Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Dan Ariely on the Psychology of Stress, Misinformation, and Misbelief

Episode Date: October 30, 2024

What makes rational people adopt irrational beliefs? And, what can we do to bridge the growing divide in society?Here to help us answer those questions is today’s guest, Dr. Dan Ariely. Dan is a renowned behavioral economist, Duke University professor, and author, known for his groundbreaking research on human decision-making, irrationality, and the psychology behind beliefs and behavior. I’ve admired Dan’s work for a long time – his insights into how stress, cognition, and social factors influence our beliefs have been groundbreaking. He’s the author of multiple best-selling books, including Predictably Irrational and his latest work, Misbelief – where he tackles how seemingly rational people come to believe in, and fiercely defend, things that just aren’t true.In today’s conversation, we dive deep into the psychology of belief and the importance of challenging our own assumptions. Dan shares the fascinating ways stress and cognitive biases can lead us down paths of misbelief, and how empathy and curiosity can help us bridge divides in this polarized world. Whether you’re interested in the intricacies of human psychology, the challenges of navigating modern-day stress, or simply want to learn how to better understand those around you, this episode is packed with insights that will make you think deeply about the world we live in. It may just change how you think about your own beliefs and rationality._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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show. Dan is a renowned behavioral economist, Duke University professor and author known for his groundbreaking research on human decision-making, irrationality professor and author known for his groundbreaking research on human decision-making, irrationality, and the psychology behind beliefs and behavior. I've admired Dan's work for a long time. And in today's conversation, we dive into his latest book, Misbelief, to explore the psychology of belief systems and the importance of challenging our own assumptions. It may just change how you think about your own beliefs and rationality. So with that, let's dive right into this fascinating conversation with Dan Ariely. Dan, welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast.

I've been following your work for a long time, and I feel like I'm a student of yours. So thank you for through your writings and the way that you've communicated your science and your art of your science to make it so available. And I've been I've been following for a long time. And I mean, just out of all respect, before we get going, how are you? So first of all, thanks for the kind words. And it's very lovely to be here with you. How am I? It's a very, very tough question.

I feel that the world is in a very, very strange place. And I feel that my little corner is kind of safe and wonderful. I'm writing a second kid's book. I'm helping to write a TV show loosely based on my life for NBC. I have this kind of creative energy, but then I look at the world at large. I'm currently in Israel. You know, what's happening in Gaza, what's happening in the north, what's happening with Iran politically. You know, COVID was a very tough period for me.

As you know, people thought I was helping to bring around COVID. So it's been, it feels to me that the world is out of whack and I'm waiting for it to come back to some sensibility. So I have this duality that when I stay in my little corner and I think about my little projects and my research, I'm very happy. When I step up, I feel the world is just really out of whack. I think something has very bad happened to the world during COVID and it has not recovered from that. It's actually getting slightly worse. So that's it. Yeah.

I love the appreciation of the duality in it, in that you're having a unique experience. And then when you step back, you can see that the world feels a little off-access. And so I can relate to that. And so I appreciate the sensitivity. And you kind of slid in there that at one point during COVID, I mean, hate mail, death threats, and you highlight this in your latest book, Misbelief, that you were called out for contributing to the COVID pandemic.

Can you just tell or share that story and what that was like? Because you said something bad happened to people. I mean, I can't imagine being at the center of that intensity during the topsy-turvy nature. Yeah. It was really kind of the dive was incredible. So here we were, March 2020, and I feel I'm the most useful I could ever be in my professional life. COVID is happening, lots of social science questions. The chief of police from some country calls me and says,

do we do fines or not? Help me figure out. We think about distant education and distant work and reducing domestic violence and lots and lots of questions. And I just work on that. And all of a sudden, in one day, I learn that I'm really, really hated by a group of people, that there's a group of people who think that I've created, that I'm a monster. And they burn my books and they issue me death threats. And my first instinct is to try and fix that,

is to call them and talk to them. And I spend a month just trying to explain myself, failing completely, miserably. Oh, their story was already baked. That's right. That's right. Oh, my God. Yeah. And, you know, it's one thing to come to somebody and they say, oh, I believe in X, I believe in Y.

But when somebody tells you that they're expert on you, on me, and I said, but no, it's not true. But after about a month of failing, I decided to study this phenomenon. It became so important to me. And then I spent the next two years kind of in the dens of misinformation online. And it was a very, very tough journey. I think fantastically interesting as well. I think very telling about our time. And this book is really an attempt to understand the psychology. It's about the question of how do we take kind, wonderful, thoughtful,

creative people and what happens to them that they started adopting this alternative narrative and what can we do about it and what it means for society. But it was very taxing. Terrible nightmares, hard to focus, very, very taxing experience. And can you give a concrete example of what a misbelief is? So for me, misbelief is about two components. It's about believing something that ain't so, but also adopting it as a framework from which you view the rest of your life. So if somebody thinks the earth is flat, it doesn't just end there, believing the earth is flat. They also believe that NASA is lying to them and the US government is lying to them and that there are no satellites and every airplane pilot knows it and they're not selling it. Now they look at life from saying, what else are they hiding?

So it's about this duality. And by the way, it's not right and left, everybody has those. But it's about adopting these things as a framework from which to view life, and then trust just erodes from there. And that's one of the reasons why it's so dangerous for society. And you had to kind of bridge the two, You had a group of people who were misbelieving something about you. And the misbelief was that you were actually one at the epicenter of releasing COVID-19 and kind of bringing it forward and part of the grand conspiracy of why people are being shut down and shut out of work. Yeah, they thought I was the chief consciousness architect. So they thought that this mass hysteria that was created that got people to be obedient and act in a certain way and put masks and get vaccines and so on. Like in some way, it was a big compliment. Because who else could get the whole world to be obedient?

So, you know, it was a compliment. Some of those people read my books. You know, it was so shocking. Like people who read what I wrote and why I wrote it and knew something about me thought I was capable of so much evil. It was incredible. So usually there's, and you highlight this in your writings, that there is some seed that could be accurate. And then like, I don't know, like, let's go the world is flat for a minute that when I look from my porch, it looks like the world is flat. And so there's some seed of observational or experiential truth. And then there's an exponential, like almost a radical slide into finding or confirming that misbelief. And so what was the seed, if you will,

of the misbelief that people had about you? So I think the seed was that I did help lots of governments. So I was already suspect. And they said, why a behavioral economist, a social scientist is helping government during an epidemic? They said, this doesn't make sense. They should have biologists, not a social scientist. I did work on vaccines in the past, on how to get people who want to get vaccine, get vaccine. I did work with the Gates Foundation in the past on early child nutrition.

And I said all kinds of things on the internet that if you pick and choose. For example, I had what I thought was a comedic response. I intended it as a comedy. It was in a medical conference when they asked people to come up with creative solutions to reduce healthcare costs. And I took the, you remember Jonathan Swift, he had this essay called A Modest Proposal. Jonathan Swift wrote Oliver's Travel, but he wrote this when the situation in Ireland was very dire, and he wrote an essay in which he proposed that the poor should sell their kids to the rich as food.

And he talked about how to cook kids and at what age to sell them, and of course it was satire, terrible, terrible. But anyway, it's called the modest proposal. So people said about health, I gave what I thought was comedic. I said health is about supply and demand. The system is able to give this, people want this and everybody's thinking about how can this system give more. I said why not think about how people would demand less? So I said, let's encourage smoking.

You know, people would be less expensive. I said, let's slow ambulances. Anyway, I gave all kinds of funny proposals. But anyway, you can imagine how in the wrong hands you can edit this, even though it's taken from a site that says this was said in humor and everybody laughed. Anyway, so people connected the dots. And at some point, I became a social currency. At some point, if somebody from that group didn't feel like they're getting enough attention,

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That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. There's a wild fire that catches and it just, you know, the internet can flame that progression, which is wonderful in some ways. And obviously when it's, I don't know, hate and vitriol connected to you, it's a whole different thing. And again, it's one thing for me to read about it. And I have not been on that side of it. So I don't really have a framework. I mean, the smallest framework I would have was if like, I don't know, maybe in high school or something,

if the whole school turned against me, something like that. So I think that this is like the origin story of your findings that started your research on misbelief. And what's the takeaway? I do want to make this available for the listener who really is saying, okay, well, that's great, but how does that relate to me? And I think you've got a lot to offer here. Yeah, so first of all, I think that if somebody asked us five years ago, what are the big problems that are facing humanity? I don't think misbelief and mistrust would have been there.

We would have made our own list, but it would have been there. I think now it's one of the top, maybe the top. And the reason is that unless we can agree, we can't work together toward anything. Take any problem we want to advance on and you basically would say that our conflict internally is preventing this. So I think it's one of the biggest societal problems. It's also tearing people and families apart. You know, you ask people, how many of you have somebody in your life that five years ago you looked at them and you say, me and this other person are looking at life in the same way.

And now you're looking at the same person and you say, I don't understand them. Something must be broken. How can they do this? And we all have these people in our lives. We all have these people at work. It's challenging for social relationship. We make them feel ostracized, they become more ostracized, friction is increasing, it's increasing politically.

So it's a very large problem that we need to solve on our small scale as a family and friends, and we have to solve it as a society. I've got family members that I can relate to right now that we see our political, our understanding of how the United States in particular ought to be run. And we're different. And I'm watching and you've perfectly highlighted it, is that when they feel othered or ostracized or

belittled, which I, that was never an intent of mine. So I don't know if that happened or not, but there was like a separation and of time spent because of the, let's call it the discourse. Then I started noticing that they were really defending themselves, like really defending as if there was a loved one's life on the line, as if they had just bet all of their life savings, as if they were willing to trade. They've traded something for this position and there's a desperation in it. And then I'm watching that and I hope that you can highlight your findings there. And then I turn it on me as a person who wants to figure out my place in the conversation.

Am I doing that? Like, am I too, like, defending my position as if it were my identity or all of my resources are, you know, vulnerable to another person? Like, it is difficult to understand. But can you talk about that slippery slope? So maybe I'll say one thing before that, which is in the book, I describe this machine that takes people and put them down the funnel of misbelief. And it's based on stress, cognition, personality, and social. And stress is the necessary condition. And it's not the kind of stress that says, gee, I have too much email. It's the kind of stress that says, I don't understand the world. I'm worried about COVID, anti-Semitism. Will I have a job? What is happening with AI? Why are the hooties shooting all of a sudden? Something about the world is very stressful. And then what we're looking for is a story. So for example, when you take people and you show them a picture with white

and black dots, randomly organized, what's called white noise. I said, do you see a pattern? Yes, no. Here's another one. Do you see a pattern? The more stressed people are, the more they see patterns. Why? Imagine you're in the jungle and you're stressed. Your brain is looking for patterns. Is there a tiger in these leaves? So the moment people are stressed, I don't understand the world, I'm worried and so on, we are attuned to finding stories and patterns and so on. And then of course, with the internet, we find them. So that's the beginning. But on the cognition side, that's the question of how do we process information compared to how we would process it if we were perfectly rational. And you just mentioned this argument that we have. And arguments are really amazing

because you talk to people and you say, think about all the arguments you had in the last three years. You talk, the other person talked. Let's assume you talk 50% of the time, you 50% of the time they talked. How many of the times ended with the other person saying, you know what, Michael, you're really right. I never thought about it this way. I never heard such clear arguments, but you know what, Michael, you're really right. I never thought about it this way.

I never heard such clear arguments, but you know what? You convinced me. Almost never happened. Never. And then you say, what about the other way? How many times have we told somebody, you know what? You're absolutely right. Now, why does it happen? Why don't we get convinced? And why don't we convince? Because we don't listen. We talk, they talk, we talk, they talk. What happens when they talk? Do we listen? No. We counter-argue.

They have not finished the first sentence, and in our mind we're imagining what they'll say, and we counter-argue. We're defending our position. As you said, we're like soldier defending our position. We don't really listen. And it's kind of amazing to look at our success history in convincing people

and still thinking that that's the right way to go. So it turns out there are better ways than just trying to argue with people. Meaning that arguing historically has not got it done. That's right. And I'll just give you a trick. And the trick is based on what we call the illusion of explanatory depth. The illusion of explanatory depth.

And the illusion of explanatory depth is relying on the idea that we are much more confident in our opinion than we should be. And therefore, we say, don't attack people's knowledge, attack their confidence. Shrink their confidence to the level of knowledge, and now you at least open the door. So how do we do that? And I demonstrated the illusion of explanatory depth with flash toilets i came to people and i said do you understand how a flash toilet works you say yes i said what about in a scale from zero to seven almost seven perfect and then i say for you, I have all the pieces of a flush toilet here.

Why don't you try and assemble one? Nobody ever manages to assemble them. And they say, so how well do you know them? And people say, not at all. Now, I don't attack. I say, help me understand. And that's the idea, is to say, do you understand? I'll give you an example in the US. We did this about the

elections. Wait, wait, wait, hold on before you take the leap. I'll remember the leap from toilets to the election, which is kind of funny in some respects, is that when I first came across your research, I was like, oh my, this is great. And I was like, of course I could. And then I looked at the pieces. I was like, wait a minute. How does a toilet actually work? Like in my mind, I'm like, oh, there's a handle. There's a thing.

It goes to a plunger. Wait, where do I put the water? Oh no, I put the water over. I put the plunger. And then in my mind, I'm like, of course I could. And then I ran into like how like it so i love the insight the insight is not this little trick um that can you explain it i love what you did is you attack confidence so and there's one other thing before we get to politics is that

i don't know if you know this, but athletes historically, according to research, overestimate their skills and abilities. Right. So when you square these two ideas, that people overestimate their ability to explain something or to explain how something works, and athletes overestimate their skills and abilities, how that's favorable for athletes is that they try more than maybe even they're capable of doing so they believe they can get it done because they believe that they're amazing even though they don't have the necessary evidence they overestimate what they're capable of and that allows them to try more to go further and then by that definition if you're what's, if you're shooting for the stars, at least you

might get the moon, that type of thing, right? And so when you hear that insight connected to the illusion of explanatory depth, how do you square those two for, let's call it elite performers? Yeah. So here would be the first thought that came to mind is that I think in general, people don't take enough risks in life. But society wants people to take more risk. So think about the following example. A friend of yours comes to you and says, I really want to open a restaurant.

What should you tell them? Don't. Most restaurants fail. People lose lots of money. Put your money in S&P 500. Don't open a restaurant. But how much would you like to live in a city when no new restaurant gets open?

Not so much. For the individual, a risk is not worth it. For society, it's incredibly important. The same thing is true about startups. Many startups fail. But VCs come to startup and say, we'll give you money so you'll have more willingness to take risk. We know that with your own money, you'll not take enough risk. So take our money and risk it because we want you to take risk.

Risk eventually is very good for society. We invent, we try, and so on. So I think that overconfidence, you know, I don't think you want everybody to be overconfident, but I think for people who are incredibly talented and can really create new domains, we want them to take risks. We want them to try things. Now, I don't want anybody to die or stuff like that, but we want people to try things.

And let's say you say, oh, you know, they'll succeed in a very small percentage. For society, it's great. We discover something new, right? And your ability and your skill new approach, and so on. By the way, as I was describing in the beginning kind of my troubles during COVID, the death threats and so on, to myself, I think of it as my Mount Everest. And tell me if you think, I'm not that good in sports,

but tell me if you think it's kind of a good metaphor. It was painful and difficult. I got bruised and injured. You know, it was terrible. But I also think I've learned something substantial and I'm imagining that people who climb Everest are kind of in the same way they get injured and bruised and and they suffer and it's not that they enjoy the process it's not that they you know laugh or smile during the process but at the end of the day, they feel they've done something that is incredibly worthwhile. But it was not pleasurable in the

sense of what we will think of as pleasure. So what do you think of this as kind of an intellectual Mount Everest? Is that kind of a good metaphor? Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentus. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company. And I was immediately drawn to their mission, helping people achieve performance for life. And to do that, they developed what they call the Momentus Standard. Every product is formulated

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at FelixGray.com for 20% off. I think it holds up well. There's two things that you would probably need to square with. One is people are not forced to climb Mount Everest, so they elect to do it. You didn't have an election in the process or a vote that this was going to happen. So there is that readiness or priming to do something difficult and that you were not afforded. So in some respects, it might be harder than Everest. The second is that you didn't articulate that I think probably is part of it, is that when people come down from Everest, and you're exactly on, that when you come down from a dangerous event, that it's not pleasurable. It's actually quite hard and difficult, and there is risk along the way. That it is very, very difficult to do this second piece,

not only physically get down, but to explain what you saw, what you smelt, what you felt, what you experienced. It's very difficult to try to explain that to somebody who has not been at a base camp and looked up, or certainly somebody who hasn't even thought about doing that. So it's a very difficult thing. There's a loneliness that comes alongside of it, which you didn't capture. And then actually, as I'm talking, there's a third variable, which I'd like to get your take on is that when somebody is doing something that's difficult or hard or risky, let's call it Everest, or I spent a lot of time, I spent about 10 years working with people in the

back country and adventure sports, doing things that if they make mistakes, they or a loved one would die. Let's just make it more concrete like base jumping. Everybody recognizes that base jumping is risky and dangerous. And then as soon as a loved one dies or somebody in the community dies, everybody, that's too big of a word probably, but most people go, oh man, how? Wait, what happened? Oh, she made that choice or he made that choice. Oh, yeah, I see why. I wouldn't have done that. Or man, I could have made that same thing. This is tragic. Okay, so there's an experience around it where they're trying to see themselves as part of the narrative. And then this is the really tricky piece, is that it affirms the danger and it affirms just how radical their lives are. And it fuels the progression to go further. It fuels risk.

It fuels an identity of the group that has survived. It's not that they want the person to die, but there's this almost second arrow that takes place where it is energizing giving. And it's a very complicated thing. If you haven't been in that experience, maybe like your experience, where you go, right, life is pretty fragile. Your psychological safety is more fragile than you think. And then it can fuel like, you know what, I'm going to really go for it in life because, you know, somebody almost died or somebody did die, or I almost died a psychological death, whatever. So that, that is a, and I'm not sure exactly how to square it yet, but that is a known experience.

And what happened with near misses? It's fascinating, but what happens with near misses? Somebody who could have died, like made it, like something went wrong, but somehow miraculously they were saved. Do those have similar impact as death? Do people look at the outcome or do they say, oh, this was- I love your question. The explanatory bias oftentimes is self-saving, self-serving. So if that person almost dies, they will confirm a narrative about the person. They say, yeah, but Joey or Johnny or Susie,

she's kind of dangerous now. That makes sense. She's kind of sloppy. So that saves their discernment on how to survive in dangerous environments. And or if they really respect that person, it'll over rotate to themselves. So if they really think that that person is highly skilled, takes the right risks, is a true pro, and that's how they see that person, they will over rotate to themselves and under risk in the future, which creates a hesitation, which is incredibly dangerous. So there's two ways it goes. Yeah. Very interesting. Yeah. I think that's the way, you know, extreme athletes think about risk and take risk is a really interesting way to study to study risk because yeah um they do get lots of experience of taking risk and getting feedback mostly feedback they're better you didn't die they're

better at it didn't die you didn't die you didn't die you didn't die that's right they're better at it yeah we we did some i think you'll appreciate this we did some some EEG studies with some of the most physical risk-taking people on the planet. And on average, they had lower cortical arousal, which is interesting. You know, like their brain and spinal cord activation was just a little bit lower than others. So they almost needed that stimulation to feel alive. The second is their prefrontal cortex where thinking and judgment and discernment tend to take place was a little less active just prior to the big thing. And so that would give them, I don't know, maybe the speculation is it would give them a higher tolerance for risk because they're not over evaluating it. And maybe actually makes them safer because what happens to people like you and me is that we get at the edge of the cliff and we tighten up and overthink and hesitate.

And then if we are to jump, it's not fluid. It's not like, it's not an expert jump. It's like a half cacked cock junk jump. And's like a half-cocked jump. And then we find ourselves in an even more precarious position on the land. So anyways. There is results showing that well-rehearsed activities like playing tennis, the moment people start thinking about them, they're doing them not as well. That their thinking actually interferes with the activity. But if we try to make connections between misbelief and extreme athletes, my journey through misbelief, I was alone. I didn't have a role model. I didn't have anybody else who did this alongside with me. But the journey of misbelievers is very social.

And they do lots of things for identity. For example, there's a term we call Shibboleth. And Shibboleth is a story that comes from the Bible that two tribes had a very difficult fight. They settled on two sides of the river. And then when they walked around, they wanted to know if the people they meet are from their tribe or from the other tribe. And these two tribes pronounce the name of the plant, Shibboleth, slightly different. It's a kind of a wheat. So imagine I walk around, I show you the plant, I say, hey, you, how do you call this plant?

If you call it the way I call it, we're brothers, we're friends, we're the same tribe. If you call it the way the other tribe calls it, now I know I need to chase you away. And we use the term shibboleth now for a discussion that is really about identity and not about the thing it looks like it's about. So when I show you the plant, I say, what's the name of the plant? I don't care about the plant. I'm asking you, which tribe do you belong to? And by the way, if you think about our politicians, you can think about how much of their statements are shibboleth. How much of their statements are actually not about the facts.

They're about signaling their identity. I believe in X, I believe in Y, look at me and so on, rather than I believe this is the nature of the world. And it's true for both sides, right? It's true for people on the right, it's true for people on the left. But the need for shibboleth is with words, not with athleticism. But if I'm in a group of people and I say run-of-the-mill statements, I don't say anything special. I need to be extreme.

I need to say something a little crazy. And now I show, look how good I am. And I'm guessing that the extreme athletes that you work with are kind of in the same way, that they need to increase their riskiness. You can't just do the run-of-the-mill activity. I mean, nothing from what they do is the run of the meal activity, but within the group, once you think about your group identity as an important part, then the pressure to say things that are saying, you know, I need to do something that is more extreme to show my connection to the group, to establish my place

in the group, and so on. So my guess is- There, you just nailed the center of it. Because with the extreme athletes, the higher the skill and the need to push the envelope, it becomes exponentially riskier. And then they succeed and they have more skill. They need to keep pushing the envelope and it's related to their place in the tribe or the community. And that's what's happening in sometimes with misbelievers. And I do want to go from toilets back to the elections, but with the misbelievers, yeah, right. So, but the misbelievers, they've declared something or signaled something. They've got recognition from the subgroup. And then to keep their position, they need to signal a little bit more that they have swallowed the blue pill.

They're a blue pill swallower or they are a flatther, or they are one of the ones that believe that the left is going to do this, or the woke movement is going to kill us, or that the right is going to become an autocracy or whatever it might be. So is that how you're shaping it? Yeah, exactly. So the toilet thing was saying, let's not argue. Help me understand how it works. In the same way, we asked people who thought that the last presidential election in the US was stolen.

We said, we're not arguing. Help us understand how do people count the elections? How do they get talent? And how do they get stolen? What's the mechanism exactly? And people said, they tried to explain it, and they said, you know what, I don't know. I don't know.

Because everything they tried to explain, it was clear to them that it can't happen this way. You know, there are people who supervise, all kinds of things happen. And when you ask for the details, they say, oh, you know, that doesn't work, that doesn't work, and so on. Now, did we switch people from thinking the elections were stolen to being 100% sure that they were not?

Of course not. But the moment- But you cracked the armor. Exactly. Exactly. And the moment people said, when we talked about misbelief, we said these two components, believing something and taking it as a perspective. The moment something is not 100%, it's not a perspective anymore.

Now you're saying, okay, it's more likely than not, but I'm open to all alternatives and I'm willing to listen and think. And maybe it's the other way around. So if you crack the armor a little bit, you open them up, soften them up a little bit from a confidence perspective, from a full declaration standpoint, your finding is that

they might just be a little bit more open to an alternative point of view. They have de-risked their identity just a little bit. Yeah. And what's really interesting is if you don't want to attack the core issue, you can even attack a side issue. So I'll give you an example.

So let's say you have an uncle and that uncle thinks that the immunizations have a G5 chip in them. And you're not going to talk about electricity and how does it happen and so on. Now, you might not want to attack the vaccine. You can say, do you understand how a zipper works? And they say, yes. And say, how does it work? And then they try to explain and say, you know what, I don't really know. And it turns out that you do a few examples like this and you shake people's confidence in their own knowledge in other things, it even helps with the vaccine. Now it's not as good as attacking the vaccine directly, but it's good to kind of decrease our confidence a bit in other things as well.

So someone says to you, let's play a script out here or a scene. Someone says to you, Dan, you know, you're not that naive. You know that the government is playing dirty. They can't be trusted. And then you say, what do you mean? And then I say, well, you know, like you're not that naive, are you? That you know that they're monitoring you. And you say, well, what do you mean? And they say, well, you know, on your phone, they're tracking everything. They know everything. And you go,

yeah, maybe. And then they say, and the chip in your arm, please. You know that that was a way, like look at all these bad reactions. And then do you... Okay, now interrupt the narrative. Then do you say... Wait, hold on a minute. Do you know how a zipper works? I'm sure you don't do it like that. No, I don't. So first of all, the discussion, if we talk about a discussion like this, I basically say, how do you think this happened? Like who made the decision? How do they, do they have a deal with Apple? Do they have a deal with Android? Like, help me understand how does this work? Like where? Okay. Dan, let's play along. Let's play along. I'll be the conspiracist here. It's Big Pharma.

You know, there's like, they're kind of running the government, youist here it's big farmer you know there's like they're they're they're kind of running the government you know it's like that's what lobbyists are for and they've got they've got a real seat at the table and they're this is their time they've orchestrated this whole thing they got this guy dan ariely to you know propagate the whole thing okay sorry you're actually in the story. So here is the approach. I say, okay, big pharma is a big term. Where do you think it's coming from? Is it coming from the CEO?

Is it coming from the scientist? Is it a special division? How do you think this is happening? Who is actually making the instructions? And how do they think this is happening who is who is actually making the instructions and how do they keep it secret from other people oh well it's not that secret you just have to look you have to do your research dan okay um look black rock owns most of these they own most of these and you've been reading the right things okay Okay. And Bill Gates, Dan, don't be so naive. I mean, Bill Gates, he's owning, look what he's just bought.

He bought all the real estate in the land and he owns all the farms. It's all working together. First of all, you're really playing the part well because these are the kind of arguments that they say. But the arguments are very general and I try to push it back to the pharma. So push me right back. Push, push me right back. So I'm saying, okay, so let's just focus on the pharma, for example, like who started with this idea?

Is it, is it, is it coming from the science? Is it, and so I would, I would basically say like, help me understand how does something like this, where does it start in the organization? You know, Dan, I see what you're doing. It's not that simple. It's very complicated. I've been studying this for six months now. And you need to just look it up. Yeah, that's a common approach.

Look it up. But you want to push forward. You want to say, is it the CEO? Is it starting from the science? Is it starting from the marketing department? Do they know about it? Is everybody knowing? You're trying to say, how do they hide it in their accounting?

And what are they risking when they're doing it? Pfizer is a big company. COVID is a small component. What happens when the FDA comes to inspect? We're just working on all of those things. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new

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conditioner, and a hair serum. With Caldera Lab, it's not about adding more. It's about choosing better. And when your day demands clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high quality personal care products that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. So you know what happens to me is that if I start asking earnest questions

and they don't have answers, I feel that frustration increases. There's a your. There's. Okay. Yeah, in that case and so and the other piece is like i just want to get your your tone and how and how you ask these questions i imagine how i know you you would be earnest in it like as if you really wanted to learn their position. Before I go further, is that correct? Very much.

The first month was tough. The first month was just tough. But after that, I decided to really try to understand them and I stuck to it. Even some people who said they want to be my executionaries. And I really tried to understand them. I actually gave ChatGPT my book, and I asked it to summarize it in one word, and the word it chose was empathy, which I thought was... The book, Misbelief?

Yeah, which I thought was a very interesting choice. But basically, I would say, look, I'm not arguing. I really want to understand you, and I really want you to help me understand you. That's all I want from here. I'm not arguing. I'm not this. I want to understand what you know and how you think and how you interpret it. Just try to help me understand you.

And that's all I really want. All I really want is to try and understand you. And that's all I really want. All I really want is to try and understand them. And when you go deeper every time another layer, and you say, okay, so who knows about it? And in what department? And what happens with other people? And what happens with accounting? And all of those things, people generally say,

you know what, I'm not so sure. I'm not so sure. And that's all you want, really. All you want is for people to understand how much they don't understand. Because now you're leveraging the illusion of explanatory depth. That's right. By the way, here's a very simple one. I ask people, do you have explicit opinion about the environment?

People say yes. I'm confident in my opinions about the environment. And then you say, and what have you read? And lots of people say nothing. And some people say the UN report. And then you say, did you really read the UN report? And say, not really. I just read the summary or I read something about it.

And then you say, okay, so how confident are you? And they say, you know what? I'm probably more confident than I should be. Because we just realized that what you thought you actually read, you probably didn't read. You read things that other people read about it, but were not that confident. And even when you say to people, I read, what did you read?

Where was it? Let's look at it together. I can't tell you with how many people. I looked with them at tweets and papers and evidence, and they look at it and they say, you know what? I thought it was a real paper, not this. I thought this was different statistics and so on. Now, it doesn't help all the time, but it's a really good approach.

And I'm going to ask you a question of going back to athletes, something that was in my mind earlier. Yes. So athletes at some point get older, and they have to leave, I'm guessing, the profession. How does that work when so much of their identity is connected and so much of their social capital? What happens in that stage and what do you advise people to do to make it a better transition? Oh, that's a great question. And I'm going to capture that, some insights. And before I do, I do want to know why you're asking that question.

What are you mapping that to? We talked about this importance of the group and identity. And leaving a group is very tough. So in the misbelievers, it's very tough to leave. The moment, if we think about the funnel of misbelief, when people get to the social part where their identity is connected to it, very, very tough to leave and when i thought about kind of the description of the athletes and the socialization and and the story and so on i thought very hard to leave but at some point they have to and when they have to leave

it's probably not of choice. It's probably some choice and some being forced to. And I just thought about what a complex connection. Now, we all retire at some point and so on, but retirement is easier because there's a date and everybody knows about it. For them, I'm guessing it comes earlier. It's not an arbitrary age it's about fit i mean so so just looks to me like one of the hardest it's almost like a funeral my imagination was it's kind of like a funeral that somebody's leaving something that so much

of their identity is connected to it so i I love the question and the thoughtfulness. So here's a couple insights that I think you'll appreciate. One is we live in the West in a performance-obsessed, an outcome-obsessed world. And it makes perfect sense if the culture has a value proposition. From a very early age, it is the broth of the soup that we're building of identity. And so it makes perfect sense in a performance-obsessed culture that we would accidentally develop performance-based identities. And at the young age this is where it gets really tricky and complicated um at a young age people are trying to sort out who they are they're you know if we go back to eric erickson's the

developmental psychologist who laid out some stages and like you know the adolescent age is really identity formation and so you're trying to figure out, am I punk rock? Am I rock and roll? Like, who am I? How do I fit in this world? And when the entire world around you is obsessed about performance, and then they niche down, if you're good at something and your cousins, your uncles, your parents, your siblings, your teacher, the president of the, um, or the principal of the school, if they're asking you about, hey, are you ready for, you know, the crosstown rival? Hey, I saw you at your last game. Nice job. Or like, hey, you'll bounce back from that next game. Don't worry. And you start to

see adults treat you differently because of the thing that you can do. And they're somewhat obsessed about your performance at a young age, you quickly foreclose on all of the other identities. And at that moment, you say, oh, I am an athlete. And this becomes one of the most dangerous statements that people can make. And it's the fuel that helps them get to the upper levels of their field because it fuels an anxiety that I am not okay without the thing I do. A performance-based identity is you are what you do and how well you do it and what happens to you on the other side when it doesn't go well is so anxiety-provoking because it's not like, oh, I just missed the, my bat missed the ball.

No problem. I'm going to try again tomorrow. When they come up to bat, their entire identity is at risk. So you're foreclosing identity. So now you have a narrow range to pull from. And then in that place, anxiety is fueled, obsessiveness is fueled, and that will get you good. But at the moment that you're asked to leave, most people I know are pushed out of the league. They don't leave on their own. It's really thrilling. It's amazing. It's like the standards are exacting. The energy is electric. It's a true support and challenge environment for when people get it right. And there's a single purpose. And it feeds people in an unhealthy and financially wonderful way in some cases. I'm thinking about people that have been on the podcast before you. Apollo Ono, one of the greatest in hockey.

Zdeno Chara, Kerry Walsh Jennings, four-time medalist, three-time gold medals. Chris Brosh, one of the greats that played. Julie Foudy, one of the soccer players. All of them have a similar story is that they have been, they exited and the transition was difficult. Their identity was wrapped in what they did. And so when you're no longer part of that community, that tribe, it's obviously, as you would recognize, incredibly jarring.

What we found from a bit of research is that those that work on prior to retirement, prior to being fired, prior to being pushed out, when they work on what they want to do for their second life curve, when they think about what's after, they play while they're in the league a little bit more freely and with less anxiety. So they've de-escalated, or I'm sorry, detangled their identity from what they do, and they can see themselves in a compelling future after. But we're just on the heels of the Olympics right now. At the time stamp, we're about, I think, nine days from the ending of the Olympics.

This is the period that I connect with all of my Olympians. Right now, in this next, I don't know, call it two more weeks, because there is a real dark hole that people fall into, even healthy people, because it is so electric and so wonderful. And so much of it is fueling that when the circus leaves town, there's trampled grass and trash left all over the lawn, that there's a blues or depression that takes place. This is a very, very difficult thing to do. The danger is that you chip all in and the risk is that's what's required to know what you're capable of. If you don't chip in and you don't take risks to your first point of this conversation, you never really know what you're capable of. This shows up in love relationships, in intimate relationships. If you don't really risk your emotional self to another person,

you'll never know deep love. If you don't really risk the vulnerability of going for it in your sport or your craft of choice, whether it's business included, you'll never really know what you're capable of. So these intrepid performers risk it all. And we clap and we tear them down. And we have very little appreciation for what it takes because most of us play it safe and small. And I recognize I'm on a soapbox right now. And I just thank you for asking this question.

One more quick question. If somebody came to you for advice and say, I have a kid, they want to be a gymnast, I think they could be number 1,000 in the world. Amazing. But number 1,000. Should they go for it or not? They'll never be above 1,000. The most they can aim for is 1,000. So, you know, should they go for it or not?

What would you say? It's a cool question. I'll answer it with a story and then I'll answer it concretely. This was early in my career. And when I was, a gymnast came in, she was somewhere between three and 10 in the world. And her and her mom came in, they flew in from Texas to see me. I'm based out of California. And they're really hopeful that she could unlock something because she was really struggling on the beam in particular.

And so I said, great, happy to meet with you. You know, thank you for coming. And I sat with the, this just brilliant, you know, bright eyed, 12 year old, 13, somewhere in that range. And it was obvious, Dan, that she was struggling from OCD, like pretty radically, but it was all facilitated toward the beam. She wasn't flipping light switches. She was just obsessive about the beam, about being perfect on the beam. And so I said, oh, I see what's going on brought mom back in and um and i said uh and i asked the the the gymnast to to to go in the in the waiting room and i said mom i see it i said it i think this is um this is not that complicated um i think i have a plan that I'm formulating in my mind. And I talked about the OCD.

And I said, here's the thing, though, is that I'm not sure how much of her OCD is facilitating her being one of the best in the world. So if we take the OCD out, I'm not sure that she will be at the same level of performance. And mom said, oh, so wait, you think that she has OCD? I said, yes, but I need to confirm it more and dah, dah, dah, dah. But yes, that's where it's showing up. And she says, and you can help that. And I said, yeah, I think so. And she says, right, but if we take that away, she might not be great. And I said, correct. It's an unknown. She said, oh, thank you

so much. Thank you so much. And she says, you know, that'll be enough for us today. So when you ask that question, if somebody could be thousands, would you recommend it? I just want to go and highlight kind of the insanity of the question of, do you think my child can be number one? Because the washout, Dan, if you knew what I knew about the insanity that goes into being the best in the world and the washout of the 99.5% of people that don't understand that realization, it is tragic. Now, if you were to ask me, back to your core question, number one thousands, I'd say my framing is mastery of self through craft.

So the craft is not that interesting. It's mastery of self that is a lifelong pursuit. So right now we're choosing gymnastics. And the aim is not to be one thousandth. The aim is to find something that you can really get to know yourself better and to know how you can express yourself in a meaningful way. It happens to be on the beam, no problem. But when you learn the inner disciplines, later in life, it might be in writing, it might be in therapy, it might be in relationships, it might be in venture capital, whatever it might be. Master yourself through mastery of craft. And I would also want to know, do you enjoy, do they enjoy it? And can you truly support your child and challenge them and unconditionally love them? That's what I would ask. Finding Mastery is brought to you by iRestore.

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you. No, but this might actually be an interesting way to think about doing something together. So I have been thinking a lot about all of these tasks that we ask people to do, and they're just miserable. So I'm talking about regular people. We say, look, eating well, it's just not that tasty, but you have to do it and you have to do it for life. Exercising, not that much fun, but you have to do it. Not texting and driving. It's more fun to text and drive, but you have to do it and you have to do it for life. Exercising, not that much fun, but you have to do it. Not texting and driving. It's more fun to text and drive, but you have to.

There's so much sleep and time. Take your medication. Don't drink. We basically tell people that to live well is going to be miserable. But they have to do it and they have to do it forever. And it gets worse for people with diabetes. is going to be miserable. But they have to do it and they have to do it forever. And it gets worse for people with diabetes. When you say being diabetic is terrible, fun is all sugar,

but you just have to be miserable and you have to do it all the time. And that's obviously not a very good strategy. So I started talking to some people who are very good at what they do. I started talking to concert pianists, actors, and some runners. And I've tried to kind of get from them a sense of where they find joy. And I don't mean bursting laughing, but I mean a sense of satisfaction and so on. And first of all, it's very clear that lots of people get joy from something like tennis. And I think that the reason is there's feedback. It's not so much about the competition, it's the feedback. You aim here, it comes here, you try harder. There's a feedback mechanism.

I think that yoga, because it's so slow, people get some feedback from proprioception, from the sense of where their body is. But I think that in most things, we haven't found where joy is coming from. And I suspect it can come from a sense of improvement. And what the pianists said were very interesting. They said that they make tiny variations.

And the actor said the same thing. The actor was interesting. The actor said that he plays at two levels. The level that he acts and another level in which he notices how he acts. He makes small adjustments and observe the audience's reaction to those changes. So that makes the whole thing much more gameful and interesting because now he can slide different

pauses. And the pianists said the same thing. They said that they make tiny changes that probably nobody who is them can almost notice but for them that's the the source of of enjoyment so they said when you start playing a new symphony there's a joy of learning improving but then when they get flat it's the joy of playing games and trying new things so anyway so now we're getting to what's my question to you. You said joy. And, you know, can you enjoy it? And what do you think are the sources of joy that athletes get from really

torturing themselves? You would look at it like the brain images probably show that they are suffering. But nevertheless, and I can't believe that it's all just pure misery and they're plowing against it. They must find some sources of joy. What are those? Okay. I love this question.

Okay. Let's map to your model about there's a kinetic feedback and an immediacy to whether it's yoga or tennis, and you feel like, oh, I just fell over. Oh, I'm really steady. And there's a kinetic feeling there. There's something magical about when you get the thing that you're trying to do right. So there's a feeling there that is immediate. And in our delayed gratification world, that immediacy is quite wonderful. The second bit is that when you have an anxious mind, and let me for some liberties, call it an undisciplined mind right now. I think most of us are quite anxious because our brain is trying to sort out survival. And it makes sense that in an unpredictable world, we have an active mind about how things are going to go.

And it's just easy for anxiety to run wild for most of us. So in an undisciplined way, if you're not working on your mental skills, let's call it, to damp down the anxiety, when you're doing something physically demanding, it damps down your narrative. So there's a relief there, right? It is the antithesis of the default mode network, okay? So there's a dampening down there, which is a bit of a relief, a good feeling. A pure enjoyment is what people will say when they're doing an activity for the sake of doing the activity. Actually, what I think is happening is that they're not worrying, and they're getting immediate feedback. So they're forced in the present moment. They're not in an excessive worry mode, and they're just kind of loving the exchange between their

senses and the environment. That does take some skill that sits underneath of it. Skill development is agitating. It is hard to get to the edge of your capability and keep your emotions and your mind together because it's about to all spill apart and break apart. So there's something there to be said. And then the other piece about the enjoyment is that if you've got enough skill, your mind becomes quiet, you're forced into an immediate feedback loop, which is wonderful, that there

are moments of aha. So if we think about gamma brainwaves, right? So I'm sure you're familiar with the five basics, okay? So gamma is the insight aha signature. I think we get a lot of that. I think we get a lot of aha, this is how it works. So that's how I work. That's how they work. Aha, I see it. That's what you'll hear athletes say. Oh, I got it. And when they really have that moment, gamma brain signatures and aha insight type of moments are wonderfully stimulating. You know, the neurochemistry associated is like,

it's almost euphoric. It's wonderful. And the insights are about the activity or their insights about now I understand how politics work. No, it's about how they they it's more narcissistic it's about the activity now I understand the relationship between how my feet hits the ground and breathing or something like that exactly how my attention my body the environment how patterns start to take place and then I can go into your what you were talking so you get these aha moments and by the way I can go into what you were talking. So you get these aha moments. And by the way, I can map this also to deep present. This is like a wisdom perspective,

deep present moment focus to get to the truth, to get the insights, to get the wisdom. And I'm kind of layering that on the sport performance world. And then as you've got some of that going on, and that takes time, like you go to this hockey stick arc growth of skill development, then a plateau, most people dip, maybe they stick around for another arc or two or 10.

If you get past a couple of those arcs, you start to go to that meta analysis or that meta awareness where you're now playing a different game. And so Federer is not playing the tennis that you and I play. You and I are playing like we're, we're playing 20 frames per second. And I'm sorry, we're playing like, uh, 10 frames per second. And he's playing 200 frames per second. He sees it differently. He's completely aware of other elements that you and I would be bombarded by. So there's that meta awareness that the mystics would talk about in one way and athletes talk about it in a different way. But it is that loss of self where you get the game that's unfolding right now. And you're not first person driver. You're actually

from a helicopter perspective watching the game and you can drop down into the first person and go back up as a helicopter. And that artistic magic is something that is reserved for people that have enough skill to manage themselves in an environment that requires that skill to be proficient. So is it fair to say, fascinating, is it fair to say that they have better feedback? Because, you know, I admit about myself, I went to do Pilates and the woman said, you know, breathe from your stomach.

She said all kinds of words. I had no idea what she meant. Like, where exactly is my shoulder? I'm not really sure. But, you know, where exactly is my shoulder? I'm not really sure, but you know, there's heightened awareness, better feedback that you can have, relationship between different senses and body parts, right? Yes. And also something more, like you said, understand something better,

like a different view of the activity. But all of those have the element of immediacy. All of them are basically saying it's not about the future, it's not about winning, it's not about this. It's about making the moment more meaningful, joyful, interesting, and so on. Yes. There's a double-edged sword to this. So the present moment is the unlock for just about everything that we're doing.

Present moment is where insights in your work come from. If you were distracted during this conversation and the four bits of connections you just made, you wouldn't have had them. If you were typing or you're trying to talk to somebody else. So you were in the present moment, you made some unique connections. And so the present moment is where high performance is expressed. It's where wisdom is revealed. It's where insights take place. It's where all the amazing parts of life happen. So what electric or kinetic environments do is they force you to be in the present moment, whether that's danger or it's something more stimulating that you want, you know, like

a tennis match, or it's an intense conversation or wonderful conversation like this. It forces us to be in the present moment. And so that is the immediacy. Here's the double-edged sword or the gift of the immediacy. The double-edged sword is that you're well-practiced of being here, but maybe not thinking about long-term. So when you get a check for your first check in the NFL, maybe it's like $30,000 for the month or the week. the week minimum wage in the nfl which stands for not for long to our early part of our conversation um you know minimum wage is like six hundred thousand dollars and so if you break that up amongst uh eight paychecks they're big paychecks

and so so um if they're good at being immediate then then there's also the good of not thinking about long term. 87%, according to one bit of research, of people in the NFL are broke or divorced or both at the end of their retirement. Yeah. At the retirement, right? Within two years. Sorry, I didn't say that. Within two years of retirement, yeah. So long term projection is maybe not one of the great skills. these quantified selves should do is to help people guide them toward these moments.

Maybe it's not about how many moments of sleep you had and how many steps you walked and so on. Maybe the goal is to say, let's give you some biofeedback to accelerate that path toward discovery. Oh, I love your insight. That's a new thought for me. And I think that's probably maybe new to you, which is exciting to me. Um, the, I used to play a game, a competition with coaches when I was in the NFL. And so we would compete. It's an interesting word, you know, it's not like trying to be better than you, but kind of, it was playful. Uh, we would compete to see how many moments of awe we could report at the end of the day. So, you know, first you're in the building at about 6.30 in the morning and you don't leave till about 10.30. They're long days for coaches. And so at the

end of the day, there's a handful of us that would tally, you know, how many moments of awe. And you know what awe is like, you have that moment, like you get the grand of the day, there's a handful of us that would tally how many moments of awe. And you know what awe is. You have that moment like you get the grandness of something, but you're sucked into the singular nature of it. And you're like, oh, this is incredible. Like that type of thing. And in some respects, we were playing that composition game, not having the sophistication of your thought, that maybe that's what the design is really about. And if you're tired and overwhelmed or anxious or frustrated or irritated, awe is not part of the experience.

Yeah. And the reason I'm thinking about this is, you know, the question is really what lessons can we take from athletes who found, who were able to find, somebody like these concert pianists who were able to find joy in this grueling activity of playing eight hours a day. It's just something from there that we can make, you know, broccoli better, kind of mundane, but, you know, get people to exercise,

eat better, do all of those things. Do you think that they say they sacrificed or they didn't sacrifice? I didn't ask it, but I don't think they said they would. I don't think they feel they sacrificed. That's right. They have these things they have to say like you have to say you sacrificed. That's exactly right. But I don't think they feel they've sacrificed. I think they feel that they're kind of their true self.

That's it. Yeah. And so, but it gets confusing to the public because they hear you have to sacrifice, that, you know, you have to not go to prom and go to the gym or go to a tournament or something. There's a lot that you miss, but they're making choices for the most part about what they really want. So what are one of the insights that elite athletes can teach us is that purpose tends to be pretty clear, but it's not the grand life purpose. It's more goal clarity. And that clarity of goal extended over time can feel like a purpose, but it's not until you really open it up with them where they take a goal and then be part of

something larger, which is what purpose would require, do they start to really accelerate in both skill and internal growth. So there's some advantages of how they design their life where most of us have not made fundamental commitments in their life. Marriage, but again, 50% divorce in the US or better than. So it's not really a fundamental commitment. We change jobs. How many times do we change jobs? It's happening a lot. Yeah.

No question. Yeah. Sorry, I'm just switching. I'm just kind of randomly, but from all the sports you know, what do you think are the ones that are the easiest and the hardest to find joy in? Like riding horses seems to be addictive.

Which one, which one is addictive? Riding horses. Oh, that's funny. It's a, um, I think there's a lot of, there's a connection there that's unique to every other sport between two mammals that is unique where one can't really talk, but they communicate. I want to think about that with you. I think it's a really good question. You know, you look, you look at the Olympics and you say, you know, what, what are the ones that, that people have to like to try harder? And what are the ones that people have to try harder?

And what are the ones that you just can't not practice? I think the ordering of the question might be throwing me off because I tend to think that, let's take you for example. You have half a beard. Maybe you can share with people that don't know what happened. So I'll say something about the half a beard, and it also says something about social science. Yeah. So this half a beard has three reasons.

Reason number one, the most straightforward, I was badly injured. Most of my body is scars, including this side. So just hair doesn't grow. But of course I could shave. And for many years I shaved. And then a few years ago, I went on a month long hike and I didn't shave for the month. Ended up looking like this with a little bit less white. And I looked in the mirror and I didn't like it. It's a very strange look. It's strange for the people who are seeing me for the first time.

It was strange for me. And I was sure I will shave, but I thought I'll keep the beard for a few weeks just for kind of the memory of the hike. I took a month long to hike. It was very exciting. But then the first surprising thing happened when people wrote me to thank me for the half a beard. I'm sitting here actually across the street.

There's a youth center. There was a woman in that youth center that left me a note in my mailbox to thank me for this half a beard. Why did people thank me for this half a beard. And why did people thank me for the half a beard? These were people who were struggling with their own injuries, and they thought I did this on purpose to show how much I don't care. And they said that maybe they would care less. So, for example, there was a woman in her 50s who said she had a car accident when she was 17

and never wore a skirt since. And she said, I'm going to try, you know, be out there with the lack of symmetry. But the really interesting thing happened about four months down the line where all of a sudden I felt that my self-acceptance has increased. I have lots of deformities. You know, I don't have much movement in my hand. All kinds of things are not working well.

And I all of a sudden felt that I accept myself in a better way. And I thought, what happened? And here is what I think happened. Think of me in the morning pre-Hafferbeard. I would wake up. I would stand in front of the mirror, smooth on this side, stubble on this side. And the act of half shaving is also an act of hiding my lack of symmetry. I was more non-symmetric before the shave.

I was less non-symmetric after the shave. And think about the self-reflection. What does it do to a person to try and hide, to do something every day that makes you less, people notice less my scars, notice less. And I think that letting go of that was very helpful. Basically, I let go of that and created higher self-acceptance. But I'll say the last thing about social science,

and it's a good kind of maybe final thought. Here I am a social scientist. I should know those things. And if you ask me, how would life feel like with not shaving? I would say it would not be good. I would say people would point, kids would laugh, people would ask questions. It would not be a good idea to have half a beard, and indeed for many years I shaved. We have good powers of predicting sometimes quick effects. We don't have good powers to predict long-term effect that changes in deep ways, right? You talked about the path of athletes, of learning and improving and all of those things. And I actually think that's what social science is for.

What social science is for is the things we have good intuition, fine, but the things we don't have good intuition for, these are the things that social science should give us some hints about how to live better. So kind of, you know, what are the other half-abuse? What are the other things that we're doing the wrong thing? We think for a good reason, but we're actually making our life worse off

rather than better off. I love that framing because that is why I think your work is so intriguing because you are exposing, maybe the right word, unconventional insights about how we are misbelieving or misbehaving or misthinking. And it's really clever how you've done it. And I understand now the psychological or the philosophical framing

that's led you to such radical insights. And as you were speaking, I'm going to double down on what my intuition was about the answer that you asked me about which sport brings more joy. I don't think, with all due respect, it's the right question. I think the right question or what are the, what are the types of people that find joy in, in hard things or what's the type of traits or skills that people bring to challenging environments? And the reason I'm double backing or not double backing, double, double downing on it is that you work that you are working from the inside out. And it's not from like what other people are necessarily giving you,

but it's the commitment to be true to yourself and try to work in ways that feel organically to you. And I think that that's what shows up in sport as well. Some people are in, let's call it rowing. We just had the Sinkovic brothers on, which they had won four gold medals, I think, or three gold medals over the last three Olympics in doubles rowing. Best rowing team on the planet from Croatia. And rowing is incredibly hard.

There's lots of physical suffering. They are brothers. And what they end up talking about is that they are rowing to enjoy life, to have happiness in life, not just to win gold medals, but they're connected to their potential. They're connected to their family members. They're doing hard things. They know trust better. So I think it's something from the inside, not necessarily environment. But of course, I do want to explore it with you because there's probably a unique intersection

between the two that would be illuminating. Very good. We haven't talked about lots of things. Hopefully, we'll find another time. I would love to do that with you, Dan. Thank you for your brilliance, your body of work. Thank you for merging economics and psychology and behavior kind of intertwined in fascinating ways. And I've spoken more in this conversation than I hope to, but I've learned a lot from you in the way that you designed it. It's been very enjoyable. So thank you so much and stay in touch. Thank you, it. It's been very enjoyable. So thank you so much and stay in touch. Thank you, Dan. Yes.

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