1037: A Better Approach to Chasing Goals: Tiny Experiments with Anne-Laure Le Cunff

Anne-Laure Le Cunff: A lot of people discover sources of happiness in their life, not because they had a perfect vision of what that would look like, but because they put themselves in lots of different situations, talked to a lot of people, discovered new perspectives, got outside of their comfort zone and tried these new things, and then they experienced that happiness.

That's Anne-Laure Le Cunff. She's a former Googler turned neuroscientist and the founder of Nest Labs. And today she's sharing some neuroscience wisdom from her latest book, Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World. So you'll learn, one, the two approaches to setting goals, two, the fallacy that leads to regret, and three, how to handle frustrations and disappointments. And if you'd like a summary write-up of some of these actionable takeaways, I suggest you sign up for the free gold nugget email newsletter at awesome@yourjob.com. I'm Pete McKaitis. This is How to Be Awesome at Your Job. And now here's Anne-Laure. Anne-Laure, welcome.

Thanks for having me.

Well, I'm excited to dig into your wisdom associated with tiny experiments. You do a lot of research and put together these tools in a practical, applicable way, which is kind of what we're into. Can you tell us any super surprising and fascinating discoveries you made as you were doing the research and putting this stuff together?

To me, the most surprising thing was how many of the decisions we make at work or in life in general are actually following automated scripts that we kind of copy-paste from other people. And a lot of them are useful. You don't wanna overthink every single decision, and sometimes someone has done the thing you wanna do in a way that makes sense for you to just copy, right? But a lot of these copy-pasting that are happening are happening subconsciously. So that was interesting to me to just notice the number of decisions we make that are not truly our own decisions.

Okay. And so they just come from whatever is around us, huh?

Exactly. We're social creatures and we learn from observing others, and which again is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is actually worth it taking sometimes a second, especially for big decisions, asking yourself, where is this choice coming from and am I making this Is this choice based on what I actually want to do and explore and achieve with this particular project or area of my life? Or am I just automatically copy-pasting what someone else has been doing? Okay.

Good to know. And can you tell us in terms of the folks you've, you've worked with doing these tiny experiments, any really cool or especially inspiring stories that leap to mind of, of folks who did the stuff and saw cool results?

Yes. A lot of people I work with start experimenting in their jobs and the, for me, the most amazing thing is when they managed to get other people to around them, their colleagues to experiment with them. And so I've seen people now who literally run tiny experiments together as a team, and every month they have a 1-hour meeting where they catch up and they say, okay, what is the thing you've been trying this month? What did you learn? What can we learn as a team? And because of that, it's also created this psychological safety where it's completely okay to start something new. And say, I'm just running an experiment. I don't know where this is going. I'll report back in one month and we'll see what happens.

Cool. Okay. So then the subtitle of the book, oh, forget tiny experiments, how to live freely in a goal-obsessed world. So could you paint that contrast or distinction for us, the experiments versus goal obsession and, and, and what's kind of like the vibe or the feel of these two different worlds?

Yes, I think visualizing it is helpful to understand the difference between kind of the status quo in terms of how we approach our ambitions and the, the alternative that I describe in the book. So the mental model we tend to use when you talk about success at work and in life in general is the mental model of a ladder in the sense that you have a series of steps you're supposed to go through in a specific order. And when you're done with a specific level, you can go on to the next level. And it's a little bit like this very linear video game where you need to collect all of the points and the artifacts, and then you're allowed to go onto the next level. And this kind of assumes that you already know where you wanna go, that you have this very specific outcome, this very binary definition of success, whether you get there, yes, success, or you don't get there and that's failure. The alternative to this linear model is a more circular model, a loop, cycles of experimentation. And so that's why I contrast the linear goal setting approach to the experimental goal setting approach. And in that case, instead of focusing on this very specific outcome that you want to achieve, you think like a scientist. You start from more of a hypothesis, a research question, and you ask yourself, what might happen if I tried this thing, this particular action, this particular way of approaching a challenge? You collect data, and based on that data, you make decisions. And what's great is that in a world that keeps on changing, that's fairly uncertain, you're not clinging to that illusion that you know what the world is going to look like in 3, 4, or 5 years. You can just trust yourself that if you keep on iterating, collecting data, and experimenting, you're going to grow, you're going to learn, and you're going to evolve with the world.

Okay. Well, could you give us an example of a specific domain in which we may often tend to approach in a, a goal ladder way? And then what that looks like in practice in the alternative tiny experiment way.

I'll take social media. I think this is something we're all using and, uh, whether you're using it as a per— at a personal level or at work, maybe this is something we're all familiar with. So the linear approach to growing an audience on social media would be, I'm going to get to 10,000 followers by the end of the year. That's the linear approach. You have a specific end goal and you're going to work really hard to get there. The experimental approach is to say, I'm going to post twice a day until the end of the year, and then I'm going to see where we're at at the end of the year. I'm going to look at where we're at, what worked and what didn't. And based on that, for my next cycle of experimentation, I'm going to tweak, I'm going to iterate and improve my process. And again, you might not necessarily hit those 10,000 followers by the end of the year, but that's the same as with the linear goal actually. So that hasn't changed, but it's your approach, your mindset that has completely changed. One of them is a lot more experimental and not focused on the outcome, but more focused on the process.

Okay. Understood. And so then, could you share with us a, a cool story of, of this in action in terms of someone really did see some amazingness unfold when they did it this way?

I think one of my favorite examples is, uh, someone in the Nest Labs community that decided to— they wanted to grow their, their professional network. That's something that can feel quite fuzzy, right? Like, how do you grow your professional network? And, and a lot of people might end up attending. We've all been in those, at those work events where we're not quite, or conferences where we're not quite sure what we're doing here. And so what he did is that he designed an experiment where he said that for the next 3 months, every Monday, I'm going to reach out to someone on LinkedIn, someone whose work I admire, someone I heard on a podcast, or maybe I read their newsletter, or I saw something interesting they were working on, and I'll just say hello and can we grab a virtual coffee? And that's it. And so the great thing again is that you're not trying to get to a specific outcome. The only kind of like measure of success is are you doing the thing or not? And so every Monday he sent that cold message on LinkedIn and he had a little tracker for it tracking yes or no. And, uh, he ended up connecting with a lot of people. Some of them became collaborators working on projects and, um, So that was a project that— a tiny experiment that happened, uh, in the past 6 months. And so long-term, I don't necessarily know what's going to happen with that particular experiment, but I can already imagine that this is going to lead to a lot of interesting work, and it will also create a bit of a safety net for this person where even if things end up not really working out with their current job, they'll have now a stronger, better professional network they can reach out to and in case they want to actually start and do something else.

That's cool. And I like that as I'm imagining just sort of the mental, emotional, I don't know, groove, vibe, feeling of, of, of approaching the Tiny Experiment mindset. It's a lot more pleasant in terms of if it were a linear metric goal obsessed kind of a situation, you'd be like, oh, I'm not getting enough meetings on the calendar. Ah, what's wrong? As opposed to if it's a tiny experiment, it makes it more like a game. It's just, oh, this is kind of fun. Oh, let's see what happened. Oh, it's time to check in on my LinkedIn account. Did any cool responses? And then just that whole energy is more pleasant. And along the way, I imagine in my own experience, that results in more creative, flexible, smart ideas along the way, as opposed to when you're just like mad and frustrated, it's not working the way it's supposed to.

Yes. Oh, absolutely. Because when you're experimenting in this way, also, whenever you see that, I don't know, maybe it's been 2 weeks in a row and, and you didn't get a lot of replies, what a scientist does when they're faced with unexpected results, They don't say like, shame, I'm such a bad scientist. I'm terrible. I'm a failure, right? They just look at the results and they ask themselves, ah, that's interesting. What's going on here? What might we want to try or explore or experiment with? And so just using again that experiment of reaching out to people, whether on LinkedIn or other social media platforms, you could say, you know what, this week actually I'm going to tweak the language, language a little bit, or maybe I'll add a little like photo of something that I think is fun or interesting, and I'll be a little bit more creative with the way I design these outreach messages. Because again, as you said, you're not just really trying to get to that specific outcome, you're just experimenting.

Okay. Well, you mentioned that we have some harmful beliefs about success. Can you unpack some of those? Like what are some of the, the most harmful? Why are they harmful? What should we have instead? And, uh, how do we just reinstall our belief systems?

I think to me, the, the most harmful one is thinking that we know where we're going and what we will want in a few years. And also associated with this, with linear goals also, is the idea that if we get to a specific place, if we achieve a particular milestone, whether it's a promotion or anything like that, then we'll be happy. It's this if-then feeling of if I achieve this, then I'll be happy. This is called the arrival fallacy, and, um, a lot of people experience experienced this where you do get to that place of success where defined in a traditional sense, and you realize that I'm still the same person, my problems are still here, and I'm not necessarily much happier because this, I've achieved this goal. What a lot of people end up doing when they find themselves in this situation is that instead of questioning the approach to goals and success, they just figure that, oh, it probably wasn't the right goal. I'm just going to find another one. I'm going to try and climb on to the next rung of the ladder. And that's very harmful because you find yourself on this kind of like treadmill trying to find what is the next success you're going to chase in order to finally be happy. And, uh, and again, and there are studies asking older people about their regrets. A lot of them actually regret having a lot of this, you know, really focusing on this linear path of success in their career. Instead of exploring it a little bit more. And so connected to the first one that I mentioned, this idea that you think you know what you want, whenever you take a step in a direction and you start having more experience, acquiring more skills, connecting with new people, you become a different person. And so your goals and the direction you want to go in and your ambitions are going to evolve. And that's a feature, that's not a bug. So I think embracing this, is actually a lot less harmful than trying to resist it and trying to stick to a fixed plan.

Hmm. The arrival fallacy. I don't think I've heard the phrase, but I, I know of the concept and I think it's so, oh, so, so powerful and, and, and dangerous in terms of if, if I just fill in the blank, get the promotion, get married, have a child, earn X dollars, then I'll be happy. Everything will be fine. All my problems are solved and it's just It's not true. And it's funny how we have our doubts. I think it was John Green who, who wrote, um, The Fault in Our Stars and some other novels, uh, was on the Hilarious World of Depression podcast. And he just, I thought it was so perfect. He said that he was talking to a wealthy person and he said, well, if I just owned a whole plane instead of this fractional lease situation, it's like, oh man. You're still in it. You haven't figured out yet that that's not, that's not how it works. And, and so tell us if folks have their doubts, like, okay, easy for you to say, easy for you to say, Anne-Laure Le Cunff, but, um, I don't know, anything that you can share to disabuse folks of their arrival fallacy?

I still experience it. So I wanna clarify that it is really not about completely getting rid of it because it is such a deeply ingrained psychological mechanism that You're always going to fit. And what's interesting is that the more you are dissatisfied with your current situation, the more likely you are to cling to that arrival fallacy, that if only you had this one thing, everything would be better. So what I really recommend is not necessarily trying to get rid of it, but just catching yourself when that happens, noticing that you're doing that, that you're really hoping and that you're going to be happy only if you achieve that one thing. And then trying to bring yourself back to a more— this is what I call having a more experimental mindset rather than this linear mindset where we feel like, if I only I can climb and I can get to that next level, I'll be happy. Bringing yourself back to that experimental mindset, reminding yourself that this is just a giant playground for you to try new things. You have no idea what's going to happen. You actually have no idea what's going to make you happy. A lot of people discover sources of happiness in their life, not because they had a perfect vision of what that would look like, but because they put themselves in lots of different situations, talked to a lot of people, discovered new perspectives, got outside of their comfort zone and tried these new things. And then they experienced that happiness. It's almost like a surprise, you know, it's like, oh wow, I love this. I don't know, I love water skiing, or I love hosting workshops, or I love mentoring, or I love all of these different things. And there's no way for you to know if you don't try different things.

Yeah. It's fascinating how what we think we will enjoy or not enjoy is often wildly wrong.

Yes.

And I remember one of my all-time favorite consulting projects was working to help out call centers for an insurance company. I was like, wow, that sounds boring. Call centers and insurance. And yet it was, it was the coolest thing because it starts, oh, what the work we are doing is improving the call center employees' experience, which is improving the attrition and retention rates, which is improving customer satisfaction, which is improving profitability. And it was just like, everybody's winning here and it feels really good. I like this kind of people transformational type stuff more so than what seemed more fun, interesting, and sexy. On the front end.

Yes, exactly. And so I think this is really why whenever you're faced with something like this, same as you, if I saw this on paper, I would think that this is the most boring job, right? And I think that's why it's important to really approach those opportunities and saying like, I'm not necessarily going to— if there is a little bit of curiosity, and this is really the compass that I use, right? If there's at least a little bit of curiosity, It may be worth saying, okay, let me just give it a try. Let me treat that as a time-bound experiment and let's see what happens. And again, you kind of start from a hypothesis, and in that case, your hypothesis might be, this is going to be so boring. I'm going to hate it. But this is a hypothesis. I don't have certainty. It's a hypothesis. So now let's test the hypothesis. And it might be that you were correct. That was really boring and good. Now, you know, now you have confirmed your hypothesis after running the experiment, or you might be wrong. And that's the beautiful thing about having this experimental mindset is that a scientist, when they've, when they're wrong, they're actually really happy about it because they learn something new. They, they feel like, oh, I stand corrected. I had this hypothesis, but the data is showing something else. And that's amazing. I just discovered something new. In the case of those personal experiments, that means you discovered something new about yourself, about your work, about the world, and that's actually pretty cool.

That reminds me, I think it was in Adam Grant's book, Think Again. He was talking about interviewing, might've been Daniel Kahneman or some illustrious thinker researcher who said that he loves it when he's wrong, which is Kind of surprising cuz most of us think, oh no, I feel embarrassed, you know, oh, I was wrong. I feel dumb and stupid. I should have known better. And he said, I love it when I'm wrong. That's the way I know that I've really learned something. And I think that's a beautiful reframe right there. So speaking of reframes and good feels, good vibes, you've got a, a section about holistic self-regulation, which sounds handy. So let's say we're, we're in Anne-Laure Le Cunff. We're like, okay, all right, we're gonna do some experiments. We're gonna see what happens. And we're in the midst of them and yet, uh, things aren't going the way we would like or prefer, or we're experiencing some frustrations, disappointments, messes, disasters, whatever. How do we engage in holistic self-regulation?

I like to describe it as a, a little dense. So the issue a lot of people are kind of like facing, and especially if they're doers, high agency people who just wanna fix the problem, is that they might just bypass looking at the actual emotion and the response and just try to find a solution and fix the problem and the, the source of the disruption. And what I really recommend doing is just not doing that, not rushing, taking a moment to go through the first step of that little dance, which is to engage with the emotion, to understand the subjective experience, And I recommend a tool that psychologists call affective labeling. It's, uh, just a, a fancy word to really say naming your emotions. It just means naming your emotions. There's a lot of research showing that by just taking the time to name your emotion, you're going to be able to process it much better. So what's the emotion? So as you said, things are not going as planned, right? Is it worry about whatever other consequences there are going to be because this thing is not working? Is it maybe Is it fear of being judged by your peers or your manager who might be looking and feeling like, oh wow, she didn't do that very well, or she made a mistake? Is it anxiety because you know that you're supposed to present the result or something like that tomorrow, and obviously the data is not what you thought it would be? So what is the emotion? Affective labeling, naming the emotion, and that's already going to help you process it. Only once you've done this, you can go on to the second step of the little dance, which is dealing with the actual consequences. And so you basically, you dealt with the emotion at the— so there's this emotional level, and now you can go at a more like mental cognitive level where you're dealing with the actual problem. And again, there's research showing that you're going to be able to do that much more effectively if you process the emotions before. So those are the two steps. The first one is really processing the subjective experience and then dealing with the objective consequences.

Okay, so I hear that those are very different processes and, and thoughts that you're having, and I could see how you may— well, you tell me, what kind of trouble do I get, or we get ourselves into, if we kind of do both at the same time or skip to the second part and, and don't do any labeling?

So the problem, if you just jumped into solving the problem, is that you're not going to realize how your current emotional state is probably going to impact your judgment. And so you are probably going to make decisions that are driven by those emotions, whether that's the fear, the anxiety, the, the worry. And you might, for example, cancel tomorrow's presentation because you feel like it's not ready because that's driven by the fear of being judged or the anxiety or, or whatever. Or you might make any kind of like rushed choice that you think is rational but is actually driven by the emotion. So that's the big risk. And then the other one is just that Your podcast is called How to Be Awesome at Your Job. If you stay stuck in just processing the emotion and you don't deal with the consequences, you're probably not going to do a great job. So at some point you do need to move on to dealing with the actual consequences. But in general, the challenge I've seen for most people is not the, the dealing with the, the objective consequences, is that they skip the emotional processing. They don't do the affective labeling. And they try to solve the problem straight away when they're still in that state of fear or anxiety or just that stress state.

Well, it's funny you said affective labeling, and I, at first I heard you say effective labeling, like, oh, I wanna do a really good job of labeling it. So I'm curious, there are different typologies, I guess, in terms of how many emotions we humans experience. And I guess there's the Inside Out movie, uh, with, or others. Frameworks that might say we have 7 emotions, but lay it on us. How do we know if our affective labeling is effective labeling? Is it just like, I'm feeling angry, that's that? Or I'm thinking about Marshall Rosenberg's, um, Nonviolent Communication. They'll say things like, oh, I'm feeling angry because my need for respect I don't feel is being met here, which, which I found pretty handy. It's like, okay, but there's like an emotion and then, uh, and perhaps a, a perception of a, of a cause or need, uh, being unmet. That is pretty handy. Or when do you consider the affective labeling done? Is it when I am, am chilled out a little bit about it? I'm not as worked up, or it's when I've, I've said one word, angry, or when am I ready to move on?

Yeah, so it's, uh, it, this is really the emotional regulation part where it's really about paying attention to how you feel in the moment. And sometimes actually just saying, ah, I'm so angry. I don't know, maybe a contractor didn't deliver something on time or whatever. I'm so angry, or I'm disappointed. Like, already, like, just in those few minutes of conversation, I think we've mentioned 6 or 7 different ones. So actually, angry is good if that's what it describes, right? But if after saying this you still feel like, oh, there's something else, you can still go and dig a little bit deeper. And okay, I'm angry, but why? What is the underlying emotion underneath this? Okay. Oh, it's that. And you will, by doing this, like those different layers of affective labeling, you will progressively fill calmer and being able to reengage at a cognitive level because you have dealt with the emotions. So that's one part. The other part is that sometimes while dealing with the actual objective consequences, you might have emotions that pop up again, depending on what you discover, what you're trying to solve. Let's say that you're trying to solve a problem and you discover that the only reason why this entire thing is happening is because one of your colleagues forgot to do something you told them to do. And so again, like you might have an emotion that comes up, you go back to the first step of the little dance, process that, and then deal with the consequence. So there's a term in psychology also called metacognition, which is the ability to observe your own thoughts, your inner landscape. And this is something that you can practice. And at the beginning it might feel like a little bit like, oh, what am I doing? I am angry. That feels weird. But after a while, when you've done it for a while, it will become very natural to go through those steps of the, the dance and going back and forth between the two.

Okay. And you mentioned the underlying stuff in a way, in a way this is dangerous for me because I am very curious and, and could examine something for long, long stretches. But let's say, okay, I'm angry about the contractor not doing the thing right. Okay. And you say, what would be the step associated with getting at the underlying stuff?

So again, in that specific context, it's only doing as much affective labeling as is needed for you to be able to then move on and deal with the objective consequences in the moment. If, and that can happen, you realize that there's something actually quite juicy or interesting in terms of your own cognitive or emotional patterns while you're doing this, or maybe after a while you notice that that every time a certain type of challenge arises at work, you have the same type of emotional reaction, it might be worth digging deeper, but this should happen in a different kind of modality. So for some people it's journaling, for some people it's talking therapy, for some people, whatever it is where you have more space to explore this. Affective labeling is more of an in-the-moment tool to do just enough emotional processing that you're able to think clearly again, that you can then deal with whatever problem you're facing right now.

Okay. I hear you. So with the contractor situation, we might say, okay, I'm angry because he did the thing wrong. And this seems like a pattern in that folks think they could just take advantage of me because I'm so nice or whatever. And so then the goal is, is not to dig into, you know, why am I broken or what's wrong with people in the world today? But rather say, oh, maybe there's a pattern there associated with, uh, perhaps I need to be more assertive or establish boundaries or expectations more candidly, assertively, proactively in my interactions with folks. But we could just sort of note that and park that for my journaling time or therapy time, or when I'm having a nice long walk, and that would be interesting to dig into, as opposed to stop everything, emergency introspection must happen now before I ask for a partial refund or whatever it is I need to do.

Yes, exactly. And this is the, what's really nice is that in that way you can actually just note these things and make sure that they don't remain unexamined. And so you, you still will do that work outside of the current situation, like professional situation you're in. But you're also helping yourself make better decisions in the moment. So it's helpful as a tool to self-regulate in the moment and as a tool also to notice patterns that you might want to explore deeper at a later moment.

Okay. Well, tell me, Anne-Laure, anything else you wanna make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Honestly, like, I'm not quite— your questions were amazing, so I'm good.

Big thanks to Anne-Laure for sharing her wisdom with us. Big thanks to our sponsors. Check them out. One sponsor to check out is Earth Breeze. I recently saw a Netflix documentary that talks about all the plastic that we throw away and we try to recycle, but it doesn't really get recycled. So I've been trying to reduce my plastic and the most wonderful way that I've been doing so has been skipping those gigantic laundry detergent bottles for Earth Breeze detergent sheets. Earth Breeze detergent comes in super convenient cardboard, plastic-free packaging, so it's much more eco-friendly than your normal detergent. And I love how portable and quick and easy they are, and I save a pretty reasonable amount of time skipping having to carefully pour and measure liquid detergent into the machine by just tossing a quick and easy sheet in there. I personally like their scent-free version, so check out Earth Breeze for an easy way to get clean clothes without the plastic waste and get 40% off with your subscription at earthbreeze.com/awesome. That's earthbreeze.com/awesome. One sponsor to check out is BambooHR. I love owning my own business and I love humans, but I do not love doing compliance-y human resource kinds of things. HR is hard, but BambooHR is easy. BambooHR is a powerful yet flexible all-in-one HR solution for your growing business. Wrangling benefits, onboarding, performance, recruiting, reporting, vacation time, trainings— oh my— can take hours. But here, It takes mere minutes. Setting up a demo account is ridiculously easy. I didn't have to coordinate calendars to schedule a demo with a sales rep. No, I just create a sample account with sample data within 3 minutes of visiting their website so I could immediately behold its vast capabilities. The software is truly beautiful in its breadth and simplicity, so I'm not surprised 34,000 companies trust BambooHR with their HR needs. Reclaim your time and check out the free demo at bamboohr.com/freedemo. See for yourself all that BambooHR can do and how truly affordable it can be too. That's bamboohr.com/freedemo. One more time, bamboohr.com/freedemo. How about a favorite quote? Something you find inspiring?

It's been attributed to Viktor Frankl, but it's actually much older than this, and it's, in between stimulus and response, there is a space. There is a space. And in that space, in that place lies our freedom.

Oh, Anne-Laure, I gotta, I gotta say you've piqued my interest here because fun fact, that is the most cited favorite quote amongst How to Be Awesome at Your Job guests, but you brought an extra wrinkle to it. It's like, oh, it has history pre-Viktor Frankl. Do you know the tale? Can, can you tell us?

Well, I went in that rabbit hole, but, uh, there basically, we don't know who said it first, but there are lots of different versions of it. They're very, very close in much older books. And, uh, Viktor Frankl is the one who made this version famous. And the one I quoted is his version, but it's very, very old actually. And so that's interesting is that this, this idea that we have this little space of freedom is quite old. I have an entire footnote about this in my book.

Oh, cool. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

There's a recent study that shows that the systems that are activated in the brain are the same for impulsivity and curiosity. And I find it fascinating because I, uh, yeah, that has a lot of implications for how we navigate the world and distraction and creativity and all of that. So that's one of my favorite studies at the moment.

Oh, I can relate to that. It's like, I need to know everything about this now.

Yes.

It's, it's, it's a, it's really dangerous for me. I have to keep lists and guardrails and rules for myself. And a favorite book?

Book? That would be How We Learn by Stanislas Dehaene, who is also a French neuroscientist. And, uh, it's a very short book, but it, uh, teaches you how your, your brain learns anything in childhood and adulthood. And it's, uh, very helpful to understand how we navigate the world.

All right. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

I use a note-taking tool called Roam Research, and it's a bit of a weird nonlinear thinking type of tool where you can connect all of your ideas in little bullet points. And most people who look at my notes think that it's a complete mess, but it's helped me write a book and complete a PhD. So I'm so grateful for this tool.

All right. And a favorite habit?

Going for daily walks. Okay.

And a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks?

Become the scientist of your own life.

Okay. And if folks wanna learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Go to naslabs.com to subscribe to my newsletter and, uh, look up Tiny Experiments anywhere books are sold, or go to your support, your local bookshop by ordering it there. All right.

And you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

I want to ask them, what will be your first tiny experiment?

All right. Anne-Laure, thank you. This is fun.

Thanks for having me.

I love so much what Anne-Laure had to say about the arrival fallacy. That is so important to consider, and I think it is so absurd and yet so prevalent that it's good to just make fun of it mercilessly. And I've got two of my favorite jokes associated with the Arrival Fallacy that I need to continually make to myself so I can laugh it off and shrug it off. And, and here's the first one. I was coordinating a youth leadership seminar back in the day, volunteering, and I was coordinating the, the Central Illinois Illinois version of this conference, and there was another conference happening in a couple weeks in the northern part of Illinois. And some of the volunteers showed up at both. And there was this volunteer named Diane. And here we are in the midst of having a pretty cool experience of a pretty fun conference, and she says to me, honestly, I'm just really looking forward to the north conference. And I was startled because it's like, hey, one, that's very rude. Kind of coordinating this thing. And, and two, it's like, we are having a cool experience right now, right now. This is fun, this is special. And, and you're already sort of outside of the present moment and projected into the future, and that's a bummer. And so later I was sharing with a friend about how I thought that was kind of an odd thing to say, and I was eating some cookies, and I just started cracking up. I almost choked on the cookies. And he said, "What is going on?" And I said, "Honestly, I'm just really looking forward to my fourth cookie." It's just the absurdity of it. And now to this day, with like podcast downloads, I'll say things like, "You know what, when I reach 28 million podcast downloads, that's when I'll really be happy. Watch yourself with the arrival fallacy. It, uh, it is sneaky and it needs to be mocked, if I may, mercilessly, to prevent it from getting a foothold in our brains and causing regret. Great stuff from Anne-Laure Le Cunff. If you want to check out the show notes or the transcript or the links to items that we've referenced, please pay us a visit at awesomeatyourjob.com/ep1037. I hope to catch you next time, and peace.