Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Good People with Lucia Knell and Gabriel Reilich

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

We talk a lot about the bad side of social media, but what about the good stuff? Sharon sits down with Lucia Knell and Gabriel Reilich, the creators of the viral Instagram account, Upworthy, to discuss their uplifting and thought-provoking NYT Best Selling book, “Good People.” Together, they explore the power of sharing stories that shine a light on human decency, giving us a much needed break from the negativity that often dominates our feed. What’s the kindest thing a stranger has ever done for you? Or the teacher who had the most impact on your life? Those are the stories Gabe and Lucia want to highlight. Credits: Host and Executive Producer: Sharon McMahon Supervising Producer: Melanie Buck Parks Audio Producer: Craig Thompson To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hey friends, welcome. Delighted to have you with me.

I am really excited to be chatting today with Lucia Nell and Gabriel Rylik. You probably have seen their Instagram account, Upworthy. Today we're talking about their book, Good People. I think this is going to be a conversation that you find uplifting and thought-provoking, and I just can't wait to share it with you. We all need more of that at this moment in time.

So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon and here's where it gets interesting. It's finally happening. You're finally here. We've been discussing this forever and I'm so excited to see both of you. Thanks for being here. Yeah, thank you so much.

At long last. Yeah, from Instagram to the podcast. Here we are. I know, I know. I know so many people in my community, I know, follow you. I know, you know, like maybe they wouldn't recognize your faces, but they would certainly know about your account. And if they don't, tell us a little bit more about it because this is really the genesis

of this really, really, really wonderful book that I wanted to talk about today. Well, thank you, first of all, and likewise. We are a brand and a company and an outlet dedicated to sharing good things happening in the world. We call it the best of humanity. And so it's not, to be clear, not a stick your head in the sand suggestion. It's just creating somewhat of a counterbalance and a counter narrative to things you typically see in the media, but especially on social media. It's become this beautiful movement, I think, towards engaging with content and sharing

with content that makes you feel more uplifted and more optimistic about the world. And we'll talk a little bit about why that's so important. Now, more than ever, we believe we're providing a service. Yeah. We're, you know, a reminder that there are a lot of beautiful things happening among people and in the world. We're about sharing empathy, compassion, decency in big ways and small.

That's happening every day and might not necessarily get the airplay that it deserves. And we've grown a tremendous amount over the past couple years. So I think it's proof that people are looking for that in the world. And stories about compassion and decency can be just as engaging as the more dramatic elements that we're exposed to on social and through the media every day. I know so many people that follow Upworthy, your account, including myself. Why do you feel like it's important to share these stories?

I mean, I agree with you fully, but why do you view it as a service and not just a nice to have? What about that is compelling to you? Yeah, it's a great question and it's something we get asked a lot. You know, like, why does it matter to share good stories with people?

Is it not just kind of like puppies and rainbows and that sort of thing? But it's really- It's whale videos and eagles. It's also- Yeah. It's also whales and eagles. Exactly. And sometimes the eagles are carrying paintings

across beautiful sunsets. Yep, yep. But it's a matter of perspective, right? And a matter of narrative. And if you're only exposed to kind of the more dramatic elements and the more difficult things happening in the world, of which there are many, and of which deserve a lot of attention,

it can start coloring your view about humanity in that way, where you only see that people are untrustworthy. You only see that there's violence, that there's only danger. And then all of a sudden you start believing that that's the truth about people, that it's the only truth. But there are two sides to the coin, right? People can be great, they can be kind, they can help each other, they can do so without any need for recognition, they can be humble and wonderful. And it's important that those stories get recognition, lest you, you know, think that only one view of

humanity is the truth. And once you start kind of seeing it in that way and you take it in, it affects how you look at the world. And you go out in the world and you're more prone to actually see those acts of kindness, those micro moments, those little things, those big things, and it can make you more optimistic. It has health benefits. You feel better. It raises oxytocin and you know it's an important thing to kind of balance your media diet and just maintain awareness of the good things that are happening in the world and among people. To that point I love when Gabe uses the term media diet because it really is about kind of taking stock on

what you're putting inside your brain every day. You know it's like we're in such an unfortunate situation and I suspect it'll keep getting more difficult to pull away from the powers that be on social platforms and these algorithms that are capitalizing on our attention spans. I read recently the latest stat on an adult attention span is eight seconds, which is one less than a goldfish. That seems a little generous, at least for me personally. I know, right? I know, mine's more like two to three.

Depends on what I'm watching, I guess, or who I'm talking to. But that's me. I know right. I know mine's more like two to three Depends on what I'm watching I guess or who I'm talking to but that's crazy. That's insane and in 2005 It was about 15. So it's effectively cut in half over the last 20 years and it's not surprising, right? It's like way back in 2005 We had the inklings of social media. We had the MySpace, we had the Tumblrs, the early Facebooks of the world. And now, every three years, there's a brand new platform coming out with a brand new algorithm to basically suck you in and grab your attention. And so we find that it's our responsibility, so to speak, to, if you're going to be on your phone, at least be feeding your mind with things that'll

help broaden your perspective of the world and broaden your perspective of humanity for all the reasons Gabe just mentioned. I know you've told the story before, but for people who haven't heard it, how do you guys know each other? And how did you decide to start Upworthy? Like, was this just like a little side hustle, like a side hobby? Did you both quit your jobs and you're like, we're going to start this extremely lucrative free Instagram account?

First of all, people do not realize that no, Instagram does not pay large creators. You make a total of zero dollars from your Instagram account. That I think kind of blows some people's minds, but that's the truth. That the free content you put out on Instagram is also free to you. We make no dollars on this. And so in many ways, what you're doing actually is more than a service, it's a gift, right?

It's a gift to the reader, it's a gift to the watcher. But talk a little bit more about how you started this account. Yeah, you know, it's funny. In some ways, we can't quit our job case. We all kind of work for Instagram a little bit. You know, to get the material out there that we're putting there. But Upworthy, you know, as a media company, it's existed in different forms for many years. I think a lot of people might remember it from the Facebook days, you know, with a huge presence on Facebook, was actually the company that got Facebook to change their algorithm the first time,

because it was so popular on news feeds and was the fastest growing media company of all time at one point. And then Lucia and I are responsible for building the Instagram up into what it is today. And that basically started just because we saw an opportunity with the platform just to be a place where we could catalog acts of human decency that were happening in the

world that we wanted to see ourselves. Like it just started because we wanted a place to catalog these things that we could go back to that would be easy and serve as like kind of a thesaurus and a dictionary of kindness in the world that was happening. And particularly at the beginning of the pandemic, we really needed that ourselves. And we started looking for those moments and we were sharing them. And it was helping us find some faith in the future during a time when people were fighting over toilet paper rolls at the Costco parking lot. And I think other people needed that too,

because that was the time that it really just exploded in growth during a very difficult time where folks needed that reminder that we can have faith in each other. And Lucia and I have been working on it for years now, building into the five million following account that it is, and there's been lots of ups and downs. And I don't know if I gave a good overview there, Lucia, but please. No, 100%.

I mean, I think the pandemic, to Gabe's point, really shone a light on how much people need what we do. We went from, I think there was a day we gained like 80,000 followers in a day. It's no joke, you know? And I'm just in my kitchen being like, oh, what's happening? This is amazing. And it makes a ton of sense. It's a moment of uncertainty. It's a moment rooted in fear. And to be able to see the content we were posting of like, yes, everything's terrifying, but maybe let's crowdsource like resources we can give one another or are there online yoga classes that are working for you right now? Or here's a video of Italians singing opera out their

window. It's letting the humanity shine through and remind people that humans are still humans, and actually people come together in many ways in moments like this. And I think it was really just the beginning of something much bigger. It's easy to be online and to be hit in the face with a fire hose of everything that's wrong in the world. It's not even difficult because fear is an incredibly motivating factor in the human mind. If I can make you afraid of it, I can make you pay attention. We don't all rush to turn on the news when kittens are rescued from a tree, you know? Like it doesn't activate the fear centers of the brain that are meant to try to keep you safe from harm so that you don't die.

But I'd love to hear your take on this. Are humans really even meant to exist online? Yeah. As an avid user of the internet, this is not a shame-based question of like, get offline, it's good for you, do you know what I mean? I actually love the internet. So this is again, not coming from a high horse place, but is the human brain actually equipped to deal with what it is dealing with right now? Yeah, it's such a good observation about the motivating factors to get people to engage online.

And the truth is, it is really easy to make people angry. It's one of the easiest things you could do. If I wanted to make you mad right now, or your listeners could say something, and people would be like, I can't believe he said that. I gotta respond to that. And so I think a lot of times, you know, when we live in an engagement driven society on social,

it's the path of least resistance is to make people angry. And that engagement can lead to monetization and that monetization Can lead to fame and so people take that route Sometimes it just seems like it's an act of being lazy to make people mad because amazing people bringing people together Educating people those can also be extremely strong motivators for grabbing someone's attention But it's a lot harder because you have to know what you're talking about or you have to Really believe in the fact that people are good and that there are ways to articulate that in a fashion That's going to stick with people

Now I think that when you do that when anybody who sets off on that mission accomplishes it successfully Those stories really stay with people. I think that anger can be a fleeting emotion. People move on from the next thing to the next thing to the next thing to be angry. But that kind of thing that makes you realize that there is a reason to believe in each other, that can stay with you, whether it's a story or whether it's an action that happens in your real life. But to your point about whether we're built for this,

social media is a tool, just like anything. And it kind of depends on how we use it. And we need to be conscious it can be a dangerous tool. It can be incredibly effective and powerful tool in terms of how we reach people and the change we can make. But it's the old Spider-Man sensibility, right? With great power comes great responsibility. And the amount of reach any single one of us can have.

Now, we have to take into account what we're saying. Bill Gates sent a memo out to his staff at Microsoft in 1995 where he refers to the internet as a title wave. And it speaks to that exact idea, Gabe, which is it's coming, you know, and it has great potential to do good and it also has a darker side and it's really up to us to use it responsibly and consciously. I think as far as are we equipped to handle this, are we meant to handle this? I don't think our brains are meant to handle this much information. It is a tidal wave. The second you open social media, you're bombarded. It's a barrage. It's an assault on your senses, really.

And I do this thing sometimes where I start to just check in with my body as I'm scrolling just to like see how it affects me. And my heart rate goes up the longer I go. And it makes sense because you're getting fed all this different kind of information, millisecond after millisecondcond and it's just too much in my opinion. I think this is certainly not the subject of your book but I think this is an eye-opening conversation for people who are not large creators on social media. I think it's interesting to give them a little peek behind the scenes about just how much money there is to be made by making

outrage content or hate content that some of these creators on all the socials but YouTube etc some of them are making you know ten million dollars a year producing outreach content and that is a really seductive siren song right like what wouldn't most of us do for ten million dollars like that's a life-changing amount of money for most people, for all people, frankly. And I know your brand is not about making outreach content, but I'm sure just sort of like being plugged into the interwebs, you hear things and you know things and you know people and you see things, you know? Like that's just how it works

and your travels around Algor's internet. A series of tubes, I believe. That's right. A series of tubes created by Al Gore. So the idea that it's actually probably far more lucrative, you'd probably be far more famous, your faces might be on a billboard. If you were to take a different tactic. You know what I mean? Like, how do you resist the siren song of vast personal fortunes to decide to build a different kind of legacy on the internet? To be honest with you, it's been so rewarding seeing what we're building in real time, which

is a community of millions and millions of people who are having constructive dialogue, loving interactions in the comment section, sharing their own stories, and being able to see how to give us point using social media as a tool, we've begun to use these platforms to create that kind of world online. And our hope, and we're seeing it actually happen, is that people then take that offline and bring it into the real world. Yeah. And so that's much more valuable to me. Yeah. I mean, it may sound corny, but I love people. I really do. And I don't want to make them mad.

I want to make them see each other in a kinder, softer light. And so I don't think I would be able to do this any other way than we've done it. And it is really motivating when I'm sure you get this too. Sometimes you share something and you get a DM from someone who said this really reached me in a meaningful moment or an important time or made me see something that I hadn't seen before or I get it now, you know, about an issue or a person or whatever it may be. Just saying like thank you for sharing something that made me laugh or feel good during a difficult time in my life.

And to know that there may be these like vast numbers of followers and reach and engagement in these metrics that you can get caught up on. But really, you know, one of those could be a person whose life was made better from something simple online or a connection that was made. It does make it worthwhile. So that's what keeps me motivated. I know we talk about it, Lucia, those comments and DMs that come in. It prevents us from taking the dark path. But we're still vying for a billboard, please believe.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can crowdsource the funding for that. It's winter and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No, but moose head?

Yes, because that's alcohol and we deliver that too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. I can't even begin to tell you how bad it was. It was lower than the flies in a building. It was called Straight Incorporated. It was called Straight Incorporated. This is the story of Straight Incorporated, an experimental drug rehab for teenagers that infiltrated communities across the country in the 1980s during the height of the war on drugs, where kidnapping, brainwashing, and torture were disguised as therapy.

It's the origin story of the troubled teen industry, which continues to profit from the desperation of parents and the vulnerability of their children. And its roots can be traced back to a cult called Synanon. How do I know this? Because I lived through it. My name is Cindy Etler, and this is season two of The Sunshine Place. Listen to and follow The Sunshine Place.

Listen to and follow The Sunshine Place, an Odyssey original podcast in association with Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey. Available now on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic. Hi there. Still no. What about, hello handsome? Who knew you could give yourself the ick? That's why Bumble is changing how you start conversations.

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We spent a lot of time talking about the power of social media and the tricky nature of it, but it's also can be a very beautiful thing at times on social, absolutely. We were seeing that where we would share a story, a video, a tweet thread, whatever it may be about some great experience that something had. The best part of that is that it would start triggering other stories in our followers and commenters. I'd be like, oh, this reminds me of a teacher that I had. Oh, this reminds me of the time that somebody did something for me that I'll never forget. And Luci and I really love that. We

love seeing these comments crop up and we'd screenshot them, we'd share them with each other. Sometimes we'd post, you know, a comment that showed up in the stories and that would go viral itself. But there was something that didn't sit right with us, which was the ephemeral nature of it all. Social media is a funny thing where it's like, that one thing that you don't want people to be able to find or like to live forever, that's the thing that's easy to find.

But that one thing that you're like, God, I wish I could go back to this. What was that comment somebody said? What was that one post? What was it? God? It made me feel so good, right? And then it's a little harder to find that stuff and we didn't like it It didn't sit right with us because these comments that people were sharing they were all the seeds of a really beautiful Powerful story that deserved more than the kind of fleeting nature of social media So we set off on a mission to start kind of gathering them with more intention and to give them the kind of spotlight that they deserve and come up with a format

that they could live forever. And Lucia, I'll let you kind of dive into that. Yeah. We're like, what could live forever? How could we take these comments and make them last longer? Gabe was like, have you ever heard of book? And I was like, no, it's that. He was like, no, it's crazy. It's this thing called book.

And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, book, book, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's how it came to be. But the questions we started asking were really intended to spark memories in our audience. So for example, what's the kindest thing a stranger ever did for you? Or tell us about a story you were traveling abroad and someone helped you without even speaking the same language? Or who's that teacher who changed your life? Or what's a little thing someone did that

had a massive impact on you? So anyone, any human being with a beating heart can sit with one of those questions for a second and likely something's going to come up about someone who stepped in for you. Either you knew them, you had no idea who they were, could have been a kid, could have been a teacher, et cetera, and a memory comes to mind. And so, once we asked these six questions over the course of many months, we got inundated with thousands and thousands of responses. It was no joke because people then came to the comments to say, oh, my God, I'm here just for the comments. And so Gabe and I read through every single one. We started reaching out to the commenters,

sending them DMs saying, hey, we're putting a book together and we'd love to know more about your story. Can we interview you? And long story short, we interviewed hundreds of our community members, worked with them hand in hand to put these short stories together. They sent us photos, videos, and mementos of the person they either know or weren't able to thank. Some people weren't able to reunite with these people, or some have since passed on. And one of my favorite parts was getting to know the

real human beings behind these social media handles because it's so easy to forget that handles on social media are people like you and me. They have families and loved ones and communities and neighbors and passions and hobbies and the things that the social media page just does not paint. And so it was just a wonderful process.

We had over a hundred stories in the book, six chapters, over 300 pages, 60,000 words, you know, it took over two years and we're just so excited to bring it to life. It's one of those books that I feel like, number one, it's a great gift for somebody. I mean, these are honestly stories that all of us need. It doesn't matter how old you are, it doesn't matter how wealthy you are, it doesn't matter if you already have everything and you don't need another tachki around your house, it doesn't matter how cynical you are, you will read the pages of this book and be left feeling like, dang, I kind of needed that.

You know what I mean? It's just like it gives you a little hit of hope for the future that like yeah, we're not in a speeding train to hell Yes speeding train to hell yeah watch that hit number one immediately because the Keanu Reeves it can't go under 55 miles per hour That's right. That's right. Yes, and even the speeding train to hell is a dumpster fire, you know what I mean? When we were researching titles and covers for my own book and I was looking what was available in the category that I write in, most of the books were called things like calamity.

You know what I mean? I mean, that's not a real title, but that's the gist. All of the books are like midnight on the speeding train to hell driven by Satan himself. The hidden story of how Satan drove America to hell on a speeding train. You know what I mean? That's what sells. I feel like I've read that. Yes. Yes. But just reading through the pages of your book, it just felt like, I don't know how to describe it. I mean, like saying a hug is like,

that's too stereotypical, that's too cliche. It's one of those things I just like really like knowing. I remember reading the story of the person who was setting off for like Army basic training and he thought he could get lunch or dinner in the airport and everything was closed there were no vending machines and he asked a janitor and it turns out like no there's nothing to eat and he's gonna have to spend the night in the airport hungry and the janitor comes up to him and gives him his lunch and you know he never was able to find that janitor again and I

don't know I just really love it and I'm sure you hear this from your millions and millions of followers, that it just is something that feels like an exhale in a world that seems wound ever more tightly. So I feel like this book is one of those things that people should add to their holiday gift list and just give to people who have everything, bring it to the office gift swap.

It's something everybody can enjoy receiving and enjoy having out on their coffee table. Thank you for saying that. It's great to hear. I'm so glad you said exhale because I was about to say a nice deep breath, you know, just a slowing down. And that is the intention behind taking up Worthy Offline and putting it into a book is that you don't

have a screen with this. You're not subject to the powerful almighty blue light. And I think in an era characterized by speed and productivity, these stories in this book is meant to have you like take a step back, put the phone down for a second, and just breathe. Like take in the stories. It doesn't have to be power all the way through. They're meant to be consumed.

They're pretty bite-sized, so to speak. So you can read a few, a couple, put it down, pick it up, whatever it is, coffee table book. But I do think it will afford people the opportunity to choose something else, which is to just be of like be present in this moment. And then you can go back on your phone later and do scroll. I'm just kidding. Yeah, I think there's something we're all looking for right now, which is just a little bit of space for kind of restorative calm. However, we may get that and for better or

worse, our phones are not providing that it's not a window into it. And books have always done that. There's a special feeling that comes with spending some time on a page. And even if it's just a minute or two, just to read something before you go to bed or before you get up and, you know, start your routine in the morning. We have so many people who've said like, this has become kind of a ritual for me to read this and to engage with it that way. And it's helping me end my days or start it in a better way and that's been fantastic to see and I think the reason it works is because there is a truth to these stories and What people are dealing with how they're getting through it with the help of other folks the unexpected kindness

The people in big ways and small that have stepped up, that when you read about it, it stays with you. And it stays with you in a way that the outraged du jour, you know, or even a funny meme might not, right? We call it the upworthy feeling on our Instagram page, you know. It's kind of hard to describe, but just that like, oh, this is good, this is nice, but it feels honest and real and different, and it's elevated me. I think scientists use that term, like elevated feeling. And the goal

was to take that, to synthesize it in as strong a form as possible for this book so people could take it in an offline format and carry that feeling with them out into the world. And it's funny, you know, you don't necessarily expect that it's going to work. You've gone through the process with your number one bestselling book now. Congratulations. Thank you. And you have these ambitions. You're like, is this going to work though? Are people going to respond to it? You have that kind of fear voice in there. Oh, people are, it's just going to be dismissed. You know, no one's going to actually walk away with what we're hoping that they will. And then to see that, wow, it is working and people are feeling this way has been such a wonderful validation that I think deep down we are really looking for this as a society.

Yeah. And I appreciate that the stories in this book are bite-sized. You know, like you mentioned the shortening adult attention span. Even aside from that, it can be difficult to be like, and now I'm going to start this book. You know what I mean? Right. Yeah, totally. When we all have busy lives and we all have a million things

we want to read and do and hobbies we want to pursue and all these kinds of things. And that's part of what makes this book really accessible is that it does not require you to sit down and like start and end it. You can literally just flip through the pages and read at any point in the book. And each of these stories will take you five minutes

or less in my opinion to read. They're great when you're just like sitting down with a cup of coffee in the morning or like you were just saying, Gabe, like a way to end your day on a way that is not like and the entire rainforest burned down today and all the sloths are dead. You know what I mean? That's not, that's not bad. That's a bummer. I know. And you know, to that point, the reason it matters is because if you are ending your days or starting it just with an inundation, like open up Apple News or Google News or whatever it may be right now, and it is rough out there. It's brutal. And it's not to say that there aren't difficult things, there absolutely are, but the problem

begins when you're just inundated with this, right? Not to say that there aren't difficult things, there absolutely are, but the problem begins when you're just inundated with this, right? And then you kind of get ground down and you lose the motivation to make change, to fight for a better world because you're like, wow, things are so bad. What am I supposed to even do? And that's why I think this counter-narrative

is so important because if we are to kind of engage with the very real problems in the world Of which there are many we need to come from a place of feeling energized and Believing in each other and believing that a better world is possible because then I think we'll have a higher probability of kind of solving some of these extraordinary difficulties That we're faced with and that doesn't mean like, you know

You're sitting there and you're coming up with a systemic solution to the biggest problems in the world. It could mean that there is a shift in how we treat each other in the real world at a very small scale. It's one of the few things that we have control over, how we interact with people, how we treat people. This book is a reminder of that control that we have and how a little thing that we do for someone can stay with them forever, change their

perspective on everything and it can change your perspective and you know may seem like a small thing but doing that at scale where people start behaving in a kinder more compassionate way at scale like well then maybe we have a much better chance of creating a much better world for everyone. A lot of stories in this book are from things that happened to people 10 years ago, 20 years ago. And there's a reason for that. These memories stick with you. Even something, to Gabe's point, that feels like an innocuous gesture, like picking up something someone dropped, you have no idea. It could turn someone's day around.

It could change the way they view people. It could happen at a moment when they really needed it. And so I like to think that this book will have that impact on someone to sort of go out and be that person for other people. This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines. Enjoy the warm Tampa Bay temperatures and warm Porter hospitality on your way there. All Porter Fairs include beer, wine, and

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special guest star Sarah Michelle Geller, with Patrick Densey and Michael C. Hall as Dexter's inner voice. I wasn't born a killer. I was made. Dexter Original Sin, new series streaming December 13th exclusively on Paramount Plus, a mountain of entertainment. You know, there's this person who's a public speaker whose work has been featured in another

book that I read, who was an adolescent boy who had decided, essentially, F it, I'm going to shoot up my school. And he was going to commit suicide at the end of all of it. And he had made all of the plans and had intended to do it the next day, which was his birthday. And the night before his birthday, his acquaintance's mom heard it was his birthday and baked him a pie and invited him over and he describes that moment of somebody he didn't know particularly

well like he didn't know this boy's mom baking him a pie changed his perspective and he changed his mind on what he was going to do and that's not to say that every positive story has that dramatic of an effect, but it does go to show that you just do not know. You don't know what your small gesture for another person is going to do. You don't know what giving them a little tiny spot of hope for the future is going to mean for the course of history. You just don't know and it is an arrogance to presume. It's an arrogance and a

confidence and viewing the world in a certain way that like what I do doesn't matter. That actually is it's confidence in a negative view of the future. You're so confident that the future is doomed, that you believe that what you do doesn't matter. When the world is actually full of the exact opposite, it shows us literally every day that what we do does in fact matter. And you don't always know all of the ways in which it matters. Like that janitor in the airport, he probably didn't think that someday I'm gonna be in a book and that person who was in the army remembered me forever and maybe that person in the army

rescued a child on a mission. You just don't know. You don't know what the long-term effects of your actions are going to be, but there will be long-term effects. And so you get to choose how you want to interact with the world whether you want to be a positive force for good Or whether you want to spend your one wild and precious life arguing with strangers in the comment section Yeah, that is wonderfully said And what a wonderfully

Empowering thing totally to know right? Yes in an age where we have given up so much agency and control over our time and our thoughts and these windows and portals in which information is fed to us and you know the algorithm makes up a decision of who you are and what you want to see and what you want to do right you don't necessarily have as much control over that as you may think but you do in terms of the actions that you carry out into the real world and the effects and the stakes could not be higher. It may seem like a small thing but like you're saying it can have incredibly huge results and implications on a small scale for one person or a butterfly effect throughout time

and among people and so I love knowing that because it colors your interactions with the world and with people in a different light and It lets you know that like okay Well when I'm talking to someone or when I'm doing something for someone in the real world There is no algorithm telling me how to do this There is no politician saying this is what's right or wrong or what you have to do in this moment There is no talking head on the news popping in and being like here's what this person is like. Here's what they think there is no talking head on the news popping in and being like, here's what this person is like, here's what they think.

You know, it's just you and another human being in a moment in time. And I love the implications of that. I also think there's something to be said too about how you can apply these principles to yourself also. We could do a whole other episode on mental health and social media, mental health and the internet. Like, please leave between comparison culture and addiction to screens and social media, mental health and the internet, like, please leave between comparison culture and addiction to screens and social media and the like. And being able to take

away some of the lessons of this book about, you know, the agency you have over the way you treat yourself, or even behaviorally of, like, taking a break from screens for a little, or setting boundaries with social media, and how it makes you feel without anyone else having to tell you like what works for them. It's helpful. I think it's another thing to consider as you're engaging in our book, your book, or anyone else's book really. Yeah.

I love the idea that all of us doing something small has a much bigger effect than like five people trying to save the world, right? Yeah. Like five people trying to save the world can be discredited. A scandal from their past can be dug up. One of them can die. You know what I mean? Like those five people can be knocked down off of their pedestal quite easily. But all of us doing something small is a tidal wave that cannot be held back.

So this idea that like each one of us is meant to change the world. I think we focus so greatly on changing the world that it we allow it to paralyze us. Like listen I work in an insurance office. How am I supposed to change the world? I teach preschool. I'm in charge of 12, 3 year olds. How am I changing the world? When in reality, humans have never, throughout all of history, they have never, unless they are truly have dictatorial aspirations, never thought to themselves, it's my job to change the world at large. Like I need to personally impact people on the other side of the globe.

People have always acted within their own spheres of influence, within their own communities. If changing the world seems too big, then you need to redefine what community means to you. Maybe it's your town, maybe it's your library, maybe it's your workplace, maybe it's the school that you attend, it's your classroom.

It could even mean your family or your neighbor.'s the school that you attend, it's your classroom, it could even mean your family or your neighbor. If the problems seem too big, then you need to right size the problem to be in proportion to your sphere of influence. And as people who have millions and millions of followers on the internet and a bestselling book, your sphere of influence is by definition different

than somebody else who literally gave birth, you know, yesterday and also as a two-year-old at home. That's just how it's designed to work, right? Like that does not mean that the person with the smallest sphere of influence is less than, is less important, is doing it wrong. And I think it helps us all to remember that it's not our job to solve all of the world's problems. The weight of the world is not on our shoulders, but neither does it absolve us from all responsibility, right?

Like we need to right-size how we are viewing what it means to impact people. 100%. And I think, I'll put it as a case study and an example, that people actually reward and love stories about the everyday people. Our whole page is about the micro-moments of like, my daughter left my postman a note in the mailbox and I had no idea and they've been going back and forth and it's the most heartwarming, they've been playing TikTok tokes, something like that. And that'll get like 500,000 likes, you know,

something like cuckoo bananas. And so it's this beautiful thing, like just scrolling on the page and being able to see it's like there's the proof. Right. That those are the things that now have impacted and rippled out onto millions of people. Right. Because it's inherently engaging. It's inherently relatable. And that's the difference is that it's not some figure that's speaking down or condescending in some way. It's like, oh

my God, my dad made it on Upworthy or my neighbor made it on Upworthy because they're just people. Yeah. Look at how much people love Humans of New York. It's not wealthy and powerful socialites of New York. You know what I mean? Sure, there are a few sprinkled in. Yeah.

But you know what I mean? People love it that it's like a person on a park bench. Yeah. Yes. And you get to hear the person on the park bench's story and that is the appeal. It's not Rudy Giuliani of New York. We've heard enough of that. Yeah Well, you know, it's honest, right? Right like Brandon stories on humans in New York They're honest and it's an opportunity for people to be honest and truthful about their stories and themselves and what matters to us. And I think that is what we're so hungry for right now, is just like a bit of truth, a bit of honesty, and emotional honesty, literal honesty, right? And I think when people take the opportunity

to be honest about their lives, the people that matter to them. I think folks really appreciate that because there's a hunger for it right now and I'm really proud that we've created a hub, a place that people can go to see that kind of emotional honesty and that this book serves as kind of a compendium of that feeling of human truthfulness. It's a feeling like no other. What do you hope that the reader takes away and like tucks into their pocket and carries with them moving forward? What is it that you hope the takeaway is from your book? Well, one of the things that I think about a lot and you know going through this process it's hard to be like I wonder what the science and you know

Is there anything that backs up why this matters? One of the interesting things that we learned along the way is the ripple effect, right, of human decency and who it benefits and how it benefits them. And we call it the triple ripple effect, in the sense that doing something for someone else, it obviously benefits the person if they're accepting of that help at the right time. It makes them feel better.

It makes you feel better, right? It raises levels of oxytocin as things that have been studied in different clinical trials. But the really curious thing that happens is that just by observing, you know, if you're out there in the world, right, you see something good happen, you're not even a part of it. You're just an observer, that it has a lasting and elevating

effect on you. So the hope for me is that this book serves as an opportunity to be placed into that position as an observer of decency in the world. And that feeling that you would get from observing goodness is something that you take away from these stories, whether you read one, whether you read the whole thing, however you use it. And then when you have that feeling that you carry it with you into the world because I Think it's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy If we think that people are bad if we think that everything is bad and we carry that feeling with us out into the world

Then we're more likely to have interactions that are self-reinforcing and to create that world in the process But if we allow ourselves to have a bit of a, you know, a softer interaction with people to see the decency and to have more of those interactions, be more willing to help someone out, to give them the benefit of the doubt. And there's lots of stories like that about people being given the benefit of the doubt

at the right time. Then it's a different sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. That kind of kindness extends and it grows and it can have the chance to help us create the world that we want to see, which is one where people treat each other well. So that's my ultimate hope for this and it might be, this might display one tiny little piece of that.

If it does even for one person, then I consider it a giant success. I have three. One is, you know, when we debuted on the New York Times bestseller list, we were listed in the category of nonfiction, which was the greatest accolade for us. Because the stories in this book are true. They're real. They're not from some fantasy world.

They're from our world. And so my hope is that this book will help people understand that there are possibilities for a better world and that they already exist within this one. It's just a matter of building them, number one. Number two, don't overlook the small things, as we just talked about. I think there's some myth that in order to change someone's life, it needs to be some grandiose gesture over the top that requires a lot of energy or time or money. But as we just talked about, it could be something as simple as just smiling at someone on the street and you have no idea how it will impact them for the rest of the day. You know, not to

be like weird about it, like we're not saying overdo it, like walk around with a huge grin on your face all the time. But just at moments that feel natural, at moments that come naturally to you, maybe let that out instead of like holding that close to your chest, which our society sometimes pushes us to do. And lastly, take a moment to just slow down and take a moment to find that sense of peace and calm so that when you do wake up in the morning instead of wanting to stand under the covers you want to get up and move from

a place of empathy and centeredness and energy to go out and solve the problems that we all need to be solving. I love that. Is there anything that you wanted to talk about before we sign off for today? Nothing for me. I mean what a lovely conversation. And I'm so appreciative of you giving us the opportunity to talk about this, because not everybody

wants to have the conversation about the good stuff happening out there and why it matters. I had an op-ed that was rejected for being, quote, too optimistic. So that's another story for another back. No comma. I won't say the outlet, but you know who you are. But it matters, you know, to have reach and an audience and to just use it occasionally

to remind people about this. You don't have to do it all the time. You don't have to be up worthy and make that your life's mission. But it's really nice to get the opportunity to talk about this. So thank you. Oh, no, it's my pleasure. I appreciate you making time for me today. And I suppose I would be remiss if I didn't say

the book is up worthy, good people, stories from the best of humanity. It is available everywhere that books are sold, or pick it up at your library. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Sharon. Thank you so much. You can buy good people wherever you buy your books. If you want to support your local bookshop, head to yours or you can go to bookshop.org. I'll

see you again soon. Thank you so much for listening to Here's Where It Gets Interesting. If you enjoyed today's episode, would you consider sharing or subscribing to this show? That helps podcasters out so much. I'm your host and executive producer, Sharon McMahon. Our supervising producer is Melanie Buck-Parks and our audio producer is Craig Thompson. We'll see you soon.