Pivot - The Internet is buckling under COVID-19 pressure, Esther Perel on our relationships in quarantine, and the possible Fox News reckoning

Episode Date: March 31, 2020

Kara and Scott talk about Internet slow downs and how companies are coping as the country starts living their work and personal lives online. They discuss reports that the government is using mobile advertiser geo-location data on your phone to track social distancing and the spread of COVID-19. Friend of Pivot, renowned therapist and podcast host Esther Perel joins Kara and Scott to talk about dealing with grief in a moment of instability, how to be a better partner and colleague during the lockdowns. (Check out her new mini-series off her hit podcast Where Should We Begin?: Couples Under Lockdown, where she offers therapy to couples confined together in quarantine). Winners include Bill Gates, Yamiche Alcindor's showdowns with POTUS, and Italy starting to get ahead of COVID-19. PLUS: Will Fox News finally face a reckoning after the COVID-19 crisis? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and reporting tools that get your marketing running seamlessly, all backed by their expert live customer support. It's time to get going and growing with Constant Contact today. Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Scott, what is going on? How are you doing? What season of The Simpsons are you on? We're on season three, and we're cheating on The Simpsons. We're starting to watch The Family Guy. And I want to watch The Wonder Years because I'm very emotional, but my kids will have none of it.

But I don't know what I'd do if it wasn't for one person getting me through the crisis who is that Joe exotic oh my god are you still doing the time I was watching the tiger thing people move it's so interesting you know they move from love is blind to tiger whatever tiger tiger tiger king it's why do you like it it's genius. Why do you like it? It's going to be a movie movie, apparently. It just makes you feel really good about yourself. It's like when you're driving a minivan and you need to say over and over yourself,

I like myself, I like myself. This show says, your life is not that bad. This show says, you have good judgment. When you're watching this show, you're like, wow, I got my shit together. I have my shit together. It's really, it's fantastic. More schadenfreude. That's your favorite thing, I got my shit together. I have my shit together. It's really, it's fantastic.

More schadenfreude. That's your favorite thing, is schadenfreude. Oh, hands down. Hands down. But it's got sex, it's got murder, it's got big cats. I've decided I'm a monkey person. Monkey people are weird, but they're not mean. Tiger people are mean, so I'm definitely a monkey person. Apparently there's a lady who's after him, right? Oh, they're all after each other It's really it's really well done Netflix. I just said I was imagine What executive?

Production or content executive goes into who and how do they pitch this shit and what kind of vision and batshit crazy vision? Does it take to say oh wait? There's this gay polygamist living in I I think he's in Kentucky, who has a big cat farm, who launches a plot to murder someone who's about to be murdered, whose boyfriends are addicted to meth, and someone says, that's a go. That's a go. The minute you said gay polygamist, I'm on board. That's a go. Come on. You could never be you know what i watched speaking

of netflix is really i i'm really exploring netflix is uh unorthodox it's about a woman who people love it it's a story it's really good like i watch some more serious hi it's about a woman who leaves a hasidic sect in williamsburg and moves to berlin and and her escape from that and it was it's really good and she becomes you know she leaves the leaves the escape from that. And it's really good. And she leaves the group. And it's good. It's your typical kind of story like that. But the actress is an Israeli actress. And I do love that.

And it's mostly in Yiddish. And there's very few subtitles. And so it's amazing. They're very cheap with the subtitles. And so you sort of get what's going on. And it goes between English and Yiddish, but a lot of Yiddish. And it was just, it's great. It's great.

Yes, we're watching a lot of TV. I think you should watch The Wonder Years. It's very sweet that you're trying that. That's an old show. It is nice. For those of you who weren't born before 1980. It is nice. It's really cute.

It's really nice. I would suggest West Wing. That's what I'm going to suggest to you. All right. We're going over, finished our TV watching because this is an endless Sunday that we're involved in, which is going to continue for 30 more days, which is amazing. health issues at stake and the extension of the quarantine ideas, the guidelines from the feds to April 30th now, which we'll see what goes on because the situation in New York is just terrible. And it's expanding outwards from there.

But everything is just changing, including being on the internet all the time. Let's talk about how the companies are dealing with added traffic and how this will change the conversation. I think people won't be using as much traffic as before. But last week, the average time it took to download videos, emails and documents increased, broadband speeds declined 4.9%. That's not a surprise. Medium download speeds have dropped hugely in New York, obviously. Companies are trying to mitigate the issue. YouTube said it would reduce the quality of its videos from high to standard definition across the globe. And Zuckerberg gave a quote

that he was just trying to keep the lights on, like he's a Motel 6, I guess, given massive volume and working-from-home challenges. European regulators have pushed Netflix and other streaming services to reduce the size of their video files, save on bandwidth. The United States regulators gave wireless carriers access to more spectrum, which is interesting. That's always for sale. Disney delayed the start of its Disney Plus

streaming service in France by two weeks. AT&T's networks were up hugely. These data caps are lifted for customers. It just shows how much we rely on the internet. And for those who do not have as good internet access, they have issues around information and also entertainment for people who are sitting at home. So what do you think about all this? What do you think is going to happen with these companies? What's the play from your perspective? Well, we literally have.

Everyone talks about it, but it looks like we haven't broken the internet, but we're definitely straining it. And it's, of course, you don't know. It's not a real crisis until YouTube and Netflix start sending content out in standard definition instead of high definition. That's really what you'd call almost like peak corona. I wonder, though, if we think about the companies that are really surging here. I mean, this might be one of those moments where I don't know if we're ever going to go back. I think people have become so, I don't know what's going on in your household, but we're just literally,

if you had electricity and people thought about, all right, what are the jobs that electricity creates? It's massive construction, massive capital infrastructure, manufacturing to build everything from a nuclear reactor to a coal-fired plant. If it's a coal-fired plant to produce electricity, think about the mines, you think about the union jobs. You kind of reverse engineer to millions of middle-class jobs. And if you think about the surge here, it sort of reverse engineers to a number of high-paying jobs that are more around technology and information age and a destruction of traditional jobs. So it's just everywhere you look here, it's sort of – I got invited on – today's show has a Sunday morning episode, and they asked me to do something from home on retail trends. And I was trying to think of, well, what's new here?

And my only sort of insight was the trends really aren't different in retail post-corona they're just accelerating and it feels like exactly the one trend around income inequality where the jobs are when you think about what's surging here you know whether it's pickup if it's curbside pickup of grocery whether it's delivery of food the jobs that will be destroyed will be replaced by fewer higher paying jobs. And it just feels as if that's absolutely happening everywhere that we're going to, everything we're worried about, income inequality is arguably one of the things that's been most damaging or made us most susceptible about this virus, because it's now looking like

certain counties or metros in New York area that are going to be the hardest hits hit are the ones that are sort of more middle or lower income and this is what a surprise and the technology that we're embracing all the trends we're embracing are only going to accelerate that so it's anyways it's it's interesting breaking the internet think about what would happen if our internet went down right now. That would be the virus attack. If somebody wanted to really take advantage of a society, they would start cyber sex. Thank you for giving me the thought, Scott.

That's the way I think. That's absolutely true. That's the way I think. Yeah, no, absolutely. I don't think the internet can break down as a whole, but you're right. Yeah, distributed nodes. Yeah, sorry.

Yeah, I think if there was a huge attack, it would be a problem for everyone. What's interesting is how different the experience is. There's sort of the rich people's time on the internet right now, which is talking about Tiger King, no insult. But you know what I mean? Like talking about things they're watching and things they're doing, like doing dinner parties or cocktail parties online.

There was a wedding. There was actually a wedding online on Zoom and things like that. And then there's other people using it for informational purposes but there's it's a very different experience for people one is this heavy entertainment and trading tips around things they're watching um which is meaning people that you know it's just thinking that like even though this is difficult and when the 30th was added and everything's going to be extended my kids are going to be home longer i was like oh god this is going to go on and then i realized how easy we have it here is sort of in

our comfortable homes and with enough money to see us through and you know comforts like the internet um so it's it's a very different experience and the experience that other people are having are just not the same especially if they're not linked into the internet and know what's going on almost constantly well a lot of people have to go to work. I mean, there's still people who are having to go to work that just really don't have a choice. And it's, I mean, it just goes back again. I do think that legislation will hopefully help to put some money in people's pockets and helps them make better decisions or reduces their stress around the economic stress here. What I find are the biggest

tension I'm dealing with, with all these board meetings and companies trying to figure out what to do, is the stress between... I've actually found CEOs have been very responsible, and I'm really impressed by some of the leadership at some of the companies I'm working with, in terms of their executive teams really rallying and trying to figure out what's the best thing to do and addressing the issue head on. Is this tension around when do we start the economy and when do we ensure that this virus is kind of stamped out and that we don't have a relapse? And at the same point, there is a valid argument. I don't like the argument, and I think people are going to err on the wrong side of this, but the argument around when do we in fact restart the argument and I think people are gonna err on the wrong side of this but the argument around when

Do we in fact? Restart the economy at what point does economic damage or lasting damage to the economy become a real issue? And what I don't like it I don't know if you saw the latest thing but this notion of kind of a B and C cities where certain cities would come back online faster and They're really Bill Gates came online and it's interesting i would say one of the winners is bill gates i think people are really turning to him for kind of thoughtful sober

information he's very apolitical which is welcome in this environment but he said he's come out and said that's a really bad idea that you've got a you've got to turn the lights on and bleach every corner of this thing and it's there's no there's no place here that's going to be spared and you've got to approach this as a whole and not start making excuses well montana can open up again no i i actually believe but the point is it doesn't matter if montana no one sell to montanans but nobody no you're not going to change the internet it's going to change it locally you're not going to change the economy you know on a national level I think the areas that are hardest hit are the big cities where all the economic value is in most cases, correct? Yeah, I think that's right. It's the coast, right? But what's just, I mean, we're definitely

having two pandemics. There's a pandemic taking place on the coast where it's CNN and the New York Times. And anyone who wasn't concerned about this isn't reading the New York Times or isn't watching CNN. And then there's people who get their media from Fox who are sort of more like, well, we got to get back to work. And there really are two pandemics here. And it's dangerous and kind of strange that we no longer, Jonathan Haidt said, ever since 9-11, we probably will never again have a shared experience as a nation. We'll each have our own experience based on our political beliefs, our tribes, our ideology. And it does feel like we're having two pandemics. But even I was sort of down this weekend. I think

everyone has a little bit of what I call a, I don't want to call it a breaking point, but it all sort of aggregates and you wake up one morning and you're just really depressed and start feeling what I would call mild grief. You start hearing about people you know that have it. You start, you know, your kids and your family wearing on you, your situation wearing on you, not understanding this. I still, I mean, as much data as I try to turn to, I just still really don't understand all of this. But the thing that got me really down yesterday, Kara, was I was thinking about American exceptionalism, and I'm guilty of that. I think early on I thought, oh, it's terrible in China, but it's not going to come here just because we're different and we're better. We don't have wet markets. The flu starts in China and it ends in China every year.

And American exceptionalism, there's just no getting around it. What American exceptionalism means right now, we have the most cases we had them a lot of time to prepare where we're you know we are so far behind and what has been really the only thing we knew was the frontline of defense on this and that is testing we've done one-third per capita the testing of South Korea and Italy still and American exceptionalism right now is a reconfigured refrigerated tractor trailer in Queens where they're storing body bags. That is what American- Oh, Scott, you're in a dark place. The question, speaking of that, have you been tested?

It's the truth. Have you been tested? I haven't either. I don't even know how to get tested. That's exactly right, Kara. I wouldn't know where the fuck to get tested. I'm a person with a lot of resources. I'd like to think I'm well-read. And this is where America is right now. I would have no idea where to even start to get tested and tested as the frontline of defense. And we like to think we're so innovative. We like, we're still having all these conversations around the fact we can't figure out a way to get ventilators. And then we have the new czar, this guy, Peter Navarro, who's like the latest guy who's giving victory day

speeches all over the nation and not offering any numbers. I mean, you listen to this guy and you're like, okay, we're fucked. Well, he's been an idiot for a long, long time. So, you know, he's been sitting along the edges making a mess of everything else. And so now they've inserted him here. I mean, you're right. Like thinking about the idea that you and I don't know how to get tests. Like it should be like we know how to get a driver's license.

We know how to do blank, blank, blank. But I have no – there's no – like here's where you go here's the link everybody get tested and then once you know what what do you do then like you don't so then what like i feel like i feel like the response i feel as if we're doing okay i don't want to say we're doing okay but we're doing as well as other places but we like to think I believe this, that we really are exceptional. That America is exceptional. Our spirit, our grit, our creativity, our generosity as a people, we really are exceptional. Our economic might.

But the harsh reality is a mix of a total delegitimization and deprioritization of funding our government and respect for employees. At the end of World War II, 5% of our employees were federal employees. Now it's 2%. We have no respect for them. We've decided to cut taxes over and over and deprioritize government and things like the CDC. We have this fetishization with localization where we leave it up to local states to make decisions, which is a mean of outsourcing funding and decisions that's resulted in a series of Joey Bag of Donuts health departments that don't know what they're doing, where people say, oh, oh, you know, we're not going to close the beaches as they did down here in Florida. Yeah, Florida, you people down in Florida are really killing it.

But it's strange. So far, so far, and I've been obsessed with this site out of the University of Washington, looking at statistics around this stuff. So far, we've actually, it doesn't look that bad down here, to be fair. So far, Florida doesn't look that bad. It doesn't look like we're on track for a New York or a Washington-like crisis. But there's just no getting around it. A lack of leadership where we politicize everything, where we see everything as an opportunity to either make the president look stupid or for the president to own a campaign rally, a lack of coordination, this exceptionalism, narcissism where we've decided we can't learn from china you're in a very dark place i'm going to pull you out right now pull me grab me by the hands help me out you're perfect it's perfect for our friend pivot who's going to help you walk you

through your grief um but uh but it is i'll tell you what we all have in common is the internet. We have the internet in common. We have that. Thank goodness for the internet, honestly, I think. Or maybe you wouldn't know what you don't know. I mean, it's the two things. So one of the things is the abilities, speaking of being the government knowing things, is they do know they're using the Wall Street Journal had a piece about the federal government through the CDC and state and local governments have started to receive analysis of the present movement of people in certain geographic areas of interest. The data is coming from the mobile advertising industry, which already follows you around. They have billions and billions of geographic data points on hundreds

of millions of cell phones, mostly from the applications that track location, which everyone allows to have happen. And it shows which establishments, parks, and public squares are still drawing crowds so that they can stop people there. In one case, researchers found that New Yorkers were congregating in large numbers in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, which you could do by actually going into Prospect Park, because I was there a couple weeks ago, and handed that information over to local authorities.

So, you know, the Lower Lightfoot in Chicago closed down lakefront trails and beaches. So should you get special notification if your data is being used in that way? And there is a public good versus personal privacy issue. You know, how is this different in different locations? It's just interesting to, I think in times of emergency, it probably is a very good idea as long as it's anonymized. But I don't know. What do you think?

Well, we've had this conversation a lot. And I come out on the side of I still have a lot of faith, I would say, in judges and our legislators to decide, OK, do you anonymize the data? Do you scrub it? I don't think the folks at Google, well, maybe the folks at Facebook because they just seem to be psychotic to me or just so sociopathic that they would think they're doing the right thing and then accidentally forget to scrub the data. So I think Facebook is probably the organization you can trust least in the world right now, maybe with the exception of the GRU or someone that's an adversarial enemy because I think they just totally obsess with shareholder value despite the damage to the Commonwealth. But I think every other organization, you know, my sense is in times like this,

that there are risks that should be taken. It does warrant a special, I don't wanna call it a violation of our rights, but I think during wartime, you know, and I don't agree with what happened during 9-11 in terms of violating people's personal civil liberties and targeting people or profiling people. But you and I have had this conversation a lot.

I think exceptional times require exceptional measures. And I think most people, if they received an alert, you know how you get those amber alerts on your phone that says a car has been stolen or there's been a child that's gone missing? You know, that's a violation of your privacy. I didn't ask for anybody to send me that stuff, but I decide during emergencies it makes sense. And I think if you send people text messages saying,

we would like to notify you about whether you've been exposed or we are tracking, and maybe you let them opt in, maybe you don't, but I think most people at this point would opt in. I think people are more scared of the virus than they are a violation of civil liberties right now. Although that guy. That's always the case.

That happens all the time and that you just don't know which one it is. So paint the scenario here. Paint what you're afraid of. I think it's that people overreach. What happens with the Patriot Act? Everyone's terrified. And so they say, yes, yes, yes, please take away my civil liberties for a short time. But I think people overreach. And I think that's just the issue. In this case, there are other ways to do it. I'm actually testing one thing that takes your temperature all the time, which is a good way to understand if there's some difference in your health and stuff like that. There's all kinds of creative ways that we can monitor people with their cooperation.

And that's all. You know, again, I'm on the same thing. It's cooperation. And yes, I can do it and not do it in a terrified way. Explain to them, we need to do this because this. And listen, these companies are in touch with everyone every day of the week and twice on Sunday. And they could, it could be a very easy thing on Facebook. We're going to do this. If you have an objection, you can opt out right here. Like that, perhaps that, maybe just do that. Or, or, or this will be anonymized. This will be,

it's very easy. They're in constant touch with you. You know, I get more texts about when my FedEx package is going to be delivered than I would do on touch with you. You know, I get more texts about when my FedEx package is going to be delivered than I would do on something like this. I got, like, I'm having a FedEx delivered today, and I've had 20 notices. They could do it. They could do it. That's all. I'm just, you know, and then people can decide. I think it's just, it's, they always have, there's always some national emergency that requires for us to give us our civil liberties. And it just should be with the cooperation of people. I think most people would cooperate. And if people don't want to cooperate, you know, you couldn't figure something else out. But I don't know. I just, anyway, we've got to go.

I think people right now will be willing to put up with this. But I think at some point, they do have to realize that they're being tracked all over the place. And it's still a critically important issue, especially around advertisers who are just totally misusing your data constantly. I don't want that idea to get lost in this sauce here. Right. I think it's good that you're taking your temperature. I don't feel the need to take my temperature because I'm always at room temperature.

Are you? I'll tell you about it. It's a whole column in the New York Times of doing it. It's this project that's going on at UCSF. How do you do that? What, did you wear something? You are going to have to wait and read about it. It's a whole column in the New York Times of doing it. It's this project that's going on at UCSF. How do you do that? What, did you wear something? You are going to have to wait and read about it. It's really cool.

Anyway. That makes for compelling journalism. You'll see. You'll see. You'll see. I'll talk about it next week. That's a page turner. Anyway, it's time for...

Shut up. Listen. It's not Tiger Mama, whatever the fuck. I see a Pulitzer in your future. Tiger. It's not Tiger, whatever the fuck that is. Anyway. All right, Scott, it's time for a quick break. We'll be right back with someone who's going to help you feel better with a friend of Pivot. Fox Creative.

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Well, we have to figure out when the social distancing is over so I can let her back in the house. But other than that, that's my big joke. That's my big joke. That's a terrible joke. I asked Esther about this, but I think relationships are bifurcating into two areas, your second and third order degree relationships that are getting closer, reaching out to old friends. And I would argue the first degree relationships, we're all going through sort of a mild Stockholm syndrome where we'll come out of this stronger, hopefully, but it's definitely there's some strains in first-degree relationships. What's going on with you and Amanda? Everything's great.

I don't buy that. I never buy that. No, we're getting along great. We are. We're nice to each other, and we had wonderful meals. So anyway, we're going to have—we are. We can talk about it more, and Esther can ask us. This is Esther Perel.

She's on the line to help. She's the renowned therapist and host of the podcast, Where Should We Begin and How's Work? She's hosting a mini series, a new mini series podcast called Couples Under Lockdown. Esther, welcome to Pivot. So tell us what your thoughts are as sort of your high level thoughts of the challenges couples and families are facing right now? So hi, Cara. Look, there's a number of very interesting dynamics happening. And they're not going to be in order of importance, but each and every one of them is significant. You know, first, it's the fact that usually in a family or in a couple, you have multiple roles of which there is a location for these roles. There's a place to be the parent. There's a place to be the lover, a place to be the partner,

a place to be the friend, the professional, the worker. Here you have a collapse of all the roles in one space. And they are intersecting with each other all the time. Sometimes the only boundary left is the mute button on your Zoom. Then you have the fact that people are experiencing prolonged uncertainty, acute stress, the grief that comes with the world that you have known no longer being nearly as predictable and no one knowing really where this is going. But people don't mention it as grief. So what they have is different coping styles about how

they deal with the unknown. Those who become, you know, clear organizers, because it's as if order will provide the bulwark against the chaos of the external world and the one that is rising inside of us. And those who are wanting to talk all the time with other people and check in and have a sense of what's going on with everyone. And those who are thinking that their partner is making too big a deal of it. And those who are thinking that their partner is making too big a deal of it and those who are thinking that their partner is not cautious enough and so you have this polarization going on around the way that people deal with fear with anger with with the preparations if you want to do to this impending disaster that is literally coming at us and then i think what your colleague described here which is also interesting disasters generally operate as an accelerator in a relationship. It means that life is short,

mortality is hitting you. It's like in the shadow right here. And then either people say life is short, let's get married, let's have babies. What are we waiting for? Or on the other side, life is short. I've waited long enough. I'm out of here. And so we've known that there is generally a spike in divorce and a spike in marriage and babies that follows disasters. Wow. So this is interesting. I actually got a divorce after I had a stroke, which was interesting. Same idea. Yeah. Yeah. You know, what was really interesting, what Scott was talking about was the idea of, and Scott can weigh in too, is the idea of grief and not thinking of it like grief, which I think is interesting. And then the second thing that you noted was that different couples

have different coping mechanisms. There is one issue is my partner does like to read all the news and then wake me up by telling it to me. And I'm like, I don't want to hear that what happened. You know, I don't want to hear anything but that, which is, which is hard to do. So we're going to talk about tips in a second. But talk about the idea of grief. I mean, it's the word that really will help us make sense of what goes on. You know, grief is not just about death in the physical sense. It's the grief that accompanies a worldview. And what happens when you have a plague, when you have a pandemic, is that you are reminded that death can randomly exterminate you, you know, and it can throw your world upside down like that.

Yesterday, he was still running in the park, and today, you know, he's gone. We know it, but the level, the frequency and the intensity at which we're experiencing this right now. So there is the sense of the world that we've known. There is the sense of the routines that we've had, the relationship that we've known. It's that sense of impending loss that we talk about with grief or what is often called anticipatory grief

because in some places it hasn't hit yet, but everybody is talking about it's coming. It's coming. It's this week away. It's like being in the beginning of a horror film where the set and the characters have all been set up. But the action is yet to start or it's just starting slowly. And you know that you're going to get really, really scared. So in the process of grief, you have different stages and different ways that people react. Now, these are not linearly laid out, you know, people go back and forth with each other and inside themselves or in their community. So you have the people at first that are getting into gear and began stockpiling and began preparing and knew it very early on. They kind of knew something bad is happening.

And you had the other people that were considered in denial. Why? Because they said, this isn't happening here. This is happening elsewhere. This can't be happening here. And gradually people start to think, who is there? Where is the government? Where are the leaders? Where is the public health facilities and strategies worldwide

that are meant to protect us against something like that. And so then you have stages, denial, anger, bargaining, you know, you bargain, you create order, you think you're going to be super productive, you're going to work much better, you know, and then you realize that in fact, your productivity is much lesser. People are all over the world, they're working more and they're producing less. And they are using the very devices that used to keep us apart as the prime way to stay connected. But at the end of the day, they don't really want to call somebody else because they've

had it sitting at the screen and they are exhausted. People talk about feeling exhausted. And part of the exhaustion is because you try to organize your life in practicalities and not think about the bigger issue, the bigger meaning of what is happening, which is we are vulnerable creatures. And no matter how much toilet paper you bought, you can only protect yourself up to a certain point. And that is a much more sombering, sad, point. And that is a much more sombering, sad, less resilient American effort optimism kind of approach. Scott, there's your entry point. Does that resonate with you? It does. And by the way, I just want to point out, I just literally realized who you are. You have the greatest,

and this is a fairly high bar, you have the greatest single line of any speaker at a TED conference, someone you were describing, you say people come up to and ask you and say, oh, you're the French lady that believes you should have affairs. And you said, no, I'm actually Belgian. You have anyways, you're one of my heroes. Your TED talk is one of the, I think the more inspiring, interesting TED talks. So my question is, my question is, what is, are there any best practices if you tried to distill it down to two or three hacks or recommendations for being, and I'll be gender specific here, how do you be a better dad and a better husband during a crisis like this? When

you're not used to experiencing crises with your family, most of the crises I've gone through have been economic and I feel as if I was either single or have gone through them alone. This is kind of the first shared crisis. How do you be a better man, a better husband, a better father? I think actually that, first of all, it's a beautiful question, and there's three different degrees here, right? So people are experiencing an economic crisis as well. People are losing the savings that they put together for their retirement. I mean, there are so many different levels of the way that this is entering our lives and our intimacy. But I think here, this thing that we talked about, right, we have different coping styles. This is a given and this kind of acute stress will exacerbate differences in families, among

siblings, between children and parents and in relationships. The first thing I would say is that you know it's very easy to then begin to criticize the way that other people do it or to even see them as a threat. I suggest that with this more than ever it it's always a useful tip, but now it's really important, is that you look for the good things that the other person does. And you just magnify it. You constantly let them know that you appreciate what they're doing. And not just, oh, that's so nice of you to do the dishes, but really to turn it into an act of generosity. It's really kind of you.

You're being very generous. You're being very thoughtful. Turning it into a description of the person and not just a description of the gesture. That actually changes the tone in the house. When people start to feel irritable, they start to bicker more. They're on each other. You know, it's tight. It's tight, not just because of the physical space. It's tight because there's a feeling that we are being choked in, not just because of the physical space, it's tight because there's a feeling that we are being choked in, not just in our homes, but with the greater meaning of the reality that's around us. And then, you know, be able to nurture yourself. So if you need space, if you need time alone, if you need to take a walk, if you need to go in your room, if you need to put headphones on,

you just preempt and you say, I need some time in order for you to get a better part of me. I got to retreat at this moment. I need to step out. I can't be with the kids right now. Give me 10 minutes, I will be back. Make it very explicit. Actually, the way we teach children, articulate the feelings, describe the behavior, make a commitment and come back.

And then vis-a-vis the children, I think that this is a cultural piece, you know. Some cultures live with the idea that shit happens. Bad things happen. This, we experienced this very much after 9-11, when my kids were in the school downtown, and you had what we considered American parents who wanted to protect their children and not really tell them much. And then you had all the foreigners, the people from Haiti who had just gone through, you know, major disasters. It was like, what do you mean you protect? You basically tell them this is the world you live in and you teach them good judgment and you teach them responsibility and you teach them to think about others. So this is very cultural. I have to put that in brackets first, you know, but if you

can, my stance in general is you actually talk about it with the children. You know, I had a conversation with an eight-year-old yesterday, daughter of friends of mine, and I just talked with her about the fact that, you know, she's missing her friends. It's not the same. I can't just, you don't go around convincing them, but we're lucky. We're in a good place. We have at least an extra room. We

don't rationalize with them to not give them the permission to say, this is scary. This is uprooting. This is disruptive. This challenges the sense of continuity. This makes for bad dreams. And I feel it too. And I feel it too, but we will go through it together. That kind of conversation. The truth, you mean. You're talking about the truth, Esther. It's the truth distilled for a certain age, but it normalizes, it gives permission. If you don't give permission, you promote tantrums, you promote depression, you promote isolation, you promote people basically acting in deflective ways rather than just saying, I had a bad day, I'm having a tough time. And for couples,

what's very good is to have check-ins for teams at work as well. Check-in, do a pulse check, stress moment acknowledgement. How is it for you? How are you waking up today? Because some days you are more hopeful, you feel calmer. Other days you just feel like you're on edge. It's okay to do this before you start your meeting. It's okay before you get out of bed with your partner. Just a check-in, a pulse check. It grounds us and it lets us know where everybody is at. That's absolutely true. How do you do this online? Because everything is, you know, your family is right in front of you. So it's in a very tight situation. When you're with work people, because everyone's sort of operating on screens, is there

a different tip that you have when you are doing these checks? Or is it just the same thing? I can tell you how we have done it at my little startup here. We are 12. We meet, and then we just either say, who needs a stretch before we sit down again? And we get up and we stretch and we have the rubber bands, whatever anybody has at home, we just take a moment to stretch. Then basically, we realize that some of us don't even know if the other people are in a relationship, if they're living with a partner, if they're alone with their dog. And so suddenly we actually ask, where are you?

Who are you with? Who's taking care of you? Are there people you're taking care of? Who is responsible for you and who are you responsible for? And it suddenly gave us a map of where everybody went. People have had to fly back to homes that were places where they feel safe and places where they had to run away from. It's not always an idyllic situation. And then we ask, you know, how is everybody?

We take the time to check in, actually, and then we go into the meeting. The meeting will not be delayed by anything. It's important to just say, how is everyone? Are there losses that we need to know about? Are there developments that we need to know about? And if your team is much, much bigger, you still say, you know, write it to us or put it in the chat box or just raise your hand or who's having a tough day today, raise your hand. You know, take a moment, let's breathe together. Let's acknowledge this.

This is not, let's continue business as usual. People went home because the company said, you know, we're doing a drill. The drill never ended. They never came back. Then it became a two week thing. Everybody knew that this wasn't going to be a two week thing, but some people didn't.

And now nobody knows when they're going back. So don't pretend it's business as usual. It's not. Work from home is a little bit of an understatement here. It's a euphemism. Right. Absolutely. Do you see relationships changing kind of in a post-corona world? Do you think, do you see any specific type of relationships or the way we approach our spouses, our kids, our relationship with work? Do you see any specific relationship of relationships or the way we approach our spouses, our kids, our relationship with work? Do you see any specific relationship coming out of this more change than another? So I would say that where I see some of the biggest changes actually is among the younger people. Like I have a Gen Z and a millennial, and it's an incredible thing. First and foremost,

they are for the first time talking on the phone. They want voice. They want voice. They want some incarnate experience. If I can't see you, if I can't touch you, I need to hear you. And I think that is such an important return. It's so important to reconnect with the voice.

And of course, the viewing is important too but the the voice is the first thing you hear in utero you know and it's something that so many of the young people had lost that's one thing and then i think that they are also realizing in a culture especially in the u.s where you know you're self-made and you have to cultivate self-love and you have to be self-sufficient and self-reliant, and all of it is surrounding the self and self-help and self-growth and self, people are really realizing the degree of interdependence that we exist in.

And I think it is changing a little bit the sense of, no, we're not just on our own. In fact, when we are on our own, we don't survive well in this moment. We need connection. We need connection. We are connected to others. Our behavior affects others. We need them. And it is actually our greatest strength. It is the most important factor for mental health at this point is social support and social connection. I think that the realization of that is very important.

How long it lasts afterwards, I don't know. Because I was there during the 9-11 outpour of solidarity. And it's not like it continued this way. There is a way in which it stays for a while. And then as you start to feel safer again, as you reconnect, you know, as you transcend the grief of the fear of the loss of security and safety, even if it's an illusion, you still think you have it. People go back to their normal ways. I don't know that we fundamentally change as a society. No, I don't.

I think work will change. I think we are realizing that we don't necessarily need many towers with offices. But we also realize that we need a lot more in connection, real in person connection than than we would like to believe. It was interesting, I was watching a show and everybody was walking around Berlin. And I was like, Oh, look how close those people are together. Like I was like imagining not going getting back into a store without washing everything, which is kind of, you know, like, what will that be like, you'll get used to it, I think you're is what you're saying, essentially, it takes time. But you know, there is this,

it's very weird to relate to other people as pathogens, or to think of yourself as a pathogen. You know, I mean, we have always had a leopard in our society, said Foucault, you know, there's always been that dangerous vermin virus pathogen. And this is part of what is being activated at this moment. So how do you trust again? How do you not like, you know, go around thinking, you know, what's what's following me now, because I came too close to you, or because you coughed, or because I allowed you to enter my house, and now I need to go and spray Lysol on my railing, you know? Right, right. That's a fair point. I'd have one last question. When you have social media have been such a negative force for so long, and now it's a place where people are sort of letting off steam, or they're mad at Donald Trump for talking about

ratings, for example, you know, there's a lot of political stuff going on. Is it a good thing or a bad thing to have this social media going on all the time? Because the people are reacting to news instantly, whether it's, you know, it's often around this White House stuff, but it's still political. Is that a good thing or should you turn it off? I think that it's both ends for many things. You know, you need it. It is the public square.

It is the place where everybody comes to chat and to commiserate and to hear things. But it is also the place for gossip, the place for everybody comes to chat and to commiserate and to hear things, but it is also the place for gossip, the place for instant accusations and judgments and lack of real ability to listen. On the other end, we need information. And the problem here has been that we have not been given clear information, not just by Donald Trump, by many other leaders in the world. You know, what prepares you for disasters is unambiguous information and clear instruction. We've known that. This is not our first disaster, you know. But I think that every person needs to know how to titrate. You need to know when you

had enough. It's like when you've eaten too much, when you've drunk too much, you need to know when you are beginning to just lose your grounding. You're not going to sleep well. You're breathing more and more shallow. You're getting activated. Your joy is tensing. Your knuckles are getting stiff. And you're beginning to like look at people and you're ready to bark. When you start to feel all that activation or on the other side, on the implosion, because some people maximize, some people minimize, you really need to titrate. And that means in a couple of years, people have different thresholds. Before you start to say, I just read this,

would you like to hear what I just read? Ask the other people, can you take in another piece of information? Don't dump on them because you have an infinite reservoir that can hold so much information. And the other person is just going to need two hours after that to be able to breathe again into the center.

Right. A hundred percent. So just finishing up, give, give us three tips that people have to do right now, because this is endless and people don't know when it's end. Give us three important tips that they have to do if they're in, you know, whatever situation they're in that you think are critically important for that can affect as most people as possible. Right. You know, I've always, I mean, another line for you, Scott, that I have always loved is

that it's the quality of your relationships that determines the quality of your life. Sure. And this is ever more important now. And it is true at work and it is true at home. Where should we begin how is work are based on that premise i think at this moment be be some be i mean it's gonna sound very try but it's a little bit like be patient be a little bit kind know that the people around you they may look like their usual selves but we are not we are feeling vulnerable we are feeling stressed we have less patience and

we can you know we can jump much faster so be aware of that and it's okay to say i am not feeling well i'm upset i'm scared i'm worried about my job i i'm i'm on edge just name it naming it will actually ground you rather than somatize it and then just deflect it into something else. And people are saying, what the hell is going on here? Number one. Number two, really,

because you're so close, in such close proximity with whoever you're with, even if you're not in the house with them, but you are in touch with your friends or you take six feet walks with them and so forth, make sure to really acknowledge at this moment the positive. So you acknowledge the vulnerable, you acknowledge the positive.

It's very easy to go into reactive, critical mode at this moment. That's the second thing. And then I think the third thing is, as best as you can, move. Because trauma locks itself in the body and it freezes us. If you don't have an ability to go outside, do jump jacks, jump rope. Go take a walk if you can, but try to get your body in motion.

And because we're working on the screen, we are even sitting more than usual. And then create very creative rituals of meeting with people, have dinner with other people. Don't just have dinner with your partner alone or with your family. Invite people for dessert. Invite people for a drink before. Sit for the evening, two hours, and just talk with people because it can become very hermetic. You choke on your own juices when you are all together all the time, you know. Take walks and then talk with somebody else as you walk if you want. But create these very impromptu, connective experiences with people.

You know, we have a movie club, a virtual movie club. We have a virtual book club we have dinners a few times a week I take walks with some friends all of it virtual all of it but for a moment I'm outside of myself I'm not in my house I'm not in my reality I'm not worried about my kids I'm just talking about things I discuss a movie for 90 minutes and life felt normal for a moment. Those kinds of experiences, this life affirming, you know, erotic experiences, but erotic, not in the sexual sense only, but in what breeds aliveness, vitality, vibrancy, creativity, imagination, humor, all these things have for all all of history, helped human beings.

We sang, we wrote poems, we fell in love, we created antidotes to the feeling of death throughout history in order to keep ourselves going. That was poetic. That was very nice. Thank you. Poetic. Esther Perel, please listen to her min mini series, which sounds frightening, but obviously is not, called Couples Under Lockdown.

She's obviously a renowned therapist and the host of the podcast, Where Should We Begin and How's Work? Esther, thank you so much. It's a pleasure. But Cara, just so you know, the couple in Sicily, that is the episode one for Couples Under Lockdown. I could have called them couples who mate in captivity with the title of my own book, you know, and now we have this new episode coming out in Germany.

It's fascinating. It's not scary. It's actually, what it does is even if it's not your particular experience, you will relate. And it will, it's the reason we read novels. It's the reason stories have carried us through. So don't scare your audience. I won't. I know, but lockdown. I promise. I'll tell you. I'll give you one tip for a lockdown.

Have a baby with you because it's really lovely with the baby. I just had a business idea. Rent a baby. Let's rent babies. I'm telling you, I'm 100% happier because I wake up that baby happy and doesn't know anything that's going on. And it's sort of fantastic. Because it's so life-affirming to have a baby. It is.

Right? So episode one is the story of a midwife. Okay. All right. Well, we're on it. Well, thank you. Brings babies into the world. Well, perfect.

Thank you so much. It's a pleasure. Thank you, Esther. Best of luck to you. Nice meeting you. Thanks. Bye. All right, Scott.

One more quick break and we'll be back for wins and fails. What differentiates their investment approach? What learnings have shifted their career trajectories? And how do they find their next great idea? Invest 30 minutes in an episode today. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees? And it takes forever to build a campaign?

Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Okay, Scott, we're back with wins and fails. Was that great, Scott, or what? I feel so much better. Not only do I feel better, I feel so much more sophisticated. I forgot to get one of those Flemish French accents. You like the word erotic, didn't you?

Yeah, but when she says it, it seems legitimate. I don't know. It just felt, all of that felt very, I don't know, very Ted meets PhD meets Europe meets, she's a very, by the way, have you listened to her TED Talk? I do. I love, I listen to Esther's podcast all the time. I think it's great. It's about, you know, I try to invest in my relationships by doing the homework, my friend.

Yeah, I know. Everything's perfect at the Swishers. No, it's not perfect, but I'm just telling you, I do listen to her because I think she's incredibly wise. We had her at South by Southwest last year, and I think it's really important. I think the most important of the many very wise things she said there was articulating what you're feeling.

Like saying, I need five minutes. I need this. Stop talking to me. And I think that does really help it without being – articulate exactly what're feeling, not a sidelight of what you're feeling. Yeah, there's a bunch of interesting observations. I'm observing my friends. And what I find is a lot of us are very focused on broader relationships. How do I be a good boss? How do I be a good citizen? And sometimes at the expense of, well, charity begins at home. How do you be a good boss? How do I be a good citizen? And sometimes at the expense of, well, charity begins at home. How do you be a better dad and a better husband? You know, it just sort of,

there's, but you know what, you know who thinks I'm just doing an amazing job with my relationships at home? Who? Vodka. Vodka, Kara. Oh, God. She said nothing of liquor, Scott. Now listen, now that we've got you in a better frame of mind, sort of. That's what helps me. So now you're like three feet deep right now, which is I think the most depth we've gotten from you. What are your wins and fails? This is an extra long podcast. Well, I'll go fails first because I'm optimistic about it.

I believe that there is going to be, I think we might be looking at, I think I'll start, I think Fox News or News Corp, Fox News, which Corp, Fox News, which was not sold to Disney, it was spun out. I think Fox News is going to be sold under the financial strain of lawsuits. There are going to be so many interesting correlations versus causation and data sets looking at what drove higher infection rates. And I've come to believe, and this is an incendiary statement, and I think it's true though, I think one of the things we're going to find has resulted in a higher

incidence of infection across America when you test for income, when you test for region, when you test for age, is going to be viewership of Fox News. When I look back on Fox News on YouTube, they have been so consistently behind. They have been so brazen in their recommendations around getting back to work, around going to the pub, around promoting a narrative that has, in my view, been reckless. And I believe courts will listen and entertain the notion that it has been absolutely damaging to national health. I think what happened to the cigarette companies in the 80s is about to happen to News Corp. And that's my fail.

And also along those same lines, a university, and I think this university actually has done a good job. I think it's not a university where I would teach, but I think they're going to come under tremendous legal scrutiny is Liberty University in Kentucky, who has decided after, I mean, I can't tell you, I've been on the phone with the dean of my business school, and they are spending so much time. Three weeks ago, they were talking about how do we decrease the density in the dorms? How do we make sure that our technology is up and running if and when we move to remote? They were so concerned and so on the right side of being cautious, thinking about things I never even would have dreamt of. And then you have Jesse Falwell Jr., Jerry Falwell Jr.,

calling people back to school and claiming it's a hoax. And they're forced. Did you see that New York Times? I think Elizabeth Williamson, who's amazing, she's like someone off the record said, we can't say anything because we work here, but please find a way to get us out of here. Like they're under like a cult or a prison. It's really bizarre. That place is one bizarre.

Nobody can speak out. And he's insane. He's just a menace. I don't know how else to put it. Well, to be fair, I actually think the university's done a lot of wonderful things. There's people with different ideologies. They've been great for the community. I think it's a university with actually decent, I'm going to go out on a limb here, probably decent academics.

I think universities take different shapes. And unfortunately, in universities, we've decided that we are tolerant. People don't look like us, but people don't think like us. And even though Liberty thinks different than us, I think it's the university. I'm talking about not being able to leave. No, 100%. I'm talking about not. My point, they're going to come under tremendous scrutiny,

but my fail here is I believe that Fox is having its tobacco moment, and they're going to come under tremendous legal scrutiny. I would agree. Actually, oddly enough, right in front of me, I have an essay that I'm thinking of putting in the Times called A Murdoch Ate My Mother's Brain, and how little information she had and how hard it was. And when those lawsuits came, I mean, I talked about it with my brother. I'm like, she is actually, like, I'd love to see the emails internally. If there's discovery of someone,

if someone actually died, like, whose parents have died or something like that because of this, and there's actual emails and they do discovery inside of Fox about how they made these editorial decisions, it could be devastating. I think there probably are emails internally. Exhibit one will be, okay, what drives mortality? We know it's age, we know it's how healthy you are, underlying conditions, whether it's asthma, whether it's cancer treatment. We know that men appear to be more vulnerable, but we don't know. Again, we'll have to screen out if it's because men are less healthier, they smoke more, whatever it might be. But I think you're going to find that an indicator here or a signal is viewership of Fox over other media. Anyways. Yeah, it'll be interesting from a legal perspective, but I'd love to get the discovery on

how they made their editorial decisions. And of course, I'm a journalist and it's sort of like, you know, they're going to obviously use the First Amendment, which they should use. But I can't imagine there were not very clear decisions made. You know, it's interesting because they fired Trish Reagan and, you know, they're doing things now, which is they've sort of shifted around. Well, they're trying to play catch up. But here's the goodness. Yeah, there's still the conduit.

They don't have the Content Decency Act. They don't have the same legal shield as tech, right? They're actually evaluated legally by the same standards as other media companies. They can't fall back to this. Well, they have the First Amendment. They have the First Amendment, and they should use that. It's going to be a very interesting conversation. So my win, if you think about the vital organs, if you think about how we live our life, I think if there was one place that

embodied sort of joy and passion and what I'll call throwing caution to the, I don't want to say throwing caution to the wind, but a passion for life. I think if there was one place in the world that embodied one of the wonderful things about our species and our culture, it would be Italy. I think the colors, I think the beauty, the fashion, the food, the emphasis on family and love and affection and beauty. Italy, it looks as if their curve is beginning to flatten there. And that while it has almost a third of all the reported coronavirus deaths. It looks as if the lockdown is starting to work and we're starting to see a reduction in the number of new cases and death.

And it feels to me like Italy is moving to the right side of this. And that's not to say that they don't have to be vigilant, but I think we can all take comfort from the fact that a Western nation in a place of such extraordinary beauty and grace is starting to get a handle on this. So Italy is my win today. I think that the first moment we see a Western nation start to turn this thing back and flatten

the curve, I think it's going to be an enormous sign of hope. And I think that that light has been illuminated in Italy. That's a good one. That's a good one. I think we've taken far too long, all of the people in the West have, compared to other places still. And it'll be interesting afterwards when we start to count up what should have happened

for the future. I think it's critically important to do that. I'm going to do, I'm not going to do, well, you know, this obsession with ratings that Trump is weird and strange, and I hope it haunts him forever, the idea that his ratings are up because of death, which is sort of a little depressing.

But I think I'm going to look at a couple people. One was Yamiche Alcindor. She's an amazing reporter there. Bill Gates, I think, is being a really great voice. And, you know, he's talked about prepped. He's talked about this. I've interviewed him. He's talked about this kind of thing for a long time.

Well, here's to talk. I mean, he basically laid this out yeah yep yep exactly and so i think this is he's really doing a great job and you're right he's being non-political he's just laying it out but he's still being firm he's like this is insane not to keep the quarantine like he's very firm he's a little fauci like in that regard sort of threading that needle. But I think the—I'm going to actually give it to San Francisco because my brother just wrote me from the hospital. He's there today. He's been there since early this morning, and he goes, things are looking semi-stable here. I really think Newsom and London Breed, who's the mayor—Gavin Newsom and London Breed is the mayor of San Francisco, the governor of California, did a good deed locking us down when they did. Still too early to say we are clear,

but it's looking up, which was great. Yeah, California looks like they're on the right side of this as well. California looks like they're, yep. Yeah, that's why he thinks the governor and the mayor of San Francisco and the mayor of Los Angeles, he's not in Los Angeles,

but did a great job in terms of being leaders, which I think was great. So that is a happy thing. When I got that text this morning, I felt so much better. I'm very nervous about my brother's safety. So it felt really great. Yes. So, Scott, another week.

Hopefully we will talk about other things besides pandemic. That's right. That's right. But we won't. So you go back to Tiger King, and you have a good week. I hope Esther helped you through this a little bit and that you're doing that. No, this is an acceleration of a lot of trends. The major trend in my life is that I hate my life less and less every day.

So as is always the case, after 45 minutes with you, I hate my life a little bit less. Just a little. A skosh less, Vera. A little bit less. A skosh. Just a little bit less. Just a little skosh less, Vera. A skosh. Just a skosh less. A skosh less. Well, Scott, enjoy your vodka this week, but get some time out by yourself. Have a little Scott time. Have a little Scott time, okay? Okay. Don't forget. Good enough. Little Scott time. Don't forget, if you have a story in the news you're curious about and want to hear our opinion on, email us at pivot at voxmedia.com to be featured on the show. Scott, please read us out.

Today's episode was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Our executive producer is Erica Anderson. Special thanks to Drew Burrows and Rebecca Castro. If you like what you heard, please download our podcast, wherever you download podcasts. Tune in later in the week for a breakdown of all things tech and business. Well done, Italy, the home of grace and beauty and love and passion and also confidence in being ahead of the curve. They are kicking this thing's ass. Well done. Support for this podcast comes from Klaviyo. Thank you. SMS, and more, making every moment count. Over 100,000 brands trust Klaviyo's unified data and marketing platform to build smarter digital relationships with their customers during Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and beyond.

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