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and more. Listen to Ted Talks

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Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Hey

0:34

everyone, it's Adam Grant. I'm

0:36

in the midst of my book tour for Hidden Potential. The

0:39

day before my LA event, the host,

0:41

Rainn Wilson, got COVID and had to

0:43

cancel. Jennifer Garner

0:45

kindly volunteered to step in, and the conversation

0:47

was fun and surprising in more ways than

0:50

I can count. The

0:52

outpouring of feedback from the audience afterwards sent

0:54

a clear message. We have

0:56

to make this into a podcast. So we

0:58

did. You've probably

1:00

admired Jen's range on screen, from

1:02

spy and superhero in Alias and Electra,

1:05

to dramatic roles in Juno and Dallas

1:07

Buyers Club, to comedic prowess in 13

1:10

Going on 30 and Family Switch. I've

1:13

been a fan since her early days on Felicity and

1:15

in Dude Where's My Car, and

1:17

more recently of her impact in advocating

1:19

for children and in co-founding an organic

1:21

baby food company, Once Upon a Farm.

1:25

Jen has won a Golden Globe for her

1:27

acting, but as you're about to hear, she's

1:29

every bit as talented in improv. I

1:40

do have a text from Rainn. He says, the

1:42

truth is I canceled tonight because I couldn't get

1:44

through your book. Thank

1:49

you, Rainn Wilson. I

1:52

felt like we should line up surprise

1:54

guests to take Rainn's place. So this

1:56

morning I sent a Hail Mary to

1:58

somebody I've admired for... for, I

2:01

don't know, 25 years, who

2:03

I've never met in person, who

2:05

wrote back within an hour and said, I got you,

2:09

and rearranged a very,

2:11

very busy schedule post-strike

2:14

in order to come here. Now, I

2:16

should say this person is no Dwight Schrute.

2:21

Has never sold paper, to my knowledge, but

2:25

could destroy Dwight in a

2:27

martial arts competition, judging

2:30

by several roles this person has mastered.

2:34

And also, in addition to being a

2:36

brilliant, award-winning actor, is one

2:38

of the only humans I've ever met with a heart as

2:40

big as rain. So

2:43

ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming

2:45

tonight, and please welcome Jennifer Garner. Oh!

3:00

Hi! Hi!

3:05

Wow, I'm Jen. Hi, Alex, how are

3:07

you? Hi, nice to meet you. Eat

3:10

that, Rainn Wilson. Did you hear? Oh

3:14

my gosh, I'm such a fan of his,

3:16

how about his book? Rainn Wilson's book, what

3:18

was it? The Soulboom. Soulboom, I loved

3:20

his book. I loved it until

3:22

he canceled. I still

3:24

love it, I still love it. Well,

3:26

your book, Adam, you see, I've

3:28

come out with all of my

3:30

stuff. Your book has

3:32

a lot to do with discomfort, and

3:35

I just feel like I should be

3:37

celebrated as the person who is the

3:39

most uncomfortable in the room. I don't know. Because

3:43

the time I've spent with this book

3:45

was the time it took me to drive from the West

3:47

Side. Oh! But

3:51

you know what? We're gonna be fine, you

3:53

guys. Just hangin', we've got Adam Grant here!

3:55

You know, I... I

4:02

understand that someone melted the freeway to give you

4:04

extra reading time. Which

4:07

I didn't even know was a thing. It's great to be

4:09

in LA. Yeah, we can invent

4:11

all kinds of ways to fuck up your

4:13

day. Wait,

4:17

Jennifer Garner Squares? Only

4:21

okay, don't let it leave this

4:23

room, okay? Okay. I have a

4:26

reputation to uphold

4:28

here. You

4:30

know what? I'm gonna dive in. Okay guys,

4:32

because I'll feel better once I've asked a

4:34

legitimate question. So bear with me.

4:36

We're just gonna dive in. You start

4:38

off because I did read the prologue.

4:46

Something you said early on really

4:48

hit me. It's

4:54

great, don't worry. Okay. It

4:59

says somebody

5:02

was able to predict the

5:04

success that students achieved as

5:06

adults simply by looking at

5:08

who taught their kindergarten class.

5:11

That's so cool. Kindergarten teachers

5:13

are amazing. You just see them like

5:16

tying shoes and wiping noses and counting

5:18

lost teeth. But they're

5:20

amazing. So can I ask you please,

5:23

Adam, Grant, why?

5:26

What is special? What is it about kindergarten

5:28

teachers? And tell

5:30

us about your kindergarten teacher because they must have

5:33

been bang up. Thank

5:36

you, I think. Okay, so let's start

5:39

with the data. So a great

5:41

team of economists, they show that the more

5:43

experienced kindergarten teachers set you up for adult

5:45

success, not by teaching you cognitive

5:47

skills, first and foremost, not by math and

5:49

reading, which they convey, but the edge

5:51

they give you in that wears off over time.

5:54

What they really instill that matters is our character

5:56

skills. They teach you to

5:58

be proactive and pro-social and disciplined. disciplined and

6:00

determined. I don't know, my

6:02

kindergarten teacher is Serena Baghdad. Wow.

6:06

I remember being really mad, we had to do a career day

6:09

and everyone wanted the football player and I

6:11

got the young executive. And

6:14

I had to walk in with a briefcase and

6:18

I walked in like a, I looked like a

6:20

Muppet. I forgot the briefcase and I had to

6:22

be reminded to go back and it was mortifying

6:24

and that was the beginning of my fear of

6:26

public speaking. Was it really? Yeah. Wow. I

6:30

don't want to freak you out. But

6:32

there are some people here tonight listening

6:35

to you speak. How did you

6:37

become comfortable? Was it because of your

6:39

kindergarten teacher? No, it doesn't sound like it.

6:41

No, what makes you think I'm comfortable? You're

6:46

claiming to be uncomfortable but you do this for a living,

6:48

Jen. Come on. I don't do this

6:50

for a living. I learn my lines, dude. I

6:53

don't, this is not how I show up

6:55

to set. But okay, yeah, so

6:57

I do this for a living. Tell me.

7:02

You are so much edgier than you claim to be. I

7:04

love it. Okay,

7:06

so yeah, I did get more, I got

7:08

less uncomfortable. Can we go with that? Okay.

7:12

Okay, so I was, it was my first semester

7:14

of grad school. I realized I'm supposed to

7:16

be a professor, professor's professor. I

7:19

should probably learn to get over my fear of public speaking.

7:21

And I went through all of college where, if I even

7:23

thought about raising my hand, I would literally start to shake.

7:26

And so I felt like I had to do something about it. And I

7:29

asked a bunch of my friends if they would let me

7:31

give guest lectures in their classes. I was

7:33

able to do a few of these. It was really uncomfortable

7:35

for a long time. And I guess that was foreshadowing because,

7:38

I don't know, three, four years later, I was in

7:40

my mid 20s and I got asked by the

7:42

Air Force to teach a four hour class on

7:44

motivation. But I'm terrified these people are gonna be

7:46

twice my age and they all have

7:48

like scary Top Gun nicknames.

7:51

Yeah. They have thousands

7:53

of flying hours. They wear bars on their,

7:55

you know. Yeah, I have no business, but

7:57

they asked me to do it. So I

7:59

show up. and I literally pour

8:01

everything I know into four hours. Four

8:03

hours, dude, that's a lot of public speaking. It

8:06

was a lot of time. Okay. There

8:08

were like 50 of them, and I got

8:10

the feedback forms afterward, and they were

8:12

less kind than the students. One

8:16

of the generals wrote, more

8:18

knowledge in the audience than on the podium.

8:21

Well... And I was like, fact. Yeah,

8:24

that's not... Obviously, I mean, come

8:26

on. So what did you learn

8:28

from practicing and getting feedback? You

8:31

changed your approach, right? A little

8:33

bit. So... Yeah.

8:35

Yeah. Well, okay, so the thing... You

8:37

think we're still early days, and I'm still up to date. The

8:40

thing that

8:42

I think really moved the needle for me

8:44

was the one colonel who wrote, I gained

8:46

nothing from this session, but I

8:49

trust the instructor got useful insight. So

8:56

here's the problem. I wanted to quit, but I

8:58

had committed to do a second session for

9:00

a different group in the Air Force, and I only had a

9:02

week. I didn't have time to

9:04

reboot my content. I couldn't change really any of

9:06

it except the way I introduced myself. So

9:09

I asked everybody at the

9:11

session that I could find, like, what is

9:13

the one thing I can do better next time? And they

9:15

said, all of them said, change the way you introduce yourself.

9:18

As this kid, you're trying to establish your credentials.

9:21

You're trying to prove your expertise. And

9:23

in the room, if you look around, Stryker and

9:25

Sandune were having none of it. Yeah.

9:30

So you got to do something about this. And I'm

9:32

like, all right, what do I do? We like a

9:34

movie joke here. You can keep that coming. Okay.

9:37

That, by the way, has exhausted all my pop culture

9:39

knowledge. But there

9:41

are some people in the audience who can help with that, I hope.

9:43

And maybe you can too. Yeah, I don't know. Anyway,

9:46

long story short, I walked in

9:49

the next week and did what went against

9:51

every fiber of my being. I said, I've

9:53

got to call out the elephant in the room. And

9:56

admit that I don't know what the hell I'm doing. So

9:59

walked in. I looked out

10:01

at the audience, all these stone-faced senior

10:04

military officers, and I

10:06

said, look, I know what you all are thinking right now.

10:09

What could I possibly learn from a professor who's 12

10:11

years old? They

10:15

did not find that amusing at all. At

10:18

all. And then after what

10:20

felt like an eternity, one of them said, ah,

10:22

ridiculous, you gotta be at least 13. And

10:26

that broke the ice, and I had a completely

10:29

different interaction with them, and the feedback was much

10:31

more positive, and I learned that it's

10:33

much better to admit what I don't know than to claim that

10:35

I know a lot of stuff. Oh,

10:37

wow. Okay, that's

10:40

a good one. You got

10:42

us there, didn't you, pal? Okay, great,

10:44

great, great. Wait a minute, okay, so Jen,

10:46

let me turn this around on you. Okay.

10:49

You told me backstage that you are

10:54

something who has frequently

10:56

put yourself in uncomfortable situations. Yeah.

11:01

in acting, I also wanna hear about learning to ski as an adult. I

11:04

feel that way at work all the time.

11:06

I mean, I think probably a lot of us

11:08

do, where we are

11:10

terrified and that's why we take the job

11:13

and then we get there and we think, why did I do this?

11:15

And you spend kind of half of

11:17

your time getting your feet under you and

11:19

feeling like I'm in over my head, but. Wait,

11:21

did you feel that way on Felicity? Wait,

11:24

is anyone in the audience also old enough to have

11:26

watched Felicity in college? Okay. My

11:28

wife and I both love that show and we've been

11:31

fans of yours ever since we watched it. Oh

11:33

my gosh, good old Hannah. I just rewatched

11:35

it recently because there's a

11:37

Felicity podcast that I needed

11:40

to know what I had done to talk

11:42

about it. And. Do

11:44

you have notes? Yes,

11:46

as a matter of fact. But yes, of course I felt

11:48

that way. I just, I always

11:50

do. I don't think I ever don't.

11:52

I think that's what keeps me interested

11:54

is that I will never

11:57

perfect it. Like men feel about golf

11:59

or something. people feel about golf? You

12:02

know, I'll never fully, I know

12:04

enough things to feel like, okay, I

12:06

can master how to do this. Like,

12:08

if there's a hallway and there's a

12:10

door and you want me to enter

12:12

the door and look back over my

12:14

shoulder at camera just before I enter

12:16

the door to tell you, hey, I'm

12:19

sneaking, I can do that better

12:21

than anyone and get that

12:23

down that spy kind of stuff, I can

12:25

do it. But other than that,

12:27

I always feel off my rocker. But no,

12:30

I learned to ski at 40. I

12:33

have this image of you going on the ski slope

12:35

for the first time and being like, what would Sydney

12:37

Bristow do? Sydney really changed me as

12:39

a person because she had so much

12:41

more bravado than I did. And she

12:43

believed in herself in a way that I

12:45

don't know that I did at that

12:47

age at that time. Yeah, walking

12:50

like her, it

12:53

affected me, it gave me more confidence. But

12:55

anyway, we're here to talk about you. I

12:58

have more questions. We keep going. Okay, okay, okay.

13:01

Can we talk about the process

13:03

of writing itself and the process

13:05

and just the stumble,

13:07

the block of procrastination? I

13:10

mean, how do you procrastinate? What does it

13:12

look like for you? What's the way past

13:14

it? What's the magic bullet? I've

13:16

gone on the record saying I'm not a procrastinator.

13:19

I'm the opposite. I'm a procrastinator. When

13:21

I have a deadline, I'm finishing at least

13:23

three months early, maybe six months early. And...

13:27

Us too, right? No,

13:29

no, no. This is

13:31

not as great as it seems. One, because it

13:33

made me a really annoying college roommate, I learned

13:35

the hard way. And two, it

13:38

kills creativity because you rush in with your

13:40

first idea instead of waiting for your best

13:42

idea. And an amazing PhD student

13:44

named Ji Hei Shin had to do the research

13:46

to prove to me that I was stifling my

13:48

own creativity by doing things early. But

13:51

I think more importantly, I learned while writing

13:53

this book that I was wrong. I am

13:56

not always a procrastinator. There are things I

13:58

procrastinate on. And one of them is... I

14:00

hate editing more than any other part of my

14:02

job. I feel like I've

14:04

already figured out the idea. I know

14:07

the study, I've captured the story. I'm

14:10

like, I'm the one yard line, and that extra

14:12

bit takes a ton of work and I don't

14:14

care about it, but I know the reader does.

14:17

I hate that. So what

14:19

do you do? So the editing thing I

14:21

really struggle with is imagery. I'm

14:24

way too cognitive and abstract, and

14:26

I need to get the vividness and the story and the

14:28

emotion and I need to over index on that. And

14:31

normally I just find that really boring and

14:33

repetitive and stressful. And this time what

14:35

I did was I tried to

14:37

impersonate different writers that I admire and

14:40

write in their voice. So

14:42

one morning I got up and I was like, okay, I'm gonna

14:44

rewrite this paragraph in the voice of Maya Angelou. Wow,

14:47

really? I picked a bunch

14:49

of my favorite fiction writers who were really good at

14:52

that kind of imagery. And I thought to myself, okay,

14:54

can I write the John Green version of this? Can I

14:57

write the Maggie Smith version of this? And

14:59

that is a really good exercise because it forces

15:01

me to enjoy editing and it makes it fun

15:03

and playful. And would you find something

15:05

in there that you could use or did it

15:07

just unlock you going back in your own

15:09

voice? Yeah, I think in a lot of

15:11

cases what it's done is it's allowed me

15:14

to step outside of my hyperlinear, let

15:16

me give this the academic treatment and

15:19

into the, let's be a little more

15:21

playful and let's tell a story that

15:23

may not have a perfect resolution. Okay,

15:26

very cool. So thinking

15:29

about that, how much of a

15:31

perfectionist are you, everybody

15:33

has their own struggles with it. I

15:36

always say I am not type A, I'm

15:38

type Z, I forget things, I send the

15:40

kids to school without the very homework that

15:42

I was supposed to sign that they said

15:44

they took care of and said, mom, please

15:46

sign and then I sign it and I

15:48

leave it in the wrong room. Like

15:50

I just am not. But

15:52

at the same time, I think I might be a

15:55

little bit of a perfectionist sometimes and get in my

15:57

own way. So can you talk

15:59

about that? and how does perfectionism much

16:01

with you? I can try.

16:03

So I was really excited to write this

16:06

chapter because I felt like I had transcended

16:08

perfectionism. Turns out, I'm still in

16:10

recovery. One

16:12

of the ways I discovered it was I wrote a little quiz that

16:15

people could take to figure out how they scored on the different character

16:18

skills in the book and as you

16:20

always do when you write an assessment, you take it yourself and

16:22

I took it and my lowest score

16:24

was on accepting imperfections. So

16:26

I failed my own head. I

16:29

knew what the questions were, I still could not do

16:31

it. So this is really embarrassing.

16:35

So I think when it first got me in trouble

16:37

was when I was a springboard diver, which

16:41

was also a bad choice of sports because I was

16:43

afraid of heights. Okay.

16:46

So you decide to be a diver and what

16:49

was it, just

16:52

can you tell us about your coach and

16:54

about what was special about him and perfectionism

16:57

and other things that take up some

16:59

time? Yeah. I

17:01

feel like we're done. Yes.

17:11

Yes, I certainly could. So

17:15

I had an exceptional coach, Eric Best. When I would stand

17:17

at the end of the board frozen, he would ask me,

17:19

Adam, are you gonna do this stuff?

17:22

And I remember being like, ever? Yes,

17:26

of course, one day I will do this stuff. And he was

17:28

like, great, then what are you waiting for? I have heard

17:30

that voice in my head every single time I've been afraid

17:32

to try something new. When I was

17:34

hesitating to write my first book, I heard Eric's

17:36

voice, are you gonna write this book one day?

17:39

Yes, then what are you waiting for? The

17:41

lessons of coaches and teachers, aren't

17:43

they amazing? And they seem to

17:45

be able to impart those character

17:47

lessons better than anyone. Like

17:49

my ballet teacher growing up, I was never

17:51

ever gonna be a dancer, but

17:54

she did work so hard and

17:56

with so much integrity that

17:58

it made me feel like, well, I just... I just want

18:00

her to be impressed by me that just

18:02

a little bit. I knew I

18:04

couldn't impress her with my dance, but that she saw,

18:08

I mean, you know facts, but just

18:10

that she saw that I cared enough,

18:12

right? That's

18:15

amazing. And you talk about that, those soft

18:17

skills. What are the other ones? Well,

18:20

I actually wanna call out something that I think

18:22

is really powerful in this example of yours, which

18:24

is I think so often parents think that's on

18:26

me. Yeah. And

18:28

the reality is that your kids usually don't wanna hear it

18:30

from you. First of all, they

18:33

think that you're biased. Like you have to tell me I'm

18:35

special. And so they often discount it.

18:37

And secondly, because they don't wanna be controlled

18:40

by their parents, they often resist the very

18:42

thing you're trying to motivate them to do.

18:44

And so, one of the... It's so frustrating.

18:46

It is. Because you know and

18:48

they don't wanna listen. Well, or

18:51

maybe you don't know and you think you know, is the

18:53

thing I always have to remind myself of. I know. But

18:56

I feel very confident in my knowledge.

18:59

Yes. But I think so often what

19:01

a parent has to do is get out of the way

19:03

and say, let me find that coach who's the right source

19:05

for the message that I think is really important. So

19:08

how do you know when you find that coach?

19:10

I mean, is it that they're fun? Is it

19:12

that they are tough? Is it that... What is

19:14

it that you look for? I

19:17

don't know if there's one magic ingredient.

19:19

I think from the Benjamin Bloom research, I

19:22

think the most important thing is the first

19:24

teacher and the coach who makes learning

19:27

fun. That's what predicts better than anything else

19:29

that I know that you can measure whether

19:31

you go on to achieve greater things. In

19:33

anything, whatever it is you're learning. Even piano.

19:36

Yes, even piano. Did you not

19:38

like the piano? Damn it. No,

19:40

no, but I find it

19:42

really hard to convince children

19:45

of mine the

19:49

value in it and I just don't

19:51

understand. So then I decided if they

19:53

have that about something else

19:55

that isn't piano, like say they have it

19:57

about learning to solve a Rubik's Cube You

20:00

say they have it about, I don't know, all kinds of

20:02

kid things. Is that applicable? Is

20:05

it, it's just having it, right? Yeah, it's,

20:07

I think the, so many parents, I think

20:09

the Mozart effect is one of the worst

20:11

things that's ever happened to parents. You're like,

20:14

oh, my kid is only gonna become really

20:17

impressive and achieve whatever their potential is

20:19

if they get into music. It's

20:21

like, no, whatever the activity is, it's a Trojan horse.

20:24

What you're smuggling in are a set of character

20:26

skills, and I mean, honestly, Jen, I don't

20:29

say this publicly, generally, but I think

20:31

before diving, the best place for me

20:34

learning character skills was video games. Ah!

20:38

I know, blasphemy, right? Ah!

20:42

No one showed this to my son.

20:44

What? Why?

20:48

What? Because you lose, and it's really

20:50

frustrating, and you have to build the

20:52

resilience and the grit to

20:54

try again and then improve your skills, and

20:57

you get reinforced for that, and you level up, and I

20:59

would sit there trying to beat a game, and that's what

21:02

I do as a writer now. I

21:04

have to sit there with a blinking cursor and try

21:06

to defeat it. Same skill.

21:08

Whoa! Okay, what were

21:10

you playing? Was it Frogger? Ah!

21:15

No. It started

21:17

out with Super Mario Brothers, of course,

21:20

and then graduated to... Dun dun

21:22

dun dun dun dun dun dun

21:24

dun dun dun dun dun. Okay,

21:26

go ahead. Yeah. Then

21:30

it was Zelda, then it was Mario Kart

21:32

and Mortal Kombat. Mortal

21:34

Kombat? Yeah. Yeah, first

21:37

person shooter. It's not a shooter, it's a

21:39

fighter, come on. I don't know, I don't do these things.

21:41

Okay, all right. You literally

21:43

had played Mortal Kombat characters

21:45

almost multiple times. You

21:48

did it on Alias, you did it in Daredevil, and

21:50

you did it in Electra, and some of us hope

21:52

you will do it in the Marvel Cinematic Universe again.

21:55

Ooh! Interesting.

22:03

Okay. All right. That's

22:06

a real key insight we just learned here

22:10

about the video games. I have to tell you,

22:12

I did a whole podcast on this last

22:15

year because so many parents were

22:17

upset about the initial post, but there's

22:20

a really good set of meta-analyses,

22:22

studies of studies, longitudinal studies, and

22:25

randomized controlled experiments showing that video

22:27

games actually build willpower and self-control.

22:29

Wow. Surprise, surprise. Every

22:32

11-year-old boy's best friend. To be

22:34

fair, I didn't have very many friends as an

22:36

11-year-old boy. Oh,

22:39

my God. Oh, man. Wow. You can

22:41

hang with Sam Affleck anytime. Okay. So

22:43

can you tell me, as a big,

22:45

big fan of up to

22:51

page 73, what's

22:53

your favorite story in the book? Favorite

22:56

story in the book? Hard

23:00

to argue with the raging rooks in

23:02

the prologue. I love them. I was

23:04

even tempted to carry them through the whole book, but

23:06

then I realized it's too much writing on one story.

23:09

Well, the raging rooks, they have main character

23:11

energy, so tell us a little bit

23:13

about them. I

23:15

think the main thing to know about them is their

23:18

coach, Maurice Ashley, changed the way that I

23:20

think about coaching. So Maurice took

23:22

a bunch of poor racial minorities in Harlem.

23:25

He helped them seek more potential in themselves

23:27

than anyone saw in them, including their parents

23:29

and their teachers and them. And

23:32

one of the things he did that I thought

23:34

was brilliant was he taught them chess. They were

23:36

trying to learn chess against all these ritzy private

23:38

schools. He taught them chess backward. Instead

23:41

of teaching, okay, here's an opening move, like

23:43

you can move your king's pawn up two

23:45

squares, he would put a few pieces

23:47

on the board and have them just try to check me.

23:50

And he said, I don't care if they know how to

23:52

play. What I want is for them to get the thrill

23:54

of victory and the pain of defeat. And

23:56

I want them to be motivated by feeling

23:58

like they can win and motivate. by the

24:01

fact that they just lost. And once you

24:03

have that satisfaction, then, and also that frustration,

24:05

then you can rewind and start learning the

24:07

skills to get the game going. I

24:09

thought that was ingenious, and I think that everything should

24:11

be taught and game first. So

24:14

good. It's so good. And

24:16

they won. They did win.

24:18

Yeah. Which was one of my favorite

24:20

parts of the story, but I think the interesting part, which

24:23

we won't spoil here, is why they won. Jen,

24:25

can I ask you, why did you say yes to this? Because...

24:28

I... No, I don't mean

24:31

it that way. I don't. I don't. What

24:35

I mean is, I

24:37

didn't even know we were friends. And... And

24:41

you said, of course

24:43

I would do this for a friend, and I was just

24:46

blown away by your kind of... You really were helpful to

24:48

me. Do you remember that?

24:50

I did nothing. Yes, you did. We

24:52

had a phone call. I was trying to figure

24:54

out how to give a TED Talk as an

24:56

unyet given TED Talk about what... World

24:59

poverty in the United States. And

25:01

you took time to help a

25:04

stranger and to talk

25:06

to me for a really long time and talk me through it,

25:08

and then I think we spoke again, and

25:10

then emailed. I mean, that's

25:12

friendship, right guys? And I feel like if you're

25:14

gonna give a yes, give a yes right away.

25:18

You know, just be a full on, you

25:20

got it. So

25:22

you, I mean, I think you've invested, what, five

25:24

or six hours just to do this. That's okay.

25:27

It's totally my pleasure. And

25:29

now I got to be with all you guys, and

25:31

now I'm well into an awesome book. And

25:33

I... Rationalizing your decision

25:36

right here. No,

25:38

I just, I was really stunned. You are

25:40

one of the rare people who's actually more

25:42

impressive up close than from a distance. Oh

25:45

my gosh. Oh,

25:47

so nice. Thank you. Undeserved

25:51

and very kind. Can I ask you another question about your

25:53

book? Are we done talking about me? If

25:56

you want to. Okay, I do. I

25:59

have more questions. If

26:01

you were designing a school, your perfect

26:03

school, what would it

26:06

look like? What would be different about it than what

26:08

we have now? I'd reverse the trend for

26:10

kindergarten to be more like first grade. And

26:13

I'd make kindergarten more like recess. Oh

26:16

yeah. I would even

26:18

say before that, I would add

26:21

bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop, all the way down to

26:23

babies. To mommy and

26:25

me, to universal. Moving your

26:27

way up to very early preschool,

26:30

childcare. Can

26:32

we just say that if wishes grew on trees, high

26:35

quality, early education, high quality childcare

26:38

so that moms could be there

26:41

and so that the brain

26:43

architects of daycare workers and

26:45

of preschool teachers could

26:47

be in there bringing

26:50

these kids' brains to life. I

26:52

mean that seems no pun intended. I couldn't know

26:54

a brainer. Yeah. We were just with

26:57

Nick Christophe, right? Yes. So Nick wrote,

26:59

I thought, the best article I've read on this topic, it's

27:01

called Too Small to Fail. Yep. And

27:04

science is so clear. Early childhood education

27:06

and placement. And we don't spend a cent

27:08

on kids until they're five as a country.

27:11

Wait. Especially when

27:13

you're in places in this country

27:15

where parents haven't had it modeled,

27:17

haven't had, they don't have books

27:19

in the home, they haven't had

27:21

early childhood singing, playing, reading

27:24

too modeled for them. They don't have neighbors.

27:26

They don't have community to lift them up

27:28

in mommy and me classes or anything like

27:31

it. And you don't have a shot if

27:33

you don't have a shot, right? If all

27:35

of us got to kindergarten and we were

27:37

all in remediation the first day we started

27:39

kindergarten and we know how smart we are,

27:42

we would hate it. And your brain has

27:44

to do something so it's gotta think of

27:46

ways to hate school then, right? Because

27:49

you're never gonna make it up so you have to go in

27:51

ready to learn. In our school,

27:53

Adam, we're gonna start with babies and

27:55

we're gonna get them into kindergarten ready

27:57

to learn. We just started a school, I love it. Yeah.

28:00

Yeah, okay. No, I mean this

28:03

I do not understand how this doesn't compute

28:05

for people I'm like you pulled yourself up

28:07

by your bootstraps, but what if you didn't

28:09

have any boots? Yeah, how are you

28:11

gonna do that? So

28:14

I grew up in West Virginia I was

28:16

surrounded by rural generational poverty But I grew

28:18

up in a middle-class house My

28:21

mom grew up in Oklahoma on a farm

28:23

where she was really really happy, but they

28:25

didn't have much at all and She

28:28

kept getting a little bit of

28:30

luck her way that led her to college

28:32

and then that changed everything for my sisters

28:35

and me and I was

28:37

very aware that there were kids in my class

28:39

who were not gonna have that same kind of

28:41

luck and In that first and

28:43

second grade and it felt really unfair to me then

28:45

and it kept feeling unfair and

28:47

it kept feeling like People like

28:49

my mom or people like these kids are

28:51

not talked about enough Can

28:54

you tell us a little bit about your work with save the children? I Went

28:57

looking for the organization with the most efficacy

28:59

in rural America and it would save the

29:01

children because saves overall mission in the hundred

29:04

years of helping over a billion kids is

29:07

To go where nobody else wants to go

29:09

and in America that's rural and I just

29:11

go and sit with people and learn and

29:13

see what their lives are like and then

29:15

I watch the Magic that the save the

29:17

children home visitor creates in their house Just

29:20

by encouraging the mom or the caretaker the

29:22

dad to sing

29:24

to their baby play with them Just encouraging them

29:26

to show them they have all the tools they need

29:28

to raise a successful kid who's ready to learn Can

29:31

we go back to our school though? Yeah, okay. We

29:34

got that figured out. All right now We're

29:37

gonna have a program where I just actually heard

29:39

about this from a teacher today I

29:41

got a great email from a teacher this morning who said Like

29:44

loved your idea of letting kids choose their own

29:46

books instead of like shoving the classics down their

29:48

throats like simple not rocket science She said what

29:50

I do is I hide books in the classroom

29:53

for kids to find we're gonna

29:55

do that We're gonna play a book hide-and-seek

29:57

or like scavenger hunt and

29:59

we're gonna to get kids excited about reading that way.

30:02

I love that. Okay, all right, great, keep

30:04

it coming. Okay, what else are we

30:06

gonna do? So they're gonna play outside,

30:09

they're gonna have recess all for a whole year and

30:11

just play. And everybody just

30:13

has to find something they're interested

30:15

in and follow it. I

30:17

could get behind that. I had

30:19

a student years ago, Lauren McCann, who came

30:22

up with this great idea for college seniors to

30:24

write letters to their freshman selves and

30:26

then give them to entering freshmen so that they

30:29

could avoid the mistakes of their predecessors. I

30:32

would love to do that for graduating elementary

30:34

schoolers and middle schoolers and high schoolers. Wow,

30:37

yeah, okay. Around

30:41

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30:43

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30:45

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30:47

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31:08

H-E-L-T, dot

31:11

com slash rethinking. So

31:14

what else do you wanna talk about? I

31:16

have more questions for you. Wait, I have

31:18

more questions? It's not like I don't have questions.

31:21

Can we talk about your over-preparing for

31:23

a second? Over-preparing, what are you

31:25

talking about? Oh

31:28

my gosh. I told you this morning, you do not

31:30

have to read the book. In fact, I prefer that

31:32

you don't read the book because then I'm gonna tell

31:34

you stuff that you already know. Okay.

31:37

As opposed to you being surprised. And yes,

31:39

you defied my instructions. You

31:42

read a lot of the book, you have it

31:44

underlined and they're corners folded, so why

31:46

did you ignore my advice? Because I've

31:48

never shown up to anything that's unprepared

31:51

in my whole life. I mean, except

31:53

for a couple of auditions. Let's face

31:55

back, but yeah. Oh, so this is

31:58

your learning your line. Exactly.

32:00

It's me learning my lines in the cab

32:02

on the way to audition. Okay,

32:05

so hang on. I like this one. I

32:07

underlined this one. Don't hold yourself hostage to

32:09

a fixed routine. That's kind of

32:11

like you writing Maya Angelou, right?

32:14

Or not that. No. No,

32:16

I mean, I guess. It's not that. No,

32:18

that's actually... It's either that or it's not that or

32:20

it's not that at all. Oh,

32:22

to avoid burnout. Tell us about that, Adam. I

32:24

think the thing that a lot of people do

32:26

is they think they have to push themselves in

32:28

order to get through whatever

32:30

is hard in their job or in the skill they're

32:32

trying to build. And what they

32:34

forget is that pushing yourself through the daily grind

32:37

is not going to be sustainable in the long run.

32:39

You're much better off trying to turn the daily grind

32:41

into a source of daily joy. And

32:43

the way you do that is to actually build

32:45

play into your skill development. So this is why

32:48

I'm trying to write in different voices. It

32:50

makes writing more fun and more playful and less exhausting and

32:52

less boring. And I think people could do that at any

32:54

job. I wanted to

32:57

study with a couple of colleagues. I remember this

32:59

one nurse in particular in our experiment. She had

33:01

this horrible task of giving kids allergy shots. And

33:03

this nurse couldn't stand the experience

33:05

of kids coming in and thinking, like, this

33:07

person's trying to hurt me. And

33:10

our experiment was on just reinvent your job title.

33:12

It was really simple. It's the first thing that

33:14

most people learn about you. What

33:16

if you could choose something that was more creative and

33:18

more self-reflective? And a lot

33:20

of skeptics said, this is never going to work. Like,

33:22

a title is just a bunch of words. It doesn't

33:24

matter. Like, eh, I've seen this work. And

33:27

sure enough, when we randomly assigned people to create their

33:29

own self-reflective job title, their burnout went down over the

33:31

next five weeks. And the nurse who's

33:34

giving allergy shots helped me understand why. Her

33:36

title that she came up with was Nurse

33:39

Quickshot. She

33:41

introduced herself to families that way. You would walk in,

33:43

and she'd be like, hi, I'm Nurse Quickshot. Nice to

33:46

meet you. The kids lit up.

33:48

All of a sudden, they realized, this person is

33:50

actually trying to minimize my pain, not accentuated. They

33:53

would ask for Nurse Quickshot by name when

33:55

they came back. The parents were relieved. It

33:57

was a whole thing. giving

34:00

people autonomy over how they present themselves is

34:02

a really basic form of freedom and we

34:04

ought to have that along with many other

34:07

kinds. I love that.

34:09

Thanks. Look at that. Star

34:11

Wars. I have to say, you're

34:13

really good at taking whatever I've got

34:15

out there and turning it into gold

34:17

and I really appreciate that about you.

34:20

I feel like I've started to develop

34:22

my own job title. Yeah? Yeah.

34:24

I feel like when I get on stage now, I've

34:27

been turned into a human jukebox. Somebody

34:30

can give a topic and I'm like, here's a

34:32

study that I once read and

34:34

now I'm going to not feel like I wasted the

34:36

time reading the study or doing the study because someone else

34:38

will learn about it. How do you guys think of your

34:41

studies? What is a company? I

34:43

mean, usually it comes from having conversations with people

34:46

out in the world who are stuck on something

34:48

and like seeing, in this case, Make-A-Wish

34:50

had reached out for help when I was in grad school

34:52

and they were all extremely exhausted

34:54

doing some of the most heartbreaking work

34:56

I've ever seen. And they had this incredibly

34:59

visionary leader, Susan Centers-Lurch, and Susan says,

35:01

I want you all to come up

35:04

with your own job titles. And there

35:06

was like a person in accounting who's like,

35:09

I am not part of the Make-A-Wish mission at all.

35:12

And she ended up coming up with her title

35:14

as keeper of keys and grounds. And

35:16

she was like the Hagrid of

35:19

Make-A-Wish and like it really, it

35:21

just injected some levity and joy

35:23

into her day and her interactions.

35:26

That's a study. We should see if that

35:28

works. So that's usually where

35:30

my ideas come from. What's

35:32

it like to be your kid? If

35:36

you're a jukebox for us, what are you

35:38

like as a dad? Do

35:41

you make yourself, do you try to temper?

35:44

Yes, a lot. My

35:46

wife, Alison, like very often has to say

35:48

to me, like, you

35:51

don't want to be the psychologist who screws up your kid,

35:54

which is apparently a common thing. I

35:57

think what I've tried to do with our kids is... to

36:00

be as open as possible about the things that

36:03

I'm bad at. Last winter, I was supposed to

36:05

give a speech, and our kids, for the first

36:07

time ever, came to one of my talks, and

36:09

afterward, our son came up, he was nine, and

36:12

he said, Dad, somehow you were actually funny. I

36:15

was like, that is the

36:17

best back-ended compliment I've

36:20

ever gotten. Like,

36:23

normally they make fun of my dad jokes,

36:25

and I deliberately make more

36:27

dad jokes because I want them to

36:29

see me bad at stuff and willing

36:31

to laugh at myself. And

36:33

that, I guess, in the butt of all of our family jokes,

36:37

and I'm not funny, but they're laughing at me. Yeah.

36:40

How about you? Talk about what you're like

36:42

as a parent. Oh.

36:49

I mean, I'm kind of, I guess, in

36:51

an just annoying way, I'm kind

36:53

of what you would think I would be, you

36:55

know? Go on. I'm

36:58

just, I pick cookies, and I, and

37:03

I, you know, I dream about, and

37:08

having it my own, and, you know, and...

37:12

I'm kind of your worst nightmare. Wait,

37:17

why is that bad? Just because

37:19

it's so, I don't know, it's

37:22

just so... Type

37:24

test? Yeah. I

37:27

don't know, those are good qualities as far as I'm concerned. Yeah,

37:29

I don't know, ask my kids. No,

37:33

I arranged for my son's class to

37:39

get a special viewing of this movie I have

37:41

coming out, Family Switch on Netflix, and

37:43

it's like exactly for his age

37:45

group, exactly. All right, I'm gonna

37:47

tell you something really personal and

37:50

vulnerable here right now. My son

37:52

said, he heard about it, and he was

37:54

like, Mom, it's as if

37:56

you're giving every person in my class a cake

37:58

with your face on it. And

38:02

then they're supposed to tell you how

38:04

great the cake is and how pretty

38:06

they think you are. And

38:09

I was like, you're not wrong. You're not

38:12

wrong. But I think

38:14

you're going to like the movie. I don't

38:16

know. You

38:18

can be sick that day. The

38:20

teacher asked. I said it up. It's happening.

38:22

I don't know what to tell you. So

38:25

it's happening. Wow. That's painful.

38:27

Yeah. I'm passing

38:29

out all the cakes. Okay.

38:33

This reminds me of something you

38:35

said backstage on our way in

38:38

about dealing with age as an actor.

38:41

Oh, because you said something. You said

38:43

something about appreciating progress

38:46

depends on remembering how your

38:48

past self would see your

38:50

current achievements. So

38:53

you think that you haven't gotten anywhere, but when

38:55

you were first learning, what would you have thought

38:57

if you could say right? And

38:59

I said, this is the same. The inverse is

39:01

true for aging, that at 51,

39:03

I tell myself if I get like,

39:05

oh, my gosh, what's happening? I want

39:07

I squinting and like things are falling.

39:10

It's fine. But I

39:13

tell myself, you know, dude,

39:15

it's imagine in 15 years,

39:17

you're going to think I wish I looked like I

39:19

looked at 51 and a half. So you might as

39:22

well enjoy it because it's not like it's going to

39:24

go the other way. So live

39:26

it up. Yuck it right on up.

39:30

It reminded me of one of my college roommates who

39:33

said to another one of our roommates, listen,

39:36

you should never be down on yourself because you're

39:38

only going to get uglier from here. Exactly.

39:42

Thank you. Your college roommates really understood.

39:44

That's amazing. Wait, there's something that you

39:46

glossed over, which is do you call

39:49

yourself dude? If I

39:51

need to, if it's appropriate in the

39:53

conversation. Yeah. So interesting.

39:55

You're reminding me of Ethan Cross's work on self

39:57

talk, where he finds that if you talk to

39:59

yourself. in the second or third person,

40:02

it's actually more motivating. See? Yeah,

40:05

because it's distancing. It feels like someone else is

40:07

telling you to do the thing. Bra, bra, get

40:10

it together, bra. You've

40:15

never said that to yourself. I don't

40:17

know, I have little kids, so yeah,

40:19

come across. Wow, that's amazing. Mm-hmm.

40:24

Okay, let's see. I

40:26

love your segway. I

40:29

mean, I don't know. Okay, here's something that I

40:31

want to know legitimately, and so do we. We

40:35

are aligned. I

40:38

like how you co-opted my audience. Who

40:41

didn't even know you were gonna be here. Yep, keep going. Okay,

40:45

true, they give me such a nice welcome. So,

40:49

how did writing this book change you? Because

40:51

I imagine each book, I mean, if I

40:53

think of Sydney, she changed me. How

40:56

did this book change you? That's a really good

40:58

question. I think, I didn't

41:02

expect it to change me, because I feel like when I

41:04

sit down to write a book, I want to teach something

41:06

that I've learned, and so I've kind of already figured it

41:08

out. And I've realized

41:10

that if that's what happens, then I'm doing myself a

41:12

disservice, because I ought to learn new things while I'm

41:14

writing. And I think the biggest

41:16

thing that this book changed about me is it made

41:18

me much more comfortable sharing my own stories. I've

41:22

been accused of using data

41:24

as a crutch, and I'm like, it's

41:27

not a crutch, it's literally how I think. Like,

41:29

ask me any question, and my first instinct is to

41:31

cite a study. Like, that's how I learn. And

41:34

some of my friends did not like that

41:36

particular behavior and called me Mr. Facts growing

41:38

up. Luckily,

41:40

I had one friend who's here tonight.

41:44

Thank you, Khan, because Khan decided

41:46

that it didn't matter that I made him

41:48

uncool, and he hung out with

41:50

me anyway. I think that I've shied

41:53

away from telling my stories, one, because it

41:55

feels self-centered, and two,

41:57

because it feels idiosyncratic. And while writing

41:59

this book, I realized hidden

42:01

potential is something I've lived over and over again.

42:04

I lived it when I wasn't naturally talented as

42:06

a diver and got way better than I expected.

42:09

I lived it when I failed my

42:11

college writing exam. And

42:14

here I am as an author, and it was definitely how

42:16

I felt as a public speaker, and we're doing this. And

42:18

I thought, I can't keep distance from

42:20

this topic, but more importantly, if there's something I've

42:22

learned from something I've lived, why would I

42:24

not share that? So that was the big change. I

42:27

love that you added your own stories in

42:29

there. From what I've seen so far, they

42:32

add a lot of color to it. No, they

42:34

really do. I appreciate that. Well, thank you. Yeah.

42:39

Okay, can you tell me something else? I

42:45

think it might be time to go to audience questions. There are a

42:47

lot of questions. Okay.

42:51

Okay, Liz. The same

42:53

kinds of people seem to keep

42:55

getting installed in leadership positions. What

42:57

wisdom do you have for mid-level

42:59

professionals whose senior leadership is

43:02

stuck in that bias? Wow.

43:05

Way to bring it. Yeah.

43:09

All right, so Liz wants to know how we can

43:12

diversify leadership beyond

43:14

people who are selfish,

43:17

Machiavellian, narcissistic,

43:20

psychopathic, male, and

43:22

white. Which

43:28

I've been told is redundant, but

43:30

I don't know. Oh,

43:36

look, I think we've got to stop confusing

43:38

confidence for competence is the easy answer. Well.

43:41

Stop it. Thank you. Stop

43:44

falling for the superficial charm of narcissists. They

43:47

don't actually know what they're talking about. Stop

43:50

assuming that the person who talks the most

43:52

is the most capable. That's called the babble

43:54

effect. And it's a real thing. That's

43:57

usually the person who's most insecure, not the person who's most capable. and

44:00

who's best suited to guide the group. Let's look

44:02

at whether people make those around them better, whether

44:04

they're more interested in making the room smarter than

44:06

being the smartest person in the room. What

44:09

else do people wanna know? Wow, okay.

44:14

Ooh. Oh,

44:18

did you? Wait, was that White Lotus?

44:21

Yes. Okay. We're

44:23

all trying to find out what you're watching is really

44:25

what's happening here. Oh, yes. For

44:28

someone who is six months into a

44:30

startup, Kevin wants to know, what is

44:32

your best advice regarding overcoming

44:34

perfection to get in the way

44:36

of progress? Oh,

44:38

yeah, so Kevin, people always say, like,

44:40

the perfect is the enemy of the

44:42

good. That's not helpful because they still

44:45

want you to ship something that's better than good. I

44:47

think one of the lessons I took away from diving

44:49

was, I needed to sit down with my coach and

44:51

agree on what's an acceptable score for every dive. So

44:54

you're doing a basic front-dive pike, we're aiming for sevens.

44:56

And as soon as I hit a seven, we agree,

44:58

it's time to move on. As

45:00

opposed to me asking, can I do 30 more of them

45:02

because I didn't point my left pinky toe on the entry, which

45:05

was an actual conversation once. Um.

45:10

For a more complicated dive, like when I

45:12

was learning reverse two and a half, target

45:15

was forced. We wanted to be

45:17

not totally deficient. I remember shaking

45:20

on a three-meter springboard, having to do a full twisting

45:22

front two and a half, where you do two flips,

45:24

360 turn, and then it dive. And

45:28

just freaked out out of my mind, and Eric

45:30

says, our target is a 0.5

45:32

for the size. If

45:35

your head or your hands touch before your feet, and

45:38

it's a legal dive, we're gonna count it. And

45:40

I don't think we have this conversation in startups, I don't

45:43

think we have this conversation in our jobs, but we should.

45:45

I'm aiming for a nine when I write a book. Because

45:48

hopefully a lot of people are gonna read it, and I'm gonna

45:50

pour multiple years of my work life into it, and I want

45:52

it to be something I'm proud of. And

45:54

I don't wanna waste other people's time. Social media

45:56

posts, target is six and a half, which

45:59

is where I put the- line this far

46:01

above being canceled. Like,

46:04

I don't care if I get everything right on social

46:06

media, I don't mind if I learn something and somebody

46:08

tells me that I screwed something up, and I think

46:10

that's a conversation to have. Like, when do we need

46:12

a four, when do we need a six and a

46:14

half, when do we need an eight? And let's calibrate

46:16

what does that look like for each of the things

46:18

we're doing. Very good advice.

46:21

Yeah. Do

46:25

you have wisdom for one who

46:27

mentors younger members of a team?

46:30

OK, so let's do a quick comment on how

46:32

to give criticism and then how to receive it.

46:35

On the receiving side, my favorite lesson comes

46:37

from Sheila Heen. She

46:39

calls it the second score. And

46:41

the idea is that when somebody gives you

46:43

a piece of constructive criticism or advice, what

46:46

most of us do is we try to convince them if we don't

46:48

like it that they were wrong. And so

46:50

somebody gives you a D minus, and you become

46:53

the world's most dedicated grade grubber, and

46:55

you're like, let me prove to you, I actually

46:57

deserve an A minus. And the

46:59

problem is they've already determined the score. They

47:01

can't. There's nothing you can say that will

47:04

change their mind because the past has already

47:06

happened. The best thing you can

47:08

do, according to Sheila, is you can give

47:10

yourself a second score, which is I want

47:12

to get an A plus for how well I took the D

47:14

minus. I

47:16

think about this every day. Every

47:18

single time I make the mistake of

47:20

reading Instagram comments. Do you

47:23

read yours, by the way? I'm so careful

47:25

about what I take in. I

47:27

read nothing where I

47:29

will accidentally see my face

47:32

or my name or anyone who

47:34

is related to me in

47:36

print in the computer phone. That

47:39

seems like a very healthy attitude. I have

47:41

not adopted that. Every once in

47:44

a while, I go into the comments and end up reading

47:46

all of them. I've been called

47:48

illogicfully. My

47:50

wife had to explain to me that was not a compliment. I

47:56

was like, good. I want to hammer you

47:58

with evidence and facts until you realize. otherwise

48:00

you were incorrect. All

48:03

right, every once in a while it's fun to smack down someone

48:05

with an ignorant, overconfident

48:07

opinion. But most

48:09

of the time what I need to do is

48:11

I need to convince them that I'm willing to

48:13

learn and so let me ask a question about,

48:15

oh, that's really interesting, what led you to that

48:17

view? And I think trying to ace the

48:19

second score and say I want to get an A plus for

48:21

how I took the D minus is something I would encourage anyone

48:23

to try if you haven't already. On

48:25

the giving, constructive criticism

48:28

side, my favorite experiment shows that

48:30

you can say 19 words and

48:32

people become dramatically more receptive to

48:34

what you're about to deliver. You ready? OK.

48:37

OK, don't count them, Jen, because I

48:39

might say 18. But the

48:42

words are roughly, I'm giving you these comments because

48:44

I have very high expectations and I'm

48:46

confident you can reach them. Oh,

48:49

God, that's so good. It

48:52

changes the word on that. It changes

48:55

the equation. Now I'm not attacking you.

48:57

Very high expectation. And I'm confident you

48:59

can reach them. So here's

49:01

the thing. I'm not attacking you. I'm not judging you. I'm here

49:03

to coach you. I'm trying to help you. So

49:06

I taught this a few years ago to my undergrads

49:08

at Wharton. And then about three

49:10

weeks later, I give out these mid course feedback forms. And

49:13

three different students wrote at the

49:15

top, I'm giving you these comments

49:17

because I have very high expectations.

49:20

No, you don't have to say the words

49:22

verbatim. The point is to communicate that I

49:24

believe in your potential and I care about

49:26

your success and well-being. You

49:28

establish that up front and all of a

49:31

sudden you have a relationship as opposed to

49:33

an attack that you need

49:35

to defend against. Do you

49:38

believe in the compliment sandwich?

49:41

So I try not to believe in things. I

49:44

try to look at what is the best evidence, tell

49:46

us, and then form an opinion accordingly. And I think

49:49

here, see this is the logic bullying, right? Yeah. I'm

49:51

doing it right now. Yeah, I'm not

49:53

a proponent. I'm just asking. Yeah.

49:57

I think that's a fair question. And I think

49:59

my. And what I read in the evidence is that the

50:02

compliment sandwich does not taste as good as it looks.

50:04

People are like, ah, I've got to say something really

50:06

unpleasant, so I have to take the meat of the

50:08

criticism I want to give you and hide

50:10

it between two slices of bread that are

50:13

the compliment. First problem is a

50:15

lot of people are just waiting for the other shoe to drop. They're

50:18

like, wait, compliment? Are you just buttering me

50:20

up? So I take your criticism better. And

50:22

they see right through it. Number

50:25

two, people who are narcissistic actually

50:27

have the opposite response, which is

50:30

primacy and recency effects dominate. So

50:33

you pay attention to the first thing and the last

50:35

thing, and you forget the meat of the sandwich! And

50:39

you come away from the meeting skewering you

50:41

thinking, like, Billy

50:43

Madison, I am the smartest person alive. That

50:48

explains a lot. Yeah, okay. No, I don't

50:50

like it. Okay, good. I would now

50:52

put it on your menu. Well, you know what?

50:54

We're kind of coming to the end

50:56

here. So can I just say, what

50:59

a total pleasure and what an awesome

51:01

way to get to know you. And

51:03

I'm so grateful for this time. Definitely,

51:05

I don't know why you reached out

51:07

to me. I don't actually... It's

51:10

very rare for me to leave home on

51:12

a school night, I can't believe, that

51:15

I did, but I love that you

51:17

asked. I can't get away from your kids. I

51:19

feel even guiltier now. They're thrilled. They're thrilled out

51:21

of their minds. They couldn't be... Why does it

51:23

matter? Why does it sound like a threat when

51:25

you say it? Well, because it

51:27

kind of is. But

51:30

yeah, they're delighted, truly. And

51:33

so am I. And so thank you. Thank

51:35

you for reaching out. No,

51:37

thank you. When I woke up this morning

51:39

and realized we needed a rain, who

51:42

is not rain, to

51:44

take his place, I thought,

51:46

who's the person that sees the potential in

51:48

every single person she meets? And that was

51:50

you. Every single time I've

51:52

had any interaction with you, you have looked for

51:54

the best in everyone. And

51:56

I think that's such a gift that you give to people,

51:59

and I wanted this audience... to get to benefit from

52:01

it. Jen, this is

52:03

just beyond generous of you to do. And

52:06

I cannot thank you enough, and I really will

52:08

be trying to pay it back and forward

52:10

for the next few decades. Thank

52:14

you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

52:20

Our team includes Daphne Chen,

52:22

Constanzo Gallardo, Grace Rubinstein, Daniela

52:25

Balorazo, Banban Cheng, Michelle Quintz,

52:27

Alejandro Salazar, and Roxanne Heilash.

52:30

Our fact checker is Paul Durbin. Our

52:32

show is mixed by Ben Shaino, original

52:34

music by Hans-Dale Su and Alison Linton-Zell.

52:37

Our live show was hosted and produced by

52:40

LiveTalk's Cassandra. You

52:44

ever feel like your laptop just

52:46

keeps going, but you are

52:48

completely drained? I think a lot

52:50

of us don't realize how much pain

52:52

we live in because of our interactions

52:54

with computing. NPR's Body Electric,

52:57

a special interactive series investigating

52:59

how to fix the relationship

53:01

between our tech and our

53:03

health. Listen in the TED

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