Ayelet Fishbach

He doesn't mind seeing me getting beaten by virtual monsters.

So we can both learn.

At work, when you're not quite killing it, remove your ego, and you will be better able to learn.

Another solution is to seek discomfort, if only temporarily, instead of trying to avoid it.

When you seek discomfort temporarily, you realize that you can grow yourself, that discomfort is a sign of growth.

No pain, no gain is not just about the gym.

It's a general wise motivation strategy.

Let me tell you about a study that we conducted with Chicago's beloved improvisation club, The Second City.

We worked with their training center, which is where regular people like you and me go to learn improvisation.

We were specifically interested in one exercise, deep focus.

In this exercise, one person gets the center of stage, everybody else is frozen in place.

This person is moving around, everybody else is watching.

We invited some people to feel awkward and uncomfortable as they run through the exercise.

Others in the control group were invited to develop their skills.

Who was more daring, taking the stage for longer?

Well, as you can see, it was the people that we invited to feel uncomfortable.

In one wave of classes, asking people to feel uncomfortable doubled the time they took focus.

Those people were also more daring.

For example, they were dancing a little instead of just walking around.

And they also reported they were growing themselves more compared to those in the control group.