The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 347: Steven Strogatz - How Calculus Reveals The Secrets Of The Universe

Episode Date: January 13, 2020

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk Text LEARNERS to 44222 Full show notes can be found at www.LearningLeader.com Episode #347: Steven Strogatz - How Calculus Reveals The Secrets Of The Universe Leaders who sustain excellence: Have a willingness to be a beginner "When you're naive, you ask new questions" "They have the courage to be someone who's just starting" How do you fight the urge to live up to a prior reputation of being an expert at something? Be known as an adventurer.  Cannot have an ego. Six degrees of separation is a math problem The strength in weak ties It's important to connect with people outside of your typical orbit Action: Go to a strange party, play a new sport, go to a new gym, meet oddballs Collect "casual acquaintances" The value of being a helper: Be the assist person, help others, do little acts of kindness, promote someone else's work How Steven and I got to know each other: David Epstein's wife made an intro for David and Steven... And then from David to me. "Be the kind of person who remembers others names" Why should a normal person learn calculus? "The world has been turned upside down by calculus" "Calculus is the mathematical study of change" "It's a great intellectual adventure story" "Calculus is the language that God talks" --> The laws of nature are built in calculus How to be more creative? Be broadly interested in many different topics.  Take something from one area and apply it somewhere else. Advice Steven would give to a mid-level manager: "Getting high grades is jumping through hoops someone else sets" "As a PhD, you have to make your own hoops" "People need to be more adventurous, and then figure it out" Why you should study Improv as a leader: Use "Yes and..."  This helps with brainstorming and coming up with new ideas.  Put out a lot of wacky ideas to get to the good stuff. "I want people to be gripped irrationally by the imagination" The power of mentors: "Learn from both the great coaches and the bad ones" The value of friendships: The story of Mr. Joffray -- Physically impressive and wonderfully intelligent.  He took pleasure in Steven passing him. The value of teaching: It helps create empathy... It forces you to put yourself in the mind of someone else. "Bad teachers don't have empathy." How does Steven prepare for big moments? "I try to be myself.  And talk myself out of being intimidated." --->  The audience wants you to do well. Life advice: "Do what you care about most, what drives you the most, do the hard work to become skillful." Why joining The Learning Leader Circle is a good idea

Real quick, before we get to this episode, I wanted to speak with you about my book, Welcome to Management. This is one project that I will not shy away from heavily promoting. And that is because I firmly believe in the message and the potential impact it can have for the people who choose to read it. I've spent the past five years reflecting over the bulk of my life and understanding what it means to be an excellent leader. And I have put everything I have into this book to help you, someone who strives to improve, grow, serve other people, to build a culture that is full of committed people. That's what this book is all about. I've taken stories from my own life, from mistakes to success as well as from more than 300 interviews on this very podcast, The Learning Leader Show, and put it all into this book. I greatly appreciate your support and firmly believe it can impact you to make a massive difference in the lives of many people because that's what leaders do.

They lead through influence and impact people. For more information about pre-ording this book, go to learning leader.com or search Welcome to Management wherever books are sold and pick up a copy. Thank you so much. All right, here we go. Welcome to the Learning Leader Show presented by Brixie and Meyer. I am Ryan Hawk. Thanks so much for being here. Text learners to 4422 in order to join tens of thousands of learning leaders from all over the world. Receive Mindful Monday updates what I'm reading, writing, watching, thinking about. Also give you the opportunity to be part of my book launch team. Text learners to 44222.

Now on tonight's featured leader, one of the smartest people I've ever spoken with Dr. Steven Strogatz, tenured professor of applied mathematics at Cornell University, graduated summa cum laude, and mathematics from Princeton in 1980 did his doctoral work and applied mathematics at Harvard. Also, the author of multiple New York Times bestsellers, including two of my favorites, Infinite Powers and The Calculus of Friendship. A few of the topics we discussed, the power of having broad interest and a willingness to be a beginner. And then why a leader should learn calculus, followed up by the importance of trusting your irrational views. And we ended talking about why you should not always listen to your parents.

Ladies and gentlemen, this one is so good. Dr. Steven Stroggats. All right, welcome Steve Strograts to The Learning Leaders Show. So good to have you, man. Hey, thank you, Ryan. Pleasure to be here. All right. So you, as we've discussed before I hit record, you are,

different from most of the guest on the show. And that's that's one of the main reasons I wanted to bring you on. You perhaps are the smartest person I've ever talked to. And that is a challenge. So I'll do my best to hang. But I am curious, Steve, where there's a lot to get to, but to get us going, you know, I am really fascinated by people and leaders who have found a way to sustain excellence. And I'm curious from your perspective with all the research you've done and the people you've surrounded yourself with as well as your own habits, routines, and rituals. What have you found to be the commonalities among those people who have sustained excellence? Well, one thing is a willingness to be a beginner. I think that's really helpful. I mean, it's one thing to develop

expertise in some area and rise through the ranks and become someone really well known. That's fine, and we all aspire to doing that. But at some point, you can become stale if you, you're too much, you know, sort of in your own groove and always doing the same thing. And like, there's a sort of natural maturation, a, coming to an end of the line. And so what do you do then? I mean, do you just keep drilling into the same hole or do you jump out and try something brand new and uncomfortable, maybe something adjacent to what you've already been doing, but different? And so when I think of the scientific heroes that I respect the most, people like Francis Crick, you know, of Watson and Crick fame for DNA, he,

did a lot more than DNA. He started to think about the brain and neuroscience. He worked in other parts of biology. So the thing about being a beginner is that when you're naive, you ask new questions, you bring in new tools, new methods, new strategies. And being ignorant has its advantages because you take a fresh look at things. Of course, there's disadvantages to being ignorant and being a beginner. But still, the courage to be someone who's just starting, I mean, I suppose that would come up in your world where, you know, someone has a successful company and then they decide to start up another company. Mm-hmm.

You know? So you're a guy who has had, speaking of that and the willingness to be a beginner. When people have success, there can be a tendency for them to get more conservative because now that they've got a sort of reputation to live up to, they may not take as great a risk. because they're fearful of saying, well, wait a second, people already think this highly of me. If I start over or if I become a beginner, I could lose that. How do you fight that urge or how are you able to not be concerned with that? Yeah, I really like where you're going with that.

I mean, it's true that there is a defensiveness to being on top, right? There's no place to go but down. And I guess I've never really thought about it the way you just mentioned. that I feel like when I do branch out into something completely different, like in my case, that might have meant, you know, I'm a mathematician. So I apply math to different parts of science and technology. And so one day I'm working on DNA and then the next day I'm working on sleep cycles. It's to me, I figure it should be clear to anyone looking that I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to sleep cycles.

I'm just at the start of this. But they view you as they view as a really smart person. So are you ever concerned or what's your mindset when they're thinking, well, I thought Steve would be smarter about this. But again, I think you kind of get a pass if you're a beginner. Gotcha. Now, maybe that's not true out there in the cold, cool world. I think it, I already sense early, we've only talked for a few minutes, but I sense you have this security in yourself. And where that kind of fear and leaning towards being more conservative so that you don't have to live up to her reputation might stem from insecurity.

And if you're secure in your in oneself, you're not afraid to ask the stupid question. Well, that's right. You know? That's right. But I'm wondering if I might be insulated from things that people out there in reality have to deal with that I as a tenured professor in the academic world don't have to deal with. You know, tenure means it's a lifetime appointment. And unless I do something scandalous, they're not going to fire me. Yeah.

Whereas for people who have to worry about the bottom line or the reputation of, you know, their company. or something, I can see why it would be important to be more careful. But nevertheless, I mean, for me, as an intellectual or academic adventurer, I'm allowed to take chances. And anyway, it's in my nature. I like to learn new things and try new things. And sure, I'll be blundering around at first at the beginning. But it's just, it's paid off so many times where, you know, there was something that everybody has heard of this, the small world or the six degrees of separation. idea where you, you know, you meet someone and then you start talking, you find out maybe you have a friend in common or you know someone who knows someone like that, these chains of connections. And when I started working on that with one of my graduate students thinking that this is a math problem, you know, why is it, how can it be that the number is so small? How can we be so connected? People told me that, you don't have any right working on that. You're not a sociologist. You don't do social network theory. How can you possibly that anyway, that problem is 50 years old.

People have thought about that. What are you going to do? That's new. Well, we did a lot that was new. We did some revolutionary stuff that has, you know, the paper we wrote about it has ended up being among the top hundred most heavily cited scientific papers of all time in any discipline. And it was because we didn't know what the hell we were doing at first. But we were smart and we were cocky. And we knew that we were good. And that if we deliberately didn't learn what other people had thought, we wouldn't fall into the same ruts. that they had fallen into. I mean, that's how, I'm sure it sounds really arrogant. No, no. Well, speaking of network science, so this, I had this to talk about later, but since you brought it up, this has been cited more than 38,000 times, according to Google Scholar, probably more by the time this recording comes out. But it's one of the most influential papers ever on network science.

What did you learn about that? Well, I'd say if you had to boil it down to just one takeaway, it was the importance of what we called shortcuts. shortcuts means, like actually, maybe you and I are forming a shortcut right now as we speak. A shortcut is a connection to a person who's outside your usual orbit. Definitely. You know? A connection to a person in a different world who knows things you don't know, who has access to people you don't know.

I mean, like this idea has been around for a while. There was a sociologist Mark Granovetter from Stanford who wrote a really famous paper called The Strength of Weak Ties, where a tie is a relationship. and weak ties, I mean, he came up with this idea when he was asking people how they found their job. Where did you get, you know, how did you get the job that you're in right now? And so he did all these interviews and people would say to him, oh yeah, I heard about it through somebody I know. And then Granavetta would say, oh, a friend of yours told you about it. And he said, people were always very careful to correct him. They'd say, no, actually, it wasn't really my friend. It was an acquaintance. It was somebody I didn't really know that well, but they heard about this opportunity. And Granavetter

started to realize that the people in your innermost circle are not actually the ones who help you find a job because they have access to the same information that you do by and large. It's these more distant acquaintances, the weak ties, not the strong ties, who can connect you to things you never thought of. And so Adam Grant writes about that in his book, Give and Take, I remember, and Adam and I spoke about that. I don't know if you read or no Adam. Certainly heard of him.

Okay. Yeah. And so he writes about the strength of weak ties. So let's make that practical here and tie a bow on this part in that paper that's been cited so many times that you've written. Knowing that, and that person who's currently listening right now, Steve, who is a mid-level manager and they're looking to grow and have an incredible career and make a positive contribution on the world, be a fantastic leader, get promoted, you know, all of that type of work. What advice with that knowledge would you give to that person? Well, the implication is that instead of just going to the company party, go to some strange party. Go to do something, you know, try out a new sport, go to a new gym, new church, whatever your thing is where you're going to meet somebody who, it's not like strategic networking in the most cunning or practical sense.

It's kind of a little bit whimsical and impractical where you're just meeting oddballs because some of them, are going to turn out to be important, but it's hard to say who they are and when. So you're playing a statistical game that if you just expand who you're willing to hang out with a little bit, you don't have to be very close to them. You don't have to know them well enough that you would lend your car to them or borrow money from them, you know, but just a casual acquaintance outside the usual circle. If you collect enough of those, you're going to find all kinds of amazing new possibilities coming to mind.

And I don't know if this plays along with it. And I 100% agree. So create a regular process of getting outside of the normal places where you normally would go. And I would add to that if you want to create even more weak ties that could turn into potentially strong ties. And you've done this. This is how I became aware of you and why I'd ask you to come on the show. If you're willing, if you have the guts to publish your work online, whether it's in a book, a podcast, a blog, articles, and you do it consistently and regularly and it adds value to the lives of other people, that I think is the future of networking.

If you're willing to regularly publish what you believe, what you think, what you've learned, other people then see it, read it, and say, wow, I want to talk to Steve. He seems interesting. And I think as we go more and more, that is a powerful way to connect with people. Well, so, right. So you've mentioned the idea of you yourself publishing or your listeners who have ideas. who have ideas getting out there and blogging or tweeting or whatever. But let's also remember the value of being a helper.

In basketball, you need the guy that's making the assist as well as the guy who's, you know, doing the layup, in the jumper. You've got to look for a way that you can pass the ball to someone which in this context, the metaphor I have in mind, you know, to put it more down to earth, help out other people. Help out strangers. I mean, pull the thorn out of the lion's paw, like in that. old children's story, that just doing little acts of kindness and helping someone else's business.

So in other words, you don't have to always think about just tweeting your stuff or writing your blog. If you can promote someone else's work, first of all, it's nice to do. Everyone likes a pat on the back. Everyone likes to be heard. And these relationships sometimes are actually very practical and will pan out for you. In a genuine manner, right? Promote the stuff you love, you know.

Be known for, don't be known as a complainer. Be known as someone who promotes what they love. I think that is a really good habit to get into is promoting what you love. And when you produce a piece of work that you like, you promote that as well. But I completely agree, Steve. So maybe, Ryan, you could tell me, it's a little mystery to me how we are connected right now. Is it through David Epstein? Or who is it through?

It is. So Dave, I believe, mentioned you. to me because we had recorded together. So part of the cool thing about doing this show, Steve, the reason I'm hesitating is because I want to be certain that I'm properly identifying how we came to know each other. I'm 99% certain that's how it is. But on a broader level, one of the cool things about this is I'm able to, you know,

Dave's work, David Epstein's work and his most recent book, Range is kind of blowing up right now, why generalist triumph in a specialized world. And we had a really good conversation on my podcast. And what normally happens is I do ask to stay in contact. I want to build real relationships with my guest because I only have people on who I'm really curious about. And because of that, when you form and build genuine relationships, then there's usually follow up and they'll say, hey, you should talk to Steve because he's fascinating about this, this and this. Or how you could talk about calculus or math and how that relates to leadership or the world. And I remember when I first saw that about you, I thought, I don't know.

One, I'm intimidated by his level of intelligence. And two, does it really relate? And then I thought, wait a second, this is a great challenge. And I love challenges. This is a great challenge to try to hang with a guy like this and see how it relates to your audience. I already can tell it's working, which is cool. But yeah, I mean, that's how. And then it just keeps building.

And that's why getting guests for my show. has become far easier. It was really hard at the beginning and now it's easier because great people like David Epstein will say, hey, you should talk to so-and-so. And that's happening on a regular basis. So I always have kind of a full list of quality people to have the opportunity to record with. Well, so I mean, in his case, I mean, I think I've only been face to face with him once. We had lunch together once. And I first met his wife at a conference. So we were at a a conference in Aspen at the Aspen Ideas Festival. And it would just happen to be a year when the people at Aspen asked for some mathematicians

to come and talk to their guests who are a lot of, you know, big shots from all kinds of different walks of life. But there were some, so his David's wife, Elizabeth Green, had worked on a book about education and sort of what are some of the things that are wrong with American education. What could we do to fix it? I of course I'm being in the world of education very interested in that kind of thing and so I took a shine to her and and her ideas and then somehow she said something about her husband and then I think I had heard of him from the sports gene although I hadn't read the book but

anyway then we started talking and I anyway so I just think it's cool when there are all these chains of connections but a practical lesson there is to be one of those kind of people who remembers other people's names and that's easier to say than to do. I'm not so good at it myself. But it's really helpful to remember where did you hear something? How is that person relate to the rest of your network or the rest of the things you're interested in? And, you know, I think it's fun that we're getting me and you this connection now. Actually, though, let me finish up that thought, though, that I, some people who are hearing us talk about six degrees of separation will think, yeah, but I don't see the point. What do the shortcuts have to do with that?

So just to close the circle on that, the secret to the small world and why it is that we're so close. connected, we think one of the secrets is when I connect to someone far from my usual world, for example, let's make this concrete. I like to play chess on the internet. And I mean, there's a lot to talk about with chess too, but let's just say, I play chess on the internet. I meet people from all over the world. And I, you know, except I'm not meeting them for real. I'm meeting them virtually through the internet. But I met a guy in Holland. And so I've ever been to the Netherlands, but he's a good chess player. We would have a lot of games together. And I started to be friendly with him. And he would tell me about his family. And we got to know

each other, except I've never shaken his hand. But I feel like I know some things about this guy and him about me. And so the reason that's relevant is that now suppose I wanted to get some information or do some kind of transaction with somebody in the Netherlands. I have a pathway. I have a conduit now through my friend. And so I'm now connected to Holland in a way I never was, through this one shortcut link. And he's connected to all kinds of people in the American college system through me. And what's more, all of my friends

are now connected to all of his friends by way of both of us. They don't know it. You know, that's the weird thing. These networks can bring the world together and stitch the world together so that people are suddenly connected and cannot even perceive it,

which is very relevant for something like HIV or other viruses. if you remember in the old days when it was a really rampant epidemic, people would say stuff like, when you sleep with someone, you don't just sleep with them. You're sleeping with everyone that they slept with. Remember this idea?

Oh, yeah. I don't know how young you are. Maybe you don't. Yeah, I do. Okay. I mean, honestly, I remember this from Magic Johnson. I know that sounds bad, but that's where it kind of came to my,

because I was a big sports fan. I remember it from him. Exactly. So that's a thing. I mean, for epidemiology or anything else that can be contagious, not just biological viruses, but like bank failures, you know, in the financial system or lots of things spread on networks. So this is why networks are so important, one of many reasons.

But the work that we did on the small world phenomenon in networks shows that we're all much closer to the risk, if it is a risky thing, than we realized. We're also much closer to opportunity than we realized. I think it's really helpful, and I appreciate you making it tactical. Now, getting to where I actually plan to start, so it took us a little bit where we're here, which I'm glad. But you mentioned in your first answer about the willingness to, I would say, change or do something new or be a beginner. And I've read one of your quotes as calculus is the mathematical study of change. Can you talk to me about why should a normal person like me who has never taken calculus ever?

And I've gotten a graduate degree, Masters in Business. Why should we be interested and want to learn more about calculus? Well, that is certainly a big question for me. I should have a pat answer for you, and I'll try. Okay. I mean, I think I want to begin a little defensively, and I think honestly, by saying it's fine if you don't know it. Like, it's not, the one argument I could make is that you need it and you'll immediately realize that you don't because you've lived your whole life without it and nothing happened. That was, you know, problematic.

So it's not that you need it because people will say this. My students say, why do I need to learn calculus? And the only honest answer is, well, you don't. You don't need it. I mean, yes, you do need it if you're going to be. a chemical engineer, you know, or a physicist. There are certain technical jobs where if you knew it, of course, it'll help you in the functioning in your job, but most people don't need it. So that, it can't be an answer in terms of need. That's not going to work. I think the honest answer of

why someone should learn it is because they might want to be part of the conversation in our civilization. It's one of the great ideas of all time. Calculus has given us, Well, the technology we're using right now, for one thing. I mean, if we're going to communicate wirelessly, we're using electromagnetic waves that go through the air. And actually, they can go through vacuum. They can go through empty space. And it was calculus in the middle of the 1800s that led a physicist named James Clerk Maxwell in Scotland to figure out how electricity and magnetism could dance together through empty space

and make a new kind of signal, what we would today call an electrical. electromagnetic wave that can propagate and carry information. Now, this was just a theoretical thing that the math told him, but it was only a few years later that Marconi invented the telegraph, and Tesla figured out how to make a working radio system. And it was pretty soon after that that we got, had telegraphs and television and radio and then cell phones and, you know, so the world has been turned upside down by calculus in so many ways. When you get a CT scan for an injury, you're using calculus. If you, a woman in the hospital having ultrasound for a pregnancy based on, also all kinds of

medical imaging is based on it. The math that got the astronauts to the moon and back safely, that's calculus. I mean, it is incredibly pervasive, but it's sort of under the hood. It's part of our everyday lives, but it's invisible. And so it's also a great intellectual adventure story. How did people figure out this incredibly powerful? math that describes, as you say, the world of things that are changing. I consider it sort of, it's a story like, why would you want to read about people that climb Mount Everest? You know,

because it's a fantastic adventure. This was the human spirit at its best. And so this story is like almost 3,000 years old of people figuring out, how do you make sense of a world that never stops changing? The math for that is not algebra, it's not geometry, it's not arithmetic. You need a more souped up kind of math that can cope with change that keeps on changing. And that's what calculus does. Why are Herman Woke and Richard Feynman important to you? Well, right. So, I mean, Herman Woke, who just sadly passed away was a great novelist. He wrote The Cain Mutiny. People might know that movie with Humphrey Bogart. You know, he wrote The Winds of War, War and Remembrance. These are big novels about World War II. So he was one of the great novelists in my parents' generation.

after World War II. And he lived to be almost 104 years old. He just died very recently, just a few weeks ago, really. But the reason I mention him, and the reason I guess you're asking me about him, is because my most recent book about calculus and the story of calculus called Infinite Powers, that book begins with a story of Herman Woke, who is doing research for one of his big books about World War II. and he needs to interview some of the scientists who worked on the building of the atomic bomb.

So someone says go to Caltech, California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and you'll find all kinds of physicists there who worked on the bomb. Anyway, he goes and talks to this one guy named Richard Feynman, who's one of the great physicists of the 20th century. And in the course of their conversation, after it's over, Feynman asked woke, well, you know, if you're going to write this book, and understand what we did, you better know calculus. Do you know calculus? And woke, who, you know, has spent his whole life in literature and philosophy and history has to admit, no, I don't know, never studied calculus. And then Feynman says, well, you better learn it.

It's the language God talks. So it's a spooky thought, you know, that the universe runs on calculus. The language of the universe, the laws of nature, are written in a very particular mathematical language and it's always in the form of calculus equations. So that was Feynman's point to Woke and Woke goes on to tell a story in a book that he wrote, another book called The Language God Talks, partially about his attempt to learn calculus, which he sounds like he never did, though he tried. And also deeper questions about how does science connect to religion and faith because Woke himself was a very devoutly religious Jewish guy. Feynman, who is also Jewish,

was an atheist and probably as committed to atheism as woke was to, you know, being observant. So they made, they became friends and had interesting discussions about the really big questions. Hmm. I can't help but teleport into seeing you at a dinner party. And let's say you're meeting with people who aren't intellectuals from the academic world, but just normal people. Sure. How does it go for you?

Huh? Well, come on. I can pass. You know, I mean, I think are people saying like, well, Steve's too smart or are do you kind of educate them or like what? I mean, this question may make absolutely no sense, but I'm just curious about it. Okay, come on. You're overestimating me for one thing. It would help if you talk to my wife. What does she say? What would your wife say? She is, she thinks I'm hilarious at least that I'm so stupid about so many important real world things. Oh, like what are you stupid about? Okay. So one time we're talking about how we need, it would help if we had another bathroom in the house. So she says something about how, well, actually, we have a shower in this room, but it would be good if we could also have a bathtub.

And I said, that really would be good because we don't have any bathtubs in the house. And then she just stares at me and said, you take a shower every day in a bathtub. There is a bathtub. You're standing in a bathtub when your shower's running, and I never noticed it in like 15 years. Okay? So I'm like so spaced out and so in my own head that or another time was she needed me to move something. It was pretty heavy. And I said, oh, well, what we need is some wheels so we could wheel it around.

And I realized that our kids who were little at that point, we had a wagon, you know, like a little child wagon toy that was out in the back yard. I said we could put it on the wagon. Again, she gave me that look. Like, this thing, which was like the weight of a piano or something, is going to totally crush the wagon. What are you thinking? Okay.

So my attempt to make you relatable to the rest of us, I think we succeeded. Okay. So the word creative, what does the word creative mean to you and your pursuit to live in this creative space? Because the reason I bring this up is I recently recorded with the leader of a rock band. And so he's wrote Mark Rober's name for the band of a revolution. And Mark is leading a number of creative people. And it was a fascinating conversation.

I loved it. But different, different than most. So I know you're into creativity. How do you view this? Oh, well, I think it really helps to be broadly. interested in many different things and to make connections in your mind, especially unexpected ones, startling connections, offbeat linkages. I mean, you can try to think of something new from scratch, but often what happens is you take an idea that works in one setting and then import it

into some unexpected place. Like what? Yeah, let's see. What would be a good case of that? I don't know. I mean, like when I say if we go back to that business about the six degrees and trying to understand how does that work as a math problem, you know, we would think of people that are passing HIV to each other as just little dots connected by lines where a line between two people means they have a relationship, say a sexual relationship in this case. Or, you know, in working on something like that, which you think, okay, so now we're doing epidemiology and thinking about. viruses and contagion, well, if you're just think about it abstractly enough as dots connected by lines, you realize it's also about terrorist networks, you know, that is, they're also dots connected by lines. There's Osama bin Laden and all the guys that he works with, and people in our intelligence services know about that. So I've been approached by people in FBI and also people that I shouldn't really say what government agencies they work in to think

about what's the optimal way to search for information or key players in networks of very life and death importance. But to a mathematician, what we learn about epidemiology and those dots and lines is not that different because it's still dots and lines from terrorist networks. Or there was a time that the FBI wanted to talk to me about if, you know, there's a suspect in a crime and he's found to have some hair on his sweater. And he says, well, maybe, you know, and the hair matches something on the victim, did I pick up that hair from the victim because I was the murderer? Or did I pick it up on a bus? Because a lot of people have hair like that. Or maybe the victim was on a bus. You know, in other words, the FBI crime lab wanted to know about, like,

what's the probability of transmission through these different scenarios? Could we say with what probability that the suspect is actually the murderer, that kind of stuff. I mean, it's just, it's crazy all the different applications and connections there can be. So, I mean, how does that relate to the audience that we're talking to right here? I mean, I guess it's still the same thing that we're talking about, that I feel like if you have a lot of wide-ranging interests and try to see analogies, how is one thing like or different from something else, you might make, might make some surprising advances that way. So let's point back to that person, that avatar that I like to speak to because of all the

email I receive, Steve. And part of the, and let's think about some of the challenges that they may be dealing with right now. So this person, let's say, is in that mid-level management leadership role, anywhere from the frontline manager to the SVP of a big company. And the things they need to do is they obviously have to hit a, aggressive goal set forth by their company. And part of that is hiring, training, developing, running a team, having effective meetings, all that go into it. And I know you experience some of

this in a different world in the world of academics, but you have teams. You're leading people. You have assistance and teachers that you're working with. So you're trying to do something similar, but you probably have a different angle, which I think could be useful. What advice, if you're speaking to that person based on calculus, mathematics, and your experience as a leader, would you give to that person? Okay, so I don't know that calculus or any of the math per se is helpful, but I think you're right that, like in my case, my life is dominated by working with graduate students. These are people who are trying to get their Ph.D. in math or applied math, meaning math applied to, something in the real world. And I'm supposed to help mentor them. And, you know, an issue that comes up a lot for me is this is usually a young person who's been terrific in college with high

grades. And getting high grades often means jumping through hoops that someone else set up for you. And the game changes. When you're getting a PhD, you have to create something brand new. You have to solve a problem that hasn't been solved before that's thought to be important in some field where you have to define a new problem and show why it matters and then try to solve it. So there's no longer, no one else is handing you the hoops. You have to make your own hoops to jump through and make them attractive and significant. So I bring it up because one of the things I have to do, you know, sort of as a manager or a leader is help students make this transition to being more adventurous, to being explorers where the rules of the game have changed.

I'm not going to pose the question for them. They have to figure out their own question. So I'm guessing that like in the management roles that you were just mentioning, and this is where I don't know enough about how companies really work. I mean, are those goals set by someone else? Probably they are from someone higher up. But can sometimes a person suggest a new direction and then their team? Like in other words, can you create your own question, your own goal?

Or is that just not the way it works? You tell me. Well, I think it depends where you are. And I do think the takeaway to get practical here, which is I like to zoom out and zoom in regularly throughout the course of these conversations, Steve. I think the learning I would take if I was a young, ambitious person who's looking to grow a great career is the way you're coming out of it is different, meaning what could we accomplish if we thought a little differently? And it's this advice my wife always gives to younger people and what she's exhibited in her career is be proactive, not reactive. And I think that's what you're saying. And so maybe there are issues that the company doesn't know yet.

Maybe you bring those to light as well as perhaps a way to solve them. Carly Fiorina was on my show and she said you need to run towards the fire. Yeah, yeah. Everyone else is running away. Run towards it. So I think the takeaway I'm gathering from what you're saying is, have a mindset to be on the lookout for areas where you could help, areas where you could make a difference, and then bring those to light as well as potential solutions or at least a path towards a solution and raise your hand to be a leader in that regard. Well, the other thing, you know, another connection I'd like to bring up here is from theater and improv.

Okay. So, and like in comedy. So improv, you know, where you say something and maybe we're working together. They have this thing in improv. I don't know if you've had any theater people on the show. But you might consider them because they have this saying about yes and, right? I've been to improv journey, yeah. Yeah, okay. So you know what I'm talking about.

So yes and, right, you do something. And rather than me shutting it down because it doesn't make sense or it's too silly, I kind of agree with it and then take it to the next level or add something to it. And we kind of keep, it's not that we don't, there's a time in a place for being critical. And there's also a time in a place for being intuitive and loose and free. And, you know, often in the brainstorming phase, you have to put out some wacky ideas. You have to do some strange stuff. And if you shut down your people too quickly or if you're the one who's not brave enough, you know,

you're the one being shut down and you're not brave enough to insist to keep pushing a little, this is how good ideas can get squelched. Of course, a lot of bad ideas come this way too. So you need a filter. You need some kind of judgment to sift out what are the good ideas from the bad ones. But still, I mean, like in working with my students where there's this big power differential and they figure I'm judging them, I'm going to have to write letters of recommendation for them. I could make or break their career.

I'm going to, you know, like a lot of them initially are very worried about what I think of them. And yet all I really want is for them to live up to their potential. and do something cool. And also maybe even do something personal, like that's idiosyncratically their idea, that's something that fascinates them. Because then something really remarkable can happen. I mean, actually, that was an idea that my mentor gave me. He said, you've got to work on something that grips you irrationally by the imagination,

which I thought was a really interesting phrase, has to grip you irrationally by the imagination. And I think the word irrational is really important there, that it's not that it grips you because it makes sense and it's so logical and of course it's the obvious next thing to do no it should grip you irrationally like you can't even really explain why you're so in love with that direction it just fires you up it wakes you up in the morning makes you want to really run for it and pursue it and so i mean again that may be a luxury that we have in the academic world that is not so common in the business world or maybe it is maybe in the startup or venture

world it would be. But yeah, trusting your irrational desires sometimes. They're not that irrational. They come from some deep place. Was that mentor Mr. Jafrey? Oh, that's a different person. Yeah, that's a different person actually. Art Winfrey, who I worked with when I had just finished college. But yeah, you mentioned Mr. Joffrey. That was a high school teacher of mine. All right. I want to get very influential for me. I'd like to get to him in a second too, but it made me think of when I, you know, you said a mentor of mine. And I just want to talk about the topic of mentors. Good. Yeah. How, and now there is one. I took a, took a guess with the hopes of being right, but I'm actually glad I was wrong because it leads me to believe that you've probably

been influenced by a number of mentors. Can you, can you share the importance of, of mentors in your life and the application for others as well? Well, I certainly have been. And I also had anti-mentors. Hmm. Okay. Tell me more. Yeah. People who were my teachers who, for whatever reason, I thought, taught me something negative, taught me something that I don't respect or don't believe. And like, in other words, I don't want to be like them. Right. You learn, you learn as much from the bad coaches as the good ones. That's what I'm saying. And I think those people are valuable too. You can take positive things. You can. So, I mean, for instance, I had one person who I was working with on a certain research

problem, and there was data that was available to test the theory we were coming up with. And he felt like, you don't really need to test it that much. It's just a theory anyway. I mean, we don't really think it's right. We don't think it's supposed to predict anything. So why bother testing it? And I just thought, that's crazy. I mean, what are we doing if we're not trying to connect to the real world?

Why are we wasting our time? So he was, for me, a negative role model, that one. But anyway, no, more important are the positive role models, I guess, which there was one very important one in high school, Mr. DeCursio, who actually was a very unpopular teacher. Very few of the students liked him. A lot of the other teachers didn't like him. He was abrasive. He was obnoxious.

But he really was principled. And he cared a lot about learning and hard work. And why did you connect with him? He was irascible. Why did I like him, though? He was just so honest. I mean, you knew where he stood. So you value that honesty first and foremost.

He was very straight with that. He was very smart. And I sort of understood why he was grumpy. There were a lot of things that were happening at the school that made him grumpy. And I sort of thought he had a right to be cranky as he was. But he loved me. He was a really good teacher to me and advisor. Actually, he did one thing for me that was very important that I didn't appreciate so much at the time, but I do now, which was when I was in college, my parents put some pressure on me to apply to medical school.

And I had never been interested in being a doctor, but they thought it was a nice life. This was a time when, you know, if your kid was reasonably smart, you'd tell them be a doctor or a lawyer, right? I mean, those were two of the professions. Business was not as active at that time as it is today. Like people weren't thinking about going to finance or have a startup. That was unheard of. This was in the 70s. So anyway, you know, I had this parental pressure to be a doctor and I was already pretty far along in college and I needed to get letters of recommendation.

But I had no biology teachers at that point because I was so late switching from math into pre-med. And so I resorted to asking my old high school teacher, Mr. DeCerccio, could you write a letter? of recommendation for me. And he said, I'm not going to write that letter. You've never expressed interest in being a doctor. I think you have zero interest in medicine. And I'm totally not going to support you in that. You always wanted to be a math teacher, and I think that's what you should do.

Wow. And he was right. Those are the types of people, though, we need in our life, you know, that we, you probably have plenty of people that will patch you on the back and say, good job, Steve, but you need the person who's willing to do that. I cherish those people who I have in my life who I know have the guts and the willingness. And I know they've thought about it too. They're not just trying to be critical, but they've actually thought about it and they're willing to say, you know, actually this.

And then it makes me think and sometimes stops me in my tracks. Occasionally it hurts my feelings. But I'm so grateful that I have them because they're needed. They're so valuable in a time when maybe someone's afraid to really tell you, hard truth. Exactly. Those people are gold. You've got to, you know, there aren't that many of them in our lives.

But so I think of him, Mr. DeCircio, Bob DeCircio, was his name, was, yeah, it was my first mentor. And, you know, that kind of style that he had where he would just tell you what he really thought, you could see where a guy like that wouldn't always be so popular. How about another one of your books that I know you don't talk about as much anymore, but I was curious about as I dug into your work, was called the calculus of friendship. And I think this whole thought about developing great friendships, especially as Tim Urban wrote a great post about this on Waitbuty.com, but it's harder and harder as you age, especially with people in my kind of bracket because we have young kids and we're always driving them to practice and everywhere else that if you don't really aren't, if you're not intentional about it, you'll notice you'll look up after a while and you're saying, wait a second, we haven't spent time with our friends. because we've been Uber drivers for our kids.

So they're sports and we're working and everything else that goes on. How do you, what's your views towards developing great friendships and how calculus has played a role in that? Hmm. Well, I mean, the question you're really asking me has to do with one particular friendship with this teacher, Mr. Joffrey. I don't think I could generalize it to other friendships, but maybe I should just flesh. out what that story is with him because it's the only friendship of its kind I had in my whole life before now. I mean, I've never had one like this. He was my teacher in high school, calculus teacher. He was also, I mean, I want to give you a little picture of him. He was

very physically impressive. He had been an 11-letter man in college. So I know some of your listeners are athletes and that you have had great athletes. on the show. This guy, Mr. Joffrey, had played in college as a varsity athlete for 11 out of the 12 semesters that he was in college. And I think it was only because in his first semester, wait, am I doing that right? That's wrong. I'm sorry, three sports a year, three sports a year times four years, right? So it's not semesters. He would have played, I think, football, hockey and maybe baseball. I'm not sure. Anyway, the point was, the guy was like an Olympic, caliber athlete. And he later became U.S. champion in a sport that he took up for fun late in life,

which was whitewater kayaking. He could do anything. He was the most physically impressive person I ever met. I mean, I remember as a kid shaking his hand and feeling like my hand was just swallowed in this enormous mitt of his. And anyway, so he was a fantastic jock, just a great athlete. But he also taught math. And when I took math from him, I remember being unimpressed. Because, truth was, I think I understood math at that time maybe a little better than he did. It just was a fact. And he knew it and I knew it. And he was good at math, but I, you know, I was a little bit anomalous.

I was meant, I eventually became a math professor. You know, I was already on that path. Sure. And what was so remarkable is that he was very humble about that. And he was in fact kind of like a cheerleader for me. and he took tremendous pleasure in my surpassing him and showing him stuff. And that was really what I needed at that time in my life because I really wanted to be a teacher, but I didn't have anyone I could teach because my friends, the kids my own age,

didn't want me teaching them. Nobody wants that. But he would let me teach him. And then as years went by and I went off to college and later in my life, he would write to me every year, a few times a year, and say some math problem came up back in his high school class. he didn't know how to answer it. Could I answer it?

Could I help him think about it? And I totally love that experience of writing these little teachy letters to my old teacher, explaining stuff to him. And then he would explain it to his classes. Anyway, so we went on for about 35 years like this, writing about math problems to each other. And the weird thing is that at some point, my wife said, you must know everything about him. You've been writing to each other 30 whatever years.

and I actually knew almost nothing about my teacher. Our relationship was so compartmentalized into math. And so the book is actually, I don't know, you remember a book called Tuesdays with Mori? Yeah, I've had Mitch on. Mitch on. Oh, God, okay. So you totally know. Yeah.

So Tuesdays with Mori, which was a phenomenal book. When I was reading yours, it reminded me of that one very much so. Okay. Well, I mean, I was very influenced by that book, except that Mr. Joffrey was not on his deathbed. But it was a similar thing. in that it was a story of friendship between men of two different ages. One was a teacher. One was a student. And in our case, we sort of switched roles. But actually, in a way, he was always my teacher in that he always kind of wanted to open things up and talk about our real lives and what's going on.

Like, I was engaged and I got my wedding. I did get married, but then that marriage didn't work out, and we got divorced after two years. And like, he wanted to talk about that stuff, but I wouldn't go there and little by little he um he helped me grow as a man you know to where we could actually talk about meaningful things outside of math it was a so that's what the book is kind of about is this and there was a tragedy too one of his sons died quite young his son marshal died when he was only 27 and i never expressed condolences about that i was scared i didn't know what what do you say to somebody who's lost us a child i mean that's the worst thing that could possibly happen I didn't know what to say.

And I was ashamed of myself and years went by and I never said anything to him until, you know, people could read the book if they're curious. But it's, okay, that's a long answer to your question. No, I appreciate it. And I like that you're kind of thinking out loud. I think that's good stuff. One of the aspects of that, though, is I guess one of the greatest forms I found of learning is teaching. And you're a professional teacher. That's what you do.

And so I want to encourage more people to put themselves in the teaching mode for a couple of reasons. One, it gives the opportunity to help others, which we've established multiple times throughout the course of this conversation of why we all should strive to do that. But two, even in a selfish way, when you are put in a teaching position, whether you literally teach at a university or you're giving a guest lecture or you're giving a guest lecture or or you're mentoring somebody or you're just giving a 10 minute talk, whatever it may be. The process of formulating your thoughts of what you're about to say, that process can be one of the greatest learning moments ever. And so I am a big proponent of regularly putting myself

in those situations because it forces me to get clarity of thought. How do you view the power and benefits of teaching, and how would you relate that to the everyday person, not just the college professor? You really put it so eloquently there. I mean, that is one of the great pleasures of teaching. It does clarify your own thinking. It also promotes empathy, which is a good thing in all aspects of life, that if you can put yourself in the mind of someone else, try to see things the way they would see it,

know what they know, know what they don't know. Empathy is just such a powerful human emotion. It's what allows us to connect with each other. And so I feel like teaching is all about empathy that, you know, and of course, bad teachers don't have empathy. They're just traveling on about whatever's in their head without thinking about what's going on in the listener's head. It's got to be all about that. So I just think as a discipline, the practice of teaching, and it doesn't have to be anything highfalutin. It could be teaching someone how to, you know, how to, you know, how to.

dribble of basketball or box out or whatever. I mean, it could be a sports thing. It could be teaching how to recover from a breakup. You know, I mean, this happens with my kids now that they have these relationships. They're just teenagers and it's very emotional and they're, you know, my kids often are cruel to each other. So there's a lot of teaching that older people can do with younger people about how do you handle someone else's emotions? How do you handle your own emotions in the wake of a breakup or whatever. So, yeah. So you mentioned speaking at the, you spoke in at TED, the Aspen Ideas Festival.

And so sometimes they bring you in with these famous people or others. What is your process, what's your preparation process like when you're going to go give a talk to people that, I don't know, maybe they intimidate you. Or maybe it's just a different world that it's not just your. students, it's a different space that they don't necessarily know you. How do you prepare for those big moments? That's a hard one. I do, I mean, the more information you can have about who the audience is, the better. But ultimately, I try to be myself. It's not easy. That is, it's so easy. Like you mentioned being intimidated, that's a natural thing to stand in front of it. Do you feel intimidated sometimes?

I totally do. Okay. But then I try to talk myself out of it. I mean, the old trick about picturing the audience in their underwear does work. Are you serious? Yeah, it does work. How does that work? Well, you know, you're using visual imagery.

You're looking at them. She's sitting there in her panties. He's sitting there in his stupid boxer shorts. You know, it just kind of takes away the intimidation factor. And so there's that. That's a crude way of doing it, but it does sometimes help. You can visualize people in the bathroom, whatever. I mean, there are still people.

So you're trying to humanize these people is what you're saying. Like, you want to make them feel on equal footing as you like they're not, they're not. Well, they are. They're people too. Right, right. Okay. I was trying to understand because I've heard people will kind of make fun of that advice. And I understand it.

And so I get why you're saying. I think for me, and maybe you feel this way, that one, you're brought there for a reason. Yeah, sure. And two, two, your job is to serve that audience. And so you've got to give everything you've got to the audience and remember why you're there. And remember what you hope, you know, you can bring to them and serve them. And that can build the confidence to go out there and just leave it, like using a sports analogy, like leave it all out there. Right.

Give everything you've got. And then when you're done, you know, you take an app. You do have to prepare. I mean, you've got to be ready to say whatever your thing is. But an audience usually wants to be happy. They want to be entertained. They want you to do well. Right.

It's not typically, they wouldn't invite you to a hostile audience. So it should be okay. You just have to have your game ready and then do your thing and try to be yourself and not be all uptight about it and self-conscious. But there was a time recently, just a few months ago, when I think it was one of the most intimidating audiences I ever had. which was at something called the World Government Summit, and it was in Dubai. Okay.

And I had never been to Dubai. And I had to submit my talk to the people organizing the conference who are essentially censors, you know, that is you cannot, there are certain things you can't say in front. This is with prime ministers, like the prime minister of Pakistan was there and lots of prime ministers and presidents from around the world. It was, plus it's government people, and I'm not, what do I know about government? But they wanted me to talk about, you know, what is the science of complex systems, one of the things I work on. What is, how could governments use complex systems to help their societies? And, you know, like in the aftermath of Arab Spring, Dubai, their attitude is different from the attitude in Syria. You know, the guy Bashar al-Assad in Syria has his approach to how to not let Arab Spring happen in Syria.

he just bombs people until they stop fighting them. And in Dubai, they're trying a different approach, which is to keep the people happy. Anyway, they're sincerely interested, it seems, in keeping their population happy. And they've wondered, does the science of cooperation and synchronization, these are things I work on mathematically. But, you know, they have the idea that if all the people are in harmony in sync, that'll be a happier society. How can we use this science to help our anyway? So I'm standing there in front of all these guys. that are sitting and mainly it is a lot of guys as opposed to mixed gender bodies. I mean,

it's male. And they're dressed in very formal Arabic wear and a lot of stern faces. And, you know, if I say the wrong thing about terrorism or 9-11 or whatever could be really bad, or especially if you criticize the government. You don't want to do that. That's a big crime. So anyway, I was extremely stressed out for that talk. And if people want to see what I look like when I'm They could search world government summit and Strogatz and see my talk to them. And I think I look pretty tight. How do you do? They laughed. I mean, I got paid. They clapped. It was okay. And they were actually very nice. The hospitality was fantastic. And it was really interesting to be there. You know, they really made an argument that benevolent monarch may be a better system than democracy. That if you have a king who's good and takes care of the people, things can be done very efficiently, as opposed to the gridlock that we have in our system.

And they were sincere in making that argument. It was interesting because you would never hear anyone here make that argument. That's a big if. Yeah, a big if. Steve, one more question before we go. And you probably have this happen on a regular basis, and we briefly touched on it. But somebody, and let's take it out of the mathematics world or calculus world. But in general, you're speaking with a young, really intelligent.

ambitious person who wants to make a positive contribution on the world and they say, Steve, not 100% sure what I want to do yet, but I do want to make a positive contribution. What general life advice should I follow and what should I not follow? It's very idealistic, but I like to believe that if you do the thing that you care about the most, it can be impractical. You know, there are people who want to play music. It's very hard to be a professional musician. Some people succeed. The odds are not great. But I still want to believe that if you pick the thing that

drives you the most, that you're most fascinated by and most excited by, and then you do the hard work of becoming as skillful and resourceful at that field as you can, that should be your calling. I mean, the way it's always said is follow your passion. And I don't know if that's great advice. I've heard people make good arguments against that advice. But still, I want to believe that. I want to believe that if, I mean, I think of, I have friends who have done it the other way. I have a friend who really wanted to be a historian. He just loves history, loves thinking about history, reading history, discovering history.

But he also thought, I got to have a life, you know, it's going to be tough to be a historian. So he went to law school. He became a lawyer. He's a successful lawyer. And he actually does history on the side. He goes to the Library of Commerce. Congress, he looks up manuscripts, he writes and publishes history papers for fun, because that's what he really loves. But meanwhile, he can pay his kids college bills and stuff because he is a lawyer.

So, you know, you can do it that way. I don't know. I mean, maybe that's the way it should be. Maybe he knew himself well enough to know that would work for him. For me, it wouldn't work. If I couldn't teach math all day long, I don't know what I would do. What about the bad advice people are getting that you hear out there that you would urge someone to throw out? Well, what I don't like is the parental pressure. I mean, I see it that way because it's kids in college and their parents say be an engineer. You know, there's good money in engineering. And I can tell this kid doesn't want to do engineering.

They hate engineering. And yeah, sure. I just worry that, you know, if you're forced into something because it makes sense, externally, but your heart is not in it, I think you're just going to be mediocre. And I don't see why you want to, you only get to live once as far as we know. Why are you going to waste your life on doing some mediocre job at something? So I just, I mean, of course, the reason is because there's other things to your life. You need to be able to pay for stuff and want to live at a certain standard of living.

Okay, I get that. But so I don't know. I'm conflicted about it. I mean, but I do worry that. a lot of people sell out because they're scared. Yeah. And I do think the hedge there is like your friend who does the history on the side. And I've lived this out so I can speak from first and experience.

Sometimes if you follow your curiosity and obsessions with great rigor on the side, it could lead to some incredible opportunities. And like for me, in the past working in the corporate world and because I've kind of aggressively pursued what I'm most curious about, most passionate about. most driven about it has led to people noticing that and wanting to start to support me doing this full time and now that's what I've been doing for for two years yeah so it it but that wasn't what I set out to do I set out to do I set out to do I set out to follow something that I was really passionate about with no intention of ever doing it full time but now it's the coolest thing in the world I like yeah I'm I mean and if you're insanely lucky but I I think so So there are different paths to get there.

And so it doesn't have to be just one linear path. Sometimes there's ups and downs and backwards and forwards. And I think that's another part for people to do. But I have found a lot of value in life from just aggressively pursuing things that make you most curious. What you go to bed thinking about, what you wake up thinking about, right? Those types of things. And it could be a really rewarding, fulfilling journey if you're doing that. And it sounds, I know this sounds like, oh, you know, okay, everything's perfect.

But no, I really believe that. And I've, I've had the good fortune to live that, too. Well, it doesn't make for a smooth ride. No. So if someone can't tolerate the bumps, then maybe they should stick to something safer. But, I mean, there's a related point. I realize we're coming to the end here, but just I'll try to inject this one related point, which is in working with my grad students, I'd say something to them that I think goes against what their high school coaches may have told. them if they were athletes or other mentors, which is the value of strategic quitting. So,

you know, you often hear don't be a quitter, stick with it, you know, don't give up. I actually don't really believe that. I think there's some very valuable strategic quitting to be done. Like if you're banging your head on something and it's not working, there's a million things you could be doing. There's opportunity costs. If you pursue something that's not panning out, you're hurting yourself by not doing 10 other good things that might pan out. So why are you just banging your head on the wall? I mean, of course, sometimes it does take effort to make something work. So you don't want to quit too early.

But if you develop good judgment, you can start to realize when something is, you're better off cutting your losses and doing something else. And so I don't think there's any moral shame or anything to realizing it's time to quit something and do something else that you could be doing instead. Right, if you're not feeling progression. That's what I think we need is to feel fulfilled, at least for me, I guess I could speak personally. I need to feel progress. It doesn't have to be giant leaps, but I need to feel like I'm improving.

I like to get some feedback from those people who are important to me. Am I getting better? Am I showing progress in this? And that's kind of the signal to keep going versus the one where, you know, maybe you're complaining all the time where you don't like it or it doesn't make sense or or God forbid you're getting worse. which has happened to me before and other things that I've done. But that feeling of progress, of progression of moving forward is a good signal to say this is the right path to keep going on. Well, Steve, I'll stop us now because I think I love to keep talking and to do this one again at some point here in the future because I find you fascinating. And I've really enjoyed getting to learn a little bit more from you directly.

and I think my listeners are going to enjoy this one as well. Where would you send them to learn more about you online? Well, I try to have my own web page be a good place. Stevenstrogatz.com has links to videos I've given talks at various places or if you want to read any of my papers or links to books I've written or whatever. So that's probably the single best place. I'm trying to think there may be some interviews out there that are worth reading, though. I can't particularly think of one offhand that I would suggest.

Can I also say it, Ryan? Yeah, please. I really feel your pleasure in what you're doing, and it's a nice thing to experience that, you know, like I've done a few podcasts with different people, and you really listen and go with the flow, and it's just, it's a pleasure to be on your show. Oh, thank you. It means a lot to me to hear you say that. I was intimidated by you leading up to this and I feel better. I do my best because I will say I get a lot of pride and trying to and have a diverse

diversity of thought. So talking to people in wildly different places in the world, whether it's a CEO of a billion dollar company, a lead singer of a band, a Navy SEAL or a really smart dude who focuses on calculus, I take a lot of pride in being able to hang in all those arenas. So I appreciate you kind of being here and doing this. It means a lot to me. And certainly when you say those kind things, it means a lot to me. So I really appreciate it.

You're welcome. I really do mean it. Thank you. By the way, if you want to be intimidated by somebody, I would say a Navy SEAL is a good one. Yeah, those have been tough. Those have been tough. But it is certainly rewarding to get to have that dialogue too. Sure.

All right, Steve. Thank you so much again, man. I want to continue our dialogue as we both progress. I have a feeling we will. And until next time, man. Thank you. Thanks a lot, Brian. Take it easy.

Okay. Wow. Now, that was not a normal conversation, but that is precisely why I wanted to talk with Steve. I know he would force me to stretch to learn something from someone who I normally would not talk to. A few of the areas that really stood out to me, his friendship with Mr. Drafrey and the importance of putting yourself in the position to teach others. I'm a firm believer that this creates clarity of thoughts.

And that is always a good thing. So put yourself in positions to teach others, whether it's giving a speech, mentoring somebody volunteering to stand up and be the presenter for this particular project. It will force clarity of thought. And that is a great habit. to create. And then how to prepare for big moments when Steve kind of joked about this. But then said, I'm, I remember to just be myself. I thought that was a refreshing and simplistic

yet helpful answer for all of us to remember to be ourselves and lean into what we, um, our unique qualities that we bring to the world is, is a powerful reminder. And then the strength of weak ties go to places you wouldn't normally. go, meet interesting people, take leaps outside of the normal zone of comfort and competency, and you never know what could happen. That's what I try to do on the show, and that's precisely why I wanted to have this conversation with Steve. Once again, thank you so much for continuing to give me the opportunity to do what I love.

When you tell a friend or two and spread this learning leader message, it allows me to have these dynamic conversations with fascinating people, and then it leads to more cool opportunities. I will forever be grateful to you for giving me that opportunity. Thank you so much. Talk with you next week. Can't wait.