Good Life Project - 9Things: Genius, Hashtags, Foodies and Long-Tongued Bats

Episode Date: August 31, 2015

Today's episode is our second experiment, with a new show format, we're calling 9Things™. What is it? A three-person roundtable, where each person shows up with three topics to jam on. And, the thing is, nobody knows what the other person's topics will be until they hit the conversation.My guests for today's episode of the 9Things format are two good friends, Gabra Zackman and Dan Lerner.Covered in this episode:Hashtags: funny new weird thing or business tool?Hamilton on Broadway: the birth of creative geniusInnate Goodness: are we wired to be helpful?Yazidi Women and the brutality of ISISFoodie Culture: more than what's on the plateBizarre Bat Discovered: fascinating that we can still discover new speciesFour Year Long Collaborative Online Story: oops...I didn't mean to end it that wayGarbage: how can one person collect so much?Workplace Culture: people are the new greenFrom Lawyer to Children's Entertainer: helping others pursue their interestsIt's fast-paced, fun, utterly unscripted and at times a bit raw, but always good-natured and very real. Enjoy! Check out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKEDVisit Our Sponsor Page For a Complete List of Vanity URLs & Discount Codes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome, welcome, welcome everybody. We're hanging out today. I am Jonathan Fields, of lesser fame than my two guests today. As you know, we've tried this format once before to varying degrees of success. I thought it was fabulous. This is a format called Nine Things, which in theory, we rotate around and I have two guests I'll introduce in a second. And we each toss out a topic, an idea, a story from the news. And we jam on it, we set it up and we jam on it for about three minutes, then we move on to the next one. So in theory, we have nine topics that we cover in 27 minutes. In reality, I think last time we did this, it took like an hour to cover. And then the last one,

we just kind of flew. So we're going to just see where this goes. The name of the segment is Nine Things, but the reality is I have no idea where our house is going to end. Joining me today are two very dear friends. On my left, Gabra Zachman. So Gabra has been hanging out in my world, and I've been hanging out in her world for more than a decade now. Yeah, more than more than a decade, because it started with that maybe it was the first or second year of Sonic Yoga. Yeah, really? That's over. That's 12, 12. Yeah, because that opened 2001. So maybe 2000. Yeah. She is a phenomenal actor. Do you call her actor or actress now?

What's PC? You know, I think really either is PC. I tend to think actress feels sexier to me, but that's, you know, that's just me. It might be a little old-fashioned. For today, then, you're an actress. Excellent. Extraordinary actress, performer, writer,

one of the also top audiobook narrators on the planet right now. Wow, high praise. And recently, like really, really recently, do you want to share this? What am I sharing? The book thing. Oh, my books? Yeah. A very, very recent new author. I had really gotten my start doing audio books initially in the romance and chick lit genres.

And I wound up through a dear friend of mine getting an agent and who was looking for romance submissions. And that was about three years ago now. And now I have a three book series with pocket books through Simon and Schuster. The series is called the Bod Squad series. Gotta love it. Schuster. The series is called The Bod Squad Series. And book one, Game On, came out in April. Book two, All In, came out in July. And book three, Double Down, will be coming out in January. So cool. So fun.

I knew you when. And little known or much known fact jonathan fields was a great great great inspiration uh to me to start writing we had that conversation where you said the next step is for you to start writing and i like choked on my coffee i do and then you were like well as long as i don't have to write like you i'm good with that and that became the catalyst that's right as long as i don't have to write anything intelligent or witty. Was he the inspiration for the title of your first book? For Game On? Or Bot Squad. Either one. The whole trilogy. Well, to be honest, he was. He's old, he's large, and he's ready to roll. I met him in a physical discipline. I met him as the fiercest, baddest, most awesome yoga teacher you can imagine.

So bod squad, I think, is an appropriate title for him. Could be. Not anymore, but... Anyway, rolling over to my right, another dear friend of mine, Mr. Dan Lerner, who, I don't know, we've been having monthly breakfasts for years now, I guess. I want to say three or four years. Right? Right.

We came into my life and I came into your life through a mutual friend. Dan is a former rock star agent. You just stop at rock star. Stop. Please do say former rock star. Dramatic pause. Agent who worked with some of the top voices and opera and musicians, classical music, comes out of a family of extraordinary classical musicians and creators, and then kind of made a turn and is now a leading voice in the exploration of expertise and performance for people across

all domains and also co-teaches what is is it the now most popular undergrad class at nyu it's officially the it's the most popular or largest both i guess um non-required class uh at nyu so like chem 101 with like a gazillion people yeah biggest. Biggest. But we're like, I think we're at 450 this year, last year, and this year because that's what the room takes. And with a nice waiting list and terrific students. So we're really fortunate to have 1,000 students. Yeah. And the name of the class is Science of Happiness? Science of Happiness.

Yeah. Which all I'm saying is keep your eyes on Dan and that topic because the future is going to bring some very interesting things to all of you guys if you're listening in here. So we are ready. Are you guys ready to roll? Yeah, absolutely. All right. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk.

Who wants to throw out the first topic? Do you want me to start? Go for it. I try to bring a few topics that I think are kind of wildly different, you know, ranging all over the place. But the first one I thought would be fun to talk about would be hashtags. Because now we're suddenly in a world where hashtags are following everything. And I just wanted to sort of throw out like, how do you guys use them, especially now I'm suddenly in a third entrepreneurial business,

which was really not my intention to go from being an actress, which is my own business to an audiobook narrator, which is my own business to now being a writer who knew, even with an agent and a publisher that that's an entrepreneurial business, but it means I'm online a lot. So I'm suddenly tweeting a lot. And I'm on Facebook and this and that, and I use hashtags all the time. But my question is, hashtags, funny, new, weird thing. Are they actually a business tool or are they just a way of commenting? Like sometimes even if you look at like TV shows, sometimes it like has the actual name

of the TV show, but then sometimes it's like chicks who like flicks or like, you know, like sometimes, sometimes it's like hashtag awesomeness, you know, and I find that I use them more as a piece of humor than I do anything else of like, you know, like hashtag first world problems. Like nobody's actually going to search under first world problems and find whatever it is that I happen to be talking about. Right. You don't know that. Or maybe they are. But I'm just really interested in what the thing is. It's such an absolutely contemporary, topical, weird, unusual piece of the intro web that we're all using now. I don't know. Thoughts on that?

I just thought it would be cool to talk about. Do you use hashtag stand? Hashtag not often. You know, it's funny, actually. It's a great topic. And it's a fascinating topic because, well, for many reasons, clearly. But I have these students and they are very, very into hashtags. And so it's something that I'm just starting to pick up. And I have friends like the ones sitting to my left and the ones sitting directly across from me who are into hashtags in very different ways. And I've only really known them, at least most usefully, with humor.

I'm like, yeah, that's funny. Right. But I'm not going to look up because I really don't know what to do with it. It's such a it's such a it's such an interesting branch of social media that sort of says, oh, this is something that I don't understand right now. Right. And I'm trying to, but it's a whole new language. So do you have students submitting academic papers with hashtags and then has that ever happened? You know, I got to say, I've trying to, but it's a whole new language. So do you have students submitting academic papers with hashtags in them?

Has that ever happened? You know, I've got to say, I've yet to get one with a hashtag in it. I'm thrilled to say, but I'm sure it's coming. And I guess my question, well, it will come back to this conversation to say, does it belong there? Maybe it does. That is an interesting question, right? You know, like, is it sort of like the new parenthetical, you know, that adds context or something like that? That's right. I don't know. Is it an echo? Is it a searchable term? Is it, as you say,

a parenthetical? Is it a point of humor? Totally the way I use it. Yeah, I use them like probably 98% of my hashtags are pure irony. Yes, absolutely. Like have they just given, we're like three clearly wildly sarcastic ironic minds sitting around a table. The table is weighted heavily in favor of irony right now. This is true. But is that what they're for? I don't know.

I choose to believe that they were created by somebody massively ironic. And he was trying to like, and the whole idea of actually connecting them with something of value was a joke. Amazing. But then it caught on. Right. And now the truer irony is actually, you can't keep the irony out of it. It was funny too, because the world I live in, you know, which is a lot of the online world, there are entire courses about how to use hashtag for search and for discovery and building your platform and all this and that.

So I'm kind of required to know that stuff and to play and experiment with it and see if it tracks increased traffic on this and that. So does that? I mean, do you use it for that as a business tool? I do. I do experiment with it a little bit, but not nearly as much as I could or probably should. I do know people that have actually built very substantial followings on particular platforms, most notably Instagram, by connecting every single thing that they post up there with sort of like a whole collection. You know, they'll put a dozen

hashtags based on keywords that they want people to be searching on so that their post comes up. So I think it can be used as a really effective tool to gain notoriety. I know on Twitter a lot of people also will put posts because there are people who will just literally have search columns set up for Twitter and they want to see every tweet that's come out with, you know, like, hashtag irony. Yeah, right. And they just want, they follow that. So it can be really effective there.

But yeah, I think it'd be interesting to have a whole book just called Hashtag Life. Well, I mean, and there we are. Which one of us is writing it? Do you know what I mean? And here's the new tomorrow. I mean, I just feel like it's real interesting to live in a world in which,

as soon as you turn around, there is another way of codifying or way of explaining, searching. There's like a whole new business platform every time you turn around. Right. But it's also sort of like this weird thing because it's almost like you want to use it as a fail-safe to protect yourself against the possibility of people not understanding nuance. Right. So you're like, hashtag this, hashtag this. So people throw it out in conversation just for fun or in writing.

But it's almost like the new language-based emoticon. That's right. It gives context. But anyway. Cool. We've already successfully blown away past three minutes for the first time. Excellent. Perfect.

So we're rolling around. Mr. Dan Lerner, share something astonishingly brilliant. Oh, my gosh. I don't know if I have anything astonishingly brilliant. I have things that fascinate me, but they're probably pretty simple things. Great. You know, one of the things that caught my eye over the last few weeks and really over the past few months is I was having dinner with some friends a few months ago and they,

they're all in musical theater and they were saying to a man and woman, you know, have you seen Hamilton yet? I said, no. And they said, best show I've ever seen on Broadway. Right. And I was like, okay, I took it with a grain of salt. And then I saw the review last week and it was like one of the greatest reviews I've ever seen in the New York Times for musical theater. I immediately, bam, got on the phone and ordered my tickets, which were way too expensive, but I'm looking forward to it nonetheless. But one of the things that struck me was how everyone's saying it's something that's really never been done before. And so what I'm curious about is, especially for creators like yourselves, what allows that to

happen? It's almost like we see a lot of pop out there and not a lot of it's interesting, a lot of musical theater, not a lot of it's interesting. And then something happens where you get somebody, right? You get at Hamilton or you get an artist where you're like, really, really interesting. It doesn't seem like we're geared to find that anymore,

but yet they pop out every once in a while. How? Do you think that that's, I mean, it almost rolls out of the last conversation. Like, do you think that it's a function of the fact that discoverability has become vastly easier? No, because that wouldn't make sense, because then we should see a lot more of them. The interesting thing is, so discoverability for almost anybody has become, like, access is no longer an issue.

If you're an oddball, if you're a weirdo, if you're hyper creative, you're massively talented and you do crazy work and you create something astonishing that should get awareness, you can get awareness. You know, being found, if you want to be found and doing something highly original, it's not an issue anymore. You know, whereas that, you know, a generation ago, not even 10 years ago, you could rail against, like, the gatekeepers won't let me through.

To me these days, that's kind of utter BS. I'm almost curious about the opposite side of that question, which is why don't we see a ton more of that? With essentially gatekeepers going away and people, we're the human race growing. You know, if there's X percentage of 1% of people who are capable of, you know, being the Hamiltons, and access to everybody is basically becoming super easy. Why aren't we seeing a lot more of that? I know, totally changed your topic. No, no, no, no, no, no. It was a great jumping off point. You know, I spend a lot of time thinking about what is in the box versus what is outside the box, especially as a new author writing something that's not in the box, that's not in any particular genre. It straddles a couple of time thinking about what that is, what it is that when something is in the box, meaning

a sellable entity. And what I wonder about is I think the things like what you're describing, and I look forward to seeing it as well. I can't wait to see it. But I think the things that do the best are the things that straddle both being in the box, which means they're a sellable commodity, or there's something about them that's universal that we all can understand. But they also, they flirt with the edges of whatever the box is. So they're not, it's not something cut out of the same mold as the things that have come before it. But it's enough in the place of universal that we all connect to it. And I think that's why it's actually tricky to find because it's not something as simple as, well, it's a sellable commodity because it's right in that mold.

Or it's something so crazy unusual because it's outside of the mold of what we have. I think it's the things that flirt on the line. It comes from a place of universality, but it's just a little bit unusual or it's just a different perspective that we haven't quite seen yet. What were the reviews? I mean, what is it that people are saying is making this so astonishingly different? There are a number of things that come to mind, but the thing that really comes up for me was the fact that

it's sort of something we haven't seen before. And that's a really tough thing to find. It's unlike anything we've seen. The story, the actors, it's the music. And he has a remarkable story. Really being immersed in a huge array of different musical styles when he was growing up and his dad sort of listening to music with him

being like, listen to this and listen to this and listen to this and this is what I hear, this is what I hear, this is what I hear. Being able to bring it all together in a completely new musical way. You know, it sort of brought to mind for me the story about Leonard Bernstein where he, growing up, created his own language that only he and his siblings spoke, right? And they were so immersed in creative arts and music and other forms of creativity that he was able to emerge with, boom, something like West Side Story, which is like, whoa, that's amazing.

And that's what it brought to mind for me. Someone who was completely immersed and grew up almost speaking a different language and a language that had been created out of so many different sources. And I guess I agree with both of you in terms of how it, what can help make something different, universality yet kind of a step to the left or living on the edges. I guess I'm fascinated by this story because it's so often we hear about people who make it big who sort of follow the cookie-cutter path. They still make it big, and maybe a producer helped them out.

But this case, it was someone who really has lived this language since he was born. I'm not going to raise the Mozart idea, but Mozart was raised by a father who was an extraordinary musician and taught him so many different things. And here's a guy who just grew up speaking a different language coming from a neighborhood that doesn't necessarily birth musical theater people. So it's a different language in that capacity as well. And an upbringing with parents and, and, and. So it seems to be one of those folks who just speak a different language. And somehow he has done so both in a universal way and also in a way that's brand new. So I want to kick this back to you then because you're the guy who's the expert in world-class performance. You're the guy who's the expert in like the top 1% of 1%.

And we've had parts of this conversation privately, you know, like the nurture nature thing and whether you can even draw it, like whether there's any legitimate reason to draw a divide anymore. But for somebody like that, what's your opinion? I mean, how much do you think is it's the combination of external data points that came together that was just really usual data set through the way that his family, his life, his circumstance versus this person's brain was just wired differently from the moment he hit the planet. And no matter what was put into that life, a profoundly different language would

have emerged. So it's a great question. I don't know if I'm the expert. I'm certainly fascinated by it. You know, what comes to mind is the last chapter of a book called Wind, Sand, and Stars by Senec Zupary, who wrote The Little Prince. And the very last chapter of this, he's sitting on a train, I think moving through Poland, and there's a coal miner and his wife sitting across from him with a baby tucked into their arms. And he very eloquently says, you might have the capacity to be the next Mozart, but you never will. Because you're going to grow up in a place where it's not going to feed you to be able to be that kind of individual. So, as you said before, it doesn't necessarily help us to draw lines. I think there is such an extraordinarily unique makeup of things that need to happen for someone to be able to emerge like this.

If this kid, if this man is born into a different environment where he never hears the music, or it's not introduced in the same way, or it's not shared as a passion with him. But instead, he's working in a job that has nothing to do with creativity. Do I think he becomes this or rises to this place? Not necessarily. If someone else is born into the same environment and have they have the same experience? Do they rise to this? Not necessarily. So you have this amazing, complex array of input, and so nature and nurture that I think helps create this person. What if he didn't have the drive, or if he didn't have

the passion, or he didn't have a role model who strove as diligently and in such a focused manner as he has, not knowing that's an important part or not valuing what he does. I think that these are folks who, fortunately, someone who has a unique makeup meets something that helps them become this thing. Yeah, it's interesting. With all the conversations that I've had the gift of being able to share in over the last three years or so of this project, that has become

such a common theme. So when I sit down with people who have done extraordinary things in the world and continue to, if you trace back the journey almost to the one, they will identify a single person who sparked them. Milton Glaser comes to my mind immediately

because he said, you know, he was, he knew he wanted to be an artist from the time he was six years old. But he also happened to be really good in sort of like math and science. And he went to Bronx Science. And, you know, like his parents and everyone, he was tracked to take the, you know,

the test to go to, you know, like that school, you know, to have that career. And the day he was supposed to take the test, instead of taking that, he took one for art. He didn't tell anyone, but he came back. The next day, he tells the story how his guidance counselor heard and he called

him in. He thinks he's going to get okay. Why'd you do that? He basically pulled out this beautiful set of just pastel pencils. He said, I can't remember exactly what he said, but he told me, he's like, do good work. And that was the person.

And when Milton shares that story, he said to me, he's like, I can't, I can never, he's 86 years old. He's like, to the day, I can't tell that story without finding tears in my eyes. Because that moment and that person meant that much to him. So it is interesting to see, like, what if this guy had existed, but there wasn't somebody who sparked him? Anyway, let's roll into the next topic here, as we're massively blowing past the, like I said, in theory, nine things.

We'll see what actually happens here nine things nine hours later um Mayday Mayday we've been compromised the pilot's a hitman

I knew you were gonna be fun on January 24th tell me how to fly this thing Mark Wahlberg you know what the difference between me

and you is you're gonna die don't shoot him we need him y'all need a pilot Flight Risk Tell me how to fly this thing. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes the apple watch series 10 available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum compared to previous generations iphone 10s or later required charge time and actual results will vary uh i had a couple of things i want to Let's start with the bigger, more complex one, and I figure we can just make these less and less complex and sillier as we go.

Innate goodness. I've been thinking about that a lot lately. Diving deeper down sort of like the Buddhist rabbit hole, I'm not an initiated Buddhist, but I've studied a fair amount around it and the philosophy. And a lot of it is based on this idea that we are fundamentally, that the purest version of ourselves is innately good. What do you guys think about that? Because it's really easy to argue the opposite when you look at the state of the world today.

Yeah. argue the opposite when you look at the state of the world today. But is that the nature of massively exploding population in a planet with scarce resources? And even if you say that that's actually what's causing it, but in our natural state with abundant resources, we would all be innately good. Does that matter if that can never be our reality? So a really light, easy topic to throw out. And if you guys could just solve this problem for me, I would be so appreciative. Perfect. I've always believed that we are innately good, but I think that's gotten me into a lot of trouble. How so? You know, as much as I have a very thick skin and a very salty, ironic, sometimes bitter outside, the inside of me genuinely believes the best in everyone. So just on like a, you know, let's even let's take what's going on in the world on

grander scale out of it. I don't know. I just I tend to, I tend to walk through the world truly believing that everyone has the best intentions, and that things come from the best place and people are sort of thwarted in that. I don't know. It tends to mean that sometimes I think I wear rose colored glasses that I get a little tromped on sometimes. I don't know. I don't know if it's necessarily true. I mean, it's a good question if we all, if we had the ability to be living in a world where there were endless resources.

I also don't believe that we would actually be like, all be sort of at peace and take care of each other. And I think we're in a tricky world to ask the question because I think sort of generosity which to me is the heart of the goodness of the human spirit is a lost art and I think we increasingly live in a world in which people are like more and more and more and more both both selfish, isolated, turned inward. So I don't know. I wonder sometimes if it's an evolutionary thing in some weird way,

if we've evolved into a place where we're all just increasingly kind of fragmented and insular. But I do tend to believe that that's the truth. I just don't know if we'll ever really get to see that truth, especially, as you say, with what's going on in the world right now. You know, there's a terrific book out, came out about two years ago, by Paul Bloom called Just Babies. He's a fascinating guy. He teaches and does research at Yale and talks about this, right? I mean, if we talk about morality and goodness being related. And the research that he does looks at, you know,

how do babies respond in a way that we can see them as moral or not? Do they naturally get up and help somebody who has, or toddlers, get up and help somebody who's dropped something or help somebody who needs help, hold a door open maybe when they see it. And more often than not, yes, they do. If I recall the book research well enough. You know, it's interesting because you're bringing up the idea of evolution.

So are we innately good? That's an interesting question. I would almost turn around to ask what is the effect of our culture on our development? So let's assume that we are for a second, whether we are or not. What happens as the years go by to make us potentially more generous or less generous, more grateful or less grateful, more moral or less moral? And the culture we live in is one that's going to influence what we become. I mean, it's interesting. As you're saying that, actually, the visual that came to mind for me is the work that's actually going on around genetics and epigenetics in the world right now.

I think there's a really interesting parallel there, right? So genetics and epigenetics, right? So genetics is basically everybody has your genetic code. And for years, we kind of assumed like you are your genes. If you got the gene for this, this color skin, these color eyes, this height, or these disease risk profile, it is what it is. And now epigenetics comes along and basically says, not so fast. The truth is your genes are your genes.

But whether they're expressed or more simply put, turned on or turned off, that's what actually determines, you know, what happens in the world. Like that's what determines who you are and what happens to you and how you respond to stress and disease and all this stuff and your physical traits. And that that state even, whether those particular genes are turned off or turned off, now the research is really supporting more and more that those states are heritable, meaning the decision and you can turn on or off certain genetics by lifestyle, by things like the way you move, the way you breathe, the stress that you endure, the things that you eat can actually, you know, like take your basic, you know, immutable, largely immutable genetic code and turn on or off certain aspects of it. And then that on or off state then gets actually potentially passed down through a number of generations. So the decisions that you make

may actually affect the genetic expression of like your great grandkids and whether they have, you know, this or that, or this is a risk of this or that. So, so the parallel I'm thinking about here is like, if you brought it up, you know, even if we assume that innate goodness is like your genetic code, if we make the assumption that we've all got the gene for innate goodness, maybe that doesn't matter so much. Maybe what matters is sort of like the epigenetic side of that. If we kind of say, well, even if we all have the gene for good, and if we make that assumption and say, but it doesn't really matter if we are or aren't. What matters

is, is it turned on or off in each of us? And maybe we can make the assumption that the choices we make or the circumstances that we face all have an effect of turning them on or off. And I kind of like that because it explains a lot of the world to me, and it also gives me hope. Right, because there's choice in there. Because there's, in other words, the seed is there in all of us, but you're saying there's choice, potentially. Like, sort of inside us, we bear the choice of whether to go one direction or the other. Yeah. Yeah.

All right, I'm whole. What do you got, Deborah? Very, very cool. Well, I'm actually going to really connect. I was going to do this. Maybe this is a way to do this is to connect our topics to the last topic, but it comes right out of it, actually. This is my one thing sort of from the headlines, which is I was very moved and very upset by the extraordinary series of articles that just came out about the systematic sex slavery of the Yazidi women. I'm sorry, I don't know how to pronounce it.

Forgive me if I'm pronouncing it wrong. But a number of people, particularly I believe this one reporter, and I'm sorry, I don't know her name, but did some extraordinary work where she got a translator, and it was her and a translator, and actually had personal interviews with all of these women about their experience of what was going on. There's been a lot of coverage since that all came out within the last week or so. And so I would sort of jump on the topic of innate goodness with this to say, so here we are in another ISIS perpetuated situation. And this seems to be like, I feel like ISIS is just like, you know, our old visions of the boogeyman, right?

Just become this like the evil ones in quotes. So here they are basically saying, these women are not believers. And so the Quran says, you may do whatever you want to them. But a horrible, horrible stuff. But what's actually interesting to me is the people that they're saying this to

and how these primarily probably young men are receiving the information and what they actually think about this. If they're looking at a live woman in front of them because they are not believers in the same way, can they do whatever they want to them? Do they do that freely? Do they feel weird about it? Their sexuality is

very strange in that culture. So is it because it's suddenly they're being allowed to do something that they would like to be doing anyway, but actually in a really beautiful way, like they would like to be taking a girl to a soda shop and making out, but they don't have that opportunity, but they do have the opportunity to sort of abuse this young woman. I'm just very, very confused and interested in like the mindset behind that, and how they convince then a group of people that this to sort of abuse this young woman. I'm just very, very confused and interested in like the mindset behind that and how they convince then a group of people that this like mass, mass violence,

this horrible, horrible reign of terror is actually okay, encouraged okay, and it's actually their recruitment tool, right? It's how they're recruiting young men, I believe. I don't know, discuss. Or not, or this just tacksacks on so this is like another wondering point when we talk about innate goodness right it does it does i mean the first thing that comes up for me is is the idea well i thought i want to refer to research all the time but i remember reading some research around around religion spirituality and well-being and one of the things they talk about is very radical groups often have terrific well-being

because they believe what it is they're doing is right. And it also makes others such complete outsiders that not only do they have greater, well, maybe well-being is the wrong term, but they do seem to have greater well-being, but also they are far more prejudiced against outside groups. So these young men, I'm curious, these young men who have been in these countries and growing up very, very poor, growing up in a way where they didn't necessarily have any guidance, find the guidance, and the guidance says this is the way we should be. This is what we should follow. They never knew that the option of taking a woman to, or in this case, a girl on a date was something that they do. All they've ever known about women is, as Sam Harris said, they know women live in bags. And that's how they see it. So for them, are they really human beings? I don't

know. It's an interesting one. But if they've never seen a culture where they respected women, I mean, forget a driver's license or education, you know, I mean, just respecting women, then why would they know the difference? They've only been taught by the people that they respect and by the religion that they've been taught that this is good. You know, I mean, it harks back for me to the old 70 virgins is what you get if you do it for the sake of God, if you kill for the sake of God. So what an awful thing that was, and it just seems to be getting, it's kind of a manifestation of that. Yeah, and I mean, I do think it just sort of expands bigger.

You know, we're all horrified by what we see in the news, and these stories are just, you know, we can't fathom. And I think coming from our background, our culture, our heritage, it's just so violently against what we know, what we've been taught. But like Dan said, if this is the only reality you've ever known in your life, then maybe that's, like maybe that's your normal. And then if the faith that you've devoted yourself to says these are the rules and the people in whom you've given your trust to interpret the rules the way that you believe is right

are telling you that this is the way that it is, does that effectively shut off some inner voice of morality? Or is there like an inner universal morality, you know, that innate goodness, right? That's right. Aren't you wondering if there's that moment? I just wonder if there's that moment where a young man is standing in a room thinking, I know that by God this is supposed to be okay, and the men that I'm looking up to are saying it's okay, but is that okay by me? You know, that's my question. Like, is there that thing that goes, gosh, I don't know if this is okay. This woman looks hurt.

You would hope, right? But, yeah, I mean, fierce question. I don't know. And I think it's something that is related to it. We see the horrible stories in the news right now related to one particular faith. But I think when you look at extreme orthodoxy across a wide variety of faith traditions, you just see the effect of turning off of individual discretion, which has, like Dan said in the research, there's some tremendous benefits to that on the individual level. It makes people very often a lot happier and more content in their lives and can do a lot of great benefit.

But at the same time, when you hear examples of this, you kind of ask, well, what about the dark side? I guess it brings to mind, closer to home, there are some friends that I've discussed this with who have been involved with cults. Yes, yes, yes. Perfect connection. You're in the United States. You were raised in a Western culture, and often the parents are going, what happened?

How could they get into this pocket where they're treating other people or allowing themselves to be treated this way so put yourself on the somewhere completely different where the conditions are ripe yeah for needing something in our life and they'll go to anything right and you look at the culture like how could you possibly whether it's something as awful as charles manson or something something that seemingly is less violent but also is incredibly detrimental to one's life. It might not be murder

but it may be something else. And losing years of your life this way. And you're already in Western culture. So imagine if you're over there. You know? Yeah. Mr. Lerner. I'm trying to think of how I can connect this. I think what comes up for me You don't have to connect it at all

you can try something entirely different maybe something you're really happy going on you're the science of happiness man make us happier

recipe for the perfect knish or something yes exactly because that is pretty important in a good life absolutely that's true actually I mean

well you know that's actually I wasn't even going to bring this up but so in the past bunch of years and we were talking about this before with Stephanie, restaurants and food seem to have entered the idea of what it means to have a reentered. Let me say sort of re reentered our life and in a really good way. I remember my grandmother's cooking and my mother's cooking. But for all of a sudden we have restaurants everywhere.

And it's like really part of it's part of the creator creator world part of the commerce world and it's something we're exploring again as an art it seems like and i say exploring not just something that's that's uh unreachable but restaurants everywhere that are saying hey we can create something for you that's going to make your life even better these experiences it's not just going to eat it's an experience right which i think is a really interesting thing. I think the emergence of foodie culture is all part of that too. I mean, look at the success

of, did you guys see the movie Chef? No. Not yet. Oh my God. I'm sitting here with two people in the world who haven't seen it. And who should see it. I've seen it twice. It is stunning. It is so beautiful.

It was an independent film, low budget, and it was produced. And it just exploded because it connected humanity with the storytelling and the craft of creating and savoring good food and how that can bring people together and build relationships. And it was such a beautifully done movie. You guys have to see it. And if you're listening to this, you have to. This is your assignment in the next 48 hours.

Go watch the movie if you haven't watched it yet. It's fantastic. But I do think you're right. I think we've seen the emergence of food as sort of like a centerpiece of a lot of social experiences these days where I think I think we went through a time in the country where it's sort of like food as high art and I think it's kind of emerging down from that to a certain extent yeah maybe I'm wrong I don't know got any thoughts on that yeah my thoughts just went a little all over the place because when we were talking with Stephanie earlier, we were talking about she and I had initially connected.

By the way, for those of you guys who are listening, don't know who Stephanie is, right? This is my astonishingly cool wife. She is astonishingly cool. And we do record this at my home studio. That's right. So we got a little hometown conversation earlier. Before we hit the air. So we got a little hometown conversation earlier. Before we hit the air.

Stephanie and I had met each other years ago through, we connected through actually catering. But I had worked at a restaurant that she did events for. So we were just talking about this earlier that this same owner is now opening a bunch of places elsewhere. But it's interesting. When I was a little over 10 years ago when I was in the restaurant industry. So I was immersed in, I worked for several different restaurants and it was always for me very, very painful because I hated waiting tables and catering was like, oh, the stories I've got, they were just so awful. But getting to see on that end, I started some restaurants up and it was really cool actually when I look back at it to see who was successful, what did they come up with that was successful,

what were the things that they were creating is very much what you're talking about. I think that the ones that were the most successful were the ones who really created experiences that either made people feel comfortable, taken care of or special. And it was actually a really, now, some 10 to 15 years later, I can look back on that and think about how cool that was to see, you know, what people were doing.

And it was really the beginning of like a whole new movement that we're in now, I think, of creating these kind of experiences for people to have when they go out. Yeah. I love that. I do, too. Yeah. You know, I spent quite a bit of time in the restaurant industry as well. I did.

Yeah. Before grad school and actually during. I bartended. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was actually really fortunate to work for some amazing restaurateurs. Yeah. And I totally agree with you that they created environments. Yes.

More than anything else. In some cases, the food is great. In some cases, the food is good. Right some cases, the food is good, right? But it was about the environment that people came to. And I wonder, you know, I hadn't really thought about it until you were talking about this. As people have moved away from their homes, right, ever since the car was built, you know, college kids didn't necessarily come home. Then the plane came. So you're not necessarily eating with your folks anymore.

So who are you eating with, right? And you didn't necessarily go away being able to cook and now you have these environments where, and especially being at a bar as a bartender saying, you know what, you guys don't know each other

but I'm going to introduce you and there's this music going and I know you guys are here because you share something in common so you sort of made an evening for them and clearly it comes

from the owner slash chef of a restaurant to say, what kind of environment am I really going to create? And you can almost find your tribe

with restaurants. You're like, I know I'm going to go there. I'm going to find people who dig what I enjoy eating and drinking. And now, big time, music that I like to listen to, what I might like to wear. So it's become almost like a performance art thing or an environmental art thing where you walk into a cultivated environment where you know this is a place where you look forward to going.

And people follow the chefs, I think, because they're like, I can go here, here, here, here, here. I know I'm going to get a similar vibe. I know I'm going to have a great meal experience conversation. And going back to the pre-car days or before you moved away from your home days, I get to have a meal with people that I love and savor something that I really enjoy and be like, how great is this? And share it with people that I really love.

And how often, I think we've kind of lost some of that. And that allowed us to reintroduce that opportunity to share conversation, experience, savoring with other people. Well, that's lovely. You know, I was told a long time ago, I'm sorry I don't know the word, but I believe in Portuguese and maybe in many other languages, they actually have a word that means the conversation that you have over the table after you're done eating, which we don't have it here because we don't have that here, you know, unless we go out like that. But in general, we grab something, right? Or we have dinner and then we go watch TV or it's sort of meals are placed in between things. But I love that idea

of that, that there is a word that means actually exactly what we're doing right now. After we've had a meal that we have a meal, and then we sit around and we have this kind of conversation. Maybe that's part of what that's recreating is a piece of an of an older culture that we've lost around our own dinner tables in some way. But sometimes we regain it again if we really like go out for a proper meal, you know. Yeah, that's a great point. Someone should, we need a word like that in English. One of my favorite words in French is rassassier, which means basically satisfied. We say we're full, which is like I filled up my gas tank and ready to roll, right?

But they have that word, as I'm sure they do in other languages, to say I'm actually comfortably satisfied, not with anything else, but with my meal, which is a wonderful thing to be able to say. So, you know, of course, this is the same culture that has a course, a cheese course after a meal. So you're continuing to share and, right? Yes. And after a five-hour meal. Oh, that's so lovely. That's right. We did, after when we got married, one of our friends back then gifted us an evening

at this stunning chateau in Champagne country outside of Paris. And he was very friendly with the owner. So he set the whole thing up in advance. We were in this beautiful room, and it was like a three-star michelin dining room so like we we started out in the parlor you know and they served you know like that we had like a little bit of you know booze to just get started and like a little thimble of just this stunning little thing we had one or two little things and then like they moved us into the main dining room and then we had my god i don't even remember how many courses and you know like things in the middle to cleanse your palate and people would surround us and plate

simultaneously with you know the monograms on three levels of plates immediately in the center of each of us and lift the top off exactly the same time and then the um must have been 60 70 80 people eating that evening. It was like very sort of famous place. And he also knew because Stephanie was in the restaurant business back then, and she was kind of fascinated with that world. He arranged for us to go back into the kitchen the next day and just see the kitchen and talk with the chef. He knew everything that we had eaten the night before. He knew everything that we were served. And which means that he very likely knew everything that every person in the restaurant was served and how they felt about it when the plates came back.

And that is, I mean, that is such a stunning, you feel like you've just been given such a gift. You know, and it's amazing. But you don't have to go to that extent to have that. I think you really can find it in just that local neighborhood place where there's love served up on a plate and people who you just know are going to be people you

want to in some way be around when you're there. It's true care, right? True care and true nourishment. And mindfulness. By being mindful of where you are. Because in a place like that, it's very clear. When you got the food served to you, I imagine, Gabby, you've been at

places where it's kind of exceptional places. When you get the food served to you, what are you talking about? It's not the news. It's not sport. It's not a show you saw. It's like, wow, what are you tasting here? What are you getting out of this? You're very mindful of your food.

So you're sharing that experience as well. And if you go to a local place, you can do that just as easily. It just doesn't necessarily come to mind to do it. You know what's interesting also that just popped into my mind about mindfulness around that? I'm thinking of French food in France. The portions are way smaller, too. I almost wonder whether that kind of puts you more into, oh, there's a lot less on my plate. I'm going to savor each bite a little bit more.

Right. Well, I'll tell you what. There's even a study by Paul Rosen, who's at the University of Pennsylvania, studies food and pleasure. And one of the studies that comes to mind is— It is a good career. That's a fantastic career. I'm just thinking to myself, I went to the wrong career. I absolutely went into the wrong line of work.

Do you need to get a PhD for that? I'll do it right now. I need to visit how many restaurants? Sold. He does so many remarkable studies, but one that comes to mind specifically about this is a study of McDonald's in France in that their portion size is about 30 percent smaller. But the average time that diners spend in a McDonald's there is about twice as long. Yeah.

Because they sit, they enjoy or they savor and they savor the people with them. It's about conversation, too. Yeah. Right. So. Amazing. That's a conversation too. Yeah. Right? So. Amazing. I'm very different than I seem. If you're looking for flexible workouts,

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You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging apple watch getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes the apple watch series 10 available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum compared to previous generations iphone 10s or later required charge time and actual results will vary. So, rolling into my next topic. Let's see. I could choose from a couple here. I'm going to throw this out there, but I'm pretty sure I'm not going to

make it my topic. I just stumbled. I stumbled upon a headline in a science. It was a big science discovery. And the headline is, Bizarre Bat with Longest Tongue Discovered in Bolivian Park. Now, why wouldn't this be your topic? This is so weird.

I can't imagine why this wouldn't be your topic. Do you want to see a picture of it? Yeah, of course I do. In the show notes, guys, I'll link a picture of this so you can see it, actually. Yeah, this is quite a long time. It's like the length of his body. I'm curious why people are studying that. I can understand the PhD who gets to spend the person's life with food and pleasure.

But you don't understand the PhD who's interested in bats? There is a bat tongue length PhD somewhere out there in some academic institution. I guess it's all good. Yeah, one has to think about the evolutionary need for that, right? Yeah, absolutely. What that's about. Yes, I'm reading here, a groundbreaking Bolivian scientific expedition

found a bizarre bat with a new species of big-headed or robber frog. It's big news. I've been called big-headed before. But not by any Bolivians. That's actually a pretty good name for a band. That's true. I'll tell you what fascinates me about that. I mean, but not by any Bolivians. That's actually a pretty good name for a band. That's true. I'll tell you what fascinates me about that, I mean, if you want to make this topic. You know, and it's funny, I was thinking about maybe talking later about the discoveries we made of Pluto recently,

but I am fascinated by the fact that we can still find things on this planet, usually in the ocean, that we didn't know existed before. It is amazing. With less and less and less frequency. I remember when I was younger thinking, wouldn't it be amazing to go meet somebody who had never seen anyone from outside of their tribe? And I guess there are some pockets here and there, although the odds are they may well eat me. But still, it would be fascinating to sort of go, you have no idea what's happening out here. And we had no idea that you existed. And so to find that there are still species out there, fortunately, that we can discover.

It is crazy, right? Because you kind of figure, well, okay, there are billions of us here. There can't be that much that we don't know about this planet. Okay, outer space or whatever. People are like, oh, sure, there's plenty out there. But on the planet, I think most of us just assume whatever is known, like whatever can be known is known. So, yeah, I think actually that is maybe that's why I actually stuff. Maybe that was the secret emotional or psychological driver that pulled me into the bizarre bat tongue story.

And you just helped me surface what it was really about. Yes, absolutely. It was about discovery and novelty. Yeah. Yep. All right. That was a pretty short-winded topic. Do you want to go on to the other topic?

I feel like that was like a half, like we're doing nine and a half. All right. Hashtag nine and a half topics. Yeah, this is kind of another fun story, actually.

It was a story about something that happened on Amazon. And this was apparently their forums on Amazon, which is funny. As an author, I didn't even really know it existed. Oh, I don't know that either. And there are people who, there's a fiction forum where somebody on September 27, 2011, started a thread with a single sentence.

I'm going to read it to you. It says, come on, why don't we write our own book here in the fiction forum? I'll do the first sentence and then jump in. Hold on. Here we go. And then, of course, it starts out, it was a dark and stormy night. Oh, come on. This is adorable. So almost four years later, 400 pages and 10,000 posts, the thread reached capacity and the story ended. And that just happened. And, um, which is great that we have sirens in the background here because it's like announcing everybody rushing to the end of the story.

And then, so a couple of questions, but before, there was the person who ended it, the person who typed the last line, the final word in this was an ellipsis. It was dot, dot, dot. Yes. And when they tracked the person down, it was a mistake. Then better. Oh, wow.

Even better. Better and better and better and better. I'm going to read just like the line from the story. You're reading us the end. Reading us the last line. This was on BuzzFeed, right? Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert.

So they say, what seemed like a deliberately unambiguous climate actually turned out to be a mistake. And the person writes, I tried to reserve a very last post to prevent interlopers. I typed dot, dot, dot and went back to edit my previous post. As soon as I hit return on the last but one, the thread locked. Perfect. Four years, 10,000 threads, 400 pages. Oh, that's adorable. It's almost like that's the way that it had to end. Yes. No, I would like to quote, you know, whoever said, there are no mistakes. You know, whatever quote that is, there are no mistakes.

That is absolutely brilliant. Yeah. I'm also one for an ellipses, but that's just me as a human being. I use far too many of them. My editors are always very, very angry with me because they're like, stop it. Love them. Yeah, I love them. And so I support the ellipses.

I support it as an end. I love a cliffhanger. I don't like it when things actually end. I know it's dissatisfying to my readership. So my editors very sweetly have told me time and time again. But I like the cliffhangers. So I'm going to support this last ellipses. Would you want me to read you that last line? Yes, please.

Okay. So it says, Now said the voice, that's all the recognition an agent can receive in this job. I suggest you forget the whole matter. Head for home and take a rest and wait for us to call you. I don't think you'll be waiting long.

With that, the window slid closed and the limousine purred away. Phew, said Gil. Can that have been dot, dot, dot? Fantastic. Excellent. Excellent.

Oh, I love it. It's like poetry, right? No, it's actually brilliant. It's exactly how it should be. Absolutely perfect. Yeah. Locked forever that way. That's awesome.

God, that's great. All right. Let's roll over to you, Deborah. Okay. Do we want, so I have two potentials. Do you want a deeper one or a lighter one? I'm thinking that we're about an hour in. Let's go lighter. Let's go lighter. Okay, do we want, so I have two potentials. Do you want a deeper one or a lighter one? I'm thinking that we're about an hour in. Let's go lighter.

Let's go lighter. Okay, great. So this is something that has been on my mind, and I know this is not going to be anything revolutionary, but so here I am right now, right? I'm performing up in the Hudson Valley. I'm doing some Shakespeare up in the Hudson Valley and coming back to my apartment in Queens,

you know, a few days a week, going back and forth. And because of that, I always have sort of clean up my space when I leave, right? Because I'm kind of living in two places at the same time. I note that the amount of garbage that I, as a person who is very concerned about waste, is through the roof, that there is sort of every time, like for one day, there's somehow a bag of garbage. I'm fascinated by it. I'm increasingly fascinated by like, I was in this apartment for one day and I did nothing. And there is this bag of garbage. And then I think to myself, I'm like, oh no, this is horrible. I'm a single woman living alone and I have this much garbage. Talk to me about

a married couple with two kids. Who got started this way? The Bolivian scientist who was looking into... Yes. Who got started looking at garbage? Let me tell you, it's this woman who, yeah. No, totally. See, I'm thinking there's a different interpretation. If you're hanging out, you're like, man, I was just home

all day long. I really didn't do anything. You're like, wait a minute. I've got a full bag of garbage. It's proof I must have done something. I must have done something with my day. And I also, I'm someone who loves to cook, right? So that's always the situation also. But someone told me recently, and I might get it wrong, but it's a book called maybe No Waste Home.

This woman and I were having a fantastic conversation at this yoga studio where she was telling me about this woman's written a book where she, it's like her and her husband and two sons have gotten down to the point where apparently they fill, at the end of a year, they fill a mason jar with garbage. That every other thing they use is recyclable, is reusable, is compostable, is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I just sort of am thinking about waste in general, because I know I'm going to make some big changes. My brother is at the forefront of environmental consultation. He has his own business in which he often counsels people about how to make their companies

more green or their environments more sustainable or whatnot. I'm going to have a big conversation with him when I see him in September out in Berkeley. I'm going to sit him down and say, talk to me. Why am I not surprised that person who does that lives in Berkeley? No, totally. They can't leave there. He and his wife and baby. They can't ever leave there because they're like right in there.

But he travels all over the country. He's in Texas dealing with transportation. He's in all these companies all over the country. He does stuff for like, he's in like Texas dealing with transportation. And he's in all these companies all over the place. He's awesome. But I really want to sit down with him and say, talk to me. Look me in the eye and tell me what you guys do. Because I know how they're, you know, going back to food at their wedding. They knew where everything was from, right?

They knew, in fact, they knew the farmers who had farmed everything. They knew who had caught everything. They knew every single piece of food and produce on their tables where it came from. But the topic is waste. That's the topic. Garbage, basically. Discuss. I think we just did.

But I did. But I just discussed it myself, which was actually like a verbal garbage bag of myself discussing garbage. Yeah, I'm not even sure where to go from there. Maybe we just say amen and move to the next topic. I don't know. That might have just been a soapbox treatise on garbage. That could be, actually. I would have loved to hear your thoughts on that, but I think I just articulated it myself.

He was beautifully articulated. Anything I could add to that would just be garbage. Excellent. What a punchline. It's a waste of time. Yeah, a waste. Anything I could add to that would just be garbage. Excellent. What a punchline. A waste of time. Yeah, a waste. Dan, any final thoughts here on the final topic, question?

What comes to mind a little bit for me, and it's sort of circulated, I think, throughout from are we naturally nice to Amazon fiction to garbage, is the question and maybe this is too big a topic for right now but there's been a couple of companies in the news over the past month or so which have uh they've been discussing the workplace the challenge has been what's the workplace like um zappos and and tony shan what's going on out in vegas or what's not going on out in vegas however you want to look at it um and um amazon yeah it comes to mind when you talk about the human being's state of goodness and the question of morality and business because Amazon's getting a lot of guff, right, for this last article.

Yeah. I can't imagine that it's that different in a huge array of businesses out there that are looking at the bottom line as number one, saying we will do whatever we have to do to get there. And if you want to join us, welcome to. And if you don't, see ya. So why are they getting so much flack for what's going on? I would like to direct the conversation to my mentor, Jonathan Field, who you recall years ago, you introduced me to one of my very favorite books of all times, The Diamond Cutter.

Will you talk just a wee bit about that? I mean, the Buddhist view of business being the opposite, actually, of what you're describing. But I have gone back to that book over and over and over and over again in so many different ways in my life to look at the perspectives of, you know, perspectives on exactly what you're talking about. When I wind up in situations where I feel like I'm compromised, that book is just a beautiful book about how generosity leads to actually perpetuates great wealth and not the opposite, which is what we see the opposite all the time, right? Oh, and don't get me wrong. I think, you know, the idea of positive organizational scholarship, positive business, you know, I'm 100% there, there. No, I know, but that's not the way of the

world, right? The world seems to be wafting in the other direction. But talk fields, tell us some wisdom. 52 cultures doing this. That's right. That's right. It is really interesting. And it's a question that's fascinating to me. There was a study done by Good Corp recently, and they were kind of trying to figure out, like, what are people keying in on, on like good corporations these days. And the slogan that kind of came out of it was that people are the new green. So it's kind of fascinating is that 10 years ago, all the companies were rushing to say, we're green, we're green, we're green, in part, because you know, there may have been somebody in there who's like, well, it's good for the world. But the truth is, the vast majority, it was marketing, you know, they knew that people were getting really interested in buying green

and wanting to buy from companies that supported green, you know, sustainability. And so they wanted to be known as green. And these days, it seems like there's been a shift and that there's just a baseline assumption that like, that's kind of taken care of for most corporations. Now, there's a really growing interest now in like, how are you taking care of the people who are making the things that I'm thinking about buying? Not across the board, but it's actually kind of like a really interesting growing phenomenon. It's starting to matter on a marketing level too. And, you know, there's an interesting thing that happens with corporations. And I think, you know, so Tony Hsieh and Zappos and Bezos and Amazon have been in the news a lot over the last couple of months think, you know, so Tony Hsieh and Zappos and Bezos and Amazon have been

in the news a lot over the last couple of months. Because, you know, for Tony and Zappos, because he's basically taken a company that was known as, you know, creating this astonishing culture that really exalted and valued people and relationship, and made a decision that he was actually converting the entire company to a management philosophy called holacracy, which is pretty complex. And it's designed to do just profoundly change the inner workings, the structural workings, the mechanisms and mechanistics and the culture. And he basically said, like, we are changing as a company can stay and you have to be 100% in with holacracy, or you can leave, and that's completely fine. We'll take care of you.

That's a completely legitimate choice, and something like 20% or 25% of the workforce walked out. So I think there are two really big distinctions. I've met Tony a handful of times. We've talked. I think the interesting thing is that Tony really, really, really does value and exalt the human condition and trying to treat people right and trying to build an organization that really exalts humanity. And tries to make, you know, he's got the name of his book slash manifesto is Delivering Happiness. And, you know, they are now, interestingly, owned by Amazon, which is the company that has been in the news a lot lately with some pretty scathing articles about a culture that's all about hyper-efficiency. Yeah.

And basically not really caring a whole lot about the humanity of the culture or the circumstance that people endure in the name of that. I don't know whether, as an outsider, all we can know about Amazon is what we read. But it is interesting. And it circles back to, Gabrielle, what you were saying about Diamond Cutter, but just fundamental nature. So you have a massive public company that now owns the other company that we're talking about. So they're all part of the same umbrella, right?

So effectively all public. And when a company goes public, drawing on my very long ago background as a securities lawyer, they have to actually, their mandate changes. And the mandate becomes the single most important thing in the organization is to, quote, maximize shareholder value. That is the single most important thing in the organization is to, quote, maximize shareholder value. That is the single most important thing. You have a fiduciary duty to your stockholders now, which are now like in the millions or billions, to maximize shareholder value. That traditionally has been translated as make more money.

Right. And the way that people think about making more money is hyper efficiency, get more product out, increase prices and cut costs. And actually taking beautiful care of the people who make all of that happen has very often been subjugated to the level of if we can do that and still do okay financially, we'll pay attention to it. But it's rare that it's been raised to the level of the single most effective thing that we can do

to maximize shareholder value from a dollars and cents standpoint is take astonishing care of the people in our organization. So even if you don't buy into sort of like the more humanistic ideals of it's just the right thing to do, increasingly corporations that really double down on treating people right are the ones that outperform the market over the long haul. It's really interesting to see that data. And it does surprise me that more companies don't do it that way.

There's an emergence of something called a B Corporation these days, which has caught fire more in California. There are still, to my knowledge, fewer than 1,000 B Corporations in existence. But essentially what it is, it's like a regular corporation, but there's one big difference, which is that you are allowed to factor in something other than money as a core sort of like fiduciuciary or duty to your shareholders. So that if a founder elects to either start a company as a B Corporation or convert it to a B Corporation, what that tells them is if at some point they get to a point where they're taking venture capital money, public money, that even if they've got a million shareholders on a public market, they can actually point to their charter and say, you bought into this knowing that we are

allowed to make decisions that will exalt the humanity of the people who work for us and be fully within their legal responsibilities in doing that. So it's really interesting to see how companies are moving to that. I believe Patagonia is one of those companies. There are a small number of larger companies who are. I think it would be really interesting and nice to see a lot more companies adopt that status. Yeah, right. But I do think also that there is a growing awareness from the outside looking in that I want to buy from.

It's like that good corpse study. I want to buy from companies who do right by the people who are making the things that I want to buy. And inevitably, the thing that leads to real change within the companies is consumer behavior. At the end of the day, that's always sort of the primary driver. So that's my very long-winded thought on that. No, that was good. I like how this is wrapping up. You realize we're going to have to wrap this up with you doing a soapbox speech, Dan.

I haven't had one yet. I know you're right. That's my point. My point is that now I went on mine about garbage. Fields went on his about business. And now what's your last topic, Jonathan? It was kind of a nice story, Ashley, but it actually would tee you up really nicely.

Go for it. Bring it. Almost like we planned this. Almost, but maybe not. Anything we ever do. It's come over. Bring food. We'll talk.

We'll nosh. We'll talk. Who knows? Whatever. It's all good. Yeah, so there's a great piece in the New York Times that I read about a guy named Robert Markowitz, who, successful lawyer, Silicon Valley, had his own practice, making good money, criminal attorney.

And every day in his practice and month and year, he was getting more and more sick, more pained, to the point where he had to sit on an orthopedic cushion. His whole body was just riddled with pain. After 10 years of school and practice, he finally walked away, vanished into San Miguel de Allende down in Mexico for two years, basically came back broke, and didn't know what to do with his life. But he knew that the life that he was living couldn't be the life that he carried forward with.

Went back, moved in with his mom, who, from what I remember from the story, were Russian immigrants living in Westchester just out here, which is you got a son, the lawyer, who makes good, has a good practice in Silicon Valley, and then especially for immigrant parents who very often came to this country to provide a better life for their kids. It's very difficult, I think, to understand that.

And then moves back in and just kind of tries to figure it out. And he shares in the story a conversation he's had. He was walking around with his mom who asked, you know, like, when are you going back to law? And he's like, I don't think ever. And she says something like, you know, you know you're throwing your life away. And so there's a circumstance in the story where he ends up sort of helping a kid, and the kid gives him a big hug, and all of a sudden he melts.

He's like, oh, my God. Somebody, like, needs me, and that feels amazing. So he decides to, like, oh my God, somebody needs me and that feels amazing. So he decides to get a Bobo the Clown outfit and do a couple of parties that way. He's like, this is really interesting to me, but I don't want to do that. So he picks up his guitar and he builds now a career

as the guitar guy in little kids' parties up and down the Northeast where he's making $450 to play guitar for little kids parties up and down the northeast where he's making like 450 dollars to play guitar for little kids and get hugs and watch them light up and just like see sparkles in their eyes and he says in the article he's like am i making lawyer money no he's like but i do okay and like just the feeling that he gets is hard every day you know it's so beautiful and um i just i thought it was a great story to share. But also there's a lot of just

the do what you love thing in the news today. Huge. Huge. You just heat me up like for Grand Slam. So let's bring it home. So I think it's an amazing topic. What comes to mind for me are about 63 things. Let me try to limit them to about 47.

There's an article in the New York Times about three months ago that said the happiest lawyers are the ones who earn the least amount of money. And it's a really interesting article, well worth looking up because what they're doing is really meaningful to them. And they're like, you know what? I got my law degree. I was supposed to make X amount of dollars in a huge corporation. I found not satisfying, but I really did love law. And I wanted to do something that helped an organization or a cause that was really meaningful.

And now I am. And I'm making far less money. But I'm making enough, as he said. Okay. But the lawyers who are happiest make the least amount of money. I met an interesting fellow a few weeks back, first-generation American, who's a lawyer. And his parents told him, you're not going to be a lawyer. You're going to be a doctor or an engineer because lawyers are second class.

After those things, we've worked too hard. And he's like, I actually am going to be a lawyer. And by the way, I'm not going to take the offers that I got from so many major firms because what I really want to do is go into entertainment. And they're like, what? He's like, yeah, that's what I want to do. And he now, he started a club for high school kids, all of the school kids from the same cultural background. And that club is about how do you pursue what it is that you're most passionate about? Because in his heritage, he happens to be Indian.

In his heritage, it's like you will go to school. You will get straight A's. You will go to medical school or business school, you know, slash, slash. And that's what you'll do. And these kids are like, that's not what I want to do, but I feel like I have to. So we talk about this pressure. My students at NYU, my two students across the country, the stress is through the roof, anxiety is through the roof, depression is through the roof.

And a huge part of it, I would volunteer, is that it's because they're pursuing paths that they don't want to pursue, right? And when they do, all these problems happen. Now, hopefully, they end up, well, if they don't catch earlier, they are able to do what he did, which is to say, you know what? This isn't right for me. And what comes to mind for me with your story is the comment about immigrant parents coming here and saying, you're going to be a success.

But the challenge is that too often we're told what success is. We're not asked, how do you define success? And then given that leeway to explore success, which may be law, and you could end up being a wonderful, happy lawyer because you're doing something you love, maybe a clown, because you love working with kids and playing guitar, but we're not offered that opportunity frequently enough. I come from a somewhat unique background, my parents both professional musicians, and they were both kids of immigrants, right? So offered that opportunity frequently enough. I come from a somewhat unique background. My parents were both professional musicians, and they were both kids of immigrants.

So when my mother wanted to become a singer, they were like, absolutely not. And of course she went on to be a successful singer. And when she met my father, and my grandmother said, what does he do for a living? And she said, he plays the flute. She said, that's nice. What does he do for a living? And she said, he plays the flute. She said, that's nice. What does he do for a living? That's because that's not success. But that's,

I think, one of the huge challenges we're facing is that success is defined for us. You will be a lawyer because we're immigrants and that's what you're going to do, as opposed to, what do you really love to do? Let's pursue that thing that you get up in the morning and say, this is something that I'm truly passionate about. Angela Duckworth, again, a Upan who speaks and writes and teaches and researches on grit. One of my favorite lines from her is when parents ask her, how can I help my kid find what they're going to be gritty at? And she says four very simple words, which are choose easy, work hard. If your kid loves Legos, get them lots of Legos and help them really, help challenge them.

Maybe they'll go into architecture. Who knows? Maybe, who knows what they'll do. If they love to read, help challenge them. If they love math, if they love law, if they love music, help them do that, but help challenge them. But it has to be intrinsic. And if it's not, you know,

I think you end up with lives that are, that might be successful from the outside perspective, but inside people are literally dying like this guy. And that's the biggest, but it's a huge challenge in our culture. How do we let go and help people pursue what they really want to pursue and support them in that way? Come in full circle. Fantastic. So, nine things. It was supposed to be 27 minutes.

We're wrapping it about, I think, 90 minutes. Excellent. Perfect. That's what the goal was. You guys, I love the conversation. Thank you so much both for being here. So as my guests today, again, Gabra Zachman and Dan Lerner, two beautiful, fabulous, brilliant people. Where can people find you, Gabra?

Oh, people can find me on Twitter at Gabra Zachman. You could find me on Facebook at the Bod Squad series. Awesome. And Mr. Lerner? Right now you can find me at www.positivex.com, which is short for positive excellence. The other site's being revamped as we speak. Fantastic. Well, thank you for joining us today. I'm Jonathan Field signing off for Good Life Project. Thanks so much for joining in this week's conversation. You know, I'm just

thinking if you actually stayed till this point in the conversation, I'm guessing there's a pretty good bet that you've gotten something out of this episode, some, some nuggets, some idea. If that is right, and you feel like sharing, then by all means, go ahead. We love when you share these conversations and get the word out. And if you wouldn't mind, I would so appreciate if you would just take a few seconds, jump onto iTunes or use your app, and just give us a quick rating or review. When you do that, it helps get the word out, helps let more people know about the conversations we're hosting here, and it gives us all the ability to spread the word

and make a bigger difference in more people's lives. As always, thank you so much for your kindness, your wisdom, and your attention. Wishing you a fantastic rest of the week. I'm Jonathan Field, signing off for Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

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