Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #629 Dan Pink: The Power of Regret
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.
- 0:05Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
- 0:09Speaker 2: answers Now.
- 0:10Speaker 3: Hello, this is doctor Justin Colson today, a guest on
- 0:13Speaker 3: the podcast that I'm so excited to be able to
- 0:15Speaker 3: speak with. If I was to put together a list
- 0:17Speaker 3: of favorite authors, favorite influencers, people who have done things
- 0:21Speaker 3: that are talk worthy, right at the top of the
- 0:25Speaker 3: list would be a guy by the name of Daniel Pink.
- 0:27Speaker 3: Dan Pink is the author of five New York Times
- 0:30Speaker 3: best sellers, including his latest book, The Power of Regret,
- 0:34Speaker 3: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward. He also wrote a
- 0:38Speaker 3: book that almost everyone in the entire world has read,
- 0:40Speaker 3: I'm sure, called Drive. And he had a book just
- 0:43Speaker 3: come out in the last year or so as well
- 0:45Speaker 3: called When He's Prolific.
- 0:47Speaker 1: That's all I can say.
- 0:48Speaker 3: He's had a TV show on National Geographic that's been
- 0:50Speaker 3: seen in like one hundred countries, writes for all of
- 0:53Speaker 3: the big publications in the US and around the world,
- 0:57Speaker 3: and has done a whole lot more stuff. And Dan
- 0:59Speaker 3: joins me for a conversation about his brand new book,
- 1:03Speaker 3: The Power of Regret, How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward. Dan,
- 1:06Speaker 3: thanks for being on the Happy Family's podcast. This is
- 1:08Speaker 3: an absolute delight.
- 1:10Speaker 2: 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 3: It's literally gone blank as I picked it up on
- 1:18Speaker 3: the let me find it here. On the twenty fourth
- 1:21Speaker 3: of the fourth twenty twenty one, I wrote this little
- 1:25Speaker 3: note to myself that I wanted to write a book
- 1:27Speaker 3: all about the power of regret. In fact, I've come
- 1:31Speaker 3: up with the opener. I wrote, of all the words
- 1:34Speaker 3: of tongue and pen the saddestar, what could have been
- 1:36Speaker 3: a little couplet. I thought, let's write a book about regrets,
- 1:39Speaker 3: the science of regret, examples of people's regret. Should we
- 1:42Speaker 3: avoid regret? Or is it our best teacher? I thought,
- 1:44Speaker 3: there's something in this. I've got an idea. I reckon
- 1:46Speaker 3: it could be a New York Times bestseller. And I
- 1:50Speaker 3: regret taking so long to get onto it. But somehow
- 1:52Speaker 3: I think that you did a better job than I
- 1:53Speaker 3: would have done.
- 1:54Speaker 2: You know, I wish you would have done. It would
- 1:55Speaker 2: have saved me a lot of grief of writing this.
- 1:57Speaker 3: Book, So Dan, so many people say that they don't
- 1:59Speaker 3: have regrets. You've touched on that in the book. Why
- 2:03Speaker 3: do you think there's saying that that I don't have
- 2:04Speaker 3: any regrets and you actually rejected outright, Why do you
- 2:08Speaker 3: do that?
- 2:09Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about the baseline first, is that everybody
- 2:12Speaker 2: has regrets. What we know from sixty years of science
- 2:16Speaker 2: in psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, development of psychology, is that
- 2:20Speaker 2: regret is one of the most common emotions that human
- 2:22Speaker 2: beings have. It's arguably the most common negative emotion that
- 2:26Speaker 2: human beings have. If you don't have regrets, it means
- 2:31Speaker 2: you're probably a five year old, or you have some
- 2:33Speaker 2: brain disorder or your sociopath But everybody has regrets. So
- 2:36Speaker 2: why would people say that right when we know that
- 2:39Speaker 2: everybody has regrets? And I think it's a really intriguing
- 2:41Speaker 2: question justin I think one of them is I think
- 2:43Speaker 2: part of it is is that people think that that
- 2:45Speaker 2: is courageous, that that's a sign of courage. I don't
- 2:48Speaker 2: have any regrets. You know, I'm bold, I'm courageous, right.
- 2:51Speaker 2: I think that's one reason. I think another reason is
- 2:54Speaker 2: that people are over indexed on positivity. They think that
- 2:58Speaker 2: the way to lead a good life is to have
- 3:00Speaker 2: only positive emotions and no negative emotions. And I think
- 3:02Speaker 2: another reason is that we don't know what to do
- 3:05Speaker 2: with our regrets, so it's much easier to ignore than
- 3:07Speaker 2: or bury them. It turns out that we have a
- 3:10Speaker 2: half century of science saying that is a colossally bad idea.
- 3:14Speaker 2: So what I'm trying to do in part in this
- 3:16Speaker 2: book is normalize this emotion of regret because it's normal.
- 3:21Speaker 3: There's a parent on page forty four of the book
- 3:24Speaker 3: who says one of her great regrets is, and I quote,
- 3:28Speaker 3: I yelled at my daughter when she was five on
- 3:30Speaker 3: the way to school when she spilled some yogat on
- 3:32Speaker 3: her uniform.
- 3:33Speaker 1: I really lated to her, and I've regretted it ever since.
- 3:36Speaker 1: She didn't deserve that.
- 3:37Speaker 3: I upset her so much, and for what a bit
- 3:39Speaker 3: of a stain on her uniform. I will never stop
- 3:41Speaker 3: regretting that moment. I've never yielded her in that way again.
- 3:44Speaker 3: So I learned from that mistake, but I wish I
- 3:46Speaker 3: could take that moment back.
- 3:47Speaker 1: Now. I read that and I thought two things.
- 3:48Speaker 3: Number one, I relate, But number two, if that's the
- 3:51Speaker 3: worst thing she's ever done, she must be a pretty
- 3:52Speaker 3: good mum.
- 3:53Speaker 2: It's an interesting thing about what people regret. Obviously this
- 3:56Speaker 2: and I think that tells us something. Okay, so let's
- 3:59Speaker 2: let's let's probe that just a little bit. Think about
- 4:02Speaker 2: that mom or think about any parent, all right, Think
- 4:05Speaker 2: about all the decisions that you make as a parent.
- 4:07Speaker 2: Think about all the decisions you made as a parent
- 4:09Speaker 2: yesterday or last week or last year. Think about all
- 4:13Speaker 2: the actions you took as a parent yesterday or last
- 4:16Speaker 2: week or last year. Most of them you me, I
- 4:21Speaker 2: don't even remember. Okay. So if you have an action
- 4:25Speaker 2: or a decision or somebody that happens to you and
- 4:27Speaker 2: not only do you remember it, which itself is amazing,
- 4:30Speaker 2: but you remember it and it makes you feel bad,
- 4:33Speaker 2: that's a very very very very strong signal. And so
- 4:40Speaker 2: my guess with this person, and what is it the
- 4:42Speaker 2: signal of? It's a signal of And this is the
- 4:44Speaker 2: thing about regret. Regret clarifies what we value and instructs
- 4:48Speaker 2: us on how to do better. Now, it sounds I
- 4:50Speaker 2: did not interview that person. That was an anonymous entry
- 4:53Speaker 2: and among the regrets that I collected, But my guess
- 4:56Speaker 2: is that that person has actually used that as instruction
- 5:01Speaker 2: for the future. But I think the other thing about
- 5:03Speaker 2: it is that it probably raised the question of what
- 5:05Speaker 2: she values. And I think what she values this kindness,
- 5:08Speaker 2: not only towards her children, but toward toward other people.
- 5:10Speaker 2: And so in that sense, this negative feeling is actually
- 5:13Speaker 2: incredibly helpful because in this case, it's a message to
- 5:17Speaker 2: this parent saying, you know what, I actually value kindness
- 5:20Speaker 2: more than I expect, and I've been falling down on that.
- 5:22Speaker 2: I need to be kinder more broadly. Second, it's offering
- 5:25Speaker 2: her instruction about how to deal with her kids. Now
- 5:27Speaker 2: what she could have said, no regrets, I yell up
- 5:31Speaker 2: my kid who cares? All Right, that's not a good idea.
- 5:35Speaker 2: That's not a good idea because you don't learn of
- 5:37Speaker 2: anything from that. And so now I'll tell you it's
- 5:40Speaker 2: also a bad idea. I yellt up my kid. Oh
- 5:43Speaker 2: my god, I am the worst parent there ever was.
- 5:46Speaker 2: I'm going to wallow in that regret. I'm going to
- 5:47Speaker 2: rum it. That's a bad idea too. What we want
- 5:49Speaker 2: to do is we want to use those regrets as
- 5:51Speaker 2: a signal, as information, as data, enlist them, draw lessons
- 5:56Speaker 2: from them, and use those lessons to move forward.
- 5:59Speaker 3: I want to talk about that as less since in
- 6:00Speaker 3: just to say, but first a little bit of autobiography,
- 6:03Speaker 3: if I can. My career is built on regret. Uh
- 6:07Speaker 3: early literally early mistakes that I made as a father.
- 6:10Speaker 3: I couldn't be more grateful for my regrets, couldn't be
- 6:14Speaker 3: more grateful for them. And and in the power of
- 6:16Speaker 3: regret in your book, you talk a lot about how
- 6:19Speaker 3: we can reframe regret. We can look at what that
- 6:21Speaker 3: mom did and how she, instead of beating herself up,
- 6:24Speaker 3: can say this is a learning opportunity.
- 6:26Speaker 1: How does this reframing work?
- 6:29Speaker 2: Well, I mean what we I mean, what we want
- 6:31Speaker 2: to do, as I said before, is find the third
- 6:34Speaker 2: way again, don't ignore, don't willow and confront. Now, how
- 6:36Speaker 2: do we do that? To me? There's a there's a
- 6:38Speaker 2: there's a there's a process that we should go through.
- 6:41Speaker 2: It's it's relatively simple, isn't no one and it's rooted
- 6:43Speaker 2: in science. Is that no one ever talks about it,
- 6:45Speaker 2: no one ever, no one ever taught us how to
- 6:46Speaker 2: do it. So the first step, if we can think
- 6:48Speaker 2: of it as three stages inward outward forward, inward, outward forward,
- 6:52Speaker 2: So inward is your first step is how do you
- 6:55Speaker 2: reframe how you think of yourself and and think of
- 6:59Speaker 2: the regret. And one of the things that we see
- 7:01Speaker 2: is that when we screw up as parents or as
- 7:03Speaker 2: people or people who are parents, the way we talk
- 7:07Speaker 2: to ourselves is brutal.
- 7:08Speaker 1: It's cruel.
- 7:08Speaker 2: Our self talk is often lacerating. That's a bad idea.
- 7:11Speaker 2: There's no evidence that's effective. What we should be doing
- 7:14Speaker 2: in the face of these mistakes is treating ourselves with
- 7:16Speaker 2: kindness rather than contempt. Recognizing that our mistakes are part
- 7:19Speaker 2: of the human condition. That itself is really important. I've
- 7:22Speaker 2: collected regrets from all over the world. Any regret that
- 7:25Speaker 2: any parent out that there has, I got it in
- 7:27Speaker 2: my database. I mean, you know, our regrets are part
- 7:31Speaker 2: of the human condition. The other thing that I think
- 7:33Speaker 2: is important for parents is that when you screw up,
- 7:36Speaker 2: when you make a mistake, that's a moment in your life.
- 7:39Speaker 2: It's not the full measure of your life. That's a
- 7:41Speaker 2: moment in your parenting history. It's not the full definition
- 7:45Speaker 2: of your parenting history. And so when we do that,
- 7:47Speaker 2: that inward look frees us up to do the more
- 7:52Speaker 2: cognitive work of making sense of our regret and drawing
- 7:55Speaker 2: lessons from it.
- 7:57Speaker 3: In the book you talk about at leasting, and if
- 7:59Speaker 3: only can you maybe step through those strategies. I feel
- 8:02Speaker 3: like they're just so immensely perfectly practical for what a
- 8:05Speaker 3: parent can do when they blow it, when they lose
- 8:07Speaker 3: it with their kids, or when they're impatient or completely
- 8:11Speaker 3: fail to show up.
- 8:12Speaker 2: So regret is driven powered by something called counterfactual thinking,
- 8:19Speaker 2: that our brains can't imagine events that run counter to
- 8:22Speaker 2: the actual facts. And there are two types of counterfactual thinking.
- 8:26Speaker 2: There is what psychologists call upward counterfactuals, where you imagine
- 8:31Speaker 2: how things could have been better. If only I had
- 8:34Speaker 2: married Edward instead of Frank, my life would be better, right,
- 8:39Speaker 2: so you imagine not things could be better upward counterfactual.
- 8:43Speaker 2: They're also something known as a downward counterfactual, where you
- 8:47Speaker 2: imagine how things could have turned out worse, where you say,
- 8:50Speaker 2: I regret marrying Edward, but at least I have these
- 8:53Speaker 2: two great kids. Okay, so you find the silver line again,
- 8:56Speaker 2: And then here's what we know upward counterfactuals. If only
- 9:00Speaker 2: regret is the poster child of upward counterfactor rules. If
- 9:05Speaker 2: only make us feel worse, but help us do better
- 9:10Speaker 2: at least, don't help us do better, but they help
- 9:14Speaker 2: us feel better, and sometimes that's okay. And so there
- 9:16Speaker 2: are times where you actually want to do it, at
- 9:19Speaker 2: least with a regret, just to make yourself feel better
- 9:22Speaker 2: and move on. So you could say something like the
- 9:25Speaker 2: mommy you were talking about before, I regret yelling at
- 9:28Speaker 2: my kid for spilling yogurt on her uniform. But at
- 9:33Speaker 2: least I didn't do that a second time. At least
- 9:35Speaker 2: I didn't escalate it. At least I apologized, And that
- 9:39Speaker 2: can actually mitigate some of the psychological sting.
- 9:42Speaker 3: Dan, if you would give timepol parents who feel I've
- 9:44Speaker 3: bewhelmed any advice at all, would what would it be?
- 9:48Speaker 3: I mean, the role of parenting is it's like Sissyphus
- 9:51Speaker 3: and the style right. Every single day we've got to
- 9:52Speaker 3: get up and we've got to do it again so much,
- 9:54Speaker 3: so much.
- 9:55Speaker 1: Of parenting is correction and direction.
- 9:59Speaker 3: This so little time for connection, and we get it
- 10:02Speaker 3: wrong because we're so busy intensifying our parenting efforts.
- 10:06Speaker 1: When you think about all the things.
- 10:08Speaker 3: That you read and you'll regret survey, when you think
- 10:10Speaker 3: about all the things that like the real message of
- 10:13Speaker 3: the power of regret, and you'll fly it to what
- 10:15Speaker 3: it feels like to be a parent. I mean, you've
- 10:17Speaker 3: got kids yourself, how do you how do you take
- 10:21Speaker 3: that Internet into something that's really useful as parents are
- 10:23Speaker 3: struggling with the every day of parenting.
- 10:26Speaker 2: There are a whole bunch of things justin the people
- 10:29Speaker 2: can do here. So let me offer a few sort
- 10:31Speaker 2: of practical tips. One of them is that it's very
- 10:33Speaker 2: important that we normalize as emotion of regret one of
- 10:36Speaker 2: the things that we see, especially with adolescents. And you
- 10:38Speaker 2: know this is especially here in the States. I think
- 10:41Speaker 2: maybe less so, but still in Australia. Is some serious
- 10:45Speaker 2: mental health challenges among young people and teenagers around the world,
- 10:51Speaker 2: and I think part of that is that we haven't
- 10:52Speaker 2: equipped them well enough to deal with negative emotions. So
- 10:55Speaker 2: when they feel a negative emotion, because we haven't equipped them,
- 10:59Speaker 2: they look around and say, oh my god, it's like
- 11:01Speaker 2: I'm feeling bad right now. I'm feeling crappy right now,
- 11:05Speaker 2: but everybody else is so perfect. Wow, there must be
- 11:07Speaker 2: something wrong with me, and so what we should do.
- 11:09Speaker 2: So here's one parenting tip, and I think it's extremely
- 11:12Speaker 2: useful as this talk to your kids about a regret
- 11:17Speaker 2: that you have. Tell your kids about a regret that
- 11:19Speaker 2: you have, but don't stop there. Tell them what you
- 11:22Speaker 2: learn from it, and tell them what you're gonna do
- 11:25Speaker 2: about it. And I think that that will trigger, especially
- 11:28Speaker 2: for teenagers, a very very powerful and enlightening conversation. So
- 11:32Speaker 2: that's one thing I think that parents can do. Another
- 11:35Speaker 2: thing that parents can do is think about as they
- 11:37Speaker 2: anticipate their regrets. To anticipate their regrets, we know from
- 11:41Speaker 2: I did a massive collection of regrets from around the
- 11:44Speaker 2: world and found that around the world people seem to
- 11:46Speaker 2: have the same four core regrets. So would you anticipate
- 11:49Speaker 2: your regrets as a parent? I would really steer them
- 11:52Speaker 2: around doing good enough on most things, but actually making
- 11:56Speaker 2: sure you avoid these four core regrets was one of them. Is,
- 11:59Speaker 2: you know, the regret about not providing stability, huge, huge
- 12:03Speaker 2: parental regret, what I call a foundation regret. The regret
- 12:07Speaker 2: about not taking a sensible risk, taking an adventure with
- 12:10Speaker 2: your family, big regret that parents have. I regret about
- 12:13Speaker 2: doing the wrong thing, as we saw with the mom
- 12:17Speaker 2: who yet at her kid, and also regrets about reaching out.
- 12:21Speaker 2: So if you say, you know what, my kid and
- 12:24Speaker 2: it's not going to matter whether we bought strawberry yogurt
- 12:27Speaker 2: today or cherry yogurt today, it's not going to matter
- 12:30Speaker 2: what Ultimately, you know, if I have a healthy lunch,
- 12:33Speaker 2: what my kid is eating for lunch today. Like, there's
- 12:35Speaker 2: so many decisions parents make, and most of them you
- 12:37Speaker 2: won't remember, but there's some incredibly significant ones that matter
- 12:42Speaker 2: a lot. So when you try to anticipate your regrets
- 12:44Speaker 2: as a parent, anticipate regrets you might have about not
- 12:47Speaker 2: providing stability, regrets you might have about not providing your
- 12:50Speaker 2: family opportunities to learn and grow, regrets you might have
- 12:53Speaker 2: about taking the low road or not doing the right thing,
- 12:56Speaker 2: being immoral, and then regrets that you might have about
- 13:00Speaker 2: not reaching out to your kids, but also to everybody
- 13:03Speaker 2: else in life.
- 13:04Speaker 1: Dan, I love this. You've actually inspired me.
- 13:06Speaker 3: I've been having a conversation with my wife Kylie over
- 13:08Speaker 3: the last couple of weeks. She wants to have more holidays,
- 13:10Speaker 3: she wants to take more vacations, more time away with
- 13:12Speaker 3: the family. Because I'm the dad and I'm always worried
- 13:15Speaker 3: about how much money we've got and whether we can
- 13:16Speaker 3: afford this or we can afford that. I've been sort
- 13:19Speaker 3: of thinking my heels are saying, let's just have a staycation.
- 13:22Speaker 3: We'll stay home, we'll just visit the beach nearby. It'll
- 13:25Speaker 3: be fine. I can't believe I'm sharing this with you,
- 13:27Speaker 3: but I regret the conversation I had with my wife
- 13:29Speaker 3: the other day, and I feel like I need to
- 13:30Speaker 3: go to her and say I'm sorry. We actually we
- 13:32Speaker 3: do need to put ourselves into more debt so that
- 13:34Speaker 3: we can have that holiday, because I think the kids
- 13:36Speaker 3: aren't going to care about the size of the credit
- 13:37Speaker 3: card dead as much as they're going to enjoy that
- 13:39Speaker 3: opportunity to be away with the family and have that experience.
- 13:42Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, that's a tricky one. That's a tricky
- 13:45Speaker 2: one because it's in some ways the particular situation that
- 13:48Speaker 2: you're describing as sort of a balance between stability and
- 13:52Speaker 2: stability and boldness. I don't want to take that lately,
- 13:55Speaker 2: what you do have. It's interesting. It's funny you say that.
- 13:58Speaker 2: It's interesting to say that I just got an e
- 14:00Speaker 2: mail from a reader. This reader is in the US
- 14:03Speaker 2: city of Kansas City. I mean literally, like, well, no,
- 14:07Speaker 2: not not today, but yesterday. Who said My bigger regret
- 14:11Speaker 2: is that no joke about this My bigger regret is
- 14:14Speaker 2: that I didn't spend enough money when I when my
- 14:20Speaker 2: family was younger, I was too nervous that we were
- 14:24Speaker 2: going to go into the poorhouse if we did anything.
- 14:27Speaker 2: And now I am. I can't remember his age, but
- 14:29Speaker 2: he was, you know, in his sixties, and he actually
- 14:32Speaker 2: tragically lost to one of his kids. Now I would
- 14:35Speaker 2: do anything to go back in time and do something
- 14:41Speaker 2: because I realized that now I have the money, but
- 14:43Speaker 2: I don't have any memory. I don't have these memories.
- 14:46Speaker 1: Just go to text her to dance.
- 14:47Speaker 3: I can renovate the house, or I can go on
- 14:49Speaker 3: a holiday, and I think that the kids's gonna.
- 14:52Speaker 1: Be gonna be much more.
- 14:53Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell you which one. Yeah, that's a tough
- 14:56Speaker 2: one because you're directly pairing those two things against each other.
- 15:00Speaker 2: That said, one of the things that you see, it's funny.
- 15:03Speaker 2: Let's leave the world of science for a second and
- 15:05Speaker 2: just I can talk about my own experience. I remember
- 15:08Speaker 2: when I have three kids. They're now between the ages
- 15:12Speaker 2: of nineteen and twenty five, twenty six.
- 15:15Speaker 1: Now it keeps changing. Why do they do that?
- 15:18Speaker 2: I know, it's amazing. Every year it seems like it's
- 15:20Speaker 2: a different number. One of the things that an old
- 15:23Speaker 2: boss of mine told me when I first had kids
- 15:26Speaker 2: was pay attention. It's going to go really fast. And
- 15:29Speaker 2: I'm like, all right, old man, And then I realized, like, god, dang,
- 15:34Speaker 2: he was right. I mean, and so is it going
- 15:36Speaker 2: to matter all that much if you pay off your mortgage,
- 15:39Speaker 2: you know, this year or two years from now, But
- 15:41Speaker 2: your kids are only going to be nine and eleven once.
- 15:46Speaker 2: So again, I don't want to be I don't want
- 15:48Speaker 2: to take this. I don't want to take those kinds
- 15:49Speaker 2: of situations that parents have lightly at all. But these
- 15:52Speaker 2: are worthy things to think about. And I think more
- 15:55Speaker 2: broadly is that if you make these kinds of decisions
- 15:58Speaker 2: and it's a mistake, talk to your kids about it.
- 16:01Speaker 2: Here's the thing. I mean, you know this from your
- 16:03Speaker 2: research and from your own lived experience. I think one
- 16:06Speaker 2: thing that parents don't realize is that their kids listen
- 16:08Speaker 2: to them way less than they think, and they watched
- 16:11Speaker 2: them way more than that they think. All right, That
- 16:14Speaker 2: to me is like a central fact of parenthood. And
- 16:16Speaker 2: so if you demonstrate these behaviors of normalizing regret, if
- 16:21Speaker 2: you show, hey, I'd made this mistake when I was younger,
- 16:26Speaker 2: it hurt. I didn't enjoy it, but I learned this
- 16:28Speaker 2: lesson and now I'm doing this instead your kids and
- 16:32Speaker 2: you show them what you're doing, your kids are going
- 16:33Speaker 2: to pay attention to that. Your kids are going to
- 16:36Speaker 2: pay attention to that far more than if you wag
- 16:38Speaker 2: your finger at them.
- 16:39Speaker 3: Yeah, this has been the best part of the interview.
- 16:40Speaker 3: I'm so grateful for what you just sh it. I
- 16:42Speaker 3: feel like we just had a little therapy session, Dan.
- 16:44Speaker 1: That was beautiful.
- 16:47Speaker 3: And I know that we barely know each other and
- 16:48Speaker 3: we're talking in a public sphere here with a podcast.
- 16:52Speaker 3: But when you reflect on your life, and I'm sure
- 16:54Speaker 3: you've been asked this question many times because of the
- 16:56Speaker 3: book you've written, Dan, but what stands out to you
- 16:58Speaker 3: is seeing dificant regret. Is there anything that sort of
- 17:02Speaker 3: that that you're comfortable is closing where you just think, ah, gee,
- 17:04Speaker 3: I shouldn't have I shouldn't have said, Yes, I shouldn't
- 17:06Speaker 3: have done that thing.
- 17:07Speaker 1: What do you do?
- 17:08Speaker 2: I have a lot of regrets. I have a lot
- 17:10Speaker 2: of regrets. I have many many regrets. Now you know,
- 17:15Speaker 2: I have learned over the years and through this research
- 17:18Speaker 2: not to let them debilitate me, and and they don't.
- 17:21Speaker 2: But but I still have regrets. I'll give you one example.
- 17:24Speaker 2: I have a lot of regrets about kindness from when
- 17:27Speaker 2: I was younger. And what's interesting is that in all
- 17:30Speaker 2: these regrets that I've collected for this book, there are
- 17:32Speaker 2: a lot of regrets about bullying, Okay, from younger. I
- 17:35Speaker 2: was amazed at how many regrets all over the world
- 17:38Speaker 2: where people regret having bullied somebody. They didn't, they don't
- 17:41Speaker 2: regret being on the receiving end of the bullying, the
- 17:43Speaker 2: people regretting being the bully. Now, fortunately for my psychological health,
- 17:48Speaker 2: I was never a bully. But when I was younger,
- 17:51Speaker 2: as a teenager, as a university student, even as a
- 17:54Speaker 2: young professional, there were instances where I saw people not
- 17:59Speaker 2: being treated by well, people being excluded, people not being
- 18:03Speaker 2: treated fairly. I saw it, I knew it was wrong,
- 18:10Speaker 2: and I didn't say a word. And that has bugged
- 18:12Speaker 2: me for decades now, same kind of thing, it's the
- 18:16Speaker 2: same kind of thing. What that's a very normal experience
- 18:21Speaker 2: that what's the key here is what do I do
- 18:24Speaker 2: with that emotion? What do I do with that stomach
- 18:27Speaker 2: churning feeling that I'm describing I can't ignore it. I
- 18:30Speaker 2: can say no regrets. I'm positive all the time. I
- 18:34Speaker 2: never look backward. What's past. This past bad idea. I
- 18:39Speaker 2: can also say, oh my god, I am the worst,
- 18:43Speaker 2: most wretched, vicious human being that has ever walked the
- 18:47Speaker 2: face of earth. I am terrible. That's a bad idea too.
- 18:52Speaker 2: What I should be doing is saying, wow, I feel crappy.
- 18:55Speaker 2: This makes me feel bad. That's a signal. What's it
- 18:58Speaker 2: telling me? And in the in similar to the case
- 19:01Speaker 2: with the yogurt mom, what it's telling me and it
- 19:04Speaker 2: has helped me is like I actually value kindness more
- 19:07Speaker 2: than I might consciously realize. And it also instructs me
- 19:11Speaker 2: to to be more inclusive, to stand up when someone's
- 19:15Speaker 2: being mistreated, to bring people, to bring people in. And
- 19:18Speaker 2: I've really tried that. Now. Had I not reckon with that,
- 19:21Speaker 2: I don't know if I would have done that, I
- 19:23Speaker 2: you know, I either would have felt really I would
- 19:25Speaker 2: have increasingly felt worse, or I would have not learned
- 19:27Speaker 2: that lesson. But by dealing with their regrets, we can
- 19:31Speaker 2: we can learn things and you and enlist them to
- 19:35Speaker 2: be better parents, better employees, better human beings. You know
- 19:40Speaker 2: it reminds me a little bit of your first question,
- 19:42Speaker 2: which is that when people profess that they have no regrets,
- 19:46Speaker 2: I think that part of it is that it is
- 19:48Speaker 2: a form of performed courage. They think this is what
- 19:52Speaker 2: it means to be a courageous person. But that's that courage.
- 19:55Speaker 2: Courage is looking your regrets in the eye and doing
- 19:58Speaker 2: something about them. And so you know, and I think
- 20:02Speaker 2: that parents who demonstrate courage are good parents. Parents who
- 20:06Speaker 2: damonst read courage are teaching their kids valuable, valuable lessons.
- 20:10Speaker 1: Dan, this has been just it's been a highlight.
- 20:13Speaker 3: What a great conversation. Thank you so much for your
- 20:14Speaker 3: generosity in sharing what you have.
- 20:16Speaker 1: The book is called The Power of Regret.
- 20:17Speaker 3: For people who want more information about Dan Pink and
- 20:19Speaker 3: everything that you.
- 20:20Speaker 1: Do, where can they go? What can they do?
- 20:22Speaker 2: Good to Danpink dot com, d A N p I
- 20:24Speaker 2: MK dot com. We've got a free newsletter, all kinds
- 20:26Speaker 2: of videos and all kinds.
- 20:27Speaker 1: Of great stuff.
- 20:28Speaker 3: Yeah, I love it. I received the newsletter as regularly
- 20:31Speaker 3: as it comes out. I don't know how often it
- 20:32Speaker 3: pops up in my inbox, but I love receiving it. Dan,
- 20:34Speaker 3: thanks so much for being on a Happy Family's Podcast.
- 20:36Speaker 3: It's been a real delight to be with.
- 20:37Speaker 2: You, a pleasure. Thanks for having me, Justin.
- 20:39Speaker 1: That was Daniel Pink.
- 20:41Speaker 3: You can find out all about Dan Pink by going
- 20:43Speaker 3: to his website, and we'll also link to that and
- 20:45Speaker 3: his books in the show notes. Ah Man, I've got
- 20:49Speaker 3: to say just before we wrap up the podcast. I've
- 20:51Speaker 3: interviewed a whole lot of people for this podcast in
- 20:53Speaker 3: a whole range of different ways, but talking to Dan
- 20:56Speaker 3: Pink is one of the highlights of my life and
- 20:59Speaker 3: of the podcast. What an absolute on an absolute superstar.
- 21:03Speaker 3: So glad that he was able to join me on
- 21:04Speaker 3: the podcast a real thrill. I hope you enjoyed that
- 21:07Speaker 3: as much as I did. All the details are in
- 21:10Speaker 3: the show notes. As I've mentioned already, I'm sort of gushing,
- 21:13Speaker 3: ared I. The Happy Family's Podcast is produced by Justin
- 21:16Speaker 3: Ruland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer.
- 21:20Speaker 3: If you'd like more information about making your family Happy It,
- 21:22Speaker 3: please visit us at Happy families dot com.
- 21:24Speaker 2: Do you