Something You Should Know
How to Change What’s Not Working & Why Time Seems to Speed Up and Slow Down
Thu, 02 Jan 2025
One fear many air travelers have is catching a cold or some other bug when they fly on an airplane. Why is it that a lot of people seem to get sick on a flight? Is it the air in the plane or maybe it's the bathrooms? Listen as I explain what the most common cause of getting sick is and how to protect yourself. https://www.healthpartners.com/blog/avoid-getting-sick-while-flying/ We often do things because – well, that’s the way we do things. Organizations are often very resistant to change and stay stuck in procedures and processes because that’s just the way they are done – even if they are not working very well. When you think about it, it doesn’t make any sense but nevertheless, that’s the way it is. Dan Heath has examined this phenomenon and what he found will fascinate you – and help you figure ways to do things better for yourself or your organization. Dan has been a frequent guest here and has written some great books over the years. His latest is called Reset: How to Change What's Not Working (https://amzn.to/3DCbB4E) Have you ever noticed how time tends to speed up when you are having fun and slow down when you are doing something unpleasant or boring? It’s weird because objectively we know that time moves at a constant speed – or does it? Is the way we measure time just arbitrary? Can we and do we experience time at different rates? For example, people often claim that when they are in a car accident, time slows down as if it occurs in slow motion. What is that? Here to explore this with me is Steve Taylor, PhD. He is a senior lecturer and researcher in psychology at Leeds Beckett University and he is author of the book Time Expansion Experiences: The Psychology of Time Perception and the Illusion of Linear Time (https://amzn.to/4gNpvzz) How many times have you looked at photos of yourself and been unhappy with the way you look? Well, there is something you can do with your face that will make you look better in any photo. It’s called the squinch and it was developed by legendary photographer Peter Hurley. Listen as I explain how to squinch. There is also a YouTube video that demonstrates it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff7nltdBCHs PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS!!! INDEED: Get a $75 SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to get your jobs more visibility at https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING Support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms & conditions apply. AURA: Save on the perfect gift by visiting https://AuraFrames.com to get $35-off Aura’s best-selling Carver Mat frames by using promo code SOMETHING at checkout! SHOPIFY: Sign up for a $1 per-month trial period at https://Shopify.com/sysk . Go to SHOPIFY.com/sysk to grow your business – no matter what stage you’re in! MINT MOBILE: Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month at https://MintMobile.com/something! $45 upfront payment required (equivalent to $15/mo.). New customers on first 3 month plan only. Additional taxes, fees, & restrictions apply. HERS: Hers is changing women's healthcare by providing access to GLP-1 weekly injections with the same active ingredient as Ozempic and Wegovy, as well as oral medication kits. Start your free online visit today at https://forhers.com/sysk PROGRESSIVE: The Name Your Price tool from Progressive can help you save on car insurance! You just tell Progressive what you want to pay and get options within your budget. Try it today at https://Progressive.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: How can you avoid getting sick on an airplane?
That is exactly it. Yes. It's like you come to just almost accept the way things are as well. This is just the way nature operates, right? It's because that's all you've ever seen. I mean, every day you come to work, you work a hard eight hour day, you go home and next day it's the same thing. And so what often happens is, and in this case, this is what happened. An outsider came in.
Who had a background in lean manufacturing. And so he comes in and he immediately realizes, you know, half dozen things that they could fix to get way better performance. But he's also savvy enough and wise enough to realize it's not enough for him to want to change. He's got to plant the seed with this crew.
And so he starts by canvassing them to figure out, hey, I'm here to help us all do better work to make your life easier, to make it smoother. If I can do that, will you help me? And the first thing he asked them is what's getting in your way? What are your complaints? What are the stones in your shoes, so to speak?
And they start flagging these very mundane things like, you know, they push the packages around on carts and some of the carts have those kind of janky gummed up wheels like you get in the supermarket sometimes. And so this new guy says instantly, okay, new carts, new wheels, whatever it takes, that shouldn't be a source of friction in our work. What's next?
And so that becomes a theme as well, is if we're trying to get unstuck, motivation is the fuel for that change. And so this outsider, Paul Seward, that came into the receiving area, he was very, very attentive to motivation as the force that would help him achieve a higher level of performance.
But isn't it hard to identify in your own life what you're stuck on? Because, again, it's just what we do. It's how I do what I do. And I haven't really thought about changing the way I do it.
It is hard. And that's why it doesn't happen naturally. Why these... equilibria, if you will, kind of set in and we adapt to them. So one of the principles that I offer is the notion of finding leverage points, which is to say in situations where we're stuck, there's a lot of variables. There's a lot of factors involved. We can't change them all.
We've got to find a place to push where a little bit of effort yields a disproportionate return. And so the next logical question is, OK, well, how do you find these magical leverage points? And that's what I devote many different principles to helping people explore. And one of those, just to give you a flavor, is the idea of studying bright spots. So this is a story actually from a therapist.
There's a branch of therapy called Solutions Focused Therapy that is obsessed with bright spots. And one of my favorite examples has to do with this kid, Bobby, who was a ninth grader, always in trouble at school, always getting sent to the principal for discipline. Comes in, one day there's a new counselor, just started, and he is a practitioner of this branch of therapy.
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Chapter 2: Why do organizations resist change?
Why are you asking me for feedback if you fundamentally do not care what the feedback is?
Wouldn't it be better if I told your company how I really feel rather than give you 10 out of 10?
Exactly right. There's a law called Goodhart's Law that says when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. And I love that because that's what happened in the survey story, right? It's like as soon as you start layering on carrots and sticks to get the 10 out of 10, when the measure becomes a target, it's no longer a good measure of anything.
Well, what an interesting conversation about a topic that everybody has probably thought about to one degree or another, but nobody ever really talks about this. But it's really interesting when you think about why we do the things we do and why we don't do them better. I've been talking to Dan Heath. He is a speaker and writer who's written some great books over the years.
His latest is called Reset, How to Change What's Not Working. And there's a link to his book in the show notes. Great to have you back. Thanks, Dan. Thanks so much, Mike. Great to be with you. I'm really excited to have Factor back as a sponsor. Factor provides delicious, chef-made, gourmet meals right to your door. And just to be clear, this is not a box of ingredients that you have to make.
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Chapter 3: What is the impact of time perception on our experiences?
One of the things I've always found interesting is how the – because in an accident – In a traffic accident, time passes more slowly, but you don't know it's coming and then it's over. But you know that an hour in the dentist chair is a lot longer than an hour at an amusement park. It's a different, because it's unpleasant. And why does unpleasant slow it down?
There's a whole category of negative experiences in which time goes very slowly, whether it's boredom or whether it's a waiting situation or whether you're in pain or whether you're anticipating pain when you're in some kind of discomfort. That almost always makes time pass very, very slowly. And I think that's because in these situations, we can't focus our attention.
You know, we can't get absorbed in any kind of activity or entertainment.
and therefore we're in this kind of very open state of awareness in which our minds become very busy our minds start to worry start to think about the future start to envision lots of scenarios start to think about the past so our minds get very kind of agitated and very very busy so in other words they get full of information massive amount of thoughts pass through our consciousness
And all of this information passing through our consciousness stretches time. So if you compare that to, let's say you're waiting to go on holiday at the airport. So you're in a good frame of mind, looking forward to your holiday. Maybe you're reading a book in the waiting lounge at the airport. And time can go quite quickly in that situation because you're in a state of absorption.
You're relaxed and you're focusing on a magazine or a book. Maybe you're talking to your partner. So when you're at the dentist or when you're waiting for a doctor's appointment, or maybe you've been waiting for a long time for a bus or a train and you're getting quite agitated, time passes very slowly because your mind gets very agitated and full of information.
But I wonder why, for example, you can watch a two-hour movie and it flies by because it's a great movie. The next day you could watch a two-hour movie You're just as absorbed in it, but it's taking forever. Like, get to the point. You know, he's the bad guy. Get him. But it's the same experience, more or less, but the time that passes feels very different.
Yeah, well, it's actually to do with absorption, again, because when you watch a really good movie, you forget about everything. You forget about your life. You even forget who you are because you're so absorbed in the film. Everything kind of drops away and you become completely absorbed in the story or the characters of the film. So that kind of intense absorption makes time pass really quickly.
But if a film isn't very good, and if you don't believe the characters, if the story's not very enthralling, then you can't really get into absorption. And again, your mind gets a bit busy. You start to think about other things. You start to think, hmm, what should I do tomorrow? Or what happened yesterday? What happened at work today?
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