Camp Gagnon - How to DATE Outside Your League | Scientist Explained

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

Today behavioral scientist Jon Levy sat down with me to talk about how to date outside your league, live a longer life, and how to be the most interesting person in the room. WELCOME TO CAMP.Go to https://expressvpn.com/gagnon and find out how you can get 3 months of ExpressVPN free!Thanks to Express VPN and Morgan & Morgan for sponsoring today's episode!Mark Gagnon is our HostWill Schwartz is our Content Producer and Lead EditorMiles McCreery is our Floor ManagerKostis is our Clips Editor

I did do the largest study in history on dating. What they found was absolutely startling. If you are going to go on dates or whatever it is, my biggest recommendation is... This is John Levy, a behavioral scientist who has spent the last 10 years hosting astronauts, billionaires, and athletes at his home for some of the most exclusive dinner parties in the world. He has dedicated his life to researching human behavior and has uncovered the secrets to dating outside your league, making lifelong friends, and becoming the most interesting person in the room. Shout out to Aspire for subscribing if you want to go. get a shout out in next week's episode, hit the subscribe button. Now, enjoy my combo with John Levy. Welcome to camp. John Levy. Yes. How are you, sir? I'm fantastic. It's great to see you.

Thank you so much for joining me. I'm going to be drinking my coffee, if that's okay with you. I don't drink coffee. I know it's against your personal ethos. I wouldn't go that far. I just never got hooked into it. Why did you never drink coffee? Because I don't have a tough time waking up. I can just like wake up and go. And if, and if you don't need the caffeine, then you don't need to, you don't end up with that lull later in the day. Right. But it does kind of make you feel good, though. Yeah. I mean, listen, if I'm going to consume something to make me feel good, it's like there's plenty other things I could take. Okay, that's fair. I'd rather, you know, on a weekend, go out for drinks with friends. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Irish coffee. See, just do one of those,

and you'll mix both. I'll definitely do, like, in college, my college days, I definitely had some Kaluwa had drinks and white Russians and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, I'm so excited to talk. I read your book. You're invited. Awesome. I knew somebody would. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was the one. If you looked on your data and you're like, okay, one read, it was me. Okay. All those hours, it was worth it just for the impact. Exactly. Exactly. And I thought it was great. I really thought it was really fun. So I guess the first thing, the broad question, okay, that I think a lot of people want to know that I want to know also that we can break down through the book, how can I be more influential?

Oh, that's it. So we can break that down. You can start wherever you want, okay? But how can I be more influential? So let's break down a few things. First of all, let's separate being a influencer because the word has been kind of used. I don't like that word. Yeah, from being influential.

Okay. Right. So an influencer is kind of this word that marketers use to describe somebody who has a large media following of some kind, either on like some social media, platform, a blog, or whatever. But you're really kind of either a journalist or a content producer. Right. And that's amazing. And it's a very unique skill set and people who can accomplish that, like really impressive, right? But that's very different than being influential. Okay. And the simple example is that most of the people that have a profound impact on our life

have zero social media following, right? You look at-expound on that. You look at top CEOs. They don't have time to care about their social media. You look at the people who are like defining everything from the laws that we have to follow. Legislation, policy, all those things. They might have social profiles, but that's not the majority of their time. Yeah. It is a thing that's sort of like an afterthought that some intern takes over. Yeah. Or, you know, there's some people who are really active, like AOC or whatever it is. Sure. But overwhelmingly, influence comes down to an ability to have an impact on a person or an outcome. Right. So if you want to be influential, they're kind of three factors to it. It's do people know you? Like, are you connected to them? Do they trust you? Right.

Because influence is something people opt into. In most cases, if, as opposed to power, if I'm forcing you to do something, I'm not influencing you, I'm just, that's force. How do we affect how much people trust us? Right. And the third is the sense of connection or belonging that we have, meaning that if I know 20 of your friends, I'm going to have a lot of, a much bigger impact on your life. So if we're part of the same community, you'll notice ideas spread faster. It just ends up occurring at a faster rate. Right. So it's actually beneficial that we have similar friends. This is something that I think you talked about that I thought was very interesting. It's like the gatekeeping of relationships. Yes. That oftentimes people will have a really great

relationship with someone and a good relationship with someone else and they're afraid to connect them because they have this fear that they're going to be cut out of their relationship. Yeah. And it's super common. People think that like, oh, I have to, this person's really important. I need to hoard that relationship, keep them separate from everybody else so that I don't maybe embarrass, ask too much. It turns out the exact opposite is what we really want to do. And here's a simple reason why. If the only connection I have to that person is me, then for them to remember me or think

about me, I have to reach out every time. If I introduce them to five of the most interesting people I know, then you, you know, Now, every time they talk to them, they remember and think about me. Every time I have an update that I share with one of them, there's a good chance it'll reach them. Right. And now, because of all the network of connections, they're part of my community as opposed to a contact.

Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, even just you and I, we sat down today and we spoke about our mutual friends. Oh, yeah. We have like probably 20, 30 people, and we just started like to reach the topic. Right. But you'll notice with each additional relationship you're aware of, it increases the amount of trust that you have. Right. And familiarity. There's a really, really terrible word for this in the sciences. It's called a multiplex relationship. Multiplex relationship. Yeah, never use the term.

It just means how many threads of commonality do we have? So if we have three friends in common and we go to the same gym and we have the same doctor, the more threads that we have in common, the more likely we are going to end up being friends and end up trusting. each other. Right. Exactly. Okay. So that equation of influence. Yeah, it's who we're connected to. Yep. How much they trust us. Yep. And the sense of belonging we have. So connection, trust, and belonging. Okay. So now let's break those down. Sure. So how can I make connection? Like, let's say I'm, you know, 20-something year old kid. I went to college in a different city. And then in college, I had all these friends, but now I work in that city and I don't really know anyone. Sure. What can

do in order to make connections like what like how would you prescribe what would you prescribe to that person so the first thing is have you ever gone to a networking event I have and I don't like the word literally the worst yeah right and all of the research tells us that it is just awful yeah it just feels so slimy yeah it's just like and like you people are talking to you and you're immediately skeptical of their motives you're like you don't even and you came in there to do the same thing that they're there yeah exactly I'm also an asshole yeah but I'm talking about I'm like it just it feels gross And they start off by handing you their business car.

So what we need to understand is why. So researchers did a few studies on kind of this networking concept and found that our association to networking, the way that we feel about it is like we need to wash our hands. Right. Because we feel dirty. We feel like we're using people. And that's not how human relationships.

And being used, which both of those. Like, just the worst. I'm taken from both ends. I don't like that. They ran the same question for making friends. People don't feel that way. People are really excited about making friends. Even if you're introverted, even if you're like shy, everybody likes making friends. Well, the inherent nature of that relationship is different. You know what I mean? Like a social climbing relationship where I'm going to use you to get ahead. That feels gross. And I don't like when people do that to me. I don't like doing it to people. Even if the outcome is good for me. With friendship, it's like mutually beneficial. I want to help you and you want to help me. And that type of connection is extremely human. And I think people feel really, really good doing it. I total agreement. Now, the other interesting thing is that when you, I think this was studied on Columbia University MBA students. So like these are the people who are like spending $100,000, $200,000 just

to network with a bunch of people for a few years and get drunk with them. Right. And they asked them, how important is networking? They said incredibly important. It's like why I'm here. Right. And then they monitored them or watched them at social events, networking events. And overwhelmingly, what they did was just hang out with the people they knew and then speak to one or two strangers. So we have to accept networking just does not work. What does work is making friends. Okay. So how can I do the difference? So we tend to make friends over common ground. So it's shared interests. Like you might really like playing tennis. You become friends with me. A soccer guy. Love soccer. Yeah, perfect. So shared culture. Maybe.

Maybe you're part of a religious group. Maybe you, I don't know, whatever it is, you meditate, whatever, right? Activities, hobbies. So, like, all these things are the things that give us common ground. Now, that means that you're better off joining, like, three or four meetups on topics that you care about. Like, literally the app meetup. Yeah, yeah. You go on to meetup, and they're like, oh, we do a brunch meetup, right?

And you're like, I like exploring the city and trying your food. Yeah. You join a brunch meetup. And a shared activity. is a much more natural way to make friends than it is to go to like a networking event and pass a business card. Yeah, exactly. And I think a lot of people know that implicitly,

but it feels weird to put it. Like, I guess if you move to a new city, you're like, because you kind of did it in life already. Like you would make friends through your basketball team. But you don't even realizing why you're making those friends. You just are like, oh yeah, we play basketball together. And when you break it down, you go, oh yeah, it's all of us doing a shared activity together

that's leading to our connection. And that's why we also survive. as a species, right? We cannot, like a pregnant woman can't collect enough calories in the wild and protect her baby at the same day. We need each other. So we survived because we worked together. And that's the superpower of our species. We are not the fastest, we are not the strongest. We don't even live the longest, right? Turtles outlive us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or tortoises, whichever, right? Not the ones that became ninjas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, I wonder how long they live, a mutant Ninja Turtle? A mutant? Oh, man. I mean, if they're mutated, they probably live a long time.

Yeah, but they are like fighting shredders. Oh, yeah, that's a good point. You're in a sewer. There's no way that's good for like air movement and things like that. Yeah, there's bacteria that brought up. How many seasons of that show they do? It's probably only like three and then one of them passes away. That would be the saddest ending to it. There was like, yeah, Leonardo got lung cancer and that's just the end of the show. Because we polluted. Yeah, exactly. There was a, somebody did a study for how long Batman could realistically live. live. And the argument was in order for him to survive, he has to win every fight he's ever in. He needs 100%. Yeah. And it's somewhere between 18 months and I think three years because no fighter has ever lasted longer than that on any of the without a lot. What a great run that would be though.

You know what I mean? Three years watching Batman just keep people's asses. That'd be awesome. You know what I mean? Listen, I believe my rule is be yourself unless you can be Batman. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's honestly a good rule. Um, my thing with meetup though, like, because I've been in that situation where I'm in a new place and I'm like, I want to make friends. I want to connect to people. But it feels this is the thing. I think a lot of people pride themselves and making friends because all through high school, a lot of people have friends. Like regardless of your social circle and your social hierarchy, whatever, like you will have friends, even if they're band kids or chess kids or whatever, you'll have friends in that social group. I think people almost feel shame going to an app or something to try to hang out with other people and they go, oh, if I go to. Oh, if I go to. this app, it's going to be a bunch of losers. Not like me, I'm not a loser, but all the other people that are trying to make friends are losers. I don't want to make friends with losers. So I think there might be something there, right? Just kind of like there was a stigma to online dating. Right, exactly. It's like those people are desperate, not me. I think the biggest issue is

that we're in the generation of, or the younger generation is of the helicopter parent generation. And so there's this kind of interesting characteristics of human being. It's called anti-fragility. Right. It's made popular by the guy who wrote Black Swan. Yeah. And things that are fragile, like a glass, you drop it, it breaks, right? Things that are anti-fragile get stronger when you apply pressure to them.

So if I go to the gym and lift weights, I apply pressure to my muscles, they grow back stronger. Yeah. Our social skills are anti-fragile. Who? Right? the more we go out there and mess up a little and learn from it, and then we do something else and it works better, and then we find our social group.

And eventually, like, you know, we get pretty solid social skills. Yeah, which is amazing. Yeah. Like, that is a superpower. Yes. If every time we went out and got rejected, people felt worse and then didn't learn from it and didn't grow from it. Oh, we'd just be, yeah, it would fall apart.

And so this is critical. It's absolutely essential to our development. The problem is that in a generation of helicopter parents, where mom or dad or whoever set up all of your activities, solved all of your problems. You went to play dates and you had relationships that were built in through your parents and you never actually had a work to maintain relationships. Like you go back 70 years, you wanted to hang out with kids. You'd play stickball in the neighborhood.

Somebody had to bring the ball. You had to walk five miles in the snow both ways, whatever my parents talked about, blah, blah, blah. But it forces you to develop those skills. I'm not talking like trial by fire. I'm just saying like, hey, you learn not to hit people, you learn not to be mean, you learn, right? And you learn that lesson quickly so that you're part of the group and you're not aliening. Right. And helicopterism has essentially made people have this idea that our relationships are fragile, I guess. Would you say that? I would say that we've lost the skill set to develop our own relationships. That when mom takes care of my playdates, then, I don't have to ask somebody if we can hang out. Right. And so I never build the muscle. Sure.

I'm super weak. I'm scrawny when it comes to my social skills. How do you see technology and social media contributing to that? It fills your time in a way that isn't healthy. Okay. So there's two aspects to social media. We know that, for example, girls who spend, I think it's like five hours a day or something that on social media, or maybe it was three hours, have significantly higher rates of

anxiety and depression. I think Jonathan Haidt published work on that. Yeah. There was a great article about it. And at the time when that came out, we didn't know if it was causal, meaning like, because social media, you had anxiety. Sure. Or what I think is at least as important, if you have three to four hours of time to be on social

media. Not only are you like comparing your life to this unrealistic image that makes you sad and all that, but you're not doing something else. And the thing that you're not doing is like the Girl Scouts or you're a soccer fan playing soccer and you're not doing pro-social behaviors. There's an opportunity cost to the social media. That's huge. Right. So not only you're getting filled with negative stuff, you're not doing positive stuff. Precisely. So you're getting double hit. So for example, my wife's pregnant. I'm super excited. She's doing me. Congrats. That's awesome. I'm, like, beyond excited.

And my first thing I did was, not first, but like, one of the first things I did was, uh, I looked up what age someone can be a Girl Scout. It's funny to think that that's the first thing you did. It's like one of them. And the reason is that if you look at the success of, uh, you look at successful women in the U.S., Girl Scouts is like 1% of the population, but it's like 70% of everything. Oh, interesting. So like astronauts, sitting congresspeople, like all that.

It's because they learn community and they learn to deal with adversity. And it's like an anti-fragile education system that's super supportive towards girls. Oh, that's interesting. And so if we look at the statistics right now of where we are as a society, from about 1950 onward, our social ability has declined dramatically. Right. We peaked right after like World War II, post-war sentiment. We were super proud. We can do it.

televisions enter the home around 1950, and we see the sudden decline in social interaction. Right. Number of groups, people participate in, number of friends. By 1985, we're down to three friends besides family. By 2004, 19 years later, we're down to two. So in less than a generation, we lost a third of our social ties. And now it's even worse. Right. So I know you talked about what you called the loneliness epidemic. Yeah. A lot of people, I think, if they they've heard that term, believe it started in, you know, 2010, but social media. Would you say it started far before that? Oh, but it's way before that. Listen, social media definitely feeds into it because,

and I want to separate two, there's kind of two different forms of social media. There's social media that makes you happier when you interact with it in general. Like, it entertains you. YouTube, unless it's misinformation, generally does that. You watch a funny cat video or something, right? Or maybe like Reddit to some degree. Sure. Then there's social media that actually makes you less happy. And so it's stuff like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, where it's very comparative in nature. I look at a celebrity's life and I'm like, oh my God, I want that. Even though you really don't, but you're like, now I need a Maserati.

Who knows what. Right. And there's like very predatory behavior as a byproduct. People are like, oh, you could fly around in a private jet too if you follow my courses and, you know, they sell you all this BS. So the, I think what's really important to understand is that as our species superpower is our ability to connect, like me and you becoming friends means that our lives will become better. We're friends. Well, do you mean? Come on. Come on. See, I have two friends and they're both in this room right now, okay? That's my number.

Yeah, that, yeah, and you're like at the average of America. Yeah, at the average. Oh, so that two number is an average. Yeah, that's an average. Oh. So almost... That was years ago. Almost half of that is less than two. So they would be like, oh, I have won. It's probably way worse than that because there's, you know, because of the events I run, I have hundreds of friends.

Right. Which means that there's a lot of people at zero. Yeah. And there's an epidemic right now. I think it's Korea. There's something called the lonely death, which is so many people are dying in their homes and the bodies are undiscovered because they don't have any friends. Wow. And when you look at also reproductive rates, we're seeing that basically the only place of population is expanding to some

degrees in Africa. Right. Everywhere around the world, people are not reproducing. And there's a litany of reasons, everything from infertility, sperm counts, but also because it's super expensive to raise kids. Sure. And people's social skills are worse than ever. Right. I forget what what I think in Japan, they released, obviously Japan has like a negative birth rate. Yeah. So do we. Oh, right. Yeah. I guess any country with birth control, got a negative birth. People are like, let's just chill, all right. Let's just, you know, kind of travel, have a kid, let's keep it moving. But they release something called Cabe Don. Have you heard of this? I'm pretty sure it's called

Cabe Don. I don't speak Japanese. I don't know. I have not going to judge you on your best pronounce. I have a samurai bun, but I don't speak Japanese. But cabedon is basically, it means like wall smack. And it was basically a social, like, PSA to young men about how to flirt. And there were like, women want a man that, like, speaks with, like, a deep voice and is, like, intimate. So if you see a woman and she engages with you in, like, a social interaction, kind of, like, put your hand against the wall and speak in a low voice and, like, invite her to something. But they had to straight up be like, and I don't know how widespread this was.

It's probably Japanese people. They're like, I've never heard of this. But if you Google it, you can read about it. But it's basically like, okay, teach men how to flirt because we're not flirting enough. We're not having kids enough. We're not having like those intimate relationships enough. So there's actual like government PSAs to be like, all right, let's like institute flirt.

Let's happen late. Yeah, exactly. Which I guess is happening in America also. Like I've read studies that we're having less sex now that we did, you know, 20 years ago. I find that amazing. Yeah. I find that especially amazing because our ability to discuss sex has just changed completely from when I was a kid.

like the worst thing you could have on television was Bart Simpson talking against his parents. Right. Now that's like passe. And nowadays you have like every which way gender identity having sex in every way on Netflix. Right. And it's just like, oh yeah, that's that show. Right. So we're talking about sex more.

It seems like the availability is higher through like Tinder and hinge and dating apps. However, people are having it much less. What do you think that's contributing? What's contributing to that? Oh, wow. So this really isn't my area of expertise, right? I'm a behavioral scientist that studies like human connection. And I will say, I did do the largest study, I think, in history on dating.

Right. We looked at 421 million potential matches between people. Wow. And you know how people say opposites attract? Yeah. It's totally yes. That's not even a little. In fact, across every characteristic down to which kind of university you went to, your religion,

down to your initials. If you had the same initials, you were 11.3% more likely to date. Yeah, that's so funny to me. That's just crazy. The one exception, and this is super funny. We thought introverts would date introverts and extroverts would date extroverts,

but introverts and introverts almost never date because they never talk. Of course. So they just can't get a conversation going to save their life. Two extroverts probably could like that. Oh, my God. You see the extrovert populations

on these apps, and they're just going at it. Oh, interesting. So it's... That's so funny. What's the name of that effect where you see qualities in yourself or you see the same initials and you go, I like that person.

Oh, it's implicit egotism. Yeah, implicit egotism. It's that reason that also people named it Dennis are more likely to become dentists. Yep. And live in Denver. Yeah, oh, the Denver thing, that's funny. I remember reading that in Freakonomics being like,

there's no way that's true. And then at the time, I was super into marketing and my name is Mark and I was like, oh, no. I'm a statistic. I'm a part of it. I'm just another number. I know. Look at me. Just like falling into the trend. I think people like to think they're outside of statistics. They like to read statistics and be like, but not me. And then you fall into it and you're like, God damn it. I think everybody wants to be special. Yeah, and I think that there's this really funny thing that called the Barnum lie. P.T. Barnum, the great showman, right? Yeah. It's, there's other titles for this bias. But if I tell you something and the opposite about you, you will remember the one that was accurate. So if I go, dude, I have to say, you are really funny, but often people don't get your jokes.

So now I've just said something and the opposite, and you're like, yeah, I am really funny. And you're right. Sometimes people don't get my jokes. And Barnum would do these things where he would like get people to feel that something is for them or something is special by just giving him both sides of the thing. And that's often what's done in a cold read. Like when people are pretending to be psychic, they'll tell you something that's super open-ended that could be interpreted. in two ways, and you're like, oh, wow, this is about me. Oh, and you self sort of prescribe to the thing that is true.

So, like, I guess horoscopes are probably similar, where it's like, yeah, you need to connect with more people, but also take some time for yourself. Yeah. And you're like, I do need to take more time for myself. And I do need to connect with more people. Because your brain is really good at finding whatever you tell it to look for. Right. And so if you say, hey, it's, you know, you're the type of person who sometimes spends lavishly,

you'll find the examples. And then if I say, or you're the type of person who can be frugal when it matters, you'll find the examples of that. But like, who knows if either of those things are even true. Exactly. You're just going to be able to find those examples throughout your life. Right. So as far as connection goes, finding mutual things, how important is it that those mutual things are difficult? Because I know you've talked about that. You talked about that in the book. So let's do both that and kind of trust at the same time. Okay. So, Most people think, at least especially in the business world, that if I want you to trust me, I'm going to do something lavish and spend on me.

You can also, like, on a date, right? I'll take us to like the Beyonce concert tickets are super expensive. Now you're going to want to make out with me. Yeah. And that's really funny because if you've ever actually been to a business dinner, they're pretty miserable. Yeah. The other thing people do is like, oh, come to our event. There's a swag bag.

and then people like throw out the swag bag or re-gift it. Yeah, of course. They're devaluing the relationship. You really can't buy a relationship. Yeah, I think guys do that more often than women. We're kind of dumb like that. Oh, we're super stupid. We're like, oh, if I take this girl to this thing,

she's going to like me the amount that I spent, which is, I don't know if it's the inverse, but I don't know if it has the connection that I think a lot of guys think. It doesn't work because it's essentially saying, hey, I know you don't want to date me because of my personality or my love. looks. But here, maybe I can hold your attention long enough with this shiny object.

Yeah. So, and then you're stuck on the shiny object, you know. If anything, I wonder if it does the, it does the inverse where like it puts pressure. Like if a girl goes on a date with you and it's a super nice restaurant, she's like, oh my goodness, he's spending a lot of money, blah, blah, blah. I don't want to get the most expensive thing. I wonder if he's going to think of something sexually of me after this. I think that it puts a lot of complex dynamics and also doesn't necessarily do you any good. Right. So if I'm not going to take a girl. to a super expensive lavish dinner, what should I do?

So there's, so I'm going to show two ideas. One is the exact opposite is true when it comes to building trust. It's called the IKEA effect. And the IKEA effect is that we care more about our IKEA furniture because we have to assemble it. Right. Anything we invest effort into, we care more about. So if you have a dog, even if it drives you crazy,

you love that dog because you've been taking care of it. People and their kids, right? Or even maybe it's like some project. that you work on, you disproportionately value it. Or the ideas in meetings, when people I come up with an idea, they think their idea is so much smarter because they put in the effort to come up with it. Right. So I guess if you were to buy a piece of furniture already assembled and then you buy a flat

piece of furniture, the umlaught from whatever. And then you build it. I'm impressed you speak Swedish. I know. Thank you so much. But like you throw the, I speak Japanese and Swedish. Yeah, perfect. But you'll throw away the IKEA furniture at a less frequent rate than you would.

Well, that's what breaks down. I think you'd value it disproportionate. The study was they had people assemble IKEA furniture and estimate its value, and they just were way off because they had to assemble it. Is it same true for food, do you think? Yeah, that you cook, if you cook your own food, you think it's, I mean, depending on how bad. Yeah, yeah. That's where it falls apart from it. So that's one thing, right? If you go on a date where you do something together that has shared effort, even like a workout, a hike, a art class, you know, whatever it is, that shared effort or even cooking together will cause you to feel more bonded and more connected than spending money on the person.

Can the experience, does it have to be unified or can it be both of us doing an activity together? So like if we go to a pottery class, we're not working on the same piece of pottery, but we're both making something together. So there's, I think if you're like next to each other, then it works to like, large degree. What's also really nice is that if we were sitting at dinner and had nothing in common ahead of time and we're just getting to know each other, it feels like an interview. Right. For human beings, that wouldn't have ever really been the case, right? We grew up in

these communities. Yeah. When would that have ever happened historically, like anthropologically? Yeah, we would go do something. If we were of mating age, we would have known each other our entire life. Yeah. And we would have like known a ton about each other. We would have grown up in the same neighborhoods. So it means that activities are really natural for us because even if we don't want to talk at that moment, we can focus on the activity. Right. And so it's a really much more natural way to go on a day. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break real quick because I need to tell you how you can access every show available on Netflix. Here's a problem. I like to watch Brooklyn 9-9. I go to Netflix. It's not there. I got to get a different streaming platform. I got to pay money every month to 10

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all of my data is protected and it's actually a safer way to browse the internet. You can find out how you can get three months of ExpressVPN for free. That's right, for free by visiting expressvpn.com slash Gagnon. That's right, expressvpn.com slash Gagin-O-N-N-O-N or by clicking the link in the description below. Protect your data. Get access to every show without having to get on every single platform and take control of your internet. Now let's get back to the show. Now, the second benefit is there's something called the misattribution of arousal. And I know when guys hear arousal, they immediately think like, I'm talking sex. I'm not talking about sex. Okay, I'm thinking about that. The misattribution of arousal is that we confuse

our physical and emotional state for what we're doing at the time. Okay. The classic experiment was men were sent to walk across like one of two bridges, either a standard bridge like the Brooklyn Bridge, super safe, or a high ropes bridge, right? Really exciting. You can, looks like you could fall, like super scary. They get to the far side. There's an attractive woman at the other side and says, hey, here's my number. I'm part of the study. If you have any questions or need anything, please feel free to reach out. I'd love to hear from you. The men who crossed the high ropes bridge disproportionately called her an astroa. And that's because they confused the elevated heart rate,

the emotional state, the excitement, all of it with a woman. And so if you want to do something that will bond you, you can actually just pick activities that are a lot more exciting. You two, I don't know if people are into paintballing, but like going and, you know, battling it out is a lot more exciting. And then you feel like a team because of that investment of effort. Do that on first day. Like, yo, let me shoot you.

first time we hang out. Okay, this would be super fun. I meant you shoot together at other people. Let's go shoot someone else together. Yes, perfect. So that kind of stuff that's exciting and novel, right? So the brain responds to novelty to an extreme degree. There's a section of the brain.

It's super geeky. Nobody needs to know what it's actually called. It's called the SNVTA, the Substantia, Niagara, Ventral, Tagmental area. Right. I've never actually needed to know the name of that thing. It's the major novelty center. and novelty just means that something's different, right, or new. And when the brain is exposed to novelty, it will have a desire to explore and understand.

Right. It says, hold on a second. I don't know what this thing is. I need to be aware of my situation. And so not only are you drawn to it. If I say, hey, I've got this really crazy experience where we're going to go eat bugs with some like National Geographic Explorers. do you want to come? Now, assuming you're not disgusted by the bugs part, you're like, holy cow, that sounds amazing. Right. Or do you want to go, I was just in Times Square for New Year's?

I was there with like, for the ball drop. Were you really? Yeah, yeah. One of my dinner alumni manages Duran Duran and they were the midnight performer. Oh, awesome. So we went on the stage, got to see Duran, and then we were there literally. That's the only good reason to go. Oh my God. Otherwise, unless you know literally Duran Duran, don't go. Okay. I'm not friends with I'm friends with the manager. But like the, there's, I mean, people I think wear diapers and stand there all day, right? It's not like an environment. I think that's for a different reason.

That's the misattribution of arousal. So the novelty of that will draw people forward. Right. If you are doing stuff that stands out as interesting and different, people will want to participate. And then if that activity has a shared effort to it, you will bond disproportionately and trust will grow disproportionately. You see, when we do an activity together, like we're cooking or whatever, there's something called a vulnerability loop that gets triggered.

And a vulnerability loop is the base unit of trust. It is fundamentally how trust is built. And people think that if I trust you, I will be willing to be vulnerable. But it actually happens the other way. And men, listen, when I say vulnerability, I'm not talking like, Oh, you have to start crying about something. Vulnerability is simply being in a state where something can happen, right? Like, it might mean that I'm asking you to pass me a fork.

That's a vulnerability loop. So person one signals vulnerability. I wrote a popular book. It's called You're Invited. It was literally the hardest thing I've ever done. I felt totally burnt out. Now, when I say that, I'm in a vulnerable state. You could make fun of me.

You could insult. me, you could ignore me. Oh, I wrote a book. Oh, you're so tired. You're burned out. Poor guy, right? Like, that is how I feel about you. Yeah. Justifiably, I am a jerk. So if you make fun of me or ignore me, trust is reduced because that vulnerability was punished. Of course. But if you acknowledge it, John, wow, that sounds super tough. I know how you feel because during the pandemic, you know, I was working on projects. I was working crazy hours. It was absolute insanity. The moment I I see that you've signaled vulnerability to the same degree, trust increases to this higher level. And the vulnerability begets trust.

Yes. I think that's such a good point. I really connected with that because I feel like, especially in high school, I had a, like, I was anxious about things in general, but I had a strong desire to kind of put on this front that everything was good. Yeah. And that like, people would ask me, like, oh, this test, did you study for it? And I didn't study for it.

And I was like, nah, it's fine. It'll be fine. It'll be an easy test. Like, I'll just kind of like pass it off. Like, oh, you know, it's not going to be too hard. and I would not share my anxiety or my vulnerability about things because I felt that people would be, they would have an aversion to my problems. And as a result, I think it made me more isolated because people would see me and they'd be like,

oh, well, I'm going to go hang out with the people that are anxiously cramming for this test and go talk with them and connect with them. But if you got everything figured out, like, that's not me. So I'm not going to go talk to you. I love the example that you're giving because it goes to show when I was especially like through my 20s, I thought that I had to be the guy who, like, did it all myself and, like, had my shit handle, like, all of it. And I still feel that to a certain degree.

I don't like to give off this idea that I'm out of control or I don't know what I'm doing. Oh, sure. Yeah. But this idea that, like, people would kind of come to me and see I'd be working on something and they'd offer to help. And I'd be like, no, no, I'm my own man. Yeah. Like, that's bullshit.

Like, the problem with it is that in that moment, the person opens a vulnerability loop. They say, hey, let me help you. And I would literally smack away their hand. Yeah. And who wants to be around that? No, that's like brady kid behavior. Yeah. Like your parent tries to help you and the kid goes, I don't want it.

I thought it meant like, oh, people like me more because it looks like I've gotten, you know, like I've got myself handled. Not only was I succeeding less because I didn't have their support. Yeah. I was also punishing people who were trying to offer me help and reducing the strength of my relationships. Yeah. And the fact is, I get it. It could be really crappy putting yourself in a vulnerable state and then somebody not reciprocating and closing that loop. But we're anti-fragile.

Precisely. That's exactly it. It's that, sure, that hurts a bunch, but it doesn't compare to not having friends. Yep. Right? The health impact of being lonely, when you look at the greatest predictor of human longevity, after genetics, which we can't currently control. Yeah.

Number two is strong social ties, having close friends and family. Number one is something called social integration. It's measured by the number of people we come in contact within a day. So are you part of a community? And so the health impact of not having social ties is on par with smoking a pack of day of cigarettes. Wow. It's terrible. So literally having no friends is killing you.

Yes. It increases anxiety, reduces your ability to sleep. it increases cortisol levels, right? All of these kind of factors that need to do depression, isolation, all these things increase. And what's interesting is people who have fewer friends begin to feel that they're deserving of fewer friends. So if imagine you have four friends, one of them moves away, then it's not like you find a new fourth friend. you go, oh, you know, everybody's leaving me. Like, I must not be that great to be around.

I'm someone that's worth having three friends. Yeah. And then you lose another one. Because you're like, you start disconnecting even more. So the few friends you are used to talking to go and talk to other people who become more positive. And it becomes a negative feedback. Precisely. So back to the date thing, if you want.

Yeah. If you are going to kind of build relationships or go on. dates or whatever it is. My biggest recommendation is, first of all, for the introverts, don't feel obligated to do what the extroverts do. You're introverted, you don't like large groups. Great. Go do a board game night with a bunch of people or join a meetup for board games, whatever, right? Like, you like reading books, join a book club, make friends that way. But do a joint activity that requires some effort because it's what let us survive as a species. Going to like networking events just for the sake of like paying for an overpriced

cocktail and then feeling terrible about the situation. It's just sucks. Can digital communities supplant in-person communities? So I think the issue is that you just get different things from it. Okay. So let's take an extreme case. Let's say you are a somebody who's gay in a rural community that's super religious. Finding people who have your worldview online can literally save your life. But that is not the same as having a group of people around you that give you a hug or that you can go to lunch with. It can be a critical element of our lives, right? Having a mom's group where moms can get advice or being part of like an online program or community when you need an answer for a question.

that's a lifeline for work. Right. So it's better than nothing. It's not that it's not just better than nothing. It just provides something different. Okay. So if you want immediacy and scale, digital, you can get that, right? If I instead was a programmer and I only had in-person relationships,

you have to start calling everybody to find the answer. The online community is a much more effective way to get what you need. So I think the question is, which aspect of our... our life is being fulfilled by this thing. And so what is it that you're looking for? Because if you're, let's say, really anxious, having a human that's nearby that you could talk to or take a walk with is incredibly impactful.

And my hunch is more impactful than just putting a post on some board or something like that. Right. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I guess, I don't know, that's the curious thing about like social, Like, I guess with the decline of, like, religion, you're losing your social community. With the decline of, you know, staying in the same place for a long time, you lose, like, your immediate community that you grew up in. And so I guess more people moving, losing religion, losing those main things, if you're able to find it online.

Yeah. It is helpful, but then being able to connect in person does something on a biological level that's way stronger. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. It's just, we're wired for that. It's, and I'm not knocking either, right? And you bring up a really great point. There was a study called How We Gather.

It was a Harvard School of Divinity as if people aren't going to church and synagogues anymore, right? Where are they going? And the answer is CrossFit and Soul Cycle. Oh, interesting. Because it has these spiritual aspects and really intense communities. Right. So it's that sweating together, right? If you want to get fit, join what they call them CrossFit boxes.

Yeah, yeah. Because those have like really serious communities where people, invite each other, they go out for drinks after. It's like, it's real community building. It's super impressive. And that's why I very much like things that cause people to sweat. Yeah. Because, you know, to survive, you kind of need to. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And you've got to do something difficult. Yeah. Doing something difficult together. Yeah, it doesn't have to be super hard, right? Right. But there's even a, I think, a study that showed that us doing wall sits, you know, where like your legs are burning, not even talking to each other will cause us to like each other

more because we went through that suffering together. Right. And so it's, you know, sometimes getting caught in the rain with people is the best thing for a relationship. And, and right now, we're in this trend of like, let's avoid all discomfort and pain and helicopter parents take care of everything. And like kids are 12 years old and mom is still cutting up their meals so that they don't joke. Like, yeah. Can you talk about Ben Franklin when it comes to the, uh, the IKEA effect? Yeah. So So the IKEA effect is sometimes, or the similar aspect between people is sometimes called the Ben Franklin effect. And there's this famous story about Ben Franklin from his autobiography. He had this contentious political rival. And he was up for some position. I don't remember

in the state of Pennsylvania, I believe. And the traditional strategy is like, okay, this is a very wealthy business person who's trying to fund his opposition. Go trying to win him over. and Franklin's father had this advice. I think it went, he who has done you a favor once is more likely to do you a favor again than he who has never or something like that. Old world speak.

Yeah. But essentially Franklin did something completely unexpected. The wealthy business person who's causing him problems had a large library. And so Franklin asked, can I borrow this very rare book? And the man said yes and went out of his way to get it to Franklin. Franklin thanked him.

And because of that investment of effort, him and Franklin became friends until he passed away. But it's because somebody does you a favor that causes them to like you more. And there's a really wonderful study that was done on asking people for favors. It's actually several of these done. But if I stop you on the street, you're a stranger, and ask you for, directions, you are probably not going to give them to me, especially during a pandemic, right? Peak pandemic, not a chance. If I stop you on the street and ask you the time and you give it to me, and then I ask you for the directions, you're going to give me the directions, most likely.

And that's because once you've invested some effort into me, I'm viewed as somebody worthy of that effort. And so I remember I was at an airport that was in Tel Aviv that was flying back to New York. This is peak pandemic. The line at security was, I mean, just unreal. And so I went to the front of the line and I said, hey, is this the line for like, you know, premium service or whatever? And when it was like fifth person in and they're like, yeah, yeah, this is it. You just have to stand in line. It's like, okay, thank you. I went to the back of the line to see how long people have been waiting. And there was clear that I was never going to make my flight. And so I went back to the front of the line.

And I'm like, hey, sorry to bother you again. My flight's in a bit. Do you mind if I join you? And they're like, yeah, yeah, of course. Because I was already familiar. They had already invested effort. Now, this was Israel. So, of course, literally everybody around us complained.

And I'm like, guys, calm down. It's going to be okay. I think Malcolm Gladwell actually published a study about, like, or talked about research relating to, like, Israeli specifically in stop signs. Oh, funny. I'll send it to you. But I think it was like, of all the,

countries in the world, Israelis were the least likely to fully stop at a stop sign, that they were more likely to be like, eh, it's fine, let's just kind of keep moving. I thought it was hilarious. That sounds about right. My childhood. So I'm curious, how do you not use this research? I know you talk a lot about it in the book, about benevolence. Yeah. But how all of this stuff is, makes a lot of sense. And I think a lot of people intuit it naturally. So, you know, if you grow up in New York, you might learn like, oh, you know, if I help someone with something, they'll help me with something. or if someone helps with a small thing, you know, they'll help me with another thing. And like, I think people intuit these things naturally. Right. Right. Exactly. And so those things are kind of,

because they're innate to humanity and to human beings, a lot of people just figure it out. Yeah. You are putting words and data to feelings that, you know, some people have just naturally figured out. How do you not use those things for manipulation and being like, okay, this girl I really like, I'm going to ask her for a small favor and then ask her for a larger favor and then we're going to go to CrossFit together. going to get married. And then if she marries you and then you tell her about it, she's like, wait, what? So how do you, how do you tow that line? So I think that there's a few things we need to be aware of. One is, I don't know a single person who hasn't been manipulative at some point in their life. And it's part of growing up. It's part of that anti-fragility. It's part of

trying something and then seeing like, oh, God, that backfired completely. I should just be honest. it's better off, right? So, and I also think that for a while, the way that social engineering and behavioral mechanics were discussed was in a very manipulative way. What do you mean by that? That it was used a lot to like,

oh, here, I'm going to sell you pills you don't need, or I'm going to, guys would be running these courses to teach other guys to, like, say whatever is necessary for women to sleep. The game. Yeah, like all that kind of stuff. Be mean to them, they'll like you.

Yeah. You might just attract women that need you to be mean to them, and I don't know if that's the type of person you want. And like, are you really going to want to put that kind of persona on for your life? Is that the person you want to be? Sure. It turns out just in general, unsurprisingly, it doesn't really pay off right, in the long run. There's a great study by this researcher, Adam Grant,

where he asked, who are the most. successful in these successful people in our culture. So is it givers, those that are super generous, takers, those that are selfish, right? Or matchers, people that mimic other people's behavior. I give you something, you'll give me something back, right? And most people are matchers. It's how society works. It's a tit-for-tap kind of situation. And what Grant discovered was that the least successful were the givers. Do you know who the most successful were? I don't think it's the takers. Okay.

Who do you think it is? It's either matchers or also givers. It's also givers. Oh, really? And what separated the two groups were those who knew where to draw the line. So givers that give so much that there's nothing left for them. So if I'm a medical student was one of the groups he studied, and I help you study for everything you need to and then don't focus on what I need to, I'm going to fail the test.

But if I say, hey, let me help you, I'm really good at these topics, and then we need to cover this stuff. I've just drawn that line. Then what happens is I get the support of other givers and I get the support of matchers. Now, takers might have short-term gains, but in general, gossip will bring them down because the matchers will feel that they're being unfair because the mattress at some point will give them something. Yeah. And then they'll be like, screw this. I mean, this person's just selfish. Yeah, your reputation will always catch up to. Yeah. Now, it might take a long time,

but you'll notice that Harvey Weinstein's in jail. Yeah. Now, are there rare exceptions that people get away with it? Yeah. But overwhelmingly, it's really hard to get to the top and be completely, completely self-centered unless you are so talented that you have a team that takes care of it for you. Right? You can maybe be a celebrity that has a team around you that manages you well enough that like they can keep you functional. But these are like very rare occasions. Right. Yeah, that makes sense. What's up guys? We're going to take a break real quick because I got to tell you a story. Dear friend of mine was driving on the highway the other night. Driving all of a sudden drunk driver comes on the highway the wrong direction. Headlights going down the highway the wrong way.

My friend swerves out of the way, gets side swiped, get spun around. It's a nightmare, a tragic thing. Fortunately, my friend is okay, but she's got an injury. Her shoulder hurts, her neck hurts. She's all anxious from her traumatic accident. I mean, it's crazy shit. And the last thing you want to do after you get into a bad accident is have to find an attorney. And you've got to call someone and they're asking you questions. And it's just a lot to deal with. If you're ever injured, you can check out Morgan and Morgan. And getting on the line with an attorney couldn't be easier. I mean, it's more like using an app. Like you can get an attorney without ever having to leave the couch. and eight clicks or less, you can submit a claim to Morgan and Morgan and get on the line with

someone that can help you. One of the amazing things about Morgan and Morgan is that their fee is free unless they win. That's right. If you're injured, you can check out Morganandmorgon.com, and unless they win your case, it is free. That's a pretty good deal. If you're interested, for more information, go to for the people.com slash gagnon. That is, for the people, F-O-R-the-people.com slash G-A-G-N-O-N or dial Pound Law. That's for the people.com slash Gagnon or pound law from your cell phone. Now, let's get back to the show. You asked about the manipulation. As a behavioral scientist, do I have a ton of knowledge and can I theoretically apply these? Absolutely. But I have two answers. One is,

it's really clear it's just not beneficial in the long way. Second is that I'm very very transparent about why I do things like that. So I'll say, hey, we could go out for drinks, but rather than having a habit that's probably less healthy, how about we work together, sweat a bit, we'll like each other more as a byproduct, we'll bond more, and then we can take a walk and talk. Are people ever turned off by that? The transparency in sort of what's happening? If they are, they probably haven't told me. Like, you know, there's plenty of things that people will not tell me. If they did, I don't think I'd be insulted. But like, I'd much rather be transparent than have it backfire.

Right, yeah. Keep everything above board. Here are my intentions. I want to connect with you. And for me, and I think statistically, based on my research, this is the best way for us to connect. I probably wouldn't say statistically because then they might feel like they're in an experiment. But I would definitely say, hey, you know, be much more fun bonding experience.

Let's do this. Or working out as an option, let's take a walk. Right. Like be a little active, be a little healthy, get a lot. some air. Yeah. Steve Jobs is like notorious for that. I'm reading his biography right now and he's constantly walking with people. Yeah. Just constantly, you know, let's go for a walk together. Even just like that little exertion, I think probably helps one people kind of think because you're not so confined to like this, you know, you're not in like the system one lane. You're in the system two where

you're kind of like just letting it flow. And then secondly, that shared, you know, that shared exercise. Yeah. I'm also like a kind of fidgety person. So I just do better when I'm moving. I think this way with cigars also. I think the reason why guys love cigars and like cigar lounges is that there's a thing to do. Yes. So we get to talk. And if I got nothing to say, I can just take a puff. I can kind of fidget with it.

I can relight it. I can ash it out. I have an object in my hand. I think oftentimes when people, especially men are talking and, you know, given, you know, all the issues with socializing today that I think a lot of people have, is that they'll just kind of sit there and be like, all right, what do I do? I don't have any anything. And I think for men specifically, I also, I've heard this with. bars that like men, have you heard this, that historically like, you know, two men working together, they'd be side by side. So they'd either be walking or they'd be, you know, hunting and they'd be

looking at an animal and, you know, trying to scope it out or they'd be in war and they, every, all of men's social interactions happen side by side. And that I've heard that the bar is sort of a proxy for that. That men sitting side by side at a bar is how guys specifically feel better socializing. Whereas women might be better socializing face to face. What do you think of that? I think that I could come up with like 20 counter examples. So I think that might be like one of those, like the Barnum thing, you'll always find proof for what you're looking for.

Yeah. If you believe it, you'll see it. Yeah. But like, okay, but then we still need to dismember the animal, cook it, eat it around the fireplace, share stories. That's true. Right. Like we raise our young.

We don't raise our young side by side. We raise our young in front of us most likely so we could have conversation. Sure. Meetings, all that kind of stuff. I think when you're lounging, which hunter-gatherers tended to lounge a lot, there was much less work. Yeah. Because you bring down one decent-sized animal you're feeding for a while, right?

So I think it's like an interesting theory. I'm not an anthropologist. Yeah, I'm not sold on it. What is the third part of the influence equation? So it's this idea of belonging. So let's just do a quick review, right? Yeah. People connect over shared whatever, right, common ground.

It could be religion, it could be activities, it could be interests. And one of the things that when we were talking about trust was that if you don't have a pre-existing common ground, create it. It's that cooking together, exercising together. It's knitting. It's, I don't, whatever you like. You like cosplay, go. you know, to whatever, design some cosplay. Go to Comic-Con, make it happen.

Yeah, whatever it is. And you look at Comic-Con and you find people in their element there, like in their community in a way that they would never be back home or back in school. Because they get to be them. Right. So that's the connection stuff. Now, there are certain things that trigger connection. I go into it in the book in depth.

But if you want people to be interested in you, we discuss things like novelty, right, that, like, draw people in. There are a bunch of others. People can read the book. The trust stuff, trust is a byproduct of shared effort or vulnerability loops, right? Vulnerability loops are part of shared effort, but they can also be communicated. They can also be signaled. It could be like, hey, pass me the, right?

And you pass something to me. And that's the trust side, right? The other really critical thing for people to understand about trust is that it's not made of what we think it is. So trust generally researchers agree it's made out of honesty. you're done the truth, competence, you're capable of doing the job, and the third is benevolence, that you have other people's best interests at heart. And here's the critical thing about it. Not all three are equally valued.

In our culture, we think that the most important thing is confidence. I can do what people expect of me. I am capable. I am strong. I am tough, right? But if you were to, you've done who knows how many interviews over the years and podcast episodes and you were to bomb a podcast. It would be strange if your team would go,

he's incompetent, we can't trust him anymore. If you screw up once, if you have a decent track record, nobody cares in general. Right. I think people tell themselves that though. Yeah, people get really self-conscious about it. I'm only as good as my last thing.

Game, show, podcast, whatever. Whatever it is. Now, but it's all anti-fragile, right? Like, you get better. You learn from it. Then if you were to listen to your original, podcasts now. It's like, it's so cringe. Yeah, it's awful. Stand-up, same way. You listen to an old stand-up set. You're like, what did they laugh? Yeah, what is I doing? Even if you do good,

you listen back, you're like, ugh. But if you found out that somebody was lying to you, you'd begin to doubt everything they've said and the things they say moving forward. Oh, interesting. So in your mind, you think, especially in America, competence is like the foremost thing. Yeah. And so I'm like, and I think that actually leads to a lack of vulnerability, that I'm not going to be vulnerable because I'm afraid of revealing my lack of competence. Yes. So, So I'm going to cut myself off from everything because competence is paramount. When in reality, honesty for a lot of people probably takes precedent over competence. So honesty will take precedence for almost everybody over competence, right?

Because if you, like, nobody wants to be lied to. You want your narrative of life to be concerned. I'll forgive someone for being incompetent, for being kind of dumb. Or late. Yeah. It's hard to forgive someone for just looking you in the face and telling you something that's not true. A flat out lie, right? Yeah.

Now there is a weird loophole and it works like this. me and you are walking down the street. You say, hey, I forgot something. Do you mind if we stopped by my friend's house? I just want to pick it up. We enter the front door. And as we do, 40 of my closest friends jump out and scream, Happy birthday, John!

And you have thrown me a surprise party. Yeah. That would be super weird if I turn to you and I say, I can't be friends with me anymore. You just lied to you. How dare you? How, what? Well, I never.

Right? You proposed to your wife and she's like, Really? You brought me to this beach? And you brought all my family here? You lied to me for this. I thought we were just picking up shells. Yeah, right? And now you're giving me the most precious item in the world, a diamond. How could you? That's funny. So the, we can see benevolence that people have our best interests is more important to us than honesty. And honesty is more important than competence. Now in our society, we lead with competence. We need to lead with benevolence. That's also why it's so important. to be direct and honest with people because it's having their best interest at heart. And the example I sometimes give when I give talks, I do a lot of corporate speaking, is if somebody goes to you and says,

hey, our server, you have a podcast, you need to store your stuff somewhere. Our servers are up 99.999% of the time. They're like, oh, wow, that's really competent. Salesperson too comes to you and says, I know that for you having your podcast be live, your files up and your team being able to access them and your audience being able to listen,

is your entire reputation. I'm not going to risk that for anything. Here's my phone number, day or night, if there's ever an issue. You call me and we will figure this out together. I like that better. You trust that person more. Yeah.

Because they led with benevolence. And then they demonstrate hopefully honesty and competence over time. Right. Now, I didn't mention any competence. I could have had the worst servers in the world, but you have my phone number, right? Right.

And you forgive that to an extent, but if it's consistently incompetent, that's when you're like, look, you're a great, guy, you're trying to help me, but you're incompetent. We can't do this. And that's because we view benevolence and honesty as character traits, whereas competence is something that can be upgraded. You don't really view people's honesty as something that could be upgraded. Right. I can't teach you to be more honest without a lot of therapy and a lot of injecting you with social morals and stuff

like that. But I can teach you how to fix a server or we can work on this together to make you more competent. That's interesting. And so if you were even, let's say, I have a few friends who are operators in the military, high-level special ops guys, who I've hosted over the years. And you would more likely want somebody who is more team-oriented that might be a little bit less competent than somebody who's incredibly competent and not team-oriented at all because then the ego will get in the way. Oh, that's interesting.

Right? So you could have the most talented, you know, sniper. But if they always think they're right and they don't care about the rest of the team, how are you going to operate? Because these groups, it's not like Rambo going off alone. It's teams of highly trained people that coordinate together and work together. Right. And so you're much probably better off with somebody who's slightly less confident,

but has much higher levels of benevolence and honesty because your life is on the line and you need to know that that person has your back. Interesting. Yeah, that's fascinating. That makes a lot of sense, especially I know you talk about serial killers in the book. Yes. Because as far as a breach of trust, people will trust doctors disordinately. Yeah. Can you expand on that just briefly? So when you look at the jobs that people trust the most, it tends to be benevolent jobs, right?

Nurses are number one. Doctors are near there and so on. And the reason is that you expect people that go into medicine to be benevolent. There's very strict rules about the honesty and all that. Yeah, there's this Hippocratic oath and it's like benevolence, non-malfeasance, I trust them 100%. And you expect a certain level of competence, even though like if you actually look at the rules in the medical, it's kind of like funny. Yeah. Because it's just there's so many complexities, right? But everybody really has the best intentions.

Nobody becomes a doctor and works in an emergency room because they, like, desperate for the money, there's much easier ways to make money than dedicating your life to, like, being surrounded by people who are constantly sick. Yeah, being on call all the time and blah, blah, blah. It tends to be a really benevolent group of people. And so they're very trusted. At the time I wrote the book, the least trusted was car salesman. Now I think it's like senators.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So this doctor specifically that you talk about in the book. I talk about the good doctor. He had a local practice. He took care of a lot of elderly patients. And a mortician, I believe it was, realized that a lot of death certificates were signed by him. And that's not actually uncommon because if you really are a personal doctor,

you'll be the first call from the family when your family member dies. And then one day, a letter came in the mail from a British legal system, kind of like a lawyer, telling a woman that her mother's inheritance was given to her doctor. And she was like, this is so weird. Did this person supplant me in her love?

Maybe she trusts him so much that she would give her inheritance to him or something. And so she tracked down the paperwork and the people who signed it. and what they thought they were signing was a medical release that the woman was approving a medical procedure, and they were just witnesses for it. They were sitting in the waiting room. And then he killed her with, I think, an overdose of morphine. And it turned out that when they exhumed a bunch of bodies, that he had killed hundreds of people. And he was the most prolific, if that's even appropriate to say,

serial killer, possibly in history. Yeah. So they know of at least, around like 280, 285 deaths, there's probably more. Crazy. Hospitals covered it up because they didn't want the lawsuits. More of reputation. We had a doctor that's the most prolific serial killer in history. I mean, the cover up makes sense. It's not right, but it makes sense.

And he seemed like he kind of looked like Santa. He was like, he had the look that you like kind of want to trust the guy. Jolly. Yeah, he had like a small practice or private practice with a few hundred or a few thousand people. Yeah, crazy. Yeah, but that's, it goes to show that when you're on the inside, It really is, like, when trust is established, there's also that famous case of, like, the Cuban spy in the CIA that covered Cuba. Oh, Ida Monez, Montez or something.

Yeah, and nobody, like, once you've built trust, we tend to, like, you know, push things away and not really think about it. Because being skeptical all the time has such a negative ramification. You can't live like that. You have to be skeptical at the beginning. Yeah. And then you no longer are skeptical over time. Yeah. So it's not like occasionally people go, oh, how didn't I see all the signs that my spouse

was cheating or whatever? It's because we're not wired to it. Right. We're wired to trust. Right. It's not like we have an automatic default to trust. It's culture. There's a lot of cultural cues, right?

Like I'm not worried that I'm getting robbed by the bus driver in New York because I trust the MTA of New York, right? It's established. Right. I would be worried. maybe in, if I'm traveling through Latin America, that like, where you have less faith in the institutions that govern. Exactly. That makes sense.

So belonging, trust, connection. I'm curious, and I know you got to run in a second, but I'm curious, how did you come to this research? Why were you interested in this? And then how have you applied it to create these dinners? So I don't, we've never discussed the dinner. So we should probably update like the people listening. So I initially came across, okay, backstory is I was in my 20s and I think I was like just about your age, a little bit older.

And I realized that, you know, people always said I was smart and I worked hard, but I didn't really have any success that was meaningful in any way. Nobody cared what I had to say or anything. I was in a personal development program. and the program leader said that the fundamental element that defines the quality of our lives are the people we surround ourselves with and the conversations that we have with them. So if you want to have a dramatic impact on your life, you either have to change what you're talking about with the people in your life. So instead of like talking about getting drunk,

maybe we talk about starting a business. Suddenly that changes your life completely, right? Or you change the people that you're talking to. So add people to your social service. circle. And I said, oh my God, that makes so much sense because every day I set an alarm for 6 a.m. to work out and I don't work out. And then I beat myself up for hours for not having an exercise routine and not being healthy and not being successful and, you know, all these things. And, but as a science geek, I wanted to know if this was actually true. So I came across a

study about the obesity epidemic. Does obesity spread from person to person like an infection like coronavirus? Or is it a percentage of the population? Like you don't get Alzheimer's because I shook your hand. Right. Right. Like that would be the dust of our analysis. And what they found was absolutely startling. If you have a friend who's obese, your chances of obesity increased by 45%. Your friends who do not know them have a 20% increase chance. And their friends who are now several degrees out have a 5%. Yeah, that's crazy. Now, this is true for happiness, marriage and divorce rates, smoking habits, voting habits. Maybe the percentages are different, but our habits are viral.

And that makes sense because when you see a friend doing something, you're more likely to do it, right? So that's when I realized not only do I need to meet exceptional people, so it has a positive impact on my life and hopefully vice versa. but if I connect them to each other, then not only will the experience improve my life, but it will experience will improve their lives and draw them closer. Because with every additional connection we share, the closer you are to me. So I said, okay, I need to meet the most exceptional people in our culture. I need to connect with them and I need to build trust with them.

That way I have a relationship. and I need to give them a sense of belonging so that they have a relationship with all these other people that I surround myself with. Easier said than done. I think a lot of people hear that and they're like, oh yeah, duh.

If you are around influential people, you're going to become more influential. If you're around wealthy people, like those things might help, but if I'm some kid living in the middle of nowhere, I don't know anyone, what do I do? I'm sure there's people listening to this being like, oh, John, you know, you know everyone

or like, it's easy for you to do it because you would probably already had this huge base of people. I had none of it. I mean, not that I had none of it. I was social side, some friends for sure. But I didn't know the people that I know now at all. I didn't, like, I'm not, you know, a celebrity.

I didn't, my father's not some famous business person or anything like that. My father did fine. He's an artist. But, like, that doesn't really lend itself to, you know, knowing the CEO of Hearst or whatever, right? Sure. So how did you change that? So what I did was I modeled the behavior of the most influential people in our culture.

And I asked what would actually cause them? connect, go deep into the characteristics in the both. And then I spent my adult life convincing people to come to my home, cook me dinner, wash my dishes, clean my floors, and weirdly they thank me for it. So I invite 12 people at a time. And that's the worst name possible. I named it before social media existed. It's called the Influencers Dinner because I was studying what influences people. And 12 people come. They're not allowed to talk about what they do or even give their last they cook dinner together. So you see that IKEA effect, right? And when they sit down to eat, they get to guess what everybody does and they find out they're sitting with Nobel laureates,

Olympic medalists, CEOs. I've had prime ministers and royalty and all that. I've hosted probably over 2,500 people. My 285th dinner was last night. Oh, wow. We had everything from Pulitzer Prize winners to songwriters that are Grammy Award winners that wrote like that. who was it? Oh, that super hit by Halsey and the K-pop group, BTS. Oh, yeah. So she wrote, I guess, was one of the writers of it and like won a bunch of Grammys for different things. Oh, wow. That's cool. So, like, we've had the entire spectrum down to the voice of the dog from who let the dogs out, the bark.

Oh, yeah, yeah. You want a Grammy for that. Or the world's foremost expert on poisonous animals. So he travels to the National Geographic Explorer, Ph.D. in pharmacology, travels around the world, collecting. the most rare scorpion, spiders, snakes, all that kind of stuff to use the venoms to make medication. Wow. So like you name them, I've probably hosted them short of like Oprah and, you know,

Steve Jobs or whatever. But I've hosted like, you know, everybody else. And what is your criteria? Like how do you select groups and invites people? So I actually am not involved in it. Because I'm not an expert in any industry than maybe behavioral science. tech to some degree, maybe, a little. I'm in geek culture. I know my Star Wars and Star Trek. But I have a research team of three people. They spend all their time finding top people across

every industry in major cities. We have a database of 10,000 potential guests. We've hosted about 2,500, 12 at a time. I mean, I do about five dinners a month. It's starting. It's up super slow. Are you at every dinner? Yes, that's a requirement. That way it doesn't jump the shark. Like it doesn't, because if other people started hosting them, I couldn't do quality control. And it would grow so fast that, you know how like people say they did a TED talk and really they did like TEDx something? Right. So it loses its kind of quality control. And don't get me wrong, both TEDx and Ted are fantastic organizations. Right. So I didn't want like other people who didn't, weren't maybe as benevolent or as systematic or whatever it is doing it. And so I wanted the community to feel like they all had the

same experience. Yeah, that's interesting. And how did you feel when you did the very first one? Because I think a lot of people are looking at this and they're like, okay, so I want to connect to people so I can just invite them all to my house. One, that seems way too easy. Like, duh, if you just invite people to your house, they'll come. But like, how do I know that they'll enjoy it? Won't they think I'm weird? Like, I think there's so many insecurities that people are dealing with when it comes to connecting with people, especially influential people, that would prevent them from taking that step. So I think the first thing is, like, listen, we don't license the dinners.

We don't, right? You have to do your own thing. If your thing is like a game's night or you're really into basketball, whatever it is that if you're going to gather people, do the thing that you care about. Because by the third or fourth time you're running it, if you don't like it, you're going to be miserable. Yeah. You're at a knitting thing and you're like, I don't like knitting.

Yeah, like, what the hell am I doing it? I mean, like, is it super cool that like Gail King is here and we're knitting together? maybe. I don't know if you care about meeting Gail King. So the things that I would point to are one, day one, I started with people that I kind of knew. I did not start with famous people. I didn't have the street cred to do that. As the events and the dinners continued, I'd ask for recommendations. And so I remember the first kind of really impressive person I hosted was somebody who had won an Emmy for the Daily Show.

And so I met him at a party. I'm like, hey, I run this cool dining experience. He's like, oh, that sounds awesome. And he came. And they recommended more daily show people. So he now had like, at every third dinner, we had an Emmy Award winner. And I then realized, oh, I should reach out to the Tony Award winners. And so I started an entire research project.

And the Tony Award winners, nobody, that's for like Broadway shows, they don't necessarily get invited to that much stuff. Isn't that funny? I think people have this false assumption that if you're successful, if you're nominated, if you're whatever, you don't have time to go to dinners. You have all these other things you've got to do. All these other people you like to hang out with, blah, blah, blah. Successful people know that their network is what gives them status and connection and everybody wants a seat at the table. So the key is to just start something. It's not going to be the same. The dinner I did on day one looks completely different than the dinner I do. 285. And I hope it looks completely different from the dinner I do at like 600 because otherwise I'm not growing. Otherwise, that anti-fragility is not kicking in. Right. Yeah. So the key is start off slow. Do something you enjoy. Start off small. People like, I'm going to run a conference and there's going to be 200 people there. And then you burn yourself out and never want to do anything again. Yeah. Go to coffee with four friends and go from there. Right. Like go take a walk. Start a run club. I don't know what it is,

but keep it super simple and small. And with small increments, it's going to just get better and better. And you're going to look back and be like, wow, I've created this entire life for myself and have been able to connect with all these amazing people that led to promotions and jobs

and business and clients and media and all that. How has this impacted your life since starting it? It's like asking a fish, how is it to be in water? Yeah. Right? what people tend to look at are like weird accolades and stuff like that. I am consistently in the rooms I shouldn't be in, right?

Not like in a bad way, but in the sense, we talked about I was at Times Square on New Year's. Like, who am I? I'm a behavioral scientist and author. Like, why would I be there? I go to the Emmys almost every year. Like, I'm probably the only behavioral scientist in the entire room and at the governor's ball. and there are all these actors and producers and directors and celebrities and all that. And then there's me and like, you know, I'll bump into a celebrity.

We'll talk for a few minutes and like, oh, I'm actually working on a project having to do with, can we talk about behavioral science? And I'm like, oh my God, that's crazy. Like, yeah, of course, super famous comedian. I'd love to do an analysis on your, whatever it is, right? So like that's kind of like the sexy stuff. But then there's the really simple stuff that really impact your life. Like, I was recently poisoned by a food delivery company that had a chemical in their food that ended up in the hospital.

What? Yeah. You've got to call your Nat Geo, dude. Come over. Fix me. I've been poisoned. So I called the former director of the CDC. That was my, like, go-to phone call.

And I called Dr. Dean Ornish, who was like a super famous doctor. And because of the community, they came and lived. literally, like, protected me from bad medical care at the hospital. Wow. One of them owns a very prestigious private medical group. His name is Jordan Schlaen. He's a fantastic primary care physician who owns this, like, concierge medical service. They sent a doctor to the hospital to make sure that I was being taken care.

Wow. And it's cool to have a bunch of access to a lot of cool things. Yeah. do you actually feel connected to the people that you're hosting? Yeah, I love them. And it's reciprocal. Yeah, I mean, I think so. And here's the interesting thing.

It's never the people that you think that you're going to fall in love with. Like, you think, okay, oh, my God, I loved that guy's movie. I can't wait to be friends with him. And it was like nice to meet him and he was interesting. and then it's, you know, like, I don't know, somebody, the manager for Durand, her name is Wendy Laster. Like, I could literally sit for hours and talk to her. Now, would you have ever thought, like, you look at the two of us, what we do, any of that, that we would be like besties and, like, sit down and giggle together? Yeah.

Like, no. But it's just amazing that because of the diversity of people that I come across, where I end up making friends. You were just invited just like a regular dude? We tried it. And it ends up being really awkward for them. Really? Because people have to talk about their accomplishments

and then they don't feel like they match up to everybody else. Interesting. So what we did was we launched a salon series where we invited about 60 to 100 people, mostly former dinner guests. But hey, Joe on the street could come if they wanted. And we do a little bit of background check to make sure that they're not like crazy.

And we surprise people with three like superstar speakers. So it might be like Bill Nye the Science guy giving a talk or having when the roots perform or, you know, like whatever it is. And we play games and do activities and all that. And people have cocktails and eventually go home eventually. And so it's a really special experience. But yeah, in that scenario, it's not about your actual. escalates, like there's no bragging portion, so it doesn't put people in an awkward situation.

That makes sense. I believe that you have to design the experience for what it is that you want to accomplish, because that's going to be the way that the community is built. Right. And so we aren't exclusive at the dinner for the purpose of being mean to people and keeping them out. We are building that community for the purpose that that way the nonprofits that are there have access to the media and the philanthropy, and they can have an impact.

That way the writers could get a story and the outlets about the new books that they have coming out. That way we can impact our communities and our social causes. And we can bring in people that normally wouldn't be in those circles in a more social setting rather than in such a formal setting where they'd feel awkward. Right. And if you're not someone that can go to your dinner specifically, you can start your own meetup. And you can go to... You can do your own thing, whatever it is, but it has to live with your values and your characteristic.

if you try to copy somebody else's format, and there's tons of formats out there. There's something called Dinner on Death. There's something called Dine in Blanc. There's fitness groups and all that. But if you try to copy somebody else's, you'll just upset all the people who've ever attended the original. And you'll always be the copycat that nobody wants to participate in. Of course. Well, that's awesome.

Well, I really enjoyed your book. I thought it was great. Where can people find it? And what's the name of it? What's the name of your other book? It's called, You're Invited. the what's it called

the art and science of connection trust and belonging and it's literally everywhere you could go like into Barnes and Nobles or it's a New York Times bestseller

Wall Street Journal bestseller so Amazon and books and whatever whatever books or Audible yeah I think it's even there's a sale right now on Audible

so like if you're into that go for it and then my first book is called the 2 AM principle that's out of print like the it was crazy. I spent 10 years

traveling around the world trying to understand the science of adventure. Maybe we'll talk about it sometime. Yeah. And then you can find me in johnlevy.com and I'm on all the social platforms. I welcome messages from random strangers. I'm John Levy T.LB on Instagram.

T-like Thomas, I like Lyon, P-L-L-I and Blyke boy. Awesome. John Levy, thank you so much. I appreciate it. This has been an absolute blast. Thank you. This has been great. I'll talk to you soon.