put it back down. And I was terrified to speak in class. I remember my first job, which was as a professor at the University of Southern California, USC Business School. I remember being asked to give talks, not because I was great, but because I was a professor at USC and companies felt that I had something to say. And I remember being terrified.

Of these opportunities. About 20 years ago, a company, I remember one time it was, I think Fox News or someone contacted me to give a keynote speech. And nowadays if that happens, I'm like, yeah, sign me up, I'm there. Twenty years ago, I was terrified. I remember looking at my calendar and seeing that it was completely open on the date that they were recommending. But then I had to kind of tell a little white lie and say, you know, I'm really sorry that that date's not going to work for me. Like, crossing my fingers that they wouldn't just say, oh, how about the next day?

I used to be nervous introducing myself in class in a small breakout. Not even the big lecture at university, just small breakouts of 20 people. My heart would be pounding, I would turn red. I was nervous the whole time just to go around the circle and say, absolutely.

In networking, all sorts of things.

And it continues today. But to grow and learn and develop, to take on new roles, to have new responsibilities, especially at key pivot points in your career and in your life, you're gonna have to step outside your comfort zone. So I've always struggled at it, but I've always thought a lot about it and I've always tried to have the courage to do it.

I love how early in the book you give the diagram example that many of us have seen. There's a big circle. Well, there's a small circle called your comfort zone. And then next to it there's an even bigger circle that says where the magic happens. And we probably all, I mean, I would imagine most of us listening have seen this diagram and on some level we get it that the magic happen outside of your comfort zone. Cool. But what you say in the book is, it kind of, as much as this image has inspired you, it also frustrates you because how do we bridge the gap between those two things?

Yeah, exactly. There's no way from one to the other. I mean, it's clear if you look on the Internet that comfort zones get a really bad rap.

That's so true.

If you Google them, it's like, get out of your comfort zone. Life only begins on the edge of your comfort zone. Good things never grew in comfort, you know, or take that leap. And.

I think that I've been frustrated because I like motivational memes as much as the next person. But I really want a sensible, research backed framework to help me get from the place where I'm struggling or where I'm fearful of something to somewhere where I can start to be successful. And that's not what I found on the Internet. I guess, not surprisingly.

That'S in part what inspired me to write the book.

It's true that the comfort zone really gets as a bad rep. Someone surprised me. I was giving a keynote speech recently, and there was a lot of people present, maybe 200 in the audience and 1500 live streaming. And the final question before we all parted ways was, well, why can't you just pivot from your comfort zone? Because in my speech as well, I talk about comfort zone versus the stretch zone. And you just don't stretch so far. You're in your panic zone. But how do you find this sweet spot? And it was. It's so memorable to me because in the moment, I kind of tilted my head to the side and I said, well, I don't know if your comfort zone is working for you. Like, go ahead and pivot from there. There's. There on some level, there's nothing saying that you have to stretch outside of it or you can only grow if you stretch outside. But I'm curious what your perspective on that is. Is it possible to grow from a comfort zone, or is that inherently a sign that we're not stretching ourselves and reaching enough?

No, I think it's a really good question.

I remember early on talking about my book to someone who's a psychologist, and she said to me, you know, I actually quite like my comfort zone.

And she's like, well, it's taboo to.

Admit that, to say that, you know, it's right. I actually wrote a Harvard Business Review article a couple of months ago about this exact topic. You know, when it's okay to stay right in your comfort zone? You know, I think my view is that is that there's a time and a place.

In terms of comfort zones. I remember early on in my career, this wasn't at the beginning of my career, but kind of a little bit mid career. Although I guess that implies my career is over. So that's not true. Maybe it's part way in. I was and am an academic. And to succeed, at least conventionally speaking, in the academic world, you have to write research papers. And those research papers need to be highly acclaimed and in your colleagues have to respect them and so on and so forth. And it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort to do it. But I always, always, ever since I even entered the field, wanted to do what I'm doing now, like speaking with you, like making an impact on everyday people and situations and really try to sort of help in a broader way. I wanted to do that even earlier on.

And that would have certainly been outside my comfort zone because I was trained as a researcher. But I realized And I came to conclusion at that point in my life when I was trying to get tenure, which is promotion, I was working feverishly on these things, on these research papers. And by the way, I just had my first child. My wife and I had our first child. So was that the time to make that major stretch outside my comfort zone? I came to the conclusion that it wasn't. And I think I was right. And I think there are a lot of situations in our lives. If you think of your life as like a portfolio. Just like we have stocks and bonds in our portfolio, we have situations and circumstances in our portfolios. Now, there are certain situations in our life that are in our stretch zone. You could say our learning zone. There are certain situations in our life that are in our panic zone that we just really avoid. And then there are certain situations in our comfort zone. And I don't think that's bad that there's a variety of situations, just like a variety of stocks and bonds, you want to have that diversity. I think if your whole portfolio of situations were either entirely in your comfort zone. Yeah, you probably should stretch a bit. Or if they're entirely in your, like, learning panic zone, you know, you're probably like, living life on the edge.

So I love that thinking of it like a portfolio. And it's true. Sometimes the rug gets pulled on every single area and it's total apocalypse. And we have to just. Oh, the whole thing just stretches our identity and almost reprograms ourselves to the core. Barring that, I agree. It's nice to. If you're really stretched in one area, like relationships. Okay, it's nice. Nice if in your career, maybe you're growing, you're not stagnant, but not completely flipping everything upside down all at once, that it is nice to have a seesaw. Or better how you described it as a portfolio. I find it interesting in the book, you talk about five challenges to getting out of our comfort zone, and they all resonate so much. Authenticity, likability, worrying that people won't like us somehow if we do this thing. We're contemplating competence. Am I cut out for this resentment and morality? I'm curious to know, Andy, which one do you struggle with the most? And I'll try and think about it for myself, too.

I think it depends on the situation probably too. But gosh, it's a good question. So let's. I think it's useful for me to think of a particular situation, and one good one for me would be doing social media.

Oh, gosh, me too.

So like, you know, I am.

I was not. This is going to reveal some personal information. I was not on any social media pretty much before 2013. I didn't do Facebook, I didn't have an account, I didn't do Twitter. I used to laugh at my brother who did Twitter. I was like, what are you doing? Talking about your breakfast every day or something. I sort of belittled it. I then became an author and I realized that in today's world, as an author, you need to do this stuff. You want to do it too, to communicate and to build a network of folks who are interested in similar things that you are. And I started to tweet and post and I have to tell you, it is very still. I've grown more comfortable with it, but at least initially and for a while it felt incredibly inauthentic.

Encapsulating my sort of social media Persona. It just felt so fake. I felt incompetent. I'm like, I'm not of the digital native generation. So I felt like I was fumbling all the time, just completely blowing it all the time. And then the likability one was a big one, which was that, oh my God, people are gonna think that I'm the biggest jerk. Like I'm like promoting myself to no end and they're gonna think I am just like this self promotional jerk. And to some extent I still feel all those a little bit, but certainly less than I used to.

I know you bring up an interesting point, which is what is the difference? I mean, there's stretching outside of one's comfort zone in a way that feels totally aligned and authentic and you know, like, man, this is hard, but it's so worth it for me. Writing a book would fall under that versus for me, social media getting too far into it. It's totally uncomfortable in a way that isn't joyful. So if I spend too much time on it, if I get sucked in too much, I don't feel like I'm doing deep work. And so it's interesting. How do you gauge the difference between those two?

Between, say again?

Let's say really authentic stretching outside of the comfort zone. Because authenticity is a big one for me too. Versus when you're stretching, yes, you're uncomfortable as hell and it's not even particularly joyful. Maybe it just doesn't feel worth it, like to. I don't know. In a way it kind of comes to the conversation of strengths based next steps versus weaknesses. How much do you shore up on weaknesses by going out of your Comfort zone. And how much do you say, well, it's just outside of the zone that I even care about. It's almost like there's a third Venn diagram somehow.

Or how quickly do you like. And it's tough because you can quickly come to the conclusion that, like, this is just not joyful, this is just not for me. Or you could come to the a more preliminary hypothesis that, you know, huh. Right now I'm really in the learning phase and as is true with a lot of things in my life, and this just does not feel right at first. But I've known in my life that there have been some things where it hasn't felt right at first, but then I grow into it. Kind of like buying a new pair of shoes.

It doesn't feel right at first, but then after a while you break them in and it actually feels much more comfortable. Now that's not true with everything. Sometimes the early signal is a real true signal, but that's oftentimes a tough sort of line to walk, to not sort of draw too early a conclusion, but also to hear your own feelings and voice and honor them.

I like what you said of maintaining the notion of a hypothesis, at least to start.

It brings up another area which maybe it falls into one of your existing five. But one particular challenge for me when stepping outside my comfort zone is maybe something that I had done in the past or a way of working worked, or even something like work. Going from pivot to looking toward the next book.

It feels like.

Well, if this thing has worked, what if I change? What if I go in a completely different direction? A whole other set of topics or even a style of writing or output, would people come along for that journey? So it seems like one challenge is, and I often cite this John Maxwell quote, say no to the good so you can say yes to the best. Sometimes we have to say no to something good or that's working in our comfort zone in order to say yes to the unknown. Not even knowing if the next steps outside of their comfort zone are going to prove fruitful in the traditional sense of the word.

Yeah, it's interesting and I would agree with you.

I guess part of it really hinges on.

Your source of conviction about why you're pursuing that. So let's say you've written a nonfiction sort of self help oriented book and then you decide you want to try to write a graphic novel. Right?

Shout out Dan Pink. Yeah, right.

So.

Maybe what drives you? And by the way, it's probably a good question of whether people will come along for the ride. But hopefully the reason you're doing it isn't for that. I would imagine that the reason that someone would do that would be more of an intrinsic motivation.

I think, looking at why you're passionate about doing what that activity happens to be. And then you'll probably figure out your strategy to bring people along, I would imagine. But no, it's a good question, I think, because we.

I think it's a natural thing to pivot slightly, to leverage our strengths in the 45 degree range so that we're pretty close to what we have been doing and what we're good at and what people know us for. And it's just the next twist or the next tweak. And taking the step beyond that is a challenge.

Talk to us about the vicious cycle of avoidance.

Yeah, so this is where people get caught. And this is what happens when you're fearful of things, you're afraid of a snake.

And you then avoid opportunities when you could possibly encounter a snake, which, by the way, is great because then you get the relief, short term of not having to deal with that snake. But then the next time that you confront or have an opportunity to confront a snake, it's not going to be easier, it's going to be harder. Right. And then if you think of that over time cyclically, it gets increasingly hard and you increasingly avoid now.

And doesn't life keep sending us snakes, like, bigger and bigger snakes? Like, almost knowing that's the thing you're avoiding?

Exactly. Because, like, I mean, like I was thinking, like, as I was talking, it's like, well, you know, if you work in the zoo or if you work in the jungle, a literal snake is indeed a problem. But for some of us, we can avoid those. We could avoid a snake. But.

What if your snake is challenges at your job or making small talk with people you don't know or networking or trying something new? If you are avoiding in that way, you do get into a vicious cycle of avoidance. And you can limit your growth and you probably will limit your growth. I find people are pretty good at rationalizing away why they're avoiding. You know what I mean? Like, so that, you know, no, I don't really need to give speeches. I don't really need to write a. Books are dime a dozen. Everyone's writing one. It's not really that important. Even though, like, you really would love to be able to do it, but you're avoiding it because you're terrified of doing it. So, you know, I think people can get Caught in the avoidance cycle. And that's exactly the motivation for my approach to helping people step outside their comfort zone in sort of breaking that cycle.

Speaking of your approach, you have three essential resources that can help us do that break out of that cycle. Conviction, customization, and clarity. I'm wondering if you can say a quick word about each. But particularly I found it interesting, within clarity, there's a strategy of referring to yourself in the third person, which I'd love to hear more about.

Yeah, sure.

So conviction is basically that sense of purpose when you're acting outside your comfort zone. You're going against the grain of your habit, of your personality, of your kind of go to typical comfortable strategy. And so you need a source of conviction. What's in it for you? And sometimes it's professional, sometimes it's personal. I have to tell you, for me, it's oftentimes around my kids, I've got two kids and I'm often trying to have them stretch outside their comfort zone. And then if I am avoiding stuff, I'm not the role model I want to be. So that's conviction. Customization is pretty cool. I have to say. This is like the most surprising and exciting thing I found in my research. And it's the idea that you can customize the situation that you're thinking about that's outside your comfort zone. Sort of almost like a tailor would customize a piece of clothing that you bring to him or her. You know, they'll tweak it in little ways that it fits for you, but of course it's still the same piece of clothing. And metaphorically speaking, you can do the same to your situation. You can tweak your body language, you can tweak the way you say something. You can tweak timing. You can sometimes bring a prop that helps you or tweak the context. I'll give you one. We don't have a lot of time, but I'll give you one quick example. Someone the other day emailed me who has struggled with small talk for the longest time. And she said she's socially awkward and has a hard time, but she really wants to meet people. She decided to bring a selfie stick to social get togethers, which is kind of funny. She loves photography and all of a sudden that little prop catalyzed her experience and completely flipped it and it enabled her to engage in conversations and ultimately share pictures and so on and so forth. And frankly, her life changed because of that little minor customization or tweak. Just want. I've Got hundreds of them in the book and in the training I do. I help people with that. So you've got conviction and customization. Clarity is the last one. And the basic idea of clarity is that oftentimes when we're thinking of stretching outside our comfort zone and sort of these scary type of situations, I think we tend to catastrophize. We look at the worst possible situation, the worst possible outcome. Like I'm thinking of giving a talk or a speech and I'm just like we talked about this a little earlier. I'm terrified. I'm just going to, you know, fail. I'm going to faint. I'm going to look like a total fool, therefore I'm not doing it right. What clarity is, is it's the ability. And I found people who are more successful at stepping outside their comfort zone were able to do this to sort of claim that more middle ground perspective. You know, I don't have to be the best speaker, TED speaker ever. And I'm also probably not going to faint on stage. You know what? I'll probably be okay. There'll be parts that won't be as good, but I'm going to learn and I'll get better next time. You know, that's sort of like kind of more grounded middle of the road. Perspect is quite helpful when you're to develop that. And I have tools in the book that helps people develop that. And the piece that you referenced was there is some evidence actually from a researcher at University of Michigan, a psychologist, that says that if you can refer to yourself in the third person, sort of like Jenny, you know, you can do this. It provides a little bit, a teeny little bit of psychological distance. And sometimes psychological distance is helpful for gaining that perspective. That's critical for claiming that more realistic middle ground.

We may have even read the same research. But the research I saw and loved, that I never forgot, was if you see yourself as the character in a movie and why is this happening to your character? Why right now in this way with these exact supporting characters? What's the hero's journey? If we're all watching the movie of your life, what are you meant to do in this moment to overcome this epic obstacle in your path? And I love too what you said about the middle ground and just being somewhat realistic. I consider myself an optimistic realist, or maybe I'm a realistic optimist, I don't know. But I think it's very helpful after reaching as well, because there are so many times I come off of a Podcast interview where I'm interviewing or a keynote speech and I come off the stage and it would be so easy to let my inner, I don't know, comfort zone gatekeeper be like, man, you messed that up. You stepped on your words. Here you look what you did. Or my inner perfectionist. And so I also, when I come out of those situations, I say to myself, well, here's what I'm proud of, here's what I can celebrate. I'm so grateful I did it. I prepared really well. And yep, it wasn't perfect, just like nothing is. And I have to remind myself that the outcome itself is most likely going to be somewhere in that middle, hopefully middle to high feeling of accomplishment. But it certainly doesn't need to be perfect. And that helps me cap the reach as well on the other side.

And also that the, that the slip ups and mistakes and aspects that you wish could have been better. Our data for improving.

Yes, exactly. Always, always. We can see all of these reaches as no matter the outcomes. It's an incredible learning experience. That's success.

So the last question before we wrap up, I just have to ask, what is your next big reach?

Well, my next big reach is that I'm creating an online course about helping people to learn to successfully step outside their comfort zones. So I'm super excited about this.

But that's a reach for me. I've never done anything like that before, but I'm really excited. I want to give people a real, concrete, actionable tool that they can take. People who are interested in self improvement and stepping outside their comfort zone with some really good tools and experiences. That's what I'm doing and it's a reach for me. But my source of conviction, addiction is that I want to do something that helps as many people as I can. And so this is a really cool, stimulating way for me to do that. And so that's what I'm working on right now.

I love it. It's so interesting how our reaches are also the ways that we can best support people, because we are. I often say to coaching clients, you're patient zero. You're the one in the thick of this conundrum or this situation. And so I love Andy just hearing how through you reaching and you stretching, you're also able to help others. Same. Thank you so much for your work and for this conversation. It's been so wonderful. And I remember you interviewed me for your podcast and I came off of that. For everyone listening, you can't see Andy, but he has just the kindest eyes and the best energy and spirit. And I knew that we had to have a conversation for the Pivot podcast as well. So thank you so much Andy. Where can people find you if they want to keep in touch?

Well, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it. And yeah, absolutely, I would love to hear from people. So My website is www.anymolinsky.com. that's a N--Y M O L I N S K-Y.com and don't worry if you get the spelling wrong. I actually have bought I bought the two URL domains of the most common misspellings of my name. So.

Also on LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter. So please don't be a stranger and I'd love to hear from you.

Awesome. Thank you Andy. Thanks everyone for listening.

Thank you so much.

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Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.