Speaker 1: Hello everybody, I'm Jemma Spake and welcome back to the
Speaker 1: Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through
Speaker 1: the biggest changes, moments, and transitions of our twenties and
Speaker 1: what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back
Speaker 1: to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. It is
Speaker 1: so great to have you here back for another episode
Speaker 1: as we of course break down the psychology of your twenties,
Speaker 1: My twenties, our twenties. Just a reminder, this episode and
Speaker 1: all of our other episodes are now on Netflix, so
Speaker 1: if you're somebody who likes video podcast, this is the
Speaker 1: place to go for full transparency. This is a new
Speaker 1: thing for Netflix as well, and we would love for
Speaker 1: them to hopefully ask us to do another season, So
Speaker 1: if you haven't checked it out, if it's something that
Speaker 1: interests you, our full video episodes are now over there.
Speaker 1: Now is the time. It really does help me and
Speaker 1: the podcast out, so I'd really appreciate it. But let's
Speaker 1: get into the episode today. I am bringing you all
Speaker 1: a classic how to episode. I do these every now
Speaker 1: and again for topics that kind of aren't unified by
Speaker 1: a singular psychological concept or explanation. Or theory, but they
Speaker 1: have so much depth to them that they deserve their
Speaker 1: own category of episode. We've done how to avoid settling
Speaker 1: in your twenties, how to manage your anxiety about the future,
Speaker 1: how to do hard things, how to get out of
Speaker 1: a funk, how to anything, And today we are doing
Speaker 1: my favorite so far, a personal topic I cannot shut
Speaker 1: up about, which is how to be more interesting. There
Speaker 1: was a very famous journal paper published in the journal
Speaker 1: Nature last year talking about how in our digital age,
Speaker 1: people are increasingly bored and increasingly boring, and a consequence
Speaker 1: of how much time we spend online is that we
Speaker 1: are all very slowly losing our distinct personalities. Nobody is
Speaker 1: interesting anymore, nobody is different, nobody is special. Maybe you
Speaker 1: feel that way about yourself, that you're not as interesting
Speaker 1: even in your own mind, you aren't entertaining yourself as much,
Speaker 1: you're not fascinated by yourself, that maybe you've lost a
Speaker 1: little bit of dimension to your personhood and your personality.
Speaker 1: I want to say, you are not alone. And today
Speaker 1: we are going to examine why you are feeling that way.
Speaker 1: Why our current environments plural are creating a standardization of thought,
Speaker 1: interest of personalities and the very best things you can
Speaker 1: do psychologically, socially, neurologically to become a more interesting person,
Speaker 1: someone who people feel inexplicably drawn to and excited by
Speaker 1: and invested in, and also how to become more interesting
Speaker 1: to yourself as well. It is a big episode without
Speaker 1: further ado, let's get into it. So the first question,
Speaker 1: and also I guess the hardest question to answer, what
Speaker 1: actually makes somebody interesting? What intrigues us psychologically as humans
Speaker 1: and as people and as a species. The thing is
Speaker 1: whether somebody is interesting or not operates on two kind
Speaker 1: of levels, or two planes. The first level is highly
Speaker 1: subjective and it's based on our own preferences. Somebody talking
Speaker 1: all day about football might be the most boring thing
Speaker 1: in the world to you. Counting rice would be more fun,
Speaker 1: but it would be endlessly interesting to others. I love
Speaker 1: talking about sports, but every time I do, I can
Speaker 1: see that my friends are probably a little bit bored
Speaker 1: by it. It's not as interesting to them. And it
Speaker 1: works the other way. Somebody could have the coolest job
Speaker 1: in the world, but you just can't bring yourself to
Speaker 1: be interested or to care because personally, like you're not
Speaker 1: invested in that you just your brain doesn't light up
Speaker 1: in the same way. But there is a difference between
Speaker 1: being subjectively interested in someone and someone being objectively interesting
Speaker 1: as an individual and people who have that special source,
Speaker 1: that special something. It transcends everything external. It transcends things
Speaker 1: like a job, It transcends hobbies, stories, appearance, and it
Speaker 1: comes from a deeper place, meaning that I guess, no
Speaker 1: matter what they talk about, who they're around, whether they
Speaker 1: have the most tedious job in the world or the
Speaker 1: most interesting there is. And we all know somebody like this,
Speaker 1: there is something about them that still draws people in
Speaker 1: based on their character, based on how they hold themselves.
Speaker 1: It's like a little bit of their soul is just
Speaker 1: like on fire. Okay, So what is that factor made
Speaker 1: up of? What is that objective factor? How do we
Speaker 1: identify it? Firstly, the most interesting people in the world
Speaker 1: are those who are actually interested in others. They go deep,
Speaker 1: They have a genuine curiosity about you. They find the
Speaker 1: world fascinating. In fact, twenty one study had eighteen hundred
Speaker 1: participants talk to each other in pairs. People who were
Speaker 1: given a list of deeper questions to ask about the
Speaker 1: other person. The other individual actually found them more interesting
Speaker 1: as a partner. They came off as more enjoyable to
Speaker 1: be around. People felt like they wanted to know more
Speaker 1: about them purely because of the questions and the depth
Speaker 1: they were going too with the person they were sitting
Speaker 1: across from. I think the reason for this is that
Speaker 1: this kind of behavior is so rare. It's so rare
Speaker 1: to find somebody who's genuinely interested in other people. Also,
Speaker 1: their questions, their interest in us leaves a bit of
Speaker 1: a disclosure gap where we're talking more about ourselves, we're
Speaker 1: sharing more, and so they kind of remained mysterious peaking
Speaker 1: our interests. Crucially, people who are interested in others, I
Speaker 1: also think they ask questions to understand. They ask questions
Speaker 1: not just to debate or assert their views, but because
Speaker 1: they are genuinely curious and they want to expand their worldview.
Speaker 1: They ask questions because that is just valuable to them.
Speaker 1: Whatever answer you give them, they don't care. It's endlessly
Speaker 1: fascinating because of the way that you've answered it and
Speaker 1: because it's probably different to the way that they would
Speaker 1: answer it. And that means that also when they go
Speaker 1: and have conversations with others, they contribute to a greater
Speaker 1: and deeper level. There was this guy I used to
Speaker 1: work with when I worked in consulting, and he would
Speaker 1: ask these like piercing questions, questions you would never expect
Speaker 1: to be asked, questions that probably nobody has been asked
Speaker 1: before in the history of humanity. And I remember we
Speaker 1: were like collectively just so fascinated by him, because someone
Speaker 1: who is able to get that information out of people,
Speaker 1: because you would answer him, you would tell him all
Speaker 1: this stuff about you, he must have some pretty good
Speaker 1: stories of his own to tell if he can get
Speaker 1: that kind of level of intimacy with somebody, even just
Speaker 1: like completely casually. Also, I think the reason these people
Speaker 1: are interesting is because we simply like talking about ourselves.
Speaker 1: The interested person is interesting because they get us to
Speaker 1: talk about our favorite topic, and we kind of confuse
Speaker 1: talking with that and enjoying that with enjoying them. They
Speaker 1: become more interesting. And it also means that they're often
Speaker 1: very good conversationalists, even if they say very little, and
Speaker 1: they are great unifiers. Even in a group conversation. Someone
Speaker 1: interesting can almost effortlessly bring everyone out of their shells
Speaker 1: if needed. Here everybody's point of view. It doesn't look
Speaker 1: like a strain they create At times, this like collective
Speaker 1: conversational flow state for us to sit in. We are
Speaker 1: also drawn to people who are not just interested in us,
Speaker 1: but feel very authentically themselves. That's the second thing that
Speaker 1: makes someone interesting. The reason for this is threefold. Firstly,
Speaker 1: we implicitly believe that for someone to be that secure
Speaker 1: in themselves, they must have reasons to back it up.
Speaker 1: There must be some deep personal well that they are
Speaker 1: drawing from that gives them this dimension and depth and confidence.
Speaker 1: This makes us very interested in discovering what that is,
Speaker 1: What are they relying on, where does their self esteem
Speaker 1: come from, and why is it so amazing. Secondly, we
Speaker 1: find them interesting because our natural levels of curiosity just
Speaker 1: generally go up when we feel psychologically safe. Being around
Speaker 1: someone secure is a catalyt for that feeling. The reason
Speaker 1: for this is that we know that someone who is
Speaker 1: genuine and authentic and just kind and confident in themselves
Speaker 1: is a lot less likely to need to discredit or
Speaker 1: put others down to feel good about themselves. People like us, therefore,
Speaker 1: we just can kind of relax. Finally, I think we
Speaker 1: find authentic people interesting because some small part of us
Speaker 1: probably wants to be like them. We see their ease,
Speaker 1: we see their confidence, we see their lack of embarrassment,
Speaker 1: we see their good stories, we see their depth, and
Speaker 1: we think, oh my god, how do I get that?
Speaker 1: I want to be on that level? And this spurs
Speaker 1: our interest in them. Almost is like a case study,
Speaker 1: Like they are a blueprint for how we can become
Speaker 1: like that and how we can improve ourselves. So interesting
Speaker 1: people are interested. They're authentic. Another thing that defines interesting
Speaker 1: people is that they just do stuff. They play outside,
Speaker 1: they make things, They adventure, They put their creative ideas
Speaker 1: out there, even if it's not perfect. They go to
Speaker 1: things alone, they travel alone. I was going to try
Speaker 1: and find like a more complex term to describe this,
Speaker 1: and I was like looking in my psychology dictionary and
Speaker 1: I was like, what's the word for this? But really,
Speaker 1: like they just do stuff is the best way I
Speaker 1: can put it. These days, like they fill their days,
Speaker 1: they fill their lives. They play the game of life. Well,
Speaker 1: they're just an act of participant in their lives. The
Speaker 1: next factor that makes people objectively interesting is that they're
Speaker 1: not just authentic. They are a little bit different. There's
Speaker 1: something odd about them. Odd in the positive way. There's
Speaker 1: something divergent about them, as we would say, literally like
Speaker 1: the movie, They're divergent, Like our attraction and our gravitation
Speaker 1: towards these kind of people is driven particularly by like
Speaker 1: an instinctual love for novelty. The same kind of person
Speaker 1: with the same personality, doing the same thing, shopping the
Speaker 1: same places over an over again, It just gets kind
Speaker 1: of boring after a while. Someone who stands apart from that,
Speaker 1: as an outlier, gets our brain paying attention because they
Speaker 1: deviate from an expected pattern that immediately spikes interest neurologically, psychologically,
Speaker 1: and especially socially. Now, our appreciation for these kinds of
Speaker 1: individuals tends to increase as we get older. Unfortunately, as
Speaker 1: children and as teenagers were very cruel to divergent thinkers,
Speaker 1: we're very cruel to divergent or different personality types because
Speaker 1: at that age, you know, group conformity and group allegiance
Speaker 1: just feels so important when we're children, when we're kids,
Speaker 1: when we're trying to fit in. I still think they'd
Speaker 1: get the final word. I truly believe, truly, the weirdest
Speaker 1: kids always become the most interesting adults, always because they
Speaker 1: have formed their identity purely on vibes and purely on
Speaker 1: natural enjoyment a lot rather than external validation, and they
Speaker 1: probably had to go through some really difficult experiences to
Speaker 1: get there, Like they get bullied for years, they get excluded,
Speaker 1: only for people to turn around in their twenties and
Speaker 1: thirties and realize, like how insanely rare it is to
Speaker 1: have genuine interest and love for things, and how insanely
Speaker 1: rare it is to have a truly individual, unique personality.
Speaker 1: Like they totally get the final word. Honestly, I was
Speaker 1: a weird kid. I think I'm an interesting adult. Not
Speaker 1: to toot my own own if you are this way,
Speaker 1: confirm my theory for me. If you're a weird kid,
Speaker 1: do you think that you are an above average interesting adult?
Speaker 1: Yes or no? I think the answer is yes. I
Speaker 1: want to run my own experiment. DM me if this
Speaker 1: applies to you, to take this a step further, though,
Speaker 1: because this is anecdotal, science does back up the fact
Speaker 1: that being eccentric, being different can actually have health and
Speaker 1: lifestyle benefits to beyond just being interested. There's this man
Speaker 1: called David Weeks. He's a psychiatrist. He's the author of
Speaker 1: the book eccentrics a Study of sanity and strangeness. He
Speaker 1: conducted a ten year study on a thousand people who
Speaker 1: we would describe as eccentric. These people that was trying
Speaker 1: to think about some of the people he interviewed that
Speaker 1: was like an indigenous man who walked everywhere backwards. There
Speaker 1: were these two Californian people who believed they could hypnotize frogs,
Speaker 1: people who were a little bit out there. What he
Speaker 1: discovered is that his subjects suffered less from mental illnesses
Speaker 1: such as depression than the majority of the population. Fewer
Speaker 1: than thirty percent had ever abused drug or drugs or alcohol.
Speaker 1: He also found that eccentrics visited the doctor twenty times
Speaker 1: less often than the average person, and on average, they
Speaker 1: lived longer. Yeah, they were all more interesting. Were they
Speaker 1: also healthier? He said, Yes, we have to be careful
Speaker 1: here victually things with like when we say they didn't
Speaker 1: visit the doctor as much, you know, another explanation for
Speaker 1: that could be that these people weren't healthier, they just
Speaker 1: were more skeptical of let's say, Western medicine, more skeptical
Speaker 1: of like the system. They weren't less mentally unwell, they
Speaker 1: just weren't being diagnosed because of that skepticism, like we
Speaker 1: have to search for other explanations here because there are some.
Speaker 1: But Weeks. Doctor Weeks attributed these findings, which are impressive,
Speaker 1: I have to say, regardless of why, to the benefits
Speaker 1: of nonconformity. He said, it's a health. It's a health plus.
Speaker 1: Those who don't repress their inner nature in the struggle
Speaker 1: to conform, they suffer less stress. Consequently, they are happier,
Speaker 1: their immune systems work more efficiently. They suffer less from
Speaker 1: the psychological pressures and the psychological cost of self silencing
Speaker 1: and self abandonment, meaning they have more fulfilling emotional lives,
Speaker 1: therefore and again allowing them to be interesting and expansive
Speaker 1: as people because their authenticity is nurtured. Whether they do
Speaker 1: that for others or just for themselves, they probably do
Speaker 1: it for themselves. It doesn't matter. They're just more interesting.
Speaker 1: The final thing all interesting people do that's important to
Speaker 1: know is that they energize others. Maybe that's through stories,
Speaker 1: maybe it's through accomplishments. Maybe it's through their passion, their individuality,
Speaker 1: their self comfort. It doesn't matter. Whatever it is, it
Speaker 1: is undeniable that interesting people bring a force for life
Speaker 1: into any room they enter. They make others like want
Speaker 1: to learn more, want to do better, not through shame,
Speaker 1: not through comparison, not through judgment, but through expansion. And
Speaker 1: I think that is the most crucial element of their character.
Speaker 1: Even if they're not nice people, the way they operate
Speaker 1: is still a bit of a human experiment, and in
Speaker 1: this way they become expanders. This is an idea that
Speaker 1: I'm stealing from my friend Aerophiles Substack. It's called crystal clear.
Speaker 1: This thing that she talks about is expanders and she
Speaker 1: says we all need at least three people in our
Speaker 1: lives who expand our sense of what's possible simply through
Speaker 1: the way they live. And she was basically asking me,
Speaker 1: you know who my three people were, Like, who are
Speaker 1: the three people that expand me? And this is so
Speaker 1: crucial because without these individuals in your life, the limits
Speaker 1: that you place on yourself are going to naturally be
Speaker 1: lower because the example hasn't been set. You cannot dream
Speaker 1: bigger than what you see in some ways, and it's
Speaker 1: sometimes hard to be around people who are more accomplished
Speaker 1: than us because our ego is naturally very self protective.
Speaker 1: Our ego is very cautious of situations that could lessen
Speaker 1: our self esteem. But the outcome of being around expanders,
Speaker 1: being around interesting people is a greater sense of what
Speaker 1: is possible within our own lives, greater confidence that we
Speaker 1: can achieve what we want, and that's at its call,
Speaker 1: what's special about these kinds of people. So the next
Speaker 1: big question is if this is what makes somebody interesting,
Speaker 1: why are interesting people becoming harder to find? Why are
Speaker 1: we all becoming more boring? Like that Nature article kind
Speaker 1: of accused us of becoming We're going to talk about
Speaker 1: that break down the three critical factors that are maybe
Speaker 1: making me boring, definitely making me boring after this short break.
Speaker 1: So I have a few explanations for you as to
Speaker 1: why we're becoming less interesting. But the biggest one is
Speaker 1: that the environments that we are in allow for less choice,
Speaker 1: and that is forcing all of us to become quite homogeneous,
Speaker 1: therefore less unique, therefore less interesting. Increasingly, we are all
Speaker 1: being funneled towards the same things, trends and viral content.
Speaker 1: Whether you know it or not, they and I think
Speaker 1: you do, they are advising us. They are influencing you
Speaker 1: and what to buy what to enjoy, what movies to watch,
Speaker 1: what to eat, Hello, to buy chocolate. So we all
Speaker 1: kind of end up operating in identical ways, and that
Speaker 1: restricts our ability for divergence. We shop at the same
Speaker 1: handful of stores because independent stores can't afford to be
Speaker 1: in business. We stream the same shows because that's what
Speaker 1: we see other people watching, and that's the things that
Speaker 1: the studios. You know, the studios only make so many
Speaker 1: things that they know will be hits. Now we listen
Speaker 1: to the same songs that an algorithm pushes on us,
Speaker 1: or more likely a label has decided are worth pushing
Speaker 1: because the artist is the next big thing. We eat
Speaker 1: it the same chains because small indie restaurants can't operate.
Speaker 1: We use the same apps because they're the ones that
Speaker 1: are functional. We even start speaking in the same language
Speaker 1: that we've absorbed from social media. That sounds unique, but
Speaker 1: it's not brain rot languages, I think is what they
Speaker 1: call it. It's this deep irony that the Internet has
Speaker 1: promised us infinite choice, infinite ideas, personalities, but has reduced
Speaker 1: our ability for complexity and for originality. There is actually
Speaker 1: an economic term for this. It's called global homogenization. The
Speaker 1: psychological way of describing it though, is like social and
Speaker 1: behavioral convergence. So basically, as our environments, influencers, context become identical,
Speaker 1: we all start acting the same, meaning that the idea
Speaker 1: of niche things that are different don't really exist anymore.
Speaker 1: There was this really amazing BBC article written back in
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen that described this in terms of the expansion
Speaker 1: of global brands and how brands like Starbucks, McDonald's, like
Speaker 1: all of those have started eliminating distinct cultures. And the
Speaker 1: author of this article, his name is Mark Pagel. He
Speaker 1: used the example of Starbucks, and he talks about how
Speaker 1: countries used to have their own coffee chains, their own
Speaker 1: ways of consuming caffeine. Cities used to have their own
Speaker 1: coffee houses and roasters that were unique to them. Towns
Speaker 1: used to have the independent local joint. Now you go
Speaker 1: to Tokyo, New York, Sydney, Mexico City, you get the
Speaker 1: same cappuccino, the same you know march or cherry frape.
Speaker 1: We all become united or shaped by these few things
Speaker 1: that have enough power or have enough money to influence us.
Speaker 1: When we used to have different experiences, the way we
Speaker 1: drank coffee, the way we ate food, the way we
Speaker 1: dressed used to be different. The rise of AI has
Speaker 1: also prompted some people to be even more worried about this,
Speaker 1: particularly due to something called the standardization of thought. Basically,
Speaker 1: the more we rely on these tools which have been
Speaker 1: programmed in a specific way, coded in a specific way,
Speaker 1: design in a specific way to give us a certain answer,
Speaker 1: use a certain language, use an identical way of forming ideas,
Speaker 1: rely on specific sources and inputs, all of which are
Speaker 1: the same for all of us, the more we all
Speaker 1: start thinking, speaking, communicating, structuring arguments, structuring ideas in identical ways.
Speaker 1: There was this amazing article I just read from Columbia
Speaker 1: Business School released last year. It's titled AI is Making
Speaker 1: You Boring, so if you want to look it up,
Speaker 1: please do, and it talks about how a how dependency
Speaker 1: on AI is correlated to a reduction in creative and
Speaker 1: divergent thinking, which we know is a factor that makes
Speaker 1: somebody interesting, but that b The more we rely on
Speaker 1: AI to handle logistical things for us, so even if
Speaker 1: it's not creative stuff, but we ask it to choose
Speaker 1: a restaurant, plan our travel, itinerary, even get us from
Speaker 1: like a to b even to give us advice to
Speaker 1: help us make decisions. The more we rely on it
Speaker 1: for that logistical stuff, the more we become like everybody else.
Speaker 1: Because it is giving people the same answers. It is
Speaker 1: giving you answers based on data, not based on you
Speaker 1: as an individual. Doctor Matts and her team who wrote
Speaker 1: this article, they examined what happens when people delegate their
Speaker 1: everyday decisions to AI agents. They studied one hundred and
Speaker 1: ten thousand real world choices made by one thousand US
Speaker 1: social media users. They analyzed what people selected when acting
Speaker 1: on their own compared to what they selected when they
Speaker 1: were asking an AI agent to choose on their behalf
Speaker 1: or make a decision based on an AI prompt. The
Speaker 1: results showed using AI pushed people towards more popular, mainstream options.
Speaker 1: It reduced the distinctiveness of their behavior compared to others.
Speaker 1: In other words, over reliance on AI tended to average
Speaker 1: out human individuality. It just steered everybody towards the most
Speaker 1: statistically common or widely liked or repeated answer. It's why
Speaker 1: I am so insistent in my own life that I
Speaker 1: don't use AI for my decision making. I won't use
Speaker 1: it to think for me, regardless of how much time
Speaker 1: saving it is or how much efficiency it gives me.
Speaker 1: I would rather the friction of having to spend more
Speaker 1: time on things, or the possibility of choosing the wrong restaurant,
Speaker 1: or choosing the wrong place to visit, or making a
Speaker 1: bad choice. I'd rather that possibility than the certainty and
Speaker 1: the promise of losing myself and losing my uniqueness to
Speaker 1: a technology and becoming dependent on something that it's becoming
Speaker 1: increasingly evident is very cognitively and psychologically damaging. You know.
Speaker 1: The studies coming out on this are just shocking, and
Speaker 1: it really actually really scares me sometimes, especially when we're
Speaker 1: talking about being interesting and maintaining individuality. This is a
Speaker 1: huge threat. How can you be an individual person when
Speaker 1: every choice is made by a machine that tells everybody
Speaker 1: else to also make the same choice. Now, I've seen
Speaker 1: very interesting arguments that have said, because of this current
Speaker 1: technological and cultural climate, individuality is now becoming the status simple.
Speaker 1: When everybody is the same, everybody is converging around a norm.
Speaker 1: Good taste becomes increasingly rare, and it becomes increasingly interesting.
Speaker 1: It's also, as some thinkers believe, the most AI proof
Speaker 1: skill and asset. Genuine individual thought, genuine interest, genuine passion,
Speaker 1: genuine curiosity cannot be replaced by AI. So now more
Speaker 1: than ever, being interesting isn't just something that helps you socially.
Speaker 1: It isn't just something that maybe makes people more attracted
Speaker 1: to you or helps you in dating. It's important for
Speaker 1: you career wise to be an interesting person and to
Speaker 1: have a unique identity. However, I will say I think
Speaker 1: the final factor I would bring up is just a
Speaker 1: lot of us becoming less interesting because we are also
Speaker 1: becoming more time poor as well. That's making it harder
Speaker 1: for us to pursue the active is the interests, the hobbies,
Speaker 1: even the kind of deep thinking that makes us unique.
Speaker 1: This is also, interestingly, I think, what also drives us
Speaker 1: to rely on our algorithms and to rely on AI
Speaker 1: as well, because when we just have so little time,
Speaker 1: they simplify the time we need to spend thinking, which
Speaker 1: to us feels like something we can, you know, give
Speaker 1: away to a machine without a doubt, Like when you
Speaker 1: have to work really long hours and then you have
Speaker 1: to commute on top of that, and then you have
Speaker 1: to take care of yourself, maybe your children, maybe a pet,
Speaker 1: maybe you know somebody that you perform caregiving tasks for
Speaker 1: when you have to do all these other things that
Speaker 1: necessitate healthy living, like exercising, making home cooked meals, socializing, sleeping,
Speaker 1: and then you're meant to have a personality on top
Speaker 1: of that. Like, it is hard, it's difficult. You only
Speaker 1: have twenty four hours. So I don't want the focus
Speaker 1: of this episode to be like, you're not interesting because
Speaker 1: you're lazy. You're like you're not interesting because you spend
Speaker 1: too much time using AI or social media. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's not the case. Sometimes it is that we are
Speaker 1: just so tired all the time, and there are so
Speaker 1: many different things vying for our attention, important things that
Speaker 1: being interesting is not a priority. You know, it would
Speaker 1: be so much easier to be interesting if you had
Speaker 1: like a mysterious source of income that allows you to
Speaker 1: travel all the time, or a mysterious source of income
Speaker 1: that allows you to take on creative projects on a whim,
Speaker 1: or take a day off to follow your curiosity or
Speaker 1: spend days like deep diving into something or your thoughts
Speaker 1: or your ideas. That's just not an option for most
Speaker 1: of us. That's just not an option. We have to
Speaker 1: be very clear about that. So those are the three
Speaker 1: major factors that are making us feel less interesting collectively,
Speaker 1: They all kind of tie into this like branch under capitalism.
Speaker 1: How do we circumvent that? I know I said that
Speaker 1: sometimes individual choice doesn't count for much in this, but
Speaker 1: I do think there are some things that you can
Speaker 1: do if this is a prime already for you, if
Speaker 1: you do have the time and the space, and you
Speaker 1: do have the desire to be more interesting as a
Speaker 1: person to others and to yourself. Okay, let me get
Speaker 1: into my tips, shall I. Firstly, I want you to
Speaker 1: remember the cardinal rule that we talked about, like at
Speaker 1: the very beginning, the most interesting people are those who
Speaker 1: are interested in others first, and the most direct pathway
Speaker 1: to showing this interest and embracing this is twofold. Firstly,
Speaker 1: talk more to strangers. Secondly, learn how to ask better questions.
Speaker 1: Talk more to strangers, because you just expand your world
Speaker 1: view about a thousand times every single time you talk
Speaker 1: to somebody who has a different story to you. The
Speaker 1: stories you hear, the interactions you have, the perspectives you gain,
Speaker 1: the side quests you end up going on. Like it
Speaker 1: puts you more in touch with humanity in general. It
Speaker 1: makes you more interesting because you just aren't only in
Speaker 1: your own head, and when you're talking to these people
Speaker 1: like you are doing something that is so crucial if
Speaker 1: you want to be more interesting, which is not just
Speaker 1: ruminating and letting your own thoughts be the only kind
Speaker 1: of like compass for your reality. We become quite boring
Speaker 1: and uninteresting when we only believe that the thoughts we
Speaker 1: have could be the correct ones, when we only see
Speaker 1: our own perspective. Talking to strangers a is just fun
Speaker 1: if you can get used to it. I know it's
Speaker 1: hard if you're an into it, but it is fun
Speaker 1: when you lean into it. Be it's good for you.
Speaker 1: It's good for you psychologically, it's good for you cognitively
Speaker 1: to just see the world, even for a second, through
Speaker 1: the eyes of somebody else, and to take that in
Speaker 1: as an experience. Now, when you're talking to strangers, or
Speaker 1: even talking to friends or colleagues or family members, whoever,
Speaker 1: if you want to do it, well, stop making the
Speaker 1: focus be on you. Most of us implicitly ask questions
Speaker 1: searching for a specific response. Searching for a specific answer,
Speaker 1: We ask specific questions to direct a conversation in our favor,
Speaker 1: maybe even back to us without realizing it. Let's all
Speaker 1: be honest, we've all we have all asked a question,
Speaker 1: ask somebody a question, I should say, because we wanted
Speaker 1: them to ask us the same question back. We can
Speaker 1: admit that we've done that before. But good questions are
Speaker 1: what we call pro collaborative and pro narrative building. So
Speaker 1: they don't just bring about answers. You're not just mining
Speaker 1: for detail. They build on it, and then they build
Speaker 1: on that, and then they build on that, and they
Speaker 1: create a structure. They create a story. They don't just
Speaker 1: look for They're not just creating random distinct answers to
Speaker 1: random distinct questions. You're creating a narrative. You're building something,
Speaker 1: a web between you and the other person. Generally asking
Speaker 1: open ended questions, often ones that begin with what, how, why.
Speaker 1: It's a great place to start. This is because it
Speaker 1: just allows people to answer in ways that represent their
Speaker 1: opinions rather than just state facts about themselves, which is very,
Speaker 1: very valuable. Then it's about taking their response and genuinely
Speaker 1: asking yourself, what details about this am I genuinely curious about?
Speaker 1: It's not about can I ask a better question. What
Speaker 1: is a question I actually want the answer to? What
Speaker 1: if I never thought to ask someone who does this
Speaker 1: thing for work, or who lives in this neighborhood, or
Speaker 1: who has that specific hobby, or who's visited that country.
Speaker 1: I call it detail mining. Once you ask a question, right,
Speaker 1: you've cracked someone open. The stuff below the surface is
Speaker 1: always going to be better. If someone says they're a teacher,
Speaker 1: that's your entry point. Don't move on. Ask them like, Hey,
Speaker 1: what's the funniest thing a child has ever said to you? You?
Speaker 1: What are the parents like? Like, what, what's the craziest
Speaker 1: thing you've ever seen in the lunchboxes? If they work
Speaker 1: in retail, what's the craziest thing you've seen someone try
Speaker 1: and shoplift? Like? What's Don't ask about details, ask for stories.
Speaker 1: The other thing to remember about being a good conversationalist
Speaker 1: and a person who is curious about other people generally,
Speaker 1: like just curious, like really wants to know. It invites
Speaker 1: people in with that curiosity is that you have two
Speaker 1: ears in one mouth, use them accordingly. It's like a
Speaker 1: very ancient proverb, two ears, one mouth, use them accordingly.
Speaker 1: There is this a professor, doctor Guy H. Katova I
Speaker 1: think is his name, and he's been studying listening for
Speaker 1: well over a decade. Literally his expertise is on listening,
Speaker 1: and one of his main insights is that you can
Speaker 1: tell if a conversation is good or not not by
Speaker 1: what people are talking about, not by who's talking, not
Speaker 1: by how much people are speaking, but by looking at
Speaker 1: the listening patterns instead. Counterintrue, right, But the more listening
Speaker 1: the better. We think that good conversations have a lot
Speaker 1: of float. No, the better people rate the conversation. The
Speaker 1: people rate conversations higher and better when they are when
Speaker 1: more listening is involved, because it facilitates more introspection, facilitates
Speaker 1: more self disclosure, facilitates more vulnerability, and there's actually normally
Speaker 1: a through line in the conversation. He also says that
Speaker 1: in reality, the listener, you, the listener is often the
Speaker 1: one who sets the tone of the conversation by using
Speaker 1: back channel behaviors, which are verbal and nonverbal cues, physical
Speaker 1: non physical cues that affect the conversation on an unconscious level.
Speaker 1: There you go, You are in charge if you are
Speaker 1: the listener. Also by being a listener again, you become
Speaker 1: more interesting because you absorb all of these stories and
Speaker 1: perspectives and tidbits and facts and insights that others just
Speaker 1: miss because they only want to talk about themselves or
Speaker 1: they only want to talk about something that they're interested in.
Speaker 1: You become like a documentarian of everyday life, and then
Speaker 1: you get to bring those stories to future conversations. Okay,
Speaker 1: I feel like I've labored on that point. If you
Speaker 1: want to be interesting, be interested, ask good questions. Let's
Speaker 1: move on from that. The second thing you can do
Speaker 1: to make yourself more captivating and fascinating to others, and
Speaker 1: just to make your life more interesting to you as well,
Speaker 1: is to choose a niche thing that you love and
Speaker 1: get really good at it, even if this niche thing
Speaker 1: makes you no money, even if it's really weird, even
Speaker 1: if it's literally of no use at all, even if
Speaker 1: it's uncool. Of all the things we've mentioned about interesting people,
Speaker 1: this is the one I haven't included, and that is
Speaker 1: interesting people go deep. They go deep, They value depth,
Speaker 1: they value trying, They have layers to them. They have
Speaker 1: stuff they really care about, and they show that through
Speaker 1: the investment of effort, time, skill, patience, care. Even the
Speaker 1: most boring hobbies in the world, and I'm sorry if
Speaker 1: I'm going to say something, I'm sorry if this is
Speaker 1: your hobby, but like stamp collecting, bird watching, fishing, lock picking,
Speaker 1: sorry if that's your hobbies. But if you go deep enough,
Speaker 1: you will find and I'm sure you can say this
Speaker 1: is true, you will find something truly fascinating. You will
Speaker 1: encounter a whole new dictionary of terms expertise and skill.
Speaker 1: You will encounter the gossip of these communities. And the
Speaker 1: more you go deep, I also think the more you
Speaker 1: enjoy something because you can because there's more like layers
Speaker 1: and levels of it for you to like push up against,
Speaker 1: and that contributes, of course to the growth of your
Speaker 1: personality through the growth of a skill. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of us stay in the shallow end of things,
Speaker 1: especially in the age of instant gratification and fast open me,
Speaker 1: because it's very easy, and we're tired, and if it's
Speaker 1: not immediately rewarding, if we're not immediately good at it,
Speaker 1: if we don't immediately find something interesting about this thing,
Speaker 1: we abandon it. But if you want, if you're priority
Speaker 1: in listening to this episode, is you really want to
Speaker 1: expand yourself, you have to stay a little bit longer.
Speaker 1: You have to really much like in a conversation, like drill, drill,
Speaker 1: drill deeper into your passions to get to the good stuff.
Speaker 1: And I will say, it doesn't have to be a hobby.
Speaker 1: It could be a part of history. You know, heaps
Speaker 1: about my friend Holly, we knows a ridiculous amount about
Speaker 1: Anne Boleyn. We went to Greenwich the other day. I
Speaker 1: was like shocked. I was like, this, you're so interesting
Speaker 1: to me. Obviously she's my friend, so she's already interesting.
Speaker 1: But I was like, Wow, that's so cool. You can
Speaker 1: start collecting something, get really obsessed by it, you know,
Speaker 1: rare copies of a book, badgers, trinkets. I met a
Speaker 1: guy the other day who had a collection of five
Speaker 1: thousand comic books, and I think I scared little bit
Speaker 1: because I was like, I had so many questions for him.
Speaker 1: I was like, when did that happen? Where do you
Speaker 1: store them? What's your favorite one? Because how interesting is that? Like,
Speaker 1: depth is the secret to a full and interesting and
Speaker 1: meaningful life. On that a bonus tip, if you will,
Speaker 1: you can literally make researching your hobby. I've seen so
Speaker 1: many people talking about this online. There's one girl in
Speaker 1: particular and I'm sorry I can't remember her name. She's
Speaker 1: so cool, and she has this notebook of topics that
Speaker 1: she thinks are interesting, or like people in history she
Speaker 1: hears people mentioned, or like random building. She'll like see
Speaker 1: a building and be like, oh, I wonder when that
Speaker 1: was built. I wonder you know who that celebrity was
Speaker 1: married to. I wonder how this thing came to be.
Speaker 1: And she has this little notebook. And when she's bored,
Speaker 1: so like say she's commuting, or she's like in a
Speaker 1: doctor's office, instead of doom scrolling, which just feels like
Speaker 1: the natural impulse these days, she'll open her little book
Speaker 1: and she'll be like, okay, when am I going to
Speaker 1: research today? And she researches, and she gains knowledge, and
Speaker 1: she gains tidbits, and she gains facts that other people value.
Speaker 1: This is a really crucial point of this whole episode.
Speaker 1: Being interesting requires effort, and it requires, at times a
Speaker 1: departure from your norm. If you really want to curate
Speaker 1: an exciting internal and external life that draws others in,
Speaker 1: that is magnetic, but also which fascinates you the person
Speaker 1: living it, you have to get off your phone and
Speaker 1: back into your life. You have to make conscious choices
Speaker 1: to pursue the thing, the hobby, the collection, the research,
Speaker 1: the interest that causes a bit more friction but brings
Speaker 1: about a lot greater psychological, emotional, and cognitive reward. I
Speaker 1: want to get into that a little bit more, actually,
Speaker 1: the importance of friction, But I do have to take
Speaker 1: one more short break here, so I promise I'll be
Speaker 1: right back with us. As we said before, the break
Speaker 1: being more interesting, and I know there's a lot of
Speaker 1: things to keep track of, so I'm sorry. But being
Speaker 1: more interesting is about cultivating your external life to reflect
Speaker 1: your internal interests and actually pursuing them and putting effort
Speaker 1: into the things you enjoy. And another way to do
Speaker 1: that is by setting yourself small challenges that make you
Speaker 1: work for something that could be a physical challenge, yes,
Speaker 1: also an intellectual challenge as well. Have a purpose, have
Speaker 1: a mission, have a goal you're working towards, and make
Speaker 1: it fun and interesting and weird. Read like one genre
Speaker 1: of fiction book every single month, and at the end
Speaker 1: of the year, have twelve. Listen to a daily news
Speaker 1: podcast every single morning. Learn how to identify every single bird, tree,
Speaker 1: wildflower in your local park. Memorize every country on a map,
Speaker 1: Visit every museum in your city. Give yourself projects that
Speaker 1: have no obvious reward other than becoming somebody who knows
Speaker 1: things and can say I did this weird thing. I
Speaker 1: just set this weird goal and I did it. The
Speaker 1: point isn't that these specific pursuits are inherently interesting. It's
Speaker 1: that they expand the catalog of ideas, stories, and perspectives
Speaker 1: that you carry around with you. You stop becoming somebody who
Speaker 1: simply consumes whatever the algorithm serves up to you, which,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, that's me. But you stop being that,
Speaker 1: and you start becoming someone who has pursued knowledge, pursued
Speaker 1: self growth deliberately and in a different vein to everybody else.
Speaker 1: The beautiful thing is that this doesn't just make you
Speaker 1: more knowledgeable. These challenges don't just make you smarter. They
Speaker 1: change the way your brain works beyond intelligence. There was
Speaker 1: a twenty eleven paper published in Behavioral Brain Research that
Speaker 1: shows that in adulthood there is this new generation of
Speaker 1: neurons that can be found in the adult hippocamp The
Speaker 1: thing is, most of these cells will die unless we
Speaker 1: engage them in some kind of effortful cognitive learning experience.
Speaker 1: It's called neurogenesis. When we do engage these cells, we
Speaker 1: basically are able to rewire our brain inform new patterns.
Speaker 1: But also it helps prompt more divergent thinking, more imaginative thinking,
Speaker 1: a greater sense of self. Remember that term from before divergence.
Speaker 1: We keep bringing it up well when it comes to
Speaker 1: our intelligence, when it comes to our creativity, our personality.
Speaker 1: Having a greater ability for divergent thinking means that you
Speaker 1: are better able to connect ideas that to other people
Speaker 1: would seem unrelated. You're better able to connect spontaneous thoughts,
Speaker 1: You're better able to use your imagination to be original.
Speaker 1: This expands how interesting you are as a person, because
Speaker 1: you end up having cognitive patterns that are completely different
Speaker 1: to everybody else. You end up not just having the
Speaker 1: same thoughts and ideas all the time, and you're not
Speaker 1: just having the same thoughts and ideas as everybody else,
Speaker 1: but ones that are unique to you based on things
Speaker 1: that other people aren't trying. I have been doing my
Speaker 1: own version of an intellectual challenge recently on my sub stack.
Speaker 1: I'm going to shamelessly plug it right now, but every
Speaker 1: single week I have challenged myself to review one psychology
Speaker 1: study fully from beginning to end, and to summarize it
Speaker 1: in seven hundred words or less. That is fifty two
Speaker 1: papers in fifty two weeks, beyond the research I already
Speaker 1: do for this podcast, and I'm just learning so much
Speaker 1: I can I can feel my brain thinking differently. If
Speaker 1: that makes sense. You can follow along if you want.
Speaker 1: We send them out to people. So if you like
Speaker 1: sign up with your email you get every single week
Speaker 1: and you study to your inbox once a week. It's
Speaker 1: like literally takes like five minutes to read. If your
Speaker 1: goal is to become more interesting and to have more
Speaker 1: interesting things to think about or to contribute to conversations,
Speaker 1: this is an amazing resource for that. But again, like
Speaker 1: I said, it's just changed how my brain operates. It
Speaker 1: changes what I bring to conversations. That's enough. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna talk about anymore. That's enough self promotion. Let's get
Speaker 1: into my final two tips, one of which is very
Speaker 1: much on the theme of just do shit, which is
Speaker 1: actually planned things for your weekend. Don't just expect the
Speaker 1: weekend to come and it to be full of lots
Speaker 1: of fun stuff by accident. Learn to be the friend
Speaker 1: who initiates plans. Learn to be the friend who looks
Speaker 1: up what is happening in the area you live in,
Speaker 1: who knows the exhibitions, the markets, has the bucket list
Speaker 1: of places, hikes, breweries, towns nearby, go by yourself or
Speaker 1: go with other people. Invite them into your quest for
Speaker 1: a more interesting life. I speak a lot, a lot
Speaker 1: a lot about the importance of having a bucket list
Speaker 1: as an adult, because I think they are so underrated.
Speaker 1: A bucket list is basically like having a plan or
Speaker 1: a direction for how you're gonna spend your free time.
Speaker 1: It is like having a gym routine, but for your leisure.
Speaker 1: It is a gym routine for your time off, and
Speaker 1: it gives you like a sense of like, Oh, I
Speaker 1: don't have anything to do today, I'm gonna do this.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna actually take something off this list of things
Speaker 1: I want to do. Something me and my friends, and
Speaker 1: in terms of talking about inviting people in something that
Speaker 1: we've been doing every couple of weeks, is that one
Speaker 1: of us has to basically plan an outing for the
Speaker 1: rest of the group. We go to national parks, We
Speaker 1: went to Richmond. The other day, we went to Greenwich,
Speaker 1: like literally three days ago, we went to the Maritime Museum,
Speaker 1: we went to a ber festival, we go to like
Speaker 1: art festivals. At the very least, it gives you something
Speaker 1: to say in your Monday meeting other than just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: my weekend was fine, Like yeah again. I want to
Speaker 1: link this back to early points. What makes somebody interesting.
Speaker 1: They're authentic, They have passion. They also know the importance
Speaker 1: of novel experiences and the way this shapes your character,
Speaker 1: the way this shapes your worldview, and the way that
Speaker 1: it shapes your interest in the world around you. When
Speaker 1: you are interested in the world around you, it is
Speaker 1: infectious people become interested in you. In return. For my
Speaker 1: final piece of advice, though, I'm going to completely contradict
Speaker 1: a lot of what I've been saying. I'm going to
Speaker 1: contradict one of the major through lines of this episode.
Speaker 1: I know I've been going on and on about how
Speaker 1: I just said interesting people are interested in others. You
Speaker 1: get it. By now I've made the point. Another thing
Speaker 1: we need to do to be more interesting, though, is
Speaker 1: to let people be interested in us, and to accept
Speaker 1: that we have something to say, and to accept that
Speaker 1: people like us for our own authentic pure reasons and
Speaker 1: to put those parts of us on display. Often we
Speaker 1: expect that people aren't going to be curious about us.
Speaker 1: They don't want to know anything more about who we are.
Speaker 1: They're just asking because they have to. But this is
Speaker 1: something which psychology has shown can become a self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 1: If we go into every situation thinking everybody here is
Speaker 1: more interesting than me, nobody really cares about what I
Speaker 1: have to say. And if this is coming from past
Speaker 1: wounds of being rejected, and you walk in and you
Speaker 1: have this attitude of like I really shouldn't be here,
Speaker 1: I don't think these people are gonna like me. The
Speaker 1: sad thing is is that they probably won't because unconsciously
Speaker 1: we're sending out these signals that are like leave me alone,
Speaker 1: don't talk to me. Instead, we need to reframe having
Speaker 1: good social charisma as actually just having social courage. We
Speaker 1: really need to learn to accept unsuppressed parts of ourselves
Speaker 1: that we might think other people are going to find
Speaker 1: too much or boring or awkward or difficult, because again
Speaker 1: psychology shows that it's not so much about what we
Speaker 1: talk about, but how we talk about it and how
Speaker 1: we show up and our curiosity about the world. Basically,
Speaker 1: people can tell when we're coming from a place of
Speaker 1: authenticity or not. There was a study from two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine that looked into what qualities are present in
Speaker 1: people who are generally consistently liked and In this study,
Speaker 1: participants were invited to join a social group, Their introduction
Speaker 1: was filmed, and then that introduction was assessed. Three sets
Speaker 1: of observers independently rated each of these individual's genuine sense
Speaker 1: of warmth, confidence, authenticity, and charisma, and whether or not
Speaker 1: they liked them. What this study found is that warmth
Speaker 1: being open fully accounted for the link between expecting acceptance
Speaker 1: and actually receiving it, confidence, being social mood, even motivation
Speaker 1: like it didn't. It wasn't as significant, It wasn't correlated
Speaker 1: as positively. You are more interesting, you are more likable
Speaker 1: if you enter a situation with genuine openness and with
Speaker 1: a intrinsic knowledge or belief that they're gonna like you.
Speaker 1: They're gonna like you because you like yourself. They're gonna
Speaker 1: like you because there is something about you that is
Speaker 1: deep and interesting and fascinating. There was another study, I
Speaker 1: think it was the same study, but a second round
Speaker 1: that where they wanted to see, like do people who
Speaker 1: have genuine warmth and openness are they accepted? And it
Speaker 1: was with this group of straight men and they basically
Speaker 1: were told they're going to interact with this very attractive woman.
Speaker 1: And some of the men were given like these cues
Speaker 1: or like these clues that this woman would reject them,
Speaker 1: and others weren't. And in the study, the men who
Speaker 1: were subliminally convinced to expect rejection, their behavior was done for.
Speaker 1: They came off as cold, they came off as not
Speaker 1: very nice, They weren't liked by the observers. But the
Speaker 1: men who weren't told that they were at risk of
Speaker 1: being rejected remained warm, remained open, They were more liked
Speaker 1: by the observers. It doesn't matter if you think you're
Speaker 1: going to be rejected or not. You just can't think
Speaker 1: it if you expect to be liked by other people,
Speaker 1: if you go in believing that, like, people are gonna
Speaker 1: think that I'm interesting, I find myself interesting. Of course
Speaker 1: they're gonna believe that. If you go and convince that
Speaker 1: people are gonna find you fascinating because you are, because
Speaker 1: because you have something to offer, because you pour into
Speaker 1: your own internal world and that once more, if they don't,
Speaker 1: that's fine. That is what creates the more positive, self
Speaker 1: fulfilling prophecy that makes you more interesting. And this, my friends,
Speaker 1: this is the core of what we have been talking
Speaker 1: about all day. Yes, an interesting person has depth. Yes
Speaker 1: they have curiosity for others, they have passion, they're a
Speaker 1: bit different. More often than not, they just don't think
Speaker 1: too deeply about acceptance from others because they either know
Speaker 1: it's guaranteed or they know that it's just a bonus.
Speaker 1: It's a nice thing to have. But they like themselves.
Speaker 1: They have this entire secret guard and this entire inner
Speaker 1: world that they can return to. They have internal acceptance
Speaker 1: that frees up more mental space to just do life,
Speaker 1: to just do things, to just be passionate, to be interested.
Speaker 1: And I think that's really what we're trying to curate.
Speaker 1: And what a beautiful, easy way to wrap up this episode.
Speaker 1: The most interesting people in the world don't care if
Speaker 1: they're interesting. They care if they're enjoying themselves, they care
Speaker 1: if they're challenging themselves. They care about like it's a
Speaker 1: cliche to say they care about having fun, but it's true.
Speaker 1: That's like the secret to life. They care about getting
Speaker 1: the most out of their life, and I think that
Speaker 1: is conclusively at the end of the day, what you
Speaker 1: need to focus on. Don't worry so much about is
Speaker 1: this person going to like me. Don't worry so much
Speaker 1: about trying to curate a life or a presence that is,
Speaker 1: you know, that is likable or that hits on certain
Speaker 1: factors that you think are going to make people think
Speaker 1: you're better or worse than you are. The most magnetic
Speaker 1: thing is that you just like choose something that you enjoy,
Speaker 1: choose a collection of things that you enjoy, and just
Speaker 1: like are led by genuine passion for them, and go
Speaker 1: deep and let that devotion kind of expand outwards and
Speaker 1: capture people and be genuinely curious about what it expands
Speaker 1: them and what makes them feel good and what they're
Speaker 1: passionate about. Like that is really the secret. Took me
Speaker 1: like fifty minutes to get there, but I hope that
Speaker 1: it was helpful. I hope that you learn something. I
Speaker 1: hope that it inspires you to just rethink some of
Speaker 1: the choices you're making, but also rethink some of the
Speaker 1: beliefs you have about whether or not you're interesting, because
Speaker 1: I promise you you most certainly are. I meet you guys,
Speaker 1: I meet listeners like yourself, and every single one of
Speaker 1: you is just as interesting as the last. And I'm
Speaker 1: always endlessly fascinated by how you guys are always doing
Speaker 1: the coolest stuff and know yourselves much better than you
Speaker 1: think you do. So yeah, I think this is just
Speaker 1: a little probably a reminder. I'm sure you're already doing
Speaker 1: so much of what we spoke about. I want to
Speaker 1: thank our researcher Lucy Davidson for her contributions to this episode.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed it it, please check out an episode
Speaker 1: on Netflix. It really does help us out. I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm begging, but it's yeah, it really does help us,
Speaker 1: and we put a lot of effort into it, so
Speaker 1: it'd be great if we could see you over there.
Speaker 1: You can also follow us on Instagram. Confirm that theory
Speaker 1: I have. If you were a weird kid? Are you
Speaker 1: an interesting adult? Yes or no? Actually leave a comment
Speaker 1: down below, like, if you've made it this far, you're
Speaker 1: listening on Spotify. If you're not, you can DM me
Speaker 1: If you're listening on Spotify, yes or no? Do you
Speaker 1: think you're more interesting as the result of your childhood weirdness.
Speaker 1: I definitely think I am. You can follow us on substack,
Speaker 1: you can do all these things. There's additional research down below.
Speaker 1: Just go go check it out if you so desire.
Speaker 1: And until next time, be safe, be kind, be gentle
Speaker 1: to yourself. We will talk very very soon.