Are Your Genes Secretly Controlling Your Behavior? & How to Truly Flourish

When you meet someone for the first time, you form an opinion about them almost instantly. Before they’ve said more than a few words, you may already feel they are trustworthy—or not. How do we make those snap judgments so quickly, and what exactly are we picking up on? https://www.princeton.edu/news/2006/08/22/snap-judgments-decide-faces-character-psychologist-finds Are we really in control of our behavior, or do our genes quietly influence the choices we make? Scientists are discovering that genetics can shape traits such as impulsivity, aggression, and self-control—traits that can affect everything from everyday decisions to criminal behavior. That raises some profound questions: if biology predisposes someone toward certain actions, how should society think about responsibility and punishment? Psychologist Kathryn Paige Harden, professor at the University of Texas at Austin and author of Original Sin: On the Genetics of Vice, the Problem of Blame, and the Future of Forgiveness (https://amzn.to/3NlisF6), explores what modern genetics reveals about human behavior and what it could mean for the way we understand blame, morality, and forgiveness. Most people would love to live a life that could truly be described as flourishing—one filled with meaning, joy, purpose, and growth. But is that kind of life reserved for a fortunate few, or can anyone learn to build it? Daniel Coyle, bestselling author and advisor to high-performing organizations including the Navy SEALs, Microsoft, and Google, believes flourishing is something that can be intentionally developed. Daniel is author of the book Flourish: The Art of Building Meaning, Joy, and Fulfillment (https://amzn.to/3Nnk0hH), and he joins me to explain the habits, mindsets, and environments that help people move beyond simply getting by to actually – flourish! If you own a pair of Levi’s jeans, you’ve probably noticed the tiny pocket tucked inside the front pocket. Many people assume it’s meant for coins—but that wasn’t its original purpose at all. In fact, the reason it was created has largely disappeared from everyday life, yet the pocket remains a small reminder of an earlier era. https://www.britannica.com/story/why-do-jeans-have-that-tiny-pocket PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS POCKET HOSE: Text SYSK to 64000 for your two free gifts with the purchase of any Pocket Hose Ballistic hose! DUTCH: If your pet is still scratching and you’ve tried everything at the pet store –it’s time to stop guessing and go prescription. Support us and use code SYSK for $40 off your membership at ⁠https://Dutch.com⁠ RULA: Thousands of people are already using Rula to get affordable, high-quality therapy that’s actually covered by insurance. Visit ⁠https://Rula.com/sysk⁠ to get started. QUINCE: Don't keep settling for clothes that don't last! Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Quince.dom/sysk ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! SHOPIFY: See less carts go abandoned with Shopify and their Shop Pay button! Sign up for your $1 per month trail and start selling today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Shopify.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ EXPEDITION UNKOWN: We love the Expedition Unknown podcast from Discovery! Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Mike Carruthers?

  Today on Something You Should Know, the fascinating and somewhat unreliable way we decide who is and isn't trustworthy. Then, what causes good people to do bad things?

• 0:16Speaker 01

  I think we've all had a situation where we've done something, and then later we're like, "What was I thinking there? Why did I do that? How could I have done this thing that I've come to regret?"

• 0:28Mike Carruthers?

  Also, what's the purpose of that little tiny pocket inside the front pocket of your blue jeans? And how to build meaning, joy, and fulfillment into your life?

• 0:39Speaker 02

  It's not about intensity of experience, it's about the frequency of them. So those little interactions, when you're giving the thumbs up to the fire engine going by, end up being way more impactful on the quality of your life and your well-being than seeking out some really intense mountain-top experience.

• 0:56Mike Carruthers?

  All this today on Something You Should Know.

• 1:01Mike Carruthers?

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• 1:46Mike Carruthers?

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• 2:26Speaker 03

  Something You Should Know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today. Something You Should Know. With Mike Carruthers.

• 2:40Mike Carruthers?

  So how long do you think it takes for you to decide if someone looks trustworthy? You're never going to get this. Hi, welcome to this episode of Something You Should Know. I'm Mike Carruthers. And the answer to the question, "How long it takes for you to decide if someone looks trustworthy?" Is about a tenth of a second. Psychologists have found that when you see a new face, your brain instantly forms impressions about traits like trustworthiness and competence. And those snap judgments can have real consequences. In one study analyzing murder trials, defendants whose faces were rated as less trustworthy

• 3:22Mike Carruthers?

  looking were significantly more likely to receive the death penalty than those whose faces appeared more trustworthy. What's even more surprising is that scientists can now use computer models to predict which faces people will judge as trustworthy, based purely on subtle features like eyebrow shape, eye openness, mouth curvature. And those characteristics have pretty much nothing to do with whether someone is actually trustworthy. In other words, your brain may make a confident judgment about someone long before it has any evidence to do so. And that is something you should know.

• 4:09Mike Carruthers?

  Why do people do bad things? Why are some people more prone to addiction, violence, or antisocial behavior than other people? Is it something in their upbringing, or their environment, or their relationships? Or could part of the answer be written into their DNA? And if biology does play a role, that raises some difficult questions. How much control do people actually have over their behavior? How should society respond to wrongdoing? Is punishment the right answer? Or are there better ways to deal with people who may be predisposed to certain behaviors?

• 4:49Mike Carruthers?

  My guest has spent years exploring these uncomfortable but fascinating questions. Catherine Paige Harden is one of the world's leading scientists studying how genetics influences difference in temperament, temptation, and behavior. She's author of a book called Original Sin: On the Genetics of Vice, the Problem of Blame, and the Future of Forgiveness. Hi Catherine, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 5:17Mike Carruthers?

  Sure. So first, can you explain your interest in this topic and what it is you do?

• 5:24Speaker 01

  So I'm interested in this topic scientifically because I'm a clinical psychologist and I run a research lab where we're looking at genetics of human behavior. And we're particularly interested in behaviors that are considered wrong, that are considered immoral. So aggression, fighting, bullying, lying, or behaviors that might be considered wrong, like becoming addicted to alcohol or drugs. And we're beginning to find specific genes that significantly increase a child's likelihood of growing up to show one of these behaviors.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  And we can talk about that from a scientific perspective. This gene increases your likelihood of becoming aggressive by the time you're 30. But again, these behaviors are also seen in a moral sense. And so what I'm interested in now is how do we put together the scientific work with people's intuitions about how do we respond when people have done something really wrong?

• 6:31Mike Carruthers?

  And so, what determines? Because you often hear people, you know, you'll see it on the news of, you know, they'll interview somebody who did something horrible and they'll say something to the effect of, "I couldn't help myself." You know, it's, it's, well, yeah, you could. You could have not done that, but you did that. Or is it not a choice? I mean, and, and why do some people do such terrible things and other people say, "Well, I could never do that?"

• 6:59Speaker 01

  So, I got a letter from someone who's in prison in Texas. He's been there since he was 16, and he's in prison because he committed a really violent sexual crime, that, you know, a very horrible thing. And he did it when he was a teenager, 15, 16 years old. And he learned about my lab from an article in Texas Monthly Magazine. And he wrote to me and he said, "Why would I do this?" He described his crime and he said, "What was going on there? Why do you think a person would do this? What makes a child go bad?

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Nature or nurture?" And I found that letter so compelling for several reasons. One is that it shows that we can be strangers to ourselves even when we've done something really horrific. That's an extreme example, but I think we've all had a situation where we've done something and then later we're like, "What was I thinking there? Why did I do that? How could I have done this thing that I've come to regret?" And also, the letter was really compelling to me because, on the one hand, I could give him a scientific answer. We know as scientists that...

• 8:24Speaker 01

  If you have a certain set of genes, if you're raised in certain sorts of environments, you are much more likely to behave in ways that are aggressive and antisocial. But does that take away his responsibility for the harm that he's caused? That was the question that he was asking me, and I think that's a question for which we don't really have a settled answer. We're still trying to make sense of, we walk around thinking that, well, I seem to be making choices, you must be making choices. But we know scientifically that the person making those choices has been constructed

• 9:05Speaker 01

  by a set of genes and a set of environments that are obviously beyond their control. These are things from childhood. So I don't think that your agency begins where your genetics ends, but I do think that when we're assessing someone's, how much they deserve to be punished, in this case, for a crime, it is important for us to remember that everyone who's making those choices was shaped by these, this luck that's beyond their control, including their genetic luck.

• 9:38Mike Carruthers?

  Well, the person who wrote you that letter, I mean, that was a pretty extreme example, but as you say, we've all had those times when we've done something, we've lost our temper, we've, you know, road rage is a good example, where we've done something and said, well, what was I thinking? I mean, God, you know, in retrospect, that really wasn't worth the risk of doing that, but I did it. But is that the same thing? Is your example, the guy that wrote you that letter, is that any different?

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Well, his theory was very much a theory about, maybe I inherited this. So he didn't go into details about his family history, but he did say, as we say in Texas, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. When he's referring to that, he's implying that there's some similarity with his parents. But he doesn't know whether he's similar to his parents because his parents provided him his environment, or because maybe inherited some sort of genetic liability towards violence or towards aggression from his family. And that's exactly the problem that we're often trying to figure out scientifically.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  We can clearly see that violence runs in families, that addiction runs in families. And it seems to run in families, not just because parents are raising their children, but also because there seems to be some genetic predisposition to aggression, to violence, to antisocial behavior that's being passed down from parent to child.

• 11:17Mike Carruthers?

  Well, what about, though, understanding that you have this genetic and this environmental influence, but we're also thinking people that make decisions and can rationally look at a situation and say, should I or shouldn't I? And that's a big part of the equation, too.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  I think often the science on how people might inherit these liabilities towards violence or aggression have been interpreted as if they make that responsibility go away. If you inherited something, then you're off the hook. Whereas I think what it does is it adds something along with that need for responsibility. We both are responsible for what we do because that's a condition of being a grown-up in a relationship with other people. But at the same time, do we have to hold people responsible in a way that makes them maximally suffer or is maximally punitive? And that's where I think the genetics is really interesting, because it can soften

• 12:21Speaker 01

  our sense that maybe this person could have always acted otherwise, and so therefore they really deserve to be punished. What I want to shift people's thinking away is not who deserves to be punished because they could have done otherwise, but how do we hold people accountable, given where they are in their lives, which has been shaped in part by this genes that they've inherited?

• 12:47Mike Carruthers?

  Well, isn't part of the reason that people get punished not only to punish that person, but to also hold them up to other people to see what can happen if you do something like this, it is a deterrent in some ways that, you know, this is the rule and when you cross this line, there are consequences and these are the consequences.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Yes, and we see that not just in people, but in every cooperative system. If you look at colonies of bacteria, if one bacterium takes too much of the minerals that they all need, the other bacteria will send out signals that will hurt the freeloader, the one that's taking too much. If we look at symbiotic species, so wasps reproduce using figs. If a fig tree notices, I'm anthropomorphizing the tree here, notices that the wasp is a

• 13:46Speaker 01

  lazy pollinator, it will start to wither the figs that that wasp has laid its eggs in. So at every system, from very basic organisms all the way up to humans, we see that having rules and having some action that signals we are going to enforce those rules is absolutely necessary for the maintenance of that cooperative system. We do need some sort of consequences in order to have any sort of group that functions. At the same

• 14:25Speaker 01

  time, I want to be clear that we live in an incredibly harsh, punitive, incarcerating society. And the separation that I want to kind of make here, the things I want to pull apart here is...

• 14:41Speaker 01

  What is the difference between holding people accountable, keeping the group safe, signaling that we take the breaking of the rules seriously, but without necessarily making the person who's violated those rules suffer as much as possible? And often, those two things can become collapsed in our imagination. Accountability versus this punitiveness, this retributive punishment.

• 15:09Mike Carruthers?

  So if you don't have that punishment, you know, that idea that, you know, the punishment fits the crime. If you don't make people suffer, okay, that's okay. We don't do that, then what do we do? I want to ask you about that next. But first, I'm excited to tell you about the world's number one expanding garden hose and their brand new product, the Pocket Hose Ballistic. Okay, look, this is actually hard to explain in a podcast ad, but this thing is so amazing. It really is. It's the best hose I've ever used. You turn the water on and the hose literally grows. You turn the water off and it shrinks right back down. And I know this maybe sounds gimmicky, but it is not.

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• 16:36Mike Carruthers?

  Just text S Y S K to 64,000. That's S Y S K to 64,000 for your two free gifts with purchase. Text S Y S K for something you should know. S Y S K to 64,000. Message and data rates may apply. So Catherine, if someone does something horrible, and we change the thinking about that, that just because they have done something horrible, doesn't mean we must make them suffer, that we must punish them. So what do we do instead?

• 17:12Speaker 01

  I think that there's a couple of examples that we can look at, and they're not even utopian examples. If we look around the world, we can see situations in which people have had to deal with, or societies have had to deal with, the aftermath of what seems like unimaginable violence. Communities in Africa that have had to reintegrate child soldiers, who've committed atrocities against that village, but they were also pulled into the army as children. A Norwegian man, Anders Breivik, who committed one of the worst mass murders in Norwegian history, but also who clearly struggled with serious mental health problems,

• 17:57Speaker 01

  and a bad childhood environment his whole life. And these are really extreme examples, but they're examples in which, obviously, something horrible has been done. And also, if we look at the developmental histories of the lives of these people, this violence didn't come out of nowhere, right? They're responding to really extreme events in their, both their biology and in their upbringing. And what you see in these communities are actions in which they both are saying, "We're not going to ignore that this happened." That's not, obviously, no one's suggesting that that's on the table, that, you know, that there's no consequences at all.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  But they do, for instance, in the case of Norway, incarcerate them in situations where they have lots of access to mental health treatment. There's a strong emphasis on rehabilitation. And there isn't this, again, incredibly harsh punitive element, where it's really about making that person suffer as much as possible. That's a really radical thing to imagine as an American, but it is, I think, a really compelling example of how people have... Maintain cooperative norms while also honoring that this even the perpetrator is also a person and this violence didn't come out of nowhere. They were shaped by so many factors beyond their control.

• 19:23Mike Carruthers?

  Well, that's fair, but but I think what people are often concerned about is if somebody has done something horrific, they need to be removed from society in a way that they don't get to do that again, that they need to be locked up somewhere, that there's that feeling that this person has proven they can't be trusted, so let's put them in a place where we can keep our eye on them, so to speak, at least for a while, so that that doesn't happen again.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  And I think that that intuition is correct in the sense that, again, we live in a community and our obligation is to protect each other. We do have responsibilities for each other. This is where I differ from some other scientists that think that because behavior is determined by factors beyond our control, it's that science has sort of rendered moral responsibility obsolete. I don't agree with that. But I also think that if you look at the conditions of an average American jail or prison right now, you'd be hard pressed to say that the only thing that's happening there is that we're

• 20:35Speaker 01

  protecting America or American society from perpetrators. We're also deliberately making people hurt for a very, very long time. And that retribution is different from how do we keep each other safe?

• 20:52Mike Carruthers?

  What about when you're dealing with someone who does something horrible, commits a crime, a serious crime, and they have no remorse, they have, they're psychopaths, they, there's no feeling there, well, then what?

• 21:08Speaker 01

  We have studied children like that in my lab where they show not just aggression, but lack of remorse around it. They might even enjoy aggressing against other children. And I think that's an example of behavior that, one, doesn't respond very well to punishment. So punishing those children doesn't usually make them less aggressive. And, two, really speaks to what a scientific mystery antisocial behavior still is. Why do some children grow up without that pro-social empathy that is such a standard part or a normal part of

• 21:48Speaker 01

  human-child development? And even more importantly, what can we do to treat it? What can we do to encourage those children to behave more pro-socially? I think that's a scientific question that's understudied and so important to answer.

• 22:05Mike Carruthers?

  Is there any sense that this antisocial behavior that you're talking about is on the rise, on the decline, it's a pretty constant thing, or what?

• 22:15Speaker 01

  It depends on how you measure it. But if you're measuring it by the most serious manifestations, which would be murder, homicide, violent crime, that has been going down since the 1990s. There's a brief uptick after the pandemic, and it's on the decline again. Most people don't know this. They don't realize that violent crime has been going down, on average, for about 30 years. And it's still a mystery as to why. It's been accompanied by a decline in risk-taking across the board. So murder rates are down, teenage pregnancy

• 22:55Speaker 01

  is down, smoking cigarettes is down. Generally speaking, in the US, people are behaving in much more controlled, less disinhibited ways across the board. And we can see that even at the extremes.

• 23:12Mike Carruthers?

  And is it that people are just doing less risky behavior? Or they're acting more responsibly? And maybe those two things are the same thing, but but they're not really the same thing.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  They're not really the same thing. Are they acting more responsibly? I think responsible is a harder concept to just to define scientifically. They're certainly engaging in less risk-taking. Now, it might be that they're engaging in less risk-taking, and this is one theory. It hasn't been. There is this isn't dispositive. But one hypothesis is that they're engaging in less risk-taking because they're also just around people less and spending a lot more time at home with their phones. And that might be good from the perspective of risk-taking and antisocial behavior, but not great from the perspective of mental health more broadly if you've just substituted risk-taking for social isolation.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  So how we understand these broad historical trends is difficult. What's interesting to me about that from a perspective as a behavioral geneticist is that Americans' genes haven't changed in the last 30 years. That's not nearly enough time for there to for us to have evolved differently in that period of time. So it's it's another piece of evidence that even though there is a genetic component to risk-taking, to antisocial behavior, to aggression, to violence, that genetic component is not deterministic because we are seeing it change even in this short period of time.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  It seems to be also really responding to the social environment that a child is developing in.

• 24:56Mike Carruthers?

  I think there's an assumption, maybe it's just my assumption, but when you see someone who has done some horrible crime, you think they must have had a very difficult childhood. They must have been bullied. The home life must have been horrible. Are there cases where you look back at someone who's done something horrible and you can't find any of that, that it was, they had a perfectly normal upbringing and something completely inexplicable went wrong?

• 25:27Speaker 01

  I think an example of this that people from my generation will remember is the Columbine shooters. So this was one of the first mass shootings in America in 1999, Columbine High School in Colorado. And the writer Andrew Solomon wrote in his book Far From the Tree, a profile of the parents of one of the school shooters. And it's really clear from that portrait that these parents were not that different from your average, upper-middle-class affluent parents in America, and they still ended up with a child who committed a really atrocious act of violence and have spent the rest of their lives wondering what happened there.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  I think that that sense that, that there is a risk when you create a child, that they might inherit genes that predispose them to these really serious behaviors, is kind of a scary aspect of becoming a parent. You don't, you're never fully assured of what you're going to get when you create a child.

• 26:33Mike Carruthers?

  Well, this is one of those topics, it's an uncomfortable topic to talk about. It would be so much easier if we could all just assume that everybody's responsible for their own actions, and if you do something wrong, then you pay the price for that, just as anybody else would. But it's, it's just trickier than that. It's not that simple. I've been speaking with Catherine Hardin. She's one of the leading scientists examining how DNA shapes differences in temperament and temptation and behavior. And her book is called Original Sin: On the Genetics of Vice, the Problem of Blame, and the Future of Forgiveness. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Catherine, thanks so much for sharing this.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  I appreciate it. Thank you for the opportunity.

• 27:23Mike Carruthers?

  Here's a word I know you know, but don't use very often. Flourish. It's a great word. In fact, just saying it sounds so positive. Flourish. And when you think about it, what could be better than that? If someone is flourishing, it must mean life is going well. Not just surviving or getting by, but actually flourishing. But what does it mean to flourish? And more importantly, how do you do it? Is flourishing something that just happens to lucky people? Or is it something you can intentionally build into your life? Well, that's what my guest is here to talk about. Daniel Coyle is the author of several bestselling books and has advised high-performing organizations

• 28:08Mike Carruthers?

  like the Navy SEALs, Microsoft, and Google. His latest book is called Flourish: The Art of Building Meaning, Joy, and Fulfillment. Hey, Daniel, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 28:20Speaker 02

  Hey, Mike, thanks for having me. Good to be with you.

• 28:23Mike Carruthers?

  So I have a pretty good idea what flourish means, you know, the dictionary definition. But what does it mean to you?

• 28:31Speaker 02

  You know, it's joyful, meaningful growth shared. It's sort of like, you know, thriving, but more generative, right? You're like creating something new. And it's the feeling of aliveness, I think, in a way, when we think of that joyful, meaningful growth, when we think about our life. It's more than success, you know, it's more than fulfillment, but it's sort of like the peak that life has to offer us, the peak experience that life has to offer us.

• 28:59Mike Carruthers?

  And why do you feel the need to talk about it? Because you think we're not flourishing?

• 29:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think we're not. I think there's a real hunger for this right now. And I'd spent my life studying people who were really, really good at stuff. And they were the people who made it to the top of the performance mountain. When you get to that top of the mountain, what you find is that some of those people aren't very happy. You know, there's a lot of sad success in America and around the world right now. People who have achieved all the metrics, but there's something missing. And I decided to, instead of investing in the mountaintop, I wanted to go into the valleys for a little bit, find places that are generative, the gardens, you know, towns that produce an unusual number of thriving performers, or businesses that thrive for unusual reasons. And the big first lesson that it's shown out immediately to me is...

• 29:50Speaker 02

  And the science is very consistent with this, is that you need other people. No one flourishes alone. Flourishing is, happens in and through community.

• 30:02Mike Carruthers?

  So you tell the story of this Chilean mine that people may remember. So tell that and how it relates to this topic of flourishing.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, 2010, the San Jose Mine caves in. And there's 33 people in a small refugio room down a couple thousand feet below the surface. There was no hope of rescue at the time. They figure there's no hope. There's a little bit of food in the cabinet. And for the first couple hours down there, it was Lord of the Flies. You know, people were eating the food and it was very chaotic. And then, as you might remember, they managed to keep it together for 16 days before they were contacted from above, and then for about 40 more days before they were each rescued. All of them ended up surviving. But when they first contacted them, they lowered an audio line and they expected to

• 30:56Speaker 02

  find madness, starvation. And instead, what they found was a group that was connected, was cohesive. They didn't have much food, they didn't have much water. They were, by many measures, suffering. And yet, they sang a song together when they first were contacted. They sang the Chilean anthem together. And they cooperated at a very high level. They had cohesion at a very high level. When they finally were removed, the people in the mine kept letting others go first. My friend should go first, my friend should go first. And so, what emerged from that, at first, when people saw that happen, they thought, well, that's great leadership.

• 31:41Speaker 02

  They must have great leaders who told them what to do and who organized it. And in fact, it wasn't that at all. In fact, they had developed these simple rituals, these simple habits of pausing together, valuing each other, sharing vulnerabilities with each other, serving each other, in a way. And so, those moments, those little rituals, were what sustained them. And that's what I found in all of the flourishing places that I've visited. They weren't just about doing things together, they were about serving one another, about serving their neighbors, taking care of each other.

• 32:16Mike Carruthers?

  And if you were to ask people, "Do you feel like you fit into a community? Do you feel you're part of a group like this?" Do most people feel they are or feel they aren't?

• 32:28Speaker 02

  I think most people are craving for community and craving some attentional balance. I think all of us know what it feels like when you ask someone, "Have you ever felt deeply connected in a community? Have you ever felt...where have you felt most alive? Where have you felt most connected?" Everyone's got a story. Everyone's got a time in their life where they felt that. And everyone craves that and longs for that. You know, we sort of, I think, are realizing that this modern way of going through the world is not nourishing our spirits, is not nourishing our souls. And so, these moments resonate with us. These moments where, you know, I just, you know, that's why people are so hungry for in-person music festivals, for example.

• 33:13Speaker 02

  Because they're feeling something that is not... They're switching out of that narrow mode of being, "I'm going to be useful, I'm going to control my surroundings," into something that's much more receptive, responsive, resonant, where... And that's how we feel healthy. That's our model for attentional health. You know, we know with nutrition, if you just eat sugars and carbs, you can do that, but you don't feel good. And attentionally, we are kind of in that same space, where there are a lot of big companies that love to feed us this narrow bore, narrow focus attention. And the healthy thing you can do and the healthy thing that communities allow you to do

• 33:55Speaker 02

  is to slip out of that and slip into that wider mode that we're pre-wired, pre-wired to do.

• 34:01Mike Carruthers?

  And so, how do you do it? Especially since everybody else seems to be kind of wrapped up in their own world, too. It...how do you...it's one thing to notice these groups that have done it, but how do you do it?

• 34:13Speaker 02

  Here's three moves that I really like. I mean, you can think of them, you know, the world is, in the end... It looks like a game. The world really looks like a game, like you should learn how to win the game. But in fact, that's an illusion. In fact, the world in your life is more like a garden. It depends on relationships. Every, all the studies will show out that we've got, if you want to have a happy, fulfilled life, it is about relationships. And so here are three kind of gardening moves that, that help cultivate that wider attention and that sense of community. The first is called the yellow door. You know, we go, most of us go through life looking for green doors, which mean go, and red doors, which indicate you should stop.

• 34:57Speaker 02

  We're always scanning for those. But life becomes a lot deeper and richer when you look for a yellow door, something that appears maybe out of the corner of your eye, where it's an opportunity to try something new. It's a new conversation. It's a topic, or a space, or a, a group that you haven't connected with before. So, looking for those, that would be the first thing that I would say.

• 35:19Mike Carruthers?

  And, and to look for those means to, to do what, I, like, I don't know how to-

• 35:25Speaker 02

  It's, yeah, it's abstract, isn't it? Right, no. I guess for me, what it comes down to is when you sense, or sometimes receive, an invitation that you have an instinct to say no to. It happened for me. I had a friend, a couple of years ago, invite me to go indoor climbing. I, I don't like climbing. I don't like, I think it's persnickety. I think the shoes hurt. I've done it a couple of times. I don't like it. But my friend invited me, and I kind of thought, okay, yellow door. And I showed up, and then showed up the next week, and showed up the next week. And that group of six other guys has turned into this extraordinary group of close friends that we go on trips with, and our families are

• 36:08Speaker 02

  friends now. And it's, it's, it's grown into something that I, I never could have imagined when I had that invitation. So, for me, it's kind of looking for those signals that seem like weak signals at the time, and are very easy to walk past, but it's pausing- And approaching them with genuine curiosity. And, you know, like anybody, I like to be efficient and like to go fast. And it was a very, very, a moment that would have absolutely changed my life if I had, if I had gone past it. But I didn't, and I explored it. And on a deeper level, this, this kind of speaks to something that came as a surprise

• 36:49Speaker 02

  to me, which is the difference between complicated and complex. Is, does that, do those words resonate? Is that distinction something that everybody already knows, Mike? Do you think?

• 37:02Mike Carruthers?

  I don't think so. I kind of would use them interchangeably, almost.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  Me too. That's how I always did. But they're not, actually. When you look into it, when you look into the math and the science, they couldn't be more different. And here it is. Complicated things always come together the same way. A leads to B leads to C leads to D. Like, you know, a Ferrari car. It's really complicated, but I could give you all the materials and the instructions. And if you had the, the capacities, if you followed those instructions, you would get a Ferrari at the end. Complex things are alive. They change as you interact with them. So the kind of litmus test is like, is this more like building a Ferrari? Or is it more like raising a teenager? Like, there's no list I could give you to raise a teenager.

• 37:49Speaker 02

  There's no set of instructions you could possibly follow because everything you do changes the system. And so our world is divided into these types of, of problems. Like, building a house is a complicated problem. But dealing with the contractors, that's complex. Getting to know your neighbors, that's complex. So, and with complex problems, it's best to explore into them and learn. The scientists would call it probing. With complicated problems, which are sort of basically Legos, you want to analyze. You want to get expert opinions. You want to analyze it, get to an answer. But with complex, it's best to test and to walk into them and to step into them.

• 38:31Speaker 02

  Cause you'll learn, and then you learn, and then you step a little further. And you learn, and then you step a little further. And so this distinction of understanding, all right, which kind of space am I in right now? Am I in a complicated space where I need to get expert analysis and get the right information and do it? Or am I in a complex space where I need to open my mind? I need to step into it and I need to see what happens and respond to that. And I think a lot of modern life is assuming and pushing us to assume that things are complicated, when in fact, they're complex. When in fact, there's no really clear answer for some things. In fact, it's best to explore your way into those yellow door spaces and find out what

• 39:16Speaker 02

  happens and learn from that and kind of be in relationship with that journey.

• 39:21Mike Carruthers?

  We often hear about the loneliness epidemic and that people need more connection, but it's mostly interpersonal. It's, they need to connect with people. You're talking about connecting with a community of people. What's the difference?

• 39:41Speaker 02

  I don't think there is any difference. I think community can be formed. I think good, you know, good families are communities. Good marriages are sorts of communities, I think. I think that word can be used very loosely. And when we break it down, you know, to the original Latin, community basically means serving others, right? It means you're in a relationship where you are serving others and that can take any form. And I think that's, I think the sense of what we're hungry for is that, is that being part of something bigger than ourselves. And that, that can be a marriage, that can be a neighborhood, that can be a team at work, that can be, you know, a county, I don't, you know, any, any size.

• 40:25Speaker 02

  But that idea of being in connection with something alive that's bigger than you, that means something and you're headed in some direction together.

• 40:33Mike Carruthers?

  Well, it is so interesting that we, we hear so much about the need for connection, whether it's personal or community or whatever. And then, and yet we see such a loneliness epidemic and we also see people who are so disconnected because they're on their phones or they're on their laptops or whatever and, and they're not talking to the person next to them. And you say we crave it and yet there it is and we ignore it.

• 41:01Speaker 02

  We're terrible. It's true, right? It's right there. And it is fascinating because I think one of the things that this has revealed is that we're terrible at predicting what will make us happy. Like, there's a set of brilliant experiments that were done on a Chicago subway train, where they took two groups of people. One of them, they said, "Keep to yourself today on the train. Just prepare for the day. Don't talk to anybody." The other group was asked, "Hey, your job today is to get to know your neighbor in your community. Hopefully, ask them some questions and let us know how it goes." And before the experiment, the first group predicted they would be quite happy and content.

• 41:45Speaker 02

  The second group predicted it would be awkward and difficult. But as it turned out, after the experiment, it flipped. The second group was delighted. It was the highlight of their day to chat with a community member. And the first group was kind of bored and de-energized by it. So we're absolutely terrible because I think at the root of that is we don't really understand what attentional health is. You know, we've developed, you know, we didn't really understand what physical health was until the 1960s and 70s, where we figured out, oh, how the aerobic system works and the anaerobic system works. And we're just now, I think, beginning to understand that it is not attentionally healthy to be narrowly focused on a simple task for long periods of time, or to be narrowly

• 42:30Speaker 02

  absorbed by a screen. We're starting to understand how deeply unhealthy that is, and how incredibly healthy it is to be in atmospheres where there's loose exchange, light conversation, and a day filled with sort of little collisions, little bump-ins. It reminds me of a story Kurt Vonnegut used to tell. He, one time, he went down to the drugstore in the small town where he lived, the writer, Kurt Vonnegut, of course, and he bought one envelope. And the woman said, "I could sell you 50 envelopes." And Kurt Grunigott said, "Well, you could, but I just, I'm not coming down here for the envelopes. I'm coming down here so I can, you know, look at the baby in the stroller

• 43:13Speaker 02

  and make funny faces at him and wave to the kids driving past and give a thumbs up to the fire engine as it goes by." Like, I want, I just want one envelope. And that idea that those sorts of frictions, those sorts of collisions are, are the stuff that makes our day, um, full and rich. And it's really the frequency. The science here is really interesting, too. When you'd measure raw fulfillment and happiness, it's not about intensity of experience, it's about the frequency of them. So those little interactions, when you're giving the thumbs up to the fire engine going by, end up being way more impactful on the quality of your life and your well-being than seeking out some really intense, mountaintop experience.

• 43:58Mike Carruthers?

  How do you bring in the, the discussion of people who are introverts versus extroverts into this? Because it does seem that some people are better at being alone and don't seem to need that stimulation and other people do.

• 44:14Speaker 02

  No, it's true. It's true. No, the, the overall studies of happiness and frequency of happiness, it's just the style of that interaction that shifts. But the social cure, the power of those interactions to improve on, on the train, whether it was consistent between introverts and extroverts. The style of the interaction might shift, but the substance of those relationships doesn't. And it's the same across the Harvard study of long-term development. Um, across both introverts and extroverts, it is the relationship that matters. Introverts and extroverts might have different relationship styles. They might have different preferences when it comes to activities, but the fact, the kind

• 44:56Speaker 02

  of ecosystem of the relationship is, is what matters to them. Cause that's where the energy and connection and, and really what we're talking about here is meaning. You know, we're talking about meaning, which is ultimately the, the, the stuff that, that, you know, gives us energy. Meaning is energy. So it's across all sorts of styles.

• 45:16Mike Carruthers?

  Isn't it interesting how you tell these stories of people who are not inclined to get together and when they do, it seems magical? And yet, we have this sense that it's not going to go well. Like those people on the train. I mean, we think it's not going to go well, but it usually does.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  I know. Isn't that something? I mean, I have to keep relearning that lesson myself, over and over again. And the good news, I think, when we look at our own experiences, we tend to get a little better at it as we get older. I don't know about your experience, Mike, but I think it comes from this sort of misapprehension, this misunderstanding. And I guess, you know, we're kind of also sort of entrained and taught in the West, this very, you know, kind of individualized way of thinking and being. We're all kind of entrained on this idea that improvement is about the self, that we're kind of...

• 46:22Speaker 02

  I guess one way to put it is sort of feels like we have a pronoun problem. You know, we've always been thinking about self-improvement, and I, and me, and we're all these rugged individuals, when in fact, if we stop, take a second, you know, look deeply at any story of individual success, and you sort of scratch the surface and you find often a thriving community that helped get them there. So it's a bit of an illusion. The individuality thing is a little bit of an illusion, but it still takes time to sort of get through it.

• 46:51Mike Carruthers?

  Well, and the idea that people need other people in their life, I think most of us are aware of that. Certainly, if you listen to this podcast, we've discussed this many, many times, and it's really a matter of being willing to make the effort to do it, and then you can flourish. I've been speaking with Daniel Coyle. He's author of the book Flourish: The Art of Building Meaning, Joy, and Fulfillment. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Daniel, always good to have you on. Thank you.

• 47:20Speaker 02

  Thank you, Mike. Appreciate it. Thanks for sharing all you do.

• 47:26Mike Carruthers?

  Ever notice that tiny little pocket inside the front pocket of your jeans? It's sometimes called a "coin pocket", but that's not what it was designed for. You see, when Levi Strauss created the first blue jeans in the late 1800s, that little pocket had a very specific purpose. It was built to protect a pocket watch. At the time, men commonly carried watches on chains in their pocket, and the small reinforced pocket was there to keep them from getting scratched or broken while working. In fact, early jeans only had four pockets total: two in the front, one in the back, and that tiny little watch pocket.

• 48:09Mike Carruthers?

  The now-familiar second back pocket didn't appear until 1901. Of course, today, almost nobody carries a pocket watch, but the tiny pocket stuck around because it became part of the classic "five-pocket jean" design. So basically, it's a 150-year-old piece of fashion history, and that is something you should know. As always, it is very helpful, very much appreciated, and very effective if you would share this podcast with someone you know to help us grow our audience. It is the best way to support us. Thank you so much. I'm Mike Herrothers. Thanks for listening to Something You Should Know.