Tiny Experiments That Create a Big Life with Dr Anne-Laure Le Cunff

The idea of experimenting is to let go of the outcome and to focus on learning. That's it.

Welcome back. Today we have part 2 of my conversation with Anne-Laure Le Cunff, the neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and one of the most original thinkers on how we learn and grow and create. She left a high-power job at Google to study neuroscience, and now she conducts research into neuroscience of learning and curiosity at King's College London. She's also the founder of Ness Labs, a company that helps people think better and live more intentionally. Her work blends science and creativity and practical tools that challenge a lot of current myths, like the myth of the perfect linear path. I read her book Tiny Experiments recently., and was so excited to have her on the show. If you haven't listened to part 1, be sure to go back and listen to part 1 after you listen to this one. You can do it out of order. It's okay. I won't tell anybody. You, you do it how you want to do it. Just don't miss it because she is delightful. She is brilliant. And I'm so excited to have her on. I love in your book, you talk about the flaw of linear goals. You say linear goals stimulate fear. They encouraged toxic productivity. And linear goals breed competition and isolation. Talk about the flaw of linear goals, because this is music to my ears. I love everything that you say about it. I'm so excited to share with the audience.

So a linear goal is when you have a specific outcome in mind. It's really the assumption that in order to be successful, you need to know where you're going and then You need to work really, really, really hard to get there, and then you will be successful. And that creates all of those problems that you just talked about and that I describe in the book. There's the fear, the what if, what if this doesn't work? Because now I say that I need to get there, it's very binary. Either you get there and you succeed or you don't, and that's failure. So there's fear here. There's toxic productivity because now that you've decided you need to get there, you reorganize your entire life and you manage your energy based on that goal, that linear goal that you created for yourself. And anything you do that is not in service of getting there, getting to that destination, all of a sudden starts feeling like a distraction. So time spent with the people you love, time spent taking care of yourself, time spent doing nothing, all of a sudden, this is time wasted that you're not spending working really hard to get to that destination. And the third problem is competition, because when everybody has a linear goal that they're trying to chase and to get to, it creates like a giant leaderboard that everybody's looking at and constantly asking ourselves, who's going faster? Who's doing better work? And why is this person I was in school with there already? And I'm, I'm still here. And how come they're more successful than I am? And so again, this is something that only happens with linear goals because if you're running tiny experiments instead, you're in your own sandbox. There's no way to compare yourself to each other because everybody's running different experiments. There is also no toxic productivity because you don't have this fixed destination. You don't need to get there by a certain time. And so if it takes a little bit longer, or if you decide to close that door, and you decide that you're actually not interested anymore in exploring this, that's also completely fine. And there's less fear too, because there's no binary definition of success. Your only success again is to learn something new.

So if this has been someone's mindset their whole life, they were steeped in it growing up, or it's baked into their DNA and this is how they've been going, and all of a sudden someone's listening going, this is why I deal with fear. This is why I shame myself all the time about my productivity. This is why I feel like I'm behind all my friends. Where can she start to break out of this mindset?

So scientists don't jump into designing experiments straight away, and I know there might be a temptation to say, okay, I'm going to design my first experiment, but any good experiment always starts with observation. In order to be able to imagine what could be different in your life or in your work, you need to understand what is, how things currently are, what is the current situation. A little exercise, which is very easy, very gentle, is to simply spend a little bit of time observing your current life and your current work. How you spend your energy, what gives you energy, what drains your energy, the things you're curious about, the things you're excited about. And for that, I recommend something I call self-anthropology. The reason why I, I call it like that is because you're going to pretend for 24 hours that you are an anthropologist with your life as your topic of study. And what's interesting about the work of an anthropologist is that they go and study a new culture they know nothing about. So they don't have any assumptions, any preconceptions, but there's also no judgment. They're just observing and they're asking questions like, why do they do those things? Why do they care about that? Why do they spend so much time and energy working on this? Why do they communicate like that? No judgment, just observation. If you do that for 24 hours with your own life, just again, asking yourself, why do I care so much about this? Why do I spend my time doing that? Why do I always start my day like this and finish my day like that? Without any judgment, just noticing those patterns, I guarantee you, you will start asking the other side of that coin, the questions of, okay, but could it be different? Is there anything that I'm currently doing on autopilot without thinking that could be different? Is there a door I could open here? And this is how you design your first tiny experiment. It could be as simple as experimenting with your morning routine. It could be experimenting with the way you run your meetings at work. It could be experimenting with the way you commute to and back from work. It could be experimenting with the way you eat, or really the way you create, the way you learn. Anything you feel like you've been doing by following a script is something that you can start questioning and experimenting around.

I did this after I read your book. And I struggled to do it for a full 24 hours. So I did it loosely for a week instead. And there were so many, I love to optimize life. I love to do things new. I love to do little experiments. So there was tons of little ways for me to optimize my week and mostly my energy during the week, because I would notice how I felt at different days during the week in different situations and go, well, Why am I doing it this way? Why can't I do it in a different way that could be easier? And I did some experiments with my time and discovered some things that I liked and some things I really didn't like. And again, I'm opening the door and closing the door, but I'm much happier and have better energy now from watching myself for a week. It's such a great idea. Yeah.

And what's amazing with the way you describe it, and this is why it works. It's that the changes you made, there's no way I would come and ask you the change, what changes you made and just copy paste these to my own life. That would not work. And unfortunately, a lot of the personal development frameworks that you have out there, a lot of them outdated from the '60s, '70s, '80s are very, again, copy paste. They tell you this is how you design a morning, morning routine, and this is how you're supposed to organize your time. And this is how you use a task list, a to-do list in order to be productive. And then a lot of us try to apply those frameworks, those techniques. Mm-hmm. They don't work. And again, what do we do? We don't think there's a problem with the framework. We think we're the problem because these frameworks have apparently worked for millions of people. And so if it doesn't work for us, we must be doing something wrong. When in reality, the only framework that works is the one you have designed for yourself that you have design through self-experimentation and through trying and discovering what works and what doesn't for you. And I would even add to this that the framework that works for you today might be different from the framework that works for you tomorrow. And that this is why you wanna keep on paying attention, listening to yourself, observing your life, observing your levels of energy and experimenting so you can keep on tweaking your framework. Based on your own life, your priorities, your constraints.

It's why whenever I've been able to speak to a mentor or someone that's been massively successful in business, I never say, well, what's the framework for step-by-step how you did it? Because it's irrelevant to me. I want to know, what did you do that went badly? What mistakes did you make? Like, tell me what is a terrible disaster for you so I can take that information and put it in the back of my mind. But don't tell me step-by-step how you did it. And there's entire business models built on, I'm going to teach you my 5-step plan so you can be rich and famous. Well, it never works for anybody else. It worked for them because they had the special whatever they had to make it work. And you're right. People will buy into that and then they'll blame themselves. They'll never realize the framework wasn't transferable to somebody else.

Yeah. And I think that's why we are all responsible when we become successful using our own framework, going through our own journey, through our own path to not fall prey to this and then tell people, here's a recipe you can copy paste. I think this is why I really enjoy following and learning from entrepreneurs that have this radical honesty of saying, here are the things that helped me, and they might not all work for you. I'm just, I'm sharing the different things that work for me and also the circumstances in which these applied and these work for me. And out of those 5 different tools or principles that have been helpful for me, maybe only 2 of them are going to be applicable for you and you should try them and you should only keep what works for you. And yeah, I just wish more entrepreneurs who are successful had this kind of radical honesty of yes, trying to elevate other people and helping them also achieve their own dreams, but really being transparent about the fact that there is no perfect recipe you can just copy paste.

Yeah, because behind the scenes for most entrepreneurs, it's a bit of a mess.

Yes.

We can, we can gain quite a bit of success and then go, oh, it's a simple 5-step plan, but it's a mess in the meantime. We're figuring it out. Okay.

So.

I wanna talk about creativity and rest. So you've studied how rest will fuel creativity. It has in my life. What's the difference between real rest and zoning out?

So with zoning out, you're actually not giving your brain an actual break. So we've all done that. I still do it quite often when I'm anxious. It's usually a sign of anxiety for me being on the sofa, scrolling on social media, or binge-watching a show I don't actually care about. What I'm trying to do when I do that, and this is what we do when we zone out, is, uh, trying to turn off the thinking part of the brain, the one that's anxious, that's overthinking, overplanning, trying to control. And so it helps in terms of, in the short term, it's like putting a bandaid without really fixing the issue. And so we feel like we might be resting. But we're not because in the back of our mind, our brain is still trying to figure out what's going to happen. The fear is still here. The anxiety is still here. Actual rest requires full disconnection. So that means actually, if like me, you struggle a little bit with phone addiction, that means leaving your phone in another room. So when you go to your bedroom and you say, I'm going to go to bed tonight, or I'm taking a nap. Leaving your phone in another room and fully disconnecting. That means actually maybe going and sitting on a bench in a park with a book and same, like having your, your phone in your bag and not having easy access to it. That means listening to music without doing a thousand other things at the same time.

Yeah.

Or even just listening to a podcast you like, but not doing it while cooking and cleaning and doing everything else. Like just really Taking time to recharge your batteries and not doing it in a way where you're just trying to ignore or bury any kind of anxiety. So that's the real difference and we know it. I can give you that explanation, but in reality, most people can tell the difference and you can tell afterwards if you've been for 2 hours on your sofa scrolling on social media versus you took an actual break, an actual nap, you can tell the difference. We know the difference and So the trick is not really in knowing the difference because most of us do at an intuitive level. It's really figuring out systems for us that work where we can transform that knowledge into actual action.

Because it's no secret that the more we scroll, the worse we feel. I put the, one of the first studies that proved that it was about Facebook back then. I wrote it in 2014. It was a 2016 book. I put it in that book. The more time we've spent on social media, the worse we feel. We know it, but everyone still does it. So as a neuroscientist, if we know something is going to make us feel worse, how do we stop doing it?

What you're talking about really is addiction. It's addiction. That's literally what it is. When we know something is bad for us, but it's giving us a temporary relief that we know we're going to have to pay for. But later, that's addiction. That's the same kind of addiction you have with sugar, with alcohol, with cigarettes. It's exactly the same thing with social media. And so what works for other types of addictions and what helps with social media also, but very few of us are actually willing to do it and it's very hard to do it, is that you actually need a few days with a clean break. And most people who manage to really get rid of that social media addiction they have to delete the apps from their phone for at least a few days, for a week, no access. It's really a detox. You have to break the habit loop that we, we have where our brain says anxiety and we use social media as a coping mechanism. And so you need to create new loops, new habit loops. But for those new habit loops to be created of maybe taking a walk, meditating, stretching, making yourself a nice salad, calling a friend or, or whatever you, for you to be able to create those new healthy loops, you need to make space for them. And that means removing the current loops that you have with social media. So yeah, this works. It works. It absolutely works. Social media detox, really removing the apps from your phone for a little bit works, but it doesn't mean it's easy to do it.

It's kind of like I've noticed when I've spent too much time scrolling, Picking up a book, a book I love, Tiny Experiments, and going, I'm going to read this book. The first 10 or 15 minutes, my brain will want to stop reading and pick up my phone because it's easier. And I have to say, for 15 minutes, I'm going to do this thing, whatever it is, reading a book, something that involves my brain actually working. And I have to know I'm going to feel resistance to it for 15 minutes. But once I hit the 15-minute or so mark, Healthy dopamine kicks in and I can read for an hour. But if we give up in that first 15 minutes, we're done for. Yeah.

That's why creating a bit of friction is helpful. So as I said, number one tip, anyone can do it, is anytime you wanna actually rest or engage your brain in a healthier way with a book, for example, phone in another room. You will thank yourself later. Because if you need to get up and go and get it in another room, it will be, you're more likely to keep on reading your book rather than picking it up if it's just next to you. So that's one thing. Second, lots of apps also, if you don't wanna go to the extreme, or maybe you have the kind of work where you actually need to have those apps on your phone, you actually have a lot of tools now that allow you to either have to solve a puzzle or to write down why you're opening the app. So you actually have to, to say, I'm currently opening Instagram because my social media manager asked me to check that reel, that, that, that, and then you hit enter and then you can open Instagram. Very often that allows you to not automatically open the apps because we do that very often. We might be a bit bored, bit anxious, not quite sure, waiting for someone to arrive at a meeting and we just open Instagram when we don't have to. We could actually rest our eyes and look around and maybe look at the trees through the window. Do that for 10 seconds. That's better for our brain than opening Instagram. And so a bit of friction, think friction, and ask yourself, what are ways where I can add a little bit of friction between my automatic need to cope with anxiety or boredom with social media and opening it? What kind of friction can I create?

I like that. That's brilliant. Okay. Shifting gears a little bit. I am 48 years old. A lot of women who are similar to myself in age, midlife. There is our mother's generation or grandmother's generation where we hit midlife and it was just a slow decline. This is what's expected. I would love to hear from a neuroscientist perspective, how we keep our brains healthy, how we make sure our second half of life is as exciting and full as our first half. And we don't get stuck into the slow decline, the thinking that our second half of life isn't gonna be even better than our first half. Yeah.

I always think about the 3 C's, and I think if you just make sure you keep them in your life, there is no reason you're not going to keep on growing. The first one is curiosity, keeping on learning. There is lots of research showing that one of the best ways to keep your brain engaged and keep your brain young is to keep on learning, keep on forming those new neural connections. So read those books, listen to those podcasts, travel. And by traveling, I don't even mean you need to go abroad, like just go to a nearby city, a town you've never been to, go and visit their museums and make it a trip. Go and learn new things. And especially if you have children, you're very lucky because you have at home your R&D department. That's going to teach you all of the new things. Because very often we don't know what we don't know. When you have children, they will tell you everything you don't know. And you can use that not as a negative thing, feeling like, oh, I can't believe I don't know all of those new technologies and how fast the world is changing. You can see that as an opportunity to keep on engaging your brain. And so maybe that could be a tiny experiment. You could ask once a week to your kids, what's one new thing you learned this week? And then you go and read about it yourself. And this way you can kind of stay on top of everything new that's happening in the world. So curiosity is the first C. The second one is creativity. So curiosity is really about this inbound knowledge, absorbing knowledge and learning. Creativity is more about the sharing, the output, and just making sure that you keep on creating things and putting them in the world. Sharing them with the world and making a positive contribution. And for that, it could be literally anything, a bit of writing, journaling, painting, drawing, doodling, singing, dancing. I have a friend of mine who, she's my, also one of my former managers at Google. And I think, yeah, she's probably 48 or 49 too. And she just, so much courage. I don't even know, I would not be able to do it yet. She just signed up for improv classes and, uh, Yeah. And so she's going to go and be at the end of the class, she's going to be on stage and actually do improv in front of an actual audience, which so courageous. I think it's amazing, but that's also a form of creativity. You're really stretching yourself and getting out of your comfort zone. And the last one, the last C is community or connection. It's really the idea that again, so much research showing that being part of a social group learning again from each other, connecting with others, having this feeling that other people are waiting for you. There's a, a famous study, for example, showing that church plays an important role in lots of communities in that way because people know that every Sunday they are, people are expecting to see each other at church. And if they don't, then they maybe they have a phone call saying, how are you doing? Where were you? How come you didn't come? And so this sense of community and connection is also really important. What's really nice about curiosity, creativity, and community is that they're not separate pillars. They almost flow into each other because when you create something, you probably want to share it with other people. When you connect with other people, you also learn better. When you learn new things, it also feeds into your creativity and makes you more creative. And so you can really see those three aspects of your life as great ways, interconnected ways to take care of your brain and to age in a not only healthy way,, but a fun way too.

I love that. Okay. Say disaster happens. All of your work is erased tomorrow. What is the one concept you want to leave with the world from your work? Just one.

It's not a concept as much as a mantra. It's the one I repeat to all of my friends and my family. And it's, uh, really, you're perfect the way you are. Yeah, there's always more you can learn and explore and do and have fun. But even if you did none of these things, you're perfect the way you are.

Ah, I love that. That's beautiful. What is something really important for people to know that we haven't covered yet?

You don't need to be a scientist to experiment. I think to go back to the very beginning of our conversation when you were saying it's crazy, we're not being taught to do this, to to try these things, to test and see what works and what doesn't. I think it's because the scientific method, which inspired my book Tiny Experiments, is still described as this very complicated thing where you need to have a PhD in order to, to do it. And, and so for me, that's one of the most important messages is that anyone can experiment. Really, the idea of experimenting is to let go of the outcome and to focus on learning. That's it. If that's what you're doing, you're experimenting.

Oh, I love that concept. This has been wonderful. We are breaking this up and this is a two-part show because I had so much that I wanted to learn from you. I could have you on every week and just still have so much to learn from you. So much to learn from Tiny Experiments. I can't recommend it enough. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Will you share where we can find you and your work online?

Thanks so much for having me. So you can find the book absolutely anywhere books are sold. And, uh, I also write a weekly newsletter. Just go to nestlabs.com, enter your email address, and you'll hear from me every Thursday.

I love it. Thanks again for coming on.

Thank you.

How great was she? Of course, I am giving away a copy of her book. Go ahead, tag her, tag me, and you'll be entered to win. And as always, thank you for being here. Thank you for investing in you. Thank you for getting the tools to make your life just a little bit better. You deserve to feel good. You deserve to have energy. You deserve to feel happier. You deserve to chase whatever God has for you. You deserve to open doors and close doors that don't work for you. It's not about being worried that we'll look silly because something didn't work out. We have to get past that and go, whatever God has for us in the future, I'm just going to go for it. And it's going to be messy behind the scenes. Sometimes it'll be a disaster behind the scenes. That's okay. That's part of it. Getting the app out to the world, it's a total disaster for about 3 months where I went, I don't, I don't even know if it's ever going to work. But anybody who comes across it and comes across me would just go, oh, I'm sure she absolutely knew what she was doing. And she felt totally prepared to build an app and launch it to the world. Absolutely not. Whatever it is that you're called to do will be messy behind the scenes. You will not feel comfortable. You'll not feel up to the challenge. You'll feel out of your depth. That is completely okay. You're here because you have gifts inside of you, gifts that God placed inside of you. I believe in your dreams and I know you're making a difference in this world for good. That's why you're here. You're learning something twice a week. You're growing, you're building a healthier, stronger, more joyful life one step at a time. So let me remind you, you're stronger than you think, you're smarter than you give yourself credit for, and you're braver than you feel in the hard moments. And the best part is you are just getting started. It is my joy to get to coach you, to get to cheer you on, and remind you that with God, you have what it takes. So keep stepping up, keep showing up and loving well, because you know the truth. You cannot break a woman who gets her strength from God. I hope you have a great day and talk to you again soon. Okay. It's okay.

Go ahead.

We got it. And we're out.

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