Adam Grant

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert, experts on expert.

[1] I'm your resident expert, Monica Padman.

[2] And I'm your non -resident expert, Dax Shepard.

[3] Today we have somebody that we've talked about so much on this show, and we had the deep, deep pleasure to sit down and meet him.

[4] Adam Grant, you've heard us talk about Adam a bunch of times on here.

[5] He's an American psychologist and an author who's currently a professor at the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in organizational psychology.

[6] He's so fascinating.

[7] He has such an interesting way that he looks at the world.

[8] And he's written a couple of books, originals, how nonconformists move the world and give and take why helping others drives our success.

[9] Now, that's the thing that we really got infected with.

[10] Oh, yeah, lots of things.

[11] But yeah, we talk about that a good bit.

[12] You're a taker.

[13] Yeah.

[14] No, he said I was a giver even though you tried to prove to him.

[15] Well, I don't want to ruin it.

[16] Let's not ruin it.

[17] Okay.

[18] Yeah.

[19] Foreshadowing.

[20] Let's just say that he evaluates our giving and taking status.

[21] Truly a beautiful guy.

[22] guy, so excited that we met him.

[23] And he's opened the door to all these other interesting people that we love.

[24] Oh, my God.

[25] He's been so great.

[26] He truly is a giver.

[27] He's the giviest giver there is.

[28] Also, he's got a new children's book that I've read multiple times in my kids.

[29] It's legitimately an awesome children's book called The Gift Inside the Box.

[30] So please enjoy Adam Grant.

[31] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to armchair expert early and ad free right now.

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[34] Adam Grant, welcome to armchair expert.

[35] Thank you.

[36] Excited to be here.

[37] First and foremost, let's geek out for one second that we're both from Michigan.

[38] And not far apart either.

[39] Where did you grow up?

[40] I was brought home from the hospital to Highland, Michigan, then I moved to Milford, then we moved back to Highland, then we move back to Milford, then I moved to Wald Lake, then Southfield, then downtown Detroit.

[41] Wow.

[42] So elementary and junior high and Highland and Milford and then high school in Wald Lake.

[43] And you're a West Bloomfield night?

[44] Yeah, all the way through.

[45] Okay, what part of West Bloomfield?

[46] Uh, 15 in Orchard Lake, if that helps you.

[47] Oh, absolutely.

[48] You know his house?

[49] Oh my God, yes.

[50] Let's see.

[51] So you went to West Bloomfield High School.

[52] Guilty.

[53] So you were born in 81.

[54] Does that mean you graduated in like 99?

[55] 99.

[56] 99.

[57] Do you love Olga's?

[58] Oh, of course.

[59] Olga bread?

[60] Oh, snacks.

[61] Sometimes I want to go to Michigan just for that.

[62] As soon as I land in Michigan, I either drive straight to Lafayette, Coney Island, or straight to Olga.

[63] It's a toss -up.

[64] Pick your poison.

[65] Orange cream cooler also.

[66] Oh, sure.

[67] Monica, didn't I make you eat some snackers?

[68] You did.

[69] They were really good.

[70] Are you just saying that, though, because you know it's important to him?

[71] No, well.

[72] That is a good thing to be suspicious of.

[73] They were good.

[74] I like food.

[75] I'm from Georgia, so I get it.

[76] Monica is from Georgia where Crystal is king.

[77] You know, the little tiny, they're White Castle burgers, but it's called Crystal.

[78] I've never had, never even heard of it.

[79] Wow.

[80] Well, just for the record, it's called Crystal, not crystals.

[81] Well, the locals call it crystals, plural.

[82] I was like, astrology?

[83] What are we talking about here?

[84] No, tiny hamburgers.

[85] Do you think it's a unique Michigander thing that we pluralize everything?

[86] I don't know.

[87] I actually had, there was a linguistics professor in college who would ask you four or five questions and then could figure out what state you were from.

[88] Oh.

[89] And with Michigan, he only needed one or two questions.

[90] Oh, really?

[91] It was always the, what do you call this can of Coke?

[92] Oh, okay, pop.

[93] There you go.

[94] Sure, we're halfway there.

[95] Yeah, yeah, you're busted.

[96] And then which direction do you drive to get to Canada was the other.

[97] Oh, which is east, right?

[98] Is it east?

[99] I always thought it was, didn't we go south to Canada to get to the Windsor tunnel?

[100] I don't know, maybe both.

[101] Yeah.

[102] I mean, I think if you're looking at it, yeah, it's either south or east.

[103] Now, Michigan in general, how long has it been since you lived there?

[104] Oh, I left in 99 and then went back to Michigan for grad school from 03 to 07.

[105] So I guess it's been 12 years.

[106] 12 years.

[107] I wonder, have you read by chance the Malcolm Gladwell books?

[108] Of course.

[109] Yeah, aren't they great?

[110] They seem very up your alley.

[111] He's a regular sparring partner.

[112] Oh, okay, great.

[113] So one thing that, again, I grew up more in the hillbilly area more than you did, Milford.

[114] You said it, not me. I'm saying it.

[115] When you get to that chapter on the culture of pride, I was like, oh, bingo, all the way bingo from where I grew up.

[116] Just like, you can't look at a dude in a restaurant without having to walk outside and fight.

[117] One of you has to look away, or if you lock in and you commit to it, it could escalate to walking outside.

[118] Once I moved to California, I found out that was unique.

[119] Yeah, that, I mean, I didn't even, I didn't get that, right?

[120] Oh, okay.

[121] In our suburbs, there was no culture of honor.

[122] I think there was a lot of status competition.

[123] Oh, my God, yeah.

[124] Have either of you read Mitch Princeton's work popular?

[125] No. So Mitch studies popularity as a developmental psychologist, and he finds that there are two paths to being popular.

[126] One is status, which is being cooler than everyone else.

[127] And the other is being likable.

[128] I think that West Bloomfield was very much about status, not about likability.

[129] Right.

[130] Now, your dad was a lawyer and mom was a teacher.

[131] You have done your homework.

[132] Well, I should hope so.

[133] Well, that's his job.

[134] There's at least 20 people are going to listen to this.

[135] I have an obligation to them.

[136] I have a real quick question.

[137] Did he say why some are status -driven and some are likeability driven?

[138] Was there reasoning behind it?

[139] I don't think we know.

[140] I think that for most schools and for most kids, both paths are their options.

[141] And I think that for whatever reason, I don't know if status was just more visible.

[142] And we grew up in an area where there are all these symbols.

[143] For us, it was a lot of SUVs.

[144] Yeah, cars.

[145] Well, I'm six years older than you.

[146] And it was like, yeah, who had a Mustang?

[147] If you had a Mustang, you were pretty much going to take.

[148] the fast pass up to some level of popularity.

[149] I guess that's a Detroit thing in part.

[150] I think so.

[151] I never really thought about it before.

[152] Well, even when I was reading, I think you referenced that in your article that's currently in the Atlantic.

[153] That is definitely true.

[154] That's true, right?

[155] And I went to you and I. I like, of course, an amygocentric, and I thought about you and I, and I thought, you know, your popularity stem from likability.

[156] Yeah.

[157] Right?

[158] Yes.

[159] And mine didn't.

[160] That's really funny.

[161] though, because somebody says, were you popular?

[162] I always say, no, I was well liked.

[163] But I don't consider it to be the same as, like, popular was status, with someone with a lot of cachet and status.

[164] I didn't think I had that.

[165] I didn't have that.

[166] Yeah, but I think we would use a definition of like, how many, if you asked all thousand kids in this school, who knows Monica Padman, that, you know, if 20 % said I know who she was, and then Gil Turner, they said one percent, you're, you know, you're more popular.

[167] And then the question is, well, what's, why are you more popular?

[168] Yeah, that's true.

[169] Okay, so now back to your, if your dad was a lawyer and he didn't do exclusively pro bono work, probably could have bought you, Jordan.

[170] So there was an ethos in the house or some kind of thought that was frivolous or silly.

[171] Why didn't you have the good shit?

[172] Oh, my parents were definitely anti -materialistic.

[173] Uh -huh.

[174] I think that norm in our house was to, you know, wear old marathon t -shirts everywhere.

[175] Uh -huh.

[176] Or triathlon t -shirts.

[177] Then it almost begs a question, why were they even West Bloomfield?

[178] I don't know, actually.

[179] Because that's where, if you're in Michigan, you're climbing the ladder.

[180] West Bloomfield's the last stop before Bloomfield Hills or Birmingham.

[181] And then that's it.

[182] You're at the top, right?

[183] Yeah, that's right.

[184] I'm not sure.

[185] I have no idea.

[186] I know they both grew up in Detroit.

[187] I don't know how they ended up there.

[188] I should ask them.

[189] What parts did they grow up in Michigan?

[190] They were both in Detroit proper.

[191] Oh, they were?

[192] Yeah.

[193] Oh, okay.

[194] So I think it was just move out to the suburbs.

[195] We found a house.

[196] And here we are.

[197] Right.

[198] It wasn't, say, proximity to work for.

[199] dad or anything.

[200] Or where did mom teach?

[201] So my mom taught in the North Farmington schools.

[202] Oh, she did?

[203] Yep.

[204] Okay.

[205] Another lovely area.

[206] That's somewhere a mix of West Bloomfield.

[207] Right around the corner.

[208] Yeah.

[209] So you, buckle the fuck up, Monica, because we're unifiles.

[210] Neither of us went to an Ivy League school, so we're kind of obsessed with the status of it.

[211] And you went to Harvard out of West Bloomfield High School, which makes me think you must have had like a 4 .3 or some shit and a bunch of extra quick.

[212] I think about a fifth of our class did, honestly.

[213] Right.

[214] You know, it's funny, I assumed I was going to go to Michigan or Michigan State, like everyone did.

[215] Yeah.

[216] And I had a dream in September of my senior year of high school that I went to Harvard.

[217] I never thought about it.

[218] And I said, you know what?

[219] I'm going to apply.

[220] And so I started filling out an application, didn't really tell anybody.

[221] And I was a diver.

[222] Oh, right, you were All -American Diverer, right?

[223] I was barely good enough that the coach kind of said, yes, this guy is not terrible, and we would welcome him onto the team.

[224] And so I guess that got stamped as having achieved something.

[225] Were you not labeled All -American?

[226] Or maybe I don't know what that means.

[227] In 1999, were you not?

[228] You, gosh, I can't.

[229] You stalking.

[230] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[231] I've been inside of you.

[232] It feels like it.

[233] No, yeah, I made some list of top divers, But I filled out the application and you sort of had to validate, like if you were a musician, somebody would have to prove that you were good at music.

[234] And so they had the diving coach look at my video and he said, yes, you should come out and visit.

[235] And then a couple months later, I got in and was shocked.

[236] Yeah.

[237] Actually, the thing I remember most clearly was getting in, wanting to go, but then thinking, I'm not going to have any friends there, as opposed to, you know, you go to the same college as all your friends.

[238] Yeah.

[239] And so I started running searches on America online to find people who were going, because, you know, you want to hang out with the people who put that in their profile that they're going to Harvard.

[240] Sure, sure.

[241] But I found a few, and we started a little email list.

[242] And by the time the sort of the spring pre -freshman visit rolled around, we had connected about an eighth of the entering class online.

[243] And so we had an early online social network, and then we got to campus.

[244] And we're all in Cambridge now.

[245] We know each other.

[246] We don't need the online social network, and we shut it down.

[247] This was five years before Mark started Facebook.

[248] You invented Facebook.

[249] We didn't have a vision anywhere near, obviously, what that became.

[250] But it is amazing to look back at what was created and what it could have been.

[251] I feel like that tells me so much about you.

[252] I would have had a hard time making myself vulnerable enough to openly be in search of friends.

[253] I would have felt like that would have made me a loser or look desperate.

[254] I'm not buying this.

[255] You're the king of vulnerability.

[256] Now.

[257] Now, now, now.

[258] After having a life and death illness that required me to get sober and then learn these tools.

[259] But no, I would have had a very hard time with that.

[260] And in fact, like, what strata were you in in high school?

[261] Because we have the same paradigm, I would imagine.

[262] I guess because you were an athlete.

[263] A fake athlete, though, right?

[264] Okay.

[265] Diver.

[266] It's like too short for basketball, two weak for football, too slow for track.

[267] So we were, it was kind of the swim team and the band were in the same level of coolness.

[268] Okay.

[269] It tells me if you went out of your way to land at, Harvard with a social group.

[270] That tells me that you were like you were actively engaged in trying to be social.

[271] I think I did it though in part because I'm an introvert and felt like it was easier to reach out to people and, you know, send them emails than it was to, I was really shy.

[272] And so the thought of approaching a stranger was kind of frightening face to face.

[273] And so I thought, oh, I can write these notes.

[274] I like to write.

[275] And then maybe I'll connect with some people.

[276] So you land in Harvard and you have some friends.

[277] And what did you get your undergraduate degree in that?

[278] So I studied psychology.

[279] You did.

[280] Why do you think you were interested in psychology?

[281] I think it happened for a few reasons.

[282] One, I'd taken an introsite class in high school and thought it was just incredibly interesting to get inside the mind and figure out what makes us tick.

[283] Yeah.

[284] I don't remember thinking about it that systematically, but looking back, I'd had a lot of questions about why people do the things they do.

[285] And I felt like we scratched the surface of that in this class and wanted to learn more about it.

[286] I also discovered, once I told my parents, I was thinking about majoring in psychology, that my dad had been a psych major.

[287] My mom had done a psych minor, and neither of them ever told me. Really?

[288] But it was sort of in the water.

[289] So I grew up as a kid thinking that normal families said things like self -fulfilling prophecy.

[290] Right.

[291] I just thought that was part of the, you know, kind of the everyday lingo.

[292] Yeah.

[293] So I think it was in the water quite a bit.

[294] Right.

[295] And were you drawn, because I took one as well in high school, and I was drawn specifically to, like, the pathologies.

[296] Like, I wanted to know about schizophrenia.

[297] I wanted to know about split personality.

[298] I wanted to know about psychopaths.

[299] I was kind of drawn to that.

[300] But that's not what you were drawn to.

[301] Not as much.

[302] I thought it was interesting.

[303] What really hooked me in psychology was the idea that I was learning things that could improve my life and other people's lives.

[304] And so I kind of wanted to say, oh, if we all understood our own minds better, then we could probably live more productive, more meaningful lives.

[305] And let's figure out how to do that.

[306] Yeah.

[307] Oh, right.

[308] Because you took Tall Ben Shahar's class.

[309] I did.

[310] We had him on the show.

[311] I heard that episode.

[312] Yes.

[313] And remember, he said that Adam was one of his best students.

[314] He did say that.

[315] And yes, he only taught four of us that year.

[316] He did say that.

[317] You had a 25 % shot.

[318] Okay, so having him as an instructor, was that life -changing?

[319] Were you on that path already?

[320] Or did he opened your mind to something?

[321] No, Tal had a big impact on me. So the first thing he did was he convinced me to join a research lab and say, look, you know, you don't just have to be a consumer of this knowledge.

[322] You could actually produce it.

[323] And I thought that was really exciting.

[324] I actually didn't know what professors did when I got to college.

[325] I just thought they were teachers.

[326] Yeah.

[327] I think a lot of people think that.

[328] Probably.

[329] The discovery that there was this whole life of creating social science, I felt like, okay, this is something I want to be involved in.

[330] And then the other thing that happened was, Tal was, you know, from meeting him, he's extremely introverted.

[331] And it was pretty empowering to see that somebody who was that withdrawn and not traditionally a charismatic person.

[332] outgoing.

[333] Yeah, could give such captivating lectures.

[334] Yeah.

[335] And so I think he was an early role model to say, you know what, I can probably expand my comfort zone.

[336] And now was that a discovery?

[337] So you meet him under the guise of he's the teacher and he's already in the throes of a lecture and he's probably very charismatic and all these things.

[338] Did you like go visit him on office hours and go, oh wait, this guy's like me?

[339] Yeah, I actually did it before I even took his class.

[340] So the first class I had with him, he was the head TA and then there were a few other TAs and I was assigned to somebody else's section.

[341] But it was written up in the student course evaluation guide that Tal was the best of the TAs.

[342] And so I actually manufactured a conflict.

[343] I didn't have one.

[344] I created one of my schedules so I couldn't go to the other section.

[345] And then I was forced to go to Tal's even though it was already full.

[346] And so I remember waiting afterward to talk to him and just feeling like, wow, this guy is not, you know, he's not a big performer.

[347] He's not a showman.

[348] He seems really cerebral and introspective and I think maybe I could be someone like that one day.

[349] Yeah.

[350] I think a lot of people would be shocked to know that actors can often fall into a similar Yeah.

[351] Yeah, like you'll often meet really charismatic actors and then in real life they're quite shy or they're introverted or you know, all those things and somehow they tap into some super...

[352] Well, I think in the case of many of those actors they actually are playing a character.

[353] And I would suspect that so is tall.

[354] When he is the teacher, I think he probably clicks into like an alternative identity he has.

[355] Yeah, I think that's true.

[356] And I've, I've certainly felt that as well.

[357] One of the things I do in class every year now is when we do personality, I have my students try to guess whether I'm an introvert, extrovert, or ambivert somewhere in the middle.

[358] And the class is usually pretty split.

[359] So, you know, a bunch of people will vote ambivert just because most people are in the middle.

[360] They're like, well, this is the statistically smartest guess.

[361] Yeah.

[362] Yeah.

[363] I'm always excited when they do that.

[364] But there are a lot of students who think I'm an extrovert, and it is a performance, right?

[365] It's, it's, I'm not an actor, but it's my version of acting.

[366] Well, everyone is, though, right?

[367] Yeah, but okay, I'm not a skilled or professional.

[368] Right, right, right, right.

[369] Let's be clear.

[370] But there is an element of saying, look, I didn't choose my personality.

[371] So, you know, whether it's the, you know, the dopamine response that I have in my neocortex that makes me an introvert or some other constellation of factors, that wasn't up to me. But I did choose my values.

[372] And I feel like sometimes I have to be false.

[373] to my personality in order to be true to my values.

[374] I love sharing knowledge.

[375] I'm really passionate about connecting with students and trying to help them in the ways that some of my teachers did me. And so that just feels like it's sort of, it's become second nature.

[376] Right.

[377] You can reverse engineer it a little bit, right?

[378] I assume your comfort level now as a professor is much different through just muscle memory.

[379] Yeah, I mean, it's, I'm way more comfortable now.

[380] I remember my first year teaching.

[381] I gave out feedback forms so I could find out what I can improve on.

[382] And one of the most common comments was you're so nervous, you're causing us to physically shake in our seats.

[383] Wow.

[384] Their mere neurons were making them panic.

[385] But over time, that's changed quite a bit.

[386] And I've spent enough time on big stages now that it started to feel a lot more comfortable.

[387] But at first, I was pretty obsessive about studying all their backgrounds because it made them less intimidating.

[388] I felt like, you know, instead of these superhuman achievement robots who were in my class, there were a bunch of people with interest that overlapped with mine, and I could start to figure out how what I wanted to teach would relate to them.

[389] Yeah.

[390] And that made it a lot more comfortable.

[391] Well, you know, he really emulated his hero because he was voted most liked teacher at Wharton for six years in a row, something 2011, 2017, I think so.

[392] Oh, that's exciting.

[393] So that's kind of cool, right?

[394] Now, is there any kind of data?

[395] I mean, these conversations, I'm sure you get frustrated with them as well, is where things lie on the continuum between nature and nurture is almost the crux of so many debates yet ultimately may be unknowable, right, to some precise degree.

[396] But do we have a theory that everyone, is there any consensus on where that comes from, introversion or extroversion?

[397] Yeah.

[398] So it seems like about 50 % of introversion, extraversion is genetic.

[399] Okay.

[400] Plus or minus 10 % roughly.

[401] And that's true for most of the major personality traits.

[402] And the best way that we know this is you get these studies of monozygotic twins.

[403] So they share 100 % of their DNA, but then they get separated at birth.

[404] Oh, we pray for it in science.

[405] Yeah, I mean, it's bad for them.

[406] It's incredible.

[407] Big wins.

[408] And so then you look at when they're adults, how similar are their personalities, and on average, they overlap about 50 % in traits like introversion and extroversion.

[409] Oh, okay.

[410] But then you run the...

[411] Well, you would think more being inclined to.

[412] Well, I think a lot of people are surprised in the opposite direction.

[413] They think that it's going to be all nurture.

[414] And, you know, if you grow up in an introverted family, you'll learn to be quiet.

[415] Yeah, as a parent, I think that, because I want to believe I have some impact on my children.

[416] Yeah.

[417] But I feel like when I've heard about those twin studies, it's more attention grabbing to go, oh, they both ladies married a Tom and they both work at banks, right?

[418] And they wear a rubber band on their left wrist.

[419] Yes.

[420] That stuff is very headliny and sensational and fun and tasty.

[421] And then I guess it doesn't make headlines to say they're not alike.

[422] No, no, but I think the more, in some ways, the more interesting test.

[423] is the reverse, which is you take two kids who are genetically unrelated, and you adopt them into the same family.

[424] And then the question is, what happens to their personalities?

[425] On average, they are no more similar than if they've been adopted into different families.

[426] They're no more similar.

[427] Okay, so then that says that nature's got a lot going on there, right?

[428] A lot.

[429] Do they interpret that correctly?

[430] Yeah, I would tend to look at it.

[431] I think, you know, there are pressures and families that push personality traits together, obviously, in terms of routines that you learn.

[432] But there are also pressures that push them apart, right?

[433] So you're familiar with the birth order research that says, we like to do niche picking.

[434] And, you know, if the firstborn is a high achiever, then the second born will often rebel to try to stand out.

[435] And so I think it's easy to see why, even though you think you're growing up in the same family, you're actually exposed to different environments with different expectations.

[436] Oh, absolutely.

[437] And then now that I have kids, I recognize traditionally you would just think of the parents leading that charge, right?

[438] But in fact, the conclusion I've come up with my younger daughter is she could give a shit about consequences.

[439] She doesn't care about rules.

[440] And what I realized was from the moment she was born, she's been being rejected by the person whose approval she wants the very most in the family, which is her older sister.

[441] So it's just happening literally upwards of three, 400 times a day she gets rejected by her sister.

[442] So she's got coping mechanism.

[443] She can get over that.

[444] And so if, We reject her in some capacity or disapproving of something.

[445] She's like, yeah, well, this is the 409th time, big deal.

[446] Yeah.

[447] What do you think of that theory?

[448] So I think it depends on age spacing a little bit.

[449] So they're only a couple years apart, right?

[450] Right, yeah.

[451] 21 months.

[452] So my read of the birth order research is almost the messiest area I've seen in social science period, right?

[453] There are all these conflicting effects.

[454] Nobody agrees on anything.

[455] But one thing that I think is pretty robust is you see those kinds of reactions if kids are within about five years of each other.

[456] Okay.

[457] And then if they're further apart, there's really no competition.

[458] And so all the niches are open all over again.

[459] They're almost all firstborns.

[460] Or the older sibling takes on more of a parental role.

[461] And then the younger sibling feels more supported.

[462] And so I think the similarity in age seems like a big factor there.

[463] Well, I thought what was funny when learning about you as someone that is an organizational psychologist would have dared to have three kids.

[464] Because in my experience, two always ruins the third.

[465] Two of them always gang up and destroy the life of one of the kids.

[466] I just have a sister, so I never knew what a third would be like.

[467] I think there's something to that.

[468] I also think we were warned a lot about, you know, the zone defense problem and how much harder two to three is.

[469] Yeah.

[470] I don't think that's the hardest problem.

[471] I think it's math because when you only have two kids, there's only one fight that can be happening at any time.

[472] Three kids, you've got three different fights going simultaneously.

[473] You have the power of like permutation, right?

[474] Exactly.

[475] Nine fights could be happening at once.

[476] And are they all the same gender?

[477] Do we have two girls and then a boy?

[478] And is the boy the baby?

[479] Yes.

[480] I feel like this is the most ideal.

[481] If you're going to go down this road, I feel like that those two gals will nurture that boy.

[482] I'm definitely telling myself that.

[483] I'm optimistic for you.

[484] Okay, so you get out of Harvard and you have a degree in psychology and you got to study with one of the great teachers that they've ever had, which is a very fortunate event for you.

[485] And then you end up at U of M in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

[486] Go Blue.

[487] Might be the coolest sliver of Michigan, yeah, Ann Arbor?

[488] It's quite a neat little pocket.

[489] I think it's the best college town on earth.

[490] Did you go to Hash Bash there?

[491] Never.

[492] Never.

[493] Okay, great.

[494] This is where we started.

[495] You've never had coffee.

[496] True.

[497] What the fuck?

[498] How could you know?

[499] Like, you see, the whole world's drinking it.

[500] You don't think, well, they must be on to something.

[501] I need to try this.

[502] Caffeine has never had any effect on me that I can tell.

[503] Oh, really?

[504] And also, I'm a supertaster.

[505] So I guess I have all these extra taste buds on my tongue, and even the smell of coffee is disgusting.

[506] Chocolate, too.

[507] Oh, hey, chocolate?

[508] Despise it.

[509] Oh, my goodness.

[510] I would rather, I would honestly rather.

[511] No, if you gave me the choice between eating chocolate and a pile of dirt, I would choose the dirt.

[512] No kidding.

[513] That's how bad chocolate is.

[514] I wonder what he's smelling.

[515] I'm now fearful he's smelling us.

[516] I mean, I worked all day before I came here.

[517] Oh, my God.

[518] I know.

[519] Gary.

[520] Wait, how did you find out you were a supertaster?

[521] What do you do?

[522] Is there a test?

[523] There are a couple tests, actually.

[524] So the survey is you compare the worst taste you've ever experienced to the loudest sound or the brightest light.

[525] And supertasters are often more bothered by the worst taste.

[526] But then there's a chemical that's called probe.

[527] I think there's a piece of paper treated with it that you can lick.

[528] And most people can't taste anything, but to supertasters, it's foul.

[529] And I happen to be at a psychology conference where a researcher gave these out.

[530] 500 people in the auditorium.

[531] Everyone licks the paper.

[532] Nobody reacts.

[533] My mouth is on fire.

[534] Oh.

[535] And I had to run out of the room.

[536] It was so foul.

[537] I'm so jealous.

[538] Me too.

[539] So unique.

[540] I was just really disheartened.

[541] It's really not that super, to be honest.

[542] No, it's spectacular.

[543] I was just really disheartened to find out that left -handed people make up like 10 % of the population.

[544] I'm left -handed.

[545] I thought I was so special.

[546] And I'm not.

[547] That's not very big, you know, that's not a big deal.

[548] Are you left -handed?

[549] No. No. But that's a good thing because now Dax feels more especially.

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

[551] What's up, guys?

[552] This is your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season.

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

[554] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest.

[555] Okay?

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

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

[558] I mean the likes of Amy Polar, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox.

[559] The list goes on.

[560] So follow.

[561] Oh, watch and listen to Baby.

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

[563] We've all been there.

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

[565] 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.

[566] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, fighter, 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.

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

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

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

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

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

[572] Okay, so you went to U of M and you got your PhD in organizational psychology.

[573] What led you to that specific trench of the psychology world?

[574] So I was really interested in how we could use psychology to make people's lives a little bit better.

[575] And I was working in college at an advertising company, or actually, it was a travel guide company.

[576] I was in an advertising role.

[577] And I thought, okay, I've got to figure out how to do this job.

[578] I had no training.

[579] First, I have to sell ads.

[580] Then the next year, I was running a team, and I had to manage a budget and motivate a staff and hire people.

[581] I had no idea what I was doing.

[582] Yeah.

[583] So I went back to the principles I was learning in my psychology classes and started applying them.

[584] And they worked.

[585] I got better at my job.

[586] I went from being a horrible salesperson to doing reasonably well at that job.

[587] I ended up doing then a good enough job as a manager that I won an award for my management skills.

[588] I didn't know what I was doing.

[589] I was literally just going through all the psychology studies I had read and trying to apply the best insights.

[590] And so I thought, okay, if I can learn to do this, anyone can.

[591] And then I had a mentor.

[592] Did your actual sales ability improve or just your management of a sales team in the group?

[593] Both.

[594] Yeah.

[595] So the first year I went, my first week of trying to do ad sales and we had a 95 % renewal rate in the Let's Go travel books.

[596] Okay.

[597] And I had zero contracts.

[598] So you maybe even lost some of their customers.

[599] I had three clients demanding refunds from the previous year, which I granted, which was not allowed in my contract.

[600] Oh, boy.

[601] And, you know, then I completely turned this around and ended up selling hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of advertising.

[602] And, you know, a lot of it was just learning to build rapport, ask people questions, try to connect with them on a personal level, not just, you know, in terms of trying to complete some kind of transaction.

[603] Right.

[604] I was surprised by how useful it was.

[605] did you employ that trick that I've heard of where you basically get people in a pattern of saying yes Have you heard this thing?

[606] Yes.

[607] Where you go like...

[608] Yeah, so you've heard of it, great.

[609] It's Bob Cheldini, the Four Walls Technique.

[610] Oh, so you know the actual name.

[611] So will you tell Monica about it?

[612] Because I'll probably botch.

[613] But I love this.

[614] And I think people try to employ it on dates as well.

[615] But tell me, that's creepy.

[616] It is.

[617] It is, yeah.

[618] So the general concept is that if you want to be persuasive, you want to get people to commit to something and then be consistent around it.

[619] And so I might start by, well, what's something that either of you struggle to persuade someone to do?

[620] Okay.

[621] Okay.

[622] Well, fuck, I have children.

[623] So, I mean, virtually anything.

[624] Brush their teeth at night.

[625] Can we use that?

[626] Yeah, let's do it.

[627] Okay.

[628] So can you play one of your kids?

[629] Oh, of course.

[630] Yeah, I'll be Delta in this scenario.

[631] I will.

[632] You know I will.

[633] All right.

[634] Can I call you Delta?

[635] No. All right.

[636] I'm going to do it anyway.

[637] No, that's what she would say, though.

[638] This is a very good start.

[639] We're going to look at each other.

[640] Okay.

[641] Oh, okay, right, right.

[642] Yeah.

[643] Okay, great.

[644] So, Delta, tell me what is your favorite food?

[645] Macaroni and cheese.

[646] What do you like about macaroni and cheese?

[647] It tastes good.

[648] It tastes good.

[649] Mm -hmm.

[650] Huh, what does it taste like?

[651] Cheese.

[652] Awesome.

[653] Okay.

[654] What do you like about eating macaroni?

[655] It makes me full.

[656] Okay.

[657] And do you like that feeling?

[658] Yeah.

[659] Why?

[660] Because I'm full.

[661] I've got to get back in and out of paper.

[662] This is a good impression.

[663] What does it feel like when you're not full?

[664] I'm angry.

[665] Okay.

[666] And you don't like being angry?

[667] No. Okay.

[668] You like being happy.

[669] Yeah.

[670] And macaroni makes you happy.

[671] Yes.

[672] Okay.

[673] What do you need to eat macaroni?

[674] A fork.

[675] Okay.

[676] And what about in your mouth?

[677] My teeth.

[678] Okay.

[679] Do you know what you have to do to your teeth so that they keep working?

[680] Brush them.

[681] Yeah.

[682] I mean, that's up to you.

[683] Okay.

[684] You back them into, you've attached something they love to something they hate.

[685] Wow.

[686] What approach to it.

[687] Say it again.

[688] It's called the four walls technique.

[689] The four walls technique.

[690] Okay, so I interrupted you because I was curious if that was one of the techniques.

[691] So was that one of the techniques you employed during this ad sales?

[692] I don't think so, actually.

[693] No. So you were just building rapport, which is...

[694] I was building a lot of rapport.

[695] I would start by sharing something about you know, about my background that was relevant to the clients.

[696] Uh -huh.

[697] But then a big factor was social proof.

[698] So the idea that under uncertainty, people follow the lead of similar others.

[699] So if you're not sure, okay, in this case, should I buy an ad or not, I'm going to look at what other advertisers are doing.

[700] Uh -huh.

[701] And it had never done on me to say, okay, here's our list of clients who are renewing.

[702] Oh, sure.

[703] They've all decided to go for it.

[704] Is that something that you might be interested in, too?

[705] Oh, that's genius.

[706] Oh, well, these people that, these companies that I respect are all advertising, I probably should too.

[707] Right.

[708] I trust them.

[709] They're profitable.

[710] We'd like to be like them.

[711] But I guess I did that to you right when you walked in, which is I said, hey, we're both from Michigan and I wanted you to know, like, hey, we're, you know, conceivably cut from the same similarities.

[712] Yeah.

[713] It's weird, though, that I came in and you wanted to bond with me. Oh, why is that?

[714] Well, I don't know.

[715] I would think as the guest, I'm the one who wants to bond with a host.

[716] Now that's, and you're the famous one.

[717] Don't you think this is backward?

[718] I actually don't.

[719] I think it's his job to make you feel.

[720] feel comfortable.

[721] Maybe.

[722] That is very Midwestern of you, though.

[723] What I always say I envy about Howard Stern is that everyone is trying to get his approval.

[724] I don't care who you are.

[725] He is the king of all media.

[726] He's number one.

[727] So even if Brad Pitt does his show, he wants Howard to like him.

[728] Half of our guests could give a shit if I like them.

[729] So it's a little bit of a tactical disadvantage.

[730] That's so interesting.

[731] I don't know if it's an advantage to have people need to like you.

[732] I don't know if that is.

[733] I agree with you.

[734] If the goal is to get them to try to implement.

[735] you and end up telling a lot about themselves that maybe they otherwise want it.

[736] Yeah, or embellished or practiced.

[737] Like, none of that's organic or good.

[738] Right.

[739] Yeah, we'd have to identify in our study what we're, what we're, what's the goal here?

[740] What's the goal?

[741] And there's a name for what we're doing right now, too.

[742] It's called the Breaking the Fourth Wall technique.

[743] Oh, tell me. No, I just made that up.

[744] Oh, man. I just thought it was fun that we were having a meta conversation about what goes on in podcasting.

[745] It is fun.

[746] And then so is that what lit you on fire for like, oh, there's there's something to organizational psychology in the workplace.

[747] Yeah, that was a huge factor.

[748] And while I was doing my manager job, I took my first organizational psych class.

[749] And the professor Richard Hackman had this really interesting career where he decided he was going to become the world's leading expert on teams because he hated working with other people.

[750] And this is true for a lot of psychologists, right?

[751] We stand in our blind spots.

[752] What's the one thing I'm worse at?

[753] I'm going to go and study that.

[754] Right.

[755] And so Richard wanted to understand, how could anyone ever work with another human being?

[756] And the way that he did it was he took all the careers that he was interested in and said, I'm going to live those vicariously by studying them.

[757] And so he'd wanted to be an orchestra conductor.

[758] He studied symphony orchestras and how to help them enjoy their jobs and also play better music together.

[759] So, yeah, I mean, he studied intelligence agents and basketball teams and airline cockpit crews.

[760] And I looked at that and said, wait a minute, I have never known what I want to do.

[761] do with my career.

[762] But as an organizational psychologist, my job could be to study other people's jobs.

[763] That sounds fascinating.

[764] Oh, that's so interesting.

[765] Yeah, like in lieu of your own like North Star Passion, you could go study other people's.

[766] Here we are.

[767] I like that.

[768] Can you remember what it was about studying organizations that you were like, oh, wow, we could know that?

[769] Oh, there were so many.

[770] One of the ones that jumped out at me at first was trying to think about the idea of personality at work.

[771] you're working with someone who is sometimes really dominant and authoritarian and other times you know kind of submissive and deferring to other people how in the world could that happen and what I thought from studying social psychology was oh well the situation is very powerful and so you know you end up in a situation where someone has more status than you and you defer you end up in a situation where you know you're the powerful person and you kind of stand up yeah like code switching or something Yeah, exactly.

[772] And there's some of that, but what we learned about was research on the personality trait of authoritarianism, which is actually you're consistent in your inconsistencies so that authoritarianists are always, they're always dominant when they're dealing with people below them, and they're always submissive when dealing with people above them.

[773] And that's a personality trait to say, you know, I believe that hierarchy is really important.

[774] And I believe when I'm in charge, I should have total control.

[775] And I thought that was so interesting to say, actually, you bring in this personality trait to an organization, and it changes the way that you interact with all of your colleagues, depending on who you think has more power or less power than you.

[776] Okay.

[777] While we're on this topic, because Monica, I just, I went through and kind of remembered all the things we were obsessed with in his interview with Sam that we loved.

[778] And you were talking about that power conventionally is thought of as something that corrupts people.

[779] And it was, it was even hung in the classroom of yours as a child.

[780] But that that's not the case.

[781] And you gave great.

[782] great examples of two folks that perfectly exhibit that.

[783] Oh, yeah.

[784] So look, power can corrupt people, but I think that some people are more corruptible by power than others.

[785] And so I love the case of a lawyer.

[786] He's trying his first case.

[787] And the judge writes that he doubts that the lawyer has the ethical qualifications to practice law.

[788] And that lawyer is Richard Nixon.

[789] This happened in the 1930s, if I remember correctly.

[790] So we could foreshadow a lot of what was to come.

[791] Yeah.

[792] And so I think that Nixon actually corrupted power, right?

[793] It wasn't necessarily power that corrupted him.

[794] And then, you know, you contrast that with another lawyer who also ascended to the Oval Office, who when he was practicing law, he was asked to take a case to defend somebody who he thought was guilty.

[795] And he said, I can't.

[796] I think it's wrong.

[797] And he was so upstanding that he couldn't be paid to go against his values and his beliefs.

[798] And then when he made it to the Oval Office, he held office hours four to four and a half hours a day to hear the concerns of regular citizens, you might have heard of him.

[799] His name is Abraham Lincoln.

[800] Yes.

[801] And I think that you can see in that contrast what a lot of the research in psychology has shown, which is that oftentimes power doesn't really corrupt it reveals.

[802] And that when you gain a position of influence, you feel like, you know what, I am now free to show you my true colors.

[803] See, what's interesting about that is when I was hearing you talk about it, and this becomes a little bit of an overarching issue I have.

[804] In general, with summing people up, is that binary doesn't really cover it, a quadrant doesn't cover it.

[805] There's so many colors.

[806] So in my own life, I went from powerless by all metrics and then getting famous and then definitely exploiting that, misusing that, abusing that.

[807] I like to think I'm now at a place where I don't do that, but it was a learning curve for me. So is it also possible that that thing is fluid?

[808] Yeah, I think so.

[809] I'm much more comfortable of predicting somebody's behavior over a long period.

[810] of time.

[811] So the shorter the window, the more likely it is that whatever situation you're in is going to have a big impact on your behavior and also the peer group that you're around who are probably doing a lot of those same things.

[812] Sure, sure.

[813] But I think that where we start to see your values play out is you chose to step up off that path, right, and say, okay, that's not the person I want to be.

[814] Yeah, I don't love how I feel afterwards.

[815] So you leave you of them and you go to North Carolina and you work there for a minute and then you end up at the Wharton School of business at Penn, where you're still at.

[816] And you wrote a book, and I think your first job probably, I'd imagine some way leads to give and take.

[817] Is that accurate?

[818] Yeah, very much so.

[819] So in that first ad sales job, I felt like what really motivated me was knowing we were a student -run organization on a college campus.

[820] And the more revenue I brought in, the more jobs I could create for other students who are also trying to pay for school the same way I was.

[821] And so, without that knowledge, I would have been a total pushover and said, you know, I don't really need to tell these clients that they should spend their money on our advertisements.

[822] Yeah.

[823] But knowing that I had such an important mission and that it might help other people, it kicked me into a different gear.

[824] And it made me much more likely than to say, okay, look, I'm not doing this for me. I'm doing this because I believe in this organization and the, you know, the learning opportunities it creates for people and the way that it makes it possible for them to afford an education.

[825] Yeah.

[826] And so seeing how motivated I was by, believing that my work benefited other people, I got interested in studying that more systematically.

[827] And I actually did my undergrad thesis studying the teams at Let's Go and found that the best predictor of the performance of the writers and editors who are putting the books together was their belief that their books were going to have a positive impact on travelers.

[828] So you started looking at givers and takers.

[829] And then there's also a mix of those two, right?

[830] And you found that in workforces and in cultures of companies that you have these different groups of people that you've labeled givers or takers.

[831] And then there's a third one.

[832] The matchers.

[833] The matchers.

[834] Yes.

[835] So tell us about givers and takers.

[836] Because I'm really curious, as I was listening to you explain it, I got to say, I have no idea where I fall on it.

[837] Oh, yeah.

[838] Yeah.

[839] Really?

[840] Yeah.

[841] I want to hear Monica first.

[842] Yeah.

[843] Okay.

[844] So explain what a giver is and what a taker is.

[845] Okay.

[846] So first of all, these are styles of interaction that we all mix and match throughout the course of our days and our lives.

[847] But when I think about your style, I think about what's your default.

[848] So when you're interacting with most of the people most of the time, are you asking what can I do for you, which is a giver's orientation?

[849] Are you trying to figure out what can you do for me, which is more of a taking mindset?

[850] Or are you saying, well, can we trade favors?

[851] And I'll do something for you if you do something for me. And that would be being a matcher.

[852] And I found that, yeah, of course, you know, we all have moments of each.

[853] But I think we all also know people who are pretty consistently trying to add value versus extract value from their relationships.

[854] Yeah.

[855] And so that's what I was trying to get at.

[856] And you were also saying one is not better than the other.

[857] Like obviously we all think being a taker's bad.

[858] I mean, I can't think that.

[859] Oh, you do think that.

[860] Well, but, no, I think more specifically, you were approaching it from the angle that he was open to the notion that a taker might be better for a business, that the outcome might be better.

[861] That's what I wanted to study.

[862] To say, you know, obviously morally, I would prefer that there aren't any.

[863] takers in the world.

[864] Yeah, like you set out on that hypothesis, hoping that givers are ultimately beneficial to an organization, but you're open to the notion that the data might not support that, right?

[865] Now, here's where I think I might be able to bump up against you and argue a little bit, which is, I am on some level, and Anne Rand, I believe in selfishness, I believe there isn't anything that's not selfishly motivated.

[866] So even if I hear someone as a giver or someone is a people pleaser, I think, well, they're just selfish, but for whatever weird reason, their identity is such that that's where they get their self -esteem.

[867] But it's still, we're all in pursuit of the same thing, like being loved, connection, and then we've chosen a path, and right or wrong, that's the path.

[868] But we're all trying to do the same thing, and everyone's equally fucking selfish.

[869] What do you think about that?

[870] Are there levels of selfishness?

[871] Of course.

[872] See, I just think there's levels of people.

[873] No, no, no, I think it's actually a really interesting debate, and I don't think I'm going to land where you think I'm going to land.

[874] Okay.

[875] But I was just going to say, what I'm seeing is people using really terrible strategies to get the thing they want, which is love and connection.

[876] But I don't think that the person who's in the jacked up truck, fucking blowing diesel exhaust on a Prius for a video and in an affliction shirt and flipping someone off, I think weirdly that guy is just as desperate and wants just as much for everyone around him to like him, look up to him, whatever, respect him.

[877] he's just not super great at evaluating whether that technique's bearing fruit or not.

[878] Maybe, or maybe there are big individual differences in how much people care about being liked and accepted and loved, too.

[879] Is there?

[880] Or how many people you need to be loved by.

[881] Okay, but we have these categories in psychology, right?

[882] Agreeable or disagreeable.

[883] These are personality types and there seem to be somewhat universal across the planet.

[884] Okay, so even that, I still think at the core of agreeable, disagreeable, is the same.

[885] desire in the same selfish motivation, just two drastically different approaches.

[886] So when I think about the continuum of agreeableness, I think about agreeable people is warm, friendly, they're polite, nice, Canadian.

[887] Yes, it's a great.

[888] And disagreeable people are much more critical and skeptical.

[889] New Yorkers.

[890] Yes.

[891] And also more likely than their peers to go to law school or become engineers.

[892] Right.

[893] Which is interesting.

[894] But I think that when you look at the experiences of agree with, and disagreeable people.

[895] There's a great study that Debbie Moskowitz and Stefan Cote did in Toronto of all places where they would page you or text you.

[896] I think this was in the pager days.

[897] They would ask you what you're doing right now and then how much joy are you feeling?

[898] And agreeable people, of course, were happiest when they were feeling loved and connected to other people.

[899] Disagreable people experienced more joy in an argument than in a friendly conversation.

[900] And they were energized by that sense of conflict and tension.

[901] But again, don't you think the arguer is at that moment confirming their identity that what people like about me is that I am very savvy on my feet and I'm nimble in an argument and I'm proving this value I'm adding to everyone which is I'm very clever and bright.

[902] Like don't you think of the core of it they think that's what's attractive about them?

[903] I think for some but I think there's also a pretty big subset of disagreeable people who aren't thinking about the other person's reaction.

[904] These are saying, hey, this is who I am and I need to tell this idiot that I'm right.

[905] And by the way, I'm not this kind of psychologist.

[906] So everything I say with great assault.

[907] But I would say, Monica, would you agree that Dax is pretty agreeable as opposed to disagreeable?

[908] No, my.

[909] No, I would think.

[910] Really?

[911] When you were talking about, when you're talking about givers and takers, I don't know if I'm a giver or taker, but when I know agreeable, disagreeable, totally disagreeable.

[912] He is.

[913] Why do you say that?

[914] Because I don't buy it at all.

[915] Every time I've listened to your show, I hear off the charts agreeableness.

[916] Well, I edit the show, so I know.

[917] Fuck you.

[918] You're editing and all that.

[919] Well, I agree that I do not think you're a taker at all.

[920] Okay, I'm not sure, but...

[921] No, I don't think...

[922] I do not think you are, but I do think you're disagreeable.

[923] And I think I'm disagreeable.

[924] I do too.

[925] Well, definitely what you say about getting energy out of a debate...

[926] We both do.

[927] I have it, too.

[928] But wait a minute, that's something a little different.

[929] So, intellectual debate.

[930] It's very different from...

[931] actually genuinely disliking someone.

[932] Okay.

[933] I never, I almost never dislike a person, even if I don't agree with them at all.

[934] You also seem to hate the idea of being disliked, too.

[935] Oh, of course.

[936] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[937] That's one of the hallmarks of agreeableness.

[938] Oh, really?

[939] Although, although I've had to evolve because, again, I'm in a position where a lot of people would want my attention and at some point I had to go, I'm going to have to live with people not liking me. I got to exist in the world with...

[940] Yeah, because I don't feel like he wants to be like so much that he changes his personality to match or to acquiesce?

[941] Like, you don't do that.

[942] You're still you always.

[943] You just want them to like you.

[944] I want them to like that version so much.

[945] Yeah.

[946] Yeah.

[947] But you're not manipulating yourself, which to me would be more of an agreeable person, maybe, would be like, okay, this person needs this for me, so I'm going to be that.

[948] A chameleon.

[949] Well, that also gets in, have you talked about self -monitoring?

[950] No. Oh, so that gets into another trait.

[951] I think there's a case to be made.

[952] We should pay more attention to it when we talk about the big five.

[953] personality traits, but hasn't made it there yet.

[954] So self -monitoring is about how much you adapt your behavior to fit the environment.

[955] And so if you're a high self -monitor, you're constantly reading the norms and then saying, okay, I've got to adjust and you're actually, you're an actor in everyday life.

[956] Whereas a low self -monitor would say, this is who I am, and I'm going to be that way regardless of the circumstances.

[957] This is like Steve Jobs.

[958] Yeah.

[959] Off the, I mean, so far down on the low self -monitoring end of the spectrum.

[960] And totally disagreeable, right?

[961] Extremely disagreeable.

[962] is he a taker or a giver?

[963] Oh, that's a good question.

[964] I think it depended on who he was interacting with.

[965] I think that you see a lot of the tell -tale signs of being a taker in the way that he took credit for other people's work, that he demeaned and disrespected other people.

[966] I think there's a huge difference between being demanding and being demeaning and he crossed that line consistently.

[967] I think, though, that there were moments when he seemed more generous.

[968] So there was an award that the Mac team did for years for the person who most courageously challenged Steve Jobs.

[969] Oh.

[970] And every year that person got promoted.

[971] And so you, you saw him not only respecting, but rewarding people who are willing to stand up to him.

[972] Oh, interesting.

[973] Stay tuned for more armchair experts, if you dare.

[974] So I think he was an incredibly complex character.

[975] Yeah, but I'm going to use him a couple times as we talk about some of your stuff.

[976] Let's.

[977] Yeah, yeah, because he does seem to epitomize what we think of as like an individualist, a non -people pleasing, all these things.

[978] So this takes us back a little bit to the question about our people, you know, is there a core of selfishness?

[979] Yeah.

[980] And what I think is, actually, I love this research by David Rand, who says, look, you know, we think that people have these base Darwinian instincts to be as selfish as possible.

[981] And the way that we get to generosity is we build cultures and societies that reward and have rules and norms around how you treat other people and then you override your selfish instincts.

[982] Right.

[983] What David shows is often it's the opposite, that if you put people in a situation where they have to make a split -second decision about, let's say, whether they want to donate money to a charity that's going to help children who are in poverty, in the immediate visceral decision, they are more likely to be spontaneously generous when they're not even thinking about it, because the natural response to that feeling of empathy or compassion is to help, give, right, exactly, even if it's at a real cost to yourself.

[984] Right.

[985] Whereas if he gives you a little time to think about it, you become more calculable.

[986] and you get into a slightly greedy or more selfish mode.

[987] And so I think it's a mistake to assume that we have a fundamental nature that's selfish and then kind of layered on top of that as our more evolved kind of social self.

[988] I think we have both.

[989] I think we have some base instincts to try to accomplish our own goals and be as self -serving as possible.

[990] I think we have some equally powerful instincts to care and show concern.

[991] And I think that the ideal state for most people, if they care about their own success or the quality of the relationships is to get good at pursuing both of those goals simultaneously.

[992] Yeah.

[993] Boy, I was just thinking about, you know, we are designed, we have hardware.

[994] There's a reason babies look the way they look.

[995] There's a reason puppies and kittens look the way they look.

[996] Like, we do have some visual signals of when we should be more empathetic, sympathetic, and helpful, right?

[997] It's harder to feel bad for Schwarzenegger than it is Screech.

[998] Well, we know Screech did a porno.

[999] Yeah, yeah, I used a bad example.

[1000] Screece from say by the time, that was a whole separate conversation.

[1001] Yeah, he did a point.

[1002] What a weird pull.

[1003] Let's assume that he didn't do that, I guess.

[1004] He murked up to his own experiment.

[1005] No, there are some fun experiments that when you're exposed to cuter cats or babies, you're then more likely to be helpful, but not just helpful, also more careful.

[1006] You feel the need to be vigilant to protect somebody who might be suffering or a creature that might be in danger.

[1007] Right.

[1008] And I think it's easy to see how those instinct.

[1009] evolved and would have been selected for.

[1010] And even Darwin recognized it, right?

[1011] Darwin wrote in one of his classic books that a group where people were unselfish and they were trying to help other people in the tribe would actually outlast other tribes.

[1012] And that would be a form of group selection.

[1013] So in this work culture where you have takers and givers and you have matchers, the matchers are people that are Hamerabi's code, right?

[1014] Like an eye for an eye, it's whatever's equal.

[1015] Yeah.

[1016] Now, explain what Monica is to me or explain what you are or explain.

[1017] Because I don't know where I fit in that.

[1018] I'm not sure that I'm so clear on taking or giving in the workplace.

[1019] So I think about it in two ways.

[1020] One is, what are your goals or motives?

[1021] And then the second is, what are your behaviors when you look at how other people perceive you?

[1022] And one of the things that a lot of us run into is we have a hard time judging our own styles.

[1023] And at first, we find that a lot of people claim to be givers and then other people think they're takers.

[1024] And you're like, okay, this is just like a weird version of the movie, the sixth.

[1025] sense.

[1026] Everybody else knows you're a taker, but you have no idea.

[1027] Yeah.

[1028] And a lot of people assume that's ego, you know, that we want to see ourselves in the most positive light.

[1029] Yeah.

[1030] But the research on this actually says it's probably more about information that you, actually, the classic work on this is married couples.

[1031] So you put them in separate rooms, and you ask them of the total work that goes into their marriage, what percent are you responsible for?

[1032] Mm -hmm.

[1033] Mm -hmm.

[1034] And then three out of every four couples.

[1035] add up to over 100%.

[1036] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1037] Somebody's lying.

[1038] Yeah.

[1039] And I think that men generally overestimated more than women did.

[1040] I think you're right.

[1041] I do.

[1042] Unsurprisingly, but what's really interesting about this is if you break down why, it's not because you want to think that you're inherently a better partner than your spouse, right?

[1043] It's actually, you want to believe that your spouse is probably the same kind of great partner that you are.

[1044] It's more that you were there for every act of generosity you did, right?

[1045] You were present when you took the kids to school.

[1046] Yeah, exactly.

[1047] remember every dish.

[1048] And whatever your partner's doing, you just can't recall that.

[1049] So I think that makes it hard to judge where we stand because we just know too much about ourselves and we don't have the, we don't have good comparison with other people.

[1050] But I think that for me, one of the easiest tests is to say, okay, when you meet someone new, what is your first impulse?

[1051] Are you looking for ways that you might be able to help them?

[1052] Are you looking for, you know, a trade that you could do?

[1053] Or are you evaluating the person in terms of what could this person do for me?

[1054] Mm -hmm.

[1055] I asked someone who's known you for a long time.

[1056] Ashton Cretcher.

[1057] Oh.

[1058] And Ashton said that you have been one of the most humble givers that he knows from the day that the two of you met.

[1059] Wow.

[1060] I could see.

[1061] Well, but again, let's just, I'm going to own the reality of it is I was penniless.

[1062] He gave me my first job.

[1063] Ashton is a giver as well.

[1064] He is a giver.

[1065] And also he held the keys to a lot of opportunity for me. So it was, it was definitely.

[1066] my best, you know, interest to be in that role with him.

[1067] That's probably true.

[1068] So I just want to check my own benevolence and say he did represent, you know, what is a better, what is a better evaluation of he and I's friendship is what we are now, which is I don't need anything from him.

[1069] He doesn't anything from me. And I like to think, yes, I would still be happy to come help him move into his house or something, you know.

[1070] So that's a bad test because he was in a position of influence.

[1071] Yeah.

[1072] I guess the better test is at different points in your life for your career, how did you treat people who couldn't do you any good?

[1073] Did you not give them the time of day?

[1074] Did you try to exploit them?

[1075] Or did you say, okay, how can I open a door for this person?

[1076] Yeah.

[1077] So there's like a neutral space.

[1078] A non -giver?

[1079] I kind of feel like, if I'm being honest, I am neither.

[1080] Like, if there's somebody around, I'm definitely not trying to take or figure out what they can do for me, but I'm just like, I just do what I do.

[1081] Well, now really, let's clarify one thing, because this is fun.

[1082] Is it on the acquaintance level?

[1083] Is it on the friendship level?

[1084] Is it on the coworker level?

[1085] Is it all?

[1086] Is it just one?

[1087] Because I'll say within your friendships, you're trying to help friends send their kids to a preschool they want to go to.

[1088] You're going to invite your friends and rent a house so they can have a vacation.

[1089] These are people I love.

[1090] That seems like a different strata.

[1091] Yeah, I mean, I think the definition of a real relationship is both people are givers.

[1092] and neither person keeps score unless things get way out of balance, which happens.

[1093] So this is just within coworkers maybe, right?

[1094] That's how I've typically studied it.

[1095] Yeah.

[1096] Because I think it's where there's the most room for not knowing how to behave, and then you start to see people's values come out a little bit.

[1097] Yeah.

[1098] But I've also been opportunistic, and I evaluated when people could help me, I think, as well.

[1099] I don't think that's a bad thing, though, right?

[1100] You're supposed to be ambitious for yourself, just not at the expense of other people.

[1101] Right.

[1102] And so when I've studied, I think you're probably both familiar already with the thing I found when studying engineers and doctors and salespeople and a couple other jobs, too, that the givers tended to fail a lot more than the takers and matchers, but they also succeeded a lot more, which was kind of a cool, well, okay, helping others could sink your career or it could accelerate it.

[1103] Yeah.

[1104] And the biggest differences between the successful and the failed givers were not about their intelligence or talent or ability.

[1105] they were really about whether you looked out for your own interests as well as trying to help other people.

[1106] So could you give us a concrete example of how a giver could excel or, you know, end up at the top of this chart?

[1107] Yeah.

[1108] So one of my favorite examples is Cat Cole.

[1109] So she was raised by a single mother who had to work three jobs to feed the family on a food budget of $10 a day.

[1110] And by the time that Cat turned 15 when it was legal, she started working to help support the family.

[1111] So selling clothes in a mall and then working in a restaurant.

[1112] And she was the kind of giver who was always looking for ways to pitch in.

[1113] So one day in her restaurant, cook doesn't show up.

[1114] And Kat is the first person to raise her hand and volunteer and run back into the kitchen so that meals are served.

[1115] And then a manager quits.

[1116] And Kat takes it upon herself to start organizing people's shifts and making sure that everyone still has a predictable schedule.

[1117] And you look at that and you say, wow, what a doormat.

[1118] And we see especially women.

[1119] are likely to get taken advantage of and stuck with that kind of office housework or kind of invisible contribution.

[1120] But in Kat's case, she ends up getting invited to open up the company's first restaurant in Australia.

[1121] And the reason for that is she's the only person who's worked every job in the restaurant.

[1122] Oh, wow.

[1123] And so all that time she spent helping other people solve their problems, she was learning and building skills to solve the whole company's problems.

[1124] And got to capitalize on it.

[1125] Exactly.

[1126] And so, you know, her career just takes off from there.

[1127] and by the time she's 26, she's in charge of corporate training.

[1128] By 32, she's named the president of a little company called Cinnabon.

[1129] And she's now running that and Jamba Juice and Anti -Ns and a bunch of other franchises.

[1130] And so you can see from her story how clear it is that helping actually has a learning advantage.

[1131] But that was a clear consideration for her when she helped, right?

[1132] It wasn't, oh, I'm just going to do all these random tasks that nobody's going to appreciate.

[1133] I'm going to help in areas that are strategically important to actually getting our work done.

[1134] And I'm going to do it in places where I can pick up new skills.

[1135] I would imagine the advice could be.

[1136] I don't know what your advice is, but like be a giver but have boundaries, kind of like the same interpersonal things that we would want.

[1137] It's like that's exactly what I would recommend.

[1138] You want to have boundaries around who you help, how you help, and when you help.

[1139] No, people respect boundaries.

[1140] People actually, it's counterintuitive.

[1141] You think you're not pleasing them, but they actually admire you.

[1142] They look up to you.

[1143] They trust you more.

[1144] They, you know, they know you value yourself.

[1145] and they're forced to value you as well.

[1146] Yeah.

[1147] I think that's something that a lot of givers don't realize until much later in their lives or careers, though, where they confuse early on the idea that I want to be helpful with, I have to say yes to all the people all the time with all the requests.

[1148] Yeah.

[1149] You know, it's funny, now that you're saying, it's like, boy, that really details the difference between my mother and father so perfectly.

[1150] And my father was a car salesman, and it's fucking kill what you eat, every man for themselves, take what you can get, steal a fucking guy.

[1151] if he turns his back, steal a customer, you know.

[1152] And for many years, he made more money than my mom.

[1153] And my mom started as a jander at GM, then worked in the tool crib, always volunteering for overtime.

[1154] She had to support us, three kids, and accumulated all these bizarre skills, not unlike the story you just told.

[1155] And then ultimately, my mom ended up making much more than my father, because she started a business and she knew how to do all these aspects and all much different.

[1156] And I was always just so happy.

[1157] I felt like there was justice in the world when that turned out that.

[1158] way.

[1159] I think that's the other interesting finding when you look at the givers who fail versus the ones who succeed is most giver failures in the short term.

[1160] Because, you know, day to day, you are sacrificing some of the time you could be devoting to your own work.

[1161] You are maybe, you know, helping other people get things done as opposed to, you know, kind of advancing your own agenda.

[1162] And that seems like a disadvantage in the short run.

[1163] But in the long run, not only are you learning more, you're also building trust.

[1164] Whether you are a taker, a giver, or a matcher, you want to be surrounded by givers.

[1165] And so people tend to really value those people over time.

[1166] And so I found that the givers tend to rise.

[1167] Yeah, I've always thought, you know, in business, you can fuck people over, but you can only fuck them over once.

[1168] Like, it's got better be a big score.

[1169] Like, you better be able to cash out that you fuck to everyone over.

[1170] Although, we have certain examples currently that's.

[1171] There are people who keep getting away with it.

[1172] They keep getting away with it.

[1173] But that, that depends often on whether there are matchers in that system, because matchers are the people who hold takers accountable, right?

[1174] The givers are more likely to let them get away with it over and over again.

[1175] The matcher's like, no, my job is to be the karma police.

[1176] I am going to wield the sort of justice.

[1177] If you are a taker, it's my mission in life to just punish the hell out of you.

[1178] Oh, I have that, I have, I suffer from that a bit.

[1179] Now, okay, I just got to say one more thing.

[1180] I'm back to that selfish thing.

[1181] I think it's, I'm acutely suspicious of it because I happen to be married to someone who most people would agree is the most generous helper giver on the planet.

[1182] She truly is.

[1183] So it's your job to protect Kristen?

[1184] No, it's that I look at her and she is by all measures a better person than me, much more generous, much more empathetic, always there for somebody.

[1185] But I am her partner and I'm not wowed by her.

[1186] She's my wife of 12 years.

[1187] And I go, she's just as fucking egomaniacal as I am.

[1188] Just her identity is this.

[1189] She is supporting her own identity.

[1190] Neither of us are better.

[1191] I happen to get identity out of doing wheelies on motorcycles.

[1192] or rather self -esteem.

[1193] That's not her bag.

[1194] She gets it out of rescuing dogs.

[1195] She's just a human like everyone else, and her path to self -esteem happens to be that.

[1196] Got it.

[1197] Okay, so this is super interesting.

[1198] I would say a couple things on that.

[1199] The first one is I don't think there's anything wrong with getting psychological rewards from helping.

[1200] Right.

[1201] In fact, that's part of what fuels people's desire to keep helping.

[1202] Yeah.

[1203] And if you're constantly stepping in and pitching in for other people and it's draining you, then you're going to, stop doing it.

[1204] So I think we want it to be reinforcing.

[1205] Yeah.

[1206] So I wouldn't fault anyone for, you know, either getting self -esteem or joy or, you know, some kind of ego boost out of being helpful.

[1207] I think, though, that there's a difference between doing it because you want that boost and that boost being a byproduct of the action.

[1208] So what you see with a lot of givers is, yeah, you know what?

[1209] It makes their day when they're able to help someone else.

[1210] And I feel this all the time as a teacher.

[1211] One of the best things that happens in my life now is I work with a lot of different kinds of organizations.

[1212] It's often easy for me to find, if somebody wants a job in their dream company, it's often easy for me to say to a student, hey, I actually know the person who runs that organization.

[1213] Let me see if I can set you up an interview.

[1214] And that is the highlight of my day.

[1215] No question.

[1216] Yeah.

[1217] But I didn't do it because I wanted to feel good.

[1218] Right.

[1219] I did it because I cared about the student and I thought it would be really meaningful to try to help them achieve their goals.

[1220] Yeah.

[1221] And then, oh, cool, there's this kind of reward that comes after it, which is a nice surprise.

[1222] I don't know if this applies as something you see in your marriage, but for a lot of givers, the joy is kind of an afterthought or an after effect as opposed to the driving motivation.

[1223] Yeah, and she was raised in an environment where her kindness wasn't exploited, and I was.

[1224] And so I might be inclined to help somebody, but I have a pretty lethal fear that I'll be taking advantage of.

[1225] So this is, this is an interesting, this is something I often see with people who have kind of mixed giving and matching instincts is you want to help, but you also have been burned a bunch of times.

[1226] Right.

[1227] And you've seen people get taken advantage of.

[1228] And so there's a strong, I wouldn't think about that as taking.

[1229] It's more, it's a strong self -protective drive.

[1230] And I think that's healthy, right?

[1231] I think we all need to have a spiky sense that tingles when somebody is out to get us.

[1232] Yeah.

[1233] It's funny because I came into this thinking, okay, if I can share this evidence about how givers can rise, we're going to motivate a lot of takers to become more generous.

[1234] And that has not, if give and take has had any impact, that's not been the effect.

[1235] The effect has been for a lot of givers to say, you know what, I don't have to give up on this.

[1236] I was burning myself out or I was getting burned.

[1237] And that's not destiny for a giver.

[1238] I just need to be more thoughtful about the choices I make.

[1239] And so, you know, I don't think anyone has to be.

[1240] a giver to be successful.

[1241] But I think it's a more meaningful way to succeed.

[1242] If you could achieve your goals and elevate other people along the way, it's kind of exciting.

[1243] Well, that is funny and counterintuitive that the result of the book was actually to de -shame probably the givers.

[1244] And it didn't shame the takers in a way that you...

[1245] I have gotten a few emails over the last few years from people saying, you know, seven people gifted me this book.

[1246] And the first four, I thought, oh, wow, I'm such a giver.

[1247] And then it kept coming.

[1248] And I realized, I'm the taker.

[1249] Okay, now, that's give and take.

[1250] Now, here's where you and I really got excited in a Sam interview.

[1251] And I think this is where it all comes from.

[1252] You then wrote originals, how nonconformists move the world.

[1253] If I'm correct about this, what we took from that is that genius, this thing we put on a pedestal, is not the product of quality as much as it's the product of quantity.

[1254] Is that the book where this kind of comes from?

[1255] Yeah.

[1256] So the basic thing I was curious about was about how there's so many people in the world with creative ideas.

[1257] And I'm not just talking about, you know, artistic creativity.

[1258] I'm talking about you have an idea to improve your immediate environment.

[1259] So you think the culture of your organization is broken.

[1260] Or you've come up with a product that you think is a slight improvement and you might want to go on Shark Tank one day, right?

[1261] And I think that the data show very clearly that most of us never do anything about those ideas.

[1262] And the big question is why.

[1263] And I think I came upon a few answers.

[1264] One is we don't know how to judge our own ideas and figure out if they're any good.

[1265] And then we don't know how to speak up about them and get other people on board.

[1266] And so I really wanted to write the sequel to creativity and say, once you have an idea, how do you champion it and make it a reality?

[1267] And so I came in with this big, it was a really clear expectation for me that original thinkers were just cut from a different cloth.

[1268] They are daredevils.

[1269] They love to take risks.

[1270] They are extremely passionate, and they have total conviction that their ideas are going to work out.

[1271] And they're just biologically wired to say, okay, I came out of the womb with a vision for how it was going to change the world, and I'm going to go do it and be a prodigy along the way.

[1272] Yeah.

[1273] And I found the opposite of all of those things.

[1274] I found that this is true for creative scientists, artists, entrepreneurs.

[1275] You can see it in any domain that they were very consistently the people who generated lots and lots of bad ideas.

[1276] The more bad ideas you have, the more ideas you have, and so you have a better shot at assembling onto a good one, which was cool.

[1277] They constantly questioned themselves and doubted themselves.

[1278] So you have Michelangelo fleeing when he's commissioned the Sistine Chapel because the task is just so daunting and he doesn't think he can pull it off.

[1279] You have Martin Luther King Jr. saying, no, I do not want to run the civil rights revolution.

[1280] I don't want to be in any kind of position of influence in this movement because I'm trying to focus on my job as a pastor.

[1281] And, you know, these are very consistently people feeling reluctance and questioning whether they can make it.

[1282] They also, a lot of them were really slow to get into pursuing whatever their original path was.

[1283] And so they had to have their arms twisted.

[1284] They were often the latest movers.

[1285] And some of them were even big procrastinators.

[1286] And I just looked at that and said, original thinkers are not that different from the rest of us.

[1287] Yeah, it's very encouraging and empowering to hear that none of these people were superheroes and that they also procrastin.

[1288] I mean, the classic encouraging example is always like Ray Kroc invented McDonald's at, well, franchise McDonald's at 52.

[1289] And as I've always said, I'm nervous to get past 52 because that'll no longer.

[1290] We need someone older.

[1291] Now you need to go to the physicists who win Nobel Prize in their 80s, right?

[1292] Yes.

[1293] There's still hope for me. Yeah, but you do a great job of, you're like an amateur historian on Edison, right?

[1294] Like Edison is someone you're obsessed with.

[1295] Edison is such an interesting example here because I always thought of him as one of these creative geniuses where every idea he had took off and he had what a thousand forty three patents only six or seven of them had any lasting impact on the world and there were so many duds along the way you look at the talking doll he created it was so creepy that it scared adults not just kids went nowhere he tried to invent a although maybe he had of his time Chuckie a movie about talking about I would not buy a Chucky doll.

[1296] I don't know about you.

[1297] But he just, he consistently spun his wheels on things that didn't work.

[1298] And you look at that as an example of saying, wow, if one of the most prolific inventors, you know, in history had to fail that many times in order to get a few successes, it's good news for the rest of us.

[1299] Yeah.

[1300] It's very encouraging.

[1301] You know, he was tenured at 28 years old.

[1302] Thomas Edison?

[1303] No, you, you, Chuck.

[1304] What's your thoughts on tenure?

[1305] Obviously, you like that.

[1306] You know, you.

[1307] have it.

[1308] Yes.

[1309] I plan to keep it.

[1310] Yeah.

[1311] And do you think it's good for the protection of spreading of ideas and free thinking and all that?

[1312] I'm kind of torn on it.

[1313] There's a big experiment going on in Western Europe right now where you sign professors to five to 10 year contracts.

[1314] Oh.

[1315] And the idea is then you give them a long runway so that they can really pursue big ideas.

[1316] Yeah.

[1317] I can see that, you know, allowing for some degree of freedom of speech, but I worry about it more in areas where, you know, the work that you do might get political.

[1318] that you think, okay, I'm never going to get a job again if I voice my opinion.

[1319] And so I think it's really important for freedom.

[1320] Where it's even more critical in some ways, though, is for attracting motivated, kind of curious people into the field.

[1321] Because I know when I was looking at different jobs, one of the draws for me was, you know what, as somebody who always felt financially insecure, the idea that I'm going to have a job for life and I'm going to have that sense of security, it convinced me to do that as opposed to pursuing lots of other fields.

[1322] And I think that's true for a lot of professors.

[1323] And so I think I worry about the loss of talent if we abandon it all together.

[1324] Yeah, that makes sense.

[1325] You know what's funny is, do you know who Ted Olson is?

[1326] I don't think so.

[1327] I could be wrong about this, but if I'm wrong, then he's the top three.

[1328] I think he's the most successful at trying cases in the Supreme Court.

[1329] He got DOMA overturned, but he also got Citizens United upheld.

[1330] So he's interesting because he's been on the left and the right.

[1331] And we had the unique pleasure of going to dinner with him at one point.

[1332] And he and I got into a little argument about ten -year teachers, professors.

[1333] He thought it was horseshit.

[1334] And how I got him was I said, well, you believe in the appointment of the Supreme Court, right, that that should be a lifelong thing so that people can go against popular mob mentality.

[1335] And we need, I said, what if someone, I put, of course, I served it up to him on the right?

[1336] So what if there's a professor somewhere in the physical sciences that discovers we are not responsible for global warming?

[1337] that couldn't get out on liberal campuses unless there was tenured like if someone really discovered that they could not publish that they would get fried if not for tenure so there are situations where it's like it serves a real purpose yeah and the history of science is full of those examples yes of huge paradigm shifts that seemed they're they're going to unravel all of society Copernicus Galileo Darwin yes you four walls to him yes you did okay Another thing I want you to talk about briefly because you're great at explaining it is this notion that people, humans in a workplace, and I would argue just humans traveling through life should have this as manuals.

[1338] Humans should come with a manual.

[1339] Co -workers, you should publish a manual on how to use you and how helpful that would be.

[1340] Yeah, so this is a relatively new idea for me. So I host a TED podcast called Work Life.

[1341] And my original goal was to say, okay, I spend a lot of time teaching.

[1342] things I already know to people.

[1343] What if I could reverse that and pick the most interesting people and workplaces around and go in and try to learn from what they do differently?

[1344] A little bit like if you wanted workout tips, you should go to an Olympic athlete, not because you're trying to make the Olympics, but because they know more about that thing.

[1345] Yes.

[1346] And so one of the things that I did was I went to a consulting firm Bain that has a long track record of building amazing teams.

[1347] And what they're especially good at is they bring groups of people together who have never met before.

[1348] And all of a sudden, they have to produce an analysis of a problem for a client that redirects the strategy of their business or something to that effect.

[1349] And so they have to get the teams up to speed very quickly without a lot of onboarding.

[1350] So you might get a call from an insurance company in Kansas saying, you know, we need you to rethink our strategy and you have to pull from all these different people, some of whom are currently working, you know, in Puerto Rico on a hotel company trying to expand.

[1351] Yes.

[1352] And so they have to get really good at teaming and and figuring out how strangers can work as if they're old friends.

[1353] And one of the things they did was they had a group of managers who said, you know what, anytime you buy a new piece of technology, it's going to come with some kind of manual to tell you how to operate it, right?

[1354] You would never expect a car to come without an owner's manual.

[1355] And last time I checked, the human mind is at least as complex as anything you can buy and probably a lot more complex.

[1356] Yeah.

[1357] And so what if we created a manual for how to work effectively with me?

[1358] Yeah.

[1359] And so I've actually done it since then, which was one of the fun outcomes of learning about it.

[1360] So I wrote my own first, and I said, here's what brings out the best in me, here's what brings out the worst in me, and here's how to work most effectively with me. And then I went to you...

[1361] Can I ask what were some of those things?

[1362] Yeah, what do you want to know?

[1363] What will bring out the worst in you?

[1364] Oh, that's easy.

[1365] Oh, I can guess.

[1366] What?

[1367] Tell me...

[1368] I think someone that would be loud and aggressive of any variety towards you to motivate you.

[1369] Like, if I was a coach and I was coaching you, I don't think yelling at it.

[1370] you would be a good move.

[1371] How do you know that?

[1372] That's true.

[1373] I hate that.

[1374] I can just feel it.

[1375] Oh, geez.

[1376] Oh, you're so mad.

[1377] I know.

[1378] I wish it was.

[1379] Yeah, I had a whole thing about...

[1380] Because you haven't said, I've never heard you say that.

[1381] I don't think you've said that on a podcast or anything.

[1382] I don't think I've ever admitted it before.

[1383] Okay.

[1384] But yeah, no, I think this is part of being agreeable is, you know, I like to please other people.

[1385] And if somebody's mad at me, I want to crawl into a hole.

[1386] Yeah.

[1387] Whereas if somebody is, you know, seeing my potential or, you know, valuing my work, I cannot wait to do more to try to make them happy.

[1388] I also would imagine, I came at it more from like, you're clearly a very sensitive, nice human being who really wants to make things better around him.

[1389] And I hope so.

[1390] I think that personality type where we grew up could have been easily subject to like overly masculine alpha energy.

[1391] Yeah.

[1392] Yeah.

[1393] I think I think that's definitely a target for bullying.

[1394] Uh -huh.

[1395] Yeah.

[1396] I think that's fair.

[1397] So, you know, it's funny now, I used to find it threatening.

[1398] And now I look at it, really, are you that uncreative that the only way you can motivate me is to start screaming at me?

[1399] Yes.

[1400] But again, you've acquired a lot of capital, be it intellectual degrees, financial security.

[1401] There's all these things now that you can go, no, no, I'm not, you know.

[1402] I'm not going to play that game.

[1403] Yeah, yeah, like you acquire it, which is nice.

[1404] Yeah, I think that is helpful, although I think that I started learning it before any of resources were available.

[1405] So I remember when I was working as a negotiator, people would come in and play good cop, bad cop.

[1406] And at first it was, what do I do?

[1407] I'm just one person.

[1408] There's this, you know, this tough negotiator in front of me who's going to, you know, kind of bully me into making a bad deal.

[1409] Yeah.

[1410] And finally, I was like, okay, what do I know as, you know, as somebody who's studying psychology about how to deal with these people?

[1411] Well, what you do is you label the behavior very gently and then you test your understanding.

[1412] Okay.

[1413] And so I had a pair of negotiators come in and they launched right into the routine.

[1414] And I just started smiling.

[1415] And one of them said, what are you smiling at?

[1416] I said, oh, it looks like you're playing good cop, bad cop.

[1417] And they didn't know what to say because it's sort of messed up their routine.

[1418] Yeah, you took their camouflage off.

[1419] I mean, just the wind is out of the sails, right?

[1420] And I said, look, you know what?

[1421] I enjoy all kinds of games.

[1422] I'm happy to play good cop bad cop.

[1423] In fact, I will gladly give you my best bad cop impression because I feel like we don't have enough of those around here.

[1424] Yeah.

[1425] Personally, I would rather figure out if there's anything that you can offer me that will help me meet my goals.

[1426] And if there's anything I can offer you that will help you meet your goals.

[1427] And if you want to have that conversation, great.

[1428] If you want to fight tooth and nail to see who the tougher negotiator is, you are not going to like that version of me. Uh -huh.

[1429] And it was so easy to have that conversation.

[1430] Yeah.

[1431] A boy, I've had similar ones where I go like, look, you got nukes, I got nukes.

[1432] We could annihilate each other.

[1433] We could do it.

[1434] Let's do it.

[1435] I'm happy to do it.

[1436] Or let's just get right to the part where we come to our senses.

[1437] That's awesome.

[1438] Well, it's funny when you were saying that people should have a manual, well, let me just ask two.

[1439] How does one get the best out of you?

[1440] The best out of me, I think, comes from a few things.

[1441] Number one, you should be a self -starter.

[1442] So I hate managing people.

[1443] I hate holding other people accountable.

[1444] I want to work with people who are intrinsically motivated.

[1445] And so, you know, reach out to me after you've, you know, if you don't know the answer to something, you've shown you've done your homework.

[1446] And then I'm really excited to say, okay, is there something I know that that could help?

[1447] Whereas if you asked me a question that you could have Googled the answer to, please don't waste my time.

[1448] Yeah.

[1449] I think that that's been a clear theme.

[1450] The other thing that went in there, because I gave it to a bunch of people who worked with me and said, can you answer these questions about me without telling them what I thought?

[1451] And one of the things I learned was I had no idea whatsoever that this is kind of a best and a worst.

[1452] but one of the things that brings out the worst in me is when somebody has a solution that they present to me without explaining what the problem is first.

[1453] Oh.

[1454] And it's like there's a switch that gets flipped as a social scientist where I say, wait a minute, how do we know that's the right course of action?

[1455] And do you have a randomized controlled experiment?

[1456] Do you have a longitudinal study?

[1457] And I go into this sort of litigating mode of trying to debunk their solution.

[1458] And if they would just come in and say, hey, here's a problem.

[1459] How would you think about solving it?

[1460] then I'm really excited to roll out my sleeves.

[1461] So what would go in your user manuals?

[1462] Well, I'm way better with positive feedback instead of like negative fail.

[1463] Like just tell me what you want, not what I did what I did wrong.

[1464] Why is that?

[1465] Like if I feel super confident, that's when I do my best.

[1466] I don't do my best when I'm scared.

[1467] I'm not making the boss happy.

[1468] I do my worst.

[1469] I get self -conscious.

[1470] I start thinking about the camera.

[1471] I start thinking about my lines.

[1472] You know, by the way, I hear the.

[1473] agreeableness in there again.

[1474] Oh, really?

[1475] Who gives a shit if I'm making the boss happy?

[1476] I am doing, I'm doing my rule.

[1477] I can be pushed to that point, but it's usually after we already lost points.

[1478] It's not the starting point.

[1479] Got it.

[1480] Okay, and Monica, this is your chance to tell Dax how to bring out the best in you.

[1481] Oh.

[1482] Yeah, I think I'm similar.

[1483] I like validation.

[1484] I like getting credit for things I'm doing.

[1485] But I'm trying to work on that.

[1486] I don't like that about myself, so I kind of don't want that to be the answer, but it is, I think, yeah.

[1487] I think regardless, I'm doing the same work.

[1488] If I'm happy doing it, it's generally because I know that person realizes what I'm doing here.

[1489] If I feel like I'm going unseen and I'm still doing a lot of work, which I'm going to still do, I'm in a bad mood and I have a bad attitude.

[1490] And maybe resentments are starting to pile up.

[1491] Yeah, possibly.

[1492] Yeah, so I like feeling seen.

[1493] I don't think there's anything wrong with that, though.

[1494] I like gold stars a little bit.

[1495] I don't know that I would expect anyone to transcend that.

[1496] I want gold stars.

[1497] I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

[1498] And in fact, you know, if when I think about the team that I want to work with, those are the most delightful people to motivate.

[1499] Because you know exactly what fires them up.

[1500] Yeah.

[1501] As opposed to constantly guessing.

[1502] That's true.

[1503] Now, what do you think about this?

[1504] One thing that I found that when I was a boss, I needed to get, I find that my mom has this too, because so I worked for my mom for years, and I thought she was an incredible boss in many, many ways.

[1505] But we have the same trigger, which is like, I feel like I'll give people a lot of rope because I want a lot of autonomy and ownership over what I'm doing.

[1506] So I'm trying to give other people that same autonomy and ownership, which means I'm not really a taskmaster.

[1507] Yeah.

[1508] And I get fucking pissed when they force me to be one.

[1509] Like actually, it makes me angry at them.

[1510] Like, God damn it, now you're going to make me be the person I don't want to be.

[1511] is again, I think some level of codependence, like it's important to me that they like me and now you force me to do something that I, you know.

[1512] Yeah, I think that's your discomfort with sometimes having to go into a boss mode.

[1513] I don't think you like doing that.

[1514] So, but sometimes you have to.

[1515] You're the boss.

[1516] And so there is a little bit of, well, shouldn't you guys just figure this out without me?

[1517] Because I don't want to be the person that has to come step in.

[1518] But sometimes you got to when you're the boss man. Well, I think it's interesting to me that when these kinds of situations crop up, I think part of the problem is that you're, not you specifically, but anybody in this situation, but let's talk about you.

[1519] You're too focused on your own preference, as opposed to saying, my job as a leader is to do whatever is going to get the job done effectively.

[1520] And so I've got to be a little bit flexible and adaptable and say, sometimes in order to be effective, I have to let go of my identity or my values or my preferred way of working.

[1521] And when push comes to shove, that's what happens.

[1522] Right?

[1523] As you say, okay, I will, you know, I will be the more demanding boss because I care about the quality of the work.

[1524] Yeah.

[1525] And I think that for a lot of bosses, if they would realize that up front, that it would bother them less.

[1526] I think you're totally right.

[1527] I think if you just went into it going, I'm going to have to adjust and I'm going to have to manage each person.

[1528] It's like having, it's like being the parent of children, basically.

[1529] I can't, I have to parent my girls differently very differently well it's funny because i think it depends on the job because in this case like in your case and christmas case they weren't trying to be bosses and they just ended up in the position where they have to be so it's not like they went to business school or they're trying to be the CEO and anything don't go to work i think that makes a big difference people who want to be leaders and people who accidentally become one I agree.

[1530] Although I will say I have a former doctoral student, Danielle Tussing, who did her dissertation on this idea of the reluctance to lead.

[1531] And one of the things she found was that reluctant leaders were often the most effective leaders.

[1532] Oh, interesting.

[1533] Because, I mean, think about it.

[1534] Do you want to be managed by somebody who wants to have power over other people?

[1535] Right, right.

[1536] Right.

[1537] You want to be managed by the person who has no interest whatsoever in that role.

[1538] Right.

[1539] And so I think that in some ways that makes people more effective managers is to say, you know, I'm not in this because I want to be in charge.

[1540] I'm in this because I have a skill set or I'm able to get people to follow me and we can produce something really great together.

[1541] Yeah.

[1542] And so have you been brought in to work with sports teams?

[1543] Yeah.

[1544] So I've been working with some coaches and GMs across the major sports in the U .S. with a couple of colleagues to try to figure out how do we draft players who are givers and also who have the humility and grit to want to keep improving.

[1545] Yeah.

[1546] And then how do we also build that ethos in the team, which has been a lot of fun.

[1547] It was interesting because part of the reason I got interested in a lot of these topics was everything I ever studied as an organizational psychologist.

[1548] You get to zoom in on it in sports teams.

[1549] In a sports team, yeah.

[1550] And so I would see that there were, you know, there were certain players who were like Shane Battier in basketball is such a great example.

[1551] Shane is the guy who basically won championships, Michigan guy, one championships at every level.

[1552] You know, Duke National Championship team, he's the MVP, gets to the NBA and discovers that he's not as physically talented.

[1553] as most of the people he's competing against.

[1554] He's accused of being too slow.

[1555] He can't dribble.

[1556] And so what does Shane do?

[1557] Shane starts to study basketball statistics and discovers, among other things, that there are certain spots on the court where Kobe Bryant misses most of his shots.

[1558] And so he ends up adding value to the team by saying, my job is to guard Kobe and to force him to the one point on the court where he's going to brick a bunch of shots.

[1559] Wow.

[1560] And you see that and you think, okay, that's the mark.

[1561] of a giver.

[1562] I'd say, I don't have to be the superstar on the team.

[1563] I'm going to find the one role I can play to make the team better.

[1564] And the funny thing is, Michael Lewis wrote a great article about this.

[1565] He called Shane the No Stats All -Star.

[1566] That's hard to evaluate.

[1567] Really hard.

[1568] We don't measure a lot of those contributions.

[1569] I think in sports a lot, but you see this in all kinds of workplaces.

[1570] You have people who elevate the team, but there's no way to track what they're contributing.

[1571] Yes.

[1572] Yes.

[1573] It's not super tangible.

[1574] Which is frustrating.

[1575] to me. Yeah.

[1576] It feels unjust.

[1577] Now, do you ever get imposter syndrome and or panic with the notion that you're being asked to solve a very nearly impossible thing to solve?

[1578] Like, you're coming in and they're going, okay, this person is supposed to know how to make us all work cohesively.

[1579] Yeah.

[1580] And that's a very big undertaking.

[1581] That's just a very daunting task.

[1582] Do you ever go like, oh, boy, Can I cash the check my ass just wrote?

[1583] I've never said it that way.

[1584] Not quite like that.

[1585] I think the way it plays out is sometimes I'll get contacted by people who have just, they've accomplished so much that it's hard for me to imagine that anyone knows anything that they don't.

[1586] Right.

[1587] Or that, you know, I belong in the same room as them even.

[1588] Yeah.

[1589] But then the thing that occurs to me pretty quickly is to say, okay, you know, one of the cool things about organizational psychology is I know nothing about any particular organization, but I see the same patterns happen in so many different collaborations.

[1590] And I also have this massive library of evidence that can give me frameworks and data points to say, oh, well, have you tried this?

[1591] Because we've tested this in three other organizations, and here's what happened.

[1592] How do you think this would play out for you?

[1593] There's a set of resources available there that make it easy to be helpful.

[1594] But yeah, I've definitely felt that.

[1595] I think one of the clearest times was working with Google and they said, okay, we want me to give a talk for a global team and you're going to speak right after Larry Page and our question is if an organizational psychologist ran Google, what should we do differently?

[1596] I don't know, I just studied this stuff.

[1597] I never would have built Google.

[1598] Yeah.

[1599] But then I think, okay, well, Larry and Sergey are engineers and they've never studied organizational behavior and there's actually a lot that we're going to be.

[1600] We know that might be relevant to them.

[1601] And so all of a sudden, oh, I do have things to say about this.

[1602] Uh -huh.

[1603] Yeah.

[1604] So is it more like, in many cases, for lack of a better way to say it, is it easier to identify the negatives than to identify the positives in that it's easier to see what potentially is broken than it is to see what could be infinitely helpful?

[1605] Does that make any sense?

[1606] Yeah, it does.

[1607] I don't know that I've seen a big difference there.

[1608] So in the Google case, one of the things that was striking to me was almost every great leap that they had made was the result of a collaboration.

[1609] So maybe I think Gmail was invented by a sole engineer, but otherwise it was either a dynamic duo or a whole team that came up with their biggest innovations.

[1610] And yet, they hire individuals, they promote individuals, they fire individuals.

[1611] And I'd read all this research on how if you want to take a team seriously, you might want to question that and say, well, what if a team did great work, we promote the whole team?

[1612] Right.

[1613] What if we ran a lift out?

[1614] and we found a successful team from another organization, and instead of hiring the one person we thought was a star there, we brought in the whole team, which seemed like a good idea because there's evidence both from Wall Street analysts and also from cardiac surgeons that if they leave their teams, their performance drops dramatically, even if they're thought to be individual superstars.

[1615] Well, it isn't even those two, Larry and Sergey or whatever.

[1616] They themselves are like a crazy famous team, right?

[1617] They're much greater than the sum of their parts.

[1618] That was the thought.

[1619] So, you know, you look at that and you say, well, I actually see the kind of the strength and the weakness at the same time, which is you have these moments of greatness, but you're not organizing your company to unleash them as often as you could.

[1620] Right.

[1621] And so let's talk about how we could do that.

[1622] And then Google ended up doing a big study of what made their high performing teams different from the rest and then training all of their managers across the whole company to try to improve the performance of those who are struggling.

[1623] Yeah.

[1624] Which is super cool.

[1625] That's very cool.

[1626] Are you familiar with the structure of A .A.?

[1627] A little bit.

[1628] Not as familiar as you are.

[1629] Okay.

[1630] I find A .A. to have some crazy magic sauce in that it is an organization of sorts, right?

[1631] And it's been around for, I don't know, 70, 80 years now.

[1632] There's no leaders.

[1633] No one's in charge.

[1634] No one knows more than anyone else.

[1635] And yet the thing thrives and has results for some segment of the people that try it.

[1636] right i've often been curious why nothing's modeled after it like does is anyone in the organizational psychology world interested in the fact that this thing has existed in a pretty peaceful state in performing a task but without any so fascinating i have not seen anyone ask that question okay because to me when i look at religions and stuff i think it's almost a waste of time to kind of figure out whether they are implicitly better or worse or flawed.

[1637] I think what you're always seen is the human element in any organization that has been empowered and then exploits that.

[1638] And then, you know, the systems seem to all kind of erode or corrode around that empowerment of a member.

[1639] Yeah.

[1640] So I can think of two places where we study things that are similar.

[1641] One would be in studying strong cultures and how you create an organization where everyone agrees on what the values are.

[1642] and they're so passionate about them that they actually enforce them, peer to peer, as opposed to needing some boss to control them.

[1643] Right.

[1644] And then the other place we study this is in self -management.

[1645] So actually, I did a podcast episode where I went to a company that has really gone to the extreme on this.

[1646] I was interested in, could we create a world without bosses?

[1647] And so I went to this tomato paste company called Morningstar, where they produced something like a quarter of the tomato paste in America.

[1648] And they make hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

[1649] running for 30 years and they've never had a single boss.

[1650] Wow.

[1651] How does that work?

[1652] Yeah.

[1653] Could that be real?

[1654] And it turns out that one of the things that happens when you arrive there is you're given the job description of the person who did your role before you.

[1655] And then after you do it for a little while, you get to rewrite the job description.

[1656] And all you have to do is explain, here are the tasks I want to do, and here's how they advance the mission.

[1657] You take that to the five to ten people that you have to work most closely with.

[1658] And then if they approve it, you've just reinvented your own job.

[1659] And so they consistently are evolved.

[1660] So they're promoting themselves in a sense.

[1661] In a way, yeah.

[1662] And no, I mean, when was the last time you saw a job description that was actually written for the one person who was doing it at that moment?

[1663] Right.

[1664] So it's a great way to let people keep customizing their work.

[1665] And then you're reviewed on whether you follow through by your peers on all of your commitments.

[1666] How do they pay people?

[1667] How do they decide who gets paid while?

[1668] They vote as a company based on your contribution.

[1669] Wow.

[1670] Which is remarkable.

[1671] What about hiring and firing?

[1672] They all decide?

[1673] They all agree on hiring.

[1674] when it comes to firing.

[1675] Can I ask how many employees are there?

[1676] Because I can see this getting logistically impossible at a surface scale.

[1677] How many they have right now, they grow a lot during the kind of the on season, and then they shrink in the off season, but hundreds, if not thousands.

[1678] Okay.

[1679] And one of the things they do for firing is if I think you're doing a bad job, I would just say, you know, Dax, you're not living up to the commitments you made.

[1680] So I think you should leave.

[1681] And then you can either agree and leave, or you can say, no, I disagree.

[1682] and then if we disagree, we actually would then appoint a, we agree on a group of neutral mediators who will come and talk to us, and then they'll give us their opinion, but you still have the chance to agree or disagree.

[1683] And if you still reject, eventually the whole company would vote on it, and they might bring in the founder to make the final decision.

[1684] Oh, my goodness.

[1685] Now, I'm not saying that every organization should work this way, but when I think about AA, this is kind of the closest company model I could think of, and there's the same level of individual ownership, right?

[1686] That you said, hey, these are the steps that I want to take.

[1687] And then you expect that other people will hold you accountable for that.

[1688] Yeah, the only thing there is this book.

[1689] It's the only asset of AA is this book that everyone seems to agree as they should follow.

[1690] But yeah, it is just fascinating to me that the guy who has six hours of sobriety is just as much of an authority on that book is a guy with 30 years.

[1691] There's no hierarchy.

[1692] But there are sponsors.

[1693] Yep.

[1694] Right, which you choose.

[1695] Yeah, but you're still picking someone who you think has a little bit more experience and sobriety than you.

[1696] Yeah.

[1697] Yeah, you're supposed to find someone who has what you want so that you can give what they have.

[1698] I think this needs to be studied from an organization.

[1699] I really do.

[1700] I think there's something interesting because when I get in fight with people about their particular religion, I'm like, there's gates.

[1701] Like, you know, why does some echelon have information that everyone else doesn't?

[1702] I don't understand Christians.

[1703] There's a, there's a text.

[1704] Why would one person understand the text more than another person?

[1705] Why is there a guy with a robe on telling you what that text says?

[1706] It's right there.

[1707] It's not like hidden.

[1708] It's not even the Torah that you're, you know, I don't understand it.

[1709] And somehow I always end up bringing AA into that.

[1710] Okay.

[1711] Lastly, first of all, I know the name of it.

[1712] I'm not going to ask you.

[1713] So work life podcast.

[1714] How often does that come out?

[1715] Because I want people to listen to that.

[1716] Oh, thank you.

[1717] That's very kind of you.

[1718] We do 10 episodes a year.

[1719] Oh, okay.

[1720] That's manageable.

[1721] Yes, very manageable.

[1722] So I pick the topics that I'm most excited to dig into, and I pick the people who I think have mastered them and the workplaces that are doing them differently and then try to figure out how we can all make work suck a little bit less.

[1723] Oh, that's fantastic, work life.

[1724] And where are you at in your seasons?

[1725] So we've done two seasons and we're in pre -production on season three right now.

[1726] Okay, great.

[1727] So when will that come out?

[1728] You don't know.

[1729] February, it looks like.

[1730] February.

[1731] Okay, great.

[1732] lastly I read your article and it's really funny because now that we've been talking for two hours I agree with nearly everything you said you didn't agree with it before I don't think no when I read stop trying to raise successful kids which already I love the title yeah which is in the Atlantic is it right now I feel like it was yeah yeah December issue okay uh stop trying to raise successful kids there were a couple things in here that I was like I don't know that I agree with your I love the statement let's just start there because I think the notion of success we've had We had a really great guy who teaches at Harvard come in and talk about what is success.

[1733] And I like challenging the notion of success.

[1734] I think fulfillment should be in that mix.

[1735] I think there's a lot of things that we don't consider when we think of what a successful person is.

[1736] So that already I love.

[1737] My wife and I fight about this.

[1738] We're in a current debate.

[1739] We haven't made a decision, but we have an ongoing debate where my daughter, the oldest one, loves to dance.

[1740] She's clearly got some kind of skill for it.

[1741] And she goes, we should put you in classes.

[1742] And I'm like, what if she just likes to dance?

[1743] What if that's it?

[1744] What if, does this have to have a next stage?

[1745] Can she just like to dance?

[1746] I don't know if I'm right or wrong.

[1747] We're still in the debating phase of it.

[1748] No decisions have been made.

[1749] But part of me goes, no, that's the whole thing.

[1750] Get her into class.

[1751] Then she goes to another level.

[1752] Then all of a sudden there's a, we evaluate it.

[1753] And now this thing that's just this joyful thing.

[1754] I don't know.

[1755] So anyways, so the title I really like, tell me why you wanted to write it.

[1756] You're obviously the father of three kids.

[1757] That probably is part of the explanation.

[1758] Yeah.

[1759] Yeah, so my wife Allison and I have been trying to figure out, in part, how do we raise kids who are givers?

[1760] We want our kids to be kind and caring.

[1761] Yeah.

[1762] And I got and asked about that a lot after give and take.

[1763] I'm like, I don't know.

[1764] I study adults at work.

[1765] I don't know anything about children.

[1766] Yeah.

[1767] Don't want to be one of those psychologists who screws up our kids.

[1768] Yes.

[1769] But eventually, we just, about a year ago, we decided we were going to write a children's book.

[1770] Oh, okay.

[1771] Which just came out.

[1772] It's called The Gift Inside the Box.

[1773] Oh, great.

[1774] That's all right now.

[1775] Yeah, just out.

[1776] And we were just talking a lot about, okay, you know, the process of writing the book for us was it's about a mysterious gift box that is kind of grabbed by all these entitled kids who are used to Amazon packages arriving at their door.

[1777] And of course, that's for me. Yeah.

[1778] And eventually the gift box wants to go to the kid who wants to gift it to someone else.

[1779] And so we were talking a lot about almost like a Twilight Zone episode.

[1780] It could be.

[1781] It very well could be.

[1782] But we were talking a lot about, okay, how do we take the ideas we were trying to communicate in this book and teach them to our kids and really instill them?

[1783] And so I'd been reading a lot of the research.

[1784] Allison had been disagreeing with various points in the research.

[1785] And eventually we said, you know what?

[1786] One of the biggest problems is that parents think that in order to be a high achieving kid, you have to be totally self -absorbed or self -focused.

[1787] And even parents who don't think that, we just live in a society.

[1788] where, you know, you, the questions you ask at dinner are about what grades did you get, how many goals did you score.

[1789] I love that part.

[1790] And thank you.

[1791] Yes.

[1792] And we never really thought to ask, well, who did you help today?

[1793] And who helped you to show that we care about these values?

[1794] And so I think that it just seems like a lot of parents don't know how to make that a priority.

[1795] They don't know how to teach their kids to be kind and concerned about others.

[1796] And so we thought, all right, let's sit down and see if we can explain what we've been learning and trying to practice.

[1797] So what did you disagree with?

[1798] Okay, so one of the things that I found triggering, I'll use the word.

[1799] Uh -oh.

[1800] Okay, in some parenting circles, for example, there's a movement against intervening when preschoolers are selfish in their play.

[1801] These parents worry that stepping in might prevent kids from learning to stick up for themselves and say that they're less worried about the prospect of raising an adult who doesn't share than one who struggles to say no. What I disagree with is your interpretation of why not to intervene.

[1802] So, my kids go to preschool where we don't intervene.

[1803] The whole goal of that preschool is conflict resolution.

[1804] So if you come and yell at me that Mike stole your shit, I'll say, did you tell Mike, you don't want your stuff stolen?

[1805] So I want to intervene, but not for the reason I'm afraid my kid's not going to stick up for himself.

[1806] It's just because I want them to leave with the skill set.

[1807] Yeah.

[1808] So you're trying to teach self -reliance and conflict resolution.

[1809] Yeah.

[1810] Because they're going to be in a million conflicts.

[1811] And if I solve them all or I come in and go, you should have been sharing, you should intuitively want to share your thing, I feel like that's, A, a little too much to ask of a four -year -old.

[1812] Got it.

[1813] And I also think that's not actually my goal.

[1814] My goal is to force them to sort this out.

[1815] And if it starts going off the rails and people get physical, of course, I'll get involved.

[1816] Just shy of that.

[1817] I'm good with that.

[1818] Okay.

[1819] I love it.

[1820] I would love it if every kid got that opportunity.

[1821] Because I also think it solves the tattletail problem.

[1822] We kids have to learn to confront each other directly.

[1823] Yeah.

[1824] The movement that we were reacting to specifically is parents saying you shouldn't teach kids to share.

[1825] Oh.

[1826] Because if they don't want to share, then they're learning to, you know, kind of assert their own boundaries.

[1827] That's weird.

[1828] No. How about you teach kids that they can stand up for themselves and share?

[1829] Yeah.

[1830] How about you teach kids that not everything in life is zero -sum?

[1831] Yeah.

[1832] And that when you let one of your friends play with a toy, that's not some cosmic loss for you.

[1833] And they've just won and gotten.

[1834] ahead, right?

[1835] You just, you let them experience the joy of playing with your toy and then you're going to get it back.

[1836] Yeah.

[1837] And so we were just reacting to the idea that, you know, that sharing is somehow a sign of weakness.

[1838] Yes.

[1839] Right.

[1840] Which I think is ridiculous.

[1841] Yeah.

[1842] Okay.

[1843] I completely agree with that.

[1844] I got to give, because I was, I was harsh on my wife about her having an ego.

[1845] I want to say, God bless her.

[1846] She's raising our kids because she does all these weird things where she's like, just try once.

[1847] If someone likes the toy and the house, why don't you offer it to them when they leave?

[1848] And so my kids have got to experience the joy of having given someone joy, which I don't know that I would have had that instinct.

[1849] And so they've had a bunch of practice now of like making people's day.

[1850] Now I think we have another problem where like they try to give everything away.

[1851] It's pretty damn cute.

[1852] It's so sweet.

[1853] That's very sweet.

[1854] And I think it's easier to adjust from that than to say I raised an entitled selfish kid and now I got to change their values.

[1855] Yeah.

[1856] Okay.

[1857] Now, here's another one.

[1858] first of all I love the article so I'm only saying oh I also want to admit to the fact that I read it like a horoscope do you know people read horoscopes it's like the things that they want to be true they they find and then they just kind of shove away the others so all this stuff that confirm my own point of view I was like oh I love this and then I was just kind of jettisoning stuff but the eighth graders with the greatest academic achievement moreover are not the ones who got the best marks five years earlier they're the ones who were rated most helpful by their third grade classmates and teachers so I imagine that is a true statistic.

[1859] I don't challenge the statistic, but I do remember reading an article about creative kids are the hardest on teachers.

[1860] They're the most difficult.

[1861] They're challenging this thought that you're laying in front of them.

[1862] And again, me as a challenger, I was like, wait a minute.

[1863] Of course kids who the teachers like more do better in school, because they're going along with the program.

[1864] Oh, got it.

[1865] So I kind of, I had a knee jerk like.

[1866] Yeah.

[1867] So there is evidence that the most creative kid in class is the least likely to be the teacher's pet.

[1868] Right.

[1869] They're kind of annoying.

[1870] Get with the program.

[1871] Stop raising your hand.

[1872] Stop, you know, taking us off schedule.

[1873] Yeah.

[1874] So this effect has been replicated a few different times and sometimes it's done with pure ratings of helpfulness as well.

[1875] Okay.

[1876] So I would think about the creativity axis is separate from the helping or kindness axis.

[1877] Okay.

[1878] And what we're seeing is that the kids who are helpful either because they have the natural instinct or because they've been taught to be that way.

[1879] Who knows?

[1880] A few things are happening.

[1881] Number one, they have a purpose for learning that goes beyond just their own immediate personal goals.

[1882] They can say, okay, the more I learn, the more I can share with other people, and that sort of connects them to a community, as opposed to feeling isolated, and that's motivating for them.

[1883] A second thing that's happening is when they spend all this time helping others, they're actually improving their own learning, right?

[1884] We all know that the best way to learn something is to teach it.

[1885] And so these helpful kids are actually doing themselves a favor by explaining stuff to their classmates and, you know, kind of trying to fill the gaps in their understanding.

[1886] Yeah.

[1887] And I think you can do all that and also be the creatively disruptive kid.

[1888] Okay.

[1889] I'd like to be helpful, but I also want to march to the tune of my own drummer.

[1890] Right.

[1891] Okay, great.

[1892] Does all this support, this kind of notion that there is a approach for kids?

[1893] There seems to be a little bit of a desire for people to create the perfect kind of person, kid.

[1894] Yeah.

[1895] And what I argue.

[1896] sometimes is that no and this is again frame it another way too is i often get frustrated with republicans and democrats that they actually think that if the whole country was either democratic or republican that that would be a perfect country and i argue no we totally need each other to reach some rational middle ground so doesn't the world need steve jobs and mother teresa isn't that what this world requires for us to function don't we need some asshole selfish motherfucker no we don't We don't.

[1897] Okay, tell me why.

[1898] So, okay, Steve Jobs, if he were less of an asshole, would he have been kicked out of his own company in the mid -1980s?

[1899] How much more could Apple have done between 85 and 97?

[1900] Maybe Steve Jobs needed to go off and take a different perspective and refresh his thinking.

[1901] Maybe he needed to evolve and become a little bit more mature and a little bit less nasty.

[1902] Actually, I talked to Walter Isaacson about this.

[1903] So he interviewed, what, 200 people who worked closely with jobs, knew him well.

[1904] Oh, the guy who wrote the book.

[1905] And he said the most consistent theme was people said Steve Jobs could have been kinder, that it would have cost him nothing to show a little bit more respect to other people.

[1906] And they would have worked that much harder for him because they felt like he was giving them credit.

[1907] They felt like they were valued and loved.

[1908] And I think that when people say, well, you know, Steve Jobs, look at all the success he achieved, but he was an asshole.

[1909] I would say, yeah, he achieved a lot of that success, not because he was an asshole, but in spite of his.

[1910] assholery.

[1911] In systems dynamics, there's a term equifinality, which is clunky, but it means many routes to the same end.

[1912] And in any complex system, by definition, it's equifinal.

[1913] You're in a maze as opposed to a tunnel.

[1914] Okay.

[1915] And so if you think about that, okay, well, one way to be, you know, to have extremely high standards is to be a tyrant.

[1916] Yeah.

[1917] That's not the only way.

[1918] Yeah.

[1919] And I think we all have lots of degrees of freedom to say, okay, what are the different ways that I could achieve this goal.

[1920] And I would love to see more people say, all right, you shouldn't idolize Steve Jobs.

[1921] You should idolize a specific value or a specific skill or behavior that he had.

[1922] And I think his, you know, if he had a superpower, it was clearly obsessed.

[1923] I mean, he was obsessed with perfection.

[1924] Uh -huh.

[1925] He had probably the highest standards of anybody in his industry.

[1926] And so great, let's take that.

[1927] And now let's figure out all the different ways that we can make those standards of reality in our own lives.

[1928] Yeah, because there does seem to be.

[1929] be this weird equation where it requires one person to go, no, it's possible.

[1930] And everyone else goes, no, it's impossible.

[1931] And there's naturally going to be friction, which you talk about a lot in your first book.

[1932] There is friction in that.

[1933] But it does require one person to hold firm and go, no, it's possible.

[1934] And I just got to get you all to buy into that by hook or crook.

[1935] I don't know what the best strategies.

[1936] You do.

[1937] That's your profession.

[1938] But is there room for someone to be going, know it's possible.

[1939] You must join me and still be kind.

[1940] Yeah.

[1941] It's always hard for me to take specific examples because I think most human beings are flawed.

[1942] Sure.

[1943] And, you know, anybody that I say was a great giver, you will find a moment where they probably seemed more like a taker.

[1944] Yeah.

[1945] Or they were, had a perverse sexual life.

[1946] Yeah.

[1947] I mean, who know?

[1948] Yeah.

[1949] There's lots of ways to disqualify someone.

[1950] Yeah.

[1951] And then they're canceled and we're all.

[1952] I'll never hear from them again.

[1953] What I would rather do is say, let's look at the evidence.

[1954] And so one of my favorite studies looks at CEOs of computer hardware and software companies.

[1955] And you can either get them rated by their CFOs on whether they put other people's needs above their own, whether they care about their own teammates' well -being as opposed to just profits.

[1956] Or you can also look at indicators of whether they're takers like, do they have a giant photo of themselves in the company's annual report?

[1957] Do they pay themselves a lot more than everybody else in the company?

[1958] do they talk about the company's success using words like I and me and when you do that what you see is that the takers actually their companies have more fluctuating volatile performance so they're overconfident they tend to swing for the fences they take huge risks they get lucky for a while yeah sometimes it pays off but in the long run they end up making systematic mistakes and they lose they bleed talent because if you are a star you don't want to work for a taker forever and so eventually I'm like screw this I'm going to go work for somebody great whereas the givers have much more sustainable long -term performance.

[1959] They earn loyalty even when their people leave.

[1960] They start referring other people.

[1961] They often boomerang and will return.

[1962] And people feel like, okay, I'm working here for not only a mission I believe in, but a person I believe in.

[1963] And I look at that evidence.

[1964] And I say, okay, we see that across hundreds of companies.

[1965] I don't need one individual role model who's an amazing giver.

[1966] What I have is the experiences of lots and lots of people accumulated.

[1967] And that tells me it's very possible.

[1968] I think a lot about, have you guys, do you know Ray Dalio's work at Bridgewater?

[1969] No. On radical transparency and idea meritocracies.

[1970] So I spent a lot of time studying their hedge fund that's been wildly successful.

[1971] And one of the things they do is they say, look, it's actually a mark of caring about someone to challenge them.

[1972] Because it says, I believe in your potential and I care about your success.

[1973] And so I'd done a podcast episode there on how to love criticism.

[1974] I would love to learn how to do that.

[1975] Love criticism.

[1976] Or at least to crave it, even if you don't love it, knowing you need it.

[1977] But the big thing I took away from that was they had built a whole culture where they said, look, if you say something nasty about a person behind their back, you're doing them a disservice because there's a potential learning opportunity that you're depriving them of.

[1978] And so if they catch you backstabbing someone, they will take you in front of that person and say, please front stab them so that they can find out what the feedback was.

[1979] and they've done that with the entire company buying in to say no one has the right to hold a critical opinion without speaking up about it.

[1980] If we all follow that principle, we can say, look, you know what, I think you did a really crappy job today and, you know, here are the ways that you could be better.

[1981] And I could hear that and say that's coming from somebody who's like a sports coach.

[1982] Yeah.

[1983] They're trying to help me improve.

[1984] Yeah.

[1985] And I would love to see more collaborations work that way.

[1986] I guess if it's happening to everyone, you would hopefully prevent you from taking it personal.

[1987] It also, one of the things you learn to do there is you learn to give yourself a second score.

[1988] So when somebody goes to criticize you, you say, all right, look, they've already given me the D minus.

[1989] I can't say, I can't suddenly convince them that I deserved an A minus.

[1990] Right.

[1991] All I can do is I can say, I'm going to try to get an A plus for how well I took the D minus.

[1992] Right.

[1993] And I'm actually evaluated in my performance reviews on whether I can take critical feedback.

[1994] And so I have an incentive to say, hey, whatever, whatever problems you have with me, bring it on.

[1995] And I know that my success here, whether I get promoted, whether I get paid, depends on showing that I can take that feedback and learn from it.

[1996] To me, that's a dream employee.

[1997] Amazing.

[1998] Oh, I mean, what more could you want in an employee than someone that's like open to change and, yeah, I'm not going to shut down?

[1999] So in that spirit, I have a rule that whenever I, whether I'm on a stage or whether I'm working with someone new, I always ask, what's the one thing I can do better.

[2000] And so you can either tell me now or when you do your fact check later, you can do it and I'll listen to it to find out what you said.

[2001] I'm not blowing smoke up your ass.

[2002] I literally can't think of a single fine.

[2003] We're really going to have to rack our brain.

[2004] Okay.

[2005] One, that's lame.

[2006] Two, you're not helping me. So you're definitely not a giver.

[2007] Okay.

[2008] We'll come up with something and we'll say it in the fact check.

[2009] I think I think Rob can probably come up with something if the two of you can.

[2010] I'll have to wear the big tea, the scarlet T -Taker.

[2011] Yeah, exactly.

[2012] No, but in all seriousness, I think this is such an important practice because here I am interacting with two people.

[2013] You have spent thousands of hours now, right, listening to lots of different people talk.

[2014] You have a ton of wisdom about what it takes to be interesting and insightful.

[2015] And if I don't learn something from you, then I have failed in part of my job as somebody who learns for a living.

[2016] This is amazing.

[2017] I'm going to have to decompress because currently I'm just like, this was a great fucking interview.

[2018] Yeah, well, it was.

[2019] Yeah, I know.

[2020] And we have a great one.

[2021] Also, that can be true, and there can be something to work.

[2022] Yeah, yeah.

[2023] Maybe we're, wear Jordans.

[2024] I'm teasing.

[2025] We have virtually the exact same pair of shoes.

[2026] And I like your socks.

[2027] Yeah.

[2028] I got no style complaints.

[2029] Your biceps are fucking gorgeous.

[2030] I see some vascularity.

[2031] You're definitely hitting the weight room.

[2032] Everything's looking good.

[2033] Well, Adam, we're so glad to have gotten to finally talk about to you because we've talked about you so often and we will continue to do so.

[2034] Such a treat to be here after listening.

[2035] enjoying so many episodes.

[2036] Oh, good.

[2037] Thank you for having me. Please check out he and his wife's children's book, which is called The Gift Inside the Box.

[2038] The Gift Inside the Box.

[2039] And then listen to Work Life Podcasts, which is exciting.

[2040] And then also get yourself into the Wharton Business School so you can take a class with them.

[2041] I hope you are in Teacher Heaven over there.

[2042] And I hope everything's going exactly how you would hope because I'm so excited by your work and it's really fun to have you on.

[2043] Well, thank you.

[2044] It landed me here.

[2045] So I feel pretty.

[2046] lucky.

[2047] Okay, great.

[2048] Please come back and talk to us again when you write another article and I'll try to poke holes in it and you'll tell me I was wrong.

[2049] And I'm going to try not to make you regret that.

[2050] Okay.

[2051] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[2052] Oh, welcome to the armature expert.

[2053] It really bothers you.

[2054] Let's get real.

[2055] It actually bothers you?

[2056] No, no, no, no, no, no. It doesn't.

[2057] It doesn't.

[2058] It doesn't.

[2059] blankedly.

[2060] Okay.

[2061] But sometimes I feel like when you start on these things, there's just no end insight?

[2062] Well, it feels very inward.

[2063] Like, I'm not here when you're doing that.

[2064] You're not engaging with me. You're just like on your own ride of doing your own thing.

[2065] No, I'm actively trying to make you laugh.

[2066] I'm trying to think of words that you would laugh at.

[2067] I said a plate.

[2068] Yeah.

[2069] Yeah.

[2070] And I said like, get a plaid But it didn't make any sense Because no one would eat Strachitelli on a plate Right and it's called Strachitella Yeah so all of it is to make you laugh I know I know But it doesn't feel like You can join in I guess Are there any accents of mine that you like?

[2071] No I like it I like it always I'm being serious I know I am too Oh okay So there are accents you like I like it when you do it And it does make me laugh But then I feel like It goes on and on and on and on.

[2072] So it's more of a volume, a quantity over quality.

[2073] You don't have a quality.

[2074] I don't have a quality issue at all.

[2075] Okay, you have a quantity issue.

[2076] A little bit.

[2077] Okay.

[2078] Just a little bit.

[2079] All right.

[2080] You want it to be finita.

[2081] I do.

[2082] I do.

[2083] Finito.

[2084] Finito.

[2085] I do.

[2086] Okay, great.

[2087] Chau Bella.

[2088] Okay.

[2089] I'll put that on the shelf for now.

[2090] Okay.

[2091] Okay.

[2092] Great.

[2093] Adam Grant.

[2094] I'm in love.

[2095] I'm in love.

[2096] He joins the ranks of Eric Topol.

[2097] Yes.

[2098] And I've already emailed him as many times as I've emailed Eric Topal.

[2099] Oh, you have?

[2100] What kind of stuff are you sending him?

[2101] Well, he's connecting us with so many other experts.

[2102] Well, and I just want to tease one.

[2103] One of them is for real dream guest that we've been vocally wanting for two years.

[2104] And we had him on.

[2105] He was fantastic.

[2106] Yeah, no. He knows everybody in the intellectual sphere.

[2107] world of academia.

[2108] He knows everyone.

[2109] He's very connected yet very humble.

[2110] Oh my God.

[2111] You're not going to find a level of humility with his with his credentials.

[2112] Exactly.

[2113] What a humble guy.

[2114] And he seems very normal when he comes in.

[2115] He doesn't have an air to him at all.

[2116] No, even though he's from West Bloomfield where the rich people are from.

[2117] Oh, right.

[2118] Yeah.

[2119] He didn't trigger any of my rich people stuff.

[2120] He mailed me ice cream.

[2121] He what?

[2122] He mailed you ice cream.

[2123] No, he didn't.

[2124] Strachia tell him?

[2125] For scheduling it.

[2126] Oh, as a thank you.

[2127] Oh, my gosh.

[2128] That's crazy because we were begging.

[2129] Begging.

[2130] Yeah, to have him on, but he wanted to be on to do.

[2131] Here's my thing.

[2132] I think of considerate things.

[2133] I just, I don't have time to execute them.

[2134] Yeah.

[2135] I mean, I think there's different mindsets.

[2136] It's, I think it's more of a switching of a mindset.

[2137] Like, it's not even an option for him not to do it.

[2138] He's not thinking like, do I have time?

[2139] He's just like, this is what I. do i i well i'm wondering does he have an assistant he said send my ice cream to rob i mean probably ordered it online too oh yeah you ordered it online i'm sure now now it's getting more reasonable so you can just do that what you think he did i don't know when to the store brought dry ice and bought a cooler and then fucking had someone weigh it at the goddamn post office oh no no i don't think he did that i can't do that well most people can't do that that's a lot i don't think he did that.

[2140] But he did have a thought.

[2141] Okay.

[2142] He has some other time management strategy that I could really benefit from.

[2143] I know.

[2144] But listen, I, first of all, I don't think he has an assistant because he responds to all my emails immediately.

[2145] Okay.

[2146] Yeah.

[2147] And he's so humble.

[2148] He's so humble.

[2149] And he's cute as hell too.

[2150] So cute.

[2151] But it's still like he had the thought to do something nice and then he executed that thought.

[2152] Immediately.

[2153] He didn't put it on a to do list.

[2154] There's something to be learned here from him.

[2155] And I just don't know what it is.

[2156] Maybe we should have them back on just to ask him how to be consider it.

[2157] How to be thoughtful.

[2158] Well, he's a giver, as everyone knows by now.

[2159] Yes, he is.

[2160] He asked us to give him criticism.

[2161] And we didn't.

[2162] And then we said we would give it to him on the fact check.

[2163] He's requiring it.

[2164] So we have to do it.

[2165] But isn't it possible that I don't have a criticism of somebody?

[2166] Yeah, but he said that's bullshit and it's not fair to him.

[2167] And I love that attitude.

[2168] I do too.

[2169] But like, you can watch, I watch Beyonce sing one plus one on, on American Idol.

[2170] I don't have any criticism for that.

[2171] I mean, flawless things happen, right?

[2172] They do, they do, they do.

[2173] But he wants it so that he can grow.

[2174] He can get better.

[2175] And I think that's good.

[2176] And I'm going to give him one.

[2177] Okay, great.

[2178] So mine is that I think, because we've been in touch through email, and he always responds very quickly and very thoughtfully.

[2179] This feels like such a weird thing to give him.

[2180] Yeah, I don't think this is a good criticism.

[2181] No, but I just hope, I hope he's not sacrificing his own life and his own time and his own needs for other people's needs.

[2182] Although he says he enjoys it.

[2183] So I don't know.

[2184] I mean, I believe him.

[2185] But I get nervous when someone is so giving that they're sacrificing their own stuff.

[2186] And that's just my fear.

[2187] It's not really a chrono.

[2188] Well, then, yeah, mine would just be.

[2189] a suggestion of like, make sure you question whether your narrative is taken over.

[2190] Like I said this about Jay Leno.

[2191] I get the fact that he's a guy who's never swam in his pool and doesn't take vacation, but that becomes something you say to people.

[2192] And then the result is you don't ever go on vacation or swim in your pool, which I don't think is advisable.

[2193] But I understand how it starts.

[2194] So Adam's premises givers succeed.

[2195] So he's got to walk the walk.

[2196] Yeah.

[2197] But I would just ask him to challenge his own narrative occasionally.

[2198] Yeah, that's our criticism.

[2199] It can be dangerous when you identify yourself with a concept because it doesn't leave a lot of room for just change.

[2200] Right.

[2201] Like he's declared at a young age.

[2202] I don't know what age he was when he wrote that book, but let's say he was 36 and he declares this is the way to live.

[2203] Yeah.

[2204] And then what?

[2205] Then there's no change or evolution?

[2206] That's true.

[2207] Maybe he figured it out at 36.

[2208] He kind of sounds like he did.

[2209] Sounds like you might have.

[2210] Yeah, I just, but in his presence.

[2211] And the way he communicates and his ideas, I don't have any criticism for that.

[2212] Yeah.

[2213] And then he, again, he walks the walk.

[2214] He connected us with all these people that we love and we've had some successful.

[2215] He brought us books and signed them.

[2216] And his children's book is truly phenomenal.

[2217] Oh, that's awesome.

[2218] Kristen's, like, favorite book we've read of the kids in here.

[2219] I would have to know more about his personal life.

[2220] Well, no. I don't think he's asking for criticism on that.

[2221] Well, isn't it all one thing?

[2222] I think in some way it's all one thing.

[2223] Yeah.

[2224] You know?

[2225] That's true in a way.

[2226] Well, I'm sorry, Adam.

[2227] I liked everything he said.

[2228] No, I'm going to stick to what we just said.

[2229] He's too.

[2230] He needs to make sure he's meeting his own needs before meeting others.

[2231] Right.

[2232] Putting his life mask on first.

[2233] I don't know if he's doing that.

[2234] Right.

[2235] Because it would appear that it would be very easy to get codependent with that kind of marching order, which is like I need people to think I'm a giver or I need people I want people to I don't know but again I don't I don't know that he's paying any price and it's probably just great it probably is but that's our criticism is your email fat too fast and we appreciate it and we loved it and we're super grateful and we love to want to talk to you like every week so oh my god yeah I wish to me that would be the criticism is like oh yeah I'd be cool if he came back in a year no I don't be cool if he came back next week.

[2236] But why is that a criticism?

[2237] No, it tells me I have no criticism of him.

[2238] It would be a delight to have him back every week.

[2239] Right.

[2240] To have him as a member of the podcast.

[2241] So maybe the criticism is he's too likable.

[2242] And he's not a member of our podcast.

[2243] Oh, yeah.

[2244] My criticism is he's not here enough.

[2245] Yeah.

[2246] Did you think his publisher flew him out here?

[2247] I don't know.

[2248] Good question.

[2249] Because that could be a criticism.

[2250] I'm like, maybe he should have asked us to pay for his trip or something.

[2251] I would want to reimburse him if he flew out here just to talk to us.

[2252] And we owe him the money for the ice cream and the books.

[2253] Oh, my God, we owe him a bunch of money.

[2254] We owe him so much money.

[2255] That's our criticism.

[2256] Adam, give us a bill.

[2257] Yeah.

[2258] We haven't got your bill yet.

[2259] You're late on sending us your bill.

[2260] He's a poor invoicer.

[2261] Yeah.

[2262] Oh, he needs to definitely use Square.

[2263] It could really help with his invoicing.

[2264] That's true.

[2265] Yeah.

[2266] Join Square.

[2267] Adam.

[2268] That's what I'm mad about.

[2269] Okay, so some facts.

[2270] Poopsies.

[2271] It sounded like a poop.

[2272] I had a little poopsies.

[2273] Sounded like a drop in the toilet.

[2274] Now, you and I have had a little evolution in our friendship in that I'm farting around you more.

[2275] Yeah.

[2276] And are you?

[2277] You so don't let me smell them.

[2278] That's right.

[2279] I'm not there yet.

[2280] I'm definitely not there yet.

[2281] How do I feel about that?

[2282] I feel two things.

[2283] I feel happy.

[2284] Okay, great.

[2285] First.

[2286] And then.

[2287] Then I feel excluded?

[2288] No, no, no. From the smell?

[2289] Well, yeah, I feel, actually, first I feel excluded from the smell, then I feel happy.

[2290] Then I feel like, oh, I guess he just doesn't really care anymore about.

[2291] I know you want it both ways.

[2292] One was like, I don't trust you enough to fart around you.

[2293] And then as soon as I did is that I don't care about what you think about me. Yeah.

[2294] That's right.

[2295] Confirmation bias.

[2296] Well, no, it's because you don't let me smell it, that I know it's not that you're so comfortable.

[2297] Well, now what I won't even do, I wouldn't do this in front of my family, I would only do it in front of Aaron Weekly is I have a very specific reaction when I eat a lot of onion rings, which was discovered in seventh grade on the bus ride to Muir Jr. High, and Aaron and I were in the back of the bus.

[2298] And it fucked up the whole bus.

[2299] Oh, my God.

[2300] Wow.

[2301] Yeah, it was definitely if I'm like career farts, it was terrible.

[2302] It was, it was.

[2303] You remember it.

[2304] still it was an act of terrorism oh and i um i was embarrassed by it and even aaron was like that's too much for public kind of a situation yeah but was it an accident or on purpose well i didn't know it was going to be stinky yeah in that way it's very specific and so i will pretty much i would only do that in front of Aaron okay because he's a disgusting man just like me i mean he is so disgusting in the way i'm disgusting so it's kind of like sure we're you know we're both That one was my mother, which, you know, we didn't have junk food.

[2305] It just wasn't in the budget.

[2306] But on this rare occasion, she brought home one of those big bags of frozen onion rings.

[2307] And I just put them all on a baking sheet and cook them all.

[2308] And I ate a couple pounds of onion.

[2309] Wow.

[2310] Yeah, I loved it.

[2311] They were delicious.

[2312] Oh, my God.

[2313] I couldn't stop myself.

[2314] Wow.

[2315] And I just didn't know that was going to be the outcome.

[2316] Now, so I've never eaten them in that quantity.

[2317] I don't think sense.

[2318] Oh, okay.

[2319] If you notice now when we go somewhere that has onion rings, I'll dabble in four or five of them.

[2320] I won't get my own order of onion rings.

[2321] Oh, you're.

[2322] Because I'm fearful.

[2323] You were burned.

[2324] I was burned.

[2325] The onion rings.

[2326] Yeah.

[2327] Wow.

[2328] Okay.

[2329] Okay.

[2330] So he said that he was barely good enough to get on Harvard's diving team.

[2331] But then we had another guest on who knows Adam, who said that he's a phenomenal dive.

[2332] He said it's hooey, and that even currently he's still an exceptional diver.

[2333] Yeah, that he dove recently, and it was very impressive.

[2334] Also, you know what I would have liked to have talked to him about, but I didn't want to make him uncomf.

[2335] Mm, what?

[2336] Is, you know, I'm a student of the Olympics.

[2337] And what I'm specifically a student of is, like, what activity gives you the most rock and bod?

[2338] And as you know, for me, for my money, that's sprinters.

[2339] Yep.

[2340] That's the sand volleyball players.

[2341] And it's the goddamn divers.

[2342] The male divers have crazy good, I mean, good subjective, but muscular and lean.

[2343] Yes, it's nice.

[2344] They almost have gymnast bodies, which kind of makes sense.

[2345] I guess the rotating in the air that requires so much abdominal strength.

[2346] It does.

[2347] It's all in the abs.

[2348] Yeah, but they also have really nice butt cheeks.

[2349] The Olympics are coming up.

[2350] I'm so excited.

[2351] Tokyo 2020.

[2352] I doubt you'll even have let me smell your far by then.

[2353] So my friend, Rutledge, who you met the other night.

[2354] Yeah.

[2355] Well, he was in town covering some Olympic stuff.

[2356] Oh.

[2357] And he's going to Tokyo.

[2358] Pre -Olympics?

[2359] Yeah.

[2360] You know, they do those stories before they get there.

[2361] Those are my favorites.

[2362] Yeah.

[2363] So I guess he was in town filming one of those in L .A. And he said, do you want to go to Tokyo Olympics?

[2364] Oh, my God.

[2365] Should we go to the Tokyo Olympics?

[2366] Maybe.

[2367] Oh, I would love to.

[2368] Okay, maybe we should go.

[2369] Although I kind of like watching it Well, we could watch it in our hotel rooms Oh, so we go there and then we just stay in the hotel Yeah, we pick a couple of events that we were going to Spectate Okay But then the ones we thought would play better on TV We'll just watch those in our hotel All right, I like this idea We'll stay at the Park Hyatt scene of the Lost in Translation Wow What a time, what a time What a time to be alive Sounds like a time Okay, so he's a supertaster And it's supertaster Which we didn't really get into, is if you have more than 30 taste buds in a space the size of a whole punch on your tongue, then you're a supertaster.

[2370] So you can test it by cutting out a piece of your tongue and counting the buds.

[2371] No, you cut out a whole punch circle.

[2372] Okay.

[2373] And then you put it on your tongue.

[2374] Okay.

[2375] And then you count it.

[2376] You count the piece of paper on your tongue?

[2377] You count the buds.

[2378] But you won't be able to see them under the paper.

[2379] I know.

[2380] I kind of wonder that too.

[2381] Here's what you got to do.

[2382] You cut the outline out.

[2383] There you go.

[2384] Either the outline or put the piece of paper on your tongue and then outline it with a felt pen.

[2385] No, don't do that.

[2386] Eat four sharpies for breakfast.

[2387] There are super tasters, average tasters, and non -tasters.

[2388] Oh, I see what you're supposed to do.

[2389] Punch a standard notebook hole into a clean piece of plastic or wax paper and put it on the front of your tongue.

[2390] That way you can see through it.

[2391] Oh.

[2392] You can count the dots.

[2393] The dots, okay.

[2394] But it didn't sound like it was a pleasurable thing.

[2395] You would think being able to taste things better would be nice, but it sounds like a detriment to his life.

[2396] He doesn't like chocolate.

[2397] There's my critique.

[2398] Get some of your taste buds removed.

[2399] Yeah.

[2400] So you can enjoy chocolate and coffee.

[2401] Oh, chocolate.

[2402] I've been wanting a chocolate donut for days.

[2403] Too long.

[2404] Yes, Ray Crock was 52.

[2405] Okay, good.

[2406] Okay, you're right about that.

[2407] Left -handed people make up temperament.

[2408] percent of the population, as you said.

[2409] We were talking about left -handed people on our own a couple months ago.

[2410] And what we realized, what we saw was left -handed people, the percentage of them is varies drastically amongst different countries.

[2411] That was fascinating.

[2412] Which I thought was fascinating.

[2413] And I think what they were saying was in some countries, it's considered bad to be left -handed.

[2414] So they kind of force these kids at a young age to get with the program.

[2415] Yeah, to start writing with their right hand, even if that's not what they're, you know, naturally good at.

[2416] One of my favorite teachers in college was this German professor who taught geography and took a couple different cool classes with him.

[2417] And he'd say the weirdest stuff to me. He liked me in some weird way, like we had some weird connection.

[2418] Oh, sex tinge?

[2419] Well, one was I was allowed to use a word processor to take written test so that I could spell check because I was labeled dyslexia.

[2420] Oh, that.

[2421] That's nice.

[2422] And so I said, I need extra time so that I can get the spelling right.

[2423] And he goes, oh, I think the opposite is true, which is his way of saying he thought I was smart, which I liked.

[2424] But one time he just walked by me and I was writing and he goes, when I was a child, they would hit your hand with a ruler very hard and you would not write like this.

[2425] And I was like, oh, he was not permitted to write left hand.

[2426] He would have gotten his ass beat.

[2427] See, that's so interesting.

[2428] In 1950s, Germany.

[2429] In Germany, the rate of left -handedness is 9 .83%.

[2430] The whole thing is, do you feel like one in ten people that you meet are left -handed?

[2431] I don't.

[2432] We have groups of friends when we talk about it.

[2433] I guess Charlie's left -handed.

[2434] I mean, people are, yeah.

[2435] It's not like you're the first person I've ever been in the world.

[2436] I know.

[2437] I just, I hate it.

[2438] I want it to be 1%.

[2439] I know.

[2440] Truth but told, I wish it was like.

[2441] 0 .01%.

[2442] Like if it was something that people gathered around to watch me write a letter.

[2443] Oh, my God, that is so gross.

[2444] My family's lefty.

[2445] They are?

[2446] All the, my two sisters and my mom are lefty.

[2447] Oh, I should be hanging out with them.

[2448] But mostly that your sisters and your mom and I should put on public shows where we write with our left hand.

[2449] People stand in cheer.

[2450] People love to see that.

[2451] We take suggestions like eight, and then we make an eight.

[2452] Oh, my God.

[2453] F. Wow.

[2454] Oh, I mean, people they would applaud and cheer.

[2455] Oh, boy.

[2456] Okay, Ted Olson, I don't think he's the most successful at trying cases in the Supreme Court.

[2457] I found a bunch of other people's and then there were some lists, but he wasn't on any of those.

[2458] He wasn't.

[2459] No, but are those all historical figures or in the modern era?

[2460] Modern era.

[2461] Oh, okay.

[2462] During modernity.

[2463] Uh -huh.

[2464] But it doesn't mean he's not as incredibly successful lawyer he is.

[2465] And he, you know, he worked for George Bush.

[2466] I would love to interview him.

[2467] We should.

[2468] Yeah, he has illustrated some points that I just will not have thought of.

[2469] I don't think the way he does.

[2470] Yeah, we should.

[2471] He's a very convincing person.

[2472] Adam, just reminder, he's the one that taught us about equifanality.

[2473] Aquifanality, our new favorite word, we're going to use it excessively in 2020.

[2474] We used it a lot one day and then we forgot to use it ever again.

[2475] But we'll try to bring it back.

[2476] Yeah, we'll end up there.

[2477] equifinality.

[2478] Oh my gosh.

[2479] I see what you did.

[2480] We will end up there.

[2481] So that's one of our resolutions, I guess, in 2020 is to use equifinality.

[2482] Every day.

[2483] Yes, with reckless abandon.

[2484] Yeah.

[2485] All right, well, Adam Grant, we love you so much.

[2486] Here's our criticism.

[2487] We love you too much.

[2488] Oh, yeah, it hurts our soul.

[2489] We don't have enough free U -tiles to love you in the way we want to.

[2490] All right.

[2491] I love you.

[2492] I love you.

[2493] on the Wondry app, Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[2494] You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts.

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