The Science of Ted Lasso with Jason Sudeikis & Brendan Hunt

What’s the science behind kindness? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly discover the hidden science in Ted Lasso with its creators Jason Sudeikis & Brendan Hunt and neuroscientist Heather Berlin.

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

• 0:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk Sports Edition. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and today, we're going to take a deep dive into the waters of Ted Lasso. Ooh, Ted Lasso. If you haven't seen it on Apple Plus, it's a TV series. But why it interests us in particular is because there's a lot of psychology, sort of neuroscience, going on in that show. Ted Lasso is a coach, an American coach, coaching a UK football team, soccer team, and there's a lot of interpersonal dynamics that brings them to this program. And anytime we have neuroscientist issues, we bring in Heather Berlin.

• 0:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She'll come in, actually, in the third segment of this program. But in the meantime, let me first introduce my two co-hosts. Chuck, nice, Chuck.

• 1:07Chuck Nice?

  Hey Neil, I gotta tell you, a deep dive into the waters of Ted Lasso sounds very erotic. I like it.

• 1:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 1:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything is that way to you, Chuck? And we also, of course, have Gary O'Reilly. Gary? Hey Neil. Always good to have you there. A former professional soccer player in the UK. So this is right, right down your alley here. Now, of course, in order to make this work, it'd be better if we had, like, folks from the show. So why not? So we invited, and they agreed to appear, two of the co-creators of the show, Jason Sudeikis and Brendan Hunt. Guys, welcome to StarTalk Sports Edition.

• 1:50Speaker 02

  Hello. Hi. Nice to be here. Thanks for having us.

• 1:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. Excellent. Excellent. Jason, you and I met some years ago. I think we just crossed paths in a, in a, in a sound studio. But it was, it was a fun, a fun encounter and I'm, I don't know if I can officially call you a friend of mine, but you're, you're somebody I watch and follow and it's always great to see you doing very cool, interesting things. Comedic and dramatic and the like.

• 2:14Chuck Nice?

  Thank you.

• 2:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, so thanks for being on the, on the show. So, so, yeah, so the two of you guys created this sort of fictitious character, playing for a fictitious Premier League football club. And it's, the show is, is globally famous on many levels. And so what we want to know is, how is it that Ted Lasso, this character who is a, is a, he's a coach, but he's got, he's just really, really a nice guy. And it's like, no, these people don't exist. These, should they exist? Should there be a law against them? Why?

• 2:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then somehow it works and it works convincingly, not in some weird fantasy way. And so, so we're going to delve into the, the, the, how you guys turned Ted Lasso into a modern day superhero with a different portfolio of powers that we normally find.

• 3:13Chuck Nice?

  The power of kindness.

• 3:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The power of kindness. So let me, I'm going to lead off with, with Chuck and Gary because they've been thinking about this like ever since we first floated the idea.

• 3:24Chuck Nice?

  Well, Gary, I'm going to let Gary go first, but I got to say this before we start, before we start. I just got to get this out of the way, you know, for, for Brian and Jason. Brendan. This is a thank you. Brendan, Brendan and Jason. I'm sorry, Brendan, not Brian.

• 3:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Brendan, Brendan.

• 3:39Chuck Nice?

  I'll get Brian in here too. No, no, no. Get Brian. Man, Brian's the worst. Don't let Brian. Hey, Brian! Where the hell is Brian? Oh, no, stay, stay, stay, Brian, stay. All right. By the way, Brian's an a-hole. I don't even know why I brought him up. Okay? Brendan, Brendan's so much cooler. But let me just say this, thank you to you guys from the rest of the world for making America give a damn about soccer. Because seriously. blasphemy, blasphemy. Without this show, man, seriously, it's like, I've never seen more people get into soccer because of you two. All right. That's the stealth mission. There you go. Now they know the ball's inflated and not stuffed. There you go. Yep. Baby steps, baby steps.

• 4:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Baby steps it is.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  Kindness is the Trojan horse. We're actually just trying to get soccer going out there.

• 4:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Good.

• 4:25Speaker 02

  We'll get you, America.

• 4:26Gary O'Reilly?

  Good. Grow the family. So, okay, chaps, here we go. Um, strength of community.

• 4:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chaps, listen to that.

• 4:32Speaker 04

  Here we go.

• 4:33Gary O'Reilly?

  They're anglicized now, that's fine.

• 4:35Speaker 02

  Ryan, get your chaps on.

• 4:39Speaker 02

  Put them on. You look great.

• 4:41Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 4:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, don't have me calling them blokes by the end, you know, I don't know what I'll do.

• 4:45Gary O'Reilly?

  So, okay, so humankind's success has been on community and cooperation, yet you put Ted in the all about me Rolls Royce us and them Ferrari world of Premier League football. And you repeatedly demonstrate how we find common ground. I mean, what on earth inspired you to do that?

• 5:10Speaker 04

  Golly, I mean, I, I think, you know, Brendan and I both come from, um, you know, a, a background in improv, improvisational comedy, which is, you know, is, is as much of, you know, playing on a, on a, you know, a, a team, you know, playing team sports as much as, you know, working in, in some environment, you know, a chosen family environment. And just that whole notion of, you know, yes, and is like, you, you know, sort of, um, you know, like, almost like a prayer in improv, you know, where you accept an idea, you support the idea, and then you add to it. And so I think it was just rooted in the way that we all, we, we played together, specifically Brendan and I and our buddy Joe Kelly, who we did these commercials back in 2013 and 2014, where that's where the character initially

• 5:53Speaker 04

  started. And even the way we went about making those commercials for NBC Sports, you know, with, with the Tottenham Hotspur's and, and, uh, et cetera, we didn't write a script, you know, and this isn't a, a thing that we invented. I mean, they do this all the time on like shows like Curb and Enthusiasm, et cetera, where we just had like beats written out, but this was like a multi, multi million dollar, like, you know, ad campaign. And we were just, I wouldn't say we were winging it because there was absolute intention behind everything we were doing. We just didn't have a hard copy of the script that people were going through and we just trusted each other. And we knew that if Brendan and I knew we were making Joe laugh, and I was making Brendan and Joe laugh, and Brendan was making Joe and I laugh, then you just, when you have that alchemy of, of a, of a little triangle,

• 6:37Speaker 04

  you just know that there's good stuff happening there. And so we just sort of followed. That and so it was it was made in kindness with friends and then that just like it it was sort of in the DNA of the thing it it we didn't know we were doing it the very especially the very first one that it was that it was about because I would say the first commercial isn't about kindness it wasn't until we got to the second one that really unlocked Ted's optimism and and um you know hopefulness uh and his you know curiosity and whatnot um and then by the time a couple of years after that when we started talking about the TV show it we we were really as a country like being inundated with a lot of negativity

• 7:17Speaker 04

  I mean little did we know how far you know the the prime example of of you know uh ignorance and arrogance hadn't quite come down the you know the the escalator in Trump Plaza yet but it was it was there was a disturbance in the force and so we wanted to make a show that didn't rely on sarcasm and cynicism I know I personally didn't want to play a character that would have felt derivative to David Brent or Michael Scott you know uh you know the all these great characters that were uh you know kicking butt on television so it was really about what we didn't want to do and it lent itself time and time again to you know kindness and and to like empathy words that we I don't think we were necessarily

• 7:58Speaker 04

  aware of you know I I mean aware of yes but but weren't speaking about in in the writer's room or even in in in my my dining room at my house in Brooklyn Joe and Brennan and I sort of beat out the idea for this for the show.

• 8:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's really true I so I got to compliment you as a scientist for viewing your your your sort of comedic commercial spots as test you're testing the idea.

• 8:23Speaker 04

  Hundred percent, hundred percent.

• 8:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's science if you have an idea you gotta test it otherwise you know.

• 8:30Chuck Nice?

  Can we get a sense uh can we get a sense of uh the the meeting where uh this multi-million dollar project uh fronted by NBC and they asked for the script review?

• 8:42Speaker 04

  I mean.

• 8:42Speaker 02

  Um, well, a version of it is.

• 8:45Speaker 04

  It's like, hey, hey, Brendan, Jason, you know, we, we gave you a few million dollars. Can we see this? Can we see this?

• 8:54Speaker 02

  They didn't give that million dollars to us, my man. That was entirely for the purposes of the NBC's networks and reach outs. But, um, but we didn't know about this meeting, but this meeting kind of happened. But we are at the Tottenham Hotspur Training Center. We are in our RV, me and Joe and Jason and Jeff, uh, Jason Mander. We're playing Catan.

• 9:14Speaker 04

  Literally playing Setters Up Catan.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  Mumford and Sons videos.

• 9:17Speaker 04

  And remember, we, we watched a ton of, uh, Coming to America, like just clips from Coming to America, just like on YouTube. We're just like, we were passing time. Meanwhile, outside this van, go ahead, Brendan.

• 9:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, like between setups, like we'd done one bit, we're gonna do the next bit. And we told them like, oh yeah, we'll do like Ted, like, uh, in, uh, like playing FIFA. So set that up, we'll be there. And they don't work that way. So outside this, you know, RV of fun, dozens of English crew members are just like,

• 9:49Speaker 02

  what's happening?

• 9:52Gary O'Reilly?

  Sounds about right for the English.

• 9:53Speaker 04

  Yeah. Crew members, but also NBC exactly sports executives, you know, like people being like, what, like dude, what is going on? Where do they do it? And we're just in there, just, you know, I'll trade you wood for, for, you know, for sheep, you know, on Setters Up Catan, just, just like children, you know? And again, but, but, but not being arrogant about it, you know, like just, just, we didn't know anybody. It was, it was our ignorance towards the process, you know, and, and, and their ignorance for hiring us.

• 10:22Gary O'Reilly?

  So let's, let's sort of rewind it back to the, the psychology. What expertise did you draw from in psychology to, and we, for those of us who have watched series one and two, you persistently infused the plotlines with this material. Do, do you actually retain a mental health professional?

• 10:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On the show?

• 10:42Speaker 04

  On the, on the show, no, but I think a great number of our writing staff do personally.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  I'm gonna go with ninety-five percent.

• 10:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're all in therapy. Everybody's in therapy. We don't need a mental health professional.

• 10:56Speaker 04

  Exactly, yeah. You, you know what? I mean, a lot of it is rooted in, in, again, tenants of improvisation, which, which have, you know, um, you know, very macro view versions of, of, you know, and different sayings, you know, follow the follower, you know, like, you, you know, yes and, those notions. But then, then there was, you know, I would found the writings and the, the philosophy of John Wooden, the, the great UCLA college basketball coach, um, to be profound. And that, and his, his, his philosophies were things that I used to teach when I coached improv teams and, and taught improv. Um, and his pyramid of success was something that, that I thought really broke down nicely.

• 11:38Speaker 04

  And take care of themselves, but then also support the people with them, which is really, you know, an idea, a i- ideal headspace to be in when, when, you know, making stuff up on the fly, you know, much less life, you know, driving on the highway, you know, anything, where you're dealing with other people.

• 11:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, with two of you as, with comedic chops, um, and I think, Jason, didn't you have a stint on Saturday Night Live?

• 12:03Speaker 04

  I did for, I did, I was there briefly, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  I hear they like to do improv sometimes.

• 12:07Speaker 04

  Every now and then, every now and then.

• 12:09Speaker 02

  Every now and then, I, I think they like to do improv.

• 12:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, so guys, can you explain? Wait, wait, wait, wait, finish this. But so, so, so, so Brennan, Jason, good comedians have to completely understand their audience, what they're thinking, how they're going to emote. And it seems to me that could, not to, not to trivialize any profession, but that seems to me could, is half of what therapy is, knowing what the person is thinking. Cause if you don't, you're just shooting in the dark. And the, and the way you've been, you've, you've scripted yourselves and the way you interact, there's always a little bit of insight into what's going on in the person's head. And so you're telling us that, that comes to you from your comedic, um, backgrounds.

• 12:56Speaker 02

  I'd say, and like, I, I'm not sure that we know what our audience is thinking so much as we give our audience a lot of credit. You know, we just expect that our audience is bright. And as I have a saying that I have heard in improv, the audience doesn't get what they want. The audience wants what they get. So if we just assume that they're bright and they'll go along with us. If we're doing our best, then they're more likely to go along with us. So that's all we can worry about there, I think.

• 13:24Chuck Nice?

  By the way, Brendan, that's my same philosophy on Christmas for my children, just to let you know.

• 13:29Speaker 04

  Smart, smart.

• 13:30Speaker 05

  You want what you get! Improv! Christmas is cancelled!

• 13:36Speaker 04

  Mariah Carey, we have a rewrite on your hit song, on your Christmas anthem. I, my favorite quote, that's exactly in line with that, was one that Del Close said, who's like, you know, an improv guru, who I got to, you know, study with in the late 90s in Chicago, was like, "If you treat your audiences like poets and geniuses, they will rise to the occasion." And so, so it really is less thinking about, it's less thinking about, what are they gonna get this? Are they gonna do that? We, in every step of the process of creating the show, we have been cognizant and intentional about leaving space for people to lean into it. Whether it be, you know, Brendan, Joe and I, the fellow writers, our fellow co-creator, Bill Lawrence,

• 14:19Speaker 04

  let him lean into it, because he's done thousands of hours of television. He knows the form so well, and so we want our actors to lean into it, to not just, we're not, they're not action figures that we're puppeteering, like, you have to say the words just like this. You know, we have every actor leaning, you know, because we're Americans. And, you know, the anglicized things, like, "Oh, we don't say it that way." We said, we, like, we had the word "ma'am," because, you know, Ted said "ma'am" in the pilot so much. And the very first time Jeremy Swift, who played Higgins, called Rebecca Welton "ma'am." It sounded like "mom." And I was like, "Oh, that's a different show." That's a different show. You can't have that.

• 14:57Speaker 04

  And we do that with the prop department, the hair, makeup people, everybody. We leave space, and we try to do that for the audience, too, where I think some of the things you might be picking up, Neil, you know, not to talk about how the sausage is made too much, but for my money, we're really in the editing process. We want the people to, we want people to see... The actors say the lines and for people to receive the line, then show the actor receiving that line too, because I feel that's how we watch things at home. Like, we're all listening to each other now. And that's the, that for me is the 50% that, you know, sometimes when you have to, you know, on network television, you have to get to the commercial break and you only have like 20 minutes to tell this three act story. We had the luxury of not

• 15:40Speaker 04

  having to follow that, that paradigm because of being on streaming and being on Apple TV+ and them accommodating our, you know, the, the style we're trying to do, where it wasn't, you know, boom, boom, boom. We wanted to live, leave space and grace for people to lean in and, you know, hear and receive the information in, in time with the people.

• 15:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're gonna take our first break in a couple of minutes, but let me just add to that. If you're giving me room to participate in the emotions of what you've written, it is working because every episode that I've watched, I, there's some moment when I well up. There's some tender moment, I get a little teary, emotionally teary. And that wouldn't happen unless you, you, you invited me into what's going on. And so I, I'm

• 16:27Speaker 04

  And if you weren't willing to be invited.

• 16:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Kicking and screaming, I don't wanna cry. Stop it. Right. Gary, you got one last question before we hit the break?

• 16:38Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, um, okay. So, nice guys finish last, right? We've, we've seen teams that win nasty, dirty, bend the rules, break the rules, whatever you can get away with. Maybe if you don't like the Yankees, it's the 77 and 78 Yankees who won stuff and weren't liked because of it. Yet, you end up microdosing us. You give us this kind of feel-good virus during a pandemic. I mean, what about that old adage, nice guys finish last? Was it an intention up front to kind of stand it on its head?

• 17:11Speaker 04

  Yes, we, I mean, 100%, I, I mean, I, I referenced like Trump earlier and I didn't mean to be, you know, too cheeky about it, but, but I have found that the worst version of a human man is the cocktail of someone that is ignorant, but arrogant. You know what I mean? And you can see that played comedically all the time. You know, someone uses the word versumilitude and a character's like, oh, yeah, yeah, no, I know what that word means. Yeah, yeah, versumilitude. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you clearly that they don't. We wanted Ted to be like, hey, what's that word mean? Wait, what versumil what? You know, like, like to be curious, to be ignorant, which nothing wrong with that. But then to ask the question, you know, be like, what, what's, what's, what's going on there? What's going on there? And in the writers room, we were conscious about not, you know, we were still very cynical and sarcastic in the writers room.

• 17:55Speaker 04

  We just, we just, and those are sometimes, you know, comedically, um, our first choices. And we would go to our second or third choice. We would try to make the other choice of, of turning it on its head, being like, okay, let's not, let's not be, let's not have someone come in and go, you know, nice hat, you know? Have them come in and be like, be like, like literally, that's a great hat. Where'd you get that? Can I try it on? Like, you know, you know, and just yes, ending, just supporting whatever was going on.

• 18:24Chuck Nice?

  So may I please right now ask, what, what does versumilitude mean?

• 18:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We will tell Chuck over the break what versumilitude means when we come back from the break. Gary, I want to know if when you played, were you a nice player or a mean player?

• 18:41Speaker 04

  Guttlobutt.

• 18:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're gonna find out when we come back. StarTalk Sports Edition, and we're, we're unpacking Ted Lasso and all that is, and what it means to us going forward as, not only as a show, but as civilization itself when we return.

• 19:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. StarTalk Sports Edition. We're unpacking the psychological complexities of the hit TV series on Apple Plus.

• 19:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ted Lasso. And in our third segment, we're gonna bring on our favorite neuroscientist. And you know who she is. But right now, we're in the middle of our conversation with Jason Sudeikis and Brendan Hunt, who are co-creators and writers and actors in that series. And it contrasts really nasty people with really friendly, happy people. And I just wanna know, from my co-host here, Gary O'Reilly. Gary, when you played soccer, were you one of the mean people? Or were you one of the nice people?

• 19:56Gary O'Reilly?

  Naughty but nice.

• 19:58Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's mean, if I ever heard it.

• 20:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, so you, you, you, there are moments when you have to be certain things. Moments when you have to be other things. Generally, you would not want to hurt, or be mean, or nasty. But sometimes, you have to deal with it. I mean, there were certain rules when I came through as a professional player in the early stages. If their tackle came in higher, you came in higher. This just, you know, the rules will survive out there. Be, this is, no one's gonna give you an easy passage here. You're gonna have to put up and, and deal with it. So, in certain circumstances, you learn to be. But generally, I was the nicer variety. But on occasion, I could be the not-so-nice.

• 20:38Chuck Nice?

  I don't know about that, Gary. You, you, you sound kinda sketchy.

• 20:41Gary O'Reilly?

  Does my nose grow?

• 20:42Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, man. Let me, let me just say this. There is a picture of Gary running down the pitch, and he's wearing a pair of short shorts. And he looks so handsome and goo- like I was attracted to you. I was looking at him. And I know, any man who is wearing short shorts and looking that confident is kind of a dick. Okay, it's like...

• 21:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Thanks, Chuck. This is why I don't need enemies, cuz I have these confidence.

• 21:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So let me, let me, let me broaden this, this platform here. There's the, the goodness in Ted Lasso. There's the highly varied personality profiles of the players. Some go through evolution, others just dip in and out of being mean and kind. But in the end of the day, we're talking about leadership. Leadership. And is there, let me just tee up the ball with that. And you guys, where did this notion of leadership come from? Mixed in with this whole psychological profiling of nice people interacting with mean people?

• 21:55Speaker 02

  Some of it's intrinsic just to the notion of being a coach. And Jason has much more experience than athletic coaches than I do. I've, you know, I've experienced with acting teachers and acting coaches who, who had an impact. But if we're making a show about a coach, you know, we want that coach to have, have an impact. And, and Ted's brain of leadership is how he goes about it, which as Jason says is, you know, partially drawn through John Wooden and partially the, the improv coaches that we've had.

• 22:18Speaker 04

  It was really about, you know, mentoring in general. And then you could even go, you know, zoom out even further and say that it's about, you know, like parenthood or fatherhood, you know, specifically with the show. But, but it, I had always felt that a good mentor was someone that saw something in you that your baggage disallowed you to see in yourself, you know? So, so.

• 22:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's beautiful. Jason, that's, that's a, Jason, that's beautiful.

• 22:42Speaker 04

  But I mean, I've benefited from that. I've had, you know, you know, I had a teacher, Sally Shipley in high school, who was like, hey, you, you could do like this radio TV stuff, like this, this, this class we had in, in, in high school where we made like a, like a weekly television show, you know, like a news show, but still you could do silly stuff like man on the street or, or, you know, TFA, when I showed up at, at SNL, you know, as a writer was like. She was like, if you can improvise, you can write, you know, you know, Lauren hire me, you know, I mean, I think, and I think that happens with a good, you know, creative partner, a good romantic partner, coaches, mentors, a good teammate, you know, someone that can say, why are you being so hard on yourself?

• 23:23Speaker 04

  You know, like, you know, why aren't you seeing for yourself what I see for you? And you, that's in, that's, you can pair up any two people on the show. That's what, you know, Rebecca's doing for Keely, that's what, you know, Ted is doing for, for everyone, that's what, you know, uh, Keely does for Roy. You know, it, it like, it keep, it, it, it happens all over the place. And, you know, we, we have the opportunity to be, you know, to take life and create life while we're here living life. And why not try to use that, you know, as best as you can and think that there's plenty, there's plenty for everyone to, there's plenty of pie for everyone to have a bite. Um, and that, yeah, it, it was just, it was, it was rooted in that.

• 24:06Speaker 04

  And, and, you know, we also wanted to mess around with the assumptions of, of toxic, you know, masculinity, even though we weren't necessarily aware of that term. But, you know, you, you put it in as, as, you know, Gary was saying, like the, the Ferrari, you know, ego driven world uh, of, of professional sports or just athletics in general, you know, the preconception is that they're all a bunch of turkeys. And like, we wanted to show that, yeah, there are some, but they, some of those people just didn't realize that they can be, you know, a better version of themselves and, and uh, yeah, they just want to be encouraged.

• 24:39Gary O'Reilly?

  Several, several of the characters, nearly all of the characters, at some point, you dragged them through the thistles. You, you put, you'd put a little torture twist on them. Uh, and on some of the conditions in the, that you show, they're treatable with medication, you know, such as anxiety, such as the panic attacks. But instead the show uses therapies rather than medication. Um, what's the role of therapy relative to medications? Have you, did you think through that sort of situation of using therapy, maybe medication in the show? How did you come to that conclusion?

• 25:10Speaker 04

  We did have an early, oh, go ahead, Brendan, you got. Well, I was just gonna say, we did have an early, you know, storyline about the Roy Kent character who was, you know, in, in the, uh, the autumn of his career that maybe, that was gonna lend itself to, to, uh, self-medicating, you know, with pain pills, you know, and, and him trying, I'm gonna play one more season if I just keep taking these, you know, because who wouldn't wanna be paid a bunch of dough to play a game for a living? And, and, and also psychologically, who am I if I'm not doing this? I've done this since I was a little boy. Who am I, you know, a- after, if I am not Roy Kent? I mean, that's what, you know, in nine, episode 109, he has that whole conversation with Keely about exactly that, as he's being moved from a starter to, to, uh, you know, a support player off the bench. And we did toy with the idea, and it's, we just found ourselves time and

• 25:55Speaker 04

  time again, wanting to, for people to own their stuff, especially, especially like men, men that have been deified, men that have been, have been, uh, paid well, and yet they all still have the same stuff, you know, and we've had the same stuff for thousands of years. You know, it's like, so we wanted to keep it at a mythological level, again, to allow people, you know, ourselves, you know, as writers and actors, but then everyone in the audience to like lean in and maybe see versions of themselves in these different characters. So, you know, you can maybe take the journey, one episode with Keely's character, and then, you know, then find yourself relating more to Ted or Rebecca's, you know, arc in a, in a different episode. But we just wanted people to care about these

• 26:39Speaker 04

  people, so that the smallest arc, like mattered, you know, uh, it doesn't have to be saving the world, it could be just saving, saving face, you know, or saving their own heart in, in, in that moment. And, and I think that to do it without drugs, yeah, to try to do it wi- within oneself is what the whole second season is about, and the first season is really about, you know, realizing that you can lean on others, um, the, the first season. So like, the, the, you know, human element and, and the, you know, the, the healing powers of one another versus, uh, you know, very, you know, like, medication is super helpful to, you know, super, but it's not as... Um, probably it's not as fun to write, you know, opens pill.

• 27:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Good point. Unless the medication is abused, right? If it's just taken, then nobody has any problems. You got nothing to write about.

• 27:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, and where about 95% of our writing staff has a psychologist. I think we're a solid 60% has a psychiatrist, too. So we're not taking some stand here by any means.

• 27:41Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, and that's the funny thing about, you know, when you're taking psychiatric uh, um, medication is that when you take it, it just works and nobody knows you're taking it. It's actually kind of boring.

• 27:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. You got no story.

• 27:56Speaker 04

  I will say that, that, you know, a book that came out right as we were writing the pilot was How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan, who is talking about the use of, you know, um, psilocybin and LSD and MDMA as a way to treat PTSD, to treat depression, to, to treat anxiety. And, and so Ted was, and we spoke about a lot, you know, me, Brendan, Joe and Bill, about Ted being the personification of mushrooms. You know, that there's an egolessness that he carries that when someone presents themselves to him and they're angry, like, he knows that it's not about them. Like, he's just a mirror for, for that right then.

• 28:36Speaker 04

  You know, it's like, it's like, uh, you know, you never know what, what battle someone's dealing with, you know, inside their own, you know, head, heart and soul. And so we just wanted to, Ted was an opportunity to personify that. And, and he's almost like a Weeble wobble. If you remember those toys growing up, you know, like, you know, they get knocked down, they get right back up. And it feels funny because in today's day and age, especially again, you know, over these last, it was about fighting back, punch back, you know? Hit back harder. Like, that became language that are.

• 29:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stand your ground.

• 29:07Chuck Nice?

  You know what? You just made me think of something that is, um, just a great representation of that in actual sports. I love watching the NFL when they put the microphones on the guys and you see them on the field, right? And you would think that they're out there just like, "I'm gonna kill you. I'll rip your nuts off." Right, but when you listen to them, often they're talking to their opponent and they're just, they're, they don't help each other up. They used to do that, but they don't now. Coaches stop that. But they look at each other and they go, alright buddy. Hey man, that was, okay. Hey, good one, man. Alright, man. Alright, I see what you did. I see what you did there. We'll meet again. Right. We'll see each other next time. Like, they're not like, I'm going to kill you.

• 29:51Chuck Nice?

  It really is a positive experience and exchange, you know? It's, it's pretty wild.

• 29:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm going to kill you is more, uh, more Gary's vibe.

• 30:01Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, Chuck, I'll tell you now, when you're mic'd up, you don't say none of that other stuff. When that mic's on someone else.

• 30:08Chuck Nice?

  Oh, you just ruined it for me, Gary.

• 30:10Gary O'Reilly?

  I am gonna pull your hair down. I am gonna stick it in a bag and I'm taking it home with me.

• 30:15Chuck Nice?

  So you're saying they're acting. You're telling me they're acting.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  Oh, reminder, I'm wearing a microphone today. Hello, opponents. This has been a formidable contest.

• 30:25Chuck Nice?

  I'm wearing a wire.

• 30:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, man. So, so Brendan, I got another question here. I was very happy the entire first season watching Ted Lasso be coach therapist, basically. Alright? He was coach and part-time therapist dealing with this conflagration of personalities. But then you bring in an actual therapist, and I thought to myself, what's Coach Lasso gonna do? Does he have any job left now? And then we find out that he could benefit from some therapy. So what was, what was going on in the, in the decision to bring on an actual professional therapist, and a sports therapist even, not just a random person off, off the, out of the catalog?

• 31:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, um, I think a few things went into it. Um, so I don't want to speak for Jason here too much, but, but one thing that was big in my mind was that, you know, in season one, we showed Ted having panic attacks. And, um, and that's, uh, that's a, that's a big thing. And I personally kind of felt like it would be irresponsible of us to just kind of let that have floated out there, like some kind of plot point for a couple of episodes, as opposed to being something. That indicated there was a larger thing to address. So then it became how to address it and yeah, there's there's just a lot of teams right now. Even even in England with all of its stigmas about mental health, even in England, plenty of teams now have a have a sports therapist on on the on the side.

• 31:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, it's a regular thing.

• 31:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, more and more.

• 31:59Gary O'Reilly?

  People are people are much more aware of it's not just your body, it's the space between your ears that's really quite vital. What what I'm interested in because you.

• 32:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait, Gary, I have brains between my ears, not space.

• 32:11Gary O'Reilly?

  That's because you have astrophysics going on. Oh snap. Those brains are thinking about space. Ah, I have more space in here than probably I should really need.

• 32:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just saying, I'm just saying.

• 32:24Gary O'Reilly?

  You know, that's what it is. So in in a dressing room, a locker room in a Premier League team, group dynamic is not everything, but it's so vital. You've got your individual components because there's always a star. Then you need a couple of water carriers, then you need someone solid and dependable and you've got all of this going on. And if you do not manage that whilst managing all of the other individual component parts, it falls apart quickly. That was my experience in clubs that I played with. So how did you going into that look to see where you could mine your storylines?

• 33:03Speaker 04

  I mean, a lot of them were were Trojan horsing our own personal philosophies and stories, you know. One of the nice things about writing a show about, you know,

• 33:12Speaker 04

  in this tone, which, you know, about not about, but deals with, you know, and set in the realm of kindness and empathy is that our writers room was very was. Everybody was was open hearted and and shared their experiences of dealing, you know, within their own family, you know, within within other, you know, work situations, you know, possibly if people played, you know, sports or or did anything ensemble based. And you have people from different walks of life of how similar they are and how much they things overlap and you're kind of like, oh, we call that something different. But yeah, we got that. We do that. And that was one of the neat things about the show finally coming out was then we had people like for us to have Brendan and I to have the opportunity to, you know, do a Brene Brown's podcast and all of her, you know,

• 33:54Speaker 04

  acumen and skill set in explaining like vulnerability and the vocabulary she used to explain the show back to us in a very like not erudite way, but like with vocabulary that we never would have thought of in a million years. It felt very similar to taking improv classes where it's like, oh, you're that's what it's called when I play like this, you know, as a kid. Okay, so I'm heightening. I just thought I was just making it funnier. You know, it's like, no, that's called height, you know, it's given, it gives you vocabulary for it in a way that we, you know, we just really leaned on each other and relied on each other and felt vulnerable enough in the writer's room to share that. And then once again, when you get it to the actors, then then they put their own experiences into it. So it was really about just taking our own stuff and just, you know, hiding it in these people.

• 34:38Speaker 02

  And that strikes me that that's a big part of what therapy is, giving the vocabulary to describe stuff, you know, starting from, we're trying to do this with kids now, like you're having a feeling right now that we have to try to be able to describe for you. And, you know, maybe where a lot of people get into trouble is that they're just going through stuff that they can't even describe. And the more we can let people describe what they're going through, maybe it'll be easier for them to deal with it.

• 35:00Chuck Nice?

  You know, it's funny, I'm, I'm listening to all of you right now that you keep this, these words keep coming up during this conversation, vulnerability and support and like, you know, teammates and, you know, therapists. And it just occurred to me that you cannot give or receive support without being vulnerable. Because if you're giving support, you have to trust, you have to be vulnerable and open to trust that person to help them. And if you're receiving it, you have to be that much more vulnerable and open to receive it. So it's a, it's actually a pretty brilliant construct for a sports, you know, arena. I just love it.

• 35:44Gary O'Reilly?

  The thing is Chuck, if you if you travel back to my time as a player, you dealt with it on your own.

• 35:50Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:51Gary O'Reilly?

  There was no safety net, there wasn't a therapist.

• 35:54Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:54Gary O'Reilly?

  You didn't want to talk to people around you because you would be weak. And the whole thing about being a professional athlete in an ultra competitive environment is you are strong. And show weakness and then everybody just, you know, you you generally don't play a hundred percent fit. In fact, you'd never play a hundred percent fit.

• 36:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:13Gary O'Reilly?

  You're always carrying some kind of injury physically. Now, adding to the component of mental problems, the things can really, and you talk about how players go out of form and cannot deliver.

• 36:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:24Gary O'Reilly?

  There's a, there's a lot of things going on now, as, as we understand, there are therapists around to identify certain issues rather than have this person fall apart in front of you.

• 36:35Chuck Nice?

  Hey, let me ask you this then, all of you, all of you, let me ask you this, because we're all.

• 36:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're running short on time.

• 36:41Chuck Nice?

  Are we running short on time?

• 36:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, Chuck, so if you make it, make it quick.

• 36:43Chuck Nice?

  I'm gonna make it real quick.

• 36:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Make it quick.

• 36:44Chuck Nice?

  Okay, because it looks like we're all from the same generation of suck it up, as far as I can tell. All right, so how do you feel about these athletes now who basically say, "Look, my mental health is more important than, um, you know, achieving the win"?

• 37:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, I, I, I, yeah, I gotta support, you gotta support it. I, I, I think, you know, and, and different strokes for different folks, but I, I'm not gonna,

• 37:11Speaker 04

  it's hard, it's really hard.

• 37:13Gary O'Reilly?

  And breathe.

• 37:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so, we've got to close out this segment and actually say goodbye to Jason and Brandon, but I just want to, uh, just comment that in a very tight format of this program, you managed to successfully go in and out of and explore every permutation of human dynamics and relationships. And, and only after I saw, watched it that I say, "Wow, we just talked about boyfriend, girlfriend, mother, father, son, daughter, uh, children, uh, old people, young people, death, you know, birth, right? It's all of that's in there. It's like, how did they do that? How did they do that? You know, and, and, and, and, and you made me care about them.

• 37:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're making me cry every episode, so stop it.

• 38:03Speaker 04

  No.

• 38:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just telling you that.

• 38:05Chuck Nice?

  No, no, no.

• 38:07Gary O'Reilly?

  You have my permission to carry on.

• 38:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:10Gary O'Reilly?

  Just saying.

• 38:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Keep on carrying on. Brennan, keep on carrying on. Brennan and Jason. Jason, first, it's great to see you again, dude. And Brennan, it was great to meet you for the first time here. And good luck with more seasons of the show. You clearly teed up another season in that last episode of season two. And so we're all waiting for that to drop. So it's great. Just best to you. Keep up with the comedy. On StarTalk, we're big fans of comedy here. And we know that comedians hold the spirit, energy and the soul of what makes civilization work. And so all of life is not just drama. You have to smile every now and then, and you guys know that. That formula and recipe, and you're inventing new formulas as you go along. So dudes, thanks for being on StarTalk.

• 38:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Absolutely. Thanks for having us.

• 38:59Speaker 02

  Thank you, Doctor. Thank you, everybody.

• 39:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. When we come back, we're going to Heather, Heather Berlin. She's our neuroscientist in residence. And she's going to unpack this episode as it has unfolded thus far on StarTalk Sports Edition.

• 39:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. StarTalk Sports Edition. We were unpacking the psychological dimensions of Ted Lasso, the Apple Plus TV hit series. That's all about sort of an American coach in the UK coaching soccer. He didn't know anything about soccer. And so it becomes a story about managing egos and how to be kind and the power of kindness. Kindness as a superpower even. And we had Jason Sudeikis and Brendan Hunt, the two co-creators on. And we learned a lot. But we're going to learn some more because we're going to our neuroscientist at large.

• 40:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Heather Berlin, Heather, welcome back to StarTalk for the 100th time. Thanks for being a friend of what we do.

• 40:13Heather Berlin?

  Ah, always a pleasure, always a pleasure.

• 40:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. So Gary, you know, took the lead on this because that boy here did played some actual soccer in the UK. So Gary, why don't you lead off here with what questions you have for Heather?

• 40:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, um, welcome Heather to this particular edition of StarTalk Sports Edition. Um, please explain to us, and particularly me, what reactions go off in the brain when it's involved in an act of kindness? Because you've got the giver and the receiver. And can you just explain what is going on so as I can understand it a little bit better?

• 40:48Chuck Nice?

  And is it better to give than it is to receive?

• 40:52Heather Berlin?

  Well, in a, in a, in an interesting way, you know, giving or being kind is actually in some ways a selfish act because you're really ultimately, you're helping yourself as well. Um, and we can see that in all sorts of changes in terms of neurochemistry. Um, being kind can decrease your cortisol levels and stress hormones, um, which is good for the brain. It releases oxytocin, which is this very, um, pleasurable bonding hormone that's also released when you're in love. It's released when a mother is breastfeeding her child, which promotes bonding. It's released during sex. Uh, it releases dopamine,

• 41:33Heather Berlin?

  which is a pleasure sort of a neurotransmitter in the brain, activates the pleasure centers of the brain. You get increases in serotonin, which helps regulate your mood. So, you know, across the board, it actually is really not only good for your physical health, but also for your psychological health. Um, so, so in many ways, it is much better to give than it is to receive, although receiving feels nice and that is also pleasurable. But there's something in particular in the act of giving and the act of kindness that that's almost, um, better.

• 42:06Chuck Nice?

  So if it's actually a selfish act, if it's actually a selfish act, then I'm just going to start giving stuff to myself. Because then I'm getting double the benefit. I'm the giver and the receiver.

• 42:22Heather Berlin?

  But you know how you can't tickle yourself, right? Because you're expecting it, right? Only you can only get tickled by others. So there's it's not the same, just technically speaking. Giving to yourself is not the same because you're expecting it. And it changes the way your brain responds to it, just like you can't tickle yourself.

• 42:39Chuck Nice?

  Wow, look at you.

• 42:40Gary O'Reilly?

  That's that's your idea.

• 42:42Chuck Nice?

  So now I'm gonna learn to tickle myself.

• 42:44Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, so so Heather, OK, so we as as we've been discussing with Jason and Brendan. You know, Ted was microdosing us with kindness as an audience. So what is an audience? Were we feeling and how? Because this just thing just sort of crept up on us, been like a stealthy little series and got us. So what's going on when you witness these acts of kindness over and over and over again?

• 43:13Heather Berlin?

  Well, I I think, you know, just in terms of the ethos of what was happening in society at the time. You know, being in the midst of a pandemic, having lots of sort of narcissistic leaders at the helm. This was sort of a, you know, showing us a glimpse again, reminding us of the other side of humanity. You know, it was cathartic, I think, for people. It also he was a role model, not just for his teammates, but for all of us, you know, handing out these words of wisdom, you know, these gems, these coping mechanisms. Um, showing us that you can succeed in helping people and having more of a cohesive environment rather than being against one another. So I think all of those things were were very needed and are very needed at the

• 43:57Heather Berlin?

  not only when the show comes out, but you know, forevermore. Um, but the idea of this selflessness too of, you know, connecting and other people. It's not about you. It's about the other person and empathy and compassion and just reminding us that these are also human traits. In addition to the, you know, more negative ones that we've been seeing a lot recently.

• 44:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Heather, I have a quote from William Shakespeare, and it's from The Merchant of Venice. And let's just call it the quality of mercy and just listen to this. The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed. It blessedeth him that gives and him that takes.

• 44:46Chuck Nice?

  If only that guy knew how to write, that would have been really good.

• 44:50Gary O'Reilly?

  That was the first draft of Ted Lasso.

• 44:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the Merchant of Venice where there's conflict and there's, do you have mercy? Are you gonna, this is where the, the, the, the pound of flesh comes from. Yeah, the pound of flesh as a retribution for not fulfilling a contract. And do you, do you have mercy on that? So, but anyhow, so, so Heather, it looks like your profession was sort of deeply understood, at least at some level, by Shakespeare 400 years ago.

• 45:20Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, we're all just following his lead, obviously.

• 45:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so what do we need you for?

• 45:25Heather Berlin?

  I can see how it works at the normal level.

• 45:28Gary O'Reilly?

  Heather, is there a point where positivity becomes toxic? And it can't be sustained within an individual, within a group. And then sometimes you just have to get angry to get something going in the right direction.

• 45:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that question.

• 45:45Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 45:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, who decided that happy people is the goal? Who, why should that be the objective here? Maybe if they're all angry with each other, that would boil their blood and they'd go out and perform even better. Who, who, who are we to say that happy is good?

• 46:02Heather Berlin?

  There's an element in the show where they, where, you know, Roy says we need to get Jamie a little bit aggressive at one point because he needs some of that.

• 46:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jamie the player.

• 46:11Heather Berlin?

  Before a while in season two, they get into that. Yes, there is too much, there can be toxic sort of positivity. You know, when positivity is overused or as a defense mechanism, which also happens to Ted, where you don't actually ever deal with the negative emotions and you're just using this positivity to, to sort of as a shield. Um, that that's that can be maladaptive. We evolved negative emotions for a reason. Right, we it would be maladaptive to not have any of them. Right, pain helps keep us from, you know, like bumping into things and knocking our arm off. Right, we need pain um to protect us. We need anxiety or else we'd be doing really risky things without any forethought.

• 46:54Heather Berlin?

  Right, so these these feelings are important and we need to. Uh, uh, there was this film Inside Out, this Pixar film where, you know, they just wanted happiness to win. They were looking at all the emotions at the end, realizing, no, you really need both. In order to have happiness, you need to have sadness. So um, anything that is gone to the extreme can tend to be maladaptive. Um, and but but happiness in moderation, I think, is a good thing.

• 47:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Heather, I love that. I love that. I I love that, Heather.

• 47:24Chuck Nice?

  So can you experience uh positive and negative emotions sympathetically, like watching a television show? To make you more positive or negative?

• 47:33Heather Berlin?

  So in other in other words, can a television show elicit these feelings within yourself?

• 47:38Chuck Nice?

  Right, causing you to be more of that or less of that?

• 47:41Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, there are these knock on effects. So, you know, for example, um, one study had people um while they were in the scanner, looking at brain activation, viewing neutral scenes and then viewing aggressive um scenarios. And when they were just simply watching like a film about aggression, it decreased activation in their prefrontal cortex, which is their sort of impulse control part of the brain. And therefore, you know, if they then were to go outside right after watching the show, they might have a tendency to be have less impulse control. Um, but the same thing with eliciting emotions of joy as well. So your brain, you know, we have these mirror neurons, which are kind of like i- in some ways, something are involved in empathy.

• 48:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we call them mirror mirror neurons. That's what you call them, mirror neurons.

• 48:26Heather Berlin?

  Mirror neurons, yes, mirror neurons. Which, which really mimic other people's movements. And some people think they're about how you learn things. It's very much involved in modeling behavior and learning. And, and some link it to empathy as well. But in some ways, you're actually enacting that experience. Um, there's an empathy network in your brain that gets activated. There's this really interesting study with olfaction where they collected stressful sweat from people about to jump out of an airplane or take a stressful exam. And neutral sweat when people were working at the gym. And then they gave them to other people to smell. And they couldn't consciously detect the difference. But when they were in the scanner, when they gave them the stress sweat, it activated their empathy network of the brain.

• 49:08Heather Berlin?

  So there are these signals coming into us, whether it's olfaction or things that we're viewing, that can actually activate these empathy networks and cause us to go on and be kinder. Um, our behavior is affected by all sorts of things. Cause you know, in the brain, it doesn't know what's real and what's not. It's just, you know, ones and zeros. It's just information, bits of information. So whether you're really engaged in a happy situation or you're just watching it on TV, the brain can experience it um, in a very similar way.

• 49:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Can I trick my brain? Because sometimes you get yourself up for a performance, for your, your event, your game. And then you have to bring yourself down. Can, I mean, we hear stories of Michael Jordan used to create something just so as he could, that would help him energize. And it was a fictitious thing. He'd said someone had said something and it would raise his game. What are we doing in that? Are we able to kind of dial up, dial down with Will?

• 50:00Heather Berlin?

  I think, yes, um, you know, insofar as you have certain neural sort of networks that are wired up in your brain in a certain way. And you have certain structures that have developed in a certain way. So you have certain limitations, right? But you can dial yourself up to your highest end of, let's say, performance with certain limits. Even with, you know, they looked at people who did these heroic acts, like in the moment. Um, and they found that they often, and they interviewed them after. And they find that the people who did these heroic acts actually have larger amygdala, um, these sort of emotional center of the brain, um, than other people who didn't uh, have, do these heroic acts. So they actually have structural differences in their brain. And they found that when they responded, they didn't think about it. It was automatic.

• 50:46Heather Berlin?

  So there are these automatic responses that we have. So you can train yourself, yes, to an extent. But there are other things that are just really innate. And they also found these heroic people that they had more responsive amygdala when they saw people in distress. And with sociopaths, for example, they don't get that amygdala reaction. They can see someone, you know, a picture of someone being murdered, or babies chopped up, or horrible things, and they don't get that amygdala response. So I think with anything, you can train your brain to a certain point, but if you just don't have that innate sort of structure or neural network or wiring, let's call it, it can be much more difficult.

• 51:23Gary O'Reilly?

  Is there such a thing as an amygdala hijack?

• 51:26Heather Berlin?

  Hijacking amygdala? Yeah.

• 51:27Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah. So what what takes place in that scenario? Is it the opposite to what you've just described?

• 51:32Heather Berlin?

  You mean somebody, something taking over your emotional responses? Um, you know, if something-

• 51:37Chuck Nice?

  That's called marriage.

• 51:40Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's what that is.

• 51:41Heather Berlin?

  When you have triggers, you know, when people, when you have a particular trigger, and I think with Ted Lasso too, you know, um, there are certain things that would trigger these panic attacks. Right? And that in a way is hijacking his amygdala. It's tapping into your, what we call the sympathetic nervous system and putting it in high gear, whereas other people can have the same experience. For them, it might not do anything to them. But if you have a history and certain trauma, then you'll have these triggers that can just sort of flip the switch and put you into this high like fight or flight response.

• 52:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Could you comment on some of the drugs that got mentioned? So psilocybin was one of them, I think?

• 52:18Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, what's the deal?

• 52:19Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 52:20Chuck Nice?

  And where can I get it?

• 52:23Heather Berlin?

  I love the idea of-

• 52:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got a guy. I got a guy. I got a guy in the corner.

• 52:27Chuck Nice?

  We know you have, we hold now, Heather. We know you hold now. Come on.

• 52:34Heather Berlin?

  No, so I love the idea of, you know, how he mentioned that Ted was like the personification of mushrooms. And so we're using psychiatry now, psilocybin, um, the ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms are being used to help treat depression and anxiety. And we're trying to understand what's happening in the brain and why does it have such a profound effect? And one of the things is that your ego in some ways dissolves. So this boundary between self and other that we all normally have tends to disappear. Or in some people say your ego actually expands so that everyone is a part of it. But this idea of then being one with everyone or everything and feeling their pain makes you less judgmental,

• 53:16Heather Berlin?

  makes you sort of more empathetic, understanding where they're coming from, and therefore be better positioned to be able to help them because you're not coming at it with what's in it for me or with your own biases. It's true openness. And I love that idea, this metaphor with Ted being like on a permanent kind of mushroom trip without the psychedelic effect. But the idea is that he's in some ways egoless in the way he, you know, people are insulting him all the time, whatever. He's just not taking it personally. He understands where they're coming from and doesn't react in ways like that are aggressive or defensive. And I think that's just such a beautiful metaphor. But this is one of the ways that, you know, from a science perspective,

• 53:58Heather Berlin?

  one of the reasons why we think mushrooms are so helpful to help transform, permanently transform someone's perspective and give them an insight, just like the overview effect of astronauts, you know, when they see space, Earth from space, they suddenly have this profound shift in their consciousness and look all in it together. And it's the same thing that can happen if you are permanently selfless and feel this connection with everyone else.

• 54:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what about leadership? Is that something you're born with or you develop it? Can you tell who's a leader by scanning their brain? And what drug do you need for that?

• 54:32Heather Berlin?

  There are some personality differences that would make someone be a better leader or a more natural leader. I wouldn't say that there's one thing in the brain that you can sort of discern, okay, that like put them in category, this would be a good leader, this wouldn't. But a certain constellation of personality types and also depending on what kind of leadership you're talking about, you know? So, so, you know, a leader could be a kindergarten teacher, you know, who's helping children in this way and being a role model, or it could be the CEO of, you know, a financial institution. And there are going to be different essential qualities that are needed to lead in those, in those particular areas. But the idea that there's, sometimes when there's a sort of stressor,

• 55:15Heather Berlin?

  a natural leader comes and rises up to meet the occasion. And usually it's somebody that has a lot of, either has had experience with trauma in the past and knows how to cope when things get really difficult and stressful. Or it's somebody who's just very, very grounded and has a very clear vision of what needs to be done. And like where others can be sort of uncertain and there's some chaos, somebody might rise up that says, okay, I can show you the way. I have a very clear picture of what's happening. But all those things, it's really a mishmash of a lot of different personality traits. That's hard to say, you know, this is the one thing that makes you a good leader.

• 55:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So some people lead because they have a power and a force within them that people respond to. But other people lead because people just want to follow them. Right? There is no sort of aggression there. There, it's just, wow, that's an interesting, I'm going to follow that person. And so my sense is that the Ted Lasso character is, is not one of these, I'm at the top and you're not, follow me because you must. It's, I'm going to say some things and you're going to realize it's really cool and it's going to work. And he lets them take ownership of their own revelations. And that seems to me to be a rather potent pathway.

• 56:27Gary O'Reilly?

  So you know what's interesting about that, Neil? There is a coaching term in football called guided discovery. Where, where you take a player and you show them something technical. And you kind of get to a certain point and leave the rest for them to discover for themselves. So it is

• 56:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Knowing all along where they're gonna, where that heads.

• 56:49Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, you know, you know, you want them to be at this point. You take them so far and then when they get there, they are so better for the fact that they feel they've completed the thing themselves without you showing everything to them and saying, this is what you gotta do, do, do, do. You take them so far, then the rest, and it empowers them to feel that they can continue.

• 57:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that idea. They take, they take ownership of their own talent at that point.

• 57:11Heather Berlin?

  There's a theory about this sort of attaining high status, which would be sort of being a leader that people look up to and want to follow. And there's two different pathways to get there. And one is the dominance path. You know, that's like the Stalin and, you know, we can name a whole list of people in using coercion, coercion and all sorts of things to get power. And other is the prestige path they call, but that is just having, being good at something, having an internal quality. Like with Ted, he didn't rule in a strong way. He had wisdom and after a while people saw, oh, maybe this guy knows something. Maybe he's onto something, you know, Rebecca's having problems with her mother. She wants him to come to lunch because maybe he'll have some insights.

• 57:53Heather Berlin?

  And so sometimes we, we relate as we see something special in a person and say, oh, that's someone I can learn from. And then they start to gain status and prestige and sort of, you know, rise up in the hierarchy. So you can either take power or you can earn it by just being really good at something that people admire.

• 58:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we got to bring this to a close. So Heather, always good to have your insights and perspectives. Thanks for being such a friend of StarTalk here.

• 58:16Heather Berlin?

  Thank you.

• 58:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Gary, great hearing you from the horse's mouth there.

• 58:19Gary O'Reilly?

  You're welcome, my friend.

• 58:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, it, you know, soccer is still a little bit of a mystery to we Americans.

• 58:25Gary O'Reilly?

  You're getting there. You're getting there.

• 58:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's slow. We're, we're, we're inching our way.

• 58:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Maybe quicker than you think. You're getting there quicker than you think, I tell you. The, the women's team is stellar, so.

• 58:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent, excellent. Chuck, always good to have you, man. Always a pleasure. This has been StarTalk Sports Edition, unpacking Ted Lasso. Thanks to my guests and I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. As always, putting you to keep looking up.