Daniel Pink

Pink cites negotiation research showing that people who reflect on regrets perform better in subsequent negotiations.

“The researchers say, tell me what you regret doing or not doing in that negotiation. So they invite the bad emotion. Then they go to a next negotiation. They do better”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: What Makes a Good Life? This Study on 26,000 Regrets Will Guide You for the Rest of Your Life (May 25, 2026) · Listen from 17:16

Pink distinguishes regret from disappointment by saying regret requires personal agency.

“And so regret has to have agency. It's something that you did. You can't regret something someone else did”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: What Makes a Good Life? This Study on 26,000 Regrets Will Guide You for the Rest of Your Life (May 25, 2026) · Listen from 13:11

Pink argues that nearly everyone has regrets, with exceptions being young children, some people with neurodegenerative disorders, and sociopaths.

“The only people who don't have regrets are little kids because their brains haven't developed the cognitive capacity to do it”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: What Makes a Good Life? This Study on 26,000 Regrets Will Guide You for the Rest of Your Life (May 25, 2026) · Listen from 6:44

Pink asserts that harsh self-criticism does not improve performance while self-compassion does.

“horrifying, lacerating self-criticism doesn't improve your performance. What does improve your performance is self-compassion”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: What Makes a Good Life? This Study on 26,000 Regrets Will Guide You for the Rest of Your Life (May 25, 2026) · Listen from 54:43

Pink recommends treating oneself with kindness and viewing a mistake as a moment rather than one's whole life.

“Treat yourself with kindness rather than contempt. Treat yourself like you would a friend and recognize it's a moment in your life rather than the full measure of your life”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: What Makes a Good Life? This Study on 26,000 Regrets Will Guide You for the Rest of Your Life (May 25, 2026) · Listen from 24:15

Pink cites Daniel Kahneman's work to argue that quitting at the right time typically feels premature.

“Quitting at the right time always feels like quitting too early. That's just the way that it is”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: What Makes a Good Life? This Study on 26,000 Regrets Will Guide You for the Rest of Your Life (May 25, 2026) · Listen from 41:33

Pink reports that across domains people overwhelmingly regret not taking chances.

“Overwhelmingly, when people don't take the shot, they regret it. Overwhelmingly, and it doesn't matter the domain of life”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: What Makes a Good Life? This Study on 26,000 Regrets Will Guide You for the Rest of Your Life (May 25, 2026) · Listen from 38:38

Pink argues that fear of awkwardness is an overblown barrier to reaching out to people.

“This is actually a big lesson for me personally about feelings of awkwardness as a barrier to doing things. Awkwardness is the most papery of paper tigers”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: What Makes a Good Life? This Study on 26,000 Regrets Will Guide You for the Rest of Your Life (May 25, 2026) · Listen from 31:10

Pink states that connection regrets were the most common category found worldwide and that such relationships usually dissolve without drama.

“The most common regret was a regret of connection. All right. And so typically the story was this”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: What Makes a Good Life? This Study on 26,000 Regrets Will Guide You for the Rest of Your Life (May 25, 2026) · Listen from 25:16

Pink reports that nearly a third of respondents left email addresses for follow-up, far exceeding his expected 5%.

“We had nearly a third of people leave their email address and say, yeah, it's like, not only do I want to tell you a complete stranger”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: What Makes a Good Life? This Study on 26,000 Regrets Will Guide You for the Rest of Your Life (May 25, 2026) · Listen from 15:52

Pink says the most surprising finding of the survey was how universal regrets are across places and genders.

“And so it's the universality of it that surprised me the most”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: What Makes a Good Life? This Study on 26,000 Regrets Will Guide You for the Rest of Your Life (May 25, 2026) · Listen from 15:13

Pink cites James Pennebaker's research that writing about a regret for 15 minutes a day over three days improves how people feel about it.

“If you write about a big regret you have for 15 minutes a day for three days, you feel better about it”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: What Makes a Good Life? This Study on 26,000 Regrets Will Guide You for the Rest of Your Life (May 25, 2026) · Listen from 55:45

Pink says moral regrets were the smallest category but deeply held, and that they suggest most people want to be good.

“And in this category, it was the smallest category, but very, very, very deeply held”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: What Makes a Good Life? This Study on 26,000 Regrets Will Guide You for the Rest of Your Life (May 25, 2026) · Listen from 51:47

Pink explains that action regrets can be softened by downward counterfactuals, illustrated by bronze medalists appearing happier than silver medalists, whereas inaction regrets cannot.

“not the silver medalists, right? Because the silver medalists were doing an upward counterfactual”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: What Makes a Good Life? This Study on 26,000 Regrets Will Guide You for the Rest of Your Life (May 25, 2026) · Listen from 49:23

Pink says people overestimate how much others think about them, a phenomenon known as the spotlight effect.

“And it's like what's in social psychology is called the spotlight effect. We think that we're constantly in the spotlight. Everybody's watching us. And they're not”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: What Makes a Good Life? This Study on 26,000 Regrets Will Guide You for the Rest of Your Life (May 25, 2026) · Listen from 46:54

Pink explains that foundation regrets stem from small early decisions that accumulate into serious consequences.

“It's small decisions that you make early in life that accumulate to terrible consequences later on. So I spent too much and saved too little and now I'm broke”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: What Makes a Good Life? This Study on 26,000 Regrets Will Guide You for the Rest of Your Life (May 25, 2026) · Listen from 35:27