“Sex, Drugs, and Corporate Success through Eating and Cooking?” Or… “How Continuous Learning COULD be successful”

How do #Sex, #Drugs, and #Corporate #Success relate to eating and cooking?

Come and let’s explore the limits of Working Memory….

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@GlennonDoyle is a best-selling author and member of the “We can Do Hard Things” podcast team. (Home - We Can Do Hard Things - The Podcast (wecandohardthingspodcast.com)

Listening to Episodes 195 & 196 inspired me by showing how much we ignore the lessons from one part of our lives in another. ?

And how many lessons are multi-dimensional and lead to #InnovativeThinking

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Vanessa Marin is the author being interviewed on the podcast for her book “Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life”

Not to give any spoilers, but Glennon is uncomfortable talking about the topic, and all of speakers tend to use food, eating and cooking to broach the actual topic of sex and having open discussions between the two parties.

This is what I refer to as ‘The Tower of Babel Problem’. And it is one of the secrets to my Innovation Success throughout the global business #transformations I have been a part of.

Based on the Tower of Babel story, humans were unable to effectively communicate or understand one another, and therefore could no longer collaborate on the shared project of building the tower.

Overcoming this situation, finding a common language that both parties can understand and use, is point # 1.

Which brings me to the commonality of transferrable skills.

Almost everyone over the age of elementary school has felt the fear, and hesitation of being rejected that wanting to ask another out on a date for. The nervousness, the sweats, the spiral of negative thoughts should they say “No”, and the fear of them ridiculing you for even asking.

It can be terrifying when it is someone you don’t know, or barely know. But it can be immobilizing when it is someone you respect, value, and have close history with.

Some of the most ‘scary’ conversations in my life, were not with women I wanted to ask out on a date, but instead difficult conversations with family, with customers, or bosses.

And yet, the same skills in preparation for asking, for overcoming my hesitation and fear, and for dealing with the rejection if it came – those same mental muscles are used in every aspect of professional and personal life. Especially for me, all of them come into play before #PublicSpeaking.

Being able to recognize the skills you already have, that work in new situations is half of the fight won already. Two quick examples:

Sales – Who among us has never tried to persuade a parent, teacher or friend to come around to our way of thinking? Those same neural pathways are activated when you are trying to sell to a friend, a co-worker, a boss, or a client.

Creativity – Who among us has never had a thought about something we would change, or fix? Again, those same reflexes of mental agility and logical thinking are utilized in creatively coming up with solutions for any problem.

Finding the bravery to have conversations is point # 2

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Which brings me to #expectations and the dangers of not clarifying them.

In the podcast, the author Vanessa Marin states: “We all feel like we should be having more sex. We pulled up, at this point, about 70,000 people have filled out this survey that we created about how much sex are people really having. …… Everybody across the board said, “I feel like I should be having more sex.””

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I have over the decades had more than enough examples, both ways, of where assumptions and expectations of one party to a conversation, were not verified or clarified by the other party of the conversation. Across EVERY ASPECT OF LIFE!

This has led to some frustration with me by my wife and friends as I refuse to allow myself to assume anything anymore. I will ALWAYS ask to ensure I understand.

I firmly believe that this is (wisely) one of the main reasons why “Clarifying Questions” are the only type allowed in Agile retrospectives.

At every aspect of a relationship; should it be personal, professional, or otherwise – clarifying and ensuring a mutual understanding of the expectations of all parties, while maybe instigating some further difficult conversations, can only work to help the relationship be where it needs to be.

One of the best examples comes from NERC in the US Electricity industry. Dispatchers and regulators can call up an individual power plant and direct them to raise, lower or remain constant to suit the needs of the area they serve. Before many of the standards in place today, these conversations could go like this:

DISPATCHER: “Go to 500.”

PLANT OPERATOR: “Going to 500.”

(Power plant falls from 2,000 MW to 500MW)

DISPATCHER: “NO! I MEANT GO UP ANOTHER 500MW TO 2,500 TOTAL! NOT DOWN!”

(Causes brownouts in region as the power fluctuates)

[ACTUAL EXAMPLE GIVEN BY NERC FOR THE COMMUNICATION STANDARDS]

Asking your significant other if they would like to go out and have a date night and being told, “NO!” can have a very bad effect. Especially if the ‘no’ was because they were just really tired and it had nothing to do with you.

Asking your customer if they were happy with your service and hearing “No” would typically be responded to with clarifying questions to ensure not just understanding but a better relationship with them.

And yet, what we find acceptable in one area is not always encouraged in another by our behaviors and fears. Why are we so hesitant to ask for clarification in some situations and not in others?

Point # 3: Manage expectations upfront, clearly and collaboratively ensuring mutual understanding of the outcomes.

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Vanessa Marin: “It’s one of the most vulnerable and intimate things that we can do, initiate sex with our partner. And this is another area where it feels easier in the beginning of our relationship, and that makes us get scared and worried about why is it so much harder as we go on. But the main reason that it can feel so hard is because you’re asking for something that you want.

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And you’re putting yourself in the position of being turned down and hearing a “no” in any area of your life feels shitty. But hearing a no about sex when you put yourself out there feels really, really hard. And so a lot of us wind up initiating in these very subtle ways.”

This sets my brain ablaze with correlations from so many areas.

First is that our perception of the world really does create the reality we respond to. The thought of any rejection from a stranger does not carry the weight of rejection by a friend, which doesn’t even exist in the same solar system as a rejection from my wife. The amount of emotional attachment to the other exponentially increases the difficulty in feeling psychologically safe to ask for so many things.

Now imagine a business context. Not only do you have the same difficulties as above, but now you have added financial and job security to the mental equation. Along with your respect levels for bosses, colleagues and the ever fearful HR issues.

One of the best examples I have ever heard was for a sales team that had a quota, and the brilliant boss gave the team #PsychologicalSafety by celebrating the number of “NO!” responses they collected.

Instead of allowing the sales team morale to spiral downward every time there was a rejection, the boss helped re-frame the mental perception of a customer saying “No” so that each team member felt empowered by this ‘thing’ that would normally tear down their confidence and performance.

I have seen, and once was, a sales person that would timidly approach a customer with a proposal, like a unicorn found standing in my front yard. Afraid to spook them and have them flee, so everything was as soft and non-confrontational as possible.

These rarely worked out well.

But the freedom of knowing that you are respected to bring things to the table that have value and worth and to be believed that if you thought they were worth mentioning that the other party believes these topics MUST be worth consideration – That is transformative to a workforce being able to think and react in an agile manner.

Point # 4: BOTH parties to a relationship have the #Responsibility to ensure the other has Psychological Safety to be open and honest with the other.

If you have ever had a salesperson lie to you after you have an established relationship, have you ever asked yourself if YOU were the reason they felt they could not be truthful?

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Which brings us to the last point…

Again re-enforcing that perception creates reality… And frustration at the blinders we willing put on ourselves.

Amanda Doyle (Glennon’s sister):

“And so what I found totally fascinating is the data that anticipation of pleasure is equally impactful to us chemically as the actual pleasure. What? So that means that the anticipation of the extraordinary sexual encounter is as good for you and as happy for you as the actual sexual encounter….”

Vanessa Marin:

"Okay, so let’s go to anticipation though. Yeah, this is incredibly fascinating research. How it was done was looking at people using slot machines. And so you would think if somebody’s using a slot machine, you would think the most pleasurable experience would be winning money. What is more pleasurable than winning free money? But actually dopamine levels, which is what gives us that feel good feeling. Dopamine levels were highest when the person was pulling the lever of the slot machine.

So it was actually that anticipation of, “Maybe this is going to be the time that I won the free money.” That was actually more pleasurable than the winning of the money itself. So I saw this research and I thought, “God, I think there’s a really interesting connection with sex here.” So I started thinking about, “What is it like for us to anticipate having a pleasurable experience when it comes to sex?”….

The thought (anticipation) of the pleasurable reward was actually equal or better to the thing itself.

?THE THOUGHT IS MORE POWERUL THAN THE REALITY!!!

The sadly funny part to me is that we already know this.

Almost everyone has heard of the ‘power of suggestion’. Or of “sugar pills”, the “placebo effect”. And I would venture to say if you are old enough to be reading this, at some time in your life you have been disappointed by the reality of a situation not being as good as what you imagined it to be.

As an American male and also every guy I went to high school with looked forward to their 16th birthday, because we all KNEW with absolute certainty that when we got a driver’s license we would have freedom.

Or when we turned 18, and would be considered adults by society, we wouldn’t have to obey anymore stupid rules.

Or any of a thousand different other examples of where our horizon living failed to be met by the reality.

The medical and pharmaceutical industry has long depended on the placebo effect to bolster the effects of their efforts to address our needs.

Why do so many of us fail to apply the knowledge we accept and use in one area of our lives to other areas? (Point # 5)

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Which leads me finally back to cooking and eating. With these five disparate ingredients, we can ‘cook up’ a viable meal that allows us to think more innovatively and creatively. With psychological safety, mutual management of expectations and clarity in our common language of communication and understanding.

These multi-dimensional layers also manage to showcase at the same time that WIDTH of Knowledge can be more important than mere DEPTH of knowledge.

I had mastered all the letters of the alphabet before the end of kindergarten. But even so long after that time, I am still today expanding the words I am able to create from that vertical I learned so long ago. By applying it to other facets of life such as public speaking, writing, business communications, and relationships.

Regardless of which ‘vertical’ you rise in a company, the top leadership always wants you to expand outside of your comfort zone and learn how your silo intersects and connects with others.

Expert in Finance? Great, do you understand about customer relationships and how they drive those numbers? Do you understand HR issues and situations and how to deal with them?

?In our earliest learnings we were typically instructed not just in the core, but in the application of the knowledge.

“C” can be a hard or a soft sound as in ‘cat’ or in ‘center’.

Many of our later in life learnings skip the application part, and so we adult humans seem to forget that knowledge can be applied across it’s core silos.

Especially in #ContinuousLearning, remembering to question "Where else can this be applied in my life/relationships/business?"

I would argue that this step is equal or more powerful than the core learning itself.

This is my main secret to #Innovation – drawing the connections across disciplines and then communicating it to others in language that can be understood.

If you leave with one thought from all of this, let it be this:

“Do not let the multiple layers of meaning blind you to the fact that you know about the placebo effect already. Where else can you apply this knowledge in your life?”