Mark: The most common advice for success is "try your best." What if that's terrible advice? What if "trying" is the very thing that guarantees you'll fail? Michelle: Whoa, okay. That's a bold way to start. So all those encouraging posters in my elementary school were lying to me? "Just try!" Mark: They might have been, unintentionally. Today, we're exploring a book that argues your best reasons for not getting something done are just well-dressed excuses. We're diving into The Achievement Habit by Bernard Roth. Michelle: Bernard Roth... he's one of the founders of the Stanford d.school, right? The famous design institute. I feel like "design thinking" is one of those buzzwords that’s everywhere now. Mark: Exactly. And this book is basically the culmination of a course he's been teaching since 1969, born from watching brilliant Silicon Valley engineers talk endlessly about their dreams but never actually do anything. He wanted to figure out why. Michelle: I can relate to that. My list of "someday" projects is embarrassingly long. Okay, so let's start with that provocative idea. Why are my reasons "bullshit"? I feel like I have some pretty good ones.

Mark: Roth's argument is that reasons are almost always just excuses that hide a simple truth: a lack of prioritization. He tells this great personal story about himself. For years, he was on the board of a company in Berkeley, an hour's drive away. And he was consistently, frantically late for every meeting. Michelle: Let me guess, he blamed traffic? The classic Bay Area excuse. Mark: You got it. He'd apologize profusely, blaming the "unusually congested" highway. But then he had this moment of clarity. The traffic wasn't "unusual" at all; it was predictably bad. The real reason he was late was that he simply wasn't making the meeting a high enough priority. He was always trying to squeeze in one last email, one last phone call. Michelle: But hold on. Traffic is a real thing. A flat tire is a real thing. Are we just supposed to ignore reality? What about the student who's late because their bike got a flat? That's not an excuse, that's a legitimate problem. Mark: That's the perfect question. Roth says, of course the flat tire is real. But the reason you're late isn't the tire. The reason is that being on time for that specific class wasn't a high enough priority to warrant leaving a 30-minute buffer for emergencies. He asks, what if there was a million-dollar prize waiting for you in that classroom? Michelle: Okay, I see. I'd have left the night before and slept on the doorstep. The flat tire would have been a minor inconvenience, not a reason for failure. The "reason" is just a socially acceptable story we tell ourselves and others to avoid saying, "it just wasn't that important to me." Mark: Exactly. And this ties directly into his other huge idea: the critical distinction between "trying" and "doing." Michelle: I feel like I use those words interchangeably. I'm "trying" to get to the gym. I'm "doing" my work. What's the difference? Mark: Roth illustrates it with a fantastic classroom exercise. He'll hold out a water bottle and ask a student volunteer, "Please try to take this from me." The student usually tugs at it, maybe a little tentatively at first, then with more force. But Roth holds on tight, and it becomes a struggle. Michelle: A stalemate. Mark: Right. Then he changes the instruction. He says, "Okay, now, take the bottle from me." The student might use more force, or twist it, but the dynamic is similar. But then Roth reframes the situation. He tells the student to imagine he's an annoying little brother who stole their bottle. No parents are around. And he says again, "Take the bottle from me." Michelle: Oh, I know what happens next. The gloves come off. Mark: Completely. The student's intention changes. They don't just tug anymore. They might knock it out of his hand, or use a clever twist. They stop wrestling with the problem and just solve it. They act with clear intention. Roth's conclusion is powerful: "When you do, you are using power; when you try, you are using force." Michelle: That’s a great way to put it. "Trying" is just applying brute force without a real commitment to the outcome. "Doing" is about the decision, the intention. It’s a total mindset shift. It’s not about the struggle; it’s about the resolution. Mark: And once you see that, you start noticing it everywhere. You see people who are "trying" to write a book versus people who are writing one. People "trying" to get in shape versus people who are at the gym. The language reveals the commitment.

Michelle: Okay, so we need to stop 'trying' and start 'doing.' But how? It's easy to say, but when you're genuinely stuck, it feels impossible. How does Roth's 'design thinking' approach actually help you get unstuck? Mark: This is where the book gets really practical. Roth argues that we often get stuck because we're trying to solve the wrong problem. This is a core tenet of design thinking. He tells this simple but perfect story about a student in his class named Krishna. The assignment was to fix something that bothered them in their life. Krishna's problem? His bed was broken, and he wasn't getting a good night's sleep. Michelle: Seems straightforward. Fix the bed. Mark: That's what he thought. For three weeks, he came to class with excuses. First, he couldn't find the right wire for the frame. The next week, he couldn't find the right tools. Then it was some missing springs. He was completely stuck on "how can I fix the bed?" Michelle: I've definitely been there. The endless search for the perfect tool or part for a project I don't really want to do. Mark: Exactly. Finally, Roth gives him an ultimatum: solve it by next week or fail. The next week, Krishna comes in with a huge smile. Roth asks him to report his solution, and Krishna just says, "I bought a new bed." Michelle: That's brilliant. He was stuck on the 'how'—how to fix it—when the real problem was the 'what'—what he needed was a good night's sleep. Buying a new bed was a perfect solution to the real problem. He just walked around the obstacle he'd created for himself. Mark: He reframed the question. And this idea of reframing can have world-changing consequences. There's an even more powerful story about a designer at GE Healthcare named Doug Dietz. He had designed a new MRI machine and was incredibly proud of it. He went to a clinic to see it in action. Michelle: A proud papa visiting his creation. Mark: Yes, until he saw a little girl, maybe seven years old, walking toward the machine with her parents. She was terrified. The room was scary, the machine was huge and loud, and she just broke down sobbing. Doug had to watch as she was sedated for the procedure. He was devastated when he learned that nearly 85% of children had to be sedated for MRI scans. He felt like his great design was a failure. Michelle: Wow, that's heartbreaking. To realize your creation is traumatizing children. Mark: It was a wake-up call. He realized he'd designed the machine for doctors and engineers, but he'd never once thought about the patient experience, especially for a child. So, using design thinking, he reframed the problem. The problem wasn't "how do we make kids hold still?" The problem was "how do we make this not scary?" Michelle: A totally different question. Mark: And it led to a totally different solution. He worked with a children's museum and created the "Adventure Series." He didn't change the MRI machine at all. He just decorated the rooms and the machine itself to look like an adventure. One was a pirate ship, where the kids had to hold still to hide from the pirates. Another was a spaceship. He even created coloring books to explain the "adventure" the night before. Michelle: That's incredible. He didn't change the technology at all, just the experience around it. He reframed the problem. What happened to the sedation rates? Mark: They dropped to almost nothing. Kids weren't scared anymore. Some even asked their parents when they could come back to the pirate ship. He solved the problem by changing the story. Michelle: This all sounds incredibly powerful. But you know, the book gets mixed reviews. Some people say it's a bit light or that these ideas aren't entirely new. What makes Roth's take on this so special? Mark: That's a fair point. Many of these concepts exist in psychology. You can find ideas about reframing or self-image in other places. But Roth's genius, coming from the d.school, is packaging them into a single, actionable process. It's not just a collection of inspiring ideas; it's a designer's toolkit for your life. He gives you a method, like reframing and prototyping, to systematically apply these mindset shifts. He’s teaching you to be the designer of your own life, not just a resident in it.

Mark: So you have these two powerful forces working together. First, the radical honesty to admit your reasons are excuses and to commit to 'doing.' And second, the creative toolkit of a designer to reframe your problems and prototype new solutions, even for your own identity. Michelle: It’s a one-two punch. First, you clear away the mental clutter of excuses. Then, you use a creative, structured method to build something new in that cleared space. So if there's one thing a listener should 'do' after hearing this, what is it? Mark: I think it comes down to what Roth calls "being the cause in the matter." It's a philosophical shift. It means you stop being a passive protagonist in your own life story, waiting for things to happen to you, and you decide to be the one who makes things happen. Michelle: That sounds big and abstract. Is there a small, concrete example of that? Mark: There is. Roth tells a story about being on a long train ride in China. The windows were filthy, and he couldn't see the beautiful scenery. He says he had two options: complain about it, or sulk. But he chose a third. At the next stop, he got off the train, found a bucket of water, and washed the windows himself. Michelle: Wow. He didn't wait for someone else to fix his experience. He just fixed it. Mark: He decided to be the cause in the matter of his own trip. And that's the essence of the achievement habit. It’s not about grand gestures. It’s about taking ownership of your experience, moment by moment. Michelle: So the challenge for us, for everyone listening, is to find one small thing you've been 'trying' to do, or have a 'reason' for not doing, and just... do it. Even if it's imperfect. Just to feel that shift in agency. Mark: Exactly. And maybe ask yourself that question we talked about: what's the real problem you're trying to solve? Is it fixing the broken bed, or is it getting a good night's sleep? Michelle: A question that could probably save us all a lot of time and frustration. Mark: This is Aibrary, signing off.