sorry now I'm getting emotional um

Malcolm Gladwell

business Guru a rock star journalist I

just want to explain things to people

it's not in your best interests to work

at home if you're just sitting in your

pajamas in your bedroom is that the work

life you want to live we want you to

have a feeling of belonging and to feel

necessary and if you're not here it's

really hard to do that what if you

reduced your life to

the language of happiness has to go

alongside the this question of what

contribution you're making to the world

you live in if you could make an amazing

contribution to society as you have at

the cost of your unhappiness would you

choose that

no wow

we're social animals casting someone out

is the great sin it is not conflict that

drives people away it is neglect that's

when you do harm

sorry now I'm getting emotional um

it's varied I don't know sorry

[Music]

if we don't feel like we're part of

something important what's the point

[Music]

so without further Ado I'm Stephen

Bartlett and this is the Diary of a CEO

I hope nobody's listening but if you are

then please keep this yourself

[Music]

um first of all I want to say thank you

I feel obliged to you because your books

outliers blink have been very formative

for me as over the last 10 years since I

was running my businesses and trying to

understand certain dynamics that I

didn't understand those books seem to

arrive in my life at the right time so

it's a real honor to to get to speak to

you today oh thank you

um going back then what are the what you

know you've become a

tremendously well known and highly

acclaimed writer and thinker and

podcaster but when I think back to your

your early years says before 10 years

old what were the factors that you look

back now in hindsight and connect and

say Ah that's the reason I ended up

becoming the person I am today

oh wow you you mean you say before the

age of 10 yeah like sub 10. well I by at

the age of 10 I had been I had already

lived in three countries wow Jamaica

maybe even four well Jamaica England and

Canada

and it's possible a brief stint in the

United States so I was well traveled

um although you know you're dimly aware

of these things at that age

um and I had a uh you know I have an

English father and a had an English

father and a Jamaican mother so I was

conscious of myself as an outsider

a little bit which I think is very

useful

um

and

I was living in that point in

kind of Southwestern Ontario

the kind of one of the

sleepiest but also most amazing

places in

the West I mean a

a place of kind of uh almost absurdly

happy people and no crime or dysfunction

and you know 10 churches in every

village and

uh a kind of I realize now in retrospect

a kind of magical place to have to I

grew up without any kind of broader

anxieties

so there was I was never scared of

anything there was nothing to be scared

of when I was when I was growing up um

which I realized now was probably an

enormous blessing

on that first point of realizing that

you're a bit of an outsider why'd you

cite that as being a a good thing

for a lot of people that leads to

bullying and feeling you know feelings

of sort of social inadequacy but why'd

you say that's a good thing well I think

of it as liberating

you know I'll give you a small example

when I first came to Canada I was six

years old and in in rural Canada when

you're six all the boys have been

playing ice hockey since they were in

skating since they were four

so I remember very distinctly

being aware of the fact that everyone

played hockey and I didn't and also

being aware of the fact that wrongly but

I felt that it was too late for me to

learn so I was permanently outside of

hockey culture I was the only boy who

didn't play which is incredibly

liberating which meant that I could

choose none of them got to choose what

they

wanted to do right I did you know it so

it was like I didn't have to participate

in

these kind of uh compulsory rituals of

the Canadian upbringing

um and having choices

being an outsider it does allow you

a kind of range of Freedom that is

denied people who are embedded in a

culture

and what did you choose

well eventually running

um but I think I chose just to you know

the amount of time

seven-year-olds spend playing hockey in

Canada is enormous I mean it's just so I

think I just had more time to read and

kind of it said full-time job for for an

eight-year-old or a seven-year-old

um you know I just I I had a quite a

solitary childhood which again I think

was a blessing

um

you know I think a lot of I didn't I

didn't I had time to kind of indulge my

curiosity and read lots of books and

um I wasn't kind of I see a lot of

children today pushed into unwanted

social interaction I don't understand

what is it really necessary if you're if

you're seven you'd rather spend an

evening by yourself

isn't that fine I think it should be

fine one of the things that I you know I

read about in uh the story of success

was about the impact that parental

involvement at that young age and this

is kind of maybe maybe somewhat linked

to what we're talking about parental

involvement can have on someone's

outcomes and I my parents were I was the

youngest child of four so my parents had

resigned to the fact that they had to

parent me so I had this huge freedom and

I think I always cite that as being the

reason I went on to become an

entrepreneur because I had this huge

void of Independence

but um so I wanted to get your take on

on that because I that led me to believe

that

less parental involvement would lead to

Greater Independence which would lead to

better outcomes yeah but except that yes

I actually completely agree with you but

I wonder whether

um you know the kind of so if you're

describing a kind of benign neglect

which is which youngest children I'm

also a youngest often encounter but

benign neglect is not the same as a lack

of Parental involvement because it's

it's benign neglect it's also it's

considered neglect it's that your

parents have simply they haven't removed

a safe structure around you the

structure remains in place what they've

removed they just stopped hovering over

you they realize it's no longer

necessary or productive or they no

longer have the time for it but they've

not abandoned you

so you know I think it's you know

sometimes I think we those of us who are

youngest

um do our parents a little bit of a

disservice when we when we when we

describe their absence from our

childhood They're Not absent they're

um they're just simply wiser in a way

that they that they uh that they they

choose to parent yeah I thought my

parents were absent but you're right

the house was still hot we had a reef

over our head I was still attending

school yeah I got expelled ultimately

for like 30 attendance but I was still

kind of going you know I did the same

thing yeah I read about that I thought

yeah we were similar but my mother was

complicit in my my mother would was

quite happy if I chose to die oh really

well I think she realized my mother is

quite subversive in a very very quiet

West Indian kind of way and I think she

understood that

if she chose to

I didn't have any great desire to go to

go to school on a regular basis I think

she realized that if she

opposed that desire should make it worse

so she decided instead to endorse it and

so it kind of she sort of diffused

whatever rebellious

intent I had

just by saying she would sign fake notes

for me to give to the principal I mean

she was wow

wow

what about your father what was he like

he said you were very very competitive

he thought I think he was competitive I

don't know whether I think I was quite

competitive but in a kind of at games

and at running

um my father was a a very very

Englishman he was

from Kent he was uh he liked dogs and

gardening

and long walks in the rain

uh he was

uh exceedingly intelligent but it

combined with a kind of humility that

was

and I realized that as I get older it's

the humility that was the more important

um aspect of his

uh personality so he would never he was

probably smarter than most people he met

but he would never ever

Make That explicit and he was if he

thought that you even had a slight edge

of knowledge in some domain over him he

would defer to you

which made him an incredibly curious

he was curious about everything and

would ask

he had friendships with people who had

dropped out of school at the age of 10.

I mean he was and he was a man with a

PhD in

you know in mathematics

um so he was a wonderful he was he was a

really wonderful role model for a uh for

a little boy

how did you and why and how did you

learn the value of that humility and the

impact and the importance of it when

you're dealing with other people

well I think it's because

you can't be a good journalist unless

you have

a kind of uh Baseline respect for what

others can teach you if you're going to

interview be a good interviewer you must

enter into every interview

with the expectation that you know less

that the person you're interviewing has

someone something to tell you

right and that's actually much more

difficult than it sounds because nor in

normal conversation we have an urge to

assert ourselves and we think we have a

kind of

um intellectual Advantage informational

advantage that's why we you watch people

talk

interruptions are all about often about

the other person asserting

their superiority on that point someone

says oh it'll take me forever to get

here the other person says no it won't

right

you can't be a journalist if you have to

turn that off if you want to Be an

Effective interviewer you have to trust

that

this person ultimately can teach me

something that I can't learn on my own

even if in the moment I'm not getting

anywhere you just have to quiet that

voice and let them

keep going and keep

you know asking the right kind of

questions that requires an assertion of

humility

um it took me years to Kind of Perfect

that as a journalist

um and I would watch it when I worked at

the Washington Post

I would watch the great journalists and

they all had that just that ability to

kind of

to to make it plain to whoever they were

talking to I know less than you that's

why I'm having this that's why we're

having this conversation right

it's a beautiful thing when it's done

right when it's done well

it's gonna be reflecting on various

people one of the people that made me

reflect on the interesting he was Joe

Rogan

how he's he feels like such a bridge to

his audience listeners because he does

come across as being tremendously humble

regardless of who's who he's speaking to

he always seems to understand his

intelligence as well

who always calls himself a monkey yes

that's a kind of yeah yeah well he yes

he well he has this wonderful thing

um where he can put himself

he's squarely in the position of his

listeners which is a really you know for

a for a host of

of any kind of show like that is if you

can do that you can win you're going to

win right he there's there's he's he's

having the conversation that his

listeners wish they could be having with

with these subjects in his in his uh on

his show

on that point of Journalism at what

point in your your early years did you

was there any inclination that you might

become a journalist you might go into

that profession if any

never in the I mean I had thought about

I liked writing I didn't imagine that it

was a

profession it didn't occur to me that

you could actually make a living doing

it so I always was thinking of other

things I wanted to do and then I kind of

fell into it by accident after my after

I I graduated from uh University so I I

never really I just I thought something

you did on the side you know I I didn't

it seemed unimaginable that somebody

would pay you to do

this kind of work lack of Role Models

lack of

I mean I think it's a it's a little bit

of a if I grown up in

you know New York or

Toronto or London

I would have been much more aware of

people who who

you know were in the creative

professions but I grew up in a town of 4

000 people there were no one there was

no one in my town who made a living in

the creative professions right you you

wouldn't live in a small town like that

and do that so I didn't know I have

friends who grew up in you know

Manhattan and they they knew they knew

film my film filmmakers and actors and

you know fiction writers and is as part

of their parents Circle when they're

growing up I knew none of that what

advice would you give to to people

around that age say that you know early

20s just maybe just graduated and

thinking about going off into the world

because I hear a lot of these these

stories about certain small factors can

have such a tremendous impact on your

outcomes like the city you live in would

you encourage you younger people to go

and get into those big cities if they're

if they're trying to

have careers in things like journalism

or Media or whatever or business and how

much of a how much of a swing does that

have because I always think you know I'm

on Dragonstone and I see these

entrepreneurs coming in and pitching

tech companies and I always think

sometimes I think you're at like a 90

disadvantage versus just being over

there on the west coast of America in

San Francisco

um I I think sometimes I think it's more

than a 90 disadvantage but situational

and environmental factors on outcomes

it's always been this puzzle

in many countries but particularly

United States about why do immigrants do

so well

and

uh you know the one of the explanations

was immigrants to the United States have

always been very aggressive about

seeking educational opportunities or

maybe they brought with them education

that so that was one argument for the

longest time but now we realize actually

it's less that and more that they unlike

many people many Native Americans are

willing to move where opportunities are

so the the

immigrants are mobile

in a way they don't have any Roots they

don't have family that's keeping them in

one place another they simply make a

beeline for the

places where they can you know further

their own economic and personal

interests the quickest and the most

efficiently native

people don't do that too many

encumbrances

my advice to people young people is

always where do you want to move

first question you should ask yourself

your your default should be you're going

to move somewhere

right don't fall in the Trap of doing

when you're 23 of doing the comfortable

thing and staying near family and

friends that's there'll be plenty of

time for that later

only question on your mind should be

where should I move and once you decide

where you move I think a lot of other

things fall into place so if you are

someone who

imagines it you would like to start a

company in the tech world and then yeah

move to move to Northern California or

Austin Texas or Tel Aviv or whatever you

know go where the I think you're

absolutely right you need to go where

the opportunity is it's not going to

come to you magically and you are at a

huge disadvantage if you're not there

it's it's just no question about that

people have confused the efficiency of

digital communication the kind of um the

logistical efficiency of digital

communication with emotional efficiency

and kind of psychological efficiency it

is it is only logistically efficient it

does not resolve the quiz and help

someone trust you more or take a chance

on you or get to know you in all of your

complexity yes

I wish yeah it's one of the things my

parents said to me at very young age was

we lived in Devon which is you know

Devon right down in the corner on the

farm

um and they they were very clear at

young age they said you've got to leave

here so just just so you're all well

aware for the four of us you have all

got to go out of this city so when we

were all very clear on that and all of

my friends are still there every single

one of them all of my best friends are

still in Plymouth even if they went to

University in another city they came

back

um it's not to say that they're not

happier than me and this is maybe my

next question which is

um because like because I hear that

immigrant tell all the time that

immigrants tend to have better outcomes

relatively whatever it might be but my

question becomes um are they happier and

I say this actually because of a

conversation I was having last night

with my friend who has built his family

have built a billion dollar company in

this country

um the dad was the first generation

immigrant here the dad is just

completely overwhelmed with work like he

is obsessed to the point now the sun

said to me last night I don't actually

think he could he knows what makes him

happier little but because he was in

survival mode when he came here they've

got a billion dollars actually I think

it was worth five billion now but is he

happy

and I I sometimes ponder that the first

sort of generation immigrant is on

survival mode the second generation has

the chance of being in a maybe a

thriving self-actualization

situation but I don't know if you had

any light to shed on first generation

happiness I'm always I'm dubious of this

so I I all this happiness stuff and I

say this and I'm I'm fully open to the

possibility that I'm wrong but

um my understanding of happiness is

because of the research on happiness is

that it's a fairly stable

trait in other words there are people

who are happy

regardless of where they are and people

who are not or people who don't appear

happy or people for whom happiness

represents itself differently so I would

say of your friend's father

you know maybe he is happy he just

expresses it differently he built a

massive business he's made his family

stable he's created a secure beachhead

in a whole new country you don't think

that makes him happy when he puts his

head on the pillow at night I think it

probably does it's just not just it's

not the kind of lie on the beach read a

good book happy but it sounds to me like

a

pretty amazing set of accomplishments

that would make him will he die happy

having done that yes he will I think I

don't know I never met the man but I'm

just I'm wondering generally what's that

people say they've never met a happy

billionaire

I just don't I don't believe that I

think they derive I think people who've

who've um accomplished something like

that they drive a different kind of

satisfaction from it

but it doesn't it's not a lesser kind of

satisfaction

um

you know do I work more than most people

if I look at the cohort of people I went

to college with University with do I

work more than most of them yeah

probably

uh do I spend less time

you know uh watching movies and reading

books and going on holiday yes

absolutely does that mean I'm less happy

no I think I'm pretty happy

I

you know it's like and I I just I yeah

that's I'm a little bit skeptical of

this narrow definition of happiness so

so I think I think it's based on this

idea that to be happy or whatever you

have to have this kind of recipe of

ingredients and they have to be equally

balanced you have to have you know

strong interpersonal relationships or

meaningful connections you have to have

you know exercise you know these kinds

of things so when you see an individual

who's so out of balance because they

they just work 20 you know every waking

out of every day and they don't make

time for friends families or walking the

dog people and they're you know consumed

by it people from the outside go well

that's that's not a happy person and you

would I would think the science would

support the fact that people tend to be

happier when they have stronger more

meaningful relationships and they have

more of more balance in their lives

generally yeah no I think so you

understand I'm making so let's go back

to your friend's father so your friend's

father is uh not someone about whom we

can generalize yeah uh he's clearly a

you know he's an outlier of some

um

sword he's probably he's in I imagine

there's a whole series of traits that

he's in the 99th percentile on probably

incredibly intelligent incredibly driven

you know list them all so that kind of

person is never going to have

a balanced life I mean you could put him

in

you know the the the the the cornfields

of Iowa and say you're going to be a

you're going to be a farmer that's all

you can do and he's gonna he's gonna

live he's gonna be someone who's like

working you know 80 hours a week and

right that's just his temperament so the

question is what I'm saying is happiness

for him is probably going to look

differently than happiness for lots of

other people but he's highly unusual

for the average person yes balance is is

appropriate but you didn't ask me about

an average person you asked me about

someone who's who built built an

enormous business from scratch

yeah I worry I think I worry sometimes

part of the reason I think ask the

questions for myself that I'm being

dragged by my own like insecurity so I

sit here with a lot of you know

successful maybe billionaire CEOs that

have built these great companies and you

find out that the reason they built them

is because their mother

um in the case of one of my previous

guests which was on two weeks ago who

and he said this on the podcast he's got

a billion dollar beer company you find

out because his mother when he was a

young kid basically always convinced him

he was never enough he should come into

his room smash his toys and say things

to him to convince him that he was just

never good enough so he's had this

almost neurotic obsessive drive to prove

to the world that he is good enough and

you wonder how voluntary that that that

drive is and what it's come at the cost

of and is he really

you know is this individual really

happy and fulfilled or are they just

being pulled by their insecurities but

you know there are maybe another way of

saying this is that

um so to use that person as an example

so he took uh uh a kind of trauma and

made something productive out of it yeah

he had a great deal of certain personal

costs but he took something that might

have defeated others and ended up

contributing substantially to society I

wouldn't he may not be happy but I would

describe his life as a Triumph

right and the other thing I would say is

that the language of happiness has to go

alongside the this question of what

contribution you're making to the world

you live in that there are many people

who are not personally happy but who

make enormous contributions and that's

that's a parallel and in many cases far

more important

um function you know was

Florence Nightingale happy probably

probably not Jews she's supposed to tell

from what I know about her life she had

all kinds of psychological issues or

whatever but she made an enormous

contribution that continues to this day

right she started a Hulk you know so

there are like I said I would like to

have a kind of

I would like to the to evaluate people's

lives along a whole series of dimensions

and understand that not everyone can

satisfy each of those dimensions in any

moment one of those

you know being happy feels like

something that I would like for me

making a great contribution to society

feels like something that others would

like from me and I I wonder you know

which if you could make a huge this is

just a tangent here but if you could

make it amazing you know contribution to

society as you have at the cost of your

unhappiness

would you choose that

depends on what the contribution was the

contribution you've made in your life

you've helped millions and millions oh I

see uh

would I have done what I did if I

thought it was coming at a significant

cost to my own happiness yeah uh

probably not but then I think the world

you know but if I was doing if I was a

you know uh a a biologist who had

working on a breakthrough for some

disease I might the calculation might be

different I mean I'm not saving lives

I'm entertaining people or enlightening

them but it didn't read me they would be

enlightened somewhere else I'm not

crucial to the functioning of society

but if I was

I might feel very differently I think

you know it's funny where the I'm I'm

over here because I have this

um book now in paperback the bomber

Mafia and it's a story of these

uh group of men pilots in the 1930s in

America who have a dream about

a better way to fight Wars and they're

all down in Alabama and they have these

ideas about how the bomber

high altitude Precision bombing can

revolutionize Warfare and save countless

civilian lives their dream turns out to

be

uh

they can't pull it off in a second world

war they they start out the war with

high hopes and by the end many of them

have had their careers destroyed because

they pursued an idea which didn't work

it didn't work at the time now it does

work they really pioneered a kind of

warfare that is

um essential to the way we think about

war today and as as today you know saves

countless lives didn't work in their

time frame so in a sense they sacrificed

their career and large part of their

happiness for uh uh for a future cause

they were long dead before it

paid off am I glad they did that

absolutely

would they be glad if you resurrected

some of these guys from the dead and you

said look I know in 1936 you had a

vision about how to make war better and

it was finally realized during the

Kosovo campaign of the 90s 60 years

later

are you happy you did what you did

uh you do feel now that it was worth

sacrificing your entire career over this

lost cause because it turned out not to

be a lost cause and they would I'm sure

from the grave they would say I am so

grateful that I did what I did right

even though one of these guys one of

them one of the heroes of the book is a

man named Haywood Hansel

brilliant passionate

romantic figure in the second world war

who has this extraordinary set of ideas

about how to revolutionize the era war

in the second world war which he tries

and fails to implement in the war

against Japan and by his by the age of

40 he's this is a man who devoted his

life to the Air Force he's a career his

father and grandfather they're all like

career Military Officers he this is his

whole world

he's basically through

by the

by his late 30s he's just pushed out to

pasture and spends the next 30 years of

his life basically

as the guy who failed in the second

world war right

he would say it was worth it I think if

you think so yeah I think he did I think

he would and I'm we should all be

enormously grateful to him for making

that sacrifice

um

I I am grateful for them for making that

sacrifice but I tend to believe that

people are more

motivated by their own

ego than they typically often allow

their own sense of like wanting to

accomplish something so they can be

someone that accomplished something and

I tend to actually think this probably

from doing this podcast so much where I

often get to the root cause of a

successful person's achievements and

find out it was just time and time again

it was just an insecurity from their

childhood

it was they had it you know they were

bullied they were beaten up and it's

this almost involuntary pursuit to prove

the bully my mum uh being outcasted and

being nearly black in an all-white

school to to fit in or to prove someone

wrong and if and then you look at it

from the outside and you clap and go oh

they were courageous or they were Brave

no they were insecure so why wait why

why does it bother you that insecurity

manifests itself as courage and

absolutely doesn't I did a a tour of

this country where I opened the show and

say you call me Brave I was actually

just insecure yeah so it doesn't bother

me I just think it's reality we didn't

talk and I think obviously in hindsight

bias we we say oh this person will say

courageous they were so intentional they

had most of the time they were just

insecure like they didn't get Christmas

presents and they were bad but that

makes I like that though because it to

me to my mind it makes courage far more

accessible when we realize that courage

can have many many fathers I love it

yeah I think it's beautiful it's a

beautiful notion and the idea people can

take what can be harmful damaging

traumatic things like I was saying

before and spin them into gold is this

is the this is the at the heart of what

is so kind of Joyful about you the human

Spirit right it's it's incredible like

that was actually the the headline of

the Guardian newspaper two weeks ago was

my face with the title that said uh

insecurity was my greatest motivator and

it was and it was because I never

understood this idea that I was because

I expelled from school dropped out of

University after one lecture I never

understood this idea that other people

thought I was Brave when and really I

was like a coward running away from

things I didn't like fueled by

insecurities like oh it was actually

cowardice and insecurity if you're

really being honest yeah and so go match

your point about these um

you know these these people from the

1950s yeah 1950s 30s I wonder what there

driving underlying force was because

well they were it's funny so there's a

little group of men and they call

themselves the Brahma Mafia

and they are

they're all in their 20s

they're young men in the 1930s and

they're in the army

and there's no such thing as the Air

Force in the 1930s anywhere and Air

Force is a division of the uh of the

Army in most countries and the people

running armies in the 1930s think planes

are a joke they're a toy right and here

are these young guys and they actually

think planes are what the future of

warfare is and they feel they feel

overlooked and ignored and they're you

know in the 1930s if you were in the

Army you had to spend time you know

learning how to ride a horse because the

Cavalry was still a thing and they would

you know you'd have to

groom your horses and you know Trot

around the and these guys think this is

a joke right they're just this is the

most absurd thing they've ever seen why

are we riding horses when we've invented

this thing called an airplane which can

fly hundreds of miles and drop bombs and

revolutionize Warfare and no one's

listening to them and they they're they

are

um they feel like they're outcasts

who are in an institution that they

don't belong in and they're they're

really at a loss and their solution is

they're all up in Virginia right around

the where military headquarters is in

America they decide to as a group move

to the most remote

uh Air Force Base uh In America which

when they say remote meaning as far as

possible kind of psychologically from

Washington DC so they moved to this

little tiny corner of of Central Alabama

um Montgomery Alabama which even today

Montgomery Alabama is the middle of

nowhere and they want to be they want to

be off by themselves and left a kind of

dream and they have a massive chip on

their shoulder but about that who they

believe to be the the morons running the

army so again you have a and they they

spark this kind of technological

Revolution they dream big and reimagine

what work can be but it's all born of

frustration uh isolation alienation

um rejection rejection I mean it's it's

exactly what you're talking about here

their motives they come across as these

heroic idealists and

these brilliant kind of technological uh

thinkers that's not

that's not how it begins psychologically

they're disgruntled it begins as these

kind of lonely upset disgruntled they're

like I'm sorry we're out of here we're

going to Alabama and they were they

would they would get us only about 10 of

them and they're on this I've been to

this Air Force Base even today it's like

it is literally in the middle of nowhere

and they're just like don't call you

know basically they're like we're hiding

down here don't call us we're like on

the you know as it happens it's such a

marvelous Story the second world war

then breaks out when they're in the

middle of all of this dreaming and

there's no one else who's been thinking

about

air War policy and so all of these

disgruntled guys get whisked out of

Alabama and they occupy all the top

positions in the U.S Air Force at the

beginning of the second world war so by

magic by sheerus chance this group of

Misfits gets plunked into the center of

the American Military machine when

America enters the war in 1942

um so it's like they get a lucky break I

mean if if the second world war never

happened they might still be there like

you know fussing and groaning and

grumbling and which is this other thing

that you know uh thing that I've

observed in I'm sure you've seen the

same thing in doing this in doing this

podcast is the amount of times that

sheer Serendipity unleashes this allows

the innovator to turn their

um disgruntlement and Neurosis into gold

right it's just something random happens

and boom that they they see a window and

they think that's it right that's a

shaft of light that's my light

um but if the window been closed they

could still be disgruntled and running

around

history will never know the history will

never remember that yeah we never look

back and see that that outcome so even

in that case it sounded like that one of

their initial driving motivators was

more like I told you so so going back to

your point about would they be happy

today because they never got that

particular I Told You So moment before

they before they died no they yes they

would have had to live to uh you know a

hundred and hundred years old to get out

to get there I told you so a moment the

question I would have liked to ask them

is

did they did they still have faith at

the time of their death that their

vision would be realized at some point

so there's a whole class of

of uh

innovators who pursue an idea and then

they're just early right and it comes to

fruition afterwards it's a famous case

of a I've forgotten his name but there

was an American

um biochemist who had this idea for how

to fight cancer tumors

um by starving the

cancer tumors grow you know blood feeds

them they have all these blood vessels

that they connect that's how they and

his idea was let's choke the supply of

blood to tumors and we can kill them

that way and it's called angiogenesis

and physical nitrogenesis someone will

correct me anyway he had this idea in

the 60s and he it takes him sort of 30

years to figure out that it works and I

I've often wondered and then he dies but

he gets eat just before he dies he has

this kind of

finally boom he demonstrates that his

life's ambition actually works I've

always wondered had he died like

just before

the moment of would he have died happy

did he die

believing it would someday come his his

notion which is in which is kind of if

you think about it it's

it's intuitively it makes sense if I can

starve the tumor of

of blood of its blood supply I should be

able to choke the tumor that's it's a as

an idea if I just explain that to you

none of us knew anything I'm guessing

about medicine it makes sense right so

he has this idea in 1960 whatever it is

and I think his faith was strong enough

that

had he died before proof of concept

he would still have died happy I think I

don't know though I would love to have

asked him that to have asked about a

hypothetical question

I mean another thing I've learned from

this podcast is generally that the

destination is just a thing that goal

ultimate goal is just a thing that gives

us orientation but we're always on a

journey and I imagine if he had

accomplished that one he would have set

off on another one another Journey so

um

one would assert that because he was

striving towards a meaningful goal I

always say you know when people ask me

what I want for my life now I say if I'm

striving towards the meaning for goals

surrounded by people I love and I feel I

feel somewhat challenged I am happy yeah

and the minute I'm no longer striving so

the goal is complete or I'm not around

people I love and it's not challenging

me it's not outside sort of the outer

limit of my comfort zone Then I then

you're not satisfied so he sounds like

someone that was striving towards a goal

a meaningful goal and that was

challenging him so I imagine

accepted lots of other people began to

believe

that he was wasting his time so he has

that he has he is surrounded by a small

Court of people who believe in him and

presumably a long-suffering wife but

uh the general World in which he's

operating is rolling their eyes by the

end and that's his that's his challenge

that's his challenge so I mean that by

the way as you know incredibly typical

of I mean this this goes into one of my

I'm I'm actually

obsessed with this and this is one of

the reasons I wanted to write about our

Mafia because it is a perfect example of

this idea that it's incredibly simple

but is so often overlooked when we look

at Innovation everyone

including the innovator

radically underestimates how much time

it takes to bring an idea to fruition so

the reason most innovators

do what they do is not that they have a

clear picture

but rather they are they are

massively deluded about their own their

own idea they think it's so obvious and

they should be able to pull it off in

you know five years if they realized it

would take 30 they would never do it

right so they're they're their their

success is based on this illusion

they're by definition delusional

um and every but everyone everyone

involved always thinks that just because

I can describe it clearly and I can make

a case or what I'm doing I should be

able to will it into being overnight

right and I I there's not a single

can you come up with a single

significant Innovation that took less

time than the innovator imagined

no just never happens yeah for so many

reasons yeah I mean legislations that

weren't often the big one yeah that goes

in the way of anything there's a hundred

reasons why everything is takes longer

yeah

um like the the Battle of Lafayette

honestly believed in an idea they

hatched about

completely revising the way war is

fought they thought that you could fight

a war entirely from the air

you would no longer need armies tanks

Navy anything all you would need is

bombers they thought you could fight the

entire second world war with a fleet of

bombers okay they had this idea in 19

let's say 35. they thought they could

pull it off

when the war starts in 1942 they thought

they could pull it off seven years later

we can't even pull it off today we're

getting close

but like it's been they underestimated

how long it would take to bring this

idea to fruition by like basically half

a century right that's the that's what

they're doing but everyone has this

delusion do you know how long my

favorite example is

the the automated teller machine the

cash machine is invented

if I'm not mistaken

in the early 1970s now if the guy who

invented it there's a guy forgot his

name we had him right here right now and

we said when you came up with this idea

and whatever it was in 1973 how long do

you think it would take

to spread this idea throughout the

entire world he would have told you

it'll be all done by 1980. it's a

no-brainer couldn't be easier I'm making

everyone's life easier Banks like

consumers like it it's cash out of a

machine all you got to do is punch in a

code this is the this is not like

computers or I'm not changing anyone's

life everyone wins you know how long it

actually took it took 25 years to make

an ATM machine to make it popular ATM

machines take they're not so they're

invented in the early 70s and they're

not really everywhere until the mid 90s

in the West

why they don't you tell me take a long

time

consumer Behavior has got to change and

they've got to make space for them and

it turns out it turns out it's

complicated consumers took a long time

to my mother is still not taking any

money out of anything

you know so you know she's still I mean

she's 90. she may eventually

but you know it turns out people are the

thing that that guy and all of us didn't

understand is so when it comes to how we

handle how we deal psychologically with

money we are extremely conservative

so I can give you the I can sit you down

and say never have to line up in a bank

again

24-hour access to money and you will

still it'll take a generation for you to

warm up to it a generation yeah that's

it isn't it because the generation is

going to pass because that's too

stubborn to change yeah interesting you

write a lot about this idea of timing

you've written about it in outlines I

believe about the importance of timing

now everything you've said there makes

me feel

maybe a little bit scared as an as an

innovator an entrepreneur because I

might be 50 years out and listen I'm

trying to quench these insecurities now

so I I can't wait 50 years what have you

learned about how we can

um improve our timing or understand if

our timing is good

is that even possible is it possible to

know if our timing is good when it comes

to inventing things creating things

launching a podcast are we too late

people say that to me a lot is this too

late to be starting a podcast you know

yeah

okay cat is timing something we can

control or does it just live in

hindsight I well I do think a lot of

people claim

to understand timing and really what

they're doing is they're they were just

lucky

and they're after the fact

assigning themselves you know a pat on

the back for what

um that is not to say though that there

aren't people who

have a kind of

um at least in flashes have their finger

on the pulse of some kind of marketplace

Steve Jobs comes to mind with

yeah think about Steve Jobs of course is

that he's not he's not a Pioneer in

anything

so he's always late he's late to every

Market that he eventually wins so his

genius was an understanding that being

first is massively overrated he's 10

he's 10 years late on the smartphone

he's

you know every all of the ideas that go

into the first uh the Macintosh computer

are all taken from Xerox Park

he didn't demand any of that stuff he's

so his genius was in understanding that

if you are the first person and you're

probably too early

interesting but also and he understands

as well that

um that in that world of consumer

electronics

um you're better off being the person

who tweaks the idea than the person who

truly innovates in other words what

consumers are interested in is a kind of

mature

experience with their Electronics the

average consumer doesn't really want to

be the one who's pioneering how to

work a kind of

you know stage one laptop or home

computer or they don't want the remember

I don't know if you remember the Palm

Pilot Palm Pilot was an early a way too

early smartphone that was big in the

kind of 90s and it it was for it was

used by a very small number of very

technical technologically focused people

jobs would have looked at that and said

you're never going to win selling a Palm

Pilot it's just not

you need to kind of tweak it two steps

and make it something that an average

person would want to use he was very

commercial in the way that he

um approached uh uh product Innovation

that was his genius so he's in some

sense I think he is exactly what you're

talking about someone who

um who had an uncanny sense of how to

bring something to a mass Market

and when the time was right to do so

yeah although he yes when I when the

time and when the time was right yeah he

did a very good job of never being too

early

the weird concept of being too early but

not one that people are that familiar of

between the ages of um 24 and 34 you

spend 10 years working at The Washington

Post yeah what was what did you you know

that was your 10 000 hours per se what

did that give you that in hindsight you

realize has been so sort of foundational

and important and significant to what

you went on to do

those those are 10 years

well it taught me when I was talking

earlier about that thing about reporting

requiring a kind of fundamental humility

it that was

uh

uh was hammered home

in those years

um

I also learned to write without anxiety

so

you can't be a newspaper reporter

if you have any Neurosis whatsoever

about the act of writing you just have

to you know you have a limited amount of

time the discipline of being forced to

write something every day in a limited

amount of time

for 10 years

um cured me of

a writer's block

ing anxiety you know hey you can't be

that way you're right it's just like

it's like a it's like a boot camp for

writers it just is it um that was

enormously

um useful in

[Music]

um

in kind of freeing me up to spend my

mental energies on

other parts of the writing process right

what about writing generally and the

value that and role that writing has

played on your

self-awareness your personal development

because you know we're living in a

generation I think where writing is

becoming less popular and maybe even

less necessary

maybe that's true maybe it's not

um but I because I do this podcast

because I have other obligations to

write because I have a Instagram

following of millions of people that

expect me to write things every day

I started having to write like it was

the discipline I had to do it at 7 pm I

had to post something and it only in

hindsight I've reflected on how much

that changed my life it helped me

understand the world I was living in

because every day I have to say

something that's true

and in hindsight I go [ __ ] I wish

someone had told me how how much I think

I could Advance my wisdom understand

myself just by

having having some kind of commitment to

publish

every day more from like a personal

perspective you know I'm wondering if

that's if it's if you found a similar

thing I tend to think writers people

that have a something making them right

every day and publish are infinitely

just so much more wise and Incredibly

more self-aware

similar thing with podcasters to be

there

so I think of curiosity as a habit not a

trait

um and I think that too often we think

of it as a trait not a habit by that

distinction I mean

it's not people are not naturally

curious or not not naturally curious

they there are people who have

cultivated the habit of curiosity and

those who have led at life life fallow

what you're describing is an

institutionalized a way of

institutionalizing the habit of

curiosity if you are required to write

something every day

then you are you've put yourself in a

position where you're forced to think

about and look for things to write about

every day that's institutionalizing the

habit of curiosity right I think all

successfully curious people do that in

one form or another put themselves in

situations where they have to come up

with

some new idea or have to are forced to

look for interesting new things or you

know why you know

um anyone who has ambition does this for

many people

the idea you know ambition is very often

rooted in a sense of dissatisfaction

with your current state of knowledge

um or practice what does what does

dissatisfaction do it is another

institutionalization of the habit of

curiosity it forces your your

unhappiness and dissatisfaction with

what you know forces you to go out and

look for a solution to that feeling

right find things that to keep going and

you know instead of stopping get up and

look again and so these are all versions

of the same

um of the same thing so I I sort of

agree with you that there's

writers who have obligations writing

obligations do it's a tremendous

advantage in terms of of

um of uh pushing pushing them to kind of

think freely about things

The Tipping Point

in you wrote that book in 2000 yeah

did that change your life

well it uh it was it it allowed me to

think you could make a living writing

books and it validated my feeling that

the way in which I wanted to write books

had an audience

so I was on I didn't know I had a

particular way that I wanted to write

books but I didn't know whether anyone

else

liked it shared my Approach so that book

made me think oh okay there's a there's

a universe of people out there who

um who are into this kind of thing and

that was that was again freeing you know

at each stage in my career I've been

lucky enough to go through experiences

that allow me to shed various anxieties

The Washington Post sheds anxiety about

writing

Tipping Point sheds anxiety about

whether the kind of writing I want to do

as an audience those are two enormously

freeing things what was the way that you

wanted to write that you were unsure if

the public would receive

I wanted to jump around and go on lots

of digressions

I wanted to use

uh I wanted to make ideas as

make adventure stories around ideas not

about necessarily around people or

narratives

I wanted to kind of ransack the academic

world for really interesting insights

and apply them to kind of everyday

stories I wanted to kind of like

it's an idea of like

um making a book that is a jumble of

different genres right so in the course

of reading a chapter you should

entertain a new idea meet an interesting

person

be have something that you believe

challenged it should be fine to have all

those components in one chapter of a

book

and the next chapter it should be fine

to move on to something completely

different that was what I wanted to do I

wanted to jump around

all the success you've had as a writer

has resulted in you now being doing a

lot of public speaking

one of the things when I was reading

about your your sort of philosophy

towards public speaking that surprised

me was that

um you say you don't try and start a

public talk with a wow

with it with a wow moment I think the

quote was that never starts his talks

with a wow moment or anything to hook

them in but it says tries to draw them

in slowly

and this surprised me because I I've

always thought that the opposite

approach was better as in like when you

walk on stage people are typically on

their phones whatever and you don't have

their attention so trying to get them to

pay attention within the first 10

seconds by saying something

that is somewhat I don't know

provocative was a better approach I was

Keen to hear why you take that stance

the question is what do you want your

audience

and in this sense it's no different from

writing what is the experience you want

your audience to

go through you have them for whatever 45

minutes an hour

and I want them to feel that they have

progressed

I don't necessarily want them to agree

with everything I said or think I'm

wonderful that's not important I want to

be in a different place than they were

at the beginning so to have thought

about something that they hadn't thought

about

to have moved their position on

something a little bit to be emotionally

in a different place so if they started

out one way I want them to be something

somewhere else they started out

distracted I love them to end up being

focused I just want movement right so My

worry is when you start with a bang is

you compromise the movement so

if for example I'm I want them to be

amused their journeyed to be a journey

towards Amusement if the first thing I

do is tell them an incredibly funny joke

the Journey's over

right it's about time so

the central problem of these speeches is

that they've committed

like I say 45 minutes to an hour that's

a long time and everything has to be

about that you have to think about that

time frame you're telling a story Within

a 60-minute window right and they're

going to judge you by how they feel in

the 60th minute not how they feel in the

a minute one

um movies you know the movie that fails

you sit in a two-hour movie and you're

enthralled for the first 90 minutes and

then it falls apart in the end you leave

unhappy you have never I you have never

given a movie recommendation where you

said the following you should totally go

and see that movie the first hour is

amazing now I will warn you the second

hour is terrible yeah you never do that

right yeah you would actually but you

would say oh you should totally see it

it'll be it'll start a little slow and

you'll wonder why you're there but wow

the last hour that you would say I've

described to you this you know from a

logical perspective the same experience

50 good 50 bad but all I've done is if

by by putting the bad first and the good

second I've made it something you

recommend and by reversing it I've made

it something that you would never tell a

friend to do right I actually talk a lot

about to my team about how um people

remember this the peak and the end of an

experience and all the like psychology

tests they do and big tech companies use

this as a way to

um create a more memorable recollection

of any of the sort of customer

experiences and also of the studies

they've done on whether if someone

misses the flight at the start of their

holiday versus if they miss at the end

of the holiday the recollection of the

holidays drastically different exactly

they missed it at the end this [ __ ]

awful holiday there yeah so that makes

sense but my I think my thing is I

wouldn't even have their attention at

the peak of the experience or the story

if I haven't held them at the start with

some kind of promise and we actually see

this with like Mr Beast who's the

biggest YouTuber in the world

much of the reason he says he's

successful and now you 100 million

subscribers fastest growing YouTuber

over the last five years is because he

will at the start of the video and this

is a little bit to do with algorithms he

will tell you the promise he's making

you that you're going to get at the end

so he'll do something in the end like

uh he'll basically create the plot in

the first 10 seconds and go in this

video I buy a million iPhones and then I

text them all at the same time

and you're now waiting till the end to

see the plot realized I guess well he's

he's promising to tell you a story yeah

right so with most stories if you go and

see a

um if you if you pick up a mystery book

mystery story

um it's the same thing by virtue of

being described as a mystery it's making

a promise the promise is I'm going to

you know create some

I'm going to lead you to a dark place

where you don't know where the solution

is and I'm going to give you the

solution so like that yeah he's he's

when you when you when you make the

contract with your audience

and the contract says I'm telling you a

story

you can hold them without you don't have

to why you're not wowing them but you

are you are binding them to you if you

can if you're promising a story then you

deliver on that now he's probably

promised

successfully come through so many times

now that people believe him when he says

I'm going to tell you a story they

believed and they're quite willing to

sit and wait for the for the the you

know the the the the story to be

completed

he actually just say that he says the

second thing is you actually have to

deliver the the punchline of that story

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are you um are you an emotional person

do you consider yourself to be an

emotional person yeah

does that does that impact your your

writing and your storytelling and your

your

um

authorship

if that's even a word in my podcast very

much so less so in my books

um because audio is so much more

emotional

um so a lot of my religious history

episodes

um many of them are quite emotional

um

and uh they're the ones that I value the

most the ones particularly the ones that

kind of

um this in this season for example

there's two episodes

which one will almost certainly make the

majority of those who listen cry

um

and that's something you can do in audio

and that I think is great accomplishment

real tears not

kind of

um

uh not you know there are some people

who kind of cheat their way to tears

manipulate the way the audience but

well-earned tears

um on that I love that kind of

Storytelling where you can move someone

so deeply that they will respond

emotionally to what you're saying

I saw a quote actually from you that

said um I cry but I don't get mad I

cried but I don't get angry that was it

yeah I don't really get angry much

[Music]

I I don't come from my I don't come from

a family that does anger I don't sort of

see the point it never gets you what you

want it doesn't make sense rationally

it feels terrible emotionally

it just makes everything everyone is

worse off and unhappier after the angry

episode than before so it's like if you

remind me why this is some I mean I if I

have

I try to kind of squelch it whenever I

have an Impulse to do and then I just

find it goes away the impulse when was

the last time you cried

oh I don't know two days ago really

yeah

I tend to cry most often when I'm by

myself I think about something that

causes me to

get emotional

is it typically in your writing or is it

is it you think no I'd be walking down

the street and I would um I will I will

be pursuing a line of thought that will

bring tears to my eyes really

is that what happened two days ago

oh you're walking down the street and oh

are you able to share what that line of

thought was I was thinking about my

father

right uh

I was with my daughter

taking her she's 10 months she's in the

little baby carrier

and I uh

uh my father never met you know died

before she was born and uh

I would dearly have love for him to meet

her

and they have a lot in common I think

although it's hard to tell at 10 months

but um

it seems to my mind they have a lot in

common and I was just reflecting on how

lovely would have been

for them to meet

you're a person of Faith right

so you believe you're Christian

Christianity or yeah that's the

tradition of Griffin yeah yeah same I

grew up in Christianity my we were

always in charge growing up until I was

about 18 years old how has that impacted

the way that you see the world and your

your work and your writing and even that

particular moment because

um being of the Christian faith I

imagine that oh I'm guessing here so

excuse me if the guess is wrong but I

imagine that your belief is that he is

here

and he has meta

uh

yeah

yes I do think that uh

sorry now I'm getting emotional um

yeah I do believe that

why is that um why does that make you so

emotional

um

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it's varied I don't know sorry

it's very difficult for me to talk with

my father without

uh

his loss was that

just the saddest thing that ever

happened to me

that's right I I would be fine I'm

you know it's it's in many respects a

very beautiful thing what you're saying

in in the sense of his um

the love you clearly have for the man

I I um I always feel particularly moved

when people talk about their fathers and

I've talked about someone's podcast a

lot because I I'm living with this kind

of ongoing regret ongoing

forecast of regret that I'm gonna regret

my father is not at a young age and and

we're not so close and we don't have a

close relationship and I can't seem to

figure out why I don't

do something about it so one of these

stories like that I think it's this

could really Stark reminder to me that

like

parents don't live forever and I'm

living with that illusion that my

parents are going to live forever and

I'm also forecasting the regret based on

speaking to people like you if that

makes sense I'm like it's when people

say what do you regret I think I say I

think I'm going to regret

not um

not having a close relationship with my

parents when they're gone

yeah

well one of the ways

you realize that you're

uh

grief is one of the ways you keep them

alive

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you know the the thing I feared the most

when my father died was that

uh

was it I would forget him

and

my grief reminds me that I am not and so

it's very it's very valuable

it's um

if I was if I was not

uh

moved by the by thinking about him that

would be a a great tragedy in my mind

but is there a cost to that grief

I think so I mean

I think it's a kind of uh

I said it keeps him alive

um

and

it reminds me

somebody a friend of mine once wrote

uh uh in a book about his own father

that my father he wrote the following

line

my father died 25 years ago

I know him better now than I ever did

back then

um

which I think is one of the most

beautiful lines

true lines

that I've ever

read and I I as time passes

I see that more and more true

of my own father that I I feel I know

him better now than I did when he was

alive

um

and it's hard to explain why that's true

but I uh

but um

and I feel like

if I were to ask my father

about how sad he was about dying

the knowledge that

I know him better now than he did and I

did when he was alive

would make his he would find out that

fact would make his passing easier in

his own mind if that makes sense it's

getting awfully convoluted but I feel

like it's one of the things that makes

death of a loved one less tragic

is that you have an opportunity to get

them to know them better

um

I realize that's hard to it's a very

hard concept to explain it's very

difficult for me to explain when I read

that it just seemed it seemed so

enormously resonant and true

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um

that something about

the opportunity to kind of reflect on

them

over an extended period of time

and to see them reflected in you know I

mentioned my daughter

to see my father's reflection in her

clarifies my father in my in my mind

you know that specific traits that are

um that are popping up in her

everything from the the size and my

father had an enormous head my daughter

has a truly enormous head and I look at

her head and I think

that's him that's you know like

but uh

we have wandered off

into

all manner of

complex territory yeah it tends to

happen on this in this conversations but

it's really interesting that that

expression because I was thinking about

how I recently had um someone I knew I

knew passed away and the process that

happens in in the wake of their passing

is you first as you would perfectly

saying they were very well in person in

this country they Trend number one and

you you see this outpouring of the

impact they had on others and you go oh

my God it wasn't just me that felt that

way about this person but then their

parents came here and sat on the sofa

and we just compared notes about this

individual and you can start to see as

you kind of describe it there the

patterns and oh yeah no and and it's

almost like the investigation starts

once they're gone and yeah yeah

and so that's why that was that quote

particular quote was so resonant

Timmy um

on the topic of relationships one of the

things that I am in your book blink in

the first chapter you talk about John

just John gottman oh yeah I read about

John gottman completely separately I

read about his when I was trying to read

about relationships and what ruins

relationships I read about this idea of

contempt

ing them yeah I actually when I talked

about my show that went up and down this

country in the show I talk about

professor John gottman I talk about

contempt and how that's this Insidious

little hard to see force in

relationships but you actually got to

meet him what did that teach you about

relationships and

um

and the ones that are going to last in

those that are gonna yeah

kind of obvious but crucially important

point which is a reminder of how

we're social animals and

casting someone out is the Great

um

is the great sin the great injury not

being angry with someone or or anger is

wrong word but

government is clear that anger is not a

predictor of

the expression of anger is not a

predictor of the failure of a

relationship the expression of contempt

is

um

and he makes that crucial distinction

that if I confront you over something

that I'm unhappy about

I am the implicit understanding is I'm

doing this because your our relationship

is of such importance to me that an

injury needs to be addressed right

contempt is where you have given up on