Hi Reader,

I have been dying to tell you this all week:

Best-selling author Brad Stulberg is coming to Starling!!

I first became a fan a few years back, only a few pages into his book The Practice of Groundedness. You’ve probably heard me quote it. If you haven’t, read on below because I quote it today. Somehow, his most recent book Master of Change is as good (if not better) and sooooo relevant to what we’re trying to do with Starling.

So I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to host a fireside chat with Brad on Thursday, August 1st at 12:00 PM ET exclusively for Starling members. If you’ve been on the fence about joining us, it’s time to get on down and join us.

Now—enjoy this week’s edition of The Murmuration!

Each week, we share an applied tip or did-you-know to help you build knowledge and hone essential skills that help you kick butt at work and in life.

Mastering Metacognition

Imagine my nerdy joy last week at Harvard’s Leadership & Happiness Symposium when Arthur Brooks flashed a slide titled “Metacognition.” According to Brooks, our top task as leaders is to lead ourselves and manage our emotions, with metacognition being key. To make others happier, we must first be happier ourselves. As he put it, “Nobody wants to work for a miserable SOB.” (I’ve worked for a few, and that rings true.)

What is Metacognition?

Metacognition, or “thinking about thinking,” is often used in learning and education to teach how to learn effectively. Research shows that examining our thinking and learning processes boosts learning success—turns out it can also enhance leadership.

Metacognition involves awareness (noticing what's going on in our heads), evaluation (judging it), and regulation (making changes to achieve desired outcomes). It’s crucial for improving decision-making, problem-solving, resilience, and equitable leadership.

The Core Four

“What’s going on in our heads” might sound like a cute phrase for “thoughts,” but I’m using it to encompass several elements:

• Deliberate Thoughts: Controlled, intentional processes like critical and creative thinking.
• Emotions: Influenced by and influencing thoughts, they’re also “goings-on” in our heads.
• Cognitive Biases: Automatic processes that help with pattern recognition and filtering but sometimes lead us astray.
• Unconscious Bias: Thoughts and patterns developed over time (often without our awareness) that can be harmful.

These "Core Four" should be the focus of our awareness, evaluation, and regulation.

Practicing Awareness

Metacognitive awareness sounds easy and yet it can be tricky. With so much going on, we often don't take the time to be aware. Plus, much of what our brains do is automatic and subconscious, making it hard to spot specific thoughts or biases. We need to intentionally interrupt and explore these processes with deliberate practices, including:

• ​Post-mortems: Debrief major decisions, projects, and events. Include this as standard protocol. For larger projects, consider multiple reflection points instead of just one at the end.
• Reflection rhythms: Establish a regular schedule for reflection, separate from project debriefs. This could be 15 minutes daily or 30 minutes weekly. Meeting with a therapist, coach, or accountability buddy bi-weekly can also strengthen metacognitive skills.
• Mindfulness and meditation: Research shows benefits from as little as 20 minutes a day for 45-60 days. Apps like Headspace, Calm, or Healthy Minds can help you get started.
• Anchors and cues: Use specific objects or events as reminders to check in with yourself. It could be when the clock hits the hour, a post-it on your screen, or whenever you get up from your desk.
• Teaching, explaining, thinking aloud: Teaching or explaining something surfaces your thoughts, providing an opportunity to notice and examine them.
• Seek other perspectives: Expose hidden thoughts and biases by seeking alternate perspectives. Share your reflections with others and make it a habit to engage with people from different backgrounds and viewpoints.
• Read and research: Gain new perspectives on your thoughts and opinions by reading and researching, both fiction and non-fiction. Read outside your discipline and from diverse authors.

Practicing Evaluation

Evaluation involves examining the outcome or impact of what happened in your head. Ask yourself questions! When you made that decision, how did it turn out? When you had that emotional reaction, what happened? That bias you noticed—how did it form, and what did it lead to? Take time to unpack your observations, and don’t forget to avoid egocentric bias. When relevant, seek external feedback to better understand the impact.

Practicing Regulation

Regulation involves choosing to adjust what’s going on in your head—or how you react to it—to drive positive change.

To improve your deliberate thought processes and interrupt biases, educate yourself on critical thinking, decision-making frameworks, problem-solving techniques, logical fallacies, cognitive biases, and more. You’ve already made a great start by signing up for this newsletter! Awareness of best practices and strategies in deliberate thought helps you spot issues and make changes. Knowing about biases and their manifestations makes it easier to identify them in action.

Another effective strategy is to learn from others. Observing how someone else thinks can be invaluable. Ask a leader, mentor, or role model to walk you through their thought processes on a project or problem. This "thinking ride-along" (as I like to call it) helps you see their steps and how they connect. Similarly, share your thought processes with a friend or colleague who can help spot flaws you might have missed and offer helpful suggestions.

To regulate emotions, specifically, try the following:

• Breathe deeply. It calms you mentally and physiologically. Check the newsletter from two weeks ago for more details!
• Tune into your senses: Notice what you see, smell, taste, or feel. Take a sip of water, eat a sour candy, or feel your feet on the floor. Naming and describing these sensations can ground you and bring you back to the present.
• Count or recite: Slowly count to ten or repeat a favorite quote. I like Brad Stulberg's: “This is what's happening right now, I'm doing the best I can.” These brief pauses help you regain control and interrupt reactive responses.
• Shake it off: Literally. If you can, jump up and down, wiggle, dance, or just shake it off. Physical motion reduces emotional intensity and releases tension.
• Articulate it: Name what you’re experiencing out loud. If you're with others, say something like, “I’m having an emotional reaction to what you just said and need a moment to process.” This creates space to react thoughtfully and rationally.
• Reach out: Call a trusted friend or family member. Listening and empathy can help. Humans can co-regulate emotional states, so talking to someone calm can help you calm down, too. Remember this when dealing with someone else’s emotional reaction—breathe deeply and act calm; it may help them do the same.

A Final Thought

Metacognition is a powerful tool for leaders. By being aware of our thoughts, evaluating their impact, and regulating our responses, we can improve decision-making, problem-solving, and emotional resilience. Incorporate practices like post-mortems, regular reflection, mindfulness, and seeking other perspectives to enhance your metacognitive skills.

Remember, leading yourself effectively is the first step to leading others well. Keep practicing, stay curious, and lead with intention.

Each week, we touch on an aspect of happiness and health at work, how to build it, and how to drive positive change in the workplace.

Happiness Pays Off

Starling is built on the idea that investing in people leads to greater profits. Jeff and I believe strongly in this notion and if you are reading this newsletter, you probably do, too. But, on occasion, you may need to convince other people. If that’s the case, we’ve got you!

Point them to HAPI.

At the Leadership & Happiness Symposium last week, I attended a session that included a presentation by David Van Adelsberg of Irrational Capital—a company using the “Human Capital Factor” to apply “workplace behavioral science, financial acumen and deep data science to capture the powerful connection between human capital and stock performance.” Basically, Van Adelsberg and team have come up with a new tool for evaluating whether an investment is likely to be profitable—a tool grounded in the happiness of a company’s employees.

The Human Capital Factor combines behavioral motivational factors like psychological safety, trust, autonomy, motivation, purpose, and fairness—as reported by employees—into seven dimensions, including engagement, emotional connection, and management. Irrational Capital looks at these dimensions, in addition to data about things like compensation and benefits, to select companies for an Exchange-Traded Fund (basically a basket of different investments that you can buy and sell on the stock market) that trades under the symbol “HAPI.”

And, hey, guess what?

​HAPI outperforms the S&P 500.

In the image below, the green line represents HAPI, and the blue represents the S&P 500.

Take that in.

As a collective, the approximately 150 companies included in the HAPI fund because of the happiness of their employees yields higher returns than a collection of the 500 biggest and most important companies in the United States.

So the next time someone suggests it’s people or profits, tell them it’s both. Investing in the happiness of your employees quite literally leads to higher profits.

Each week, we collect a few great reads from a variety of disciplines to help you forge new connections and gain fresh perspectives.

• ​The Most Strategic Leaders Excel in 4 Disciplines (HBR). A study of 77 C-suite executives over four years found that strategically fit leaders excel in four disciplines: Strategic fitness, Leadership fitness, Organizational fitness, and Communication fitness.
• ​IDEO’s Secret to Designing the Future? (IDEO). On the many benefits and functions of prototyping.
• ​Don’t start with trust. Start with trustworthiness (Fast Company). what leaders should focus on instead of manipulation and empty promises if they want to genuinely build a sense of safety and collaboration.
• ​Advanced Meditation Alters Consciousness and Our Basic Sense of Self (Scientific American). How meditation holds significant and untapped opportunities to diminish suffering and help people flourish, in addition to entirely new ways of understanding our basic humanity.
• ​Is laughter really the best medicine? A journalist puts the proverb to the test. (Big Think). One journalist’s quest to see if laughter truly can counter the physical and mental tolls of grief.

Each week, we highlight some of the great things going on across the Starling community. Members can click on any of the links below to explore further.

• On Tuesday, Christine, Jen, and Rachel discussed formal and informal ways to celebrate successes on our teams.
• On Wednesday, Kailah, Jennifer, and Rachel discussed the etiquette for exploring internal roles on a different team.
• On Wednesday, Starling announced an upcoming members-only Fireside Chat with author Brad Stulberg! We're really looking forward to this conversation.

Given that you made it this far, we felt you ought to be rewarded with one of Jeff’s Famous Dad Jokes:

See you in two weeks!

Rachel & The Starling Team