Something You Should Know - Are Generic Drugs Really Just as Good? & The Science of Finding the Best Career

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is an ad for BetterHelp. Welcome to the world. Please, read your personal owner's manual thoroughly. In it, you'll find simple instructions for how to interact with your fellow human beings and how to find happiness and peace of mind. Thank you, and have a nice life. Unfortunately, life doesn't come with an owner's manual.

Starting point is 00:00:18 That's why there's BetterHelp Online Therapy. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit betterhelp.com to learn more. That's BetterHelp.com. Today on Something You Should Know, can coffee really stunt your growth or sober you up? I'll explore that. Then, the troubling truth about generic drugs, despite what drug companies and the government say. They've been saying there is no despite what drug companies and the government say. They've been saying there is no difference between the brand and the generic.

Starting point is 00:00:49 If we've approved the drug, then patients can take it with confidence. But you know what? The neurologists, the cardiologists, the psychiatrists, they have noticed difference in their patients. Also, the sun. Find out why a little sun is really good for your health. And figuring out the best career for you and how to get ahead. One of the big mistakes that people make is that they assume that the job that they're supposed to get is supposed to match their major in college or some particular topic that they always thought that they were going to love, rather than actually focusing on a different set of issues, which is what's deeply important to you. All this today on Something You Should Know.

Starting point is 00:01:30 Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic. Hi there. Still no. What about hello, handsome? Who knew you could give yourself the ick? That's why Bumble is changing how you start conversations.

Starting point is 00:01:48 You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. 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 carothers

Starting point is 00:02:13 hi welcome i got a note the other day from someone who said you have the most interesting advertisers on your podcast and i know a lot of companies want to advertise on this podcast because I guess the word is out that for many of those companies, the something you should know audience is very responsive. And if you hear an advertisement on this podcast, that sounds interesting. I hope you will check it out and think about doing business with them because when you do, that helps them decide to come back and advertise, and that supports this podcast. And any of the advertisers who have promo codes or websites that you need to check out,

Starting point is 00:02:53 all of those links are in the show notes. First up today, if you love and crave your morning coffee fix, you may have also wondered about those things you've heard about coffee that are problematic. Well, let's take a look at some of them. First is that coffee dehydrates you, and this idea stems from the fact that caffeine is a diuretic and that makes you lose water. However, in studies, researchers found no evidence that moderate consumption of any caffeine-containing beverage leads to fluid loss in excess of what's ingested.

Starting point is 00:03:26 Basically, the fluid going out is replaced by the fluid coming in. You've probably heard that coffee sobers up drunk people. And no one's really sure where that started, although I know I've seen it in, like, old movies and stuff. But there is absolutely no evidence anywhere that anything in coffee can counteract the effects of alcohol. Coffee stunts your growth. I remember hearing this when I was a kid, and this actually started back in the early 1900s when Postum, which was a coffee alternative made from

Starting point is 00:03:59 roasted wheat bran, wheat, and molasses, they began a smear campaign denouncing coffee's effects on And it worked. Ads terrified parents by telling them that coffee stunted their children's growth and would make their kids jittery, nervous, and unable to learn in school. But there is nothing in coffee that has anything to do with a person's growth. And that is something you should know. So, here is my perception, my recollection of what have believed that generic drugs are just as good as name brand drugs. They're equivalent. And that any difference between a generic drug and its name brand equivalent is cosmetic.

Starting point is 00:04:58 It's the design of the pill or the color of the pill. But in fact, they are exactly the same. And you, as the lucky consumer, well, you get to pay less for the generic drug and get the same therapeutic effect as the name brand drug. But I've also heard reports of people saying that generic drugs do not work as well, or the results are different. And the response back from whoever, the drug companies, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, the FDA, the response back is always, no, it's all in your head. Generics are equivalent.

Starting point is 00:05:38 There is no difference. Well, wait a minute. Investigative journalist Catherine Eban decided to look into this, and what she found will likely shock you. Catherine is author of a book called Bottle of Lies, the inside story of the generic drug boom. Hi, Catherine. Welcome. Thanks so much for having me. So let's start with this discrepancy of people who claim that generic drugs don't work as well and pharmaceutical companies, the FDA, doctors, whoever, saying they are equivalent, they are the same, not to worry. So who do we believe?

Starting point is 00:06:17 Generics are supposed to be regulated exactly the same as the brand name drugs. But in my investigation, which took a decade and took me to four different continents, what I found is that most of our generic drugs are manufactured overseas in India and China. Though the FDA shows up in the U.S. at manufacturing plants unannounced, overseas they're doing something really different, which is they're giving these plants weeks and sometimes months of advance notice that they're coming. And these plants are staging their inspections. They're fabricating data, quality data. They're cleaning up bird infestations, they're shredding documents, and this is all basically to present a picture of a plant that's following all the rules and

Starting point is 00:07:14 regulations. So in fact, the generic drugs that Americans are getting, in many instances, are not what they are supposed to be on paper. And what does that picture look like? Is it 2% of them? Is it 88% of them? And what's wrong with them? And what's in there if the active ingredient isn't? Paint the picture for me. Yeah. So let me give you an example. In the book, I follow a young FDA investigator named Peter Baker. And over the course of five years, he went into 86 drug plants in India and China. And in 67 of them, he found elements of data falsification and deceitful practices. So that's about four-fifths of the plants he inspected. Let me just explain why that's so important. So the FDA does not require

Starting point is 00:08:15 these plants to test the final drug product to make sure that it's safe and effective. What they do require is that the plants record minute by minute all of their manufacturing steps in data that basically spells out that the drug is safe. That's the data that these plants are fabricating. So as a result of that, the FDA ends up approving drugs that are not bioequivalent. In some instances, they've had glass fragments in them. They may contain toxic impurities. There is just a widespread recall of blood pressure medication, which had a carcinogen in it, which was being manufactured overseas in India and China. So these are some of the consequences of this fabrication. So how big a problem, though? How big a problem is this?

Starting point is 00:09:13 Is this a case of falsifying data and lying, and so the consequence is a couple of bad batches of drugs get through? Or is this rampant? Is this a huge headline-making story? When I've mentioned some of these drug recalls that have occurred because of carcinogens in the medication or glass particles in the medication, those aren't small little recalls. Those are millions and millions of pills. So I can safely say right now that millions of Americans have been affected by the blood pressure recalls. Millions of Americans got the generic Lipitor

Starting point is 00:09:56 that were suffused with glass particles. So these are really widespread incidents. And the problem is 90% of our drug supply is generic, and the majority of those are manufactured overseas. So any listener who goes and fills a prescription at a pharmacy, the odds are it's going to be generic and it will have likely been manufactured in India and China. Here's something that I, if I understand the process correctly, that really baffles me. So a pharmaceutical company spends zillions of dollars developing a drug, and they patent the drug, and they have the exclusive rights to that drug until that patent runs out. And then anybody basically can make it. So if this is such a problem, why aren't, because I

Starting point is 00:10:46 don't hear them, why aren't the pharmaceutical companies screaming, that stuff's no good, stick with the name brand? In some cases they are, but this issue has actually become a problem for brand name companies too, and I'll explain why. 80% of the active ingredient in all of our drugs, whether brand or generic, is being manufactured overseas. The majority, again, in India and China. And brand name companies are setting up manufacturing plants overseas. They're importing drug ingredients from overseas. So in a way, these issues of how to regulate a global drug supply are also affecting the brand name companies. And some of those brand name companies, so that they don't lose market share, have opened up generic companies. And

Starting point is 00:11:40 they're continuing to market their own generic version of their own drugs once they've lost patent exclusivity. But even the brand name companies don't actually know, in many cases, what is going on in their own plants overseas. It just seems so suspect to me that for the longest time I've known people and I've had the experience of switching to a generic version of a drug and it doesn't work the same. It doesn't feel the same. The symptoms are different. You can tell it's not the same drug. And all of us have been told by the FDA and the pharmaceutical companies, now, now, it's all in your head. It's psychosomatic.

Starting point is 00:12:25 Don't worry. It's all the same. And here you come along and say, no, you may have been right all along that these drugs are not the same. That's exactly right. So, for example, I feature in the book several doctors from the Cleveland Clinic who began to grow aware that they were having trouble stabilizing their patients when they were switched to certain generics. For example, there was a doctor who treats heart transplant patients. And the Cleveland Clinic pharmacist got concerned about a certain Indian generic, which was an immunosuppressant. So transplant patients have to take those drugs for the rest of their lives. And the Cleveland Clinic said, we're not going to carry this Indian immunosuppressant anymore made by Dr. Reddy's. So they cleared it out of the pharmacies, but then,

Starting point is 00:13:16 their patients get discharged, they go to a pharmacy, they get dispensed the Dr. Reddy's tacrolimus, and you know what? They wound up back in the ER with symptoms of organ rejection. And in fact, one of these patients died. And so that is a case in which, you know, it's very hard to control what version you get switched to, and it does have real, it can have real consequences for patients. My conversation today is with Catherine Eban. She is an investigative journalist and author of the book Bottle of Lies, the inside story of the generic drug boom.

Starting point is 00:13:56 Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most.

Starting point is 00:14:18 Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes.

Starting point is 00:14:45 Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman,

Starting point is 00:15:37 the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 00:16:09 So, Catherine, when doctors and drug companies, when they say, oh, no, no, no, you're wrong. The drug is exactly the same and has the exact same active ingredient and anything that you think you're experiencing different, it's you, not the drug. Well, they're saying that based on something. They're saying that because they believe something. Where did they get sold this bill of goods to reassure their patients there's no problem?

Starting point is 00:16:40 I think it's because the FDA has been telling us all of this. You know, they've been saying there is no difference between the brand and the generic. There is no difference between different generics. If we've approved the drug, then patients can take it with confidence. But you know what? The doctors who prescribe drugs that require very precise dosing are not comfortable with this. So the neurologists, the cardiologists, the endocrinologists, the psychiatrists, they have noticed difference in their patients. And the way that I got started investigating all of this, you'd be interested. I was contacted in

Starting point is 00:17:19 2008 by a radio show host, a guy named Joe Graydon, who runs the People's Pharmacy. Oh, sure. I've known Joe for a long time. Yeah. And he said to me, all these patients are contacting me, writing to me, saying they feel these strange symptoms when their drugs are switched. And he said, I've gone to the FDA, and I brought this to their attention, and they've told me it's psychosomatic. You know, the drugs look different. They're a different shape. The patients are reacting because of that. And he didn't buy it. So he said to me, you know, we need somebody with real investigative fire power to look into this issue. And my investigation basically took me 7,000 miles away from the FDA headquarters

Starting point is 00:18:05 to try to figure out what was happening in the manufacturing plants making these drugs. Is there a concern here of the baby in the bathwater that, yeah, there are some problems, but are there some straight-up stand-up players and we need to not paint everybody with the same broad brush here? You know, there are. I mean, there are companies that have clean inspectional records. They don't appear to be cutting corners and fabricating data. You know, I think it's kind of a perfect storm of a globalized drug supply, companies that are operating far away from the oversight of the FDA, you know, an under-resourced regulator, and really a fundamental lack of information for patients. So, for example, if you buy a box of cereal, the labeling tells you where that cereal was made.

Starting point is 00:19:07 And same thing with your shirt or your pants. But none of that information goes to consumers of medication. We don't know where our drugs are made, where the active ingredients are made, because the pharmaceutical companies have fought against it. So I think there needs to be a kind of consumer revolution where patients become aware of these issues. But as a patient, I don't really care where it's made. There's nothing I can do with that information. What I want to know is, is it what it says it is? I don't care where they put the

Starting point is 00:19:41 goo in the bottle. I just want to know, is it what it says it is? Right. And that is really hard to know. But that's why I'm telling patients that they need to be aware of how they feel, because that's important information. I mean, there are patients who got all of these symptoms after they were switched, didn't attribute it to the new generic that they were on, and went on crazy medical odysseys, seeing 10 doctors and specialists to try to figure out what was wrong with them,

Starting point is 00:20:11 until they realized, well, wait a second, all of this started after I picked up this new prescription. Is it safe to assume that at the core of this problem is money? That cutting corners and making generic pills that aren't quite up to snuff improves profits and that's what's going on? Or is it just sloppiness? Is it people just not keeping their eye on the ball? You know, my investigation is showing that it's absolutely profits at the core of this, because the companies want to be first to market with their generic. They want market share.

Starting point is 00:20:48 There's actually added incentives financially for the company that is first to market with a generic. And so in some instances, the companies don't know yet how to make the drugs well enough. They're fabricating data and getting approval from the FDA, and then literally as they're selling the drug, they go back secretly into their laboratories to try to figure out how to manufacture it properly. Whoa, really? So they make it up in the beginning

Starting point is 00:21:20 and then try to figure it out later? That's right. And the FDA is making the claim, well, it's because of the change and patients aren't used to it and that's why they're complaining. And I suspect that there's actually a different reason why they're complaining because they're getting a drug that isn't bioequivalent because the companies don't know yet how to make it.

Starting point is 00:21:39 So why doesn't, as you said in the beginning, the FDA announces weeks in advance that they're coming and they clean up their act for the inspection and all that. But when the drugs come here, why don't they open up a box, put the pill under a microscope, and check to see what's in it? It's a great question. Surprisingly, there's actually no systematic and routine testing of the drugs once they are on the market. And this is why the integrity of the data is so important,

Starting point is 00:22:10 because what the FDA has basically said is, look, you know, even if you can't test a million pills, right? So even if you test one out of every 500,000, it's still not going to prove to you that all of the drugs are safe and effective. But that's what the data is supposed to do, that the manufacturing data as a sort of minute-by-minute blueprint of the manufacturing process is supposed to do that. But they're fabricating that data. That's the problem. So it's a real consumer issue here. I still scratch my head and wonder,

Starting point is 00:22:51 because I think so many people have had an inkling, because of all this, the generic doesn't work, the same stuff that's been going on for decades, why there aren't more doctors screaming about this, there aren't more consumer groups screaming about this. I mean, Joe Graydon is a good advocate for consumers, he always has been, but why is he and now you kind of the lone wolves here? Well, let me put it this way.

Starting point is 00:23:20 It took me a decade to connect all these dots, right, between what the patients are experiencing, what is happening in these manufacturing plants, what the FDA is claiming. You know, and I also got all of 20,000 internal FDA documents, memos, emails, as part of all of this, sort of exposing what's really going on inside the agency. And what's going on inside the agency? Well, I'll tell you, one of the things that's happening, investigators are going into these plants overseas, and they're recommending the strongest sanctions possible against these plants.

Starting point is 00:23:59 It's called official action indicated. And if you're dubbed OAI, then you've got to immediately clean up your act, or you could get a warning letter or an import alert. And back in Maryland, some of these bureaucrats are downgrading those recommendations. In other words, they're taking the plants off of the regulatory hook. They're saying, well, they promised to clean up their act, so we're going to trust them, and we're going to trust that they're going to do that. Why? What's in it for them to... What's in it for a regulator to put the public at risk? What's the payoff to them? Less paperwork?

Starting point is 00:24:40 It's a great question. Some of these regulators go on and get jobs in the generic drug industry. Gee, didn't see that coming. Yeah, right. I mean, it's a revolving door scenario. Or in some instances, they're worried about drug shortages, right? And you've probably heard about drug shortages where we don't have enough of critical, you know, necessary drugs. And so if they put an import alert on a plant, hey, there's going to be more drug shortages because we're not getting these drugs. And so in some cases that I've documented, they're making the decision better to get contaminated drugs or unsterile drugs than no drugs at all. And those are some of the trade-offs.

Starting point is 00:25:35 It's better to get contaminated drugs than no drugs at all. I mean, that's baffling why anybody would say that. How is a contaminated, useless, or altered drug better than no drug at all? I don't know. Well, you know, that's a great question. I mean, as somebody pointed out to me, a drug that doesn't work is not a cost savings, right? Right. And I'll bet you that a whole bunch of your listeners have experienced a situation where they picked up their prescription and their drugs just didn't work. So given the state of affairs, and you've laid it out pretty well, but so now what? What do you do? What's a consumer of drugs supposed to do?

Starting point is 00:26:17 If your listeners want to go to my website, which is katherineeban.com, I have a guide there of how to actually investigate your own drugs. Okay? So let's say you take a maintenance medication. You find out the name of the manufacturer. Then I provide a link where you can go into the FDA website and you can see, has that manufacturer gotten a warning letter? What has the FDA found at their plants? Then you can go into a guide called the Orange Book, which is on the FDA's website, and you can see a list of all the manufacturers that have been approved for a given drug. Obviously, people have enough to do in their busy lives and don't necessarily want to be Sherlock Holmes when it comes to their own prescriptions.

Starting point is 00:27:07 But I think it is important for consumers to get somewhat involved in understanding who's making their drugs. Well, this is really big stuff. And it's interesting that people have been saying things for so long that these drugs don't work like the name brand drugs. And now there's proof that's true. Catherine Eban has been my guest. She's author of the book Bottle of Lies,

Starting point is 00:27:32 the inside story of the generic drug boom. There's a link to her book in the show notes, and I've also put a link to her website where you can check out your own drugs if you like. Thanks for being here, Catherine. Thank you so much. Really fun to talk to you. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and

Starting point is 00:27:56 family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong. Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice. Then we have But Am I Wrong, which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice.

Starting point is 00:28:34 Plus, we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our listener poll results from But Am I Wrong. And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. 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. From the beginning, your professional life has consisted of basically three pieces. First, you have to know how to get a job.

Starting point is 00:29:09 Second, you have to know how to do the job. So that third, you can advance in your career and get another job. So that's it. You get a job, you do a job, and you move on. And there really isn't a handbook to do these things. Most of us just do the best we can. We maybe get some advice from someone with a little more experience, but mainly we just try to figure it out as we go along. It turns out, though, that there is some science to this. Science that everyone should be aware of and can use in their own professional lives.

Starting point is 00:29:42 Art Markman is at the forefront of this science. He is a professor of psychology and marketing at the University of Texas at Austin, and he has a new book called Bring Your Brain to Work, using cognitive science to get a job, do it well, and advance in your career. Hi, Art. Good to have you back on the podcast. Oh, thanks, Mike. It's great to be here. So explain why you decided to really get into this topic, because I think it's important. I think that it fills a need. One of the things that I've noticed is that career success involves a lot of things that you never learn in school.

Starting point is 00:30:19 So despite the amount of education people get, we don't necessarily learn how to interact effectively with people, how to be productive, how to be an effective leader. And yet a lot of work in the field of cognitive science, where I have my intellectual home, teaches a lot about the way people function and the way that we interact with others. And so I felt that drawing lessons from that field to help people get a job, to help people succeed at that job, and to help people manage the transition from one job to another would provide insights that they wouldn't be able to get otherwise. Yeah, well, I think it's a great idea because I've noticed, certainly,

Starting point is 00:31:03 that there are some people who are good at some of that. Like, they're really good at getting jobs. They're really good at people like them, and they get the job, but then they're not very good at doing the job. And then there are other people who do the job very well, but they're not particularly good at selling themselves and getting the job. So there's a lot of people get a little bit of this, but not all of this. Yeah, and they end up learning by trial and error most of the time because they assume that there isn't really a base of knowledge that they could acquire that would actually give them principles for thinking about how to do these things effectively. So let's touch on all of them if we can,

Starting point is 00:31:42 and hit me with some of the main points of let's start with how to get a job. Yeah, so there's several facets here. One is to try to figure out where your values are at any given moment, because one of the big mistakes that people make is that they assume that the job that they're supposed to get is supposed to match their major in college or some particular topic that they always thought that they were going to love, rather than actually focusing on a slightly different set of issues, which is what's deeply important to you. Is it success? Is it helping others? Is it tradition and family? And trying to structure the jobs that you apply for around those values, because the

Starting point is 00:32:28 fact is that you're going to have to learn a ton in order to be able to do whatever job that you get. So you really want to find things that begin to fit those values you have. And to really ignore that advice that says you've got to follow your passion, I think what you really have to do is to find things that feel like a good fit with who you are and then learn to love those things. So that's one element. I think another element is that you have to learn to think the way that hiring managers are going to think. So you have to recognize that early on when they're

Starting point is 00:33:06 looking at a pile of resumes, they're in a mode of rejection. And so you have to scan your resume for anything that's going to take you out of the running, which could be some significant negative, but it can also be silly things like typos. I mean. The reason why you need to double and triple check what you've written is because you don't want to give anyone an easy reason for throwing you out of the pile. And then after you've passed that stage of rejection, you have to give people a reason to want you. So you have to also focus on how can I actually create some reason for a hiring manager to look at my materials and think I'm the person that they want. So you really have to put yourself in that mindset. And then one last piece on the aspect of getting a job is you want to recognize that you might think when you're putting your materials together, you should throw in every positive thing you can think about yourself.

Starting point is 00:34:10 Because the assumption would be that each positive thing you say increases somebody's sense of your overall value. But actually, what people end up doing when they evaluate a resume is that they average. And so if you have four great things and then one mediocre thing, that mediocre thing brings down the average. So if it's not obligatory for you to have it on there, it's the honorable mention in some startup competition that you were a part of, maybe you leave that out because it isn't necessarily going to improve the overall quality of the materials that you send in. So I want to go back to what you said about people think that they have to do whatever their major was in college or, you know, that that's the guiding

Starting point is 00:34:59 force here. And you said that you need to do things that are also in line with your values. But I don't know what, I don't really have a very good sense of what that means. Like, could you give me an example? Sure. So I'll give you an example on both sides of what you said. And the first is everybody thinks, well, my major has to determine what I do. And of course, you know, there are plenty of people who major in things like history. Well, just because you were a history major doesn't mean that the only job

Starting point is 00:35:30 you're qualified for is historian, right? Because history majors have actually learned a tremendous amount about researching through documents and about following the threads of stories over time that can be really valuable for understanding what's going on inside of an organization. So on the first piece, your major doesn't necessarily have to determine what you do for a living. On the second piece, the question is, what values do you have? And there are lots of well-validated scales for those, but the values can be things like achievement. So to what extent is being successful a significant value for you? Well, for some people, that's all they want. They just want to be successful in their career. For other people, they don't necessarily need to be

Starting point is 00:36:21 the top dog. They just need to be able to do good work. Because for those, for some people, for example, what they care about is benevolence. They want to do things that are good for other people. And so they would like to work for an organization that they perceive as having a positive impact on the world, even though they don't necessarily need to be the leader or acknowledged as being a front runner in that organization. So you need to understand what your values are before you can figure out whether a particular job is likely to be a good fit for you long term. Well, you bring up something I guess I've never really thought about, but when most people become a history major in college, if that's their major,

Starting point is 00:37:07 isn't there usually the reason why is that maybe that's something they want to do after college, that the people don't major in something because it's just on a lark, it interests them, but they're going to dismiss it when college is over. Yes? No? Well, actually, if you look at the statistics, for example, here at the University of Texas, where I work, only 4% of the students in the College of Liberal Arts, which includes departments like history, only 4% of those students go on to graduate programs in the area that they studied. So actually, most of our students are going off to do something other than the particular major that they had. So they might find history or political science or psychology or sociology

Starting point is 00:37:53 interesting, but they don't necessarily want to be someone who is a historian or a psychologist or a sociologist, but they want to use those skills in order to be successful in their career. That really surprises me, but it is what it is. I would have never guessed that. I would have thought it was much higher. The percentage would be much higher that if you major in sociology, it's because you want to work in sociology. Yeah, it's fascinating that it doesn't work out that way. But here's the interesting thing. One of the things universities don't do a very good job of is actually telling students the complete set of skills that they have that they often aren't able to articulate their skills very well when they enter the job market for the first time. As a result, liberal arts students often make less money on their first jobs than students from majors like business who have an easier time

Starting point is 00:38:59 articulating what they're capable of. But 10 years down the line, the difference in pay between the business majors and the liberal arts majors vanishes, because actually the skill set for liberal arts students is often quite useful for succeeding in business context. And also in the getting a job category that we're talking about here, my experience is that there is something about your likability, that the personal connection has a lot to do with whether or not you get offered a job. Yeah, you know, and that's really the main function of an interview. After they finally call you in for the interview, they've decided that you more or less have the

Starting point is 00:39:42 qualifications for the job. I mean, every once in a while, they make a mistake and discover in the interview process that you're not really a good fit for the job from a skill standpoint. But 95% of what they're trying to figure out in the job interview setting is whether you're somebody that they want to work with, whether you engage them in a way that will make you a good colleague. And so it's really important to think about how you can engage with the interviewer or interviewers, depending on how they structure it, and to really use that as an opportunity to create conversation and to create rapport. You don't necessarily want to be shelling off. And you also don't want to freeze up. I think a lot of people have such fear of evaluation that they

Starting point is 00:40:31 worry, well, I don't know if I'm going to give the right answer, so I shouldn't say very much, rather than recognizing that the real purpose of each question is to start a conversation and then to allow the kind of back and forth that creates a sense that you'd be an interesting person to have around. Let's move on to doing the job. Let's start with communication because it's a big thing in the workplace these days. Part of the problem with our distributed workforce is that we actually end up engaging in interactions with people that are really not ideal. The human ability to communicate is optimized for small numbers of people communicating in real time, face-to-face, in visual contact. And that enables us to use all sorts of aspects

Starting point is 00:41:22 of our communicative ability. We can use tone of voice. We can use gestures. We can use facial expressions. And the further away you get from that, the harder and harder it is to communicate. And so much of the communication that we do in the workplace these days is done through text. For example, we either send instant messages or we send emails. And so you can't hear somebody's tone of voice. Often when you write a request to somebody, it feels very terse. You can come off as sounding really demanding when in fact you were trying to

Starting point is 00:42:00 sound friendly. So it's important to understand the factors that lead to good communication, and then to understand how the various other modes of communication in the workplace can actually make it harder to communicate so that you can actually become better at using all of those modes as well as possible. Yeah, everybody's had that experience of the electronic communication can really be misinterpreted. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and one of the things that's really important to do on the other side of that is to clarify as much as you can. If you, in real conversation, if somebody says something you don't completely understand, you can stop them. In fact, if you're in visual contact with them, you can just give a quizzical look,

Starting point is 00:42:50 and they'll often stop and say, I think I lost you. When in email, for example, somebody asks you to do something, if you're not 100% sure of what to do, clarify. You have to ask more explicitly than you might have to do if you were having a conversation with someone, because the last thing you want to do is to misinterpret a request and spend several hours doing the wrong thing. Yeah, well, and another big part, it seems to me, where people miss the boat about keeping a job and doing a job well, is they think that it kind of begins and ends with the work. That as long as you do the work, you're fine, but there's more to it than that.

Starting point is 00:43:32 Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, for one thing, you're trying to create relationships in the workplace. I mean, a lot of your success at work in the long term is actually dependent on the kinds of relationships that you create. You know, it's funny, there's this sense that a really good salesperson is able to sell something to somebody that they don't really want for an absurd amount of money. And maybe that's a good salesperson if you're only going to interact with them once. But really great salespeople are the ones who get you exactly what you need for

Starting point is 00:44:05 the right price. Because now, every time that they contact you and say that they have something you need, you're receptive to hearing them again. And so it's all about relationships, whether you're selling a product, whether you're trying to engage with a colleague, when you develop that level of trust, that goes above and beyond just the work that you did, because now that level of trust enables your opportunities for advancement. It supports your ability to take on new responsibilities. And so, you know, I think we undervalue those kinds of relationships in the workplace. All right. So we've talked about getting a job and doing a job. Let's move on to moving on from your job, moving up in your career.

Starting point is 00:44:54 So now, you know, there's several aspects of moving on, right? One aspect, of course, is that there are times where you just feel like you've stagnated in your current job. And at that point, before you find yourself getting so thoroughly bored that you're not doing a good job anymore, you really want to start looking for that next position. And that means understanding what those qualifications are going to be for that job, potentially getting additional education, whether it's an advanced

Starting point is 00:45:25 degree, whether it's taking other courses or doing things online, but preparing yourself for that next phase. You want to re-take another look at your values because they change over time. Early on in your life, you might think achievement is the most important thing, and then you might shift and think, you know what, doing good for humanity is more important for me right now. So you might decide that the career path you're on isn't quite the right one. And then you actually want to enlist a lot of the people in that social network that you have to help you to get that job.

Starting point is 00:46:01 Even people within your organization. I mean, letting people know that you're looking to move forward can be useful because they may actually keep you in mind when a position opens up and groom you for that. So you want to have people who are helping to move you forward in the organization. And really, the best leaders are ones who are trying to develop the people who work for them, because A, that makes the organization better, and B, any good leader who helps people to advance creates long-term allies within the organization, people who now feel like they owe a piece of their career to that leader. And so it's a great strategy in

Starting point is 00:46:44 which you give something to someone else that actually pays dividends for you. When you're looking to move up, and there's always pressure on everyone that you need to move up, but sometimes people don't want to move up. They want to stay where they are. They like what they do. Because they're a good salesman, they don't necessarily want to be a sales manager. They want to be a salesman.

Starting point is 00:47:07 Oh, yeah. And I think it's really important, again, to be thinking about those values, you know, and not to adopt other people's values because the culture says that or because other people in your life say that. If you're in a job in which you find it fulfilling, you enjoy the day-to-day interactions, it pays a salary that allows you to live a lifestyle that you appreciate, well, then you're in a great position. And the fact is, it is dissatisfaction that tends to drive us to do new things. When you are satisfied with something you're doing, it does not create motivation to

Starting point is 00:47:45 change. And so when you're completely satisfied with what you're doing, hey, ride that. You know, very few people are lucky enough to really feel completely satisfied with core aspects of what's going on in their lives. Well, I think for anyone, if they are to look back at how their career has gone to this point, it's just kind of haphazard. It goes the way it goes. It kind of has a life of its own. You do what you do. But it's interesting to hear that there's some real science to how to do this better. Art Markman has been my guest. He's a professor of psychology and marketing at the University of Texas,

Starting point is 00:48:22 and his new book is called Bring Your Brain to Work, Using Cognitive Science to Get a Job, Do It Well, and Advance in Your Career. Thanks, Art. I appreciate you coming back. Yeah, well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. While we've all been told to stay out of the sun to prevent skin cancer and aging of the skin, staying in the sun can help a lot of other things, as long as you don't overdo it and use sunscreen.

Starting point is 00:48:53 According to a study in Sweden, avoiding the sun can be just as detrimental to your lifespan as smoking cigarettes. The study looked at 30,000 Swedish women over 20 years old and found that life expectancy for those who avoided the sun was as much as 2.1 years shorter than the lifespan of those who spent a lot of time in the sun. Women who had more sun exposure were at a lower risk for developing several diseases, including diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and heart disease. While sun does age your skin, hurt your eyes, and cause skin cancer, it can also improve your mood, help you sleep better at night, improve acne and psoriasis, and boost vitamin D levels. And that is something you should know. You know, we are at, or very close to, an all-time high in terms of the number of people who listen to this podcast.

Starting point is 00:49:48 We're kind of on a roll. We'd like to keep the momentum going. So if you could help by telling someone you know about this podcast and let them hear it, maybe they'll like it too. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. Thanks for listening today to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing

Starting point is 00:50:36 secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Rob Benedict. And I am Richard Spate.

Starting point is 00:51:06 We were both on a little show you might know called Supernatural. It had a pretty good run, 15 seasons, 327 episodes. And though we have seen, of course, every episode many times, we figured, hey, now that we're wrapped, let's watch it all again. And we can't do that alone. So we're inviting the cast and crew that made the show along for the ride. We've got writers, producers, composers, directors, and we'll of course have some actors on as well, including some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic brothers. It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible. The note from Kripke was, he's great, we love him,

Starting point is 00:51:42 but we're looking for like a really intelligent Duchovny type. With 15 seasons to explore, it's going to be the road trip of several lifetimes, so please join us and subscribe to Supernatural then and now.

Something You Should Know - Are Generic Drugs Really Just as Good? & The Science of Finding the Best Career

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.