Latest / The Start, Scale & Succeed Podcast / Stopping Isn’t Quitting with Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey (stage 1) - Ep. 438

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Stopping Isn’t Quitting with Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey (stage 1) - Ep. 438 · The Start, Scale & Succeed Podcast

• 0:00
  Scott Ritzheimer: Hello, hello, and welcome, welcome once again
• 0:03
  to the Start, Scale, and Succeed podcast-the only podcast that
• 0:05
  grows with you through all seven levels of your journey as a
• 0:09
  founder. I'm your host Scott Ritzheimer, and this episode is
• 0:12
  going to be for everyone. Not a lot of episodes are, and it's
• 0:16
  not even just for founders because we all go through level
• 0:20
  one. We all have that time when we're that dissatisfied leader,
• 0:24
  frustrated with the world. And even if you've you're not there,
• 0:29
  even if you've started your own, even if you're well into this
• 0:32
  journey, one of the things that I found is that each of these
• 0:35
  levels builds on the previous one. And so, regardless of what
• 0:39
  level you're in now, there are a few key lessons from level one
• 0:43
  that we do not want to leave behind, and I really believe
• 0:47
  that this is one of them. And to sum it up, the the thing that I
• 0:52
  would say is that stopping isn't quitting. Now I have no idea
• 0:56
  what that means, not really, but I have someone who does, and I'm
• 1:00
  very excited to explore this because here to explain the
• 1:03
  difference between stopping and quitting is Nell 3D. Nell is a
• 1:07
  subtraction activist, a Forbes leadership contributor, and
• 1:11
  creator of the the Lead in 3D framework. She helps ambitious,
• 1:15
  big-hearted leaders build success that feels as good as it
• 1:19
  looks, so they can have the impact they care most about. Her
• 1:23
  systematic subtraction method has served leaders at companies
• 1:27
  from Google to Bank of America and the National Park Service,
• 1:30
  and I'm so glad that she is here with us today. Now, I think this
• 1:36
  is as I was kind of getting ready for this. I think one of
• 1:38
  the more radical things that I've heard you say is that for
• 1:43
  especially for those high achievers, one of the best
• 1:46
  things that they can do is stop, which isn't necessarily to quit,
• 1:50
  and and that's kind of a strange message for someone, especially
• 1:54
  who's like totally dissatisfied in their job, who's ready to
• 1:57
  quit, or or those high performers out there who like
• 2:01
  they get done more than just about anyone else in the world,
• 2:05
  but somehow it just doesn't feel like it's enough. What would you
• 2:09
  say to someone like that listening today?
• 2:11
  Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey: Yeah. Oh, thank you so much. Scott,
• 2:13
  such a good intro, and I totally agree with you. Maybe I'm a
• 2:16
  little biased, but I totally agree that this is like a level
• 2:19
  one for life survival skill, much less thriving skill, and if
• 2:23
  you haven't picked it up, you got to pick up the stitch and
• 2:25
  move forward. So I am totally on board and flattered that you see
• 2:29
  that as well. So what I would say to that person is that
• 2:34
  there's a few pieces to it, and so one, let's talk about that.
• 2:37
  Stopping is not quitting is a title of a piece that I wrote a
• 2:40
  while ago, and it is absolutely fundamental to my method of
• 2:43
  systematic subtraction. And the the point is that in my life,
• 2:51
  and the people I work with, and every entrepreneur I've ever
• 2:54
  met, aspirational or current or past, and so your entire
• 2:57
  audience, it is not about a job. It's about a mission, and that
• 3:05
  is not necessarily like ending cancer or you know teaching
• 3:10
  children in poor rural areas to read even though they're blind
• 3:14
  or you know all of these things that may be very worthy missions
• 3:17
  for one person or for 100 people or for 1000s, but not for all of
• 3:21
  us, right? It might be a more efficient way to get your house
• 3:26
  painted, or you know, a quicker, safer way to learn a language,
• 3:34
  or you know, I don't know, whatever the things are that
• 3:36
  people are doing in their companies. It's a passion. It's
• 3:38
  a purpose, and so this is not about quitting that purpose,
• 3:46
  right? I've been at this since I was 12. I had a super clear
• 3:49
  sense of purpose at 12 years old for a story that is out there.
• 3:52
  If people want to find it, they can. And so since then, I've
• 3:56
  been pivoting and learning and reframing and starting projects
• 4:00
  and ending projects and starting new ones to go better, faster,
• 4:04
  more effectively, more balancedly toward that same
• 4:07
  purpose, and that has required stopping a lot of things that
• 4:13
  maybe once served that purpose or mission but don't anymore, or
• 4:18
  maybe were an experiment and I thought they were going to get
• 4:20
  me there very earnestly, and it was a reasonable thing to think.
• 4:24
  But they didn't and don't, and so I stopped them. Right. So
• 4:27
  that's kind of the high level. Is that helpful? Because I have
• 4:30
  one more theoretical, but I want to start there and make sure
• 4:32
  that that lands.
• 4:33
  Scott Ritzheimer: It is. I want to follow up on that because,
• 4:35
  especially as it comes to this feeling of success, why do we
• 4:39
  feel so much more successful when we start things than when
• 4:42
  we stop them.
• 4:43
  Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey: Yeah, yeah. So that's neurological
• 4:46
  largely, and it's about dopamine, which, by the way,
• 4:51
  that that's the chemical that triggers with something new,
• 4:54
  with you know a red alert saying that someone liked your post
• 4:59
  with. $20 landing your account with $20,000 landing in your
• 5:03
  account, right? At every level, that's a dopamine flash. Turns
• 5:08
  out, it's a different chemical from liking something or being
• 5:13
  rewarded by something, which is about kind of serotonin, that
• 5:16
  like love, or even oxytocin, that connection side of the
• 5:19
  chemical equation in our brains, and so the more, more, more
• 5:24
  rapid fire dopamine is very addictive. And actually, through
• 5:30
  kind of nerdy behavioral science stuff, we get addicted to the
• 5:33
  event pattern, not even just the chemical. So it's very
• 5:37
  insidious. And I like to remind people, the best engineers in
• 5:43
  the world, the best behavioral scientists in the world,
• 5:45
  trillions of dollars of advertising are out there
• 5:49
  blasting you with that dopamine. So it's not like weak or silly
• 5:54
  or immature or shameful to be so addicted to that, right? It's
• 5:58
  it's literally our brains backed up by some serious capitalist
• 6:02
  economics.
• 6:04
  Scott Ritzheimer: Wow, wow! So, give us just so that we're all
• 6:07
  using the same terminology here. Help to distinguish for us the
• 6:11
  difference between stopping and quitting. So, what would you say
• 6:15
  is stopping, and what would you say is quitting?
• 6:18
  Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey: So, that's a great question. I don't
• 6:20
  know that I've ever fleshed it out, so stay tuned for a post on
• 6:22
  this coming soon, inspired by that question. I would say you
• 6:25
  know stopping is an experiment. I'm very clear, you know it's
• 6:29
  it's it's data collection. It's what we have to do before the
• 6:32
  drop, the the climax of subtraction, which we'll get to
• 6:34
  in a minute. But it's it's pausing. It's gathering data.
• 6:38
  It's getting quiet so you can come inside and listen, but
• 6:42
  there's nothing permanent about it, right? We don't stay in that
• 6:46
  stop. It's a step in the three steps of stop, drop, and roll.
• 6:51
  It's it's a moment. It's a second, maybe maybe it's a day,
• 6:53
  maybe it's a week of reflection, right? We all need different
• 6:57
  versions and different quantities of that stop in our
• 7:00
  lives as we move through. Quitting is, I'm done. Right,
• 7:07
  it's over. I'm not going back. If I quit smoking, hopefully,
• 7:11
  although we know numbers show a different tale, I'm I'm never
• 7:15
  going back to that. Is the intent to say I'm quitting, and
• 7:19
  I think. There's. I'm trying to figure out if this is true or
• 7:26
  not. We'll we'll revise it for the article. But for now, what I
• 7:29
  want to say is, it's also. I'll leave it. It's just so
• 7:39
  permanent, you know, and so there's a sense of
• 7:43
  inflexibility. There is what I want to get at, and in this
• 7:47
  world, if you haven't noticed, things are changing really fast.
• 7:52
  And what has always been true is that we, as living beings and
• 7:57
  living systems, are changing and evolving over the course of our
• 8:00
  lives. Hopefully, right? Certainly, I know your listeners
• 8:02
  are not static. They do not hope to be the same in six months or
• 8:07
  six years that they are today. And so, when we quit things, I
• 8:12
  think it's very actually limiting because of that kind of
• 8:17
  sense of permanence. Whereas stop recognizes the reality that
• 8:23
  things are going to change, and so we're just pausing to gather
• 8:27
  that data, not like harsh, firm boundary ruling a thing out
• 8:31
  forevermore.
• 8:32
  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, I love that because of the kind of
• 8:35
  curiosity that that invokes. I think that's such a it's such an
• 8:39
  easy thing to miss, and I understand, especially where we
• 8:42
  conflate stopping and quitting, where we won't want to stop
• 8:47
  because we're afraid of quitting, right? Like, and and
• 8:50
  even if you separate those, there's still this fear that
• 8:54
  comes alongside stopping. I don't know if it's fear of being
• 8:58
  left behind or fear of being found out, but why, why, like
• 9:02
  that moment right before you stop, where you almost have the
• 9:04
  courage to do it? What, where does that fear come from? Why,
• 9:08
  for high performers that are so driven, there's that dark side
• 9:12
  of it that won't let them slow down. Sometimes, what is that?
• 9:15
  Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey: Yeah, yeah. So again, there's
• 9:16
  neuroscience to it, which is loss aversion, right? And so we
• 9:20
  are more scared to lose things that we have, no matter the
• 9:25
  value they actually have to us anymore. So see again that
• 9:29
  distinction between dopamine and serotonin, oxytocin, and then
• 9:33
  there's a kind of behavioral, cultural part of it, right?
• 9:35
  Which is that no one is recognized for the absence of an
• 9:41
  action, especially if it is something that we used to do and
• 9:46
  now it goes away. Like no one's like, I got promoted because I
• 9:50
  stopped doing that monthly report. Go me, right? We're
• 9:54
  promoted because we got a new client, because we started a new
• 9:58
  data dashboard, because we. Added a language to our website,
• 10:02
  right? Like the additions are what get rewarded, and so it's
• 10:07
  one thing to not do something that already can feel a little
• 10:11
  scary, like I should be or that person is or whatever, but to
• 10:14
  stop doing something we have been doing is really scary.
• 10:21
  Again, not irrational in a job market or an economy like we're
• 10:25
  dealing with. Whether this is people who are still in deciding
• 10:28
  to stop to quit a job or to stop part of it to make room for
• 10:31
  entrepreneurship, or an entrepreneur thinking in that
• 10:34
  way, and the final theory that I do want to drop in here is from
• 10:39
  economics rather than psychology, which is the law of
• 10:44
  diminishing returns, and so the idea here very quickly, people
• 10:49
  might remember from like a high school economics class that if a
• 10:52
  farmer wants to produce more apples, let's say they farm
• 10:56
  apples and they want to farm more, they might say, okay, I'm
• 10:59
  gonna. There's a new field across the street that's coming
• 11:01
  on lease. I'll lease that new field. Okay, if the farmer
• 11:06
  doesn't also get more apple trees and hire more people to
• 11:09
  pick the apples, that farmer is actually not going to end up
• 11:12
  with more apples. I think we can all see that. And so the idea
• 11:16
  here is similar: that if we just do more and more and more at our
• 11:20
  job or in sales, it eventually gets less effective, right? That
• 11:25
  land is wasted money for that farmer unless they kind of round
• 11:30
  out their investment of activities and do all of the
• 11:33
  things it takes. And so it's very easy in this world because
• 11:37
  of the factors I've talked about, kind of societally,
• 11:40
  externally in our economy, and neurologically, and then
• 11:44
  culturally in our companies, to just always do more. And sadly,
• 11:50
  it stops getting as effective. And sadly, the only thing we
• 11:53
  know or thing to do is to keep doing still more. And so now
• 11:57
  we're not having more impact, and we're really exhausted.
• 12:00
  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah. So by this point in the conversation,
• 12:03
  we've kind of we've talked about stopping, which is probably
• 12:06
  still terrifying. You know, I don't like it any more than
• 12:08
  anybody else, but but but again, it's the permanence here that I
• 12:11
  think is such a big point. Yeah, and and so we don't stop to
• 12:15
  stop; we stop to what? What's the what's the role and goal of
• 12:20
  stopping, and what comes next.
• 12:22
  Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey: Yeah, so I hope that I actually by the
• 12:24
  end of this quick episode, and maybe people will re-listen, or
• 12:27
  maybe they'll listen to my TED talk, which we'll share that
• 12:30
  just dropped, is that that stopping will become less
• 12:33
  terrifying. Sorry, these AirPods, like I don't know if
• 12:36
  it's small ears or big ears or what the problem is, but they
• 12:38
  don't fit well. Anyhow, we stop as the first step of basically a
• 12:45
  scientific method that we're going to run for really
• 12:49
  optimizing our impact in the world alongside our well-being,
• 12:54
  alongside our joy and our relationships. So it's this
• 12:57
  multi-dimensional, 3d, if you will, approach to true success
• 13:01
  that's actually fulfilling, and so stop as you mentioned is the
• 13:05
  first step, which really is about curiosity, right? It's
• 13:08
  getting data to tee up this experiment, and so once we stop,
• 13:14
  then we get to drop, and this is, I think, what makes it less
• 13:17
  terrifying: is that if you realize a few things people
• 13:21
  realize they can't do anymore. Right, this is not working.
• 13:26
  Whether that's in the company, whether that's in their own
• 13:29
  company, whether that's post exit, something is not working.
• 13:33
  Health breaks down, mood is breaking down, and I'm cranky
• 13:37
  and annoying to the people I love most. Something is not
• 13:40
  working, and so let's get curious and run an experiment.
• 13:45
  And so, what's scary is your health really tanking. What's
• 13:51
  scary is not being able to deliver on a customer promise or
• 13:56
  getting fired because you're doing such a bad job. Stopping
• 14:00
  to look around and gather some data to make a good strategic
• 14:03
  experiment of which thing to let go of, I would suggest that
• 14:08
  that's a calculated risk, which we know entrepreneurs are very
• 14:11
  good at. Right? Science shows over and over. Entrepreneurs are
• 14:14
  not massive risk takers; they're very strategic, calculated risk
• 14:17
  takers. And so your audience should be receptive to this.
• 14:20
  We've stopped, gathered some data, and now we have an
• 14:23
  informed experiment of what to drop something in your life that
• 14:29
  doesn't deserve the energy you're giving it that you are
• 14:31
  going to try letting go of for some period of time-a week, a
• 14:37
  month, a year, the foreseeable future. If you feel that
• 14:40
  confident about it, 10 minutes if it feels really scary, right?
• 14:44
  But that is kind of the actual subtraction. Is this step to the
• 14:49
  drop?
• 14:52
  Scott Ritzheimer: So good, it's so good. And then, for the sake
• 14:55
  of time, the the last element of this process is what.
• 15:00
  Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey: The role, and this is like the
• 15:03
  juice. Like this is where I see people get over all that fear
• 15:07
  and be like, "Oh my God, this abstraction stuff is magic, and
• 15:11
  how I want to live my life. And I don't know it. It's not
• 15:13
  natural. I'm still going to work. It's still a daily
• 15:16
  practice because new stuff is always coming in. So we're
• 15:19
  always going to have to keep subtracting. You're you're never
• 15:21
  going to get to like peak subtraction maxing or something.
• 15:25
  That's not the thing. It is a continual lens. Roll is where we
• 15:31
  notice the ripples of the drop. We notice what we now have time
• 15:39
  and energy for, and that might be simply white space, so that
• 15:42
  we're not racing late, driving dangerously to our next
• 15:46
  appointment, or snapping at our sweet, sweet five-year-old in
• 15:52
  the back seat who's just asking a curious question, but
• 15:55
  interrupting our podcast and feels really annoying and maybe
• 15:58
  worth a snap, right? So slowly as we let go of things and
• 16:03
  either leave white space in which we can daydream, in which
• 16:07
  we can rest, in which our brains can kind of process what we've
• 16:10
  been learning, or in which we can do a higher value activity,
• 16:16
  we intentionally watch the ripples for ourselves. Our work
• 16:22
  gets better. Our work gets sharper. We get more creative.
• 16:26
  We're more patient with those people we love. We're less
• 16:28
  resentful of those people we love, and that is the reward.
• 16:36
  That becomes a form of dopamine of this ding ripple when we do
• 16:42
  something good, or the second order roll when we see someone
• 16:46
  else do something good. We see a direct report or a contractor
• 16:50
  say, "I've been doing this report every week. I'm realizing
• 16:56
  that it's an exact duplicate of the AI notes from our Zoom
• 16:59
  meetings, and I'm thinking that instead I could go through the
• 17:04
  AI notes and schedule the follow-ups in our calendar, and
• 17:08
  that that would be a better use of my time. And you, the
• 17:10
  entrepreneur, think, Hallelujah! This human who's taking my $28
• 17:15
  an hour as a contractor just leveled up and freed up time and
• 17:18
  freed up money. What a great ripple of my subtraction setting
• 17:22
  this model, yeah. So these are the roles. This is where the
• 17:26
  magic of subtraction happens that actually allows us to do
• 17:30
  less and have more impact, which is ultimately my promise with
• 17:34
  this.
• 17:35
  Scott Ritzheimer: Brilliant, brilliant. I love it and could
• 17:37
  talk about it for a very long time. But there is a question
• 17:39
  that I want to ask you, and that is one that asks all my guests.
• 17:42
  It's this: What is the biggest secret that you wish wasn't a
• 17:45
  secret at all? What's that one thing you wish every founder,
• 17:48
  pre-founder, employee, or anyone listening today knew?
• 17:53
  Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey: Doing more is actually dangerous, and
• 18:00
  even doing more of good things, even more meditation, even more
• 18:07
  customer discovery, even more cold plunging. This can all
• 18:13
  actually be physically dangerous. I've got the receipts
• 18:17
  on that. I know it might sound like hyperbole, but I'm just
• 18:20
  gonna dangle that as a teaser and invite you over to my TED
• 18:23
  talk, where you can hear the very real story of actual
• 18:28
  physical danger to myself and other people. And readers may or
• 18:32
  listeners may have their own versions that they can already
• 18:35
  see and hear because it's a human experience. But I had a
• 18:38
  big one. I share it very willingly because I want people
• 18:42
  to learn that secret.
• 18:45
  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, well, for anyone watching or
• 18:48
  listening, they're going to want to get a hold of that. So we've
• 18:52
  got the TED Talk. We'll put that in the show notes for everybody.
• 18:54
  If someone's there and they're saying, "Hey, I'd love to have
• 18:57
  you come walk alongside me or help out more, or just they want
• 19:00
  to learn more about what it is that you do. Where can they find
• 19:02
  you? Where can they find out more about your work?
• 19:05
  Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey: Subtract to succeed is my subtraction lab
• 19:09
  on Substack. It's a lot of subs, and you can subscribe. But I'm
• 19:13
  going to send you a free guest pass for 90 days so that you
• 19:16
  have full access. There's a 12 video short mini course. There's
• 19:21
  two different 100 day practices that you can play with, as well
• 19:24
  as regular writing. I write an essay each Monday, kind of
• 19:27
  playing with this idea of subtraction, and do an interview
• 19:30
  most Wednesdays, or record something myself to give you a
• 19:34
  real time live interactive version of that. So come hang
• 19:38
  out at Subtract to Succeed, and that guest pass is in the
• 19:41
  listener notes here for you to take advantage of.
• 19:44
  Scott Ritzheimer: Excellent, excellent. Well, now thank you
• 19:47
  so much for being here. What a fun, fascinating conversation!
• 19:51
  Cannot wait to to explore it further. So yeah, thank you.
• 19:55
  Really appreciate your time. And for those of you watching and
• 19:57
  listening, you know your time and attention mean the. To us, I
• 20:00
  hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did,
• 20:03
  and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
• 20:06
  Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey: Cheers, Scott. Thanks.
• 20:12
  Scott Ritzheimer: Hey, everyone. Scott Ritzheimer here. Thank you
• 20:14
  so much for listening to the Start Scale and Succeed podcast.
• 20:17
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• 20:21
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• 20:25
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• 20:29
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