TED Talks Daily - The art of vulnerability and connection with comedian Mae Martin | ReThinking with Adam Grant

Episode Date: April 12, 2025

Mae Martin is a comedian, improviser, screenwriter, and podcast host. Their work on Netflix includes the stand-up special “Sap” and the aptly-named TV series “Feel Good.” Adam and Mae chat about the value of vulnerability in connection, snapping out of procrastination, shame spirals, and life lessons from the art of improvisation. Transcripts for ReThinking are available at go.ted.com/RWAGscripts  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Use promo code TEDtalks at checkout to get your first month free. Support for this episode comes from Airbnb. I travel a lot for work and I try to mix some business in with pleasure. In fact, I'm heading to our TED conferences in Vancouver in April, so I've been on the hunt for special things to do. Did you know Vancouver loves its food trucks? I've already pinned some spots for fantastic fish tacos and delicious pork buns. Food trucks are best to try lots of things when I'm always on the go, and when I'm away my home just sits empty. But what if it didn't?

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Ready to approach your finances with a fresh perspective? Learn more at edwardjones.ca. Money's a thing, but it's not everything. Hey, TED Talks daily listeners. I'm Elise Hue. Today we have an episode of another podcast from the TED Audio Collective handpicked by us for you. Organizational psychologist Adam Grant is one of our most popular TED speakers. In his podcast, Rethinking, he talks to some of the world's greatest scientists, entrepreneurs, and creatives

to learn about how they think. In this episode, Adam sits down with comedian May Martin, who's known for their stand-up comedy special, S.A.P., and TV series, Feel Good. They talk about the awkwardness of human interaction, the incredibly revealing nature of improv, and how to cope with shame and procrastination. It's a fun and thoughtful discussion.

You can find more rethinking wherever you get your podcasts and learn about the TED Audio Collective at audiocollective.ted.com. Now on to the episode right after a quick break. Support for this show comes from Airbnb. Last summer, my family and I had an amazing Airbnb stay while adventuring in Playa del Carmen. It was so much fun to bounce around in ATVs, explore cool caves, and snorkel in subterranean rivers. Vacations like these are never long enough, but perhaps I could take advantage of my empty home by hosting it on Airbnb while I'm away. And then I could use the extra income to stay a few more days on my next Mexico trip.

It seems like a smart thing to do since my house sits empty while I'm away. We could zipline into even more cenotes on our next visit to Mexico. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host. I used to say, I just feel stuck. Stuck where I don't want to be. Stuck trying to get to where I really need to be. But then I discovered lifelong learning.

Learning that gave me the skills to move up, move beyond, gain that edge, drive my curiosity, prepare me for what is inevitably next. The University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, lifelong learning to stay forever unstuck. The idea is the most important thing and then the laughs come. I often have an idea I want to convey or a moment for my life that I'm remembering and then I just have to like trust that the adrenaline will result in some kind of punchline and just start talking about it. Hey everyone, it's Adam Grant. Welcome back to Rethinking, my podcast on the science of what makes us tick with the TED Audio Collective.

I'm an organizational psychologist, and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking. My guest today is Mae Martin, comedian, actor, and screenwriter. Mae's 2023 Netflix special, Sap, was a finalist for Canadian Comedy Album of the Year. Along with making me laugh, it made me think differently about identity and relationships. May is also an improv master, having performed for years at Second City.

I know it's weird because it's such a me, me, me thing, but if you can not think of it like that and really connect with the audience and think this is for them and not really about me and I'm having fun and then that's when you get to this magical flow state. May co-host the podcast, Handsome, co-wrote and starred in the comedy series, Feel Good, and had a major role in the flight attendant on HBO Max.

Today we're skipping the small talk and getting right into the art of connection and how a little vulnerability often goes a long way. Hey, Mae. Hey, Adam. I just thought it'd be fascinating to get in your head a little bit and learn from how you think and what you can get some of the rest of us to rethink.

Oh, great. Yeah, I feel like I could learn from you as well. I'll can get some of the rest of us to rethink. Oh, great. Yeah, I feel like I could learn from you as well. I'll take some piece of wisdom away, I think. I think wisdom's a high bar, but maybe an inkling is reasonable. It's like therapy or something, like when you're asked about yourself and talking about yourself,

do you find yourself saying things that you weren't aware that you thought? There's a psychologist, Jamie Pennebaker, who calls that the joy of talking. And I love this line where he said, most of us find that communicating our thoughts is a supremely enjoyable learning experience. That's great. Yeah.

And I do a lot of improv, which is like the geekiest art form of all. And I stopped doing it for a while. I started doing improv comedy in my teens. And then I don't know, I got too I started doing improv comedy in my teens. And then I don't know, I got too earnest and kind of up my own butt. And so I stopped doing it for a long time. I think I got inhibited.

And then recently in the past five years, I've been doing a lot of improv and I find it very zen. You get into a kind of flow state and even vocabulary I didn't even know I had is just coming out of my mouth. It's really difficult to try and be intellectual or you're accessing like a different part of you. So maybe it's a similar thing. I think my favorite part of your Netflix special was the snow globe. We're little like experience hunters collecting these to put them on our brain shelves and

be like, I'm me. And I always visualize every experience that we collect is like a little novelty snow globe, you know, and we're just going around being like, one time I saw Antonio Banderas at the airport. Yes, I did, and myself, and no one else is me. All human interaction is just basically taking turns showing each other our snow globes and being like, and someone will be showing you their snow globe, and you're trying to be a good listener. It's like a story about a party they went to five years ago and you're like, yes, and you're like, and you are you as well.

But the whole time, your eyes are just darting to your own shelf. No, and yes, waiting for your moment to be like, and me as well. I have one. It was hilarious, but it was also profound. I can't tell you how many times I've been in a conversation with someone and I'm like, wait, this person is trying to show me their snow globe.

And it's changed my approach to the interaction completely in ways that you could probably anticipate. But how did you land at that? Like, tell me the backstory. When I'm writing standup, I start by improvising. On stage, I'll have like a vague idea. I remember having some idea about when you start in school, everybody asks, what's your favorite color

and what's your favorite animal? And how grateful you are to grasp onto something concrete about yourself. You're like, my favorite animal is a penguin and my favorite color is purple and I know myself and that's me and I know who I am. And then coming out of the pandemic, I was noticing

how insane small talk is and how awkward we all were trying to reconnect with people after that period. And then trying to listen more and not just be thinking of my response while someone else is talking or just waiting for my moment to get in there and tell my anecdote. Because I really noticed, I mean, especially dating, like when I was single and going on a lot of first dates, it's like, oh my God, there are some people just with a script and who don't ask a single question about you. And then I started saying, like, on dates, I would say, do you have any questions for me?

Like, because I was doing all the heavy lifting. It does make me think that a lot of adults are just living their lives as if they're in kindergarten show and tell. Yeah, collecting experiences and not really being present for them. I saw Elton John performing and I'd say 85% of people were watching him through their phones filming it. And it just felt like, oh, you're just collecting your little nugget that you can show.

And I get existential about being present and that kind of thing. I was actually just reading this research on what people do when they write dating profiles, where it turns out that most people just try to express themselves. But other people were much more attracted to the person who showed an interest in understanding them. A standard profile line was, I'm looking

for someone who will always have my back. But people wanted to date the person who wrote, and I will always have your back. Yes, that's totally, of course, that's more attractive, yeah. But why don't we realize this? Of course we want someone who's interested more than interesting. Of course we want someone who's gonna understand us, not just wants to be understood. And yet we fail to use that

knowledge not just in dating but in everyday interaction. I'm living with a five-year-old a lot of the time now which is a really new experience for me. Like half the time I've got this five-year-old roommate who is my girlfriend's daughter and it's amazing. It really does unlock sort of pockets of curiosity. Like, because it just can't be about you anymore. If we could practice the same sort of empathy and curiosity that we show toddlers with each other, I think that would be good.

I like that idea. And it speaks to something that I've been grappling with around this whole idea of, on the one hand, we want people to express themselves. On the other hand, there's a fine line between self-expression and what sociologists call conversational narcissism, where you're telling me something really important and personal, and maybe you just went through a terrible experience of loss and you're telling me something really important and personal. And maybe you just went through a terrible experience of loss and you're describing your grief. And I'm like, yeah, I totally know how you feel.

My cat threw up yesterday. It was really hard. Yes, exactly. And that happens so much. We're really bad at listening a lot of the time. Do you have an antidote to that problem? I mean, my job is conversational narcissism because I'm standing doing a soliloquy on stage with no one to challenge my opinion. I'm just holding a microphone and talking.

But luckily, I think in my personal life, I've always had enough self-loathing that I overcompensate by just sort of asking people questions and being interested in them. You mentioned just noticing all the struggles people were having with Small Talk. Full disclosure, I've always hated Small Talk. Oh, it's the worst.

It feels like such a waste of time to me. I'm like, I wanna go right to a deep conversation when I meet someone and get to know them and learn something and have an aha moment. But a lot of people cannot handle that at all. I know, or they make a comment about it. They're like, whoa, we're getting deep fast. And you're like, yeah, we're gonna be dead soon.

We gotta get to the bottom of things. Is time linear, do you think? I wanna know what's your trauma. I want it all, yeah. I don't know that I want the trauma, but I want everything else. Oh, okay, okay. Even just the what do you do question.

I wanna ask what do you love to do? And then hear about your passions and soak those up. And I find it so strange that people think that's uncomfortable. Why would you not want to share things that you care about? I want the trauma too. And it doesn't make me uncomfortable. I'm okay with trauma dumping because it's like, I feel like a lot of that stuff is right under the surface with people anyway.

It's like skin deep, just bubbling up in their eyeballs. So let's get it out of the way and then we can move forward. I think people just wanna be heard though. I don't think they need help. I find it so annoying when people are immediately offering solutions when you're like, no, no, no, trust me, I've thought of that.

And it's just, yeah. Well, this is a difference between us, May Martin, because I would never tell you a problem unless I wanted you to help me solve it. I cannot imagine wanting sympathy instead of a solution. I don't think it's sympathy. It's like an understanding of who the other person is. I think that's at the root of a lot of what I do

is like, I want to be understood and seen for who I really am. It's just like, I wanna know about people's childhoods. I wanna know who are you closer to, your mom or your dad. Like, I want to be understood and seen for who I really am. It's just like, I want to know about people's childhoods. I want to know who are you closer to, your mom or your dad. Like, I want all that. And so the heavy stuff bubbles up and I'm like, I'm up for it.

I do think it's really fun to hear about people's defining moments and the childhood experiences that shape them. Yes, defining moments. Yeah, tell me about the defining moment that led you to say, yes, I want to be a comedian. It's funny because I'm constantly narrativizing my own life and childhood.

I'm always pinpointing these defining moments. And then sometimes I wonder, were those defining moments or am I just picking them because they fit neatly in the narrative? But I think a big one was when I was 11 being taken to a stand-up club and we sat in the front row. I begged to go. I think I already wanted to do comedy. I was like pretty fascinated by it. And then I was in the front row and the headliner got me up on stage

because it was weird. There was a child in the audience and it was like a really raunchy club. You could still smoke inside in these days. It was like a smoky basement comedy club that I was in the front row in a little like waistcoat and suit and so the headliner brought me up on stage and made me be his ventriloquist dummy. Like he was squeezing the back of my neck and he thought I was a little boy and he got me to say all these filthy things

and people were really laughing and then I think I got a few laughs and I just, my godmother who'd taken me was so worried that I was traumatized by the experience when I was like completely addicted and like on cloud nine I started taking improv classes when I was 13 and that was really just amazing to find a group of weird kids like me and kind of extroverts and and just to be messing around every Friday with them. I felt like I found my crew and it was euphoric. I think one of the things that's unusual about you, at least in my outsider observations of comedians, is that you excel at both stand-up and improv.

I feel like most of the comedians I admire are good at one and they struggle with the other. In my 20s, I was the most stand-up I've ever been. Like I was four or five nights a week in like the big mainstream clubs in London and trying to do multiple shows a night, but that's not really my essence. So I think my first love was definitely doing characters and improv and writing and acting. Stand-up feels like it involves two skills. One is writing and the other is performing, like an actor would with a script. And in order to be great at stand-up, you have to do both of those things really well.

And improv requires neither of those things, as far as I can tell. There's no script. You don't have to write a thing. And you're not figuring out how to make something that's already been dreamed up, feel fresh and new and live in the moment. You actually are live in the moment. And so the rehearsal versus spontaneity,

the performing versus sort of just being in the moment, it feels like a really different set of skills and maybe even an opposite set of skills in certain ways. I feel like there's more crossover than you'd think It feels like a really different set of skills and maybe even an opposite set of skills in certain ways. I feel like there's more crossover than you'd think because you can really tell when someone is just doing a rote performance that is super polished with standup, I think you do really have to also

be in the moment and when you're taping a special, less so, but like doing a live show, you've got to be responding to the ebbs and flows of energy in the room and kind of present in the moment so that people feel like it's a special thing to them. With improv, you're kind of writing on your feet, or at least you're just writing at rapid speed. You're just trying to tap into the part of your brain that is so familiar with the rhythms of storytelling and character. We have all these things in us, so you're just tapping into these really innate storytelling muscles and knowing, okay, now we need a conflict and

now we're going to resolve it and things like that. And I do a lot of improvised stand up, which blends the two. So that's like pulling questions from a bucket and then riffing on those. You're lucky if you get one punch line, but you're tapping into like a clownier element and sort of what was funny about you as a kid. Like you have to be a little sillier and I like that. I do too. I have a couple hats I wear where I try to incorporate humor as much as I can. And I always want the idea to lead

and the laugh to be part of the supporting cast. But I guess it first started when I was performing as a magician as a kid. Oh my God. How do I would give anything to go back in time and see that? Oh, you wouldn't actually, but like every once in a while there'd be a heckler in the audience or like a trick would go horribly wrong. And the only thing I could do was to make light of it. Yeah.

And I think just loving comedy growing up and realizing, wait, if I can create that experience for other people that I've enjoyed, they're gonna be less bored by the content that I want to cover. And so I discovered pretty quickly when I was teaching that I got most of my laughs in spontaneous back and forth with students. Yes. Like, if I tried to script a joke, it fell flat.

But there was something about reading the moment and sort of then making an unexpected remark and then making fun of myself if it fell flat that worked really well. Maybe you and I both have that self-deprecation superpower where you can get laughs by making fun of yourself. I think that really is a superpower because you can get laughs by making fun of yourself. I think that's really is a superpower because you can't really fail then. I guess unless you're self-deprecating humor falls flat and then you're, that's a double fail.

I'm even worse at this than I thought I was. What is it about being live that makes it easier to be funny? You said adrenaline, I think is one thing that stands out. Another thing is, you said getting out of your head. So you're less likely to maybe self-criticize as you're creating, and that frees you up. What else happens, like when you have an audience? LWIEN There's no shortcut around just bombing a lot in the beginning and putting in the stage time,

like any skill, that in the beginning there's a huge gap between your taste and your ability and you're like why am I not as good as these people I admire so I think it's only in the past kind of I don't know five or six years really that I've felt super confident. One of my pet peeves is when comedians come off stage and blame the audience massively for their failure sure there are bad audiences or they're wasted or they're is when comedians come off stage and blame the audience massively for their failure. Sure, there are bad audiences or they're wasted or they're politically sketchy audiences or something like that or they're heckling, but that's pretty rare. It's your job to make them laugh.

And whatever you thought was going to be funny was not as funny as you thought it was going to be. And I hate when comedians tell the audience, no, that's funny, you're wrong. And it happens so much. No, I know that's funny and you're wrong. But what about when the last 19 audiences thought it was funny and then this one didn't laugh? That's true. Yeah, that might be the rare occasion. But then maybe there was some minute facial expression that you did differently or you were dead behind the eyes. You've done

it 19 times. You were resting on your laurels. I like that. So you have to start by asking, did I earn the laugh? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Now, one of the other things that jumps out to me that's different about the live audience is you have something to react to. And I think responsive humor is easier than initiating

at some level. I guess it feels like the comedy version of you're picking up on somebody else's last paragraph when you're writing versus you're staring at a blank screen. Yes, yeah, for sure. Not to keep bringing it back to this five-year-old that I live with, but in general with kids, I've always loved kids and playing like imaginary games. And really, I feel like that's what improv is, being uninhibited enough to really commit. Like I remember when I was 11 or 12 playing games

at recess and stuff that I was so in. Like I was giving Oscar winning performances and I was really present and we were acting out these bizarre kind of like games of house where I was the teenage brother and there was like a mom and a dad and it was, it's just being silly like that and really, and listening to the other person. And maybe to my detriment, I am less worried about being funny. I'm more worried about responding authentically. Like if someone comes in and is like, you know, my dog's on fire. It's like,

how would you actually respond to that? It's responding earnestly to that situation. I think that's funnier almost than just trying to think of the next gag. It's the same as the snow globe thing. Instead of thinking, oh, what am I going to say next? It's like, what did that person just say to you? And same with acting, I think, is listening and responding. I guess the vision I have is you interact with people in a way that's more lighthearted. Yeah, and yes-ending. That's the big rule of improv is yes-and.

So whatever offer you're receiving is you're going to accept it and build on it. Shutting it down or just throwing a different offer back. If someone comes into a scene and is like, thank you for flying American Airlines. I'm your pilot. You're not going to be like, no, you're not. You're my dad and I'm on a bus. People are coming to any interaction with a lot to offer. So it's always going to go more smoothly if you're receiving it and building on it

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the LaMelaure gloss collection today, because I'm officially declaring this spring gloss season. There are a lot of questions about the coming age of artificial intelligence, like what happens when kids start developing relationships with AI chat bots? They're preying on the fact that we do have a problem with loneliness. I'm Taylor Owen and on my podcast Machines Like Us, I speak to the people building these technologies and to the people impacted by them. This is what happens when they take gambles with other people's children.

From the Globe and Mail, listen to Machines Like Us, wherever you get your podcasts. Well, that is a perfect segue to the lightning round. Oh, great. I love a lightning round. What is your favorite improv game? I don't really play games. I do scenes.

You just no-budded my question. I know. I know. I know. I can't actually think of a game. Well, okay. I'll tell you. The reason I wanted to go to that question first is I used to go to a lot of improv shows

in college and different troops had different go-to games. And my favorite one was called Shoulda Said. Do you know this one? Oh, yeah. I love Shoulda Said. It breaks your first rule of improv though, doesn't it? Like the person makes a statement and then you can just say, no, Shoulda Said, and then they have to reboot.

Yeah, that's true. What is it about Shoulda Said that works so well? I've always wondered. Hmm. Maybe it's just that we all wish we had that in life, a sort of rewind button, and you can have another chance at everything. There's a part of me that I really enjoyed watching the person who then had to go back to the drawing board multiple times squirm

to try to come up with something better. There is also a fun, sadistic form of improv where you're trying to make the other people in the scene sweat, which is also fun. Yeah. What is the worst advice you've ever gotten? Never go to bed angry with your partner because sometimes you got to sleep. And sometimes you're not going to resolve it. You need a break. Sometimes you wake up and you're like, I don't know what all that was about, nevermind. And yeah, sometimes you don't have the skills

or the energy or the focus or the perspective or anything you need. What is something you've rethought lately? Procrastination. I have so much shame about it. And I've just started to accept that whatever I'm doing when I'm not doing the thing is maybe preparing me to do the thing. So even if I do the thing

right before it's due, I can't get into a shame spiral about it. Who is a comedian that you've become a huge fan of that we may not have heard of yet? I just watched Jacqueline Novak's special Get on Your Knees so it's fresh in my head and it's poetry and it's all about blowjobs so you don't expect it to be profound and moving and it kind of blew my mind. It made me feel like a very lazy writer. The way she uses language is on Netflix. Wow that was not the answer I was expecting and did you have a favorite comedian as a kid? I loved Eddie Izzard. I loved Tig Notaro, Sarah Silverman, Maria Bamford, Steve Martin, Kids in the Hall, some British people like French and Saunders, and kind of British troops and things, but...

What's a question you have for me? What's your morning routine? I'm allergic to morning routines. Oh, really? So you're just freestyling every day? Every day. It's honestly the only thing that brings out a little creativity in me.

I'm so linear. Like if I have a plan, I will stick exactly to it. And so I feel like I need to be constantly shaking up my routine to have fresh ideas and new ways of thinking. You're eating different breakfasts, you're waking up at different times. Oh, I wouldn't go that far, no. Oh, what?

Like the timing changes every day and there's not a fixed sequence of events other than we get our kids off to school and then start working and I work out at some point. But otherwise I might start with email one morning to try to get warmed up a little bit. Another morning I might start writing and dive right into like some deep thinking. Some days I'll be analyzing data. It's all over the map.

One more question. With kids, how do you carve out this time to tap back into your kind of egoic creative self and stop your brain from being constantly in kid world. It was much harder when our kids were really little and I felt like I should always be with them. Yeah. And there's always something fun to do. And once they were old enough to go to school, I felt like, okay, this is the window to work

between when they leave for school and when they come home. Yes. And if I haven't made the most of that, then I'm going to be a worst dad. And I'm going to regret the way that I spent my day. And then I'm also going to end up playing catch up at night after they go to bed. Yes, totally. And I don't want to be that person. So I've actually found it easier.

Right. Even, even though I have less, less time net, I use my time much better. Yeah, okay. That's good to hear. It sounds like you're not having that experience right now. I'm lucky when I'm on stage, I have to be present, but it's just I'm in the like honeymoon phase of finding it so riveting and fun. And I just want to be like spending the day day building a fort or some cool thing.

I can totally relate to that. So, okay, lightning round begun. I want to pick up on your shame about procrastination and full disclosure, I published research on procrastination. It was one of the themes of my first TED talk. Talk to me more about your procrastination habits, why you find them shameful and how you're managing it. I got diagnosed with ADHD a couple years ago, and I grew up in the era where there was a real stigma of like, is it even real? Is it bad parenting?

I don't know, so I don't even mention it really, but I've always really struggled with time management, and I've always left things to the last minute, and I need that kind of adrenaline push to complete it. But I don't know, like the other day I was really beating myself up about, I don't organize my drawers. Like all my clothes are kind of jumbled up and not folded and my socks. And then I was like, I mean, you're 36, maybe if you remove the shame about it. It's been my whole life. I've been like this, you know,

I'm getting the big things done. I get everything done that I need to do and I drop the ball on little things and rather than focusing on the failures you got to just recognize that life is hard. We're all overstimulated. I mean especially I have a lot of experience with addiction not to get heavy but in my teens and stuff and I feel like I have sort of addict tendencies, and shame is the worst, the most useless and counterproductive thing. If you shame spiral about every time you mess up, then you just sort of, your self-worth is so eroded that you don't care about anything.

But everyone procrastinates on something, and the mistake that a lot of people make is they think they're being lazy. And that's when they start to beat themselves up and feel shame. And yet then if you look at all the things you do while you're procrastinating, a lot of them involve effort and hard work. Like, wait a minute, this is not laziness. We did a podcast a few years ago on why people procrastinate. And Fuchsit Sirwaz, this great psychologist in the UK, who shows that we procrastinate

because we're avoiding negative emotions. That there's an unpleasant feeling that a task brings to mind. For me, it's usually boredom. I don't wanna do that thing that's gonna be repetitive and dull. Or for a lot of people, it's fear. Like, I don't know if I can do this, it's really hard.

Or it might be confusion or frustration, I'm stuck. and so I just, I can't do this right now. I think the antidote to that is supposed to be once you've pinpointed the unpleasant emotions that drive your procrastination, you can change them. Like I've figured out how to make some of my boring tasks a little bit more entertaining. We all have thought partners who help us get unstuck. But I think the other interesting thing that comes out,

and this is the work that Jihei, Shin, and I did, is we did some experiments where we tempted people to procrastinate by making funny YouTube videos available. You're on a screen, you're supposed to be generating creative business ideas. And then, like you see, we have a bunch of Jimmy Kimmel's mean tweets over on the side of the screen. And people who were tempted to procrastinate for a few minutes actually

came up with more creative ideas afterward. Yeah. Yeah. Which was kind of cool. That's, I love that. That's so interesting. And I'm, I'm experiencing that in the writer's room. I've never run a writer's room before.

I always have written by myself or with like one friend. And so this is the first time I've done a classic writers room. There's like nine writers and I'm supposed to be some kind of leader. I was beating myself up because I was, I really care about breaks. And I was at every lunch, I'm making everybody go and play hacky sack with me. And this is a real mix of people who are, have not played hacky sack, but I find it makes the afternoon a lot more productive. People feel free to get up and go get a snack.

It really is. Procrastinating only works in terms of fueling creativity if you're intrinsically motivated by the problem. If you hate the thing you're trying to solve, then you just avoid it. Whereas, if you're interested in it, when you put it off, it stays active in the back of your mind and you get the benefit of the incubation. You start to reframe it. Whereas if you don't like it, like screw that, I'm not thinking about you today.

I love that phrase, the benefit of the incubation. Sometimes if I have something creative to do, like a script, I have to do everything else in the day. Like I have to do my laundry, I have to clean the thing, I have to do a bunch of chores, I got to play my guitar. And then finally, it's like 9pm and my brain is clear and I've been thinking about the thing all day and so it has been percolating and incubating and then I'm ready to do it. Only moderate procrastination was helpful for creativity. If you waited until the very

last minute, it seemed like people had to rush ahead with their easiest idea, as opposed to really fleshing out their best idea. The lesson for me on that was, if you're gonna procrastinate, give yourself a lot of lead time. Yeah, I like that. That's true. So let's talk a little bit about shame. I just read this week some brand new research.

This is Landers and colleagues, because I know you were curious. You were about to ask me for the site, right? I can see it. Yes, yes. So it's research both in the US and in India, asking, like, why do people feel shame in the first place? It seems like such a dysfunctional emotion,

but we think that every emotion evolved to serve a purpose. And what they find is that shame, the intended purpose is, it's supposed to protect you from reputational damage. And what they find is that shame, the intended purpose is, it's supposed to protect you from reputational damage. Mm, I love that. And the things that you feel shame about are things that would make you look bad in the eyes of others, and that's supposed to grab your attention and say,

hey, Mae, don't do that. Other people are gonna think you're terrible if you do that. And I think where this falls apart clearly is we feel shame about things that are not reputationally relevant. Like no one cares if your closet or your dresser is disorganized.

Yeah, but that's where we have our parents' voices in our head and I think that's where parenting is pretty crucial because that's where you're learning everything in those early years. And so that's where you learn what to be ashamed of, I think. It sounds like then one of your ways of managing that is to interrogate, like, how did I come to believe that this was a shameful behavior? And this is not in the category of big things that actually affect my reputation.

No one else cares about this, so I'm not going to care about it either. And fear is no good as well. I used to put my lunch in my locker and then leave it there and forget about it. It would smell and my locker would be like a nightmare. And I just was so ashamed and afraid of people finding out that my locker was full of old lunches. And it was just so paralyzing. And I think we can feel that in lots of ways in our lives. What would happen eventually is someone would have to come, like my mom would come into school with me

and like clear out my locker and everybody would see. And it was like horrific. So you're still feeling the, like the old lunch locker shame. I don't know why that just came into my head. I haven't thought about that in years. That's fascinating. I've never heard that kind of shame described before,

but it makes a lot of sense. It's the internalization of somebody else's standards. Yes, yeah. That's such a nuisance in these situations because you never decided that being neat as opposed to messy was important to you. You were raised to believe it was and you're stuck with it. Yeah. Also, it's crazy how we internalize the negative and not the positive.

What about all the positive reinforcement that I got from my parents and that we get from life but we just latch onto the negative. Recently with my drawers, I've been thinking like, yeah, but what are all the good things that you do remember to do and thoughtful things? I'm readjusting to living with someone that I'm dating and sharing a space and we're a really similar level though

of like untidy but not dirty in any way. Like we're very clean people, but it's mainly clothes. That's actually a great distinction. I'm gonna use that when people ask me, like, if I'm organized, I'm like, I'm not tidy, but I'm definitely not dirty. Yes, exactly, yeah. Looping back to improv.

Somebody asked me a question, and I think it was about, what would you be doing if you weren't a psychologist? And I offhand said, I would love to try improv comedy. I think it would be so fun. Yes. I got a record number of emails afterward from people saying, would love to try improv comedy. I think it would be so fun. Yes. I got a record number of emails afterward from people saying, you have to try improv. Take this improv class.

And I'm really excited about the idea, but I haven't done it yet. And maybe in lieu of that, I was wondering if you could teach me a little improv. Last night, I did an improvised half an hour TV pilot and we used a book and we flipped through it and got the title and Then we asked the audience for the genre and the location. We had a director with a microphone who could pause and Be like we take you now to

You know Brian's kitchen, but I cannot recommend it highly enough Like I think you should do oh my god to do it with your family with your kids. That would be hilarious That's actually a great pitch because thinking about like I'm not should do, oh my god, to do it with your family, with your kids, that would be hilarious. That's actually a great pitch. Because thinking about, like, I'm not going to do it for me. I'm like, of course, I could be way better at a lot of things, and this is the thing I would like to get better at. But like, I don't know that this is the thing I need to spend more time on right now. But if my kids are going to have a blast, I'm all in.

Yes, completely. How old are they? They're 15, 13, and 10. Oh my god. You don't look old enough to have a 15-year-old. I'm pretending to be a real adult. Is it working? Yes. Oh my god.

Congrats. No one's a real adult. I find that simultaneously terrifying and reassuring. Me too. Me too. I'm like, wait, we're in charge? But also, no one else really knows what they're doing either. I know. And then whenever I wonder why we as a society are just kind of driving off a cliff,

I'm like, well, because everyone's like me. Like, we're all the same. We don't know what we're doing. Any of us. The idea that stuck with me is May's lunch locker shame. We all have a version of it. Something other people disapproved of when we were younger, and still haunts us today even though it's irrelevant now. That's an opportunity for rethinking. What standards have you internalized that aren't actually yours? It might be time to let them go. Rethinking is hosted by me, Adam Graham.

This show is part of the TED Audio Collective, and this episode was produced and mixed by Cosmic Standard. Our producers are Hannah Kingsley Ma and Asia Simpson. Our editor is Alejandra Salazar. Our fact checker is Paul Durbin. Original music by Hansdale Sioux and Allison Leighton Brown. Our team includes Eliza Smith, Jacob Winnick, Samaya Adams, Michelle Quint, Ban Ban Cheng, Julia Dickerson, and Whitney Pennington Rogers.

I hate the word playful. It seems so gross for some reason. People who use the word playful seems so gross for some reason. People who use the word playful are never playful. But yeah. Wait, tell me more about that. What kinds of people are you interacting with who talk about being playful? I don't know. Even improvisers who talk about improv sometimes, it's very cringy because they're like, I just want to play, you know, let's play.

And you're like, oh God, I hate that. I love this. And just adults talking about play is, it makes me think about like, I used to go to this theater and watch plays when I was a kid, and there was always a grownup playing like a 10 year old, and it would be like, I'm playing, and it was just really embarrassing.

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