WEBVTT - Rainn Wilson and Maya on Navigating Change and Identity 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:23.720 Pushkin. Hey everyone. Earlier this year, I did a bunch 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:26.200 of interviews for the launch of my book, The Other 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:29.240 Side of Change. One of them was with the actor 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:33.680 and comedian Rain Wilson, best known as Dwight from The Office. 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.200 Rain and I covered so much ground in this conversation. 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:41.320 We talked about the science of language development, my experience 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:44.720 creating a job in the Obama White House, Rain's personal 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:48.279 reflections on faith and meditation, and what led me to 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:50.960 select each of the stories that appear in my book. 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:54.440 I really hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:56.560 I did. 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:04.560 Hey there, it's me Rain Wilson, and I want to 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:07.640 dig into the human experience. I want to have conversations 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:12.039 about a spiritual revolution. Let's get deep with our favorite thinkers, friends, 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:17.480 and entertainers about life, meaning, and idiocy. Welcome to the 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:18.760 soul Boom Podcast. 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:26.160 Hi Maya, Hi Rain. 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:27.399 It's so nice to meet you. 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:29.680 It's so nice to meet you too. Thanks for having me. 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:31.920 I've so enjoyed your new book. 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:33.479 I'm really excited to talk. 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:33.960 To you about it. 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:35.560 Thank you. This means a lot. 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:37.240 It's called The Other Side of Change. 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:41.240 Yes, Okay, Who we become when life makes other plans. 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:45.960 And you have become many things, a podcaster and a 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:50.400 best selling author and a cognitive scientist on the other 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:52.600 side of other. 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:54.080 Plans, lots of other plans. 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:57.920 In a weird way, this just evokes for me something 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:01.240 that I've been undergoing over the last few years in 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:05.960 my fifties, which is my whole life was acting as 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:08.040 soon as I started. Why I started later. I started 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:11.080 like sixteen seventeen, and then pursued it through college and 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:16.520 went to to you know, repertory school and theater and 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:19.400 off Broadway and tours and you know, just trying to 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:21.920 build my career, get a little bit better agent, and 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:23.960 get a little bit better job and make a little 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:27.680 money and try and support myself and study, and then 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:32.960 of course with Dwight here I am like having kind 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:35.600 of hit this home run, Like here's a great memorable 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:40.359 character that is in the cultural zeitgeist and consciousness. Apparently 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:46.079 it's the most shared person or character on like the 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:49.120 what do they call the emojis or don't know what 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:50.160 are those called JITs? 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:54.359 Yeah, Like it's the most shared, like Jiff, Yes, I'm 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:56.520 one of the shares. You've shared a lot of white 0:02:56.600 --> 0:03:00.440 gifts So there's my big weird face being shared millions 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:01.560 of times. 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:04.080 And I mean it was. It's just one of the 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:08.840 most superb characters that exists on TV. 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:11.839 And it's in a weird way. My entire life led 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:13.880 up to creating that character, because that's like I said, 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:16.400 when I was in acting school, we learned how to 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:21.320 create characters and play absurd circumstances with great seriousness, and 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:23.760 create kind of clown and inhabit the body and do 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:27.080 physical comedy that still felt, you know, grounded in the 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:29.080 real world. Like I had a lot of training that 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:31.360 led up to to Dwight and a lot of different 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:34.280 roles that and since Dwight, I've played a ton of 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:38.280 really cool roles that are very different than Dwight. Not 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:40.720 a lot of people have seen those roles, but that's okay. 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:43.360 There've been some great movies and other TV shows and 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:47.040 theater and and whatnot. But I've had a couple of 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:49.840 people say like, oh, so have you left acting now. 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:52.800 It's like, well, no, I just had a movie come 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:55.720 out and I'm doing another thing and just was you know, 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:58.960 on Broadway. And they're like, oh, I thought you'd left 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:01.800 acting to be a part and author and talk about 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:05.920 spirituality and the human experience and they So the public 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:08.000 perception in a lot of ways is shifting, like oh, 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:11.000 is that guy still an actor or has he moved 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:14.000 into another line of work. And it's been it's been 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:19.560 an interesting shift internally for me, like how I've lived, 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:26.960 you know, thirty years plus as an actor being my 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:31.640 existential identity and now I'm also doing this other thing. 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:34.400 I'm hoping to do both. I'm hoping to write books 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:37.719 and have conversations like this and occasionally play a silly, 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:40.280 weird character in a TV show or a film or 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:42.240 something like that, and I think that's how it's going 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:45.360 to work out. But it it has been. It has 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:49.720 been a shift of like, oh, yeah, this is a 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:56.120 new this is a new identity beyond Rainn Wilson slash actor. 0:04:56.440 --> 0:05:02.640 Yes. I so resonate with that because I feel like, 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:07.000 for basically all of my childhood, I was a violinist 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:09.719 before I was even maya. I mean, that was the 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:15.200 primary label that I gave myself. And one of the 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:19.120 things that I've learned since then, you know, now I 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:23.120 study change and how we process change, is that so 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:26.600 many of us anchor our identity, so firmly to what 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:30.640 we do, to the roles we inhabit, to certain labels, 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:34.279 and there's a lot of value in doing that right. 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:36.839 Being an actor gives you a sense of camaraderie with 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:41.360 your fellow actors. Being an actor gives you meaning and 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:44.159 drive every day and maybe helped stave off existential angst 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:46.920 because you know what your goals are for the day, 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:48.680 and you have a filming schedule and what have you. 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:53.680 But the risk of tethering your self identity too closely 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:57.440 to what you do is that life can effortlessly get 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:00.240 in the way it deny you the ability to do 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:04.440 that thing. And so one technique that I've learned only 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:08.840 recently that has helped me whether change better in my 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:13.000 own life is to define myself not simply by what 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:15.720 I do, but by why I do it. So to 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:19.719 ask myself, well, what is at the core of my 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:24.920 passions for music or for the other things that I love? 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:31.120 And when I asked that question about music specifically, I realized, oh, well, 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.520 emotional connection is definitely the number one thing that drove 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:37.559 me towards music. I also loved getting better at something. 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:40.560 It's great to improve and see progress in that way. 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:45.400 I love being creative if you can make that community 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:48.279 that you found. So, if I could define my identity 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:51.320 in that way, oh, I'm a person who loves emotional connection. 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:55.880 I'm a person who loves having creative outlets. Then the 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:59.000 exercise in the face of a big change is to 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:02.839 figure out, well through what other outlets can I express 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:05.919 this part of myself. And it turns out subconsciously, I 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:08.920 have actually found pursuits in which I can forge those 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.200 emotional connections. Right, as a cognitive scientist, I study the 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:15.880 science of connection, as a writer, as a podcast host 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:18.360 of a slight change of plans, the whole enterprise is 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:22.600 about having these deep, emotional, rich conversations with other people, right, 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:25.960 And so I would urge people who are listening to 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:31.880 ask themselves, what is what is my why? What is 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:34.360 the thing that makes me tick? Maybe it's giving to 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:40.320 my community, maybe it's learning something new, maybe it's caring 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.560 for others in times of need. Whatever that why is, 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:48.680 it can serve as a soft landing when that anvil 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:50.800 falls from the sky and you don't know who you 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:52.880 are anymore, and it can be a north star that 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:56.840 helps guide you towards your next thing because it will 0:07:56.920 --> 0:07:59.720 still be very much intact, you know, like, just because 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:02.760 I love the violin didn't mean that I lost what 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:05.800 led me to love it in the first place. So 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:10.200 my dad's a theoretical physicist. He has no musical connections. 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:13.200 But what he told me when I learned that I 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:16.920 could not play the violin was, look, you've been wearing 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:20.400 blinders for the last ten years, and so your understanding 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:23.040 of the world is very very small. Your job, and 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:25.320 I remember this was the summer before college, he said, 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:30.040 your job is to expose yourself to as many domains 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:32.400 as you possibly can. I want you to read books, 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:33.959 I want you to watch documentaries. I want you to 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:37.640 talk to people that you find fascinating, absorb everything like 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:41.040 a sponge, but importantly, do it without an end goal 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:45.760 in mind. So I don't want you to limit yourself 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:48.720 too quickly because you think I have to figure out 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:50.640 what my major is going to be in college. And 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:52.520 good thing he gave me that guidance rang. 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.520 Because you could have jumped to I'm going to play 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:56.560 the tuba now. 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:02.160 Exactly, or something I was familiar with, right, I'd be 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:04.160 like I liked history in high school. Maybe I'll be 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:06.559 a history major. Good thing he gave me that advice 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:11.000 because I literally didn't even know cognitive science was a discipline. 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:12.920 I didn't know that it was an area of study. 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:15.520 I didn't know what those words meant. And it was 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:19.160 only when I stumbled upon a book by the Harvard 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:23.800 psychologist Stephen Pinker, It's called The Language Instinct, that I 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:28.000 was again onspired, very different experience, obviously than when I 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:30.959 was listening to Beethoven in my bed, you know, as 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:33.400 a ten or eleven year old. But I was reading 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:36.079 this book and it was giving me insight into this 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:40.760 miraculous organ that is our brain and what is going 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:46.160 on behind the scenes that gives rise to our unbelievable 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:48.840 capacity for language. I mean, we just take for granted, 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:50.880 like right now, in this moment, you and I are 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:53.600 having the super I think, it's a super fun conversation. 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:56.360 This stuff that's happening in your brain in order to 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:59.000 process what I'm producing, and the stuff that's happening in 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:02.199 my brain to produce what I'm producing, is just truly 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:05.840 extraordinary when you think about the cognitive machinery. And I 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:08.440 thought to myself, oh my god, if this is what's 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:12.840 going on behind the scenes for language. Then what's happening 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:16.439 when not we I didn't inherit my dad's physics genes, 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:19.360 but when my dad solves a complex mathematics equation, or 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:24.080 we fall in love, or we extend forgiveness to someone, 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:28.360 like it just lit up my imagination about all these fascinating. 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:31.360 Topics talking about consciousness, yes, which is much bigger than 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:36.280 necessarily just the brain or what goes on neurologically in 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:38.720 the brain, because all of these different aspects. And let's 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:40.240 go back to the language for a minute, because I always 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:44.160 think about this like I think about the word mountain, Okay, 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:46.800 Like if you see a bunch of scratches on a 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:50.760 paper with a M and it says mountain, So that's 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:55.280 another level of it. Like you're reading these symbols, these glyphs, 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:59.680 and you know exactly what it means, but is it exact? 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:01.679 What is that mean? When you see the word mountain, 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:02.840 what do you think of? Do you think of like 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:06.720 archetypal mountain? Do you think of like a kid drawing 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:11.800 like a mountain? Do you think of a mountain from 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:14.959 your childhood? You think about some kind of union arc 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:18.680 type of mountain, or some kind of plato higher form 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:21.720 of what a mountain is. And then when then we 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:24.520 start using it metaphorically, then we're like, that's a this 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:26.720 is a mountain too high for me to climb, or 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:28.560 that was a tough mountain for me to get over, 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:31.360 or there's you know, mountains ahead of me, or like 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:34.560 the Hastiens say, you know mountains beyond mountains. It starts 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:37.760 to have all these reverberations about what a mountain means. 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:45.160 It's it's solidity, and it's insurmountable, but sometimes surmountable when 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.040 you reach the peak of the mountain. So all of 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:52.880 a sudden, these these glyphs go to an idea and 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:56.720 the ideas in your brain that is connected to what 0:11:56.760 --> 0:11:59.120 an actual mountain is. We went over here and saw 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:03.840 Mount Whitney's, but it reverberates on so many different levels. 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:08.160 Thank you for sharing in my passion for linguistics. It 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:11.839 was actually my concentration when I was a cognitive science maker. 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:12.480 How about that? 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:15.800 Because I am fascinated by all the things you just said, 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:19.559 and I remember learning or just just just really just 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:22.560 having a moment of recognition when we were learning about 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:27.679 child language development. So a kid hears a bunch of 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:31.880 incoming auditory streams all the time, and sometimes in multiple languages, 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:34.920 depending on the household they grow up in. Right, no 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:38.360 one is formally teaching them grammatical structures. No one's teaching 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:43.080 them explicitly. Oh, this is where one word begins and 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:46.480 the next word ends. We don't pause between words. Right now, 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.960 your brain is parsing the words effortlessly because it knows 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:52.280 semantically that each thing means a distinct thing. 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:54.640 Oh, this is what's happening. This is what's happening in 0:12:54.679 --> 0:13:00.440 my brain. Toilet paper, head of broccoli, bananas, raw on almonds. 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:04.440 I've got my Trader Joe's shot, and I should be 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:06.240 listening to what you're saying. 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:10.240 Multitasking is fine, Okay, yeah, totally, and keep going. Trader 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:13.719 Joe's has actually my favorite almonds, So I think it's 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:15.920 a good choice. All right, you chose well. And so 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:20.320 I find it miraculous that these little beings and their brains, yeah, 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:23.240 can take all of that in and within a short 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:26.600 amount of time, are like, yep, I understand how to 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.480 produce sentences, and I know exactly what you're saying to me, 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:32.400 despite the fact that you know it's just a streamist 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:36.640 of sounds it's crazy, it's crazy, it's so onspiring. 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:39.720 Yeah, but what do you think about that, that level 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:44.280 of meaning of a word of like symbols, symbol of mountain, 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:47.480 the shape of mountain, the archetype of mountain, the reality 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:48.960 of mountain, the metaphor of mountain. 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:50.240 I think a lot of it has to do with 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:52.920 the state, the emotional state we're primed to be in. Right, 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:56.680 if you're at say a yoga retreat, and you're asked 0:13:56.679 --> 0:13:58.840 the thing about mountains, you might have a more abstract 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:01.680 image that comes to mind. Right, But if you are 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:06.480 driving exactly and you're you have a map in front 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:07.920 of you and you're trying to just figure out which 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:09.840 peak to go to in order to go skiing, yeah, 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:12.200 you might have a slightly more literal image come to mind. 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:15.160 So I think we're all capable of the continuum of 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:18.160 you know, very concrete to very abstract. It just depends 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:20.200 on the mental state we happen to be in. 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:23.720 How do you end up in the Obama White House 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:26.240 with a degree in cognitive science? 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:26.600 How does that? 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:29.560 How does that work? I've never heard of that before. 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:33.560 I've never heard of a cognitive scientist working for some 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:36.800 kind of political administration. 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:39.880 That wasn't such a role, so that would make sense. 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:44.120 So I got my PhD and then my postdoc in 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:48.920 cognitive neuroscience, and I when I was doing my postdoc, 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:52.120 I was studying decision making. So I was studying all 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:55.240 the biases that drive the decisions we make, how we 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:58.120 develop our attitudes and beliefs, how we think about risk 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:01.040 when we're trying to make a decision, when we have regrets, 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:07.160 how our emotional states differ depending on our risk tolerance. Right, 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:10.240 It's just like a fascinating number of questions. And I 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:14.400 was also realizing that, oh crap, I don't think academia 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:16.520 is for me, which is one of those moments that 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:18.960 you're hoping won't happen to you when you've spent ten 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:22.600 years studying a field. So I remember calling my undergrad advisor. 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:25.760 I remember it. I was in the basement of a 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:29.520 Stanford MRI fMRI laboratory and I was scanning like the 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:31.880 tenth person's brain for the day as part of the study. 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:35.280 And there's no windows, and it's this dark room, and 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:39.160 I thought that this is a terrible fit for me 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:41.480 and my personality. I like working on teams, I like 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:45.520 having a really you know, vibrant environment and seeing impact 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:48.000 really quickly, and academia doesn't lend itself to a lot 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:51.280 of those things, and so or often doesn't. And so 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:53.440 I called my advisor and I was like, okay, jumping ship, 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:55.320 thank you so much for your service, thank you for 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:57.320 getting me to love this topic. But I'm not interested. 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:00.560 And she said, no, no, no, wait, wait wait, I just 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:03.040 went to a conference where I heard about how they're 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:07.520 using insights from cognitive science from behavioral science to improve 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:10.560 people's lives in the US. He said, Okay, tell me more. 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:13.320 She said, well, there's a program called the National School 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:16.680 Lunch Program. It gives lunches to free or reduced price 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:22.600 lunches to low income kids, and unfortunately, millions of kids 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:26.200 were going hungry every day, despite the fact that despite 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:30.120 the fact the program was offered to so many and 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:32.880 they ran a behavioral audit of the program and realized 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:35.520 that there were at least two factors that were contributing 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:40.560 to low enrollment rates. The first was stigma. A lot 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:42.560 of these parents were like, I work really hard. I 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:45.479 don't want my kids depending on the federal government for assistance. 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:49.760 And then there was also just the barrier, the outsize 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:52.800 barrier that these families faced of having to fill out 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:57.440 very very complicated forms that require referencing multiple tax documents 0:16:57.480 --> 0:16:59.640 and oh, by the way, if you get some field wrong, 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:04.840 you might face you know, also tells t is exactly 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:08.800 fraud and think it. Put yourself in the shoes of 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:11.240 a single mom who's working three shifts to make ends meet. 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:13.639 It's non trivial for her to fill out this form 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:15.760 and to figure out a way to get their boss 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:18.160 to approve a lunch break in order to go mail 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:19.880 it exactly at the time that you're suppos to mail 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:21.919 it in order to get enrolled, right, And so we 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:26.199 can sometimes underestimate those barriers when we forget about the 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:28.879 time and resource constraints that families face in the country, 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:32.960 and by we m at policymakers. And so what the 0:17:33.000 --> 0:17:36.800 government did was leverage a really elegant insight from my field, 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:39.679 which is called the power of the default option. They 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:43.679 simply change the program from an opt in program to 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:47.400 an opt out program. So by virtue of being opt out, 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:52.200 everyone's now automatically enrolled. Stigma's gone. Parents only have to 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:54.879 take an active step if they want to unenroll. Their 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:58.080 kid from the program, and as a result of this 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:00.879 slight tweak in the way the Paul's he was designed, 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:03.920 twelve and a half million more kids were now eating 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:05.000 lunch at school every day. 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:06.360 Wow, that's amazing. 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.159 Yeah. So I heard this example and I said to 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:12.640 my undergrad advisor, that's the job that I want to do. 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:15.840 And she said, well, the job doesn't exist, but let 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:19.159 me connect you with this guy, Cass Sunstein, who was 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:22.359 running an office at the White House, and maybe he 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:24.760 can help. So I email him and I'm like, Hey, 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:27.879 I'm Maya. I've published nothing of significance, i have no 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:31.040 public policy experience, I'm not cool enough to work with 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:33.440 the likes of Obama. But is there a state or 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.280 local government job that I might be able to translate 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:39.959 insights from my field into public policy improvements? And fortunately 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:42.719 for me, Cass ignored all of my insecurities that were 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:45.680 just seeping out of this email, and he wrote again, 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:48.440 kindness of strangers. He wrote back to me and said, 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:52.840 here's Obama's science advisor's email. Send him a note and 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:55.600 let him know I passed you along. And two days 0:18:55.680 --> 0:19:00.000 later I was interviewing for a job that didn't exist, 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:02.760 and I pitched them on the idea of not just 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:05.800 creating a job that was dedicated to the translation of 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:09.480 behavioral science into policy, but also like, could they maybe 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:11.920 kind of hire me for that job as well, Right, 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:15.120 and so yeah, it's just kind of wild to think 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:19.280 back to this period, but it all worked out after 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:22.320 you know, all the FBI clearances and whatnot and getting 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:25.600 the role approved, and then a couple months later I 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:27.320 started working in the White House and I worked there 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:29.360 for the entirety of Obama's second term. 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:31.840 Amazing, that's so cool. 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:33.040 It was so cool. 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:35.800 What policies then did you work on? You worked in 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:38.080 Flint a good deal with the water crisis. 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:42.320 Yes, So we worked with so many different government agencies, 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:45.440 so we did a lot of light touch interventions given that, 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:48.080 you know, there weren't a lot of funds to devote 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:51.679 to radical program overhauls. So instead, what we tried to 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:54.760 do was to take existing programs and make sure that 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:58.440 the people they were designed to benefit were actually receiving them. 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:00.880 And so a good example is the there are these 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:04.360 very helpful veterans benefits that we give to people when 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:07.679 they're transitioning from military life to civilian life, which can 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:10.760 be really fraught with a lot of psychological challenges and 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:15.280 educational and job challenges and not enough. That's we're signing up. 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:18.359 And we were told, okay, there's one email that you 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:22.560 can you know, change. That's all the money we have, 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:25.000 and we'll run a very simple A B test And 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:27.240 we ended up changing just one word in the email. 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:30.960 Instead of telling veterans that they were eligible for the program, 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:34.000 we simply reminded them that they had earned it through 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:34.840 their years of service. 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:35.840 Wow, that's so cool. 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:38.240 And that one word change led to a nine percent 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:39.680 increase in access to the venement. 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:41.480 This goes back to linguistics, right. 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:43.480 Linguistics. Absolutely, it's actually. 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:47.000 Leveraging feeling of like, you know, you can opt in 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:50.320 for this versus you've earned this right through your work, 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:53.520 through your service to our country. There's a it triggers 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:54.480 some pride. 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:58.080 One hundred percent. It's leveraging an insight known as the 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:01.240 endowment effect, which says that we've value things more when 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:03.960 we own them. So for example, if I owned which 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:06.879 I hope I do. At the end of this is interview, 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:10.520 this wonderful sorry, no mug when we own things. 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:12.880 Or how good the rest of the interview goes. 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:16.800 Or we feel we have earned something. So, like you said, 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:19.119 now it's not something that they're going to gain, it's 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:21.320 something they now have to lose because they've already gotten 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:23.320 this benefit. So we did that sort of work, and 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:26.399 we worked across the government, so helping student loan borrowers, 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:33.159 helping caregivers of wounded vets, helping military service members, and 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:36.320 rolling retirement savings plans. And then towards the end of them. 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:41.520 You're talking about making government programs more effective and service 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:45.920 oriented instead of cutting them to the bone and eliminating 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:49.679 them and getting rid of them, making government more effective. 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:52.840 That's it was a different time. Rain. It's a different time, 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:56.200 my friend, makes me quite nostalgic to think back. But yes, 0:21:56.280 --> 0:22:00.520 we are starry eyed and bushy tailed, and we really 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:03.520 believed that government could do great things for people, and 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:06.199 it does do great things for people. We wanted to 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:08.399 just improve the way that it serves people. 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:09.639