Episode 1: Help! I Avoid Tasks When I'm Under Pressure!

Ever wonder why pressure at work can leave you paralyzed instead of productive? Could the mantra of "pressure makes diamonds" might actually be keeping you stuck? In Episode 1, cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Bethany Ranes and clinical psychologist Dr. Norah Kennedy join host Jena to break down the neuroscience of overwhelm, procrastination, and motivation - including why your brain is, frankly, a little lazy by design. Tune in for real strategies (no fluff, just science) on how to set yourself up to do your best work, even when the pressure is high or you feel like dragging your feet.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey Nora, what brand of uh computer is that? Updog?

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Why do you ask if it's Up Dog? You know, nothing much.

SPEAKER_02 0:07

What's up with you? Welcome to Firing and Wiring, a show dedicated to the neuroscience of how you think and how to optimize your mind.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Hi, welcome to Firing and Wiring. In this podcast, courtesy of Intercept Labs, your friendly neighborhood scientists bring you cognitive neuroscience straight to your ears. I'm Jenna, and I'm always joined by Dr. Bethany Rains, cognitive neuroscientist. What's up, B? What's up, dog?

SPEAKER_01 0:45

That's how you do it.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

And our clinical psychologist, Dr. Kennedy.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Hi, Jenna. How's it going?

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Hi, Nora. B, can you introduce yourself to our listeners?

SPEAKER_03 0:58

So I am a cognitive neuroscientist. A lot of people think that sounds really impressive, but might not know what it means. But I study essentially how the mind works. Uh back in the day, that pretty much meant your brain. Um, but in modern times, it's actually a lot more than that. So how you're interacting, how your brain interacts with your body, your environment, the other people around you, how all that stuff mixes together. So pretty much the coolest topic that one can possibly specialize in.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Yes, yes, yes. And then Nora?

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Well, I would say an alternative coolest topic one could specialize in would be clinical psychology, which is what my doctorate degree is in. Most people think of clinical psychology and they think of seeing patients, doing the day-to-day clinical work. Uh, but some of us actually choose to do a lot of research as well. So I've dabbled in both fields and really happy to mix those together in the topics that we're going to talk about today.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Sounds great. You know, I think both of you could really help me a lot. Um, something that's really been kind of weighing on me is in my current job as COO, I feel like I'm under a ton of pressure, ton of pressure at work. And I'm sure many can relate to that feeling, right? And so sometimes that pressure can feel really paralyzing. It's overwhelming. Um, it prevents me from making decisions and doing, you know, my job as well as I would like to personally do it. And so I was just curious first to kind of learn um from your perspective, what's sort of going on like in my brain when I feel like I'm overwhelmed or like inundated with a lot of pressure.

SPEAKER_03 2:32

Yeah. I mean, that's probably one of the biggest complaints we get. Uh, it is extremely common. And so, from a neuroscience side of things, what you're talking about is a mix of overload and avoidance. You know, we don't like the way it feels. Your brain, your mind, they're very, they call it, you know, cognitively miserly or energy miserly. They're cheap, they're lazy a little bit. And so when you get to a place where you're hitting your limits, your brain just wants to do the most energy cheap thing possible. And that's going to be to avoid a lot of the things that you need for high-level work, you know, we call it executive control, right? Like that mental organization and definitely your working memory, which is where you kind of hold all of your RAM in what you need to think about. Those are two of the most expensive energy speaking things in your brain. And so when it comes to how you think, whether you mean to or not, you're always trying to sort of like pinch pennies in that space. And the easiest way to pinch pennies, the easiest way to conserve energy while still surviving, like evolutionarily speaking, is to avoid, right? So it's kind of like that fight or flight vibe. This is the mental version of flight. And so avoidance is totally normal. We call it procrastination. Um, and what is really can kind of get really gnarly is your brain also likes to kind of go back later and throw a story on top of something. So I have been guilty of this a lot of my life is that you don't just procrastinate, you know, just avoid over and over again. In order to also not like have to learn that lesson and eventually have to change your ways, we also like to slap a narrative onto that bad boy. And usually it's something like I used to say, pressure makes diamonds. A lot of people drop that one. So it is really easy for this cycle to be self-reinforcing. So you tend to see it happen over and over again until it becomes a work style as opposed to like an incident.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Absolutely. And first off, Jenna, I'm sorry to hear that you work in an environment where you're feeling that constant, can't get started because you're so overwhelmed by all the tasks that your boss is assigning to you. Sounds pretty awful. A lot of people can empathize with that as well. But yes, as Dr. B was saying, right? I mean, it really is the combination of things, right? When we're paralyzed and we can't get started like that, it is it's it's that combination, right? It is between, okay, what is the task, right? And our is the task too big? Do we need to break down the task, right? Think of it very pragmatically. Is it something internal that, you know, what is it gonna take to do this, right? It's the internal, you know, feelings, sensations, emotions that are going on for us, right? And like what are we setting up in terms of expectations, in terms of those motivators? We do a whole podcast just on in intrinsic and extrinsic, extrinsic motivators if we wanted to, right? But like those play such a big factor too. And we're sitting there being like, I have a big task, it's important, I can't get started. We have to consider all those factors, right? In order to actually figure out for someone what's gonna help them with that problem. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Yeah, thank you, Nora, the psychologist, and you very validated my experience. Gotcha immediately. Gotcha. I did, I do feel seen and heard. Um, both of you mentioned something that's kind of standing out to me. Uh, so B, you mentioned how pressure makes diamonds. So it's like you're under this pressure, but then at the end of it, you have this reward, right? And maybe that's what keeps you in that cycle. And then Nora, you mentioned motivation. So it's like, does that is that feeling of maybe I I can tell you right now that I'm uncomfortable in pressure, but like the result of it actually made me feel good. So I'll stay in this situation. What's kind of like what's going on there? What's at play there?

SPEAKER_03 6:15

Yeah. Well, I mean, anytime we talk about this stuff, we're talking dopamine, uh, on the neuroscience side, everybody at home has heard of this chemical, I would imagine. And it does drive a lot of this. Uh, it's a it's all about anticipation and it's all about getting there. And two things can help spike dopamine and sort of help you learn a lesson that will reinforce what you do later. Um, and I kind of, you know, this isn't a textbook, but I I think of them in my head as achievement, which is doing something really good that you're like really proud of is your best work and you really cared about it, right? Like it's your your first grade art project that you come home and put on the fridge, right? That's achievement. That will definitely give you a big dopamine burst. Um, but then there's also just accomplishment. And I know they sound very similar, but accomplishment is literally just getting it done. Checking the box off. And that's why people really love things like to-do lists and checklists, because it just feels good to get something done. And again, there's an evolutionary drive behind that. You need to conserve that energy to survive. When you've checked something off of a box, that's something that can come out of your working memory. Uh, I think what people make the mistake about with the pressure makes diamonds thing is that they're really hitting on accomplishment and not achievement. When you wait till the last minute and you're super panicky, you're really not doing your best work. You might come back later and say you did great. That's there's a you know, we call that confabulation that's in in the neuroscience realm. And it's that story you tell afterwards, but realistically, you're just getting it done. Like, let me give this a C minus job and just get it done out the door. It feels really good still because now it's gone. It's like off the list. And if it was something really big, that relief is palpable. And so even though you might have done a C minus job, it wasn't your best, it's still gonna give you that dopamine burst. So it's still gonna be physically reinforced in your brain and you're gonna want to do it again.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Absolutely. And that relief thing I think is so key for why a lot of people procrastinate, right? It's like you know the deadline is Friday morning, you know it's there, it's lingering, but it's a big task, it's a task you're not motivated for for whatever reason, right? It's not, you're not just, you know, gung-ho to sit down and I'm gonna tackle this task, right? So we the reason we get closer and closer to that deadline a lot of times is because we know after that deadline, there's our sense of relief, right? Whether it's our proudest product or we just got it done and it's good enough and we can send it off to someone, right? And that's something we know we know with anxiety is a is a big factor. It's something that can become problematic for a lot of people and really problematic down the road too, right? If it's like if that anxiety is building and we're just kind of waiting for that crash to come back down, that relief, right? Instead of kind of riding that bell curve. You know, we talk a lot about anxiety and avoidance as that bell curve, right? And if we just think of it as, okay, if we're just kind of going part way up that curve and then waiting until the deadline's there so we can slide right back down it, we never learn like, hey, what would it have been like to just push through, work through with that anxiety, and not actually had it be something that becomes a barrier for us to get things done.

SPEAKER_03 9:15

Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of people think that anxiety is like some kind of secret sauce. And, you know, again, it's really not, you know, it's an easy thing to tell yourself afterwards. So you don't have to change because, dude, change is expensive again. Yeah, we don't want to do the expensive thing. So I think that like that anxiety is also, you know, you look back on it, it's like, oh yeah, yeah, I did. When you look back, you kind of reconstruct this memory, and it's not gonna be the most accurate thing ever. And you think, oh, I did great. You didn't really do great, but you got it done. It was good enough, right? And you don't, I like that. Like you don't learn the lesson of like what if it was great? You don't know, it doesn't, you know, and you just kind of move on and it doesn't have that impact. It's kind of like that negative thing. Like, yeah, it doesn't make an impression, it never really happened.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Right. Like the research shows there's an optimal level of anxiety, right? If you're if you don't have enough anxiety for it, right, you really don't ever do the task, right? You're not gonna sit down. Like you need a bit of anxiety to be like, okay, I need to study for this exam, or I need to get this project done, I need to give myself enough time, right? So we need a certain amount of anxiety just to like take it seriously, right? Then there's that optimal point, right? Those, those just gesturing all the graphs I can right now, right? But the research shows this optimal point of anxiety that actually is helpful for us, productive, especially in acute when we're doing acute problem solving, right? Yeah. Beyond that, it becomes not helpful, right? I mean, everyone can think about a time where their anxiety got out of hand, out of control, and they were way too nervous. They were, you know, you're you're you're sweating on stage or throwing up in the bathroom, right? Like the anxiety was too much. You froze, you know, your your sympathetic nervous system took over too much and you couldn't do what you needed to do. So it's not optimal at that point either, right? So it's an optimal point, and that's great for doing tasks. Problem that Jenna was mentioning as well is that sometimes we stay in the heightened state, right? We stay and we're staying at that higher level more chronically. And even if it's we're staying near that optimal level, well, when you get into like the chronic stressors, right? That's also ceases to be productive, right? Because it just drains on all aspects of our system. And then as B was saying earlier, we don't have enough resources and we're not in our best headspace, our clearest headspace to actually do whatever we need to do.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

We call that burnout, children. Yes, we do.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Just describe burnout, especially when you add in the systemic level, but yeah, that spoiler for another day.

SPEAKER_03 11:32

Spoiler for another day.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Baby burn.

SPEAKER_03 11:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Um, okay, well, so in the words of the famous late great Elvis, a little less conversation, a little more action, please. Well, at InterSup Labs, we work with folks who might be experiencing pressure at work, right? So, what would that actually look like if you were to sit down with somebody and said, B, can you help me uh, you know, kind of deal with this pressure and, you know, be better at work? How would that look um in terms of like some of the training and the programming that we offer?

SPEAKER_03 12:08

Yeah, this, I mean, this is literally everyone we see has this problem. Um, it's usually the thing, um, because if you, you know, you're in that uncomfortable anxiety place too long that Nora just described, you want to get out of it. We actually probably diverge on the road a little bit in the way that we handle this. Um, but both of them, I would say, are pretty effective. So uh the way that I like to go about it is a little bit more um unconscious, let's say. Um, and so one of the things that our brilliant Dr. Kennedy said earlier is she brought up implicit and uh explicit motivation, um, internal, external. I actually said intrinsic, extrinsic, but I kind of tripped on extrinsic.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

So these are great scenarios.

SPEAKER_03 12:50

I always say implicit and explicit, and I think that's actually not even the right way to say it anyway, but they all mean the same thing. Anyway, uh I live in that internal space. I like a thing to become just naturally incentivized. And that can happen easier than a lot of people think. So this kind of gets back to the idea that your brain is not your mind. Your mind is not your brain. And if you just sit down and willpower something, you will not get there. Willpower is expensive and it's not as powerful as people honestly think it is, uh, for how often you hear about it. So this is where I think using your environment comes in super clutch for me, uh where I have a lot of people start because it feels good, because it kind of feels like other things are doing the work for you. And we're talking about people who are coming in pretty overloaded. So this doesn't feel like another thing you have to do. It feels a little bit like an offload. So what I generally do is um kind of have people build the environment that makes them want to work, like to work. And that can be fun. Like it doesn't have to be super like, oh, I read this in a book or I read this in an article that this is a smart way to do it. What like is your thing? Like for me, it's very like old school. I love like, you know, whenever I have a really hard time getting started on something, I go full Sherlock Holmes. Like, just I want something to be kind of library-ish and I want it to like smell like rich mahogany and leather-bound books, you know, and I it just kind of helps you get into this headspace. And over the years, I've really kind of created this almost unconscious ritual of sights, sounds, smells, textures, and they just immediately signal to me automatically it's time to work. And when you do that, you want to work a little bit. Like it fills, it fulfills the vibe, it fulfills like that kind of cosplay game that you're playing. And it gives you that same sense of fun and and kind of creation that you might not get even if the task isn't inherently fun, right? So it kind of is like, what what headspace do I need to be? What character do I need to be? What vibe do I need to build? So the work comes a little bit more easily. And what it does is it sort of helps you snowball, well, you know, you get a little bit started, and then you find yourself falling into it a little bit more. And that setting is doing so much of the heavy lifting for you that you don't have to sit there and just like grind yourself down trying to do it. So um, a lot of that comes out of what we call classical conditioning or Pavlovian conditioning, because over time you'll associate those things. So when you are consistent with that environmental setting, those things will actually start triggering sort of like that head space you need to be in to work. And it helps you kind of get into what we call flow state a little bit easier. So I'm really big on that side of the kind of classical conditioning house.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Okay. I was going to say, so like, so being intentional about your environment and your workplace can almost neutralize or cancel out that pressure.

SPEAKER_03 15:49

Yeah, it takes it, it makes it feel again, almost, you know, if you do it with things you enjoy and it's fun, it makes it feel less like a chore. Um and it feels more natural. You're easing into it. I always call these things your cognitive on-ramps because it it really just kind of makes it a lot easier for you to get into that space. Um, and the more you can do it through your senses and not through forcing it through your mind, you're actually shifting out of that hardcore executive, you know, network of your brain and moving and easing into more of a balance between that and what we call your default mode network. And when those two guys are balanced in the right way, that's when you hit that zone, that flow state where you're working, you've been working. Oh my God, I've been working on this for three hours and I didn't even realize it. So I love that. I'm the laziest of lazy. So that's like my favorite way to do these things.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Well, psychology loves classical conditioning as well. So we're we're a good team with that, right? Fight over that one. Yeah, right. I mean, exactly what you're saying, right? Getting yourself set up, hyped up, having that desk or that space where you do your deep thinking. And then, okay, what's that space where you do a different kind of thinking you need to, right? Collaborative thinking, whatever it might be, right? Like really thinking about like how can I pair these things with my environment, do those things in the same place every time. That's how we get that conditioning effect, right? And so, like being very intentional about that. And I think a lot of us like have done this to some degree, like trial and error, right? Like we can all think back to maybe when we were in college and like, hey, where do we go study for our for our deep thinking, right? Like for me, it was uh a certain floor at the library, and it's like that was my spot, right? But it had to, it had to become my spot, right? I had to think and be very intentional about what kind of work I did there and what whether knowing it or not, right? Those sensory factors all play into it. I mean, the sense of sound, um, sorry, not sound, um, sense of smell is like one of our strongest sense and smells link with memory, right? And so things like the smell of books, right? Your brain's gonna associate that with being in a certain state, a certain kind of way of existing and kind of headspace that you're in. And that's what's gonna help us actually do that good thinking. Well, I also like to add on to what B is saying is that we can think of those types of things as we will call them like precursory strategies, right? What you can do to get your setup, right? And get your environment set up, get yourself set up, hyped up in the right headspace. And there's also those immediate strategies we can do in the moment too. Okay, I feel like things are slipping. I feel like I need to do this thing right now, but I'm not quite in the right headspace for it, but I got all this pressure, right? What can I do? Right. And sometimes those are the things like figuring out what's gonna help you get back present-focused, right? Oftentimes we're stressed and overwhelmed, our brain's being pulled many different directions, we're not really in tune with our body and how it's feeling, right? So sometimes like having a chance to kind of like regroup, having our way of doing that also is gonna help us be able to tackle whatever we got to tackle, right? Those immediate strategies. And yeah, you can build reward systems into it too, right? Always always love. I mean, who doesn't, right? Like I I have given this example before, but my go-to in grad school was like, okay, if I write five pages, I'll like I can have a candy bar, right? I'll go get a Reese's. Now, I'm not a great writer. So what that became was, well, how about if I write two pages, I can have that candy bar? Okay, I'm all kind of room on that. You know, it ended up being like, write a paragraph, get my candy bar, right? Happy days, but you know, we can have those extrinsic reward systems, especially when some of the internal rewards might be hard to grasp at the moment, right? Yes, I want to go through grad school to get my PhD so I can be a clinical psychologist. Okay, when you're sitting there writing a 10-page paper the night before it's due, that's a really hard one to grasp onto as like that's what's gonna get me through this night, right? So finding that balance of intrinsic, extrinsic motivators is a good thing. Use it to our advantage. And so to build off what B was saying about what we do as a team, right? And what we do at the lab is like we work together so that people don't have to trial and error this over 10, 20 years. Yeah, right. Like we have the science, we know what the research supports, we can bring that together for people in a very intensive, accelerated way and be like, hey, we can help you figure this out in weeks, not years, maybe even days, right? Like we can test out like what's gonna work, what's not. We know what in theory will work, right? Like what's supported. So let's figure out what's gonna work for you. I think that's some of the coolest stuff that we do, but I'm biased.

SPEAKER_03 20:13

So I know. Super unbiased. I will, and I think you you touch on it too. I mean, for me, and again, biased, I am a scientist, um, but I find that that thinking of it as an experiment, again, instead of a chore, can be really fun. And sometimes I'm a little bit like touchy about even like language around goals, aims, objectives. Sometimes that stuff kind of like it's not that it puts me off. I just feel like I've heard it a lot. But an experiment is always a little different. And so, like setting these things up, let's test it. What did it change? What did it not change? And just kind of rapidly iterating through it. And by the time you've got something that works, it's like it starts to really fall into place.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Um, and it didn't feel yeah, you know, yeah, and that's where the motivation comes from, right? Like everyone is like, oh, motivate me to do this one task I've never done before. It's like, oh, it's kind of a trap, right? Like it's a trap, right? Motivation comes after we've done something, right? Like once we've done something and felt that dopamine that developed how good it is, then it's like, oh, maybe I want to do that again. Even if it's working out that doesn't feel good while we're doing it for some people, right? It's that feeling afterwards that reminds us, hey, maybe this is worth doing again. Like maybe it'll feel good after I get through this thing. Yeah. So motivation has to come afterwards, right? It has to become and and we can generalize too, right? So even if it's you haven't done that specific task, right? We can generalize from similar tasks as well to pull motivation forward. But if we just get caught on, like, I need to have motivation to do this, we're never, we're not gonna move, right? We're not gonna move. We gotta just do it. We gotta get out of our heads a bit more. Yeah, that's way too prefrontal.

SPEAKER_03 21:48

That's way too willpower. Yeah, you can't force any of this. You gotta find a way to ease into it, like like a nice soft chair.

unknown 21:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

What if on the flip side though, so like. Like right now, we've kind of been just assuming that the pressure is paralyzing and we need something to like get us to do it. But what if the pressure kind of becomes more consuming and then we we kind of can't stop working and we kind of get stuck in like this workaholic quote unquote situation? I mean, what might you recommend to both of you? What would you recommend to someone who's needs to take a break?

SPEAKER_03 22:26

Yeah. I think that's a great question. I mean, and it's always an inherent challenge. I mentioned when we first started talking about this is a self sort of um a self-reinforcing cycle. Any self-reinforcing cycle can be kind of addictive. Like I don't necessarily mean that in the hardcore way, but just it it it becomes easy to repeat, comfortable to repeat, uh, even whenever it kind of is short-term uncomfortable to be in. Um I mentioned the odd ramps, um, and equally so, I am a person who I slight with the attention deficit. I'm sure you guys haven't even noticed at all that I struggle a bit with the uh focus. Um, but I have the related superpower of like once I hit that flow state, I am really in that flow state. It's gonna take like a natural disaster to knock me out sometimes. And it feels for those folks who kind of do a lot of work in the zone or you felt that, it feels really good. Like, talk about a dopamine hit. So, what I generally do is is a very similar thing. I just kind of do it in reverse. Um so certain things I know I'm always kind of playing around with. Again, I lean really heavy myself on my setting for this kind of stuff. Um, you know, every day at 5:30, my light is set um on kind of a fake circadian rhythm, the light bulbs in my workspace, and they're blue tinted during the day to give me like that concentration, that focus very bright, kind of mimicking sunlight. At 5:30, all my light bulbs turn warm. And I actually I used to have it do it really gradually, but I realized I kind of to your point, Jen, I needed to be shocked out of the zone. So having them all turn from like cool to warm was a huge, obvious like signal. And that warm light also just naturally slows us down and kind of puts you in that like Huguenot cozy mode. So it was a perfect sort of like, okay, girl, it's like you're let's slow it down. Um, after about a half an hour, my lights then start to progressively dim very, very slowly and imperceptually. So like by the time it's if I if I work too late, the lights will just turn off, you know. So um I play around a lot. Same thing. I just instead of things that um sort of fulfill that high energy concentration intellectual space, I do all the things that are like hibernation, like detaching, get out of here, go like sit by the fire with your family. It helps to live in a cold, cold place.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

So explains why you don't answer my emails after a certain time. It's making sense now. Garbage.

SPEAKER_03 24:59

I would I will say that too. Um, as a person who I'm, you know, as you guys can see, like when you're talking about the setting stuff, that's not just your your ambient environment, right? It's your tools. And one of my favorite things that we have that we've had for a long time, and this, you know, the brave 21st century is uh do not disturb, right? And so, and there's a lot you can do with that. So I've also done a lot of experiments on like what what makes me anxious, what was helpful. So I do have like, you know, certain things it'll block calls, it'll block text, it'll block work emails, uh, so that I'm not tempted. And I have notifications just straight turned off on my phone because I can't handle it, cannot stand it.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

So it's so funny. Oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 25:41

No, no, no, yeah, that's that's that's about it.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

What do you got? I was just gonna say it's funny you mentioned that because man, I did not have good awareness and good study habits, like going through undergrad and grad school. And I feel like I had to learn in grad school. I'm like, why do I do my best work at like after 11 p.m.? I guess I'm just a night owl, right? Well, really, I did my best work after 11 p.m. because nobody's texting me then, right? Nobody, like there's nothing going on social media, there's nothing to look at, right? And it like, it is shocking how long it took me to realize that. Like, I need to just get my phone out. Like, it's too tempting, it's too rewarding for me to, I gotta respond back. I'm just, you know, I'm stuck on this person's response. Like I have to, I have to answer, right? And so again, it's it just that awareness piece, I think for a lot of people, sometimes you know, it's hard to figure out where do I need to put some of these strategies into place, right? Where do I need to figure out that off ramping? Like what, when does that even happen? As Jenna's question was, right? If we're constantly working and feeling burned out, like what I like to kind of marry to what you're saying is thinking of it very functionally, right? Well, where is it working? Where is it not working? Yeah. And sometimes when I've worked with people who are, you know, really high functioning and they're the go-getters and you know, senior leadership roles in their companies, they're just kind of like, but I have to do this all. I can't, there's nothing, but I'm really burnt out and I'm overloaded and overworking from doing everything. It's like, okay, we need to step back then, look at this very functionally of like what's working for you, what's not, what's worth it for you, what's not, right? Like, what do you want to put your time and energy in? Like, you know, getting at getting at the future goals, those values a bit more too. And figuring out, like, okay, if we can look at this more functionally, if we can build a bit more awareness into like just what the heck are you doing with all your time during the week, then you can figure out where is work-life balance going to be. It's different for everyone, right? It might still be working those 60 hours, 70-hour weeks, but is there things to offset it, things to kind of put it back more in balance. So it doesn't feel like I've set up a system where I have to work 80 hours a week and I don't know what else to do except that I feel stuck.

SPEAKER_03 27:42

Yeah, I think they uh the autonomy is big. When it gets back to two, like what you're saying, I mean, high performers sometimes don't notice that they've shifted from achievement, which like early on in your career, when you first start something, you're very high on achievement, you have slipped into accomplishment and you may not even notice it. So now you're turning in C minus work, you don't even realize it. And like maybe you're sabotaging the thing that you care a lot about too. So I think all these things you're talking about are important to kind of step back. And it can help, I think, working with you know, the way we do things. I think part of the reason I was so motivated to put a service like this together is you just need somebody who can see that for you sometimes when you're really deep into it and give you that heads up and that guidance and walk you through sort of like external metacognition until you get there yourself, you know. Exactly. Like you're Jiminy Cricket.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Yeah, I was just going to say something I really like love about the program and what you're talking about. And you both both provided personal examples of what you would do in the situation or what you have learned. And that's the thing about the program that you offer is it's so personalized, right? So it's really working with the person. I mean, especially if you're under a lot of pressure, we don't want to be adding things that are gonna increase that pressure. It's like, what do you already have? What do you already like? What that's where we can start, right? And then it's also using that data. So, you know, what you do is data driven in it in and of itself, but then it's also the individual's data. And that's what really makes it personalized and helpful.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Yeah, like you have to start from the premise of like, well, you know, we're the expert on this side of the table, we're the expert on the science side, the the evidence-based side, but you know, you person A, you're the expert in yourself. You're the expert in yourself, you're the expert in yourself, right? Even if we feel like I don't have any good self-awareness, I don't really know myself. Like you're still the expert, you're the one living with yourself 24-7, right? Yeah. So it has to be that coming together of like, okay, you know way more about your life, your job, what's important to you than we do, right? So let's like merge these things together, right? Let's merge these tools, let's bring some science into the picture, right? Try to try to all get to the same end goal. Oh, for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:49

Because science is all about the bell curve, right? Like we study the norms, but you're one person. So what I love about this is like, you know, let me see your numbers. Let's follow you, let's track you. We're not tracking means or averages of all these different people. There's so much variability between individuals. So with something like this, you get to do that science, you get to be super empirical, you know, you get to be data driven, but it's not to smooth over all those edges. It's like go with them and uh build something around it, which I think is extremely cool and really fun.

unknown 30:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

And it makes me want to ask the question to the listeners what is important to you? Is your cognitive health important? Is your performance important? What have you budgeted to help yourself, you know, reach your goals and you know, reach a state that you want to be in at work every day? And so if you are interested, um, Intercept Labs does offer training programs to help the individual. So you can check us out. Yes, please do.

unknown 30:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

But thanks for talking with me on the topic today. Good to see you, Josh. Great to see you guys. Always okay. All right, good geeking out with you guys.

SPEAKER_02 30:55

If you have a question or a topic that you'd like to present to Firing and Wiring, be sure to email us at support at interceptlabs.com. Firing and Wiring is produced by Intercept Labs and is hosted by Jenna Mani, Nora Kennedy, and Bethany Reigns. Our theme music is graciously provided by Anxiety Society because all the cool kids support Minneapolis music.