Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. So delighted to have back with us. Um.
Speaker 1: Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate to Economist, New York Times, columnist,
Speaker 1: City University of New York, Distinguished Professor of Economics, author,
Speaker 1: editor of nearly thirty books, his latest Arguing with Zombies, Economics, Politics,
Speaker 1: and the Fight for a Better Future. Great book to
Speaker 1: be reading. Why you're at home at this point, Um,
Speaker 1: Good to have you back with us, Paul, Um, Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Bloomberg Radio. So you know, the President looks
Speaker 1: like he has hit on another stimulus plan with Congress,
Speaker 1: and it looks like more money for really small businesses
Speaker 1: and also money to you know, help those that have
Speaker 1: lost their jobs provide them with some income. I'm curious,
Speaker 1: as you have watched policies unfold from the government, are
Speaker 1: they the right ones and what's needed to kind of
Speaker 1: maintain the economy as much as they can right now
Speaker 1: and help us when we get on the other side. Okay,
Speaker 1: the this this program that just got some additional funding.
Speaker 1: So far, it has not worked particularly well. A lot
Speaker 1: of the money has gone to businesses that don't need it.
Speaker 1: But you know that doesn't worry that. That's actually, in
Speaker 1: some way the least bad part of what's happening. Um.
Speaker 1: The two things that worry me a lot are still
Speaker 1: we have had no significant relief for state and local governments,
Speaker 1: and those governments have to balance their budgets and they're
Speaker 1: on the front lines, and it's gonna they're even in
Speaker 1: pure economic terms, they're going to be forced into austerity
Speaker 1: measures that are going to extend this slump long after
Speaker 1: the virus has let up. Um. And the other thing
Speaker 1: is unemployment benefits. Um. We have a on paper, we
Speaker 1: have a really good plan that gives people a lot
Speaker 1: of compensation, but it's being run through state unemployment offices
Speaker 1: which have been totally overwhelmed. So the last number I
Speaker 1: saw it was in Florida. Uh, you know, only one
Speaker 1: person eight who has been approved for unemployed element has
Speaker 1: actually benefits, has actually received any money. So um, So
Speaker 1: we're falling down enormously on the implementation on the unemployment benefits.
Speaker 1: So if you take it all together, what we have is,
Speaker 1: you know, we've had kind of the right ideas and
Speaker 1: how to deal with this, but we've fallen down enormously,
Speaker 1: that the money is just not flowing on our sufficient
Speaker 1: scale to deal with the magnitude of this catastrophe, and Paul,
Speaker 1: when it comes to execution it, it feels like one
Speaker 1: of the raging debates that it seems like we're we're having,
Speaker 1: maybe unwittingly or maybe very wittingly, is between the power
Speaker 1: of the federal government, the responsibility of the federal government
Speaker 1: and the responsibility and the role of state and local governments.
Speaker 1: How did we get here and where do you think
Speaker 1: it goes from here in terms of that breakdown. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, we have a federal system, which does sometimes
Speaker 1: cause problems. I mean in you know, Britain, there's no
Speaker 1: question there's there's a government and and I mean they're
Speaker 1: all local authority effectively, it's it's centralized. But um, we've
Speaker 1: have relied way too much on state and local initiative,
Speaker 1: UM in situations where they just don't have the resources.
Speaker 1: So I've been looking on the unemployment front, and I'm
Speaker 1: looking at Canada, which also has a federal system with
Speaker 1: very strong provinces, but they have unemployment benetive scheme which
Speaker 1: is not too different from ours, except the federal government
Speaker 1: set up a portal and hotline, and people in Canada
Speaker 1: are getting their emergency unemployment benefits within days, whereas we
Speaker 1: are still, you know, immensely backlogged. So uh why I
Speaker 1: think it's you could you can understand the political history
Speaker 1: that got us at this point, but this is a
Speaker 1: point where we really should have to take charge federal
Speaker 1: government in terms of of of getting that money to
Speaker 1: the people who needed and we don't. I do want
Speaker 1: to mention some headlines, um and I think you might appreciate, Paul,
Speaker 1: is that, uh New York Governor Andrew Cuomo apparently had
Speaker 1: did a conversation or interview with MSNBC and talked about
Speaker 1: the conversation he had with President Trump. They talked about testing,
Speaker 1: but they also Governor Cuomo saying that the President seemed
Speaker 1: open to the need for state funding in the next bill.
Speaker 1: But but this is crucial because we've talked about you know,
Speaker 1: states they have to um balance their budget, right, so
Speaker 1: they've got no income coming in that if we don't
Speaker 1: help out these states. Certainly, some of these major states,
Speaker 1: whether it's New York or out on the West Coast,
Speaker 1: I mean, these are important economies to the overall US economy. Well,
Speaker 1: we've seen this before. Remember the after this just have
Speaker 1: anate financial crisis. Um, there was a lot of austerity
Speaker 1: by state local governments. Uh. They eliminated about three million
Speaker 1: jobs over the course of several years there and that
Speaker 1: um that delayed recovery. We would have been probably at
Speaker 1: full employment by if it hadn't been for all those
Speaker 1: state cutbacks. Now they're to the catastrophe. That makes two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight look like nothing. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: states rely take of the rely on sales taxes and
Speaker 1: nobody's been shock. So um, this is this is and
Speaker 1: when when you think about what that means who who
Speaker 1: are who are the state and local employees? What are
Speaker 1: the jobs? Basically think school teachers. About half of state
Speaker 1: local jobs are in the education. So we're about that
Speaker 1: a situation where because of a pandemic, we're gonna have
Speaker 1: mass layoffs of school teachers, which is absolutely insane. And Uh.
Speaker 1: But unless we get hundreds of billions of dollars of
Speaker 1: AIG headed out for for those lower levels of government soon,
Speaker 1: that's going to happen. Well, and Paul, you mentioned this
Speaker 1: at the outset. You know, part of the execution has
Speaker 1: been that the money may not be going to the
Speaker 1: right places, and and it calls to mind something I
Speaker 1: know you've been looking at and certainly we've been talking about,
Speaker 1: which is the inequalities that are really being exposed, many
Speaker 1: inequalities candidly that you've been writing about four years in
Speaker 1: years by this crisis. You know, you think about the
Speaker 1: restaurant industry, You think about frontline workers, You think about
Speaker 1: the fact that folks like us candidly we have the
Speaker 1: ability to do our jobs from home, there are many
Speaker 1: who don't. What do we need to do. What can
Speaker 1: we do in the short term to try and alleviate
Speaker 1: some of that huge structural problem. Well, again, I think
Speaker 1: the the interesting thing about this one is that this is, uh,
Speaker 1: for once, it's not a problem of low wages. It's
Speaker 1: a problem of no wages. We're having a problem with
Speaker 1: people are just losing jobs and uh, we're probably uh
Speaker 1: it's going to be probably twenty five million or more
Speaker 1: jobs at least lost. Um And we can rush aid
Speaker 1: now the the Cares Act that that big two trillion
Speaker 1: dollar bill did uh not only enhance on them playing basis,
Speaker 1: but expanded the scope, which is the right thing to do.
Speaker 1: The trouble is as far as I can tell, almost
Speaker 1: nobody as we need those benefits yet I mean it
Speaker 1: expanded it to big book as contractors self employed. But
Speaker 1: but the state offices uh can't even deal with the
Speaker 1: backlog of conventional unemployments insurance claims. So that's what we
Speaker 1: What you need is is we need to be getting
Speaker 1: income out to lots of people. I would say that
Speaker 1: that is, Um, this is a case where it's not
Speaker 1: hard to determine who who needs aid. You know, sometimes
Speaker 1: you can worry about it if this is administratively complicated.
Speaker 1: It's not. Now it's really it. Uh. And particularly since
Speaker 1: since it's such an emergency. Uh if a few a
Speaker 1: few undeserving people get some money, who cares? Uh? The
Speaker 1: important point is it's the tens of millions of people
Speaker 1: who are suffering. So but and when we should take lessons,
Speaker 1: I mean, this will this is not going to be
Speaker 1: the last crisis we face. I am curious what your
Speaker 1: perspective is to Like, we have a headline crossing United
Speaker 1: Airlines said to offer shares fifty they're offering up over
Speaker 1: thirty million shares. I mean they're looking to raise money,
Speaker 1: we get it. What is the balance between helping big
Speaker 1: companies as well as small companies, but big companies in particular,
Speaker 1: who do employ thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions
Speaker 1: of workers around the country. What's what's the balance between
Speaker 1: helping them out, which is kind of big bailouts, you know,
Speaker 1: versus helping you know, individuals. What is what is the
Speaker 1: how do you see from an economic point of view,
Speaker 1: what's the balance about what we need to do or
Speaker 1: do we need to be all in on all of it? Well,
Speaker 1: we need to be all in with the caveat that
Speaker 1: we shouldn't be in the business of wrestling um stockholders particularly,
Speaker 1: I mean this is uh the uh famous Rami corporations
Speaker 1: are people and my friend but he but he actually
Speaker 1: meant was that they employee people, and their employees are
Speaker 1: absolutely just because someone happen to work for a big
Speaker 1: company doesn't mean that they're less deserving of help than
Speaker 1: someone who's working for a small company. But but we
Speaker 1: want that to be bailouts that that uh where the
Speaker 1: taxpayers aren't aren't bailing out wealthy individuals who who are
Speaker 1: who are in you know stockholders? Uh so look we
Speaker 1: the auto bailout done to the Bio administration was actually
Speaker 1: a pretty good bailout. It saved a lot of jobs. Um,
Speaker 1: the cerebral government got a large ownership stakes, so it
Speaker 1: wasn't too much of bailout of the stockholders. Um. It
Speaker 1: wasn't perfect. But if we could do something like that,
Speaker 1: of course, now we have to deal with with with
Speaker 1: something that is is maybe twenty times that big. But
Speaker 1: it's you know, with with a will with some If
Speaker 1: if we had a real full court press from hate
Speaker 1: sports metaphors and business way right, with a full court
Speaker 1: a full court press from from from Trump administration officials,
Speaker 1: bringing in lots of people too, uh, experts from many
Speaker 1: fields to to do this, then then we could. But
Speaker 1: because nothing like that is happening. So what we're having
Speaker 1: is a kind of uh handwaving. We're throwing a lot
Speaker 1: of money, We're actually throwing a lot of guarantees, um,
Speaker 1: but leaving it up to banks to make the to
Speaker 1: decide who gets the money, um, which is really a
Speaker 1: derelation of responsibility. I mean, there's gonna be waste frog abuse.
Speaker 1: When you're gonna be spending probably in the end five
Speaker 1: billion dollars to rescue the economy, there's gonna be hundreds
Speaker 1: of billions of waste frog in abuse. But that's not
Speaker 1: but that's a secondary point. But you do want to
Speaker 1: try and make sure that as much as possible, if
Speaker 1: the money goes to the people who you've been needed.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk a little bit about experts.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that just a second ago of Paul, you
Speaker 1: had a pretty provocative column yesterday, Uh in the New
Speaker 1: York Times. All your columns are provocative. That's what we
Speaker 1: love talking to. UM. I mean, this has been a
Speaker 1: pretty remarkable thing to watch. Your column was called the
Speaker 1: right sends in the Quacks. This has been the big
Speaker 1: issue over the past few days of when to reopen
Speaker 1: the economy, who says what, who's leaning on which data?
Speaker 1: We have a big story in Bloomberg Business Week this
Speaker 1: week about the data being essentially unreliable in many ways
Speaker 1: or easily uh manipulated. How do we solve that problem? Well,
Speaker 1: you have to make educated guesses, but you also have
Speaker 1: to ask what are the consequences of being wrong in
Speaker 1: which direction? So you know the UM let's talk about
Speaker 1: one area of the US government that remains extremely competent,
Speaker 1: which is fair reserve. Uh. The FED doesn't know what's
Speaker 1: happening to the economy any better than the rest of
Speaker 1: us do. They're also grasping at very incomplete numbers, but
Speaker 1: they've decided that the risks of doing too little vastly
Speaker 1: outweigh the risks of uh of doing too much, so
Speaker 1: they're going all out. The trouble is, I don't see
Speaker 1: I mean, uh, the the White House team UH is
Speaker 1: not exactly people who inspire competents. I mean uh. Wilbert
Speaker 1: Ross told us that this virus was going to be
Speaker 1: good for American jobs. Larry Cutlow told us that the
Speaker 1: was contained and the economic impact was going to be
Speaker 1: minor um. And there's been no changes. No one else
Speaker 1: had been brought on board. It would have been interesting
Speaker 1: to see you have some sort of national unity, say
Speaker 1: if the Economy Group brought together, but there's been not
Speaker 1: a hint of that. It's it's basically, the economic recovery
Speaker 1: program is being overseen by by people who's it seems
Speaker 1: to be a fundamental requirement that they have been wrong
Speaker 1: about everything so far. You know, it's so funny. We
Speaker 1: talked so much on Bloomberg and I'm sorry, you know
Speaker 1: about the importance of diversity of thought right to come
Speaker 1: out with the best programs and conclusions and thoughts about things.
Speaker 1: And and I don't want to get too political because
Speaker 1: everybody's gonna yell at me on Twitter. Um, but I
Speaker 1: do think about that, right, Well, you would concede that
Speaker 1: you do want diversity. I thought, you want some conservatives,
Speaker 1: you want some liberals, you want people to figure out
Speaker 1: the best policy here. Oh, I'd be happy to see
Speaker 1: people called in from American Enterprise Institute, Cato Institute, the
Speaker 1: uh uh, you know the uh. What's interesting? Actually, as
Speaker 1: far as I can make out, there's there's a surprising
Speaker 1: amount of consensus if you look at the economic recovery
Speaker 1: plans that are coming out from American Enterprise INSTITO, which
Speaker 1: is fairly conservative, and coming out from the Center for
Speaker 1: American Progress, which is which is very liberal. Um, they
Speaker 1: don't look that different, but they do look extremely different
Speaker 1: from what Trump is doing. So uh yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I'm all four. So So what what's the risk here?
Speaker 1: We've only got about I think a minute or so
Speaker 1: left here? Um, what's the risk by not really having
Speaker 1: the best people working on this for us? What? What
Speaker 1: do you see the risk here? Got about a minute left? Too?
Speaker 1: Risks too risks. One is that we loosen up prematurely
Speaker 1: and we have a whole second wave, and I'm now
Speaker 1: terrified that that's going to happen. Uh. And the other
Speaker 1: risk is that because we don't provide enough aid, we
Speaker 1: leave lots of people, businesses, individuals, states, focal governments would
Speaker 1: cripple the balance sheets, which means that we never get
Speaker 1: a full recovery, or it takes years and years so
Speaker 1: that the hangover, the the convalescence from this thing goes
Speaker 1: on and on. And that's both of those are are
Speaker 1: really serious risks right now. Alright, well, we're gonna leave
Speaker 1: it there a somber note, but a realistic one. As always,
Speaker 1: we really really value our time with you and really
Speaker 1: deeply appreciated. Paul Krugman is Distinguished Professor of Economics at
Speaker 1: the City University of New York, also, of course in
Speaker 1: New York Times, calumnist and author. We are delighted to
Speaker 1: spend some time with him. And I was madly and
Speaker 1: I could see YouTube Carol like scribbling downloads of interesting things,
Speaker 1: planning to include this in our weekend because that's why
Speaker 1: he's a Nobel laureate. Folks. This is Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. We
Speaker 1: want to turn our attention now to our minds, our
Speaker 1: mental health. No one better to talk about it then
Speaker 1: Richard Pierce, and he's the co founder and the CEO
Speaker 1: of Headspace. You know the app. You know people who
Speaker 1: use it? I use it, Carol? Do you use it?
Speaker 1: I haven't app full disclosures on my phone? Use it
Speaker 1: on my phone as well. Rich joins us. Rich joins
Speaker 1: us from Santa Monica, California. Great to have you with us.
Speaker 1: Really appreciate your time. Yes, thanks for having me. I
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. All right, So let's take stock here
Speaker 1: if we can. This is a really tough time for people.
Speaker 1: What do you make of it and what should we
Speaker 1: be thinking about, most prominently when we think about taking
Speaker 1: care of our our mental health at a time of
Speaker 1: such upheaval. Yeah. Well, I think the first thing is
Speaker 1: that I think that this situation has brought to the
Speaker 1: surface a lot of the mental health issues I think
Speaker 1: maybe sitting under the surface that maybe we're unaddressed. And
Speaker 1: I think when you are forced into a situation where
Speaker 1: you it's much harder to you know, partake in all
Speaker 1: the almost distractions that we that we that we kind
Speaker 1: of do as human beings. I think it brings these
Speaker 1: things and makes them kind of more acute. And so
Speaker 1: I think for the first time in a long time,
Speaker 1: we are actually looking at the state of our mind,
Speaker 1: and you know, for some of us, is incredibly challenging. UM.
Speaker 1: So I think that you know, the things that we're
Speaker 1: hearing from Folcus with a few things. I think one,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that mental health was a topic that
Speaker 1: was being discussed in every single boardroom. Um, I think
Speaker 1: it's being discussed in every single boardroom now. I think
Speaker 1: we're definitely seeing um, you know, and we've seen that
Speaker 1: we've had like up to four increased in terms of
Speaker 1: enterprise inquiries for our kind of be to be offering.
Speaker 1: So we're definitely seeing an increased there. Um, We're I
Speaker 1: think the other piece that's come you know, that comes
Speaker 1: to us is a lot around parenting and kids at home.
Speaker 1: I think people are really struggling with how do they
Speaker 1: balance work life and and kind of raising children at
Speaker 1: home is a really really tricky things for folks, and
Speaker 1: they'd like two big things that are definitely coming towards
Speaker 1: us as we're seeing this crisis unfold. Totally agree. I
Speaker 1: feel like it's another one of those situations where we
Speaker 1: know the stuff's out there, and yet it's not until
Speaker 1: we have a crisis to people like, wow, this is
Speaker 1: a problem. One thing I want to get too rich.
Speaker 1: I have a sister who's worked in the mental health
Speaker 1: profession for years and has just talked about how it's
Speaker 1: taken even the medical community and even like health insurance
Speaker 1: a long time to respect that mental health and a
Speaker 1: healthy mental health is as important as you know, your
Speaker 1: physical and medical well being. Um, Are we seeing that
Speaker 1: change significantly? Will something like COVID nineteen help even move
Speaker 1: the needle on that one even more? Yeah, I absolutely
Speaker 1: think it's accelerated our kind of belief that we've had.
Speaker 1: You know, we've always believed that mental health is the
Speaker 1: kind of um, you know, inextrictly linked from physical health,
Speaker 1: and I think even if you look at all the
Speaker 1: research around stress related chronic diseases, that you cannot separate
Speaker 1: out the two. It's it really is kind of whole
Speaker 1: personal health, not just physical health. So I think we're
Speaker 1: definitely going to see an acceleration towards people understanding that
Speaker 1: looking after the health of your mind. We believe is
Speaker 1: actually the most precious resource UM, and we think of
Speaker 1: it as your hard drive. You know, if if your
Speaker 1: mind is not healthy, how can you actually make healthy choices,
Speaker 1: the things that you eat, the exercise you take, the
Speaker 1: relationships that you have, how you sleep. It really is
Speaker 1: the core component of living a healthy and balanced life.
Speaker 1: And I think it's been able to be pushed to
Speaker 1: the on the back burner, and some people have been
Speaker 1: open to it. And obviously some people are way out
Speaker 1: in front when I think of certain organizations and healthcare systems,
Speaker 1: But I think this crisis has made it top of
Speaker 1: everyone's agenda because everyone's dealing with it in real time.
Speaker 1: So I absolutely believe that this is going to shift
Speaker 1: the whole conversation and this next wave of UM kind
Speaker 1: of looking for ways that we can support people with
Speaker 1: their mental health because we cannot train enough doctors. You know,
Speaker 1: you've mentioned your system. We cannot train enough people UM
Speaker 1: at one on one like, We're going to have to
Speaker 1: think of scalable ways that we can we can solve
Speaker 1: these issues. Where I think platforms like so like yours
Speaker 1: are like play right to that. Yeah, exactly mean you
Speaker 1: give us a perfect bridge to to talk about headspace.
Speaker 1: I mean when you think about folks who were ahead
Speaker 1: of it and out there, I mean you and Andy
Speaker 1: founded this. Uh Andy puddycumb whose voice has been in
Speaker 1: my head many, many, many many times, uh founded this
Speaker 1: in you were out ahead of this. What have you learned,
Speaker 1: especially that you're applying now over those years, over those
Speaker 1: ten years or so, Uh, that that might be useful
Speaker 1: to to folks listening right now. Yeah. I think one
Speaker 1: of the things is, you know, where for folks to
Speaker 1: ask themselves the question of where did they pro as
Speaker 1: size their mental health? But what do they actually do
Speaker 1: for their mind? Um? You know, we spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time looking after our physical appearance and other things
Speaker 1: in life, but how much time do we actually spend
Speaker 1: looking after our most pretty depressions resource. I think that's
Speaker 1: an interesting question for all of us to ask, um.
Speaker 1: And then you know I would be I would be biased,
Speaker 1: but I do think that Um, you know, a mindfulness practice,
Speaker 1: however you apply that, whether that's with a seated meditation practice,
Speaker 1: whether that's applying it to the way that you run,
Speaker 1: whether it's applying that the way that you eat. UM.
Speaker 1: I think there's so many different ways that you can
Speaker 1: apply mindfulness in your life, and the biggest benefit of
Speaker 1: that is it gives you a different relationship with your
Speaker 1: thoughts and your emotions. And if we think about stress,
Speaker 1: most of our stress is caused by our thoughts and
Speaker 1: our emotions. And it's not to say that thoughts and
Speaker 1: emotions are necessarily bad, but if we can practice a
Speaker 1: technique by meditation or mindfulness, we can actually create some
Speaker 1: distance between those thoughts and those emotions and therefore not
Speaker 1: get so swept up in them as they they occur.
Speaker 1: And I think that that process is um is one
Speaker 1: of the most valuable things that you can do for
Speaker 1: your ongoing mental health. And to not to look at
Speaker 1: it is I think so many people think about it. Right,
Speaker 1: I get really really stressed, and I do a little
Speaker 1: exercise and I went so so stressed. More like an
Speaker 1: aspirin um. If we can actually think about it is
Speaker 1: as a kind of a vitsman or vitamin as you
Speaker 1: say in America, that we can get to prevention. You know,
Speaker 1: you could think about doing this. You're going to the the gym,
Speaker 1: one you're not going to get fit. Our guest at
Speaker 1: this hour is rich Pearson, co founder and chief executive
Speaker 1: officer of Headspace, joining us on the phone from Santa Monica.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny. I can't even tell you, Rich
Speaker 1: the conversation that was going with our team here at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week, our technical staff, our producer stuff, were like,
Speaker 1: are you on this app? Are you on this app?
Speaker 1: There's a lot of apps out there, and I think
Speaker 1: that alone can be stressful and overwhelming about like kind
Speaker 1: of figuring how do you create meditation practice? You know
Speaker 1: that's calming and you don't feel overwhelmed like I gotta
Speaker 1: do this, I gotta do this. What would you suggest
Speaker 1: to somebody who's feeling stressed out? How should they approach it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think the worst thing that can assement is anyone
Speaker 1: trying to do ad the meditation practice to feel like
Speaker 1: another thing on your to do list that you never
Speaker 1: get to, which I think for a lot of people
Speaker 1: that kind of feels like that. And so I really think,
Speaker 1: like with any habit, you should start off little and
Speaker 1: often um and I think even if you just commit
Speaker 1: to a few times a week as little as three minutes,
Speaker 1: and build up from there. You know, I always think
Speaker 1: it's like the good analogies like the marathon. If you've
Speaker 1: never run before, you wouldn't go and run a marathon
Speaker 1: like as your first running experience. And I think you've
Speaker 1: got to think about that in the same way with meditation. UM.
Speaker 1: I think another really good tip is tom to attach
Speaker 1: it to a habit that you already have. So maybe
Speaker 1: you want to do it just before you go to bed,
Speaker 1: or maybe you want to do it after you have
Speaker 1: your morning coffee or before you have your shower, but
Speaker 1: trying to attach it to the habit that you already
Speaker 1: have because it's much easier to kind of couple it
Speaker 1: in that way, and also just not to put too
Speaker 1: much pre sure on yourself. I think the real the
Speaker 1: big misconception, and this is probably the biggest thing that
Speaker 1: I could say to anyone, is that meditation is not
Speaker 1: about stopping your thoughts um, and it's not about having
Speaker 1: a calm and relaxed UM kind of benefit from it.
Speaker 1: That may be a side effect of the practice, but
Speaker 1: I think so many people go in with that expectation. UM.
Speaker 1: I promise you, if we could have learned how to
Speaker 1: stop off the thoughts, we'd have done it by ourselves
Speaker 1: a long time ago. And so it really is a
Speaker 1: process of having a different relationship with your thoughts. It's
Speaker 1: not about stopping them. And because people have those pre
Speaker 1: perpections about what it is, when that doesn't happen, they
Speaker 1: give up and they say it's stressful and it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: So that would be the biggest thing that I could
Speaker 1: say to anyone. It's not about stopping thoughts, and it's
Speaker 1: not about feeling relaxed and calm. That may happen, but
Speaker 1: that's not what you should go into it with. And
Speaker 1: so Rich, you know, one of the interesting things that's
Speaker 1: happened of late. And maybe it's in part because of
Speaker 1: the crisis, as Carol pointed out Elier in the conversation, Uh,
Speaker 1: and maybe it's part of the work that you and
Speaker 1: others have been doing. And I believe that to be true.
Speaker 1: The idea of meditation has come much deeper into the mainstream,
Speaker 1: and it feels like it has allowed you guys, as
Speaker 1: a business, ultimately we are bloomberg here to really expand
Speaker 1: some partnerships and maybe uh set up some relationships with
Speaker 1: people who otherwise I mean talking about governments and other
Speaker 1: folks who maybe ten or fifteen years ago would be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: thanks a lot weirdos, but we got this, um, but
Speaker 1: you know, tell us about some of the some of
Speaker 1: the stuff you're doing. Yeah, Well, people always responded to
Speaker 1: us like that in the early days. I can assure
Speaker 1: you they definitely thought we were strange and we talked
Speaker 1: about this idea. But yeah, that's definitely shifted. UM. I
Speaker 1: think the fact that you know, Governor rang a stop,
Speaker 1: that Michigan rang a stop. And I think the reason
Speaker 1: that that that happened and we partnered with New York
Speaker 1: and Michigan and we've got some more coming down the
Speaker 1: pipeline as well some other big partnerships with government is
Speaker 1: because of the science and the efficacy of it. You know,
Speaker 1: we've been we're the only mental health digital mental health
Speaker 1: products out there with the volume of research. We have
Speaker 1: over sixty five papers currently in process, twenty of which
Speaker 1: have been published proving that headspace can reduce aggression, increased compassion,
Speaker 1: reduced stress, increased focus, reduced job burnout in in UM
Speaker 1: in kind of approved journals. And I think that when
Speaker 1: you work with government, or you work with Starbucks or
Speaker 1: g or higher or any of these large enterprises which
Speaker 1: we do the efficacy in the science is really important.
Speaker 1: One thing saying, oh, this is an interesting thing that
Speaker 1: I should do anecdotally and people tell people about it,
Speaker 1: which is great. Actually, when you can see the empirical
Speaker 1: evidence and you can see that it actually changes the
Speaker 1: structure of your brain and it actually reduces the things
Speaker 1: that causes pronic health conditions, I think that really changes
Speaker 1: the way people look at it. And I think that's
Speaker 1: been a big part of the journey of this kind
Speaker 1: of project. And I have to say what I really love.
Speaker 1: I was doing some research and I think it was
Speaker 1: somebody out of Harvard, but just saying what's what's great
Speaker 1: too is people are doing more, you know, and larger
Speaker 1: studies about this so that you do understand the connection
Speaker 1: between mind and body, uh and staying healthy on all
Speaker 1: different levels. And I'm glad to see that there's more
Speaker 1: respect for that. UM I just have to mention you,
Speaker 1: did you know, Sesame Street, you're working with You're working
Speaker 1: with the National Health Service in the UK, You're working
Speaker 1: with the New York UM as you said, Governor Cromo,
Speaker 1: you're working with Michigan. I mean, it's really great just
Speaker 1: tell us since the virus, you know, you know, just
Speaker 1: all the people that maybe are reaching out to you,
Speaker 1: and what your expectation is that once we get on
Speaker 1: the other side of this virus, you know, the impact
Speaker 1: for your world, what might be the lasting impact? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think one I want to say a master thank
Speaker 1: you to our incredible Headspace team that's been pulling off
Speaker 1: these partnerships in like real time, and they've been working
Speaker 1: weekends and nights to try and keep up with demand,
Speaker 1: and you know, without them, none of this would be possible.
Speaker 1: That's the first thing I want to say. I think
Speaker 1: the sercond thing is, you know, and that's what we
Speaker 1: talked about at the top of the program, is that
Speaker 1: I really think this has accelerated the mental health conversation
Speaker 1: to put it at the top of every single person's agenda,
Speaker 1: whether you're in government, whether you're in health care, whether
Speaker 1: you're in schools, whether you're you know, whether you're at
Speaker 1: home and you're talking to about it with your partner
Speaker 1: or your kids. I really think this has brought the
Speaker 1: conversation into the mainstream and this will be a durable story.
Speaker 1: Like I really think that people are gonna put this
Speaker 1: in the same way that they think about their physical health.
Speaker 1: Because I think it's made people realize that they are
Speaker 1: in extrictly linked, and I think that is going to
Speaker 1: change the world forever in terms of kind of mental health. Now,
Speaker 1: I think that's it's exactly right, and it's it's interesting.
Speaker 1: In just a few minutes, we're going to talk to
Speaker 1: the CEO Planet Fitness. And you know, one of the
Speaker 1: things Carol and I have talked a lot about, but
Speaker 1: for is, once you discover this sort of thing about
Speaker 1: yourself and and this practice as it were, you don't
Speaker 1: really want to go back the the You can't unknow it,
Speaker 1: you can't unsee it. And I think it's a really
Speaker 1: important conversation and I know we're going to keep having it.
Speaker 1: We really appreciate all the work you're doing. Rich Pearson
Speaker 1: is the co founder and the CEO of Headspace, joining
Speaker 1: us on the phone from Santa Monica, California. It's some
Speaker 1: really remarkable work that they're doing. And as I said,
Speaker 1: you know, the mainstreaming of this, it's a really important moment.
Speaker 1: And we look and when we look back, Carol, I
Speaker 1: think at this moment in time, uh, this could be
Speaker 1: a really catalytic moment in the history of understanding health
Speaker 1: from a much more holistic perspective. Love it, love it,