Greg McKeown:
Welcome everyone. I’m Greg McKeown, and I am here with you on this journey to learn. Are you facing a really big decision in your life right now? Or is someone you know facing an important crossroads? How do you think about that? How do you make the best possible decision?
Well, this is part two of my conversation with Abby Davisson. She’s the author, along with Myra Strober, of a book called Money and Love, an Intelligent Roadmap for Life’s Biggest Decisions. It’s both research-based, but also road tested. It’s based on the popular Stanford University course called Work and Family. In this episode, you will learn how to use the five Cs method to be able to communicate and check in with the people who matter most so that you can talk about the decisions that matter most. Let’s get to it.
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What research did you come across in your research that most surprised you about how people make decisions that can inform making more intelligent decisions in our lives?
Abby Davisson:
Well, there’s lots of research on decision-making, and a lot of people have written about it. But what is surprising is that there actually are a lot of published studies about the topics that we find ourselves facing personally. We just don’t always think to find them. And so for example, when we were making this moving decision, I was writing the chapter on where to live and when to move, and I came across this research from the Journal of Architectural Psychology, which is fascinating. I never knew it existed. No. But they looked at family harmony as a function of the amount of square space and square footage that a family has.
Greg McKeown:
Right? That’s interesting.
Abby Davisson:
And so you might think that the more square footage, the greater the harmony, right? If you’re not all sharing a bathroom, then people are likely happier, but it increases up until a point, and then there are diminishing returns, and actually could be a potential negative effect, especially for families with boys, which is what we happen to have. And so, actually, if you get a space that feels too big, the children can feel disconnected can feel lonely. And so it was so fascinating to say, oh, I had never even thought of consulting the published literature about, you know, what is the, an optimal square of space, square footage space for our house? And what that article says is that it’s actually about the perception of space that matters, not the actual amount of space. And so if you are living in a space and you perceive it to be enough, and you perceive it to be meeting your needs, that has more of an effect on family harmony and positive functioning than actually how much space there is in and of itself, which I thought was fascinating.
Greg McKeown:
First of all, yeah, I think that most people would assume that it’s a linear relationship, a positive linear relationship, right? More space, more harmony. But I’ve spoken to people, I’m thinking of a particular example where a family built a bigger and bigger house on the same property as their children were leaving the home. So eventually, they’re left with one child and the biggest house version that they ever had. And they said to me that if they were doing it over again, they would’ve changed that for their last child because he basically had like a whole, you know, a whole floor to himself. And that wasn’t optimal, even though they thought, wow, we’re just doing a great job, provided this, you know, terrific place and space. And that’s, that’s an intriguing thing. Based on that, was there any other research that you came across that that surprised you?
Abby Davisson:
So, one of my favorite pieces of research that we did is this survey that we did for, and you know, I mentioned Myra stopped teaching the class in 2018, and it was really only offered for the majority of the years at Stanford Graduate School of Business, which is a very elite institution. And so we wanted to make sure there were more voices represented, there was a broader breadth of perspectives. And what I most loved about the survey is that, first of all, people were so candid and vulnerable, and this is on, you know, a Google form. So that was fascinating.
Greg McKeown:
Like what, for example?
Abby Davisson:
You know, I remember reading a quote about someone who said, you know, I’d always felt really good about the decisions I made until it came to decide whether to marry this person I was dating at the time. And they were not like the list I had in my head of all the qualities that I had dreamed of. And so I, you know, this person said I’d been in high stake situations. I played, you know, division one sports in college. I had, you know, worked for a top consulting firm. But this question, this decision brought me to my knees with anxiety. And I started seeing a therapist because I didn’t know how I was going to make this decision. And the person went on to say, you know, I talked to my mother, and she said, you know, I can’t tell you what to do. I can’t make this decision for you, but if I were you, I would marry him.
And she said that that just kind of was this very helpful thing to say, oh, I’m never gonna have a hundred percent certainty. I’m never gonna have no doubt in my mind whether this is the right choice, but I trust my mom. She knows me. And that was, you know, very helpful. And so just, people just revealed just intimate things about themselves.
But what was shared across all of the respondents is this feeling of loneliness. Like I felt alone in this decision. And so when you look across all of them, and you realize, oh, there are themes, there are so many people talking about feeling alone in the decision about, you know, how to care for their aging parents, for example. That’s another very difficult decision and one that we never feel ready for, no matter how old we are. You know, we start to realize that we are not alone in these decisions, that there is a sense of community, even if, you know, we are not making these decisions in the community. And so that was a big goal of our book, is to help people realize they’re not alone in these decisions, to know that there are other voices out there, and to feel some reassurance in the sense that there is a way to make the decisions. And also that they are not the first nor the last to be facing this anguishing decision.
Greg McKeown:
I think that is such an interesting thing to underline that when faced with our most important decisions, we are often most alone. I think that’s, that’s so interesting and explains, I think, why your model so emphasizes counseling with other people and involving them and how to do that in an effective way.
It reminds me of a case study that I found and wrote about in Effortless. The Quakers have developed a system of decision-making that I think is complimentary to everything in your five Cs model, in their approach, when somebody has a major life decision or dilemma because they normally would be so alone in it. And also because when they risk talking to other people, they risk getting very strong opinions before they have been able to process what’s really going on inside of them. They have established this process. The person who wants to make the decision gets to initiate the whole thing.
So someone can’t come to you and say, well, we need to intervene with you. There’s no intervention. You have to ask for it. And you identify men and women, the elders who are going to come in, and they’re only the elders in this single scenario. So these are people that you trust their viewpoint, and then in the conversation, they have rules of the road, which are that the elders can ask questions and they can restate answers, but they cannot give any advice or any opinions until explicitly asked for by the person. So the intent of the whole thing is to help the individual who’s facing the big life decision to be able to hear their own inner voice speak. And yet it’s a collective approach. To me, this seems, in spirit, really consistent with what you’re describing. Am I wrong?
Abby Davisson:
I love that. I think it’s very consistent. And we talk about the fact that the check-in step, which is what you’re talking about, the elders who have this wisdom and life experience, has to be handled delicately. Because what we don’t advocate is going around when you’re facing a big life decision and asking people what you should do. You know, you don’t want someone else to make your decision for you, but what C can be. And there are some decisions, for example, the decision to have a child, which are very personal, and it’s very hard for someone else to make that decision for you.
Greg McKeown:
You don’t want that person to have had that level of strategic influence, and you don’t wanna blame that person for the outcome. Carry on.
Abby Davisson:
Exactly. And they’re not going to raise that child for you. So they shouldn’t get to weigh in. But what we do suggest is asking people for insight into how they approached a similar decision. So rather than saying, you know, Greg, what should I do? I might say, Greg, tell me about how you and your wife decided to have your first child. Tell me your thought process. Tell me how you approached that. And by hearing how someone else approaches, that’s really approached a big life decision that can give you a type of insight that is very difficult to unlock otherwise.
Greg McKeown:
I really like the distinction where you’re asking someone to tell me what the process was you went through. Because one, you get to explore the decision-making process somebody used. Okay, that’s useful and educational, but it also helps you to know to what degree that person should be a wisdom source for you in this decision you are making. Because if they really just did it very randomly, let’s say you think, okay, well, whatever they say after this, maybe I won’t be taking it too seriously because I’m looking for a really wise process. I’m looking for wisdom, your thoughts.
Abby Davisson:
Absolutely. And certainly, thinking about people who have made decisions you admire is a good first filter to use. So if, you know, sometimes we get asked, how do I know who to check in with? You know, should I have that very strong opinion about what I should do? Should I be checking in with them? I mean, it sounds like they’re gonna share those opinions whether you check in with them or not, so probably not. But you know, you do wanna limit your check-ins for certain decisions, for some decisions. For example, if you, like many people are facing right now, find yourself laid off and you’re looking for a new job, the research shows that actually, that’s the type of conversation you should be having very widely. Because weak ties, people who are not your first or even second-degree connections, have access to different networks and can be very helpful in a job search.
But other decisions, you do want to limit your input because they are more delicate and they’re more personal. And so thinking about who are those people you admire, whose lives you see as aspirational and really seeking them out and then taking everything with a grain of salt because what people love to do is justify their own decisions. And so everyone is going to give you advice filtered through that need, that human need, to make it seem like their decision worked out for them. And so that’s the other thing with the check-in, is just to be aware that there is no truly no unbiased opinion. And so that’s why the clarify step is so important. So you take other people’s input in, and you go back to what are my core values, and then you go from there, and it’s, you know, the five C’s; there’s no way to describe them that is not linear. But this is really not a linear process. As I shared in my moving story, we went back and re-clarified, and sometimes you get to, you know, the check-in, and it causes you to have a different conversation, so you communicate again and so on.
Greg McKeown:
I’ve come across the little section that I was just referring to, so I have the name for it; it’s the clearness committee. So it’s on page 87, for those that are interested to be able to read that section. And it reminds me of one of the ideas, which is that you want people to ask you and to ask other people honest questions. That is, questions you don’t know the answer to, rather than leading questions. If you’re having somebody you are checking in with who is always asking questions that just demonstrate their opinion, this is gonna be a less fruitful conversation. It seems to me.
I have one more question about all of this. My wife Anna seeks wisdom, like really, seriously and repeatedly seeks wisdom, wants to make a wise decision. And while I hear lots of people who can expound on why wisdom is an important idea, why it would be better to be wise than not, I think it’s pretty rare that somebody is seeking wisdom in their decisions, that they just want to make a wise choice, not what other people are doing. Not even what would I like, just what’s the wise thing to do here? You are nodding to that for those who can’t see you. So just talk to me a little bit about your reaction to that idea.
Abby Davisson:
Well, I think you’re fortunate to have her, because you’re right; everyone approaches decisions in a way that is seeking wisdom. One of the great, my great fortune in this book is, has been to collaborate with Myra, who has so much wisdom. And I certainly have learned from her and continue to learn from her through the process of writing this book. And she’s in her eighth decade of life and is just really, I guess ninth decade. And she’s just this source of wisdom. And we all have innate tendencies that we bring to decision-making. So some people do tend to be gut trusters, right? They don’t want input; they just really wanna kind of go with their gut and make the decision. And other people tend to fall into analysis paralysis and really do want to look at decisions from all angles and have, you know, as much information as possible.
And some people are more balanced and are somewhere in the middle. We have a quiz on our website actually that can help you discern what your decision-making style is. But it is helpful to know where your innate tendency is because then you can put safeguards in place. Because it’s wonderful to seek wisdom, but it can sometimes tip over into analysis paralysis and feeling like, well, I just wanna talk to a few more experts, or I just wanna get a little bit more information before I make this decision. And suddenly you find yourself, you know, developing more and more spreadsheets about something. And you know, I can say this cuz I’m married to a person who tends to fall into this category. And so it’s helpful to know, oh okay, I feel myself tipping into information-gathering mode. I’m actually gonna force myself to move through this.
So there’s, you know, like anything, there’s a sweet spot, and then there’s a kind of an extreme. And knowing you’re innate tendency, if you’re a wisdom seeker, if you are an analyzer, is helpful because then you can know when to stop. And so one thing we like about our framework is that it does kind of force you to move through the steps. You don’t want to linger too long in any one step because then you find yourself actually not making the decision. Which of course, as we all know, a lack of making a decision is in and of itself, a decision.
Greg McKeown:
Well, especially in a world where the information is so truly limitless, that tendency to want to read everything that there is on the subject, it’s just truly impossible, right? It will destroy, you know, it will destroy anyone who’s trying to just, I just wanna get to the bottom of the infinite pool before I make this decision. You mentioned something about Myra, and I was intrigued by what I’m sure is a very strong connection that you feel toward her. Can you tell us more about what Myra has meant to you?
Abby Davisson:
I love that question. So we talk about the fact that we have all of the benefits of the closeness of family with none of the baggage.
Greg McKeown:
A wise friend.
Abby Davisson:
A wise friend, and you know, she’s a couple of years older than my mother, who passed away several years ago. So, thank you. I mean, her kids are older than I am at this point, but she is of that generation. But I don’t have, you know, I didn’t go through my teenage years with her. I didn’t, you know, I can’t hold her responsible for anything that I feel like didn’t work out in my life. But I still get the benefit of those, of that wisdom. And we have just had such a wonderful time working together, traveling together on this journey. And I just feel so fortunate to have gotten the chance to work with her.
Greg McKeown:
It sounds to me that you certainly think of her as a wisdom source. What is something that you have learned from her? Not the book, not the model, but just something that you have learned by observing her and getting to know her. Yeah.
Abby Davisson:
She is a New Yorker. She grew up in New York and is, and I grew up in the East coast as well in New Jersey. And she is very direct. And so we have had countless times through this process where we have disagreed about something, whether it’s an approach, or whether it’s, you know, a path we should go down with the book promotion. And I have never had an easier time disagreeing with someone, airing our different points of view, and then coming to a resolution and moving on. And it has really been so helpful to just hear her be direct, but be willing to have her mind changed. And that has helped me in so many of my relationships, share what I’m feeling, but then also remain open to being influenced.
Greg McKeown:
How do you think that she has established that combination? I mean, you say it’s a New Yorker, so maybe that explains some of the directness, but it’s not just directness you’re describing. It’s this duality.
Abby Davisson:
Well, so she is a pioneering labor economist. She got her Ph.D. at MIT in the 1960s and was
Greg McKeown:
Amazing right there.
Abby Davisson:
Yeah. And was the only woman in the room for many situations. And so I think that did encourage her to speak up and be bold and be direct, but also to not make enemies and to realize that she needed to get along with a lot of people and a lot of people needed to like her, for her to be invited into those circles that were previously closed to women. And so she has struck that really delicate balance of being an expert, being knowledgeable, but also being very likable. And that is a very tricky balance for any woman to strike. And she has managed to do that well. And one of her secret weapons is humor. She is very funny. And when she makes a joke, it instantly disarms you. And that is very helpful and is very strategic of her.
Greg McKeown:
Are there any phrases or questions or tangible skills that you’ve learned about being able to create that safe balance between clearly staging your own opinion and also being able to be open to someone else’s?
Abby Davisson:
So when we have conversations, and we have to make a decision, she will often invite me to share my point of view first because she knows that, you know, even though we’re collaborators and our co-authors, she was once my professor, right? So there is still this sense of, like, she has this wisdom; she’s older than I am. And by asking me to share my opinion first, I feel very heard. I’m able to share my opinion without being influenced by what she thinks. And then she either says, I absolutely agree with that, or I don’t agree with that, and here’s why. And then we talk it out.
I think if she came to those conversations saying, here’s what I think we should do, I might be more likely to defer to her without sharing what I feel, and therefore, you know, might build up resentment over time. But very, I think she’s very aware of that dynamic, and so by inviting me to go first, she immediately puts us on equal ground in terms of our points of view.
Greg McKeown:
Yeah, I mean, that’s a beautiful skill. And the more senior a person is, the more unequal a relationship is, the more important I think it is to do that. And certainly, in organizations, I’ve observed the exact opposite happens, that the more senior somebody becomes, the more pressure they feel to be the first, and other people are holding back and don’t want to share an opinion first. And so, quite quickly, you can have somebody become more senior and fall out of touch, almost instantly fall, out of touch with what people actually think and what they actually believe. So really, I think you’re saying she, she is seeking first to understand. She’s saying, you go first. Let me hear you first, then I’ll share my thoughts about that afterwards.
Abby Davisson:
It’s so true. And I’ve certainly been in many meetings in my corporate life where it’s true, everyone looks to the most senior person in the room, they share their opinion and then that just dictates how everything is going to go. And it takes tremendous courage to then disagree with that senior voice. So I think you’re right. It’s a, it’s something we could all follow in, in many aspects of our lives.
Greg McKeown:
It’s career limiting move to directly disagree with a stated point of view of a senior leader in a group setting.
Abby Davisson:
Absolutely.
Greg McKeown:
So, the responsibility has to be on us when we are the more senior person inverted commerce. Right? It could be with our children where we’re automatically in a position of leadership. It could be people on our teams. It could be in, in so many different situations to, how should we say it, to play the Myra card and yet to not hold back completely. There’s a point at which she, as you’ve already described, it’s very clear she’s not afraid of being clear when that moment comes. But the order seems to be, seems to be important.
Is there anything else? Is there anything else that you think of, oh my goodness, my opportunity to have worked so closely with Mayra over these years to be influenced so directly? Is there something else? Anything else that you particularly admire or that you’ve particularly valued in that relationship?
Abby Davisson:
I mean, there’s so many. She is a connector. So she is constantly thinking about, you know, how she can be helpful to people by connecting them to others. And that’s something that, that I share that inclination and that tendency. But even we were just in London on our book tour and we had tea with a second cousin of mine, she is just graduated from Kings College. She’s working in her first job there. She’s not loving the first job that she has. And she was thinking about, I was asking her if she had done any informational interviews and she said, no, what’s that? So we were talking about that and Myra said, you know, she’s interested in communications. And she said, you know, Abby, you should introduce her to the journalists on the BC we were just talking to, you should introduce her to, you know, we had just been interviewed by a number of other folks.
And so, even though this was my cousin and, you know, I should have been thinking about how to help her, and I was, but it didn’t occur to me that the journalist that had interviewed us just days before was a potential contact for my cousin. And that’s just the way her brain works. It’s just, how can we think about this? She’s, I can’t, I think it’s like four or five marriages she’s responsible for because she suggests, you know, that people get to know other people that she knows in her network. She’s going to a wedding in Italy of her daughter-in-law’s sister, who she introduced to someone. So, I mean, it’s just marvelous to see how she likes to fit people together like a puzzle and help them.
Greg McKeown:
This idea of connecting relevant people with relevant people is something that I feel like a late bloomer in because the amount of good you can do for the amount of effort that is expended is striking. I mean, you just, I just connected somebody, and I have hardly had to do anything. And yet the good that has been achieved between those two people, they’re both great, and they’re going to get, you know, one of the people has a book that they’re doing. And it was just an agent connection. I mean, it was very easy, what Adam Grant would just call the five-minute favor. And yet some five-minute favors are worth a lot more than others. And connecting people, I think, is one of those things, a disproportionate impact for good, because then everything that follows with that relationship, you’re not the one doing it, they’re doing it. But all of that comes from that single moment of connection. Yeah. That’s food for thought here.
Give us a final thought. You know, let’s say the most essential learning that you have gained in the 15 years of trying to live these ideas, the five years of researching, writing, and now teaching these ideas. You know, what’s your most profound lesson from all of that?
Abby Davisson:
That money and love are what we all need, right? That’s what Sigmund Freud said, they’re cornerstones of human existence, and they are inextricably intertwined. And so our personal lives are profoundly influenced by what we choose to do for our careers. And our careers are very influential in terms of our relationships. And yet our instinct is to think about those two things very separately. But when you think about them holistically, it brings everything into clarity, and it helps you make better strategic decisions that will lead you to more happiness, and more meaning, and more fulfillment.
Greg McKeown:
I love that. The separation of money and love, of family and career, is a complete false dichotomy. They’re integrated in reality, and so they need to be integrated in strategic thinking and decision-making. Abby, thank you so much for taking time to be with me.
Abby Davisson:
Thank you so much, Greg. This was wonderful.
Greg McKeown:
Thank you. Really, thank you for listening. That was part two of the conversation with Abby Davisson. What was one idea that stood out to you, and what is one thing that you can do immediately to take action on it? I mean, in the next five minutes, make it small, but take action right now. Similarly, don’t try to on this journey of designing a life that really matters alone; I’ve built a whole system to try to help you to do that. It includes the book Effortless and Essentialism. It includes the 1-Minute Wednesday newsletter, it includes the Essentialism Academy. Just go to essentialism.com for details about that. And, of course, it includes this podcast, but subscribe to this so that you can get free copies every Tuesday and Thursday. The first five people who write a review of this episode will receive free access to the Essentialism Academy. And details for that are at gregmckeown.com/podcastpromo. Thank you, really thank you, for listening, and I’ll see you next time.
