Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1025 - Dan Pink: The Power of Regret
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
- 0:07Speaker 1: time poor parent who just once answers.
- 0:10Speaker 2: Now, Hello, this is doctor Justin Colson today, a guest
- 0:13Speaker 2: on the podcast that I'm so excited to be able
- 0:15Speaker 2: to speak with. If I was to put together a
- 0:17Speaker 2: list of favorite authors, favorite influencers, people who have done
- 0:21Speaker 2: things that are talk worthy, right at the top of
- 0:24Speaker 2: the list would be a guy by the name of
- 0:26Speaker 2: Daniel Pink. Dan Pink is the author of five New
- 0:29Speaker 2: York Times best sellers, including his latest book, The.
- 0:33Speaker 1: Power of Regret, How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward.
- 0:37Speaker 2: He also wrote a book that almost everyone in the
- 0:40Speaker 2: entire world has read, I'm sure, called Drive, And he
- 0:42Speaker 2: had a book just come out in the last year
- 0:44Speaker 2: or so as well called When He's Prolific.
- 0:47Speaker 1: That's all I can say.
- 0:48Speaker 2: He's had a TV show and national geographic that's been
- 0:50Speaker 2: seen in like one hundred countries, writes for all of
- 0:53Speaker 2: the big publications in the US and around the world,
- 0:57Speaker 2: and has done a whole lot more stuff. And Dan
- 0:59Speaker 2: joins me for a conversation about his brand new book,
- 1:03Speaker 2: The Power of Regret, How Looking Backwood Moves Us Forward. Dan,
- 1:06Speaker 2: thanks for being on the Happy Families podcast. This is
- 1:08Speaker 2: an absolute delight.
- 1:10Speaker 3: I'm glad to be with you justin thanks for having me, So.
- 1:12Speaker 1: Dan, I'm going to show you my phone just here
- 1:14Speaker 1: for a sec.
- 1:15Speaker 2: It's literally gone blank as I picked it up on
- 1:18Speaker 2: the let me find it here. On the twenty fourth
- 1:21Speaker 2: of the fourth twenty twenty one, I wrote this little
- 1:25Speaker 2: note to myself that I wanted to write a book
- 1:27Speaker 2: all about the power of regret. In fact, I've come
- 1:31Speaker 2: up with the opener. I wrote, of all the words
- 1:34Speaker 2: of tongue and pen the saddest star, what could have
- 1:36Speaker 2: been a little couplet. I thought, let's write a book
- 1:39Speaker 2: about regrets, the science of regret, examples of people's regret.
- 1:41Speaker 2: Should we avoid regret? Or is it our best teacher?
- 1:44Speaker 2: I thought, there's something in this. I've got an idea.
- 1:46Speaker 2: I reckon it could be a New York Times bestseller.
- 1:49Speaker 2: And I regret taking so long to get onto it.
- 1:52Speaker 2: But somehow I think that you did a better job
- 1:53Speaker 2: than I would have done.
- 1:54Speaker 3: You know, I wish you would have done. It would
- 1:55Speaker 3: have saved me a lot of grief of writing.
- 1:57Speaker 2: This book, So Dan, so many people say that they
- 1:59Speaker 2: don't have regrets. You've touched on that in the book.
- 2:03Speaker 2: Why do you think they're saying that they don't have
- 2:04Speaker 2: any regrets? And you actually rejected outright, why do you
- 2:08Speaker 2: do that?
- 2:09Speaker 3: Well, let's talk about the baseline first, is that everybody
- 2:12Speaker 3: has regrets. What we know from sixty years of science
- 2:16Speaker 3: in psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, development of psychology, is that
- 2:20Speaker 3: regret is one of the most common emotions that human
- 2:22Speaker 3: beings have. It's arguably the most common negative emotion that
- 2:26Speaker 3: human beings have. If you don't have regrets, it means
- 2:31Speaker 3: you're probably a five year old, or you have some
- 2:33Speaker 3: brain disorder, or your a sociopath. But everybody has regrets.
- 2:36Speaker 3: So why would people say that right when we know
- 2:39Speaker 3: that everybody has regrets? And I think it's a really
- 2:41Speaker 3: intriguing question justin I think one of them is I
- 2:43Speaker 3: think part of it is that people think that that
- 2:45Speaker 3: is courageous, that that's a sign of courage. I don't
- 2:48Speaker 3: have any regrets. You know, I'm bold, I'm courageous, right.
- 2:51Speaker 3: I think that's one reason. I think another reason is
- 2:54Speaker 3: that people are over indexed on positivity. They think that
- 2:58Speaker 3: the way to lead a good life is to have
- 3:00Speaker 3: only positive emotions. And no negative emotions. And I think
- 3:02Speaker 3: another reason is that we don't know what to do
- 3:05Speaker 3: with our regrets, so it's much easier to ignore than
- 3:07Speaker 3: or bury them. It turns out that we have a
- 3:10Speaker 3: half century of science saying that is a colossally bad idea.
- 3:14Speaker 3: So what I'm trying to do in part in this
- 3:16Speaker 3: book is normalize this emotion of regret because it's normal.
- 3:21Speaker 2: There's a parent on page forty four of the book
- 3:24Speaker 2: who says one of her great regrets is and I quote,
- 3:28Speaker 2: I yelled at my daughter when she was five on
- 3:30Speaker 2: the way to school when she spilled some yogat on
- 3:32Speaker 2: her uniform. I really lated to her, and I've regretted
- 3:35Speaker 2: it ever since. She didn't deserve that. I upset her
- 3:37Speaker 2: so much, and for what a bit of a stain
- 3:39Speaker 2: on her uniform. I will never stop regretting that moment.
- 3:42Speaker 2: I've never yielded her in that way again. So I
- 3:44Speaker 2: learned from that mistake, but I wish I could take
- 3:46Speaker 2: that moment back.
- 3:47Speaker 1: Now. I read that and I thought two things.
- 3:48Speaker 2: Number one, I relate, But number two, if that's the
- 3:51Speaker 2: worst thing she's ever done, she must be a pretty
- 3:52Speaker 2: good mum.
- 3:53Speaker 3: It's an interesting thing about what people regret. Obviously this
- 3:56Speaker 3: and I think that tells us something. Okay, so let's
- 3:59Speaker 3: let's let's probe that just a little bit. Think about
- 4:02Speaker 3: that mom or think about any parent, all right, Think
- 4:05Speaker 3: about all the decisions that you make as a parent.
- 4:07Speaker 3: Think about all the decisions you made as a parent
- 4:09Speaker 3: yesterday or last week or last year. Think about all
- 4:13Speaker 3: the actions you took as a parent yesterday or last
- 4:16Speaker 3: week or last year. Most of them you me, I
- 4:21Speaker 3: don't even remember.
- 4:23Speaker 1: Okay.
- 4:23Speaker 3: So if you have an action or a decision or
- 4:26Speaker 3: something that happens to you, and not only do you
- 4:28Speaker 3: remember it, which itself is amazing, but you remember it
- 4:31Speaker 3: and it makes you feel bad, that's a very very
- 4:36Speaker 3: very very strong signal. And so my guess with this person,
- 4:42Speaker 3: and what is it a signal off? It's a signal
- 4:43Speaker 3: of And this is the thing about regret. Regret clarifies
- 4:46Speaker 3: what we value and instructs us on how to do better. Now,
- 4:49Speaker 3: it sounds I did not interview that person. That was
- 4:52Speaker 3: an anonymous entry and among the regrets that I collected,
- 4:55Speaker 3: But my guess is that that person has actually used
- 4:59Speaker 3: that as instruction for the future. But I think the
- 5:03Speaker 3: other thing about it is that it probably raised the
- 5:05Speaker 3: question of what she values. And I think what she
- 5:07Speaker 3: values this kindness not only toward her children, but toward
- 5:09Speaker 3: toward other people. And so in that sense, this negative
- 5:12Speaker 3: feeling is actually incredibly helpful because in this case, it's
- 5:16Speaker 3: a message to this this parent saying, you know what,
- 5:19Speaker 3: I actually value kindness more than I expect, and I've
- 5:21Speaker 3: been falling down on that. I need to be kinder
- 5:23Speaker 3: more broadly. Second, it's offering her instruction about how to
- 5:26Speaker 3: deal with her kids. Now what she could have said,
- 5:29Speaker 3: no regrets, I'll let my kid who cares? All Right,
- 5:33Speaker 3: that's not a good idea. That's not a good idea
- 5:36Speaker 3: because you don't learn of anything from that. And so
- 5:39Speaker 3: now I'll tell you it's also a bad idea. I
- 5:42Speaker 3: yellt up my kid. Oh my god, I am the
- 5:44Speaker 3: worst parent there ever was. I'm going to wallow in
- 5:46Speaker 3: that regret. I'm going to rum it. That's a bad
- 5:48Speaker 3: idea too. What we want to do is we want
- 5:50Speaker 3: to use those regrets as a signal, as information, as data,
- 5:54Speaker 3: enlist them, draw lessons from them, and use those lessons
- 5:58Speaker 3: to move forward.
- 5:59Speaker 2: I want to talk about those lists since in just
- 6:00Speaker 2: to say, but first a little bit of autobiography, if
- 6:03Speaker 2: I can.
- 6:04Speaker 1: My career is built on regret.
- 6:07Speaker 2: Uh early literally early mistakes that I made as a father.
- 6:10Speaker 2: I couldn't be more grateful for my regrets, couldn't be
- 6:14Speaker 2: more grateful for them.
- 6:15Speaker 1: And and in the power of regret.
- 6:17Speaker 2: In your book, you talk a lot about how we
- 6:19Speaker 2: can reframe regret. We can look at what that mom
- 6:22Speaker 2: did and how she, instead of beating herself up, can
- 6:24Speaker 2: say this is a learning opportunity.
- 6:26Speaker 1: How does this reframing work?
- 6:29Speaker 3: Well, I mean, what we I mean, what we want
- 6:31Speaker 3: to do, as I said before, is find the third
- 6:34Speaker 3: way again, don't ignore, don't wilow and confront. Now, how
- 6:36Speaker 3: do we do that? To me, there's a there's a
- 6:38Speaker 3: there's a there's a process that we should go through.
- 6:40Speaker 3: It's it's relatively simple. It is that no one and
- 6:42Speaker 3: it's rooted in science, is that no one ever talks
- 6:44Speaker 3: about it, no one ever, no one ever taught us
- 6:46Speaker 3: how to do it. So the first step, if we
- 6:48Speaker 3: can think of it as three stages, inward outward forward, inward,
- 6:51Speaker 3: outward forward, so inward is your first step, is how
- 6:54Speaker 3: do you reframe how you think of yourself and and
- 6:58Speaker 3: think of the regret. And one of the things that
- 7:00Speaker 3: we see is that when we screw up as parents
- 7:03Speaker 3: or as people or people who are parents, the way
- 7:06Speaker 3: we talk to ourselves is brutal.
- 7:08Speaker 1: It's cruel.
- 7:08Speaker 3: Our self talk is often lacerating. That's a bad idea.
- 7:11Speaker 3: There's no evidence that's effective. What we should be doing
- 7:14Speaker 3: in the face of these mistakes is treating ourselves with
- 7:16Speaker 3: kindness rather than contempt. Recognizing that our mistakes are part
- 7:19Speaker 3: of the human condition. That itself is really important. I've
- 7:22Speaker 3: collected regrets from all over the world. Any regret that
- 7:25Speaker 3: any parent out there has, I got it in my database.
- 7:28Speaker 3: I mean, you know, our regrets are part of the
- 7:31Speaker 3: human condition. The other thing that I think is important
- 7:33Speaker 3: for parents is that when you screw up, when you
- 7:36Speaker 3: make a mistake, that's a moment in your life. It's
- 7:39Speaker 3: not the full measure of your life. That's a moment
- 7:42Speaker 3: in your parenting history. It's not the full definition of
- 7:45Speaker 3: your parenting history. And so when we do that that
- 7:48Speaker 3: inward look frees us up to do the more cognitive
- 7:53Speaker 3: work of making sense of our regret and drawing lessons
- 7:56Speaker 3: from it.
- 7:57Speaker 2: In the book, you talk about at leasting and if
- 7:59Speaker 2: only can you maybe step through those strategies. I feel
- 8:02Speaker 2: like they're just so immensely perfectly practical for what a
- 8:05Speaker 2: parent can do when they blow it, when they lose
- 8:07Speaker 2: it with their kids, or when they're impatient or completely
- 8:11Speaker 2: fail to show up.
- 8:12Speaker 3: So regret is driven powered by something called counterfactual thinking,
- 8:19Speaker 3: that our brains can't imagine events that run counter to
- 8:22Speaker 3: the actual facts. And there are two types of counterfactual thinking.
- 8:26Speaker 3: There is what psychologists call upward counterfactuals, where you imagine
- 8:31Speaker 3: how things could have been better. If only I had
- 8:34Speaker 3: married Edward instead of Frank, my life would be better, right,
- 8:39Speaker 3: so you imagine not things could be better upward counterfactual.
- 8:43Speaker 3: They are also something known as a downward counterfactual, where
- 8:46Speaker 3: you imagine how things could have turned out worse, where
- 8:49Speaker 3: you say, I regret marrying Edward, but at least I
- 8:53Speaker 3: have these two great kids. Okay, so you find the
- 8:55Speaker 3: silver line again. And here's what we know upward counterfactuals.
- 8:59Speaker 3: If only regret is the poster child of upward counterfactor rules.
- 9:05Speaker 3: If only make us feel worse, but help us do
- 9:09Speaker 3: better at least, don't help us do better, But they
- 9:13Speaker 3: help us feel better, and sometimes that's okay, And so
- 9:16Speaker 3: there are times where you actually want to do it,
- 9:19Speaker 3: at least with a regret, just to make yourself feel
- 9:22Speaker 3: better and move on. So you could say something like
- 9:25Speaker 3: the mommy you were talking about before, I regret yelling
- 9:28Speaker 3: at my kid for spilling yogurt on her uniform. But
- 9:33Speaker 3: at least I didn't do that a second time, at
- 9:35Speaker 3: least I didn't escalate it. At least I apologized, and
- 9:38Speaker 3: that can actually mitigate some of the psychological sting.
- 9:42Speaker 2: Dan, if you would have give tempo parents who feel
- 9:44Speaker 2: overwhelmed any advice at all, what would what would it be?
- 9:48Speaker 2: I mean, the role of parenting is it's like Sissyphus
- 9:51Speaker 2: and the Stone right. Every single day we've got to
- 9:52Speaker 2: get up and we've got to do it again. So much,
- 9:54Speaker 2: so much of parenting is correction and direction, so little
- 10:00Speaker 2: time for connection, and we get it wrong because we're
- 10:02Speaker 2: so busy intensifying our parenting efforts. When you think about
- 10:07Speaker 2: all the things that you read and you'll regret survey,
- 10:09Speaker 2: when you think about all the things that like the
- 10:12Speaker 2: real message of the power of regret and you apply
- 10:15Speaker 2: it to what it feels like to be a parent.
- 10:16Speaker 2: I mean, you've got kids yourself, how do you how
- 10:20Speaker 2: do you take that Internet into something that's really useful
- 10:23Speaker 2: as parents are struggling with the every day of parenting.
- 10:26Speaker 3: There are a whole bunch of things justin that people
- 10:29Speaker 3: can do here. So let me offer a few sort
- 10:31Speaker 3: of practical tips. One of them is that it's very
- 10:33Speaker 3: important that we normalize as emotion of regret, one of
- 10:36Speaker 3: the things that we see, especially with adolescents. And you
- 10:38Speaker 3: know this is especially here in the States, I think
- 10:41Speaker 3: maybe less so, but still in Australia. Is some serious
- 10:45Speaker 3: mental health challenges among young people and teenagers around the world,
- 10:51Speaker 3: and I think part of that is that we haven't
- 10:52Speaker 3: equipped them well enough to deal with negative emotions. So
- 10:55Speaker 3: when they feel a negative emotion, because we haven't equipped them,
- 10:59Speaker 3: they look around and say, oh my god, it's like
- 11:01Speaker 3: I'm feeling bad right now. I'm feeling crappy right now,
- 11:05Speaker 3: but everybody else is so perfect. Wow, there must be
- 11:07Speaker 3: something wrong with me, and so what we should do.
- 11:09Speaker 3: So here's so one parenting tip, and I think it's
- 11:11Speaker 3: extremely useful as this. Talk to your kids about a
- 11:16Speaker 3: regret that you have. Tell your kids about a regret
- 11:19Speaker 3: that you have, but don't stop there, tell them what
- 11:22Speaker 3: you learn from it, and tell them what you're gonna
- 11:25Speaker 3: do about it. And I think that that will trigger,
- 11:28Speaker 3: especially for teenagers, a very very powerful and enlightening conversation.
- 11:32Speaker 3: So that's one thing I think that parents can do.
- 11:34Speaker 3: Another thing that parents can do is think about as
- 11:37Speaker 3: they anticipate their regrets. So anticipate their regrets we know
- 11:41Speaker 3: from I did a massive collection of regrets from around
- 11:43Speaker 3: the world and found that around the world people seem
- 11:46Speaker 3: to have the same four core regrets. So as you
- 11:48Speaker 3: anticipate your regrets as a parent, I would really steer
- 11:51Speaker 3: them around doing good enough on most things, but actually
- 11:55Speaker 3: making sure you avoid these four core regrets. Was one
- 11:58Speaker 3: of them. Is, you know, the regret about not providing stability, huge,
- 12:03Speaker 3: huge parental regret, what I call a foundation regret. The
- 12:06Speaker 3: regret about not taking a sensible risk, taking an adventure
- 12:10Speaker 3: with your family, big regret that parents have. I regret
- 12:13Speaker 3: about doing the wrong thing, as we saw with the
- 12:16Speaker 3: mom who yet at her kid, and also regrets about
- 12:20Speaker 3: reaching out. So if you say, you know what, my kid,
- 12:24Speaker 3: and it's not going to matter whether we bought strawberry
- 12:27Speaker 3: yogurt today or cherry yogurt today. It's not going to
- 12:29Speaker 3: matter what ultimately you know if I have a healthy lunch,
- 12:33Speaker 3: what my kid is eating for lunch today. Like, there's
- 12:35Speaker 3: so many decisions parents make, and most of them you
- 12:37Speaker 3: won't remember, but there's some incredibly significant ones that matter
- 12:42Speaker 3: a lot. So when you try to anticipate your regrets
- 12:44Speaker 3: as a parent, anticipate regrets you might have about not
- 12:47Speaker 3: providing stability, regrets you might have about not providing your
- 12:50Speaker 3: family opportunities to learn and grow, regrets you might have
- 12:53Speaker 3: about taking the low road or not doing the right thing,
- 12:56Speaker 3: being immoral, and then regrets that you might have about
- 13:00Speaker 3: not reaching out to your kids, but also to everybody
- 13:03Speaker 3: else in life.
- 13:04Speaker 1: Dan, I love this. You've actually inspired me.
- 13:06Speaker 2: I've been having a conversation with my wife Kylie over
- 13:08Speaker 2: the last couple of weeks. She wants to have more holidays,
- 13:10Speaker 2: she wants to take more vacations, more time away with
- 13:12Speaker 2: the family. Because I'm the dad and I'm always worried
- 13:15Speaker 2: about how much money we've got and whether we can
- 13:16Speaker 2: afford this, so we can afford that, I've been sort
- 13:19Speaker 2: of thinking my heels are saying, let's just have a staycation.
- 13:22Speaker 2: We'll stay home, we'll just visit the beach nearby. It'll
- 13:25Speaker 2: be fine. I can't believe I'm sharing this with you,
- 13:27Speaker 2: but I regret the conversation I had with my wife
- 13:29Speaker 2: the other day, and I feel like I need to
- 13:30Speaker 2: go to her and say I'm sorry. We actually we
- 13:32Speaker 2: do need to put ourselves into more debt so that
- 13:34Speaker 2: we can have that holiday, because I think the kids
- 13:36Speaker 2: aren't going to care about the size of the credit
- 13:37Speaker 2: card dead as much as they're going to enjoy that
- 13:39Speaker 2: opportunity to be away with the family and have that experience.
- 13:42Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 13:42Speaker 3: I mean, that's a tricky one. That's a tricky one
- 13:45Speaker 3: because it's in some ways the particular situation that you're
- 13:48Speaker 3: describing as sort of a balance between stability and stability
- 13:52Speaker 3: and boldness. I don't want to take that lately. What
- 13:55Speaker 3: you do have. It's interesting. It's funny you say that.
- 13:58Speaker 3: It's interesting to say that I just got any mail
- 14:00Speaker 3: from a reader. This reader is in the US city
- 14:04Speaker 3: of Kansas City. I mean literally, like, what, no, not
- 14:07Speaker 3: not today, but yesterday? Who said My bigger regret is
- 14:11Speaker 3: that no joke about this. My bigger regret is that
- 14:14Speaker 3: I didn't spend enough money when I when my family
- 14:20Speaker 3: was younger, I was too nervous that we were going
- 14:24Speaker 3: to go into the poorhouse if we did anything. And
- 14:27Speaker 3: now I am. I can't remember his age, but he was,
- 14:29Speaker 3: you know, in his sixties, and he actually tragically lost
- 14:32Speaker 3: to one of his kids. Now I would do anything
- 14:37Speaker 3: to go back in time and do something because I
- 14:41Speaker 3: realized that now I have the money, but I don't
- 14:44Speaker 3: have any memory. I don't have these memories.
- 14:46Speaker 1: Just going to text her to dance.
- 14:47Speaker 2: I can renovate the house, or I can go on
- 14:49Speaker 2: a holiday, and I think that the.
- 14:51Speaker 1: Kids's gonna be gonna be much.
- 14:53Speaker 3: I'm gonna tell you which one. Yeah, that's a tough
- 14:56Speaker 3: one because you're directly pairing those two things against each other.
- 15:00Speaker 3: That said, one of the things that you see, it's funny.
- 15:03Speaker 3: Let's leave the world of science for a second and
- 15:05Speaker 3: just I can talk about my own experience. I remember
- 15:08Speaker 3: when I have three kids. They're now between the ages
- 15:12Speaker 3: of nineteen and twenty five, twenty six.
- 15:15Speaker 1: Now, the kids changing, Why do they do that?
- 15:18Speaker 3: I know, it's amazing every year, it seems like it's
- 15:20Speaker 3: a different number. One of the things that an old
- 15:23Speaker 3: boss of mine told me when I first had kids,
- 15:26Speaker 3: was pay attention. It's going to go really fast. And
- 15:29Speaker 3: I'm like, all right, old man, And then I realized, like, god, dang,
- 15:34Speaker 3: he was right. I mean, and so is it going
- 15:36Speaker 3: to matter all that much if you pay off your mortgage,
- 15:39Speaker 3: you know, this year or two years from now, But
- 15:41Speaker 3: your kids are only going to be nine and eleven once.
- 15:46Speaker 3: So again, I don't want to be I don't want
- 15:48Speaker 3: to take this. I don't want to take those kinds
- 15:49Speaker 3: of situations that parents have lightly at all. But these
- 15:52Speaker 3: are worthy things to think about. And I think more
- 15:55Speaker 3: broadly is that if you make these kinds of decisions
- 15:58Speaker 3: and it's a mistake, talk to your kids about it.
- 16:01Speaker 3: Here's the thing. I mean, you know this from your
- 16:03Speaker 3: research and from your own lived experience. I think one
- 16:06Speaker 3: thing that parents don't realize is that their kids listen
- 16:08Speaker 3: to them way less than they think, and they watch
- 16:11Speaker 3: them way more than they think. All right, That to
- 16:14Speaker 3: me is like a central fact of parenthood. And so
- 16:17Speaker 3: if you demonstrate these behaviors of normalizing regret, if you show, hey,
- 16:23Speaker 3: I'd made this mistake when I was younger, it hurt.
- 16:26Speaker 3: I didn't enjoy it. But I learned this lesson and
- 16:29Speaker 3: now I'm doing this instead your kids, and you show
- 16:32Speaker 3: them what you're doing, your kids are going to pay
- 16:34Speaker 3: attention to that. Your kids are going to pay attention
- 16:36Speaker 3: to that far more than if you wag your finger
- 16:38Speaker 3: at them.
- 16:39Speaker 2: Yeah, this has been the best part of the interview.
- 16:40Speaker 2: I'm so grateful for what you just shared. I feel
- 16:42Speaker 2: like we've just had a little therapy session.
- 16:43Speaker 1: Dan. That was beautiful.
- 16:47Speaker 2: And I know that we barely know each other and
- 16:48Speaker 2: we're talking in a public sphere here with a podcast.
- 16:52Speaker 2: But when you reflect on your life, and I'm sure
- 16:54Speaker 2: you've been asked this question many times because of the
- 16:56Speaker 2: book you've written, Dan, but what stands out to you
- 16:58Speaker 2: is sig regret. Is there anything that sort of that
- 17:02Speaker 2: that you're comfortable is closing where you just think, ah, gee,
- 17:04Speaker 2: I shouldn't have I shouldn't have said Yes, I shouldn't
- 17:06Speaker 2: have done that thing.
- 17:07Speaker 1: What do you do?
- 17:08Speaker 3: I have a lot of regrets. I have a lot
- 17:10Speaker 3: of regrets. I have many many regrets. Now you know,
- 17:15Speaker 3: I have learned over the years and through this research
- 17:18Speaker 3: not to let them debilitate me. Uh and the and
- 17:21Speaker 3: and they don't. But but I still have regrets. Like
- 17:23Speaker 3: I'll give you one example.
- 17:24Speaker 1: I have a lot of.
- 17:25Speaker 3: Regrets about kindness from when I was younger. And what's
- 17:29Speaker 3: interesting is that in all these regrets that I've collected
- 17:31Speaker 3: for this book, there are a lot of regrets about bullying, Okay,
- 17:34Speaker 3: from from younger. I was amazed at how many regrets
- 17:37Speaker 3: all over the world where people regret having bullied somebody.
- 17:40Speaker 3: They didn't. They don't regret being on the receiving end
- 17:42Speaker 3: of the bullying. They people regretting being the bully. Now,
- 17:45Speaker 3: fortunately for my psychological health, I was never a bully.
- 17:49Speaker 3: But when I was younger, as a teenager, as a
- 17:53Speaker 3: university student, even as a young professional, there were instances
- 17:57Speaker 3: where I saw people not being treated by well, people
- 18:01Speaker 3: being excluded, people not being treated fairly. I saw it.
- 18:07Speaker 3: I knew it was wrong, and I didn't say a word.
- 18:11Speaker 3: And that has bugged me for decades now, same kind
- 18:16Speaker 3: of thing, it's the same kind of thing. What that's
- 18:18Speaker 3: a very normal experience that What's the key here is
- 18:23Speaker 3: what do I do with that emotion? What do I
- 18:26Speaker 3: do with that stomach churning feeling that I'm describing. I
- 18:29Speaker 3: can't ignore it. I can say no regrets. I'm positive
- 18:32Speaker 3: all the time. I never look backward. What's past. This
- 18:36Speaker 3: past bad idea. I can also say, oh my god,
- 18:41Speaker 3: I am the worst, most wretched, vicious human being that
- 18:46Speaker 3: has ever walked the face of earth. I am terrible.
- 18:51Speaker 3: That's a bad idea too. What I should be doing
- 18:53Speaker 3: is saying, Wow, I feel crappy. This makes me feel bad.
- 18:56Speaker 3: That's a signal. What's it telling me? And in the
- 19:00Speaker 3: in similar to the case with the yogurt mom, what
- 19:03Speaker 3: it's telling me and it has helped me is like
- 19:05Speaker 3: I actually value kindness more than I might consciously realize.
- 19:09Speaker 3: And it also instructs me to to be more inclusive,
- 19:14Speaker 3: to stand up when someone's being mistreated, to bring people,
- 19:17Speaker 3: to bring people in. And I've really tried that. Now.
- 19:20Speaker 3: Had I not reckon with that, I don't know. If
- 19:22Speaker 3: I would have done that, I would you know, I
- 19:23Speaker 3: either would have felt really I would have increasingly felt worse,
- 19:26Speaker 3: or I would have not learned that lesson. But by
- 19:28Speaker 3: dealing with their regrets, we can we can learn things
- 19:33Speaker 3: and you and enlist them to be better parents, better employees,
- 19:37Speaker 3: better human beings. You know, it reminds me a little
- 19:40Speaker 3: bit of your first question, which is that when people
- 19:43Speaker 3: profess that they have no regrets, I think that part
- 19:47Speaker 3: of it is that it is a form of performed courage.
- 19:51Speaker 3: They think this is what it means to be a
- 19:52Speaker 3: courageous person. But that's not courage. Courage is looking your
- 19:56Speaker 3: regrets in the eye and doing something about them. And
- 20:00Speaker 3: so you know, and I think that parents who demonstrate
- 20:04Speaker 3: courage are good parents. Parents who demonst read courage are
- 20:07Speaker 3: teaching their kids valuable, valuable lessons.
- 20:10Speaker 2: Dan, this has been just it's been a highlight. What
- 20:13Speaker 2: a great conversation. Thank you so much for your generosity
- 20:15Speaker 2: in sharing what you have.
- 20:16Speaker 1: The book is called The Power of Regret.
- 20:17Speaker 2: For people who want more information about Dan Pink and
- 20:19Speaker 2: everything that you do, where can they go?
- 20:21Speaker 1: What can they do?
- 20:22Speaker 3: Good to Danpink dot com, d A N p I
- 20:24Speaker 3: MK dot com. We've got a free newsletter, all kinds
- 20:26Speaker 3: of videos and all kinds of great stuff.
- 20:28Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it. I received the newsletter as regularly
- 20:31Speaker 2: as it comes out. I don't know how often it
- 20:32Speaker 2: pops up in my inbox, but I love receiving it. Dan,
- 20:34Speaker 2: thanks so much for being on a Happy Families podcast.
- 20:36Speaker 2: It's been a real delight to be with you.
- 20:37Speaker 3: A pleasure. Thanks for having me, Justin.
- 20:39Speaker 1: That was Daniel Pink.
- 20:41Speaker 2: You can find out all about Dan Pink by going
- 20:43Speaker 2: to his website, and we'll also link to that and
- 20:45Speaker 2: his books in the show notes. Ah Man, I've got
- 20:49Speaker 2: to say just before we wrap up the podcast. I've
- 20:51Speaker 2: interviewed a whole lot of people for this podcast, and in
- 20:53Speaker 2: a whole range of different ways, but talking to Dan
- 20:56Speaker 2: Pink is one of the highlights of my life and
- 20:59Speaker 2: of the podcast. What an absolute what an absolute superstar.
- 21:03Speaker 1: So glad that he was able.
- 21:04Speaker 2: To join me on the podcast, A real thrill. I
- 21:06Speaker 2: hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. All
- 21:09Speaker 2: the details are in the show notes. As I've mentioned already,
- 21:12Speaker 2: I'm sort of gushing, are I. The Happy Family's podcast
- 21:15Speaker 2: is produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media.
- 21:18Speaker 1: Craig Bruce is our executive producer.
- 21:20Speaker 2: If you'd like more information about making your family happy it,
- 21:22Speaker 2: please visit us at happy families dot com.
- 21:24Speaker 3: Do you