Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Sunita Sah (on defiance)

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

Sunita Sah (Defy: The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes) is an author, award-winning, tenured professor at Cornell University, and expert in organizational psychology. Sunita joins the Armchair Expert to discuss living up to the Sanskrit meaning of her name, why Milgram’s electric shock experiment pushed her to pursue psychology, and how some of the wildest and offtrack people she knows are doctors. Sunita and Dax talk about how speaking up when you see something happening to someone else is a communal act, how Dax goes straight from tension to defiance, and whether defiance is evolutionarily maladaptive. Sunita explains the five elements that define a true yes, how we can reduce stress by clarifying and acting in alignment to our values, and tells the story of her mother’s defiance that surprised her and taught her hope. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube or listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert experts on expert, I'm Dan Shepard, I'm joined by Monica Mouse. Hi. Hello. Today we have Dr. Sunita Saan,

and she is an award winning professor at Cornell University and an expert in organizational psychology. She has a new book out called Defy the Power of No in a World That Demands Yes. I loved this topic. Yes. I think it's really important to know how to stick up for yourself, when to stick up for yourself, when to stick up for yourself, when to tell.

Yeah, I see this book as being enormously helpful for a huge amount of the population. Yes. It's very, very, very good. And also the amount of her own story she includes and acknowledges how hard it is for her, I think is always helpful. What we like on this show is sort of looking

at the opposite side of it. And we talk in the episode, and she starts a book with George Floyd and the rookie cops that were there. We get into all that, and it's really fascinating. And thinking about if you really put yourself in that position, what would you do? Yeah. What would you do versus what you think you would do?

Yeah, and what you should do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how you, yeah, some tools to make sure you do what you think you would do? Yeah, and what you should do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how you, yeah, some tools to make sure you do what you think you would do. Yeah. Please enjoy Dr. Sunita Sawh. We are supported by Squarespace. Maybe you've got dreams of turning your hobby

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He's an up-chair expert. He's an up-chair expert. He's an up-chair expert. What's more popular, Monica, for Indian kids to be a Neil or a Monica? They're both pretty common. Because Neil I'm finding really is common. If I'm life or death and I've got to guess what someone's name is, I got to go Neil. It just feels highest percentage. Really?

Yeah, yeah. I think you should go Jay. Oh really? Uh huh. That's the most common? Do you disagree? Yeah. Because you should go Jay. Oh really? Uh-huh. That's the most common. Do you disagree? Yeah. Yeah.

Cause you've been here for 16 years. Oh my goodness, has it been that long? It'll be 17 this year, 2025. 2008, yeah? 2008, now you're making me feel nervous. Yeah. That's no wonder my son says that he's American now. Right, of course.

Yeah, yeah. Right, how long has he been? He moved when he was one. We almost went back to the UK in 2020 during the pandemic. So I got offered a position at the University of Cambridge. We were all like, let's go. And then he said, no, I am American. Wow.

He really planted a flag literally. But you all were living there when he was five, when the Olympics came through town? We went back when you said 2008. So that last year, I finished my PhD and I was doing my postdoc down at Duke. We were living in Chapel Hill. And then you get one year of this extra, you can stay. And then the second year of my postdoc,

my family didn't get visas. So they went back to London and I was going back and forth. Oh, boy. And the second year of my postdoc, my family didn't get visas. So they went back to London and I was going back and forth. Oh boy. You travel a lot. Even just now, before Monika was here, you're saying you're teaching in Utica, is it? Or Syracuse? Utica. And Roosevelt Island. Oh wow. Those are on opposite ends of the state of New York. It's about four hours between. Four and a half hours. And you're doing that at the same time? Occasionally. It hasn't worked that well. Now just one semester in one place,

and one semester in another place, because going back and forth is too much. You grew up in the UK? Yeah. OK, and your parents, had they emigrated there? I was one when I came to England. I grew up my whole life there and also in Scotland. So my dad first came to England from India and did his PhD,

then went back to India and then brought the family. You are a polymath. You've done many, many things. You've studied a lot of things. You've done research in a lot of things, but you were first a medical doctor. That's right. And so tell me, being a kid,

when do we get the idea to be a doctor and what is that experience before you change course? Yeah. So, in our community, medicine is one of the best things you can do, right? So, I had the grades. I was a good kid. I asked my dad when I was young, what does my name mean? And he said, in Sanskrit, sunita means good.

Oh, wow. And so, I mostly lived up to that. I was a good girl in their eyes. So, I did exactly what I was told. I did all my homeworks expected. I was what? In Yorkshire, they call SWAT-y, which means you're a SWAT, you work really hard,

you do all your homework. Maybe it's equivalent to nerd here. Oh, okay. Yeah, I guess if you ask me where the derivative nerd comes from, I have no clue, because I was going to say, where does that originate? SWAT. What is that abbreviation for? Who knows?

I don't know, but when you talk about SWOT now, especially at business schools, it means something totally different. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. That's not what it means when I was growing up. Okay, okay. So I got the grades and it's like, why wouldn't you want to do medicine? Yeah. And I was like, well, I'm not sure. It's really for me.

But in the UK, it's a combined undergraduate and graduate degree. So you basically start at the age of 18, medical school, and you finished. I was on the wards in my early 20s. Oh, no kidding. From entering your first intro to biology class to having a patient, how short can that be in England?

Biology we had to do as egg levels before you go in. At that point, it was five years. That's it. But when you say first seen a patient, the first two years are pre-clinical, so you're learning things. Then the third year, you're on the wards and you're a clinical.

By the time you're 22, 23, you're qualified, you're on the wards. Wow. Okay, is that better or worse? There's pros and cons. Here, you have to work so hard. I got all my education for free, which is pretty impressive. There's a small cost now in the UK, but I went through the whole of medical school. I mean, earning peanuts once you start as a junior doctor, but that

aspect of working earlier is great. So you can get through. Making the decision so early, questionable. Although I say my career is perfectly planned. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was perfectly planned how I ended up here. But suddenly there was a lot of pressure and I lived up to those expectations of going to medical school

and then finishing medical school and ended up working as a doctor. And did you enjoy being a doctor? I knew it wasn't for me. There were certain aspects I really loved, like the analytical part. I'm always analytical. I was always wasn't for me. There were certain aspects I really loved, like the analytical part. I'm always analytical. I was always thinking, always questioning.

It's problem solving. Yes. I'm really fascinated by people as well. So just talking to people, meeting people, learning about their lives. So that aspect was great. I wasn't actually into the blood and gore aspect. And I remember talking to my teachers about that,

like, oh, I don't know about medicine. And they were like, it's just two years pre-clinical, you're going to do that fine. And then just get through the clinical years, and then you can end up doing research. So when do we get interested in organizational psychology? So I was always interested in psychology. So when I was at medical school,

I did my two years pre-clinical, and then I took a year out to do what they call an intercalated degree in psychology. So they basically throw you in the fourth year of psychology and you catch up on the four years. Oh wow. In that one year. But that was such a wonderful year. It was amazing. That's when I started reading about Milgram Stanley's famous experiments, obedience to authority. I became fascinated with that. Who did what we call the electric shock experiment.

Yes, yes, yes. So Stanley Milgram was really fascinated by why the Nazis in World War II always kept saying I was just following orders afterwards when they were being investigated for war crimes. Yeah. And so he decided to set up this experiment, which was quite elaborate, where he would bring people in from the community and they would be an actor. It was designed as an experiment on memory. That's what they thought they were coming into and whether sort of giving someone electric shocks would help them learn better. Wow. So that was the setup. First experiments were conducted at

Yale in their basement, I think. So people would come in, they would meet somebody else that they thought was another participant, but it was actually an actor that they had. And they would rig it so the actor would be what they call the learner. So then he would go into this room and the participant who was the teacher would see him being rigged up to what looked like an electric chair. And they would feel one of the shocks, 15 volts or something. So it all looks really real. And then the teacher would go to another room

and they would be sat in front of this box that was sort of labeled from 15 volts to 450 volts. And it would go up in 15 volt increments. And it would be labeled, so right at the end, it was three Xs, danger, huge shock. So they are, they can be lethal shocks at that point. Then the teacher had to read out some word pairs and the learner had to memorize and repeat them back. And if they got something wrong, they would get a shock

and then it would go up 15 volts. And the test subject would be in charge of administering the shock, right? So they had to read out the word pairs, and the experimenter was usually in the room just sort of overseeing, and if the teacher protested, they would tell them, you know, please go on with the experiment.

They had like four prompts to tell them, please go on, it's essential that you continue, the experiment requires that you go on. And when psychiatrists predicted beforehand what would happen, they thought that most people would not go past 150 volts. And in fact, every single participant in the first experiment went past that. And the actor is screaming. About 150 volts, there's thumping on the wall,

and there's verbal complaints, I don't want to go on with this. I don't want to go on with this. I don't want to go on. Oh my god. Get me out of here. I refuse to go on with the experiment. And it was also told to the participants he had a heart condition. Oh my god.

This is really horrifying. They predicted only about one in 1,000 would go up to 450 volts. But they found that everyone pulled the lever for 150 volts, everyone pulled it for 300 volts. And 66% went up to 450 volts. All the way. Holy shit. Yeah, yeah. Even Milgram was shocked.

Yeah, yeah. He was shocked at the results because he didn't think that he would find that. And he was like, I really thought this was something unique about German culture, but everybody is doing this. I understand that you're in a class, you learn that. That is intrinsically interesting. I think everyone would be a bit interested in that.

But then I also am curious, was there an additional layer for you personally where that is extra interesting? As I said, I was always known for being an obedient daughter and a student, but I was fascinated by people who could defy. And I was good friends with someone at high school, let's call her Clara. She was able to defy. I started at St. Joseph's College,

which is an all girls Catholic school at the other side of town. My dad thought that you're gonna to get a good education there, so I would catch two buses to go to St. Joseph's. It was the roughest school I've been to. Oh, wow. So I don't know what he thought, but it was also a lot of fun.

I don't know, Zara, you want to send your good girl. Yeah. And Clara came in two weeks late. She had moved from Hastings in the south of England to the north, and so she was different a little bit. I was also different. I was just one of a handful of non-white girls at the school. And we became really close friends,

even though we were so different from each other. Were you so attracted to her ability to defy? Absolutely. I was like, how can she do that? Because she just walked in. We had this sort of checkered blue and white blouse that we'd wear and a red sweater. She walked in without the red sweater. I thought she just stood out so much

and I was like, who is she? You know? Especially because the headmistress had said before, I want everybody in their red sweaters because when I look out, I just want to see a sea of red. Can I bring up to speed a little bit on our own personal dynamic? Her other best friend other than me

is six foot seven redhead. The most assertive, loud, he's openly gay without any fear of it. He's so him. He's fearlessly himself. Yeah, yeah. And then I will fit in that box a bit as well. So there's a fun thing with Monica

and I and then Monica and Jess. Because I was also very good. Yeah, I was going to say. Yeah. You're still very good. You're a good girl. Thank you. Is it a good thing though?

Right. And I think I've grown into, I totally defy. You've transcended for what I know about your school experience and trying to acclimate and blend in and all those things. I don't see you as that way at all, but certainly you did spend a good deal of your life. Oh yeah. Just trying to acclimate and blend in and all those things. I don't see you as that way at all, but certainly you did spend a good deal of your life. Oh yeah, just trying to be good,

just trying to do everything I needed to do to not get removed. Or singled out. From society or singled out. I grew up in Georgia and as you were saying, you were one of the only brown kids. Yeah, you just wanted to be, I did. Blended.

Just wanted to be like everyone else. So yes, when there's someone there, I actually commend you for being attracted to that at that time, because if there's someone there who's being so themselves, that at that time would have terrified me. Well, they might have sucked you in with the attention that I got.

Yeah, then it's like, then if I become friends with them, then everyone's going to be so aware of me. I didn't want anyone to be aware of me. I remember, I think a few years before that, maybe when I was at middle school, my dad got me these bright red, like warmers, when my dad bought them for me, I was like, I just didn't want to wear them. They're too bright. Give me black,

so I can kind of blend in. And I was like, no, we can't return them now. So I have to wear these things to school. And it was excruciating, right? I was trying to hide them with my coat. I was like, no, no, I don't want to be wearing this. But then I kind of changed when I went to St. Joseph's. And when the headmistress said, like, a sea of red,

I was like, hmm, I'm not sure about that. And I had the song of Another Brick in the Wall by Pink Floyd kind of playing. So I was getting quite attracted to these kind of things. Like rebelliousness. I was more questioning. oh, that's right. Why do they want us to conform so much? Because I was so used to obeying, right, and doing,

and getting rewards for that. I would see teachers doing things that I thought were unfair. So when I was at middle school, I saw one of my teachers beating up another kid. Oh. And that was horrifying to me. And I remember meeting him in the corner shop

that we had just down the road, and I was really scared, but he was so nice and friendly to me. And in my child's mind, I basically thought that was because he thought I was good. Yeah, you were good. Yeah.

He only beats bad people. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I tried like hell, never to be bad, so I wouldn't get treated like the way that boy got treated. But it really unnerved me, right? It left something there as to why our teachers expected us to behave in this particular way. And when I realized that people in authority can do things like that, they can be unethical,

incompetent, and just plain stupid, then you start to question the people that are in charge maybe don't have our best interests in mind. The structure has put them there, not their character. And when you kind of realize that, like, oh, the principal of the school has a title, doesn't mean that he's been vetted as a good person necessarily.

There's a real dissonance when you recognize, oh no, they're humans and who knows. I'm friends with a ton of addict doctors and people will be shocked that doctors are addicts. I'm like, do you think they're different people? In some ways it's excessive at medical school, right? When I came to the US, it was fascinating when we were trying to find an apartment to rent.

As soon as you say, I'm a doctor, some of the people I know that are completely wild and off track are doctors. Of course. There's a lot of stress release. Yes, if you want to have a good night party and go out with some nurses or some doctors and it's on. Oh yeah, we had some good nights.

So I'm really, really interested in that as well. I'm aware of that experiment. And then of course the Stanford prison one's very famous and people are kind of aware of that. But your book starts out in a really wonderful and timely place. And you start by looking at the George Floyd case. And there were elements of this I had no idea.

And it's really something. So you're not focusing on the asshole that had his knee on his neck. What's far more interesting is there are two rookies there. One guy's on his third day, a black rookie, and then the white rookie is on his fourth day at work. That really haunted me because they were rookie officers and the guy with the knee on the neck

was their training supervisor. So that image of George Floyd is ingrained in lots of people's minds and it's horrific. Also, when I think about the rookie officers, I always think, what would I have done? Because they're obeying, they're in a line of hierarchy. They've been trained to obey. And even though in the manual, if your officer is asking you to do something unethical and things you should defy or say something, it's impossible. And people are saying, why did they do that? Why did they not say no?

It's so impossible to do that in certain situations, especially if you haven't anticipated it, confronted it before, know how to react, practiced it, rather than just intellectually knowing. And for inclined to judge them, we have the benefit of knowing the outcome of that, which is it resulted in a death. I think their backstories are really compelling as well. The white cop's grandfather was a homicide detective.

His great grandfather was the chief of police in Minneapolis. The black rookie intentionally joined the police force to help change it from the inside. So you want to talk about the right values and intentions. These two have it in spades. Yeah, and so often our actions just don't align with our values and we see this time and time again.

And this is what I wanted to study in more depth. Why is that? We can sit here in our armchairs, right? And this is what I wanted to study in more depth. Why is that? We can sit here in our armchairs, right? And just say, oh, we wouldn't do that. We would act in this particular way. But when you're actually in that situation, it's so difficult. You're up against a lot of forces.

So you end that description by saying, I'd like to think I would have done differently, but here's the situation I was in that I also would have thought I would have done differently. So talk about going to the hospital with chest pains. That day I had this immense central chest pain and I hadn't felt any pain like this before, so I was worried about it and I thought,

I need to get this checked out. I was fairly new to having moved to the US and so I went to the emergency room and immediately there's loads of tests being done and they did an electrocardiogram, which was the main thing I was concerned about, like am I having a heart attack or not? And everything was normal, thank goodness. And the pain was subsiding. It was going away. So I thought, great, I'm going to be discharged. And then the doctor came in, she was kind of young and confident and she just said,

oh, I'll need you to have a CT scan before you go. And I was like, why? And she was like, oh, we just want to make sure you don't have pulmonary embolism. PE is a blood clot in the lungs, and it has a specific type of pain. And I worked for six months in respiratory medicine, which you call pulmonary here.

And this type of pain when you have an embolism in the lung is what we call pleuritic chest pain. It's a sharp pain. It catches your breath when you breathe in and breathe out. And I didn't have that type of pain. I didn't want to have this CT scan she was talking about because it's on average 70 times the amount of radiation of an X-ray.

And even though it's still small, why have ionizing radiation, which can cause cancer many years into the future? Why take the risk, right? If it's unnecessary. If you know. Yeah. So I had the knowledge in that situation, and I should have said no.

And yet, I just couldn't say no. And so I was then wheeled into the room with a CT scan and the technician, and I couldn't even say no then. I would just ask questions in this polite way, like, oh, it's not a lot of radiation, is it? Even though I knew because I wanted them to pick up on my discomfort and say oh do you not want this? And that didn't happen. Yeah. So I ended up having this CT scan. Why couldn't I just say no in that situation? It was safe for me to say no. It would have been effective and yet

something held me back. The only reason I had it was because the doctor told me to. So here's the doctor in a safe situation. She's even smiling. I can't say no, and I'm a doctor myself. So what would I have done in this situation with George Floyd, with a police officer wearing a gun? That's how difficult this is. It's terrifying when you think about it.

And there was a survey of 1 crew members of commercial airlines. About half of them did not feel comfortable to speak up when they saw an error. Well, and then there's a really disturbing, not disturbing actually, it's kind of encouraging that we can figure this out. You can correlate these culturally, there are different fears of power. So then you have this cultural element on top of it, right? So there's this psychological process that I call insinuation anxiety that I uncovered in my experiments. But the actual experience, I experienced it when I was having the CT scan.

I knew this feeling for years and years. The name for it only came after I started doing research in it. And insinuation anxiety is this aversive emotional state that we have when we believe that not complying with someone else will be a signal of distrust to that person. So it basically insinuates that the other person is incompetent, biased, corrupt, and trustworthy in some way, and you don't want to give them that signal. And so the co-pilots telling the pilots, you haven't observed this, you're doing something wrong here.

Like, I don't think we should do that. It's really difficult. Yeah. And I see it in experiments in the hospital as well, in surveys. Nurses can't speak up when they see their colleague making an error for the same reason. Well, especially if they're in charge of you.

If they're your boss or they're above you. How can you? Even with physicians in this particular survey, it was less than 1% whether you had a supervisory role of the physician or not. Less than 1% could actually tell them if it was something about the physician's incompetence. You don't want that. You want your co-pilots to speak up. You want supervising physicians and nurses working with physicians to speak up if they see something going wrong.

Because these life and death situations are huge. But even when it's not life and death, and sometimes you don't know, like as the rookie cops, right, they probably didn't know this was going to turn out to be an unfolding murder or life and death type of situation. But you don't want to end up in those situations because you're so wired to go along with it. You're so socialized to say, okay, I'm going to obey. Let's start by defining defiance. I think that would be most helpful. The Oxford English Dictionary definition of defiance is to challenge the power of someone else boldly and openly. And I shouldn't really disagree with that having been brought up in England. I do, I think it's way too narrow. And I think a better definition of defiance,

considering everything that we've spoken about, is that to defy is simply to act in accordance with your own true values, your core values, when there's pressure to do otherwise. Ooh. I like that, because you know, part of the social angst of it all is that we all have a relative amount of

Codependency as well. We're not prone to hurt people's feelings or call them incompetent or insinuate things But if it's just about you when you do personalize that and detach from that it's like no No, it's actually just living in accordance with my values really has nothing to do with that person Yeah, I like that that feels liberating and also values can involve other people too Speaking up when you see somebody causing harm to someone else is really a communal act in a way. So redefining, reframing defiance from this negative connotation

to being a proactive positive force in society. Because if you think about it, every single act of consent and dissent and compliance, that creates a society that we live in. Yeah, you say defiance is the exception and obedience is the rule. So let's talk about the forces at play. What happens neurologically?

So if you're socialized to comply from a young age, if you're rewarded for being compliant, and I know I was, you probably were, I don't know if you were. I was rewarded for being rebellious. Really? I got lucky in that I have a mother that prized that. That's fascinating.

So for many of us. Yeah, I think most. I got very lucky. That was encouraged, right? Yes. Can you say, I know what you're about to say. Yeah, I don't know if now's the time, but we come from a family with a lot of trauma.

We've been victimized a lot. My mother's been victimized a lot. I was victimized a lot. So our family was like, fuck this. We're never getting victimized a lot. My mother's been victimized a lot. I was victimized a lot. So our family was like, fuck this. We're never getting victimized again. We've paid that price and we won't pay it again. That was the ethos in the house. Born out of a lot of victimization, unfortunately,

but I do like the result of it all. One of the things that I really noticed in the people that I've interviewed is if you have seen your parents defy as well, it's so powerful. And I do have one or two moments where my parents did defy, even though they were compliant most of the time. And that stayed with me. Way more than the times they were acquiesced. Yes. And it changed my view of compliance and defiance being personality traits. I realized this is a skill.

We can choose to use it or not because even the most compliant person, my mother, she does all the shopping, the groceries, looking after all the family. I had very neatly put her into the box of being compliant. And one day when she was defiant, it just blew my mind. I was like, wow, that's so impressive. She's actually really strong. Yeah.

And she can be defiant when she needs to be. It could be harder for some of us than others, but it's also possible for everyone. If I can do it, right, with the upbringing I had, I think most people can learn how to defy. It's just you have to learn that skill set. You have to get out. So if you're talking about neurologically, I was rewarded for being compliant. That's when the neural pathways start to form,

like obedience, it becomes our default. We start equating obedience with being good, compliance with being good. You get good chemicals, you get dopamine, the reward center is activated and it does change the format of your brain. Absolutely. So we become what I call wire to comply, right?

It becomes the default without thinking. Somebody says to do something, we go along and we do it. And so that's really powerful socialization, the messages that we get to obey, to be polite, you know, don't make a scene, don't question authority, listen to them. And that makes a difference to the rest of our lives in a way and our default setting.

But if we think about situations where we learn how to defy, we need to really practice so we can change that default setting. The more that we practice, the more those other pathways start to strengthen. For example, I have these five stages of defiance. So the first one, like usually when we're in a situation where we want to defy or we think we should, we feel some kind of tension. So our body immediately tells us, we don't think this is quite right.

So I felt it with a CT scan. I'm sure you've been in situations where you felt like, oh, I don't know about that. Yeah. And so often we just ignore it. We think it's not worth our doubt. Exactly, is it worth it? Yeah, is it worth it? Yeah.

You say you might feel anxiety or nervousness or dread, sweaty palms, fast beating heart, not in the stomach. These are all signals. And we probably have our own signs, right? People will probably feel it differently. Maybe for some people it's a headache, maybe for some people it's their throat constricting, maybe it's feeling butterflies.

So we all have a sign that comes up. And then the second stage is to acknowledge that, rather than disregard it, is to admit it to yourself, right? I'm feeling something. Yeah, because I think most people are stuck in a pattern of, so I'm feeling these things. That's my actual cue to push through and ignore and compartmentalize and throw away.

Yeah, avoid it. And that's a shame because it's a warning sign. And if we actually listen to it, it could help us because we just need to like, why am I feeling this way? What does it actually mean? I felt it with a CT scan and I was like, okay, but it actually got worse. As I carried on having the CT scan, it didn't go away. Yeah, you didn't push it aside.

No. And so I felt it more and then I felt this. I went to regret afterwards, like how easy would it have been for me to say no? Why couldn't I say no? Actually wasn't that easy. But what can I do to make sure I say no next time? And so feeling the tension, acknowledging it to yourself, and then stage three is the real critical stage, is just vocalizing it to someone else. And the reason that stage is so critical is because if you tell someone else you're not comfortable with this, you've stated

how you feel. You can't then go back and rationalize to yourself, I was actually okay with it after all, right? You know, it was fine. So once you've said that, all you have to do then is continue saying it. And this was the same in the Milgram experiment. So there were people, even though two-thirds of the subjects went up to 450 dangerous shocks, and they were called the obedient subjects. Not all of them did this willingly, right? Yes,

I'm going to shock that person. Let's go. I wish this thing went to 700. Let's get some memorization going. Guy will know this on his deathbed. Milgram called them the moral imbeciles, but they were No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. I'm not a threat. Exactly. I can't let my face betray me. Yeah. I'm going to put on the most exaggerated version of my face. That third stage, if you could say,

I'm not comfortable with this, or the people in the Milgram experiments, is he actually OK? If they had resisted four times, that was the experiment. There was four prompts. Then the experiment would have ended. So you just then need to continue. And stage four is that threat of noncompliance. I can't go through with it.

Can we call that a boundary? Like stating a boundary? Yeah. Stage three, it's still in a subservient position. You're saying how you feel about it. You haven't said you're not going to do it. You're just saying, I feel this way. Yes.

And then four is stating that you can't. And then five is your final act of defiance. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. On January 5th, 2024, an Alaska Airlines door plug tore away mid-flight, leaving a gaping hole in the side of a plane that carried 171 passengers. This heart-stopping incident was

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This is Nick. And this is Jack. And we'll see you on the best idea yet. So understanding those stages, it might not be linear, you might skip some stages. There are certain situations that I found that I find it easier to define, and you can go from stage two to stage five. And we can all find those places where, oh, this is actually more natural for me to do it.

I need to add some of the stages in as more my direction to be better. I go from tension to active defiance. I'm going to tell you right now, so you can't go any further with this, you know. I think it also just depends on the situation, because it depends on the punishment. On the consequences.

The consequence, exactly. Don't you think sometimes it isn't worth it? Right, so there are consequences for being defiant, for sure. That's what halts us back a lot of the time. So when we think about why don't we defy, why do we actively even resist defiance? Number one, immense pressure from other people to do what they want you to do, the insinuation anxiety aspect, all those psychological processes.

And then number two is actually we don't really understand what consent and dissent actually is. We don't understand what defiance actually is, and I'll come back to that. And then the third one is about, once you want to defy and you understand that, you don't have the skill set to defy, so we need to learn it. But the consequences of defiance, people always think about, it's going to affect this relationship. You know, I'm going to disrupt the harmony.

It might even cost me my job, or it might be some physical danger. So we do need to think about the consequences of defiance. Like, what type of situation is this? There's sort of two questions we ask. Is it safe for me to defy and will it be effective? But what we don't often think about are the consequences and the costs of complying

because there's a lot of costs for continually complying with other people and putting aside your values. If you're always bowing your head to someone else, disregarding your values, it really has an effect on you. Yeah, so that's where my personal willingness to do this is I have two kind of very seminal moments where I didn't defy, and it was both destructive and painful, but beyond the events,

the shame and disappointment in myself was so intense for so long that for me, any other option was worth it. Like I just experienced such a level of regret and shame and in self-flagellation for not getting myself out of a couple different situations, that for me, I can immediately go to what that feels like. And so yeah, this feels uncomfortable,

but that feels like a 20. I know what that feels like. And so yeah, this feels uncomfortable, but that feels like a 20. I know what that is, and I can do a very quick cost benefit analysis for me. It's very crystal clear. you in these particular incidents that happened, me with a CT scan, and then think about what factors enable our defiance and what makes it harder for us. Understanding that is really key. But anticipating, even when we think about all the big heroes that defied and had huge moments, like Rosa Parks saying, no, I'm not going to move on the bus,

there were lots of compliance moments before that moment. And so, we shouldn't have so much shame. But that rumination is actually really helpful to think about what is it I wish I had done in that situation. Because if we can then visualize it, if we can anticipate it, then that takes away the surprise, right? So the next time I was asked to go for some more radiation that I didn't need, I wasn't as surprised.

I was anticipating it. I had practiced as surprised. I was anticipating it. I had practiced what I wish I would have said and then I was able to say it. And we could probably get in quickly to the biology of that which is interesting, which is if you anticipate it versus it comes up on you in a flash and you're not prepared, you've not thought this through at all.

You don't have an executive game plan and now you're just scared and frazzled, and you're in a part of your brain that doesn't do well with that. So yeah, the benefit of not being taken off guard is half of the battle, perhaps. Oh yeah, absolutely. That anticipation is so key.

There's this famous saying that's often attributed to Bruce Lee, but it's actually a Greek poet that said like, under duress, we don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to our level of training. And so that training aspect is so key and I didn't realize it, right? Because it does change those neural pathways. So anticipating, and we can anticipate more than we actually think. Sometimes we're caught off, but I know because we've experienced situations before

when at the workplace, a particular colleague is going to say something inappropriate or they're going to make a sexist remark, we can kind of predict things that might happen so we can start anticipating. If you've been out to a work dinner with a coworker who has five other times made a sexist joke, pretty good odds that's coming your way again.

It's going to come again, yes. Then we can visualize it and practice it. If you don't have like that behavioral training of actually practicing, if it's just the intellectual part, it's not gonna make a difference. So you need to actually practice it. And this presentation workshop I went to, I just loved the phrase that they used.

If you practice, your ears get used to hearing it and your mouth gets used to saying those words. That's really useful to know that that's what makes a difference. Can we go back to the forces at play? Because I want to talk about the social one. Of course, I want to interject kind of my anthropological lens onto it. I think it could reduce some of the shame people experience from not being able to rise to that occasion. I think the primary hardwired, evolved state we inherited is we are a social primate.

300,000 years ago, if you weren't obedient, you got kicked out. And 300,000 years ago, to not be with your group is death. And that's real evolution. That's actually how your brain's still functioning. So give yourself a little bit of a break. Although it is menial, it's you know, the person at Starbucks or whatever it is, your body doesn't know that your body thinks to be excluded from my group right now is death. So you have a very over exaggerated response to what our modern world is, but let's just

grant everyone that we're not designed to be defiant. Even the insinuation anxiety feeling, as I said, is an aversive state. It's uncomfortable for a reason, because your defiance might be causing harm to someone else. Or you. Yeah. It's there for a reason that somebody

is expecting something of you. What does it mean? So I think understanding that, too, sort of naming it, and knowing that we have two kind of ideal selves, especially in America, we have this ideal, independent self. We want to act on our agency, we want to do what we think is right, but we also have this interdependent self, which is that we want to remain in harmony with everybody around us. And there's two sort of ideals like Hazel Marcus and Shinobu Kitayana

talk about these ideal selves. We can't ever achieve one state or the other state, and they're there for a reason. It wouldn't be great to achieve either state exclusively. Exactly. And so we do need to think about that, but we also need to hold dear to ourselves what are our values.

But if you're at home going, I'm a spineless piece of shit, no, you're a social primate. but we also need to hold dear to ourselves what are our values. But if you're at home going, I'm a spineless piece of shit, no, you're a social primate. And then you have to kind of transcend some of the stuff that is not useful anymore, or that is vestigial and doesn't serve you. I want to maybe acknowledge,

it's not across the board, it's not totally equal for every group of people. And I think we should acknowledge that. It's easier for me to be defiant than either of you. That's what I was going to say earlier when I said, oh, I think we should acknowledge that. It's easier for me to be defiant than either of you. That's what I was going to say earlier when I said, oh, I think you should say it. That's what I thought you were going to say. Some people have a little bit of a leg up doing it

with less consequences. Yeah, I got a double whammy. Like my sister still will fight anybody over nothing. She came from the same culture as I did. So she got that leg up. But then I have also the leg up of being 6'2 in male. And white. It's what I call the defiance hierarchy.

Some people are allowed to defy, even rewarded for it. And others, they have more costs. There's more severe consequences. There's more backlash for being defiant. And it's interesting that the people that are in that category, which is anything from the dominant norm, the tall white male, anything that deviates from that category, which is anything from the dominant norm, the tall white male, anything that deviates from that group,

you actually need to be defiant more often because you're expected to be more compliant. And it's more complex. The paradox is you're going to need to be defiant more and you're going to be more harshly punished. Yeah. Defiant. Yeah, it's so unfair.

The gift that keeps on giving. Sometimes I just get so tired. Don't you just get exhausted of having to just constantly be that person? It can be exhausting. You have those extra burdens that you carry. But not to put a silver lining on it. You get all the upside of the extra challenge.

So you get a skill set. My trauma gave me something too. So it's negative, but also you have an empathy probably that other people don't have. It's a suite of behaviors and thoughts. I mean, it'd be interesting what people might choose between those things. It's one where I often describe as being on a balance beam

for some people. There's only a narrow set of behaviors that are possible for you to do without being punished. But sometimes you can get to firmer ground where you can find, this is now safe and effective for me to define. Find places where that is accepted. What's the difference between compliance and consent?

So compliance is something that we just go along with someone else. It's usually externally imposed or default. We're not really thinking about it. We kind of slide into it. I like the word reactive in there as well. It's kind of put on you and you're reacting all of a sudden. Exactly. Consent, I take the definition of informed consent in medicine and I apply it

to the other decisions that we make in life, which I find really useful. There's five elements that are required for informed consent. So first of all is capacity, that we have the mental capacity to make a decision. So we're not under the influence of drugs or alcohol or we're not sick. And then knowledge, so we need to know about the situation, have full information about that situation. And third, understanding of that. Do we understand the risks, the benefits, the alternatives? Then number four, do we have the freedom to say no? In some situations, we don't have the freedom

to say no. It might be too risky. Your life might be on the line in some situations. Well, it could be structurally defined. You could be in the military. Exactly. You might not have the freedom to say no. Another one is if you're a black guy and you're stopped at a traffic stop, right? that's not the place to defy. So freedom to say no, and then if you have those four things, the fifth element is your considered authorization of an informed consent,

and if you want to say no, informed refusal. I think that's one of the trickier zones. My personal experience with this was my father was dying of small cell carcinoma and it had spread everywhere and we had done all the treatments and it was clearly towards the end. We knew the time horizon was three months to begin with and at the very end of this experience the oncologist comes on to say he'd like to do brain radiation and I said is it worse to die of brain cancer than the lung cancer, the bone cancer, everywhere it's at?

And he said, well, yeah, it can be worse. And I said, okay, it just feels like it's another treatment and we're towards the end and it's gonna be one of these cancers that gets them. And then I asked my dad and he had been letting me make all these decisions, but of course I was running them all by him. And I said, do you wanna do this brain radiation thing?

And he said, I do. And I said, okay, I don't think it's gonna, you know, but ultimately it was his cancer and his, so I backed away, did it. The result was nothing positive and it severely impacted his cognition. And I'm so resentful at that whole experience. Now, I at least have the distance of,

he made the decision, I did say I think it's a bad idea. You know, I'm not carrying around a ton about it, but it pissed me off. And again, I think, A, I'm totally up for a confrontation. I'm in the best situation possible for this. Still didn't go my way. But yeah, your average person, there's a doctor telling them this is a good idea and what are you to do? And we do have trust in our doctors and it would be a shame if that disappeared, right? That element of public trust. But there's also a lot being written on end of life treatment and how aggressive it can

be, but it's really difficult. Again, it's an ideal that can never be fully attained in medicine and elsewhere. Now here's a great example of where the anticipation is helpful. So like Ato Iguande will advise you, have an end-of-life plan. What do you want to do in this last few months? Do you want to go out with your kids and have ice cream? What's quality of life for you? Because if you just show up and you get bombarded with all this information you don't understand,

you're going to react and you don't really know, but that's a good use of an hour of your life to kind of map out what you want that to be at the end. I think if people want to have that conversation and then even as I told Grande talks about, people prefer different types of care, right? Somebody wants the paternalistic advice, just tell me what to do and I'll follow it. Other people want more of a guided, informed, shared decision making and the doctor to be more of a coach. I want a buffet of options that are explained to me, and then I want to pick. Yeah, some people find that really hard.

And overwhelming. Yeah. What's a true yes? So a true yes is consent. So having those five elements there would be your true yes. Or a true no is the same. The informed confusal is just having those five elements. But sometimes you have those five factors there,

but you decide to actually do what I call conscious compliance. So you consciously comply because the costs might be too big or this is not the right time to do it. And because as you said, it's exhausting. So you need to choose is this situation going against my values? Otherwise we'd be defying every day. We wouldn't get anything done. And we need to really choose what situations are going against our values that this is worth me speaking up and saying something about. I couldn't help but think of some situations

where I felt like I don't know if defiance is productive to the mission. Do we want a battalion of soldiers thinking we should go over the left flank I don't know if defiance is productive to the mission. Do we want a battalion of soldiers thinking we should go over the left flank and they think we should go over the right? Are there not some implicit situations where it's like, no? I interviewed a few of my students that had been in the military, which was really fascinating to hear their stories.

And in fact, one of the first ones, and I remember it really well, because we were speaking on Zoom on a Sunday afternoon, I'll call him Matthew, he told me about when he went into the military and he did it because he grew up with 9-11, so seared into his memory. And he wanted to prove that he's an American, he's a patriot, and he was deployed to Iraq. And his best friend got killed in the first few months. And there was an incident where they were on some nighttime mission and he's like, nothing usually happens at nighttime, but there was this flash and then a grenade going off that was too close for comfort. And they immediately started opening fire. Some people went off in his

squad and they came back with four prisoners, one of them Matthew had and had to look after. And this person was just screaming out in Arabic and his supervisor said to him, he's talking too much, he's screaming, shut him up. And Matthew said, what should I do? And he was like, oh, it's simple. He did it in the mouth. And so he looked at the man and there was blood coming out from his nose into his beard.

So he hit him and the man didn't stop talking and his sergeant said, he's not stopped, hit him again. Hit him in the stomach. And Matthew just looked at me and he just said, and that's what I did. And then later on, he told me that he found out that these weren't insurgents at all. They were young teenage boys. Wrong place at the wrong time. They were 15 or 16 years old.

He couldn't understand what they were saying. And he felt really bad about it. And he said, in that instant, he just trusted. He had no option. The next time they were on some kind of mission, and they stopped, and they basically formed a circle, what they do in war. And what he told me is that you're not supposed to get out

and just spray and pray. You have to have a target, otherwise you can hurt civilians. And he said, but they just got out and they did spray and pray. And in that moment, he did not do that. He kind of turned around and looked at the desert behind him. And later on his superior said to him, what were you doing? And he said, oh, I was just providing security.

I was looking at providing cover. And he said that was the only thing he could think of for not doing it. But it actually was because his feelings were getting really complicated about whether he was doing the right thing or not. And he didn't describe his actions as defiant. He even said they were kind of cowardly. If he had actually said what he felt, he would have gone to military prison. And he said, and maybe they'd be right. But that one

incident that he said was half conscious, he did start becoming a little bit more defiant. So I call that quiet defiance, where you're not actively saying no to someone else, but you're not going against what you think is the right thing to do. You're not betraying your own ethics in service of this other person. Right. And so later on then, he became less quietly defined. There was another nighttime mission that he thought was way unsafe. He involved going out at the nighttime with goggles, very close to a cliff edge. And he went to see his superior and he just said,

I don't think we should do this. It's far too dangerous. And his superior was just like, shut up, do as I say, are you disobeying me? He's like, no, but I'm adamantly against the idea. And of course the mission went ahead, people came back after half an hour, it didn't work out, it was too unsafe, but he wasn't rewarded for that. He was basically punished, he didn't get his promotion,

but he said it was the right thing to do. And he became a little bit more comfortable with sort of saying those things. But yes, in the military, I hear time and time again from my students that have been there, it's yes, yes, yes. And one of them said, you are trained to do not to think. And it's very complicated, right? So you're talking to a guy who's seemingly intelligent

and thoughtful, and then there's also a dipshit there who shouldn't be doing a ton of thinking. So it's a very complex situation. It's not clean. Yeah. So in war, that type of compliance is very helpful on the battlefield for sure. I was thinking about something much more benign, which is a movie set. So what is a common conflict between an actor and a director, and both have very legitimate

points of view, is the director will go to the actor and say, okay, let's do it again, but this time don't be so sad. And then the actor will say, that's what my character would be in this moment. My character would be this sad. And now the director's juggling the entire movie, not the moment, not the scene. If you cry in this scene, your next scene,

we need you crying at a 10. For the arc of your character, I need this to not be what is true to you right now because we have to service this broader thing. So that's like a very benign example. That doesn't feel too much like a values. Values driven to science. Oh, I think so.

If you've dedicated your life to being an actor and you went to Juilliard and your commitment is to tell the truth every time you open your mouth, that's your North Star. Yeah, I think there's many situations where it is complicated. That's why we struggle with it too. If it was that simple, then we would get it right

every single time, and we don't. I've added on a set early in my comedic career where you would still make homophobic jokes. That was standard. And I remember getting in a huge fight with one of my directors like, I'm not saying that. There's a 12-year-old kid gonna watch this.

Who's gay in Michigan? That makes a ton of sense. That to me is like, that's so value-driven. Not as an actor, because that's an identity there's a 12 year old kid gonna watch this who's gay in Michigan. That makes a ton of sense. That to me is like, that's so value driven. Not as an actor, because that's an identity we place on ourselves. It's an occupation. It's an occupation.

A value of I refuse to take someone down, that makes a ton of sense and I think that is fully worth defying. I think that's definitely worth, I'm with you on that. You have some good historic and contemporary kind of examples in the book. Is there any that you would like to share with us that are your favorites? So when I said earlier on that there's some stories of my parents defying that ever really

stayed with me, the one of my mom is one that really I think was transformative. So I was about seven or eight and I was walking back from the grocery store with my mom and it was quite a long walk back and we had this rickety shopping cart and we were rolling that back home and we decided to take a shortcut through what you call in Yorkshire a Snicket, which is just a narrow alleyway. Right. So.

You gave it that adorable name. Yeah. Snicket. Yachty.htzee, what were you? Swatty. Swatty, yeah. When I went to elementary school, I was not supposed to go through that Snicket. I'm excited. See, you were?

You were telling me. I just realized that. You were just lying. It was brewing the whole time. But anyway, mom and I, we went through the Snicket and we were confronted by about seven or eight teenage boys and they blocked our path and they started shouting out some stuff to us like some racist comments, go back home.

We're trying to. We're trying to get that out of our heads. Yeah, really, we're on our way right now. She didn't care if you were just snicking. That would have been a good idea. Yeah, really, we're on our way right now. She didn't care, she just snaked. You're stubborn, yes. That would have been a good idea. Yeah, I would have. But my reaction was instant, which is what you had described before, right?

Immediately, eyes down, averted. All I wanted to do was not look at them and maneuver my way through and get home as fast as I could. And my mom, she's petite, she's smaller than me now, she was taller than me at the time, but she's like 4'10". She had her hair very neatly plaited back, single braid at the back, and I had thought of her as a completely compliant person. And she did something that really surprised me that day.

She put the shopping cart up vertical, and she put one hand on her hip, and she looked at them and she said, what do you mean? My fear was going up at this point. So I grabbed her arm even tighter and I started whispering to her. I was like, come on, Ma. And I wanted to be the compliant person and she shook me off, right? She was like, no. And she looked at them again and she said, what do you mean? They stared at her, she stared at them.

And then she said, oh, you think you're big, tough boys, right? Big, strong boys. And she started telling them off in broken English. Oh, wow. And they, like, just looking at each other, thinking, what's going on here? And one of them just said, let's go. Yeah.

And they just dispersed. And I was like, what happened? And mom grabbed the card, and she walked as fast as she could through that Snicket. I never thought the day would come that she would tell off a group of boys on the street in that way. There's something sad and beautiful about it, which is people will do that for their children. Exactly. Because even before the social primate evolution... Protection, responsibility, and people do like,

I can defy for my son so much easier than I can defy for myself. And isn't that sad? That's the sad part. The beauty of it is- I also think there's something beautiful about having responsibility for someone else. I do too.

What's heartbreaking to me is that you can't advocate for yourself. But you can tap into that. That's a tool even. Imagine this is being said to your... Exactly, to a loved one. What would you do in that situation? I say that to my son at times when he gets stressed

about things like, what advice would you give a loved one? What would you tell someone who's in ninth grade right now how to handle a situation? But what that really taught me was that defiance is a skill set, it's a practice, it's not a personality. And even though compliance might be our default, it's not our destiny. So we can change.

I had seen her come home several times and she would be muttering away. So I'm pretty sure she had seen those boys before and not said anything. But now I was with her and she showed me that. And even though it might have changed her, because I do think defiance changes your brain, how you react, it also changes the people that observe it, because that had a ripple effect on me, and made me feel like we can all be defined if we want to be.

And that does give quite a bit of hope. One part I like about your book too, is whether it's explicit or not, you do it by example. It's also a good call to monitor yourself when you're doing it to other people. So you have this example where you want your five-year-old to see the Olympic torch pass. Yes, we were in London and we were on our way

to see the flame that they hold. And it was like, oh, this is a once in a lifetime experience. And he's like not impressed with this at all. I was like, yeah. this is a once in a lifetime experience. He's like, not impressed with this at all. I was like, yeah. And he just wouldn't walk there. And he sat down on the pavement. And I was like, no, come on.

I was like pulling his arm and trying to pick him up. And I could only get a few steps. He was heavy at the point. I was like, no, I can't carry you. And we just completely missed the whole thing. And we went home. And he's just not realizing this moment in history that I have now made. Has lost.

Forever. And I said to him, why can't you be good? And that kept me up at night. I was like, why did I say that when that's what I learned, right? This whole obedience equals good and defiance equals bad. And here I was just repeating it. That really took me back to why is it so strong? Even when he was a baby,

I would have relatives asking me, is he good? He's a baby, what do you think? Right, there's no such thing. No, he's bad, we got a bad one. And what they mean is like, does he sleep? Is he crying? Yeah, did he cry? Yeah.

Yeah. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. It's amazing what we equate with being good, which is not being a bother to someone else at all. Well, yeah, you say it really explicitly and beautifully. You say to be good is for him to do what I want. I want him to sleep through at all. Well, yeah, you say it really explicitly and beautifully. You say, to be good is for him to do what I want. I want him to sleep through the night. I want him to eat on a schedule.

Those are my wants. And sometimes that's how we feel in organizations, right, when we work. Managers love the yes man or the yes woman. Do as I say, don't question it. And we then just sort of narrow our vision to how well we are pleasing the boss, rather than the wider, like, what is it we're actually doing that has a value to the world?

What kind of tools other than anticipating is a good one and kind of modeling what you're going to get into. But are there some other things that you could recommend? One of the major things that was really crucial to sort of changing how I thought about defiance is getting rid of some of the myths that defiance has to be aggressive, loud, you have to have a larger than life personality. You've got to be me. You've got to be you, right?

Tattooed up ideally, too much muscle, let's go. Monica and I are never going to be you. Don't rule that out. I can put you on a program. Sh, sh, sh, sh, sh. We can find our own way, right? We can be defiant in a way that's unique to us. So understanding that defiance isn't just for the brave or the extraordinary, right? We can be defiant in a way that's unique to us. So understanding that defiance

isn't just for the brave or the extraordinary, right? It's available and it's necessary for all of us. I think that's one mindset shift that we can really all use and understand. And then the other is what I call the defiance compass, which I think is very useful, which is when we're faced with a situation and we're trying to decide what to do, we have that tension, then we take the pause and we try to understand. These three questions came from James Marsh, who's a sociologist, but I've sort of adapted them to be not just three questions that we ask implicitly for every decision,

but to put them in a circle because I think it is a circular thing. So the first question is, who am I? And that's really connecting with your values. So if you aspire to be someone who's fair, compassionate, has integrity, that's what you really need to think about. That's who you are, because that's really important. If you've not found that out, spend some time doing that,

because people that clarify their values are more likely to act in alignment with them. And also there's research showing that it reduces your stress and cortisol levels if you actually know what your values are. So really know who am I, you can ask yourself that. And then the second question, so that's internal, then you go external, what type of situation is this? Is it safe and effective for me to defy? And then the last question is with these particular values, fair, full of integrity, all those things. What does a person like me do in a situation like this?

If you believe you're one type of person, but you're never acting in that way, you want to sort of start thinking about whether that really is who you are or not. And I've found those three questions really powerful in terms of knowing this is what I would like to do. Really tapping into our aspirational selves. I want to decrease that gap between the intention, what we think we'll do in a situation, and how we actually act.

Also that first question I think all of us would go like, I know who I am, but then we haven't actually listed it because I remember I got judo'd by a therapist like 20 years ago because I was laying out this list of grievances I had about my father and on this last trip this happened, he smashed my truck, he did this and that and I said, you know, at this point I just don't know that I really need to have a relationship with him. I just don't think I want to do this anymore. And he said, you're totally entitled to make that decision

with this list of things you've just given me. But very simply, do you think you're the type of person that doesn't talk to their dad? And I was like, oh fuck, I don't think I'm the type of person that wouldn't talk to their dad. That's very incongruous with this thing I want to do. But yeah, in a very simple way, do I think I'm the type of person

that doesn't talk to their dad? I don't think I'm that type of person. I don't want to be that type of person. Right. So I guess we're just going to have to do a lot harder work to figure out how I am not that person, yet I don't come out on the wrong end of all these interactions.

Right, and that's fascinating. I was telling him this, thinking he'll sign off on this, and I'm never talking to my dad. I worked it all out in my head. But you wouldn't have felt good about it in the long run. No, it was the simplest question I wouldn't have asked myself. So powerful. off on this and I'm never talking to my dad. in this situation, it's what does someone that holds those values do? You can remove yourself and I think that's really helpful. Yeah. And in experiment after experiment, I've seen people say their one thing and then behave in a different way. So anything that helps us reduce that gap.

Gosh, I wonder if they repeated that experiment and before going in the shocks, they made them write down their values. I wonder if that would have impacted it. So the people that could defy, they're really fascinating. So I mean, I told you the sort of basic setup of the Milgram experiment, but when you look at all the different deviations that they had, that's where I find the work really fascinating. And the people that defied, what was it about them that they defied?

And many of them, it was because of responsibility. So one was a professor of the Old Testament. So values were there and very high on that. So even though he was stuttering and things, when they said the experiment requires you to go on, he kind of asked, does it like maybe if we're in Russia, but not here. So he was able to stand up to that because he'd done so much thinking about those types

of values and humanity and not harming another person. And then the other person that really stands out for me was an engineer that had the knowledge of how powerful these shocks are. And he lived through World War II. And so he was fascinated by this afterwards. And he said he just felt really bad that he went as far as he did before he stopped. Because it's like if you throw the responsibility onto someone else and just say you were taking orders, that's really quite a cowardly thing to do.

You're the one that's causing the shocks to someone else, and I know what kind of harm those shocks can do. And there was another participant, a woman that said the same thing, I don't want to be responsible for causing harm to another person. So I do think that responsibility element is really powerful when we think about what does a person like me do in a situation.

There's so many variables though, as well, because even engineers, they over-index on disagreeability on the personality test, right? So it's like you start with, there's been a filtration. Really? Yes. I'm just saying that because my son wants to be an engineer. Yes, and your son, when you tell him not to play his Xbox,

he walks right in there and plays his Xbox. It's in your book. And he won't go to the coach thing. He won't be bothered by the Olympics. Yeah. Of course he wants to be an engineer. Well, my dad always says this. Engineers are hyper-focused on seeing problems. Yeah. defiance. Yeah, I think sort of the critical thinking element of it is key of knowing actually when to defy or not to defy. Have they ever done versions of

this test? So my assumption about the electrocution test is that the participants were probably students? No, they weren't actually. Oh, I guess you just listed some people that weren't students. Yeah, members of the community came in. They had different races and he ran a bunch of experiments, but there was one experiment that was all women and in that experiment, same rates of compliance as the other ones. So it wasn't a gender difference, surprisingly. Right, so what I was curious about

as we're sitting here talking and learning about it is I wonder if they looked at age. I have some intuition that as you get older and older and older, You're more likely to be defiant. Yeah, maybe because you have more knowledge, more experience. You have more knowledge, you've lived through more stuff,

you see the racket, you care a little less, you've achieved your social status, you have cultural capital, you have raised your kids. Like anecdotally, talk to some old people, they'll tell you like it is. Yeah. They're not seventh graders. What's everyone doing?

They've somehow transcended that through life experience. I think that would be interesting. Those rookie officers, if they had that situation again, wouldn't do it. So how can we learn from the experience of other people? Yeah. And that's really fascinating because I was speaking to another rookie officer

and he was trained during the time that the incident with George Floyd took place and he thought about it a lot. And so when it came to a situation that he was on this night run with his partner and a few others and they wanted to go and search a garage for stolen bicycles, he said, no, we can't just go in there without permission of the homeowner to go. And they were like, no, we're just going to go in. And he said, no. So he went and knocked on the door and it was about four o'clock in the morning.

No answer at all. But the car was there and the neighbor said, oh, I think he's there. He's just asleep. And so he was the only one as this rookie officer that refused to go in. And the reason he did that wasn't because he was brave or anything like that. He said he was motivated by fear because he saw what happened to the rookie officers and in his mind he went to the worst case scenario that we're going to go in there and we don't have any standing to go in there.

There's no blood. There's nobody screaming. No probable cause. Yeah. And so he knew the law and he'd just been trained. And then he was with police officers 20 years older than him saying, you were telling us what to do, effort, we're going in. He refused to go in because he thought the homeowner is going to come out with a gun.

Something terrible is going to happen. So he said no. And homeowner came down and actually thanked them and everything. So everything was fine. And the ride back to the station for him was just awful. And within an hour, he was called in to see his supervisor and it was a bit like, read this, you go it wrong. And he was like, no, with all due respect, I knew that we didn't have any standing and we shouldn't have gone

in. And he said to me, you know, his childhood stutter came back, but he knew in this job, it was going to be difficult and he was going to be asked to do some things that weren't right. And because he'd seen the George Floyd thing... Anticipating. Anticipating. He thought, I'm not going to be that police officer. But he was ostracized for a bit. He said the whole thing went around the station, even though he was right.

But he ultimately got transferred to another unit where he said they were younger officers, but they had more understanding of the law and he's very hopeful and very optimistic about a new era of policing. So that was great to hear, but it also shows that learning from other people, I think would be wonderful. Well, it's a wonderful book. I so appreciate you coming in.

This has been wonderful. Unfortunately, I need a book that says, just fucking get with the program. I need like the opposite book, but I still very much appreciate it. And I live and love so many people that have a really hard time with it. And I can see the amount of weight on them.

I'm thinking, is there a thing as being too defiant? Because I'm not talking about defiance as a knee jerk reaction to defiance, but more considered defiance. So maybe that's what you need. Uh, uh, uh. I'm supposed to just get with the program. She's saying like, instead...

Yeah, I think what I could do is give a lot more benefit of the doubt to people around me and not assume from my past that everyone's trying to get one over on me. It's all my own baggage. Healthy amount of skepticism, but not too much. Yeah, I have too much. The book is called Defy the Power of No

in a World that Demands Yes. I think so many people will be very empowered by this and I think you make it very simple to follow how you could start advocating for yourself and staying true to your values. I appreciate that. It's a great topic, it's important. It is.

Thanks so much for coming. Thank you. Thank you. This was wonderful. It is. Thanks so much for coming. Thank you. This is wonderful. Hi there, this is Hermium Permium. If you like that, you're going to love the fact check of Ms. Monica. Steady, are you ready?

What's going on? You don't know that song, do you, Soul to Soul? You sing it a lot. I do, but you don't know the source, do you? No. Does it ring a bell when I sing it? No. It doesn't, right?

I don't know it, I didn't grow up on it. Yeah, it was hot and then it disappeared. One Hit Wonder? Keep on moving, don't stop, they had two. Two hits. Two Hit Wonder. Does that ring a bell, keep on moving, don't stop? No. Okay, really nice, really nice.

I guess maybe Neo Soul, dance music, 92. Ooh, 92, I was five. I wasn't listening to music then. You weren't going out dancing much when you were five? Not that I know of. You may notice I'm feeling a little energized because I just blew past one of my goals and I'm just feeling incredible.

What was it? Well, I got these bike riding goals. Yep. I'm gonna back up. I had an issue with my bike that I love. It's so beautiful. The chain got sucked into the sprocket. It bent the sprocket.

Now it's having a really hard time staying in gear. So when I ride it and I'm putting a lot of force on it, it's hopping gear. It's rough. Okay. And I bought it used a while ago, and I decided on Sunday, perhaps I- Sustainable.

Sustainable. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good job. Yes. Well then you'll like where this story goes. So then I was like, okay, I've proven that I'm into this. I need to get a bike with clip-ons and the whole nine and really commit. Yeah.

Looked online, was gonna go to Pasadena, found a bike store, was looking at all the options. They looked, it's really funny if you've ever priced a bike. These bikes are imperceptibly the same. One's $15,000 and one is 1900. This is like sweaters. And I'm like, I can't see what's different. I mean, presumably one's carbon fiber and all this shit.

So I'm looking at it and I'm already going through my game plan. Like I'm gonna get there and go, listen buster, I know you think I'm here to buy an $18,000 bike, but I'm not I don't care I just want to be able to change your sword and your belt Yeah, I was all fired up to go to battle with a salesman and then I thought okay my friend Jeff McFarlane Who I love shout out Jeff McFarlane. He's helped me navigate many things in life He's not too dissimilar than me. He loves cars, he loves things. He was-

You don't love things, I'm gonna go ahead and say that. You love cars, but I would never classify you. And motorcycles, he loves motorcycles and he loves cars. Motor stuff, but I don't think it would be fair for you to say you like things. Right, I don't have, whatever. The point is... I'm trying to be nice and say that.

Thank you so much. I appreciate you defending me to myself. But Jeff competed in Ironman's. Which there's a huge biking portion. Knowing him, it just crossed my mind, I'm like, I bet he has a lot of bikes. Oh yeah! Because you have all these different applications, right? Yeah. And also I know that he is downsized.

He is 61 now. He's just been appointed a judge. He has been a lawyer. Oh my God. Yeah, it's really exciting. Congratulations. Yeah, I'm so happy for him. So he's gonna be an LA superior judge,

which is really cool. That's awesome. I'm gonna go to the swearing in. But at any rate. Oh, cool. I know he's like, he's getting older, his kids have moved out, and he's like, he moved into a smaller place. And then I thought, I wonder if he wants to get rid of bikes.

So hit him up, hey, by any chance, do you have any bikes that you wanna get rid of? And he said, as a matter of fact, I do. Come over. So I go over, and I go into his garage, and there's three hanging on the wall. What colors? Oh man, a couple that are like black carbon fiber

and then this one that is like silver and orange. Ooh flames. Not flames, but still silver and orange. And as I'm looking at them, I'm realizing I'm in the same situation I was with the bike shop, which is I know these are, these are to compete in Ironman. Yeah. And I know what these price tags can be. Sure. So once I look at them, I go, I go, Jeff, I realize this is a disaster because I was gonna spend basically blank on a new bike and I

don't want to try to rip you off. Yeah. And he said, dude, the bikes are 10 years old. I don't know how else to get rid of them. He's like, I'll give you one for 2,500 bucks, which is what was gonna be my budget for it, to be honest. And I was like, okay, well, I'll give you more. The bike was hand built. It's a crazy. He's like, everywhere you go,

people are gonna wanna talk to you about this bike. Is it the flames one or is it a black one? No, no, I got the flames one. Okay. All to say I have this insanely beautiful hand-built bike. Wow. I don't even want to say what it costs brand new. It was like a $22,000 bicycle. Oh my god. So the thrill I had of getting a bike that expensive that I myself would have never bought. Yes. Just put a- Pep in your step.

Yes. So I'm so excited about the bike and I come home and now I need to buy the shoes that go into the clip-on pedals. Sure. So I order those, they're coming on Saturday but I'm too impatient today. I'm like, I wonder if I can ride it

with the clip-on pedals but just with normal shoes. Oh my God. I just can't wait basically. So this morning I went, that's why I asked if we could record a little later. Oh, okay, yeah. I said can't wait basically. So this morning I went, that's why I asked if we could record a little later. Oh, okay, yeah. Because I had a hunch I might do this. So I went all the way up to the observatory.

Then I went on a road that's closed, you can bike on it, up to the Hollywood sign, down the backside of the mountain, into Burbank. Oh, wow. To Traveltown. Wow.

Then all the way through Griffith Park, past the zoo. Wow. Then out onto Los Feliz Boule Park, past the zoo. Wow. Then out onto Los Feliz Boulevard, past your house. I looked over as I was pedaling. I mean, that was the end of, I was like an hour and 45 minutes in at that point. Holy shit.

And so I was a little, I looked over and then I was like, I was in a state by that point. Wow, that's so long. Yeah, so I did that. You're like a bona fide biker now, bicyclist. Now I have to, because I have this absurdly special bicycle that I got for such a deal. I understand.

This can be the chicken or the egg with items. This is a lot like fashion. Sure, sure. Like you, sometimes you go on the RealReal, great website, not sponsored yet. And there's like a very fancy purse, let's say a purse, that you know is outrageously expensive. Like it was originally 10 grand or something.

Yes, and then it's there for one grand. One grand. And you start doing this whole like, oh my God, obviously I have to get it. You think you're making $9,000. Like when I left I was like, oh my God, I just made $18,000. Yeah, shopping mats, see you get it, you get it.

I finally got it. And then you have the purse, and it's like, well, I have the purse, so I guess I gotta get the scarf so that I'm this person now. I'm this person now that carries this bag, so now the rest of me has to fit. You have to live up to the item. Yeah, it's a slippery slope.

Yeah, yeah. I don't know if you remember when my therapist, Mark, had said that like, often you change to accomplish something and other times you get something that you have, that will force you to grow into it or you'll lose it. And I thought that was interesting. I like that. That's true.

Yeah. Okay, so that was really exciting. And then I got back and then I, and then I lifted weights. Wow. Because I'm going to Detroit and I have to look as swole as possible because that's where all the guys that wanted to kick my ass live. You think you're going to run into them?

I hope so because I'm ready. Oh my God. I've already had a fantasy because you know Kid Rock picked a fight with me one time years ago and he was with two buddies and I did stand up to him and then it got kind of mitigated or de-escalated and I was like, oh wow, you know,

he'll likely be at this game. It's Detroit. Yeah, he's from Detroit. But does he go to all of them? I don't know enough about him. Yeah, me either. But it did cross my mind. You gotta be ready.

Who knows, you bump into Kid Rocky, he takes another run at you. And I'm ready. I like that. Okay. You're allowed. Yes, this is like Kristen is only green lit. Yeah. I've only got a couple green lights.

We're fighting's okay. Sure. Okay. I'm fine with that. It's a bummer actually, because I love Kid Rock's music and I wish he wasn't. You do. Oh yeah, there's some great stuff.

You love Bawa Taba? No, I don't love that one, but he likes Southern rock and I grew up loving Southern rock. I know you're trying to find middle ground, but let's be his, no. Bawad Dabaw was on TRL number one for so long and I hated it so much.

I can imagine it was a very scary. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's, I mean. It's a white dude with long blonde hair and a trans am yeah Hated me then and he hates me now But yeah, and that song was just so it was so aggressive like it's exactly But I think the Lions are bringing people together because Aaron told me that of course I was talking to Aaron about this yeah

Is he ready is he? Oh, yeah? He knows what yeah And he said oh, yeah now now Kid Rock and Eminem are friends. They've become friends, and I think because of the Lions. Oh, Eminem's pretty woke. Right, Aaron informed me that they're friends officially and that Kid Rock said, we don't have the same political views,

but we have found common ground as friends. So I think Lions are bringing people together. That's nice, I mean, sports will do that. Sports have that power. They do. Okay, I have some more updates. Okay. I did something really cool last night.

Okay. I saw on Instagram, I don't even know how I saw this. It was a video of a man meeting a guy in the 7-Eleven parking lot to receive a pizza. Okay. And then the guy opened it up and it was the most gorgeous pizza. And then he took a bite and he's like a pizza reviewer.

And he said, yeah, it's the best pizza in LA. Wait, it's like Black Market? Yes, the guy makes them in his house. No, I want this. I'll turn you on to him. So I see that, so you have to order through, only through Instagram. There's like no number to call, so I DM the guy.

The guy is incredibly sweet. He's got a sourdough he uses. And I was like, okay. And you ate it. If I am ever to eat bread, it is very, it's best to eat sourdough, because it has the lowest gluten content. Got it.

In fact, I think you can almost make sourdough without any gluten, and it has no brewer's yeast, which is also, some people like Eric is not gluten-insensitive, but he can't have brewer's yeast, which is, it's in everything with gluten, virtually, but not sourdough. So I was like, okay, I love the idea of meat in a parking lot, and a guy opens his trunk.

It's very, my drug deals back from the old days. So I arranged this whole thing. I was supposed to get on Wednesday the night the fires broke out. Oh. That was my first appointment. Got it. And mind you, it's at six and I gotta drive to Sunland,

which for people who don't know, driving to Sunland. He doesn't drive to the East side? No, no. Oh, wow. He's got a dude that works for him that drives a very short distance from wherever he's making them to this. He doesn't drive to the east side? No, no. Oh, wow. He's got a dude that works for him that drives a very short distance from wherever he's making them to this.

Well, they gotta stay hot? Yeah, they're piping hot. And he tells you, take a bite of, and he wants you to take a bite of a very specific pie. Oh my God. So I got four, the four different varieties he makes, and he said, take a bite of the hot piggy immediately. Hot piggy?

Yes. What's on it? It's pepperoni with, I think, a little bit of hot honey. Oh Monica. Oh my god that sounds so good. Okay so this kind of worked out brilliantly. Lincoln had a soccer game in Westlake. Okay. Which is virtually like driving to Santa Barbara. Westlake is very far away. Okay. So we left at 2. Took an hour to get to the game. Yesterday. Yesterday.

Okay. Then, watched the game, I think that's an hour and a half, get back in the cart 430, and now we gotta get to Sunland by six, which is not gonna be an issue. I think it's only supposed to take an hour and nine minutes, it said on my. Oh, this is miserable, oh my God.

Think I got pizza reward. Side note, all of Simi Valley didn't have any power. Still. Well, so yes, I thought still, but this morning, not even this morning, seven minutes ago I was in the shower. My hair's still damp if you don't believe me. I can tell because your hat.

I didn't look like you didn't believe me, so I had to show you. Thank you. I was like, God, maybe they actually turned the power off intentionally because it was the last day of the Santa Annas. That would have been smart. So I don't know if they had lost their power

or they preemptively turned it off, which would have been very bright. Couldn't help but notice, because it's a strip mall after strip mall, nothing's open. Anyways, Lincoln's got a pee? I'm telling you way too much shit. Tried to stop at a Starbucks. Someone blew up both Starbucks bathrooms.

Both were inoperable from duty. So then they had to go to the grocery store. I thought you at a Starbucks. Someone blew up both Starbucks bathrooms. Both were inoperable from duty. So then they had to go to the grocery store. I thought you meant a bomb. I mean, they painted the place. Oh, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, okay. So it's a whole saga to get to the toilet in this strip mall in Sunland. Then I was getting nervous.

Oh my God, we're gonna be late. I thought I was gonna get there a half hour early. The girls were gonna get impatient. I was gonna have to put them in an Uber're gonna be late. I thought I was gonna get there a half hour early, the girls were gonna get impatient, I was gonna have to put them in an Uber to send them home while I waited for the pizza. But as it turned out, it took so long to find a bathroom, we rolled in at like 5.59, the appointment was at six, six o'clock, guy in a black car pulls up,

I get out, fucking cash, pay, get these four pies, get in four pies, get in the truck, I did exactly as he instructed. First one was- Did you bring your gun? I didn't have my gun. I should. Just in case. I gotta tell you, as I said,

it was very reminiscent of the old days in a very good and healthy way. It was like, I'm meeting a guy in a parking lot that I don't know, I'm gonna pay cash, and then I'm, something really good is on the other end.'t know. I'm going to pay cash, and then something really good is on the other end. You're still getting that high, but it's healthy. It's a high that comes with no cost.

Does your voice change when you talk to them? I'm like, oh, I'm here for more pizzas like that. No, more like you're trying to be scary. Yeah, I'll be there at six. No, it was all in text. Oh, wow, okay. No, I was very nice to the guy. There was another guy there that was also picking up

some pies, which is really funny. It's like two dudes meeting the drug dealer at the same time there that was also picking up some pies, which is really funny. It's like me, two dudes, me and the drug dealer at the same time, that's funny. Get in the car, open it up, right away. It's so beautiful. The pepperonis are so tiny. Oh, I love those tiny ones. They dished in the cooking process and there's oil in them.

And there's, I can see the honey and I take a bite and by God, it's fucking so good. Oh, you got a picture of it? Oh, baby. Wow, that looks so yummy. Oh my God, I'm starving. I got the girls that pineapple Hawaiian, which was outrageous.

I don't even like Hawaiian pizza, but that was my second favorite. We got umami hot pepper pizza, which was a million peppers and it was very good. And then the hot piggy, I said umami, and then, yeah. Is that, they're cheese, is that just like a cheese one? That's a great question what's on the upper far right. It looks kinda like.

A margarita. Yeah. I should ask him about that, because I'm going back. The crust looks so good, it looks so crispy. It's great. Ooh, I'm gonna have to go. Looks delicious. So the car ride home is long from Sunland

at six o'clock on a weekday. Yeah. And I ate, well Kristen had two pieces of hot piggy. I ate the remainder, so I ate three quarters of the hot piggy. Yeah. And I ate a third of the Hawaiian. Okay.

And then I had a slice of hot pepper and a slice of umami. So I had like a pizza and a half or two pizzas. Wow, that's a lot of pizza. No wonder I tackled that hill today and kept going. It's probably because you had all the energy, all those carbs. Fuel, glycogen. So that was really fun.

That was, I really liked it. That was a fun experience for the whole family being in that parking lot watching the guy roll in. Very fun. Yeah. Ooh, yum. Lot of updates. Are you watching Bad Sisters season two?

No, I didn't watch the first season. Oh, you didn't? I started it, it seems so good. I'm sure it's fantastic. I'm sure it's fantastic. I'm sure it's fantastic. What happened? You know, I sometimes don't like. British content?

Yeah. Okay, I guess this is Irish in this kind of. I know, but it's the same. It gives me the feeling. They would not like that, but yes. As far as the feeling I get, it's the same. And. Can you articulate the feeling? No, it's the same. Uh-huh. And... Can you articulate the feeling? No, it's...

It's about feeling. Yeah, I've talked about it a lot on here. The only person who really gets it gets it is Anthony. He can always tell me, he's like, that's gonna give you the feeling, don't watch it. And then I watch it and it's exactly right. He like knows. Yeah.

And it's just really hard to explain. There are a few things that I know that trigger it. Suicide stuff often triggers it. Okay. I don't think there's any suicide, but continue. Okay, but British and I guess now Irish stuff often does, which is weird, because I love London so much.

I love it. Yeah. I don't get the feeling when I'm there. It's all like, it's movies and TV and stuff. And then the first time I'm there. It's all like movies and TV and stuff. And then the first time I identified this feeling was wonder years when I was young. Oh, that's the origin of the feeling.

The OF. Original feeling. I don't know, I just feel, it just makes me feel really uncomfortable. And Anthony says things that are overly earnest. You were like fleabag though. I did, I loved it. So some things make their way through,

I don't know, it's hard, it's hard. But I started Bad Sisters and it gave me the feeling. So I had to stop. I'm making a new mocktail that my friend Maddie taught me about, it's called, it doesn't have a name, but it is seltzer water. I've been using Perrier. And a little bit of 100% tangerine juice.

Oh, is that hard to find, 100% tangerine juice? The brand is Natalie's Shout Out. Oh, shout out Rob. And it isn't that hard to find. I found it at Lazy Acres. Oh great, okay, 100%. Yeah. Is it rich? Yeah, it's not sweet at all.

Oh it's not? No, it's very citrusy. Oh okay, crisp, clean. Nice, it's nice. Maddie invented it, I need to give her. Is just seltzer and 100% tangerine juice? Yeah. Okay, what ratio?

I just do a splash of the juice. Okay. And mainly the seltzer. And how many of those will you have? Ice cubes? No ice cubes. But I do freeze the glass. Okay, great.

You eventize it. I do, I eventize it. And is it satiating your cocktail urge? It's helping. Okay, great. You eventize it. I freeze the glass, I do. I eventize it. And is it satiating your cocktail urge? It's helping. Okay, great. It's helping. Yeah, what's been interesting is, so I think we talked about it,

I'm trying not to drink Monday through Thursday. Yeah. Then the world got really turned upside down. Uh-huh, topsy-turvy. Yeah, and I said fuck that. So I drank last week, I think Wednesday and Thursday. And Saturday and Sunday. I think, I forget all the days,

but I definitely didn't stick to my thing. But what has been interesting, and you told me to do this in my journal, I've been journaling, to like, it's a good place to tally and mark. Oh yes, yes. So I've been doing that and it is in my head when I'm about to drink, like, well, tomorrow I'm going to have to put zero.

Or you have to write one, day one. Well, I- You'll go day zero. I do zero. Okay. Which is, it's like, back it, nothing, you know? Right. And I think about that,

and even just the thinking about it for a second is nice. It makes me really make the decision. Like, do I really want it? Yes. And I think it makes you just acknowledge there'll be a tomorrow. Yeah.

I will have to account for this decision. Yeah. And sometimes the answer's yeah. I don't care if I have to put a zero. I want it. Zeros are fun. And other times I'm like, I don't really need it. I don't really want it.

So overall, even though I've broken my goal, I am drinking much less. Okay, great. Which is helpful. I'm gonna make a small pitch for not zero. Oh, okay. Okay, because it is the morning. Yeah.

And it is day one of being sober. I see. It's not day zero, day zero doesn't exist. Right. So day one, this is the date and this is day one. And I'm not gonna drink today, this is a one. Uh-huh, interesting. See, now if you write zero in some weird way,

there's almost nothing to lose because if you drink later that night. But when you write one, you're also committing to this is day one of not drinking. Mm. Does that make any sense mentally? Yeah, it does. It's a commitment.

It does. Because on this date, I'll have had one day of not drinking, which is true. I didn't drink that day, that's day one. In the morning though. Yeah, so you gotta make it through the night. But it's true, so long as you don't drink that night. Yeah, I think that makes sense.

And then it's a little more positive. Yeah, I think that makes sense. And then it's a little more positive. Yeah, I guess for me it's not, it's because I'm not trying to be sober. I'm trying to get to day four, really. I see what you're doing. I'm mainly just like. You're saying I have zero days of sobriety in the morning. Yeah, it feels a little, I don't know why,

it feels a little like intense to call it sobriety. Also because that's not really what I'm. I mean sober, what do you want to say? Clean, no drinky poo. Yeah. Like you have one day of no drink. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't drink last night.

Right. That's what it is, it's like, yeah, that I did drink, so I'm at zero days as opposed to one day that I didn drink, so I'm at zero days, as opposed to one day that I didn't successfully. Right. Anyway, what else? Anything else? Let's see.

Are you reading any new books? I'm listening to We Contain Multitudes, Ed Yong's book. As I told you, I was listening to Men's World over and over again, and then I decided to go and try the first book, or anyway, it was his first, but the previous bestseller. Oh, it's mind blowing. It's all about microbes and your micro- Biome?

Biome, thank you, microbiome. Wow. He's so brilliant. Your body has so many, it says nine pounds. Did I already tell you this? Mm-mm. The average person has nine pounds of microbes in them. And there are many animals that couldn't even exist

without the microbes. They would die. The microbes perform all these tasks. They've evolved with the microbes and they themselves can't even exist. Then there's all this weird stuff where they raise these rats completely free of microbes, which is almost impossible, but they're born into a hermetically sealed case and they don't

ever accumulate any microbes and they can eat however they want and they don't gain any weight. Yeah. Doesn't matter. That's wild. And then they introduce different microbes and then they'll eat way less food and gain way more weight. Huh.

Yeah. Weird. And then all the health stuff, like there's so much health stuff. Yeah. And then it talks about, you know, this kind of scary proposition that you're supposed to get all, as we know, all these microbes from your mom's vagina

as you come out. Right. And then the other huge source is breast milk. Right. And a third of children in the U. Right. And then the other huge source is breast milk. Right. And a third of children in the US are now born cesarean sections. They're not getting the vaginal microbes. Right. And then if they also don't breastfeed, you know, they're ripe for some issues.

A lot of allergies and a lot of different things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, when I went to my acupuncturist, that's the first thing she asked. About your gut health? No, if I was born vaginally. Vaginal?

Well, that was her first question. Yeah, and I was. And you were breastfed? Yes. I was not. Yeah, you were given caro syrup. And I have an autoimmune disease and allergies. That's right, and heroin.

Don't forget the heroin. And heroin. Not to get controversial, but I do, I feel like I'm pro animal testing. Oh yeah, you gotta be. I know, but people hate that. Yeah, some people hate it. Like how will we learn anything? Exactly.

If you subtract animal testing from our history. I think we just lost a lot of listeners, but I think it's true. No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I think it's a very fringe group that do not want mice to be tested on. Yeah. Now, a lot of us-

I'm a mouse, so I can say that. Yes. It's kind of preposterous to think you should test on humans instead of mice, which you can, they procreate so quickly, their lifetime is very short anyways, blah, blah, blah. Now, I think it's a sliding scale. I think probably most of us don't want

to see chimpanzees tested on. Right. Right. And I guess it's a scale of what you're testing. Like, I know like the beauty products stuff, that's bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I do think that's bad. Yeah. But like learning about our bodies.

Oh, if we can figure out what microbes would eliminate obesity before you'd ever even need ozepic or would eliminate allergies or, of course we must do that. I know. Yeah, I don't think any rational person has that point of view. Yeah, people have all kinds of points of view. They do, they do.

And they're entitled. We have a country that has free speech, so you can think anything you want. That's right. And it's great. I'm rewatching Sex and the City, and it's been a long time since I watched it. And it is funny.

There are some things that are very ahead of its time, like some of the things they're talking about. And I don't know, it's been really interesting to watch. But also, separately, they have two episodes where they're in LA. And it is so funny, because they're like pointing out the differences between LA and New York, and it's so cliche.

New Yorkers love to do this. It starts with Annie Hall. Yeah, exactly. They're being so extreme, But then I had to recognize, like they make a joke about this guy, Miranda comes and visits her old friend who now lives in LA, writes for a TV show, and used to live in New York. And he's really positive. And she's like, what happened to you? We used to hate on everybody. And he was like, yeah, I just am so much, I am so much happier here. I know, I know. Some people, they distrust that, or it's like fake.

You know the big thing on the East Coast is calling someone fake. It's a huge thing. Remember like in even Jersey Shore, to be fake is as low as you can get. I don't even hear people in LA ever say that as a pejorative or a put down. I mean, I say that about some sector of the South.

Oh, would it be more, okay, do you think it'd be more accurate to say insincere? Aren't you really saying a lot of the hospitality feels obligatory and insincere? Yeah. Yeah. But that's just another word for it. I guess.

Fake is a total character assassination. It's like, they're fake. Yeah. They're a fake. I think that's what they mean, but anyway, it was just so funny because he was like, I'm so much happier here, and then he ordered, he took her to this

like macro biotic sandwich shop, you know, someplace that I was like, oh, that does sound good. Oh, okay, you like. And then he was like, let's go on a hike. And that was like the culmination of the joke. Oh, okay, right, right. Like let's go on a hike.

And I was like, yeah, I'm here, I'm indoctrinated. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's funny. Yeah, we're into health. We're into being positive. We're into health. We're into being positive. We're into health. We're into feeling good and eating good and exercise. And that's true.

I mean, I don't know why anyone would be mad about it. Exactly, I can't really lock into the why that's frustrating for people. I think like the Woody Allen joke, if I have it remembered correctly is like, in LA, their definition of culture is the right to turn on red, which is great. Yeah. I like it.

Yeah, we have no history. I mean. We do, but I know. It's not fair to say to the indigenous folks or the Spanish missionaries that were here. But we don't have New York's deep cultural history. Yeah, I suppose. But once we got in the mix, boy,

we really started shaping it. I was thinking about when we did our first fact check of the year while you were gone, and we were doing it virtual, and I was saying that I was, this is the first time I was calling LA home, and not Georgia home, even though we realized I was calling this is the first time I was calling LA home and not Georgia home even though we realized I was calling everything home.

But in light of what's been happening the past couple weeks, I've been thinking about that. And. Like maybe leaving? No, God no. I think a lot of people are debating whether they're gonna leave or not. I understand why, but I don't feel like that at all.

I feel more, I feel like doubled down. Oh yeah, yeah, okay, great. And that I love it here and I'm so happy to be here and grateful and it is funny, this is not to disparage any other place and how they handle situations, but in a lot of places when bad things happen, there's a lot of requests for prayers and...

For God to intervene? Yes, and for meeting at the church and X, Y, and Z. And that's great, like I have nothing against that. We didn't have that, I didn't see, I saw maybe like one person say it. Well, John Mayer said he's gonna say a prayer. Yeah, and he said, I don't have that. I didn't see, I saw maybe like one person say it. Well, John Mayer say he's gonna say a prayer. Yeah, and he said, I don't do this. But today.

This will be my first time doing it. Yeah, exactly. And like some people I do know are religious and were, but overall, the city, no one was saying that. No one thought the solution was gonna come from a party. No, but what is so heartening is like, I've never seen a city mobilize so fast. No one was asking for prayers.

They were asking for meat here, give this, do this. It was instruction and it was specific, it was action. And I really, I was like, yeah, that's an alignment with me. So anyway, all right. Okay, fact, let's get factual. Oh, one last thing. Many people in the comments suggested this and I want to tell them we had already done it.

So a lot of people were like, invite Nikki Glazer on. I just wanna say we, the second after we had that long talk on the previous fact check, we were like, we should definitely invite her. So we have invited her. You even said, you said it on. Oh, I did? Yeah, you did, and then we did, and we're trying.

Yeah, yeah. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. If you dare. Okay, so this is for Sunita. Okay. Um, which I just thought was a great episode. I love her message. I experienced it. Ooh, it's here.

I just experienced it. Yeah, I was getting blood drawn and the nurse basically told me that the doctor that they work for forced them to get a flu shot and they didn't want it. And I thought, yeah, here's a nurse who, who knows. Very qualified opinion.

It's not like they're ignorant. If they've probably made some analysis and probably she would have liked to have said no somehow. Yeah, it's really tricky. And especially in that situation with her, I don't know the details of how that works, but he's her superior, I would assume. Employer, yeah.

Yeah. And that it's so, it's so hard. It's so much easier said than done to stick up for yourself when your job is on the line or when your employer is upset with you. Or I mean, there's just things that you, that honestly put you into fight or flight. Yeah, yeah.

And it's intense. I find myself, I don't wanna say it's hard because it's not. And find myself, I don't wanna say it's hard because it's not. And again, I'm the beneficiary of having not said no and it haunted me for the rest of my life. So that's a huge gift for me for the rest of my life. I just don't, you know. And I have so many options.

Yeah. Like if this person is pressuring me to get this shot, I don't want it, like I have options. I can go to another doctor. I can't, you know, I'm gifted with a ton of luxuries. And so, and even me, I'm like, okay, we gotta say no, and we gotta hold our ground. Like, you know, it's a thing.

Yeah, it's hard, it's really hard. I too have been thinking a lot about what are my true beliefs and values, kind of what she said. She said, think about your values, then ask yourself what would a person with these values do? Not what I do, but really force yourself to sort of be objective about who you want to be

and what actions match that. And yeah, I think it's good to know the parts of yourself that you're unwilling to forego for peace, really. I mean, that's what it can come down to and that sucks, but at the end of the day, all you have is you and those beliefs and those values. So like you really just can't let people take them. Also a good moment to check your own pushiness as a person.

Like when you're in a position, people do it with their kids all the time. I watch kids, people force their kids to do these things that really don't have much of a significant impact on their life. That's how they did it. And they would like it done that way. It's very tempting.

But you know, and probably, you know, a lot of people are bosses and it's very tempting and easy you know, and probably a lot of people are bosses, and it's very tempting and easy to want to keep pushing. So I think it's also a call to every one of us who, when we have that role that we check our own pushiness. Yeah, also for people in charge to think about why, like why there's a pushiness or why you're forcing the nurse to get the thing.

Like there can, I think that's also an element of control and maybe there's a lack, there's a feeling of lack of control and so there's a grasping for it. I think a lot of people feel this way and I have felt this way as a parent many times, like you feel like if you let this go, it's going to be a domino effect.

Then you'll not have any say in anything. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It can be kind of misleading in that moment. Totally. So yeah, I thought this was a great, great episode. Okay, she was talking about visas, the types of visas I wanted to go through. Please. Because I was, Okay, she was talking about visas,

the types of visas I wanted to go through. Because I was sort of dumb enough to think that you could just ask to come here and it would take a while, but that you could. And you can't, you have to have a reason to come, you have the student visa, tourist visa, business visa, transit visa, so that's a temporary visa that allows travelers to pass through a country for a limited time, work visa, immigrant visa, a visa for people traveling to a country

to live permanently, so I don't really know. Is that kind of like? That's kind of what I thought. Yeah, like I like it there. I would like to live there. Yeah, but I don't think we have that here in the United States. Really? I don't think so.

We have to, because we have tons of legal Latino immigrants that didn't get here on a H1B or a student. They probably got a work visa, maybe not H1B, but there's different kinds. I think H1B is specific to tech maybe. Sure. Let me see actually, because now I'm curious. Okay, oh god, so many news articles.

How would you feel about one that was just hot? Hot? If you're hot, you can come. Yeah, like of course if you're incredibly intelligent and have a skill set that would benefit the country, come on in, we want that, clearly. Yeah. What about hot, if there was one that was just like,

you're a smoke show. I'm for that. Let's keep this place full of gorgeous people. If you're single, that's a great point. If you're single and hot. Because then that way you could procreate. You could procreate and you could lift. That's right, bring people up. The whole, yeah, look of Americans.

The whole aesthetic. Yeah, like the girl who was half Indian. Right, right, right. Yeah, we need more of that. Right. Okay, H1B status is available to a person who has been offered a temporary professional position by a US employer, bachelor's degree or higher

in a related area is the minimum educational level. Okay, so it's not tech, it's just any degree. I guess that duh, because my dad and my grandpa got H-1Bs. But engineering, we were not? That would be tech, but my grandpa was a professor. Okay, all right.

Although he came on a student visa, I guess. And just stuck around. Got a job as a professor. Yeah. Then got a work visa. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Then became a citizen.

Then became very patriotic. He did. Then became xenophobic. No, never. He did become very patriotic. Yeah, I bet. Okay, anyway, so can't just come here. Right. You can't see, I like the weather, and that so, can't just come here. Right.

You can't see, I like the weather, and that's why I'm going. Yeah. Swatty. Swatty is the nerdy term, it's the term for nerd in British, and it started as an army slang, meaning sweaty. I think it's a variation of sweaty,

but slang referring to hard work. And we're nervous about it, because it sounds very much like a derivative of swastika. And twat. And twat. But also we think a swatty potty would be a very cool. Invention. Invention. For the Brits.

For the Brits, for the Brainiac Brits. Yeah, Stanford Prison Experiment. The guy's name is, fuck, I wanted to see if I could remember it. Yeah. And I can't, again. Yeah, that's okay. Fuck.

He's not relevant. The takeaway is what's relevant. No, don't say that about him. Philip Zimbardo. Zimbardo. Zimbardo, it sounds like a football coach. It sounds exactly like Anthony's last name. And a football coach.

And a football coach. And a Cubs pitcher, Carlos Zambrano. Okay, so between the three of us, why don't we remember it? And a Cubs. I've already declared I'm not even committed to memorizing. I'm committed to knowing about the Stanford Prison Experiment and what the result was.

That's important for me to know. Wouldn't it be sad if everyone remembered Arm Tracks but they didn't know it was you? That's fine. Again, that's fine. Really? I guess you're dead, so who cares? I'm dead.

Rob, can you join me in a pursuit to remember his name? Yeah, yeah. Maybe we can write it somewhere and touch it every time we leave. No, we have to memorize it. Yeah, we'll see it though, and commit it to memory every time we pass it. Does it matter if I have to play a role in this?

I'm going to have to ask you guys sporadically. Randomly, yeah. Yeah, yeah, okay. All right. Okay. He recently died. Just recently? October 2024.

Whoa! Wow! Whoa. I feel bad for saying he's dead. I mean, he is, but just recently. You feel bad for being right? I almost was wrong. You feel bad a lot. I feel bad for saying he's dead. I mean, he is, but just recently. You feel bad for being right? I almost was wrong. You feel bad a lot.

Feel bad for assuming he was dead? I'm, I don't care. Charles Dunn. What's the guy's name with Ben to podcast again? Christopher Lydon. Christopher Lydon. Gah! Oh.

Gah, all right. Okay, the Greek poet that said, under duress we don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training, that's attributed to Bruce Lee, but it was a Greek poet, Arkelochus. I don't know if that's how you say it, but. And you're not going to try to memorize that, right?

No. See, this is interesting. It's very arbitrary. Fine, I will. Arcolakis. I'll remember everything. I mean, I like to remember everything I can. Yeah.

It just, if I have to choose whether I know an individual's name or I know a concept, I'm gonna definitely favor the concept, because that's gonna help me process the reality Yeah, someone's names not gonna help me do anything. Yes other than seem well read at a party. I think I'm I think overall I'm pretty good at names. It is impressive. Thank you I am often impressed that you remember someone's name actually more than I'm impressed I'm just grateful because I'm trying to reference the person and's name. Actually, more than I'm impressed, I'm just grateful

because I'm trying to reference the person and I don't have their name. Yeah, Hung Van Gogh, that's a name I know. Oh wow, who's he? He's a makeup artist. Oh, Hung Van Gogh. Yeah, he's great. I watch his videos.

All right, do engineers overindex on disagreeability? According to research and common perception, engineers are often considered to be the lower end of the agreeableness, geez, agreeableness spectrum on personality tests, meaning they may sometimes be perceived as disagreeable due to their strong focus on logic, data, and problem solving, which can sometimes lead to a more direct

or critical approach when discussing ideas or solutions. Do you think that's kind of just a long way to say because they're generally right? Yeah, no, sometimes, yeah. I think that's really what it is. It says, however, this is not always the case and individual personalities very greatly within the engineering field.

AI had to say that. I'm glad they put that caveat in. Me too. I'd hate for anyone to. I do think though there is, my dad and I have talked about this, because in. Yeah, me too. I'd hate for anyone to. I do think though, there is, my dad and I have talked about this, cause he- He's disagreeable.

He's disagreeable. He's- My stepfather, both stepfathers that were engineers were highly disagreeable. Yeah, he is picking apart everything. Yeah. And- He's looking for a flaw.

Exactly. His job is literally to look for a structural flaw. Yes, or things will collapse and that will be on his shoulders. People will die. So he, and I, we talked about this once. I was like, is it chicken or the egg? Were you drawn to the career because that's your personality or has that job made you like this?

We don't really know. I think egg. I do too. He thinks bee. Well, yeah, it implies more growth on his end. It's more flattering. We like to think we achieve this thing, not that we were just born with it.

All of us, you know, your dad's not unique. No, I know, well he is. I've been kind of like, what are you doing? Cause the sim's been rowdy. But that's all part of it. Yeah, it's part of it. There's no highs without the lows. That's true, and then yesterday I was doing connections

and one of the answers was big, Mr. Big from Sex and the City as I was watching it. So he was trying to make up for it a little bit. Yeah, just saying hang in there. I'm still watching. Still here. Anyway, yeah, if you talk to my uncles, they, my dad doesn't really let them talk too much about this, but they, like, have all these stories

about my dad. Like, I think he was more like my brother. No kidding. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Huh. And.

I don't believe that. Well, they knew him when I didn't. Like, as a kid. Are they older? Yeah, they're older. That's why I don't believe that. Well, they knew him when I didn't. As a kid. Are they older? Yeah, they're older. That's why I don't trust him. He's the youngest. Right, older brothers, you can't trust their opinion. Because they see him as a baby and incompetent

and all these things, and all they're really seen as an age difference, but they don't realize they're seeing an age difference. Well, that's a little bit fair, but there's also personality traits that come with being the youngest. Don't start with Little Brother Syndrome. Little Brother Syndrome.

I do not have Little Brother Syndrome. They have a version of his personality that I don't know, that I never saw, and I think that's interesting and sort of lends itself to maybe he did grow into a lot of these traits. Or they just got sharpened, probably. I'm going to go along with whatever. I really feel in my heart he's exactly who he was.

Yeah, that's probably right. That's probably right. My dad was always a salesman. My dad was born to sell shit. He didn't grow, I mean he got better at it. But he was a salesman. He dad was born to sell shit. He didn't grow it. I mean, he got better at it. But he was a salesman. He wanted an extra slice of cake. He figured out how.

He was charming. He got what he needed. Yeah, and I guess you can tell down the line, right? I have a lot of those qualities that he has. And I'm not an engineer. So I probably got it from him. Which means it's just genetics. And you're disagreeable, yeah.

Yeah. I'm doing what Sunita tells me to do. You're already at the finish line for that. Can you think of times though you did go along with stuff? Yes, yes. I think I spent a lot of my life not going along with, I mean, going along with stuff. Because you define yourself as being someone

that never succumbed to peer pressure. Exactly, that is true, but I was walking a line, right? Because I also, I wasn't gonna add a dinner table with my friends whose parents had much different political views than me or even just things I thought were wrong. If I'm at a dinner with them, I'm not gonna say, oh, actually I disagree, I'm gonna agree so I can maintain that friendship.

Kind of like you, who you, for different reasons, much different reasons, you feel like you, who you for different reasons, much different reasons, you feel like you are rewarded for speaking up for yourself. Yeah, and I just as an ethos, I'd rather have been wrong and I'd rather be the victim of a bad decision so long as it's my decision. Yeah. And some people don't feel that way,

which is totally fair. Yeah. And I just do, I that way, which is totally fair. And I just do, I would rather, again, if I'm going to die in a car, I better be holding the steering wheel. No fucking way am I letting, you know. Yeah, and I think I have a lot of that too for these other reasons.

I'm not going to. And also we might just genetically be this way. Maybe. Again, so hard to know. It's hard to know. It's hard to know. Anywho, that's it. Okay, well I loved her.

Yeah, me too. I hope I didn't make her do anything she didn't want to do. Pfft. Hopefully she would have stood up for herself. What if you tested it? What if I was manipulative and I was, yeah, and I had planned a test? Let's start doing weird stuff like that.

Don't miss out on trying that coffee. It's the world's best. Drink it. Drink it now. Why didn't you drink it? Drink it. A man made that and brought it here on a bicycle. He rode it 60 miles to bring you this coffee.

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