Best-selling author Daniel Pink believes that regret is our most misunderstood emotion. In his quest to reclaim the power of regret as a force for good, Dan has written a breakthrough book that speaks to regret as a key component of human existence - an emotion that prompts us to look backwards in order to clarify how we want to move forwards. Today on The Voice of Retail, I talk with Dan about his own relationship to regret, what inspired him to study this tumultuous emotion and some of the key research points and anecdotes from his new book, his seventh.
Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Daniel Pink believes that regret is our most misunderstood emotion.
In his quest to reclaim the power of regret as a force for good, Dan has written a breakthrough book that speaks to regret as a key component of human existence - an emotion that prompts us to look backwards in order to clarify how we want to move forwards.
Today on The Voice of Retail, I talk with Dan about his own relationship to regret, what inspired him to study this tumultuous emotion and some of the key research points and insights from his latest book, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward.
Stay tuned for insights on reconnecting with regret and what we can learn from the 16,000 regrets that people from all over the world submitted to Dan’s online platform.
Thanks for tuning into this special episode of The Voice of Retail. If you haven’t already, be sure and click subscribe on your favourite podcast platform so new episodes will land automatically twice a week, and check out my other retail industry media properties; the Remarkable Retail podcast, the Conversations with CommerceNext podcast, and the Food Professor podcast. Last but not least, if you are into Barbeque, check out my all new YouTube barbecue show, Last Request Barbeque, with new episodes each and every week!
I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company & Maven Media, and if you’re looking for more content, or want to chat follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website meleblanc.co! Have a safe week everyone!
Daniel H. Pink is the author of several provocative, bestselling books about business, work, creativity, and behavior.
His books include:
He has been a contributing editor at Fast Company and Wired as well as a business columnist for The Sunday Telegraph. His articles and essays have also appeared in The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, The New Republic, Slate, and other publications. He was also a Japan Society Media fellow in Tokyo, where he studied the country’s massive comic industry.
Before venturing out on his own 20 years ago, Dan worked in several positions in politics and government, including serving from 1995 to 1997 as chief speechwriter to Vice President Al Gore.
He received a BA from Northwestern University, where he was a Truman Scholar and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and a JD from Yale Law School. He has also received honorary doctorates from Georgetown University, the Pratt Institute, the Ringling College of Art and Design, the University of Indianapolis, and Westfield State University.
Pink and his wife live in Washington, DC. They are the parents of two recent college graduates and a college freshman.
Buy the book: https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/the-power-of-regret-how/9780735210653-item.html?ikwid=the+power+of+regret&ikwsec=Home&ikwidx=0#algoliaQueryId=6502f49431a758699c7276ecce7d1ae6
Our previous interview on The Voice of Retail : https://the-voice-of-retail.simplecast.com/episodes/tal-zvi-nathanel-ceo-of-showfields-and-dan-pink-nyt-best-selling-author-share-their-insights-on-retail-experience-working-and-adapting-in-the-covid-19-ear
About Michael
Michael is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated on thought leadership panels worldwide. Michael was recently added to ReThink Retail’s prestigious Top 100 Global Retail Influencers for a second year in 2022.
Michael is also the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts, including Canada’s top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus the Remarkable Retail with author Steve Dennis, Global E-Commerce Tech Talks and The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. Most recently, Michael launched Conversations with CommerceNext, a podcast focussed on retail eCommerce, digital marketing and retail careers - all available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music and all major podcast platforms. Michael is also the producer and host of the “Last Request Barbeque” channel on YouTube where he cooks meals to die for and influencer riches.
Michael LeBlanc 00:04
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host, Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Michael LeBlanc 00:10
Daniel Pink believes that regret is our most misunderstood emotion. In his quest to reclaim the power of regret as a force for good, Dan has written a breakthrough book that speaks to regret as a key component of human existence - an emotion that prompts us to look backwards in order to clarify how we want to move forwards.
Michael LeBlanc 00:27
Today, on The Voice of Retail, I talk with Dan about his own relationship to regret, what inspired him to study this tumultuous emotion, and some of the key research points and insights from his latest book, ‘The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward, Moves Us Forward’.
Michael LeBlanc 00:40
Stay tuned for insights on a reconnecting with regret, and what we can learn from the 16,000 regrets that people from all over the world submitted to Dan's online platform.
Daniel Pink 00:51
Yeah, I agree, I agree. I think that part of it, I think part of it is, is pride and ego. Now, here's the other thing, the dirty little secret is that when we disclose our regrets, or even when we disclose any of our vulnerabilities, mistakes, setbacks, whatever, we fear that people will think less of us. And there's 30 years of research and behavioral science showing that that's wrong. They often think more of us.
Michael LeBlanc 01:13
Let's listen in now.
Well, Dan, welcome back to the podcast, my friend, how are you doing?
Daniel Pink 01:18
I am doing well. Thanks for having me back.
Michael LeBlanc 01:21
Well, it's, it's not the first time you and I've talked and it's not the first time you and I have been on the microphone. So, it's great to hear your voice if not see you in person. You got another book out, ‘The Power of Regret’. And I want to talk all about it. I've read the book, I've had an advance copy, and it's out today, or just out this week, so everyone can share. But I'm really excited to kind of jump in and, and explore why don't we jump right in with just a bit about yourself. And for those maybe that didn't hear our first interview or don't know of you or don't know enough about you. Tell us about yourself.
Daniel Pink 01:50
I am a writer based in Washington, DC. I write books about work, and life, and business, and behavior. And this book that's coming out right now is my seventh book. And it takes a look at, a deep look, at our most misunderstood emotion, which is regret (crossover talk), and tries to reclaim it as a force for good and how people think differently and more sensibly about it.
Michael LeBlanc 02:17
Yeah, listen, I love the book, and even the process that you went about, because I follow you on the Pinkcast and, and all that stuff. I want to get into. Seven books, so, let me ask you this is, is you do probably got the process of you know, writing and getting a book published down pretty pat at this point. Is the thrill the same, the seventh book on the shelf as it was the first couple? Like, how, how, you know, seven in, I mean, you know, it's not like Stephen King with seven a week or anything but a (inaudible), is it still exciting for you?
Daniel Pink 02:45
Yeah, it's, it's, it's still pretty exciting. But here's the thing, it's, it's still, it's still a slog. It's really, at least for me, it's really, really hard to write a book. And you would think after, you would think number seven would be easier. And it wasn't. It was still really hard.
Michael LeBlanc 02:58
And you and I talked on our, our last podcast, and I'll leave it for the viewers to go back on the process. It was a really interesting process about how you work and how you assemble the narrative and all those things.
All right, so let's talk about the book. So, what got you interested, I mean, there's a wide variety of things that you can write a book about, I guess, what first honed you into this idea of regret?
Daniel Pink 03:22
The main thing is that I realized I had regrets of my own. And the, the, the forcing function for that, I think was my, one of my daughter's college graduations. She graduated from university a couple of years ago, and I'm sitting at this graduation, and I'm just having this out of body experience, because I can't believe this kid who was just born has graduated from college. And I also can't believe that I have a kid who's graduating from college because I'm only 28, how is that even possible?
Daniel Pink 03:46
And I start, you've been there, and so I start thinking about my own college experience. And I started thinking about my regrets and I had some. I, I felt like I could have worked harder. I felt like I could have taken more chances. I felt like I could have been a kinder person. And when I came back, I started talking to just, I don't know it's skittish about it, but I started talking to people about it. And I found that this, that when I started talking about my regrets, people wanted to share theirs. That this was a topic that people really leaned in on. And that surprised me. And that's always a good sign for a writer and so I was intrigued.
Daniel Pink 04:16
I was actually working on an entirely different book at the time. And I put that aside. I started doing, looking to see what the academic research looks like on regret. I found it pretty interesting, and I decided to change course. And so, and so this book was I think somewhat personal for me. I don't know if I would have written this book in my 30s but in my 50s It felt kind of inevitable.
Michael LeBlanc 04:37
You know you start the book talking about this, we, we were joking off mic about the, the tattoo the credo no regrets, though a lot of people have it. I mean, you, you start telling stories about the no regrets. And you interestingly describe this no regrets doc-, doctrine or whatever we want to call it as, as almost dangerous, which is a pretty strong word.
Daniel Pink 04:56
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 04:57
Now when, when did this philosophy of not looking back and saying I got no regrets, I'm only moving forward, was it als-, was it always so, or did it, did it somehow grab the culture in some way, shape or form?
Daniel Pink 05:09
That's a really good question. I'm not sure. It's been around for a lot of the 20th century. So, we have, you know, in the 1960s, at least, or the second half of the 20th century, we had Edith Piaf singing her song that she doesn't regret anything. And then we had Ella Fitzgerald singing a song called, ‘No Regrets’. And then Emmylou Harris singing a song called, ‘No Regrets’. And Eminem singing a song called, ‘No Regrets’. So, so, I think it's been a, it's certainly been very prominent in post-war North America and Europe. And, you know, I think, I think it correlates to the rise of some of the positive thinking philosophy that came up and, especially in the United States in the 20th century.
Michael LeBlanc 05:52
Well, I'll bring up another famous musician, Ol' Blue Eyes, you know, regrets I've had a few. So, let's talk about regret as a, as a positive force. So, you, -
Daniel Pink 06:02
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 06:02
As, as I would expect, you have done ,you did, you did some great work on understanding brain development, brain science and brain psychology. You know, you, you talk about regret, more understood by development psychologists as a marker of development rather than, -
Daniel Pink 06:16
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 06:16
A kind of deficit, talk about that a little bit.
Daniel Pink 06:18
Yeah, now that's a great point. I'm glad you picked up on that, because that that's one of the things that's it's really important to understanding this emotion is that everybody has regrets, okay. Everybody has regrets. Regrets make us human. So, for instance, five-year-olds don't have regrets, why? Because their brains haven't developed enough. That it takes a certain amount of dexterity to be able to exper-, to be able to actually process regret, to go backward in time to imagine a different past, which would then create a different future.
Daniel Pink 06:47
And so, so for developmental psychologists, as you say, regret is a marker for cognitive maturation. So, you know, seven-year-olds, eight-year-old start to experience regret by adolescence, it's usually fully formed. And what this tells us, in part, and some other things tell us too, is that our brains are pre-programmed for regret. And the reason for that, I mean, so you see it also in research showing that people with certain kinds of brain lesions can’t experience regret, people with certain kinds of Huntington's can’t experience regret a sociopath. (crossover talk), -
Michael LeBlanc 07:20
I mean, it's almost a definition of a sociopath, right?
Daniel Pink 07:23
Yeah, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 07:24
They don't have normal emotion, right?
Daniel Pink 07:25
Right, and so, and so, and so the idea is, is that regret is part of the human experience, it makes us human. But a reason that it's part of the human experience is that it's functional, that it's there for a reason. There's a reason we feel regret and the reason we feel regret is that regret instructs us, regret clarifies the future for us, regret helps us get better, if we treat it right and, that's the key.
Michael LeBlanc 07:49
You know, I never thought of this before, but listening to you, I think of, you know, in, in Catholicism, you as a youth, it's around seven or eight where you start going to confession. And it's a funny thing, because when I think back to confession, it's like, you almost got it, you're waiting to do your first confession, you're kind of like, what can I confess to, what did I do wrong? Like you know, it, like it's a little function of regret, like, and it feels like it's purposefully waited a little longer in the development. Because it's hard to, as you say, -
Daniel Pink 08:15
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 08:15
(crossover talk) you know, I don't know what to confess to, I didn't do anything wrong.
Daniel Pink 08:18
Yeah, yeah, yeah, (crossover talk). That, that, that, that's, that's interesting, that's interesting. So, I mean, you know, just in general, if you don't have regrets, it means that your, your brain hasn't matured, or it it's suffering from for some, from some grave problem. So, it's really important for us to normalize regret, and to make sure that we understand that it is a, an essential component of the human experience.
Daniel Pink 08:41
But then also, you know, and it has a lot of benefits. It can help us make better decisions. It can help us solve problems faster, become better strategist, but we have to treat it right. And here's the thing, so, on one extreme, is this ridiculous philosophy of no regrets where we just simply ignore negative emotions. But on the other extreme is this idea of wallowing in our regrets, ruminating over them and that's bad too. What we want to do is we want to use our regrets, as signals, as information, as a message from the universe that you need to do some things differently or do things in a different way.
Michael LeBlanc 09:16
You, the book is, is full of anecdotes and you took a path to do that by reaching out to your community. You did something that, that of all people, Stats Canada, the government statistics organization did, they launched something called Stats Cannabis. So, they actually had no idea how to dimensionalize the cannabis recreational cannabis market because it was illegal. So, they asked people and they said, go on and tell us how much you use? What did you pay for it? And where did you buy it? And it turned out to be a wonderful, like people just flooded in. Now, you took,-
Daniel Pink 09:47
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 09:47
A not dissimilar tact, talk about that.
Daniel Pink 09:51
Yeah, well, thanks for comparing me to StatCan because I admire that statistical agency big time. What I did is I, I did two things, 1, I did a quantitative survey of the US population to try to understand people's attitudes toward regret and see whether there were differences demographic, you know, by different demographics. But the other thing that I did, which proved actually, in many ways, much more fruitful was what, what I call the, ‘World Regret Survey’, where I simply like StatCan I went out and collected 16,000 regrets from 105 countries, it's incredible.
Michael LeBlanc 10:23
16,000, 16,000.
Daniel Pink 10:25
16,000 regrets,-
Michael LeBlanc 10:27
How did you, -
Daniel Pink 10:27
People in it? (crossover talk) And 105 (inaudible), -
Michael LeBlanc 10:30
Yeah, 105 countries. You've got a big community of people who follow you, but you don't have 16,000 people who follow you, I don't think
Daniel Pink 10:36
Who are willing to, who are willing to contribute their deepest regret? No. It, it's started spreading in a way that it was just shocking to me. And, and I think that tells us something. It tells us how much people do want to talk about this. I did essentially no promotion beyond a couple of tweets. And, and we ended up with you know, and then we're getting more each day, every time I go into the database, I see that oh, there you know, 23 people adding regrets right now. So, so, it suggests that people do want to talk about this.
But what, what this, this trove of 16,000 regrets from 105 countries was just really fascinating and revealing. And, and what I discovered from there, a, a, as and as you know, Mike from reading the book is that around the world over and over and over again, people have the same four regrets, It's amazing. And, and these four regrets themselves are very revealing.
Michael LeBlanc 11:30
Yeah, and, and that's the wonderful thing about your process, you didn't just use it for anecdotes, I think you used it as a kind of almost a more than primary research You, you extracted from it, these types. So, let', let's co.-, take us through the four types of regret how you, how you classify these regrets.
Daniel Pink 11:45
So, one regret is what I call, foundation regrets. Foundation regrets are if only I'd done the work. These are regrets that people have about not having a stable platform for their lives. Smoking, not exercising, not working hard enough in school. So, decisions they make early in their life often that end up creating some instability in their lives later on.
Daniel Pink 12:05
The second category, a fascinating category are boldness, regrets. Boldness regrets are, if only I taken the chance. And it doesn't matter the domain of life that you're in, it could be asking somebody out on a date, it could be starting a business, it could be traveling, whatever. That, what happens is people find themselves at a juncture. They can go two ways, they can play it safe, or they can take the chance. When they play it safe, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many times they regret it. So, that's boldness regrets. (crossover talk),-
Daniel Pink 12:33
The third story, (crossover talk),-
Michael LeBlanc 12:34
And the story I'll,-
Daniel Pink 12:35
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 12:35
I'll relate to the, to the listeners, is there's a, a story of a person on a train and this is a first party story an, an, and met this, met this wonderful woman and they started talking and they hit it off and then at some point she got off the train and invited him, and he didn't go, and the door closed, and then looked back at that one little moment in his life as a, what you described is that boldness regret, regret.
Daniel Pink 12:58
Yeah, I mean, I think the lesson there Mike, is step off the train.
Michael LeBlanc 13:02
Yeah.
Daniel Pink 13:02
Truly, I mean, like, like, like people, even if you step off the train and nothing, and I have stories of this, people step off the train and it doesn't work out they're okay with that.
Michael LeBlanc 13:12
Right.
Daniel Pink 13:12
But it's, it's, it's the not stepping out the train not, not taking that not taking that chance. And I, and, and I think that these boldness regrets are fascinating, because I mean, each of these four regrets revealed something fundamental about the human condition. And, and then I think that these four core regrets, show us what constitutes the good life.
Daniel Pink 13:30
But what it suggests to us is that, you know, we want a stable platform for our lives, we don't want instability. But we also want a chance to do something, to learn, to grow, to lead a psychologically rich life. And, and, and I think that's, I think that's like a really important lesson. Like there are like understanding the regrets of all these people around the world gives us direction, gives us clues about what really matters in life. And one of the things that ultimately matters to people deep, very deeply is doing something, taking the chance.
Daniel Pink 14:03
And there's a third category which is moral regrets. Moral regrets are, if only I'd done the right thing. So, these are people who regret marital infidelity, cheating, stealing, bullying other people. So, it's a pretty interesting category. It’s very small but, but it’s pretty interesting. But again, that suggests I think it's a heartening category because I got all these people who are regretting these things earlier in their life, which suggests that like most people want to be good, which is I think heartening.
Daniel Pink 14:31
And then finally there are connection regrets. And Connection regrets are, if only I'd reached out. And connection regrets are ultimately about relationships. There, they are about any kind of relationship, not only romantic relationships, but other family relationships, and especially friendships, which proved to be incredibly important to people. And with, with connection regrets, what you have is you have a relationship that should have been intact, or that what that once was intact, and it comes apart and usually in an undramatic ways. Usually just by drifting apart.
And what happens is, is that somebody wants to reach out, they think it's going to be awkward. They think the other side's not going to care. So, they don't reach out and they drift a little more, and then they end up then, then they end up regretting it so. And so, I think that connection regrets tell us about our fundamental need for, for affinity for love.
Daniel Pink 15:20
And so, what I think is interesting about these four regrets, and, and it, this research took me to a place that I didn't expect to land is that these four regrets are a, a, as they say, in the book, a photographic negative of the good life. That is, if we understand what people regret the most, we understand what they value the most. And so, this emotion, this you know, aversive emotion, like I don't like regret, nobody likes regret. But it actually teaches us, it instructs, it clarifies and if we pay attention to it, it actually can point us toward a life well lived.
Michael LeBlanc 15:52
We're living through interesting times. I mean, I was reflecting on that last regret of, of reaching out to people and staying in touch. I mean, it's been a long time that I reached out on one hand, to have a coffee with people, it used to be kind of something I did,-
Daniel Pink 15:53
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 15:53
All the time. And on the other hand, in some ways, I have more Zoom meetings with people. Hey, you and I haven't talked in a year, let's get on a Zoom together.
As you reflect on all your understanding of regrets and the place we are in our lives in the COVID era, do you think the COVID era will have an effect of diminishing regrets, in other words, after what I've gone through, it's like the roaring 20s, I don't care anymore, I'm not looking back. Or, in other words, a counter force, because that the feeling of being constrained released a little bitter. Yeah, have you put any thought into how on earth, all of this is going to impact us for the rest of our lives?
Daniel Pink 16:43
I'm not sure. But I actually think that, that the, the last two years have been a time of forced reflection for people. And when they reflect, they reflect on what ultimately matters in their life. And I think they're having those kinds of conversations and those kinds of conversations, because they're human beings, inevitably turned back to regret. And I do think that part of this, ‘Great Resignation’ is fueled by okay, I feel like I, I have some regrets about the rest of my life. I've been reckoning with mortality, and maybe I need to do things differently in the future.
Michael LeBlanc 17:20
Maybe I should have been bolder, or maybe I should have taken that job, or leave that job I actually despise with, (crossover talk),-
Daniel Pink 17:25
I think that a lot of the, I think a lot of The Great Resignation are, are people who are acting on boldness regrets.
Michael LeBlanc 17:30
You bring forward one of my very favorite cognitive biases in the book, the escalating commitment to a failing course of act. I love that bias. Because it, it yeah, and you talk about, you know, when you get in a hole, stop digging kind of anecdote. But the, the, failure to acknowledge regrets, you kind of characterize as well, that's almost like, you're just going to dig yourself deeper, because at some point,-
Daniel Pink 17:52
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 17:52
You go to realize, you know, more commitment to this course of action is not going to work. In other words, I think sometimes in our culture, you know, you, you got to put in the effort, you got to be persistent, if you be persistent, maybe a bit lucky, maybe persistent, you'll get out of the hole you're in or the course of action will pay off on all those investments. But you, you seem to think that regrets are like an antidote to that, that you'll find that sweet spot maybe a little easier.
Daniel Pink 18:19
Well, I mean, there, there's, there's actually some, some explicit research on this, that that Gillian Coutts, at, at lon-, London Business School has done research showing that when you get people to reflect on previous escalations of commitment, alright, so, you know, escalation of commitment to a failing course of, of action, which and you know, exactly as you say, it's like, you know, stop digging, your, stop digging a deeper hole for yourself. When so, so you can, so you can take an action like that, okay, let's say that you you've, you've doubled down your investment in something that you knew was losing, and you said, oh, my God, this is a totally losing investment. But I've already invested, I have a, you know, I've sunk these costs in here, I'm going to actually double my investment to try to recoup it. Now, you can look at that. And you can say, do you regret that? No, I have no regrets, I have no regrets at all. And you should regret that.
Daniel Pink 19:07
And what Gillian Coutts' research has told us is that if you get people to stop and think about that, ‘Hey, I regret doing that. I regret doing that for the following reasons’, leaning into the regret acknowledging it rather than padding it away, that people are less likely to fall through that trap door in the future. (crossover talk) And you see this with certain kinds of negotiation mistakes. We see it with certain kinds of strategic mistakes. We see it with problem solving, that acknowledging our regrets, you know, just sort of inviting that sphere of negativity and then learning from it is actually helpful to us.
Michael LeBlanc 19:40
Is, is the counterpoint to that pride or embarrassment. In other words, you've got to get past your pride that you made,-
Daniel Pink 19:46
That's a good point.
Michael LeBlanc 19:47
A decision and you're confident in it. But now you got regrets. Like it, you know, it, it's sometimes it's a difficult emotion to wrangle down, yeah?
Daniel Pink 19:53
Yeah, I agree, I agree. I think that part of it I think part of it is, is pride and ego now here's the other thing, the dirty little secret, is that when we disclose our regrets, or even when we disclose any of our vulnerabilities, mistakes, setbacks, whatever, we fear that people will think less of us. And there's 30 years of research and behavioral science showing that that's wrong. They often think more of us. They admire our candor, they admire our, our courage, they admire they, they empathize with us. And so, that fear is often misplaced.
You know, and so this is, I'll give you another cog-, I mean, (inaudible) this I'll, I'll see your, your that cognitive bias and raise you a cognitive bias here.
Daniel Pink 20:33
You know, let's talk about, let's talk about pluralistic ignorance, where you say, well, I believe this one thing, but no one else believes it. And that's, that's a big trap here. So, if you think, if you ask most people, so let's say that you have a friend named Fred, and Fred admitted, a regret that he had about some mistake that he made in the past, would you think less of him? People, most people would say, of course I wouldn't think less than him. I actually would admire him admitting it and trying to do something about it. And it will, why don't you apply that to yourself? Oh, my God, no, if I you know, and so, and so that's,
Michael LeBlanc 21:05
(crossover talk), regret, -
Daniel Pink 21:07
(crossover talk) Yeah, that's one of the big, that's one of the big problems that we have. That's one of one of the big problems that we have. We're, we're, we're wrong about many different things. We're wrong about in many cases, these feelings of awkwardness about reaching out, people are, you know, you drift apart from a friend and you're like, and you think, oh, it's going to be really awkward if I reach out, and, and they're not going to care anyway. And then if you turn it around on that person and say, well, what if this friend reached out to you how would you feel? Oh, my God, I would be the greatest thing, I'll be so touched,-
Michael LeBlanc 21:34
Right.
Daniel Pink 21:34
And so, you know, we're, we're trapped in that pluralistic ignorance as well.
Michael LeBlanc 21:38
So, interesting. I want to ask you one thing, I meant to ask you about the cover of the book, and you, you actually collaborated with your community about the cover of the book, tell, tell me about how the cover of the book evolved?
Daniel Pink 21:48
Well, I mean, this is, you know, I always look to see, I'll tell you, I'll give you the, the somewhat sort of narrow-minded reductive way, I sometimes think about these things. So, if you're, if you're writing a book, if I'm writing a book, and the books is basically about an idea, all right, it's not about a thing, it's not about a person, it's not about a place, it's not about something concrete, it's about something abstract, then I always, I always think to myself, what is the Nike Swoosh of this idea? All right, what is a single visual embodiment of this idea? And it's very, very, very, very hard. Very, very hard.
In this case, our designer David Littman, came up with something, I think, pretty genius, which was a crumpled piece of paper. Because I think that that's what regret is, we, we, we crumple a piece of paper and we want to throw it away. And what I want to say is like, hey, wait a second, that crumpled piece of paper might contain knowledge, information, lessons that you can use going forward.
Michael LeBlanc 22:45
Well, listen, let's, let's end our time together way, the end the way you ended the book. Advice for listeners about the power of regret, how would you sum it up.
Daniel Pink 22:52
Well, so, one thing is, one thing is to recognize that if you have regrets, that's not a problem, that's a sign of you, your humanity. Regrets don't make you weaker. They can, done right, make you stronger. And then, you know, in the book, I talk about some of the very, very specific ways that you can address your regrets whether it's undoing certain regrets, whether it's in certain cases, simply getting past them by finding a silver lining in them.
Daniel Pink 23:13
And then also a process by which you can reframe the way you think about yourself, disclose the regret as a way of making sense of it, and then try to extract a lesson from it. And so, I really do you know, the, the goal of this work is to try to reclaim this misunderstood emotion because I think that if we start acknowledging our regrets like grownups, and start thinking about our regrets, and start not falling through the trap door of wallowing, or this blithe of no regrets nonsense that we can use, especially now at this moment that we're in when you get a sense that we're turning a page in history, that we can use our regrets as a powerful force going forward.
Michael LeBlanc 23:50
Well, my guest is Daniel H. Pink, the book is, ‘The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward’. It's out now and all the wonderful places, you buy books, and I have to say, if you do not pick this book up, you will regret it. So, there you go.
Dan, thanks so much for joining me again, on The Voice Retail podcast. I'll put a link into our last conversation because you kind of get into how you approach books, the tradecraft, which is so fascinating and some of your prior work, but for now, I wish you continued success, good success with the book, and it was great to speak with you. Thanks for joining me on the podcast.
Daniel Pink 24:24
Mike, always a pleasure.
Michael LeBlanc 24:25
Thanks for tuning into this special episode of The Voice of Retail. If you haven't already, be sure and click subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so new episodes will land automatically twice a week.
And check out my other retail industry media properties; the Remarkable Retail podcast, the Conversations CommerceNext podcast, and The Food Professor podcast with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois.
Last but not least, if you're into Barbecue, check out my all-new YouTube BBQ show, Last Request Barbecue with new episodes each and every week.
Michael LeBlanc 24:51
I'm your host, Michael LeBlanc, president of M. E. LeBlanc & Company and Maven Media, and if you're looking for more content, or want to chat follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website meleblanc.co.
Have a safe week everyone.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
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