Something You Should Know - Best Moments of 2018 You May Have Missed - Part 2

Episode Date: December 31, 2018

We end 2018 with the second of our two-part look back at the best moments of the past year. With so much fascinating information from the last twelve months, it is fun to hit some highlight moments and relive them. I know you will hear things in this episode that you either missed or forgot – so listen and enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on Something You Should Know, the second half of our look back at the best moments of 2018, including a YouTube video that will literally give you goosebumps, and the science of how to be a much luckier person. People who are the luckiest are actually the people who are the most optimistic and who are the most positive. And the research actually shows that people who think of themselves as lucky tend to become more lucky. Plus, why unsolicited advice is a total waste of time, the science of failure and how to learn from it, and why strangers are more important to you than you ever thought.

The thing is that our intimates know what we know, and they think the way we think. Consequential strangers, by definition, are different. They bring us novelty, new information. So, consequential strangers are important and do matter. All this and more today on Something You Should Know. 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 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. 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, welcome. You know, I really enjoy putting these year-end best of episodes together because it's really a lot of fun to go back and listen to all the episodes from the previous year. Some of the interviews are things I have remembered and used in my life. And some of the things I hear, I think, how did I ever forget that?

That is really, really interesting. So this is part two of two of the best moments from 2018. And we start with giving advice. You know, it's our desire to want to help people and it's natural to offer people advice. The trouble is that they don't usually take it. You know this because people probably tell you how to eat or drink or vote or dress, and you don't listen to them either. So why doesn't offering unsolicited advice work? Research indicates that whenever someone tells us what to do and how to do it, we generally

respond with a defensive defiance because we want to maximize our personal freedom and our personal decision-making. It's human nature. This is according to psychology today. So what does work? Research on observational learning suggests that while people will resist unsolicited advice and instruction, they will follow the behaviors of others, especially when there appear to be good and reinforcing outcomes from those behaviors.

So instead of telling people what they should do, model the behavior yourself and keep quiet. Of course, I've just told you what to do, so telling you this is completely contradictory to what I just told you, so take it for what it's worth. One of the interviews that has really stuck with me this year is one I did with Janice Kaplan. She's the former editor-in-chief of Parade magazine. And her book is called How Luck Happens, Using the Science of Luck to Transform Work, Love, and Life. And she talked about what luck is and how to actually make yourself luckier. I looked at luck as having three strands. One of them is chance, but put that to the side. The other two are talent and hard work. And by talent,

I don't mean that you have to be Meryl Streep, though it can't hurt. But talent means recognizing opportunities, seeing possibilities, taking some chances. And hard work is hard work. And if you focus on those two, there's a good chance that you're going to be able to create a life that actually looks lucky. It looks like luck to other people, but you know when you look at it that you've actually put all of those pieces in place to make it happen. Well, I can relate to that. I mean, people have said to me how lucky I am, but I've worked hard for what I've had. But I do know people who seemingly, and maybe that's the key word here, seemingly have been the recipient of amazing luck through circumstance and didn't work that hard. They just happened to fall into it. Sure.

You know, things can happen all the time, of course, but I think what we're really looking at is how do you create a lucky life? How do you have not just a single incident that looks lucky, but that whole lucky life? And if somebody has fallen into something that's positive and they can continue to make it positive and they can continue to use that talent and hard work to grow the luck, then they have created something. Very often people get what looks to be like a lucky break, looks like they've had a huge advantage, and they don't know what to do with it because they're not prepared for it

or they don't have the interest in making it go on. And ultimately that's not a very lucky outcome. Well, and on the other hand, we all probably know people who seem to have had a very unlucky life, that things always seem to go wrong for them. That's an interesting perspective that a lot of people do have. They think of themselves as unlucky. And I wonder if they actually are, or I wonder if it's how we're perceiving ourselves and our own opportunities. I think very often people who are the luckiest are actually the

people who are the most optimistic and who are the most positive because they can take an event and they can see the bright side of it. They can see the positive side of it, and then they can move forward from there. And the research actually shows that people who think of themselves as lucky tend to become more lucky. There was actually a very amusing experiment that was done out of the UK by a researcher named Richard Wiseman, who's also written a lot about luck. And he gave people who called themselves either lucky or unlucky a newspaper and asked them to count how many photographs were in the newspaper. And on about page three, he had written, stop counting right now, tell the researcher you saw this

and you'll win 100 pounds and can go home, and $100 and can go home. Well, the people who thought of themselves as lucky tended to see that because they were open to things, they had a better ability to look widely around them. The people who thought of themselves as unlucky didn't even see that notice in the paper, and they just kept counting the photographs.

And I just find that story really lovely because it does show that luck is sometimes right in front of us, and we truly, literally don't take it because we're just not noticing, or we're just too scared, or we're not paying enough attention. Well, and I would imagine that you would agree that optimism plays a part in this. You seldom see somebody who's one of those real negative person complaining about how lucky they are. Exactly right. And the psychologist Marty Seligman, who's sort of the father of positive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, he told us that the number one trait he would look for if he were looking to take a lucky person along with him to the moon, the number one trait he would look for would be optimism.

Because those are the people who can recognize opportunities, who can turn things around and make things happen. So how do I create a lucky life? I think the first thing is knowing what you want, knowing what you're aiming for. And that can change over the course of a life, but you have to be focused on something. You have to be aiming towards something because then you're able to let other people know what it is that you want. And those people can sometimes help you find something specific that way. If you're just kind of vaguely thinking, I just want my life to be better, it's probably not going to be. But if

you have those specific goals, those specific things that you want, there's a good chance you can make them happen. Persistence also matters, too. You've got to have a lot of at-bats. You've got to give yourself as many chances as you possibly can. Even if you're not terribly good at something, if you're a one-in-a-hundred hitter, if you take a hundred at-bats, you're going to get that hit. So sometimes it really is just hanging in there and focusing on where you want to be. But sometimes it isn't just hanging in there because you've got a bad idea or you're barking up the wrong tree and persistence might be your enemy. Yeah, that's a really great point. And, you know, because there are always those stories

that we all find so inspiring that, you know, John Grisham, who was sold, I think, you know, 275 million books worldwide, was turned down by 28 publishers before his first book got published, and the same with Dr. Seuss, and, you know, Harry Potter was turned down by, I think, 12 publishers before that got published. So those are all the stories of hanging in, but you're absolutely right. Sometimes you have to realize that it's not going to happen and that you're not John Grisham. And I think one way to judge that is kind of to see how close you get to something. So if you want to be an actor and you're just getting turned down at every audition, maybe it's time to go to law school. But if you want to be an actor and you're down to the last two

for one audition after another, then it really is just giving yourself that extra chance because then you have the evidence that you're good and you just need that little bit of opportunity to change. So you're absolutely right. You need to be honest with yourself and you need to see how you're doing and keep judging along the way. That is Janice Kaplan.

She is author of the book, How Luck Happens, Using the Science of Luck to Transform Work, Love, and Life. To hear the complete interview, you can find it at episode 156 on our website, somethingyoushouldknow.net. 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. 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. 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. Hi, this is Rob Benedict. And I am Richard Spate. 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, 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, 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. One of the things I remember talking about earlier this year that I think about frequently

is the subject of electricity. And specifically, when you go to someone's house and ask, you know, can I charge up my phone or can I charge my iPad at your house, how much electricity does that use? How much does that charge cost somebody? Well, Forbes.com did the research, and here's what they found. For an iPad, if you fully drain and charge your iPad every other day, it will use about 12 kilowatts of electricity per year. That's a total cost of about $1.50. For your phone, if you've ever felt guilty about charging your phone at

someone else's house, don't. Typically, your smartphone will use about 25 cents worth of electricity per year. A laptop computer, about $8 per year. TVs are known to suck up a lot of electricity. Plasma TVs, if you watch five hours of TV, will cost about $45 a year. LCD TVs, about $20 a year. A 60-watt incandescent light bulb probably should be called a heat bulb because about 90% of the energy is given off as heat, not light. Using a standard 60-watt bulb for 10 hours a day will cost about $26 a year. For an LED bulb, the equivalent bulb to a 60-watt incandescent bulb will cost about $4.40

if you run it the same 10 hours per day. For clothes washers and dryers, there are big variations, but on average they cost about $300 per year per family in electricity. A Tesla. If you pay the extra dollars to buy a Tesla, you will at least enjoy savings in fuel. A Tesla will use about $450 a year in electricity. A car with a gas engine costs about $2,200 a year to power. And your microwave oven, if you run it for 15 minutes on high, that'll cost about four cents. And again, that information comes from Forbes.com.

You know, as much as we like to focus on the positive, on success, the good times, the truth is things can and do go wrong a lot. We fail a lot. Organizations fail. People fail. Machines fail. Failure is almost a constant companion. So why not take a look at why things fail? That's what Chris Clearfield has done. He's co-author of a book called Meltdown, Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It, and he has examined the science of failure and what we can learn from it. When we talked earlier this year, he began discussing Three Mile Island, the biggest nuclear power plant failure in U.S. history back in the

70s, and it is certainly in the Hall of Fame of big failures. After Three Mile Island, you know, there was an official investigation, and what the official investigation determined was that the operators were at fault, that they had made mistakes about how they responded to the problems in the plant, and that that led to the meltdown. But there was a sociologist who looked at the accident, and what he realized is that the only way that the operators were – well, let me take a step back. What he realized basically was that the logic of the accident couldn't be understood until you had a panel of engineers looking at it for nine months. And so there was no way that the operators themselves could have understood what was going on,

let alone responded in the correct way. And for this sociologist, whose name was Chick Perot, this was kind of a terrifying conclusion. You know, there were no huge failures, there were no huge external shocks, and yet this series of small failures came together and led to this big meltdown. But isn't it part of building any system to make mistakes and then learn from the mistakes? And people make mistakes. They're the thing in the system that screws things up, but every system requires people to make mistakes. When people make mistakes, the most important thing is that we have built an organization which enables them to talk about those mistakes and that we don't turn around and blame them for those mistakes. Because in a complex system, you can't,

from your armchair or your conference room, you can't just write down all the things that are going to go wrong, right? There's too many things we don't understand. There's this potential for these unexpected connections in the system. And so what we have to do is we have to learn from the system as it's running. And in order to learn from it, we need people to talk about the problems that they see. We need people to talk about the mistakes that they make. You know, there's a story in the book where there is a sailor on an aircraft carrier who drops a tool on the deck during a big exercise, and he can't find it until he reports it. They have to call off the exercise, send planes, you know, to divert to other places, and they conduct this extensive search.

They eventually find the tool. The next day, there's a big ceremony held for this sailor to celebrate his bravery and coming forward and saying, I've messed up, I've lost this tool. You know, that's the kind of thing that we really need to see if we're going to start to get a handle on these big systems where we can't think through all the failures ahead of time. What are some of the big system failures that if you mentioned them, I might know? The Target expansion into Canada is a good one, right? So, you know, Target, the big American retail company, wanted to open stores in Canada. They tried to open about 130 stores in a very short time frame. They declared bankruptcy and lost a couple of billion dollars. The BP Deep Water Horizon oil spill is another good example where, you know, really a series of billion dollars. The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill is another good example,

where, you know, really a series of small mistakes led to this massive consequence, you know, billions of dollars for the company and obviously loss of life and untold environmental damage. And I think another thing that's interesting, you know, we were researching how effective teams manage crises. So how SWAT teams and emergency's interesting, you know, we were researching how effective teams manage crises, so how SWAT teams and emergency room doctors, you know, respond to unexpected events. And I have a five-year-old, and what I started to see was that our morning routine, you know, my trying to get him off to preschool every day, that actually looked a lot like a crisis. That actually looked a lot like what these researchers were seeing when they studied these really effective teams. We weren't so effective,

but we were able to take some of the lessons that we were really writing in the book and transform our morning routines. It's much, much better now. So, you know, that's kind of two big failures and I think one crisis at home that many people might recognize. So just because I don't remember that, what did Target do wrong that caused them to fail in Canada? What Target saw was that they had to set up a whole new supply chain for Canada. And that supply chain was very, very complex. And it didn't have a lot of slack in it. They were very much trying to move goods from their warehouses to the shelves in the stores, you know, just in time, just when they needed it.

And so in that case, you had a couple of issues with the supply chain software. You had people who had entered data incorrectly into the software. So, you know, they would, a case of paper towels was recorded as one paper towel and not 24 paper towels. And these kind of small errors, there were a lot of them, but they really combined to mean that the warehouses were overflowing, the supply chain had basically broken down, and store shelves were empty. So it was a series of blunders rather than some big thing that went wrong.

Exactly. That's exactly right. And is that the typical way systems fail? I mean, I remember when the Challenger blew up, that the problem was the O-rings, and that everyone pretty much agreed that there was a problem that caused the Challenger explosion. Is that more typical, or is it more typical that it's a lot of little things that combine and snowball into disaster? It's a great question. I would actually,

you're right in the sense that the O-ring is what caused the problem in the Challenger. Actually, a lot of great research looking at the Challenger accident. And even though there's this one proximate cause that we can look at and we can put our fingers on, you know, there had been O-ring failures for several missions beforehand. And it was actually something that NASA was looking at pretty seriously, but decided ultimately wasn't a risk to the flight. And so you had this whole culture at NASA that was kind of perpetuating these small errors that in many ways could have been caught and fixed before Challenger was launched and tragically lost. Well, I guess a part of any system is to take into account Murphy's Law,

that if you have enough parts of a system, something's going to go wrong, and so part of the system is to catch those things, right? Yes, that's exactly the right way to put it. The more pieces we have in the system, the more moving parts, whether you're talking about the space shuttle or our cars or our companies or our personal lives, the more moving parts we have in these systems, the more likely we are to have these failures. And so the way we need to shift our perspective a little bit is by thinking about how we can learn from our systems, how we can encourage people to speak up, and how we can catch these sort of small failures so that they don't spiral out of control into these big ones.

I want to try to bring this down into a little more of a personal thing, and you used the example, which I like because I had the same example, of the morning routine. And we have a morning routine with my boys getting up, and often it's crisis and it's, you know, come on, we're going to be late. And, you know, it occurred to me, you know, if we just started this five minutes earlier, all of this would go away. And yet people don't think that way often.

They just think he's just got to hurry up. But if you give him more time, so I guess what I'm asking is, what are the takeaways here? I mean, I would imagine that in general, systems that are simpler are better, yes? Yes and no. I mean, it turns out the antidote to these kind of problems isn't necessarily simplicity, but it's transparency. And with your example with the morning routine, I mean, I think there's two lessons. Adding more time, getting up five minutes earlier, starting five minutes earlier,

that's kind of creating more slack in your system, right? So these small problems like, oh, I can't find my jacket, you know, now you have more time to absorb them, and that's, broadly speaking, a good thing. But the other thing that we learned when we studied these crises is that your idea, start five minutes earlier, that's a great idea, but we can't necessarily predict that may, you know, that may just mean that your boys move slower in the morning. And so I think the real key and what really successful organizations do when dealing with these kinds of complex systems, which the morning routine is, weirdly, is they try something and then they see how it goes, they circle back and then they try something else. And so what we

started doing in our family is every weekend having a five-minute meeting that's like, okay, how did stuff go last week? What worked? And what should we try differently next week? And so you may find that this five-minute buffer works, and that's great. Then you incorporate it. You may find it doesn't work. Then you have this opportunity in your family meeting to try something new and to figure out something else. And that's just what emergency room doctors, pilots, and SWAT

teams, that's exactly how they approach these kind of things. And it was kind of fascinating for me that that's something we could use in our day-to-day. That is Chris Clearfield. He is author of the book Meltdown, Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It. If you'd like to hear the complete episode, it's episode number 161. And the best place to find the episodes by their numerical number is on our website, somethingyoushouldknow.net. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives,

and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one 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, 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. 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 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. Do you know your blood type? It's either A, B, A, B, or O. Blood types were discovered in 1900, and the person who discovered them won a Nobel Prize for it in 1930. Yet here we are 100 years later later and science still doesn't know why we have

these different blood types. However, knowing it is what allows for life-saving blood transfusions. Earlier, doctors had tried blood transfusions, but unless they just happened to match up donor and recipient by chance, or if the donor had universal

type O, the patient would die. That's because your immune system knows your blood type and recognizes another blood type as an invader it cannot defeat. In 1952, some people were discovered to have no blood type at all. It's called the Bombay phenotype because Bombay is where the first people with this were discovered. It's very rare, and people with no blood type must get transfusions from other people with no blood type. Even universal type O can kill them. Out of our over 230 episodes so far, one of our all-time popular episodes contained an

interview about the five people who will ruin your life if you let them. These are what are called high conflict people. And Bill Eddy, who is president of the High Conflict Institute and author of the book, Five Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life, talked with me about who these people are, why they are the way they are, and what you can do about the ones in your life. Well, we find basically five different types, and they pop up anywhere. They could pop up in family conflicts, workplace conflicts, neighbor disputes, etc., even with strangers. And they seem to all have in common a lot of blaming other people, all or nothing thinking, unmanaged emotions, and extreme behaviors.

So they all kind of have that. They usually catch you by surprise. It's almost shocking. It's like, oh, wow, I didn't realize he or she was going to be like that about this. Oh, yeah. Who hasn't had that experience of, well, where did that come from? What? And so, and now these people, these five types of people, they have names. I mean,

the world of psychology has identified these people and put labels on them. So can you run through them real quick? Yeah, real quick. But one thing I want to say about putting labels on people is don't do it openly with people. Don't tell them, I think you're a high conflict person or one of these five, because they'll make your life miserable. So the five overlap with five personality disorders. And it doesn't mean they have a personality disorder, but they usually have some traits. So narcissistic personality, that's one a lot of people are aware of nowadays, where they're really preoccupied with themselves. They're just looking at their own self-interest. They lack empathy. They feel entitled, and they want everyone to think they're superior, but they're really like everybody else. They're not superior. Then we have your sociopaths or antisocial personalities who are really con artists, they're manipulators, bullies, they like to dominate other people, they lack remorse,

etc. Then you have people with borderline personalities. And this is a confusing name, but basically think of them as on the border between love and hate. For practical purposes, that's what happens. You see them sudden mood switch, and sometimes they're just super friendly, affectionate maybe, and then they're outraged and ready to punch you or storm out of the room or something like that. So the wide mood swings.

Then people with paranoid personalities who are really suspicious. They think everyone's got a conspiracy against them. They think you're out to get them, so they're going to get you first. And then there's the histrionic. That's the very dramatic, emotional. Everything's exaggerated. So you put those together with those four characteristics of preoccupied with blaming others, all or nothing, thinking, unmanaged emotions, and extreme behavior of high-conflict people. And we have five types of high-conflict people. And one thing that they do, the high-conflict people, people is they tend to target somebody and they pick on that person and it might be

someone they're getting divorced from or someone at work and by the way people at work now say the biggest problem is other people certain other people so what we're seeing is this pattern and and it seems to be growing. So where do you suppose this comes from? I mean, people develop these personality traits that are outside what we consider normal, but why? How? Is it something from childhood? Are they born this way? Where does it come from? Well, it seems to be very much part of personality development, which surprisingly occurs mostly by the age of five or six. By then, we're kind of the basic framework of who we're going to be. And so every case I've seen with adults goes back to childhood.

Technically, since I'm a therapist, a licensed clinical social worker, I can diagnose people and I'm not supposed to diagnose them with a personality disorder until they're adults because up to then are formative years. For example, all teenagers on any given day are narcissistic, borderline, paranoid, sociopathic, and histrionic. And so we don't stick them with a label. But as adults, if they're stuck in that pattern, yeah. But it goes back to childhood. So let me say something about that.

Part of it seems to be genetic. We have a tendency towards certain characteristics that we're born with. And so someone might have some personality traits that make them more introverted or more extroverted or make them vulnerable to becoming an alcoholic or vulnerable to becoming a narcissistic personality. So part of it is genetics at birth, but part of it is what happens, especially in early childhood, that tilts people more towards or more away from these characteristics. So it's tendencies, but life experience then fills in the gap. So in a way, you might say it's nature and nurture, you know, genetics and environment. Do you think that people who fall into these five categories know there's a problem? No. That's one of the big problems is they don't know there's a

problem. And for them, it's really, this is who I am, this is fine. And if you have a problem with it, it's all your fault. So that's part of the problem is they don't reflect on themselves. They don't go, oops, I shouldn't have done that. I better do it different next time. Instead, what they go is, oops, you messed up. You know, you better change. You better quit being that terrible person you are to somebody else without looking at themselves. But isn't there a risk of being too far the other way where everything's my fault and, oh, I'm so sorry, and I'm sorry you're upset, and, oh, it must be me?

Yeah, yeah. And the ideal with everything about human behavior and human personality is balance. And so, yes, you want to reflect on yourself, but you don't want to be so self-critical you're immobilized. And as a therapist, I've worked with some people like that. As a lawyer, I've worked with people like in high-conflict divorces where one person does all the blaming and the other person is depressed and blames themselves. Neither one of those is a healthy thing, but people don't become high conflict personalities that blame themselves

all the time. You basically don't hear from them because they isolate themselves and they're discouraged and they don't bother people. So yes, you could go too far with that. So the question is balance. That's the key. So in dealing with high conflict people and these five different types of people who can ruin your life, is the strategy the same across the board for all of them or does each one have its own individual strategy? Well, the answer is yes to both of those. Across the board, there's some things, there's a method I call the CARS method. It's connecting, analyzing, responding, and setting limits. What that is, is across the board, it helps, first of all, calm them down by connecting with them. Tell them, you know, you have some empathy,

attention, respect for them. Even if that's the opposite of how you feel, that's what calms people down. Second is helping analyze their choices. Your choices, their choices. Focus on the future rather than the past behavior. Third is responding. Usually they have misinformation. They distort information. So responding with accurate information. Don't say you're distorting. Just say, look, here's some information that may be helpful. And the fourth thing is setting limits because high conflict people don't stop themselves.

So the people around them have to stop them. Stop them from talking. Stop them from hitting. Stop them, you know, society has to stop them to some extent. So these four things with all of them, but there's some refinements with each of these personalities. So let's say you're dealing with a narcissist. It's real easy to engage in an argument with a narcissist about who's superior because they think they're superior, but the behavior that they have makes everyone around them think they're inferior.

And so the temptation is to say, you're not so hot, buddy. You're the idiot. I'm the smart guy here. And don't do that. That doesn't work. So that's specialized for narcissists. Don't engage in arguing over who's smarter.

Focus on what to do next. So that's just one example. But I would imagine that that applies to everybody. I mean, to sit and talk about what the problem is with them is fairly pointless. Let's figure out how to fix this. Yes. And in fact, all the principles like the CARS method I just described can be applied with anybody. And that's the thing. It's safe. It's harmless. It's really positive human relationships. intellectual intelligents, you aren't busy criticizing people. You're sharing problems. You're looking at things from their point of view, your point of view, etc. High conflict people are the people with the least emotional intelligence. And it's kind of sad because they stay frustrated

and stuck in their lives. That's Bill Eddy. He is the president of the High Conflict Institute and author of the book, The Five Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life. It's from episode number 162. It's one of the most downloaded and listened to episodes of 2018. And if you'd like to hear the entire interview, you can find episode number 162 on our website, somethingyoushouldknow.net. One of the things I remember talking about this year,

because I've told many people about this, is this 18-minute YouTube video. It's about folding towels. It's narrated by a woman who barely speaks above a whisper. It's just about folding towels. And yet there have been over 2 million views so far. And it's not likely because people need to know how to fold towels. Instead, it's because an increasing number of people report experiencing

something called Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, or ASMR. It's a whole body tingling that listening to a soft, monotone voice can trigger. ASMR is a neurological experience that causes some people, not all people, but some people to experience what has been termed a brain orgasm, a tingling, pleasurable sensation similar to goosebumps that begins at the head or neck and works its way throughout the entire body. The most common triggers of this sensation include educational videos, having your hair cut, feeling empathetic, enjoying music or art, listening to slow enunciated speech,

and experiencing close personal contact. It feels so good that people keep re-watching this incredibly dull video just to have the experience over and over again. What's interesting is that science doesn't recognize this as a real thing. It doesn't ever appear to have been studied or written about scientifically. It's what's called a self-reported experience, meaning people say it happens to them, but no one really knows what it is. Nevertheless, it sure feels good. If you would like to watch the video, go to YouTube and search for folding towels ASMR and it should be the first one in your search results.

An interview that I've thought a lot about since I did it earlier this year was the one I did with Melinda Blau who is author of a book called Consequential Strangers. She makes the point that you know who the important people in your life are because they have the most influence and impact on what happens to you. But you don't give a lot of thought to the lesser important people in your life, what she calls consequential strangers. And when you listen to her, you'll understand that these people who seemingly are inconsequential really do have a fascinating impact on your life. Let me give you an example.

You have a mechanic and you don't think much about him until your car breaks down. But having that mechanic is a very, very important part of your life. You go to the office, you have many co-workers or your neighbors. You may not have a lot of words with your neighbor, but he or she might tell you about a sale that's going on in town. The thing is that our intimates know what we know, and they think the way we think. Consequential strangers, by definition, are different. So they bring us novelty, new information. Studies have shown that they really matter when we're sick

because it's a fresh perspective. It's someone else to rely on than just the family because our families tend to get burnt out when we're sick. And so consequential strangers are important and do matter. So it is what it is. These strangers, these inconsequential people we run into will tell us about a sale or give us new information when we're sick, that kind of thing. But why is this so important to talk about?

What's the big so what here? One of the things is that, you know, when we walk through the world, many of us have so many things to do and so much on our minds. And there are a lot of choices to make every day. You cannot simply depend on your intimates for that information and those choices. It's also a very, very important spiritual act to know that you're not alone in this world, that there really are people that are connected to you. however tenuous those connections might seem, you really aren't alone.

And if you avail yourself, people are like resources for you. And so it maximizes your resources. People who have an awareness of their consequential strangers are more likely to get through difficult times in their lives. They're more likely to hear information earlier than someone who's isolated, and they also tend to live longer. I mean, there's some wonderful epidemiological research that suggests that people who have broader social networks live longer than people who are isolated.

People who are depressed, for example. Many of them are depressed because they just don't have people in their lives to talk to. So it's very important to have intimates. You know, that's been established for a long time. But what we're just getting to in science is the realization that it's not just the intimates. It's our so-called weak ties that also matter. But isn't there a progression? Because a lot of the people in your life now started as strangers. In fact, many of them, by definition, must have at one point been strangers,

and then they became maybe acquaintances, and then maybe they became friends. So consequential strangers often don't stay that way. There's a range of consequential strangers. You know, the person who you play golf with on occasion is a consequential stranger. Consequential strangers are people who you usually have one thing in common with, whereas your intimates, you do a lot of different things with them. Your lives overlap in a lot of different ways. So, you know, we can't possibly have 500 best friends. For example, if you think of Facebook, most of the people on Facebook are consequential strangers, and they're very happily, they say at that level, and that's a good thing.

So it's not a matter of like, oh, my God, I can't handle all these people in my life. They are already in your life. I'm just saying, pay attention to them. You will end up getting more information, more support, and more companionship than you realized before. So what you're saying, I think, is that we don't take these relationships with these consequential strangers too seriously because by their nature they're strangers.

So we don't give them a whole lot of thought, but maybe we should. Right. That is exactly my point. And consequential strangers are usually different from us, and we can learn something from them. I don't mean just the information. We can learn something about the differences. It's a different perspective. So if you, for example, you have a problem and you mull it over with your family, if you take that problem to someone else, he

or she may suddenly have a totally different slant on it and say, did you consider this or did you consider that? And that's what consequential strangers are good for. You know, we often tend to either think of relationships as either close or not close. But you can feel close to a consequential stranger. You may not see the person often. You may not be in each other's lives. You may not invite the person

ever to your house for dinner. But when you see him or her, it's a very enjoyable time. And he's always in your life. You know that he's there if you see him or her, it's a very enjoyable time. And he's always in your life. You know that he's there if you need him. And it seems, like I was saying earlier, that most close friends pretty much had to start off as consequential strangers. Absolutely.

You know, there's a progression. You go from stranger to consequential stranger, to friend to best friend to soulmate. You know, there's a progression. You go from stranger to consequential stranger to friend to best friend to soulmate. There's a continuum of relationships, and relationships are very fluid. They don't stay the same, and if your circumstances change, your consequential strangers often change. For example, I moved up to Northampton, Massachusetts out of Manhattan many years ago. And when I first got there, I was totally at sea. I didn't realize why, but I suddenly found out that what it was is that I lost all my consequential strangers. The green grocer who knew that I liked Concord grapes and told me when it was in season.

People who I'd run into on the street and have a 10-minute conversation with and really enjoy those 10 minutes, none of those people were there anymore. So when you move to a new town or in a new office or you get divorced, your life situation changes. You need to replenish your supply of consequential strangers. That's Melinda Blau. She is author of the book Consequential Strangers. It's from episode 188, if you'd like to hear the entire interview. And I mention the website because that is when you're searching for episodes of this podcast by number, it's the best place to do that.

You can just open up the search thing and put in the episode number and it will come right up. Melinda was in episode 188. And that concludes part two of the best of 2018. The next episode will be brand new and the first episode of 2019. I'm Micah Ruthers. As always, thanks for listening to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated

Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections 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 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, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Contained herein are the heresies of Rudolf Pantwine, erstwhile monk turned traveling medical investigator join me as i study the secrets of the divine plagues and uncover the blasphemous truth that ours is not a loving god and we are not its favored children the heresies of redolf

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