The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam Grant - How This Podcast Could Fail

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

Brené and Adam have a bracingly honest conversation about what could go wrong in their collaboration, and how to set new teams, partnerships, and friendships up for success. They discuss the science of avoiding failure and building alignment, and practical strategies for navigating differences—including their own clashing instincts around minimalism vs. maximalism and sarcasm vs. trashtalk. The episode closes with what each of them is listening to, watching, and reading right now. You can also find The Curiosity Shop on YouTube and Instagram (@thecuriosityshop). Chapters: 00:00 - How Brené Inadvertently Launched Adam into Podcasting 02:57 - Interpreting Sarcasm  16:08 - How to Prevent Failure 28:57 - How Could This Partnership Could Go Wrong 38:42 - Learning From Differences 52:05 - How to Align Teams   1:02:00 - Closing Questions Show Notes: Brené and Adam on What They Will Never Agree On - The Curiosity Shop Episode 1 Unless You’re Oprah, ‘Be Yourself’ Is Terrible Advice - Adam Grant 2016 NYT Op-Ed My response to Adam Grant’s New York Times Op/ED: Unless You’re Oprah, ‘Be Yourself’ Is Terrible Advice - Brené Brown 2016 LinkedIn How to Love Criticism - Adam Grant 2018 WorkLife with Adam Grant Adam Grant on The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know - Brené Brown and Adam Grant 2021 Dare To Lead Podcast Brené Brown on What Vulnerability Isn’t - Adam Grant and Brené Brown 2023 Re: Thinking Ted Audio Collective Hypervigilance in Mary Poppins (1964) The art and science of trash talk with Rafi Kohan - Adam Grant 2024 Work Life With Adam Grant Performing a Project Premortem - Gary Klein 2007 HBR Evaluating the Effectiveness of the PreMortem Technique on Plan Confidence - Veinot, Klein, & Wiggins 2010 ISCRAM Conference The Economics of Gender Differences in Employment Outcomes in Academia - Donna Ginther 2006 National Library of Medicine Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System - Donnella Meadows 1999 The Donella Meadows Project Academy for Systems Change Narcissists: Are We Surrounded? On Science Vs: - Wendy Zukerman 2024 Science VS Podcast Human Raised: Nurturing Connection, Curiosity, & Lifelong Learning in the Age - Dana Suskind, MD 2026 Book The Killing Stones A Detective Jimmy Perez Novel - Ann Cleeves 2025 Book Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's time to have an honest talk about AI, not about whether it will replace us, but about how it's becoming easier and easier to outsource our thinking to systems that people just won't understand. Thankfully, SaaS has been in data and AI for 50 years, and they believe in a pretty simple idea. AI should be explainable, well-governed, and worthy of trust. Visit SaaS.com to see how AI should be built for high-stakes decisions, where the cost of getting it wrong is real, and human accountability isn't optional. Learn more at SaaS.com. That's sas.com. Welcome to the Curiosity Shop. A show from the Fox Media Podcast Network. Hi, everybody.

This is The Curiosity Shop. I'm Bray Brown. Welcome. I'm Adam Grant. I'm excited that we're here again. The first episode was much more fun than I expected. Yeah, me too. I was kind of nervous.

Were you nervous at all? I wasn't nervous going in, but I started getting nervous when we started talking about our fight argument. What do you call it at Dust Up? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I wasn't sure how that was going to go. And we had never, it's weird that we just did it on the podcast as a to doing it like in person, but...

It felt like we had to talk about it because it's the origin story. It is the origin story. I actually... Do you know I started podcasting because of that fight? What? I've never told you this. Okay. So, 2016, I write that New York Times piece. I quote you, you write your strongly worded Smackdown.

I respond, you respond. I don't know what to do at that point. because I felt like it was unresolved. I was really upset that you clearly thought I was not a respectful person, not a careful scholar. And I also felt like there was a lot more to explore in the differences between our views that we hadn't gotten to. And I reached out to Ted, and I said, hey, two of your speakers are having this very public debate.

Have you ever thought about doing, instead of just people doing monologues, like a debate at TED? And they said, no. But this would make for a really interesting podcast. You're kidding. No. And so that was my first conversation ever about podcasting. And the thought was that Ted was going to host it and you and I, somebody was going to moderate, that we were going to have a conflict mediator, try to reconcile our differences.

Because I was so, I was so upset. I mean, I had no idea of any of this. I was, I was, I was so distraught at the thought that it would just be left hanging and that we wouldn't, we wouldn't work it out. And then it was very clear that you did not want to engage from the signals you had said. And I also, I think it stung enough that I was like, you know what, I don't want to, I don't want to have a relationship with her. And that morphed into, I'm going to create a podcast with, with Ted.

If you watched his great podcast, you're welcome. That was all you, Renaud. For the way. But here we are. Yeah. Is that wild? Literally 10 years later doing a podcast together. And it's been bumpy.

Very bumpy. Building. Sometimes literally. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, because we didn't tell us. We didn't get into this part. So we.

We, you know, this is kind of like the part two. We do the, you invite me to do the work with you. We do the work together with the women's sports team. What happens from there? I invite you on the podcast. I loved our conversation on the podcast. And it became one of my most downloaded podcasts of my whole series. And then you were the first episode of the new podcast I launched.

So we did one where I got. to interview you. And then we started doing the rotating conversations with Simon Sinek. You mean Simon Sinek, yeah. And we did a bunch of those. And it was, it was fun. And I think we also started then overlapping more events as opposed to, oh, you were there two days ago and then I showed up, or you were there last year and then I did this year. We started seeing each other more. Yeah. Yeah. And then we ended up on a flight together. Then, oh, but before we got on the fight, the night before we were on stage together for the first time. Oh, and that did not go well. That did not go well. Well, I think it went well for the audience. I don't know that it went

great for us. Yeah, it went well for the audience. I think we got into a conflict that I think was supposed to be fun, but it didn't feel fun for me. And I was completely oblivious to that. Yeah. I thought we were just having a fun debate. Yeah. And then I was like, God, dang it, here we go again. And the next morning, we had to get on a flight. And I was frustrated. And we had a really, we were having kind of a tension-filled conversation about it. This is my memory of it.

And then we hit turbulence. And then I looked at you and you said, are you okay? Like very tertially almost. Are you all right? And I said, no, I'm scared. And you said, and you weren't, you were so kind. You weren't judge at all. You said something like, oh, are you?

are you afraid of flying? And I said, no, I'm afraid of dying, which it feels like I think we're going to do right now because this is engineering, and from an engineering perspective, this should not be happening. And then you were just kind of like, no, from an engineering perspective, this makes total sense. And then you kind of talked me through it. And then I was like, okay. And then we had a good conversation about what about that stage dynamic worked and what didn't work. And I think it's because we're different enough that I see you in a way where you're one of the most earnest people. But no, no, that I've ever met. So I can find myself being less armored with you very quickly because so when you say something that's funny

and like sarcastic or zingy, which is like how I grew up, And what I am very good at it. I'm actually really good at sarcasm and do it with a couple of my friends nonstop. But when you do it, I don't know, because you're so earnest, I think you're saying something really like, oh, shit, he's mad. Or, oh, man, he thinks he doesn't think I'm smart or something like that. And you're being sarcastic just for levity. Yeah, exactly. To not be overly earnest.

To not be, because you don't want to be overly earnest. No, no, I don't. I want to, I hope, you know, it comes across that I care about people and, and honesty and integrity are important to me. But I also have a little edge. Right. And I don't want to sound like a Pollyanna. Right.

No, right. And so, yeah, so it was, it's just like getting, that getting to know people today, especially, I would not consider myself an easy person. I'm a pretty complex person. Pretty complex. Understatement. Almost as complex as you. And you're going to watch more.

Yeah, I knew you were going to say that because you see yourself with simplicity. What you see is what you get. You're like the whizzy wig guy. You're not. I don't know what that means, but God. You know, like what you see is what you get. Like you're just, you're not complex. I think I'm straightforward.

Am I not straightforward? No. Why not? Because there's a distance between some things about you that I think are genuine and some ways that you are always self-improving. And like, I don't think overly earnest is Pollyanna, but that's your read on it. I think it's unusual and awesome. Yeah. And so, but you know, like this sarcasm thing, I'm really careful about, you know, the other thing is I'm a word person. Like words, like you noticed this. Oh, yes. Like words. I thought I was one until I met you. I don't know what that means, but it doesn't sound good. I'm like a word person, but like, you know, the Greek origin of the word sarcasm to tear. flesh.

That's biting. Yeah. And I also think it's like last episode we talked about how you're, how I really complimented you on your ability to repair and apologize and you talked about coming from a divorced family. I also come from that. And so, but I also come from one that was very as the, oh, yeah, the oldest daughter thing, which you probably should stay aware of because you've got an oldest daughter and I've got

an oldest daughter, right? But like that when teasing broke out and my family, our sarcasm broke out, I was immediate like, oh, God. Like there's a scene from Mary Poppins when like the admiral's getting ready to blow the cannon and the housekeepers run around and make sure everything, nothing falls off shelves. So as soon as sarcasm and teasing started in my family, I got hyper vigilant because this is going to end in tears for somebody. That makes so much sense. and I come at it from a completely different place, which is I think about, and there's a whole body research on pro-social teasing. Yes. And I would never, I would never tease you if it weren't a sign of affection.

So I, so, so how do we reconcile this too? Because sports shit talk is my love language. I love trash talk. And this is in the same category as that for me. I love trash talk. Okay, next time you say something that I'm like, whoa, I'm like, are you shit talking me? And you'll be like, yeah. And I'll be like, okay.

I see you. Maybe. Or I could just do it less. No. No. Let's try it. We'll just try it. Okay.

Because I do love, I am such a trash talker. You are. Yeah. You are. And that makes it seem like, I mean, I think this kind of sarcasm is at least a near cousin. It is definitely a first cousin. A trash shock. Yeah.

And so it seems like it would elicited the same reaction, but it doesn't. So. Because as I'm telling you, there's a. There's a trigger there. No. There's a. We'll see if we leave this in the podcast or not, because I think Adam's been diagnosing me over the last month. I don't diagnose anyone ever.

I'm just telling you have round edges and sarcasm has sharp points. And so there's a disconnect for me because you're not a pointy person. He's convinced that I have shapes anesthesia. I think you might. Because I see everything in shapes. And so, like, so for pointy, shape, for pointy people, I'm expecting it, but from around people, I'm not. Okay. And so let me see if I can translate that into psychology language. I hear that, what I hear is I'm a personality wise, I'm a highly agreeable person.

And that is. Hell no. I'm interpersonally, not intellectually. I care about social harmony. Yes. Yes. people getting along. But I will debate ideas. Right. Endlessly. Okay. So say it again, but caveat the agreeability. Yeah, maybe I'll try to be more specific on this. So I think within

agreeableness, I probably lead with a fair amount of warmth and trust. Yes. And then there's this sort of harder, the sarcasm is more disagreeable. It's more adversarial. And so it does doesn't fit. No. No? I don't think. Okay. Play it back a different way.

What is round point to you then? I think you mean what you say and you say what you mean. Oh. You do not mince words. So if you look at me and go, nice cowboy shirt, Dolly Parton, then I'm like, you know, because Like, so I, it's not, I, I can't match you in the word agreeability in any context. I score off the charts on agreeableness. Yeah, no, I can't.

I think you are, is it sincere or straightforward? Yeah. Yeah, that's in the honesty, humility, access, interestingly. Yeah. Is it? So tell more people what that means. One of the models of personality that has kind of emerged along with the big five is Mexico. which reinterprets some of the, you know, the standard extroversion, emotional stability, openness,

agreeableness, conscientiousness, and then adds this honesty, humility trait, which is about being straightforward and sincere and having integrity. And I aspire to be all of those things. And so you're saying the sarcasm does not fit in with those things and it feels like a conflict for you. Yes. Okay. So that's so interesting because the way that I look at that is different, which is I'm all those things and therefore everyone will know not to take my sarcasm at face value. Oh, I think that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a wily assumption, Adam Grant. I've been making up as long as I can remember without realizing it until now. So that's a why that's a wily assumption.

So I think, um, there's a new Texas, uh, measurement tool called the bullshitter analysis. Um, this is not true. There's not, but there should be, which I would score off the chart. So I am like a, I'm like a storyteller kind of like that kind of gift of gap. Yeah. I'm trying to see if gift of gab works for me. Yeah, I mean, maybe, but I would just say more storyteller, bullshitter, how are you? Like my dad would be like, how you doing old son?

And, you know, you'd say something like, well, I'm doing okay. I got a broke my arm. Damn, I had breaks bigger than that on my eyeball. You know, like, that's how my dad. That's what I come from. And so when I'm, when I'm, so my dangerous area around sarcasm is not when I'm in a bullshit sports talk thing. Like on the court, I'm very like if there's a sally, I do it.

It's so obnoxious as hell. That's why we can't ever get out of court. We probably can't play tennis or pickleball. It might be the end of our friendship. It could be the end, especially if we ever played as devil's partners. Because if you're going to come over on my side and take a ball, you damn well better in that point. I would, obviously. Okay. All right. So the thing with sarcasm that's hard for me for people, I think, is not when I'm in my banter mode, but I can be, I know this, you'll find

this surprising, a very intense person. What? I know. Never. Shocking. I never had a clue. Yeah. So when I'm intense, I cannot use sarcasm with people. Because it comes on too strong. It comes on as passive aggressive meanness. Oh, okay. Yep, I can imagine that. Yeah. So, okay, so I'm curious for our listeners. We have new listeners, right? I hope so.

How many people, because we process this differently, I'm curious about how many people look at these things like you do and say, wait a minute, like you're, you're a straightforward, kind of clear, sincere communicator, and therefore you shouldn't be sarcastic because that's not who you are. And how many people look at it like I do and say, I interpret that behavior through the lens of what I know about your personality. I wonder which is more common. And I obviously think mine is more common and you're the outlier. And I'm excited to find out if I'm wrong.

Yeah, I don't know. Well, let's pose it on LinkedIn and have people weigh in. Oh, we can just have people comment on YouTube now. Oh, that's right. And on Spotify. Wait, do we have comments open on YouTube? We do not have comments open on YouTube. We can talk about that later.

We should have a podcast on that. We should. we should have a podcast on comments. I got a lot of thoughts. Let's do that. Because I've got them closed everywhere. And I have them open. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let's add that to our list. Support for this show comes from Canva. An idea is just an idea, but actually transforming that idea into a thing. That's where the real work lives. It can be a journey full of pitfalls and banging your head against a wall, or it could be a lot easier than that with Canva. Canva is packed with templates and design tools to turn your idea into something real.

From presentations powered by AI to social media posts, logos, and websites, whatever your idea is, you can make it a thing in Canva. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing. Learn more at Canva.com. Support for this show comes from SaaS. SAS has been in data and AI for 50 years, and they believe in a pretty simple idea. AI should be explainable, transparent, and well-governed, because that's the only way it can earn your trust. From banks and boardrooms to hospitals in the halls of government, AI systems now

inform decisions that affect millions of people every day. That's why SAS's core commitment to responsible innovation is more important than ever, so that every, could we, is followed by a, should we? And leads to a, here's how it works. If that kind of clarity appeals to you, visit SaaS.com to see how SaaS applies their simple guiding principles to a complex AI landscape where hard questions require reliable answers. When more at SaaS.com, that's sas.com. I think this is a great segue

to the topic of today's podcast, which is we've already started talking through the thing we didn't get to last episode, which is how could this go wrong? And one way I think this partnership could go wrong is if I am sarcastic in ways that lead you to feel attacked,

and then you either get defensive or attack in reverse, and then we end up in the kind of, I think, like, prosecutor spiral that we got into 10 years ago. Okay. So, what do you think? I think that's absolutely true. I want to break it down for everyone listening because my hope is that we can do this honestly together. And I'm sure it'll have some strange and weird entertainment value for folks listening to us figure out where we could fail. But I also want to share this as a tool that we both believe in. So let's walk them back a little bit.

And let's talk about this is a premortem. And this is Gary Klein's book. It came out in HBR. I wrote down the date. Do you know how old this is? I mean, the research on it even dates back a couple decades now. Does it? Yeah.

So 2007 was the big famous HBR article, Harvard Business Review, where he introduced this idea of a premortem. And the premortem, the way, and we both use it and we both teach it. And we and I are inside working with senior leader teams all the time. and when I teach them this, it goes to shit in 15 minutes when they try it. Fast, but it's so important for them to try it. It's so important for them to try it, and we'll talk about why it doesn't work as we do it. So this is a premortem.

The idea, it's two things, I think, together. It's a risk assessment. So Adam and I are going to do a premortem on the Curiosity Shop. So it's a form of doing a risk assessment. And it's also, and this is a researchy word, so we'll talk about it, prospective hindsight. Prospective hindsight, nailed it. Defined it. Yeah.

Which I love. You know, I love a paradox. I know. I never met a paradox. I didn't love. It's true. I've come around on those, too. Thank you.

I think they're really useful. It's being able to see the future in the present, basically. So prospective, looking forward, hindsight, looking backward. So the question that I use for a pre-mortem, go ahead. No, no, go ahead. The question I use for a premortem and how I teach teams to use it is we're sitting at this table and, you know, we have this new project. It's six months from now and it's gone to shit.

We have absolutely, this project has absolutely failed. Yep. What will we be talking about around the failure of this? What are the topics that we be talking about then that we should be addressing now? We do this very similarly. Okay, tell me. So I do a little bit of a little setup around it. Okay, great.

Where I like to ask, how many of you do post-mortems after you fail? And every hand goes up. Yeah. Yeah, we know the importance of after-action reviews and debriefing. And, you know, my reaction to that is, that's a great process, but it is the dumbest time to do it. Why would you wait until you've already failed? Right. Like, why?

You'd love to have a time machine at that point. Why not have that conversation up front and try to anticipate and prevent it? prevent some of those mistakes. But I love that setup. I'll be borrowing that. It's all yours. Okay. What I find really powerful about premortems, and I think this is one of the lessons of Gary's research is they make people better at seeing around corners, but they

also give people the permission to talk about the things that could go wrong that they're afraid to admit. Amen. So say those two things again. I call them the turkey peak because in the military, when you look around a corner, because we both work with the military a lot. you know, you're doing the around the corner. So say the two things while you think they're great. Yeah. So I think the first thing is I go farther out. I usually ask three to five years.

Okay. If, you know, if the decision you're making right now or the project you're launching is just an unmitigated disaster, what are the most likely causes? And so then you have to start looking in places you haven't looked before. It widens your, it takes you out a tunnel vision. It gives you a better peripheral vision. I think that's the first thing. And then the second thing is it's a conversation where you're supposed to talk about the risks. Yeah, the invitation. Exactly. And the way you said risk assessment, I never crystallized it, but that's exactly what you're doing.

You're inviting people to say, here's what I'm concerned about. Here are some issues that we haven't talked about that really could be a problem. I got to tell you that my favorite thing about being in the room with teams I'm working with when they run a premortem is the quiet, more introverted, usually highly analytic people who are often told that they are constantly reigning on people's parades around enthusiasm and group projects will be the first to raise their hand and say, I think we'll be examining the assumptions around these data. Yes.

And I see also people who tend to be more defensive pessimists than strategic optimists who have learned to self-censor because they're dragging people around with their worrying. All of a sudden, they have a voice. Same for people who tend to be highly disagreeable, who have sort of have been taught to sand down that edge can say, oh, well, this is a point where people are actually willing to hear my critique because we can still do something about it. The thing, go ahead. No, no, go ahead. No, go ahead. Okay. Just before we dive into the specifics, I've never thought about this before, but this has so many applications outside the workplace. I think that when friends become roommates for the first time,

they should do a premortem. I think that marriages, the premortem conversation, that's more important than the pre-nup conversation. It is 100%. How could this relationship go wrong? I think when you have a child, I think it would have been so valuable for Allison and I to sit down and say, if we were to mess up parenting,

what are the biggest mistakes we? we think we might make and how do we avoid this? You know, it's interesting because Steve and I have had, we didn't calm premortems, but when I was pregnant with Ellen, our oldest, we basically spent, I can remember, it was so powerful, I can remember where I was sitting and what I was wearing when we basically went through what now I know was a premortem about when, yeah, because I was about, uh, it was a wild day actually. I was probably eight or nine months pregnant. I was very pregnant. And he asked me a question on a walk about, I was so scared because I was in my PhD program.

And when I told the then head of the doctoral program that I was pregnant, his response was, we thought you were going to be someone. Yeah. And so, And it got very tricky because I got really smart-assy and very much like, hey, it's a baby, not a lobotomy. And, like, I was, like, I was very defensive, obviously. You should have been. Yeah, because. Such an inappropriate comment to me. Yeah.

And you. As if you can't have a career and a child. Yeah. Although the research at the time, which he pointed out was like, parenthood and getting married were really good for male, untenured professors and very bad for female untinured professors, you know. So that was true. Everybody needed a wife. You know, and so I was really scared and defensive. And what ended up happening was I got hyper-emesis.

So I got that thing where my progesterone levels were very high. And so I threw up every day. I had to take a leave of absence from the Ph.D. program. And it was interesting because it was a female tenured professor who said, you have sat in my class and thrown up in the trash can for the last time. She said, I've had several miscarriages that I attribute specifically. to the stress of academia, we will be here when you are better. And I was sick for the first trimester and then I came back. But it was this layers of stuff. But that prompted this hard

conversation where Steve said, what do you want from your career? And that's when I said, I want to start a global conversation about shame and vulnerability. Wow. So that was 27 years ago. And then he said, who do you think we want to be? And where do you think, who do we not want to be as parents. Because we had no models of what marriage looked like. There were great things our parents did and a lot of things we wanted to do differently because we just have more information. So we had a long conversation and wrote it down, actually.

Like where we would look back and think this is not what we want to do or who we want to be. Wow. Yeah. So we actually, I, so I did the premortem. We kind of did the premortem. Yeah, it was, because we said things that we, things that we heard growing up that we don't ever want to say because I said so, this is my house. You know, we wanted to say yes every time

we could. You know, just things that we were trying to, we, and the biggest thing that Steve said in that moment, who's a pediatrician, said there was a difference between trauma and adversity. We had a lot of trauma growing up both of us. We didn't want that for our kids, but we didn't want to overcorrect and protect them from adversity. Can you just, flesh out what the difference is and how you've done that? I think trauma sets us back and adversity makes us stronger. And so I think they were about real assessments of, is this uncomfortable or is this actually unsafe?

Yep. You know, is this something where you can learn and feel protected or is this something where you will feel unsafe? You know, and I think trauma is about unsafe. Yeah. That's a really helpful distinction. Yeah. I go back to Shelley Urum from Harvard. I saw her one of those things where you go to a hotel lobby and someone gives a presentation all day like a seminar. And she did this thing about what is trauma and what isn't that we used to inform our parenting a lot.

She had someone sit on a chair and she popped a balloon in front of them. And they didn't like it very much. But then she said, I'm going to tie your hands and legs to this chair and do the same thing. And that person said, absolutely, I can't do that. And she said, that's the difference. Control. I don't have any control over my own well-being. And so I thought, I don't know if that's official just for all the therapists out there and all the trauma experts, I am not one. We are not, you know, social worker psychologist went to the research side, not the clinical side.

But I thought the loss of control and safety were interesting. So we did pre-more. Yeah, we did premortem. one of the things I've also done, which I'll be interested in your take on this, I do them with my class. So if this class ends up in your mind being a failure when it's over, even though we only have 15 weeks together a semester, what will we be saying from your perspective and mine? What are your students saying most often on that? The learning that comes out of a qualitative analysis of what mine are and theirs are is if they don't take equal responsibility for their learning. that they are passive in the, that my job is to teach, their job isn't to learn.

It will also be a failure if my job is to come in from a consumer perspective to make them happy. Right. And not challenge them into discomfort. That's so interesting. So we do a premortem even when we teach. I didn't even realize I've been doing the results of it. Without having the premorting conversation, I take the postmortem from the mid-course and end of semester. evaluations that I get every year. And then I open the next year's class by saying, one of the

common ones is there are always complaints that we don't have enough debate in class because people are afraid of challenging me. Right. And they're also afraid of, you know, damaging their relationships with their new classmates, especially with MBA students. Oh, yeah. Undergrads worry about it too, though. And so I say, look, I don't think we have enough debate in the classroom. And then I give them a mechanism, which is they can hold up a pen if they disagree. And that way, I will jump the line and call and the people with the pen up so that they get to bring in some of that productive descent. But that's premortem-informed pedagogy, right? It is.

Yeah. I never thought to do the actual premortem. I like anything that's a parallel process, you know, that we're doing it, but we're also kind of learning it. Okay, so let's do it. So if this fails, we'll take, I mean, because unfortunately, the time for these failing is pretty quick. So let's say it's a year from now, 12 months from now. and this is not worked out. What are, what, look, we were like,

we should brainwrite this before we discuss it. You want to brain right? Okay. Most likely causes. Yeah, yeah. Y'all can watch us. So we already covered the, kind of the sarcasm attack spiral. What's the broader category for that?

I think the broader category is, I mean, from my perspective, tell me if this is right, is the disagreement doesn't come from a place of care. Yes. And respect. So we will fail if disagreement doesn't come from care. Yes. Can I add one? Yeah, please.

Wait, wait. I want a little more time to capture other ways we can fail. Do, do, do. I've got three more. While we're writing these down, I want to say one of the reasons why it's important for us to do this is because when you start a podcast, we're building a business that is a podcast. We're not just talent that's been hired to do something that someone, we're building,

actually the business of the podcast together. So all of a sudden, we have found ourselves being co-founders. You know, so we're navigating the founder, hard bullshit, and a co-founder thing. So that's why this matters. It's not like we can be, it's not like we can show up and anchor the news and be like, and then, thank you. And then like walk out there and be like, I hate you. And then we just come back in the next day.

we're behind the scenes building a sustainable business. Which we didn't agree on when we started. No. And there might still be a little bit of tension around that. There's been hard because I've been like, we need to invest more time in this. And he's like, maybe. You know, I'm like, I'm like, dang it. That's on my list.

No surprise. Yeah. Me too. Okay. Hold on. I got one more that I think I want to capture here, which is. Okay. Okay.

I've got four. I've got also four. Okay. Go ahead. Do you want to just compare lists? and not explain yet? No. What do you want to do?

What do you want to do? You just wanted to say no. No, no, no. You just like the reaction to you guys. No, I don't want to do that. What do you want to do? Because I don't, I don't want to, like, I'm going to add why I said no to my goddamn list. Please do.

I just, I just wanted to hear everything on yours and then have the full picture of which ones should we spend more and less time on. No, and I don't want to, leave what you write open to my interpretation. So I want you to go through them and I want to be clear with a playback. Can we do it succinctly though before we dive into them? Okay. All right. So the first one is if we're not aligned on what our team is trying to accomplish. I have something similar. Go ahead. Okay. That needs no explanation. Yeah. No. Okay. Second one is if we end up nerding out and getting too wonky and we lose all the non-academics. Okay. True. I didn't have it, but it's true. A third is

if we end up being either too timely or too timeless. Agree. Look, no explanation needed. No. And let me just explain what that means because this is like a little bit inside baseball. We've had a conversation where we want our, we want this to, we want to be with y'all in a way where what we say is timely and feels relevant for your lives, but also isn't like, do, do, do, do, do, breaking news.

What are you thinking about the news yesterday? We want it to be timeless and we want it to be relevant in meeting the moment at the same time. So that's what that meant, right? Well, articulate. Okay. Yes. And then the last one is just not coming up with, I think this is the most minor of the four, but not coming up with a communication process that keeps us aligned. Okay.

That's very true. I'm firing off quick emails and you have spent five days, you know, writing the perfect text. Yes. Okay. Yeah, so that's actually already happened, in case you want to know. All right. So I love to disagree from not a place of care. That's true.

We have not built systems that support the organizational goals. That's a broader version of my last point. Yes. I like yours better. But we just don't build the system. So I'm thinking of James Clears. We do not rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our systems.

So this is also... Yeah, we'll just do that. Okay. I disagree with James on that, by the way. I think we do both. Interestingly, I agree wholeheartedly. And I've got a three-by-three sign in our office in Houston that is like spotlighted with plants around it just to drive home the point. We don't agree on how businesses should be run.

I don't know what this says. We didn't give. Oh, easy. Oh, I think because of the, I think of the, I think of the. because of the season we are in our lives, and especially me, I've got a, I've got a time on you age-wise, because of the busyness of both of our lives and the season of my life that I'm particularly in right now, if this is not energy-giving, if this just becomes energy-taking, I don't, I think we will call it quits. It will not fail, but we'll say it's failed.

Yeah. I think that's right. I have maybe one more to add, which is, I think if we don't get good, at, if we don't continue to practice the feedback and repair regularly. Absolutely. Because I have built, in the past year that we've been talking about doing this, I have built so much confidence that we can disagree about anything and work it out because we're both committed to fixing whatever mistakes we make. And I think that, that to me is sort of vital to whatever might go wrong in the other categories. Okay.

I'm having a meta moment. So I will say that I am shocked that when there's a conflict between us and there have been several, even if I'm frustrated, which I can get frustrated, I think I typed you the word frustrated one time. Yes, frustrated. Which I failed to anticipate. Via email. You did. I did. I have a very much faster confidence in our ability to become stronger because of our disagreements and our rumbles. Same.

Then what would be predictable in two people coming together to build a business? Like, it's unusual. But I'm going to tell you that I think we have complementary skills here. I think you are much better at apology and repair than I am. And I think I'm pretty good at hard conversations. Yeah, and both of those things need to coexist. They both have to happen. Yeah.

I mean, like, you, if you are, really good at difficult rumbles and difficult conversations, but you withhold repair or you don't know how to do it or apology, it doesn't work. Yep. And if you're really skilled at apology and repair, but can't stay in the messiness of a hard conversation. It never gets fully resolved. It doesn't give it resolved. You learn nothing from the conflict it's going to get repeated. Right. So I think, I think we're good. I think we're really good at those things. So I think I liked the fact that you said, if we continue to do them. I am,

is there one thing that we've talked about that you're the most worried about? Yeah, I think, well, I think it's, I think it's the combined category of, you know, what it looks like to be a successful team together slash, you know, co-found something together. I don't even like calling it a business. I don't want to build businesses.

Like, I think of myself as an intellectual entrepreneur. I want to build ideas and share them. Right. I can't respond to that or just sit there. That's how the shit works, dude. Okay. Sorry. Oh, an intellectual entrepreneur.

Okay. Now, okay. So this also reflects how we intervene with the companies we work in too. It does. And you have more impact because. you are willing to roll your sleeps up more than I do. I don't know about impact. I mean, I do.

Okay. Well, I am deeply embedded. And I'm like brought into conversations and sit in strategy meetings where I'm not only observing the behavior of the leaders, but I'm weighing in how on how they're thinking about relocating supply chain. And I, you cannot give me a parachute faster to get out of those conversations. I only want to be in that deep if I'm running an experiment or doing a longitudinal survey and then we're going to publish research out of it. Got it. And I'm doing that to, I'm doing that different. I do that.

We do dare to lead intervention. So dare to lead is the work and we go in and work with companies. And sometimes these interventions will include 30,000 people. And I'll be working at the kind of the C-suite level and the direct reports of the C-suite. But they are very tactical, very messy and very detailed. Like, I'm in the detail. I'm in the weeds. I'm embedded.

Yeah, I mean, I think I would fall asleep in the first minute. Okay. Yeah. I mean, so. Is that the one you were most concerned about you? For sure. Yeah. Okay, maybe we should talk a little bit about the logo design as a microcosm of this.

Or maybe we shouldn't. No, I'm thinking, I'm thinking, yes, I think we can because we learn so much. I learned so much from you. I want to, there are parts of the way you move through the world with the same organizations. We work with a lot of the same organizations, which is weird, that I really admire and am moving toward. And so I've learned a lot from you. I mean, I've really learned a lot from you. Same.

I think the logo design is an interesting, yeah, it's interesting. What would you say about it? I'm nervous. I'm anxious about the conversation a little bit, but let's go. I don't know if it's helpful or not. I'm sure it will be. I'm just thinking about a concrete example. I think, so you volunteered to have your team take the lead on designing the logo.

And I thought, okay, we work really differently. You have an in-tech team that you collaborate with on almost everything, right? Yeah. I'm much more autonomous and I have kind of project-specific teams that do certain things, but they're not with me all the time. They just have a book team and I have a podcast team, and they're all kind of separate, right? And so the fact that you have this intact team, I thought, wow, it's really generous of you to volunteer to do this. And also, you have much more aesthetic sensibility and care about design details.

And I don't know the first thing about any of it. So it makes sense on all levels. And then you sent me a draft, which I superimposed my mental model of how design works, which is most of my design is book covers. And we just come up with 20 or 30 ideas. and it's, you know, it's very little thought initially put in because we want to look at a whole bunch of ideas and then align on which directions we like before we do any refining or, you know, improving. And so I thought that's what I was getting. And I was hypercritical, I think. And that was not what I got, right? No. You got, you got the best iteration of probably 50 hours of work. And I felt so terrible, so terrible, because I, I thought it was maybe an hour or two of work that had gone into it. But let's get underneath what was really happening there because this is where shit goes bad in real life.

Yeah. In our partnerships with our kids and on our teams. What was really going on there is I do have an intact team. But I have a very new team, some new people. I mean, I've been the CEO of a company for a long time. I knew how you felt about business building. So I tried to protect you from it, which is my therapy and business coaching work for freaking decades, by just giving you something final.

and then being, and what you sent to me was not shareable with a creative team that had been working hours and hours for that. No, not even close. Yeah, because like if you lead a creative team, you're, you know, it's just different. And so I think what came out of that was me saying to you, you said something like, how are you in an email or what are you feeling or something? Yeah, and I tried to guess a few of your emotions and miss the market. I just said I'm really frustrated. And then we had a conversation, which was I am trying to find more space and time and flow and freedom in my life. I am like, I've won the parenting lottery that I have adult kids who want to hang out with me and Steve.

I am going to play pickleball tennis, whatever, six days a week, not tennis, but I'm playing pickleball six days a week. I'm going to have a different life right now. I want to write and do deep thinking. and I said, I don't want to lead this business by myself. And I don't want to protect you from the sausage making because if we're going to be in this together, but I teed up an idea to you, which was, why don't we not build a business? And let's just be like the talent and let somebody else own the podcast and own the business. And neither of us wanted to do that.

And you were like, I don't want that. Then I said, well, then we're signing up to build a business. And how are we going to do that? And then you said, I'm going to take equal responsibility for the sausage making. Yeah. And that was one of the best things that's ever happened for me. I mean, I'm committed. Yeah.

And I've, you know, you talked about, well, one of the things I've learned from you is you not only have, you know, really great collaborative relationships, there's a lot of joy in those relationships. And I think your life is more full because you work with people that you really like and care about. And I do that, but I do it in pieces. And I thought, oh, it would actually be fun to have a team that's more complete and be part of that team. And I need to learn how to do more of that because my mantra for a long time has been, I want to try to have maximum impact with minimum interdependence. I want to be as autonomous and free as possible.

And that doesn't work when you're trying to build something collaborative that really makes a difference. So I think I'm on board for that. I think we still have different ideas about how a team can work most effectively and efficiently together. And that's what we're going to have to work through. And we're doing it later today. And so I think I have a lot to learn from you. And I want to do that. I think as long as we are honest about, I think what will kill us both and kill the business is stealth expectations.

Yes. That's a great phrase. Stealth expectations. Yeah. I write about that and dare to lead. Yes. Stealth expectations. We put things on the table.

We talk about the why behind them. I invest a lot of time up front with teams or try to or believe I do and I'm not very good at it because I actually want to be an intellectual entrepreneur. And that's why when we got to the point where I thought you were locked into that and not being a co-business owner, this shit's not going to work. because I'm moving out of that into the intellectual entrepreneur part. And so I can't take that on. Well, so I think one of the lessons from that was I need to bring people to the table to our team. So it's not just me as an appendage on your team, right? Right.

And I can't be translating things from critical autonomous intellectual to how teams can hear things. No. And I think that was one of the mistakes that I made, which I knew I was making in the moment and I still chose to make it and I'm not proud of that. So you sent this design, which was beautiful and I failed to say that, right? I had a question about whether it represented what our show was going to be. And I gathered some feedback and other people had the same reaction independently. And so I thought, okay, I need to get that efficiently to you. And Allison happened to be looking over my shoulder when I was writing the email and she said, you can't say that to Brune.

You can't. And I said, why not? And she said, You need to really spell out that you appreciate the quality of the work and you just have these questions. And I said, I can't have a real, both partnership and friendship where I can't be honest. And I have to walk on eggshells and couch things and pull punches. And I found it really efficient in my collaborations to just be direct and ask other people to be direct too. And she said, you're going to regret this. And she was right. because I could have been, I was trying to be clear, but I didn't do it in a kind way.

So I think what's interesting here is I don't, I would back. So if I were watching this happen with a team that I was working with, what I would say is you were not, you missed an essential part of scrum or agile process, which is what does done look like? Yes. And so if I would have said, okay, my team's happy to handle, how involved in iteration do you want to be? I should. Yeah, if we had that conversation, I would have said, bring me in early. Right. So that I, you don't end up, you know, going, yeah, spinning in an unproductive direction collectively.

Right. And also, I'm probably less likely to reject it because I feel some ownership over it. And you are a minimalist. Big time. I'm a maximalist. Like, like, there's that great meme on Instagram. Like, I hate minimalism. What is minimalism?

Maximillism. Like, I want my house to look like a Texas brothel. Like, I have 7,000 products. I mean, not products. Fabrics and textures. I have, like, a lion couch. Less is more. I'm looking for elegant simplicity.

Yeah, no. And I'm looking for, who lives here? And I bet they chain smoke. That's what I'm looking for when people walk in my house. Like, that's what I'm looking for. You and my grandma would have gotten along so well. I wish she was here. I could have a cigarette with her and just talk about like, you would be like this.

I love that. So I think what happened, so I will see a conflict breakout like this on a team and I will go way back into the process, which I would have said, if you're co-building a business, you're not communicating enough. You're not saying, let me bring you into it. And I'm going to give you an example of what happened for those of y'all listening. I thought, like when I think of curiosity shop. I think of Eel, I think of Dickens. I think of a curious, you know, you were very clear about no taxidermy, but I really think about a, which you know, I grew up in a deer blind, basically, so it's not, I think about like weird shit everywhere, shelves full of interesting things. Your agent Richard wrote about it beautifully when we were conceptualizing the name,

like this place where you get lost in the weirdness and the awe and the wonder of a million things. So we sent you a graphic that had, well, that robot to represent, you know, AI. We had a viewfinder on an old 1970s viewfinder, if you're a kid and grew up with one of those. It had all these things on it. And you're like, and what's all, you know, I basically, you know, what's all the pawn store bullshit on here? Looks like a show about antiques. Antiques. Right. And maybe we should have a this or that. And so for me, I was like, whoa, we pick those things very specifically.

The robot represents AI, the viewfinder perspective taking. And so we had really thought about them. So where we were off and where I think we're in danger is, and I'm going to introduce a new concept. One of the hardest things about Strong Ground when I was writing it was this idea of how do we future ready leaders? and what is the collection of mindsets and skill sets that we need to be ready? And one of the things that I've seen up close and personal with everybody and senior leader, I mean, every single senior leader with the exception of engineers, is a real lack of systems thinking.

Yep. Right? A real lack of systems thinking. And so one of the things that systems theory has taught me the most, and it's a very integral part, weirdly, of social work. social workers, especially MSWs, masters and social, get there and they're like, okay, how do I help people? How do I community organize or become a clinician or whatever they're going to do on the big scale of what is social work? And their first class is like systems theory. And they're like, what the hell? Because we think of communities as systems. We think of families as systems. You know, in systems theory, there's this, especially Dana Meadows work, and I'm a huge fan of her systems work. There's a big triangle. And at the top is like the iceberg that you see. underneath the iceberg is a bunch of stuff. If you see a problem and you intervene at the problem, the iceberg level, there's no leverage.

You're going to fix a problem. You're going to see it again in two weeks maybe. As you go down under the water, you go through what are the systems that are not working? What are the behaviors that are not working? And at the bottom, you have mental models. You and I work off different mental models. Very different mental models. Right. So that graphic design was an iceberg issue, but underneath it were mental models.

Stealth expectations. Stealth expectations. What's your mental model about what a graphic should do? Yes. That's going to be our logo. It's ultimately going to be like this with our pictures in it. you taught me about, you look at things like, is it going to explain to what people, is it going immediately, the meaning. Yeah. For me, with like the shop and all that stuff, I was trying to create a place of warmth and belonging and comfort where people could come in from the outside and be like, so much vitriol, so much bullshit. This is a place where we can talk and disagree.

And this is why we complement each other well, because we want both meaning and feeling. But would you agree that mental model discussions are rare? Rare and vital because, you know, I actually, a light bulb just went off as we were talking about system theory on mental models specifically, which is, I think part of the reason that I have this knee-jerk reaction when we start talking about collaboration processes and getting on the same page. I actually have this when we talk about return to office and remote work too, which we should definitely get to in a future podcast is my favorite concept from systems theory is the idea of equifinality, which is a mouthful, but you know it.

Yeah, go. Yeah. It's the basic idea that in any complex system, there are multiple paths to the same end. Yes. And what I often hear from you is some version of, well, in order to build a successful business, you have to. And I just reject the premise of any sentence that starts that way. Like, no, there are many ways to build a successful business.

you've got one that works for you. There may be others you haven't tested. I want to A, B, C, D, E, test those. I've got a few that have worked for me that I want to have you try out, right? And I think it's actually not the process. It's the, it's me overreacting to what feels like excessive certainty or narrowness around this is the way. Which is actually a threat to successful systems. And I don't think you mean it that way. No, but I think you're trying to share your experience. I do mean it that way. Oh, you do? I do mean it that way. I mean it, I mean it. Okay, message received and resisted.

Yeah, yeah, no. I actually think I mean it that way. That's so interesting. And I think it's something I need to change. But again, it's deeply personal, which is if I'm not doing it the way that's a lot of caregiving and time for me, I'm not being the leader that I want to be. And I would, I guess the question. I would ask on that is, are you, is this about being the leader you want to be or is it about being the leader that the show and the team need? Two different questions and I need to learn more. Same. Same. Same. For sure. But I think the equifinality, I mean, I think that is a big,

that is a big part of functioning systems. And so what we need to then, I actually think naming that expectation, right? I'm always going to assume, I will always assume that things are equifinal. And so if you're attached to a process, I'm going to find it more persuasive if you explain to me, here's what else I tried and didn't work. Or here's, you know, here's the logic. I have a really hard time accepting. It's the parenting point you made earlier. It almost feels like a because I said so. That's so interesting. And you know where I default to that? we're going to wrap up in a couple of minutes, but I will just, this is a new thing we should write down as another podcast episode idea. I thought, I got a lot of mentoring from Bob Eiger's work on straddling the line between being thoughtful and decisive.

And I've always gotten a lot of praise from being very decisive. Right. My coach recently told me in the last couple months that she, you know, it was that. that, you know, can I invite you to think about, you know, fuck, is my response to the invitations to think about. Can I invite you to think about how your decisiveness may be over-decisiveness to deal with anxiety? Oh. So I think when I am in the yes-chef mode, which I know is not good.

leadership, unless you're in a kitchen, which I've worked in for a long time waiting tables. But like, there's a time and a place for it, right? I think I can get overly decisive. Yes. And when I am anxious or in time scarcity. And I think we built this. We scrambled. We scrambled.

Yep. And got scrappy. Yep. And I can, and I was anxious because I'm also, you know, I got a lot of stuff going on My oldest is getting married, which is so exciting. And so I think I get overly decisive. So that's a strength overused for you or misused. It's a strength overused.

And I didn't see the anxiety part of it, but it makes so much sense. And my mistake was failing to recognize what was causing it. And instead, just pushing back on the decisiveness. I don't know that that's your responsibility to understand it. Because I actually, I'm trying to figure out how that would play out for the folks listening in a team. I think I really want to put out an idea that for our next podcast, we talk about the idea of above and under the line.

I think we should. I think that's really helpful. And I think, ooh. Tell me. Well, I'm just, I think, okay, so in a team, ideally, what I would advise someone else to do, and here we're drinking our own champagne, but it feels more like eating our own dog food. Yeah. This is way easier.

to teach than it is to do. Oh my God. Yes. I, yes. So what I would advise somebody to do in this situation is what I should have done is I should have gone to you and said, hey, Bray, like, I know you to be extremely thoughtful and nuanced and complex in the way that you think things through. And here, you seem like really kind of locked into one direction. Help me understand what's behind that. The lead in got me worried because I was like, but here you're being a complete asshole. So the leaden got me worried. Okay. So let me try it again. Let me take two. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Hey, I'm really surprised to see you locked in to one direction. That's not how you normally operate. Not working. Nope. No. I think all you would have had to say is if I would have

said, what happened on the text was, yes, we need to invest a much time up front with our teams. And you said maybe the research is, okay. So let me, so if we want to get into it, so I said, I think we need to spend some time up front and really get aligned with our teams. You said maybe the research is torn on this, maybe a new podcast episode, question mark. And I think what would have probably been helpful for me is I have a different experience. Are you open to trying what different like curiosity? Yes. Ironically. Yes. That would have been helpful. Yeah. Curiosity about I have a different experience. Yes. But would you be open to experience? exploring with me. Yeah, I can do that. That's a, that's a much better way to frame it.

Yeah, maybe. It's an invitation. It's an invitation. Yeah. And it brings a little bit of playfulness, too, because you love learning. I do, I do. I do love learning. And where I get defensive with you sometimes is because I am so embedded on teams and do this work when your response is, I'm not sure the data don't say that. I'm like, fuck you do. Like, that's exactly. That's like, that's us replaying our 2016. seen debate. You're like, here's what I have seen and lived. I'm like, here's the meta-analysis and here's the randomized controlled experiments. And the mostly interesting learning happens in the tension between those two things. Now, I think the other thing that I was really struck

by here, which we can work through as a specific example of this, is I think one of the things I learned from you is you said, I need to spend more time with my teams so that they feel valued and don't feel dismissed. I looked at that and I thought, oh, that's one way to do. You do that. But one of the ways I make people feel valued is I respect their time and I don't waste it by dragging them into meetings. And I will instead bend over backward to sing their praises and make it really clear to people why I'm excited to be working with them and the unique value they're bringing to the table. Like, oh, we're actually, there's a common value here. There's a common value. And so we just have really different approaches to that. And we need to figure out which ones are

relevant when. Yeah. And I think I was really, I was really locked in. into this is new. We have six or seven people on it. We don't have any systemic communication tool in place. And we do not have alignment across six or seven people about what impact, how we're defining done, how we're defining excellent, what impact is, and we have no shared goals. So you're in threat rigidity mode. Oh, Jesus Christ. I don't know whether I, it sounds like shit, but I don't know what it means. There's a, there's a classic very stah at all paper on threat rigidity, which is, you know, under threat, people tend to do the opposite of what a premortem does and lock into the familiar and kind of proven way.

Absolutely, I was not there. Oh, all right. I strike that from the record, Your Honor. Yes, that's good. Struck but not forgotten. No. I was not in threat rigidity mode. I was in, we have on my side four people excited running in.

four different directions. Oh. We have really big miss balls that were upsetting to you. Yes. And upsetting to me. Yep. That really almost jacked with our schedules to the point where this wasn't not going to be happening.

Yep. And we need to sit down and invest time up front to getting aligned and putting communication systems. So I was not in threat rigidity. I was in... Can I call it cattle herding mode? No. No.

It's much more based in, I think, solid leadership principles that we were in the beginning of forming a new team and building alignment and clarity of mission and purpose. That's what I would say I was in. That makes sense. And that that's going to require a time commitment. Yes, we need to do that. Yeah, that's what I think I was in. Well, we're about to do that. We're leaving this podcast and going into that first meeting. Before we wrap, you have some closing questions? Oh, yeah. I thought it would be fun if we did this because, um, Because I'm curious about you, actually. So what are you listening to right now? I just want to know these basic questions. What are you listening to right now? Yeah. I listened to a science versus episode on narcissism where they got somebody who was diagnosed with the clinical narcissistic personality disorder to talk about his experience of discovering that and then trying to overcome it. It was riveting. Okay, we'll put in the show notes because I want to listen. What do you want to?

watching. Anything you've binge lately or watched? Family tradition, Survivor, currently season 50. Routing for, oh, how do I do this without spoilers? Oh, you shouldn't. At the beginning of the season, I can say that. Yes. I started out with high hopes for Camilla and for Genevieve and for Christian. What do you like about Survivor? Survivor is, I mean, it's a giant psychology experiment in trust and collaboration. and deception and rivalry and competition. And it's just watching people build relationships while also trying to strategize.

It's a microcosm of what we do every day. Okay. I just can't. I can't do Survivor, but my kids are obsessed. What are you reading? I just finished reading Dana Suskin's book, Human Raised, about how to prepare kids and also protect them in the age of AI.

Phenomenal. Really? Worth reading. I highly recommend. Tell me a takeaway. I think it comes out in July, so I probably need her permission to do that. Yeah, yeah, got it. Okay. Okay. Okay. What about you? What are you, let me go backward. What are you reading right now? I am reading a new book in the Shetland series. What's that? I read a lot of British mysteries, folks. You get ready. I mean, this is like Shetland Islands. Yeah, so I'm reading a Shetland book right now. It's probably one of my favorite TV series on television. I think you have to watch it on like Acorn or Brut Box or something, one of the British import television. I watch a lot of British television.

I'm watching, oh, my God. I watched Headed Rivalry just finished it for the third time. Oh, wow. You're all in. Yeah, I'm all in. I haven't seen it. Sounds like it's made for Bridgeton fans. No, I was just going to say I finished Bridgeton and I finished Heed Rivalry.

so my life is open now for watching. Both were great, season four, and then heated rivalry was good. I was talking to Esther Perel last night about her commentary on why the obsession with heated rivalry. And I think not only is it a beautiful love story, but she said every stressful conflict point in that show was met with very beautiful, reparative, and corrective behavior. There you go. So, like, something hard would happen. Like, you have this feeling of, like, foreboding. Like, oh, shit, this is not going to go.

And then the person shows up and is so wonderful. And it was just, I don't know, it was healing in some way to me. So I love it. And then what was the last one? What are you listening to? I have been. You're going to say Rory, aren't you? Oh, I definitely listened to a shit ton of the rest is politics, UK version with Rory

and Alistair. I have so many bones. We should maybe do like a foursome and just like fight it out, like some kind of maybe doubles tennis, take it out on the court. I've been listening to a lot of that. I think it's really helpful to have a non-U.S. political opinion that's more centered on the world. So I think that's interesting. And then Rosalia, just what a, what a, what a woman. And then also listening to a lot of Tom's Van Zant, which I.

I always go back to. We have so little overlap. We have very little. It's almost like we're different people. Yeah, but I'm curious about you. Same. Okay. See you next time.

Looking forward to it. The Curiosity Shop is produced by Bray Brown, Education and Research Group, and granted productions. You can subscribe to the Curiosity Shop on YouTube or follow in your favorite podcast app. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more award-winning shows at podcast.com. Thanks to Canva for their support,

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