Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell is co-founder of Pushkin Industries and host of the hit podcast Revisionist History. He is a journalist, a speaker, and the author of several New York Times bestsellers including The Tipping…
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Live from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Malcolm interviews Adam Grant around his new book, Vibe: The Secrets of Strong Connections in a Lonely World. They cover the three kinds of relationships—pals, allies, and companions—explain why frenemies may be worse for your health than enemies, and look at why dating algorithms can’t find your soulmate. Malcolm offers a grand unified theory of Adam’s work: every book has been a nerd manifesto. Along the way, they talk about what kids learn from watching their parents work, and how nerds build community in their own ways.
Pushkin. Hello, hello, everyone. Greetings from the road. I've been out all over the place promoting my new book, The American Way of Killing, but I paused in the middle of my book tour to come back to New York, more specifically, to come back to a packed house at the Brooklyn Academy of Music to interview my old friend, Adam Grant, on the day of the release of his new book, Vibe, The Secrets of Strong Connection in a Lonely World. Over the years, we have had these public conversations many, many times, but I think this was easily our best. Adam is the single most fun person to argue with that I've ever met. We talked about nerds, about arranged marriages, about astrology. By the way, don't get Adam going on astrology. And about whether we were allies or pals. It was an incredibly fun evening on the subject of what is a completely fascinating book. So, have a listen to our conversation. By all means, buy the book, And join me as a charter member of the Adam Grant Fan Club.
01:10
Speaker 2
Malcolm, what are we?
01:11
Speaker 1
I think we're pals. Don't you think we're pals?
01:15
Speaker 2
But we've never done pal activities together. This is a pal activity.
01:19
Speaker 1
That's... Don't you think?
01:24
Speaker 2
Hey everyone, it's Adam Grant. Welcome back to Rethinking, my podcast with Ted on the science of what makes us tick. I'm an organizational psychologist, and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people who explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking. I'm on tour for the launch of my new book, Vibe, The Secrets of Strong Connections in a Lonely World, which means I get to talk about it live on stage with some of the most interesting people I know. This week, I'm sharing a conversation with my favorite sparring partner, Malcolm Gladwell, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. Malcolm Gladwell, you are on book tour right now. Your book has been out two weeks, and here you are coming to host me for my book tour in your city. That is an extraordinary act of generosity. I am grateful for it. Thank you.
02:15
Speaker 1
Thank you. It's my pleasure. We should start by explaining why you're wearing a Bills jersey.
02:22
Speaker 2
Do we have to?
02:23
Speaker 1
We have to. Adam and I had a bet. When his... teamed the Detroit Lions, played my team, the Buffalo Bills, and you boldly predicted that your team would win. And you said loser had to wear the jersey of the opposing team to this event. Ladies and gentlemen, the loser.
02:49
Speaker 2
I'm regretting that decision right now.
02:52
Speaker 1
How does that feel to walk around with a Bills jersey?
02:55
Speaker 2
I mean, the bills have suffered for a long time, much like my lions. I'm feeling your pain quite literally right now.
03:01
Speaker 1
Yeah. Are you going to wear this, like, home with you? You're not going to take it off when you go backstage?
03:07
Speaker 2
I was actually going to gift it to you at the end. Okay.
03:11
Speaker 1
So I want to talk around the book. We're not going to tell you what's in the book. You should read the book. And my hope is that at least half of these questions you will never get again on your book tour. That is the standard.
03:23
Speaker 2
I'm at the edge of my seat here.
03:24
Speaker 1
Yeah. And also you said that we've done this many times. I don't know if you guys know this. This is probably the, oh my goodness, fifth or sixth time we've done one of these?
03:34
Speaker 2
It's got to be more than that. I think most of our interactions have been on stage talking about each other's books.
03:40
Speaker 1
It's a great way to vibe. And you told me that you got some feedback on some of our previous interactions and that audiences liked it when we weren't snarky. They did. Which is, I have to say that That broke my heart a little bit because I was.
03:58
Speaker 2
I felt like a little part of me died when I heard that feedback.
04:01
Speaker 1
You're such a lovely person to argue with. But I'm going to try and... I think we should try and put the snark aside. Give the people what they want. Happy Malcolm and happy Adam tonight. In the spirit of this book, which is about how you get along with other people, right? How do you make real connections?
04:18
Speaker 2
Yes, but I think if we disagree on things, we should feel free to do that.
04:21
Speaker 1
We should feel free to do that. So define for us your three categories, what they mean in the context of your book, and then we'll dig into this. All right.
04:30
Speaker 2
So there are basically three important kinds of people in your life. And I discovered this is true in pretty much every culture around the world. They have different terms for them. But I've come to think of them as allies, pals, and companions. So your allies are people that you pursue goals with. They're your favorite collaborators. Your pals are people you have fun with. You would love to invite them to play pickleball or karaoke or whatever your idea of a good time is. And your companions are people you can fight in. They're the people whose shoulders you can cry on. They're the people who will drop everything to drive you to the hospital if there's an emergency. And I have found this to be such an eye-opening way to look at my own relationships because before I just used to call people friends or family or colleagues or neighbors. And that tells you how I know them. But it doesn't reveal anything about what purpose that relationship serves. And it certainly doesn't explain why some colleagues feel like friends and some friends feel like family and some family I would prefer to disown. So, Malcolm, what are we?
05:29
Speaker 1
I think we're pals. Don't you think we're pals? I wouldn't be here if I wasn't.
05:35
Speaker 2
I mean, now I do.
05:36
Speaker 1
No, I wouldn't have done this if we were allies. Oh. When I think of an ally, I think of a transaction.
05:46
Speaker 2
Oh, no, that's an associate.
05:48
Speaker 1
Oh, that's an associate.
05:49
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's the other category of transactional relationships where people just meet each other's needs.
05:54
Speaker 1
But an ally are two people working towards some shared goal.
05:58
Speaker 2
Yeah, we've got a common mission. I think we both love exploring ideas and.
06:03
Speaker 1
Yeah, but the reason I'm here is I thought this would be really fun. Oh.
06:06
Speaker 2
Well, I did too.
06:07
Speaker 1
I think of you as... I think we pretend that we're allies, but we're actually pals.
06:11
Speaker 2
So interesting, but we've never done pal activities together. This is a pal activity.
06:16
Speaker 1
That's... Don't you think?
06:20
Speaker 2
I think it has pal energy, but for me it's an act of allyship because... You're helping me share my ideas and learn new things about them. And I hope I do the same thing for you. And we're on a common mission to make people smarter and more curious and more open-minded.
06:36
Speaker 1
There are several interesting places we can go from here. One is that you and I, there is a discrepancy in how we define our relationship, which I kind of like. I'm your ally, but you're my pal. Right?
06:50
Speaker 2
You know what's interesting about this is in the research I've read, normally not being on the same page is a risk factor for a relationship because we have different expectations. And then you're goofing around and I'm kind of annoyed by it and I'm too task focused and you're irritated by that. But here there's a complementarity, I think.
07:10
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, that was one thing in the book actually that I had a question about because my first instinct when I read about those three categories was to wonder about discrepancies because I feel like in my own life, I enjoy relationships most when there is a discrepancy. I find that really interesting. And what ends up happening is that you start to, the lines between those categories start to blur if each person is bringing a different energy to the relationship.
07:41
Speaker 2
Yeah, I completely missed that in the book, and I think you're right. I think the kinds of discrepancies I was thinking about were different, which is, are we on the same page about what we are supposed to give and what the other person is supposed to receive? And if we're not aligned on that, if I want you to be my ally and you're only my pal, that's a recipe for bad interactions and maybe some distrust brewing. But I like this idea that you're my ally and I'm your pal. That's fun. We can be allies.
08:09
Speaker 1
But also, these categories are fluid, right? That was the other question I had about those. What's the trajectory? Do people naturally move from ally to pal to companion? Is that a kind of trajectory that happens in relationships over time as people get closer?
08:30
Speaker 2
They think it's supposed to, but it doesn't have to. I think this is a misconception. You can be close on any of these wavelengths, and they don't go in any particular order. There's not a hierarchy of them. Some people meet and go right to companionship. They end up engaging in what's called a disruptive disclosure, where They just kind of share something about, here's a moment from my upbringing that shaped me. Some people become allies or pals and never go to companionship, and I call those people men.
08:59
Speaker 1
Are these distinctions useful in understanding human development? So a child, a baby, is in a strictly transactional relationship, right? When they're born, they just want you to feed them and keep them warm. They're not giving anything back.
09:13
Speaker 2
Then.
09:14
Speaker 1
Do you move a little bit into allies where you have a shared goal to keep each? You got to keep the baby alive. The baby's got it. And then you get to a little bit of of what's the next one?
09:25
Speaker 2
Is this what you thought about when your daughters were born?
09:29
Speaker 1
No.
09:30
Speaker 2
Like, how do I be a good, good dad? Got to keep the baby alive.
09:32
Speaker 1
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I did not overthink this until right now.
09:38
Speaker 2
So it's my fault.
09:38
Speaker 1
I'm sorry. It is only your presence that causes me to overthink relationships in my life.
09:43
Speaker 2
I take full responsibility for that.
09:44
Speaker 1
No, like we go through this and then you end up in a place of, it's more than companionship, but I mean, there's clearly a point in your, I have young children, so I think about this, in the trajectory of raising a child. In the beginning, it is just pure, like they're just like, everything's about them. Feed me, come running when I cry, blah, blah, blah. And then you watch their kind of relationship with you evolve over time.
10:07
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's so interesting. I've never thought about this. I think that's right. I think what you haven't seen yet, because your daughters are still little, is what happens when your kids start to become little adults. So as of last week, we have three teenagers, which is a crazy thought. And I have watched some of our friends who have slightly older kids really struggle with the transition into being a parent to adult children. And what happens is their kids are looking for kind of distant allies to respect their independence, and they're still stuck in full companion mode. Or in other cases, what I've seen is kids are actually looking for companionship, and the parents only know how to be pals. And so it's a constant letdown. And I think that's hard. And I think you're right. The fluidity is really important. And as a parent, getting on the same page with your kids about what do you need from me and how do I show up for you is a critical conversation to have.
11:01
Speaker 1
Yeah. The other thing that I thought about those three distinctions was there's very different levels of energy that are associated with those roles. So companionship is a very kind of consuming, demanding thing. And it can be hard to be a constant companion to someone. The reason I thought about this is that I have a friend who, a very old and close friend of mine who lost a child recently. And I went to the funeral and I saw him and he was walking around and he said something he'd never said to me. I've known him my whole life. He said, walk with me and tell me something that will distract me. He needed something in that moment from me that I'd never actually had to give him before, right? Although I'm very, very close to him. Our primary mode was we were pals in the greatest sense of that word. He's an incredibly brilliant. His mind is just delightful. You can hang out, you know. But in that moment, he needed something more. So I thought it was like there is this sort of toggling that can take place. And we will eventually go back to our pal mode But he needed somebody more than that.
12:19
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think you're right that companionship is often the most draining of the relationships. But it doesn't have to be. I think there's a huge difference between showing compassion for somebody else and crossing the line from empathy to what's called enmeshment, where you start to blur another person's needs and your own. And I think about this every time I hear somebody say, I want to be needed. And my first reaction is, I don't think you understand what it's like to be needed. You do not want to be needed by another human being. You want to be valued. Because if someone needs you, that means they are totally dependent on you. And they expect you to drop everything whenever they have an issue. That's a recipe for an unbalanced, one-sided relationship. Unless you're both suffering and share trauma together, which I would not necessarily wish on anyone. I think what's much healthier is to say, look, let's set some boundaries around compassion. I don't have to feel your feelings to care about your feelings. I want to maintain some distance so that I can show up for you when it doesn't cost me too much.
13:24
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. Can I go to my questions? Oh, yeah. Sorry.
13:29
Speaker 2
I didn't mean to sidetrack you. You're in charge here, Malcolm. This is your show.
13:33
Speaker 1
When you were a kid, this is going to seem like a digression, but it's going to circle back.
13:39
Speaker 2
I love that preview.
13:40
Speaker 1
It's actually, it's crucial to the enterprise here. When you were a kid, you were a nerd.
13:46
Speaker 2
Were? Yeah, and I still am.
13:48
Speaker 1
Okay, good.
13:49
Speaker 2
That.
13:49
Speaker 1
That checks out, right? That was my second question. In your mind, what is the definition of a nerd?
13:59
Speaker 2
I think my favorite definition of a nerd is that.
14:02
Speaker 1
By the way, only a nerd would have a favorite definition of a nerd. Well.
14:09
Speaker 2
There's a variety.
14:10
Speaker 1
You've reviewed them all, looked at the evidence, and you've chosen number four. What is, so what's your favorite one?
14:17
Speaker 2
Well, an ally of mine actually sent me once a Venn diagram that broke this down. And if I can reconstruct it, it was very good. It had, I think it had intelligence, esoteric interests, and social skills. And a nerd has the first two, but not the third.
14:40
Speaker 1
Why does that word nerd have stigma in our society attached to it?
14:46
Speaker 2
I think because of the lack of social skills.
14:49
Speaker 1
Yeah, but intelligence and esoteric interests get trumped by social skills?
14:54
Speaker 2
I think when you're constantly going around having awkward interactions with other people and making them feel uncomfortable, maybe. I think there's another thing at play here, which is I think that nerds are often threatening to jocks. And so there's this hierarchy that's created in schools where you can tell that somebody is more intelligent than you. And so you create a stigmatizing way to put them down.
15:19
Speaker 1
Now, are you less of a nerd now than you were as a kid?
15:23
Speaker 2
Well, I think if you include the social skills factor, I hope so. I think I've become less socially unskilled over time.
15:30
Speaker 1
Let's imagine we're both 12. Tell me what you're like. I'll tell you what I was like. Yeah, take me back to 12-year-old Adam, and I'll take you back to 12-year-old Malcolm.
15:39
Speaker 2
Okay, so I had more hair than you do. It was curly. It looked like a Brillo pad.
15:44
Speaker 1
Yeah. What did you do for fun?
15:49
Speaker 2
Collected sports cards and comic books.
15:51
Speaker 1
Yeah.
15:52
Speaker 2
My friends and I had our own fantasy leagues where we did it by hand because there wasn't a computer version yet. They made fun of me, and they called me Mr. Facts when I corrected their stats, which was a sign of things to come.
16:02
Speaker 1
Uh-huh.
16:03
Speaker 2
I played a lot of sports, almost all the time.
16:06
Speaker 1
Which sports?
16:06
Speaker 2
I played basketball, soccer. I was an avid water skier. I was just starting to discover diving, but not really.
16:13
Speaker 1
But you were a good athlete.
16:15
Speaker 2
No, I was not a good athlete.
16:16
Speaker 1
Oh, you were not a good athlete. No.
16:18
Speaker 2
I had good hand-eye coordination.
16:19
Speaker 1
Yeah.
16:20
Speaker 2
Nothing else.
16:21
Speaker 1
Yeah. And what were your relationships like with girls?
16:25
Speaker 2
I was afraid to talk to them.
16:26
Speaker 1
Yeah. What about at 13? Same. What about at 14?
16:35
Speaker 2
Same.
16:35
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. Were you happy at 12? Yeah.
16:40
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely.
16:41
Speaker 1
Happier now than you are today?
16:44
Speaker 2
No.
16:45
Speaker 1
What was your.
16:46
Speaker 2
Where is this going?
16:47
Speaker 1
No, it's... No, no, no. It's clearly going somewhere. Just hold on a second. I'm just establishing some things here. So what if we met at 12? Was I a nerd at 12? I think so.
17:00
Speaker 2
You think so?
17:01
Speaker 1
By that definition. Were either of your parents nerds?
17:04
Speaker 2
I think yes.
17:07
Speaker 1
Both. My dad was a nerd.
17:09
Speaker 2
For sure. Math professor?
17:10
Speaker 1
Yeah.
17:11
Speaker 2
My mom, not.
17:13
Speaker 1
My mom, kind of secret hipster.
17:14
Speaker 2
But you were a nerd. What were you doing for fun? I was.
17:20
Speaker 1
At 12, I had a crisis because I was still interested in playing with my Lego and my G.I. Joe. But I was aware, because I was in high school, I was aware that I couldn't tell anyone that I was still interested in those two things. And I realized I had to give them up, but I didn't want to.
17:42
Speaker 2
I feel so sad for 12-year-old Malcolm.
17:44
Speaker 1
It was. 12-year-old Malcolm, the song Puff the Magic Dragon was so meaningful for me as a 12-year-old because it's all about The dragon.
17:56
Speaker 2
Dragons live forever, but not so little boys.
17:58
Speaker 1
Not so little boys. And I was like that. I was obsessed with that moment when I would have to leave the dragon. And I didn't want to leave the dragon.
18:07
Speaker 2
So sad. I felt that way about video games. Yeah. So I can relate.
18:09
Speaker 1
So I feel like there was a certain amount of arrested development that was going on. I had a lot of hair. I mean, substantial, like a foot at least or more. And I was probably 95 pounds. So I looked odd. But I think I would have enjoyed your company at the age of 20.
18:32
Speaker 2
I think so, too, but I'm not sure where we would have began.
18:37
Speaker 1
Because the key thing of those three qualities you were talking about, lack of social skills, intelligence, and esoteric interests, at that age, it's all about esoteric interests.
18:46
Speaker 2
Yeah.
18:47
Speaker 1
And when you meet the kid whose interests are as esoteric as yours, it's delightful.
18:52
Speaker 2
Yeah, you've found your people.
18:54
Speaker 1
And it's still delightful.
18:57
Speaker 2
Completely, which is why, okay, so you're going to say we're pals because of that. I get it.
19:00
Speaker 1
I think that.
19:01
Speaker 2
Well played.
19:02
Speaker 1
I think that, no, I think the reason I enjoy your company, like, I think right now we are nerding out. So I was thinking, you know, I like to do, what I like to do is to generate grand unified theories of things. And so I thought it'd be really fun tonight to generate a grand unified theory of Adam Grant's work. Okay. So your first book was Give and Take. which was all about really the value that comes from helping others. And there is a reading of that, which is the nerd says, don't bully me. It's possible for us to have a productive relationship. Then you wrote a book called Originals, and I'll just read to you the subtitle, How Nonconformists Move the World. That's the nerd manifesto. Then you wrote a book called Think Again, right? The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know. That's the nerd asking to be reconsidered in the eyes of the world, right?
20:07
Speaker 2
It's also the nerd saying, you don't know what you're talking about.
20:10
Speaker 1
Exactly, exactly. Then you wrote a book called Hidden Potential, which is what the nerd says in the failed interaction with the girl at the age of 14. I have potential, you can't see it yet, but just you wait till I'm 30.
20:22
Speaker 2
Yeah, I don't remember ever having that conversation.
20:27
Speaker 1
And now we have Vibe, the secrets of strong connections in a lonely world. Your world's lonely, Adam.
20:35
Speaker 2
Not anymore.
20:35
Speaker 1
Wait. Your whole, I think of your work as just a series, you have delineated the kind of nerd landscape. In each of your works, you have articulated one of the central and I think deeply important dimensions of the nerd world, right?
20:57
Speaker 2
Yeah, I've never seen this pattern before. And I now, I feel a little guilty that there are very few live long and prospers in my book. Or in any of the books I've written. I feel like I've under-referenced Star Trek. Not fully serving the nerd audience.
21:13
Speaker 1
You should. But I would venture to say, so then I was thinking, the other thing that's interesting about your work is that it's been enormously successful. You've struck a real chord with your audience. And I'm wondering, and we have the audience here. And I was wondering, well, how many of us who love your books are nerds?
21:31
Speaker 2
Are we going to poll the audience? Yes. Yeah, let's do it. Can we get the house lights up a little? And if we relax the social skills part and just say intelligence plus having really intense interests in specific things, how many people would raise their hands then? Okay, that's more.
21:46
Speaker 1
That's more.
21:47
Speaker 2
Some people didn't want to admit to struggles with vibing, like my 15-year-old who says, don't say vibe, dad.
21:54
Speaker 1
But so you've been trying to rehabilitate and guide the nerd through life. And the paradox of this... The paradox of this, of course, is that you're doing this at a time when the nerds are running the world. They don't need your help. They're worth $ 100 billion each.
22:14
Speaker 2
Oh, I have a good answer to that one, Malcolm.
22:16
Speaker 1
What's that?
22:16
Speaker 2
I think a lot of the wrong nerds are running the world. Why is it easier to connect with people when we're doing something together? When two acquaintances sit down face-to-face for a meal, it can be awkward. But put those same two people side-by-side on a walk or run, and they often slide into a natural rhythm of conversation. You're sharing an experience, and your bodies are quite literally moving in the same direction. That matters because connection isn't only something we create through words. It's something we build through synchrony. That's one of the things I love about Peloton. At first glance, a workout can look like an individual activity. You get on a bike or tread, put on your headphones, and start moving. But the experience can be remarkably social because you have an instructor encouraging you. You can see other people moving alongside you. There are high fives, leaderboards, shared milestones, and all of these little signals that remind you you're not alone. That's a powerful psychological shift. And the connection can go beyond that moment in class. When you keep showing up, you start noticing familiar names on the leaderboard. You recognize the people who gravitate toward the same instructors. Those little moments of recognition can turn into encouragement, online friendships, and sometimes even connections that carry into real life. That's what makes Peloton interesting is the bridge between exercising on your own and feeling connected to other people. You don't have to be in the same room to start building a sense of familiarity or belonging. I'm a big Peloton fan, and their new TreadFlex is designed to make movement easier to fit into your actual life. It's movable and foldable, so you can walk, run, or hike when you want to, and move it out of the way when you don't. It doesn't matter how big or how small your space is. You don't need a perfect home gym to make movement part of your life. You just need a little space and a reason to start. Movement doesn't have to be solitary. It can be a way of getting out of your own head, into your body, and in tune with others. Discover the Peloton community at onepeloton.com.
24:26
Speaker 1
One of the great delights... of being a friend is I occasionally email you out of the blue as I did several weeks ago. And I asked you an incredibly nerdy question. I wanted to have some insight as to why certain kinds of new ideas have difficulty gaining traction. Why does it take so long? It doesn't take long to come up with the new thing. It takes a long time to convince people to use the new thing. And you're like a little like, Five minutes pass, and then boom, in my inbox, it's like, all these papers, which I read, and I was like, this is brilliant. This is better than ChatGPT. This is Adam at his absolute greatest. And it made me wonder, I want to get a sense of how your mind works and how your day looks. Because I don't understand, how do you do all this?
25:20
Speaker 2
Well, they're all part-time jobs, right?
25:22
Speaker 1
So walk me through a typical Adam day.
25:25
Speaker 2
Well, I want to talk about your emails for a second because you send me the nerdiest questions of anyone I know. By far.
25:32
Speaker 1
I go to you because I know you have a certain kind of specialty that I'm very, very interested in.
25:38
Speaker 2
And sometimes you then are disappointed. Like, well, what are you doing as an organizational psychologist then?
25:42
Speaker 1
Oh, I have... If you don't know this thing. No, but I have you on a pedestal. And when you fail to live up to my lofty expectations, I get bummed out.
25:51
Speaker 2
Well, I'm glad to disappoint you from time to time.
25:53
Speaker 1
I think.
25:55
Speaker 2
What you should know is that whenever you send me an email looking for an explanation or some data, it is the best procrastination in my day. Because it's way easier to solve other people's problems than it is your own. And how many times have you come up with a great title for somebody else's book but struggled to title your own? Having a little bit of distance from the problem gives you a perspective that is missing when you're in the weeds. And so like, it just makes my day when you say, Hey, how would you explain this thing? And I'm like, aha, I can spend 10 minutes feeling useful and having fun. And I'm going to feel more productive in those 10 minutes than the rest of my week combined.
26:35
Speaker 1
Yeah.
26:37
Speaker 2
Wait.
26:37
Speaker 1
So how many people do use you the way I use you as a human LLM? Is this other like 20 of us who are sending you these emails?
26:47
Speaker 2
There are probably a few hundred who show up with some regularity.
26:53
Speaker 1
Are you conscious of trying to live your life as efficiently as possible?
26:57
Speaker 2
I used to be. And I've actually tried to become less efficient because I think.
27:00
Speaker 1
What does that mean?
27:01
Speaker 2
In the Atom universe, what is less efficient? Well, I used to worry about wasting time. And I would think about, oh, I had five minutes today that I could have spent more productively. And I could have either gotten something done or learned something or helped someone. Why am I not making the most of my time? And I think I've, with the benefit of a little bit more life experience, realized usually my best ideas come when I'm actually not focused on getting anything done. And also that's when some of my best interactions and relationships are built. And so I've just tried to be more patient about how my time is used.
27:34
Speaker 1
Do you compare yourself to your peers at work when it comes to productivity? No. You're not a comparison person?
27:41
Speaker 2
No, I do self-comparison.
27:44
Speaker 1
What does self-comparison mean in this context?
27:45
Speaker 2
I feel like I'm competing with my past self and raising the bar for my future self.
27:50
Speaker 1
Do your kids observe you working?
27:54
Speaker 2
They try not to.
27:55
Speaker 1
No, but I don't mean this in a negative way, but what lessons do you think you're imparting to your kids with the way that you conduct your work life?
28:04
Speaker 2
So I think, I hope my kids are learning three things from watching me work. The first is that Like I treat flow states as precious. It's one of the reasons I run late for a lot of things is when I get fully absorbed in a project or a task, I don't know when that's going to happen again. And I don't want to cut it off prematurely. And so they will see me when I have an idea disappear into my office for a couple hours. And I hope they're learning that it's possible to be intrinsically motivated at work. It's possible to love your job. I think that's an important lesson for kids to learn. Secondly, I think that they, I hope they see that I really love helping people and connecting people. And probably a third of the time that they wander into my office, when they ask me what I'm up to, I'll say, oh, I just, I thought of two people who really need to know each other and I'm checking with both of them to make sure that they're open to the introduction. Or somebody sent me an email asking, can you make organizational psychology sense of this? And this is the kind of problem that makes my day. And then third, I hope they're they're learning that work that's intrinsically motivating is not always fun moment to moment. That working on hard problems is sometimes really frustrating and it's okay to experience the frustration and push through it.
29:25
Speaker 1
I ask that only because when I look back on my relationship with my father, in retrospect, the single most important thing that he did to influence who I am. is to work the way he did that he would go every morning he was a man not dissimilar to you in many ways but he would get up every morning he would go he worked at home a lot he would go into his study and he would just work solidly take a break have tea with my mom work solidly and it never seemed like drudgery you had to respect his time and when it was over it was over like it was there was a point at which he stopped and went on and i observed this my entire childhood and it left an enormous impression on me wow like i i feel his spirit when i'm working because i saw that and all the other things the parenting things i've forgotten all the other ones.
30:28
Speaker 2
I think this is one of the fundamental things that parents get wrong is they think that kids are going to be influenced by their words, but it's much more their actions that matter. And I think we all know this intuitively. We've heard that actions speak louder than words. I don't think that parents really stop to think about my kids are not going to follow what I say. They're going to observe what I do. And you've got a choice between being a good role model and being a cycle that needs to be broken. Make the right choice.
30:55
Speaker 1
Yeah.
30:56
Speaker 2
But I love that you learn that from your dad. And I can, I mean, I can see that spirit in the way that even you interact, right? Which is you, you bring a certain whimsy and joy to exploring ideas that like for me, when I was in college, you were one of the first people to legitimate intellectual curiosity outside of the classroom. I remember the tipping point coming out when, okay, this is going to age you a little bit. I think it came out I think I was finishing my freshman year of college, maybe starting sophomore year.
31:29
Speaker 1
Yeah.
31:29
Speaker 2
And all of a sudden, it was cool to talk about ideas outside of class. And I mean, if your dad gave that to you, that is an extraordinary gift.
31:39
Speaker 1
Yeah.
31:40
Speaker 2
But it's also a great gift that you gave to me and so many other authors.
31:47
Speaker 1
But I want to go back to something you said just a few moments ago.
31:51
Speaker 2
Notice how quickly he changes the subject. Malcolm does not like to be the center of attention. Since I'm getting a little uncomfortable, let's go back. I want to go back to something you said. So parents obsess too much about the things they say to their children and don't worry nearly enough about the example they're setting, their actions.
32:12
Speaker 1
This is an example of a way in which we are exercise lay psychology and are wrong, right? And a lot of your work, in particular, this book is about exposing all the kind of psychological theories we have about everyday life that are incorrect, right? Can you, we're going to briefly talk about the book. Pick your favorite misperception, psychological misperception from the book.
32:38
Speaker 2
Favorite? This is like choosing a favorite child.
32:41
Speaker 1
Doesn't have to be your favorite.
32:42
Speaker 2
Just pick one. I'll give you one.
32:43
Speaker 1
Okay.
32:44
Speaker 2
It's in vogue to talk about toxic relationships and then to say, okay, that person is not healthy for me. I'm going to cut them off and go no contact. And most people think that the people that you should distance yourself from are your greatest enemies, your adversaries, the people that you see only vices in. And empirically, that is not true. Even worse for your well-being and even your physical health than your enemies are your frenemies. People that you have ambivalent relationships with, this has been studied for decades by psychologists like Bert Uccino and Michelle Duffy. What they show is, if you have both positive and negative feelings about someone, if you appreciate their virtues, but you also can't stand their vices, you are experiencing higher blood pressure when you interact with that person. They are more likely to cause your heart rate to spike, and you even are more vulnerable to cardiovascular disease if you have more ambivalent ties in your life. And I mean, that was just eye-opening for me to say, you know what? I have felt that. I have felt that. I don't know if this person is leaning in for a hug or if I should brace myself for a brawl. And constantly having to predict their behavior and manage, are we going to like each other or are we going to be at each other's throats? That is draining and it's actually physically unhealthy. And so that's one of my favorites.
34:10
Speaker 1
So you've now identified two ideas that we hold about how to make sense of the world that are not true. Why are we such bad people? lay psychologists. Shouldn't we be good at that kind of thing?
34:22
Speaker 2
Well, I don't think we're bad intuitive psychologists. I actually think we are good on average. And what we study in psychology are often the outlier cases. I had a debate with Danny Kahneman about this. So some people have probably read Thinking Fast and Slow. Danny, he arguably was the greatest psychologist in history, the only one ever to win a Nobel Prize. And I had the great fortune of being mentored by him in probably the last decade of his life. And one day... Danny told me that he was skeptical of an article because the findings went against his intuition. And I said, Danny, that's confirmation bias, which by the way, you helped to put on the map. Don't you think you should be questioning your assumptions? And he said, no, I think most human intuitions about behavior are right. And I think the burden of proof should be higher when a finding is counterintuitive. And I was really bothered by that. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized he was onto something. Because I think most of the time when we run studies in psychology, we support our intuitions. And that's why most of the findings in our academic journals are boring and obvious and predictable. But sometimes it's still helpful to gather evidence for them to confirm an intuition. But I think where my attention is really piqued is when rigorous, replicated, transparent studies by different labs come out with some findings that are surprising or unexpected. They don't have to be counterintuitive. Sometimes they just have to be non-intuitive. And I think we should spend most of our time there because that's where we have the most to teach. But it doesn't mean we're bad at this in general.
35:55
Speaker 1
But if I might gently push back, one of the reasons this is such an interesting book is it's full of all kinds of things that run counter to our intuitions. Let me give you another example, perhaps what I thought was one of the most striking examples in the book. It's early on, and you're talking about dating. and compatibility, romantic compatibility. And you point out that the notion that drives a lot of dating websites is completely unsupported by the evidence. In other words, if you try and match up people on the basis of shared interests or some other algorithmic compatibility, there's no evidence to suggest that's a good idea, right?
36:31
Speaker 2
This is out of Eli Finkel's lab. What they do is, They ask you to go on a series of speed dates, but before that, you've filled out an exhaustive questionnaire. It's about 200 dimensions, every conceivable aspect of your personality to try to figure out what you're like, and also everything you might want in a partner. And then they look at, okay, which combinations are good matches and which ones aren't? And it turns out the algorithm is a random walk. It does nothing. So all of the dating algorithms, all of the apps, all of the websites, they claim they're going to match you up with your soulmate. They are lying to you or they're lying to themselves. There is no evidence that we can do this. And the reason for that is we have a broken model of what compatibility is. We think that compatibility is similarity between traits or maybe opposite traits. And so we think either birds of a feather will flock together or opposites will attract. And That is ultimately not true because it's not your separate traits that drive your interaction. It's the unique dynamic that evolves when the two of you meet. And so you can't predict what people are going to be like until you've actually seen them talk or do activities together. And I think you're right. I think that's a great example of our intuitive psychology is just wrong. But there's still some nuanced truths in that. So when you look at the idea that similarity attracts, that is true. We do gravitate toward people who have the same personality traits as us, similar backgrounds to us. We even like interacting with people who smell similar to us. Yes, that is a research finding. If someone's odor resembles yours, you get along with them better. But the question is what happens after the initial attraction? And at that point, similarity becomes irrelevant. It's not whether you're objectively similar that drives whether you maintain a bond or whether you get close. It's whether you feel similar to each other, which is all about what you discover about each other and what you develop in each other. And so compatibility is not something we can gauge upfront. It's actually something we build over time.
38:46
Speaker 1
But if, Adam, if, let's pause on this because it's a really important point, I think. How do, dating websites are a multi-billion dollar business. They are persisting on the basis of a complete misapprehension about how dating works. How do they keep going? Is it just that you're cycling people through and no one ever figures out?
39:07
Speaker 2
Maybe. But I think what you did in Blink is you captured something that a lot of people want to believe, which is you have a gut feeling or an intuition about other people that is often more reliable than your careful, rational analysis. And there are situations where that's true, and you wrote about them. People way overgeneralize. how often that's true. And they're constantly relying on their first impressions of other people, which are frequently wrong. Let's take the famous Nalini Ambati studies of thin slicing. It's really easy to tell when you watch a professor for 10 seconds. Are they passionate? Are they enthusiastic? You can predict their teaching ratings. You know what you can't tell watching them for 10 seconds? Are they going to be a good wife or a good husband? Are they going to be a great collaborator? Because you are just watching them perform in one narrow situation and one role. And I think we like to believe that when we get a narrow slice of one person, we can then generalize that to what they're like in all kinds of situations and interactions. And that is just not true.
40:12
Speaker 1
Yeah. So wait, if I made you America's dating czar.
40:18
Speaker 2
Not qualified. No, no, no.
40:19
Speaker 1
Hold on.
40:20
Speaker 2
Hold on.
40:21
Speaker 1
I put you in charge of the online business of helping people find a soulmate. What does it look like?
40:28
Speaker 2
Wow. I've never thought about this question before.
40:31
Speaker 1
You wrote a book called Vibe. Is there a way to fix the dating app, is what I'm saying.
40:37
Speaker 2
So, yes. I would do a few things. First of all, you're not allowed to write your own profile. Other people who know you well get to submit anonymously descriptions of you.
40:47
Speaker 1
Yeah. I like that.
40:50
Speaker 2
And what you do is you nominate three or four people that you trust... And then they get to enlist the other people that they think will be honest in seeing both your strengths and your shortcomings. So let's get the real profile. This is like doing a reference check as opposed to a job interview.
41:06
Speaker 1
Yeah.
41:07
Speaker 2
Let's begin there.
41:08
Speaker 1
With the reference check. Okay. Okay.
41:09
Speaker 2
What else do we want to do? I think the second thing you do then is you have to, before you decide whether you're a match or not, you have to interact with them in three different kinds of situations.
41:22
Speaker 1
Give me an example of a kind of situation.
41:23
Speaker 2
So you go to a haunted house together.
41:26
Speaker 1
A haunted house. How old are these people?
41:33
Speaker 2
Come on. You read the book. You know there is evidence that if you go to a haunted house with people, as long as you debrief it afterward, it accelerates your bond.
41:42
Speaker 1
Okay. Is the key variable the haunted here? Does it have to be?
41:46
Speaker 2
It has to be an emotionally intense experience that you have together. I want you to do a quick workout together because, you know, at the end of the day, if you didn't like them, at least you got a workout in. So we've done, I think the haunted house is a little bit of a, it's a companion experiment, right? We're going to be a little vulnerable. The workout is we're going to have some pal energy and then I want you to solve a problem with them. I want you to do a word search or be on a Scrabble team together, or maybe play Catan together, something where you actually have to be allies toward a common goal. And then you're gonna see them in all these different roles and ask yourself, could I imagine us having that kind of connection?
42:30
Speaker 1
By the way, all those things that I think they're wonderful ideas, those are all things that people do together when they're working together. And yet we have, in recent years, begun to frown on office romances. Is that really a dumb idea, office romance? Or is it a dumb idea to frown on office romances? Because in office, you're essentially, you are, you're in an emotionally intense thing. You solve problems together. You're... You're doing the equivalent of a physical activity if you're working. So you're crossing. This is how you meet people and know whether you like. And then we simultaneously say in this instance, no, actually, you're not allowed to date the person you're working with. Why do we say that?
43:07
Speaker 2
Oh, I think we can go back to we have a problem with the behavior of some men who are responsible in positions of power for making women uncomfortable and abusing their power and causing harassment. And by the way, my read of the evidence on this, there is a powerful paper on this by Jennifer Berdahl. It's called The Sexual Harassment of Uppity Women. And what she shows is sexual harassment is not predicted by attraction. It's predicted by feeling that a woman is a threat to your power as a man because she's strong and competent. And that just needs to stop.
43:45
Speaker 1
Yeah. No, no, no one's... I don't think anyone's denying that office romances can go sideways. They can produce difficulty. They can be abused. But what if that is the single best way to find someone who's incompatible with? Is it worth the risk?
44:07
Speaker 2
I don't know. I'd like to see better data on it. I worry a lot about office breakups and the effect that that has on the dynamics in the office. And I don't know if the benefits are worth the costs. I know that Southwest Airlines used to encourage people to marry their coworkers. And that was when I started to wonder if they were becoming a cult.
44:25
Speaker 1
Yeah. Another topic on this that I was wondering whether you would bring up and didn't was arranged marriages. Oh. So if compatibility... Standard metrics about compatibility are not terribly useful. And if what you, the first thing that you said that you wanted was third parties to enter the fray and make judgments about the two people who are planning to be hitched.
45:04
Speaker 2
No, no, this is a bad idea.
45:06
Speaker 1
Haven't we just described what an arranged marriage is? It's just an extreme version of the two things you said you wanted.
45:13
Speaker 2
No, for two reasons. One, you need to have deal breakers. You can screen people out. You can't tell who you're going to click with, but you can tell who is offensive to you from a values perspective.
45:25
Speaker 1
When I was a kid, most of my dad's graduate students were from traditional Indian families, and many of them had arranged marriages. But my understanding of them was it's not like you're irrelevant to the process, but each party is presented with some suitable candidates. The short list is generated by the parents.
45:45
Speaker 2
Yeah.
45:45
Speaker 1
What's wrong with.
45:46
Speaker 2
I mean, that's less objectionable. But, I mean, look, you're Canadian. You grew up in Canada.
45:52
Speaker 1
Correct.
45:53
Speaker 2
And how many years have you lived in America?
45:55
Speaker 1
You know... 40? 40.
45:59
Speaker 2
So, you know, you have now lived two-thirds of your life in America.
46:05
Speaker 1
Okay.
46:05
Speaker 2
But still not fully internalized the American value of freedom of choice. It seems.
46:11
Speaker 1
Well, no, but Adam... Who's the one who wrote a book about how our intuitions are, the exercise of our freedoms around meeting other people is broken.
46:20
Speaker 2
That doesn't mean we should just take them away.
46:22
Speaker 1
No.
46:23
Speaker 2
I just want you to exercise better judgment when you use your freedom.
46:25
Speaker 1
You're the one who laid out the conditions for fixing dating. And I said, well, those conditions look a lot like arranged marriage. And then you took umbrage. Well. Isn't there data on the success of arranged marriages?
46:37
Speaker 2
I don't know, actually. I think we should look this up and report back.
46:40
Speaker 1
Because another thing you say in the book which supports the arranged marriage notion.
46:46
Speaker 2
You're just going to die on this hill, aren't you? I'm not dying on any hill. Let me just ask you.
46:51
Speaker 1
No, no, no. Adam, I am merely quoting back to you words that I read with great pleasure when I was preparing for this interview.
46:58
Speaker 2
None of which were about arranged marriages, but keep going.
47:00
Speaker 1
No, but that's what was in the back of my head. I was reading all this stuff. I was like, oh my God, he's going to start endorsing arranged marriages. And I kept, I went in the index and looked under A and didn't see it. I got concerned. No, no. Because another thing you say, another very important point is how much folly there is attached to love at first sight.
47:21
Speaker 2
Yeah.
47:22
Speaker 1
And how a lot of true compatibility is something that emerges over time. This is exactly the argument that is used in favor of arranged marriages. Right? You will grow to love and respect each other. That's what the parent shows the child. Right?
47:37
Speaker 2
Possibly.
47:38
Speaker 1
And you said that's a good idea.
47:39
Speaker 2
I just think you're giving up on the idea of romantic love then. Because.
47:45
Speaker 1
Adam, you have said... Compatibility doesn't work. Dating app doesn't work. Love at first sight, bad idea. Who's the anti-romantic in this conversation? And I'm saying F it. Just have your parents set up the whole thing.
47:59
Speaker 2
So how did you meet your wife, Kate?
48:01
Speaker 1
A third party set us up.
48:03
Speaker 2
And were you forced to marry her?
48:06
Speaker 1
No, I introduced.
48:08
Speaker 2
No, there was.
48:08
Speaker 1
Listen, I had veto power and I chose not to exercise it. It was, in some sense, it was a contemporary version of an arranged marriage.
48:19
Speaker 2
Look, I think there's a huge difference between a fix-up and an arranged marriage.
48:23
Speaker 1
No. No.
48:24
Speaker 2
We should all introduce people to others they might like. What's the huge difference?
48:29
Speaker 1
What's the huge difference? In this case with my wife, her best friend and my best friend were on a plane together, started talking, and discovered that each had a close friend who was single and said they should meet each other. That sounds a lot like an arranged marriage to me.
48:50
Speaker 2
Okay, I mean, but I think this is semantics because if what you're calling an arranged marriage is saying to people who know you well and care about you, do you know anyone that I should meet? I mean.
49:01
Speaker 1
Are you saying a parent doesn't fit that category of someone who knows you very well and cares about you?
49:05
Speaker 2
Actually, no, I don't think your parents are the ideal people to fix you up, just like your parents give the worst career advice probably of anyone you know. Did your parents.
49:15
Speaker 1
Why?
49:15
Speaker 2
I'll tell you why. Wait, let's talk about this for a second. Because your parents anchor on when they chose their career, which is usually 20 or 30 years ago. And the knowledge they built about how to think about what is a relevant occupation and how many years you should spend in indentured servitude to your employer is no longer relevant. And they haven't updated it. And I think the same is often true when it comes to picking romantic partners. I think your parents are likely caught up in the notions of what they were looking for in a partner. And so they're going to impose their ideals on you. Whereas your friends, your best allies, pals, and companions are much more likely to be aligned with you on what you're looking for in a partner.
49:57
Speaker 1
Okay.
49:58
Speaker 2
So take the parents out of it.
50:00
Speaker 1
Take the parents.
50:01
Speaker 2
And guess what? Once the parents are out of the equation, you're not going to feel pressure or a sense of obligation to go along with your friend's wishes. Whereas you might feel like you're letting your parents down if you don't marry the person they chose for you.
50:12
Speaker 1
Yeah. Did your parents think you should become a psychologist?
50:18
Speaker 2
My mom told me not to apply to a PhD program. And actually this is a case in point because she was a teacher. She taught English and Spanish. And she hated it and said, therefore, teaching is not a good profession. I'm like, first of all, I'm not you. And secondly, the kind of teaching I want to do is very different from what you did in middle and high schools. Yeah.
50:42
Speaker 1
I have one last question. We are, believe it or not, running out of time. And I had all these questions and we're not going to get to them, which breaks my heart. You have a lovely chapter in the book, one of my favorites. When you tell the story of how a principal goes to a school that was... kind of broken and not working and one of the ways he solves it is by he divides up the school into houses and each house has its own identity and the kids coalesce around these identities and the school starts to function once he's divided and you talk about that it's hogwarts basically yeah it's hogwarts and how a contrived sense of identity is actually really useful okay You agree with it?
51:25
Speaker 2
It can be. I don't think it should be used.
51:27
Speaker 1
Adam, yes or no, a contrived sense of identity can be very useful. Can.
51:31
Speaker 2
Begrudgingly, yes. Okay. Much worse than a meaningful identity, but go on.
51:37
Speaker 1
You are, have been known famously as a massive critic of astrology.
51:43
Speaker 2
Well, that's because it's made up. There's no science to support it whatsoever.
51:48
Speaker 1
That's because it's made up. You mean like the identity of the houses that work so well?
51:52
Speaker 2
Yes. Yes. Adam. Yes, and this is why it bothers me.
51:56
Speaker 1
It's the same thing.
51:57
Speaker 2
I know, this is why people get duped by astrology.
52:00
Speaker 1
No, wait a second.
52:02
Speaker 2
It's an arbitrary identity that they cling to.
52:04
Speaker 1
You just have a whole chapter in your book on the value of an arbitrary identity. And then there's a whole system that people have to essentially create houses.
52:12
Speaker 2
Oh, okay, this is.
52:14
Speaker 1
I'm a Virgo.
52:15
Speaker 2
You're so much better than this, Malcolm. This is so easy.
52:19
Speaker 1
It's so good.
52:20
Speaker 2
This is so good. Can I tell you why?
52:22
Speaker 1
I was so pleased with myself when I came up with this today.
52:26
Speaker 2
A little too pleased with yourself, I think.
52:28
Speaker 1
I'm reading your thing about how each of these, the school was divided into these houses, each of which had this kind of arbitrary identity, and the kids coalesced around the arbitrary, and it made huge sense to them, and they were suddenly happy. I was like, this is astrology.
52:39
Speaker 2
No. What is Virgo?
52:42
Speaker 1
I'm a Virgo. Of course.
52:45
Speaker 2
Here is where you committed a major logical fallacy.
52:48
Speaker 1
What's my logical fallacy?
52:49
Speaker 2
Major logical fallacy. So, in the house system at Goleta Valley... what they do is they're basically, they're not sorted like the sorting hat. It's the opposite. So they're kind of arbitrarily grouped together and they have to figure out what do we want our house to stand for? What do we want our house flag to be? What do we want our house cheer to be? They are choosing values and building an identity. Whereas with astrology, what people are doing is they are buying into a fiction that the position of the sun and the moon and the planets on the day they happen to be born has a lifelong impact on their personality and what they're going to be like and who they're compatible with. And that has been empirically falsified so many times that it's embarrassing that astrology even exists.
53:32
Speaker 1
No. Adam, I'm not saying that astrology is real.
53:37
Speaker 2
Good.
53:37
Speaker 1
But it is useful in exactly the same way that you're.
53:40
Speaker 2
It is, but that's why it's dangerous. Because people can be drawn to contrived identities and then they can attach real meaning to them. And that's why I don't want.
53:49
Speaker 1
It's not real meaning. It's just a way for people to sense me.
53:53
Speaker 2
Oh, Malcolm, have you not met people who say, I will only date Leos or Capricorns? Have you not seen the data in China where empirically, this is Jackson Liu's research, Seven studies. It turns out that people, if they find out your sign in China, interviewers are less likely to hire you if you're a Virgo.
54:14
Speaker 1
If you're a Virgo?
54:15
Speaker 2
Yes.
54:16
Speaker 1
That's me. Yeah.
54:18
Speaker 2
No, no. You're stigmatized. They stereotype.
54:21
Speaker 1
Adam, can I just point out something?
54:22
Speaker 2
Yeah, go for it.
54:22
Speaker 1
Can I just point out something? So some people believe that they're not going to date someone who is a particular sign.
54:30
Speaker 2
Yes, that's discrimination, which you are against.
54:33
Speaker 1
We've just spent 20 minutes talking about how all the rules we use for deciding who to date are broken. So it's just another broken rule. What's the... Oh, because.
54:41
Speaker 2
We're systematically depriving the Virgos of jobs and dates. I mean, don't you want to be employed? Don't you want to have found a wife?
54:49
Speaker 1
I have somehow... found a way to surmount my virgoness, apparently.
54:53
Speaker 2
You are licensing discrimination. And I get, look, I get that some people just do astrology for fun, but it is a multi-billion dollar industry selling people lies. And I think that's morally wrong.
55:06
Speaker 1
What I'm saying is that artificial identities, they give people a kind of temporary and trivial, but nonetheless important sense of belonging.
55:17
Speaker 2
Fully agree.
55:18
Speaker 1
And if, if, So what if it's bogus? The houses in that school that you described that the principal creates to bring some sense of community to the school, those are bogus, but they work on some level.
55:32
Speaker 2
I think it's a slippery slope from believing one false thing to believing other false things. So I'm sorry if there are any astrology fans who have not walked out yet, but there is evidence that people who are duped by astrology... are more likely to believe in outlandish conspiracy theories, too, like that the moon landing was faked, that 9-11 was an inside job. And how do we get into the polarized world that we live in now, where people are extremely skeptical of validated information and, meanwhile, extremely gullible about nonsense? We got there because we don't have standards of critical thinking anymore. And isn't that a dangerous thing?
56:16
Speaker 1
I thought I had you. But I feel like you did kind of wiggle away in a way that was... Oh, yeah. Here's how I wanted to end. I discussed earlier my father's nerdiness. And one of my favorite chapters of the book is you talk about the importance in social gatherings of some kind of organizing principle, games, some of interventions... in the way people socialize in order to give the event some kind of meaning. And I wanted to tell a little story about my dad, which I thought bears on this so beautifully because this totally hit home. We lived growing up in a house with a, we had an enormous backyard, probably 150 yards. And it was lined on both sides by mature poplar trees. And then all kinds of trees in the middle. The task of raking the leaves every fall was Herculean. And my father, who was inert, but a very clever nerd, went to his graduate students. He said, I'm going to have a party at my house called the leaf raking party. And then the first year, like five guys came, raked leaves, and then he had a dinner and then they played party games of the sort that mathematics PhD students would like. The next year, 15 people came. The next year, 40 people came. The next year, people who had got their PhDs drove like hundreds of miles to come. And by the end of the leaf raking party, by the end, before we moved out of the house, it was literally like a hundred people from, we had like, I remember it was like 25 nationalities. People would like, it was this kind of joyous event and no one cared that they were raking our leaves.
58:05
Speaker 2
They thought it was- I'm stuck on the free labor.
58:08
Speaker 1
Yeah. No, no, no. And I think what makes it work was, and this is why I thought that chapter was so beautiful. Your immediate sense of that was, oh, it's a cynical act. He's outsourcing labor to his grad students. But if you knew my father, you knew that was the furthest thing from his mind. He understood what you understood, which was this is going to be way more fun if we do it together. A little outdoor physical labor is great. These are PhD students who are in their room all day. And then we're going to have a fantastic dinner and then we're going to play the nerdiest, most complex party games known to. And that the only reason he had that insight into how to create enduring connection with these people was that he was a nerd. That it was inconceivable for him just to have a party and invite people and have them mill around and talk. He wouldn't have known what to do. He had to contrive this elaborate thing. And that was the beauty of it. And my point is, and this is why I love this book so much and why I love Junior. so much the nerds in compensating for their nerdiness make the world a beautiful.
59:15
Speaker 2
Place oh I love that I love that and I think that's true and I do think it's compensation Because oftentimes, having been excluded growing up or bullied growing up, it gives you deep empathy for what it must feel like for others to be left out. And I remember coming out of that experience thinking, I never want to see someone left out of a circle. I never want to see someone who doesn't have a friend. To the point where in college, I hated going to parties because they were loud and drunken. And as an introvert who was shy, I just would make a beeline to a corner to find somebody I could pair off with and talk to. And at the end of the event, I just would feel drained for a week. So I convinced my roommates we should host what we called people overs. And we just played the nerdiest board games ever. Anagrams, Cranium, if you haven't played. And it was so much fun. And it actually, I think it caused some people to leave their fraternities because they liked our social dynamic better.
1:00:20
Speaker 1
Ladies and gentlemen, the magnificent Adam Grant, who has written a lovely book. Thank you all.
1:00:34
Speaker 2
Rethinking is hosted by me, Adam Grant. The show is produced by TED with Cosmic Standard. Our producer is Jessica Glazer. Our editor is Alejandra Salazar. Our engineer is Asia Pilar Simpson. Our technical director is Jacob Winnick. And our fact checker is Paul Durbin. Our team includes Eliza Smith, Roxanne Heilash, Ben Ben Chang, Julia Dickerson, Tansika Sungmanivong, and Whitney Pennington-Rogers. Original music by Hans Dale Sue and Alison Leighton Brown. Should we try to simulate an interaction?
1:01:07
Speaker 1
Yeah.
1:01:08
Speaker 2
Okay.
1:01:10
Speaker 1
Go first.
1:01:11
Speaker 2
Oh, hi.
1:01:12
Speaker 1
Hi, my name's Adam. Sorry, I totally missed that.
The Host
