Good Life Project - Dr. Maya Shankar | Change Happens

Episode Date: October 14, 2021

Imagine being so drawn to a pursuit as a kid, it consumes most of your waking hours, rapidly becomes your identity, and is the thing you believe you’ll devote your life to, and then, in the blink of an eye, it’s taken away. That’s what happened to Maya Shankar, who fell in love with the violin as a small child, studied it with love and devotion, was being mentored by the legendary Itzhak Perlman, and was sure it would be her profession for life. Until, an injury took it all away in the blink of an eye. How that moment affected her, and how she’d eventually discover a new, equally fulfilling devotion years later - human behavior and cognitive science - is a big part of today’s conversation, along with a deep dive into how we change our minds.Maya is currently the Senior Director of Behavioral Economics at Google and is the Creator, Host, and Executive Producer of “A Slight Change of Plans”, a podcast with Pushkin Industries. Maya previously served as a Senior Advisor in the Obama White House, where she founded and served as Chair of the White House's Behavioral Science Team — a team of scientists charged with improving public policy using research insights about human behavior. She has been profiled by the New Yorker and has been featured in the New York Times, Scientific American, Forbes, and on NPR's All Things Considered, Freakonomics, and Hidden Brain. You can find Maya at: Website | A Slight Change of Plans podcastIf you LOVED this episode:You’ll also love the conversations we had with Brené Brown about how we show up in our work and life. My new book Sparked-------------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.

So imagine this. You're so drawn to something as a kid. It consumes most of your waking hours. It rapidly becomes your identity. And it's even the thing that you believe that you'll devote your entire life to. And then in the blink of an eye, it's all taken away. Well, that's what happened to Maya Shankar, who fell in love with the violin as a small child. She studied it with so much love and passion and devotion, was even being mentored by

the legendary Itzhak Perlman and was sure it would be her profession for life until an injury took it all away in the blink of an eye. How that moment affected her and how she'd eventually discover an entirely new, yet equally fulfilling devotion just a few years later in the field of human behavior and cognitive science is a big part of today's conversation, along with a deep dive into how our brains work and how we change our minds, which is especially important now. So Maya is currently the Senior Director of Behavioral Economics at Google and is also the creator, host, and executive producer of A Slight Change of Plans, which is a podcast with Pushkin Industries. Maya previously served as a senior advisor in the Obama White House,

where she founded and served as chair of the White House's behavioral science team, which was this team of scientists charged with improving public policy using research insights about human behavior. She's been profiled everywhere from the New Yorker and has been featured in New York Times, Scientific American, Forbes, and NPR is all things considered, Freakonomics, Hidden Brain, and more. And we dive into it all today in this fabulous and eye-opening conversation. Cannot wait to share it with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. We'll be right back. 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 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 are later required. Charge time and glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. There's so many different places I want to go with you.

I'm fascinated by parts of your story, some of the decisions you made, and for sure the work that you've really been drawn to for really a lot of years now. Let's take a little bit of a step back in time. You were a kid who something inside of you was introduced to the violin. And even though your siblings kind of had the same potential introduction and had no interest at all, there was something inside of you that just said this.

Do you remember? I'm curious. I'm always curious about sort of like inciting incidents and especially ones that trigger something deep inside of us. Do you have any recollection? I know it was a very young age of the first moment that you sort of heard the sound, like put this instrument in your hands and heard a sound come out of it and what that did to or for you? Yeah. I mean, I was so young, right? I was six years old, but it was memorable. So my mom had gone up to her attic and brought down my grandmother's violin that she had brought with

her all the way from India when she immigrated to this country in the 1970s. And, you know, growing up, my mom was so eager to give us four kids exposure to as many hobbies and extracurricular activities as possible. And so she had floated the idea of the violin with my three older siblings, and they didn't think it was a particularly cool instrument, but apparently I was not cool enough to like it. And so she brought down the instrument and we just opened up the box. And I remember looking at it and I remember thinking, this is such a beautiful thing. You know, like the wood is so intricate. And I thought it was like, you know, physically just like a very beautiful instrument. And my mom had only meant to show it to me, but I very

quickly asked her for a pint-sized version for myself. So she bought me a quarter-sized violin and I began playing at age six. And I think my mom knew that she had really discovered something her daughter loved when no one had to tell me to practice, which was amazing at that time. You know, I definitely had to be asked to do a lot of other things that I didn't feel that same level of passion for. But the violin felt so natural to me. It came naturally to me.

And it's hard to describe how much of a natural connection I formed to the instrument, especially so quickly. And it became the guiding force in my childhood. You know, every single day, my mission was to become a better violinist. And I eventually got on the speed train, you know, trying to make this my career. Yeah, it's so interesting because so often you hear stories like this. And often you hear it in the domains of both music and sport. But the assumption so often from the outside looking in is, oh, this kid's parent is tracking them for this. So when you hear the story of somebody where it's like, no, no, no, no,

there was something inside of me from the earliest days that just said, yes, yes, yes, more, more, more. I feel like that's a more rare thing. Yeah, it was quite the opposite in terms of like my parents wanting this for me. They had no exposure to the Western classical music scene. You know, my dad is a theoretical physics professor. My mom helps immigrants get green cards to study in this country. I mean, music was so outside the realm of a space that they even knew. And in many ways, my mom had to become an entrepreneur on my behalf to

try to figure out how to get me opportunities as a budding violinist, because she saw so much passion in me. But certainly my passion came first. And then, you know, she helped me achieve my dreams. Yeah, I mean, that's such an amazing thing. Also, because I often think as a parent myself now, that, you know, one of the most important roles of a parent is really to just try and expose your kid to as many different things as humanly possible, as early as possible, so that with completely zero expectation, so that they can just sort of understand, how does this make me feel when I interact with this experience? And maybe you do that for years and years and years. But to be able to do that and then have you respond and basically be so all in.

The other curiosity of mine was that, especially with your folks sort of in the fields that they were in, was there ever a moment where, okay, in the early days, how amazing that, like our child is so drawn to this and it lights her up so much. Was there ever a moment where, okay, in the early days, how amazing that, you know, like our child is so drawn to this and it lights her up so much. Was there ever a moment where there was concern about like, what does this actually look like as a career? And so few people quote, make it in this area. I'm curious whether those conversations were ever part of the sort of like the discourse around it.

Yeah. I mean, I think my parents always were eager for me to go to a liberal arts college, right? Not to go to a music conservatory for lots of reasons. I mean, job security aside, I think they just wanted us to be as well-rounded as possible and to, you know, in college, take Chinese literature classes

and, you know, just learn about the world. And so before narrowing in too quickly, like I know my mom was in the Indian system back in the day, she was asked to choose what she wanted to do when she was really young. You know, she narrowed in and was like, okay, I'll be a physics major, but she didn't really get to explore the full range of her passion. So she was eager for us to have, you know, a lot more diversity in our education. But there was a moment in high school when things got pretty serious. So I had auditioned for the Juilliard School of Music when

I was nine. And when I was a teenager, when I was 13, Itzhak Perlman asked me to be his private violin student. And he is, you know, widely known as the best musician, sorry, best violinist, but probably one of the best musicians of our time. And so that gave me a kind of confidence that I'd not had before. It gave my parents the kind of confidence that they had not had before in my potential dreams of becoming a concert violinist. Like, OK, we got this vote of confidence from Perlman. And if he thinks I can do it, maybe I can do it. And so that was the first time ever when I felt that my parents and I were starting to seriously discuss what it might look like for me to, you know, actually

apply to Juilliard for college or another conservatory and potentially see where that led me. Yeah, that is an incredible nod. And one of the best in the world basically says there's something here. I'm fascinated by the concept of sliding doors. Do you ever reflect on what might have happened? I mean, clearly there was a much bigger thing that came soon after that, but had Proman never actually sort of like shown up and said, oh, let's work together? What the trajectory might have been? Yeah. I mean, it's a great question. It's hard to map out the counterfactual world, but I think certainly the passion would have been there, but I would probably have felt more insecure

about if I had what it took. Like you said, so few people make it. Even with Perlman's endorsement, I still had those same insecurities. And, you know, when you're in, you know, I was operating in a world where the talent was just outrageous, right? I go to these studio classes where my classmates who are, you know, at times years younger than me are playing brilliantly. And you just leave every class thinking, oh, my gosh, everyone is so good. How is everybody so good?

So I definitely had my fair share of insecurities. But I think he helped me. He helped me double down on my commitment in a very important way and at a very formative moment in my development as a human, you know, at 13 and in my development as a violinist. And I think he made me a much more confident musician. And not just because, again, he more broadly thought, oh, you might have what it takes, but because his style of pedagogy was so refreshing. He made me my own greatest critic. So rather, I remember in lessons, rather than telling me, Maya, you really ought to craft a phrase this way or that way. You really ought to use your bow arm in this way or that way. He would instead ask me what my thoughts and ideas were. Maya, how do you think this phrase could be better? How do you think that you could actually achieve

your ambitions for the arc, the sonic arc of this? And in the moment you feel frustrated, like, dude, you're the expert here. Pretty sure I came to you for the answers. But what that taught me is that, you know, at the end of the day, I have to be my own teacher because that's the most sustainable model of growth, right? I'm the one spending hours alone in a practice room every day. And if I can learn to develop a critical ear and become the best version of myself on my own, then I can see so much more growth than if I'm just waiting for that weekly lesson to tell me what I need to do or not do. And so I think he built my confidence in my own ear to have a discerning ear and my own ability to improve.

Yeah. And also the notion that your own lens on what feels right, your own sense of taste matters. I think so many people well into adulthood really struggle with that. And they're sort of looking for the next expert analog to get as close to you rather than saying, well, but actually the thing that I have in my head, the vision of where I think this could be or what it should look or sound like is equally, if not more valid. And that's something that I want to work towards. I love that point. And I think it's such an important one. I remember Jonathan being baffled by why it is that Pearlman wanted to take me on as a student, because I always felt like, technically speaking, I was so much more behind than my peers who had had a much more formal

education in music. I mean, as I mentioned, my parents had no exposure to the classical music world. So my mom found a graduate student nearby who was studying violin, and I was taught by him, and he had never taught before. So we were kind of making things up as we went along. And I didn't even learn how to read sheet music until well after I'd gotten into Juilliard. So I was so behind, and I never learned some of the basics. So from a technical perspective, I just always felt like I'm just not that great. And I remember talking with Mr. Perlman's wife, Toby. She's a she's a friend of mine. And she said, Maya, he asked you to be his student because he felt like you had something to say, like you had something in you that you wanted to share with the world on an emotional level. And that's that's the thing that's actually harder to learn, harder to train in a person. But he was drawn to your

personality, you know, and what you brought to the table in terms of musical expression. And so, you know, the technical stuff you can always work on, but that's the thing that mattered. And I loved hearing that because it did mean that my opinion mattered, my artistic opinion mattered and who I was mattered. And so, yeah, it's a beautiful point you raised. I haven't thought about that in quite some time. But I remember it meant the world to me to hear that from her. Yeah, that makes so much sense.

And also just the notion, especially in your teen years, that the thing that makes you different is actually maybe the thing that you really get to lead with when so often we're at that age, it's the thing that we try and bury because all we want to do is fit in. It's such a dominant force in our lives. And this person who you revere so much saying, no, no, no, no, that thing, let's build around that. There's value in it. I mean, such a powerful lesson at such an early moment in life. Yeah. And in many ways, this is making me reflect on the fact that maybe the fact that I wasn't so technically focused meant that I was able to focus more on music and the tone that I was able to produce and how it sounded to my ear from an artistic

point of view and an emotional point of view. So in some ways it could have been a superpower that I just hadn't realized was the case before. Yeah, especially in that context too. So my niece actually went to, she was at the Juilliard pre-high school program as well. Yeah, that was the same one I did. Right, so she was studying opera there. And I remember stories about the culture, which is kind of brutal.

It's sort of drilled into you that almost nobody here is gonna make it. And there tended to be a really, really cutthroat culture. And then you see that reinforced in movies like Whiplash, which everyone kind of knew was about Juilliard and what you were supposed to be willing to give up potentially your life in the name of being the best of the best and quote, being there. So to have this one thing sort of like offsetting that cultural pressure, you know, it's such an interesting sort of like cauldron slash Petri dish to be able to really develop as a human being at that age within. Yeah. I think we sometimes forget that

the purpose of art is to inspire emotional connections between humans. And so my philosophy has always been, you know, when I think about art, that the richer lives we live, the more we can bring into our music. And, you know, to fast forward the story a little bit, you know, I did have a sudden injury when I was 15 and it ended my career overnight and meant that I couldn't play at a professional level. But seven years later, I had a little bit of like a comeback period where doctors allowed me to play again. And at this point, it was just, you know, for fun. You know, my whole life had moved on, I was doing a PhD in cognitive science at the time, so I couldn't devote myself fully to it. But what was so

fascinating about that performance, this was for, for NPR is that I had not played for seven years. So my technique had gone down the drain. But I felt in that moment that I played more beautifully than I ever had. And I think the reason for that is I had just gone through so much in my life that I could now bring to my performance, to my instrument, heartbreak and love and sadness and just a flurry of experiences that I could call upon when playing. And I don't know if I'd had that depth of experience, you know, at age 15. I certainly hadn't. And so even though, again, the technique was lost, I was able to bring a much richer version

of Maya to the table. And I think that the audience felt that, I certainly felt it, you know, and it's a very powerful moment for me. Yeah, I love that. That makes so much sense as you're sharing that, there's a quote, I'm trying to remember who actually, who said something like how vain it is to sit down to write before you stood up to live. Oh, that's so beautiful. You know, and it's sort of like the same notion, you know, that sure we can learn technique and sure we can learn the instrument and we can do the drills and the scales

and we can learn the craft of writing, whatever it may be. But what is it that you're bringing to it? Like, where's the soul drawing upon in order to actually bring something to the craft? And I think one without the other is nice, but it's not the thing that stirs us, that sort of provokes us to think and feel differently. Yeah, I love that.

I'm curious about that moment also. 15, you have an injury. You're still working with Itzel Perlman for another year or so, only on left hand, or right hand, I guess. Right hand, yeah. Both movements. So there's still like this window of a year or so where you're like, I don't know, maybe, maybe, maybe. And then this moment comes where it's sort of like, okay, we actually have to close this chapter of your life. This was not just a thing that you did. This was who you were. At the age of, I guess it was around 17, how do you grapple with the notion that something that was so

essential to your identity was now gone? Yeah. The violin was my identity. I was first and foremost a musician. And when I would interact with the world and be asked to introduce myself, I always felt like I was a violinist first and I was Maya second. That was how I saw myself. And the way that my body grew even displays this, like to this day, my right shoulder is slightly higher than my left because of all the hours I spent in a practice room going like this. I mean, your listeners can't see me, but they can imagine me playing the violin. And my spine is slightly curved. You know, it's like my body grew into the ergonomics of the instrument. And I think that's a nice illustration of just how much of an extension of my body the instrument became. And so when I lost it, I ended up falling into this cycle of

asking myself all of these large existential questions about what it even meant to be me. You know, like, who am I without the violin? Who am I in this world? What do I want to do? What matters to me? And it was a reset moment. I'd been on the speed train without a lot of reflection, and then suddenly you're forced off and you're forced to assess your identity in full. And there's a concept in cognitive science called identity foreclosure. And it refers to this idea that we can, especially in adolescence, though it can continue into adulthood, we can become very fixed in our sense of selves. We can become non-exploratory when it comes to embodying other types of roles or identities or pursuits. And I absolutely fell prey to identity foreclosure. And what losing the violin taught me at such a young age is that I had to see my identity as more malleable.

I had to see it as transcending the violin. And to our earlier point, Jonathan, what I've realized in hindsight and over the years as my life has had many more twists and turns, in many ways, I think the violin kind of just prepared me for all the twists and turns that would eventually come, is that it's important to examine the traits of a pursuit that you enjoy, the features of a pursuit that you enjoy, and to attach yourself to those rather than to the actual thing itself, in my case, to the actual violin. Because you can lose things easily, right? If you're an athlete, you get an injury, career-ending injury. If you're a violinist, in my case, you know, I had a career-ending injury. And you need to feel

like you can still be whole after those sorts of things. And so in my case, what I did is I asked myself, well, what is it that you loved about the violin? And I think if you'd asked me as a kid, I would have said, I love how it feels. I love how it sounds. You know, I love the way that I'm able to make phrases. But actually, it was the ability to forge a deep emotional connection with people I'd never met that actually made me love the instrument more than anything. As a kid, you go onto a stage, there's thousands of strangers in the audience. And within moments, you're making them feel something they've never felt before. That's an intoxicating feeling, right? You're bonding on an emotional level through this composer's music. And understanding that actually it's human emotional connection and

understanding the human experience and what gets us to feel things, period, ultimately led me to study cognitive science, to study how the mind works. It's led me to build my podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, which is all about the human experience and is all about forging emotional connections with my guests about the transformative change experiences they've gone through. And so even though my life has had what might seem to be disparate components, right? Oh, violinist and then academic and then public policy person and now podcaster, the through line is human connection. Yeah. I mean, that makes so much sense.

And I have the same fascination as you. I'm always like, I'm looking for the red thread. I'm looking for like, I'm looking for the DNA of whatever the thing is. Like, what is the deeper impulse? Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun on January 24th. We'll be right back. 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 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 are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. For you, as you start to sort of figure out, okay, my way through to the next big adventure, you end up getting really curious about the inner world of the mind and how it works.

And that leads you to then study cognitive neuroscience and pursue that through a PhD. And then you move out into the world of work and you make an interesting choice. And I don't know actually if this is the first step out for you, but pretty soon after you end up in the world of government and public policy. And you could have gone in so many different directions with the background that you had at that point. Many of them, I'm sure, really alluring, extraordinarily well-paying, a lot of prestige and a lot of possibility and opportunity. I'm curious, what was happening inside that said, okay, I'm really drawn to exploring these ideas in the context of big public impact? Yeah. I mean, first of all, it's nice of you to say that I had lots of opportunities ahead. I certainly didn't see them. I was like, what does someone do with a

postdoc in cognitive neuroscience? So certainly at the time, I think now there's a lot more opportunities. But back then, I didn't know what I would do with myself if I didn't become a professor. But yeah, just to set the stage a bit, to set some context, I had been at this point aiming to be a professor for years. I had done an undergraduate in cognitive science. I did my PhD in cognitive psychology. And I was now doing a postdoc in cognitive neuroscience. So years and years were invested into this eventual goal. And I remember I was working in an fMRI lab. So this is a lab where we scan people's brains and we try to deduce things about their behaviors. And it had been

hours in this windowless basement of Stanford. And I just remember thinking at a certain point, this dude came in and I was looking at his brain within moments thinking, oh my God, I feel like the order of operations is off here. Like I'm looking at his amygdala and I don't know anything about him. Does he have kids? What's his favorite ice cream flavor? What are his passions? Given my personality and my nature and my curiosity about people, I was missing that human connection from this particular instantiation of what it could look like to be a cognitive scientist out in the world. And so I do remember worrying, what do I do next? I've spent all these years in this space and it's hard to quit something. You know, we have what's called the sunk cost fallacy and we have a status quo bias.

So we have all these behavioral biases working against us when it comes to quitting. I was actually just talking with Annie Duke, who's a professional poker player, and she's writing a book on quitting. And we were talking about how challenging it can be as humans to leave something behind, all the forces at play. But I knew that this wasn't for me and I just had to kind of accept the facts. And so I ended up calling my undergraduate advisor and saying, her name's Laurie Santos. And I said to her, I said, look, I've always admired you. I've always wanted to be a professor just like you, but that thing I've been doing all this time, I said, look, I've always admired you. I've always wanted to be a professor just like you, but that thing I've been doing all this time, I'm not sure I actually want to do

anymore, so please help me. And she said, well, you know, I've heard about this amazing work happening in the federal government in which they are using insights from our field to literally change people's lives. In this particular case, they were using what's called the power of the default option to get access to school lunch for millions and millions of kids. So basically, the way the program had been structured before, parents had to actively enroll their kids into the program. And there were a lot of barriers involved in enrolling your kid. The form was very burdensome. There was a stigma associated with signing up your kids for a benefits program. And so what the government did is they leveraged this behavioral economics insight and they

changed the program from an opt-in program to an opt-out program. So now all kids were automatically enrolled in the program unless parents took an active step to unenroll their kids. And as a result of this small tweak in the policy design, 12.5 million kids were now eating lunch at school every day. So I heard this story and it had such emotional resonance for me. I thought, oh my gosh, this is exactly what I want to be doing in my life. I just didn't, it had never even occurred to me that the government would be a place for me. Like, you know, at career fairs, you know,

you might have consulting companies coming up to you or tech companies. You don't have government being like, come work, you know, in the Office of Science and Technology Policy. That's not a thing. Right. And so I told Laurie, oh, my gosh, this is exactly what I want to do. But there's no job to apply for. You know, they don't have a posting for a behavioral scientist. How do we make this work? And so she gave me contact information for Cass Sunstein, who had wrote the book Nudge, who's a seminal author and legal scholar in the field of behavioral economics. And he had been a former advisor to Obama. And so I sent him a cold email and I said, you know, hey, Cass, you don't know who I am. And I've not really

published anything of significance and I have no public policy experience, but I would love to work in this space. And, you know, there was insecurity seeping from the email. I was like, I'm not cool enough to work with Obama, but if there's a state or local opportunity, please let me know. And thankfully for me, he ignored the insecurity in the email and he wrote back right away saying, here's President Obama's science advisor, his email address. Reach out to him and let him know that I sent you. And so within just a few days, I was interviewing with Obama officials, pitching them on the idea of creating a dedicated position for someone with my background. And a few months later, I moved to DC and started what was essentially a dream job, where I was working at the intersection of behavioral science and public policy.

Yeah. And I mean, not only started it, but literally like created it. You know, it's not like you step into a role that was predefined where you're like, okay, the last person has like done their time here next. Like this was you going in and saying, okay, it's like, I'm not just going to pick up the work that we're already doing, but what is the work that we're going to be doing? And what is the work that I want to be doing? And what is the work that really matters to civil society? Absolutely. I mean, it was both the hardest and most rewarding job I've ever had in my life because I came in wanting to create a dedicated team of behavioral scientists who could do this work as a matter of course and outlive my particular tenure at the White House.

But I didn't have a budget and I didn't have a mandate. And it was the scrappiest enterprise I've ever launched. So it felt like I was building a startup in my parents' basement, Jonathan. I was knocking on every single door in government, trying to figure out if they were willing to partner with me on some early pilots. I was trying to inspire organic interest in my collaborators, but I couldn't tell them, Obama said you have to do this.

You know, instead, I just showed them that there was inherent value in them working with me. And I just utilize all sorts of strategies to try to get this work off the ground. And what I found is that getting some quick wins on the board was an extremely effective tool at building momentum. So I had two choices in front of me, right? One, I could draft these beautiful policy documents outlining what a behavioral science team

could look like in the ideal world and use beautiful prose and try to get everyone around my argument for it. The other version of the world is just get your feet wet, get some government agencies to run some pilots with you, show the impact of your work, and then go on the road with those wins. And I did the second approach, and I'm so grateful that I did because that's actually what got people on board.

So a good example of this, just to give some color to what behavioral science looks like in the policy space, is I worked with the Department of Veterans Affairs on a pilot to try to help veterans sign up for an educational and employment benefit. So the transition from military to civilian life can obviously be fraught. Lots of challenges, both on a job front, on a mental well-being front, et cetera. And we want to make sure that we're helping assist their transition in whatever way we can. But similar to the school lunch program, not enough vets were signing up for the program. And we were very budget constrained, but they said, look, you can edit this one email that we're sending out to veterans about the program. And we ended up changing just one word in the email message. Instead of telling veterans that they were eligible for the program, we simply reminded them that they had earned it

through their years of service. You've got the endowment effect right there. It's like, boom. Exactly. The endowment effect, which says we value things more when we feel that we own things or have earned things. And that one word change led to a 9% increase in access to the program. And so once you have a win like that in your hand, Jonathan, rather than just, you know, talking in hypothetical terms about the value, you can now go to other government agencies and say, hey, look, the VA did this. Like, what do you think, Department of Defense? You know, breed a little competitive energy among government agencies.

And then suddenly you have, you know, wins building up in momentum. And it culminated in a briefing that I had with President Obama in the Oval where I got to present on my team's work and tell him all about this enterprise. And he was very energized and excited by it and ultimately ended up signing an executive order that made my team a permanent part of government. And oh my gosh, that was so satisfying because again, I felt like every card

was stacked against us. And when you don't have that backing from day one, it's just so much harder to get a swell of momentum. But I do feel that the more organic approach we took to building interest in this work was more sustainable in the long run. You know, if leadership says you have to do X, then when leadership leaves, they might stop doing X. But if you've convinced them in the first place to do X because they saw value in it and they saw the returns on investment, they're much more likely to keep doing that work well beyond any mandate. And so I do think it inspired broader cultural change

than had I been gifted an executive order on day one. Yeah. It's amazing to sort of take that. It's almost like you're taking a skunk works approach to doing this thing, which in federal government also where to even get a dollar, you know, like allocated or resourced goes through a series of memos and processes and committees. And I, um, I started out, um, I went to law school and then I ended up at the SEC. So I'm working in a giant federal government agency. So I like, I went through the process of, okay, so we see something happening locally. And then I have to go five levels in the local New York office. And then we have to go through all the levels in DC. And then we have to show up and convince the five commissioners that there's something

worth doing. And that just gives us authorization to go back and start doing it. So the fact that you kind of looked at this and said, huh, like, how do I shortcut this in a way? How do I basically step into this in a way where I can show direct impact with minimum buy-in and also without really asking for a big allocation of resources, which is what you're talking about. I mean, literally you changed a word in an email. Like where's the cost associated with that? Okay. So we have to like change whatever the template is that gets sent out. But I love the approach that you took to it,

where it's sort of like saying, okay, so I know I'm working in a giant existing bureaucratic system that doesn't steer the ship in different directions or do new things easily. But I still think that there's a way to go about this where we can make real change pretty quickly and convince people not by arguing or writing broad briefs and stuff like that, but by just saying, look what we just did. Yes, exactly. Like proof's in the pudding. And that's got to be the strongest case that you can make. Yeah, I love that. I also love the fact that, I mean, the things that you're talking about, when people think about cognitive science, neuroscience, especially behavioral side of

things and behavioral economics, the study of it is complex and vast and deep, especially behavioral side of things and behavioral economics, the study of it is complex and vast and deep, especially when you actually, you know, you go into what's actually happening in the brain. You're looking at the fMRI studies and you're trying to deconstruct what's going on. But the practical application so often is so simple. Like when you distill it down to like, well, what do we actually do to affect a change in behavior? So often like that final step is so straightforward and simple that it almost seems like deceptively, like how could this actually work? Like we're so much more complicated than this. And the things we've been doing for so many decades, there's got to have been a reason we were doing it that way. How could something so almost obvious make such a profound difference? And yet that's literally like what you

spend your life and the entire career is focused on doing. Yeah. I mean, I think the thing that drew me to this field is that there are a lot of surprising factors that can influence our behaviors, factors that can exist outside of our conscious awareness. And so when we're aware of what those factors are, we can design around them. You know, for example, in the context of voting, right, we like to think that the order in which candidates' names appear on a ballot is irrelevant to who we vote for. But actually, there's research showing that when a candidate's name is listed first, that candidate can garner 10 percentage point boosts in voter share relative to when they're listed last.

I mean, this was a finding that they had in Texas. And so that's an example. Order shouldn't matter. I'm just basing it on the person I most want to see elected into office. But it does, which means policymakers can then design smart solutions for that. They can randomize the order in which the candidates' names appear across ballots, right? And so when you're aware of these factors, then now all of a sudden you're designing policies with our best understanding of human behavior in mind. And so, yeah, I mean, there's surprising factors, right?

The other is that we tend to reliably underestimate just how big a barrier even small frictions can pose when it comes to taking advantage of a government program or signing up or what have you. I mean, we find that just small reductions in friction, like take the application for financial aid, right? If you streamline the form and you reduce the number of questions or you make it easier to fill out, you just see application rates increase in this substantial way. And so from one perspective, you might think, what's the big deal? It's just, you know, it's 15 questions versus six. But people are busy.

They're inundated with information. They're strapped for time and resources. There's stresses in their lives that prevent them from, you know, optimally engaging with a perfect system. And so we need to make sure that we are designing systems with all those behavioral factors in mind, with the realities of what it means to live in mind, so that when we're designing public policies, they're actually going to serve the people they're intended to serve in the best way possible.

Yeah. And what's interesting, on the one hand, a lot of this makes sense. On the other hand, we're also really quirky and weird people and respond in different ways. So when you're sharing, well, if we simplify this, if we go from 15 to nine questions, well, okay, that makes sense to me that probably people perceive that as less labor intensive and it's easier. So I'm more likely to set aside the time to finish it.

I remember hearing Michael Norton talk about the notion of labor prompts. And he was talking about, I think it was one of the travel websites, like Travelocity or something like that. And he's like, okay, so the little spinning thing that you see where it says searching for flights. Operational transparency. Right. And he's like, if you think it's actually taking, it's literally taking you more time than it has to. This could spit out an answer in the blink of an eye, but the fact that you see a spinning wheel makes you think that it's really working on it. And so the information you're going to get is going to be more valuable and you'll, you'll attribute more value to that. You're more likely to actually buy. I mean,

and then I remember him describing that phenomenon where, you know, like if you get something where you have to do a little bit of work to actually, if you have to scratch something off a card rather than just getting a card and seeing what the answer is, you're more invested and you're more likely to continue to invest more effort. These are things which seem so counterintuitive. It's like if our life is complex and we just want more time back, and yet there are things that literally take time from us and it somehow triggers our brain to say, Ooh, like I'm more in on this. So it's almost like you can't just look on the surface and say, well, of course this is true because we're weird. Yeah. And I think, I mean, to your

point, that's why behavioral science is so context specific. There's no one size fits all solution to any given public policy. It'd be so ill-informed to say, let's streamline every government program and reduce the number of questions from X to Y, or that's an oversimplification. But one core tenant of our team is that we always ran experiments to make sure that our interventions were having the intended impact. Because like you said, humans are extremely complex. We draw signals and meaning from our experiences. So if it does take a few moments for a search engine to deliver an outcome,

that might mean it's the result of more personalization or processing, right? And you have to take that into account. So there are absolutely situations where frictions are helpful, but there's a lot of situations in which frictions are unhelpful. And that can be the low-hanging fruit. You know, in the example, we talked about access to school lunches, right? The form is exceptionally burdensome, right? It requires

referencing potentially multiple tax documents. And if you make an error, there might be a penalty. And just put yourself in the shoes, for example, of a single mom who's working three shifts to make ends meet. And she's told you have to fill out this form during this time window and you have to make sure to go to the post office and mail it off during this window. And you have to ask your job for permission to leave in the middle of the day to make sure it gets there on time. Like, it's just not reasonable given the burdens that she might otherwise be facing.

And so in cases like that, when it comes just not reasonable given the burdens that she might otherwise be facing. And so in cases like that, when it comes to something as straightforward as empowering our young kids to thrive at school, irrespective of income level, right, we should be making that as effortless as possible. Yeah, and that makes so much sense to me. 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.

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You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. So you take everything that you're working in the public domain. All of these same ideas

applied differently can lead to profoundly detrimental effect. You know, and I think we're seeing that in different domains. I think a lot of people will leverage these ideas, these tools, these known biases in order to try and manipulate people into doing things that may not be in their best interest, but maybe in the best interest of either another individual, another organization.

And I'm always curious when you sort of become the master of really understanding what happens inside the brain and how people respond behaviorally to all sorts of different prompts, changes in language, changes in circumstance. I look at that and one hand, I'm like, this can be used for astonishing good. And then the other hand, I'm also thinking these identical tools and this identical knowledge base can also be used for divisiveness, for negative outcomes. So I think it's really important not to overstate the power of behavioral science. I think sometimes it's easy to see it as a silver bullet, like, oh, we understand how the mind works and therefore we can convince people to do X and Y and Z. That's just not the case.

The human mind is a strong entity and it is not it's not susceptible to as much as we think it is. I always say, like, when we were working in government, you know, we we obviously had to be very, very mindful of these factors. But you're humbled working in the space. You realize that your interventions will work for people who want to take a step but are deterred by specific barriers, like they're confused about what the prompts are, or they're procrastinating, or the choices are too complex. But you're not going to be able to change the mind of someone who does not want to take advantage of a program. So for example, we were trying to help military service members sign up for retirement savings plans. The changes that we made to the application process and when the choice was presented to service members will make the difference for someone who wants to sign up but on something else like a down payment on a home or, you know, just wants a disposable income.

Like there are profound limits to behavioral science. And I think I want to get on the road saying that more because I worry sometimes that the sex appeal of our field is overstated and that the, you know, that people see it as having more power than it actually does. And it's just not that powerful at the end of the day. So I think that's number one. It's important to recognize that. Number two is that it's important to realize that every policy and program has a default architecture. There's no such thing as a default list architecture. So we're nudging people in one direction or another,

whether we like it or not. For example, we talked about the Veterans Affairs program, right? If it's really complicated and undesirable to sign up for a Veterans Affairs program, that's nudging them against signing up. That is just as effective, that's just as an anti-nudge, a nudge in the wrong direction as trying to streamline the program and make it easier to sign up. So I think it's really important for us to realize that the status quo, right, the default set option, the default design of the program may be suboptimal. And yet we somehow feel intuitively like it's fine to always let the status quo continue unexamined. But what we're not what we're failing to realize is that there's a counterfactual world in which it could be designed in a far better way that actually achieves the policy outcomes or goals that we had in mind.

Yeah, I think that's such an important point. There's never just a neutral state. Even if we think we're not making a decision, there's a default decision or default behavior that we're moving towards. I think sometimes we don't think about it. And I will say, one of the most elusive, coveted types of change that exists out there is learning how to change people's minds. I think that is one of the most intractable challenges we face. It's one of the topics I explore on my podcast, A Slight Change of Plans. You know, I have science expert interviews where I talk with folks like Adam Grant about

the science of changing minds. And then I talk with real people out there who have changed their minds or changed other people's minds. Two notable folks are Daryl Davis, a Black jazz musician who convinced hundreds of people to leave white supremacy groups. And what's fascinating about his story is that he utilized effective tactics from cognitive science about how to engage in mindset change without almost being aware that that's what he was doing. He's just so brilliant that the techniques he used were that effective. And then Megan Phelps Roper, who was on the receiving end of mindset change, where she was part of the Westboro Baptist Church, which is this rabid hate group and was one of their most ardent advocates. And then people engaged with her in this compassionate, civil way. And she ended up leaving the group and disowning it and leaving not just her faith and ideology, but her entire family behind. And so it is, again, it is so hard for people to change their minds. to the limits of behavioral science. But one thing that makes me hopeful is that we are seeing these cases

where people with even the, you know, the most deeply entrenched vile views can change their minds about things. And I see it as like the next big win in the field of behavioral science that we can really tackle. We can really break the nut on how it is we can get people to change their minds

about, you know, misconceptions or, you know, false, false things in the world, that would be profound. Yeah. And I know there's, there's a lot of work that's gone into that, not just on the science side, but on this early, the applied side. I remember we had on the podcast a little while back, just an Angel Reese, who is a trans man who was also an activist and would go out and knock on doors. And he shared, like they were trained in a very specific methodology of conversation, of approaching it in a very particular way. And he would rapidly, he said, you could immediately tell who are the

people where it just, you need to turn around and walk away. And who are the people who really disagreed, not just with your point of view, but with your very existence? And yet, through a particular approach to conversation, you knew that you could kind of unwind that belief system and not necessarily convince them, but at least open them to the notion that, oh, this other person is actually a human being and maybe I can rethink things a little bit. And there's a methodology built around it. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I love that Daryl Davis shares is he doesn't like to say

that he convinced the KKK members to leave the Klan or the white supremacists to leave their groups, but that they convinced themselves. He gave them the tools, right? The kinds of analyses that were helpful to facilitate that mindset change. But at the end of the day, they own their own mindset change. And I love that. And I think it's such a humble approach that you can take. But yeah, there's a lot of, you know, techniques in cognitive science and behavioral science that are certainly worth learning about, like motivational interviewing. You know, it's a very compassionate form of dialogue where you show genuine curiosity for

the other person's point of view. You increase your question to statement ratio. You don't undermine their entire value system. You instead ask, you know, how they arrived at their views and also what information might change their minds. And I love that prompt because it presupposes that they ought to be willing to change their minds in the face of new information. And so I think we could have such

better discourse, far more productive discourse, if we were to utilize these strategies in our day-to-day lives, whether it's, you know, trying to convince your relative that they should get vaccinated or trying to convince a friend who believes in a conspiracy theory that you know not to be true, whatever it is, I think we'd be far more effective if we utilize these tactics, which are, you know, I think emotionally our instinct is to be super aggressive because we find it to be such an affront for people to labor under misconceptions. But actually, the more effective approach is an empathetic one where you recognize, oh, the reason this person believes this particular view might be because that's what attaches them

to their fundamental group identity, right? Like that's what their tribe believes. And if they were to believe something different or if they were to wear a mask, it would fundamentally threaten their tribal membership. And so you can both be incensed that they're not wearing a mask, but also recognize that yelling at them

or taking really aggressive techniques is not gonna get you to your end goal. And so you have to kind of find the patience within you to recruit the right kinds of strategies. Yeah. I guess part of my curiosity with that is why don't we go about it that way? Because it feels like the example of Daryl that you shared, that's truly the exception to what has become much more the rule of being much more aggressive, much more like it's my way or the highway and not coming at it from a place of openness or empathy. What's your sense? Because you've been immersed in this world and especially now that you've been, it's literally the focus of your podcast in a lot of different ways. What's your sense of why

so often that is not the way that we approach these conversations? Yeah, I think it's because in the same way that, you know, the people we disagree with see their identity and their views and values and beliefs, we do too. So when someone we love disagrees with us or engages in behaviors that we don't think are productive, we feel threatened by that in some way, right? And it irks us because it is both, it's threatening the bond we share with some way, right? And it irks us because it's threatening the bond we share with that person, right? And so I both fully empathize with that frustration, but I'm also just cognitively aware that it might not be the most productive path forward.

Yeah. I wonder too sometimes when we tie these days so many beliefs to a sense of strong identity that it's almost like we don't realize that when we're asking somebody to consider a different set of beliefs, we're actually asking them to consider re-imagining their identity, which is no easy task. And I think often we don't realize that's actually the seed that we're planting. That's the invitation we're offering to them and not realizing what a potentially heavy lift we're bringing to the conversation. And we don't bring it in a way that would honor that. Absolutely. I mean, I think it's so tempting in a conversation with someone you disagree with to think, oh, this is just an information gap problem. If I just, you know, if I just overwhelm them with facts and data and evidence, surely they'll come over to my side of the argument. But, you know, there's amazing research by Dan Kahan and others at Yale Law School in the space of cultural cognition showing

that we develop our attitudes and beliefs about the world based on far more than just evidence and facts, obviously, right? We confront this day to day. It is based on our group identity and our sense of community. And when we see certain behaviors modeled in our groups or communities, we naturally want to align with those, you know? And so we have to recognize that there's a lot of emotional valence in these behaviors that we might otherwise see as so straightforward. You know, in my mind, I'm thinking it's just a piece of cloth, like wear a damn mask. But, you know, for someone that could, again, threaten their entire group membership and their sense of identity. And so it's just something for us to be mindful of. Yeah. And that also, like you just said, not just sense of identity, but the very, their need to belong. You know,

we're literally saying to them, make a choice that is going to now make you feel outcast within the group or the community that you hold dear, that you really want to be a member of. And it's a much bigger conversation. I think it's so much more nuanced. And we haven't figured it all out. You know, I think that's the key is that's why, again, changing minds. It's such a hard nut to crack. It's very, very challenging. We might never crack it.

You know, humans are extremely complex beings, but at least we are starting to scratch the surface of figuring out, again, how we can engage in more productive discourse with those we disagree with. Yeah, I love that. This is literally the focus of your podcast, Light Change and Plans, these days. I'm also fascinated by your decision to actually step into that domain, to step into the world of podcasting. Because when you look at, okay, so you started out here

and then this has been the trajectory. And then podcasting, was this topic first, medium second, medium first, topic second? Was it completely, I'm curious what the step into that domain was for you. Yeah, topic first, 100%. I never thought I'd have a podcast. And then when we were in the middle of 2020, I felt so overwhelmed by the rapid pace of change that was happening around me, you know, on a personal level, on a global level with the pandemic,

seeing the racial injustice happening around me like it just felt completely overwhelming and I remember thinking I know I'm not the only one overwhelmed by change right now like I know I'm not the only one and I also know that while the nature of what we're going through right now feels unprecedented right the specifics of 2020 feel unprecedented our human ability to navigate change is not unprecedented as a society we've done this rodeo many, many times before. And so if I can find people who have gone through extraordinary change in their lives and mine their stories for wisdom and insight, maybe I can leave those conversations thinking differently about change in my own life.

So it came from a very personal place, Jonathan, which was I wanted answers to things that I couldn't find answers to and that didn't exist in a science textbook. You know, the science was falling short for me. So I knew that I needed to find a way to marry what I did know about the science of change with storytelling, human, real human experiences. And that was the genesis for A Slight Change of Plans. And it's been an absolute passion project for me. I'm just completely in love with every aspect of the show. You know, I've created the show

and I executive produce it and I host it. And it just feels like this baby that I'm growing. And I love, you know, learning about the diversity of change stories out there, but then how people in two wildly different circumstances, like, you know, Tiffany Haddish growing up in the foster care system and becoming this world-renowned comedian. And then, you know, Hillary Clinton, who decides to change her last name and take on her husband's name due to pressure she faced in Arkansas in the 1970s. Their stories are so

different, and yet you can find similar strands of psychology throughout the course of the season, throughout these diverse stories. Because at the end of the day, we all are human and we're all recruiting similar psychologies in the face of change. And so, yeah, I just feel like I've learned so much from my guests about change that I just didn't know before. And I'm hoping my listeners have the same experience. Yeah. I love hearing all the different stories and the different takes and perspectives. One that surprised me, and I was wondering if it surprised you, from I guess it was season one, was the story of Tommy Caldwell.

Yeah. Because I didn't see it coming. Could you share a bit of that? I love the story of Tommy Caldwell. Yeah, he's a professional climber. And he was held hostage in Kyrgyzstan for six days and almost died of starvation and hypothermia. And, you know, I went into the interview focusing on that part of the story and the fact that ultimately he had to push one of his captors off of a cliff, which felt so discordant with who he thought he was. You know, it really challenged his self-identity, and it troubled him for some time that he had

been willing to push someone off a cliff. And, you know, fortunately, his captor survived the fall. And what was so interesting to me about that interview is that he surprised me about what he felt his true change was. And that was tapping into a certain type of mental state that he had never tapped into before. He describes this as a deep flow state, where when he was in the throes of survival mode, he felt an intense form of clarity and focus that he had never before felt. And he's been chasing that high ever since, that kind of clarity ever since. And it's propelled him to become the greatest big wall climber in the world, despite losing a finger. He only has nine fingers. And, you know, his mental wherewithal is so

impressive. It's propelled him to the top of his field. And so that was an example of how, you know, on the surface, I thought his change was one thing. And then when I really dug deep and tried to understand what he took away from that experience, what he's been left with. I learned actually it was something entirely different. And I love it when my guests surprise me in that way. Yeah. It was amazing to sort of like hear because it's got to be so cool also when you go with one set of expectations, like here's my hypothesis, right? And you kind of think you know. And then it's like all of a sudden your head starts spinning. You're like, oh, I really didn't know anything. Like five years deep, it's a completely different story.

Exactly. Boulder was 1989. Before I went to law school, I wanted to clear my head. I went up to Rocky Mountain National Park and hired a guide to basically just take me and push me to the edge for a week. And we went all over Colorado climbing. That guide was a guy named Mike, and Mike's last name was Caldwell. And he was telling me stories about just coming back from Yosemite with his little nine nine or 10 year old son, Tommy. Oh my gosh. And I never put it together until recently when I'm like, oh, wait, this is the Tommy Caldwell.

I was hanging out and his dad 30 years ago was teaching me how to climb in Colorado. Oh my gosh. That's so wild. It's crazy, crazy connection. Anyway, yeah. I mean, the stories that are part of this, the work that you're doing in the podcast is so incredible. I'm really excited to dive into the new season as well. I'm totally geeking out on the progression of stories. I'm wondering, when you think about what you're doing with the podcast, can you draw a line back to what you felt when you were on stage in your teens as a violin player. Yeah, it's kind of amazing to me because working on a slight change of plans is the only thing that's ever rivaled being a musician, which is such a wonderful full circle situation to have

happened in my life. You know, I have license to go into a room with someone I've never met before and say within moments, you know, so Casey Musgraves, tell me about the hardest moment of your life or Tommy Caldwell, can we really dive deep in this exploratory state of mind and figure out what is it that makes you tick? Like, what is it that motivates you day to day? And I love going deep with people on an emotional level and engaging in a dialogue where both sides are discovering new things about one another and about ourselves in the process, right? The most beautiful moments to me in A Slight Change are when a guest realizes something about themselves that they didn't know coming into the interview.

I cherish that. I cherish those discoveries. And we're coming out with a whole new batch of episodes. And that happens so many times. And I'm so grateful for that. An episode that we're launching this week, October 11th, is about a woman named Susan. And I don't want to give too much away, but she has a very complicated grief. And she has a discovery in the interview that gives me chills, even when I just think about because she's processing out loud her story and she's making discoveries in real time. And that's a dream come true to create an environment that feels safe and warm and inviting and open where people can make those discoveries.

And I will share, Jonathan, that the second episode, though, again, it's an evergreen series, so I'm hesitant to even call it a season two. It's just more episodes. But one episode that listeners will get to hear very soon is actually one that's very, very personal, where I had a tragic event happen in my life last month. And I actually asked my producer to turn on the mic and interview me about my story and about what happened to me. And it was such a such an unexpected event for me because I never expected to be so public about this experience that it has to do with my my husband and me wanting to become parents. And I never thought I would share this. And then when I had my own slight change of plans thrown my way, I realized that I needed the show. Like I needed to process

my change and my heartbreak and my trauma out loud to try to find meaning in it and to try to make sense of it. So in many ways, the show was there for me when I needed it for myself. And what a wonderful gift to be given. You know, I never, I never thought that would happen. So it's the most personal and vulnerable I've ever been. And I really hope that my story can help others who are going through a similar hard time. And that feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well. So hanging out in this container of good life project. If I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? I think empathy.

I always have felt that studying the human mind is the greatest empathy builder. Because when you understand why it is that people are the way they are, it's really hard to bring judgment to the table or anger or hatred to the table. And so I feel like being a cognitive scientist has made me a far more compassionate person, far more empathetic person. And I hope that by sharing wisdom from my field about how it is that we are the way we are, that empathy can build in others as well. Thank you. You're welcome. Hey, before you leave, if you love this conversation, safe bet you'll also love the conversation that we had with Brene Brown about how we show up in our work and life.

You'll find a link to Brene's episode in the show notes. And even if you don't listen now, be sure to click and download so it's ready to play when you're on the go. And of course, if you haven't already done so, go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you appreciate the work we're doing here,

go ahead and check out my new book, Spark. It'll reveal some incredibly eye-opening things to you about, I'm guessing one of your favorite subjects, you, and then show you how to tap these insights to reimagine and reinvent work as a source of meaning and purpose and joy. You'll find a link in the show notes, or you can also just find it at your favorite bookseller now. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. 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 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 if we need him! Y'all need a pilot? I knew you were gonna be fun. Tell me how to fly this thing. 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?