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Speaker 1: Welcome to two percent. I am your host, Michael Easter.

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Speaker 1: So I recently just turned in a draft of my

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Speaker 1: new book to my editor. It was a very long process.

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Speaker 1: Took me about two years to write this book. And

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Speaker 1: I wrote this book everywhere. I wrote some of it

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Speaker 1: in my office, some of it in my kitchen table.

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Speaker 1: I wrote it on airplanes, I wrote it in airports,

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Speaker 1: all these different places. And I noticed in the writing

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Speaker 1: process that some places were much better than others. Some

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Speaker 1: places I would be more focused, some places I would

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Speaker 1: be more creative. And it really got me thinking about

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Speaker 1: place and how the places where we live, work and

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Speaker 1: exist affect us and what we do.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: Lucky for us, I have an old friend who used

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Speaker 1: to be a pro soccer player Good Little Factoids, now

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Speaker 1: a professor at UVA, and he has a new book out.

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Speaker 1: His name is Lighty Klotts. It is called in a

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Speaker 1: Good Place, How the spaces where we live, work and

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Speaker 1: play can help us thrive. So this is a really

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Speaker 1: awesome book. If you happen to be a human who

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Speaker 1: takes up space anywhere on this planet, that is to

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Speaker 1: say you. So I called up Lighty. We're going to

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Speaker 1: talk to him about place We're going to talk to

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Speaker 1: him about his past work, which I featured in my

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Speaker 1: book Scarcity Brain, and that is where we're going to start.

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Speaker 1: He found something really fascinating about the human mind and

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Speaker 1: how we are wired to add often when it is

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Speaker 1: not a good idea.

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Speaker 2: So let's go LIGHTI thanks for coming on the show.

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Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, Michael, it's great to be here.

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Speaker 1: So we first met when I was writing my book

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Speaker 1: Scarcity Brain. A came across your study in Nature about

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Speaker 1: how humans preferentially overlook subtraction and even wrote a book

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Speaker 1: called Subtract about that entire topic. What I thought was

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Speaker 1: amazing and awesome is the whole story behind how that

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Speaker 1: study started, what kicked off the book, and it starts

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Speaker 1: with legos. So tell us that story because it's amazing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: I was playing Legos with my son Ezra, he was

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Speaker 4: three at the time. So it was actually the duplow

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Speaker 4: blocks and we had we had a bridge basically that

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Speaker 4: wasn't level. So the support column on one side of

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Speaker 4: the bridge was shorter than the support column on the

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Speaker 4: other side of the bridge. And so as a dad,

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Speaker 4: I'm like, all right, I can fix this problem. Turned

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Speaker 4: around behind me, to grab a block to add to

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Speaker 4: the shorter column, but by the time I had turned

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Speaker 4: back around, Ezra had removed a block from the longer

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Speaker 4: column to make the level bridge.

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Speaker 1: And I think the important point here is that you

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Speaker 1: spent a lot of time in school thinking about engineering

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Speaker 1: as well, so it's not like you're the you don't

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Speaker 1: know what you're doing here, Like you have a PhD

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Speaker 1: in this topic.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, literally a PhD in engineering. Yeah, so this was

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Speaker 4: like this should have been moment, right, a doting dad

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Speaker 4: and a PhD in the topic of making bridges straight.

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Speaker 3: But he came up with an answer that was.

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Speaker 4: Better, better than I did, And I wouldn't have thought

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Speaker 4: of if he wasn't there.

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Speaker 1: And didn't you actually make the bridge wonky again and

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Speaker 1: take it around and ask your collaborators, colleagues grad students

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Speaker 1: to fix it.

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Speaker 2: But you would give them.

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Speaker 1: You would put the legos on the table so they

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Speaker 1: could elevate it, right, And wouldn't most people add, yeah,

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Speaker 1: so I.

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Speaker 3: Have the version of it right here.

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Speaker 4: I mean I still carried around like and so yeah,

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Speaker 4: I would you know, make I made a replica, so

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Speaker 4: basically this super simplified and then put the blocks next

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Speaker 4: to it on the table, and I started bringing it

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Speaker 4: around because I was like, I don't I mean, maybe

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Speaker 4: people will just get this, but yeah, the super smart

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Speaker 4: grad students could smarter than me come in and they're

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Speaker 4: all adding. And then I gave it to my collaborator,

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Speaker 4: who I'd thought I had been trying to explain these

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Speaker 4: ideas to and she was like she failed, and then

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Speaker 4: she said, oh I get it, So what you but

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Speaker 4: what we've what you've been trying to say is that

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Speaker 4: why don't we subtract to make things better?

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Speaker 3: And then we were off.

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Speaker 1: So then speaking of that, you're off. This means you

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Speaker 1: set up a series of experiments and what were those?

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Speaker 1: How were they designed? And yeah, how'd that all play out?

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Speaker 4: My background's engineering. I do a lot of behavioral science

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Speaker 4: stuff and I respect it, and I respected enough to

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Speaker 4: know that for a study like that, I needed help.

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Speaker 4: And so like Gabe Adams and Ben Coomvers and Andy

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Speaker 4: Hale's or the co authors on the study and they're

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Speaker 4: all psychology professors, were just at a table that students

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Speaker 4: were walking by, and we would give them a lego

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Speaker 4: structure that was pre made, just kind of a random structure,

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Speaker 4: and said how would you make this thing better. We

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Speaker 4: got sixty samples from that and every single one added,

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Speaker 4: and we like send an email saying the biggest bias ever.

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Speaker 4: But then we went into you know, trying to create

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Speaker 4: more like experimental setups where we're trying to figure out,

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Speaker 4: like Okay was trying to make it so that subtracting

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Speaker 4: is at least as good an option as adding, if

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Speaker 4: not better, and then trying to show that people would

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Speaker 4: overlook subtraction to their detriment and you would enjoy the

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Speaker 4: writing ones. And the classic writing advice right is omit

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Speaker 4: needless words.

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Speaker 3: All this writing.

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Speaker 4: There's a whole profession of editors that exist to take

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Speaker 4: things away from our writing and make it better. And

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Speaker 4: we would give people summaries of writing and ask them

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Speaker 4: to make it better, and everybody would add. And then

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Speaker 4: so we did writing. We had a day trip itinerary

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Speaker 4: in Washington, d C. That was just almost it was

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Speaker 4: impossible to execute. I would argue, totally overloaded schedule. There's

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Speaker 4: like a million Yeah, of course, seeing major monuments launch

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Speaker 4: at a five star bistro. I mean traffic between these

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Speaker 4: things is like three hours of travel time just and

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Speaker 4: then gave people a drag and drop interface where they

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Speaker 4: could take stuff off of the schedule or add stuff

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Speaker 4: to it and buy large people added to this already

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Speaker 4: impossible schedule to make it better.

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Speaker 2: Or we missed the Vietnam monument. We got to see

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Speaker 2: that too.

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Speaker 3: That's a good one.

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Speaker 4: That's subtractive though, that's down into the earth and it's

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Speaker 4: all inspiring because it's subtracting, you know. Then we were

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Speaker 4: playing around with like, Okay, how do how do we

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Speaker 4: create situations we're subtracting? Is objectively the correct answer, because

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Speaker 4: all of the other studies you could just argue, well,

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Speaker 4: people just wanted to have a jam pack schedule, or

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Speaker 4: people just wanted to have longer words. So the Lego one,

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Speaker 4: we created this thing where it was basically.

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Speaker 3: Like a.

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Speaker 4: Sandwich, a panel on the bottom and a panel on

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Speaker 4: the top, and then there was a stormtrooper, a Lego

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Speaker 4: stormtrooper being protected by the top panel, and then there

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Speaker 4: was like a column of supports going up. And the

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Speaker 4: task was to try to put a masonry block on

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Speaker 4: the top panel without it collapsing and crushing the stormtrooper.

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Speaker 4: So if you didn't do to any modifications, it would

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Speaker 4: just collapse and crush the stormtrooper.

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Speaker 3: It was set up so that the most.

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Speaker 4: Common modification people did was to add a whole row

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Speaker 4: of blocks to strengthen the top the top row. The

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Speaker 4: subtractive way to do it was to move one block

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Speaker 4: and just drop the platform down. And we gave people

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Speaker 4: financial incentives. We told them to so it costs money

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Speaker 4: to add blocks, and they kept the money they had

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Speaker 4: if they If they didn't ad blocks, we told them

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Speaker 4: that the goal was to do it in as fuel

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Speaker 4: blocks as possible. So again they were getting the wrong answer,

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Speaker 4: but it was very narrow, narrow context. So eventually came

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Speaker 4: of this really elegant grid designs that you could show

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Speaker 4: people on a computer screen. And basically, I mean there

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Speaker 4: were a bunch of different designs, but all of them

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Speaker 4: were symmetrical from left to right and top to bottom,

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Speaker 4: except there were extraneous marks in one of the quadrants.

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Speaker 4: And then we tasked people with like, how would you

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Speaker 4: make this symmetrical? And the subtractive way to do it

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Speaker 4: was to remove the extraneous marks from one quadrant. The

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Speaker 4: additive way to do it was to add to three quadrants,

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Speaker 4: which of course took more work, and people would still

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Speaker 4: add not even consider subtraction and then move on.

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Speaker 2: We overlook it.

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Speaker 1: And it's not that one is any better than the

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Speaker 1: other inherently adding or subtracting. But the point you're trying

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Speaker 1: to make is that if you are consistently overlooking subtraction

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Speaker 1: as an as an option to solve a problem or

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Speaker 1: make an improvement, then you're you're missing like half the options.

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Speaker 2: And those options are oftentimes more efficient.

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Speaker 4: Right, And they're like the if you think about this

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Speaker 4: as like a marketplace of ideas, those are the ideas

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Speaker 4: that nobody's thinking of, right, I mean, because everybody's overlooking them.

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Speaker 4: And so I would argue, you know, if I have

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Speaker 4: to pick between adding and subtracting, I would just take heading.

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Speaker 3: But we don't have to.

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Speaker 4: Pick their like complementary approaches to making things better. And

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Speaker 4: because the subtractive ones are so underused, I would argue

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Speaker 4: that there's probably more potential there to make your life better.

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Speaker 1: I would imagine A big one with businesses is meetings. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you look, you look at the stats on meetings, and

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Speaker 1: I have been growing in frequency and duration over time,

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Speaker 1: and I actually think probably after people started to work

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Speaker 1: from home, I think that there's probably more meetings because

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Speaker 1: it's like you got to meet with someone, but they're

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Speaker 1: often not as productive as we think. It's almost like less,

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Speaker 1: there's more in the meeting space.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, one hundred percent.

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Speaker 4: Bob Sutton, who's he's the author of the No Asshole

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Speaker 4: Rule and a bunch of other books. But he and

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Speaker 4: I have this like rule of halves for meetings that

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Speaker 4: I think he came up with, but he keeps trying

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Speaker 4: to give me credit for. And it's, you know, basically

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Speaker 4: like making these Okay, can the meetings be half the

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Speaker 4: frequency or half the half the number of time, half

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Speaker 4: the number of attendees, And you're just like putting rules

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Speaker 4: on it. But and also I mean there are companies

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Speaker 4: that do meeting doomsdays, which just take meetings entirely off

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Speaker 4: the calendar and then you can immediately add them back.

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Speaker 4: But it's like flipping the flipping the framing in your

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Speaker 4: brain where it's like, Okay, is this something that we

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Speaker 4: should add to our calendar versus is this something that

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Speaker 4: we should we should have to subtract. And I think

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Speaker 4: they end up with far fewer meetings. But that's definitely

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Speaker 4: a huge time stink.

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Speaker 1: It could be an email or it could be to

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Speaker 1: our previous point about information, just someone make a decision,

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Speaker 1: you don't have to run it by fifty people.

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Speaker 4: Right, And there's this whole thing of you know, one

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Speaker 4: of the reasons that we do this, you know, on

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Speaker 4: the biological perspective, is just we want to show competence, right,

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Speaker 4: We want to show that we're effectively making change in

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Speaker 4: the world, and that is that disadvantages subtraction because like

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Speaker 4: when we subtract something, the change isn't visible.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really smart. You played professional soccer. Did you

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Speaker 1: find this in your soccer career at all in terms

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Speaker 1: of like how you were training, how just anything in

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Speaker 1: that field.

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Speaker 4: There was a marathon er who like got sick before

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Speaker 4: a big marathon and therefore didn't couldn't train as much,

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Speaker 4: and then did really well in the marathon because like

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Speaker 4: he effectively forced to taper, And that's how this idea

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Speaker 4: of like scaling down your training before the games.

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Speaker 3: Actually came to be. So there's definitely that piece.

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Speaker 4: One of my favorite soccer ones is you can often

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Speaker 4: these constraints can help. Like I'm coaching a bunch of

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Speaker 4: eleven year olds right now, and like if you tell

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Speaker 4: them they can only touch the ball twice and not

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Speaker 4: dribble it. Actually the soccer gets much better because they're

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Speaker 4: forced to pass and then sometimes even you know, taking

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Speaker 4: people off the field so to shake the system out

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Speaker 4: of its out of its slumber. So basically, if you're

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Speaker 4: playing like eleven on eleven and you're just like it's

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Speaker 4: not dynamic enough, you go down to like nine people

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Speaker 4: on one of the teams, and then all of a

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Speaker 4: sudden people are having to cover more ground and it

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Speaker 4: just breaks people out of the regular patterns. So definitely

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Speaker 4: those things, but it's also hard. I mean, like one

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Speaker 4: of the things, I think, the more you care about something,

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Speaker 4: the harder it is to subtract. And when you're trying

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Speaker 4: to be a professional soccer player, it's really really hard

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Speaker 4: to be like, oh, I'm not going to do this

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Speaker 4: thing that everybody else is doing and that's going to

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Speaker 4: help me get ahead.

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Speaker 3: It's it's really hard.

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Speaker 4: To think that way. And I would say probably I

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Speaker 4: probably overtrained. I probably aired on the side of doing

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Speaker 4: too much and not being fresh enough.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And I feel like in the wellness world, do

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Speaker 1: you see this, especially as people are starting to get

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Speaker 1: into health and wellness, The question becomes what do I

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Speaker 1: need to add and do? An example would be weight loss.

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Speaker 1: People are like, what special diet do I need to add?

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Speaker 1: And then they go to the grocery store and they

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Speaker 1: buy this massive range of all these new foods and

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Speaker 1: it's like, well, you know, you could just kind of

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Speaker 1: eat less of what you're already eating, or like I'm

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Speaker 1: going to work out, I need insert ten thousand dollars

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Speaker 1: in equipment.

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Speaker 2: It's like, why don't you just take a walk and

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Speaker 2: do some push ups? That's free.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the weight loss one is so like obvious, right,

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Speaker 4: but it's it's so true that a solution is so

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Speaker 4: clearly less one. Reframing though, Like that's helped me because

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Speaker 4: I would always have a hard time doing like rest days, right,

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Speaker 4: and just like so just naming it something, right, This

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Speaker 4: isn't a rest day. This is like my active recovery day.

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Speaker 4: And I could do the exact same thing, but it's

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Speaker 4: like I feel like the sense of accomplishment from doing it.

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Speaker 1: You've got to frame it for the type a personality

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Speaker 1: that gets into professional soccer. Yeah, this isn't You're not

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Speaker 1: just sitting around, This is actively recovering. Yeah, exactly, Okay,

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Speaker 1: So one of the stories I love from your new

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Speaker 1: book is how in college and you went to Lafayette

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Speaker 1: right in Easton, Pennsylvania.

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Speaker 3: Got it.

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Speaker 1: You are playing Lehigh, which is, I don't know, twenty

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Speaker 1: minutes away. They're your giant rival in soccer. Game is

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Speaker 1: at Lehigh, so you are on your away turf, and

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Speaker 1: all the data says that teams that are away teams

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Speaker 1: have a disadvantage because there's crowd around, you're in a

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Speaker 1: new territory.

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Speaker 2: It just kind of throws you off.

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Speaker 1: So your coach, before you guys are headed to the game,

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Speaker 1: he's like, I'm going to take a meeting, I'm going

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Speaker 1: to mess around a little bit. And you're all waiting

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Speaker 1: for the bus, like we got to get to the game,

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Speaker 1: and he's just gagging. When you get in the bus,

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Speaker 1: he has the bus go like a really obscure route

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Speaker 1: that takes way longer. So you show up at this

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Speaker 1: game like ten twenty minutes before kickoff and you're kind

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Speaker 1: of frazzled. But it got you right into the game

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Speaker 1: and you're like, we realized that it almost didn't allow

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Speaker 1: us to sit on that field and get in our

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Speaker 1: heads about being in this a way setting.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and our coach would he said. I confirmed it

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Speaker 4: with him, like when I was writing the book, because

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Speaker 4: he would always do weird stuff and I was like,

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Speaker 4: was that intentional? He's like, yeah, I wanted you guys

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Speaker 4: to get off the bus and play. And the idea

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Speaker 4: was that you know, all the hoopla around the game,

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Speaker 4: any of the nerves, any of the kind of like

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Speaker 4: feeling disoriented in a new space, he would just transport

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Speaker 4: us right to the soccer field, which is the same dimensions,

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Speaker 4: the same grass, very familiar, and maybe have a little

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Speaker 4: bit more adrenaline going through our veins. Because we were

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Speaker 4: like kind of pissed at him for like messing up,

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Speaker 4: you know, we wanted to. Yeah, And so what I

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Speaker 4: learned from that is like, when we're like going into

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Speaker 4: new territory, it's I mean, it's super important to think

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Speaker 4: about how you approach it, and it's not always good

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Speaker 4: to just show up right before. But one strategy is

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Speaker 4: to show up right before if you think it's going

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Speaker 4: to be an intimidating space, and then just get into

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Speaker 4: the familiar space as quickly as possible.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I've noticed, I mean, you do public talks a

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Speaker 1: lot and I've noticed too when people want me there,

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Speaker 1: you know, two three hours before a talk, they're like, okay,

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Speaker 1: just hang out in the green room for two hours.

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Speaker 1: You're just kind of sitting there going, I wonder how

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Speaker 1: big the crowd is, I wonder how big this stage is,

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Speaker 1: what is this how much brighter the light's going to be?

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Speaker 1: Do I have a conference where you're just like running

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Speaker 1: through your head, whereas in situations where they're like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: just show up like twenty minutes before, you just get

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Speaker 1: right into it, and it's like, oh yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: just like every other talk.

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Speaker 2: You don't have time to sit and stew.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, what's the person before me going to say? Right?

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Speaker 4: And it's like and again, the talk's a great example

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Speaker 4: because it's not like you're not prepared, right, You've done

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Speaker 4: the talk before, You've prepared at nauseum. And what you're

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Speaker 4: doing is like avoiding the awkward spatial stuff so that

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Speaker 4: you can like connect with the audience as best as

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Speaker 4: best as possible.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So that's that's another great example.

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Speaker 4: I will say that like a good green room does

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Speaker 4: that when you like kind of keeps you isolated. But

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Speaker 4: if you the worst is when there isn't a green

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Speaker 4: room and you go and you're like sitting in the

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Speaker 4: audience and then you have to like come from the

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Speaker 4: audience and go up on stage awkwardly.

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Speaker 1: Hey guys, Yeah, I was the one sitting over that.

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Speaker 1: So what prompted you to write the new book?

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Speaker 4: I think the new book was in my mind before Subtract.

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Speaker 4: I've always been interested in this intersection between like our

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Speaker 4: physical world and our mental world. And then to write

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Speaker 4: a book, you know, it has to be useful to somebody,

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Speaker 4: so trying to figure out what people needed to know

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Speaker 4: about that intersection because I felt like the intersection between

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Speaker 4: like our physical and mental world, everybody would be like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 4: that's important, but like where are we supposed to focus

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Speaker 4: How can it be helpful to us? And so I

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Speaker 4: think that was the motivating factor. And then the book

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Speaker 4: was very like, you know, distilling down to what is

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Speaker 4: what's important about this relationship and how can it help

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Speaker 4: people and how can we use it in our day

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Speaker 4: to day lives.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you wrote about how people have three needs, agency, competence, connection,

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Speaker 1: tell us more about those. I thought that was really interesting.

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Speaker 1: And then how it applies to place.

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Speaker 4: I'll use an example, So agency competence and connection. You

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Speaker 4: can think about like kids playing on a beach, right,

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Speaker 4: So kids goes to a beach. Agency is like they

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Speaker 4: get to decide where to build the sand castle.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 4: They can they decide where to build it, they can

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Speaker 4: decide how big to build it, they can decide how

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Speaker 4: the shapes the forms. They can decide whether to make

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Speaker 4: packed sand or a drip castle. So this agency is

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Speaker 4: their ability to choose their relationship with their surroundings. Competence

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Speaker 4: is the ability to actually do something right and to

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Speaker 4: to know.

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Speaker 3: That you can do this.

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Speaker 4: So compensates or growth like if and it's amazing if

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Speaker 4: you think about like what a kid's learning building a

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Speaker 4: sand castle, right.

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Speaker 1: Barn awesome examples of your daughter building sand castles.

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Speaker 2: Were you on the Jersey Shore?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, Jersey Shore, Ocean City, New Jersey, and we go

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Speaker 4: there every summer, and you know, but she's like doing

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Speaker 4: the drip castles, and I think there's two or three

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Speaker 4: and she's like making these really immaculate drip castles. You're

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Speaker 4: learning how like the water swirls, right, you're learning the

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Speaker 4: material properties of sand, But then you're also learning these

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Speaker 4: really important things about yourself. Right, So she'd get frustrated

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Speaker 4: if it didn't work, but then she realized that if

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Speaker 4: she did it again, she felt good about herself and

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Speaker 4: she had some light control.

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Speaker 3: And so she's growing. And then the connection.

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Speaker 4: Obviously, connection comes in spaces from you know, connecting with

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Speaker 4: other people, but you're also connecting through the creating of

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Speaker 4: the spaces. So what always happens in those projects is

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Speaker 4: like one kid's working and they realize that, well, if

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Speaker 4: I can get other people to do stuff with me,

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Speaker 4: then I can make this thing bigger.

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Speaker 3: And so she would you know.

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Speaker 2: I need you to get twenty buckets of sand and

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Speaker 2: bring them up here.

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Speaker 4: Now, Oh, the worst is the water, right because you're

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Speaker 4: just like endlessly going down to the ocean, grabbing a

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Speaker 4: bucket of water, dumping it in their thing. That's then

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Speaker 4: like filtering right into the ground as soon as you

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Speaker 4: can like get back to the ocean.

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Speaker 3: Just like and just loop. You know, you see it

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Speaker 3: in kids.

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Speaker 4: But you also you could think back to our hunter

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Speaker 4: gather ancestors like agency would be, hey, can I like

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Speaker 4: shape this environment so that I don't get killed by

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Speaker 4: a predator or so that I am not exposed to

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Speaker 4: the elements? Right, that's that's agency. Do I have the

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Speaker 4: ability to do that? The competence, Like am I drawn

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Speaker 4: to act on my environment to move to move sticks

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Speaker 4: around in the world? And you know, now it's it's

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Speaker 4: not some you know, the sand castle isn't life or

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Speaker 4: death proposition. But if you're not drawn to do that,

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Speaker 4: when you're a you know, exposed to the elements, you're

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Speaker 4: you're not going to survive.

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Speaker 3: So and then the connection, it's fascinating to me.

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Speaker 4: How you know, we talk about like social connection and

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Speaker 4: like the first reason like Huntergether bands came together was

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Speaker 4: to build big stuff.

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Speaker 1: I thought that was that was fascinating and it was

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Speaker 1: like these sort of large scale projects, right, So they

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Speaker 1: would come together start building on a project. And that

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Speaker 1: almost led to the development of permanent settlements, right because

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Speaker 1: they're going, well, it's going to take a long time

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Speaker 1: to build this, so we might as well settle in.

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Speaker 1: More people came to help, and all of a sudden

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Speaker 1: we have towns and cities.

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Speaker 4: Eventually, right, you're figuring out, Okay, now we need agriculture

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Speaker 4: because we need to stay in this spot. Now we

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Speaker 4: need to have like social structures because we got to

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Speaker 4: figure out how to organize this town, and so like

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Speaker 4: the physical thing led to all these social structures.

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Speaker 3: You know, you.

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Speaker 4: See microcosms of that even just like Habitat for Humanity, right,

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Speaker 4: that's building this most successful charity. It's fundamentally you're building

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Speaker 4: houses together, but you're building all these social connections too.

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Speaker 4: And there's this kind of culture of shared building that's

440
00:21:05,160 --> 00:21:09,919
Speaker 4: in every culture all over the world by different names.

441
00:21:10,440 --> 00:21:14,159
Speaker 4: So yeah, that's agency, competenes, and connection. I think, you know,

442
00:21:14,200 --> 00:21:16,720
Speaker 4: it's kind of known that those are things in the

443
00:21:16,760 --> 00:21:19,200
Speaker 4: psychology world. It's known that those are things that matter

444
00:21:19,320 --> 00:21:23,800
Speaker 4: for our well being. But the how closely tied they

445
00:21:23,840 --> 00:21:28,159
Speaker 4: are to our relationship with our surroundings, and like, in

446
00:21:28,200 --> 00:21:31,360
Speaker 4: fact they like arose from our relationship with our surroundings,

447
00:21:31,440 --> 00:21:34,639
Speaker 4: and yet we've kind of gotten away from that in

448
00:21:34,680 --> 00:21:35,639
Speaker 4: the in current times.

449
00:21:35,880 --> 00:21:38,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I like that.

450
00:21:38,080 --> 00:21:40,919
Speaker 1: A lot of the book was very tactical in the

451
00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:45,280
Speaker 1: sense that it got into how can I upgrade the

452
00:21:45,440 --> 00:21:50,760
Speaker 1: places and spaces where I exist? What spaces do you

453
00:21:50,880 --> 00:21:54,359
Speaker 1: think could use the most upgrade in people's lives.

454
00:21:54,560 --> 00:21:57,600
Speaker 4: We don't do a great job of taking advantage of

455
00:21:57,640 --> 00:22:00,320
Speaker 4: all the spaces to which we have access. This could

456
00:22:00,320 --> 00:22:03,840
Speaker 4: be everything from like an unused room in your house,

457
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:06,879
Speaker 4: or like the outdoor space around your house to just

458
00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:10,560
Speaker 4: like a different route you could take to work that

459
00:22:10,680 --> 00:22:14,560
Speaker 4: would be much better to you know, all these amenities

460
00:22:14,600 --> 00:22:16,640
Speaker 4: that your office has that you never go to because

461
00:22:16,640 --> 00:22:18,800
Speaker 4: we're just on our like tried and true path. That

462
00:22:18,920 --> 00:22:23,760
Speaker 4: to me is the biggest immediate upgrade that people can have.

463
00:22:24,119 --> 00:22:27,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're like you kind of get trapped in a

464
00:22:27,080 --> 00:22:29,480
Speaker 1: cycle of doing the same thing day in and day out,

465
00:22:29,480 --> 00:22:32,280
Speaker 1: and you don't ever think, Oh, if I, to your point,

466
00:22:32,440 --> 00:22:35,680
Speaker 1: change my route, did explore the office and saw what

467
00:22:35,760 --> 00:22:37,960
Speaker 1: it had, or like this room that I've just been

468
00:22:38,200 --> 00:22:41,760
Speaker 1: shoving stuff in and never use, like I could provide

469
00:22:41,800 --> 00:22:45,080
Speaker 1: an opportunity for something totally different that I could leverage.

470
00:22:45,240 --> 00:22:46,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you.

471
00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:49,000
Speaker 4: Know, we talked about the you know, the difference between

472
00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:52,080
Speaker 4: showing up to a space right before versus showing up

473
00:22:52,480 --> 00:22:56,120
Speaker 4: three days before. Like that's something we all can do

474
00:22:56,400 --> 00:22:58,679
Speaker 4: in a lot of our spaces, right, So it's like

475
00:22:58,800 --> 00:23:01,199
Speaker 4: how you can think through like how you interact with

476
00:23:01,200 --> 00:23:02,960
Speaker 4: the space on the.

477
00:23:04,560 --> 00:23:05,800
Speaker 3: When it comes to time.

478
00:23:05,840 --> 00:23:10,440
Speaker 1: How can officers improve when you've worked with companies. I

479
00:23:10,440 --> 00:23:12,600
Speaker 1: don't know if you spend much time in the office

480
00:23:12,680 --> 00:23:15,720
Speaker 1: I've now I work from home, which we can get into,

481
00:23:15,760 --> 00:23:18,080
Speaker 1: but when I used to be in working in offices,

482
00:23:18,119 --> 00:23:20,959
Speaker 1: it was always I don't know, it was kind of

483
00:23:21,080 --> 00:23:23,520
Speaker 1: just like I don't love this place.

484
00:23:23,920 --> 00:23:25,840
Speaker 3: Well, we can workshop this together.

485
00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:28,159
Speaker 4: I'm waiting a piece for the Wall Street Journal right

486
00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:30,760
Speaker 4: now about the offices, and I'm like trying to make

487
00:23:30,800 --> 00:23:33,280
Speaker 4: the point that I think like agency is the first

488
00:23:33,359 --> 00:23:35,840
Speaker 4: thing that offices should give us, and yet we jump

489
00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:39,240
Speaker 4: all these other things, right, And you may have read

490
00:23:39,240 --> 00:23:41,840
Speaker 4: these articles, but like every five years there's an article

491
00:23:41,920 --> 00:23:45,680
Speaker 4: saying like open planned offices are great, or closed offices

492
00:23:45,720 --> 00:23:48,000
Speaker 4: are great, or you know, and then you know, people

493
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:49,800
Speaker 4: get into the weeds and they're like, well, this pink

494
00:23:49,840 --> 00:23:52,399
Speaker 4: color will make you more creative, and natural light is

495
00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:55,000
Speaker 4: important and all that stuff. You know, there's there's science

496
00:23:55,040 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 4: behind some of it, but it's also like such a

497
00:23:58,280 --> 00:24:00,840
Speaker 4: depends on the people, depends on the tas, depends on

498
00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:04,399
Speaker 4: the office. And if there's a general rule, it's that

499
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:07,439
Speaker 4: like people need to feel like they have some say

500
00:24:07,680 --> 00:24:11,479
Speaker 4: in their relationship with their surroundings, and yet we like

501
00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:15,399
Speaker 4: skip right by that in the in the office design.

502
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:20,159
Speaker 1: So it's almost like there's some people thinking about open office,

503
00:24:20,160 --> 00:24:21,119
Speaker 1: first clothes office.

504
00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:22,080
Speaker 2: I'll give you an example.

505
00:24:22,080 --> 00:24:25,760
Speaker 1: When I was working at Men's Health, we had our

506
00:24:25,800 --> 00:24:31,159
Speaker 1: own offices for a while. To your point about agency,

507
00:24:31,320 --> 00:24:33,560
Speaker 1: I had like these nice pieces of art that I

508
00:24:33,680 --> 00:24:34,359
Speaker 1: liked on the wall.

509
00:24:34,520 --> 00:24:36,840
Speaker 2: It was MySpace. People couldn't come bug me.

510
00:24:37,119 --> 00:24:38,639
Speaker 1: And then we swa We got a new editor in

511
00:24:38,720 --> 00:24:40,960
Speaker 1: chief and he was like really hot on this like

512
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:43,720
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley trend of open offices, and he switched to

513
00:24:43,760 --> 00:24:46,240
Speaker 1: an open office. And it was like the worst thing

514
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:48,800
Speaker 1: that had ever happened to me, because now I'm like

515
00:24:49,160 --> 00:24:52,760
Speaker 1: sitting next to people, and I'm you know, I like people,

516
00:24:52,840 --> 00:24:56,479
Speaker 1: but generally in small and fleeting clusters, you know, and

517
00:24:56,520 --> 00:24:58,400
Speaker 1: so they're just like people. I felt like people were

518
00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:00,320
Speaker 1: overlooking me the whole time. I just like I didn't

519
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:03,600
Speaker 1: get anything done. But I also imagine in his case,

520
00:25:03,640 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 1: he's like, no, I actually work better when I can

521
00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:07,720
Speaker 1: just bounce ideas off you guys and harass you and

522
00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:10,280
Speaker 1: make sure you're doing your work. And so how does like,

523
00:25:10,320 --> 00:25:12,240
Speaker 1: how do we find a balance given that we know

524
00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:14,879
Speaker 1: some people are like me where it's like and in

525
00:25:14,920 --> 00:25:17,439
Speaker 1: my space, I need to think in quiet. And then

526
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:20,440
Speaker 1: you have other people who thrive on more people being

527
00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:22,320
Speaker 1: around and almost the I don't want to use the

528
00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:24,320
Speaker 1: word chaos, but that's how it felt to me of

529
00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:25,119
Speaker 1: the open office.

530
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:28,639
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I mean flexibility and multiple uses and

531
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:32,439
Speaker 4: making sure that people know that they're allowed to do

532
00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 4: those multiple uses, right. I mean, I think there's a

533
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:37,760
Speaker 4: lot of these spaces and offices. Like I was talking

534
00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:42,159
Speaker 4: to my editor and she was saying that in her

535
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:45,000
Speaker 4: office they have like all these great you know, it's

536
00:25:45,280 --> 00:25:48,439
Speaker 4: open plan, but they recognize the editors need to do

537
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:50,399
Speaker 4: deep work. So there's these places where you can do

538
00:25:50,480 --> 00:25:52,320
Speaker 4: deep work, but the boss just comes in and like

539
00:25:52,359 --> 00:25:54,280
Speaker 4: sits in the deep workplace and just kind of like

540
00:25:54,359 --> 00:25:55,120
Speaker 4: camps out there.

541
00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:57,320
Speaker 3: And so I think making.

542
00:25:57,000 --> 00:25:59,679
Speaker 4: Sure that people know the spaces that they have access to,

543
00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 4: like kind of modeling that behavior is probably pretty helpful.

544
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:06,240
Speaker 4: Agency could be lost as something as simple as like

545
00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 4: you can't open a window, right, and now you know

546
00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:12,280
Speaker 4: it's nice outside here today we I'm in an old

547
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:15,719
Speaker 4: building and like the windows sealed shut because they redid

548
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:19,600
Speaker 4: it with air conditioning, and that that takes away my

549
00:26:19,680 --> 00:26:23,880
Speaker 4: agency in one way, and now I'm probably less likely

550
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:26,280
Speaker 4: to like rearrange the furniture in my office. So just

551
00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 4: like giving people these like little gateway agency experiences, then

552
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:33,960
Speaker 4: making them more likely to kind of feel agency in

553
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:36,560
Speaker 4: their larger relationship with the space might make it better.

554
00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:38,200
Speaker 1: I guess it was probably from a study that you

555
00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 1: referenced in the book that I loved was that in

556
00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:48,119
Speaker 1: retirement homes, when people are allowed to design their space

557
00:26:48,119 --> 00:26:50,639
Speaker 1: how they want, make these choices about how they're going

558
00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:54,359
Speaker 1: to live, they tend to have better outcomes compared to

559
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:56,400
Speaker 1: retirement homes where it's like this is it.

560
00:26:56,400 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 2: It's fixed.

561
00:26:57,160 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 1: No, you can't open the window, you can't move the

562
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:01,560
Speaker 1: furniture around, you can't do all the stuff to the walls.

563
00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:05,280
Speaker 2: So tell us about that. What are those studies find better.

564
00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:08,320
Speaker 4: Outcomes in this case is like likelihood of being alive, right,

565
00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:10,960
Speaker 4: And so the people who are able to customize their space,

566
00:27:11,040 --> 00:27:13,320
Speaker 4: and this is a pretty controlled you know, it is

567
00:27:13,359 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 4: controlled and experiments you can get with the people who

568
00:27:15,840 --> 00:27:19,960
Speaker 4: could customize their space where I think twice as likely

569
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:22,520
Speaker 4: to be alive eighteen months later.

570
00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:23,679
Speaker 2: That's wild.

571
00:27:24,080 --> 00:27:26,199
Speaker 4: Again, this is like, you know, we talk about like

572
00:27:26,280 --> 00:27:28,960
Speaker 4: these psychological quirks that we have, and we have all

573
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:31,160
Speaker 4: these needs and again, like the paint color on the wall,

574
00:27:31,280 --> 00:27:32,120
Speaker 4: more creative.

575
00:27:31,840 --> 00:27:34,600
Speaker 3: Blah blah blah. But this is like life or death.

576
00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 4: Like agency is like this core need that we have

577
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:41,760
Speaker 4: and yeah, our space that you our spaces are either

578
00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:43,280
Speaker 4: meeting it or starving it.

579
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:47,399
Speaker 1: How do you think about that with your kids in

580
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:50,399
Speaker 1: terms of wanting to give them enough agency and at

581
00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:53,960
Speaker 1: the same time recognizing that you can't just kind of

582
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:55,640
Speaker 1: let them do whatever the hell they want.

583
00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:58,359
Speaker 4: I love one of my favorite stories with my daughter

584
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:01,479
Speaker 4: with she like she's this preschool that did an amazing

585
00:28:01,560 --> 00:28:04,560
Speaker 4: job with boundaries, and it's like one of these examples

586
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:08,360
Speaker 4: where like a spatial concept has been like taken over

587
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:11,479
Speaker 4: into the social world. Right, we talk about boundaries now

588
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:13,720
Speaker 4: and it's all about like a human relationship. But of

589
00:28:13,760 --> 00:28:16,439
Speaker 4: course that came from like protecting your physical space. And

590
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:18,679
Speaker 4: so one of the first things they learned was like

591
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:22,760
Speaker 4: you could yell space, and that literally meant that people

592
00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:25,399
Speaker 4: had to give you like a ten foot radius around you. So,

593
00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:28,840
Speaker 4: like my daughter's sitting in the in the lego room

594
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:31,680
Speaker 4: playing and I'm like trying to do laundry coming through

595
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:33,680
Speaker 4: and like I just have to walk through her orbit

596
00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:36,680
Speaker 4: just a little bit, and she's like space and like

597
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 4: all right, all right, can I like walk around here?

598
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 3: And she's like yeah, but you like you can't look

599
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 3: at me.

600
00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:44,880
Speaker 4: But it was just like her being able to like

601
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:48,080
Speaker 4: set this like really healthy thing, right, like this is

602
00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:51,080
Speaker 4: this is where I end, and you begin over here,

603
00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:52,520
Speaker 4: but like don't come this is me.

604
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:55,280
Speaker 3: Don't don't infringe, And that's her identity.

605
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:58,719
Speaker 4: I think with my son, when there are opportunities for

606
00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 4: him to, you know, of course, like set up his

607
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 4: own room and so on and so forth, but if

608
00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 4: they're like simple things to do in the house, like

609
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:08,040
Speaker 4: we have a woodstairs that are a little slippery, and

610
00:29:08,040 --> 00:29:10,040
Speaker 4: so I just wanted to put some carpet tiles on

611
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:11,480
Speaker 4: them so that people wouldn't fall.

612
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:14,120
Speaker 3: And I asked my son, like what color do you want?

613
00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 4: And you know, then they just stick on and he

614
00:29:17,520 --> 00:29:20,920
Speaker 4: helped put them on. But I mean he was like

615
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 4: totally bought into that. You could see his you know,

616
00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:27,720
Speaker 4: his self confidence lifting. But I think it also probably

617
00:29:27,760 --> 00:29:30,719
Speaker 4: makes him like the space better and feel more bought in.

618
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 4: So I think it's like trying to give them these

619
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:36,320
Speaker 4: agency opportunities where they make sense, right, I'm not letting

620
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:38,760
Speaker 4: him decide the you know, what color to paint the

621
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:40,960
Speaker 4: walls or to do it himself. But it's like, Okay,

622
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:42,840
Speaker 4: now he can be involved and I can give him

623
00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:45,720
Speaker 4: this agency, and he's going to feel a greater connection

624
00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:48,640
Speaker 4: to the space and more agency, which is going to

625
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:50,120
Speaker 4: help him in a lot of different other ways.

626
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:52,560
Speaker 1: My sister in law, when we go out and eat

627
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:55,400
Speaker 1: with her kids, she's like, Lena, do you want chicken

628
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 1: nuggets or do you want a hamburger? It's not like,

629
00:29:57,400 --> 00:29:59,080
Speaker 1: here's the entire menu, right.

630
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:01,640
Speaker 4: And I think that's you know, that's a strategy for kids,

631
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:05,680
Speaker 4: but it's also a strategy for ourselves. It's like well

632
00:30:05,720 --> 00:30:09,040
Speaker 4: known that the more choices we have, like the worst

633
00:30:09,520 --> 00:30:12,080
Speaker 4: the worst our decision is, and then the worst is

634
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:14,560
Speaker 4: we feel about it. So there's like this classic study

635
00:30:14,600 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 4: of chocolate where people given six choices varieties of chocolate

636
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:20,800
Speaker 4: to choose from are happier with their choice than people

637
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 4: giving thirty varieties, which included the subset of six.

638
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:27,200
Speaker 1: And is up just because if you have thirty you

639
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:30,480
Speaker 1: really have no idea. If you'll it's just overwhelming. You're like,

640
00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:32,280
Speaker 1: there's no way I picked the right one if I

641
00:30:32,320 --> 00:30:34,719
Speaker 1: have thirty, But with six, you go, yeah, I had

642
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:36,240
Speaker 1: a choice, and I think I might have picked the

643
00:30:36,320 --> 00:30:36,720
Speaker 1: right one.

644
00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 3: I mean there's two parts.

645
00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 4: One is it's like there's just too much to consider

646
00:30:40,840 --> 00:30:44,360
Speaker 4: with thirty and then there's the yeah, the fear of

647
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:47,760
Speaker 4: the fear of making having made the wrong decision afterwards. Right,

648
00:30:47,760 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 4: there's all these ones that you're like, man, if I

649
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:50,480
Speaker 4: picked that one, I would have liked.

650
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:54,320
Speaker 3: The chocolate better. But that's just chocolate.

651
00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:56,719
Speaker 4: And now you think about like the degrees of choice

652
00:30:56,720 --> 00:30:58,920
Speaker 4: that there are when you're making your surrounding. If you're

653
00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:01,000
Speaker 4: setting up your home office, be like, Okay, what are

654
00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:04,160
Speaker 4: the three most important things in my home office and

655
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:07,120
Speaker 4: how am I going to design for those first? Before

656
00:31:07,160 --> 00:31:09,600
Speaker 4: I get into all these things that you know, home

657
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:12,360
Speaker 4: depot or you know, the catalogs are trying to get

658
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 4: you to start paying attention to.

659
00:31:14,760 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like focusing on the most important questions. You

660
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 1: had a good example in your book about when you

661
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:22,120
Speaker 1: were was it the New Jersey school system you.

662
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 2: Were working for, Yeah, yeah.

663
00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:28,760
Speaker 1: Building schools, designing schools, and you talked about how people

664
00:31:28,800 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 1: would get obsessed with the paint color on the wall.

665
00:31:32,480 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 1: You'd be in these meetings and they'd be like rambling

666
00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:37,600
Speaker 1: forever about the paint color and how did you But

667
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:40,120
Speaker 1: that was obviously wasn't going to be like a determinive art.

668
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 1: Is this going to be a really good space for

669
00:31:42,080 --> 00:31:44,520
Speaker 1: kids to learn? Right, Like one shade of white versus

670
00:31:44,600 --> 00:31:47,600
Speaker 1: another probably not going to affect test scores. So how

671
00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:50,480
Speaker 1: would you steer those conversations so they're more productive?

672
00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:56,240
Speaker 4: Well, I mean I didn't do a good job with

673
00:31:56,320 --> 00:31:58,480
Speaker 4: it at the time. I would like let the pink

674
00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:02,960
Speaker 4: color go. But I think I think the way to

675
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:06,000
Speaker 4: steer it is Okay, So you know this situation.

676
00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 3: These are all well meaning.

677
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:10,520
Speaker 4: People, right There's teachers and superintendents and architects and engineers,

678
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:15,400
Speaker 4: and I think the issue there was the professionals, namely me,

679
00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 4: should have done a better job of being like, these

680
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:21,640
Speaker 4: are the important decisions right now. And if we could

681
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:26,600
Speaker 4: have said, look, we're here to talk about safety at

682
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:31,320
Speaker 4: drop off, right, and this is why the circulation in

683
00:32:31,320 --> 00:32:34,480
Speaker 4: front of the school matters. Here's fencing, but here's other

684
00:32:34,520 --> 00:32:38,320
Speaker 4: options to help with safety at drop off, and here

685
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 4: are the key decisions we really need you to focus

686
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 4: on and kind of boiled down the technical stuff to okay,

687
00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:47,920
Speaker 4: this is what matters now. Then the people that we

688
00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:50,560
Speaker 4: had assembled would have been able to appine on things

689
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:53,400
Speaker 4: that actually mattered for the design at that point. So

690
00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:55,800
Speaker 4: I mean the general principle there is like what are

691
00:32:55,840 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 4: the what are the important decisions and you know, making

692
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:03,280
Speaker 4: them kind of manageable for people. Because one of the

693
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:05,880
Speaker 4: reasons we focus on the paint colors is I mean,

694
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:08,160
Speaker 4: it's it's very salient, but it's also we have this

695
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:11,560
Speaker 4: like tendency when we're making decisions to focus on the

696
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:16,400
Speaker 4: decisions that are like certain and.

697
00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:16,880
Speaker 3: We know that we can actually make them. So the

698
00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:17,360
Speaker 3: pink color.

699
00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:18,800
Speaker 4: If you say we're going to have blue walls, you

700
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:20,840
Speaker 4: know what blue walls look like, and you know that's

701
00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:25,120
Speaker 4: a different like that's certain, even though it, like you said,

702
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 4: doesn't actually matter. At least we feel like we've done

703
00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:30,240
Speaker 4: something and had an impact. When we need to like

704
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:32,600
Speaker 4: really fight that tendency when it comes to our spaces

705
00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:34,520
Speaker 4: because so many of the decisions we can make you're

706
00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:38,120
Speaker 4: not I mean with safety, you know, going back to

707
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:40,920
Speaker 4: safety and like the circulation patterns you're going to you're

708
00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:44,120
Speaker 4: going to make it safer if you do the right thing,

709
00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:48,840
Speaker 4: but it's you know, you know, twenty collisions instead of

710
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:51,680
Speaker 4: two hundred and you know that's going to happen over time,

711
00:33:51,720 --> 00:33:54,560
Speaker 4: the outcome is not nearly as certain.

712
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:57,840
Speaker 1: That makes sense. Do you feel like this manifests itself?

713
00:33:57,920 --> 00:34:01,480
Speaker 1: If you're thinking about how do I my office or

714
00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:06,239
Speaker 1: workspace better for productivity? What do you feel like are

715
00:34:06,280 --> 00:34:09,000
Speaker 1: the most important things for people? Does it all just

716
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:11,480
Speaker 1: go back to agency or like are there sort of

717
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:13,960
Speaker 1: hallmarks where you see most people most of the time

718
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:16,600
Speaker 1: tend to do better in a space like X.

719
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:19,600
Speaker 4: I think it's like agency growth in connection, right, It's

720
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:21,800
Speaker 4: like again, if you're going to filter it through three things,

721
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:24,080
Speaker 4: filter it through those three and so I mean we've

722
00:34:24,080 --> 00:34:26,319
Speaker 4: talked about agency and that you know that could be

723
00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:31,000
Speaker 4: the design itself. Growth is interesting because it's not static, right,

724
00:34:31,040 --> 00:34:34,040
Speaker 4: So like the space that you're in, you know, it

725
00:34:34,080 --> 00:34:35,919
Speaker 4: works for a couple of years, and then you're kind

726
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:38,719
Speaker 4: of like, all right, I'm not it's not challenging me, right,

727
00:34:38,760 --> 00:34:41,360
Speaker 4: And this is often why we renovate. We just a

728
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:43,600
Speaker 4: new backsplash, It's going to make my life so much better,

729
00:34:43,640 --> 00:34:46,319
Speaker 4: and then like the novelty wears off and you have

730
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:49,200
Speaker 4: to make another new new bike, new backslash. But I

731
00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:52,000
Speaker 4: think there's other ways to like kind of grow and

732
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:55,800
Speaker 4: in your space, right, And it's like you can rearrange things.

733
00:34:55,880 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 3: You can think about like.

734
00:34:57,040 --> 00:34:59,640
Speaker 4: Okay, what are they you know, what are the pictures?

735
00:34:59,640 --> 00:35:01,799
Speaker 4: And do I want to have new artwork or do

736
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:05,400
Speaker 4: I want to you know, now that I'm doing writing

737
00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:08,080
Speaker 4: with a treadmill desk, you know, should my desk be

738
00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:11,680
Speaker 4: in a different spot. Those kinds of things are like

739
00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:16,440
Speaker 4: small ways to keep growing with your space. And so

740
00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:19,359
Speaker 4: I think and then connection, right, and I think your

741
00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:21,560
Speaker 4: men's health example is a really great example of that

742
00:35:21,640 --> 00:35:25,640
Speaker 4: where it's like, you know, this the reason that the office,

743
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 4: the new office design didn't work it was the wrong

744
00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:33,000
Speaker 4: amount of connection, right, And you like people, but writing

745
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:35,560
Speaker 4: is really hard to do with people all around you.

746
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:39,080
Speaker 4: And so just being conscious of like, Okay, what do

747
00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:41,720
Speaker 4: I need from this space in terms of the amount

748
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:44,920
Speaker 4: of connection and how do I set up the space

749
00:35:45,120 --> 00:35:46,880
Speaker 4: to get it? And I'm sorry to not have like

750
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:49,480
Speaker 4: a kind of wirecutter hack, but it's.

751
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:52,920
Speaker 3: It's it's really not. It's individual.

752
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:55,799
Speaker 4: But it's like those those needs are basic, right, Those

753
00:35:55,840 --> 00:35:58,720
Speaker 4: needs are basic, as basic to all of us as anything,

754
00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:02,759
Speaker 4: and then how you meet those needs is going to

755
00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:03,520
Speaker 4: be individual.

756
00:36:03,760 --> 00:36:06,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've always struggled with.

757
00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:12,840
Speaker 1: Trying to remove extraneous stimulation from my office. So there's

758
00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:17,280
Speaker 1: not you know, the metaphorical squirrel darting in my office

759
00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:18,719
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to write, and I'm like, oh, but

760
00:36:18,840 --> 00:36:21,279
Speaker 1: this thing and that thing, and then also not having

761
00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:24,560
Speaker 1: it feel like a prison at the same time. How

762
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 1: did writing this book, I guess, like, what was the

763
00:36:27,160 --> 00:36:29,680
Speaker 1: space where you would write this book? And how did

764
00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:33,440
Speaker 1: did your ideas on where you worked best change at

765
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 1: all when you were writing this?

766
00:36:35,080 --> 00:36:37,840
Speaker 4: So for me, I like, there's a variety of spaces

767
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 4: that I mean, I like the university campus. I go

768
00:36:40,640 --> 00:36:43,279
Speaker 4: to different buildings, but there's not like I'll go to

769
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:45,279
Speaker 4: this building to write this kind of thing or this

770
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:48,720
Speaker 4: building to write this kind of thing. I totally agree

771
00:36:48,719 --> 00:36:52,560
Speaker 4: with the distraction thing, right, Like, the spatial distractions are

772
00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:54,920
Speaker 4: a much bigger risk for me than not having the

773
00:36:54,960 --> 00:37:00,680
Speaker 4: space be exciting enough, and so eliminating those is important.

774
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:04,760
Speaker 4: Every writer talks about this, But like the balance between

775
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:08,640
Speaker 4: like sitting and moving right, you know, some of the

776
00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:12,239
Speaker 4: easiest way to get unstuck is by just getting up

777
00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:14,600
Speaker 4: and going for a walk, even if it's a really

778
00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:17,960
Speaker 4: small one. At the same time, you just got to

779
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:20,760
Speaker 4: have your butt in the chair for a certain amount

780
00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:22,680
Speaker 4: of time. I mean that like the ideas have to

781
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:24,960
Speaker 4: you have to spend the time thinking about them and

782
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:27,640
Speaker 4: try and struggling with it for those walks to be useful.

783
00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:32,000
Speaker 4: But thinking about like the the balance between those things

784
00:37:32,040 --> 00:37:34,359
Speaker 4: is important. And then I mean going back to the

785
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:38,880
Speaker 4: professional athlete stuff, it's like the the the mindset is

786
00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:41,480
Speaker 4: so dependent on you know, if I can run and

787
00:37:41,520 --> 00:37:45,800
Speaker 4: then get coffee, I am like that's my best time.

788
00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:47,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense. Did you as you were writing this,

789
00:37:48,160 --> 00:37:51,600
Speaker 1: did you change your mind on anything? I found that

790
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:53,680
Speaker 1: when I write books, there's often I'll often go into

791
00:37:53,719 --> 00:37:56,760
Speaker 1: it with one idea and then like, oh, I actually

792
00:37:56,800 --> 00:37:59,160
Speaker 1: think something different after having done all this research.

793
00:37:59,480 --> 00:38:04,200
Speaker 4: The idea that these psychological needs arguably came from our

794
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:07,400
Speaker 4: relationship with space aren't just like it's not just another

795
00:38:07,440 --> 00:38:09,839
Speaker 4: way to meet them. It's like they actually came from

796
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:13,440
Speaker 4: That was just blew my mind. And it's like in

797
00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:17,480
Speaker 4: a lot of it's just everywhere in their research. I mean,

798
00:38:17,520 --> 00:38:20,920
Speaker 4: there's there's the neuroscience research that shows that like our

799
00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:23,600
Speaker 4: spatial networks, like the spatial networks in our brain, those

800
00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 4: are the ones that then got adapted to map our

801
00:38:26,719 --> 00:38:28,320
Speaker 4: connections with other people.

802
00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:33,160
Speaker 1: That makes me think of So you point out on

803
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:38,640
Speaker 1: the book, how there's this really beautiful building on your

804
00:38:38,680 --> 00:38:40,280
Speaker 1: campus that you walk past.

805
00:38:40,640 --> 00:38:41,839
Speaker 3: It's a memorial gym.

806
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:44,120
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's like it looks like there should be

807
00:38:44,160 --> 00:38:47,000
Speaker 4: Roman baths inside. It's like Beaux Arts, which is an

808
00:38:47,120 --> 00:38:51,040
Speaker 4: architectural style, and it's also like historically significant. I mean

809
00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:56,320
Speaker 4: like the after World War One, the students like donated

810
00:38:56,360 --> 00:38:59,440
Speaker 4: a third of that money to their fallen classmates, right,

811
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:03,320
Speaker 4: I mean edge. And then in World War Two, Roosevelt

812
00:39:03,360 --> 00:39:06,560
Speaker 4: was here because some like his nephew was graduating or something,

813
00:39:06,680 --> 00:39:08,799
Speaker 4: and he's supposed to just give the commencement address, but

814
00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:11,400
Speaker 4: then something happened in Europe and so it was basically

815
00:39:11,480 --> 00:39:14,080
Speaker 4: his commencement address was like we're going to be in

816
00:39:14,360 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 4: war in Europe, and.

817
00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:17,000
Speaker 3: So all these people heard this speech.

818
00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:22,279
Speaker 4: So it's like historically significant, beautiful and sticks out. It's

819
00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:24,560
Speaker 4: like next to tennis courts and open fields.

820
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:31,000
Speaker 1: It made me think about this, the difference between spaces

821
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:34,440
Speaker 1: like that that I think were more frequent in the

822
00:39:34,480 --> 00:39:38,160
Speaker 1: past where they're kind of unique, and spaces we have

823
00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:44,440
Speaker 1: now where there's almost a creeping sameness setting in the

824
00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:49,359
Speaker 1: example I like to give is coffee shops. So if

825
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:53,680
Speaker 1: you go into like a good coffee shop, it doesn't

826
00:39:53,680 --> 00:39:55,680
Speaker 1: matter if you go into the good coffee shop in

827
00:39:56,000 --> 00:39:59,920
Speaker 1: Tokyo or New York City or Mexico City or one

828
00:40:00,120 --> 00:40:03,719
Speaker 1: US are is they all have the same vibe. It's

829
00:40:03,719 --> 00:40:07,440
Speaker 1: all like minimalist, not much in there. It's like you

830
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 1: could get planted in any one and you'd be like,

831
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:10,960
Speaker 1: I don't know where I am. It could be the

832
00:40:10,960 --> 00:40:12,480
Speaker 1: one at home I go to. It could I don't

833
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:15,640
Speaker 1: know where I am. What do you think about that? Like,

834
00:40:15,680 --> 00:40:17,680
Speaker 1: what do you think is driving this sort of like

835
00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:19,719
Speaker 1: sameness you have? And you I think in the book

836
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:22,359
Speaker 1: you use the example of hotels. How there's like kind

837
00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:23,919
Speaker 1: of hotels are all kind of the same.

838
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:28,439
Speaker 4: So I mean there's a level of comfort with like familiarity, right,

839
00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:32,000
Speaker 4: Like we the reason hotel chain, like you book a

840
00:40:32,040 --> 00:40:34,960
Speaker 4: Marriott because you know what a Mariat is going to be, right,

841
00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:37,080
Speaker 4: And so I think that same thing could be happening

842
00:40:37,120 --> 00:40:39,800
Speaker 4: with the level of sameness in the spaces, is people

843
00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:41,959
Speaker 4: realize that like, okay, people are going to be more

844
00:40:42,360 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 4: immediately comfortable in this coffee shop if it's exactly like

845
00:40:45,560 --> 00:40:50,160
Speaker 4: the coffee shop that is where you know, like like

846
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:51,360
Speaker 4: the coffee shop in the last.

847
00:40:51,239 --> 00:40:52,239
Speaker 3: City where they were.

848
00:40:53,080 --> 00:40:55,680
Speaker 4: The other side of that coin is that that's like

849
00:40:55,960 --> 00:40:58,440
Speaker 4: you know, in this aligns with a lot of your writing, right,

850
00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:00,880
Speaker 4: that's like an opportunity for Grill. It's like a small

851
00:41:00,880 --> 00:41:03,719
Speaker 4: amount of discomfort that would actually be better for us

852
00:41:03,800 --> 00:41:06,319
Speaker 4: in the long run. I think of it as like

853
00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:08,880
Speaker 4: when you go on vacation to a new spot, for example,

854
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:11,640
Speaker 4: like we talked about the Jersey Shore before I go

855
00:41:11,680 --> 00:41:13,640
Speaker 4: to the Outer Banks. That's like closer to where I

856
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:16,600
Speaker 4: live now. Sometimes like this sucks. It's like doesn't seem

857
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:19,239
Speaker 4: like the Jersey Shore and it's just like the it's

858
00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:22,520
Speaker 4: fundamentally the same geography, but the built environment is like

859
00:41:22,680 --> 00:41:24,680
Speaker 4: slightly different, and I'm just not used to it. But

860
00:41:24,719 --> 00:41:28,320
Speaker 4: then once I go for a run and realize, like, okay,

861
00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:31,000
Speaker 4: like there's no boardwalk, but actually the place where you

862
00:41:31,080 --> 00:41:33,600
Speaker 4: walk is like along the beach and that's cool, And

863
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:37,000
Speaker 4: there's no amusement park, but there's a soccer field right

864
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:38,880
Speaker 4: over here that the kids are going to love. And

865
00:41:40,719 --> 00:41:42,839
Speaker 4: now I'm like, okay, I'm comfortable at the Jersey Shore.

866
00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:45,239
Speaker 4: And the outer bank. So it's like this growth opportunity

867
00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:48,160
Speaker 4: from a slightly different space, but it took you know,

868
00:41:48,360 --> 00:41:51,799
Speaker 4: a day or a run to become familiar with it

869
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:53,760
Speaker 4: and then therefore feel more comfortable.

870
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:55,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like you had to you had to get

871
00:41:55,280 --> 00:41:58,239
Speaker 1: out and explore the environment instead of just kind of

872
00:41:58,280 --> 00:41:59,840
Speaker 1: doing what was easiest in the moment.

873
00:42:00,200 --> 00:42:00,680
Speaker 3: Exactly.

874
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:02,759
Speaker 4: That's the fastest way to do it, right, is like,

875
00:42:02,840 --> 00:42:04,640
Speaker 4: just get out there and explore it, and then you

876
00:42:04,640 --> 00:42:05,680
Speaker 4: will become comfortable.

877
00:42:05,800 --> 00:42:09,840
Speaker 1: Like something I'll do in Las Vegas is I stopped

878
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:12,640
Speaker 1: using GPS so much when I'm trying to get somewhere.

879
00:42:12,960 --> 00:42:13,280
Speaker 2: Yeah.

880
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:16,600
Speaker 1: So it's like, Okay, we're going to this restaurant in Chinatown.

881
00:42:17,239 --> 00:42:19,839
Speaker 1: I generally know how to get to Chinatown. I kind

882
00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:21,560
Speaker 1: of know the crosstreets of this place, but I'm not

883
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:23,280
Speaker 1: going to put it in GPS. I'm going to figure

884
00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:25,799
Speaker 1: it out along the way. And that has forced me

885
00:42:26,920 --> 00:42:30,120
Speaker 1: to have to pay so much more attention to the

886
00:42:30,200 --> 00:42:34,479
Speaker 1: neighborhoods and the streets, and in doing that, I find

887
00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:36,960
Speaker 1: myself picking up like, oh, I didn't know that that

888
00:42:37,040 --> 00:42:39,279
Speaker 1: place was here. I didn't know that place was I'm

889
00:42:39,280 --> 00:42:40,799
Speaker 1: going to check that out, So I'm just a lot

890
00:42:40,840 --> 00:42:44,759
Speaker 1: more aware of my surroundings by not just immediately defaulting

891
00:42:44,800 --> 00:42:48,080
Speaker 1: to an algorithm saying this is absolutely the most efficient

892
00:42:48,120 --> 00:42:50,080
Speaker 1: way to get there. Just follow the blue dot, Just

893
00:42:50,120 --> 00:42:52,040
Speaker 1: follow the line. Don't pay attention to anything but the

894
00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:52,680
Speaker 1: line and the car.

895
00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:53,680
Speaker 2: How do you? Yeah?

896
00:42:53,719 --> 00:42:56,040
Speaker 4: And i'd also is like your brain as being like

897
00:42:56,040 --> 00:42:58,680
Speaker 4: when you're on GPS, it's like your brain has gone

898
00:42:58,719 --> 00:43:02,640
Speaker 4: to the screen instead of to your surroundings, and it's

899
00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:07,480
Speaker 4: like the screen is two dimensional and doesn't smell like anything,

900
00:43:07,560 --> 00:43:10,320
Speaker 4: it doesn't taste like anything, it doesn't sound like much,

901
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:13,279
Speaker 4: and you know you're taking you out of like all

902
00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:14,360
Speaker 4: of these other senses.

903
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:18,200
Speaker 1: Did you change anything about the spaces that you frequent

904
00:43:18,239 --> 00:43:20,839
Speaker 1: most after writing this? Like a renovation cruise at your

905
00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:24,520
Speaker 1: house right now, just like overhauling everything or what not?

906
00:43:24,680 --> 00:43:25,600
Speaker 3: Renovation cruise?

907
00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:27,960
Speaker 4: I mean, the decluttering is like a really easy one

908
00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:30,040
Speaker 4: if you really like go into the entrance of your

909
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:33,000
Speaker 4: door and then like walk into wherever you congregate and

910
00:43:33,040 --> 00:43:35,960
Speaker 4: think about like how other people are going to experience that.

911
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:38,920
Speaker 4: For me at least, there's like a lot of stuff

912
00:43:38,920 --> 00:43:40,399
Speaker 4: that it's like, oh, I don't want them to see

913
00:43:40,400 --> 00:43:44,919
Speaker 4: that before they interact with me, right, And just streamlining

914
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:48,160
Speaker 4: that kind of thing is just something that I've definitely

915
00:43:48,160 --> 00:43:48,799
Speaker 4: done that.

916
00:43:48,760 --> 00:43:50,719
Speaker 2: Was really useful for me to think about.

917
00:43:50,800 --> 00:43:52,640
Speaker 1: And I think you used a great example in the

918
00:43:52,640 --> 00:43:55,359
Speaker 1: book of a realtor who will kind of like walk

919
00:43:55,360 --> 00:43:55,880
Speaker 1: into space.

920
00:43:56,200 --> 00:43:56,880
Speaker 2: What are you saying?

921
00:43:57,680 --> 00:44:02,400
Speaker 1: And I think we get it's so habituated to walking

922
00:44:02,440 --> 00:44:03,879
Speaker 1: in and out of our house, we don't think about

923
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:06,640
Speaker 1: how do other people who have never been here experience this?

924
00:44:06,719 --> 00:44:08,200
Speaker 1: And to your point, it's like if you have all

925
00:44:08,239 --> 00:44:09,800
Speaker 1: this stuff, like that's where their eye is going to

926
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:12,960
Speaker 1: get drawn and it starts to change the interaction you're

927
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:14,600
Speaker 1: going to have with that person in a way. So

928
00:44:14,640 --> 00:44:17,560
Speaker 1: it's almost like you have to like the places you

929
00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:19,680
Speaker 1: most frequent. It's almost like you have to try and

930
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:23,359
Speaker 1: wipe the slate claim go into them anew like what

931
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:26,040
Speaker 1: am I picking up here, and just spend time thinking

932
00:44:26,080 --> 00:44:26,560
Speaker 1: about that.

933
00:44:26,960 --> 00:44:27,960
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.

934
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 4: And the realtor also she would like close her eyes

935
00:44:30,760 --> 00:44:35,200
Speaker 4: so that she could like, like the smell, then tap

936
00:44:35,239 --> 00:44:38,319
Speaker 4: more into the smells and the sounds, because those are

937
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:41,480
Speaker 4: things that we tend to know we just too now, right,

938
00:44:41,600 --> 00:44:43,479
Speaker 4: I mean, there are all these studies showing that people

939
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:45,680
Speaker 4: who are in like a noisy office environment like yours.

940
00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:48,480
Speaker 4: Men's health, they're like more stress at the end of

941
00:44:48,520 --> 00:44:50,920
Speaker 4: the day, even if they can't tell.

942
00:44:50,760 --> 00:44:52,960
Speaker 3: You that their office environment was more noisy.

943
00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:57,320
Speaker 4: So like, by tapping into those senses, you're realizing you're

944
00:44:57,360 --> 00:44:59,680
Speaker 4: more aware of what's going on and you can notice

945
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:02,160
Speaker 4: good thing like if it's birds singing or you know,

946
00:45:02,280 --> 00:45:05,000
Speaker 4: pleasant smells. But you can also notice bad things that

947
00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:06,040
Speaker 4: you can then get rid of.

948
00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:08,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, that the example you just gave is great.

949
00:45:08,560 --> 00:45:10,600
Speaker 1: I remember there's this one study I came upon when

950
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:13,960
Speaker 1: I was reporting a book, and it basically took groups

951
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:17,040
Speaker 1: and had some of them do work in an open

952
00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:20,960
Speaker 1: concept office that was louder. The other group did work

953
00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:25,160
Speaker 1: in a quiet office. Both groups said, oh, yeah, I

954
00:45:25,200 --> 00:45:27,839
Speaker 1: did I did good work. I wasn't affected. Things are great.

955
00:45:27,880 --> 00:45:30,400
Speaker 1: But when they looked at the actual what they had produced,

956
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:33,080
Speaker 1: the group who was not as in the noise and

957
00:45:33,120 --> 00:45:36,160
Speaker 1: in the chaos actually had a lot better quality work

958
00:45:36,200 --> 00:45:38,200
Speaker 1: and we're able to do more. So I think, to

959
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:41,360
Speaker 1: your point, we don't realize a lot of these things

960
00:45:41,640 --> 00:45:43,840
Speaker 1: are affecting us at all, but they are.

961
00:45:43,880 --> 00:45:48,680
Speaker 3: Right right, Yeah, exactly. That's a fascinating study.

962
00:45:48,840 --> 00:45:49,239
Speaker 2: I should have.

963
00:45:49,680 --> 00:45:52,240
Speaker 1: I should have taken that study up to my editor

964
00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:55,080
Speaker 1: in chief and I'm like, look, man, science, I need

965
00:45:55,080 --> 00:45:59,080
Speaker 1: my damn office back, like right now, right now. What

966
00:45:59,239 --> 00:46:02,680
Speaker 1: is like one for kind of one big takeaway before

967
00:46:02,719 --> 00:46:07,439
Speaker 1: we end? What is like one thing people can use

968
00:46:07,600 --> 00:46:09,479
Speaker 1: immediately that you learned in your book?

969
00:46:09,560 --> 00:46:09,799
Speaker 2: Is it?

970
00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:11,799
Speaker 1: Does it go back to agency or like what is

971
00:46:11,840 --> 00:46:13,799
Speaker 1: that someone says like, okay, what's one thing I can

972
00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:14,719
Speaker 1: do from reading your book?

973
00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 3: Maybe space before screen?

974
00:46:17,880 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 2: Tell us about that?

975
00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:20,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the idea is just.

976
00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:23,560
Speaker 4: That like we don't pay enough attention to our spaces,

977
00:46:23,600 --> 00:46:26,080
Speaker 4: like you said, and it's like, all right, well, obviously

978
00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:29,080
Speaker 4: we're like on screens all the time, and spaces do

979
00:46:29,120 --> 00:46:31,720
Speaker 4: all these beautiful things for us that the screens cannot.

980
00:46:32,640 --> 00:46:35,479
Speaker 4: So instead of like fighting that, maybe connect the two

981
00:46:35,520 --> 00:46:37,279
Speaker 4: and it's just like, all right, when you're drawn to

982
00:46:37,440 --> 00:46:40,719
Speaker 4: like look at your phone, use that as a queue

983
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:44,160
Speaker 4: to be like, have I actually engaged with the space

984
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:46,920
Speaker 4: that's around me? Have I paid attention to the space

985
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:49,479
Speaker 4: that I'm in? And I think for me at least

986
00:46:49,480 --> 00:46:54,319
Speaker 4: that goes a long way towards uh yeah, towards number one,

987
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:56,480
Speaker 4: like getting off my phone. But number two, just like

988
00:46:56,560 --> 00:47:01,839
Speaker 4: appreciating the magic of even a very simple space will

989
00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:04,719
Speaker 4: have cool stuff that you've never noticed about it. And

990
00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:08,560
Speaker 4: I think that's that's a cool useful tip that people have.

991
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:13,120
Speaker 4: It sounds like early readers have enjoyed and it's been

992
00:47:13,120 --> 00:47:13,799
Speaker 4: sticky for them.

993
00:47:14,520 --> 00:47:16,759
Speaker 1: Do you have a room in your house where you

994
00:47:16,800 --> 00:47:18,280
Speaker 1: don't have screens purposely?

995
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:18,759
Speaker 2: Oh?

996
00:47:18,840 --> 00:47:21,839
Speaker 3: God, this this Uh sorry, I'm kind of rant now.

997
00:47:22,840 --> 00:47:27,040
Speaker 3: It's like, so I love I mean, I love. Uh.

998
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:30,320
Speaker 4: There's this new book called The Amazing Generation by Katherine

999
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:33,479
Speaker 4: Price and Jonathan Hey I and uh like it's meant

1000
00:47:33,480 --> 00:47:36,319
Speaker 4: for tweens and it's about like screen time and it's

1001
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:38,280
Speaker 4: just like my son's eleven.

1002
00:47:38,400 --> 00:47:40,040
Speaker 3: He like stopped reading Harry Potter.

1003
00:47:40,120 --> 00:47:42,200
Speaker 4: It was so interesting to him, and then we had

1004
00:47:42,200 --> 00:47:44,719
Speaker 4: a conversation about screens. He's like, you can't let me

1005
00:47:44,760 --> 00:47:47,800
Speaker 4: get a phone until I'm like this age. But he

1006
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:50,960
Speaker 4: like really understood it and it was like interesting to him.

1007
00:47:51,080 --> 00:47:52,000
Speaker 3: So great book.

1008
00:47:52,040 --> 00:47:53,880
Speaker 4: And then I like read a nice post about it

1009
00:47:53,880 --> 00:47:55,680
Speaker 4: on LinkedIn and then you know they liked it. And

1010
00:47:55,719 --> 00:47:58,480
Speaker 4: then as a result of that, there I'm seeing their

1011
00:47:58,520 --> 00:48:00,200
Speaker 4: stuff in my feet and then I see Catherine by

1012
00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:02,879
Speaker 4: saying like suggesting we should have one room that's screen free,

1013
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:05,040
Speaker 4: and I'm like, that's the opposite. We should have like

1014
00:48:05,120 --> 00:48:06,759
Speaker 4: one room that has the screens.

1015
00:48:06,960 --> 00:48:07,160
Speaker 3: Right.

1016
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:11,320
Speaker 4: So that's what I've tried to do in my house.

1017
00:48:11,360 --> 00:48:13,439
Speaker 4: It's like, okay, like we have a huge TV.

1018
00:48:13,560 --> 00:48:14,040
Speaker 3: It's awesome.

1019
00:48:14,080 --> 00:48:15,880
Speaker 4: We can like watch soccer games and it's like the

1020
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:18,000
Speaker 4: players are bigger than we are on the TV. But

1021
00:48:18,560 --> 00:48:21,840
Speaker 4: we that's the screen room, right, And I try to

1022
00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:23,480
Speaker 4: put my phone in there when I come in and

1023
00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:26,200
Speaker 4: try that's where he has to play on his iPad

1024
00:48:26,360 --> 00:48:30,080
Speaker 4: and and all the other rooms are are screen free,

1025
00:48:30,120 --> 00:48:34,120
Speaker 4: so I do think, yeah, use the space, and but

1026
00:48:34,200 --> 00:48:36,759
Speaker 4: I would argue for like one screen room instead of

1027
00:48:36,800 --> 00:48:38,840
Speaker 4: one screen free room. I just thought it was like

1028
00:48:38,920 --> 00:48:41,440
Speaker 4: super ironic that we've come so far that that was

1029
00:48:41,520 --> 00:48:43,320
Speaker 4: like the suggestion from the.

1030
00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:44,680
Speaker 3: Anti screen people.

1031
00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:47,560
Speaker 4: It's like, just what this one little room you can

1032
00:48:47,600 --> 00:48:49,120
Speaker 4: go in and get away from them.

1033
00:48:49,440 --> 00:48:52,360
Speaker 2: Totally. I love it. Well, this was awesome talking to you.

1034
00:48:52,400 --> 00:48:56,120
Speaker 1: The new book is fantastic, and I also recommend Subtract.

1035
00:48:56,160 --> 00:48:58,440
Speaker 1: That's a great one. And I love the work you do.

1036
00:48:58,520 --> 00:48:58,640
Speaker 3: Man.

1037
00:48:58,640 --> 00:48:59,920
Speaker 2: I appreciate you taking the time coming on.

1038
00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:02,759
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for having me, Michael. This is super fun.

1039
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:04,080
Speaker 3: It's always a pleasure talking to you.

1040
00:49:05,840 --> 00:49:07,880
Speaker 1: Thanks for checking out the show, and thanks to Lighty

1041
00:49:08,040 --> 00:49:10,600
Speaker 1: for coming on. We are in your feeds twice a week,

1042
00:49:10,640 --> 00:49:12,640
Speaker 1: so please keep an eye out for more and we

1043
00:49:12,680 --> 00:49:15,480
Speaker 1: are always open to questions for our Ask Michael Anything section.

1044
00:49:15,560 --> 00:49:17,839
Speaker 1: If you are watching this on YouTube, just drop your

1045
00:49:17,960 --> 00:49:21,000
Speaker 1: question in the comments section. If you are listening in

1046
00:49:21,120 --> 00:49:24,160
Speaker 1: podcast form, you can send your questions to media at

1047
00:49:24,200 --> 00:49:29,799
Speaker 1: twopct dot com. Even better, send your question in the

1048
00:49:29,800 --> 00:49:32,480
Speaker 1: form of a voice mawlow or a video and we

1049
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:33,759
Speaker 1: will do our best.

1050
00:49:33,440 --> 00:49:34,080
Speaker 2: To answer it.

1051
00:49:34,760 --> 00:49:38,399
Speaker 1: Do not forget to subscribe, and as always, how fun,

1052
00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:39,359
Speaker 1: don't die