Something You Should Know - SYSK Choice: Pleasure vs Happiness & The Good News About Failure

Episode Date: March 20, 2021

It’s become a cliché to say that great ideas come in the shower. But the fact is – they do! And there is actually a psychological explanation for why that is. We begin this episode with a look at the reason for this common experience. http://mentalfloss.com/article/52586/why-do-our-best-ideas-come-us-shower What’s the difference between pleasure and happiness? It’s an important distinction because the more pleasure you seek, the less happy you become. That’s the contention of Dr Robert Lustig, author of The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains (https://amzn.to/2yp2xMf). Dr. Lustig sees some troubling developments in our quest for pleasure and I think you’ll be interested in what he has to say. When you make a salad and you rinse the lettuce and carrots and tomatoes under the faucet for a few seconds. Does that really get rid of the pesticides and bacteria? We explore that very important question and you really need to hear the answer. http://www.menshealth.com/how-to-wash-produce Nobody likes to fail – but maybe we should all rethink that. Failure turns out to have a silver lining – and not just in the way that “Every cloud has a silver lining.” Chris Gethard is a pretty successful stand-up comedian who has written a book about failure called Lose Well (https://amzn.to/2CpJcgz). Although Chris has had some clearly successful moments (his own HBO special and his own sitcom on Comedy Central for example) he has also had some colossal failures. He joins me to discuss why failure is inevitable and really something to be celebrated on your journey to success. PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! Athletic Greens is doubling down on supporting your immune system during the winter months. Visit https://athleticgreens.com/SOMETHING and get a FREE 1 year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 free travel packs with your first purchase! Download Best Fiends FREE today on the Apple App Store or Google Play. https://bestfiends.com Let NetSuite show you how they'll benefit your business with a FREE Product Tour at https://netsuite.com/SYSK https://www.geico.com Bundle your policies and save! It's Geico easy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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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. Today on Something You Should Know, why does it seem that great ideas come to you in the shower? There's actually a good explanation. Then the important difference between pleasure and happiness. So the more pleasure you seek, the more unhappy you get.

And Las Vegas, Madison Avenue, Silicon Valley have very specifically confused and conflated these two terms, pleasure and happiness, so that you don't know the difference. Also, does rinsing fruit and veggies for a few seconds really get rid of pesticides and bacteria? I'll have the answer. And why would a pretty successful guy write an important book about failure? Well, I just, I have a lot of experience with losing, is the honest answer. I've done a few things that I think people would point to as success, and I'm very proud of that. But it's all been built on the foundation of just banging my head against the wall. All this today on Something You Should Know.

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. 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.

From time to time, I like to check on the stats for the podcast. And I've noticed that recently, we have a lot of new listeners. And if you are one of them, it's worth pointing out that this is episode 553, which means there are, you know, a couple of hundred other episodes to listen to. So if you haven't gone back into the catalog, I invite you to do that. Wherever you're listening. You should be able to go back a couple of hundred episodes and give a listen. There's a lot of great episodes of this podcast. First up today, you know, it's almost become cliche that great ideas come to you in the shower. But why? Why does this happen so often?

It's because the shower creates the perfect conditions for a creative flash, coaxing out your inner genius. Research shows that you're more likely to have a creative epiphany when you're doing something monotonous like fishing or exercising or showering. Since these routines don't require much thought, you flip into autopilot, which frees up your unconscious mind to work on something else. Your mind goes wandering and it leaves your brain to quietly play a no-holes-barred game of free association, basically. Shelley Carson at Harvard University found that highly creative people share one amazing trait. They're easily distracted. And that's the beauty of a warm shower. It distracts you, it makes you defocus, and it lets your brain roam free and crash into some

great idea. And that is something you should know. It's sometimes easy to get the concept of pleasure confused with happiness. But pleasure and happiness are not the same thing. And in fact, if you are constantly seeking pleasure, it's very hard to find happiness. Pleasure is temporary. In fact, often it's just momentary. But in that moment, it sure feels good, which causes us to seek out more of it. It's the nature of drugs and alcohol and other addictive behaviors. And all of this presents an opportunity that businesses that peddle pleasure can exploit.

That's the message from Dr. Robert Lustig. Dr. Lustig is a neuroendocrinologist from the University of California, San Francisco, and he's author of the book The Hacking of the American Mind, The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Our Brains. Now, normally I'm not a big conspiracy theorist kind of guy. I don't believe that businesses deliberately,

intentionally, and conspiratorially are trying to take over your mind. But I do think some of what Dr. Lustig has discovered is very important to hear. And so here he is. Welcome, Dr. Lustig. Thanks for coming on. Mike, thanks very much for having me. Appreciate it. So if I have your message correct, what you're saying is that businesses in the quest for bigger profits are peddling these pleasurable substances and these pleasurable behaviors in hopes that we'll

come back and buy more and more and more of them. And we do that at the expense of our own health and well-being. So first of all, what kind of substances are you talking about? So for substances, it could be cocaine, heroin, nicotine, alcohol, sugar, which is the one I write most about because that's the cheapest of thrills. And for behaviors, it could be shopping, gambling, social media, video gaming, pornography, okay, not substances, but behaviors, every single one of those has an aholic after it in the extreme. And the reason is because every single one of those causes the release in the brain of a very specific neurochemical in a very specific area of the brain the chemical is dopamine the area is the reward center or the nucleus accumbens and this is what we call pleasure the problem is that every one of those in the extreme

lead to addiction and the industries peddle each of these have figured out how best to target us in order to basically make money. And in the process, we have become fat, sick, miserable, stupid, broke, addicted, depressed, and most decidedly unhappy. Wow. Well, that's depressing to hear. Well, unfortunately, the data are there to back it up. And you say it's not a conspiracy, but you think it's a plot. It's deliberate to some extent. But why is it deliberate? Why do you think that companies, businesses, illegal or legal, are doing this rather than say, well, people seek pleasure because that's what human beings do. We

seek pleasure. And so we will go out and seek it. And yes, sometimes it's in the extreme. And yes, sometimes businesses can profit from that, but whether the businesses profit or not, people will seek pleasure. Well, in fact, pleasure used to be relatively rare. Each of those substances and behaviors were actually pretty hard to come by, you know, several decades ago. That changed really with the pot still in 1700s. And that ended up being the first time that a public health measure to control a substance was necessary. The Gin Act of 1736. Then in the 1800s, with the Industrial Revolution, sugar became extraordinarily plentiful and we ended up starting to see changes in weight gain, type 2 diabetes, etc.

But it was only, you know, sort of hit fever pitch and, you know, breaking the bank now. In the interim, of course, we had nicotine and the whole tobacco issue the point is that each of the companies that sold each of these products figured out the best way to do that and then the other companies said hey we're losing market share we ought to copy what these other companies are doing and so everybody ended up doing it anyway. But they didn't do it because they got on the phone and said, let's see how we can pull the wool over the American public's eyes. Let's see how we can actually contribute to the destruction of the United States. They didn't do that.

All they did was say, let's see how we can figure out how to make as much money as the next guy. Because human beings will fall victim to this stuff. Absolutely. Because we love pleasure. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that tells your brain, this feels good. I want more. Now, there's a second neurotransmitter in your brain called serotonin. Serotonin is made from a different amino acid in our diet. It is not part of the reward center. It is part of the

contentment pathway. And what serotonin tells your brain is, this feels good. I don't want or need anymore. And contentment is the baseline level of happiness. So as you say, we've got pleasure and we've got happiness. Two seemingly similar things, but they are very different. And I know you can spell out in seven ways how they're different. So go ahead. Number one, pleasure is short-term happiness is long-term. Two, pleasure is visceral. You feel it in your body. Happiness is ethereal. You feel it above the neck. Three, pleasure is taking. Happiness is giving. Four, pleasure is achieved alone.

Happiness is usually achieved in social groups. Five, pleasure is achievable with substances. Happiness is not achievable with substances. Six, the extremes of pleasure, whether it be substances or behaviors, and I've just named them, will all in the extreme lead to addiction. Conversely, there's no such thing as being addicted to too much happiness. And seven, pleasure is dopamine, happiness is serotonin. Now, you are probably sitting there, Mike, and your listeners are sitting there saying, like, why do we care? Who cares? They both feel good. Actually, it means the difference is huge. And it actually is the difference between societies

functioning and societies not functioning because dopamine is an excitatory neurotransmitter so whenever dopamine is released it excites the next neuron so dopamine binds to its receptor the dopamine receptor specifically the d2 receptor and causes the next neuron in the chain to fire. Now, neurons like to be stimulated. That's why they have receptors. But neurons like to be tickled, not bludgeoned. They like to be stimulated, and then the stimulus go away. Chronic overstimulation of any neuron will lead to neuronal cell death. So in human terms, what does this mean? It means, well, you get a hit, you get a rush, receptors go down. Next time, you need a bigger hit to get the

same rush, and the receptors go down. And then you need a bigger hit and a bigger hit and a bigger hit until finally, you need a huge hit to get nothing. That's called tolerance. And then when the neurons actually do start to die, that's called addiction. Now, serotonin, this happiness neurotransmitter, it's an inhibitory neurotransmitter. It puts the next neuron to rest. It doesn't stimulate it. It actually quiets it. So you can't overdose on too much happiness. But there's one thing that downregulates serotonin.

Dopamine. So the more pleasure you seek, the more unhappy you get. And Las Vegas, Madison Avenue, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Washington, D.C. have very specifically confused and conflated these two terms, pleasure and happiness, on purpose, so that you don't know the difference. So they can, quote, sell you happiness. I'm speaking with Dr. Robert Lustig.

He's author of the book, The Hacking of the American Mind, The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Our Brains. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about

a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. 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.

So, Dr. Lustig, here as I listen to you, here is, I don't know if it's the flaw in the argument or just a crack in the argument that I hear you make, is you say that corporations are peddling pleasure by selling these products and these behaviors that hurt our brains and hurt our bodies and cause addiction, except that in most people, it's not true.

There are plenty of people who can have an occasional drink, not get addicted to alcohol, and still find happiness in life. There are plenty of people who can eat sugar, have dessert, and eat the occasional candy bar, not become addicted to sugar, and still find happiness in life. And if you look at nicotine and sugar, two of the substances you talk about, nicotine is going in one direction and sugar is going in the other. It's become much less socially acceptable to smoke, so fewer and fewer people smoke despite the addictive nature of nicotine. And sugar, which has been around forever, and in the 1950s people could have gone to the supermarket and bought tons of sugar and eaten it, but didn't.

Sugar consumption has gone way up since then. Well, except that it was in five-pound bags and you had to put it in something, as opposed to it being added to the food already. So it's a little disingenuous to say it's quite the same. It's not quite the same. And as to your comment about the fact that smoking has now become culturally unacceptable, that is true. The question is, where'd that come from? What it came from was public education and litigation against the tobacco industry, basically calling them out in their lie. So 30 years, there have been four, count them, four cultural tectonic shifts in America in the last 30 years. And I'll name them for you. Bicycle helmets and seatbelts,

smoking in public places, drunk driving, condoms in bathrooms. 30 years ago, every single one of those was anathema. If a legislator had brought that up in a state house or in Congress, they'd have gotten laughed out of town, never gotten reelected. drunk driving changed the dynamic. They changed the playing field. And now every single state has a click it or ticket law. So that's not a personal issue. That's a societal issue. Condoms and bathrooms, same thing. Smoking in public places. Okay. Boreali v. Axelrod was a New York state Supreme court case that said, you have a liberty interest to smoke. Well, the legislature thought, gee, you know, we've got to change the laws. And so what they did was they started banning smoking in restaurants, in bars, in all sorts of public atria and places. And now the hospitals and now the public gets it.

And so now when you see somebody smoking on the street, you feel sorry for them. Ultimately, 30 years from now, when you see somebody drinking a Coke on the street, you will feel sorry for them. But it's not going to happen until we change the norms. And the only way to change the norms is through public education and ultimately through policy change. Well, I hope not. I hope people don't feel sorry for somebody having a Coke or eating a candy bar because they could enjoy the momentary pleasure of that. Because again, not everybody is a potential addict why should they have their coke and their candy bars taken away from them because some people can't handle it but i don't want to get into that so much as what what's the issue here because clearly we may disagree on some of

the points but i agree with you that this catering to pleasure is a problem. So what do we do about it? So the goal is to get your serotonin up and your dopamine down. Okay. There's plenty of reasons why your dopamine goes up. You don't need any more of those. What we need are ways to get your serotonin up. And in my book, I describe four ways that any single person on the planet can up their serotonin. And more importantly, they are all free and they're things your mother told you. The first one, connect. So what is connection? It is eye to eye, face to face, reading your expression connection. Now, why is that important? The answer is because you have a set of neurons in the back of your head, in your occipital lobe. You can record from them. They're called mirror neurons. And what they're doing is they're reading the expressions of the person you are talking to

on the fly in real time. And then they are turning that emotion into your own emotion. You end up adopting the emotions of the person you are talking to. We have a process, I mean, we have a name for this. It's called empathy. Empathy is something that all humankind does. Paul Ekman, the famous UC Berkeley psychologist, went to Papua New Guinea. They'd never seen a white person, but they had the exact same facial expressions

for every emotion that we have. So a smile meant the same thing. A frown meant the same thing. A furrowed brow meant the same thing. These are all baked into our DNA, and they are communicating our emotions to people even without words. And you are reading those, but you can't read them if you can't see the person. So connection means conversation. Number two, contribute. Contribute means outside of yourself to the greater good, if you will.

Obviously, everybody wants their work to be counted as contribution, and it can, provided two provisos are met. First is, you can see how your work helps others, and number two, your boss can see it too. If both of those are the case, you can get contribution through work. That's how I get my contribution. But what if you don't? What if you can't get it that way? Then there are other methods. There's volunteerism, altruism, philanthropy. You can pay someone else to do it for you. But ultimately, you have to do something that benefits outside of yourself. Making money is not contribution. Spending money is not contribution. Giving money is contribution. And again, we have the data on this.

And you can actually see people's charity change by altering the serotonin in their brains. Number three, cope. And by cope, I mean three things. Sleep, mindfulness, and exercise. So 35% of America currently get less than seven hours of sleep per night and 23% are chronic insomniacs. And what that does is it ups the dopamine, it ups the need for the stimulation, but it actually downs the serotonin and makes you miserable.

It also causes food intake, which also ups the dopamine and downs the serotonin as we'll talk about in a moment mindfulness the most dangerous word in the English language is multitasking because no one can do it only 2.5 percent of the population can actually do two things at once everyone else is serially unit asking and when they switch from one task to another, they get a cortisol rise, stress hormone, which actually depletes serotonin, ups dopamine gain, lowers dopamine receptors, and actually makes you miserable. And then finally, exercise. Turns out exercise is as potent as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, SSRIs, at alleviating depression. And if you pit mindfulness and exercise together, you can actually reverse depression without medicine.

And then number four, the fourth C, cook. There are three items in food that matter for these two pathways. First is tryptophan. Tryptophan is the rarest amino acid it's found in eggs chicken and fish not exactly processed food number two omega-3 fatty acids which are anti-inflammatory and improve serotonin neurotransmission you find those in wild fish not farmed fish again not processed food and flax and some other greeneries. And then finally, sugar, which depletes serotonin and ups your dopamine. So what you want is a high tryptophan, high omega-3, low sugar diet. That's called real food. Problem is atryptophan, low-omega-3, high-sugar diet is called processed food. Processed food makes you miserable, and processed food is addictive.

But how much is enough? I mean, you could listen to you and think, well, what this guy's saying is stop having so much fun. Well, I like fun, I like fun. I like fun too. So how much fun is enough fun? Okay. So how much fun is enough fun? Okay. So let me ask you a question. Is cocaine enough fun? Not for me. Well, you know what? The more cocaine you use, the less fun you have. Right. Okay. But that's an extreme example. But a hamburger is not going to ruin my life?

No, of course not. The question is, are you eating a hamburger a week or a hamburger a day? Okay. And the other problem is that since sugar is in 74% of the food in the grocery store, how much sugar should you have? That's kind of what I'm asking you. Well, so you're supposed to consume less than six teaspoons of added sugar per day, 25 grams. Our current dose is 94 grams median. So we are consuming almost four times as much as is appropriate and safe. The question is, what effects does that have? Well, number one, type 2 diabetes. Number two, heart disease. Number three,

fatty liver disease. Number four, stroke. Number five, hypertension. Number six, polycystic ovarian disease. Number seven, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Number eight, cancer. Number nine, dementia. And decreased economic productivity because all of those people with all those diseases aren't at work. That's a good message. And I really like what you said about pleasure and happiness because I think, as you point out, people confuse the two. And the road to get to those things are very, very different. And the result is also very, very different. And confusing them is probably not such a good idea. So I appreciate the time and I appreciate your message.

Dr. Robert Lustig has been my guest. He is a neuroendocrinologist from UC San Francisco. He's author of the book, The Hacking of the American Mind, The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Our Brains. And there is a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes. Thanks, Dr. Lustig. Oh, I appreciate it. Thanks very much. 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. 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, 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. 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.

If you were to count the number of books and podcasts and gurus who talk about success and what you need to do to be successful, the number would be in the thousands. And of course, they mostly all emphasize the positive, the keys to succeed, the seven steps to success. But what you don't hear a lot about is failure. And I would argue, and I think a lot of people would argue, that failure is a big part of success, an important, even critical part of success that no one talks about very much. Well, almost no one. Chris Gethardt does.

Chris is a stand-up comedian and, by all outward accounts, a pretty successful one. He's had a one-man show on HBO. He's had his own sitcom on Comedy Central. He's the host of a podcast called Beautiful Stories from Anonymous People. And he's the author of a new book called Lose Well that's all about failure. Hey Chris, welcome. So why a successful guy like you, why would you want to talk about and write about failure? Well, I just, I have a lot of experience with losing is the honest answer. I've done a few things that I think people would point to as

success, and I'm very proud of that, but that's all been built on a foundation of just banging my head against the wall. So in the course of doing that process, I came to realize that my idea of success shifted a lot. And it's not as black and white a thing as I think we present to people when they're young. And there's this whole idea that you either win or you lose. And I just don't buy it. I think there's shades of gray. And I think those shades of gray are where you learn about yourself and where you come to figure out sort of who you really are and what you really want. And I just think that's a little bit of a more realistic, healthy way to approach these types of things. I couldn't agree more because like you, I mean, my life, as I look back on it,

has had plenty of successes, but there are some humongous failures along the way. And I think that in our culture and particularly in the media, all these successful people you look at, they never talk about their failures. So the assumption is they didn't have any, and that I suffer in comparison because I have many. And so it's nice to hear somebody come along and say, you know what, failure is fine. It may not be fine, but it's part of the equation. I think it's one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle that we don't talk about. I also think failure, when I look back on it, failure is sort of where most of the fun was. Like success brings its own pressures with it. And I wish I had slowed down and kind of enjoyed the early parts of the process where I was allowed to just strike out and fall on my face. I look back and realize it was so fun. And I didn't even know it back then because I felt like I had to be so stressed. Yeah. Do you think it was fun in the moment or it's fun to look back because you know you survived and so it's kind of funny to look back and say, well, look what I look at the screw ups I had, but, but it all turned out okay. I mean, I'm sure there's, there's some element of rose colored glasses for sure, where the pressure's off now. But the specific memories I have are,

you know, I'm a comedian by trade. And I remember so fondly these nights where I'd have gone out and done shows, and I'd meet up with other friends who were doing the same thing. And we'd wind up in the back booth of some bar wondering like, why isn't it happening for us? And what's going on? Other people are getting things that we want. And I look back and realize, man, that idea that I could stay out all night and end up in a bar and be an artist, it was like the golden age. It was the golden age and the pressures there were real at that time. But I do hope that one of the things people take away from my book is this idea of take a deep breath and enjoy it even when the pressure's on because you don't want to be unable to appreciate this stretch of life.

It's a beautiful thing to get to fail. Because don't you think that the success is truly sweeter because of those failures? That if you didn't take the punches along the way, winning the fight isn't as good? Yeah, 100%. You got to earn it. You got to earn it. And it makes it a little more foolproof too. Not only does it make it that much sweeter, it's also something you're more equipped to handle because you've been through the ringer a few times. That failure toughens you up, gets you ready so that when the success comes, you don't freak out and you don't botch it. I've seen that happen too. So when failure happens, when failure happened to you along the way, what is it looking back that you did to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and move on?

I think failure is always a learning opportunity. And I think one of the, one of the things that I really learned that I write about in my book is kind of the real turning point for me was I failed in some big ways. And instead of letting that cripple me, I took a step back and sort of reevaluated my values. And I was able to really ask myself, how much of these pursuits I'm going on are things that I really want? How much of them are ego driven? How much is it I want something like this to happen for me because I've seen it happen for someone else and I'm jealous or I want to be compared to them in a positive way? I think when you go for something and it doesn't happen,

it always represents a reset point where you can either keep moving forward on that or you can go, wait, is this something I really want? Is this who I really am? Does this reflect my actual values? And it gives you a chance to sort of redefine and reshape your goals along the way. That's a big thing that I believe in is I think we have this sort of likeine and reshape your goals along the way. That's a big thing that I believe in is, I think we have this sort of like manifest destiny, you know, American dream thing of, I'm going to declare this one thing I want, and I'm going to go get it by hook or by crook. And I think it's more realistic to go, I'm going to go not get it because it's not likely that you'll succeed. And when I strike out, maybe I'll see a clearer path to the thing that makes more sense for me. And when you did that along the course of your life and when you failed, do you think

that more often than not, you said, wait a minute, this isn't what I want or no, this is what I want. I just need to suck it up and move on. I've had a lot of the latter one. In 2010, I'd been a comedian for 10 years already. And a lot of the people who came up in the same scene as me were getting some big jobs. And I was very, very stressed out that one had not come my way after 10 years. And then I got a sitcom job. And it bombed. It bombed hard. I was the lead of a sitcom and it did not go well. And that was not easy. But that was the big moment in my life, career-wise, where I was able to step back and go, wait, why am I embarrassed about this? I don't like sitcoms. I don't watch them. There's other people who do. I'm not rolling my eyes at them. I don't judge them. There's millions and millions

of people like them, but they're not for me. So why did I really want this? This wasn't something that reflects who I am as an artist or even as a person. This is pure ego. And I have to get that ego out of the way. If that job had succeeded, I'm sure I would have done it for a very long time and I would have made a lot of money and I would have been happy in some sense. But when it struck out, I was able to go, whoa, okay. In one sense, that was a really big embarrassment. In another sense, maybe I dodged a bullet a little bit. Maybe I can step back and go, why did I spend 10 years fighting for something that wasn't going to be all that fulfilling anyway? Maybe the next phase of my life has to be about doing stuff that reflects my integrity a little bit more. Well, and I think one of the reasons that probably happened was that, I know a little

bit about it, that in the comedy business, if you're a successful comedian, a sitcom is like a next big step up. And it's almost as if you have to take, you can't say no to this. Right, right. I mean, that's the other thing that's such a trip to think about is, if you were to say to me today, hey, we can give you a time machine so you can go back to that point in your life and not take that job, I would have said, no, I need to take that job. Of course, I'm going to still take that job, knowing exactly how poorly it's about to go, because you're not going to not do that. And I wouldn't trade anything that I learned from that mistake for the world. You know, not even mistake, misstep. I wouldn't trade any of it. So I would so much rather regret things I've done than things I have not done.

And so having failed in between your successes and having gone through those dark times, what are some of the things that people can take from what you've learned and apply to their own life? One that was a real big one for me was, you know, I grew up in, I was this kid who had these artistic inclinations. No one in my family was an artist. Nobody in my neighborhood was an artist. I came from a pretty working class section of Northern New Jersey. It wasn't a thing.

So this whole idea of, well, if no one you know has ever done the thing you want to do, we convince ourselves, well, that's not a thing that people like me are supposed to do, to which I would say, no, absolutely not. When it comes to especially creative fields, you need the voices that haven't been heard before. You need to dive in and be the one who sets the bar. You can't sit there and go, I guess I'm just supposed to stay in my lane. I think that's actually something that's really oppressive. And it's something that gets manipulated a lot. I will meet people who are 22, 23 years old who approach me and go, you know, I always wanted to do comedy, but I feel like I'm too old now. That ship has sailed. And I'm like, you're 22. And then you get 28 year olds who are going, yeah,

I'm the one who needs to quit. And then you get 35 year olds going, you're 28. What are you talking? And that goes all the way up the chain where I do think it's a little bit of a created barrier. There's another one that comes up all the time that I hear from people who say, you know, I really want to go for something, but I haven't hit rock bottom yet. And that's this running thing that I hear over and over again where people, where I go, what are you talking about? And they'll go, you know, I don't love my cubicle job, but I haven't been fired yet.

And I kind of hate it, but I'll just wait until it really hits a disaster point. And then I'm going to go try to be a musician. And it's like, well, why do you have to wait till things are at a crisis? That's this imaginary hero's journey that we make up in our own minds. Maybe it's a little smarter to start laying the groundwork for it now while those things are still in place. And maybe it'll help alleviate some of the stress you feel. And it doesn't have to be born out of some like big disaster. Yeah. And so much of it is self-imposed, self-inflicted. You know, I'm too old. Well, says who? Too old for what? How do you know unless you try?

By what standard, you know? And because I get to travel so much as a comedian and I will tell you everywhere I go, I meet people who you can tell they feel like they feel doubted. They feel like they're not being listened to. And it's everywhere. It's just everywhere. And I think there's something to be said for society probably does function better if everybody just stays in their lane. It's like if your father did blank, maybe you should do blank. If your boss is rolling his eyes at you, it's just because he wants you to stay focused in on the things he needs out of you. I think there's something to be said for it feels really weird to intentionally plunge into something that makes you an outlier or makes

you outside the norm. But I kind of feel that 100% of the time, those chances are worth taking versus sitting around feeling like you're kind of just this weirdo in your own head with these ambitions that you're never going to act on. That seems very, very toxic and insidious to me. Because even if you fail, at least you'll know. 100%. Around 2007, I was really having a lot of panic about my career. And it got to a degree where I wound up heading back into therapy, which is something that I totally need in my life. And I still do to this day. And she actually gave me this great advice where she was like,

go out and give yourself no other option. And I asked her what she meant. She was like, stop taking money for freelance jobs. Stop scrapping it together with all this other stuff. Go make money purely through comedy, through acting, through writing, through performing comedy. And I said, it's a horrible idea. I paid my rent through all these other ways. And she said, great. Well, go get it over with.

If you can go make it happen, you'll find a way to pay your rent. And if you can't, you'll know you don't have what it takes. And you can stop stressing out about this. And if you can't, you'll know you don't have what it takes and you can stop stressing out about this. And it was so scary. It's so scary to think about if I have this unfulfilled goal and I actually go do it and it doesn't work, then it's over. It's like, yeah, it is. But then you get out of this purgatory that creates so much self-doubt and so much stress. And then you'll know you won't spend the rest of your life wondering what if, and then you can, you know, plot your course from that point. I mean, I think that was some great advice you got.

Lastly, is there something we haven't talked about yet? Just something from your experience and your examination of your failures. One piece of advice that you think is really important. One of the things that I'm a very big proponent of is making sure you use those opportunities to also find a community. If you can have a community of like-minded people, you can always lean back into them. You can create a support system. Basically, one of the things I say is if you're trying to do something unusual, it's easy

to feel very, very solitary, very lonely in that pursuit. But there's other people. For me, there's other comedians. I live in New York City. There's a lot of artists. I'm lucky. But it's not just comedians. It's filmmakers.

It's musicians. It's a lot of people who are trying to do their own thing in this world. So one of the things I like to say is that when you put something unlikely or unusual out into the world, you send up a signal flare and it attracts the other people of that mindset to you. And even if it fails, they'll start to see it. They'll start to see the effort. And if you keep your eyes peeled and you start looking to support other people in your sphere of influence, whether that's in real life or it's online or whatever it is, if you're looking for the other people who are

outliers in the same way you are, start to be able to build a little network. And that becomes a real source of strength. And when you strike out that first time, now you have someone else to lean on, somebody else to bounce your ideas off of, someone else to give you advice, someone who can even just help you lick your wounds in a basic way. And finding that tribe of people and building that community, I think that's immensely important. Well, I think your message about failure is right on target. And I really like the way you have used failure to basically guide your journey and not let it derail you.

Chris Gethard has been my guest. He is a stand-up comedian. He is host of the podcast Beautiful Stories from Anonymous People and his new book just out called Lose Well. There's a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks, Chris. Thanks a lot. One of the concerns with fresh produce is pesticides and bacteria. And you've probably wondered at some point, how much good am I really doing when I rinse these grapes under running water for a little bit? How much pesticide or bacteria really gets washed away? Probably not much, according to researchers at Tennessee State University. They say you need to rinse produce for 30 to 60 seconds, which to most of us seems like a ridiculously long time. But that is what

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and reviews are always appreciated. In fact, they're encouraged. And you can leave one on any platform. Wherever you listen, there's usually a place to leave a rating and review. 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. 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

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