1 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:19,560 Speaker 1: Welcome to two Percent. I'm your host, Michael Easter. This 2 00:00:19,640 --> 00:00:22,720 Speaker 1: is a podcast where we talk about improving your performance. 3 00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:26,400 Speaker 1: I am an author, and today I am extremely pleased 4 00:00:26,680 --> 00:00:29,960 Speaker 1: to bring on a fellow author whose work I very 5 00:00:30,040 --> 00:00:33,960 Speaker 1: much admire. We're going to be talking to David Epstein. So, 6 00:00:34,080 --> 00:00:38,560 Speaker 1: David started as a sports reporter, specifically in the realm 7 00:00:38,640 --> 00:00:42,080 Speaker 1: of the science of sports at Sports Illustrated Now. He 8 00:00:42,159 --> 00:00:45,680 Speaker 1: became famous there and had a big moment of attention 9 00:00:46,400 --> 00:00:50,760 Speaker 1: when he broke the A Rod steroid scandal. So, if 10 00:00:50,760 --> 00:00:53,160 Speaker 1: you are a New York Yankees fan, you probably hate 11 00:00:53,159 --> 00:00:55,880 Speaker 1: the guy already, but please bear with me, because this 12 00:00:55,960 --> 00:00:59,160 Speaker 1: guy is a very, very fascinating thinker who can tell 13 00:00:59,240 --> 00:01:02,120 Speaker 1: us a lot about improving our work life, improving our 14 00:01:02,160 --> 00:01:04,280 Speaker 1: performance in the gym and on the road if we're 15 00:01:04,280 --> 00:01:07,160 Speaker 1: a runner, and just improving our thinking across the board 16 00:01:07,319 --> 00:01:09,800 Speaker 1: in a way that we can live better. And David 17 00:01:09,800 --> 00:01:11,280 Speaker 1: has a new book which we are going to be 18 00:01:11,280 --> 00:01:14,680 Speaker 1: diving into today. It is called Inside the Box, How 19 00:01:14,760 --> 00:01:18,160 Speaker 1: Constraints Make Us Better, and it argues that even though 20 00:01:18,200 --> 00:01:20,840 Speaker 1: we often do not like constraints and we want as 21 00:01:20,959 --> 00:01:24,960 Speaker 1: much freedom as possible, he argues that constraints are actually 22 00:01:25,319 --> 00:01:28,920 Speaker 1: what lead us into better outcomes at work, better outcomes 23 00:01:28,920 --> 00:01:31,800 Speaker 1: in our wellness, better outcomes across the board. Let's get 24 00:01:31,800 --> 00:01:36,640 Speaker 1: into it. David Epstein, thanks for coming on the show Man. 25 00:01:36,959 --> 00:01:38,240 Speaker 2: It is my absolute pleasure. 26 00:01:38,920 --> 00:01:41,600 Speaker 1: So the new book Inside the Box looks at the 27 00:01:41,640 --> 00:01:46,360 Speaker 1: idea of how constraints can actually be beneficial. And there's 28 00:01:46,400 --> 00:01:48,480 Speaker 1: one story that I loved. 29 00:01:48,480 --> 00:01:51,360 Speaker 3: That you open the book with. It's about this company 30 00:01:51,400 --> 00:01:53,200 Speaker 3: called General Magic. 31 00:01:53,760 --> 00:01:56,000 Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, so they have the people who designed the 32 00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:57,040 Speaker 2: original Mac. You know. 33 00:01:57,080 --> 00:02:02,040 Speaker 4: It's the company was so visionary the iPhone, like in 34 00:02:02,120 --> 00:02:02,840 Speaker 4: basically the IP. 35 00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:05,520 Speaker 3: Yeah, and this was in the late eighties, early nineties. 36 00:02:06,320 --> 00:02:09,480 Speaker 4: The sketch the CEO has a notebook his named Mark 37 00:02:09,480 --> 00:02:12,760 Speaker 4: Parratt in nineteen eighty nine where he sketches a thin 38 00:02:12,800 --> 00:02:15,680 Speaker 4: glass rectangle with no protruding buttons and a touchscreen where 39 00:02:15,720 --> 00:02:17,120 Speaker 4: you can download apps and it'll be a phone in 40 00:02:17,160 --> 00:02:20,079 Speaker 4: a computer. Nineteen eighty nine, only fifteen percent of Americans 41 00:02:20,080 --> 00:02:20,760 Speaker 4: had computers. 42 00:02:20,800 --> 00:02:22,239 Speaker 2: Yeah, and the Internet didn't exist. 43 00:02:22,400 --> 00:02:26,040 Speaker 4: He saw all of this stuff, Like he envisioned a 44 00:02:26,160 --> 00:02:28,720 Speaker 4: virtual meeting space where different devices could connect, and they 45 00:02:28,720 --> 00:02:31,959 Speaker 4: called it the cloud in nineteen ninety like they they 46 00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:34,440 Speaker 4: were ahead, and again they had the designers, the original MAC. 47 00:02:34,840 --> 00:02:36,320 Speaker 2: It was so everything was. 48 00:02:36,320 --> 00:02:40,680 Speaker 4: So alluring, their vision, their talent that Goldman Sachs actually 49 00:02:40,720 --> 00:02:44,639 Speaker 4: took them public in the first so called concept ipo, 50 00:02:44,960 --> 00:02:47,360 Speaker 4: where they went public with an idea. 51 00:02:47,480 --> 00:02:50,400 Speaker 1: Nothing to without a product, nothing to actually sell, just like, hey, 52 00:02:50,480 --> 00:02:51,359 Speaker 1: check out this idea. 53 00:02:51,440 --> 00:02:52,000 Speaker 3: Let's roll. 54 00:02:52,600 --> 00:02:54,200 Speaker 4: I mean they had an idea that they had the 55 00:02:54,240 --> 00:02:58,120 Speaker 4: idea plus the talent, plus a seventeen member what they 56 00:02:58,120 --> 00:03:02,680 Speaker 4: called the Alliance, which was basically other companies that had 57 00:03:02,720 --> 00:03:05,880 Speaker 4: invested in them. So this was seventeen companies from around 58 00:03:05,880 --> 00:03:09,080 Speaker 4: the world. It was the largest consortium of international businesses 59 00:03:09,160 --> 00:03:11,520 Speaker 4: in American business history. Each had given millions of dollars 60 00:03:11,560 --> 00:03:13,639 Speaker 4: in investment. And we're going to be part of the team. 61 00:03:13,680 --> 00:03:14,400 Speaker 2: And so like. 62 00:03:14,360 --> 00:03:17,079 Speaker 1: Apple White, these are giants are like Sony, Right, there's 63 00:03:17,120 --> 00:03:17,760 Speaker 1: all kinds of. 64 00:03:17,639 --> 00:03:21,160 Speaker 4: Grapples Sony, Panasonic, you know, AT and T like all 65 00:03:21,240 --> 00:03:23,040 Speaker 4: the It was actually they covered so much of the 66 00:03:23,040 --> 00:03:26,240 Speaker 4: communications technology world that their meetings had to begin with 67 00:03:26,280 --> 00:03:29,519 Speaker 4: an antitrust lawyer listing all the topics they weren't allowed 68 00:03:29,560 --> 00:03:33,079 Speaker 4: to discuss in their meetings because they covered everything and 69 00:03:33,520 --> 00:03:36,240 Speaker 4: they have this vision. So Mark Parrat, the CEO. He 70 00:03:36,880 --> 00:03:38,960 Speaker 4: raises all this money early, a stock price doubles on 71 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:41,120 Speaker 4: the first day. It's a Wall Street darling. And he 72 00:03:41,160 --> 00:03:44,320 Speaker 4: says his goal in raising all that money so quickly 73 00:03:44,960 --> 00:03:47,200 Speaker 4: was to create what he called heaven for engineers, where 74 00:03:47,200 --> 00:03:49,920 Speaker 4: they could play and create and be limited only by 75 00:03:49,920 --> 00:03:52,320 Speaker 4: their imaginations. As he said, what more could anyone else 76 00:03:52,360 --> 00:03:55,240 Speaker 4: ask for? And I think the answer in retrospect turned 77 00:03:55,280 --> 00:03:59,040 Speaker 4: out to be a little less freedom because they could 78 00:03:59,120 --> 00:03:59,640 Speaker 4: do anything. 79 00:04:00,120 --> 00:04:01,320 Speaker 2: So they did do anything. 80 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:05,400 Speaker 4: Everyone who had a good idea, they did it like 81 00:04:05,640 --> 00:04:08,160 Speaker 4: they any They built and built. They had no clear 82 00:04:08,320 --> 00:04:11,240 Speaker 4: they they defined their customer as Joe sixpack, which is 83 00:04:11,360 --> 00:04:14,400 Speaker 4: very vague. So after a few years of miss deadlines, 84 00:04:14,400 --> 00:04:16,680 Speaker 4: they turned around and realized nobody knew the guy or 85 00:04:16,680 --> 00:04:18,880 Speaker 4: what they were building from, or what problem they were solving. 86 00:04:20,279 --> 00:04:20,719 Speaker 3: Like beer. 87 00:04:21,200 --> 00:04:24,279 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, just like it's like saying Joe Schmo, you know, 88 00:04:24,360 --> 00:04:26,520 Speaker 4: like random guy. So they didn't take any time to 89 00:04:26,560 --> 00:04:29,000 Speaker 4: define their actual customer. So they ended up building for 90 00:04:29,040 --> 00:04:32,480 Speaker 4: each other and the project just grew and grew and grew. 91 00:04:32,920 --> 00:04:35,760 Speaker 4: They couldn't ever decide what not to do, and so 92 00:04:35,800 --> 00:04:37,760 Speaker 4: it ends up being this huge disaster. They ended up 93 00:04:37,760 --> 00:04:40,400 Speaker 4: selling three thousand units of their personal communicator when it 94 00:04:40,440 --> 00:04:43,320 Speaker 4: comes out. It has so many features that the battery 95 00:04:43,360 --> 00:04:47,280 Speaker 4: life's terrible, the user experience is choppy, it's expensive, it's confusing. 96 00:04:47,480 --> 00:04:51,000 Speaker 4: But there was one interview that I think kind of 97 00:04:51,080 --> 00:04:56,080 Speaker 4: encapsulated their problems, and it was at this guy named 98 00:04:56,080 --> 00:04:58,320 Speaker 4: this engineer named Steve Pearlman, whose job was to create 99 00:04:58,360 --> 00:04:59,520 Speaker 4: a calendar function. 100 00:05:01,160 --> 00:05:02,680 Speaker 2: For their operating system. 101 00:05:02,880 --> 00:05:05,800 Speaker 4: And so he creates it to run from nineteen oh 102 00:05:05,880 --> 00:05:08,040 Speaker 4: four to twenty ninety six and checks it in and 103 00:05:08,160 --> 00:05:09,599 Speaker 4: is like, all right, I'm done. And then one of 104 00:05:09,600 --> 00:05:12,440 Speaker 4: the managers comes to him and says, look, somebody might 105 00:05:12,440 --> 00:05:14,320 Speaker 4: build apps that go way back in history or way 106 00:05:14,320 --> 00:05:16,280 Speaker 4: into the future. You have to make it longer than that. 107 00:05:16,920 --> 00:05:19,240 Speaker 4: So he opens it up again. He goes back to 108 00:05:19,320 --> 00:05:23,080 Speaker 4: year one, fine, thinks he's done. Then another team comes 109 00:05:23,120 --> 00:05:25,120 Speaker 4: to him and says, look, why are you starting with 110 00:05:25,160 --> 00:05:28,599 Speaker 4: that arbitrary religious context. You should go back to the 111 00:05:28,600 --> 00:05:32,359 Speaker 4: beginning of astronomical time. So he builds the calendar app 112 00:05:32,839 --> 00:05:35,560 Speaker 4: from the beginning of the universe way into the future. 113 00:05:35,600 --> 00:05:37,320 Speaker 4: And as he said, if he had stuck from nineteen 114 00:05:37,360 --> 00:05:38,760 Speaker 4: oh four to twenty ninety six, it would have been 115 00:05:38,800 --> 00:05:40,360 Speaker 4: four lines of code and he could have moved on, 116 00:05:40,680 --> 00:05:42,159 Speaker 4: and instead it dragged on for months. 117 00:05:42,320 --> 00:05:43,560 Speaker 2: And this is how everything worked there. 118 00:05:43,600 --> 00:05:47,120 Speaker 4: Because they didn't put boundaries in place, everything grew and 119 00:05:47,160 --> 00:05:49,240 Speaker 4: grew and grew until it just totally collapsed under its 120 00:05:49,240 --> 00:05:49,680 Speaker 4: own weight. 121 00:05:49,760 --> 00:05:53,320 Speaker 1: So this becomes this like big metaphor for the book. 122 00:05:53,400 --> 00:05:57,400 Speaker 1: We often think that freedom is like the most desirable 123 00:05:57,400 --> 00:06:00,560 Speaker 1: thing for creatives. For businesses, it's like, just take some 124 00:06:00,560 --> 00:06:03,000 Speaker 1: smart people, you let him figure it out. 125 00:06:03,080 --> 00:06:03,720 Speaker 3: They'll do it. 126 00:06:04,640 --> 00:06:07,200 Speaker 1: But this becomes this great metaphor for the fact that 127 00:06:07,480 --> 00:06:09,520 Speaker 1: even when you have the greatest teams ever, you need 128 00:06:09,560 --> 00:06:12,760 Speaker 1: some sort of boundaries because without boundaries, things just turn 129 00:06:12,839 --> 00:06:14,440 Speaker 1: into chaos totally. 130 00:06:14,440 --> 00:06:17,000 Speaker 4: And in fact, in one way I would say that 131 00:06:17,040 --> 00:06:22,400 Speaker 4: General Magic was actually a success, which is it's so traumatized, 132 00:06:22,520 --> 00:06:25,039 Speaker 4: you know, in a business sense some of the people 133 00:06:25,279 --> 00:06:26,680 Speaker 4: that were there, especially some of the. 134 00:06:26,600 --> 00:06:28,720 Speaker 2: Younger employees, that. 135 00:06:30,120 --> 00:06:32,719 Speaker 4: They learned all these lessons about the importance of constraints 136 00:06:32,760 --> 00:06:35,840 Speaker 4: that they then took in their next stops in their 137 00:06:35,880 --> 00:06:39,640 Speaker 4: careers and did things like led Google Maps and built 138 00:06:39,680 --> 00:06:46,599 Speaker 4: the Apple Watch, co founded Android, LinkedIn, eBay, you know 139 00:06:46,839 --> 00:06:49,440 Speaker 4: all these other companies that you've heard of or the 140 00:06:49,560 --> 00:06:53,000 Speaker 4: guy who became an absolute zealot for Constraints, a guy 141 00:06:53,080 --> 00:06:55,640 Speaker 4: named Tony Fidell who general Magic was his first job 142 00:06:55,680 --> 00:06:57,960 Speaker 4: out of college and these were his heroes and so 143 00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:01,400 Speaker 4: he was just devastated when the company collapsed. I was 144 00:07:01,440 --> 00:07:05,000 Speaker 4: actually connected with him by the famous venture capitalist Bill Gurley, 145 00:07:05,040 --> 00:07:08,080 Speaker 4: who's famously invested in Uber and Zillow. I told him 146 00:07:08,120 --> 00:07:10,360 Speaker 4: I was interested in constraints and Bill said, oh, we 147 00:07:10,360 --> 00:07:13,320 Speaker 4: have a saying and venture more startups dive of indigestion 148 00:07:13,440 --> 00:07:15,800 Speaker 4: than starvation, like too much, not too little. He said, 149 00:07:15,840 --> 00:07:17,680 Speaker 4: you got to talk to my friend Tony. So he 150 00:07:17,720 --> 00:07:19,400 Speaker 4: connects me to Tony Fidel. The first time I talked 151 00:07:19,400 --> 00:07:21,400 Speaker 4: to him, he's like yelling at me. If you don't 152 00:07:21,400 --> 00:07:24,280 Speaker 4: have constraints, make up constraints. He's like a very intense guy. 153 00:07:25,400 --> 00:07:28,080 Speaker 4: And he went on to lead the design of the iPod, 154 00:07:29,080 --> 00:07:32,640 Speaker 4: and when he showed Steve Jobs a styrofoam model in 155 00:07:32,720 --> 00:07:35,080 Speaker 4: March of two thousand and one, got the green light 156 00:07:35,120 --> 00:07:37,960 Speaker 4: and said we are shipping by Christmas. Gave like ten 157 00:07:38,040 --> 00:07:40,520 Speaker 4: weeks for the first design and then stop and collect 158 00:07:40,520 --> 00:07:43,280 Speaker 4: your lessons and go on. And it forced the team 159 00:07:43,400 --> 00:07:47,480 Speaker 4: to think creatively and repurpose technology. So the famous scroll 160 00:07:47,480 --> 00:07:49,920 Speaker 4: wheel is something that they basically repurposed from a Danish 161 00:07:49,920 --> 00:07:52,800 Speaker 4: cordless phone because they were saying, look, we can't build 162 00:07:52,840 --> 00:07:54,920 Speaker 4: everything from scratch like they had done in General Magic. 163 00:07:55,320 --> 00:07:57,400 Speaker 4: Then Fidel goes on and he co founds Nest, the 164 00:07:57,400 --> 00:08:00,560 Speaker 4: smart thermostat company, where he forces the company to work 165 00:08:00,560 --> 00:08:03,600 Speaker 4: inside a literal box. He makes them prototype the box 166 00:08:04,120 --> 00:08:07,360 Speaker 4: before the product, because he says, this shows what we 167 00:08:07,400 --> 00:08:09,520 Speaker 4: want to communicate to the end user, and if it's 168 00:08:09,520 --> 00:08:12,400 Speaker 4: not in this box, it's not one of our priorities. 169 00:08:13,120 --> 00:08:16,440 Speaker 4: And it was just so interesting to see his arc 170 00:08:16,520 --> 00:08:19,080 Speaker 4: from this like the trauma of General Magic, to becoming 171 00:08:19,080 --> 00:08:21,520 Speaker 4: this absolute zelo for constraints, which is why I wanted 172 00:08:21,520 --> 00:08:23,160 Speaker 4: to give his narrative some air. 173 00:08:23,240 --> 00:08:25,880 Speaker 1: Well. One thing that I thought was really fascinating is 174 00:08:26,760 --> 00:08:29,880 Speaker 1: you could almost see I think the typical point of 175 00:08:29,920 --> 00:08:35,040 Speaker 1: view would be constraints are going to constrain creativity, right, 176 00:08:35,080 --> 00:08:38,000 Speaker 1: and so when you have these products like the iPod, 177 00:08:38,080 --> 00:08:40,200 Speaker 1: the first iPod, the Master, you're like, wow, that must 178 00:08:40,200 --> 00:08:42,720 Speaker 1: have taken a lot of creativity, a lot of thought, 179 00:08:42,800 --> 00:08:45,800 Speaker 1: and just kind of figuring things out. But you also 180 00:08:45,840 --> 00:08:48,120 Speaker 1: write about this idea called is it the Green Eggs 181 00:08:48,120 --> 00:08:53,600 Speaker 1: and Ham effect where having constraints can actually enhance creativity, 182 00:08:53,880 --> 00:08:55,720 Speaker 1: because we'll I'll let you explain it. 183 00:08:56,040 --> 00:08:58,640 Speaker 2: You know it reliably does. In fact, there was just this. 184 00:08:58,720 --> 00:09:03,839 Speaker 4: I cite this recent survey by psychologists around the world 185 00:09:03,920 --> 00:09:07,199 Speaker 4: of known creativity myths things that we know from psychological 186 00:09:07,200 --> 00:09:09,880 Speaker 4: research are not true, And the second most popular one 187 00:09:09,920 --> 00:09:12,479 Speaker 4: is that people are most creative when they're most free. 188 00:09:12,679 --> 00:09:17,440 Speaker 4: And as you mentioned, psychologists know this isn't true. There's 189 00:09:17,440 --> 00:09:19,640 Speaker 4: actually something called the green Eggs and Ham effect, which 190 00:09:19,679 --> 00:09:23,520 Speaker 4: is named for the fact that Theodore Gaizel aka doctor 191 00:09:23,559 --> 00:09:28,480 Speaker 4: Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham on a bet that 192 00:09:28,520 --> 00:09:32,120 Speaker 4: he couldn't write a book using only fifty words, and 193 00:09:32,480 --> 00:09:37,120 Speaker 4: it forced him to experiment with rhythm because he couldn't 194 00:09:37,200 --> 00:09:39,840 Speaker 4: use vocabulary. Even before Green eg and Ham, he had 195 00:09:39,840 --> 00:09:42,719 Speaker 4: been given a task to write a children's book using 196 00:09:42,720 --> 00:09:45,520 Speaker 4: only two hundred words from a kid's vocabulary list, and 197 00:09:45,559 --> 00:09:47,640 Speaker 4: at first he starts looking at the list, he starts 198 00:09:47,640 --> 00:09:50,360 Speaker 4: complaining to his wife. He says, there are no adjectives, 199 00:09:50,880 --> 00:09:53,080 Speaker 4: and then he says, I think in fine Susian form, 200 00:09:53,200 --> 00:09:55,800 Speaker 4: it's like trying to make a strudle with no Strudels, 201 00:09:55,880 --> 00:09:57,480 Speaker 4: which I think is hilarious because it's like he was 202 00:09:57,520 --> 00:09:59,680 Speaker 4: the same guy in his personal life as his books. 203 00:10:00,360 --> 00:10:02,320 Speaker 4: And then he just decides, throws his hands up and says, 204 00:10:02,320 --> 00:10:04,200 Speaker 4: I'm just going to take the first two rhyming words 205 00:10:04,320 --> 00:10:05,920 Speaker 4: on the list and make a book. And the first 206 00:10:05,920 --> 00:10:09,079 Speaker 4: two rhyming words are cat and hat, and that kind 207 00:10:09,120 --> 00:10:12,760 Speaker 4: of changed children's literature forever. It gets to this idea 208 00:10:13,120 --> 00:10:16,320 Speaker 4: that cognitive psychologists have really fleshed out now that you know, 209 00:10:16,360 --> 00:10:19,320 Speaker 4: as the cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham has put it, you 210 00:10:19,360 --> 00:10:21,199 Speaker 4: may think your brain is made for thinking, but it's 211 00:10:21,200 --> 00:10:24,640 Speaker 4: actually made to prevent you from having to think whenever possible, 212 00:10:24,640 --> 00:10:28,720 Speaker 4: because thinking is energetically costly, and so if you're not forced, 213 00:10:28,720 --> 00:10:30,960 Speaker 4: you'll just go down what cognitive psychologists call the path 214 00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:33,160 Speaker 4: of least resistance, meaning you'll just reach for ideas that 215 00:10:33,240 --> 00:10:36,360 Speaker 4: you've already used, or that you've seen, what's familiar, what's easy, 216 00:10:37,480 --> 00:10:41,040 Speaker 4: and so unless, in many cases, unless the normal thing 217 00:10:41,120 --> 00:10:45,319 Speaker 4: is actually blocked, it becomes incredibly hard and sometimes impossible 218 00:10:45,320 --> 00:10:45,959 Speaker 4: to be creative. 219 00:10:46,160 --> 00:10:50,680 Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was one that one surprised me at first, 220 00:10:51,320 --> 00:10:53,680 Speaker 1: and then two I thought about my own work and 221 00:10:53,720 --> 00:10:56,480 Speaker 1: when I'm doing a book, like I just finished this 222 00:10:57,080 --> 00:10:59,680 Speaker 1: a draft of another book, and as I was writing that, 223 00:10:59,720 --> 00:11:02,240 Speaker 1: I have sections where I'd be like, oh, this kind 224 00:11:02,240 --> 00:11:04,120 Speaker 1: of worked before in my last word, and I'd start 225 00:11:04,120 --> 00:11:05,720 Speaker 1: to do that and They're like, yeah, but you can't 226 00:11:06,240 --> 00:11:08,760 Speaker 1: do that same sort of thing. This is a new book. 227 00:11:08,760 --> 00:11:10,840 Speaker 1: And so it was like I needed that sort of 228 00:11:10,920 --> 00:11:13,920 Speaker 1: constraint to not just default to the easy thing, even 229 00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:17,560 Speaker 1: though it was originally somewhat creative, but now that I'm 230 00:11:18,040 --> 00:11:20,079 Speaker 1: doing it again, it no longer becomes creative. 231 00:11:20,360 --> 00:11:21,960 Speaker 2: Absolutely, I mean to your point. 232 00:11:21,960 --> 00:11:24,480 Speaker 4: We were talking before we started recording about my process 233 00:11:24,520 --> 00:11:26,440 Speaker 4: a little bit for the book this time around, and 234 00:11:26,480 --> 00:11:30,680 Speaker 4: this was the first time I ever created an architectural 235 00:11:30,720 --> 00:11:32,840 Speaker 4: plan for the how I was going to order the 236 00:11:32,840 --> 00:11:34,840 Speaker 4: information before I started writing the book. 237 00:11:35,080 --> 00:11:36,720 Speaker 2: I have deportion of this book is mesearch. 238 00:11:37,040 --> 00:11:39,360 Speaker 4: I was terrible at putting constraints in place and wanted 239 00:11:39,360 --> 00:11:40,840 Speaker 4: to get better at it. That's often the case for 240 00:11:40,840 --> 00:11:42,880 Speaker 4: a lot of the things I'm researching is I'm bad 241 00:11:42,920 --> 00:11:45,440 Speaker 4: at it, didn't want to get better, and so I 242 00:11:45,480 --> 00:11:47,679 Speaker 4: wrote way over length in my previous two books, and 243 00:11:48,040 --> 00:11:50,480 Speaker 4: it just incredibly inefficient. So this time I made this 244 00:11:51,480 --> 00:11:53,839 Speaker 4: one page outline. I forced myself to outline the whole 245 00:11:53,840 --> 00:11:55,360 Speaker 4: book on one page. As you can see, I ended 246 00:11:55,440 --> 00:11:58,200 Speaker 4: up writing very very small my own attempt, my brain's 247 00:11:58,200 --> 00:11:59,720 Speaker 4: attempt to defeat my own system. 248 00:12:00,559 --> 00:12:02,600 Speaker 2: But if it's not on this page, it's not in 249 00:12:02,679 --> 00:12:03,120 Speaker 2: the book. 250 00:12:03,520 --> 00:12:05,080 Speaker 4: So this is the first time I wrote the length 251 00:12:05,080 --> 00:12:07,760 Speaker 4: of a book to get a book, and the book 252 00:12:07,800 --> 00:12:10,600 Speaker 4: is tighter than my other's, about twenty percent shorter. But 253 00:12:10,679 --> 00:12:16,600 Speaker 4: it also blocked the kind of some of the methods 254 00:12:16,640 --> 00:12:19,000 Speaker 4: that I was used to because I had never laid 255 00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:21,640 Speaker 4: out a plan ahead of time where I wanted the 256 00:12:21,679 --> 00:12:23,199 Speaker 4: beginning and the end of the book to kind of 257 00:12:23,200 --> 00:12:25,520 Speaker 4: come full circle in a way that the other ones didn't. 258 00:12:26,200 --> 00:12:29,160 Speaker 4: And so I think that was really helpful because especially 259 00:12:29,679 --> 00:12:32,520 Speaker 4: and it's exactly what you're saying, like, we've gotten competent 260 00:12:32,600 --> 00:12:36,000 Speaker 4: at this thing, which is great, but competency can also 261 00:12:36,040 --> 00:12:37,200 Speaker 4: be a trap from getting better. 262 00:12:37,280 --> 00:12:37,400 Speaker 2: You know. 263 00:12:37,440 --> 00:12:38,920 Speaker 4: It's like you end up lifting the same weights the 264 00:12:38,960 --> 00:12:41,240 Speaker 4: same number of times every day, which means you may 265 00:12:41,280 --> 00:12:43,680 Speaker 4: not get worse, but you're also not going to get better. 266 00:12:43,800 --> 00:12:47,480 Speaker 1: It's like putting bumpers up. If you don't have the bumpers, 267 00:12:47,720 --> 00:12:49,640 Speaker 1: you're probably going to get it in the gutter sometimes, 268 00:12:49,679 --> 00:12:51,280 Speaker 1: and I find out in my own writing where I 269 00:12:51,320 --> 00:12:54,400 Speaker 1: will find a thread that it's I'm like, I don't 270 00:12:54,400 --> 00:12:55,880 Speaker 1: know if it works for the book, but it's kind 271 00:12:55,880 --> 00:12:58,040 Speaker 1: of interesting. And then I'm writing, you know, a thousand 272 00:12:58,080 --> 00:13:00,640 Speaker 1: words on this, and then I read it and I go, yeah, 273 00:13:00,640 --> 00:13:02,640 Speaker 1: this is interesting, but what the hell does it have 274 00:13:02,679 --> 00:13:04,800 Speaker 1: to do with this book I'm writing? Or if I 275 00:13:04,800 --> 00:13:06,920 Speaker 1: could just keep down the lane, it would be a 276 00:13:07,040 --> 00:13:08,760 Speaker 1: much more efficient process. 277 00:13:09,080 --> 00:13:11,520 Speaker 2: I have that problem in spades. 278 00:13:11,559 --> 00:13:14,120 Speaker 4: I mean, I have a very psychologist I was interviewing 279 00:13:14,160 --> 00:13:16,400 Speaker 4: once told me that I have a what he called 280 00:13:16,400 --> 00:13:20,720 Speaker 4: a flat associative hierarchy, which means that I see lots 281 00:13:20,760 --> 00:13:23,360 Speaker 4: of disparate ideas as kind of connected. It's easy for 282 00:13:23,400 --> 00:13:25,760 Speaker 4: me to connect them. And that can be nice because 283 00:13:26,080 --> 00:13:28,280 Speaker 4: I maybe find things that aren't obvious to other people. 284 00:13:28,480 --> 00:13:30,840 Speaker 4: But it also means that I can be incredibly prone 285 00:13:31,160 --> 00:13:34,319 Speaker 4: to doing what you're describing, which is going down these 286 00:13:34,400 --> 00:13:36,560 Speaker 4: rabbit holes of things that I think are interesting and 287 00:13:36,600 --> 00:13:39,599 Speaker 4: they're really not that well connected in a way that 288 00:13:39,640 --> 00:13:40,800 Speaker 4: will make sense to other people. 289 00:13:41,080 --> 00:13:42,640 Speaker 2: And so I really need. 290 00:13:44,440 --> 00:13:47,719 Speaker 4: Structure to kind of prevent myself from writing books that 291 00:13:47,760 --> 00:13:49,000 Speaker 4: are just all over the place. 292 00:13:49,160 --> 00:13:51,640 Speaker 1: Yeah, what did this What did report in this book 293 00:13:51,679 --> 00:13:55,040 Speaker 1: make you think about when people get too many resources, 294 00:13:55,240 --> 00:13:57,600 Speaker 1: like specifically financial resources. 295 00:13:57,640 --> 00:13:58,880 Speaker 3: It kind of made me think that. 296 00:13:59,080 --> 00:14:01,600 Speaker 1: A lot of times you find the people who sort 297 00:14:01,600 --> 00:14:03,840 Speaker 1: of have it all almost have nothing because of a 298 00:14:03,840 --> 00:14:05,920 Speaker 1: sort of aimlessness sets in. It's like, when you can 299 00:14:05,920 --> 00:14:08,240 Speaker 1: have everything, why go after anything? 300 00:14:09,000 --> 00:14:11,959 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think it's actually don't think it's healthy. 301 00:14:11,960 --> 00:14:13,480 Speaker 4: For as Jonathan Hyde told me in one of the 302 00:14:13,520 --> 00:14:16,520 Speaker 4: interviews in the book, it's not healthy for anyone to 303 00:14:16,559 --> 00:14:20,760 Speaker 4: have everything everywhere all the time. And a lot of us, 304 00:14:20,760 --> 00:14:22,000 Speaker 4: even if we're not rich, are kind of in a 305 00:14:22,040 --> 00:14:25,960 Speaker 4: situation like that in the digital world now, And so 306 00:14:25,960 --> 00:14:28,320 Speaker 4: I think when it comes to businesses, there are a 307 00:14:28,360 --> 00:14:30,800 Speaker 4: bunch of you know, there are examples in the book 308 00:14:30,840 --> 00:14:34,560 Speaker 4: where people are just sloppy, like when they have too much, right, 309 00:14:34,560 --> 00:14:37,160 Speaker 4: it leads to sloppiness, It leads to not feeling like 310 00:14:37,200 --> 00:14:40,240 Speaker 4: you need to define these boundaries. And I think one 311 00:14:40,240 --> 00:14:42,480 Speaker 4: of the things this gets at one of the things 312 00:14:42,520 --> 00:14:45,040 Speaker 4: that I hope maybe the mindset shift that I hope 313 00:14:45,080 --> 00:14:48,280 Speaker 4: the book engenders, which is from seeing limits as only 314 00:14:48,320 --> 00:14:51,680 Speaker 4: bad to seeing as to seeing them as opportunities to 315 00:14:51,800 --> 00:14:56,360 Speaker 4: clarify priorities and launch productive exploration. And I think when 316 00:14:56,440 --> 00:14:59,040 Speaker 4: people have too much, like to Bill Gurley's more startups 317 00:14:59,080 --> 00:15:02,880 Speaker 4: die of indigestion than starvation. Quote, you're not forced to 318 00:15:02,880 --> 00:15:06,600 Speaker 4: be resourceful and you're not forced to clarify priorities, and 319 00:15:06,680 --> 00:15:08,920 Speaker 4: so you don't. And I actually don't think that's a 320 00:15:08,960 --> 00:15:12,400 Speaker 4: good thing for people, right. It's like, I don't think 321 00:15:12,400 --> 00:15:14,080 Speaker 4: it's good for work, and I don't think it's good 322 00:15:14,120 --> 00:15:17,680 Speaker 4: for having meaning in your life to kind of always 323 00:15:17,680 --> 00:15:19,280 Speaker 4: have your options infinitely open. 324 00:15:20,160 --> 00:15:24,160 Speaker 2: I feel like I'm conscious that it may. 325 00:15:24,040 --> 00:15:26,560 Speaker 4: Sound like sometimes I'm contradicting at least the title of 326 00:15:26,560 --> 00:15:29,200 Speaker 4: the book sounds like I'm contradicting range my previous book, 327 00:15:29,200 --> 00:15:31,720 Speaker 4: which is about broad experiences. But it actually felt like 328 00:15:31,760 --> 00:15:34,280 Speaker 4: a natural next question to me, where it's, okay, you 329 00:15:34,280 --> 00:15:36,400 Speaker 4: get this broad tool set, at some point you have 330 00:15:36,440 --> 00:15:40,040 Speaker 4: to focus this into something, into achievement, hopefully into meaning 331 00:15:40,040 --> 00:15:43,440 Speaker 4: and satisfaction. And I've kind of found that in a 332 00:15:43,480 --> 00:15:50,040 Speaker 4: lot of really talented or hardworking people, they may over 333 00:15:50,240 --> 00:15:54,480 Speaker 4: index on optionality, like keeping their options open all the 334 00:15:54,520 --> 00:15:56,720 Speaker 4: time because they can maybe they're very talented or they're 335 00:15:56,760 --> 00:15:59,480 Speaker 4: very hard working or lucky or whatever it is. But 336 00:15:59,640 --> 00:16:02,560 Speaker 4: sometimes I think they can actually really backfire if people 337 00:16:02,560 --> 00:16:06,840 Speaker 4: start making decisions, if keeping your options open becomes an 338 00:16:06,960 --> 00:16:09,360 Speaker 4: end douneto itself. And so I think I've seen some 339 00:16:09,520 --> 00:16:13,680 Speaker 4: very talented peers and friends endlessly keep their options open 340 00:16:13,800 --> 00:16:18,880 Speaker 4: in a way that actually doesn't doesn't help them reach 341 00:16:18,960 --> 00:16:21,160 Speaker 4: better satisfaction. I'm sure I'm articulating that well. 342 00:16:21,440 --> 00:16:23,200 Speaker 3: I think I hear what you're saying. 343 00:16:23,760 --> 00:16:28,720 Speaker 1: It's like there comes a sort of phobia towards commitment, 344 00:16:29,560 --> 00:16:33,160 Speaker 1: and you sort of tell yourself that if I commit 345 00:16:33,240 --> 00:16:35,840 Speaker 1: to this one thing, I'm saying no to all these 346 00:16:35,880 --> 00:16:39,160 Speaker 1: other possible things that could land on my plate, and 347 00:16:39,240 --> 00:16:43,040 Speaker 1: so it leads to someone being unfocused. I think I 348 00:16:43,040 --> 00:16:48,480 Speaker 1: think a good example would be something like marriage totally. 349 00:16:48,520 --> 00:16:51,440 Speaker 1: It's like that is sort of the ultimate commitment. I 350 00:16:51,480 --> 00:16:53,200 Speaker 1: feel like you see a lot of men are like 351 00:16:53,240 --> 00:16:55,320 Speaker 1: they're afraid to get married because like, well, what could happen? 352 00:16:55,360 --> 00:16:56,320 Speaker 3: I'm going to be tied down. 353 00:16:57,200 --> 00:16:59,960 Speaker 1: But I think when you survey to people in general 354 00:17:00,000 --> 00:17:03,000 Speaker 1: at a population level, marriage people tend to be happier 355 00:17:03,040 --> 00:17:06,520 Speaker 1: because it's like I was talking to my friend John Deloney, 356 00:17:06,560 --> 00:17:10,360 Speaker 1: who has a podcast on relationships and where he's doing 357 00:17:10,359 --> 00:17:12,760 Speaker 1: a book about marriage, and he asked me, He's like, well, 358 00:17:12,760 --> 00:17:14,480 Speaker 1: why did you get married? Like you don't have to, 359 00:17:14,640 --> 00:17:16,119 Speaker 1: you know, he's asking all these people this, and I 360 00:17:16,160 --> 00:17:17,520 Speaker 1: was like, you know, that's a good question. 361 00:17:18,760 --> 00:17:22,160 Speaker 3: And the way I thought of it was, now, you're 362 00:17:22,160 --> 00:17:22,520 Speaker 3: doing the. 363 00:17:22,440 --> 00:17:25,879 Speaker 1: Crossword puzzle in ink, so you got to like, you 364 00:17:25,920 --> 00:17:28,080 Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like, you're committed, You're into this thing, 365 00:17:28,119 --> 00:17:30,040 Speaker 1: and you're into it for the law. 366 00:17:30,119 --> 00:17:32,200 Speaker 4: Think a lot harder about what your decisions if you're 367 00:17:32,200 --> 00:17:33,280 Speaker 4: doing in ink totally. 368 00:17:33,720 --> 00:17:35,159 Speaker 1: One thing you brought up in the book too, is 369 00:17:35,160 --> 00:17:39,920 Speaker 1: that so many people think about, well what should I do, 370 00:17:40,800 --> 00:17:43,560 Speaker 1: when oftentimes a better question to ask yourself is what 371 00:17:43,680 --> 00:17:44,720 Speaker 1: should I not do? 372 00:17:45,080 --> 00:17:47,639 Speaker 3: In different situations? Where did you see that manifest I. 373 00:17:47,640 --> 00:17:49,640 Speaker 4: Mean again, that was like part of general Magic's big 374 00:17:49,680 --> 00:17:51,760 Speaker 4: problem was deciding what not to do. But I think 375 00:17:51,800 --> 00:17:56,280 Speaker 4: about that all the time in things like our information diet, right, 376 00:17:56,560 --> 00:17:58,080 Speaker 4: Like people are overwhelmed. 377 00:18:00,200 --> 00:18:01,840 Speaker 2: There's so many things that seem interesting. 378 00:18:01,840 --> 00:18:04,679 Speaker 4: There's so much information coming at you, and I think 379 00:18:04,720 --> 00:18:08,200 Speaker 4: it's a constant question of I'm curious, I want to 380 00:18:08,240 --> 00:18:10,199 Speaker 4: learn things about how can I stay sane? And I 381 00:18:10,280 --> 00:18:15,200 Speaker 4: mentioned I describe this in one genetics lab in the book, 382 00:18:15,440 --> 00:18:18,080 Speaker 4: where they take post it notes and put them on 383 00:18:18,119 --> 00:18:21,960 Speaker 4: the wall, and each one representing one of their current 384 00:18:22,000 --> 00:18:24,760 Speaker 4: commitments or projects. And the first thing that happens is 385 00:18:24,800 --> 00:18:26,359 Speaker 4: once they put them on the wall, so making all 386 00:18:26,400 --> 00:18:30,600 Speaker 4: their current commitments visual is they realize there's way more 387 00:18:30,680 --> 00:18:33,760 Speaker 4: than they could ever get done already in process. And 388 00:18:33,840 --> 00:18:36,280 Speaker 4: so immediately they see it and say, we have to 389 00:18:36,280 --> 00:18:38,320 Speaker 4: start moving some of this stuff out or will never 390 00:18:38,320 --> 00:18:40,320 Speaker 4: get anything done. And they have like a hopper where 391 00:18:40,320 --> 00:18:41,639 Speaker 4: they don't say, we don't have to just throw that 392 00:18:41,680 --> 00:18:43,639 Speaker 4: idea out the window. We can put in a holding place, 393 00:18:44,160 --> 00:18:47,959 Speaker 4: but it's back burnered, right. And then they implement this 394 00:18:48,040 --> 00:18:50,720 Speaker 4: rule where you can't start a new project in the 395 00:18:50,720 --> 00:18:54,440 Speaker 4: funnel unless one moves out of the funnel, so it's contained. 396 00:18:54,680 --> 00:18:57,040 Speaker 4: So they're making these choices about what not to do, 397 00:18:57,080 --> 00:18:58,520 Speaker 4: and some of those things that they decide not to 398 00:18:58,520 --> 00:19:01,600 Speaker 4: do maybe good ideas, but doesn't matter because they weren't 399 00:19:01,640 --> 00:19:04,120 Speaker 4: going to get to anything if they had all these ideas. 400 00:19:04,600 --> 00:19:05,919 Speaker 4: And I kind of took that and did that for 401 00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:09,560 Speaker 4: myself because I thought that idea of making all your 402 00:19:09,640 --> 00:19:12,840 Speaker 4: current commitments visible was really interesting and I did the 403 00:19:12,840 --> 00:19:15,840 Speaker 4: same thing for my own commitments and to immediately realize, 404 00:19:16,560 --> 00:19:18,240 Speaker 4: immediately start looking at it and saying, this is a 405 00:19:18,240 --> 00:19:20,080 Speaker 4: lot of stuff, and these ones are a lot more 406 00:19:20,119 --> 00:19:23,240 Speaker 4: important than those ones, and I like all of these 407 00:19:24,160 --> 00:19:26,600 Speaker 4: and if there were ten of me, I'd be happy 408 00:19:26,600 --> 00:19:29,000 Speaker 4: to do all of them, but there aren't, and so 409 00:19:29,080 --> 00:19:30,800 Speaker 4: it forces you to kind of prioritize. And then I 410 00:19:30,800 --> 00:19:32,639 Speaker 4: did the same thing with my information diet, where I 411 00:19:32,720 --> 00:19:37,240 Speaker 4: logged all the sources over a month that I turned to, 412 00:19:37,920 --> 00:19:39,919 Speaker 4: did the post its on the wall, said which of 413 00:19:39,960 --> 00:19:44,040 Speaker 4: these do I feel was worthwhile and kept that in 414 00:19:44,040 --> 00:19:46,160 Speaker 4: and then occasionally new sources come in and then I'll 415 00:19:46,160 --> 00:19:48,400 Speaker 4: move something else out of the funnel, and it builds up, 416 00:19:48,440 --> 00:19:50,120 Speaker 4: you know, so I have to kind of do it regularly. 417 00:19:50,440 --> 00:19:52,000 Speaker 1: So I say this a ton in the wellness space 418 00:19:52,160 --> 00:19:54,439 Speaker 1: in the sense that when people go I want to 419 00:19:54,440 --> 00:19:57,480 Speaker 1: get healthier, I want to improve my life, they start 420 00:19:57,520 --> 00:20:01,160 Speaker 1: immediately adding. They started saying, Okay, I'm going to drink 421 00:20:01,240 --> 00:20:04,080 Speaker 1: this protein shake every morning, I'm gonna drink this greens powder, 422 00:20:04,080 --> 00:20:07,360 Speaker 1: I'm going to do xyz. But oftentimes, what I've noticed 423 00:20:07,520 --> 00:20:11,480 Speaker 1: is that simply figuring out your worst habit and then 424 00:20:11,720 --> 00:20:17,200 Speaker 1: subtracting that out usually moves the ball way downfield farther 425 00:20:17,840 --> 00:20:22,199 Speaker 1: than would adding all this stuff. It's like, I compare 426 00:20:22,200 --> 00:20:25,679 Speaker 1: it to if you're trying to get somewhere and you 427 00:20:25,680 --> 00:20:28,919 Speaker 1: have your foot on the brake, hammering the gas is 428 00:20:28,960 --> 00:20:30,320 Speaker 1: not going to be an efficient way to do it. 429 00:20:30,320 --> 00:20:33,280 Speaker 1: It's much easier to take your foot off the break 430 00:20:33,480 --> 00:20:35,680 Speaker 1: and then give a little bit of gas. I feel 431 00:20:35,720 --> 00:20:38,800 Speaker 1: like that's just something that people frequently overlook. 432 00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:41,399 Speaker 4: I think, especially like you mentioned in the health and 433 00:20:41,400 --> 00:20:46,760 Speaker 4: wellness space, where there's so much content about optimizing this 434 00:20:46,840 --> 00:20:50,120 Speaker 4: and that and that, you would you could schedule every 435 00:20:50,160 --> 00:20:53,560 Speaker 4: second of your day to optimize if you took all 436 00:20:53,600 --> 00:20:55,760 Speaker 4: of this kind of advice that I think can be 437 00:20:55,800 --> 00:20:59,000 Speaker 4: so overwhelming that even really well intentioned people do start 438 00:21:00,400 --> 00:21:02,880 Speaker 4: and then maybe fall prey to and this is an 439 00:21:02,920 --> 00:21:06,399 Speaker 4: actual psychological term, the what the hell effect, where you're 440 00:21:06,440 --> 00:21:08,840 Speaker 4: trying to optimize all this stuff, you miss once and 441 00:21:08,840 --> 00:21:10,280 Speaker 4: then you're like, what the hell I missed, and you 442 00:21:10,320 --> 00:21:12,160 Speaker 4: just throw everything out the window. So I think that's 443 00:21:12,200 --> 00:21:15,000 Speaker 4: a danger too, So subtracting and starting with simplicity. I mean, 444 00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:17,240 Speaker 4: for me, I wanted to convert myself into a morning 445 00:21:17,280 --> 00:21:22,960 Speaker 4: person when I had a kid, and because I was 446 00:21:23,040 --> 00:21:25,359 Speaker 4: very much a night all before. And one simple thing 447 00:21:25,400 --> 00:21:27,879 Speaker 4: I did is and it's a little embarrassing, but whatever is. 448 00:21:27,920 --> 00:21:30,679 Speaker 4: I started going to sleep in running clothes or workout clothes. 449 00:21:31,520 --> 00:21:34,680 Speaker 4: And because then I wake up in the morning and 450 00:21:34,680 --> 00:21:36,879 Speaker 4: I look in the mirror and I'm like, am I 451 00:21:36,920 --> 00:21:38,520 Speaker 4: going to take these off now? 452 00:21:39,000 --> 00:21:41,639 Speaker 2: No? I'm not. I'm going to go work out. And 453 00:21:41,680 --> 00:21:42,800 Speaker 2: I've worked out every day. 454 00:21:42,640 --> 00:21:45,280 Speaker 4: In the morning for you know, like two years, and 455 00:21:45,320 --> 00:21:48,080 Speaker 4: having us an alarm clock, and so these are really 456 00:21:49,160 --> 00:21:51,800 Speaker 4: simple things where you know, it doesn't have to be 457 00:21:51,840 --> 00:21:54,920 Speaker 4: some crazy change, just like just like a tiny constraint 458 00:21:54,920 --> 00:21:55,760 Speaker 4: that can be helpful. Yeah. 459 00:21:55,760 --> 00:21:57,920 Speaker 1: I see this a lot in this trend of morning 460 00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:01,119 Speaker 1: routines where you see people posting like fifty seven step 461 00:22:01,200 --> 00:22:05,720 Speaker 1: morning routine online, And for me, I always ask, what 462 00:22:05,880 --> 00:22:08,320 Speaker 1: is the ultimate goal of this routine? So I'll take 463 00:22:08,359 --> 00:22:11,199 Speaker 1: myself as an example. My goal is to get up 464 00:22:11,240 --> 00:22:13,080 Speaker 1: and start writing because I need to write a book. 465 00:22:14,480 --> 00:22:18,840 Speaker 1: What does meditating for ten minutes, yoga for five minutes, 466 00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:23,080 Speaker 1: breath work, insert the seventeen other things that you see online, 467 00:22:23,119 --> 00:22:25,280 Speaker 1: What the hell does that have to do with words? 468 00:22:25,280 --> 00:22:27,679 Speaker 3: Getting on a page. It's like nothing. 469 00:22:28,320 --> 00:22:30,959 Speaker 1: What gets word words on a page is sitting down 470 00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:33,520 Speaker 1: in front of a typewriter and putting words on a page. 471 00:22:33,560 --> 00:22:37,399 Speaker 1: So stripping out the things that you can't directly have 472 00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:40,280 Speaker 1: a one to one relationship with this bigger goal you're after, 473 00:22:40,359 --> 00:22:42,399 Speaker 1: I think becomes important totally. 474 00:22:42,480 --> 00:22:44,320 Speaker 4: I mean, and then it's like it's like doing all 475 00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:46,560 Speaker 4: those other things. You can argue that maybe they get 476 00:22:46,600 --> 00:22:48,840 Speaker 4: you in the space to then be more productive when 477 00:22:48,880 --> 00:22:51,600 Speaker 4: you do that, but it's such a roundabout way, right, 478 00:22:51,760 --> 00:22:54,080 Speaker 4: you should first attack the thing that you're thinking about 479 00:22:54,080 --> 00:22:57,040 Speaker 4: attacking instead of all this other stuff around it. And 480 00:22:57,119 --> 00:22:59,320 Speaker 4: I think it one of the reasons I think some 481 00:22:59,359 --> 00:23:02,359 Speaker 4: of the stimization culture is insidious is because it praise 482 00:23:02,440 --> 00:23:05,400 Speaker 4: on really good instincts in people of like self improvement, 483 00:23:05,560 --> 00:23:11,479 Speaker 4: wanting to be better. But it's like in so many cases, 484 00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:15,040 Speaker 4: I think it's just distracting from from the main thing. 485 00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:19,680 Speaker 4: Yeah and yeah, and that's that's just like frustrating for 486 00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:23,160 Speaker 4: good impulses to be I think sort of preyed upon 487 00:23:23,200 --> 00:23:23,840 Speaker 4: in that way. 488 00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:27,119 Speaker 1: Basically totally. So one thing that General Magic did not 489 00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:31,040 Speaker 1: have was managers. Now I think the average employee would 490 00:23:31,040 --> 00:23:32,800 Speaker 1: hear that and be like, oh my god, I want. 491 00:23:32,680 --> 00:23:33,520 Speaker 3: To work at this place. 492 00:23:34,359 --> 00:23:36,560 Speaker 1: So make a case for why managers are important in 493 00:23:36,560 --> 00:23:39,199 Speaker 1: the world where not many people love their manager. 494 00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:44,919 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean places have tried, you know, like Google 495 00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:46,960 Speaker 4: did this whole thing where they tried not to have managers, 496 00:23:47,880 --> 00:23:49,919 Speaker 4: and then what they found is, you know, people are 497 00:23:49,960 --> 00:23:52,960 Speaker 4: going to Larry Page with their expense reports and stuff, 498 00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:56,040 Speaker 4: and it just wasn't going to work. But in the 499 00:23:56,080 --> 00:23:58,880 Speaker 4: case of General Magic, people weren't coordinated, right. They weren't 500 00:23:58,920 --> 00:24:01,800 Speaker 4: stopping and getting their less together. They were often working 501 00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:06,960 Speaker 4: on things that were not the most important thing they 502 00:24:07,040 --> 00:24:09,360 Speaker 4: needed to be doing. They were missing things. They would 503 00:24:09,359 --> 00:24:12,159 Speaker 4: start new projects all the time, and it was in 504 00:24:12,240 --> 00:24:15,040 Speaker 4: deep I mean one of the reasons I wanted to 505 00:24:15,080 --> 00:24:20,560 Speaker 4: contrast it to Pixar in the book, where Pixar equally 506 00:24:21,040 --> 00:24:23,720 Speaker 4: large vision developing at the exact same time as General 507 00:24:23,760 --> 00:24:29,720 Speaker 4: Magic basically. So it's like these parallel parallel visions basically, 508 00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:32,800 Speaker 4: and one worked and one didn't. And I spent a 509 00:24:32,840 --> 00:24:34,919 Speaker 4: monch of time with Ed Catmoll, who was co founder 510 00:24:34,920 --> 00:24:37,920 Speaker 4: of Pixar, and he described to me something he called 511 00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:42,119 Speaker 4: the beautifully shaded penny problem at Pixar, which was artists 512 00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:44,280 Speaker 4: or directors would get obsessed over the shading on a 513 00:24:44,320 --> 00:24:46,040 Speaker 4: penny in the background of a scene that the audience 514 00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:48,720 Speaker 4: would never notice. And the way they solved this problem, 515 00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:52,120 Speaker 4: he becomes the real high tech fix was with popsicle 516 00:24:52,160 --> 00:24:55,879 Speaker 4: sticks on a board, and each popsicle stick represented the 517 00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:58,720 Speaker 4: number of the amount of work that one animator could 518 00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:01,960 Speaker 4: get done in a week. And if a director wanted 519 00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:03,800 Speaker 4: animators to keep working on that penny, he had to 520 00:25:03,800 --> 00:25:07,000 Speaker 4: start taking popsicle sticks away from like a main character 521 00:25:07,320 --> 00:25:10,840 Speaker 4: that had to get animated, And that solved the problem immediately. 522 00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:13,080 Speaker 4: But that was an important thing for managers to come 523 00:25:13,119 --> 00:25:15,359 Speaker 4: up with, whereas at General Magic it was so free 524 00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:19,760 Speaker 4: flowing that there was sort of no coherence and no 525 00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:23,560 Speaker 4: useful boundaries. And I don't think that's That's not a 526 00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:25,440 Speaker 4: kind of freedom that's actually helpful for people. You want 527 00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:29,520 Speaker 4: freedom within a framework, not this total freedom where nobody 528 00:25:29,520 --> 00:25:30,600 Speaker 4: really knows what they should be doing. 529 00:25:31,280 --> 00:25:33,399 Speaker 1: I feel like I needed to hear that, because when 530 00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:36,159 Speaker 1: I'm writing a book, I will spend an hour on 531 00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:37,440 Speaker 1: a sentence. 532 00:25:38,359 --> 00:25:40,520 Speaker 3: I don't know if you are the same way. What 533 00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:41,960 Speaker 3: they like, is this the way to do it? Is 534 00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:42,320 Speaker 3: this way? 535 00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:44,240 Speaker 1: Is this the right wording, and you're like, it's one 536 00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:49,280 Speaker 1: sentence among like three hundred thousand or whatever. The number is, right, yeah, 537 00:25:49,359 --> 00:25:51,600 Speaker 1: And so you just get obsessed with like these micro 538 00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:54,480 Speaker 1: details when it's like pulling back is going to allow 539 00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:55,600 Speaker 1: you to be way more efficient. 540 00:25:56,480 --> 00:25:59,520 Speaker 4: I mean, I one hundred percent need deadlines. When I 541 00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:02,800 Speaker 4: I mean first two books I turned in end of 542 00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:04,320 Speaker 4: the day on the day they were due, which for 543 00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:06,840 Speaker 4: something that you're looking two years ahead to, or my 544 00:26:06,880 --> 00:26:09,320 Speaker 4: first book three years I had, it's not that easy 545 00:26:09,359 --> 00:26:14,080 Speaker 4: to do. And this time around, when I signed the 546 00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:17,159 Speaker 4: contract and my agent said, you know, and always when 547 00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:18,520 Speaker 4: I sign the contract, I'm like, oh God, will I 548 00:26:18,600 --> 00:26:21,280 Speaker 4: be able to It's hard to plan to finish something 549 00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:25,000 Speaker 4: two three years later totally and be on time, and 550 00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:28,520 Speaker 4: especially when you don't know what you're gonna find yet. 551 00:26:28,760 --> 00:26:31,560 Speaker 4: And my agent was like, you know, the deadlines of 552 00:26:31,560 --> 00:26:33,320 Speaker 4: course in books are flexible. You don't have to treat 553 00:26:33,320 --> 00:26:34,800 Speaker 4: it as real. I'm like, do not tell me that 554 00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:37,080 Speaker 4: ever again, Like we have to treat this thing as 555 00:26:37,119 --> 00:26:39,640 Speaker 4: totally real. Like Duke Ellington said, I don't need time, 556 00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:41,880 Speaker 4: what I need is a deadline totally. 557 00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:45,320 Speaker 1: Another thing that I thought was interesting about Pixar is. 558 00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:49,120 Speaker 1: They seem to work in these tight teams, and when 559 00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:53,399 Speaker 1: they would do screenings of the films, it's not like 560 00:26:53,400 --> 00:26:56,240 Speaker 1: everyone in the building could walk in and provide feedback. 561 00:26:56,480 --> 00:26:59,679 Speaker 1: And they famously they wouldn't let Steve Jobs watch the 562 00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:02,720 Speaker 1: film all right, because his opinion would be weighted too heavily. 563 00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:05,600 Speaker 1: How did you think about this when you were writing 564 00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:09,000 Speaker 1: the book? Did you have anyone beyond your editor read it? 565 00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:10,879 Speaker 1: And how did you think about who are you going 566 00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:13,439 Speaker 1: to let see this? And how did that influence you? 567 00:27:13,960 --> 00:27:18,040 Speaker 4: Yeah, I should say in the past I have not 568 00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:21,119 Speaker 4: been as good as I should be in giving people stuff. 569 00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:25,359 Speaker 4: Adam Grant, psychologist, has actually given me some very healthy 570 00:27:25,359 --> 00:27:26,879 Speaker 4: criticism on that. He said, you got to show your 571 00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:29,000 Speaker 4: work to more people while you're doing it. And so 572 00:27:29,119 --> 00:27:32,000 Speaker 4: this time around I showed it more than I ever 573 00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:33,440 Speaker 4: had in the past, which included my editor. In the past, 574 00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:34,600 Speaker 4: I didn't even show it to my editor while I 575 00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:36,680 Speaker 4: was working on it. I just showed up with a book. 576 00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:39,080 Speaker 4: This time I showed her stuff while I was going. 577 00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:41,600 Speaker 4: I showed my agent, who's a great reader. I showed 578 00:27:41,640 --> 00:27:45,680 Speaker 4: my wife tons of stuff. So that's not a ton 579 00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:49,119 Speaker 4: of people, but I went from zero to several people, 580 00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:51,240 Speaker 4: this time showing them in the middle, and I think 581 00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:53,400 Speaker 4: that was really helpful, and also talking my ideas off 582 00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:56,600 Speaker 4: of my editor a lot earlier to see if I 583 00:27:56,600 --> 00:27:59,199 Speaker 4: could articulate them reasonably. So that was more of the 584 00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:03,000 Speaker 4: process this time around, where before I would show the 585 00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:06,440 Speaker 4: manuscript in this case sometimes I was showing sections or chapters, 586 00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:07,600 Speaker 4: much smaller pieces. 587 00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:09,919 Speaker 1: I think there is a point too, where when you 588 00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:15,360 Speaker 1: show it to too many people, the feedback becomes chaotic 589 00:28:16,080 --> 00:28:18,560 Speaker 1: because everyone's going to have an opinion, and if you 590 00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:23,280 Speaker 1: wait every opinion equally, you just start adding more stuff 591 00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:26,040 Speaker 1: or there'll be disagreements. When I was at Men's Health, 592 00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:31,000 Speaker 1: we would do these things called wallwalks. Okay, so the 593 00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:33,600 Speaker 1: cover lines in the headlines were very important at Men's Health, 594 00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:36,320 Speaker 1: or so we thought, and we would put the magazine 595 00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:38,600 Speaker 1: up on the wall with all the headlines and the 596 00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:40,920 Speaker 1: cover lines, and there would be like twenty five of 597 00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:44,680 Speaker 1: us who would sit around staring at these headlines and 598 00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:48,080 Speaker 1: cover lines, and someone would throw out an idea, you know, 599 00:28:48,360 --> 00:28:50,080 Speaker 1: a bunch of people would shoot it down. Someone would 600 00:28:50,120 --> 00:28:51,760 Speaker 1: throw out another idea, a bunch of people would shoot 601 00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:55,720 Speaker 1: it down. Third idea. You might have twenty three people go, 602 00:28:55,800 --> 00:28:58,360 Speaker 1: oh my god, that's it, that's fantastic, and then you'd 603 00:28:58,360 --> 00:28:59,320 Speaker 1: have one person go. 604 00:29:01,320 --> 00:29:03,080 Speaker 3: I don't know about that one. I'm not sure if 605 00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:03,600 Speaker 3: it's great. 606 00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:07,360 Speaker 1: So then we'd keep iterating and we would literally spend 607 00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:11,160 Speaker 1: like four hours on a single headline in this magazine, 608 00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:15,640 Speaker 1: and it was maddening. So there becomes this thing where 609 00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:19,880 Speaker 1: I think people overvalue a negative opinion even when the 610 00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:22,160 Speaker 1: vast majority of opinions are good, and there's always going 611 00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:24,760 Speaker 1: to be someone with a negative opinion that's interesting. 612 00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:25,480 Speaker 2: I mean, that's like. 613 00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:29,480 Speaker 4: I sort of made a mistake like that in this 614 00:29:29,560 --> 00:29:31,560 Speaker 4: case with this book, just with the title and subtitle, 615 00:29:31,600 --> 00:29:33,360 Speaker 4: where for the first time I asked for input in 616 00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:36,880 Speaker 4: the past was just just did it, and this time 617 00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:40,240 Speaker 4: asked a number of authors that I admire for input, 618 00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:42,680 Speaker 4: and that was probably a mistake because there was no 619 00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:46,240 Speaker 4: agreement whatsoever. Everyone had some different take, and that put 620 00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:48,480 Speaker 4: me in the space of now ignoring, you know, nine 621 00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:52,560 Speaker 4: out of the ten people's input, basically, But I was 622 00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:55,239 Speaker 4: on this email list of authors mostly who were not 623 00:29:55,320 --> 00:29:59,280 Speaker 4: like me, but mostly business authors, and I would feel 624 00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:01,200 Speaker 4: like an alien when they would talk about their process 625 00:30:01,520 --> 00:30:02,680 Speaker 4: where it was. 626 00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:04,040 Speaker 2: Like, I have you ever heard that thing about? 627 00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:06,680 Speaker 4: So the contrast with Google and Apples like Google will 628 00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:09,280 Speaker 4: ab test forty shades of blue and Apple will be like, 629 00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:11,280 Speaker 4: this is our vibe, this is what we're doing. And 630 00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:13,320 Speaker 4: both of those obviously worked for them, but I was 631 00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:17,040 Speaker 4: much more the Apple style, where these writers were much 632 00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:19,000 Speaker 4: more the Google style. They would have a Google doc 633 00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:23,760 Speaker 4: with kind of a focus group in real time reading 634 00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:25,320 Speaker 4: it and saying, you know, this is what I want 635 00:30:25,360 --> 00:30:28,680 Speaker 4: to and maybe I should be doing that, but I 636 00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:31,800 Speaker 4: don't want to because I a lot of the processes 637 00:30:31,840 --> 00:30:35,680 Speaker 4: for me and what I'm learning and the craftsmanship of 638 00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:39,040 Speaker 4: it that I enjoy. But also, to be honest, I 639 00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:45,000 Speaker 4: felt like it kind of homogenized their writing when you're 640 00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:49,000 Speaker 4: going for that sort of consensus in that group, and 641 00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:52,040 Speaker 4: so maybe it decreased the risk, you know, maybe it 642 00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:54,760 Speaker 4: kind of raised the floor of their writing, but I 643 00:30:54,760 --> 00:30:58,520 Speaker 4: think it lowered the ceiling for sure, because it's sort 644 00:30:58,560 --> 00:30:59,680 Speaker 4: of less unique. 645 00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:03,240 Speaker 1: People wouldn't take as many swings, the swings that could 646 00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:05,600 Speaker 1: have been really interesting. Maybe there were misses, who knows, 647 00:31:05,960 --> 00:31:07,760 Speaker 1: but some of the things that really make something stand 648 00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:09,479 Speaker 1: out and be interesting probably got stripped. 649 00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:11,560 Speaker 2: Away you have to risk missing. 650 00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:14,479 Speaker 4: I mean this is like, you know, all this research 651 00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:17,920 Speaker 4: that shows that innovators are like the successful ones have 652 00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:20,800 Speaker 4: more successes, but they have more failures than the than 653 00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:21,640 Speaker 4: their peers do. 654 00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:26,160 Speaker 1: Also totally you read about this idea thinks slow work fast. 655 00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:27,560 Speaker 1: Tell us about that. 656 00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:33,720 Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a phrase from a Danish professor at Oxford 657 00:31:33,800 --> 00:31:37,640 Speaker 4: named Bent flu beer awesomely fantastic. 658 00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:38,560 Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I know. 659 00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:41,760 Speaker 4: Obviously had to make sure I could pronounce that one. 660 00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:44,800 Speaker 4: And yeah, because if anybody's trying to google him, it 661 00:31:44,840 --> 00:31:50,719 Speaker 4: looks like it's spelled Flipberg. Yeah. And what he he 662 00:31:50,840 --> 00:31:54,560 Speaker 4: kept h he studied big projects for his whole career 663 00:31:54,920 --> 00:31:58,480 Speaker 4: and over decades he kept a database of projects big projects. 664 00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:02,360 Speaker 4: This could be anything from infrastructure to digital transformations, whatever. 665 00:32:03,320 --> 00:32:05,920 Speaker 4: And he had sixteen thousand. He led a lot of 666 00:32:05,960 --> 00:32:10,240 Speaker 4: projects himself too. He had sixteen thousand projects by the 667 00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:12,200 Speaker 4: or he worked on them, I shouldn't say lead, he 668 00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:14,800 Speaker 4: worked on them. He had sixteen thousand projects in his 669 00:32:14,880 --> 00:32:19,040 Speaker 4: database by the end. And what he found was it 670 00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:21,840 Speaker 4: only eight and a half percent of them came in 671 00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:23,680 Speaker 4: on time and on budget, and only zero point five 672 00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:26,800 Speaker 4: percent came in on time and on budget and delivered 673 00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:29,840 Speaker 4: what they had promised. And the typical pattern he found 674 00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:34,160 Speaker 4: was what he called think fast, act slow, where someone 675 00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:36,760 Speaker 4: has an idea and they kind of rushed it into 676 00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:40,200 Speaker 4: implementation before they put boundaries around and really figure out 677 00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:42,040 Speaker 4: what the priorities are and what they're doing, and so 678 00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:45,440 Speaker 4: things expand quickly. And then that fast thinking translates to 679 00:32:45,480 --> 00:32:47,640 Speaker 4: work slow because things get big quickly, and then it's 680 00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:50,200 Speaker 4: very hard to pivot and you start learning lessons more painfully. 681 00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:54,200 Speaker 4: The opposite, what he said was the ideal kind of 682 00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:57,360 Speaker 4: planning was think slow, act fast, where you keep a 683 00:32:57,400 --> 00:33:00,360 Speaker 4: team small. At the beginning, you define the boundary, what 684 00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:04,840 Speaker 4: are we not doing, what is the focus? And then 685 00:33:04,880 --> 00:33:07,120 Speaker 4: when you do move into execution, you're able to work 686 00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:10,360 Speaker 4: much faster because you're not getting surprised by as many things. 687 00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:12,200 Speaker 2: The work boundaries are much more clear. 688 00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:14,400 Speaker 4: And again one of the reasons I picked Pixar in 689 00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:18,240 Speaker 4: the book is because Ben Flubier identified Pixar as like 690 00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:22,400 Speaker 4: the apotheosis of good planning, where they would keep He 691 00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:23,800 Speaker 4: actually calls it Pixar planning. 692 00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:25,280 Speaker 2: A director could stay. 693 00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:28,720 Speaker 4: For years with a small team in story development, refining 694 00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:31,360 Speaker 4: the core of a story cutting away characters, right like 695 00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:33,960 Speaker 4: they cut away the character for Schadenfreud in the first 696 00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:36,200 Speaker 4: Inside Out because they didn't they felt like it was 697 00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:39,800 Speaker 4: getting too many characters, getting too complicated, and that might 698 00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:43,960 Speaker 4: seem inefficient to stay in a small team for years 699 00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:47,080 Speaker 4: while you're refining the story, but the costs only explode 700 00:33:47,120 --> 00:33:49,560 Speaker 4: once you move into production and bring in this much 701 00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:52,040 Speaker 4: bigger team, and so it actually, in the long run 702 00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:54,320 Speaker 4: turns out to be much more efficient. And so that 703 00:33:54,400 --> 00:33:56,720 Speaker 4: kind of thinks slow act fast, where they've spent all 704 00:33:56,800 --> 00:34:00,520 Speaker 4: that time defining the boundaries allows them to work fast 705 00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:02,959 Speaker 4: once they get into it. And I found that to 706 00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:05,320 Speaker 4: be very true for me, where I didn't write a 707 00:34:05,320 --> 00:34:07,640 Speaker 4: single word of my book for a year. Yeah, I 708 00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:10,319 Speaker 4: just planned the architecture and did the research, and then 709 00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:12,480 Speaker 4: it allowed me to write more quickly than I ever 710 00:34:12,520 --> 00:34:13,880 Speaker 4: had once I moved into execution. 711 00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:15,799 Speaker 1: How do you think people can use that sort of 712 00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:18,480 Speaker 1: in the trenches of day to day life making decisions. 713 00:34:19,120 --> 00:34:19,319 Speaker 2: Yeah. 714 00:34:19,320 --> 00:34:22,640 Speaker 4: I think whatever it is they're doing, let's say, if 715 00:34:22,680 --> 00:34:25,080 Speaker 4: it's a work project or some kind of behavior change 716 00:34:25,239 --> 00:34:30,879 Speaker 4: that you're trying to engender, is I think we've talked 717 00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:33,440 Speaker 4: about optimization a little bit and the motivation is you 718 00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:36,200 Speaker 4: see something cool, I'm going to do this tomorrow. I 719 00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:38,439 Speaker 4: think it would actually make more sense to sit down 720 00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:41,560 Speaker 4: and say, what is the goal that this is serving? 721 00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:45,120 Speaker 4: What are the blocks between me and doing this thing? 722 00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:47,759 Speaker 4: Where am I going to draw the line for now? 723 00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:50,480 Speaker 4: Like implement in a small way. What's the first small experiment, 724 00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:52,960 Speaker 4: a low stakes experiment that I can run instead of 725 00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:56,360 Speaker 4: moving straight into big implementation. And so just spend a 726 00:34:56,360 --> 00:34:58,439 Speaker 4: little time figuring out what. 727 00:34:58,360 --> 00:34:58,880 Speaker 2: Are the blocks? 728 00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:01,560 Speaker 4: What's the smallest possible way that you can prototype this 729 00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:05,400 Speaker 4: thing before you move into this bigger execution. Because the 730 00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:08,879 Speaker 4: quicker you move into making something big, the more likely 731 00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:10,879 Speaker 4: you're going to learn harder lessons, and the more likely 732 00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:12,080 Speaker 4: I think you fall prey to that what the hell 733 00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:14,600 Speaker 4: effect where it doesn't really work well and then you 734 00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:17,520 Speaker 4: just throw the throw the baby out with the bathwater, 735 00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:18,200 Speaker 4: so to speak. 736 00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:21,560 Speaker 1: The companies that you highlighted that are doings that were successful, 737 00:35:21,680 --> 00:35:25,080 Speaker 1: they all solve the problem. Yes that in the wellness 738 00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:27,400 Speaker 1: sphere that really made me think about you know, with 739 00:35:27,480 --> 00:35:29,720 Speaker 1: my sub stack, I'll get all these questions from readers 740 00:35:29,719 --> 00:35:32,920 Speaker 1: that are like should I take this supplement? Should I 741 00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:35,120 Speaker 1: do this exercise should I do X Y Z? Insert 742 00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:38,080 Speaker 1: any number of examples, and the question I usually come 743 00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:41,640 Speaker 1: back with, after much trial and error trying to give people, 744 00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:44,640 Speaker 1: you know, well, here's this tart like complicated answer. I 745 00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:46,960 Speaker 1: usually now just respond with what problem are you trying 746 00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:52,000 Speaker 1: to solve? And oftentimes are like, I don't know. I 747 00:35:52,120 --> 00:35:54,920 Speaker 1: heard about this on a you know, online or on 748 00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:57,200 Speaker 1: a podcast, and I thought it sounded interesting, but I 749 00:35:57,280 --> 00:35:59,560 Speaker 1: actually don't know what the problem that will solve for 750 00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:00,920 Speaker 1: me is, you know. And so you get them to 751 00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:03,560 Speaker 1: like pull back, and it's like, all right, if there's 752 00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:05,359 Speaker 1: not a problem that this thing is solving, it sounds 753 00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:08,279 Speaker 1: like it might just be extra work, extra noise, and 754 00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:10,279 Speaker 1: not have that big of a return for you. 755 00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:13,279 Speaker 4: Defining the problem you want to solve, whether it's an 756 00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:18,400 Speaker 4: individual or an organization, incredibly powerful and defining it like 757 00:36:18,520 --> 00:36:20,799 Speaker 4: spending some time again to that think slow and thinking 758 00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:22,800 Speaker 4: about what are you trying to do. There's this famous 759 00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:25,560 Speaker 4: saying people don't want a quarter inch drill, they want 760 00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:27,799 Speaker 4: a quarter inch hole in their wall. Right, So if 761 00:36:27,800 --> 00:36:31,000 Speaker 4: you're thinking about serving the person, what is the actual 762 00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:33,239 Speaker 4: thing that they that they want? Does that mean they 763 00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:35,120 Speaker 4: need a carpenter? Does it mean they need a drill 764 00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:35,719 Speaker 4: or something else. 765 00:36:35,800 --> 00:36:37,640 Speaker 1: All right, here's where I want to mildly push back. 766 00:36:37,680 --> 00:36:39,239 Speaker 1: And the reason I'm doing this is there could be 767 00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:42,160 Speaker 1: people who are listening to this thinking you're saying constraints 768 00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:44,480 Speaker 1: are good. I need more constraints in my life. But 769 00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:47,480 Speaker 1: they might also be thinking my life is already constrained enough. 770 00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:50,640 Speaker 1: I have bills, I have a manager who is complaining 771 00:36:50,719 --> 00:36:53,960 Speaker 1: at me all the time. I have kids, I have dogs, 772 00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:57,600 Speaker 1: I have all these different commitments and constraints. So what 773 00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:01,239 Speaker 1: argument would you make to them about why constraints are good. 774 00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:04,879 Speaker 4: I mean, for one thing, it'd be crazy to say 775 00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:08,520 Speaker 4: the constraints can't be bad. Right, even in creativity, which 776 00:37:08,520 --> 00:37:11,960 Speaker 4: we've talked about, if a constraint, if you're telling someone 777 00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:13,560 Speaker 4: what they have to do and how they have to 778 00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:16,239 Speaker 4: do it, like if they if under this constraint they 779 00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:18,720 Speaker 4: there's no way for them to surprise you or themself, 780 00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:24,840 Speaker 4: then that's bad. It's gone too far. As far as bills, 781 00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:27,400 Speaker 4: you know, nobody likes bills, but jobs and kids and 782 00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:30,360 Speaker 4: dogs and obligations actually turn out to be really important 783 00:37:30,360 --> 00:37:32,880 Speaker 4: for people's sense of well being, so you may bristle 784 00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:33,399 Speaker 4: under them. 785 00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:35,719 Speaker 2: Sometimes because they're inconvenient. 786 00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:38,960 Speaker 4: But I think it's also pretty clear that a dense 787 00:37:39,040 --> 00:37:42,560 Speaker 4: network of obligation is actually a lot of what brings 788 00:37:42,640 --> 00:37:48,080 Speaker 4: meaning to people's lives. And so the founder Emil Durkheim, 789 00:37:48,239 --> 00:37:52,600 Speaker 4: founder of modern sociology, basically he did this famous study 790 00:37:52,600 --> 00:37:55,920 Speaker 4: on suicide when government started first keeping track of statistics, 791 00:37:56,520 --> 00:38:01,160 Speaker 4: and he found things intuitive, things like that suicide rates 792 00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:04,960 Speaker 4: would increase when economic fortunes of a country plummeted, but 793 00:38:05,040 --> 00:38:07,160 Speaker 4: he found they would also increase when the economic fortunes 794 00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:10,880 Speaker 4: of a country skyrocketed. Because anything that unmoored people from 795 00:38:10,920 --> 00:38:13,120 Speaker 4: these kinds of obligations what he called he called anime, 796 00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:17,319 Speaker 4: which means rulelessness. If people were sort of stripped of 797 00:38:17,320 --> 00:38:20,520 Speaker 4: these normal structures and rules that they lived under, they 798 00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:23,520 Speaker 4: would struggle with finding meaning in life. That's not to 799 00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:26,600 Speaker 4: say that every constraint is good, but I think the 800 00:38:26,719 --> 00:38:29,960 Speaker 4: idea that we just need more freedom then will be happier. 801 00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:32,799 Speaker 4: It actually usually looks like the opposite, that people with 802 00:38:32,880 --> 00:38:38,320 Speaker 4: more constraints are happier with married, with kids, with community obligations, 803 00:38:39,080 --> 00:38:42,160 Speaker 4: with regular rituals, and you know, for some people religion, 804 00:38:42,360 --> 00:38:45,680 Speaker 4: going to a job is inconvenient sinking up your schedule 805 00:38:45,680 --> 00:38:47,719 Speaker 4: with someone else to spend time with them is inconvenient. 806 00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:52,040 Speaker 4: Kids are incredibly inconvenient all the time. But these things 807 00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:54,560 Speaker 4: also add meaning to our life. So I think it's 808 00:38:55,080 --> 00:38:58,080 Speaker 4: it's tricky because it feels like more freedom should always 809 00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:00,719 Speaker 4: be attractive. In fact, I went to some years ago 810 00:39:00,760 --> 00:39:04,000 Speaker 4: this writer's retreat where we were all asked, the only 811 00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:05,880 Speaker 4: one I've ever been to where we're all asked, what 812 00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:08,279 Speaker 4: are you optimizing for this year? And I said autonomy 813 00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:11,359 Speaker 4: because after my last book, I became just a writer 814 00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:13,800 Speaker 4: for you know, full time. I left like having a 815 00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:18,680 Speaker 4: normal daily job, and I thought I just wanted to 816 00:39:18,680 --> 00:39:21,960 Speaker 4: spend every minute in the way that I determined. And 817 00:39:22,080 --> 00:39:23,640 Speaker 4: fast forward two years and I learned there's such a 818 00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:25,799 Speaker 4: thing as too much autonomy. Where I was like living 819 00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:28,839 Speaker 4: in an individualized world for one. And so to reel 820 00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:30,799 Speaker 4: that back, I joined the board of a nonprofit in 821 00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:33,440 Speaker 4: my community. I started going to like dance meetups with 822 00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:39,200 Speaker 4: strangers and just started inconveniencing myself a lot more in 823 00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:40,960 Speaker 4: order to add meaning back to my life. 824 00:39:41,120 --> 00:39:41,600 Speaker 3: That's cool. 825 00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:44,799 Speaker 1: It makes me wonder what you think about retirement. I 826 00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:47,720 Speaker 1: feel like when you see data on retirement and well being. 827 00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:49,759 Speaker 1: At first, people are like, oh, this is great, I 828 00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:51,520 Speaker 1: can do anything, and then there's kind of like a 829 00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:54,920 Speaker 1: drop off where they go, I don't know about this totally. 830 00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:59,120 Speaker 4: And there's also all this research that people, you know, 831 00:39:59,239 --> 00:40:02,480 Speaker 4: when they retire, all these rates of dementia and things 832 00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:04,680 Speaker 4: like this are not as cognitively engaged anymore go up. 833 00:40:06,280 --> 00:40:10,640 Speaker 4: And I think, I'm not planning on never retiring good, 834 00:40:10,719 --> 00:40:13,400 Speaker 4: but I think if someone's going to retire, like find take. 835 00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:17,880 Speaker 3: That vacation, but replace it with something, replace. 836 00:40:17,520 --> 00:40:18,680 Speaker 2: It with something that's right. 837 00:40:18,880 --> 00:40:21,440 Speaker 4: There's this I cite this research in the book from 838 00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:28,520 Speaker 4: Sweden where they look at antidepressants being dispensed throughout the country, 839 00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:30,239 Speaker 4: and one of the things they find is that when 840 00:40:30,320 --> 00:40:33,000 Speaker 4: more people in the country are on vacation at once, 841 00:40:33,440 --> 00:40:41,160 Speaker 4: antidepressant dispensing goes way down. But it's true among retirees too, 842 00:40:41,239 --> 00:40:43,840 Speaker 4: who it didn't matter like they were already on vacation essentially. 843 00:40:44,120 --> 00:40:46,040 Speaker 4: But the fact is it's when lots of people are 844 00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:48,759 Speaker 4: doing it at the same time. It's like social control 845 00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:52,320 Speaker 4: of time that has a well being benefit for everyone, 846 00:40:52,360 --> 00:40:55,480 Speaker 4: Whereas the opposite was in the Soviet Union when they 847 00:40:55,520 --> 00:40:58,080 Speaker 4: tried to in order to keep factories running all the time, 848 00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:02,719 Speaker 4: individualize everyone's work routine so that people in the same 849 00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:04,759 Speaker 4: family are on the same block. It wasn't like five 850 00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:07,120 Speaker 4: days of work and two day weekend. They did all 851 00:41:07,120 --> 00:41:09,640 Speaker 4: these different four days of work, one day weekend cycles 852 00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:14,120 Speaker 4: that were different for everybody, and it desynchronized everyone's schedule 853 00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:14,480 Speaker 4: and it. 854 00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:15,560 Speaker 2: Was a social disaster. 855 00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:19,839 Speaker 4: Interesting, that's often what we're doing to ourselves, I think, 856 00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:22,840 Speaker 4: right Like, I remember when Mark Zuckerberg first advertised the metaverse, 857 00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:25,200 Speaker 4: and he was like, it's gonna be amazing. Everyone's going 858 00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:27,759 Speaker 4: to live in their own universe, tailored just for them. 859 00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:30,440 Speaker 4: I'm like, that actually sounds like hell yeah, that sounds terrible. 860 00:41:31,520 --> 00:41:35,640 Speaker 4: Just me, myself and whatever is in this device streaming 861 00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:38,960 Speaker 4: into my brain at all times. I spent too much 862 00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:42,480 Speaker 4: of my time in my head already. So you had 863 00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:45,800 Speaker 4: a great section about health research. So the case study 864 00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:49,080 Speaker 4: here is National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. So before 865 00:41:49,160 --> 00:41:52,560 Speaker 4: about year two thousand, projects are getting a ton of 866 00:41:52,560 --> 00:41:56,839 Speaker 4: funding and they're similarly finding these fantastic results for health. 867 00:41:57,080 --> 00:41:59,520 Speaker 4: All these great drugs, all these good things are happening. 868 00:42:00,280 --> 00:42:02,400 Speaker 4: And then after two thousand, all of a sudden that 869 00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:06,480 Speaker 4: drops off the finding stop. Now, that might seem like 870 00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:08,040 Speaker 4: a bad thing, but in the book you argue, no, 871 00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:09,759 Speaker 4: this is actually a good thing. So walk us through 872 00:42:09,760 --> 00:42:14,600 Speaker 4: that and what it tells us about health research. Yeah, 873 00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:17,959 Speaker 4: I'm glad you asked me about this, because I don't 874 00:42:17,960 --> 00:42:19,560 Speaker 4: think many people are going to ask me about this 875 00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:22,600 Speaker 4: part of the book because it's a little complicated. But 876 00:42:23,160 --> 00:42:25,799 Speaker 4: as you said, it was all these major where there's 877 00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:29,839 Speaker 4: drugs supplements. Before two thousand, most of the results were 878 00:42:29,840 --> 00:42:33,040 Speaker 4: positive that were funded in these studies, and then starting 879 00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:35,799 Speaker 4: in two thousand, they're almost all negative. Supplements aren't working, 880 00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:40,200 Speaker 4: they're not out performing placebo anyway, drugs aren't working. And 881 00:42:40,280 --> 00:42:42,080 Speaker 4: so it looked like all of a sudden, medicine stopped 882 00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:45,200 Speaker 4: working in the year two thousand, like millennium bug. What 883 00:42:45,360 --> 00:42:48,719 Speaker 4: really happened was that researchers started facing more constraints in 884 00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:51,200 Speaker 4: their work, so they were forced to do what's called 885 00:42:51,280 --> 00:42:55,800 Speaker 4: preregistration starting in two thousand for these big supplement and 886 00:42:55,880 --> 00:42:59,759 Speaker 4: drug studies. Preregistration means you have to say what you're 887 00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:01,680 Speaker 4: act actually testing, What do you think this drug or 888 00:43:01,680 --> 00:43:04,560 Speaker 4: supplement is going to do? How are you going to 889 00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:06,959 Speaker 4: measure that, How are you going to analyze the data. 890 00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:12,920 Speaker 4: And that's counterintuitively, that's what caused positive effects to stop 891 00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:17,560 Speaker 4: popping up, because what had been happening was researchers would 892 00:43:17,560 --> 00:43:19,800 Speaker 4: make a hypothesis. They'd guess how some drug or supplement 893 00:43:19,920 --> 00:43:23,160 Speaker 4: was going to improve health. They would analyze the data 894 00:43:23,160 --> 00:43:25,840 Speaker 4: and they would see their prediction was not right. But 895 00:43:25,880 --> 00:43:28,279 Speaker 4: they had all this data, so then they would start 896 00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:33,360 Speaker 4: looking through the data for some other correlation, right, thinking well, okay, 897 00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:35,200 Speaker 4: maybe it didn't drop blood pressure, but maybe. 898 00:43:35,080 --> 00:43:36,680 Speaker 2: It improves cholesterol. Oh what do you know? 899 00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:38,480 Speaker 4: Oh, so then they published as if that's what they 900 00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:39,960 Speaker 4: were looking for in the first place, and this was 901 00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:43,040 Speaker 4: not nefarious. People were not doing this thinking it was bad. 902 00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:46,360 Speaker 4: I did this as a science gratitude, not realizing the problem. 903 00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:50,040 Speaker 4: The problem essentially is that when you're doing this thing, 904 00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:53,640 Speaker 4: which is called HARKing hypothesizing after the results are known, 905 00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:57,480 Speaker 4: it's like being The analogy is like a sharpshooter who 906 00:43:57,480 --> 00:43:59,920 Speaker 4: fires randomly at a wall and then draws a bullet, 907 00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:01,759 Speaker 4: finds a clump of bullet holes and draws a bulls 908 00:44:01,760 --> 00:44:04,799 Speaker 4: eye around them, and somebody who walks up says, wow, 909 00:44:04,840 --> 00:44:07,520 Speaker 4: what a great shooter, Not oh, there was a clump 910 00:44:07,640 --> 00:44:10,879 Speaker 4: because of random statistical variation. And so when researchers were 911 00:44:10,880 --> 00:44:13,400 Speaker 4: retroactively going through their data, and if you have a 912 00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:15,399 Speaker 4: lot of data, you're always going to find a bunch 913 00:44:15,440 --> 00:44:19,080 Speaker 4: of false positives just by chance alone. So it was 914 00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:22,120 Speaker 4: this preregistration forcing someone to stick to the initial prediction 915 00:44:22,800 --> 00:44:26,000 Speaker 4: that showed that most of these drugs and supplements weren't 916 00:44:26,040 --> 00:44:29,920 Speaker 4: working and in fact, most of the prior positive results, 917 00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:32,120 Speaker 4: many of which are drugs that are still out there. 918 00:44:32,360 --> 00:44:35,000 Speaker 4: What's an example, There's like a bunch of blood pressure 919 00:44:35,040 --> 00:44:39,840 Speaker 4: medications that were out there. There's one one very famous 920 00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:44,600 Speaker 4: one called a tenolol. That's very famous drug out there. 921 00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:46,080 Speaker 4: And one of the interesting things about a tennolol was 922 00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:47,960 Speaker 4: it was viewed as a breakthrough because it it does 923 00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:52,520 Speaker 4: lower blood pressure numbers, but people die from heart attack 924 00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:54,160 Speaker 4: and stroke at the exact same rate just with lower 925 00:44:54,200 --> 00:44:56,920 Speaker 4: blood pressure numbers. So you know, it can look good 926 00:44:56,920 --> 00:45:02,680 Speaker 4: but doesn't actually have an useful effect. And so anyway, 927 00:45:02,719 --> 00:45:06,880 Speaker 4: so it was these these greater constraints in how scientists 928 00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:10,120 Speaker 4: were operating that led them to start drawing more true conclusions. 929 00:45:10,160 --> 00:45:14,800 Speaker 4: The downside is because this is a newer era of research, 930 00:45:14,880 --> 00:45:17,799 Speaker 4: like nutrition research is just an absolute mess. So it's 931 00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:20,719 Speaker 4: this famous study that people refer to, scientists refer to 932 00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:23,840 Speaker 4: as the Everything in your Fridge Causes and Prevents Cancer study, 933 00:45:23,880 --> 00:45:26,400 Speaker 4: because it it looked at all the different studies on 934 00:45:26,440 --> 00:45:28,640 Speaker 4: a bunch of different foods and found that basically everything 935 00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:31,040 Speaker 4: had been found both to cause and prevent cancer except 936 00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:33,000 Speaker 4: for bacon's cause cancer. 937 00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:34,520 Speaker 2: Unfortunately. Yes, yeah, indeed. 938 00:45:37,320 --> 00:45:40,719 Speaker 4: And the problem was these studies just are not I mean, 939 00:45:40,800 --> 00:45:43,320 Speaker 4: nutrition is hard to study anyway for variety of reasons. 940 00:45:43,360 --> 00:45:46,920 Speaker 4: But the studies were just not well controlled. And so 941 00:45:47,040 --> 00:45:50,080 Speaker 4: the good the good news is there's a lot more preregistration. 942 00:45:50,200 --> 00:45:54,080 Speaker 4: Now the bad news is, I think this caused some 943 00:45:54,280 --> 00:45:59,720 Speaker 4: understandable mistrust from some of the scientific community where results 944 00:45:59,719 --> 00:46:03,040 Speaker 4: were not holding up. Well, the good thing is it 945 00:46:03,080 --> 00:46:06,719 Speaker 4: was scientists themselves who identified these problems and it led 946 00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:08,240 Speaker 4: to a now a better system. 947 00:46:08,440 --> 00:46:10,880 Speaker 1: Yeah that makes sense. And you use the example of 948 00:46:11,239 --> 00:46:16,000 Speaker 1: Brian Wantson. Yeah, I remember before this became a big deal. 949 00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:17,960 Speaker 1: So he was using those methods where he kind of 950 00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:19,680 Speaker 1: sort of set up these studies and then he just 951 00:46:19,760 --> 00:46:21,160 Speaker 1: combed through the data and be like, well, what can 952 00:46:21,200 --> 00:46:23,799 Speaker 1: I find that was positive? But most of it's just 953 00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:25,640 Speaker 1: going to be, like you said, by chance, you're going 954 00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:29,080 Speaker 1: to have something positive. When I was at Men's Health, 955 00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:32,680 Speaker 1: that dude was like, our are all star because this 956 00:46:32,760 --> 00:46:35,040 Speaker 1: is a health magazine with like little tidbits, and you'd 957 00:46:35,040 --> 00:46:38,040 Speaker 1: have things like if you use a smaller plate, you 958 00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:40,120 Speaker 1: will eat less, like all these little things. 959 00:46:39,719 --> 00:46:42,640 Speaker 3: And then and then it all entirely blew up totally. 960 00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:45,840 Speaker 4: And it wasn't It wasn't just health magazines by any stretch. 961 00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:48,920 Speaker 4: I mean, his work was called, you know, masterpiece in 962 00:46:48,960 --> 00:46:51,839 Speaker 4: a book by a Nobel Prize winner, like he was 963 00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:56,719 Speaker 4: informing nutrition guidelines for Americans. He to me, clearly was 964 00:46:56,800 --> 00:47:01,759 Speaker 4: not intentionally misrepresenting everything, because the problem developed for him 965 00:47:01,760 --> 00:47:04,400 Speaker 4: when he wrote a blog post about his research methods 966 00:47:05,200 --> 00:47:08,520 Speaker 4: and another scientist was like, you can't do that, because 967 00:47:08,520 --> 00:47:10,400 Speaker 4: all your results are just going to be from a 968 00:47:10,400 --> 00:47:12,480 Speaker 4: statistical chance alone. And we see this all the time 969 00:47:12,520 --> 00:47:14,000 Speaker 4: in the world around us, right. Like the example I 970 00:47:14,080 --> 00:47:15,960 Speaker 4: use in the book is if you're watching an NFL 971 00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:18,160 Speaker 4: game and you hear the announcer say, you know, the 972 00:47:18,239 --> 00:47:21,120 Speaker 4: Chiefs are undefeated, when Taylor Swift is in the audience 973 00:47:21,160 --> 00:47:23,400 Speaker 4: and they're playing in division rival on the road. You 974 00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:25,239 Speaker 4: can be sure that they first looked for are the 975 00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:28,160 Speaker 4: Chiefs undefeated when Taylor Swift is in the audience, didn't 976 00:47:28,160 --> 00:47:31,160 Speaker 4: find that, and then started adding more and more qualifications, 977 00:47:31,560 --> 00:47:33,120 Speaker 4: And every time you do that, it's more. 978 00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:34,360 Speaker 2: Likely that you find a false positive. 979 00:47:34,440 --> 00:47:37,439 Speaker 1: Basically, Yeah, I think sports is a great example because 980 00:47:37,440 --> 00:47:40,040 Speaker 1: there's so many times where you know, if it's like 981 00:47:40,080 --> 00:47:43,720 Speaker 1: the Masters, it's oh, well, this guy tends to score 982 00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:47,400 Speaker 1: less when there's this due point in the air and xyz, 983 00:47:47,480 --> 00:47:48,920 Speaker 1: and it's like you just had an intern look at 984 00:47:48,960 --> 00:47:52,479 Speaker 1: all this random stuff and give us some piece of information. Now, 985 00:47:53,160 --> 00:47:55,439 Speaker 1: that is an example where it's kind of just this fun, 986 00:47:55,480 --> 00:47:58,920 Speaker 1: stupid stuff we watch. But I will say when I 987 00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:02,239 Speaker 1: listened to sports podcast, yes I hear people using this 988 00:48:02,760 --> 00:48:06,879 Speaker 1: information as a reason to make a bet, right because 989 00:48:06,880 --> 00:48:09,719 Speaker 1: a lot of podcasts are sponsored by betting companies, And 990 00:48:09,760 --> 00:48:11,920 Speaker 1: so it becomes like, oh, well, the Chief Taylor Swiss 991 00:48:11,920 --> 00:48:13,560 Speaker 1: in the audience, she's going to be at the game. 992 00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:15,960 Speaker 1: They never lose when Taylor's there, so you got to 993 00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:17,400 Speaker 1: push those chips across the table. 994 00:48:17,400 --> 00:48:19,080 Speaker 3: And in that case, I'm like, ooh, I don't know 995 00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:19,480 Speaker 3: about that. 996 00:48:20,239 --> 00:48:25,600 Speaker 4: No, And in fat absolutely and I think also sometimes 997 00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:28,200 Speaker 4: on financial TV when I'll catch that if I'm in 998 00:48:28,200 --> 00:48:31,239 Speaker 4: a gym or something, there will be something very very 999 00:48:31,239 --> 00:48:33,960 Speaker 4: similar with someone who's brought on because of certain predictions 1000 00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:36,520 Speaker 4: they're making, and they'll start describing how they come to 1001 00:48:36,560 --> 00:48:40,920 Speaker 4: those predictions. And I don't know for sure, but you 1002 00:48:40,960 --> 00:48:45,759 Speaker 4: can tell when somebody starts adding different caveats to the category, 1003 00:48:45,840 --> 00:48:47,919 Speaker 4: like when the housing market does this, and these other 1004 00:48:47,960 --> 00:48:50,840 Speaker 4: three things happen, three things happen, here's here's you know 1005 00:48:50,880 --> 00:48:53,080 Speaker 4: what we see in the market. You can be almost 1006 00:48:53,120 --> 00:48:55,279 Speaker 4: positive that they were slicing and dicing data in a 1007 00:48:55,280 --> 00:48:57,120 Speaker 4: way that ensures that this was that this was a 1008 00:48:57,160 --> 00:48:58,240 Speaker 4: false positive totally. 1009 00:48:58,600 --> 00:49:03,960 Speaker 1: Your first book, Sports gam that was twenty thirteen. Twenty thirteen, Yeah, 1010 00:49:04,840 --> 00:49:06,920 Speaker 1: what led you to write that? A few things? 1011 00:49:06,960 --> 00:49:11,719 Speaker 4: So one, I mean, I guess the little secret of 1012 00:49:11,719 --> 00:49:15,920 Speaker 4: that book is that it was very much questions I 1013 00:49:16,080 --> 00:49:19,319 Speaker 4: had about things that I had seen in sports, either 1014 00:49:19,320 --> 00:49:21,640 Speaker 4: as a spectator or I was an eight hundred meter 1015 00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:25,200 Speaker 4: runner in college, or as a competitor. So things like 1016 00:49:25,320 --> 00:49:26,879 Speaker 4: as a runner in my high school, we had lots 1017 00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:28,879 Speaker 4: of Jamaican guys and we had an incredible track team, 1018 00:49:28,920 --> 00:49:30,920 Speaker 4: and you know, it's like a country of two to 1019 00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:33,400 Speaker 4: three million people, like what's going on over there? And 1020 00:49:33,440 --> 00:49:35,600 Speaker 4: then in college I was running against some Kenyan guys 1021 00:49:35,600 --> 00:49:39,160 Speaker 4: and realizing they were all from one tiny tribe called 1022 00:49:39,200 --> 00:49:42,960 Speaker 4: the Kallengin. And then just seeing things like why, you know, 1023 00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:45,600 Speaker 4: watching an exhibition softball game with Major League baseball players 1024 00:49:45,600 --> 00:49:47,600 Speaker 4: and realizing none of the best baseball hitters in. 1025 00:49:47,560 --> 00:49:48,400 Speaker 2: The world could hit. 1026 00:49:49,760 --> 00:49:52,239 Speaker 4: A good softball pitcher and just wondering what's going on 1027 00:49:52,320 --> 00:49:55,800 Speaker 4: with this, and so just just wanting to examine those things. 1028 00:49:55,880 --> 00:49:57,200 Speaker 2: And then there was also. 1029 00:49:58,600 --> 00:50:01,239 Speaker 4: Sort of disclaimer, sad part to the story, but this 1030 00:50:01,280 --> 00:50:03,520 Speaker 4: is kind of what led to my writing career in 1031 00:50:03,560 --> 00:50:05,759 Speaker 4: many ways. Was so I was a national level eight 1032 00:50:05,800 --> 00:50:07,520 Speaker 4: hundred meter runner and I had a training partner who 1033 00:50:07,520 --> 00:50:09,759 Speaker 4: died at the end of a race, Oh Jesus, from 1034 00:50:09,760 --> 00:50:13,560 Speaker 4: a condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy or HCM, almost usually the 1035 00:50:13,560 --> 00:50:17,640 Speaker 4: cause of a young athlete with no obvious prior symptoms 1036 00:50:17,719 --> 00:50:22,960 Speaker 4: dropping dead. And I had his family sign a way 1037 00:50:23,000 --> 00:50:24,600 Speaker 4: for allowing me to gather up his medical records and 1038 00:50:24,640 --> 00:50:27,040 Speaker 4: kind of investigated what had happened, and he had this 1039 00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:29,200 Speaker 4: disease had been misdiagnosed. He had a you know, it's 1040 00:50:29,239 --> 00:50:31,440 Speaker 4: caused by a single genetic mutation, and I thought there 1041 00:50:31,440 --> 00:50:34,200 Speaker 4: were some lives that could be saved with certain types 1042 00:50:34,200 --> 00:50:35,680 Speaker 4: of awareness. And so this is what led me to 1043 00:50:35,800 --> 00:50:37,600 Speaker 4: leave my track of training to be a scientist and 1044 00:50:37,640 --> 00:50:39,480 Speaker 4: try to become the science writer at Sports Illustrated to 1045 00:50:39,520 --> 00:50:41,719 Speaker 4: write about sudden cardiac death and athletes. And that's what 1046 00:50:41,760 --> 00:50:43,840 Speaker 4: got me interested in genetics in the first place. 1047 00:50:43,960 --> 00:50:46,200 Speaker 1: Yeah, what were the big takeaways from that book for 1048 00:50:46,200 --> 00:50:46,960 Speaker 1: the average person? 1049 00:50:47,960 --> 00:50:51,800 Speaker 4: I think some things that I thought were totally innate, 1050 00:50:51,880 --> 00:50:53,880 Speaker 4: like the reflexes they hit a major league fastball, are not. 1051 00:50:53,920 --> 00:50:58,360 Speaker 4: They're completely learned. And other things like the will to 1052 00:51:00,520 --> 00:51:02,520 Speaker 4: do a lot of physical activity actually has like a 1053 00:51:02,560 --> 00:51:08,640 Speaker 4: really strong innate component. But maybe the biggest takeaway, so 1054 00:51:08,680 --> 00:51:10,600 Speaker 4: the American College of Sports Medicine has this phrase, I 1055 00:51:10,640 --> 00:51:12,920 Speaker 4: don't know if they still have it, but exercises medicine. 1056 00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:16,160 Speaker 4: And just like we've learned from medical genetics that no 1057 00:51:16,239 --> 00:51:18,520 Speaker 4: two people respond to a medication the same way because 1058 00:51:18,520 --> 00:51:20,880 Speaker 4: of differences in their genetics, no two people will respond 1059 00:51:20,920 --> 00:51:23,719 Speaker 4: to a specific training exactly the same way. And so 1060 00:51:23,800 --> 00:51:27,080 Speaker 4: I think it's worth spending some time kind of experimenting 1061 00:51:27,080 --> 00:51:30,920 Speaker 4: with different training modalities because you know, you may have 1062 00:51:30,960 --> 00:51:32,560 Speaker 4: the same diet as someone else and it may not 1063 00:51:32,600 --> 00:51:35,120 Speaker 4: work as well for you, and so it may be 1064 00:51:35,160 --> 00:51:36,640 Speaker 4: worth it to be a little bit of a scientist 1065 00:51:36,680 --> 00:51:40,960 Speaker 4: of yourself and see if you can fit your your 1066 00:51:40,960 --> 00:51:43,759 Speaker 4: health routines to your physiology or improve a little bit 1067 00:51:43,800 --> 00:51:45,200 Speaker 4: over time with some experimentation. 1068 00:51:45,719 --> 00:51:48,080 Speaker 1: Yeah, and I feel like a lot of people kind 1069 00:51:48,080 --> 00:51:52,000 Speaker 1: of understand this at a basic level. Though I'm a 1070 00:51:52,000 --> 00:51:54,279 Speaker 1: better runner than I am a lifter. Like to take 1071 00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:56,400 Speaker 1: my example, I go, you know, I was at mentalit, 1072 00:51:56,400 --> 00:51:58,880 Speaker 1: so I had to do all this lifting. There was 1073 00:51:58,920 --> 00:52:01,279 Speaker 1: no amount of training I could do that would allow 1074 00:52:01,360 --> 00:52:04,680 Speaker 1: me to be super strong and like a big sense 1075 00:52:04,719 --> 00:52:07,000 Speaker 1: like that. But running, I'm like, I'm pretty good at 1076 00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:09,160 Speaker 1: that outdoor stuff like I can just hike on a 1077 00:52:09,200 --> 00:52:11,239 Speaker 1: trail for days and I'm fine where some people are 1078 00:52:11,239 --> 00:52:12,480 Speaker 1: just never going to be able to do that. 1079 00:52:12,640 --> 00:52:14,360 Speaker 3: And so I think leaning into that. 1080 00:52:14,400 --> 00:52:16,320 Speaker 1: But also I think one of the keys with exercise 1081 00:52:16,360 --> 00:52:18,120 Speaker 1: in particular is you got to find something you actually 1082 00:52:18,200 --> 00:52:21,000 Speaker 1: enjoy and if it aligns with what you're good. 1083 00:52:20,880 --> 00:52:22,080 Speaker 3: At, bonus points. 1084 00:52:22,320 --> 00:52:26,000 Speaker 1: So how did your second book Range come out of 1085 00:52:26,080 --> 00:52:28,279 Speaker 1: the sports gene and quickly tell us about range too. 1086 00:52:28,560 --> 00:52:31,880 Speaker 4: So in the Sports Gene, I criticized the research underlying 1087 00:52:31,880 --> 00:52:34,520 Speaker 4: the ten thousand hours rule that Malcolm Gladwell had made 1088 00:52:34,520 --> 00:52:38,440 Speaker 4: famous because the research was poorly done, and that brought 1089 00:52:38,440 --> 00:52:41,040 Speaker 4: me into a public debate with glad Will the first 1090 00:52:41,040 --> 00:52:41,440 Speaker 4: time we met. 1091 00:52:41,520 --> 00:52:41,680 Speaker 3: Yeah. 1092 00:52:41,719 --> 00:52:43,759 Speaker 1: In the ten thousand hour rule is that you need 1093 00:52:43,800 --> 00:52:46,600 Speaker 1: to practice something for ten thousand hours to be an expert. 1094 00:52:46,920 --> 00:52:49,880 Speaker 4: Yeah, basically, And the implication is you should specialize as 1095 00:52:49,960 --> 00:52:53,560 Speaker 4: narrowly and early as humanly possible. And that brought us 1096 00:52:53,560 --> 00:52:55,800 Speaker 4: into this debate that's on YouTube at the MIT Sloane 1097 00:52:55,800 --> 00:52:59,680 Speaker 4: Sports Analytics Conference, and I put up some of the 1098 00:52:59,760 --> 00:53:02,560 Speaker 4: data showing that most future lead athletes, because we were 1099 00:53:02,560 --> 00:53:06,759 Speaker 4: talking about athletic development at that debate, actually had a 1100 00:53:06,760 --> 00:53:09,200 Speaker 4: sampling period early where they did a variety of things. 1101 00:53:09,239 --> 00:53:12,800 Speaker 4: They learned these broad general skills that scaffold later technical skills, 1102 00:53:12,880 --> 00:53:16,080 Speaker 4: They learned about their interest and abilities and delay picking 1103 00:53:16,480 --> 00:53:19,160 Speaker 4: one activity. And when we were coming off the stage, 1104 00:53:19,160 --> 00:53:21,279 Speaker 4: he said, you got me on that that doesn't fit 1105 00:53:21,480 --> 00:53:23,560 Speaker 4: with things that I've thought and written. Why don't we 1106 00:53:23,600 --> 00:53:25,320 Speaker 4: And he had been a national level runner two, so 1107 00:53:25,360 --> 00:53:27,160 Speaker 4: he said, why don't we run together? Tomorrow back in 1108 00:53:27,200 --> 00:53:29,040 Speaker 4: New York and we'll talk about it. And then we 1109 00:53:29,080 --> 00:53:32,000 Speaker 4: started talking about what we called the Roger Versus Tiger 1110 00:53:32,040 --> 00:53:36,040 Speaker 4: problem because Tiger Woods early specialization, Roger Fetter delayed specialization, 1111 00:53:38,360 --> 00:53:40,959 Speaker 4: and pretty soon we leaped out of sports and started 1112 00:53:41,040 --> 00:53:42,560 Speaker 4: jumping about in other area. So I was like doing 1113 00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:46,720 Speaker 4: research weekly for my runs with Gladwell, and that became 1114 00:53:46,760 --> 00:53:48,759 Speaker 4: the book Range about the benefits of breadth in an 1115 00:53:48,800 --> 00:53:52,440 Speaker 4: increasingly specialized world. And the introduction is called Roger Versus Tiger, 1116 00:53:52,480 --> 00:53:54,759 Speaker 4: which was exactly what we would call our arguments what 1117 00:53:54,880 --> 00:53:55,800 Speaker 4: we were running together. 1118 00:53:56,160 --> 00:54:00,960 Speaker 1: So your book Range, especially with this idea that specialization 1119 00:54:01,520 --> 00:54:05,000 Speaker 1: is not always required for growth and improving in the 1120 00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:07,920 Speaker 1: long term. In fact, it's nice to have some range. 1121 00:54:08,520 --> 00:54:10,759 Speaker 1: I feel like that's a huge one for parents with 1122 00:54:10,920 --> 00:54:14,239 Speaker 1: kids in sports. It's like I remember when I was 1123 00:54:14,239 --> 00:54:16,160 Speaker 1: at mental health. I would do a lot of I 1124 00:54:16,160 --> 00:54:18,839 Speaker 1: would use as a source this guy Eric Kressy, who 1125 00:54:18,920 --> 00:54:22,920 Speaker 1: was a baseball trainer basically, and he would work with 1126 00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:24,799 Speaker 1: like the Red Sox, all these pros. But he had 1127 00:54:24,840 --> 00:54:26,840 Speaker 1: all these people in that he was up in Boston. 1128 00:54:26,840 --> 00:54:28,600 Speaker 1: He'd have all you know, Red Sox are huge up there, 1129 00:54:28,600 --> 00:54:30,680 Speaker 1: all the kids to play baseball. All these parents sending 1130 00:54:31,160 --> 00:54:32,960 Speaker 1: their eight year olds, nine year olds to him and 1131 00:54:33,000 --> 00:54:35,600 Speaker 1: being like, you need to make this kid a professional 1132 00:54:35,640 --> 00:54:38,280 Speaker 1: athlete immediately. And he would just be like, you should 1133 00:54:38,280 --> 00:54:40,279 Speaker 1: maybe have him go do some other stuff, to play 1134 00:54:40,280 --> 00:54:41,200 Speaker 1: different sports. 1135 00:54:41,400 --> 00:54:43,719 Speaker 2: So what did you find with that? Yeah, I mean 1136 00:54:44,360 --> 00:54:44,799 Speaker 2: that's funny. 1137 00:54:44,880 --> 00:54:46,840 Speaker 4: You mentioned that reminds you of this guy, Ian Yates, 1138 00:54:46,840 --> 00:54:50,960 Speaker 4: who was a British guy who developed olympians for various sports. 1139 00:54:51,040 --> 00:54:54,160 Speaker 4: And he told me one of the problems became so 1140 00:54:54,360 --> 00:54:57,040 Speaker 4: he mentioned Bradley Wiggins is famous British cyclist, and he 1141 00:54:57,040 --> 00:54:58,799 Speaker 4: would say, I have parents coming to me now saying 1142 00:54:58,840 --> 00:55:00,880 Speaker 4: I want my twelve year old doing what Bradley Wiggins 1143 00:55:00,880 --> 00:55:02,920 Speaker 4: is doing now, not what Bradley Wiggins was doing when 1144 00:55:02,920 --> 00:55:07,360 Speaker 4: he was twelve, which was completely different. And the fact 1145 00:55:07,400 --> 00:55:13,080 Speaker 4: is the research shows that the best the most typical path. 1146 00:55:13,080 --> 00:55:14,520 Speaker 4: There are a lot of different paths, of course, but 1147 00:55:14,520 --> 00:55:18,600 Speaker 4: the most typical path becoming an elite athlete is with 1148 00:55:18,680 --> 00:55:22,320 Speaker 4: a sampling period, early variety of activities, broad general skills. 1149 00:55:22,360 --> 00:55:24,800 Speaker 4: Now some people call physical literacy those general skills. 1150 00:55:24,840 --> 00:55:26,879 Speaker 1: So you're playing you're not just playing baseball, You're also 1151 00:55:26,920 --> 00:55:28,359 Speaker 1: like I'm going to be on the basketball team, I'm 1152 00:55:28,360 --> 00:55:29,600 Speaker 1: going to run some truck, I'm going to do a 1153 00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:30,640 Speaker 1: bunch of stuff. 1154 00:55:31,040 --> 00:55:35,680 Speaker 4: Or at least diversifying your movement. So I don't know 1155 00:55:35,719 --> 00:55:37,560 Speaker 4: that it matters that you put on a basketball jersey, 1156 00:55:37,600 --> 00:55:40,919 Speaker 4: but I think there's a reason why the large, large 1157 00:55:40,960 --> 00:55:43,440 Speaker 4: majority of the top soccer players in the world grew 1158 00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:45,880 Speaker 4: up playing futsal, which has a small ball that stays 1159 00:55:45,920 --> 00:55:49,000 Speaker 4: on the ground and they play on a cobblestones one 1160 00:55:49,080 --> 00:55:50,840 Speaker 4: day and sand the next day. It's like soccer in 1161 00:55:50,840 --> 00:55:54,040 Speaker 4: a phone booth. It's like much more diversity of problem 1162 00:55:54,160 --> 00:55:57,000 Speaker 4: solving and movement, and I think that's really important. I 1163 00:55:57,000 --> 00:56:00,600 Speaker 4: do think playing multiple actual different sports is really helpful. 1164 00:56:00,600 --> 00:56:02,400 Speaker 4: So there was actually just a paper that came out 1165 00:56:02,440 --> 00:56:03,879 Speaker 4: in Science, you know, one of the probably two most 1166 00:56:03,920 --> 00:56:07,719 Speaker 4: prestigious journals in the world, scientific journals, that looked at 1167 00:56:08,320 --> 00:56:15,400 Speaker 4: thirty thousand performers in sports, science, music, and they found 1168 00:56:15,400 --> 00:56:18,960 Speaker 4: this trend in all of those things where the predictors 1169 00:56:19,600 --> 00:56:24,960 Speaker 4: of top youth performance were negative predictors of elite adult performance. 1170 00:56:25,600 --> 00:56:28,319 Speaker 4: So that happened in sports, it happened for when they 1171 00:56:28,320 --> 00:56:30,760 Speaker 4: looked at scientists who won the Nobel They actually progressed 1172 00:56:30,840 --> 00:56:34,080 Speaker 4: more slowly earlier in their careers because they're more interdisciplinary 1173 00:56:34,120 --> 00:56:35,640 Speaker 4: early on, and they get like a penalty for it 1174 00:56:35,760 --> 00:56:36,160 Speaker 4: early on. 1175 00:56:36,560 --> 00:56:40,320 Speaker 1: Yeah, and I feel like this applies to just general 1176 00:56:40,400 --> 00:56:44,640 Speaker 1: experiences that you've had in life make you more adaptable 1177 00:56:44,760 --> 00:56:47,080 Speaker 1: and able to take on new things. I'll give you 1178 00:56:47,120 --> 00:56:51,279 Speaker 1: a good example, dude, sitting right there, my producer Robbie. 1179 00:56:51,840 --> 00:56:55,560 Speaker 1: Did you graduate high school? Yeah, he graduated high school, 1180 00:56:55,600 --> 00:56:58,280 Speaker 1: didn't go to college. But in high school he starts 1181 00:56:58,280 --> 00:57:03,840 Speaker 1: touring around with a punk band. Then he gets into producing, 1182 00:57:03,920 --> 00:57:07,080 Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong, just yelled out producing trap 1183 00:57:07,160 --> 00:57:10,879 Speaker 1: music in Atlanta. This leads into LA where he works 1184 00:57:10,920 --> 00:57:13,120 Speaker 1: with all these different artists in the music industry. Then 1185 00:57:13,120 --> 00:57:16,040 Speaker 1: he starts working on like the Rock Project, does some 1186 00:57:16,040 --> 00:57:18,760 Speaker 1: stuff for Open AI And so as I'm looking for 1187 00:57:18,760 --> 00:57:22,240 Speaker 1: someone to help me with this podcast, I start getting 1188 00:57:22,280 --> 00:57:24,960 Speaker 1: in resumes and I'm like, there's gonna be an audio component. 1189 00:57:25,000 --> 00:57:28,400 Speaker 1: There's also gonna be a heavy video component. Robbie's resume 1190 00:57:28,480 --> 00:57:32,280 Speaker 1: comes in, there's all this weird stuff. He's clearly got 1191 00:57:32,280 --> 00:57:34,880 Speaker 1: audio but no video. And then I'm looking at other 1192 00:57:35,720 --> 00:57:38,240 Speaker 1: resumes where it's just like the perfect St're like this 1193 00:57:38,360 --> 00:57:41,280 Speaker 1: perfect pipeline of exactly what I need, and so I 1194 00:57:41,360 --> 00:57:42,760 Speaker 1: jump on the phone with a few people. But I 1195 00:57:42,760 --> 00:57:44,520 Speaker 1: talked to Robbie and he's like, yeah, I used to 1196 00:57:44,520 --> 00:57:46,640 Speaker 1: produce trap in Atlanta, and you know, these guys were 1197 00:57:46,720 --> 00:57:48,760 Speaker 1: rolling with guns and stuff, and I'm having to produce 1198 00:57:48,760 --> 00:57:51,120 Speaker 1: at two am, just all these crazy experience. I also 1199 00:57:51,200 --> 00:57:55,000 Speaker 1: work on open AI, and I'm just like, this seems 1200 00:57:55,080 --> 00:57:58,320 Speaker 1: like a person who can just figure out stuff, and 1201 00:57:58,360 --> 00:58:00,920 Speaker 1: at the end of the day, that's probably what I'm 1202 00:58:00,960 --> 00:58:03,840 Speaker 1: going to value and need more than like, here's the 1203 00:58:03,840 --> 00:58:06,439 Speaker 1: button I push. I know exactly what button to push, 1204 00:58:06,440 --> 00:58:08,120 Speaker 1: but don't ask me too much else. I'm like this, dude, 1205 00:58:08,120 --> 00:58:09,960 Speaker 1: I feel like I can probably just like give them 1206 00:58:09,960 --> 00:58:12,080 Speaker 1: stuff and he'll figure it out. And that has absolutely 1207 00:58:12,080 --> 00:58:12,640 Speaker 1: been the case. 1208 00:58:13,200 --> 00:58:14,960 Speaker 4: But that's like evidence of someone who can learn, who 1209 00:58:15,000 --> 00:58:18,440 Speaker 4: can pivot, which basically everybody has to do now. Right, 1210 00:58:18,720 --> 00:58:21,520 Speaker 4: Like the period of history where you had a discrete 1211 00:58:21,560 --> 00:58:23,800 Speaker 4: period of training followed by living off of that for 1212 00:58:23,840 --> 00:58:26,080 Speaker 4: the rest of your career is over for most people, 1213 00:58:26,160 --> 00:58:30,920 Speaker 4: if not everyone. And you reminded me of when LinkedIn 1214 00:58:31,000 --> 00:58:32,840 Speaker 4: shared with me some data when I was reporting range 1215 00:58:32,960 --> 00:58:35,440 Speaker 4: that they did this analysis of a half million members. 1216 00:58:35,640 --> 00:58:38,120 Speaker 4: They found the best predictor of someone who would rise 1217 00:58:38,160 --> 00:58:39,919 Speaker 4: high in their field was the number of different job 1218 00:58:39,960 --> 00:58:42,960 Speaker 4: functions someone had worked in. And I told them, I 1219 00:58:43,080 --> 00:58:46,240 Speaker 4: argued to them that, well, I think your guys product 1220 00:58:46,320 --> 00:58:51,360 Speaker 4: actually maybe discourages people from doing that because they want 1221 00:58:51,360 --> 00:58:55,080 Speaker 4: this very linear LinkedIn right, and you should maybe add 1222 00:58:55,080 --> 00:58:56,880 Speaker 4: more space for a narrative or something. They said, you know, 1223 00:58:56,880 --> 00:58:59,520 Speaker 4: we think we're doing fine, right, because their business is 1224 00:58:59,520 --> 00:59:04,040 Speaker 4: doing fine, So fine for them, but it obviously took 1225 00:59:04,120 --> 00:59:06,240 Speaker 4: you thinking a little differently. Is there anything that Robbie 1226 00:59:06,280 --> 00:59:08,240 Speaker 4: said kind of that that made you I mean, because 1227 00:59:08,240 --> 00:59:09,720 Speaker 4: at some point you must have been a you know, 1228 00:59:09,800 --> 00:59:11,000 Speaker 4: is he going to be able to do this job? 1229 00:59:11,040 --> 00:59:13,400 Speaker 4: Was there anything in particular that he did that might 1230 00:59:13,440 --> 00:59:16,520 Speaker 4: be useful for other people to hear in the interview 1231 00:59:16,560 --> 00:59:19,840 Speaker 4: with you or or in his resume or application that 1232 00:59:19,920 --> 00:59:21,919 Speaker 4: they kind of got you over that hump of saying 1233 00:59:21,920 --> 00:59:23,000 Speaker 4: this is a risk worth taking. 1234 00:59:27,080 --> 00:59:31,720 Speaker 1: Well, I think it was the breadth of experiences someone 1235 00:59:31,760 --> 00:59:36,400 Speaker 1: who can so in my books, I'll go into kinetic places. 1236 00:59:36,440 --> 00:59:39,120 Speaker 1: You know, I've meant to iract or report scarcity brand 1237 00:59:39,120 --> 00:59:41,360 Speaker 1: into the Bolivian jungle, and I found in my own 1238 00:59:41,360 --> 00:59:43,880 Speaker 1: self like the ability to just like remain calm, learn 1239 00:59:43,920 --> 00:59:47,560 Speaker 1: from that, but be adaptable has seemed to transfer over 1240 00:59:47,600 --> 00:59:48,960 Speaker 1: to other things in my life. So when I hear 1241 00:59:48,960 --> 00:59:51,800 Speaker 1: about him in these you know, trap recording sessions where 1242 00:59:52,080 --> 00:59:54,800 Speaker 1: drugs are being dealt, guns are being shown, but he's 1243 00:59:54,840 --> 00:59:57,440 Speaker 1: like able to manage that, I'm like, Okay, well he 1244 00:59:57,520 --> 01:00:00,240 Speaker 1: can probably manage me because I'm not armed and tell 1245 01:00:00,280 --> 01:00:03,400 Speaker 1: me what I need to do right. But also there 1246 01:00:04,200 --> 01:00:08,360 Speaker 1: I would say honesty about it. He's like, look, I 1247 01:00:08,360 --> 01:00:11,960 Speaker 1: don't know. I've never done video. I did work on 1248 01:00:12,040 --> 01:00:15,880 Speaker 1: the Grock project, so I think I can figure video out, 1249 01:00:15,960 --> 01:00:19,440 Speaker 1: but I'll tell you I haven't done anything yet. But 1250 01:00:19,480 --> 01:00:21,360 Speaker 1: at the same time, I'm confident I can figure it out. 1251 01:00:21,400 --> 01:00:23,320 Speaker 1: And so I think there was like the honesty there too, 1252 01:00:23,360 --> 01:00:25,520 Speaker 1: And I would say the other people that I talked 1253 01:00:25,520 --> 01:00:28,680 Speaker 1: to were just less interesting and it was like very 1254 01:00:29,040 --> 01:00:31,920 Speaker 1: clear what I was going to get. But I felt 1255 01:00:31,920 --> 01:00:34,920 Speaker 1: like if there was other opportunities that might pop up 1256 01:00:35,120 --> 01:00:37,840 Speaker 1: that I could need help with, those people were going 1257 01:00:37,880 --> 01:00:39,280 Speaker 1: to be like, well, I don't do that. I do 1258 01:00:39,400 --> 01:00:40,680 Speaker 1: YouTube videos, you know. 1259 01:00:40,920 --> 01:00:42,680 Speaker 4: In Range, I talked about this research from a woman 1260 01:00:42,680 --> 01:00:45,200 Speaker 4: named Abby Griffin who studies serial innovators, and she said 1261 01:00:45,200 --> 01:00:48,280 Speaker 4: one of the challenges is they often look like kind 1262 01:00:48,320 --> 01:00:51,240 Speaker 4: of a square peg in a round hole because they're 1263 01:00:51,360 --> 01:00:53,240 Speaker 4: very broad and they want to learn outside their domain, 1264 01:00:53,320 --> 01:00:57,560 Speaker 4: and so it can be like a little confusing to 1265 01:00:57,640 --> 01:01:00,320 Speaker 4: an HR person. It's like is this person really the fit? 1266 01:01:00,800 --> 01:01:02,960 Speaker 4: And so they may get selected out and so they 1267 01:01:03,000 --> 01:01:05,800 Speaker 4: often sort of move between organizations to get that breadth 1268 01:01:05,800 --> 01:01:09,600 Speaker 4: that they they need to be powerful because they just don't. 1269 01:01:10,120 --> 01:01:12,200 Speaker 4: They're just like not out of central casting for whatever 1270 01:01:12,240 --> 01:01:15,480 Speaker 4: that job is. Yeah, how did range make you think about? 1271 01:01:15,720 --> 01:01:16,120 Speaker 3: Reporting? 1272 01:01:16,120 --> 01:01:18,440 Speaker 1: That book make you think about wellness and how people 1273 01:01:18,440 --> 01:01:19,520 Speaker 1: approach well being. 1274 01:01:19,800 --> 01:01:22,560 Speaker 4: I think people feel like they have to specialize. In 1275 01:01:22,560 --> 01:01:25,080 Speaker 4: many cases, they're not often doing it because they want to, 1276 01:01:25,240 --> 01:01:28,440 Speaker 4: Like people are curious and would like to have more 1277 01:01:28,520 --> 01:01:30,640 Speaker 4: variety in their life if they didn't feel like they'd 1278 01:01:30,680 --> 01:01:33,960 Speaker 4: be penalized for it. And so I think there's some 1279 01:01:34,240 --> 01:01:36,320 Speaker 4: ways that we can do things that relate to that, 1280 01:01:36,400 --> 01:01:39,480 Speaker 4: like having a hobby unrelated to your work. So there's 1281 01:01:39,480 --> 01:01:42,560 Speaker 4: studies showing that if you have a hobby that's unrelated 1282 01:01:42,600 --> 01:01:47,120 Speaker 4: to your work or loosely related, it improves your your 1283 01:01:47,120 --> 01:01:50,600 Speaker 4: self efficacy, your feeling of ability, to take on challenges, 1284 01:01:51,280 --> 01:01:53,480 Speaker 4: whereas if the hobby is too closely related to what 1285 01:01:53,560 --> 01:01:56,400 Speaker 4: you already do it work, it actually decreases self efficacy. 1286 01:01:56,560 --> 01:01:57,240 Speaker 3: Final question. 1287 01:01:57,360 --> 01:02:00,919 Speaker 1: We oftentimes will ask people about the best book they've 1288 01:02:00,960 --> 01:02:03,240 Speaker 1: read recently, but I recently tapped you for that for 1289 01:02:03,360 --> 01:02:05,960 Speaker 1: my substock posts, which I read a. 1290 01:02:05,960 --> 01:02:09,440 Speaker 2: Lot, though, so you know I can always add others. 1291 01:02:09,880 --> 01:02:12,440 Speaker 1: Here's what I'll ask you, Okay, because I thought you 1292 01:02:12,520 --> 01:02:15,959 Speaker 1: might have an interesting answer for this one. You could 1293 01:02:15,960 --> 01:02:19,160 Speaker 1: spend an entire day with someone living or dead. They 1294 01:02:19,200 --> 01:02:23,120 Speaker 1: have to be somewhat of a celebrity, so you can't say, 1295 01:02:23,160 --> 01:02:25,000 Speaker 1: you know, extra relative to pass away or whatever. 1296 01:02:25,000 --> 01:02:26,960 Speaker 4: Who would it be when you say somewhat of a celebrity? 1297 01:02:26,960 --> 01:02:28,640 Speaker 4: Can I pick a writer that I think, like a 1298 01:02:28,680 --> 01:02:32,000 Speaker 4: lot of literature people would have heard of. But okay, okay, 1299 01:02:32,240 --> 01:02:35,280 Speaker 4: and I mentioned him and inside the box. So the 1300 01:02:35,280 --> 01:02:39,040 Speaker 4: writer Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine writer I think is like 1301 01:02:39,080 --> 01:02:40,800 Speaker 4: one of the most creative minds that ever lived, and 1302 01:02:40,840 --> 01:02:43,480 Speaker 4: most of his story he only wrote short stories, and 1303 01:02:44,000 --> 01:02:48,760 Speaker 4: they're all like metaphysical thought experiments basically, and he was 1304 01:02:48,880 --> 01:02:50,919 Speaker 4: keeping up with the math and science of his day 1305 01:02:51,840 --> 01:02:54,200 Speaker 4: and would play out like sort of what it meant. 1306 01:02:54,240 --> 01:02:56,960 Speaker 4: So one of his famous stories, called the Library of Babel, 1307 01:02:57,080 --> 01:02:59,160 Speaker 4: is about and most of his pages, most of his 1308 01:02:59,200 --> 01:03:02,080 Speaker 4: books are between like sorry, his short stories are between 1309 01:03:02,080 --> 01:03:07,000 Speaker 4: like four and eight or ten pages, and that one 1310 01:03:07,080 --> 01:03:09,680 Speaker 4: is the narrator is in a universe that is basically 1311 01:03:09,760 --> 01:03:13,960 Speaker 4: a library of repeating hexagonal rooms that have all identical 1312 01:03:14,000 --> 01:03:16,720 Speaker 4: shelves with books on them, and the books all use 1313 01:03:17,400 --> 01:03:21,120 Speaker 4: the normal alphabet and appear to just have random orderings. 1314 01:03:21,120 --> 01:03:22,840 Speaker 4: But every once in a while people come across a 1315 01:03:22,880 --> 01:03:25,800 Speaker 4: word or a phrase, or a sentence even and the 1316 01:03:25,920 --> 01:03:30,000 Speaker 4: question is is that order random or not? So it's 1317 01:03:30,040 --> 01:03:33,040 Speaker 4: almost like a parable of living in a universe where 1318 01:03:33,080 --> 01:03:35,560 Speaker 4: you see signs of order in design, but you don't 1319 01:03:35,560 --> 01:03:38,080 Speaker 4: know if they're random or not. So it's really his 1320 01:03:38,120 --> 01:03:42,600 Speaker 4: stories make me think about certain human circumstances in a 1321 01:03:42,640 --> 01:03:46,640 Speaker 4: way that nothing else, even knowing these aspects of science 1322 01:03:46,800 --> 01:03:48,800 Speaker 4: and reading new scientists every week that nothing else has 1323 01:03:48,800 --> 01:03:51,360 Speaker 4: gotten me to inhabit some of those ideas the way 1324 01:03:51,360 --> 01:03:53,240 Speaker 4: that he does. And the more I read him, the 1325 01:03:53,280 --> 01:03:55,880 Speaker 4: more I realize his ideas pop up in things that 1326 01:03:56,640 --> 01:03:58,680 Speaker 4: I see all the time, Like if you've ever heard 1327 01:03:58,680 --> 01:04:02,520 Speaker 4: that express the map so detailed it became the world. 1328 01:04:02,840 --> 01:04:05,280 Speaker 4: It's like, I think it's interesting for writers because we 1329 01:04:05,320 --> 01:04:07,880 Speaker 4: have to simplify the ideas we're talking about to be useful. 1330 01:04:08,240 --> 01:04:10,320 Speaker 4: And that comes from a one page short story he 1331 01:04:10,360 --> 01:04:13,000 Speaker 4: wrote about a cartography department at a university that gets 1332 01:04:13,040 --> 01:04:15,760 Speaker 4: obsessed with making more and more detailed maps until they 1333 01:04:15,800 --> 01:04:18,440 Speaker 4: make a map that exactly recreates the territory that they're 1334 01:04:18,480 --> 01:04:21,920 Speaker 4: trying to show and becomes totally useless. And like he 1335 01:04:21,920 --> 01:04:24,440 Speaker 4: shows up in interviews Christopher Nolan if you liked Inception 1336 01:04:24,560 --> 01:04:27,200 Speaker 4: Christopher Nole, it was based on two Borges's stories, The 1337 01:04:27,240 --> 01:04:32,200 Speaker 4: Secret Miracle and the Circular Ruins, and just like just 1338 01:04:32,560 --> 01:04:36,080 Speaker 4: such an interesting thinker, and if you read his nonfiction, 1339 01:04:36,200 --> 01:04:38,720 Speaker 4: he was really ahead on sort of calling out European 1340 01:04:38,760 --> 01:04:42,440 Speaker 4: fascism before it burst into the public. And it's just 1341 01:04:42,480 --> 01:04:44,160 Speaker 4: I think one of the smartest people who ever lived, 1342 01:04:44,280 --> 01:04:48,000 Speaker 4: who seem to be just a kind, generous, fascinating soul. 1343 01:04:48,640 --> 01:04:50,480 Speaker 4: And I feel like I've been in conversation with him 1344 01:04:50,480 --> 01:04:52,640 Speaker 4: through his work and would just love to be able 1345 01:04:52,680 --> 01:04:54,240 Speaker 4: to actually spend a little time with him. 1346 01:04:54,640 --> 01:04:56,160 Speaker 3: I love it so fantastic was a. 1347 01:04:56,120 --> 01:04:57,920 Speaker 4: Very long answer. You just wanted like me to say 1348 01:04:57,960 --> 01:04:59,880 Speaker 4: that sorry was not good at Lightning Round. 1349 01:05:00,000 --> 01:05:04,000 Speaker 1: That was a great answer because I definitely believe that 1350 01:05:04,040 --> 01:05:05,680 Speaker 1: you would like to meet that guy, and I wasn't 1351 01:05:05,680 --> 01:05:07,280 Speaker 1: even really that familiar with them, so I'm going to 1352 01:05:07,400 --> 01:05:10,720 Speaker 1: do some research. David, thanks for coming on the show. 1353 01:05:10,880 --> 01:05:13,280 Speaker 1: The book is inside the box. The other two are 1354 01:05:13,400 --> 01:05:16,160 Speaker 1: Range and the Sports Genes. You also have a sub stack, 1355 01:05:16,960 --> 01:05:19,320 Speaker 1: so everyone check that out. Thanks for coming on to 1356 01:05:19,400 --> 01:05:22,280 Speaker 1: chat Man. That was fantastic. It's a total pleasure. 1357 01:05:22,320 --> 01:05:23,640 Speaker 4: I mean, you've been a fan of your work from far, 1358 01:05:23,720 --> 01:05:25,680 Speaker 4: so it's kind of a treat to get to connect 1359 01:05:25,680 --> 01:05:26,120 Speaker 4: in real time. 1360 01:05:26,360 --> 01:05:29,680 Speaker 1: Likewise, thanks for checking out the show. Keep an eye 1361 01:05:29,680 --> 01:05:32,600 Speaker 1: out for more episodes. We will be dropping two a week, 1362 01:05:32,640 --> 01:05:35,080 Speaker 1: and if you have any questions for me for our 1363 01:05:35,240 --> 01:05:38,440 Speaker 1: AMA section, please either drop them in the comments on 1364 01:05:38,480 --> 01:05:43,480 Speaker 1: YouTube or email them. Please send a video or an 1365 01:05:43,520 --> 01:05:46,040 Speaker 1: audio question. That's what we would really love. If you 1366 01:05:46,080 --> 01:05:47,760 Speaker 1: want to type it, we're good with that, but we 1367 01:05:47,760 --> 01:05:49,680 Speaker 1: would love to hear your voice or see your face 1368 01:05:50,160 --> 01:05:52,960 Speaker 1: asking that question. We will do our best to answer 1369 01:05:53,000 --> 01:05:57,080 Speaker 1: as many questions as possible. Do not forget to hit subscribe, 1370 01:05:57,280 --> 01:05:59,640 Speaker 1: and it's always have fun, don't die