The Marshmallow Test: How to Master Delayed Gratification for Career Success

Squiggly Careers

AmazingIf

Careers, Management, Business

4.9 • 838 Ratings

🗓️ 11 November 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

🦞 Join our Learn Like a Lobster Sprint: https://bit.ly/4oZzJ3F This week on the Squiggly Careers podcast, Helen and Sarah borrow brilliance from a sweet source — the marshmallow experiment — to explore how the science of delayed gratification applies to our work and career choices. Inspired by the famous psychology study, they unpack what it means to make one marshmallow versus two marshmallow decisions — the everyday trade-offs between instant satisfaction and long-term success. From replying to emails and saying yes to everything, to applying for jobs and building relationships, Helen and Sarah share real-life examples of how to recognise and reframe your choices for greater impact. You’ll learn how to spot your own marshmallow moments, connect them to what motivates you most, and choose progress over quick wins (at least some of the time!). Episode 510 🦞 Pre-order Learn Like A Lobster: PRH US - https://bit.ly/3KxTeBn Amazon UK - https://amzn.to/3KcRZaR ⏱️ Timestamps 00:00 Introduction 03:53 The Marshmallow Experiment explained 05:43 Why delayed gratification matters for squiggly careers 06:43 The shiny object trap — instant wins vs. long-term goals 08:13 One vs. Two Marshmallow choices at work 10:53 Email decisions — control vs. quality 16:23 Saying yes vs. saying no — and why “no” can lead to more impact 24:03 Career choices — applying vs. creating opportunities 29:03 Building relationships and the “giant marshmallow” payoff 30:53 How to spot your marshmallow moments 🎯 What You’ll Learn - How to apply the concept of delayed gratification to your career - Why awareness of short-term vs. long-term trade-offs boosts progress - How to make intentional choices that lead to more impact - Ways to balance quick wins with meaningful goals 📚 Resources Mentioned The Marshmallow Test by Walter Mischel https://www.amazon.co.uk/Marshmallow-Test-Understanding-Self-control-Master/dp/0552168866 Delayed Gratification article by James Clear https://jamesclear.com/delayed-gratification For questions about Squiggly Careers or to share feedback, please email helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com More ways to learn about Squiggly Careers: 📩 Download our free career tools: https://www.amazingif.com/toolkit/ 🏃‍♀️ Join the Skills x AI Sprint: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNQl9gsac8BXnWe2qoGuHkLKwsygjP_Ma&si=l7kODG3JpopH0Irz 📮 Get Squiggly Careers in Action in your inbox: https://bit.ly/SquigglyCareersInAction 📚 Read our books: The Squiggly Career and You Coach You: https://www.amazingif.com/books/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Helen from the Squiggly Careers podcast. And before you listen to today's episode, I just
0:05.0	want to let you know about some news that Sarah and I are very excited about. And that is that our new book,
0:09.8	Learn Like a Lobster, is ready to pre-order now. We really care about everybody learning and growing
0:16.2	at work, but we know it is not easy to do. And so we're borrowing some brilliance from lobsters to help you to do it.
0:22.9	The book takes three inspiring and surprising abilities of lobsters in terms of how they grow
0:29.0	and applies it to how we can learn at work. So if you want some inspiration and you need some
0:34.0	practical insights to support your learning, growth and development. This is the book for you.
0:38.9	And if you pre-order now and send your pre-order to hello at learn like a lobster.com,
0:43.8	you can join the lobster library where we have a community of lobster learners ready for you to learn with,
0:50.1	some live sessions, and this will all happen before the book arrives.
0:54.3	So pre-order the book now, send it to hello at learn like a lobster.com
0:58.3	and get started with your learning straight away.
1:01.2	Now let's get on to today's episode.
1:03.5	They ran an experiment with kids where they could either eat one marshmallow now
1:08.0	or they could wait 15 minutes and then they could get two and what they proved
1:13.0	is like the kids that could delay gratification went on to do better in life they could hold out
1:18.2	for the better outcome and then actually when you do then start to put this into kind of an everyday life
1:22.8	context you do realize it sort of stacks up in lots of different ways You probably do your best work when delayed gratification is part of the process.
1:33.7	I think ladder-like careers sometimes have a bit more instant gratification things in there.
1:39.7	You know, like get promoted, get happy.
1:41.7	You know, this idea that like if I do that, then this is the outcome.
1:44.7	I think our days and weeks are full of one marshmallow decisions that we often do without thinking because of habits that we've got into.
	...

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