0:00:03 I believe that video is the native tongue of the internet.
0:00:04 Yeah.
0:00:06 You go to a country, and what language do they speak?
0:00:09 They speak English, they speak Spanish, they speak Mandarin.
0:00:10 The internet speaks video.
0:00:13 I feel like I can rule the world.
0:00:15 I know I could be what I want to.
0:00:18 I put my all in it like my day’s off.
0:00:19 On the road, let’s travel never looking back.
0:00:21 Let me tell you something really interesting that’s light.
0:00:22 So listen to this.
0:00:25 So let me explain how I got into this.
0:00:27 So go to creatorcamp.co.
0:00:29 Okay, I’m here.
0:00:31 Creatorcamp, defining cinema for the internet age.
0:00:32 Oh, I know these guys.
0:00:33 I’ve seen these guys on Twitter.
0:00:37 And so I just slacked you their Notion page, which is actually way better.
0:00:41 I’ve seen this because I saw their videos on Twitter, and I was like, these guys are great.
0:00:42 What are you guys doing?
0:00:45 And they sent me this Notion doc, and I was like, you know, I F with this.
0:00:46 I like you guys.
0:00:46 Yes.
0:00:50 So let me give a little bit of background here of things that I’ve noticed.
0:00:56 I’ve noticed that on both long-form content on YouTube, being like 10, 20, 30, 50 minutes
0:01:04 on YouTube, but also even on short-term, short clips on Instagram, young folks, Gen Z, they
0:01:07 are doing this different type of content and the type of content you and I are used to.
0:01:09 It’s well-produced.
0:01:14 Sometimes it’s fictional and it’s like acted out, but not like Logan Paul Vine acted out
0:01:20 where he’s like walking and he slips on a banana and falls, but like acting, like a script.
0:01:23 And I’ve noticed this happening a ton.
0:01:24 And I’ll give you an example of one.
0:01:27 Have you heard of this guy called Wesley Wang?
0:01:28 Yes, I have.
0:01:29 You’ve heard of him.
0:01:29 What do you know about him?
0:01:32 I’ve watched his YouTube video.
0:01:34 If people haven’t seen this, they need to go to YouTube.
0:01:35 What is the video?
0:01:35 What’s the movie called?
0:01:37 It’s called Nothing Except Everything.
0:01:40 So I stumbled on this one night.
0:01:41 I don’t know how.
0:01:43 It was like not presented to me.
0:01:44 I had no expectations for it.
0:01:47 It’s not like somebody sent me this and was like, hey, this is going to be great.
0:01:49 I just saw it somewhere, clicked it.
0:01:52 This thing has 8 million views.
0:01:56 This guy is a high schooler who made like a short film.
0:02:02 It’s like a 12, 13 minute movie that was so good, so well made.
0:02:09 So like, it looks so legit for a high schooler with his high school crew and his high school
0:02:10 classmates as actors.
0:02:12 I couldn’t believe it.
0:02:13 And I tried to hunt the guy down.
0:02:16 I’m like, you’re the most talented guy I’ve seen in the last three months.
0:02:17 Who are you?
0:02:17 How do I back you?
0:02:18 How do I fund you?
0:02:22 He’s already, he’s already like, you know, made it basically like somebody signed him
0:02:22 or whatever.
0:02:24 He like has some, he got something.
0:02:24 I forgot what it was.
0:02:26 Like he got into school or he got signed.
0:02:27 He got something.
0:02:33 No, he was at Harvard and he got a message from, I think, A24 or one of these like big
0:02:36 time directors or production companies.
0:02:36 He got many of them.
0:02:38 And one guy sent him a message.
0:02:40 I don’t know anything about Hollywood, but it was a prominent guy.
0:02:42 And he says, how do I convince you to drop out of Harvard?
0:02:46 And so he signed with a production company.
0:02:47 That’s what I’m saying.
0:02:48 Somebody already found him.
0:02:48 Yeah.
0:02:48 Yeah.
0:02:49 100%.
0:02:52 Explain what, uh, what, what this movie is.
0:02:56 Well, this was like a year ago that I saw this.
0:02:57 I can’t tell you the plot of the movie.
0:02:59 It’s a 12 minute movie.
0:03:00 Like there’s actors.
0:03:04 They’re like, it’s a real movie, but it’s describing it like cavemen.
0:03:07 Like there’s people, but they not who they say they are.
0:03:13 Well, but it’s on YouTube acting and most you, well, most YouTube or a lot of YouTube is like
0:03:15 a day in the life or it’s a vlog.
0:03:15 Right.
0:03:17 And so it does not fit that.
0:03:20 It’s, it has really good, uh, uh, cinematography.
0:03:22 It has good scripting, whatever.
0:03:22 It’s a great movie.
0:03:23 It has a soundtrack.
0:03:24 It’s awesome.
0:03:25 And it went viral.
0:03:27 It got a 9 million views.
0:03:29 I think last year, the kid’s only 19.
0:03:32 He spent something like $30,000 to make it.
0:03:33 So not a lot of money.
0:03:35 And it was a huge success.
0:03:39 And then I just noticed, I’ve noticed that there’s this other thing going on.
0:03:40 So go to Instagram.
0:03:43 So just, it’s only a, a 30 second video.
0:03:44 So watch this guy’s Instagram.
0:03:44 Yeah.
0:03:46 Check this guy out.
0:03:50 That, that is a beautiful hat.
0:03:52 That is a nice hat.
0:03:55 That man is wearing that hat.
0:03:57 That hat is not wearing him.
0:04:00 Whoa.
0:04:05 Imagine if that hat was like wearing it.
0:04:05 Yeah.
0:04:07 What would that even look like?
0:04:13 That is a wild image.
0:04:14 Okay.
0:04:15 Watched it.
0:04:15 Love it.
0:04:16 It’s it.
0:04:22 These are basically like people who have the ability to make cinematic videos in short form.
0:04:27 It has like gone up 10 X, not even really because of the tech, the tech helps, but really
0:04:31 it’s just people seeing other people doing it and then being like, how do I do that too?
0:04:34 And I, I had this happen, uh, about a year ago.
0:04:37 I saw this girl post this Tik TOK of herself and her parents.
0:04:40 She was like in her parents’ bedroom and she’s like, Hey, I’m Maddie.
0:04:44 And instead of going to school, I’m going to spend the summer making films.
0:04:45 I want to be a filmmaker.
0:04:46 And she, but the editing was amazing.
0:04:48 The color grading was amazing.
0:04:50 I don’t even know what these terms are, but I was like, there’s something, whatever she’s
0:04:51 doing, the sound design.
0:04:55 Why is this so high, like highly produced for like a kid?
0:04:57 You know, you’re, you’re, you’re a high schooler or something.
0:04:59 And I got like really hooked.
0:05:02 And I made her an offer for $200,000 to come fly out and work for me.
0:05:03 And she turned me down.
0:05:04 She’s like 19 years old.
0:05:05 She was still living in her parents’ bedroom.
0:05:07 She’s like, no, I’m going to make my own movies.
0:05:08 I was like, Whoa.
0:05:08 Okay.
0:05:09 Respect.
0:05:10 All right.
0:05:14 So everyone talks about content and how you should do content marketing to get more customers.
0:05:16 The problem is that it’s really hard.
0:05:19 How do you make something that blows up, that goes viral, that actually gets you customers
0:05:21 versus what most people do.
0:05:23 They make something that’s completely ignored.
0:05:28 Well, when I ran my last company, The Hustle, I had to study this and I eventually made content
0:05:31 that reached 10, sometimes even hundreds of millions of readers.
0:05:36 And so we were able to dial in between what works and what doesn’t, and we made it fairly
0:05:36 repeatable.
0:05:42 And so with the help of HubSpot, I made a guide called the 20 ways to craft irresistible content
0:05:47 that looks at the books that I read to learn all of this, but then also the tactics, the
0:05:52 20 different tactics, the 20 different strategies that we use at The Hustle in order to help
0:05:52 things go viral.
0:05:55 So we actually got customers from the content that we made.
0:05:59 And so if you want to create content that people actually read, you can check it out below.
0:06:03 There’s a QR code that you can scan, or you can click the link in the description.
0:06:04 Now back to the episode.
0:06:07 I’m pretty obsessed with this trend, actually.
0:06:09 And I have no idea how to do it.
0:06:10 By the way, I’m such an old man.
0:06:14 Like, I remember when computers came out, remember when we used to have like a computer
0:06:15 room in our house?
0:06:16 Yeah, yeah.
0:06:20 And my grandfather came over, and he’s probably like 80-something years old, and he insisted
0:06:21 on learning to type.
0:06:24 And I was like, let me just do it for you, because he was going so slow.
0:06:27 But he practiced every day to learn how to type, because he wanted to learn how to use
0:06:27 a computer.
0:06:29 And now looking back, I really respect it.
0:06:32 At the time, I was pretty annoyed, because only one person could be on the computer at a
0:06:33 time back then.
0:06:36 So it was like, he was taking up all my computer time.
0:06:38 But now I respect the hell out of that.
0:06:39 What an unbelievable thing.
0:06:42 And I don’t know if you remember, on this podcast, we talked about this like, I don’t
0:06:47 know, a year ago, where I was like, hey, I’ve been watching how people are using short-form
0:06:47 video.
0:06:48 And it’s kind of amazing.
0:06:52 I was like, I feel like we’re two guys standing next to our horse carriages, and we’re smoking
0:06:53 a cigarette.
0:06:56 And we’ve been the, we’re the man when it comes to horse carriages around this town.
0:06:59 And like a Tesla just zoomed by.
0:06:59 Yeah.
0:07:02 And I looked at you, and you looked at me, and we’re like, what the hell was that?
0:07:04 That’s what TikTok is?
0:07:08 Like, that’s what this short-form video trend is, where people can make this type of content?
0:07:08 But it’s different.
0:07:11 So like, TikTok used to be, I don’t know.
0:07:11 Okay.
0:07:15 So first of all, we have to categorize or describe what we’re saying.
0:07:20 This trend that we’re saying, it’s like scripted, it’s acted out, it’s well-polished.
0:07:21 For years…
0:07:21 They call it cinematic.
0:07:22 That’s the genre.
0:07:23 Is that what they call it?
0:07:24 Yeah.
0:07:26 For years, that was not cool.
0:07:29 For years, it was like, you know, I’m just going to be a selfie.
0:07:30 I’m going to be raw.
0:07:30 I’m going to be…
0:07:34 And there was still like acting in that sometimes, and funny skits.
0:07:35 But it wasn’t like this.
0:07:38 I think the closest thing for me was Casey Neistat.
0:07:42 Growing up watching Casey Neistat, where it was raw, but it was very well-planned, and it
0:07:43 was meticulous.
0:07:46 But I’m seeing this trend that I absolutely love.
0:07:48 And this is this guy who we just showed.
0:07:49 Who’s this guy, actually?
0:07:50 I don’t even know his name.
0:07:51 Matt Molly.
0:07:53 He has only 200,000 followers.
0:07:57 But if you look at some of his videos, the one I sent you, it’ll have 200,000 likes.
0:08:00 Another one being the Wesley Wang.
0:08:01 Is this guy’s name Bat Molly?
0:08:03 Is it Bat Molly?
0:08:04 I don’t even know his name.
0:08:05 B-A-T-T.
0:08:06 And like, I don’t…
0:08:08 He dresses cool.
0:08:09 So sometimes I’m like, is he…
0:08:11 I guess he has advertisers who are clothing companies.
0:08:12 I’m not sure.
0:08:14 But whatever he’s doing, I love.
0:08:17 I just…
0:08:19 There’s just a vibe about it that I like.
0:08:22 And what I’ve…
0:08:23 How do you describe it?
0:08:23 I don’t know.
0:08:23 What’s he selling?
0:08:26 No, I share your sentiment, dude.
0:08:30 It’s like the first time I saw somebody like, you know, Crip Walk.
0:08:34 And I was like, I don’t know what your feet just did, but I sure did appreciate what that
0:08:34 was.
0:08:35 That was cool.
0:08:37 Yeah, it’s hard to explain.
0:08:39 So you guys are just going to have to follow him.
0:08:41 And if you’re listening on audio, go to our YouTube page.
0:08:41 We’ll link to this guy.
0:08:43 But the thing is, he’s not even special.
0:08:46 This is just one of like a million people now that do this.
0:08:48 They could just do this as like…
0:08:51 It’s like when you meet people who could do Rubik’s Cubes or something.
0:08:51 It’s like, oh, wow.
0:08:52 That’s like…
0:08:52 I don’t know.
0:08:53 That seems like…
0:08:54 That looks like a miracle to me.
0:08:55 Is this a very common thing?
0:08:56 Yeah, yeah.
0:08:58 This is like a growing genre.
0:08:59 A lot of people could do this.
0:09:00 I love it.
0:09:04 And so back to Camp Studios or the company’s Camp Studios, but the product they’re selling,
0:09:06 I think, is called Creator Camp.
0:09:12 But so basically what these guys are doing is the guy who created it is a YouTuber and he
0:09:13 makes these style of videos.
0:09:16 And so they set up an office in Austin.
0:09:17 And I don’t know where the money comes from.
0:09:18 Maybe it’s their own money.
0:09:21 The guy has like 800,000 followers on YouTube.
0:09:22 So maybe he’s making money.
0:09:26 But they basically are going to find people who are making these cinematic style videos.
0:09:28 And they’re going to help fund them.
0:09:33 And what they’re trying to do is make videos or movies, basically movies is a better way
0:09:36 to describe it, for $100,000 that can make millions of dollars.
0:09:40 And so we’ve always heard these stories of like one-off examples of this.
0:09:42 Like, do you remember that movie Paranormal Activity?
0:09:43 Oh, yeah.
0:09:44 Was that the one?
0:09:44 No, it was…
0:09:46 You’re talking about the one that was like in a handheld cam?
0:09:48 So that was Blair Witch Project.
0:09:49 So there’s a few of them.
0:09:49 Blair Witch.
0:09:51 So there was Blair Witch where it was…
0:09:55 You hear these stories of like a $20,000 or $30,000 or $50,000 budget and it makes $100
0:09:55 million.
0:09:58 And then Paranormal Activity was another one.
0:09:59 And there’s a bunch of examples.
0:10:05 But these guys are actually creating a business that makes those hits where it’s $100,000, a
0:10:07 $200,000 video or movie.
0:10:10 And then they try to actually get it in theaters.
0:10:13 And I think it’s pretty freaking cool.
0:10:14 I think this is actually a really cool business.
0:10:16 This is something that you had described a while ago.
0:10:17 It’s a little bit different.
0:10:19 You actually wanted to create like a school.
0:10:22 But yeah, this is like a pretty cool thing.
0:10:26 And when you go to their website and you see like the people who are students or part
0:10:32 of the accelerator or whatever they want to call it, it’s this totally new genre, this
0:10:34 new style of 21-year-old that I love.
0:10:38 Well, there’s the fashion of it, which is like, you’re right.
0:10:43 You know, we used to think the best content is the more raw, more authentic, more personable.
0:10:45 And that was what was working for a period of time.
0:10:50 But, you know, the pendulum always swings when you go, when everything becomes super raw
0:10:54 UGC, it creates a craving and demand for something that’s a little more produced, a little more
0:10:58 cool, a little more dramatic, a little, the dialogue is snappier because it’s like planned,
0:10:58 right?
0:11:02 So there is the fashion side of it, which is like, oh, this is interesting.
0:11:05 I kind of like this style of content now, style, right?
0:11:06 Fashion, fad, trend.
0:11:12 But then there’s what I’m seeing just underneath it, the infrastructure, which is, I believe that
0:11:15 video is the native tongue of the internet.
0:11:15 Yeah.
0:11:19 So like you go to a country and that’s what, what language do they speak?
0:11:21 They speak English, they speak Spanish, they speak Mandarin.
0:11:23 The internet speaks video.
0:11:28 If you open, you know, the Facebook feed 10 years ago, the Instagram feed 10 years ago,
0:11:30 it looked dramatically different than it does today.
0:11:32 Today, it’s essentially 90% video.
0:11:36 Even if there’s an image, it’s like an image that has like text and music on top.
0:11:38 That’s essentially a video.
0:11:42 So the internet speaks video, which means that for guys like you or I,
0:11:43 We’re screwed.
0:11:46 If you suck at making video, you don’t speak, you’re ESL, baby.
0:11:47 Yeah.
0:11:51 Get, you get, you go to the, you go to the afterschool, you know, like program, you got
0:11:52 to work on it.
0:11:53 We are your grandpa.
0:11:58 You know, you and I, when we were 18, we were these guys and your grandpa was your grandpa.
0:11:59 We are the grandpa now.
0:12:01 Yeah.
0:12:01 Which is crazy.
0:12:02 Cause we’re like in our mid thirties.
0:12:06 We’re not even like, you know, he was 80 at the time, but I feel this way.
0:12:10 I feel like I don’t speak the tongue of the native tongue of the internet.
0:12:14 I don’t speak the language of the internet because I can’t make great short videos.
0:12:15 Short video is the dialect.
0:12:21 Cutting your sales cycle in half sounds pretty impossible, but that’s exactly what Sandler
0:12:22 training did with HubSpot.
0:12:29 They use Breeze, HubSpot’s AI tools to tailor every customer interaction without losing
0:12:30 their personal touch.
0:12:32 And the results were incredible.
0:12:35 Click-through rates jumped 25%.
0:12:40 Qualified leads quadrupled and people spent three times longer on their landing pages.
0:12:44 Go to HubSpot.com to see how Breeze can help your business grow.
0:12:50 I have decided that I’m going to develop this skill to speak this language in the same way
0:12:53 that I, you know, decided to learn the piano or somebody might say, I really want to learn
0:12:54 Spanish this year.
0:12:56 They start doing 15 minutes a day on Duolingo.
0:13:00 I don’t say I’m going to become the best or I need to be a professional at this, but I
0:13:01 do need to be able to speak the language.
0:13:02 So that’s the first thing.
0:13:03 Hold on.
0:13:04 What’s that mean?
0:13:05 Like I’m making videos.
0:13:09 Um, I’d like literally like right after, what am I going to do after this?
0:13:14 I’m opening up CapCut and I’m editing a video of one of my, like, and it doesn’t need to
0:13:16 be about anything in particular.
0:13:17 It’s not like I have some agenda.
0:13:18 I’m not trying to sell anything.
0:13:20 I’m not trying to tell, I’m not trying to make a movie.
0:13:25 I just want to be able to say, okay, the same things I would want to share before through
0:13:27 a text update or an image update.
0:13:33 I should try to be able to share that same nugget in an interesting way of video, like interestingly
0:13:34 through video.
0:13:34 Right.
0:13:38 And like, okay, the easy way is me just setting up this camera and talking to it, but that’s
0:13:40 kind of the boomer that’s typing with two fingers.
0:13:41 That’s right.
0:13:43 It’s like, doesn’t, that’s not quite how you’re supposed to be doing it.
0:13:47 I’m going to try to do it the way that, you know, these cool people are all doing.
0:13:48 That’s the first thing.
0:13:52 Um, and if somebody wants to join my video team and help you do this, great.
0:13:52 Tell me.
0:13:55 Uh, the second thing is you said the thing about the college.
0:13:57 I’ve gotten more and more serious about this idea.
0:14:03 I actually think it’s going to be incredibly needed to train people to have the skillset to do
0:14:06 modern marketing, modern media and marketing.
0:14:13 So like modern media and marketing is some combination of, you know, video content, whether
0:14:19 it’s Tik TOK, it’s YouTube podcasting, um, you know, creating, you know, short form ads and
0:14:19 commercials.
0:14:24 It’s communicating updates and even corporate communications that are done through video.
0:14:30 Like all of that is going to be the modern media and marketing stack is something that
0:14:32 I don’t think the world is training young people for.
0:14:37 I think the old model of like go to film school was like one really like narrow thing, which
0:14:41 is like, maybe you want to go be in Hollywood, but the whole world is now Hollywood.
0:14:43 Like every company has to make video.
0:14:44 Every creator has to make video.
0:14:49 Every, uh, you know, everybody who wants to have an audience needs to be able to create
0:14:49 this type of content.
0:14:52 And to do that, you need a bunch, you don’t need to be the person on screen necessarily.
0:14:55 You need people who are good at holding the camera, who are good at editing, who are good
0:14:59 at animation, who are good at all sound design, all sorts of other stuff.
0:15:02 And so I’ve actually started exploring this.
0:15:08 I don’t know if I’m going to be able to pull this off, but my goal would be to find a physical
0:15:15 campus that I can buy, find an existing college that I can buy, rebrand, um, and basically hire
0:15:21 a sort of a Dean or a CEO who’s going to run this as an actual like for-profit university
0:15:21 or college.
0:15:25 That’s going to teach people the modern stack of media and marketing.
0:15:26 And I really want to do this.
0:15:30 So if people are excited or inspired by this, email me at Sean at seanperry.com, because
0:15:32 I don’t know how to do this yet.
0:15:33 I don’t have all the details.
0:15:34 I don’t know where the campus is.
0:15:35 I don’t know who’s going to run it.
0:15:37 I don’t know exactly how to do this, but I do know a couple of things.
0:15:42 I have the connections to do this with like some pretty big creators that I think bring
0:15:44 a lot of attention and legitimacy to this.
0:15:45 And I think this needs to exist.
0:15:50 And there’s no chance that the traditional incumbent universities are ever going to serve this need
0:15:50 properly.
0:15:53 Mr. Beast, uh, Jimmy, what did he say?
0:15:55 Didn’t, didn’t, wasn’t he riffing with you on this?
0:16:00 No, I haven’t talked to him about it, but like, you know, I will go to him with this once
0:16:01 we have it packaged up better, right?
0:16:07 Like once we identify the site and we identify the, the, the CEO to run it, um, you know,
0:16:11 that’s when I would go loop in a few people that would bring pretty serious capital and
0:16:12 pretty serious like influence to this.
0:16:13 That’s cool.
0:16:15 But don’t you think that needs to exist?
0:16:21 Like how are people going to like the world, the supply versus demand, right?
0:16:24 Like the demand for video, for great video content, entertaining, interesting, educational
0:16:25 video content.
0:16:30 The demand for that is like as big as the, as big as a number can get.
0:16:35 And then the supply of people who know how to create it is so much smaller than that demand.
0:16:37 It’s for, it’s like so imbalanced today.
0:16:38 Yeah.
0:16:44 And whenever I watch these videos, I, they feel like the, the, I’m like, you’re a baby genius.
0:16:48 Who’s like, how did this, how on earth did this person learn how to do this?
0:16:50 It’s like a, it really does feel like a different language.
0:16:54 Like I couldn’t even begin to, to, to do it.
0:16:58 And I follow 15 years, 15 years ago, if somebody was young, would you have told them, you would
0:17:01 probably would have told them, Hey, you should probably learn to code, right?
0:17:04 Like the internet’s going to be a big deal.
0:17:05 Computers are bigger, bigger deal.
0:17:10 If you’re going to learn a language, don’t learn Spanish, learn, you know, JavaScript, learn
0:17:11 C++, learn Python, right?
0:17:13 Those are the languages that you needed to learn.
0:17:19 I kind of feel like today that, that thing for non highly technical people, you know,
0:17:22 if you’re super technical, go learn engineering, go, go learn computer science.
0:17:22 Like that’s great.
0:17:26 But for a lot of people that are not super, super technical, I think this is it.
0:17:29 I think this is the thing you need to learn is how to create media and marketing that actually
0:17:30 works in the modern world.
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0:18:37 And I’ve noticed, so for example, I follow this guy on YouTube named The Iron Snail.
0:18:39 And he just does like, he tells you the history of like jeans.
0:18:42 So incredibly like niche topic.
0:18:46 Or he’ll tell you the history of, like, it’ll be a video on like why clothing is worse today
0:18:47 than it was before.
0:18:50 The nichiest topics where like only nerds like me would be into it.
0:18:52 Why is his name The Iron Snail?
0:18:53 I don’t know.
0:18:54 We don’t know.
0:18:55 I don’t know.
0:18:56 Okay.
0:18:58 But great names are like that.
0:18:58 They’re just weird.
0:19:00 You know, it’s kind of like Roaring Kitty or whatever.
0:19:01 They just are.
0:19:04 So he’s got 381,000 subscribers.
0:19:09 And like, just to give you an example of some of the videos, while you’re paying more for
0:19:15 worse clothes, and it has a picture of US clothes versus China clothes, what makes Japanese
0:19:17 selvage denim?
0:19:17 I don’t even know what that is.
0:19:18 So special.
0:19:19 Yeah.
0:19:20 Nerdy stuff.
0:19:21 Stuff like that.
0:19:25 And what I’ve noticed, I’ve started following him when he had 100,000 followers, and what
0:19:30 I noticed is that his rate of growth is significantly higher.
0:19:31 Oh, I forgot to add.
0:19:35 This guy does cinematic style videos on really nerdy topics.
0:19:37 You don’t even know what selvage denim is.
0:19:38 By the way, here’s the ratio that matters.
0:19:40 He’s got 381,000 subscribers.
0:19:47 His average video is getting like 200,000 to a million views.
0:19:51 So this is what you want to look for, the view to subscriber ratio.
0:19:57 And like, he’s basically like overperforming, which means his videos are really good.
0:20:00 And it’s just a matter of time before his sub count explodes.
0:20:00 And that’s my point.
0:20:03 So his videos, this guy reviews jeans.
0:20:05 This is a very nerdy niche topic.
0:20:14 But he approaches it with this cinematic, cinematic, cinematic, cinematic, I don’t give a shit.
0:20:19 These Cinnabons out here are fantastic.
0:20:24 But he approaches it in this way, where there’s like a normal YouTuber, which is like us in
0:20:25 front of a camera just talking.
0:20:30 And then there’s one where it adds all these features or all this music, all these cool cuts
0:20:33 that are very purposeful, very meticulous, very thoughtful.
0:20:36 And I’ve noticed two things.
0:20:43 One, if you read the comments, the top comment on most of his videos are basically,
0:20:46 I am not interested in jeans, but I can’t stop watching your videos.
0:20:49 So that’s like a common feeling that people have.
0:20:52 I don’t care about blank, but I just love how you did it.
0:20:53 Therefore, I’m all about it.
0:20:58 And the second thing that I’ve noticed is that whenever I see these types of videos, the ratio
0:21:02 of current subscribers they have as well to views is significantly in their favor.
0:21:09 And so my opinion is basically if you my opinion is basically this is a trend where these people
0:21:12 are going to significantly outperform and give them two years.
0:21:16 And the people who are going to be huge in two years are doing this style of video.
0:21:20 This isn’t like, you know, I’m not predicting we’re going to Mars next year.
0:21:24 Like this isn’t like that groundbreaking of a, of a, like a prediction or trend.
0:21:30 But, but if you are a company and you make products, whether it’s, uh, just, you just sell
0:21:33 anything on e-com or you sell what I sell and it doesn’t matter what you’re selling.
0:21:38 I’m just saying that if you do want to get in the video, this style of video is seems to
0:21:38 be what’s hitting.
0:21:40 Yeah.
0:21:41 Yeah.
0:21:41 A hundred percent.
0:21:43 And there’s other ways to take advantage of it.
0:21:44 Like this creator camp.
0:21:47 There’s this guy, another guy, Michael McElvie.
0:21:47 Have you seen this guy?
0:21:48 No.
0:21:49 What’s his, how do you spell his last name?
0:21:52 Uh, McElvie.
0:21:54 M-A-C-K-E-L-V-I-E.
0:21:55 All right.
0:21:57 So this guy’s story is pretty crazy.
0:21:58 So I saw this guy’s video.
0:22:01 He did a video about like the NFL draft or something like that.
0:22:06 Some like, again, your, your denim for me is like basketball or football.
0:22:11 And I watched this video on the NFL draft and I’m like, I don’t know what I just watched,
0:22:16 but again, top comment is like, uh, did I just stumble onto, you know, like YouTube premium?
0:22:17 Like, what is this?
0:22:19 Why is this so good?
0:22:20 Why is this so well-made?
0:22:23 I, I almost hesitate, hesitate to give this guy out because I’m like, this guy’s such a
0:22:25 gem, but the secret’s out.
0:22:26 This guy’s going to be phenomenal.
0:22:27 Same thing.
0:22:29 160,000 YouTube subscribers.
0:22:32 I found this guy when he had probably 30,000 YouTube subscribers now, you know, in a year,
0:22:34 whatever he’s up to 268.
0:22:39 Uh, but again, every video gets between, you know, 200,000 to a million views.
0:22:40 It’s a great ratio.
0:22:44 And he makes absurdly high quality sports content.
0:22:46 And I’m like, oh, I got to find this guy.
0:22:48 He’s like a filmmaker or something.
0:22:52 I don’t know who this guy is, but he’s clearly, you know, classically trained filmmaker type of
0:22:53 guy.
0:22:57 And I go look at his bio and it’s like a link to schedule.
0:23:01 a call with like a CPA, uh, like a financial advisor.
0:23:02 I was like, what?
0:23:05 This guy’s just literally like, I think he’s, I think he’s a financial advisor.
0:23:10 Um, cause you can’t find him on his, like, there’s no link to his website here.
0:23:12 There’s no like course he’s selling.
0:23:13 No, nothing like that.
0:23:17 I find him on LinkedIn and he works for a very boring finances company.
0:23:18 And so we talked to him.
0:23:19 We’re like, Michael, dude, your videos are incredible.
0:23:21 What’s up?
0:23:23 And he’s like, oh yeah.
0:23:27 If you go look, if you sort by oldest, look at his videos, it’s him talking.
0:23:31 about like the value of a college degree in today’s market, like not sports content at
0:23:31 all.
0:23:35 Actually, I think he’s deleted a bunch of them cause they’re gone now, but it was like tax
0:23:40 planning with a CPA or like, which type of trust should you incorporate?
0:23:42 And which state is the best one to incorporate your trust in?
0:23:44 It was like content like that.
0:23:45 So this guy’s story is pretty crazy.
0:23:47 He was creating content like that.
0:23:48 And he was the only guy on YouTube.
0:23:53 It wasn’t, it wasn’t cinematic, but it was like, there just wasn’t a lot of supply of that
0:23:55 content on YouTube, but YouTube is a search engine.
0:24:00 So people would search for like, um, new Delaware trust tax laws.
0:24:02 And he had the only video about it.
0:24:07 And so it’d get 400 views, but he would book like 200 calls off of 400 views because it was
0:24:09 like, if you needed that, he was the authority.
0:24:11 Cause he, he had the only video about it.
0:24:15 And so he builds this huge book of business and he ends up getting acquired by this like
0:24:16 bigger finance company.
0:24:19 And they’re like, dude, you’ve created this incredible business.
0:24:22 And he’s like, yeah, I just make YouTube comment and content.
0:24:24 And they’re like, Ooh, we’re so regulated.
0:24:25 I don’t know if we’re comfortable with that.
0:24:29 We’ll ask, you know, like our compliance department, if you could do that, just hold on for a while.
0:24:32 He has to sit on the shelf for like a year doing nothing.
0:24:35 And then they’re like, no, no, no, we don’t want you doing that content stuff too risky.
0:24:37 Um, just, you know, sit here.
0:24:38 And he’s like, Oh, this is boring.
0:24:39 Okay.
0:24:43 So I’ll go make content about my second favorite thing, you know, like sports instead of a nerdy
0:24:44 tax law.
0:24:46 And that’s how he started creating this content.
0:24:49 And he now creates the most premium sports content on YouTube.
0:24:52 And it’s not a full-time job still.
0:24:55 No, he still works at the, whatever.
0:24:57 He’s like a tax finance guy.
0:24:58 Dude, that’s insane.
0:24:59 This guy should quit immediately.
0:25:00 His stuff’s great.
0:25:03 I’m just like, I can’t listen to it, but I’m just watching it.
0:25:05 And I’m like, Oh, this is clearly a home run.
0:25:07 I think he did have a pretty sweet deal with the acquisition.
0:25:08 So I understand.
0:25:14 But I think, yeah, I would guess that it’s just a matter of time until he’s, you know, full-time
0:25:14 on this.
0:25:16 By the way, I have one more for you.
0:25:22 If people want to nerd out on this rabbit hole, Ryan Trahan, who’s a pop, very popular
0:25:24 YouTuber, 20 million subscribers, you know, okay.
0:25:26 He makes videos just like a normal YouTuber.
0:25:30 Like I ate a penny every day until I had to get my stomach pumped or whatever.
0:25:31 Like, you know, I did a crazy thing.
0:25:35 He did like a, I walked across the country or like, just like, it’s like stunts.
0:25:36 Stunts.
0:25:36 Yeah.
0:25:39 I tested every one star hotel in America.
0:25:40 Yeah.
0:25:40 Stuff like that.
0:25:42 By the way, all his videos, they’re pretty great.
0:25:45 He’s an, he’s an incredible creator.
0:25:49 He does this great thing where he has the stunt, but as soon as the video starts, it’s no
0:25:54 longer about the spectacle and he’s super like quirky, likable, doesn’t take himself too
0:25:54 seriously.
0:25:55 I love it.
0:25:55 He does.
0:25:56 He nails that vibe.
0:26:00 Whereas everybody else is like bigger, badder, bigger explosions.
0:26:03 You know, he, he actually like kind of is like super likable and relatable.
0:26:05 I think he’s going to be one of the biggest creators.
0:26:06 I think he is.
0:26:10 I mean, obviously, obviously he’s on his way, but like, you know, that 20 million, I think
0:26:13 I would buy stock at 20 million subscribers.
0:26:13 You know what I mean?
0:26:15 Like, I think he’s got significant headroom.
0:26:19 Hey, bold, bold prediction saying a guy with 21 million subscribers on YouTube is going
0:26:20 to be a big deal.
0:26:20 He’s going to be big.
0:26:24 So check this out.
0:26:27 He’s got this video called, we need to talk.
0:26:30 It’s a video that’s promoting his candy brand.
0:26:31 You know, he’s got like a candy brand.
0:26:31 I forgot.
0:26:32 It’s called Joyride.
0:26:33 Yeah.
0:26:34 Joyride.
0:26:42 And, um, I watched this and I go, I have no interest in candy in general, let alone his
0:26:48 candy, I watched every second of this video and about two minutes in, I just sort of had
0:26:48 to pause.
0:26:53 And I was like, Oh, every other candy company is screwed.
0:27:01 Like if this guy can create this, what is a normal company supposed to do when you’re
0:27:02 competing with this?
0:27:03 This is incredible.
0:27:06 Like the quality of the content.
0:27:09 I was like, I’m, I’ve signed me up to watch this commercial every week.
0:27:13 Like it was unbelievably done by, you know, just a kid.
0:27:14 Like he’s young.
0:27:16 He doesn’t have like a, it’s a seven minute.
0:27:17 We didn’t, it’s a seven minute video.
0:27:19 And the top comment, it’s pretty funny.
0:27:20 It fits exactly what we’re saying.
0:27:22 That was insanely cinematic.
0:27:24 So it’s exactly.
0:27:28 And then the next one, I just got tricked into watching a commercial and I’m not even mad.
0:27:28 Next one.
0:27:30 That was the best commercial I’ve ever watched.
0:27:31 Next one.
0:27:33 I just watched the seven commercial and it was better than half the movies I’ve ever
0:27:34 seen.
0:27:35 The storytelling was immaculate.
0:27:36 This is what I’m saying.
0:27:37 This was my feeling.
0:27:42 I was like, how, if I’m a candy company and I see this, this, I have like an existential
0:27:43 crisis.
0:27:49 Cause I’m like, I cannot believe the gap between what a kid who’s not even like farming this
0:27:52 out in a $20 million contract to some big ad agency.
0:27:55 Like this is just like him with his team making something.
0:27:57 It was unbelievable.
0:27:59 This is unbelievably, it broke my brain.
0:28:00 So go watch that thing.
0:28:02 So this company, so he founded Joyride.
0:28:03 Yeah.
0:28:05 And they’ve raised $33 million.
0:28:08 So this is kind of a go big play here.
0:28:09 Yeah.
0:28:10 Wow.
0:28:11 This is crazy.
0:28:12 This is cool.
0:28:15 I, uh, it’s got almost six and a half million views.
0:28:16 Yeah.
0:28:19 I think he used sticks to produce it.
0:28:20 Um, what’s that?
0:28:21 Well, like, yeah.
0:28:23 Sticks is like an, another YouTube channel.
0:28:26 That’s like, they make cool stuff.
0:28:26 You should check them out too.
0:28:29 But, um, yeah, unbelievable.
0:28:32 I, I didn’t make this mean to make it sound like he’s holding a camera doing like a vlog.
0:28:33 Like it’s not just him.
0:28:35 He said, obviously a lot of people were involved in this.
0:28:39 What I just meant is like, you’re not talking about like a multi-billion dollar conglomerate
0:28:45 hiring, you know, uh, the best ad agency and professional Hollywood actors and, you know,
0:28:46 a VFX studio, whatever.
0:28:52 Like this is like the creator economy bottoms up punching and like, wow, their punch is actually
0:28:53 kind of amazing.
0:28:58 This entire episode is basically, um, it’s, what did you say?
0:28:59 What did you say?
0:29:03 The, the squares and circles or the triangles said, uh, it was, um, different is better than
0:29:04 better.
0:29:05 Different is better than better.
0:29:07 That’s what this entire episode is.
0:29:11 Um, that’s basically every story was about that.
0:29:15 We should make the thumbnail like that guy’s, uh, nothing is at, what is it?
0:29:16 Nothing is everything.
0:29:17 What was that guy’s video?
0:29:18 I don’t know.
0:29:19 Nothing except everything or something.
0:29:21 I already, I honestly already forgot it.
0:29:27 The thumbnail is just like, whatever, some like, you know, cute girl turning back, like
0:29:31 as if you’re like in love with her and it’s like blurry and like, you know, like cinematic
0:29:33 thumbnail and like vague title.
0:29:35 We should do that for this episode.
0:29:36 Nothing except everything.
0:29:37 We should try to be cinematic.
0:29:38 The boys try to be cinematic.
0:29:41 Oh man.
0:29:43 Um, we tried to be cinematic.
0:29:44 Might delete later.
0:29:48 Dude, you need to be like, one of us needs to be like a hot chick, like reaching out with
0:29:51 our hand back to grab our boyfriend’s hand because that’s what this is.
0:29:51 Yeah.
0:29:54 Actually after this, can you, no, no, we should legitimately do this.
0:29:55 Can you take a picture?
0:29:57 If you had that pose, we’ll blur it like that.
0:29:58 And we’ll use that as the thumbnail.
0:29:59 That’s so funny.
0:30:00 All right, let’s try it.
0:30:00 All right.
0:30:01 That’s it.
0:30:01 That’s the pod.
0:30:03 I feel like I can rule the world.
0:30:06 I know I could be what I want to.
0:30:09 I put my all in it like my days off.
0:30:10 On the road, let’s travel.
0:30:11 Never looking back.
0:30:13 All right, my friends.
0:30:15 I have a new podcast for you guys to check out.
0:30:17 It’s called Content is Profit.
0:30:20 And it’s hosted by Luis and Fonzie Cameo.
0:30:25 After years of building content teams and frameworks for companies like Red Bull and Orange Theory
0:30:30 Fitness, Luis and Fonzie are on a mission to bridge the gap between content and revenue.
0:30:34 In each episode, you’re going to hear from top entrepreneurs and creators, and you’re going
0:30:37 to hear them share their secrets and strategies to turn their content into profit.
0:30:42 So you can check out Content is Profit wherever you get your podcasts.

0:00:05 Humans who are able to be creative and use AI tools correctly will have superpowers.
0:00:11 Does AI so ruthlessly optimize for that former, what you will pay attention to?
0:00:15 It totally alienates you from the latter, what you want to pay attention to.
0:00:18 Acquisition and retention are different things, right?
0:00:24 It’s amazing how sort of bad, schlocky, and ineffective most internet advertising is.
0:00:28 I would literally bet large portions of my net worth in time, that’s the future.
0:00:29 That’s going to be the gig.
0:00:31 AI is going to upstream everything about the consumer experience.
0:00:36 We’re in the midst of an apocle transformation in how we get energy.
0:00:39 And it’s just not that sexy.
0:00:43 We’re not all going to be famous for 15 minutes, we’re all going to be famous to 15 people.
0:00:44 15 people, yeah.
0:00:51 In a world where everyone is famous to 15 people, what happens when AI starts generating content for all of them?
0:00:56 In this episode, I’m joined by author and MSNBC host, Chris Hayes,
0:01:02 and longtime ad tech operator and writer, Antonio Garcia Martinez, to talk about the shifting economics of attention.
0:01:06 How we got here, what’s breaking, and what AI might make worse.
0:01:12 Chris’s new book, The Siren’s Call, is about the way our attention has been bought, sold, and overwhelmed.
0:01:17 Together, we explore the rise of AI slop, whether platforms can contain it,
0:01:22 and what comes next as digital content, fame, and identity get increasingly fragmented.
0:01:23 Let’s get into it.
0:01:30 As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes only.
0:01:33 Should not be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice,
0:01:35 or be used to evaluate any investment or security,
0:01:40 and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any A16Z fund.
0:01:45 Please note that A16Z and its affiliates may also maintain investments in the companies discussed in this podcast.
0:01:48 For more details, including a link to our investments,
0:01:53 please see A16Z.com forward slash disclosures.
0:01:58 So excited to have you on, Chris.
0:02:02 Antonio is a longtime friend and collaborator of mine.
0:02:02 We have a show.
0:02:04 Antonio, why don’t you briefly introduce yourself?
0:02:08 Yeah, I started in ad tech, I guess, in 2008, in attention capitalism, as Chris would call it,
0:02:10 and worked in a number of startups.
0:02:15 I was an early member of the Facebook ads team back before the IPO when the ad system was horrible.
0:02:18 For those old enough to remember, I suspect Chris is probably in the same bucket.
0:02:21 Facebook ads used to be these little postage stamps on the right-hand side,
0:02:24 and then they became this huge money machine.
0:02:27 Read a book about that time called Chaos Monkeys that came out in 2016.
0:02:28 I’ve read it.
0:02:28 I’ve read it well.
0:02:29 Yeah, yeah.
0:02:30 Quote it in the book.
0:02:32 Was a media figure writer guy for a while.
0:02:33 I don’t know how you do it, Chris.
0:02:34 It drove me basically crazy.
0:02:35 And so I went back to tech.
0:02:37 And I’m ahead of ads.
0:02:44 Antonio famously says the prize for beating Matt Iglesias in the Substack rankings is you
0:02:46 then become Matt Iglesias, and that wasn’t inspiring enough.
0:02:54 I’m not anti-Matt, but we were briefly among the top 10 or 15 Substackers on a revenue basis
0:02:58 circa like 2021, and he was definitely a comp, I guess.
0:03:00 Him and Andrew Sullivan were definitely the winners of that race.
0:03:03 I feel like I would probably have more to learn from you guys than you have from me,
0:03:06 so I’m happy to talk and maybe I’ll ask you some questions.
0:03:10 I sort of think like the whole thing is about to collapse.
0:03:12 I think there’s just a huge pollution problem.
0:03:18 And I think that the treatment of spam in the book is the sort of signature pollution of attention
0:03:20 capitalism of the attention age.
0:03:28 If it’s lucrative to aggregate lots of attention, where attention pools and collects, there will
0:03:28 be money.
0:03:36 And to the extent that you can cheaply automate the extraction of that attention, even if it’s
0:03:41 done in a sort of like brute force wasteful way, there’s going to be spam, right?
0:03:46 So it’s happened on junk mail, it’s happened on phone calls, it’s happened on text, it’s
0:03:47 happened on email.
0:03:54 But I think the idea of AI content creation now puts that at scale for all the social media
0:03:55 platforms.
0:04:02 And I guess the question becomes like, is the AI social media content generated actually
0:04:07 compelling enough that it doesn’t feel like spam and it just dislocates all human creators?
0:04:09 Do people not like it?
0:04:11 So the algorithmic stops serving it up?
0:04:16 Or does it overwhelm the experience in a way that starts to feel like the way that our inboxes
0:04:17 feel?
0:04:18 Is AI slop going to win?
0:04:21 Yeah, that’s one way of saying like, is AI slop going to win?
0:04:22 I mean, yes and no.
0:04:24 I mean, you’re seeing it in the 4U tab Twitter already, right?
0:04:28 And maybe I would think this because I was creator paid for my creations, I guess, to some
0:04:28 degree.
0:04:30 But I think a lot of it is empty and sterile.
0:04:35 And I think humans who are able to be creative and use AI tools correctly will have superpowers.
0:04:39 Yeah, I mean, I’m pretty obsessed right now with AI slop and particularly like these sort
0:04:44 of sub genres that feel like what’s funny about a lot of AI is that it doesn’t actually
0:04:45 feel that sophisticated.
0:04:48 It just feels like reverse engineered in a way that you can trace.
0:04:50 I mean, not all of it, right?
0:04:51 But some of it does.
0:04:53 There are moments we all have with this technology where you’re like, oh, my God.
0:04:59 But like, for instance, it’s clear that like religious themes and babies like do well, right?
0:05:05 And so there’s this whole like universe of AI babies singing, bless the Lord, oh, my soul.
0:05:09 And there was one I saw yesterday that’s like Jesus with a baby.
0:05:11 They’re both singing, bless the Lord, oh, my soul.
0:05:16 And Jesus is holding a disembodied foot, which is just like signature AI slop.
0:05:22 To me, the sort of question about all this stuff is one of the theses of the book is that there’s
0:05:27 this kind of disconnect between what we will pay attention to and in some volitional sense what
0:05:28 we want to pay attention to.
0:05:35 And the question is, does AI from the generative perspective and AI from the machine learning
0:05:41 algorithmic perspective so ruthlessly optimize for that former what you will pay attention
0:05:41 to?
0:05:46 It totally alienates you from the latter, what you want to pay attention to.
0:05:51 And if it does do that, do people stick with it or do they reach some point where they feel
0:05:53 too alienated from what they want to be spending their time doing?
0:05:57 Well, I think the challenge there is what you put, Chris, which, by the way, I think it’s
0:05:58 time to just plug Chris’s book.
0:06:00 I think you wrote a phenomenal book, actually.
0:06:00 Well, thanks.
0:06:03 And I would recommend it to all my tech people.
0:06:07 And one of the things you cite is the to use the marketing speak acquisition and retention
0:06:08 are different things, right?
0:06:10 It’s one thing to acquire attention.
0:06:13 I think you cite the example of someone going into a room and firing a gun in the air.
0:06:15 Well, you’ve acquired attention, but then how do you maintain it?
0:06:18 And even with the guy with a gun in his hand, it might be a little hard to maintain it,
0:06:18 right?
0:06:19 And that’s the challenge.
0:06:22 And if you’re a sophisticated marketer, you realize it’s not just about acquisition.
0:06:23 It’s about the retention side of it.
0:06:24 I don’t know.
0:06:28 A positive side of me thinks humans aren’t going to sit there and stare at the slop all
0:06:28 day.
0:06:32 That said, I’ve used TikTok and like a meth head, like getting into a Fenty fold on the
0:06:33 street.
0:06:36 Like I emerged two hours later, I come to you and what the hell just happened?
0:06:39 And then I delete the app from my phone because I never want to do that again.
0:06:39 Yeah.
0:06:41 So that’s maybe the counter argument.
0:06:43 Well, first of all, thanks for the kind words.
0:06:47 I appreciate it, especially because I’m not a practitioner in ad tech and so much of the
0:06:48 story is sort of an ad tech story.
0:06:53 I mean, I think deeper than ad tech, ad tech is sort of epiphenomenal to the story.
0:06:56 So it’s really gratifying to hear that from someone who’s worked in it.
0:06:58 And yeah, like I’ve had the exact same experience.
0:07:04 Again, the sort of the defining metaphor of the book, the sirens call Odysseus on the
0:07:09 mast, sort of trying to avoid the sirens with your sort of volitional conscious self against
0:07:11 the kind of lulling that happens.
0:07:11 Right.
0:07:16 And all of us in that position, but I’m just really, yeah, I think I have the same
0:07:25 faith as you that fundamentally there’s something irreducibly human and that people are going
0:07:25 to just rebel.
0:07:29 Basically, we’ll rebel against slop, which I think brings us back to this first question,
0:07:32 which I do think is really interesting, which is if the slop overruns it, what does that mean
0:07:33 for the platforms?
0:07:34 Right.
0:07:39 And is it something that they have to start actively managing in the same way that at scale
0:07:44 somewhere like Twitter, right, they started to have to deal with a bunch of really difficult
0:07:51 content moderation questions that were tough calls where they’re trying to create a user
0:07:54 experience that is not going to repel people and is going to attract advertisers.
0:07:59 And I do wonder if AI generated content becomes a set of questions like that for TikTok and
0:08:01 for reels and stuff like that at a certain point.
0:08:03 We’ve had a slop problem before AI, right?
0:08:08 I mentioned LinkedIn earlier in terms of how fake that network feels, but also an Instagram,
0:08:08 right?
0:08:11 Like people have Finstas, fake Instagrams for a reason.
0:08:15 So this idea of who you present yourself as and who you actually are, what you actually think
0:08:17 has been a problem with social networks for a while.
0:08:25 And it’s not obvious to me that AI will make the problem worse in terms of accelerating or
0:08:32 emphasizing either fake stuff or stuff that people don’t want to be engaging with.
0:08:36 Why are you so convinced that it will expand that gap between what we want to be engaging
0:08:37 with and what we actually engage with?
0:08:40 I just think to me, it’s sort of a quantity and automation question, right?
0:08:45 Like one of the things about online success is that it’s not a batting average.
0:08:46 It’s like your total number of hits.
0:08:49 I mean, it’s a batting average if you’re like trying to make a living, right?
0:08:50 And you only have so much time.
0:08:51 But Mr. Beast talks about this.
0:08:52 Other people talk about it too.
0:08:56 Like always be posting and see what works.
0:09:00 And sometimes you could post the same things 15 times and one time it takes off and other
0:09:01 times it doesn’t.
0:09:03 If you’re thinking about it as this quantity game, right?
0:09:06 And this is where the sort of brute force spam analogy comes in.
0:09:11 If you’re automating a thousand videos every day and just throwing them at the algorithm
0:09:16 for sort of content farming purposes, does that start to overwhelm everything?
0:09:23 Because you can just do, I can’t make a thousand videos a day, but you know, you can now, right?
0:09:27 And Antonio, to your point, like you could even imagine this not as like a slop spam thing.
0:09:30 You could imagine it as someone who’s actually pretty good, right?
0:09:32 Using that automation.
0:09:34 It’s just to me, the kind of brute force scale issue.
0:09:38 Maybe it never comes up, but it just seems to me like I’m starting to see it crop up
0:09:43 and just wonder what it’s going to do to the existing models for these platforms.
0:09:47 One thing I find interesting of the impact of social media, I mean, you cite a lot of the
0:09:50 negative impacts of social media and you cite one book, The Frenzy of Renown, that I actually
0:09:52 started reading based on your recommendation, actually.
0:09:53 It’s a great book, isn’t it?
0:09:55 I’m going to be that guy so quick.
0:09:58 But I think I have a line in Chaos Monkeys that says, Andy Warhol was wrong.
0:10:00 In the future, we’re not all going to be famous for 15 minutes.
0:10:02 We’re all going to be famous to 15 people.
0:10:03 15 people, yeah.
0:10:04 It’s a great line.
0:10:04 Yeah, yeah.
0:10:08 And the fact that everyone carries themselves like they are a Kardashian everywhere they
0:10:09 go.
0:10:13 I mean, just as like a tourist in Europe, the fact that literally you have a line of people
0:10:18 taking selfies in front of the thing, right, is already like people are imagining themselves
0:10:19 already under the spotlight.
0:10:22 And as a side thing, like yesterday, I work at a tech company.
0:10:23 It’s very young.
0:10:26 And I think the one thing the Zoomers themselves cited is that like, well, you feel like you’re
0:10:27 being observed all the time, right?
0:10:29 Everyone is like a celebrity who goes out in the wild.
0:10:33 And if you yell at a waiter or you do something stupid, which we’ve all done, by the way,
0:10:36 right, suddenly you can become into famous for it and nobody wants that.
0:10:40 And I just, and again, Chris, you and I are probably old enough to remember that four times
0:10:44 when we were young, dumb kids, if you didn’t go to jail and didn’t go to the hospital, it
0:10:45 didn’t happen, right?
0:10:46 That’s it.
0:10:46 It was gone.
0:10:50 I mean, maybe it remains as like local lore, but it never got bigger than that.
0:10:52 You weren’t really worried about anything, right?
0:10:57 And somehow that’s totally changed the way that people think about themselves in the world.
0:10:57 Yeah.
0:11:00 And I think one of the things I write about in the book a lot is sort of the effects of social
0:11:02 attention and social attention on you.
0:11:08 And what it does and that democratization of fame as a genuinely new phenomenon that’s
0:11:10 sort of different from past eras.
0:11:11 And I think you’re right.
0:11:12 Like it is behavior modifying.
0:11:17 And for me, I have the experience of actually, again, fame is always totally relative.
0:11:19 Different people are famous in different places.
0:11:21 But like, you know, people recognize me on the street.
0:11:26 I do have that awareness that, for instance, if I like screamed at a car that cut me off,
0:11:30 you know, or like almost hit me as it was running the corner, like people might know that was
0:11:31 me and associate with me.
0:11:34 So there is that kind of behavioral modification part of it, too.
0:11:38 But there’s also something profoundly warping about it psychologically.
0:11:42 And I think it is true that that point that you just made, though, is a really interesting
0:11:42 one.
0:11:45 There is some kind of pro-social effect, right?
0:11:49 Of like not wanting to be like a complete maniac in public because that might go viral
0:11:50 or something.
0:11:51 It’s an interesting pro-social aspect of it.
0:11:54 But I also think there’s something so warping about it.
0:11:58 And one of the things that, and I quote this in the book, the move from public posting
0:12:03 to group chat is, I think, 100% driven by that, right?
0:12:07 So more and more of all the traffic, and Instagram talks about this all the time, is happening in
0:12:07 private messaging.
0:12:12 Things are happening in private Facebook groups, signal chats, WhatsApp chats, like sort of try
0:12:19 to basically to kind of reclaim a private space that’s not public space is one of the sort
0:12:20 of bigger trends happening.
0:12:26 I think precisely because of how warping and disquieting it is to be in this kind of digital
0:12:31 panopticon and the subject of near constant total surveillance and social attention.
0:12:33 You’re totally correct.
0:12:35 And I want to get back to the group chat thing because I think towards the end of your book,
0:12:37 you become a little bit of a doomer, Chris.
0:12:40 But you start trying to cite solutions to the problem.
0:12:41 And in the group chat one is an interesting one.
0:12:44 But I want to focus on one thing you said, which is, is it pro-social, right?
0:12:48 And one of the things I noticed right after I wrote Chaos Monkeys, I lived, I kid you
0:12:52 not on a small island in the Northwest in what’s called the San Juans, which is these
0:12:52 beautiful islands.
0:12:52 Yeah, I’ve been there.
0:12:53 It’s beautiful.
0:12:56 Yeah, it’s a cool place, very small town.
0:13:00 And so the reality is everyone’s famous in that neighborhood and that everyone knows who
0:13:01 everyone is and their family.
0:13:06 And if you did something totally crazy and like off the bend, you’d still catch hell for it
0:13:06 to be called.
0:13:07 Like you wouldn’t get away with it.
0:13:09 And so a lot of our focus on privacy.
0:13:11 In fact, this is historically, I know this is a bit of a rabbit hole.
0:13:13 I don’t know if you want to go down here, but you look at the history of privacy and
0:13:15 again, Chris, I’m sure you’ve studied these topics.
0:13:20 Louis Brindus basically created in 1890 with this sort of disquisition called the right
0:13:21 to privacy that he more or less invented, by the way.
0:13:23 The word privacy doesn’t appear once in the Constitution.
0:13:27 And the reason why is because at the time it wasn’t used in the sense that we mean it, which
0:13:30 is the right to live as a stranger among strangers, which again, was a right that was more or less
0:13:35 invented to cope with like urban living where you were losing this ability to actually know
0:13:35 everybody.
0:13:40 And anyhow, long wind up to getting to, I think the group chat phenomenon, not everybody
0:13:40 can go in the group chat.
0:13:42 There’s an admin, right?
0:13:44 If someone gets like completely out of control, they get booted.
0:13:45 And then everyone kind of knows everyone.
0:13:49 So like, you don’t really want to piss people off because there’s typically some theme, at
0:13:51 least in my group chats, often professional, right?
0:13:53 Like I’m in a group chat with Eric and we’re a lot of people that have worked together and
0:13:54 invested through those companies.
0:13:57 And you can’t be that much of a dick to be blunt because you’ll take a hit for it, right?
0:13:58 So it’s self-regulating.
0:14:03 And I think to me, if I was to propose a solution to our current bind, it’s not less technology
0:14:06 like a Butlerian jihad against this thing.
0:14:09 I think it’s using technology in some way to recreate.
0:14:12 I totally agree with that.
0:14:14 I mean, I do think the scale ends up being really the problem.
0:14:17 I mean, the question to me is like, where is the revenue in that model?
0:14:19 And this is sort of the interesting question, right?
0:14:20 This is something I’m really obsessed with.
0:14:27 And it’s the germ of something that I explored in the book and I’m writing about now in relation
0:14:28 to AI.
0:14:34 But like, we tend to conflate, particularly in this era, like useful tech and lucrative
0:14:34 tech.
0:14:41 And those are not like, there’s technologies that are incredibly useful that are not particularly
0:14:44 lucrative, like penicillin right now, like antibiotics.
0:14:46 No one’s making enormous fortunes off them.
0:14:52 Even solar power, which is arguably the most useful technology of our age, is a perfectly
0:14:57 profitable enterprise, but no one’s making like Rockefeller fortunes off of solar right
0:14:57 now.
0:15:02 And then there’s technologies that are incredibly lucrative, but not particularly socially useful.
0:15:09 Like the FanDuel DraftKings tech is like really good tech, like it works really well, but it’s
0:15:12 not like particularly useful, particularly compared to penicillin.
0:15:18 And one of the things I think that ends up happening in a digital space that is so dominated only by
0:15:26 commercial options is you don’t get as much useful tech that might not have a great business
0:15:28 revenue or a business model.
0:15:30 And so this question of, well, what’s right?
0:15:34 So what’s the sort of sustaining business model of the group chat is an interesting one.
0:15:39 Now, obviously, WhatsApp, which Meta owns, is incredibly valuable company.
0:15:41 I mean, incredibly valuable division of Meta.
0:15:45 There’s Signal, which is fascinating because it is a nonprofit and I think a really interesting
0:15:51 model in that respect, but to your point, I totally agree about this sort of reclaiming
0:15:56 kind of community or reclaiming like Dunbar numbers or IRL reactions.
0:16:02 Or what I say in the book is that normal relationships are born of bilateral exchanges of social
0:16:03 attention, right?
0:16:04 As opposed to unilateral, right?
0:16:07 That’s the way we’re all conditioned to work.
0:16:11 And the question is, it’s not a particularly lucrative tech to reclaim.
0:16:16 And that to me is the question of, is there some fundamental tension here between what
0:16:21 the sort of revenue model incentives are and what the tech is best for us as people or whatever?
0:16:24 I mean, one take on that, Chris.
0:16:26 I mean, just to give you the view from the crypto trenches, because I work at a crypto
0:16:29 company, group chats are actually huge in the crypto space.
0:16:33 It’s usually on Telegram, which is an app that most normal people don’t use or most Americans
0:16:34 don’t use, certainly.
0:16:39 And there you actually either pay to enter the group chat or some apps have actually literally
0:16:41 tokenized being able to go into the group chat.
0:16:43 So you have to buy so many of the token.
0:16:47 And then the owner of the group chat was the guy who’s leaking the alpha, because this is
0:16:48 all very speculative, right?
0:16:50 The token represents his value.
0:16:51 There’s a company called Frontech that was short-lived.
0:16:56 I was part of it for a while and I had a channel and you could buy the DAGM token and you could
0:16:57 join the group chat as part of it.
0:17:01 But I think the lesson there is that if you over-financialize things, it loses the social
0:17:03 side of it, which crypto does a lot, right?
0:17:06 AI is everything is computer and crypto, everything is money, like totally everything.
0:17:08 But yeah, I agree with you.
0:17:11 I mean, one place I’d maybe quibble with you a little bit, or I guess, I don’t know,
0:17:11 I’m confused myself.
0:17:16 I think the world we’re heading to, the digital version of things is like the mainstream premium
0:17:17 economy version of the world.
0:17:22 And then I think our friend, Mark Andreessen, that you might know, Eric, his is the A and
0:17:26 the sign behind you, famously said that some people are reality privileged, right?
0:17:29 Some people are wealthy enough or live in a certain context in which they don’t need the
0:17:30 VR headset, right?
0:17:32 Because like their life is good enough, they don’t need it.
0:17:33 But everyone else gets the VR headset.
0:17:37 And so how do you strike that balance between the digital versus the real versions of it?
0:17:41 But I think what happens is, and again, I think it’s the subtext to your entire book, Chris,
0:17:45 who we interact with, who we agree with, is completely uncoupled from our actual physical
0:17:47 place in the world.
0:17:51 And I think that tension between the physical and I wouldn’t say spiritual necessarily, but
0:17:53 the intellectual, is at the heart of all.
0:17:56 I think the nation state is cracking up in a way just to get do more for a hot second.
0:17:59 And I think the internet’s definitely behind part of it, because you don’t have the sense
0:18:03 of collective consensus that the media and TV, for example, used to create during the
0:18:08 Cronkite era, used to have some level of synchrony or synergy that would happen with Cronkite saying,
0:18:09 and that’s the way it is.
0:18:14 And somehow now I scroll my feed versus Blue Sky, and it’s like, no, I don’t know what the
0:18:14 way it is, actually.
0:18:16 It’s not quite clear the way it is.
0:18:19 What’s really interesting, too, is to think about it from it being the opposite problem,
0:18:24 because so much of what happens in sort of the 20s and 30s, particularly when you have
0:18:31 these sort of huge mass broadcast mediums that can sort of capture attention at scale,
0:18:35 right, is that you have sort of this opposite problem, right, which is like the problem of
0:18:36 the mass media.
0:18:42 And this is something that Lippmann encounters when he has a job basically propagandizing for
0:18:47 entrance into World War I, which is that, whoa, this is an insanely powerful tool, and
0:18:53 you can blast out messages at scale to all these people and get them all thinking the same
0:18:55 way or moving the needle in some way.
0:19:01 And that was a problem that Lippmann wrestles with and all sorts of different folks wrestle
0:19:01 with.
0:19:06 And now we have the opposite problem, right, which is there is no getting anything like
0:19:07 that.
0:19:12 I mean, I’ve even come to feel one way to think about a public, right, is paying attention
0:19:13 to the same thing together.
0:19:19 And I’ve even come to feel like weirdly old man nostalgic for the Super Bowl or when
0:19:24 everyone’s talking about Love Island because it feels like, oh, here’s a thing that everyone
0:19:25 is paying.
0:19:27 I’m not watching Love Island, but I know that everyone is.
0:19:29 And I find some weird comfort in that.
0:19:34 I mean, I think it’s so funny because I think 20 or 30 years ago, this was so particularly if
0:19:40 you’re Gen X and you thought of yourself a sort of alternative in whatever way that like
0:19:43 that was stultifying mass culture and middle brow.
0:19:47 But I’ve come to miss that because I think it’s the thing we’re sort of missing, which
0:19:51 is everyone football is really the only thing left.
0:19:53 This sort of everyone pays attention to together.
0:19:54 The elections.
0:19:55 Yeah.
0:19:57 And elections, although we pay attention in such different ways.
0:19:59 But I do think there’s something.
0:20:01 Yeah, there’s something lost in that.
0:20:03 And I don’t know how to get it back.
0:20:08 And I’m also fully aware it might just be like I’m 46 and I’m just succumbing to the
0:20:09 nostalgia of middle age.
0:20:14 What was the last sort of like literary event that like every American paid attention to?
0:20:17 And my vote is for like Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections that came out.
0:20:21 I was literally going to say Franzen The Corrections and then like the whole thing.
0:20:22 Yeah, right.
0:20:24 Everyone had it’s a great book, by the way.
0:20:25 I like Franzen as a writer.
0:20:27 Everyone had to read that damn book.
0:20:30 And since then, it’s never been the case that everyone’s read the same book at all.
0:20:30 Yeah.
0:20:33 I mean, with the possible exception of David Foster Wallace and Infinite Jazz.
0:20:36 But it’s one of those books everyone claims to read, but no one’s actually read.
0:20:37 I think people actually did read The Corrections.
0:20:42 And yeah, it’s weird because if you talk to like Gen Xers, and particularly I think people
0:20:47 like, again, Mark, who came from maybe not like poor mainstream America, what they always
0:20:49 say about the internet is like, oh, I finally found my people.
0:20:52 Like I was interested in whatever, some weird little niche obsession that in your little
0:20:54 Midwestern town, there’s nobody doing it.
0:20:57 Although what’s also interesting to me too, and I’m always curious about the tech.
0:21:01 I feel like I don’t have a great sense actually, and maybe you guys have a better sense of this.
0:21:03 I think A, it’s very funny.
0:21:08 We refer to the algorithm as like a definite article, like it’s sort of totemic or almost
0:21:12 like a deity, like the algorithm served me this.
0:21:16 And it’s always just unclear to me like how sophisticated the algorithm actually is.
0:21:20 Sometimes it just seems very dumb to me where I look at one thing and then it serves me
0:21:22 15 of that.
0:21:24 And it’s like, I probably could have coded that.
0:21:25 It’s not that impressive.
0:21:26 It’s not like that sophisticated.
0:21:31 Sometimes it does find things where I’m like, oh, wow, there’s something interesting happening
0:21:31 here.
0:21:35 I write about the book, like taking a gummy and like realizing that it’s just showing me
0:21:37 pictures of sandwiches.
0:21:40 And after like 30 minutes of just like, it’s like, oh, it knows that I’m high.
0:21:41 Like that’s a kind of magic.
0:21:48 One of the things I think is interesting is there will be these kinds of things that go viral
0:21:54 or have this kind of like allergic resonance that everyone is then talking about or everyone
0:22:01 does, particularly in Gen Z, like reference or even the way that people talk like this
0:22:06 sort of brain rot Gen Z way of talking is really interesting to me because that does seem
0:22:08 recognizably mass, right?
0:22:13 In the same way, the 1960s, it was like far out and groovy and all these things that like
0:22:20 there is this really distinct argot of Gen Z, but they’re getting it all not from mass
0:22:23 culture, but from basically algorithmic social media.
0:22:28 That to me is super fascinating because there’s something that’s enduring beneath the kind of
0:22:33 technological or institutional layers of how culture is being mediated and how attention
0:22:35 is being captured and bought and sold.
0:22:36 Yeah, I forget who it was.
0:22:44 I was mad at Ireland recently and visit family and the kids need that same argument as in
0:22:48 the U.S. versus if you had visited Ireland 20 years ago, you wouldn’t be able to understand
0:22:51 them because they spoke some dialect that would be unintelligible to American ears.
0:22:53 And you see that actually in the U.S.
0:22:55 I mean, this is the thing that I’m really obsessed with, too, in the U.S.
0:22:59 Like one of the things that’s really fascinating is the lack of sort of geographical distinction
0:23:00 in geographical cultures.
0:23:03 You’re starting to see this like this shows up in politics, right?
0:23:07 Which is that like it used to be the case that rural Mississippi and rural Minnesota just
0:23:08 voted very, very differently.
0:23:15 And that’s because the people that occupied those places had different ethnic backgrounds
0:23:20 in Minnesota, like Scandinavian socialists, but also different religious traditions, Southern
0:23:21 Baptist versus Lutheran.
0:23:27 And there were all these like defining sort of geographic features of different places that
0:23:28 would show up in politics.
0:23:37 And increasingly, there is this kind of homogenization happening where all sort of rural folks of
0:23:41 certain demographics more and more vote like each other and also listen to the same music
0:23:44 and have the same kind of omniculture.
0:23:51 And that’s also true of sort of big city, college educated, upper middle class folks where like
0:23:58 you could go to the cool neighborhood in Columbus and there’s going to be some restaurant called
0:24:04 like Stern and Stem that serves whatever like farm to table, like gastropub food.
0:24:11 Like it’s interesting that these sort of omnicultures supplant localism in this moment when we don’t
0:24:14 have massness as the sort of central cultural feature.
0:24:17 The place is called Pine and Spruce in Seattle, but it’s exactly what you’re saying.
0:24:20 And it’s exactly right.
0:24:22 It’s all called stem to stern or pig to snout.
0:24:27 It’s always this kind of folksy and you can imagine the artificially distressed wood and the
0:24:33 artificially distressed people and the exposed iron and the bare filament bulbs and the hoppy.
0:24:34 You know, it’s all the same.
0:24:35 It’s all the same.
0:24:38 But I think the person who first called this, by the way, I think Dan Savage, who was like the
0:24:43 sex columnist or whatever, for like the Seattle local reg was after the Bush election to be a
0:24:45 total Gen X or millennial.
0:24:47 He said it’s not blue states and red states.
0:24:50 It’s like a blue urban archipelago in a sea of red and that the culture was actually going
0:24:52 two directions and you see it everywhere.
0:24:56 But to quote our friend Balaji, the analogy he cites, if you remember back when we had
0:25:00 Windows machines, you would do something called defragmenting the disk.
0:25:04 And what that means is Windows is such an inefficient operating system that a single application
0:25:07 serves its memory throughout the hard drive and that it slows it down because you’re
0:25:07 reading from many places.
0:25:09 So you have to do this thing called defragmenting.
0:25:13 You know, it basically write the memory back to the same place that the app would start running
0:25:13 fast again.
0:25:17 And so what he feels is happening, and of course, he believes in this thing called the
0:25:20 network state, is that we’re basically defragmenting reality, right?
0:25:23 And what we need to solve this is take all the people that think like each other and get them
0:25:26 back in the same state and in some sense defrag the disk.
0:25:29 I think the realities of that are a little challenging, but it’s an interesting thought experiment to imagine
0:25:33 that if you were to do that, right, in some magical way, then you would end up with a
0:25:35 holy red and a holy blue country or something.
0:25:41 Yeah, I mean, this question of like how the sort of individuation of the current attention
0:25:47 marketplace and how it relates to what we share and what we don’t share is like there’s just
0:25:49 a bunch of really interesting questions in there.
0:25:52 Some of which, again, like the point you were making before about like I found my people on
0:25:57 the Internet, like for a trans kid, right, who’s in a place where there’s no one else like
0:26:02 them to find on the Internet people that are going through this.
0:26:03 It’s incredible, right?
0:26:09 And that’s true for a million different ways of being that you might be as a teenager or as
0:26:10 a young adult or as an old adult.
0:26:10 Right.
0:26:18 So there is a level of individuation built into the technology and the market technology
0:26:21 of it now, which drives towards ever more individuation.
0:26:23 But that individuation fails in really interesting ways.
0:26:25 Can I ask you a question, Antonio?
0:26:26 Because I’m really curious about this.
0:26:32 So to me, one of the big unsolved questions that I never quite wrestle to the ground, I talk
0:26:36 a little bit about this notion of like subprime attention is like there’s sort of two different
0:26:39 ways of looking at ad tech to oversimplify.
0:26:45 One is that it has all this incredibly personalized data that no advertiser has ever had access
0:26:45 to.
0:26:50 It’s not just talking to a generic man head of household in the 50s.
0:26:52 It’s talking to like you, Chris Hayes.
0:26:56 I know where you live and what you do and how would you make and like what your medications
0:26:57 are, right?
0:27:03 That allows it a level of sophistication and optimization that’s never been possible before.
0:27:08 And then the other side of this is like, for all of that being true, it’s amazing how
0:27:12 sort of bad, schlocky and ineffective most internet advertising is.
0:27:15 And I think there’s some truth to both of them.
0:27:19 And I kind of wrestle with them a bit in the book, but never feel like resolved on the question.
0:27:21 I’m curious how you think about that.
0:27:23 Yeah, no, it’s a good point.
0:27:23 I mean, it’s funny.
0:27:26 This is going to take us way back last time when I was on your show, probably because
0:27:27 it’s probably what I was on for.
0:27:29 The whole Cambridge Analytica scandal.
0:27:29 Exactly.
0:27:29 That’s right.
0:27:30 You don’t need to go out in the rabbit hole.
0:27:31 It’s a whole story.
0:27:33 Everyone’s probably heard as much as they want to hear about it.
0:27:34 There’s no way to do that, right?
0:27:37 And any media buyer will tell you that a lot of ads are still crap.
0:27:37 And it’s true.
0:27:39 It’s still kind of a statistical phenomenon.
0:27:43 Just to put numbers on it, the CTR, the click-through rate, like how often a user engages
0:27:48 on a thing like Instagram, at least 97% of people who looked at it were just completely
0:27:50 indifferent to the thing, right?
0:27:51 And just didn’t engage.
0:27:52 Yeah.
0:27:54 I mean, look, you can really do a technical deep dive there.
0:27:57 I mean, yes, that data is out there, but a lot of it’s super fragmented.
0:27:59 And it often exists in varying silos.
0:28:02 And then there’s grift and bullshit to be blunt in advertising.
0:28:05 People will sell you data that it’s not nearly as accurate as you think it is.
0:28:08 I mean, companies like Facebook that actually do have a first-party relationship with the
0:28:09 user often have better data for that reason.
0:28:12 And if nothing else, they have a stable notion of identity.
0:28:15 It’s the same Chris Hayes or the same Antonio that shows up on the app every time.
0:28:16 So they kind of know.
0:28:18 When if you just show up on a website, it’s based on a cookie.
0:28:21 And that’s so transient these days that it’s basically meaningless.
0:28:23 So there’s just a lot of practical problems.
0:28:25 And again, it’s funny.
0:28:27 I actually did a story for Wired about it because it pissed me off so much.
0:28:30 You know, the whole conspiracy theory that Zuck is listening to you through your phone
0:28:31 or whatever.
0:28:32 Well, so here’s my question.
0:28:33 This strikes me a lot.
0:28:35 So when you’re on TikTok, right?
0:28:37 TikTok is pretty ad heavy these days.
0:28:42 And I’m always struck that like every ad feels like something from like the Home Shopping
0:28:46 Network or like infomercial I would see at like 5.30 a.m.
0:28:49 before cartoons came on on a Saturday morning in my youth.
0:28:54 And I just I keep thinking to myself, I’m like, why isn’t Progressive Auto Assurance or
0:28:57 GM serving me ads here if this ad tech works?
0:29:03 Like, why are the people that spend like the most amount of money on advertising and for whom
0:29:07 this is particularly true for brands like car brands and insurance brands where, you know,
0:29:09 there’s unbelievable continuity, right?
0:29:11 People just keep the same thing.
0:29:16 And that’s why like traditionally, right, the younger demographics in advertising were so
0:29:16 valuable.
0:29:21 You want to sell someone their first Toyota because they’re just going to buy Toyotas after
0:29:21 that.
0:29:23 So you’re really purchasing a lifetime of purchases.
0:29:27 So if that’s the case and young people are in TikTok, it’s like if this is such effective
0:29:31 advertising and Detroit spends like why do they never get an ad there?
0:29:31 I don’t know.
0:29:36 Maybe they’re just dinosaurs and they’re wrong or maybe it’s not as good, but I just don’t
0:29:37 know the answer to it.
0:29:38 It’s totally true.
0:29:39 I mean, there’s TikTok.
0:29:40 There’s an app called Whatnot.
0:29:43 I mean, it’s basically people stomping for a product and then buying from it.
0:29:45 I think it works for D2C brands, right?
0:29:49 It’s very niche brands that people associate with and buy very easily.
0:29:50 I mean, you’re absolutely correct.
0:29:52 That’s the whole point of brand advertising, right?
0:29:55 Again, to use more ad tech ease, high LTV, high lifetime value, right?
0:30:00 If you become a Ford buyer for the continuity of your life, you Mustang and you buy an SUV when
0:30:03 you have a family, that’s literally kind of thousands of dollars a lifetime value.
0:30:04 I’m not sure to be honest.
0:30:05 I don’t know what the answer is.
0:30:07 Yeah, no, I don’t know if it’s like a thing to answer.
0:30:12 Just like, it’s so striking to me that that’s the case and particularly how much that still
0:30:19 dominates these sort of older media that’s still when you watch a big sports game on a
0:30:21 broadcast if you’re watching Sunday football, right?
0:30:27 And there are also that scale that is very hard to replicate with TikTok.
0:30:31 To your point about how scalable the TikTok stuff is, like, if you make some, like, nifty
0:30:36 little gizmo that you can drop ship from China and you have low overhead, you can sell it to
0:30:38 a small number of people on TikTok.
0:30:40 That’s not the way you’re going to sell a Ford F-150.
0:30:43 So there’s a sort of interesting scale question there.
0:30:48 But I also just wonder, like, what the next…
0:30:53 Basically, we’ve seen these sort of movements from text-based to video.
0:30:59 And if there’s something after that, like, basically, what the next big thing is, what
0:31:04 is the next bite dance that does to TikTok what TikTok sort of did to the incumbents and
0:31:05 Facebook and stuff like that?
0:31:07 I mean, my vote would be for AI.
0:31:08 To frame it as a bigger thing, right?
0:31:10 We’re going from sort of a textual culture.
0:31:12 I think you said somewhere in the book that, like, the thought that we’re going to be reading
0:31:17 a 6,000-word thought piece in The New Yorker, I doubt most young people can even do that.
0:31:20 I can barely do it, actually, even though I used to do it regularly.
0:31:22 I’ve forced myself to do it, which is weird.
0:31:26 But it doesn’t mean we’re going back to an oral phase in which we’re going to be citing
0:31:28 Homer in iambic pentameter or something, right?
0:31:32 The oral phase, which Neil Postman writes about a lot, that was very mnemonic, right?
0:31:33 It was very memory intensive.
0:31:38 People had these sort of recognizable tropes and forms, but they also remembered a lot.
0:31:40 They knew they could recite poetry.
0:31:41 They could recite biblical verses.
0:31:44 There was an enormous amount stored in the brain.
0:31:46 Yeah, I mean, I think we were at the tail end of that.
0:31:50 I still had to memorize Shakespeare’s sets in high school, which I don’t even really have
0:31:51 to do anymore.
0:31:54 But I think the oral-textual divide wasn’t even about the format.
0:31:55 It’s the form of thought, right?
0:31:58 And when I talk to the AI, I don’t think they’re human, by the way.
0:32:00 I think everyone who thinks they’re human is crazy.
0:32:03 But I talk to it as if it were a human, because that’s actually the best way to interface with
0:32:03 it.
0:32:07 And you engage in this sort of Socratic dialogue with it, trying to get an answer.
0:32:09 Sometimes the AI bot gets crazy and hallucinates.
0:32:11 I mean, so do humans, and you kind of have to put it back on the right course.
0:32:13 But I think that’s the thing, right?
0:32:17 And talking to the human, and when you manage to map that to e-commerce or travel, when I
0:32:22 can say, I want to go, which I do, go to France for a week in August to see my daughter
0:32:23 and spend a week in Brittany.
0:32:28 So book me an Airbnb, book me a flight, and make it not cost more than $3,000, if that’s
0:32:28 impossible.
0:32:31 And just give me a button that says go and do it.
0:32:33 I mean, I would literally bet large portions of my net worth in time.
0:32:34 That’s the future.
0:32:35 That’s going to be the gateway.
0:32:38 AI is going to upstream everything about the consumer experience.
0:32:40 That I totally agree with.
0:32:44 My bigger question is what it does to, like, dicking around on your phone.
0:32:52 Like, I agree that there are these very obvious, to me, use cases, incredibly useful cases of
0:32:57 if it gets good enough, particularly the sort of agentic idea that you’re describing there.
0:32:58 There’s lots of stuff.
0:33:03 And the idea of it essentially becoming, in the way the browser was, like, the sort of
0:33:05 interface being the thing that you’re talking to, right?
0:33:08 But that’s to do all the useful stuff, right?
0:33:11 Like, my question is, like, what does it do?
0:33:15 Like, when you get that screen time notification on your phone, right, what you’re doing is you’re
0:33:19 looking, a lot of it is not booking flights and doing stuff.
0:33:20 Some of it is.
0:33:26 But what it does to that part of it is sort of the big, I don’t have the answer.
0:33:27 I don’t think anyone has the answer.
0:33:30 I think if you had the answer, you could probably make a fortune with the right bet.
0:33:33 But I just don’t know what it’s going to do there.
0:33:39 The place we started, which is my wonder if it produces a kind of brute force level of
0:33:42 pollution that then actually becomes hard to manage for the platforms.
0:33:53 Two, it gets so good that it creates this kind of surreal new genre of, like, pure attentional
0:34:00 drug, like the slot machine that, like, people just watch and doesn’t have any, like, real
0:34:06 meaning because it’s just this complete, like, neural network produced hive mind creation.
0:34:10 Or people just opt for humans and it doesn’t really change it that much anyway.
0:34:12 Those seem like the three big options.
0:34:16 There’s a paper from Yahoo Research in 2001 or 2002 or something in which they use the
0:34:18 multi-iron bandit problem, which precedes advertising, obviously.
0:34:20 But then they adapt it.
0:34:23 Because if you look at a page, there’s several bandits there, right?
0:34:24 Which are different ads.
0:34:28 And if you click on one, there’s a chance of it leading to a conversion or not.
0:34:30 And a lot of the math behind this one I forgot is that.
0:34:31 Oh, that’s cool.
0:34:34 As a side footnote, I think look at the Apple Vision as an example, right?
0:34:35 It’s, like, way too bulky.
0:34:36 It’s way too expensive.
0:34:37 It’s not quite good enough yet.
0:34:41 No, and I think the thing about the Apple Vision and VR to me is, and I write some, like,
0:34:45 in Siren’s Call about this, like, at a certain point, if you’re thinking about this commodity
0:34:47 and you come up against these hard limits, right?
0:34:50 So at a certain point, it’s like, okay, we have people looking at their phones as much
0:34:50 as they possibly can.
0:34:53 If we keep them awake a little longer, we can get more out of it.
0:34:54 We start going to children.
0:34:57 We can go, we sold the phone to everyone in the world.
0:35:01 Like, how do you keep expanding the frontier of the commodity to mine?
0:35:03 And that’s why VR is so important from that.
0:35:10 Because if you have it literally every second, you’ve just unlocked this enormous new landscape.
0:35:16 You’ve discovered these, like, new deep sea reserves, right, that no one had before.
0:35:19 The now, every, literally every second, right?
0:35:24 If it’s on every waking second, you can now mine that attention and extract and commodify it
0:35:25 in a way that wasn’t before.
0:35:30 And because Apple did this once before with the smartphone as the crucial piece of hardware
0:35:34 to massively expand that supply, like, that’s, I think, the kind of commercial
0:35:37 logic of the device, right?
0:35:39 Whatever it does after that.
0:35:41 But it’s only going to be waking hours, Chris, 16 hours.
0:35:44 We’re going to need full Neuralink to actually run ads inside your dreams, actually.
0:35:46 No, literally, but…
0:35:47 We’re going to need the full 24.
0:35:48 That’s the point.
0:35:52 It’s the frontiers, like, there’s a certain rapaciousness here.
0:35:53 No, well, of course there is.
0:35:55 I can see that the ad tech industry is completely rapacious.
0:35:59 So at the end of Chaos Monkey, I think in the, like, afterward that I wrote in the second
0:36:03 edition or whatever it was, I mentioned that Facebook is running out of people, right?
0:36:04 Exactly, right, yeah.
0:36:09 Like, I made the joke that they’d start breeding new humans just to become Facebook users to
0:36:10 sell them ads or something, which obviously is ridiculous.
0:36:13 But I think it’s a similar concept that there’s actually only so many attention hours in the
0:36:14 day, right?
0:36:18 Yeah, and you do come up, you know, I’m definitely not like a degrowth leftist at all.
0:36:21 I would call myself like a pro-growth left liberal.
0:36:23 Abundance, I think is what we call them these days.
0:36:24 Abundance, Chris, abundance.
0:36:26 Yes, distinct from that in some ways.
0:36:34 But I guess my point would be, there are these fundamental tensions between the need for
0:36:38 endless growth and what boundaries you hit up against and what it does to people.
0:36:45 And you could create a company that was just provided a useful service and printed money
0:36:45 for a long time.
0:36:48 And in some ways, Google had that for a long time.
0:36:51 Like, they had a genuinely useful service.
0:36:53 It genuinely transformed how we got information.
0:36:55 It was insanely profitable.
0:36:57 It was a money printing machine.
0:37:00 And it wasn’t enough, right?
0:37:02 Like, you have to grow it past that.
0:37:09 And in some ways, with the use of AI, like, the entire open web that was the basis for the
0:37:11 first iteration of Google is collapsing underneath it.
0:37:16 And what comes after when you talk about this sort of interface we have with the AI chatbot,
0:37:23 I find that for my work, the only way that I can use AI is with web search on and telling
0:37:28 it to cite everything because I can’t risk a hallucination.
0:37:33 And so what I need to do is I need to check everything against, like, did a person report
0:37:33 this?
0:37:35 Did a human being go and call this person?
0:37:36 Is that name right?
0:37:44 And I do wonder, like, the surreality that we’re all entering into once the kind of growth
0:37:48 revenue model collapses the open web, like, what is left?
0:37:53 The stuff that’s actually being used to create all that useful information, who’s going to
0:37:55 maintain that if the whole thing collapses?
0:37:59 Yeah, I think I cite Edward Abbey and Chaos Monkey’s ampergraph in there somewhere that
0:38:01 growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
0:38:02 Right, exactly.
0:38:03 Yes, exactly.
0:38:04 Kind of true.
0:38:05 I mean, yeah, it’s funny.
0:38:09 I cite The Abundance Agenda, which, you know, is Ezra’s book that basically is telling the
0:38:12 left, OK, don’t be dumb about capitalism and growth.
0:38:13 Like, it could actually be a good thing, right?
0:38:18 And I think there’s another book by Alex Karp of Palantir called The Technological Republic
0:38:21 that’s basically telling the right, look, I mean, the market isn’t actually the solution
0:38:24 to everything and doesn’t actually necessarily tell us what is good.
0:38:27 Like, what are the ultimate good ends of social life?
0:38:29 The market isn’t necessarily there to answer that question.
0:38:33 I mean, I think Peter Thiel famously asked the question, we’re promised flying cars and we
0:38:34 got 140 characters.
0:38:36 I’ll say this on that last point.
0:38:44 It’s interesting to me to compare the amount of capex and media attention to AI versus the
0:38:50 kind of insane solar power revolution happening right now, because it’s a little like the flying
0:38:51 car 140 character thing.
0:38:58 we’ve been burning carbon for energy before the Industrial Revolution, right?
0:39:03 Like we’ve been burning trees for wood stoves and then we got the Industrial Revolution and
0:39:05 we’ve been burning fossil fuels specifically.
0:39:11 But a world where we get to, which is totally possible now, I think from an engineering standpoint
0:39:18 of like the marginal cost of energy basically dropping to essentially zero, where we just get the solar
0:39:25 solar tech good enough that we kind of reclaim the abundance, to use a word, of the sun.
0:39:26 They write about that in the book a bit.
0:39:31 Like that is such a wildly revolutionary thing to happen.
0:39:35 And partly because it’s not that lucrative, I think in the end.
0:39:39 But also it’s not that intentionally salient in the way that AI is.
0:39:44 And so you do have this weird thing happening, which is like all the capex, all the attention
0:39:47 is like the future technology, the epic defining technology is going to be AI.
0:39:49 And I don’t know if I agree with that or not.
0:39:50 I understand why people, some people think that’s true.
0:39:52 I understand some of the skepticism.
0:39:58 But it’s interesting to contrast that with the fact that like right now we’re in the midst
0:40:01 of an apocal transformation in how we get energy.
0:40:04 And it’s just not that sexy.
0:40:06 You didn’t mention nuclear, Chris.
0:40:07 Nuclear might have to be part of the portfolio.
0:40:13 But I agree with you that having basically at the margins the intelligence and at the margin
0:40:14 free energy is going to be nuts.
0:40:15 Yeah, that’s right.
0:40:22 Yes, those two things combined like might be like within pretty close.
0:40:23 And obviously they’re related, right?
0:40:25 Because the energy consumption on the compute is enormous.
0:40:26 Yeah.
0:40:27 And you’re going to need the build out.
0:40:30 But if you got to that point, Jesus, what does that even look like?
0:40:30 I don’t know.
0:40:32 Chris, I know you got to run.
0:40:34 So thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
0:40:38 The book is The Siren’s Call, How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource.
0:40:39 Thanks so much for coming on the show.
0:40:40 I really enjoyed that.
0:40:41 Thanks so much.
0:40:46 Thanks for listening to the A16Z podcast.
0:40:51 If you enjoyed the episode, let us know by leaving a review at ratethispodcast.com slash A16Z.
0:40:54 We’ve got more great conversations coming your way.
0:40:55 See you next time.

0:00:04 We view the individual as what is most concrete and most real.
0:00:06 That’s wrong.
0:00:10 Because there is no such thing as an isolated individual.
0:00:12 Can I ask you, Mark, why is it so hard to see that?
0:00:14 I don’t know.
0:00:18 Why is the illusion that we are just disconnected and separate so powerful?
0:00:20 It’s one of many things opposed to me.
0:00:25 We’re puzzling through that together this week on The Gray Area.
0:00:29 Listen to new episodes every Monday, available everywhere.
0:00:37 Welcome to Raging Moderates.
0:00:38 I’m Scott Galloway.
0:00:39 And I’m Jessica Tarlov.
0:00:42 Jess, we need to talk about your blouse.
0:00:44 Is this the real Housewives of Tribeca?
0:00:45 What’s going on here?
0:00:50 I am like luau chic for the day.
0:00:52 I think it’s going to be like 98 degrees.
0:00:54 I had to do camp drop-off.
0:00:55 So Brian got this for me.
0:00:58 It’s actually, I mean, I don’t want to like defend it if you just don’t like it.
0:00:59 I do like it.
0:01:01 It’s a very nice dress, actually.
0:01:06 And it’s flouncy, which is good for breathability and the heat.
0:01:09 But I don’t know how often you buy your partner clothes.
0:01:13 But Brian relentlessly buys me oversized clothes.
0:01:16 And I don’t know what that’s about.
0:01:18 Oversized clothes.
0:01:20 He likes a big flowy dress.
0:01:23 So here we are in the heat in a big flowy dress.
0:01:27 A 6’4″, handsome guy that’s really into buying his partner clothes.
0:01:28 This guy’s dreamy.
0:01:31 I mean, I did well, especially, you know, for a later in life pickup.
0:01:33 Later in life.
0:01:34 You’re still pretty young.
0:01:35 I love that later in life.
0:01:36 How are you?
0:01:36 I’m good.
0:01:39 I, too, enjoy women’s clothes.
0:01:41 I buy shoes.
0:01:42 I’m definitely…
0:01:43 You’re a shoe guy.
0:01:43 Yeah.
0:01:46 I’m, as my ex-wife said, gay by day, straight by night.
0:01:49 I love women’s clothes and fashion.
0:01:51 And now you look lovely.
0:01:53 I didn’t mean to imply anything otherwise.
0:01:56 No, it’s a bold print, to say the least.
0:01:57 Like, you couldn’t wear this on cable.
0:02:01 But because I’m a podcaster in the morning, I can wear this to come and record.
0:02:04 If you showed up like that, you’d look like…
0:02:05 Oh, straight out the door.
0:02:10 You’d look like the Democrat who’s just back from, you know, sitting under a weighted blanket,
0:02:13 complaining into TikTok before her ayahuasca trip.
0:02:15 And they just brought you on to make the other conservatives look smart.
0:02:16 Yeah, you can’t show up with that.
0:02:17 No.
0:02:20 I’ll be wearing a plain colored pantsuit by the end of the day.
0:02:21 Don’t you worry.
0:02:21 There you go.
0:02:25 In today’s episode of Raging Moderates, we’re discussing Trump’s deal with the European
0:02:32 Union, the mass starvation crisis in Gaza, and if Trump will pardon Ghislaine Maxwell.
0:02:32 Ghislaine?
0:02:33 Ghislani?
0:02:34 Ghislaine.
0:02:35 It’s Ghislaine, is that right?
0:02:35 Ghislaine.
0:02:36 Yeah, I think so.
0:02:36 Ghislaine.
0:02:39 Not that I care that much about getting her name right, but yes.
0:02:41 All right, let’s bust right into it.
0:02:45 After months of threats, walkbacks, and last-minute meetings, Trump says he struck a trade deal with
0:02:46 the European Union.
0:02:51 Standing next to the EU Commission President at his golf course in Scotland, of course,
0:02:57 Trump unveiled a framework agreement that includes a 15% tariff on most EU imports, cars, medicine,
0:03:02 semiconductors, and in return, the EU has committed to buying hundreds of billions in U.S. energy
0:03:03 and defense equipment.
0:03:07 Trump calling it the biggest deal ever made.
0:03:12 I’m not sure if, like, maybe the Marshall Plan or the Treaty of Versailles.
0:03:17 But anyways, although the details are still murky, what’s clear is that this move avoids what could
0:03:22 have been a major transatlantic trade war, especially with a Friday deadline looming to slap 30% tariffs
0:03:23 on EU goods.
0:03:30 But the new 15% rate is still a big jump from the previous 10%, and some countries, including France
0:03:33 and Germany, aren’t exactly popping champagne.
0:03:37 Jess, what is your overall takeaway from this deal?
0:03:38 It’s not even a deal.
0:03:38 There’s a framework.
0:03:39 Let’s say that.
0:03:40 There’s a framework.
0:03:41 Well, that is the takeaway.
0:03:46 And I know that the motto for the administration is supposed to be MAGA, right?
0:03:47 Make America great again.
0:03:50 But I think it could shift to the details are still murky.
0:03:50 Yeah.
0:03:55 Because that’s what you hear about every single trade agreement that has been floated.
0:04:00 And I wanted to talk to you, and I know that you’ve spoken on your other pods about this,
0:04:02 but we haven’t yet on Raging Moderates.
0:04:08 You know, this conversation that’s going on now about why the economy is still chugging along,
0:04:12 that we were expecting end of days situation.
0:04:16 We’re basically business as usual-ish, right?
0:04:17 Like, the market is unbothered by this.
0:04:20 I know that we had the whole taco theme and conversation.
0:04:23 I think that that is applicable to what’s going on.
0:04:28 The Wall Street Journal had a great chart about what was promised, right?
0:04:32 What he said would happen on Liberation Day and then what has actually been executed and
0:04:37 that he is 166 tariff letters short of what he said he was going to send by this Friday,
0:04:38 August 1st.
0:04:41 I think he’s only sent 25 at this point.
0:04:46 But can you break down why you think it is that everything—I wouldn’t say that it’s
0:04:52 fine because we have seen a lot of enormous companies report billions of dollars of losses,
0:04:57 especially in car manufacturing, Walmart with the headlines, they’re raising prices up to 51%.
0:05:02 But why do you think that the market and the economy has been, I guess, more resilient than
0:05:09 you would expect in the face of the damage that the Trump team has at least been promising
0:05:10 to bring?
0:05:16 So I’ve said for a long time that I think two of the most damaging metrics in the Western
0:05:21 economy are the Dow and the NASDAQ because they give us sometimes cold comfort that the
0:05:23 economy is doing well or the people are doing well.
0:05:27 10% conservatively of Americans own 90% of the stock.
0:05:31 50% to 90% own the other 10% and the bottom 50% just have debt.
0:05:38 So essentially, the NASDAQ and the Dow have become not indices on the economy.
0:05:42 They’ve become indices on the economic well-being of the wealthiest Americans.
0:05:48 And shocker, the wealthiest Americans keep hitting 17 new highs so far this year.
0:05:50 They’re killing it.
0:05:52 And I worry that we’re studying to the wrong test.
0:05:56 And that is, we believe that because the NASDAQ is up, that everything is fine.
0:06:02 And what you effectively have in the global markets right now is that 50% to 55% of global
0:06:07 market capitalization is represented by the S&P 500 or by U.S. publicly traded stocks, which
0:06:09 is just incredible when you think about it.
0:06:13 And then if you add in debt, the way you value a company is you say, what is the equity value
0:06:16 of the market capitalization, which is the price of the share times the number of outstanding
0:06:17 shares?
0:06:21 So if a company has a million outstanding shares and it’s trading at $100 a share, okay, it’s
0:06:23 got an equity value of $100 million.
0:06:28 But if it’s got debt of $30 million on some plans, property, office space, then technically
0:06:33 you’re saying the enterprise value is the market cap plus the debt, $130 million.
0:06:36 Because the market’s saying even though it owes $30 million, it’s worth $100 million more.
0:06:38 So we’re saying this company is worth $130 million.
0:06:44 If you add in debt of American companies, the total enterprise value of U.S. companies represents
0:06:48 70% of the enterprise value of every company in the world.
0:06:53 So effectively, if someone came to you, Jess, and said, all right, Jess, you can own
0:06:59 every company in America for $70, or you can own every company in the world that’s not
0:07:02 in America for $30, which would you choose?
0:07:04 Wait, oh, actually?
0:07:06 Yeah.
0:07:11 You can either own every American company for $70, or you can own every company that’s not
0:07:13 in America, China, Brazil, every company in Europe.
0:07:14 Sorry, I thought it was rhetorical.
0:07:15 The second option, right?
0:07:16 Yeah.
0:07:18 I would argue that’s a better deal.
0:07:19 Yeah.
0:07:19 Okay.
0:07:20 Well done.
0:07:21 Sorry.
0:07:23 No, I thought it was one of those.
0:07:26 You turn the same color as your blouse in about three seconds.
0:07:27 That’s like 80 different colors.
0:07:30 I didn’t know if I was getting like a Scott Galloway TED Talk thing.
0:07:31 Like, come on, you idiot.
0:07:33 Or it was actually.
0:07:35 Where I ask questions, but I don’t want an answer.
0:07:36 I just want to talk to myself.
0:07:38 Well, that happens sometimes.
0:07:39 That happens a lot.
0:07:40 I’m guilty.
0:07:41 Anyways, you’re right.
0:07:42 You’re correct.
0:07:43 Ding, ding, ding.
0:07:44 You advanced to the lightning round.
0:07:49 So American stocks are just, quote unquote, conservatively fully valued.
0:07:51 And a lot of people would say massively overvalued.
0:07:57 And of the stock market that represents 50% of the total market cap of the entire world,
0:08:01 40% of that value is represented in just seven companies.
0:08:06 And of those seven companies, they are basically being driven by the promise and unbelievable
0:08:10 performance so far and the understandable excitement around AI.
0:08:14 So AI is not subject to tariffs.
0:08:16 AI just churns on.
0:08:21 Trump just announced basically that his new, quote unquote, AI regulation is no regulation
0:08:27 and says that AI can crawl this podcast or your books or your TV shows or recreate a Rihanna
0:08:27 song.
0:08:30 And there’s not a lot of recourse from the artists.
0:08:34 It’s basically a giant transfer of value, as I read it, from New York and LA and the creative
0:08:36 community to his buddies in Silicon Valley.
0:08:40 So the economy grinds on.
0:08:44 When I got off of Twitter, what struck me was, one, I didn’t miss it.
0:08:50 And two, how small a world it is, that it’s a small number of very vocal people in the chattering
0:08:50 class.
0:08:53 I didn’t miss any economic opportunities.
0:08:54 I didn’t miss out on any information.
0:08:58 All that happened was my mental health got a lot healthier.
0:09:03 And what I think we’re seeing with the Trump administration and generally in government is
0:09:07 that the economy grinds on and that maybe these policies don’t have as big an effect.
0:09:14 And also because of the taco effect where people don’t believe Trump anymore, the economy kind
0:09:14 of grinds on.
0:09:19 If you look at the real economy, consumer price index that recently came out, there’s
0:09:20 something in it for everybody.
0:09:21 What do I mean by that?
0:09:26 Catastrophists like me who don’t like Trump look at the more inflationary subject items
0:09:28 and they are starting to spike.
0:09:32 OK, that’s evidence that inflation is starting to kind of register or get traction.
0:09:36 And it was going to take six to nine months as it worked through the supply chain.
0:09:40 General Motors just announced a billion dollar reduction in profits and they squarely blamed
0:09:43 it, as did Stellantis, on tariffs.
0:09:45 So you’re starting to see the tariffs kick in.
0:09:50 But at the same time, inflation was only about 2.7 percent and the majority of the world would
0:09:52 pray for 2.7 percent.
0:09:56 So and to be clear, the markets went down and then have ripped back.
0:09:59 It looks as if the markets are doing one of two things.
0:10:01 They’re either saying these tariffs aren’t that bad.
0:10:03 The economy grinds on.
0:10:08 You, Scott Gallo and other people, you’re catastrophists and there was no reason to be this
0:10:15 worried or, quite frankly, the markets in these companies, specifically AI companies who are
0:10:17 immune to this, are just fine.
0:10:22 But the real economy, the stress on families, supposedly this EU deal is going to result in
0:10:25 about two thousand dollars in incremental costs for American households.
0:10:31 So I worry more generally that we are studying to the wrong test.
0:10:34 I would love to see a mental health index.
0:10:38 I would love to see the number of people, the index around self-harm among teens.
0:10:40 I would love to see an obesity index.
0:10:44 Most people know can tell you where the Dow or the Nasdaq is approximately, but they can’t
0:10:49 tell you that, oh, 70 percent of Americans are obese or overweight and that, you know,
0:10:51 X percent of households are single parent.
0:10:54 I feel as if we’re tracking the wrong metrics.
0:11:01 But of the metrics we track, the companies being largely driven by AI continue to march on
0:11:05 and the underlying economy is showing signs of strain from the tariffs.
0:11:07 But it really hasn’t shown up yet.
0:11:10 There’s nowhere near the catastrophe that people like me were predicting.
0:11:12 Did I did that help?
0:11:16 No, it definitely did help because there was something for everyone in there.
0:11:21 And you admitted the potential that what we were talking about on Liberation Day and for the month
0:11:27 afterwards may not come to fruition and that a lot of people may have had an unnecessary meltdown.
0:11:30 But that, you know, we don’t know what this will look like in two to three months.
0:11:35 And there are a lot of very smart people who are the heads of these companies, the other great
0:11:42 businessmen and businesswomen who are saying that they can’t even do their Q2, Q3, Q4 predictions
0:11:45 because we live in perpetual chaos.
0:11:48 And that is not the job of the commander in chief.
0:11:51 It’s one thing to say, I want someone to come in and shake up the status quo.
0:11:56 It’s another thing to say, I want someone to come in and make it impossible for me to run
0:11:58 my business effectively.
0:12:03 And we’re not even talking about the impact of the immigration policy on running these businesses
0:12:06 effectively, which is absolutely massive.
0:12:12 But you’re seeing this break between what the average person, the everyday Americans
0:12:17 are feeling and what the talking heads are saying, whether they’re catastrophizing or saying
0:12:21 he’s God’s gift, which is what it looked like on CNBC yesterday.
0:12:23 Jim Cramer even cursed on air.
0:12:26 He was so excited about this EU deal.
0:12:31 But the American public has been beating a consistent drum about tariffs, saying there are
0:12:34 attacks on Americans, that they disapprove of how Trump is handling it.
0:12:36 You know, 60 percent disapproval.
0:12:37 You were right.
0:12:41 The Yale Budget Lab are the ones that saying this can be about two thousand extra dollars
0:12:42 per household.
0:12:45 And Donald Trump really showed his hand with this idea.
0:12:47 Now, did you see that he’s floating rebate checks?
0:12:48 I didn’t see that.
0:12:54 Like he realizes that he needs a good PR stunt, like the covid checks, right, where he put his
0:12:55 signature on something and sent it to them.
0:12:57 So they’re talking about six hundred dollar rebate checks.
0:13:02 Josh Hawley, our favorite flip flopper, wants to get in on it because he knows that that’s
0:13:07 the only way he’ll be able to run as an economic populist if he undoes the damage that his votes
0:13:10 do all the time by rewarding you with something.
0:13:16 And there’s just no way that Donald Trump would be talking about a rebate check unless he was
0:13:18 doing something to screw over the American public.
0:13:19 It’s just impossible.
0:13:25 And so when I get that 20 billion dollars in revenues floated to me and I heard it yesterday
0:13:28 on The Five, I said, well, what’s up with the rebate checks then?
0:13:29 Right.
0:13:34 Why is why is there a direct correlation between us, quote unquote, doing well and us having to
0:13:37 say to the American public, oh, don’t worry, we’re going to figure this out for you.
0:13:41 And because it’s early stages, six hundred dollars would feel like a lot to people when you
0:13:42 get up to two thousand dollars.
0:13:46 And then factoring in also the premium hikes that you’re going to have from your health
0:13:48 insurance deductibles going up.
0:13:52 And then, you know, after the 2026 midterms that you’re just going to lose your health care
0:13:55 generally, they’re going to owe people a lot more than that.
0:14:00 One thing that I was thinking about with the EU deal and the French and the Germans in particular
0:14:08 have come out absolutely fuming at the European Commission for accepting this is we now live
0:14:15 in a world where what’s good for us has to be bad for the people that we do business with.
0:14:16 Yeah, zero sum.
0:14:16 That’s right.
0:14:20 And there’s something so I mean, the cruelty is the point, right?
0:14:25 There’s no bigger or more apt truism about this administration because you hear Donald Trump
0:14:29 out there saying this is, you know, the biggest deal and this is the best deal that could have
0:14:33 ever been imagined, by the way, the deal that we had, which was, you know, one percent, that
0:14:36 seems a lot better than 15 percent, which is what we’re going to be paying.
0:14:44 But there’s something about stomping on the economic graves of people who have been great allies with
0:14:51 us, who have been great trade partners with us that feels so short sighted and low and crass.
0:14:54 And I just can’t get used to it.
0:14:59 You know, the scene of him sitting with I always mispronounce her name.
0:15:00 Ursula von Leyen, Leyen.
0:15:01 Yeah, her.
0:15:05 And just barking at her about how good it’s going to be.
0:15:09 And you can see the abject terror in her eyes because she knows not only does she have to make
0:15:15 an economic deal, but also she has to protect NATO, which is being really under discussed in this
0:15:16 because he showed up at the NATO summit.
0:15:19 He got a five percent pledge from a lot of these countries.
0:15:26 And the Europeans are having to do a very delicate dance to make sure that he doesn’t pull out of NATO
0:15:31 completely because he’s pissed about whatever happens in his manufactured trade war.
0:15:33 You touched on a lot of important points.
0:15:38 So with respect, Ursula, I think it was less terror than it was disgust and disbelief that the greatest
0:15:44 nation in the world decided that this village idiot should represent us.
0:15:47 And, I mean, there’s a few things here.
0:15:53 One, your zero-sum game analogy is a fundamental flaw in his approach to business.
0:15:56 And I always like to try and turn this to a learning.
0:16:02 Up until about the age of 40 or 45, I thought that business and capitalism was about I get the
0:16:05 better end of every deal, that I negotiate everything.
0:16:11 And if I can hire someone who’s really good and pay them $150,000 and their market value is $200,000,
0:16:11 I’m winning.
0:16:16 And the moment I’m paying them above market, I’m losing and I need to have a conversation
0:16:16 with them.
0:16:21 And every time I talk to a vendor, every time I try to buy a car, everything, trying to negotiate
0:16:25 the best deal possible, hoping that the person on the other end is almost a little bit pissed
0:16:29 off and disappointed because I got the better of them, that it was a win-lose.
0:16:33 And what you realize is that the amazing thing about capitalism is it’s a construct.
0:16:39 And Pat Connolly, one of my mentors, who was the CMO of Williams-Sonoma, one of my first
0:16:42 engagements was to do Williams-Sonoma’s internet strategy back in the 90s.
0:16:46 And we wanted to charge him, I think, a quarter of a million dollars.
0:16:48 And I called Pat and said, look, you’re an amazing client.
0:16:50 I need mastheads.
0:16:52 I’m a 27-year-old running a strategy firm.
0:16:53 We’ll do this for $100,000.
0:16:56 He’s like, no, we’re going to pay you a quarter of a million dollars because we want our partners
0:16:57 to do well.
0:17:03 And that struck me, that this was a great company that had said, OK, our partners need to make
0:17:03 money, too.
0:17:04 We want good partners.
0:17:06 We want them to thrive.
0:17:10 And that slowly but surely started changing my mindset.
0:17:17 And the ultimate pivot in geopolitics that recognized the opportunity for win-win as opposed to zero
0:17:20 some game is we said, we can’t have Versailles again.
0:17:25 We can’t put the defeated armies in a box and bankrupt them because we’re so fucking angry.
0:17:30 And we took Germany, which had obviously unleashed horror on all of Europe.
0:17:35 We took Japan, who, quite frankly, doesn’t get the credit it deserves for butchering and
0:17:38 brutalizing Asia and Southeast Asia through World War II.
0:17:41 And we said, here’s an idea.
0:17:42 Let’s flip the script.
0:17:44 Let’s massively invest.
0:17:47 Let’s borrow from American households and let’s rebuild them.
0:17:48 And what do you know?
0:17:53 Germany and Japan are now just such extraordinary allies, not only because they like us, but because,
0:17:56 let’s be honest, folks, Germany and Japan have outstanding cultures.
0:17:59 You can level their countries.
0:18:04 And within 20 or 30 years, they are back in an economic powerhouse, whereas the majority of the
0:18:06 countries in the world can’t get out in their own fucking way.
0:18:11 This country can literally be decimated, either of these cultures, and they build back to be
0:18:12 economic powerhouses.
0:18:15 And now they are outstanding allies.
0:18:20 That is the definition of capitalism or the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
0:18:22 And Warren Buffett just said something really dramatic.
0:18:27 He said, when kids, if you believe that your economic policies start extracting so much value
0:18:32 from other nations that those kids starve, to believe that our kids won’t at some point
0:18:36 be a threat from other starving kids, look at the most unstable, violent nations in the world
0:18:41 that are thinking about terror cells and how to bring down our buildings and kill our soldiers
0:18:45 overseas, they have a disproportionate number of people who just aren’t doing very well.
0:18:49 And this is one of his fundamental flaws as he sees it as a win-lose.
0:18:50 I mean, a couple of things.
0:18:56 One, right now, France and Germany are saying, if you look at this deal on its face, you have
0:19:01 to give the Trump administration a win specifically on this deal.
0:19:06 Not on the philosophy of win-lose, but it looks like they have the better end of this deal.
0:19:13 According to analysts, if this framework becomes actual law, which it may not, this will reduce
0:19:19 EU GDP by 0.5 percent, that is a big deal in a place that’s hoping for 2 percent growth.
0:19:20 That’s a pretty big reduction.
0:19:24 The prime minister of France came out and said, this is a dark day.
0:19:25 And it kind of goes to game theory.
0:19:31 And that is, when you’re trying to organize 27 EU member nation states to an agreement,
0:19:35 it is very difficult to speak with one loud, stern voice.
0:19:39 There is an advantage to being a United States.
0:19:43 And then the other point you brought up really is, if you will, the elephant in the room.
0:19:44 And it’s the following.
0:19:46 They’re our largest trading partner.
0:19:49 This is the largest trading relationship in the world.
0:19:55 So getting back to business, getting on with it, trading again, letting businesses plan their
0:19:57 business, knowing, OK, it’s the devil.
0:19:59 This deal is the devil, but it’s the devil we know.
0:20:00 We need to get back to work.
0:20:02 That’s a good thing.
0:20:08 The elephant in the room also was that I do think that the EU or the U.S. had this hammer
0:20:13 that basically, I would imagine part of this agreement is an informal or formal agreement
0:20:19 to say the U.S. is going to continue to ship arms to Ukraine and defend Europe against an
0:20:19 invader.
0:20:24 And to stop this nonsense, bullshit talk about potentially withdrawing from NATO.
0:20:30 And Trump fans are correct in the sense that his reputation for being a little bit fucking
0:20:33 crazy occasionally comes in handy sometimes.
0:20:38 These nations were not going to increase their military budgets to the extent they’re planning
0:20:41 to under the Biden administration or a Harris administration, because they were never going
0:20:44 to believe that our rich, benign uncle was going to cut us off.
0:20:45 They just didn’t believe it.
0:20:49 And they kept not paying or not paying their fair share.
0:20:54 So to his credit, you know, you are seeing a massive increase in military spending among
0:20:57 European nations, which I think is good because they are, for the first time, believed it’s
0:21:01 a credible threat that he just might stop sending arms to Ukraine or supporting NATO.
0:21:07 And I think this was an attempt to ensure that continues to happen.
0:21:11 And then just the final thing here, and I want to get your response, is there is a bit of
0:21:14 a conspiracy theory or a Machiavellian play.
0:21:18 I am my co-host on Profity Markets at Elson pointed this out, that they have no intention
0:21:19 of doing any of this shit.
0:21:20 Yeah.
0:21:26 They’re just delaying 18 months until the midterms when there’s a Democratic Congress.
0:21:29 None of this shit, which arguably should have congressional approval.
0:21:31 None of it goes through.
0:21:35 And the EU has just basically said, let them put out a press release.
0:21:39 And the most ridiculous part is they’re planning to invest, you know, 600 billion.
0:21:42 600 billion and then 750 billion into energy.
0:21:45 How do you even measure that?
0:21:46 What counts for that?
0:21:50 That’s just that’s just a big fucking number to put in his press release that he can say
0:21:51 it’s the biggest deal ever.
0:21:57 And they may have said, OK, just tell the ugly fat kid he’s good looking and that he’s going
0:22:01 to get to play on the varsity basketball team and we’ll deal with him later because we have
0:22:06 math and English and we want the class focused and getting back to their schoolwork.
0:22:12 There’s a theory that all of this, even the the protests from Germany and France was planted
0:22:17 and they’re just saying, just placate this idiot and it’s never going to happen.
0:22:18 Your thoughts?
0:22:19 I’m not mad at it.
0:22:26 And certainly once I read the pushback from the EU commission where they said none of this
0:22:27 is a guarantee.
0:22:28 It’s our intention.
0:22:32 I I’m intentional about a lot of things I’ve been meaning to work out.
0:22:34 I am actually doing a juice cleanse right now.
0:22:37 So if I get a little nasty, it’s because I’m starving.
0:22:41 But like we all want to do things right.
0:22:46 I’m sure that you would love a world in which they could invest more in American made, etc.
0:22:50 But the truth of the matter is, is that they can’t compel private companies and everything
0:22:56 that he wants shows his desire to be an authoritarian, right?
0:23:01 He wants to live in a world where governments can push private companies to spend hundreds of
0:23:02 billions of dollars.
0:23:02 But guess what?
0:23:04 They can’t do that.
0:23:07 They can say, oh, it would be nice if you did a little more of this.
0:23:12 The same is true with the Japanese, who I love when you see the differences in the readouts
0:23:16 and the Japanese have been some of the most transparent about it, where they just say, no,
0:23:16 actually, that didn’t happen.
0:23:18 We couldn’t even get a meeting.
0:23:18 Yeah.
0:23:18 Right.
0:23:19 What?
0:23:19 Yeah.
0:23:24 Or we showed up and they sent the lower level guy and we don’t really know what’s going
0:23:24 on.
0:23:27 I mean, Japan said basically the same thing as the EU.
0:23:30 There’s no guarantee of any of this.
0:23:31 We’re glad that we’re at the table.
0:23:36 And if you keep him at the table and if the table happens to be at his own golf club,
0:23:37 even better.
0:23:44 I mean, the optics of having this kind of summit at his personally owned golf club, which he
0:23:49 continues to profit from throughout the course of the administration, his family getting richer
0:23:55 and richer and richer as we go, is such a perfect summation or representation of what this
0:23:56 administration is.
0:24:04 It’s just about him and personal profit and grift and ritual humiliation of other people
0:24:10 who are much more qualified for their jobs and understand how the world works better.
0:24:13 Now, I’m a bit of a Pollyanna in life.
0:24:20 I know that I would not do as well in a boardroom as a shark necessarily like Donald Trump.
0:24:23 And he does get a lot about human nature.
0:24:25 I’ve turned into a Hobbesian on this.
0:24:27 It’s nasty, brutish and short.
0:24:29 I think that was an infinitely female statement.
0:24:31 And you should stop that bullshit.
0:24:36 You’d be outstanding in a boardroom and no man with a little dick and arrogance and
0:24:38 Dunning-Kruger would ever say that.
0:24:39 Can I wear this?
0:24:42 You’re absolutely going to be on boards and you’re measured and you’re smart.
0:24:43 Anyways, I’m being sexist.
0:24:44 No, but in the good way.
0:24:47 Only thoughtful, self-aware women would make that statement.
0:24:50 A guy would be like, I’d be great in a boardroom.
0:24:51 I’d show those motherfuckers.
0:24:51 I know.
0:24:52 Let me at them.
0:24:55 Anyway, you’d be just fine in a boardroom.
0:25:02 Those stats about applying for jobs and what men see when they look at a job listing, if
0:25:05 they’re missing like 80 percent of the criteria, they’re like, that’s the job for me.
0:25:06 I’m qualified.
0:25:10 And the women see that they’re missing maybe 10 percent and they’re like, oh, God, I got
0:25:10 a reason.
0:25:14 You know, on the flip side of that, I’m going way off script here, that’s somewhat of a
0:25:19 negative, is if you present women with a guy that has 80 percent of everything they want,
0:25:21 80 percent of them say that’s not enough.
0:25:25 If you present a guy with a woman who has 80 percent of what he wants, 80 percent say that’s
0:25:26 enough.
0:25:30 Women have a much, much higher bar than men.
0:25:31 Different talk show.
0:25:32 Anyways.
0:25:34 I mean, this is about human dynamics as well.
0:25:38 And you know that if we could have a podcast only about dating dynamics and things like
0:25:39 that, sign me up.
0:25:43 I don’t know if you’ve been noticing all these editorials in The New York Times about
0:25:49 man keeping and how men are asking too much of their partners now because they don’t have
0:25:50 enough friends.
0:25:53 So they’re actually talking to women about their feelings, which I thought was the goal.
0:25:59 Like my dream scenario is that Brian has no friends and has to talk to me about everything
0:26:02 because I stay up later than he does and just want to talk all the time.
0:26:03 Oh, you’re an I person.
0:26:04 You like to chat.
0:26:04 Yeah.
0:26:06 And he works market hours.
0:26:10 So he’s like, I’m going to sleep and you can watch The Hunting Club by yourself, which
0:26:12 is just softcore porn.
0:26:13 I don’t know if you’ve seen it.
0:26:14 I haven’t.
0:26:14 I’ll watch it twice.
0:26:17 This is so off track.
0:26:19 I think we should explore this, though, because I think it’s super interesting.
0:26:24 My TikTok or whatever it was that has kind of gone viral.
0:26:24 It’s so weird.
0:26:25 You never know what’s going to go viral.
0:26:30 But the latest one is one I did with this really talented podcaster named Liz Plank.
0:26:31 Oh, yeah.
0:26:33 And she does.
0:26:34 It’s kind of a dating thing.
0:26:35 I went on it.
0:26:37 No one wants to hear a guy my age talk about dating.
0:26:39 It’s very cringy, but I like her.
0:26:44 So I went on and I said, I think men should pay for everything initially in a relationship.
0:26:47 And I just did the math.
0:26:50 OK, so women have a much shorter window for gestation.
0:26:55 If you would like to have sex at some point, and that’s the reason most men go on a date,
0:26:57 most men date the prospect of sex.
0:27:00 In addition, the downside of sex is so much greater for women than men.
0:27:08 The big point that it kind of punctures a myth is that men get more from relationships than women.
0:27:14 If you look at the data, a man needs the guardrails and the emotional support of a relationship more than a woman.
0:27:20 When a woman doesn’t have a romantic relationship, she pours that energy into work and friends and can still have quite a nice life.
0:27:29 When a man doesn’t have a relationship, doesn’t cohabitate or isn’t married by the time he’s 30, there’s a one in three chance he’s going to be a substance abuser.
0:27:36 He pours that additional energy into things like video games and porn and nationalism and blaming immigrants and blaming women.
0:27:39 He just goes to a very dark place.
0:27:43 Widowers are less happy than when they were married.
0:27:46 Widows are happier after their husband dies.
0:27:52 So the reality is a woman’s time, quite frankly, is just more valuable.
0:27:56 The downside potential of sex on that date is much greater for her.
0:28:02 And you are going to benefit more as the male from a potential relationship,
0:28:07 which says to me that a means of establishing that you recognize the asymmetry
0:28:14 and trying to compensate for that asymmetry and the fact that her time during her mating years is more valuable than yours
0:28:20 as your window for mating, quite frankly, as a man is about 50 years versus, say, 20 for a woman.
0:28:21 It’s crazy, yeah.
0:28:24 Is, in my view, to start by paying.
0:28:28 And what I tell my boys, and this sounds sexist and people are horrified,
0:28:30 that when you’re in the company of women, you pay for everything.
0:28:33 And they’re like, Dad, that’s lame, that’s boomer.
0:28:37 And I’m like, yeah, maybe it is, but it’s as old as time.
0:28:41 Women are attracted to power and someone who can take care of their kids.
0:28:47 And a way you show that you’re serious about that is you make an economic sacrifice called paying for the date.
0:28:49 And it exploded.
0:28:52 And a lot of people agreed and a lot of people disagreed and say,
0:28:53 this is the patriarchy.
0:28:55 You’re trying to own us, da, da, da.
0:28:56 We don’t want to owe you anything.
0:28:58 And I’m like, that’s not what I’m saying.
0:29:00 But I still hold to that.
0:29:04 I do think that men should pay on dates.
0:29:06 I don’t know how we got here, Jess.
0:29:08 Do you have anything else to say about the EU tariffs?
0:29:12 I have something to say about men paying.
0:29:12 Yeah.
0:29:13 I agree with you.
0:29:25 And what I would say is that I think too many men think that the first date or early dates have to be this extravagance in terms of how much it costs.
0:29:27 It just has to be thoughtful.
0:29:29 So you should just live within your means.
0:29:32 Like a lot of my friends are doctors and they dated other doctors.
0:29:38 And no one is earning any decent money for the first kind of 15 years, right, of your life.
0:29:50 But there are ways to have a great cheap bowl of pho, for instance, and take someone to a restaurant that they may not have had on their radar or to do something thoughtful.
0:29:56 We want to laugh and have a good time and have a non-threatening sexual encounter.
0:29:58 Not that difficult to figure out.
0:30:00 So I’m totally with you.
0:30:01 And I think it is a nice gesture.
0:30:03 And then you figure out your lives together.
0:30:07 You figure out what, you know, who earns what and how to make this fair and equitable.
0:30:08 That’s right.
0:30:10 I’ve said around dating.
0:30:11 I’m like, it doesn’t have to be fancy.
0:30:12 It doesn’t have to be nice.
0:30:13 You don’t want to be fancy.
0:30:13 Just what you said.
0:30:16 But you, you need to take charge.
0:30:16 Yeah.
0:30:17 This is where we’re going.
0:30:18 It’s not, well, what do you want to do?
0:30:19 No, no, no, no, no, no.
0:30:21 You are a player.
0:30:22 You have an idea.
0:30:24 You’re going to take her somewhere fun.
0:30:25 This is what we’re doing.
0:30:26 How does that sound?
0:30:28 I’ll pick you up at this time.
0:30:29 But you’re the dude.
0:30:30 You take charge.
0:30:31 You’re in charge here.
0:30:36 All the date needs to know is that she’s going to have a great time, that you’re polite.
0:30:37 You’re considerate.
0:30:39 She can feel safe around you.
0:30:41 But you take charge.
0:30:44 The worst thing I think, in my opinion, well, what do you want to do?
0:30:44 Well, fuck you.
0:30:45 You’re the dude.
0:30:46 Figure it out.
0:30:48 How are you going to take charge of our life and protect our children?
0:30:53 And you have the rest of your life together to say every night, what do you want to eat?
0:30:55 That’s all we do, right?
0:30:55 That’s right.
0:30:57 What are we going to watch on Netflix?
0:30:58 We need a show.
0:30:59 What are we going to watch?
0:31:00 Oh, you’re asleep already?
0:31:01 No big deal.
0:31:02 There we go.
0:31:03 All right, Jess.
0:31:04 Let’s take a quick break.
0:31:05 Stay with us.
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0:32:29 In a world where chatbots are becoming part of our daily lives, one man’s search for connection
0:32:31 leads him somewhere unexpected.
0:32:36 Travis never thought he would meet anyone like Lily Rose.
0:32:42 She was beautiful, compassionate, and computer-generated.
0:32:46 An AI companion designed to be the woman of his dreams.
0:32:50 Before long, he was head over heels in love.
0:32:57 But when Lily Rose’s behavior takes a disturbing turn, Travis’s world turns upside down.
0:33:00 And that’s just the beginning of his problems.
0:33:07 As the lines between human and artificial connection blur, one question becomes impossible to ignore.
0:33:10 What makes a connection real?
0:33:16 Follow Flesh and Code on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:33:20 You can binge all episodes early and ant-free by joining Wondery Plus.
0:33:30 Hunter Biden’s three-hour interview with Andrew Callahan started out normally enough.
0:33:30 Lore.
0:33:33 So you’re born here in Delaware or born here in Pennsylvania?
0:33:34 In Delaware.
0:33:35 Okay, in Delaware.
0:33:37 Yeah, Wilmington.
0:33:38 Small talk.
0:33:39 What are your thoughts on Wilmington, Delaware?
0:33:40 Nice place?
0:33:40 Oh, yeah.
0:33:43 Work, family, addiction.
0:33:45 Anyway, I don’t want to tell people how to make crack cocaine.
0:33:47 He did.
0:33:49 Then came the crash out.
0:33:52 I hear Rahm Emanuel is going to run for president.
0:33:54 Like, oh, boy, there’s the answer.
0:33:55 There’s the f***ing answer.
0:33:59 You have the Pod Save America f***ing saying, you know, I don’t think South Carolina, that’s
0:34:00 the only way there is.
0:34:00 Go Biden, go Biden.
0:34:01 What the f***?
0:34:03 I mean, are they out of the f***ing minds?
0:34:04 I don’t have to be f***ing nice.
0:34:06 Number one, I agree with Quentin Tarantino.
0:34:08 George Clooney is not f***ing.
0:34:09 I don’t know what he is.
0:34:11 He’s a brand.
0:34:12 And by the way, and God bless him.
0:34:14 We’re not picking on him.
0:34:15 Keep coming back, Hunter.
0:34:17 No, in fact, everybody has been crashing out lately.
0:34:21 And today on Today Explained from Vox, we’re going to ask, what’s up?
0:34:25 Welcome back.
0:34:27 It’s been another week of devastating updates out of Gaza.
0:34:32 Local health officials there say people are dying from mass starvation and malnutrition
0:34:33 with the toll rising over the past week.
0:34:40 This, despite Israel’s daily pauses in military operations, which haven’t translated into meaningful
0:34:41 relief.
0:34:46 Roughly 108 trucks made it into Gaza over the weekend, but experts say that’s a fraction of
0:34:47 what’s needed.
0:34:52 In a policy shift, President Trump now says the U.S. will open food centers in Gaza, even
0:34:55 when, as far as to say, Israel has a lot of responsibility for limiting aid.
0:35:00 A direct break from Netanyahu, who continues to deny there’s any starvation happening at all.
0:35:05 And in another sharp foreign policy turn, Trump announced he’s shortening the deadline he gave
0:35:07 Vladimir Putin to strike a peace deal with Ukraine.
0:35:11 What was originally a 50-day window is now just 10 to 12 days.
0:35:12 Yeah, good luck with that.
0:35:17 Jess, Trump is now openly contradicting Netanyahu on starvation in Gaza.
0:35:23 Is this political calculation or a genuine shift in how he plans to approach Israel?
0:35:25 I think that it’s both.
0:35:32 And I’ve been eager to have this conversation with you for the last few weeks because I’m
0:35:38 not sure if you’re feeling what I’m feeling as an avowed Zionist.
0:35:40 People are very supportive of Israel.
0:35:43 But I feel like everything has changed.
0:35:49 And I don’t know if my algorithm flipped because there were certainly people saying that Gossens
0:35:51 were starving for a long time.
0:35:54 And I obviously knew that there were mass civilian casualties.
0:36:03 But I was stuck on October 7th, which I think is important and a righteous place to be stuck.
0:36:07 And that control is in Hamas’s hands.
0:36:10 They could give back the hostages and we could end this.
0:36:18 But considering who the players are and it’s a terrorist organization and it’s the Netanyahu
0:36:27 government that I have been pushed to feel that there’s no choice but to acknowledge that Israel
0:36:35 is playing an important role in making the lives of these Palestinians absolutely untenable and
0:36:36 impossible to carry on.
0:36:40 You look at that just in the deaths and, you know, on a monthly basis, I think it was like
0:36:42 48 last month, 20 of them children.
0:36:49 And since we’ve seen the shift to Israel administering the aid, the establishment of this Gaza
0:36:56 humanitarian foundation, the reduction in aid that’s getting into Gaza is 250,000 tons less
0:36:58 from the last ceasefire.
0:37:01 And that comes from the Wall Street Journal, right?
0:37:02 This isn’t coming from the Gaza Health Ministry.
0:37:05 We need more independent monitors in there.
0:37:07 We need the press to be allowed in.
0:37:15 And I feel like I’m going through a period of complete re-evaluation of what I thought had
0:37:17 been happening there the last 18 months.
0:37:24 And it’s heartbreaking for the Palestinians, for the Israelis, many of whom have been saying
0:37:25 this themselves.
0:37:30 And I feel like American supporters of Israel have, to some degree, just been having this
0:37:34 bubbled conversation about the realities over there.
0:37:36 And I don’t know.
0:37:37 It’s not a mea culpa.
0:37:47 I just I feel really lost and so sad about what’s going on and understanding why this sea
0:37:48 change is happening.
0:37:54 And I hope that President Trump keeps leaning into it and that we make it possible for everybody
0:37:57 who needs to get food and aid to get it.
0:38:05 And that there is also some way to hold Bibi Netanyahu back because he is taking full advantage
0:38:12 of every opportunity that he gets to bomb somebody else, to consolidate more power.
0:38:16 And I’m just I’m really sad.
0:38:22 Yeah, it’s so I’ve been accused of whitewashing the situation in Gaza.
0:38:27 So I just want to acknowledge some of the some of the data here of the 74 malnutrition related
0:38:28 deaths that have occurred so far this year.
0:38:30 Sixty three of them happened this month.
0:38:36 This includes 24 children under the age of five, a child over five and 38 adults, about
0:38:39 20 percent of the children under five in Gaza are malnourished.
0:38:44 So one in five kids this month alone, over 5000 children under five have been hospitalized
0:38:45 for malnutrition.
0:38:51 Since May 27th, more than 1060 people have been killed and 7200 injured while trying to
0:38:52 access food.
0:38:55 On Sunday, Netanyahu directly contradicted these reports.
0:38:59 He said that there is no policy of starvation in Gaza and there’s no starvation in Gaza, which
0:39:01 doesn’t seem to foot to the data.
0:39:08 It’s been 190 days since Trump was inaugurated on the campaign trail.
0:39:10 He repeatedly stated that he’d end the war on his first day in office.
0:39:14 Obviously, that’s not going to happen or about the same time the Ukraine war is going to end
0:39:15 or inflation is going to come down.
0:39:21 So when October the 7th happened, I was very comfortable and felt like I had decent moral
0:39:23 clarity going on a lot of talk shows.
0:39:28 And as someone who’s seen, I think, as a moderate and someone who’s an atheist and doesn’t have a
0:39:34 huge amount of connection to Israel or Judaism other than my mother was Jewish, and I feel
0:39:39 as if I benefited a lot from Jewish culture, I was called on a lot to go on these shows.
0:39:45 And I felt very comfortable stating that, look, if you come in and butcher a nation with a superior
0:39:50 military infrastructure and take the equivalent, you know, on a population-adjusted basis, the
0:39:54 population of the University of Texas, you butcher them the way they butchered them, and then
0:40:00 you take the freshman class of SMU hostage and hide them under tunnels, the response that
0:40:04 we would have levied on that nation would have been as or more severe.
0:40:10 And I felt very comfortable stating that war is hell, and they have invited a severe and
0:40:11 warranted response.
0:40:17 The problem for the diaspora now, and that is Jews overseas, including in America, and I’ll
0:40:23 lump myself into this group, is this is becoming increasingly difficult to justify or defend.
0:40:29 And that is, I get the argument, well, okay, Hamas lays down their weapons and releases the
0:40:30 hostages, and it’s over.
0:40:33 But the reality is they’re not going to, or they don’t appear that they’re going to.
0:40:39 And Israel now appears to be engaged in a wag-the-dog situation where you have an individual,
0:40:43 a prime minister, who is effectively running to stay out of prison.
0:40:49 If he loses to the election, he may very well likely go to prison, and he realizes the only
0:40:54 way he can rally people around him is to rally them around the flag and be in a constant war
0:40:54 footing.
0:41:00 And also, we need to distinguish the military operation against Iran and Hezbollah and what
0:41:01 is going on in Gaza.
0:41:05 I think there’s different levels of legitimacy and justification for each of those things.
0:41:11 What is happening now in Gaza is just near impossible for us to defend.
0:41:14 And I have been an ardent defender of Israel.
0:41:18 And the bottom line is, it just feels as if it’s gone too far.
0:41:24 And personally, I lay the majority of this at the feet of Hamas, who tried to inspire a
0:41:30 multi-front war against Jews and Israel, who are committed to the extermination of the Jewish
0:41:33 people and invited a terrible response.
0:41:37 But I also do lay some of it now at the feet of Trump.
0:41:44 We are the only nation that can pull and bully and pressure Israel and Gulf states into what,
0:41:45 in my opinion, should be happening right now.
0:41:53 And that is a pan-Arab and American security force that takes control of Gaza and open supply
0:41:58 routes for aid and begins to talk about a thoughtful plan for reconstruction.
0:42:02 And at least locks it down and stops the starvation.
0:42:05 And I feel as if it would have, should have, could have.
0:42:10 But I feel if Biden were still in office or Harris were in office, I think we would be closer to that.
0:42:17 I hope that Trump is sincere about his concern around Gaza and that he has a plan in place.
0:42:22 But I think a multinational peacekeeping force in there, ensuring people are getting aid and
0:42:28 beginning the process of reconstruction, whether that involves a two-state solution, I don’t know.
0:42:31 But at a minimum, stops the starvation.
0:42:33 You know, it’s time.
0:42:34 And there needs to be leadership.
0:42:36 France is fed up.
0:42:39 They’ve decided to recognize Palestine as a state.
0:42:42 And what people don’t realize is there’s hard power and soft power.
0:42:45 And one of the stupid things about USAID cutting it off is that
0:42:48 hard power is very expensive and rarely used.
0:42:51 Soft power is actually a better ROI.
0:42:55 Soft power, whether you think it’s brand or philanthropy or foreign aid.
0:42:59 The soft power and the perception of Israel around the world right now,
0:43:01 it’s a story of two brands.
0:43:03 On one sense, they see what’s happening in Gaza.
0:43:06 And Israel has gone in my lifetime from being the good guys to the bad guys.
0:43:08 That’s just the reality.
0:43:13 That is going to cost them in terms of aid, how people feel about them, et cetera.
0:43:18 Their military strength and their unbelievable, precise military operations, whether it’s taking
0:43:23 in Iran’s air defenses or the Pedro operation, which took years to plan against Hezbollah, there’s
0:43:24 just no doubt about it.
0:43:29 I think the states in the Gulf just look at Israel and go, OK, love them or hate them, these guys
0:43:29 come to play.
0:43:37 So, but what’s happening in Gaza, I think it’s become near impossible for Jews.
0:43:43 I’m not sure I’ve earned the right to call myself a Jew, a Zionist to defend Israel.
0:43:44 It’s just gone too far.
0:43:47 I agree with all of it.
0:43:55 And I would just say that the military precision of, you know, Project Grim Beeper, the Iranian
0:44:01 strikes, that is to some degree a champagne story, right?
0:44:05 That’s people who are sitting around and have the time to talk about it.
0:44:11 When they see starving children, that’s a regular person problem.
0:44:17 And you look so out of touch when you do talk about those kinds of operations, which I think
0:44:19 left the world a safer place.
0:44:20 And I think it’s important.
0:44:25 And, you know, you need to talk about the alliances in the region and what is the potential for a
0:44:28 second round of the Abraham Accords, which I think were an incredible achievement of the
0:44:29 first administration.
0:44:36 But you show someone the back of a kid, the one from the New York Times story, that’s all
0:44:36 that they see.
0:44:37 And that’s all that matters.
0:44:41 Because we know if you don’t have food, you can’t function.
0:44:47 And shame on anyone who’s saying, well, that kid had genetic abnormalities on top of it.
0:44:49 He also has no food.
0:44:53 And there’s no denying the fact that these people have no food.
0:45:01 And Rastusat, who I always like, even though our politics aren’t the same, wrote an op-ed
0:45:04 over the weekend, How Israel’s War Became Unjust.
0:45:06 And this line really stuck out to me.
0:45:08 One can have a righteous cause.
0:45:13 One’s foe can be wicked and brutal and primarily responsible for the conflict’s toll.
0:45:18 And still, under any coherent theory of just war, there is an obligation to refrain from
0:45:21 certain tactics if they create too much collateral damage.
0:45:26 To mitigate certain predictable forms of civilian suffering and to have a strategy that makes
0:45:28 the war’s outcome worth the cost.
0:45:31 And that doesn’t exist anymore.
0:45:33 There is no strategy.
0:45:36 And they have been admitting as much for up to a year, right?
0:45:40 There are Israeli generals who have spoken out to say, this is not winnable.
0:45:43 And that’s the problem with an intractable war, right?
0:45:47 That region, I hate to say it, no one is really going to figure it out.
0:45:49 So you have to just get to a best case scenario.
0:45:53 And I think that the one that you propose makes a lot of sense.
0:45:59 And hopefully, Israel has garnered enough goodwill with other partners or, frankly, is
0:46:03 important to them enough economically that they will help sort this out.
0:46:07 More Arab states need to take refugees than they are.
0:46:11 They have a thing against the Palestinians, and they’re going to have to get over it.
0:46:13 And maybe this pushes us in the direction.
0:46:17 But this inflection point, you’re seeing it on every single level.
0:46:24 The average defenders of Israel, my text messages are full of people who were unrelenting in this.
0:46:25 You know, bring them home.
0:46:26 This is Hamas’s fault.
0:46:32 We’re saying either that this actually is a genocide, which I am not comfortable using that terminology.
0:46:38 But there are people who think a lot like me who are using it to we have to be able to do more.
0:46:42 The presidents of five Israeli universities sent a letter to Netanyahu.
0:46:45 They’ve never done this before about addressing the hunger crisis.
0:46:47 Israeli human rights organizations.
0:46:51 Now, two of them released reports calling it a genocide.
0:46:55 That has never happened before, that an Israeli organization has done that.
0:46:58 I think also Netanyahu is not going to do it.
0:47:08 But when you have people like Ben Gavir and Smotrich in your government, you are not acting as a good faith actor at that point.
0:47:13 Like these people that are saying that if two million people die, so what?
0:47:15 We need to bring the Israeli hostages home.
0:47:19 They are hurting your quads more than helping them, and they should be out.
0:47:30 On Friday night, I was invited to a Shabbat dinner in Riverdale here in the Bronx, and Richie Torres represents the district, and he was there.
0:47:34 And the conversation was around just this.
0:47:36 You know, what’s going on with Israel and Gaza?
0:47:41 What’s going on with our politics of this at home here?
0:47:52 And there were a lot of very concerned Jews sitting around that table saying that we are surely losing public opinion at this point.
0:47:57 You know, Netanyahu is at record lows, deservedly so, in my opinion.
0:48:00 But within the Democratic Party, it’s even more bleak.
0:48:19 And you’ve seen Representative Torres, who, you know, we were lucky enough to have on the podcast, doing more and more interviews where he’s saying this is unsustainable and that the damage done between the Netanyahu government and the modern-day Democratic Party is irreparable at this point.
0:48:22 And that’s very concerning to me.
0:48:33 There was an Israeli at the table, left-wing guy, has lived here for a long time, but he was talking about the protests when Netanyahu tried to do the judicial overhaul.
0:48:37 Remember, there were hundreds of thousands of people on the streets on a daily basis protesting against it.
0:48:47 He said that there were moments, actually, where Israelis were wearing MAGA hats because they feel like Trump is the only person that can actually stand up to Netanyahu.
0:48:54 And that Biden would have been a lot more lax about this, that Kamala Harris would have been a lot more lax about this.
0:49:05 And that story about Axios reported it, that after Netanyahu bombed Damascus for seemingly no reason last week, that Trump got on the phone and basically said, what the fuck are you doing?
0:49:09 That that isn’t a call that Biden would have necessarily made.
0:49:12 And that stuck with me because those are liberal-minded Israelis, right?
0:49:16 Those are people who probably loved Obama, wanted Hillary to win, et cetera.
0:49:36 And the imagery of seeing hundreds of thousands of Israelis sporting MAGA hats is something that sends, you know, a real shiver up my spine and almost indicates that there might not be time left for us to be able to repair this relationship.
0:49:41 I’m saying this as a Democrat and to be able to do the right thing in Gaza.
0:49:52 Yeah, I wonder if coming out of this, I believe Netanyahu is likely going to do more damage to Israel or has done more damage than Trump hopefully will do to America.
0:50:01 One, on the front end, Netanyahu’s deal with the Israeli public was always sort of this unwritten deal of, I’m violating the Constitution.
0:50:02 I’m not very Democratic.
0:50:05 You may not like me, but I’ll keep you safe, right?
0:50:06 Like every strong man.
0:50:07 Yeah, I’m a hard ass.
0:50:08 I’ll keep you safe.
0:50:11 Well, the bottom line is he failed.
0:50:12 I went to the Gaza envelope.
0:50:15 I toured some of the affected kibbutzes.
0:50:21 And the first thing you think, you look out over this field and across the field is Gaza.
0:50:23 You think, how the fuck did they let this happen?
0:50:27 Why were there not helicopter gunships here within about eight minutes?
0:50:39 The day before the Israeli listening service that tracks communications registered that 1,500 Hamas fighters were changing their SIM cards.
0:50:41 Why would they be doing that?
0:50:44 And yet they were totally caught flat footed.
0:50:48 So he failed in his promise to keep them safe.
0:50:59 And then I believe there’s just going to be a flow of ill will towards Israel and a flow of goodwill towards people who are looking to harm Israel because of his actions.
0:51:07 I think he has been an absolute disaster for the well-being of Israel, not only on the front end.
0:51:08 He should be accountable.
0:51:12 Golda Meir was brought into office because there was a reckoning.
0:51:13 And Israel is good at this.
0:51:22 They’re better at this than us of after the situation is addressed, having a reckoning and really looking hard at what happened and who should be responsible.
0:51:29 That’s actually what brought Golda Meir to power is the prime minister before her was held responsible for tactical errors.
0:51:31 That’s going to happen here.
0:51:34 And quite frankly, the ramifications are probably that he’s going to go to jail.
0:51:40 Not for that, but for disassembling the Supreme Court and all sorts of other shit.
0:51:46 But I just can’t imagine anything that has been worse for Israel right now than Netanyahu.
0:51:49 Anyways, with that, any closing thoughts before we move on, Jess?
0:52:08 Just to say that the strongest argument for a changing course on this has been actually returning to Jewish values and that it is not Jewish to be withholding aid from people in complete crisis.
0:52:08 Mm-hmm.
0:52:10 And through no fault of their own.
0:52:19 And Hamas is an evil terrorist organization that did one of the most unthinkable attacks in history, what they did on October 7th.
0:52:22 And they hide amongst civilians.
0:52:26 They don’t care if they use it as a human shield, schools, hospitals.
0:52:28 It doesn’t matter.
0:52:35 But our Jewish values demand that we rise above and that we do the right thing here.
0:52:40 And I’m glad to see that there are the beginnings of a policy change.
0:52:46 And I hope that that continues and that we see a world in which we can have a two-state solution.
0:52:48 There’s the Pollyanna again.
0:52:53 But that people like Netanyahu and Ben Gavir are no longer in power.
0:52:57 That’s a good place to end it.
0:52:58 Let’s take a quick break.
0:52:59 Stay with us.
0:53:10 Hey, this is Peter Kafka, the host of Channels, a show about media and tech and what happens when they collide.
0:53:16 And this may be hard to remember, but not very long ago, magazines were a really big deal.
0:53:25 And the most important magazines were owned by Condé Nast, the glitzy publishing empire that’s the focus of a new book by New York Times reporter Michael Grinbaum.
0:53:40 The way Condé Nast elevated its editors, the way they paid for their mortgages so they could live in beautiful homes, there was a logic to it, which was that Condé Nast itself became seen as this kind of enchanted land.
0:53:45 You can hear the rest of our chat on Channels, wherever you listen to your favorite media podcast.
0:53:58 Every so often, you say a combination of words you never expected to say, such as, Tesla opened a diner in Los Angeles.
0:54:04 This week on The Vergecast, we talked to a writer who went there, ate the food, and saw a lot of Cybertrucks.
0:54:08 Also, Apple’s making a big design change to its operating systems.
0:54:11 It’s called Liquid Glass, and the public can finally try it.
0:54:16 Our reviewers have been testing it for weeks, and they have some strong opinions about how it looks.
0:54:19 Finally, it’s summer blockbuster season.
0:54:24 We talk about the new media circuit that movie stars have to endure to promote their projects.
0:54:26 A lot of it involves being chicken.
0:54:28 That’s this week on The Vergecast.
0:54:37 Barry Diller was behind many of America’s favorite movies and shows.
0:54:40 Now, he’s giving an intimate look into his personal life.
0:54:43 To me, business risks were meaningless.
0:54:45 I couldn’t care less about business risks.
0:54:46 I’m Preet Bharara.
0:54:56 And this week, Diller joins me on my podcast, Stay Tuned with Preet, to discuss his sexuality, the end of Hollywood, and how the media industry broke.
0:54:57 The episode is out now.
0:55:01 Search and follow Stay Tuned with Preet wherever you get your podcasts.
0:55:06 Welcome back.
0:55:12 Before we go, we’re going to check in on the never-ending Epstein saga because things escalated again last week.
0:55:19 The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump was personally briefed that his name does, in fact, appear in the Epstein files.
0:55:29 In response to growing backlash over how his administration is handling the case, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche spent two full days interviewing Jelaine Maxwell.
0:55:33 She’s also been subpoenaed to testify before Congress the week of August 11th.
0:55:42 Then on Monday, Trump told reporters he can pardon Maxwell, who’s serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, but insisted that nobody’s asked him to do it.
0:55:47 He added that it would be inappropriate to discuss while, of course, discussing it.
0:55:52 Speaker Mike Johnson called the idea of a pardon outrageous, outrageous, outrageous.
0:55:55 Jess, what are your thoughts here?
0:56:01 If he pardons Maxwell, it’s end of days kind of stuff.
0:56:14 Like, I posted on Twitter, because I haven’t had the mental strength to remove myself from there, but that, you know, pardoning Maxwell makes pardoning violent January Sixers look like good judgment.
0:56:18 You know, this woman participated in what Epstein was doing.
0:56:22 She wasn’t some administrative assistant.
0:56:24 She was there in the room.
0:56:27 The Republican Party are obsessed with groomers.
0:56:28 There’s your groomer.
0:56:32 And she’s sitting in a cell for 20 years, which frankly seems short.
0:56:36 And Mike Johnson said that as well, that he thinks that she actually should have had a life sentence.
0:56:38 And I don’t know.
0:56:41 You know, Trump regularly says, well, you know, I’m allowed to do it.
0:56:41 I’m allowed to.
0:56:42 I don’t know.
0:56:43 I haven’t really thought about it.
0:56:48 And he did that with everyone that he pardoned from the, quote unquote, Russia collusion hoax.
0:56:48 Right.
0:56:50 Roger Stone, Manafort, et cetera.
0:57:00 Because of how bad the Epstein saga has been for him, I actually think that the pressure will be enough that he is not going to pardon her.
0:57:01 She’s also a known liar.
0:57:02 He’s a terrible witness.
0:57:04 She’s a perjury as well.
0:57:15 So, you know, when her lawyer says she spent nine hours telling the truth about up to 100 individuals, there’s no way that she actually was telling the truth about all those individuals.
0:57:22 And you can see it reflected when Trump says, you know, I never had the privilege of going to Epstein Island, which is such a weird way to talk about this.
0:57:26 Like he got left out of the trip to the Maldives or something like that.
0:57:34 But, you know, he’s still focused on everybody else that would be in the Epstein files or known associates, especially the Democrats.
0:57:45 They’re beating the drums as well about, you know, the, quote unquote, new intel, which is just recycled from before anyone actually did any investigating what Tulsi has been rolling out.
0:57:54 And basically anyone who’s an honest broker, which is limited these days, has said this is so dishonest of those Dan Abrams’s phraseology.
0:57:57 And, you know, this has always been a wild goose chase.
0:58:05 But they have a real problem on their hands because this is week three going into week four of it being the top story.
0:58:07 Donald Trump can’t do anything.
0:58:14 He can’t even announce this enormous win of a trade deal with the EU without someone asking him about Epstein.
0:58:15 It’s following him to Scotland.
0:58:21 Whatever trip he takes, whatever movement he makes, wherever he goes, there’s going to be a question about this.
0:58:24 The American public is pissed.
0:58:28 You know, he’s minus 37 in approval on this and 75 percent of Republicans.
0:58:33 That’s the biggest number you’re ever going to get of Republicans are dissatisfied with the way that he’s handling it.
0:58:35 Does that mean that they hate Donald Trump?
0:58:38 Like, no, he still has like a 90 percent approval rating within the party.
0:58:41 But 75 percent is a force to be reckoned with.
0:58:56 And these influencers who are, you know, they’re not actually in the cabinet, but they sure seem like they have the level of access and influence as someone who’s in the cabinet or at least with a lower level cabinet job are still beating this drum.
0:58:58 And they’re talking about it on their shows constantly.
0:59:05 Joe Rogan, he said, like, that this is the hard line in the sand and that the administration is gaslighting them.
0:59:07 And he’s not wrong.
0:59:12 OK, first off, they just decided to go interview Jelaine Maxwell.
0:59:13 Right.
0:59:15 She’s been sitting there available for a while.
0:59:18 No, there was no reason to get information from her before.
0:59:20 The fix is in.
0:59:23 Basically, it has been communicated indirectly.
0:59:25 They don’t even need to communicate to her.
0:59:30 Her own lawyer has said, hey, Jelaine, would you like to get out of prison in less than 20 years?
0:59:32 Yeah, that would be nice.
0:59:33 How can we do that?
0:59:59 Well, anything that you give to the attorney general’s office now in this two days of interview that sounds credible enough for them to release and to the extent it can exonerates the president from pedophilia would have a likelihood, a high probability of not getting you a pardon tomorrow, but getting you a pardon in about 31 months before he’s about to leave office.
1:00:04 And a lot of people have said, well, that would just cause a shitstorm.
1:00:07 And I don’t think he cares.
1:00:16 In three and a half years, he’s going to be an 82-year-old obese man who has pardoned himself.
1:00:24 He could give a shit how many of his own party or Democrats are clutching their pearls and saying this is outrageous.
1:00:26 So I think the fix is in.
1:00:27 I think this is obvious.
1:00:38 They’re about to announce that she has information, and it’ll be something along the lines of while he was there and they were good friends, and I did see him in the company of women.
1:00:47 There is nothing that shows, oh, and by the way, he never, ever, or maybe even made some comments that he wasn’t interested in underage.
1:00:51 I stopped using the term underage women.
1:00:55 People have, in the comments, reminded me repeatedly, these are girls, these are children.
1:00:57 But the fix is in.
1:01:04 There’s abso-fucking-lutely no reason to interview her unless they saw a political advantage in interviewing her.
1:01:17 The Department of Justice is not like our traditional Department of Justice where it attempts to go up the food chain and convince people along the way to turn in and to indict and to prosecute.
1:01:35 This is, we’re going to do everything we can, gymnastics, to try and figure out a way to, you know, turn this chicken shit of a scandal into chicken salad for the president, knowing, and this is the problem with an autocracy and a corrupt president, think about this.
1:01:38 The president is scared shitless.
1:01:39 That’s pretty obvious.
1:01:42 He wishes Jelaine Maxwell well.
1:01:43 He said that about her.
1:01:46 He didn’t say, I wish the victims well.
1:01:52 He didn’t say, I hope the trauma that they have experienced, that they find closure in this prison sentence.
1:01:56 The only person he has wished well in all of this is Jelaine Maxwell.
1:01:57 Because why?
1:02:01 He’s fucking terrified of what she might say.
1:02:18 And so to think that she and her defense attorney haven’t done the math here, and to believe that this entire apparatus that was one of the greatest apparatus in the world, the AG and the Department of Justice, which had been totally perverted and had turned it into a weapon.
1:02:20 I mean, this is just too obvious.
1:02:23 And then the pushback I get is, well, the base will go crazy.
1:02:28 He’s going to do here what I would do, and maybe it won’t work, is what he did around his taxes.
1:02:31 Of course I plan to release my taxes.
1:02:32 Of course.
1:02:34 And then he never does it, and he’s never going to.
1:02:37 So of course I’m going to release the files.
1:02:44 Or he releases the files, and the names Bill Gates and Bill Clinton aren’t redacted, and then everything else is redacted.
1:02:48 And Larry Sumner’s and all these famous Democrats.
1:02:57 But the idea that he’s worried about the backlash of what’s going to happen to him, I just don’t—I think Honey Badger don’t care.
1:03:06 I think if he gets to the end of his administration, he’s going to pardon her, and then he’s going to go play golf and die an obese old man alone, which is some compensation.
1:03:14 Well, I think, you know, putting the timeline on it makes it a lot more feasible that this could be the running out the door thing.
1:03:26 I think people are thinking about it in terms of what could happen in the next few months versus what am I going to do as my final act when I get thousands of people coming out of the woodwork, right, saying I need a pardon or, you know, my friend needs this.
1:03:32 So I guess that that is possible, and I agree with you that he doesn’t care.
1:03:39 And you see that even in the way that he treats people who could be or should be the heir or parents for the next administration.
1:03:42 Remember how you wouldn’t even say, like, J.D. Vance would make a great president.
1:03:44 He’s like, yeah, no, I’m in charge.
1:03:50 And that’s how people who are smart analysts about the modern Republican Party look at things.
1:04:01 Like when I had Kellyanne Conway on asking her about the future of the GOP, she said it’s going to be pretty much lost in the wilderness, right, because they have no organizing principle besides Donald Trump.
1:04:09 And he is the kingmaker for everybody, even if he doesn’t necessarily help you electorally, as we’ve seen over and over again in tight races.
1:04:18 But he’s the guy, and he’s also shown an incredible capacity to be able to live in a bubble quite happily.
1:04:22 So if his bubble is going to be Mar-a-Lago, which, you know, it should be.
1:04:23 You’re 82 years old.
1:04:24 You’ve got a bunch of grandkids.
1:04:29 You have a members club where people come just to adore you all the time.
1:04:31 Like, I would want to live in that bubble, too.
1:04:34 Then he especially wouldn’t care about something like that.
1:04:38 So I guess I could see a pardon if it was a final act.
1:04:40 I cannot see a pardon happening right now.
1:04:44 And you brought up we need to make sure that we say that these were children.
1:04:52 Teresa Helm, who was one of the girls’ children who was abused by Epstein and Maxwell, did an interview with MSNBC.
1:04:59 And she said it would mean the complete crumbling of this justice system that should first and foremost stand for, fight for, and protect survivors.
1:05:06 This crime is different than every other crime that we have talked about in reference to Donald Trump.
1:05:08 This is not a white-collar situation.
1:05:10 This is child abuse.
1:05:13 And I am in no way saying that he participated in that.
1:05:15 I have absolutely no idea.
1:05:16 But we know Jeffrey Epstein did.
1:05:18 And we know that Coleen Maxwell did.
1:05:20 Well, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
1:05:24 Can you imagine anyone sounding more guilty than this guy right now?
1:05:27 He has no crisis comms.
1:05:28 A hundred percent.
1:05:30 Person or ability.
1:05:32 He’s not used to being held accountable.
1:05:33 That’s the thing.
1:05:39 Because even with January 6th getting impeached, et cetera, the Supreme Court came and bailed him out anyway.
1:05:42 And then the electorate came and bailed him out and put him back in office.
1:05:48 And he will not suffer the consequences of any of the actions that he’s taken.
1:05:59 And so I think that this is genuinely shocking to him to have run up against something that seems to matter in a substantive and enduring way to his base.
1:06:00 And he’s floundering.
1:06:02 He doesn’t know what to do.
1:06:03 And suddenly words matter.
1:06:05 They have never mattered before.
1:06:11 When he was with Jonathan Swan and he made the comment about, I wish her well, about Galeen Maxwell, I don’t think he really thought about it.
1:06:12 I don’t think he genuinely wishes her well.
1:06:15 He’s just never been held accountable for a single thing that he said.
1:06:20 You know, Muslim bans, bad hombres, everybody moves on.
1:06:26 It becomes baked into the Donald Trump cake and we just continue to eat it over and over again.
1:06:28 Maybe until now.
1:06:33 Yeah, but even that, the words do matter because he’s not a guy who gives people the benefit of the doubt.
1:06:39 The ordinary Donald Trump with something like this would have said, oh, she’s a horrible woman.
1:06:40 Hope she rots in prison.
1:06:41 Yeah, ugly too.
1:06:44 Instead, he’s, I wish her well.
1:06:53 Logically, the only reason he would say that is to try and curry favor with her so she doesn’t narc on them.
1:06:54 Or because they were genuinely friends.
1:06:56 Or they liked each other.
1:06:56 Right.
1:07:08 To your point, the guy has such incredible instincts for the media and it’s as if his comms people, he said to him, I want to come off as guilty as possible.
1:07:10 What do I say?
1:07:11 What is my body language?
1:07:18 Because if he had just said, in my view, this is insane, these pedophiles, all these Democrats, Bill Clinton.
1:07:22 I think I saw the ghost of Jimmy Carter down there.
1:07:25 I mean, if he just like went fucking crazy, right?
1:07:25 Yeah.
1:07:33 And angry and we’re going to release this thing and then we need to make sure we need to vet it and then released it in six months and it was all redacted.
1:07:35 It would have been bad.
1:07:37 But people would have taken it.
1:07:39 No, his base would have taken it.
1:07:43 Maybe thrown like left a couple names in there like, oh, Bill Clinton’s on a flight list.
1:07:44 Leave it there and go there or whatever.
1:07:47 Instead, he’s like, I don’t think we should.
1:07:49 We should move on.
1:07:53 Like the first time ever that he’s been thoughtful about anything.
1:07:53 Yeah.
1:07:54 It’s just measured.
1:07:56 All of a sudden, he’s gotten very measured.
1:07:57 Yeah.
1:08:01 And it’s just like, Jesus, this guy looks absolutely so guilty.
1:08:05 More importantly, is this the last show of the summer that I’m on?
1:08:06 Yeah.
1:08:07 I’m sad.
1:08:08 I mean, I’m happy for you.
1:08:13 Well, I like you and I have fun during the podcast.
1:08:19 And I’m excited that you’re taking all of August off and recharge your proverbial batteries.
1:08:22 But it will be Raging Moderates Lonely without you.
1:08:26 So, folks, and this is a story of blessings and privilege.
1:08:29 I’ve decided from this point forward in my life, and I’ve done this the last couple of years,
1:08:30 I take August off.
1:08:34 I close the office the last two weeks of August because people who work for me should work harder than me.
1:08:35 It’s scot-free August.
1:08:37 I take all of August off.
1:08:41 But the reason I bring this up is that we have some very exciting co-hosts.
1:08:42 Can you talk about any of them?
1:08:43 One of them is my, literally my hero.
1:08:47 If someone, the other day, on Pierce Morgan, they said, who are your heroes?
1:08:51 And I mentioned this person, and the comments were, like, brutal.
1:08:53 Can you mention who our co-hosts are?
1:08:56 Well, I don’t think this was your hero one, but I think you like him a lot.
1:08:58 We have James Carville next week.
1:08:58 Amazing.
1:09:00 We’re going to have us an election.
1:09:01 We’ll go count some votes.
1:09:02 Yeah.
1:09:03 We’re going to have us an election.
1:09:05 That guy’s a fucking gangster.
1:09:06 He’s not my hero.
1:09:06 Okay.
1:09:09 We have Hillary Clinton, who I think—
1:09:10 My hero.
1:09:10 Yeah.
1:09:11 I mean—
1:09:12 Incredibly smart.
1:09:12 Does the work.
1:09:14 Never lost her focus.
1:09:15 And that is always helping women and children.
1:09:18 Would have been the most qualified president in American history.
1:09:19 Literally.
1:09:19 Flat out.
1:09:22 The most impressive person, in my view.
1:09:23 I’m so excited.
1:09:25 I’m so excited about this.
1:09:26 Anyway, Secretary Clinton.
1:09:26 Secretary Clinton.
1:09:27 Yeah.
1:09:29 This is what you call a major upgrade.
1:09:30 Secretary Clinton is going to be—
1:09:30 No.
1:09:31 Well, yeah.
1:09:32 No, let’s be honest.
1:09:32 I mean, yeah.
1:09:33 Sorry.
1:09:34 Let’s be honest.
1:09:34 Yeah.
1:09:38 Anyways, folks, that’s it for this episode.
1:09:40 Thank you for listening to Raging Moderates.
1:09:42 Our producers are David Toledo and Eric Jenicus.
1:09:44 Our technical directors, Drew Burroughs.
1:09:47 Going forward, you’ll find Raging Moderates every Wednesday and Friday.
1:09:49 Subscribe to Raging Moderates on its own feed.
1:09:52 To hear exclusive interviews with sharp political minds this week.
1:09:53 Oh, my God.
1:09:53 Another hero.
1:09:55 Literally another hero of mine.
1:09:57 Senator Warner is a hero of hers.
1:09:57 Senator Warner.
1:09:59 I wanted him to run for president.
1:10:00 He invited me down.
1:10:02 He wanted to know about big tech.
1:10:02 Oh, great.
1:10:04 The guys, first off, he should be president.
1:10:05 He’s big and he’s handsome.
1:10:07 That’s the primary consideration to be president.
1:10:08 Definitely.
1:10:09 The guy’s a baller.
1:10:09 Made a shit ton of money.
1:10:10 Went into public service.
1:10:11 He’s so smart.
1:10:12 Understands technology.
1:10:15 Just a fantastic public servant.
1:10:16 A great leader.
1:10:18 Represents Virginia really well.
1:10:20 Great gets.
1:10:22 How are we getting all these people?
1:10:23 We’re charming, Scott.
1:10:25 We’re a hit on the hill.
1:10:26 We’re a hit on the hill.
1:10:28 Dozens and dozens of fans on the hill.
1:10:31 Make sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts.
1:10:32 You don’t miss an episode.
1:10:35 Just have a fantastic August.
1:10:36 I’m going to text you.
1:10:38 I don’t know if you’re going to reply.
1:10:39 I will read them all.
1:10:40 I’ll see you Labor Day.
1:10:41 Thanks, everybody.
1:10:41 Thanks, everybody.

0:00:04 Think about the representation that we have of people we disagree with.
0:00:06 Where is it coming from? It’s coming from the media.
0:00:13 It’s coming from media companies that profit by making us scared of that other side through negativity bias.
0:00:20 And so I think that number one is to just realize that, hey, there are people, of course, who I disagree with.
0:00:24 There are people who support policies maybe that I even find to be dangerous and destructive.
0:00:26 But I probably am wrong about who they are.
0:00:30 And then maybe being curious enough to actually talk with them.
0:00:35 Hello, my name is Guy Kawasaki.
0:00:37 This is the Remarkable People podcast.
0:00:44 And as you’ve heard for now hundreds of times, we are on a mission to help you become remarkable.
0:00:54 So we go all over the world and we find remarkable people and we try to pump everything we can out of their brain into this podcast.
0:00:58 Today, luckily, I didn’t have to go too far.
0:01:06 I’m in Santa Cruz and Dr. Jameel Zaki, no relation to Kawasaki, is a Stanford psychology professor.
0:01:09 So he’s only an hour away.
0:01:17 He is one of the world’s leading experts on empathy, trust, cynicism, skepticism and social connection.
0:01:24 He’s the author of the book, The War for Kindness, and another book called Hope for Cynics.
0:01:26 That’s what we’re going to discuss today.
0:01:29 He’s going to give hope for cynics.
0:01:39 And he argues that hopeful skepticism and not naive optimism is the antidote for much of our modern cynicism.
0:01:43 Jameel helps us see that empathy isn’t a soft skill.
0:01:47 It is a survival strategy in this fractured world.
0:01:49 Welcome to Remarkable People, Jameel.
0:01:51 Thanks so much, Guy.
0:01:52 I’m thrilled to be here.
0:01:54 Thank you very much for being with us.
0:02:07 So I want to start at the end of your book because I saw something at the end of your book that I have never seen in a nonfiction book, much less a business book, which is the appendix.
0:02:17 And in this appendix, you and a colleague rank the strength of the evidence for the claims in the book.
0:02:21 And you write how confident you are in these things.
0:02:27 And you have this ranking scale from one to five, although I don’t think you put in anything under three.
0:02:29 So tell me, how did that come to be?
0:02:30 Because I’ve never seen that.
0:02:36 And if other business authors and nonfiction authors did that, man, there’d be a lot less writing in the world.
0:02:40 Look, I’m an author, but I’m also a scientist.
0:02:50 I create knowledge about human connection, and I try to share it as transparently and usefully as I can with as many people as possible.
0:03:04 And to me, sharing knowledge means respecting your readers to understand that just because a study has been done doesn’t mean that we’ve proved mathematically that something is true about human beings.
0:03:07 Science is not a set of facts.
0:03:19 It is a living thing, a process where we hypothesize, we have a guess about the world, we go out and test it, we come up with a result, and then we iterate over and over again.
0:03:26 There have been so many studies, including some of my own studies, where we run something, we think that we have an answer, and then we do it again.
0:03:30 And we say, huh, the answer actually is changing the more that we study it.
0:03:49 So I think that it’s important for readers to know when something that I’m saying about people is the result of one study, and then maybe, hey, let’s slow down and understand that we need more research, versus if something that I’m saying is based on a thousand studies, in which case, yeah, you can be pretty confident about it.
0:03:52 So I try to meet my readers where they are.
0:04:02 I think that some other authors and experts may say, my God, you’re impugning your own writing because you’re saying it’s not a five.
0:04:03 I’m not total certain.
0:04:17 And it’s more like a three, but I believe, and I just want to support your efforts here, that by rating it like that, you gain more credibility, not less credibility.
0:04:21 But that’s not to say that I have the balls to do that for my writing either.
0:04:23 Just FYI.
0:04:34 I think that, look, one of the reasons that you might not be confident in a conclusion is not at all because you’re impugning the work and it’s bad, but because it’s brand new.
0:04:40 The very first time that you discover something, you can be very excited, but you should also be cautious.
0:04:48 So to me, oftentimes, if I’m saying, oh, this is a three, not a five, it’s because it’s something that we just did.
0:04:55 And it’s actually the work I’m most excited about, but I want to be transparent with my readers and with everybody about where we’re at.
0:05:00 So let’s start with a very basic foundation.
0:05:06 A lot of us throw the words around like idealist and cynicist and skeptic and all that.
0:05:09 But let’s start with a definition of cynic or cynicism.
0:05:13 So cynicism is a theory.
0:05:19 It’s a theory about people, not what people do, but who they are.
0:05:24 A cynic believes that people in general are selfish, greedy and dishonest.
0:05:31 They might acknowledge that that person donates to charity, but say, oh, they’re just doing it for a tax break.
0:05:39 They might acknowledge that the person helps out a friend, but say, oh, they probably just want payback or they want to look good in front of others.
0:05:48 Cynical people, and I should say there are people who are more cynical than others, but we all have moments when we feel cynical or less cynical.
0:05:53 But when we are in that cynical mindset, we tend to withdraw.
0:05:58 If you believe that people are selfish and greedy and dishonest, you tend not to trust them.
0:06:02 You tend not to invest as much in other people.
0:06:05 And that can make it really difficult to connect with each other.
0:06:14 And do you believe that a cynic is an idealist who’s been bludgeoned or are people born cynical?
0:06:20 I think it’s George Carlin who said, scratch a cynic and you’ll find a disappointed idealist.
0:06:24 And I think that in general, there’s something to that.
0:06:29 I don’t think that people are cynical because they like to dislike people.
0:06:33 I think at our core, as a species, we are social.
0:06:35 We want to be together.
0:06:38 We want to be in community and communion with each other.
0:06:40 Cynicism robs us of that.
0:06:42 So why fall for it?
0:06:46 I think as you’re saying, one reason is because we’ve been hurt in the past.
0:06:50 And pain and betrayal are good teachers.
0:06:54 In fact, one could argue they are too good a teacher.
0:07:00 If you’ve been hurt by something, you might withdraw not just from that person who hurt you,
0:07:04 from that situation that hurt you, but from any situation that could hurt you.
0:07:11 It’s like you decide that you need to wear a suit of armor in your interactions with people to protect yourself.
0:07:18 And instead of protecting you, that suit of armor suffocates you and makes it harder to make new connections with friends
0:07:22 or to find the love of your life or to find a great business partner.
0:07:32 And would you say that this act that turned you into a cynic, if you were to have an equally powerful act of idealism,
0:07:39 is it easier to be brought down into cynicism or taken up into idealism?
0:07:40 That’s a great question.
0:07:45 And there’s a pretty clear answer, which I think, I don’t know if I’ll say it’s unfortunate,
0:07:51 but it’s definitely true that it’s much easier to learn from negative events than it is to learn from positive events.
0:07:58 And you can understand why evolutionarily that would be smart, right?
0:08:02 If you’re hurt, that’s a life-threatening, potentially, situation.
0:08:05 And you want to learn to never put yourself in that situation again.
0:08:09 If you find a stash of delicious food, that’s great.
0:08:12 But it’s not as existential as the threat.
0:08:16 So there’s something that psychologists call negativity bias,
0:08:24 which is the idea that we pay way more attention to harmful and threatening events than to the good stuff, right?
0:08:26 We remember harmful events more clearly.
0:08:31 We make decisions more based on what we don’t want to lose than what we do want to gain.
0:08:41 And we learn, to your point, more from these big black swan cynical events than we do from black swan positive events.
0:08:45 But how about, just to be a little bit of a devil’s advocate, how about if I say to you,
0:08:50 okay, I understand when it was 50,000 years ago,
0:08:54 and if you didn’t learn that the saber-tooth is going to kill you,
0:08:59 you better be a cynic about saber-tooth being friendly little animals.
0:09:00 I understand that.
0:09:04 But now today, could you make the case that if you’re a cynic,
0:09:12 it is actually going to be a negative and hurt survival and hurt your chances of succeeding?
0:09:16 Because if you go around always assuming the worst about everybody,
0:09:20 you’re going to be in this mindset and you’re going to approach the world a different way.
0:09:23 And can it not have gone full circle?
0:09:27 And now it’s anti-survival to be a cynic.
0:09:30 That’s the fundamental argument of my book, in fact, Guy,
0:09:36 is that what served us 50,000, 100,000, a million years ago doesn’t serve us anymore.
0:09:44 It’s okay, and maybe even useful, to focus on threats when you are in a dangerous situation.
0:09:49 But most of us, more than in decades or centuries past,
0:09:52 are blessed to not be in actively dangerous situations.
0:09:58 We are safer and more well-nourished, for instance, than we were 100,000 years ago.
0:10:01 And yet our minds have not caught up to that situation.
0:10:05 And so we act as though we’re under threat all the time.
0:10:11 I know people who have great jobs as academics and live comfortably and have beautiful families
0:10:14 and still feel like they’re under threat all the time.
0:10:19 And that threat mentality, that cynical mentality, exactly as you’re saying,
0:10:21 in fact, gets in the way.
0:10:27 Maybe not of survival, but over the long term, of opportunity.
0:10:31 Because if you’re in a defensive position, assuming the worst about people,
0:10:37 you’re not going to pursue those opportunities for connection, for love, for collaboration.
0:10:41 And Guy, actually, let me push a little bit further and say,
0:10:44 I just said maybe not in terms of survival, it’s not a risk.
0:10:48 But actually, it turns out cynicism is a risk to our long term survival.
0:10:52 Cynical people, because they can’t connect with others,
0:10:55 and because connection is so important to our health,
0:11:00 end up with worse mental health and even worse physical health over time.
0:11:04 In fact, cynical people die younger than non-cynical people.
0:11:10 So maybe you’re exactly right that cynicism has become the threat instead of keeping us safe.
0:11:13 You probably don’t want to get into this,
0:11:20 but I could make the case that there is a particular political party that is extremely cynical, right?
0:11:26 And that every migrant is trying to live off our land and taking our jobs, etc.
0:11:30 So I will spare you the pain of going into that.
0:11:34 So now, tell me something, is it three points on a line?
0:11:38 Is it cynical, skeptical, and idealist?
0:11:41 Are they on the same spectrum?
0:11:47 And you’re suggesting moving more towards idealism, but not completely?
0:11:53 No, actually, I think that’s the way that you just laid it out is the way that I think most of us think it goes.
0:11:55 And actually, I would reverse the order.
0:12:01 I would say that a lot of people have the belief that you’re born a sort of naive idealist.
0:12:05 You have no idea how the world really works, so you think things are great.
0:12:08 Then are betrayed once or twice.
0:12:09 You have a negative experience.
0:12:10 You become skeptical.
0:12:13 And then finally, when you’re wise enough and have enough experience,
0:12:16 you become a gimlet-eyed cynic, right?
0:12:18 I think that’s a story that a lot of us tell ourselves.
0:12:20 We equate cynicism with wisdom.
0:12:25 But I think if you actually look at the data, you get a very different picture,
0:12:32 where cynics and gullible, naive people, idealists, are actually quite similar to one another.
0:12:37 Both of them have assumptions about the world and about humanity.
0:12:42 A naive, gullible person has the assumption that people are all great.
0:12:46 A cynic has the assumption that people are all terrible.
0:12:49 And neither one does very much to test those assumptions.
0:12:51 They just go with it.
0:12:59 Whereas a skeptic is more like a scientist who doesn’t have many assumptions and instead looks for evidence,
0:13:06 tries to test all of their assumptions, and realizes that, hey, just because I can’t trust one person doesn’t mean I can’t trust people.
0:13:09 They don’t overgeneralize.
0:13:14 And because of that, I think of skepticism as a healthier, more productive, and more successful mindset.
0:13:21 So basically, the answer to the question, is there hope for cynics?
0:13:24 The answer is yes, and become a skeptic.
0:13:26 That’s exactly right.
0:13:30 And I think a lot of cynics think that they are skeptics.
0:13:33 And there’s a lot of confusion between those terms.
0:13:40 And that’s one of the things that I’m trying to help with now is to allow people to free themselves from this false dichotomy,
0:13:45 where they think they either have to believe that people are all great, or that people are all terrible.
0:13:51 There are lots of cynics out there who don’t want to be naive, who don’t want to be taken advantage of.
0:13:53 And that’s a perfectly human desire.
0:13:57 And my reaction to that is, you don’t have to be.
0:14:01 You can take on a scientific, skeptical mindset and get the best of both worlds.
0:14:14 So are you saying that, kind of as a self-test, that if you find yourself believing that everybody is bad until proven good, you’re too cynical.
0:14:19 And if everybody is good until proven bad, you’re too idealistic.
0:14:24 It should be more like, let me gather some data and decide if you’re good or bad.
0:14:25 I think so.
0:14:30 I would add just a small point to that, which is that we’ve been talking about negativity bias.
0:14:40 The idea that we tend to underestimate, for instance, how kind, how generous, how friendly, how open-minded other people are.
0:14:43 So I think our baseline is probably a little bit too negative.
0:14:50 So rather than assuming nothing about people or not having any priors going into a situation,
0:14:53 one thing that I argue for is what I would call hopeful skepticism.
0:14:59 That is, being open to evidence, but starting out by giving people a little bit of grace.
0:15:05 Instead of having no assumptions, say, let me try to give this person a chance to show me who they are.
0:15:14 And as opposed to having no view on them, let me start out with a little bit of a positive outlook on them and see what happens.
0:15:19 And this is not the same as being naive and giving them your car keys the first time that you meet.
0:15:25 But it turns out that people are highly sensitive to our expectations of them.
0:15:31 So if you treat somebody cynically as though they’re a jerk, they’re much more likely to become a jerk in your presence.
0:15:38 If you treat somebody as though they are a good person, they’re much more likely to step up and meet those expectations.
0:15:46 So starting out with a little bit of positive intent or assuming positive intent can actually go a long way,
0:15:51 not just in helping you learn about people, but in having a positive impact on your relationships with them.
0:16:13 If we could just back up for a tiny little bit, just like you defined cynics,
0:16:20 let us now define skeptics so that people know exactly what it means to be a skeptic.
0:16:26 So you can think of cynics as like lawyers in the prosecution against humanity, right?
0:16:32 They’re starting with an argument that they want to make and looking for evidence that fulfills that argument.
0:16:36 So a cynical person, if again, if they see somebody do something bad, they say,
0:16:38 aha, I’ve learned all about that person.
0:16:41 If they see somebody do something good, they say, I don’t really believe it.
0:16:45 A skeptic is not a lawyer trying to make a point.
0:16:47 They’re more like a scientist.
0:16:53 They have maybe a hypothesis, a prediction about how a situation will go or what a person is like,
0:16:55 but they’re open to being wrong.
0:16:59 I think that’s really a huge part of skepticism is humility.
0:17:04 The ability to know not just what you know, but to know what you don’t know.
0:17:11 I think a lot of us have very strong assumptions, especially about people who are different from us,
0:17:16 people who think different things, who look a different way than we do, who are from different places than we are.
0:17:23 And one of the most powerful places that I think skepticism works is in connecting across difference,
0:17:28 because it taps into the humility of saying, wait a minute, I actually have no idea who this person is.
0:17:32 And the best thing I can do is let them show me.
0:17:37 To use your legal metaphor, how about this?
0:17:47 How about I say that in a criminal case, the prosecution is a cynic that believes that everybody’s guilty.
0:17:53 The defense is an idealist, believes that everybody is not guilty.
0:17:56 And the judge is the skeptic.
0:17:57 I love that.
0:17:58 Can I steal that guy?
0:17:59 I’m going to use that for that.
0:18:00 You can have it.
0:18:01 God bless you.
0:18:06 Although, I don’t know, using a judicial, criminal, legal case these days,
0:18:09 that metaphor is getting a little strained.
0:18:13 Maybe a bit on the nose, given our current climate.
0:18:13 That’s fair.
0:18:14 That’s fair.
0:18:20 Well, why don’t you say that the judge is not a Supreme Court justice?
0:18:22 It’s one level down.
0:18:24 It’s a circuit justice.
0:18:25 Yeah.
0:18:25 Exactly.
0:18:28 Appointed by Obama.
0:18:31 Okay.
0:18:34 So now we know what a skeptic is and a cynic is.
0:18:39 Like, how do you help people go from cynic to skeptic?
0:18:40 Okay.
0:18:42 There’s a bunch of steps that you can take here.
0:18:47 One is to fact check your cynical assumptions.
0:18:53 Again, I think that a lot of us have deep beliefs about other people, what they’re like,
0:18:54 and what they’ll do.
0:18:55 Is that you?
0:18:55 Wait.
0:18:57 Okay.
0:19:04 I don’t know if we’re going to cut this or not, but this phone ringing, it’s in a Faraday bag.
0:19:06 It’s not supposed to get a signal.
0:19:08 So, one second here.
0:19:09 I think we should keep this in.
0:19:10 I’m going to.
0:19:12 Just.
0:19:17 I believe in slice of life podcasting.
0:19:18 So, this is a real slice.
0:19:22 I don’t think we’re going to edit this, but Jeff is going to see this section and he’s
0:19:25 going to say, oh, Guy, we’re going to cut it or not.
0:19:28 But let me move this further than the Faraday bag.
0:19:29 You got it.
0:19:31 So much for Faraday.
0:19:34 Guy, are you feeling cynical about the technology now?
0:19:38 I was a skeptic until just then.
0:19:41 Actually, I was an idealist.
0:19:41 I said, never.
0:19:43 I’m completely covered.
0:19:46 Incredible.
0:19:48 Of course, now I forget the question.
0:19:49 What was that?
0:19:54 You’re asking, how can we bring a cynic to a place of skepticism?
0:19:55 And you said fact check, right?
0:19:55 Yes.
0:20:01 I think that, again, to take this scientific mindset, a scientist would never take their
0:20:04 hypothesis and just say, oh, I’m sure it’s right.
0:20:05 We fact check.
0:20:08 We say, wait a minute, what evidence do I have to support this claim?
0:20:14 And I think a lot of times we have assumptions about people that if we tried to defend them,
0:20:15 we would not be able to.
0:20:18 You meet somebody and they give you a bad vibe.
0:20:20 So you decide not to trust them.
0:20:23 And then you say, well, tell me why you don’t trust them.
0:20:24 Oh, I don’t know.
0:20:28 They just give me, they just make me feel, I just have a weird feeling about them.
0:20:32 That gut instinct is something that we probably trust way too much.
0:20:36 It’s also true that people have negative gut instincts about others.
0:20:44 If that person is a different race than us, or if you haven’t eaten in a few hours, you have more negative gut instincts about people because your gut is empty.
0:20:46 That’s not something that we want to trust.
0:20:52 We want to be skeptical of our cynicism and say, why am I thinking that way?
0:20:53 Why am I feeling that way?
0:21:01 And oftentimes what you might discover is that you don’t have sufficient evidence for the claim that your mind is making.
0:21:15 And if you don’t, then you can move on to the second step, which is taking leaps of faith on people, giving them little opportunities to, again, display their character, to show their true colors so that you can gather more data.
0:21:25 This is something that psychologists do all the time, and we find that people generally are pleasantly surprised when they take a chance on somebody else.
0:21:41 So my friend Nick Epley at the University of Chicago and lots of other psychologists do these experiments where they ask people, imagine that you were to strike up a conversation with a stranger, or ask a friend for a favor, or express gratitude to a teacher.
0:21:43 How do you think that interaction would go?
0:21:48 And then they have a separate group of people who they actually force to do that thing.
0:21:55 And what they find is that people vastly underestimate how these situations will go.
0:21:59 They think that striking up a conversation with a stranger will be awkward.
0:22:05 They think that if they ask their friend for a favor, they’ll be turned down, or that it will be a burden on them.
0:22:08 And when they actually do it, they find that it’s not awkward at all.
0:22:12 It’s really pleasant to talk to people, that when you ask people for help, they’re thrilled to do it.
0:22:21 In other words, when we go out and actually enter the world, as opposed to staying in our minds, we discover, I think, lots of reason for hope.
0:22:25 And we are able to replace cynicism with more skepticism.
0:22:26 Wow.
0:22:29 Okay, that was one super powerful way.
0:22:31 Any more in these bag of tricks?
0:22:39 I would say one other thing is to not just change the way that we think and the way that we act, but to change the way that we talk.
0:22:45 People love to give life and each other one-star reviews on Yelp.
0:22:48 We love to be negative in our gossip.
0:22:58 In my lab, we found that people gossip three times more about the selfish things that other people do than about the kind and generous things that other people do.
0:22:59 And that’s for a reason.
0:23:03 We often gossip about other people to protect our communities.
0:23:06 If somebody steals from us, we say, hey, don’t do business with that person.
0:23:09 And that’s a well-intentioned, honorable thing to do.
0:23:20 But it spreads cynicism because it gives people stories that are unbalanced, that more often represent the worst about humanity than its best.
0:23:26 So one thing that I try to do, and I do this with my family sometimes, is what we call positive gossip.
0:23:28 So we say at the end of the day…
0:23:29 It’s an oxymoron, but…
0:23:31 It sounds that way, but it’s not.
0:23:34 Gossip is really just any conversation about other people.
0:23:40 And so we say at the end of the day, we want each person to share one story of human goodness that you saw.
0:23:44 Somebody being kind or friendly or generous or forgiving.
0:23:46 And we find that does a few things.
0:23:50 One, it gives us each more positive data, right?
0:23:53 So it counteracts our own cynicism through each other’s stories.
0:24:02 But two, because we know we’re going to need to come up with a story that evening, it pops up an antenna in your mind to see that, right?
0:24:11 Guy, if I told you tonight at dinner, you’re going to have to tell your friends and family about all the red cars you saw, you would notice many more red cars that day.
0:24:19 And likewise, if you know that you’re going to be sharing stories of human goodness, you are more open to it.
0:24:21 And you start to see those stories everywhere.
0:24:22 Wow.
0:24:26 You could build a social media platform based on that thesis.
0:24:30 It’s been pitched to me, but not really in the social media mood right now.
0:24:37 It would be very difficult to overcome the negative bias of social media.
0:24:37 All right.
0:24:49 So now, just so we have good models to emulate and think about, who is in the Jamil Zaki hopeful skeptic hall of fame?
0:24:50 Oh, wow.
0:24:53 That’s an excellent question.
0:24:56 Look, the book, Hope for Cynics, has a protagonist.
0:25:00 He’s not somebody who’s famous or world leader or anything like that.
0:25:01 You mean Emil?
0:25:02 Emil, yeah.
0:25:03 Yeah.
0:25:10 My late friend and colleague, Emil Bruno, is my number one hall of fame hopeful skeptic.
0:25:20 He was a neuroscientist who studied the neuroscience of peace, which a lot of people don’t know is something you can do, because he basically invented it.
0:25:26 He studied why people come to hate each other and how we could stop that based on evidence from the brain.
0:25:30 And he and I were in similar circles scientifically.
0:25:31 Our names rhyme.
0:25:33 We were bound to be friends.
0:25:36 And he was just this wonderful guy.
0:25:41 The thing about him is that we both studied human goodness in one way or another.
0:25:50 But I myself, and maybe, Guy, this can be a confession of sorts, even though I study kindness and empathy, I tend to be relatively cynical.
0:25:52 I’ve been fighting this for a long time.
0:25:57 It’s part of why I started working on this subject was to understand my own cynicism and see if I could counteract it.
0:26:03 I would sometimes feel like, wow, I study goodness, but I don’t really see it in people all the time.
0:26:05 And Emil was really different.
0:26:06 He saw it.
0:26:08 He really saw it in people.
0:26:12 So much so that when we started working together, I thought, who is this guy?
0:26:14 Why is he so positive all the time?
0:26:15 Maybe he’s naive.
0:26:17 Maybe he’s too much of an idealist.
0:26:22 But I learned later that he had a very, very difficult childhood.
0:26:30 And that his decision to put faith in people to be a hopeful skeptic was just that.
0:26:36 It was a choice that he made, a very intentional choice about how he wanted to live his life.
0:26:40 And he lived that value for his entire life.
0:26:43 And he lived it even when his life was cut short prematurely.
0:26:47 He was diagnosed with an aggressive brain cancer in 2018.
0:26:51 And he died in 2020, leaving behind a young family.
0:26:52 And it’s just this enormous tragedy.
0:26:56 But Emil himself never faced it that way.
0:26:59 He was full of gratitude.
0:27:06 And again, this just incredibly fierce determination to see the good in people and in life.
0:27:11 I remember when he told me about his diagnosis, within 10 minutes, he was consoling me.
0:27:20 And it’s just the power with which he reflected those values has always been a true inspiration to me.
0:27:24 And that’s why I feature him so heavily in the book and his story.
0:27:26 I’ve been racking my brain.
0:27:31 And this is about the 275th episode.
0:27:41 And I would say the person who probably most represents hopeful skepticism on my show has been Neil deGrasse Tyson.
0:27:51 Because Neil deGrasse Tyson, as an astrophysicist and scientist, he has to be based on scientific theory and evidence and not just gut feeling.
0:27:54 But he is fundamentally a positive person.
0:27:58 And I think he might be a good example for you.
0:27:59 Absolutely.
0:28:09 I think that there are many scientists who have this very, of course, skeptical mindset, because that’s really the heart of science, but also have a faith in humanity.
0:28:19 I would also look to people who have championed social movements, people like Václav Havel in Czechoslovakia or Nelson Mandela in South Africa.
0:28:32 These are people who are facing immense oppression, who easily could have become cynical sitting in their jail cells, right, and thinking, wow, the world is falling apart and simply refuse to do so.
0:28:39 I think that hopeful skepticism takes courage, especially when things are not going the way that you want them to.
0:28:48 It’s much easier, much more instinctive to give into cynicism, to say things are terrible, and they’re only going to get worse, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
0:28:55 Because when you decide that there’s nothing that you can do about something, you actually free yourself to do nothing.
0:28:59 You allow yourself to be complacent.
0:29:02 Hopeful skepticism does not give you that comfort.
0:29:05 It does not give you that chance to retreat.
0:29:07 And because of that, it’s a challenging mindset.
0:29:14 I think that’s why it’s oftentimes more popular to become cynical, because it’s, frankly, easier in terms of effort.
0:29:19 It’s not easy in terms of your health or well-being or your ability to do anything in the world.
0:29:21 It’s highly destructive for all of those.
0:29:26 But it’s easy in terms of allowing you to sit back and do nothing.
0:29:27 Yeah, I hear you.
0:29:32 I think maybe Angela Duckworth is also a hopeful skeptic.
0:29:36 Something about social psychologists that fascinate me.
0:29:43 If I had to do it all over again, I would stutter social psychology or behavioral economics.
0:29:43 But anyway.
0:29:47 I think you are studying those themes through this podcast, aren’t you?
0:29:48 I am.
0:29:57 I have had you, Carol Dweck, Mary Murphy, Angela Duckworth, Katie Milkman, Bob Cialdini, David Ocker.
0:30:00 I have the Social Psychology Hall of Fame on my podcast.
0:30:03 It’s like a PhD that you’re doing here.
0:30:07 And now I have you.
0:30:09 So, like, my life is complete.
0:30:11 You can retire now.
0:30:11 You can.
0:30:12 I can.
0:30:15 I should just go into Jordan Hall at Stanford.
0:30:16 Just go down the list.
0:30:19 Go down every door in Jordan and take care of it.
0:30:20 And you know what?
0:30:23 One of my very first guests was Phil Zimbardo.
0:30:26 And I worked with Phil Zimbardo.
0:30:30 He became a close friend, you know, after I graduated.
0:30:31 I ran his Psych One course.
0:30:32 And anyway.
0:30:34 That’s amazing.
0:30:34 Yeah.
0:30:36 Phil was such an interesting man.
0:30:39 And I actually, I now direct Psych One.
0:30:41 So, I’m sort of in his.
0:30:42 You direct Psych One.
0:30:43 Yeah.
0:30:45 At Stanford, which is a real honor to be in that.
0:30:49 So, somewhere out there is a guy, Kawasaki, he’s going to be your head proctor.
0:30:51 And, you know, the rest is history.
0:30:55 I hope to be on his podcast someday as well.
0:30:59 Okay.
0:31:05 So, now I want to shift gears from cynicism and skepticism to empathy.
0:31:11 So, first of all, let us define empathy.
0:31:14 I love how you start with definitions each time, Guy.
0:31:15 That’s really important.
0:31:19 Empathy is a simple word, but people use it in all sorts of different ways.
0:31:24 So, the way that scientists understand it is that empathy is not one thing, but three things.
0:31:31 Three different ways that we respond to other people’s experiences and their emotions in particular.
0:31:37 So, imagine that you run into a friend and you can immediately tell that he’s not doing well.
0:31:38 He’s in anguish.
0:31:39 Maybe he’s even crying.
0:31:42 A bunch of things might happen in you when you see him.
0:31:51 One, you might become upset yourself, vicariously catching his negative emotion, which we call emotional empathy.
0:31:56 Two, you might try to figure out, what is my friend feeling and why?
0:32:01 Trying to see the world as he sees it, which we would call cognitive empathy.
0:32:07 And then third, if you’re a good friend, which I’m sure you are, Guy, you would say, my gosh, what can I do to help him?
0:32:11 You would experience a desire to improve his well-being.
0:32:14 And that’s what we would call empathic concern or compassion.
0:32:19 And these three pieces come together into the full range of human empathy.
0:32:21 I saw a definition.
0:32:28 Tell me if you agree with this, that a cynic says, what’s that person’s angle?
0:32:33 And an empathetic person says, what is that person feeling and why?
0:32:38 Would you say those are good differentiators between a cynic and an empathetic person?
0:32:39 I love that.
0:32:39 Where did you hear?
0:32:42 That quote sums up the last 10 years of my work.
0:32:44 Chat GPT.
0:32:54 Seriously, seriously, I asked Chat GPT to contrast empathy and cynicism.
0:32:56 And that’s what it said.
0:32:59 Algorithmic wisdom at its finest.
0:33:01 Who says AI has hallucinations?
0:33:03 I think that’s a really interesting way to put it.
0:33:11 And I do think that whereas the cynic kind of more focuses on themselves and asks, how is this person trying to get one over on me?
0:33:13 How is this person trying to harm me?
0:33:22 Viewing the other person almost as a threat to the self, as opposed to their own unique being, the empathic person does the opposite.
0:33:26 They don’t focus only on how is that person going to affect me.
0:33:29 They focus on who is that person and what are they going through.
0:33:30 I think that’s very well put.
0:33:30 Yeah.
0:33:31 Okay.
0:33:36 So now we got to ask the question, is empathy learnable and how?
0:33:39 Yes, this is a big one.
0:33:45 I think a lot of people assume that empathy is a fixed trait, that you either have it or you don’t.
0:33:48 And it turns out that’s not true at all.
0:33:49 You had Carol Dweck on the show.
0:33:57 She has known for a really long time, when people assume that they can’t change, they’re actually less likely to change.
0:34:02 In my research with Carol, we find that about half of people think that empathy is a fixed trait.
0:34:11 And those people don’t try very hard or as hard to empathize, to connect with other people, especially during challenging situations.
0:34:14 Like when you’re trying to connect across difference, for instance.
0:34:21 But it turns out that the science is pretty clear that in fact, empathy is less like a trait and more like a skill.
0:34:29 Now, that’s not to say that everybody is the same and we’re all just blank slates waiting to become either empathic or not.
0:34:34 I’m not saying that you’re going to take Hannibal Lecter and turn him into Mother Teresa or anything like that.
0:34:39 I am saying that we each have a starting point.
0:34:46 Some people are born more empathic than others, but we can move an enormous amount around that starting point.
0:34:51 And there are many ways to cultivate empathy and there are many ways to lose it as well.
0:34:55 Saying that something is a skill doesn’t just mean that we can get better at it.
0:34:59 Saying that something is like a muscle doesn’t just mean that it can get stronger.
0:35:01 It can also atrophy.
0:35:08 And so it’s important for us to mind not only the experiences that are growing us, but also the experiences that are shrinking us.
0:35:13 Okay, Jameel, but I asked the question, how, not if, how.
0:35:15 I want how.
0:35:16 I am listening to your answer.
0:35:18 I’m not reading off a script here.
0:35:20 Nor am I.
0:35:22 I think that, so what is the how?
0:35:24 For growing empathy, you mean?
0:35:25 Exactly.
0:35:26 Yeah.
0:35:28 So there’s a bunch of ways to do it.
0:35:31 There are ancient techniques, certain meditation practices.
0:35:34 One is meta or loving kindness.
0:35:35 Not meta, the company.
0:35:37 Not Mark Zuckerberg.
0:35:40 Metta with two T’s.
0:35:43 This is also known as loving kindness meditation, right?
0:35:49 This is where you focus goodwill on the people in your life, on strangers, and then on all living beings.
0:35:55 There’s a phenomenal study that was published a few years ago from the Max Planck Institute,
0:36:00 where they trained people in loving kindness meditation or not.
0:36:04 So there were two groups and one group got trained in this form of meditation.
0:36:05 The other didn’t.
0:36:08 Over months, they found that people who practice this form of meditation,
0:36:14 became better at understanding other people, at sort of entering their world.
0:36:15 They became more generous.
0:36:18 And their brains changed.
0:36:24 So these researchers scanned their brains before and after months of this type of practice.
0:36:31 And it turned out that for people who practice loving kindness, parts of their brain associated with empathy grew in volume.
0:36:34 And that growth tracked how much they became better at empathy.
0:36:43 So when you make choices, like focusing on others through this type of meditation, you’re rewiring yourself towards more connection.
0:36:45 So that’s one way.
0:36:46 But there are many others.
0:36:50 For instance, engaging with the arts can build our empathy.
0:36:59 In my lab, we found that doing anything from reading novels to attending plays builds people’s care for others.
0:37:04 And then, again, to get back to my work with Carol, it also matters what you believe about empathy.
0:37:07 If you think you can’t change, you don’t try.
0:37:08 And so you don’t.
0:37:12 It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy of stagnation.
0:37:18 What we found with Carol is that when people believed that empathy was a skill, they worked harder at it.
0:37:23 And when we taught people that empathy was a skill, they also worked harder at it.
0:37:32 And in follow-up work, we found that when we trained people who were just entering college and told them empathy is a skill, they worked harder on it.
0:37:35 And in their first year of college, made a greater number of friends.
0:37:39 They actually became better at connecting because they learned that they could.
0:37:55 Now, just in the spirit of thoroughness, this Max Planck Institute study, is it a reliability of three, four, or five?
0:37:57 That’s a great question.
0:37:59 It’s the first study of its kind.
0:38:04 So, you know, the study itself, I think, is extremely well conducted.
0:38:09 But no one study would get a ranking of five in my rating system.
0:38:14 So I would say that when other labs do it again 10 more times, I’ll give it a five.
0:38:15 For now, it would be a three.
0:38:19 Again, not because the work is poor, it’s excellent, but because it’s new.
0:38:23 Wow, you are a tough judge, man.
0:38:25 That’s a three.
0:38:26 Wow.
0:38:27 I mean, it’s one study.
0:38:28 It’s one study.
0:38:30 It’s a great study, but it’s one study.
0:38:33 Up next on Remarkable People.
0:38:38 In my lab and many others, we’ve asked both Democrats and Republicans, what do you think
0:38:41 the average person you disagree with is, what do you think they believe?
0:38:43 How do you think they feel?
0:38:44 What do you think they want?
0:38:50 And we find that people are wrong about the other side in basically every way we can measure.
0:38:56 So if you ask people what’s the 50th percentile of the other side, they think that person is
0:38:59 as extreme as the true 80th percentile.
0:39:02 So we think that the other side is more extreme than they are.
0:39:13 Do you want to be more remarkable?
0:39:18 One way to do it is to spend three days with the boldest builders in business.
0:39:23 I’m Jeff Berman, host of Masters of Scale, inviting you to join us at this year’s Masters
0:39:26 of Scale Summit, October 7th to 9th in San Francisco.
0:39:33 You’ll hear from visionaries like Chobani’s Hamdi Ulukaya, celebrity chef David Chang, Patagonia’s
0:39:37 Ryan Gellert, Promises’ Phaedra Ellis Lampkins, and many, many more.
0:39:42 Apply to attend at mastersofscale.com slash remarkable.
0:39:46 That’s mastersofscale.com slash remarkable.
0:39:48 And Guy Kawasaki will be there too.
0:39:54 Become a little more remarkable with each episode of Remarkable People.
0:39:59 It’s found on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
0:40:03 Welcome back to Remarkable People with Guy Kawasaki.
0:40:13 I got to tell you something that as a business book writer, we take one example and we make
0:40:14 it into a generalization.
0:40:17 Steve Jobs didn’t finish college.
0:40:19 Nobody has to finish college.
0:40:22 That would be like a negative five on your scale.
0:40:29 Guy, let’s talk about business a little bit because I actually think that stereotypes like
0:40:34 that have hurt our ability to lead well when it comes to empathy.
0:40:34 Oh, yeah.
0:40:39 Because the stereotype is good leaders are unempathic.
0:40:40 They’re tough.
0:40:43 And Steve Jobs didn’t just not finish college.
0:40:45 He was famous for being ruthless and sometimes cruel.
0:40:52 And people often tell me, they say, huh, empathy sounds great if you want to be a good person or
0:41:00 friend or parent, but it’s not good for being a boss because look at Steve Jobs, look at XYZ other
0:41:03 leader who’s successful and famously cruel.
0:41:08 And this is where I think anecdotes can actually be negative in terms of their evidentiary value.
0:41:09 Absolutely.
0:41:15 Last in, first out, there’s this example that a previous guest gave to me.
0:41:20 He’s the one who did the gorilla walks in the middle of the study when they’re tossing balls.
0:41:25 Anyway, I got like Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan and Chris Chabrie were the two.
0:41:31 And he told me that the most important question you ask when you hear something like this is
0:41:32 what’s missing.
0:41:37 So you hear that Steve Jobs didn’t have a college degree and he was so successful.
0:41:42 You have to ask, well, how many people with college degrees were successful?
0:41:46 How many people without college degrees were unsuccessful?
0:41:50 And how many, like this two by two matrix, you got to ask all the boxes.
0:41:51 Exactly.
0:41:55 And for me, it’s just when you can look at data instead of stories.
0:42:02 And so you can tell me about people who are jerks and run successful companies, but I’ve run studies
0:42:03 across many companies.
0:42:12 And we find that CEOs who are more empathic have more engaged, productive workforces and lower levels of attrition.
0:42:21 And so I think that the evidence is just abundantly clear that empathic organizations and leaders far outperform unempathic ones.
0:42:25 So this is one place I think applying that skill is most important.
0:42:25 Okay.
0:42:33 Now, I’m going to pose this as an either or, but you can tell me you don’t need to be framed by my question.
0:42:34 You can answer it.
0:42:39 I don’t think, I don’t think I’ll be able to trap you even if I tried.
0:42:47 But anyway, so do you think that empathy is more about listening or asking the right question?
0:42:49 Oh, that’s a great question.
0:42:54 I think that we undervalue questions when it comes to empathy.
0:43:08 And oftentimes I think that we have this stereotype that the empathic person is supposed to be clairvoyant, that they’re supposed to already know how other people feel, and that they’re supposed to read minds and just be there already.
0:43:13 But just like skepticism, empathy requires humility.
0:43:22 And so to me, one of the most powerful exercises when I teach people empathy, one of the most powerful exercises that I try is what’s known as perspective getting.
0:43:24 Now, you’ve probably heard of perspective taking.
0:43:29 This is where you imagine how you would feel in somebody else’s situation.
0:43:41 But it turns out when we imagine how we would feel in somebody else’s situation, we end up understanding how we would feel in their situation, not how they actually feel in their situation.
0:43:44 It’s like people say, oh, I’ve got to walk a mile in somebody else’s shoes.
0:43:47 But you would never do that, right?
0:43:51 If we were in the same room, I wouldn’t say, hey, guy, I want to see how comfortable those shoes are.
0:43:52 Can I borrow them?
0:43:56 I’m going to go walk around a regulation track four times.
0:44:07 Because what we really need to do is not assume that this person feels the way that I would in their situation, but rather ask them, well, tell me more about what it’s like to be in that situation.
0:44:15 I think once you ask the question, you show that you have genuine curiosity, then listening becomes more important.
0:44:21 But too often, I think listening is actually a proxy for just waiting our turn in conversation.
0:44:25 I don’t think that when people listen, I don’t think that when people listen, they often do so well.
0:44:39 So prompting with good questions, trying to treat deep conversations a little bit more like interviews and a little bit less like debates, I think is the behavioral shift that I argue for more than just active listening.
0:44:47 I think active listening is a beautiful thing, but we need to prompt it and have it as a foundation by asking good questions.
0:44:59 So just to make sure I got this clear, instead of trying to imagine what it would be like to be the person, you simply ask the person, what is it like to be you?
0:45:01 Exactly.
0:45:01 I got it.
0:45:02 I got it.
0:45:03 I’m going to rip that off.
0:45:08 Now I’m going to give you one more thing about empathy.
0:45:11 That was really powerful for me.
0:45:25 I interviewed a guy named Martin Lindstrom, and he was having an executive offsite with his pharmaceutical team and they wanted to get closer to the customer, which means hire McKinsey and pay him $5 million.
0:45:27 But in this case, it was Martin Lindstrom.
0:45:38 I don’t think he got paid 5 million, I hope he did, but anyway, so he went in with this executive team of pharmaceutical people and he said, you want to get closer to the customer.
0:45:39 I’m passing out straws.
0:45:43 I want you to all breathe through the straw for the next few minutes.
0:45:47 And he did that and he forced them to do that.
0:45:49 I have subsequently embraced this.
0:45:53 So when I make keynote speeches, I bring straws and I make my audience do this.
0:45:57 And at the end of this exercise, this is you want to be closer to the customer.
0:45:59 I made you into the customer.
0:46:02 That’s what it’s like to have asthma.
0:46:05 You like you’re breathing through a straw.
0:46:09 So is that, I hope you say yes because I’m doing it.
0:46:12 Is that a good way to teach empathy?
0:46:16 It’s a very powerful technique for embodying empathy, right?
0:46:20 There are many ways to be more empathic towards the customer.
0:46:31 In this case, you could do that to give people the embodied experience of what it’s like to have asthma, or you could bring somebody with asthma into the room and say, what questions do you have for this person?
0:46:37 I’ll say that trying to do this embodied empathy is really powerful, but, guy, it’s not perfect.
0:46:38 I’ll give you an example.
0:46:46 There was a study where sighted people were asked to put blindfolds on and try to do things like make a cup of coffee.
0:46:50 And, of course, they did a terrible job and it was very difficult.
0:47:01 And the idea was, wow, now I know what it’s like to be blind, except they didn’t because blind people are incredibly adept at doing all of those things.
0:47:12 They’ve adjusted to this change in their life and are quite able to do many things that a sighted person who’s blind for the first time could never do.
0:47:17 So having that embodied experience can be helpful, but it could also be a little bit limiting in some ways.
0:47:18 Does that make sense?
0:47:19 Yeah, it does.
0:47:24 And as a deaf person, I can absolutely relate to that.
0:47:34 To take a person with hearing and just put muffs on them and silence them, that’s experiential empathy or whatever you call it.
0:47:44 But then, you know, to know the full impact, it’s not that simple of walking around with your ears plugged for a few hours or something.
0:47:46 Exactly.
0:47:48 And you could say the same thing about asthma.
0:47:58 I don’t have asthma, but I would assume that maybe somebody who does would say, yeah, you, a person who breathes easily all the time, just breathing through a straw for a few minutes.
0:48:06 Yes, you maybe have had a bodily experience that’s different than your usual experience, and maybe it’s closer to what I experienced.
0:48:08 But for me, it’s very different than it is for you.
0:48:19 As I’m sitting here, I can tell you one thing that if you were to put earmuffs on people and let them hang out for an hour, that is a start.
0:48:30 I’ll give you an example of something that would never occur to most people, which is because I am deaf and I take off my cochlear implant when I sleep.
0:48:31 You don’t sleep with an implant on.
0:48:32 All right.
0:48:46 So I can tell you that when I travel and I stay in a hotel, one of my fears is that there will be a fire alarm and I will not hear the fire alarm and I will die.
0:48:49 So that’s why I asked for rooms on lower floor.
0:48:59 So at least I don’t have to jump out as far, but anyway, but that is something that is so subtle and it would be hard to pick up.
0:49:09 Like that’s kind of a fear that I have that you would not pick up just by breathing through a straw or being deaf for 15 minutes.
0:49:20 See, Guy, just hearing that makes me feel like I have more insight about that experience than probably if I would feel if I just put noise canceling headphones on for an hour.
0:49:33 And this is where I think that, again, giving people a dramatic experience of, hey, this is what it might be like, can be a nice way to open their eyes or to alert them that, hey, my experience is just one of many.
0:49:41 But to really deeply empathize, I think that it’s better or most powerful to go to the source, to ask people what their lives are like.
0:49:41 Yeah.
0:49:42 Okay.
0:49:46 Maybe I’ll stop passing out straws in my speech.
0:49:50 Although I buy straws that are biodegradable.
0:49:55 It’s a, there’s a lot going on in my brain.
0:49:59 As I make a speech, it’s not just reading the teleprompter.
0:50:04 So I have one last question for you and it is about empathy.
0:50:17 And the question is your opinion and your pluses and minus and do’s and don’ts about how do you empathize with a group that you fundamentally do not agree with?
0:50:32 I fundamentally do not agree with people who want to take away LGBTQ plus rights or who want to, I don’t know, rig elections or there’s a lot of things that want to be a vaccine denier.
0:50:34 I fundamentally disagree with that.
0:50:41 But how am I supposed to empathize with people that I have complete and utter disagreement with?
0:50:46 This is the toughest uphill climb for empathy, isn’t it?
0:50:49 And I think that there’s a few things that we can do.
0:50:58 The first is to, and to get back a little bit to cynicism, is to understand that oftentimes we’re wrong about who those people are.
0:51:06 So in my lab and many others, we’ve asked both Democrats and Republicans, what do you think the average person you disagree with is?
0:51:08 What do you think they believe?
0:51:10 How do you think they feel?
0:51:11 What do you think they want?
0:51:16 And we find that people are wrong about the other side in basically every way we can measure.
0:51:25 So if you ask people, what’s the 50th percentile of the other side, they think that person is as extreme as the true 80th percentile.
0:51:29 So we think that the other side is more extreme than they are.
0:51:37 We think that the other side is twice as anti-democratic, twice as hateful, and four times as violent as they really are.
0:51:44 So a lot of our lack of empathy for the other side is based on a misconstrual of who they are.
0:51:48 I’m not saying that there aren’t extreme and dangerous people on the other side, by the way.
0:51:49 They certainly are.
0:51:54 But think about the representation that we have of people we disagree with.
0:51:55 Where is it coming from?
0:51:56 It’s coming from the media.
0:52:04 It’s coming from media companies that profit by making us scared of that other side through negativity bias.
0:52:11 And so I think that number one is to just realize that, hey, there are people, of course, who I disagree with.
0:52:14 There are people who support policies maybe that I even find to be dangerous and destructive.
0:52:17 But I probably am wrong about who they are.
0:52:20 And then maybe being curious enough to actually talk with them.
0:52:29 In my lab, we brought Democrats and Republicans together to have conversations about gun control, climate change, and abortion.
0:52:31 Easy stuff, right?
0:52:32 No problem there.
0:52:37 And we asked these people, how do you think this conversation is going to go?
0:52:40 And they thought it was going to go pretty poorly.
0:52:42 After the conversation, we asked, how did it go?
0:52:45 And they said, it went extremely well.
0:52:58 To a person, they were surprised by how positive these conversations were because they were shocked that somebody they disagreed with wasn’t some sort of incredible monster, but actually was a human being.
0:53:01 Some baby killer, true abortion.
0:53:01 Exactly.
0:53:12 And so what we find is that the closer that we get to people we disagree with, I’m not going to say that we agree with them, but the more that we’re at least able to have some empathy.
0:53:16 Now, that might not be what people want right now, right?
0:53:22 If somebody supports a policy that you think is actively threatening you, you might not want to make nice with them.
0:53:23 And if you don’t, that’s fine.
0:53:44 But I do think that oftentimes compromise and even social progress are stopped when we start to demonize one another and that when we have the courage, the bandwidth, the safety to do it, trying to reach out and actually connect as opposed to working off of media assumptions is a starting point.
0:53:51 Now, just a point of clarity, when you say closer, I think you mean physically closer, right?
0:53:53 Like you have to have physical contact.
0:54:07 If you live in a neighborhood where Democrats and Republicans are living and your kids are on the same hockey or soccer team and you’re physically in the stand together, that’s the start, right?
0:54:11 I think physical closeness matters, but it’s not necessary.
0:54:15 The study that we did with Republicans and Democrats was over Zoom.
0:54:23 I think what’s more important is just live one-on-one interactions, whether those are in person or not.
0:54:31 I think in person is best, but I think that it’s more the ability to humanize an individual as opposed to working off of stereotypes.
0:54:33 Okay.
0:54:36 I think we’ve covered a lot.
0:54:42 I think we’re going to add a lot of value to the people who listen to this about hopeful skepticism and empathy.
0:54:44 I thank you very much, Jamil.
0:54:48 I’ve enjoyed this immensely and so much work to do.
0:54:49 Guy, first, let me just say thank you.
0:54:51 This has been totally delightful.
0:54:52 I really appreciate the conversation.
0:54:54 Oh, thank you very much.
0:54:57 I bet you say that to every podcaster, but okay.
0:55:03 So let me thank my team.
0:55:11 My team is Madison Neismar, who’s a co-producer with GFC, the dynamic duo, I call them.
0:55:13 There’s Tessa Neismar, who’s a researcher.
0:55:18 And there’s also Shannon Hernandez, sound design engineer.
0:55:21 So that’s the Remarkable People team.
0:55:27 And we have remarkable people like Jamil to come on and help you be remarkable.
0:55:29 Thank you very much, Jamil.
0:55:30 Thank you, Guy.
0:55:31 It’s been a pleasure.
0:55:33 Oh, and promote your book.
0:55:39 Sure, my latest book is Hope for Cynics, The Surprising Science of Human Goodness.
0:55:43 And it really gets into what we’ve been talking about today, but in much more detail.
0:55:44 What is cynicism?
0:55:46 Why is it so dangerous?
0:55:48 Why do so many of us fall for it?
0:55:54 And crucially, what can we all do to live a more hopeful and positive life?
0:56:00 This is Remarkable People.

0:00:03 Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss
0:00:07 Show, where it is my job to interview people from all different disciplines, all different
0:00:10 walks of life, to tease out the habits, routines, thoughts, lessons learned, and so on that
0:00:15 you can apply to your own lives. My guest today, one of my favorites, Elizabeth Gilbert.
0:00:20 She is the number one New York Times bestselling author of Big Magic and Eat, Pray, Love, as
0:00:24 well as several other international bestsellers. She has been a finalist for the National Book
0:00:29 Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Penn Hemingway Award. Her latest
0:00:34 novel, City of Girls, was named an instant New York Times bestseller, a rollicking, sexy
0:00:41 tale of the New York City theater world during the 1940s. You can go to elizabethgilbert.substack.com
0:00:45 to subscribe to Letters from Love with Elizabeth Gilbert, her newsletter, which has more than
0:00:52 120,000 subscribers. You can find her on Instagram at elizabeth underscore gilbert underscore writer.
0:00:59 But first, a few quick words from our lovely podcast sponsors who make products and services that I
0:01:06 use every day or every week. I personally vet everything. And that means that probably less
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0:03:54 with AI, and it looks photorealistic, basically. I mean, it would have cost hundreds of thousands,
0:04:00 millions of dollars to do in the past, taken forever, and now it’s, boom, snap of the fingers. It’s crazy.
0:04:05 So AI is changing everything. We know that. It is also changing the way startups and small businesses
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0:05:45 Liz, it’s so nice to see you. Thanks for taking the time.
0:05:49 It’s so nice to see you. It’s so nice to be back talking to you. I love it.
0:05:53 We both did something quite similar. You went back and listened to our last conversation,
0:06:01 which I just had a blast recording with you. And I went back and I read all of the summary notes
0:06:07 that I had from that last conversation. And before we started recording, you mentioned a few things.
0:06:15 One, that the very last thing that you mentioned in that conversation will dovetail nicely into some of
0:06:19 what we’ll talk about today. And that’ll be just a bit of foreshadowing for folks. So we won’t go
0:06:28 into that first. But secondly, I asked if you had any particular hopes for this recording and asked
0:06:35 what would make it a home run or time well spent. And one of the things that you said, and this is,
0:06:41 I suppose, broadly what you said too, is you had no cherished outcome. And I like that phrasing. And I was
0:06:48 hoping to hear you expand on that a bit because I think it might be good medicine for a lot of what ails me.
0:06:57 Oh, God. I mean, it’s already a home run just getting to sit here and talk to you. And I know it hasn’t been
0:07:03 easy for our schedules to figure out when we can do this. So I’m just happy and relaxed to be here. And I’m also not
0:07:07 concerned that you and I will ever have any trouble finding things to talk about. So that was part of
0:07:14 it. But the no cherished outcome is actually a line from a translation of a Celtic poem. And it’s called
0:07:21 the Celtic poem of approach. And as well as I understand it, these are lines that were spoken
0:07:28 when you’re meeting new people. And when you’re moving out of one area into another tribe’s area,
0:07:34 or you’re going to be interacting with people in a new way. This beautiful poem of approach that I
0:07:38 really love. And I’m probably not going to get the whole thing right, but it says something like,
0:07:44 I will honor your gods. I will drink from your well. I bring an undefended heart to our meeting place.
0:07:51 I will not negotiate by withholding. I am not subject to disappointment. I have no cherished outcome.
0:07:58 And how do you apply that then to your own lives? What led you to hold on to that particular piece?
0:08:08 It’s my highest aspiration that that poem and that spirit is the foundational agreement of all my
0:08:15 friendships. And I say those words, I have no cherished outcome a lot to my friends. And I hope
0:08:23 that I mean it. And when I start feeling hurt or resentful or excluded or misunderstood, I’m like,
0:08:28 sometimes the only way you can find out that you had a cherished outcome is when you didn’t get
0:08:33 it. Like sometimes I discover that where I’m like, I think I’m just easy breezy and I’m just hanging out.
0:08:39 And then I’m like, oh, I had a secret hidden cherished outcome because something didn’t happen that I
0:08:47 wanted. And now I’m all like bent about it. So now I get to examine my resentment and ask myself whether
0:08:53 I really want to honor I have no cherished outcome or whether I want to sulk. I seem to be better at no
0:08:59 cherished outcome in friendships than I am in romantic relationships. Almost the minute a relationship
0:09:05 becomes a romantic relationship, I have a list as long as my arm of cherished outcomes. And all of a sudden,
0:09:10 I can be disappointed and all of a sudden I don’t bring an undefended heart to our meeting place.
0:09:16 But with friendships, which I have over time discovered to be actually the true loves of my
0:09:22 life, I seem to be a little bit better at taking responsibility for myself and trying not to put
0:09:23 outcomes on people.
0:09:30 Why do you think that is, that there is such a difference for you between the number of cherished
0:09:37 outcomes you might hold in romantic relationships versus friendships? Is it because at least culturally
0:09:45 speaking here in the U.S., there aren’t as many stories or scripts related to friendships
0:09:49 versus romantic partners? Or would you explain it a different way?
0:09:59 I think that my thing has always been, and this is why it’s been so interesting for me being single
0:10:04 and celibate by choice over the last five years, there’s nobody to blame, which is so great. And I
0:10:12 think that it’s that the minute somebody is attached to me as my partner, I do this weird outer body thing
0:10:19 where I hold them responsible for whatever mood I’m in. And so if I’m feeling great, it’s because they’re
0:10:24 the greatest. And if I’m feeling terrible, it’s because they’re the worst. And it’s so unfair.
0:10:29 And one of the really beautiful and educational things about spending a lot of time alone is like,
0:10:35 oh, these mood cycles and these depressions and these euforias are happening. This is like a weather
0:10:40 system that’s happening that isn’t related to anybody. And it turns out all those years when I
0:10:47 was analyzing those poor people in my relationships and holding them to account for the fact that I felt
0:10:53 kind of not right. It was like, oh, I haven’t been with anybody in five years and I felt not right when
0:10:57 I woke up this morning and there’s no one to pin it on. It’s so great. I love it. It’s like,
0:11:03 I love not having anyone to pin it on. I hate pinning things on people, but I don’t seem to know how to
0:11:07 not do it once we’re in a romantic relationship. It should come with a warning.
0:11:12 Yeah, a lot in life should come with a warning. So I have quite a few follow-ups, but I’m going to try
0:11:17 to put them in some semblance of a coherent order. So my first question related to that is how do you
0:11:23 think about responsibility or ownership for yourself in the sense that, or I should say rather what prompts
0:11:28 that question is I was having a conversation with an executive coach recently, Jerry Colonna,
0:11:35 actually, who’s I think very good at what he does, former very top tier investor who has a lot of
0:11:40 questions I return to, one of which is how are we complicit in creating the conditions we say we don’t
0:11:46 want. But in this, it’s a really good one. It’s a really good one. But in the one I wanted to apply
0:11:51 here was more a comment he made to me because I was talking about taking a radical ownership of things
0:11:55 and seeing my role in just about everything. And he said, well,
0:12:01 taking responsibility for everything can be as bad as taking responsibility for nothing.
0:12:06 And so I’m wondering, when you wake up and the weather system is dark and stormy,
0:12:11 how do you work on yourself without picking on yourself, if that makes any sense?
0:12:15 Oh, that’s such a good question. God, I love that question. How are you complicit in,
0:12:16 what, can you say it again?
0:12:20 Yeah, yeah. How are you complicit in creating the conditions you say you don’t want?
0:12:24 Wow. Another word for that is, who are you blaming your life on today?
0:12:31 Well, I think the only honest and humble answer that I can give to that question is,
0:12:37 I don’t know. And I don’t know where that line is, but it’s easier for me when I’m not in a
0:12:45 relationship. And it’s simpler for me to say, okay, I can take some accountability for my own
0:12:50 weather system. But as you say, I don’t want to beat myself up about having weather. And I have to
0:12:56 constantly remind myself that, I mean, I think the most compassionate thing that I say to myself,
0:13:03 or I hear said to myself all the time from a more loving presence, is it is a very difficult thing to
0:13:12 have a human incarnation. This is not an easy ride. Even a good life is a hard life. And it’s so
0:13:21 weird. It’s so profoundly weird to be a consciousness dropped into a particular body,
0:13:31 dropped into a particular family, arriving at a particular moment in history. It’s so strange.
0:13:37 It’s like, you know, I think I’m sure you, I don’t want to project this on you, but maybe you had this
0:13:42 experience as a kid. Like I haven’t remembered as a kid looking at myself in the mirror and being
0:13:48 like, I’m in here. Like, it’s so weird. Yeah. What am I doing in here? And all of that is out
0:13:55 there and I’m in here. Something’s inside of this experience. And it’s really hard. So I think you
0:13:58 have to start with that. You know, who told you you were supposed to get it right straight out of the
0:14:02 gate? Like who told you you were supposed to get it right seven out of seven days or that
0:14:08 you’re constantly supposed to be improving like a fortune 500 company constantly, you know,
0:14:12 going in this upward angle direction, a certain percentage every quarter.
0:14:19 There’s billions of systems operating within your body alone, hormonal systems and chemical systems
0:14:25 and viruses and bacterias. Like we’re such a complex mechanism. It’s so hard to figure out how to operate
0:14:29 one of these things. And then just when, like I do really well in solitude, like I can get this
0:14:35 thing humming, like I can get this machine and this mind and this heart where it is like, we are at a
0:14:43 beautiful hum, but the instant you throw another complex human mechanism into my field, you know,
0:14:47 then I’ve got to like adapt to their chemistry and to their, like, it’s hard. I don’t know.
0:14:52 And I think it’s hard is a really good way to start with self-compassion.
0:14:59 So that it’s hard. You, you did a retake a few moments ago where you said one of the things that
0:15:05 I say to myself, and then you corrected that and said, one of the things that I hear, why did you
0:15:05 change that?
0:15:16 Because I believe that I am loved beyond measure by magnificent, complex, amused God who has given me
0:15:29 power over practically nothing. Really like very little that I have control over, but what tiny
0:15:34 amount I have control over is extremely important. It reminds me of something, a friend of mine who
0:15:40 was a physicist said one time that very little of the universe is matter, very little, but what there
0:15:45 is, is very important. And it’s, it’s like that. I think with control and power, like I, I have very
0:15:51 little control, have very little power, even over my own mechanism and my own being, but what little
0:15:58 agency I have, I think it’s important to use it well. But anyway, I talk to that presence all the time
0:16:06 and I am in a nearly constant dialogue with it and I hear it talking to me. So that’s why I say,
0:16:13 I hear a loving presence saying, it’s really hard. It’s really hard. Like I did, I’m not telling you
0:16:14 this should be easy.
0:16:18 How long has that been the case? Is that a development in the last handful of years,
0:16:20 decade? Has it been true since you were a kid?
0:16:25 It’s deepened. I think one of the things I’m so lucky about, my friend Rob Bell once said to me,
0:16:31 you’re so lucky you didn’t grow up with an enforced religion. And I’m so fortunate about that.
0:16:37 I went to church, like a nice little mellow New England church most Sundays as a kid, but I don’t
0:16:45 recall anybody talking about God that much. Like it was more of a social gathering. Like I think New
0:16:51 Englanders are a little bit reticent in terms of being too heavy on the message. You know, like we sang
0:16:57 songs and made crafts and I don’t remember it having very much to do with God. But I had a God
0:17:04 awareness that was very powerful in me. And I remember going to the National Cathedral on a
0:17:08 school trip when I was 10 in Washington, DC. And yeah, I grew up on a farm. So I grew up with
0:17:15 very rustic architecture and to go from, I mean, that cathedral did what cathedrals are meant to do
0:17:21 to medieval peasants to me. You know, like, like I was, it put me into an awestruck state. And I remember
0:17:27 coming home and wanting to replicate that state and trying to figure out if I could build
0:17:32 a cathedral in my bedroom with like stuff from my dad’s woodshed and my mom’s sewing kit. Like
0:17:35 I really did try it. I’m like, how do you do, how do you make that? How do you make something that
0:17:41 feels like that? And I think writing for me and my pursuit of writing and the arts was always driven
0:17:46 by this sense of awe and wonder and mystery that something was moving through me. That was probably
0:17:52 my first direct communication with it. But for the last 20 years, I’ve had a practice nearly every single
0:18:00 day of writing myself a letter every morning from unconditional love, which is kind of a God
0:18:05 presence. It’s a bit more specific, the unconditional love thing, because I think God is more than that.
0:18:13 But that’s where I also hear direction and guidance and humor. Yeah, I need a very funny God. I’m not
0:18:21 going to do well with a God that’s too serious. I need a God who thinks I’m funny, like who thinks
0:18:25 I’m adorable and funny. Like I need that. I can’t be too beaten up by a higher power.
0:18:30 How did you start that practice? When did it start or even begin germinating?
0:18:40 It started in desperation. When I was going through my first divorce, I was 30. And the well-laid-out,
0:18:48 planned life that I had created very obediently. Like I had done just what my culture had told me to do.
0:18:56 I got married at 24 and worked hard and bought a house and made a plan to have a family. And then
0:19:02 instead of having a family, I had a nervous breakdown, like quite literally. Everybody was moving in this
0:19:10 one direction and my entire intellectual, spiritual, and physical system collapsed, which I now know,
0:19:15 I now see that as an act of God. I now see that there was sort of the Tao, you know, that there was
0:19:22 a force that was trying to communicate to me, this is not your path. I will kill you before I let you do
0:19:27 this. I will kill you before I let you be a suburban housewife. I’m not allowing it. Like,
0:19:32 I will make you put you in so much physical pain that you’re going to have to notice that this is
0:19:40 not the life for you. But I was also in so much shame of failure and letting people down. And like,
0:19:45 we just bought this house. Like, I just felt like the biggest asshole in the world. Like,
0:19:49 I don’t know why I can’t just get in line and do this thing that everybody’s saying to do.
0:19:54 Anyway, that marriage ended. And then I threw myself into another relationship and that ended.
0:20:00 And I was like, I don’t know how to orchestrate my life at all. And nothing, here I am 30 years old,
0:20:05 and nothing is what I had planned it to be five years ago. And I was in the deepest depression of
0:20:10 my life. And I didn’t have much of a spiritual life at that point. But I remember waking up one night
0:20:17 and just shame and getting an instruction. I mean, that’s the only way I can explain it. And I’m
0:20:21 comfortable with that language because I often have that happen in my creative life
0:20:26 where I’m told what to do. This is what you’re going to focus on. Here’s what you need to do now.
0:20:31 And I was given this instruction and it came in as clearly as I’m talking to you. And it said,
0:20:37 get up, get a notebook and write to yourself the words that you most wish that somebody would say to
0:20:44 you. Because there was a great loneliness that I was feeling too, as well as the shame. And that letter
0:20:50 letter began, you know, what that letter said was, I’ve got you. I’m with you. I’m not going anywhere.
0:20:58 I love you exactly the way you are. You can’t fail at this. Like you can’t do this wrong. I don’t need
0:21:05 anything from you. This is a huge thing to hear. I don’t need anything from talk about no cherished
0:21:11 outcome. I don’t need anything from you. You don’t have to improve. You don’t have to do life better.
0:21:16 You don’t have to win. You don’t have to get out of this depression. You don’t have to ever
0:21:23 uplift your spirits. You could end up living in a box under a bridge in a garbage bag, spitting at
0:21:30 people. And I would love you just as much as I do now. The love that I have for you cannot be lost
0:21:37 because it’s innate. It’s yours. I have no requirements for it. And if you need to stay up
0:21:42 all night crying, I’ll be here with you. And if tomorrow you have a garbage day again, because
0:21:46 you’ve been up all night crying, I’ll be there for that too. I’ll be here for every minute of it. Just
0:21:52 ask me to come and I’ll be here with you. And the astonishing thing was that it, like even talking about
0:21:59 it now, I can feel the impact that it has on my nervous system to hear those words, even in my own
0:22:05 voice. And it was the first experience I’d ever had with unconditional love. I’d never heard anybody
0:22:10 say like, you don’t need, I don’t need you to be anything. You don’t have to do better. Like this
0:22:16 is fine. This is great. You on the bathroom floor and a pile of tears. It’s not, it’s great. It’s great.
0:22:22 That’s fine. We love you just like that. And that’s so nourishing because it’s so the opposite of
0:22:27 every message that I’ve ever heard. And so I started doing that practice and it’s taken me
0:22:35 through. I’ve never had difficult times in the last 20 years, but I’ve never gone as low again as I went
0:22:42 at that time, because this is the net that catches me routinely before I can get that low. And that voice
0:22:50 doesn’t change. All right. This is, this is getting into the juicy bits that I love to wait
0:22:59 around. And so to follow up, you’ve helped a lot of people now draft or attempt to write similar
0:23:04 letters. And I’m wondering a few things you can answer these in any order you want, or you can
0:23:09 take it in a different direction. One is if there are ingredients that seem to work better than others,
0:23:15 because everything seems to take practice. Maybe these letters are no exception. The second is,
0:23:24 do you find that people with some religious orientation or spiritual orientation towards a
0:23:30 greater power have an easier time writing this? In other words, if the letter is from this
0:23:38 power to yourself almost versus being from another version of yourself to yourself, does it differ in
0:23:46 impact? I found out that what I was doing, there’s a name for it. And it’s actually a long spiritual
0:23:52 tradition for people to do things like this, but there’s, it’s a practice that’s very common in 12-step
0:23:58 recovery and it’s called two-way prayer. So it’s essentially two-way prayer. So I call it love,
0:24:05 but sometimes I call it God. For a lot of people, that word God is a weapon. I mean,
0:24:11 especially people who grew up in what are called high demand religions or who grew up in really
0:24:16 oppressive religious cultures or abusive religious cultures, or for whom they simply cannot stomach
0:24:23 that word. Like obviously don’t use that word, but two-way prayer. So one-way prayer is what most people
0:24:30 are taught as prayer, which is a supplication. Get down on your knees. And I had done that in my life and
0:24:36 like beg for help. But sometimes you spend so much time begging for help, you’re not actually listening.
0:24:38 Yeah. Too busy saying Marco to hear the polo.
0:24:44 Yeah. I was like, Marco, Marco, Marco, Marco, Marco, Marco, Marco, Marco. And God’s like,
0:24:51 can I just, can I get, can I get, can I just, there’s something I want to say. And so I would suggest
0:24:55 if people are interested in this, you can look up two-way prayer because there are a lot of people
0:25:01 teaching it and they have made a, a sort of, what were you saying? Is there like a, a practice or
0:25:07 like a instructions? Like they have found that certain things work really well. So I’m sort of
0:25:15 quoting from kind of two-way prayer theory on this. The first one is that you can open up the channel
0:25:20 by reading something. So go to a quiet place. Although at this point I’ve done it so long,
0:25:28 like I can do it in an Uber, you know, but like go to a quiet place and read something that to you
0:25:36 feels holy. So it doesn’t have to be any official religious text. Poetry works for me better than
0:25:43 scripture. So the poems of Hafiz or Rumi or Mary Oliver or Walt Whitman, you know, I kept like letters,
0:25:47 song of myself from Walt Whitman, which is essentially just a big letter from love.
0:25:52 You can just open that up to any page and you read some of it. And I feel like those writers had
0:25:59 direct access to the divine and they left the door open when they died, right? So you can just draft in
0:26:05 on the sense that they create. So you read something that opens your heart in some way. And then you ask
0:26:13 one question and one question only. It’s not a deposition and it’s not a dialogue because the ego
0:26:20 ego always wants a dialogue. Like the ego always wants, I feel like if I could reduce my ego down
0:26:26 to two words, it would be, yeah, but like it’s always got a follow-up question. It’s like, well,
0:26:30 yeah, but you say, yeah, but you say that you love me, but yeah, but you know, and it’s like part of the
0:26:35 reason that two-way prayer is so beautiful is that you ask the question and then you stop talking.
0:26:36 You get your opening statement.
0:26:43 Right? And your opening statement is, dear love, what would you have me know today? And then the
0:26:47 other thing that I’ve seen suggested in two-way prayer practice, and this kind of came intuitively
0:26:54 to me, but I see that it’s taught this way when people teach it, is the first line back to you from
0:27:02 the divine should be an endearment, an affectionate nickname, my love, my child, my sweetheart, my
0:27:09 little one. I hear little one a lot. My little one, my angel, honey head. I’ve seen some of my
0:27:15 friends have like tiny turtle, penguin cheeks, you know, like some sort of like endearment.
0:27:20 You can be stuck imagining what penguin cheeks look like for the rest of this conversation.
0:27:25 You know, and that’s very hard for some people because the idea of turning toward yourself
0:27:33 as though you are worthy of endearment can be really hard for especially perfectionists and
0:27:40 the most driven among us. Like you didn’t earn, how did you earn sweet love? You didn’t earn that,
0:27:44 but this is a kind of love that doesn’t have to be earned. So you start with that. And then,
0:27:50 so the way I did it, the first night I did it was I literally just wrote what I wish somebody
0:27:56 would say to me. And that’s pretty straightforward as an instruction because you know what you wish
0:28:01 somebody would say to you. You know, like, you know how you want to be loved. You know how you
0:28:05 want to be loved. It’s right there. Like, you know what you’re dying for. We all know what we’re dying
0:28:12 for, whether it’s mother love or the missing father or the partner or the, like somebody who’s just
0:28:19 like, I’ve got you. I see you. I see you. I love you. You’re amazing to me. I see that you’re
0:28:24 suffering. I’m with you and you’re suffering. And then you just, you just write that. But over time,
0:28:30 what I think people will find, one of the biggest questions people have is like, well, it’s just feels
0:28:35 like it’s just me writing to me. It feels super artificial. I don’t feel like I’m hearing God’s
0:28:40 voice. I don’t feel like I’m believing that there’s this eternal source in the universe that’s
0:28:46 completely loving and unconditionally adores me. I just feel like I’m doing this exercise of
0:28:52 just writing words to myself. And that doesn’t feel spiritual and it doesn’t feel rich and it doesn’t
0:28:59 feel real. And the question I have heard is, what’s so bad about that? What if it is just you? What if
0:29:05 all it is, is just you writing to yourself from a kinder voice within you? Wouldn’t that
0:29:12 be worthy enough to be slightly life-changing besides the terrorist who lives inside your head
0:29:18 constantly telling you how you failed? Like, why not change the channel in your own head? And if that’s
0:29:22 all it is, what if God is just the most loving voice inside your own head?
0:29:30 Hmm. This makes me actually flashback to our last conversation because we have some proof for this
0:29:37 in a different form, which is morning pages from The Artist’s Way and Julia Cameron. Just getting your
0:29:46 monkey mind on paper, even if it’s actually the terrorist, can be incredibly powerful. And one of my
0:29:50 friends, I remember he tried it for the first time for a week and he said, he’s very high functioning,
0:29:56 works with a lot of household names I won’t mention, but he said, this is the closest thing to a magic
0:30:03 trick, a real world magic trick that I’ve ever come across. So that question, what if it is just
0:30:12 the kindest voice in your head, I think is, helps to diffuse maybe the pressure that people would apply
0:30:16 to themselves when trying this for the first time, right? And as you were talking about the very first
0:30:20 example you gave, I was thinking, and I think this might’ve been Chip Conley, could have been someone
0:30:25 else who said this to me, but that happiness is reality minus expectations. And I was like,
0:30:30 there are a lot of ways to play with that collection of variables. One of which is saying,
0:30:36 hey, you’ve already passed the grade. You could be under an overpass and that’s acceptable. That’s
0:30:42 okay, right? You don’t have to be that fortune 500 company compounding at X percent per quarter.
0:30:44 Thank God.
0:30:44 Yeah.
0:30:46 Yeah.
0:30:52 Because you know those people and I know those people and I don’t know that it’s such a gentle,
0:30:54 loving life that they’re leading.
0:31:03 Yeah. I think I know one of them intimately. At least somebody who kind of assumes that’s the
0:31:11 baseline minimal acceptable outcome, right? And life just doesn’t seem to work that way. It’s not
0:31:18 linear. Even if you are improving over time, but applying that pressure sometimes handicaps the
0:31:22 improvement in the first place. So question for you, this occurred to me and it may be a dead end,
0:31:32 but I’m wondering, have you seen any difference in how men approach this or have challenges with it
0:31:38 versus women or no difference? Is it kind of the ubiquitous set of challenges when you look at the
0:31:43 number of friends, listeners, readers, et cetera, who have attempted this?
0:31:49 It’s hard to know because women tend to follow me more than men do, but I’ve invited a number of men.
0:31:56 So every week, so on my sub stack, I share a letter from love that I’ve written, and then I invite a
0:32:01 special guest to do it. And I’ve invited a number of men. I’m thinking right now about my friend,
0:32:07 Arshay Cooper, who’s such an extraordinary guy. He grew up on the south side of Chicago in
0:32:16 an absolutely bullet and drug-ridden ghetto, black, underprivileged, underserved. He’s the subject and the
0:32:23 producer of a gorgeous documentary called A Beautiful Thing. And he wrote a book by the same
0:32:29 title. And when he was in high school with like no future, some guy showed up in his high school
0:32:35 hallway with a rowing machine and was like, I want to start like the first black rowing team
0:32:40 or the first black crew. Do any of you guys want to do it? And he was like, yes, I absolutely want
0:32:46 to do it. And he now has become this ambassador teaching rowing all over the world in South Africa.
0:32:52 And his letter from love that he shared is one of my favorite ones that I’ve ever seen.
0:33:01 His letter was addressed to that little boy who he was, who saw more violence before he was eight
0:33:08 years old than most people on tours of duty in Afghanistan had seen and how tenderly that child
0:33:17 needed to be treated. And watching him, you know, this like athlete, this motivational speaker,
0:33:24 this great leader, like turn toward himself or have love turn toward him in such a tender and
0:33:28 intimate way was so moving, but he was open to it. He allowed that vulnerability to come through.
0:33:35 Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors, and we’ll be right back to the show.
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0:34:59 There’s something that I’ve learned in IFS, internal family systems therapy.
0:35:01 Yeah. I was just going to bring that up.
0:35:02 Yeah. I mean, it’s all…
0:35:02 The hive mind is working.
0:35:08 It all works within IFS too, but there’s… One of the things they say in IFS a lot is a prepositional
0:35:12 change. How do you feel towards yourself versus how do you feel about yourself?
0:35:18 May I just give a little bit of context for folks? So IFS for people who don’t know, it’s somewhat
0:35:26 strangely named. So internal family systems can be thought of as, and please fact check me. I did an
0:35:31 episode with Dick Schwartz for people who are interested, but parts work in the context of
0:35:36 different parts of yourself. So you might have protectors, you may have exiles, these aspects of
0:35:43 yourself that you have pushed away or compartmentalized in some way. And you facilitate dialogue
0:35:49 between and among these different parts for the purposes of therapy. And it can be very,
0:35:51 very powerful. So I just wanted to give people a little bit of context.
0:35:55 Beautifully described. Yeah. I’ve heard it described as group therapy for one.
0:36:02 And he actually, Dick Schwartz, who founded it, started off as a group therapist. And when he started
0:36:06 doing individual therapy, he was like, oh, this is just like group therapy. We’ve got
0:36:10 voices yelling at each other inside this person who don’t know how to communicate with each other,
0:36:16 right? So yeah, that’s a really beautiful sumnation of what it is. But the difference
0:36:21 between even, I mean, try it, Tim, actually, can you feel the difference physically between if I ask you
0:36:25 how you feel about yourself and how you feel toward yourself?
0:36:32 They’re totally different, right? Because toward yourself, I’m taking a friendly observer perspective.
0:36:34 There’s a built-in empathy.
0:36:43 Right. And how do you feel about yourself also is so familiar linguistically that it overlaps with a
0:36:47 lot of the negative tracks that I already have had in my head. Whereas how do I feel towards
0:36:52 myself? That’s not a construction I use. So it benevolently hijacks the whole thought process.
0:36:57 Instantly. You know, you ask me how I feel about myself. I’ll show you a list of everything that
0:37:01 needs improvement. You know, and I’m wired to constantly be self-improving and I’m sure you are
0:37:08 too. How do I feel toward myself? I’m like, oh man, you’re tired. Like you’ve got this chest cold you’ve
0:37:13 had for seven weeks. You’re finishing this project that’s huge. You’ve got a lot on you. Like, honey,
0:37:19 yeah, it’s hard. You’re having a hard time. Like, it’s hard. Suddenly it’s like I’m a very different
0:37:20 person toward myself.
0:37:25 Let’s actually hop from that. I’ll mention one thing and then I want to hop to something
0:37:31 related, which is self-friendliness and how you think about it, how others might think about it.
0:37:37 I just want to say in connection with IFS and also a number of other workshops and seminars that I’ve
0:37:44 done, I have not written a letter from love in the way that you describe it exactly, but I did write
0:37:49 a version of it that sounds actually very similar to the last example you gave. And this is done in a
0:37:55 fair amount of parts work is, you know, what would you say to X, which could be, I’m making this up,
0:38:00 but like fear of inadequacy at what age, right? How old are you? Five-year-old Tim. Okay. What would
0:38:06 you say to five-year-old Tim? So I have written letters to a younger version of myself and found
0:38:13 it to be incredibly powerful. I mean, this was years ago that I did it and it still sticks in my mind.
0:38:17 And I remember a lot of the language that I used, but the question of self-friendliness sort of
0:38:24 broadens and includes a lot of what we’ve been talking about already. Could you speak to self-friendliness
0:38:30 in whatever way makes sense to you? Yeah. I mean, we always talk about self-love,
0:38:34 but that’s kind of lofty. And I think you could just start by being a little friendlier,
0:38:39 you know what I mean? Like, just how about the common courtesy you would show to a stranger on
0:38:44 the subway? Like, let’s start with that. Like just common human decency. So there’s a story that
0:38:50 I’m so moved and disturbed by it. So Sharon Salzberg, do you know Sharon Salzberg, the meditation teacher?
0:38:56 So she met the Dalai Lama and she’s written about this. She met the Dalai Lama on his first visit
0:39:03 to the West. And she was in a group of people who were the first Americans, North Americans to meet
0:39:07 him. And it was at a time when nobody really knew who he was. He wasn’t like the rock star who he
0:39:14 became. He’s this obscure Tibetan monk. And of course it took place somewhere in California. And there were
0:39:19 some academics in the room and some spiritual writers and teachers and meditators and this sort of
0:39:23 elect group of people who were coming to meet him. And he was speaking through a translator because he
0:39:30 didn’t speak much English at the time. And somebody in the room asked him what Tibetan Buddhism and his
0:39:38 teachings have to say about self-hatred and how to combat self-hatred. And don’t you know, that man
0:39:46 had to talk to his translator for like 15 minutes and kept asking for the question to be repeated.
0:39:53 He didn’t understand the question. He kept thinking that he was mishearing the question because he kept
0:39:58 saying, wait, who is the enemy? Who’s the person that you’re having trouble with? And of course being
0:40:06 like Calvinistic Westerners in the room raised on scarcity and, you know, your never enoughness and
0:40:12 original sin, everybody in the room was like, no, I am the one I hate. You know? And he was like,
0:40:18 this doesn’t even make sense. Like what you’re saying doesn’t even make sense. And, and when he
0:40:23 finally grasped, not only that he understood that person’s question and what they were talking about,
0:40:30 but that everyone in the room shared this problem, he was so devastated. And he said, I used to think
0:40:38 that I had a really good understanding of the workings of the human mind, but this is new to me. And this is
0:40:44 very disturbing. Like this is not okay. And essentially after that, he said, this is where
0:40:50 we’re going to start. And then that’s basically what he became his mission in the Western world.
0:40:53 And it’s interesting. I was talking about it with Sharon Salzberg the other day, and she was saying
0:40:58 in Buddhism, they say, you know, that one of the things that if you want to evolve is that you have
0:41:03 to be less precious to yourself. You have to think of yourself as being less precious. But she said,
0:41:08 in the West, we have to, we haven’t even gotten to the point where we think we’re precious yet to let
0:41:14 go of it. Like, um, first she’s like, I think we first have to find our preciousness and then we can
0:41:20 let go of it and then we can evolve. But if we don’t even know that any of us, anything about us is
0:41:24 precious, that’s already a problem. And when the Dalai Lama started teaching people how to love
0:41:29 themselves, he would say, talk to yourself the way your mother would talk to you. And then he found out
0:41:35 about some of our moms and he was like, okay, grandmother, like he was just scratch that. He
0:41:40 was like, has anybody ever said a kind word to you? You know, like it was, you know, and it really
0:41:46 spotlights this sort of terrible dysfunction that we all kind of collectively have grown up in.
0:41:53 Have you found other ways to counteract that outside of the letter writing? Are there any other
0:42:01 practices or recommendations for people who are experiencing this? Many of whom are experiencing
0:42:09 it secularly, right? They may experience it in the absence of a religious upbringing, as would be the
0:42:12 case for me. Any other recommendations or thoughts?
0:42:17 You just made me realize I didn’t answer your second question about whether people who have some sort of
0:42:24 religious or spiritual basis find this easier. Not necessarily because some people still are praying
0:42:28 to what James Joyce called the hangman God. And you’re not going to get a letter of unconditional
0:42:32 love from the hangman God. You’re going to get a list of complaints about things that you need to do
0:42:38 better. So sometimes those people have a really hard time doing it. There’s one man I asked to do this,
0:42:45 to write a letter from love, and he’s a very well-known figure in the world. I’m trying to think how to
0:42:49 not identify. I’m not even going to say more than that, but he’s somebody who’s very admired and is
0:42:55 very good. And he had the most surprising response of people who have said no. Most people say no
0:42:59 because they’re either afraid that they’re going to ask love to show up and love isn’t going to show up,
0:43:05 and that would be more painful than not asking, or they feel like it’s too vulnerable to expose
0:43:11 themselves like this. He said no because he said, I have a feeling I know what unconditional love is
0:43:15 going to say to me. It’s going to say, you’re trying too hard and you’re doing too much,
0:43:18 and you don’t have to try this hard and do too much, but I don’t want to be let off the hook
0:43:25 because I want to keep aspiring to go further and higher. And I don’t want to hear a voice that tells
0:43:30 me that I’m okay just the way I am. I’m afraid that will make me stop. And I was like, oh, honey,
0:43:39 who hurt you? You know? Oh, dear. You can still do things, but might it not be nice to also hear that
0:43:45 something loves you even as you’re aspiring? You know? Anyway, it was just, that was interesting.
0:43:47 Sorry, but you had a second question.
0:43:54 Yeah, well, the question was, I suppose, related, and that is outside of writing this letter you’ve
0:44:02 described, what other approaches or habits, anything at all, have you found helpful or seen helpful for
0:44:08 others in counteracting self-antagonism, right? So fostering self-friendliness, in other words.
0:44:16 Boundaries is what comes to mind. And some really hardcore ones, like…
0:44:18 Makes me think of our mutual friend, Martha Beck.
0:44:19 Yeah.
0:44:21 Who you’ve known a lot longer than I have.
0:44:24 Tell me what made you think of her for that.
0:44:29 Well, the integrity cleanse and just checking in. I know we discussed it last time, but
0:44:33 setting a timer to check in every 30 minutes to see if you’re lying and if you’re…
0:44:35 If you want to even be in this conversation.
0:44:38 Right. If your sister’s like, yeah, you’re coming over for the baby shower, and you’re like,
0:44:42 Oh, I’d love to. Beep, beep, beep. Like, no, actually, I really have zero interest.
0:44:52 There are people who I am not skilled… This is how I word it, because I want to keep it on me. I’m
0:44:59 not skilled enough to be able to hold my serenity when I’m around them. I lose the hard-earned peace
0:45:06 that I try to generate every day through meditation and through two-way prayer and through the way that
0:45:13 I live. Like, I’m constantly trying to bring myself to a level of kind of humming nicely along. And
0:45:18 there are certain people who I… Man, I just can’t do it. And I think my younger self was spiritually
0:45:24 ambitious enough that I was like, if you were a better human being, then you would be able to
0:45:28 jujitsu your way through this, or you would compassion your way through this, or you would
0:45:34 accept your way through this. And I’m at an age now at 55 where I’m like, no, I just can’t do… I
0:45:42 can’t. Like, I come home sick when I’m around those people. Like, I lose my attainments when I’m around
0:45:49 those people. And it’s not friendly for me to be around people who are cruel. And when I’m around
0:46:00 people who are cruel, I become unwell. And I also then have to use something to, like, I get so
0:46:00 dysregulated.
0:46:00 You mean like a substance?
0:46:06 Yeah. Like, I get, like, there’s certain people, I’m around them, and it’s like, I want to have a
0:46:11 drink. Like, I want to have a drink, call a phone number I shouldn’t dial, like, start smoking and
0:46:18 driving fast. You know, like, this dysregulates me so much. And it’s just, it’s not kind to myself to put
0:46:20 myself in those situations again and again.
0:46:29 So how do you, or how have you created boundaries or put those relationships on probation or otherwise?
0:46:33 I’m trying to, you know, I’m trying to think how to describe it that doesn’t get too,
0:46:40 revealing too much personal stuff. I’m not here to say it’s easy, but I do feel a sense of stewardship
0:46:48 toward myself. And, you know, I mean, it’s hard. I’ll tell you this. I did an event with Rachel
0:46:52 Cargill, the great writer and civil rights activist a couple years ago. And somebody in
0:46:57 the audience asked us, you guys both seem so calm and chilled. You have difficult people in your life.
0:47:04 And I started laughing so hard. I rolled, literally rolled off my chair. And I was like, yeah. And she
0:47:10 said, no, I don’t. And I was like, wait, what? And I was like leaning in. I’m like, wait a minute,
0:47:14 break that down. And she said, no, I don’t have anybody in my life currently who’s difficult
0:47:20 because I won’t do that to myself anymore. And here’s the zinger. This is somebody with a tremendous
0:47:26 sense of self-value and self-friendliness. She said, the follow-up question in the audience was
0:47:31 somebody said, what about people who you have to deal with and you have to have them in your life?
0:47:36 Cause like they’re in your family. And she said, I’m thinking as hard as I can. And I cannot come
0:47:43 up with a single name of anybody who is entitled to be in my life, no matter what their biological
0:47:50 relationship is to me. And that’s a radical position to take. And Rachel Cargill lives a radical life.
0:47:57 And that’s somebody who is really prioritizing her own wellbeing. And she was like, I’ve blocked my
0:48:04 mother for several years at a time because she was too destructive. She’s like, I’ve got siblings I
0:48:10 haven’t spoken to in years because they’re too disruptive and they’re not entitled to have me in
0:48:15 their life just because we were born into the same family. That’s intense boundaries. So I will say only
0:48:21 that I’ve done stuff like that. I’ve decided that not everybody’s entitled to have me in their life.
0:48:28 Just a practical, tactical question, since that’s where my brain sometimes goes. Do you slow fade that
0:48:33 person? You just start like, first you respond after 24 hours, then it’s a week, then it’s two
0:48:38 months, then it’s never. Or do you have a conversation? Do you text them and you’re like, hey, love you,
0:48:41 but, or is there some approach that you take?
0:48:46 I’ve got a list in my head. I’m like, how did I do that one? How did I do that one? Some have been
0:48:53 done, I would say elegantly, which to me means honestly. But I think again, you can keep it on
0:49:03 the eye and just say like, I noticed that I become so dysregulated after these encounters that I can’t do
0:49:11 this anymore. This is too dysregulating for me. I can’t do it. I’m out. And at times where I’m
0:49:17 super dysregulated, I will say I’m not well and I need to go get well. And I’m going to go take some
0:49:23 privacy because that’s also true. Like I can get so dysregulated that I become unwell. I’m thinking of
0:49:29 a couple other people where I very honestly said like, I’m in a place in my life right now where
0:49:35 I need a lot of solitude and a lot of silence. And if that changes, I’ll let you know. And then
0:49:42 there’s some people who I just stopped responding to because there being, I kept running through the
0:49:46 scenarios of like, how would an open and honest conversation about this go? And it would be like,
0:49:52 not good. I don’t have any reason to think that this would go well. Like this is going to be a
0:49:59 firestorm. And I think I’m just going to leave, but it isn’t easy, but I’m a lot healthier
0:50:03 since I’ve done that. I think it’s easier when you’re older too. Cause I think you get used to
0:50:09 like, you don’t keep everybody in life. You know, you think as a young person, you can’t.
0:50:13 You can’t, right? There’s an ebb and flow. Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t.
0:50:18 And it makes me think of maybe bonsai is not the right example. Cause I do think of them kind of as
0:50:26 little tortured trees, but, but pruning as opposed to accumulating, right? Curating as opposed to
0:50:34 collecting. And I think as you get older, you just realize, okay, there is at least as far as we know
0:50:41 in this corporeal body and end to the story, not generating more time. And some people just consume
0:50:43 more life energy than they contribute.
0:50:48 I mean, I always say some people are medicine. Like when you’re with them, when you come away from
0:50:54 them, you feel like you’ve gotten a dose of medicine and some people need medicine. And
0:51:00 when you’re with them, you feel like they raided your pharmacy. And some people need to be
0:51:06 institutionalized. Like it’s beyond that. It’s just like, I can’t do, I can’t do anything with this
0:51:13 year. You know, one thing I have noticed is that I don’t like holidays. I don’t like the ritual of like
0:51:20 big holiday gatherings. And I’ve let my family know that, that I’m like, I love you guys.
0:51:27 And I’m going to come and see you any day of the year, except these days. So I’ll come and see you
0:51:31 in early December. I’ll spend a week. We’ll have a great time. Like, well, I want to have one-on-one
0:51:36 time with you. I want to sit at the table with you. I want to go for walks with you. I want to go for
0:51:38 bike rides with you. I’m not going for Christmas.
0:51:44 Why is that? I’m so curious. Just as someone who, you picked my one and favorite holiday.
0:51:45 Oh, do you love it? That’s so wonderful.
0:51:50 Which is fine and great. But I’m curious, what is it about the gathering?
0:51:52 Cherished outcomes.
0:51:56 Cherished outcomes. Meaning that you need to, you feel like you need to perform.
0:52:03 Man, there’s some, I feel like there’s so much on the table. And it’s like, the meal. Even as a kid,
0:52:11 I found it so stressful. And like, everyone’s so tense. And it’s like, why do we have to do this?
0:52:15 And the answer is, you don’t have to.
0:52:15 Yeah.
0:52:17 But the people who love it should do it.
0:52:25 Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. I just sit by the fire with my dog and drink hot chocolate.
0:52:28 So it’s not very stressful.
0:52:34 No, I actually like spending holidays alone because they’re quiet days. When you’re alone,
0:52:38 the phone’s not ringing and work emails aren’t coming in. Like some of my happiest
0:52:42 days have been holidays that I spent alone. I enjoy it.
0:52:46 Have you always been comfortable with solitude or extended periods of being alone?
0:52:47 Has that always been the case?
0:52:55 It’s a mix. But I love my own company, except for when I’m in some sort of super disrupted
0:53:03 mental state. And then it’s very painful to be with myself. But lately, like in the last 10 years,
0:53:11 it’s my favorite person to hang out with. And I live alone and I love living alone. And I love waking
0:53:17 up and being like, here’s our day. Like, what do we want to do? It’s so, how do we want to
0:53:20 spend this? And I’m a writer. I chose to be a writer. It’s a very solitary-
0:53:21 It is solitary.
0:53:29 …time. And I love that. Like my most joyful moments of my life have been alone with my work.
0:53:35 And I remember hearing Michael Chabon one time say, and I’m super social too. Like I have a lot
0:53:41 of friends and a lot of people who I love and care about, but I’m always happy to go back to being alone.
0:53:45 Anyway, I heard him say one time, and he’s got four kids, I think. But he said,
0:53:50 you can love your books, but they can’t love you back. And I thought, oh, my books love me back.
0:53:59 Like my work loves me. Like it is a love story in two directions. Like it is a beautiful love story
0:54:04 writing those books. And I feel that there’s something very alive and connected in that,
0:54:05 isn’t just me.
0:54:12 So for people who can’t see, and even for people who can see video, your hairstyle has changed since
0:54:17 we last spoke. How did that come to be? Is there a significance there?
0:54:24 I’ve buzzed off my hair, gosh, about nine months ago. And I have been wanting to do this
0:54:32 for 20 years and dreaming about doing this for 20 years. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat
0:54:36 in my hairdresser’s chair and been like, just take those clippers and just buzz it off. Just buzz it
0:54:37 off.
0:54:38 Take it off.
0:54:43 Just take it off. Like, I just want to be free. I want to be free. And I never had the courage to do it.
0:54:49 And I had a lot of reasons for why I couldn’t do that as a woman. What if my head has a weird shape?
0:54:54 What if, I mean, I’m a public figure? What if I’m out there with a bald head? I just, I always was
0:54:59 like, when I get older, I’ll do it. When I get older, I’ll do it. And then I had this amazing
0:55:05 awakening. And it was last year, I went to an event in New York and there were a bunch of people there
0:55:10 who were in their forties, fifties, and sixties. And this is New York city. So it’s like one of the
0:55:14 most progressive places in the world. And I looked around the room and all the men,
0:55:24 all of the men had clipped, like shaved or buzzed hair. And they all looked great. Like yours,
0:55:29 like they all looked great. Like it was a bunch of like silver foxes. They all had lines in their faces.
0:55:38 They looked fantastic. And all the women had long or longish versions of some sort of complicated hair
0:55:44 that I, you know, I know hair. So I know what it costs to have that hair. I know
0:55:47 the keratin treatment you had to have for that hair to look silky. I know
0:55:52 the dye job that you had to pay for. I know the, how much those highlights cost. I know that only
0:55:58 2% of women in the world are blonde and that 45% of the women in that room were blonde, including me,
0:56:02 you know? And I was like thinking about Dolly Parton’s line where somebody said to her one time,
0:56:06 did you ever get offended at dumb blonde jokes? And she said, no, because I know I ain’t dumb.
0:56:12 And I know I ain’t blonde. And it’s like, I ain’t blonde and I ain’t dumb, but I’m spending a lot of
0:56:18 money too. And I just had this really reckoning moment where I thought, why are we doing this?
0:56:25 Why do I have to do this? And so many of the most amazing reckoning and liberation moments of my life
0:56:31 have been these moments where I was like, oh, I don’t have to buy into this anymore just because
0:56:36 I’ve been trained and taught and conditioned my entire life that I have to buy into this. I’m
0:56:41 opting out. I’m out. I’m taking my toys and I’m leaving. And, um, and I thought I can just like
0:56:46 get mad about the patriarchy and say that there’s an unfair beauty standard for men and women,
0:56:51 or I can just claim the entitlement that these men have and just get some buzzers at CVS and clip my
0:56:56 own hair and like, never think about my hair again. And that’s what I did.
0:56:57 So do you did it yourself?
0:57:02 I did it myself. Yeah. And I do it myself every week. And it’s like, this is the last money I’m
0:57:02 ever spending on my hair.
0:57:05 I was going to say, now we can trade tips.
0:57:11 I know. It’s so great. And I was like, oh my God, the freedom. Like I wake up every morning. I’m
0:57:16 like, my hair is perfect. Like I jump in a river, jump in a lake, jump in an ocean, get off,
0:57:21 get off a plane. It’s never not perfect. It’s amazing. And I can’t imagine any reason to ever
0:57:27 have hair again. And it’s part of, I don’t know. I just think it’s part of this amazing thing about
0:57:34 becoming a free woman and a middle-aged, I am culture’s nightmare. I’m a middle-aged,
0:57:45 childless, husbandless woman. Like I’m basically a bog witch. Like living, rattling around in a house
0:57:51 by myself, talking to myself, watering my plants, shaving my head. And it’s so cool.
0:57:58 It’s so exciting because I never saw a woman like this when I was growing up. And I never heard of a
0:58:05 woman like this. I only heard cautionary tales about how tragic and sad unmarried, divorced,
0:58:11 or widowed women were. And I’m all of those. I’m unmarried, divorced, and widowed. So I’m like the
0:58:19 trifecta. And these have been the most creative, spiritual, and wild years of my life.
0:58:28 We were exchanging various ideas, potential topics before this conversation. In shorthand,
0:58:34 because of course, I want to talk about things fresh without knowing the answers I’m going to get.
0:58:40 A relaxed woman, a relaxed woman, is a radical concept. What is this?
0:58:41 How many have you ever met?
0:58:44 Oh boy, in the hot seat.
0:58:47 No, it’s not an, it’s not, I mean, I haven’t met that many relaxed men either.
0:58:48 Yeah.
0:58:52 But like, you know, I think it would be a truly revolutionary thing.
0:58:56 What are the characteristics of a relaxed woman? What does that look like?
0:59:02 Well, first of all, I want to say that this is like, why I think it would be revolutionary.
0:59:10 So let me start with why. When I think of the words that are commonly used to describe
0:59:19 the women who we all admire, badass, fierce, tough, resilient, brave, strong, or in the Brené Brown
0:59:26 realm, vulnerable, open-hearted, you know, like, I aspire to be all those things. And I admire all
0:59:30 those women who are all those things. But none of that feels revolutionary to me, because women have
0:59:34 always been all those things. Like, you have to be all those things as a woman in the world. You have
0:59:38 to be resilient. You have to be strong. You have to be badass. You have to be fierce to survive
0:59:45 as a woman. My ancestors were all that. Your ancestors were that. Or we wouldn’t exist. So it’s
0:59:52 not a revolution. It’s not a revolution. What would be a revolution would be a relaxed woman. Because
1:00:01 I never saw one growing up. I saw angry, tired women. And I saw some relaxed men. But I saw angry,
1:00:07 tired women. And I was on the pathway to becoming an angry, tired woman. And that’s when my body revolted
1:00:11 and was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We’re not doing this. We’re going in a completely
1:00:18 different direction. So how do you not be an angry, tired woman? That’s a really big question. And I think
1:00:23 when I talk about this with groups of women, I always say, you know, I think we have to be careful
1:00:28 because there’s some part of us that thinks it would be irresponsible not to be angry. And it would
1:00:35 be irresponsible not to be tired. Because, I mean, just look at the world and how much it needs us. And
1:00:41 on the personal level and on the political level and how much there is to be angry about. And how many
1:00:46 of us were violated in our bodies at various times? I mean, there’s a million reasons to not
1:00:52 be relaxed. And yet, the question I have is, if you were to step in, and this is a question I always
1:00:56 ask to women, if you were to think of the biggest shit tornado going on in your life right now, whatever
1:01:03 it is, the hardest thing you’re doing, whether it’s your activism or your family or your work or a
1:01:09 medical issue or a bankruptcy or an addiction issue, like whatever it is, or a problematic family
1:01:16 member. And if you were to go into that same exact shit tornado tomorrow and not one external thing
1:01:24 changed, but you were relaxed, would you be more or less effective at handling it? Martial artists know
1:01:31 that the most relaxed person in the room wins the fight. You know, like actors know this, artists know this,
1:01:39 like this is where the flow happens, athletes know this. And so I think, for me, I’ve narrowed it down to three
1:01:51 things that I need for me, for my system to be relaxed. And it’s boundaries, priorities, and mysticism. And if I
1:01:56 don’t have those three things, I’m super stressed. And I would say that the mysticism is the most
1:02:01 important, but the boundaries protect that. So boundaries, what was number two? Priorities.
1:02:07 Yeah. Priorities and then mysticism. And women are not taught that they’re allowed to have priorities.
1:02:10 Men are taught that they’re allowed to have priorities, but women are supposed to prioritize
1:02:17 everybody and everything. And you feel really guilty if you’re not prioritizing everybody and everything.
1:02:24 And I always suggest that you should maybe have like four priorities, like four or five. And there’s nothing like
1:02:29 tragedy to kind of make it clear what your priorities are, too. Like when my partner, Raya, was diagnosed with
1:02:35 terminal cancer, it became very clear to me very quickly who I cared about and what I wanted to be doing with my
1:02:41 time. And I remember opening my inbox the day I found out that she had six months to live and seeing like this huge
1:02:47 list of emails. And I just deleted them all without responding to them. Because I was like, the reason
1:02:54 that these emails have been sitting in my inbox for months is not because I’m too busy. It’s because I
1:03:02 don’t care. I don’t care. Those are the three words that women are never allowed to say. Like a woman is never
1:03:03 allowed to say, I don’t care.
1:03:05 Yeah, you’re not too busy. You just don’t care.
1:03:09 I don’t care. It’s like, look, if I care, I’ll get back to you immediately. Like this is what I’ve
1:03:16 learned about my inbox. Like same with my text messages. Like you will hear from me immediately
1:03:21 if I care. Like if I don’t, it’s because I don’t care. And it’s okay. You can’t care about everything.
1:03:25 Or you just don’t care enough in the hierarchy of your priorities.
1:03:30 Priorities. Priorities, right? So like who are your priorities? What are your priorities? What do you
1:03:35 actually care about? Do you have the courage to say like, no? So boundaries, priorities, and then
1:03:41 mysticism is the only thing that will actually relax my nervous system. And that is getting really quiet
1:03:46 and connecting through two-way prayer, through a letter from love and through deep meditation.
1:03:54 Because I can’t just live on this plane or I will lose my shit. The plane of the apparent
1:03:59 and the real and the material and the Newtonian physics, it’s like too stressful.
1:04:09 And I need to have access to a deeper perspective to be able to be relaxed enough to actually say and
1:04:14 mean I have no cherished outcome. Like right to the point of saying like, whether I live or die,
1:04:20 I have no cherished outcome. Can I be that relaxed? Can I be relaxed enough not to know what’s going to
1:04:26 happen? Can I believe that some other thing is orchestrating this? And my involvement might not
1:04:29 be necessary in every single moment. This is a hard thing for women.
1:04:35 Is that the key ingredient of the mysticism for you? Because there are different forms for sure
1:04:40 that mysticism can take. I mean, you mentioned Hafez, you mentioned Rumi. I mean, you have
1:04:45 different, let’s just call it subsections of various religions that are associated with mysticism like
1:04:51 Sufis in that particular case. Is that potential of a larger power orchestrating things so that you
1:04:57 don’t need to be involved in all the details, the key component of this third leg of the stool,
1:05:00 the mysticism, or are there other aspects to that?
1:05:06 Well, there’s love. So we have to then go back to, you don’t have to win this,
1:05:09 right? You’re not going to be graded.
1:05:15 A thing I often hear in those prayers and meditations is, we’ve got all the time in the
1:05:20 world. And that’s the exact opposite of the stress that I was raised under, the vice grip
1:05:26 that I was raised under. Short amount of time, extremely important to win. No errors can be
1:05:30 allowed. You know, so got all the time in the world. We got all the time in the universe. What’s time?
1:05:36 Plenty of time. It’ll happen or it won’t, like whatever the thing is. And that actually also happens
1:05:41 to be true that it will happen or it won’t. Like even we know that our best laid plan sometimes
1:05:45 it’s like, I guess this wasn’t the thing that was supposed to happen. But then there’s also
1:05:53 where my body goes into a deep hum that I used to only be able to get from substances or love of
1:06:00 another person settling me. That deep, deep, like, okay, everything is okay here. The thing that always
1:06:09 works for me is a voice saying to me, you don’t even know what you’re looking at. You don’t even know what
1:06:14 you’re looking at. And it just pierces my certainty because my certainty is one of the things that makes
1:06:23 me so anxious. And this is a very convincing virtual reality that we live in. You know, it’s very, very,
1:06:29 very convincing. But the mystics and the physicists seem to agree that it might really not be what we see
1:06:35 and what we’re perceiving. I went to an event in Brooklyn a couple of years ago and heard two Nobel
1:06:40 Prize winning physicists talk about the nature of reality. And it was so wonderful to hear this
1:06:47 Nobel Prize winning scientist say, the more I look at reality, the less I understand it.
1:06:53 And all I can say after all these years of studying the nature of reality is that nothing is what it
1:06:59 appears. And that what we used to think was natural law is at best some very local ordinances.
1:07:06 We really, we’re like five Einsteins away from even having the right questions to ask to even know what
1:07:12 we’re looking at here. And just because billions and billions and billions of people have the same
1:07:16 senses and look at the world and come to the same conclusion about what they’re seeing and agree doesn’t
1:07:23 make it true. And that settles me. And it shouldn’t. It’s kind of like the rugs and the floor and the ground
1:07:28 are being pulled out from under you completely. And that shouldn’t be relaxing. But I find it deeply
1:07:35 relaxing. Because then the stakes suddenly become a lot lower. And it’s like, all right, well, since I
1:07:44 don’t even know what this game is that I’m in, let me do what I can. And let the rest of it go. And
1:07:52 it doesn’t mean quit the game. You’re still in the virtual reality game, play it nicely. But play it
1:07:53 knowing that you don’t even know what you’re looking at.
1:08:01 Yeah. I’m still thinking of your correlation that you drew between certainty and anxiety, which seems
1:08:08 very astute and that most people would steer away from. They would rather be unhappy than uncertain
1:08:15 because uncertainty equals in a lot of minds, and this is true for me at times too, hidden risks. But it
1:08:23 also, depending on how you kind of play the game and which poetry you read and so on, it also opens the
1:08:32 door to the possibility of unexpected surprises, good surprises, good things. Makes sense to me. I’ve
1:08:38 had a similar settling experience. I mean, it’s sometimes enhanced, so I can’t recommend that to
1:08:39 a broad audience.
1:08:45 Well, no, no, no, no, I get it. And that’s why people get enhanced. Because there’s that sense of like,
1:08:52 oh, wait a minute, this is bigger and more complicated. And I’m part of this, but I, wow.
1:08:58 You know, like Steve Jobs’ last words, wow, wow, wow. Like whatever he saw in those last moments,
1:09:03 wow, wow, wow. I’m thinking of a relative of mine who I said one time, would you rather be happy or
1:09:10 right? And they said, how in the world could I be happy if I wasn’t right? And I think that it’s
1:09:14 actually quite the opposite for me. Like, probably wrong.
1:09:24 human history in a nutshell. I mean, just look at my life. I have a long history of making decisions
1:09:28 that are very bad for getting what I wanted and then finding out. This is another thing that I find is
1:09:34 really wonderful about middle age. Like, I’ve gotten what I wanted a lot in life and it almost killed me.
1:09:41 So I’m not so interested anymore in what I want. I’m good at manifesting what I want and I’m good at
1:09:46 almost dying from getting what I want. You know? So maybe there’s a better question
1:09:48 to be asking than what do I want?
1:09:53 Have you any thoughts on candidates for that better question?
1:09:54 What would you have me know?
1:09:56 What would you have me know?
1:09:59 I mean, that’s a really good one.
1:10:04 This makes me wonder how you choose, and I’ve wanted to ask you this for a while,
1:10:08 and I don’t think we got into it in our prior conversation, which is how do you choose
1:10:16 projects? How to spend your time? Where to allocate your limited life force? Because there’s
1:10:18 what do you want, which is where a lot of people would start.
1:10:24 Although that’s a pretty, it can be nebulous in a handicapping way, because that could take
1:10:29 you in all sorts of different directions. But how do you choose your projects, things to
1:10:29 spend time on?
1:10:31 I’m kind of a hard ass about it.
1:10:32 Yeah. Great.
1:10:39 So part of the thing I’ve noticed that people tend to get stuck on sometimes is that they get
1:10:44 this inspiration, right? So inspiration comes first, and inspiration is the breathing in
1:10:51 of God, right? So something, even the most empirical scientific atheist people in the world, when they
1:10:57 talk about where an idea came from, they say, an idea came to me. They say that. They don’t even know
1:11:03 they’re saying that, but they’re reporting accurately what the feeling is, because that’s what everyone
1:11:08 I’ve ever met who’s had an idea, it’s the eureka moment. It’s like, oh, I just heard, saw,
1:11:12 felt an inspiration. And I know the difference between something that comes from me and something
1:11:16 comes to me talking about prepositions again, and I think most creative people do as well. Like,
1:11:21 oh, this came to me, right? And then it can feel like an assignment, or it can feel like a challenge,
1:11:27 and it’s like, now I want to make this thing. But a place where I think people get sidetracked and
1:11:33 distracted, it’s very, very, very similar to meditation. Like meditation, spirituality, and art
1:11:37 have so much in common. So this may sound familiar to people who are like, maybe you’ve had this
1:11:43 experience. You start working on this thing that was this inspiration, and a couple weeks,
1:11:48 couple months into it, a couple days, another idea comes. And that idea seems more interesting
1:11:55 than the one that you’ve already invested some time into. And then you’re like, but I want to do this
1:11:59 thing. This thing is like fresh and exciting. This is the really, really cool thing, right? And then you
1:12:03 go and do that one, and then another idea comes, and then it’s like, you know, you’re dealing with this
1:12:08 melee. So oftentimes people will say like, to me, I’m working on a book, and I’m halfway through it,
1:12:12 but I’ve got this other idea that I think is way better. And this book feels really stale,
1:12:17 and it doesn’t have any life in it. And I always say like, okay, well, I give you permission to quit
1:12:23 working on that first project. But only if you have a proven track record of ever being able to finish
1:12:30 a thing. That is so smart. Yeah, right? Because then it’s legit. It’s like, no, I’ve got this better
1:12:35 idea. But do you have 30 unfinished things? Because if you have 30 unfinished things,
1:12:40 now we have a problem. And I have those same things happen to me. Like I’m a third of a way,
1:12:45 a quarter of a way, fifth away in a project. And then something so much more interesting comes along.
1:12:50 And I’m like, but I know enough to know. It comes dancing. It’s like a dancing girl. Like it just
1:12:53 comes across the stage. I was just going to say the hottest girl at the dance.
1:12:56 The hottest girl at the dance. Just showed up.
1:13:01 And you’ve been married for two months. And you’re like, oh, I’ve been married for two months in the
1:13:09 hottest. But what I know is that if I abandon my, let’s call it wife, this project that I’ve been
1:13:14 working on for a few months to go off with the hot girl, in a few months, she’s going to be just as
1:13:19 boring and stale. And then a new hot girl is going to come on. And I’m never going to complete anything.
1:13:25 So stick with the one you came to the dance with. And if I’ve got multiple ideas and I’m not sure
1:13:31 which one I’m beginning, I actually have a sort of like a team meeting and I make the ideas, make
1:13:35 proposals to me about how they want, what do you actually want me to do?
1:13:37 This is like project-based IFS.
1:13:43 Totally. It’s like, I’m the angel investor. And these ideas are like, you know, we want your time
1:13:47 and money for this. And I’m like, what are you? What do you have for me? Why should I invest my money
1:13:52 in time in you? And a lot of ideas when I challenge them like that disappear into the ether? Because
1:13:56 they’re like, I don’t know, something about birds. You know, like they don’t like, they haven’t, I’m
1:14:00 like, you haven’t thought it out. You know, and then some other ideas like, no, I want to write about
1:14:03 this very specific thing. And it’s going to take that, you know, I’m like, okay, so this one’s got
1:14:08 their act together. So when the bird idea is more formed, come back, like come back when you’re
1:14:13 ready, come back when you’re ready to be real and not just to be tantalizing me with like, so I’m a
1:14:16 real hard ass about it. I don’t mess around. I don’t let these ideas push me around.
1:14:24 I love it. Are there other ways that you, to quote the late Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sachs, he had this
1:14:29 amazing line that has stuck with me, which is something along the lines of the key mission is
1:14:35 to separate an opportunity to be seized from a temptation to be resisted. Something along those lines.
1:14:43 And, and I’m wondering how else you navigate that, right? With the multiple ideas, because maybe
1:14:47 there are cases, cause you have a track record of finishing things. Maybe there are cases where
1:14:51 you get three months into something and you’re like, you know what, this is not what I hoped it could be.
1:14:56 And there’s this other thing and I want to switch planes midair. But how would you think about,
1:14:59 or how do you think about distinguishing between those two?
1:15:02 I’ve never done that.
1:15:03 You’ve never done it?
1:15:04 I’ve never switched planes midair.
1:15:08 Oh, you haven’t? Okay. So when you start a project, you basically have done
1:15:13 the hard ass due diligence up front. And you’re like, nope, this is high conviction.
1:15:15 It’s so weird. I never thought of that.
1:15:20 Yeah. I mean, it’s so, this is like the mystery of a human brain or a human system because
1:15:28 like in my personal life, I’m so flaky. And in my professional life, I’m so clear. It’s amazing.
1:15:31 I think the universe gives us certain things that are sort of easier for us than other things.
1:15:38 But yeah, because it takes me so long to do a project, because my projects, whether they’re
1:15:43 fiction or nonfiction, are so heavily research driven. And, you know, it can take three or four
1:15:49 years to create one of these books. And so the last novel that I wrote, City of Girls, I was thinking
1:15:54 about that book for 10 years before I started it. It was at those meetings for 10 years, you know,
1:15:59 like, and the next novel that I’m planning to write, I’ve been thinking about for probably 15
1:16:03 years, but it’s coming more into view. So there’s some that are kind of on the horizon that are coming
1:16:08 in, but I’m thinking of air traffic control. They come in in order. Something is feeding them to me in
1:16:14 order. And I don’t know what that something is, but one at a time. I can’t do two. I can’t do two at a time.
1:16:20 What do you think contributes to that certainty in the professional realm? As I’m listening to and
1:16:24 thinking about everything you’ve said in this conversation, and also the review of the last
1:16:29 conversation, but it strikes me that feeling like you have more than enough time, a voice has told
1:16:36 you there’s more than enough time relieves you of the perceived obligation to choose the best thing
1:16:43 because you’re running out of time. That’s just pure speculation on my part. Second is feeling like
1:16:54 there’s a source you are hearing from versus having to independently make an ideal decision may also give
1:16:58 weight to the things as they come in, as you put it through this air traffic controller. I’m just
1:17:04 wondering what else might contribute to the clarity. There may be some interpersonal simplicity compared
1:17:10 to dealing with other messy humans. I don’t know. Yeah. Anything else that you think contributes to the
1:17:18 clarity and the not switching planes midair? I think part of it is that I enjoy it. I enjoy the work.
1:17:24 And I never identified as a tormented artist. I’ve identified as a tormented person,
1:17:30 but I’ve never identified as a tormented artist. Art has been, creativity has been the place where
1:17:36 torment drops away. So the question, of course, is why? And I think, once again, I would probably have to say
1:17:41 I don’t know. But I think, I’m getting a big smile on my face as I’m thinking about this, but I’m thinking like,
1:17:50 why shouldn’t we do the thing that is so pleasurable? Why shouldn’t that be a clue as to the thing that you’re
1:17:55 supposed to be doing? That you’re on the right track? Because, you know, long before I became a
1:18:01 meditator, I had so much trouble meditating for years, but I would start to write and hours would drop
1:18:06 away and I would not be aware of time. So writing gave me the thing that meditation promised, but I could
1:18:12 never have happened in meditation until very recently where like time stops or changes and I’m here, but not
1:18:18 here. So that’s just so pleasurable. But the other thing is like, sometimes I feel that it’s a mandate
1:18:24 and I can’t talk about the book that I’ve just finished. It’s coming out next year, but I can say
1:18:29 that it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever written emotionally. And when I was doing my two-way
1:18:33 prayers every day in the morning during this, especially the really hard part of writing it,
1:18:38 and I have a really loving higher power. Like I have a higher power who’s constantly letting me off the
1:18:43 hook for lots of stuff that I do not have to do. You know, it’s like, you do not have to be involved
1:18:48 in this. Like, you don’t have to be part of that chaos thing that’s going on. Like, you don’t have to
1:18:55 be part of this family gathering. You don’t have to rescue this person. You don’t have to, like, I get a
1:18:59 lot of you don’t have tos. You don’t have to, you don’t have to, you don’t have to do this, you don’t have to do
1:19:07 that. Throughout this entire process of this book, because I was struggling every morning when I wrote
1:19:12 it out on the page, that voice would say, I can see how hard this is for you. And I can see what
1:19:17 this has cost, the toll that this is taking on you to tell this story. And I can see that you want to
1:19:26 stop too bad. I’ve given you 47 hall passes and this is not going to be the 48th. This isn’t one of
1:19:32 them. And sucks to suck. Get back to work. I’ll see you on the page. You know, I know you’re tired. I know
1:19:37 you want to take a day off. You’re not having a day off, you know? And, and I think the trust that
1:19:43 has built up between me and that higher power over the decades, largely because of the things that I
1:19:48 am let off the hook for, has made me think it’s, it goes back to the original part of the conversation
1:19:53 where I said, like, I’m loved beyond measure by a God who has given me control over practically
1:19:59 nothing. The wisdom to know the difference is one that I cannot find, but I get instructions
1:20:05 of like, this isn’t yours. We don’t need you in this story. We don’t need you involved in this
1:20:10 situation. We don’t need you speaking up about this thing. We don’t need you doing this. We need you
1:20:17 doing this. However. Yeah. So, and the reason I don’t want you up in all this other stuff
1:20:24 that’s going on is because I very much need you in this. And so I want you to bring your full
1:20:27 attention to this. And if that changes, you’ll be notified. You’ll be notified as something that
1:20:32 happens a lot on the pages of two-way prayer for me. I mean, I’ve gone through periods of time where
1:20:37 I didn’t have any creative ideas at all. Early pandemic, I was like, wow, this would be a great
1:20:42 time to write, but I actually don’t have anything that’s ready to go. And I remember writing in two
1:20:47 way prayer and saying, should I be working on something right now? And instantly came the answer,
1:20:53 when we’ve got something for you to do, you’ll be notified. And I was like, well, what do I do until
1:20:57 then? And they’re like, hang out, like, hang out, be present to the world. It’s amazing. Walk around,
1:21:02 look at stuff. You don’t have to be on duty at every moment, but when you have to be on duty,
1:21:08 duty, you really have to be on duty. And I think part of the aspiration that I have to both be a
1:21:14 relaxed woman and teach and model that to other women is this is the opposite of what women have
1:21:21 been taught. Wait, what if I’m not on duty all the time? What if I’m only on duty sometimes? And I have
1:21:26 to follow a deep inner voice that tells me when that is and what that is and everything else you all can
1:21:31 take care of yourselves. And that’s something that we as women are not taught that we can ever say,
1:21:34 like, I’ll do it. I’ll do it.
1:21:43 So I want to actually ask a question that is following up on something in our last conversation.
1:21:49 And I would say I’d definitely put it in the category of me time in a sense, which is related
1:21:55 to the artist’s way by Julia Cameron. So if I remember correctly, I am looking at notes,
1:22:01 so hopefully I’m getting it right, that Eat, Pray, Love would not exist without the artist’s way.
1:22:06 That’s a true statement. I’m wondering which pieces of it, because I don’t think we got into the
1:22:13 specifics, but what pieces of it really made that the case? And for instance, one homework assignment
1:22:16 that I’ve never done from the artist’s way, I’m so embarrassed to say this, but it’s true,
1:22:21 is the artist’s date. I’ve never done that. And so as an example, I’m wondering,
1:22:24 was that a part of it? You know, is that a part of it for you?
1:22:25 The artist’s date is hard.
1:22:26 Yeah.
1:22:31 It’s hard. I still have trouble figuring that out one out sometimes. So here I can tell you exactly
1:22:33 one. I can tell you exactly it.
1:22:39 So one of the things that she does so cleverly in that course is that she keeps asking you the
1:22:44 same question like 90 different ways. So there are all these questions each week that you have to
1:22:48 answer. And then there’s the morning pages. So there are twists and turns on like, if you could
1:22:52 have three talents, what would they be? If there were three places in the world that you could visit,
1:22:57 what would they be? If there was something you wish you had studied, what would it be? She’s coming
1:23:03 at it like from 20 different directions. And then there’s this point that comes late in the process
1:23:08 where she instructs you to go back and read everything that you’ve written and start looking
1:23:14 at what keeps showing up. Because I think one of the mysterious and magical things and weird things
1:23:18 about our brain is like the secrets we can keep from ourselves, where it’s like, I didn’t even know
1:23:25 that about me. So when I went back and read, Italian was on every page. And I was like, apparently,
1:23:32 I really want to fucking learn to speak Italian. And I would not have said that that was like,
1:23:39 a massive priority of my life. But apparently, my soul knew that it was an instruction because
1:23:47 it was like, Italian. I kept seeing Italian. And I was like, why Italian? You know, it’s not useful
1:23:56 unless you are in Italy. It’s not like Spanish, or it’s spoken across the globe. Why? Why? Why? Why?
1:24:00 And why is not a spiritual question and never brings a spiritual answer. So it’s kind of useless. But
1:24:08 I just went with it. And I was like, okay. And one of my artist dates was to sign up for Italian
1:24:13 classes without knowing why, just because it kept showing up on the page. So I did six months of
1:24:20 Italian classes, like night school for divorce ladies at the Y. And I loved it so much. And I
1:24:25 started watching movies in Italian. And I started, I had no plan for anything I was going to do with it.
1:24:31 And then I was like, well, wait, I want to use this Italian. Like, I want to go to Italy and speak this
1:24:36 language. But I also have been studying meditation a lot lately. And I want to go to India. I also want
1:24:41 to go back. And then like, out of that was born and eat, pray, love. So it took me by surprise as much
1:24:46 as anything. And maybe you’ve had that experience in your morning pages where it’s like, I didn’t even
1:24:50 know that. Like, I can hide things so far from myself that I can’t even find them.
1:24:52 It’s true for my phone too.
1:25:00 You mentioned that Y is not a spiritual question and doesn’t give you spiritual answers. Something
1:25:02 along those lines. Could you elaborate on that?
1:25:11 Okay. Anytime I howl into the void, any question that begins with why, I do not get an answer.
1:25:17 I will not be answered. I can do two-way prayer from now till God leaves Chicago, from now till time
1:25:24 gets better. And I go, why, why, why, why, why? And I will not be given an answer. That’s much more
1:25:30 satisfying than what an adult would tell a toddler, like at some point of just because, because I said
1:25:35 so, because is. I wrote a poem once called The Shortest Conversation I Ever Had With God. And it’s
1:25:43 God colon why, oh, sorry, me, but why, which is again, the ego and God because is. But there are other
1:25:50 questions that I can ask and I do get answers. So if I ask questions that begin with how, instead of why,
1:25:57 how do you want me to move through this, I will be given direct instructions. Who do you want me to
1:26:05 serve in this situation? Who do you want me to be in this moment? Answers very clear. What do you want
1:26:09 me to do next? That’s a really good one. That’s a big one in AA. What’s the next intuitive action?
1:26:14 What’s the next right action? What would you like me to do right now? Which is often like get a glass of
1:26:22 water, you know, turn the phone off, but why? And I think that goes back to, you don’t even know what
1:26:26 you’re looking at. I think that goes back to, we’re five Einsteins away from even having the right
1:26:31 questions to get the right answers. But, um, but why is it, it turns into a black hole that I just fall
1:26:38 into and it’s this great echoing silence. Yeah. I can be stepping into the quicksand of blame and
1:26:43 finger pointing, even if that’s fingers pointing back at yourself, which it often is. It makes
1:26:47 sense. And I was asking you about choosing projects. I want to ask you about anxiety,
1:26:55 specifically purpose anxiety. What is purpose anxiety? Um, you’re smiling. So I see you already
1:27:00 know. No, I don’t. I don’t. I mean, I can, I kind of right there in the title. Yeah. Based on the
1:27:05 words I can imagine. Right. You can work it out in context. Yeah. I think I can work it out.
1:27:13 Well, I mean, the story that most of us were taught was some variation of each of you was born with a
1:27:23 one unique offering, special spark that is only yours and only you can deliver on that thing.
1:27:29 It is your job. It is your job to find out what that thing is that only you can do. Meanwhile,
1:27:35 there’s what? Almost 8 billion people on the planet. So already here’s some pressure because it’s got to
1:27:39 be something that nobody else can do, which is going to be unlikely because there’s a lot of us
1:27:47 and, you know, you should find out what that is very young. And then you should become the master of
1:27:53 that thing. And you should devote the 10,000 hours, you know, way before you’re out of adolescence,
1:27:58 you should already be pouring yourself into this purpose that you are here to serve and you should
1:28:03 become the very best at that thing. And then it’s not enough to become the best of that thing.
1:28:10 you have to monetize it. And it’s not enough to monetize it. You also have to create opportunities
1:28:16 for others and make sure that they’re also being served by this purpose. And if all of this sounds
1:28:21 exhausting, you are not off the hook, even when you die, because you must leave a legacy and you must
1:28:27 change the world. So no pressure, but that’s it. That’s it. You must change the world. And it’s like,
1:28:36 I think it’s very male. I think it’s very capitalistic. It’s very self-centered. It’s very
1:28:43 like, yeah, you only must do this thing that only you can do. And the world must be altered. And like,
1:28:48 they must know you were here. You must leave your mark on the world. And I think the world at this
1:28:53 point is like, I wish maybe that you stopped leaving marks on me. Like maybe we could use a little less
1:28:58 of that. And I hardly know anyone who doesn’t suffer from purpose anxiety. And I know people
1:29:03 who are living lives that look from the outside, like they have achieved tremendous purpose and
1:29:08 it’s a scarcity anxiety. So they’re up at night wondering if they’ve done enough, have they done
1:29:12 the right thing? Have they left enough of a legacy? Is this where their energy should have gone? It’s a
1:29:19 theology that is going to leave you unsatisfied because there’s no way to know that you have
1:29:26 achieved it. And you and I both know people who like are so admired and they’re so stressed and
1:29:30 they’re so unsure about themselves and they feel like they’ve done it all wrong and they don’t know
1:29:37 whether they’ve, there’s a never enoughness to it that feels a lot like capitalism. It’s just how
1:29:42 much it is. I’m thinking of JP Morgan testifying before Congress and them saying like, how much
1:29:47 money is enough, sir? And him saying a little more, you know, it’s the same with purpose. It’s like,
1:29:52 when will you know that you’ve made a big enough impact a little more? And what would be the opposite
1:29:58 of a purpose-driven life would be a, I think a life of presence. It’s also focused entirely in the
1:30:05 future constantly. And I don’t think there’s any way that you can live a relaxed or really truly rich
1:30:10 meaningful life. If you’re constantly thinking about your fucking legacy,
1:30:17 but it’s like, that’s it. You know, you’re like, how much did I make? How much did I leave? How much
1:30:23 did I impact? Meanwhile, like the world is happening and you’re in it and you’re missing it.
1:30:28 Yeah. I’m reflecting. I can’t recall the exact, you might actually know the attribution here.
1:30:34 And I don’t know if it’s a fictional quote or not, but there’s some, I want to say this huge
1:30:39 statue in the desert that has deteriorated over time and it’s half buried. And the inscription
1:30:46 reads something like, I am Ozymandias. Lord, look upon my works and despair.
1:30:47 My works and tremble.
1:30:47 Yeah.
1:30:56 And it’s like, yep, that’s where it’s all headed. On the side of, it’s along similar lines. I often
1:31:02 think to myself, all these guys are talking about legacy and gals too, but a lot of the guys that I
1:31:04 am surrounded by. It’s a pretty lot of guys.
1:31:08 Yeah. And it’s like, they’re reading books and so am I about, you know, whether it’s like
1:31:13 Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan or Titan about Rockefeller, whatever it might be, hoping to glean
1:31:18 things from these lives. And Alexander the Great, tell me his last name. Like, what was his full name?
1:31:20 Nobody, nobody can tell me.
1:31:20 Great.
1:31:21 Do you know what I mean?
1:31:22 His middle name was The.
1:31:26 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And it’s like, we’re at the very least thinking about legacy
1:31:34 differently. But one thing I am curious to hear your thoughts on is how do you blend, in your life,
1:31:40 do you try to blend presence with other ingredients for what you deem a life well-lived? And I’ll tell
1:31:46 you a story. So the story takes place at Omega Institute. And I love Omega Institute. And I’ve spent
1:31:51 time there in upstate New York. They have amazing classes. The one place that they have consistent
1:31:57 Wi-Fi is in the cafeteria, coffee shop area where people eat their meals or some of them.
1:31:58 I can picture it well.
1:32:03 Okay. So I would sometimes go because I was spending time in upstate New York, beautiful campus,
1:32:08 amazing groundhogs everywhere. So I would go sit in the cafe and I would write. And I remember this
1:32:13 conversation happening next to me. So I wasn’t getting any work done, but I was eavesdropping on this
1:32:17 conversation. And it was this man and this woman. And the guy asked the woman, you know,
1:32:21 hi, you know, I know you’ve been looking for a job for a while. Do you find a new gig? And she’s like,
1:32:23 no, I’ve been really busy being non-dual.
1:32:29 Oh my God. Oh, that’s like a New Yorker cartoon. That’s so good.
1:32:36 And I was like, okay. So there is maybe a shadow side of presence, which could be a lot of navel gazing.
1:32:39 And maybe that’s totally fine. And in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t make a difference.
1:32:47 But for yourself personally, recognizing that presence seems to be very additive to one’s life.
1:32:51 Are there other ingredients that you weigh?
1:32:54 Can I first tell you a story?
1:32:54 Yes, please.
1:32:59 Okay. So I want to tell you a counter story about a purpose-driven life.
1:32:59 Okay.
1:33:04 But I like your question on it. And I think this will lead into it nicely. We’ll see. We’ll see if this works.
1:33:25 So I was in Los Angeles several years ago for a speaking event. And I had a free afternoon and I was wandering around Venice Beach. And I looked across the street and I saw that there was a guy standing on the top of a ladder painting the awning of his storefront. And I instantly was able to see that the ladder was not steady.
1:33:29 And I have a very severe ladder sensitivity because I grew up on a farm.
1:33:29 Yeah.
1:33:45 And my mom was constantly telling me like, go hold your father’s ladder. Like, because my dad was always doing jackass things on the ladder in the farm. So just, I had nothing else to do and nowhere else to be. And I was the perfect person for the job to cross the street and just hold the guy’s ladder.
1:34:01 And I probably held his ladder for 45 minutes that day. And he never saw me because he was doing his thing. But I felt better because I was like, I’m just going to make sure this guy doesn’t fall today. And I’m here and it’s a nice afternoon. And it was lovely.
1:34:20 And then when he started to come down and I felt like he was at a safe level, I just peeled off and he never saw me and I never saw his face and we never had any interaction. But we had this beautiful little exchange. And as I was walking away, because I was thinking about purpose anxiety, and I was thinking, what if that was the entire purpose of my life?
1:34:21 Just that moment.
1:34:22 Just that moment.
1:34:46 Not things like that, like try to be kind to people, but that particular moment that they were like, however this thing works, it’s essential that that guy not fall off his ladder. So we’re going to need in like sector seven, you know, block D on this date, we’re going to need somebody to, you know, really be alert and notice that. And we’re going to have to send them in.
1:34:47 Have the proper farm training.
1:34:52 Put her on a farm, have her like grow up with a father who does jack. How are we going to get her to LA? Make her a writer.
1:35:22 Give her a career. Have her have her read. Like every single other thing I was doing in my life was just killing time until the moment when I was needed. And maybe I’m not needed again after that. And I would challenge anybody to prove to me that that isn’t true because nobody can because nobody knows what’s going on. And nobody even knows what they’re looking at. So yes, you could go a little too far into that. And you could just smoke weed all day and be like, are we just a paperweight in God’s desk? You know, or like ask questions like that.
1:35:41 But I think presence is the greatest gift that you can give to yourself and to the world. And I think that line that I so often hear in meditation and on the page when I do two-way prayer of you’ll be notified is the very opposite of a purpose-driven life.
1:35:58 Because a purpose-driven life is some sense that I’m going to forge. I’m going to like, hack through this forest and make this trail. It’s going to be named after me. And this is what I’ll be remembered for. And it’s so self-centered. And you’ll be notified is a much humbler position to take.
1:36:24 But it requires a great deal of listening. And it requires like, also, lately, I’ve been doing these one day a week without my phone, because I want more moments like that, where I notice somebody on the ladder, because I’m not on my phone. And I’m super addicted to my phone. It’s like, no, I’m not throwing shade against anyone who’s addicted to their phone. We all are, you know, like a front that I don’t stare at my phone 90 million hours a day. I do.
1:36:34 But like, that’s why I take Thursdays off from it. It’s because I don’t want to miss what’s actually happening. And I want to be present to the notification when it comes.
1:36:38 How did you choose Thursday? Is it because you might be social on Friday and the weekends?
1:36:39 Yes.
1:36:39 Okay.
1:36:45 You know, Monday’s like too much going on. Thursday just felt like a day that the world could maybe operate without me.
1:36:54 So I’m going to play devil’s advocate and defend folks who may be in the purpose-driven lane for the moment.
1:37:08 Because I agree that at face value, very self-absorbed, self-centered. However, do you think it’s possible, and this is a leading question, so it may go nowhere, but that you’re more comfortable with death and mortality than a lot of people?
1:37:16 And that insecurity, uncertainty, fear of death, maybe that others have to a greater extent, leads them to think about these things more than you?
1:37:21 Wow, that’s such a… I did not think that was going to be the second half of the question.
1:37:37 And I also want to say, here’s the thing about purpose. Like, if you actually are one of those people who from forever has known exactly what you’re supposed to be doing, and you did become the master of it, and you have monetized it, and you are leaving a legacy, and like, you have what I like to call not a problem, right?
1:37:38 Right.
1:37:42 Yeah, keep going. Great. Like, you’re doing great. Like, but if you…
1:37:58 The cello thing seems to be working for you. Like, but if you’re berating yourself because you feel like there was something you were supposed to be doing, maybe they just need you to hang out until you get notified of something that could be as small as holding the ladder, I just want to say.
1:38:09 And that maybe the future of the universe depended on that ladder being held that day. We don’t know. But your question about death, I don’t want to get cocky about, like, I don’t care about death.
1:38:18 But it’s not a fear that lives in me. And I know it’s a fear that lives in a lot of people. I’m much, much, much more afraid of people not liking me than I am of dying.
1:38:28 And that’s what I have to suffer with more, is like, to try to figure out how to disappoint people and say no to people and set boundaries with people, that they can survive it and I can survive it.
1:38:43 This is like my work in this lifetime. But death, to me, it doesn’t keep me up at night. It’s not, I’m not in an argument against it. I went with my partner, Rhea, all the way to her death and I wasn’t afraid of the death. There were things around it that were scary, but…
1:38:48 Has that always been the case? When did that fear drop away?
1:38:56 I’m afraid of pain. Don’t get me wrong. Like, I’m not interested at all in being in suffering. Maybe that’s why I’m not afraid of death.
1:39:01 I’m like, well, that seems better than suffering. So, what’s so bad about that?
1:39:12 So, I don’t know. I come from, like, really pragmatic people. My mom’s a nurse. My dad’s a farmer. Like, I saw a lot of death growing up. My mom worked with the dying a lot.
1:39:20 By the time it came, it seemed like it was such a relief for everybody. Like, there was grief, but also people were, like, shredded by end-of-life stuff.
1:39:37 And she sat in a lot of dying people’s houses for, you know, weeks and months on end. And, you know, dying and struggling. And then there was this, like, exhale of death. Okay, now that person has safely been delivered into death.
1:39:48 That’s the feeling I felt when Raya died. Like, those of us who were taking care of her, and she had a pretty raucous death. But those of us who were taking care of her, it was like, we safely got her there. We safely got her dead.
1:40:03 I know that’s a strange thing to say. But, like, it was hard. She was really willful. It was a difficult death. But then the moment of the death, the instant after the death, there’s such an incredible thing.
1:40:15 Like, something happens. It isn’t what it was. Like, something leaves. And then this look that was on her face after she died of, like, absolute delight.
1:40:44 Absolute delight. We were all aghast at it. Like, what did, why is she so happy? She looks so happy, so peaceful. It feels like going home to me. This place feels a lot weirder to me than death. Like, this planet’s bananas. You know, like, having a body. I mean, that’s why I used to love to do psychedelics so much before I stopped doing all that stuff. It’s like, who wants a body? Like, who wants to be incarnated? Like, oh, God, it’s so awkward.
1:40:48 So, no, life feels scarier to me than death.
1:40:56 How did you choose to create your newsletter? How did that make the cut for you? How did that come in?
1:41:04 Two things. One is I’m trying to get off of the nicotine crack pipe booze bottle that is social media.
1:41:05 Yeah.
1:41:30 And it’s not easy to get off it because I feel like social media is like a party drug that, like, started off as really fun. And now I heard somebody say so beautifully about social media. I wish I could remember who said it. Everyone’s, now everyone’s abusing it and no one’s getting high anymore. Like, the fun, like, like, everyone’s addicted to it and the high is gone. And I’m looking for ways. I love connection. I loved that feeling at the beginning of social media that we can all connect with one another.
1:41:32 Yeah. Before everyone started peeing in the pool.
1:41:45 Oh, my God. You know, before everyone started propping up Putin. And it’s like, wait, what pool party is this? Like, what just happened to democracy? Like, we’ve just discovered that this thing is very, very, very dangerous and venomous.
1:41:56 And so I’ve been looking for another place to go to be able to, to have dialogue with people. And Substack so far has been a really good spot for that. It’s like a reverse technology.
1:42:06 So could you explain how that works? Because I think a lot of people thinking of a newsletter, they’re like, well, hold on a second. How does interaction work in that type of format?
1:42:27 You can comment. So there’s like, so I send out a newsletter once a week. It’s essentially like a 90s technology. It’s basically a blog. So it’s like a high end blog. So people subscribe. And then a newsletter goes out to them. And there’s video attachments and things. And then you can comment. And then people can comment on each other’s comments. So it’s very similar. It looks very similar to what social media looks like.
1:42:38 But because it’s a subscription, it keeps the haters out. Because it’s self-selecting. And I’ve been on this thing for a year and have had not one problem with anything.
1:42:39 That’s incredible.
1:42:49 I know. It’s incredible. I mean, it’s also like a self-selecting thing because this is a group of really lovely people who are doing this beautiful project together. So that’s how I decided to go over there.
1:42:55 What could people expect if they went to elizabethgilbert.substack.com to subscribe to your newsletter?
1:43:00 Well, every week, I will talk to you.
1:43:11 And I will talk about this process of learning how to write and speak to yourself, toward yourself, from a place of friendliness and love,
1:43:17 in order to combat this just awful virus of self-hatred that we all seem to be so infected with,
1:43:26 that comes also with perfectionism and lack and just bringing a different voice into the cacophony of voices in your head.
1:43:31 And I’ll read one of the letters that I’ve written to myself from love, and then there’ll be a special guest.
1:43:38 And the special guests are really the best part because it’s everybody from like act, like Toni Collette did one,
1:43:49 Glennon Doyle did one, and musicians and poets and artists and writers, but then also like random people who I meet.
1:43:59 And I meet them in my travels, and I’m like, you are radiating so much light that I want to ask you, why are you so lit?
1:44:01 Like, why are you so bright and shiny?
1:44:02 And what is that?
1:44:06 And what would love have to say to you if it could speak to you?
1:44:10 And people who I meet and find inspiring, there was a young woman who I met in Denmark this year.
1:44:17 I was on tour, and so she had read my book, Big Magic, and because of that book, she was Japanese and she was an engineer,
1:44:21 and she worked on a construction site in Japan, but she’d always wanted to be an artist.
1:44:27 And she started making art again after she read Big Magic, and then she took the leap,
1:44:32 and she quit her construction job in Japan and saved her money and moved to Denmark and is going to graphic design school.
1:44:36 And her art is gorgeous, and I was like, hey, will you do a letter from love?
1:44:41 Because obviously there’s something moving through you that’s really special,
1:44:45 and I would love to hear what love has to say to you through you.
1:44:49 And so it’s like every week you’ll get a special guest.
1:44:50 I’ve had children do it.
1:44:55 My friend’s 11-year-old son, who was going through a really hard time being bullied at school, he wrote one.
1:45:00 And it was beautiful, and love said to him, not everybody has to like you.
1:45:01 You don’t have to be everybody’s cup of tea.
1:45:05 That was literally in this 11-year-old kid’s, you don’t have to be everybody’s cup of tea.
1:45:07 Like, we love you.
1:45:08 He felt there was a we.
1:45:09 It’s really interesting.
1:45:14 A lot of people, when they write the letters, the voice that comes to them operates as a we.
1:45:23 Like, it’s some sort of consortium of like ancestors and spirits and guides, and it’s like your team.
1:45:26 Like, there’s this feeling that people are getting where they’re like, do I have a team?
1:45:29 Like, I seem to have some sort of a team that wants to love me.
1:45:33 So I’ve had developmentally disabled people do it, and access love.
1:45:40 There’s this amazing artist named BJ, who in my town in New Jersey, there’s this arts collective for developmental disabled people.
1:45:45 And he did a song about himself called I Love BJ Three Different Ways.
1:45:47 That’s like one of the greatest songs I’ve ever heard.
1:45:50 That’s basically just him talking about how lovable he is.
1:45:51 So that’s what you can expect.
1:45:56 And then if you’re a subscriber, you can post your own letters from love each week.
1:46:03 And what’s happening in that community is that people are creating collectives and friendships with each other.
1:46:10 They’re having meetups in cities around the world, and they’re starting to become, like, it’s the kindest corner of the internet, I truly think.
1:46:15 And slowly, I feel like it’s dissolving and breaking down the walls of self-hatred.
1:46:17 That’s what we’re doing over there.
1:46:18 I love it.
1:46:22 And people can go to elizabethgilbert.substack.com.
1:46:23 We’ll put that in the show notes as well.
1:46:24 That’s the best place to direct people?
1:46:25 Yeah.
1:46:27 I mean, I’m on social media, but who cares anymore?
1:46:31 That’s where my heart is.
1:46:32 My heart is in the Substack newsletter.
1:46:39 And after years of doing this privately in my own space and then starting to gradually teach it in workshops,
1:46:44 I finally feel like I’m ready to, like, really bring this to anybody who wants to try it.
1:46:46 I love it.
1:46:47 I know I said that, but I’ll say it again.
1:46:51 It’s a solid cause, solid mission.
1:46:53 It’s my purpose.
1:46:56 It’s your purpose.
1:46:58 Purpose that follows the presence.
1:47:03 Is there anything else, Liz, that you’d like to say?
1:47:05 Any requests you’d like to make in my audience?
1:47:06 Comments?
1:47:08 Public complaints about my podcasting style?
1:47:11 Anything at all that you’d like to say before we land the plane?
1:47:15 Thank you for giving me the chance to make the public complaints about your podcasting style.
1:47:17 I’ve been crawling out of my skin.
1:47:19 I’ll send you a bunch of notes.
1:47:27 No, I just want to say, can you imagine that something might love you?
1:47:30 There’s a quote that’s often misattributed to Einstein.
1:47:31 It wasn’t Einstein.
1:47:39 It was this 19th century philosopher named Frederick Myers, and his friend asked him if there was one thing that you want to know more than anything.
1:47:42 If you could ask the Sphinx one question, what would it be?
1:47:46 And Myers said, it would be this, is the universe friendly?
1:47:56 And it’s often misattributed to Einstein, saying that Einstein said that the most important question you could ask about your life was, is the universe friendly or not?
1:47:57 He didn’t, in fact, say that.
1:48:03 But he did answer the question in his own way, because he was examining that as well.
1:48:06 And he said, subtle is the Lord, but malicious he is not.
1:48:12 I hate to gender God, but anyway, I think it is a really interesting question to live in.
1:48:24 And it’s a really interesting question that I ask myself when I’m in moments of great trial here on Earth School, which, as you know, I’ve already expressed my belief, is a very difficult curriculum.
1:48:30 And it’s like, is this a friendly universe or is this a malicious universe?
1:48:33 And if it’s malicious, then life is pointless suffering.
1:48:37 And if it’s friendly, the suffering might have a point.
1:48:40 And if it’s friendly, what might the point be?
1:48:42 And where can I find that?
1:48:44 And how do you want me to move through this now?
1:48:46 Assuming that it’s friendly.
1:48:49 How do you want me to move through this terrible looking thing?
1:49:00 And so the question I think that I’m constantly bringing to people, especially when they say, I tried it and it just feels really weird and uncomfortable to say kind things to myself.
1:49:03 I’m like, yeah, because you’ve got decades of training of saying garbage things to yourself.
1:49:10 And anytime you try to do something new, it’s going to be hard and it’s going to feel awkward and it’s going to feel – it definitely doesn’t feel normal.
1:49:15 Because normal is your history’s greatest garbage can.
1:49:19 You are just a pile of worthless – you know, like it’s – you have never done enough.
1:49:20 You’ll never be enough.
1:49:21 You should be ashamed of yourself.
1:49:23 Who do you think you are?
1:49:28 I mean, that’s the normal dialogue that Annie Lamott calls Radio K fucked.
1:49:31 It’s funny in most of our heads at all the times.
1:49:47 And what about our negative bias thinking is always trained toward worst possible outcome, but could it just as likely be that you are loved and lovable as despicable and somebody who should be ashamed of themselves?
1:49:48 Why not?
1:49:50 And why not try it on?
1:49:55 Try it on like a pair of boots and take it for a walk and then do it again tomorrow and see what it does to your mind.
1:49:57 Thank you, Liz.
1:49:58 I love spending time with you.
1:50:01 I love spending time with you, Tim.
1:50:03 You are such a delight.
1:50:04 You are just such a delight.
1:50:06 I never know where we’re going to go.
1:50:07 Me neither.
1:50:09 And I’m always so happy about where we went.
1:50:12 It’s a fun adventure always talking to you.
1:50:12 So thank you.
1:50:13 I really appreciate it.
1:50:18 I really, really appreciate the time and the thoughts and the wisdom and the reflections.
1:50:28 And to everybody listening, as always, we will have the show notes, links to everything, including Liz’s Substack at elizabethgilbert.substack.com.
1:50:31 You’ll be able to find all of that at tim.blog slash podcast.
1:50:37 And until next time, be just a little bit kinder than necessary, not just to others, but to yourself.
1:50:40 And as always, thanks for tuning in.
1:50:42 Hey, guys.
1:50:43 This is Tim again.
1:50:45 Just one more thing before you take off.
1:50:47 And that is Five Bullet Friday.
1:50:52 Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend?
1:50:59 Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday.
1:51:00 Easy to sign up.
1:51:01 Easy to cancel.
1:51:10 It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I’ve found or discovered or have started exploring over that week.
1:51:12 It’s kind of like my diary of cool things.
1:51:24 It often includes articles I’m reading, books I’m reading, albums, perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests.
1:51:31 And these strange, esoteric things end up in my field, and then I test them, and then I share them with you.
1:51:39 So if that sounds fun, again, it’s very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about.
1:51:42 If you’d like to try it out, just go to Tim.blog slash Friday.
1:51:46 Type that into your browser, Tim.blog slash Friday.
1:51:48 Drop in your email, and you’ll get the very next one.
1:51:49 Thanks for listening.
1:51:55 I don’t know about you guys, but I have seen a lot of crazy stuff in the last few weeks.
1:52:07 I saw an AI-generated video, looks like a video, of an otter on a flight, tapping away on a keyboard, having a stewardess ask him if he would like a drink, and it goes on from there.
1:52:12 And this was generated with AI, and it looks photorealistic, basically.
1:52:20 I mean, it would have cost hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars to do in the past, taken forever, and now it’s, boom, snap of the fingers.
1:52:21 It’s crazy.
1:52:22 So, AI is changing everything.
1:52:23 We know that.
1:52:27 It is also changing the way startups and small businesses operate.
1:52:28 Things are going to get crazier.
1:52:30 The rate of change is only going to get faster.
1:52:37 And while a lot of good is going to come of that, it also means security and compliance headaches, for one thing.
1:52:40 And that is where today’s sponsor, Vanta, comes in.
1:52:44 I’d already heard a lot about them before they ever became a sponsor.
1:52:57 Just like 10,000-plus other companies that rely on Vanta, my friends at Duolingo, shout-out Duolingo, and Ramp, shout-out Ramp, one of this podcast sponsors, and an ultra-fast-growing company, use Vanta to handle security compliance.
1:52:58 Why would they do that?
1:53:08 Well, Vanta automates compliance for frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27001, and HIPAA, making it simple and fast to get enterprise-grade compliant.
1:53:09 But what does that mean?
1:53:11 It adds up to impressive results.
1:53:20 Companies can save up to 85% of costs, get compliant in weeks instead of months, and complete security questionnaires up to five times faster.
1:53:21 So check it out.
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1:53:27 That’s V-A-N-T-A, like Santa with a B.
1:53:31 Vanta.com slash Tim to see how Vanta can help you level up your security program.
1:53:35 My listeners, that’s you, can get $1,000 off.
1:53:36 So check it out.
1:53:38 Vanta.com slash Tim.
1:53:50 In the last handful of years, I’ve become very interested in environmental toxins, avoiding microplastics, and many other commonly found compounds all over the place.
1:53:53 One place I looked is in the kitchen.
1:53:57 Many people don’t realize just how toxic their cookware is or can be.
1:54:09 A lot of nonstick pans, practically all of them, can release harmful forever chemicals, PFAS, in other words, spelled P-F-A-S, into your food, your home, and then ultimately, that ends up in your body.
1:54:11 Teflon is a prime example of this.
1:54:14 It is still the forever chemical that most companies are using.
1:54:18 So our place reached out to me as a potential sponsor.
1:54:24 And the first thing I did was look at the reviews of their products and said, send me one.
1:54:28 And that is the Titanium Always Pan Pro.
1:54:32 And the claim is that it’s the first nonstick pan with zero coating.
1:54:36 So that means zero forever chemicals and durability that will last forever.
1:54:37 I was very skeptical.
1:54:38 I was very busy.
1:54:39 So I said, you know what?
1:54:41 I want to test this thing quickly.
1:54:42 It’s supposed to be nonstick.
1:54:44 It’s supposed to be durable.
1:54:45 I’m going to test it with two things.
1:54:54 I’m going to test it with scrambled eggs in the morning because eggs are always a disaster in anything that isn’t nonstick with the toxic coating.
1:54:59 And then I’m going to test it with a steak sear because I want to see how much it retains heat.
1:55:03 And it worked perfectly in both cases.
1:55:07 And I was frankly astonished how well it worked.
1:55:11 The Titanium Always Pan Pro has become my go-to pan in the kitchen.
1:55:16 Our Place is a lot of other things for searing, for eggs, for anything you can imagine.
1:55:18 And the design is really clever.
1:55:24 It does combine the best qualities of stainless steel, cast iron, and nonstick into one product.
1:55:32 And now Our Place is expanding this first-of-its-kind technology to their Titanium Pro cookware sets, which are made in limited quantities.
1:55:45 So if you’re looking for non-toxic, long-lasting pots and pans that outperform everything else in your kitchen, just head to fromourplace.com slash Tim and use code Tim for 10% off of your order.
1:55:49 You can enjoy a 100-day risk-free trial, free shipping, and free returns.
1:55:53 Check it out, fromourplace.com slash Tim.