0:00:12 I’m Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People.
0:00:15 We are on a mission to make you remarkable.
0:00:19 And today we have a second mission, which is to make you laugh.
0:00:24 Because helping me in this episode is AJ Jacobs.
0:00:30 He is an author and journalist known for his, shall I say, immersive experiments.
0:00:36 As well as his New York Times bestselling books, his first book, The Know It All, chronicled
0:00:40 his quest to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica.
0:00:46 Another New York Times bestseller, The Year of Living Biblically, detailed his experience
0:00:49 following the Bible’s rules for a year.
0:00:57 AJ’s other books include Drop Dead Healthy, My Life as an Experiment, and It’s All Relative.
0:01:00 But today we’re talking about his very latest book.
0:01:07 It’s called The Year of Living Constitutionally, which means, and I’m not making this up,
0:01:13 that he tried to live one year within the context of the Constitution’s original meaning.
0:01:20 By the way, he did not take any private plane rides because that wasn’t in the original
0:01:21 Constitution.
0:01:26 But let’s just say that it gets very interesting when he carries around a musket.
0:01:29 You don’t want to miss this episode.
0:01:36 And when I heard the story of AJ Jacobs, it was so strange and so funny.
0:01:43 I had to talk to his wife because, oh my God, I wanted to hear what she says about living
0:01:46 constitutionally and biblically.
0:01:51 And then I suggested that he take one year and live magally, but I don’t think he’s
0:01:53 gonna take me up on that challenge.
0:01:56 So I’m Guy Kawasaki.
0:01:58 This is Remarkable People.
0:02:07 And now here’s the remarkable and extremely funny, AJ Jacobs.
0:02:11 Do you still have the pillory?
0:02:12 I do.
0:02:13 I do.
0:02:17 It is under my bed, and it is very well crafted.
0:02:23 It’s made of wood, and you are welcome to borrow it anytime you want.
0:02:27 For those of you listening who don’t know what a pillory is, because I didn’t until
0:02:33 I read AJ’s book, this is the stockade thing, where you put your head in and you put your
0:02:36 arms in and you’re locked in the stockade.
0:02:37 Exactly.
0:02:41 They have gone out of style in the United States, thankfully.
0:02:47 But since I was writing a book about trying to live like they lived in the 18th century,
0:02:50 I figured I should try to get one.
0:02:53 And you can still buy them on Etsy.
0:02:59 They are handmade, and I thought I would try one out, and it’s not my favorite.
0:03:00 It’s not my thing.
0:03:08 I’m not gonna continue using it, which is why I offer it to you, Guy.
0:03:13 But this may seem like a dumb question, but why would you keep something like that?
0:03:24 Well, it is very well crafted, and it is funny because it was sold on Etsy for adult entertainment
0:03:30 purposes, so it’s not really a punishment device, or at least in the traditional sense.
0:03:34 When I commit to a project, I commit.
0:03:38 As my son says, I commit to the bit, so I had everything.
0:03:41 As you can see, I’m wearing my tricorn hat.
0:03:47 I carried a musket around New York City because that’s my second amendment, right?
0:03:55 So the whole idea was to live by the Constitution as it was originally written in 1789.
0:04:03 And part of that is to explore punishment, and so I did end up buying one off of Etsy.
0:04:06 But I do use my quill.
0:04:11 I’m holding it right here for you, and it is well used.
0:04:17 I love writing with a quill because it changed the way I thought.
0:04:24 I honestly believe it made me a more subtle thinker because when I’m on the Internet,
0:04:29 I’ve gotten all these dings and chimes, and it’s very hard to concentrate.
0:04:35 It’s much better for cold takes versus hot takes, and you don’t have to go with a quill,
0:04:41 just a pen or a pencil or even a computer that’s cut off from the Internet.
0:04:44 So that was one of the takeaways of my project.
0:04:49 Madison and I both have fountain pens, and I feel the same way about fountain pens.
0:04:50 Oh, yes.
0:04:52 I have a suggestion for your pillory.
0:04:57 I think you could send it to Lauren Boebert and say, “The next time you go to a Broadway
0:05:03 musical, take this, and then you will be safer from video,” and other kinds of criticism
0:05:05 on CNN.
0:05:10 If you use this at the next time, you go to a play.
0:05:13 A brilliant idea.
0:05:22 If you have her address, then I will send it off.
0:05:27 Okay, now, this is a semi-serious thing, and I think we can have a breakthrough here,
0:05:28 right?
0:05:31 I read, because of your book, The Preamble, and it says, “We, the people of the United
0:05:39 States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility.”
0:05:48 Okay, the OCD Grammarian in me says, insure, I-N-S-U-R-E, is the wrong word unless they
0:05:52 were referring to state farm and all states.
0:05:56 Shouldn’t it be insure, not insure domestic tranquility?
0:06:03 Well, that is a fascinating question, and I actually ran the Constitution through the
0:06:11 Grammarly software, and it found over 600 mistakes, including that the words Pennsylvania,
0:06:16 the state Pennsylvania, spelled two different ways, P-E-N-N and P-E-N.
0:06:23 Now, I say this because I think the Constitution is an amazing document, and it does contain
0:06:30 greatness, and it planted the seeds of equality and our nation, but it was also written by
0:06:35 human beings, and it had flaws, and they knew it had flaws.
0:06:42 So one of the messages of my book is that they wanted us to improve on the Constitution.
0:06:46 They did not think it was a static document for all time.
0:06:52 I can tell you that probably if there are any originalists listening to this podcast,
0:06:59 they’re now saying, no, the letter of the preamble is insure, so that means that we cannot regulate
0:07:02 all state and state farm and GEICO.
0:07:06 It would be unconstitutional to regulate insurance companies.
0:07:13 Guy, I know you went to at least a year of law school, so I think you have got an excellent
0:07:14 point.
0:07:16 I’m not going to argue with you.
0:07:21 I hate to brush your bubble, but it was two weeks, not a year, but okay.
0:07:23 You’ve forgotten that.
0:07:26 Okay, you must have learned something in those two weeks.
0:07:29 I learned that I hate law, yeah, I learned something.
0:07:36 Okay, so listen, you have a checkered past, you’ve lived both biblically and constitutionally,
0:07:37 so which was harder?
0:07:39 Oh, that’s a good question.
0:07:46 They were both incredibly challenging and both incredibly rewarding because I do these
0:07:52 immersive projects where I live like someone for a year, and it’s not only because it’s
0:07:58 weird and strange and delightful, which it is, but also my hope is that I get something
0:08:04 out of it that improves my life and improves the reader’s life.
0:08:08 Each of them had their wonderful parts and their terrible parts, so the wonderful parts
0:08:14 of the Bible where I really learned a lot about gratitude because that’s a big part
0:08:20 of the Bible, the less wonderful parts where I had a huge beard because the Bible says
0:08:22 you cannot shave the corners of your beard.
0:08:29 So I looked like Gandalf or ZZ Top, you’re old enough to remember ZZ Top, and my wife
0:08:33 would not kiss me for seven months, so it was a balance.
0:08:34 Same with the Constitution.
0:08:36 I think there were amazing parts.
0:08:44 I learned a lot about virtue and self-sacrifice and cold takes writing with a quill pen, but
0:08:50 on the other hand, I had to carry a musket around New York, which got some strange looks.
0:08:57 I will say, it did come in handy once when I arrived at a coffee shop with my musket
0:09:03 at the same time as another customer, and he said, “You go first, I’m not cutting you
0:09:04 in line.”
0:09:05 That was helpful.
0:09:09 You mentioned it, but listen, if you were black and carrying a musket, you would have
0:09:12 had a very different experience, right?
0:09:14 Absolutely, yes.
0:09:20 I was nervous about the reaction, but as you say, and as I say in the book, if I had been
0:09:24 black, then who knows what would have happened?
0:09:30 And that is a big part of American history, and a big part of my book is, how does the
0:09:32 Constitution deal with race?
0:09:35 And it is a fascinating and complicated issue.
0:09:43 Listen, if all of a sudden, people of color were out and buying 30-shot clips and buying
0:09:49 automatic weapons, it would be interesting to see what the GOP thought of the Second
0:09:58 Amendment, or there must be some doing backflips because Hunter Biden’s ability to bear arms
0:10:03 is being restricted because he filled out the application inaccurately.
0:10:09 So what if Donald Trump’s son went and tried to buy a gun and had a drug problem, would
0:10:15 they be saying, oh, no, the Second Amendment trumps any restriction on people with drug
0:10:20 problems buying guns, or yeah, no, the restriction is top priority?
0:10:24 I don’t know what they would say to that, that would be very interesting.
0:10:29 It is a fascinating issue to read about the history of the Second Amendment because it
0:10:38 is very different than what I thought, and it was, at the time, some of the great work
0:10:45 on this was done by Saul Cornell, a historian, and he argues both the left and the right
0:10:52 get the Second Amendment wrong, or at least the original meaning of it, because the idea
0:10:59 was that it was your civic duty to have a musket in case you needed to defend your state
0:11:01 or your country.
0:11:09 And so the left would not like the fact that it was such a pro-gun society, but the right
0:11:14 would be apoplectic because it was very highly regulated.
0:11:19 They had government people would come to your home and make sure that your gun was working
0:11:22 properly because you needed to defend it.
0:11:26 So it was not one or the other.
0:11:30 And that’s why I think when it comes to the Second Amendment, we should not be looking
0:11:31 to the past.
0:11:39 We should be looking to what’s going on now and what is best for society now, as opposed
0:11:45 to trying to figure out what was the correct thing to do in 1789.
0:11:51 So you actually bought a musket with your buddies in the reenactment stage, and you
0:11:57 say something like, if you really got good at it, you could fire a musket three or four
0:12:04 times a minute, which is let’s just say a little slower than a automatic weapon today.
0:12:05 That is true.
0:12:13 And yes, I bought an actual musket off the old internet, and it is from the 1790s.
0:12:18 And then I bought another replica because the old one is hard to shoot.
0:12:19 But I went to a range.
0:12:25 I had joined the New Jersey Third Regiment of Revolutionary War reenactors.
0:12:26 Wonderful people.
0:12:29 Great time fighting some battles.
0:12:32 And we went to a range to shoot a musket.
0:12:37 And like you said, it was a vastly different experience than shooting a modern gun, which
0:12:41 I’ve also done because it’s so many steps.
0:12:42 It’s like 15 steps.
0:12:44 You have to take out the ramrod.
0:12:49 You’ve got to take out the gunpowder, pour the gunpowder in, pour the gunpowder there.
0:12:51 And it’s like 15 steps.
0:12:54 It’s like building a desk from Ikea.
0:12:56 So it is not easy.
0:13:01 And it took me several minutes to fire one lead ball.
0:13:07 But the real sharpshooters in the war could fire three per minute.
0:13:14 But even that, as you say, is much slower than current semi-automatic guns, which can
0:13:15 fire.
0:13:22 So the big question is, and I’ll present both sides, because I do like to steal man.
0:13:26 You know that phrase, steal man, as opposed to straw man.
0:13:32 So you try to present the strongest argument from both sides, which I think is a very good
0:13:33 thing.
0:13:38 And that is something I think the founders did right, is that they were much more open-minded
0:13:41 where we are very intransigent.
0:13:49 So anyway, the one side would say that this law of the Second Amendment was from 1789
0:13:54 with muskets– totally different machine than what we have now.
0:14:00 So imagine if you had a law written in 1800 that said, on this quiet country lane, it’s
0:14:03 OK to have wheeled vehicles.
0:14:07 Because wheeled vehicles meant a wheelbarrow or a bicycle.
0:14:10 Now we have 18-wheeled trucks.
0:14:14 So is the same law– does it need to be revised?
0:14:16 Progressives would say yes.
0:14:25 On the other hand, the gun rights folks would say, no, the right to bear arms is for all
0:14:26 arms.
0:14:27 It’s about self-defense.
0:14:32 And it would be like if you said, the First Amendment of free speech and free press only
0:14:37 applied to Ben Franklin’s wooden printing press.
0:14:39 It should apply to everything.
0:14:47 Now as you might imagine, I lean more towards the former argument that it is a very, very
0:14:54 different machine and that because it’s so different, we do need different regulations.
0:14:58 Can you tell us about the people in this New Jersey Regiment?
0:15:05 If you didn’t know that they do this reenactment and you just met them, would it be like screaming
0:15:09 to you that, wow, these people are like a little bit nuts?
0:15:12 They’re like reenacting the Revolutionary War.
0:15:13 They’re shooting muskets.
0:15:15 They’re wearing hats like you’re wearing.
0:15:17 Or would you just say, huh, nice guy.
0:15:18 We got along just great.
0:15:21 I mean, you would have a beer with them.
0:15:25 More than a beer, I would have Madeira and some ale.
0:15:33 And I will say, and I feel you have this too, that you try to go through life with an openness
0:15:36 and a curiosity and try not to prejudge.
0:15:39 So they will admit it’s a weird hobby.
0:15:42 And some of them are excessive.
0:15:48 There are some that they call stitch counters because they are so obsessed with having exactly
0:15:54 the way it was, the correct number of stitches on each pair of pants.
0:16:02 One guy in my regiment lost a toe to Frostbite because he walked barefoot in Valley Forage
0:16:06 in the snow because that’s what they did in the Revolutionary War.
0:16:10 So sometimes, yes, they can be a little overly committed.
0:16:14 But I will say, I became friendly with a lot of them.
0:16:16 They were thoughtful.
0:16:25 They were interested in honoring these people who had made sacrifices in the fight for democracy.
0:16:30 And I do think it’s an interesting question because one of the big questions of the book
0:16:34 is what is the glue that holds America together?
0:16:37 I love America, but I’m very worried about it.
0:16:39 It is not doing very well.
0:16:41 We are fraying.
0:16:42 So what is the glue?
0:16:45 And there can be several different glues.
0:16:53 One way countries hold together is through nationalism, that they all have the same ethnicity.
0:16:56 I think that’s a bad way to hold a country together.
0:17:00 That leads to all sorts of horrible things like Nazism.
0:17:03 So no, I say no to that.
0:17:05 Another way is through a founding myth.
0:17:11 So this is the way that they’re trying to do it, the founding myth of the documents
0:17:14 and the fight against monarchy.
0:17:19 Of course, that is a complicated one because many of the founders were incredibly flawed
0:17:21 and some of them were slave owners.
0:17:24 So some people object to the founding myth.
0:17:30 One way to rectify that is to make it a little broader, to be more inclusive in the founding
0:17:35 myth and include people like Frederick Douglass in the founding myth, which I love.
0:17:41 And another way to bind us together is through culture, maybe Thanksgiving, maybe the Superbowl,
0:17:44 maybe these are what can keep America together.
0:17:48 I don’t have the answer, but I explore all these things.
0:17:49 What is your thought?
0:17:50 I’d be interested.
0:17:51 You’re a wise person.
0:17:57 How can we keep America, assuming you do think America is worth keeping together?
0:18:01 How are some strategies that can help us make that real?
0:18:05 We had a guest, I can’t remember who.
0:18:11 Maybe it was Leon Panetta, but one of our guests told us in the old days, all the members
0:18:13 of Congress lived in the same area.
0:18:19 So you may be across the aisle during the day, but on the weekends, your kids played
0:18:24 on the same little league teams and you were sitting in the same stands and all that.
0:18:29 And so it was a lot more civil and there was a lot more crossing the aisle, but now everybody
0:18:31 lives separately.
0:18:38 And so you develop these little kind of conclaves of self-reinforcing beliefs and that has created
0:18:39 a lot of problems.
0:18:44 So I agree with you that the third solution is the only way to go.
0:18:50 And like you, I am very worried that beginning on November 6th, it may be the end of America.
0:18:52 We don’t need to go that deep right now.
0:18:59 I was just going to say, I think that is such an important point that we need to get out
0:19:03 of our little echo chambers and our little bubbles.
0:19:11 And I think one way to do it is back in the 1700s, in addition to individual rights, you
0:19:17 had responsibilities, whether it was the bucket brigade and you were putting out fires or
0:19:19 you were in the militia.
0:19:23 So I don’t want to return to the days of the militia where everyone had to be.
0:19:29 But I like the idea of national service for everyone trying AmeriCorps even for a month.
0:19:32 Or I love that my kids are going to college.
0:19:36 But I’m worried because when I went to college, it was a lottery.
0:19:42 You got stuck in a room with people maybe of completely different backgrounds.
0:19:48 Now you can go on Instagram and find someone who’s like you and then room with them.
0:19:54 So that is just one symptom of the problem of we’re not mixing together like we used
0:19:55 to.
0:20:03 We are really separating like oil and water.
0:20:09 I have to say that I think and I am willing to bet a lot of money that I am hardly the
0:20:15 first person to say this, but I just want to add one more voice that you definitely
0:20:22 have to do a book about a year of living MAGA like just go MAGA for a year.
0:20:27 I think that would be just fantastic.
0:20:32 You know, I have not had that many people say that I’ve had a few, but not that many.
0:20:34 That would be interesting.
0:20:38 We’d be bigger than the guy who ate at McDonald’s for 30 days.
0:20:43 You got to do this by your Ford 150 start going to NASCAR and like going on all the
0:20:44 rallies.
0:20:45 I would pay.
0:20:51 Listen, it is not a bad idea because I do think it is important.
0:20:57 Some people say we are so far gone that you can’t even communicate with the other side.
0:20:58 And maybe that’s true.
0:20:59 Maybe that’s true.
0:21:06 But I actually love trying to talk to people of completely different backgrounds.
0:21:09 And I think that is something we need to try to do.
0:21:16 And actually speaking of my book, I think that the founders were better at that because
0:21:23 they did have vast disagreements, but they had a lot more epistemic humility.
0:21:26 So my favorite is Ben Franklin.
0:21:32 And during the convention, he said, the older I get, the less certain I am of my own opinions.
0:21:33 And then he told this story.
0:21:40 He said, there was a French lady who said to her sister, why is it that I’m the only
0:21:45 person I’ve ever met who is right on every single issue?
0:21:47 And his point was, we’re all the French lady.
0:21:53 The mag of people are the French lady, but so are a lot of us on the left are the French
0:21:54 lady.
0:21:56 We think we are absolutely right.
0:22:05 And we need to be open to changing our mind, not willy nilly, not based on a cultist changing
0:22:06 your mind.
0:22:12 But you’ve got to change your mind by looking at the evidence and having a civil discussion.
0:22:16 So anyway, that is to say, maybe you’re on to something.
0:22:17 Maybe I should try it.
0:22:25 Listen, AJ, if I could see Jordan Klepper interviewing you, doing your year of being
0:22:32 MAGA, that would be, we’re talking Pula to prize level, that would be freaking amazing.
0:22:36 But I don’t know if my wife would go for it.
0:22:37 We’ll see.
0:22:40 I’ll bring it up to her since you brought it up.
0:22:46 I was going to ask you at the end, but from time to time on this podcast, we have brought
0:22:49 in cameo appearances.
0:22:53 And so we had Sal Khan’s niece.
0:22:56 She was the genesis of Khan Academy.
0:22:59 So we had her on for about 60 seconds.
0:23:05 And then I had Josh Peck, who mother talked about what it was like for him to be a childhood
0:23:06 actor.
0:23:11 So I’m leading up to this request that could you just consider if I could get your wife
0:23:18 on the phone for about 60 seconds and say, Julie, do you think your husband is absolutely
0:23:19 nuts?
0:23:20 He’s got the pillory.
0:23:21 He’s got the hat.
0:23:22 He’s got the musket.
0:23:24 He wanted to buy a second musket.
0:23:26 Julie, tell me, I mean.
0:23:27 Oh, okay.
0:23:28 Absolutely.
0:23:29 Of course.
0:23:36 No, she gets a lot of emails from readers saying that she is the most patient woman
0:23:37 in the world.
0:23:42 And I appreciate that because that allow me to do my subjects.
0:23:45 On a more serious note, listen, I’m from Silicon Valley.
0:23:52 I’ve been around many Foundings of many companies and I was at Apple and at Google and Wikipedia
0:23:53 and all that.
0:23:55 So I scratch my head.
0:24:02 I mean, I just cannot conceive of an organization that writes a business plan.
0:24:08 And then 250 years later, the people who work for that organization are saying 250 years
0:24:12 ago, Steve Jobs said, all mice have to have one button.
0:24:13 So we need to have one button.
0:24:16 I’m an originalist of the Apple business plan.
0:24:19 We cannot have a multiple button mouse.
0:24:20 We cannot have a trackpad.
0:24:22 It has to be a one button mouse.
0:24:27 So can you just explain to me like what goes through their brains when they think that
0:24:31 something that’s 250 years old should be applied to modern society?
0:24:36 Well, that is a fascinating analogy about the Silicon Valley.
0:24:38 I would say a couple of things.
0:24:43 First of all, the founders, I do believe were very entrepreneurial.
0:24:50 They were like some of the brilliant people in Silicon Valley now, and that they would
0:24:54 not want the Constitution to be stuck in time.
0:25:01 And they made it an amendment process, which was a real big breakthrough because they said,
0:25:06 we know this is an imperfect document and we know that times evolve.
0:25:11 So you have this way to change the founding document.
0:25:14 The problem is they made it too hard to change.
0:25:18 They didn’t think that they were making it that hard.
0:25:19 They didn’t want it to be easy.
0:25:22 They don’t want to be able to change every day.
0:25:28 But you need two thirds of Congress to make an amendment.
0:25:30 Back then it was possible.
0:25:35 Now we have two rigid parties split down the middle.
0:25:38 The founders did not see that coming.
0:25:39 They would be appalled.
0:25:46 We have not had an amendment since 1992, and I don’t see one coming for several decades.
0:25:50 And this would be very disturbing to the founders.
0:25:52 So that’s the first point.
0:25:59 The second point is, as I say, I do like to steal man both sides because I think that’s
0:26:05 the way progress is made, is if you do understand the other side and then are able to have a
0:26:06 civil discussion.
0:26:10 So let me try to steal man originalism for you.
0:26:17 Originalism, which is an incredibly powerful movement right now in how to interpret the
0:26:19 Constitution.
0:26:24 And the majority of the Supreme Court are originalists, and a lot of the decisions
0:26:31 like dobs about abortion and brewing about guns are originalist decisions.
0:26:40 So the theory is that the most important thing when interpreting the Constitution is that
0:26:45 meaning from the original public meaning from when it was ratified.
0:26:49 And you can say, yeah, that’s crazy, it was 230 years ago.
0:26:51 But think about this.
0:26:57 If you sign a contract, you’re a businessman, you sign a contract, say you hire a contractor
0:27:01 for your home and say, can you please install a new sink?
0:27:06 And the contractor comes back a month later and says, okay, put in the sink, but I also
0:27:13 put in a chandelier and I did a couch and a little water fountain for you.
0:27:15 And I didn’t ask for that.
0:27:17 And he says, yeah, but it’s a living contract.
0:27:19 And I thought that would be helpful for you.
0:27:20 So I did it.
0:27:25 So their argument is we need to have stability.
0:27:28 It’s built on stability and rule of law.
0:27:32 And you can’t be willy-nilly changing it.
0:27:38 Now I understand that argument, but like I said, it’s too hard to change the document.
0:27:42 So something has to change as society changes.
0:27:48 So that is where living constitutionalism, which is the opposite of originalism, that
0:27:54 comes in and says, well, no, we have to change the interpretation as the times change.
0:28:00 And both of them have their pros and cons, these approaches, because living constitutionalism,
0:28:01 that’s not perfect.
0:28:07 You’re giving so much power to the Supreme Court, which as we’ve seen is not a great
0:28:08 thing.
0:28:11 So I am not fully on board with the idea.
0:28:15 I think the Supreme Court is way too powerful.
0:28:17 And the founders would have been appalled at that.
0:28:19 They did not see it coming.
0:28:22 So it’s a complicated issue, is what I’m saying.
0:28:29 But to me, the important part when interpreting the Constitution or when making any decision
0:28:32 is to look at it through many lenses.
0:28:36 So you look at it through the original meaning, that’s a wonderful lens.
0:28:40 But also look at it, how will it affect our descendants?
0:28:43 How will it affect society now?
0:28:49 How will it affect the reputation of the Supreme Court or the government as an institution?
0:28:54 I’m sure you’ve heard of the Fox and the Hedgehog, where the Fox sees the world through
0:29:00 many lenses, and the Hedgehog sees the world through one lens.
0:29:03 It’s a fable from Greek times.
0:29:05 I am a Fox.
0:29:10 I love seeing the world through many lenses, and I think that makes the world a better place.
0:29:14 But that’s why I am not an originalist.
0:29:20 In the spirit of helping me become more of a Fox, can you just give me some examples
0:29:25 where liberals have embraced originalism?
0:29:30 Like I know many examples of conservatives embracing originalism, but can you give us
0:29:38 some of liberals embracing originalism that just makes you smack your head?
0:29:39 That’s a great question.
0:29:45 I think one of the challenges of originalism is you’ve got two challenges.
0:29:50 You’ve got people trying to figure out what was in the minds of the founding generation.
0:29:53 So there’s a big debate over that.
0:29:55 People are like, no, they said this, no, they said that.
0:29:57 So that’s one question.
0:30:02 And then once you have the answer to that, the other question is, is this information
0:30:04 what we should be using?
0:30:11 So I’ll give you what I think is a fascinating point that these wonderful scholars at Stanford,
0:30:17 Jud Campbell is one of them, and they went into the history of the First Amendment.
0:30:19 Now I’m a journalist and a writer.
0:30:22 I love the First Amendment, my favorite amendment.
0:30:24 I love free speech.
0:30:33 But I realized through research, I love 20th century free speech or 21st century.
0:30:39 The free speech was expanded significantly in the last 50 years.
0:30:44 The free speech at the founding was very different.
0:30:47 It was much more constricted.
0:30:52 Some founders were more pro free speech than others, but none of them were as free speech
0:30:54 as we are now.
0:31:00 Back then it was considered constitutional to have state laws against blasphemy.
0:31:06 I couldn’t believe it, but there were state laws against blasphemy in New York.
0:31:14 If you said a curse or blasphemed the Lord, 37 and a half cent fine, which is about $20.
0:31:19 Since I was living constitutionally, I tried to impose that on my house because I have
0:31:23 sons who are teens, and I was like, this is great.
0:31:27 I can get them to stop cursing 37 and a half cents every time they cursed.
0:31:31 They were very lawyerly and said, I don’t have a half cent, therefore I’m not paying.
0:31:34 Anyway, it didn’t always work.
0:31:40 But then Connecticut had laws against jugglers and magicians and acrobats, and these were
0:31:47 considered constitutional because back then you had your natural rights, but once you
0:31:53 entered society, then your rights were balanced against the greater good.
0:32:00 Your rights were mediated by the fact that there are others, so you can’t just go around
0:32:03 saying anything you want.
0:32:09 It wasn’t quite Stalinist Russia back in the 1790s, but it was nothing like what we have
0:32:10 now.
0:32:15 So no one should want to go back to the original First Amendment.
0:32:19 The original First Amendment was very narrow.
0:32:28 I wouldn’t like it because every late night comedian would be in jail for sedition if
0:32:34 this was in the 1790s, but conservatives would not like it either because the argument that
0:32:40 the First Amendment covers political donations from corporations would shock the founders.
0:32:42 They would say, what?
0:32:47 They were very concerned about corruption in politics, so they would not believe that
0:32:50 the First Amendment covers that.
0:32:55 So that is an example of why I think it’s good to look at the history.
0:32:59 It’s fascinating, but we cannot rely on that alone.
0:33:04 So when push comes to shove and bottom line, what do you think is more surprising?
0:33:10 How inadequate the Constitution is today or that it has worked as well as it works?
0:33:12 Oh, that’s a great question.
0:33:14 That is a great question.
0:33:16 Can I answer both?
0:33:18 I think that is the proper answer.
0:33:20 I believe in the First Amendment.
0:33:21 Thank you.
0:33:23 The new First Amendment.
0:33:25 That’s right.
0:33:30 What I love about the Constitution is that it does contain multitudes.
0:33:34 And let me give you a quick little story that I have in the section on race and the Constitution
0:33:36 in the book.
0:33:40 And that is, right before the Civil War, you had two great abolitionists.
0:33:46 You had William Lloyd Garrison, a white man, and Frederick Douglass, a former enslaveman.
0:33:53 William Lloyd Garrison, he said, “The Constitution is a pact with the devil because it condones
0:33:54 slavery.”
0:33:57 He says, “It deserves to be burned.”
0:33:58 And he burned it.
0:34:01 He literally burned it on stage in front of hundreds of people.
0:34:03 He was like a showman.
0:34:06 At first, Frederick Douglass agreed with him.
0:34:11 But at some point in the 1850s, Frederick Douglass changed his mind, which, as you know, I love
0:34:13 people who change their mind.
0:34:15 And he said, “I think it’d be more productive.
0:34:18 Let’s reframe the Constitution.
0:34:19 It’s not a pact with the devil.
0:34:21 It is a promise or a note.
0:34:25 The Constitution promises liberty.
0:34:27 It promises equality.
0:34:29 And those are not happening in our country.
0:34:30 We have enslaved people.
0:34:33 We have racism, sexism.”
0:34:38 And he said, “The idea is, let’s make America live up to the promise or a note that is the
0:34:40 Constitution.”
0:34:44 And that is such a powerful theme.
0:34:47 Martin Luther King used that same language.
0:34:48 That’s a promise or a note.
0:34:55 Obama talked about how the problems within the Constitution are solved by the Constitution
0:34:56 itself.
0:34:58 The seeds of freedom are in there.
0:35:00 We just have to make them grow.
0:35:04 And we have to struggle to make it live up to its best ideals.
0:35:06 So that is my answer.
0:35:10 In some ways, it’s a very troubling document.
0:35:13 But in other ways, it’s wonderful and amazing.
0:35:16 And let’s try to make it live up to those great parts.
0:35:20 And what if somebody wanted to pin you to the wall and say, “Yeah, but we the people
0:35:25 really referred historically to ‘we the white males’?”
0:35:28 Well, I think that that’s hard to argue with.
0:35:33 I think, “Yes, that was ‘we the people’ back then meant ‘we the white male people’.”
0:35:35 That’s who could vote.
0:35:37 That’s who they wrote it for.
0:35:41 But what’s wonderful is they used that phrase, “we the people.”
0:35:43 They didn’t say, “we the white male people.”
0:35:44 They used the phrase, “we the people.”
0:35:52 And that has left open the door for Americans to struggle and expand the rights of marginalized
0:35:53 people.
0:35:57 And you can see that in the Constitution itself, in the amendments.
0:35:59 You can see women got the vote.
0:36:05 With the 19th Amendment, black people got the vote, indigenous people got the vote.
0:36:10 And we the people, we are very lucky to have that phrase.
0:36:17 Because originally, the original version of the Constitution said, “we the people of Pennsylvania,
0:36:20 New York, Rhode Island, etc., etc.”
0:36:24 And if that had been the case, it would have been a different message.
0:36:27 It would have been, “this is all about the states.”
0:36:31 Governor Morris was one of the founders, and he struck out the states, and he said, “no,
0:36:37 it’s ‘we the people,’” and that has made a huge difference because then that has allowed
0:36:40 us to expand the rights.
0:36:42 Up next, unremarkable people.
0:36:49 I’ve gotten liberals from the left to say, “thank you for showing me how crazy originalism
0:36:50 is.”
0:36:55 On the conservative side, I get lots of thank you for showing that the founders did have
0:37:01 virtues and this idea of self-sacrifice, and that we do need to get back to some of this.
0:37:06 So yeah, people are just very good at seeing what they want, and so I don’t think it’s
0:37:07 a big con.
0:37:12 I really don’t.
0:37:14 Thank you to all our regular podcast listeners.
0:37:17 It’s our pleasure and honor to make the show for you.
0:37:23 If you find our show valuable, please do us a favor and subscribe, rate and review it.
0:37:30 Even better, forward it to a friend, a big mahalo to you for doing this.
0:37:34 You’re listening to Remarkable People with Guy Kawasaki.
0:37:42 What do you think the impact would be of actually amending the Constitution, the exact places,
0:37:48 as opposed to sticking everything as addendums that may have internal conflicts if you didn’t
0:37:52 actually amend the main part of the Constitution?
0:37:53 Right.
0:37:58 I love that question because James Madison, the father of the Constitution he’s called,
0:37:59 that’s what he wanted.
0:38:05 He wanted when the Constitution was amended, he’s like, you got to rewrite the whole thing
0:38:12 and put the new language in, more like a Google doc where you rewrite it completely over or
0:38:14 a Wikipedia page.
0:38:16 But he was overruled.
0:38:19 Some of the other founders said, no, we’ll just stick it at the end.
0:38:25 We’ll put the amendments at the end like a PS, PS, oh yeah, we forgot.
0:38:28 You should have the right to free speech.
0:38:31 I think there are advantages to both.
0:38:37 One of my advisors, because I talked to dozens of great constitutional scholars, one said
0:38:45 that it’s good to have this startlingly horrible language in the Constitution about, they don’t
0:38:52 use the words slavery, they use euphemisms like servitude, but it’s good to have that
0:38:59 to remind us we have made progress because you read the news today and it’s 16 hours
0:39:05 of negativity and it’s very easy to think we’ve made zero progress and we’re worse
0:39:06 than ever.
0:39:10 That is the way I feel sometimes at the end of a day, but that’s wrong.
0:39:15 We have made progress and we can continue to make progress.
0:39:21 Yeah, I think that nostalgia is vastly overrated and when people say they want to go back to
0:39:27 the 50s and the 60s because as families we all ate around a common dinner table and then
0:39:31 we talked amongst themselves, not looked at our phones and then after we went and played
0:39:35 board games like this great family, like what family was that?
0:39:42 I don’t know any families like that and I was alive in the 50s.
0:39:47 I love that you say that because that is one of the big themes of the books is some parts
0:39:50 of the 1700s were wonderful.
0:39:54 There were parts like we talked about the virtue of writing with a quill pen.
0:39:56 You don’t have 16 hours of negative news.
0:39:59 You have newspaper comes twice a week.
0:40:03 So you’re not depressed from the moment you wake up and turn on the internet.
0:40:08 On the other hand, like you said, the good old days were not good.
0:40:09 They sucked.
0:40:17 They were racist, sexist, smelly, cutting edge medicine was the tobacco smoke enema
0:40:21 where they literally would blow smoke up your ass.
0:40:27 They’d put a two a hose up your ass and blow smoke up it because it was considered good
0:40:29 for your stomach.
0:40:31 So we don’t want that.
0:40:36 And the look it up tobacco smoke enema is very popular.
0:40:41 Bloodletting is also more well known, but you’re making me suck her up.
0:40:42 I’m sorry.
0:40:46 My point is to make you feel better, not to feel worse.
0:40:51 You don’t have to do the tobacco and let me give you two very small examples because
0:40:53 I was trying to live it.
0:40:59 So I never did blow smoke up my ass, but even just wearing the even wearing the not even
0:41:03 Mike Johnson has done that to you.
0:41:04 It’s funny.
0:41:07 I quote him as saying we should go back to the 18th century.
0:41:08 Exactly.
0:41:09 You want that, Mike?
0:41:11 I’m not sure you do.
0:41:17 But I would put on my clothes every morning and I would put on my my 18th century style
0:41:22 socks, these big stockings, and they had no elastic.
0:41:24 So they fall down to your ankles.
0:41:29 So I had to put on these little sock belts every morning, not even garters.
0:41:31 Garters are too sophisticated.
0:41:33 Just little belts around the sock.
0:41:39 And the amount of combined time, I must have spent like six hours putting on sock belts.
0:41:41 I’ll never get that back.
0:41:48 So I am so grateful for democracy, but I’m also grateful for elastic socks.
0:41:50 So I agree with you.
0:41:55 Nostalgia is as vastly overrated.
0:41:56 Oh my God.
0:42:01 So can we just talk about the Supreme Court for a moment here?
0:42:04 Because the Supreme Court is just basically politically aligned.
0:42:07 Why do we even have a Supreme Court at this point?
0:42:08 There’s no checks and balances.
0:42:09 No.
0:42:12 Do you think that’s a blip or do you think that’s permanent?
0:42:13 Oh God, I hope it’s not permanent.
0:42:22 I think it’s both sides would benefit from term limits, 18 years, I’d be happy with
0:42:23 less.
0:42:30 But I will tell you, from a founder’s perspective, if they came back, they would be appalled
0:42:33 by the Supreme Court right now.
0:42:37 Because they would say, this was not meant to be so powerful.
0:42:44 If you look at the Constitution, the first article is about Congress, and it is by far
0:42:45 the longest.
0:42:51 It is two and a half times the size of the president’s section, which is article two.
0:42:56 And then article three is the Supreme Court, very short.
0:43:02 I wouldn’t say it’s an afterthought, but it is not the main event.
0:43:10 Congress was first among equals back then, because that’s who was elected by the people.
0:43:16 Supreme Court was there, and it was supposed to weigh in on constitutional issues.
0:43:19 But it wasn’t supposed to be the final say.
0:43:26 Most founders wanted it to be a joint decision between the president, Congress, and the Supreme
0:43:29 Court on what is and is not constitutional.
0:43:35 And you can look at Jonathan Gnep from Stanford, who’s done some amazing work on this.
0:43:41 So they would look at the Supreme Court now and say, wait, these are nine unelected people,
0:43:44 and they are determining the fates of millions of Americans?
0:43:46 This is not what we designed.
0:43:47 This is insane.
0:43:52 I am not a fan of the way the Supreme Court is structured now.
0:43:56 I would be very happy if they had much less power.
0:43:58 And likewise, the president.
0:44:01 The president has way too much power.
0:44:04 The founders would be shocked by that.
0:44:09 They wanted the president to have some power, but again, it was the Congress who was number
0:44:10 one.
0:44:14 And over the years, the president has gained crazy power.
0:44:18 George Washington had eight executive orders in eight years.
0:44:24 Obama and Trump both had over 200 executive orders.
0:44:29 It is a vastly different system, which is why, because as you know, my book, I was trying
0:44:34 to express all of my rights, there’s a right to petition in the First Amendment.
0:44:41 And so I decided to start a petition to try to limit the power of the president, both Democrat
0:44:47 and Republican, I think need to be limited and give Congress back some power.
0:44:53 I went back to an idea by my favorite founder, Ben Franklin.
0:44:57 Ben Franklin and others thought, one president is a terrible idea.
0:45:01 We just fought a war to get rid of a monarch.
0:45:07 So several of the delegates wanted three presidents, three co-presidents at the same
0:45:08 time.
0:45:13 Ben Franklin wanted, at one point he proposed a council of 12 presidents, but it’s funny
0:45:21 to think about Biden, Trump, and RFK Jr. sitting next to each other at a wee work in the Oval
0:45:22 Office.
0:45:28 I’m not sure it’s a great idea, honestly, but I do think that they were right to be
0:45:31 worried about one person having that much power.
0:45:37 So I was able to get hundreds of signatures with my quill pen and bring it to a sitting
0:45:43 senator to talk about, let’s reign in the president so that we don’t have another monarch
0:45:46 like the founders were afraid of.
0:45:52 We may be about to find out about a monarchy, but anyway, why do you say Supreme Court is
0:45:53 powerful?
0:45:58 I’m being a little bit of a devil’s advocate because if the Supreme Court makes a ruling
0:46:03 and people refuse to implement it, what are they going to do?
0:46:06 They can’t call up the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
0:46:12 That is actually what Alexander Hamilton said is that they do not have the power of the
0:46:16 sword, so they are the least threatening and dangerous branch.
0:46:25 But if you believe in the rule of law, which I do, then when they do make a decision, then
0:46:29 the president, presumably, and Congress will enforce it.
0:46:35 They don’t have to, as you say, and Andrew Jackson did say that he made that very point.
0:46:39 I forget what the actual ruling was, but he said, “I’m not going to enforce it and let
0:46:41 them try to make me.”
0:46:48 But we want to have a country that is run by rule of law because I do believe that that’s
0:46:55 better than chaos and authoritarians and tyranny.
0:47:01 I don’t think Alito and Kagan are going to go out there with their arms and try to make
0:47:02 the Congress follow it.
0:47:09 But luckily, Congress does follow their rulings, even though I disagree with many of their
0:47:10 rulings.
0:47:17 Yeah, but I would make the case that in today’s environment, if the Supreme Court was controlled
0:47:23 by liberals and they made rulings that the Republican Congress didn’t like, the Republican
0:47:26 Congress would not listen to the Supreme Court.
0:47:27 That’s interesting.
0:47:33 It’s hard to predict, but I will say that is how we got originalism in the first place,
0:47:40 is that in the 1960s, you had a very liberal Supreme Court, the Warren Court, and they
0:47:47 made a lot of decisions such as desegregating schools, the rights of those who were arrested
0:47:55 like Miranda rights and the bans on intermarriage, abortion, contraception, all of these things
0:47:58 that conservatives thought, this is too much.
0:48:02 These unelected people have too much power.
0:48:09 They started originalism with the idea of going back to the text and saying, let’s make
0:48:15 it very narrow so judges don’t have all of this control over our lives.
0:48:22 The instinct was good because even though I agree with the liberal Supreme Court’s decisions,
0:48:24 I don’t think it should have come from the Supreme Court.
0:48:27 I think it should have come from Congress.
0:48:34 And now, because we have now a conservative Supreme Court, even though originalism was
0:48:37 supposed to constrain judges, it’s not at all.
0:48:44 You look at decisions like Dobbs as having massive effects on millions of lives.
0:48:50 To me, one of the big solutions is make the Supreme Court less powerful for both liberals
0:48:52 and conservatives.
0:48:59 Do you think that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, if she were alive and she could do it over again,
0:49:05 do you think she would retire in time for a replacement to be confirmed?
0:49:07 That is such an interesting question.
0:49:08 I don’t know.
0:49:14 I can’t be in her mind, but I think that it’s interesting because reading the history of
0:49:24 Ruth Bader Ginsburg made me in awe of what she did and how brilliant she was using men’s
0:49:27 rights to advance women’s rights.
0:49:33 She was able to sue based on this discrimination against a man, and that opened the door to
0:49:34 women’s rights.
0:49:41 But I do think she made a blunder in not retiring, but people are complicated.
0:49:46 I’m not going to criticize her because she’s much smarter than I will ever be.
0:49:49 But I guess the bigger point is the same with the founders.
0:49:57 The founders had some amazing qualities, and they had some terrible qualities.
0:50:04 So the response would be to completely reject them and say, we shouldn’t listen to anything
0:50:05 they say.
0:50:10 But I think a more measured response is to say, everyone is flawed.
0:50:18 And in 200 years, I’m glad I won’t be around for people to judge what I did.
0:50:24 You went on a vacation to Portugal and took a flight knowing that it would affect the
0:50:31 environment and make the lives of your great-great-grandchildren horrible.
0:50:36 And I’d say, I know, but I love Portugal.
0:50:38 People are complicated.
0:50:43 And I think instead of glorifying people, let’s maybe glorify ideas.
0:50:50 So the ideas, some of their best ideas of equality or entrepreneurship, all these things.
0:50:56 Instead of saying, these are perfect heroes, which nobody is.
0:50:58 Take me into the mind of an originalist.
0:51:06 Do you think that they truly do believe in the concept of originalism, or they just use
0:51:10 it for justification of what they want to do?
0:51:12 That’s a great question.
0:51:19 My belief is that they truly believe it just as I believe the left truly believes what they
0:51:23 believe and that they’re not using confirmation bias.
0:51:28 To me, we are such good rationalizers.
0:51:31 That is one of our greatest skills as human beings.
0:51:36 We are just so good at seeing the world with the way we want.
0:51:42 And that is why I love Ben Franklin for being aware of his biases.
0:51:45 He was like Daniel Kahneman 230 years ago.
0:51:48 And I’ve seen this even in the reaction to my books.
0:51:54 I wrote a book about the Bible that we talked about, and my point was that there are good
0:51:57 parts to religion and bad parts to religion.
0:52:02 I don’t think we should take the Bible literally, but the reactions were fascinating because
0:52:06 it was confirmation bias to the nth degree.
0:52:11 I would get hundreds of emails from secular people, atheists.
0:52:15 Thank you for showing how insane religion is.
0:52:18 I would get hundreds, same number of emails from religious people.
0:52:23 Thank you for reaffirming my faith and showing the good parts of religion.
0:52:28 So there’s a quote from a poet, I forget which one, maybe it was Blake.
0:52:33 We both read the Bible day and night, you read black and I read white.
0:52:39 And I’ve seen this too in the reaction to this book on the year of living constitutionally.
0:52:46 I’ve gotten liberals from the left to say thank you for showing me how crazy originalism
0:52:47 is.
0:52:52 But on the conservative side, I get lots of thank you for showing that the founders did
0:52:57 have virtues and this idea of self-sacrifice and that we do need to get back to some of
0:52:58 this.
0:53:02 So yeah, people are just very good at seeing what they want.
0:53:04 And so I don’t think it’s a big con.
0:53:06 I really don’t.
0:53:07 Do you?
0:53:08 What’s your opinion?
0:53:13 I gotta tell you, I scratch my head every day when I read what some of these Ivy League
0:53:19 graduates are saying that up is down and down is up and the world is flat and global climate
0:53:24 change isn’t happening or it is and I just…
0:53:29 As I’ve progressed with this podcast, we’ve had dozens and dozens of Ivy League graduates
0:53:35 and I gotta tell you that maybe it’s self-selection, but it’s not the people I interviewed, but
0:53:41 the investigation and discussion we’ve had about Ivy League graduates, I have a very
0:53:44 low opinion of Ivy League graduate at this point in my life.
0:53:50 I think you have to overcome your Ivy League education and I cite as examples people like
0:53:51 Ted Cruz.
0:53:57 If he could overcome his Ivy League education, maybe he would see how wrong he is, but let’s
0:53:58 not.
0:54:01 I don’t want to go down into that cesspool here.
0:54:10 I think the big point is you can be incredibly smart, but still be incredibly wrong and yet
0:54:20 for my Bible book, I talked to some creationists who believe the world is 5,000 years old and
0:54:26 I am an evolution believer and I think the vast majority of evidence, but these people
0:54:31 were not bumpkins and some of them had PhDs.
0:54:39 They were just really good at doing the mental gymnastics to convince themselves that reality
0:54:45 conformed to their preconceived beliefs and they would come up with the most brilliant
0:54:57 ways to justify creationism like they acknowledged that the universe was several billion light
0:54:59 years big.
0:55:04 How could it be that it’s only 5,000 years old and they would show me these complicated
0:55:11 mathematical equations that were way over my head to prove to me it’s still 5,000 years
0:55:16 old even though it’s vastly this huge giant billions of light years long.
0:55:23 So, yeah, people’s intelligence I don’t think is very highly correlated with how correct
0:55:28 they are in terms of view of reality.
0:55:34 When the framers were defining something like cruel and unusual punishment, was it cruel
0:55:42 and unusual punishment at the time they were living and if something becomes redefined
0:55:49 as cruel and unusual, then you should interpret the constitution as you cannot have cruel
0:55:53 and unusual punishment at the time you are living.
0:56:00 For example, so if you’re an originalist you say cruel and unusual punishment was flogging
0:56:07 but now that’s off the table and times have changed so flogging is not acceptable anymore.
0:56:16 That gets back to our first topic of the pillory because the pillory at the time of the founding
0:56:17 was fine.
0:56:22 John Jay, one of the founders, he sentenced to someone in the pillory and the pillory
0:56:24 by the way, it wasn’t cute.
0:56:31 It was horrible. People were in there and there was rocks being thrown at them, mud,
0:56:35 feces, dead animals, so it was not fun.
0:56:39 When I originally bought the pillory by the way, I was like, “Maybe I could try it out
0:56:41 on my kids if they are.”
0:56:44 I bet that went over big.
0:56:46 It did not go over.
0:56:48 I eventually was like, “No, I can’t even do it.”
0:56:52 I was going to give them the choice like no screens for a day or five minutes in the
0:56:58 pillory but the only person I put in the pillory was myself and it did not go well because
0:57:02 my wife as you can imagine, I was like, “Okay, I’m ready to get out.”
0:57:06 She’s like, “Well, do you promise to fold your sweaters instead of just rolling them
0:57:07 into a ball?”
0:57:13 Yeah, I don’t recommend it but it’s a great question and it’s one that originalists have
0:57:15 struggled with.
0:57:23 Most originalists today would say that the concept of cruel and unusual punishment is
0:57:28 allowed to evolve and they have complicated reasons why.
0:57:34 But Antonin Scalia, who’s one of the founders of originalism, gave a famous speech where
0:57:42 he said, “If you are a true originalist, not a faint-hearted originalist, a true originalist,
0:57:50 you have to accept that flogging, branding, and the pillory are constitutional because
0:57:52 they were constitutional at the time.
0:57:55 They were not cruel or unusual.”
0:57:58 He makes that point.
0:58:05 More modern originalists say, “No, he was wrong,” but I think it’s a very profound criticism
0:58:06 of originalism.
0:58:12 I think it proves that originalists, they do evolve the meaning.
0:58:16 It’s just they evolve it in some ways, but they are stingy in other ways.
0:58:21 They don’t evolve the meaning of equal protection to cover gay marriage, for instance.
0:58:25 It’s sort of a picking and choosing of what has evolved.
0:58:31 I wonder if Clarence Thomas lets the Mrs. vote, I mean.
0:58:32 There you go.
0:58:35 That was when I was living constitutionally.
0:58:42 Back then, the legal system for women was called Coverture, and it was sexist.
0:58:50 It was basically women were treated like children, and they didn’t have right to vote or to sign
0:58:51 contracts.
0:58:52 Married women couldn’t sign contracts.
0:58:58 My wife owns a company, an event company, Watson Adventures, and she signs contracts
0:58:59 every day.
0:59:05 So I said, “Well, I am trying to do this project, so maybe I should be the one signing
0:59:08 all your contracts for this year.”
0:59:12 And at first, she’s like, “Great, I hate signing contracts.
0:59:17 The paperwork is boring, but I did such a terrible job.
0:59:22 I messed up so badly she fired me after an hour.”
0:59:27 So I don’t recommend Coverture at all, but yeah, that is another problem.
0:59:33 Thank God for the 19th Amendment, all of the women and men who fought for it, but we did
0:59:35 not want to go back.
0:59:39 And does she check with you about what kind of flags and how she can hang them outside
0:59:42 your house?
0:59:47 The only flag I hung was a 13-starred flag.
0:59:51 I don’t think I will get in trouble with that, and I’m not going to throw her under
0:59:52 the bus.
0:59:54 I throw myself under the bus.
1:00:00 Oh my God, you have got to ask her if I can interview her.
1:00:03 She will say yes, because she believes in free speech.
1:00:04 She wants her voice heard.
1:00:13 So my absolute last question, have you truly decided whether the sun was rising or falling
1:00:14 on the chair?
1:00:17 Oh, I love that question.
1:00:19 Was it George Washington or Ben Franklin?
1:00:20 It was.
1:00:21 Which chair was it?
1:00:26 Yes, for the listeners who haven’t read the section of the book, during the Constitutional
1:00:31 Convention in 1787, George Washington sat at the front in a big wooden chair.
1:00:37 And on that chair was a wood carving of the sun, but it was only half the sun.
1:00:38 You could only see the top half.
1:00:40 The bottom was cut off by the horizon.
1:00:41 So you didn’t know.
1:00:44 Was it rising sun or is it a setting sun?
1:00:49 And Ben Franklin, at the end of the convention, when they had this Constitution against all
1:00:55 odds, Ben Franklin said, I have now decided it is a rising sun.
1:00:57 The sun is rising on America.
1:01:01 The sun is rising on our republic on our democracy.
1:01:06 So one of the motivations for my book was, is the sun still rising on America?
1:01:13 Because you read the newspaper and the internet, I guess, and it’s just 16 hours of negative
1:01:14 news.
1:01:18 And so it made me think, maybe the sun is setting.
1:01:19 This is it.
1:01:20 This is the end.
1:01:23 And I wanted to find some optimism.
1:01:24 And I’ll say two things.
1:01:27 One, I did find optimism.
1:01:35 And one of my favorite parts of the book was the election cake, because in the 1780s, elections
1:01:41 were seen as a festival, at least for the privileged ones who could vote.
1:01:46 It was parades, music, and rum, lot of rum, and cakes.
1:01:48 People would make election cakes.
1:01:51 So I decided to revive that tradition.
1:01:55 And I used Facebook, which I know is not very 18th century.
1:01:57 But it is as one of the older platforms.
1:01:59 So I thought at least it’s closer.
1:02:05 And I got hundreds of people in all 50 states to bake election cakes last November and bring
1:02:13 into the polls to remind us that democracy, as flawed as it is right now, is we are lucky
1:02:14 to have it.
1:02:18 Democracy is sweet, that was our catchphrase, and we’ve got a fight to keep it.
1:02:21 So I loved that part, and I’m doing it again.
1:02:24 If anyone wants to bake election cakes, it’s just a joy.
1:02:27 We share the pictures on Instagram.
1:02:29 Is it legal in Georgia?
1:02:32 It’s a great question, I hope so.
1:02:34 You cannot bring it too close to the polls.
1:02:36 I had to be 50 feet away.
1:02:38 But I certainly hope so.
1:02:40 So that gave me some hope.
1:02:44 But I guess one of my points at the end, I had 10 takeaways.
1:02:51 And one of the takeaways was that the real sun rises and falls according to gravity.
1:02:52 That’s natural laws.
1:02:55 We don’t have any control.
1:02:58 This son of democracy is not like that.
1:03:00 It’s not a natural process.
1:03:01 It’s up to us.
1:03:04 We are the ones who built it, and it is fragile.
1:03:09 So if we do want to keep it, we have to be the ones who make it rise or set.
1:03:11 And so we have to go in there and fight.
1:03:12 There are a lot of reforms we can make.
1:03:14 Gerrymandering is just one.
1:03:15 So let’s go in there.
1:03:22 Let’s have our cake, and let’s fight for democracy and keep the sun rising on America.
1:03:25 And that is how we’re going to end this podcast.
1:03:28 That is a great last question.
1:03:30 It was that or the smoke anima.
1:03:34 One of those two ways to end it.
1:03:35 Both important.
1:03:36 Both important.
1:03:38 Thank you so much for doing this.
1:03:40 Oh, my pleasure.
1:03:43 Guy, you are an inspiration.
1:03:44 I really believe that.
1:03:52 I love your philosophy of life and your open-mindedness and all of the points you make in here.
1:03:55 I think we have very similar worldviews.
1:04:04 I, well, I don’t have a pillory under my bed, but yeah, other than that.
1:04:12 If you think this hasn’t been funny enough, stay tuned because now here is my phone conversation
1:04:16 with Julie Jacobs, his wife.
1:04:29 And I have to say, she may be as funny as he is, if not more.
1:04:32 First of all, thank you very much for doing this.
1:04:33 Of course.
1:04:34 My pleasure.
1:04:40 I don’t always get asked, so I feel honored.
1:04:41 Must be a slow day.
1:04:42 All right.
1:04:54 Obviously, we interviewed your darling husband and I have to tell you that was a very entertaining
1:04:55 interview.
1:05:02 My first question is, which way is it harder to live, biblically or constitutionally?
1:05:03 Oh, definitely biblically.
1:05:10 Maybe it’s just a sheer amount of time, things do get better as time goes by.
1:05:15 The constitution wasn’t great to women, but nothing’s like the Bible.
1:05:17 We were barely anything.
1:05:20 We’re second class all the way.
1:05:27 And when he picked up the Bible book and he decided to do the year of living biblically,
1:05:33 he thought that this was going to work great for me because I felt that I appreciated religion
1:05:34 more than he did.
1:05:42 He wasn’t really understanding why traditions were important to me, but I didn’t think about
1:05:49 the fact that the rules of the Bible are just not so great for women, shall we say.
1:05:55 So the constitution book, I think it was also well prepared, having done living biblically.
1:06:02 I was ready to go, I knew going in that women can’t get the vote until the 20th century.
1:06:06 So I knew that it was going to be a little bit easier.
1:06:13 I bet you must be looking forward to America becoming more of a Christian nation and going
1:06:15 back to traditional Christian values.
1:06:16 Yeah, really.
1:06:23 And you know, that’s the thing about this book that was so fascinating was as he was
1:06:24 writing it.
1:06:29 I remember any book he’s ever done like this, where every day I was reading something in
1:06:37 The Times or on the internet that was applicable to what he was working on and something was
1:06:40 changing, mostly Supreme Court related.
1:06:41 It was just fascinating.
1:06:45 Then I’d be like, “Oh my gosh, you have to work that in, now you have to talk about
1:06:46 that.”
1:06:47 And it continues.
1:06:53 Like now the books come out and it’s just, gosh, it’s just absolutely nuts.
1:07:02 The Constitution clearly did not anticipate billionaires giving people rides on private
1:07:03 jets.
1:07:05 So that’s going to need an amendment sometime.
1:07:09 There was a few things that they just could not imagine.
1:07:13 I actually was listening to your episode with Peter Sagle, who I don’t know if you know
1:07:20 I grew up with, and he was talking about how they just made assumptions that you weren’t
1:07:23 basically going to be a good person.
1:07:29 That was just assumed that you would never do certain things, which is fascinating.
1:07:35 There were plenty of horrible people back then, too, but they had such hope for humanity.
1:07:38 I don’t think they saw a lot of this coming.
1:07:43 Being on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me was one of the high points of my life, and then interviewing
1:07:46 Peter Sagle was truly one of the high points.
1:07:48 I love that.
1:07:49 He’s a funny guy.
1:07:50 He is a funny guy.
1:07:51 He has been.
1:07:52 Yeah.
1:07:54 It surely sounds like you’re a good sport.
1:07:58 How do you even deal with your spouse coming home and says, “Oh, we’re going to live bivocally.
1:08:00 Oh, we’re going to live constitutionally.”
1:08:02 Are you just that much of a good sport?
1:08:08 The thing I have learned about myself being married to AJ is I am truly an optimist, and
1:08:17 that is what we can call, I think, “Oh, this project is going to be so good for him, us,
1:08:23 our relationship, him getting to know something, and then now I’m at the point that I realize,
1:08:27 okay, settle down, there’s going to be all sorts of wackiness.”
1:08:32 The Drop Dead Healthy book, I think was the best example of that, because I really felt
1:08:36 like he needed to get in better shape, and I thought, “Oh, this is so good.
1:08:43 He’s going to understand why it’s so important,” but then he finds all these interesting, I
1:08:49 would almost say cult-like groups that do whatever it is the subject’s about, and that
1:08:57 one, it was the people who basically follow the habits of cavemen and hunter and gatherers,
1:09:02 and so he was crawling around Central Park, he found the minimalist eaters who have a
1:09:08 blueberry for dinner, so he always finds these people that I don’t even know about that
1:09:14 and then sends him into a very extreme category that I never see coming.
1:09:19 I’ve learned over 20 years that it’s never going to be as rosy as I initially think it’s
1:09:26 going to be, and I have to prepare myself for that, but I have to say, I maybe is just
1:09:33 getting used to it, but this book, I felt like I saw coming what was coming, and I really
1:09:39 did enjoy it because I loved the reenactment, I loved history, and it was fascinating to
1:09:42 get into the mind of the founding fathers.
1:09:47 All of that, I really stuck, I was really into it, and the other big thing that’s happening
1:09:53 as our years are going by is our kids are getting older, and they’re able to participate
1:09:58 more, so it’s not like when we did the year of living biblically, and I was pregnant,
1:10:04 and we had a toddler at the time, it’s much more enjoyable when you have more free time
1:10:08 and your kids are able to participate.
1:10:14 Did he tell you that I suggested that his next book should be A Year of Living Maggily?
1:10:24 Oh god, I don’t think of that one I would enjoy, I don’t know, I don’t think so.
1:10:27 I have one last question for you.
1:10:33 Do your parents ever call up and say, “Oh so, what’s our son-in-law doing now?”
1:10:38 And what do you say when you ask, “Oh yeah, we’re living biblically, we’re living constitutionally,
1:10:41 we’re living maggily, what do you tell your parents?”
1:10:49 So my father’s passed away and he got a huge kick out of A&J, my father was very quirky
1:10:55 and loved all, he just, yeah, he thought it was hilarious, he didn’t have to live it,
1:11:00 so what did he care, and my mother, she thinks our lives are very interesting, and I think
1:11:05 she really appreciates that, and because, again, she doesn’t have to live it, she’s
1:11:08 a side character, I think she enjoys it.
1:11:13 It’s my brothers who I think have had the hardest time because they think A&J rights
1:11:17 me as a saint, that they’re like, “That’s not my sister, what are you talking about,
1:11:23 she’s not always so patient” or whatever, and they have provided a lot of interesting
1:11:26 contrast to his experiments over the years.
1:11:27 Oh my God.
1:11:31 They’re like a little like, “What’s he doing next, they get a kick out of it, but they’re
1:11:35 like, “Hmm, you know, how are we going to be involved kind of thing?”
1:11:40 Julie, you are truly a great sport, and it sounds like your parents were great sports
1:11:45 too, you are a remarkable sport, Julie, what can I say?
1:11:51 It’s only because I do get final say, so when there is a project that I’m like, “That is
1:11:56 just going to do nothing for me,” I either say, “How do you do that for a week, a day,
1:12:03 a month, or until a year of it,” or I try and divert him to another subject, so that
1:12:07 is the secret to my success, is the final cut.
1:12:08 Okay.
1:12:12 Julie, thank you so much for spending this time with me.
1:12:15 Oh my God.
1:12:19 You guys just, you bring such a smile to my face.
1:12:21 Thank you so much.
1:12:23 Thank you guys.
1:12:35 All I can say is, oh my God, OMG, R-O-T-F-L-O-L.
1:12:42 What a funny couple, AJ Jacobs and Julie Jacobs.
1:12:49 The year of living constitutionally, I would pay to read the year of living magally.
1:12:51 I hope you enjoyed this episode.
1:12:56 I hope you learned a few things about the Constitution, and let us all work together
1:12:58 to preserve democracy.
1:13:00 My name is Guy Kawasaki.
1:13:06 This is Remarkable People, and I’m backed up by a remarkable team, that is Jeff C. and
1:13:13 Shannon Hernandez on Sound Design, Tessa Nizmer on Research, Madison Nizmer, Producer,
1:13:17 and co-author with me of the book, Think Remarkable.
1:13:21 And then there’s Louise Magana, Fallon Yates, and Alexis Nishimura.
1:13:27 This is the Remarkable People team, and we are on a mission to make you remarkable and
1:13:29 crack you up.
1:13:36 Until next time, mahalo and aloha.
1:13:37 This is Remarkable People.

0:00:11 I’m Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People.
0:00:17 We’re on a mission to make you remarkable, and helping me in this episode is the remarkable
0:00:19 Matt Abraham’s.
0:00:24 Matt is a lecturer in organizational behavior at Stanford University’s Graduate School
0:00:25 of Business.
0:00:32 He teaches popular classes on strategic communications and effective virtual presenting.
0:00:35 Matt has been recognized for his teaching excellence.
0:00:40 He’s received the Stanford Graduate School of Business Alumni Teaching Award and the
0:00:43 Larson Lamb Family Lecturer Award.
0:00:49 Matt is the author of Speaking Up Without Freaking Out, 50 Techniques for Confident
0:00:54 Calm and Competent Presenting, and today we’ll be discussing his latest book, Think
0:01:00 Faster, Talk Smarter, How to Speak Successfully When You’re Put on the Spot.
0:01:04 So many people worry about speaking to large groups, but if you think about it, we speak
0:01:08 to just one person or smaller groups much more often.
0:01:13 This episode will help you be a better communicator in these circumstances.
0:01:20 I’m Guy Kawasaki, this is Remarkable People, and now here is the remarkable conversationalist
0:01:27 Matt Abraham’s.
0:01:35 My favorite moment in your book, and I think a moment that is going to reframe my thinking.
0:01:41 That powerful a moment is that I give a lot of presentations and a lot of them have Q&A,
0:01:46 and I have a love-hate relationship with Q&A because it’s kind of a crapshoot, right?
0:01:51 Inevitably somebody comes up and starts telling his 10-minute life story, and then finally
0:01:53 you say, “Is there a question here?”
0:01:59 And they often ask really difficult esoteric questions that need more like a psychiatrist
0:02:01 than a keynote speaker.
0:02:11 But when you said that think of Q&A as the person trying to have a good moment with you,
0:02:14 that just clarified everything for me.
0:02:16 I understand that now.
0:02:20 It has reframed my thinking about doing Q&A.
0:02:21 That’s wonderful.
0:02:24 I have had the same experience you do where you’re getting questions, you’re just, “What
0:02:25 is happening in front of me?”
0:02:30 And I had the same shift that I had to make and understand that the person is really trying
0:02:35 to connect with you, and they might not know how to do it, or they might not be able to
0:02:41 articulate it clearly, but it’s an opportunity to have that good moment, to have that connection,
0:02:45 to find a way to learn from each other and to collaborate.
0:02:50 And I now lean into Q&A because of that, because of the opportunity to see where it takes me,
0:02:51 and it’s a lot of fun.
0:02:53 And I hope you try it out and have good success with it.
0:02:57 I read your book last night, and so I’m trying to figure out when my next speech will be,
0:02:59 and I’m going to emphasize Q&A.
0:03:00 Good.
0:03:09 So, I realized that your book is about this kind of informal, unplanned, unscripted presentation,
0:03:11 but I’m not going to limit myself to that.
0:03:15 When I speak to a communications expert like you, I just want to ask everything I want
0:03:16 to ask.
0:03:17 Happy to take the questions.
0:03:18 All right.
0:03:27 Do you prefer as a format for fostering communication the formal speech or the fireside chat?
0:03:28 Which is better?
0:03:34 I think people vary on this, and it has to do with your openness and willingness to let
0:03:36 things be freeform or not.
0:03:40 Many of us, especially if we’re nervous or novice on the topic, we like to have a sense
0:03:44 of control if there’s a strict timeframe where we have to get the information across.
0:03:47 And a presentation affords us some of that.
0:03:51 I personally like conversation and fireside chats.
0:03:55 For the very reason that we talked about, it allows for a lot of good moments to happen.
0:04:02 I also really enjoy Q&A so much so that when I structure my formal presentations, I turn
0:04:04 them into self-Q&A.
0:04:08 So I’ll start by saying today, I’d like to discuss three questions with you.
0:04:12 And then I’ll ask the question, I’ll answer it, and then I’ll move on to the next question.
0:04:18 So for me, an interactive, inquiry-based communication works best.
0:04:20 Not everybody is that way.
0:04:24 So you have to be flexible so you can adjust and adapt between the two types.
0:04:25 Okay.
0:04:30 That is a second, scales remove from my eyes moment.
0:04:31 So I never thought of that.
0:04:36 I could say today I’m going to answer for you three questions and question number one
0:04:39 is this, I love that.
0:04:43 And so it allows you to be conversational.
0:04:48 You single-handedly in the last 24 hours have doubled the quality of my speeches.
0:04:49 I swear to God.
0:04:51 And I use a top 10 format.
0:04:55 So I’m going to just say, I’m going to answer 10 questions for you today.
0:04:57 And Guy, I’ve seen you speak, you’re an amazing speaker.
0:05:00 So anything I can do that you think will help you makes me feel really good.
0:05:05 Oh, thank you very much for the kind words, but that is brilliant.
0:05:08 I think a lot of people listening to this, they’re going to say, Guy, what the hell are
0:05:09 you talking about?
0:05:14 What’s such a big breakthrough about asking yourself questions in the keynote to make
0:05:15 your own Q&A.
0:05:18 But trust me, you listeners, that is a brilliant insight.
0:05:20 I wish more people would do that.
0:05:27 Now in this fireside chat situation, it seems to me a lot of it is dependent upon the host
0:05:32 and how do you influence the host to quit asking you the dumbass questions and do you
0:05:37 give them the question, what do you do to try to foster a better fireside chat?
0:05:42 I spend a lot of time helping people with panel presentations, formal presentations,
0:05:43 pitches, those kind of things.
0:05:45 And a lot of it has to do with the prep work.
0:05:50 So if you’re being a panelist or somebody who’s being interviewed in a fireside chat,
0:05:54 try to talk to the person in advance and understand what is their goal for the interaction?
0:05:59 What do they want to get out and what do they hope that their audience gets out of it?
0:06:00 And then I am pretty directive.
0:06:04 I say, well, if those are your goals, then here’s some things I think I can share that
0:06:05 would be helpful.
0:06:06 What do you think?
0:06:10 And so I try to direct them without saying, here are the five questions I want and I certainly
0:06:13 don’t want these five, but I try to guide them that way.
0:06:14 So that’s the work before.
0:06:18 Now if in the midst of it, and I’m sure you’ve been in these circumstances as if I, people
0:06:23 start asking you questions and you’re like, this is either not really a question or this
0:06:25 is something that really doesn’t make sense.
0:06:30 I’ll actually help them reframe the questions and I’ll say things like, another way I look
0:06:32 at what you’ve just asked is this.
0:06:35 And then I form the question and answer it myself.
0:06:41 So I try to do it politely through paraphrasing and reframing to help them get back on track.
0:06:46 But the pre-work is really where I think the goal is in helping in those situations.
0:06:52 And when you are actually in a fireside chat, do you believe that you should be looking
0:06:56 at the host or at the audience when you answer?
0:07:03 I love this question because so many people, when they’re doing panels or fireside chats,
0:07:09 make it just a conversation between the moderator or interviewer and the panelist or fireside
0:07:10 chat guest.
0:07:12 It’s about the audience.
0:07:15 You don’t want the audience simply watching a tennis match where they’re just going back
0:07:16 and forth.
0:07:18 You need to engage them.
0:07:22 And I think the answer to your question comes from the words you use.
0:07:26 So when I answer questions, I’ll say things like, as everyone knows, or as many of you
0:07:31 have experienced, and when I use that language, it invites me to look at the audience and
0:07:34 even gesture towards them so I bring them into the conversation.
0:07:38 So if you ask me a very specific question, I might say, that’s something I’ve experienced
0:07:40 and I’m certain many people here have.
0:07:44 In fact, sometimes I’ll even take a poll, I’ll say, how many of you have had this experience?
0:07:46 So I get them engaged.
0:07:49 So it’s not them just watching the conversation, they’re part of it.
0:07:55 So the answer to your question is you use language, an inclusive language, to guide
0:07:56 where you look.
0:07:59 So I then am looking at the audience and when I’m done with my answer, I’ll come back to
0:08:02 the question asker or moderator and move on from there.
0:08:04 Okay, more brilliance.
0:08:10 When I’ve moderated panels, when I ask the panel a question, I purposely look out at
0:08:15 the audience and I don’t make eye contact with the panelists so that they cannot look
0:08:17 at me and answer to me.
0:08:21 I force them to not look at me because if they look at me, they’re going to just see
0:08:23 the side of my face.
0:08:24 I think that’s a great idea.
0:08:28 I think that’s very helpful and you as the moderator are guiding them where they should
0:08:30 put their attention.
0:08:31 And I think that’s great.
0:08:35 And I would, as the moderator or the interviewer beforehand, tell them, say, I want this to
0:08:38 be a connection with the audience, you don’t need to look at me.
0:08:42 And you can also, it’s where you position yourself as well, where you sit.
0:08:47 So if it’s a big panel, sitting perhaps on the end encourages them to look out because
0:08:51 it’s really hard to crane your head over to look at where you might be sitting.
0:08:52 Okay.
0:08:58 God, I love these kind of interviews where it’s so tactical and practical.
0:09:01 I hope people are taking notes.
0:09:08 What do you consider harder, a planned speech, a keynote speech or an extemporaneous answer?
0:09:15 To me today, where I am based on my experience in age, I actually like the more spontaneous
0:09:16 things.
0:09:18 And even a choice, I try to go in that direction.
0:09:23 But I realize that’s the result of a lot of practice that I’ve had and a lot of experimentation
0:09:26 and mistakes and growth.
0:09:30 For many people, a planned presentation is nerve-provoking enough.
0:09:33 And let’s work there where we have a bit more control.
0:09:37 But the reality is, most of our communication is spontaneous.
0:09:38 It’s impromptu.
0:09:39 It’s in the moment.
0:09:42 Someone asks a question, asks for feedback, we’re making small talk.
0:09:47 So learning to be more comfortable in those spontaneous moments helps you not just when
0:09:50 you’re up on a stage, but when you’re just interacting in life.
0:09:53 Most of our professional and personal interactions are spontaneous.
0:09:57 They’re not planned pitches, presentations or meetings with agendas.
0:09:58 So we all have to work on.
0:10:02 And the good news is, is that you can get better at the spontaneous stuff.
0:10:04 But you have to work at it.
0:10:06 Is there a kind of a superset?
0:10:10 If you’re good at formal presentations, you’ll be good at spontaneous.
0:10:13 Or if you’re good at spontaneous, you’ll be good at formal.
0:10:17 Or there are two distinct skills with very little overlap.
0:10:20 I think it’s a Venn diagram where there’s a fair amount of overlap, but it’s not always
0:10:21 the case.
0:10:27 I know some amazing speakers who can command a room, but when they go into Q&A or they’re
0:10:31 having one-on-one interactions and small talk, they are not very confident and they
0:10:36 don’t come off as professional and profound as they do on the stage.
0:10:40 So too, there are many people who just have that gift of gab and they’re able to really
0:10:43 connect in small talk and introducing themselves.
0:10:46 But when they get up on stage, it’s really challenging.
0:10:49 So there are a subset of skills that transfer to both.
0:10:52 But just because you’re good at one doesn’t mean you’re good at the other.
0:10:53 Okay.
0:10:55 That’s why we have to work on both.
0:10:58 Let’s say you gave a formal speech and then there was Q&A.
0:11:02 Now you’re done with the Q&A.
0:11:08 Do you just end with the answer to the last question or do you summarize and say, “Okay,
0:11:14 so I gave you a speech, I did this Q&A, now let me just rehash or let me summarize?”
0:11:17 Is there a closing statement or you answer the question and you say, “Thank you very
0:11:19 much,” and you walk off?
0:11:22 You absolutely need to wrap up.
0:11:23 I believe you start with gratitude.
0:11:24 Thank you for your time.
0:11:26 Thank you for your questions.
0:11:29 And then you have a one or two sentence wrap up.
0:11:33 You never know if your last answer is going to be a good one, nor do you know if the question
0:11:34 was a good one.
0:11:39 We know from science, specifically psychology about primacy and recency effects.
0:11:40 People remember what they hear last.
0:11:46 And if what they hear last is a mediocre answer to a mediocre question, they’re going to remember
0:11:47 that.
0:11:52 So really end with an exclamation point, express gratitude, say, “Thank you for those questions.
0:11:56 I hope you leave here with,” and then come back to that central point.
0:12:00 I think it’s a strong punctuation and it’s something you can prepare in advance.
0:12:11 You know what your key point was in the presentation, revisit it.
0:12:18 I want to know who is in the Matt Abrams Hall of Fame for spontaneous conversation?
0:12:23 Who do you point at and say, “My God, that guy or that gal has really got this wire?”
0:12:28 Clearly, I think the master, the grand master of spontaneous communication was Robin Williams,
0:12:31 just an amazing person, not just in his comedy.
0:12:35 I’ve spent a lot of time, I enjoy his comedy very much, and I’ve spent a lot of time looking
0:12:39 at and listening to his interviews, even the ones that were very serious.
0:12:43 And just the ability to formulate thoughts and support those thoughts, it was amazing.
0:12:44 But there are a lot of other people.
0:12:49 One of my favorite speakers is a young woman named Brittany Packnett.
0:12:55 She is a dynamo in plan speaking, but also just in Q&A skills, just brings herself fully,
0:13:00 has lots of confidence, and has an important message, which happens to be about confidence.
0:13:05 But there are many, many people, politicians, as hard as it can be to look at and listen
0:13:11 to them sometimes, they can be very good at that spontaneous speaking in a way of connecting.
0:13:13 So there are lots of good role models.
0:13:18 Oprah Winfrey is amazing in her question asking and answering.
0:13:22 So there’s some very accessible people that you can watch to see what they do.
0:13:26 But the one thing all of these folks do is they connect first.
0:13:28 It’s really about being present.
0:13:32 It’s about connecting and listening, and then responding appropriately.
0:13:34 And you can find that in many people.
0:13:37 Okay, so two offshoot questions from that.
0:13:39 So first of all, you said politicians.
0:13:45 Tell me who you think is a politician or multiple ones that are good at this?
0:13:49 Bill Clinton, regardless of your politics, I think was very good at connecting with people
0:13:52 and making you feel like you were being directly spoken to.
0:13:57 Something that was being said was very immediate in that moment, regardless of if he’d said
0:13:59 it several times before.
0:14:03 And I don’t know if you counter as a politician or not, but Michelle Obama has an amazing
0:14:08 ability to connect and to be really present with people and to respond in a way that makes
0:14:11 you feel that special connection.
0:14:13 So those are two that I call out all the time.
0:14:17 Okay, so let me ask a very specific question.
0:14:21 Who is the best Republican at doing this?
0:14:24 Oh, you’re putting me on the spot.
0:14:29 I tend to shy away from politics and politicians.
0:14:34 And he used to be a Democrat, so maybe, but Mitt Romney, actually, I had the opportunity
0:14:40 to see him speak in person, and he has that same ability to just have this presence.
0:14:42 And he’s got a presence physically.
0:14:46 I mean, you feel him in the room because of his size and voice.
0:14:49 He’s really good at also connecting, and he does something that at least in the situation
0:14:51 I saw him.
0:14:57 Before he speaks and connects, he’ll pause and he really looks at you, and then he starts
0:14:58 speaking.
0:15:00 An amazing connection that happens in that fraction of a second.
0:15:01 A lot of us just start talking.
0:15:06 We feel this sense of urgency in these moments to start speaking, and there’s a slight pause,
0:15:07 a slight connection.
0:15:09 And I was really impressed by that.
0:15:12 And I’m going to ask you an opinion of something that I do.
0:15:15 I have followed many speakers.
0:15:22 I’ve seen many speakers, and the more famous you are, the more detached you are.
0:15:27 And to take an extreme example, I once saw Cheryl Sandberg.
0:15:31 And Cheryl Sandberg, she travels with practically the secret service.
0:15:33 She has a personal assistant, personal assistant.
0:15:34 She has a bodyguard.
0:15:35 She has a bodyguard.
0:15:36 A bodyguard.
0:15:38 She has a driver and a driver’s driver.
0:15:42 And she has a PR person and a PR person’s PR person.
0:15:46 There’s like a contingent of 25 people, and they tell you not to look into her eyes, don’t
0:15:47 make eye contact.
0:15:49 And it’s all this whole bullshit.
0:15:54 And I have the opposite attitude that when I make a keynote speech, I go into the audience
0:15:59 before the speech, and I’ll take selfies, I’ll sign autographs, I’ll do whatever they
0:16:00 want.
0:16:04 Because when I start my speech, I want to look down in the first few rows, and I want
0:16:10 to see people smiling at me and relating to me because I just took a selfie with them.
0:16:12 I have the same approach you do.
0:16:15 I like to talk to the people in the room.
0:16:17 I like to learn a lot about them.
0:16:21 This is also a way that I help manage the anxiety that I can feel.
0:16:26 When I connect with people, I realize, one, that these are good people who believe I have
0:16:28 some value to bring.
0:16:30 And it helps me be present oriented.
0:16:34 I am somebody who can get into my head and worry about this or worry about that when
0:16:35 I’m speaking.
0:16:38 And if I’m talking to somebody, I have to be very present oriented.
0:16:39 I am of your ilk.
0:16:41 I like to do the same thing.
0:16:44 Sometimes I’m precluded from doing that just because of the environment and the venue.
0:16:48 So I actually go backstage and talk to the stage hands and to the other people.
0:16:51 I really try to find people to connect with.
0:16:57 It puts me in a good present moment space and reminds me that there’s value in what
0:17:00 I have to bring, and that excites me.
0:17:07 I give you another something that I do and I did it particularly pre-pandemic when I
0:17:09 was making a lot of in-person speeches.
0:17:17 So I would carry my own Countryman E6 and I would go to the AVP people and I say, “Listen,
0:17:18 I brought my own Countryman.
0:17:20 I want to use a Countryman.”
0:17:26 And it’s not so much that I insisted on a Countryman or insisted on a Lavalier.
0:17:31 But I think that when you go to the back of the room and you go to those AVP people and
0:17:36 you bring your own Countryman in their minds, they’re thinking, “This guy really knows his
0:17:37 shit.
0:17:40 This guy wants a really good sound.
0:17:44 We should make them as successful as we can.”
0:17:47 And that’s why I carried a Countryman.
0:17:49 I really like that approach.
0:17:51 I have always appreciated theater.
0:17:52 I am not willing to perform.
0:17:56 I’m happy to get up and speak, but performing is not my thing.
0:17:59 So I used to do sound and lights when I was in high school and even in college.
0:18:03 So I always try to connect with these folks just because I like the people that do that.
0:18:09 I love this idea of bringing your own technology and signaling that, “Hey, I know this stuff
0:18:12 and I want to make this a great experience for everybody in the room.”
0:18:15 And you’re implicitly saying, “You can help me do that.”
0:18:16 I think that’s great.
0:18:18 I love that you do that.
0:18:23 Now, circling back to something you said about making a connection, Oprah Winfrey making
0:18:25 a connection, et cetera, et cetera.
0:18:29 So of course, the obvious question is, “How do you make that connection?”
0:18:30 Yeah.
0:18:32 You’re a good example of this.
0:18:34 You have to be curious.
0:18:36 It’s all about curiosity.
0:18:39 Curiosity and empathy are the way that we connect.
0:18:44 And through that curiosity, through that empathy, we understand what’s relevant and salient
0:18:46 to people.
0:18:47 That’s about the mindset and approach.
0:18:48 I’m curious.
0:18:49 I want to learn.
0:18:54 When I do a presentation, when I teach, it’s all about the learning and the learning exchange
0:18:55 that happens.
0:18:56 So it’s not just me teaching.
0:18:58 It’s me learning from the audience.
0:19:01 Tactically, there’s some things you can do to really connect.
0:19:03 Use people’s names.
0:19:06 Use inclusive language, you, us, we.
0:19:11 I worked with a very senior leader at a very large tech company that you would know.
0:19:16 And he was getting up to give a keynote and he started by saying, “Knowledge workers must
0:19:17 blah, blah, blah.”
0:19:18 And I stopped him, time out.
0:19:20 I said, “Who are you speaking to?”
0:19:21 And he said, “Knowledge workers.”
0:19:22 I said, “So why don’t you say you?”
0:19:23 Right?
0:19:24 Because you’re disconnecting.
0:19:30 So using inclusive language, using gestures, orienting your body towards the person.
0:19:34 Using language that invites people to co-create something with you.
0:19:37 So for example, say, “What would it be like if?”
0:19:38 Imagine.
0:19:39 Picture this.
0:19:41 That kind of language co-creates a connection.
0:19:43 We together are envisioning that same thing.
0:19:48 So there are very tactical things you can do in terms of body posturing language you
0:19:51 use that foster that connection.
0:19:54 But it comes from the approach of curiosity and empathy.
0:19:58 One thing when I first started reading the book, I was scratching my head a little bit
0:20:05 because saying to myself, “Wow, he’s making you so much preparation work and so much planning
0:20:08 for something that’s supposed to be spontaneous.”
0:20:09 Yes.
0:20:13 You’re telling me I have to go through all of this in the off chance that I go to a staff
0:20:18 meeting and the off chance that my boss asked me to answer a question.
0:20:19 Are you serious?
0:20:23 Are you supposed to do all that just in case something happens?
0:20:27 I’d like to address the second part of your question and then the first part.
0:20:29 This will absolutely happen.
0:20:33 Every day, you are experiencing many, many spontaneous speaking situations.
0:20:35 So this is not the one-off.
0:20:38 This is, yeah, maybe your boss will ask you a question and that has high significance.
0:20:42 But the colleague that you walked to the meeting with who asked for feedback about the previous
0:20:44 meeting, same situation.
0:20:48 Maybe the stakes are different, but it sure would be good to feel comfortable in that moment.
0:20:50 We are always spontaneously speaking.
0:20:53 So preparing to do that, I think, makes sense.
0:20:57 Now the book lays out a six step methodology.
0:21:01 It is ideal if you go through all six steps, but any single one of those steps will help
0:21:03 you be more comfortable and confident.
0:21:08 So at first it can seem like that’s a lot of work and it seems counterintuitive to prepare
0:21:09 to be spontaneous.
0:21:15 But think of this, any sport you’ve ever played, any athlete spends a lot of time doing drills
0:21:22 and working out so that in the game that happens spontaneously, they can respond well.
0:21:27 And I firmly believe that the investment time you put up front saves you tremendous amount
0:21:32 of time on the back end where you have to fix your faux pas, say it again because people
0:21:34 didn’t get it and you weren’t clear.
0:21:37 So there is an investment just like in any skill.
0:21:40 If you learn to play an instrument, learn to play a new sport, but it is well worth it
0:21:43 and helps save time on the back end.
0:21:49 So why don’t you give us the gist of this preparation work, this six steps?
0:21:50 Sure.
0:21:51 Happy to do so.
0:21:55 The six steps fall into two major categories, mindset and messaging.
0:21:58 When it comes to mindset, there are really four things we have to do.
0:21:59 First we have to manage our anxiety.
0:22:04 And I provide lots of techniques that are based on academic research to actually calm
0:22:06 ourselves down.
0:22:09 Most people feel anxiety in communication.
0:22:14 The level of intensity and the type of communication varies, but there are things we can do to
0:22:15 manage that anxiety.
0:22:21 Second, we have to see these circumstances as opportunities, not threats.
0:22:25 When you go into a meeting and you know your boss is going to ask you questions, many of
0:22:29 us feel very threatened by that, like I have to defend my position.
0:22:33 We can reframe that and say this is an opportunity to show what I’ve done, to connect, to learn
0:22:34 from my boss.
0:22:36 That mental shift can really help.
0:22:41 Many times in these circumstances, in all communications, we want to be perfect.
0:22:44 We want to communicate perfectly.
0:22:46 I’ve been doing this for many, many decades.
0:22:48 There is no right way to communicate.
0:22:51 There are better ways and worse ways, but there’s no one right way.
0:22:56 And putting all this pressure on ourselves makes it harder to actually get the communication
0:22:57 across.
0:23:02 We are taking that limited cognitive bandwidth we have, and we’re splitting it to pay attention
0:23:06 to what we’re saying, how we’re saying it and judging, versus investing it all and actually
0:23:09 connecting and getting our information across.
0:23:13 And then the final mindset portion is listening.
0:23:16 Listening is critical to effective communication.
0:23:20 If we don’t listen well, which many of us don’t, we only listen for the top line.
0:23:22 We need to listen for the bottom line.
0:23:25 That can help us then respond appropriately.
0:23:27 So that’s mindset.
0:23:30 Messaging, from my perspective, is about two things.
0:23:35 Sure, having a clear framework rather than just listing and itemizing information.
0:23:40 Our brains don’t do well when they’re overloaded with information, so structuring it, packaging
0:23:42 it up can really help.
0:23:45 And then the last part of this is making it focused.
0:23:47 Many of us say much more than we need to.
0:23:51 I believe the most precious commodity in the world today is attention.
0:23:58 And if I ramble on in an unfocused way, I’m making it very hard for you to focus your attention.
0:24:00 My mom has this famous saying.
0:24:04 I know she didn’t create it, but it’s tell the time, don’t build the clock.
0:24:08 And many of us, when we communicate, are clock builders.
0:24:12 And so having a structure helps you focus and makes it easier for your audience to understand.
0:24:17 So if you take any one of those steps, I firmly believe you will be better in your communication.
0:24:34 If you apply multiple steps, you’ll even be better.
0:24:38 Yesterday I reviewed somebody’s pitch.
0:24:44 And I have this famous Guy Kawasaki 10-20-30 rule of powerpoint, 10 slides, 20 minutes,
0:24:46 30 point font minimum.
0:24:53 And I gotta tell you, man, everybody who I review their pitch, they say, I love 10-20-30
0:24:54 rule.
0:25:02 And then they show up with 25 slides, 60 minutes, and 12 point font complete sentences.
0:25:05 And I’m saying to myself, what the hell is happening?
0:25:11 You told me you read 10-20-30, you show up with 50, 50, 70.
0:25:13 What is the problem?
0:25:14 That’s about structure, right?
0:25:17 I think people don’t understand that structure sets you free.
0:25:20 It doesn’t hem you in.
0:25:22 Absolutely, 100%.
0:25:24 I’ve learned this in many areas of my life.
0:25:29 If you’ve ever done anything with improvisation, you know that improv is not a free for all.
0:25:31 They’re following very specific rules.
0:25:35 I have been fascinated by this notion of how structure sets us free.
0:25:38 I’ve looked into jazz musicians, two things that were fascinating.
0:25:43 I talked to a playground designer, somebody who designs playgrounds.
0:25:48 And they literally have play structures, but they structure the play structures in such
0:25:52 a way to guide the kids through the experience.
0:25:54 So it’s not just a free for all.
0:25:56 They actually have a logic to it.
0:26:02 I interviewed the gentleman who is in charge of Lego, the bricks, their manuals.
0:26:06 I’ve been fascinated by Lego manuals forever because they have no words.
0:26:13 And yet, when you compare them to other manuals from countries nearby, like Ikea, night and
0:26:18 day, the power of a clearly well-structured document.
0:26:23 And what he told me, which I found fascinating is Lego manuals have a structure to them.
0:26:28 If you think about it, each step in a Lego manual could be exactly the same thing.
0:26:30 Same number of bricks, same number of steps.
0:26:32 But instead, they vary that.
0:26:35 So you have an emotional experience as you go through it.
0:26:40 The structure sets the person building it free to do these creative things rather than
0:26:43 being very regimented, saying you will do this number of steps along the way.
0:26:46 I totally agree that structure sets you free.
0:26:48 And I love your rule.
0:26:52 And I encourage people to apply that rule to their slides and to their pitches.
0:26:54 I think people can appreciate it, Guy, but when they get in front of you, they want to
0:26:58 show more detail than they probably need to.
0:27:02 I keep telling people, it’s the glance test.
0:27:08 And the glance test I learned from Nancy Duarte, which is people should glance at your slide,
0:27:13 understand it, and then start looking back at you, not stare at the slide.
0:27:20 And then yesterday, I told this guy, you gave me Microsoft Word, the whizzy wig print format.
0:27:23 I want you to switch to outline.
0:27:25 I just want to see the outline.
0:27:27 I don’t want to see the whole text.
0:27:33 And then when I read your book, I read that page about how Google can describe their business
0:27:35 in 12 words, right?
0:27:38 So I took a picture of your book of that page.
0:27:39 I sent it to him.
0:27:45 If Google can describe their entire business in 12 words, how the hell is it that you need
0:27:47 20 slides to describe your business?
0:27:51 I don’t understand that, but we’ll see what he says.
0:27:53 I actually had a similar circumstance.
0:27:55 So I teach at Stanford’s Business School.
0:27:59 And I sometimes work in these programs where they bring in groups of entrepreneurs.
0:28:03 So I was doing this program where there were 25 entrepreneurial teams.
0:28:07 And they gave me 30 minutes with each team to help them in their communication.
0:28:09 And I would ask these teams, I would say, we got 30 minutes.
0:28:12 Help me understand what you do, because I’d never met these people.
0:28:15 And it would take them 20, 25 minutes to explain.
0:28:18 So I’d end up with five minutes to coach them.
0:28:21 So I finally came up with this way to do a quick elevator pitch.
0:28:24 It’s four sentence starters.
0:28:28 And if they just answer those four sentence starters, it gives me enough information to
0:28:29 help.
0:28:30 So I asked them to finish these sentences.
0:28:35 What if you could sew that, for example, and that’s not all?
0:28:40 And I think anybody pitching a business or pitching an idea, if you answer those four
0:28:43 prompts, you give a tight, clear answer.
0:28:44 Yeah.
0:28:45 I love that.
0:28:48 What if you could sew that, for example, and that’s not all?
0:28:52 And it can really help give clarity.
0:28:53 Because you’re right.
0:28:55 The glance test, I call it the billboard test, like you’re driving down the freeway and you
0:28:58 look at a billboard, you should be able to tell what it means quickly.
0:29:02 You got to be able to do that with your pitches, with your ideas and meetings.
0:29:04 Otherwise, people tune out.
0:29:06 I’m going to rip that off from you, too.
0:29:11 The metaphor that I use, I tell people that you are in an airplane.
0:29:13 There are two kinds of airplanes.
0:29:16 One airplane is an A380 or a 787.
0:29:20 Another is an F16 on a carrier deck.
0:29:24 And I want you to be Tom Cruise taking off from that carrier deck.
0:29:28 And if you don’t get off the deck in 150 meters, you fall in the ocean and you die.
0:29:33 But you are that guy, Captain Sully, and he couldn’t get the airplane off.
0:29:35 So he had to land in the East River.
0:29:36 That’s what you do.
0:29:39 You need two miles of runway and you land in the river.
0:29:40 So be Tom Cruise.
0:29:42 I think they tack it as an example.
0:29:43 Excellent.
0:29:44 I love it.
0:29:45 Top Gun is what it’s all about.
0:29:47 Instead of taking that long launch time.
0:29:48 Absolutely.
0:29:49 Absolutely.
0:29:50 I love the analogy.
0:29:51 You can take my pitch formula.
0:29:55 I’m going to take that analogy because that’s exactly what we need.
0:29:56 Good trade.
0:30:01 You know, one thing I learned from Steve Jobs is you have to know what to steal.
0:30:06 That in itself is a skill that people don’t appreciate.
0:30:07 That’s right.
0:30:12 And I think AI is an interesting venue for people to practice that lesson.
0:30:13 What do you take and what don’t you take?
0:30:15 Oh, tell me more.
0:30:16 How would you…
0:30:17 Okay.
0:30:18 This is a very good question.
0:30:23 How would you use an LLM to improve your spontaneity in conversations?
0:30:24 Great question.
0:30:25 Great question.
0:30:28 And I actually instruct and encourage my students to do this.
0:30:29 Let’s imagine.
0:30:31 We’ll just take a job interview, for example.
0:30:33 Let’s imagine you’re going to interview with a company.
0:30:38 Go to your favorite LLM and type in interviewing for this role at this company with somebody
0:30:40 in this position.
0:30:47 Give me five questions that allow me to demonstrate my capabilities in X, whatever it is, and
0:30:48 it’ll spit out questions.
0:30:51 And as it does, practice answering the questions.
0:30:56 Not to memorize, but just to get agile at answering questions.
0:31:01 An athlete has an opponent who will do the defensive moves or the offensive moves so
0:31:02 they can practice defense.
0:31:04 Use an LLM in the same way.
0:31:10 If you’re a non-native speaker to the language that you’re going to go to a cocktail party
0:31:16 in, maybe ask it to generate some questions for a cocktail party following a keynote address
0:31:21 by Guy Kawasaki, and it’ll come up with some interesting questions that you can answer.
0:31:23 I think an LLM can really help.
0:31:26 Again, the goal, though, isn’t to memorize your answers.
0:31:29 The goal is to drill the answering.
0:31:33 Oh, that’s another thing worth ripping off from you.
0:31:37 You have the highest quotient of stuff to rip off in anybody I’ve interviewed.
0:31:38 I don’t consider it ripping off.
0:31:39 I’m a teacher.
0:31:40 I want people to use these skills.
0:31:41 Go for it.
0:31:45 Yeah, but ripping off is more dramatic term.
0:31:50 I’m curious, Guy, how would you use an LLM to help in your communication?
0:31:52 You do so much communication and you’re so creative.
0:31:53 I’m curious.
0:31:56 How would you use it to help?
0:32:01 Until 60 seconds ago, I never even considered using it to help.
0:32:02 Okay.
0:32:03 All right.
0:32:04 I swear to God.
0:32:06 That question just popped into my brain.
0:32:07 I never considered an LLM.
0:32:11 I’m going to give you homework because I would love to get your insight into how you could
0:32:15 use it and to hear from you because I’d love to be able to get up in front of my class
0:32:21 and be able to say, “Hey, Guy does this with an LLM to help in his communication.”
0:32:26 I could think offhand that, let’s say that I was giving a speech about innovation and
0:32:32 I went to chat GPT and I said, “Give me examples of companies who did not embrace the future
0:32:34 and died because of it.”
0:32:35 Yeah.
0:32:41 Then the LLM will say Kodak, Blockbuster, Smith Corona, Remington Rand, and then it
0:32:45 would come up with some example you never heard of and I would take that.
0:32:46 Exactly.
0:32:50 And actually you’re highlighting another really effective use of it that I encourage
0:32:51 for my students.
0:33:00 One of the things that can help you in spontaneous speaking is to stockpile ideas, stories, anecdotes,
0:33:02 facts that you can then pull in.
0:33:07 At the highest level, the analogy I will often use for what my approach to spontaneous speaking
0:33:08 is all about.
0:33:09 It’s like cooking.
0:33:14 A structure is a recipe and the best chefs in the best restaurants can prepare their
0:33:18 meals quickly because they prepared a bunch of stuff in advance.
0:33:21 They have everything chopped and sauteed and ready.
0:33:22 They have the recipe.
0:33:23 They just assemble it.
0:33:30 So you can use an LLM to help you come up with examples and anecdotes that you can then,
0:33:33 when appropriate, not memorized, not like I’m always going to say this, but when appropriate,
0:33:37 I can pull from that stockpile and that can really help you.
0:33:40 So I think that’s a great idea.
0:33:41 Okay.
0:33:45 What do you tell people about how to appear spontaneous virtually?
0:33:51 How does the game change when it’s virtual?
0:33:53 Virtual communication makes it really hard.
0:33:58 What I like to do is add interactivity that necessitates spontaneity.
0:34:03 When I’m on a Zoom team, Meet, WebEx, whatever, I might say, “Hey, give me a quick thumbs
0:34:09 up if you’ve ever done this,” or, “How many of you have given an introduction to yourself
0:34:10 that you felt went really well?
0:34:11 Give me that little party horn.”
0:34:16 So I’m asking people to use the reaction buttons, which I then respond to.
0:34:19 So I say, “Wow, that’s everybody,” or, “I’m surprised, I thought there’d be more.”
0:34:24 So I’m making it interactive, which gets their attention, right?
0:34:28 Because when you’re on these virtual sessions, it is tempting to check your TikTok, your
0:34:29 email.
0:34:34 So by having them interact and engaging and giving feedback on that interaction, it involves
0:34:38 them more and it clearly demonstrates spontaneity because I didn’t know what those responses
0:34:39 were going to be.
0:34:44 When I have people type into the chat, I’ll invite other people to take the stage and
0:34:47 I’ll pin them and they can talk a little bit and then I bring them back.
0:34:51 So there are lots of things that you can do to engage people.
0:34:55 You have to be more conscious of it and you have to do them more frequently than you might
0:34:56 do in person.
0:35:01 So when I teach virtually every six to eight minutes, I try to do some kind of interactive
0:35:06 piece, even if it’s simply saying, “Are there questions or give me a quick thumbs up,”
0:35:11 try to keep the intention engaged just because there’s some research that says every eight
0:35:13 to 10 minutes, you need to shift things up.
0:35:16 I like to do a little more frequently than that, just to keep people focused.
0:35:20 Okay, that’s another thing I’m going to rip off from you.
0:35:21 I never even thought of that.
0:35:25 I never asked for interaction in a Zoom speech.
0:35:27 Okay, that’s another thing.
0:35:28 All right.
0:35:31 Up next, unremarkable people.
0:35:33 When people say, “Matt, how do you know if your book was successful?”
0:35:37 To me, my book will be successful if people are dog-earing pages.
0:35:38 They’re underlighting, highlighting.
0:35:44 They’re going back to it before they have a situation because that’s how you need to
0:35:46 prepare for communication.
0:35:49 The best way to help people do that is to have a clear, concise structure so they can
0:35:53 get back to it quickly.
0:35:56 Thank you to all our regular podcast listeners.
0:35:59 It’s our pleasure and honor to make the show for you.
0:36:04 If you find our show valuable, please do us a favor and subscribe, rate, and review it.
0:36:11 Even better, forward it to a friend, a big mahalo to you for doing this.
0:36:16 You’re listening to Remarkable People with Guy Kawasaki.
0:36:17 Next topic, man.
0:36:23 I feel like I have my personal speech coach and psychiatrist helping me right now.
0:36:27 I feel more comfortable and confident being a speech coach than a psychiatrist, but happy
0:36:28 to.
0:36:34 Well, there’s a fine line between those two things, man.
0:36:35 That’s probably true.
0:36:36 That’s true.
0:36:37 That’s true.
0:36:38 All right.
0:36:40 Now, how do you feel about profanity?
0:36:42 Hello, good.
0:36:44 Let me share a couple of thoughts about profanity.
0:36:48 I have worked with some people, you and I have both worked with people in common who
0:36:49 swear a lot.
0:36:53 In fact, there’s this one executive, the way I knew I was really getting through is the
0:36:57 more F-bombs he would drop in our interactions.
0:36:59 Let me share a couple of things about profanity.
0:37:04 One, there is research around anxiety management that says swearing actually helps you feel
0:37:05 more confident.
0:37:09 It has to do with the neurochemicals that we release when we swear.
0:37:15 When we cuss, it actually releases a cascade of neurochemicals that blunt cortisol, and
0:37:18 cortisol is the big pusher of the anxiety symptoms that we feel.
0:37:23 I’m not saying you should go out on stage and cuss and curse, but maybe before you go
0:37:27 out on stage, it can help you feel less nervous.
0:37:34 Cursing can serve to add in the actual speaking emphasis, but it can also be very off-putting.
0:37:38 You have to read the room and you have to know what’s appropriate, and certainly it’s
0:37:39 not binary.
0:37:42 There are some swear words that are probably more appropriate.
0:37:47 I say crap all the time and hell all the time, but I might not drop an F-bomb, right?
0:37:49 It really depends.
0:37:52 It’s your personality, and it depends what’s appropriate.
0:37:54 You want it to add emphasis.
0:37:58 You don’t want it to take people out of the conversations because they’re so shocked or
0:37:59 surprised by it.
0:38:05 I once had this conversation with Gary Vaynerchuk, and I said, “Gary, if I were you, I would
0:38:10 stop dropping the F-bomb so often,” and he gave this whole explanation about authenticity
0:38:13 and being himself and all that.
0:38:17 At the end, I said to Gary, “Gary, you have kids in 10 years from now.
0:38:18 They’re going to watch videos of you.
0:38:24 You want them to see you doing that,” and I think I made him pause for a second there,
0:38:25 but we’ll see.
0:38:28 I’ll tell you a funny story.
0:38:35 The first person to drop the F-bomb in my podcast was of all people, Margaret Atwood.
0:38:41 I often tell this story because that is such a shocker to people, right?
0:38:42 I’m very cognizant.
0:38:45 I don’t want to come off as a profane person.
0:38:51 I think that profanity often shows that this person is not that smart.
0:38:57 They cannot think of any other way to do something than to swear, so I don’t want to look stupid,
0:38:59 not on purpose anyway.
0:39:04 I often say, “Listen, Margaret Atwood was the first person to drop an F-bomb on my
0:39:11 podcast,” and I’ll tell you the whole story if you are willing to tolerate me saying the
0:39:15 F-bomb twice, and then the audience always says, “Yeah, okay, go for it,” and then I
0:39:19 tell them the story, and it works very well.
0:39:23 Right, but you’re asking permission and you’re preparing them for it, which is different
0:39:25 than just dropping it right away.
0:39:26 I like that.
0:39:27 I would agree.
0:39:33 I equate swearing in speaking to using a laser pointer when referring to a slide.
0:39:36 It is the easy way to highlight something.
0:39:41 I think, as you well know, that you can design a slide with a lot of subtle things that can
0:39:45 highlight what you want without using the laser pointer.
0:39:49 I think in your communication, you can highlight and accomplish what you want without using
0:39:51 swearing.
0:39:55 That’s not to say that occasionally it doesn’t make sense for authenticity or in the moment,
0:39:59 but it’s a blunt instrument, and I think we can do the same thing in a more subtle,
0:40:00 artful way if we choose.
0:40:05 Okay, so now, God, you are just a fountain of wisdom.
0:40:12 So, I never use a laser pointer, and after that conversation, I never will, because you
0:40:17 essentially said, “If you need a laser pointer, something’s wrong with your presentation.”
0:40:18 I love that.
0:40:23 There are not words that describe how much I hate and disdain laser pointers.
0:40:26 No one uses them well, and you’re using it because you didn’t design the slide right
0:40:28 or structure your content right.
0:40:30 I do not like laser pointers.
0:40:34 I think there are far better ways to highlight what you’re trying to do, and I encourage people
0:40:35 to do that.
0:40:38 If I got anybody listening to this to stop using a laser pointer, I feel very good about
0:40:40 my success today.
0:40:42 Maybe somebody at Logitech is listening.
0:40:46 They’ll take the laser pointer out of the Logitech remote, and then we’ll solve the
0:40:48 problem for the whole industry.
0:40:55 So, at the second half of your book, you talk about specific situations, and I got to tell
0:41:02 you, I love the one about small talk, and if I may paraphrase this, you said when you’re
0:41:09 having small talk, there’s a structure to it, which is you address what, so what, and
0:41:10 now what.
0:41:15 So, can you explain that concept because I loved it.
0:41:16 Thank you.
0:41:17 So, a lot of people dread small talk.
0:41:20 I actually think you and I together, you could help me.
0:41:21 We need to rebrand small talk.
0:41:22 Good stuff.
0:41:24 Big things happen in small talk.
0:41:29 In fact, if you think about your friends, chances are somebody in your immediate friendship
0:41:31 network, you met through small talk.
0:41:37 You do good things in small talk, but we feel really awkward and uncomfortable in those situations,
0:41:40 and it’s often around, “What do I say, and how do I say it?”
0:41:44 As I mentioned earlier, I’m a big fan of structure, and one of my favorite structures
0:41:45 is what you mentioned.
0:41:48 It’s three simple questions, what, so what, and now what.
0:41:51 You can use this in myriad situations.
0:41:53 I call it the Swiss Army Knife of Structures.
0:41:57 I can use it giving an update, the what is my update, the so what is why my update’s
0:42:00 important, and now what is what the contingencies are for moving forward.
0:42:05 I can give you feedback in this format, the what is my feedback, the so what is why my
0:42:07 feedback’s important, and my now what is what I’d like to see differently.
0:42:11 I can write emails in it, I can introduce myself in it, but it works really well for
0:42:18 small talk, both as the initiator of small talk and the responder to small talk.
0:42:22 If I come up to you at a party and I don’t know you, I can simply say, “Hey, what brings
0:42:23 you here?”
0:42:24 That’s the what.
0:42:26 Then when you respond, I’ll say, “Oh, why is that important to you?”
0:42:27 That’s the so what.
0:42:28 Then I can say, “Now what?
0:42:29 What are we going to talk about next?
0:42:31 What are we going to do?”
0:42:35 Simply asking the three questions, get the conversation going.
0:42:39 The secret of small talk is to get the other person talking.
0:42:41 It makes it less awkward.
0:42:44 My mother-in-law had a black belt in small talk.
0:42:46 She was amazing.
0:42:50 Her secret was three words, “Tell me more.”
0:42:53 When somebody would say something, she’d pause and say, “Tell me more,” and she’d get
0:42:54 the person speaking more.
0:42:57 What so what now what is a way of doing that?
0:43:02 When somebody asks you something in small talk, you can answer or respond in what so
0:43:03 what now what.
0:43:06 If you ask me a question, I can answer, “That’s my what.”
0:43:09 I can then tell you why I think it’s important.
0:43:13 The now what might be a question back to you or connecting it to somebody else or something
0:43:14 else that happened.
0:43:19 It’s a tool that you can use in many circumstances, but for small talk, what so what now what
0:43:23 can be how you initiate or how you respond?
0:43:25 That is a brilliant structure.
0:43:29 I’ve never really asked myself if I’m good at small talk.
0:43:33 I think I am, but now that I have this structure, I will be better in small talk.
0:43:38 You’ll start to see people using it and you’ll say, “I see what they’re doing there.”
0:43:41 We enjoy small talk and we just have the experience of it, but if we get meta for a moment and
0:43:46 look at what they’re doing, you’ll see that they’re typically inviting us to participate.
0:43:51 They are continuing the conversation that we initiated, so they’re keeping it moving
0:43:52 and that’s the key.
0:43:59 You also specifically address pitching and you talk about the three components which
0:44:04 is bring up the problem, the solution, and the benefit.
0:44:09 Here is something that I question you because I have heard thousands of pitches.
0:44:15 In fact, I think that I am deaf because of all the shitty pitches I’ve listened to.
0:44:20 It’s a byproduct of being a venture capitalist and a tech executive, but let’s not violate
0:44:21 HIPAA too much.
0:44:27 Now, you say in your section about pitching that you start by describing the problem.
0:44:35 My experience, Matt, is that people waste way too much time describing the problem and
0:44:36 they just go on and on.
0:44:41 They want to talk about, “Okay, so climate change is a problem and blah, blah, blah.”
0:44:46 Like 15 minutes later, everybody knows climate change is a problem.
0:44:52 That’s the right amount of discussion of the problem because I think people do it too much.
0:44:58 It makes them into Evan Solley in their 737 in the East River, not Tom Cruise.
0:45:02 I absolutely see the same thing you do.
0:45:05 Problem solution benefit is a very useful structure when you’re trying to persuade or
0:45:07 influence anybody.
0:45:10 If you think about it, most television advertisements use that structure as well.
0:45:13 Here’s some challenge issue or opportunity.
0:45:16 Here’s how our product or service solves it and here’s the benefit to you.
0:45:17 A couple of things.
0:45:18 You’re right.
0:45:22 You have to figure out how much depth to go into each of the sections, not just the problem
0:45:23 section.
0:45:27 You need to give people enough to orient them so that they can understand and appreciate
0:45:30 the relevance and value of your solution.
0:45:34 Sometimes it’s simply through an analogy, so it can be very quick.
0:45:37 You can launch out that aircraft carrier very quickly.
0:45:39 Other times it needs to be more detailed.
0:45:45 The mistake many people make and I think you’ve been victimized by it many times is in describing
0:45:50 the problem what people are trying to do is demonstrate their competence in the area.
0:45:55 I think there are many other ways to demonstrate your competence that doesn’t come in your
0:45:56 description of the problem.
0:46:03 For anybody pitching anything to VCs, if you’re an entrepreneur or just to your PTA, if you’re
0:46:08 a parent, think about what is the least amount of information I need to give to orient people
0:46:13 to the problem or opportunity that I am presenting and start there.
0:46:16 Instead of thinking, “What are all the things I have to say?”
0:46:20 Think to yourself, “What is the least I have to say to orient people?”
0:46:24 Because otherwise, you’re going to get overwhelmed and people are going to get bored.
0:46:27 Tell the time, don’t build the clock when you’re establishing the problem.
0:46:32 I just want to make a general comment that you have my book, so you know how organized
0:46:37 it is and everything starts with a verb and it’s very structured.
0:46:39 Your book is also very structured.
0:46:41 I truly appreciate it.
0:46:47 I read so many business books and they go on for five, six pages without any headings
0:46:52 or subheadings or bullets and it just drives me crazy.
0:46:55 I think your book is just structured so well.
0:46:57 I love your structure of your book.
0:46:58 I love the tips.
0:47:02 I love to try this and these case studies and stuff.
0:47:03 Thank you.
0:47:06 The way to learn communication is to do communication.
0:47:10 That’s why in the very end of the book, I have a QR code that takes people to a bunch of videos
0:47:14 because again, you can learn a lot by reading something but when it comes to communication,
0:47:16 you have to see it.
0:47:20 You have to experience it and I’m somebody who believes very firmly in structure so it
0:47:21 was important to me to structure it.
0:47:24 When people say, “Matt, how do you know if your book was successful?”
0:47:28 To me, my book will be successful if people are dog-earing pages.
0:47:29 They’re underlighting, highlighting.
0:47:34 They’re going back to it before they have a situation because that’s how you need to
0:47:36 prepare for communication.
0:47:40 The best way to help people do that is to have a clear, concise structure so they can
0:47:42 get back to it quickly.
0:47:44 One last question here.
0:47:51 It’s a question that I think many people don’t know how to do and it is how to apologize.
0:47:56 Give us the Matt Abrams analysis of what makes a remarkable apology.
0:47:57 Yeah.
0:48:03 First, I don’t think we have to strive for being remarkable but I know we do in your
0:48:06 approach to things but that puts a lot of pressure on people.
0:48:11 I think we just have to start from a place of saying, “I made a mistake.
0:48:12 There’s a faux pas.
0:48:15 There’s something that needs to be addressed and adjusted.”
0:48:22 We start by simply acknowledging what it is that we’ve done and we have to be very clear.
0:48:26 What many people do when they apologize is they apologize for how we’ve made someone
0:48:27 feel.
0:48:30 We say, “I’m sorry you feel bad.”
0:48:31 That’s not an apology.
0:48:34 That’s not for the behavior that you did.
0:48:39 The first thing we have to do is we have to acknowledge what it is that we did.
0:48:42 The first step is acknowledgement, being very clear.
0:48:47 It might be something like, “I’m sorry that I over spoke when you were speaking.
0:48:50 I stepped in and spoke and cut you off.”
0:48:53 That’s the acknowledgement of the offending behavior.
0:48:58 The second thing we have to do is we have to appreciate how that behavior might have
0:49:00 impacted the person.
0:49:04 I understand that that might have made you feel like I didn’t value your thoughts and
0:49:08 that put you in a bad light with the rest of us around it.
0:49:09 We acknowledge and then we appreciate.
0:49:14 The most important part is to make an amend to say what you’re going to do differently.
0:49:18 In this case, I might say, “The next time we’re in a meeting together, I will make sure
0:49:24 to speak last and to paraphrase what I have heard others say before I share my contribution.”
0:49:25 It’s AAA.
0:49:26 I like structures.
0:49:28 I like acronyms to help people remember.
0:49:32 AAA, just like roadside service, helps you when you’re in a bad situation.
0:49:36 You acknowledge, you appreciate, and then you make amends.
0:49:42 If you invoke AAA, you can be in a much better position for helping you to get through an
0:49:43 apology.
0:49:50 I have to say that I don’t know anybody who uses acronyms as well as you do, man.
0:49:51 You are Mr. Acronym.
0:49:52 Oh my God.
0:49:55 There are more acronyms in your book.
0:49:56 I love your acronyms.
0:49:59 I’ll take time to define them because too many acronyms can be overwhelming, but I do
0:50:04 try to define it because I want people to be able to easily access the information.
0:50:10 I have found that chat GPT is actually quite helpful for something like that.
0:50:11 That’s great.
0:50:15 I’m going to rip that off from you because I have never used chat GPT to help me and
0:50:18 I can see how that would be really helpful.
0:50:20 Oh yeah, absolutely.
0:50:24 When I was structuring my book, my book is growth, grit, and grace.
0:50:28 I love tricholins and I love alliteration.
0:50:34 So I had growth and grit and then I asked chat GPT, I need another thing that’s one
0:50:42 syllable starts with GR and it came up with grace and then I thought, but grace is more
0:50:49 about athleticism and really the word I want is graciousness took my artistic license and
0:50:54 now grace is the same thing as gracious in my mind.
0:50:55 Absolutely.
0:50:56 No, I like it.
0:50:59 I’m a big fan of alliteration and rhyme and when I talk about listening in my book, I
0:51:03 borrowed from a colleague of mine, Pace Space Grace as well.
0:51:06 So yes, things that are memorable are really important.
0:51:08 When you’re in the moment, that’s what can help you.
0:51:12 As I reach the end of my life, I may have to write a book that has like growth, grit,
0:51:18 and grave because that’s another GR alliteration.
0:51:19 That’ll be on the tombstone.
0:51:23 That’s all right, growth, grit, and grave.
0:51:28 With an arrow pointing down, right?
0:51:30 I’m finally centered.
0:51:31 Yeah.
0:51:32 Yes, exactly.
0:51:33 Exactly.
0:51:38 Well positioned.
0:51:45 I hope you learned how to communicate remarkably from Matt Abraham’s communicating one to
0:51:51 one or one to few is a key skill if you want to make a difference and be remarkable.
0:51:57 Yes, I know all about making pictures and making keynote speeches, but I’m telling you, the
0:52:02 real rubber meets the road when you’re in a small group or one on one.
0:52:04 I’m Guy Kawasaki.
0:52:10 This is Remarkable People and if you see me speak and there’s Q&A, let me know if I’m
0:52:16 doing it better than I used to before and now let me thank the Remarkable People team
0:52:21 because we are all aligned behind you trying to help you make a difference and change the
0:52:24 world and be remarkable.
0:52:29 So we have Matt as a Nismar, who’s the producer and the co-author of Think Remarkable.
0:52:35 Tessa Nismar, a researcher, Luis Magana, Fallon Yates, and Alexis Nishimura.
0:52:40 We are the Remarkable People team and we got your back.
0:52:43 We are going to help you make a difference and be remarkable.
0:52:53 Until next time, mahalo and aloha.

0:00:12 I’m Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People.
0:00:18 This is a special episode of Remarkable People because we’re going to get into parenting
0:00:24 issues in which I am an expert, not in solving, but experiencing.
0:00:30 Basically, the Remarkable team and I, we’re on a mission to make you Remarkable and helping
0:00:33 me today is David Yeager.
0:00:38 David is a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin.
0:00:44 He co-founded and co-directs the Texas Behavioral Science and Policy Institute.
0:00:49 He is, and I see this as the highest form of praise, part of the Carol Dweck fan club
0:00:52 that includes Mary Murphy and Katie Milkman.
0:00:57 He received his Ph.D. in Developmental and Psychological Science from Stanford University
0:01:03 School of Education, and prior to his career as a researcher, he was a middle school teacher
0:01:05 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
0:01:09 So, he has real-world experience.
0:01:15 David’s research focuses on adolescent development, and he examines how social cognitive factors
0:01:20 interact with structural and physiological factors to shape youth behavior.
0:01:26 In other words, he can help you with your parenting mysteries, frustrations, and insecurities.
0:01:33 David’s recent book is called 10 to 25, The Science of Motivating Young People.
0:01:39 This book explores how adults can effectively engage young people by adopting a mentor mindset.
0:01:45 This mindset respects the need of young people for status and autonomy.
0:01:46 I’m Guy Kawasaki.
0:01:52 This is Remarkable People, and now, here is the remarkable David Yeager.
0:02:02 Guy, I have to tell you, first of all, I’m very happy to be on the podcast, but I read
0:02:06 your first book when I was like, I’m going to say 10, maybe 11.
0:02:07 Oh my God.
0:02:13 My dad was in tech and sales, specifically.
0:02:18 He was doing ethernet, setting up the foundations of ethernet, and that became like internet
0:02:22 backbone in the early ’90s, but he was always in Silicon Valley, and he brought your book
0:02:30 back one time, and I read it, and he loved it because he always felt like at the time
0:02:35 in the late ’80s, big business was vilified because you’ve got the kind of Wall Street,
0:02:40 all the movies, the Christian Vale, and all that kind of stuff, but he always loved your
0:02:43 philosophy that when you’re selling something great, you’re making people’s lives better,
0:02:48 and that was his philosophy of life, so he won me to read it as a teenager, so it was
0:02:53 really fun to meet you because that was the first time my dad ever handed me a book.
0:02:57 He’s read maybe one book every 10 years, so I don’t know.
0:03:04 I have no memories of him being literate, except when he handed me your book as a teenager.
0:03:10 He clearly understood the 10 to 25-year-old brain, I guess.
0:03:13 Oh, that’s a great start.
0:03:14 I made my day.
0:03:16 Let’s just end the interview right here.
0:03:19 There we go.
0:03:25 So let’s just explain to my audience the state of the 10 to 25-year-old brain.
0:03:26 Yeah.
0:03:27 We’ll do this very quickly.
0:03:28 No, just kidding.
0:03:34 I would say that there’s a lot of narratives up around there about the 10 to 25-year-old
0:03:40 brain being incompetent, being short-sighted, being impulsive, impossible to reason with,
0:03:42 and that’s not my perspective.
0:03:48 My perspective is anytime you see that someone’s hard to motivate, it’s often because there’s
0:03:54 a difference in what they’re paying attention to relative to what we’re trying to use to
0:03:55 motivate them.
0:03:57 I think that’s true for babies.
0:04:02 I think that it’s also true for teenagers, just in a different and more subtle way, and
0:04:04 it’s true for 20-year-olds.
0:04:10 So the big punchline is that young people, when they seem like their brains are turned
0:04:15 off and we can’t reach them, in fact, a lot of what’s happening is that they’re paying
0:04:17 attention to their social standing.
0:04:20 Where are they compared to peers?
0:04:23 How are they being treated compared to adults?
0:04:26 And the keywords for me are status and respect.
0:04:30 And I don’t mean a superficial version of status, like having the most likes on social
0:04:31 media.
0:04:36 What I mean is the feeling like you’ve earned a valuable reputation in the eyes of someone
0:04:38 whose opinions you care about.
0:04:44 And young people are really hungering for that kind of feeling that they’ve done something
0:04:47 socially valuable and impressive.
0:04:51 And when we tap into that, then we can really light them on fire.
0:04:55 And when we don’t, then it causes all kinds of problems.
0:04:59 In a negative way, would you explain why kids then join gangs?
0:05:03 Is it for the social status and the belonging?
0:05:04 Gangs are really complicated.
0:05:13 We got to remember street-level gangs that affect youth are the tentacles of major, almost
0:05:19 corporation-like entities that have huge plans for distributing illegal goods or drugs and
0:05:20 so on.
0:05:24 And they’ll say and do anything in order to recruit people.
0:05:30 So they’re more clever in their marketing than the best junk food manufacturer, tobacco
0:05:31 companies.
0:05:35 So it’s kind of amazing that there aren’t more kids involved in gangs, given how much
0:05:41 money is on the line, how much power is on the line, and how much they really need young
0:05:44 people to be on the streets distributing things.
0:05:47 So that’s a very important kind of background for gangs.
0:05:52 Gangs are not really driven by one local 18-year-old that recruits a bunch of 13 or 14-year-olds.
0:05:58 It’s a global corporation really, even if street-level people aren’t aware of that.
0:05:59 What are the motives that work?
0:06:04 They’re the same motives that work for getting young people to join, I don’t know, a pre-Olympic
0:06:08 team or the debate team or baseball, right?
0:06:13 It’s a sense of affiliation, it’s a sense that your work might matter.
0:06:20 Sometimes it’s fear that you’ll be ostracized or harmed if you don’t join.
0:06:24 And those are powerful motivations for a kid just starting puberty, not knowing who they
0:06:29 are, figuring out what their place in the world is, and they become even harder to overcome
0:06:34 if your brothers and cousins are involved because they vouch for the organization.
0:06:39 I think the kids joining gangs is not that hard to explain, I think, it’s the same mechanisms
0:06:41 that are involved in lots of other things.
0:06:46 I think what’s more interesting a lot of times is the kids who have all the risk indicators
0:06:49 and don’t join, and that’s actually the majority of kids.
0:06:55 So what are they doing, how are they thinking more about their future than we’re giving
0:06:56 them credit for?
0:06:58 I think that’s a more interesting question.
0:06:59 And what’s the answer to that question?
0:07:06 I think that in general adults have concluded that young people are short-sighted and impulsive
0:07:09 and can’t think much about the future.
0:07:13 And I look around and I see young people with amazing potential.
0:07:19 We’re about to start the Olympics and we’re going to see the most amazing performances
0:07:26 and in a diverse array of sports where the young person who’s the best in the world is
0:07:29 like 14 to 17 years old, right?
0:07:34 Those young people were staying up late, waking up early, they were listening to coaches,
0:07:36 they were sacrificing.
0:07:43 And that’s just one example among many of how young people can have a lot of self-control
0:07:46 and think about the future when it’s for the sake of something that matters to them.
0:07:49 And what’s the big reward in the Olympics?
0:07:52 It’s not really professional sports.
0:07:55 A lot of it is your reputation and your sense of acclaim.
0:08:01 And I think that’s a kind of supercharged version of what happens on a day-to-day basis
0:08:07 when a young person is really committed to a cause, often something bigger than themselves,
0:08:08 a sense of purpose.
0:08:12 They’re willing to delay gratification and wait for the second marshmallow or whatever
0:08:16 you want to call it for the sake of doing something important.
0:08:23 Have you noticed a male/female difference in these factors and how they react to these
0:08:24 factors?
0:08:30 Well, so the reason I have 10 to 25 as the age range in the book I’m talking about is
0:08:37 because age 10 is about the age of onset of puberty and puberty does a lot of things to
0:08:43 the brain, among the most important in my perspective is what happens through gonadarchy,
0:08:48 which is the kind of onset of gonadal hormones like testosterone, estradiol.
0:08:54 And those sensitize the brain to social reward and also social punishment.
0:09:00 25 is the other side of it because we’re talking about the social offset of adolescence, the
0:09:02 adoption of an adult-like role in our culture.
0:09:07 And that because of basically the premium on advanced technical skills, it’s pushed
0:09:14 back the adoption of a first major career or role to later and later and later in our
0:09:15 global society.
0:09:18 But let’s back up and talk about that 10-year-old age.
0:09:22 So we know girls start puberty around a year and a half earlier before boys.
0:09:27 There are some race and ethnicity differences, so Latino girls tend to start puberty, median
0:09:32 around seven or eight years old, Asian boys in the US more like 15.
0:09:37 So you’ve got a wide range of when puberty is starting, and therefore when a lot of this
0:09:44 kind of hypersensitivity to status and disrespect is starting to affect the brain.
0:09:51 So the only real kind of notable difference is the onset of some of these processes, little
0:09:54 earlier for girls, little later for boys.
0:10:00 But once young people are in the middle of this social reawakening, then you tend to
0:10:03 see very consistent differences or consistent trends across the two.
0:10:05 So there are a few differences.
0:10:11 So in a great study at Evelyn Crohn did, they took teenagers around 10 to 18 or even 25
0:10:16 and they had them provide saliva samples and they looked at testosterone levels at two
0:10:20 different periods, two years apart and their boys and girls throughout the whole range.
0:10:25 What you see is that both boys and girls go up a lot, girls a little earlier than boys,
0:10:30 but the extent to which your testosterone increased over two years was just as correlated
0:10:33 with brain functioning in boys as it was for girls.
0:10:36 So it’s not really the case that testosterone is just a male hormone.
0:10:42 It’s in greater supply in men versus women, but its influence on the social reawakening
0:10:44 of the brain is very similar.
0:10:49 I have to say that after I read your book, all I could conclude is that I really suck
0:10:50 as a parent.
0:10:57 I just want to know, what’s the effect of parents nagging a 10 to 25 year old person
0:11:03 to do his homework, clean her room, whatever, wake up early, take out the garbage can.
0:11:05 What’s the effect of nagging?
0:11:09 Yeah, I’d say that first guy, I have a growth mindset about your parenting.
0:11:11 I think you can improve.
0:11:13 And so everyone can get better.
0:11:20 What I would say that the more serious point is that there are studies of nagging and there’s
0:11:25 a great paper by Silicon colleagues and my colleague Ron Dolls on this paper, I write
0:11:30 about it in the book where they took teenage girls and they put them in the FMRI scanner.
0:11:34 So a big magnet that’s detecting different levels of blood flow in different regions
0:11:38 of your brain and the magnet spinning.
0:11:41 They play a recording of the moms nagging them.
0:11:46 So the moms had a few weeks earlier recorded themselves saying things like, “I can tell
0:11:50 you to clean your room and you just don’t do it and I tell you to get your shoes and
0:11:51 you don’t do it.
0:11:53 I tell you to be nice to your siblings and you never listen to me.
0:11:55 You just need to calm that down.”
0:12:00 And so the question is what’s happening in the teenage brain.
0:12:01 And I know what you’re thinking.
0:12:05 You’re thinking, “Oh, the teenage brain is probably saying, ‘Thank you, mom, for this
0:12:07 important feedback on all of my behavior.
0:12:12 I really can’t wait to implement all of this wonderful stage advice because you’ve thought
0:12:15 it through and I haven’t, apparently.
0:12:18 And so I can’t wait to comply without questioning.”
0:12:21 Actually, no, that’s not at all what’s happening.
0:12:28 What you see instead is a massive decrease in regions of the brain related to planning.
0:12:33 So the medial prefrontal cortex, the region related to thinking ahead, logical reasoning
0:12:35 is shut off.
0:12:40 The lay stereotype is it’s a kind of nagging induced frontal lobotomy that teenagers are
0:12:43 going through.
0:12:47 But the other parts of the regions that are really interesting is the temporal parietal
0:12:49 junction, the TPJ.
0:12:53 And that region is implicated in what’s called social cognition, which is kind of mind reading,
0:12:55 inferring what someone else thinks.
0:12:58 And you also see a huge decrease in the TPJ.
0:13:03 And that matters because a lot of times what parents are doing when they’re nagging is they’re
0:13:07 not actually that clear on what the young person needs to do.
0:13:12 Like in the example I just said, the mom says, “I’ll tell you, your room needs to be cleaned
0:13:14 and it’s a mess.”
0:13:18 And the mom’s mind, it’s very clear that she said, “I want you to clean your room right
0:13:19 now.”
0:13:23 But the kid could hear that and be like, “Sounds like so much to clean my room.”
0:13:24 You’re right.
0:13:25 This is kind of a mess.
0:13:27 So much to get on that.
0:13:33 So it’s an inference to get the implied meaning of the mom in that case, that the mom wants
0:13:35 you to clean up your room.
0:13:39 And that region of the brain, the TPJ, is what allows them to make that inferential leap.
0:13:42 And that’s shut down during nagging.
0:13:48 So the punchline is if it looks like it’s going in one ear out the other, it often is.
0:13:50 And that’s what we see in the neuroscience.
0:13:54 But that’s not a developmental fact of the adolescent brain.
0:13:55 That’s a circumstance.
0:14:01 That’s a situational response to the tone and tenor of what adults are saying.
0:14:02 And that can be changed.
0:14:07 And when it is changed, then teenagers can show much better motivation in listening and
0:14:08 responsiveness.
0:14:09 Okay.
0:14:11 So what’s the punchline?
0:14:16 So, you know, okay, clearly I’ve been shutting down my kids TPJ for four kids now.
0:14:19 So how do I get them to clean the room?
0:14:20 Four kids.
0:14:21 That’s tough.
0:14:22 I have four kids too.
0:14:23 And there’s a lot of mediocre parenting happening in my house.
0:14:25 I’ll just be the first to say.
0:14:29 And I’ll also say that my 12 year old was very excited for my book to come out.
0:14:34 So that way he could be my first Amazon reviewer and tell everyone what a fraud I am.
0:14:35 That was his plan.
0:14:37 And I was like, that sounds about right.
0:14:39 I feel like my theory still is true here.
0:14:41 I’m nailing it.
0:14:46 But I think that the parenting coaches I interviewed for my book, who really have some good insight.
0:14:50 One is Lorena Seidel, who I think is very, it’s like a philosopher talking to parents.
0:14:56 The first thing she asks us to think about as parents is, why are we so hung up on the
0:15:00 specific thing that we’re asking them to do in this moment?
0:15:03 Because I get it, it’s infuriating, right?
0:15:06 Your kids won’t put on shoes or pants and you’re like, I have to go to work.
0:15:07 I have an actual job.
0:15:10 So this is really frustrating, right?
0:15:17 But a lot of times what happens is that parents aren’t mad about the behavior, they’re mad
0:15:19 about what it means.
0:15:22 So part of this is this invisible audience.
0:15:27 Like am I the kind of parent who can ask my kids clearly to do something and they say
0:15:29 no when they reject me?
0:15:31 What does that mean for me?
0:15:37 And if one of my peers saw this or one of the other helicopter parents in Silicon Valley
0:15:41 who are judging everything I’m doing, if they see this, what are they going to think?
0:15:45 And I’ve had those experiences living in Palo Alto, other parents coming up to me implying
0:15:50 and being a bad parent because my kid is playing with the truck in the wrong way or whatever.
0:15:57 There’s this invisible audience and we’re often ashamed in front of that invisible audience
0:16:00 and that causes us to overreact to our kids.
0:16:05 So we go down this path of yelling, telling, blaming, and shaming in part because we’re
0:16:10 responding to what we think their behavior means, not what it actually is.
0:16:16 So the first step really is to ask ourselves, why are we so hung up on this?
0:16:18 What are we really trying to accomplish?
0:16:21 And is that really in our young person’s long-term best interest?
0:16:28 So are you telling me that the fact that my kid’s room is a mess and drives me crazy?
0:16:30 That’s my problem, not his.
0:16:37 I mean, at some level, yeah, I mean, I think that what Lorena says a lot is that we’re
0:16:43 often overreacting to our emotions, not theirs, which doesn’t mean that she lets the kids
0:16:47 run the show, like it’s not the inmates running the asylum or whatever.
0:16:50 I’ve seen houses where she works with parents.
0:16:55 Instead what she does is she has conversations with them where you take them seriously as
0:17:01 adults and she figures out what’s the reason why they’re not doing it and will talk to
0:17:02 them respectfully.
0:17:06 And then they make a plan, like they jointly and collaboratively troubleshoot.
0:17:10 And a lot of people don’t do that because what happens is we come home from work.
0:17:11 We’re super busy.
0:17:12 We’re like, “This house is a mess.
0:17:13 It’s a disaster.
0:17:15 Do you guys need to clean it up?”
0:17:19 Then you ask once and you ask twice and then you yell, not you, but this is what happens
0:17:20 a lot.
0:17:22 And then all of a sudden, the kid hates us and they’re not going to listen to us the
0:17:23 next time.
0:17:25 And I think it’s a pretty predictable pattern.
0:17:29 Let’s say that instead of the example being you getting your kids to clean up the room,
0:17:34 it was a math teacher where the kids never turned in their homework, right, which is the
0:17:35 same kind of thing.
0:17:36 I just don’t want to do it.
0:17:37 It’s tedious.
0:17:40 It feels like an unfair imposition on their time.
0:17:42 It’s not fun.
0:17:45 And they mostly just have to listen to grownups.
0:17:50 If I was a principal, I walked into a classroom and none of the kids were doing their homework.
0:17:54 I wouldn’t say, “Look at these idiot kids who can’t get it together.”
0:17:56 They’d be like, “Teacher, you need a better plan.”
0:17:58 That’s the first thing I would say.
0:18:03 And whether it’s middle school or a good kindergarten classroom, all the kids clean up.
0:18:08 So if they can get 20 unruly four-year-olds to do it, we should be able to do it for one
0:18:11 kid as parents.
0:18:13 And there’s nothing secret.
0:18:16 It’s really just procedure and planning in conversations.
0:18:21 But we don’t typically do that as parents because we’re like in a hurry.
0:18:25 And so we pick the short-term solutions.
0:18:28 And the short-term solutions in my book I write about this, one is what I call an enforcer
0:18:34 mindset where you come in there like guns-blaring, yelling, telling, blaming, shaming, listen
0:18:36 to me, listen to me, listen to me.
0:18:42 And then they don’t because the TPJ and prefrontal is turned off and then we get matter and matter.
0:18:47 Or what I call a protector mindset, which is more like, “Oh, I see this is inconvenient
0:18:49 for you, so just don’t do it.
0:18:51 Don’t worry about it.”
0:18:56 And in both cases, the room never gets cleaned, but it’s a different set of problems.
0:19:00 And what I find that works a lot better than either of those is something we call a mentor
0:19:01 mindset.
0:19:05 And that’s the idea that you have super high standards, so high that some people from the
0:19:08 outside look at you and think you’re lunatic.
0:19:10 That’s what I often hear.
0:19:14 But you’re so supportive that young people can meet those standards.
0:19:18 And if you walk into a math classroom where low-income urban schools and all the kids
0:19:21 get their homework out immediately and they listen to the teacher and they’re curious
0:19:26 and they raise their hands and they ask questions and they come after class, I’ve seen it, lots
0:19:28 and lots of times.
0:19:31 They’re all very high standards, very high support.
0:19:34 None of those classes with great behavior where the kids do what they’re supposed to
0:19:42 do are authoritarian dictators or low-standard pushovers, none of them.
0:19:48 So David, if I understood you correctly, I’d go to my son and I say, “Son, I have very
0:19:53 high standards for what our house looks like, so you and I are going to come up with a plan
0:19:57 to reach my standards for this house.”
0:19:59 Is that what you’re telling me to do?
0:20:05 I don’t often see mentor mindset or great leaders say it in those terms because I can
0:20:09 come off as robotic or they could be like, “Those are your standards, they’re not mine,
0:20:11 I don’t care about those.”
0:20:15 So I’d have to meet your kids and figure out your personality a little more to give you
0:20:17 more specific advice.
0:20:22 And there are parenting experts that are better at the very specific advice.
0:20:27 But in general, what I see is they turn the conflict into a problem that’s both of your
0:20:30 problems, not just your problem.
0:20:34 And then the young person has a reason to problem solve with you.
0:20:40 And then it’s a lot of questioning and a lot of asking and waiting for legitimate answers.
0:20:46 Now the wrong way to question is, “I told you to clean up and you didn’t.
0:20:47 What were you thinking?”
0:20:50 You don’t really want to know what they’re thinking if you say, “What were you thinking?”
0:20:56 Because clearly your implication is that you were not thinking and you’re an idiot and
0:20:59 I’m disappointed in you for all time.
0:21:01 That’s the implication in their minds, right?
0:21:06 There’s a great story Lorena told about a family who, their kids were just fighting
0:21:12 on the train in New York and it was so embarrassing for the mom.
0:21:19 There’s being brats and the mom sitting there mortified and every fiber for being wants to
0:21:22 just yell at her kids or grab them, be like, “Stop what you’re doing right now.
0:21:27 All of these people are judging me for being a horrible parent and a terrible person.”
0:21:33 And so she coached the parent previously and instead she later and she’s like, “I have
0:21:35 a problem right now.”
0:21:36 She wasn’t loud.
0:21:41 She was like, “You guys are being so loud and I think all of these people are just judging
0:21:42 me.
0:21:46 I think they’re saying I’m a bad mom and think I’m a terrible person and I can’t live
0:21:47 like that.
0:21:48 It’s just really, it’s like hurting me.
0:21:51 So I don’t know what to do because I know you guys have a conflict.
0:21:53 You need to figure it out one way or the other.
0:21:56 I’m not saying you don’t need to figure that out.
0:22:01 But what I’m asking is how can we solve your problem in a way that doesn’t make me feel
0:22:04 so embarrassed in front of all these strangers.
0:22:07 And then the kids were like, “All right, why don’t I just give him the toy?”
0:22:09 And then it’s just, “Yeah, can you just give him the toy?”
0:22:10 “Yeah.”
0:22:12 And then the problem was over, right?
0:22:15 And so there’s almost always a solution like that.
0:22:20 Now, I don’t know in your specific case what is your son’s history of trauma and PTSD of
0:22:27 former room cleaning experiences, but I will say in general, you can get do-overs as long
0:22:39 as we lean in and listen respectfully and jointly problem solve.
0:22:45 Just for the record, so people listening to this, I love my kids, and my kids are my greatest
0:22:46 source of joy.
0:22:51 And I look at this and I say, “Compared to some of the problems that other kids present
0:22:56 to their parents, my kids are angels, so I just want to go on the record.”
0:23:01 But I’m sure they would like to just not have those conflicts and then hang out with their
0:23:03 totally cool, awesome dad and one.
0:23:07 It’s in everyone’s best interest to figure out a solution to not argue with them.
0:23:12 The same son who won’t clean his room, we just surf together like a few times.
0:23:14 We surf together today before this.
0:23:15 In Santa Cruz?
0:23:16 In Santa Cruz, yes.
0:23:17 Yeah.
0:23:19 That’s where I learned how to surf.
0:23:24 Oh, come down, Madison and I will both go surfing with you.
0:23:25 Yeah.
0:23:29 But David, I thought you’re going to give me this magic solution where, “Guy, I’m going
0:23:35 to tell you how you can increase your son’s feeling of status and respect by cleaning
0:23:36 his room.”
0:23:38 But I guess that’s not the calm, huh?
0:23:45 Well, I mean, I think that’s … I honestly think a lot of what frustrates us as adults
0:23:50 is a conflict over something that’s not actually the most important thing for them.
0:23:55 And I think young people rightly perceive that we’re squabbling over details when they’re
0:24:01 focused on more important stuff, like feeling socially accepted by their peer groups, which
0:24:02 feels like life and death to them.
0:24:04 So I think there’s a lot of stuff like that.
0:24:12 So you touched on it, but can we just make a complete definition of the incompetence
0:24:15 model that many adults have about kids?
0:24:17 What is this incompetence model?
0:24:18 Yeah.
0:24:24 The incompetence model is the belief that young people’s brains and hormones, et cetera,
0:24:32 make them crazy and incapable of wise decision making, short-sighted, selfish, just really
0:24:38 not full-fledged thinking rational adults.
0:24:41 And there’s a long history for this model.
0:24:49 You can look back in Plato’s dialogues for metaphors of the kind of unruly, youthful
0:24:57 passions that need to be tamed and tempered by the reasoned, philosophically aligned goals
0:25:00 of the more rational brain.
0:25:06 And modern neuroscience took a lot of those platonic metaphors and made them be the canonical
0:25:12 take on young people’s brains when we said that the reward sensitivity regions of the
0:25:18 brain, the nucleus accumbens, et cetera, that these are too powerful for the prefrontal
0:25:21 regions to reign in and control.
0:25:26 And the reason for that incompetence model originally was really positive.
0:25:35 It was often used in support of youthful defendants who committed heinous crimes and were being
0:25:41 sentenced to life without parole or the death penalty before they were 18.
0:25:45 And what neuroscientists successfully argued to the Supreme Court was that the teenage
0:25:51 brain can’t be fully accountable for its choices because it’s not fully formed.
0:25:56 That would be like holding a four-year-old accountable for saying a curse word.
0:26:02 And so that neurobiological incompetence model ended up being really powerful, but
0:26:04 also a little bit misguided.
0:26:07 So have we basically refuted that model now?
0:26:13 So what the neuroscientists now think is that it’s at best incomplete, that it’s not like
0:26:17 the teenager’s lack of prefrontal cortex, instead is that their prefrontal regions are
0:26:22 more sensitive to the reward sensitivity regions.
0:26:28 So there’s more of a linkage between the goals we have and what we want and how we want to
0:26:32 feel in the prefrontal regions in that early age.
0:26:40 You can think of it as in the old model, the prefrontal was teaching the affective or emotional
0:26:42 regions to basically cool it and calm down.
0:26:44 So it was a top-down approach.
0:26:49 What we now think is that starting with puberty, young people are trying to figure out how
0:26:50 to be socially successful.
0:26:55 And a big way to figure that out is by paying attention to what feels rewarding socially
0:26:59 or avoiding what feels painful socially, like humiliation.
0:27:03 And so you can think of the emotional regions as the teacher of the prefrontal.
0:27:05 So what should the prefrontal be planning?
0:27:06 What should it be focusing on?
0:27:09 How should it logically be reasoning?
0:27:15 That’s a product of experiences that either felt good or felt bad earlier on.
0:27:18 And so that reverses a lot of what we now think.
0:27:21 And there were some scientific reasons why this happened.
0:27:26 So scientists started using scanners that had a different kind of resolution where it could
0:27:32 look temporally at links from one region to another rather than just was it offer on.
0:27:38 And then also just some rational thinking that it just can’t be the case that teenagers
0:27:40 lack a prefrontal cortex.
0:27:42 They plan lots of stuff all the time.
0:27:47 Like I was saying, Olympic athletes and so on, they learn calculus.
0:27:48 They learn foreign languages.
0:27:49 They do a lot of stuff.
0:27:54 Or even deviant behavior takes a lot of planning, like sneaking out of the house without your
0:27:55 parents catching you.
0:28:00 They’re like general patent in like the European theater, like with a million plans and charts.
0:28:04 And it’s actually complicated or getting someone to fall in love with you.
0:28:07 Like you take so many plans or even just asking someone to prom.
0:28:08 Right.
0:28:09 It’s more and more elaborate.
0:28:13 There’s all kinds of planning and prefrontal cortex happening.
0:28:16 And just because we don’t see it on the math homework or cleaning the room doesn’t mean
0:28:19 their brains are incapable of doing it.
0:28:23 It means that they’re aligned with what they care about, not what we care about.
0:28:31 And could this have an unintended consequence that some enthusiastic prosecutor will say,
0:28:34 okay, so we’ve refuted this incompetence model.
0:28:39 15 year old kid should be sentenced to life for this crime.
0:28:42 He is in more control than we thought.
0:28:46 I think that the, first of all, that’s a very real concern.
0:28:50 Any scientific idea should be scrutinized for someone who could use it with the worst
0:28:51 possible intentions.
0:28:56 And I think that one thing the first wave of neuroscience did really was they tested different
0:29:01 messages about the teenage brain before they use them in court.
0:29:04 And I think someone should do that again with a new consensus.
0:29:08 But everything I’m saying is coming from a lot of the same neuroscientists who were the
0:29:14 expert witnesses in the first, like Adriana Galvan, who’s at UCLA.
0:29:19 She did the original studies that people thought meant that teenagers lack a prefrontal cortex
0:29:21 compared to the emotion regions.
0:29:22 And then she’s a great scientist.
0:29:27 She kept doing the work and realized, okay, here’s what the story really is.
0:29:33 So everything I’m saying here is coming from the same people who, and for the most part,
0:29:36 who contributed to the first wave of neuroscience.
0:29:42 And what I think needs to be done is to think, all right, well, how do we frame youthful
0:29:49 indiscretions or even youthful crimes as a teenager’s responsiveness to the environment,
0:29:55 which is definitely what it is, and that environment could change and their brains will change without
0:29:58 concluding that they lack any self-control or any potential.
0:30:02 Because I think the main point is they’re more responsive to the experiences in the
0:30:04 environment that drive social status and respect.
0:30:10 So that could make them do crazy stuff sometimes, or it could make them learn to play the trombone
0:30:14 or the piano or learn how to surf.
0:30:18 And so there are a lot of things that environmental responsiveness can do.
0:30:22 But just because it’s influencing them then at that age doesn’t mean it always will.
0:30:24 And that’s the legal test.
0:30:30 The legal test is, is your brain going to be the same at 60 as it is right now at 16?
0:30:35 And I think the answer is no in both the new research and in the old research.
0:30:39 A couple months ago, we interviewed someone named Halim Flowers.
0:30:46 And at the age of 16, he was sentenced to about 40 years for accessory to murder.
0:30:52 And the law in Maryland changed so that if you were sentenced to something that severe
0:30:57 as a minor, if you served a minimum of 22 years, you were let out.
0:30:58 So he was let out.
0:31:01 And now he’s just like really great artists.
0:31:04 Many people believe he’s the next Jean-Michel Basquiat.
0:31:09 It’s a very interesting case that we touched on this before talking to you.
0:31:14 There’s tremendous potential to change even for people who’ve done negative actions.
0:31:19 And that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be accountability or responsibility.
0:31:25 But as a society, we need to have ways for people to show us that they can change and
0:31:26 contribute.
0:31:29 And that’s a good example of why we need that.
0:31:31 So you touched on this briefly.
0:31:37 But can you go a little bit deeper about the mentor mindset, enforcer mindset, protector
0:31:40 mindset, and apathetic mindset?
0:31:44 Because that kind of covers all the possible choices for a mindset, right?
0:31:45 Yeah.
0:31:51 So you can think of it as a two by two square where one dimension is the level of standards
0:31:52 that you have.
0:31:54 So you get a higher low standards.
0:31:56 Another dimension is your level of support.
0:31:58 So you could have higher low support.
0:32:02 And support could be emotional or it could be logistical if I’m your boss giving you
0:32:06 enough time or allowing you to go talk to other colleagues about your project before
0:32:09 you present to senior management.
0:32:16 And for a long time, I think people felt like there were only two options, either super
0:32:23 high standards, but I’m going to make you cry at work every day, or very low standards,
0:32:26 but I’m your friend and it’s clear that I care about you.
0:32:30 The very high standards, low support, that’s the enforcer mindset.
0:32:36 And I call it enforcer because the idea is my job is to just enforce rigorous standards
0:32:38 and you can meet them or not.
0:32:40 And if you don’t punishment will be coming.
0:32:44 And if you do great, that means you’re one of the top people.
0:32:51 And so you get a lot of emphasis on talent and finding the top 3% in the enforcer mindset.
0:32:54 You get a lot of really harsh punishments.
0:32:58 You sometimes get lavish rewards for the top performers and the enforcer mindset because
0:33:03 you think those are the only ones who deserve to be rewarded in the workplace.
0:33:08 Things like stack ranking, where every six months, all the people in the company would
0:33:13 be ranked compared to peers and then you would fire the bottom 15% or so.
0:33:16 So it’s not very supportive of growth mindset.
0:33:21 But what Carolyn and I found is that you can have a growth mindset, people can grow but
0:33:24 still end up in the enforcer category.
0:33:31 If you think the way to make people grow is to make them afraid of failure or desiring
0:33:32 the massive rewards.
0:33:38 Basically, if you think people just lack discipline and concern, then for enforcer mindset can
0:33:40 be your way in your mind.
0:33:45 You can go to sleep saying, I helped people, I showed them the real standards.
0:33:50 The protector mindset is an alternative and we see this a lot, especially with teachers
0:33:53 and youth workers, maybe some parents.
0:33:59 And there the goal is to basically protect the young person from distress.
0:34:03 And the underlying theory is one of neurobiological incompetence.
0:34:08 And it’s the theory that if you’re too stressed, then you’re going to get discouraged and give
0:34:09 up.
0:34:14 And I need to give you baby steps and little successes, not expose you to the real standards
0:34:20 because if you saw how far you were from the real standard, then you might give up, you
0:34:23 might cry, you might lose it, might get stressed out.
0:34:28 So I’m going to shield you from reality as long as possible and then do everything for
0:34:31 you and then convince you maybe that you succeeded.
0:34:35 And if you failed, apologize to you for making it too hard.
0:34:37 I shouldn’t have challenged you that much.
0:34:41 But you can see how, again, like a kindergarten teacher could have that mindset and they’re
0:34:43 a very nice friendly kindergarten teacher.
0:34:49 But that’s like not a great way to build a rocket or to solve a new math equation or
0:34:55 to address political division in our country because you need to meet the real standard
0:34:57 of what’s actually needed.
0:35:01 But again, the protector can go to sleep at night and say, I feel good about myself.
0:35:03 I was caring and I was concerned.
0:35:08 And the reason I have this framework of mentor mindset is I want to say to the enforcer,
0:35:09 you got the standards.
0:35:10 Great.
0:35:15 You’re preventing society from going to hell in a handbasket by all these lack standards.
0:35:16 Great.
0:35:19 But add the support so that everyone can meet them.
0:35:22 Not just the handful of people that you picked is the best.
0:35:25 To the protector, I want to say, you care.
0:35:26 Awesome.
0:35:27 That’s great.
0:35:28 Keep doing that.
0:35:32 But now let’s add the standards so that your care is going somewhere.
0:35:33 It’s productive.
0:35:35 It’s moving people towards some real standard.
0:35:38 The apathetic is your low standards and low support, but they’re checked out.
0:35:39 They don’t care.
0:35:43 What you typically find is that once they start caring, they end up in either the enforcer
0:35:44 or protector buckets anyway.
0:35:47 So I don’t really talk about them very much.
0:35:53 My summary of the three main mindsets comes from my daughter who is now 14, but she was
0:35:54 12 at the time.
0:35:58 And she came into my office while I was working at the book, not knowing what I was writing
0:35:59 about.
0:36:01 And she’s like, “Daddy, what kind of teacher were you?”
0:36:02 Because I used to be a middle school teacher.
0:36:04 And I was like, “I don’t know.
0:36:05 What kind of options?”
0:36:09 And she’s like, “Well, were you that mean teacher that yells at everybody and makes
0:36:10 them do all the work?”
0:36:12 But then no one listens to them.
0:36:17 And the minute they turn their back, then they goof off because no one respects them.
0:36:18 And I was like, “No.
0:36:19 What’s the other option?”
0:36:23 She’s like, “Were you that really nice and friendly teacher where everyone just hung
0:36:27 out and they didn’t really do anything in class, but the teacher was nice and they thought
0:36:31 everybody liked them, but really no one respected them because they had no standards?”
0:36:32 And I was like, “No.
0:36:34 Well, what’s the other option?”
0:36:39 And she was like, “Were you that teacher that was like really hard and strict, but in a way
0:36:42 that made you love the subject, even if you didn’t love it before, so everybody worked
0:36:43 super hard.
0:36:47 And even if they left the room, they kept working and really wanted to do it because
0:36:48 they wanted to impress the teacher.”
0:36:51 And I was like, “I tried to be that teacher every day, Scarlett.”
0:36:54 And but those are the three mindsets.
0:36:56 And I was like, “Scarlett, did you hear this somewhere?
0:36:57 Did you read a book?”
0:36:58 She’s like, “Nope.
0:36:59 Just came to me in my brain.”
0:37:05 And to me, that kind of confirmed that these three mindsets are not just some social science
0:37:08 nonsense we’re making up.
0:37:10 This is really how young people see the world.
0:37:15 And most people can think back on examples, whether it’s coaches or parents or teachers
0:37:16 that fit in one of those three.
0:37:23 I’m almost afraid to ask this question, but Madison, what kind of mindset do I have,
0:37:24 Madison?
0:37:27 I’ve worked for you for about three years now.
0:37:30 And I can confidently say you have the mentor mindset.
0:37:36 You have extremely high standards, but I respect you, and so I want to meet those.
0:37:40 But you also give me a lot of support along the way, like logistically, emotionally.
0:37:46 Guy, you have the mentor mindset.
0:37:48 I didn’t have to pay her to say it.
0:37:52 Yeah, I was going to say, there’s no reason to doubt the word of the paid employee in
0:37:55 the mirror.
0:37:56 I believe it.
0:37:58 I read your book, sounds pretty good.
0:37:59 Carol Dweck asked me.
0:38:01 She was like, “David, I started getting nervous.
0:38:05 You keep talking about these mindsets, and she’s my collaborator on these projects.”
0:38:07 And she’s like, “What was I?”
0:38:14 Because I think she worries about being the enforcer, just being the super tough person.
0:38:18 And certainly Stanford graduate students these days are different than they were.
0:38:20 I think they’re worried about different stuff.
0:38:24 And I was like, “Carol, you were the perfect mentor mindset to me.”
0:38:25 She’s like, “But I didn’t really do anything.”
0:38:29 I was like, “Yeah, yeah, but you always made time to meet with me.
0:38:34 You never blew smoke, like you were always giving me the honest truth about the work,
0:38:36 but then you problem solved.”
0:38:39 You’re like, “Okay, well, this isn’t good enough, but what are we going to do about
0:38:40 it?”
0:38:44 Rather than, “This isn’t good enough, get out of my office and lose her,” which is
0:38:45 what I was worried about.
0:38:48 Because when you talk to a famous professor, you’re like, “Oh my God, they’re going to
0:38:50 think I’m an idiot.”
0:38:51 So I was like, “Carol, you were great.”
0:38:52 She’s like, “Well, thank you.”
0:38:56 So now that’s on record that you and Carol are both mentor mindset leaders.
0:38:59 I bet Mary Murphy would say the same thing about Carol.
0:39:00 I adore Carol.
0:39:01 Yeah.
0:39:02 Yeah, Mary and I were graduate students together.
0:39:05 We overlapped one year, and then now we’re collaborators.
0:39:06 Oh, that’s great.
0:39:12 I love her idea that you have to have an organization, an environment that has a growth mindset.
0:39:14 It’s not just what’s between your temples.
0:39:16 Yeah, it’s super important.
0:39:23 I think that Mary was the first to really articulate how you go from an individual mindset
0:39:27 to a culture, and what are the cues that signal that.
0:39:30 And the reason Mary and I teamed up on basically the most important projects I’ve been doing
0:39:34 for the last five years have been with Mary Murphy and Carol Dweck.
0:39:37 Mary, of course, the author of Cultures of Growth.
0:39:42 And it is to focus on, all right, well, once you know that you need a culture of growth,
0:39:49 how do you change the behavior of, in our case, teachers who are creating that culture?
0:39:55 And that’s how we got to mentor, enforcer, protector, is it turns out that if you’re
0:39:58 an enforcer, you don’t create a culture of growth.
0:40:03 You create a culture of selecting and just choosing the top people or punishing the lower
0:40:04 achieving people.
0:40:08 And the protector, it’s not a culture of growth either, but that’s because no one’s
0:40:09 held to high standards.
0:40:11 So there’s no push to grow.
0:40:16 In the mentor, though, you believe that your goal is to align your behavior with the long-term
0:40:21 best interest of the young person that’s working with you or that you’re mentoring.
0:40:25 And in that case, you end up pushing young people to create a culture of growth.
0:40:31 So these three ideas of growth mindset, cultures of growth, and mentor mindset all come together,
0:40:38 both in literature and also in our minds, as a path toward creating organizations and
0:40:42 ideally a society in which young people can grow and flourish.
0:40:47 And what if you’re a mentor listening to this and you say, “David, I have the mentor’s
0:40:48 dilemma.
0:40:51 I just don’t know where to draw the line.
0:40:53 And how do I provide support but not too much?
0:40:58 And how do I have a high standard but not so high as to make it a negative?
0:41:00 So how do you get around the mentor’s dilemma?”
0:41:03 Yeah, I think it’s a great question.
0:41:10 What I’ve seen people do is to not compromise either the standards or the support.
0:41:15 But when you don’t get it right the first time, you still get a do over.
0:41:17 And I think people don’t realize that.
0:41:19 They think that conversation is over and done.
0:41:21 I hope they forget about it.
0:41:22 I’m moving on.
0:41:27 But a lot of times, if you don’t strike the right balance of standards and support, you
0:41:30 can go talk to people afterwards.
0:41:32 Lorena Seidel taught me this with parenting.
0:41:33 We lose it.
0:41:34 We yell at our kid.
0:41:38 And we just hope they don’t bring that up to their therapist in 20 years.
0:41:43 But in fact, you can go and you can be like, “Hey, spend five minutes to want you to know
0:41:45 we have very high standards in the house.
0:41:46 That’s why I was upset.
0:41:51 But I also am very much trying to support you and understand where you’re coming from.
0:41:53 And I didn’t do that.
0:41:55 So I didn’t live up to the values of the family.
0:41:57 So can we please troubleshoot?
0:42:00 How can we do X?
0:42:03 But also I want to make sure that it matches with what you think.
0:42:06 That kind of thing can be done in management too.
0:42:12 You can have a performance review where you just harp on their flaws thinking they assume
0:42:15 that you’re coming from a good place.
0:42:16 And then they leave in tears.
0:42:18 You’re like, “Oh, I screwed that up.”
0:42:21 You can go and say, “First of all, be transparent.”
0:42:26 Look, I was really focusing on flaws because you have so many strengths that it’s almost
0:42:28 not worth focusing on in the performance review.
0:42:32 But I want you to make sure that in writing, I’m going to emphasize your strengths and
0:42:33 what you did well.
0:42:37 And second of all, what I should have done as your manager was troubleshoot with you
0:42:43 on how to prioritize addressing any potential weaknesses, which ones you want to work on.
0:42:44 How do you want to do it?
0:42:46 How can I support you?
0:42:48 And so you don’t back off your standards.
0:42:50 You don’t back off your feedback.
0:42:54 But you say, “Look, I should have done a better job troubleshooting with you.”
0:42:58 And managers I interviewed for my book, like Steph Acomodo, who was at Microsoft for a
0:42:59 long time.
0:43:00 It’s now a service now.
0:43:01 It’s just a legend.
0:43:03 Amazing manager.
0:43:04 She doesn’t always get it right.
0:43:10 And when she gets it wrong, she has enough of a communication line to talk about it.
0:43:18 So I think the main punchline for mentors is I’m not asking you to be Athena from Greek
0:43:24 mythology, like capital M mentor, who spent 20 years guiding Telemachus while Odysseus
0:43:27 was off fighting the Trojan War.
0:43:32 You can just have a philosophy and an approach of high standards and high support and then
0:43:37 spend a little time in conversation if you don’t strike the right balance.
0:43:43 And you end up saving a lot of time because then you end up having motivated, independent,
0:43:47 willing young people who want to work hard, who don’t quit and cheat the minute you turn
0:43:52 your back, who aren’t trying to go hide in the break room and smoke weed so they don’t
0:43:54 have to do any work, right?
0:43:58 It’s like, no, they take pride in their work because you took them seriously enough to
0:44:00 hold them to a high standard.
0:44:03 And so I think being a mentor doesn’t mean getting it perfect every time.
0:44:05 It doesn’t mean it takes up all your time.
0:44:10 It just means being a little bit wiser about these conversations and then saving yourself
0:44:12 lots of time and frustration later.
0:44:14 Up next, unremarkable people.
0:44:19 So Houston, for example, will take away lots and lots of polling places just to make it
0:44:21 super duper inconvenient.
0:44:23 So that way you have to go wait in a long line.
0:44:27 So young people look at that and they’re like, sounds like a bunch of old people gatekeeping
0:44:29 power to keep us out.
0:44:30 And it’s a dumb system.
0:44:33 And even when our candidates do win, they don’t do anything or they’re 80 years old.
0:44:38 Thank you to all our regular podcast listeners.
0:44:41 It’s our pleasure and honor to make the show for you.
0:44:47 If you find our show valuable, please do us a favor and subscribe, rate and review it
0:44:54 even better for that to a friend, a big Mahalo to you for doing this.
0:44:58 You’re listening to remarkable people with Guy Kawasaki.
0:45:01 This is an off the wall question.
0:45:08 So I’m not sure we’ll keep it in the interview, but I am so curious because our paths overlap.
0:45:09 I went to Stanford.
0:45:13 I know Carol Dweck, I’ve interviewed her twice, I’ve been to her house.
0:45:15 She’s written in a blurb for me.
0:45:19 I know Mary Murphy, I know Angela Duckworth and Katie Milkman.
0:45:21 So we have commonality.
0:45:26 And I know that you now teach at University of Texas in Austin.
0:45:34 So this is the off the wall question, which is, can you help me understand the Texas mindset?
0:45:36 Like, how do they think there?
0:45:37 Yeah.
0:45:43 So I’m from Houston and my parents went to UT and the most important job of the Texan
0:45:47 is to be the evangelist for Texas at all times.
0:45:48 And we have that in common.
0:45:49 We’re both evangelists.
0:45:54 And I mean, Texas is interesting because the number one thing is everyone’s convinced
0:45:57 is the best state in the country.
0:46:00 It’s the best state in the best country of the world, therefore, it’s the best place
0:46:01 in the world.
0:46:03 So that’s like the number one thing.
0:46:12 And there’s a deep distrust of outsiders trying to impose their logic and values on Texans.
0:46:17 What you may not know is that for everyone but people from Dallas, Texans think Dallas
0:46:21 is not real Texas because it’s like basically New York, it’s a big city, it’s a bunch of
0:46:23 fancy cars.
0:46:29 And you can watch the Richard Linklater movie Bernie with Jack Black.
0:46:34 And there’s a great scene in that where this Texan at a diner walks through the stereotypes
0:46:37 of the different regions of Texas.
0:46:42 And you got your Dallas snobs with your Mercedes Benz and goes on and on.
0:46:46 And then real Texas is like small towns and so on.
0:46:48 So that’s like the most important thing.
0:46:53 And Texans are constantly comparing themselves to coastal elites who think they’re better
0:46:54 than Texans.
0:47:01 And so anytime coastal elites plans blow up in their face, every Texan rejoices.
0:47:04 They’re like, see, that was dumb.
0:47:09 So like California taxes, they’re like, you idiots, like you think you’re being progressive
0:47:13 but all you’re doing is making all the companies leave and come to Texas and you’re losing
0:47:16 all your jobs and your schools suck by the way.
0:47:19 And you can’t even keep a homeless off the street in San Francisco.
0:47:23 And so they’re like, why would I listen to any ideas you have about politics?
0:47:24 You guys are idiots.
0:47:26 That’s the Texans approach.
0:47:32 In New York, the stereotype is just they’re a bunch of money-grugging, self-serving, superficial
0:47:38 people who are trying to destroy small town America and ruin their way of life with all
0:47:41 their new fangled devices and inventions.
0:47:43 And we don’t trust them either.
0:47:46 So that’s kind of the attitude of Texans for the coastal elites.
0:47:51 So really, you can’t come in with any level of, quote, authority and think you’re going
0:47:54 to change the minds of regular Texans.
0:47:59 And I’ve had to learn this because for our studies, we recruit random samples of schools.
0:48:04 So I need to be able to walk in any school district in Texas and be like, I’d like you
0:48:10 to share all of the data for all of the children in your school for our experiment.
0:48:14 And so if they don’t trust that we’re coming from a good place, they’re never going to
0:48:15 do that.
0:48:17 So I’ve had to spend a long time being like, all right, well, what do they care about?
0:48:21 A lot of people just care about getting back to a simple way of life.
0:48:27 And they think all these like new innovations are just being imposed on them.
0:48:30 And that’s kind of as simple as it is.
0:48:37 And so any progressive politics comes across like you’re trying to mess with traditional
0:48:42 Texas and you’re trying to impose your stupid coastal ideas on us when they’re blowing up
0:48:45 in your face and no one wants to live in your dumb state anyway.
0:48:49 So that’s the attitude, which I’m not saying it’s right, but like, you’d hear a version
0:48:53 of that at any barbecue joint in Lano, Texas or Catoola.
0:48:58 But what about if you’re in Austin, Austin, first of all, the Californians moved to Austin
0:49:03 and so people complain about them because they sold their California homes and then drove
0:49:06 up home prices in Austin and like you jerks.
0:49:09 But the other thing is like, well, of course, you move from California to Austin because
0:49:11 the Texas is better.
0:49:13 So that’s kind of the attitude.
0:49:18 But the actual people who move are normal, think broadly, they’re not as parochial, they’re
0:49:24 not as like tribal, but you also got to keep in mind like Texas cities take two hours to
0:49:26 drive across one city.
0:49:30 The first time I went from San Francisco to Palo Alto on the Caltrain, I was like, you
0:49:33 went through 10 cities to go 30 minutes.
0:49:34 It’s ridiculous.
0:49:37 Like, how small are your wimpy little cities here?
0:49:38 Millbray?
0:49:39 What’s that?
0:49:40 Never heard of it.
0:49:45 And so to Texans, that’s very weird and you drive 16 hours, you’re still in Texas.
0:49:50 So people don’t leave like 98% of Texas high school graduates live in Texas the rest of
0:49:51 their lives.
0:49:53 They go on vacation other places, but they stay in Texas.
0:49:54 Okay.
0:49:59 So I hope I’ve crystallized the Texas mindset for you.
0:50:02 That’s another whole book there for you pal.
0:50:04 This is barely touched on it.
0:50:10 I am just curious about what you know about the 10 to 25 year old brain and their path
0:50:16 to status and respect, and how would you apply this to getting them to vote?
0:50:17 Yeah.
0:50:21 I think that the voter turnout is a real hard problem, right?
0:50:30 And I think that political scientists are divided over how much of it is driven by values/motivations/enthusiasm
0:50:33 and how much is driven by logistical things.
0:50:35 Let’s just take logistical things, right?
0:50:40 So not everyone gets off work, some people do hourly work, young people are far more
0:50:46 likely to do hourly work, even with college degree, far more likely to be underemployed
0:50:47 in our society.
0:50:53 You have to own a car because most cities don’t have good public transportation.
0:50:59 And yeah, so I think if they just moved it to a weekend, like the youth voter turnout
0:51:00 would move up dramatically.
0:51:03 But the fact that it’s not on a weekend is a huge deal.
0:51:07 So a lot of people are like, all right, let’s work on planning.
0:51:12 And so for the people who think teenagers are just bad at planning, then their solution
0:51:16 is, all right, I’m going to text you beforehand and say, which polling station are you going
0:51:17 to go to?
0:51:19 What time are you going to go?
0:51:22 Or maybe I’ll offer you a free Lyft or a free Uber.
0:51:26 I do think logistics matter, but I don’t think those solutions are likely to work.
0:51:30 In fact, there’s a new paper in nature that Katie Milken published.
0:51:32 It’s not voting, but it’s getting vaccines.
0:51:37 So among people who want to get vaccines, they offered them a free Lyft to go get one.
0:51:41 This is a COVID booster, and it didn’t do anything above and beyond just reminding you to go get
0:51:42 the vaccine.
0:51:48 Even though I think logistics are a huge part of the problem, I don’t think that it is the
0:51:49 main thing.
0:51:52 And then you’ve got this other issue of not just getting to the poll on voting day, but
0:51:54 you have to register in advance.
0:51:59 And often to register, a lot of people do it at the DMV, but young people, they don’t
0:52:01 want to go stay on the line at the DMV.
0:52:02 They don’t want to make those appointments.
0:52:04 They’d rather just not have a driver’s license.
0:52:09 And you actually, you’ve seen a dramatic decline in driver’s licenses among young people since
0:52:10 2008.
0:52:11 It’s huge.
0:52:13 It’s either decline or delay.
0:52:18 And so having a stable address where, again, if you’re a student, you’re changing addresses
0:52:19 all the time.
0:52:20 Where am I supposed to vote?
0:52:22 How do I register?
0:52:23 Registration stuff is a mess.
0:52:28 And then in states, about half of states, maybe more have active voter suppression efforts,
0:52:32 and they want to suppress the votes of young people and minorities.
0:52:34 So it’s like not an accident.
0:52:38 So Houston, for example, will take away lots and lots of polling places just to make it
0:52:43 super-duper inconvenient, so that way you have to go wait in a long line.
0:52:46 So young people look at that, and they’re like, sounds like a bunch of old people gatekeeping
0:52:50 power to keep us out, and it’s a dumb system.
0:52:54 And even when our candidates do win, they don’t do anything, or they’re 80 years old.
0:53:01 So I think there’s a lot of reasonable stuff going on, just on logistics and feeling like
0:53:03 the system’s fair.
0:53:05 Now let’s take motivation and enthusiasm.
0:53:07 What really matters in voting?
0:53:09 There’s so many representatives.
0:53:12 So does your congressman matter, maybe?
0:53:16 But a freshman congressman, it’s going to be 20 years before they’re on a good committee.
0:53:21 And even the committees can’t do that much, but senators really matter.
0:53:25 But very few senate races are actually open each year.
0:53:28 It’s certainly the case that if young people mobilized, they could flip the senate in one
0:53:30 way or the other.
0:53:35 But that is a very obscure and weird argument to an 18 to 25-year-old who doesn’t really
0:53:40 understand American politics, because the reason the Senate matters is the filibuster.
0:53:43 And the filibuster is a made-up rule from the Senate.
0:53:48 What I’ve found is that the real powerful things, like appointing Supreme Court justices
0:53:52 and the filibuster in the Senate, those are the things that hugely matter.
0:53:55 It’s hard to get young people to wrap their minds around those.
0:53:58 They feel arcane, and they’re not really enthusiastic.
0:54:02 So I just think a lot of it is the messaging about what actually matters with respect to
0:54:04 your vote.
0:54:08 And so they get involved in presidential politics, but we don’t really have presidents
0:54:11 that are appealing to young people who are not trying to.
0:54:16 Like, not since really Obama, Bill Clinton, there just hasn’t been an effort to appeal
0:54:21 to the young people, and so they’re jaded with the whole thing.
0:54:23 So you gave me all the problems.
0:54:27 What’s the solution in the motivation part?
0:54:32 What I’ve found that helps a lot is just simply hearing about lots of other people like you
0:54:34 who are voting.
0:54:38 And Chris Bryan, who’s my colleague at the University of Texas, McCombs, has a series
0:54:46 of unpublished experiments that really reframe voting as you using your voice to stick it
0:54:49 to powerful people.
0:54:52 That kind of framing tends to work well, but it has to be authentic.
0:54:57 You have to tailor it to the issues of the day, but that could be done.
0:55:03 So I think a combination of, especially in early voting states, having polling places
0:55:09 that are really close to where young people are living, making it easy to register and
0:55:17 then having motivational points about using your vote to push back against powerful influences
0:55:22 that are screwing up your life, that combination I think would move the needle.
0:55:25 I don’t know, it would solve all the problems because a lot of them are just structural.
0:55:29 What really needs to happen is you have to prevent state legislatures from actively engaging
0:55:33 in voter suppression because they’re targeting young people on purpose.
0:55:40 Do you think that a motivation for these young people for voting, is it more of look at these
0:55:48 positive results we can get with you or it’s negative and scary, no more abortion, no more
0:55:56 birth control, no more no fault divorce, no more LGBTQ+ rights for your friends?
0:56:01 What’s the motivation, the positive or the fear of the loss?
0:56:06 I mean that what the economists argue is it’s the fear of the loss, but that’s not clear
0:56:08 to me in this case because there’s fatigue.
0:56:15 When everything is a crisis at all times, then it’s hard to know what’s actually a crisis.
0:56:21 And I think that the motivation that’s easier to sustain over time is the inspirational motivation.
0:56:28 The idea that your vote could free an LGBTQ friend or colleague from oppression, that’s
0:56:31 motivating for young people.
0:56:35 So it’s not these guys are going to take abortion away, although that’s important and that’s
0:56:39 an argument that needs to be made in a lot of places.
0:56:44 But another one is your vote could be the deciding vote to protect women.
0:56:47 So there’s even a gain frame of these issues.
0:56:52 You don’t have to just make the loss frame and I think often the gain frame is one where
0:56:55 you can keep hearing it and keep hearing inspired.
0:56:58 But once you hear the loss frame and then you don’t act, you’re like I must not be the
0:57:00 kind of person who cares about that.
0:57:05 I think it’s very easy to let yourself off the hook after you’ve rejected an intense
0:57:07 loss frame argument.
0:57:12 I want to give you this opportunity to just summarize how to motivate young people and
0:57:14 to plug your book.
0:57:20 The reason why I’m excited about the book is that there’s nothing out there that has
0:57:25 both looked at the scientific experiments about small changes to messaging and framing
0:57:30 that can influence young people, but that’s also gone out and found stories about real
0:57:35 people who have used them in their real lives to affect people.
0:57:40 And so when you read the book, you’re not just getting like a bullet list of tricks
0:57:43 that you are left on your own to figure out how to work.
0:57:49 It’s real stories of great managers, excellent teachers, the NBA’s best shooting coach, parenting
0:57:54 coaches, the best creator of diversity in academic physics, the world’s greatest freshman
0:57:56 calculus professor.
0:58:03 So all these people are described in detail and humanized in a way where the reader can
0:58:04 learn something.
0:58:10 And then at the end of the book, we have a series of practical tips that I’ve developed
0:58:14 with Rosalind Wiseman, who is the author of “Queen Bees and One of Bees,” which became
0:58:16 Mean Girls.
0:58:21 And so she’s, in my opinion, the best at thinking about the complexities of young people.
0:58:28 And we joined forces to end the book with about 80 or 60 to 80 pages of practical tips
0:58:31 for all of the different practices in the book.
0:58:34 So what you’re going to see is narrative nonfiction.
0:58:38 If you like Michael Lewis or Malcolm Gladwell, you’re going to see that kind of writing.
0:58:44 But you’re also going to get real exercises that we’ve already tried in our real experiments
0:58:47 and developed with great experts that you can put into practice.
0:58:48 All right.
0:58:52 Listen, I’m a Malcolm Gladwell fan and I read all his books.
0:58:58 But I think that your book is very different from his book because his books, he takes
0:59:03 one concept and he spends 250 pages on it.
0:59:09 In your book, there’s like dozens of tactics and advice and stuff.
0:59:12 I think it’s very different kind of style of writing.
0:59:17 As I was writing it, I woke up every morning and I reread Michael Lewis or Tracy Kitter
0:59:22 and then sometimes Malcolm Gladwell because these guys are master storytellers and I’m
0:59:23 a scientist.
0:59:25 I had to learn how to write that way.
0:59:29 And Gladwell, I disagree with a lot of the conclusions of the book, but he’s an excellent
0:59:30 storyteller.
0:59:36 And so there’s something about the way he structures information that appealed to me.
0:59:40 And so the reader is getting a narrative experience that hopefully is enjoyable.
0:59:43 But also I’m introducing new ideas in chapter nine.
0:59:45 That’s rare in nonfiction.
0:59:48 Usually it’s like I got one idea and I’m beating you over the head with it the whole
0:59:50 rest of the book.
0:59:56 Well, I hope a lot of parents listen to this and I hope a lot of parents buy your book.
0:59:57 Okay.
0:59:58 I have one last question.
1:00:06 I promise you, now let’s say, is there some magic reason there’s a cutoff point at 25?
1:00:13 It seems like this mentor’s mindset is something you should continue with people forever.
1:00:14 Yeah.
1:00:16 There’s nothing magic about 25.
1:00:21 It’s just that if you look at demographics, you’re far more likely to start having a stable
1:00:24 career and an adult like role after 25.
1:00:29 And then in just a lot of the examples I have, the problem areas are 10 to 25, like you look
1:00:33 at violent crime and that’s all 18 to 25 and then it goes down.
1:00:39 If you look at when do young people stop taking their meds when they get an organ transplant?
1:00:40 It’s the 10 to 25.
1:00:42 After 25, they start taking it again.
1:00:46 So a lot of the problems are in that space, but it’s not a magical cutoff.
1:00:52 In fact, I think everything in the book is relevant for any person who’s like starting
1:00:53 a new job.
1:00:54 I agree.
1:00:58 I call the adolescent predicament that you can be an adolescent, quote unquote, later
1:01:02 in life, anytime your status and respect is in jeopardy.
1:01:06 And so everything in the book is relevant to you, no matter where you are, as long as
1:01:11 you’re in this precarious spot with your reputation.
1:01:14 I hope you enjoyed this episode with David Yeager.
1:01:18 I’m going to go try out some of his tips on my family.
1:01:20 I’ll keep you posted.
1:01:25 This message is very believable and very credible to me that it’s not about nagging.
1:01:32 It’s about enabling your kids to achieve autonomy and social acceptance, not just get rid of
1:01:33 your nagging.
1:01:35 I’m Guy Kawasaki.
1:01:37 This is Remarkable People.
1:01:43 Thank you to my remarkable family who has been experiencing my maybe unremarkable parenting
1:01:45 for their entire lives.
1:01:49 And let’s thank the rest of the Remarkable People team.
1:01:52 You heard or say that I have a mentor mindset.
1:01:56 Thank you for that positive feedback, Madison.
1:02:02 And then there’s Tessa Nizmer, our ACE researcher, and Jeff C. and Shannon Hernandez, remarkable
1:02:04 sound design engineers.
1:02:10 And finally, Luis Magana, Fallon Yates, and Alexis Nishimura.
1:02:16 We are the Remarkable People team, and we are on a mission to make you remarkable.
1:02:23 Until next time, mahalo and aloha.
1:02:25 This is Remarkable People.

0:00:11 I’m Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People.
0:00:14 We’re on a mission to make you remarkable.
0:00:19 Helping me in this episode is representative Eric Swalwell.
0:00:25 This interview was conducted on Tuesday, July 23rd, two days after Joe Biden stepped aside
0:00:29 and just as Kamala Harris was taking off like a rocket ship.
0:00:35 There is usually a several-week interval between when we record an interview and when we publish
0:00:36 it.
0:00:42 But these are crucial, fast-moving and treacherous times, so we are releasing this in a little
0:00:46 over a week because every day matters.
0:00:52 Eric serves as a U.S. Congressman representing California’s 14th District.
0:00:57 This is a region in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area.
0:01:02 Eric has served on the House Intelligence Committee and the House Judiciary Committee.
0:01:07 He acted as the impeachment manager doing President Trump’s second impeachment trial.
0:01:14 His key policies focus on gun control, education funding and renewable energy jobs.
0:01:16 I’m Guy Kawasaki.
0:01:18 This is Remarkable People.
0:01:27 And now here is the Remarkable Representative Eric Swalwell.
0:01:30 You were raised by Republicans and now you’re a Democrat.
0:01:33 So what would your parents say about today’s Republican Party?
0:01:35 They don’t necessarily recognize it.
0:01:38 My mom and dad, God love them.
0:01:39 My dad was a cop.
0:01:43 My mom worked a number of odd jobs to raise four boys.
0:01:44 She made wedding cakes.
0:01:50 She ran a very large daycare center at our house, put all of us to work.
0:01:52 And they were your traditional Reagan Republicans.
0:01:59 They wanted us to be strong in the world and to be more fiscally conservative at home.
0:02:01 And that was how we were raised.
0:02:07 And that’s completely unrecognizable today in what you see with Donald Trump and JD
0:02:16 Vance and what’s really a cruel Republican Party that stokes culture issues and divides
0:02:19 Americans in a very corrupt way to seek power.
0:02:23 So I think they’d tell you they’re not Trump folks.
0:02:30 They’re still not Democrats, though, and believe me, I get ribbed by them a lot about Democrats.
0:02:37 So like many, I think Republicans, they just feel lost and without the party they knew.
0:02:41 This next question, Eric, you can lie to me, OK, I’m giving you permission up front.
0:02:46 I have this fantasy in my mind that all of this was planned and then the plan was let
0:02:52 Trump finalize his strategy, pick his VP, get overconfident and we blindside him with
0:02:53 this.
0:02:54 Are you guys that sly?
0:03:04 So we’re not as good as House of Cards as far as like executing savvy political plans.
0:03:11 We should strive to be as good and I would say decent as West Wing.
0:03:18 But if you want to know the truth, it’s really VEEP and it’s just often complete chaos and
0:03:21 sometimes a shit show if you want to know the truth.
0:03:24 So my day to day is more like VEEP.
0:03:26 I want it to be like West Wing.
0:03:28 Don’t give us too much credit.
0:03:31 Well as long as it’s not like House of Cards or Yellowstone.
0:03:35 Yeah, that’s right, that’s right.
0:03:38 So what do you think motivated Joe to make this decision?
0:03:46 I always knew that Joe Biden was going to make a decision that was best, not for himself
0:03:51 as Donald Trump has done, will do, that he’d make a decision that’s best for the country.
0:03:53 That’s why I supported the president to make that decision.
0:03:56 I didn’t call on him to step aside.
0:03:59 I knew that’s just who he is.
0:04:04 And frankly, his career has been bookended by decisions like that.
0:04:08 When he was elected to the Senate at 29 before he was sworn in, he lost his wife and his
0:04:15 daughter and found a way to still be a good dad and a great legislator.
0:04:21 And then when he was leaving the White House in 2016, he lost his son, Beau.
0:04:26 And he could have gone into retirement and only focused himself on grieving and said
0:04:32 that he did that, but also answered the call to service when we needed to defeat Donald
0:04:33 Trump.
0:04:41 And so he’s always put country above self and this final act puts him on Mount Rushmore.
0:04:49 He’s on the Mount Rushmore for Democrats of FDR, JFK, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson and
0:04:50 Joe Biden.
0:04:51 That’s where he is now.
0:04:55 When we look back in 10 or 20 years, we’re going to say he’s one of the best presidents
0:04:56 we ever had.
0:04:59 He didn’t lose her draw in this election.
0:05:01 And he’s one of those decent persons.
0:05:09 When I debated him in the primary for the 2020 race, I’ll never forget, I was reluctant
0:05:11 to even do that debate.
0:05:15 My daughter had recently been hospitalized with RSV.
0:05:20 And when you get a diagnosis like that and then she’s on a breathing machine, your heart
0:05:27 just drops, it skips past your stomach and lands at your feet and didn’t know if I was
0:05:29 even going to do the debate.
0:05:35 And I went and I used that zinger past the torch, which was a great zinger because it
0:05:38 was Joe Biden’s zinger from 1986.
0:05:44 And after I said that, we went to a commercial break and Joe Biden started to walk over to
0:05:49 me and I thought, oh shit, he didn’t like that line.
0:05:54 And I didn’t know he was going to take a swing at me or what was going to happen.
0:05:58 And he looked at me and he said, nice line, wise ass.
0:06:04 And then he put his hand on my shoulder and he said, how’s your daughter doing?
0:06:08 As if he could read my mind about what I was really thinking about.
0:06:11 And so that’s just the Joe I know.
0:06:15 Somebody, as I said, he takes the work in front of him seriously.
0:06:19 But at his core, it’s just a decent, decent person.
0:06:25 Unlike what I think we become accustomed to in our politics.
0:06:28 Do you know the concept of the Overton window?
0:06:29 Yes.
0:06:31 Well, which is a frickin’ Overland patio now.
0:06:33 It’s like the horizon.
0:06:35 It’s not a window.
0:06:41 If you were given this magic wish and you could fix any one aspect of federal government,
0:06:42 what would you do?
0:06:43 Oh boy.
0:06:47 I’d protect our kids from gun violence.
0:06:52 I’ve got a seven-year-old, a five-year-old, a two-year-old.
0:06:55 And they’re already doing the two oldest mass shooter drills.
0:07:02 They’ve had shootings near their campus where they’ve had to shelter in place.
0:07:09 And I just don’t want them to be another generation that goes through these drills.
0:07:15 And recently, a substitute teacher came up to me, and she told me that when she goes
0:07:21 into a classroom as a sub to start a week when the teacher’s out sick or on vacation,
0:07:26 she said more and more often, kids are coming up to her and saying, “Do you know where to
0:07:27 put me?”
0:07:31 And at first she was like, “What do you mean, where am I going to put you?”
0:07:37 And she realized they’re asking, as the substitute who’s not been here from the get, “Do you
0:07:40 know where I’m supposed to go if there’s a shooting in the classroom?”
0:07:42 And that is just crushing to hear.
0:07:48 So if I could do anything, it would be to ban assault rifles to buy them back so we
0:07:53 get all of them off the street and to have background checks so that we take the most
0:07:56 dangerous weapons out of the hands of the most dangerous people.
0:08:03 If Trump were to win, is it a fair thing to say or is it just hype that women will not
0:08:10 get to have birth control, IVF, abortions under any circumstances and no fault divorce?
0:08:12 Are those things going to really happen?
0:08:13 He will want them to happen.
0:08:17 He’ll do everything to make them happen and the people who have supported him want that
0:08:18 to happen.
0:08:25 So let’s talk about Trump’s project 2025 or TP-25, as I call it.
0:08:31 Yes, it would call for an end to abortion, it would call for an end to your right as
0:08:34 a family to use IVF to create a family.
0:08:36 It calls for an end to no fault divorce.
0:08:42 So it’s essentially a forced marriage that it would put upon Americans.
0:08:47 It also calls for an end of same-sex marriages and so it would try and control every part
0:08:51 of our lives and take away so many core freedoms.
0:08:56 And the person who is going to really implement and execute on this is JD Vance and someone
0:09:04 who has in the past called for these forced marriages and supports what the folks who
0:09:07 are supporting Trump’s project 2025 want to do.
0:09:08 We’re not going to let that happen.
0:09:13 You can’t do shit if you’re not the president and so I’m going to do everything I can to
0:09:19 make sure that doesn’t happen, that he’s not given that power rather than restricting
0:09:21 and reversing more rights.
0:09:25 We will be a country that expands it.
0:09:31 It seems to me though that with our Supreme Court giving him this kind of immunity that
0:09:37 if you’re standing in the way, Eric, he could send SEAL Team 6 to take you out as an official
0:09:38 duty.
0:09:42 Is this House of Cards fiction or can this really happen?
0:09:44 It’s again what he wants to happen.
0:09:50 It’s the power he wants to wield and he has a Supreme Court that’s working right out of
0:09:57 his palm right now and he could put three more justices in another term on the court.
0:09:59 So what we have to do is fix the court.
0:10:04 We need to bring ethics to the court that has an independent review so that there’s
0:10:05 accountability.
0:10:11 I’m open to other reforms like term limits as well but we no longer can rely on the court
0:10:13 to self-police.
0:10:18 That court has two justices who have pro insurrection spouses.
0:10:24 One of them allowed a pro insurrection flag to be displayed at his home after January
0:10:32 6th and another, his wife, was at the president’s rally on January 6th and neither of them
0:10:33 recused themselves.
0:10:37 So if they’re not going to do it on their own, we need some sort of independent mechanism
0:10:38 that keeps them accountable.
0:10:43 So can a lame duck president do this between now and January?
0:10:48 He needs a Congress that can do it and make sure it lasts beyond just one presidency.
0:10:52 I don’t think you can executive order your way through fixing the court.
0:10:59 And so that’s why winning the House and the Senate is so important for President Kamala
0:11:02 Harris to have as she takes office.
0:11:07 Do you believe that the guardrails are in place to prevent the U.S. from becoming another
0:11:08 Hungary?
0:11:12 If we win the presidency, the Senate and the House, absolutely.
0:11:17 We also know that the best bet in Washington right now is the House.
0:11:23 We’re just about six seats short, but I’m confident Kamala Harris is going to win.
0:11:29 But I also know that the House can be a firewall against any corrupt president.
0:11:31 But I don’t think we’re going to have to worry about that.
0:11:34 We have a real path right now to winning all three.
0:11:37 You obviously know the Jim Jordans and the Mike Johnson’s of the world.
0:11:40 And I just want some insight into their heads.
0:11:46 Do they really believe this shit or are they just saying whatever is necessary to get reelected?
0:11:53 So look at it this way, two thirds of my colleagues who say crazy things are just pro-wrestlers
0:11:56 at the nation’s cap.
0:11:59 So they say it, they don’t really believe it.
0:12:02 And I know they don’t believe it because I see them when the cameras aren’t on and they’re
0:12:04 not in the quote unquote ring.
0:12:10 The other third, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, Mike Johnson, no, they believe
0:12:11 it.
0:12:12 This is who they are.
0:12:13 This is what they believe.
0:12:14 That’s fine.
0:12:18 I can price in as I negotiate and deal with or try and legislate.
0:12:22 I can work with people where I know what they believe and what the core set of values are,
0:12:25 even if they’re way outside the mainstream.
0:12:31 What is very hard to work with are people, and I’ll give you an example, like Ted Cruz.
0:12:35 During the second impeachment trial, I presented to the Senate and then we took a break.
0:12:40 We were in the Senate floor, I used the Senator’s bathroom, which we were given access to because
0:12:42 we were prosecuted in the case.
0:12:47 And as I’m just washing my hands at the sink, right next to me is Ted Cruz.
0:12:52 And Cruz looks over at me after he’s washing his hands and he says, “Hey, we’ve never met.”
0:12:56 And he puts his fist out to fist bump and he says, “I’m Ted.”
0:13:01 And I put my fist out like, “Hey, Ted.”
0:13:05 And he could tell I was looking at him like he had three heads, three head Ted.
0:13:09 And he says to me, he goes, “You did a really good job out there.”
0:13:11 And again, I’m like, “You were just on Fox News last night.
0:13:12 You called me out by name.
0:13:13 What are you talking about?”
0:13:15 And he goes, “No, I mean it.
0:13:17 You did a really good job out there.”
0:13:20 And it clicked for me, “Oh, he’s a pro wrestler.
0:13:22 He goes in the ring.
0:13:27 He swings a steel chair at me and he thinks that’s what the man’s want.”
0:13:33 But when we’re backstage and he doesn’t have a camera on him, he’s just Ted.
0:13:40 Since that is least acceptable for me, it’s more just repulsive because if you’re acting
0:13:44 that way, then your constituents and the voters and Americans, if they don’t know that this
0:13:46 is just an act, they may go along with it.
0:13:51 And that’s how you actually spin people up and put us in a January 6th-like environment.
0:13:53 My God, that is a frightening story.
0:13:56 Talk about a scene from a Netflix series.
0:14:02 But anyway, so my last question is, what can a regular person, regular person, not
0:14:07 a billionaire, do to support democracy?
0:14:16 You’re actually more powerful than Elon Musk and his $45 million a month installment plan
0:14:21 that he has because you yourself, you can organize, you can mobilize.
0:14:23 And it’s not just registering to vote and voting.
0:14:27 It’s being a part of rallies.
0:14:32 It’s being a part of town halls and speaking truth to power and telling leaders what you
0:14:34 expect of them.
0:14:38 And it’s what you’re doing right now, which is using the platform that you have with your
0:14:43 friends, family, and followers to talk about your values.
0:14:45 And right now, we’re not helpless.
0:14:47 That’s the worst feeling in the world to have.
0:14:49 We’ve all been in a position where we are helpless.
0:14:50 We’re not helpless in this.
0:14:57 We can win for our freedoms, win for democracy over the next 105 or so days.
0:14:58 Organize your friends.
0:15:03 Make sure they know what’s at stake and make sure they know where to go.
0:15:06 The ballot box, that’s where all the difference in the world ever occurred.
0:15:12 So we’re more powerful than Elon’s millions because we have votes and money.
0:15:13 Money’s not.
0:15:16 You specifically did not say, give money though.
0:15:17 Why is that?
0:15:18 Look, that’s important.
0:15:26 But having a message and a movement and mobilization, those three M’s, that’s more powerful than
0:15:27 money.
0:15:28 Of course, you get volunteers out there.
0:15:31 You have to pay for organizing.
0:15:36 But I still think I would take a movement and that’s what Kamala Harris is building
0:15:39 over a billionaire’s money any day.
0:15:40 So Eric, I’m going to let you go now.
0:15:41 I know you’re busy.
0:15:43 I really appreciate you taking this time.
0:15:47 I appreciate you wanting to do this and I’m looking forward to getting the best sleep
0:15:50 of my life in 105 days.
0:15:53 Me and you.
0:15:58 I certainly want to sleep well after the first week of November, so thank you, Eric,
0:16:00 for being on my podcast.
0:16:06 And while I’m thanking people, big humongous thanks, of course, should go to Joe Biden,
0:16:09 who took one for the team and stepped aside.
0:16:11 I don’t think you’re listening to this, Joe.
0:16:17 But if somebody can get this to him, you know what, Joe, I think in 10 or 20 years, you’re
0:16:23 going to be remembered as one of the best presidents in the history of the United States.
0:16:27 Some people may think that a podcast is supposed to be neutral or nonpartisan.
0:16:30 Well, I don’t agree.
0:16:32 I do not agree at all.
0:16:36 And I’m going to tell you right now, I think you should vote for Kamala Harris.
0:16:41 She could save democracy and we are on the precipice of losing democracy and America
0:16:44 could go away as we know it.
0:16:46 So I want you to vote for her.
0:16:51 And if this partisan attitude pisses you off, what can I say?
0:16:55 I’m not forcing you to listen to this podcast.
0:16:59 Now let me thank the rest of the remarkable people team.
0:17:03 That would be Jeff C. and Shannon Hernandez, the sound design experts.
0:17:09 And then there’s Madison Nysmer, producer and co-author with me of Think Remarkable.
0:17:11 There’s Tessa Nysmer, researcher.
0:17:15 And then there’s Louise Magana, Alexis Nishimura, and Fallon Yates.
0:17:21 We are the remarkable people team and we’re trying to help you be remarkable.
0:17:23 And prevent the downfall of America.
0:17:25 I’m Guy Kawasaki.
0:17:27 This is Remarkable People.
0:17:34 Until next time, mahalo and aloha.
0:17:36 This is Remarkable People.

0:00:12 I’m Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People.
0:00:19 We’re on a mission to make you remarkable and helping me in this episode is Tara Vanderveer.
0:00:24 Tara recently retired as the head coach of the Stanford University women’s basketball
0:00:25 team.
0:00:28 She led that team for 38 years.
0:00:35 She took over at Stanford in 1985 and quickly built the program into a national powerhouse.
0:00:43 She led Stanford to three NCAA women’s division one basketball championships in 1990, 1992,
0:00:44 and 2021.
0:00:52 She is a 10-time Pac-12 coach of the year and has won over 1200 games in her career.
0:00:59 The most of any coach in college basketball history, men’s or women’s.
0:01:05 Tara also served as the head coach of the 1996 U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team.
0:01:08 That team won a gold medal.
0:01:10 I’m Guy Kawasaki.
0:01:19 This is Remarkable People and now here is the remarkable, most winning Tara Vanderveer.
0:01:22 What happens a day after you retire?
0:01:30 I see my email and phone blew up, letters, I got some amazing, just beautiful letters
0:01:37 from people, probably honestly over a thousand of them and I’m still working on catching
0:01:43 up writing people back, emailing, texting, and then a lot of different opportunities
0:01:51 to do things, whether it’s books, movie, podcasts, speaking.
0:01:56 At first it felt honestly pretty overwhelming, but I’m going to be working part-time in
0:02:02 the athletic department as an advisor to our athletic director and a coach’s coach.
0:02:07 So I think I’m just getting to that groove and basically during the summer I’m going
0:02:11 to be working remotely, but I’m excited about a new role.
0:02:18 I don’t want to cause PTSD, but can you go through the basic seasons of a D1 college
0:02:19 coach?
0:02:24 What happens when you take off or does recruiting start immediately and it’s never ever you’re
0:02:26 off?
0:02:27 It’s the latter.
0:02:30 You are never ever off.
0:02:36 I would say, as an example, our calendar year was, we would come back to Stanford, we would
0:02:40 start with our team September 15th.
0:02:46 So basically the coaches would meet in person around September 1st and just get everything
0:02:51 ready for our players to come back because they’d been in summer school.
0:02:56 And then we would start working out the 15th, we would do a team bonding exercise usually.
0:03:03 We started school maybe a week later and you’re working out, you’re doing some kind of workout
0:03:08 with your team plus recruiting and all kinds of things just starting up the school year
0:03:10 meetings.
0:03:16 And then you have your whole season and you’re also doing recruiting during your season.
0:03:23 And then as soon as your last game ends, you’re again doing recruiting, going to high school
0:03:28 tournaments and basically all spring and then so yesterday was our first day of basketball
0:03:29 camp.
0:03:34 We have basketball camp in the summer, recruiting in the summer.
0:03:37 And even there are two dead weeks where you’re not allowed to recruit.
0:03:39 One is in May and one is in August.
0:03:42 So those are your two vacation times really.
0:03:52 And it’s become really 24/7, 50 weeks of the year.
0:03:56 I saw something in your background that I found so fascinating.
0:03:59 So can you explain your connection to Bobby Knight?
0:04:02 Well, I went to Indiana University.
0:04:08 I transferred there as a sophomore and I took coach Knight’s basketball class, which
0:04:12 he taught the X’s and O’s and philosophy and things like that.
0:04:18 And in his class, he said that anyone that attended his class had permission to watch
0:04:20 their basketball practice.
0:04:25 I don’t think he thought I would come every day, but I did.
0:04:28 And I watched every day of practice for basically three years.
0:04:29 I loved it.
0:04:30 I learned a lot.
0:04:35 I didn’t have any idea that I would be a basketball coach because really growing up, there were
0:04:38 not basketball teams for women to coach.
0:04:44 So I just really enjoyed watching practice and I thought I majored in sociology.
0:04:45 I thought I’d go to law school.
0:04:48 But I just kind of fell into this coaching a little bit backwards.
0:04:54 From the outside looking in at Bobby Knight, all that I picture is him picking up chairs
0:04:58 and throwing them across the court and abusing players and all that.
0:05:01 But what’s the real story of Bobby Knight?
0:05:05 Because my other impression is that people who played for him loved him.
0:05:06 He was great to me.
0:05:12 He was very generous with his time and knowledge and I watched their practices.
0:05:15 There were times where he would raise his voice.
0:05:19 I never saw him throw a chair or do anything crazy.
0:05:24 But I think that the pressure on college coaches, I think he felt that.
0:05:28 And I learned maybe some things, obviously not to do, but my experience with him was
0:05:30 always very positive.
0:05:36 And I’m very thankful to have that opportunity to have been able to watch and I loved watching
0:05:37 Indiana basketball.
0:05:40 It was really a different game than in a way.
0:05:41 There’s no shot clock.
0:05:43 There was no three point line.
0:05:47 The rules have changed so much that the game is really different.
0:05:50 But I learned a lot and I loved it.
0:05:55 Can you trace any of your coaching philosophy to his coaching philosophies?
0:06:02 I would say that yes, I can, not in temperament as much as he ran a very organized, quick
0:06:08 practice and the use of your time in practice, how you go from one drill to the next, why
0:06:15 you teach certain things, the order that you teach them in, the importance of fundamentals.
0:06:21 I learned a lot and I would just say there’s no one that has had more of an impact on my
0:06:24 basketball coaching than Coach Knight.
0:06:28 How would Indiana players practice free throws?
0:06:34 Usually what they did, they would do a drill where you’re really going hard, you’re playing
0:06:36 and then you would break for free throws.
0:06:40 And then you would do another drill and then you would break so that your free throws was
0:06:45 your water break and your chance to shoot free throws while you were tired.
0:06:50 And we would pretty much shoot free throws the same way in our practice where you would
0:06:53 go hard, you’d be scrimmaging, you’re going up and down the court and then you take a
0:06:57 break and you’re going to make 10 free throws at a basket and you’re scrimmaging again or
0:07:01 you’re doing a really tough running drill so that when you’re shooting your free throws
0:07:03 you’re tired.
0:07:07 Just the logistics of that, so you’re scrimmage and then you have obviously players on the
0:07:09 court at Maples.
0:07:13 How many baskets are there for people to be shooting free throws after a scrimmage?
0:07:15 There’s eight baskets.
0:07:21 During practice usually there’s two main baskets and then you’ve got six on either side and
0:07:22 that’s pretty much true.
0:07:27 I would say most practice courts, the arena will have your main baskets and then actually
0:07:31 in the old days, Maples, the baskets would swing down so you’d always have eight baskets
0:07:35 to practice on which I loved because we would do a lot of shooting drills where you would
0:07:41 divide up, you would go with a partner and maybe a manager and do shooting with a partner
0:07:49 for five minutes and then come back and do another full court drill.
0:07:54 So you explained the influence of Bobby Knight but how would you describe the core of your
0:07:55 coaching philosophy?
0:08:00 Maybe that started with my parents, both of my parents are teachers and I view coaching
0:08:03 as maybe 40 public exams.
0:08:08 You’re coaching and teaching and you’re a mentor for young women and it’s more than
0:08:13 just teaching X’s and O’s but it’s getting to know them as people.
0:08:21 It’s really trying to help them navigate college and a competitive environment and it’s very
0:08:22 challenging.
0:08:28 I noticed that it took you about three years to blossom at Stanford and do you explain
0:08:33 that as finally after three years it’s the players that you recruited or finally they
0:08:36 got the system or what took three years?
0:08:40 Like I said the first year for the most part if you’re hired as a coach the team is not
0:08:46 very good because the coach in front of me at Stanford was fired.
0:08:51 So they’d won five games the year before and it was a team that was really struggling.
0:08:57 So we did, my assistant coaches and myself, we worked very hard and so the first year you
0:09:02 don’t have any of your own players and the second year your players are freshmen and
0:09:07 so in the third year then we really had a great breakout season and went to the NCAA
0:09:10 tournament and then we got to going right away.
0:09:16 And how do you recruit as a first year coach when you’re five and twenty or whatever it
0:09:17 was?
0:09:23 I had coached at Ohio State and had success at Ohio State and had success at Idaho.
0:09:25 So we knew the type of players that we needed.
0:09:30 I had great assistant coaches who were excellent at evaluating players and for Stanford it’s
0:09:34 not just they have to be great players but they have to be great students.
0:09:40 The Dean of Admissions explained to me that Tara the students that you recruit for basketball
0:09:46 need to be able to jump through the same academic hoops as other admits and so I think coaching
0:09:51 at Stanford is the ultimate challenge and it’s even become more challenging with the
0:09:55 portal and collective money and NIL.
0:10:00 So do you think that the portal is improving the game or it’s giving players options or
0:10:04 it’s ruining the game because it’s giving players options?
0:10:09 I think that players should have the opportunity to play where they want to play and the portal
0:10:15 basically allows them to transfer and I think that transferring I would hope it would be
0:10:20 after the season but sometimes what’s happening is if someone has a bad day they just get
0:10:25 mad and then they’re like I’m out of here which I think in some ways is hurting both
0:10:32 teams and players when they’re not developing the resilience and the competitiveness that
0:10:37 would help them later on but I think that I mean I transferred as a freshman I realized
0:10:41 I was not in a place I wanted and I transferred and got to play right away.
0:10:47 The challenge now is not just the portal but the combination of collective money which
0:10:54 is boosters at a certain school will then call players and poach top players off of
0:11:01 really good teams with very high incentive money to go to different places.
0:11:04 And that’s all legal and okay?
0:11:07 It is right now yes.
0:11:13 But wouldn’t a school like Stanford with your history and it’s infinitely wealthy alumni
0:11:17 wouldn’t you benefit from the portal and that collective thing?
0:11:21 I would not say that Stanford has benefited from the portal.
0:11:29 First of all the portal has, again I think the NIL is a great thing for college students,
0:11:35 the combination of the collective and the portal is not beneficial to Stanford.
0:11:41 There are players that are great players at Stanford that are being recruited and poached
0:11:47 by other schools at the direction of their coach which to me is it’s quote legal but
0:11:52 it’s not really legal because the coaches are not supposed to be involved but they are.
0:11:57 And I think it’s something that the teams are becoming stacked which that’s interesting
0:11:58 too.
0:12:05 But the money is just I don’t know I think it’s unsustainable and we do have very wealthy
0:12:11 alums at Stanford that give money to libraries and laboratories and like the door school
0:12:18 of sustainability and just handing over a million dollars or two million dollars to
0:12:23 a basketball player doesn’t seem rational but that’s what’s happening.
0:12:30 Okay you mentioned the word recruiting four or five times already so what exactly do you
0:12:32 look for in a recruit?
0:12:37 For someone at Stanford they have to have the academic background so they’ll be accepted
0:12:40 so that will be something really important.
0:12:44 If I see someone if I’m out recruiting that will be the first thing I want to know is
0:12:47 I want to see their high school transcript.
0:12:49 Are they in AP classes?
0:12:53 What are their SAT scores, ACT scores?
0:12:55 So that’s coming back in.
0:13:00 Then once if in fact they’re in the ballpark then are they skilled at basketball?
0:13:02 Do they shoot the ball well?
0:13:03 Are they athletic?
0:13:04 Do they run the floor well?
0:13:05 What is their strength?
0:13:09 How would they fit in with the players that are already on our team?
0:13:11 And then you just go from there.
0:13:17 If you can check those boxes then a lot of times if they’re interested academically then
0:13:19 you have a really good chance of getting them.
0:13:25 Now it’s a combination of are they interested academically and do you have collective money?
0:13:31 Some of the top upcoming juniors and seniors in high school and women’s basketball are
0:13:38 asking for $100,000, $200,000, $300,000, $400,000 per year guaranteed.
0:13:40 Those words pass through their lips.
0:13:43 They literally ask for the money.
0:13:44 Yes.
0:13:48 No, they just say this is what it will cost for you to recruit me.
0:13:53 I’m interested but that’s what is happening now, yes.
0:13:58 I guess I could build a case that’s good because basketball programs make money off the players
0:14:03 but there’s a part of me that says, “Wow, that just sounds like total commercialization
0:14:04 of a sport.”
0:14:07 It’s a whole new world, a whole new landscape.
0:14:12 I don’t know yet that there are very many women’s basketball programs that do make a
0:14:13 lot of money.
0:14:18 The money for the most part in college athletics is in football.
0:14:26 I would say 85% to 90% of all the money that comes in is because of football and for some
0:14:33 of the top football quarterbacks, especially the marquee type players, their price tag
0:14:37 is maybe $1,000,000 to $3,000,000 per year.
0:14:44 I think that that’s where the NCAA, we’re hoping that in some way there’s some regulation
0:14:50 of this so that it’s not just crazy wild west giving cash money in McDonald’s paper bag
0:14:52 because that’s what’s happening.
0:14:54 It’s really out there right now.
0:14:55 Wow.
0:15:00 Obviously, you’ve coached many winners and with your hindsight, can you sort of break
0:15:01 it down?
0:15:02 Is it talent?
0:15:03 Is it attitude?
0:15:04 Is it luck?
0:15:05 What makes a winner?
0:15:13 I think individually, like you said, I have coached some amazing players, including 12 Olympians,
0:15:18 but the great players that I’ve coached at Stanford or Ohio State, I would say in the
0:15:21 very best players, it starts with discipline.
0:15:24 They really see the end game.
0:15:28 They’re not trying to be an amazing player in one day because that’s not going to happen.
0:15:31 Basketball is like a steel-cut oatmeal.
0:15:32 You’ve got to cook it.
0:15:33 It’s not instant oatmeal.
0:15:36 Being a great student, you’re not going to do it in one day.
0:15:42 The people that are great athletes, they enjoy the process of getting better and they buy
0:15:43 into improving.
0:15:45 They’re very coachable.
0:15:50 They want to hear how can I get better and they really enjoy coming to the gym.
0:15:52 They put in extra time.
0:15:55 They’re people that are really fun to work with.
0:15:57 The very best players are your hardest workers.
0:15:59 They’re great teammates.
0:16:04 Some of the best players I’ve coached, honestly, I just cry when they graduate.
0:16:05 It’s awful.
0:16:07 But they’re great teammates.
0:16:08 They’re leaders.
0:16:11 They’re disciplined, hard-working.
0:16:15 And they just really want to be great and they’ll put in the time and make the effort.
0:16:17 They’re not going to just talk about it.
0:16:21 They’re going to — I call it the — like, some people want the sweatshirt without sweating,
0:16:24 but the great players want to sweat.
0:16:30 And you can determine this in recruiting and scouting when there are sophomores and juniors?
0:16:31 No.
0:16:32 You hope to.
0:16:36 You talk to their coaches, your high school coaches.
0:16:41 And what’s amazing is, whether it’s sometimes they’re high school coaches or sometimes like
0:16:45 their parents, they’re like, “My daughter’s the hardest worker ever.
0:16:50 That’s a red light for me,” you know, because people aren’t always realistic.
0:16:56 And they don’t understand the commitment involved in a great college player.
0:17:01 College athletics, whether you’re a football, men’s or women’s basketball, if you’re a great
0:17:08 basketball player, like when I said we started September 15th, you’re in the gym.
0:17:11 You’re committed at least five hours a day.
0:17:12 Everyone is.
0:17:13 You’re coming to practice.
0:17:15 You’re going to the training room.
0:17:16 You’re going to watch film.
0:17:22 But you’re allowed, quote, “20 hours a week,” but that’s just the time you’re on the court.
0:17:25 So you’re on the court for 20 hours.
0:17:30 And honestly, another 10 hours a week, you’re getting treatment.
0:17:32 You’re maybe in the weight room.
0:17:37 You’re in the gym extra getting shot up, working on your skill to get better.
0:17:42 And there’s some huge motivation for some of these pro basketball players.
0:17:43 And now for women, too.
0:17:44 They’re very motivated.
0:17:48 And at Stanford, they’re also carrying an academic load.
0:17:49 They are.
0:17:52 And some of our players have graduated early.
0:17:58 We had a set of twins, Lexie and Lacey Hull, who are fabulous, fabulous basketball players
0:18:05 and equally fabulous students competing with each other in engineering, which they got
0:18:10 their master’s degree in four years, during COVID also.
0:18:13 Like, three, eight, nine, three, nine, nine.
0:18:15 It was just incredible grade points.
0:18:22 I had a professor say to us, “Coaches, I’ve learned more from Lacey than she’s learned
0:18:23 from me.”
0:18:27 They’re just, they’re amazing athletes and students.
0:18:29 And we’ve had a number of those.
0:18:30 That’s the extreme.
0:18:33 They’re just fabulous, but others are equally good.
0:18:34 And where are they now?
0:18:37 Lexie is playing professionally in Indiana.
0:18:39 She’s in the WNBA.
0:18:44 And Lacey is in corporate America, living in Austin, Texas.
0:18:47 Can we switch gears now to Olympic basketball?
0:18:48 Because you’ve been a coach.
0:18:51 You’ve already coached players who played in the Olympics.
0:18:52 So how does that different?
0:18:55 I mean, how does that even work?
0:18:58 For me, it worked differently than anyone else.
0:19:05 In 1992, the USA men’s team was the dream team and won a gold medal easily.
0:19:10 The women’s team did not win a gold medal, got a bronze medal.
0:19:15 And the 1996 Olympics were in Atlanta, the next quadrennial.
0:19:19 And USA basketball basically said, “Hey, we want to win a gold.
0:19:26 So we’re going to put in a year-long training and we’re going to ask a coach to leave their
0:19:30 job for a year and train our team to win a gold medal.”
0:19:38 So I was the coach in the ’96 quadrennial, which I left Stanford for a year, and we
0:19:45 trained and traveled all over the world and played a total of 52 games before the Olympics.
0:19:47 So we traveled over 100,000 miles.
0:19:52 We went to Russia, we went to Australia, we went to China.
0:19:54 We played in tournaments.
0:19:58 We played college teams all over, barnstormed college teams.
0:20:04 And then in August of 1996, we played in Atlanta and won the gold medal.
0:20:10 And so those, the members of that team, they basically took a year off academically to
0:20:11 them.
0:20:12 No, they were professional.
0:20:13 They were paid.
0:20:14 Oh, excuse me.
0:20:15 Okay.
0:20:16 They took a pay cut.
0:20:19 They took a pay cut to play for USA basketball.
0:20:23 Some of them earned 200, 250.
0:20:31 Now again, this is over 25 years ago, and USA basketball paid them $50,000 to take a year
0:20:37 off and not play in Europe, not play in Italy or Russia, where they were paid over 200,000
0:20:42 because there was no professional women’s basketball in the United States before the
0:20:44 1996 team.
0:20:49 And when USA basketball is involved in this, are you picking your team or are they handing
0:20:52 you the players and saying, “Terra, take it from here?
0:20:54 How does that work?”
0:20:55 They picked the team.
0:20:56 I did not.
0:20:58 You don’t have any say in it.
0:21:01 I might say something, but I had no vote.
0:21:02 Wow.
0:21:03 And is that true today?
0:21:04 Yes.
0:21:06 I think it is pretty true today.
0:21:09 And who is USA basketball that picks this?
0:21:10 How do they do it?
0:21:12 They have a committee.
0:21:18 So this year’s committee is someone like Don Staley, who was a former coach, Bethany
0:21:23 Donovan, who is a Stanford basketball player, but she works for the WNBA.
0:21:26 The head of the, it used to be Carol Cowan, who I worked with.
0:21:29 They have a USA basketball representative.
0:21:33 Simone Augustus is a former USA basketball Olympian.
0:21:36 And I think there’s a couple other people, and I can’t remember right off the top of
0:21:37 my head who’s on the committee.
0:21:38 Okay.
0:21:41 So now I’m an outsider and I just don’t understand.
0:21:46 So I read all this controversy, Caitlin Clark is not on the Olympic team.
0:21:47 She should be.
0:21:48 She shouldn’t be.
0:21:49 What does that work?
0:21:54 The Olympic team is not necessarily picked the Olympic year.
0:21:59 The team trains together and works and plays games four years leading up.
0:22:06 So it is an interesting positive dilemma, I think, with the Caitlin Clark controversy,
0:22:14 because she has, through her college record setting, great career that she had at Iowa,
0:22:19 she is really, for a lot of people, the face of women’s basketball.
0:22:23 And so it’s hard to understand how come she’s not on this team.
0:22:28 The problem is other people have put in a lot of time and they’re really good professional
0:22:31 players and people don’t know about them.
0:22:34 I think that there is an argument that she should be on the team.
0:22:38 She is good enough, but it’s what I call musical chairs.
0:22:43 There are probably, oh, 50 players that are good enough to play on the Olympic team, but
0:22:45 only 12 chairs.
0:22:47 And she’s one of the people that is good enough.
0:22:54 The controversy, I think, much more than Caitlin Clark was when Neko Ogumake was left off.
0:23:01 And so Neko Ogumake played for four years, was hurt in the spring before the Olympics,
0:23:04 and she was left off, but she was healthy by the Olympics.
0:23:07 And so to me, that was much more of a controversy.
0:23:12 But people don’t know the name Neko Ogumake, the household name that Caitlin Clark is.
0:23:17 I think that there is merit to the argument that Caitlin Clark would bring great attention
0:23:20 to the women’s basketball team and the Olympics.
0:23:26 So that would be a reason to include her on that team.
0:23:32 And for the marketing and promotion of women’s basketball, for one person when, you know,
0:23:37 who’s your 12th player on the team, maybe why not have Caitlin Clark, who would bring
0:23:40 such a great notoriety.
0:23:45 I think the first question at the press conference when the USA team goes to Paris will be why
0:23:47 isn’t Caitlin Clark on the team?
0:23:53 So she will generate a lot of enthusiasm, but she won’t be there right now.
0:23:57 And what do you think USA Basketball is going to say when they’re asked that question?
0:24:01 I think what they’ve said is basically there’s players that have more experience.
0:24:07 And in some ways, I think that USA Basketball has hurt itself not having younger players,
0:24:11 not developing younger players for those big moments.
0:24:19 The Olympic team that I coached in ’96, we had, for the most part, I would say 10 new
0:24:25 players as opposed to this year’s team, maybe has five or six new players.
0:24:27 I’d have to look at the numbers exactly.
0:24:33 But I think it’s good to have young, enthusiastic, and to teach them the way it is, to understand
0:24:37 the pressure of playing with USA on your jersey.
0:24:42 And what motivates someone like you who’s so successful at Stanford to take a year off
0:24:43 to do this?
0:24:45 Is it just patriotic duty?
0:24:47 You know, I think it was just another challenge.
0:24:52 And I had coached the younger teams coming up and I was ready to do it.
0:24:55 I’ve been prepared and groomed to do it.
0:24:56 And then it was different.
0:24:59 It was hard to leave Stanford for a year.
0:25:03 I think our program suffered at Stanford.
0:25:04 Not the year I was gone.
0:25:06 My assistant coach did a fabulous job.
0:25:11 It has the winningest percentage at Stanford and was awesome, but our recruiting suffered
0:25:13 after that.
0:25:17 And it’s when you go what you take a year off, basically it really takes time to get
0:25:19 it back on again.
0:25:20 And it did.
0:25:24 When you walk into the athletic defectors office and say, “I want to take a year off
0:25:28 to coach Olympic basketball,” does the AD say, “Oh, hello, you tire us.
0:25:31 Such a great opportunity, absolutely.”
0:25:32 There was probably mixed.
0:25:38 They worked with USA Basketball and it worked out, but I had to resign, basically.
0:25:51 I’ve, quote, “retired” twice.
0:25:58 So now looking forward at women’s basketball, Kaitlyn Clark and this rivalry and stuff.
0:26:02 Is it just a great time for women’s basketball?
0:26:05 I think it is a great time for women’s basketball.
0:26:09 But then I’ve thought it’s always been a great time for women’s basketball.
0:26:15 Since the Olympics in 1996 and 1997, two, basically pro leagues were established.
0:26:20 The ABL, which since has folded, but the WNBA.
0:26:25 And in the Bay Area, now we’re going to have a pro team in San Francisco that Joe Lakeup
0:26:28 is the owner of the Warriors and the Valkyries.
0:26:29 It’s very exciting.
0:26:33 I think it’s a great time for women’s basketball.
0:26:35 The television ratings are way up.
0:26:39 For the first time ever in history, the women’s television rating was higher than the men’s
0:26:42 television rating for the NCAA basketball tournament.
0:26:47 And I think that’s a lot to do with Kaitlyn Clark and they call it Clarkonomics.
0:26:54 She has impacted television ratings, selling of gear, the sell out crowds, but then exposing
0:26:56 more people to women’s basketball.
0:26:59 I think it’s a really, really good thing.
0:27:01 Did you try to recruit her?
0:27:02 I saw her play.
0:27:06 She’s a great high school player, but again, I think she was pretty much set on saying
0:27:09 in the East Coast or Midwest.
0:27:14 And this may be an insensitive question and you can punt on it, but do you think if she
0:27:17 were black, it would be the same phenomena?
0:27:18 I would hope so.
0:27:20 There are some great young players.
0:27:25 Juju Watkins is a superstar coming up and might break Kaitlyn Clark’s record.
0:27:29 I would like to think that we live in a world that appreciates excellence, no matter their
0:27:31 gender or color.
0:27:33 I’m realistic.
0:27:39 The fact that she is white and she’s from Iowa, I think she did generate a lot of enthusiasm
0:27:46 for women’s basketball, but I think there are other players out there who are getting
0:27:51 known and followed in a similar way that Kaitlyn is.
0:27:56 That level of basketball, men’s or women’s, is the difference between Kaitlyn Clark and
0:27:59 someone who’s beneath Kaitlyn Clark and standing and all that.
0:28:06 Is it just like an infestimally small difference or is it head and shoulders above everybody?
0:28:13 She’s a superstar college player in the same way that Kelsey Plum who graduated from Washington
0:28:17 and that’s the record that Kaitlyn broke, Kaitlyn Clark.
0:28:22 These are extraordinarily talented players.
0:28:27 There is a big difference between the extraordinarily talented players, the Olympians, the NBA All
0:28:28 Stars.
0:28:34 There is a difference in the same way that Michael Jordan or LeBron James or Steph Curry
0:28:40 is a phenom and Kaitlyn Clark is a phenom in her own way too.
0:28:45 I would say this guy, I would just say this about Kaitlyn Clark, what’s so amazing about
0:28:50 her is not her three-point shot, her passing is phenomenal, her three-point shooting from
0:28:52 the logo is incredible.
0:28:58 Her maturity, she deals with pressure, the pressure on her, she just acts like it’s water
0:29:00 and rolls off her back.
0:29:03 She does have ice water in her veins.
0:29:10 She handles this so well, the incredible media frenzy about her and I’ve met her, I had dinner
0:29:12 with her and her parents at an event.
0:29:19 It’s not to say a 22-year-old doesn’t have their moments, she does, but she is an absolute
0:29:25 phenom and I very much respect and admire what she’s doing.
0:29:32 Okay, now maybe my last question is, suppose that you are a freshman or a sophomore, maybe
0:29:37 even middle school girl listening to this and you want to be the next Kaitlyn Clark,
0:29:39 what can I learn from Tara?
0:29:42 So what’s your message to that girl?
0:29:46 I think for a young girl or a young boy, there are a lot of boys wearing the Kaitlyn
0:29:52 Clark jerseys too, be passionate, you’re not going to be great at something that you
0:29:54 don’t really love.
0:29:59 I’m a big Katie Ledecky fan, she loves to train, you have to love what you’re doing,
0:30:05 you have to be very passionate about it, so whatever it is, you’re going to put your time
0:30:09 into it, enjoy it, enjoy the process of getting better.
0:30:14 Be a great teammate, I think that basketball is a team sport and I think the things you
0:30:20 learn as a teammate will help you be a better member of your family, be a better student
0:30:27 and school, but being a great teammate, being disciplined, being hard working, having goals
0:30:33 and really working hard to achieve those goals, but enjoying the process, enjoy the journey,
0:30:36 don’t just think, I want to be this great player and it’s going to happen overnight
0:30:38 because it’s not.
0:30:44 And if you have this kind of aspiration, should you as an athlete be like 100% focused
0:30:48 on basketball, basketball 12 months a year or should you play soccer and should you play
0:30:53 other things to get cross training and exposure to other skills?
0:30:57 Well, I think that’s a great question, I think it depends on maybe your age.
0:31:03 As a middle school, I would definitely play three sports or four sports and high school
0:31:04 the same.
0:31:09 I think that sometimes limiting what you’re doing and parents feeling well, they’ve just
0:31:14 got to make a decision when they’re 10 years old what sport you’re going to play.
0:31:19 There are some great young players like Tiger Woods, I know, just love golf so much and
0:31:24 he focused on golf, but I think that until you really know that, I would cross train
0:31:30 it because sometimes we’re having young people have a lot of injuries based on the fact
0:31:36 that maybe they’re overuse injuries, they’re doing too much of the same repetition, motion
0:31:37 over and over.
0:31:41 So your knees or your shoulders, whatever body parts can’t take it.
0:31:47 There are occasional person that says, boy, I want to be this great, whether it’s volleyball
0:31:52 player or softball player, but I would, for the most part, I would say enjoy different
0:31:54 sports.
0:32:00 And what’s your advice to parents who believe they have the next Caitlyn Clarke?
0:32:02 I think parents need to get out of the way.
0:32:08 I think parents need to live their own life, facilitate their children, but not live through
0:32:09 their children.
0:32:15 What I see are some parents that are so crazy about their kids success that the kids are
0:32:17 not even enjoying it.
0:32:22 They’re trying to please their parents and as says a parent, help your young daughter
0:32:29 or young son enjoy whether it’s basketball, help them maybe put up a hoop in your backyard
0:32:34 or get some lights on it so they can shoot at night or let them go to basketball camp.
0:32:40 But it has to come from within the child, not the parent wanting the child to be a great
0:32:41 basketball player.
0:32:47 It has to be their goal and their aspiration, not the parents.
0:32:52 And also parents not pressuring children to go practice and go do this.
0:32:56 They’re not going to love it if they’re being told what to do.
0:33:01 And while you were at Ohio State and Stanford, did you ever have parents email you or call
0:33:04 you and say, “My kid needs more playing time.
0:33:06 She’s better than XYZ.”
0:33:11 You know, usually guy, they didn’t call me, but they would say that to my assistant coaches.
0:33:17 And parents, they would say some crazy things, but we pretty much established a rule with
0:33:23 the players on our team and said, “Look, if your parent calls me, I’m going to tell you
0:33:28 that your parent called me and I’m happy to meet with you and your parent, but I will
0:33:33 not meet with just you or just your parent if it’s to do with something with your parent.”
0:33:37 But I will tell you this, one time I did have a parent leave a message.
0:33:41 This goes back because of, you know, your answering machines, right?
0:33:46 I had apparently to leave a message that was thinking that he knew more about what his
0:33:47 child should do.
0:33:53 And then the next message on my answering machine was the student.
0:33:55 And she said, “Tara, I’d like to meet with you.”
0:33:58 And she said to me, “I play for you.
0:34:04 Please ignore what my parent says and tell me what I need to work on so that I can play
0:34:07 more and I respect your decision.”
0:34:14 It was a mature child and I think a parent that did apologize but was just caught up
0:34:18 in the fact that they were at a game and someone else came in and helped us win the game and
0:34:19 they didn’t.
0:34:24 But parents are not realistic and sometimes that is challenging.
0:34:28 So any last thoughts, what’s the future hold for you?
0:34:31 You know, you’re a young 70, I’m an old 70.
0:34:33 So what’s next?
0:34:38 I did retire from coaching but I am, I call it rewired, not retired.
0:34:44 I’m working in the athletic department at Stanford as an advisor to our athletic director
0:34:49 and I think that the years that I’ve had at Stanford and with coaching, I’m available
0:34:55 to other coaches as a coaches coach and I’ve probably talked to 12 or 15 coaches.
0:34:59 They’ll call me, they’ll text me, I have a question and I just try to listen and try
0:35:00 to help them.
0:35:07 And then I’m spending more time just with my mom as you said and I water ski when my
0:35:12 boat’s in the shop today and I’m mad about it but I water ski, I went sailing yesterday.
0:35:19 I’m reading a lot of good books and I’m really, really taking time to invest in my family
0:35:24 and friends more so than maybe I would when I was coaching but really living a good great
0:35:25 life.
0:35:26 Okay.
0:35:27 Okay.
0:35:30 I promise you this is the last question.
0:35:31 I promise you.
0:35:37 So now put your modesty aside and take it as a given that you are a remarkable person.
0:35:39 Now just answer this question.
0:35:46 So with your hindsight and with your analysis, what do you think enabled you to be remarkable?
0:35:48 You say I’m remarkable.
0:35:51 I don’t get up and look in the mirror and say, wow, I’m remarkable.
0:35:58 I think that I really try to enjoy each day and I really enjoy people so I like to meet
0:35:59 people.
0:36:00 I talk to them.
0:36:01 I like to understand.
0:36:05 Kind of what makes them tick and as a coach, I think I took piano lessons and I thought
0:36:08 I could teach myself and that didn’t work.
0:36:12 So I got a great teacher and I was making CDs and people are like, wow, you’re making
0:36:13 these great CDs.
0:36:14 I said I have a great teacher.
0:36:19 So as a coach, I want to help players get to a place they can’t get to by themselves
0:36:23 and I enjoy that process of improving.
0:36:25 I love to see our teams improve.
0:36:29 I don’t enjoy winning as much as I hate losing.
0:36:34 Losing is extremely painful to me and so I just want to get back at it and do better
0:36:35 the next time.
0:36:37 I think I’m determined.
0:36:43 I’m confident in my own ability but I think more than anything as far as coaching, I enjoy
0:36:45 being in the gym with the players.
0:36:46 I have a great staff.
0:36:48 I love to sit and laugh with them.
0:36:51 We have a lot of fun and I just feel very fortunate.
0:36:53 At the pinch myself, I’m like, this is my life.
0:36:57 I look up and I see, wow, we won all those championships.
0:36:58 Wow, how do we do that?
0:37:00 And I just have fun with it.
0:37:04 I really try to just really enjoy and I’m very fortunate.
0:37:08 I just have a lot of friends that help me.
0:37:14 I hope you learned a few things about how Tara Vander Veer achieves such a remarkable
0:37:15 record.
0:37:20 Remember, she is the most winning coach in college basketball history.
0:37:22 I’m Guy Kawasaki.
0:37:27 This is Remarkable People, my thanks to Kelly Battles.
0:37:31 Without Kelly Battles, this interview would not have happened.
0:37:34 And then there’s the Remarkable People team.
0:37:38 They are Jeff See and Shannon Hernandez.
0:37:40 They are the forwards on our team.
0:37:44 And then there is Madison Neismar, she’s the point guard.
0:37:47 And the shooting guard is Tessa Neismar.
0:37:49 Now who’s the center?
0:37:51 Maybe I’m the center.
0:37:58 Don’t forget the other players, they are Luis Magana, Fallon Yates, and Alexis Nishimura.
0:38:00 We are the Remarkable People team.
0:38:07 We may not have won an NCAA championship or Olympic medal, but we are trying our best
0:38:09 to help you be remarkable.
0:38:16 Until next time, Mahalo and Aloha.
0:38:18 This is Remarkable People.