0:01

Ted Audio Collective. This.

0:08

Episode is brought to you by progressive.

0:10

Most. Of you aren't just listening right

0:12

now. you're driving, cleaning, and even exercising.

0:15

But what if you could be saving

0:17

money by switching to Progressive Drivers Who

0:19

saved by switching? Save nearly seven hundred

0:21

and fifty dollars on average and auto

0:24

customers qualify for an average of seven

0:26

discounts multitask right now. Quote today at

0:28

progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates

0:31

National Average: Twelve months savings of seven

0:33

hundred forty four dollars by new customers

0:35

surveyed who saved with Progressive between June

0:37

twenty twenty Two and May twenty twenty

0:40

three. Potential savings will vary discounts

0:42

not available in all states and

0:44

situations. I

0:47

Madam Grand. I think about work

0:49

a lot. That's why I wanted

0:51

to tell you about canvas Dogs

0:53

which will help you expertly craft

0:55

your work communications. They have an

0:57

Ai tax generator built in called

0:59

Magic Right powered by open a

1:01

I'd You can generate any text

1:04

you one job descriptions, marketing plans,

1:06

sales proposals. just start with a

1:08

prompt and you'll ever draft and

1:10

seconds tweak draft and you're done.

1:12

Try Can for dogs with an

1:14

Ai text generator built in a

1:16

canvas. Dot Com designed for work.

1:21

Gotta. Business Problem There's a Ted Talk

1:23

for that. Stay updated on everything. Business

1:26

On Ted Business A podcast hosted by

1:28

Columbia Business School Professor More Do Pay

1:30

aka Nola. Every week she will introduce

1:33

you to leaders with unique insights on

1:35

work. Answering questions like how do for

1:37

day workweeks work do Will a machine

1:40

ever take my job? Get some surprising

1:42

answers on Ted Business wherever you listen

1:44

to podcasts. We.

1:46

Gotta as a culture and as

1:48

a country except or else and

1:51

grow grow from rails. And.

1:54

Call. Me a loser And also thank you.

1:59

Ever One is Adam Grant Welcome back

2:01

to rethinking I pod tests and the

2:03

science of what makes us tick With

2:06

it said Audi a collective I'm an

2:08

organizational psychology and his new inside the

2:10

minds of fascinating people who explore new

2:12

songs and new ways to think. It's.

2:17

I guess today's David to companies you

2:19

probably know invest. As an actor, he

2:22

won Golden Globes for his starring role

2:24

in the X Files in California Cases,

2:26

and had iconic appearances in A New

2:28

Lander and A Chance. But he's also

2:30

a best selling author of for novels

2:32

and a screen writer, director, and singer

2:34

songwriter. and he's been the subject of

2:36

a songs and unusually catchy one A

2:38

brief. Period.

3:12

New film is Bucky Effing Depth and

3:14

his the host of a new podcast.

3:16

Fail Better There were going to talk

3:19

about failure. David.

3:22

Let me start by asking you did you

3:24

wake up one morning and thanks. I.

3:26

Know what the world needs? Another

3:28

podcast Lox were first. Hey, I'm

3:30

the only person in the world

3:32

without apart coast so I guess

3:34

I should have one of those

3:36

big. Samuel. Beckett fan cause

3:38

big fan of failure in a weird

3:40

way not in a in a sudden

3:42

for the way not no way of

3:45

i go you fucker you fail but

3:47

more as a slight. The

3:49

bittersweet and services humanity of is because we

3:51

all go through his brother and sister hood

3:54

of it. And I

3:56

said, if I'm going to have a partisan talk

3:58

to people, can I target number Failure. Can

4:00

we really some shame around failure?

4:02

Can we talk about resilience? And

4:04

we looked around and we saw

4:06

there are these podcasts which I

4:08

find objectionable. They're all about business

4:10

failure and ah, or how I

4:12

started one business and then I'd

4:15

learned from my failure and now

4:17

my crypto billionaire as I will.

4:19

That's not what I'm interested in

4:21

and all I'm not. I'm not

4:23

interested in making money or talking

4:25

about people making money. So. The

4:28

yeah, I guess we figured we

4:30

sell into a place that hadn't

4:33

quite been shot over so many

4:35

times. And in the world of

4:37

access, there will definitely be people

4:39

wondering what is a successful actor,

4:41

filmmaker, novelist, Princeton Summa Grad possibly

4:44

know about failure? We. Can go

4:46

through the world thinking that words correspond

4:48

reality when in fact it's just an

4:50

illusion. We both decided to believe. And.

4:53

Therefore, anything I feel saying.

4:58

Move. Inside. Has

5:00

to be translated into words and

5:02

is already failed. There's already been

5:04

a failure on the way and

5:06

the for me. That's the heart

5:08

of it. You know? it's not as I go,

5:10

that book did well, or that book out reviewed

5:12

well, or that performers got reviewed well, or that

5:14

movie bombed. Assists

5:16

this sense of human expression

5:18

for me, whether it's acting,

5:20

directing, writing by music. Whatever

5:22

that the inspiration has to

5:24

be translated into the human

5:26

expression in, there is a

5:28

failure that happens immediately, and

5:30

it's how you navigate that

5:32

that makes you a better

5:35

aura or less vile artist.

5:37

I think. It's fascinating when

5:39

you first start describing that. I thought you

5:41

were gonna talk about the game of telephone

5:43

that we end up playing were what you've

5:45

expressed did not what I hear what you're

5:47

talking about have a much earlier failure as

5:49

what's in your head in your experience not

5:52

being translated accurately and a language. Can't.

5:54

Be I'm in a languages and

5:56

approximation. As an organizational psychologists, I

5:58

spend most my. career studying professional

6:01

success and failure. I'd love

6:03

to hear about what you think is your biggest professional

6:05

failure and how you dealt with it. Failure

6:07

has so many different aspects

6:10

to it. You could call it a box office

6:12

failure, you could call it a artistic

6:14

failure, you could call it an

6:16

editing failure, a scoring failure, an

6:19

audience failure, a timing failure. I

6:22

did a movie called House of D

6:24

that I wrote and directed and acted in in

6:26

like 2000 and I don't know three or

6:28

four and it was not

6:31

well received. It was a

6:33

very different thing for me to do because I

6:35

was coming off of this

6:37

global hit of

6:40

The X-Files like a generational television

6:42

show that there really is no

6:44

comparison to the breadth of

6:47

the audience that it found

6:49

globally and the movie I made was

6:51

very small and very personal and

6:55

just the coming-of-age movie and

6:58

I just think it

7:00

was confusing. When House

7:02

of D didn't do well, the

7:05

failure was very personal to

7:07

me because I was being authentic with it.

7:09

You know in retrospect I can

7:11

see that I was dooming myself but I

7:14

had no other expressive

7:16

or artistic choice at the time because I

7:18

was coming out of being

7:21

associated with this huge show and I was

7:23

like well here's what I want to do.

7:25

This is my vision, this is

7:27

the kind of stuff that I want to do and

7:31

people didn't want it. It

7:34

seems that at least from a commercial

7:36

perspective you come out of The X-Files

7:38

and nothing you possibly

7:41

do could ever be that successful again.

7:44

Right, it hurt a lot and it

7:47

hurt a lot for a while and

7:49

it still hurts to this day, not

7:51

like it did but it

7:54

lives on in that way in

7:56

many ways. So How have you

7:58

dealt with that over the last two decades? A

8:02

while I just kept working for one. And

8:05

then give up. I. Just kept moving

8:07

forward. I tried to. To.

8:09

Look at. Whatever. Lessons Critical

8:11

lessons I might learn from it. as

8:13

a craftsman, as a maker of things,

8:16

Hard. To do in the moment we smarting

8:18

and bleeding. I. I

8:20

tried to look at. You.

8:23

Know my willfulness and and making her a

8:25

small movie or for coming on such a

8:27

big show. I

8:29

tried to look at my contrariness. But.

8:32

Other than a psych, okay well that was.

8:34

I know what I was trying to do

8:36

and I know as a first time filmmaker

8:38

that I gonna make some. Missteps

8:41

and I could see those and and

8:43

learn so much just in the doing

8:45

of it. Than

8:47

had more confidence no matter what

8:49

happens afterwards, And

8:51

and if I'd do things for the

8:53

right reasons, which I don't always do

8:55

and I'm aware when I'm doing things

8:58

for the wrong reasons. but if I

9:00

do certain things for the right reasons

9:02

than whatever happens, it's okay. I'm

9:04

reminded of some recent work in psychology suggesting

9:07

that way. The reasons it's so hard for

9:09

many of us to take sell Your and

9:11

criticism is we immediately focus on feeling better.

9:14

As. Opposed to asking how can I do better.

9:17

And when you want to feel better when

9:20

I think most of us instinctively do is

9:22

we say okay, I'm in a distract myself,

9:24

I'm to avoid the pain altogether. On and

9:26

then we fail to learn the lessons. It

9:29

sounds like you didn't do that. I

9:31

felt like a in I'd been punched in the stomach.

9:34

But. I also young kids you know and

9:36

the and go fuck. Nobody

9:38

that love me really cared. So.

9:41

That there were. There are people around me. I'm I'm

9:44

not talking about like an illusory bubble and people telling

9:46

me I'm fantastic, but it was just like people. Time

9:48

in. there are other things in life. And

9:50

and I don't know what the lesson

9:52

is ever except that. The. Seller

9:55

just just opens up. other

9:57

doors you know if only because it makes

9:59

you think in different ways. Success is a

10:02

terrible thing to happen to anybody. Easy

10:05

to say as a successful person, isn't it? It

10:09

is, yeah. And it's somewhat glib,

10:11

of course. But in

10:13

terms of like what

10:16

you learn as a person about life

10:18

or about your soul or about anything,

10:20

success is not a teacher. Success is

10:22

something else. I think it's fair

10:24

to say that the winner's curse is real, that

10:27

oftentimes success makes people complacent. It

10:30

sounds like one of your lessons from failure is not

10:33

to put all your eggs in one identity basket. That's

10:36

certainly my nature. One of

10:39

the blessings of being a performer

10:41

is you get to do different jobs all the time.

10:43

And then if you add to that other expressive

10:46

aspects like fiction writing or music

10:48

or whatever, then I

10:51

have all these ways in which to fail,

10:53

but also all these places where I'm learning,

10:55

I'm 50, whatever, and

10:58

I'm learning something, and

11:01

my brain feels like it's 19 or

11:03

20. I know it's not. And

11:06

I know I can't ever be as good a guitar

11:08

player as if I had started

11:10

when I was young, but to

11:13

get to do something that is in my

11:16

beginner's mind, that phrase, I'm reminded

11:18

of that all the time. It's like a fountain

11:20

of youth on the inside. It's just like, oh

11:22

my God, I'm so excited to do this really

11:25

simple thing. It's new to

11:28

me. I think this

11:31

is for a lot of people part of the

11:33

appeal of a portfolio career, that

11:35

if you have a range of different projects going,

11:38

you don't end up over invested in any one

11:40

of them. That's the first time

11:42

I've ever heard that phrase portfolio career.

11:46

And I kind of want to hate it, to be

11:48

honest. What do you hate about it?

11:51

I hate that it's a strategy when

11:53

it's something like, I

11:56

feel like I just kind

11:58

of intuited my way through it. I mean,

12:00

I don't know how you can actually strategize

12:02

a portfolio career. You either want to do

12:04

multiple things or you don't. Okay,

12:07

this goes to something else I wanted to ask you

12:09

about, which is I wanted to get a sense of

12:11

how you decide a role or a project is worth

12:13

doing. I think one of my

12:15

favorite moments in your career arc, as I know

12:17

it, was when you landed in Zoolander as a

12:19

hand model. Which might

12:21

be my favorite David Duchovny role of all time

12:23

just because it was so unexpected. And

12:26

so hilariously deadpan. Why

12:29

did you want to be in it? What did you see

12:31

in Zoolander? Because I don't think it was expected to be

12:33

a big hit. It was relatively low budget. It was not

12:36

heralded. What did you notice there? Well,

12:38

it was never a hit. It came out

12:42

a week or two after 9-11. So

12:44

it didn't do great business at

12:46

first. It didn't do much business

12:49

at all. It was just in the afterlife of

12:51

movies that it became a cult

12:53

thing and then the hit that it is in

12:56

people's minds. What did

12:58

I see? I just really liked what

13:00

Ben was doing. And for me, it

13:03

was very important. Again, reacting to coming

13:05

off the X-Files or ending

13:07

the X-Files, I wanted

13:09

to do comedy. I wanted to exist in the

13:11

comedy world. So I was like, here's

13:14

that world. It wasn't the kind of

13:16

comedy that I would ever write or ever conceive of,

13:19

but I thought I can play in that sandbox.

13:23

There was even like a love of language in my

13:25

character that I really responded to. Zunander

13:28

says, but you're a model. And I

13:30

say something like, I'm

13:34

a finger jockey. A

13:37

finger jockey. We don't think the

13:39

same way the face and body boys do. But

13:42

like finger jockey to me, like

13:44

I'd go anywhere with that writer. Somebody

13:47

who came up who

13:49

pulled a hand model of finger jockey, that's

13:51

a comedic mind that's working in

13:53

language. And I was like, yeah. It

13:56

must've been after watching the chair and

13:59

seeing you play. that hysterical caricature of yourself,

14:01

that I wondered how much of that is

14:03

real and I looked up

14:05

your backstory, had no idea that you'd been

14:07

a PhD student in English literature at Yale.

14:11

Yeah. Why? Why were

14:13

you there? And why did you walk away without

14:15

finishing your dissertation? That's a question

14:17

my mom asked me until she died. I

14:21

thought not being a gambler by nature, I

14:23

thought, well, if I get a PhD, you

14:25

know, I'll have a job. If

14:28

I can get tenure, I'll really have a job

14:31

and then I'll have three or four months

14:33

off a year. So that's why I

14:35

was in graduate school. I couldn't be

14:37

a pro basketball player. That would have been my first

14:39

choice. I couldn't be a doctor. I

14:42

didn't want to be a lawyer. You know, you

14:44

talk about strategy. That was my strategy was find

14:48

a way to make a living

14:52

that affords me the freedom and

14:54

time to pursue a life

14:57

of creative writing. And

14:59

why did you then abandon it? I

15:02

always knew that my heart wasn't in it in a

15:04

way. I always knew that I could do it and

15:06

I think I was a decent teacher, but

15:09

I knew I wasn't going to be a great

15:11

literary critic. There were just

15:13

people around me who were better and

15:16

I knew it wasn't authentic to me. Something

15:19

called me that that would

15:21

be like a death in life in a

15:23

way. And that's no criticism of criticism. That's

15:25

no knock on academia at

15:27

all. It's more of a knock on me. Why

15:31

did your mom want you to finish? Because

15:33

my mom grew up in a

15:35

small town of Scotland where nobody went to

15:38

college in a class system,

15:41

Great Britain in the early 20th

15:43

century. And the only way

15:46

for a person to advance out of

15:48

those circumstances was education. And

15:51

that's the vision that she

15:53

had for her kids, even though the world

15:55

had changed and America was a little different

15:58

than the circumstances in which she grew up. For

16:00

her, that's what a poor person could

16:02

do with hard work, was be a

16:07

knowledgeable person. And it was also

16:09

just, you know, finish what you started. That's a

16:11

parental thing. You started that thing. Finish it, you

16:13

know. And I

16:15

think it would take me years. It would take me years, unless

16:18

the idea really excited me. I don't

16:20

think it would be a good use of my time. No,

16:22

I think the opportunity cost goes up quite a

16:24

bit over time. You

16:27

found an alternate path to

16:29

get the creative freedom you wanted. So

16:32

why invest in something that six people

16:34

might read? Well, what's

16:36

interesting about the dissertation that never

16:38

was, it was

16:40

called, the thing that doesn't exist,

16:42

is called magic and technology and

16:45

contemporary American fiction and poetry. And

16:47

when I think about my subsequent years

16:50

as an actor, whatever, you think

16:52

about even the X-Files, magic and

16:54

technology kind of fits into

16:56

that area. And I think now that

16:59

everybody's concerned with AI and all that, what

17:01

I thought I was going to be writing

17:03

about in the dissertation was how magic was

17:06

a primitive technology. Magic

17:08

was how people did things that technology

17:10

now does for us, fly through the

17:12

air, turn water into wine, do

17:14

all these things that magicians and

17:16

prophets used to do with their magic.

17:20

But there was always a sense of good

17:22

magic and bad magic. And

17:25

there was a moral to magic. Dr.

17:27

Faustus, you know, he made a deal with the

17:29

devil for that power. But

17:32

with technology, there was never a

17:34

weapon. There's never been a weapon that the human

17:37

race has created that hasn't been employed, right? So

17:39

there's never been a sense in which somebody

17:41

says to technology, you know, toasts are bad.

17:45

And I was saying that these creative

17:47

writers, these novel poets that I was

17:49

going to be writing about, were actually

17:51

looking at technology and trying to

17:54

discuss it in ways that were

17:56

prophetically morally judged,

17:59

Like we're trying to do. The do with a I now. So.

18:02

You're Not Dissertation of the

18:04

eighties was anticipating the moral

18:06

technological dilemmas of the Twenty

18:08

twenties. You could say that,

18:10

but since it was never written, you really can't

18:12

say that. David.

18:18

Let's move to a lightning round. Your Etti.

18:21

I think so. Okay, first question: What

18:23

is the worst career advice you ever gotten?

18:25

Taken auditioning glass. That.

18:28

Was bad advice. Yeah. Why?

18:31

Auditioning is an acting. What is

18:33

it is it's selling in is. What?

18:36

Is your favorite X files character.

18:39

Who is your favorite Access Character?

18:41

Ethics? or what most could go

18:43

either and the fluke Ma'am are

18:45

wonderful. Writer Dan Morgan played a

18:47

six foot and test them worm.

18:52

I did not anticipate that

18:54

as a gets what is

18:56

something that you've been rethinking

18:58

lately. The. Magic antagonizing

19:00

contemporary American fiction Poetry.

19:04

To. Say. What's

19:06

the question you have for me as a psychologist?

19:09

Can. We really. Find

19:12

solutions to talking. When

19:15

most of our emotional life and

19:17

chemical life is some verbal. Sick.

19:20

For a question. Yes,

19:24

As a great answer selfless, It's if you

19:26

do as much as a kid can we get

19:29

it perfectly based on what I know about.

19:31

How you think? Are you ever going to

19:33

be satisfied? With. The.

19:36

The amount of slippage that exists

19:39

between our subconscious experience in our

19:41

conscious expression? probably not. Can we

19:43

get closer? I think yes.

19:46

Because. I have

19:48

this. Fundamental.

19:50

Intuitive sense of failure between.

19:53

The. Expression and the execution. I'm not

19:55

a perfectionist, and I'm quite happy

19:57

with the stabbed that I make.

20:00

in the dark. I think that's

20:02

a healthy attitude. There's a body

20:04

of research on what's called referential processing, which

20:07

is how fluidly you translate images

20:09

into words and vice versa. So

20:11

I think a master would be an art critic, for

20:13

example. And I have none of that ability. I

20:16

can go to a museum, stare at a painting, and I can't even

20:18

come up with a word. But

20:20

I think we both know people who are gifted at that.

20:23

And I would say if we study how

20:25

those people do it, it's probably more of

20:27

a teachable skill than we've realized. And maybe

20:30

that is, in some sense,

20:33

the forgotten and soon to be rediscovered

20:35

value of the humanities. They're

20:37

going to help people build that skill and

20:40

say, look, if increasingly artificial intelligence

20:42

is going to handle a lot of the

20:46

processing of information that we used to

20:48

have to do ourselves, what's

20:50

left for humans to do uniquely? Well, one

20:53

thing that's left is for us to be

20:55

able to access experiences that AI

20:57

can't have lived and figure out

20:59

how to articulate them. That's very

21:01

sad. You think? I don't know. I think it's

21:03

kind of encouraging. I agree with

21:06

you. But it's sad to think

21:08

we're pushing ourselves out of existence

21:10

or utility. But I

21:12

totally agree with you. As a creative

21:15

person, I'm not very much afraid of

21:18

AI. I don't think AI will ever

21:21

make a masterpiece. And even if

21:23

it did, I just wouldn't care that much.

21:26

And the evidence of it not being a masterpiece would be

21:28

the fact that you didn't care that much. But

21:30

then again, masterpiece is a

21:32

slippery word. It certainly

21:34

is. I'm thinking about the Watson created horror

21:36

movie trailers. Have you seen those? No.

21:39

I first caught one maybe 2018 or 2019, before

21:44

the generated AI wave that's picked up in the

21:46

last year. And they

21:48

were chilling. I cannot believe

21:51

that they were created by an

21:53

algorithm, effectively. But as soon as

21:55

I found out, I

21:57

don't really want to watch this. I want to be scared by a person.

22:00

In their vision. I. Don't want to

22:02

denigrate. The. Horror anything like

22:04

that but I guess something that makes

22:06

it is bread and butter by scaring

22:08

the shit out. A you probably. Is

22:12

more easily attainable by an

22:14

algorithm and something that as

22:16

a more complicated to measure.

22:18

Let's talk about Bucky fucking Debt.

22:20

Yeah, I I love the vision.

22:23

For this film. You have

22:25

a character Ted who's trying to

22:27

reconnect with his father, has a

22:29

huge Red Sox fan, and then

22:31

I just is basically in order

22:33

to salvage their relationship and his

22:35

father's failing health. Ted.

22:38

Sort of creates an illusion that the Red

22:41

Sox are winning. Well. As

22:43

a reason that he does this is

22:45

because his father is dying of cancer,

22:47

but he is convinced. That.

22:50

He can't die until the Red Sox win it

22:52

all. and the Sox are doing very well that

22:54

year. So he thinks he's going to die at

22:56

the end of that year, but he's going to

22:59

live until that happens. And

23:01

his health seems to start

23:03

to suffer as the Sox

23:06

begin to so back their

23:08

lead. And so his son.

23:10

In order to try to keep his house.

23:13

Starts. Faking the outcomes in the

23:16

hopes that the sauce to come back

23:18

eventually and he can bring his father

23:20

back into the real world. But for

23:22

me, the movies about failure the Sox

23:25

at least and co the two thousands

23:27

were the epitome of a failed franchise.

23:29

and there was even a backstory that

23:31

they had traded away the greatest player

23:34

to ever play Babe Ruth to the

23:36

aggies and they were cursed. and they

23:38

were losers. The movement of the film.

23:41

Is really about. Loving

23:43

the losers because we're all losers. Ultimately,

23:46

we all die. That's the final loss,

23:48

but we all go through heart ache,

23:50

will go through loss. And.

23:53

that's what joins the songs very similar

23:55

to the podcast idea and i have

23:57

many ideas but i can spread them

23:59

out over different formats and make

24:01

it look like I got a few. The

24:04

other aspect of the film that

24:06

was interesting to me as a writer was

24:09

this idea of changing narrative

24:12

focus, the father, he's

24:14

trying to write the story of his life.

24:16

He's trying to change the story of his

24:18

life. He's been the

24:20

victim, he's been the villain,

24:23

he's been the scapegoat and he wants

24:26

to die a hero. And

24:28

it's the same story, but

24:31

it's a different way of

24:33

telling it. And I think that's something

24:35

that I've come to later in life

24:37

is that we can all share the

24:40

same facts about

24:42

ourselves. But

24:44

real mental health and spiritual health

24:47

and even physical health comes from the way in

24:49

which we tell the stories of our lives to

24:52

ourselves and to those around us. And I'm not

24:54

talking about lying. I'm

24:56

talking about telling the story in a way

24:58

that benefits the most people. It

25:01

seems to me that there is such a thing as

25:03

objective failure. Your team loses the

25:05

game. A surgeon

25:08

fails to save a patient on the operating table.

25:11

But most failures in life are subjective. You

25:14

created a goal, which is a fiction. It's

25:17

an expectation of how things are gonna go, which

25:19

has your hopes and dreams built into it. And

25:22

then you fall short of that expectation, which

25:24

was just in your imagination, and

25:27

you count that experience a failure. And

25:30

then to your point, people end up telling themselves

25:32

all kinds of lies to convince themselves that they

25:34

didn't fail. When to me,

25:36

so many of those failures were actually in

25:39

the expectations that were set to begin with. I'll

25:42

give you a quick personal example on this

25:44

one. During COVID, I wrote the most read

25:46

New York Times article of the year. And

25:50

I didn't set out to do it. I

25:52

was trying to name this experience of languishing

25:54

that people were going through, of feeling empty

25:56

and sort of stuck. And

25:59

when the article went... viral, I immediately

26:01

knew I will never write an article that's successful ever

26:03

again. I'm a psychologist.

26:05

I don't write op-eds for a living. And

26:08

if I set myself the goal of having the

26:10

most successful article of the year, I'm going to

26:12

feel like a failure with every subsequent article I

26:14

write. So I

26:16

sat down and said, I have to redefine my goals.

26:18

If I get an idea out there that helps somebody,

26:21

that matters much more than the number of people it

26:23

reaches. And in

26:25

doing that, I feel like I'm protecting myself from

26:27

the arbitrary feeling of failure every time I release

26:29

an article that falls short. So

26:32

that's, I guess, my reflection on the fiction

26:34

of failure. How do you react

26:36

to that? And do you play the same game? There's

26:39

a saying that goes expectations are future

26:41

resentments. And I think that that's a

26:43

good rule to live by. Hard not

26:46

to have expectations, but they're tricky and they can

26:48

be dangerous. You wrote an

26:50

article that was authentic. It

26:52

came from a need. You

26:55

set out to communicate something authentically.

26:57

And that must have been in its DNA.

27:00

And I would say that helped it get

27:03

so widely disseminated because you didn't have an angle

27:05

on it. You didn't

27:07

set out to be popular. It

27:10

just reminds me a lot of what I was

27:12

talking about earlier. There is no way to ever

27:14

have a success like the X-Files. It

27:17

doesn't happen. It can't happen. It's certainly not going

27:20

to happen to me, but I

27:22

don't think it's going to happen to anybody else either.

27:24

I mean, it's just we're in a different world now

27:26

in terms of consensus and culture in that way. So

27:30

to play that game is just a losing game.

27:33

And you got to figure out. My friend

27:35

Gary Shanling said, I think he made it up,

27:37

but it's a really good phrase, which is he

27:39

said, people that say nice guys finish last don't

27:42

know where the finish line is. But it's kind

27:44

of like you got to know where the finish

27:46

line is, you know, and it's not the

27:49

day after you had the most popular Article.

27:52

And It's not the day after you had

27:54

the least popular. It's a continuum. You Have

27:56

to keep your eye on the past and

27:58

the horizon while living. The president which is

28:00

difficult but you gotta do it. People.

28:03

Who say nice guys finish last, don't know

28:05

where the finish line is. Now.

28:07

He like that that's profound as the

28:09

system. That was

28:11

Gary Sailing man. He was a genius

28:13

to tell me what that means to

28:15

you can. My first reaction to it

28:17

is yeah yeah, you're focusing too much

28:20

on a short term outcomes. and

28:22

to little on long term character. I've

28:24

never really tried to unpack it. I just

28:26

heard it knows like true. And

28:28

like. To think about, where

28:30

is the finish line? And. One's life.

28:33

It's not dance. In

28:35

a somewhat what he means it's something

28:37

else. To me it it

28:39

signals. Let's think about what really counts as

28:41

opposed to it's easy to counts now. Well.

28:44

As as I reflect on a couple

28:46

of the arsonist conversation, it seems to

28:49

me that a mixed of success and

28:51

failure, however, you define. Is

28:53

more of a life well lived. Than.

28:56

A life of just. Accumulating

28:58

and accelerating successes because as

29:00

much as success gratifies, it

29:03

seems that failures the better

29:05

motivator and a better teacher.

29:08

Will also success alienates. You

29:11

know sets you apart. In

29:13

a failure gives you many brothers

29:16

and sisters and failure creates empathy

29:18

failure should and gender empathy. I

29:20

think in in our country now

29:23

failure and genders mockery and that's

29:25

one of the things that I

29:27

wanted to kind of. Address

29:30

with the podcast and the movie

29:32

am a novel Bucky Fucking that

29:34

you know it's really our inability

29:36

to accept our own failures that

29:38

makes us such as Saddam Friday.

29:41

Kind. Of Culture and you

29:43

look at somebody like and

29:46

a Donald Trump who. Cannot

29:49

accept. An hour is hop.

29:52

Presidential. Run as like not

29:54

accepting his out. And

29:57

there's nearly half the country

29:59

that. They get behind this with

30:01

it so it it seems like than

30:03

your. Your hypothesis is that. People's

30:06

desire to take others down. Is.

30:09

Because. They're They're so ashamed by their

30:12

own masses. It's a lot of

30:14

what we do we project onto the other.

30:17

The. Fears we have about ourselves.

30:19

Interesting. And this this

30:21

notion that success can make you lonely,

30:23

that it alienates. Would.

30:26

Advise you have for coping with that.

30:28

For all the poor, struggling, successful people

30:30

out there, that fact that fuck the

30:32

have a physicists are fine. They'll

30:35

come back. Bomb failure. They'll come back to

30:37

earth and get their. Love.

30:39

It for the David. This has been really

30:42

fun and fascinating. I feed your mind is

30:44

is a really unusual an interesting place. Well.

30:48

Thank you. Such

30:53

a powerful sentiment that people who believe nice

30:55

guys finish last don't know where the finish

30:57

line is. Personally, I like the idea that

30:59

there is no finish line, but if I

31:01

had to draw one for me, it's not

31:03

about what you would see, it's about what

31:06

you can trust and how you treat others

31:08

along the way. And.

31:13

Rethinking It's hosted by me Adam

31:15

Grand This show is part of

31:17

his head audio collecting and this

31:19

episode with produced in met by

31:21

cosmic standard of producers are Henna

31:23

Kingsley My and Asia Census or

31:26

Editors I, Hunter Salazar or Fact

31:28

Checkers Paul Durban original music by

31:30

Hunter See You and Alison Late

31:32

and Brown or team includes Eliza

31:34

Smith Take Up Winning the Maya

31:36

Adams, Michelle Quinn, Sundance, Julia Dickerson

31:38

and with Incentives and Righteous. So.

31:44

It sounds like she was worried that A B

31:46

D didn't have the same test say as Phd.

31:49

Yeah, don't. I don't know that

31:51

A B D really exists. You know, because

31:53

everything else is in Latin and A B

31:55

D This means of a dissertation. That's how

31:57

bad that. That. Moniker of.

32:22

Our.