Good Life Project - Alix Spiegel | Telling Revelatory Stories

Episode Date: June 9, 2020

Graduating Oberline, Alix Spiegel landed in Chicago and stumbled upon a help-wanted ad that would lead to an internship with soon-to-be-legendary radio producer, Ira Glass. A year later, Spiegel became one of the founding producers of This American Life, where she, Ira, and a small, devoted team would change the face of public radio, storytelling, journalism, and, eventually podcasting. She eventually left to work on NPR's Science Desk for a decade and build more of a life outside radio. Then, January 2015, Spiegel joined forces with journalist Lulu Miller to co-host Invisibilia, a series from NPR about the unseen forces that control human behavior — our ideas, beliefs, assumptions, and thoughts. Invisibilia interweaves personal stories with fascinating psychological and brain science, in a way that ultimately makes you see your own life differently. Her work on human behavior has also appeared in The New Yorker magazine and The New York Times.You can find Alix Spiegel at: Invisibilia : https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510307/invisibilia-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, my guest today, Elise Spiegel, was never supposed to be in radio or podcasting for that matter until graduating from college and heading to Chicago. She stumbled upon a random ad, old school ad in the paper to intern with this then little known radio guy named Ira Glass. And after relentlessly pursuing him for the job, and we will hear how relentless that was in the conversation, he eventually kind of gave in and the rest is history. A year later, she became one of the founding producers of This American Life as they launched, where she worked with Ira and a team that would change the face of public radio, of storytelling, journalism, and eventually podcasting as well, leaving to work on other shows and build more of a life outside radio.

She eventually, after a number of years, felt called back into the space, becoming the co-creator of Invisibilia, which is one of the top podcasts in the world where they explore the invisible forces that shape who we are and what we do. We dive into all of this and so much more in today's conversation. So excited to share it with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is 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 getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, 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. so what's kind of funny is that i usually try and do it for a bit of background on my guests. And when I was looking, you have had this incredible, very public story career in radio and now podcasting going on for a long time now. And when I was looking to explore background for you, There are like three stories and then nothing. And I was like, huh. So witness protection, CIA. Oh my gosh, you've outed me. No, that's interesting. So what are the three stories? It's all career oriented. It's true. Yeah. And it seems like, you know, it's interesting

because it's like when the internet seems to be that scrubbed of personal details, it feels intentional in a certain way. It's interesting. It isn't scrubbed. I don't think it ever existed. So, I mean, the truth is I am a journalist because I am very, very interested in the world. And I have done only a very small handful of stories which say anything about my own experience. You know, I did the story about my grandfather creating, I mean, like changing the definition, removing homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and also being a closeted gay man. And then I've just done a handful of others, mostly because, not because I'm necessarily hiding anything, but mostly because,

you know, I think journalists, they're either interested in using the world to explore themselves, or they're interested in just moving away from where where they came from and exploring the world and I'm kind of in the in the last camp I am really really interested in the world and there is a personal story behind that which is that that I grew up, I had this very eccentric childhood where I was like basically raised to be a world famous solo violinist. So what that means is that I just spent an enormous amount of time alone in a practice room for four to six hours a day, starting when I was like nine or 10. And so I really spent a lot of time alone. And I think I spent a lot of time, you know, yearning to find out what was on the other side of the practice room door. And that,

as soon as I was able to kind of make my way out of the life that I was living, which happened around 18, 19, it was just this pent up need, really, to understand the world and to understand what the other options were other than this very kind of restricted, rigorous life that I had lived until I was 19 years old, basically. Yeah. Was life up until that point when you're practicing for six hours a day and sort of being tracked to be, you know, world class in something? I'm always curious whether that's something that is internally mother's family more or less, you know, they were living in Belgium during the Second World War or right before the Second World War and kind of got out. But one of my mother's cousins actually survived Auschwitz by playing piano. And she took that very literally. I feel like there are many lessons that you could draw from that. It's useful to have some kind of skill that differentiates you. But really, she wanted her daughter to survive. And so she, the way that that worked itself out for in her mind was my daughter needs to be able to play the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in A minor absolutely perfectly. And then whatever comes, she will survive. And, and, you know, I mean, so that's how I ended up in such a kind of rigorous, such a kind of rigorous discipline so early.

Because my mother really wanted me to be able to survive. And that was how she emotionally, she saw it. I mean, it's so interesting on a couple levels. One, I think the average parent, when a kid says, I want to be in some way, shape, or form, like make my work in the performing arts, a lot of parents are freaked out by that because they think it's the opposite of secure in any way, shape, or form. But for some reason, it was the opposite lens with you.

Yeah. Yeah. It was my cousin survived. You can survive. Just sit there in this room. And I have a great, you know, I love my mother. My mother is an extraordinary woman in a million different ways. And I don't have any kind of bitterness.

And, you know, I talk to her a couple times a week. But it was a very eccentric. It was not a normal American childhood. And, you know, and it in, you know, in many ways. And that is it's kind of the engine that propels this curiosity about the world because I was so removed from the world for so long and also questioned whether or not I would ever get access to the world really in the way that most people do. And that you can see that in a million ways in my life. Just this, this, it's like somebody who like grew up really, really unattractive and then

they grow up and they become incredibly beautiful, but their self-concept never fully adjusts. I think there's like an element of that with me where, you know, I just have this sense that I will never actually know. And so I'm seeking always to know as much as I possibly can. And that's why. So in answer to your original question, which was, you know, are you in the witness protection program? The answer is no. I am just, I just spent the first 20 years of my life locked in a practice room. And, and as soon as I got out, I just was insanely hungry to know what, what other people's experience was. Yeah. What happens at 18 or 19 that opens the door for you? Um, I, I finally put my foot down. I mean, I had one, like, and I just said,

I am quitting this thing. And that was a huge, like, that was, that was its own kind of war, like own issue, like getting itself like that, that finding a way when everything in your life is kind of structured in a certain way to create a certain, you know, to have said, give me one more year. And so that I did one more year. Then I got into Oberlin College because that's a place that you can get into if you play violin. And then I, within a week, dropped any kind of musical anything and have never looked back. It's so fascinating, too, because, I mean, Oberlin is legendary for its music programs. So it's like the thing that got you in there that had largely defined your identity up

until that moment, the moment you arrive effectively, you're like, nah, no longer. Oh, yes. Intentionally. I like applied. I was like, this will get me in the door because actually, like I didn't even go to school every day of the week. Like, you know, I went to I like had lessons on Wednesday afternoons and I just knew I could get in and then I will never touch this thing again. Not never touch this thing again. Actually, my mother and I play together, but I knew that was just my way out. But then you also find yourself in this place where a lot of people go there to continue this.

And the culture is built around it and you're like, for you, it's almost not, it's not just saying I'm done with this, at least in the way that it was, but did you feel like you were kind of opting out of the culture there at the same time or not? No, because Oberlin is actually a fairly diverse place. There is a conservatory and then there is also a legit normal college. And so I just ducked out of the conservatory part and I embraced everything that was not in the conservatory. Yeah.

So then it's sort of like, okay, so now I have some time to figure out who am I? It's funny. We had last year, I guess it was Lizair in the studio who was at Oberlin. I think she left right before you got there, right? Oh, no. I actually, recently, I was interviewing her for something. Yes, we are both Oberlin kids. And we know some of the same people, actually.

Yeah. But she showed up there and she wanted to be a visual artist. She had no interest in music. Yeah. And it just completely flips for her the opposite direction. Yeah. Well, there were a lot of bands at Oberlin. And actually, I was in a rock band at Oberlin. And I was like, what can you do with eight years of music theory that will also coincidentally upset your know. I was like incredibly efficient. And so, yeah, I was in first Barbie Skank and then Succubus. I have a record.

The Succubus has a record actually somewhere. I don't know where it is. But yeah, me playing electric guitar. I picked up a Telecaster. That's amazing. So when you moved through your time at Oberlin, what did you actually end up studying then? I studied political science. Got it.

I thought that I was, I have always wanted to make the world a better place, and I thought that that would be one way of doing it. Cool. So when you get out then, it sounds like pretty shortly after graduation, you land in Chicago. Yeah. I had one year in San Francisco at a think tank, which didn't work out very well. And then I, and then I moved to Chicago to, to be with my boyfriend and I, um, picked up the one day and I was, I had no idea what to do with my life at that point. And, um, one day I picked up a, the, the Chicago Tribune and I was in frustration. This was during the Chicago heat wave. I threw

it on my lap and there was a teeny tiny little, you know, uh, uh, like little note in the paper, a sidebar that said, Ira Glass starting a new radio program, your radio playhouse. That's the first name of this American life. Did you know that? You did, yeah. And documentaries about American life. And I was like, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to just wheedle my way in. So I know in a much more recent incarnation, you put out a manifesto on radio, which I want to circle back to a little bit later. But one of the things that you shared in there was this experience that you had right at the beginning, where I guess as an intern, you were transposing or taking notes on an interview, a story by a guy named Kevin Kelly. Oh, yes.

Tell me more. That was critical. I mean, I just, you know, I had been wondering what to do with my life. And actually, originally, it wasn't like I decided to be a journalist. I just, you know, it said documentaries about American life. And I was very interested in American life because I, would actually be a good way for me to be exposed to a lot of different people so that I could figure out what I wanted to do. And the very first show that This American Life ever did, when it was still your radio playhouse, was a story about firsts and or new beginnings, new beginnings. That's what it was. And so they did the story of Kevin Kelly, who is the founder of Wired magazine and this magazine that's very much associated with the future. where he was in Israel and woke up one morning and it came to him on Easter morning that he was going to die in six months. And then he does this thing where he decides that he can't know for certain whether or not he's going to die, but he is going to live as if he were going to die. And he gives away everything that he owns and he does all this stuff. And then at the end, it turns out that he doesn't die and he starts crying. And I just remember I was, this is one of, I think it was

the first interview actually that Ira did for the show. It was a story that Kevin Kelly had never told. And I was not not for some reason in the original interview, my job was to transcribe. And I just remember kind of sitting there listening to this interview. And, and I was experiencing it as it was unfolding on tape. And I was like, this is it like this, I wanted to like crawl into the tape and just stay there for the rest of my life I just you know it was it was an answer for me and and I was like I'm not going to use this to figure out what I want to do this is what I want to do yeah and and it was it it was incredibly that was I will that's that was the that was like the demarcation for me.

Yeah. I'm fascinated with the concept of sliding doors. Do you ever reflect on what would kept pitching that it became the pattern problem, which is one there are two concepts. It's really interesting. You know, there are two concepts that I think people have. And this actually goes back to violin. Well, I won't, I won't explain it that way. But, but, you know, it's like either, you know, a life comes from inside the person. You know, there is a person has a certain personality and a certain way of being. And this person would be a great dancer, singer, writer, no matter what. They were destined for that. Or is it that like there are teeny tiny little accidents and those accidents make the difference between one life and another life? And I actually set out to answer that question for myself. And yeah, I think I would. I think it's very there. There is no way that I was fated to be a journalist. There wasn't. I it is a strange thing that I'm in this profession in the first place. I mean, I had by according to me, I remember

being in college and having to write an essay. And it literally took me five hours to write three sentences. And I remember sitting there just being like, well, there's one thing that's off the list, never going to be a writer. And I didn't do any journalism in college or any other thing like that. And so, you know, but I, and then now today, I'm essentially I write for a living. So yeah, it was not predestined. It was a series of small, you know, it just so happened, I just so happened to pick up that newspaper, I just so happened to throw it on my lap. And that's the difference. 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. 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 8 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. Now I'm curious, when you look at those two different things, is that a true dichotomy or can it be more of a yes end? I think it can be more of a yes end. Like, I mean, it depends. You can tell the story in a variety of ways. Right.

So I picked up that like like I can tell you. Do you know the story about like how I got into this American life? Have you heard that story? No, I don't think I know that one. OK, so I picked up that. Here's here's here's a true story. And this shows you it's like, yes, there is chance, essentially. But then there is also personality and both those things in combination determine outcomes.

So I picked up this newspaper. I threw it on my lap. I readaston, your radio playhouse. I went. I got a scissors. I cut out this teeny tiny little square of writing. And every day I like sat with that, you know, square of paper in between my two thumbs. And I looked at it and I said, this is the difference between today and tomorrow. I am going to pull this square into a window and I'm going to go through that window and that's going to and I'm going to change my own life. And so I started calling Ira and I called him, you know, twice a week, just being like, Hey, Ira. Hi. Hi. I'm Elise. I'm Elise. Hello. Hi. Guess what? My name's Elise. And also I would like two interviews. And, you know, he was like, I just, you know, I mean, he was like, I don't know. You know, I haven't started the show yet.

I don't know what we need. You don't have any experience. And I was like, OK. And then I would call him the next week and I'd be like, hi, Ira. I'm Elise. How are you doing? And anyway, so finally, I like it was like September. That was all summer. And then September. And, you know, I had actually somebody at another place had offered me a job because I was also

kind of talking to other public radio things. And I was and I called him up and I was like, Ira, you know, I'm so wanted. And, you know, so now's your only chance. And can you, are you going to give me this internship, unpaid internship or not? And he said, no, I'm not giving you the internship. And I was like, okay, I respect that. Thank you very much. And I hung up the phone. And then I like sat there for like five minutes. I was in my house in Baltimore, actually, because it was September 2nd, which is my father's birthday. And I just sat there and I was like, there's no fucking way. There's just no fucking way.

There's not a way that this is how this ends. So I picked up the phone and I was like, Ira, I'm coming in. I'm coming in for two weeks. And at the end of two weeks, you're allowed to send me away, but I'm coming in and I will see you in October. And like at that point, Ira had like

tried to say no to me in so many different ways, some of them nice, some of them not so nice. And he was just like, oh, OK, forget it. Like, whatever. I I I give in. And that's how I got my job. So that's amazing. That's like so that shows you. I mean, like that's like a combination of like, yes, there is luck, but also there is determination. And that's something, for example, that I always said to me when we were starting out. It's like we just work enough until we get lucky, you know, that you just put yourself in the way of luck by through not being turned aside. Yeah. I mean, what jumps out at me there also is that I'm curious how much of – so tenacity is one word um another word which is certainly much more popular these days would be grit which is legendary for having been developed with people who are pursuing elite level performance in athletics and music so i wonder how much of like your your unwillingness

to accept ira's rejection comes from the fact that you had trained for you know the first x number of years fiercely to never give up and com you know constantly um get better and and you had this sort of you had an extraordinary level of grit that made you say okay so once i find something i want i mean if you have that towards something that you kind of really want to stop doing as soon as you can, then when you find something where you're like, oh, this, I mean, and you apply it to that, it's like a whole different game. Yeah, no, I think the thing that I did get from violin is an ability to withstand, like stamina, withstand pain, how much pain can you, and that's particularly in kind of the beginning part of I think any professional life, but certainly journalism.

I mean, when you don't know what you're doing, it's just like, let's say you're trying to find, you're trying to land a great interview. Well, one way of doing that is just being extremely smart and clever about how you structure interviews and how you get how you get how you, you know, render the tape. Another is just go out and talk to like 20 million people. One of those people is going to be like a really good talker. They're going to do all your work for you. So like, yes, I think you were talking about stamina. Yes, I feel like the thing that I learned from being a work like there, you know, you have to be able to. There's a ton of rejection that you have to be able to endure. There's a ton of failure that you have to be able to endure. There's a ton of failure that you have to be able to endure.

And that's always been kind of how I moved through things. And I was well-trained in that, I think. Yeah, and also the idea that it's a volume game. Oh, volume game. Yeah. And you see this in creative research also where people are like, well, create 10 paintings and make them as meticulous as you possibly can. And over the same window, another group of people creates

just as many, they're told to create as many paintings as you possibly can, doesn't matter how good or bad they are. And then when sort of like an arbiter of judges who are experts in creativity, Look at the final output, sort of like the best of the best from both sides. The volume game almost always wins. Oh, the volume game was my gospel when I was younger. Now that I have a lot more information about what I'm doing, I don't need to use the volume strategy as much because I can dance my way out of a lot of problems without volume. That's how I feel now.

So it's sort of like once you hit a certain level, I mean, because the volume game builds a certain amount of craft. And then once you have that baseline level of craft, it allows you to function differently, I think. Yes, that is exactly my philosophy. Like I just did a ton of volume and it's all about numbers. And this is what I tell like the producers that I'm training on Invisibilia. It's like in the beginning, it's just about volume. And then you encounter a problem, you solve it, you encounter a problem, and then you have a menu of like possible techniques for solving problems. Because every, for example, every story is broken in a different, like none of them come.

Fully formed. And like, there is a beautiful thing. But typically, it's just, you know, you just have to invent your way around all. And that's true in life, too. You know, you're just inventing it. You're inventing your way out of the problems. It's not like you're not going to. Yeah, that's what you're doing. Yeah. So your two-week internship, which turned into apparently, yeah. I'm curious, so many questions I want to ask you. How far in, so the Kevin Kelly thing, did that happen almost immediately? Was that like one of the really, really early things? Or did that happen later down the road? And also, maybe I should ask him before that, you know, like, okay, so you show up on October X, whatever the date was, and be like,

Ira, I'm here, let's do this. How long into that until you or him or both of you realize, oh, this needs to keep happening? Okay, so I showed up, and it was just me and Ira, and then somebody who was part time. So like this Dolores Wilbur, she was, you know, just a consultant. I mean, she was a contributing editor and Paul Tuff and Jack Hitt were contributing editors. But in the very beginning, it was just me and Ira and the Kevin Kelly thing.

I mean, first, this is like a sign of the apocalypse. I like I was tasked with setting up like the computers, which anybody who knows me now would find that hilarious. Anyway. Yeah I just we just I just kept going. And I we just didn't have any conversation. I wasn't he wasn't paying me. So, yeah. So we just kept going. And then about six months in, I think I like I finally got he was just like, I'll pay you part time, which was like, I'll pay you two dollars for a year's worth of work. And and then after a year, I got full time and I got actually hired properly. So that he just never sent me away. And like so whenever I would say like, you know, like for for the whole length of my time there, whenever he would get mad at me, like I was sad. But on on like my inside voice was saying it was like, I mean, what are you going to do? You didn't hire me. You're like you're going to fire me. You didn't even hire me. Like what what what power do you have here you have no power like forget it like you know um so that so that's the way yeah we just didn't talk about it and i just kept going that's amazing so so then you kind of go official i guess right around the time when it actually becomes like they make the change over becomes this american life and it sounds like

you by that time also because it's been you and him and maybe one other person. It was Nancy Epdike, me, Peter Clowney. Okay. And him, I think. And so you've got a year of this under your belt. So when it flips over to This American Life, you step into more of like a producing role pretty quickly, it sounds like. Yeah, no, I was a producer. I mean, I was doing all the tasks of a producer.

I just wasn't getting paid or and I didn't have the title. So, I mean, I was producing, you know, that very first show I was transcribing. I was, I wasn't cutting tape maybe at that point, but fairly quickly. I mean, you're desperate, right? Like, I mean, like, Ira, like, you have a weekly show. It is a journalism show. And you have four people. So obviously whoever is there is going to be put to work. And Ira, I have to say, is like the best. He is the best teacher. Like he's just like the best.

At that point in particular, I think, he had so much riding on this show being a success and he was so particular about it. do and and all of the possible choices that you can make at every point of the process that um that it was just it was like he really I think he could have he could teach like a goldfish how to do excellent radio I mean it's. And it, so it was just an incredible privilege for me, I think. Yeah. And this was a really interesting time too, because like now when we reflect on Ira Glass on This American Life, you know, it is this juggernaut in the space of audio, like, and, and it feels like it's been that way for a really long time. And Ira's name is well known in all circles now. But what he was doing when he started with you, like when This American Life launches, even though we hear, now you listen to radio and you listen to podcasts and we hear the

influence of what you guys did in the very, very early days, all over the place. But when that first happens, it was almost heresy to a certain extent. When you looked at what was happening in the world of public radio before then, this was not how you did things, even though now we're like, well, of course, that's how you do it. Yeah. I mean, there were several. So, you know, so yes, and he had articulated very, very clearly for himself and also for us, like the changes that he was making in the forum and why he was making those changes. So, for example, and this might be very kind of inside baseball for your audience. I don't know. But for example, like one of the big changes that This American Life made in the approach to radio was, okay, the NPR voice is a very kind of authoritative voice. And we are going to take a much less authoritative voice. We are going to be our human selves as reporters in our writing, in our delivery style. And so we are going to...and we are going to...you know, and that was one big ideological really change that he kind of pushed forward. And then also, you know, we're going to use tape in a

different way, right? So typical NPR story at the time, you talk to the tape, you have your tracks, then you talk in a very formal way to the tape, and then you come out and you have axtracts, axtracts. He wanted to kind of change that. And then he also wanted to change the kind of underlying, the typical underlying structure. And he wanted to borrow more from, you know, film and other forms of storytelling so that you're creating a much more typical narrative arc. So those were all things, for example, that were explicitly discussed about how what was going on at this American – how this American life was going to make different choices than it had been made before. And those choices were in part about taste and they were in part about kind of life philosophy. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be

fun. 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. The Apple Watch Series X 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 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes.

The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. I mean, it sounds like before that it was a lot of, well, here's the announcer, here's the story. Here's the announcer, here's the story.

And then everything gets conflated and meshed and becomes this sort of seamless fabric when you start doing it where, you know, it's no longer the announcer, it's the narrator. And the narrator is no longer necessarily outside of the story. I mean, you're sort of like weaving in and out of it. And, you know, the news had always had this sense of, well, we are objective. And of course, like these days, we know that's a joke. But there was always this stance, like, you know, like we're just simply, you know, like in an unbiased way, introducing the facts and here are the facts, here's the tape. And you guys were like, no. Yeah. We have a point of view. Yes. Mostly Ira. Let's let's like give credit where credit was due because I was 23. But, you know, yeah, mostly Ira was just like that is, you know, stuff and nonsense. And we're taking a different approach. And we're going to be very aggressive about being human and allowing our human selves, our flawed and curious and funny and sad human selves to appear in these stories. And actually, you know, one of the things he always

said at the time was, we're going to apply, you know, some of these techniques, more traditional techniques to small stories. Because when This American Life first started out, another one of the innovations was we're not going to take on the big issues of the day. We're going to take on teeny tiny life things and apply journalistic skills to them. It has evolved out of that. I mean, it is now using those skills to address the stories of the day. But that was also, yeah, we're looking at personal narratives, but we're putting them through some of these processes. Yeah. I think one of the other huge things, right, and you see this so much in the work that you've done independently now over the years, is that the nature of the tape focused from the facts and just the facts.

It focused from the external circumstances to the internal life. Exactly. Yeah. That was a huge shift. That's, yeah. I hadn't really, I hadn't, you know what? I hadn't really ever kind of thought about that as one of the, as one of the kind of big changes, actually.

But now that you say that, that's true. I mean, yeah, we are looking. I mean, certainly there was journalism before that. I mean, you have to look at like Joe Richman and Dave Isay and the Kitchen Sisters. And, you know, there was a beautiful tradition that I was familiar with even before going to this American life of people really kind of looking at the kind of psychological worlds of

everyday people. But sure, yes, that's also true. Like having a lot of the focus be on, and this is certainly central to my work at Invisibilia, you know, what are the kind of psychological structures and concepts that are shaping the experience of a person. And also, right, so that's an outgrowth of, you can trace the red thread back to, okay, so violence over what is this world that exists outside of that? And what's happening? Who are the players? What are they thinking? What's shaping them?

And how do I figure that out in the context of my life, too? So I just wanted to know, like, what is it like literally for the first like four years after I got up? I was like, what do people do when they wake up in the morning? Like that was a very basic question that I had that it took me years to answer. It's like if you're not practicing violin six hours a day, Like literally what happens? Like how does it go when you're not doing that in addition to like all of like the schoolwork and everything else? Like what? So you wake up and then what happens? Yeah. That was a very, that like even really basic stuff like that was so, I was so interested. It's amazing how you can find a story also. I think people are,

we're always looking for like the big grand things, you know, like those are the big, like that's where the story lies and the big moments of change. And, you know, like there's always these big, let's focus there and tell the big story. It sounds like so much of what you've come to see and be curious about is like, where, where are the stories and what are the stories in the tiny moments that populate every person's day? Yeah. I mean, yes, but I'm also, I mean, like I am interested in everything. Yeah. Like, except for classical music, I'm interested in literally every single thing. And I'm also very interested in systems and conceptual systems. And that's always been, I mean, like if you look at

invisibilia and the kind of founding philosophy of invisibilia, that is the work that we are trying to do. We're trying to make more explicit, implicit conceptual systems so that people can be free, would be one way of saying it, but so that people have choices. That's what invisibilia is. interested in the kind of cultural conceptual structures that shape those experiences and define those experiences in a lot of ways. Yeah. It sounds like not just describing them, but also what their origin stories are and whether they're valid or not, or constructive or destructive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So you spent a chunk of time with Ira on the crew of This American Life. At a certain point, you split off and you end up on NPR's science desk. It's over 10 years. And I guess you're still kind of like occasionally weave in and out of doing stuff with them.

I mean, typically not now. You know, Invisibilia started. 2015? 2015. We had been obviously working on it because we had a whole season at that point before that, but also in the cracks because I was a science reporter and so was Lulu. Although Lulu was brought on to do Invisibilia with me and Ann Gudenkopf, who's a very important part of the Invisibilia story and also my story just in general.

But wait, what was your question again? It was – It was – I was asking about sort of like that intern term in the science desk. So I did the science desk. I mean that was to be 100 percent honest. I had moved to New York because I figured I needed to figure out how to write and what would my what would my voice and interest be outside of this American life. And also just because I'm one of these people who like, I really, really, really, really, really want to have a lot to learn at every

moment. And like, I want to be at the bottom of the hill, and just have a very steep learning curve because that that's, I'm sure part of violin things too. So I felt like I had reached a kind of plateau at This American Life. And I was like, OK, so what do I need to do? I need to figure out. It's going to be very unpleasant to learn how to write in my own voice and my own interests. So might as well get that out of the way. So I moved to New York. And I started, you know, I was a contributing editor to This American Life. And I just got really, really depressed because I'm not some because I like other people. So I was sitting alone in a room by myself. And and so I just needed a way out of the depression. And so I I needed external structures. And that's why I went to NPR. And then I met Anne

Guttenkopf, who was the editor of the Science Desk. And then I like to be, again, to be totally honest, I got, for a while, I just got focused on my personal life and trying to understand. Again, like in the way that I typically do is like, how does one get married? And what are all of the ways that people conceptualize that? And how does one have children? And what are all the ways one can like talking to everything that wasn conceptualize that? And how does one have children? And what are all the ways one can like talking to everything that wasn't nailed down and like reading every single book and, you know, I mean, like literally, you know, get into the back of a cab. So your wife, how'd you guys meet? Like, just give me the whole like, what is the what does it look like? You know, everybody. And so that was 10 years. And then and I got married, I had kids. And then

when my youngest was, you know, like, I guess, five, four or five, then all of a sudden, I was like, Oh, okay, I like this is gonna this is gonna work out great. And then I then I was like, this is gonna, this is gonna work out great. And then I, then I was like, oh, I really want to, I have, you know, I had a little bit been on autopilot professionally, is the truth, as I kind of figured out these other things. And then I was like, I, like, I really want to, and it wasn't totally, like, autopilot. I was working on the science desk. I covered human behavior. I was getting information. I was engaged in the world. I just not in the kind of insanely rigorous way that I had been engaged at This American Life where literally I think for four years I did not have a thought that was not This American Life related. And so then I was like, well, what do I want to do? Or like, I want to go back to long form. And I wanted, I felt at the time that there was not, that my view of the world was not adequately represented in terms of, I have, I'm very psychologically minded. And, you know, it felt like at the time, you know, that like, like a lot of journalism felt dominated by the by the idea that, you know, people were rational. And, you know, like, I'm thinking of like the New Republic, like hyper intellectual, like if we explain stuff to people that will make sense. It seems really it it it feels like, oh, all of these ideas are everybody knows them and they're very circulating.

But at the time, like there there hadn't been kind of as much of a hard there's been, I think, a kind of hard shift into this way of thinking that what wasn't didn't exist as much back then, like 2012, when I kind of started thinking about this, about, you know, well, what would I want to do and how would I want to kind of create this thing? And so, you know, I wanted more like a very explicitly psychologically minded approach explicitly, psychologically-minded approach to long-form journalism where you got to talk about the kind of underlying psychological and conceptual structures that were shaping the experience. And that's what Invisibilia is to some... to a lot. I mean, it has evolved and, you know, it takes on a lot of different things, but that was the kind of core idea. Let's look at all of these invisible things. It's like this amazing outgrowth of your continued ferocious curiosity about what makes people do

what they do and how does the environment we exist in affect us? Yeah. And your creative Jones, like your desire to make something that goes out into the world. And that was one of my curiosities also is, you know, is it seems like you are satisfying these multiple things, you know, on the one hand, it's just, I want to know the answer to that, like personally, like just, this is fascinating. I need to know, I need to know the one hand it's just i i want to know the answer to that like personally like just this is fascinating i i need to know i need to know the answer of it and then on the flip

side is and then in the context of invisibility invisibilia which you know like is your own thing now goes down to the world you're there's a creative process that happens on the back end of it so it's not you, it's the investigative side. And then, you know, you flip over and you're like, and how do we tell this story publicly so that people can step into it and understand how this actually functions in the world? And to a certain extent, because it's the theme of invisibilia, how this may be controlling them or affecting them in a way that they are completely unaware of. You know, so it's like you get to satisfy the creative side of you, the artistic side of you, the expressive side, and simultaneously just the fierce curiosity about the human

condition. Yeah. Which is pretty amazing. Yeah. Although I, yes, but I, like the craft side is also part of the curiosity. Yeah. Which is pretty amazing. Yeah. Although, yes, but the craft side is also part of the curiosity. Like one of the things like we very explicitly do at Invisibilia, you know, we're always looking for new techniques. And actually the show has evolved in terms of its sound and in terms of a variety of like the kinds of things that it takes on. But yeah, I am like in addition to being a, you know, curious about the human condition,

I'm also very curious about what are all of the possible techniques that you can for storytelling, like what are all of the possible approaches? So another part of what like got me interested in invisibility is I was very, very inspired by Radiolab, which has like, you know how in the beginning I kind of laid out here consciously, here's where Ira was, these are the conscious choices he made that separated. Jad has like further,

like he had a, he evolved that even more And I was really interested in learning those techniques, which is part of the reason that I reached out to Lulu in the first place, because I'm as interested in essentially creating an encyclopedia of techniques for storytelling. I mean, and that continues as of this morning. I was, you know, that, you know, like Masterclass. Do you know what Masterclass is? Ron Howard, hello. He has like a really good one, which is if you want to hear somebody, if anybody listening to us is interested in storytelling and wants to hear somebody talk through all of the elements of it.

His approach is very similar to my approach in terms of being very explicit about the choices that you have and using different techniques. He's very good at explaining that stuff. So yeah. So I am interested in, you know, I have a strong curiosity that drives me towards the world. And then that curiosity is also about how do I innovate in terms of storytelling, both in terms of structure and other things do you think about the bigger context of the work that you know so you create a piece you know the very first episode on invisibility like five years ago mm-hmm right so the secret history of thoughts when you create something where it's sort of like it deconstructs you know and so this for those who haven't listened it tells the story of just a lovely guy who starts to have these crazy thoughts of killing people starting with his wife um and then you sort of like go out and you describe these different waves of therapy

and how it's dealt with it and there's like you know this powerful resolution when you're creating what you create you're satisfying your own curiosity. You are deeply into the creative act in a collaborative way with your team. But what you're creating is also going out into the world and you are describing these influences on humanity that millions of people also will experience. Do you have in your mind when you're creating these things or when you're choosing even, when you're in a pitch meeting, you're like, what do we say yes to? What do we say no to? Do you think about or weigh the potential societal impact? Will this shape culture in a way? Will this move people in a way? Will this open eyes or hearts or minds? Or on the flip side, is there harm that might come out of something? I consider all of those things in part, like particularly the harm issue, just because I have seen how journalism about human behavior, like credulous journalism about human behavior can have very very negative impacts and that was

one of the kind of rationales for me going into the into the the this beat in particular uh i was alive during the 80s in baltimore during the the recovered memory movement i don't know if you know about that do you know about the recovery memory movement oh it don't know if you know about that. Do you know about the recovery memory movement? Oh, it's like it was, you know, and this was, so the recovered memory movement was the, was, there was this idea in journalism. I mean, in psychotherapy that people could have memories and then they repressed the memories and the therapist could unlock memories of incest and, you know, child abuse. And, and that, um, those ideas actually made their way into my life in Baltimore in the 1980s. And I had family members and friends who recovered memories and, you know, and subsequently had, like, had great strife with their families of origin. And so you can see, I mean, you can really see that ideas have consequences. This is also true of the 81 Words My Grandfather Removing

Homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. That was a scientific idea. You know, homosexuality is pathological. That had a huge impact on a huge number of people. But it's just, I mean, like one of the premises actually this of invisibilia is, you know, a lot of the things that are masquerading as quote unquote science are in fact are just social values or choices like homosexuality is abnormal that are that have positioned themselves under the banner of science. And so people defer to it. And so I very strongly felt like, yeah, you really need to like look at where these ideas come from and interrogate them really, really strongly. And so a lot of Invisibilia is like that, is like that first episode where it's simply a kind of intellectual history. So like there was this idea about thoughts, which was, you know, you really need to take them seriously. And then there was this idea you'd need to take them seriously.

And then so that you're making clear, look, these are ideologies. They're not realities. You've been told that they're realities, but they're not realities. And just by showing the kind of evolution of an idea, that becomes very, I think, viscerally clear to the listener. And yeah, so when we were looking at pictures, absolutely. Like what are the stakes? You know, basic question, like what are the stakes? Is this important for people to understand and look at? And can there be harm in me focusing on this, even if it's an incredibly compelling story? And yeah, I definitely think about that. Yeah. I would imagine that it's not always a bright line also. Sometimes it's like, you know what, I'm going to have to make the call here.

I would imagine also that what you say yes to when you start a project, that it's got to change so much through the process. Oh, it does. Absolutely. I would imagine so many of them just are completely different by the time they actually. Oh, completely. Like, yeah, totally. Yeah. They start off in one place and then they just become like, like the, like this season. Oh, there, there are just so many. I mean, sometimes I would say like 20% of the time you walk into a story and like you have an idea about it and it roughly conforms. You know, 20 percent of the time you walk into a story and you have an idea about it. And it is like literally the opposite of whatever you thought so much that there is a point in the story where you're like, is this even a story?

I'm like, that has happened. Like that. I did a story in the first season about this woman who has mirror touch synesthesia. So like, if she sees something happen, she actually feels it on her body because her visual system and her system of touch is crossed. And I went into that story, I was 100% convinced that it was like, this is going to be hilarious. And because of my understanding of empathy, I was like, well, this is obviously this story is going to go this way. And like, it's going to be, you know, I just had, and then literally at the end of the first day, I was out there with Lulu. And at the end of the first day, we went to an olive garden and sat there and we were like, is there even a story here? Like, because it was so different from what we thought. And then eventually, and so we, next day we went back

and we were like, we got what we could. And it wasn't until weeks later that we were like, okay, we can tell some kind of story about this. But yeah, you always, they start in one place and then they become something completely different. But that's good because that means you're learning and and i guess certain point i'm also so i'm thinking about actually um we're speaking shortly after your most recent season has dropped and the last episode of that it was called the last sounds right um yeah abby wendell bernie krauss was this really interesting like fascinating exploration of our awareness of the sound around us and how we, it's like anything that's observed is changed by the fact that it's being observed. Kind of like applies that to sound, like how the fact that we exist as humans in this

space change it. And also our ability to distinguish between noise and sound. And it was a really powerful story. And then it drops and it drops at a time where I'm in New York City, you're in DC, the soundscape, like what we hear on any given day is profoundly different than it was a month ago, let alone, I'm sure when your team started working working on this or maybe even finished what you thought was the final edit. And that leads to kind of a postscript in that episode, which says, okay, so we need to address what people are feeling right now. Yeah.

Yeah. We did that story. Abby Wendell did that story. She did a beautiful job. Abby Wendell is an amazing – she's one of the producers of the show, and she just has such a their sound is changing the natural world and disrupting the natural world and making it harder for the natural world to exist in the way that it was, you know, evolved to exist. And then, you know, all of a sudden, we are surrounded by, like, humans' noise is muffled in a way that it hasn't been for a long time. And now you see it emerging a lot of these stories, right, about, well, what is, like, the way that nature is behaving differently in the absence of the screaming noise that we bring

to the world of a day. And yeah, I mean, we just felt like, look, we can't put this out without acknowledging where we are, which is at this moment where it's a much quieter world all of a sudden. And there's a lot of sadness in that quiet, but I also think there's a lot of opportunity in that quiet. I feel like there's a lot of opportunity to build a better world, a more sustainable world. Feels like a good place for us to start to come full circle also. Yeah. In this context, in this container of the Good Life Project, if I offer out the phrase

to live a good life, what comes up? I guess like to live a life of meaning where you're trying that that you know it doesn't you're trying to connect you're trying to connect with the people around you and see them as people you're trying to connect with the world around you and engage what it is, and to be, yeah, and that's, and to do what you can. I mean, you know, you might fail to make the world a better place. And probably you will if you look at it in kind of any broader way. But I think the very act of putting your shoulder to the wheel is, is a beautiful act and ultimately all you can do. And that is, you know, I don't really expect to make a huge difference, but I, but I am going to do my part to try, you know, that's how I see it. Thank you.

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