Something You Should Know - Amazing Ways Genes Affect Your Behavior & The Serious Consequences of Not Asking For What You Want

Episode Date: December 21, 2017

Do you keep stuff? You know, things from your past that you have a hard time giving up even though you don’t use them anymore? This episode begins with some interesting advice on what to keep and what to toss or give away. You probably know that your genes influence things your eye color or hair color. But did you know that your genes also influence your behavior? Jay Phelan, an evolutionary biologist at UCLA and author of the book, Mean Genes: From Sex to Money to Food, Taming Our Primal Instincts, http://amzn.to/2CJZgXF explains how your genes make you want to do things that are often not good for you (like overeat or drink too much). However, there are strategies you can use to help prevent your genes from leading you astray. Have you ever avoided asking someone for something – like for a raise or for a date? Asking can be hard but in many cases, if you don’t ask you don’t get. Linda Babcock, Walton Professor of Economics at Carnegie Mellon and author of the book, Women Don’t Ask (http://amzn.to/2BGui3e) offers advice on ways to ask that make it easier – so you don’t feel so uncomfortable. Because the more you ask, the more you get. You probably never knew this but there is a simple trick that makes anything taste better. Whether it is a meal you cook or candy bar you get at the store, this one little trick improves the taste and it amazingly simple. I’ll explain what it is. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know was all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu.

She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be right back. these self-control problems, eating too much, having trouble managing money, it can be attributed back to the fact that we carry these genes that are nudging us into a direction that we don't want to go. Also, there is something you can do to make anything you eat taste better, and we'll explore why you've got to ask for what you want in life. If you don't, there are consequences.

There are huge consequences to not asking and not negotiating your salary, for example, when you first start out in the workplace can cost you several million dollars over the course of your career because you're starting at a lower base salary. All this today on Something You Should Know. Something You Should Know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.

Hi, and welcome to episode number 132 of the Something You Should Know podcast. I am so grateful that you listen and that you find these programs interesting, and I invite you to share them with someone you know and help us grow our audience and share some valuable information with your friends. We start the program today with a question. Are you someone who likes to keep stuff? Do you have a lot of things from your past that you just can't quite throw away? When you ask people why they save stuff in the attic or the garage or in the back of the closet, the answer is usually something like,

because you never know, I might need it someday. However, according to professional organizer Mike Nelson, you probably won't. In all his years of organizing, he estimates that people never again use 95% of the things that they save. So if you're planning to save stuff just in case, you're probably better off throwing it out or giving it away. There's another good reason to declutter and get rid of stuff in your home. People who organize and clear out the junk in their house almost always lose weight. To put it another way, having clutter seems to hinder weight loss. So go ahead, get rid of the junk, you'll probably never use it, and you'll probably get skinnier. And that is something you should know.

You probably know a little bit about your genes, that they determine things like the color of your eyes and how tall you are and other physical characteristics. But they do more than that. They also influence your behavior, maybe more than you realize. And often they influence you to do things you probably shouldn't do. When you understand how your genes work, you can trick them to some extent to make them help you behave better. Jay Phelan is an evolutionary biologist from UCLA, and he's author of a book called Mean Genes, From Sex to Money to

Food, Taming Our Primal Instincts. Hi, Jay. Welcome. Hi. Well, thanks for having me, Mike. So I think I understand generally that genes can determine things like your eye color or, you know, whether I'm predisposed to get an illness. But how do genes affect or alter behavior? Well, that's a hugely debated question. It depends on what you look at. I would say the safe answer is it's somewhere between zero and 100% of what we do. You went out on a limb there. I'm going out on a limb there. And even then, people are going to be unhappy. No, seriously, though, for certain traits, when you are built, it might be

something like eye color. You've got an instruction that says, here's how you lay down the pigment that's going to allow your body to take in light from the world around you and see stuff. Well, the instructions you have, pretty much what that says, that's what your eye is going to look like. If you've got the genes for brown eyes, that's what they're going to look like. So it's 100%. But then you go all the way to the other extreme and you can have genes that just nudge you one way or nudge you another way. You can have genes that relate to your appetite, for instance, and they can tell you if you have access to high-calorie food, you should consume it. So nowadays, that gets us into trouble because we have access to tons of food. We're not hunter-gatherers anymore. But we've got this big brain, and the big brain says we can evaluate things and alter. So I might be hungry all the

time. In fact, I left a dozen donuts at home before I came in today. I really wanted to eat them all, but I thought, I don't think I should do that. And so I just left. And rather than bringing them, I left them there. So I have genes that are saying, hey, you got to eat more, you got to eat more. But I can also override those. Why aren't there genes that guide us towards broccoli and going to bed on time and not drinking too much? And why do the genes always seem to nudge us towards the things that are absolutely no good for us? That's because the genes that we carry are the ones that over millions of years are the ones that led to the greatest reproductive success of the people that carried them. So we evolved in a world where we were hunter-gatherers.

This is 99% of our evolutionary history. So we were in small groups with unpredictable food in relatively short supply. And so the genes that were the ones that nudged their carriers to the best outcomes were the ones that said, you got to consume as much food as you can. You got to seek out high caloric value food. There was no money in that world. So there were no genes that said, ah, here, you should save this surplus for the future. Instead, any surplus you had, that was in food and it's going to rot if you don't consume it. So our instincts for money are appropriate for the hunter-gatherer world, but not today's world. And so that's at the heart of why we have so many self-control problems.

It's that we carry these genes that are adapted to a different world. So talk about how genes affect how men and women are attracted to each other. Is it the fact that some people prefer blondes or some people like skinny mates and some people like heavier mates? Is that genes at work or is that just something in your brain that, you know, you just like them? Yeah, that's a good question. Is it just something in your brain that you just like? Before I address that, I'll first go back to another thing where I imagine in our brain it's just, oh, I prefer this food or I prefer that food. And you might imagine that food preferences are just some just unexplainable, wacky thing. But if we look cross-culturally or if we look at other species, we find that the higher the percentage of fat in some food as opposed to carbohydrates or protein,

the greater the preference for it. And it turns out you get twice as much energy, more than twice as much energy, nine calories per gram as opposed to four when you consume fat. So we don't consciously know, oh, that's what I'm trying to do. But we have this preference in our brain, and it reflects this evolutionary adaptation. So now when it comes to what do we like in a mate, what are we looking for in a mate, one example that's been pretty well studied is waist-to-hip ratios. And in women, there is a correlation between the waist to hip ratio and fertility, such that a waist to hip, so the actual measured inches of waist, measured inches of hips, if it's somewhere around 0.7, that's associated with higher fertility than if it's higher than 0.7 or lower than 0.7. And over the decades, as we see shifts in whether or not males prefer higher body weight

or lower body weight females, we see very little shift in waist-to-hip ratio. So it seems like two things can be going on, that there's a cultural influence of what do you like, what do you not like, but there's also this driving fertility there as well. And when females look at males, same thing, that there are these preferences for youth, for physical condition or vigor, but then status is really important as well because if you are producing offspring, you need access to resources. And so as males control more resources, maybe they don't look as fit as they used to. And while females could have a preference for fitness and health and youthful looking skin, there's also this preference for the control of

resources. And I had a friend and I thought it was funny. He was telling me he got older. He was maybe 40 or so. And he said, it's getting harder and harder for me to exercise these days. I've always exercised, he said. But in the last few years, I've gotten really rich. He said, and I've never had more women want to date me now. He said, I'm fatter than ever. And yet somehow I'm not getting penalized for that because I've had this other change in my life. So you have these complicated sets of factors going on. I'm speaking with Jay Phelan. He is an evolutionary biologist at UCLA, and he's author of the book Mean Genes.

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So Jay, you know, just think about what you were saying. How is it that men can have a preference for women with a certain waist to hip ratio and yet we don't consciously know it? I mean, how can we be attracted to something that we don't know we're attracted to, and yet we are attracted to? Yeah, the waist to hip ratio and how it turns out to be related to fertility, actual number of children produced, is stunning to me, because I'm like you. I don't have some conscious thing that I key into. And people don't state that that's why they prefer one to another.

They'll say, I just like this one better. And there it is, that this thing is unconsciously influencing us. And probably the best thing that I can think of in terms of how can something so unconscious still have an influence. If I throw you a ball, in order for you to catch the ball, you have to make predictions about this arc. And to predict exactly where something's going to be on an arc requires actual calculus. And you can know at any point in time, here's where it's going to be, here's where it's going to be, and then you catch it. Now, you're not doing those calculations. And yet, I throw you the ball, you catch it. So you have done, in some sense, the calculations.

You've made the prediction unconsciously without having to do it consciously. And so it's like that. We don't always know why it is. From an evolutionary perspective, it doesn't matter if we have conscious awareness of why we do something. Is there any formula, any magic bullet that, knowing that our genes are nudging us in ways that may not be so great for us, how do you nudge back? That's such a good question. Here's one example. Natural selection has caused us to be super efficient when it comes to expending energy. Nowadays, we say we're lazy. We don't want to expend any energy that we don't have to. But I can understand that. Ah, I see. Here's why evolution would cause me to be super lazy slash efficient. But once I understand that, now I can make my own decisions. So for

instance, at UCLA, one of the options I have, I have to get a parking permit. And I can get a blue permit. And that allows me pretty much to park anywhere I want. I can crawl to my office from my parking space. And it allows me to park anywhere. So if I wanted, I could park clear across campus and every day get the 25 minutes of walking that the American Heart Association says I should. But every day I have some reason why, ah, today I'm in a rush. Oh, I'm late for this. I better just park right next to my office. On the other hand, I can get a yellow permit. And the yellow permit requires me to park in a lot that's really far away or else I get an expensive ticket. Now, I know that I'm going to be super lazy all the time, that that is evolutionarily adaptive.

So if I have one moment of big willpower at the beginning of the year and I say, I'm not going to get the blue permit, I'm going to get the yellow permit. Once I have that, it's not even an option to park close. So it doesn't take any willpower at all. And willpower is weak. It's going to fail. So if I outsmart these drives I have by using one moment of willpower, where then for the next year, I have to park far away, it takes no willpower, but I get my 25 minutes of walking in every day. So you see what I'm saying? That your genes still might be fighting you, but what you can do is be smart and you can say, how can I get the most bang for my buck with my willpower? Because when you know you have to park

that far away, even if you're in a rush, you'll adapt, you'll get there early enough and everything will be fine. You just do. Yeah. It's Yeah, it's not an option. If the elevator is out in your office, you just take the stairs up. On any other day, you could still take the stairs up, but you don't because, you know, whatever the willpower takes. Or I think this about money. You know, I get money and, you know, my paycheck is deposited and I think, well, I want to save money. And so, okay, every minute of every day I get to say, yeah, I've got to try to save less money, or I've got to try to spend less money, I've got to spend less money. But somehow by the end of the month, I've spent whatever money was put into my account,

because I know it's there, I can spend it, And the willpower is very hard to exert. On the other hand, if I come up with ways that the money is taken out of my account before I ever see it, and one of the first things I did was this program where money got sent to some bank, and it was like in Colorado, thousands of miles away from me. I didn't have a card to access it. I could, with a few phone calls, I could get the money. Obviously, it's still my money, but it makes it really hard. So I signed up for this. And little by little, I started saying, send more of my monthly paycheck there. Now, each month, whatever gets put into my account here, the one I have an ATM for, every cent of that I spend. I'm really good at consuming all of my surplus. But this other thing that's far away and it's not accessible and I can't see, that accumulates.

That's how I was able to buy a house. That I know I'm going to be weak, so I plan for it and I put it somewhere else. And then it doesn't to have willpower. But I can outsmart them with a few well-timed exertions of willpower. I can actually restructure my world so I don't have to rely on it and I can get a better outcome. Well, that's good advice because I think we've all been in that position where, and intuitively we know, that if you send, have your employer send money to an account before you see it, you're more likely to save it as opposed to get it all and hope you send it to

that account because you've seen it. So we all know that. We all get that. We just have to do it. Yes, there's not a lot of deep intellectual power required once you understand that message. When people retire, the vast majority of their wealth is in their house. Not because of some smart, oh yeah, every month we're going to save this much money, but instead it's because, hey, we need somewhere to live. We keep paying the mortgage month after month, and it's, again, it's like an enforced savings plan. It seems that, based on what you're saying, that some of the bad male behavior that we've been hearing about lately, that that too is nudged by genes, and that maybe not putting yourself in those positions

makes it easier not to be so nudged. Remember, Vice President Mike Pence was saying, hey, I'm not in a room with another woman and no one else. And people laughed at him and mocked him. But I remember thinking about that, thinking that's a mean genes move. He's saying, hey, we're evolved beings and our genes are nudging us towards reproductive success here or there. And if you're never in the situation where you are with another woman, then you can't even behave badly. So no willpower is required.

So that's a variation on that strategy. Don't put yourself into the situation, and then you never have to rely on your willpower to get the behaviors that you want. So it's not as silly as it sounds. Well, this is really important because, you know, I think people believe they make conscious choices and that they have free will, and we do. But we also have this other thing that's nudging us in one direction or another, and sometimes, as you say, not in the best direction. And understanding that and understanding the strategies to use to prevent that nudging from becoming a reality is really good to know.

Jay Phelan has been my guest. He is an evolutionary biologist at UCLA and author of the book, Mean Genes, From Sex to Money to Food, Taming Our Primal Instincts. Thanks, Jay. I appreciate it. Your questions are fun and intriguing. Ask and ye shall receive. We've all heard that, but we also hear things like, well, I shouldn't have to ask.

I'm afraid to ask. It's hard to ask because we might not like the answer. But think about it. What have you missed out on by not asking? That raise you never asked for, or the date you never asked for, or the job you never asked for? How would your life be different today if you had asked for those things? Of course, you'll never know now, but maybe it's time to start asking. Linda Babcock is the Walton Professor of Economics at Carnegie Mellon and author of the book, Women Don't Ask. Hi, Linda. So why is it that asking for what we want is so tough? Yeah, I think we just don't have an idea about what the other side is going to say. It's a risky

thing to do to negotiate for what you want. And I think it's just people don't like doing things that are socially risky. And so they avoid negotiation because it makes them uncomfortable because of that risk. Well, and that's a legitimate fear, I guess, is that fear of being told no or that fear of people feeling ill of you or whatever. But what are the consequences of not asking? What do we know? Well, there are huge consequences to not asking, and you can think of the most dramatic examples of not asking about, say, your salary. Not negotiating your salary, for example, when you first start out in the workplace can cost you several million dollars over the course of your career because you're starting at a lower base salary. And so the gains to negotiating are really

great. You can think about the other things that you may negotiate about, for example, in your workplace. You might negotiate about training opportunities or your work schedule, or what kind of work you're doing. The benefits of asking about those things can be enormous also. Do you think that the rule, if you don't ask, you don't get, is a pretty good rule to live by? That that is, in fact, how the world works. If you don't ask, you don't get. I think that's definitely true, and you can think about that in the workplace or in your personal life. Most things are just not offered to you, and so you do have to negotiate for them. So what do you say to the person who says, well, okay, I get that. I understand what you're saying, but I don't like

that feeling of feeling uncomfortable. I don't like that fear of being told no. So what do you say to those people? Yeah, so it's a real fear, and I don't want to, you know, just say that it's nothing, but there are things that we can do as negotiators to mitigate that risk to reduce those feelings of anxiety. And so being really prepared for a negotiation. If we're really prepared, we can have done our homework about how the other side is going to think about it. We've prepared our case. We have prepared contingencies. And doing all that preparation can really make the negotiation go better. So it actually does mitigate that risk, and it makes us feel more comfortable. And so that anxiety is also lessened the more we prepare.

Prepare by doing what? Bringing what to the table? Well, just think about, suppose that you were going to go buy a new car. Everybody knows that when you buy a new car, you're going to go and you're going to negotiate the price of the car. And everybody also knows that you go and do your homework. You read consumer reports. You go on the website. You do searches about how much this car should cost. And you go in really armed with information that's going to help you be a more effective negotiator. And I think that's the context in which everyone thinks about, oh, of course, I would never go into a car dealership without having done that.

And yet, some people may enter a different type of negotiation without having done that additional background kind of homework. And doing so will really help you to do better. I've worked at jobs in my life where there is no negotiation only because the employer will say, well, the job pays X. That's what the job pays. So that pretty much closes the discussion. What's a good comeback to that? Well, if you, again, have done your homework in terms of investigating, you know, what other kinds of companies are paying, you can come back as a response to that and say, you know, I understand that that's your opening offer.

Do you suppose you could increase it by X amount? You know, you have a number in mind. And it's possible that they will say no, but if they say no, it's fine. People on the employer side are expecting you to negotiate. And so they typically do not offer you the most they'd be willing to pay. You know, as an employer, you think about that and you think, would I actually make my first offer the absolute most I'm being, I'm willing to pay? And of course the answer is no, I would leave myself some negotiating room. And so actually most employers are doing that and expecting you to negotiate. So most places, you know, there is really no harm to trying. I bet a lot of people think, though, that in that position, when you're offered a job and here's what the job pays, that to ask for more seems ungrateful and that maybe

the employer will say, hey, look, if that's not good enough for you, we'll hire somebody else. And now you've blown the whole thing. It depends the way that you ask. For example, if an employer offered me a salary, you know, a wage, say $20 an hour, and I said, nope, I'm not coming unless you increase it. Well, of course, if they can't increase it, they're going to say, okay, well, we'll pick somebody else. But that's because of the way I kind of made it as a demand rather than, is it possible for you to raise the wage to $21 per hour? And then it's voluntary. The person could say, no, I can't do that,

and you could still accept the job. So it's all in the way that you go about doing that negotiation. You think that women in particular have a real problem doing this. Why do you suppose that is? Is it just a cultural thing that women are just the fairer sex so that they shouldn't ask? Yeah, I think women are really socialized that they should not be asking for what they want. They should be grateful for the things that are offered to them.

And, you know, we in so many ways tell our little girls that they should just be happy with what they get. You know, these messages can come from the TV shows that they watch, the movies that they see, the behavior that they see in adults. They learn this growing up. And then as women, we have more difficulties asking for what we want because we have been socialized to not do that. And if we really want equality for women in the workplace, we're going to have to change the way that we start socializing our little girls. Because if that doesn't change, we're still going to be perpetuating inequality. Well, it certainly seems that, I mean, how many times have we heard, it can't hurt to ask, and yet people still are so afraid of asking? Yeah, and that's just the fear of the unknown. But again, the more you kind of

think about it, okay, what will I do if the person says no, and be prepared for that and have something to say like, oh, well, you know, I understand you can't do that. I appreciate you having considered it, though, that it means a lot to me. You know, just having a couple things that can just roll off your tongue, and that you're going to feel comfortable with then in the moment then makes the prospect of that no a lot less scary. If I know, hey, it's going to be fine if the person says no. Isn't it fascinating, though, because I don't think people would necessarily think that every time you sit down and talk to your boss or talk about getting a job and they quote you a number,

that there is room to negotiate, that they're expecting you to negotiate, and how much money gets left on the table because people don't. Yeah, it's a tremendous amount for sure. And that's why investing in some skills to become a better negotiator can be well worth it. It's not rocket science. It is not hard. You just have to put some time and effort into it, and anyone can become a good negotiator. Well, I think we think it's rocket science, because you hear about negotiations and, you know, big political negotiations or labor negotiations, and these are professional negotiators. So it

does sound hard, and maybe that's part of the problem, that it's not as hard as people think it is. No, I think that's right. And what's so good about negotiation, I think, is that you use basically the same skills to negotiate with your partner that you would use to negotiate with a colleague or an employer that you would use to negotiate with the North Koreans. You know, that it really is a set of basic principles and skills that, you know, you tweak a little bit from situation to situation, but the same concepts are applicable in all these different kinds of negotiations. And so it isn't that you have to learn a certain set of skills to be effective in one kind of negotiation.

It doesn't translate. The skills are easily transferable across all kinds of domains in which you might negotiate. And can you tell me and everyone listening what some of those skills are? Absolutely. You know, the first I've talked about already is preparation. Thinking a lot about what you want, thinking a lot about how the other side is going to see the situation, because of course, the best negotiators are the

ones that can really get inside the head of the other person and anticipate the issues that they're going to be worried about, the concerns that they have, the things that they can and cannot do. And so, you know, taking time to really think about that before you do the negotiation. You know, practicing a negotiation. So if I'm going to do an important negotiation, I will recruit a friend to play the other side and we'll actually do a role play of the negotiation. And that's really useful because I can get feedback from the other person on how it went. I can try it a few different times to try out some different ways of approaching it. And that practice can give me a lot of confidence then going into the real

negotiation. And so doing that role play practice can really help you to be more effective than in the negotiation. And, you know, it's just a lot about doing your homework. I think that all the things that you do before you even open your mouth are really what the important part, you know, is about being ready. And what you said at the beginning, that if you don't start doing this pretty early on, so you start at a low base salary, imagine how much money you're losing over the course of your lifetime. That's huge. I mean, it really pays to do this. I mean, it's almost like it should be mandatory. Well, I think it should be mandatory in schools, negotiation training. Think about how much better

we would be at doing this and being able to manage conflict. You know, negotiation is a way to not only get what you want, but to reduce conflict that you have in any kind of situation. And I think the world could all use a little more of that. You know, what's interesting is how it always seems easier to negotiate for somebody else than for yourself, because you don't want to come off like you're bragging or look how wonderful I am, but you can negotiate and sing the praises of someone else so much easier. That's certainly true. You really hit the nail on the head there. It is easier to negotiate on behalf of someone else. And you know, what I've done in my studies, helping women to become better

negotiators, I ask them to prepare the negotiation as if they were doing it for somebody else. And my research has shown that that is more effective. They are then more effective if they've done that preparation as if it were someone else. They're more effective in the negotiation because, you know, we are a little bit more ambitious for others. And so that can help us think about our own negotiation as well. Isn't that weird that it's easier to negotiate for someone else when you think we should be able to do it for ourselves? Exactly. And I think that also points to the fact that we do have those skills. You know, if we didn't have negotiation skills, we wouldn't be effective when we negotiated on behalf of other people. But we are. And so we just have to recognize that we can use those skills for

ourselves. Well, from looking at your book and listening to what you say, I mean, you've got to ask. If you want something, you have to ask for it. And yeah, the answer may be no, but if you don't ask, the answer's always no. So that's great advice. Linda Babcock has been my guest. Linda is the Walton Professor of Economics at Carnegie Mellon and author of the book, Women Don't Ask. And you'll find a link to her book on Amazon in the show notes. Thank you, Linda. Well, it was nice chatting with you.

What if there was one thing, one thing you could do that would make any meal taste better? Well, there is. And that is to say grace first. A simple ritual like closing your eyes and giving thanks for what you're about to eat can actually enhance the experience and flavor. A Harvard Business School study put this ritual theory to the test and found that it really works.

Birthday cake tastes better after you sing happy birthday. A chocolate bar tastes better if you break it in half before unwrapping it. The study also found that the more elaborate the ritual, the better the meal. Cutting or peeling fruit in patterns or lighting candles, setting a pretty table, can be the secret ingredient that instantly makes you a better cook. And that is something you should know. The two episodes of this program that we'll publish next week

will be best-of shows from 2017, and this was really fun to put together. I really enjoy doing this, going back and looking and listening to all the things that we've covered and all the interesting things we've learned and distilling it down and putting a couple of shows together that highlight the best of the last year. I think you'll like it. I hope you have a wonderful holiday. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening to Something You Should Know. Hey, hey, are you ready for some real talk and some fantastic laughs?

Join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa DeMonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? We're serving up for hilarious shows every week designed to entertain and engage and, you know, possibly enrage you. In Don't Blame Me, we dive deep into listeners' questions, offering advice that's funny, relatable, and real. Whether you're dealing with relationship drama or you just need a friend's perspective, we've got you. Then switch gears with But Am I Wrong, which is for

listeners who didn't take our advice and want to know if they are the villains in the situation. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events and present situations that we might even be wrong in our lives. Spoiler alert, we are actually quite literally never wrong. But wait, there's more. Check out See You Next Tuesday, where we reveal the juicy results from our listener polls from But Am I Wrong? And don't miss Fisting Friday, where we catch up, chat about pop culture, TV and movies. It's the perfect way to kick off your weekend. So if you're looking for a podcast that feels like a chat with your besties, listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a co-founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lightning, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. During her journey, Isla meets new friends, including King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and learns valuable life lessons with every quest, sword fight, and dragon ride. Positive and uplifting stories remind us all about the importance of kindness, friendship, honesty, and positivity.

Join me and an all-star cast of actors, including Liam Neeson, Emily Blunt, Kristen Bell, Chris Hemsworth, among many others, in welcoming the Search for the Silver Lining podcast to the Go Kid Go Network by listening today. Look for the Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.