Something You Should Know - The Awesome Life and Contributions of Albert Einstein & How Ambitious Are You

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Starting point is 00:00:27 Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, what's the best seat on an airplane? The answer's a little more complicated than you might think. Then, how Albert Einstein changed our lives and what a life he led. I like to look at him as the first modern day celebrity. He was the Brad Pitt, the Kardashians, you know, all rolled into one. And again, if you walk up to a 10 year old or a 50 year old or an 80 year old, you say, you know, who's the first intelligent person that comes to mind?

Starting point is 00:00:58 Everyone's going to say Einstein. Also, would you guess women with blonde hair make more money or less money than everyone else? And a reimagined way to look at personal ambition. We really need to expand our ideas of what ambition can be. You can certainly be ambitious about work, but I think when we get more imaginative about what ambition can be, we can apply that same kind of care, drive, and vision to other aspects of our lives. All this today on Something You Should Know. This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines.

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Starting point is 00:02:17 In the summertime, a lot of people travel by air and you often hear the conversation about, well, what's the best seat or the worst seat on the airplane? And there's actually no simple answer. In terms of safety, the middle seat in the middle section of the plane is the worst in terms of your risk of dying if the plane crashes. But the risk of the plane crashing is pretty small. In terms of comfort, the back row of the airplane is the worst because, well, a couple reasons. The seats don't recline, you're by the bathrooms, which could be a rather unpleasant experience, and you will be the last off the plane, which might make it stressful if you have a connection to make. In terms of your health, window seats are a problem. The primary reason seems to be that if you're sitting by the window,

Starting point is 00:03:09 you're less likely to get up and walk around because you don't want to disturb the other passengers in your row. But when you sit still for long periods of time, gravity causes your blood to pool in the legs, making it easier for blood clots to form, and that can be a real health problem. And that is something you should know. This is a topic that when I first saw it, I thought, nah, it's not a topic for something you should know. We don't typically do biographical interviews

Starting point is 00:03:41 about famous people, but the more I dug into it, I thought, this is really interesting because it's about Albert Einstein, who, when you think about it, he's like a rock star. I mean, he's been dead a long time and people still reference him in conversation. Kids know who he is. He is like the benchmark for brilliant. When people say about someone, he's a real Einstein, depending on whether they're being sarcastic or not, you know exactly what is meant. Albert Einstein was and is amazingly famous, and I'm sure you can picture his face in your mind.

Starting point is 00:04:20 And there aren't a lot of other scientists or people in general who have achieved that level of sustained fame. So how did this happen? What's so special about Albert Einstein? Well, that turns out to be a great thing to discuss. And here to discuss it is Benjamin Cohen. Benjamin, and this is pretty cool, he manages all of Albert Einstein's social media accounts. He is the voice of Albert Einstein on social media. And he has over 20 million followers.

Starting point is 00:04:52 He's the author of a book called The Einstein Effect, how the world's favorite genius got into our cars, our bathrooms, and our minds. Hi, Benjamin. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hey, Mike. Thanks for having me on. So how did you, I mean, you're a relatively young guy. How did you get apparently into the whole Einstein thing and end up managing his social media account? I was in college and I read a book about Einstein's brain, specifically about when Einstein died in 1955, the pathologist performing the autopsy stole, cracked open Einstein's head and stole Einstein's brain.

Starting point is 00:05:34 And he was doing it not to, you know, he wasn't like Indiana Jones trying to get a relic or anything like that. He was trying to study it to see what made Einstein's brain so special. He didn't get the family's permission and the brain went missing for many, many years. But I was reading that book and I was thinking to myself, how come they didn't teach that in school when we learned about Einstein? Like what else is there about Einstein that people don't know about? And that kind of set me off on a journey to find out as much as I could about Einstein. And so what is it just from your involvement, but step back, what is it that makes him so, I don't know what the word is, but I mean, he's so evergreen. He's so right there. I mean, there's a lot of smart scientists. What makes him so special that he stands out years after his death?

Starting point is 00:06:27 I mean, is he just that much smarter than everybody else? I like to look at him as the first modern day celebrity. He was the Brad Pitt, the Kardashians, you know, all rolled into one, you know, of his era. He was the most famous person on the planet. And I think, you know, many people did not understand, the average Joe did not understand what he was talking about, but he had this sweet, genteel, grandfatherly quality. He always had a pithy quote. And so I think people connected with that. I think he also came to become famous right around the time when you had all these different types of media. You had newspapers and radio and movies were just coming out.

Starting point is 00:07:06 And so he kind of showed up at this intersection of mass media, and he was instantly famous. And like I said, he was the most famous person in the world at that time. And in 1999, when Time magazine was deciding who to make their person of the century, they picked Albert Einstein einstein you know over gandhi or princess diana or the beatles or martin luther king or any of those people was his fame deliberate was he trying to be famous or was he just so whatever that is that he became

Starting point is 00:07:39 famous he hated fame uh he did not like you know to parties. He did not like social graces. He used to walk around Princeton in his pajamas. But he did understand that he could use his fame to promote the ideals that he believed in. He took advantage of that in a positive way, and he became a really big humanitarian. For example, when he fled Germany in 1933 as the Nazis rose to power, he came to the United States and he created an organization called the International Rescue Committee, which is a refugee resettlement organization. It's still around today. It's one of the largest refugee resettlement organizations around today. It's helping Ukrainian refugees today. And that's a huge part of his legacy.

Starting point is 00:08:30 He was very involved in the civil rights movement. He didn't understand, you know, he had left a place in Germany, you know, in the beginning of World War II where people were othered and people were discriminated against. And he came to America and he couldn't believe discrimination was going on here as well, a different kind of discrimination. So he just felt it was a personal mission of his to fight discrimination wherever he saw it. And so he, like I said, he was very active in the civil rights movement. He spoke at Lincoln University, which was the first university to give degrees to black students. He spoke there at the commencement ceremonies. He even paid for one of the students' tuition. He just really wanted to do whatever he could to help. Was he rich? Not at all, no. As a matter of fact, funny story,

Starting point is 00:09:14 he made some money from the Nobel Prize that he won in 1921, but he had gotten divorced a few years earlier from his first wife, Mileva. As part of the divorce agreement, she knew this was before he won the prize, she knew that one day he would win the Nobel Prize. As part of the divorce settlement, she asked for all the money that he would win from the Nobel Prize. He had to pay her all that money. He wasn't a poor person, but he was certainly not rich.

Starting point is 00:09:42 You could drive by, if you're ever in Princeton, his house, which is about a mile from Princeton University. It's a pretty small, very modest house. So he was not a wealthy man at all. So we know Einstein for his theory of relativity. But what else, in just kind of a shopping list, like what are the other contributions that Einstein made? My favorite example of this is GPS. So we use GPS in our cars and our phones, you know, getting directions places all the time. You know, if you think about the next time you have a pizza, the pizza delivery guy comes to

Starting point is 00:10:18 your house, he found your house because of GPS and the whole, without getting into the science of it, namely because I'm not a scientist, but the way GPS works is, you know, you're moving, your car's moving, the earth is rotating, and the satellites in space are moving constantly. All three of those things are constantly in motion. And Einstein's theory of relativity came up with the mathematical equation to have all those things work in unison. So you could say that, you know, the satellite's here, the Earth is here, and you're driving down the street. We know exactly where you're going to be five seconds from now, 10 seconds from now, 20 seconds from now.

Starting point is 00:10:53 And so that's all because of Einstein. What else in popular culture is he responsible for or had a part in? He had in 1905, he was just 26 years old. He probably had, he peaked early. He had his most prolific year ever in 1905 at the age of 26. The historians simply call it Einstein's miracle year. And during that year, he wrote four revolutionary papers that just kind of technologies came about. So lasers were invented because of those papers. Remote controls stem from Einstein's miracle year. When you walk into a grocery store and the doors automatically open up, again, without going into all the science, it has to do with light and a beam of light. And a beam of light sees you walking and it opens the doors. Einstein came up with that idea. Einstein's theories can be seen in the stock market, in weather predictions, in chemical compounds like shampoo in your bathroom. He's really everywhere. My goal is kind of to show people that he's there.

Starting point is 00:12:05 But don't you think somebody else would have figured out the grocery store door thing if he hadn't? I mean, it doesn't seem like it takes an Einstein to come up with that. Yeah, well, that's actually what he won the Nobel Prize for. Really? Yeah, it was not for the theory of relativity. It was not for E equals MC squared. It was because of his light theories, which I mean, his light theories are in space travel. They're everywhere, his light theory. So I think that Nobel Prize is probably well deserved. Einstein's work, is it because he was trying to invent things for the world or he was just doing his science and his research and his teaching and it was a

Starting point is 00:12:51 result of that work that somebody else then invented this stuff? I would say the latter. He was a theoretical physicist so he came up with a lot of ideas. He wasn't the type of physicist like you know wearing a lab coat and you know with beakers and you know actually coming up with things from practical perspective. He came up with the ideas and then people took those ideas and turned them into practical things. He did, however, patent several inventions during his lifetime. He came up with a refrigerator that did not need to be plugged in. I guess you can call it the first eco-friendly refrigerator. He came up with a very, he has a patent. I mean, I don't know if I'd call this a technology

Starting point is 00:13:28 invention, but he has a patent for an expandable shirt so that, you know, when you eat dinner, like after Thanksgiving dinner, you're feeling kind of heavy, the shirt would expand. And so he has a patent on that shirt. See, now, if you gave me a list of things that Einstein invented and that was on there and it said pick one that didn't belong, that would be the one that didn't. I mean, that doesn't sound like an Einstein thing. No, not at all. But, you know, he is everywhere. And like you were mentioning earlier, it's not just science.

Starting point is 00:14:01 I mean, he has been such an inspiration to people across industries you look I'll interviewed a bunch of actors and artists who look at Einstein as their muse you know there's been so he's appeared in pop culture he's been in you know movies he's been in TV shows he's been in books you know you don't see that with Galileo or you know Shakespeare you know he just has that shouldn't say qua I don't see that with Galileo or, you know, Shakespeare. You know, he just has that je ne sais quoi. I don't know. You know, he has that everyone wants to, everyone can relate to him on some level, you know, even if you're not a scientist.

Starting point is 00:14:32 And again, if you walk up to a, you know, a fifth grader, you know, a 10-year-old or a 50-year-old or an 80-year-old, you say, you know, who's the first genius? Who's the first intelligent person that comes to mind? Everyone's going to say Einstein. We're discussing the life, career, and contributions of Albert Einstein with Benjamin Cohen. He is the manager of Albert Einstein's social media accounts and author of the book, The Einstein Effect. Metrolinx and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals.

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Starting point is 00:15:44 We've got the financial tools to help make it happen. So, Benjamin, it's that je ne sais quoi you were talking about that I, like I said, there's a lot of really smart scientist. And yeah, maybe he was a little smarter than, but he's like this rock star. And I don't understand just exactly what that je ne sais quoi is. And maybe that's why we're calling it a je ne sais quoi. Exactly. So my job is I am the official manager of Einstein's official social media accounts. So he has 20 million fans across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. He's probably the most active dead celebrity on social media. You know John Wayne is on Twitter but he really doesn't have much to say. You know Elvis is on Twitter, Marilyn Monroe is on Twitter, but none of these people have as many followers as Einstein. Einstein has

Starting point is 00:16:44 more Facebook fans than Tom Hanks and I think think it's, you know, it is a Shenezei quad. It's like, you know, why does he have 20 million followers and Elvis doesn't, you know, or Galileo doesn't, or Newton or Tesla or any of these famous scientists. People relate to him. I imagine, like other dead celebrities, his stuff must be very valuable. There's a large market for Einstein relics at auction houses. So, you know, Einstein's pipe goes up for auction at Sotheby's. A couple of years ago, the largest Einstein auction happened in Paris. It was over $11 million.

Starting point is 00:17:21 It was 20 pages of his scribbling about the general theory of relativity went for over eleven million dollars well anyway so I was yeah so I was writing a lot of stories about Einstein and the Einstein archives are located at most people really closely associate Einstein with Princeton University which is where he spent the you know spent most of his career but he was a founder most of his career. But he was a founder, most people don't know this, he was a founder of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He was one of the founders of that school. And he wanted to bequeath his estate to them when he died. So all of his papers, everything is at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. And the archives, they have 85,000

Starting point is 00:18:04 documents there. They have his original, they have the Nobel Prize in Jerusalem. And the archives, they have 85,000 documents there. They have his original, they have the Nobel Prize there. They have the original 46 pages of the theory of relativity. There's a grease stain on page 45, I can tell you. But it's run by academics, the archives. They're not really into social media. And so they were looking to hire someone who could post several times a day stories about Einstein. And so they saw I was writing all these articles and they offered me the gig. And so I've

Starting point is 00:18:31 been doing that for the past five, six years. I have been doing that. And just to circle back a full circle moment, this all started with me reading about Einstein's brain. For my book, I wanted to find out where the brain was. So as I mentioned, the pathologist stole the brain and he cut it up into little pieces and was sending little pieces to brain scientists all around the world. But he kept most of the pieces in mason jars and they were like, you know, in his basement in a beer cooler for decades. And he died in 2007 and nobody knew where the beer cooler was with einstein's brain in it but i was able to track it down another doctor in princeton has it now and i got

Starting point is 00:19:11 to hold it in my hand this jar of einstein's brain and you know it was a real spiritual experience for me holding that brain you know it's not just okay here's the last physical vestige of Albert Einstein, which in itself is kind of amazing, but it's what his brain represents. So he became famous, but was his fame gradual or was there some moment in time where all of a sudden the spotlight went on and everybody said, you know, look at this guy? Absolutely. So the day he became famous, I like to say the day he became immortal was May 29th, 1919. Nobody knew who Einstein was before May 29th, 1919. I mean, nobody outside Germany knew who Einstein was before May 29th, 1919. So he had come up with this general theory of relativity, which basically, you know, several hundred years before him, Newton had come up with how the world worked. Everyone just believed that's the way the world worked. And then several hundred years later, Einstein comes along and says, nope, I have a

Starting point is 00:20:10 completely different framework of how the universe operates. And that was his theory of relativity. And nobody believed him. He couldn't prove it. He came up with it, 1916, I think. Nobody believed him. And the only way to prove that the theory of relativity worked, again, without going into all the science, was to photograph a solar eclipse. And during a solar eclipse, the stars and the sun are aligned just in a certain way that would prove his theory. So he sent out, he had astronomers helping him all over the world. There was a team expedition in Brazil and there was an expedition in Africa, off the coast of Western Africa, that photographed this. It was the longest eclipse of the 20th century. It was over six minutes long and they took all these photographs. And those photographs

Starting point is 00:20:56 proved the theory of relativity. And so they had this big press conference in London and they made this announcement and people were so surprised they were not expecting it. The New York Times sent their golf reporter to cover the event. But the next day it was on the front page of the New York Times. Einstein, you know, I think the headline was Einstein triumphs. And ever since then he became this international rock star. Was he a nice guy? Yeah, he was. I think he was a very empathic guy, very empathetic. He was the typical, like we imagine, absent-minded professor. He was always losing his keys. You know, he would walk into a room and, you know, forget what he was doing. He got lost all the

Starting point is 00:21:37 time. You know, we talked about GPS. The irony is Einstein had a horrible sense of direction. He never got his driver's license. He used to love sailing. That was the most peaceful time for him was just to be out on the water by himself. And he always got lost. And people had to help bring his boat back to shore because he couldn't he couldn't figure out directions. You mentioned a couple of times that the person who did the autopsy on Einstein took his brain. Well, how did he not get in trouble for that? How did the family not scream, wait, you can't take his brain?

Starting point is 00:22:12 Yeah, so he told the family afterwards, a few days later. That was nice. And they were furious because Einstein did not want to be buried anywhere. He wanted to be cremated. And because he didn't want his gravesite to become this shrine that people would worship him at, he was cremated the very next day after he died, and then the family found out, oh by the way, we have his brain here, and they were very upset and they tried to get it back, and the doctor begrudgingly convinced them to let him keep the brain and study it and but just the doctor he

Starting point is 00:22:45 was a pathologist and he wasn't really a brain researcher and so he didn't know what to do with it and so it just kind of sat there on his shelf for years and years and years and it wasn't until the 1990s the late 1990s that he actually got pieces of the brain into scientists who figured you know who could actually do serious research on it at At that point, the executor of Einstein Estate had died already at that point. But this doctor, like I said, he died in 2007. He died feeling like he accomplished what he was trying to do, because he felt vindicated because some scientists did see that Einstein's brain was unique. Well, he has become, I guess he's always been since he's been around,

Starting point is 00:23:23 this part of our culture, part of the vernacular. When you call somebody an Einstein, people know what you're talking about. The dog in Back to the Future's name was Einstein. Yeah, and speaking of that movie, Christopher Lloyd, who played Doc Brown, told me, because I interviewed him for the book as well, he told me that that character of Doc Brown was inspired by Einstein. And that goes back to what we were saying earlier. It's not just scientists who are inspired by Einstein, but it's pop culture depictions of Einstein inspire people as well.

Starting point is 00:23:54 Well, right. You look at Doc Brown from Back to the Future, the hair, the white hair, the crazy hair. I mean, he wasn't trying to hide the fact that he was, and his dog's named Einstein. I mean, he wasn't trying to hide the fact that he was and his dog's named Einstein. I mean, hello. Yeah, like I said, Christopher Lloyd said Einstein was his template for that character. And he also told me that that's the one character of all the movies he's been in. You know, people come up to him and say it was an inspiration.

Starting point is 00:24:19 You know, I decided to become a scientist because of your character in that movie. Well, what a great story. And clearly it appeals and resonates with an awful lot of people. You've got 20 million social media followers. I mean, that's just amazing. I've been speaking with Benjamin Cohen. He is the manager of Albert Einstein's social media accounts. And he's author of the book, The Einstein Effect,

Starting point is 00:24:44 How the World's Favorite Genius Got Into Our Cars, Our Bathrooms, and Our Minds. There's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks for coming on, Benjamin. Absolutely. I've been looking forward to this for a few weeks. Thank you so much. 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. You can now make the first move or not.

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Starting point is 00:25:53 Visit BetterHelp.com to learn more. That's BetterHelp.com. If there is one word in the English language that seems pretty straightforward, not controversial, even admirable, it's the word ambition. Having ambition is a good thing. It is the need to achieve. We're taught to be ambitious. We want our kids to be ambitious. But perhaps there is another side to ambition that we don't talk about much.

Starting point is 00:26:23 And here to discuss that is Rainsford Stauffer. She is a journalist and speaker and author of a book called All the Gold Stars, Reimagining Ambition and the Way We Strive. Hi, Rainsford. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hi there. Thank you so much for having me. So you talk about our productivity culture, which I sense I know what that means, that we work to be productive, that that productivity brings success, which in many ways feels very natural, almost human nature. If you want to get ahead and be successful, you have to work hard, be ambitious. That seems to be the way it is. That's the way it has been.

Starting point is 00:27:04 So how do you see it? When I think of this, the first thing that comes to mind is the idea that we are supposed to work our way into worthiness, that through how hard we work, the achievements we lock down, and our outputs, we prove that we're worthy of rest, of fun, of the space we take up, and how we spend our time is connected to self-worth in the sense that the more productive we are, the better we are. And we see this in all kinds of ways, but it happens earlier than we realize. The connection to achieve and connection between what you produce and how you feel about yourself starts early. For a lot of us, it starts when we're children.

Starting point is 00:27:45 When you think of gold star stickers in school, kids needing to be the best at a dozen activities and excel in the classroom, which of course puts pressure on parents too. And then that transitions to higher education. If you pursue it, it transitions to work and it spills out. And coupled with a society that tells us always being on is the best thing

Starting point is 00:28:06 we can do, slowing down feels unrealistic, if not impossible. And I think the hard part about that is it's a really broken idea of what it means to be productive. When we zoom out, that's a really narrow framing of what productivity can mean. Because taking care of yourself is productive, spending time with your loved ones is productive, Getting better at a hobby that matters to you, also productive. But those things are seen as extras or luxuries after we've worked our way into them first. What would be ideal then? What is it that you're proposing that's different than the way things are? What are you suggesting that there's a better way? A couple things here. I think if we're going to support people's ambition, that means giving them

Starting point is 00:28:51 the resources and support necessary to pursue their ambitions on their own terms. I think relatedly, we really need to expand our ideas of what ambition can be. You can certainly be ambitious about work. I'm ambitious about mine. But I think when we zoom out and we get more imaginative about what ambition can be and what that can look like, whether that's spending time with your loved ones, whether it's practicing a hobby,

Starting point is 00:29:17 whether it's getting ambitious about serving your community, we can apply that same kind of care, intention, drive, and vision to other aspects of our lives and make it more robust as a result. But what if you don't want to? What if, because I can remember that when I had my first job and it was in the radio business and I loved it and I lived it, breathed it, ate it, slept it. I, there was nothing else I wanted to do. I loved it. What's wrong with that? I think if it I loved it. What's wrong with that?

Starting point is 00:29:51 I think if it worked for you, nothing's wrong with that. I think what I've seen play out in my reporting is that a lot of a narrow idea of success and what it means to be ambitious within those confines isn't working for a lot of people. And I think what comes through is that there's not a one-size- size fits all definition of any of these things, of what it means to be ambitious, of what it means to be productive. I think if someone wants to pour their whole heart and their whole identity and their whole self into work, then that's a valid choice if it feels right for them. I also don't think that should be the expectation for all of us. And I think that by broadening our idea of what it means to be ambitious, we give people the space to make that choice for themselves.

Starting point is 00:30:29 You really think that there is this expectation that everybody excel in everything? Who sets that expectation? I think our society says that expectation is for everyone. I think we have a lot of specific and defined archetypes of what it means to be successful and timelines on which to do it. I think it looks like being a star student and a star at your extracurricular and knowing exactly what you want to major in when you go to college and graduating in four years. I think it looks like entering one career path and going up that career ladder with very little exploration along the way. And that's certainly

Starting point is 00:31:11 not to say everyone does that, but I do think that that remains the stereotype of what it means to be successful. And I think that that not only overlooks the structural components and barriers along the way, but again, I think it limits our ideas of how we discover new passions, discover new things we're good at. I think it strips away an element of curiosity that, in my opinion, is really important for ambition. It sounds though, like if you want to get into, let's say, a really prestigious college, you have got to work like crazy to get your grades up, to do all the ducks in a row that you need to get into that college. If you don't, if you say, well, you know, I have other things I need to pursue and I need to do these other things,

Starting point is 00:31:59 you're not going to get in because you're not doing what you need to do because those are the requirements to get in. No, I don't disagree with that at all. But I would argue the idea of a really prestigious college varies based on the needs of a student. You know, for myself, I wasn't as concerned about the reputation of the school I attended as I was the other parts of my life that were happening at the time, the job that I had, the needs that I had, the realities of working while I was in school, all factored into my college choice. I think that the broader point there is that when we think of ambition only as working hard in one specific way, in my opinion, we just lose out on a lot. For a lot of people,

Starting point is 00:32:45 ambition absolutely looks like committing themselves to following a dream in academia or in work or in these things that are considered traditionally successful. And I think that for a lot of people, ambition looks like something else and that both are valid. It sounds like what you're offering is basically an invitation to get out of the rat race, to step off the treadmill, that there are other ways to go if you're feeling stuck in that. But if you are stuck in that, how do you do this? How do you move from the more traditional, conventional definition of ambition to your definition of ambition, how do you make that transition? That's a great question. Because a lot of our systems uphold one

Starting point is 00:33:33 idea of achievement, it does feel very much like stepping off the wheel or kind of going against the grain to do something a certain way. But when I spoke to people, I heard of a couple key things. Number one, instead of separating things out, like thinking, well, I'm going to work less, I'm going to do less, something that I thought was really interesting was how many people talked about adding things in, that when they prioritized friendship and fun and hobbies and these things that we think of as kind of being on the sidelines of our lives, as being extras or afterthoughts, by centering them, it made them feel much more fulfilled, much more engaged, and more productive in those spaces. I think number two, setting your own idea

Starting point is 00:34:17 of milestones is really important because we have quite the social script that tells us what it looks like to achieve something and when we ought to achieve it. I would encourage people to step back and think of what matters to them in terms of the future of their lives. And that might very well be something like graduating college or a big achievement at work, but it can also be a lot smaller. And making time to pause and celebrate those smaller wins goes a long way in terms of not just rethinking your ambition, but also making sure that you feel sustained and supported along the way, which fires you up to whatever you're pursuing. Keep going on your own timeline. What if you want to do something, though, that requires the more conventional ambition? You want to be a doctor.

Starting point is 00:35:04 You've got to go to medical school. You've got to, you know, you're going to be working pretty hard. You're not going to be having a lot of time for friends and hobbies because that's what it takes to become a doctor. You can't say, well, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to reprioritize this and not go to class this week. And you can't do that. No, but I also don't think anyone's being asked

Starting point is 00:35:25 to. I think it goes back to the idea that we have different needs at different points of our lives. And especially if you're in a career that's intensive, like you're in the medical profession, there's undoubtedly going to be points of life where your work gets the most of you. It gets the most time. It gets the most energy. I think that thinking consciously about those trade-offs is really important. I even think it's important from a work perspective. So you know why you're putting in all that effort and why it matters to you so much. But I have to say, I also spoke to people in the medical profession and they talked a lot about how having things like hobbies or other outlets or staying in the moment and focusing

Starting point is 00:36:05 on what they're doing as they're doing it did actually help them. And again, I'm sure this looks a little bit different for everyone, but I don't think that the solution is don't work hard or don't do what you need to do, especially in a career that matters to you or in something you're passionate about. I think it's about giving more people the opportunity to do those things. But you can understand, though, that when I hear you talk, it does sound like you're telling people not to work so hard. I'm sure that's how some people will read it. I have absolutely no doubt. I don't think that's what came through in the conversations I had with people. When I think about some of the individuals I spoke to, the idea of them not working hard, of them not caring, of them not being invested really does seem laughable. But I also am of the opinion that people should not have to work so impossibly hard and overwork more specifically in order to live a safe and fulfilled life. This all begins, you know, it seems to begin in school where you have

Starting point is 00:37:13 to be somewhat competitive. You have to, you know, get good grades on your papers and do well on tests that you need. So you have to be ambitious to be at the top of your class. And so it seems like it starts there and that kind of sets the tone for the rest of your life. word ambitious, especially when thinking about children. But I also think that there's a lot to be said for not every student is going to be at the top of the class. That's not possible or there wouldn't be a top of the class. So I wonder a lot about how it would look if it was focused more on every student being able to foster what they're interested in, how they invest their time and knowledge and how those skills play out and putting them in environments where that's really supported and encouraged and teachers are compensated accordingly, which kind of takes the competitiveness out of it, but removes none of the hard work or discipline required to practice something and be

Starting point is 00:38:21 good at it. I like that. I mean, I get that. That's important. And I think that the undercurrent of all of this or a lot of this is if you're not ambitious, if you don't work hard, if you don't focus on that, that you will suffer, that you won't have the money, you won't have the prestige in life, that there's a momentum underneath all of this that's pushing people, I guess, out of fear. I think a lot of it is fear and the idea that we can work our way into safety and security, which is just fundamentally not true for a lot of people. And I think that work harder is presented as the solution in a lot of different directions. If you're working a job that's abusive or underpays you, you're supposed to work harder to find a different job. If you're

Starting point is 00:39:09 working a job you like, but maybe you're a little burnt out or you don't know what to do next, you're supposed to work harder in order to prove yourself long enough to get to take a rest. And I think that when we kind of zoom out and think about what that does, it's not so much about hard work as it is about people trying to hang on. And when I think about the ideas that we lose out on, the things that we miss from people in terms of their talents and their gifts and the things they share with the world, that's what I think of when I think of the idea that we can accomplish or achieve our way into security. We've seen time and time again that play out in society is completely untrue and for a lot of us, completely impossible. And so again, if more people had access to resources, benefits like

Starting point is 00:39:59 time off, they'd have more opportunities to be ambitious about more things. I like what you're saying because for myself, I have always been ambitious in the more traditional sense. And I know that you always have this thing in the back of your mind that if you don't, someone's going to overtake you. Someone's like, you've got to stay focused. And I think that's the way a lot of people are that, you know, work first. And then if there's time for everything else. I do think that that's a really common mentality. And look, if that works for someone, if that genuinely fulfills them, I think that they should have every opportunity to pursue it in that direction. I think when I think about this, though, I think that's a really narrow definition of what it means to be successful or what it means to be productive and work hard.

Starting point is 00:40:48 And I'm more interested in how we create spaces for people to think about ambition or chasing their dreams or doing these things that require a lot of drive that are not necessarily inherently connected to work. Yeah, I like that. See, drive is that force that we haven't really talked about, and some people have a lot more of it than others, and I think that helps to, or that's partly responsible for which way you go and how fast you get there, is how driven you are. And see, I think a lot of it depends on structures because I can be

Starting point is 00:41:27 as driven as I want. But if I don't have some sort of support along the way, people helping me getting from point A to point B, I'm not sure drive matters as much. And that's not to say it doesn't matter at all. I think I admire so many people who have such drive and such commitment in how they think about the world. But I also don't think that drive or talent alone are the end-all be-alls in terms of where someone ends up. I think it is a much bigger, broader picture of the context they exist in and the support they have that fosters that drive, that encourages those talents, that opens those doors. I think the context there really matters.

Starting point is 00:42:10 But if you're, say you want to be a guitar player and you don't practice and make it a real focus, you want to develop other things in your life, your friendships, your hobbies and everything else, but you still have to put in the time to become a great guitar player, or you won't become a great guitar player. I think, of course, you have to put in the time and the effort. I think about this in myself in terms of writing. I obviously really wanted to be a writer, and I spent a lot of time practicing that, fostering that skill set, trying to learn as much as I could, which is something I will be trying to do forever. Learn from every conversation, learn as much as I can, and figure out how to practice that in my own writing. But I also think that one of the reasons

Starting point is 00:42:58 that I have been able to write the way I have been is because a lot of people took chances on me. A lot of people were willing to mentor me. They were willing to open doors for me. And so I don't think it was just about how much time and energy and effort I put in. I think that there was a lot of luck and a lot of grace from other people inherent in that. And again, it depends on the individual. I can only speak for myself and the conversations that I had during my reporting. But pouring time into other things, thinking about the world differently because of the conversations I was having in those spaces made me, in my opinion, a better writer and a better thinker than I was before. And so I think a lot of the time, even if you're not going to help

Starting point is 00:44:05 somebody if they don't see that you've got that, whatever that is, that it thing that, you know what I mean? I mean, clearly as a writer, you have something that people recognize and that's a talent they were willing to help you foster. And I think I'll always be grateful to them for helping me foster that. I think the question that kind of preoccupies a lot of my time is, what does it mean for someone to have potential and who got the opportunity to develop it? Because I don't think that I just was born on this earth with a specific skill set. I think that a lot of my time and energy went into it for sure. But I also think that I was in a position where I had people who encouraged me to be curious, who encouraged me to

Starting point is 00:44:50 keep trying even when I failed in really spectacular ways. And not everyone has that. Our systems are not set up for everyone to have that. So I think that we lose out on the potential of a lot of spectacularly talented people in a lot of different fields because of lack of access, lack of resources and lack of support. So let me ask you to sum this up, because you're really kind of reimagining the concept of ambition for many of us. And so what is that vision? What is it that you see ambition to be? To me, reimagining ambition looks like getting more ambitious about more things. I think it looks like investing in your community, your friendships, your colleagues, the people around you with the same sense of drive and care as you would a work accomplishment. I think that that can look as simple as putting a standing

Starting point is 00:45:45 check-in call with a friend on your calendar every week. I think it can look like reaching out to people to let them know how much you love their work or something that you're really grateful for that they've done for you in your life. I think it looks like practicing a hobby, doing something beyond work that's interesting. And in terms of work, I think it also looks like broadening what it means to be ambitious about that. How can we move beyond just our individual accomplishments and make work more collective and open doors for more people? Well, this is certainly a different and fresh way of looking at ambition. And it kind of opens up a lot of opportunities. So I appreciate you coming on.

Starting point is 00:46:26 Rainsford Stauffer has been my guest. She's a journalist and speaker, and the name of her book is All the Gold Stars, Reimagining Ambition and the Way We Strive. And there is a link to that book in the show notes. Appreciate it. Thank you for coming, Rainsford.

Starting point is 00:46:41 Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Is it true blondes have more fun? Maybe. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. that survey. Blondes equaled other women on test scores and education. Blondes had the highest percentage of college degrees and master's diplomas. Blondes' wages were 7% higher. And blondes' spouses earned 6% more than other husbands. Brunettes scored the highest on self-esteem, and they reported feeling the most respected at work. Redheads had the most drive and logged the most on-the-job hours. And that is something you should know. There are two things you can do to help support this podcast.

Starting point is 00:47:37 One is to do business with our advertisers. They're great advertisers, they have great products, and if what they're selling sounds good to you, I hope you'll buy them. And secondly, tell someone about this podcast to help grow our audience. If everyone would tell one person, we would have a lot of new listeners. 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.

Starting point is 00:48:22 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 Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Contained herein are the heresies of Rudolf Buntwine, 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

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