Speaker 1: Pushkin. If I thought about who I was, it was
Speaker 1: just a very like someone who's good at memorizing things,
Speaker 1: someone who's good at like knowing things. But there was
Speaker 1: no one tapping me on the shoulder and saying, Scott,
Speaker 1: you're You're a great guy, and I need to get
Speaker 1: to know you more. There was no one saying that
Speaker 1: for sure. Scott Mankee never thought he had a particularly
Speaker 1: compelling personality, but he did feel he stood out in
Speaker 1: at least one way. He had a natural ability to
Speaker 1: learn and remember interesting facts. So in two thousand and nine,
Speaker 1: when Scott was in college, he tried out for the
Speaker 1: trivia game show Jeopardy, and he made it. Scott was
Speaker 1: excited to put his trivia skills on display and to
Speaker 1: hopefully earn some cash, but he was surprised when viewers
Speaker 1: responded not just to his performance but to who he
Speaker 1: was as a person. One of the first comments that
Speaker 1: I remember seeing was this person saying, I really like
Speaker 1: Scott's demeanor on the show. And I didn't expect that reaction.
Speaker 1: It seemed to be like they liked who I was
Speaker 1: and they thought I'd seemed like a good, good hang
Speaker 1: or whatever, And so that one really struck me on
Speaker 1: today's show. Sometimes we just get ourselves wrong. I'm Maya
Speaker 1: Shunker and this is a slight change of plans, a
Speaker 1: show about who we are and who we become in
Speaker 1: the face of the big change. I've been friends with
Speaker 1: Scott Mankee for just about a year. I met him
Speaker 1: through my husband Jimmy. They played some trivia leagues together,
Speaker 1: so I wasn't surprised when I learned that Scott's always
Speaker 1: been a big fan of the TV show Jeopardy. He
Speaker 1: started watching it when he was in high school, right
Speaker 1: around the time a contestant named Ken Jennings was taking
Speaker 1: Jeopardy by storm, breaking records and winning every game. Scott
Speaker 1: became mesmerized by Ken's epic run, and by the time
Speaker 1: Scott got to college, he was obsessed with the show.
Speaker 1: He skipped class to watch it, taped episodes, and rewatched them.
Speaker 1: He even used a ballpoint pen as a stand in
Speaker 1: for the buzzer, and Scott often found himself thinking, Huh,
Speaker 1: maybe this is the kind of thing I could win.
Speaker 1: The thing I liked about Jeopardy was that it's very
Speaker 1: black and white. There are right answers and there are
Speaker 1: wrong answers. It's something that you can improve at, it's
Speaker 1: something that you can get better at. There's very little
Speaker 1: gray area whether Budapest is the capital of Hungary. That's
Speaker 1: just right or wrong. And I think I'm the type
Speaker 1: of person that that would appeal to. And there's something
Speaker 1: comforting about that. There's something comforting about not having to
Speaker 1: leave anything up to someone's interpretation of something. You can
Speaker 1: just know the answer and prepare and you're done right.
Speaker 1: And it was the same way for me growing up
Speaker 1: in school, right spelling tests. That was the best speller.
Speaker 1: You just have to know how to spell the word,
Speaker 1: and then you're done, versus you know, writing an essay
Speaker 1: about Charles Dickens, and then your teacher has a different
Speaker 1: viewpoint on some point that you're making, and I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to succeed on that. There's no
Speaker 1: guaranteed way to succeed at that, and that's un comfortable
Speaker 1: for me. The good old days when things were true
Speaker 1: or false. You're already making a nostalgic Scott. But so
Speaker 1: you're in college, right, and you are now exclusively devoting
Speaker 1: yourself to jeopardy. You're not attending class. What is that experience?
Speaker 1: Like when you you become a super fan of Jeopardy.
Speaker 1: What I found when I was watching the show so
Speaker 1: consistently was that I was getting better and I started
Speaker 1: noticing that I was getting clues that the contestants weren't getting,
Speaker 1: and you know, I was. I was sweeping categories in
Speaker 1: my mind, so I could tell that I was, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden like in the mix, you know, I was.
Speaker 1: I was being competitive with those characters on the screen.
Speaker 1: And as I started getting getting better and better, I
Speaker 1: had the thought that I could probably be good enough
Speaker 1: to pass the test and be a contestant, just based
Speaker 1: on how many questions I was getting right so on
Speaker 1: the one and I felt like my knowledge base was there.
Speaker 1: But the flip side of that is being a contestant,
Speaker 1: being someone who comes into people's living rooms and being
Speaker 1: having somewhat of a of a personality. I didn't know
Speaker 1: if I was if I was there, and I didn't
Speaker 1: know if I had that to offer necessarily. And where
Speaker 1: do you think that? Where did that originate from? You
Speaker 1: said you you had a who was the phrase you use?
Speaker 1: A somewhat personality? Yeah? I think in college I was
Speaker 1: just kind of a shy person and all my life.
Speaker 1: I had been that way growing up. I don't think
Speaker 1: being a super interesting person and being the life of
Speaker 1: the party was necessarily valued by my family. By my parents,
Speaker 1: my mom immigrated here. She's Chinese, She's born in Hong
Speaker 1: Kong and moved here from Singapore when she was thirteen,
Speaker 1: and I think she really valued hard work and achievement academically,
Speaker 1: and you know, any of like the social stuff and
Speaker 1: you know who my friends were and what kind of
Speaker 1: clubs and activities I was doing. I think that was
Speaker 1: secondary or like forgotten entirely, and so I don't think
Speaker 1: I had that much encouragement to to try and work
Speaker 1: on that part of myself, Like I don't think I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think I hung out at anyone's house or
Speaker 1: did a sleepover maybe like once or twice throughout all
Speaker 1: of high school. And I don't think that was a
Speaker 1: very big concern for them. I think they were just
Speaker 1: cool with me hanging at home with them. And you know,
Speaker 1: getting an a in French got to conjugate those verbs, okay,
Speaker 1: very important. I didn't think that there was anything remarkable
Speaker 1: about me as a person that would that would make
Speaker 1: me stand out in any way other than I know
Speaker 1: the powers of two up to the twentieth power, or
Speaker 1: you know, I got a perfect math SAT score when
Speaker 1: I was thirteen. I was just I. I if I
Speaker 1: thought about who I was, it was just a very
Speaker 1: like someone who's good at memorizing things, someone who's good
Speaker 1: at like knowing things. But there was no one tapping
Speaker 1: me on the shoulder and saying, Scott, you're you're a
Speaker 1: great guy, and I need to get to know you more,
Speaker 1: or you need to you need to be out in
Speaker 1: front of people and telling them all about it yourself.
Speaker 1: There was no one saying that for sure, So I
Speaker 1: don't know why. I don't know how other people are
Speaker 1: are comfortable doing that when there's a very real chance
Speaker 1: that no one wants to hear from them, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden everyone loses from that interaction. Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems like your default assumption was that
Speaker 1: unless you were explicitly told otherwise, what you had to
Speaker 1: say wouldn't be interesting to people. Is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think that is right. I think I just didn't
Speaker 1: have a lot of self confidence. I didn't feel comfortable
Speaker 1: putting myself out there with people. I didn't know, with
Speaker 1: a large group of people that may have different interests
Speaker 1: than me, I didn't think that I had anything to
Speaker 1: offer them. Really, I was into my thing, but you know,
Speaker 1: why would any one want to know my thoughts and
Speaker 1: feelings about subjects that I'm not necessarily an expert in
Speaker 1: or you know that I don't have all the right
Speaker 1: answers too, And so I was just shy and had
Speaker 1: reservations about sharing anything with them. Yeah, and that's particularly
Speaker 1: interesting because it's not like I mean, correct me if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong, But it seems like it's not like people
Speaker 1: were actively saying negative things about you. They weren't coming
Speaker 1: up to you and saying, Scott, your personality sucks. You
Speaker 1: shouldn't be in front of large swots of people sharing
Speaker 1: who you are. Inside the feedback you're getting was the
Speaker 1: absence of feedback, right, Yea, So there was really no
Speaker 1: confirmatory evidence in either direction. But it seems like you
Speaker 1: decided in your mind anyway that no, I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I'm smart, but not really that fun to be around.
Speaker 1: People don't really care what I have to say. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's right. I think that's totally right. So so
Speaker 1: so maybe maybe I've gotten some feedback in the past
Speaker 1: that I'm a nice person. But it seemed a stretch
Speaker 1: to me to suggest that I would then go on
Speaker 1: a on a game show and say, hey, everybody, look
Speaker 1: at me. I'm great. That that that didn't track to me.
Speaker 1: M So, Scott, give given everything that you've just described, right,
Speaker 1: being relatively shy, um, not feeling that anyone will want
Speaker 1: to have the opportunity to get to know you in
Speaker 1: any deep way, why go on a game show? Yep, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good question. So Number one, if you win
Speaker 1: the tournament, this college tournament, you can win one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. That's the amount of money that goes to
Speaker 1: the winner. Wow, so there's there's a real incentive there.
Speaker 1: Number two, I felt like you would be good for me,
Speaker 1: uh like for my resume somehow, Like I wasn't doing
Speaker 1: that great in school. I thought if I if I
Speaker 1: was representing my school on Jeopardy, that that would be
Speaker 1: kind of reclaiming like some kind of you know, good
Speaker 1: points for me in some sense. So you mustter up
Speaker 1: the courage to audition for Jeopardy, right, Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: finally decide it's time. So the first thing I did
Speaker 1: was you take an online test, And a few days
Speaker 1: after that, I got an email that says, Hey, you're
Speaker 1: invited to come to Washington, d C. For an audition
Speaker 1: in person where you'll get to play the game and
Speaker 1: you'll get to meet some of the crew at the show.
Speaker 1: So that's exciting. So go there a month later and
Speaker 1: get into the room and there's fifty other hopefuls who
Speaker 1: are from nearby colleges sitting in this conference room, and
Speaker 1: I feel intimidated because a lot of them have better
Speaker 1: stories than me from the outset, and I'm like, I got,
Speaker 1: I got nothing, um, And so I'm I'm I'm a
Speaker 1: little discouraged in the moment because even amongst the Jeopardy faithful,
Speaker 1: who you would imagine are a little less interesting than
Speaker 1: the than the than the average person, I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm not scoring well against them. So that was kind
Speaker 1: of the backdrop for for that audition. And then I
Speaker 1: feel like I did decently when I was actually buzzing
Speaker 1: and answering questions. Um, that was kind of my crutch.
Speaker 1: I can do pretty well just answering questions, you know.
Speaker 1: That's my bread and butter. That's what I've been practicing
Speaker 1: all these years and then comes time for me to
Speaker 1: talk about myself, and sadly, one of the one of
Speaker 1: the fun facts that I wrote about myself was simply
Speaker 1: repeat eating a line in my bio. It was just
Speaker 1: my name is Scott. I'm a senior in college. So
Speaker 1: there was nothing remotely interesting about that. It was just
Speaker 1: repeating information that was contained on the other parts of
Speaker 1: the form. I love how the line of your bio
Speaker 1: you chose was literally your nave in college, that fact
Speaker 1: that you're a college student. It's a college tournament. I
Speaker 1: mean they probably could have deduced that that's very that's
Speaker 1: very charming. Yeah, like you weren't even willing to go
Speaker 1: to that. I used to play the violin and hated it,
Speaker 1: or I don't know what other hobbies one might have
Speaker 1: had growing up. Right, very interesting, right, that was? That
Speaker 1: was number one? That was number one fact. And I
Speaker 1: remember how I knew something about the show that no
Speaker 1: one else in the room had known. And what it
Speaker 1: was was the producer asks, does anyone remember who won
Speaker 1: the college tournament the previous year? And I raised my
Speaker 1: hand and I said, of course, it was Joey from
Speaker 1: Mississippi State. And I think that in my mind was
Speaker 1: the difference maker. You know, I was kind of unremarkable
Speaker 1: in the other aspects, but the fact that I was
Speaker 1: such a super fan and knew, you know, the show
Speaker 1: backwards and forwards and what had happened was what allowed
Speaker 1: me to kind of differentiate myself. And yeah, that was it.
Speaker 1: It was. It was pretty quick. Didn't feel that optimistic
Speaker 1: about my chances, and you know, I felt like I
Speaker 1: did okay on the trivia and subpar on the personality part,
Speaker 1: as expected. And so then what is it like to
Speaker 1: get the call that you you had been chosen from
Speaker 1: all those hopefuls? Yeah, that was that was great. I
Speaker 1: remember ever since I auditioned, I would fantasize about seeing
Speaker 1: that number show up on my little flip phone, and
Speaker 1: I would just imagine, like what what that feeling would
Speaker 1: be like when I when I saw this call him
Speaker 1: through the way I've felt at that moment was was joy.
Speaker 1: I remember looking out into the into the distance, into
Speaker 1: the ocean and thinking, as cheesy as it might sound,
Speaker 1: like all my life's about to change. My life's meet
Speaker 1: to change. I remember thinking that, And in what way
Speaker 1: did you think that it would change? I felt like
Speaker 1: like I I had been watching Jeopardy for a while,
Speaker 1: so to me, being on Jeopardy was a big deal. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In my mind, I'm like, now I get to be
Speaker 1: a part of this club, and you know it's going
Speaker 1: to be a maybe anxiety riddling experience, but it's going
Speaker 1: to be, you know, a big experience nonetheless. And then
Speaker 1: what is it like, you know, to be to be
Speaker 1: on the stage the lights go on, You're so once
Speaker 1: we get to the stage, you're you're getting to go
Speaker 1: through the motions of actually being on Jeopardy. I remember
Speaker 1: buzzing in correctly on a few clues in this practice round,
Speaker 1: and pretty quickly I get ushered offstage and the producers
Speaker 1: are like, Scott, you're good, good job, good job. You
Speaker 1: don't need any more practice. You're all set. And I
Speaker 1: felt happy about that. I felt like I fit the
Speaker 1: mold of a good contestant in the sense that I
Speaker 1: did what I was supposed to do. I kept the
Speaker 1: game moving. I was looking in the right direction and
Speaker 1: pressing the buzzer appropriately and answering in with a good
Speaker 1: tone of voice. So I felt like I checked all
Speaker 1: the boxes of just fulfilling the contestant duties if they
Speaker 1: existed on a checklist somewhere I felt like I felt
Speaker 1: like I was ready to play, and so yeah, I
Speaker 1: felt I felt good. Well, here how Scott did on Jeopardy.
Speaker 1: After the break, we'll be back in a moment with
Speaker 1: a slight change of plans. We're back with Scott Manke,
Speaker 1: who successfully made it on to the Jeopardy College Championship
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine. So let's hear about Scott's
Speaker 1: experience on the show, starting with when he introduced himself
Speaker 1: to the ten million plus viewers watching at home. Scott
Speaker 1: Minky is from Flemington, New Jersey. Teaches chess to who
Speaker 1: at Johns Hopkins were in the community of Baltimore. So
Speaker 1: we go out into the more underprivileged communities in Baltimore
Speaker 1: and we bring out a table every week and set
Speaker 1: up some boards and we teach the chess the kids
Speaker 1: in the in the neighborhood there. Are they fascinated by
Speaker 1: the game? Are they really interested or is it just
Speaker 1: a way to pass the time. It's a little bit
Speaker 1: of both. They're they're pretty interested. Unfortunately, they forget the
Speaker 1: rules every week, so we have to reteach them. That
Speaker 1: takes up a lot of time, but at the end,
Speaker 1: we usually get a few good games going. How did
Speaker 1: you do? How did it go? Yeah, my first game
Speaker 1: went really well well. I had a small lead going
Speaker 1: into double jeopardy, and then in that second round I
Speaker 1: really pulled away and reached thirty thousand dollars at some point,
Speaker 1: which is a pretty decisive victory. And I went into
Speaker 1: the final jeopardy knowing that I had what's called a
Speaker 1: lock game, or I had no chance of losing if
Speaker 1: I wagered appropriately. And then the second day and then
Speaker 1: the second day it was more of a back and
Speaker 1: forth game. I did well enough that I had the
Speaker 1: lead going into final Jeopardy, and I got the question wrong.
Speaker 1: So my Jeopardy run kind of came to a crashing
Speaker 1: halt when it was revealed that the answer to the
Speaker 1: clue was deadline and not headline as I had written.
Speaker 1: So one letter kind of brought the whole thing to
Speaker 1: an end. That's so unfortunate. You should have been well,
Speaker 1: good thing you weren't a real of fortune, because it
Speaker 1: turns out letters matter a lot there ut Okay, So
Speaker 1: what did it feel like, Scott? When when this whole
Speaker 1: experience was over, I would say, yeah, it was I
Speaker 1: felt good about it. I felt like I achieved, you know,
Speaker 1: higher than fifty percentile outcome of what could have happened.
Speaker 1: My parents got to see me win there, which was
Speaker 1: like important to me, and I did fine, So I
Speaker 1: was happy with it. So what is it like after
Speaker 1: the show actually airs. I remember back in the back
Speaker 1: in those days, by the way, two thousand and nine,
Speaker 1: everything's everything's done on Facebook, all right. Facebook is huge
Speaker 1: back then, and there's this Jeopardy message board where people
Speaker 1: post about the episodes and you know, some predictions for
Speaker 1: the upcoming tournament, that kind of thing. I remember people
Speaker 1: on the message board being like, ooh, you know Scott
Speaker 1: from Johns Hopkins, I think I think this guy could
Speaker 1: be I think this guy could be the winner. You know,
Speaker 1: we'll see. So there's there's just like there's I tried
Speaker 1: to consume all of the media surrounding my appearance, you know,
Speaker 1: which consists of this one message board mostly and you know,
Speaker 1: see what people's reactions are going to be basically. So
Speaker 1: then the first episode airs, and first there's like a
Speaker 1: flood of you know, Facebook friend requests, people sending me
Speaker 1: notes and things like oh wow, you did you did
Speaker 1: so well congratulations, And then I go to the message
Speaker 1: board because that's where like the true Jeopardy diehards are.
Speaker 1: And you know, I don't care as much that my
Speaker 1: neighbor from back home said good job, Scott, because they
Speaker 1: would say that regardless of how I did. But I
Speaker 1: want to hear from the Jeopardy ogs. Yeah, what do
Speaker 1: I have their respect? And so I go to my
Speaker 1: episode page and yeah, one of the first comments that
Speaker 1: I remember seeing was this person saying, I really like
Speaker 1: Scott's demeanor on the show. You know, I think they
Speaker 1: had some other points about my performance and how how
Speaker 1: many questions I got right or how well I was doing,
Speaker 1: but that was the first line, I believe of the
Speaker 1: of the post, and it really stuck out to me
Speaker 1: because I didn't expect that reaction. I thought it would be,
Speaker 1: you know about, oh, how did I miss this question
Speaker 1: or you know, good job getting getting this one right.
Speaker 1: But it seemed to be like they liked who I
Speaker 1: was and they thought I'd seemed like a good, good
Speaker 1: hang or whatever, and so that one, that one really
Speaker 1: struck me. Um So, in addition to that, what was
Speaker 1: funny was someone created a Scott Mankie on Jeopardy fan
Speaker 1: club low membership, definitely, but hey, better to have a
Speaker 1: few high quality ones, right, that's right, that's yeah, a
Speaker 1: hundred true fans, right, that's what we need. Okay. I
Speaker 1: was touched by the fact that someone went to the
Speaker 1: trouble of of making that um so, so that was
Speaker 1: that was heartening. I thought I would be passable and
Speaker 1: an acceptable person in terms of how I came off.
Speaker 1: But I just remember people saying that they'd want to
Speaker 1: be my friend, or they'd want to you know, they'd
Speaker 1: want to meet me, just based off how the episode was.
Speaker 1: So so you're starting to notice that people are responding
Speaker 1: to you, right, not not your trivia prowess, but to you.
Speaker 1: They they they like you. They're expressing that they want
Speaker 1: to be friends with you, contrary to your working model
Speaker 1: of the world, which is that you had nothing interesting
Speaker 1: to say and no one would want to hear what
Speaker 1: you had to say. It sounds like people do. What
Speaker 1: was it like to have this realization about yourself for
Speaker 1: the first time? It was it was a substantial realization,
Speaker 1: and it made me wonder whether I needed to change
Speaker 1: how I interact with others and need to share more
Speaker 1: and need to put myself out there, if they enjoy
Speaker 1: me for who I am, then maybe I need to
Speaker 1: share more of that. And did this realization lead you
Speaker 1: to reinterpret anything that had happened during your Jeopardy experience?
Speaker 1: Seeing people respond that way made me wonder whether that
Speaker 1: same thing came across when I was filming the show,
Speaker 1: and whether I was getting a similar response there. And
Speaker 1: so I thought back, and I do remember the different
Speaker 1: crew members on the show joking around with me during
Speaker 1: downtime and talking about other shows that they'd worked on,
Speaker 1: and different celebrities and who was nice and who was not,
Speaker 1: and different different gossip from behind the scenes of some
Speaker 1: of these shows. And I wondered if it was maybe
Speaker 1: them just wanting to hang out and me seeming like
Speaker 1: a good person to talk to, Um, maybe reconsider that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know, I imagine, you know, anytime we have
Speaker 1: a profound realization, you know, we can we can prescribe
Speaker 1: a future for ourselves in which we, you know, change
Speaker 1: the way we are. But it's perhaps hard to put
Speaker 1: that into practice, right because so much of it feels
Speaker 1: so foreign. M So, so, do you have any notable
Speaker 1: memories or any specific memories of when you kind of
Speaker 1: took the car for a test drive, so to speak,
Speaker 1: the personality car. So yeah, I remember, I remember the moment.
Speaker 1: I remember a moment. The moment was in Las Vegas,
Speaker 1: where I lived after graduating. I would like play poker sometimes,
Speaker 1: and when you're seated at a poker table, it's just
Speaker 1: like ten strangers and you're you know, in between hands
Speaker 1: or when you're not when you don't have cards, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of table talk or banter that's that's going on.
Speaker 1: And I remember engaging in that. And this was like
Speaker 1: shortly after the you know, less than a year after
Speaker 1: the episode it had aired, and feeling comfortable in that situation.
Speaker 1: I don't think any of the opinions I shared were
Speaker 1: like notable, but it was things like, you know, talking
Speaker 1: about the sports game that was on TV, or talking
Speaker 1: about like iPhones. I remember iPhones were like new back then,
Speaker 1: and kind of just like talking about the technology generally.
Speaker 1: But I just remember feeling much more comfortable in my
Speaker 1: skin talking with these strangers. And I think if I
Speaker 1: was at a poker table before Jeopardy, I would just
Speaker 1: you know, sunglasses, hoodie up, just looking at the looking
Speaker 1: at the cards and caring about the game. You know,
Speaker 1: it's so interesting you mentioned, you know, and none of
Speaker 1: it was notable stuff. That's exactly the point. I mean,
Speaker 1: the fact that you felt that in order for something
Speaker 1: to be worth sharing before all this, it had to
Speaker 1: be notable is such a high bar as a human
Speaker 1: being to have to try and meet in conversation, right,
Speaker 1: And so I think I think it's precisely because the
Speaker 1: things weren't notable, that it's a sign of emotional and
Speaker 1: psychological progress. Right. You were willing to share pretty benolve
Speaker 1: views on the iPhone. That's fantastic, that's so true. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it can go too far where you know,
Speaker 1: people are are tweeting about turkey sub for lunch, all right,
Speaker 1: you know, but given where you started, yes, exactly, Given
Speaker 1: given where I started, I think I think it was progress.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a that's a great point, um.
Speaker 1: And yeah, like that that is the difference between me
Speaker 1: now and before, where this is making me realize that
Speaker 1: things about myself maya maybe maybe this is the biggest difference.
Speaker 1: Where it's just in these very commonplace situations, you know,
Speaker 1: sitting next to someone on the plane, like just having
Speaker 1: small top conversations about how you feel about very ordinary,
Speaker 1: mundane things talking about the weather, even though that's such
Speaker 1: like a that's such a cliche, like, yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: getting warmer out and and I like that because you know,
Speaker 1: I like the longer days, and you know, it's it
Speaker 1: makes I can wear a lighter jacket. It's it's it's better.
Speaker 1: I feel more comfortable sharing those thoughts now than I
Speaker 1: did before, and I think that is like freeing and
Speaker 1: and cool in a way. Yeah, you know, I could
Speaker 1: imagine people saying in response, oh, but Scott, like, you
Speaker 1: shouldn't have needed other people to validate your personality, to
Speaker 1: validate that you're likable. And I mean, it's not entirely untrue.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, we are social creatures. What
Speaker 1: does it mean to be objectively charming? It doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 1: There's only such thing as subjective charm subjective likability, right
Speaker 1: at least that's my view of the world. And so
Speaker 1: I think it is more than reasonable for us to
Speaker 1: at least seek some feedback from others. That's not to
Speaker 1: say that other people's approval or validation should constitute the
Speaker 1: entirety of our self confidence and resolve all of our
Speaker 1: self esteem issues. Or cause self esteem issues. But it's data.
Speaker 1: It seems relevant, right, I totally agree. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it is data. I think it offers a glimpse into
Speaker 1: how others may view you and under appreciated aspects of
Speaker 1: yourself that may exist, And I would encourage people to
Speaker 1: seek opportunities to find that, to find ways in which
Speaker 1: aspects of yourself that you don't necessarily think about or
Speaker 1: think highly of can be viewed in another light or
Speaker 1: can get kind of a second opinion on those things
Speaker 1: other than your own self image. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: another lesson from your story is, at a minimum, we
Speaker 1: shouldn't take absence of evidence as confirmation in either direction. Right,
Speaker 1: we talked about you're having just a default understanding that
Speaker 1: unless I hear explicitly otherwise from other people, unless I
Speaker 1: hear otherwise, I'm just going to assume that I'm not
Speaker 1: worth hearing from. And it seems like at a minimum,
Speaker 1: we should stay neutral on where we fall along different
Speaker 1: traits until there's some thoughtful reflection happening in our own
Speaker 1: minds or we have information from others. Otherwise we're operating
Speaker 1: in a vacuum. And once we establish that default, as
Speaker 1: your story shows, it's very easy to stay in that,
Speaker 1: to let inertia kind of propel you forward, and to
Speaker 1: make lots of life choices based on that understanding right
Speaker 1: when you could actually be thriving in other ways. Yeah, yes, yes, totally.
Speaker 1: You know. Everything you're sharing with me right now is
Speaker 1: making me think about the fact that our understanding of
Speaker 1: self is often far flimsier than we might think. It's
Speaker 1: not like you had a brain transplant, Scott, right like you,
Speaker 1: you had this underlying personality all along, this lovable personality.
Speaker 1: And I can say that as your friend, I think
Speaker 1: you are a lovely, interesting, charming person to be around,
Speaker 1: but you had misjudged yourself right, And I do think
Speaker 1: I think we mistakenly believe that because we have first
Speaker 1: person access to who we are in our own minds,
Speaker 1: that somehow our assessments of ourselves are accurate and comprehensive
Speaker 1: and reflect the latest shifts and transformative experiences that we
Speaker 1: have that affect us in turn. But we fall prey
Speaker 1: to many of the same cognitive biases anyway that lead
Speaker 1: us to misunderstand other people or create snapshots of who
Speaker 1: they are that aren't fully comprehensive. And yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: just making me think about what else have you gotten
Speaker 1: wrong about yourself? Like? What else have I gotten wrong
Speaker 1: about myself? What am I? What am I currently getting
Speaker 1: wrong about myself today that I think I'm right about
Speaker 1: it? It It can go in either direction, like maybe I
Speaker 1: have a totally inflated sense of self and I think
Speaker 1: I'm far more charming than I actually am. Listeners, you
Speaker 1: can let me know offline. But but more seriously, did
Speaker 1: your Jeopardy experience make you revisit other assumptions that you
Speaker 1: had about yourself? It did make me think that there
Speaker 1: are other parts of my personality that I have yet
Speaker 1: to explore, or assumptions about myself that maybe incorrect. I
Speaker 1: feel like I haven't gone far enough down that road
Speaker 1: to actively discover what those things are. It's at least
Speaker 1: planted the thought thought, and I accept that there may
Speaker 1: be things, and so I do try and do new
Speaker 1: things in order to try and stumble across something that
Speaker 1: I may learn about myself. And I know that that
Speaker 1: advice may seem commonplace. But I thought I knew who
Speaker 1: I was at the core, and what I like to
Speaker 1: do and what I was good at, what I wasn't
Speaker 1: good at and I came out with an understanding that
Speaker 1: was that was very different, and I think that's that's
Speaker 1: changed the trajectory of how I lead my life now.
Speaker 1: So I think it's it's having a willingness to say
Speaker 1: yes to situations that may make you uncomfortable, especially in
Speaker 1: a forum where I'm getting feedback from others, because I
Speaker 1: think I kind of rely on that I need. I
Speaker 1: need others to tell me if I'm getting at something. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So I do try and find opportunities to do that.
Speaker 1: I've yet to have a sea change where I had
Speaker 1: some landmark discovery about myself, but I'm open to the
Speaker 1: idea and I'm going to try and seek that out more.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's fantastic. And I also think
Speaker 1: it's so reasonable to not have had a sea change.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not like we're getting large swaths of
Speaker 1: things about ourselves wrong. You know, to the extent you're
Speaker 1: relatively honest with yourself. But I think the mere acknowledgement
Speaker 1: that we might be wrong about certain things is a
Speaker 1: critical mental change, one that I think is inspiring for
Speaker 1: a lot of people. Because while it's scary perhaps that
Speaker 1: we may have gotten some things wrong. It's also exciting, right,
Speaker 1: It's like, Wow, what are these unexpected, unanticipated parts of
Speaker 1: myself that I might tap into in these unexpected moments
Speaker 1: in life that it might uncover it, that might make
Speaker 1: me realize that it was laboring under a misconception about
Speaker 1: four years and years and years. And I'm no longer
Speaker 1: going to be helped back by that, and I'm no
Speaker 1: longer going to needlessly suffer. And what I find intriguing
Speaker 1: and interesting about your story is that you didn't go
Speaker 1: on to Jeopardy with this mission to unlock this entirely
Speaker 1: new facet of Scott Minky. You went on because you
Speaker 1: were like, I think I'm good at trivia, and I
Speaker 1: think I can win a lot of money and it
Speaker 1: would be fun. And it is fascinating how the true
Speaker 1: change came after Jeoffardy. You know, you had said earlier
Speaker 1: in our conversation, you know, I had this feeling like
Speaker 1: I looked off into the distance and I thought, my
Speaker 1: life is never going to be the same, or you know,
Speaker 1: my life is going to change forever. Right, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: bet you never thought that this was going to be
Speaker 1: the way in which your life change forever, totally right,
Speaker 1: totally right. It's you know, the ten thousand dollars that
Speaker 1: I won, the wild aspirations of you know, professional implications
Speaker 1: of being on Jeopardy one time, those didn't really come
Speaker 1: to fruition. But I feel like the boost of confidence
Speaker 1: I have just being myself around others is the lasting
Speaker 1: change that has endured. Hey, thanks for listening. Join me
Speaker 1: next week when I talk with doctor Edith Eager, a
Speaker 1: ninety four year old Holocaust survivor. Edith was sixteen years
Speaker 1: old when she her sister and mom and dad were
Speaker 1: put on a train to the Auschwitz concentration camp by
Speaker 1: Mom looked at me and hugged me, and she said,
Speaker 1: we don't know where to be going. We don't know
Speaker 1: what's going to happen. Just remember no one can take
Speaker 1: away from you what you put here in your own mind.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what happened. A Slight Change of Plans
Speaker 1: is created written an executive produce by me Maya Schunker.
Speaker 1: The Slight Change Family includes Tyler Green our senior producer,
Speaker 1: Emily Rostak, our producer and fact checker, Jan Guera, our
Speaker 1: senior editor, Ben Taliday, our sound engineer, and Neil la
Speaker 1: Belle our Executive producer. Louis Scara wrote our theme song
Speaker 1: and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, So big
Speaker 1: thanks to everyone there, including Nicolemrano, Maggie Taylor, Eric Sandler,
Speaker 1: Heather Faine, and Carly Nigliori, and of course a very
Speaker 1: special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A Slight
Speaker 1: Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Shunker. Jimmy
Speaker 1: was recently preparing for a trivia show, right, what was
Speaker 1: what was that? Like? Oh my gosh, I feel like
Speaker 1: it it tested our otherwise happy marriage, Scott. So, I
Speaker 1: mean he became obsessive about it, right, like everything was
Speaker 1: about everything was about learning facts. Every conversation between us
Speaker 1: felt clinical in a way. But then there was this
Speaker 1: one really tender moment where it was the night before
Speaker 1: our five year wedding anniversary, and Jimmy and I don't usually,
Speaker 1: you know, do the tradition stuff, so I didn't even
Speaker 1: I wasn't really thinking about it. He he never really remembers,
Speaker 1: but suddenly he's laying there and he's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: tomorrow's our five year wedding anniversary. I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, Jimmy, his heart is softening, like as he
Speaker 1: gets older, he's getting a little more nostalgic. This is
Speaker 1: so great. And I hear him muttering paper, cotton, leather,
Speaker 1: and I realized he's confirming that he knows all the
Speaker 1: anniversary gifts by year, because it is actually a trivia
Speaker 1: challenge that's rough, that is rough.