Dolly Chugh on Striving to Be Goodish

Dolly Chugh (she/her, hear my name) is an award-winning professor at the New York University Stern School of Business where she teaches MBA courses in leadership and management. Her research focuses on “bounded ethicality,” which she describes as the “psychology of good people.” She is the author of The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias (HarperCollins, 2018), A More Just Future (Simon & Schuster, 2022), and the popular Dear Good People newsletter. Dolly’s TED Talk was named one of the 25 Most Popular TED Talks of 2018 and currently has almost 5 million views.

 

Dolly had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“I love writing. It’s a space that’s really rejuvenating and clarifying for me” (6:35).

“I think through writing” (6:45).

“I’m a big fan of dumping thoughts out as unformed as possible” (7:40).

“I teach on the page” (8:55).

“I am learning alongside my students” (9:10).

“Thinking is dynamic” (10:40).

“A lot of us are looking for a way to engage that feels ongoing with the conversation” (14:30).

“We would never have seen any change for the better if we were waiting for [everyone to get engaged]” (18:00).

“The mantra I heard growing up was to not worry about the outcome or reward” (26:15).

“Strategically, I’m interested in how to deal with people who degrade the humanity of others” (35:25).

“I’m very deadline driven” (37:15).

“I put forcing mechanisms on myself” (38:00).

“People who had very rigid goals and people who had no goals went to the gym less than people who had a flex goal where there was a range in performance” (41:10).

“Any identity I individually care about I’m going to try to defend. That’s human nature” (42:10).

“One of the identities that many of us care about is being a good person” (42:25).

“We don’t all have the same definition of what a good person is” (42:30).

“We care about validating our identity” (43:35).

“That’s what I call being goodish. Essentially having a growth mindset as opposed to a fixed mindset” (44:45).

“From a learning standpoint, the challenge mindset is a good place to be (45:05).

“Sports offer such a good metaphor for life” (48:40).

“Our brains are not perfect machines. They’ve evolved to do a lot on autopilot and take shortcuts” (53:30).

“There’s a lot more things that benefit all of us than we realize” (57:10).

“Shame refers to a bad feeling that encompasses all of who I am… Guilt refers to a bad feeling about something that I did or didn’t do. It’s not about all of me, it’s about that thing” (1:03:15).

“Shame tends to lead to us being less active, less proactive, less owning of the issue, less likely to apologize, whereas guilt tends to lead to us to try to remedy the thing, be more active, be more likely to apologize” (1:03:45).

“Guilt is not a bad thing. It feels bad. It feels awful. But guilt helps us in a lot of ways” (1:04:15).

“Lean into the guilt and try to lean away from the shame” (1:05:00).

“You can only sprint for so long” (1:05:35).

“Embrace the joy. That’s going to be your superpower” (1:07:15).

“I’m excited about the power of the arts to help us all move in directions that are uncomfortable” (1:09:00).

 

Additionally, you can check out Dolly’s website here, and follow her on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I’d also encourage you to purchase Dolly’s books, The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias, and A More Just Future anywhere books are sold. You can also watch Dolly’s TED Talk here.

Thank you so much to Dolly for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.