How to Master Emotional Power & How Elevators Changed the World - SYSK Choice

As people age, forgetfulness often creeps in — but not all memory loss is inevitable. In fact, some of the most common causes are preventable, and with the right strategies, memory can be protected and even improved. I’ll explain what really drives age-related forgetfulness and what you can do about it. Source: William Cone, PhD, author of Stop Memory Loss (https://amzn.to/3PNKIOX). Negative emotions hit us all — anger, fear, frustration, stress — but how you handle those feelings determines your “emotional power.” Leading neuropsychologist Julia DiGangi reveals the science behind emotional triggers and how your brain shapes your reactions. She’s the author of Energy Rising: The Neuroscience of Leading with Emotional Power (https://amzn.to/463rDhu), and her insights will help you understand why you react the way you do and how to channel emotions into strength rather than struggle. Elevators are so ordinary we barely think about them — until we’re standing in one, feeling awkward or even a little uneasy. Yet without elevators, skyscrapers and modern cities as we know them wouldn’t exist. Dr. Lee Gray, professor of architectural history at UNC Charlotte and author of From Ascending Rooms to Express Elevators: A History of the Passenger Elevator (https://amzn.to/44ZLtsM)., takes us inside the fascinating history of elevators, from their risky beginnings to the sophisticated systems we trust today. Struggling to sleep? The problem may not be you — it could be your bedroom. Small details in your sleep environment can make the difference between tossing and turning or getting deep, restful sleep. I’ll share quick and easy changes you can make tonight for a better night’s rest. https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/understanding-sleep-problems-basics PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS!!! INDEED: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ right now! DELL: Your new Dell PC with Intel Core Ultra helps you handle a lot when your holiday to-dos get to be…a lot. Upgrade today by visiting⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://Dell.com/Deals⁠⁠⁠⁠ QUINCE: Layer up this fall with pieces that feel as good as they look! Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Quince.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns! SHOPIFY: Shopify is the commerce platform for millions of businesses around the world! To start selling today, sign up for your $1 per month trial at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://Shopify.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 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.

• 0:00Mike Carruthers?

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• 1:23Mike Carruthers?

  Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need the right hire fast? Then this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Today on Something You Should Know. If you know older people who tend to forget things, you need to hear something. Then, understanding your emotions and why they can be difficult to control.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  What the evidence shows us is the more we obsessively seek certainty, you would think that's kind of logical, right? We'll feel better when we're certain. But the more we obsessively seek certainty, the sicker we get, the more anxious we get, the more afraid we get, the more agitated we get.

• 2:14Mike Carruthers?

  Also, an effective and simple remedy for the next time you have trouble sleeping. And elevators, we need them, we willingly go in them, but they are a little creepy and scary.

• 2:26Speaker 02

  If you made a list of the most socially awkward spaces you know, the elevator's probably at the top of the list. Especially as Americans, you know, we don't necessarily like standing that close to each other.

• 2:38Mike Carruthers?

  All this today on Something You Should Know.

• 2:44Mike Carruthers?

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• 3:29Mike Carruthers?

  and track your orders all in one place. Clothes, electronics, gifts, things for the house, all kinds of stuff. And whether you win or not, it's worth knowing. But with 1,000 chances to win $1,000, I'd certainly take a look. Enter to win the $1 million shop cash giveaway from now until November 1st. Just go to shop.com. There are so many ways to win. That's shop.com. Shopping designed around you. No purchase necessary. Restrictions apply. Official rules available at shop.com.

• 4:09Speaker 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.

• 4:21Mike Carruthers?

  Hi. Welcome to Something You Should Know. You may have noticed or experienced if you know someone older who might be suffering some memory loss, that older people who have memory loss have more trouble holding on to recent memories than older ones. They can remember what happened 30 years ago as clear as a bell, but often can't remember what happened yesterday. According to memory expert Dr. William Kohn, memory loss in older people is common, and sometimes it just happens. But there are two other reasons that older people can't remember what happened yesterday. One of them is that nothing happened yesterday.

• 5:05Mike Carruthers?

  Older people, especially those suffering memory loss, often don't do very much of anything all day long. So there's really nothing to remember. Plus, that lack of brain activity slows the brain function even more. Increasing activity, physical activity, can really help. And then there's medication. For people taking several medications, there's an excellent chance those medicines are interfering with the thinking process. Having a medication evaluation and making some adjustments in the medicine can work wonders for brain function and memory. And that is something you should know.

• 5:46Mike Carruthers?

  If you think about it, when life is easy, well, then, life is easy. In part, because your emotions are not engaged. It is when life is hard that your emotions kick in, and life becomes more challenging. How you use those emotions in those challenging times, that is your emotional power. And that's what Julia DiGangi is here to discuss. Julia is a neuropsychologist, founder of Neurohealth Partners, and author of a book called Energy Rising: The Neuroscience of Leading with Emotional Power. Hi, Julia. Welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  I'm so glad to be here. Thank you for having me, Mike.

• 6:28Mike Carruthers?

  So explain, if you will, in a little more detail, what my emotional power is, so everyone understands.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  Emotional power, so let me actually back up and think, sort of talk more broadly about emotions. So in the moments in your life where things are just working out for you, and I hope people have plenty of days like this, right? So the people are just listening, the kids are just obeying, our partners are just kind of cooperating with us, our teams are listening. Those are wonderful moments, but they don't require an ounce of our strength or our power. All of our emotional power shows up in the moments of emotional resistance, right? So who do I become in these moments when people are not cooperating with me? When people are not listening to me, when things are not working out as I wanted?

• 7:17Speaker 01

  And if you really understand the brain, you know, what those situations really generate, the reason we even call them problems is more fundamentally, they create negative emotional energy, which I call emotional pain. So things like stress, irritation, frustration, I could go on and on, there's probably a thousand synonyms. So our emotional power is who we become in the moments when we hit this emotional resistance or this emotional pain.

• 7:47Mike Carruthers?

  And a lot of us aren't too thrilled with that person we become when those things happen.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Not at all. I mean, I think a lot of it has to do with, you know, we simply don't have enough conversations like this. You know, one of the things I always say is it kind of blows my mind that we pay more attention to figuring out how to operate ChatGPT or our cell phones than we pay attention to understanding how to operate our brains. Our brain is the most powerful, magnificent machine we'll ever, we'll ever own. And I think in today's day and age, we have a lot of really strong neuropsychological evidence that tells us how to powerfully navigate difficult situations, scary situations, and uncertain situations.

• 8:32Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I think the assumption is, or my assumption is, that how you react to those things when people don't cooperate, when things don't go your way, that that is largely hardwired in. And yeah, you can jiggle the wires maybe, but that you are who you are and you react how you react.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  You know what, as a neuropsychologist, I couldn't disagree more. So I really believe in emotional transformation, behavioral transformation. And I don't just believe in it. You know, I've done a lot of, you know, I'm really well published in the scientific literature. So I sort of have seen very clearly the evidence of emotional and behavioral change. And I work with people all day long for many, many years. You know, one of the things that I think surprises people is if you really want to achieve change, you have to understand the brain's relationship with uncertainty. Can I, can I talk about this for a minute?

• 9:27Mike Carruthers?

  Absolutely.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  So as I mentioned, I'm sort of most fundamentally a trauma expert. So I've worked with, you know, incredibly intense human emotions, rage, despondency, betrayal. And certainly those emotional experiences are very painful. But one of the things that struck me in my work is we actually underestimate what could potentially be the most taxing emotion of all. And that emotion is confusion. Now, I don't care if you call it confusion or ambiguity or uncertainty. From a neural perspective, the brain is kind of doing the same thing. Now, to understand why uncertainty is so difficult for your brain, or why confusion is so, so difficult for your brain, you have to understand what the brain is.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  So the best way to think about your brain is as a pattern detection machine, right? So you are going through your life and your brain is basically going, apple, apple, apple, fill in the blank, that should be an apple. So you can see the only thing that will really stop the brain from doing its core function is confusion.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  So even if you're, you know, even if I have to experience rage or if I'm sad, my brain can handle those things much better than it can handle me not knowing what to do next. So a lot of our pain actually comes, it's this very counterintuitive thing. And this is why I think it's so powerful to learn the brain. A lot of our pain actually comes when we try to create certainty. Right? So I just said, the brain is a pattern detection machine. It's kryptonite are these moments of uncertainty or confusion. So what a lot of us do to try to create certainty is we try to do it through what I call the overs. Okay, so the overs, and I think your listeners are really going to resonate with this.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  The overs are things like overworking, overthinking, overdoing, overcommunicating, overgiving. I mean, I could just go on and on and on. And in each of those moments, what I'm really doing is I'm trying to use an abundance of my energy to create certainty where there is none. Right? So working is amazing, but over, the only reason anyone ever overworks is because they're afraid. Thinking is very pleasant. The only reason someone overthinks is because they're anxious. So here's, here's the final point, and then I'll kind of come up for air is what we're very clear about from the neuropsychological research, and I think this is such a mind blowing moment for people,

• 12:01Speaker 01

  is actually what, what the, what the evidence shows us is that the more we obsessively seek certainty, you would think that's kind of logical, right? We'll feel better when, when we're certain. But the more we obsessively seek certainty, the sicker we get. The more anxious we get, the more afraid we get, the more scared we get, the more agitated we get. So if we really want to lead emotionally powerful lives, we have to understand how the brain responds to uncertainty and how to navigate that powerfully.

• 12:35Mike Carruthers?

  So, well, what it sounds like is that if you're trying to create certainty when there isn't any, so that, so don't try, so just, well, case or a, or a, whatever happens, happens, but that's not human nature. We need to try to get our way to control things to, you know, move forward the way we want. We have wants and needs too.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Absolutely, absolutely. So, here's the thing, though, and this is such like this, we're coming back to this core idea that everyone's heard a million times before, of balance. So, is it important to, on some level, understand how to navigate the external world? Of course. It would be absurd to say otherwise. But I would tell you, I think one of the most pressing behavioral problems in our individual lives, in our homes, and I do a lot of work in organizations, in the larger culture, is we are obsessed. We are obsessed with what is happening in the external world. Hey, what are you doing? Why is this person talking like this? Why are the people on social media doing this? Why are those? It just goes on and on and on. If I had to distill all of my work down to a single

• 13:42Speaker 01

  question, it would be this. How can I control these people who matter to me? So, how can I control the behavior of these people around me, so that their behavior doesn't make me feel the things I don't like to feel? So, what happens is that because we're so externally obsessed, we over-focus on the external environment, and we totally neglect our inner environment. So, what I'm really saying, again, this is kind of counterintuitive, is like, absolutely, navigate the external world. That's what we're on this planet to, in part, do. But if you think the opposite of uncertainty is certainty, that's not true.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  In fact, the more you seek certainty obsessively, the worse you're gonna feel. So, then what is the opposite of uncertainty? The opposite of uncertainty is self-trust.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  That even if these people don't cooperate the way that I need them to cooperate, it's okay. That even I work, I work in a lot of organizational settings where micromanagement is a big problem. All micromanagement is at its core is certainty seeking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Jim, I'm gonna need to see that email before you send it. Sarah, I'm gonna need to be in that meeting. I'm gonna need you guys to run the idea by me 100 times. So I'm trying to control. Why am I trying to control? Because I don't think I'll be okay if not.

• 15:08Mike Carruthers?

  And why is that? Why, why is it that we feel we won't be okay if we can't control it?

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Your brain is actually the native, universal language of every single human being is a language of emotion. Okay, this is true. I mean, and if we're really honest about it, it's a, it's a language of negative emotion because every single one of us showed up on this planet, red-faced, terrified, screaming and enraged. Okay, so the brain's kind of running on this emotional energy. I don't mean this metaphorically, I mean it neurobiologically. So in the ways that you get into pain in your life, you have a core emotional pattern. And it's gonna sound something like this. People just don't really listen to me. People just don't really listen to me. People just don't really listen to me. Maybe my emotional pattern is things just never work out for me. Things just never work out for me.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Things just never work out for me. Then watch me find a new relationship and I promise you, you will, you will come to see that things just don't work out for you.

• 16:09Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, it's like a self fulfilling prophecy. And I think people have a sense of that because we, it's probably easier to see it in other people. You see those people who always say things aren't gonna work out and they never work out. I'm speaking with Julia DiGangi. She's a neuropsychologist, author of the book, Energy Rising: The Neuroscience of Leading with Emotional Power.

• 17:02Speaker 04

  Hey, listen.

• 17:03Speaker 05

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• 17:31Mike Carruthers?

  So Julia, talk some more about this self-fulfilling prophecy idea and how you know it to be true.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  In one of my experiences, so we use in FMRI and EEG research, we use this well-validated face paradigm, okay, and we put people in scanners and we show them four faces: angry faces, fearful faces, mad faces, or neutral faces. One of the most interesting faces is actually the neutral faces. So everyone is seeing the same faces, but interestingly, people who are, we call them, you know, healthy controls, so people that don't have a diagnosis like anxiety or depression, will report the faces as neutral. They'll just say, I don't know, they're kind of blank. Whereas people who already have anxiety will say the faces

• 18:18Speaker 01

  are threatening. Who's right? The point I'm driving at here is there's, based on how the brain works, there's no way to take affect out of it. So go back to your micromanagement thing. You're saying, I need to micromanage because Suzie can't do her job. I'm saying I would ask a different question. I would say, what is it about in your emotional coding that is signaling to you that Suzie can't do her job? And even if you said to me, you know what, Julia, I've had 20s, because this happens a lot, I've had 27 conversations with Suzie about how you, so you're telling me 28, email review 28 is going to save you? You see what I'm saying? A big thing I see is like, it's very difficult for people to

• 19:00Speaker 01

  give difficult feedback. Why? Because it makes them anxious, because it makes them scared, because they're afraid that someone's going to get mad at them. I'm afraid to fire her. Why? Because I don't, I believe that there's not people that I can hire to do this job. I feel that someone's going to get, it's always coming back to emotional energy. Why? Because how your brain makes meaning is predicated on affective circuits in the brain. In other words, did you have a good life? I don't know. How do you feel about it? Do people work hard for you? I don't know. How do you feel about it? How much money is enough money? How much time is enough time? All of these things are ultimately mediated by emotion. And so when people just talk about situation without talking about emotion,

• 19:45Speaker 01

  we are denying the very physiology upon which consciousness rises.

• 19:50Mike Carruthers?

  The micromanager guy, let's say you convince him not to, not to read Suzie's email before she sends it. You're, you're asking him to change. So what does he do?

• 20:02Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 20:03Mike Carruthers?

  Because a lot of this is about, don't do this, don't do this. Well, but you gotta do something. You can't just don't do something.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Totally. So here's the thing, I'm going to give you one more quick story. So I'm brought in a lot to help organizations with employee engagement. Okay. So I'll say, what's going on around here? And they'll say, for example, things aren't looking good. Morale is low. There's not a lot of inspiration. There's not a lot of engagement because the staff is X, Y, and Z. And I say, great, that's super valid. We're going to totally get to that. Just really quick, tell me how you're doing. And what invariably I hear, Mike, is people say, I'm not doing good. I'm frustrated. I'm burnt out. I'm irritated. I'm frustrated. I keep saying the same.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  So in other words, they're embodying the very energy they're saying they want out of their team, whether it's their team at work or their team in their home. Now here's the thing, neuroscience tells us that emotion is a thing of contagion. You quite literally catch, we catch each other's emotions the way we catch colds. You already know this is true because you, plenty of times, you've been in a great mood. You walk into a room and you're like, oh God, and your mood just sinks like a lead balloon. Or alternatively, this is my favorite one is like you've definitely walked into rooms before where people are cracking up. You don't even know what they're laughing about and you just start laughing. We are wired to catch emotion. So overwhelmingly, in my experience

• 21:40Speaker 01

  with leaders, they want their people to do well. They want to run a happy organization, a happy house. So they'll start to obsess. How do I make these people feel more inspired? How do I make them feel more motivated? How do I make them feel more engaged? And I say, your job is actually not to motivate anyone. Your job is to motivate yourself and trust that they will catch the energy of that motivation. They will catch the energy of that inspiration. Your job is to inspire no one. Because until you tell me how you can get inside someone's nervous system and like click around in there and zing, zing, zap, zap, zing, zing, zing, so they feel a feeling inside their own body, it will never work.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  But what does work is we know the mechanism. We know that emotions are contagious. So I need to start thinking, what is the emotional energy that is missing on my team? Is it patience? Is it clarity? Is it kindness? Is it authenticity? And then I need to start thinking about how do I want to embody the very energy that I am saying I want to see more of on my team?

• 22:46Mike Carruthers?

  Which sounds a little like, you know, lead by example, do as I do, watch me and hopefully you will do the same. But it seems a little, I don't know, iffy, like, you know, maybe they will, maybe they won't. And when you think about leading and motivating, it's like, you're supposed to be doing something, telling people, rallying the troops. That's what motivating is.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  If I'm serious about motivating, and we've all been around leaders who inspire us. And never once have I heard someone say, you know, who's really motivating and inspiring to me are the leaders who try to micromanage the hell out of me. The ones who tell me how to do it, the ones who keep checking in on me. We are inspired by people who are really led up by the work. Who are really authentic. So what I'm saying here is that if you want, and I completely understand that this has not been the way that you've been living your life for, and I think a lot of us don't, it seems like a very big paradigm shift. But the thing that I think angers us is like, well, all of this is ultimately being told by how the brain operates. So let me just think here for a second. Okay, what's the problem?

• 23:52Speaker 01

  The problem is people are motivated. Okay, how do I get them motivated? I should give them more Starbucks gift cards. We already know that extrinsic forms of motivation don't meaningfully work. They, right? So we have, we have those data. Well, we know that there are two circuits for motivation in the brain. There's extrinsic motivation, which is like, I'm going to give you a Starbucks gift card. I'm going to give you a bonus. And we know that there are intrinsic forms of motivation, which is, do I feel happy to be here? Is this aligned with my? So even if these things feel nebulous, which I understand for a lot of people, they do, that doesn't, they're still real. They still work at the level of the brain. Okay, so if I'm, if I'm a boss and I say, I want people around here more motivated,

• 24:35Speaker 01

  I understand that I've kind of tapped out extrinsic forms of motivation. I need to tap into internal systems of motivation. I can't get inside of their nervous system. Let me work on mine.

• 24:47Mike Carruthers?

  Can you give me another example of how emotional energy works in, maybe not in a business setting, but, but maybe a parenting setting?

• 24:58Speaker 01

  So I was at the park the other day. I have little kids and there was this little Noah. So little Noah was like up on the slide and little Noah's mom was like, Noah, Noah, get, get down off that slide. Noah, Noah, come down. Noah, no. And I, I was kind of watching this, right? And like little Noah looked quite sure footed. He looked quite confident. He was having a good time up there. He kept telling his mom, like, I think I'm okay. Like, I don't want to come down. So eventually little Noah complies. What was really happening in that transaction? Was it really that little Noah was going to get so catastrophically injured? Or was it more that mom was having very big feelings inside of her body?

• 25:41Speaker 01

  And she needed Noah to come down off that slide so she could control the feelings in her body?

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Also, I want you to think about this. We say that we want to raise really powerful children, meaning they're self-reliant, they're self-intimate, they really understand themselves. We give our kids a lot of interesting messages, right? So the most powerful form of leadership on the planet is parent leadership. So, you know, we will say things to our kids like, "Eat that broccoli." "I don't want to eat the broccoli." "Eat it anyway." "Go tell her you're sorry." "Wait, but I'm not sorry." "Hey, I said go tell her you're sorry." "March over there right now." Right? So it's like, we as parents have these ideas of how things should go. What happens,

• 26:27Speaker 01

  though, in the child is the child's having an emotional experience. "I don't like broccoli." "I am not afraid." "I do not want to apologize because mom didn't see, but, you know, this kid hit me in the head first," right? Whatever it is. But then we're telling our children, "You're having this emotional experience. Override the emotional experience and behave in a way that I'm telling you to behave in." The problem with that chronically is that what we're really teaching our children is their own emotional experiences can't be trusted. And this is when you start to see, we have a whole society of people right now talking about people-pleasing and performers and obsessed

• 27:10Speaker 01

  with attention and not confident and unable to help themselves. There's real consequences of these things. I will tell you, I work with a lot of anxious, like, parents that come for coaching for anxious kids. You want to know one of the biggest hallmarks of anxiety in the child? Anxiety in the parent.

• 27:31Mike Carruthers?

  Well, and every parent's done that, where, you know, say the child doesn't want to do his homework, and then somehow you catastrophize that into some horrible, their whole academic career will be ruined because you're having trouble getting them to do their homework. And we do that, that anxiety.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  Right? So there's like, the kid won't do the math homework the way the parent wants the math homework done, and now it's become this like epic thing where like, no one's respecting, no one's loving. And then when you really start to work on the parent's energy, you start to always see that the parent is telling, often unconsciously, a catastrophic story to themselves. They're not going to do well in geometry. They're not going to be successful in high school. They're never going to get into a good college. They won't have a good job. And by the end of this story, once you get them to verbalize it, their child is homeless, living in a refrigerator box underneath a bridge. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, we did that to ourselves, right? And there can be something very healing and very empowering

• 28:32Speaker 01

  when we start to understand how our emotions are coloring the ways we're acting with our children and other people we love.

• 28:40Mike Carruthers?

  Well, this is a very different, unique way of looking at how emotions work that I know I haven't really thought much about before. I've been speaking with Julia DiGangi. She is a neuropsychologist and author of the book, Energy Rising: The Neuroscience of Leading with Emotional Power. There's a link to that book in the show notes. Thank you for being here, Julia, and explaining all this.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  Thank you. You are awesome. And I actually liked your challenging questions, and I appreciated that as well.

• 29:09Speaker 06

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• 29:39Speaker 05

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• 29:53Speaker 05

  And harness the power of the Ocarina with the built-in microphone.

• 30:01Speaker 05

  The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive. Game and system sold separately. Game rated everyone 10 and up.

• 30:12Mike Carruthers?

  In the near future, you are likely going to step into a small room, possibly with total strangers. The door will lock behind you and there you will stand. You may struggle deciding if you should say something or even look at these other people in the room with you as this room moves up or down in a building. It is, of course, an elevator. Elevators are weird little spaces, yet they changed the world in a way. They made tall buildings possible. But they are a little mysterious. I'm sure you've worried when an elevator bounces a little when it stops on a floor. Should you worry? Is that a problem? What about those open and closed door buttons that often don't really seem to do anything?

• 30:57Mike Carruthers?

  Could an elevator actually come loose and plummet to the ground? Here to explain things about the elevator is Lee Gray. He is a professor of architectural history at the University of North Carolina and author of a book called "From Ascending Rooms to Express Elevators: A History of the Passenger Elevator." Hi, Lee. Welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 31:19Speaker 02

  Hi.

• 31:20Mike Carruthers?

  So I know there are conflicting stories about which was the first passenger elevator, but pick one that is your best guess as to probably the most important or the first or whatever, and when and how and why and where?

• 31:37Speaker 02

  The one that I know of of an elevator that was specifically designed to carry passengers was 1859 in the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City.

• 31:49Mike Carruthers?

  And where did it come from? Who created it? How did it get in the building?

• 31:53Speaker 02

  So what we have to remember is mid-19th century, large urban hotels were just becoming a major part of, a major feature, rather, in American, not only American cities, but in cities also throughout Europe. And when you went to one of those hotels, you had incredible amenities that you didn't have at home, so to speak. Running water in your room, a bathroom adjacent to your room, steam, heat, all of these incredible things that many people didn't have at home. And in planning for the Fifth Avenue Hotel, the developer of the hotel thought, well, we have all this wonderful technology.

• 32:37Speaker 02

  What if we can put technology in the hotel that would transport the guests up and down from the lobby to their rooms? And the proprietor contacted a gentleman named Otis Tufts. We think of Otis as associated with elevators. This is a different one where his first name is Otis. Otis Tufts, who was a Boston engineer, and he designed a machine exclusively for the Fifth Avenue Hotel to carry guests up and down. This was a very, actually very strange machine in that the designer was very safety conscious and therefore thought, well, if we suspend a car or cabin by cables,

• 33:20Speaker 02

  the cables could always break, passengers would fall, bad things would happen. So he eliminated the cables and designed and they constructed this enormous shaft from the basement to the top of the building. And it was a screw shaft, if you will. And the car fit on the shaft just like a nut on a bolt. And the steam engine rotated this massive metal shaft. And as it turned, the car slowly, very, very slowly, would rise and fall throughout, going, moving up and down the shaft. The idea was that it was perfectly safe because there were no cables.

• 33:58Mike Carruthers?

  So it was basically on a screw, it's screwed up and down. It's screwed up and down.

• 34:03Speaker 02

  Yes, that's exactly what it did.

• 34:05Mike Carruthers?

  Well, that must have been amazingly slow.

• 34:08Speaker 02

  It was amazingly slow, even for the time period. It was ridiculously expensive, around $25,000. And $25,000 in 1859 is real money. I mean, it was insanely expensive. And only one other similar machine was built for a hotel in Philadelphia. And that technology was very rapidly abandoned because it was too expensive. And even for a hotel, it was too slow.

• 34:36Mike Carruthers?

  Yet there it was.

• 34:38Speaker 02

  But what it did do is it set an important paradigm for how hotels, excuse me, how elevators in hotels and later on in fine department stores and other settings worked in that you approached the elevator station, operator would open the door, you would go into the elevator car, take a seat on a really very comfortable, well cushioned little bench, admiring the fine woodwork of the car, nice mirrors on the walls, a little gas chandelier hanging down, and after everyone was seated, the door would be closed by the operator and then he would slowly and gracefully ride up to your floor and then the operation

• 35:21Speaker 02

  would reverse itself because the idea initially, of course, wasn't speed, it was luxury. I'm going to this hotel to be pampered and to be well taken care of.

• 35:32Mike Carruthers?

  So as we move along the chronology here, I wanted to ask you, at what point in the chronology of elevators do escalators show up? Is it early on, later on, prior to, after the fact? When?

• 35:46Speaker 02

  So escalators begin to show up in the 1890s and they begin to show up for primarily two reasons. One, it is a form of vertical transportation that doesn't require an operator, therefore, quite simply, I don't have to pay for one. And two, they operate all the time, you know, they don't stop and start. And I guess really then there's a third reason, because they operate all the time, they carry many, many more passengers in the same amount of time than an elevator can. And this is, you know, if you've watched an escalator, you know, there's endless flow of passengers moving nonstop. Elevators, of course, stop,

• 36:30Speaker 02

  doors open, people exit, you enter, doors close, and so on. It's even, it's obviously much slower.

• 36:37Mike Carruthers?

  The early elevators, and I don't know how early early is before it started to change, but was it was it a case of like somebody, an elevator operator had to kind of manually line up the elevator with the floor? Or was that already in place that the elevator knew how to stop at the floor? Or like, how automatic versus manually driven was it?

• 36:59Speaker 02

  All right. That's a great question. Up until the early 1920s, all elevator stops were under the control of the operator. And if you stopped the car within about within one half inch of level to the floor, that was considered a good job. So up until the early 1920s, it was all up to the skill of the operator to stop the car level. By the mid 1920s, we had automatic leveling systems, which meant that the car would automatically stop and be perfectly level.

• 37:37Speaker 02

  And as one sort of cultural footnote to that, one of the, an early silent movie, I want to say 1917, 1918, was actually predicated on this hapless but penniless inventor who invents a system that elevators would stop level with the floor, which makes him a fortune. And then he marries his boss's daughter and all that kind of thing.

• 38:02Mike Carruthers?

  The elevator operator, like, like, how tough was it? Was it, because it seems like that's got to be a relatively dull job, but maybe it was more skilled than I realized.

• 38:16Speaker 02

  So it's, there's, there's, it's kind of a paradox here. It was skilled to be able to drive the elevator primarily to stop at level with the floor, but it was also more than that until, actually until the late 1920s. So let's imagine a 10-story building and what, what do I do as an elevator operator? I would start my day on the lobby floor. And if there are four other elevators, I'm not going anywhere until I'm directed to by a person called the starter. The starter was the staff member in the building in charge of directing elevator traffic. So I would be in my elevator car and people would start piling in.

• 39:01Speaker 02

  And when the starter gave me a signal, I would start my elevator. And I would go all the way up to the 10th floor. And then I would go all the way down to the first floor. Even if I didn't have any passengers to pick up because there's no automated control. While I'm running my elevator, if somebody wants the car, they'll push a button and a signal goes off in my car that says, stop on floor six. So I've got to watch for signals, stop where I'm supposed to stop, stop level where I'm supposed to stop, open the doors for passengers to come in, close the doors after the passengers have come in, ask them what floor they're supposed to go to. So you get the idea. There was, I'm doing a lot.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  And it also, and here's the paradox, was one of the lowest paying jobs in the building.

• 39:47Mike Carruthers?

  The modern elevator today, is it like, because it does the same thing as it did in the 60s and the 50s and the 40s and it gets people up and down. Is it technologically just so much better? Or is it basically the same thing today as it's always been?

• 40:04Speaker 02

  In some ways, it's the same thing it's always been. But all of the features that we encounter have been enhanced. Most of the enhancements have to do with two fundamental ideas. The first is safety. Elevators are incredibly safe. And many, many improvements are predicated on increasing that safety. A good example would be, we don't tend to think about this, are the elevator doors. Most elevator doors now have sensor arrays that are not only between the two doors, but often will extend three dimensions in front of the doors to make sure that they open and close properly.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  But most importantly, they don't close on a passenger either exiting or entering. And it's very, very sophisticated systems. But most of those are refinements to existing technology that begins in the 1950s.

• 41:01Mike Carruthers?

  So despite what you might see in the movies or whatever, have there been many, any free falling elevators that killed people?

• 41:12Speaker 02

  In the 19th century, yes. Um, in, in, from 1950 to the present, I, I won't say that there are none. Uh, because I don't know the history of every, every elevator accident. It's very, very rare. Um, and because one of the things that would happen and the example I always use is in the movie Speed, everybody remembers the bus. Uh, but what the other thing that we find in the movie Speed, if you remember the first sort of third of it, is when the, I guess, mad bomber blows up the cables on the elevator car and it starts to fall down the shaft.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  And then you see the safeties grab on to the guide rails and the car stops. That's what would happen.

• 42:00Mike Carruthers?

  So if you go into a building, a, a tall building in New York City, you'll often see banks of elevators that don't all go to all floors. The, this, these elevators only go up to this floor. These elevators pass that floor and start stopping later on. Is that just for convenience so people don't have to stand in the elevator so long? Or is there a, a mechanical reason for that?

• 42:26Speaker 02

  Fundamentally, that's about efficient traffic control in a building. If I can direct, if it's a 30-story building and I have elevators serving 1 to 10, 10 to 20, uh, 20 to 30, and then a handful that serve the whole building, I can divide the building, you know, traffic into, into three zones. So first thing in the morning and at the end of the day, it's, it's very efficient for people entering the building, getting to work and leaving. What that also means, that bank that serves 1 to 10, um, above the 10th floor, that space is no longer occupied by elevator shafts. This means it's available for use or for rent. So it's both about efficient traffic control in a building

• 43:09Speaker 02

  and also taking up the smallest amount of space possible. Because of course, that space is incredibly valuable, uh, for rental purposes or leasing purposes.

• 43:20Mike Carruthers?

  We've all been in an elevator where it like, it comes to a stop and then it does like a little bounce and it, and everybody goes, oh, what is that?

• 43:30Speaker 02

  The first thing about the bounce, you're perfectly safe. That's the first thing to know. If an elevator hasn't been maintained in a while, you can get a little cable stretch and the motor can have a little bit of play in it and you can get a little bit of a bounce. It's perfectly safe. It just, it may mean, not always, but it may mean that the elevator just needs a little maintenance.

• 43:57Mike Carruthers?

  I've always thought it had something to do with like, there's too many people in here. Something's wrong. Somebody needs to get out.

• 44:04Speaker 02

  That's another good point. In most elevators, if there's too many people in them and it's too heavy, that's when the alarm goes off. And that's the elevator, and the elevator won't leave a landing until one or more people get off. So most elevators are very good about letting you know, no, there's too many people on board. I'm not going anywhere.

• 44:25Mike Carruthers?

  And what, these are just like random questions that come up as I'm thinking about my elevator rides. Whenever I get in an elevator and I push the closed door button, it doesn't really seem to do anything.

• 44:39Speaker 02

  So there's a lot of urban myths about those. You'll hear that they don't do anything, that the companies just put them there to make people feel good. They are supposed to function, but depending on how the elevator is set up, it may not function immediately because the elevator is predicated on being at the landing for a certain period of time to ensure that waiting passengers have an opportunity to approach and to board. But no, it is supposed to work, although that doesn't mean it always does.

• 45:13Mike Carruthers?

  So there's basically a timer on it first and that overrides you pushing the button to close the doors?

• 45:20Speaker 02

  Yes, it's predicated on waiting a certain amount of time before the doors start to close and that's a safety feature.

• 45:29Mike Carruthers?

  Are the people who do elevators, make them and install them, the same people that do escalators? Are those two different industries?

• 45:37Speaker 02

  Same industry. Most elevator companies manufacturers will manufacture elevators, escalators, and many of them also manufacture moving sidewalks. And in some instances, what are often referred to as people movers at airports, the sort of automated train systems where the doors open and close, very much like an elevator. Those are also, in some instances, manufactured by the same folks who build elevators.

• 46:07Mike Carruthers?

  So when you put an elevator in a building, or you build a building with elevators in it, at what point does that elevator, or the guts of that elevator, become obsolete? How typically, often do they have to be replaced and modernized?

• 46:24Speaker 02

  If an elevator is well-maintained, it can last a long, long time. Now, this is perhaps more true of elevators built pre-World War II or just after. Modern elevators are like a lot of other modern things because of modern materials that are used, they don't last as long. There are, in some American cities, elevator systems that have been there 60, 70, 80 years, and they're well-maintained and they work, they work fine. What tends to happen, and when modernization is needed, is when the elevator no longer

• 47:06Speaker 02

  meets the needs of the occupants of the building in terms of speed of operation. It's mostly speed and getting people where they need to go. Sometimes it's the amenities. So a good example would be operator-less elevators, fully automatic operators, first appear in the 1950s. Throughout the 50s, 60s, and 70s, it took about 30 years. Elevator systems were replaced in buildings with the newest technology that did not require an elevator. But most of the time, if it works, you modernize, or you update just bits and pieces. You might update a motor, but not the cabs and other things.

• 47:50Mike Carruthers?

  One of the, this seems to happen like in apartment buildings, residential buildings that have old elevators in them. It's that experience of, you know, it's probably going to be pretty slow. And then when it gets to the floor you want it to get on, it sits there for a while. And the door doesn't open, and it doesn't open, and then it opens. And I've always thought, well, why can't they fix that? Why can't, when you get there, why can't the door just open?

• 48:20Speaker 02

  You probably could fix that, depending on the building. But the issue there is, now, obviously, I'm just speculating here. The elevator is perfectly safe, therefore, the building owner has no, you know, no reason to improve that. Now, if it was an office building, yes, it would be worked on immediately to make sure that, that the occupants of that office building, especially a Class A building, that it works really quickly. In apartment buildings, in theory, the idea is, we're not in that big a hurry.

• 48:55Mike Carruthers?

  Is there something about elevators that you find, like, really fascinating, or odd, or peculiar, or, or something?

• 49:02Speaker 02

  If you made a list of the most socially awkward spaces you know, the elevator's probably at the top of the list. And the reason for that, this is my speculation, it has to do with, you know, what an elevator car is. If it's got doors, it's got a ceiling, it's got a floor, it's got four walls. When we walk into any building, and the building's filled with rooms, we can decode the rooms pretty quickly, in terms of their function, and culturally, we know how we're supposed to behave, and how we can navigate that space. An elevator is this tiny little room. That moves. And we'd also, we don't know how it moves. It just moves.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  It's like magic. But especially as Americans, you know, we don't necessarily like standing that close to each other. So hence socially awkward, especially in a building where you don't know people. The example used in an apartment building, if I get to know my neighbors, then the elevator's kind of a social space. And it's very different than when you're in a place where you don't know people. And how close do I stand? Do I find my corner? Do I talk to them? You know, it's culturally weird.

• 50:17Mike Carruthers?

  And you know what I notice about elevators is elevators all have a smell. It smells like nothing else but elevator, but that they're all different elevator smells. And I have no idea if there's any significance to that or not. I've been talking with Dr. Lee Gray. He's a professor of architectural history at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte and author of a book called From Ascending Rooms to Express Elevators: A History of the Passenger Elevator. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Hey, this was fun, Lee. Thanks for coming on.

• 50:53Speaker 02

  You are very welcome, Mike. I really enjoyed talking to you.

• 51:00Mike Carruthers?

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• 51:45Mike Carruthers?

  They make this podcast possible. And our advertisers have some great products and services they offer. So if you hear one that sounds interesting to you, I hope you'll check it out. And usually you will find a link to whoever that advertiser is in the show notes. I'm Mike Herrothers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

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