Start-ups Meet Neuroscience w. Anne-Laure Le Cunff: Mind Frames, Your Best Self, and Feedback Loops

Welcome to The Synapse. My name is Serene Feng, and I'm Scott Blender, and we're here today with Anne-Laure Le Cunff. Who is the founder and CEO of NestLabs, a research studio dedicated to building mindful productivity. Anne-Laure is an entrepreneur who is also studying neuroscience part-time to create science-backed productivity tools that real hustlers can use. I've been reading her newsletter, and something that really stands out to me is how she emphasizes that creativity and productivity do not have to be two separate entities. So we're going to dive right in. Welcome, Anne-Laure, to the Zeynep.

Thanks for having me.

Right. So to start off, could you tell us a little bit about your background and what led up to your idea for Nest Labs? So where did the idea for Nest Labs originate from? And what made you want to pursue your independent adventure?

Absolutely. I started working at Google. That was my very first job after university. And I was in marketing there, first in London and then in San Francisco. And I was looking after digital health products specifically trying to help people change their behavior. So we're looking at fitness and nutrition and lots of different things like that where people wanted to do better but were struggling a little bit and where apps may have been able to, to help. So I did that for a few years and then I left and I started a company. And this was a very stressful time for, for me. I worked really hard. I obviously, as any startup founder, I think, wanted it to succeed. It ended up not working out. We broke up with my co-founder and I then went through a very difficult period because for any person who's had a company before, I think they'd relate to this, but it kind of feels like your baby. So when things don't work out, it's, it's pretty hard, right? So I didn't really know what I wanted to do next and I decided to go back to the drawing board and trying to figure out what was the red thread, the, the thing that always kept me curious and interested and fascinated. And it's always been how the mind works. So this is when I decided 2 years ago, about 2 years ago, to go back to university, and I applied at King's College to study neuroscience there. So I've been doing this part-time. And finally, when it comes to Nest Labs, I realized pretty quickly that one of the best ways I had of learning, one of the most efficient ways that worked for me, was to use what's called the generation effect, to basically create my own content based on what I was studying. And so I decided to launch at the time, tiny little newsletter, just to every week have the kind of discipline and consistency of writing about what I was studying. And actually it's funny because I just crossed 10,000 subscribers today, like a few hours ago. So it's grown into— thank you so much. It's grown into its own thing. And yeah, that's how Nest Lab started initially as a tiny little newsletter where I could share what I was studying.

Yeah, that's awesome. So what have you been currently working on in Nest Labs? So you talked about the newsletter.

Yeah. So the newsletter is probably the backbone, I would say, of Naslabs. This is also what helps me even, you know, some weeks when I don't feel as motivated, I feel like I have this commitment to my readers to send them something interesting every week. So it's been really helpful for me to keep on writing and on studying. So that's the backbone. And then I have other products. A tiny product that I also have is a Chrome extension that helps people by reminding them to take breaks and in particular mindful breaks. So it gives them suggestions of things to do during their breaks that are not just, you know, grabbing a cup of coffee, like stuff that is more mindful with links to research papers that show that these particular things to do during your breaks are actually good for your mind and your productivity in general. And then the third product, which is currently smaller, about 250 paid members, but there's this membership, this paid community that is more intimate and where there's a forum where people can talk to each other. There's a matching service where they can have virtual chats together. There are virtual events, meetups. We had an actual one, like an IRL one before this whole crisis, but now everything is virtual, obviously, where we discuss different topics together over Zoom. And also exclusive content that I only publish for people who are part of the community rather than sending it to the whole 10,000 people on the public newsletter. So yeah, those are the few pillars that are, you know, that I'm working on with Nest Labs at the moment.

Yeah, that is really cool. So could you tell us a little bit about the purpose behind Nest Labs? Like what exactly you hope Nest Labs to be able to do? What kind of impact would you like Nest Labs to have on people?

Yeah, so you know how I told you earlier how I went through several periods of time that were quite difficult from a work standpoint, but that also ended up having a difficult, having an impact also on my personal life and how I was feeling in general. So I do think that for most people who are passionate about their work, your work and your professional and your personal life become kind of deeply intertwined and it's very, hard to create a barrier between the two. So my, my main goal with NessLabs is to support people before and during more challenging and difficult moments. And basically, I want to spread the message that it is possible to be highly productive and highly creative while taking care of your mental health. And I want to educate people and help them recognize the signs of maybe burnout or even depression sometimes, etc. They are very common. In highly demanding jobs, whether in tech or in academia. So yeah, I want to create the support that I didn't really have at the time where I went through this.

Yeah, for sure. And, and what kind of support do you like, are you trying to create? So like, I know some people, they focus on like more of a therapy, the therapy route. I know some people, they work to maybe collect some quotes But I think that the way you do it, that's really unique is that I've been reading a lot of your mind framing articles and how like you try to structure a person's mind process and try to like figure out, okay, how, what is the best way for someone to be incrementally improving themselves? Like what is the best like mind frame and what kind of thoughts should you be having to kind of improve what you're doing? But at the same time, at the same time, retain mental sanity, right? So it's not all about just improving productivity. It's also about creating, being more mindful and like thinking and having this feedback loop. I think that's like something that you've always emphasized in your articles. So, like, what kind of exact— like, how exactly do you go about helping people think better and to be more mindful of their own lives?

Yeah, you're absolutely right in the sense that I always try to think about how can you be better in an incremental way rather than just throwing a very complicated framework or process to people who may not be able to apply it. I'm also not a big fan of very rigid frameworks that you have lots of gurus in the productivity space that basically tell you, here are the 5 steps to be able to accomplish anything. And very often that just makes people not feel as good about themselves because obviously there's no magic recipe to being your most productive and creative self. You do need to experiment, to tweak things, to see what works for you and what doesn't. So this is why A lot of what I'm writing about is about encouraging people to try something, you know, learn from it, see what works, see what doesn't, both from a cognitive and emotional standpoint, because some things may work on a rational level, but maybe you're not feeling as good. And then take that information, try to be as mindful of and aware of that data that you're collecting about your own mind processes. And based on this, adapt and reframe things as necessary. But I really, you know, tell people very often, don't listen to anyone who's telling you there's a perfect recipe for you to be your best self. That doesn't exist. What can help though is to have a little bit of guidance as to how you can explore different solutions and frameworks, etc. So you can figure out what works for you.

Yeah, totally. So can you tell us a little bit about one, like, mental, one mind frame, or one framework that has been particularly helpful for you personally? I mean, I guess it's like, it's more of like a blend of different ideas come into one. I bet you experimented with a lot of them and kind of like chose the best parts of each. So could you tell us a little, like, give us a little bit, some tips on like what kind of like mind processes that you use?

Absolutely. I, so I call this mindframing, and it's just a word I made up because I often found myself stuck in a specific mindframe and really having a hard time getting out of it and moving on. And mindframing to me is about shaping your mindframe instead of just considering them fixed and something that you don't have a lot of control over. And to me, it requires 3 main things. The very first one is having a growth mindset, and there's been quite a bit of research by Carol Dweck in that space showing that, you know, unfortunately lots of people, including teachers in school, which is even more unfortunate, think that our skills or abilities are fixed, that there's nothing you can do about it, which is terrible for kids that have teachers who think this way, obviously, and then they bring this into their adulthood. So The very first thing is to try and get rid of these preconceptions that we may have that our skills are fixed. We can— obviously there are things that are fixed from a genetic standpoint, but there are actually lots and lots of things that are pretty flexible. And thanks to neuroplasticity, you can learn throughout your life and acquire new skills and push yourself out of your comfort zone. So that's the very first thing. The second thing is metacognition, and this is just thinking about thinking, learning about learning, knowing about knowing, but it's really being able to take that step back and reflect on the way you think and the way you feel. And as I mentioned earlier, being able to adapt your strategies and regulate your, your learning and your experience based on new data that comes in both from outside and from within yourself. So, you know, a very useful tool for this and very common one for lots of people is just journaling, right? This is something that I could tool for reflection. And then the third thing is self-authorship. And this is also linked to what I mentioned earlier about not just blindly applying a framework. It's— self-authorship is the belief that you can shape your own values, that you can decide things for yourself, and that you are able to figure out what works best for, for you. And so that's the third pillar that you need to to apply mindframing, that it's exactly, it's kind of meta, but that's what I did with mindframing, right? Just taking the best of different frameworks and putting them together to get to something that actually works for me.

Yeah, for sure. And how did you first realize that we are happiest when we are the most creative and productive? Because the way that like I kind of carried through high school is that, okay, if I'm productive, I can't be creative. Like, I have to get things done, right? So if I want to get things done, if I want to be really efficient, I can't be thinking of new ideas and wanting to work on something else. So like, that's kind of how I got through my schoolwork. So how did you like realize that, like, we are happiest when we're most creative and productive? And how did you think that, like, both creativity and productivity can be melded together in a way that's like actually good for you?

Yeah, it's so interesting you went through this and you had that experience because I think it's a very common one in school, right? It's all about getting things done and like getting the right grades, doing this specific paper, etc. And we don't leave a lot of room for, for kids to work on projects that they're actually excited about. And if you look at kids, actually, if you let them do whatever they want to do, they can work really hard on super complicated creative projects. Because they're the ones who initiated it and they're the ones doing all of the problem solving and they're, they're just thinking it's fun and exciting because it's their project, right? So I'm very much in favor of project-based learning at school. This is another topic, but I really think that unfortunately a lot of the work that I'm doing at the moment is kind of just breaking down things that, like preconceptions and stuff that people learned when they were kids. So teaching them to unlearn these things. To answer your question about productivity and creativity, you say, you know, Getting Things Done, it's actually the title of a very popular productivity book. And lots of people use that system to get things done as the title says, but the book really never asks, why do you want to get this done in the first place? And, you know, do you really want to do this? Are you the right person to do it? Is it the right time to do it? Or maybe you're super tired and just like, you know, you should take a nap first and maybe look at it later. And it's all about getting things done as if we were machines that can just keep on going and producing stuff, which is the productivity part. And producing stuff doesn't mean you're producing anything that's meaningful either to yourself or to the world. And so this is also This is why creativity is so important. And as you mentioned with your own experience, the problem is that our formal traditional education tells us that there's creativity on one side, productivity on the other. And that creativity is something that, you know, you do for fun, a free flow thing. You just let it happen. And some people have it and some people don't. And it's not the case. There's lots of research that shows that creativity can be programmed and that you can create triggers for yourself that would make you feel more creative. And I think the moment I realized that for myself was towards the end of when I was working at Google and where I was insanely productive. I was, you know, going through all of my projects very quickly and I was doing a good job and getting praised. And, um, you know, if I looked back at the end of the quarter, I would say, whoa, it's crazy. I did all of this, but I still felt kind of empty. I didn't feel this excitement or pride that you have when you've done something that you've really enjoyed working on. And this is when, you know, I started thinking about what are the moments where I actually had both, like that creativity and productivity. And honestly, 100% of the time it was when I initiated the project, either myself or with a friend. It doesn't mean working solo, right? But when I was the one who thought that I was one of the people who thought that it actually made sense to work on something or to bring something into the world. And that's where my joy and excitement came from, where I was both the creator and the producer of the project.

Yeah, that is very interesting because I'm also— I'm leading like a couple of student project teams and I think it's really interesting how like if I ask everyone to contribute their own ideas of how the project should go or their own ideas of like what the mission of the project is, then they are much willing to be on board and they're way more— they take their own initiatives when they're in a project, when they feel like they have a say and they have control and they have a reason to work in that project. So I think that's a really interesting point, even from a leadership standpoint, just having people have a voice, a very solid voice and not having too much of a power hierarchy.

Exactly. It's actually called the ownership bias. It's a very common cognitive bias. I love this example that you're giving because it shows that lots of people think that cognitive biases are inherently bad, but actually it's like everything, they can be good or bad depending on how they're being used, right? And the ownership bias can be bad because, you know, you can have the opposite effect where you have people who refuse to work on something because it's not their thing, which is the other extreme, but it can be good if it's quite balanced and if it's used by leaders in a way that makes everyone on the team feel like they own a part of the project.

Yeah, for sure. And my last question for you is, what does it mean to sacrifice mental health?

So it's something that's actually very easy to notice if we take the time to have a, you know, to really be in tune with how we feel. But that when it happens, unfortunately, we're usually in a mental place where we don't have the mental energy to do so. So, you know, when you start not sleeping enough because of work, when you start skipping meals or skipping exercise, or maybe you start skipping spending time with your friends and your family because you're just too busy. All of these are very simple things that are easy to notice. There are changes that are bad for your mental health in general, and that usually it doesn't happen in, you know, in one day. It's very gradual. Like, you know, you used to have two nights out with your friends every week and then it's just one and then you just don't do it anymore. Or, you know, you used to exercise regularly and now it's just maybe one run and then you don't do it. And so when work is causing these changes in your life and when you're starting cutting things that are good for your mental health because of work, you are sacrificing your mental health.

Yeah, for sure.

So I just want to continue off of that discussion and ask you, like, what recommendations do you have for people that might be sacrificing mental health?

So that's the, that's the problem. This is why I mentioned that it is unfortunately very hard for people to notice once they're already going through it. And which is why a lot of the work I'm doing is trying to help people prevent this and see the very early signs. So the piece of advice that I would give to people is just to, you know, before it happens to you, try to have some sort of self-reflection or mindfulness practice in place, because it's sometimes a bit too late when you wait until things are wrong. And in these cases, you know, You mentioned therapists earlier, and this is sometimes what I tell people, like, you know, I'm not the right person to help you anymore. You need to go talk to a therapist. The best thing you can do if possible is to have some sort of scaffolding in place before this happens. And journaling or meditation or any kind of regular mindfulness practice will help you make sure that you stay in tune with your inner self and, you know, what you're doing and your patterns and your change of habits and routines. So just having this habit of looking inside regularly, I think, can really, really help in preventing that you get to the point where you're sacrificing your mental health.

And so moving on from this, what do you think determines the success of Nest Labs? And how did you scale and launch a successful company like you did?

I would say that consistency is probably 99% of what made the success of Nest Labs. I started very small. And I made sure to show up every day and every week and to do a little every time, you know, listen to my users, members, and subscribers, implement their feedback when it made sense. And everything has been so incremental. I've, it's the, what I've done is the complete opposite of what I've seen in lots of startups where they have this grand idea and they create a landing page. And it stays like this for a very long time saying coming soon because they're trying to raise money in the background to actually make it happen. So their whole company is actually just a landing page at this point. I did the opposite. I started with, you know, a free newsletter and then I was like, okay, I'm going to add the blog. And then it's like, oh, maybe, you know, I could add some more resources. And what if we had a community to discuss all of these things together? So very incremental and showing up consistently is definitely what I think determined the success of Nest Labs.

And yeah, going off of that, like how did, how do you keep continuing to produce a regular flow of the high quality content on Nest Labs with all the stuff you do for it?

Yeah, it's a question I get often. I, my number one secret is I keep my calendar as free as possible. It's actually very rare that I have back-to-back meetings and if that happens, it's usually because I had to move things around for it because of something that was out of my control. But I usually don't have more than one meeting a day, maybe two meetings a day. So I say no a lot to people, or I say later, or I ignore lots of requests that I don't feel like they're relevant. So saying no and keeping my calendar as free as possible is the one kind of like secret that I have that helps a lot. The second one is that in all of the free time that I'm keeping it like that. I use time blocking. So in the morning, for example, I have an hour and a half blocked every single day for writing, and I do that every single morning. That's the very first thing I'm doing. If you want to have a meeting with me at that time, I'll say no, I can only do it later. And then the third thing is one hour that I block for reflection every Sunday. Evening where I look back at the week and I kind of plan for the next one. And I also reflect on how I feel, what went well, what didn't, what I should do more of the week after, maybe less of depending on how the previous week went. So these are the 3 things that combined together really helped me in sticking to my schedule and on keeping on producing content on a regular basis.

That's awesome. And where do you see Nest Labs growing over like the next few years? Like, how do you see the community of readers growing and evolving? And how do you see yourself growing?

Oh, this is a good one. I actually don't know and I don't really want to know. As I mentioned, I'm not a big fan of big plans and big predictions. I am rather someone who likes to experiment every day, learn every day, and create a feedback loop where I can see what works and what doesn't. And so to me, actually creating, you know, a 5-year plan or something like this would probably hinder the growth of Nest Labs. So I don't know where I see myself in a few years, and I'm actually really excited about this. This is definitely one of the biggest differences between when I was working at Google, where I had a pretty good idea of where I could go, what the career ladder looked like, and what it took to get this promotion and then get this role. And I also had a good idea of what my salary would be. So it was, you know, pretty easy to know what the next step would be. Whereas with Nest Labs and running my own company, I have no idea and it's part of the fun.

That's really awesome. And so a lot of people view like these self-help books and these websites pretty skeptically. Why do you think that like is? And do you think it's a misguided notion? How do you try to dispel that presumption through your newsletters and publications?

Oh, good one. I did write an article about the self-help industry and that's the problem. There are quite a few apples, it is a very lucrative industry because people do want to get better. People do struggle with their emotions. They do struggle with their productivity. I mean, we're humans, right? So we're always constantly battling with all of these, both like, you know, inside and outside. So obviously lots of people basically can smell the money and they write books or they give courses that are really highly priced. So they can kind of like feed on these fears that people have. That being said, there are also really serious researchers and doctors that create books and articles that are a way for them to explain some of their research to the more general population and to make it useful to as many people as possible. And this is an amazing thing. And I think it's great. They're doing this, and it's regrettable that unfortunately they're often put in the same basket as other, you know, less honest people in this industry. So what I would say is, yes, be skeptical. You have to be skeptical about this industry. And if you can maybe, you know, check the credentials of people— like, that's why I'm, I'm very transparent. You can find it everywhere on my website that I'm currently a student, right? I'm not a neuroscientist. I also, you know, remind people that if they're going through something more difficult than what I'm covering, you should consider going to see a therapist, that I'm not an expert, etc. So just pay attention to how the authors you're reading are presenting themselves. And either, you know, they have the credentials and you can look them up very easily on Google Scholar or something like this and see how many papers they have and that they're in good peer-reviewed publications. Or if they don't have these credentials, just make sure that they're transparent about it and that they're basically telling you that they're learning in public and sharing with you what they're learning, but that they don't consider themselves an expert. But anyone else in between who doesn't have the experience and the credentials but present themselves as if they did, I would be very wary of.

And so, I know you mentioned a few times that you're a student studying neuroscience. Would you be able to describe like your brain journey and how you became interested in neuroscience? Like what inspired you to continue studying it and sharing the information with others?

Yeah, definitely. As I mentioned, I realized when reflecting back on my first years as a student and just as an adult or even as a kid that I've always been fascinated with how the mind works. And I, you know, even the hard problem of consciousness— where do our thoughts come from? Are we the only ones able to have such thoughts? Like, where does consciousness stop when you look at the animal kingdom? And all of these different questions. And studying neuroscience, to me, is one of the best ways to explore some of these fascinating questions. As to sharing what I'm learning, it's just a great way for me to consolidate, to understand better when I'm learning. It's called the Feynman technique, after the famous physicist, but he basically did that every time he was studying a concept that was a bit complicated. He would pretend that he was going to teach it to someone who knew absolutely nothing about the topic, and it helped him make sure that he understood, because you can't explain something in simple words if you didn't understand it. So this is, you know, this is why I started studying it. This is why I started sharing it. And I'm still studying it because I, yeah, I, I still find it very interesting. I probably learned 0.1% of everything there is to learn about how the mind and the brain work. So I'm probably going to keep on studying this for a long time, I think.

And what are some key recommendations you have for those starting starting to become interested in neuroscience education and scientific writing. How do you manage to effectively communicate nuanced topics in readily understandable ways for your audience?

So the way I write is that— so first, I just want to, you know, put a little bit of a caveat on that. For me, I think it's a bit easier to write in simple terms because English is not my first language. Naturally, I'm actually probably lacking lots of the very complex vocabulary that some people would use. So that makes it a little bit easier for me to keep it simple. But even so, I always reread my drafts and get rid of any word that I think, you know, someone who's like 18 or something like that would not understand, would have to Google. And it doesn't mean that they've never heard it before. It's more those kinds of words that sometimes you see, you're like, hmm, not quite sure what it means. So I get rid of any such words. I don't want to hide behind jargon. So I try to keep it as simple as possible. So I do that for most of my weekly articles. And sometimes when there's a very important one or a longer one, I give it, I give the draft to read to a friend who knows nothing about neuroscience or how the brain works. And I do that friend test basically, where I just give it to them and then I ask them to explain to me what they understood. And if they explain to me what I tried to convey, then it's great. But It has happened that they seem a bit confused or that they say something that is not really what I was intending to convey. So in that case, I kind of go back to the draft and try and make it simple, more simple.

I guess one final question I have for you is like, what do you recommend for those getting started in scientific writing and education and promoting like mental health awareness and all of that?

So you mean people who want to start a blog or newsletter like I did?

Yeah.

Yeah. Just get started basically. I think lots of people are suffering from analysis paralysis where they're trying to figure out what's the best platform and should it be weekly or monthly or what should I write about or whatever. I think the best way to get started is just to do it now, you know, go on Mailchimp or any newsletter provider that is free and create your landing page and then send that link to 10 friends or post it on, you know, your Twitter or wherever you're hanging out. And once you have your 10 first subscribers, send your first edition about a topic that you think is interesting. Rinse and repeat. And that's it.

Well, yeah, thank you so much, Anne-Laure, for coming on our podcast. It was a real honor to have you and talk with you. And we really can't wait to see what happens next with Nest Labs and everything else you do.

Thanks so much for having me. It was a lot of fun.

Thank you, Anne-Laure. Today's guest is Anne-Laure Le Cunff. She is the founder and CEO of Nest Labs, which is discoverable at nestlabs.com. And I highly recommend that you go and subscribe to her newsletter. I'm personally subscribed to her newsletter, and I also read the articles on her website, and she offers a very personal look into people who have the maker's mindset. A lot of times, people with a maker's mindset, they embody see an intense hustler culture in their communities and even in their own minds, and sometimes that can be very disillusioning. Her articles are honestly helping me see a bigger perspective on, you know, what it means to be a learner. She also helps me to not be overwhelmed when you keep an open mind and you are always learning something new. So I highly recommend that you go and check that out. You're in for a treat. We hope that you learned something new today, and please stay tuned for our next episode, which will be coming out shortly. Thank you for listening to The Synapse.