Before deciding to leave Google in 2022, he learned several important lessons, including from co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, he told CNBC Make It.
The philosophies and daily routines he adopted during that time helped him and others “build a culture of innovation” at the company, Pferd says. He describes them in more depth in his recent book, What’s Next Is Now: How to Live Future Ready.
But his top three lessons aren’t just useful for tech workers: They can help anyone “live a more meaningful life,” he says.
Too often, Pferdt says, people choose a more negative perspective, “finding reasons why something doesn’t work.”
“We spend most of our time saying ‘No, but,’ right?” he says. “If you flip that and have a little bit more of a ‘Yes, and’ mentality — and it’s inspired by improvisational theater, obviously — it really changes the dynamic of your conversations [and] of the teams you work on.”
In his book, Pferdt writes about how this “Yes, and” philosophy, which depends on curiosity and a willingness to constantly experiment, was key to the development of technological advances at Google, such as the company’s Street View technology.
“Larry Page wondered if it was possible to make a photographic map of the entire planet (“yes, and …”) [so] he mounted the camera on his car to capture video as he drove around the streets of San Francisco,” Pferd wrote in his book, noting that Page’s initial idea and the Google-funded work of Stanford researchers soon led to the involvement of others and adding new features such as spatial recognition and data collection.
Meditation and mindfulness are popular methods for reducing daily stress and anxiety: Research shows that these practices can improve your sleep and even increase productivity. Google has long encouraged workers to meditate and even offers them mindfulness courses.
Meditating every day helps keep him open to new ideas and deflects negativity, Pferd says.
“Spend time on yourself every once in a while,” he says. “It’s really critical because otherwise you’re just going by your autopilot and your reactions instead of your answers. Our reactions are usually negative, they are closed off, they are not empathetic, they are full of hate [and] blaming. Moving away from them is only possible if you practice conscious practices.”
Experts believe that negative reactions to new ideas are usually emotional and due to anxiety, while meditation and mindfulness techniques can help you slow down, think logically, and react more thoughtfully.
Google leaders promote the idea of vividly portraying an ideal, successful version of yourself and then identifying realistic steps and choices you need to make to get there.
“Really try to imagine how you want to be in the future,” Pferd says. “It’s very powerful because it really helps you figure out where you actually want to go and it influences your choices right now.”
Pferd, who also spent 10 years as an adjunct professor of design thinking at Stanford University, has spent much of his career teaching others better ways to think about and shape what happens to you: He recommends refining traits such as “radical optimism” and “expansive empathy.”
It may sound like wishful thinking, but science backs up his approach. Research shows that visualizing future success can increase your optimism, which breeds self-esteem and is linked to success, psychologist Michele Borba told CNBC Make It last year.
Experts note that visualizing success can help you start planning how to achieve your goals, which can influence the decisions you make in pursuit of your goals. “You don’t have to fully understand it,” Rainer Strack, senior partner emeritus at Boston Consulting Group, told CNBC Make It in January. “But you must know, a little, the direction.”
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