Latest / The You Project / #1624 What Is Social Awareness - Dr. Adam Mastroianni
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Adam, Welcome to the show. Are you an early riser?
- 0:03Speaker 1: Are you a late worker? When does your body and
- 0:06Speaker 1: brain work optimally? There's three questions.
- 0:09Speaker 2: Yeah, first off, thanks for having me. I tried to
- 0:13Speaker 2: stay to a schedule so to train my body to
- 0:16Speaker 2: get tired into wake up at the same time every day.
- 0:18Speaker 2: So I'm normally a ten to thirty in bed sort
- 0:23Speaker 2: of seven am out of it. I'm a guy. I
- 0:26Speaker 2: figure it's also easier just to make fewer decisions that
- 0:30Speaker 2: so instead of every day to figure out like ash
- 0:32Speaker 2: I to go to bed at now or another thirty
- 0:34Speaker 2: minutes or another hour, to just follow the same rule.
- 0:37Speaker 2: It works for me.
- 0:39Speaker 1: You sound like Steve Jobs, except instead of it being
- 0:42Speaker 1: wearing the same jeans and black T shirt every day,
- 0:44Speaker 1: it's the same sleep protocol every day. But it's probably
- 0:48Speaker 1: I mean, the thing is if it works, like why
- 0:51Speaker 1: change it? Huh?
- 0:52Speaker 3: Yeah?
- 0:53Speaker 2: The works?
- 0:53Speaker 1: Do it? Yeah? Yeah, It's like the funny thing I
- 0:57Speaker 1: or one of the challenges I reckon for every one
- 1:00Speaker 1: is trying to figure out with everything, whether or not
- 1:03Speaker 1: it's with food or exercise or sleep, or the job
- 1:07Speaker 1: that you do or your lifestyle, is trying to figure
- 1:11Speaker 1: out what works best for me, what works best for
- 1:14Speaker 1: my mind and my creative energy and my health and
- 1:19Speaker 1: my immune system. Because you know, literally different things work
- 1:23Speaker 1: for different people, so trying to find some kind of
- 1:26Speaker 1: generic protocol is typically not a great outcome.
- 1:30Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is true about a lot of
- 1:32Speaker 2: advice in general. This is something I've thought about a lot.
- 1:35Speaker 2: I've wanted to rate a piece called like a theory
- 1:38Speaker 2: of good Advice that so much advice follows the format
- 1:41Speaker 2: of this is something I would tell that every single
- 1:43Speaker 2: person on earth. But if there's anything that would be
- 1:46Speaker 2: better for every single person on earth to do, it's
- 1:48Speaker 2: probably either trivial or wrong. And so like, actually, good
- 1:54Speaker 2: advice requires knowing something about the person that you're giving
- 1:58Speaker 2: the advice to. So like, yeah, I go into bed
- 2:01Speaker 2: at a certain time works for me. But to think
- 2:03Speaker 2: that that's the way that every single person should do
- 2:06Speaker 2: it just seems kind of bonkers. But that is the
- 2:08Speaker 2: way that most advice gets frammed, right one.
- 2:12Speaker 1: I mean, my background is in exercise science, so owning
- 2:16Speaker 1: gyms and working with athletes and teams and prescribing exercise. Literally,
- 2:21Speaker 1: and if I have one hundred people in you know,
- 2:25Speaker 1: one hundred people over one hundred days. I'm not writing
- 2:28Speaker 1: the same program once because I'm not dealing with the
- 2:31Speaker 1: same body twice. You know, Like it's every single person,
- 2:38Speaker 1: even if it's a twenty five year old dude and
- 2:41Speaker 1: a twenty five year old dude, and they want similar outcomes.
- 2:44Speaker 1: They they're not genetically identical. They don't have the same background,
- 2:48Speaker 1: they don't have the same training history, they don't have
- 2:50Speaker 1: the same clinical issues, if any, you know. And so
- 2:55Speaker 1: the whole notion that there is a best number of
- 2:58Speaker 1: hours to sleep for everyone, or best amount of water
- 3:01Speaker 1: to drink, or a best amount of steps to take
- 3:05Speaker 1: per day is you know, it's kind of silly really
- 3:09Speaker 1: when you understand the uniqueness of us. All.
- 3:13Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's obviously very relevant to what you're
- 3:16Speaker 2: doing here, right that, And I think the way to
- 3:20Speaker 2: approach it, and I think the way it seems you
- 3:22Speaker 2: approach it too, it is that rather than this idea
- 3:24Speaker 2: of here's the thing that everybody should do, it's more
- 3:26Speaker 2: that here are tools that you can use, and you
- 3:30Speaker 2: will have to figure out which one to use. So
- 3:32Speaker 2: rather than like you should use a hammer on everything
- 3:35Speaker 2: in your life, it's like here's a hammer, here's a wrench,
- 3:38Speaker 2: here's a screwdriver. I can tell you the principles by
- 3:41Speaker 2: which you should decide which of these to use, but
- 3:43Speaker 2: your particular problems are always going to be so idiosyncratic that,
- 3:46Speaker 2: like I cannot, without knowing you tell you which of
- 3:49Speaker 2: these things to do. That's something you have to figure
- 3:52Speaker 2: out for yourself.
- 3:53Speaker 1: Yeah, I probably should have led with this, But let
- 3:56Speaker 1: me tell our listeners a little bit about you. Adam
- 4:00Speaker 1: Astriani is a postdoctoral research scholar at Columbia Business School
- 4:04Speaker 1: and writer whose research focuses on how people perceive and
- 4:08Speaker 1: misperceive their social worlds. And I jumped in. Also, Adam's
- 4:12Speaker 1: got a blog called Experimental History. Now blogs are a
- 4:17Speaker 1: little bit two thousand and eight, but I love them,
- 4:19Speaker 1: and I had a blog for a long time, Adam,
- 4:21Speaker 1: so I couldn't be prouder of you. And I jumped
- 4:25Speaker 1: in last night, and like, this stuff is really interesting
- 4:28Speaker 1: everyone's obviously it's free. Sign up for his or subscribe.
- 4:33Speaker 1: There's free, no hooks, catches or agendas. And his articles
- 4:37Speaker 1: are brilliant. You're very like you have a unique way
- 4:41Speaker 1: of sharing thoughts and ideas and a little bit almost
- 4:45Speaker 1: counterintuitive and quirky mate.
- 4:48Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
- 4:48Speaker 3: Thank you.
- 4:49Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think the blog is coming back. It's
- 4:52Speaker 2: a heart moment for the blog. And having now done
- 4:56Speaker 2: it for a little bit, I see why that. A
- 4:59Speaker 2: while ago was in a workshop run by a New
- 5:03Speaker 2: York Times op ed editor who and as part of
- 5:06Speaker 2: it he you know, we all sent in op eds
- 5:08Speaker 2: and he sat with us and showed us how he
- 5:10Speaker 2: would edit them. And I came to understand why every
- 5:13Speaker 2: New York Times op ed, like every Atlantic article, like
- 5:16Speaker 2: every piece in these major outlets, kind of sounds like
- 5:19Speaker 2: it's spoken by the same person because it is kind
- 5:22Speaker 2: of spoken by the same person. That like, authors generate
- 5:24Speaker 2: the raw material, which is then shaped into the voice
- 5:26Speaker 2: of that publication by someone who's really good at doing that,
- 5:29Speaker 2: which can lead to really good content, right like it
- 5:31Speaker 2: smooths over the edges, it can turn kind of a
- 5:34Speaker 2: you know, a writer who's not that good at it
- 5:36Speaker 2: into a piece that sounds great. But what I love
- 5:39Speaker 2: about writing in this mode is I'm trying to sound
- 5:42Speaker 2: as much like myself as I can, and doing that also,
- 5:46Speaker 2: I think leads me to think in a way that
- 5:48Speaker 2: is as much like myself as I can. And I
- 5:51Speaker 2: think thoughts come out when you try to do that
- 5:53Speaker 2: that don't come out when it's like, Okay, now I'm
- 5:56Speaker 2: writing an article and I'm going to speak in the
- 5:58Speaker 2: voice that you speak in when you write an article.
- 6:01Speaker 2: I'm really trying to take my insave voice and make
- 6:04Speaker 2: it outside.
- 6:05Speaker 1: That's so true, dude, and it's so interesting, and so
- 6:08Speaker 1: it so works on a podcast, and it so works
- 6:11Speaker 1: in a blog because you know, people want to know
- 6:14Speaker 1: you a little bit, even though you know you're the
- 6:16Speaker 1: guy sharing the information and the science. That's cool. We
- 6:19Speaker 1: want the information and the science, but we also want
- 6:21Speaker 1: a bit of a relationship with you, and we want
- 6:23Speaker 1: to like you because we want to keep coming back.
- 6:26Speaker 1: I think that's one of the challenges is to share
- 6:29Speaker 1: the science or share the ideas, be yourself, but also
- 6:35Speaker 1: communicate in a way which makes sense and resonates with
- 6:38Speaker 1: lots of people. Because if you're sharing science but people
- 6:42Speaker 1: can't understand it or relate to it, then there's not
- 6:44Speaker 1: a whole lot of point in sharing the science in
- 6:47Speaker 1: a public format, right.
- 6:49Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I think I mean this is
- 6:52Speaker 2: part way I've gone all in on this blog is
- 6:56Speaker 2: that when I rate in the mood that I rate
- 6:59Speaker 2: in when I'm writing journal articles for like a scientific publication,
- 7:03Speaker 2: I basically feel like I'm lying, like to describe things
- 7:07Speaker 2: in the way that you have to for that kind
- 7:09Speaker 2: of outlet. You want to like cover up everything that
- 7:13Speaker 2: makes it seem less trustworthy. You want to pretend like
- 7:16Speaker 2: you know why everything happened. But when you're writing in
- 7:20Speaker 2: your own voice, as you would to someone that you
- 7:23Speaker 2: know personally, you don't do that. Like lies feel very uncomfortable.
- 7:28Speaker 2: And so like one of the papers that I put
- 7:29Speaker 2: up on my blog that I wrote sphysically for it,
- 7:31Speaker 2: that is, like a series of studies is written in
- 7:33Speaker 2: that voice for that reason and allows me to say
- 7:36Speaker 2: things like, hey, here's study eight. I forgot why I
- 7:38Speaker 2: ran study eight. You know this happens right Like we
- 7:42Speaker 2: ran a lot of studies. You know, I know what
- 7:45Speaker 2: we did, I know what we found, but I kind
- 7:47Speaker 2: of forget what we were thinking when we ran it.
- 7:49Speaker 2: If you can figure that out, let me know. Whereas
- 7:51Speaker 2: in a journal I would have had to be like,
- 7:52Speaker 2: and of course we come to study eight, which we
- 7:55Speaker 2: did for some obvious reason, and here it is. And
- 7:58Speaker 2: I just much rather tell the truth, even if it
- 8:01Speaker 2: sounds dumb, Like I'd rather sound dumb and be judged
- 8:05Speaker 2: for being myself than pretend to sound smart.
- 8:08Speaker 1: Yeah, you did it the right way around. I did
- 8:10Speaker 1: it the wrong way round. See, I came from the
- 8:12Speaker 1: world of freestyle. I came from radio. I came like
- 8:16Speaker 1: I've written seven books before I even started my PhD.
- 8:19Speaker 1: So for me, I've had to go the other way
- 8:21Speaker 1: and how to learn how to write academically. It's a
- 8:24Speaker 1: fucking nightmare. I'm like, how do people talk like this?
- 8:29Speaker 1: How do people like you know? I mean even you
- 8:32Speaker 1: and you like you did your PhD at Harvard, Congratulations,
- 8:35Speaker 1: you're a straight up genius. But you must look at
- 8:38Speaker 1: some papers and go, what the fuck does this even mean?
- 8:41Speaker 1: I look at some titles. I don't even know what
- 8:44Speaker 1: the title means. I'm like, I don't understand the title.
- 8:50Speaker 2: And I think they are hoping a lot of others
- 8:53Speaker 2: are hoping that you'll see that and think that they're
- 8:56Speaker 2: really smart, when often if people can't rate in a
- 9:00Speaker 2: way that's understanable, it's because they don't understand it. But
- 9:02Speaker 2: like this too, I think is an advantage of writing
- 9:04Speaker 2: in your own voice that you can't lie to yourself.
- 9:08Speaker 2: So if you can't explain it to somebody in normal words,
- 9:12Speaker 2: you probably don't really know what you're talking about. And
- 9:14Speaker 2: so in a lot of those papers only I've only
- 9:16Speaker 2: realized this over time. At the beginning, I was like, Man,
- 9:19Speaker 2: this must be on me. Now I know it's on them, Like,
- 9:22Speaker 2: if they can't get me to understand it, that's a
- 9:24Speaker 2: failure of them, being that the people are supposed to
- 9:26Speaker 2: communicate these ideas.
- 9:28Speaker 1: Do you think that there'll ever be a time where
- 9:31Speaker 1: and I think the answer to this is no, but
- 9:34Speaker 1: where academic papers can be written in a way where
- 9:40Speaker 1: we cover all the information, but it's written in a
- 9:43Speaker 1: way that I don't know, at least half the population
- 9:48Speaker 1: could read that paper and understand it and potentially and
- 9:51Speaker 1: be you know, I call the cops interested, you know.
- 9:55Speaker 3: And curious.
- 9:57Speaker 2: Yeah, that happens where we hope. So yeah, I mean,
- 10:02Speaker 2: this is this is a future that once existed. That
- 10:07Speaker 2: So this is something I've written on as well that
- 10:09Speaker 2: a little bit on the history of scientific publishing that like,
- 10:11Speaker 2: it wasn't always like this. People published and communicated in
- 10:15Speaker 2: a lot of different ways, and sometimes, you know, the
- 10:18Speaker 2: main way you would write about your results is the
- 10:20Speaker 2: way we would write today for like a magazine, like
- 10:23Speaker 2: our equivalent of you know, writing for a public audience,
- 10:27Speaker 2: and you would save the technical details for writing a
- 10:29Speaker 2: letter to you to you know, the person you knew
- 10:31Speaker 2: in Germany, who was who is the only other person
- 10:33Speaker 2: working on this problem who needs to know all that stuff?
- 10:36Speaker 2: And so I don't think it would be that hard
- 10:38Speaker 2: to go back to doing that. That's exactly what I
- 10:39Speaker 2: try to do on my blog, where I write in
- 10:42Speaker 2: the version that I think most people can understand, and
- 10:44Speaker 2: then if you are an expert in this and you
- 10:46Speaker 2: want to know all the details, you want to see
- 10:47Speaker 2: the code that I wrote, You want to see my data,
- 10:49Speaker 2: you want to see my materials. All of them are
- 10:50Speaker 2: there in public for you, but only you know, point
- 10:53Speaker 2: zero zero one percent of people are ever going to
- 10:55Speaker 2: click on them. And that's fine. But I want to
- 10:56Speaker 2: create the content that's going to be helpful for the
- 10:59Speaker 2: ninety nine point ninete nine percent of people who I
- 11:02Speaker 2: hope to actually inform with what I do, because if
- 11:04Speaker 2: not like that, it's all effort and money for nothing,
- 11:08Speaker 2: like just going into the void.
- 11:11Speaker 1: And the amount of people that are actually going to
- 11:14Speaker 1: read the Pipers that you wrote, and even like, I'm
- 11:17Speaker 1: writing a systematic literature review on metaperception of metaaccuracy at
- 11:21Speaker 1: the moment, which, as you would imagine, is fucking riveting.
- 11:24Speaker 1: Now one's going to rate that. Now, one's going to
- 11:26Speaker 1: want to rate it. Now, one's going to rate it. Now.
- 11:28Speaker 1: Any people who will rate it will will scan it.
- 11:31Speaker 1: And that's because they have to yeah, and then looking.
- 11:37Speaker 2: Yes, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No. They want to tear
- 11:40Speaker 2: you down because how dare you try to publish? I mean,
- 11:44Speaker 2: it's also especially difficult for you because you're probably writing
- 11:47Speaker 2: things like people think that others think that they think
- 11:52Speaker 2: this about them, and like even if you have no
- 11:56Speaker 2: words of jargeted there, just figuring out what you're talking
- 11:59Speaker 2: about is horrid.
- 12:01Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I colloquially call it the you experience, right,
- 12:05Speaker 1: So I developed the scale, which is it's called the
- 12:08Speaker 1: yes forty Yes being you experienced scale forty criteria for
- 12:13Speaker 1: domains blah blah blah. Right, But it's really like and
- 12:17Speaker 1: most of my job in inverted Commas for the last
- 12:21Speaker 1: twenty years especially has been corporate speaking, so helping people
- 12:25Speaker 1: understand what it's like being around them for others and
- 12:29Speaker 1: why that matters in leadership and communication and connection and
- 12:32Speaker 1: teamwork and problem solving, But trying to talk about that
- 12:37Speaker 1: stuff in a way where people don't get defensive. Like
- 12:40Speaker 1: when you say, what do you think it's like being
- 12:42Speaker 1: around you? Most people straight away get defensive. Oh well,
- 12:46Speaker 1: fuck them. I'm just going to be me, and if
- 12:47Speaker 1: they don't like it, I'm going to be authentic to
- 12:49Speaker 1: my values and I'm going to I'm like, well, that's
- 12:52Speaker 1: awesome if you live by yourself on an island, But
- 12:55Speaker 1: if you've actually got to have relationships with other humans,
- 12:58Speaker 1: how people perceive and process and experience you actually matters. Now,
- 13:03Speaker 1: that's not about being, you know, insecure. That's actually about
- 13:09Speaker 1: a kind of self awareness and other awareness and situational
- 13:13Speaker 1: awareness so that you can do life and business and
- 13:17Speaker 1: work and relationships and communication and meetings effectively. You know.
- 13:23Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean I'm sure often people have a
- 13:26Speaker 2: goal like I want other people to feel comfortable, So
- 13:28Speaker 2: I'm going to do the things that I think may
- 13:30Speaker 2: make other people feel comfortable. But if I then discover
- 13:34Speaker 2: that those things don't actually make them feel that way,
- 13:37Speaker 2: I would do something different. Like that's why it matters
- 13:40Speaker 2: what I think you think about me.
- 13:43Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, having that awareness. So tell us about
- 13:47Speaker 1: your research and unpack a bit of it for us,
- 13:50Speaker 1: if you would.
- 13:52Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 13:53Speaker 2: I study a bunch of things, mainly in two buckets.
- 13:56Speaker 2: One is the illusions and biases that are right in
- 14:00Speaker 2: social interaction, so the things that happened when people talk
- 14:03Speaker 2: to one another. One thing I've worked on there is
- 14:07Speaker 2: a paper call to do conversations to end when people
- 14:09Speaker 2: want them to, which I'm sure is relevant to you
- 14:12Speaker 2: as a podcast host. And the short answer to that
- 14:16Speaker 2: is no. So we ran two big studies. In one.
- 14:20Speaker 2: We brought people into the lab and we had them
- 14:21Speaker 2: talk as long as they wanted to and we just said,
- 14:24Speaker 2: talk as long as you'd like, let us know when
- 14:26Speaker 2: you're ready to move on. And then we asked them
- 14:28Speaker 2: later separately, did that conversation end when you first felt
- 14:32Speaker 2: ready for it to end? And if they said no,
- 14:34Speaker 2: we asked like, well, okay, how much sooner did you
- 14:36Speaker 2: want to go? Or how much longer did you want
- 14:37Speaker 2: to go? And on average, the difference between how long
- 14:41Speaker 2: people wanted to talk and how long they actually talked
- 14:44Speaker 2: was about half of the length of the conversation. So
- 14:47Speaker 2: if we talked for twenty minutes. I wanted to go
- 14:49Speaker 2: somewhere between ten minutes earlier and ten minutes later. And
- 14:54Speaker 2: this happened both with strangers that we brought into our lab,
- 14:56Speaker 2: but also with people who knew each other that we
- 14:58Speaker 2: surveyed online. We asked people about the last conversation that
- 15:00Speaker 2: they had, and the results are pretty much the same.
- 15:02Speaker 2: So this wasn't just like, oh, we're meeting each other.
- 15:04Speaker 2: It's very awkward. This is also happening in people's living rooms,
- 15:08Speaker 2: and we think it happens for two reasons. One is,
- 15:10Speaker 2: people very rarely want to speak for the same amount
- 15:13Speaker 2: of time, so if I want to speak for ten
- 15:15Speaker 2: minutes and you want to speak for twenty, then we
- 15:17Speaker 2: both can't get what we want. And the second reason
- 15:20Speaker 2: is that people are really bad at knowing when the
- 15:22Speaker 2: other person wanted to leave the conversation. So if I
- 15:25Speaker 2: don't know what you want and you don't know what
- 15:26Speaker 2: I want, it's very unlikely that we're going to get
- 15:29Speaker 2: what either of us want. And so we show that
- 15:32Speaker 2: both of those things are in fact the case, and
- 15:35Speaker 2: they appear to be true both for strangers and for friends.
- 15:40Speaker 2: But even given all that, people still really enjoy this conversation.
- 15:43Speaker 2: So even though conversation and when they want them to,
- 15:45Speaker 2: people enjoy them often more than they expect. So that's
- 15:48Speaker 2: kind of one bucket of my research.
- 15:50Speaker 1: And so what are some of the potential issues that
- 15:54Speaker 1: come out of that when people are over talking or
- 15:57Speaker 1: under talking not the right term, but you know, when
- 16:00Speaker 1: you want to talk twenty because you're excited, and I
- 16:02Speaker 1: want to talk for ten because I'm not interested. I'm
- 16:05Speaker 1: all about me, for example, what does that make for
- 16:11Speaker 1: clunky relationships? Does that make for problems in the workplace.
- 16:14Speaker 2: Or Yeah, So so he asked people how much they
- 16:18Speaker 2: enjoyed their conversations, and so I can see whether you
- 16:21Speaker 2: wanted this conversation to end sooner or you whether you
- 16:23Speaker 2: wanted it to go on, or for a minority of people,
- 16:26Speaker 2: they wanted it to go exactly as long as it did.
- 16:28Speaker 2: And you might think that being anywhere other than the
- 16:31Speaker 2: sweet spot would be really bad. That if I'm if
- 16:35Speaker 2: I talk longer than I want to, you know, I
- 16:37Speaker 2: got stuck. If I talk less than I wanted to,
- 16:39Speaker 2: then I got cut off. But in fact, the people
- 16:42Speaker 2: who said that the conversation ended before they wanted it
- 16:45Speaker 2: to were just as happy as the people who said
- 16:47Speaker 2: it ended exactly when they wanted it to. It was
- 16:49Speaker 2: only the people who said I wanted to go sooner
- 16:52Speaker 2: who reported having a worse time, which suggests that it's
- 16:56Speaker 2: actually just as good to be left wanting more as
- 16:58Speaker 2: it is to be left wanting exactly as much as
- 17:00Speaker 2: you got. You know, if you go to an ice
- 17:03Speaker 2: cream shop and you walk away and you eat too
- 17:05Speaker 2: much ice cream, you feel sick, But if you could
- 17:07Speaker 2: have one more scoop, what you really want to do
- 17:09Speaker 2: is come back to that ice cream shop. You don't
- 17:11Speaker 2: walk away thinking like, oh man, that a terrible experience.
- 17:13Speaker 2: And I think it's the same thing with conversations. If
- 17:15Speaker 2: we don't talk as much as I want to, what
- 17:17Speaker 2: I really want to do is talk to you again,
- 17:19Speaker 2: rather than walk away thinking like, oh, I guess that
- 17:21Speaker 2: wasn't that good. So that's one consequence.
- 17:25Speaker 1: What about when we have a predetermined time for the conversation,
- 17:30Speaker 1: like you and I, we've got a thirty minute meeting
- 17:32Speaker 1: from ten till ten thirty. I know it, you know it?
- 17:36Speaker 1: Does all that stuff go away? Then?
- 17:39Speaker 2: Yeah, we didn't study those situations, but I think two
- 17:44Speaker 2: things can happen. One is if we have thirty minutes
- 17:48Speaker 2: but we actually only have content for fifteen, we end
- 17:51Speaker 2: up both back stuck in the conversation because we know
- 17:55Speaker 2: we're supposed to be here. I've scheduled my next thing
- 17:57Speaker 2: for fifteen minutes from now, so I don't have a
- 17:59Speaker 2: good excuse to leave, or we just end up cutting
- 18:03Speaker 2: ourselves off because we actually had forty five minutes of content.
- 18:05Speaker 2: So it can solve some of the problem of knowing
- 18:08Speaker 2: when to end, but that does it doesn't solve the
- 18:10Speaker 2: problem of leaving when you will want to leave. So
- 18:13Speaker 2: this is something that we thought could be true about
- 18:15Speaker 2: conversations going into it, that it could be that we
- 18:18Speaker 2: pick up on cues from the other person and we
- 18:20Speaker 2: figure out when the appropriate time is to end, and
- 18:23Speaker 2: by the end we both kind of agree that that's
- 18:25Speaker 2: the right time, And in the conversations we study, that
- 18:28Speaker 2: just doesn't seem to happen, and that actually, in most
- 18:32Speaker 2: conversations people end up both wanting more or both wanting less.
- 18:37Speaker 2: So it isn't even that like we split the difference
- 18:39Speaker 2: between what we wanted. It's that actually we both wanted
- 18:42Speaker 2: to go ten minutes ago, but we kept going.
- 18:46Speaker 3: Have you have.
- 18:47Speaker 4: You looked at have you looked at the variables around
- 18:52Speaker 4: all the factors which affect how much somebody enjoys being
- 18:56Speaker 4: in a conversation or how well connected they are or
- 19:00Speaker 4: feel they are, you know.
- 19:02Speaker 1: Because sometimes I'll even on this show, between you and me,
- 19:07Speaker 1: we won't say who. But sometimes I've set out where
- 19:09Speaker 1: I thought, oh, this person is going to be fucking amazing,
- 19:12Speaker 1: and Melissa, we might make this a double and i
- 19:15Speaker 1: end up talking for thirteen minutes and I'm like, how
- 19:17Speaker 1: quickly can I get out of this? Obviously not the
- 19:20Speaker 1: case today, or I wouldn't have said that right, And
- 19:23Speaker 1: other times where and this has happened more times than
- 19:27Speaker 1: I want to admit, I would say at least I mean,
- 19:30Speaker 1: considering we're eleven hundred and fifty odd episodes in, I
- 19:34Speaker 1: reckon at least fifty times I've been underwhelmed with or
- 19:39Speaker 1: I've had not awesome expectations about the person that I
- 19:43Speaker 1: was going to chat with in terms of like this
- 19:45Speaker 1: will probably not be long, it'll probably you know, And
- 19:48Speaker 1: then I've started and it's like, really, I'm not really
- 19:52Speaker 1: I'm not fascinated with their journey or their and then
- 19:55Speaker 1: I talked to them and I was completely wrong. I
- 19:58Speaker 1: was one hundred percent wrong. There fascinating. Their story or
- 20:01Speaker 1: their research is amazing, and I don't want it to end.
- 20:05Speaker 1: Have you looked at the variables that make people want
- 20:07Speaker 1: to stay in or get out of a conversation.
- 20:10Speaker 3: Yeah?
- 20:11Speaker 2: Yeah, we're limited because we only see people in one conversation,
- 20:14Speaker 2: so I don't get to see people across conversations. But
- 20:17Speaker 2: we did have people in one study fill out this
- 20:21Speaker 2: standard measure of shyness and sociability, So in general, how
- 20:25Speaker 2: much do you like talking to other people? And it
- 20:27Speaker 2: just didn't seem to make a big difference as to like,
- 20:30Speaker 2: did you get what you wanted out of this conversation?
- 20:31Speaker 2: How long did you talk? I think because it's so
- 20:34Speaker 2: idiosyncratic what happens between you and one other person that
- 20:39Speaker 2: maybe in general you're kind of a shy person, or
- 20:41Speaker 2: maybe in general you're kind of a talkative person. But
- 20:43Speaker 2: what really determines the way you feel is this person
- 20:46Speaker 2: in particular? Do you like talking to this person or
- 20:49Speaker 2: do you not like talking to this person? And by
- 20:51Speaker 2: the way, that experience you just described, I think is
- 20:54Speaker 2: actually the most common one. So there's a bunch of
- 20:56Speaker 2: other research on how people expect conversations with strangers to
- 21:00Speaker 2: be less good than they turn out to be. Yeah,
- 21:03Speaker 2: And there's this this funny phenomenon where like, you know,
- 21:06Speaker 2: you think that meeting someone new isn't going to be
- 21:08Speaker 2: very good, and then it turns out that it's great,
- 21:10Speaker 2: and then you think that the next person isn't going
- 21:12Speaker 2: to be good. It's like it's impossible to actually learn
- 21:14Speaker 2: anything about strangers because as soon as you learn something
- 21:16Speaker 2: about someone, they stop being a stranger. So it always
- 21:18Speaker 2: kind of feels like, oh, well, that person wasn't a stranger.
- 21:20Speaker 2: This person wasn't a stranger. It's all those other strangers
- 21:23Speaker 2: out there that I haven't met yet who aren't going
- 21:25Speaker 2: to be very fun to talk to.
- 21:28Speaker 1: I think. I think one of the challenges with we're
- 21:33Speaker 1: talking to somebody like right now, being present is realizing
- 21:37Speaker 1: that your version of right now is not my version
- 21:40Speaker 1: of right now, and the experience that you're having is
- 21:43Speaker 1: not the experience I'm having. Yeah, but we're not in
- 21:46Speaker 1: the same conversation. Well, we are in the same conversation,
- 21:49Speaker 1: but not the same experience of the conversation. And I
- 21:52Speaker 1: know this sounds confusing, sorry everyone, But then for me
- 21:56Speaker 1: to try to go what's right now? Like for Adam,
- 21:59Speaker 1: what's what's Adam's version of this podcast in the moment?
- 22:04Speaker 1: Like is he looking at his clock going why the
- 22:06Speaker 1: fuck did I agree to this bloke with this weird accent?
- 22:09Speaker 1: Like seriously, fucking hell save me? You know, or you know,
- 22:14Speaker 1: and without overthinking that, but you know that whole theory
- 22:17Speaker 1: of mind thing. If I can't at least kind of
- 22:20Speaker 1: understand where the person in front of me is at mentally,
- 22:24Speaker 1: you know, what right now is like for them? If
- 22:28Speaker 1: I just assume that they are in the same experience
- 22:31Speaker 1: as me, I'm more likely to create disconnection than connection.
- 22:36Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I mean for you right, like I am
- 22:40Speaker 2: one of eleven hundred people that you've either seen in
- 22:44Speaker 2: a little zoom box or I don't know if they've
- 22:45Speaker 2: been in your studio, Like this is totally different, whereas
- 22:50Speaker 2: for me, this is, you know, one of fifty podcasts
- 22:53Speaker 2: or whatever that I have ever been on. We're in
- 22:55Speaker 2: two different worlds as to what we're you know, what
- 22:59Speaker 2: experiences we've had and what experiences that we've had after
- 23:02Speaker 2: I think it's probably what makes it interesting, right that
- 23:06Speaker 2: you bring something different than than I bring, and you know,
- 23:12Speaker 2: I haven't done this a eleve one hundred times, so
- 23:13Speaker 2: I've I've got new content for you.
- 23:17Speaker 1: Yeah, you do you when you're talking to a different audience,
- 23:21Speaker 1: be that an audience of a podcast like me, or
- 23:25Speaker 1: an audience of one face to face or a bunch
- 23:28Speaker 1: of students that you're teaching, do you do you have
- 23:32Speaker 1: an awareness in the moment of where and how you
- 23:35Speaker 1: need to, like the level to which you need to speak,
- 23:40Speaker 1: and the way that you need to share the same
- 23:43Speaker 1: idea in different ways to different audiences, so that that
- 23:46Speaker 1: might land.
- 23:47Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Actually a lot of that comes from
- 23:51Speaker 2: my background in stand up and improv comedy, which is
- 23:54Speaker 2: what I do when I'm not writing on the internet
- 23:57Speaker 2: or doing research.
- 23:59Speaker 4: And as there's the question there, it is there under there.
- 24:06Speaker 2: Does everyone you talk to like have have like the
- 24:09Speaker 2: the quirky reveal it's like finding the daily double on
- 24:11Speaker 2: Jeopardy Maybe that has no uh no media or like
- 24:14Speaker 2: it's like finding the treasure chest, right.
- 24:16Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the metaphoric treasure chest. Now that explains that
- 24:20Speaker 1: just brought a few things screamingly into perspective, and I
- 24:23Speaker 1: just had an ah, right now I get it, Now,
- 24:26Speaker 1: I get the blog now I get the quirkiness. Sorry,
- 24:28Speaker 1: might keep going.
- 24:29Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's all connected. But when you're on stage,
- 24:34Speaker 2: it almost feels metaphysical because it sometimes doesn't even feel
- 24:38Speaker 2: like people are giving you any kind of observable feedback.
- 24:42Speaker 2: You just feel a shift in the room, and maybe
- 24:46Speaker 2: it's a bunch of people doing very tiny things that
- 24:48Speaker 2: you get used to feeling that, Like they shifted a
- 24:51Speaker 2: little bit, they looked away, they looked up, they smiled
- 24:53Speaker 2: a little bit, to know that, oh, I hit something
- 24:56Speaker 2: that they're interested in. There's a thread here that I
- 24:58Speaker 2: can pull on, or you feel the air go out
- 25:01Speaker 2: of the room and you realize, oh, there's the opposite
- 25:04Speaker 2: of a thread there, like I need to leave that
- 25:06Speaker 2: behind and do something else. So I feel the same thing,
- 25:09Speaker 2: like whether I'm teaching a class, or whether I'm on
- 25:11Speaker 2: stage in an improv show, or whether I'm writing a
- 25:13Speaker 2: blogger and the you know, the audience is purely imagined
- 25:16Speaker 2: that I'm always feel like I'm pitching toward toward that group.
- 25:22Speaker 2: I mean, is this something you feel as well, that
- 25:24Speaker 2: they're shifting for who you're talking to or what audiences
- 25:27Speaker 2: are in front of?
- 25:28Speaker 1: One percent, Sometimes Adam, I will like if I'm doing
- 25:32Speaker 1: a corporate gig, and because I can talk about, you know,
- 25:36Speaker 1: for one of the more academic label you know, mind
- 25:40Speaker 1: stuff or body stuff or resilient stuff or you know whatever,
- 25:45Speaker 1: general health, you know, sport, human optimization, like we can
- 25:49Speaker 1: kind of cover a bit. And sometimes I'll feel like,
- 25:54Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I'll just open the door in
- 25:55Speaker 1: a moment for a moment, I'll talk about physical health
- 25:58Speaker 1: and you know, posture and ammune system and energy, and
- 26:01Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I feel a greater connection. But
- 26:05Speaker 1: I was kind of heading down the you know, the
- 26:07Speaker 1: kind of managing your mind to kind of path, and
- 26:11Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, I go, oh, maybe we
- 26:14Speaker 1: should talk about managing your body, because it's all related anyway.
- 26:17Speaker 1: And I'd say, all right, we can. And often I
- 26:19Speaker 1: give the audience the option of where we go for
- 26:22Speaker 1: the next half hour, and I'd say, I can I
- 26:24Speaker 1: can do this presentation, I can do this, we can
- 26:27Speaker 1: talk about this topic or this topic. What do you
- 26:30Speaker 1: guys want? And often they'll go, let's talk about physical
- 26:33Speaker 1: health because I feel like dogshit, and I'm all right,
- 26:35Speaker 1: I'm in you know, But that being able to in
- 26:39Speaker 1: the moment adapt is something that you know only comes
- 26:42Speaker 1: with time, I guess, but I applaud you, mate. I
- 26:48Speaker 1: so love comedy, but I'm such a fucking baby the
- 26:52Speaker 1: idea of getting up on I would rather talk to
- 26:54Speaker 1: a corporate audience of one thousand for an hour with
- 26:57Speaker 1: no notes and just do my thing than talk to
- 26:59Speaker 1: eight people in a room for three minutes with the
- 27:02Speaker 1: task of being or the responsibility of making them laugh.
- 27:06Speaker 1: Like when yeah, that that terrifies me.
- 27:11Speaker 2: Well, especially for eight people, that is a tough audience
- 27:13Speaker 2: size because people aren't deindividuated, right, Like they all know
- 27:17Speaker 2: that you can see them. And really the way to
- 27:20Speaker 2: get people to laugh is you want them to not
- 27:22Speaker 2: be thinking about their body. You want them to be
- 27:23Speaker 2: in darkness. There was a gig I did about a
- 27:28Speaker 2: year ago. It was like it was the Oxford Cambridge
- 27:32Speaker 2: boat Race dinner, where you know, a bunch of Oxford
- 27:36Speaker 2: alums get together and drink a lot and they're and
- 27:39Speaker 2: I had been brought on as a stand up for
- 27:40Speaker 2: the night. I had never been to one of these before.
- 27:43Speaker 2: And and so people get up to like do their
- 27:46Speaker 2: speech introducing people or like reporting on the results of
- 27:49Speaker 2: the boat race, and nobody is listening. Everyone is talking
- 27:53Speaker 2: full volume and like people are trying to get potentially
- 27:56Speaker 2: they're like, you know, dinging their wine glasses. It's surreal
- 27:59Speaker 2: and I I feel like I'm watching a freight train
- 28:01Speaker 2: coming at me because I know I'm gonna be on later.
- 28:04Speaker 2: And I turned to the other guy who's supposed to
- 28:05Speaker 2: be doing comedy later. I'm like, we're dead, Like, we
- 28:08Speaker 2: gotta leave, we can't do this. But I knew from
- 28:12Speaker 2: looking around that people didn't actually want to be talking.
- 28:16Speaker 2: A lot of people were frustrated by the fact that
- 28:18Speaker 2: that they couldn't hear the speaker. They really wanted to
- 28:20Speaker 2: all be doing the same thing. They wanted to either
- 28:22Speaker 2: either they wanted it to be dinner time and we're
- 28:24Speaker 2: not listening to anyone, or they wanted to be quiet
- 28:27Speaker 2: time or all listening to a speaker. I was like, Okay,
- 28:29Speaker 2: if I have any chance of getting this audience, I
- 28:31Speaker 2: need to get everybody on the same page. So I
- 28:34Speaker 2: tried to talk the organizer out of doing the comedy.
- 28:36Speaker 2: He's like, no, I think it's just what they need.
- 28:37Speaker 2: So I was like, okay. When he calls me up,
- 28:40Speaker 2: I grab the microphone and I screw and I run
- 28:43Speaker 2: off the stage and I scream it's time for fucking comedy,
- 28:47Speaker 2: and everybody gets quiet, and for the first time in
- 28:50Speaker 2: the whole night, and I feel that power of we know,
- 28:53Speaker 2: for the first time, we're paying attention to something altogether,
- 28:56Speaker 2: and we feel excited about that, and we feel kind
- 28:59Speaker 2: of weird about that. And I'm like, Okay, I had
- 29:02Speaker 2: seven minutes material. I'm going to do three minutes of
- 29:04Speaker 2: material and I'm going to move from table to table.
- 29:07Speaker 2: I'm going to hit as many punchlines as I can,
- 29:09Speaker 2: and I'm not going to pass the microphone back to
- 29:12Speaker 2: the organizer because he's going to kill the energy. I'm
- 29:13Speaker 2: going to hand it right to the next comedian. And yeah,
- 29:16Speaker 2: that felt like a kind of magical moment of realizing, like,
- 29:19Speaker 2: it's not that people don't want to pay attention. We're
- 29:22Speaker 2: all frustrated that we can't coordinate and if someone else
- 29:24Speaker 2: is talking, then like I can't listen, So I'm going
- 29:26Speaker 2: to talk too. We need to get everybody in the
- 29:28Speaker 2: room doing the same thing, and we need to give
- 29:30Speaker 2: them something to focus on. And that's but yeah, I
- 29:35Speaker 2: love that, And well did it work?
- 29:37Speaker 1: Obviously? Obviously it was.
- 29:39Speaker 2: It worked, It worked Yeah, I got a few laughs,
- 29:43Speaker 2: and I think more people were just impressed that, you know,
- 29:47Speaker 2: five people had been at the podium and totally unable
- 29:49Speaker 2: to get the audience's attention. We had somebody talking about
- 29:51Speaker 2: like child sex trafficking in developing countries, and that got
- 29:55Speaker 2: like thirty seconds of silence and then people were just
- 29:57Speaker 2: back to full volume. So I'm like, if they're not
- 29:59Speaker 2: listening to that lead, you're talking about serious stuff, like,
- 30:01Speaker 2: why are they going to listen to me? And it's like, well,
- 30:04Speaker 2: it's because you need to get them over this activation
- 30:06Speaker 2: energy into this mode where we're all doing the same thing,
- 30:10Speaker 2: because if we have one person talking, then we're done.
- 30:13Speaker 2: But yeah, I don't know, I don't feel a freedom
- 30:15Speaker 2: by it anymore because I've died in so many ways,
- 30:17Speaker 2: so many times on stage. And once you have, you know,
- 30:20Speaker 2: you move, you go home and you go to the
- 30:21Speaker 2: next gig. You like the Lazarus Comedy.
- 30:24Speaker 1: You like the Lazarus Comedy, Dude, you just keep coming back, right.
- 30:28Speaker 1: But that's I mean, that is super brave of you,
- 30:31Speaker 1: and you are way more courageous than I am. I
- 30:36Speaker 1: think also that demonstrates a kind of social intelligence and
- 30:40Speaker 1: situational awareness that you know, like because you study human
- 30:45Speaker 1: behavior and more and you're a comic, you kind of
- 30:50Speaker 1: have both of those things in your pocket, right, so
- 30:53Speaker 1: you can figure out that if you just get up
- 30:55Speaker 1: there and you basically do just another version of what
- 30:58Speaker 1: everybody else does, which is just stroll up and try
- 31:02Speaker 1: to get the audience attention, it ain't gonna work. Let's
- 31:07Speaker 1: talk a little bit about intelligence, because what you did was,
- 31:12Speaker 1: apart from making people laugh, you had enough social and
- 31:16Speaker 1: emotional and situational intelligence to be able to understand what
- 31:20Speaker 1: would work or what you thought might work, which happened
- 31:22Speaker 1: to work, which is good. But also you definitely knew
- 31:25Speaker 1: what wouldn't work because you'd seen what didn't work the
- 31:28Speaker 1: four times before you or whatever it was. Tell us
- 31:31Speaker 1: about the diversity of intelligence, if you've got any thoughts
- 31:35Speaker 1: on that.
- 31:36Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 31:38Speaker 2: So I wrote a peace trying to get at this,
- 31:41Speaker 2: called why Aren't Smart People Happier? Coming from this idea
- 31:46Speaker 2: that when you think of someone who's intelligent, you probably
- 31:49Speaker 2: picture like someone who's really good at chess or physics
- 31:51Speaker 2: or math or computers, which I think it makes sense
- 31:57Speaker 2: that we think of that person like that because those
- 31:59Speaker 2: are all very what I would call well defined problems,
- 32:02Speaker 2: where you know when someone has solved them, you can
- 32:05Speaker 2: turn them into basically multiple choice questions. There's no debate
- 32:09Speaker 2: about whether it's a problem, and there's no debate about
- 32:11Speaker 2: when it's solved. And so when you have people solving
- 32:13Speaker 2: those kinds of problems, it's very easy to rank them.
- 32:15Speaker 2: This is basically what we do with standardized tests, but
- 32:18Speaker 2: that only captures a very small number of the kinds
- 32:21Speaker 2: of problems that humans encounter every day. So another problem is,
- 32:24Speaker 2: you know, how do you get people's attention if you
- 32:26Speaker 2: want to do some stand up comedy with them. Well,
- 32:28Speaker 2: that's the thing that you can't reduce to a multiple
- 32:31Speaker 2: choice question, because I mean part gives away one of
- 32:33Speaker 2: the answers. But also just knowing what answer is right
- 32:36Speaker 2: doesn't mean you can do it, doesn't mean you are
- 32:38Speaker 2: willing to do it, and doesn't mean that it's right
- 32:41Speaker 2: for every situation like this is a problem that's way
- 32:46Speaker 2: more poorly defined. And so when we think about intelligence
- 32:50Speaker 2: just being your ability to solve these well defined problems,
- 32:52Speaker 2: we don't think about your ability to solve these very
- 32:54Speaker 2: poorly defined problems, which I also think of as intelligence,
- 32:57Speaker 2: like these are problems just the same, and so obviously
- 33:01Speaker 2: someone who's really good at CHEST is not necessarily going
- 33:02Speaker 2: to be the person who's best at doing standard better
- 33:05Speaker 2: dinner party. So what is that? And I think that's
- 33:08Speaker 2: also intelligence, But we sell ourselves short by thinking of
- 33:12Speaker 2: it as just this thing that you can assess by
- 33:15Speaker 2: asking people some very codified questions. So that's when I
- 33:20Speaker 2: think about it.
- 33:21Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that that whole kind of ability to
- 33:24Speaker 1: be able to, you know, connect with people and understand
- 33:29Speaker 1: what's happening for other people in front of you, and
- 33:33Speaker 1: to be able to more broadly navigate life in a
- 33:37Speaker 1: way where you're I mean, life is really about solving problems,
- 33:41Speaker 1: which doesn't necessarily seem like problems, but getting from A
- 33:44Speaker 1: to B or resolving a conflict with someone or creating
- 33:48Speaker 1: connection with someone or you know, my training partner from
- 33:54Speaker 1: the gym, I think he finished school in like year
- 33:58Speaker 1: ten and been incredibly successful in business. He's now kind
- 34:04Speaker 1: of retired, but he's still young, issues in his early fifties,
- 34:08Speaker 1: but he's got this brain that he just figures stuff
- 34:11Speaker 1: out that I don't even know how he figures it out.
- 34:16Speaker 1: He has this innate genius right. Nobody taught him. He
- 34:21Speaker 1: didn't go to school and get it. He hasn't researched it.
- 34:24Speaker 1: He can just solve problems that I just look at
- 34:27Speaker 1: shit and I go, if there's something breaks in my house,
- 34:31Speaker 1: if something you know, anything that's just like a a
- 34:36Speaker 1: that requires immense practical intelligence, I'm a dumbass. I'll ring
- 34:42Speaker 1: him and he'll tell me in thirteen seconds what's wrong
- 34:45Speaker 1: and how to fix it, or he'll come over. He'll
- 34:48Speaker 1: come over and fix it. And it's not like, oh,
- 34:51Speaker 1: he's just got skills in his handy. No, it's anyone
- 34:55Speaker 1: can develop skills and be handy. There's something else where.
- 35:00Speaker 1: He just has this way of figuring stuff out that
- 35:04Speaker 1: is not traditional. It's not typical, it's not academic in
- 35:10Speaker 1: its kind of vibe. It's I don't know it. And
- 35:13Speaker 1: I look at him and I go, you're one of
- 35:15Speaker 1: the smartest people I know, and I know a lot
- 35:17Speaker 1: of smart people. But if you looked at him, this
- 35:21Speaker 1: big fucking muscular unit lifting shit in the gym, you
- 35:25Speaker 1: would not go, there's a genius over there on the
- 35:27Speaker 1: bench press. That's exactly what he is. Though you know
- 35:33Speaker 1: it comes in all shapes and sizes literally, Yeah.
- 35:37Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 35:38Speaker 2: Are there things that got the opposite we were, problems
- 35:40Speaker 2: that he calls you to solve?
- 35:43Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so stuff with that's a good question. So
- 35:47Speaker 1: stuff with. I won't open the door too wide, but
- 35:51Speaker 1: there have been times when he's asked me to have
- 35:53Speaker 1: a chat to his kids about things, or to you know,
- 35:57Speaker 1: like the psychological stuff and kind of emotional regulation stuff
- 36:01Speaker 1: and having certain conversations about human behavior, or we'll just
- 36:06Speaker 1: talk about yeah, like some of the more nuanced life stuff.
- 36:11Speaker 1: Definitely I've probably got him covered. But yeah, yeah, it is.
- 36:17Speaker 1: It's like it's almost like a very practical intelligence that
- 36:22Speaker 1: he has that I don't have.
- 36:24Speaker 2: Yeah, which I think goes exactly to this point that
- 36:28Speaker 2: if you think about intelligence as this like general purpose
- 36:32Speaker 2: muscle that the more you build it, the more you
- 36:35Speaker 2: can solve any problem, anything you'd call a problem, you're going.
- 36:37Speaker 3: To be better at doing it.
- 36:38Speaker 2: It just doesn't work like that, because I mean, here's
- 36:41Speaker 2: a guy who's very good at solving this certain class
- 36:43Speaker 2: of problems, but less so it's solving this different kind
- 36:47Speaker 2: of problem. And that's one of the points I make
- 36:49Speaker 2: in this piece is that if you look at the data,
- 36:53Speaker 2: there's not really a correlation between how people score on
- 36:57Speaker 2: intelligence tests and how happy or satisfied their lives they
- 37:00Speaker 2: report being, which would be very surprising if you think
- 37:04Speaker 2: of intelligence as raw problems solving ability, because well, if
- 37:07Speaker 2: you're better at solving problems, shouldn't you be more satisfied
- 37:10Speaker 2: with your life? And I think it's precisely because these
- 37:12Speaker 2: tests measure a certain kind of problem solving that isn't
- 37:15Speaker 2: the kind of problem solving that makes your life more satisfying,
- 37:19Speaker 2: because like, how do you live a satisfying life? Well,
- 37:21Speaker 2: it's very poorly defined. This is not like a fill
- 37:24Speaker 2: in the blank answer. Your answer is going to be
- 37:27Speaker 2: different from someone else's answer. The options are completely unlimited
- 37:31Speaker 2: and they're always changing. Like, this is totally different from
- 37:34Speaker 2: solving for X, And so it makes sense that getting
- 37:38Speaker 2: better at solving for X is unrelated to your ability
- 37:41Speaker 2: to solve for you know, the great X of life.
- 37:44Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so true.
- 37:46Speaker 1: Hey did you ever did you ever see that that YouTube? Sorry,
- 37:52Speaker 1: that that ted presentation on YouTube by Professor Ken Robinson?
- 37:59Speaker 3: No, I don't think dude.
- 38:00Speaker 1: You got to check it out. It's called It's old now,
- 38:04Speaker 1: but it's one of the highest, probably in the top
- 38:06Speaker 1: one or two or three watched Ted Talks of All
- 38:10Speaker 1: Time and it was early days. It was maybe twenty
- 38:13Speaker 1: eleven or twelve or ten, and I've watched a bunch
- 38:17Speaker 1: and it's just it's one of my favorites. And it's
- 38:19Speaker 1: called how Our Schools or why schools are Killing Creativity?
- 38:27Speaker 1: And he's an academic and he's actually passed on now
- 38:31Speaker 1: God blessed, but he he talks about creative intelligence. And
- 38:37Speaker 1: if I can boy you for one sec, I love
- 38:39Speaker 1: this story. I've probably told it twice in eleven hundred episodes.
- 38:42Speaker 1: But there's this he tells this story about this teacher
- 38:48Speaker 1: and she's teaching what we would call preps. I don't
- 38:51Speaker 1: know what's the first grade of school called over there
- 38:54Speaker 1: in the States.
- 38:56Speaker 2: First grade?
- 38:57Speaker 1: Yeah, first grade. So we have what's called prep, which
- 38:59Speaker 1: we be, and then we have grade one, but first grade.
- 39:02Speaker 1: So she's got these first graders, a bunch of first graders,
- 39:06Speaker 1: she's the teacher, and they're all it's like art, it's
- 39:08Speaker 1: the art lesson. They've all got paper and paint and
- 39:11Speaker 1: crayons and shit everywhere. And then she she's walking around
- 39:15Speaker 1: the class and she comes up to this little girl
- 39:17Speaker 1: who's right up the back, and she's she's got it
- 39:19Speaker 1: all going on. There's this her papers out, and there's
- 39:22Speaker 1: stuff all there's paint and crayons, and it's just this cacophony,
- 39:27Speaker 1: this just symphony of mayhem, right, and her artistic mayhem.
- 39:32Speaker 1: And she looks down and she goes, wow, that's that's interesting.
- 39:36Speaker 1: She goes, what are you painting to the little girl,
- 39:40Speaker 1: and little girl goes, I'm painting God. And the teacher goes, well, sweetie,
- 39:44Speaker 1: no one knows what God looks like. And she goes,
- 39:46Speaker 1: they will in a minute. And I'm like, that's so
- 39:53Speaker 1: like that kid doesn't know, you know, it's like she's
- 39:56Speaker 1: just expressing, you know. Yeah. And it's like it just
- 40:00Speaker 1: like creativity and genius and intelligence. It it expresses itself differently,
- 40:08Speaker 1: you know.
- 40:09Speaker 3: Yeah. You know.
- 40:11Speaker 2: It reminds me of some stuff from Improv where we
- 40:14Speaker 2: run into this exact thing where people get trained to
- 40:17Speaker 2: stop doing that. Like if people tell you enough that
- 40:19Speaker 2: no one knows what God looks like, you stop saying
- 40:22Speaker 2: that you're gonna find out in a minute, and you
- 40:24Speaker 2: start saying, oh, I should do something else. So there's
- 40:28Speaker 2: this great instructor of improv named Keith Johnstone, who talks
- 40:33Speaker 2: about these stories that he has with his students, or
- 40:36Speaker 2: to do an exercise like you know, hell, no, I'm
- 40:38Speaker 2: putting a box in front of you. You know, it's
- 40:39Speaker 2: in visile box, not there, And they'll say pull something
- 40:41Speaker 2: out of the box and tell me what it is,
- 40:43Speaker 2: and people will you know, reach in and go, uh
- 40:45Speaker 2: it's and I go, why is it? Why are you?
- 40:49Speaker 2: Like why aren't you just telling me? And like what's
- 40:52Speaker 2: into your head? And people will be like, well, I
- 40:54Speaker 2: was going to say it's an ego, but I thought
- 40:56Speaker 2: that'd be too gross. It's like, what do you mean
- 40:57Speaker 2: it's too I just asked you just tell me what's
- 40:59Speaker 2: in the box, Like why did you already judge your idea?
- 41:04Speaker 3: And I find this too.
- 41:05Speaker 2: When I teach him prov classes, we'll do this very
- 41:08Speaker 2: basic warm up where I just point at you and
- 41:10Speaker 2: I say a word. You repeat the word and see
- 41:12Speaker 2: whatever word comes to mind. And people get so stopped
- 41:15Speaker 2: up trying to do this that they'll you know, I'll
- 41:17Speaker 2: say like lightning and they'll go lightning. And then they'll
- 41:21Speaker 2: look around the room and see someone shoes and go
- 41:23Speaker 2: shoes because we've been trained that like, no, do this right,
- 41:28Speaker 2: like do this funny, like do this smart, rather than
- 41:30Speaker 2: like just do this, just do the thing that comes
- 41:32Speaker 2: to mind. And it's the kind of thing that gets
- 41:35Speaker 2: ground out of people over time, which sounds like some
- 41:37Speaker 2: of the point he was making this Ted talk.
- 41:39Speaker 1: And I think we're also very aware of oh, whatever
- 41:42Speaker 1: I say, or maybe it's not going to be but
- 41:45Speaker 1: we feel like, oh, whatever I say. After Adam says,
- 41:49Speaker 1: you know, lightning, I would have said Rod, by the way,
- 41:51Speaker 1: you're welcome, thank you, you're very creative. I so wanted
- 41:55Speaker 1: to fucking play, but you didn't ask me. Next time,
- 42:00Speaker 1: the twelve year old comes out. But you know where
- 42:03Speaker 1: we're aware that or whatever I say will be judged.
- 42:07Speaker 1: And what if I say something that's dumb? So let
- 42:10Speaker 1: me just hit the pause button while I think of
- 42:12Speaker 1: something that I think is not dumb, because oh fuck,
- 42:15Speaker 1: hang on, what's what's what's gonna get me? You know?
- 42:18Speaker 1: And then you've killed the vibe and you've missed the point.
- 42:22Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, this idea that by squeezing my
- 42:28Speaker 2: brain harder, I'm going to get something better out of it.
- 42:31Speaker 2: No one ever tells you that specifically, but we learn
- 42:37Speaker 2: that like, oh, my first instincts are wrong. I should
- 42:41Speaker 2: apply whatever rules I've internalized to whatever I'm thinking and
- 42:45Speaker 2: then only bring that out. I mean, this idea of
- 42:48Speaker 2: what if I say something stupid, like yeah, what if
- 42:52Speaker 2: like no one's gonna care. We're gonna play this for
- 42:54Speaker 2: five more minutes and then you're gonna pretend to be
- 42:55Speaker 2: a toilet and a scene like nothing is going to happen.
- 42:58Speaker 2: But it's really hard to learn that without actually doing it.
- 43:02Speaker 2: Like I tell people this at the beginning, but I mean,
- 43:06Speaker 2: this is another thing that I've written about it is
- 43:07Speaker 2: how hard it is to transmit this lesson through words.
- 43:10Speaker 2: You really just have to do it. You have to
- 43:12Speaker 2: say something stupid and then realize that being judged for
- 43:15Speaker 2: it isn't that bad or it doesn't even happen. And
- 43:18Speaker 2: that's the only way in someone telling you that it's
- 43:20Speaker 2: not going to happen does not work. Is there anything
- 43:25Speaker 2: the mystery is of learning?
- 43:26Speaker 1: Is there anything that lives at the intersection of your
- 43:29Speaker 1: comedy career and your research, Like, is there any there
- 43:35Speaker 1: was has one helped the other or interfered with the other?
- 43:40Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, when there's a lot of answer to that.
- 43:45Speaker 2: I think the way that I think about ideas in
- 43:50Speaker 2: the first place is really a research idea is really
- 43:52Speaker 2: influenced by the way I do comedy, in that when
- 43:56Speaker 2: I show up to do a show, I know that
- 43:59Speaker 2: people can they could very easily be home watching Netflix
- 44:03Speaker 2: and eating pringles, like why are they here doing this?
- 44:06Speaker 2: Like I want to do something that's worth their time,
- 44:08Speaker 2: and if I don't have something that's worth their time,
- 44:10Speaker 2: then I should go home and watch Netflix and eat pringles.
- 44:13Speaker 2: And I feel the same way whenever I'm writing a
- 44:15Speaker 2: blog post that like why am I spending time on?
- 44:18Speaker 2: Like why is this worth people's time? And if I
- 44:19Speaker 2: don't have answer to that question, I should stop and
- 44:21Speaker 2: do something else. And it's easy to overdo it on
- 44:26Speaker 2: that feeling and feel like, oh, everything that I do
- 44:28Speaker 2: has to be really good. But I find it's very
- 44:32Speaker 2: clarifying that, like, oh, the reason I want to do
- 44:34Speaker 2: this is because I feel very excited about it, and
- 44:36Speaker 2: if I am, I know that I'm not that weird
- 44:38Speaker 2: of a person. I'm a little bit weird as a person,
- 44:40Speaker 2: but not so weird that there's nobody else in the
- 44:42Speaker 2: world who's not going to like the thing that I like.
- 44:44Speaker 2: That's one way. Another way is I do a voiceover
- 44:47Speaker 2: of every post that I post, because some people prefer
- 44:50Speaker 2: to listen then to read, and that is very performative
- 44:54Speaker 2: to me that like, I do it all in one take.
- 44:55Speaker 2: I go off script and it feels a little bit
- 44:59Speaker 2: like doing a stance every team. But I'm speaking into
- 45:01Speaker 2: a make that is in front of a pillar in
- 45:03Speaker 2: my bedroom, which is sometimes better than being at some
- 45:06Speaker 2: of the stand up gigs that they've been at. But
- 45:09Speaker 2: there too.
- 45:12Speaker 1: Have you been told a bunch that you've got a
- 45:13Speaker 1: great voice?
- 45:15Speaker 2: You've been told that some Yes, I appreciate it, thank you.
- 45:18Speaker 1: Yeah, you've got an awesome voice for radio, awesome voice
- 45:21Speaker 1: for voiceovers, awesome voice for podcast. So probably, like well, definitely,
- 45:28Speaker 1: like millions of others, I listened to Rogan. Do you
- 45:31Speaker 1: listen to Rogan or not?
- 45:33Speaker 2: I have it now?
- 45:35Speaker 1: So he's I mean, you know who he is though,
- 45:37Speaker 1: I'm sure Joe, Yeah, So I mean one of the
- 45:40Speaker 1: things he has one of the he has a lot
- 45:43Speaker 1: of varied people, of course, but he has a bunch
- 45:45Speaker 1: of comedians on. He has a bunch of scientists and
- 45:48Speaker 1: researchers too. But so they're always talking about comedy and
- 45:52Speaker 1: the process and the creative kind of process and the
- 45:55Speaker 1: journey and the triumphs and tribulations, and you know, eating
- 45:58Speaker 1: shit on the stage, he would call it. And for
- 46:01Speaker 1: my for my older listeners, that just means not going
- 46:05Speaker 1: very well. And but you know, like getting up and
- 46:09Speaker 1: eating shit, getting up eating shit, getting up eating shit
- 46:12Speaker 1: and then finally like fifteen times, twenty thirty times in
- 46:17Speaker 1: just getting an actual genuine laugh. And he said, it's
- 46:21Speaker 1: like cocaine. It's like, you know, do you remember the
- 46:24Speaker 1: time that you got up there after you know, dying
- 46:28Speaker 1: and eating shit and all of that, and then where
- 46:31Speaker 1: you actually had an audience laugh or half an audience laugh,
- 46:36Speaker 1: where you went it's all worth it and this is
- 46:38Speaker 1: fucking magic. Do you remember that? Yeah?
- 46:42Speaker 2: I remember it because it happens like there was a
- 46:46Speaker 2: period of time where it flipped every time. Like I
- 46:48Speaker 2: lived in the UK for a while and I did
- 46:50Speaker 2: a lot of stand up over there, and so I
- 46:51Speaker 2: do like multiple gigs in a week and one game
- 46:54Speaker 2: would go terribly and I'd walk away going stand up's dumb,
- 46:57Speaker 2: It's a stupid art form. I'll never do it again.
- 47:00Speaker 2: And uh, I'm an academic.
- 47:02Speaker 1: I'm an academic? What am I doing this? Yeah? This
- 47:05Speaker 1: is below me.
- 47:05Speaker 2: That's who I really am, and that I come back
- 47:08Speaker 2: the next night and for whatever reason it hits and
- 47:11Speaker 2: I go, actually, stand up is like the best thing
- 47:13Speaker 2: ever and like I'm really great at it. And that's
- 47:15Speaker 2: what I'm about. All this academic stuff is just to
- 47:17Speaker 2: pay the bills and to give me, you know, a
- 47:20Speaker 2: veneer of respectability.
- 47:22Speaker 3: And it goes to.
- 47:22Speaker 2: Show you that, uh that like every night is different,
- 47:25Speaker 2: and so part of that is you know you're different,
- 47:27Speaker 2: but most of it is the audience is different, and
- 47:31Speaker 2: so you also learn to just be less precious about it.
- 47:34Speaker 2: Some people aren't gonna like you, that's fine, uh, And
- 47:37Speaker 2: part of the way you have to learn is being
- 47:39Speaker 2: the kind of person that even when people dislike that,
- 47:43Speaker 2: you're still happy to be that person. I wrote a
- 47:46Speaker 2: piece a couple of weeks ago about some of the
- 47:48Speaker 2: reason I blog wrote it in asking like how did
- 47:50Speaker 2: you find your voice as a writer? And I told
- 47:53Speaker 2: them in part, like I did a bunch of embarrassing things,
- 47:56Speaker 2: like I was in a bunch of stupid plays and
- 47:58Speaker 2: I died on stage all the time, and I figured
- 48:00Speaker 2: out a version of myself that I didn't mind being
- 48:02Speaker 2: disliked for, and that's the version of me that's writing
- 48:06Speaker 2: these things. And so finding that is a manner? Is
- 48:11Speaker 2: it means you have to find someone that like even
- 48:14Speaker 2: when people are like boo You're like, well it's not
- 48:16Speaker 2: for everybody, rather than like, oh okay, well I'll be different.
- 48:19Speaker 2: So you start booing. I mean some ways that you
- 48:21Speaker 2: are you should be different, like some booze you should
- 48:23Speaker 2: listen to. But you kind of try to have to
- 48:25Speaker 2: triangulate when are you happy to be booed at?
- 48:29Speaker 1: What's your If you have one, you must have one.
- 48:33Speaker 1: What's your writing process for comedy?
- 48:35Speaker 3: Is it?
- 48:36Speaker 1: Is it systematic? Or is it like you're driving and
- 48:39Speaker 1: you have an idea and you pull over and talk
- 48:41Speaker 1: into your phone or you're in the middle of a
- 48:43Speaker 1: conversation with I do this sometimes where I have an
- 48:46Speaker 1: idea for a I have an Instagram page called Whiteboard
- 48:50Speaker 1: lessons where I just put up a thought or an idea,
- 48:52Speaker 1: and I'll be talking to someone and I go, oh,
- 48:55Speaker 1: hang im, sorry, and I've got to stop the conversation,
- 48:57Speaker 1: which is so rude, and then write this thing in
- 48:59Speaker 1: my phone because this is going to be I'm gonna
- 49:02Speaker 1: I'm gonna post this Laer. What's your process?
- 49:07Speaker 2: Yeah, it is some of that that, like when inspiration strikes,
- 49:11Speaker 2: you need to capture it because those things seem like
- 49:13Speaker 2: you're gonna remember them, but you won't. And then but
- 49:16Speaker 2: when I actually want to build something out, what I
- 49:19Speaker 2: really need to do is be completely alone, out of
- 49:22Speaker 2: earshot of anyone else. I need to paste back and forth,
- 49:24Speaker 2: and I need to speak out loud to myself. Yeah,
- 49:27Speaker 2: And I find that that allows me to turn like
- 49:29Speaker 2: a little idea nugget that I've gotten earlier into something
- 49:33Speaker 2: bigger or I'll do this at a keyboard too, that like, Okay,
- 49:36Speaker 2: I need to write out a bunch of fragments of
- 49:38Speaker 2: sentences that come to me and then and then build
- 49:40Speaker 2: them out from there. But often walking around and speaking
- 49:43Speaker 2: out loud helps me do that, I think, because it's
- 49:45Speaker 2: like when you speak in your own voice again, it's
- 49:48Speaker 2: harder to lie and uh, and it's easier to put
- 49:52Speaker 2: things in a way that makes sense. That like, it's
- 49:55Speaker 2: easy to confuse yourself when you are just putting words
- 49:58Speaker 2: on a screen, harder when you're being out loud. I
- 50:02Speaker 2: don't know, do you have that other mode too. Does
- 50:04Speaker 2: everything come from those flashes of inspiration or is there
- 50:10Speaker 2: something else you do too?
- 50:12Speaker 1: Whenever I have an idea, like something simple, like like
- 50:19Speaker 1: the idea of doing something good for my body doesn't
- 50:24Speaker 1: always feel good when I'm doing the thing that's good
- 50:26Speaker 1: for my body, right, So, and I think, how do
- 50:31Speaker 1: I say that in a way that's less clunky, or
- 50:33Speaker 1: how do I say that? Or sometimes I'll have I
- 50:36Speaker 1: want to share a what I believe is a powerful
- 50:39Speaker 1: message or insight or idea, and then rather than just
- 50:44Speaker 1: going blair, I think, how do I tell a story
- 50:47Speaker 1: about that? You know, It's like humor connects with people emotionally.
- 50:51Speaker 1: Stories connect with people emotionally. Data not so much. So
- 50:56Speaker 1: I'm always thinking about how do I share this? Like
- 51:00Speaker 1: you're thinking, how do I share this that's in a
- 51:02Speaker 1: way that's going to make them laugh? I think, how
- 51:04Speaker 1: do I share this in a way where Like with
- 51:08Speaker 1: this podcast, you know, I've got no plan. My plan
- 51:13Speaker 1: is to talk to you. I don't come with it.
- 51:15Speaker 1: You know, I've literally got a pad here that I've
- 51:17Speaker 1: scribbled shit on as we go. But there's for me,
- 51:21Speaker 1: the less planning the better, Right with stuff, like this. Now,
- 51:25Speaker 1: clearly with comedy you can't do that. And with but
- 51:28Speaker 1: even with when I do a like I do corporate days,
- 51:32Speaker 1: like a whole day with a group or a half
- 51:34Speaker 1: day with a group, and I might have I might
- 51:37Speaker 1: have one piece of paper with twenty dot points on it,
- 51:42Speaker 1: but I don't have video, I don't have PowerPoint because
- 51:45Speaker 1: I find when i'm I just get into a state
- 51:49Speaker 1: because I talk about the stuff that I talk about
- 51:51Speaker 1: so much and I've done so much work with so
- 51:53Speaker 1: many groups that the more I still am going to
- 51:57Speaker 1: get through my content and the things I want to talk.
- 52:00Speaker 1: But the more in in the moment I am, and
- 52:04Speaker 1: the more I'm in flow, the deeper the connection, the
- 52:08Speaker 1: better experience, the bigger the impact, and the better the
- 52:12Speaker 1: long term impact on the group. And you can't really
- 52:16Speaker 1: you can't really plan that per se. You can't be
- 52:19Speaker 1: too strategic because if you're too strategic, you're not in
- 52:23Speaker 1: the moment.
- 52:26Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think part of the reason that works
- 52:28Speaker 2: is the audience wants something that's for them. Yeah, like
- 52:32Speaker 2: the reason they brought you out there, Like they could
- 52:33Speaker 2: have had a video of you, but they didn't. They
- 52:35Speaker 2: wanted you, and so why be a video version of
- 52:38Speaker 2: yourself live like they want to feel like what you
- 52:40Speaker 2: are doing is responsive to what they are doing. And yeah,
- 52:45Speaker 2: I feel the same way when I'm doing a show
- 52:47Speaker 2: that like the point of this show isn't that I
- 52:51Speaker 2: would have done the same thing any night to anyone,
- 52:54Speaker 2: Like I'm doing it tonight here for you, and it
- 52:57Speaker 2: will never be like this ever again, even if I'm
- 53:00Speaker 2: doing stand up, where like I'll give some of these
- 53:01Speaker 2: punchlines again, but something will be different. And it's definitely
- 53:05Speaker 2: true in improv that like this show will never be
- 53:07Speaker 2: even close to the same ever again, and like there's
- 53:10Speaker 2: a magic in that, and I think people can feel
- 53:12Speaker 2: the risk that you're taking and it makes makes them excited.
- 53:16Speaker 2: I mean, this is also why when an improv show
- 53:18Speaker 2: is bad, like it's really bad. But I think the
- 53:21Speaker 2: worst improv show is not as bad as the worst
- 53:23Speaker 2: stand up show because people know that you're making it up.
- 53:26Speaker 2: Like if you thought of jokes beforehand and showed up
- 53:29Speaker 2: and read them to people and they sucked, Like that's
- 53:31Speaker 2: so much more embarrassing than being like, hey, look, I'm
- 53:34Speaker 2: going to take something from nothing and make it in
- 53:36Speaker 2: front of you, and like, guy, it didn't work out, well,
- 53:38Speaker 2: you know, I was, I didn't plan it.
- 53:40Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that whether or not it's stand up,
- 53:44Speaker 1: or whether or not it's improv or whether or not
- 53:46Speaker 1: it's corporate spaking, or whether or not it's podcasting, or
- 53:50Speaker 1: whether or not it's blogging, you're kind of asking the
- 53:54Speaker 1: same question, and that question is how do I connect
- 53:56Speaker 1: with people? Like, how do I create the type of
- 54:00Speaker 1: connection that I want to create to create the outcome
- 54:04Speaker 1: I want, which on stage, obviously the outcome you want
- 54:06Speaker 1: is laughter. You know, when I'm corporate speaking, perhaps it's
- 54:11Speaker 1: a bit of inspiration or awareness or a light bulb
- 54:13Speaker 1: or you know, at the very least enjoyment. On a podcast,
- 54:18Speaker 1: it's like, how do I have a conversation with a
- 54:21Speaker 1: guy I don't know or that I just met, who's
- 54:23Speaker 1: on the other side of the world, who's kind of
- 54:26Speaker 1: nothing like me but a bit like me. We're kind
- 54:28Speaker 1: of similar, kind of different, And then how do I
- 54:32Speaker 1: meet this person and talk with this person and create
- 54:34Speaker 1: connection with him so that he enjoys it as well
- 54:37Speaker 1: as as producing an experience that people want to keep
- 54:43Speaker 1: listening to. Like, there's all these variables and also at
- 54:46Speaker 1: the same time, not sound as though you're thinking about
- 54:50Speaker 1: any of that. Yeah, to be, We're just chatting here, Yeah,
- 54:56Speaker 1: nothing to see here, just two guys hanging out.
- 54:59Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, uh yeah. I find I mean an improv
- 55:04Speaker 2: show is very similar in that way that and I've
- 55:08Speaker 2: always thought that the secret is just believing that things
- 55:11Speaker 2: can be interesting. Sometimes, like when I'm in a group
- 55:14Speaker 2: conversation and I'm sort of on the sidelines watching or
- 55:16Speaker 2: you know, just watching people talk, someone will will like
- 55:19Speaker 2: lay down something that I think is really interesting or weird,
- 55:22Speaker 2: or something a thread that needs to be pulled on,
- 55:24Speaker 2: and people just blow past it, which feels to me
- 55:26Speaker 2: like waking up on Christmas morning and like seeing the
- 55:28Speaker 2: presence and going, oh right, you know, I'll get to
- 55:30Speaker 2: that later. It's like, no, open that, what is that?
- 55:34Speaker 2: H And that's the way I approach conversations that when
- 55:36Speaker 2: I feel like, hey, well you just really weird, I
- 55:39Speaker 2: want to know more about that same thing. In an
- 55:41Speaker 2: improv scene, someone does something weird, I want to jump
- 55:43Speaker 2: on it. I want to do it more. And I
- 55:45Speaker 2: think that's what makes conversations take off, is when you
- 55:48Speaker 2: believe that there can be something interesting there and it
- 55:52Speaker 2: sucks to be on the other side of this, where
- 55:54Speaker 2: people don't believe that there's something interesting about you that
- 55:58Speaker 2: Sometimes I'll meet new people and they'll last me, what
- 56:00Speaker 2: do you do? And I'm like, well, sort of an academic,
- 56:02Speaker 2: but like, really, what I do is I read this
- 56:03Speaker 2: blog and you know, I do improv on the side,
- 56:07Speaker 2: and I'm like, oh right, cool, cool. Have you seen
- 56:09Speaker 2: anything cool on Netflix recently?
- 56:11Speaker 1: I mean there's so much there.
- 56:13Speaker 2: I'm weird. I would have just told you just weird.
- 56:15Speaker 2: I read a blog like am I super lean? Like
- 56:18Speaker 2: figure this out? But I don't want to tell you
- 56:22Speaker 2: about the plot of Billions that.
- 56:23Speaker 3: I just watched.
- 56:25Speaker 1: Yeah, you can get.
- 56:25Speaker 2: That from the internet. You get that from but AI.
- 56:28Speaker 1: Well, I think sometimes when we're talking people, invariably they
- 56:34Speaker 1: want the conversation to come back to them or about them.
- 56:37Speaker 1: So there's that, you know, to actually sit with somebody
- 56:41Speaker 1: who is present and interested in you, and you know like, yeah,
- 56:49Speaker 1: that's a that's a an ever present social challenge. I think, well,
- 56:54Speaker 1: here's what I think. I think you're fucking funny, and
- 56:56Speaker 1: I think you're clever. I think you're an awesome communicator.
- 57:00Speaker 1: Tell people to name your blog again.
- 57:03Speaker 2: It is called experimental history. You can get out of
- 57:08Speaker 2: experimental dash history dot com. It's a terrible name for
- 57:11Speaker 2: a blog that's really about psychology. But but there you go.
- 57:15Speaker 1: And if people want to find you, follow you, connect
- 57:18Speaker 1: with you, spoon you on the couch. How do they
- 57:21Speaker 1: do that?
- 57:22Speaker 3: Yeah?
- 57:23Speaker 2: Yeah, probably make a copy of my keys when I'm
- 57:26Speaker 2: not looking again. In after dark, I'm on Twitter at
- 57:31Speaker 2: a underscore and underscore Mastrianni good luck. There are three
- 57:36Speaker 2: valves in a row in there. It's a real miz
- 57:39Speaker 2: of valves. But probably if you google my name you'll
- 57:42Speaker 2: find me there. And also just substack for the main places.
- 57:46Speaker 1: Sorry, go to the copy for this show and you'll
- 57:50Speaker 1: see the spelling of Adam's surname there. Mate, we'll say
- 57:54Speaker 1: goodbye affair, but really good to meet you. You're interesting,
- 57:58Speaker 1: you're funny. I love the way that you are doing.
- 58:03Speaker 1: The stuff that you're doing. It's quite atypical, but I
- 58:05Speaker 1: feel like you're really connecting with a lot of people.
- 58:08Speaker 1: So congrats on what you're doing. And i'd love to
- 58:10Speaker 1: get you back and go again.
- 58:13Speaker 2: Yeah, be great. Thanks for having me, really fun talking
- 58:15Speaker 2: to you.
- 58:15Speaker 1: Thanks man, Thanks Melissa.
- 58:17Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
- 58:18Speaker 1: That was a great podcast, Like it went everywhere. Yeah,
- 58:23Speaker 1: but just now that we're off heir, who is better?
- 58:27Speaker 1: Just kidding see everyone, Love you Bye,