Transcript of Angela Duckworth #3 (on bringing out your best)

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert. Oh my Lord, top 10 favorite guests returning. I love when she's here. She's so fun to talk to. You can hit her with any topic and she has data on it. Angela Duckworth. Angela is a psychologist, a MacArthur Fellow, and a bestselling author of, of course, Grit. She is the Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Her new book Which is a fun counterpiece to Grit.

Yes.

I love this book so much. It's called Situated: Find the People and Places That Bring Out Your Best. Please enjoy our friend Angela Duckworth.

I'm getting comfortable.

I'm gonna check my audio, actually.

I think it's just 'cause we're small. How tall are you?

I'm 5 feet and a half inch.

I am 5'1. My God, I'm taller than you.

You're taller than me.

Now, can we quickly— Yeah. Since you're both barefoot, once you achieve that goal.

Yeah.

I want you guys to stand back to back because I do think it's interesting what they think their height is. And I have found that I think when you get your license.

Yeah.

Whatever the tallest you ever were when you got your license, you just kind of cement that in your brain. Forever? Yeah.

And then it may no longer be—

No longer be slash it might've not have been a very accurate, right? I'm meeting guys all the time that are like, I'm this height. And I'm like, well, either I'm completely wrong or you're wrong.

No, I think it's because men really wanna be tall. So I think they do a little padding.

This is, there's a gender difference.

You don't think the 5-footer, like if you're 4'11.5, you're saying 5. I think girls do it too.

I think that's true.

Not as bad. Not as bad.

I don't think it's as much of an epidemic.

Yeah.

But also I've measured myself many times because I also, She has a huge brag.

This is a half.

Exactly. It's a brag 'cause my wingspan is also exactly 5 feet and a half inch. It's supposed to match.

You're like a Leonardo da Vinci.

I am.

I can't remember the name of that drawing. It's in my book.

Yeah, the—

Vesuvius Man.

Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.

So you'd be a Vesuvius Woman.

Yeah.

But you don't have scoliosis, so I just want you to know I'm a 5'4 person in a 5'1 body.

Oh, ow.

Yeah. But I just want you to know that I am a 5'4 person.

Okay.

You can interview me as a 5'4 person.

I think I'm a 6-foot person in a 5-foot body.

But not because of scoliosis.

No, just the way I'm made.

Just because, just spiritually.

Do you know who has savage scoliosis?

Who?

Usain Bolt.

Did you ever have Usain Bolt on?

No, I would love to.

He doesn't do any interviews, does he?

And I've never heard of him.

Maybe if we went to Jamaica. I think he's in Jamaica.

He'd be a great interview.

Of course.

Yeah.

Yeah. I would love it even if he didn't talk. I would just stare at him.

Yeah. I mean, my God.

on what it was like to have Brad Pitt, but he was like, but then he was Brad Pitt. And I never got the answer to, okay, is he as drop-dead gorgeous in person?

Yeah, he's beautiful.

Let's let Monica evaluate all those things.

He's beautiful. He's sweet. Like, he's very nice. He's engaging.

Playful.

Yeah, I love him.

Super present.

Very present.

Candid. I love him too.

I mean, don't we all?

To be human is to love him. That's how we will eventually test AI for their humanness.

The Brad Pitt test?

Yeah, like rank Brad Pitt against—

What would you do to be Brad Pitt? in the same room as Brad Pitt.

He's like the biggest test. They'll never get it.

You know, this is selfish probably, but I do judge a lot, especially men, on how much they interact with me. Like, oh right, they're looking at me.

As opposed to him?

Just, yeah, just straight onto him and not really engaging with me at all.

But not cuz you're a female, just cuz you're the other person then.

Cuz I'm the other person. Exactly. But women almost always engage with me. Oh, so for me, I'm always paying.

I was like, where's the gender thing come in? Go on, go on.

That's great. This is so fun to talk about because I rarely get judgmental of the men. Part of me is just like, I at least see the history, right? It's just like, oh yeah, you're a dude. You don't know either of us, but I'm a man. I'm talking a lot. I'm tall. I'm gonna, you know.

Yeah.

He's identified me as having status in the room. Whatever weird shit's going on.

I was gonna say status. I was gonna say like, let's say that too.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's good. I am a little judgy. Occasionally we get women in who never look at Monica and those, I'm more curious about those people.

And you're like minus 7.

But are they experts?

I just found out that this is an expert interview. Obviously, I'm not a celebrity, but I didn't know the rhythm. I didn't know that there were like— but now I do.

I'm a little hurt by that, to be honest with you.

How could you not know that?

I don't listen to podcasts.

Wait, do you listen to podcasts?

Yeah, Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History.

You do?

Oh my God, I love it more than anything.

Minus 1 for not listening to podcasts. I don't listen to any podcasts.

That's fine. That's fair. That's fair.

If you start, just, it needs to be—

I'm gonna start here.

But here's the grass is always greener. So Ed Norton, Edward Norton's big complaint I don't know how many times we've had him on. Maybe 3 or 4 times.

3.

And we're friends and he's constantly like, I wanna be— what color do we do? Green.

Oh, he wants to be an X-Files.

He's like, I wanna be a green. 'Cause the celebrities are yellow. Wednesday. It's just to keep it in the timeline.

He wants to be green. Yeah.

He's like dying to be green.

Well, guess what?

He was green this last time.

He was green.

Can't he just be green on acting?

Yeah.

Well, he was last time he was here. We had him green just 'cause we also had Olivia Wilde on and it was the week of that movie. So she got yellow.

Yellow or green?

But he wanted yellow. And then the experts are mad they're not yellow, you know, certain—

He is green, though. He has so much knowledge on everything, not just acting. He's, like, very, very knowledgeable. So I understand why he wants to be seen as yellow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's the polymath squared.

He is.

Have you ever met him or talked to him?

I have never met him. I have watched him.

I'm sure he would love to meet you.

I like him.

Yes.

I like his work, as they say.

I bet he knows your work.

Mm-hmm.

You think? What is he interested in? He's interested in human behavior?

Everything. Are you asking him?

I'm gonna ask him.

Yeah.

Now, if he says no, you need to stop.

I'll say you didn't respond.

Yeah.

Do you know who Angela Duckworth is?

God, this is like some kind of psychological test.

It is!

For me. It's a psychological test for me.

By the way, we're in an experiment right now. Did we not have design waivers?

Yeah, I decided to consent for it. By the way, can I just thank you for reading my book?

Of course.

Thank you for reading my book.

Of course.

Anyway, thank you for reading my book.

I put a blurb in your fucking book. Of course I did.

And I think I'm the second one that you've done, right?

In general, let me tell you, because this will be fun for you. I think I've been asked many times and they always ask you to do a blurb for their book and you haven't read it, right? They ask you before you've read it. And I think it's a very awkward thing to be asked because it's like, well, I haven't read it. I don't know if I want to endorse this. Then what I would have to do ethically is say, well, maybe let me read the book. I don't want to endorse something I don't like.

I see what you're saying. You're like, please. And by the way, here, I've written it for you and you haven't even read the book.

Exactly. And then even worse, I go, well, I would need to read it so that I really believe the thing. And then they give it to me and I don't like it. And then I have to call them and say, you know, I don't like it, so I don't want to give a quote.

Right.

This is a testament to how confident I was in you that I was like, yeah, I probably will. Let me read it. Normally I don't want to deal with that situation where if I read it, I don't like it.

Here's a story. A young woman author who shall remain nameless sent me an email maybe 15 years ago that said, I wrote this book and I'd like you to endorse it. And I've written the endorsement for you, which you can edit or not. Right. And it did have an attachment, which was the book. So it wasn't like, I'll never show you the book. But I was on that day, in that moment in my life, deeply offended. I wrote back, I didn't swear or anything, but I was like, you know, who are you? Like, I was indignant. I expressed it.

Oh, wow. Did you know who this person was?

She was like an acquaintance.

Okay.

Right. She was like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. But I will tell you, it has haunted me for all those years. And like a year ago, I was reading this novel called The Correspondent.

Stop!

Love it. Yeah, love it. Did it crush you?

Like, no, everyone's obsessed with it.

Did you read it?

No, I haven't.

Okay, that is in your future.

Yeah, you have to read it.

It's all told in letters, so it's all epistles. Like, there's no narrative, there's just letters that you read, like, one after the other. It's correspondence, and it's mostly the correspondence of the It's a novel, so it's fiction. Anyway, in the novel, there is this kind of, like, reckoning with your sins. And so that episode where perhaps that young author was, like, out of step, because, like, who asks somebody to, like, oh, and here's the blurb, right? But you know who was more out of step? I was out of step because I was so mean. I was like, oh, she was devastated. So I reached out to her. Like, I found her. I was like, she's no longer here, but now she's there, and I found her.

Oh, my God.

And I said, do you remember all these many years ago when you reached out for an endorsement and I was deeply offended? I was like, here's what I wanna say. Who am I to be deeply offended? Somebody told you that you should do this and I'm really sorry.

Wow. That's great.

Nice.

She wrote me back in about 6 milliseconds. She was like, oh my God, thank you so much.

And is this the author of Correspondence?

It is not the author.

Oh, but just the fact that—

wouldn't that be great closure? Glad I didn't write you. That's what I thought this was going.

I was like, it's Virginia Evans.

I wish it were like, actually, I don't think she would've done this. And also, The Correspondent was, I think, her first book. So she couldn't have done this 'cause it was like 15 years ago. So that'd be before she wrote a book. And I can't remember the exact narrative detail, but it's like a little bit of a redemption story. And I remember in the narrative, and maybe I'm misremembering, that there was like a letter of like kind of confession. And so this was like my letter of confession to this stranger. By the way, she's lovely. I'm not gonna tell you who she is, but she's great.

Has she found success?

She's been successful.

Oh, great.

She wrote another book.

Oh, great.

She did not ask me to endorse it.

Great.

I wonder why. If she writes a third book, she could ask me and I'd be like, yeah, before I read it.

It's funny that you were offended.

Would you not be offended?

The part that offended you, Rae, is that she pre-wrote your blurb, right? Is that what was offensive?

I was offended that she pre-wrote it. Yeah. But, but as I said, I was wrong to be that offended. I should have been like offended like 1 out of 10. I was somehow like offended 9 out of 10.

She might have thought, I'll take the load off you.

Yeah.

She thought she was doing you a favor. 100%.

Like, I was the total jerk who was like, yeah, that's why it haunted me for so many years. I can't believe it took me 15 years to like write her a— well, good for you.

And now a public apology.

Not the same. And now a public apology if she's listening.

I think good for you. What if we've had her on the show? That'd be cool.

I'm not going to tell you because that would be de-anonymized.

Yeah. So it's been 10 years between roughly, yeah, Grit and Situated.

Exactly 10.

Exactly 10.

Exactly.

That's auspicious.

It's a round number.

I think what's most fun is how you come to write this book. And I'm referencing the graduate student that reached out to you. Could you tell us that story?

I got a critique by a graduate student named Anindya. He was not my student. He was a student at NYU. And he was pursuing sociology. I'm a psychologist, he was a budding sociologist. I was looking at the person, he was looking at the situation. As a budding sociologist, Anindya said, you're blaming, effectively, people for not being successful because they don't have grit, 'cause they're not trying hard, and you're ignoring the situations they're in. Whatever defensive reaction that I had, I did say, I'm curious, tell me more. And then he told me more. And I don't know very much about sociology, but I think what he was saying is, Correct. Which is that when you don't think about a person in their situation as sort of two parts of a whole, then you lay blame at their feet undeservedly. And, you know, he was studying essentially people moving from lower socioeconomic status to higher socioeconomic status. And I think he was absolutely correct to point that out. I have an email from him, like, yesterday asking— he's like, I got tenure, but I still might need a letter of recommendation. If that is true, ever is the answer yes.

And I said, if that is true ever, the answer is always yes.

Yeah, that's lovely.

So we ended up collaborating in— I don't know if it's collaboration, just staying in touch.

Yeah.

James Flynn, who's a psychologist, was a psychologist, said that every great psychologist eventually becomes a sociologist because eventually you figure out that you can't understand human behavior unless you think about the situation.

Well, again, it's a very alluring and tempting endeavor to parse out everything into tiny little compartments, and we'll study these things in silos.

Right.

And it's easier to manage. but what you really lose sight of is that nothing is unrelated to the other thing, right? It's an enormous soup. So the notion that you could even say one piece of it is what percentage of the person, or nature versus nurture— all these binary boxes are for our convenience. They're not real.

Right. And we have these little brains, honestly, right? And we're flesh and blood, so we have limits. But it's, like, so deep and so profound. You know, your camera has portrait mode, and everyone looks great in portrait mode. They look better, right? Because You come in in this, like, high definition, and then in portrait mode, the background is suppressed, gently blurred. And it turns out, like, that is how the human brain works. You always focus on the person. You know, you want to talk about Michael Phelps. You don't think, like, where did he live? How close was the pool? Who was on the team? Tell me more about the assistant coach.

Who were his parents?

Who were his parents? Like, what did they do? I mean, you might eventually get there.

Bill Gates, he goes to the only private school in America that has its own mainframe. In a time where people are paying exorbitant amounts to be on a computer for a half hour, he had unlimited access.

Right.

He's Bill Gates, but also he needs that thing.

And by the way, a great headmaster. I think I know that school. Is it California or—

Washington.

In Washington. It's like an elite private school.

Yeah, but very special, like the right ethos, I think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And if I'm recalling the right conversation, the headmaster of the school that Bill Gates went to said that the job of adults is to watch with hawk-like concentration, but with childlike curiosity, what a young person is doing. To see a little girl, like, twirling around being like, how about gymnastics? So he was in a situation— I think the profundity of that, that we go through life and we You don't wanna know who Dax Shepard is. When people Google you, they want to know about you. But the Googling is usually not like, tell me about everyone and everything around him. That thing that he did on Tuesday, I wanna know why he did it because of what was going on. Usually they wanna know why you did what you did on Tuesday because of you. It is because of you, but it's both.

But nothing's really because of you.

Nothing's only because of you. Yeah. Nothing's only because of you.

Also, we have this proclivity. I've been very aware of it lately, which is, Any character defect we have, any shittiness we have, we have an explanation that will originate in our childhood.

Yes.

Well, my father went bankrupt 12 times.

Yeah. I was traumatized when I was 5.

Yes. And that's why I'm hypervigilant and I overreact to this.

Yeah.

Now, everything great about me, I figured out how to do.

Right.

You don't never hear someone blaming any of their positive stuff on their context or their parents or anything.

Yeah.

But all the bad shit has a really clear explanation.

Right. That's all too late.

So that's convenient. The whole thing is all equal. What I would say is, Everything is both.

And yeah, we can edit out the situational details for our victories, but we shouldn't. The profundity, it's like almost philosophical. It's like, oh yeah, and so therefore, if I want to succeed, I need to be in places and with people who will make me successful. Okay, sure. But I do think it's deeper than that, because when you're in a relationship with somebody and you understand them as everything they do, say, feel, it is a function of who that person is, their character, their mindset. but it's also a function of, like, literally every trivial detail of their situation. It's like a figure-ground shift. And if you can keep it— because again, I think our brain goes into portrait mode, and it's like, okay, wait, back to Dax and his story. You know, if you can keep the backstory somehow in focus, then it is a more human and complete way to understand people. You know, in some ways, like, these 2 books, right, 10 years apart, they are a set. I mean, one is about the inside game of how to not necessarily be only one self, because I— as you know, don't believe in oneself.

But I do believe that there are some selves we like more than others. And there is an inside game of, like, how to think. And the Buddhists actually have a lot to say about, like, how to think about the world, how to think about your goals. And there is an outside game. And this second book is about that outside game. It's like, okay, now I'm gonna look around me. I'm not gonna look inner. I'm gonna look outer. I'm gonna audit.

Situational agency, which is this great concept you present.

It can't be a trilogy because that's inside and outside. There's, like, nothing— well, that's kind of it.

I'm going to come up with another.

Yeah, try to.

As much as I have enjoyed your previous work, I enjoy them for the way you construct them. I enjoy them for the anecdotes that are included. But you may or may not remember, my criticism of you has constantly been in the Kahneman narrative self versus experiential self. I think you're way too heavy-handed with the narrative self, and I don't think you should be giving people tools necessarily to try to achieve all this greatness.

Why?

Because I don't think there's anything there when you reach it. Oh, you don't like it? I think it's a complete— it's a fool's errand. It's a fool's errand.

Like, I can get you there faster, but you'll get to nowhere.

Guess what? Yeah. As soon as you become the CEO, guess what? You're gonna be fucking miserable. Let me just break it down for you. I've met 'em all. They're miserable.

Okay.

I know all the billionaires.

But I have a theory of happiness and I don't think you're gonna disagree, but maybe you will actually. Right? So here's the thing about happiness. I wanna say that you're right, that when you arrive at the destination of CEO or you arrive at the destination of like tenured professor, or you arrive at the destination of like famous celebrity or, author.

Name it.

Whatever, right? Like, it's hard to say it loud enough. This is not happiness. You don't get there and feel happy. But here's why I think that is as a psychologist. We have emotions. The emotions are positive when we are approaching our goal, not when we have arrived, and not when we arrived 5 minutes ago or 5 years ago, right? We're almost there. We're getting there. That's happiness. So then you could say, well, what's the prescriptive recommendation then? So if upon arrival you're disappointed, I don't know any other way to Look, why are you doing this?

Although I agree with you that that sweet spot is like where it's, oh my God, I'm gonna touch it.

Yeah, exactly. Right.

If you could live there, that would be delightful. I don't think one can live there.

No.

I think the other way to happiness is to actually enjoy the process.

Correct.

And that is my life mission.

That is what I wanna say. But you know what? The process includes having a goal. So that's where I think we violently agree, right?

Well, no, I don't, I don't agree.

You don't think the process has to have a goal? How else do you do it if you don't have a goal?

I happen to live with an example. Now, I'm not that way at all. I'm goal-oriented.

You don't have any? Okay.

Okay. I'm very goal-oriented.

We didn't give like a counterexample to you.

The one anomaly in that goal-oriented life is this show. We had no fucking goal other than we wanted to chat with people cuz we enjoyed chatting.

That's a goal.

That's process. I enjoy the activity. We didn't think it would make any money. We didn't think it would be huge. We enjoyed talking to people.

So we started talking. Do you have any goals?

And I wanna— Yes. It's changed so much. It started, Like that. But with success came a lot of other stuff, came a lot of other goals.

Distractions, I would say. I think we've had to keep finding our way back.

But you know what I think? I think this is a goal. I just took some—

Mm, yeah. Did it feel best right before it hit your lips?

Sure, yeah.

The dopamine was released.

Yeah, now I've already had this. Okay, you know what a goal is? A goal is a desired state of the world. If you wanna tell me that for this podcast, it could be anything and you'd still love it, then I would concede some real estate here. But there are episodes that you like more than others, and you have goals. You have a desired state of armchair expert. And therefore, to me, that's a goal. That's ambition. It's not like a certain number of listeners. It's not necessarily an external validation.

Already we're structuring it as binary, and that's already where we're fucked up. So it's not like you do have a goal or you don't have a goal. It's this spectrum of how goal-driven you are and how process-driven you are. And you're trying to slide this thing to where you have peace, right? And for me, peace is when I'm far further on the spectrum that's about process. You cannot be devoid of goal. That's not what I'm suggesting.

Right. That's the only thing I wanted to say. Like, because the process is the, you know, the journey is the destination, but without a destination, there's no journey. That's the only thing, right? Maybe it's trivial to say that.

Again, I think we should reject that it's one or the other. I think it's just like this long spectrum. Even my criticism of your stuff sometimes has been like, it's too heavily on the side of the spectrum of like, get the 4.0, get into the school, fucking win the tournament. Because guess what? You're writing about all the examples you have in your book. They're so fun. They're great. They're the people who reach their goals and they've left out the 99% of competitors that did all that stuff and they didn't get to those schools. So is that trash?

Okay, let me process this because I think, I think a glib response is like not a great response. Let me say back what you're saying and make sure I understand it. You're like, love the work, And slash but.

This isn't new. I said this to you last time.

I have a terrible memory.

That's okay.

I got a good one. But now it's reminded me. So what you're saying is, in your own experience too, right, as somebody who has achieved some things and maybe this surprise, whatever, you're not saying that, you know, human beings ought not have goals, but you're saying that when you spend all of your energy and when you put all of your chips on the goal mark, and then you're not putting any of your attention, your energy, hanging your hopes on the process, right? How'd it feel? Like, did you have fun today? How was that for you? That's a mistake. That's what you're saying, right? And when you, like, anoint the Michael Phelps's and you say, like, 28, you know, Olympic medals—

Yeah, those are so inspiring.

Yeah. But you're like, maybe you missed the most important part of the story, which is the process.

If you are suffering to get to the goal, and then guess what? The goal upon achievement doesn't feel like it should. I say that's a bad fucking strategy in life.

You know, I'm trying to curse less.

Okay.

It's not helping 'cause you're in my situation right now. And wow, I am gonna do drop the F-bomb.

Yeah, yeah, you're invited to.

Probably you're okay to drop the F-bomb with. I don't know, I'm trying to be more like PG.

Why?

No.

For what goal?

I don't want to offend.

Nobody that listens to this show is offended by swear words. They could have never gotten this far.

Yeah, that's true. They're not listening. All right. I don't know Michael Phelps, by the way. I wrote about Michael Phelps because I interviewed his coach and I studied his mom because I wanted to study his situation, right? I knew Michael Phelps was gritty. There's no better poster boy for grit than somebody who swims 365 days a year for 20 years. But I wanted to write about a situation. I want to use Michael Phelps and what little I know about his journey, which has not been a linear trajectory necessarily. Like, yes, all the medals, but as you know—

Massive depression, by the way, following it all.

Depression, substance use, right? Mental health issues. These are all public things, right? As I told you, I didn't interview him, so I only have public knowledge. He retired, as you know, probably know. And then he unretired. And he unretired before his last Olympics. And this I know from just talking to Bob Bowman, right? So again, studying the situations of successful people. So Bob is his second father, right? So Bob gets this text message or whatever, Michael wants to go out to dinner. He's like, okay, something's coming. Because Michael had retired.

Yeah.

Right? So Bob was coaching swimming, but he wasn't coaching Michael Phelps. In that conversation where Michael told him that he wanted to unretire, Bob's account is that he had come to a reckoning of why he wanted to swim, and he had come to a different understanding of the goals. By the way, he still wanted to win gold.

If he's gonna do it, he wants to be the fastest in the water.

I guess to your point, it was a shift in the motivation. And I do think— I can't put words in his mouth. I can't say, like, he had a shift to the process versus the goal itself. That would be silly because I'm not Michael Phelps and I can't guess. But I know what you mean. As somebody who's had some success in her own field too, I know what you mean about, you know, you get to Xanadu and there's no paradise. And the reason I think goals are important, and you're right to, like, single out on Michael Phelps, then it does sort of at least imply that the reason why this person is noteworthy is because they got the goal and not because of the process.

We're not horny for process.

We are not horny for process. I can say horny, by the way. That's on my list of approved words. So there's this professor named Dashaun Wong at Northwestern, and he got really obsessed with 4th-placers finishers at the Olympics. And he had this hypothesis that when you're in 4th place, it gives you a lot of, like, motivational kick. And, like, if you place 4th, you get nothing. If you place 3rd, you're on the podium. The 3rd place winners are like, oh my God, I'm on the podium!

Almost didn't get here!

The silver medalists are like, God, I was, like, so close to gold. But his question was not about the 3rd place br— he was like, what happens when you place 4th? And so he was really obsessed with it. And basically, I'll tell you his finding, but that's not the point. The finding is that the 4th place finishers actually do better than the third-place finishers as, like, future unfolds. But the thing that I wanna say is he couldn't find the footage.

Who was fourth?

He had to do a lot of research. I mean, he had to do a lot of work. So if you're not gonna study Michael Phelps as a case study of someone who had a lot of grit but also had a great situation, say you wanna study the fourth-place finisher in the 400 IM in the 2024 Olympics. You can hunt 'em down. You can, like, research them. I think you're right that If you only focus on the goal, you're chasing the morning dew, 'cause when you get there, it'll be gone. But also, I think human beings will always chase goals. 4-year-olds will always make sandcastles. When I said, like, I think this is a goal, I have a desired future state that is to, like, raise this to my lips. That's a goal. Maybe it's so deep in my DNA that I can't get it out, is that I think people are ambitious. Even though you know that when you get to a certain rung in the ladder, it's not like anything changes. But we're always on a ladder. It's just the nature of human nature to be on a ladder.

I don't think enjoying the process can happen unless you've achieved the goal. You have to have done that first.

Or the closing in on it.

This is like chronological, right? Like, first you get the goal, then you realize, oh, it didn't really do the thing. Then you go back, and then you're like, okay. Exactly the Michael Phelps thing you're saying is he did it, he got it, and then after he's like, oh, I don't think this shortcut—

I'm gonna swim the pure way. But you're sort of like, he had to go through that almost rite of passage.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay. I started it and I didn't finish it. So I admitted that I am very goal-oriented. I'm like you. And if I wasn't forced to live with someone who happens to be an example, I don't think I would believe it existed. I am a lucky product of this unique situation where I was in, which is she never tried to get famous. She never tried to make a lot of money. She started singing, and she has an obsession that she knows— she thinks she can make this noise, and she worked at it endlessly, and then she got it, and she's a mimic. And then the place she could go do that was in this singing musical theater thing. And she loved being around all the people, and she's just really good at it. And she really just ended up in all these places without ever setting out to be in them. And it was through loving the process of the things she does. And so I've witnessed it, and I know it exists. And I think if I didn't live with her, I would reject that it exists.

You'd be like, I don't believe that. I don't buy it. That's a fairy.

I'm telling you, I don't believe it.

Also, there's nothing worse than having no goals. I think you would agree.

Yes. Like a state of apathy.

A state of apathy. It's just like existential angst. Like, ennui. I don't know where I'm going. Having a port of destination is a hell of a lot better than being like, I have no idea.

I'm adrift. Adrift is a pejorative.

Adrift. Yeah, adrift. Like, yeah.

We agree.

Adrift is negative, right? Don't use that as a positive word. Okay. We'd agree to that. Whatever level of commitment or however tightly you wanna hang on to, like, this goal, this particular Or even if you say, I'm really all about process, right? I love how singing makes me feel, so I'm gonna do it. And I'm not even quote-unquote gonna see what happens. I'm literally just gonna, like, do it.

Yeah, I'm gonna keep doing it.

I still contend that the situation you're in is important because I don't know that everybody who is process-oriented is equally happy, right?

Sure.

So regardless of where you fall on this, as you say, continuum, right, of how goal-directed am I versus how process-directed I am, I think to me, the reason why I nearly killed myself to write another book, and the reason I say to you, like, I don't think there's another, is this is the missing piece. And you know what, Dax? I wouldn't have written this book if somebody else had written it. I was hoping somebody else had for a general audience because—

You don't like the process of writing a book.

It was not the funnest thing to do.

Yeah, yeah.

It was harrowing, and I don't think I'm gonna live as long because of the years I shaved off my life But you know the reason why I don't think there's a book about this is that the inside game, like, oh, you know, your mindset, I think it's more accessible. This is exactly what we don't think about. We are not aware of the water we're swimming in. We're just only aware of how hard we're swimming. So whether you're process-oriented primarily or goal-oriented primarily, or however you want to think about that, I think you arrive to the same conclusion. At least I do. And you should be aware of where you are. I mean, you are married to somebody— you probably can't even imagine what it's like not to be, but sounds like a great fucking situation, right?

The only way I would learn some of the things I've learned is being forced to witness someone live that way.

Just to know that, like, there is another Dax. Like, you know, Dax has many selves, but the Dax that you are in this relationship sounds— I mean, it's so silly to be talking to you about your many selves because you're here and you could speak to yourselves. I could speak to myself, like Angela Duckworth, in this situation. I often have said that the universe rolls out its carpet for me. I'm extremely fortunate. But if you say, oh, you've had some success, which I'm fine, I don't have to be falsely humble, but I can tell you some of it was because I am an incredibly hard worker.

Yeah.

And a lot of it is that I have been mentored more than anybody I know. I get to work with really, honestly, the very best people in my business. Yeah.

You're like a writer at The New Yorker.

Yes, exactly.

You go down the hall to bounce an idea off somebody and they might be like, yeah.

And then you see the writing product, and then there's a byline. All I want to say is that when people sign the bylines of their life narratives, and there's one line, and then you write your name on the COVID of the book, and you put your name on your CV, it's really you and your situation. Some of us have better situations. So, I've had an incredible situation. But I think if you don't pause and say, like, everything that Dax is, is partly because he's married to Kristen. Like, you know, it's because he's working with Monica.

Yeah.

He has this producer. It's just that this silhouette that we want to cut out— When I was little, well, not that little, but teenage little, I would draw apples. Like, I had this obsession with painting apples, and I would always paint the apple on a white background, partly 'cause I never got to understand how to paint background, which is its own skill. But I have now dozens of these old watercolor paintings of apples, and the apples are great, But here's what I would say about this if I could, you know, go back to my, like, 18-year-old self. It's fine to only paint apples on a white background. Many paintings are like that. But if you see life and you see cutouts of people and you're not factoring in the situation, I just think you misunderstand. Like, why is that person doing this? Tell me more about this person, and tell me more about everyone and everything around them. That's the only question I would want to get asked.

Right. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. We are supported by Allstate. Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. Not checking your teeth before walking into a meeting? You smiled at 6 people in the hallway confidently, full teeth. You felt great about it until you caught your reflection and realized you'd been carrying a piece of spinach like an accessory since lunch. Yeah, checking first is a good idea. So check Allstate first for an auto quote. It could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings vary subject to terms, conditions, and availability. Allstate North American Insurance Company and affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois. I want to go through part by part now.

Okay.

Grit had a very psychological point of view.

Yes.

Psychology.

Very interior point of view.

Human-centric. Right. And then through this conversation, you start broadening your Field that you're willing to consider that, yes, sociology—

I'm, like, opening the aperture. I'm, like, listening to the sociologist who says, like, do this.

And we start the book with a story about you and your mom.

Yeah.

Will you tell us that story? I think there's a reason you started it with that.

So, 5 or so years ago, I'm in the Atlantic Ocean with my mom. Why is that? We're snorkeling. Who takes their 86-year-old mother snorkeling in the Atlantic? In retrospect, and the moment I hit the water, I realized that was the really the worst decision I had ever made. So I put my mom in a losing situation, which is like, we were in the Atlantic Ocean. We were not off the shore a little bit. We had taken a 45-minute boat ride.

No way.

You were on an island originally?

We were in Miami, then we left Miami, and then we like just went and went into the Atlantic for 45 minutes. So yeah, we could see land, but 45 minutes by boat is like, you are not swimming to shore. The winds are whipping that day. The current is heaving. The reason I knew that this was a tragic situation is that I could barely keep up, basically, if you don't fight the current, you're getting swept behind the boat in the wrong direction of where you're supposed to be snorkeling. So my mom basically aspirates, so she inhales water, I think in whatever panic.

Salt water.

So both lungs. And, you know, the thing is, you just rapidly lose consciousness.

That's comforting, actually.

It's actually quite peaceful. Like, you know, in her memory, she was like, and then I just don't remember anything. But she doesn't remember struggling. So I swim to her side, and I realize that she's unconscious, and I do what I've done my whole life. Which is I just try as hard as I can to swim her to safety. Why start your book with a harrowing story about your mom? To me, the metaphor of the ocean, it is your situation. It is everything around you. And you know what? You can fight all you want. You can use willpower and grit. But if you are in a losing situation, your situation just, like, swallows your efforts whole. That is the reason I started it. And, you know, happy ending, The situation changed. I don't think I would've started it with the— yeah, like the downward of life.

That would've been a big hole to climb out of. Yeah.

That would've been— lots of problems that would've ensued. So I stopped trying harder. I mean, my whole life I got everywhere by trying harder.

It was the trick you depended on.

The problem with having one trick, the problem with people who are really gritty is that that is the only trick they learn. They're like, you know what? I'm gonna wake up earlier.

Because it would be shameful.

Because we are humiliated, and it's like the one pillar of your self-esteem gets, like, kicked out. So in that moment, maybe out of just desperation, and maybe when your physical circumstances are like that, you don't have shame because you're just like, oh wait, this isn't working. So I stopped trying harder, and I started treading water, and I just tried to change the situation. So I signaled for help. The snorkeling instructor of a nearby boat— why our own snorkeling instructor did not, like, notice us, that is a whole— I don't know. It's not a whole other story, it's just a mystery. But they came to our aid, and then CPR, ambulance.

Longest boat ride of your life back to shore.

Boat ride back. You know, my mom's, like, oozing blood, like, out of all of her organs.

Oh my God!

It's a miracle. That's just horrifying.

It was a—

it was around Christmas, so it was a Christmas miracle. She lived. The happy ending, I think, has a lesson, and the lesson is that trying harder is not the only trick you can have. Grit is great, but grit is not enough.

It's sometimes the solution.

It is sometimes the solution.

Yeah.

But who among would not benefit from saying, before I, like, kick as hard as I can and put my full-throated effort into whatever I'm doing, who among us wouldn't benefit from, like, who's the best mentor I can have to, like, coach me on this? Like, what's the best therapist? Who should I be collaborating with? How do I get a team around me? I guess that's, for me personally, why the revelation of the power of the situation was so fundamental, because I had gotten so far on the inside game. I was ignoring all the things that do make a difference. And maybe also because I was lucky. But, you know, there comes a time in life, at least for me, where luck and grit were not enough.

Well, grit is also an illusion of control.

Say more. What do you mean by that?

Having grit makes you feel like, I'm in control of this situation. With my grit, with my work ethic, I will eventually get what I want because I have this thing. That's not always true.

Yes, but it gets you so far.

It gets you so far.

That you have all of this where you're like— It worked then.

You have the evidence.

Right?

But at some point, you're in a situation, you're like, oh, I'm at my limits. And by the way, I think this is, like, broadly true.

When people have something that works for them, they do it more. And, like, it does become the way that you survive, the way you manage things.

Yes.

And as my physical therapist said, what happens to people's bodies is that they have some compensation, right? Like, you know, they're, like, kind of favoring their left hip because their right hip is weak. And then that works and works and works, until it doesn't. And I think trying harder, it worked until it didn't. And I think only by life— and that wasn't the incident, that was more of a true parable. But professionally and personally, I think I found myself not getting personally or professionally where I wanted to be through just trying harder. So it was like the ocean currents just, like, finally slapped me in the face.

Yeah.

But I think because it worked for so long, I was like, doing it.

Yes.

Let's talk about Leon Marchand. Is that how I say his name? And Bob Bowman.

So, Leon Marchand, I think, is a great example of what I want to call situational agency. It's not that he didn't have a great situation, but he had the agency, the sense that he could improve his situation by his own choice, right? Because I think situations can be coded as, like, that which you cannot control. Leon Marchand was swimming. He is the son of 2 Olympic swimmers. He was in Toulouse, France, He had a very good coach, but it was the local organization. He knew that his situation could be improved because he knew that people like Michael Phelps were training on teams where everyone was trying to make the Olympics, where there was not a small team but a large team of trainers and equipment managers, and of course, a coach like Bob Bowman. So he writes Bob Bowman an email, and he says in so many words, I'd like to come to Arizona State University. Moving from Toulouse, to Tempe, Arizona, changing a culture, changing a team, changing his direct mentorship. And also, by the way, and I know it sounds trivial, but changing his physical situation. So Arizona State University has a great setup for swimming, like 3 outdoor pools.

It rains 15 days in the entire year.

Are they the number 1 college in swimming?

Now I think it's UT Austin because that's where Bob Bowman now coaches.

Oh, okay, okay.

And I think that's not a coincidence. So Bob says yes, and Leon says yes, because I think even after writing him that email, there was some ambivalence. And he sat down with his parents, and they said, don't overthink this. Go! So he moves, and within 2 years, he shaves, like, nearly 9 seconds off of his best time in his best event, which was the 400 individual medley, right? So 100 meters of each of the 4 major strokes in swimming.

Wow!

Within 2 years, he shaves off that time. And he shatters Michael Phelps's last-standing world record. And I'm not saying that because goals are important or that everybody needs to win an Olympic medal, but I am saying that because I think if you try as hard as you can in a given situation, it may not be the progress that you can see when you try as hard as you can in a better situation. And you can use Léon as an example because it's the same person. right? It's the same person, the same grit, the same talent, but he's changed his circumstances. Yeah.

Yeah, it's the old adage, like, to get better you have to play people better than yourself. If he's the best swimmer in France, try harder why?

How?

Yeah.

I'm winning.

Apparently in swimming, and in many sports, your pacers— who's in the lane with you? Like, who's behind you? The epilogue of the Léon Marchand study is not only did he break that world record, the next Olympics, which is to say the next Olympic under which he had been coached by, among others, Bob Bowman. He won 4 gold medals and was the most individually decorated Olympian of the Paris Olympics. And he has said that it was his situation. He says, when you see a person swimming in a lane, there couldn't be anything more solitary. But what you don't see are all the people who are metaphorically in the lane with them.

Yeah.

And all I want to say to people is, A, that is true, and B, you don't have to consider those as given. That's the simple message.

Break down the 3-box parable, because I think this is fascinating. And I think we probably all would assume the order of events is different than the actual order of events. So how do we even come to this? Whose concept is it? And how did he prove that?

This idea is very important. I think you can understand all of human behavior. We were talking about addiction. You talk about winning gold medals. You can talk about painting. Any behavior you want to understand, you can understand by reverse engineering it using 3 boxes. And what I want to say is the 3rd box is the behavior itself. You're like, why is that person doing what they're doing, saying what they're saying, feeling what they're feeling? Why are they, like, such a pain in the butt? Or why are they showing up early, staying late, and trying so hard. So behavior you can put in box 3. What's in box 2? Behavior comes from your thoughts. This to me is the cognitive revolution. This to me is like modern psychotherapy. When someone is depressed, when they're eating too much, when they're eating too little, when they're trying hard, when they're not trying hard, there are thoughts that precede those actions and feelings. They may not be entirely conscious, but they are what drive us. And when you try to understand someone's behavior, including your own, you cannot understand it— and sometimes this requires therapy— without tracing them back to the thoughts that made that behavior rational.

Okay, so that's 2 boxes. Why is it called the 3 Boxes Model? The first box is the situation. You should ask yourself, okay, I had that thought. Where was I? Who was I with? What were my circumstances? Because if you don't get that right, then you only start working at box 2, or you use willpower at box 3. Like, I'm just not gonna be angry. I'm just not gonna drink. I'm just not gonna procrastinate. I would say, put yourself in a situation where you're gonna have the thoughts you want, then you're gonna act the way you want. Because sometimes people are like, I'm gonna substitute this behavior with another behavior. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna take a walk instead of eat in the afternoon. That's not a bad idea, but I would say, what would be a situation where you would want to take a walk? Like, put your sneakers by the door, set a calendar reminder, make an appointment with a friend, set up a situation.

Go to a location where you like the view.

Yeah, exactly. Like, make it pleasant. But the revolution is not mine. You asked me where this model came from. It's not my model. So about halfway through my career, I met this psychologist named James Gross. He's at Stanford, and he studies emotions. And for a very long time, James said people do a lot of things to regulate their anger or their sadness, their anxiety. It's just like a laundry list. And he said, you know what? If you understand how emotions are generated, then you can understand how they can be regulated. You are in a certain situation. That situation gives you certain thoughts. Those thoughts give you certain emotions. That gives you a blueprint or a roadmap for how you can regulate those emotions, 'cause you can change your situation, or you can change your thoughts, or you can just directly change your emotions. And his conclusion was, before meeting me, if you're gonna try to regulate that, and if you don't want to smash a jar against the wall, if you don't like that box 3, then you want to go all the way to the beginning. Begin at the beginning, right? Begin at the mouth of the stream.

When I met him and he was explaining this to a large audience— well, a small audience at Yale, like, it was an academic meeting, it was a cold day in November, the year was 2011, I think— and he just put up on a PowerPoint slide this, like, extremely simple model. He was talking about emotion, and I just saw all of human behavior. I was like, wait, this explains everything. Why is this person late to work? What were they thinking? Okay. And what was the situation that initiated those thoughts? So the whole idea is to reverse engineer everything you do back to its beginnings, back to the situation, and then to go forward again and say, like, well, where do I want to be? And then start at the mouth of the river. We have the sense of being sentient beings and being, like, goal-directed, right? Like, I walked through the store, I went to get my notes. I'm logical and I'm intentional. But so much of human behavior is not top-down, like intention, but bottom-up reaction. You know, we eat and drink when it's just there. Like, so much is sort of like, why were you thinking that?

In fact, one of the people that I talked to and, like, summarized very briefly, like, a lifetime of research— he has studied addiction. His name is Shep Siegel. And he says the realtors will say, like, location, location, location. And if you're dealing with addiction, relocation, relocation, relocation. And the reason is, is that we're so stimulus-driven. Like, I know we don't like the idea idea that we are responding in automatic ways to the triggers in our environment. But that's just the way it is. And it's not for a certain class of people. It is for everyone. And maybe the triggers are different, but if you recognize, and if you are humble enough to recognize, that around certain people you start talking certain ways— like, I'm in LA, it's been 24 hours.

And now you're on a GLP-1.

Exactly. Do you know how many scales? I'm, like, not kidding. Like, in this hotel, there are Scales everywhere. I'm like, wait, do people in LA constantly weigh themselves? That's why I'm gonna be on a GLP-1 before I get on the plane back to Philadelphia. I walk by this clothing and like me who shouldn't care, cuz I'm a professor, they can't fire me for not having a fashion sense. And now all of a sudden I wanna wear Prada. This situation is changing me.

It's a great brand though.

I know. So true. That's part of it.

I just had this kind of really fun and unique example of this happen to me, which is I spent time a couple weeks ago in Nashville. with one of my very best friends that lived in LA. We hung out for maybe 15 years, and then he moved back to Michigan. So for the last 16 years, he's been in Michigan. I see him occasionally, but anyways, he came down to Nashville. So he's been now back in Michigan for 16 years. And he was saying, like, I'm at my fattest point. And I was like, uh-huh. And I'm like, listen to this. And we're so close and we love each other so much. There's no way I could offend him or make him feel insecure. But I said, What's wild about you saying this right now to me is it points out, it illustrates so clearly how much we're products of our environment. Because you're upset that you're overweight. And to me, let me ask you, do you know a lot of people on GLP-1s? He goes, no.

Yeah.

No. What are those? I'm like, you know, you've seen the commercials, Mounjaro, Ozempic. He's like, I guess I see this. What is it? And I like explain what it is to him. I go, but what's even more interesting to me, Scotty, is like, had you not left LA, I wouldn't be telling you what a GLP-1 is. And if what you want is to lose weight, like, dude, they did it. Like, you can get this fucking shot. And he's like, oh my God, really? He starts writing it down.

You've never heard of this?

I'm like, no, I mean, not really. Like, he's a salesman. He's out with other people.

He's not in this box one. He's in a different box one.

He's not in the same context as me. And he's a very smart person who's very up to speed on everything in his culture. And I don't know something about some barbecue.

He's had to visit from a different box one situation. It's like back over here in LA.

We're in the same culture, and we used to have all the same shared knowledge. And I was like, oh, this is a really fun illustration of you having gone back for 16 years. And by the end of the trip, he's like, okay, so I did GLP-1. What else am I supposed—

you know?

It was a perfect example.

Okay. I fell down this little rabbit hole studying this psychologist nobody's ever heard of. And I had never heard of Roger Barker. He's this psychologist who coined the term behavior settings. He started off by thinking that people were goal-directed and so forth. And he would actually follow individuals around for their entire day trying to understand, like, why Monica is different from Dax, and what is inside Monica that is different from Dax. But what he came to was a conclusion that he didn't expect, which is, like, Monica behaves because of the behavior setting in which she is. Like, she's responding to this. Yes, Monica is Monica. She's an individual.

Mm-hmm.

But when you're in a drugstore, you behave drugstore. When you're in a church, you behave church. behave church, right? And when you're in Montana, you behave Montana. And when you're in Wisconsin, you behave Wisconsin. He tells a story not entirely different, I think, from your friend, which is he was like, for example, I don't like pork, but I moved to this part of the country where it's just the only thing that everyone eats. Pork in every form. Ham.

Bacon.

It's a pork party.

Pork chops. Sausage. And now that's what I eat. Not only physically because that's the only thing around, although that's part of it. So if you visit LA and you spend a few days here and you want to be this way, move to LA because you will.

Yeah.

And if you don't like it, don't move to LA because when you get here, you're going to change.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

That's fair.

So the idea that, like, your environment shapes you, I think is deeply uncomfortable for people.

It seems to threaten agency and autonomy.

Exactly. And you know this guy Roger Barker that I got obsessed with? I mean, I went around and I would ask my colleagues, have you taught Roger Barker Who? I went to intro psych books. I, like, went to the index. Skinner's there, Freud's there, Danny Kahneman's there, but Roger Barker is nowhere. And I was like, wait, this guy at the height of his fame and the height of his influence, he was the cat's pajamas. Why did he fall— maybe not from grace, but fall from view? So what happened was the world sort of was with him. There was like, oh, behavior settings, this is revolutionary. If you want to be a certain way, change your setting. And then the world got kind of disenchanted. Now this is decades ago in the history that nobody's reading. So the idea that the situation has power over you, I think, actually was at odds with our core notion of agency. They rejected it. They were like, I don't like this story that when you go to the drugstore, you behave drugstore, and when you go to the church, you behave church. But the last words that Roger Barker wrote were that when you recognize the power of the situation, when you recognize the power of the environment to shape you, now you really have power because you just change the environment first before it does that.

You're still responsible for it, which is what you want.

Yes!

Yes, yes.

Yeah, he was like, you know, you have more agency, not less agency. But he was not successful, and that is why nobody gets taught Roger Barker.

Yeah. Let's talk about GLP-1s because they're in the book.

Yeah, I'm like a huge fan.

Yeah, well, every doctor is.

But not everyone is, I think.

No, no, no. And it hits the core. I'll be talking I'm not gonna name names. I know an older couple, the husband's done it, the wife isn't gonna do it. And what you point out is like this thing about willpower is that it signals, we believe, people's character.

Right. Okay, so if you lose £20, how'd you do it? You know, the old-fashioned way, it was really hard work. I changed my diet, I exercised.

Ate rice cakes for 2 years.

Yeah, it was really hard, by the way. Hated doing it. And the more you hate it, the more points you get, right?

Yeah.

Then people wanna give you like a 10 out of 10. on character, on, like, moral fiber, right? Strength of will. If you say, how'd you lose the £20? Like, oh, GLP-1s. I don't know now in culture.

It's moving quickly, thank God.

I think now, like, things are changing.

But at the beginning, we're right at the forefront of it. We're talking about it. And yeah, at the beginning, I was always going like, why would anyone be mad?

No, at the beginning— This is like—

It's insane.

At the beginning, I was mad.

You were on the side of what?

I was like, this is bad. GLP-1s are bad. People shouldn't be taking them. I had all these reasons. But by the way, I am on one now.

You are on one?

Yes.

Wait, were you heavier before?

No, but I started taking it for cholesterol.

You are seriously on them?

Yes, I am. I'm on a microdose, and it started because of cholesterol. But we kept having all these people on, these doctors that I do respect.

Sanjay Gupta, he's like, this is the biggest miracle drug.

Well, Eric Topol was the main one for me. I agree with him on pretty much everything.

Yeah. And he was like, I think eventually This is gonna be over the counter.

I think this is something everyone is gonna be on. It does all this stuff for dementia.

Antibiotics, vaccines, and this thing. These are like the 3 miracles.

So I was like, the 3 miracles. Yeah.

So I was like, okay, I will try it. I absolutely love it.

And we have a doctor— we are in a study, and the doctor strongly urged her because her cholesterol is so fucked up. So you also— you had a doctor urging you to do it?

Yeah, it does a lot for brain markers. And so I got on it, and then my numbers are amazing.

Right. So you don't have a cholesterol problem. Has it changed anything else?

Well, it changed my view on having staunch views.

It changed your views on GLP-1.

Yeah. It changed my views on having—

On having staunch views of any kind.

Yes.

On having any, like, moral high ground, because that's how it started.

It's not just GLP-1. So there's research that shows that when people take, for example, antidepressant medication, right? Like, you know, like You know, and there's this kind of like, oh, well, you know, you could have done it the hard way and that would be the honorable way.

That you're cheating somehow.

You're cheating. It's lesser than, right?

That one, especially the antidepressant one, makes me so mad because there are so many people who are like trying to white-knuckle it. And guess what? They're failing. They're depressed.

Right.

And they're not getting undepressed by doing all and it's like, you can take this? It's chemical.

I have the same thing with people who white-knuckle sobriety without AA. I'm like, congrats, you're doing it, but you're fucking missing out on everything that's fun about it.

You know, alcoholism without AA, and white-knuckling obesity without GLP-1s, and white-knuckling depression without over-the-counter antidepressants.

Changing a chemical.

So I met this physician named Aaron Carroll who brings GLP-1s and antidepressants together. essence into one story, and it's his story. So he was very successful across the board, right? You know, a decorated author, physician, by the way.

Yeah.

So the person who was telling other people, like, you know, you might want to consider medication, himself felt so much shame. He was overweight. His father was overweight. And he said, you know, I never stopped actually secretly blaming my father for his weakness of will. And so GLP-1s, and of course, prior to GLP-1s, antidepressants come out. And he was very late to taking either of them, even though he needed both of them. He went on vacation, he had, like, a panic attack, and the panic attack led to a fall down a mountain. He hit rock bottom, and he had a sort of like— Well, maybe not figuratively.

Literally.

Yeah, literally and figuratively. They did have to airlift him, so maybe it was rock bottom. There was a mountain involved.

It's rare someone's rock bottom actually includes a rock.

Yeah, like, that one is like— yeah, it's like—

It's like the The horse is really, like, hitting you over the head.

It's, like, sending you, like, a memo. But I think this resistance— so I wrote about GLP-1s because I think getting GLP-1s, if you are the kind of person who needs them, is getting situated, right? And the shame of, well, I couldn't change myself, so I changed my situation, is a mistake. I think if we could honor— I mean, we should write poems to the people who changed our situation. Like, why don't we valorize the people who had the courage or the common sense. Why not? You know, when he went on antidepressant medication— and he's not speaking for everyone, but he did talk very openly and write openly about this— he's like, I'm more engaging. I'm more engaged. I'm more optimistic. I like myself.

Yes.

Right? I don't think that's entirely changed, by the way. I don't think our society has gotten to the point where we're like, oh, you need an injection? You need a pill? Great. You're getting situated. I don't think we're there yet.

It's also a cycle, though, because I think people who are depressed often people who are obese. There's already shame in there. There's shame, which is part of the depression. There's shame, which is part of the—

There's shame that's, like, leading them to these behaviors where they're trying to manage an emotion.

Yes. It's hard to parse it all out, right? Because that shame is also stopping the behavior of changing.

They're all feeding each other.

Yeah. And it's like, just try. I'm always like, just try it. You can stop.

There is a persistent question, which is why people don't do that. What's your theory? And then I will tell you what scientists think, or what some scientists think.

I think it appears to be the ultimate admission that it beat you. So you're already— let's say you've been trying to lose weight for 20 years, and you have the shame of not succeeding at that. If you are to finally throw up your hand and say, fine, I need a GLP-1, you are reading that as, well, now I've permanently admitted I could never do it. It's the end of the thing. I am a failure, end stop. That will signal that this thing I feared is now confirmed. I'm a complete failure. I can't do it on my own. I have to have this thing. It's admitting in full capacity my fear that I'm weak-willed and I'm all these things. By doing this, it's an admission that that is true and permanent.

You can sort of live in the sort of like, but maybe I can do it. This hopeful—

yes, you're living with hope that you'll get out despite all evidence says probably not. I'm probably not gonna be able to quit drinking without some help.

But also, maybe there's a sadder thing, which is, okay, well, if I do it and it doesn't work, then I'm fundamentally broken.

More like a kind of self-handicapping thing? Maybe, like, it's like— Where you're like, I don't want to really try because then—

Exactly.

If it doesn't work—

Then I'm broken. I might as well not.

There could be a layer of that.

What's your explanation?

Yeah.

You know, I was gonna bring up status quo bias, but I think that's actually for a different— so status quo bias is like clinging to the familiar. Imagine that you who had the financial resources to move. Moving, economists say, from one zip code to another, from one city block to another, is probably the single most highly leveraged thing you can do to change the trajectory of your life. Because when you move, you change your entire situation. You change all the people around you. You change—

Your restaurants.

The billboards, the food, the vibe. So the reason why economists like to say this loudly is because people aren't listening, right? Because some people obviously can move places that other people can't, but the status quo bias is that people who should move and can move don't move. So for example, when you have these moving to opportunity— like, when you get vouchers and you actually give financial resources to people, and then you tell them how much better their lives will be, many of them just don't. And that, I think, is status quo bias. I think that's actually not as relevant to, like, why are you not taking GLP-1s, like clinging to the familiar. I don't know that we have a full explanation of status quo bias itself. I think you're probably right. It's true, we are primates, and we are driven by many different drives, including status and esteem. And I do think the sort of like, I lost, right?

I'm admitting I can't do this on my own.

I lost.

And guess what? Nothing is more liberating than surrendering, ironically. It's so counterintuitive.

If you can get someone to try it, right?

Yeah.

Like, if you can get someone to try that.

Yes.

But until you get them to try it, there's nothing more terrifying.

Yeah. You bring up Oprah as an example of this.

I think I bring up Oprah several times. I fell down an Oprah rabbit hole. With her weight or her—

Yeah, yeah. Her use of GLP-1s.

I think Oprah broadcast this special, like, Shame, Blame, and the Weight Loss Revolution, some title like that. And I watched it live. You know, classic Oprah. Oprah's a pro. So she had not only in her, like, interviews, but this choreographed documentary, GLP-1s, which at the time were fairly new. And I think she was one of the very first celebrities who came out in a very public way and said, I'm taking them. Here's how it's changed my life, and here's why I'm gonna continue to take them. Right?

Yeah.

Thank God.

The title, like, sort of says it all. So, the most famous yo-yo dieter in history who's been shamed and blamed for her weight. I think a lot of people are like, tsk, tsk.

Yeah, you can have a trainer, and you could have a— you could have a chef.

You can exercise more. Have a little more protein.

Because the reasons they've told themselves the things that are standing in their way and their excuse, she doesn't have on the table.

Exactly. The example of Oprah, first of all, taking GLP-1s and saying, like, for the first time in her life, she doesn't have food noise, as a low-level sort of distraction from all the other thoughts you could have. While you're thinking about food, you are perhaps also conducting a meeting or an interview, but just to have that food noise dialed down, right? One of the most reliable effects of GLP-1s for, you know, ...for whom it's working. So the example, though, is, like, so much more profound than, like, oh, Oprah took GLP-1s, now she's healthier. I think the example goes so deep because I don't have food noise, and I've never been attracted to substance use. I don't know what that's like. The idea that you have complete control over what's in you, to me, I want to say you have some control over the situation. You might not think of it that way. I also want to say Maybe we need a semicolon, 'cause it is another thought.

Mm-hmm.

But I do think it's connected. If we underestimate the power of the situation and the power that we have to control the situation, I think we often overestimate our power to control what's inside us. If you have a genetic disposition towards drinking or thinking about food all the time, I cannot understand that. And also, I think we are wrong to blame people for not changing. There is this assumption that Oprah Winfrey should be able to change what's in her head completely.

Why?

Why?

Right. It's like changing her height.

Exactly.

Yeah. You can't change her height.

It could be literally, right? Exactly. So this revelation that when we blame people for being overweight, or we blame them for whatever behavior it is where you're like, if they tried harder, the subtext there is the things that are inside you, you should have complete control over. And I just want to say that's not true.

No, it's the spurious distinction between mind and body, which doesn't exist.

Right.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. I am really sympathetic, and I think I'm most interested currently in the people who have been very vocal about body positivity and embracing, like, your plus-sizedness. And some people are even the face of that. I look at them with the most sympathy because I'm like, oh, no. Now they probably feel like they're betraying their identity if they choose this GLP-1, or that they would be somehow contradicting everything they said.

I think that's how it's—

And I think some people are stuck because they're like, oh, but I said all that stuff. Now I'll be a hypocrite.

Right.

And now they're going to punish themselves.

Now they're going to be, like, excommunicated from the one group where, like, having already been excommunicated from the main group.

But then they found this their tribe, and they were helpful to people, and they helped people love themselves, and now they're in this really tricky situation. So sometimes when I'm seeing, like, really famous people that have the means to be on it, I do think that's in the mix.

I mean, look, we are not in a good situation in the sort of macro sense. The default settings of the modern world are not with us. You're, like, one of the only people that I could be like, oh, and there's this evolutionary biologist at Harvard, and you're like, oh my God, I can't wait to see, you know, what she says next. Anyway, Dan Lieberman, the evolutionary biologist at Harvard, He's, like, very famous for this, like, barefoot running kind of thing.

Oh!

We evolved to, like, be long-distance runners. Basically, I think the idea is, like, we could outrun our prey. Yes, a deer is faster than us, but we just keep going. So, like, this is a guy who spent his whole life, like, studying the evolutionary origins of human nature. And what he would say about obesity is when we blame people either for being obese or procrastinating or being lazy, he's like, what we have here is an evolutionary mismatch. match. The modern world is at odds with our DNA. Our DNA are like, eat, eat, eat. Like, do this. Like, immediate gratification. We can, like, tsk-tsk the people who fail to delay gratification, but Homo sapiens evolved for immediate gratification, not delayed gratification.

Yes.

So this idea that there should be any shame in taking a drug that is a corrective for a food environment ...that is a mismatch for every impulse we have. Of course we need GLP-1s. It's like the anti-aircraft battery that we have because we're being assaulted. I had for a long time a chapter in the book which I will just summarize because it kind of got cut. It was called Our Ultra-Processed World. You know, like, yeah, there's ultra-processed food, which by the way, in addition to putting, like, sugar and fat together for the first time— oh my God!— it also So Oreo is metabolized super fast. It's dissolved to essentially melt in your mouth. For the reward system, the speed at which we get reward is a big part of the intensity of the reward. So not only am I feeling good— oh my God, it's a 10 on a scale from 1 to 5— but it's so fast, right?

Yeah.

So the dopamine signal is very sensitive to time. So you've got this ultra-processed food, but so much of the world is ultra-processed. And Some of it's not bad. Like, you go watch a movie like The Odyssey and you're like, oh my God, I'm experiencing a spectacle with emotion and color and music and monsters my ancestors didn't know anything about. But there's nothing really harmful about watching a 3-hour Nolan film.

Hmm.

I think the challenge is that in many dimensions, much of social media is ultra-processed, right? It's like, I'm gonna give this to you faster, more colorful, edited, just the highlight reel, more emotion, more drama. And by the way, this guy's hot too.

And I think the most nefarious part of that is when I learned— I can't remember what doc it was in, maybe we had the guy on to talk about— but the fact that there was a period where when it reloaded, it spawned, it took a second, and that was intentional. They're like, it doesn't need to reload. It could happen instantaneously.

Oh, they deliberately delayed it.

But the reward system is better if you have that little tiny bit of anticipation. And also the anticipation has to vary. Dopamine's released on unpredictability.

That's what it does.

Right. Yeah.

You gotta anticipate but then the anticipation's gotta vary nonstop or your dopamine won't work. It's like, it's that fucking deep? The thing could just be streamless? Whoa! Danger!

You start to feel like you're in a conspiracy theory club. But the reason why this is also relevant is if you're gonna just basically accept the default settings of the modern world, you're not gonna be a happy, healthy person. You know what the default settings are? They are eat alone. In fact, do almost everything alone. That's another—

Don't get me started.

Trend, right? You know that goes back about 20 years. That's apparently pre-pandemic, that the time that people spend out of their house, for example, has dropped like a stone. And it's not only that we work alone in our homes, we're, like, exercising alone. So I do think that the default situation, the macro situation, does not set us up for progress or goals.

And the most important part of what you just said is we are a social primate. We are the most social of all primates.

We are the social primate.

Yeah.

And a lion can never be happy by themselves. A leopard can. A tiger is. A chimpanzee would kill itself alone out of misery. We have to be with other people.

What's your explanation for why over the last 20 years or so, people are spending more and more time by themselves if it is contrary to our DNA, if it's contrary to our evolutionary heritage? And just like in-the-moment experience, do you— either of you have a Do you have a lay theory of why people are doing exactly the opposite of what's good for them?

Because I think it's actually related to the more money you have. The more money you have, the bigger home you have, where people can be in different places. You can have a private jet where you don't have to fly with other people. It's like convenience and money is kind of counterintuitive.

But by the way, poor people are spending time alone too. So you gotta own that.

Are they? I mean, if you live in a house with your grandma and your aunt and it's a—

I mean, you're not—

You would have to fact-check this, but I believe that at every socioeconomic status, people are spending more time by themselves than they were previously.

Well, social media also is a huge part of that.

I think that's what a lot of social scientists think.

Well, again, like all things, they're gonna try to say it's one thing and it's not. It's probably like 45 things.

Yeah.

But yes, you have entertainment now that doesn't require you to go outta the house. If you wanna see a movie, you used to have to go to a movie theater where you don't have to do that. Now it's been streaming on your television, or you could mail for the DVDs.

Mail for the DVDs. Yeah.

Right?

Right.

20 years ago.

I was gonna say, yeah, yeah.

So you didn't have to go out to get the thing you wanted. Delivery food services became more and more commonplace. Now with Postmates, you don't need to go to the grocery store. You don't need to go to the restaurant.

I think you don't even need to greet the delivery guy.

You don't.

No.

Right? Yeah. Leave it at the door. I deliver— I deliver food on one of our podcasts. I'm a real Uber driver and I deliver food around LA, and I was so excited to meet I'm like, oh, it might be really fun if someone opens the door and it's me. No one opens the door. Everyone is leaving the door. They just take a picture of the code. Okay, that whole part of my plan went out the window. But this one's dicier, but I think it is really, really relevant. I think once women went into the workforce in massive numbers, which I agree with, I have 2 daughters, I want them to not be dependent on a man. But I think once that economic structure changed and women no longer needed men, You see the marriage rates in Manhattan. You can track that. It's like a fucking hockey stick down.

Right, right.

The numbers now are like a fifth of what they were in 1980. So no one's married in New York anymore. Well, that's not true. A lot of people are not married anymore. They do not need to be. You used to have to be married.

This is a similar explanation as Monica's, because basically you're saying what made us social is maybe that we are, you know, the social species, but also necessity makes smart.

Yeah, you need a Women were dependent on men, which is not great. I'm not saying that's good, but they were dependent on men and marriages were financial arrangements.

And so when liberated from the financial necessity of being like in a whatever, like in a home and you don't have to do it.

Yeah.

But you still need friendship. I mean, I guess I buck up against that a little bit as someone not married who has a ton of people around.

Do you wanna be married? Are you planning on it?

I mean, depends on the person. If it's the right person, yes.

You're not opposed.

I'm not opposed.

You're not opposed.

But I'm also not doing it unless it's somewhat additive. I don't know that that speaks for not having friendships around.

You add the marriage or the relationship, they come with a group of people, you come with a group of people, you build out this combined thing. It is a fast pass to more people.

It is a fast pass to more people, by the way, including their families. But I think what I hear is a thesis that necessity So I'm complaining a bit about the default settings of the modern world. And I think we don't wanna romanticize, like, the plague and when women could only do one thing, which is serve their husbands. But I do think there is something that is lost in this change from an environment where necessity brought you together. Well, I was gonna say, do you remember? I don't remember. But apparently in history books, the communal oven.

Right.

Not only could you not watch a movie, but, like, if you go back far enough, like, you couldn't bake your bread except for the one oven Yeah. That the whole village had to, like, pool resources and bring to a certain temperature for, like, a few hours in the day. But what happens around a bread oven is that you see other people. Maybe the curse of wealth and the curse of technology is that we can do things that are not good for us.

Yes. Anyone can be their own unit, their own business in their own home. I think that's the driver of it is, like, we don't need—

So you're right, it's a lack of necessity.

Necessity may be the mother of invention, but it was maybe And it's led us to solitary lives, and we are social animals, and that's not gonna work. And you see the results of it everywhere you look.

So there is this chapter in the book, which I actually, if I could go back, which apparently I'm not allowed to, I would retitle. I was like, I have a better— there's this chapter I write about peers. That's the chapter I write about AA in, right? Because I'm like, there is no wiser organization than this. And if you want an example of what it looks like of how you cannot solve your problems alone. AA, I chose as the example.

Tell the story of Dr. Bob and Bill W. It's a good one.

So I'll give you my new title because I'm gonna forget, because I told you I have a terrible memory. It's like, Join a Group. The subtitle could be like, In Other Words, Don't Try to Do This on Your Own. And that is actually related to Dr. Bob and Bill W. So deliberately, these first-name founders of AA— co-founders of AA, because Because AA, the Big Book, right, was written by Bill W. The anonymity thing is a whole other conversation, but he would never have created Alcoholics Anonymous if it weren't for Dr. Bob. So these 2 alcoholics, both in active struggle, unsuccessfully it seems, with their addictions.

Again, one a doctor, one a stockbroker. These are not fucking losers.

No!

They're not degenerates.

Actually, they were very successful. The idea that these are weak-willed people—

The guy got through medical school, but he—

Is simply at odds. And by the way, to, like, actually manage a very successful medical career despite, like, drinking till 6 in the morning. These 2 drunks, as they put it, meet each other. And the reason is, I think it was in Akron, Ohio, which is where Dr. Bob was practicing, and Bill W. was there on a business trip that was going south.

Bill had had a little bit of a spiritual awakening in a hospital that he had been in numerous times. Prior to this meeting. Yes, from his addiction. He has a spiritual kind of awakening. He's now committed to sobriety. He goes to Akron, Ohio, right, on a business trip, and he's starting to get really antsy. He's seeing people at the bar.

And the business trip is going south. He's in the hotel lobby, and just across the lobby, I mean, he can hear the ice cubes, like, in the glasses, and, you know, the laughter. And he's drawn. And yet he has had this spiritual awakening. But I think that to me, the epiphany was not in the hospital where he was like, oh, I—

No, yeah.

To me, the epiphany was that he needed another alcoholic. 'Cause he called to, like, find an AA group, an alcoholic that he could talk to. And yes, through a series of connections, was led to Dr. Bob. I think Dr. Bob's family gave him, like, something like 15— they were very skeptical that a stranger from another state who apparently also has a drinking problem could be any kind of good for Dr. Bob and his drinking problem. The idea of putting, like, 2 alcoholics together and getting anything other than a disaster, like, was not in the cards.

Yeah, it's a fair thought, but I guess—

It's like, you know, common sense is like, it's just not. So they give him, like, 15 minutes, it ends up being something like all night, right? So, these 2 men finally have in each other somebody who really understands.

Yeah.

As you point out, it's like, the 12 steps are great. That's not the magic of AA. If they handed that book out on corners and there was never any meetings—

Which they practically do, right? It's practically free. You can get it. But that's not the magic.

That's not the magic.

The magic is—

My father died 28 years sober. He never read that book. But he went to a meeting 7 days a week. His whole friendship group was AA.

You know what? I followed the thread of the research on AA. AA is very hard to study.

Yeah.

Because it's very hard to be like, in the treatment group, you go to AA, and in the control group, you don't. Because you can't make the control group not go to AA, and you can't force the people in the treatment group to keep going to AA. So it's very hard to study. But there is— I think he's, like, the first endowed chair at Harvard for addiction named John Kelly. And when I followed the breadcrumb trail of the research that was done on AA— because even if you don't have a random assignment treatment control, there are still ways of studying it. It takes more statistics, essentially. With all of the complications of studying AA, right? I asked him why he studied it. I was like, you could have studied many things. He was like, here's why I studied it. This is the most enduring approach. I don't know if everyone knows this. Like, AA is by far the most enduring and effective treatment compared to any— including pharmacological treatments, right?

Weirdly, GLP-1s might start getting in the mix. Yes, we have to have a revisit on the—

after GLP-1s. And I don't know, but I will put money on the possibility because when I started studying AA, it wasn't because I had a particular interest in addiction. I have not found a structure, an invention, a situation that is better for people.

Yeah. I always say I'm so happy I'm an addict. Right?

'Cause like, where do non-addicts go? 'Cause we can't really go to AA and like sit on a folding chair.

My thing is, where would you see men be vulnerable in a circle anywhere but this place?

And by the way, the part where you're like of service, I actually, after I started studying AA and I like read all this research and The point I wanted to make actually about 5 minutes ago was what I think John Kelly's research shows is that, yes, there are many things that go into AA, but one of the final common paths is the change in your social network, that the 4 closest friends that you have are now not drinking. And when you have these emotional connections with people, so I just wanted to, like, affirm that. But after discovering the magic of AA, I thought to myself, okay, this organization's— what is it, like, 90 years old? I don't even I think it's 100 years old.

It's not 100 years old.

It's like, you know, half a century.

1930 is the book maybe or something.

Yeah, so I think it's like, say, '90s. Like, I was like, well, that's been a long time. And clearly somebody must have seen this model and said, oh, we can do it for the rest of us, right?

Well, they took the model into overeating. They took it into gambling. They took it into sex addiction. Narcotics also.

But what about just like people who aren't struggling with an addiction?

So here's— I think I couldn't agree more because you get hung up on the alcohol piece or the drug piece. But let me tell you, every human being is using something to regulate that is easy and quick, that's probably not beneficial to them. We're all trying to regulate. And so, yeah, I happen to regulate with that. Someone happens to regulate with gambling. Someone regulates with sex. Someone regulates with shopping.

With masturbation, whatever it is, right?

With food. And it's like, guys, we all—

Right.

You have these 2 categories.

We're all regulating.

There's no us and them.

We're all in one category.

My chosen method of regulation's more destructive. I have more positive ways I still have addictions, and I'm still regulating, but the outcome has less wreckage, right? I work out a lot.

I was gonna say, like, you could be like, oh, I'm a distance runner, but I'm dealing with my emotions this way. If I were gonna write another book, and I swear to God—

10 years?

Monica, death. Like, write it down in blood. I don't think I will, but if I were, I think there's a very important— so you're like, I'll think of something else other than the inside game and outside game. But I do think there's something deeply true about human nature, nature that does help us understand why we do things that aren't great. I do think that we are built for immediate gratification. Here's a trivial example. When my daughters were growing up and there were these 2 cups in the bathroom, and one just by chance would be, like, a little clo— I had 2 cups. I thought 2 daughters, 2 cups, whatever. They were from IKEA. They were, like, a dollar each. It didn't matter. I could have had one cup. You know why? Because only the cup that was a millimeter closer got used. Whenever you go into a bathroom, oftentimes the architects build a paper towel dispenser on your way In between the trash can and the sink. Yes. And one that's farther away. And you know what? They never have to change the paper towels in the other one because everyone takes immediate gratification. We take the shorter path, and then we just keep doing what has been feeling good.

And I think if there is a lesson in situated, it is that, okay, one thing you have to do, especially now in this modern world because the default settings aren't great for you, is say, how do I set this up so that doing the immediately gratifying thing, for doing the, like, obvious thing, for being reactive—

Admitting this is who you are.

Right? But put yourself in the situation. So if the situation is gonna basically shape you, I mean, shape it first. That is the simple lesson.

Yes.

Well, you said, what do we do with people who aren't addicts, right? So I have a group of girlfriends, we do girls' dinners.

Yeah.

It is so hard to schedule these girls' dinners.

I mean, it's nearly Same group of girls, right? Yes.

5, 6 girls. On the last group text when it was like, what about this day, this day, this day? And then someone said something like, well, what if we pick like second Wednesday of the month or something like that? And I was like, yes. And people were like, oh yeah, I don't know. Cause I don't know my schedule. And I was like, if we don't commit to that, I was like, we have to treat this like it's AA.

Did you say that?

I did. I said, if we're committed to this, you'll schedule around it. You will make it work.

You know, I can't do it on that day. It's in my calendar. Every Tuesday, the first meeting.

But you have that freedom.

Like, the reason why you're dying on this hill is like, it is life or death. Wait, when did you start this group? Did you start this group?

We've been doing girls' dinners for years, but this conversation happened like 3 weeks ago.

But how did it get started? Tell me about this group.

Well, it's a group of friends from our pod that we had in COVID.

Oh wait, not podcast pod.

No.

COVID pod.

COVID pod. And we're all best friends. And we have all busy lives and people have kids and everyone has jobs and whatnot.

It's hard.

But I was like, we decide to be committed or we don't.

Yeah.

And it has to be treated on the same level as AA is treated with Dax and some of our other friends, which is like, if he doesn't go, he might die.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Tell me.

So this needs to be like that. Yeah.

Okay. So tell me, what is this group for you?

Community. And we go and we share and we gossip.

The wives bitch about the husbands.

Everyone about—

I'm not married yet, but still. About— here, I bitch About Kristen's husband. You bitch about that.

Yeah.

You said the other husband.

No, everyone's going through so much, and sometimes we just laugh the whole time, but often we don't. Often someone's crying. It's community.

In this chapter that I could have renamed, like, Be in a Group, Don't Be Alone, or, like, Join the Team, or something, but chose to call Pick Your Peers. So I was almost done writing it, and I met a surgeon and this group of other surgeons that decided to start this little group. Much like yours, except for they were all male surgeons. So it's not a girls' group, it's a guys' group.

They're all arrogant. Continue.

Well, they are all orthopedic surgeons, so if you want to use stereotypes, then you can apply them. But I will say the ones that I met were very nice. But it's a group of, I think, like, 5 or 6 of them. And they started when— you know, one of the things about these groups, are you roughly the same age? Like, within, like, a decade or so?

Yes.

This group of surgeons is very similar to yours. And by the way, if you ask these surgeons— and they're not your age, they're at the end of their— like, they're 60s. Good for them. They were like, this may have been the most important thing I ever did. And yes, they have a group text thread, and yes, they rearrange schedules to have dinners. So when I learned about them, I thought to myself, I don't sleep with my cell phone next to my bed, check, right? Like, I don't have, like, a lot of junk food in the house, check. So okay, great, my physical situation is I really honestly, I have mentors out the wazoo. A lot of the people that you admire, I'm like, yeah, I'm the psychologist I am because I— okay, check. But on peers. So when I interviewed these surgeons and I was like, holy shit, this is the one thing that you want to tell me that other than making the romantic choice you made, this is the one thing that you think made your life go well? I looked around and I realized I don't have what you have, Monica. I texted, let's see, Wendy Kopp, who runs Teacher America.

Ooh!

Shalini Sharma, who runs a big nonprofit called Zurn, Mary Egan. She used to be at Starbucks as like head of strategy. Like, I am attracted to women who are very similar.

Yes.

Who are gangsters. Like, yeah, they're like, you know what? They're like, bring it. And it took us like 45 emails to find one dinner. But you know what? You've inspired me to be— so like, we're due. And it does take effort, but I do think a little effort goes a long way when you use it to change your situation. Now your situation includes these girlfriends.

Yeah.

And my situation does not yet. to include these, like, high-power women who we're due for our second dinner. But I think you've just inspired me to, like, push through because that effort will pay off.

It does.

I think it does buck the trend because you know what? Maybe one other reason why in the modern world everyone's doing things asynchronously and alone is that it's too complicated to synchronize and to coordinate, right? Like, if it's this hard to get a bunch of young women together to—

Well, by the way, especially your friends are all busy. They're professionals. Yours are too.

Yeah.

Look, when I was a deadbeat in Michigan, it wasn't hard to get a hang going at all. No one was doing a fucking thing and anyone could hit anyone. Like, you wanna come over? Yes, I do.

Doing anything? No.

Yeah.

Okay.

I don't have anything till next week.

Okay. So if you're a busy person who has like a lot going on.

Yeah. Like, and those are your peers. I don't think I've ever gone through that phase, but your peers are gonna be high achieving. So they're gonna maybe have to work late, but again, you just treat it as if you'll die without it.

As if it's going to the dog. I like this analogy.

Like, you have to. You will. It's worse than—

you will. It's worse than that.

Worse than smoking.

Yes!

Yes, research says. So look, I think this is a great act of situational agency. I would just say, like, I would not give myself full credit on that, but you've shown me the way.

Do it.

I am gonna do it.

The reason I love your writing is the anecdotes are— every 4 pages we get a new story. It's one after— the amount of examples you have and research, they're coming so fast. And if you have an instantly gratifying brain like my own, Like Homo sapiens? It's so tasty to read. It's a very, very, very fun read. You're getting to learn about all these little things in little perfectly segmented tasty morsel bites, and they're just kind of endless. That's what I'm blown away at. The amount of different fun anecdotes and stories that you've woven into this overall cohesive theory of yours, I think is so well done. And I really, really hope people check out Situated. Find the people and places that bring out your best.

Love it.

Thank you, Dex.

I adore you.

Thanks for coming.

Come back here.

Just come anyways. You don't have to have a book, okay?

Yeah.

He is an armchair expert, but he makes mistakes all the time. Thank God Monica's here. She's gonna let him have the facts. How are you, Monica Padman?

I'm good. I discovered something.

Oh, my gosh. A discovery?

Something bad.

Oh, okay. Not like a scientific discovery.

You'll see. Okay.

I'll let you be the judge of that. Yeah.

What's science, really?

Yeah, everything, I think.

Okay. So I am in the middle of reading a book that I love.

Okay. What's it called?

It's called God of the Woods.

Okay.

What's it about?

It's scary. It's a scary book. So it's set in the '70s.

Okay. The decade of my birth. Yeah.

And a summer camp, and a girl goes missing.

Ooh, okay.

Okay. Yeah, '70s. Perfect setting for a missing girl at a summer camp.

Yes. And her brother went missing some years before.

Oh. And they still sent their other kid away to—

He didn't go missing at the camp.

Okay.

Okay? The family also owns this camp. Anyway, I'm giving away a lot.

Okay.

Okay. Point is, I'm really into this book. And I am so into it that even when I'm on walks and stuff, I want to listen to it. So I then also downloaded the audiobook.

Oh, you're doing both? You're bouncing back and forth?

Yeah.

So I can consume it as fast as I want. But the problem is, first of all, I don't generally like audiobooks.

Okay.

They're very hard for me to focus on.

Okay. You get distracted.

Mm-hmm. And then I have to rewind, rewind, and I hate that. And then I tried to do something extra interesting. where I was listening to the audiobook, it was playing in my kitchen, and then I picked up the physical book and I was reading and listening at the same time.

How did that go?

Bad. Because you know what?

What?

It didn't match.

Wait, what?

Yes. So I'm reading—

The audiobook's maybe abridged? Unabridged, you wouldn't have had that problem. It's abridged.

Let me look.

Well, if it's not verbatim out of the text, then it is by definition abridged.

But would it— don't they need to say that?

Well, what they'll say is, is they generally make the distinction unabridged. They won't tell you that it was abridged. You're kind of— you got to look to make sure that it's unabridged. And you will often see the 2 of the same titles, one of them's abridged and one of them's unabridged.

All right, yeah, it's not saying—

But my guess is there's not more vocal audio, there's more text. Definitely.

Yeah, that's what I mean. They cut some stuff out.

That's right.

Yeah.

But I'm gonna look to see if Let's see if there's unabridged.

Tap, tap, tap. Tippity tap, tap, tippy, tippy, tippy tap, tap.

Uh-uh.

Not available.

It's just the one.

Yeah, so maybe they don't have an unabridged version of it.

Well, I'll tell you, if it's unabridged, I think they're just— they skipped some parts and they skipped some sentences because it's still really long on here.

Okay, how many hours?

It's 14 hours, 35 minutes.

This is confusing. That feels unabridged.

Exactly.

That's the kind of runtime we see in an unabridged.

It was a mistake and I caught it and it just happened. It was so sim. I happened to be on that exact page.

I'm similarly having a trippy experience where I have gotten an advanced copy of an audiobook. It's not been edited. So I'm hearing repeats. I'm hearing the author of the book is also reading it. So it's like I'm going along, I'm lost in it, and then he'll repeat the same sentence 2 or 3 times and I'm like, wait, what's going on? I was like, oh yeah, this isn't finished. hasn't been mixed, so it's like, it sounds much different.

That's kind of hard to listen to, right? I mean, that's just a version that's hard to listen to.

It's a different experience. Okay, so you love the book. I love it. You're bummed out that the audio version's skipping some stuff.

Now I've reframed that I'm— I love that that happened, that I caught it.

And you busted them.

No, it was more just a sim— it was like a glitch. Like, I happened to be on that one page they I made a mistake?

Yeah.

When I was listening and reading? That's strange.

That does remind me of watching Physical 100 and being very suspicious that the Korean translations into English were not actually what they were saying, 'cause they were just so conveniently on story. I'm like, is that really what they were?

There's no way for us to know.

That's why I watched with subtitles instead of that show specifically. Yeah, well, there's that. There's the voiceover, you know, the—

Dubbing.

The dubbing, but even the text, was suspicious.

You were worried.

Where I'm like, I need someone that speaks Korean with me to tell me if that's really what was just said.

Yeah.

'Cause it's very convenient in this moment.

And sometimes things don't translate. Like, there are phrases and things we don't have here.

That's right.

Ana has a really good phrase in Spanish. I don't remember what it is, but it translates to egg with no salt, which I love. I'm talking about a boring person.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But, you know—

Joy has a similar one, underseasoned.

Oh, I love that. Yeah. Egg with no salt sounds better, though, in Spanish, obviously. And this actually is not a good example because it does translate, but there are others, and she'll say them, and I'm like, what does it mean? She's like, it doesn't really—

It's not going to work.

Exactly. And then I'm jealous.

Well...

So, just wanted to let you know that's where I'm at. Yesterday was Jess's birthday.

Yeah, tell me, you guys went out. Where'd you go? What happened?

He turned 50. We played spades. Golly, spades. I miss it because I don't play it nearly as much as I used to. Good.

I was afraid you were about to say you don't like it anymore. No, I love it. Okay. Yeah, because it's the queen's game.

But, but, but, but it is just a contentious game.

Is it?

Okay, so I wasn't contentious.

Yeah.

It also was Jess's birthday. He's on my team. And I said, I was like, no fight. We're not fight. No one's fighting today.

Okay.

Okay.

That's the commitment.

Mm-hmm. And then, you know, he's like, I don't fight. And I was like, okay, great. And then, so we all, you know, we play and then Jess gets mad at Brian.

'Cause why? 'Cause the thing, I'm trying to think of the things you can get mad at is people say too much. Like they're, they're giving their partner info that you probably shouldn't be allowed to say. So that's one area that can get contentious. What other area though?

Well, yeah, so that is kind of what happened, but not really. Like Brian, who is—

Taught Jess the game.

Exactly. Has been playing since he was little. Like he's the king. He is the king of spades.

He's the king of spades.

Oh my God. That was really cool. That's really cool what just happened. Anyway, so he just said something. I don't even remember what it was.

Okay.

I really don't.

It's not even significant.

It was so innocuous. I think maybe he said, they have theirs, which could be bad, right? Like, 'cause like he was saying to his partner—

That you guys have already made your bed.

We got ours. Us.

Yeah.

But so someone might be mad about that 'cause it's like, well, if he wasn't paying attention, then maybe whatever. But didn't matter because Brian had the next— he had the rest of the hands. So nothing was changed.

At stake. Yeah, yeah.

And Jess got so mad.

Birthday, birthday mad.

He had birthday tooth.

He had a birthday brattiness. Yeah.

Yeah. And he was like, no, you know, you know what you did.

Oh, wow.

And we were like, didn't do anything. And then Brian— Brian's Jess's best friend. Brian is the nicest guy on earth.

He's a sweetheart.

He's so, so nice and good. And, and he's just like, okay, I know what I— like, he is.

And then he acquiesced.

Yeah. And you know, I'm not—

Now you're engaged. Now you're online.

I'm like, I'm not letting you treat Brian this way. I don't care if it's your birthday. And so at what— I, I was like—

And you and Jess were part Yeah. Okay, great. So now you and—

And we were losing. So he was getting stressed. He went, whatever. Anyway, so then at one point, then he's doing it again. He's continuing. And I just, I looked at him and I mouthed, stop.

I know that look.

You've seen me do that. But I have to mouth it.

Okay.

So he really gets it.

Like, stop. You're in trouble. Yeah, you're in trouble.

You are in trouble.

No, I'm not. Yes, you are. You are in trouble.

So then he stopped 'cause he was scared of his wife, mom.

Mom, yeah.

Yeah.

His mother-wife.

And then he goes to the bathroom, and then he comes back and he's like, oh, you know what? We're just gonna be done.

Oh, wow. He pulled the plug on you.

And we weren't gonna finish.

Okay.

So to be fair, we weren't gonna— but because one of the— Andrew's other friend had to leave. So we were not gonna be able to finish. But still, we had time to keep playing.

Yeah.

And he was like, I just— I think we should— play something else. And we were all like, no!

What?

He was like, well, we're not gonna finish. And then we did end up playing one more round. I mean, then I was just like, God, this game really gets people.

Yeah, I have to say, so we play, of course, with the Richardsons hours and hours and hours. These family vacations we take are just excuses to play spades in a different setting. We'll go to the most spectacular place in the world. We won't see one museum. We'll just play spades at the cafe. We don't know fight almost ever. If it happens, it'll be funny enough. It'll be me getting mad at Eric for how he's treating Molly. Right? Like, I'll say, yeah, very similar. I'll be like, hey, come on now. And then occasionally there'll be the, like, you've said too much.

Right. I don't like when people say too much. I really don't like that.

I don't like it, but it doesn't get me angry. It's like, you know, you're always riding the line, and sometimes people step over it, but it's kind of fine.

Obviously, so much of whether you fight or not in games is who you're playing with and the exact specific dynamic of the group. So it's not even like, you know, I could play with Jess. It's not like every time I play with Jess, it's just like the specific dynamics of all the individual people make the environment interesting.

Yeah.

So it's funny.

You know, like, I would get sheriffy in, um, sellers of Catan pretty often, and I had to recuse myself from the game, right? I was just like, I don't like— yeah, these don't end well. It's not worth playing it.

We used to fight a lot of Catan.

Oh God, yeah. All of us, everyone involved.

Yeah, we did.

Yeah.

But, and it like got personal. Like, Catan would get personal because sometimes you like would help people out. Yes.

Gang up on people. It was the gang up that always set me off. I'm like, this is bullshit.

Or like, you're not gonna build your road somewhere to help someone, but it's like, well, you should just build it there. That's the smart thing. But so you're helping somebody else.

All to fuck with me if I'm in the lead or fuck with you. Yeah. That's, that's why to me the games—

I always felt a little like, ugh, like Dax is always helping Kristen because he's her wife. She's his wife. And like, that's unfair. I don't have a husband here.

Okay.

Okay. So that was before Jess and I got married. Okay.

All right.

So anyway, and we tend to fight also sometimes in spades. Like, we have a contentious, competitive nature, I think, at games.

Yeah, yeah.

But we haven't played together in a long time, so. But it's just so funny seeing my shoes. It is.

How is your shoe falling off while you're seated?

No, it's just gotten untied.

And then even how'd it get untied while you're seated?

It's not that good of a tie. It's like one of these materials that doesn't stay tied well. Okay.

Oh, and you do— I saw you did like triple knots.

I'm doing a double knot.

And now you're doing a double knot with the bows. You got 12 or so knots there.

It'll be out by the time this is over. Oh, wow.

So anyways, did you guys— you played spades, that didn't work out. Did you then go to eat and have a good meal?

Yeah, we did. Then we went to dinner, went to Smokehouse. Burbank classic.

Oh, very classic. Yeah.

And it was really fun.

Yeah, great. You know, I went to a wedding last weekend.

Yes! Do share.

Well, it was the most fun time.

Yeah, weddings are great.

Sometimes they're great. Sometimes they're fine.

Okay.

This one was particularly fun for me.

Okay.

Because I don't know anyone that the bride and groom are friends with. I'm not in their circle at all.

Right.

And also, they're way younger than us, so it's mostly younger people. And I was getting very aware of all the anthropological things that go on at a wedding and why they exist. You could see the mechanics of it. And it's like you get seated. I was seated at the rehearsal dinner between 2 people I don't know.

Yep.

But those 2 people conceivably love the same people I love. And I was like, oh, that's why these are so powerful about aligning families. Yeah, sure. It does something magical to your own defenses and your own protections, and you just kind of come in trusting everyone there, and you get closer to people in this really quick fashion in just a weekend.

Yeah.

Which is really, really fun. And I had an incredible experience where I was seated between someone that was raised in communist Poland and someone who cut their teeth in the business working for Aaron Spelling.

Right. Very different.

So the code switching I was doing, going back and forth between the 2 different conversations I was having, was among the most dramatic I've ever had. Other than that time we interviewed a sex expert followed by someone that was in a gulag.

Yeah.

It was that level of like—

That was wild.

Yeah, I'm like laughing about really naughty, naughty, naughty stuff on the left, and then I'm turning and I'm talking about trading a pair of Levi's for a car.

Oh, wow.

You know? So that was really, really fun. And then the dance, the dance floor.

Oh, boy, yeah.

Monica, I went— Full throttle. I bet I danced for 3+ hours.

You love dancing so much.

I had my shirt off 'cause I was soaking wet dancing.

Oh, so you were bare-chested?

Tuxedo pants. At some point, it became tuxedo pants and no shirt.

Okay.

Not even a wife—

No, no shirt.

Tank top.

My shirt was so disgustingly soaked.

Did anyone else have their shirts off?

No.

Okay.

But an incredible moment happened where one of the guests kept making fun of me. Why is your shirt off?

Yeah, fair.

And then I then grabbed my shirt and I said to her, you are ruining this wedding. I'm going to put my shirt back on. I was teasing her. Everyone's going to leave. You're ruining the wedding. I'm going to put my shirt back on. And as I was putting it on, someone ran across the dance floor. A guy. He goes, stop. What are you doing? Do not put your shirt on. The timing of it. If we were filming it, he would have never entered at a more perfect time to make everything hysterical.

Okay.

And then I got an actual specific compliment on Monday from the groom saying, I have so much gratitude for anyone that comes and tears up the dance floor for 3 hours at a wedding. And I was the oldest guy there that wasn't a family member.

Sure.

I mean, I was dramatically older than everyone.

Not dramatically.

Oh, 24 years? It's like I could have been— the fact that I could have been the parent of most of the people. Yeah, it was pretty dramatic.

Oh, wow. Yeah. I thought, just real quick, not to— but I just thought that the story was going to be that you went to put on your shirt and then someone slipped on the sweat.

Oh, that would have been funny.

Yeah.

But they would have gotten hurt, probably.

I would have felt bad.

Oh, like an easy, just quick fall, but they would It have gotten popped hurt. right back. But it's like a—

but the enthusiasm which this guy was screaming, please don't put your shirt back on, at the moment I was making the joke that it was gonna ruin the wedding. It was just— I just wanted to leave at that moment, be like, well, that's— that's not gonna get any more perfect than that. Yeah, the situation that happened.

Wow.

So you, you did leave your shirt?

Oh, I did. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was not coming back on.

Wow.

I had fans at one point, like, um, those Asian fans, you know, like the little— what do you call them? The folding ones.

Yeah.

And I was doing very elaborate dances with the fans that were really— I felt like Lincoln. Like, Lincoln discovers something, like she can skip this rope and she thinks she's a pro at it right away. And I'm the same exact way. When I'm watching her, I'm like, oh, yeah. So, yeah, I had this whole fan routine going. I mean, it was an exploratory and expansive 3 hours of dancing. And I don't think I've done cardio on that level.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so I woke up the next morning and I was like, I was down like £5 from all of the exertion.

Well, and sweat.

Sweat.

Sweating on the dance floor.

I, I was also vegetarian.

Meal?

Wedding.

Oh, the whole—

oh, the whole wedding. So I was eating like, you know, way less. So it was great. I, I really— I came back.

Knocked off a few pounds.

Well, yeah, just my My percentages dropped in a pleasing way. But it was a blast.

Great.

I love being around young people.

Oh, wow.

I hope I get to always have a route, 'cause it is, youth is infectious. It's contagious.

Interesting.

I felt like I was 28 that whole weekend. I was like, oh yeah, I time traveled. This is exactly how I behaved when I was 28. Shirt off dancing for 3 hours. That's not gonna happen in our friendship group. Like, that's not—

No, I don't think so.

It's not gonna happen. I—

that's so interesting. Also, you will be around young people. You have 2 young daughters. Um, but—

But I won't be able to behave like that 'cause they'll be so embarrassed.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

I totally feel the opposite. Like, the older I get, the more I'm just like, wow, I'm so glad I'm not in my 20s. Like, I'm just so much happier the older I get and more content and more—

Yeah.

Even like, how do I say this? We did something where we were talking to a young person. They were really, like, earnest and so sweet, and it was, like, lovely.

Yeah.

And then— but you said after, you were like, oof, like, to be that age, and have, like, everything is important and the audience—

Well, you're writing your life story.

Yeah.

And you have kind of an inflated sense of your storybook.

Every experience is something to take from.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't want that again.

My conclusion leaving it, I was trying to figure out what I was feeling. And the way I think I've figured it out framed it is when you're younger, you prioritize your experiential self all the time. You don't care if you stay up till 6:00 in the morning. You're probably doing drugs, you're drinking too much, you're probably smoking cigarettes with your friends. You're just like, you're prioritizing the experiential self at the expense of your narrative self, the person that 2 days later at work is going to be dragging ass.

Right.

And so I think as you get older, you keep sliding more down the spectrum of towards your narrative self and being responsible and setting yourself up for next week. And it seems to be the natural evolution.

Yeah.

So there's something beautiful about prioritizing your experiential self. And I think that gets harder to do as you get older. You're just more responsible. Your friends are more responsible. Nobody's going to just throw tomorrow to the wind for today.

Maybe again, maybe this is just so specific to me. I feel like I'm on the other trajectory. Like, I feel like I started out so burdened with like, what's my life gonna be? Responsibility. And like, even being— even with being out with friends, like, is everyone okay? Am I okay? Are we all drinking? Like, I—

it—

You had a lot more anxiety.

Yes. I was like riddled with anxiety. And it was about the future. It was about my narrative self. Do I want to be a person that's doing this? And now I feel like I'm dropping a lot of that. I'm just like, oh, I'm here. I'm doing what I want right now.

Yeah.

You're more comfortable and have less anxiety, and you're enjoying the experiences you're having. You're more present for them.

Yeah.

I think I'm more talking specifically about stealing from tomorrow for today. I generally do not do that in my adult 51-year-old life.

Well, you've had to learn otherwise.

Yeah, I just generally don't do it. I'm going to go to bed on time because I want to meditate and do all my bullshit, and I can't be starting the day at noon. So whatever. But to have a few moments in your year where you totally steal from tomorrow and maybe the next day for just this incredibly heightened experience is important. I'll remember this night of dancing till all hours of the night.

Definitely.

On my death, it'll be a very memorable experience and it cost me feeling a little tired the next few days. Sure. But I'm really grateful to have had it.

That's good.

Yeah, I don't know. I kind of feel like I live like that now. Yeah. Maybe for not too much longer.

You go to bed at a reasonable time.

Depends. If I decide tonight I want to stay up till 3, I will. I will.

Okay.

And yeah, if I—

I won't.

Right.

Yeah.

Yes. That's what I'm saying. So I—

You're already getting plenty of service.

I think I'm getting—

On your experiential self.

I think so. So I'm glad you got that.

Yeah. Sometimes it's worth it to be tired.

Yeah. Okay. Something cute happened earlier. I have this mug. It's a really cute mug. It's from the Ritz Paris. And I love mugs, you know? Yeah.

You're a mug collector.

Yeah. This has, for the listener, like scones on it, and like pastries, accouterments, and some bugs on it. And then on the inside of the cup, there's a ladybug print. Just one. And I had my tea, and it was sitting out, and Dax got so concerned that there was a bug in my tea.

I went to get it out for you.

Yeah.

And then I was humiliated.

Did you feel tricked?

No, I just, like, I would drink a tea that there had been a bug in, right? I would just get rid of the bug and it wouldn't bother me. And so weirdly, what was going on so fast, it's like I was like, oh, I got to get that out of there before she sees it. And then I was like, oh, is that trickery? Is she going to be like, would she not want to drink it? But I know if she doesn't see it and I get rid of it, it's probably no thing. But if she sees it, she's gonna have to throw the whole thing out. So there was just— there was— it was very layered other than just the trickery of it wasn't really a bug.

Yeah. And then you felt really annoyed, probably.

No, I never got upset. I thought it was—

I would be kind of upset if I got like, oh, you know, worked up. And then—

I was just like, oh, oh, that's a trick.

Yeah.

That's a funny trick. You were excited because it is the trick worm.

If there was a huge— I didn't— I just thought it was not— no, I thought it was I was like, oh, it's nice. He wanted to get that bug. He was worried about this tea and this bug. And then, uh-oh, he got tricked, and he doesn't like getting tricked.

Well, by an inanimate object, I don't mind.

He doesn't like getting taken advantage of.

By an inanimate object, I don't mind. I don't like deception in humans.

Yeah, but a human made this, you know.

But I don't know them.

You don't know them.

Not surprised it was a Frenchman.

Yeah, exactly. To be clear, if a bug If a bug of this size, which is like pretty big, was in here, yeah, I would throw it away.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

So you were right.

I don't mind a bug. If there were a lizard in my drink, I wouldn't have it.

Ew, yeah.

Yeah, salmonella.

Ew!

Yeah, yeah.

Well, if it's a teeny tiny bug or like a fruit fly, that's fine. In there, yeah. Yeah, I'll get that out.

Okay, right, good.

But a huge ladybug?

But only the top was showing. It didn't look like a ladybug. It's like some kind of small gnat-type sitch.

Yeah. Okay.

Fruit fly. Don't bother me.

All right.

Should we do some facts?

Let's do some facts. Quick fun fact.

What?

So Angela had to use the bathroom after the Shh episode. And so she came in and she got to meet Kristin and the kids, and she hung out for 20 minutes and used the bathroom. And then she was about to Uber to a friend's house. And I said, I'll drive you to your friend's house. And she said, oh, thank you. And I said, do you want to take a car or motorcycle? And she goes, I've never been on a motorcycle.

Yes.

And I go, well, let's go.

Come on.

And I want to publicly applaud her. It's not like her first motorcycle ride was on a country road. It was rush hour traffic, LA, me going to Hancock Park, lane splitting like crazy, going around to turn left, you know. And she just was chatting the whole time. We were just chatting up a storm. And we were just— I mean, it was about as intense of a first motorcycle ride as you could probably have. And she was a champ. And it was so fun. And that is now the second guest we've had that I gave their first motorcycle ride to.

That's so lucky.

And I hope it becomes a pattern. So any future guests, if like that's a desire of yours, it's a service we provide.

Wow. Yeah, that's great. She did pull me aside and she was like, is it— have you been on his motorcycle? I was like, yeah, I have. I was like, it's fun. And she was like, is it dangerous? And I was like, he knows. Yeah. I was like, he knows what he's doing.

It's fine.

He's still here. That's what I would say. He's still here. We used to work with a guy, Monica, when we delivered cars and we delivered them very long distances from Detroit. We'd drive to Florida, drop cars off, New York almost every other weekend. And we worked with this guy, Don, who did the most amount of deliveries. And he didn't sleep. And he drank Coca-Cola in the car all day long and brushed his teeth with the Coke.

With Coke.

There was so much stuff going on. And he would be sometimes driving and he'd be like, God, dare I go to sleep on the ride home from New And it was kind of scary because I don't think his eyesight was that great either. And then you just had to go like, I don't know, somehow he keeps getting home from these. That was kind of how we kept it.

Yeah.

You just, you couldn't argue with the results.

Yeah.

Who am I to not fall asleep while he's driving?

Yeah.

He's all over the road and stuff, but man, he keeps doing it.

Wow. Okay. Does Usain Bolt— yes, he's done interviews before.

Oh, he has?

Yeah. He's even been on the OB1 podcast. and the High Performance Podcast.

Oh, okay.

So that's good for us. Maybe he'll come on.

Hopefully he can comment on the robot that just broke his speed record. And then crashed into a bunch of electrical equipment. Did you see the end of that? Oh, I watch endless footage of these robots. I love it so much. Robots with legs. Bipedal robots. They're real great in a straight line.

Yeah.

Oh, here you go, Monica.

Like, if I'm him, I'm pissed.

Well, why?

That doesn't mean you're right.

Our car is faster than him too. He's not going to be at a bar next to that robot getting outshined.

But people are going to come up to him and be like, oh, did you hear your record got gold?

People like me. I'll meet him outside before the interview.

You'll greet him. Question. Did Ed respond? Ed Norton.

He did. And he did not know who she was. And then, but he promised to promptly learn about her.

Okay, great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Great, great, great. I just want to pat myself on the back.

Let's do it.

She brought up the book, The Correspondent, very popular book right now. I have not read it yet, but I pulled out the name of the author.

You're really good at the names, Monica.

I haven't even read it.

You save us a lot.

I thought— I mean, I've just seen it. I own the book. I haven't read it, but I own it. So I think it's like enter my eyes in a way. It was shocking. I just said, oh, Virginia Evans. And then later I was like, there's no way that's the right author. And it is.

It is. I have to say, I have a pretty deep knowledge of, what would you call them, classics and popular books over the last 2 centuries. I know the author and the title, and I know what the book's about, but I haven't read it. It is interesting that you can— books become common knowledge, even if you haven't read them.

Right? Sure.

Like, someone can be talking about, like, what's the thing? And I'll go like, oh, it's that book from— but I haven't read that book. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

Even Upton Sinclair. I said a minute ago.

The Jungle.

Yeah. And I haven't read that. And I haven't read any Upton Sinclair other than some passages. But I know what his books were about, an exposé of the meatpacking industry. And, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you probably learned about it in school.

I think I just hear people talking about it. Because generally, if you learned it in school, you were assigned that book, and then you would talk about it.

Yeah, but not everyone reads them.

I certainly didn't.

No. I had to read Old Man and the Sea. Oof.

Yeah, that's rough.

That was torture.

Hemingway's for guys. It's so for guys.

I hated it.

Yeah. I've loved some Hemingway books. It's all about pursuits of masculinity.

It was so boring. He's just sitting there like, oh.

It's a man battling a creature.

Yeah, it was horrible. Speaking of, I'm gonna go on a podcast where I get to talk about a book that changed my life.

Which book is that?

And I don't know yet what I'm gonna pick.

Oh, what are your top 3? I can think of some.

Well, yeah, I'm not gonna pick any of the Harrys.

I think you should.

No, because I bet other people have done it. I think it's like a real deep dive into whatever book I pick. And it's like, if somebody else has done that, I don't want to do that.

But listen, it's very personal.

It is.

It's very personal.

Well, yeah. Well, you mean just because I love it so much?

No, like we—

Outcast.

Yeah. Like, I don't feel like I belong. Oh, I belong somewhere. That's a very specific story to you. And we had a guest on recently that's coming out.

Great guest.

A megastar. And she too, and it goes against my stereotype, right? And then I go, oh no, that makes perfect sense. I think for many, many people, yeah, what they connected to was like, oh, I am special, I'm just not in the right place.

Definitely, yes. But I just— too many people have read it, and it's— a lot of books do that. A lot of books the reason you resonate is because you're like, oh yeah, I know this person.

That's me in a whole different culture.

And someone's loving them when they feel unlovable.

Yeah.

I really want to do Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. I only read that a couple of years ago. I love that book so much, but I do think probably someone's already done that.

So you really want to pick a book no one's done?

A book I haven't read.

Sure, sure. Yeah, I would do Catcher in the Rye.

Yeah, great book.

Or Crime and Punishment. And certainly people would pick those books. It would be pedestrian, but it would be the truth. It's like the first time I was reading something where I was like, oh my Lord, I'm not the only person on earth that thinks this way and is experiencing this phenomenological thing that is life. Oh wow, I'm not alone.

Yeah. I mean, have you ever read Lords of Discipline?

No.

That's a Pat Conroy book. That was my favorite book for a very, very, very long time. But I think I would need to reread it. It's like I don't really remember what I loved so much about it. But it takes place at West Point. Talk about for boys. But I really connected with it.

Well, you loved boys at school.

Crux of the interview will be.

Yeah.

Anyway, is The Correspondent Virginia Evans' first book? Yes. Okay, the school— I looked up the headmaster of the school that Bill Gates went to. Lakeside School.

Okay, Lakeside School is the school.

Dan Ayrault, A-Y-R-A-U-L-T, is the headmaster. Oh, served as the headmaster from '69 to 1990.

Well, that would have included Bill.

Yeah. Cool.

Would it have? He turned 70, like, he might be after—

After '90?

No, no, after '69. Bill might be before '69. So if Bill turned 70 last year— 1955, he was born. '55. So when he was 12, it would have been '67, '14, '69. So the dude might have just already Maybe he just arrived, and maybe he wanted to double down on computer science.

So they crossed.

But that's, that's, that's right at the wire.

Oh yeah, sorry, it says right here graduated in 1973.

Okay, so right when he arrived, this guy arrived.

He arrived in '69, so yeah, they, they were there at the same time. That's nice.

Yeah. I love teachers.

What a group of boys that guy oversaw.

Okay, Angela says that every socioeconomic status, people are spending more time alone. People across different socioeconomic statuses have actually increased overall, with the sharpest rises concentrated among lower-income and less-educated individuals. Lower socioeconomic status increases in alone time and home-based leisure are significantly more pronounced for individuals from lower-income households.

Oh, there you go. So it's kind of the opposite of what you intuitively think.

Yeah.

And those without without a college education. Higher socioeconomic status— while higher-income individuals also experience shifts in time use, partially influenced by remote and work flexibilities, the long-term structural climb in daily isolation has grown faster among lower-resource groups. Yeah, across nearly all demographics, the multi-year trend since the 2000s accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic up to up to 2022 points towards more time spent living and doing leisure activities at home and by oneself rather than less. Okay. Yeah. So everyone.

Not great.

Not great.

Not a great idea.

At all. Okay. Michael Phelps, he retired after the 2012 London Olympics, returned to competition in April 2014, and then retired permanently after 2016 Rio Olympics. He has some substance issues around alcohol. He first experienced post-Olympic depression after the 2004 Athens Games. It returned after later Olympics and was at its worst after the 2012 Games when he contemplated suicide. That's bad. Oh, what is currently the number 1 US school for swimming? Texas.

That's what she said, right? Bill Bowman moved there from ASU.

Runner-up, Florida. I hate all these schools.

Okay.

Yeah. Third is Indiana. I don't hate them as much.

Because they weren't as much of a threat.

Yeah.

In football?

Yeah.

Or Big Ten.

Who broke Michael Phelps' men's 400-meter individual medley world record and by how much? Ding, ding, ding.

A robot.

I know. French swimmer Leon Marchand broke the record at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships. Aquatics Championships. Beat it by 1.34 seconds.

I hated it when my world record was beat.

Me too. That's why I don't have any, because I just don't want them to be beat.

You just know.

Same.

It's so temporary.

Let's just go.

You're too Buddhist to care about such things.

No, I definitely care about winning and records and all kind of legacies.

But remember you were Buddhist last year when White Lotus was out?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I come in, I dip in and out.

You dip in and out. Okay, good. All right.

Love you. Love you.

Love you.