💌 What is the Expectation Effect? The most common trait amongst elite performers.

🔍 Today at a glance:

Length: 6 min | Readability: Grade 8

• The insane power of your expectations.

• Mental pushup: Dealing with imposter syndrome.

• Why your trauma is your asset - the common trait amongst elite performers.

• Weekly roundup of articles and advice this week 👀 - When the money's just too damn good. Is it your intuition or anxiety? Is a job hard because it's wrong for you? And more.

🧠 Mind your mind. Your expectations become your reality.

If you spend 10 minutes listening to anything this week, let this be the one.

In a conversation between Andrew Huberman and Chris Williamson, they discuss the insights from a book called The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Change Your World. 

From the studies mentioned, we learn that positive expectations about illness and disease or the drugs we are given to cure or comfort us may promote physiological changes that actually make us feel better. The same is true for nocebo (i.e. opposite of placebo) where expectations may also make us feel worse. This process explains why some people appear to self-heal and others take unexpected turns for the worse with similar conditions.

For example, people in a study that didn't have a gluten intolerance and did not eat gluten (but were told they were given gluten) ended up experiencing symptoms that were the same as that of someone that did have gluten intolerance.

Similarly, individuals who did not have a genetic mutation but were told that they did have this unique genetic trait that enhanced their abilities ended up performing better than people who did have the genetic gene but were told they didn't have the genetic mutation.

According to this book, placebos work even when people are told they’re being given them in treatment, that simply thinking about having symptoms of a disease can cause us to suffer from it, and that people may experience “death by expectation” based on a reverse mirroring effect where negative beliefs appear to disrupt the body’s vital functions and cause them to collapse. Robson says “Worst-case thinking doesn’t prepare you—it promotes the worst case.”

It reminds me of the saying, "Whatever you think, you are right."

Food for thought: What are the expectations that you are setting in your life - and are those expectations serving your good? 🤔

Caveat: Huberman points that you can't just blatantly lie to yourself, but framing a situation with improved expectations and positive thinking can have a genuine psychophysiological impact on yourself and the direct outcomes of a situation.

The gist of the book and insightful discussions are provided in the video link above, but if you'd prefer a book summary instead (read: have the attention span of ant like me 🙋🏻‍♀️), you can reference the link shared below!

If you want to listen to the ENTIRE podcast (yes! 🙌🏼) , you can find it here.

🏋🏻 Mental Push-up: Imposter Syndrome

Do the things your imposter syndrome says you can’t.

Imposter syndrome can convince you that you’re not worthy of a promotion or not knowledgeable enough to take on certain opportunities, and more. This can keep you from going after all the things you want or taking on new challenges.

To combat this, therapist Vanessa Milagros, PhD, LMHC, suggests doing things even if you think you’re unqualified or that someone could do it better. “If you don’t try … then you are agreeing to live with the question of ‘What if I had said yes?’ And to me, that’s a much bigger risk to take,” she says.

Try it: The next time you want to do something but aren’t sure if you’re the right fit, just go for it. Do it anyway. And see what happens.

“Saying yes to the opportunities that scare you is so important because those are the moments that test your dedication, perseverance, and strength,” says Dr. Milagros. You don’t have to agree to everything (hello, boundaries!), but before you completely rule it out, ask yourself, “Just because I THINK that everyone knows what they’re doing and I’m the only one who is lost, unqualified, or unworthy, is that REALLY true?” she suggests.

Spoiler: It’s not.

🤓 Your trauma can be your asset.

Trigger warning: in this podcast, it discusses early childhood trauma.

There's one common trait that we've observed across elite performers: early childhood trauma. (Are you curious about how severe your childhood trauma is? Fill out this quiz here to find out.)

In this podcast, Bruce Daisley explains some of the patterns and findings amongst the mindset of gold Olympic medalists versus bronze medalists and more.

The main difference among all gold Olympic medalists versus bronze medalists was that the gold medalists experienced some significant amount of trauma or adversity in their formative, early childhood years. In contrast, only 1 in 4 bronze medalists had any anything close to that type of trauma.

Trauma can be a double-edged sword. Elite performers are often more successful, focused, and often have a single-minded obsession that catalyzes their ability to become "super elites." However, at the same time, they're not necessarily the nicest people to be around and often have a "whatever it takes" and "win at all costs" mindset. Bruce discuses how the shattering of someone's childhood identity through early childhood trauma can not only be catalyzing for one's trajectory as a high performer, but at the same time, cause these individuals to become very difficult characters, are not the most well-adjusted people, and don't always live the happiest lives.

My takeaway coming out of this + combining this with the "Expectation Effect" of leveraging positive thinking to drive desired outcomes (which we learned above) was: Life happens for you, not to you. How can the events that have happened in our lives catalyze and serve us for the better?

👀 Weekly Finds:

• 💸 When the money's just too damn good. How can success be its own failure? What is a shadow career? Nat Eliason dives into her journey of how she put off writing seriously for a while out of fear that she wouldn't be able to make a sustainable income doing so. If you are curious or experiencing similar thoughts, it is an insightful, honest read that is worth pursuing. In a nutshell, when you’re afraid you can’t earn a sufficient living from the thing you want to do, you find something else to earn that money for you. However, it may become hard to balance the two, especially if the money is really good. So what do you do? Read to find out.

• ✨ Is it your intuition or anxiety? Mayim Bialik breaks down whether or not the thoughts you're experiencing are your intuition guiding you versus your anxiety and fear-based thoughts.

• 🫥 Things to do so you don't get bored from work. It's Q4 of 2022. It's cozy, pumpkin-spice, and fuzzy blankets by the fireside time. Folks are on holiday and things are (supposed to be) moving a bit slower during this time of the year. But if you feel bored in your day-to-day job, here are a few ideas from Zen Habits on what to do during this time!

• 🌄 Is a job hard because it's wrong for you? If you read this far, thank you (🥹💙) and as a spoiler, we have a special surprise for you! I recently interviewed Ashley Menzies Babutunde, the host of the No Straight Path Podcast and I'm so excited to write up all of my insights from my conversation with her! Stay tuned for this in our upcoming newsletter! As a preface, I wanted to share this podcast episode from her that is one of my favorites. If you're struggling with something at work/school/life -- and questioning whether it is the right move for you or not, I HIGHLY suggest listening to Ashley's perspective and how she navigated her journey in this solo podcast episode! And give her a follow!

• 💤 Rest is a divine human right (podcast). If you need any further reason to give yourself a break, listen to this 24-minute episode to learn more about Tricia Hersey (Founder of The Nap Ministry)'s philosophy on rest and get tips on how to make more space for rest in your life. (Closing your eyes and kicking your feet up while you listen is strongly encouraged.)

• 🔥 Other perspectives on how to prevent burnout (podcast). Whether you are a student, employee, entrepreneur, creative, or etc. - there's no denying that many folks are starting to feel the burnout. In this episode, Emily Thompson and Kathleen Shannon of the "Being Boss" podcast dives into how they're dealing with burnout and what they do to organize and prepare for busy times in business ahead of time.

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That’s it for today! See you next week!