Latest / Revisionist History / Pals, Allies, and Companions | Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Grant Live

Transcript

Pals, Allies, and Companions | Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Grant Live · Revisionist History

• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Pushkin.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Hello, hello, everyone. Greetings from the road. I've been out
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: all over the place promoting my new book, The American
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Way of Killing, but I paused in the middle of
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: my book tour to come back to New York, more specifically,
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: to come back to a packed house at the Brooklyn
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Academy of Music to interview my old friend, Adam Grant,
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: on the day of the release of his new book, Vibe,
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: The Secrets of Strong Connection in a Lonely World. Over
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: the years, we have had these public conversations many, many times,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: but I think this was easily our best. Adam is
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: the single most fun person to argue with that I've
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: ever met. We talked about nerds, about arranged marriages, about astrology.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: By the way, don't get Adam going on astrology. And
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: about whether we were allies or pals. It was an
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: incredibly fun evening on the subject of what is a
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: completely fascinating book. So, have a listen to our conversation.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: By all means, buy the book, and join me as
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: a charter member of the Adam Grant Fan Club. We
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: should start by explaining why you're wearing a Bills jersey.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: Do we have to?
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: We have to. Adam and I had a bet when
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: his team, the Detroit Lions, played my team, the Buffalo Bills,
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: and you boldly predicted that your team would win, and
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: you said loser had to wear the jersey of the
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: opposing team to this event.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, the loser.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: I'm regretting that decision right now.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: How does that feel to walk around with a Bills jersey?
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: I mean, the Bills have suffered for a long time,
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: much like my Lions. I'm feeling your pain quite literally
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: right now.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Are you going to wear this like home with you?
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Are you going to, you're not going to take it
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: off when you go backstage?
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: I was actually going to gift it to you at
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: the end. Okay.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: So I want to talk around the book. We're not
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: going to tell you what's in the book. You should
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: read the book. And my hope is that at least
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: half of these questions you will never get again on
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: your book tour. That is the standard.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: I'm at the edge of my seat here.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: And also you said that we've done this many times.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you guys know this. This is
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: probably the, oh my goodness, fifth or sixth time we've
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: done one of these.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: It's got to be more than that.
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: I think most of our interactions have been on stage
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: talking about each other's books.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: It's a great way to vibe. And you told me
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: that you got some feedback on some of our previous
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: interactions and that audiences liked it when we weren't snarky.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: They did.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Which is, I have to say that that broke my
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: heart a little bit because I was.
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: I felt like a little part of me died when
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: I heard that feedback.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: You're such a lovely person to argue with. But I'm
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: going to try and... I think we should try and
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: put the snark aside. Give the people what they want.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Happy Malcolm and happy Adam tonight. In the spirit of
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: this book, which is about how you get along with
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: other people, right? How do you make real connections?
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: Yes, but I think if we disagree on things, we
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: should feel free to do that.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: We should feel free to do that.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: So define for us your three categories, what they mean
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: in the context of your book, and then we'll dig
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: into this.
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: All right, so there are basically three important kinds of
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: people in your life. And I discovered this is true
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: in pretty much every culture around the world. They have
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: different terms for them. but I've come to think of
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: them as allies, pals, and companions. So your allies are
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: people that you pursue goals with. They're your favorite collaborators.
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: Your pals are people you have fun with. You would
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: love to invite them to play pickleball or karaoke or
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: whatever your idea of a good time is. And your
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: companions are people you can fight in. They're the people
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: whose shoulders you can cry on. They're the people who
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: will drop everything to drive you to the hospital if
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: there's an emergency. And I have found this to be
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: such an eye-opening way to look at my own relationships
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: because before I just used to call people friends or
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: family or colleagues or neighbors. And that tells you how
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: I know them. But it doesn't reveal anything about what
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: purpose that relationship serves. And it certainly doesn't explain why
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: some colleagues feel like friends and some friends feel like
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: family and some family I would prefer to disown.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: So, Malcolm, what are we?
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: I think we're pals. Don't you think we're pals? I
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: wouldn't be here if I.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, now I do. No, I.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Wouldn't have done this if we were allies. Oh. When
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: I think of an ally, I think of a transaction.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: Oh, no, that's an associate.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's an associate.
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the other category of transactional relationships where people
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: just meet each other's needs.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: But an ally are two people working towards some shared goal.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we've got a common mission. I think we both
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: love exploring ideas.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: And... Yeah, but the reason I'm here is I thought
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: this would be really fun.
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: Oh.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: Well, I did too.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: I think of you as... I think we pretend that
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: we're allies, but we're actually pals.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: So interesting. But we've never done pal activities together.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: This is a pal activity. That's... Don't you think?
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: I think it has pal energy, but for me it's
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: an act of allyship because... You're helping me share my
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: ideas and learn new things about them. And I hope
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: I do the same thing for you. And we're on
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: a common mission to make people smarter and more curious
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: and more open-minded.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: There are several interesting places we can go from here.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: One is that you and I, there is a discrepancy
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: in how we define our relationship, which I kind of like.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: I'm your ally, but you're my pal.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: You know what's interesting about this is in the research
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: I've read, normally not being on the same page is
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: a risk factor for a relationship because we have different expectations.
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: And then you're goofing around and I'm kind of annoyed
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: by it and I'm too task focused and you're irritated
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: by that.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: But here there's a complementarity, I think.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Well, that was one thing in the book actually that
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: I had a question about because My first instinct when
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: I read about those three categories was to wonder about
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: discrepancies because I feel like in my own life, I
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: enjoy relationships most when there is a discrepancy. I find
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: that really interesting. And what ends up happening is that
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: you start to, the lines between those categories start to
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: blur if each person is bringing a different energy to
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: the relationship.
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I completely missed that in the book and I
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: think you're right. I think the kinds of discrepancies I
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: was thinking about were different, which is, are we on
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: the same page about what we are supposed to give
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: and what the other person is supposed to receive? And
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: if we're not aligned on that, if I want you
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: to be my ally and you're only my pal, that's
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: a recipe for bad interactions and maybe some distrust brewing.
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: But I like this idea that you're my ally and
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: I'm your pal.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: That's fun. We can be allies.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: But also, these categories are fluid.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: That was the other question I had about those. What's
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: the trajectory? Do people naturally move from ally to pal
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: to companion? Is that a kind of trajectory that happens
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: in relationships over time as people get closer?
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: They think it's supposed to, but it doesn't have to.
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: I think this is a misconception. You can be close
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: on any of these wavelengths, and they don't go in
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: any particular order. There's not a hierarchy of them. Some
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: people meet and go right to companionship. They end up
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: engaging in what's called a disruptive disclosure, where they just
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: kind of share something about, here's a moment from my upbringing.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: That shaped me.
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: Some people become allies or pals and never go to companionship,
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: and I call those people men.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Are these distinctions useful in understanding human development? So a child,
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: a baby, is in a strictly transactional relationship, right? When
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: they're born, they just want you to feed them and
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: keep them warm. You're not giving anything back. Then do
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: you move a little bit into allies where you have
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: a shared goal to keep each? You got to keep
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: the baby alive.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: The baby's got it.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: And then you get to a little bit of of. Wait,
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: what's the next one?
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: Is this what you thought about when your daughters were born?
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: No.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: Like, how do I be a good, good dad? Got
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: to keep the baby alive.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I did
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: not overthink this until right now.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: So it's my fault, I'm sorry.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: It is only your presence that causes me to overthink
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: relationships in my life.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: I take full responsibility for that.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: No, like we go through this and then you end
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: up in a place of, it's more than companionship, but
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's clearly a point in your, I have
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: young children, so I think about this, in the trajectory
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: of raising a child. In the beginning, it is just pure, like,
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: they're just like, everything's about them, feed me, come running
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: when I cry, blah, blah, blah. And then you watch
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: their kind of relationship with you evolve over time.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so interesting. I've never thought about this. I
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: think that's right.
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: I think what you haven't seen yet, because your daughters
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: are still little, is what happens when your kids start
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: to become little adults.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: So as of last week, we have.
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: Three teenagers, which is a crazy thought. And I have
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: watched some of our friends who have slightly older kids
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: really struggle with the transition into being a parent to
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: adult children. And what happens is their kids are looking
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: for kind of distant allies to respect their independence.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: And they're still stuck in full companion mode.
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: Or in other cases, what I've seen is kids are
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: actually looking for companionship and the parents only know how
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: to be pals. And so it's a constant letdown. And
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: I think that's hard. And I think you're right. The
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: fluidity is really important. And as a parent, getting on
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: the same page with your kids about what do you
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: need from me and how do I show up for
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: you is a critical conversation to have.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: The other thing that I thought about those three distinctions
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: was There's very different levels of energy that are associated
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: with those roles. So companionship is a very kind of consuming, demanding,
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: and it can be hard to be a constant companion
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: to someone. The reason I thought about this is that
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: I have a friend who, a very old and close
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: friend of mine who lost a child recently. And I
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: went to the funeral and I saw him and he
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: was walking around and he said something he'd never said
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: to me. I've known him my whole life. He said,
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: walk with me and tell me something that will distract me.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: He needed something in that moment from me that I'd
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: never actually had to give him before, right? Although I'm very,
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: very close to him. Our primary mode was we were
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: pals in the greatest sense of that word. He's an
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: incredibly brilliant, his mind is just delightful. You can hang out,
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: you know, but in that moment he did something more.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: So I thought it was like, there is this sort
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: of toggling that can take place and we will eventually
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: go back to our pal mode, but he needed something
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: more than that.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: I think, I think you're right that companionship is often
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: the most draining of the relationships, but it doesn't have
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: to be. I think, There's a huge difference between showing
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: compassion for somebody else and crossing the line from empathy
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: to what's called enmeshment, right? Where you start to blur
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: another person's needs and your own. And I think about
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: this every time I hear somebody say, I want to
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: be needed. And my first reaction is, I don't think
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: you understand what it's like to be needed. You do
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: not want to be needed by another human being. You
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: want to be valued. Because if someone needs you, that
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: means they are totally dependent on you. And they expect
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: you to drop everything whenever they have an issue.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: That's a recipe for.
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: An unbalanced one-sided relationship, unless you're, you know, you're both
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: suffering and shared trauma together, which I would not necessarily
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: wish on anyone. I think what's much healthier is to say, look,
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: let's set some boundaries around compassion. I don't have to
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: feel your feelings to care about your feelings. I want
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: to maintain some distance so that I can show up
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: for you when it doesn't cost me too much.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: Um, Can I go to my questions?
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Sorry, I didn't mean to sidetrack you. You're
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: in charge here, Malcolm. This is your show.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: When you were a kid, this is going to seem
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: like a digression, but it's going to circle back.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: I love that preview.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: It's crucial to the enterprise here. When you were a kid,
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: you were a nerd.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: Were? Yeah, and I still am.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, good.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: That checks out.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: That was my second question. In your mind... What is
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: the definition of a nerd?
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: I think my favorite definition of a nerd is that.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: By the way, only a nerd would have a favorite
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: definition of a nerd.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Well.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: There's a variety.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: You've reviewed them all, looked at the evidence, and you've
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: chosen number four. What is... So what's your favorite one?
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: Well, an ally of mine actually sent me once a
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: Venn diagram. that broke this down. And if I can
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: reconstruct it, it was very good.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: It had, I think it.
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: Had intelligence, esoteric interests, and social skills. And a nerd
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: has the first two, but not the third.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Why does that word nerd have stigma in our society
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: attached to it?
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: I think because of the lack of social skills.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but intelligence and esoteric interests get trumped by social skills?
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: I think when you're constantly going around having awkward interactions
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: with other people and making them feel uncomfortable, maybe. No,
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: I think there's another thing at play here, which is
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: I think that nerds are often threatening to jocks. And
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: so there's this hierarchy that's created in schools where you
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: can tell that somebody is more intelligent than you. And
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: so you create a stigmatizing way to put them down.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: Now, are you less of a nerd now than you
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: were as a kid?
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: Well, I think if you include the social skills factor,
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: I hope so. I think I have become less socially
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: unskilled over time.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Let's imagine we're both 12. Tell me what you're like.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you what I was like. Yeah, take me
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: back to 12-year-old Adam, and I'll take you back to
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: 12-year-old Malcolm.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: Okay, so I had more hair than you do. It
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: was curly. It looked like a Brillo pad.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: What did you do for fun?
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: Collected sports cards and comic books. My friends and I
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: had our own fantasy leagues where we did it by
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: hand because there wasn't a computer version yet. They made
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: fun of me and they called me Mr. Facts when
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: I corrected their stats, which was a sign of things
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: to come. I played a lot of sports, almost all
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: the time.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Which sports?
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: I played basketball, soccer. I was an avid water skier.
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: I was just starting to discover diving, but not really.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: But you were a good athlete.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: No, I was not a good athlete.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: You were not a good athlete.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: I had good hand-eye coordination. Nothing else.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: And what were your relationships like with girls?
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: I was afraid to talk to them.
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: What about at 13? Same. What about at 14? Same. Yeah. Yeah.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: Were you happy at 12?
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Happier now than you are today? No. What was your.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: Where is this going?
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: No, it's, no, no, no. It's clearly going somewhere. Just
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: hold on a second. I'm just establishing some things here.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: So what, if we met at 12, was I a
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: nerd at 12? I think so.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: You think so?
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: By that definition. Were either of your parents nerds?
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: I think, I think yes.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Both.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: My dad was a nerd.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: For sure. Math professor?
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: My mom, not. My mom, kind of secret hipster.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: But you were a nerd. What were you doing for fun?
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: I was, at 12, I had a crisis because I
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: was still interested in playing with my Lego and my G.I.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Joe.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: But I was aware, because I was in high school,
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: I was aware that I couldn't tell anyone that I
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: was still interested in those two things. And I realized
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: I had to give them up, but I didn't want to.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: I feel so sad for 12-year-old Malcolm.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: It was.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: 12-year-old Malcolm, the song... Puff the Magic Dragon was so
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: meaningful for me as a 12-year-old because it's all about
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: the dragon.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: Dragons live forever, but not so little boys.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Not so little boys. And I was obsessed with that
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: moment when I would have to leave the dragon. And
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: I didn't want to leave the dragon.
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: That's so sad. I felt that way about video games,
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: so I can relate.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: So I feel like there was a certain amount of
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: arrested development that was going on. I had a lot
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: of hair. I mean substantial, like a foot at least
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: or more. And I was probably 95 pounds.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: So I looked odd.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: But I think I would have enjoyed your company at
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: the age of 20.
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: I think so too, but I'm not sure where we
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: would have began.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Because the key thing of those three qualities you were
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: talking about, lack of social skills, intelligence, and esoteric interests,
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: at that age it's all about esoteric interests. And when
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: you meet the kid whose interests are as esoteric as yours,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: it's delightful.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you've found your people.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: And it's still delightful.
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: Completely, which is why, okay, so you're going to say
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: we're pals because of that. I get it.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: Well played.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: I think that, no, I think the reason I enjoy
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: your company, like, I think right now we are nerding out.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: So I was thinking, you know, I like to do,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: what I like to do is to generate grand unified
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: theories of things. And so I thought it'd be really
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: fun tonight to generate a grand unified theory of Adam
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Grant's work.
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: So your first book was Give and Take, right? Which
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: was all about really the value that comes from helping others, right?
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: And so there is a reading of that, which is
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: the nerd says, don't bully me. It's possible for us
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: to have a productive relationship, right? Then you wrote a
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: book called Originals, and I'll just read to you the subtitle.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: How nonconformists move the world. That's the nerd manifesto. Then
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: you wrote a book called Think Again, right? The power
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: of knowing what you don't know. That's the nerd asking
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: to be reconsidered in the eyes of the world, right?
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: It's also the nerd saying, you don't know what you're
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: talking about. Exactly, exactly.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Then you wrote a book called Hidden Potential, which is
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: what the nerd says in the failed interaction with the
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: girl at the age of 14. I have potential, you
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: can't see it yet, but just you wait till I'm 30.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't remember ever having that conversation.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: And now we have Vibe, the secrets of strong connections
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: in a lonely world. Your world's lonely, Adam.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: Not anymore.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: Wait.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Your whole, I think of your work as just a series,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: you have delineated the kind of nerd landscape. In each
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: of your works, you have articulated one of the central
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: and I think deeply important dimensions of the nerd world, right?
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've never seen this.
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: Pattern before and i now i feel a little guilty
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: that there are very few live long and prospers in
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: my book and or in any of the books i've
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: written i feel like i've under referenced star trek.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: Not fully serving the nerd audience.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: You should. But I would venture to say, so I was,
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: then I was thinking, the other thing that's interesting about
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: your work is that it's been enormously successful. You've struck
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: a real chord with your audience. And I'm wondering, and
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: we have the audience here. And I was wondering, well,
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: how many of us are, who love your books, are nerds?
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: Are we going to poll the audience?
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, let's do it. Can we get the house lights
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: up a little?
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: And if we relax the social skills part and just
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: say intelligence plus having really intense interests in specific things,
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: how many people would raise their hands then?
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: Okay, that's more.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: That's more.
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: Some people didn't want to admit to struggles with vibing.
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: Like my 15-year-old who says, don't say vibe, dad.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: So you've been trying to rehabilitate and guide the nerd
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: through life. And the paradox of this.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: The paradox of this, of course, is that you're doing
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: this at a time when the nerds are running the world.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: They don't need your help. They're worth $ 100 billion each.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: Oh, I have a good answer to that one, Malcolm.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: What's that?
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of the wrong nerds are running
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: the world. Why is it easier to connect with people
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: when we're doing something together? When two acquaintances sit down
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: face-to-face for a meal, it can be awkward. But put
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: those same two people side-by-side on a walk or run,
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: and they often slide into a natural rhythm of conversation.
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: You're sharing an experience, and your bodies are quite literally
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: moving in the same direction. That matters because connection isn't
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: only something we create through words. It's something we build
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: through synchrony. That's one of the things I love about Peloton.
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: At first glance, a workout can look like an individual activity.
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: You get on a bike or tread, put on your headphones,
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: and start moving. But the experience can be remarkably social
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: because you have an instructor encouraging you. You can see
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: other people moving alongside you. There are high fives, leaderboards,
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: shared milestones, and all of these little signals that remind
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: you you're not alone. That's a powerful psychological shift. And
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: the connection can go beyond that moment in class. When
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: you keep showing up, you start noticing familiar names on
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: the leaderboard. You recognize the people who gravitate toward the
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: same instructors. those little moments of recognition can turn into encouragement,
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: online friendships, and sometimes even connections that carry into real life.
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: That's what makes Peloton interesting is the bridge between exercising
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: on your own and feeling connected to other people. You
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: don't have to be in the same room to start
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: building a sense of.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: Familiarity or belonging.
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: I'm a big Peloton fan, and their new TreadFlex is
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: designed to make movement easier to fit into your actual life.
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: It's movable and foldable, so you can walk, run, or
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: hike when you want to, and move it out of
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: the way when you don't. It doesn't matter how big
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: or how small your space is. You don't need a
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: perfect home gym to make movement part of your life.
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: You just need a little space and a reason to start.
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: Movement doesn't have to be solitary. It can be a
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: way of getting out of your own head, into your
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: body and in tune with others. Discover the Peloton community
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: at onepeloton.com.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: One of the great delights of being a friend is
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: I occasionally email you out of the blue, as I
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: did several weeks ago. And I asked you an incredibly
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: nerdy question. I wanted to have some insight as to
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: why certain kinds of new ideas have difficulty gaining traction.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: Why does it take so long? It doesn't take long
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: to come up with the new thing. It takes a
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: long time to convince people to use the new thing.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: And you're like, a little like, Five minutes pass, and
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: then boom, in my inbox, it's like, all these papers,
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: which I read, and I was like, this is brilliant.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: This is better than ChatGPT. This is Adam at his
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: absolute greatest. And it made me wonder, I want to
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: get a sense of how your mind works and how
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: your day looks. Because I don't understand, how do you
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: do all this?
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: Well, they're all part-time jobs, right?
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: So walk me through a typical Adam day.
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: Well, I want to talk about your emails for a
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: second because you send me the nerdiest questions of anyone
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: By far.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: I go to you because I know you have a
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: certain kind of specialty that I'm very, very interested in.
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: And sometimes you then are disappointed. Like, well, what are
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: you doing as an organizational psychologist then?
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, I have.
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: If you don't know this thing.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: No, but I have you on a pedestal. And when
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: you fail to live up to my lofty expectations, I
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: get bummed out.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm glad to disappoint you from time to time.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: What you should know is that whenever you send me
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: an email looking for an explanation or some data, it
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: is the best procrastination in my day. Because it's way
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: easier to solve other people's problems than it is your own.
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: And how many times have you come up with a
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: great title for somebody else's book but struggled to title
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: your own? Having a little bit of distance from the
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: problem gives you perspective that is missing when you're in
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: the weeds. And so it just makes my day when
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: you say, hey, how would you explain this thing? And
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: I'm like, aha, I can spend 10 minutes feeling useful
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: and having fun. And I'm going to feel more productive
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: in those 10 minutes than the rest of my week combined.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Wait, so how many people do use you the
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: way I use you as a human LLM? Are there
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: like 20 of us who are sending you these emails?
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: There are probably a few hundred who show up with
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: some regularity.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: Are you conscious of trying to live your life as
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: efficiently as possible?
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: I used to be. And I've actually tried to become
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: less efficient because I think... What does that mean?
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: In the Adam universe, what is less efficient?
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: Well, I used to worry about wasting time. And I
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: would think about, oh, I had five minutes today that
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: I could have spent more productively. And I could have
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: either gotten something done or learned something or helped someone.
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: Why am I not making the most of my time?
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: And I think I've, with the benefit of a little
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: bit more life experience, realized usually my best ideas come
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: when I'm actually not focused on getting anything done. And
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: also that's when some of my best interactions and relationships
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: are built. And so I've just tried to be more
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: patient about how my time is used.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: Do you compare yourself to your peers at work when
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: it comes to productivity?
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: No.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: You're not a comparison person?
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: No, I do self-comparison.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: What does self-comparison mean in this context?
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: I feel like I'm competing with my past self and
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: raising the bar for my future self.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Do your kids observe you working?
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: They try not to.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: No, but I don't mean this in a negative way,
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: but what lessons do you think you're imparting to your
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: kids with the way that you conduct your work life?
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: So I think, I hope my kids are learning three
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: things from watching me work. The first is that Like
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: I treat flow states as precious. It's one of the
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: reasons I run late for a lot of things is
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: when I get fully absorbed in a project or a task,
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: I don't know when that's going to happen again. And
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: I don't want to cut it off prematurely. And so
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: they will see me when I have an idea disappear
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: into my office for a couple hours. And I hope
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: they're learning that it's possible to be intrinsically motivated at work.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: It's possible to love your job. I think that's an
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: important lesson for kids to learn.
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: Secondly, I think that they, I hope they see that
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: I really love helping people and connecting people. And probably
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: a third of the time that they wander into my office,
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: when they ask me what I'm up to, I'll say, oh,
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: I just, I thought of two people who really need
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: to know each other and I'm checking with both of
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: them to make sure that they're open to the introduction.
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: Or somebody sent me an email asking, can you make
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: organizational psychology sense of this? And this is the kind
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: of problem that makes my day. And then third, I
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: hope they're they're learning that work that's intrinsically motivating is
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: not always fun moment to moment. That working on hard
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: problems is sometimes really frustrating and it's okay to experience
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: the frustration and push through it.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: I ask that only because when I look back on
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: my relationship with my father, in retrospect, the single most
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: important thing that he did to influence who I am
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: is to work the way he did that he would
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: go every morning he was a man not dissimilar to
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: you in many ways but he would get up every
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: morning he would go he worked at home a lot
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: he would go into his study and he would just
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: work solidly take a break have tea.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: With my mom work solidly and it.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Never seemed like drudgery you had to respect his time
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: And when it was over, it was over. Like it was,
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: there was a point at which he stopped and went on.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: And I observed this my entire childhood and it left
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: an enormous impression on me.
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: Like I feel his spirit when I'm working because I
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: saw that. And all the other things, the parenting things,
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: I've forgotten all the other ones.
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: I think this is one of the fundamental things that
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: parents get wrong. is they think that kids are going
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: to be influenced by their words, but it's much more
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: their actions that matter. And I think we all know
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: this intuitively. We've heard that actions speak louder than words.
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: I don't think that parents really stop to think about
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: my kids are not going to follow what I say.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: They're going to observe what I do.
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: And you've got a choice between being a good role
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: model and being a cycle that needs.
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: To be broken. Make the right choice.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: But I love that you learn that from your dad.
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: And I can, I mean, I can see that spirit
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: in the way that even you interact, right?
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: Which is you, you bring a certain whimsy and joy.
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: To exploring ideas that like for me, when I was
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: in college, you were one of the first people to
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: legitimate intellectual curiosity outside of the classroom.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: I remember the.
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: Tipping point coming out when, okay, this is going to
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: age you a little bit.
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: I think it came out.
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: Like, I think I was finishing my freshman year of college,
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: maybe starting sophomore year.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: And all of a sudden, like it was cool to
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: talk about ideas outside of class. And I, I, I mean,
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: if your dad gave that to you, that is an
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: extraordinary gift. But it's also a great gift that you
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: gave to me and so many other authors.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: But I want to go back to something you said
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: just a few moments ago.
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: Notice how quickly he changes the subject. Malcolm does not
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: like to be the center of attention.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Since I'm getting a little uncomfortable. I want to go
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: back to something you said. So parents obsess too much
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: about the things they say to their children and don't
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: worry nearly enough about the example they're setting, their actions.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: This is an example of a way in which we
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: are exercise lay psychology and are wrong, right? And a
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: lot of your work, in particular this book, is about
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: exposing all the kind of psychological theories we have about
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: everyday life that.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Are incorrect, right?
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Can you, we're going to briefly talk about the book,
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: pick your favorite Misperception, psychological misperception from the book.
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: Favorite, this is like choosing a favorite child.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: Doesn't have to be your favorite, just pick one.
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: I'll give you one.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: It's in vogue to talk about toxic relationships and then
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: to say, okay, that person is not healthy for me.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: I'm going to cut them off and go no contact.
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: And most people think that the people that you should
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: distance yourself from are your greatest enemies, your adversaries, the
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: people that you see only vices in.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: And empirically, that is not true.
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: Even worse for your well-being and even your physical health
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: than your enemies are your frenemies. People that you have
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: ambivalent relationships with, this has been studied for decades by
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: psychologists like Bert Uccino and Michelle Duffy. What they show
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: is if you have both positive and negative feelings about someone,
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: if you appreciate their virtues but you also can't stand
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: their vices, you are experiencing higher blood pressure when you
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: interact with that person. They are more likely to cause
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: your heart rate to spike, and you even are more
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: vulnerable to cardiovascular disease.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: If you have more ambivalent ties in your life.
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: And I mean, that was just eye-opening for me to say,
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: you know what?
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: I have felt that. I have felt that.
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: I don't know if this person is leaning in for
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: a hug or if I should brace myself for a brawl.
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: And constantly having to predict their behavior and manage, are
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: we going to like each other or are we going
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: to be at each other's throats? That is draining and
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: it's actually physically unhealthy. And so that's one of my favorites.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: So you've now identified two ideas that we hold about
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: how to make sense of the world that are not true.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Why are we such bad lay psychologists? Shouldn't we be
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: good at that kind of thing?
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: Well, I don't think we're bad intuitive psychologists. I actually
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: think we are good on average. And what we study
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: in psychology are often the outlier cases. I had a
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: debate with Danny Kahneman about this. So some people have
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: probably read Thinking Fast and Slow. Danny, he arguably was
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: the greatest psychologist in history, the only one ever to
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: win a Nobel Prize. And I had the great fortune
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: of being mentored by him in probably the last decade
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: of his life. And one day, Danny told me that
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: he was skeptical of an article because the findings went
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: against his intuition. And I said, Danny, that's confirmation bias,
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: which by the way, you helped to put on the map.
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: Don't you think you should be questioning your assumptions? And
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: he said, no, I think most human intuitions about behavior
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: are right. And I think the burden of proof should
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: be higher when a finding is counterintuitive. And I was
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: really bothered by that. And the more I thought about it,
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: the more I realized he was onto something. Because I
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: think most of the time when we run studies in psychology,
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: we support our intuitions. And that's why most of the
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: findings in our academic journals are boring and obvious and predictable.
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: But sometimes it's still helpful to gather evidence for them
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: to confirm an intuition. But I think where my attention
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: is really piqued is when rigorous, replicated, transparent studies by
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: different labs come out with some findings that are surprising
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: or unexpected.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: They don't have to be counterintuitive. Sometimes they just have
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: to be non-intuitive.
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: And I think we should spend most of our time
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: there because that's where we have the most to teach.
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: But it doesn't mean we're bad at this in general.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: But if I might gently push back, one of the
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: reasons this is such an interesting book is it's full
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: of all kinds of things that run counter to our intuitions.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: Let me give you another example that perhaps the most,
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: what I thought was one of the most striking examples
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: in the book. It's early on and you're talking about
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: dating and compatibility, romantic compatibility. And you point out that
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: The notion that drives a lot of dating websites is
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: completely unsupported by the evidence. In other words, if you
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: try and match up people on the basis of shared
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: interests or some other algorithmic compatibility, there's no evidence to
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: suggest that's a good idea, right?
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: This is out of Eli Finkel's lab.
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: What they do is they ask you to go on
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: a series of speed dates. But before that, you filled
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: out an exhaustive questionnaire. It's about 200 dimensions, every conceivable
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: aspect of your personality to try to figure out what
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: you're like and also everything you might want in a partner.
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: And then they look at, okay, which combinations are good
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: matches and which ones aren't. And it turns out, The
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: algorithm is a random walk.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: It does nothing. So all of the speed.
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: All of the dating algorithms, all of the apps, all
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: of the websites, they claim they're gonna match you up
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: with your soulmate. They are lying to you or they're
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: lying to themselves. There is no evidence that we can
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: do this. And the reason for that is we have
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: a broken model of what compatibility is. We think that
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: compatibility is similarity between traits or maybe opposite traits. And
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: so we think either birds of a feather will flock
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: together or opposites will attract.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: And that is.
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: Ultimately not true because it's not your separate traits that
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: drive your interaction. It's the unique dynamic that evolves when
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: the two of you meet. And so you can't predict
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: what people are going to be like until you've actually
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: seen them talk or do activities together. And I think
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: you're right. I think that's a great example of our
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: intuitive psychology is just wrong. But there's still some nuanced
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: truths in that. So when you look at the idea
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: that similarity attracts, that is true. We do gravitate toward
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: people who have the same personality traits as us, similar
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: backgrounds to us. We even like interacting with people who
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: smell similar to us. Yes, that is a research finding.
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: If someone's odor resembles yours, you get along with them better.
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: The question is what happens after the initial attraction. And
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: at that point, similarity becomes irrelevant. It's not whether you're
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: objectively similar that drives whether you maintain a bond or
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: whether you get close. It's whether you feel similar to
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: each other, which is all about what you discover about
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: each other and what you develop in each other. And
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: so compatibility is not something we can gauge up front.
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: It's actually something we build over time.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: But if, Adam, if... Let's pause on this because it's
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: a really important point, I think. How do... Dating websites
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: are a multi-billion dollar business. They are persisting on the
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: basis of a complete misapprehension about how dating works. How
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: do they keep going? Is it just that you're cycling
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: people through and no one ever figures out?
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: Maybe.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: Maybe.
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: But I think what you did in Blink is you
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: captured something that a lot of people want to believe,
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: which is you have a gut feeling or an intuition
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: about other people that is often more reliable than your careful,
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: rational analysis. And there are situations where that's true, and
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: you wrote about them. People way overgeneralize how often that's true.
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: And they're constantly relying on their first impressions of other people,
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: which are frequently wrong. Let's take the famous Nalini Ambati
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: studies of thin slicing. It's really easy to tell when
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: you watch a professor for 10 seconds. Are they passionate?
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: Are they enthusiastic? You can predict their teaching ratings. You
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: know what you can't tell watching them for 10 seconds?
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: Are they going to be a good wife or a
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: good husband? Are they going to be a great collaborator?
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: Because you are just watching them perform in one narrow
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: situation and one role. And I think we like to
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: believe that when we get a narrow slice of one person,
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: we can then generalize that to what they're like in
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: all kinds of situations and interactions.
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: And that is just not true.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So wait, if I made you America's dating czar and.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: Not qualified.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: No, no, no.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: Hold on.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: Hold on. I put you in charge of the online
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: business of helping people find a soulmate. What does it
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: look like? Wow.
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: Wow. I have never thought about this question before.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: You wrote a book called Vibe. Is there a way
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: to fix the dating app, is what I'm saying?
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: So, yes. I would do it. few things. First of all,
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: you're not allowed to write your own profile.
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: Other people who know you well get to submit anonymously
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: descriptions of you.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I like that.
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: And what you do is you nominate three or four
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: people that you trust and then they get to enlist
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: the other people. that they think will be honest in
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: seeing both your strengths and your shortcomings. So let's get
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: the real profile. This is like doing a reference check
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: as opposed to a job interview.
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Let's begin there.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: With a reference check, okay.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: Okay, what else do we want to do?
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: I think the second thing you do then is you
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: have to, before you decide whether you're a match or not,
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: you have to interact with them in three different kinds
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: of situations.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Give me an example of a kind of situation.
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: So you go to a haunted house together.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: Oh. A haunted house.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: How old are these people?
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: Come on. You read the book.
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: You know there is evidence that if you go to
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: a haunted house with people, as long as you debrief
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: it afterward, it accelerates your bond.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: Is the key variable the haunted here?
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: Does it have to be?
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: It has to be an emotionally intense experience that you
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: have together. I want you to do a quick workout
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: together because, you know, at the end of the day,
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: if you didn't like them, at least you got a
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: workout in. So we've done, I think the haunted house
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: is a little bit of a, it's a companion experiment, right?
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: We're going to be a little vulnerable.
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: The workout is we're going to have some pal energy,
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: and then I want you to solve a problem with them.
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: I want you to do a word search or be
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: on a Scrabble team together, or maybe play Catan together,
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: something where you actually have to be allies toward a
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: common goal. And then you're going to see them in
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: all these different roles and ask yourself, could I imagine
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: us having that kind of connection?
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: By the way, all those things that I think they're
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: wonderful ideas, those are all things that people do together
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: when they're working together. And yet we have, in recent years,
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: begun to frown on office romances. Is that really a
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: dumb idea, office romance? Or is it a dumb idea
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: to frown on office romances? Because you're essentially, you're in
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: an emotionally intense thing. You solve problems together. You're... You're
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: doing the equivalent of a physical activity if you're working.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: So you're crossing. This is how you meet people and
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: know whether you like. And then we simultaneously say in
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: this instance, no, actually, you're not allowed to date the
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: person you're working with. Why do we say that?
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: Oh, I think we can go back to we have
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: a problem with the behavior of some men who are
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: responsible in positions of power for making women uncomfortable and
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: abusing their power and causing harassment. And by the way,
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: my read of the evidence on this, there is a
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: powerful paper on this by Jennifer Berdahl. It's called The
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: Sexual Harassment of Uppity Women. And what she shows is
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: sexual harassment is not predicted by attraction. It's predicted by
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: feeling that a woman is a threat to your power
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: as a man because she's strong and competent.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: And that just needs to stop.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. No, no, no one's... I don't think anyone's denying
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: that office romances can go sideways. They can produce difficulty.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: They can be abused. But what if that is the
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: single best way to find someone who's incompatible with? Is
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: it worth the risk?
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I'd like to see better data on it.
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: I worry a lot about office breakups and the effect
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: that that has on the dynamics in the office. And
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: I don't know if the benefits are worth the costs.
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: I know that Southwest Airlines used to encourage people to
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: marry their coworkers. And that was when I started to
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: wonder if they were becoming a cult.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: Another topic on this that I was wondering whether you
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: would bring up and didn't was arranged marriages. Oh. So
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: if compatibility... Standard metrics about compatibility are not terribly useful.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: And if what you, the first thing that you said
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: that you wanted was third parties to enter the fray
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: and make judgments about the two people who are planning
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: to be hitched.
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: No, no, this is a bad idea.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: Haven't we just described what an arranged marriage is? It's
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: just an extreme version of the two things you said
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: you wanted.
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: No, for two reasons. One is, You need to have
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: deal breakers. You can screen people out. You can't tell
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: who you're going to click with, but you can tell
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: who is offensive to you from a values perspective.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: When I was a kid, most of my dad's graduate
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: students were from traditional Indian families, and many of them
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: had arranged marriages. But my understanding of them was it's
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: not like you're irrelevant to the process, but each party
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: is presented with some suitable candidates. The short list is
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: generated by the parents.
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's less objectionable. But, I mean, look, you're Canadian.
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: You grew up in Canada.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: Correct.
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: And how many years have you lived in America?
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: You know... 40?
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: 40. So, you know, you have now lived two-thirds of
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: your life in America.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: But still not fully internalized the American value of freedom
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: of choice.
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: It seems.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: Well, no, but Adam, who's the one who wrote a
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: book about how our intuitions are the exercise of our
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: freedoms around meeting other people is broken.
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: That doesn't mean we should just take them away. No.
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: I just want you to exercise better judgment when you
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: use your freedom.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: You're the one who laid out the conditions for fixing dating.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: And I said, well, those conditions look a lot like
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: arranged marriage. And then you took umbrage.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: Well.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: Isn't there data on the success of arranged marriages?
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: I don't know, actually. I think we should look this
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: up and report back.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: Because another thing you say in the book, which supports
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: the arranged marriage notion.
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: You're just going to die on this hill, aren't you?
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: I'm not dying on any hill.
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: Let me just ask you.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: No, no, no. Adam, I am merely quoting back to
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: you words that I read with great pleasure when I
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: was preparing for this interview.
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: None of which were about arranged marriages, but keep going.
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: No, but that's what was in the back of my head.
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: I was reading all this stuff. I was like, oh
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: my God, he's going to start endorsing arranged marriages. And
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: I kept, I went in the index and looked under
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: A and didn't see it. I got concerned. No, no.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: Because another thing you say, another very important point is
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: how much folly there is attached to love at first sight.
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: And how a lot of true compatibility is something that
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: emerges over time. This is exactly the argument that is
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: used in favor of arranged marriages. Right? You will grow
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: to love and respect each other. That's what the parent
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: shows the child.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: Possibly.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: And you said that's a good idea.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: I just think you're giving up on the idea of
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: romantic love then. Because.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: Adam, you have said... Compatibility doesn't work. Dating app doesn't work.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: Love at first sight, bad idea. Who's the anti-romantic in
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: this conversation? And I'm saying, F it. Just have your
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: parents set up.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: The whole thing.
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: So, how did you meet your wife, Kate?
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: A third party set us up.
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: Uh-huh.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: And were you forced to marry her?
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: No, I... No, there was... Listen, I had veto power
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: and I chose not to exercise it. It was, in
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: some sense... It was a contemporary version of an arranged marriage.
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: Look, I think there's a huge difference between a fixed
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: up and an arranged marriage.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: No.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: No.
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: We should all introduce people to others they might like.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: What's the huge difference?
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: What's the huge difference? In this case with my wife,
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: her best friend and my best friend were on a
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: plane together, started talking, and discovered that each had... a
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: close friend who was single, and said they should meet
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: each other. That sounds a lot like an arranged marriage
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: to me.
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: Okay, I mean, but I think this is semantics, because
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: if what you're calling an arranged marriage is saying to
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: people who know you well and care about.
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: You, do you know anyone that I should meet?
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: Are you saying a parent doesn't fit that category of
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: someone who knows you very well and cares about you?
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: Actually, no, I don't think your parents are the ideal
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: people to fix you up, just like your parents give
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: the worst career advice probably of anyone you know.
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: Did your parents.
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: Why? I'll tell you why. Wait, let's talk about this
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: for a second.
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: Because your parents anchor on when they chose their career,
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: which is usually 20 or 30 years ago. And the
• 48:25
  Speaker 4: knowledge they built about how to think about what is
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: a relevant occupation and how many years you should spend
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: in indentured servitude to your employer.
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: Is no longer relevant. And they haven't updated.
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: And I think the same is often true when it
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: comes to picking romantic partners. I think... Your parents are
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: likely caught up in the notions of what they were
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: looking for in a partner.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: And so they're going to impose their ideals on you.
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: Whereas your friends, your best allies, pals, and companions are
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: much more likely to be aligned with you on what
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: you're looking for in a partner.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: So take the parents out of it.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: Take the parents.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: And guess what?
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: Once the parents are out of the equation, you're not
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: going to feel pressure or a sense of obligation to
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: go along with your friend's wishes because Whereas you might
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: feel like you're letting your parents down if you don't
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: marry the person they chose for you.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: Did your parents think you should become a psychologist?
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: My mom told me not to apply to a PhD program.
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: And actually this is a case in point because she
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: was a teacher. She taught English and Spanish. and she
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: hated it and said, therefore teaching is not a good profession.
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: I'm like, first of all, I'm not you. And secondly,
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: the kind of teaching I want to do is very
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: different from what you did in middle and high schools.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: I have one last question. We are, believe it or not,
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: running out of time. Um, and I had all these
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: questions and we're not going to get to them, which
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: breaks my heart. You have a lovely chapter in the book.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: One of my favorites.
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: When you tell the story of how a principal goes
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: to a school that was kind of broken and not working.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: And one of the ways he solves it is by,
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: he divides up a school into houses and each house
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: has its own identity and the kids coalesce around these
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: identities and the school starts to function. Once he's divided.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: And you talk about that. It's Hogwarts, basically. It's Hogwarts.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: And how a contrived sense of identity is actually really useful.
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: Okay?
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: Do you agree with it?
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: It can be. I don't think it should be used.
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: Adam, yes or no, a contrived sense of identity can
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: be very useful.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Can.
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: Begrudgingly, yes.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: Much worse than a meaningful identity.
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: But go on.
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: You are, have been known, famously, as a massive critic
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: of astrology.
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: Well, that's because it's made up. There's no science to
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: support it whatsoever.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: That's because it's made up. You mean like the identity
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: of the houses that work so well? Yes. Yes.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: Adam.
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: Yes, and this is why it bothers me.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: It's the same thing. I know.
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: This is why people get duped by astrology.
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: No.
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: Wait a second.
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: It's an arbitrary identity that they cling to.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: You just have a whole chapter in your book on
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: the value of an arbitrary identity. And then there's a
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: whole system that people have to essentially create houses.
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: Oh, okay. I'm a Virgo.
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: You're so much better than this, Malcolm. This is so easy.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: It's so good.
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: This is so good. Can I tell you why?
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: I was so pleased with myself when I came up
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: with this today.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: A little too pleased with yourself, I think.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: I'm reading your thing about how each of these, the
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: school was divided into these houses, each of which had
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: this kind of arbitrary identity, and the kids coalesced around
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: the arbitrary, and it made huge sense to them, and
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: they were suddenly happy. I was like, this is astrology.
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: No.
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: What is Virgo? I'm a Virgo.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: Of course.
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: Here is where.
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: You committed a major logical fallacy.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: What's my logical fallacy?
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: Major logical fallacy.
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: So in the house system at Goleta Valley, what they
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: do is they're basically, they're not sorted like the sorting hat.
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: It's the opposite. So they're kind of.
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: Arbitrarily grouped together and they have to figure out what
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: do we want our house to stand for? What do
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: we want our house flag to be? What do we
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: want our house cheer to be? They are choosing values
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: and building an identity. Whereas with astrology, what people are
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: doing is they are buying into a fiction that they
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: The position of the sun and the moon and the
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: planets on the day they happen to be born has
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: a lifelong impact on their personality and what they're going
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: to be like and who they're compatible with. And that
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: has been empirically falsified so many times that it's embarrassing
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: that astrology even exists. No.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: Adam, I'm not saying that astrology is real.
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: Good.
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: But it is useful in exactly the same way that you're.
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: It is, but that's why it's dangerous.
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: Because people can be drawn to contrived identities and then
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: they can attach real meaning to them.
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: And that's why I don't want- It's.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: Not real meaning. It's just a way for people to
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: sense me.
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: Oh, Malcolm, have you not met people who say, I
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: will only date Leos or Capricorns? Have you not seen
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: the data in China where empirically, this is Jackson Liu's research,
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: seven studies. It turns out that people, if they find
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: out your sign in China- interviewers are less.
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: Likely to hire you if you're a Virgo.
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: If you're a Virgo?
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: Yes. That's me.
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: No, no. You're stigmatized. They stereotype.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: Adam, can I just point out something?
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, go for it.
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: Can I just point out something? So some people believe
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: that they're not going to date someone who is a
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: particular sign.
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: Yes, that's discrimination, which you are against.
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: We've just spent 20 minutes talking about how all the
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: rules we use for deciding who to date are broken.
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: So it's just another broken rule.
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: What's the.
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: Oh, because we're systematically depriving the Virgos of jobs and dates.
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, don't you want to be employed? Don't you
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: want to have found a wife?
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: I have somehow found a way to surmount my Virgo-ness, apparently.
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: You are licensing discrimination.
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: And I get, look, I get that some people just
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: do astrology for fun, but it is a multi-billion dollar
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: industry selling people lies, and I think that's morally wrong.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: What I'm saying is that artificial intelligence They give people
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: a kind of temporary and trivial, but nonetheless important sense
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: of belonging.
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: Fully agree.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: And if, so what if it's bogus? The houses in
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: that school that you described that the principal creates to
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: bring some sense of community to the school, those are bogus,
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: but they work on some level.
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: I think it's a slippery slope from believing one false
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: thing to believing other false things. So I'm sorry if
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: there are any astrology fans who have not walked out yet.
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: But there is evidence that people who are duped by
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: astrology are more likely to believe in outlandish conspiracy theories too.
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: like that the moon landing was faked, that 9-11 was
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: an inside job. And how do we get into the
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: polarized world that we live in now, where people are
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: extremely skeptical of validated information, and meanwhile extremely gullible about nonsense?
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: We got there because we don't have standards of critical
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: thinking anymore.
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: And isn't that a dangerous thing?
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: I thought I had you. But I feel like you
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: kind of wiggle away in a way that was.
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: Here's how I wanted to end. I discussed earlier my
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: father's nerdiness. And one of my favorite chapters of the
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: book is you talk about the importance in social gatherings
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: of some kind of organizing principle, games, some of interventions...
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: in the way people socialize in order to give the
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: event some kind of meaning. And I wanted to tell
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: a little story about my dad, which I thought bears
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: on this so beautifully because this totally hit home. We
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: lived growing up in a house with a, we had
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: an enormous backyard, probably 150 yards. And it was lined
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: on both sides by mature poplar trees. And then all
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: kinds of trees in the middle. The task of raking
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: the leaves every fall was Herculean. And my father, who
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: was inert, but a very clever nerd, went to his
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: graduate students. He said, I'm going to have a party
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: at my house called the leaf raking party. And then
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: the first year, like five guys came, raked leaves, and
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: then he had a dinner and then they played party
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: games of the sort that mathematics PhD students would like.
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: The next year, 15 people came. The next year, 40
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: people came. The next year, people who had got their
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: PhDs drove like hundreds of miles to come. And by
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: the end of the leaf raking party, by the end,
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: before we moved out of the house, it was literally
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: like a hundred people from, we had like, I remember
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: it was like 25 nationalities. People would like, it was
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: this kind of joyous event and no one cared that
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: they were raking our leaves.
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: They didn't.
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: They thought it was.
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: I'm stuck on the free labor. No, no, no.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: And I think what makes it work was, and this
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: is why I thought that chapter was so beautiful. Your
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: immediate sense of that was, oh, it's a cynical act.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: He's outsourcing labor to his grad students. But if you
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: knew my father, you knew that was the furthest thing
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: from his mind. He understood what you understood, which was,
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: this is going to be way more fun if we
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: do it together. A little outdoor physical labor is great.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: These are PhD students who are in their room all day.
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: And then we're going to have a fantastic dinner. And
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: then we're going to play the nerdiest, most complex party
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: games known to. And that the only reason he had
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: that insight into how to create enduring connection with these
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: people was that he was a nerd. That it was
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: inconceivable for him just to have a party and invite
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: people and have them mill around and talk. He wouldn't
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: have known what to do. He had to contrive this
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: elaborate thing. And that was the beauty of it. And
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: my point is, and this is why I love this
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: book so much and why I love your nerdiness so much.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: The nerds in compensating for their nerdiness make the world
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: a beautiful place.
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: Oh, I love that. I love that.
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: And I.
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: Think that's true.
• 58:24
  Speaker 4: And I do think it's compensation because oftentimes having been
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: excluded growing up or bullied growing up, It gives you
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: deep empathy for what it must feel like for others
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: to be left out. And I remember coming out of
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: that experience thinking, I never want to see someone left
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: out of a circle. I never want to see someone
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: who doesn't have a friend. To the point where in college,
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: I hated going to parties because they were loud and drunken.
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: And as an introvert who was shy.
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: I just... make a beeline to a corner to find
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: somebody I could pair off with and talk to. And
• 58:58
  Speaker 4: at the end of the event, I just would feel
• 59:00
  Speaker 4: drained for a week. So I convinced my roommates we
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: should host what we called people overs. And we just
• 59:07
  Speaker 4: played the nerdiest board games ever. Anagrams, Cranium, if you
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: haven't played. And it was so much fun. And it actually,
• 59:14
  Speaker 4: I think it caused some people to leave their fraternities
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: because they liked our social dynamic better.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, the magnificent Adam Grant, who has written
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: a lovely book. Thank you all.
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: Rethinking is hosted by me, Adam Grant. The show is
• 59:37
  Speaker 4: produced by TED with Cosmic Standards. Our producer is Jessica Glazer.
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: Our editor is Alejandra Salazar. Our engineer is Asia Pilar Simpson.
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: Our technical director is Jacob Winnick. And our fact checker
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: is Paul Durbin. Our team includes Eliza Smith, Roxanne Heilash,
• 59:52
  Speaker 4: Ben Ben Chang, Julia Dickerson, Tansika Sungmanivong, and Whitney Pennington-Rogers.
• 59:58
  Speaker 4: Original music by Hans Dale Sue and Alison Leighton Brown.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: Should we try to simulate an interaction? Yeah. Okay.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: Go first.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: Oh, hi. Hi, my name's Adam.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: Sorry, I totally missed that.