Daniel Pink (The Power of Regret)

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert.

[1] Saddest intro ever.

[2] I know, but it's an Easter egg for the fact check.

[3] That's right.

[4] It's a ding, ding, ding, ding.

[5] Daniel Pink today.

[6] Daniel Pink is an author of several provocative bestselling books about business, work, creativity, and behavior.

[7] He has an incredible book that we talk about at length.

[8] I love this topic.

[9] It's called The Power of Regret, How Looking Backward, moves us forward.

[10] Okay, here's my dyslexia, or just maybe not, maybe I'm blank.

[11] I would have written how looking backwards moves us forward.

[12] That's fine.

[13] Is it?

[14] Mm -hmm.

[15] But he must have it right because that's the title of a book.

[16] I'm sure he has it right, but like if you say, that's ass backwards.

[17] He must be right.

[18] Daniel Pink, in addition to talking to my regard, which is a great topic.

[19] Yes.

[20] This motherfucker's hilarious.

[21] He really was really, he was a hoot.

[22] He was a hoot.

[23] Not only does he look like Bob Saggett, He is incredibly funny.

[24] We had a blast with him.

[25] We did.

[26] You're going to love him as well.

[27] Daniel Pink, enjoy the Easter egg.

[28] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and add free right now.

[29] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[30] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[31] He's an armchair expert.

[32] Can you hear me?

[33] Yeah, I can hear you.

[34] It's like you're sitting right across from me. But then I don't have to scream, which I'll have a tendency to do.

[35] I'm from a very noisy family.

[36] I'm a very loud talker in remission.

[37] Okay.

[38] Per my wife's insistence.

[39] And you're working on that?

[40] It's not easy.

[41] You've met my family.

[42] Yeah.

[43] Yeah.

[44] They're loud.

[45] And I'm a middle child.

[46] So if I didn't scream.

[47] How many kids?

[48] Three.

[49] But the age gaps were five and six and a half.

[50] So you had a baby and a teenager.

[51] So getting seen was a challenge.

[52] Do you find yourself being a mediator because of that?

[53] Yeah.

[54] Can I stab that you're firstborn?

[55] Why?

[56] Because I'm like uptight and achievement oriented?

[57] No, no, no, no. Look, those are your adjectives.

[58] I just was guessing you were firstborn, are you?

[59] I am.

[60] Okay, wonderful.

[61] Ditto.

[62] Yeah, firstborn.

[63] Oh, are you firstborn?

[64] Yeah.

[65] How many behind you?

[66] One.

[67] How many follow you?

[68] I've got a younger brother and a younger sister.

[69] Although my brother is about as close biologically as a sibling can be without being a twin.

[70] Oh.

[71] What's the gap?

[72] It's like 13 months.

[73] Okay.

[74] We got some daughters that are 20 months.

[75] We could have done better.

[76] So were you guys really close?

[77] It's interesting.

[78] We were mistaken for twins because he's a little bit bigger than I am and he's only a year younger than I. And then when we were kids, we fought like hell constantly all the time, just beating on each other.

[79] But now we're pretty good friends.

[80] That's nice.

[81] And did your father or mother remind you frequently that he's going to be bigger than you because I ended up bigger than my brother and they warned him his whole life and then ultimately it happened which was a great day for me. No, they didn't warn me about that.

[82] My parents used other methods to demotivate me. Oh, they did?

[83] Okay.

[84] They took things away and they had you sit by yourself places?

[85] Yeah, it's a whole array of psychological ops teeth techniques used in the Pink family in Ohio in 1970s.

[86] What part of Ohio?

[87] I am from Columbus, Ohio.

[88] Hot diggedy.

[89] I used to go there all the time.

[90] I'm from Detroit.

[91] Right.

[92] I know that.

[93] And I worked for General Motors, and we used to deliver cars to journalists, automotive journalists, and there's a ton of automotive journalists in Columbus, Ohio.

[94] I actually did not know that.

[95] Yeah, I want to say like Auto Week or a couple of these big hubs were centered there.

[96] So yeah, lots of trips there.

[97] This is a good, wholesome stock, right, us Midwesterners?

[98] I find that being from the Midwest gives me an undeserved advantage in life for two reasons.

[99] Tell me. One, I don't have an accent.

[100] I have basically, because Columbus, Ohio is basically the American newscaster accent.

[101] Uh -huh.

[102] Like standard American.

[103] There's no inflection.

[104] If I had grown up, literally like 50 miles south, it would start to have a little twang, a little Appalachia.

[105] Like if I had grown up and there's a city in Ohio called Newark, N -E -W -A -R -K.

[106] Now, fun fact, there's also a city with that name in the state of Delaware, but it's pronounced Newark.

[107] Oh, and then we're doing.

[108] In New Jersey, yeah.

[109] Welcome to city linguistics the city linguistics podcast but in Delaware it's pronounced Newark in New Jersey is pronounced Newark but in Ohio where I'm from we're on the ridge of Appalachia Newark?

[110] NERC.

[111] NERCHA.

[112] NERCHA.

[113] Where are you from?

[114] I'm from NERCHAHAHA.

[115] Fantastic!

[116] But again we're talking like 50 miles I could have easily been saying NERC a high my whole life.

[117] Yeah and I was probably as the crow would fly from Columbus up in Detroit maybe only 120 miles, nautical miles, and we have a Michigan accent.

[118] It's pretty...

[119] Oh, yeah, yeah, there is.

[120] There is that up there, yeah.

[121] The other good news about maybe this is true for you, Dax.

[122] Where did you grow up?

[123] Georgia.

[124] Georgia, oh, okay.

[125] No accent, though.

[126] Yeah, I also escaped an accent somehow.

[127] How'd you do that?

[128] We're in Georgia.

[129] Suburbs, Delaware.

[130] Okay, so suburbs of Atlanta is...

[131] It's more city -e.

[132] Yeah.

[133] But it's this exact same thing.

[134] You go seven miles down the street.

[135] and we're hitting some major accents, yeah.

[136] Right, right.

[137] I was going to ask in your town, did it line up at all socioeconomically?

[138] Because, A, we both are products of vast southern migration north.

[139] My whole family's from Kentucky.

[140] So when I grew up on the dirt roads, kids had straight southern accents.

[141] And then as we ascended that ladder, socioeconomically, people had different accents.

[142] So did it break down that way in Columbus at all?

[143] Yeah, somewhat by accent.

[144] and also just, Columbus is an interesting place because Columbus itself is a very white college city.

[145] My father, who's passed away 10 years ago, he was connected to Ohio State.

[146] He was a chemist, you know?

[147] So he had like a white college job, and you have the state government there, and you have the Ohio State University there, and you have a lot of research institutions there.

[148] But literally, no joke.

[149] Like, you go literally five miles from where I grew up, and they're cornfields.

[150] Exactly.

[151] Yeah.

[152] So it's an interesting place to grow up.

[153] But for me, I think, being from the Midwest and having spent the bulk of my adult life on the East Coast, I'm just polite.

[154] And other people are not polite.

[155] But I would argue that you're actually the perfect amount of politeness because if you're from Minnesota and you go to New York, it's going to be rough for you, okay?

[156] There's going to be an adjustment period.

[157] Now, you have just enough assertiveness and just enough of a line in the sand that you will not get taken advantage of.

[158] I appreciate that.

[159] But I do say please and thank you a lot.

[160] And I notice that a lot of people on the East Coast of the United States do not always do that.

[161] That's right, that's right.

[162] And it's not even a conscious thing.

[163] It's just like what you do.

[164] I mean, I also brush my teeth and bathe regularly, you know, because it's like hygienic and how you lead your life.

[165] Yes.

[166] Is that somewhat lackluster on the East Coast that I've missed?

[167] I don't know if I've noticed that.

[168] Maybe I'm running in the wrong circles.

[169] Anywho, what college did you go to?

[170] I went to Northwestern University.

[171] Oh, in Chicago.

[172] Yeah.

[173] Okay, and that's a lovely place to matriculate, as everyone we talk to that's gone there will say.

[174] It's a great place.

[175] Now, before we get into your book, I watched your TED talk about...

[176] Oh, God, all right.

[177] Okay.

[178] Let me see.

[179] I want to get the exact title right.

[180] The puzzle of motivation.

[181] Should be also said that you come to us via Adam Grant.

[182] Yeah, I guess I do.

[183] One of our very favorites.

[184] Michiganer.

[185] Another Detroiter.

[186] Uh -huh.

[187] And he taught us this great expression, which is, do you want to dance?

[188] He said it's a really great way to figure out if the folks you're talking to are in the...

[189] mood to debate or that's not for them okay so i will ask you about the puzzle of motivation would you like to dance yes okay great you're gonna you should walk into this with knowing that you're gonna outclass me on so many things so it shouldn't be one that you need to be prepared for if i understand the concept correctly it takes this very old experiment that has candles matches a wall and a box so could you just set up what that experiment is sounds like a riddle it is it is kind of a It is kind of a riddle.

[190] It's known as the Dunker, D -U -N -C -K -E -R candle experiment.

[191] Here's what you do.

[192] You give people a candle.

[193] Uh -huh.

[194] You give people a box of tax.

[195] And then you say your job is to affix a candle to the wall so that it doesn't fall off.

[196] Okay.

[197] Right.

[198] And there's something about the dripping or no?

[199] I can't remember.

[200] Fuck that.

[201] That's not relevant right now.

[202] It depends.

[203] So what happens is that what people don't do is they don't take the tax out of the box.

[204] All right.

[205] And the problem here, the issue here is, what's called functional fixedness, that when we look at certain problems, we only look at it in a single way.

[206] And what you need to do in many kinds of problems is break out of it.

[207] So the solution to the problem is not...

[208] Well, give her the failed attempts, because I think we would all think, though.

[209] So what you might want to do is you might want to light the candle and then melt some wax and try to fix it to the wall.

[210] That doesn't work.

[211] Yeah, use it as an adhesive.

[212] That doesn't work.

[213] And people try other kinds of things.

[214] They try tacking into the wall.

[215] That doesn't work.

[216] It's not going to work.

[217] And finally, they realize that the solution is to take the tax out of the box, put the candle in the box, and affix the box using tax to the wall.

[218] And that creates a platform for the candle to...

[219] Now, what gets curious here is that you would think that if you give people an incentive to solve this problem, if you solve this problem, we're going to give you some money.

[220] They would solve it faster and do it better.

[221] And if you would think that, you would be wrong.

[222] Really quick, I'll just add that.

[223] For me, when I look at that, the hiccup would be I would think the box is extraneous.

[224] that it's simply the conveyance for the tax.

[225] I wouldn't recognize it as a potential tool in this riddle.

[226] I would have definitely just tried to tack it to the wall.

[227] I wouldn't have done any melting, I don't think, but I would have tried to tack, and that wouldn't have.

[228] And then I would have given up.

[229] This research was done years ago by guy named Sam Glucksberg.

[230] He's like, I think, an emeritus professor now at Princeton, he did this in the 50s or 60s.

[231] It was really almost like the not quite the big bang in this line of research, but basically it was kind of weird because you would think that if you say, hey, here's a tough problem to solve and I'm going to incentivize you to solve it by promising you a reward, it would enhance performance.

[232] Yeah, the first tier of reward would be if you were in the top five or something of the day, you would get five bucks.

[233] And if you were the fastest of the day, you would get $20.

[234] And there were two groups that were running it with a financial incentive.

[235] And then there was another one that was just said, just do it.

[236] Yeah.

[237] And they found that the people that were incentivized did it much, much slower.

[238] Did it slower?

[239] That's the punch line.

[240] So the conclusion is, that this well -worn paradigm of humans, and especially in a capitalist system, respond well to incentives, salespeople, all these kinds of people.

[241] This clearly punches a little bit of a hole in that.

[242] Yeah, we can summarize this 50 years of research very, very quickly.

[243] There's a certain kind of motivator that we use in organizations and schools.

[244] Psychologists call it a controlling contingent motivator.

[245] Too many words, too many syllables.

[246] I like to call, I'm from Ohio.

[247] I like to call it an if -then reward.

[248] If you do this, then you get that.

[249] If you do this, then you get that.

[250] Here's 60 years of science tell us.

[251] us if then rewards are actually very good for simple tasks with short time horizons they work really well and why it's very simple human beings love rewards if you were to dangle a reward in front of me i mean if you were to say to me monica hey dan this interview is getting kind of sluggish um we got to liven things up a little bit i'll give you a hundred bucks to stand on the table for three minutes i'm totally there right and i would do a good job of it right you dangled a hundred box.

[252] Wait, I have a question about that, though.

[253] Is it...

[254] $150.

[255] Is it the money that would motivate you or the fact that you're doing a bad job because now it's sluggish?

[256] You're making a different experiment now.

[257] I love making experiments.

[258] I mean, that's an interesting point.

[259] It's probably both.

[260] So let's just do it without your saying it.

[261] Let's just doing without your critiquing me. Okay, got it.

[262] Hey, Dan, how about this?

[263] I'll give you $150 because we now increased it by 50 % because of the delay.

[264] I'll give you $150 to stand on this table.

[265] on one leg for three minutes.

[266] Okay, so the question is, would I do that?

[267] And the answer to that question is yes.

[268] Right.

[269] Now, the question, how would I approach that task?

[270] Would I be focused or not focused?

[271] I'd totally be focused, right?

[272] Okay, and so that's what it is.

[273] So for simple tasks with short time horizons, if then rewards work really well.

[274] We don't have a dance to make.

[275] Because I was watching this and I was thinking, well, most certainly a task that requires the frontal lobe, is not one that's going to do well under pressure, i .e. competitive incentive structure.

[276] Whereas you invite 100 yokels into this experiment, 50 on one side, 50 on the other, and stack these five boxes, the people that are incentivized are going to stack them faster.

[277] Pay them per box and give them a bonus for every 10 boxes they stack for that kind of work.

[278] Now, here's a thing, though, for complex tasks with long -time horizons, tasks that require judgment, discernment, creativity, conceptual thinking, if then rewards don't work very well.

[279] And the reason for that is that we love reward so much.

[280] They get it to focus like this.

[281] That's very good if you know exactly what you need to do and where you need to go.

[282] But if you're doing something more creative or complex, conceptual, you don't want to focus in that narrow way.

[283] You want to have an expansive view.

[284] And so what we have here is a mainstay incentive, mainstay reward that's good for some things.

[285] Right.

[286] But not good for everything.

[287] And then if we layer in how the world of work is changing, less and less work is simple, algorithmic, and short term because that's being done by software and machines and more of it involves judgment, discernment, creativity, and those kinds of things.

[288] So essentially what we have is we have a sort of a mainstay reward that is great for 19th century work, pretty good for 20th century work, and kind of outdated for 21st century.

[289] Okay, now I'm falling in.

[290] Okay, so there's another concept here.

[291] You'll get it in week six of social psychology, class, the Yerkes -Dodson Curve.

[292] Where, ooh, you like it?

[293] I like it a lot.

[294] So here's what we, so here's what we, so here's how will we spell that?

[295] Y -E -R -K -E -S.

[296] Oh, okay.

[297] Dodson, D -O -D -S -O -D -S -O -D -S -O -K -K -E.

[298] Okay.

[299] Curve?

[300] C -U -R -V -E.

[301] You had to have considered a career in comedy at some point.

[302] You must get that, you remind folks, do you get often that you remind people of a comedian, a certain comedian?

[303] I know.

[304] Dan?

[305] Dan?

[306] Oh, it's sort of a sad tale.

[307] Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[308] Bob Saggin.

[309] My entire life.

[310] Yeah, it's so, it's oh, uncanny.

[311] It is, and it's not just the face, which is great, because that's similar.

[312] The voice is really, the cadence, the quickness.

[313] Interesting, because he's from, he's from Philly, so he, but he doesn't have that classic Philly accent.

[314] No. I did something with him, it's, I did a podcast radio thing with him, and he was just not even that long ago, it's horrible, and he's just a lovely guy, too.

[315] Yes, yes, yes.

[316] The nicest guy in the world, but he was my doppelganger.

[317] Like, I've been on airplanes and had a flight attendant come up to me and about to say something.

[318] He's like, oh, did anyone ever tell you you look like Bob Sagget?

[319] And I said, well, not today, but, you know, yesterday two people did.

[320] Yeah, it's the first, it's pretty crazy.

[321] It's wonderful, though.

[322] I like it a lot.

[323] Me too.

[324] Okay, I'm sorry, I interrupted you just to point this out.

[325] So, Yerkes -Dotson, okay, very simple concept, all right?

[326] For the millions of listeners out there, I'm going to draw...

[327] an air chart.

[328] Okay, I'll describe it for you.

[329] Okay, so I'm going to draw it so you see it from your perspective.

[330] Okay, so it looks like this.

[331] Okay, just like a ski slope.

[332] Yeah, like a ski slope, like a bell curve, okay?

[333] On the y -axis, the vertical axis is performance.

[334] And on this x -axis, the horizontal axis, is stimulation.

[335] Okay, very simple concept here.

[336] Oh, I like this.

[337] Very sturdy finding throughout all of social psychology.

[338] So basically what it is is that if you're not stimulated enough, you don't perform very well.

[339] But if you're overstimulated, to your point to X, overly pressured, then your performance can decline.

[340] And there's a sweet spot there at the top where you want to be pumped up enough to perform at a higher level, but not so pumped up that your performance is going to deteriorate.

[341] But what about Olympians?

[342] Well, he's got a great chapter in his book.

[343] What about Olympians?

[344] They're overstimulated and overpressured.

[345] No, they learn how to stay in the sweet spot.

[346] Yeah, but I think that's a really interesting point because I think that what they do, and again, You guys got to go to video so you can see my air charts.

[347] I think what happens is that, I don't know, I'm guessing here.

[348] The curve for Olympians ends up moving to the right.

[349] That is, their sweet spot is a greater degree of stimulation than civilians like you and me. Well, like you.

[350] I don't want you to lump me in.

[351] I'm pretty high performing.

[352] She's a state champion, two -time state champion.

[353] In what competitive cheerleading, flying in the air, she was a high flyer.

[354] Wow.

[355] She's crazy.

[356] But you know what a great data set to look at, I would imagine, for social scientists is they have heart monitors now on both MotoGP racers and Formula One racers and it's wild to watch their zone with their sweet spot and they don't rarely bump out of it.

[357] Exactly, exactly.

[358] And there's some things, I mean, for those of you who are NFL fans, there was something like that with Patrick Mahomes, the quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs during that incredible playoff game against the bills.

[359] And they were actually monitoring his heart rate.

[360] And when he came in with 13 seconds left and it was do or die.

[361] His level of stress and stimulation went down that he was able to control that.

[362] And there are ways that, I mean, again, I don't know much about this.

[363] It won't stop me from talking about it.

[364] Sure, that's true.

[365] Yeah, exactly.

[366] But there are ways through things like biofeedback and whatnot to regulate that.

[367] And that's one of the things I like about just watching athletes and studying athletes.

[368] Because if you look at somebody who's a professional athlete in one of the major sports, NBA, NFL, MLB, they are really good.

[369] I mean, they're like the 90s.

[370] 99 .99 % percentile in what they do.

[371] And it's just extraordinary how they're able to do things.

[372] And a big part of it is the mind -body connection.

[373] Yeah.

[374] Well, if you watch, yeah, the Tiger Woods dock, which was really good.

[375] I did.

[376] Yeah, right?

[377] I mean, you're looking at somebody.

[378] Actually, this is my armchair theory, I have no reason to be spreading.

[379] But I do believe the ability he honed so well is to compartmentalize his thinking, which is the dad shaking keys and making a ruckus.

[380] and he's able to land somewhere where he can block everything else out.

[381] So to find out that he can compartmentalize other areas of his life, isn't that shocking, you know?

[382] This is a very well -worn mechanism.

[383] I mean, it is the narrative core of both Shakespeare and superhero movies.

[384] What gives me strength is also my weakness.

[385] Yeah.

[386] And I think there's probably some truth to that.

[387] The person who I'm really impressed by and his just sheer brainpower in sports is LeBron James.

[388] I love him.

[389] His sheer brain power, he is incredible.

[390] He has what is known as an iditic memory, which is basically almost like a perfect memory.

[391] There have been things with him where he will recall a play from seven years ago.

[392] No. Someone will mention it.

[393] I'll say, oh, yeah, I remember that.

[394] There were four seconds left in the game, and Chris Paul was inbounding, and the office was set up this way, but Powell got all was one step to the left too far, and so, I mean, it's incredible.

[395] Can I go further?

[396] Is he doing what AI?

[397] does, which is he actually has all the data.

[398] Yeah.

[399] And he's run all of the scenarios.

[400] That's...

[401] I mean...

[402] Tom Brady has to be the same way because here's another person that mentally is just almost without rival.

[403] It seems that way, but part of it is also this incredible, relentless focus.

[404] You think about somebody like Tom Brady.

[405] Like, I wonder whether Tom...

[406] I don't mean this as a diss.

[407] I really don't.

[408] Like, has Tom Brady read a book about anything other than football or nutrition in the last 20 years?

[409] Has Tom Brady watched television that wasn't game film.

[410] So you have this monomaniacal focus, which is maybe at the exclusion of a lot of other thoughts.

[411] Could be.

[412] Well, now, this would shock you, and I'm going to brag and name drop, but we interviewed him and shockingly playful, like you are.

[413] Tom Brady.

[414] Yes.

[415] Interesting.

[416] He was much more fun than expected.

[417] Yeah, like I thought I was going to talk to a robot, and he was so fun and playful.

[418] I met Tom Brady once.

[419] Here we go.

[420] Twice.

[421] I met Tom Brady twice, as a matter of fact.

[422] He'd probably mention that on the show.

[423] He did come up.

[424] He said he bumped into Bob Sagget.

[425] So, but I have to say, the one thing that I noticed about Tom Brady when I met him is he's very good looking.

[426] Oh, my God.

[427] Yeah, it's perfect looking.

[428] I mean, every once in a while, like you see people and you're like, whoa.

[429] I like, first time I saw him, I like stopped in my tracks.

[430] I'm like, holy shit.

[431] It's like, a person's this good looking?

[432] It wasn't like, oh my God, I'm so attracted to you or whatever I'm envious of you.

[433] It was more like, oh, my God.

[434] When one sees the David.

[435] Right.

[436] Exactly.

[437] Oh, my God.

[438] The pyramids of Giza.

[439] Yes, this is incredible.

[440] How is that even possible?

[441] Or just, like, features shouldn't land on your face that way.

[442] It's so rare to have perfect features.

[443] Oh, yeah.

[444] We felt that way about Dwayne Wade, too.

[445] Oh, Dwayne Wade.

[446] I've never met Dwayne Wade, yeah.

[447] And I want social scientists to launch some kind of study about this.

[448] Because I guess the question is, so Tom Brady, let's start there.

[449] Six standard deviations above talent -wise.

[450] Three and a half standard deviations.

[451] of height and size -wise.

[452] Okay.

[453] Looks -wise, four deviations of right.

[454] At some point, you either think, well, this, we're in a simulation, and this is, like, the ideal they gave us.

[455] Or you go, is it chicken or the egg?

[456] Is it because of that handsomeness, he's had a confidence and a resolve?

[457] Is it, you know, because we have found that these greats, quote, in greats.

[458] LeBron being one.

[459] LeBron, Dwayne, they're inordinately gorgeous.

[460] Let's go to Formula One.

[461] Lewis Hamilton could be a model.

[462] All these guys, it's so suspicious.

[463] We can say a few things about this.

[464] Okay.

[465] They're not going to be well informed, but we can say them.

[466] Let's talk testosterone.

[467] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[468] That's part of what it is.

[469] It's basically the presence of testosterone.

[470] And there's some really interesting research showing, I can't remember who did that.

[471] If you give people a set of candidates, political candidates, okay, and all you show them is the photograph.

[472] You don't tell them the name.

[473] You don't tell them the political party.

[474] You don't tell them anything like that.

[475] That people can pick who's the winner.

[476] And it's partly based on, because our faces reflect our, especially men's faces, reflect our levels of testosterone.

[477] There was an interesting piece of research done in the NHL, National Hockey League players, that looked at what's called the facial width to height ratio.

[478] Facial pragmatism or something?

[479] Yeah, it's basically the ratio of the width of your face to the length of your face.

[480] So if the ratio of your width to the height is high, that's a marker for high testosterone.

[481] Well, you look pretty teed up then because you're pretty near, No, no, no, no, that's the opposite.

[482] I don't want to know.

[483] I pumped a few testosterone pills before walking in here to make sure that I would perform for you guys.

[484] I'm like the long and thin head guy, you know?

[485] That's why I'm a writer and not an NFL quarterback.

[486] But what they found was that the facial width to height ratio was a predictor of penalty minutes.

[487] Oh, wow.

[488] Which itself is a marker for violence.

[489] But anyway, just think about testosterone and these athletes.

[490] testosterone creates a kind of strength and strength is a proxy for attractiveness, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[491] There's other research showing that height gives people, especially men, not women, but height gives men a totally unfair advantage in leadership positions and whatnot.

[492] It's funny when you said the political candidate thing because we had Brian Klass on and it was so interesting on power and all this stuff and he mentioned kind of that exact same thing but he said race plays an interesting factor in this with the political candidates It's because actually, like, the stronger and more, quote, masculine white men appear, they're always the pick.

[493] But African -Americans are creating fear now.

[494] Exactly.

[495] So, like, the more what he said, baby -facedness, they have actually helps them.

[496] It's so crazy.

[497] Oh, there's so much.

[498] Well, I mean, this country has a complicated history and relationship with the black body.

[499] Yeah.

[500] So, you know, that's a confounding factor, too.

[501] Yeah.

[502] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[503] We've all been there.

[504] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[505] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[506] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter.

[507] whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[508] Hey, listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[509] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[510] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[511] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[512] Prime members can listen early and ad -free on Amazon Music.

[513] What's up, guys, it's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season.

[514] And let me tell you, it's too good.

[515] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[516] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[517] And I don't mean just friends.

[518] I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox.

[519] The list goes on.

[520] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[521] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[522] All right, now it's time to talk about your book.

[523] Oh, please.

[524] That was so fun.

[525] Thank you.

[526] Okay, so your new book is entitled, and I don't want to get it wrong.

[527] The Power of Regret, How Looking Backwards Moves Us Forward, which is currently out.

[528] So let's start with when you do a TED talk about maybe demystifying or debunking incentives in our evolving economy, it tells me you have the same proclivity to point out counterintuitive stuff.

[529] Yeah, I'm not interested in exposing things that are counterintuitive just for the sake of exposing things.

[530] Here's the thing.

[531] So I think it's important for writers to be interesting, but also to be right.

[532] So you can be interesting and not right.

[533] So you can say something counterintuitive.

[534] You can say, no, it's not.

[535] Actually, short men have an advantage.

[536] I call it the Napoleon syndrome.

[537] And because they're short and because they've been disadvantaged, they systematically try harder.

[538] And in the course of trying harder, they achieve more.

[539] All right, like that's interesting.

[540] I buy it, yeah.

[541] But it's not right.

[542] So it's counterintuitive, but it's not right.

[543] Yes, with the caveat of when they're correct.

[544] So with regret, this is a case where we have gotten this emotion entirely wrong.

[545] We think that we should never experience regret.

[546] We should always look forward that no regrets is a viable philosophy of life.

[547] It's a hashtag.

[548] That regrets make us weak.

[549] And that is fundamentally irretrievably wrongheaded.

[550] Who had the no regrets tattoo in a TV show and was spelled wrong?

[551] That was in We're the Millers.

[552] Oh, okay.

[553] Yes.

[554] Oh, really?

[555] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[556] But I have people in this book who have no regrets tattoos.

[557] Okay.

[558] And then I have a guy who, a lovely guy named Jeff Bosley, lives right here in Los Angeles, who served in the military, and he got a tattoo on his left arm, the arm he would use for his rifle when he shot his rifle.

[559] He says no regrets because he wanted something super macho.

[560] Then 14 years later, he regretted the tattoo and got it removed.

[561] Sure.

[562] Yeah.

[563] So he says every time he goes into the dermatologist's office and there's a new technician, he says, I get it.

[564] The joke is not lost on me. This is the point that no regrets as a philosophy is really wrong -headed.

[565] What we know is that everybody has regrets.

[566] Well, no, this would be a great time to kind of create a semantics landscape for us because I think what often happens, because I will get in these debates with people, I delineate the difference between shame and guilt, which I think is relevant for this conversation we're about to have.

[567] So as I personally interpret shame versus guilt is guilt is I did a bad thing, shame as I am a bad thing.

[568] Exactly.

[569] And I don't see anything productive about I am a bad thing.

[570] So when we talk about this, I think just if we both agree to those things as we bounce in and out of them, we'll just know we're all talking about the same thing.

[571] I agree with you completely about that.

[572] Okay, great.

[573] Yeah.

[574] So I do think sometimes no regrets, what people are really trying to say is I won't live in shame, if that makes any sense.

[575] Like I don't know that people are being specific enough about no regrets to actually know what they're declaring to us.

[576] I think maybe, maybe.

[577] I think what they're doing is I think they're showing kind of false bravado.

[578] I think we, meaning mostly Americans, but a lot of people in the West, don't know how to deal with negative emotions.

[579] And so what we do is we ignore them, or when we can no longer ignore them, they capture us and we wallow in them.

[580] And that's a mistake.

[581] No one's ever taught us how to deal with that.

[582] So regret is our most common negative emotion.

[583] The negative emotion that people experience the most.

[584] It is, according to other research, the second most common emotion that people experience of any kind, second to love.

[585] Here's the thing.

[586] Regret is ubiquitous.

[587] Truly, the only people without regrets are five -year -olds because their brains haven't developed because regret is very cognitively complex.

[588] People with brain lesions in the orbital frontal cortex and people with certain kinds of Parkinson's and certain kinds of Huntington's because it's literally a disorder or sociopaths.

[589] Or the guy with the spike in his head.

[590] Well, this is...

[591] That's the guy how they discovered what the frontal lobe did.

[592] Right, exactly.

[593] The world spiked the front of his brain.

[594] The redoubtable Phineas gay.

[595] There we go.

[596] That's the name of the show, Dax.

[597] The Redoubtable Finney's Gage.

[598] Oh my God, that would be wonderful.

[599] Just kiss me in as an executive producer and we're set.

[600] That's what you guys say out here, right?

[601] Yeah, sure.

[602] Now we do.

[603] From this day forward, I will only use that.

[604] Yeah.

[605] So when you think about no regrets, if you don't have regrets, it's a sign of a grave problem.

[606] Yes.

[607] And so the other thing is that regrets also make us better.

[608] If we deal with them properly, they are one of the most powerful forces we have for learning, for sharpening our decisions, for improving our performance on a whole array of tasks, for finding meaning.

[609] It's just that we haven't been taught how to deal with them.

[610] And so we resort to this fake, courageous thing, no regrets, which is not courage.

[611] It's delusion.

[612] What's courage is looking at your regrets in the eye and doing something about them.

[613] Right.

[614] Okay, so this is great because I think you hit the most important aspect, which is like, we don't know how.

[615] Right.

[616] Just the fact that you have a three -step process of how to do it.

[617] That part is missing from, I think, most conversations.

[618] But we'll end there.

[619] We'll end there.

[620] Yeah, okay, cool, cool, cool, cool.

[621] But I think let's first just talk about something I think is useful to define, which is counterfactual thinking.

[622] How would you define counterfactual thinking?

[623] We can imagine situations that run counter to the facts.

[624] Can I give you an Olympics example?

[625] Yes.

[626] Okay, so this is kind of interesting.

[627] I've always thought.

[628] So this is a study that's been started in 92 by Medvik and Gilevich been replicated many times, and it's this.

[629] So imagine you're watching the Olympics and you look at the medal podium, but you actually don't see the medals.

[630] You can only see the people's faces.

[631] And so you don't see what order they're standing now.

[632] Right, right, right.

[633] So you see their faces.

[634] So, of course, the gold medalist is the happiest.

[635] Sure.

[636] The silver medalist is the second happiest.

[637] Bronze medalist is the third happiest.

[638] But that's not the case.

[639] Right.

[640] What you have over and over again is the gold medalist.

[641] is pumped, because she just won the gold medal in the Olympics, all right?

[642] The bronze medalist is almost as pumped.

[643] Yep.

[644] And the silver medalist is like, oh.

[645] So, so, that's a counterfactual.

[646] So the silver medalist did a counterfactual.

[647] If only I'd kicked a little harder, I'd be a gold medalist, all right?

[648] So it's like, that's not the facts that happen.

[649] I'm going to imagine a scenario that runs counter to the facts in which I pumped harder and I won the gold medal, and that makes me feel bad, all right?

[650] That's an upward counterfactual, what I like to call in if only.

[651] Now, the bronze medalist did the reverse of that.

[652] The bronze medalist did what logicians call a downward counterfactual.

[653] She imagined how it could have been turned out worse.

[654] And she's like, oh, my God, I'm so pumped.

[655] I got a bronze medal.

[656] At least I have a bronze medal, not like the Schmo finished fourth, who doesn't have any hardware and has worked our entire life for a piece of this hardware and doesn't have anything.

[657] Yeah.

[658] And if only, and at least, they serve different functions, all right?

[659] Here's the thing about it at least, and at least makes us feel better.

[660] Yes.

[661] And that's okay sometimes.

[662] So I went out and collected 16 ,000 regrets from people in 105 countries.

[663] There's an incredible trove of regrets all over the world.

[664] And I have a lot of regrets.

[665] I think they're no joke, all from women who say, what's your big regret?

[666] I shouldn't marry that idiot.

[667] But at least I have these two great kids.

[668] Okay?

[669] So they found a silver lining.

[670] That makes you feel better.

[671] Now, the thing about if onlys is that they make us feel worse, but they make us do better.

[672] That's the whole point.

[673] Right.

[674] And they make us do better because they make us feel worse.

[675] The thing about regret as an emotion, it is our most instructive and clarifying emotion.

[676] It teaches us.

[677] It clarifies the path.

[678] It tells us what to do.

[679] But you can't get the instruction without a little bit of the pain.

[680] That's why it's a little bit of a paradox.

[681] But if we look at our regrets and don't look at them as like, ah, this is nothing.

[682] It's just a stranger walking down the street.

[683] And we don't look at it as like, oh, my God, this is the final judgment on me as a person, a la shame.

[684] Yes, yes.

[685] We say, wait a second, it's a knock at the door.

[686] Monica, hi, I'm your regret.

[687] I got something to tell you.

[688] You can either not answer the door.

[689] That's a bad idea.

[690] You can dive under the couch in fear.

[691] Or you can say, hey, what do you got?

[692] What about a third rail here, which would be the silver medalist.

[693] So for her in this example, by the way, heartbreaking, the story you detailed from Rio de Janeiro, 2016.

[694] Mara Abbott.

[695] She had a lead in this road race until the final.

[696] 150 meters after 70 plus miles of riding or something on that order.

[697] And with 150 meters left, a football field and a half, she got passed by all three riders behind her.

[698] So that in itself is just hard.

[699] And she finished fourth.

[700] Yeah.

[701] Okay, so let's go to the silver medalist.

[702] What about a third rail where it's like, okay, had she said at least I got silver, then she has no marching orders on how to train better.

[703] Okay, we would concede.

[704] and then the if only she goes through this whole thing and she can't enjoy the silver medal at all what if the third option is there's nothing for her to learn she did it perfectly this other person did it perfectly and their perfect's better than you're perfect and then now she's dropped herself into some agonizing hell so how do we know that we don't know that you don't know that but it's worth reasoning through so here's the thing it's very important that we we'll talk more about this in a moment I'm sure but it's very important that we disclose our regrets because we make sense of them.

[705] And sometimes when we disclose our regrets and try to make sense of them and extract a lesson from them, the lesson is there's not much of a lesson here.

[706] Shit happens.

[707] Things don't work out.

[708] But that itself is good for us.

[709] Going through that reasoning process and saying, hey, there's nothing more that I could have done.

[710] At least I have a silver medal.

[711] Okay, so that just happened to us, right?

[712] So we were just on the road.

[713] We just got off the road.

[714] We did three live shows.

[715] Number one was spectacular.

[716] number two was spectacular number three was good it was average so I went back to the hotel room and I started going through all the many things I could have done better or what I should alter next time and I think ultimately I was like that's how some shows go like I think we did the same thing in all three you know and I able to like stop thinking about it but here's the thing I mean regret gives us a mechanism for exploring those questions so in this research I collected 16 ,000 regrets from people around the world.

[717] But I also did a public opinion poll, the largest public opinion poll of American attitudes about regret, where I asked people a whole bunch of different questions, trying to get at a systematic way what people regret, how they regret.

[718] And so, you know, so for instance, when I ask people the question about regret without using the R word, I said, how often do you look back on your life and wish you had done something differently?

[719] So I don't say the word regret, I just describe it.

[720] One percent said never.

[721] Okay.

[722] So that's like the sociopaths and the five -year -olds who are responding in the survey, I guess.

[723] then 83 % said they did it at least occasionally.

[724] But there's another question that I asked there.

[725] I'll see what you guys think.

[726] So I was curious about what people thought they had control over and what they thought they didn't have control over.

[727] So I asked people a question about free will.

[728] I said, do you in general think that people have free will, that they have some control over what they do and how they do it?

[729] So what proportion of Americans think they have free will?

[730] 90.

[731] Yeah, I'd say 100.

[732] Yeah, it was in the 80s.

[733] So huge numbers.

[734] Oh, you interviewed Sam and all his friends?

[735] Where did you find these people who don't believe in free will?

[736] Well, remember, not sure was an answer, too.

[737] Oh, okay, okay.

[738] You always have to have not sure to give people an out.

[739] Because then I said somewhere else in the survey, very craftily designed so that it wasn't obvious what I was looking for.

[740] McAvely in some might say.

[741] Indeed.

[742] I said, do you think that in general everything happens for a reason?

[743] Uh -huh.

[744] And what do you think people said?

[745] So the exact opposite of that?

[746] Above 50.

[747] I think 90.

[748] Yeah, exactly.

[749] Oh, same?

[750] So what you had, huge majorities of Americans, like not even close.

[751] I think it was like 79 % said, yes, I have free will and yes, everything happens for a reason.

[752] Yeah.

[753] Which is annoying.

[754] It is, but I kind of am that person.

[755] But right, but I think we're all that person.

[756] This is the point.

[757] Like, that really irritated me because I wanted, like, a logical answer to this.

[758] And what I found is that people were not giving me a logical answer.

[759] They were giving me a human answer.

[760] Yes.

[761] And part of our goal as human beings is to figure out what do we have control over and what do we not?

[762] It's the serenity prayer.

[763] That is part of it.

[764] It's also the third show sometimes doesn't go right and it's not clear why because sometimes stuff happens like that.

[765] Yeah, yeah.

[766] So if you ask me those questions, right, I'd say we definitely have free will.

[767] Does everything happen for a reason?

[768] That's tricky because that somehow implies some otherworldly being controlled.

[769] I don't believe that.

[770] But if I interpret the question as, has most of your failures ended up leading to you ending up somewhere that was much better than the thing you originally failed at?

[771] So that's the story of my life, right?

[772] Where it's like, I direct this movie.

[773] It doesn't do well.

[774] I go back to the drawing boards.

[775] I end up starting this podcast with Monica.

[776] I'm so grateful ultimately.

[777] So if you ask me, it's like, yeah, I'm so grateful that I failed at that thing because it led to this thing that I love even more.

[778] So it's a hard one, that one.

[779] I think that's what we're trying to figure out in our lives.

[780] We're trying to figure out what do I have control over?

[781] What do I don't have control over?

[782] Again, as I said, it's psychologically healthy sometimes to find silver linings in bad situations.

[783] Well, right, and I could acknowledge I'm speaking from quite a privileged point of view where I had that failure.

[784] it led to some great success.

[785] Obviously, some people get fired from the job they wanted.

[786] They don't find a job they love.

[787] So that person might not think everything happened for a reason.

[788] Right.

[789] But it's interesting the way that we try to sort these things out.

[790] But when we begin to reckon with it, we begin asking these fundamental questions about why we're here, what's our purpose, what is a life well lived?

[791] But also, it's like, how do I navigate my limited time here?

[792] So can I just ask before, because I want to get into the four main regrets, but my, Initial curiosity was like, what did you find globally?

[793] Was there any kind of national characteristic on regret?

[794] It was so interesting with these 16 ,000 regrets that I found them to be surprisingly universal.

[795] Okay.

[796] To the point where, I mean, it's not great podcasting, but I could take my laptop out of there, open up the Qualtricks database, and show you the database, and the database will have somebody's regret, and then it'll show if they're American and if they're American or Canadian, and then the state or province, and then if they're not American, the country they're from, and then their age and their gender.

[797] And if I were to block out those final fields, you might have a hard time determining a 47 -year -old guy from Oak Park, Michigan, and a 27 -year -old woman from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

[798] Wow.

[799] There's a lot of universality there.

[800] Is your father from Oak Park?

[801] No. My college roommate was from Oak Park.

[802] Okay, that was too specific.

[803] Yeah, wonderful.

[804] I did that for you.

[805] I know, and I appreciate it.

[806] I didn't want to say, I don't.

[807] Here's the thing, let me show my work, all right?

[808] I don't want to say Detroit, because that's kind of generic.

[809] Yeah.

[810] And then I didn't want to say gross point.

[811] No. Because that's both posh and, you know, invites images of John Cusack dancing through our heads.

[812] We don't want either one of those.

[813] So I said, okay, let's go to Oak Park, which is a more kind of ordinary middle class.

[814] It's fucking perfect, which beg the question, how does he know this?

[815] Okay, okay, I interrupted you.

[816] So a guy, a 46 -year -old from Oak Park versus someone in Kulumpur.

[817] Yeah, it's pretty universal.

[818] These regrets kept coming back to the same four things.

[819] And the way that I asked that question initially in my quantitative survey, I had people, tell me your regret and put it in a category, family, career, finance, health, whatever.

[820] And I found what scientists, I'm not a scientist, but what scientists and pollsters had been finding for years is that people regret a lot of stuff.

[821] And that's kind of unsatisfying.

[822] When I went to the qualitative stuff, these 16 ,000 regrets and started literally just reading through them every single day, I started seeing a different kind of pattern that underneath these domains of life were these four core regrets.

[823] Let me give you an example of it.

[824] Okay, so among Americans who went to college, an astonishing number of them regret not studying abroad while they were in college.

[825] Oh, wow.

[826] I was shocked by how many people listed that as a regret.

[827] They should regret that.

[828] It's a great experience.

[829] Did you study abroad?

[830] Oh, where'd you go?

[831] I went to London with the theater program, and then I went to Cannes with the film.

[832] Wow.

[833] Okay.

[834] Well done.

[835] Thank you.

[836] All right.

[837] You have a lot of Americans who regret that.

[838] That's an education regret.

[839] What's interesting, again, you asked about the universality.

[840] There are times where you can actually find essentially the same sentence structure across hundreds of people.

[841] Here's one.

[842] X years ago, I met a man slash woman who I really liked.

[843] I wanted to ask him her out on a date, but I was too chicken and I didn't do it.

[844] And I regretted it ever since.

[845] That's a romance regret.

[846] There are a lot of sliding doors out there.

[847] I got an incredible one in the book.

[848] I thought you were going to see Persons.

[849] My wife's here.

[850] Let's just be real careful.

[851] about this next.

[852] The other woman is actually outside right now.

[853] I mean, when I say gorgeous, I don't think you can even understand what I'm talking about.

[854] Tom Brady, gorgeous, she was.

[855] So, then we have also this regret where people say, I wish I had started a business.

[856] I stayed in this lackless of driver should have started a business.

[857] So you think about those regrets.

[858] Education regret, romance regret, career regret.

[859] They're the same.

[860] They're the same regret.

[861] It's a regret that says, if only I'd taken the chance.

[862] Yeah.

[863] I'm at a juncture in my life.

[864] I could play it safe or take the chance.

[865] I didn't take the chance, and I regret it.

[866] And that's one of the core regrets.

[867] And so if you go beyond the domains, what you find is that over and over again, these same four regrets keep coming up.

[868] Is that a boldness regret?

[869] Exactly.

[870] That's a boldness regret.

[871] And that's a big category of regrets.

[872] You know, I bet you could learn also a lot about a person's fundamental personality type, how they fit in there, right?

[873] Because I have very few boldness regrets.

[874] In fact, some of my regrets are the result of too much boldness.

[875] But I bet it lines up in that little bit personality type, maybe not?

[876] It's a great question.

[877] I wondered that.

[878] And in the quantitative survey, and forgive me for bouncing back and forth between the two.

[879] And just really quick, quantitative means the numbers.

[880] Yeah, I just did a poll.

[881] Qualitative is...

[882] It's a massive collection of regrets.

[883] An experience.

[884] Yeah.

[885] It's basically, we're now over 17 ,000.

[886] 17 ,000 stories from around the world.

[887] Right.

[888] In the poll, I asked people about introversion and extroversion.

[889] Very, very little correlation between introversion and extroversion.

[890] Yeah, on that.

[891] I don't even know the full definitions yet you're going to tell them, but I'm just going to take a stab that, like, mine would be the third moral regrets are the ones that I would probably be.

[892] But can we hear all?

[893] Yeah, yeah, so let's start with foundation regrets.

[894] Foundation regrets are, if only I'd done the work.

[895] And these are people who regret not saving money.

[896] They've got a lot of people like that.

[897] Regret not working hard enough in school.

[898] Regret not taking care of their health, not taking care of their bodies, those kinds of things.

[899] So it's small choices early that accumulate to bad consequences.

[900] later.

[901] Those are heartbreaking to me, to be honest.

[902] They're hard to undo.

[903] And the other thing, just to be fair, regret requires agency.

[904] Regret is your fault.

[905] There's a big difference between regret and disappointment.

[906] No one regrets their house getting hit by a tornado.

[907] Right.

[908] Like, yeah.

[909] They might regret not having insurance on the house.

[910] Exactly, exactly.

[911] But they might regret going to tornado alley realty for their home.

[912] But, you know, in retrospect.

[913] I should have been a sign, the little whirling cloud there on the business card.

[914] With foundation regrets, just to be clear, let's say you're 40 years old and you haven't saved much money.

[915] But if you graduated from college, $200 ,000 in debt, it's like that's not totally on you that you haven't saved money.

[916] Right.

[917] But then maybe your regret is that you picked a school that caused that and that the job didn't, you know, maybe?

[918] Yeah, could be, could be.

[919] But with the foundation regrets, it's a little bit tricker, and they're very hard to undo.

[920] There's this great line from Farewell to Arms, the Hemingway book, where these two characters are talking outside at a bar in Spain.

[921] And one guy says to the other, I went bankrupt.

[922] And the second guy says, well, how'd you go bankrupt?

[923] And the guy says, well, two ways.

[924] Gradually, then suddenly.

[925] And that's how these foundation regrets goes.

[926] That's why those ones break my heart.

[927] It's like, they're little micro decisions.

[928] Exactly.

[929] But then ultimately, it's going to take an avalanche decision.

[930] Exactly.

[931] Their micro decisions is a good way to put that because each one doesn't have any immediate consequence.

[932] If I say, you know what, instead of, there's a guy who I write about in the book, instead of like, you know, eating at my house tonight, what I'm going to do is I'm going to go out with some friends I'm going to pick up the tab.

[933] That doesn't have any immediate consequence.

[934] But you do that over and over again for 12 years, and you don't put money aside, that has consequences.

[935] And you're eating that, well, let's not get sued, but a chain establishment with deep -fried everything, also part of now.

[936] You could have a health foundation regret.

[937] Yeah, the consequences, they feel asymmetrical to what the decision was.

[938] Interesting, that's an interesting way to put it too, because I've got to do another air chart on that.

[939] Okay.

[940] Because part of another weird name, I hope.

[941] The part of the, there is a concept called temporal discounting.

[942] We assign too much value to decisions we're making today and not enough to the consequences tomorrow to oversimplify a bit.

[943] But part of it also is compounding interest.

[944] Like just compounding interest is metaphorically as a life factor.

[945] The curve for compounding interest goes like, here we go, listeners, this is an air chart.

[946] So it's beginning over here on the left side, and it's flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat.

[947] So the X axis, the horizontal axis is time, the vertical axis is amount.

[948] so compounding interest is let's say you put aside $100 a month at 6 % first five years you're not making that much first 10 years you're not making that much first 15 years you're not making that much first 15 years you're not making that much first 25 and then yeah it's not unlike the graph you've seen for technology exactly well that in your mind it's kind of an exponential growth exactly and we don't do a good job of processing exponential growth or power laws and those well and then also yeah if we can and people will hate this because this is a murky's topic but let's just say that you're making poor dietary decisions and poor exercise decisions.

[949] Whatever amount of reduction you would need in your intake of food on year two and the output of exercise you might need, as you're nine years into that, the exercise is going to be infinitely harder to do.

[950] The calorie reduction is going to have to be infinitely more to compensate for the compounded interest of all those life choices.

[951] So everything just gets harder to confront once that ball's rolling.

[952] This is a significant category of regrets that people have.

[953] It's foundation regret.

[954] At some level, though, I think people, they shouldn't throw up their hands about these kinds of things.

[955] I mean, again, this is a total, like, cliche, but there's this Chinese proverb of, you know, what's the best time to plant a tree 20 years ago?

[956] What's the second best time today?

[957] Yeah, exactly.

[958] You like that?

[959] I haven't heard that.

[960] I like that.

[961] Look at the tattoo to my forehead.

[962] Oh, my God.

[963] Next to no regrets.

[964] But backwards so I can read it in the mirror.

[965] Tune for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[966] Okay, can we go boldness?

[967] I just want to go on board.

[968] Okay, okay, but let's go.

[969] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[970] Well, boldness regrets are if only had taken the chance.

[971] All of these four core regrets, to me, operate as a photographic negative of the good life.

[972] That is, these 16 ,000 people who told me what they regret the most.

[973] They're also telling me what they value the most.

[974] It's a chorus of people saying, this is what I value most in life.

[975] So what do we value?

[976] We value stability.

[977] We value learning, growth, psychological, rich.

[978] Like human beings, again, I don't want to get overly met on year, but human beings are the only species, at least we think, that is conscious of our own mortality.

[979] We know we're going to die.

[980] It's hard for me to imagine that doesn't affect us at some level a lot.

[981] And so, like, you're here for this finite amount of time.

[982] You want to do something.

[983] Yeah.

[984] You want to go to Kahn.

[985] You want to, like, try stuff.

[986] You want to, like, ask that person out on a date.

[987] And when you don't, you end up regret it.

[988] It's back to the puzzle of motivation.

[989] You have an incentive that a crow might not.

[990] not have, or a chimpanzee might not have.

[991] You have desires and a brain that creates cognitive and emotional richness that a crow doesn't have, where you want to do something meaningful.

[992] I guess I mean, like, you're on a stopwatch.

[993] Yeah, I think that's exactly right.

[994] I think that all of us have, it's obviously unconscious.

[995] I think if it's overly conscious, it's debilitating.

[996] But there is an existential shot clock going on back here.

[997] Yeah.

[998] I think the no regrets hashtag tattoo, whatever, in my opinion, I know you guys were talking about it with fear.

[999] But I think it's more about this.

[1000] When I hear people say no regrets, it's always connected to boldness.

[1001] Should I go take that job?

[1002] Well, no regrets, yes.

[1003] Like, it's to compensate.

[1004] No choice is the worst choice or inaction is the worst action.

[1005] Yeah, it's like that's a scary, hard thing to do, but no regrets, I'll do it.

[1006] Like, to make it easier to take that leap, I think.

[1007] Yeah.

[1008] But there are ways that we can use, we can anticipate our regrets and use them to make decisions.

[1009] And these four core regrets are a really potent way to do that.

[1010] Well, that's what I was going to ask you.

[1011] Maybe you want to say that to how we go through them systematically in the three -step process.

[1012] But I can imagine how foundation regrets have a pretty prescriptive answer.

[1013] Start now.

[1014] Right.

[1015] Whereas the boldness regrets, I guess, seem a little more opaque in that, what do you do?

[1016] You can't erase that.

[1017] So I guess it's just a commitment to be bolder going forward.

[1018] Exactly.

[1019] Next time, I mean, think about what you're going to regret.

[1020] So you regretted not taking that chance.

[1021] You regretted not being bold.

[1022] So the next time you're at that juncture, think about that and consider being bolder.

[1023] I think some people get paralyzed with the notion that all the decisions that were ever going to have importance already happened and they failed to recognize that there's going to be a trillion more in front of them.

[1024] So it's kind of like I didn't play football in high school.

[1025] I didn't go study abroad.

[1026] I didn't ask the gal or the guy for the number.

[1027] And those were the real important decisions.

[1028] Those are now behind me. what's left.

[1029] Where to retire?

[1030] Right.

[1031] But they're wrong.

[1032] Assuredly, every human listening to this in 10 years will look back on this day and think, fuck, why didn't I?

[1033] And that's why one of the best things you can do say, what will future Monica think in 10 years looking back in this decision?

[1034] What does future Monica want you to do?

[1035] And here's the thing.

[1036] I don't think that crows and raccoons are making decisions based on that kind of dexterity.

[1037] And I think but human beings can.

[1038] And what we know is that future Monica is, okay, future future monica is not going to regret buying a blue car over a gray car she's not going to give a shit one way or the other right truly you don't have any regrets like that you're not going to regret oh my god you know on tuesday night i had macaroni and i really sort of had a hamburger you're not going to regret is not building your foundation what you are going to regret is not taking a smart risk what you are going to regret on these more regrets is doing the right thing and what you are going to regret is reaching out to somebody you care about and everything else is commentary so don't stress about anything else except for those four future your monica i can almost guarantee is going to care about those things and everything else forget about it yeah that's great and that's a great thing to put into the thinking equation which is like what value am i assigning to all these and let's de -prioritize the things that aren't going to have value in 10 years see here's the thing to my surprise i got led to a place that i didn't expect to go i'm taking this emotion of regret it's a negative emotion all right i'm trying to make sense of it and what it's doing is is that in a weird way it's telling me what people value the most in their life.

[1039] What do they value?

[1040] Stability.

[1041] You can't have a good life without stability.

[1042] Two, boldness, a good life is psychologically rich, a good life you do stuff.

[1043] Moral regrets, if only had done the right thing.

[1044] I had huge numbers of regrets from people bullying kids in school, huge numbers of regrets about Maryland fidelity, huge numbers of regrets about other kinds of cheating.

[1045] Now, what's interesting about these moral regrets, I'm kind of glad that people are still bugged by these things.

[1046] Because it suggests that people want to be good.

[1047] So what's a good life?

[1048] A good life is your good.

[1049] And then finally are these connection regrets, which are the biggest category, and they're absolutely fascinating, is you have these relationships that should have been intact, or it were intact, and these relationships drift apart.

[1050] They come apart, in most cases, profoundly undramatic ways.

[1051] It's not like an Edward Alby play where people like offering like piercing quips and throwing plates and things like that.

[1052] It's like they just kind of drift apart like that.

[1053] And what happens is that nobody wants to reach out because they think it's going to be awkward and they think the other side's not going to care.

[1054] So it drifts apart.

[1055] And then sometimes it gets too late.

[1056] So what do we want out of life?

[1057] We want some stability.

[1058] We want some richness and growth.

[1059] We want to do the right thing and we want love.

[1060] Okay, but Dan, how do we know which of these relationships deserve to peter out or lose momentum?

[1061] If you have a relationship that drifts apart and you don't regret it, you've answered the question.

[1062] Okay.

[1063] You know, what I have instead is this story of a woman named Cheryl who had this friend in college.

[1064] They drifted apart and she fills out the word regret survey and says, you know, I had this friend in college and we've drifted apart and I want to reach out and I think she's going to find it creepy and da -da -da -da.

[1065] And I was completely bothering her.

[1066] And the answer to the question, though, there's a very easy remedy for these connection regrets.

[1067] If you feel like it's going to be awkward to reach out, every piece of evidence tells us it's going to be way less awkward than you think.

[1068] Second, you think the other side's not going to care?

[1069] You're totally freaking wrong on that.

[1070] Yeah, well, yeah.

[1071] You're totally wrong at that.

[1072] And even with Cheryl, when I was having these conversations with her via Zoom and doing these interviews, I don't know, Jen's going to think it's creepy if I reach out and da -da -da.

[1073] And I'm like, what if Jen reached out to you?

[1074] What if, after you got off this Zoom call with me, you went into your email and you got an email from Jen wanting to reconnect?

[1075] How would you feel about that?

[1076] Would you find that creepy?

[1077] And she said, oh, Dan, no, that would be the greatest thing.

[1078] And I'm like, hello!

[1079] Yeah.

[1080] Well, I've had this really unique experience being sober and having to make many amends.

[1081] And nearly every sober person I know who's gone through this process finds, the same thing which is yeah a few people are going to say fuck you don't ever want to talk to you again right the vast majority of the people haven't really added the weight to it that you have they're grateful you've acknowledged it they're grateful to hear that you want to change how that's going like it just in general goes three times better than anyone's forecast that's exactly right we overestimate the awkwardness we feel and we underestimate the grace that person exactly and by the way that can be one of your signposts as we just i just asked how does one figure out what kind of relationships they want to maintain or should let go when you're in that process and you recognize there are people that don't have any interest in grace that they actually want to be punitive for a while it's like great well that made itself kind of clear they've answered the question for you my view is that if one is at a juncture where you're deciding should i reach out or should i not reach out being at the juncture itself answers the question you should reach out yeah great girl that's a great way to reach out that's true for me and I'm always someone is like oh god it's going to be awkward and they're not going to care and I'm wrong also let's play through the catastrophizing of it so worst case scenario you send that email to Jen she's like dude it's been 90 years why are you even thinking about okay well now you're in the exact same boat you were in just prior to sending the email you don't have a relationship with the president it's a zero risk proposition if you've been completely disconnected.

[1082] I like that way of thinking because a lot of times, and let me drain all the humanity out of it and make it purely analytical, what you're talking about there is that in many cases, the worst case scenario and the status quo are the same.

[1083] Yes.

[1084] And I think a lot of times when we make decisions, we don't realize that.

[1085] Yeah.

[1086] Okay, can we pop back to moral regrets?

[1087] Yeah, late on me. Because I think these are the ones that I have the most of.

[1088] Okay, well, like what?

[1089] Well, again, I just said I was a raging addict for 10 years.

[1090] I stole from people.

[1091] I took not my fair share of the drugs we split.

[1092] I went into people's houses.

[1093] I've slept with friends' girlfriends.

[1094] I've cheated on girlfriends.

[1095] I have a ton of moral indiscretion.

[1096] And have you done things to make amends for that?

[1097] Unless when to do so would hurt or harm the other person.

[1098] Okay.

[1099] But what about your future focus behavior?

[1100] Do you think that you have a crisper moral code now because of that?

[1101] I certainly do far less stuff.

[1102] But again, I can predict my future behavior will fall into this category as well.

[1103] I think it's the thing that is hardest for me to stay perfect or not even perfect, but that's my Achilles of these four.

[1104] I will at some point evaluate that because no one cares about my needs, I will care about my needs and my needs may violate some kind of moral agreement we have.

[1105] Like, that'll be the thought process by which I'll later come out of and realize that was not true at no point in a Kantian way.

[1106] At no point should my needs need to make another person suffer.

[1107] Like, I'll come to all that.

[1108] But I am great at constructing the real -time thought of it's basically me or you and I pick me. So get out of the real time.

[1109] First of all, well done on the Kantian.

[1110] I do not expect to hear that adjective today.

[1111] Oh, okay.

[1112] Thank you for that.

[1113] Thank you.

[1114] Thank you.

[1115] But get out of real time and think about future Dax.

[1116] What's future Dax going to say 10 years from now looking back on this?

[1117] Oh, he's going to hate it.

[1118] I always do.

[1119] Well, as a member of this fucking program I'm in, at night I have to do it.

[1120] At night, I do kind of a 10th step, right?

[1121] I go, what throughout my day did I do that was not helpful to others?

[1122] And then I got to clean that up the next fucking day.

[1123] So for us, because we don't have the luxury of resentments, as we say, it's got to be done quickly.

[1124] So it's like, there's not even the 10 -year gap.

[1125] I have to do it within 36 hours usually.

[1126] But future Dax knows the right thing to do.

[1127] Yes.

[1128] He does.

[1129] He does.

[1130] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1131] Future Dax knows the right thing to do.

[1132] So when in doubt, consult him.

[1133] Get in your time machine.

[1134] Go talk to future Dax.

[1135] Yeah.

[1136] Future Dax is going to tell you to do the right thing.

[1137] I have to construct the equation yet.

[1138] I haven't done it.

[1139] Like, I just did a great job, I think, for the connection regrets, which is this is a zero risk proposition.

[1140] Worst case scenario, exactly where you started.

[1141] What I need to recognize is that by getting my need, I will, experience a reward but that reward will ultimately be far less than the fallout or pain or suffering that I experience in reflection of that decision so it's like I don't always have that on a cellular level depending on if I'm tired cranky hungry all these other variables I would love to have that be muscle memory crystal clear oh yes this will be an immediate thing that's pleasurable but ultimately a diminished return drastically by 10x.

[1142] I aspire to get to that point.

[1143] Okay, the three -step process.

[1144] Yes, sir.

[1145] Disclosure, compassion, and distance.

[1146] Yes.

[1147] How do we think about our regrets, comprehend them, work through them, and make something productive out of them?

[1148] So one important step is how we think about ourselves.

[1149] And the way we talk to ourselves is so brutal sometimes, largely useless.

[1150] And so instead, to me, I was very, taken by the research in something called self -compassion.

[1151] I guess I didn't gravitate to it because it sounded sort of superficially kind of gooey.

[1152] It sounds like crystals and Yeah, yeah, but it's not.

[1153] There's 20, I know, but that's on me. That's on me for like stereotyping.

[1154] And it's a very solid base of research.

[1155] And basically what it says is this, that when we think about our regrets or anything about ourselves, treat yourself with kindness rather than contempt.

[1156] The way we talk to ourselves is often so much more brutal than the way we would talk to anybody else.

[1157] So treat yourself with kindness.

[1158] Second thing, the self -compassion teaches us is that sort of there's a tough love aspect to it which is you're not that special okay so here's the thing it's like like i have some kindness regrets i have some regrets about not being kinder when i was younger and i felt really bad about that and i'm sort of beating myself up about that but now that i've seen 16 000 regrets it's like oh my god i'm totally not special there are a lot of people with things like that it's part of the human condition and then finally your regret is an action in the course of a long life it's not definitional that whole life so once we show ourselves some self -compassions i encourage you're listening to just to look at the work of Kristen Neff at University of Texas on this, it's like, okay, you can move on, right?

[1159] Another thing that you can do is disclose.

[1160] And disclosure is so important.

[1161] It is so important.

[1162] It's not accidental that with no publicity, we've got 16 ,000 people to tell us their regrets.

[1163] Why is that?

[1164] They're eating people alive?

[1165] Exactly.

[1166] And disclosure isn't unburdening.

[1167] That's one thing.

[1168] But the other thing that disclosure does is that these emotions, these negative emotions are blobby and abstract.

[1169] And when we convert them into words, language, either writing or speaking, we make them less blobby, more concrete, less fearsome.

[1170] And we can begin making sense of them.

[1171] The other thing about disclosing regrets, I'm telling you, I mean, we got this wrong, is that we think that when we disclose our vulnerabilities and our weaknesses and whatnot, people will like us less.

[1172] There is 30 years of evidence telling us that's not the case.

[1173] In most instances, they like us more.

[1174] They think more highly of us.

[1175] So disclosure.

[1176] And then finally, you want to extract a lesson from it.

[1177] And the way you do that is you pull back.

[1178] That is, we're terrible at solving our own problems.

[1179] We're very good at solving other people's problems.

[1180] So when you think about your regrets, you don't want to go into it like a scuba diver.

[1181] You want to zoom out like an oceanographer.

[1182] And so there's all kinds of things you can do like that.

[1183] So you can talk to yourself in the third person.

[1184] So Monica, you instead of saying, oh, my God, what should I do with this regret?

[1185] You should say literally, what should Monica do with this regret?

[1186] This idea of distancing in time, what's future Monica going to think about this, is a really, really effective technique.

[1187] But to me, one of the best decision -making tools of any kind is this.

[1188] You're trying to make a decision.

[1189] Ask yourself, what would you tell your best friend to do?

[1190] When people do that, it's like, oh, of course.

[1191] So I would tell her or him.

[1192] And so what you want to do is you want to go inward, share yourself self -compassion.

[1193] You want to express outward and disclosed to make sense of it.

[1194] And then you want to move forward by extracting a lesson from it, by getting some distance from it.

[1195] And when we do that, these regrets become sources for progress, for connection, for love, for accomplishment for the best things in life.

[1196] There's a great concept as well in this 12 -step program, which is like self -pity is the same as self -aggrandizement.

[1197] Both things are evaluating your importance.

[1198] Exactly.

[1199] They're narcissistic.

[1200] They're narcissistic, and I catch myself when I'm going into self -pity, and I recognize, well, this is the same as me being a bragger.

[1201] So just for me knowing that that's like a no -no, I can stop that spiral.

[1202] This is where self -compassion comes.

[1203] because self -compassion is in some ways a triangulation between self -esteem and self -criticism.

[1204] So we have totally, in this country, over -indexed on self -esteem.

[1205] I mean, self -esteem is useful, but the research shows it has all kinds of downsides.

[1206] It's often comparative.

[1207] It can lead to bias against out -groups.

[1208] It can make people try less hard.

[1209] We can get even more granular and say, what's an esteemable act in this country, which is not generally an esteemable act.

[1210] Financial accomplishments are not esteemable acts.

[1211] It's like helping someone you don't want to help is an esteemable act.

[1212] Well, I mean, that's at a completely higher level of moral reasoning than I'm capable of.

[1213] But no, but you make a great point.

[1214] So self -esteem is overvalued.

[1215] But self -criticism, there's very little evidence that self -criticism is useful.

[1216] It's almost like virtue signaling to yourself.

[1217] Look what a badass I am.

[1218] I'm criticizing myself.

[1219] Aren't I cool?

[1220] Look how tough I am.

[1221] And it doesn't do anything.

[1222] What does better is self -compassion.

[1223] And some of self -compassion, which is the point I hadn't thought of until you mentioned this, is that self -compassion is also an anti -compassion.

[1224] to do it to narcissism, because what it says is that your struggles are part of the human condition.

[1225] Yeah, you're not unique in any of this.

[1226] Yeah, I mean, oh, just, I don't want to crush the self -esteem of your listeners.

[1227] Everybody out there listening is special, but you're not that special.

[1228] You're part of the human condition.

[1229] But, Dex, what I think is interesting about AA, so you did NA2 or just AA?

[1230] Just AA.

[1231] Okay, so I think it's interesting about AA is that it's systematic.

[1232] Right, right, right.

[1233] It's a process.

[1234] It's like, you have this problem, but instead of saying, ignore it or wallow in it, we're going to show you what to do.

[1235] And if you look at our religious traditions, too, let's think emotion like grief.

[1236] Grief is a horrible emotion.

[1237] But here's the thing.

[1238] Imagine a world without grief.

[1239] How would you know you love somebody?

[1240] Exactly.

[1241] So grief is functional.

[1242] We need grief, but we also need ways to process it.

[1243] And so in our religious traditions, we have ways to process grief.

[1244] With regret, though, we have some in Catholicism, with confessional and whatnot.

[1245] In Judaism, we have the Day of Atonement.

[1246] But in general, especially in secular society, we haven't been taught how to deal with regret.

[1247] and it's like wow wait a second that seems like a big gap here like it's our most common negative emotion and we don't have any way to deal with it huh maybe we can work on that guys and if we do that we can actually find lessons for living okay now back to the anecdotal concrete example so another thing is so i too shamefully have to acknowledge i bullied some kids yeah and so first stop in that is that i was a fucking monster i'm evil i'm a piece of shit for me then second The second part is like asking why, because I actually don't think I'm evil.

[1248] So then I asked myself, well, why was I doing that?

[1249] And so I feel like I'm getting somewhere in how I'm going to correct all this.

[1250] Have you apologized to any of the people you've bullied?

[1251] I want to so bad.

[1252] I have one image in my head of punching a kid in the stomach when we were in third grade and it knocked the wind out of him.

[1253] I think that was the first time he had the wind knocked out of him.

[1254] And I could tell on his face he thought he was dying.

[1255] And that is seared in my fucking mind.

[1256] But I can't remember his name.

[1257] And when I go to my third grade class picture, there's no names on it.

[1258] It's just a bunch of little kids.

[1259] Fuck, I mean, if there's any way, I push you in the stomach in front of Spring Mills, fuck it haunts me. Maybe you go on a quest to find that guy.

[1260] Again, I think that's a great quest story that you could pitch somewhere.

[1261] Again, you know, you kiss me in as an EP.

[1262] No, you're getting full.

[1263] I'm creating.

[1264] Yeah, yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you.

[1265] But it's interesting.

[1266] And I've talked to a lot of people who were on the other end of it, who were bullied and had bullies.

[1267] Because it's interesting.

[1268] One of the things when you read about regret and talk about regret is that everybody wants to talk about it.

[1269] And so several people have told me when I mentioned that bullying was a big moral regret.

[1270] They said, oh my God, there was this kid who bullied me. And like, out of the blue, like 10 years ago, I got a Facebook message and he wanted to talk to me. And what I have found just anecdotally is that the people on the receiving end are far less traumatized in many cases than the people who are on the delivery end.

[1271] I was never a bully, but in some ways, I'm actually more haunted by inaction.

[1272] Well, I was just going to say, the thing that makes me sad is I probably created in that kid the boldness regret, which is like, why didn't I punch him back?

[1273] There's a guy in the book, his regret was like, I should have punched Rick, you know?

[1274] Yeah, so it's like my regret created probably another regret and then his probably led to someone else's regret.

[1275] It's interesting.

[1276] It's contagious.

[1277] But the thing is, like, there's also within the architecture of regret, there are regrets of action and inaction.

[1278] And action regrets are easier to undo.

[1279] You can get your tattoo removed.

[1280] You can apologize to the people you've hurt.

[1281] You can make restitution.

[1282] Inaction is harder.

[1283] And one of the things that you see in the research is that as people age, inaction regrets dominate.

[1284] That what, early in our life, 20s, we have equal numbers of action regrets and inaction regrets.

[1285] As people age, inaction regrets begin to predominate.

[1286] Like standing by while something bad has happened.

[1287] Well, that's one of my inaction regrets.

[1288] I guess it's a moral inaction regret.

[1289] But as I said, I never bullied anybody.

[1290] but I was so many times as a kid or as a young adult in situations where there wasn't anything like treacherous necessarily going on but people were being left out people were being excluded people were not being treated well and I knew it that's the thing it wasn't like I was clueless I was standing there it was happening in front of my eyes and I'm like oh this is messed up but I didn't do anything and that really bugs me and so what do I do about that what do I do now I mean like it's such a small thing but it makes me feel better and I think it might ripple into the universe So let's say I'm at a social gathering and there are a bunch of people standing around and sometimes at a social gathering you have a cluster of people and then maybe one person out I always will try to take that person and bring him or her into the circle and that's all because of that spear of regret of seeing people left out, seeing people mistreated and not doing something in the first 25 years of my life and I can't undo any of that stuff but I can take that pain and extract a lesson from it.

[1291] Oh my gosh.

[1292] My goodness.

[1293] Daniel Pink, that was so wonderful.

[1294] Do you have any closing words before I remind people that the book is entitled The Power of Regret, How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward.

[1295] I think this is like such a great endeavor for us because again, I've, like you in your study would suggest, I don't know anyone that doesn't have regrets.

[1296] We're all human.

[1297] What I'm trying to do here is reclaim this indispensable emotion because it teaches us and I think ultimately it teaches us what makes a life worthwhile, what is a well -lived life and if we reclaim this misunderstood emotion, I think all of us can be happier and more fulfilled.

[1298] I also think it's an appropriate time to mention that, but this is sincere.

[1299] And this is another one of my things I repeat nonstop.

[1300] In this process, I think people can get really distracted by the regrets being relative to another person in their life.

[1301] And that could prevent you from even starting the process.

[1302] Whereas if you recognize that you're only relative to the previous version of yourself, that's the only person you really need to evaluate yourself against.

[1303] So it's like you're trying to get.

[1304] better than Dax's who bullied in third grade.

[1305] I'm not trying to get as good as my wife who never did one thing wrong in her fucking life because that will prevent me from even starting.

[1306] I can make me better.

[1307] I don't know that I can make myself better relative to Monica who's on a like rocket ship to perfection.

[1308] No, not true.

[1309] Yeah.

[1310] Well, I mean, we know a lot about social comparison and while it can be motivating in some instances it's often destructive because there's no end to it.

[1311] Well, my point is I don't live with anyone's regrets but mine.

[1312] Yeah.

[1313] Okay, well, Daniel, this was a blast.

[1314] That was so fun.

[1315] I hope you'll come back with your next book.

[1316] Thank you for having me, you guys.

[1317] I really enjoyed it.

[1318] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Badman.

[1319] It's nice where I wake up, I don't know, six times to pee.

[1320] Couldn't stop peeing.

[1321] Wow, they're hydrated.

[1322] Too hydrated.

[1323] And I had a whopper of a day yesterday.

[1324] Whopper.

[1325] Tell us.

[1326] Okay, right out of the gates in the morning, Formula One.

[1327] First race of the season.

[1328] Bahrain.

[1329] Bahrain, six buddies over, breakfast served, straight from that to loading motorcycles, presenting Lincoln with her birthday, present the 110.

[1330] Big, big bike.

[1331] Big bike.

[1332] More than twice as big as the previous bike.

[1333] Wow.

[1334] Yeah, so we practiced in the neighborhood.

[1335] She rode it, Monica, with me on back.

[1336] Oh, my God.

[1337] And she was riding it.

[1338] Nuh.

[1339] Yeah, it started off with just like.

[1340] She was a little nervous of it because it was so tall.

[1341] So I'm like, okay, just sit in front and I'll drive.

[1342] So I was driving and then I said, take over.

[1343] And then she wrote all around the neighborhood with me, I'm back.

[1344] That's hard.

[1345] I'm heavy as hell.

[1346] That's incredible.

[1347] Yes.

[1348] Wow.

[1349] And it was quite a leap of faith for me. I'm impressed.

[1350] Oh, that's nice.

[1351] That's how much confidence you have in her.

[1352] Mm -hmm.

[1353] A mix of that and like, fuck it, I'll crash with this girl any day, you know?

[1354] Well, hopefully you should say you'll say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1355] I would have saved it.

[1356] I would have saved it.

[1357] Anyways, and then I said, let's spend from one on together.

[1358] And so I think she thought, oh, that might mean going to clays and going riding dirt bikes, but just the little one, right?

[1359] So when she got home at once, she said, oh, Daddy, I still want to spend the day with you, but I don't want to go riding at clays.

[1360] And I said, no problem.

[1361] You know, whatever you want to do, we'll do.

[1362] I said, but can I show you something?

[1363] And then I unveiled it.

[1364] Yeah.

[1365] And then she wanted to try it.

[1366] And then when we got back from the neighborhood ride, I said, so what do you want to do?

[1367] She goes, it's called Clay's.

[1368] like she was she had to go yeah loaded up bikes went to clays rode around she did a great job riding all over the dirt cute yeah really cute came home got on the multistrata the big big bike the biggest boy here and lincoln and i rode to the birds aren't real protest in front of cnn yeah amazing and how was that tell us about that well it was fantastic but you just have to imagine how much explaining i had to do to an eight -year -old she's like what's the protest i'm like well it's a fake protest.

[1369] Well, first it's real protest is this.

[1370] Yeah.

[1371] This is a fake one because do you know what conspiracy theories are?

[1372] Luce understanding of those have to explain conspiracy theories and say there's a fake one to make fun of conspiracy.

[1373] It's just a lot of explanation.

[1374] It's hard for an adult to process.

[1375] Yes, well as you and I were duped Hoodwink.

[1376] Exactly.

[1377] Yeah, so she got it and then when we got there she just saw this lunatic on top of a car with a megaphone, you know, saying that the Philadelphia Eagles was propaganda.

[1378] The Arizona Cardinals are, yeah, the hogs, all of them.

[1379] So it was really fun.

[1380] Came home, plugged a tire, you know, bang that out.

[1381] Then we played soccer in the yard forever.

[1382] Fun.

[1383] Then AA, then bedtime, then last episode 1883.

[1384] Oh, kid's bedtime.

[1385] Kid bedtime.

[1386] Last episode 1883, woke up this morning.

[1387] I was like, still exhausted.

[1388] Yeah, big day.

[1389] Big day.

[1390] What did you do yesterday?

[1391] Any miles sightings?

[1392] No, today, right?

[1393] Now, as we speak, someone is there filling the holes.

[1394] Oh, okay.

[1395] Because I've established that I think it's gone.

[1396] Okay, great.

[1397] Or I don't think it's in my apartment.

[1398] Sure, sure.

[1399] So we're going to fill the holes.

[1400] Uh -huh.

[1401] And hopefully.

[1402] Sianara.

[1403] Yeah.

[1404] So long, my friend.

[1405] We'll see.

[1406] Oh, I did something you're going to hate.

[1407] Oh, great.

[1408] I made salmon for dinner in my apartment.

[1409] Oh, that'll keep that mouse out of there.

[1410] No, I thought the opposite.

[1411] I was like, oh, no, like, this will really bring out the mouse.

[1412] The mouse in you.

[1413] But, oh, my God, it was so good.

[1414] It was so good.

[1415] And I don't think anything smells.

[1416] Like, it must just be a really good cut of salmon.

[1417] Oh.

[1418] Of course, it was my chef's recipe.

[1419] And actually, like, I hate to admit this because I want to make absolutely everything she makes.

[1420] Right.

[1421] But this was a recipe she posted a long time ago, and I saw it.

[1422] And I was like, okay, like, that looks fine.

[1423] but I wasn't like super excited about it.

[1424] Right, because you're going to have to cook fish in your house.

[1425] Well, maybe, yeah, maybe I was scarred.

[1426] Yeah.

[1427] But then I was supposed to have a friend over for dinner last night from home, from high school.

[1428] Oh, fun.

[1429] But he couldn't end up coming last minute and I had all this stuff.

[1430] I had salmon.

[1431] I had asparagus.

[1432] I had all these things.

[1433] Yeah, yeah.

[1434] I was like, oh, I should still.

[1435] Well, no, it's not a sad story.

[1436] But I was going to make this other recipe.

[1437] and then I switched it to my chef's recipe and it was incredible.

[1438] It was so good and I was so sad I hadn't made it earlier.

[1439] Right, but good thing you earmarked it.

[1440] My apartment smells delicious still.

[1441] Are you sure?

[1442] No. I haven't been back.

[1443] You have to leave and come back.

[1444] You do, you do, you do.

[1445] So we'll see.

[1446] You do, you do, you do.

[1447] I don't know if this is too gross of it.

[1448] I think this might be too gross of a story.

[1449] Well, try it.

[1450] Okay, I love this egg thing I use.

[1451] It's not eggs.

[1452] I think it's made out of beans.

[1453] I don't eat a tremendous amount of beans.

[1454] It's an egg replacement.

[1455] It's exciting.

[1456] It's excellent and exciting to be able to have an hollent in the morning with sloppy Joe in it as I do.

[1457] Yeah.

[1458] You know that's what I do?

[1459] You put meat in there.

[1460] Well, I put sloppy Joe in specifically.

[1461] Wow.

[1462] I have sloppy Joe eggs.

[1463] This is amazing.

[1464] Just so people don't know, I do five pounds of McCall's ground beef a week.

[1465] And two of the pounds get made into time.

[1466] macko meat and three into a sandwich or vice versa depending on what my consumption is and then every meal i have is one of those two things either over rice or in this case over the egg supplement right can we pause real quick you bet um because that opens up a lot of questions yeah i'm a little anxious about all the red meat yeah a lot of people are that hear that they are yeah yeah but remember you have an egg explanation i do have an explanation which is i had my heart examined with the contrast diet and I had zero percent plaque in my heart yeah but that was before you were eating no I've been I've been I've been I've been eating almost exclusively red meat since I was two years old my mother did the same thing she bought like 10 pounds of ground beef every week and she just we had like nine different ground beef dishes that's why everything I make you was ground beef based can you make me some stuff some more yeah yeah I haven't had a this doctor meal in a while I know and it's evolving But what's great is I'm workshopping some things.

[1467] Okay, yeah.

[1468] I'm basically creating a new menu.

[1469] Okay.

[1470] Still with ground beef.

[1471] That's fine.

[1472] So, yeah, you would be right to be concerned, you know.

[1473] But also, I'm thin and good shape.

[1474] You are.

[1475] Right?

[1476] And I had zero, zero percent plaque in every artery of my heart.

[1477] So I'm not worried.

[1478] Okay, but maybe if you keep this up, can we just, like, get that checked a little more often?

[1479] Sure.

[1480] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1481] I like that procedure.

[1482] You know, they squirt the dye in you and it feels like you, well, first they warn you, it's going to feel like you pee your pants.

[1483] Oh, cool.

[1484] Yeah, I love that feeling.

[1485] And then also it makes your chest cold.

[1486] Oh, I want to try that.

[1487] So warm peeing your pants and cold chest.

[1488] Oh, my God.

[1489] You might freak out because your body feels completely different.

[1490] I feel like when you describe that, like I feel like I know that.

[1491] Yeah, yeah.

[1492] I loved it.

[1493] So sure, I would go in yearly.

[1494] Okay.

[1495] Yeah, it's a questionable diet.

[1496] But the point is, so I had all those egg.

[1497] And I do a whole bottle of the egg.

[1498] You know, I eat like a big boy when I eat, right?

[1499] Oh, okay.

[1500] Come Friday night.

[1501] Now, the weekends are when the girls get to sleep with mom in the bed.

[1502] So I'm in another room on the weekends.

[1503] And I'm downstairs.

[1504] And the toots start coming.

[1505] And I'm like, from the whole week, they build up.

[1506] Well, not the whole week.

[1507] Just I think that enormous egg supplement breakfast 12 hours earlier.

[1508] I think things really start, whatever.

[1509] I'm like, ooh, we doggies, these are, thank God I'm by myself.

[1510] Then I did the nighttime booty, which I told you about on Saturday.

[1511] Right.

[1512] Yeah, which is rare.

[1513] Yeah.

[1514] And in the bathroom.

[1515] Then I left the bathroom and I shut the door and put the fan on and everything.

[1516] I just walked.

[1517] See, I'm painting a really ugly picture of myself.

[1518] This was an abnormal thing.

[1519] This was an anomaly.

[1520] It's okay to have a night poody?

[1521] No, it's more of the smell I'm talking about.

[1522] Yeah, because that was very atypical.

[1523] The smell.

[1524] Yes, this is all getting back to the fish in your apartment and leaving.

[1525] All right.

[1526] So I was in the bathroom and the bedroom.

[1527] And then I shut the door and I thought, okay, Ooh, let's get that.

[1528] And I turn the fan on, I crack the window, blah, blah, blah.

[1529] Who cares?

[1530] I'm the only one in there.

[1531] And then I'm in the bedroom for a minute.

[1532] And then I go, hmm, I want a snack.

[1533] So I go out in the kitchen and I make a little tiny nighttime snack.

[1534] And when I walk in the bedroom, I go, oh, my goodness.

[1535] A strong smell.

[1536] The whole bedroom.

[1537] It leaked in.

[1538] I don't think I've ever had that.

[1539] Or the bedroom?

[1540] Okay.

[1541] A bedroom.

[1542] Well, you were also tooting.

[1543] Yeah, but this, I think this was definitely from the deposit.

[1544] The evocation.

[1545] Okay.

[1546] Oh, man. We can't be surprised, right?

[1547] Because if it's beans...

[1548] Uh -huh.

[1549] The magical fruit.

[1550] Yeah, like...

[1551] Mix with sloppy chill.

[1552] Yeah, we just can't be very surprised.

[1553] I'm surprised that it's only once a week that you're experiencing this.

[1554] That's true.

[1555] But I don't...

[1556] I do that, um, the egg thing only a couple times a week.

[1557] Oh, I see.

[1558] Yeah, I'm not a big breakfast person, as you know.

[1559] Cheesh.

[1560] Sheesh.

[1561] respectfully yeah so that was my evening and did you watch anything fun no i listened to some of my book on tape okay then i switched to a different book on tape oh okay you got restless started uh emperor of all maladies wow that's an incredible book yes but it was good i was into it but it was gross it's gross yeah yeah well cancer's gross I know, so much blood talk.

[1562] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1563] The most beautifully written book imaginable.

[1564] It's really good.

[1565] But it's like hard to sleep when you're listening to those descriptions and sadnesses.

[1566] Were they talking about the children's ward?

[1567] Is that where you're listening?

[1568] No, not there yet.

[1569] Whoa.

[1570] You haven't even.

[1571] I just started.

[1572] Okay.

[1573] All right.

[1574] I'm probably not going to finish.

[1575] You know, I met him.

[1576] Did I tell you I met him?

[1577] No. Sid Arthur, what's his name?

[1578] Mukergy.

[1579] Sid Arthur.

[1580] Mukerjee.

[1581] I was at this kind of you know this gathering of a bunch of people A bunch of hot shots.

[1582] The Illuminati Conference?

[1583] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1584] You can just say that.

[1585] Oh, okay, I guess I can.

[1586] And I was like, oh my gosh, oh, what's his name?

[1587] From Jurassic Park, the original, the tall scientist who was Jeff Goldblum.

[1588] Yeah, Jeff Goldblum.

[1589] You know how he was like a rock star?

[1590] Yeah.

[1591] Okay, so there was this guy there who was like in a fucking sweet leather jacket, fucked up black hair that looked awesome.

[1592] Oh.

[1593] Maybe blue tinted shades inside.

[1594] And I was like, oh, my God.

[1595] Jeff Goldblum's here.

[1596] And he is like a rock star scientist.

[1597] He was so mysterious.

[1598] And my curiosity was growing and growing and growing.

[1599] And then I found out it was goddamn Sid Arthur.

[1600] Wow.

[1601] Isn't that awesome?

[1602] And then I talked to him.

[1603] He was sweet as could be.

[1604] And he said he'd be on the show.

[1605] What?

[1606] Then, hello.

[1607] Where is he?

[1608] Get him.

[1609] He's probably fucking tinkering with dinosaur eggs on an island.

[1610] What is he look?

[1611] Is he look skinny?

[1612] Oh, I see him He looks fucking like He's a lead singer of you two or something But cool Motorbiker Motorbike pop Indian This doctor You go to an Illuminati Conference You're not expecting to see A like biker rock star That's kind of my role Yeah were you upset Obsessed Excess Elbow foot Oh, and I see your two colors, and that's why I love you, so don't be afraid to let them show.

[1613] Two colors are beautiful like a wane bowl.

[1614] That's kind of a sad, Elmer.

[1615] I almost started crying.

[1616] I really did my eyes.

[1617] I could feel welling underneath.

[1618] Like, Elmer was so long.

[1619] I know.

[1620] I'm a long way.

[1621] You know, people get like happy birthday.

[1622] I guess they're cameos.

[1623] Yeah, cameos.

[1624] Aaron Weekly.

[1625] Aaron Weekly.

[1626] Please get one from Aaron Weekly.

[1627] I've never heard anything but a raving review.

[1628] He over delivers.

[1629] Big time.

[1630] Underpriced.

[1631] I'm going to convince him to get him up there.

[1632] He's undervaluing himself.

[1633] What if there was one for sad times?

[1634] Oh.

[1635] And Elmer Fudd had a cameo.

[1636] And then you were in a bad moon, you just get this, I'm wongui.

[1637] No, but that's, no. It's the commiserate.

[1638] You want someone to cheer you up when you're sad.

[1639] Okay, then if someone's too happy, Sunday.

[1640] Right.

[1641] Yeah.

[1642] If someone's like ramping up.

[1643] Happy birthday.

[1644] I'm long wait.

[1645] It's too sad for me. All right, all right.

[1646] Because my flies are coming.

[1647] Oh, still.

[1648] This is a long lead up.

[1649] They come on Tuesdays.

[1650] But I thought you said they were coming last Tuesday.

[1651] No. They're on their way starting like Wednesday of last week.

[1652] Yeah.

[1653] And then they arrive on Tuesday.

[1654] It's a long journey.

[1655] Okay.

[1656] So your phone rings right now.

[1657] Pick it up.

[1658] Hello.

[1659] Congratulations on your FI's.

[1660] It can be a happy period message.

[1661] Happy Fries.

[1662] Okay, this is for Dan Pink.

[1663] Yeah, that was a really fascinating.

[1664] He was very fun.

[1665] Very.

[1666] But you know what's new for me is like I just had a single umbrella for regret.

[1667] Kind of like the Bray Brown book, where it's like you got to label your emotions to even understand them.

[1668] Similarly, like, regret's just too broad of a term.

[1669] Yeah.

[1670] Well, then we'll just get into one of those facts that's relevant.

[1671] He said it's the most common negative emotion And the second most common emotion in general The study I found said it is definitely the most common negative emotion Okay But according to this study There were eight negative emotions and then four positive And according to this study the positive ones all outweighed Regret as the next one I gotcha Okay.

[1672] Does that make sense?

[1673] It does.

[1674] So it would be like the fifth most common.

[1675] Correct.

[1676] Per this thing.

[1677] Exactly.

[1678] Per this one study.

[1679] Now, the four positive emotions were love, joy, pride, and relaxed.

[1680] Hmm.

[1681] I know.

[1682] That's kind of.

[1683] Relax seems elusive to me. I know.

[1684] I guess that's a personality type.

[1685] Oh, my gosh.

[1686] Tell me. You know, Eric and I have about 600 terrible debate conversations before we find a gem.

[1687] Okay.

[1688] I think we found a gem.

[1689] And I'm going to pose it to you.

[1690] There's a brand new procedure.

[1691] It's available right now.

[1692] You will be 20 % less intelligent and 30 % happier.

[1693] No. Rob?

[1694] I think I would take it.

[1695] Yeah, look at that.

[1696] I said I might take it once my kids are 18.

[1697] And I think I've like set my finances up enough for me to retire.

[1698] And then, yeah, why do I need to be smart?

[1699] Yeah.

[1700] Because it's your identity.

[1701] I know, but maybe time for a new identity where I'm happy.

[1702] Yeah.

[1703] Phone rings.

[1704] Hello?

[1705] Hello, Monica.

[1706] Congratulations on your conversion.

[1707] Now you're happy, even though I'm wrong week.

[1708] Oh, wow.

[1709] Okay, so it makes you actually unable to recognize sadness.

[1710] Yeah, and suffering.

[1711] I know.

[1712] That's what it launched into this incredible fun.

[1713] exploration of what intelligence is like i was saying uh yeah maybe like soon as my finances are i'd rather just be happy why not i mean what's the point right but then i was like oh i want to be as as smart as i can to advise my children or to talk them through things when they're when i'm needed then yes are you just like you're happy but you lose empathy like you're you're you know what is happy content oh that gets into a real i know yeah yeah you know like when you're really happy I have those feelings, like yesterday, riding the motorcycle behind Lincoln.

[1714] If I felt that way 30 % more, it'd be a real nice experience on planet Earth.

[1715] I suppose.

[1716] And I can see where it would definitely limit your drive and whatnot.

[1717] But I'm just saying you've got all your ducks in a row.

[1718] Now it's time to dim that intellect and ratchet up those smiles.

[1719] Okay, I get that.

[1720] Ignorance is bliss.

[1721] Ignorance is bliss.

[1722] Now then we came up with another one that was pretty good.

[1723] Okay.

[1724] Rob, you have to lose two inches of your penis to be 45 % happier.

[1725] I'm married with kids.

[1726] Yeah, that's what I said.

[1727] Sure.

[1728] Okay.

[1729] So also, you said there was an auto magazine that is from Columbus, Ohio.

[1730] You said maybe Auto Week.

[1731] Otto Mart magazine is out of Columbus.

[1732] Oh, great.

[1733] He said Sam Glucksburg is a professor at Stanford.

[1734] He's actually a professor at Princeton.

[1735] Okay, I can see the confusion.

[1736] Also, that study about political candidates is also out of Princeton.

[1737] Which study?

[1738] Looking at the faces for 10 seconds and being able to determine who the winner is.

[1739] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1740] Oh, wait, did I have a thought about...

[1741] Oh, well, yes, of course I have a lot of thoughts because of Formula One, Total Wolf.

[1742] Okay, go on.

[1743] You have the team principle of Mercedes.

[1744] Yep.

[1745] Total Wolf.

[1746] Yep.

[1747] It also owns 33 % of that team.

[1748] Oh, wow.

[1749] I didn't know that.

[1750] Do you know how much Total Wolf is worth?

[1751] How much?

[1752] $1 .2 billion.

[1753] Oh, my God.

[1754] Wow.

[1755] It says on the Internet, I think this is an overestimation, but whatever.

[1756] Did I already ask you how tall he was?

[1757] Do you know this?

[1758] Six foot five.

[1759] Really?

[1760] Six foot five.

[1761] Oh, my God.

[1762] He does look tall in the show.

[1763] Yes.

[1764] Wow.

[1765] So, of course, I was just thinking, like, you know, visually, God, does he look the part?

[1766] Like, you trust this person.

[1767] He's enormous, he's handsome, his hair's thick.

[1768] He looks virile, virile.

[1769] And he's won an unparalleled seven or eight constructors championships in a row.

[1770] It's never happened.

[1771] Yeah.

[1772] The Michael Jordan thing, the spirit of a winner.

[1773] Why are all these fucking F1 drivers handsome?

[1774] Why are all the crazy great basketball players hands up?

[1775] No, we talked about it.

[1776] Unless, maybe I just focus on it.

[1777] That's the thing.

[1778] Maybe it's frequency illusion.

[1779] Yeah, and it's also when someone's incredibly talented, they appear better looking.

[1780] Yeah, like if they were just someone on the street, you might not think twice about them, but you know their skill level and their talent.

[1781] And it's attractive.

[1782] So it can work in a reverse.

[1783] Yeah, reverse.

[1784] engineering reverse back oh talk about the king of the reverse back toto looks like a phenomenal lover okay so so yeah the ratio of width to height in your face oh okay that's called fw hr facial width to height ratio oh simple yeah is a measure derived from archaeological skull measurements fw hr may be linked with adolescent testes testosterone and has been proposed as a predictor of aggression, cause of death by violence, and also with CEO's success probability.

[1785] Oh, my God.

[1786] So wait, do you want your face to be wider?

[1787] You want it to be more like square.

[1788] Oh, wide.

[1789] Like the testosterone level makes it more like boxy.

[1790] Okay.

[1791] Mine is very olive shape, don't you think?

[1792] Yeah, you have a nice height.

[1793] I have a, yeah, so I'm not aggressive and not testosterone.

[1794] Right.

[1795] Yeah.

[1796] I mean, you still have some.

[1797] I know.

[1798] You have plenty.

[1799] It's still aggressive.

[1800] Now that I think about it, though, but I don't know because my dad was heavy.

[1801] Okay, he was a big boy.

[1802] But his face was wider than mine.

[1803] Oh, interesting.

[1804] He was very testy.

[1805] There you go.

[1806] There you go.

[1807] Oh, testi astorone.

[1808] Next thing, we got to test your testosterone.

[1809] Okay.

[1810] Now, you said is that facial prognetism.

[1811] Uh -huh.

[1812] That is this.

[1813] Yes, that is your mandible is when your jaw protrudes, basically.

[1814] Yeah.

[1815] Yeah.

[1816] We are the Millers, no regrets, tattoo.

[1817] That was correct.

[1818] He said, we are the Millers.

[1819] And I'll be honest, when he said that, I was like, that's not right.

[1820] Right, because he's not a comedian.

[1821] You know, like, how would he know that immediately it was from We Are the Millers?

[1822] But he did, and he was right.

[1823] Well, that's what you've done.

[1824] You realize comedy is for the people.

[1825] That's right.

[1826] You know?

[1827] Okay.

[1828] Phineas Gage.

[1829] He's the guy who had the railroad construction foreman who had the iron rod in it through his head destroying much of his brain's left frontal lobe.

[1830] Long known as the quote American crowbar case once termed quote the case which more than all others is calculated to excite our wonder impair the value of prognosis and even to subvert our psychological doctrines.

[1831] Perhaps the first case to suggest the brain's role in determining personality.

[1832] and that damage to specific parts of the brain might induce specific mental changes because he was like different after that.

[1833] Right.

[1834] Bring, bring.

[1835] Hello.

[1836] Sorry about the whale world spike you got through your head.

[1837] That actually, I felt cheery.

[1838] Okay, good.

[1839] Okay, the runner, the runner, I mean, I'm sorry, the cyclist.

[1840] This actually, this is interesting.

[1841] When we were talking to him And he was giving the example of the Olympian in Rio Who lost the lead at the very end The last 115 meters or something When I heard it for some reason I thought you guys were talking about running And then I thought I heard her name as Mara Habit So I typed in Mara Habit Runner Rio And it's like one of the first times That pretty much nothing came up Oh wow, congratulations Yeah, it was cool.

[1842] But then I found it.

[1843] Cyclists.

[1844] Mara Abbott.

[1845] Abbott, a Boulder Colorado native broke away from the field during the final 15 kilometers of the 136 kilometer race along with the Netherlands.

[1846] Oh, wow, a name I don't know.

[1847] That name crashed.

[1848] Abbott navigated a technical descent down to Copa Cabana.

[1849] Yeah.

[1850] At the Copa, Copa, Cabana Beach.

[1851] Yeah, at the Copa, Copa, Cabana.

[1852] She rode solo at the front of the field along the beach boat was caught by the threesome in the final 250 meters resulting in a sprint to the finish line.

[1853] 136 kilometers, wow.

[1854] Ooh, ooh, ooh, do you know how many miles that is?

[1855] Yes, please.

[1856] Okay, it is six and then 78 miles.

[1857] Wow.

[1858] Yeah.

[1859] Bring.

[1860] Hello?

[1861] So sorry you ran out of gas at the last 200.

[1862] I lost to that.

[1863] Fuck you.

[1864] Fuck you.

[1865] Fucking fun.

[1866] Don't call me. Sorry.

[1867] Don't rub my nose in there.

[1868] If it makes you feel any better, I'm wongui.

[1869] I'm so won't we?

[1870] I'm sad that he's lonely.

[1871] Yeah.

[1872] Okay.

[1873] He said that Gross Point invites images of John Cusack.

[1874] Now, I did not know why.

[1875] Gross Point Blank.

[1876] Yes, there's a movie, Gross Point Blank.

[1877] He loves his comedies.

[1878] Is it a comedy?

[1879] Yeah, you know, John Cusack's behind the helm.

[1880] Yeah, but it said it's about...

[1881] Hitman?

[1882] Yeah.

[1883] But so is Barry.

[1884] Sure.

[1885] In fact, I hope John Cusack is suing Barry now that we've just uncovered this.

[1886] Oh, wow.

[1887] Oh, wow.

[1888] First to market.

[1889] Did you like that movie?

[1890] Because you felt like, I know it.

[1891] Yeah, yeah, of course.

[1892] Well, it's about Gross Point, Michigan.

[1893] Yeah, I know.

[1894] Yeah, he goes back to Gross Point, Michigan to maybe a high school reunion.

[1895] Yeah.

[1896] knows he's a hitty hit and then there's some Detroit stuff yeah I think I might have got bogged down with the fact that I could see it wasn't there as tends to happen when you're from a place remember I'll be pissed the people in champagne Illinois were that the show Champaign Illinois didn't actually film in Champaign.

[1897] Oh but again only that's inhabitants of Champaign Illinois knew that it wasn't champagne Illinois you know it's funny I have the opposite so I was just watching a show I'm not going to say what it is set in California but it's shot in Atlanta Georgia It is set in Georgia.

[1898] Oh, my God, and shot here?

[1899] No, and it's shot in Georgia.

[1900] Okay?

[1901] But I...

[1902] Oh, God, this is...

[1903] This is bad.

[1904] Uh -oh.

[1905] Once I really was like, yeah, they're shooting it there.

[1906] Then I knew it was like, oh, these are local hires.

[1907] Okay.

[1908] And I can tell.

[1909] Okay.

[1910] All right.

[1911] Okay, well, that's all the facts for Dan.

[1912] That was really fun.

[1913] Absolutely.

[1914] Excellent time.

[1915] Excellent time.

[1916] He was a blast.

[1917] Yeah.

[1918] He was really fun.

[1919] From the past.

[1920] I don't regret having him.

[1921] Same.

[1922] Ding ding ding dingoes.

[1923] All right.

[1924] Bring.

[1925] Ding, ding, ding.

[1926] Are you at the door?

[1927] Ding.

[1928] No. I'm a long way.

[1929] Oh, come in.

[1930] Come on in.

[1931] Oh, that was.

[1932] Okay, yeah.

[1933] Bring.

[1934] Ding, ding, ding.

[1935] Oh, are you at the time?

[1936] the door?

[1937] No. Oh.

[1938] Yes.

[1939] I'm lonely.

[1940] Wait.

[1941] No?

[1942] See, he was trying to lie.

[1943] He was embarrassed.

[1944] He's like, no. Yes.

[1945] I'm here because I'm lonely.

[1946] Okay.

[1947] Okay.

[1948] Come on in.

[1949] Come on in then.

[1950] We'll talk it out.

[1951] We'll get it figured out.

[1952] But you can't stay too long.

[1953] I have a friend coming over.

[1954] Okay.

[1955] Bring, bring, bring.

[1956] Hello?

[1957] I love you.

[1958] Oh, I love you.

[1959] Bye.

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