October 30, 2024 • 51 mins
Have you ever wanted to travel through time and see what your life will be like in the future? While we want the best possible future for ourselves, we often fail to make decisions that would make that a reality. So why are so many of us so disconnected from our future selves?
This week on The Evolving Leader, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender talk to psychologist Professor Hal Hershfield. Hal is Professor of Marketing, Behavioural Decision Making, and Psychology at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and is committed to the work of helping people make better long-term decisions. In his 2023 book ‘Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today’ Hal explains that in our minds, our future selves often look like strangers. Many of us view the future as incredibly distant, making us more likely to opt for immediate gratification that disregards the health and wellbeing of ourselves in the years to come. He says that people who are able to connect with their future selves, however, are better able to balance living for today and planning for tomorrow.
This is a fascinating listen.
Referenced during this episode:
Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today
Other reading from Jean Gomes and Scott Allender:
Leading In A Non-Linear World (J Gomes, 2023)
The Enneagram of Emotional Intelligence (S Allender, 2023)
Social:
Instagram @evolvingleader
LinkedIn The Evolving Leader Podcast
Twitter @Evolving_Leader
YouTube @evolvingleader
The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jean Gomes (00:03):
Researchers have found that we have a strange
relationship with who we arebecoming. We treat our future
self as if they were a stranger.
Perhaps it's because our futureself is in many ways unknowable
that we avoid thinking aboutthem. But the cost of this
avoidance is that we don'talways look after our long term
interests or of those that wecare about who will rely on our
(00:25):
future selves. Psychologistshave found that the most
powerful way to develop ourrelationship with who we are
becoming is to enter a two waydialog. So rather than just
thinking about what your futureself wants, we should also be
asking, what does our futureself want from us? Now? In this
show, we talk to the psychologyresearcher, Professor Hal
(00:48):
Hershfield about what he'sdiscovering about creating a
relationship with our futureselves that can help us to be
happier, healthier and moresuccessful, both now and in the
future, tune In to an importantconversation on the evolving
leader you
Scott Allender (01:24):
Hi friends.
Welcome to the evolving leaderthe show born out of the belief
that we need deeper, moreaccountable and more human
leadership to confront theworld's biggest challenges. I'm
Scott Allender and
Jean Gomes (01:34):
I'm Jean Gomes.
Scott Allender (01:35):
How are you feeling on this Friday? Mr.
Gomes,
Jean Gomes (01:38):
Well, honestly, I am feeling very depleted. I have
just got off a plane from theUS. I was in the near the Blue
Ridge Mountains, which wasbeautiful, but it was a flying
visit. I was in and out, and Idid a lot of travel via Madrid
and all sorts of things thanksto last minute cancelations by
(01:58):
an unnamed airline, which wewon't talk about. But other than
that, I'm feeling very good, sobit physically depleted, but
I've been looking forward tothis conversation for best part
of a year. We've taken this thatlong to track down our guest,
pin him down, and finallyextract it some some time from
him. So we're really gratefulfor that. So yeah, how are you
(02:19):
feeling, Scott,
Scott Allender (02:20):
I'm feeling in awe of you and your ability to
do these sort of like overnightinternational travel for a gig.
What is your present self, whichused to be your future self?
What would what is it saying toyour past self about your choice
to do that trip?
Jean Gomes (02:34):
My future self is furious with my past self, and
it's going to have a serioustalking to him. But of course,
they just, they don't talk. Youknow, that's the problem.
Scott Allender (02:47):
I feel that problem myself, and we're going
to get into that. I'm feelingeager today because, like you
said, we've been anxious to talkto this guest for a while. We
both love his book. Today we arejoined by Professor Hal
Hershfield, who has gotten usboth thinking differently about
who we're becoming as leaders,having having read his book, as
(03:09):
I just mentioned, how is aprofessor of marketing,
behavioral decision making andpsychology at UCLA Anderson
School of Management, and holdsthe UCLA Anderson board of
advisors. Term chair inmanagement. His research, which
sits at the intersection ofpsychology and economics,
examines the ways we can improveour long term thinking and
(03:32):
decision. He's been widelypublished in academic journals
and popular media, and on top ofhis research, he consults with
major financial and marketingclients. Hirschfield was named
one of the 40 most outstandingbusiness school professors under
40 in the world by BusinessEducation website, poets and
courts and his book, as I keepmentioning your future self, how
(03:54):
to make tomorrow better today,was described by Daniel Pink as
the rare book that will changewho you see in the mirror, which
is, I understand really upsetthe people over at Botox, but we
can talk about that too. Hal.
Welcome to the evolving leader.
Hal Hershfield (04:12):
I think there's a collaboration that could be
done with those Botox folks. ButScott and Jean, thanks so much
for having me. I've been reallylooking forward to this
conversation.
Jean Gomes (04:20):
Welcome to the evolving leader, Hal. How are
you feeling today?
Hal Hershfield (04:24):
Yeah, thanks for asking. Um, if I'm going to be
honest, a little bit physicallytired my my wife, had a dinner
at 630 last night with a groupof friends she hasn't seen in a
while. And she she came home ataround 1215 and causing me to
text her and ask her, did youleave this state? I've never
seen a dinner last this long so,but you know what, I'm here.
(04:46):
I've had coffee. I'm ready togo. I'm excited to talk to you
guys.
Jean Gomes (04:51):
Well, good, good for your wife. I'm sure she had a
wonderful time. So at the heartof this book that you've just
written is the idea that. Ourfuture self is a stranger to us,
and that has a range ofsignificant implications for our
decision making, our well beingand the quality of the lives
full stop. Can we set the stagefor this conversation by
(05:13):
unpacking this idea a little bitand why this became the focus of
your work? Yeah,
Hal Hershfield (05:20):
so I'll start with the second part of that,
the reason why it became thefocus of my work, I mean, dates
back, gosh, over 15 years ago,around the time of the great
financial crisis, and trying tounderstand why it might be the
case, why so many people madedecisions that had a lot of
(05:43):
reward in the present but couldcome back to to to create
potential harm later on. Right?
So why do I sign up for amortgage that I'm never going to
be able to to keep up? You know?
Why as a lender, do I do I lendout money when I when I know
that this is probably not theright idea, and there's and, you
(06:04):
know, none of these things aresurprising, because there's so
many tensions and pulls on thepresent moment right there. But
I was trying to go deeper andunderstand, like, what is it
about our psychology that makesthinking about the consequences
of now later so difficult? Thatwas really the, the impetus
there, and, you know, from fromthere, I started realizing, man,
(06:26):
there's so many decisions thatinvolve trade offs between the
now and later, the present andthe future that go way beyond
the financial but they have todo with leadership and how I
think about allocating my time,and how I think about ethics and
and and my health, and all ofthese sorts of things that
involve these sort of now, laterdecisions. So, so that was
(06:48):
really like how I got into thisspace.
Jean Gomes (06:51):
And can you just unpack the idea of that being a
stranger to yourself, yourfuture self?
Hal Hershfield (06:57):
Yeah, you know, in a nutshell, the the basic
idea here is that one of thereasons that a lot of these
present and future decisions areso difficult is because we often
think of our future self as ifit's another person and and that
has some real implications whenyou start thinking about the way
that we treat other people inour lives. In other words, there
(07:19):
are a range of people that weinteract with, some of them are
almost complete strangers, likewe might know them, like, I
know, you know, there's like,I'm just thinking now about like
another parent I know from mykids school, like, I know their
name, but I know nothing aboutthem. I don't know their
hobbies. I don't know their Idon't know anything about their
(07:40):
personality, except for the factthat we're very loosely
connected, because our kids goto the same school, and if that,
like, I'm just thinking aboutthis one particular Dad, if he
were to, like, shoot me a textright now and say, like, I'm in
a bind. I need some help thisweekend, because, you know, I
don't know there's been somemold in my garage, and I need to
(08:00):
move stuff out of it. I I'd belike, first off, it'd be a
little strange. I think there'sno one else you can text. And
secondly, I'd probably say no,and not because I'm such a bad
person, but because I have somany other things going on this
weekend. And the reason I thinkthat that little, that little
(08:22):
imaginary anecdote is importantis because if we think of our
future selves the same way, ifthey're like that sort of
stranger who we we know theyexist, but we have no real
emotional bond to them, thendoing things for their benefit,
making these decisions that mayend up helping them later on,
feels almost strange andirrational, right? So I think
(08:43):
that's kind of at the heart ofit now, that the caveat here is
that there are a lot of peoplewho have they texted me right
now to ask them, you know, toask me for help this weekend, I
would maybe begrudgingly say yesto right? You know it's like,
whether it's like a best friendor, you know, a relative, or, of
(09:05):
course, like if my kids or mywife, any of these people asked
me to do something, I would dropwhat I have planned and do
something for them. Now, I don'tmean to say that every decision
between now and later has toinvolve this, like painful
sacrifice, but, but on, but onsome level, whenever we,
whenever we decide to not dosomething so that we have more
(09:26):
of something else later. Thereis a little bit of a sacrifice
there, and there is a little bitof that, okay, I'll do something
now for you later, right? Andwe'll, we, I'm sure we'll get
into the nuances of that,because it's really not black
and white. But I think at, youknow, at the heart of the
matter, we sometimes think ofour future selves as if there
are other people, and whatmatters is the type of person
(09:46):
that that future self is and therelationship that we have with
that version of us.
Scott Allender (09:57):
I want to get into those details. I want to
look at some of your researchand. Examples in the books, I
loved one of the experimentswith the gross drink that you
talked about and what people didwith that. But you start the
book with the question, are wethe same over time? And you
point out a really interestingway of answering that question,
by identifying when thoseclosest to us might say they no
(10:21):
longer recognize us, and that'susually connected to some sort
of evolution of our moraltraits, right? So if something
about our moral traits havefundamentally altered, can maybe
we start there?
Hal Hershfield (10:32):
Yeah, so I, I find this question, by the way,
I feel like this could be one ofthose questions that you you
stay up super late at night witha bottle of wine, or maybe more,
you know, debating like, who,who am I? And am I the same
person that I once was? Youknow, I'm in my mid 40s now, you
(10:53):
know I'm by, I know we've justmet, by the looks of it, you
guys are mid 30s, right? We'llsay
for this, right? I, by the looksof it, we're in the same boat.
(11:18):
And, you know, it's funnybecause I'm having now this
experience of connecting withfriends who I first connected
with somewhere, sometimesupwards of 25 years ago,
sometimes even more, if they'refrom childhood. And it's this
funny question of like, whatbinds us and are we the same?
And you know, the research onthis is fascinating, and so much
(11:40):
of it, so much of the reallyinteresting stuff has been done
by Nina strominger at at Penn.
And the thing that her workreally points to is that when we
make these sorts of judgments,which are really difficult, by
the way, but when we make thesejudgments about, you know, are
we the same or not, one of thethings that we're really sort of
fundamentally thinking about ismoral character, and things like
(12:00):
your you know your interestscould change, and of course
where you live, and of coursehow you look. But the things
that are defining in a moral wayare is your sense of humor,
biting, you know, or is it moregentle, you know? Are you the
(12:24):
type of person who is, you know,typically compassionate? Or do
you have like, sort of an edge,and it's not like a positive,
negative thing, but like, whatare those things that have been
present as a hallmark of yoursort of moral character? And if
those things change, that's whenwe start saying that person is
no longer really the person whoI once knew, or, you know, I
(12:49):
never really knew him, did IRight? And I think these
questions are important for thisbroader conversation we're
having, because I think at theheart of it is this overarching
sort of curiosity of, well, youknow, if it's possible that we
change so much over time ordon't change over time, what
(13:12):
should we be doing now for thebenefit, or, you know, detriment
of some future version ofourselves? And I think these,
these get to be, you know,they're deeply philosophical
questions, and sometimes they'rehard to answer. But I really
love this idea of sort ofpointing to morality as one
binding factor here.
Jean Gomes (13:34):
So I was really interested in the research,
where you're looking at thecosts analysis that people are
making. So you know, a young manwho's a teenager smoking doesn't
think about the costs that youknow, 5060, into their health.
What's going on in people'sminds when they're when they're
(13:56):
looking at behaviors thatundermine their future self? How
are they looking at thecalculation?
Hal Hershfield (14:02):
So in some cases, I think they're not
right. I think, you know, wehave to acknowledge at the
outset that, you know, if youtake a 15 year old making that
decision, I'm not sure it's evena calculation, right? And so,
you know, one of the things Italk about in the book is that
sometimes we are so weighteddown by the present that we
(14:27):
almost just miss the futureentirely. It's like driving
where there's so much fog aheadthat we can't even see where
we're going, but, but it's butit's more than that. It's like
we didn't even decide where togo. We're just somehow driving
right? So I think you have toacknowledge that in some cases,
there is no calculation butthat, but that can't be all of
(14:48):
it, right? I think there areother times where, when making a
decision that that could harm uslater, we are making a
calculation, but the calculationis one of the Bennett. Fits I'm
experiencing now from doing thisthing far outweigh whatever I
perceive the cost to be mostlikely, because I'm really
(15:09):
underweighting those costs,right? I'm not thinking about
the risks involved with whetherit's it's smoking or engaging in
some other risky behavior or ornot, you know, not saving at the
rate that someone tells me to ifI can save at that rate, you
know? And I think there's a lotof different examples here.
Another factor that I thinkcould be involved here is that
(15:33):
there's a lot of uncertaintysurrounding the future. And by
the way, this is an anecdotalobservation, but I I suspect
that our perceptions of futureuncertainty have increased in
recent years, that with COVIDand various global events and
(15:56):
and whatnot, it certainly andone of the things that I'm
hearing, and as a researcher,I'm very hesitant to say, well,
I hear this. You know, this isjust anecdotal. When I talk to
younger people, when I talk tomy younger students, I hear
something that I hadn't heardwhen I first started this
research, which is, why should Ithink about the future? Why
(16:18):
should I plan for the futurewhen there's just no guarantee
at all what things will looklike, and that is, you know,
that's hard to grapple with.
That's a really hard thing tograpple with.
Scott Allender (16:33):
I mentioned at the at the onset with Jean's
trip and the joke around sort ofhis future self, is he okay with
the decision to have made thislong journey on no sleep, and
then you're even example about,you know, staying up with a
bottle of wine and talking andwaxing poetic about ourselves
could be a decision where thenext morning we go, Gosh, I'm
(16:54):
groggy from having done that.
And I love that you have so manyof these real examples that
really brings it to life. Andwhat I one of the things I
really focused on was thelanguage people use about
themselves. You talk to us aboutwhen people use first person
descriptions of themselves, andthen when it sort of shifts into
third person description.
Hal Hershfield (17:15):
Yeah, this is, there's some great research.
Emily pronum at Princeton wasthe one who started a lot of
this work, but other folks havedone it as well. Where, where in
that particular work? Theyasked, they asked college
students to, you know, writedown a little narrative of, you
know, something like a meal thisyear or a birthday this year.
And you can imagine the types ofthings people write down. They
(17:36):
say, you know, okay, I'm, I'm,you know, I'm sitting here. I
see my friends nearby. I've gota drink in front of me. I'm
eating some food. It's like thevery, very much, the description
that you would give me right nowabout a meal that you might have
later tonight or tomorrow orwhatever. But then she does
something interesting. She saysto a different group of people,
um, you know, give me that sameit's the same narrative, you
(17:56):
know, tell me about a meal or abirthday in the very distant
future. Um, which as a side notefor undergrads, is anytime over
40, which, which? I actually wassurprised. I thought they would
say like, 25 is very distantfuture, right? But okay, over 40
and one of the things that theseresearchers find is that there's
(18:17):
a shift that happens, where noteverybody, but significantly,
more people end up talking abouttheir future selves using the
third person. So rather thansaying, Okay, I'm sitting there,
I see friends, they'll say,Yeah, I see my future self
there. I see him there. He'ssitting there. He's got his
friends around him, you know?
And it's like a very subtlething, but it's very it's, it's
(18:40):
deep, it's, it's meaningful,because it suggests that in some
ways, in the mind's eye, ourfuture selves look like other
people. And I think that's afascinating demonstration of
this concept that we weretalking about a little while
ago.
Jean Gomes (18:54):
So interesting.
Yeah, so this kind of notionthat you say, in the real way on
our future self is sort ofunknowable to us. How do we
change that relationship? How dowe move past being the stranger
and move into a different typeof relationship?
Hal Hershfield (19:11):
Yeah, no, I think it's a great question, by
the way. I'll say, you know, Ithink we've, we've started off
this conversation with a lot ofthings that could be seen as,
you know, pessimistic ornegative. We change. We're
different, we're strangers. Thefuture is uncertain. And at the
same time, I, like, almost wantto shout that I'm, like, really
hopeful and positive andoptimistic about the way that
people can relate to theirfuture selves, right? And I
(19:32):
think, I think, you know, yourquestion is a practical one,
like, how can we change thatrelationship? I, you know, one
of my favorite tools for doingit is that is, when I say doing
it that is changing thatrelationship, is simply starting
a conversation with that futureself. And I think, you know,
(19:52):
there's something hokey aboutthat, admittedly, but I have now
read. Had, you know, andconducted a lot of the research
as well. And one of the thingsthat I really love is a letter
writing conversation, you know,or, I mean, I say letter
writing, by the way. Andsomething about the concept of
writing a letter feelsantiquated, so I almost want to
(20:14):
say, you know, like a textconversation, or whatever it is
with with your future self, but,but importantly, for the
exercise to work, what you wantto do is write a letter to some
future self and then, and thentake the perspective of that
future self and write a letterback. Um, and the reason why
that's such a nice exercise isit forces you to take the
(20:37):
perspective of some distantversion of yourself, whatever
that you know, whether it's fiveyears, 10 years down the line,
15 years, you know, excuse me,whatever it might be. Um, and I
think we, you know, it needs tobe acknowledged. We can never
know our future selves like wekeep talking about this analogy
of the future self as anotherperson, which I think is such a
(20:59):
powerful analogy, but it's nottotally accurate, because
whereas my best friend isanother person, my wife is
another person, and I can takeher perspective, and I can try
to imagine a conversation withher, but then I can actually go
and have one. I can never go andhave a conversation with my
future self, becausedefinitionally, he doesn't yet
exist. I actually, you know, bythe way, we, I've been working
(21:23):
with some folks at MIT todevelop an AI tool to, like,
actually allow people to mimicthat conversation where, you
know, you're writing back andforth, and it's, and it's, you
know, it's, it's only as good asyour ability to lose yourself in
the exercise and recognize that,of course, I'm not talking to my
real future self, but it's aproxy for it. I think talking to
(21:47):
older I'll call it, role models,but older proxies for our future
selves, older surrogates for ourfuture selves, is another good
way to start that conversationand get closer to those future
selves. But at the heart of it,a lot of this work is all about
making the future self and thefuture context more vivid,
(22:09):
because it's really easy. No,there's nobody who is surprised
that there is a future, right?
We're we're so lucky. We're sofortunate in many contexts,
especially in, you know, call itsort of, you know, I don't, I
don't want to say justwesternized, but I think in many
fortunate contexts, there'scases where there's some
(22:32):
certainty around the future,right? We like we like most of
us, expect to wake up tomorrow.
That being said, when we pushthings out further, the future
just can become very abstractand we don't think about it
deeply. And these sorts ofexercises, I think, what they do
is can provide some color andsome concreteness and some
(22:55):
vividness to that future. Andthen this is, by the way, this
is an exercise that's enormouslyuseful in leadership as well.
There's some work that was doneon leaders having them imagine
that they were essentiallytraveled in a time travel
machines in the future, and, youknow, write a letter back, and
what does that letter look like?
And the leaders who do that andthen write write correspondence
(23:16):
to their employees end upwriting more detailed and vivid,
you know, sort of like state ofthe company type course, which I
think is a really fascinatingtranslation of this work, not
just for our own selves, but toourselves as leaders in business
contexts as well.
Jean Gomes (23:39):
In having this dialog you've also learned what
doesn't work to make thisconversation really productive.
Can you talk to us a little bitabout some of the things that
you've seen there?
Hal Hershfield (23:48):
Yeah, that's a really good question. You know,
Yeah, that makes sense. And youuse the word fantasy, I think
it's funny because I haven't, Ihaven't done as much. You know,
as researchers, we look for thethings that that do work, and
often as and I think this is afailure. We don't do the work on
like what doesn't work. I usedto think that simply writing to
a future self was the thing thatworked, and I do have some
(24:11):
research that shows that there'san impact of that, but the
recent research suggests thatthat's far less effective than
doing the sort of two wayconversation. So I don't think
that is as useful. I don't thinkthat simply imagining the future
is as useful as having aconversation, but a guided
induction where we're actuallylike sitting down and really
(24:34):
thinking deeply aboutvisualizing the future is
something that's that's moreuseful than, say, than sitting
down and sort of just just, kindof imagining. One of the other
things that that otherresearchers have found, which I
think is fascinating, is thatsimply fantasizing about the
future doesn't do much, much forour motivation. And it's ironic,
(24:57):
because there's something verypositive about, you know,
sitting. And imagining anynumber of positive outcomes,
whether it's in my personallife, in my professional life,
when I think about retirement,but ironically, what these
researchers have found is thatwhen you end up positively
fantasizing about the future,and this is Gabrielle otzengen
(25:20):
at NYU, what she's found is thatyou get some energy from doing
so you get some utility, like,to use an economist term, but
then that doesn't translate intogetting up and doing something.
It's like you feel good aboutit. You sit back, you have that
sort of like fantasized,idealized image of the future,
and then, and then you go aboutyour day, and you don't make a
(25:44):
change. And one of the ways thatshe's found that you can rectify
this is by engaging in anexercise called mental
contrasting, where you dofantasize about the future, like
don't stop doing that, but thencontrast your idealized vision
of the future with yourrealistic reality of right now,
and think about the obstacles,the overcomeable obstacles
(26:06):
between now and later, so thatyou can try to figure out, okay,
what are the small steps I needto take to get at least
somewhere near that positiveimage of the future. And by the
that brings home a lot ofmeaning in here, which is, it's
way, Jean, I think one of thereasons why that insight is
important is because I think alot of people have the intuition
that one way to motivate peopleis to get them to think really
(26:30):
positively. You know about thefuture. And I'm not saying
don't, but I'm adding aningredient in there, which is
that contrast, yeah, between nowand later as well.
almost like a displacement fromthe present. You're not actually
sitting in the future. You're,you're, you're trying to offset,
(26:53):
you know, whatever you'reexperiencing right now. And it
can feel, feel fun to do that,but actually isn't moving you
into any form of action. Yeah, Ithink that's exactly right.
That's exactly right.
Scott Allender (27:09):
How much does making our future selves more
familiar to us depend on makingour present selves more familiar
to us? I'm looking at this froma lens of self awareness.
Because, you know, there's a lotof research out there that would
suggest that often we're notvery self aware of our current
selves, right? And I'm justwondering if you saw a
correlation between the amountof self awareness, self
(27:32):
awareness somebody possessestoday, and their ability to
imagine and connect with a morefamiliar future self.
Hal Hershfield (27:40):
Scott, that is such an interesting question.
Well, can I just put it back toyou for a second like, have you?
Is this something you've noticedin your own work, in terms of
trying to make any changes?
Scott Allender (27:52):
Yeah, so I'm, if long term listeners would know
this, that I'm an Enneagram guy.
I use that system to try to helppeople understand what is often
latent or unconsciousmotivations. And you know, when
I coach people, there's usuallya lot of aha moments where they
go, Gosh, I didn't even know.
That's why I saw these thingsthe way I see them. I didn't
know that's why I get triggeredby this thing, right? There's a
(28:14):
lot of like moments where peoplego, ah, like I've been living
the last 4050, years, not evenaware of why I felt and saw and
acted certain ways, and so I wasjust curious, you know, if, if
that's happening in the present,I'm wondering if there's a
correlation to the ability toconnect and imagine a more
familiar future.
Hal Hershfield (28:34):
I love that. I love that concept. You know,
from a research standpoint, it'snot something that's the best
way. So I haven't investigatedit. I don't know that others
have as well. If I were to takemy researcher hat off and just
think through it, it certainlymakes a lot of sense. It like
passes the smell test, right?
Because there has been recentwork that's looked at this idea
(28:59):
of connecting to our futureselves, but but not just
connecting to our future self,connecting to them, because we
have more what these researcherscall self certainty. We have
more of a sense of what are thecertain aspects of ourself and
what will remain sort of certainover time. That's sort of, you
know, tangentially related toyour question there, which is, I
(29:23):
think, you know, if I can have asense of who I am now, it's
certainly a lot easier to anchoron to that, to try to project
who I might be in the future.
And you know, one of the one ofthe exercises that we often do
is ask people, How similar dothey think they'll be to their
(29:45):
future selves in terms of theirlikes, their dislikes, their
ideals, their values, theirpersonality, their you know, the
all this sort of bundle theirideals, um, all of these sorts
of things that represent sort ofa picture of who someone is.
You. But fundamental to that isalso having some awareness of
what my likes, dislikes, ideals,values, personality, etc, are
(30:06):
right now. And if I if that'svery, very fuzzy, then I would
imagine it would be hard toproject that into the future.
But from, like, a strictlyempirical sense, that's not
something I've looked at,though, man, I want to, like, go
call up some of my PhD studentsright now and be like, look,
we've got to do this. This is agreat, you know, important
(30:27):
question, yeah? And
Jean Gomes (30:28):
we'd love to, love to hear, you know, kind of like,
what happens when you have yeahconversation,
Hal Hershfield (30:33):
yeah, yeah. Do you guys have some funding for
Jean Gomes (30:40):
that's the second time you've asked for money. How
in this show?
Hal Hershfield (30:45):
As I said that, I said, Actually, I can't make
the same joke twice. Okay, good.
Oh,
Jean Gomes (30:48):
it's a joke. Okay, as long as this joke
Hal Hershfield (30:53):
third, third time will be real.
Jean Gomes (30:56):
Your pitching strategy to fund the lab, I can
see it. It's working.
Hal Hershfield (31:00):
Yeah, exactly.
Jean Gomes (31:06):
We're talking about trying to build and vision, some
sort of picture of our futureself, so that we can remove
change the relationship from thecomplete stranger, where you
don't have any empathy orrelationship an emotional kind
of bond, but you talk about thefact that there's a rocky road
(31:26):
to close that gap, and you alsotalk about commitment devices
that help us to look after theinterests of our future self.
Can we talk a little bit aboutthat?
Hal Hershfield (31:37):
Yeah, so this is one of my favorite topics to
look at and research andinvestigate. And here's the,
here's the basic idea. There's,you know, we've been talking
about sort of present and futureselves. Is these two things, but
it's really, you know, I don'twant to over complicate it, but
it, but it's certainly more thanthat, because there's some
present version of me right nowthere, and then there's some
(32:00):
like, let's call it some like,you know, cumulative or eventual
future self, you know. Let'scall it me at age, you know, 65
and I have some vision of how Iwant that, that version of my
life to be. But then there's allthese other little things along
the way, right? There's allthese other little future selves
along the way. And I could, bythe way, I could have a goal
(32:21):
right now that I want to, youknow, get into shape to run the
LA Marathon in six months. Nowthat's a six month future self,
that that version of me may leadup to a future self at 65 and
there may be little steps alongthe way that are going to
necessitate that I do the thingsI need to do to get to the
version of me in six months andin 20 years, and whatever it is,
(32:42):
and those are the things thatcan be really hard to grapple
with. So specifically, I need towake up tomorrow morning and run
a certain number of miles sothat I get in shape to actually
do the the marathon. If I, youknow, if I could. This is now
the first time I'm publiclymentioning this, so it's like
gonna have to happen. It's acommitment. Now, that's it.
Speaking of commitment device?
Well,
Jean Gomes (33:00):
we could be your commitment device. How? Just,
you know,
Hal Hershfield (33:04):
yeah, let's do it. Let's, let's do it now. Like
I think probably a lot of peoplerecognize that there's so the
present version of me wants to,wants to say that I've, you
know, done a marathon, and Iwant six months from now to have
done it. That future guy, Ithink his interests are very
much aligned with mine. I thinkhe wants to run that marathon.
It's not him. I'm worried aboutthe it's, it's me tomorrow
(33:27):
morning, that's the guy I'mworried about, because it's
going to be, it'll be Saturdaymorning, and I'm probably going
to be tired from the week, and Idon't know if I'll be able to
get up and actually throw myrunning shoes and, you know, go
outside and take an hour longrun, or whatever it is, and
it's, and it's that one that Ihave to sort of help out. And
(33:48):
the the idea that economists andpsychologists have come up with,
it's, it's called a commitmentdevice, or a pre commitment
device, and the idea is that youconstrain some potentially
undesirable behavior. Now, Ithink there's versions of this
that we've all done, right? So,you know, I think a lot of
people know the idea of puttingout your workout clothes. You
(34:11):
know, like reducing whateveramount of friction, putting my
alarm across the room. Theseare, I think, sort of basic
things. There are more. There'sa whole menu of commitment
devices that range from very,very light. So for instance,
telling myself I'll get up andrun to very, very punitive. If I
(34:34):
don't run, I'm gonna have to owe$500 to a group. I don't want to
give money to an anti charityall. I won't go political. I'll
call it like the sports programat USC, our crosstown rival in
LA, okay, just to keep it tokeep it diplomatic here, yeah,
(34:58):
now the issue is. Is, here's theirony with these commitment
devices, the stronger that theyare, the more effective they
are, right? So if it's that, youknow, if, if I, if I, if there's
an automatic, like, if I couldset things up so that if I don't
get out of bed, $500automatically gets charged my
credit card to an anti charity,you better believe I'm going to
(35:19):
figure out a way to get out ofbed, right? If I simply tell
myself that I'm going to do it,or I tell my wife I'm going to
get up, and I go against that,like, oh, okay, I didn't follow
through on my word. It's notthat painful. So the problem
here is that the the most, themost sort of punitive ones, are
the most effective, but they'realso the least likely to get
adopted. Because, you know, Ithink people on some level
(35:42):
recognize that there's a chancethat I'll mess up, and I don't
want to, I don't want to have toget punished there. So I'm
actually doing a lot of workright now with one of my
students, Megan Weber, andcollaborator, Craig Fox, and
we're trying to figure out, howdo we get people to actually
start adopting these commitmentdevices, because we know they're
(36:03):
really powerful. One of the youknow, I'll give you one quick
insight that we've had, whichis, we're trying to remind
people that the obstaclesthey've faced in the past will,
will, will certainly still bethere in the future. And we all
have a tendency to thinkoptimistically that somehow this
(36:24):
future version of me is going tobe the guy who was, like, able
to wake up and go on a run, orhappily able to, you know, not
order the dessert, and happilyable to do whatever the thing is
that I think, you know he shoulddo, and in reality, that, you
know, we never really becomethat guy, right and that, and I
don't want to say, like, I'm nottrying to say that's like, a,
you know, again, I'm not tryingto be pessimistic about
(36:46):
ourselves, but I think it's arealistic thing that, like,
situations are really powerful.
We get tired, we get hungry, weget we put ourselves in context
where we're likely to succumb tothe thing that we don't want to
succumb to and recognizing that,I think, is what gives me
optimism and hope that, yeah,you know, there are a lot of
barriers we face, and thebarriers that made it really
(37:08):
hard for me to get through my todo list on time last month are
going to be the same barriersthat are going to make it hard
for me to get through my to dolist next month, and knowing
that, what things can I put intoplace? Right? I, you know,
recently, by the way, I've hadthis same realization with
(37:28):
social media, where I know thatthe benefits I get from it are
far outweighed by the cost. Ifeel like I'm on my phone too
much. I don't feel like I'mgetting positive utility from
sort of Mindlessly scrollingthrough I feel like I've ignored
my kids, and I'll tell myself, Iwant to stop going on Instagram.
I might tell my wife, you know,I think we should model better
(37:52):
behavior. You know, we should dothis, right? But the thing
that's worked recently is Idownloaded an app called One
sec, and you basically link itto the apps that you were sort
of mindlessly going to. And itdoes something really simple. It
adds 15 seconds to your abilityto get into the app. And it
shakes your phone a little bit.
(38:13):
It's like a wake up call. Andthen it says, take a deep
breath. And then it goes, Do youwant to continue on to Instagram
or not? And the no is big, andthe yes is little. And if you
click yes, called again, it'scalled One sec, you know, like I
want to, I
Scott Allender (38:31):
want to put that on my wife's Amazon. Oh, God,
Hal Hershfield (38:38):
very funny. You can put, you can use it for any
app, and by the way, then itdoes this funny thing where if
you say yes, there's stillanother screen, you have to go
through and ask you why. Andit's like, I'm bored, I'm angry.
I'm on the toilet. Is one of theoptions.
Jean Gomes (38:53):
The data it's collecting on you.
Scott Allender (38:59):
Jean you're on the toilet far too often.
Hal Hershfield (39:02):
I give it all of that data. And you know what the
funniest thing is, it forced meto realize how often I
mindlessly do something that Isaid, you know, I'm the guy who
doesn't want to be on Instagramtomorrow. Me wants to say I
didn't do it yesterday. Andthen, um, you know, I found
myself literally walking fromthe dining room table to the
toaster in the kitchen to get mykids toast. And I'm like, Well,
(39:24):
I have a half a second. And it'slike, oh, well, I don't need to
go on this now, and it's farreduced my time on it. No, have
I got on other apps instead?
Probably a little bit, but maybemore effect, more like
productive ones, like the NewYork Times or something like
that, right? So it's, you know,I think it's the principle here,
is recognizing that we need helpwith our behavior, and that's
(39:46):
okay. And it's those littlerocky road, you know, the rocky
bumps that we can smooth out byputting some constraints on
potentially undesirable futurebehavior.
Scott Allender (39:57):
My tendency is when I start imagining. A better
future self is I have too manyof those things I try to take on
at one time. I, you know, I sentJean a list of on my last
birthday, I sent Jean a list oflike 15 things I was going to
do, right? And guess how many ofthem I've done? Maybe four.
Yeah,
Hal Hershfield (40:16):
you know, I wish. And I know there's like a
joke in there too, but I thinkthere's wonderful research on
setting, you know, what you whatwe call a, like a goal range,
where I love the idea of saying,Well, how about if I just tackle
one of these things, and atbest, three of these things,
(40:36):
right? Or, or, you know, or youcan get more, you know, more
literal, and, you know, I wantto go, I want to run anywhere
from four miles a week to 12miles a week, right? And the
nice thing about that is thatthe low end is achievable, but
if it becomes too easy, then Ihave something else I can work
toward to keep me motivated,right? But I, you know, I worry
(40:58):
about, like the 15 I love thatmy father in law, by the way,
does the same thing every year.
He has this list, and it's like,and I'm like, Are you really
gonna tackle all of thosethings? Right? But I also, you
know, I love the idea of, like,what's the one thing? What's the
just the one thing I can do tomake it as simple as possible.
And think about thecounterfactual of what, what
(41:22):
will change in my life if I dothat one thing, right? So, you
know, we've, you know, we've,I've been exploring the idea of
trying to motivate people totake more steps by simply
saying, like, if you simply takeX number more steps per day,
these are people who aresedentary. It could add, you
know, however many years ofhealthy life to your life,
right? Not not just like extrayears, but like health span,
(41:45):
right? Where we're talkingabout, like, actually feeling
good, right? So I think it'sgood to think, you know, to keep
it you can think small, but thenalso give yourself a range, so
that, like, you get challengedas well.
Sara Deschamps (41:59):
If the conversations we've been having
on the evolving leader havehelped you in any way. Please
head over to Apple podcasts andleave us a rating and review.
Thank you for listening. Nowlet's get back to the
conversation.
Scott Allender (42:12):
So can we shift the focus of the conversation a
bit from our individualrelationship with our future
self to the implications on theeconomy and society. For
example, you've looked at theimplications on the growing
percentage of American workerswho have become freelancers and
therefore responsible for theirown retirement savings. Can you
talk to us a bit about that?
Hal Hershfield (42:33):
Yeah. I mean, I think you know, this is actually
a hot topic right now inbehavioral economics, where
there's essentially theindividual. And then there's
society, or you can call itpolicy makers, and at least, you
know, I'll give you like theexample of the American model of
retirement savings, which wasthat in it, you know, for the
longest time, workers were onpensions. You know, part of my
(42:56):
pay package was that my companywas setting aside money for me
that would then get put into apot, and when I retired, I would
get, essentially an annuity. Iwould get paid out until I died,
which is a great model, untilyou start recognizing that
people are switching companiesall the time. People are living
longer than expected, and itbecomes hard to sustain, and
(43:18):
also it doesn't leave that muchchoice to the worker. So then
there's this shift toward whatyou call defined contribution
plans, where workers now get tothe set how much do I
contribute? How do I allocatethat portfolio? And I can take
that money with me if I movejobs, which is, of course, much
more common now than it was 40years ago, 50 years ago, the
(43:40):
issue is that now you've put allof the onus on the worker. And I
think the debate that'shappening in behavioral economy,
behavioral economics at themoment, is when we come up with
solution that individuals canimplement themselves, aren't we
implicitly saying thateverything is the workers
(44:01):
problem or the individual'sproblem, and might it be better
to think about the mixture thatcan occur in terms of some
solutions could be state, youknow, at the state level, or at
the company level, and somesolutions might be at the
individual level. And I thinkthere's, you know, that sort of
moderate position is one that Ireally gravitate toward, because
I think it really is quitedifficult, you know, to ask
(44:24):
somebody especially who's 22 andstarting working, you know, Hey,
how are you going to allocateyour portfolio? You know, how
much you want to set aside?
Well, God, that's not for solong, right? You know, it's
like, it's easy to imagine why,like, you need more right now,
and sometimes you do, by theway, but I think the that sort
of juxtaposition between puttingthe responsibility on the worker
(44:47):
and then spreading it out oversociety and over companies is
one that I would I would betwe're going to start seeing more
conversation around within thefield of. Behavioral economics,
and of course, it's you know, atthe policy level as well.
Jean Gomes (45:08):
So one of the things that comes to mind in this
conversation. People listeningin who are parents might be
thinking, how can I help mychildren? How can I help Gen Z
and younger use this future selfthinking to not become beaten
down by the uncertainty of AIand so on. How can they how can
(45:31):
they use in a constructive way?
What advice would you give toparents?
Hal Hershfield (45:35):
Yeah, I think there's a couple things at play
here. So one is, you know, look,we can't ignore the power of
modeling, right? So, you know,if, if the parent is a
representation of the child'sfuture self, give, give them to
give them something to to lookforward to, right? The other one
I think, is you can't wash awayreality. And I think the reality
(45:58):
is that there is a lot ofuncertainty, and what will the
job scape look like? What willhow will AI impact my life for
the better and for the worse andand at the same time, I think we
need to have the conversationthat this isn't the first time
in history where the future hasbeen uncertain and it will
arrive. And you know, one way tomake it brighter is to do some
(46:21):
things now, to put ourselves ina better position for later. But
at the same time, I think italso needs to the conversation
needs to be had around living inthe present too. And that, you
know, this is something that Ithink our children, and
especially teenagers, have noproblem doing, but where I think
(46:41):
the problem arises is thebalance between Present and
Future, and that so often theconversation around taking care
of the future takes the flavorof, you really need to stop
doing these sorts of things thatlean into today and spend more
time sacrificing for the future.
And I think there's a problemthere, because it's almost like
saying, you know, stop eatingdessert. I'm not going to do
(47:02):
that right. But the moderatesort of harmony or balance
position of sometimes it makessense to do the thing that may
not be the right decision forthe future, but it is right for
now. That's okay. But if you dothat all the time, then you have
a bleaker future. But if all thetime you're like, Okay, I'm
gonna stay in and study you alsohave a bleaker future, because
(47:25):
in some ways, You've robbedyourself of some of the
memories. You've robbed yourfuture self of some of the
memories that could be createdright now. So I what I really
like the idea is having just amore, more of a real, honest,
authentic conversation aroundcreating balance between now and
later, and when it makes senseto lean in and do the thing now,
and when it makes sense to takea step back and do the thing
(47:47):
that might be good for thefuture, and I and I, and again,
this is my non researcher hat,but my suspicion is that
starting that conversation earlywill be a good thing To see how
that plays out later on in life,when, when as a late adolescent
or as a college student or as ayoung worker or young adult
worker, you do have some realdecisions about now and later,
(48:09):
and if you always do one or theother, I think it's a less
positive picture than if youfigure out how to balance or
harmonize between the presentand the future.
Scott Allender (48:23):
There's so many more questions I have. We're
running out of time, so we havea diverse group of leaders
listening all over the world.
Maybe, what's one piece ofpractical homework you've given
us so much practical insight,but what's one challenge you
might leave a listener With togo put into practice straight
away?
Hal Hershfield (48:39):
Yeah, I love that. I love that question,
Scott, let me. Let me answer twoways. I would say really
concretely. I really like and Iwant to support the idea of a
letter writing exercise. AndI'll add a layer to that, which
is write a letter to your pastself as well, to grease the
wheels of this sort of timetravel I'm having you, you know,
think about but then, as asecond order, I would say, ask
(49:04):
yourself the deep question of,not only how do I want the
future to look, but how do Iwant the present to look in
relation to that future, andwhere do I see that balance
happening? You know, we startedby talking about Jean's trip and
sort of, you know, the crazinessof going over and I travel
International. And what I loveabout that example is you can
look at it so many ways. Isthat, you know, is that bad for
(49:25):
today's self? I don't know,maybe you're tired today, but
overall, I think that sort ofexperience leads to a richness
in your life right now. Thatsaid, if you did that all the
time, you might burn out, right?
So it's like, what's that, youknow? So, so, so then, sorry,
here's the second practicalthing. Take the bird's eye
perspective and stop asking thequestion of if I should do
(49:48):
something, but rather, whenshould I do something and when
should I not do something? Soit's you know, should I travel
or not? That's a hard questionto ask. When should. Take these
sort of crazy overnight, youknow, trips internationally. How
many of them per year should Itake? And when should I not?
When should I be home? That thencreates a perspective that isn't
(50:09):
so myopic, but rather takes the10,000 foot view so you can see
where all the different puzzlepieces fit together.
Scott Allender (50:16):
Yeah, that's so good. That's so good. Thank you
for joining us today, folks. Ifyou haven't read your future
self yet, make sure you get acopy straight away. This is
filled with so much goodresearch, and it's so easy to
read, and it's conversational,and it's filled with stories,
and it's just it's engaging thewhole way through. So you've
done a really great service tothe world with this book. Hal,
(50:39):
thank you so much. And untilnext time folks remember the
world is evolving. Are you?
Researchers have found that we have a strange
relationship with who we arebecoming. We treat our future
self as if they were a stranger.
Perhaps it's because our futureself is in many ways unknowable
that we avoid thinking aboutthem. But the cost of this
avoidance is that we don'talways look after our long term
interests or of those that wecare about who will rely on our
(00:25):
future selves. Psychologistshave found that the most
powerful way to develop ourrelationship with who we are
becoming is to enter a two waydialog. So rather than just
thinking about what your futureself wants, we should also be
asking, what does our futureself want from us? Now? In this
show, we talk to the psychologyresearcher, Professor Hal
(00:48):
Hershfield about what he'sdiscovering about creating a
relationship with our futureselves that can help us to be
happier, healthier and moresuccessful, both now and in the
future, tune In to an importantconversation on the evolving
leader you
Scott Allender (01:24):
Hi friends.
Welcome to the evolving leaderthe show born out of the belief
that we need deeper, moreaccountable and more human
leadership to confront theworld's biggest challenges. I'm
Scott Allender and
Jean Gomes (01:34):
I'm Jean Gomes.
Scott Allender (01:35):
How are you feeling on this Friday? Mr.
Gomes,
Jean Gomes (01:38):
Well, honestly, I am feeling very depleted. I have
just got off a plane from theUS. I was in the near the Blue
Ridge Mountains, which wasbeautiful, but it was a flying
visit. I was in and out, and Idid a lot of travel via Madrid
and all sorts of things thanksto last minute cancelations by
(01:58):
an unnamed airline, which wewon't talk about. But other than
that, I'm feeling very good, sobit physically depleted, but
I've been looking forward tothis conversation for best part
of a year. We've taken this thatlong to track down our guest,
pin him down, and finallyextract it some some time from
him. So we're really gratefulfor that. So yeah, how are you
(02:19):
feeling, Scott,
Scott Allender (02:20):
I'm feeling in awe of you and your ability to
do these sort of like overnightinternational travel for a gig.
What is your present self, whichused to be your future self?
What would what is it saying toyour past self about your choice
to do that trip?
Jean Gomes (02:34):
My future self is furious with my past self, and
it's going to have a serioustalking to him. But of course,
they just, they don't talk. Youknow, that's the problem.
Scott Allender (02:47):
I feel that problem myself, and we're going
to get into that. I'm feelingeager today because, like you
said, we've been anxious to talkto this guest for a while. We
both love his book. Today we arejoined by Professor Hal
Hershfield, who has gotten usboth thinking differently about
who we're becoming as leaders,having having read his book, as
(03:09):
I just mentioned, how is aprofessor of marketing,
behavioral decision making andpsychology at UCLA Anderson
School of Management, and holdsthe UCLA Anderson board of
advisors. Term chair inmanagement. His research, which
sits at the intersection ofpsychology and economics,
examines the ways we can improveour long term thinking and
(03:32):
decision. He's been widelypublished in academic journals
and popular media, and on top ofhis research, he consults with
major financial and marketingclients. Hirschfield was named
one of the 40 most outstandingbusiness school professors under
40 in the world by BusinessEducation website, poets and
courts and his book, as I keepmentioning your future self, how
(03:54):
to make tomorrow better today,was described by Daniel Pink as
the rare book that will changewho you see in the mirror, which
is, I understand really upsetthe people over at Botox, but we
can talk about that too. Hal.
Welcome to the evolving leader.
Hal Hershfield (04:12):
I think there's a collaboration that could be
done with those Botox folks. ButScott and Jean, thanks so much
for having me. I've been reallylooking forward to this
conversation.
Jean Gomes (04:20):
Welcome to the evolving leader, Hal. How are
you feeling today?
Hal Hershfield (04:24):
Yeah, thanks for asking. Um, if I'm going to be
honest, a little bit physicallytired my my wife, had a dinner
at 630 last night with a groupof friends she hasn't seen in a
while. And she she came home ataround 1215 and causing me to
text her and ask her, did youleave this state? I've never
seen a dinner last this long so,but you know what, I'm here.
(04:46):
I've had coffee. I'm ready togo. I'm excited to talk to you
guys.
Jean Gomes (04:51):
Well, good, good for your wife. I'm sure she had a
wonderful time. So at the heartof this book that you've just
written is the idea that. Ourfuture self is a stranger to us,
and that has a range ofsignificant implications for our
decision making, our well beingand the quality of the lives
full stop. Can we set the stagefor this conversation by
(05:13):
unpacking this idea a little bitand why this became the focus of
your work? Yeah,
Hal Hershfield (05:20):
so I'll start with the second part of that,
the reason why it became thefocus of my work, I mean, dates
back, gosh, over 15 years ago,around the time of the great
financial crisis, and trying tounderstand why it might be the
case, why so many people madedecisions that had a lot of
(05:43):
reward in the present but couldcome back to to to create
potential harm later on. Right?
So why do I sign up for amortgage that I'm never going to
be able to to keep up? You know?
Why as a lender, do I do I lendout money when I when I know
that this is probably not theright idea, and there's and, you
(06:04):
know, none of these things aresurprising, because there's so
many tensions and pulls on thepresent moment right there. But
I was trying to go deeper andunderstand, like, what is it
about our psychology that makesthinking about the consequences
of now later so difficult? Thatwas really the, the impetus
there, and, you know, from fromthere, I started realizing, man,
(06:26):
there's so many decisions thatinvolve trade offs between the
now and later, the present andthe future that go way beyond
the financial but they have todo with leadership and how I
think about allocating my time,and how I think about ethics and
and and my health, and all ofthese sorts of things that
involve these sort of now, laterdecisions. So, so that was
(06:48):
really like how I got into thisspace.
Jean Gomes (06:51):
And can you just unpack the idea of that being a
stranger to yourself, yourfuture self?
Hal Hershfield (06:57):
Yeah, you know, in a nutshell, the the basic
idea here is that one of thereasons that a lot of these
present and future decisions areso difficult is because we often
think of our future self as ifit's another person and and that
has some real implications whenyou start thinking about the way
that we treat other people inour lives. In other words, there
(07:19):
are a range of people that weinteract with, some of them are
almost complete strangers, likewe might know them, like, I
know, you know, there's like,I'm just thinking now about like
another parent I know from mykids school, like, I know their
name, but I know nothing aboutthem. I don't know their
hobbies. I don't know their Idon't know anything about their
(07:40):
personality, except for the factthat we're very loosely
connected, because our kids goto the same school, and if that,
like, I'm just thinking aboutthis one particular Dad, if he
were to, like, shoot me a textright now and say, like, I'm in
a bind. I need some help thisweekend, because, you know, I
don't know there's been somemold in my garage, and I need to
(08:00):
move stuff out of it. I I'd belike, first off, it'd be a
little strange. I think there'sno one else you can text. And
secondly, I'd probably say no,and not because I'm such a bad
person, but because I have somany other things going on this
weekend. And the reason I thinkthat that little, that little
(08:22):
imaginary anecdote is importantis because if we think of our
future selves the same way, ifthey're like that sort of
stranger who we we know theyexist, but we have no real
emotional bond to them, thendoing things for their benefit,
making these decisions that mayend up helping them later on,
feels almost strange andirrational, right? So I think
(08:43):
that's kind of at the heart ofit now, that the caveat here is
that there are a lot of peoplewho have they texted me right
now to ask them, you know, toask me for help this weekend, I
would maybe begrudgingly say yesto right? You know it's like,
whether it's like a best friendor, you know, a relative, or, of
(09:05):
course, like if my kids or mywife, any of these people asked
me to do something, I would dropwhat I have planned and do
something for them. Now, I don'tmean to say that every decision
between now and later has toinvolve this, like painful
sacrifice, but, but on, but onsome level, whenever we,
whenever we decide to not dosomething so that we have more
(09:26):
of something else later. Thereis a little bit of a sacrifice
there, and there is a little bitof that, okay, I'll do something
now for you later, right? Andwe'll, we, I'm sure we'll get
into the nuances of that,because it's really not black
and white. But I think at, youknow, at the heart of the
matter, we sometimes think ofour future selves as if there
are other people, and whatmatters is the type of person
(09:46):
that that future self is and therelationship that we have with
that version of us.
Scott Allender (09:57):
I want to get into those details. I want to
look at some of your researchand. Examples in the books, I
loved one of the experimentswith the gross drink that you
talked about and what people didwith that. But you start the
book with the question, are wethe same over time? And you
point out a really interestingway of answering that question,
by identifying when thoseclosest to us might say they no
(10:21):
longer recognize us, and that'susually connected to some sort
of evolution of our moraltraits, right? So if something
about our moral traits havefundamentally altered, can maybe
we start there?
Hal Hershfield (10:32):
Yeah, so I, I find this question, by the way,
I feel like this could be one ofthose questions that you you
stay up super late at night witha bottle of wine, or maybe more,
you know, debating like, who,who am I? And am I the same
person that I once was? Youknow, I'm in my mid 40s now, you
(10:53):
know I'm by, I know we've justmet, by the looks of it, you
guys are mid 30s, right? We'llsay
for this, right? I, by the looksof it, we're in the same boat.
(11:18):
And, you know, it's funnybecause I'm having now this
experience of connecting withfriends who I first connected
with somewhere, sometimesupwards of 25 years ago,
sometimes even more, if they'refrom childhood. And it's this
funny question of like, whatbinds us and are we the same?
And you know, the research onthis is fascinating, and so much
(11:40):
of it, so much of the reallyinteresting stuff has been done
by Nina strominger at at Penn.
And the thing that her workreally points to is that when we
make these sorts of judgments,which are really difficult, by
the way, but when we make thesejudgments about, you know, are
we the same or not, one of thethings that we're really sort of
fundamentally thinking about ismoral character, and things like
(12:00):
your you know your interestscould change, and of course
where you live, and of coursehow you look. But the things
that are defining in a moral wayare is your sense of humor,
biting, you know, or is it moregentle, you know? Are you the
(12:24):
type of person who is, you know,typically compassionate? Or do
you have like, sort of an edge,and it's not like a positive,
negative thing, but like, whatare those things that have been
present as a hallmark of yoursort of moral character? And if
those things change, that's whenwe start saying that person is
no longer really the person whoI once knew, or, you know, I
(12:49):
never really knew him, did IRight? And I think these
questions are important for thisbroader conversation we're
having, because I think at theheart of it is this overarching
sort of curiosity of, well, youknow, if it's possible that we
change so much over time ordon't change over time, what
(13:12):
should we be doing now for thebenefit, or, you know, detriment
of some future version ofourselves? And I think these,
these get to be, you know,they're deeply philosophical
questions, and sometimes they'rehard to answer. But I really
love this idea of sort ofpointing to morality as one
binding factor here.
Jean Gomes (13:34):
So I was really interested in the research,
where you're looking at thecosts analysis that people are
making. So you know, a young manwho's a teenager smoking doesn't
think about the costs that youknow, 5060, into their health.
What's going on in people'sminds when they're when they're
(13:56):
looking at behaviors thatundermine their future self? How
are they looking at thecalculation?
Hal Hershfield (14:02):
So in some cases, I think they're not
right. I think, you know, wehave to acknowledge at the
outset that, you know, if youtake a 15 year old making that
decision, I'm not sure it's evena calculation, right? And so,
you know, one of the things Italk about in the book is that
sometimes we are so weighteddown by the present that we
(14:27):
almost just miss the futureentirely. It's like driving
where there's so much fog aheadthat we can't even see where
we're going, but, but it's butit's more than that. It's like
we didn't even decide where togo. We're just somehow driving
right? So I think you have toacknowledge that in some cases,
there is no calculation butthat, but that can't be all of
(14:48):
it, right? I think there areother times where, when making a
decision that that could harm uslater, we are making a
calculation, but the calculationis one of the Bennett. Fits I'm
experiencing now from doing thisthing far outweigh whatever I
perceive the cost to be mostlikely, because I'm really
(15:09):
underweighting those costs,right? I'm not thinking about
the risks involved with whetherit's it's smoking or engaging in
some other risky behavior or ornot, you know, not saving at the
rate that someone tells me to ifI can save at that rate, you
know? And I think there's a lotof different examples here.
Another factor that I thinkcould be involved here is that
(15:33):
there's a lot of uncertaintysurrounding the future. And by
the way, this is an anecdotalobservation, but I I suspect
that our perceptions of futureuncertainty have increased in
recent years, that with COVIDand various global events and
(15:56):
and whatnot, it certainly andone of the things that I'm
hearing, and as a researcher,I'm very hesitant to say, well,
I hear this. You know, this isjust anecdotal. When I talk to
younger people, when I talk tomy younger students, I hear
something that I hadn't heardwhen I first started this
research, which is, why should Ithink about the future? Why
(16:18):
should I plan for the futurewhen there's just no guarantee
at all what things will looklike, and that is, you know,
that's hard to grapple with.
That's a really hard thing tograpple with.
Scott Allender (16:33):
I mentioned at the at the onset with Jean's
trip and the joke around sort ofhis future self, is he okay with
the decision to have made thislong journey on no sleep, and
then you're even example about,you know, staying up with a
bottle of wine and talking andwaxing poetic about ourselves
could be a decision where thenext morning we go, Gosh, I'm
(16:54):
groggy from having done that.
And I love that you have so manyof these real examples that
really brings it to life. Andwhat I one of the things I
really focused on was thelanguage people use about
themselves. You talk to us aboutwhen people use first person
descriptions of themselves, andthen when it sort of shifts into
third person description.
Hal Hershfield (17:15):
Yeah, this is, there's some great research.
Emily pronum at Princeton wasthe one who started a lot of
this work, but other folks havedone it as well. Where, where in
that particular work? Theyasked, they asked college
students to, you know, writedown a little narrative of, you
know, something like a meal thisyear or a birthday this year.
And you can imagine the types ofthings people write down. They
(17:36):
say, you know, okay, I'm, I'm,you know, I'm sitting here. I
see my friends nearby. I've gota drink in front of me. I'm
eating some food. It's like thevery, very much, the description
that you would give me right nowabout a meal that you might have
later tonight or tomorrow orwhatever. But then she does
something interesting. She saysto a different group of people,
um, you know, give me that sameit's the same narrative, you
(17:56):
know, tell me about a meal or abirthday in the very distant
future. Um, which as a side notefor undergrads, is anytime over
40, which, which? I actually wassurprised. I thought they would
say like, 25 is very distantfuture, right? But okay, over 40
and one of the things that theseresearchers find is that there's
(18:17):
a shift that happens, where noteverybody, but significantly,
more people end up talking abouttheir future selves using the
third person. So rather thansaying, Okay, I'm sitting there,
I see friends, they'll say,Yeah, I see my future self
there. I see him there. He'ssitting there. He's got his
friends around him, you know?
And it's like a very subtlething, but it's very it's, it's
(18:40):
deep, it's, it's meaningful,because it suggests that in some
ways, in the mind's eye, ourfuture selves look like other
people. And I think that's afascinating demonstration of
this concept that we weretalking about a little while
ago.
Jean Gomes (18:54):
So interesting.
Yeah, so this kind of notionthat you say, in the real way on
our future self is sort ofunknowable to us. How do we
change that relationship? How dowe move past being the stranger
and move into a different typeof relationship?
Hal Hershfield (19:11):
Yeah, no, I think it's a great question, by
the way. I'll say, you know, Ithink we've, we've started off
this conversation with a lot ofthings that could be seen as,
you know, pessimistic ornegative. We change. We're
different, we're strangers. Thefuture is uncertain. And at the
same time, I, like, almost wantto shout that I'm, like, really
hopeful and positive andoptimistic about the way that
people can relate to theirfuture selves, right? And I
(19:32):
think, I think, you know, yourquestion is a practical one,
like, how can we change thatrelationship? I, you know, one
of my favorite tools for doingit is that is, when I say doing
it that is changing thatrelationship, is simply starting
a conversation with that futureself. And I think, you know,
(19:52):
there's something hokey aboutthat, admittedly, but I have now
read. Had, you know, andconducted a lot of the research
as well. And one of the thingsthat I really love is a letter
writing conversation, you know,or, I mean, I say letter
writing, by the way. Andsomething about the concept of
writing a letter feelsantiquated, so I almost want to
(20:14):
say, you know, like a textconversation, or whatever it is
with with your future self, but,but importantly, for the
exercise to work, what you wantto do is write a letter to some
future self and then, and thentake the perspective of that
future self and write a letterback. Um, and the reason why
that's such a nice exercise isit forces you to take the
(20:37):
perspective of some distantversion of yourself, whatever
that you know, whether it's fiveyears, 10 years down the line,
15 years, you know, excuse me,whatever it might be. Um, and I
think we, you know, it needs tobe acknowledged. We can never
know our future selves like wekeep talking about this analogy
of the future self as anotherperson, which I think is such a
(20:59):
powerful analogy, but it's nottotally accurate, because
whereas my best friend isanother person, my wife is
another person, and I can takeher perspective, and I can try
to imagine a conversation withher, but then I can actually go
and have one. I can never go andhave a conversation with my
future self, becausedefinitionally, he doesn't yet
exist. I actually, you know, bythe way, we, I've been working
(21:23):
with some folks at MIT todevelop an AI tool to, like,
actually allow people to mimicthat conversation where, you
know, you're writing back andforth, and it's, and it's, you
know, it's, it's only as good asyour ability to lose yourself in
the exercise and recognize that,of course, I'm not talking to my
real future self, but it's aproxy for it. I think talking to
(21:47):
older I'll call it, role models,but older proxies for our future
selves, older surrogates for ourfuture selves, is another good
way to start that conversationand get closer to those future
selves. But at the heart of it,a lot of this work is all about
making the future self and thefuture context more vivid,
(22:09):
because it's really easy. No,there's nobody who is surprised
that there is a future, right?
We're we're so lucky. We're sofortunate in many contexts,
especially in, you know, call itsort of, you know, I don't, I
don't want to say justwesternized, but I think in many
fortunate contexts, there'scases where there's some
(22:32):
certainty around the future,right? We like we like most of
us, expect to wake up tomorrow.
That being said, when we pushthings out further, the future
just can become very abstractand we don't think about it
deeply. And these sorts ofexercises, I think, what they do
is can provide some color andsome concreteness and some
(22:55):
vividness to that future. Andthen this is, by the way, this
is an exercise that's enormouslyuseful in leadership as well.
There's some work that was doneon leaders having them imagine
that they were essentiallytraveled in a time travel
machines in the future, and, youknow, write a letter back, and
what does that letter look like?
And the leaders who do that andthen write write correspondence
(23:16):
to their employees end upwriting more detailed and vivid,
you know, sort of like state ofthe company type course, which I
think is a really fascinatingtranslation of this work, not
just for our own selves, but toourselves as leaders in business
contexts as well.
Jean Gomes (23:39):
In having this dialog you've also learned what
doesn't work to make thisconversation really productive.
Can you talk to us a little bitabout some of the things that
you've seen there?
Hal Hershfield (23:48):
Yeah, that's a really good question. You know,
Yeah, that makes sense. And youuse the word fantasy, I think
it's funny because I haven't, Ihaven't done as much. You know,
as researchers, we look for thethings that that do work, and
often as and I think this is afailure. We don't do the work on
like what doesn't work. I usedto think that simply writing to
a future self was the thing thatworked, and I do have some
(24:11):
research that shows that there'san impact of that, but the
recent research suggests thatthat's far less effective than
doing the sort of two wayconversation. So I don't think
that is as useful. I don't thinkthat simply imagining the future
is as useful as having aconversation, but a guided
induction where we're actuallylike sitting down and really
(24:34):
thinking deeply aboutvisualizing the future is
something that's that's moreuseful than, say, than sitting
down and sort of just just, kindof imagining. One of the other
things that that otherresearchers have found, which I
think is fascinating, is thatsimply fantasizing about the
future doesn't do much, much forour motivation. And it's ironic,
(24:57):
because there's something verypositive about, you know,
sitting. And imagining anynumber of positive outcomes,
whether it's in my personallife, in my professional life,
when I think about retirement,but ironically, what these
researchers have found is thatwhen you end up positively
fantasizing about the future,and this is Gabrielle otzengen
(25:20):
at NYU, what she's found is thatyou get some energy from doing
so you get some utility, like,to use an economist term, but
then that doesn't translate intogetting up and doing something.
It's like you feel good aboutit. You sit back, you have that
sort of like fantasized,idealized image of the future,
and then, and then you go aboutyour day, and you don't make a
(25:44):
change. And one of the ways thatshe's found that you can rectify
this is by engaging in anexercise called mental
contrasting, where you dofantasize about the future, like
don't stop doing that, but thencontrast your idealized vision
of the future with yourrealistic reality of right now,
and think about the obstacles,the overcomeable obstacles
(26:06):
between now and later, so thatyou can try to figure out, okay,
what are the small steps I needto take to get at least
somewhere near that positiveimage of the future. And by the
that brings home a lot ofmeaning in here, which is, it's
way, Jean, I think one of thereasons why that insight is
important is because I think alot of people have the intuition
that one way to motivate peopleis to get them to think really
(26:30):
positively. You know about thefuture. And I'm not saying
don't, but I'm adding aningredient in there, which is
that contrast, yeah, between nowand later as well.
almost like a displacement fromthe present. You're not actually
sitting in the future. You're,you're, you're trying to offset,
(26:53):
you know, whatever you'reexperiencing right now. And it
can feel, feel fun to do that,but actually isn't moving you
into any form of action. Yeah, Ithink that's exactly right.
That's exactly right.
Scott Allender (27:09):
How much does making our future selves more
familiar to us depend on makingour present selves more familiar
to us? I'm looking at this froma lens of self awareness.
Because, you know, there's a lotof research out there that would
suggest that often we're notvery self aware of our current
selves, right? And I'm justwondering if you saw a
correlation between the amountof self awareness, self
(27:32):
awareness somebody possessestoday, and their ability to
imagine and connect with a morefamiliar future self.
Hal Hershfield (27:40):
Scott, that is such an interesting question.
Well, can I just put it back toyou for a second like, have you?
Is this something you've noticedin your own work, in terms of
trying to make any changes?
Scott Allender (27:52):
Yeah, so I'm, if long term listeners would know
this, that I'm an Enneagram guy.
I use that system to try to helppeople understand what is often
latent or unconsciousmotivations. And you know, when
I coach people, there's usuallya lot of aha moments where they
go, Gosh, I didn't even know.
That's why I saw these thingsthe way I see them. I didn't
know that's why I get triggeredby this thing, right? There's a
(28:14):
lot of like moments where peoplego, ah, like I've been living
the last 4050, years, not evenaware of why I felt and saw and
acted certain ways, and so I wasjust curious, you know, if, if
that's happening in the present,I'm wondering if there's a
correlation to the ability toconnect and imagine a more
familiar future.
Hal Hershfield (28:34):
I love that. I love that concept. You know,
from a research standpoint, it'snot something that's the best
way. So I haven't investigatedit. I don't know that others
have as well. If I were to takemy researcher hat off and just
think through it, it certainlymakes a lot of sense. It like
passes the smell test, right?
Because there has been recentwork that's looked at this idea
(28:59):
of connecting to our futureselves, but but not just
connecting to our future self,connecting to them, because we
have more what these researcherscall self certainty. We have
more of a sense of what are thecertain aspects of ourself and
what will remain sort of certainover time. That's sort of, you
know, tangentially related toyour question there, which is, I
(29:23):
think, you know, if I can have asense of who I am now, it's
certainly a lot easier to anchoron to that, to try to project
who I might be in the future.
And you know, one of the one ofthe exercises that we often do
is ask people, How similar dothey think they'll be to their
(29:45):
future selves in terms of theirlikes, their dislikes, their
ideals, their values, theirpersonality, their you know, the
all this sort of bundle theirideals, um, all of these sorts
of things that represent sort ofa picture of who someone is.
You. But fundamental to that isalso having some awareness of
what my likes, dislikes, ideals,values, personality, etc, are
(30:06):
right now. And if I if that'svery, very fuzzy, then I would
imagine it would be hard toproject that into the future.
But from, like, a strictlyempirical sense, that's not
something I've looked at,though, man, I want to, like, go
call up some of my PhD studentsright now and be like, look,
we've got to do this. This is agreat, you know, important
(30:27):
question, yeah? And
Jean Gomes (30:28):
we'd love to, love to hear, you know, kind of like,
what happens when you have yeahconversation,
Hal Hershfield (30:33):
yeah, yeah. Do you guys have some funding for
Jean Gomes (30:40):
that's the second time you've asked for money. How
in this show?
Hal Hershfield (30:45):
As I said that, I said, Actually, I can't make
the same joke twice. Okay, good.
Oh,
Jean Gomes (30:48):
it's a joke. Okay, as long as this joke
Hal Hershfield (30:53):
third, third time will be real.
Jean Gomes (30:56):
Your pitching strategy to fund the lab, I can
see it. It's working.
Hal Hershfield (31:00):
Yeah, exactly.
Jean Gomes (31:06):
We're talking about trying to build and vision, some
sort of picture of our futureself, so that we can remove
change the relationship from thecomplete stranger, where you
don't have any empathy orrelationship an emotional kind
of bond, but you talk about thefact that there's a rocky road
(31:26):
to close that gap, and you alsotalk about commitment devices
that help us to look after theinterests of our future self.
Can we talk a little bit aboutthat?
Hal Hershfield (31:37):
Yeah, so this is one of my favorite topics to
look at and research andinvestigate. And here's the,
here's the basic idea. There's,you know, we've been talking
about sort of present and futureselves. Is these two things, but
it's really, you know, I don'twant to over complicate it, but
it, but it's certainly more thanthat, because there's some
present version of me right nowthere, and then there's some
(32:00):
like, let's call it some like,you know, cumulative or eventual
future self, you know. Let'scall it me at age, you know, 65
and I have some vision of how Iwant that, that version of my
life to be. But then there's allthese other little things along
the way, right? There's allthese other little future selves
along the way. And I could, bythe way, I could have a goal
(32:21):
right now that I want to, youknow, get into shape to run the
LA Marathon in six months. Nowthat's a six month future self,
that that version of me may leadup to a future self at 65 and
there may be little steps alongthe way that are going to
necessitate that I do the thingsI need to do to get to the
version of me in six months andin 20 years, and whatever it is,
(32:42):
and those are the things thatcan be really hard to grapple
with. So specifically, I need towake up tomorrow morning and run
a certain number of miles sothat I get in shape to actually
do the the marathon. If I, youknow, if I could. This is now
the first time I'm publiclymentioning this, so it's like
gonna have to happen. It's acommitment. Now, that's it.
Speaking of commitment device?
Well,
Jean Gomes (33:00):
we could be your commitment device. How? Just,
you know,
Hal Hershfield (33:04):
yeah, let's do it. Let's, let's do it now. Like
I think probably a lot of peoplerecognize that there's so the
present version of me wants to,wants to say that I've, you
know, done a marathon, and Iwant six months from now to have
done it. That future guy, Ithink his interests are very
much aligned with mine. I thinkhe wants to run that marathon.
It's not him. I'm worried aboutthe it's, it's me tomorrow
(33:27):
morning, that's the guy I'mworried about, because it's
going to be, it'll be Saturdaymorning, and I'm probably going
to be tired from the week, and Idon't know if I'll be able to
get up and actually throw myrunning shoes and, you know, go
outside and take an hour longrun, or whatever it is, and
it's, and it's that one that Ihave to sort of help out. And
(33:48):
the the idea that economists andpsychologists have come up with,
it's, it's called a commitmentdevice, or a pre commitment
device, and the idea is that youconstrain some potentially
undesirable behavior. Now, Ithink there's versions of this
that we've all done, right? So,you know, I think a lot of
people know the idea of puttingout your workout clothes. You
(34:11):
know, like reducing whateveramount of friction, putting my
alarm across the room. Theseare, I think, sort of basic
things. There are more. There'sa whole menu of commitment
devices that range from very,very light. So for instance,
telling myself I'll get up andrun to very, very punitive. If I
(34:34):
don't run, I'm gonna have to owe$500 to a group. I don't want to
give money to an anti charityall. I won't go political. I'll
call it like the sports programat USC, our crosstown rival in
LA, okay, just to keep it tokeep it diplomatic here, yeah,
(34:58):
now the issue is. Is, here's theirony with these commitment
devices, the stronger that theyare, the more effective they
are, right? So if it's that, youknow, if, if I, if I, if there's
an automatic, like, if I couldset things up so that if I don't
get out of bed, $500automatically gets charged my
credit card to an anti charity,you better believe I'm going to
(35:19):
figure out a way to get out ofbed, right? If I simply tell
myself that I'm going to do it,or I tell my wife I'm going to
get up, and I go against that,like, oh, okay, I didn't follow
through on my word. It's notthat painful. So the problem
here is that the the most, themost sort of punitive ones, are
the most effective, but they'realso the least likely to get
adopted. Because, you know, Ithink people on some level
(35:42):
recognize that there's a chancethat I'll mess up, and I don't
want to, I don't want to have toget punished there. So I'm
actually doing a lot of workright now with one of my
students, Megan Weber, andcollaborator, Craig Fox, and
we're trying to figure out, howdo we get people to actually
start adopting these commitmentdevices, because we know they're
(36:03):
really powerful. One of the youknow, I'll give you one quick
insight that we've had, whichis, we're trying to remind
people that the obstaclesthey've faced in the past will,
will, will certainly still bethere in the future. And we all
have a tendency to thinkoptimistically that somehow this
(36:24):
future version of me is going tobe the guy who was, like, able
to wake up and go on a run, orhappily able to, you know, not
order the dessert, and happilyable to do whatever the thing is
that I think, you know he shoulddo, and in reality, that, you
know, we never really becomethat guy, right and that, and I
don't want to say, like, I'm nottrying to say that's like, a,
you know, again, I'm not tryingto be pessimistic about
(36:46):
ourselves, but I think it's arealistic thing that, like,
situations are really powerful.
We get tired, we get hungry, weget we put ourselves in context
where we're likely to succumb tothe thing that we don't want to
succumb to and recognizing that,I think, is what gives me
optimism and hope that, yeah,you know, there are a lot of
barriers we face, and thebarriers that made it really
(37:08):
hard for me to get through my todo list on time last month are
going to be the same barriersthat are going to make it hard
for me to get through my to dolist next month, and knowing
that, what things can I put intoplace? Right? I, you know,
recently, by the way, I've hadthis same realization with
(37:28):
social media, where I know thatthe benefits I get from it are
far outweighed by the cost. Ifeel like I'm on my phone too
much. I don't feel like I'mgetting positive utility from
sort of Mindlessly scrollingthrough I feel like I've ignored
my kids, and I'll tell myself, Iwant to stop going on Instagram.
I might tell my wife, you know,I think we should model better
(37:52):
behavior. You know, we should dothis, right? But the thing
that's worked recently is Idownloaded an app called One
sec, and you basically link itto the apps that you were sort
of mindlessly going to. And itdoes something really simple. It
adds 15 seconds to your abilityto get into the app. And it
shakes your phone a little bit.
(38:13):
It's like a wake up call. Andthen it says, take a deep
breath. And then it goes, Do youwant to continue on to Instagram
or not? And the no is big, andthe yes is little. And if you
click yes, called again, it'scalled One sec, you know, like I
want to, I
Scott Allender (38:31):
want to put that on my wife's Amazon. Oh, God,
Hal Hershfield (38:38):
very funny. You can put, you can use it for any
app, and by the way, then itdoes this funny thing where if
you say yes, there's stillanother screen, you have to go
through and ask you why. Andit's like, I'm bored, I'm angry.
I'm on the toilet. Is one of theoptions.
Jean Gomes (38:53):
The data it's collecting on you.
Scott Allender (38:59):
Jean you're on the toilet far too often.
Hal Hershfield (39:02):
I give it all of that data. And you know what the
funniest thing is, it forced meto realize how often I
mindlessly do something that Isaid, you know, I'm the guy who
doesn't want to be on Instagramtomorrow. Me wants to say I
didn't do it yesterday. Andthen, um, you know, I found
myself literally walking fromthe dining room table to the
toaster in the kitchen to get mykids toast. And I'm like, Well,
(39:24):
I have a half a second. And it'slike, oh, well, I don't need to
go on this now, and it's farreduced my time on it. No, have
I got on other apps instead?
Probably a little bit, but maybemore effect, more like
productive ones, like the NewYork Times or something like
that, right? So it's, you know,I think it's the principle here,
is recognizing that we need helpwith our behavior, and that's
(39:46):
okay. And it's those littlerocky road, you know, the rocky
bumps that we can smooth out byputting some constraints on
potentially undesirable futurebehavior.
Scott Allender (39:57):
My tendency is when I start imagining. A better
future self is I have too manyof those things I try to take on
at one time. I, you know, I sentJean a list of on my last
birthday, I sent Jean a list oflike 15 things I was going to
do, right? And guess how many ofthem I've done? Maybe four.
Yeah,
Hal Hershfield (40:16):
you know, I wish. And I know there's like a
joke in there too, but I thinkthere's wonderful research on
setting, you know, what you whatwe call a, like a goal range,
where I love the idea of saying,Well, how about if I just tackle
one of these things, and atbest, three of these things,
(40:36):
right? Or, or, you know, or youcan get more, you know, more
literal, and, you know, I wantto go, I want to run anywhere
from four miles a week to 12miles a week, right? And the
nice thing about that is thatthe low end is achievable, but
if it becomes too easy, then Ihave something else I can work
toward to keep me motivated,right? But I, you know, I worry
(40:58):
about, like the 15 I love thatmy father in law, by the way,
does the same thing every year.
He has this list, and it's like,and I'm like, Are you really
gonna tackle all of thosethings? Right? But I also, you
know, I love the idea of, like,what's the one thing? What's the
just the one thing I can do tomake it as simple as possible.
And think about thecounterfactual of what, what
(41:22):
will change in my life if I dothat one thing, right? So, you
know, we've, you know, we've,I've been exploring the idea of
trying to motivate people totake more steps by simply
saying, like, if you simply takeX number more steps per day,
these are people who aresedentary. It could add, you
know, however many years ofhealthy life to your life,
right? Not not just like extrayears, but like health span,
(41:45):
right? Where we're talkingabout, like, actually feeling
good, right? So I think it'sgood to think, you know, to keep
it you can think small, but thenalso give yourself a range, so
that, like, you get challengedas well.
Sara Deschamps (41:59):
If the conversations we've been having
on the evolving leader havehelped you in any way. Please
head over to Apple podcasts andleave us a rating and review.
Thank you for listening. Nowlet's get back to the
conversation.
Scott Allender (42:12):
So can we shift the focus of the conversation a
bit from our individualrelationship with our future
self to the implications on theeconomy and society. For
example, you've looked at theimplications on the growing
percentage of American workerswho have become freelancers and
therefore responsible for theirown retirement savings. Can you
talk to us a bit about that?
Hal Hershfield (42:33):
Yeah. I mean, I think you know, this is actually
a hot topic right now inbehavioral economics, where
there's essentially theindividual. And then there's
society, or you can call itpolicy makers, and at least, you
know, I'll give you like theexample of the American model of
retirement savings, which wasthat in it, you know, for the
longest time, workers were onpensions. You know, part of my
(42:56):
pay package was that my companywas setting aside money for me
that would then get put into apot, and when I retired, I would
get, essentially an annuity. Iwould get paid out until I died,
which is a great model, untilyou start recognizing that
people are switching companiesall the time. People are living
longer than expected, and itbecomes hard to sustain, and
(43:18):
also it doesn't leave that muchchoice to the worker. So then
there's this shift toward whatyou call defined contribution
plans, where workers now get tothe set how much do I
contribute? How do I allocatethat portfolio? And I can take
that money with me if I movejobs, which is, of course, much
more common now than it was 40years ago, 50 years ago, the
(43:40):
issue is that now you've put allof the onus on the worker. And I
think the debate that'shappening in behavioral economy,
behavioral economics at themoment, is when we come up with
solution that individuals canimplement themselves, aren't we
implicitly saying thateverything is the workers
(44:01):
problem or the individual'sproblem, and might it be better
to think about the mixture thatcan occur in terms of some
solutions could be state, youknow, at the state level, or at
the company level, and somesolutions might be at the
individual level. And I thinkthere's, you know, that sort of
moderate position is one that Ireally gravitate toward, because
I think it really is quitedifficult, you know, to ask
(44:24):
somebody especially who's 22 andstarting working, you know, Hey,
how are you going to allocateyour portfolio? You know, how
much you want to set aside?
Well, God, that's not for solong, right? You know, it's
like, it's easy to imagine why,like, you need more right now,
and sometimes you do, by theway, but I think the that sort
of juxtaposition between puttingthe responsibility on the worker
(44:47):
and then spreading it out oversociety and over companies is
one that I would I would betwe're going to start seeing more
conversation around within thefield of. Behavioral economics,
and of course, it's you know, atthe policy level as well.
Jean Gomes (45:08):
So one of the things that comes to mind in this
conversation. People listeningin who are parents might be
thinking, how can I help mychildren? How can I help Gen Z
and younger use this future selfthinking to not become beaten
down by the uncertainty of AIand so on. How can they how can
(45:31):
they use in a constructive way?
What advice would you give toparents?
Hal Hershfield (45:35):
Yeah, I think there's a couple things at play
here. So one is, you know, look,we can't ignore the power of
modeling, right? So, you know,if, if the parent is a
representation of the child'sfuture self, give, give them to
give them something to to lookforward to, right? The other one
I think, is you can't wash awayreality. And I think the reality
(45:58):
is that there is a lot ofuncertainty, and what will the
job scape look like? What willhow will AI impact my life for
the better and for the worse andand at the same time, I think we
need to have the conversationthat this isn't the first time
in history where the future hasbeen uncertain and it will
arrive. And you know, one way tomake it brighter is to do some
(46:21):
things now, to put ourselves ina better position for later. But
at the same time, I think italso needs to the conversation
needs to be had around living inthe present too. And that, you
know, this is something that Ithink our children, and
especially teenagers, have noproblem doing, but where I think
(46:41):
the problem arises is thebalance between Present and
Future, and that so often theconversation around taking care
of the future takes the flavorof, you really need to stop
doing these sorts of things thatlean into today and spend more
time sacrificing for the future.
And I think there's a problemthere, because it's almost like
saying, you know, stop eatingdessert. I'm not going to do
(47:02):
that right. But the moderatesort of harmony or balance
position of sometimes it makessense to do the thing that may
not be the right decision forthe future, but it is right for
now. That's okay. But if you dothat all the time, then you have
a bleaker future. But if all thetime you're like, Okay, I'm
gonna stay in and study you alsohave a bleaker future, because
(47:25):
in some ways, You've robbedyourself of some of the
memories. You've robbed yourfuture self of some of the
memories that could be createdright now. So I what I really
like the idea is having just amore, more of a real, honest,
authentic conversation aroundcreating balance between now and
later, and when it makes senseto lean in and do the thing now,
and when it makes sense to takea step back and do the thing
(47:47):
that might be good for thefuture, and I and I, and again,
this is my non researcher hat,but my suspicion is that
starting that conversation earlywill be a good thing To see how
that plays out later on in life,when, when as a late adolescent
or as a college student or as ayoung worker or young adult
worker, you do have some realdecisions about now and later,
(48:09):
and if you always do one or theother, I think it's a less
positive picture than if youfigure out how to balance or
harmonize between the presentand the future.
Scott Allender (48:23):
There's so many more questions I have. We're
running out of time, so we havea diverse group of leaders
listening all over the world.
Maybe, what's one piece ofpractical homework you've given
us so much practical insight,but what's one challenge you
might leave a listener With togo put into practice straight
away?
Hal Hershfield (48:39):
Yeah, I love that. I love that question,
Scott, let me. Let me answer twoways. I would say really
concretely. I really like and Iwant to support the idea of a
letter writing exercise. AndI'll add a layer to that, which
is write a letter to your pastself as well, to grease the
wheels of this sort of timetravel I'm having you, you know,
think about but then, as asecond order, I would say, ask
(49:04):
yourself the deep question of,not only how do I want the
future to look, but how do Iwant the present to look in
relation to that future, andwhere do I see that balance
happening? You know, we startedby talking about Jean's trip and
sort of, you know, the crazinessof going over and I travel
International. And what I loveabout that example is you can
look at it so many ways. Isthat, you know, is that bad for
(49:25):
today's self? I don't know,maybe you're tired today, but
overall, I think that sort ofexperience leads to a richness
in your life right now. Thatsaid, if you did that all the
time, you might burn out, right?
So it's like, what's that, youknow? So, so, so then, sorry,
here's the second practicalthing. Take the bird's eye
perspective and stop asking thequestion of if I should do
(49:48):
something, but rather, whenshould I do something and when
should I not do something? Soit's you know, should I travel
or not? That's a hard questionto ask. When should. Take these
sort of crazy overnight, youknow, trips internationally. How
many of them per year should Itake? And when should I not?
When should I be home? That thencreates a perspective that isn't
(50:09):
so myopic, but rather takes the10,000 foot view so you can see
where all the different puzzlepieces fit together.
Scott Allender (50:16):
Yeah, that's so good. That's so good. Thank you
for joining us today, folks. Ifyou haven't read your future
self yet, make sure you get acopy straight away. This is
filled with so much goodresearch, and it's so easy to
read, and it's conversational,and it's filled with stories,
and it's just it's engaging thewhole way through. So you've
done a really great service tothe world with this book. Hal,
(50:39):
thank you so much. And untilnext time folks remember the
world is evolving. Are you?
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